opening sequence script draft 1

INT. BEDROOM. NIGHT

Cornelius is asleep but is breathing heavily, is uneasy and is sweating

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

This is breaking news just in, in regards to the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City that occurred on the September 11th. 

(Pause)

Cornelius wakes up abruptly and stares in a trance

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Whilst the country has been captured in a state of emergency, central intelligence forces have been frantically searching for suspects 

Cornelius gets up and is fiddling with papers, trying to find a piece of paper urgently

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

who may be involved with the plots. 1,344 people were the victims of a commercial air-line that crashed into the north tower of the twin towers at 8:45am. 

Cornelius finds a piece of paper and sits down with a pencil, still in a trance

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

A mere 20 minutes later the south tower came under attack, which resulted in a total of 2,976 deaths. We have retrieved information 

Cornelius is starting to draw two vertical rectangular shapes

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

from our sources that there has been a breakthrough and one male has been convicted under suspicions of involvement. Evidence

Cornelius’ vision is blurred and faints, he bangs his head on the table; Cut-back to a shot of Cornelius in a corner of an asylum wearing a straitjacket, he then wakes up and picks up the drawing.

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

points to the fact that his contributions were crucial to the initiation of the attacks. Officials have found 

Cornelius has drawn his second building, without smoke. He is staring motionlessly at the piece of paper.

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

numerous illustrations dated six months prior to the attacks which depict the attacks

Then slowly, as the camera pans, we see the aeroplane drawn onto the paper next to the south tower.

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

in great detail as well as accurate events that surfaced during the state of emergency.

(Cornelius looks at his calendar which says “June 6th 2001” and then looks at his watch and writes down “3:17am, 06/6/2001”at the bottom of the page)

This was the very first script we wrote, and intended to make it so that the audience would realise that the later incident of Cornelius being regarded as one of the suspects in the film. What we liked about this script that it sounded formal and newsworthy with realistic statistics, however this was also seen as a negative thing because we didn't want to bore the audience from the beginning. Another issue we had was that the time frame of the news report wasn't clear, so the target audience may not be able to deduce that it is set in a time period significantly ahead of Cornelius' premonition. Because of that reason, we decided not to use this script and rewrote it to make it simpler whilst still allowing the audience to make the link between the voice over and the event being played out visually in front of them.