Opening sequence- script draft 3

Premonition

INT. BEDROOM. NIGHT

Cornelius is asleep but is breathing heavily, is uneasy and is sweating

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

This is breaking news just in, on the attacks of the World Trade Centre in New York.

 (Pause)

 Cornelius wakes up abruptly and stares in a trance

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Is in a state of an emergency, it seems to be that a commercial air line has crashed into one of the twin towers.

Cornelius gets up and is fiddling with papers, trying to find a plain paper

 NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

The buildings in the south end of Manhattan seem to have been shrouded in smoke and debris which many hundreds of people

Cornelius, finds a piece of paper and sits down with a pencil, still in a trance

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Are trying to escape. Here is clearer footage of the towers, and it seems-

Cornelius is starting to draw two vertical rectangular shapes and looks up at his post-it notes and takes them in his hand to study

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

That the south tower is untouched, but the north tower however-

Cornelius takes another post-it note from the wall and reads it. The post-it will have one of the credits on it

 NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Has suffered a devastating collision

Cornelius’ vision is blurred and faints, he bangs his head on the table; Cut-back to a shot of Cornelius in a corner of an asylum wearing a straitjacket, he then wakes up and picks up the drawing.

/ NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

CNN is still working on retrieving more information as we are contacting our sources to

Cornelius has drawn his second building, without smoke. He is staring motionlessly at the piece of paper.

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Keep you updated on this matter, and we have…

(Pause)

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Oh my God, we- a- as you can see another collision has-

Then slowly, as the camera pans, we see the aeroplane drawn onto the paper next to the south tower.

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Just happened, and it is the south tower this time, although just seconds ago we reported that it was fine, is now in flames.

(Pause)

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

It is 9:05am on September 11^th 2001, and the twin towers have just been…

(Cornelius looks at his calendar which says “June 6^th 2001” and then looks at his watch and writes down “3:17am, 06/6/2001”at the bottom of the page)

This was the script that we used for our opening sequence. We felt that, unlike our other drafts were we lacked specific elements, this script had a combination of diversity, it gave the right amount of information, it was gripping and mysterious as it aroused many questions from its viewers. The diverse elements that this script has are the fact that there are numerous accents delivering these lines, therefore illustrating the international concern that 9/11 held. We also felt that the amount of information given in this script was perfect as too much information would be going against the codes and conventions of a psychological thriller.

Our audience feed back on this script was that it did not offer any of information about the character and had confused them about the link between the script and the visuals, until the end of the sequence. This was what we were aiming for, the fact that the audience is forced to puzzle all the pieces together was the main idea, it reflected and foreshadowed the things that Cornelius himself had to perceive.