The Unfortunate Bell Boy

Started by kotte, May 23, 2004, 01:53:56 PM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

kotte

FADE IN:
EXT. FANCY HOTEL - AFTERNOON
A MAN (late 40s) parks his car and gets out. A BELL BOY (20s) approaches him.
BELL BOY
Welcome to the Grand City Plaza Hotel, sir. My name is Oscar, let me take care of your auto mobile, sir.
MAN
Okay. Thank you.
OSCAR
What's your name, sir?
MAN
It's Ingmar Ancell.
OSCAR
Great. Have a nice stay, sir.
Oscar drives off. Ingmar enters the hotel.
MONTAGE - INGMAR GETTING TO HIS ROOM AND A BELLBOY PARKING HIS CAR
- Ingmar rides an elevator.
- Oscar enters the garage.
- Ingmar walks down a long corridor.
- Oscar looks for a parking space.
- Ingmar enters his room.
- Oscar continues to look for a space.
INT. INGMAR'S ROOM - SAME
Ingmar comes out of the bathroom, waits a moment and leaves.
INT. GARAGE - SAME
Oscar backs into a parking space but does it too fast and hits the wall.
Beat.
OSCAR
Fuck!
He slams his hands on the steering wheel repeatedly.
OSCAR
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
He jumps out the car and takes a look at the damage made.
OSCAR
(screams)
Fuck!
INT. CORRIDOR - MOMENTS LATER
Ingmar leaves his room and slowly paces down the corridor.
He stops at a door and puts his ear to it. He hears a man and a woman talking.
MAN (O.S.)
You are amazing. You know that? I can't believe I'm gonna fuck you.
WOMAN (O.S.)
(laughs)
Asshole!
(beat)
I can tell you something.
MAN (O.S.)
What's that?
WOMAN (O.S.)
I can tell you that I'm falling in love with you.
(giggles)
But I'm not gonna do that.
MAN (O.S.)
No? Not even if I say this: You are amazing and you are so beautiful and I'm not falling in love with you...I'm already in love with you.
Ingmar begins to cry.
WOMAN (O.S.)
You know, I never thought this could happen again, at my age, after a marriage, falling in love and meeting someone.
(beat)
I'm doing something tomorrow that will make you happy.
MAN (O.S.)
What are you doing tomorrow?
WOMAN (O.S.)
I'm gonna ask him for a divorce.
MAN (O.S.)
My god.
(beat)
You're not kidding, right? Cause this makes me so happy.
WOMAN (O.S.)
I'm not kidding. I don't wanna be with him anymore. And be unhappy. I wanna be with you.
Ingmar backs away from the door for a couple of moments.
He returns to the door and the conversation. They are making love behind the door.
WOMAN (O.S.)
You are so good for me.
Ingmar removes his ear from the door and wipes his eyes from tears.
He walks back to his room.
Oscar leaves the elevator and walks down the long corridor.
INT. INGMAR'S ROOM - SAME
Ingmar sits on the bed with his shoes off. He breaks down crying.
A COUPLE OF MOMENTS LATER
He takes a deep breath and strains every muscle in his body.
Beat.
He throws one of his shoes in the mirror with a scream.
EXT. INGMAR'S ROOM - SAME
Oscar knocks on the door.
Ingmar opens.
INGMAR
(barely audible)
Yes?
OSCAR
Good afternoon, sir. We met earlier. I have to tell you something has, I'm afraid something happened to your car, an accident.
INGMAR
An accident?
INT. INGMAR'S ROOM - MOMENTS LATER
Ingmar beats the shit out of Oscar on the floor.
MOMENTS LATER
He stops punching and breaks down crying on the bed.
FADE OUT.

EDIT: Spelling.

mogwai

great, i liked it. one thing though, just call it "the bell boy". my cents.

El Duderino

nice kotte. i enjoyed it a lot.
Did I just get cock-blocked by Bob Saget?

Ghostboy

I don't think I liked it. The ending is extremely pessimistic and unsatisfying -- which isn't a bad thing, in many cases, but I'm not sure it'll have a good effect on the audience after so short (and rather frivolous) a piece as this. There's no humor in the bellhop getting assaulted. Now, if Oscar was a total asshole, it might be different. Also, you could turn the end into some highly comic near-musical romp, where Oscar fights back and the tussle and the sex in the next room all plays out in time to some piece of classical musical, climaxing in the Oscar and Ingmar crashing through the wall into his wife's room. I don't know, that's kinda off the deep end. But on the whole, what I'm getting it is that it's not slight enough to be amusing and not developed enough to warrant that ending.

Technical note: as a rule of thumb, I think it's confusing to change a character's name, as you do when you change it from BELL HOP to OSCAR. I'd just leave it as one or the other the whole way through. In my scripts, when I introduce a character whose name hasn't been revealed yet, I'd just write something like  'The Bellhop (OSCAR) exits the hotel.'

kotte

Thanks for your comments.

I'm playing around with finding an emotional connection between an audience and characters in a short film.

I've never been pulled in emotionally in a short film, ever. Shorts are always story and premise-driven.

Features have it easy, having the time to let the audience know the characters well.

So that's what I'm playing around with, to see if I can do it. I actually think this story is a bit too big for a three minute short that strives to connect emotionally with the audience

The technical thing you pointed out. It's taste, I guess. I did what the Coens did in the Barton Fink script, when introducing John Goodman. I'm guessing it's confusing because of the bad formatting.

metroshane

I'm a little confused.  It seems to me that you are setting Ingmar up as a sensative guy...but then why does he do violence against oscar?  a really sensative guy that crys...would (in traditional hollywood narrative) not beat up another.  But maybe that's what you were after.  

What if it wasn't Ingmars car?  What if the car belonged to the O.S. guy in the other room.  Maybe Ingmar is his driver and is in love with his girlfriend.  Then Ingmar could have some satisfaction out of the car getting creamed...and Oscar (the guy we're supposed to relate to, right?) could get off.
We live in an age that reads too much to be intelligent and thinks too much to be beautiful.

The Perineum Falcon

I thought it was good, but too short.

And about the ending, since Ingmar is in an extremely emotional state, maybe he just wants a hug? How about Oscar is really worried about Ingmar's reaction to the news (so he's noticeably hesitant) and after telling it Ingmar just looks at him. Maybe show a sign of anger that just breaks down into sadness (since it's something else that sucks/went wrong in his life) and then he just wraps his arms around Oscar, lays his head on his shoulder, and weeps.

Just a thought.
We often went to the cinema, the screen would light up and we would tremble, but also, increasingly often, Madeleine and I were disappointed. The images had dated, they jittered, and Marilyn Monroe had gotten terribly old. We were sad, this wasn't the film we had dreamed of, this wasn't the total film that we all carried around inside us, this film that we would have wanted to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, that we would have wanted to live.

coffeebeetle

I liked it, but it was too short.  Develop it further...the ending didn't fit at all.  Why not have the bell boy sit down with the troubled young man and have a short conversation about the havoc women wreak on mens' hearts?  Then naturally, the bell boy is obligated to carry out some sort of revenge on the cheating wife/girlfriend since he damaged the guy's car.  It could be a comedy of sorts...I dunno, just a thought.  :)
more than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. one path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. the other, to total extinction. let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
woody allen (side effects - 1980)