Final Assignment - Mansion Madness

Inspiration for the screenplay

For my final assignment I decided to make a screenplay somewhat based off one of my favorite director's movies; The Game by David Fincher. I wanted to make it truly a choose-your-own story by having multiple paths to take, even have paths that you could miss entirely your first time through. While there is only two endings the world of the story I believe feels bigger with the more options.

Normally I enjoy stories where you can choose what happens, but I don't enjoy as much creating them. Whenever I write wether it is linear or non-linear the story always ends up the same way. I found it a lot more difficult to connect and disconnect a story multiple times and make it all work. It especially gets confusing when you have to jump back and forth between the pages of your screenplay to make sure everything works. I probably had to re-write most of the scenes multiple times to make it all worth together!

The screenplay is also only ten pages because I've always thought when it comes to short stories/films shorter is often better. If you can fit a good story into a smaller space or time then go for it. One reason for this is if you ever want to put your short film in a festival it is easier to fit in shorter films than longer ones.

The Game and the board game Clue are probably the biggest influences on this screenplay. Clue takes place in a mansion and you have to find out who killed who, much like my story. The inspiration from The Game is... well... I can't say it without spoiling it so if you're interested below is the trailer! I highly recommend it if you enjoy psychological thrillers.

The Game Trailer - David Fincher