After
learning the screenwriter’s “secret handshake”, so to speak, I made my first
attempt at writing a screenplay. When I was little, I used to play pretend games, which is my own
technological term for make-believe. I always enlisted my eye-less American
Girl Doll (don’t ask me how she lost her eyes because I can’t remember) to be
my helpless sidekick, who I was always begrudgingly saving from boiling lava or
car crashes or Annie’s Mrs. Hannigan.
In this same fashion, I pretended that I was at a prestigious writer’s workshop
in order to write this script. Unfortunately, my blind American Girl Doll is no
longer with us, and so was regrettably unable to attend.
By motivating myself with a
fictitious writing instructor, I adapted one of Matthew Rohrer’s poems from A
Green Light into a one-act script. On a side note, for those of you who
have not read Matthew Rohrer’s poems, I urge you to do so. Although I now have
a track record for giving overly generous book reviews, A Green Light
blew my mind and changed my view on just about everything. While Keane’s work
was exemplary, I don’t know if I could say the same for How to Write a
Selling Screenplay. So anyways, here goes nothing…
DOG BOY SCRIPT
INT. MATTHEW’S SILVER TOYOTA CAMRY --
NIGHT
ANGLE We can only see
MATTHEW’s hands gripping the steering wheel. Then right hand turns up the
radio. The BUZZ of the fuzzy radio fades as Matthew twists the dial.
MAN ON RADIO
Fumble! And it looks like Mike
Wallace picked up the ball. At
the forty... What a block by
tight end Heath Miller! Steelers
now with the ball at the thirty,
the twenty--
Another, more feminine
hand moves towards the dial from the passenger side and twists it. This is
Matthew’s wife, LILAH. Now we hear STATIC on the radio.
MATTHEW
What are you doing? There’s
less
than a minute left in
the
fourth quarter!
Lilah drops her hand.
She’s indifferent. Matthew twists the dial again, and more STATIC can be heard
before he finds the right station.
MAN ON RADIO
What a great day to be a Steeler’s
fan,
folks--
MATTHEW
(irritated)
That would mean we won, right?
We see Lilah for the first
time, and she shrugs her shoulders, indifferent. She’s beautiful. She twists
the dial and SAPPY POP MUSIC starts playing. Matthew GROANS.
MATTHEW
No.
Matthew jabs the radio
button and the car gets quiet. SMASH CUT TO:
EXT. INTERSTATE 279 -- CONTINUOUS
The car speeds through the
rain and we hear the SLOSH of the tires. The rain is coming down hard and it
looks like they’re the only people on the highway.
LILAH (V.O.)
I still don’t see why we can’t
go
to my parent’s house for
Christmas
this year, just this
once.
INT. SILVER TOYOTA CAMRY --
CONTINUOUS
Matthew rolls his eyes;
they’ve already had this argument before.
MATTHEW
Do you want to be the one to
call my mother and tell her
we aren’t coming, then?
LILAH
(quiet)
No.
Beat.
She’s your mother.
Lilah opens her purse,
searching for something. She finds chapstick, pulls it out, and puts it on.
EXT. INTERSTATE 279 -- CONTINUOUS
The car pulls off of the
high way takes a right on red, then slows and makes another right turn. The
SOUND OF RAIN gets louder.
CLOSE on a green street
SIGN that reads:
SCOTT ROAD
INT. SILVER TOYOTA CAMRY – CONTINUOUS
Matthew slides his right
hand through his long hair. He looks tired and middle-aged, even though he
isn’t over 35.
MATTHEW
(passive)
Why don’t we just listen to
the radio again.
ANGLE Matthew’s hand
twists the dial again, and this time the STATIC doesn’t fade away.
LILAH
We have to talk about this, Matt.
Lilah’s
hand turns the radio off.
MATTHEW
(voice cracks)
I thought we already did!
Matthew’s hand turns the
radio on. Lilah quickly turns it off. SMASH CUT TO:
EXT. SCOTT ROAD -- CONTINUOUS
The car is moving fast. All
we can hear is the off and on of the STATIC SOUND coming from the radio. This
goes on for a few seconds.
INT. SILVER TOYOTA CAMRY
Lilah
pulls her hand away and looks out the window.
LILAH
It’s not working anyway.
Matthew twists to look in
his back seat, using his right hand to search for something.
MATTHEW
Where’s my Bob Dylan CD?
LILAH
Your what?
MATTHEW
That one your brother lent me
last thanksgiving.
ANGLE Matthew’s left hand
shakes to hold the wheel straight.
LILAH
(screams)
Matthew!
MATTHEW
What? What?
Matthew looks up and slams
on his brakes. A SMALL MAN on all fours runs across the road. His head is down
and his butt is in the air; he looks like a bulldog trying to gallop.
Man’s P.O.V.: Through the
rain and the windshield, we see Matthew and Lilah standing with their mouths
open, staring. SMASH CUT TO:
Matthew’s P.O.V.: The
man’s face is scrunched up as he tries to look into the car. But as quickly as
he had come, he sprints into the woods on all fours. We hear the rain POUNDING
on the top of the car. The car stays still.
FADE TO BLACK.
FADE IN:
INT. MATTHEW’S LIVING ROOM -- AFTERNOON
TWO MEN sit on a leather
couch across from Matthew, a coffee table in between them. MAN #1 lifts a mug
off of its coaster and takes a sip. They look like they’ve been sitting there
for a while.
MATTHEW
And just like that--
Matthew SNAPS his fingers.
MATTHEW
(CONT’D)
The dog boy... thing... was gone.
MAN #2 leans forward in
his seat.
MAN #2
Shouldn’t you have called somebody?
MATTHEW
And who should I have called?
MAN #1 sets down his
coffee again.
MAN #1
I don’t believe you.
Matthew shrugs his
shoulders and smiles.
FADE TO BLACK.
MOVIES WATCHED: 1
SCREENPLAY PAGES WRITTEN: 5
NOVEL PAGES WRITTEN: 38
PAGES LEFT IN ATONEMENT: 205
PAGES LEFT IN HOW TO WRITE A SELLING SCREEPLAY: 271
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