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A feature filmIn development
UNTITLED

THE AUDITION

A feature film in development · Proposed runtime 100–110 min
One property.
Two alternative creative directions.
The question

How much of yourself would you surrender to become somebody?

A young actor is offered the role of a lifetime. The price is everything he hasn't admitted he's willing to give.

UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONShared Story · 02 / 23
Logline

A broke, unrepresented actor forges his own name onto a callback sheet — and is driven, blindfolded, to an audition no one walks out of the same.

Format
Feature film
Runtime
100–110 min (proposed)
Genre
Psychological thriller (A) or dark comedy thriller (B)
Status
In development
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONShared Story · 03 / 23
Protagonist reference
Awaiting the owner's portrait. Upload it here or in the Edit panel.
The protagonist

[NAME]

Twenties. No college, no agent, no credits worth listing. Affectionate, funny, quick to charm — and quietly drowning.

He hasn't auditioned since last year. He tells his parents he has. He delivers for DoorDash and Postmates and rarely gets tipped.

Wants
To be somebody — fast
Fears
Failing his girlfriend
Flaw
He can rationalize anything
Shared Story · 04 / 23
The people who weigh on him

Everyone has a version of who he should be.

01
The Girlfriend

Warm, grounded, unimpressed by money. Time together matters more than fancy dates — and working at his father's store is no disgrace. He can't believe her.

02
The Parents

Loving, exhausted, relentless. His father offers one final chance: show up at the store Monday, or lose the position.

03
The Cousin

In college, interning at a top firm. The lifelong yardstick. A resentment that has built for years — and may erupt.

04
The Childhood Friend

Her abrasive friend sends her 'high-value man' videos. He sees them in her feed and reads them as a verdict on him.

The Monday deadline is slipped in casually. It becomes the clock he runs from.

UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONShared Story · 05 / 23
Day to day

Five stars. No tip.

Nights in the car with someone else's dinner on the passenger seat. He narrates his life like a movie he hasn't been cast in.

The lie
His parents believe he's been auditioning all year.
The misread
Her algorithm, his insecurity — the videos were never about him.
Minute 15
An Actors Access–style listing: lead role, no representation required, immediate start.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONShared Story · 06 / 23
Final callback
Lead · Sides p.1–4
110:15
211:40
312:15
413:40
514:15
6[NAME]
Added after hours
The audition

“This is gonna work.”

01
He auditions. It's bad. He's dismissed before he finishes his sides.
02
Outside, he bangs his head against the wall. Casting walks past — and leaves the room open.
03
He slips back in and writes his own name on the final callback sheet.
04
He tells his friends he got a callback. A bizarre email arrives. Every red flag becomes a sign.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONShared Story · 07 / 23
The journey

He thinks secrecy is what fame feels like.

Men in black. A blindfold. A black SUV. Hours of road until the city is gone.

An isolated soundstage complex — desert, or the coastal mountains near Palos Verdes. No signal, no signage, no one says where he is.

Here, the film divides.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONShared Story · 08 / 23
The film divides
Choose a direction.
Version A · The original direction
A

Psychological Thriller

Paranoid. Cerebral. Cold.
The audition was never for a film.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion A · Psychological Thriller · 09 / 23
Plot & conspiracy

The studio has no name. It doesn't need one.

A faceless, all-powerful Hollywood production organization — financed by a fictional classified intelligence program — orchestrates cultural narratives, celebrity influence and staged public events.

Its auditions are recruitment. He was selected precisely because he is desperate.

In-story claim
“This is how stars are made.” The operators insist many international entertainers are already assets.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion A · Psychological Thriller · 10 / 23
Fictional premise. All in-story claims about agencies, programs or entertainers are invented drama — not allegations about real people or organizations.
Psychological tests · Compromised autonomy

Every exercise is built from him.

A cold steel table. Producers behind one-way glass. A white room with no corners he can find. Between sessions, he texts his girlfriend that everything is fine.

T-01Fear

They know about the store, the Monday deadline, the cousin.

T-02Ambition

Scenes that reward him for saying yes faster.

T-03Vices

Small indulgences — offered, logged, kept.

T-04Desire

The career he's imagined since childhood, staged in front of him.

T-05Attachment

Her messages, read back to him in a stranger's voice.

T-06Relationships

Everyone he loves, recast as leverage.

UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion A · Psychological Thriller · 11 / 23
Intelligence recruitment · The ultimatum
“Mr. [NAME], you are now an asset of the United States government. You don't have a choice.”

He tries to reject the role as morally unacceptable. Refusal, it turns out, was never in the script.

Ending beyond this moment: under development
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion A · Psychological Thriller · 12 / 23
Fictional premise. All in-story claims about agencies, programs or entertainers are invented drama — not allegations about real people or organizations.
black
blue-grey
steel
white
Visual language · Locations · Moodboard

Symmetry is surveillance.

Camera
Locked-off symmetrical frames, slow push-ins, reflections in one-way glass.
Locations
White construct room, steel interrogation table, rooms of surveillance televisions, isolated stage.
Touchstones
The Matrix (white construct, TV room) · Eyes Wide Shut (elite secrecy, isolation) · Rosemary's Baby (moral compromise).
Tonal references only. Original imagery; no imitation of existing artwork.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion A · Psychological Thriller · 13 / 23
Theme · Audience experience

The audience auditions too.

Consent

How much of his choice was ever his?

Rationalization

Every red flag he explains away is one we'd explain away too.

Control

Fame as a leash dressed as a spotlight.

A slow tightening: clinical calm that turns claustrophobic, sending audiences out wondering who has been watching them.

UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion A · Psychological Thriller · 14 / 23
Version B · The newer direction
B

Dark Comedy Thriller

Unsettling luxury. Theatrical light.
The audition is real. So is everything else.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion B · Dark Comedy Thriller · 15 / 23
The billionaire's clandestine cinema

He thinks modern cinema is fake. So he made it real.

A wealthy, eccentric, obsessive cinephile adores the greats — Tarantino, Scorsese — and believes today's movies are counterfeit.

With unlimited money he produces full-budget films with real deaths, shot at remote sites for wealthy private viewers. Never released.

The monologue
A deranged sermon on making movies real — the film's comic and horrific centerpiece.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion B · Dark Comedy Thriller · 16 / 23
Satire · Escalating danger

Everyone is very professional about the murder.

Stage 1
Hospitality

Call sheets, craft services, a trailer with his name on it.

Stage 2
Notes

Directions grow stranger. The crew treat them as routine.

Stage 3
Realization

The last lead didn't quit.

Stage 4
Survival

He starts performing for his life — and for the cameras.

Satire of wealth, Hollywood ambition and the cult of “authentic” cinema — played straight by everyone except reality.

UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion B · Dark Comedy Thriller · 17 / 23
Explosion · Final exchange · The store

“I don't wanna act anymore.”

Action
He tricks the crew and causes an explosion at a production meeting. The cameras capture all of it.
Surviving producer
“Brilliant! That's brilliant! You know what? You just might have what it takes to be an actor!”
[NAME]
“I don't wanna act anymore.”
Action
He shoots him, escapes in a black truck, finds he is far from civilization — and drives home.
At the store
Bloodied, bruised, clothes torn. Someone asks: “How did the audition go?”
[NAME]
“Movie got scrapped. The budget got pulled.”
Final image
The ridiculous uniform. The goofy hat. The mirror. Cut to black.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion B · Dark Comedy Thriller · 18 / 23
black
crimson
tungsten
amber
Visual language · Locations · Moodboard

Luxury, lit like a stage.

Camera
Proscenium framing, pools of tungsten light, deadpan wides that hold a beat too long.
Locations
Private screening room, remote set, production meeting room, desert highway, his father's store.
Touchstones
Barry (aloof ambitious actor) · Eyes Wide Shut (remote forbidden elite world) · Jordan Peele–style sociocultural satire.
High-level tonal touchstones only. Original imagery throughout.
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion B · Dark Comedy Thriller · 19 / 23
Theme · Audience experience

The joke is what he'll do to be seen.

Authenticity

The quest for “real” cinema is the most fake thing in the film.

Ambition

He gets the career-defining performance he wanted — and walks away from it.

Home

The store he ran from is the only place he runs to.

Laughs that catch in the throat. Audiences leave giddy, unsettled — and staring at the hat.

UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONVersion B · Dark Comedy Thriller · 20 / 23
Side by side

One audition. Two films it could become.

Version A
Psychological thriller
Version B
Dark comedy thriller
The operation
Faceless studio funded by a fictional classified intelligence program
A wealthy cinephile's private real-death studio
What they want
Compliance — a controllable asset
A “real” performance, to the death
Tone
Paranoid, cerebral, ominous
Satirical, absurd, unsettling
Palette
Black · blue-grey · steel · surgical white
Black · crimson · tungsten · amber
Turning point
“You don't have a choice.”
The explosion at the production meeting
Ending
Under development
Home, the store, the hat — cut to black
UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONDevelopment · 21 / 23
Shared DNA · Divergent promise

Same wound. Two different knives.

A
A thriller about power.

The system that turns ambition into obedience.

Shared in both
A desperate aspirant
A forged callback
A blindfolded journey
A remote production complex
Warning signs rationalized
Her texts as a lifeline
B
A satire about appetite.

The rich who consume ambition as entertainment.

UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONDevelopment · 22 / 23
Creative development status

Where the project stands.

Working title
UNTITLED — THE AUDITION
Stage
In development
Runtime
100–110 min (proposed)
Direction
Version A or Version B — to be chosen
Producers
[To be announced]
Cast
[No cast attached]
Budget
[To be determined]
Financing
[Not yet secured]
Production team
[To be assembled]
Version A ending
[Under development]
Under development · Placement unresolved
The horror maze
+ Expand story element

At a theme park, the friends get separated inside a horror maze. One friend angrily demands that everyone share their locations.

A comic-relief friend tells the group about an audition — and later, unexpectedly, follows a shared location and takes a boat to an island to rescue someone.

Placement in the story and its link to the remote studio are unresolved. Not part of the fixed plot beats.

UNTITLED — THE AUDITIONDevelopment · 23 / 23