TOM WRITES HIS FIRST MOVIE: Ouch...

I am at aboouuuuut the quarter mark of my first movie script, so far my rough plotting has worked out pacing wise. That surprises me, I thought I'd screw that up more.

Brief Synopsis:
  

'Douglas wakes up one morning confronted by his girlfriend accusing him of tearing apart and molesting her favorite dolls. She thinks he did it, he thinks she did it. WTF?'

Here's everything so far:

http://tcqscripts.blogspot.ca/2014/12/i-am-not-weirdo.html  

Douglas gets into his truck and drives. He has nowhere to go, he lost his home and his woman who he's worried sick about but can't go near for risk of being thrown in jail. He punches his steering wheel, he screams and he cries. 

INT - A DINGY BAR - MID-DAY

Douglas sits slumped in a bar stool, his nose bandaged sloppily, he's drunk. The bar he's in is a dive, the kind of bar you can walk into at 11 am and get drunk with a group of sad strangers in. A sombre tune plays in the background. Douglas sits; his eyes staring forward but vacant, locked on something unseen. He's lost in his thoughts, playing the last few days over and over in his head. His empty drink is refilled.

INT - A DINGY BAR -EVENING

Douglas is in the same spot hours later. Douglas' eyes sit fixated on a payphone in the corner. 

INT - ABIGAIL'S HOUSE

Abigail is sitting at her coffee table, she's not alone. The police weren't lying, her face has suffered a fracture. Her eye is blackened and her cheek is swollen but in that typical Abby way, she still looks cute. Her phone rings, unknown caller. She knows it's Douglas, she tenses and then answers against her better judgement.

Silence.

DOUGLAS

Abby?

ABIGAIL

Why are you calling me?

DOUGLAS

What do you mean why am I calling you? 

Two days ago we were in bed together. Our bed.

ABIGAIL

The police told you not to contact me.

DOUGLAS

They told me you got attacked.

 Abby what happened?

Abigail doesn't answer.

DOUGLAS

Abby how did you get hit?

Abigail doesn't answer. 

DOUGLAS

Abby they think it's me. Can we please talk?

ABIGAIL

No Douglas. I don't ever want to see you again.

DOUGLAS

DON'T SAY THAT. Abby, god damn it. We both know it isn't ME who hit you last night.

ABIGAIL

...what?

DOUGLAS

I love you so much Abby. How could you honestly believe I'd hit you? You KNOW I didn't. You know it.

ABIGAIL

Stay away from me.

DOUGLAS

I CAN'T Abby. You're sick and you're hurting yourself.

Abigail starts to shake. A voice calls to her.

DOUGLAS

Is that your dad?

ABIGAIL

Its Bryce. Bryce is with me, he's here to keep me safe from you.

Douglas falls silent.

ABIGAIL

You were my biggest mistake. I was so wrong about you. I am glad I found out when I did, now I want to forget you. I never want to see you again.

Abigail hangs up. Douglas holds the phone to his ear in stunned silence until the dial tone stops.

Cont'd...

TOM WRITES A MOVIE: Add Tedium

I've been working on this script: 

http://tcqscripts.blogspot.ca/2014/12/i-am-not-weirdo.html 

I've written other scripts which you can see all over this blog but this is my first feature length script attempt. The idea is that I write a page a day (but who am I kidding), I blog each page as I go because this way I feel more of a push to actually do it. Its easier than staring at a word document. If no one ever reads this blog (as I expect) then it doesn't matter, at the end of this I'll have a movie script written. For the record, I have no idea what you do with a finished movie script, that's a later Thomas's problem. Here's today's page:

INT - DOUGLAS IS RUNNING UP SOME DARKLY LIT STAIRS

Douglas is racing up the dimly lit stairs leading to the basement, his face is red and turning purple. He makes it to the top of the stairs and bursts through the door. Loudly inhaling fresh oxygen the first chance he gets.

DOUGLAS

5 seconds! New record!

ABIGAILE

Omg close the door, you're letting the smell in here. 

Douglas kicks closed the basement door and drops the box on the floor. Abby opens the box and digs around inside, pulling out some old dolls.

ABIGAILE

Yay!

DOUGLAS

That's what you sent me down there to get?

ABIGAIL

I am thinking about putting some of these up on the shelf in the guest room. Just to jazz it up a little.

DOUGLAS

God help whoever stays in that guest room. 

ABIGAIL

What do you mean?

DOUGLAS

Those dolls are going to come alive and straight up murder whoever's in that room with them.

She hold up a stuffed rabbit.

ABIGAIL

Mr. Crayon isn't a murderer. 

 Douglas pulls out of the box a particularly creepy looking doll.

DOUGLAS

This one most certainly is.

ABIGAIL

That's Patty Pancakes and yeah, I wouldn't turn my back on her. 

DOUGLAS

What guests are we expecting anyway?

ABIGAIL

Your parents? When are they going to come see the place?

DOUGLAS

They'll fly out once we're more settled. Is your dad thinking of staying here.

ABIGAIL 

No way. Not with you living here.

DOUGLAS

Phewwww...

ABIGAIL

Bryce might spend a weekend down here this month.

DOUGLAS

With his girlfriend?

ABIGAIL

No girlfriend. You can invite Grant down.

DOUGLAS

Or we can go somewhere. We can get out of this house for a while, we've been cooped up. It's making us both crazy.

ABIGAIL

I want to but I can't take a whole weekend off.

DOUGLAS

One night then. Tonight.

ABIGALE

I want to get dressed up!

DOUGLAS
Ok, where do dressed up people go?

ABIGALE
There are so many nice places on the pier, we can go for a walk along the water after, it's so beautiful out.

DOUGLAS
Should I assume I can get REALLY good fish down by the pier?

ABIGALE
(excitedly)
Oh MY God!

DOUGLAS
Go get dressed up PrettyGirl.

Abby leans in and kisses Douglas before springing out of the room and up the stairs, he adorable enthusiasm brings a smile to his face. That smile disappears when he looks down to the doll he's holding, it's Patty Pancakes. Her corpselike eyes look back at him.

Cont'd...

CANADA - Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

I recently got into an argument about ice cream where someone scoffed at my preference for vanilla over every other flavor. People associate vanilla with words like 'plain' and 'boring' but vanilla's a legit flavor. It's a flavor the same way chocolate and strawberry are flavors and in my opinion it's the best one. I don't even like putting toppings on my ice cream, if vanilla's the best flavor (which has been scientifically proven by my studies) then adding anything to it is just making it into a lesser ice cream. I feel the same way about cheesecake but that's another article. Anyway it was a surprisingly heated discussion...and here's the thing, I've had this argument a few times before. I can count at least three times that I've had an argument over ice cream and zero times I've ever had an argument about Canadian politics.

Getting into a heated argument over Canadian politics is next to impossible for the average Canadian, being a 4 party system means we're not so polarized as a voting populous. Having a four party system means that for the most part; there aren't such chasmic differences between the parties. Less chasmic differences between parties correlates to less fighting between parties, less fighting between parties means less news coverage and less news coverage leads to me feeling the need to google who our Prime Minister is just now; just to be sure. I live in Toronto and I am around people all day, I pass by thousands of strangers and hear hundreds of conversations each week. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone having a discussion about Canadian politics. World politics; sure. That's not uncommon. Toronto is the most multi-cultural city in the world and everyone here is acutely tuned into the news from abroad but you'll never find anyone discussing the latest RCMP probe that found Senator Pamela Wallin guilty of billing tax payers a little over $80,000 for falsified travel expenses. Yeah that story's annoying, that chick should pay for her own damn travel. You make a nice salary, don't ask for everything to be free. Still though; as far as headlines go $80k is a pretty unsexy number.

That's Canada though, we don't have much drama and we don't give the papers much to talk about. We haven't really had a national tragedy in a while, no disasters to get us talking. We don't live under fear of attack from enemy nations, which is usually a huge talking point for WAY too many countries. We're really lucky that way, I can't even imagine how it must feel to live in fear of another land and it's people. It's just something we've never really had to worry about. We don't have a lot of hot button issues for the media to press either, we aren't a nation with many sociological scars brought on by tragedy or injustice. We aren't really an embattled people. I mean; we do face things like poverty and racism but even in our largest cities we're still so heavily integrated with people from all over the world that every work place, every apartment complex and every outing is like a 'Model United Nations' conference. Most of us have grown up like this, it's not the kind of environment that breeds that level of ethnic prejudice but it IS the kind of environment that breeds a lifelong craving for good ethnic food. Even the issues of overcrowding and pollution aren't anything for us to worry about since the large majority of our enormous country is uninhabited natural land.

 Most of Canada actually looks like this

Yes, we took a hit in the recession but we made out better than a lot of other countries and if you get into a fight with someone out here; there's a pretty slim change that dude's packing a gun. I hear all the time that Canadians as a people are really chill, well it makes sense when you think of how relaxed our ride has been so far. That stigma of being a bland country because we don't make headlines is something we should wear with pride considering that most headlines report bad news.

  "Toronto: Come Eat REALLY Good Ethnic Food and Just Chill"

Finally, no I haven't forgot about our beloved Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. He certainly does makes headlines but not for his politics, more-so for his binge drinking, ass grabbing and crack smoking. He also has a compilation of pratfalls that would make Chris Farley jealous. Seriously the man can't stay on his feet. One more reason Toronto is awesome.

-APE-

* Nov 25/2013 - I wrote the above article before the whole Rob Ford crack scandal broke. This whole scandal has become the biggest most conversation worthy news we've ever had. Everyone's talking about it, Rob Ford is becoming the most entertaining person on television.