written by Brett Younger FADE IN
1 INT. KITCHEN – DAY 1 A couple sitting at their kitchen table in a Brooklyn brownstone have just finished two pieces of birthday cake. Sixty-three burnt candles have a plate of their own. The woman is too attractive to be in this couple. ROD SERLING-SOUNDING NARRATION (V.O) He would have been happy with socks. He asked for tennis shoes. What he got was an adventure. BEAUTIFUL WOMAN One more gift! PREACHER But you already gave me three pairs of non-slippery socks for the elderly! The woman dramatically reveals an envelope that has been beneath her place mat the whole time! The man has trouble opening the envelope, so she offers a table knife. The husband unfolds it, mumbles, then reads. PREACHER New York Writers, Screenwriting Intensive. It’s a one-day class. What a unique gift! EXTREME CLOSEUP (confused) I didn’t even know I wanted this. DISSOLVE TO: 2 EXT. OFFICE BUILDING – DAY 2 8th Avenue, Manhattan, an uninteresting office building. ZOOM IN on a nondescript 13th floor classroom where nine students sit at tables arranged in a square. Most don’t look like the people who attend the preacher’s church — a lawyer who specializes in cannabis, a tech millionaire looking for “something new,” an AI specialist, a high school teacher, a retired children’s librarian, a documentarian, a bartender, an MFA in creative writing, the instructor and the preacher. The MFA is wearing a Johnny Cash T-shirt, although she was 4 when he died. The documentarian is not wearing much. The horned-rim glasses hipster teacher is finishing a long introduction when he is interrupted by the WOMAN NOT WEARING MUCH Could we turn off the air conditioner? I’m cold. INSTRUCTOR OK. This class is just the appetizer. The entrée is my 10-week course. Let’s introduce ourselves: name and occupation. You’re up. PREACHER I’m Brett. I’m tempted to lie about my occupation so you’ll keep talking to me. I’m a minister. Everyone is thrown by this information. LATER BARTENDER The main character is a ghost who lives in a goldfish who lives in a pickle jar. INSTRUCTOR That sounds perfect. LATER INSTRUCTOR Here’s what we’re going to cover today. We’re going to talk about first drafts or, as I like to call them, “vomit drafts.” We’ll discuss stories, which are always about problem-solving. We’ll talk about how characters need problems to solve. The obstacles they face create the character’s arc. That means the character’s goals have to be clear. In "Big Fish," Will Bloom wants to know his father but thinks his dad’s tall tales keep him from knowing the truth. Will has to grow to recognize that the stories his father tells are actually the key to understanding and reconciliation. The instructor begins writing on the whiteboard. The screenwriter keeps asking three questions: What does the character want? What’s getting in the way? What’s the character doing to overcome? We need to name the problems with which we’re dealing and admit that not everything ends as neatly as we might hope. The story line will include a series of turning points — some positive, some negative — until we reach the climax. That’s the overview of the next seven hours. For the first exercise, you have three minutes to create a brief dialogue for four characters we wouldn’t normally think of together. LATER INSTRUCTOR Brett, let’s hear yours. PREACHER This is a little rough, but OK. Barbie: This has to be bizarre for him, so what should we order? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Don’t ask me. I didn’t think he existed. Barbie: You didn’t think I existed either. AOC: I knew you existed. I just hated you. Latina Barbie was late to the game. Cookie Monster: Cookies! AOC: We’re at Starbucks, you blue freak. Barbie: Cookie, AOC, just means they didn’t have cookies where he’s from. AOC: They didn’t have coffee either, so that’s limiting. Jesus: Listen, my children, order water. I’ll take it from there. The other students look confused. The preacher is disappointed that this class isn’t going to help his preaching. He should be working on Sunday’s sermon. DISSOLVE TO: 3 INT. KITCHEN – NIGHT 3 The couple is back at the kitchen table, which is set for dinner. BEAUTIFUL WOMAN How was it? PREACHER Writing sermons and writing movies don’t have as much in common as I hoped. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t get anything I can use. Do we have pickles? DISSOLVE TO: 4 INT. CHURCH – SUNDAY MORNING 4 The preacher is sitting on the platform. As the congregation finishes singing a hymn, he steps to the pulpit. I’ve been thinking this week about how our stories are about the way we work with God to solve our problems. We would rather not have problems, but we need our problems to become who God wants us to be. We have to discover who we should be and where we want to go. Some of the tall tales in Scripture seem confusing, but they are the way we come to know God. We have to grow to recognize that the stories are the key to understanding and reconciliation. We need to name the problems with which we’re dealing and admit that not everything ends as neatly as we might hope. We have to keep asking ourselves, “What do we want?” “What’s getting in the way?” “How are we asking God to help us overcome?” Our lives will include good and bad moments, until we get to the end with God. That’s the Gospel. This leads to the question, “If Jesus was at Starbucks, what would he order?” FADE OUT