Let’s try talk about the plot

Here we go... the hardest part about making a movie: figuring out what you're making. So far, I only really know that my character will have schizophrenia and that it will cause problems for him, thus creating the suspense and frightfulness of the film. The more I talk with my peers about my ideas, the more they change and evolve; and it's quite difficult to really lock down on one story. So I want to make this blog post about the different ideas I have in mind about the actual story and hopefully being able to find some clarity.

At first, I had an idea involving the sound I included in my first post. I'm not going to talk about it because I dropped the idea. Point is: it had too much happening for the first two minutes; it was more like an ending. I learned that I should keep my beginning intriguing but I don't want to just throw the audience into chaos.

Upon dropping that idea, I emmediately thought of another one. It's purpose is to establish the character's schizophrenia and how he is waning away from his medication and slowly slipping into his symptoms. I was thinking it would start off outside of his house with the ticking a watch. Then we cut into his house where the ticking is booming, almost as if it were a heartbeat. We see some empty pill bottles and the main character on the bed, as if he took a random nap. The booming wakes him up, he goes to his watch and it goes back to normal. There would be a couple of other things like this, like I sayd before, maybe you would hear his cell phone ring but when he looks at it is off. I want to juxtapose his clean, normal medicated lifestyle with the hallucinations. So his room would be very clean; he would be well dressed, and you could tell that he is completely normal. But the hallucinations throw you off and make you suspicious towards what the reality actually is. So this opening establishes his hallucinations but I do not know where I could gow from there with the story since I don't have a general plot. 

After discussing that idea, I got some feedback from my peers and one brought up that I did not have a reason for the character to be waning off his medication. So, he suggested something that I am really interested in expanding on, but I have not made the decision. The character would get stranded in the forrest somehow, maybe because he was camping. Maybe he lost his bag that had the medicine too, which gives a reason for him get off his medicine. This gives me the opportunity to use the forrest as a set, which I really wanted to do. It also gives me a an opportunity to use the creepy sound I had made. I can still incorporate the hallucinations I wanted to use in the other opening and it creates much more suspence. 

This post has acutally cleared up my mind and I think I'm actually going to go with the idea. This helps me with the plot but does create difficulties in terms of setting. Luckily, our local park has some great forest scenery and I think I can make it work. 

Thanks for reading!