Check out The Freshman Years, Pt. 1, to see the initial background information about these posts. More information about the ideas will be posted later in the comments. Thank you and enjoy.
(1) An idea for a short film: Longtime artist Frank Tecran reaches his creative limits and falls into a deep depression that concerns his wife, Marion. After much discussion, Frank decides to return back home to his childhood home at Cleveland,Ohio. Despite the arrival of a new baby underway and the amount of stress used on finding a new home in Cleveland, Marion reluctantly agrees and they move back within two weeks. The trip reinvigorates Frank and he announces to the world his next project which he prematurely states as his masterpiece. Unsurprisingly, the whole town keeps open eyes and ears at the prospect of a new tourist attraction that could reinvigorate its popularity. The work is finished after many months and the whole city sits patiently at its unveiling. Frank makes a heart-breaking speech about new opportunities, and allows one tear to escape just as he pulls away the cloth. Excitement turns into confusion and disgust as Frank reveals a larger than life rendering of the David's phallus. Despite the numerous amounts of complaints and death threats placed on Frank, he unabashedly defends the reputation of his statue and of himself although he does try to make it more...publicly presentable.
"What if I tied some balloons at the end of it?"
'That's a terrible idea.'
This idea would be particularly difficult to pull off, not just in the scale, but in how it's meant to be a light-hearted dramedy about a man who's suffering from depression. Also, with the statue, it's meant to be an ongoing plot-point and joke which may or may not pull the audience out of the depressing outlook cast on by Frank Tecran. At this point, the statue unveiling seems to be a pivotal moment in the short but what could be done for a follow-through? Much like my other ideas, I came up with this one while I was walking to class. It seems that my best ideas usually come from a stroll. That or the bathroom. I think if I wanted find a good resource for pulling off a dramedy with difficult subject matter, I'd try to watch 50/50 or Dr. Strangelove. The name Frank Tecran has nothing to with anything, it just sounded professional, and Marion is a good wife name; I don't have any evidence to back me up on that.
(2) A 5 minute short film. Music: Hang On Little Tomato(Pink Martini)-The short begins with a small film festival coming to an end, just as the lights turn on. Everyone starts packing up their things until only three people are left. Arley(tentative name) takes a chance to ask the two guys if he can go home with them. He gets disappointed when they say they also walked here. He sees three sandwiches on a platter, and asks if he can take them. Since he doesn't want to to carry the sandwiches on a platter, he decides to wrap them in newspaper, packs his things and leaves the building, while bidding his two friends goodbye. He carries the sandwiches in both hands, tempted to juggle them, and walks in the darkness. He gets worried by the lack people around him until he sees a couple walking not far from him. (The music is cued here) He runs up behind him, but tries making as little noise as he can. Once he's two feet away, he slows down his steps comically, and proceeds walking behind them. He smiles at the couple holding hands and applauds them for daring to walk in the dark at such a late hour. The woman turns back and sees Arley behind them, but turns back as if she saw no one. He keeps his distance and observes the two lovers and their embracing company. The two walk down some stairs, and try to jump over a few steps together which Arley doesn't do. It's been two minutes and Arley is still behind them. He watches their hands again and begins thinking about his own experiences, all of them a fragment of his imagination. He grows sadder(a cue for the music to slow down, only the piano plays, ala Up) and decides to take a different path when a fork in the road appears. He watches the couple again, and walks alone into the darkness.
This is pretty much a word-for-word retelling of what actually happened to me one night in college. I know from the description of walking behind this couple that I seem to act like a stalker, but it was about 10pm when I left the film screening and I was walking alone for almost 3 blocks in a street known for having muggings so when I saw this couple, I didn't hesitate in following them. I knew both of them so they weren't in any real danger. For the short, I would actually try to make it completely silent, with only a few gestures and cues that tell the viewer that it's late and no one can drive me home. In an unusual way, this short is meant to be a music video for the delightful song "Hang On Little Tomato" by Pink Martini, although it quickly takes on a depressing tone once the music slows down and our protagonist begins to imagine how lonely he feels. With absolutely no respite to happy-go-lucky couples, I am jealous of every happy couple I've ever seen, and I blame this on my own shortcomings and impatience in looking for someone I'd like to go out with. To be frank, the only primary reason, as of now, that I'd want to go out with anybody is to get to kiss them on the mouth. I know, it's a very selfish goal but you can't help but wonder what it feels like, and sketches or depictions on TV/movies are a distant portrayal of what must be an unforgettable experience. I've been very cynical about kissing, describing it as "moist palms pressing against each other," but I can't help but continue to wonder about it, who the lucky gal could be. I wouldn't even mind kissing a guy on the mouth, but only a peck and only for a moment. It would be tricky to recreate those emotions for the short film but it would an intriguing challenge. It would probably be difficult to find a couple willing to be depicted this way. Last thing, Pink Martini is a multi-lingual group that I believe is still active today; a really good friend of mine introduced me to them after I asked her how I wanted to expand my musical tastes; she's graduating today and if she ever reads this comment, I wish her the best of luck in college and in the future.
(3) A short story/one-act play about a high school student who behaves pleasantly in front of everyone only to hope that they will vote for him as the Salutatorian, even though he actually is quite resentful towards everyone. His hopes are dashed when his best friend recommends to him to vote for the obvious choice instead of him; he learns who the Salutatorian is at an all-school assembly and reveals his true personality publicly to everyone. His chances for a spiritual redemption come by when he learns about the school's upcoming coffeehouse showcase and starts brainstorming a fake-salutatorian speech.
"That's not funny."
'What isn't funny? It's a bike chain and a sledgehammer.'
"But what does that have to do with love?"
'It's a thinking man's joke.'
"Is the thinking man in a vegetative state?"
I was going to work on this idea last summer but it ended up being a little too personal for me to complete. I came up with the idea shortly after a good friend of mine told me to vote for someone else as the salutatorian rather than myself as is stated in the plot. We(by we, I mean, Harvard-Westlake) have an annual event called the coffeehouse, an event meant to demonstrate everybody's talents, whether it be singing, poetry, awesome instrumentals, or in my case, stand-up. I performed in 2 coffeehouses, which I will post on the blog on a later date, and was writing my material for the third. I kept changing ideas from a normal stand-up routine that made fun of Prom and nail polish (info of which can be found in "Another Comedy Routine, 9/19/11") and a fake salutatorian speech that would be comical, dramatic, and nostalgic. The fake speech, even though I thought about it constantly, wasn't completed on time and I had to drop out. The quote in the description about a bike chain and a sledgehammer was, in fact, my original material for the second coffeehouse meant to be an ambigiuous analogy for love. I told the idea to my therapist who told me where's the joke? I didn't know. If I was ever going to return to this idea, it would be much later on, after I've become more comfortable with filmmaking and with dialouge-driven scenes.
(4) A guy, Jake, enters his room after shaving his beard, only to discover his room has been invaded by dwarfs. The conversation goes back and forth in strangeness as Jake discovers he's a butt-wipe who cares about the human race, and the seemingly harmless dwarfs have committed genocide of the gnomes. Needless to say, it doesn't resolve itself very well.
This is the result of waking up early in the morning and having no one to talk to while eating breakfast in the dining halls. Just like the invisible dogs idea, this idea resulted from just imagining a guy who discovers dwarves in his room. The jokes were achingly corny and I got bored with the idea while I was thinking about it and decided to go to ridiculous extremes such as accusing the dwarves of killing off the neighboring gnomes. Rather than learn a lesson, Jake decided to kick out the dwarves for their crimes against humanity. It's fair since the dwarves called Jake a butthole most of the time. Needless to say, this is not an idea I'll revisit anytime soon.
(5) A parody of weddings as a plot device, featuring a mouse who pulls his dead fiance all the way to the altar. The animated short begins with the customary wedding march played by an organ that slowly "disintegrates" into a record player version. Many different camera angles of the church, until the mouse comes into the church.
Parody might be the wrong word to use for this admittedly disturbing criticism of weddings. Specifically, this targets weddings as a last resort for sitcom/movie ideas in how an event known to evoke strong emotions in others. If there's any recycled idea I get tired of, it's when weddings somehow get involved in soap operas and one of two things happen: either the wedding goes off without a hitch and the bride and groom are written off the show OR wither the bride/groom are (GASP) killed by the bad guy!!! It's also meant to be criticize the perfection depicted in high-scale weddings by replacing the bride and groom with mice.
(6) A story about a famous celebrity, beloved by practically everyone, who is preparing for his 'coming out' routine where he reveals his hatred for humanity.
"I hate everyone. I want everyone to die in a fire."
People, at times, can be absolutely appalled by someone's behavior, regardless of how harmless the act seems to be to the person. Others, like psychologists, are fascinated by such behavior, myself included. The idea would be a very short film chronicling the rise of this celebrity and ending with his first standup routine that tears apart the very community that brought him to prominence. The quote I posted is very harsh but would be the celebrity's opening joke in the routine. The short would end with everyone in the audience becoming speechless as the celebrity leaves the mike on the stand on the center of the stage and walks off.
(7) Imagine someone who is able to view another person's mistakes via special glasses. The mistakes can be displayed as a black or shadowed movement that parallels the "normal" movements. A theory regarding whether or not we make more mistakes than we're aware of.
This idea came about after a conversation I had with a close friend at Starbucks. I tried to imagine a visually appealing way to track every single mistake we could ever make on account of trying to figure out every single mistake we've ever made, be it simple ones like skipping out on brushing our teeth or serious ones like potentially ruining a very close relationship with someone. Since there is no accountable way of measuring just how many mistakes a person can make, it's somewhat interesting to imagine the mistakes we do count are the ones we know we've done. I also thought about the things we say being wrong and how that could be represented with the "shadow" versions, either that the wrong words would become highlighted in black and becoming visible. Needless to say, this is an incredibly difficult idea to explain with words alone.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Semaphore (First Draft)
Shortly in the beginning of the first semester, I told my friends/co-workers at IgniteTV about an idea I came up with years before about two people waiting for their job interview. The idea has since grown into a verbal battle between an arrogant artist and a neurotic artist who only draws traffic lights. I plan to finish the screenplay this summer. What's below is the first draft of Semaphore, a flawed yet ambitious draft that I wanted to be as abstract as possible, although that became its weakness when it became too abstract for even myself to comprehend. I originally wanted to piss off the audience for watching my film although that's something I'll wait to do for my following short films. This will be the first of many drafts I'll post until I finally post the completed screenplay sometime this fall. Constructive comments/questions will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Character descriptions:
Dan: A tall guy, probably 6 feet or so(Clarence doesn't have to be really short, he has to be at least 4 inches smaller but specific measurements don’t matter). Dan has lived his entire life getting what he wants, but only through optimism and continuous effort. Dan is the typical American ideal of the good-hearted worker. He is a brilliant artist(idea for his clothing: a shirt with an obscure yet comical reference to Magritte’s This is Not a (Blank). A Dan brimming with confidence. he has been very successful in most, if not all of his endeavors. His ambition is hidden well in his calm expression. While Dan is the typical ideal, he isn’t a bland, boring version of the archetype. Due to his success and background, he is unaware of what failure is supposed to be and is perplexed when he sees failure firsthand embodied by Clarence.
Clarence: A short guy(specifics about size aforementioned in Dan description) who’s glad to be in a room instead of his dank apartment. He is very passionate about his beliefs and not much else. Similar to Dan in terms of brilliance as an artist, his failures stem from his outright refusal to draw anything else other than traffic lights. Clarence is a very awkward and neurotic person, who speaks unlike anyone else, and has trouble communicating his ideas or thoughts if they have nothing to do with traffic lights. Clarence communicates his thoughts clearly with his body language. Clarence, embittered by people’s expectations of him, swears instinctively, and has a habit of “drawing” traffic lights in the air with his finger. Clarence makes more of an effort to talk with Dan when Dan expresses his interest in learning more about Clarence.
Unnamed Female Receptionist: rude, but sweet, very impatient, but understanding, depending on the person.
ESTABLISHING SHOT OF ROOM: A black screen. The room is a bleak area devoid of any kind of creativity. The waiting room, despite being a public area and showing some activity outside, has only one light source, a rotating fan, and a small table placed next to several rusted chairs. The fan above the room rotates slowly and deliberately. The table has a few magazines on top of it. In the background, we can hear the typing from a laptop, and the voice of a woman. She has a soft, yet stern voice, probably from sitting in her chair for hours without seeing anybody else.
We hear the door opening and closing. A woman flicks on the light switch.
The door opens. A tall man named Dan, walks in, recently shaved, who sees his favorite actor on the magazine. He plops down on the chair.
Dan:
I’m here for the job.
Unnamed Female Receptionist:
10 minutes, sir.
Dan:
Thanks.
He begins flipping through the magazine, looking for the actor’s picture. A few seconds later, another man, short and with a bad haircut, comes in and nervously snaps his fingers at Dan.
Dan looks up at Clarence.
Dan:
Oh, sorry. Did you want the seat?
Clarence:
Um, yes, thank you.
Clarence sits down and scoffs at the selection of magazines. He sits impatiently and tries detecting everything around the room.
Clarence:
I’m also here-
Unnamed Female Receptionist:
(quipping off-screen quickly and with little consideration) Got it, sir. 10 minutes.
Clarence:
Uh, o...kay.
Clarence recedes into his uncomfortable seat. He moves his bottom around, trying to get some kind of comfort.
Dan:
Hi. What're you here for?
Clarence:
Nothing. I heard there was a job opening and I jumped at the chance, you know?
Dan:
Yeah. Me, too.
After smiling, they remain in their seats and say nothing else for 30 seconds. The seconds practically impair the two guys as both of them begin shaking hastily and a mental battle begins as to who is going to speak next. As always, it’s the tall guy.
Dan:
(looking straight ahead at the camera, face shows some discomfort) So, whereya from?
Clarence:
(Also looking straight, although could be more transfixed at looking straight into the camera, almost like being hypnotized) Around here. ‘Bout, 20 or so minutes. (Looks at Dan) You?
Dan:
I’m from LA. Don’t really know why the hell I’m here, of all places, (chuckles nervously) going out for the lNew Yorker. You have to be a fucking genius to be here.
Clarence:
I guess I’m out of the running.
Dan:
(Laughs quietly until noticing the Clarence’s grimacing face) I was just kidding.
Clarence:
(deadpan delivery) I know. It was funny.
Dan:
But you’re not laughing.
Clarence:
Well, this is how I react to a funny joke. I don’t say anything.
Dan:
Not even a chuckle?
Clarence:
No. I think it’s rude to laugh at a joke. Then you stop thinking about it and screw up the rest of the joke. No one ever considers the beauty of an uninterrupted joke.
Dan:
Hmm. I don’t think anyone else is as considerate as you are. (Tricky delivery of being earnest and sarcastic)
Clarence:
(unassuming of the sarcasm, only assuming the earnest) Nope.
They sit back and try to get comfortable on the chairs. Clarence grabs a magazine and rolls it up, drawing two circles in the air, then a rectangle that surrounds the circles, a moment that shows how impulsive his traffic light drawing habit has become. Dan takes off his jacket, folds it, and sits on top of it.
Dan:
I’m Dan.
Clarence:
Clarence. Nice to meet you.
Dan:
Nice to meet you, too.
Dan reaches out for Clarence’s hand. The attempted handshake becomes an identity crisis with a fist bump.
Clarence:
Wait, what do you prefer, a handshake or a fist bump?
Dan:
A handshake. It’s more professional.
Clarence:
Oh, okay.
Clarence shakes Dan’s hand.
Dan:
So, how’d you find out about this job?
Clarence:
Nothing but luck, Dan. Luck and many job listing opportunities.
Dan:
Hmm. They actually contacted me and said I would be perfect for the job. I just have to go through this mandatory interview, but it should be a sweep.
Clarence:
I see. Have magazines always contacted you for a position?
Dan:
No, not always. More often, it’s newspapers and free publications, but they’re a dying industry anyway, so magazines were a natural move.
Clarence:
Yeah, they are. Undead corpses. Or is that living corpses?
Dan:
I wouldn’t know, Clarence.
Clarence:
Oh. (2-3 second pause) So where’d you graduate from?
Dan:
Rhode Island School of Design. Practically everyone told me I would drop out in a week but I showed them. I think anybody can succeed if they apply themselves well. So where’d you graduate from?”
Clarence:
I didn’t. I dropped out in a week.
Dan:
...oh.
Clarence:
It was a disaster, but luckily, I was able to survive from selling all of my art. You could not believe how highly priced a person would buy a goddamn Kindergarten journal for. It wasn’t even on the market, it was just a journal I hung on to for personal reasons, but the guy offered 10,000 dollars for it. Fuck if I wasn’t an idiot for not selling it.-Depicts the character as a resentful bastard instead of a misunderstood genius, depends on the actor’s delivery
Dan:
What’s your favorite medium?
Clarence:
Well, I’ve worked in many, many different ones but a regular number two pencil and sketchbook paper is good enough for me.
Dan:
Interesting. Well, I love to paint oil, but occasionally, I use mixed medium, such as collage, acrylic, and sharpie to create some marvelous works. I remember in high school that everyone was impressed with my art. Especially the teacher. (make less conceited) I don’t think a moment ever passed that she wouldn’t look admirably at one of my works. What about you?
Clarence:
Ah, everybody’s a critic, ‘specially in high school. Everyone gave me shit for only drawing traffic lights. Oh, but highly sexualized images are a-okay! Morons.
Dan:
You’ve (clears his throat) only drawn traffic lights?
Clarence:
Yes. They are my bread and butter except that they would be a very inconvenient choice for dinner, ‘specially when you’d use a screwdriver rather than a knife and a fork to cut off a piece and pass it to everybody.
Dan smiles awkwardly.
Clarence:
That was a joke.
Dan:
A very good one.
Clarence:
Thanks. What do you like to draw?
Dan:
Um, actually if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear more about your obsession (another word less subjective than “obsession”) with traffic lights.
Clarence:
Ugh, it’s not an obsession! I don’t understand why everybody-ok, that’s what you think, but once you hear my testimony, then you’ll understand.
Dan:
I’m sorry, I only assumed-
Clarence:
Never assume anything, Dan. Assumptions will get you selling prized Kindergarten journals in the street.
Dan reluctantly nods his head. Clarence clasps his hands together and begins pontificating his tale of singular obsession.
Clarence:
I was a little kid. Nothing at that age impressed me. Not the beautiful mobile my parents bought for me. Not even my parents. Living in “the city that never sleeps” never impressed me, either. I thought the slogan was an insult that other cities had come up with. A city that never sleeps is one with bloodshot eyes.”
Dan:
(Laughs heartily then stops, again, at Clarence’s impatient expression) Sorry.
Clarence
I walked with my mom down the street one day, heading to my preschool, and suddenly, she stopped at the sight of the red light. I never imagined that there could exist an object with such power to suddenly stop a human being at its will. I looked around and saw the cars on our side of the street, which also stopped. Impossible, I thought, but there it was, powerful machines and my creator, frozen by the glowing red light that decided your fate. The light turned green, and my mother was told by the powerful machine to move. I was fascinated. I looked again at the traffic light, seeing how much personality it had in its many curves, its beams, and in its configuration. Why draw a naked woman when I can draw a traffic light? From that moment on, I drew many traffic lights from every conceivable angle, color, and configuration. The journal I sold to that rich bastard had the best drawings of traffic lights I ever did. At that age, there was no desire for precision or perfection, just for drawing. When I found out there was more than one way to depict a traffic light, I jumped at the chance and made many more traffic lights, from every medium I could think of.
Dan:
Wow.
Clarence:
Yeah.
Dan:
Traffic lights...
Clarence:
Now do you understand?
Dan:
I don’t, but I do.
Clarence:
Don’t bullshit, man. I know it’s a weird thing but it’s a weird thing I’d prefer to accept than explain. Why this is the only pivotal thing that everybody rejects me for makes no fucking sense.
Dan:
...no, it doesn’t.
Dan begins considering why he came for the job, then looks again at Clarence who somehow got this opportunity after possibly years of failure, for a moment, forgets about the rehearsed interview he had, and wishes his new friend gets the job.
Clarence:
What are you thinking?
Dan:
…(looking at Clarence, smiling) My plane ticket was fucking expensive.
Clarence:
(laughs annoyingly loud) They usually are.
Unnamed Female Receptionist:
Okay, uh...Clarence, it’s your turn. Just walk down the hallway, to the open door.
The two previously unknown gentleman rise up from the uncomfortable rusty chairs.
Clarence:
Well, I guess I’m up.
Dan:
Yep. Good luck to you, man.
Clarence:
Thanks. You, too.
Clarence shakes Dan’s hand and steps towards the door. He opens it widely and steps inside. Dan smiles as he sees Clarence entering the room. The door begins to close. Dan sits back on his chair and begins thinking about Clarence’s unusual, yet fascinating subject matter. The door closes.
A cut to a black screen. The credits roll.
Thank you.
Character descriptions:
Dan: A tall guy, probably 6 feet or so(Clarence doesn't have to be really short, he has to be at least 4 inches smaller but specific measurements don’t matter). Dan has lived his entire life getting what he wants, but only through optimism and continuous effort. Dan is the typical American ideal of the good-hearted worker. He is a brilliant artist(idea for his clothing: a shirt with an obscure yet comical reference to Magritte’s This is Not a (Blank). A Dan brimming with confidence. he has been very successful in most, if not all of his endeavors. His ambition is hidden well in his calm expression. While Dan is the typical ideal, he isn’t a bland, boring version of the archetype. Due to his success and background, he is unaware of what failure is supposed to be and is perplexed when he sees failure firsthand embodied by Clarence.
Clarence: A short guy(specifics about size aforementioned in Dan description) who’s glad to be in a room instead of his dank apartment. He is very passionate about his beliefs and not much else. Similar to Dan in terms of brilliance as an artist, his failures stem from his outright refusal to draw anything else other than traffic lights. Clarence is a very awkward and neurotic person, who speaks unlike anyone else, and has trouble communicating his ideas or thoughts if they have nothing to do with traffic lights. Clarence communicates his thoughts clearly with his body language. Clarence, embittered by people’s expectations of him, swears instinctively, and has a habit of “drawing” traffic lights in the air with his finger. Clarence makes more of an effort to talk with Dan when Dan expresses his interest in learning more about Clarence.
Unnamed Female Receptionist: rude, but sweet, very impatient, but understanding, depending on the person.
ESTABLISHING SHOT OF ROOM: A black screen. The room is a bleak area devoid of any kind of creativity. The waiting room, despite being a public area and showing some activity outside, has only one light source, a rotating fan, and a small table placed next to several rusted chairs. The fan above the room rotates slowly and deliberately. The table has a few magazines on top of it. In the background, we can hear the typing from a laptop, and the voice of a woman. She has a soft, yet stern voice, probably from sitting in her chair for hours without seeing anybody else.
We hear the door opening and closing. A woman flicks on the light switch.
The door opens. A tall man named Dan, walks in, recently shaved, who sees his favorite actor on the magazine. He plops down on the chair.
Dan:
I’m here for the job.
Unnamed Female Receptionist:
10 minutes, sir.
Dan:
Thanks.
He begins flipping through the magazine, looking for the actor’s picture. A few seconds later, another man, short and with a bad haircut, comes in and nervously snaps his fingers at Dan.
Dan looks up at Clarence.
Dan:
Oh, sorry. Did you want the seat?
Clarence:
Um, yes, thank you.
Clarence sits down and scoffs at the selection of magazines. He sits impatiently and tries detecting everything around the room.
Clarence:
I’m also here-
Unnamed Female Receptionist:
(quipping off-screen quickly and with little consideration) Got it, sir. 10 minutes.
Clarence:
Uh, o...kay.
Clarence recedes into his uncomfortable seat. He moves his bottom around, trying to get some kind of comfort.
Dan:
Hi. What're you here for?
Clarence:
Nothing. I heard there was a job opening and I jumped at the chance, you know?
Dan:
Yeah. Me, too.
After smiling, they remain in their seats and say nothing else for 30 seconds. The seconds practically impair the two guys as both of them begin shaking hastily and a mental battle begins as to who is going to speak next. As always, it’s the tall guy.
Dan:
(looking straight ahead at the camera, face shows some discomfort) So, whereya from?
Clarence:
(Also looking straight, although could be more transfixed at looking straight into the camera, almost like being hypnotized) Around here. ‘Bout, 20 or so minutes. (Looks at Dan) You?
Dan:
I’m from LA. Don’t really know why the hell I’m here, of all places, (chuckles nervously) going out for the lNew Yorker. You have to be a fucking genius to be here.
Clarence:
I guess I’m out of the running.
Dan:
(Laughs quietly until noticing the Clarence’s grimacing face) I was just kidding.
Clarence:
(deadpan delivery) I know. It was funny.
Dan:
But you’re not laughing.
Clarence:
Well, this is how I react to a funny joke. I don’t say anything.
Dan:
Not even a chuckle?
Clarence:
No. I think it’s rude to laugh at a joke. Then you stop thinking about it and screw up the rest of the joke. No one ever considers the beauty of an uninterrupted joke.
Dan:
Hmm. I don’t think anyone else is as considerate as you are. (Tricky delivery of being earnest and sarcastic)
Clarence:
(unassuming of the sarcasm, only assuming the earnest) Nope.
They sit back and try to get comfortable on the chairs. Clarence grabs a magazine and rolls it up, drawing two circles in the air, then a rectangle that surrounds the circles, a moment that shows how impulsive his traffic light drawing habit has become. Dan takes off his jacket, folds it, and sits on top of it.
Dan:
I’m Dan.
Clarence:
Clarence. Nice to meet you.
Dan:
Nice to meet you, too.
Dan reaches out for Clarence’s hand. The attempted handshake becomes an identity crisis with a fist bump.
Clarence:
Wait, what do you prefer, a handshake or a fist bump?
Dan:
A handshake. It’s more professional.
Clarence:
Oh, okay.
Clarence shakes Dan’s hand.
Dan:
So, how’d you find out about this job?
Clarence:
Nothing but luck, Dan. Luck and many job listing opportunities.
Dan:
Hmm. They actually contacted me and said I would be perfect for the job. I just have to go through this mandatory interview, but it should be a sweep.
Clarence:
I see. Have magazines always contacted you for a position?
Dan:
No, not always. More often, it’s newspapers and free publications, but they’re a dying industry anyway, so magazines were a natural move.
Clarence:
Yeah, they are. Undead corpses. Or is that living corpses?
Dan:
I wouldn’t know, Clarence.
Clarence:
Oh. (2-3 second pause) So where’d you graduate from?
Dan:
Rhode Island School of Design. Practically everyone told me I would drop out in a week but I showed them. I think anybody can succeed if they apply themselves well. So where’d you graduate from?”
Clarence:
I didn’t. I dropped out in a week.
Dan:
...oh.
Clarence:
It was a disaster, but luckily, I was able to survive from selling all of my art. You could not believe how highly priced a person would buy a goddamn Kindergarten journal for. It wasn’t even on the market, it was just a journal I hung on to for personal reasons, but the guy offered 10,000 dollars for it. Fuck if I wasn’t an idiot for not selling it.-Depicts the character as a resentful bastard instead of a misunderstood genius, depends on the actor’s delivery
Dan:
What’s your favorite medium?
Clarence:
Well, I’ve worked in many, many different ones but a regular number two pencil and sketchbook paper is good enough for me.
Dan:
Interesting. Well, I love to paint oil, but occasionally, I use mixed medium, such as collage, acrylic, and sharpie to create some marvelous works. I remember in high school that everyone was impressed with my art. Especially the teacher. (make less conceited) I don’t think a moment ever passed that she wouldn’t look admirably at one of my works. What about you?
Clarence:
Ah, everybody’s a critic, ‘specially in high school. Everyone gave me shit for only drawing traffic lights. Oh, but highly sexualized images are a-okay! Morons.
Dan:
You’ve (clears his throat) only drawn traffic lights?
Clarence:
Yes. They are my bread and butter except that they would be a very inconvenient choice for dinner, ‘specially when you’d use a screwdriver rather than a knife and a fork to cut off a piece and pass it to everybody.
Dan smiles awkwardly.
Clarence:
That was a joke.
Dan:
A very good one.
Clarence:
Thanks. What do you like to draw?
Dan:
Um, actually if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear more about your obsession (another word less subjective than “obsession”) with traffic lights.
Clarence:
Ugh, it’s not an obsession! I don’t understand why everybody-ok, that’s what you think, but once you hear my testimony, then you’ll understand.
Dan:
I’m sorry, I only assumed-
Clarence:
Never assume anything, Dan. Assumptions will get you selling prized Kindergarten journals in the street.
Dan reluctantly nods his head. Clarence clasps his hands together and begins pontificating his tale of singular obsession.
Clarence:
I was a little kid. Nothing at that age impressed me. Not the beautiful mobile my parents bought for me. Not even my parents. Living in “the city that never sleeps” never impressed me, either. I thought the slogan was an insult that other cities had come up with. A city that never sleeps is one with bloodshot eyes.”
Dan:
(Laughs heartily then stops, again, at Clarence’s impatient expression) Sorry.
Clarence
I walked with my mom down the street one day, heading to my preschool, and suddenly, she stopped at the sight of the red light. I never imagined that there could exist an object with such power to suddenly stop a human being at its will. I looked around and saw the cars on our side of the street, which also stopped. Impossible, I thought, but there it was, powerful machines and my creator, frozen by the glowing red light that decided your fate. The light turned green, and my mother was told by the powerful machine to move. I was fascinated. I looked again at the traffic light, seeing how much personality it had in its many curves, its beams, and in its configuration. Why draw a naked woman when I can draw a traffic light? From that moment on, I drew many traffic lights from every conceivable angle, color, and configuration. The journal I sold to that rich bastard had the best drawings of traffic lights I ever did. At that age, there was no desire for precision or perfection, just for drawing. When I found out there was more than one way to depict a traffic light, I jumped at the chance and made many more traffic lights, from every medium I could think of.
Dan:
Wow.
Clarence:
Yeah.
Dan:
Traffic lights...
Clarence:
Now do you understand?
Dan:
I don’t, but I do.
Clarence:
Don’t bullshit, man. I know it’s a weird thing but it’s a weird thing I’d prefer to accept than explain. Why this is the only pivotal thing that everybody rejects me for makes no fucking sense.
Dan:
...no, it doesn’t.
Dan begins considering why he came for the job, then looks again at Clarence who somehow got this opportunity after possibly years of failure, for a moment, forgets about the rehearsed interview he had, and wishes his new friend gets the job.
Clarence:
What are you thinking?
Dan:
…(looking at Clarence, smiling) My plane ticket was fucking expensive.
Clarence:
(laughs annoyingly loud) They usually are.
Unnamed Female Receptionist:
Okay, uh...Clarence, it’s your turn. Just walk down the hallway, to the open door.
The two previously unknown gentleman rise up from the uncomfortable rusty chairs.
Clarence:
Well, I guess I’m up.
Dan:
Yep. Good luck to you, man.
Clarence:
Thanks. You, too.
Clarence shakes Dan’s hand and steps towards the door. He opens it widely and steps inside. Dan smiles as he sees Clarence entering the room. The door begins to close. Dan sits back on his chair and begins thinking about Clarence’s unusual, yet fascinating subject matter. The door closes.
A cut to a black screen. The credits roll.
Monday, May 14, 2012
"Mental" Notes: The Freshman Years (Pt. 1 of 2)
With this post, I premiere my new column, "Mental" Notes. It's meant to be a public way to flex my brain lobes during an intense period of writer's block. "Mental" Notes, although it is meant to be a type of public forum, won't have the same kind of grammatical attention as other posts will, as it's meant to be a stream-of-consciousness form of brainstorming. "Mental" Notes won't be a weekly column, and there's a chance two posts of "Mental" Notes might follow the other on the next day or have a space of a month without another post.
College was a wonderful experience, at least during the first weeks. After that, it became increasingly difficult to get inspired enough to write anything so any idea that would cross my mind, I would immediately type it via Evernote, even if it meant getting certain details to be very specific or vague enough that I could recall it later that night. I would continue to complain to everyone I knew how most of my ideas were either repetitive, blockbuster-ish, nonsensical, or just terrible, although everyone still wanted to hear about it. If anything, the only thing holding me back this year was my own self-criticism. There were several projects that I've been working on for weeks, Semaphore being one of them, but the writing process has been such a pain that these once entertaining projects have now become a burden, one I wish I could just do away with. Despite my negativity, I plan to finish Semaphore this summer. In fact, every single time I type anything, it feels like I'm just regurgitating someone else's ideas and passing them off as my own. Maybe I'm facing reality at this point, realizing that since I'm in college, I have to think about a likely career which at this point is being a writer, but that's as ambiguous a career as you can get. Now that I've bored you all with my incessant negativity, let's get to the point. The following ideas are some of the bright points of my wallowing, obscure beginnings as a writer in college, the few times when just considering how an idea could work have been a joy to figure out. Since I acknowledged it, one thing I will work on over the summer is improving my outlook on life. Whether it'll make a difference by the end of the summer, I'll have to see. I'll post more information about the individual ideas in the comments. Enjoy!
(1) An average, normal day at Case Western Reserve University goes on as a junior takes a break from studying to read his favorite short story by Ray Bradbury. All is well and peaceful until a car drops from out of nowhere right into the middle of the street. The care lands nose-first and scrapes along for a few feet until stopping and dropping its back wheels onto the street. The junior looks away from the book and rushes over to the car. After struggling to open it, he uses his book to smash open the window, and opens the door with the door handle. He looks around for a second to see if anybody is inside when his entire arm is being held up a loud, growling noise. A dog leaps from the car and starts attacking the junior.
"This is what I get for saving your life?" he retorts as he slips off his jacket and drops it, which the dog continues to chew on. The junior cautiously enters the car, and notices something in the back. There are a stack of paint cans that cover most of the back seat. When the junior touches the can, all of them collapse on him and the junior is completely drenched in paint. After checking the labels, he's relieved in knowing that the paint is non-toxic but astonished when he realizes what year the cans are from: 2100(The current year is 2011). One of the dogs waits in the front of the car, shaking nervously, until it sees the junior approaching him carefully, and finally embracing him energetically with many licks on the cheek. The dog who attacks him tries again with the junior grabbing the dog's body and forcing it to behave properly. The dog gets half its body doused with "future" paint, as a result, so other people only see its backside instead of its front. The junior doesn't realize he's invisible until he notices a curious police officer paying no attention to him as the officer investigates the crash. The officer bumps into him and gets frightened, claiming that there's something in the car that can't be seen. The group of students try to approach the car but the officer threatens to punish anyone who does. The junior sees the dogs leaping out of the car and tries to follow them. The crowd screams in horror at the sight of the attacking dog's hind legs and tail.
"Where are you going?" says the junior to the dog. "Come on!" he picks up the two dogs and runs away.
One morning, when I was walking to class, a quick scene played out in my mind that involved a car landing nose-first and dragging itself on the road for about 8 seconds while the hapless college student can only watch. From that point, ridiculous plot points kept making more connections to the idea until reaching the conclusion that the car was part of an experiment that went wrong(not horribly wrong, mind you). At one point, during the original draft, I made an unnecessary joke about that the paint cans covered by the shroud resembled a corpse, scaring the junior to fall back on the car horn. To be fair, the plot is rich enough that I could consider it for a short story in the future, but far too advanced and technologically demanding for a short film.
(2) An R-rated movie for kids. A poorly timed music festival goes horribly wrong when riots threaten to destroy the entire city. The riots end after a week but the effect on the city doesn't. No one dares to try to leave their homes in fear of looters and graffiti artists. Two brothers, 13 and 8, do the unthinkable and go to the site of the music festival. They notice a banner that has been ripped from its pole but is still in pretty good shape. They go back home and try to make a kite of the banner. At the same time, a powerful gust of wind takes the two brothers, working in the garage, out of it, and into the skies, all 1000 feet of it. Hanging on tightly, the brothers begin fearing for their lives until they get high enough that they are able to see beyond the city and are amazed at the sight of it. Brothers paragliding across the country using many large fabrics to get to their destination. Later on, they improve the design of the first banner, are able to find a second banner, and begin a ludicrous cross-country journey around the US. A frightening moment: bullies start chasing the two brothers and obtain a weapon to try to pierce the fabric.
This idea came about in a vivid dream I had one night. It began with both me and my brother running away from a manic who's shooting at us. A few bullets pierce bits of the fabric that we're holding. The maniac starts reloading bullets, just as my brother and I notice a steep drop ahead of us. At that moment, two of the maniac's cronies drop in from nowhere with automatic machine guns and RPG's. We have no choice but leap from the edge. We let the fabric unravel, open up, and the wind currents miraculously carry us into the skies. The maniac pulls out his own fabric (from out of nowhere) and chase us. The dream skips the chase and ends with my brother and I flying next to some hot air balloons. The background, about the ruined music festival, was included afterwards for the concept. This is a concept I'd love to return to in the future, possibly when I have a large enough budget to film it.
(3) A man watching television is verbally assaulted by the television personality(TP) he's watching. After a few seconds of futile insults, the TP starts hurling glass bottles at him(that don't break)-(the man has difficulty reacting to the bottles hitting his head, only being able to slur out an inaudible word) until, finally, the man decides to turn off the TV and go for a walk. He opens the door, and takes a step, and falls 10-15 feet in a ditch that surrounds his house. For the next few minutes, the man struggles to pull himself out of the ditch despite his broken bones.
3) This idea came to mind shortly after a ridiculously long study session. I was walking back to my dorm, and an image of a man, whose fluids have been replaced by rancid toxins, watches an increasingly boring program. It was one of my many inspiring daydreams that temporarily replace reality with an unusual premise. It becomes a problem when I act out the scene in real-time to people in passing. The idea for the man to fall in the ditch was a way to surprise the viewer in my hallucinatory fantasy. Shortly after, I preceded to watch an entire web series, CrackedTV, from beginning to end…and it was still Wednesday.
(4) A college student, upon realizing he's becoming less and less social, decides to overcome his fear of greeting everyone while walking by deciding to embarrass himself and say "Ripe figs" repeatedly while walking in numerous tones(whispering and shouting).
(5) A short story/short film describing your trouble with making mac and cheese in college. It'll be called "Mac and Cheese".
This was my idea for my first short film before writing Semaphore. It would've starred myself as the hapless college student who forgot to practice making mac and cheese before coming to college. It would've been a combination of slapstick, visual gags, and exaggerated facial expressions (just like every other comedy). It was based on my actual first attempt at making mac and cheese one Friday afternoon when I was too lazy to head over to the dining halls which was a 2 minute walk from my dorm. I followed the instructions very closely but still made the mistake of drowning my macaroni in boiling hot water, causing the individual pasta pits to mend into a clump of fabricated greed. I poured the cheese on it and ate it, clump and all. It was the most embarrassing thing I'd eaten up to that point but I only had to wait two days for more disgraceful examples of sustaining myself in college.
(6) A short "foreign" film about someone who is with his friend, but then cuts his lips deeply. Done with gibberish and body gestures.
After writing the first draft of Semaphore, I took a walk and had this scene play in my head. It was supposed to be a heightened example of gestures being a way to express emotions coupled with buckets of blood pouring out of the lips (because that's funny, right?) Overall, this was more of an amusing thought than something I would consider making.
(7) Possible idea for a Spanish short story: the tale of a rat who survives a nuclear blast.
After I took Introduction of Spanish Literature, I realized that I didn't give enough attention to the Spanish culture as I should have all these years and in the spirit of the work of Julio Cortázar, I decided to write my own short story in Spanish. This was the first idea I considered. To be fair, it never went beyond this sentence and a quick little sketch I drew to visualize the impact, but it would've been a combination of prose and poetry, giving an impression of the explosion but never explaining where/why it happened. The rat would've been an interesting analogue for the aftermath of the blast. For some reason, I'm inspired by explosions, the look, sound, and feel of them, and like Hollywood, it's something I tend to heavily abuse during my daydreams.
College was a wonderful experience, at least during the first weeks. After that, it became increasingly difficult to get inspired enough to write anything so any idea that would cross my mind, I would immediately type it via Evernote, even if it meant getting certain details to be very specific or vague enough that I could recall it later that night. I would continue to complain to everyone I knew how most of my ideas were either repetitive, blockbuster-ish, nonsensical, or just terrible, although everyone still wanted to hear about it. If anything, the only thing holding me back this year was my own self-criticism. There were several projects that I've been working on for weeks, Semaphore being one of them, but the writing process has been such a pain that these once entertaining projects have now become a burden, one I wish I could just do away with. Despite my negativity, I plan to finish Semaphore this summer. In fact, every single time I type anything, it feels like I'm just regurgitating someone else's ideas and passing them off as my own. Maybe I'm facing reality at this point, realizing that since I'm in college, I have to think about a likely career which at this point is being a writer, but that's as ambiguous a career as you can get. Now that I've bored you all with my incessant negativity, let's get to the point. The following ideas are some of the bright points of my wallowing, obscure beginnings as a writer in college, the few times when just considering how an idea could work have been a joy to figure out. Since I acknowledged it, one thing I will work on over the summer is improving my outlook on life. Whether it'll make a difference by the end of the summer, I'll have to see. I'll post more information about the individual ideas in the comments. Enjoy!
(1) An average, normal day at Case Western Reserve University goes on as a junior takes a break from studying to read his favorite short story by Ray Bradbury. All is well and peaceful until a car drops from out of nowhere right into the middle of the street. The care lands nose-first and scrapes along for a few feet until stopping and dropping its back wheels onto the street. The junior looks away from the book and rushes over to the car. After struggling to open it, he uses his book to smash open the window, and opens the door with the door handle. He looks around for a second to see if anybody is inside when his entire arm is being held up a loud, growling noise. A dog leaps from the car and starts attacking the junior.
"This is what I get for saving your life?" he retorts as he slips off his jacket and drops it, which the dog continues to chew on. The junior cautiously enters the car, and notices something in the back. There are a stack of paint cans that cover most of the back seat. When the junior touches the can, all of them collapse on him and the junior is completely drenched in paint. After checking the labels, he's relieved in knowing that the paint is non-toxic but astonished when he realizes what year the cans are from: 2100(The current year is 2011). One of the dogs waits in the front of the car, shaking nervously, until it sees the junior approaching him carefully, and finally embracing him energetically with many licks on the cheek. The dog who attacks him tries again with the junior grabbing the dog's body and forcing it to behave properly. The dog gets half its body doused with "future" paint, as a result, so other people only see its backside instead of its front. The junior doesn't realize he's invisible until he notices a curious police officer paying no attention to him as the officer investigates the crash. The officer bumps into him and gets frightened, claiming that there's something in the car that can't be seen. The group of students try to approach the car but the officer threatens to punish anyone who does. The junior sees the dogs leaping out of the car and tries to follow them. The crowd screams in horror at the sight of the attacking dog's hind legs and tail.
"Where are you going?" says the junior to the dog. "Come on!" he picks up the two dogs and runs away.
One morning, when I was walking to class, a quick scene played out in my mind that involved a car landing nose-first and dragging itself on the road for about 8 seconds while the hapless college student can only watch. From that point, ridiculous plot points kept making more connections to the idea until reaching the conclusion that the car was part of an experiment that went wrong(not horribly wrong, mind you). At one point, during the original draft, I made an unnecessary joke about that the paint cans covered by the shroud resembled a corpse, scaring the junior to fall back on the car horn. To be fair, the plot is rich enough that I could consider it for a short story in the future, but far too advanced and technologically demanding for a short film.
(2) An R-rated movie for kids. A poorly timed music festival goes horribly wrong when riots threaten to destroy the entire city. The riots end after a week but the effect on the city doesn't. No one dares to try to leave their homes in fear of looters and graffiti artists. Two brothers, 13 and 8, do the unthinkable and go to the site of the music festival. They notice a banner that has been ripped from its pole but is still in pretty good shape. They go back home and try to make a kite of the banner. At the same time, a powerful gust of wind takes the two brothers, working in the garage, out of it, and into the skies, all 1000 feet of it. Hanging on tightly, the brothers begin fearing for their lives until they get high enough that they are able to see beyond the city and are amazed at the sight of it. Brothers paragliding across the country using many large fabrics to get to their destination. Later on, they improve the design of the first banner, are able to find a second banner, and begin a ludicrous cross-country journey around the US. A frightening moment: bullies start chasing the two brothers and obtain a weapon to try to pierce the fabric.
This idea came about in a vivid dream I had one night. It began with both me and my brother running away from a manic who's shooting at us. A few bullets pierce bits of the fabric that we're holding. The maniac starts reloading bullets, just as my brother and I notice a steep drop ahead of us. At that moment, two of the maniac's cronies drop in from nowhere with automatic machine guns and RPG's. We have no choice but leap from the edge. We let the fabric unravel, open up, and the wind currents miraculously carry us into the skies. The maniac pulls out his own fabric (from out of nowhere) and chase us. The dream skips the chase and ends with my brother and I flying next to some hot air balloons. The background, about the ruined music festival, was included afterwards for the concept. This is a concept I'd love to return to in the future, possibly when I have a large enough budget to film it.
(3) A man watching television is verbally assaulted by the television personality(TP) he's watching. After a few seconds of futile insults, the TP starts hurling glass bottles at him(that don't break)-(the man has difficulty reacting to the bottles hitting his head, only being able to slur out an inaudible word) until, finally, the man decides to turn off the TV and go for a walk. He opens the door, and takes a step, and falls 10-15 feet in a ditch that surrounds his house. For the next few minutes, the man struggles to pull himself out of the ditch despite his broken bones.
3) This idea came to mind shortly after a ridiculously long study session. I was walking back to my dorm, and an image of a man, whose fluids have been replaced by rancid toxins, watches an increasingly boring program. It was one of my many inspiring daydreams that temporarily replace reality with an unusual premise. It becomes a problem when I act out the scene in real-time to people in passing. The idea for the man to fall in the ditch was a way to surprise the viewer in my hallucinatory fantasy. Shortly after, I preceded to watch an entire web series, CrackedTV, from beginning to end…and it was still Wednesday.
(4) A college student, upon realizing he's becoming less and less social, decides to overcome his fear of greeting everyone while walking by deciding to embarrass himself and say "Ripe figs" repeatedly while walking in numerous tones(whispering and shouting).
After a brainstorming session about programs to consider airing on the college television station, I thought about an unusual PSA that encouraged people to say "Ripe Figs" as a way to break the ice in the college community. I would be the unfortunate guinea pig in the skit for Case Jackass (a show that sounds exactly like what you'd expect) and says "Ripe Figs" in a large crowd of people while someone would be filming from a distance. This is still currently a "private" idea but would be worth a shot as an abnormal experiment or at least a conversation topic for the cynics at Case Western.
(5) A short story/short film describing your trouble with making mac and cheese in college. It'll be called "Mac and Cheese".
This was my idea for my first short film before writing Semaphore. It would've starred myself as the hapless college student who forgot to practice making mac and cheese before coming to college. It would've been a combination of slapstick, visual gags, and exaggerated facial expressions (just like every other comedy). It was based on my actual first attempt at making mac and cheese one Friday afternoon when I was too lazy to head over to the dining halls which was a 2 minute walk from my dorm. I followed the instructions very closely but still made the mistake of drowning my macaroni in boiling hot water, causing the individual pasta pits to mend into a clump of fabricated greed. I poured the cheese on it and ate it, clump and all. It was the most embarrassing thing I'd eaten up to that point but I only had to wait two days for more disgraceful examples of sustaining myself in college.
(6) A short "foreign" film about someone who is with his friend, but then cuts his lips deeply. Done with gibberish and body gestures.
After writing the first draft of Semaphore, I took a walk and had this scene play in my head. It was supposed to be a heightened example of gestures being a way to express emotions coupled with buckets of blood pouring out of the lips (because that's funny, right?) Overall, this was more of an amusing thought than something I would consider making.
(7) Possible idea for a Spanish short story: the tale of a rat who survives a nuclear blast.
After I took Introduction of Spanish Literature, I realized that I didn't give enough attention to the Spanish culture as I should have all these years and in the spirit of the work of Julio Cortázar, I decided to write my own short story in Spanish. This was the first idea I considered. To be fair, it never went beyond this sentence and a quick little sketch I drew to visualize the impact, but it would've been a combination of prose and poetry, giving an impression of the explosion but never explaining where/why it happened. The rat would've been an interesting analogue for the aftermath of the blast. For some reason, I'm inspired by explosions, the look, sound, and feel of them, and like Hollywood, it's something I tend to heavily abuse during my daydreams.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The Only Part I Remember From The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
I wrote this in 11th grade for English class. Up to this point, it's the only essay I've ever written that got an A, even though it's very flawed. We were assigned to write a personal essay, and could write about anything we wanted, and as soon as I got the approval, I immediately started writing. Normally, in this section, I would divulge every single detail I can remember about writing this, but this time, I'll let you, the reader, make those inferences if you wish. Today, I return home and my first year of college is concluding. I'm posting this completely unedited, as it was originally written when I first turned it in.
I’m a pessimistic person. It’s a known fact. I can recall maybe a few things of my childhood that are precious enough to exhibit on a photo album with Precious or Treasured Memories already printed on the cover, with the same elegant font. You would think companies like that wouldn’t switch it up every once in a while. My whole childhood does resonate in my mind frequently, but it’s a painful, killing motion just like firing a pistol in an enclosed space and hearing the booming noise of the Liberty Bell smacking against both sides of your brain. Don’t get me wrong, the whole freedom of being a child was certainly enjoyable(along with the occasional tantrum), but I seriously can’t find many defining moments in the past 17 years that would be worth mentioning casually at dinner. But…there have been some.
Toy Story is my favorite film of all time. Many would scoff at such a decision, same as I would scoff at them for laughing at the “funniest thing ever” only for that position to be usurped in a day. I can imagine the emperor, in the shape of a banana peel, choking and coughing on a drink served to him by “knock knock joke”. I still remember, vividly, when I was only 3 yrs. old, the family took out the new Nissan ‘95 model for a spin, which is no longer as magnificent and powerful as it once was. We drove to a Jons marketplace, though not the one close to where we live, my parents saw the cardboard standup of Buzz flying as high as his aspirations, with Sheriff Woody, tightly grabbing Buzz’s leg, and praying that he doesn’t fall. My parents just couldn’t resist that tempting cardboard and bought the movie, in Spanish. We came home, we turned on our television set, vrrrring then clicking to reveal the snow, turned on the VCR set, and then I fell in love. I was captivated by the characters, the colors, the humorous actors and situations, the wonderful music, and finally, the credits. The whole movie was absolutely perfect, and it was a position that I never challenged, even in my later years, as an obnoxious, pessimistic teenager. There are just too many classic moments to recall in that film: Woody’s meeting with the toys, the plastic army men performing an impressive espionage mission, and John Ratzenburger with his amazing voice, being supplied to the classic know-it-all, Hamm. It wasn’t just a small role for John. And who could forget ol’ Forrest Gump himself, Mister Tom Hanks? Tom is my favorite actor and though I’ve seen him in many movies, I hereby declare his career defining performance to being the voice of Sheriff Woody. I know some will disagree…I know many will disagree, but I can’t help but just want to state that as a fact, since it is a fact, a factual fact. Anyway, Toy Story is one of the few defining moments of my childhood. After seeing that movie, I began drawing and haven’t stopped yet. It’s become one of my most enthusiastic endeavors, alongside writing. My dream is to create as a story as beloved as Toy Story, and one that makes its permanent mark in the film industry and the world. Such high aspirations for such a low thinker.
Something happened upon re-watching Toy Story upon finally becoming seventeen. People claim that I obsess over the most ridiculous details. But one particular detail from the movie struck me like a harpoon, piercing the durable flesh off a whale in the middle of a thunderous storm. For much time, I enjoyed the joke that Etch N Sketch draws the lamp that Woody used to push Buzz out the window. Oh, wait. It’s not a lamp, is it? For most of my life, that’s what I wanted to imagine it was. Toy Story was a cute film with adorable characters that had problems that get resolved in the end like a fairy tale. Toy Story is also an unapologetic human drama that explores the rawest emotions that toys can develop. It was then, I realized but refused to accept, Etch N Sketch drew a noose, fit for the most bastardy scoundrel. Even the most wonderful part of my childhood had grown up. (There’s also a kiss ass joke and a vulgar joke but that doesn’t pertain here.)
Growing up is a challenge. That sentence has been written and typed by many people, in different ways, and can be considered as the eponymous statement of the century, but only since it’s true. For a long time I wanted to consider the noose as a lamp, not only due to its shape, but because it would just make more for sense for me as an ignorant 10 year old, who wanted to believe that everything was okay when his mother told him so, even when it clearly wasn’t. Toy Story is a film that has grown up alongside with me over time. I can now find different, sophisticated reasons to appreciate the wonders that this film delivers. However, the first time I found out that it was a noose, I laughed. Hard. At 11: 00 pm. With no one else around to ask me what the joke was. But after laughing, I started shivering. Shaking. I felt like my joke was macabre, offensive, as a badly worded Holocaust joke which for the record, I have tried on several occasions. I always get blank stares. When at one point, as a kid, I thought about how awesome the rocket scene in the movie was, now when I think of Toy Story, I thinking about Bo Peep saying, “why don’t I get someone else to watch the sheep tonight?” and then Woody laughs as awkwardly, yet as teasingly as he could. What a horn-dog. I can’t even blame that kind of thinking as simply being immature, now I’m challenging the logic of reproduction with these plastic figures. I can’t even believe I just typed that sentence.
It’s a difficult transition to go through in gaining such responsibility, a word I hereby nominate as severely overused. When, at an early age, you begin to draw outside the lines or play in the sandbox with the kid and his little red truck, suddenly you’re presented with explaining why you drew outside the lines and designing that same red truck or even improving its design. Much like my progression with the movie, it seems that many of the films choices are no longer adorable or frightening just because that’s how the movie was made, with no previous planning. Now, I realize the guys at Pixar are geniuses at what they do, but they fight and struggle with their choices as much as any other career does. The guys at Pixar are the same as the race car driver, the choreographer, or the scientist. Woody wasn’t the handsome cowboy we know and love at one point, originally he was a cynical, snarky, rude, short-tempered ventriloquist doll who looked frighteningly like Chucky. Also, my idol, director John Lasseter and his team went through hundreds of drafts for Woody’s first line in the movie. His first line! To think it must’ve taken weeks for them to come up with, “Pull my string. The birthday party’s today?” Geniuses. That’s the only way I can describe them. I’ve decided, half-heartedly, that I want to become an animator, but I’m still not absolutely confident I can pull such a thing off. Hell, it’s taken me 16 years to realize that I should write my thoughts down…on paper. Not just say it to people and hope they like it, but to…write…it…down. And it took me 17 years to finally understand what I’m supposed to be figuring out for essays, which is still such a struggle. In trying to articulate my thoughts as coherently as possible, I have taken the first step towards maturity. But if seeing those moments in Toy story makes me uncomfortable and even traumatic, am I capable of taking that step? Can I fathom what a drop that step will be? I predict it’ll be, at least, a 30,000 foot drop, with the cartoon smoke that always dooms Wile E. Coyote.
As a little kid, I found myself negatively obsessed with Toy Story. Now let me explain what that means. Just like any franchise, I found myself purchasing whatever product I could from the toy store that was about Toy story. I even bought the Luxo ball so that I could bounce on it, even though the weight distribution would prompt immediate death and a frightening squeal from the ball. I was as abusive as the psychosomatic maniac, Sid, when it came to the treatment of my “prized” Toy Story figures. I remember on a cloudy day, nothing like Andy’s room’s wallpaper, where if weather reflected emotions, it would be pitch black. For no impertinent reason, I walked to the middle of the driveway, holding my Buzz Lightyear with both hands, and shouting “To Infinity and Beyond!” hurling Buzz through the air almost 20 feet. He was a spaceman and had been trained to handle such intense forces of gravity, but he was also made of PLASTIC-Kkk and couldn’t survive the flight back down to cruel mother earth even he tried to. I was always careful, and when I knew I couldn’t catch the spaceman, I didn’t try to. I would be absolutely traumatized if I saw Buzz penetrating the rock-solid concrete at such a frightening speed, no one to help him as his carefully designed buttons and features would scatter across the place, cracking and breaking into indiscernible bits. I rarely swear in public if it’s only a stream of curse words with no subject, verb, or meaning. Saying it just for the sake of saying it, but I promise that I would frighten the poor bastard for daring to rape the integrity of that beautiful film by doing just as the film’s villain had, and not realizing the significance of these wonderful characters. Then again, I was 4. I wasn’t thinking about rape nor did it ever occur to me to type, write, or say the word. It even confounds me that such a word even exists or that it’s always thrown out in public like “the” or “and”. I’ve never heard of a conversation that didn’t contain either word, and can’t imagine anyone trying it, even for some kind of viral recognition. YouTube is making just too easy for anyone to become recognized, and that wouldn’t be a problem for me if the people being recognized were worthy of being recognized. Such random exposure to things like in YouTube would’ve confused and possibly annihilated the curiosity of a 4 years old toy torturer/space explorer that he would never want to think about anything else since he’d realize just how horrible and unapologetic any word, term, or phrase can be. What he had once thought as innocent, millions of others see as a destructive, poisonous force.
But I’m being pessimistic. The film, no doubt, has some of its morals intact, memorable life lessons that I will remember forever since people won’t stop repeating them. You can stop telling me to be myself; I learned that lesson a long time ago. Strangely enough, I can’t find myself to stop making the connections between Toy Story and A Streetcar named Desire. At first glance, yes this comparison is not worthy of being compared. The two movies have absolutely no possible way of being compared, and without even…Okay, I’ll stop now. Blanche Dubois was someone who didn’t want to let go of what her life had established, a reputation of a life that had no chance of evolving into this time period, a woman with her moth-like gestures trying to suck up as much of the spotlight as she can, yet not allowing it to consume her in a blanketed inferno that no soul would try to put out. I know that sounds confusing so…let’s try that again. Blanche is a misunderstood woman, living in a city she misunderstands, trying to find an explanation that justifies all of her torment. As it turns out, Blanche never finds this justification and is thrown into the mental institution, even though she was the sanest of the other characters. Arguably. Favorable spaceman Buzz Lightyear went through the same mental scenario; arriving in Andy’s room, he captures the attention of all but one toy, the most resilient one who won’t dare to move from his established position. Yes, Woody is Stanley Kowalski and better yet, Marlon Brando would’ve seen the connection as well. Heh, imagine if Woody shouted like Stan-oh wait… “YOU… ARE… A…TOY!!!” Brando would’ve been proud. Anyway, both Buzz and Blanche search for their identities without doing so, but are forced to confront reality when it is the most and only appropriate solution to their ongoing conflicts. Pixar took risks by placing Woody and Buzz in that dramatic and Oscar-worthy scene, where both on the toys “death row”, contemplate their previous actions and (realize what they had been missing all their lives). It’s truly a noteworthy scene that…well, I don’t remember if I did cry the first time I saw it, but I promise that it would make me emotional if I saw it today or even years or decades later. Woody is talking the whole time, but Buzz never looks up, even to relax his neck, just…thinking. Even the actors mention that Buzz is legitimately depressed at this moment and it seems that nothing can pull him out of it. This moment is Blanche’s moment at the very end of Streetcar, though not done quite as graphically, but just as emotionally, and on some days, I feel like I’ve been strapped onto that rocket, and I don’t care about how heavy or volatile the rocket may be, but all I know is that rocket is the only thing it takes for my life to end, in a fiery explosion, in a blocked out state of mind, in a reality that has lied to me for the last time. But…Pixar does what I can’t even do without some kind of help. They remind me that there is someone nearby who can help, a cowboy, sitting under a crate just a foot away, standing as the brightness of the morning sky clears away the thickest fog painted onto the window, pushing with all of the might his stuffy arms and delicate exterior can exact onto the crate. Woody pushes, the uplifting music joining him, pushes, pushes, and then Buzz joins him, and they push, and push, and then Woody is freed, and then Buzz keeps pushing and then… Classic movie moment. The moment is purely physical comedy, but it’s done with such finesse and nostalgic brilliance that I promise I will laugh at that sequence every single time it happens. Woody may be my favorite character, but you have to have to laugh at yourself every once in a while. Woody’s expression just as the toolbox falls on him is just classic. God, I love this movie!
Yes, I have been…a little pessimistic throughout the whereabouts of my life, and now that I think about it, I’ve been unfair to myself. But it hasn’t been my entire fault. Life has been a constant struggle that challenges me every day to do something worthwhile. Life can be pretty damn annoying in that sense. I mean, I can’t even take a 5 minute break without life telling me that I should stretch out my arms in order to get more comfortable. I just typed a…2, 637-ah, make that 8, word essay and life still wants me to keep working. At this point in time, I will freely admit that I have been disappointingly lazy, despite my sudden interest in everything except academics, so that could be a factor for not wanting to work. But, also, work can’t be the only factor of my life, and Pixar knows this. Their careers encapsulate everything I dream of accomplishing in the future, and my appreciation for their remarkable and ingenious contribution to films will be everlasting. But that’s not what my childhood was about. No, my childhood was about the story of two toys, which were different from one another, who learned to accept each other as individuals, and become lifelong friends. I will admit part of that sentence was said by Tom Hanks in a television interview, and I paraphrased it…a little, but I do respect Tom that much to confess, and to acknowledge that he explained the meaning of the film better than I could. All right, I give it another shot. Toy Story is about a group of toys that have an undying appreciation for their imaginative owner Andy; it’s also about human struggles, the search for oneself in an ever-changing world, and the complications that plague their lives constantly. It’s a wonderful, beautiful film that I cannot help, but look back on sometimes when I want a simplified explanation to life, and sadly, for this, the film no longer delivers. But that is my fault since my personal philosophy can be connected back to the movie (and Curb Your Enthusiasm), and everyone knows that philosophy tends to be complicated. What it does deliver is something that, even after all these years, I still can’t directly explain, gives me a renewed appreciation for the wonders of life, and reminds me of the imaginative potential that everyone is capable of. There are exceptions, small ones. It’s a movie that reminds me that toys are not just a product of commercialism as we’ve forced ourselves to believe in trying to seem mature, but that toys are the only aspect of our lives that we have an eternal connection to, a never-ending wire that can reach long and beyond the end of the universe, a cementation of our souls that we will always love, no matter how much more complicated the world becomes. I love Toy Story, and… will never forget the permanent influence it’s given me, for it is not simply a 76 minute long strand of film. Toy Story is me, and as far as I know, that’s a pretty good thing.
I’m a pessimistic person. It’s a known fact. I can recall maybe a few things of my childhood that are precious enough to exhibit on a photo album with Precious or Treasured Memories already printed on the cover, with the same elegant font. You would think companies like that wouldn’t switch it up every once in a while. My whole childhood does resonate in my mind frequently, but it’s a painful, killing motion just like firing a pistol in an enclosed space and hearing the booming noise of the Liberty Bell smacking against both sides of your brain. Don’t get me wrong, the whole freedom of being a child was certainly enjoyable(along with the occasional tantrum), but I seriously can’t find many defining moments in the past 17 years that would be worth mentioning casually at dinner. But…there have been some.
Toy Story is my favorite film of all time. Many would scoff at such a decision, same as I would scoff at them for laughing at the “funniest thing ever” only for that position to be usurped in a day. I can imagine the emperor, in the shape of a banana peel, choking and coughing on a drink served to him by “knock knock joke”. I still remember, vividly, when I was only 3 yrs. old, the family took out the new Nissan ‘95 model for a spin, which is no longer as magnificent and powerful as it once was. We drove to a Jons marketplace, though not the one close to where we live, my parents saw the cardboard standup of Buzz flying as high as his aspirations, with Sheriff Woody, tightly grabbing Buzz’s leg, and praying that he doesn’t fall. My parents just couldn’t resist that tempting cardboard and bought the movie, in Spanish. We came home, we turned on our television set, vrrrring then clicking to reveal the snow, turned on the VCR set, and then I fell in love. I was captivated by the characters, the colors, the humorous actors and situations, the wonderful music, and finally, the credits. The whole movie was absolutely perfect, and it was a position that I never challenged, even in my later years, as an obnoxious, pessimistic teenager. There are just too many classic moments to recall in that film: Woody’s meeting with the toys, the plastic army men performing an impressive espionage mission, and John Ratzenburger with his amazing voice, being supplied to the classic know-it-all, Hamm. It wasn’t just a small role for John. And who could forget ol’ Forrest Gump himself, Mister Tom Hanks? Tom is my favorite actor and though I’ve seen him in many movies, I hereby declare his career defining performance to being the voice of Sheriff Woody. I know some will disagree…I know many will disagree, but I can’t help but just want to state that as a fact, since it is a fact, a factual fact. Anyway, Toy Story is one of the few defining moments of my childhood. After seeing that movie, I began drawing and haven’t stopped yet. It’s become one of my most enthusiastic endeavors, alongside writing. My dream is to create as a story as beloved as Toy Story, and one that makes its permanent mark in the film industry and the world. Such high aspirations for such a low thinker.
Something happened upon re-watching Toy Story upon finally becoming seventeen. People claim that I obsess over the most ridiculous details. But one particular detail from the movie struck me like a harpoon, piercing the durable flesh off a whale in the middle of a thunderous storm. For much time, I enjoyed the joke that Etch N Sketch draws the lamp that Woody used to push Buzz out the window. Oh, wait. It’s not a lamp, is it? For most of my life, that’s what I wanted to imagine it was. Toy Story was a cute film with adorable characters that had problems that get resolved in the end like a fairy tale. Toy Story is also an unapologetic human drama that explores the rawest emotions that toys can develop. It was then, I realized but refused to accept, Etch N Sketch drew a noose, fit for the most bastardy scoundrel. Even the most wonderful part of my childhood had grown up. (There’s also a kiss ass joke and a vulgar joke but that doesn’t pertain here.)
Growing up is a challenge. That sentence has been written and typed by many people, in different ways, and can be considered as the eponymous statement of the century, but only since it’s true. For a long time I wanted to consider the noose as a lamp, not only due to its shape, but because it would just make more for sense for me as an ignorant 10 year old, who wanted to believe that everything was okay when his mother told him so, even when it clearly wasn’t. Toy Story is a film that has grown up alongside with me over time. I can now find different, sophisticated reasons to appreciate the wonders that this film delivers. However, the first time I found out that it was a noose, I laughed. Hard. At 11: 00 pm. With no one else around to ask me what the joke was. But after laughing, I started shivering. Shaking. I felt like my joke was macabre, offensive, as a badly worded Holocaust joke which for the record, I have tried on several occasions. I always get blank stares. When at one point, as a kid, I thought about how awesome the rocket scene in the movie was, now when I think of Toy Story, I thinking about Bo Peep saying, “why don’t I get someone else to watch the sheep tonight?” and then Woody laughs as awkwardly, yet as teasingly as he could. What a horn-dog. I can’t even blame that kind of thinking as simply being immature, now I’m challenging the logic of reproduction with these plastic figures. I can’t even believe I just typed that sentence.
It’s a difficult transition to go through in gaining such responsibility, a word I hereby nominate as severely overused. When, at an early age, you begin to draw outside the lines or play in the sandbox with the kid and his little red truck, suddenly you’re presented with explaining why you drew outside the lines and designing that same red truck or even improving its design. Much like my progression with the movie, it seems that many of the films choices are no longer adorable or frightening just because that’s how the movie was made, with no previous planning. Now, I realize the guys at Pixar are geniuses at what they do, but they fight and struggle with their choices as much as any other career does. The guys at Pixar are the same as the race car driver, the choreographer, or the scientist. Woody wasn’t the handsome cowboy we know and love at one point, originally he was a cynical, snarky, rude, short-tempered ventriloquist doll who looked frighteningly like Chucky. Also, my idol, director John Lasseter and his team went through hundreds of drafts for Woody’s first line in the movie. His first line! To think it must’ve taken weeks for them to come up with, “Pull my string. The birthday party’s today?” Geniuses. That’s the only way I can describe them. I’ve decided, half-heartedly, that I want to become an animator, but I’m still not absolutely confident I can pull such a thing off. Hell, it’s taken me 16 years to realize that I should write my thoughts down…on paper. Not just say it to people and hope they like it, but to…write…it…down. And it took me 17 years to finally understand what I’m supposed to be figuring out for essays, which is still such a struggle. In trying to articulate my thoughts as coherently as possible, I have taken the first step towards maturity. But if seeing those moments in Toy story makes me uncomfortable and even traumatic, am I capable of taking that step? Can I fathom what a drop that step will be? I predict it’ll be, at least, a 30,000 foot drop, with the cartoon smoke that always dooms Wile E. Coyote.
As a little kid, I found myself negatively obsessed with Toy Story. Now let me explain what that means. Just like any franchise, I found myself purchasing whatever product I could from the toy store that was about Toy story. I even bought the Luxo ball so that I could bounce on it, even though the weight distribution would prompt immediate death and a frightening squeal from the ball. I was as abusive as the psychosomatic maniac, Sid, when it came to the treatment of my “prized” Toy Story figures. I remember on a cloudy day, nothing like Andy’s room’s wallpaper, where if weather reflected emotions, it would be pitch black. For no impertinent reason, I walked to the middle of the driveway, holding my Buzz Lightyear with both hands, and shouting “To Infinity and Beyond!” hurling Buzz through the air almost 20 feet. He was a spaceman and had been trained to handle such intense forces of gravity, but he was also made of PLASTIC-Kkk and couldn’t survive the flight back down to cruel mother earth even he tried to. I was always careful, and when I knew I couldn’t catch the spaceman, I didn’t try to. I would be absolutely traumatized if I saw Buzz penetrating the rock-solid concrete at such a frightening speed, no one to help him as his carefully designed buttons and features would scatter across the place, cracking and breaking into indiscernible bits. I rarely swear in public if it’s only a stream of curse words with no subject, verb, or meaning. Saying it just for the sake of saying it, but I promise that I would frighten the poor bastard for daring to rape the integrity of that beautiful film by doing just as the film’s villain had, and not realizing the significance of these wonderful characters. Then again, I was 4. I wasn’t thinking about rape nor did it ever occur to me to type, write, or say the word. It even confounds me that such a word even exists or that it’s always thrown out in public like “the” or “and”. I’ve never heard of a conversation that didn’t contain either word, and can’t imagine anyone trying it, even for some kind of viral recognition. YouTube is making just too easy for anyone to become recognized, and that wouldn’t be a problem for me if the people being recognized were worthy of being recognized. Such random exposure to things like in YouTube would’ve confused and possibly annihilated the curiosity of a 4 years old toy torturer/space explorer that he would never want to think about anything else since he’d realize just how horrible and unapologetic any word, term, or phrase can be. What he had once thought as innocent, millions of others see as a destructive, poisonous force.
But I’m being pessimistic. The film, no doubt, has some of its morals intact, memorable life lessons that I will remember forever since people won’t stop repeating them. You can stop telling me to be myself; I learned that lesson a long time ago. Strangely enough, I can’t find myself to stop making the connections between Toy Story and A Streetcar named Desire. At first glance, yes this comparison is not worthy of being compared. The two movies have absolutely no possible way of being compared, and without even…Okay, I’ll stop now. Blanche Dubois was someone who didn’t want to let go of what her life had established, a reputation of a life that had no chance of evolving into this time period, a woman with her moth-like gestures trying to suck up as much of the spotlight as she can, yet not allowing it to consume her in a blanketed inferno that no soul would try to put out. I know that sounds confusing so…let’s try that again. Blanche is a misunderstood woman, living in a city she misunderstands, trying to find an explanation that justifies all of her torment. As it turns out, Blanche never finds this justification and is thrown into the mental institution, even though she was the sanest of the other characters. Arguably. Favorable spaceman Buzz Lightyear went through the same mental scenario; arriving in Andy’s room, he captures the attention of all but one toy, the most resilient one who won’t dare to move from his established position. Yes, Woody is Stanley Kowalski and better yet, Marlon Brando would’ve seen the connection as well. Heh, imagine if Woody shouted like Stan-oh wait… “YOU… ARE… A…TOY!!!” Brando would’ve been proud. Anyway, both Buzz and Blanche search for their identities without doing so, but are forced to confront reality when it is the most and only appropriate solution to their ongoing conflicts. Pixar took risks by placing Woody and Buzz in that dramatic and Oscar-worthy scene, where both on the toys “death row”, contemplate their previous actions and (realize what they had been missing all their lives). It’s truly a noteworthy scene that…well, I don’t remember if I did cry the first time I saw it, but I promise that it would make me emotional if I saw it today or even years or decades later. Woody is talking the whole time, but Buzz never looks up, even to relax his neck, just…thinking. Even the actors mention that Buzz is legitimately depressed at this moment and it seems that nothing can pull him out of it. This moment is Blanche’s moment at the very end of Streetcar, though not done quite as graphically, but just as emotionally, and on some days, I feel like I’ve been strapped onto that rocket, and I don’t care about how heavy or volatile the rocket may be, but all I know is that rocket is the only thing it takes for my life to end, in a fiery explosion, in a blocked out state of mind, in a reality that has lied to me for the last time. But…Pixar does what I can’t even do without some kind of help. They remind me that there is someone nearby who can help, a cowboy, sitting under a crate just a foot away, standing as the brightness of the morning sky clears away the thickest fog painted onto the window, pushing with all of the might his stuffy arms and delicate exterior can exact onto the crate. Woody pushes, the uplifting music joining him, pushes, pushes, and then Buzz joins him, and they push, and push, and then Woody is freed, and then Buzz keeps pushing and then… Classic movie moment. The moment is purely physical comedy, but it’s done with such finesse and nostalgic brilliance that I promise I will laugh at that sequence every single time it happens. Woody may be my favorite character, but you have to have to laugh at yourself every once in a while. Woody’s expression just as the toolbox falls on him is just classic. God, I love this movie!
Yes, I have been…a little pessimistic throughout the whereabouts of my life, and now that I think about it, I’ve been unfair to myself. But it hasn’t been my entire fault. Life has been a constant struggle that challenges me every day to do something worthwhile. Life can be pretty damn annoying in that sense. I mean, I can’t even take a 5 minute break without life telling me that I should stretch out my arms in order to get more comfortable. I just typed a…2, 637-ah, make that 8, word essay and life still wants me to keep working. At this point in time, I will freely admit that I have been disappointingly lazy, despite my sudden interest in everything except academics, so that could be a factor for not wanting to work. But, also, work can’t be the only factor of my life, and Pixar knows this. Their careers encapsulate everything I dream of accomplishing in the future, and my appreciation for their remarkable and ingenious contribution to films will be everlasting. But that’s not what my childhood was about. No, my childhood was about the story of two toys, which were different from one another, who learned to accept each other as individuals, and become lifelong friends. I will admit part of that sentence was said by Tom Hanks in a television interview, and I paraphrased it…a little, but I do respect Tom that much to confess, and to acknowledge that he explained the meaning of the film better than I could. All right, I give it another shot. Toy Story is about a group of toys that have an undying appreciation for their imaginative owner Andy; it’s also about human struggles, the search for oneself in an ever-changing world, and the complications that plague their lives constantly. It’s a wonderful, beautiful film that I cannot help, but look back on sometimes when I want a simplified explanation to life, and sadly, for this, the film no longer delivers. But that is my fault since my personal philosophy can be connected back to the movie (and Curb Your Enthusiasm), and everyone knows that philosophy tends to be complicated. What it does deliver is something that, even after all these years, I still can’t directly explain, gives me a renewed appreciation for the wonders of life, and reminds me of the imaginative potential that everyone is capable of. There are exceptions, small ones. It’s a movie that reminds me that toys are not just a product of commercialism as we’ve forced ourselves to believe in trying to seem mature, but that toys are the only aspect of our lives that we have an eternal connection to, a never-ending wire that can reach long and beyond the end of the universe, a cementation of our souls that we will always love, no matter how much more complicated the world becomes. I love Toy Story, and… will never forget the permanent influence it’s given me, for it is not simply a 76 minute long strand of film. Toy Story is me, and as far as I know, that’s a pretty good thing.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
P106-The Car Accident(Rough Draft)
Harold gets into a car accident and is forced to walk down the 405 while
trying to remember how the accident happened, trying to deliver an
important package to the closed post office, and trying to deliver a
gallon of milk for his wife.
This is something I've promised for a very long time, one of the few Presenter episodes that I thought had such potential that it would be worth writing about, but ultimately, like all of my ambitious ideas, it blew apart the minute I realized I wouldn't be up to the task of writing an entire episode, plus, the creative spark that lead to the episode's inception just hasn't returned in a versatile way. Despite those shortcomings, to satisfy the "audience" I have, I will post the incomplete first draft of the episode. Things to note: this draft only has half of the ideas from the original premise. Things that weren't included is a scene of 3-4 minutes of Harold talking to the milk as though it was his companion, similar to how I talk to myself in a state of paranoia when I'm alone for a period of time; another scene is where Harold is picked by a friendly stranger but kicked out when Harold decides to eat only a third of a candy bar; and even the original premise didn't have an ending. Admittedly, this premise borrows heavily from elements of Curb Your Enthusiasm, only exaggerated to levels even Larry David would never consider. The dialogue isn't as "fresh" as I remembered when I first tried to write this and may seem to be more disturbing than hilarious. Maybe I've become a harsh self-critic but recently, everything I've written hasn't been up to my standards, whatever those may be. Also, Season 3 will be posted very soon, but it will be the last season. I do love the premise of the Presenters, but I think it's time to move on. With that said, don't take this script very seriously as everything written is only for the sake of comedy, even if it's unfunny comedy. Thanks for reading and enjoy (if you do). Comments are always welcome.
Things (in parenthesis) are alternatives to lines written. They also indicate actions the characters make. A (weird) running joke is that Harold's wife doesn't have a name. This issue is addressed with in a later episode.
(Amateur Version) A blank screen. Unlike previous episodes, it opens with the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm. The song plays for several seconds until cutting to a flashing siren and a loud wail. We cut to tow officers discussing the wreckage. Another cut shows the 405 still active although there's a noticeable curve of red lights and a patch of red, blue, and white. Another cut shows a car that has been flipped upside down. The camera moves towards the front of the car and the vague representation of fingers curled around the wheel. At this point, the song abruptly stops; a close up reveals Harold, still grabbing tightly onto the wheel, eyes blank and staring straight ahead at the road or sky. He looks quickly to the left and the right and unbuckles his seat belt. His body drops onto the floor, and his head bounces off the surface. In a panic, he searches around his car, and sees a gallon of milk, still strapped in the back seat. He carefully unbuckles it and grabs once it drops. An outside shot shows the side door trembling until a foot pushes it out. Harold carefully crawls out of the car. Once out, he turns back and sees the wreckage just as a fire ignites from the underside.
Harold: Hmm...
Harold sees an officer making a call and walks up to him.
Harold: Scuse me.
Officer #1: Hm?
Harold: Are you busy?
Officer 1: A little. Wait just a second.
Harold waits and checks on the damage of the car. A weird feeling creeps in on Harold and he begins coughing and hacking up loudly. Off camera, he spits out his cell phone.
Officer 1: Sir, what seems to be the problem?
Harold: (cleaning up the spit with his sleeve) Uh, well, I was the person who just had an accident. I, uh, climbed out of my car. I might have damaged my internal organs!
Officer 1: Sir, calm down. You look fine. Please return to your vehicle.
Harold: Is that a joke?!
Officer 1: Yes. Terrible, isn’t it?
Harold: Where are the paramedics? I, I need to get checked out. Something might be out of place!
Officer 1: Straight ahead. And don’t scream in front of an officer. You could be seen as a threat. (walks away)
Harold: (raises his hand) Won’t do that again. Sorry. (under his breath) Asshole.
Harold turns again to see the damage on his vehicle. (He pulls his wallet out and whimpers upon realizing the amount it will be to repair his car, or at least to be sold to a foolish buyer). Harold sees the paramedics.
Harold: Uh, scuse me?
Paramedic 1: What’s the problem, sir?
Harold: well, I just got into an accident and I was wondering if I might have any broken bones, or anything in that criteria.
Paramedic 2: What criteria?
Harold: Well, you know, the physical damage to the body. Look, can you just check me?
Paramedic 1: (shrugging at Paramedic 2) You look fine. Most people probably couldn’t walk up to us if their bones were broken. You did, so…
Harold: Walking is nothing! I might’ve gotten a temporary dose of adrenaline. My stomach might’ve been pierced. My small intestine twisted up! Please, just a quick checkup!
Paramedic 2: Sir!! You’re fine! Now, please, we have to see if everyone else is okay.
Harold: And who could that be?! I have the only upside down car right now!
Paramedic 1: Sir!
Harold: All right. God! (walks away)
Harold feels a rumble in his pants. He checks his phone. A close-up shows 6 missed calls from the Editor.
Harold: Oh, shit. (pushes send) ...helloooo?
The Editor: Harold, what the fuck happened to you? When I call a person, I expect him to fucking answer!
Harold: I know, I know. I’m sorry. I…I just got into an accident and-
The Editor: Harold, (don’t start flinging this shit in my direction). You’re supposed to be the reliable one.
Harold: I know.
The Editor: For God’s sake, I have to constantly hear this hullabaloo from those idiots you call friends and suddenly I get the same fucking routine from you?
Harold: Sir, it’s not a routine. I was driving down the 405 in a hurry, I black out for a second, and suddenly I’m upside down-
The Editor: Harold, you’re full of shit. Listen, I need you to do something for me.
Harold: What is it?
The Editor: There’s a really important package that you need to pick up from the post office.
Harold: Uh, I think it’s-
The Editor: I’ll text you the address. Now hurry. And next time, I will call you only once. If you don’t respond, you’ll be kicked out of my responsible list. Understood?
Harold: Yes, but-
The Editor: See you tomorrow. (hangs up)
Harold: How am I going to get there? (closes his phone) Damn it.
Harold holds his phone tightly and remembers the gallon of milk. He goes back to the car and picks it up. He begins walking away from the wreckage and towards the edge of the freeway when a huge explosion stops him. He turns back and sees his car smoldering and burning.
Harold: Course.
Harold walks away from the worse wreckage and walks into the darkness.
Harold shakes the gallon of milk to make sure it doesn't have any punctures or holes. Harold feels his phone vibrating and answers it.
Harold: Hello?
Wife: Hi, honey!
Harold: Oh, hi, (), how are you?
Wife: Fine, fine. Just been working on my (stuff). It's taking me a goddamn hour to complete it. How are you?
Harold: Uhhh...don't get worried. I'm fine...I kinda got into an accident-
Wife: WHAT?! Oh my god, are you okay?!
Harold: Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine, I only have a few scratches. 'Cording to the paramedics, I'm perfectly fine if I can take a few steps forward.
Wife: Oh, that's a relief! Did you get the milk?
Harold: What?
Wife: The milk?
Harold: Oh, the milk. Yes, it was...my second passenger. In fact, it was the first thing I thought about after I got flipped upside down that the milk was still intact.
Wife: I'm sorry, but you know how important the milk is for the cake. It's a specific brand that's very popular-
Harold: I know, I know. I'm sorry, honey. Didn't mean to overreact on you.
Wife: It's okay. You have the milk, right?
Harold: Honey, I'm cradling it in my arms as we speak.
(Wife: Good. Do you want me to pick you up?
Harold: You could...uh, it's gonna be a little tricky, though.
Wife: You can just stay at the edge of the highway and wait for me to pick you up.
Harold: I know, but...there's a lot of rapists in dark places. (You might not want to pick me up when you arrive.)
Wife: Harold, don't be silly. No one's sane enough(going) to rape you.
Harold: How do you know?!
Wife: Harold.
Harold: Sorry, sorry.
Wife: Where exactly are you?
Harold: You know that giant hotel that's right at the crossroads of the 405?
Wife: You know...I'm just gonna use the GPS. I'll be over there pretty soon.
Harold: All right, see you later, then.
Wife: Bye. Don't get raped.)
She hangs up.
Harold: I'll try not to. Harold: Hmm...
.......................
If you want to see a visual interpretation of this scene, go here.
This is something I've promised for a very long time, one of the few Presenter episodes that I thought had such potential that it would be worth writing about, but ultimately, like all of my ambitious ideas, it blew apart the minute I realized I wouldn't be up to the task of writing an entire episode, plus, the creative spark that lead to the episode's inception just hasn't returned in a versatile way. Despite those shortcomings, to satisfy the "audience" I have, I will post the incomplete first draft of the episode. Things to note: this draft only has half of the ideas from the original premise. Things that weren't included is a scene of 3-4 minutes of Harold talking to the milk as though it was his companion, similar to how I talk to myself in a state of paranoia when I'm alone for a period of time; another scene is where Harold is picked by a friendly stranger but kicked out when Harold decides to eat only a third of a candy bar; and even the original premise didn't have an ending. Admittedly, this premise borrows heavily from elements of Curb Your Enthusiasm, only exaggerated to levels even Larry David would never consider. The dialogue isn't as "fresh" as I remembered when I first tried to write this and may seem to be more disturbing than hilarious. Maybe I've become a harsh self-critic but recently, everything I've written hasn't been up to my standards, whatever those may be. Also, Season 3 will be posted very soon, but it will be the last season. I do love the premise of the Presenters, but I think it's time to move on. With that said, don't take this script very seriously as everything written is only for the sake of comedy, even if it's unfunny comedy. Thanks for reading and enjoy (if you do). Comments are always welcome.
Things (in parenthesis) are alternatives to lines written. They also indicate actions the characters make. A (weird) running joke is that Harold's wife doesn't have a name. This issue is addressed with in a later episode.
(Amateur Version) A blank screen. Unlike previous episodes, it opens with the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm. The song plays for several seconds until cutting to a flashing siren and a loud wail. We cut to tow officers discussing the wreckage. Another cut shows the 405 still active although there's a noticeable curve of red lights and a patch of red, blue, and white. Another cut shows a car that has been flipped upside down. The camera moves towards the front of the car and the vague representation of fingers curled around the wheel. At this point, the song abruptly stops; a close up reveals Harold, still grabbing tightly onto the wheel, eyes blank and staring straight ahead at the road or sky. He looks quickly to the left and the right and unbuckles his seat belt. His body drops onto the floor, and his head bounces off the surface. In a panic, he searches around his car, and sees a gallon of milk, still strapped in the back seat. He carefully unbuckles it and grabs once it drops. An outside shot shows the side door trembling until a foot pushes it out. Harold carefully crawls out of the car. Once out, he turns back and sees the wreckage just as a fire ignites from the underside.
Harold: Hmm...
Harold sees an officer making a call and walks up to him.
Harold: Scuse me.
Officer #1: Hm?
Harold: Are you busy?
Officer 1: A little. Wait just a second.
Harold waits and checks on the damage of the car. A weird feeling creeps in on Harold and he begins coughing and hacking up loudly. Off camera, he spits out his cell phone.
Officer 1: Sir, what seems to be the problem?
Harold: (cleaning up the spit with his sleeve) Uh, well, I was the person who just had an accident. I, uh, climbed out of my car. I might have damaged my internal organs!
Officer 1: Sir, calm down. You look fine. Please return to your vehicle.
Harold: Is that a joke?!
Officer 1: Yes. Terrible, isn’t it?
Harold: Where are the paramedics? I, I need to get checked out. Something might be out of place!
Officer 1: Straight ahead. And don’t scream in front of an officer. You could be seen as a threat. (walks away)
Harold: (raises his hand) Won’t do that again. Sorry. (under his breath) Asshole.
Harold turns again to see the damage on his vehicle. (He pulls his wallet out and whimpers upon realizing the amount it will be to repair his car, or at least to be sold to a foolish buyer). Harold sees the paramedics.
Harold: Uh, scuse me?
Paramedic 1: What’s the problem, sir?
Harold: well, I just got into an accident and I was wondering if I might have any broken bones, or anything in that criteria.
Paramedic 2: What criteria?
Harold: Well, you know, the physical damage to the body. Look, can you just check me?
Paramedic 1: (shrugging at Paramedic 2) You look fine. Most people probably couldn’t walk up to us if their bones were broken. You did, so…
Harold: Walking is nothing! I might’ve gotten a temporary dose of adrenaline. My stomach might’ve been pierced. My small intestine twisted up! Please, just a quick checkup!
Paramedic 2: Sir!! You’re fine! Now, please, we have to see if everyone else is okay.
Harold: And who could that be?! I have the only upside down car right now!
Paramedic 1: Sir!
Harold: All right. God! (walks away)
Harold feels a rumble in his pants. He checks his phone. A close-up shows 6 missed calls from the Editor.
Harold: Oh, shit. (pushes send) ...helloooo?
The Editor: Harold, what the fuck happened to you? When I call a person, I expect him to fucking answer!
Harold: I know, I know. I’m sorry. I…I just got into an accident and-
The Editor: Harold, (don’t start flinging this shit in my direction). You’re supposed to be the reliable one.
Harold: I know.
The Editor: For God’s sake, I have to constantly hear this hullabaloo from those idiots you call friends and suddenly I get the same fucking routine from you?
Harold: Sir, it’s not a routine. I was driving down the 405 in a hurry, I black out for a second, and suddenly I’m upside down-
The Editor: Harold, you’re full of shit. Listen, I need you to do something for me.
Harold: What is it?
The Editor: There’s a really important package that you need to pick up from the post office.
Harold: Uh, I think it’s-
The Editor: I’ll text you the address. Now hurry. And next time, I will call you only once. If you don’t respond, you’ll be kicked out of my responsible list. Understood?
Harold: Yes, but-
The Editor: See you tomorrow. (hangs up)
Harold: How am I going to get there? (closes his phone) Damn it.
Harold holds his phone tightly and remembers the gallon of milk. He goes back to the car and picks it up. He begins walking away from the wreckage and towards the edge of the freeway when a huge explosion stops him. He turns back and sees his car smoldering and burning.
Harold: Course.
Harold walks away from the worse wreckage and walks into the darkness.
Harold shakes the gallon of milk to make sure it doesn't have any punctures or holes. Harold feels his phone vibrating and answers it.
Harold: Hello?
Wife: Hi, honey!
Harold: Oh, hi, (), how are you?
Wife: Fine, fine. Just been working on my (stuff). It's taking me a goddamn hour to complete it. How are you?
Harold: Uhhh...don't get worried. I'm fine...I kinda got into an accident-
Wife: WHAT?! Oh my god, are you okay?!
Harold: Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine, I only have a few scratches. 'Cording to the paramedics, I'm perfectly fine if I can take a few steps forward.
Wife: Oh, that's a relief! Did you get the milk?
Harold: What?
Wife: The milk?
Harold: Oh, the milk. Yes, it was...my second passenger. In fact, it was the first thing I thought about after I got flipped upside down that the milk was still intact.
Wife: I'm sorry, but you know how important the milk is for the cake. It's a specific brand that's very popular-
Harold: I know, I know. I'm sorry, honey. Didn't mean to overreact on you.
Wife: It's okay. You have the milk, right?
Harold: Honey, I'm cradling it in my arms as we speak.
(Wife: Good. Do you want me to pick you up?
Harold: You could...uh, it's gonna be a little tricky, though.
Wife: You can just stay at the edge of the highway and wait for me to pick you up.
Harold: I know, but...there's a lot of rapists in dark places. (You might not want to pick me up when you arrive.)
Wife: Harold, don't be silly. No one's sane enough(going) to rape you.
Harold: How do you know?!
Wife: Harold.
Harold: Sorry, sorry.
Wife: Where exactly are you?
Harold: You know that giant hotel that's right at the crossroads of the 405?
Wife: You know...I'm just gonna use the GPS. I'll be over there pretty soon.
Harold: All right, see you later, then.
Wife: Bye. Don't get raped.)
She hangs up.
Harold: I'll try not to. Harold: Hmm...
.......................
If you want to see a visual interpretation of this scene, go here.
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