Sunday, July 12, 2015

got two pages, or about 30-40 seconds.

It's surprisingly difficult to tell a compelling story in two pages.

A production company is accepting 2-page screenplays about the world ending in 2 hours. It can be about anything, it just has to be 2 pages.

What would you do if you had 2 hours left to live?

I don't think the movie wants to explore the answer to that question. I think that question asks you what's important in your life. Family. Loved ones. Being with them during your last moments. Saying goodbye to the people you feel deserve it the most. Hearing it from the people you wish didn't have to say it to you.

I don't think a good script will have these kinds of moments. It doesn't have the emotion I'm looking for.

For two hours you are allowed to be exactly who you are. No rules, no society, no pressure. Complete freedom from every invisible wall we have put up as a society. What would you do?

Trash a Dick's Sporting Goods?

Kiss that girl from work that sits in the cubicle down the hallway and to the right? The one that you're pretty sure has a boyfriend, but took you 20 minutes to build up the courage to ask what her plans were for the weekend?

Or maybe you'll just sit on your porch with your spouse and open that bottle of wine you were saving for your anniversary next month.

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"It goes to show, people will up and go mad when they believe their life is over."

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I read somewhere that the average person can hold their breath for around 30-40 seconds. That really doesn't seem like a long time at all.

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"I don't want no scrub. A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me."

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I don't have a lot of time left. My unemployment has reached an expiration date, but the world hasn't seemed to notice. I saw myself having a job by this point. Working a 9 to 5 that turns my early afternoon leisure coffee into an early morning required coffee. Taking a long lunch and hoping my supervisor doesn't notice. Cracking jokes in the break room about that one coworker that totally looks like Jim Carry in that one movie.

Instead I'm in a coffee shop working on scripts. Thinking about the end of the world. Wondering when I officially reach "scrub" status.

But lately I've realized that new beginnings don't necessarily work out the way you want them to. You only have a certain amount of control over your life, and you can't spend it wishing you had full control.

No, I didn't steal that from a Zach Braff monologue in a Scrubs episode ending.

But random happenstance seems to play a bigger role than I thought. And lately that seems like a good thing. After all, the universe isn't out to get me. 

Seriously. 30 seconds doesn't seem long at all.

-Ryan

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