The Plot Thickens - Mate!

The Horror!

I've been a bit shameless lately, in the role of huckster for my own screenplay – it's just that y'all are the only connections I've got, but by way of apology I think I've figured out a way for all of us to become struggling screenwriters and have a good old bit of fun in the process. During the course of my daily cyber-space adventure I occasionally happen onto advertisements for different kinds of agencies and companies basically preying on the dreams of dumb guys like me who have no idea how to go about selling a screenplay. (Note to self – try Ebay) The ad I've been stumbling into the most frequently is for an outfit called the Screenplay Agency! (Catchy name, huh?) They have a nice looking site with theater curtains much like our site hmm – hence I've decided to makee TSA the target for our little sting operation. Just to give you a quick idea of how cheesy the minds behind this "possible scam" take a gander at their opener – sort of a mission statement as it were:

The Screenplay Agency

The written word when combined with the visual power of media has the power to make us laugh, cry, expose our failings, and give us the tools to fix them. The right words can literally change the world. As literary agents for screenplays, it is our job and pleasure to bring our clients' vision and work to fruition "on the big screen".

Then they set the hook on us hapless non-professional screenwriters with the following: "We take pride in finding and developing fresh, new literary talent. We believe that just because you are a new writer doesn't mean that your work should be excluded from the marketplace, and we promise to work hard to give you a chance at success."

"Why, goodness gracious this is my lucky day – it's like all m'dreams are finally coming true – God bless you the Screenplay Agency.

The scam is pretty simple, first they have you E-mail them a synopsis (or "logline) as them big time Hollywood agents calls it. of your script.

Based on your Logline they determine if you've got what it takes to make it as big-time Hollywood picture writer. Basically the only other thing they want to know at this stage is whether or not your work has been edited or critiqued, and if so by Whom? For our purposes, of course the correct answer will be heavens NO. We want to have fun with this, we don't want to scare them off. It's the same game they play, they keep you nice and comfortable while they lead you down the primrose path, and don't start asking for money until eveybody's excited as hell about your work. That's why we're going to give it the title "Night of the Wombat," it's funny to you and I, but won't be so outrageous that we spook TSA off. Because we're going to write one of the most hilariously bad scripts of all time, but not so bad that they can't fake professional enthusiasm so they can get a hold of my credit card number. You with me?

So let's write a synops/ I mean a logline.

Night of the Wombat

LOGLINE: When a violent thunderstorm sets upon an abandoned Australian nuclear plant, a bolt of lightning strikes a storage facility – reactivating a portion of the plants dormant core. As the smoke dissipates, staring from their enormous nest are the red, beady, soulless eyes of a hundreds of wombats.

I know what you're thinking – why waste an awesome idea like that on a joke script. I'm going to do my best to make this thing suck – but if by some off chance it ends up a campy classic – we'll auction it off to my favorite charity – my daughters orthodonture.

In any case even if it turns out to be the next Tremors, we won't because we sent it to The Screenplay Agency. I'll offer one of my favorite passages from their homepage as proof. As you notice how badly this is written (count how many times the word "we " is used) bear in mind the point the paragraph is trying to get across.

"We believe we are very different than other agencies. We believe that we are unique in that we are willing to develop an author and their talent. We like the metaphor of a business incubator as a description of how we will take time to bring an author's work to the proper quality level, even if it takes months to do so. We take pride in the fact that we answer every email personally within 2-3 days.

(Don't think I'm not going to check up on their stellar E-mail performance.)

After we have been accepted for the literary promise demonstrated by our Logline, we will be asked to send them either the entire script or a sizeable portion (they prefer E-mail – so their PO Box can be as small as possible.)
If I'm a good guesser, within a week to ten days we will receive an E-mail informing us that they are very much interested in representing us, based on what they have read, or they may ask us to submit the script in it's entirety (this indicates that it's good enough to steal.) We'll be shooting a little lower than this, but whichever the case at this point TSA, is going to want our VSA number - gotta cover copying fees, shipping fees, and various and sundry administrative fees. This won't be a scary figure, my guess will be 89 to 99 dollars. We are now a live one, and the last thing they want to do is scare away the cow before they've given our milky teats a good squeezin'. As far as they know we're just a crappy writer with big dreams.

Over the course of the next few days I'm going to go ahead and start writing the movie – my plan is to have the 25 pages or so that I intend to send at least half finished before I make our initial E mail with the Logline, so I'll be ready when they ask for more. (Now as I go along, feel free to drop suggestions in at the bottom of the page. I'll incorporate good ideas as I go. If you are an aspiring screenwriter I do sort of know what I'm doing, so if you want to learn formatting, and structural stuff this will be as good a way as any. What would really be fun is to see how this one goes and if it turns out to be as fun and funny as I'm guessing, we'll figure out a whole bunch of ways to have fun with this. Like take two writers, give them one premisse and the same characters and then have them write like 5 scenes in 5 days, then meld them together, in some insane way and send it to TSA after we have a contest to see who can come up with the most hilarious and insane logline.

Ladies and Gentleman I give you the beginning of

Night of the Wombat

FADE IN:

New Zealand Present Day

Ext. Monstrous Industrial Building – Night

A tremendous, windy rainstorm is battering the ground in ghostly sheets and wind is savaging the rickety old leafless trees that move as grudgingly as arthritic hands grasping heavenward for rain. Lightning regularly illuminates a gothic tableau of colossal cement fortresses beneath two round monoliths, the enormous round chimney towers of the greatest Debacle in the history of New Zealand. The Helios Nuclear Reactor, built by man, named after a Greek God and destined to stand idle, never generating so much as a Watt thanks to a National referendum. The people had spoken and the mighty steel and concrete fortress would forever stand as a monument to bureaucracy and it's evil twin malfeasance. A metaphor as lasting and absurd as the great fiery chariot that so faithfully blazed a path across the sky in more noble times. Close up the rain water gushes over and under the many levels of the crumbling cement beast.

TIME CUT:

Int. Chimney Cylinder – Night

Looking upward into the vast, greenish metallic void - water cascades from high above through leaks in the roof. Following the water to where it splashes through an alluminum flooring grid, a rat is drinking water that pools atop a case for a Men At Work CD. There are sudden human voices the rat turns tail and gets about 6 inches before an enormous workboot crushes it right through the grid and from beneath the critter is all but food-processed. Above, two big, swarthy-complected men struggle with a heavy-crate. They set it down and mop the sweat from their brows with coverall sleeves. They complain in an Arabic sounding language, then one gives the other a companionable swat and then rattles off a line with the unmistakable rhythm of a set-up for a joke - the last two words being unmistakably "Mel Gibson" -

Worker # 1
(after a puchline pause)
Two Mel Gibson -

The comedian smacks his partner, clearly disappointed in his stunted sense of humor. As they resume their work, the rat comes back into focus and we follow a drop of its blood in slowed motion all the way to a puddle of it on cement flooring deep within the facility. The blood is near a door that's ajar enough to show several inches of complete darkness. As the ripples in the pool slowly smooth we pan until the reflection upon the blood angles to reveal a creature, head-lowered, licking it's enormous, twisted fangs. Then slowly raises it's wolfen head until we see the eyes of some kind of freakish ungodly beast.

TIME CUT:

Ext. Convertible Lincoln - Night

From a hideaway parking spot that offers a stunning vantage of the Helios plant from a mile away. A full moon reflecting off the ocean beyond the tower closest to the ocean lends a more dramatic effect. After a moment we are in the backseat of the car with Robin Drake and Bryce Cunningham - they are in the front seat.

Robin
Are you serious? It's not about sex?
I want to keep having sex with you and you
don't want to have sex with me anymore -
I really think you're wrong - I'm pretty sure
sex figures into this, thing . . . somehow -

Bryce
Did I tell you, it would just fuck everything
up? I'm not . . . gay, I just, I dunno I wanted
to do something nice for you. (off Robin's look)
Don't look at me like that, you . . . get me drunk
and start begging, then you do that y'know thing -
I love you Rob, but you know I'm never going
to kiss you in public, or hold hands, or any of
that - there's no way that I'll ever change about
that - The more you keep suckering me into bed with
you, the more you're going to resent, that I'm
never going to wanna, do any of . . . that -

Robin
Okay, just forget it - we're wasting the most romantic
moon of all time. (They exchange different smiles, and
rest their heads together) Man, being in love is such
a fucking drag -

From off camera there is a rustling and then footsteps of rapid approach, as Robin fumbles for the keys an indistinct figure is suddenly at the side of the car raising some kind of large object and smashing the window so violently that whatever it is becomes pinched in the glass. Just as suddenly the assailant has vanished with a noisy exit through the heavy brush.

The girls remain as quiet as their instincts and nervous systems permit. Between them we see Bryce's hand turn the key, but the lights from the dash give up just enough light to see the bloodied and horribly smashed face of a koala - bits of fur and flesh poking through the shattered glass. After a good bit of tandem screaming, Robin switches on the headlights and slams the Lincoln in gear, but the rain from the previous night causes the tires to slip and slide out sideways and bounce before finding rocky purchase. The car manages to limp onto the road, but their poor visiblilty causes them to keep their speed disquietingly slow -

Robin
Get my equipment bag - my bats -

The sound of wood and aluminum banging causes a frightful din, but Bryce comes up swinging - first poking the unfortunate marsupial out and off the hood and then more carefully poking the driver's side glass to clear Robin's line of sight. With each new glimpse of the road, Bryce get's the car up to a more comfortable speed. Bryce stops to catch her breath and then a crashing noise from the back seat. They both scream and Robin nearly loses control - but both have to laugh at each other when they realize it was only her bat-bag falling off the seat. Bryce twists around again and tosses them back up and keeps a wary eye out the back. She squints and leans a bit as a figure lopes toward the road against the setting moon, then stands erect once it reaches the road. Watching.

TIME CUT:

Int. Palace/Office - Night

Sheik Ansuhkit
(into a cell phone)
Very good Amhad, Allah will be very, very pleased.
Now tell me - how soon you make uh delivery system uh,
how to say - working good for a shit?

The aging, yet Omar Sharif-looking Sheik, motions an entry gesture as the gold-plaited door opens and three blonde women are ushered in.

Sheik Ansuhkit (cont'd)
(responding to the gorgeous women - sotto)
Holy Jesus (into the cell again) What? How dare you -
suggest that I say this? Do you think I will not cut
the tongue out from your insolent head? All, uh
the sudden Allah has the doubts again about uh, Amhad uh
loyalty to most holy of kick-assing Jihad?

The Sheik cradles the phone in the crook of his neck and gestures twice quickly for the girls to remove their tops.

Sheik Ansuhkit (cont'd)
Yes - this is more like it, yes -
(frowning suddenly)
Of course I'm still talking to you! Do you think I have
some magic telephone to uh, talk to two people? How I
put fool in charge of most important operation in Talzbelah history?

CONTINUOUS:

Ext. Near Power Plant - Night

From the ocean looking toward the Helios Plant we do a rapid POV approach starting in the bow of a sleek sea vessel, along a twisting river, following a faint light down several flights of stairs into a cramped makeshift office deep within the plant.

Amhad
(Slamming down the phone - to his partner)
A fool! If I am the fool - Sheik Ansuhkit is the
fucking fool on the "hill!" I tell him, Sheik if you
nuke Israel, you also nuke your own country? Then he say -
(in a mocking voice)
Do you disbelieve the prophet of thee "last day?"

Hassan
Who gives shit? When Jew go boom - whoever else go boom, are we safe in
bosom of Allah? No we safe in Hawaii, to spend six million dollars, man?
(slapping Amhad on the back)
Fucka thee world, uh? Fuck it - what it ever do for you?
Thee Middle East - fucking joke - blood and sand and more blood -

Amhad
(laughing)
and more sand -

Fifteen feet away from the cone of light that the two terrorists sit within, a POV camera circles them at knee level. There is a metallic smack and then a large tin of provisions roll toward Amhad and Hassan. From their vantage we see a large hairy tail snap around a stack of crates into darkness. The two men look at each other spooked and confused.

Amhad
Fucking big rat man?

Hassan
This I saw the last night - I tell you - it's Uranus - everything
getting huge!

Amhad
Uranium asshole - are you "trying" to be, stupid stereotype sidekick?

Hassan
I tell you - everything here is too much big - I smash fly, half the
size of both my balls - here, I save for you, look at this -

He produces a wad of paper and Amhad swats it away -

Amhad
I take your word for this -

Suddenly the wad of paper starts to move and buzz in a circle until a huge fly tears through the paper and flies awkwardly away. It bumps into a panel of electronic lights which causes the circuits to go haywire. We leave the terrorists as they frantically begin to hit switches trying to set things right.

TIME CUT:

Int. Darkened Bedroom - Night

Bryce rolls off Robin panting hoarsely -

Bryce
Y'happy now?

Robin
Oh hey - happy, cheerful . . . gay?

Bryce
It's funny, but at times like this, I can picture myself
kissing you passionately in the checkout line at a
Supermarket. At 6 o'clock at night.

Hopping off the bed and into the bathroom -

Robin
You do know how to sweet-talk a gal -

Bryce
I'm sorry - I don't mean to be such a pain - I'm just tired
of hanging around that nuclear plant like Scooby and Shaggy.
I am so not going near that spooky ass place again. You can
say what you want, but whatever that was tried to kill us
with that teddy bear . . . wasn't human -

Robin (O.C.)
Really then - and you call me the Conspiracy theorist.

Bryce
You know I believe you Rob - there's no way your Uncle
died the way they said, and I'll admit it's been kinda fun
playing Velma and Louise - I just don't know how you expect
to prove anything watching flashlights moving around in the Plant
from a mile away. And now that we got Sasquatch lurking around -
you're gonna be goin' solo on the investigation if you plan on going
back.

Sitting on the foot of the bed, looking away -

Robin
Whatever - God hates a pussy -

Bryce
Are we talking about cowards or vaginas?

Robin
You're an ass,

(This scene isn't over - but I've got to go do some shit - and I wanted to post some more - More to come)