A Square Room...

[emjen]

This is my 'A guy wakes up in a locked room' script. I hope the weird "-" won't be too much of a problem, and the spelling. (I am Dutch and still need to learn English yo).
As for the happines on this thing, I am really unsure. I'll read it later again. I hope you all get it, there are symbolism thingeys in it and **** . I made it look pretty obvious tho. ENjoy.

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INT. A ROOM ? ETERNAL NIGHT

A square room, colourless without doors or windows, just 4 walls making a square room. Light seems to fade away in it, yet there is some source of light in the room ? but there?s no lamp.

There?s a PILE OF DEAD BODIES in the room. They?re all naked, covered with blood stains knife-wounds. There are about TWENTY of them. Men and women, even some children.

There?s some MOVEMENT somewhere in the pile of dead bodies. We see a FEMALE with wide open eyes, brown hair and beautiful red lips opened to scream. She?s dead.

A HAND pushes the female away to reveal a BALD MAN, ALEX, over 40 years old.

ALEX is also covered with faint bloodstains, but he doesn?t have a wound. ALEX is skinny and naked. He gets up and looks around. At first he sees the walls, then the pile of bodies. He isn?t shocked or stunned by this ? he already was in a shock. It?s as if he?s experiencing a dream he can?t comprehend, no matter how hard he tries ? but he doesn?t try at all.

ALEX searches the room for an opening. He slowly walks by the walls and feels. There is nothing but the dead bodies and himself. ALEX stops searching and stands still, staring down with his look full of irresponsibility.

A BRIGHT LIGHT SUDDENLY APPEARS. ALEX looks to the left wall and sees LIGHT coming through a slit, shaping a DOOR. ALEX walks towards it and pushes the door open.

INT. CORRIDOR

ALEX closes the door with a vague number on it and stands in the middle of a long dark corridor. It?s colourless and there?s light coming from an unseen source. At the end of the corridor is the same BRIGHT LIGHT again.

ALEX takes a step and ? A SQUISHY SOUND. ALEX looks to the ground and sees that the floor exists entirely of DEAD BODIES. ALEX takes another step ? and another. A line of BLOOD appears on his body. ALEX takes a step again ? the line of BLOOD grows thicker. With each step ALEX takes on the floor of the dead the blood flowing on his body increases. It?s coming out of nowhere. ALEX is unharmed. The BLOOD flows down to his legs, to his arms and over his head to his eyes. But ALEX doesn?t hesitate, he keeps on going to the LIGHT.

There are PIECES OF BROKEN MIRRORS hanging on the walls. They are mirrors, yet they don?t show reflection of a walking ALEX when he passes. They show PEOPLE.

ON THE MIRRORS:

A young woman, blonde and beautiful. She laughs.

Two children, a brother and a sister. They?re playing pat-a-cake with each other.

A young boy on a swing.

Another young beautiful woman, looking in a mirror herself and putting make up on.

And many, many more reflections of children, women and also some men.

INT. CORRIDOR (cont?d)

ALEX keeps on going to the light. Each step further becomes harder, the BURDEN on ALEX increases and so does the BLOOD. It?s as if ALEX has to DRAG a weight along with him, getting bigger with each step. He ignores the pain. He ignores the blood. He ignores the mirrors. He ignores the dead people on the ground. He?s struggling to get to the light.

As ALEX walks by another PIECE OF BROKEN MIRROR, picturing ALEX and a kid in a yard, we go INTO that MIRROR.

EXT. YARD ? DAY

A dreamy look; a younger ALEX looks at HIS SON, a nine year old boy with a sad face. The boy doesn?t do anything, he just stands there behind the bushes of the small front yard. ALEX leans against the door, looking at COLE?S BACK.

ALEX(O.S)
Don?t you want to play with your friends Cole?

COLE doesn?t look around.

COLE
They?re not my friends anymore.

ALEX
How come?

COLE
They don?t like me.

ALEX
Why?

COLE caresses the leaves of the bushes.

COLE
I don?t know. They say I?m a wimp.

(beat)

COLE
Am I a wimp dad?

ALEX
My son ain?t no wimp.

ANGLE ON COLE:

COLE has a black eye and a thick lip. He?s hiding his tears for ALEX, who has just gone into the house again.

INT. CORRIDOR - ETERNAL NIGHT (cont?d)

ALEX is getting closer to the BRIGHT LIGHT. His feet are stepping on the dead women, men and children as if they are stones. The dead bodies on the ground all have their eyes upon ALEX.

A MIRROR shows ALEX and A COLLEAGUE shaking hands as he walks by.

The with blood covered ALEX has almost reached the LIGHT. Just a few metres. ALEX stretches his arms to the light and does his best continuing his pace towards it, the burden is still getting heavier.

THE LIGHT

ALEX goes through it, and finds himself in a?

INT. ANOTHER SQUARE ROOM ? ETERNAL NIGHT

? square room, similar size as the other one. Again, this one is also colourless, but there are no dead bodies in this room, and the room has TWO DOORS, one to the left and one to the right. The door ALEX just went through is gone.

ALEX is trying hard to keep standing and to keep looking. He wipes some BLOOD out of his eyes.
INT. RIGHT DOOR

The DOOR to the right depictures A MAN. The MAN?S full body is pictured on the door, naked, covered with blood, weary and DEAD. It?s an awful sight. When ALEX takes a better look, he sees that ALEX HIMSELF IS THE MAN ON THE DOOR.

ALEX looks to the left door.

INT. LEFT DOOR

The left door exist of HUNDREDS OF TINY PEOPLE HEADS. Women, men, children, every head shrunken to a very small size and staring forward.

ALEX goes to the left. He touches the small heads ? the heads don?t move. ALEX pushes the door, but there is no movement. ALEX pushes harder, but the door still doesn?t move.

ALEX looks to his LEFT HAND and sees that he?s holding A BLOODY KNIFE. He has been holding that the whole time, but he hasn?t seen it until now.

ALEX looks at the door, and CUTS THROUGH THE HEADS.

The HEADS SCREAM! BLOOD SQUIRTS out of them! The HEADS are alive!

ALEX, still in his state of irresponsibility, his a little bit surprised by this. ALEX swipes the KNIFE at the heads again, and again and again. BLOOD spurts out of the heads on ALEX, and the CRIES grow louder.

Like before, the BURDEN gets heavier with each SWIPE ALEX makes. Each cut gets harder after the precede cut.

Silence. The heads are gone, and there?s only ALEX and a puddle of BLOOD on the floor. ALEX is heavily sighing and looks up through the door to SEE A?

INT. STAIRS ? ETERNAL NIGHT

? LONG STAIRWAY. There are NO WALLS but there are PIECES OF MIRROR hanging on the place were the walls are supposed to be. The STEPS are DEAD BODIES. The whole stair exists of dead bodies. The SAME BRIGHT LIGHT shines at the top of the stairway.

ALEX looks up to the light. He strengthens himself, takes a deep breath and takes the first step ? only to fall to his knee. The sudden weight of the first step on his back was too much for him to handle. ALEX grumbles and stands up straight again. He takes the second step prepared for the weight-gaining. ALEX struggles but keeps standing on his feet.

The BLOOD has almost covered his whole body now. ALEX has to squeeze his eyes so that the BLOOD won?t flow into them.

When ALEX walks past a few MIRRORS we see the same people as before, but they ARE DEAD:

The young woman, blonde and beautiful. She doesn?t laugh anymore, she only stares at ALEX with her dead eyes. Her throat is torn open.

The two children, the brother and the sister. Instead of playing pat-a-cake they?ve died in each others arms, and still holding each other too.

The woman who was putting make up on has TWO CUTS from cheek to cheek.

And many, many more reflections of dead children, women and also some men.

ALEX, now halfway up the stairs, falls to his knees. He pauses and sighs, staring at the DEAD STEPS. His HANDS rest on the RED BELLY of a WOMAN. His nails carve into the dead skin.

We go to the left to see the WOMAN?S HEAD, and recognize the YOUNG BLONDE AND BEAUTIFUL WOMAN from the mirror!

The TWO CHILDREN are in the stairs too! Everyone on the mirrors is in the stairs or was in the floor in the corridor!

ALEX finds the strength to go further. He crawls on his knees and his face is full with PAIN. ALEX starts to SCREAM. He needs to go to the light. He must. The BLOOD and the BURDEN are incredible, almost too much to take. But ALEX continues on his knees and hands, through the red pile of carcasses in the shape of stairs.

The DEAD begin to make noises. They?re all whispering, but altogether it sounds really loud. They?re saying things to ALEX about the past. It?s too unclear to hear.

The LIGHT BRIGHTENS. ALEX is getting close. The BLOOD has now completely flown into ALEX? eyes, making him crawling further blind. ALEX screams even louder. The DEAD also raise their voices.

The LIGHT is now at it?s brightest; ALEX is just a few centimetres away from it.

Yet there is something. Something in front of ALEX. ALEX feels it and stops crawling. The DEAD also go silent.

ALEX opens one eye (with many difficulties of course) and SEES TWO FEET standing in front of him. ALEX looks up to see the naked knees, legs, stomach and body of a YOUNG BOY. The boy is covered with dark blood.

ALEX
Cole?

The young boy, COLE, looks down to his father.

ALEX
(out of breath)
What are you doing here?

COLE
You know.

ALEX
Do I?

COLE
You can?t even stand up.

ALEX struggles. He has to breath, talk and try to hold the burden all at once. His arm is shaking.

ALEX
I need to get to the light.

COLE
Why?

ALEX
I just need to.

COLE
You can?t.

ALEX, father of COLE, doesn?t like COLE?S tone at all and gets a bit angry.

ALEX
Shut up boy!

COLE
You can?t make me do anything dad. Not here. Not now. Never again.

ALEX
What are you talking about Cole?

COLE
You know.

ALEX
I never treated you bad
(breathes)
kid.

COLE gets furious.

COLE
(screaming)
You call this treating me good?
(points at his cut abdomen)

ALEX looks up. There?s a moment of silence. ALEX notices that he still has the KNIFE in his left hand.

ALEX straightens his back and SLICES multiple times through COLE?S body.

ALEX
(angry)
Well **** you boy. You know you don?t speak to me like that.

COLE drops on the ground. DEAD again.

Now there?s nothing between ALEX and the light.

ALEX
Finally.

ALEX crawls THROUGH THE LIGHT.

FADE TO WHITE

FADE IN ON:

INT. A ROOM ? ETERNAL NIGHT

The same square room from the beginning. The same PILE OF BODIES. ALEX pushes the woman away and gets out of the pile. He looks around with the same look of his state of irresponsibility. We now see that he?s holding a bloody knife in his left hand. ALEX finds the DOOR and goes through it.

INT. CORRIDOR ? ETERNAL NIGHT

As ALEX closes the DOOR the NUMBER on it is now clearly seen:

666.

ALEX sees the light at the end of the corridor from before and walks towards it, again with the blood and burden.

INT. ANOTHER ROOM ? ETERNAL NIGHT

ALEX is in the room with the TWO DOORS, one with depicturing his own death and the other one made from people?s head. He chooses the left one again.

INT. STAIRWAY ? ETERNAL NIGHT

ALEX crawls up the stairs again, and this time, he has too meet another one of THE DEAD. This time it?s a black woman. ALEX rips her in half and goes through the BRIGHT LIGHT.

FADE TO WHITE

FADE IN:

INT. A ROOM ? ETERNAL NIGHT

The same square room with the pile of bodies. ALEX gets up and looks around.

FADE TO BLACK

THE END

[Ralph Snart]

So what does the math look like.
How much for instance would it cost to show a man walking through a building with no walls and fragments of glass floating in the air.
I really got into the imagry of your idea.
It is possible that translating things from your native language.....................

[emjen]

what?

it would cost a heckuvalot but i aint shooting it anyways.

you could just hang the mirrors on ropes with black walls and do tricks with the light to make it seem invisible.

i aint shooting it so i could've made everyone fly as well.

[emjen]

so... what do you think of my script?

[GREATwarEAGLE]

Way too much scene description. Simplicity and brevity are your friends. Get to know them.

On the plus side, you seem to enjoy writing. Even before this exercise, you had posted several short scripts. You have the will. Just work on the craft.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 28, 2002 04:54 PM: Message edited by: GREATwarEAGLE ]</font>

[emjen]

I don't know how to do this different... there isn't much happening all at once, just one guy walking a path, but there's a lot happening to him and that needs to be said. I've tried writing very simple.

more like this?

ALEX takes a step on the ground - the ground appears to exist only of DEAD BODIES!

ALEX doesn't care and continues. With each step MORE BLOOD flows over his BODY. Each step becomes harder to take. The BURDEN on him increases.

Simpler yet easier to read, eh? I can't tell for myself.

[GREATwarEAGLE]

I know you said your Dutch, so I'm sure that's a factor.

If you can express the same idea in 5 words versus 8, then go for 5.
Keep everything tight. Lean. Compact. Avoid long sentences when phrases will do.
Only include the information most necessary in getting your idea across. Discard the rest.

I can honestly tell you that when I started writing scripts, I sometimes spent hours, laboring on just 1/3 a page, to shorten it. Tighten it. Sweeten it.

Hours.

Now, it has become habitual, but still demands patience.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 29, 2002 07:48 AM: Message edited by: GREATwarEAGLE ]</font>