Your JTR mini-series or Hollywood film opening scene

[APerno]

If you were to write a JTR film or mini-series what would be your opening scene? . . . in 50 words or less; opening scene only.

[Michael W Richards]

Mechanical sounds from a factory are playing softly, (its a over score, not a soundtrack), …. In sepia tones we see a close up shaded silhouette of a mans head facing sideways in a dimly lit room, burnt orange color on the plaster wall behind him cast by a small fire. We see droplets of sweat on his face, one drop slides off the slope of his nose. The camera slowly pulls back, and we can see behind him the left side a small room with a hearth casting a small fire. He is sitting on a chair facing a small table on that left wall, over which a window frame is seen. It has a broken corner pane closest to the camera at the bottom of the window frame. He is cast almost entirely in shadow, the only visible feature is his left hand, which is holding a cigarette to his mouth...lit by the background firelight. Its smeared in dark stains. To the right we can barely make out the left edge of a bed frame, some of that dark staining on the sheets hanging off over the side. We see the man start to snicker. The background noise has slowly become a little louder now. Then he laughs, although with some restraint. He stands and reaches the top of the window frame to set the latch to lock it, takes his coat from off his chair back and puts it on. He takes out a hanky from his breast pocket and wipes his hands. He then moves over to the fire, tossing the hanky in the dying embers. He looks to his right, and takes some items off a chair near the fire and tosses them on the fire also, one is a mans hat. He turns and takes a look at the bed, (out of frame), and he smiles. Then he comes toward the camera bathed in dark, and steps past it. We hear a latch being thrown, and a door being closed. Footsteps on the cobblestones outside the door fade as he leaves. The factory mechanical sounds are almost deafening now.

Daylight begins to creep into the room by time lapse photography, and from back in our original vantage point we see a mans hand enter the broken pane, moving aside some cheap curtain covering it. We hear a gasp, then he pulls his hand back cutting his hand slightly in the process. We then see the exterior of the door now as the form of the man with the bleeding hand hustles by it from the left. It has #13 on the door.

Hows that? Ok...Ive thought about this before now.

[etenguy]

Hows that? Ok...Ive thought about this before now.

Nice Michael - starting at the end is a good choice.

I haven't given it anywhere near as much thought as you, but I would start with Eddowes murder so tension can be built around Mary Jane Kelly and her murder, learning about the other murders before we get to the final murder. I might even bring in Robert James Lee giving a cryptic psychic message which the audience would know relates to Mary Jane Kelly but the police would not.

[Michael W Richards]

Thanks etenguy. I started writing a fictional novel/screenplay a few years back, using all Ive learned from the Ripper studies as the backdrop, haven't got it done yet. A director friend of mine wants first crack when I finish it...if its as good as I think it can be of course. Trying to figure out how to get some compensation for studying these crimes for 30 years now.

[Abby Normal]

night time view from above of WC-bright moon but clouds, smoke arising from chimneys, dilapidated buildings. words appear on screen-"London, Whitechapel District 1888".
cut to darkened street. figure of a bobby in sillouette from front in distance walking toward camera. fog everywhere glow from gas lights. shot stays on him as he gets closer. he stops. close up of his darkened face that lights up as he opens the shudder on his lamp and looks down. shot of gruesome mutilated body of Polly on the ground. full length shot of body and cop as he blows his whistle frantically. cut.

[Robert]

SCENE : Fog. All you can see is fog.

VOICE : London 1888 : a time of fog. People couldn't see their hands in front of them.

(SPLASH)

MAN'S VOICE : Gorblimey another one in the Thames!

VOICE : And in this fog, a killer is at large.

SINISTER VOICE : Are you Mary Kelly?

MAN'S VOICE : No mate, I'm Fred Figgis.

SINISTER VOICE : Damn this fog!

A PERNO'S VOICE : Too many words.

DIRECTOR : Cut!

WOMAN : (SCREAMS)

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thanks etenguy. I started writing a fictional novel/screenplay a few years back, using all Ive learned from the Ripper studies as the backdrop, haven't got it done yet. A director friend of mine wants first crack when I finish it...if its as good as I think it can be of course. Trying to figure out how to get some compensation for studying these crimes for 30 years now.

Good stuff Michael but you missed one crucial part. Just as before the handkerchief is consumed by flames we see the monogram...MJD

[Yabs]

I couldn’t possibly offer an attempt at a screenplay, but I would start my opening scene with three women knocking on a door with some urgency.
They receive no reply, so one of the women moves away from the door and peeks into a window looking into the room.
In the darkness of the room, she can see a table and the body of woman, laying on the bed with her face turned to the side.
The door is forced open by the three women and they rush to the body and call out, Miriam.


I would make the first quarter of the film depict the Lipski case and following that I would include every Whitechapel murder.

[DJA]

20th August 1888.
The City Mission had just opened for breakfast due to the weather.

Nichols and Eddowes ran into each other and were discussing their Christmas 1867 in London Hospital under that nice Dr Sutton.

Mary Kelly interrupts with her version of Sutton,purporting to have been the child "trampled" by Mr Hyde in the novella that had recently opened as a play in the West End.

[Michael W Richards]

Its hard to envision an honest and truthful way of introducing the crimes to the audience, since so much of the collective memory of these cases is just about the legend, the myth, and the top hatted, Gladstone carrying, fog dweller. I am still surprised how many people recall hearing about the crimes based on that phantom fop. You almost have to allow for the preconceptions in your presentation for the audience to grasp the thread of the backdrop story, which sadly gives what is actually misdirection the appearance of substance and meaning.

[DJA]

It's not the audience.
Try convincing a screenwriter to spend serious time on the project. Mind numbing.
The story has everything,including a natural structure that studios insist on.
Five women attempting to escape their environment by taking on a shy little pathologist ..... and the Establishment.
Apart from Mary Kelly,they have no idea what they are up against.
Ironically Jack has been of great help to the first four victims.
Eddowes especially is conflicted.
Ripper yarn

[Jon Guy]

The first episode of my Ripper mini series would end with Robert Paul arriving home and telling his wife about finding the body, and as hangs his jacket onto the back of a chair the camera slowly zooms in on the blood stains on the shoulder of his jacket. Da dahhh !!!

[Michael W Richards]

It's not the audience.
Try convincing a screenwriter to spend serious time on the project. Mind numbing.
The story has everything,including a natural structure that studios insist on.
Five women attempting to escape their environment by taking on a shy little pathologist ..... and the Establishment.
Apart from Mary Kelly,they have no idea what they are up against.
Ironically Jack has been of great help to the first four victims.
Eddowes especially is conflicted.
Ripper yarn

That's an entertaining bit of fiction DJA, and catering to some existing preconceptions from the right side of Ripperology. Still bound to the Canonical proposition. Which, by all the known facts and evidence, is still an presumed, alleged list by one man. The Canonical Five has about as much to do with the reality of these cases as a Top Hatted Toff murdering them does.

[DJA]

Given that you cannot comprehend the original post,as evidenced by your first overly long drivel,I'll ignore your pathetic insult.

At least my project got as far as an Academy Award nominated screenwriter.

[Lipsky]

Subtle sound of something being scratched -- inconclusive to the audience.

Red on brownish ("wooden" palette). The camera begins to slowly move away.

Intersecting image -- movement of a shadow on a wooden wall, with red spraying over it.

Cut to three figures (camera shot from their backs) peeping through a window in a court.

Repetition of three exchanging scenes, with gradually increased speed.

As the camera keeps moving away from the "red on brown" --- seemingly similar to the second intersecting image resembling blood on wooden partition --- it reveals to be the Mishter Lusk letter.

The movement of shadow on the blood-stained wall is the movement of the hand that writes the letter.

The three figures peeping through the window expand , like shadows, in infinite stretching of a black and white canvas - merging/morphing in a loop-spiral motion of the camera to the black and white lines of MJK photo 1.

The sound has become the sound of the pen writing the letter - of the knife carving the flesh.