Premonition is a short film with three main characters.  It is a contemporary story set in Geneva, about man who has a recurring nightmare and the way he reacts to it.

The film is based on the question about whether we can sometimes see the future.  There is an interesting international project described in this Red Nova article that presents some rather remarkable results on the subject.

This film contains a plot twist at the end which the viewer should not know in advance to fully appreciate the film.  If you do not want to participate in the production but would like to have a chance to enjoy the film when it is released, then we suggest that you do not read any further on this page as it contains spoilers.

• Premonition1.6.pdf
• Premonition1.6.rtf
• Premonition1.6.oos  (ScriptMaker project file)

The names used in the draft script are provisional and will be chosen depending upon the nationalities of the actors.  The ScriptMaker tool makes it simple to change the names at any time.

Many thanks for feedback on the script.  All comments/improvements gratefully received.

The man enters his office with a sandwich, it's early afternoon.  He is a scientist working at CERN.  He uses his computer to look up "Premonition" on Google.  A secretary approaches his door and checks her appearance before entering.  She is wearing a small silver cross on a chain around her neck.  She tells the scientist that a woman left a phone message while he was at lunch.  The woman  is delayed two hours and sounded angry.

Later in the afternoon, the scientist visits the secretary in her office and they talk about premonitions.  They are both shy in each other's company.  She asks if he'd like to meet after work to talk further, but they are interrupted by his mobile phone ringing and he leaves without answering her question.

Later, a woman enters his office pulling a small travel bag on wheels.  She is his sister and she is worried and wants to know why she has been summoned to Geneva.  He delays telling her until they have taken the bus into town and have entered his apartment.

He starts with the story (learned from his web research) of David Booth who in 1979 had a recurring dream about a plane crash. He notified the FAA and American Airlines and on May 25 his dream came true when Flight 191 crashed on takeoff from O’Hare. The sister is sceptical and asks the point of the story. He tells that for the first time in his life and every night for a week he has had exactly the same nightmare in which he fails to stop her being murdered at midnight on Friday 13th.

She is unimpressed and angry to have come to Geneva just for a dream and prepares to leave immediately.  He begs her to stay and reluctantly she agrees. They spend the evening in the apartment.  She asks what is going on between him and the secretary.  He says nothing and is intrigued to learn that the sister had the impression that the secretary is interested in him.

They pass the evening eating takeaway food, drinking wine and playing chess.  As midnight approaches, he becomes nervous and at midnight she fakes being attacked.  He is completely shocked and distressed.  She finds it funny and then goes to bed, reminding him that in London it isn’t midnight yet.  He waits until 1am to check that nothing happens before also going to bed.

The next morning they take the bus to the airport where they part on good terms.

Later in the morning he approaches the secretary's office looking happy, only to find the door is locked.  He asks a passing colleague if she has been seen but she hasn't.  In a flash back he hears again her question if he would like to meet her after work and then sees again the very end of the nightmare.  This time we see just a little more of the murdered woman, enough to see that she was wearing a small silver cross on a chain.  He is overcome with grief and shock as the belief that he saved the wrong woman settles on him.

Premonition has three points of tension:

The first aims to gain the viewer's attention by being both shocking and intriguing.  The second builds and then explodes the expectation built by the first, and acts as a phony ending.  While the true ending aims to be surprising and yet sufficiently ambiguous that the question of whether the premonition was true or not remains open.