Hey Jack, there's something glimmering here - the idea of the long distance lorry driver driving onwards towards some beach, haunted by the image of an umbrella: it's giving me a whiff of La Jetee - and I really liked the detail of this guy having umbrellas everywhere - or seeing them everywhere. There's bits I don't understand. I don't understand why the man has to think he's run over his wife, and I don't really believe they'd be serving cocktails in a truck stop, but I think it could work. Let me just lay it out for myself a bit
So, the long distance lorry driver lost his wife and he has a photograph of her on a beach by an umbrella (it works better if its a photo, as opposed to a postcard - she still could have written it and sent it). Maybe on the back of the photo it just says 'wish you were here.' The long distance lorry driver is driving - and he keeps seeing the umbrella everywhere - or the audience does, or both. Maybe the curved bridge he goes under looks like the dome of an umbrella and so it goes on - and each time the man continues - until he arrives at the beach and we see his wife by the umbrella...
Okay - this works for me if the lorry driver is already dead, and the long journey he's going on is his journey into the afterlife to be with his wife. This also makes sense of the repeating motif of the umbrella - it's a guide to the point in 'heaven' that is his idea of perfection. But, for this to work, we need to think about how this story actually starts. If we imagine that this story is taking place at the end of the long distance lorry driver's life - and that his wife died much earlier - then the idea of him meeting her again is romantic - she's been waiting for him on that beach ever since.
So - the driver is old, and it starts with him in his cab; his lorry is parked up all alone on some windswept nowhere place. The driver's cab is full of pictures and souvenirs sort of stuck all over it - this is how we know he's a man who spent his life on the road. There are photos selotaped to the dashboard - of a young woman and the man - young - standing outside the cab of the same truck. There's another photo - a marriage photo - and then another, and then we see another photo, and this time the woman - his wife is in a hospital bed; he's sitting on the bed with her in the photo. She's smiling, but she doesn't look well. Then, we see him reach towards another photo - but it's a photo the audience isn't shown. The lorry driver is looking down at it (we still don't know what the picture is of, but we know it's making him smile).
Then, he starts his lorry - and off he drives - like it's just another job he's on - the white lines go past, the lorry going down some nondescript road; we start to see umbrella-like things on the roadside - it's in the roadside advertisements, there's a bridge that reminds us of one and so on, and it's as if the signs are guiding the truck driver. At this point the audience will be confused - as in 'what's with all the umbrella references?! - then, in a surreal way, the lorry arrives at a beach. The lorry driver gets out and starts to walk across the sand - he walks and walks until we see a woman waiting for him, standing by a big umbrella - and as the camera frames this image, it freezes, and then the camera pans out of the image, to reveal it's a photo in the lorry driver's hand, who is in the cab just as it was when the story started, and as the camera slowly shows us, the old Lorry driver has gently and peacefully died - you see, he never went anywhere really; we were watching his journey to the afterlife, signposted by the image of an umbrella that fixed in time for him a perfect moment...
This is your story, Jack - I really like it - but I think it's in the set-up/final act that you need to do some additional work to ensure your audience gets it.
OGR 24/01/17
ReplyDeleteHey Jack, there's something glimmering here - the idea of the long distance lorry driver driving onwards towards some beach, haunted by the image of an umbrella: it's giving me a whiff of La Jetee - and I really liked the detail of this guy having umbrellas everywhere - or seeing them everywhere. There's bits I don't understand. I don't understand why the man has to think he's run over his wife, and I don't really believe they'd be serving cocktails in a truck stop, but I think it could work. Let me just lay it out for myself a bit
So, the long distance lorry driver lost his wife and he has a photograph of her on a beach by an umbrella (it works better if its a photo, as opposed to a postcard - she still could have written it and sent it). Maybe on the back of the photo it just says 'wish you were here.' The long distance lorry driver is driving - and he keeps seeing the umbrella everywhere - or the audience does, or both. Maybe the curved bridge he goes under looks like the dome of an umbrella and so it goes on - and each time the man continues - until he arrives at the beach and we see his wife by the umbrella...
Okay - this works for me if the lorry driver is already dead, and the long journey he's going on is his journey into the afterlife to be with his wife. This also makes sense of the repeating motif of the umbrella - it's a guide to the point in 'heaven' that is his idea of perfection. But, for this to work, we need to think about how this story actually starts. If we imagine that this story is taking place at the end of the long distance lorry driver's life - and that his wife died much earlier - then the idea of him meeting her again is romantic - she's been waiting for him on that beach ever since.
So - the driver is old, and it starts with him in his cab; his lorry is parked up all alone on some windswept nowhere place. The driver's cab is full of pictures and souvenirs sort of stuck all over it - this is how we know he's a man who spent his life on the road. There are photos selotaped to the dashboard - of a young woman and the man - young - standing outside the cab of the same truck. There's another photo - a marriage photo - and then another, and then we see another photo, and this time the woman - his wife is in a hospital bed; he's sitting on the bed with her in the photo. She's smiling, but she doesn't look well. Then, we see him reach towards another photo - but it's a photo the audience isn't shown. The lorry driver is looking down at it (we still don't know what the picture is of, but we know it's making him smile).
Then, he starts his lorry - and off he drives - like it's just another job he's on - the white lines go past, the lorry going down some nondescript road; we start to see umbrella-like things on the roadside - it's in the roadside advertisements, there's a bridge that reminds us of one and so on, and it's as if the signs are guiding the truck driver. At this point the audience will be confused - as in 'what's with all the umbrella references?! - then, in a surreal way, the lorry arrives at a beach. The lorry driver gets out and starts to walk across the sand - he walks and walks until we see a woman waiting for him, standing by a big umbrella - and as the camera frames this image, it freezes, and then the camera pans out of the image, to reveal it's a photo in the lorry driver's hand, who is in the cab just as it was when the story started, and as the camera slowly shows us, the old Lorry driver has gently and peacefully died - you see, he never went anywhere really; we were watching his journey to the afterlife, signposted by the image of an umbrella that fixed in time for him a perfect moment...
This is your story, Jack - I really like it - but I think it's in the set-up/final act that you need to do some additional work to ensure your audience gets it.