3 stories up for grabs
A few days ago I realized that my life is on a trajectory that I can’t change. I don’t control the trajectory; rather, it controls me. It’s like being hurled off a canon early in life and following a predetermined path since. What’s all the melancholia for? Well, to establish the philosophical underpinnings of what I am going to do here.
I have realized that I can’t be a professional writer. In fact, I can’t be a professional anything except what I am today. So, what do I do with all the stories that I have with me? Those written over the years, some published, others transferred from one laptop to the other every few years. Do they just die away? The answer is no. Instead of spoofing other filmmakers and their storylines (like I did here), I have decided to put out 3 story ideas here on PFC. These are original stories that I am willing to share with anyone who thinks s/he can do justice to them cinematically. I have nothing to lose, really. If any of the stories catches the fancy of someone, the story would have lived for another day. If not, I will make peace with myself that I wasn’t good enough. May be the current trajectory of life is the best that could happen to me.
I am sure there are many among you who have the desire to do something entirely different from what you have taken up as a career. I am not advocating resigning to what one has been dealt with. Quite the contrary, stake it all on that final throw of dice.
So, here I set them free. Those who believe these have legs can reach out to me and I can share the complete stories. All feedback welcome. Thank you.
1. Title: A Bad Day At Office
A comedy on a terror plot gone terribly wrong
Synopsis:
Five young men, with different motives, are handpicked to sabotage the inaugural day of the new airport in the city. Meticulous planning, training and dry runs follow. The local police catch their trail on account of one critical mistake. While the police can still be fended off, what the young men had not bargained for is the politics around the inauguration. Three delays follow – over bad vaastu, ego clash on naming of the airport and local farmers still demanding fair compensation – that almost pushes them over the edge. As the countdown to the final day begins, the five find themselves cornered with every passing minute leaving them short on ideas and shorter on temper.
2. Title: The Mysterious Mr. Saket Ram
An espionage thriller with a far-out conspiracy theory
Synopsis:
When his granny’s shy and soft-spoken boarder Saket Ram goes missing without paying his rent, Aditya, on vacation at Gorakhpur, sets out to investigate. With an able ally in the local barber Birbal, Aditya discovers multiple versions of the last three days of Saket Ram in the town. They unravel the story of a RAW agent, a possible double crosser, a failed father and inadvertently find themselves in the centre of the new ‘Great Game’ being played in ‘red corridor’ of India between the established and emerging global superpowers.
3. Title: Race to The Bottom
Fight Club meets Corporate World
Synopsis:
The bottom 10% employees of companies worldwide, after years of being
slighted about their competence and then laid off, organize themselves under
the leadership of Subrat to fight against the performance culture. They call
themselves “The 10% Solution”. As a new bottom 10% emerges in organizations
in their absence, new generations continue to join ‘The 10% Solution’ till
it becomes a downward spiral which threatens the existence of world as we
know it. With the growth of ‘The 10% Solution’, Subrat realizes, he needs to
monitor performance of its own members (and have a bottom 10%) leading to a
paradox that’s threatens to rip apart his organization and put his own life
at peril.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
First one for me. Large.
I established a special job category of employees in my company – S.S.M.G.
shortly expanded as Simply Sitting Monthly Getting
I invite you subrat to joing the elite SSMG commando brigade.
of the three –
1. Unimaginative title. need better. could make good satire. thin line between turning into a parody. Too many characters. When you mention 5 people in the synopsis, it implies that they all have significant roles. Drop it to 1 or 2, and make the rest minor, or go with the “xxx and a ragtag team of misfits are assembled to sabotage”. Will help to focus. Drop police and make it policeman. One always better than a group. Helps tighten the story.
2. Somewhat intriguing title yet somewhat bland. Avoid multiple adjectives to describe protagonist in synopsis, becomes redundant and dilutes. You only get one. Choose shy or soft-spoken. I see problems with the Aditya character as he seems to be merrely a device to tell the story of Saket. It seems like he’s going to talk to people and we’ll go into flashback of that person’s version of events. There doesn’t seem to be anything that ddramatic about Aditya himself, except for the collecting rent bit. Either integrate his tale to the outcome of Saket, and the people he meets more, and bring that out in the synopsis, or drop the framing device. Example would be Courage Under Fire. Denzel investigates because he has to decide if Meg Ryan deserves the medal. Also, we start with his suspect background in the same war. Aditya needs to be tied in closer to the events of Saket’s story.
3. Good title. As mentioned to you before, I like this and don’t know how you plan on doing this, without devolving into broad parody. It’s obviously a satire but from our talks this is more a dark comedy with violence etc. Even though you say things like “threatens to rip apart his organization and put his own life at peril,” it comes across as tongue in cheek. Maybe because I am familiar with your other posts. I don’t think the tone of your story is communicated in the synopsis. Want to see more. Share this with me, and If you are so inclined, I’ll run with it.
Hi, Am very curious about the mysterious Mr Saket Ram. Like the title….and hello Dabba. This is freaky…just read D’s piece few minutes ago. But yes…if this synopsis is on the back of the dvd, i’d rent it asap. Do you have more or is it just a story idea right now?
wah.. prof bane writer..
i would buy 1 n 2, anytime. and from the synopsis 3 appears the most stretched…
wunder what dabba is talkin about though
subupedia is in new avtaar….no more in the denial mood….unlike many m just consumer…n m loving it! let it roll. would like to read no. 2 n 3. n if m not wrong, u wrote them recently..atleast 1 n 2 cz i can see the trigger point. on way to the new airport….recent cover stories and annual increment dilemma ? or i may be wrong compltly.
Saket Ram – likho…likho….likho……love it..and don’t include Dr.Dabba in your script lab….u’ll become the G pig and this experiment goes bust…..am still a bit tizzy after the aamir atopsy….
As far as story 3 goes, I have more than my share of funny/sad corporate – office episodes (as must everyone else be) to share.
@ Vasan Bala –
“tizzy after the Aamir autopsy”
i’m assuming that’s a bad thing, and you disagree with me. Since, you are involved with the film, why don’t you come out in defense of the script, and feel free to dissect mine. May the best version win.
Let’s have at it.
1 nd 2 luk gud
Damn!
Sriram beat me to Saket Ram. Sounds like it has potential.
Subrat- love 1 & 2!. Would be glad to help out in any way if you want to expand any of them…:)
subbu! we discussed the bottom 10% together!!!
the 10% solution has a lot more potential.
just make it a lagaan of IIT grads Vs. Average Engineering grads in a company. We have a great underdog story untold.
Saket Ram sounds really really interesting personally. Can see a movie there right away (at least one that works for me). Not too sure about the others. 1 can still be an interesting film.. but 3… I can’t even figure out where you would start scripting:) Maybe book material rather than ideal screenplay material? Saket Ram sounds really tough to script though. Have you developed it or is it still at a concept stage? Do post some more details on it if possible. Or tell us how one gets to read it. Cheers Shridhar
actually the second story is very interesting ..it reminds me of ray’s feluda stories…
subrat..fantasitc line up. Can i get the 3rd one to read fully?? fervently wanted to know about your ideas on this plot.
Dont know about viable screen adaptation or anything… But purely as a consumer (of a book/movie) I would be really really interested in 3… It really does have that Fight Clubish thing… of an underground cult et al…
and wow!!! Shridhar and Shriram both commenting…
Saw them on Dabba’s post as well… and if you guys are reading this… I loved Khakee, Ek Hasina Thi and thought Deewar and Johnny Gaddar were good/decent… hope you continue making such good movies…
And i am looking forward to that Agent Vinod (I think) with Saif…
Dabba: thanks for the tips on tightening the stories. I will take you up your offer and request you to run with story # 3.
Sriram, Shirdhar, Navdeep: Thanks for the encouragement. Will mail you the details shortly
VB – I just discovered that you now have IMDB credit!! May they grow more
VPJ – thanks for the idea
Phoenix: yes, some new and some old. The airport idea is based on what happened in Bangalore. The inauguration was delayed about 4 times with the announcement of the last delay of a day happening at the 11th hour. Here are some really funny things that happened on that day of inauguration:
1. An intenrational flight didn’t know which airport to land and finally took the flight to Delhi
2. No one knew which flight will be the first to land. The cut off hour was 12 midnight for the inauguration so a lot of domestic flights which should have landed by 10 PM were asked to delay their landing by a couple of hours. Eventually a few of them landed before 12 midnight since they could circle around no more.
3. About 100 people reached the old airport not knowing where their flights would take off from
4. The cabwallahs had a tough time picking up passengers as they had no clue where and when the flights would land
5. On way to the new airport, you still have signboards of old airport pointing you exactly the other way
And then I read that the security was high on the opening day of the new airport and wondered with such chaos who could plan anything which could be a security threat. And I wrote down a few pages over the last month
@ subbu –
glad to see you throw ur hat in the ring. from what u told me, #3 story is written. please share details by email. good luck with the rest.
Zest, rbehemoth – thanks. Will share 3 once I have gotten some more feedback.
Story 3 all d way. Great idea but hard to turn into screenplay, even its done it won’t b a money churner. Plzzzzzzzzz can you elaborate more on this.