8.13.2004
Hey folks. How's it going? I can't believe we've got a place to post our short stories and stuff like that. And Josh and Jeremy are here to post with us! That's awesome. Well, I'll leave the chatter off this blog since it's mainly for stories. I was gonna post a snippet of my short story, but I've decided to hold off. I felt bad leaving this blog, a story blog without something though, so I decided to give you a scene from my script.
The script is entitled Last Rights with Johnny Boscow and its about a late night talk show host (like Conan) who breaks out from the manipulative grip of his producers to make his show what he wants it to be. This scene here is in the first act and it details how Johnny is commonly left out of the network's decisions regarding what's supposed to be his show. Enjoy,
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INT. OFFICE – DAY
Johnny stands before two large, ornately carved maple wood doors.
Muffled sounds and utterances can be heard coming from the other side of the large doors. Johnny presses his ear against them and listens in on a husky, youth-tinged voice that screams out “Beware the Red Threat! Rise up against your thirst!”
Johnny’s hand reaches out and grabs one of the door’s golden knobs, but it doesn’t open. Groaning to himself, Johnny twists the knob again, but the door remains locked.
Johnny shakes his head and sits down on the floor next to the doors. The loud sounds coming from within the room begin to dissipate and with a click the large doors swing wide. Men and women adorned in suits and carrying briefcases swarm out of the room, passing Johnny by. Robert Gleck then steps out of the room and nods to the dispersing people.
Ok, folks, let’s get to it!
Johnny faintly waves at Rob from below. Robert casually looks down and sees Johnny. With a start he steps back as Johnny stands up.
Johnny! Where in the world were ya?
JOHNNY
The door was locked.
ROBERT
What? Dang. Ok. Hey everyone! Get back here.
JOHNNY
Rob, just forget it.
ROBERT
No Johnny, it was an important meeting. They don’t mind.
The suited men and women march back through the large wooden doors followed sharply by Robert. Johnny walks in abashedly.
This time they leave the doors wide open.
INT. BOARDROOM – DAY
Inside the boardroom everyone stands; some pace around the room with their briefcases in hand. Johnny slowly approaches the huge conference table in the center of the room.
Go ahead and have a seat Johnny.
Johnny sits down in a chair at the far end of the table; everyone else remains standing.
We were just discussing the plan for our ‘Crimson Surge’ bit.
JOHNNY
Oh?
ROBERT
You bet.
JOHNNY
Ok.
ROBERT
Here’s what we need you to do.
Rob nods over to his side where ALBERT RILEY, 28, a rotund yet dastardly looking man, stands.
Albert doesn’t seem to be paying attention until Rob snaps him to awareness. Languidly, he approaches Johnny.
You’re gonna introduce the soda after the monologue by pouring it into your cup and taking a drink. Georgie Boy is gonna ask you what you’re drinking to which you’ll reply, ‘Crimson Surge’-
Every one of Albert’s words is overly punctuated and slowly spoken as if he were a mother explaining something complex to a child.
-Then Georgie will hold up his own bottle and drink it. After that his head will explode in a fountain of ‘Crimson Surge’.
JOHNNY
You’re suggesting that the soda makes his head blow up?
Albert ignores Johnny’s question, punctuating his next sentence by shaking his clenched fist.
After you see his head blow up on the monitor Johnny, it’s very important that you stare into your camera and viciously say ‘Beware the Red Threat!’
A wormy ASSISTANT WRITER excitedly pipes up.
In that moment, you are a white tiger.
JOHNNY
On the monitor?
No, we mean figuratively.
Rob gently pushes Albert away.
Say it with a little heat is all they mean.
ASSISTANT WRITER
What must we beware Johnny?
Johnny looks at all of the executives and writers crowded around him, glaring down upon him, and he lamely responds.
The Red Threat?
- posted by Brock @ 2:10 PM
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This is excellent. What is the context of this? Is it a short or feature length?
One question. What does the title refer to? Is it supposed to refer to "last rites" as in a religious ceremony before death? Or "last rights" indicating something else?
One question. What does the title refer to? Is it supposed to refer to "last rites" as in a religious ceremony before death? Or "last rights" indicating something else?
The context of this scene is that Johnny's producers have decided to pretty much give a major promoter a big portion of the actual show itself. They basically want Johnny to endorse this soft drink (Crimson Surge) every night on his show. Johnny on the other hand doesn't want anything to do with it. The soft drink in a way ends up becoming the last straw before he decides to "take back" the show from his greedy producers.
It's a feature length, about 115 pages long. Script pages amount to about 1 minute of screen time, so in movie form it'd be almost 2 hours.
As for the title, Last Rights, it does reference the last rites a person would get at death. Check out this quote from last-rights.com, an organization for people who wish to die the way they like: For many Americans the quest for a good life now includes "a good death." For most that means death on one's own terms -- in a hospital or at home, without pain or chaos, with or without feeding tubes, ventilators and other tools of modern medicine.That's fairly dark, but what I'm saying by quoting that is that the title denotes that it's basically the main character's "last rights" regarding his show. He's sick of promoting and kissing up, so he's going to get his show, his last rights, on his own terms.
Last Rights is also the title of his late night show, like "Late Night with Conan" or "The Late Show with David Letterman".
The characters in my stories don't have "The Late Show" or anything like that, they have "Last Rights with Johnny Boscow".
It's a feature length, about 115 pages long. Script pages amount to about 1 minute of screen time, so in movie form it'd be almost 2 hours.
As for the title, Last Rights, it does reference the last rites a person would get at death. Check out this quote from last-rights.com, an organization for people who wish to die the way they like: For many Americans the quest for a good life now includes "a good death." For most that means death on one's own terms -- in a hospital or at home, without pain or chaos, with or without feeding tubes, ventilators and other tools of modern medicine.That's fairly dark, but what I'm saying by quoting that is that the title denotes that it's basically the main character's "last rights" regarding his show. He's sick of promoting and kissing up, so he's going to get his show, his last rights, on his own terms.
Last Rights is also the title of his late night show, like "Late Night with Conan" or "The Late Show with David Letterman".
The characters in my stories don't have "The Late Show" or anything like that, they have "Last Rights with Johnny Boscow".
Cool, I figured it was the title of the show, but I didn't get the reference. I knew it had to be something significant. Very nice.
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