The Truths of Narratives over Documentaries

We are in pre-production on a short romantic thriller, Credit Risk.  This is a 10 minute version of a feature length project.  We intend to use the short to assist with funding the bigger project.

With elements similar to Banshee and True Romance, a bank IT guy, seeking escape to an acting career, runs into an ex-porn star friend, unknowingly stalked by a serial rapist, who resembles him. Now he is pursued in mistaken identity by his own sister in-law detective, her FBI agent husband, and two beat detectives that are actually more interested in surveillance photos of the porn star they recognize from her past work.

The short film basically covers the opening of the feature and then a fast resolution, consolidating the climax and ending.  The premise of the feature film is the dilemma many people find themselves in with the current economy.  Job loss, tight finances, and having to support a family make for highly tense situations where things get crazy.  In the feature, the protagonist is married but wants to pursue an acting career.  He gets fired from his job at a bank, and the stress on his marriage and finances lead him to have his car repossessed and his wife throw him out when she finds out he still pursues acting and hangs out with a former pron star acting friend.

Another project we are looking to fund is Lost Love.   In the vein of Homeland and The English Patient, this is the story of a downed fighter pilot faced with a family destroyed by his missiles, and lost in regret of the love he left behind.  It is a pertinent war story that reflects the dilemma many troops and veterans have found themselves in, having to balance doing their job to kill, with a sense of morality.  This is what leads many of them to psychological stress, chronic depression. PTSD, and even suicide.  10,000 have taken their own lives since 9/11, twice the number killed in action.  So you can se how a narrative can be very pertinent to personal, political and societal issues.

After completion of got healthcare?, a documentary on healthcare reform, you may wonder why I would be interested in romantic thrillers.  To me, any film can address important issues.  Documentaries are considered to be a reflection of truth or reality.  In fact they are the filmmakers

Who really are these people?

vision.  In this regard, narrative films can be even more accurate and truthful in reflecting reality.  In a narrative we can get into the characters' heads.  We can see them perform in various situations and watch them doing things that real people would be very uncomfortable to have depicted in a documentary.  We can portray perhaps, global truths, and get right down to the points we want to bring home. So narratives actually have a huge advantage over documentaries in these story telling terms.

I've always had a knack and interest for writing romantic thrillers.  Romance takes you right into the characters' hearts and lets you find out exactly who they are.  How do they balance love with other interests in their lives?  What do they risk for love?  What do they risk without it?