DUMB Little Script Where A Guy Eats a Spider.

This short script is completely self explanatory and dumb. It's about 3 roommates, Rick, Chris and Harold trying to decide if a black spot on a table is a chocolate chip or a spider.

Harold is the dumb guy, he's slack-jawed and overweight. The other two characters can be just about anyone you imagine them as. 


Script - the Spider
 
Scene: Rick is sitting on the couch shouting to Chris who has locked himself in the other room.
 

RICK
Ok, it’s probably gone now

CHRIS
Probably? Did you see it leave? Why didn’t you kill it?

RICK
I never kill spiders

CHRIS
Well from now on I need you to ALWAYS kill spiders

RICK
I don’t know why you’re so scared, it’s not like we have tarantulas out here.

CHRIS
I am not scared of spiders, I just hate them. They make me so mad I scream.

RICK
And run away, and hide.

CHRIS
I go to my room to cool off, yes. Because I am mad, I HATE that spider.

RICK
What spider? I don’t even see anything

Chris comes storming out of the bathroom.

CHRIS

You let it get away???

Chris sees something on the table that startles him, he grabs a pillow of the couch and hides behind it like a shield.  

CHRIS
It’s right THERE. At first I thought it was just rat shit but it's not. It's a gross spider!

Chris points to an unmoving black dot on the table, some feet away.

RICK
That’s a chocolate chip

CHRIS
That’s a spider, I can see it’s legs

RICK
Those are just hairs and dust and mold and..HAROLD YOU SAID YOU CLEANED THIS PLACE!

Harold enters from around the corner.

HAROLD
I was just in the other room reading.

CHRIS
You’re a liar. Harold I want to you to do a complete sweep of this house for spiders.

RICK
And I want you to clean up this chocolate chip and tell me if it’s a spider.

Harold walks over to the dark spot on the table and in one motion he picks it up and puts it right in his mouth.

CHRIS
You’re a pig, you’re a disgusting pig…. Well tell us what it was you pig. Was it a spider or a chocolate chip?

HAROLD
Kind hard to tell (Harold is wearing a face on him that almost looks like he just bit into a lemon, tears and all). How is a spider supposed to taste?

RICK
Not chocolaty

HAROLD
Probably a spider then

END

Chocolate chip spider
This is as good as I draw.

BATMAN!

Sooooo...I am going to get around to that page but in the meantime I just feel like posting some random nonsense about Batman.

I came across this poem I wrote about him. Shut up, it was for a school assignment and people; I got a really good mark. I actually won a book of poetry for my efforts, a book which I never once opened and have long since lost.

Knight Falls on Gotham 

Walk down any street at night

You may not notice it but you call upon your bravery

You may not notice it but you tense in the shadows

You may not notice it but you clench your fists

Until you are back home in the familiar

No one is a friend

In my city I am always watching

In the dark alleys and on the murky docks

I see uptown high rises where an upper class criminal feels hidden by politics

I see the shady burrows where the hopeless feel hidden behind filth

Those that should; will not seek them, they let them prey

Survival of the fittest has bred a strong evil

This city would be theirs

But I watch, unlike the others; I’ll do more than watch

In the ghetto where crack heads kill in daylight

They fear me

On the wall-streets where drug lords have armies

They hide from me

I will win this fight

I am a Bat; I fly with armored wings and race with speeding tanks

While flashes of light explode smoke all around you I strike

You reach for your weapon and your wrist snaps, your legs fill with metal when you run

In the dark of the night and the shadow of concrete giants I was invisible

You never heard me make a sound

The police will come soon, you will go to jail

As soon as you get out of the hospital

-Thomas Holler-

Now I am just going to pepper in some Batman facts:

Can Batman Beat Superman In a Fight?

Straight up one on one, probably not but I wouldn't count him out. Batman is EXTREMELY paranoid and even when Superman and him are on the best of terms he's still in the back of his mind always prepared for Superman to launch an attack. He has access to kryptonite and while he's never been shown to carry it on him, chances are he does. He's crazy. Think of him as being a lot like Iron Man too, he has access to suits that can boost up his strength and speed considerably.

How Can He Be So Young When He Was Created In the 30's?

Two reasons, the first is that comic time moves slower. For instance, comics come out bi-weekly but one comic often will only cover the span of a few minutes to an hour of time for that character, so in a month of Batman comics it's not inconceivable that only an hour or two of storytelling took place. Sometimes the next story arc takes place immediately afterwards so months of storylines can take place in the span of a day or two. Marvel had a big blockbuster series called Secret Invasion about an alien attack that took months to tell, really the whole event took place in little over an afternoon.

The other reason is that the DC Universe where Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc, all live has been destroyed and rebuilt a few times. One HUGELY powerful villain wanted to wipe out all of existence and pretty much succeeded, he destroyed billions of worlds and killed off damn near everything DC had been writing up until the 80's. The heroes could only save their one world and actually couldn't even do that because the world they saved wasn't even theirs. It was new and rewrote all of history into it. Anyway Batman started all over again.

See: Crisis on Infinite Earths

Stuff like that happened a couple more times but recently it happened again in a major way, Flash went back in time to save his mom and screwed everything up, then he couldn't really fix everything so when he tried all he did was reset everything so that all heroes, including Batman have only been around for 5 years. Everything else that had happened to them and had been written since the 80's pretty much got washed away.

OH! In that Flashpoint world Bruce and his mother were killed in the alleyway and Thomas Wayne (his father) became Batman. A Batman who kills.

See - Flashpoint.

So yeah, he's young again.

Oh yeah, also the Batman from his first appearance, the one that existed from the 30's to the 50's was a totally different Bruce Wayne from a totally different Earth who himself died shortly before the Crisis.

Oh and this Superman from his first appearance?
Totally different guy than the one we have today too.

He died too, he died during the Infinite Crisis, the sequel to
Crisis on Infinite Earths.
He was punched to death by an evil Superboy.
F**k, right?

Gory Horror Video

I figured I may as well post this one other video that me and my team worked on and submitted for the 48 Hour Horror Film Challenge last year.

We won the award for best gore.

Enjoy.

The Beautiful

Hello again e'rybody.

I am going to write a short story involving two characters named Tom and Chip and a little show called the Beautiful.

See...after I graduated from college for Television Broadcasting one of the first projects I got involved with was a pilot based on myself and an friend of mine. I got together with a film crew and we cranked out a fully produced pilot for the show which actually got us into a meeting with a fairly well known television station. After pitching this show to them they decided to meet with us and just encouraged us to keep working and impress upon us that we were on the right track.

We never shot a follow up to this show in particular and the character have been sitting on a shelf ever since. The other day I decided to go back and re-watch the pilot, it was the first time in over a year since I'd been able to bring myself to. My first impressions of it when I saw it years ago were mostly negative, we were unprepared acting wise and if we'd rehearsed more we could have massaged a little more comedy out of the script. The script itself was another problem, too much monologuing. I remember being on set and feeling like as I spoke the words I couldn't make it feel natural. It's something I am more conscious of when I write now. I try to make dialogue feel more real, it's easier to read for the actors. There are also several scenes where NOTHING happens, it just feels dragged out.

Anyway, like I said that was my first impression.

Yesterday though when I re-watched it I found a lot more to like about it, sure it wasn't perfect but it wasn't going to be. We'd never filmed before, we'd never really acted and we had almost no budget. I specifically remember not really knowing all of my lines, we really didn't have much rehearsal/reading time. All things considered I am actually now pretty proud of it now. I want to try to write a short film starring those two characters and this time try to really nail their voices and give them more to do than sit on a damn couch.

Oh and Shay Mitchell from Pretty Little Liars is in it. She was great, we had her drive us around, stand outside in the freezing cold, dance around to music (which we didn't even use) and then come back for re-shoots and never once was she anything but cool about it all. She deserves all of her success, she was awesome.

Here it is, I am the goofy looking one with the hair that I don't have anymore and kind of miss.

My Revision.

So I hated where my story was going, there was so much of it I liked but I wrote myself into a corner with how I had it all blocked out. I rearranged some things, changed the order in which they happen and gave myself a fresh point from which to start building an ending.

This is something I can come back to and finish up because I've given myself a lot more room to craft a story out of where I am headed. I don't know that I'll come back to this right away, I am anxious to get started on something new and actually more urgent.

So I am going to file this one away, to be completed later.

INT- A Classroom in the basement of DOPE headquarters.

ERVIN
There is nothing more dangerous than a zombie

The camera pans back to reveal about 20 recruits in the class sitting on the floor.

ERVIN
Never mind all this talk about zombies only being dangerous in large numbers, that's not true. Fighting one single zombie is like fighting an angry gorilla. They come at you with everything they have and never tire. They have no fear and never hold back.

There's a knock at the door.

ERVIN
And now you're about to meet one. Aside from being our classroom for today this is also the area where we conduct our zombie inspections. This is where we do a thorough examination of all new zombies to determine their identities so that we can contact families and hopefully bring them closure. Those that don't have families and those who we can't identify are buried in a government funded graveyard.

A female zombie comes bursting through the door, the recruits all jump back. She goes to run at them but is jolted to a stop by the collar around her neck. She has two handlers with her, they have a fight getting her chained to the wall safely. They're scared of her.

HANDLER 1
You need to WATCH this one. She's out of control, she almost got my partner here. Didn't she Marty?

He turns to his partner (Marty), Marty is hunched over and holding his side, there is a hint of blood on his hand.

HANDLER 2 (Marty)
Yeah. She's a real bitch.

They limp out of the room, Marty is in obvious pain and is holding his side as though to conceal it, there's blood on his hands. The zombie on the wall thrashes about.

INT – the Offices of DOPE

Rooney is looking for Randal and asks a coworker assigned to scheduling and assignments.

ROONEY
Elvis. Have you seen Randal he was supposed to come get me to help him with a zombie inspection?

ELVIS
Oh, he already left. Sorry, I didn't see your name on the form or I would have got you.

ROONEY
Elvis. Always get me when he's called.

ELVIS
Of course, I can try to do that from now on but...the zombie is already in restraints; I really don't think you need to worry.

ROONEY
Don't worry? Do you even know what a zombie is exactly?

INT – BASEMENT CLASSROOM

RECRUIT
Sir, what exactly is a zombie?

ERVIN
Ok well, when you picture a zombie you picture a dead person who wants to bite you. Correct?

ERVIN
Well that's only partially right. The zombie you're picturing isn't your attacker, that's just his vehicle. The zombie is actually just a tiny, microscopic parasite. It makes it's way to the brain once it's in the bloodstream, from there it completely takes over. It's control of it's subject is dominant, they aren't somewhere behind their own eyes witnessing in horror their own action. They're gone completely, once the parasite enters the brain there's absolutely no brainwave activity...

INT-Offices of D.O.P.E

ROONEY
...outside of one single thought.

Elvis is transfixed

ELVIS
What's that?

ROONEY
To bite you.

INT-BASEMENT CLASSROOM

ERVIN
To tear you open with their teeth. See they reproduce through secretions in the saliva, once it's in your bloodstream they've effectively passed on their seeds. Reproduction, it's the only thing parasites live to do and they attack that task with all the ferocity of an athlete playing in game 7 of a championship series. Even if a host body is killed a parasite can keep the muscles active for up to 9 months. Even after receiving incredible trauma like being cut in half; the zombie can still keep trying to bite you. That's why the only course of action in some cases is the removal of the head or the destruction of the brain.

There's a knock on the door, Randal enters.

Randal has a clip board and some medical instruments with him

RANDAL

Hey Ervin, I heard we have an unidentified zombie here.

ERVIN

That's right Randal; tell my recruits how we go about identifying our zombies.

RANDAL
Well we've found that the best method of identifying who these people were was to set up a database of all the zombies we find and make it accessible to everyone in the public that's looking for one of their loved ones. We post descriptions and pictures of the zombies we find and we try to be as detailed as possible for anyone looking. So what I am going to do here is look for any identifying marks like a tattoo or birthmark or a scar, anything that makes identification a little easier. 

Randal goes to begin his identification but is stopped by Ervin

ERVIN
Whoa, where's your partner?

RANDAL
I don't need him

ERVIN
Two partners for zombie inspections. That's mandatory.

RANDAL
Then you help me.

ERVIN
Absolutely not, not with a classroom of recruits here. Wait for your backup.

RANDAL
He's been watching over every little thing I do lately, if you want him; go get him. I am starting this inspection.

Back in the halls Rooney is still looking for Randal, he heads down to the basement where the inspections are held. There's something wrong, broken glass is on the floor. Rooney hears footsteps in the halls nearing him, there's something wrong about the sound of them. They footsteps sound like something slumping towards him, out of step.

He hears an almost inhuman hiss.

INT - Classroom

Back at the classroom Ervin and Randal are still bickering over his not having his partner with him. 

ERVIN

That's it. Mr. Gomez, do you know who Rooney Rodman is? He's in inspections and removals.

Mr. Gomez

Yes, I saw him getting yelled at by Mr. Dickmyer earlier.

ERVIN

Yeah that's him. I need you to go find him for me. 

Mr. Gomez

Ok.

The young recruit Mr Gomez rushes up to the door and opens it. Like a great white shark bursting through the waves to catch a seal the zombie that was Marty's partner bursts through the door and onto him. He never has a chance, his neck is ripped apart by the zombie's teeth. Ervin screams for the rest of the recruits to get back. Randal is startled off his chair and falls into the female zombies. Her restrains slip and she bursts forward after the recruits. She's loose but she drags chains behind her now.

Randal does what he can and quickly grabs hold of her chains, stopping her just short of tearing into one of the recruits. 

Ervin runs to the intercom on the wall and screams, his voice is cracking and stricken with panic.

ERVIN

LOCK DOWN THIS BASEMENT NOW! WE HAVE A ZOMBIE OUTBREAK!

The response to Ervin's plea is immediate, an alarm sounds and the main doors are locked down. 

The recruits are terrified and are pressed up as close against the wall as their bodies will allow, a gnashing female zombie is just inches from getting a hold of one of them. She's single minded in her focus, not turning her attention to the only reason she can't get to the terrified recruits. Randal is holding onto the chain attached to the collar on her neck, he's struggling mightily.

Ervin springs onto the zombie attacking Mr Gomez; grabbing him by the waist and throwing him out through the door and into the halls. He slams the door. Mr. Gomez is screaming, he's dying. He spits up a lot of blood and dies.

The moment is silent, the room for a small instance is completely silent except for the zombie's snarls. Mr Gomez bursts back to his feet loudly, Randal looses his grip on the chain, the female zombie grabs one of the recruits and tears him open. Zombie Mr. Gomez is battering Ervin and trying to bite him, while fighting him off Ervin can only do one thing. Only utter one order.

ERVIN
RUN!!!

INT - The halls of the basement.

Rooney is racing through the hallways, he's been spooked by something. He starts to sprint but as he rounds a corner he slips in a pool of blood, he falls hard. He's covered in red. He takes a second to take in the scene, that second costs him. 

With no warning whatsoever Rooney is pounced upon by a zombified Marty, his eyes are white, his skin has lost the color of life and his mouth is covered in fresh blood. 

Rooney is slammed to the ground, the zombie never lets up. It's wild in it's movements; it's without thought. It's a rampaging animal beating Rooney up. He barely, BARELY kicks the zombie away and makes a break for it. He's been heavily battered. 

-----
to be concluded...


And from there I have to take a break from DOPE to work on something else, something called the Beautiful...

Next post I'll explain but it's actually a project that we've already filmed some content for.

Before Watchmen: Nite Owl review and Ted Kord

Alright, so this is NOT going to become a comic review blog but I am still about the have a ramble about Before Watchmen: Nite Owl.

It was alright, like Rorschach I am not sure it's adding to the story in any significant way, I think everything that needed to be said about these character has been said already. I've always liked Nite Owl too because he's an EXACT clone of my all time favorite character, Blue Beetle.

You're fat Nite Owl

The one thing that's unique is his relationship and friendship with Rorschach and that's pretty much the best thing about this comic. Only a bratty teenager at the time Dan Dreiberg meets his mentor the original Nite Owl and decides to make contact with him in hopes of being his sidekick, however the original Nite Owl instead trains him to be his replacement. He meets Rorschach and they become friends, that's it; not much else to this issue. He gets a boner at one point, so there's also that.

That's the issue. Let's talk more about Blue Beetle!!!

Ted Kord's Blue Beetle and Nite Owl are almost exactly the same except Ted might be a little more swashbuckling. What I loved about Ted is that he was every bit as smart as Batman but he's also a lot more immature.

He's pretty smug about it too.

Actually Batman was kind of a dick to him.

Right?

He had a brilliant mind and was an excellent fighter but he has confidence issues and never felt like he was respected by anyone. It's part of what made him so endearing, he was this this geek in a superhero suit who never really got over his days as an insecure nerd. In the end though, when he was beaten and held at gun point and asked to join the bad guys he had one response. "Rot in hell"

His badass moment got him shot in the head and killed, and unlike most superheroes he actually stayed dead.  I am pretty sure the only reason they never really brought him back is because someone at DC found out I liked him.

Before Watchmen: Rorschah Review and My Page

I read the Before Watchmen: Rorschach installment today, I guess it's common knowledge but I don't know if it occurs to everyone that we haven't seen ANY of this character since the final Watchmen issue and that was back in the 80's. He only had the 12 issues (or one graphic novel) of the Watchmen to make an impact in the public consciousness and he did. It's impressive. He really is one of those universally loved characters that made an immediate impact on you, you just wanted  to see more and more of him and as you read the Watchmen you'd be most excited about his scenes. In my opinion the Watchmen became popular on the strength of his character, he was certainly the stand out.

He's a warped variation of the Question (also a very cool character) made a little more interesting with a more violent form of the psychosis that overwhelms both characters. He was always one of th..........I am just now noticing that on that cover his rorschach mask makes a visual of himself with his own little rorschach mask and I hate it. How stupid is that? That's a little overly clever buddy.

The issue itself actually didn't need to be made, it offers absolutely nothing more about the character that wasn't said in the originals. I mean it's a good enough issue but that's more because Rorschach is f'n cool and it's just fun to see him do terrible things to people.

Basically it's a standard story about him trying to track the source of some street drugs while also keeping tabs on a serial killer. He meets someone who feels a little too Super Villainy from my liking and it pretty much ends there. If that sounds boring...

It's not.

I'll check out the rest of the Before Watchmen series before I weigh in on whether or not they should have dusted these characters off or left them alone. Tomorrow I'll check out Nite Owl.

Anyway, here's my page. When we last left Rooney he was hurt and hiding from two zombies.

APE:

Cont'd

As the Zombie gets closer to Rooney it's distracted by the arrival of the first zombie. The two zombified workmen run off down a darkened corridor.


When it's safe to move, Rooney creeps forwards towards the classroom. There's blood all over the halls leading up to it, in the distance all around him he hears screams and commotion.

He opens the classroom door and sees no bodies but lots and lots of blood. The room is covered in a sticky dark red.

He hears a sound down the hall, there are several zombies coming his way. It's time to move. He races down hall to the main exit only to find it locked down.

I am pausing for one second to point out that as I write this my neighbors kid is SCREAMING off the balcony. It's driving me nuts.

The zombies give chase, he runs for his life but the two marauding zombies catch up with him, He never stops trying to run even as he's being grabbed and tugged at by the monsters. He's taken down but weaves and fights his way our of being bitten.

F**K it, this sucks

Uggg, I hate where this is going. I could stand to lose everything after the moment the Ervin screamed "RUN" and I know it. I was just seeing where I could go with keeping Rooney on the outside. As I am writing this though I am starting to realize that these basement halls would have to be HUGE for this story to work this way. It's also turning out to be a lot longer than I wanted it to be, I am not aiming for a half hour TV show here, this is likely going to go on the back burner for a while and when it's revived it's probably going to be in the form of a series of internet shorts...so I need to make this thing move a lot faster.

I think I know how too...I'll try to fix it up tomorrow and move on because the film team I work with is more immediately interested in shooting a bunch of short film (5 mins max) and I am looking forward to tackling those.

Anyway that's my page, that counts!