screenplay

click here to see my narrative illustration

I titled my screenplay "Snip, Snip".

"Snip, Snip" is the story of a piece of a young man's life, who's name is Noah. Noah loves plants. A lot. They are more than a passion for him, though. He raises and meticulously takes care of these plants like he would to his dying mother, whom he can't care for, because she died many years ago.

When Noah, one day, goes to the store to buy new soil for his one dying plant, all is well. Well, except for the fact that he gets impaled by a moving vehicle commonly referred to as a car while crossing the street to get to his car. This ignites a series of events that takes Noah to his troubled childhood again, and continues on until Noah destroys the one thing that he lives for: his garden.

My screenplay was written over the courseof a few weeks. It was chosen to be made into a film but was dropped because of time restraints and other problems with the screenplay itself. The movie we shot instead, written by Kate, is called "The Test". It is going to played at the Freestyle Academy of Communication Arts and Technology Film Festival, on January 26th.

 

Snip, Snip
By Conor Tiffin

We hear the sound of scissors carefully snipping, the patting of dirt, and a faint male voice in the background, voicing how pleased he is. This keeps going, with birds chirping and the wind audible, also leaves gently tapping against each other by the wind. Then we start to slowly see a blurry image of a nice, big, healthy plant that is gently swaying in the wind. The camera keeps getting more focused until you can clearly see a young man’s head just behind the plant, carefully snipping at the excess vines, still muttering things like “Oh yes…perfect…” and humming, too. This young man noticeably has a twitch in his face, and he does it a few times during this shot. This shot ends with the young man standing up, and walking away, camera still in the same place.

            INT. Jonas’s garden.                                       Morning
           
            JONAS is seen again tending to another plant and we see how truly meticulous he is with them. He could probably be called OCD about his plants. He has an extremely focused look on his face, almost to the point of being in a trance.         Suddenly, as he is repotting a plant, you see a displeased look grow on his face,       like he’s annoyed or something’s wrong. You then see him get up and throw his     little gardening shovel in the dirt. He then stomps out of the garden, then very   carefully shuts the gate, as to make sure his precious garden will stay safe. Jonas     then is seen walking outside his house to his little car, hops in a starts it. He still       has this unsatisfied look on his face, as he is driving down the road a little ways.       You see him pull up across the street from a gardening supplies store. He hastily     walks across the street and walks in. He is immediately greeted by a cashier there,        and everyone seems to be familiar witent people in Jonas’s life. These shots are very dreamlike and quite eerie at times. It starts out with his older brother, sitting in a park, looking cold, just staring at the camera, face half in the screen. His mouth moves, and his voice is heard, but his voice is not in sync with the opening and closing of his mouth.

JONAS’S BROTHER, HENRY

We were happy once, Jonas.

            The shots slowly fades out, and in to Jonas’s father, in their living room with a beer in hand watching a football game. The sound and the moving of his mouth is still off, it seems as if his mouth is moving slower than the words.

JONAS’S FATHER
You were happy once, boy.

Jonas’s father is seen from another angle, but turns his head to look at the camera once again. His father doesn’t say anything while looking at the camera this time, we just see him looking intensely directly into the camera. It’s almost like eye contact is being made. He has a concerned look on his face, but the concern soon turns to despair, and anguish. He then slowly turns his head back to watch the game and takes a long swig of beer. Here there could possibly be a shot of a stream of beer running down the fathers mouth/chin. It looks very disgusting. In slow motion possibly he licks the beer off his chin (zoomed in) with his tongue in his sweat-covered white wife beater shirt and his dirty gym shorts.

Show a small bush, waving in the wind, with a watering can and other miscellaneous gardening tools laid out on the ground around it. Fade out of this shot into other random shots of plants, shovels, trees, maybe chicken wire, end with shot of Jonas and his mother gardening together in the same garden that Jonas works in now. Have  nose close up shots of Jonas smelling the fresh garden air, show big healthy pumpkins and other plants that are doing very well. Jonas and is mother pick a big pumpkin and other vegetables and fruits.

JONAS
I like gardening mom.

MOTHER

That’s good, jonas. I like it too.

JONAS                                                
(with smile on face)
Mmmhmm.

Jonas scooches closer to his mother, and they are now working side by side on their knees.

 Get many shots that demonstrate the connection of Jonas and his mother to the garden. Such as Jonas helping his mother plant new seeds, etc. Jonas and his mother bond through the growing of plants is the general message being conveyed.

(After this long, drawn out series of little dreams I go back to the plot line. The dreams are there to instill in the viewer how Jonas’s family worked before his mother died, and to show how strong of a relationship Jonas and his mother had partially because of the garden.)

Dream-like state continues and we see a young Jonas riding his bike home from school. As he turns the corner to get on his street, he sees an ambulance in front of his house. He rides just as fast as he can to see what exactly is wrong. He skids into his driveway and throws his bike sown as he runs inside. He sees CSI investigators and policeman everywhere in his house and as he is looking around to see what is going on his father rests a hand on his shoulder and very quietly says

FATHER
(stuttering, at a loss for words)

J-jonas..moms dead.

His mouth says these words but as he is saying them we hear shill sounds. (fingernails on a chalkboard, etc.) The camera zooms in closer to his fathers face a few times and each time his fathers same words replay again. After these words are replayed a few times, we see Jonas twitch a little bit. (during this time we hear clown laughing, horns beeping, other sounds that indicate something was thrown off a little bit in Jonas’s mind) Jonas doesn’t say a word to his father, and then walks outside almost like nothing happened, and sits in the middle of his mothers garden. The camera is angled so that as Jonas is sitting there motionless (back turned to house) you can see the investigators inside rummaging through his house) He rubs the dirt on himself and smears himself with plant residue and just starts rolling in the dirt. He then lays down quite comfortably in the middle of the garden, and stops moving. At this point the is sort of in a trance. The camera then zooms out and the screen blackens. We hear a faint voice, calling out the name Jonas. The voice gets closer and closer until it is very audible and able to make out.

MOTHER
(calling out, echoing, hard to make out.)
Let me go, Jonas. The roots dig only so deep into the ground, and you can pull them out if you try. Life is more than my memory.

 

There is silence for a few more seconds and then the camera very speedily shoots to Jonas’s eyes again, the zooms out to find him on a hospital bed. There is a nurse next to his, fiddling around with some of his medical equipment. She looks over at him strangely and then he says, still really out of it because of the trauma.

JONAS
(in a very hoarse and tired voice)

I will, Mom. I promise.

The nurse gives him an odd look, and says nothing. She walks out of the room rather quickly. Jonas then closes his eyes again and falls back asleep.

 

The screen flashes. Two weeks later. We see Jonas all bandaged up, arm in a sling and unusually comfortable looking, more so than his usual tense look. We hear him breathing heavily, and we then hear the sound of an engine starting up. Jonas looks forward and the camera zooms out enough to see Jonas on a huge shredding machine right in front of his garden. He puts the machine into gear, and the rumbling of the engine goes even louder. He closes his eyes and we see him turn off the vehicle. We see beads of sweat running down his face, his breathing gets louder. He looks at the garden again, biting his lip and looking uneasy. Close up on eyes, they wander around the in a nervous manner. His grip tightens on the wheel, and we see him turn back on the vehicle, the blade twirls powerfully on the bottom of the vehicle and he slowly takes his foot off the brake and  edges forward. We then hear his say quietly, under his breath, but in a matter-of-fact, this has to happen way.

JONAS                                                    Morning   
(readlily)
Love you , Mom.

We then see his take off on the machine, and hear the sound of grating of hundreds of plants and bushes. As he is driving, he has a smile on his face for the first time in a long while. We see more smiles and the grating sound fades out along with the picture )which goes to black) All else is left for us to decide for ourselves.