MEDIUM SHOT: A sleeping man awakes in the back seat of a taxi and stares out of the window.
EXT. - black beach - AFTERNOON (RAINY)
LONG SHOT: The car rolls up by a beach and the title above reads "BLACK BEACH"
MEDIUM SHOT: The man steps out of the car clutching his hat, with a suitcase in the other hand.
CLOSE-UP SHOT: The man looks up and gasps.
CLOSE-UP SHOT: The centre-fold of a magazine is held up in front of the camera, advertising a luxury holiday featuring a picturesque beach with a lone deckchair circled. The caption "You could be here!" is written below.
The magazine lowers in the man's hands to reveal that the beach is a baron wasteland, littered with junk, amidst a gloomy, grey sky for miles around.
WIDE PAN POV: The man scans from the far left horizon to the far right, and back again.
LONG SHOT: The car starts to drive away. The man tries to stop the car, hailing his hand and running after it.
LONG SHOT: We see the man from behind, running briefly as the taxi drives away.
MEDIUM SHOT: The man's hat flies off as he runs towards the camera. He stops and pants miserably as his hat whirls off into the distance. Moments later, he pats his head and realises his hat has blown off.
MEDIUM SHOT: Turning quickly, he extends his hand and begins to run after it.
LONG SHOT: The man follows his hat along the path and down the steps onto the beach, running past the camera. We then zoom into a plaque on the wall which reads "DANGER QUICKSAND"
POV SHOT: The man runs along the beach after his hat, extending his arm out in an attempt to grab it.
CLOSE-UP SHOT: The man runs towards the backwards-rolling camera, looking worried and exhausted.
POV SHOT: The same shot continues now that the hat is closer and the man makes a final grab for it.
CLOSE-UP SHOT: His eyes close as trips and falls.
MEDIUM SHOT: From the ground, we see the man fall hard onto the sand.
INSTANT SHOT TO BLACK
POV SHOT: Eyes start to heavily blink open, showing a sideways horizon of the ocean. The camera follows the POV SHOT as he stands back up and brushes himself off.
POV / EXTREME LONG SHOT: He raises his head to reveal a figure stood in the distance and we hear a gasp, then nothing but rainfall.
CRAB CLOSE-UP: The man pants quickly, now with dirt covering his face and clothes. His hair is now curving around his face due to the rain, and his expression - terrified.
POV / EXTREME LONG SHOT: The distant figure remains still, but footsteps in the sand begin to appear closer and closer towards us, with one lone track pacing along in between them.
POV SHOT: The camera pans down to his feet, where the sand tracks suddenly come to a halt.
POV SHOT: Quick pan up to reveal The Barrowman - a silent, cloaked man in foggy, round glasses and a top hat. His hands grasp the two handles of a wheelbarrow.
POV SHOT: Slow pan down to the wheelbarrow in which the man's hat can be seen perched upon a messy head of upturned ice-cream cones.
POV SHOT: We now see through both of The Barrowman's foggy lenses, pausing on two identical shots of the man through tunnel vision, whilst listening to The Barrowman's heavy breaths.
MEDIUM SHOT: Both men stand at either side of the shot with the wheelbarrow in center frame. The Barrowman grunts suddenly and quickly pushes the wheelbarrow into the man.
CLOSE-UP SHOT: The man gasps.
POV SHOT: We see the man's shaking hand slowly reach out to take the hat.
EXTREME CLOSE-UP: The Barrowman spreads an evil grin across his face.
POV SHOT: The man's hand jumps back as The Barrowman growls and shakes the wheelbarrow violently.
OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT: The man raises his hands and backs away slowly as The Barrowman slowly edges towards him.
MEDIUM SHOT: From the ground we watch the man edging away with his hands held up in terror.
POV SHOT: The man swipes the wheelbarrow onto its side.
CLOSE-UP SHOT: From the ground, the wheelbarrow skids towards us with ice-cream pouring out, whilst the man runs past The Barrowman in the foreground.
WIDE SHOT: The man runs past the camera as we pan in on The Barrowman, glaring intensely over his shoulder.
LOW MEDIUM SHOT: The camera rolls quickly along with the man, now running and dodging obstacles, trying desperately to maintain his balance as he turns his head back.
POV SHOT: The man sees nobody in the distance.
MEDIUM CLOSE-UP: The man turns his head back and slams directly into The Barrowman.
MID SHOT: The man falls backwards and flails his briefcase wildly in horror.
OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT: The man looks up at The Barrowman, towering over him with malicious intent.
MID SHOT: The man scurries backwards in fear, hurling his briefcase at The Barrowman.
WIDE SHOT: The Barrowman stumbles backwards as the briefcase impacts his head.
MID SHOT: He falls down onto his back and wails as he is engulfed by quicksand.
POV SHOT: Through The Barrowman's lenses we see the quicksand slowly block out his view and the screen cuts to black. The rain stops pouring.
MID SHOT: Fade into the man on the ground reacting as the sun begins to blend into the horizon.
MEDIUM CLOSE-UP: We hear the man pick up his briefcase as he climbs to his feet.
LONG SHOT: The man edges around the quicksand and makes his way along the beach towards the sun. The shot pans down to the ground, where the magazine sits mangled and ripped.
CLOSE-UP: Camera zooms in on a distant figure in the competition photo.
EXTREME CLOSE-UP: It is The Barrowman.
OGR 23/01/14
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your script, Josh. It's nasty and nightmarish and it reminds me of some kind of awful purgatory. I do have some mixed feelings about the ending, which I'll share here. There's a sense of some awful, unbroken cycle at work here - these poor individual's going off for this holiday, only to be pursued and punished by The Barrowman (who is a suitably creepy creation!) - so I'm just wondering at the sense in the Barrowman being vanquished, however temporarily. It seems to me that The Barrowman's goal is to sell ice-cream - but why? Had you considered your story being predicated upon an idea of the 'baton being handed-on'? I.e. that every person luckless enough to come to the black beach is destined to assume the role of the sinister salesmen? The Barrowman passes on the role by insisting that the next newcomer partakes in an ice-cream (which is the moment of hand-over), hence the barrowman's incessant pursuit. It could be that the moment your businessman finally succumbs to eat the ice-cream, the Barrowman vanishes - and then, we see some change take place in the salesman that tells us the true awful nature of his fate. Your story ends with another taxi drawing up... there's something inescapable about your barrowman and this surreal beach, and I just think you could do more with that. As I was reading, I was reminded of the 'Jack Torrance - You've always been the caretaker' moment, and also, very strongly of this character from one of my personal all time favourite TV shows - Papa Lazarou:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2F4ZWTjwTU
You've established such a bold, uncanny place and this Barrowman character is fab - I suppose I just find the current trajectory of the action a bit less so. The other strong visual impression I got while reading your story was of the worlds of the painter De Chirico:
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/chirico/chirico.html
In terms of production design and visual concept, De Chirico would make for an apposite muse!