Ok here's my idea. It's copywritten already, if you wanna try to steal a rookie ass idea...

Project for school, 5 minute script idea

Basically this is what I have:

Nathan “Nate” Porter, former gang member left the life of the lower east side to get married and start a new life. On the night of his bachelor party he gets extremely intoxicated and awakes at an old rundown house in the slums of Vancouver. He doesn’t know what happened last night or how he got to where he is but he is back in his old neighbourhood. He wakes up disorientated and after moving two prostitutes off of him and putting his pants on, he quickly runs to the toilette to puke. As he turns around he runs into a familiar face; His old partner in crime (literally) Billy Wilson. Billy greets Nathan and asks him how he is feeling. Nathan is full of questions regarding to what happened last night and angry at himself for returning to his old roots. When he tries to leave the place and to head back home he is greeted with some very terrible news. Billy reveals that last night he showed up at his place hammered drunk with a group of three hostages opting for a place to hold them until the morning. Nathan is very displeased to hear this and freaks out trying to figure out what to do. To make matters worst, as the TV plays in the background we hear news of the hostage kidnapping. Nathan wants to help the hostages and forget this ever happened but what he is remembering may be the hardest thing to forget.

I dunno... My screenwriting teacher says "How can we empathize for the character of Nathan when he's drunk." He definitly has a point... I was tihnking perhpas he could have been drugged or sometihng.. The stuffa bout him leaving the downtown east side is all back story.. it opens up with him getting up to accomidate the 5 minute time rule. I don't know I'm looking for anything that you guys have. I envisioned a Tony Scott style while shooting it. All my fellow classmates love the idea but I know it needs some work and It would be cool to get some help from you guys

Thanks

James

well wow...why do they have hostages>????

also,"Billy Wilson"....i can think of few parents who would name their kid william wilson...

this almost seems to be too much for a 5 minute film... there seems to be too much backstory to explain, and given the circumstances, i think i would have trouble developing Nate to the point where we can empathize with him...given only 5 minutes.

i would have to see a script or something to understand the relationships between the characters...

it is a decent idea, but it seems to me like it would be hard to express it effectively in only 5 minutes...but by all means, prove me wrong.

no man I totally know what you mean... i was originally tihnking of doing like a 8-12 minute of this idea and then the 5 minute project came up and I tried to compress the idea down to 5 minutes... The hostages, well I was thinking that he did it when he was drunk like he just wanted to do something hardcore like he used to do or something like to re-live his gang life one more time or something... I'm not sure, it definitly could use some work though.

I agree...in order for a story like this to have any hope of being successful, the characters need to be explored richly in order for the audience to feel connected to them. Unfortunately this sort of character drama can not unfold in five minutes.

Braininabox is right.

Maybe he can start remembering what he did while he was drunk, like bursts of short flashbacks. Or maybe that’s just amateur…

yeah, I don't know guys.. thanks for your help.