rough cut

Here is a very basic (just using imovie) scrapped together product of some of the footage I took last weekend. I want to re-shoot a lot of this, but this should give the pacing/feeling I’m going for. and…I think I want to use that song. tell me what you think…keep in mind this is supposed to be very rough. and I’m just using a crappy home camcorder….

Three Thirty

Wide shot of the fronts of three houses at night. Extremely slow zoom and pan to the house on the right, an old two-story structure, vine-draped and sleeping. Faint blue moonlight mixes with the imposing street lights. Crickets are heard chirping. They get louder and louder, drowning out all other sound until they turn into an alarm clock’s buzzer.

Cut to inside Sharon’s room. She sleepily turns off the alarm which reads 3:30 and lies in bed for a bit more. Cue This Is Not the End by Laura Gibson. The camera follows in front of her as she rises, navigates blindly to the kitchen and turns on the light. Just as the light flips on, the left two-thirds of the frame switches to an outside shot in which we get a view of the left side of the house. From the (upstairs) kitchen window falls light that’s almost too yellow and we glimpse Sharon’s silhouette, which is in synchronized movement with the right third. Sharon is seen (in the right third of the frame) opening cupboards until she locates the sugar which she places on the counter and then walks into the bathroom. The camera, presumably out of shyness, does not enter with her. Door open, Sharon starts to pull down her pants and the right third blinks into place with the rest of the frame revealing the driveway to the right. After about 10 seconds, a toilet flush is heard and the Title appears – “Three Thirty”

A car pulls into the driveway. Jane steps out, walks to the front door and takes out her keys.

Cut to inside kitchen extension room. An unfocused close-up on Sharon’s torso as she mixes batter in a large bowl. An in-focus Jane walks up the stairs behind her. Sharon turns her head.

S: Hey stranger!

J: (genuinely glad to see her) Hey Mom! Haven’t seen you in weeks – how’s it goin’?

Sharon walks off-screen right, taking the bowl with her. Jane pulls up a stool and sits where Sharon was standing. She pulls out her cell phone and fiddles.

S: (off screen) Good. How was the party?

Jane, momentarily engrossed by her cell phone screen, doesn’t respond.

S: I’ll let you go to sleep.

J: (finishing a text message) What? Oh, no Mom I can stay up for a bit. I want to. Are you outa here, though?

S: (as she walks on screen, puts a plate down in front of Jane, and walks back off) They’ve got me doing this darn orientation again… So, anyway, I thought I’d make breakfast – you know, before I go tell a bunch of pre-meds how to undo-the process I might as well soak some flour in oil and (back on screen, plopping a pancake on Jane’s plate) put it in me.

J: Mmmmmm.

S: Oh, here… fructose.

Jane leaps up and puts a soft hand on Sharon’s shoulder.

J: I got it. You flip.

Jane gets the syrup and they return to their previous positions.

J: (cont.) The party? The gathering? Um, it was… as fun as those things get I suppose.

Cut to medium shot from Jane’s left allowing audience to see them both.

S: How’s Jill? Is she still… you know…

J: Adorably dysfunctional?

S: Well I was gonna say going out with that boy but…

J: Yeah - same thing. Um, I don’t know, she wasn’t there tonight.

Sharon joins Jane at the table with a stack. Cut to medium shot of both of them from the front.

They eat in comfortable silence for two whole minutes.

J: Do you remember what we used to call these?

S: You mean Flap Janes? I remember.

J: I would have sworn they were my favorite food. Then I ate too many and yarfed and that was the end of that obsession.

S: I remember I couldn’t have gotten you to eat another one if it was sprinkled with cocaine.

J: (only half joking) Well, I wasn’t too into to cocaine yet at age six.

S: (also half joking) Oh that’s right. That came later.

Semi-awkward pause.

S: (thinking out loud) Well look at us now…

Sharon looks off into space thinking for another beat then stands up and gathers the plates.

J: Thanks mom.

S: You’re very welcome My Dear.

J: No, I mean – thank you, really.

Sharon takes the dishes to the sink.

S: Oh, don’t mention it. It was interesting to say the least. I here boys make a better only child.

J: You ever wish you could have made Flap Jakes?

S: Goodness no. They may be better but they’re… boring.

J: We should hang out more.

S: Yeah… How?

They ponder on this for a second and Sharon’s beeper goes off.

S: (looking at the device, face tightening) Gotta go.

J: (As Sharon walks away) See ya. Thanks for the cakes.

Jane picks up her plate of almost untouched pancakes and scrapes them into the trash. The camera follows as she goes into Sharon’s room, changes into a large t-shirt and goes to sleep in her mom’s unmade bed.

The right third of the frame cuts to a shot of the house from outside revealing Sharon pulling out of the driveway as Jane slumbers in the left two-thirds.

After Sharon has driven away, the left two-thirds blinks into place with the right third, going to a wide shot of the house. Extremely slow zoom out as chirping crickets are again heard.

Fade to black.

Acne Brought Them Together

Acne brought them together. Their greasy snow-capped flesh mountains glistened under the flourencent public-school lights. Their embarrasment melted away into relieved jokes of cottage cheese and volcanoes.

Parker Family Christmas Tradition

So it occurred to me this will be the first Christmas that the entire Parker family will spend together. I think a cool tradition to institute would be a 12 Days To Christmas Movie Marathon. Here’s my proposal for the line-up:

December 13th The Nightmare Before Christmas

14th Home Alone (every other year Home Alone 2)

15th The Family Man

16th A Muppet Christmas Carol

17th Elf

18th The Grinch

19th The Polar Express

20th The Santa Clause

21st A Christmas Story

22nd It’s A Wonderful Life

23rd How the Grinch Stole Christmas/Mr. Krueger’s Christmas

24th The Nativity Story

Comments? Suggestions?

Short Film Outline

Here’s the rough outline I have so far. Any ideas/insight appreciated…

Scene 1

OPENING: Open with black screen for a few seconds, then you can hear the clicking noise of a slide projector shifting slides. You hear once, twice, then the image blinks on.

SHOT 1: camera starts in a darkened closet then the closet door is opened. After a few seconds of rustling a GIRL comes into view. She has climbed onto one of the lower shelves of the closet and is peering at a higher one (where the camera is).
She shifts a few objects, pulls them off the shelves. After a moment of rustling through the items it seems like she hasn’t found what she wants. She begins to put the items back, but hesitates as she peers thoughtfully into an old plastic shopping bag. She replaces all the items but the bag and shuts the door.

SHOT 2: A broken flashlight can be seen on the ground (top off, batteries falling out). Feet enter the frame and exit, followed by a lamp trailing a cord down the hallway.

SHOT 3: A moment later camera follows cord down the hallway and it can be seen snaking into a darkened bedroom.

SHOT 4: Wider shot of darkened and cluttered room with an elaborate blanket fort inside. Rustling is heard, then a soft click and the fort lights up.

SHOT 5: Close up of hand holding the tiny slides and fingers tracing the cardboard edges.

**Montage of holding slides up to the lamp light, and sorting them into piles**

I don’t know how to make it flow into this next part!!! Any ideas??

Scene 2

GIRL somehow obtains a slide projector. I am having second thoughts about having her pick it up at Good Will. Actually I just can’t clearly envision this scene so I’m going to bypass it for now. Maybe in the beginning she just finds the slides AND the projector??

Scene 3

SHOT 1: girl pulls from a storage closet a big box of cords. She lifts them up in a tangled knot.

SHOT 2: presumably later on she sits on the ground with the cords and is plugging them one by one into the wall to test them. She tries 3 or 4 that don’t work. Finally one does and the slide projector blinks on.

Scene 4: Many sheets and towels and other laundry are hanging on an outdoor clothesline to dry. The girl walks through them casually, then tiptoes to undo the clothespins on a white sheet and yanks it from the line, dashing away.

Show and Tell: Darwinists’ Attacks Against Intelligent Design

1. Intelligent Design is just Creation Science in a new suit (name-calling).

2. Don’t listen to these guys, they’re not real scientists (credentialism).

3. If you actually understood science as we do, you’d realize that these guys are wrong and we’re right; but you don’t, so you have to trust us (expertism).

4. They got some details of those complex systems wrong, so they must be wrong about everything (sniping).

5. The first amendment requires the separation of church and state (politics).

6. We can’t possibly find a fossil record of every step along the way in evolution, but evolution has already been so well-demonstrated it is absurd to challenge it in the details (prestidigitation).

7. Even if there are problems with the Darwinian model, there’s no justification for postulating an “intelligent designer” (true).

Animal Vegetable Miracle

Newest research obsession: community supported agriculture and the perks of eating only locally grown produce and growing your own food.

I have been reading the book Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and fantasizing about having the means to buy a CSA share for one of the local family farms in Utah and beginning to do stuff like grind my own wheat, raise chickens, and make my own cheese or pickles.

It may just be a passing obsession, but there are a lot of good reasons to re-evaluate the way we eat in contemporary America. We have become so completely removed from the process behind one of our most basic needs: to eat.

One day I have dreams of having a nice little vegetable patch and buying most of my food from local farmer’s markets

Since this is mainly a show-and-tell I pledge to post some sort of writing on Wednesday when I’d usually post show-and-tell. Goodnight! I’m off to read another chapter in that book…

The Mords

One would say they looked like the unlikely combination of a slug and a rhinoceros, if two such animals existed.  One would also have reason to think them dumb grumps.  This is a common misconception.  Mords are, in actuality, just about the smartest, friendliest, most chivalrous large-herd-animals you are likely to meet.  They are just terribly slow, which sometimes comes off the wrong way.

For example, if you were to inquire of a Mord concerning his position on, say, affirmative action, you would probably be met with an eyebrowless glare (judging glares without brows is tricky business).  But what you would likely not know is that roughly two and a half weeks later, said Mord would utter a brilliant dissertation on the subject, with no one present to hear.

It is said that Prince Gesundheit got his name when King Fatpan and Queen Leafnut, unable to come up with a mutually satisfactory moniker, vowed to go with the very next suggestion they heard.  How were they to know that the Mord whom they asked was not answering their query, but responding to his nephew’s sneeze from three weeks prior?

A fortnight after the Prince’s christening the same Mord, when asked about his stance on global warming, was heard saying “Mortimor Von Belt-Whip!”

Brooke: Nattfari

*names are tentative and will probably change.

Nattfari was skeptical when she arrived. He set down his nets and watched as she strode confidently onto port with Sigridur behind her, following as a shadow in her steps. The mother wore a thick cloak to shield against the rain, but held her head erect as she fixed on him a fiery gaze—daring him to object before a word had even been spoken.

He scratched his chin, eyed the child gravely, and he spoke.

“You’ve brought the girl.”

She said nothing, only pulled Sigridur forward to stand at her side. Sigridur’s small head protruded comically from a thick animal skin, a cloak like her mother’s wrapped around her tiny frame. She tried not to shiver as she stood, and fixed Nattfari with the fiercest gaze she could muster. Even standing at full height she reached just above her mother’s elbows.

Nattfari was shaking his head, “and you intend for this little–”

“She comes with us,” the mother interrupted. Her voice was strong, her arm reached out possessively around her daughter.

“The boat is no place for a child”

“She is strong, she can work.”

As she spoke these words she silently felt the thick coat of animal skin draped around her daughter and was thankful that it hid the child in all her frailty.

“I will not allow for it.”

“Then I will leave,” said the mother turning as she spoke.

“Ha!” said Natfarri, looking at her mockingly, “you cannot leave.”

The mother shot around with a renewed fierceness. “The child comes, or I will leave,” she growled.

Nattfari frowned. “We will bring the matter before Garduar”

Five More Short Story Ideas

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Fill in the blanks.