Sunday Picture Post 38 — Look Around
photo credit: J.J. Verhoef
HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SUNDAY PICTURE POST
For The Sunday Picture Post, we flip upside-down the saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thousands of words are great if you are writing a novel, but if you are writing a screenplay, you need to do the opposite and be as concise as possible.
For your screenwriting practice in brevity, in the comments section, using the image above, please post one or all of the following:
- A title for this movie
- 1 word describing the theme, mood, or scene
- 1 sentence to describe the scene
- A pitch to sell the entire movie
The more colorful and creative you are, the better! Use any genre.
A good screenwriter is laconic, using a few words to say a lot.
SCREENWRITING TIP OF THE DAY: LOOK AROUND
Story ideas and scenes can come from anything, anywhere.
What does the above image of a boy running down a hallway conjure for you? Where is the location? A hospital? An airport? A train station? Why is he running? Is he in danger? Is he late? Is he bored? Is he mentally challenged? Is he practicing for a race? Does he hate his parents and he’s running away from them? There are infinite reasons why he is running. Choose the best one and create a story around that.
You can look at anything and come up with a story about it.
One thing I see a lot on commuter trains these days are people reading electronic books — just a flat hand held screen. This in and of itself can create a story.
For me, I trip out on electronic books because I remember when this technology was being talked about in the news paper and how sci-fi futuristic it felt to me at the time; now it is common place. It makes me sad because I am a lover of books; I love the paper pages and interesting book covers that will forever evoke whatever feeling the book gave me upon reading it. I like looking at the book on the shelf. With an electronic book, you see only the white page and black font and nothing else. When you are done reading it, it is gone. So that was something evocative I saw today that conjured lots of feelings and story ideas.
What did you see today around which you could build a 120 page script?
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2 Responses to “Sunday Picture Post 38 — Look Around”
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(Just found your site, love the interactivity and inspiration. I’ve never written a pitch, this would obviously not be an entire pitch for a film, but a start, thanks for the challenge!)
Mid-day in a German S-Bahn commuter train. Two boys, JUSTIN and MICHAEL, peer out the window excitedly, the electric engines drone to a halt. An elevated station, their first view of Berlin.
Their father, NICK SKULSKI, puts his thumb over the white “open door” button, mounted on the post. A vet and former “Checkpoint Charlie” M.P., he opens the past, and his future, with just one click.
Unexpectedly, the boys dart out of the open doors and to the wall of windows. Skulski exits slowly, resists the temptation to call out. He’s the model of composure.
Just then – a blinding flash from outside, a percussion so strong it sends the glass flying like a thousand needles. Bodies fly, the train lifts from the track.
Skulski lies in the ICU, covered in salve and a myriad of tubes. He wonders the obvious, seeing the doctor’s grim face lets him know the answer: the boys didn’t make it.
He digs deep; he could give in, leave in one piece, skip this town as he did twenty years before, when the wall came down.
But it’s too late, Skulsky is in the mix again, full on, and this time it cost him more than his rank, his pride – someone took his own flesh and blood. A vow to himself, a promise never to leave Berlin again on someone else’s terms.
An image in his mind: his thumb, pressing the white button, the switch, to the–
“OPEN DOOR “
Brian Burke — Thanks for your comment. Intriguing pitch! Doing the Sunday Picture Post is such a pleasure for me: I love how everyone sees something totally different in the image. That is the beauty of life. The complexity in your story is good — I hope you keep it up.