Goodness, the last time I posted in this was quite the longest time ago, wasn't it? I had a lot to say back then, but I didn't seem to know quite HOW to say it. It's interesting to see younger versions of oneself online...the internet is a bit of a time-machine in that aspect. If you've been on it long enough, you can practically chronicle your life. My e-mail address itself starts it all out for me. I was 9 when I first got it, and I remember exactly where and exactly when.
I can't really remember how I first got into screen writing, though I remember why I did and where I did. I also remember one of the first screenplays I wrote. The Man In The Mirror was inspired by my obsession with dopplegangers (that has now progressed to an obsession with alternate realities) and was actually pretty good for a starter script. Another script I wrote which I never completed was a story about a young man with a mysterious (and possible supernatural) mental problem and a love-hate relationship with his desperate mother and persistent psychiatrist. I think I had a lot of good ideas back then now that I think about it...they still come intermittently now-a-days, and I take the time to scrawl them in one of my many notebooks, but my attention span has shortened. I have a lot of "works-in-progress". I'm now more eager to step behind the camera and film them than simply sit and write them.
Something new I've been working which I will now naively tell everyone and his brother surfing the internet about is a series called Citizens of the World about two accused terrorists, a secret government agency and a dangerous computer algorithm. Already I've said too much, but with any luck, whether I create/produce/direct it or not, it will soon be a TV show airing at 8:30-9:00 PM Fridays on NBC. My dear mother would waggle her finger at me for this post, for she is mortified at the thought that a television concept concocted by me should be stolen by a fat billionaire producer who will not credit me for the idea, and proceed to turn the concept into a hit that bleeds money that should rightfully be mine. Do I care? A little, I guess...but somehow, whether I am credited or not, I would surely prefer to see something interesting and thought provoking on TV, which is steadily becoming clogged with a detritus of mind-numbingly banal reality shows, and what's most horrible about it all is that it's fake reality and not real reality. Anyway, it all depends on who gets his/her hands on it in the end, doesn't it? Hmm. Maybe I should go indie.
As you can see I live in somewhat of a dreamworld when it comes to my writing career...but what writer doesn't? Here I digress...
Citizens of the World was originally designed to be the star-making show for a young, cool, hip female lead and an older male actor who'd been around the acting block a few times. It is based in a futuristic setting where society and government are flawless after decades of mistakes and economical sabotage. Our characters find themselves suddenly swept up in a massive conspiracy that should not be. An algorithm that should not exist is created, quickly threatening the balance of power in the government, particularly between a branch of the CIA and another, more sinister, secret branch that nobody outside of a small group of tight-nit CIA agents know about. Besides all this, our lead characters who, stranded helplessly together by fate, and initially cannot stand one another, discover something surprising about each other, which changes things completely...whether for the better or the worse is yet to be found out.
I will end this post with a small excerpt from the pilot episode of this series, which is in it's second draft and will soon be posted online via Simply Scripts for all to see at some point. I hope to make many more revisions to tighten it up, but until then, I will plot out where this series will go some more. It's looking to be quite exciting already, I can say that with no vanity whatsoever. It's sort of my personal project that I have no fear of sharing with whoever will stumble upon this blog. And if someone who is interested in the concept should be interested in bringing it to life, that will be very interesting, for me personally.
-------------------------------------------------------
James drives. Long silence. He checks his wound. Blood is seeping through his shirt. It’s bad. He hides it. Goes for the touch-screen dashboard and turns on the radio. Crooning Country.
Gabi’s face, still aimed out of the window, scrunches. Not her cup of tea.
THEN --
RADIO
-- we interrupt this broadcast to briefly bring you some breaking news out of West Virginia. Fugitives are on the lam today after what appears to be a botched attempted terror attack on a South County Hilton. Sources say that a middle aged caucasian male was seen running through the halls of the ninth floor of the hotel moments after gunshots rang from one of the suites on the level. A series of highly-concentrated explosives were later found by investigators in the suite, along with the bodies of --
James frowns at the bouncing wavelength line signifying the radio on the dashboard screen...
JAMES
(incredulously)
-- explosives?!
RADIO
-- one civilian and several police officers who had been shot to death with projectile weaponry. The suspect proceeded to survive a desperate jump from a nineth floor window of the Hilton.
JAMES
-- fuckin’ crazy --
RADIO
A getaway car driven by a unidentified female then led authorities on a high speed chase through Virginia District Fourty Four. The pair managed to lose pursuing police, and have disappeared somewhere in Middletown County. The ditched getaway vehicle was discovered last night at a car garage, and recently, an Orson Brother’s Carpet Cleaning van has been reported missing from the same garage. If you see or have seen this vehicle, please take caution, and report it to the local police department immediately. Authorities have revealed the fugitives to be armed and extremely dangerous.
And that jams it. You can almost feel hearts sink. Red Foley resuming singing Peace In The Valley.
Gabrielle -- just staring right at him, ever since “bodies”. James feels the stare -- doesn’t respond to it.
EXT. FREEWAY - TRACKING ON THE VAN - DAY
The cleaning van cruises down the freeway. Passes by an expensive looking BLACK SEDAN.
I/E. BLACK SEDAN/FREEWAY - DAY
The driver, an insurance agent named FRED, drives on -- also listening to his radio...
TALK-RADIO HOST #1
...nine, seven, zero -- once again, that is a white Orson Brother’s Carpet Cleaning Van, plate number 6-B-J-9-7-0. If you have seen this van, please contact...
-- Fred notices something that looks familiar -- that white van cruising up ahead. He looks back at his (incredibly high-tech looking) dashboard radio, as if for instructions --
TALK-RADIO HOST #2
...the subjects are armed and dangerous. Do not -- this is very important -- do NOT attempt to apprehend them yourself, please call local enforcement or if you’re on the road, which I’m sure a lot of our listeners are, please call RED HOTline, R-E-D, HOTline, that number is seven-three-eight-four-six-eight.
TALK-RADIO HOST #1
I think we should make it clear that we’re not encouraging anybody to be a hero...
TALK-RADIO HOST #2
Of course not Stan --
-- Fred digs out his cell. Dials and drives.
TALK-RADIO HOST #1
-- we want to make it very clear that it is extremely important not to approach these people, they are terrorists -- extremely -- extremely dangerous...
FRED
Hello? Is this the Roadside Emergency District HOTline? I think I’ve got those fugitives out on the road. Southwest of I-657. Yeah, that’s the van.
I/E. CARPET CLEANING VAN/ROAD - DAY
James peers into the rear view mirror, eyeing the traffic behind them.
JAMES
Fuck, our plates are in the open. Someone’ll have spotted us...
Meanwhile, Gabrielle, sick of country, switches the radio channel and finds some nice banal political talk radio.
TALK-RADIO HOST #2
...real fungus among us, Stan. And -- I was remembering something Dwight Thompson was saying earlier this week in the Times that...in this day and age -- we’ve come so far from things like Vietnam and Iraq and Iran. 20 or 30 thirty years ago, people wouldn’t have been at all surprised to hear of somebody losing it and blowing themselves up a federal building --
TALK-RADIO HOST #1
Not at all.
TALK-RADIO HOST #2
They would have gone on with their lives, let the government handle it. Which it admittedly rarely did well...
TALK-RADIO HOST #1
Well government reaction time isn’t really the issue Glenn --
TALK-RADIO HOST #2
-- yeah -- but that’s not my point though, what I’m saying is today, twenty-one-oh-five, we as a country cannot -- WILL NOT tolerate these kinds of things happening. We have advanced to a point where these sorts of, risks to society, we cannot do it anymore, we grinned and bore it for over 10 fucking decades, we went through god knows how many presidents, only one who finally realized that if we want to be safe as a people -- as a nation, we need to make order the norm instead of fear and pessimism and paranoia. The atmosphere must be clear of that kind of negativity, the government must operate for the people instead of against the people, the corporate machine must work for the people instead of themselves, society must be perfect --
James switches the radio off. Gabrielle looks at him questioningly.
JAMES
Spare the rod, spoil the nation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's it. Blog ya later.
- Maryam
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment