AICE Media Film Opening - 'Doppelganger' - One Last Screenplay Update

  𝕕𝕠𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕝𝕘𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕣

An eerie piano melody begins to play.

The opening credits will begin on a mirror, in the reflection is a hand turning off a bath faucet, the last of its water still dripping, then cut to black. A brief shot to softball equipment and a wooden bat hanging on the wall will be shown, foreshadowing the bat's use later in the opening, then once again cut to black. Three final shots will then play one after the other, each of a different room in the house, eerily dark and empty. As the credits come to an end, and the camera cuts into a dark, unlit room, a bright red alarm clock shines through the black. 3:00 AM. [ticks to 3:01]

• due to music that I have decided to work with, and a desire to create rhythm within the first scene, this scene will end up taking twenty-three seconds. 

‘Alyssa’ is laying in her bed, dressed in a dull red hoodie paired with black leggings. She stares at her phone as the bright white light illuminates her face through the black. Her eyes are nearly swollen shut from fatigue, with a notable dark look underneath her eyes, but in her mind she can't let her awake state end, not yet.

Yet she seems to overestimate or maybe even fail to understand her own body's capabilities, and in her sleepless attempts she falls asleep for just a fraction of second. In her brief loss of consciousness she drops her  phone from her face. "Ow.. shit.."

She rubs her face with both her hands and finally decides to put her phone aside [the camera should pan to her hand shakily reaching for her nightstand but the phone falls out of its loose grasp] Rather than a thud, it makes a faint squelching sound. Puzzled, she reaches for the phone along the floor as a squelching sound once again faintly plays and an eerie sting swells. She peaks over the bed and screams, flinching her hand back with her face clearly terrified. [for a brief flash, her face distorts - barely visible in the darkness]

"What the hell what the hell what the hell." she mutters, horrified, she looks to the door and the camera pans, the door is shut. She tosses her covers over her head, breathing heavily and shakily. "If I can't see it it can't see me..." she holds her breath, the gasp is heard.

The alarm clock shows once again, it is 3:10. Fading in is the ticking of a slow, non-diegetic clock. The camera shoots from a distance the dark image of what is clearly ‘Alyssa’ under the covers. After it has been quiet for a while, she emerges, rubbing her eyes and trying to calm herself. The clock fades but is still just barely heard. "Idiot.. idiot. Tired tired idiot.. it was probably just a hallucination, probably just a-'

Synchronising with the ticking of the clock, now once again at full volume, there comes a shaky breathing accompanied by the flicking of a blinding white light that together seep through the lines of the closet in the corner. After another tick of the clock, there is a cut to black.

Following another clock tick, the camera cuts to Alyssa's terrified face, then back to black.

Another tick, and there is another cut from the black to the previously introduced softball equipment hanging on the wall, a static shot that goes unmoving. Alyssa’s hands break into frame, dismantling the bat from the wall.

With a final breath, she opens the closet. On seeing what she sees, she drops the baseball bat. [cut away from her and to the floor, the baseball bat dropping should be isolated and dramatic] We finally see it, something that looks just like her is crouched on the ground in fear in front of her. It's holding the phone, with 911 displaying on screen, which illuminates its face.

The camera once again cuts to black, synchronous with a final clock tick. There is only silence, neither music nor ticking are present.

Through the black screen, accompanied by no imagery, the thing in the closet starts to cry. "Please don't hurt me, please don't kill me. I'm so sorry.. please, please, please, please. All I wanted to do was call for help... Please don't kill me. Please don't... I won't say anything to anyone."

"You just had to go and fucking ruin all the fun so fucking soon" ‘Alyssa’ says through a sound bridge, which starts on the "creature's" still terrified face and cuts to a low angle of ‘Alyssa’ "At least for just a moment, I felt like a human being.. all I wanted was a little while longer‘

‘But you know what? I don’t think I’m ready to be done just yet.’

The camera cuts from black to a shot of 'Alyssa', as she lifts the softball bat and places it onto her shoulder. She starts to speak as she motions the bat violently towards the camera "But I am done being a-" 

The scene cuts to black, the white text reading..

𝕕𝕠𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕝𝕘𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕣

The text stays in place, but the black background begins to dissolve into a final shot of our character, now an antagonist. Her silhouette stands in front of a window, looking out into the rain. She has won.