DARNELL’S VICE

PITCH PRESENTATION
CONCEPT
• A Horror/ Thriller short film.
• An up-close look into the life and mind of a serial killer.
• Showing the audience how he plans his attacks and then executes them by bringing women back to his apartment.
• Showing how an evil person finally gets his come-uppance, having every evil deed he has ever committed come back to bite
him and send him down a spiral of self destruction and severe paranoia.

CHARACTERS
• Darnell Jasons – The evil & complex protagonist.
• Tracy Micheals – Darnell’s love interest.
• Michelle Micheals – Tracy’s sister, Darnell’s latest victim and the deceased antagonist in his story.
 INSPIRATION
My initial inspiration came from the colour scheme I envisioned and wanted to use. The use of low-key lighting
and a gross green colour scheme was inspired by that of the movie ‘Fight Club’, where the green is used to get
across the discomfort of the main character as he lives with Paranoid Schizophrenia, beknown to him.

However, once I started to further develop my idea and my main character I started to think that red would be a
vital colour to include in the colour palette of my film, as it’s well known in cinema that red is used to
foreshadow evil and violence. So I started to think about films that incorporate a similar colour scheme, and
that’s when I realized that the movie ‘Taxi Driver’ would be perfect for this reference.
TRAVIS BICKLE
Once I started to bare Taxi Driver in mind while developing my plot; I went back and re-watched the film to get a
better understanding of how the colour served a purpose within the story. It was upon this viewing of the film that
I realized that while the film focusses on very different themes and political outlooks to my concept, the style of
narration and intimate story telling allows for the character to develop in a way that I would like to implement into
my final product.
Travis Bickle is a lonely character who narrates the film, allowing the audience to get an up-close look into how
the character perceives his surroundings and his outlooks on what the people like where he lives, and as the film
progresses we start to see that his view on life is rather warped and twisted. This concept of having a dark and
twisted character speak directly to the audience was something that I thought would work really well in creating a
horror movie, as it creates a very dark tonality as the audience is practically forced to spend 20-30 minutes up-
close and personal with a serial killer.
PLOT
• Darnell Jasons is a serial killer living alone in the UK.
• When he was a young boy he got into a fight with another pupil at school and knocked him unconscious. This
gave Darnell a buzz, a strong adrenaline rush that he started chasing through his teenage years.
• He didn’t get the same buzz again until he killed his first victim at age 20
• He meets a girl and falls in love, and he starts to replace his addiction for killing with love.
• One day his girlfriend comes to him and explains that her sister has gone missing, and upon her showing him
a picture of her he realizes that her sister was his latest victim.
• For the first time, Darnell feels overwhelming guilt for killing someone.
• The rest of the film follows Darnell spiraling into self destruction and a deep state of paranoia, this causes
him to make irrational decisions and inevitably screw himself over.
• POSSIBLE ENDING – We cut from one of Darnell’s paranoid episodes to 12 weeks later, he’s in the middle
of no where driving himself somewhere and it ends on a complete cliffhanger.

ROUGH RUNNING TIME

20-30 mins
LOCATIONS
Darnell’s Burial Spot -
Darnell’s apartment – Thames Winter Hill Lookout Spot,
Quarter, Reading Marlow

Darnell and Tracy first meet Young Darnell’s first violent

- A bus stop exposure to adrenaline – An
open field

Darnell and Tracy’s first date

– Marlow Bar and Grill
 COMPETITION
Categories:
• Best UK Short Film
• Best International Short Film
• Best Lo-Budget Short Film
London Short Film
Festival
Prizes: Rules:
• Best UK Short Film - £1000 • Submissions can be from any
• Best International Short Film - £1000 genre
• Best Lo-Budget Short Film - £500 • No longer than 45 mins
TARGET AUDIENCE
The target audience of this production is not really aimed at a specific age group, while the film’s certificate
would cause for the film to be aimed at older people (ages 17+), as it will contain graphic images and mature
themes. The wider demographic for this kind of production would horror movie fans, as the conventional
aspects of the film are something that these people will be drawn too before seeing the film.

PRODUCTION PLAN
• Date Issued – 23rd January 2024
• Final Deadline – 23rd May 2024
• Filming Week – 15th April – 28th April 2024
• Work Marked – 6th May 2024
THANK YOU FOR
LISTENING

ANY QUESTIONS?