Before diving into the concept, I'd like to clarify some production and budgetary concerns. I propose filming this video with a skeletal crew over a couple of days, and either shooting in 16mm or digital 8 video. We will film in one, inexpensive location for two days...interiors and exteriors. Preferably, this location will be such that we will be allowed to deconstruct and dismantle interior and exterior parts of the house...rip open floorboards, transform a basement into a bog-like prison, etc.

Hopefully, this should answer most questions regarding how we can achieve the following concept on the budget allotted.

THE CONCEPT
In a neglected, white-trash neighborhood there sits a decaying isolated house surrounded by a massive overgrown yard. Long forgotten gardens and skeletal trees surround a lopsided house destined for demolition. The setting is ominous and nasty...

In and around this house, we will explore a relationship between two people that is borderline psychotic and very, very dysfunctional... George and Martha meet Ted Kaczynski and Jocelyne Wildenstein. Personality traits are borrowed from the real in "Silence of the Lambs."

Fade up. A woman's legs pace back and forth over a crummy wooden floor patched with mismatched sheets of metal. She is dressed in a large satin hoop skirt, filthy from years of neglect. Underneath the floorboards, we discover Jerry...illuminated by strips of light coming from the room above. His eyes follow the woman as she moves around the room. As she sings the intro, he contemplates an escape plan. He begins digging into the side of the dirt pit with a makeshift shovel. He listens quietly to the activities of his captor in the room above him.

In a close-up angle, we see the woman's hands as she kneels on the floor and begins dismantling the metal and floorboards above Jerry's prison. Her hands are in bad shape...her fingernails are overgrown and curling...a few artificial "press-on" nails cover three fingertips. Tattoos depicting fish hooks and bleeding hearts cover her wrists. Slowly, she removes all obstructions.

Jerry stops his digging.

What she doesn't clean with a washcloth, she cleans with her tongue. Inside the house, she attaches him to the rope pulley and lowers him back into the pit. She covers the opening in the floorboards and lays down on top of it. She falls asleep.

Throughout the night, Jerry digs in the tunnel. He reaches the outside, and begins running from the house and out into the adjoining neighborhood. His expression is strangely calm...though there is a rather demented look in his eyes.
He is not alone. Dressed in her filthy ball gown, the woman darts through the shadows as she pursues Jerry. She has a demonic smile on her face. We intercut between the two as they race through a darkened neighborhood.

We fade out as the chase continues, allowing the viewer's imagination to render the outcome.

The visual approach will be appropriately odd and menacing...high contrast, desaturated colors leaning toward cooler tones.

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