The Cage - screenplay

[OssumPawesome]

Hello - I wrote this a little while ago, and thought I'd share it here for others to look over, comment, and/or use in their own work!

The Cage
OssumPawesome

Open on John in the dining room/kitchen of his apartment. John is 6'-6'2" tall, has skinny build, and-aside from his sullen appearance-is otherwise average. He is wearing a moderately priced suit. His apartment is a nice upper-middle class living space with everything a man needs. The kitchen is well enough equipped and we can see that there are hallways leading to spacious enough rooms. A small city family could live comfortably here. John is eating spaghetti with a meat sauce. This meal looks simple and adequate, but John is unhappy and appears deep in thought on other things.

Montage through John finishing his meal and driving to work. He holds the same deep unhappy expression and says nothing.

John arrives at work. His office building is a bit cramped with small halls and cubicles, but it is relatively busy with secretaries, file clerks, a guy delivering office mail, and others strolling about. This appears to be an office for salesmen or programmers, but there is nothing which identifies specifically what John does. On the way to his office (which is a door at the very end of the hall) the camera follows John while he passes 3 or 4 of his coworkers by a water cooler. Jack is one of these coworkers. He is a little taller and larger than John and has one of those grins people love to hate. John walks by at the tail end of a story Jack seems to be telling.

Jack: ...and so I say to him your ex-wife is in VERY capable hands now-

Coworker1: (awkward, stammering)Oh, uh, good morning John! How are you?

(John looks at the men as he walks past without saying anything)

Cut to close-up of John turning on his stove with a pot of water on it. Cut back.

We now look at John entering his office from the opposite direction. His office is fairly small, but well-organized. John sits down but doesn't do anything immediately. John opens the drawer beneath his desk and we have a close-up of his hand touching the back of a photograph in this drawer. He closes the drawer without picking up the photograph.

Boss bursts through the door. He is a bit overweight, balding, sweaty, typical management stereotype.

Boss: JOHN! Where the hell have you been? It's nearly 8:15 and I haven't seen...

Boss's voice fades as we cut to close-up of water in the pot on John's stove heating up and maybe we see a bubble or two come up

Cut back to John in his office

John: It won't happen again sir.

Boss: It better not! We all know you're going through some personal shit, but I've got a business to run buddy.

(Boss exits and closes door on the way out)

Cut to clock on the wall of John's office. It reads 8:14, speed through until it reaches 5:15

John gets up from his chair, puts some papers into a basket, gets his coat maybe, and exits his office.

Jack: (coming up behind John) Hey buddy...

Cut to water boiling on John's stove. Cut back.

Jack: I just want you to know there's no hard feelings from me or-

Jack's voice fades as we cut to close-up of John's face becoming enraged. This is the most important shot so don't fuck it up. John is unleashing a beast and going through an entire personality shift that has been waiting to come up for some time. We see civilized man degrade into an animal in a process that is entirely pleasing to John

Cut to spaghetti being broken in half.

Cut to John sitting on a cafeteria bench in prison. He is wearing a prison jumper and eating spaghetti off of a tray. The food looks cheap, but John is smiling. John looks to the right where an average looking guy who resembles coworker1 is sitting.

Prisoner1: (awkward, stammering, a little afraid)Oh, uh hi John! How are you?

Cut to John's face as he smiles a bit deviously.

Blackout.

[TheInnerScience]

This is very interesting. There doesnt seem to be enough to go on to give a full judgment on it. Are you going to continue and are actually going to go through the channels to make this into a film?

[KnightOnTheSun]

It was hard to follow because it wasn't formatted correctly. When it said to cut back to John at his stove, it gave no indication that it was back in his apartment. It sounded like it was in his office. The story was interesting, just needs proper formatting to make it better.

Example:

INT. OFFICE
John walks past Jack, etc.

CUT TO:

INT. JOHN'S APARTMENT
John's stove, etc.

You also don't have to put the CUT TO in, it just makes it easier.

Here's a screenplay tutorial. Gives basic instructions on proper screenplay formatting.

Keep writing! It sounds interesting!

[Dr-Worm]

At 2/3/13 11:58 PM, KnightOnTheSun wrote: Here's a screenplay tutorial. Gives basic instructions on proper screenplay formatting.

Yep, pretty much this. There's also a free script formatting program called Celtx you might want to look into.

You also don't have to put the CUT TO in, it just makes it easier.

Yeah, as a rough guideline the only time you might want to include a "CUT TO:" is if it's a particularly jarring or emphatic cut, like the smash cut to the prison scene at the end. In general, though, your script has a lot of camera directions, which aren't really used much in screenplays anymore. Instead, you might want to use your descriptions more to suggest what the camera should be focusing on and what the pace of the scene should be.

[KnightOnTheSun]

At 2/4/13 08:03 AM, Dr-Worm wrote:

At 2/3/13 11:58 PM, KnightOnTheSun wrote: Here's a screenplay tutorial. Gives basic instructions on proper screenplay formatting.

Yep, pretty much this. There's also a free script formatting program called Celtx you might want to look into.

I second this. Celtx is an excellent program. A lot of the pros use Final Draft, which I've tried as well but I find Celtx to be superior. Celtx is easy to use as well.