BSA 204 W13 : Lizard People Idea

(Short Film Idea)

Logline:

An modern day thief with Robin Hood aspirations of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor embarks on his greatest coup yet in robbing the mansion of some rich capitalists, but things go awry as he finds himself trapped in with the 1% who happen to be very much different to human beings. 

Essentially its a thief breaks into a rich family's home and realizes that they are lizard people.

This one is an idea that I was saving for a feature, something that was actually a very different movie but shared one big similarity with this: the lizard people angle. I am finally becoming more comfortable with the short form concept and past ideas that I never thought could be adapted to the format are now starting to transform into things I can fit within 20-30 minutes. This one is very different from the original idea, but the essence is still there and I think will work as a good representation of what I had in mind for the longer form story.

The original was on a much larger scale, with the rich people each having their own institutions and torturous games based off these. I still love that idea but in the meantime developing this will more than suffice, I think I need to work on smaller stories first before going larger scale anyway.

_________________________________________________

Rough Strokes:

1. Dinner scene before they set out for their biggest venture yet, this establishes the characters and shows how the people conflict with each other - human beings are not perfect and friction between them is natural. This is something the main character is perpetually battling against, his goal is to be perfect and be able to act without fault, he blames his communities constant quarreling as the reason why they are still so low in the chain of succession. This directly parallels later in the film when the lizard family have their dinner and work perfectly as a unit, but do so unnaturally, robotically and in a creepy manner.

2. Lizard family dinner scene. They start their heist, thing go to plan, but they discover the family is not what they seem, as this happens someone goes off the rails and the family realize they have intruders, lockdown engaged. 

3. Cat in mouse in the mansion as the lizard family hunt and the protagonists attempt escape. 

It's a short film so I've broken it down simply into just a couple of beats, its a very simple story that makes more use of the shock of the situation and of course plays with the themes present. The moral of the story is that people aren't perfect, but that is after all what makes us human.

The protagonist starts off feeling that his community's imperfections, as well as his own weaknesses, are a great drawback in holding them from success, but its only when he goes through this experience of seeing what the perfect and successful people are like that he comes to see things in a different light and perceive the human error as a positive. This is also how they will have to defeat the lizard people, someone by their own incompetence or faults - maybe they find a way to use their unpredictable behaviour to manipulate and confuse their foes, ultimately tricking them into defeat.

_________________________________________________

Details and ideas:

These are things that I would like to incorporate into the story, the fun and games part of the film if you will, now that we've established an arc and themes I think its time to outline why this is a good idea for a film in the first place, essentially what the hook is:

- The lizard people eat human beings, this means two horrific realities represented in the film: 1) People kept like farm animals in the basement below the house, reserved for feasting and 2) A doctor visits as guest and brings the most appetizing of meats - newborn. The dinner scene will obviously display this. 

- The lizard people skin as lizards are prone to do, but they have modified their skin to appear human, this means they shed their human shells and have to manage their new glossy exteriors to look human again. The more successful are praised for being able to age well and show human flaws, this also means that they have to apply lotion, wear eye contacts, wigs etc. The reveal of them being lizard people will be a mix between the characters seeing the shedding process with the human farm underneath the building, its a slow mounting of tension that something is very wrong with these individuals. The farm thing will be part of the build-up, the reveal that they shed and are preparing a newborn for dinner will be the clicking point where the audience and characters see just what exactly this family is. 

- Some of the most famous celebrities are lizard people and a jab will be taken at these, if people get too old they sometimes change skin to take on the appearance of someone else. Michael Jackson, Elvis, Obama & Trump, the Queen of course, all the crazy succesful will be referenced as being lizard people. All in good fun but also explains how these things run the world, with them manipulating the human race taking on different political positions and creating drama to keep people distracted from the horrible truth of the 1%. 

- They have sun lamps in their house that keep them energized, something that could be used as a weakness, without the sun and its energy/heat the lizard people are very cost-effective with their movements and energy expenditure. This means they act very still, almost statue like, before striking at immense speeds. This could be a good evolution into the third act, the humans acting back, cutting the power or whatever, and the lizard people become even more unsettling as they store energy and move + strike in a very inhumane manner.

_________________________________________________

Beat Sheet:

1) Dinner scene, a last supper type situation where the main character invites his partners in crime to feast with him and his family before their latest exploit, in this scene we reveal some very important information:

- One of the members has this as their first ever mission, its the main characters younger brother and his mother informs him to take good care of the boy, shows concern that he's going at all.

- This isn't the first time they are doing something like this, but it is the biggest, the main character is likened to an aspiring Robin Hood.

- There is disagreement with his methods by his father and some of the rest of the community, he explains himself and blames the older generations for not rising up against the wrongful nature of their situation. Showing the community is fractured and quarreling amongst itself, he also points this out as another reason for why they haven't ever gotten as far as the higher classes.

2) Outside the house before they set off, the main character talks to his little sister who is worried for him and her other brother, he comforts her that they are doing something important. He illustrates that he hates how imperfect human beings are and that he is striving for more, she says he can't be a robot and frets over how much he is expending himself.

3) Scoping the house from afar and moving in, breaking in and working to a plan. This is the first sneaking scene and we see the family they are dealing with from a distance, the typical rich, each villainous character has some distinct features - features that get twisted when they are revealed for their true nature (the man of the house has a passion for farming and cooking (runs a beef ranching business), twisted into cannibilism and human farming, the wife is a cosmetic professional and has an obsession with artificial beauty - she's the one who skins herself and works in the lizard community as a professional in replicating human flaws, they are also visited by a doctor who fakes miscarriages to provide newborns as a delicacy to his reptilian family).

4) They break in successfully and start unpacking their heist plan, the characters split and work to achieve their different goals. Like a heist movie, they are working to a well planned and rehearsed schedule where they know how to traverse the house and what each one's role is. One character has to go downstairs to disable an alarm system, one has to go upstairs to crack a safe, another is working with the camera system and making sure that its disabled. One has to get a key or something off of one of the family members. In this bit we see the family welcome their guest for dinner as everyone maneuvers around them. 

5) Up till this point its the typical heist but it soon becomes clear things are very different to their plan. The basement for example is much larger, the woman is taking a shower, first just creating tension but things start becoming weird, the doctor brought something with him... This builds unsettling tension as they slowly realise something isn't right, we also get to see the lizard people interact with their dinner as one of the characters has to pick the key from the man's jacket. 

6) The big reveal of the people kept downstairs, very unsettling, this bleeds into the reveal that what's for dinner is a person, the doctor unveils his gift - newborn. The pick-pocketing thief is shocked and makes a noise that attracts danger.

7) The man at the safe looks on as the woman gets undressed, and it turns sour, with her peeling off her skin as well - main character finds a room full of lizard people memorabilia and things paying respect to celebrities/people in power. Everything clicks, the pickpocket is captured and the house goes into lock-down - the woman sharply turns around, not even finished preparing her skin. Fuck.

8) Character 1, pickpocket, is killed, all the others are prey now as the reptilians set out on the hunt. Turns into them trying to escape, first one goes to previously used entrance and finds it locked, another tries windows - locked too. They are stuck.

9) Okay gather selves, they have to figure out what the security system is really like, their information was obviously wrong, the camera guy recognizes it and says they have to go to the control room to disable. Can he do it? Sneaking ensues.

10) A character is caught and starts being interrogated in a very lizard-like manner, the main character realises what the hot light are for and asks security guy if he can disable them in the mean time, he does so allowing the captured one to escape, but also cutting power. The lizard people stop moving naturally, but they have night vision. 

11) They maneuver in dark but are cut off at every turn, protagonist realises their only weapon is unpredictability and only by slipping up and acting in an erratic fashion do they manage to find a way to kill everyone - setting fire to the entire house (or something like that). I don't know how to end it yet, but thematically I know where it should end up so I think only through further writing will I discover the solution. That is kinda what happened withe SuperDad, I had to keep writing and only discovered how to end it upon writing that final scene. Before that I was actually very anxious about it, but it was a real good feeling to see everything thematically click. I am trusting this will be the same kind of thing, since there I also knew what to do, but just didn't have the specific answers yet.

_________________________________________________