Lets Make a Pitch!

[peter]

[defn; to aim to sell a product to a specific market on a specified basis.]

Here's an idea. Help me with it.

A major New-York psychaitric hospital approaches the FBI with a request for help following the strange circumstances surrounding the admission of three previously unknown patients in the last month. All claim to have been mystriously and inexplicably transported back in time from 140 years in the future while in the pursuit of their norrmal daily activities.

What was initially seen as a fairly standard delusional psycotic breakdown in the first patient admitted [following theft of food and subsequent arrest by NYPD] took on a more odd coloring when a second patient was refered to the hospital from an out of state sanitorium, who appeared to be making an almost identical claim. To make matters even stranger, although neither patient appeared to have any knowledge of the others existance [and were not told therof], there seemed an uncanny degree of coherence between the descriptions both gave of their 'home-time', and a similarity of expression in their language that spoke of some deeply intimate connection between the two. As if to compound the already confused picture of the therapists diagnosis, a third patient - an itinerant found nearly dead in Central Park, on recovery in hospital begins to describe the same process of suddenly finding himself tranported into the past and again seems to know the same names, speak the same tounge, have the same culteral outlook as the previous two.

What is Happening. Is it a 'con'. Are the medics being 'duped', set up for a fall. Is it some kind of previously unencountered mass-hysteria? In desperation, and in an atempt to unmask any deception it is decided to allow the three to meet in an apparently unobserved area [of course it is not so] to see if they will expose themselves as tricksters who have hatched this bizzare story for whatever purpouses known only to themselves.

The meeting turns out to be explosive. Not only is it clear that the three have never met, and had no knowledge of each others existance, but the inexplicable elements of similarity of speech and cultural/geographical knowledge of their world of 140 years hence is exhibited a hundred times more manifestly in the way the communicate and degree of both panic and relief they show at each others apearence. In total confusion the psychiatrists decide that the only explanation that can cover the inexplicable series of events they have seen is that of some sort of criminal 'brain-washing' scenario, where three individuals have been subjected [willingly or otherwise] to some memory altering proceedure resulting in the group delusions exhibited by the three individuals. Forced by this conclusion they turn to the only place they can think of where the skills might exist to unravel the mystery that lies before them - the FBI

So there you have it guys! Trouble is - I don't have an end. Have the patients really come from the future [and if so why and how]?. Are they the victims of some deviant mind-altering experiment carried out by a psycopath genius for what nefarious purpose? This lot cane to me last night during a bout of insomnia; perhaps the rest will come to me tonight - but I wouldn't bank on it. Any suggestions.........

{Oh, and who knows anything about preparing a 'Pitch'!}

[Zarathustra]

Forget the pitch and write a screenplay. Learn how screenplays are written. Read some books on the subject. Read some actual screenplays of movies you like or movies that are similar to your own (you can find them online). Study why they worked or didn't. Develop strong characters and focus on the dialog. Develop three distinct acts. The ending will likely develop logically from the process of doing this.

[wayfriend]

There's a classic twist ending for this: that it actually is 140 years from now, and it's all an elaborate hoax played on three individuals. Why? To see which one will be tempted to kill the world's greatest villain's mother before he was born. Because this hoax is being perpetrated by this villain's minions, of course. The hoax is perpetrated by having the three being unknowingly in a virtual reality matrix.

There is also the M. Night ending: the three people aren't actually from the future, they're from an alternate universe. They came from a strange universe where the Mayans didn't discover Europe, wipe out western civilization, and establish a benevolent theocracy where humans are sacrificed but all other problems have been solved, ushering in centuries of peace and prosperity. Instead, they speak of a man called Columbus, and a place called Wall Street. This is why they are roughly 140 years ahead of this universe's technical achievements. It turns out they were sent to spread Ebola, depopulate this planet, and open it up for aggressive resource acquisition.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

They are definitely from the future but they were all retrogressed into prior lives by telepaths, retaining their current memories and emotional outlooks.

Why?

So they can begin the process which will result in telepaths being born in the future.

In the telepath-controlled future crime still exists but it is trivial to determine guilt when a telepath can scan you, looking for memories and/or intent. Once discovered, the guilty party is "personality wiped" and a new personality built, leaving a non-criminal in its place. (Yes, that is straight from B5--it's JMS's idea.) Nations still technically exist but governments are really more just glorified infrastructure maintenance agencies keeping the roads and bridges maintained.

[peter]

Excellent suggestions all round guys! Love your twist WF and the telepath idea Hashi. But to scriptwrite the idea....... Now there's a challenge worth thinking about!

[sgt.null]

my pitch -

Breakfast Club : find out what happened to the group - as we meet their kids.

if they wait much longer, we will meet their grand kids.