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Rest Stop - short script

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Wow, I really like your writing.

The line about "lightning only flickers now from the ember of my thumbnail.." This is a great line.

The "nowhere and everywhere" line seems too poetic for dialogue; when I say it out loud it doesn't flow as well as the rest of the dialogue.

In all I like the semi-prose semi-poetry sound of the writing.So when are you gonna post a video of that short film you wrote about the poet? It looks like it's gonna be great!:)
 
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I am always awed when I read your scripts. The words you choose are truly poetic and hauntingly cryptic. However, I have to say, each of your 3-page scripts leaves me lost. It is so avant garde in its succinct use of words and imagery. Some of the imagery is patently raw and evocative. Don't take this wrong, it's like the visually enthralling, seemingly meaningless perfume commercials. This is not to be dismissive. It's like a blink upon which the viewer can hang all sorts of interpretation. Thank you for sharing. I enjoy reading them; they force me to think outside of my box.
 
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Adeimantus-

Nice piece of writing. Especially in 3 pages.

Some thoughts:
- Salina seemed an interesting (Italian/Greek?) name for a New Mexico-location story, but that's my notion due to living in New Mexico for 30 years-- might add to the Man's issue, place of story if she had a Hispanic name. Also, there are no wild chiles on the way to Los Alamos, and I'm wondering about the jessamine, golden retriever, Puerto Rico references being just TOO disparate. These are picky points; love your other New Mexico touches.
- Dialogue is reminiscent of Stephen King's "Dark Tower," and that's a compliment! Don't read different styles of dialogue enough.
- The ending was a little too neat; wondering if you could have an issue embrace the Young Man. After all, the Man got shot for some reason, right?
- Nice possible FX for the finished film with the images in the eye and windshield! But are we in the future, or setting mood/emotion? Might effect the genre? --Don't get me wrong, I like it!
- My biggest concern is that the two men met and got along *too* easily. Would have been more dramatic if the Man had to work a little harder to get the Young Man to do him the favor.

Well done. :)
 
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As always that was beautifully written.

I'd be inclined to question whether these scripts are screenplays in anything but name. Obviously you want to get across that sense of poetic detachment but is there not a way that you can make them more visually striking? Or even just providing a slightly more lucid narrative might do the trick. They're lovely to read but I think that the dialogue would struggle to work in a film, simply because at the moment it reads like it's written to be read (if you know what I mean).

But you're as good a writer as anyone so I doubt you'll have a problem writing that perfect mix at some point. I reckon that, as am exorcise, you should write a five page slasher movie with lots of narrative thrust, horror movie cliches and B-movie sign off lines. Once you've been to both extremes it will be easier to see where the middle is :)
 
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jrsmithson, FatasySciFi, Murdock, kjones, barnaclelapse (love that username!), PHIL SJ, NickClapper:

Many thanks to everyone for reading and commenting! It is greatly appreciated.

A confession: my writing background is mostly poetry. My poems tend to be small, story-like "scenes" that play in my head. I've got a reservoir of several hundred that I am slowly turning into micro-scripts.

As an example, here's the original poem this script was adapted from:

Rest Stop

I caught Salina when she fell
through the skies above Santa Domingo;
a bouquet of feathers, Torch Ginger, and quills,
loosened and discarded by the shake
of a palomino's mane.

Friend, can you see these Jim Beam
and angel dust relics,
mocking me? God damn, but I need
to piss. Sante Fe and Salina's smile are twenty miles,
the chorizo heat is a shiv in my gut, and lightning
only flickers now from the ember of my thumbnail
when I measure the moon.

For two years she thundered
in my head, stretched my heart's tendons,
and fought like a jaguar against
the monkeys that swung up my spine.
I found her tasting young blossoms
and climbed down the slant ladder to my solitude
where the sundogs lay beneath the split
of a blackening sky.

If you're searching for a strange future, take
what's left in my wallet, promise you'll help
buy her ticket to Puerto Rico and raise
her Golden Retrievers beside the sea. You'll find
her on the road to Los Alamos in a jessamine house
perched like a Longspur on a slope that leads
through cacti and wild chiles, nowhere
and everywhere. Say nothing about how
you found me, at a rest stop,
with a hundred pounds of sweat
in a noose around my neck.


Nick: I believe you're on the money - this (and some of the others) need to be more carefully visualized during the adaptation.

Also, I wasn't going for "ring true" dialogue here. I'm actually happy with it as an off-kilter stylization that I'm hoping can be married to an unconventional shooting format that distorts reality in a visual manner to match the dialogue's dream-like quality. A visual poem, if you will. *shrug* May not work.

Again, thanks muchos for the feedback.

best,

-Charles
 
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I had trouble picturing it when I first read it, but then again it's early in the morning. But after reading your poem version, I totally see it!

I want to make this :P I'm picturing film noir style VO with the cinematography and grit of Fear and Loathing.
 
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Dreadylocks said:
I had trouble picturing it when I first read it, but then again it's early in the morning. But after reading your poem version, I totally see it!

I want to make this :P I'm picturing film noir style VO with the cinematography and grit of Fear and Loathing.
Click to expand...


Is all yours. You go girl!


Paper: thanks! That's a compliment coming from someone who's writing I admire!
 
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