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Monday, January 29, 2007

Chris: An Indie Screenwriter


I am an amateur screenwriter (I already have a full time, professional career--I write for fun and relaxation). I have about a dozen screenplays in construction lately. Mainly thrillers, adventure, low-budget urban drama, crime, SF, and biography.

My background is in history, English and American lit, art/design, philosophy/religion, environmental studies/engineering.I'm a caucasian male, in my early thirties, and I live in Brooklyn. Below is a sample of my general style. It has some explictives, sorry. Thanks for the opportunity to contribute. I'm interested in networking with other NYC writers.

Chris from Brooklyn...

snippet from "Controlled Skid"


1. EXT. ROUTE 66. NIGHT.

A brand-new BMW 238 convertible is hurtling through a summer night down
the Route 66 highway, on the outskirts of Cheyenne, Wyoming--at about 80 m.p.h. It has momentarily locked doors with a large 12-ton truck in the neighboring lane.

An ear-splitting screech of metal-on-metal creases the night; lasting first
a mile, then two. Howling wind cocooning the small sports car and its oblivious occupants. The situation is frightening and insane; but the BMW does not pull away.


2. INT. BMW 238. NIGHT.

The passenger, LEILA, is frustratedly jabbing at her forearm with a
hypodermic, trying to find the vein. She is about twenty-two, a
sometime
prostitute, one-time American Goth/dysfunctional wrist-slashing
middle-child. Fun is her middle name.


HUGO STAAB, (driving) is a hip, muscular, blonde drug-dealer with
dreams of
being an music television V.J. sustaining him as he approaches the ripe
old
age of 28--is completely inattentive to the shrieking proximity of the
large
truck throbbing inches from his skull. He fixes instead on his female
companion, his eyes not even on the road, cooing softly to her . . .

HUGO:
Leila, please, honey. . . c'mon . .


LEILA
I'm trying! Godamnit! You liar! Shut the hell up! Turn on the ceiling
light
why don't you?


HUGO:
(embarrassed, but recovering)
Yeah, sure, okay. . I'm the liar now. Riiiiiiight.

LEILA: You said we'd be engaged before we left KC. Where are we now,
East
Bumblefuck, Montana?


HUGO:
(getting pissed now)
Listen baby-- when I was in hiding behind the shower curtain last night
and
you were with Friday night's Tinkerbell . . let me tell you something,
you're the liar okay? Didn't we "pinky swear" never to do our special
trick,
with anyone else? You think I'm deaf or something? I heard, I heard. .


LEILA:
(glancing sideways)
Yeah, wha-a-t-ever. . what am I supposed to do when the guy starts it?
You
didn't patent that trick.


HUGO:
Nevermind. Hey, find that freakin vein before I take it away. And, for
your
information, we're under battle conditions here--no lights. Look,
what'dya
think would happen if we got pulled over right now for a busted
tail-light?
With your swords in the trunk an all?
(exchange of glares)


LEILA: Where I go, my blades and my altar go--you KNEW that, Since Day
1. I
TOLD you. And you've got a bit of a knife collection too y'know--


HUGO:
Bullshit, this is Wyoming. Springsteen country, you know? Martin Sheen.
Everyone has a knife out here--but swords and Wicca? Fuck! On top of
the
shit in your lap!

LEILA:
(snorting)
Springsteen! Even I know he's Jersey!

HUGO
(loudly, frothing)
Look! I score for you, don't I? even out here in the middle of nowhere.
But
after that it's a bad division of labor!! You come up with the scratch,
I do
the all the dangeous work, you get all the joy--what exactly do I get,
huh?
Used goods!


LEILA
(drops needle; pounds her head violently on dashboard at the start of
this
familiar lecture)
F_ck! F_ck! F_ck! SHUT the F_CK UP!! You think it's not dangerous, then
you
bend over for these goobers! Hell you'd probably like it!


HUGO
(No longer riled. He leers evilly. Smooth and back in control, now
tapping
out one of his fave beats on the seatback, thus driving one-handed)


INTERCUT WITH:
MACK TRUCK
Gaping, shrieking face of TRUCK DRIVER, five feet away, two car doors
locked, still 80 m.p.h., life passing before eyes. Trying to avoid
crushing
the BMW and stay in lane. SOUND of a massive gouge being opened on his
driver-side door; sparks shooting from wheel-well, BMW continues to
drag.


HUGO:
(resting one hand lazily on the gearshift)
An' look. .

(menacing, low)
I gotta 'nother bone to pick with you before we get to Cheyenne .



LEILA:
Yeah? WHAAAAAAAT MIGHT THAT BE!? (baiting him out of habit)


HUGO (returns at top of his lungs)
Don't mess with my hygiene products, do you f_cking hear me? I will
hook
your pussy up to the battery of this sucker and fry you on the hood
like an
egg!!! (laughing now, LEILA suddenly laughing with him, rubs her
crotch,
vamping)



3. EXT. ROUTE 66 EXIT RAMP. NIGHT.

Finally, miraculously, the two vehicles disengage, (no thanks to HUGO).
The
1/2 Mack Truck veers onto a grassy median and slams to a ferocious
halt,
nearly
tipping over. The BMW 238 continues lazily (60 m.p.h.) into the town of
Cheyenne. . .




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