The Silver Saxophone

This week I was once again brainstorming for possible ideas for scripts. I had a moment of contemplation. All of the great movies ever made, every influential blockbuster out there had a message, a point it was trying to convey. The flowery camera angles, fancy lighting, and good acting are all secondary to a strong theme and message.

Back to the drawing board.

The script I came up with this week is a rather unusual one. It is simple to produce yet very effective. Here’s the story.

A man wakes up one day and sees that his dog has done his, well, business on his bedroom floor. Ticked off, he walks to his bathroom and discovers a gray hair. A string of bad things happen to him, including him not finding matching socks and having his toast burnt. When he makes it out of the house and in his car, a skateboarder speeds in front of him (he’s in his driveway), causing him to brake sharply and get very annoyed. Fuming, he reaches a red light. A few seconds go by. No green light. Quite a while passes, and still no green light. When the light finally does become green, a big SUV swerves by in front of him, causing him to miss the light. The looks very frustrated. Then he gets stuck in traffic. He reaches work late, and gets talked to by his boss. When he goes out for a lunch break, he meets a very happy man with a big grin on his face. The man asks him how his day went.

“Terrible.”

“Hey look, man, I’ve got just the thing that will cheer you up.”

The man in line takes out a pair of dark sunglasses, and hands it to the main character, who puts them on.

The scene is now black and white, but there seem to be voices all around him.

“You can read people’s minds with this.”

~

After work, the man puts on his glasses. He sees the slow old lady that is blocking him from getting out of his parking space saying “I’m going to die in a week because of lung cancer.” Suddenly, he doesn’t feel angry about his car being blocked by a maddeningly slow lady. At the red light, he reads the mind of the SUV driver saying “my son just broke his leg, I need a doctor fast!”. The man is starting to see that he should appreciate people, no matter what disservices they do to him. The skateboarder that causes him to slam on the brakes is an orphan looking for someone to take care of him. He makes friends with the skateboarder and that is how the movie ends.

Short, sweet, and meaningful. Here are some influential films from Sundance, a film awarding establishment that is only second to the oscars.

This week my goals are to come up with an ending to my cat movie, and get resources ready for filming. I will talk to Mr. Udell about storyboarding, and I’m on my way.