Wednesday 18 April 2007

That weirdo sat in the corner doing his drawings...

Of late I find myself recalling a sequence in Charlie Kaufman's über-meta-headfuckfest 'Adaptation', in which Nick Cage as Kaufman frequents a greasy spoon to do research for the dull screenplay he's been commissioned to write, the vacuousness of his life openly pitied by the waitresses. Given that my apartment is filled with distractions (not to mention my ordinarily-chaste upstairs neighbours are nowadays rutting with such fervour as to suggest they've only just worked out what goes where) and my campus has been closed for easter save for a stuffy library, I've had to search out alternative working environments. It turns out that I seem to get the bulk of my work done in the one remaining café that isn't occupied by scores of braying teenage imbeciles - shielded as it is by a bookstore that surrounds it, a laudable chav filter.
While my project and my waistline have both benefited enormously (pretty much the whole film is storyboarded now and their paninis average out at under 400 calories) my concern is that my body has rejected the concept of routine. Earlier today, three weeks of constant inking and fitful nights caught up with me and the resulting exhaustion nearly drove me to babbling lunacy. I'm also wary that the visual of me in my little corner going through my production sheets isn't a million miles away from that of those smug pricks that bring their laptops into Starbucks.
I guess my point is that I'm looking forward to school starting again - and that's a sentence I never would have imagined myself typing. As fruit of my labours, here are some more storyboarded sequences that follow on from either of my proposed openings.
Here we see the Hunter and Duck meet for the first time.





After the cheeky little fucker's psyche-out, the two have a civil exchange over coffee and the duck embarks on a more calculated, protracted revenge - weaselling his way into some free room and board.










Flashing forward a month, one night has become several weeks and, despite the Hunter's efforts, this zombie duck isn't going anywhere.




What follows in the first draft of the script are four scenes that progress over the course of several months, with their relationship becoming more and more strained. Of the four I've decided to excise two for being overly-wordy and generally unnecessary. Those that remain will be posted in my subsequent entries. Yeah, I know, I'm a tease. I can't give you everything in one go! How would I know whether or not you'd call back?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Let us hope and pray that no one gets the ridiculous idea that you might ever be found in a Starbucks - drawing or otherwise. The shame, the shame