Task- Writing a Twist

It opens a masked figure dumping a body into the ocean from a pier. It cuts to the next morning, where Paige wakes up. As she is driving, she hears on the radio that a body has been found in the ocean, near the shore. She is clearly unsettled and disturbed by this. She meets with another character named Adam, who is presented as strange and as if he has power over Paige. Adam makes it clear that he is romantically interested in Paige, but Paige does not display the same feeling back towards him. Despite this, Paige confides in him and admits the murder of last night is distressing her. Adam uses this opportunity to flirt with Paige, while she is not interested, she stays with him out of fear from the murder last night. 

Adam consistently pressures Paige to go and do something with him. She consistently makes excuses to him, such as that she is scared or feeling unwell and that she would rather stay in his house. Adam eventually convinces Paige to drive somewhere with him, after consistent pressure. She questions him where he is going in a panic as they are driving, only receiving ambiguous responses, such as "you'll see". They arrive at a forest in the middle of nowhere. He smiles menacingly as he leaves the car and leads Paige into the woods, however it is then revealed that Paige is also smiling through an extreme close-up. There is a mid shot of Adam walking continuing to smile, Paige is not in shot but is tailing just behind him, as he turns around it reveals Paige holding a knife.

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When writing this plot twist, one of the main inspirations I took was from High Maintenance, this is because there are multiple hints at the plot twist I left in the summary which could be perceived differently. For example, Paige being unsettled by the news revealing that the body has been found could be perceived as her simply being disturbed or scared at first, however, when viewing it again with the new knowledge of the ending, you will see it as her being worried as she is the killer and the body has been found. Her unreceptiveness towards Adam's advances will at first make the viewer worry for her as she is in a situation where she appears weak and in danger, however this will also be flipped upon reinterpretation, despite Adam also having bad intentions. One way this can be done is by shooting Adam from a low angle and shooting Paige from a high angle to show the power dynamic between the two, but changing this towards the end of the film. Paige not wanting to leave the house shows that she wanted to kill him from the start as they do not have to go out in public, making it easier for her to kill him. This is inspired by the plot twist at the end of High Maintenance, as it changes the context of some of the actions within that film, such as the woman's robotic behaviour being interpreted as boredom on first viewing, to be revealed she was an android from the beginning. 

I was also inspired by La Jetee when writing this plot twist. This is because, while not as literal as it is in La Jetee, it also gives the film a cyclical nature. Paige is shown dumping a body into the ocean at the beginning of the film, and it ends on her wielding a knife, obviously implying that she killed him. This shows the repetitiveness of her violence as a serial killer. You can also assume that she disposed of Adam in a similar way as the body from the beginning, so the opening scene can also be seen as her disposing of Adam, creating an endless loop. I intend for there to be a similar motif between the opening and closing scene, including the same soundtrack to make it clear to the audience that Paige is intended to be thought of as the killer seen earlier in the film, as well as to reinforce the cyclicality of the film.  Another way that I can use audio-visual elements to show Paige's cyclical violence is through editing, by speeding up the editing and making it more chaotic in both the opening and closing of the film put us into the mindset of Paige as she is in a frenzy and acting without rational thought, as well as colour grading so that the opening and closing scenes have a similar colour palette.