recent rewrite

[randesq]

OVER: Heavy breathing, near hyperventilation.

FADE IN:

EXT. MARSH – GREYSTONES, IRELAND - NIGHT

SUPER: April 24, 1916

The GASPING breaths of a dead sprint. Reeds CRACKLE
under the frenzied pace of bloodied, bare feet.

Trailing far behind the winding, stomped path . . .

An ENGLISH SOLDIER loads a musket.


INT. REEDS – NIGHT

Awash in terror, RONAN PLUNKETT (10), squats in the
reeds, his chest heaving. He stares down at a roll of
canvasses in his clenched hand.

BOOM.

A bullet clips two reeds clean WHIZZING past Ronan’s
head.


EXT. MANOR

Atop a small bluff, under the outline of a looming manor,
two more SOLDIERS take aim.


INT. REEDS

Ronan duckwalks through the reeds, his teary eyes study
the manor, sweeping over it’s enormity. Imprinting memories -

BOOM. BOOM.

Three feet to his right, a sapling explodes. The other bullet
smushes into mud at his feet.


EXT. MANOR

A dozen soldiers now. Two shoot from a second story window. Another stops his beating of an OLD MAN to
take a pot shot. Three more from the terrace.


INT. REEDS

In this distilled moment, Ronan takes one last mental
imprint of the manor. Time almost stands -

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Whistling bullets invade the reeds.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Ronan’s up and scurrying - his free hand digs for traction.
The forest not far off.


EXT. MARSH

One SOLDIER on the hill trains his gun on the moving
reeds. His barrel sweeps from the reeds toward the
forest. A thirty yard clearing of no cover.

SOLDIER
* * * * * Give it a go now.


INT. REEDS/FOREST

Hell bent, Ronan breaks for it. A four-footer with his feet
on fire.

Volleys of bullets SMOOSH into the side of the hill. Dirt
spits in all direction. A one bird turkey shoot.

Ronan dives for the forest. Bullets WHISTLE, STICK and
MASH all around. He picks a direction and keeps going.

OVER: Shots wane in the distance.

The trees open up. His gait slows to a hobble. He wipes
the tears away, but the sobs bubble over.

Blood seeps across his thigh. He looks behind him, nothing. He turns back around.

BAM. A rifle butt to the forehead.

Ronan crumples to the ground. The roll of canvasses scatter
about. One lays open.

A beautiful landscape painting of the familiar marsh. A
canvass of painted reeds, wispy in the wind.


INT. PENTHOUSE - NEW YORK CITY - NIGHT

SUPER: PRESENT DAY

The green glow of night vision glasses fixed on the same
painting, now encased in an ornate frame.

GLOVED HANDS stands before the painting. He lifts his
goggles, rubbing his eyes. Blurry becomes clear.

In the faint darkness, the ‘reeds’ almost come alive. He’s
transfixed.

GLOVED HANDS
(thick Irish accent)
Hello, Sir Jack. Time to come home.

A razor knife slices a precise line along the frame.

VOICE (OS)
Gotcha, you thieving bastard. So you
don’t get happy feet, I'm holding a dead
Kraut’s Luger. Killed him in Bastogne.

GLOVED HANDS
Those Germans were nasty buggers -

VOICE (OS)
Shut it.

A light flicks on. MR. WHITESTONE, a withered old man,
swimming in his silk pajamas. His voice gruff like sandpiper.

MR. WHITESTONE
You know you robbed two of my good
friends. Dear old friends.

Masterpieces sprawl across the walls, in every direction.
The pointed gun bounces about as he talks.

MR. WHITESTONE
And at my age, it takes me an hour to
eat a cheesy puff. So, I sit around and
wait –

The painting, not yet completely cut, hangs awkwardly down.
Gloved hands makes a slight move –

MR. WHITESTONE
Sit on the floor. Native American like.

Whitestone steps onto a large throw carpet, studying the
thief.

MR. WHITESTONE
You have peculiar tastes.

The thief sits. Night vision goggles rest on his head,
obscuring our perspective.

GLOVED HANDS
Taste has not a thing to do with it.

MR. WHITESTONE
So, you just scratch at the obscure
and hope you get a pretty cent for it?

GLOVED HANDS
I would hardly hawk a Jack Butler Yeats
for some pretty cent.

The waggling gun beckons the thief to continue.

GLOVED HANDS
That . . . that painting helps right a
century of wrongs.

MR. WHITESTONE
Lovely. Let me show you how romantic
I can be.

He takes a cell from his pocket, punching 9 - 1 - 1.

MR. WHITESTONE
Yes - good evening. This is Albert
Whitestone in Park Towers. Could you
be so kind and gather up a fellow
twisting about my gathering room floor.
(nodding, coughing)
Send an ambulance as well.
(more coughing)
No, no. I’m fine, just - well – he
took a few in the struggle.

Winking at the thief. Gloved hands clenches the carpet.

MR. WHITESTONE
In the leg I think. Thank you so much.
And please, do take good care not to
wake the building.

Putting the phone down.

GLOVED HANDS
That's a pretty tale.

MR. WHITESTONE
Is it?

Whitestone twists a silencer onto the Luger.

GLOVED HANDS
Same dead German?

MR. WHITESTONE
I’ll make it a clean -

- Gloved hands yank the carpet –

The old man’s hurled into the air, but gets off two shots
PHHHT. PHHHT. He lands with a deafening THUD.

GLOVED HANDS
Ahh farkin’, Christ.

Gloved hands writhes in agony, holding his shoulder.

* * * * * * * * GLOVED HANDS
Ahh that’s farkin’ useless.

Blood oozes into a puddle underneath the old man’s head.
The thief moves around the growing pool of blood and closes
the dead man’s eyes.

GLOVED HANDS
Sleep soundly in god's kingdom.

He makes a bee-line for the painting and slices the last side and rolls ‘Whispy reeds’ into a tube.


Sorry about format - couldn't get it into html

[William Haskins]

damn, randesq. i'm both humbled and inspired. bravo!

these are some of the most visually evocative and tightly woven pages i've read in a long time.

i would love to read the whole thing when it's ready.

a couple of small things.

-- you've got an its/it's typo. i know you'll catch it in polish, but just a heads up.

-- the imagery of "a sapling explodes" hit me wrong. i can't really explain why. could just be me, however. i guess it just evokes the mental image of an tree exploding of its own volition rather than as the result of an impact.

-- i found the SMOOSH of bullets into the hillside inconsistent with the dirt spitting that results -- the softness of the terrain implied by smoosh vs. the dryness required for dirt spitting.

-- the reference to a cheesy puff was jarring and pulled me out of the experience a bit. i think it's the image of high art, high crimes and exotic gentlemen juxtaposed with a rather silly-sounding pop culture/junkfood term.

all this aside, i want to thank you for posting this. i'm in rewrite hell right now, and i'm fired up for my pages tonight after reading this.

take care (and take or leave any of my comments).

best of luck,
william

[A Pathetic Writer]

If nothing else proves Rand and Vig are different people, this will. Miles above anything of Vig's I've ever read.

Bravo, dude.

[Noah1]

I remember these pages from ages ago.

What's different?

[Vigorish9]

logline: CANVASS

An art dealer mortgages his gallery to the cities King Pin, and is forced to smuggle in narcotics to pay his way off the books.

there is virtually nothing different from these pages since they were posted over a year ago. these pages where created in one sitting from from two brothers. the difference is the credibility of the writer and the people who THINK, they know who wrote it.

perception is what makes it different and maybe some trimming of dialogue.

and randesq has always been a great story teller, and it is about time he embraces the benefit of posting pages.

vig

[Noah1]

I just meant, it's been a while since I read the pages. They were good last time and was wondering what, if anything, had been changed.

I was just looking for a little perspective. I thought they were fine last year, too. I just wanted to know, if anything had been changed, what the process was in changing them and why the changes were made.

That would be insightful to me.

[Vigorish9]

i know opty. i was just clarifying. you were right, very perceptive, they are the same pages, just randsq tightened the screws.

writing with my brother is great, cause rand is as good a prose writer as i've ever seen, either produced or otherwise.

and i can tell you the story used to start at the BURGLAR, but the backstory was added. whether it will serve the story is something differenly entirely and is why we have to take a break from things together purely for the mental health of both parties.

vig

[Vigorish9]

haskins, think about this for a second cause i know you're a bright guy, and tell me what you think.

back in the day, as you already know i'm sure, the force of the bullet would take a round metal object,(a little cannonball) and the force would flatten it out some, as it hits the mud it pushes into the reeds, as it embeds the suction of the force and velocity would push mud out. much like the effect of a wading pool of water struck by an open hand. anything at it's edges is forced up by the inertia.

vig

[dpaterso]

Trivial thought,

"An ENGLISH SOLDIER loads a musket."

You had me imagining a Redcoat using lead ball, powder and ramrod. But this is 1916, not 1816. He works his rifle-bolt.

-Derek
-----------------------My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies. (http://hometown.aol.co.uk/DPaterson57)

[randesq]

I think what these pages lacked was a spine based upon our central protagonists POV. I wrote the first three drafts and as vig and i normally do, we pass our scripts to eachother for no other reason than exercises in pushing the story in different directions. The last version opty read, did change little, and he wouldn't know this from the first five pages, but the backstory is leaked out in the first act, only to become more important than the present day story in act 2.

Dpat - good pick up. In my head I imagined the soldiers tearing their cartridge pouches, but I was trying not to clutter the page with details that don't matter.

My intention of posting wasn't to get people on anyone's case, but to show how a little time away from a project can add much needed clarity to the end goal. I tend to write small, character driven stories. This rewrite is a return to an old draft to try to give it commercial lift by making the back story as important as the present day story and to connect them. I cringe at the thought, but one day I was hoping Authorized might give my movie a thumbs up ;)

The paintings aren't a macguffin, they are what connects the dots amongst the characters, only one person knows their real meaning.

Easter Rebellion, copper land baron, early IRA, new york city art theft, high society, hamptons, new york city bar, detective with revenge on his mind, corrupt art dealer, jamaican mob all sewn up together.

Thanks for comments.

Rand

[William Haskins]

vig,

i understand what you're saying, and honest to god wasn't nit-picking. i think other instances of the same phenomenon (such as "mash", etc) work fine.

spitting dirt, to me, evokes a dusty spray consistent with dry, powdery dirt, while "smoosh" seems more of an effect of hitting clay or mud.

at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what i think, and if it works it works. it just hit my mind's ear wrong, so i thought i'd mention it.

[Vigorish9]

of course it matters haskins everything matters.

vig

[kojled]

randesq

very nice. competent for a change

usually, i stop reading after two or three lines - the writing is that bad. read your entire excerpt (for what that's worth). first part is very tight. this section is pro quality. this level of narrative action is not often seen. second section not on same level.

would predict good things for you. sorry, have to go. can be more detailed if you want


zilla

[Fartin Mowler]

|I I dunno what it is with you guy's but I find your stuff boring...I know my stuff is crude and bizzare but atleast it's not something you've read a million times :\

[William Haskins]

mr. mowler,

as amusing as you are, you'd do well to heed mark twain's advice:

"it is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt."

[kojled]

mowler

i must disagree. your 'stuff' is, in fact, something which has been read a million times - poorly written tripe. you could take a lesson. i venture you won't, but you should. above writing sample is the real thing - it is what the industry is looking for


zilla

[Vigorish9]

thank you very much koijled it's taken many many years and long hours in the attempt to write compelling stuff.

vig

[dpaterso]

Another trivial thought, came to me as I skimmed through new replies,

If you're going to use a nickname like Gloved Hands then make sure
you Capitalize correctly throughout. On a couple of occasions e.g.
"Gloved hands yank the carpet" I thought you wanted a C.U. of the
thief's gloved hands. You mean the character, of course, but
sometimes this isn't obvious at first glance. It's a clumsy nickname
but I guess you're withholding his identity for a reason, no worries
with this -- but consider a more dramatic and less ambiguous nickname,
e.g. and just for fun's sake,

THE SHADOW lifts his goggles and rubs his eyes.

THE SHADOW
(thick Irish accent)
Hello, Sir Jack. Time to come home.

The Shadow yanks the carpet, etc.

...Shrug, just an idea. All I'm aiming for is clarity not hassle.

Oh, and,

"The green glow of night vision glasses fixed on the same
painting, now encased in an ornate frame."

You mean we're seeing this scene in ghostly night vision green until
the thief lifts his goggles? That wasn't clear to me on first or
second reads. Just an idea, maybe POV - NIGHT VISION GREEN or similar
might get this across more succinctly, if it's what you intended.

Use or ignore as you see fit.

-Derek
-----------------------My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies. (http://hometown.aol.co.uk/DPaterson57)

[Vigorish9]

i think we could incorporate some of them. i do like the shadow.

vig

[Vigorish9]

here is a question i have for you guys. i know i may rub people the wrong way, but the fact is i'm very receptive to information, i just want it to be informative, not drivel.

we hide the identity of glove hands, but we hear his voice.

when we first meet gloved hands, we are in the bar he works at. but he works at a bar called the DUBLIN HOUSE, and it is filled with irish speaking people, so at first we think we are going to see him, or reveal him, but realize it could be anyone of these people cause they all talk the same.

however, we do reveal the character about ten minutes after by showing his wounds.

my question really is, is this kind of hokey to hide his idenity in the first scene, but then discover it in te mid point of act one.

the audience has that movie moment when they are tying to figure out is this the guy... is it him... and that is 'part' of the enjoyment for me in movies.

we discover glove hands because one of the characters notices the medical stuff GH apartment, and kind of does one of those movie conversations where one guy eludes to what happened, but doesn't come right out and say it.

one of the characters uses glove hands apartment to cheat on his girlfriend - a common thing - and he is an art dealer, so he knows about the robberies. when glove hands comes in and gives the guy hell for just letting himself into his apartment again with someone - they have this movie understanding, "i'm kind of wondering about those robberies and why your shoulder hurts and there is medical equipment in your bathroom, still bloody, but i won't say nothing cause you know i'm a cheating dog.

so, through the movie there is this understanding that someone does know and it is always under the surface.

basically until the characters start getting in trouble and they star trying to save their necks.

also, this is one of those scripts that have two protags and the story revolves around a third guy that could also be the protag. i know, i know.

the first protag is the thief, he steals for the ira - and to retrieve paintings that were stolen during 1916 (the first scene) i think he is the one we symphatize with

2. the cop who is investigating the robberies (he reveals plot line for us) he's the blood hound

3. the art dealer - he cheats on his girlfrind, is in debt to the jamicans and ran his gallery into the ground

the only one of these people who are actually law abiding is the cop, but he is simply a vehicle that keeps the story moving forward - the investigation is the common thread.

as the cop starts figuriing out the backstory the present story becomes clearer and clearer and the audience is let in on all the crazy stuff this people are doing.

so the script consists of flashbacks, the possibility of multiple protags and a movie device that might try to hide the indenity of the thief.

this is an ambitious project, that contains a lot of the movie elements that bother me when i see them in movies so...

my plan would be to have the art dealer die at the end, but his arc is noble cause in his death he does something heroic... you know that guy...

the cop gets what he wants, but that movie moment where you think he is going to arrest GLOVE HANDS, but has this ephiphany and lets him go... you know that movie device

and then GLOVE HANDS gets away with it and we see him back in ireland. NOW, here is the tricky part, that money and paintings are used by the ira, who murders people.

so the last scene is a bustling day in a town in england and GH is walking down a street, innocuous and then a BOOM.

a bomb blows up behind him and we fade out.

so the bottom line is we symphathize with a murder who has a cause and that's a slippery slope.

vig

vig

[dpaterso]

Going by what you've written I don't see any clear and compelling
reason why you're hiding your protag's identity. If, in his daytime
life, Gloved Hands was a sophisticated Irish aristocrat or similar
dramatic counterpoint to his nighttime thief role (like Batman and
Bruce Wayne) then I'd see the logic. Obviously I don't have the
full picture.

so the bottom line is we symphathize with a murder who has a cause
and that's a slippery slope.

You'll recall Mickey Rourke in PRAYER FOR THE DYING. The reason his
IRA hitman role proved sympathetic is because we saw his gut-wrenching
guilt at blowing up the wrong target (a busload of schoolkids overtakes
an Army vehicle and trips the bomb) and his disillusioned break from
the IRA which orders his own pal to kill him. He's a dead man walking,
a lost soul looking for some kind of redemption. Author "Jack Higgins"
always gave his IRA characters the right kind of motivation and an
overwhelming sense of honor that cloaked the fact they were, from their
victims' viewpoint, murdering bastards. That's the rabbit you have to
pull from your hat, because "terrorist" has never been a dirtier word.

Shrug, my thoughts, and assuming those were the questions you were
asking.

-Derek
-----------------------My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies. (http://hometown.aol.co.uk/DPaterson57)