Characters & Rough Script

Very proud of our eight hours long meeting with the interstitial group! Here are character descriptions and a rough script. We're still working on this, and you can see the latest version on our Google Doc.

Characters

The Professor

• A short, bearded bald man in his mid 40s 
• Professor of some kind of advanced science at Yale 
• Works in a field of science related to military, weapons 
• Clumsy; overly knowledgeable but socially very awkward 

Ex-Military Woman

• German military woman in her late 20s 
• Very attractive woman with a heavy German accent 
• Years of military training has made her a hard-ass 
• Interested in the Professor to steal information on weapon development 

Art Student

• Pale white man in his mid 20s 
• Interested in art, music and history 
• Suave, cultured and educated 
• He's attracted to the Ex-military woman 

Teenage Girl

• Teeny bopper in her late teens 
• Was expelled from Yale because of some misunderstanding involving the Professor 
• Chatty, petty and immature 
• She has a big crush on the Art Student 

The Host

• A tall white man in his mid 40s 
• Speaks in a deep demonic voice 

The Butler

• Slithering and mysterious, silent and sneaky Jack! 

Interstitials

Interstitial #1

• Ext. sunset/night Elaborate and cinematic intro with long establishing shots that set the mood and the environment; Perhaps we follow a car on the road as it enters the gates of a rich Victorian mansion; 
• Int. mansion (dining room); the room is lit warmly by a giant chandelier above the dining table; we see four frantic characters seated at the table. The four characters are -- the Professor, the Ex-Military Woman, the Teenage girl and the Art student; They are unaware as to who invited them here, and why they are here; 
• As the chatter continues, the Host enters. He takes the head seat at the table and addresses everyone; He presents everyone a gift on a platter. 
• Camera slowly dollys across the table as the guests open the platter to reveal their gifts; Everyone opens their platter one by one and realizes that they have been handed murder weapons (e.g. pistol, knife, rope, fork, loaf of bread etc). 
• Everyone is confused, and looks at one another; reaction shots 
• The host calms them down and begins to explain 
• As he starts explaining the lights suddenly go off. A loud grunt is heard; Lights come back and the Host is found dead at the table. His face is straight down on his platter. 
• Everyone is frantic; they scream; 
• The light from the thunderstorm outside suddenly reveals the mysterious Butler who is now standing beside the dead body of the Host. The Butler sets up a film projector on the table. 
• The group opens the platter under the Host’s dead body; They find a film reel under the Host's body. They retrieve the reel and clumsily let the dead body fall flat on the table; The reel can is embossed with the Viz Logo; 
• They put the reel into the film projector and precede to play it. An old countdown comes up as the camera zooms into the film and fades into HD quality video displaying student work from The Vizlab. A clue is revealed within the reel, a photo of a room somewhere inside the mansion. 

Interstitial #2

• The reel finishes playing, the camera zooms back out from the film; We are back in the dining room with the guests. 
• The group interprets the clue and head off to find the room shown in the picture they have seen. 
• The guests head down a hallway looking for their destination. The teenage girl is clearly into the Art Student. She keeps trying to approach him and talk to him but he seems enthralled with the Ex-Military Woman and ignores her entirely. 
• She becomes upset and separates herself from the group; She finds her way into a room with a phone in it and precedes to call one of her friends and vent her feelings. 
• Meanwhile behind her a shadow figure approaches. 
• Hand held camera creeps up on the teenage girl; We see a gloved hand holding various weapons, trying to decide which one to use. (Switching weapons similar to a first-person shooter game) 
• We cut back to the group who have just found the next reel in another room. They realize that the teenage girl is missing from the group; They hear a scream and run towards the sound. 
• They find the teenage girl dead in a chair blood running down her face. The Butler walks in with the film projector on a cart and they start up the next film reel. 
• The camera zooms in close to the dead teen’s face/eye and we see the reflection of the reel in it before we cut to see the final countdown as the student work begins. 
• The reel shows another clue, an image of a backpack. 

Interstitial #3

• The reel finishes playing, the camera zooms back out from the film; int. dining room The group realizes that the backpack in the clue was the teen’s backpack. They rush to the living room (??) and empty the backpack to find an envelope. 
• Int. living room In the envelope they find awkward photos of the professor; (Although we never see these pictures, the characters’ behavior suggest that the photos have some nudity/sexuality;) The envelope also has a letter. The Art student starts to read aloud the letter; As he reads the letter, we fade into a black/white still-montage of the Professor’s past; the letter reveals that the professor had relationships with the teenage girl, and that he had a major role in her being expelled from school. 
• After reading the letter, the Art student accuses the professor of murdering the teenage girl; The ex-military woman jumps in the argument to defend the professor; (It is evident that she is trying to win the professor for selfish reasons -- to extract war-weaponry information from him) 
• Tight closeup shot of the Art student as he accuses the professor; medium shot of the professor being clumsy -- he accidents leans over a statue in the room which opens up a secret passage behind the sculpture; Tight closeup of the ex-military woman arguing; Wide shot of the room -- we see that the professor slowly wanders into the secret passage as the other two continue to argue 
• We follow the professor as he wanders into the secret passage; at the end of the passage is a tall stairway; he reaches the top and there he sees a silhouette with a pistol in his hand; The professor trembling with fear walks backwards; He trips and falls down the stairs in an overly dramatic fashion; he continues to walk backwards; he trips over a bear trap on his left foot; he spins around and steps on a rake, which hits him on his face; he trips again and falls on a sword; he realizes that he has a gun in his pocket, he pulls it out and tries to shoot it, but it misfires and shoots his own arm; he looses his arm and blood spurts out; yelling in pain, he continues to walk backward, he trips again and falls out of the window behind him; 
• Int. Living room we see the ex-military woman and the art student still arguing, when we see the professor falling from outside the window. The professor manages to hold on to the window pane and screams, but his screams are not heard through the closed window. He tries to knock on the window but he looses grip and falls down; both the ex-military woman and the art student rush towards the window, but they are too late; they see the professor fall off the window, and down the hill, he rolls and finally falls off the cliff. They all scream; cut on scream to int. dining room; 
• Int. dining room - we see the projector that was playing a blank reel begins to play again, and it makes a few clicking and beeping sounds; cut to living room - As soon as their screams subside, the ex-military woman and the art student hear the clicking and beeping of the projector; they return to the dining room and continue to watch the reel 
• Within the reel they see another clue -- the clue reveals to them where the McGuffin is in the mansion! 

Interstitial #4

• After realizing that neither one of them could be the killer, the Art Student and the Ex-Military Woman decide to put aside their differences and focus on helping each other escape. 
• The clue from the previous reel has led them back to the dining room where they find the McGuffin (What the McGuffin is isn’t important and the audience never finds out what’s been found). 
• As the Art Student discovers the McGuffin, he is impaled from behind with a stake or sword, killing him instantly. 
• As his body crumples to the ground, The Butler is revealed, standing behind him. 
• At this point, The Butler explains his plan to the Ex-Military Woman while they slowly walk around the table in the dining room. They do a full 360 around the table before settling at the positions they started at. 
• The Butler then precedes to pull back a mask revealing himself to be The Host! 
• The final battle commences. There are several stages of the battle involving fist-fighting, karate, guns, and light sabres. 
• Alternate Endings: 
• The Host wins the battle, Ex-Military woman is killed. (what else?) 
• The Ex-Military woman wins the battle, The Host is destroyed. (what else?) 
• After a long and challenging battle The Host and the Ex-Military Woman come to terms. The Host decides to take the Ex-Military Woman under his wing and train her. (more?)