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Random Writing Exercise 3 - scripting

  
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
17:11 / 19.05.03
Take any one (or more) of the previous exercises - yours or someone else's as long as they don't mind - and script it as a scene from a film. No scenes from copyright material please... The format works roughly as follows (bolded being what you see, italics being my explanation in case it's not obvious, though mostly it is. and you've probably seen it all before anyway):

EXT. FARM YARD - DAY
This shot takes place out of doors - 'exterior' and in daytime. Formatting software such as Final Draft likes to see a time of day even when characters are indoors, though some people dislike the redundancy.

Five pigs eat in the farmyard. CU: a pig's face as it eats. Sinister music as we we CLOSE ON THE PIG'S MEAL. IT IS A HUMAN HAND. MARCUS emerges from the farmhouse.

Pretty obviously, this is the action. CU is 'close up' - again, not all directors like seeing this kind of instruction until they've asked for it. I'm currently working with one who does, so I've put it in.

MARCUS
Holy shit.

Character name, centred - which I can't do for some reason, and his line

ANDY (O.C.)
What?

Andy speaks from off camera.

MARCUS
I forgot to get the key.

ANDY (O.C.)
So get it.

CU: MARCUS's face. He bites his lip.

MARCUS
I think it's in a pig.

And we go to the next scene, headed, as this one is, by the slugline. For each location and time, you need a new scene.

Off we go...
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
13:19 / 20.05.03
I should actually have said to script it 'as a sequence' from a film - some of those will need more than one scene...

Any takers?
 
 
Jack Fear
16:44 / 20.05.03
Dude, it's what I do—comics scripting, rather than film, but still: it's my usual form.

Expository prose, even poetry—that feels like a vacation, albeit a busman's holiday. But scripting? Too much like work.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
19:26 / 20.05.03
Well, me too, but it's not as if everyone out there is a pro script-writer. And if one isn't, it's a really good way to improve one's prose.
 
 
Char Aina
22:37 / 20.05.03
SCENE 3:

EXTERIOR, DAY
CZECHOSLOVAKIA C.1987
SNOW COVERED

opens on an overhead shot from behind KUTNA HORA, interspersed with tight shot of animals being slaughtered and butchered in slow motion. concurrent with the images of slaughter is te sound of a bone saw biting.
the wind is strong, whistling through the churhces many hollows.
a solitary figure can be seen walking towards the camera, and the church beneath it. she makes slow progress, fighting the wind. as she approaches, the shots of flesh being rent intensify and become more frequent.




WOMAN/voiceover


is this where i had been? it seemed so familiar that first time, impossible as that may have been. this time it seemed strange, seemed other, another world. perhaps it is the snow... so like the tales.




as the voice over ends, the woman has almost reached the door. as her hand reaches out, making contact with the frame, the camera switches to a POV. the bone saw screams into life again, and the picture strobes between the two pieces of footage.




WOMAN

[recoiling in terror]

my god...here!

[collapses]

as the woman takes her hand from the door, the camera pulls back, bringng her into shot again. it settles on the snowy scene, motionless.









ADDENDUM
the locale i picked for the church is one i am sure we are all familiar with, to conjur the scene properly. i would not film such a scene in so recognisable a place.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:06 / 30.06.03
(NB: Never done any kind of script before, so I have no idea if I'm doing this right or not. Any comments therefore appreciated.)



ALBIE'S ROOM, INT. DAY


ALBIE is sitting at a low shelf, on which is a large pad of black drawing paper.

CU: A tub of cake decorations marked "Assorted Dragees". We see ALBIE'S hand pick up the container and shake a single silve ball onto his palm.

CU: ALBIE'S face, in profile, as he puts the silver ball into his mouth.

CU: ALBIE'S hand, holding a dip-and-scratch pen. We see him dip the pen in a pot of silver ink, then begin to add feathers to a stylised drawing of an angel.

ALBIE (softly)

"Two hundred and thirty-five, two hundred and thirty six. Two hundred and thirty seven."

CU: ALBIE bares his teeth in a grin.

ALBIE (crooning)
Angel... angel... (scowling suddenly) Seven hundred and sixty-three, sixty three, sixty three. More to do. There's always more to do.

ALBIE takes the pen and proceeds to draw a long line of silver down one forearm. He examines it.

ALBIE
No change. (throwing back head) No change.

ALBIE shakes another silver cake-decoration onto his hand and eats it.

ALBIE
Keep taking the tablets. Epidermis. (dips a finger into the ink, rubs silver ink into the skin of his forearm) Squamous cells. Argent. Stick with the programme.

(He goes back to his drawing).

ALBIE
Seven hundred and sixty-two, seven hundred and sixty-one, seven hundred and sixty...

As ALBIE counts, we pan down to the legwell beneath the shelf. Scattered by ALBIE'S bare feet are several empty cake-decoration pots. We pan up to a bottle on a higher shelf; it is marked Colloidal Silver.

ALBIE'S MUM (OC)
Sandra? Tea's on the table!

ALBIE
(shouts) Just coming. (quietly) Two hundred and forty four, two hundred and forty five.

ALBIE gets up and opens the door. He pauses momentarily on the threshhold and sniffs.

ALBIE (smiling)
Sausages!
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
12:30 / 30.06.03
Only one question: what are we supposed to think about Albie?
 
 
grant
15:25 / 30.06.03
INTERIOR - KOUNTRY KITCHEN DINER - DAY

A bus drives by the picture window, leaving an enormous cloud of white dust. MARTY sits in a booth, staring at the dust as it subsides. P.J., the cook, speaks to MADDY, a young, attractive waitress, from the kitchen. GEORGE, wiry and laconic, leans against the wall behind the cash register and eyes Marty with quiet suspicion.

P.J.
That the 3:17?

GEORGE
Huh?

MADDY
Yeah. Tuscon.

P.J.
So no more business till the 4:25 outta Bakersfield.

MADDY
Not exactly.

GEORGE
We got us a customer.

P.J.
Well, go take his order.

GEORGE
He got a look to him.

P.J.
What do you mean, a look? Is he trouble?

MADDY
Nothing like that.

P.J.
Well, I ain't gonna take his order.

GEORGE
I'm on break.

MADDY
You've been on break for the past hour and a half.

GEORGE
And you haven't? Go take his order.

P.J.
He better not hear you guys talking like that.

MADDY
Hell.

Maddy crosses the diner, pen and pad ready. Marty continues to stare out the window, obviously in some inner agony.

MADDY (con't)
What can I get you?

(beat)

MARTY
(whispering)
Someplace to go.

MADDY
Bathroom's in back. Are you... are you gonna order anything?

MARTY
I don't need the bathroom, thanks. I... I'll get something. Just a minute. I don't know....

As Marty's voice trails off, we CUT to...

XCU: a tear traveling down Marty's dusty cheek.

CROSSFADE to CU: a burger frying on the grill.

INTERIOR -- DINER KITCHEN

P.J. smokes a hand-rolled cigarette as he flips Marty's burger.





---------
Source text:

He sat in the corner of the diner, watching the buses go by. He'd blown in with the dust, which came up every day with the 3:17 from Tuscon, erasing the sky.

Today was a Thursday. When the dust subsided, it left him behind.

Nobody quite knew what to do; they'd fallen out of the habit of having customers for more than 20 minutes at a time. Everyone who came in was on their way somewhere else, and the buses didn't wait. And no one -- not Maddy, not George, not P.J. -- really wanted to get too close to him.

He sighed, staring out the window at something no one else could see. Even when Maddy walked up, pad and pen ready, he never made eye contact.

"What can I get you?"

He sighed again and squeezed his eyes shut before clearing his throat.

"Someplace to go," he whispered.

"Bathroom's in the back. Are you... you gonna order anything?"

"I don't need the bathroom, thanks. I... I'll get something. Just a minute. I don't know...."

His voice trailed off, and a single tear began carving a path through the dust smeared across his face.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
12:42 / 01.07.03
Nick: We're supposed to deduce that Albie is obsessed with numbers, and is ingesting silver in an attempt to alter his appearence. Oh, and that his real name's Sandra. I think that comes through in the straight prose version of the scene but was hard to convey in a script.

I was going to include a physical description of Albie, but it would have made the piece a lot longer and really didn't seem relevant to this excercise. If I took this any further, though, I would include the description.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:24 / 01.07.03
Mordant: Ahhh, okay. I didn't get all that, but reading again, I feel that I should have. Maybe he should mimic the position of the hand in the Angel picture, implying that he seeks to become what he draws?

I got the numbers obssession (duh) and concluded he was some kind of Renfield-esque character.

grant: can you trim it?
 
 
grant
17:24 / 01.07.03
Yes -- all the dialogue between the diner employees can be trimmed & replaced with a direction something like Maddy, P.J. & George mutter among themselves while eyeing Marty with suspicion.

But I think there's more of a sense of individual character this way, especially if I'm going to use PJ and George later on in the imaginary screenplay surrounding this scene. I still don't know what Marty is all sad about (although, to be perfectly honest, I'd originally written the vignette as if he was the hit man you'd just written about in the top post for that exercise, only at the end of his story and filled with fear and remorse).

I suppose if I was eager to trim for length, the first three lines of dialogue could go. The crossfade at the end was just an idea I had - it's not in the source material.

What would you do?
 
  
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