Green Flavoured Ink: 2010

Assignment for my story development class.
Had to make the first few minutes of a romantic comedy film.

The specifics:

Now, we don’t need a specific premise for this assignment. Instead, I will tell you a bit about “him” and “her” and your job is to imagine the first 1-2 minutes of your movie, and outline how we could introduce these characters without any dialogue. “Bill” is a consummate bachelor. Loves sports. Lives in a bachelor pad. Womanizer. Thinks “love” is for suckers who buy into a silly fantasy, and waste lots of time and money on romance. “Janet” is a high powered executive. Career comes first. No time for men because they are all liars and unreliable little boys at the end of the day. She focuses on making money, climbing the corporate ladder, and surrounding herself with the finer things. As an audience, when we come into this movie, we know that secretly they would both be better off with love in their lives, even if they don’t know it yet. And that is our “rooting interest” in the journey of the film. In order to create your outline, imagine an opening to your movie, perhaps set to music if that helps you imagine it, with 4-5 moments for both Bill and Janet that communicate what their lives are all about, even before they speak a single line of dialogue.

Create a brief outline for the opening of a movie, with mostly visual descriptions and minimal dialogue, using the concepts of routine and interruption. Include a plant if possible.

The assignment:

Song playing: “Merry Happy” by Kate Nash, I see the following taking place in beat with the song.

The scene opens up with a close up of a black digital alarm clock that reads 5:59 in bright red numbers. The clock ticks up to 6:00 and an annoying alarm buzzes and a hand comes down and smacks the top of the clock. Cue beginning of song.

We now have a horizontal split screen, both splits are set up to show the bottom of their beds and what might hidden beneath them. The top screen is Janet’s, her bed has a fashionabe bed skirt, it is white with a trendy black pattern, the nose of a slipper is peeking out from under the skirt. In the right hand corner of this screen a pair of feminine feet come to rest on the plush white carpet, the toenails are trimmed and have obviously been pedicured. The bottom screen is dedicated to Bill. He has a metal bed frame and and a standard looking mattress, under his bed we can see a box that is labeled “cards.” There is also a pair of red silk women’s undies laying on his scruffy looking carpet. Bill’s feet make an appearance on the left side of the screen (one is bare and the other in a gold toe sock that has a hole). Both legs/feet seem to flex as if the individual is stretching and then standing up. Janet exits stage left and Bill exits stage right.

The following scene is made up of a sequence of cuts of their day to day life. Starting off with Bill and Janet in their respective bathrooms.
In the first shot we see that Janet’s bathroom carries on with trendy the white and black patten motif. Her bathroom is well cleaned, everything matches, and it looks as though it came straight from one of those Home Design magazines. Janet has a black towel wrapped around her head and a white one wrapped around her body. She is sitting on her toilet seat with one foot resting on the side of the tub so that she may shave her leg, her razor is going up her calf.

Scene cuts to Bill’s bathroom has default beige/white walls, a collection of mismatched towels, a rather worn looking rug, and shower curtain with the emblem of his favourite baseball team. There’s also a g-strap draped over the curtain rod above his toilet (seat is noticeably in the upright position and a roll of toilet paper is resting upon an empty roll that is still in the little toilet paper holder). We see Bill standing at the sink, shaving. He is dragging his razor down the side of his cheek.

Scene cut to Janet in full jogging outfit, it is all name brand, matching colors, and appears to be new. Her mp3 player is strapped to her forearm and it is sitting in such a way to display the apple symbol iphones are known for. She bounces down the steps of her lavish looking middle of the city apartment complex and begins a sprightly jog towards the camera.

Scene cut to Bill bouncing down the steps neglected steps of a smallish house in a rather quiet looking neighborhood. There is a tire swing hanging from the tree in his front yard and he spins it as he walks by it to get to his car. Bill enters his car (it is a sporty little thing), starts it up and begins to drive, however he slows and rolls the window down to better enjoy the view of a few female joggers that are running along the sidewalk in front of him (the joggers are moving away from the screen and they none of them are wearing the same coloured outfit that we saw Janet in earlier). The joggers notice that they’re being watched and make a rude gesture at Bill. He smirks and drives passed them.

Scene cut to Janet collecting her parking reciept from the machine and rolling up the window to her vehicle, which is some expensive model that is also fashionably nature friendly. She drives around a parking garage and parks her car.

Scene cut to Bill pulling his car into the parking lot of a rather abused and neglected baseball field. There is litter everywhere, the metal fencing around the diamond are either falling off or missing completely, the wooden bleachers are faded and paint is peeling, and whatever is left of the turf is sporadic, wildly over grown, and in desperate need of a weed whacker (but for the most part the diamond is cracked dirt and rock). There is a developer’s sign posted at the entrance, it says “COMING SOON!” with a picture of a strip mall, there are little logos of things to come (Jamba Juices, Starbucks, and trendy clothing stores) also on the board is the emblem of the company developing the soon to come mall. The camera focuses squarely on it.

The scene cuts one last time to a piece of paper with the same logo on it, Janet sets the paper down on a lovely and expensive looking wooden conference table and looks up at the other people sitting at the table with her. She flashes them all her best “I’m a friendly professional” smile and says “Let’s get started shall we?”