telescopic.

[nefariousderringdo]

xxx

Ok, I'm just cutting and pasting here, but I usually try to have better format, white space is a good thing... It's five pages, meant to be a submit to 2000ad.

It's about a man trying to get a job.


PAGE one

PANEL 1;
OPEN ON - We are in a a fairly typical north american city/town, it is nighttime and still. Our perspective is looking down a un-busy street. There is one pickup truck driving towards us and maybe a few pedestrians walking down the street on the other side. The buildings are simple, squat (3 storeys) and quite boring. The stillness and tranquillity of this scene should be palpable. Somewhere in along the right side of the street is an all-night gas station, it's lights bright against the dark and starless night.



PANEL 2;
Almost same shot, we tighten in on the GAS STATION, maybe pan around slightly so we can get a glimpse of the front...



PANEL 3;
The GAS STATION pumps explode simultaneously sending a fireball and debris up into the air and another fireball outwards, engulfing the store part of the gas station. SPLASH-Y, main focus of page.


PAGE 2

PANEL 1;
CUT TO - daytime: TIGHT on a shoe, exciting I know. just a regular skateboard shoe, check out www.dcshoecousa.com if you are in the dark.



PANEL 2;
The shoe has lifted up and walked on, revealing underneath it a large cockroach that has been crushed. Maybe bug is 'framed' by the sole (treads) of the shoe that stepped on him. The crushed bug should look sort of like the explosions from the previous page.



PANEL 3;
We pan up from the bug, holding that in our f/g and we can see walking down the street a man walking towards us on the sidewalk. He is wearing a white business shirt and slacks, a tie and his suit jacket is hanging over his forearm.
I want the juxtaposition of a tiny bug being large from our perspective and the man is insect-like from our perspective that is :)


PANEL 4;
The man in the suit (TOMMY, short brown hair, mid-30's largeish build) has bent down and is analyzing the bug.

TOMMY; (WORD BUBBLE WITH A SMALL '?' IN IT)


PANEL 5;
TOMMY pops the COCKROACH right into his mouth, not a moment of thought. It looks like he is enjoying it.

BOY; (off panel) EWWW


PANEL 6;
TOMMY looks at the boy, quizzically, like he doesn't understand the boy's reaction.

TOMMY; WHAT'S THE MATTER?


PANEL 7;
We pan around and we have a full body shot of the kid. He's wearing hand-me down t-shirt and jeans, has a runny nose. He's pointing his finger at TOMMY (us).

BOY; YOU JUST ATE A BUG!

BOY; MY FRIEND STEVE SMITS EATS BUGS, BUT HE PICKS HIS NOSE TOO.


PANEL 8;
TOMMY stands up, and is patting the boy on the head. Behind them there is a large panel van (like a moving truck) that is passing behind them. There is a billboard for some type of sports drink on the side. It is very exaggerated, the 'radical' extreme sports guy is essentially spraying the drink in his face while he stands on top of a skateboard half-pipe. The caption reads.

GORILLA FIZZ! BE THE UNEXPECTED!!!!!



PAGE 3


PANEL 1;
SPLASH - a GIANT METAL ROBOTIC LEG has stomped down on the poor little boy, flattening him. TOMMY is looking up, aghast.


PANEL 2;
FROM TOMMY'S perspective, looking wayyy up at the robot, it is backlit by the sun, but the silhouette reveals a human shaped robot (more rounded and less ridiculous than say... the power rangers or transformers robots more of a classical 50's era robot, boxy torso, spindly arms, cubed head). smallish panel, the shot is really just to establish that the robot walks on two legs and looks sort of like a human, there needn't have extraneous detail.



PAGE 4

PANEL 1;
CUT TO - we are now inside a very drab, long hallway, along one wall are a row of office chairs, every one of the chairs occupied by someone. TOMMY is sitting in between a very good looking woman and a somewhat less attractive male. Everyone here looks uncomfortable, nervous. It's a job cull.

CAPTION; (announcement) TOMMY BIKYAM TO ROOM 3 OH 4 OH 9 PLEASE.


PANEL 2;
From TOMMY'S perspective he is looking at VINCE. VINCE is sitting behind a large (re:large) desk. He has a panoramic perspective of the city through his floor to ceiling windows situated behind him. WE can see in the b/g four or five LARGE HUMAN-LIKE ROBOTS walking around the city, smoke rising in a few places.

VINCE; WELL HELLO THERE TOMMY BIKYAM, HOW'S LIFE TREATING YOU THIS FINE DAY?

TOMMY; (off) UM. WELL I SA-

VINCE; THAT'S TERRIFIC! HERE I'M GOING TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING EXCITING, YOU LIKE EXCITEMENT DON'T YA?


PANEL 3;
TIGHT on TOMMY, deadpan look.

TOMMY; sure... I LIKE EXCITEMENT, IT'S FUN?


PANEL 4;
TIGHT on VINCE, smiling, cocky.

VINCE; AH COURSE YOU DO! WELL I'VE GOT A LOT TOO OFFER YOU, I'M NEVER LATE, FOR INSTANCE. PLUS I CAN SWEEP N' MOP AND WELL I'M SINGLE AS WELL. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED.


PANEL 5;
TIGHT on TOMMY, he's confused.

TOMMY; SORRY... BUT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

VINCE; (off) WELL THE JOB OF COURSE. I'M LOOKING FOR THE JOB.


PANEL 6;
VINCE stands up. excited. pressing a button on his desk.

VINCE; ALRIGHT!!! LET'S DO IT!




PAGE 5


PANEL 1;
The button VINCE pressed were to the charges attached to the windows behind him. The windows are shattering.


PANEL 2;
QUICK FLASH: VINCE is sliding on a parachute.

VINCE; LOOK UNDER YOUR SEAT!


PANEL 3;
PERSPECTIVE outside the building, looking down as VINCE is jumping out the window... the distance from where he was jumping from and the ground is unknown, it looks like the building stretches on forever. There is nothing else around the building at all, everything has disappeared.


PANEL 4;
TOMMY is standing at the edge of the window, peering out the window and holding the parachute pack.

TOMMY; GEEZ... WONDER WHERE THAT GOES TO...


PANEL 5;
TOMMY is walking out the door, his back to us, as he leaves he is motioning to turn off the lights with the nearby switch on the wall.

TOMMY; I DON'T THINK HE'S GOING TO GET THE JOB THOUGH.


fini


hmmm... hope you enjoy, c+c's welcome

Erik

[KH]

Good stuff. I didn't understand it at all but I enjoyed it thoroughly. Is that OK?

:blink:

[nefariousderringdo]

Hey KH,

That's exactly what I was looking for, I was using this as sort of an exercise in meta-textual information, I guess sometimes you mess up, but using suggestive visuals and non-dialogue text is a way i see as strengthing my own writing...

in five pages it's pretty impossible to say everything you want to say, y'know? so either you cut what you want to say short, or simplify it. I just wanted to get the ROOTS of what i wanted to say out in the five pages, and i did, maybe i'll make it a longer work and allow all the info on the pages to overlap and repeat. As well i personally like it when you're left scratching your head at the end of the story, but have a smile on your face. that's what I wanted to achieve so thank you.

nefariousderring do

[KH]

it's really easy to do something like this stupid i bet.

this wasn't stupid.

[JonHParrish]

I have no fucking clue what just happened. :blink:

Good job ! :)

From what I could gather that was what you were going for. I liked it, it was just so damn confusing.

[nefariousderringdo]

hey to all that's replied to my thread.

I suppose a little background on the story, and what I was trying to accomplish should be put to order. this isn't too gloat or bang you over the head with an excess of knowledge, but to show simple ways to add depth to the pages we all write. Plus I love pulling apart my own work and seeing if what I'm writing has the deepness that gives a story its backbone. So because no one asked for it.

Page 1

panel 1 - this is the establishing shot, most of us live in North America, and a lot of us don't live in large Cities. I grew up in a logging town in Northern Canada, and during the nighttime downtown was/is absolutely dead. Tranquillity is something that we all seek out, and people either feel happy with stillness, or uneasy due to lack of noise. this shot is used to make you feel either or, possibly even both because we've all been taught through various stories that quietness is really just the calm before the storm and soon there's going to be a gunfight, car chase, or batman kicking some ass.


panel 3 - The tone of the story is set right here. explosion. we don't know who did it, or why but it makes you turn the page, essentially the one page hook and now people are going to at least read the second page. The explosion also signifies the sort of senselessness of the forthcoming pages as well.


page 2

panel 1 - the shoe, puts us in modern times, and it's a skateboard shoe...

panel 2 - The insect looking like the previous explosion links this page with the previous and also adds humour. plus cockroaches are pests, they're annoying and tenacious. I also lived in an apartment in London for a few weeks where the cockroaches were so brazen as to hang about on my toothbrush and in the (empty) liquor cabinet.

panel 3 - With the bug in the f/g we get a reminder of mortality, and with the perspective we take it makes the man look like a bug, easily squashed.


rest of page - With the eating of the bug, TOMMY acknowledges his own mortality. The kid represents the voice in the back of our head, telling us that eating bugs and picking our noses are bad things to do. The nonchalance of TOMMY is him choosing to ignore that voice.

The skater guy ad connects the skate shoe from panel one, as well as allegorizes our culture of caffiene and EXTREME as well.


page 3

panel 1 - The kid getting squashed is TOMMY'S conscience/nostalgia getting crushed, as well it repeats the feeling we got when we saw the cockroach getting squashed.


panel 2 - the boxy, awkward robot in front of the sun is nostalgic technology and how our own creations are made in the form of man. With him backlit it also symbolizes the 'coming from the light' or alchemy and the dawning of a new age.


page 4

panel 1 - TOMMY is demoralized. the kid/conscience is gone and now he has to find a job. he's growing up.


panel 2 - VINCE is the skeezy, good looking MAN that we have all learned to hate through media. He's the guy that would give cigarettes to kids and push granmas in front of buses if it meant a better life for himself. He's what we become if we don't hold onto our childhood. (which i should add is stuck to the bottom of some robot in the city. The background is the expanse, the unknown. The robots connect this page to previous and also give the impression of CONTROL to the unknown, our own boundries we've set by our attachment to technology.

rest of the page - This is the turning of the tables, VINCE is now begging for a job, implying that he's gay, and we read that it is in fact TOMMY with the control, not VINCE.


page 5

panel 1 - the windows smashing and VINCE'S turn of excitement is like a child's temper tantrums, the roles of VINCE and TOMMY are now completely turned.


rest of the page - VINCE jumps out, with a parachute, it's like the promise we give to someone that we're going to be dependable and then running out on them. The parachute the guilty note that people leave behind.

the neverending building is life, the building is phallic, symbol of manhood.

The story ends with TOMMY, walking away. Now we ask the question, is he running away from all this, or is he just not interested in the hand that life dealt him?

Well... that about sums it up.

if this helps you out, great, and if you have your own interpretations please feel free to post them, i want to know what you see in it.

anyway, take it easy, hope to hear from you.

E