Tank’s – a screenplay (cont’d)

August 1, 2013 by Created by RCW

Our continuing saga (see part one here) of impetuous young Tony and his pursuit of individuality at the possible expense of his life.

When last we left Tony, he had led a nasty caiman on a merry chase, faking it out at the last second.

Tony takes off, leaving the caiman to spit out stones.

The guys catch up to Tony, applauding. Tony bows.

JUAN

That was totally awesome!

CARLOS

I thought you were a goner.

RICKY

That was–

OLD FIN (O.S.)

Foolhardy.

Tony turns to see OLD FIN.

TONY

Grandfather.

OLD FIN

And dangerous. You must think you’re pretty hot stuff.

TONY

Escaped the jaws of death.

OLD FIN

You escaped an eating machine, son; an unthinking garbage disposal. And you risked everyone’s lives in the process.

TONY

It was just me and the caiman.

OLD FIN

You need to learn about taking responsibility for your actions; caring for the fish around you. Your father—

TONY

What about my father?

RICKY

Tony!

TONY

My father took responsibility for his community, and he got snatched by the Net. Maybe if he’d spent more time with his son and less on everyone else’s problems…

CARLOS

Easy, Tony.

Old Fin waves the boys off.

TONY

He was all about sacrifice, when it meant taking care of others, but when I needed him… You can keep your responsibility.

Old Fin reaches for Tony’s shoulder.

OLD FIN

I miss him, too. He had to be the fish he was destined to be. Just as you have to be the fish you will become.

TONY

That’s… C’mon guys.

The boys swim off.

OLD FIN

Destiny won’t wait, son. It happens whether you’re ready or not.

EXT. FURTHER ALONG THE RIVER – DUSK

Amongst the plants and rocks, four long pink legs extend to the surface. The boys take a wide berth, Tony lagging behind, kicking pebbles.

JUAN

Watch out. Danger from above.

Tony darts around the legs, but then he turns with a grin.

RICKEY

What’re you doing?

TONY

Nothing. Just stretching my fins.

Yawning, he tickles one of the feet.

EXT. ABOVE THE SURFACE – SAME TIME

The legs are attached to two cranes. SIDNEY screams and jumps into SEYMOUR’s wings.

SIDNEY

Something touched my leg!

Seymour angrily drops Sidney into the water.

SEYMOUR

You idiot. Those are just fish.

SIDNEY

Well, they’re cold and wet. It’s nasty.

SEYMOUR

Nasty? Sid, what are we?

Sidney thinks long and hard.

SIDNEY

Cousins?

SEYMOUR

Cranes, Sid.

SIDNEY

We’re not cousins?

SEYMOUR

Focus! What do cranes eat?

Sidney screws up his face, like his head’s about to explode.

SIDNEY

Hamburgers!

SEYMOUR

Fish! We eat fish!

Sidney whips out chopsticks.

SIDNEY

Sushi!

Seymour slaps the chopsticks away and then pushes Sid’s head into the water. Sid steps back, spluttering.

SEYMOUR

And this time, Sid, hold your breath.

Seymour plunges his head into the water, pulling up a fish, which he quickly swallows. The two start looking for dinner.

EXT. BELOW THE SURFACE – SAME TIME

Fish scatter in pandemonium. Clouds of silt explode from the riverbed as enormous bills dart from the surface and stab into the ground, slicing side to side to catch fish.

Plants are uprooted, stones flung in all directions, fish cower in crevices and under large rocks as the river fills with a cacophany of SCREAMS and thrashing EXPLOSIONS of air and water.

Tony and his friends flee, pursued by Seymour.

JUAN

You had to do it, didn’t you?

TONY

They’re gaining on us.

They careen around rocks and weeds as the cranes inch closer.

JUAN

Over there!

INT. OLD BUCKET – CONTINUOUS

Juan, Tony and Ricky dart to the back, breathing heavily.

RICKY

They got Carlos!

Juan dashes for the opening and is bowled over by Carlos.

CARLOS

Aaaaaaaah!

TONY (laughing)

Carlos, the bullet.

The THRASHING outside subsides. The guys float quietly.

CARLOS

Whaddya think?

A beam of light penetrates the darkening water outside of the bucket, which shakes and the floor tilts.

CARLOS (CONT’D)

Earthquake!

They swim for the mouth, which rises, the spotlight getting brighter. Seeing Carlos struggle, Juan and Ricky swim back to help him. Tony waits anxiously.

TONY

Harder!

CARLOS

I’m trying!

Tony swims to help, just as they push Carlos out. Before Tony can escape, however, the bucket breaks the water’s surface.

TONY

Nuts.

Tony races for the bottom and turns to make a break for the surface. As he makes his run, a net appears.

EXT. FLAT-BOTTOMED METAL BOAT – SAME TIME

A hand reaches into the bucket and fishes for Tony, who scurries around trying not to get caught.

TONY

Hey! Watch the scales. Let go!

The hand throws Tony into a clear bag of water.

TONY (CONT’D)

Okay. Now you’ve made me mad!

The hand tosses the bag into a cardboard box.

INSERT: BOX LABEL THAT READS “ECUADOR PET SUPPLIES”.

The lid of the box closes. Everything GOES DARK.

OPENING CREDITS

(to be continued)

Something from nothing

August 1, 2013 by Created by RCW

“I don’t know what to write about.”

It is the clarion call of procrastinators worldwide.

There is this pervasive belief that if you are not writing about something then you are not really writing. As though words have no power, no authority unless they are tied to some portentous subject. Free association, it would appear, is not free. And yet, ironically enough, nowhere is this written. It is a myth.

It is just as valid to write about nothing as it is to write about something. To make no conjectures, to postulate no theories, to hold no opinions aside from the personally pleasing juxtaposition of two or more words.

Just as people can speak forever and yet say nothing of lasting import, so too can people wax jibberish and yet speak volumes.

In painting, we can view both delicately rendered images of nature in all its glory (my personal favourite is Robert Bateman) or the seeming chaotic void of splatter on canvas. Both are art, but speak to different tastes and preferences. Why too cannot words, which are merely the medium that in and of themselves hold little meaning?

Write about nothing. Tap into your inner anarchist, your inner artist, to express yourself in splashes of verbiage that may mean little in isolation but so much more in toto.

Embrace the freedom and release the fear that comes from working without a destination or plan. Fill the void with noise of your soul and spirit, only to discover the noise is in fact a song the tune of which you don’t yet recognize.

I think you’ll find that in writing about nothing, you will find something, and you will stand amazed.

Nothing is rarely nothing

Tank’s – a screenplay

July 31, 2013 by Created by RCW

The following is the opening for my first screenplay. Tank’s is the story of Tony, an impetuous young fish who gets snatched from his tropical homeland and transported to Tank’s, a pet shop in Rochester, NY. There, he quickly falls for Maya, a royal daughter of the salt water community, and runs afoul of the iron-finned rule of an eel named Kang.

(Image is property of owner and is used here without permission but my sincerest Tank’s.)

FADE IN

EXT. AERIAL VIEW OF A RAINFOREST – AFTERNOON

A canopy of trees extends forever to a distant range of mountains, birds swooping in and out. A break in the forest exposes a broad meandering river that empties into the sea.

One bird descends to skirt along the water. Crocodiles slide from the shore, disrupting the peaceful wading of cranes who take to the air.

A thicket of tree roots plunge into the river, large insects crawling along or flying amongst the gnarled roots. A squirt of water shoots up at a dragonfly, which splashes into the water, to be eaten by a large fish.

EXT. BELOW THE SURFACE – SAME TIME

Schools of fish swim among the roots. Larger fish swim alone, oblivious to the schools that scatter and reform.

A cloud of bleary water blooms across the bottom of the river, causing most of the fish to scatter to the clearer upper layers. A few fish swim between the layers, trailing bleary streams.

The serenity is shattered as four sleek black mollies fly by, weaving chaotically through the weeds. TONY, JUAN, RICKY and CARLOS, hyper adolescents, flip a pebble back and forth, while trying to evade tackle.

TONY

Carlos fades back for a long throw…

Chubby Carlos swerves the wrong way, sliding into the mud and being tackled by the others.

Laughing, they slowly climb out of the tangle. Carlos remains on the bottom, dazed.

TONY (CONT’D)

Hey, look! A flat fish.

Tony pumps his tail to reinflate him. Juan looks to the surface, catching the waning sunlight.

JUAN

It’s late. Gotta go help Mom with the brood.

TONY

A hundred and thirty-nine brothers and sisters and you have to help?

RICKY

Me, too. Summer school.

TONY

C’mon. You’re ruining things for Carlos. He can barely speak.

Tony slaps his fin over Carlos’s mouth.

TONY (CONT’D)

Hush, pal. Save your strength.

Tony slowly backs away. The guys follow.

JUAN

Duty calls, Tony.

TONY

Duties come later. Today is for adventure.

Tony grabs Carlos by the gills.

TONY (CONT’D)

Look at this guy. Ready to grab life by the gills and kiss it on the mouth.

Carlos recoils in disgust.

TONY (CONT’D)

We’re young.

Tony swims into a shadow. The guys stare, mouths agape.

TONY (CONT’D)

We have no fear!

JUAN/RICKY/CARLOS (scattering)

Aaaaaaaaaah!

TONY

Hunh?

Tony looks up and comes face to face with a grinning caiman.

TONY (CONT’D)

Oh.

Tony sticks a fin in the caiman’s nostrils, making it sneeze.

Tony flees, pursued by the caiman. As Tony leads the merry chase, other fish scramble to safety.

The caiman gets close but never quite reaches Tony.

TONY (CONT’D)

C’mon, armor-butt.

Tony suddenly favours his left fin.

TONY (CONT’D)

Cramp! Ow, ow!

The caiman pounces. Tony flits aside and the caiman gets a mouthful of gravel.

TONY (CONT’D)

Psych!

Tony takes off, leaving the caiman to spit out stones.

(To be continued.)

I had no idea

July 31, 2013 by Created by RCW

Ideas are everywhere, but they don’t always look like ideas

“How the heck did you come up with that?”

It’s a common question I get when talking about my latest ideas, and for years, my answer was a resounding “I dunno…just came to me.”

To a limited extent, the response is correct, but it suggests the process of ideation is much more passive or deus ex machina than it really is.

Ideas surround me, as they do you. They are in the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs that make up our moment-by-moment reality. They are in the streetcar in which I presently ride, the streets down which I presently travel.

In the dark-haired beauty two rows before me who is fixated on adjusting her hair rather than close the window through which the hair-mussing breeze blows. And in the armada of free-range humans who occupy the parkette we just passed, proving themselves houseless rather than homeless.

The challenge for many would-be writers is that these are starting points for ideas rather than fully fledged stories or subjects. These are the writers who wish to be reporters or chroniclers rather than explorers.

Think instead of these idea kernels as pieces of clay, as something that can be moulded into any of a thousand other shapes. Take the kernel and play with it for a while. Give yourself a chance to see what it feels like, smells like, sounds like, tastes like.

Twist it. Turn parts of it over. Reverse its halves.

What is something were feasting on Toronto’s homeless? Imagine a mobile service that will do your hair and makeup while you commute to work. What if a terrorist planted a bomb on a streetcar and it had to travel no slower than 50 mph? Or an aesthetician to the deceased in From Hair to Eternity.

All of these are probably bad ideas, but the ideas have evolved.

Twist it again. Mould it again. Press it onto something else, like so much Silly Putty, and see what sticks.

Keep the good. Set aside the bad. But keep working it until something you really like begins to show itself.

You have no idea the wonders you will discover.

The word was cat – an exercise

July 30, 2013 by Created by RCW

“Cat killer,” Anthony thought to himself, ruefully. He was now going to be forever known as the cat killer of Borden Street.

To be fair, it was an accident. At worst, negligent manslaughter. Catslaughter?

Yes, if Anthony had gotten his car tuned up as he’d been promising himself for weeks, he might have noticed the strange sound emanating from his motor. But a “rowr” sounds an awful lot like a “rawr”, so it was hardly his fault.

Why would a cat crawl on the engine block in the first place? And it’s not like Anthony held its tail against the fan belt.

No. It was a mercy killing. Clearly, living in a house with 17 other cats had taken its toll on Snowball. She had lost the will to live and decided to end her days.

It was Old Lady MacGillvary’s fault. Nobody needs 18…17 cats. A sign of mental defectiveness on a grand scale.

Hell, Anthony was lucky it wasn’t the old woman herself who flung around his engine like a piñata on heroin.

Anthony liked cats. Well, he tolerated them. He’d never killed a cat before. Two dogs, a ferret and a budgerigar, sure, but never a cat.

It was a bad year for pets in his neighbourhood.

As he recalled, the Great Dane was an automotive accident, his hood still bearing the scars, and the chow was proof that you shouldn’t buy electric garden lamps from a guy in a van on the highway.

The ferret shouldn’t have been loose while he mowed the lawn, and why the bird was anywhere near his barbecue while he was using his leaf blower is anyone’s guess.

It had gotten so bad that Anthony had to beg off a trip to the petting zoo with his nephew for fear of dropping a horse on the kid.

You’d think Anthony’s job as a taxidermist would come in handy here, but apparently a stuffed pet is considered poor compensation for a loss.

The point was moot where Snowball was concerned. All the King’s horse and all the King’s men, you know?

Oh well, Anthony shrugged, no use crying over eviscerated Persian. If he took the highway to work, most of the fur would probably fall out and cooked flesh is so much easier to extract from metal.

Anthony turned the motor over, listening for the familiar “rawr”, and then put the car in reverse.

Thump.

Crunchy crawlies

July 30, 2013 by Created by RCW

Discovering some new trails in my area of Toronto, I came upon some interesting neighbours.

: A lady bug travels a withered leaf past a tick waiting for a new host

: Among the thistles, a lady bug takes a moment

: I don’t know that I’ve ever seen this species of hornet (wasp?) before

: Took me a while to realize there are two millipedes in this photo

: A small fly gives thanks to a passing bird for…well…passing

: The kilometer long fence played host to dozens of spiders

: You had to know there would be at least one bee photo

: A moment’s rest from a day of flight

: Checking out the railing for some nesting materials

: The wasp had carved a line several cm long in the railing

Introspective

July 29, 2013 by Created by RCW

Deep in thought,

The gull reflects

On nestlings gone,

Hot dogs stolen,

Cars yet clean.

Give up or surrender

July 29, 2013 by Created by RCW

You’ve hit a wall. You’ve banged your head on your desk for an hour; two; ten. Staring out the window—your go-to maneuver for the last decade—has gotten you nowhere. Is it time to give up?

Might I recommend surrendering instead?

In case this sounds confusing, there is a difference between the two options.

Giving up is about accepting failure. It’s the belief that there is no solution to your problem or if there is a solution, you’re not the one who will come up with it.

Giving up is about telling yourself that you’re not good enough, strong enough, smart enough to solve your problem. It is defeat.

Surrender is different. Rather than giving up, you’re giving over; ceding control of the situation to whatever power you are most comfortable with—God, time, the elements, the universe.

Surrender is about believing that not only is there an answer to the problem, but also you are capable of delivering that answer—just not without help.

We all know what giving up looks like. It’s turning off the laptop with a frown, and maybe a sigh with drooping shoulders. And almost always, it comes with a fear or reluctance to turn the computer back on.

Surrender is calmly closing the laptop of letting it go idle while you take a walk, read a book or vegetate in a coffee shop. It can even including reviewing your work-to-date if you focus on what’s working, what you’re happy with.

The answer is there for you to pluck, but it’s waiting for you to drop your focus. Like that white spot on the inside of your eyelid that moves every time you try to look at it, the answer doesn’t like your stare, so it hangs in the periphery.

That may actually be source of some of your frustration: the knowledge or sense that the answer’s nearby, but you can’t see it.

Don’t give up. You can do it.

You just need to have faith in your universe and surrender the control you never really had.