[In My Mind]

Me and my bud Tyler wrote this for a theatre project this weekend..and I would love some feedback. It is supposed to be a short film, with a ten minute maximum limit. So, it's kind of short, but I hope you guys like it. It's a but choppy, because we had to write it via internet... but most of it flows pretty well. The intro is a mix of us..and so is most of the dialogue. The very very last soliloqy V.O....I mean the very last part that is labeled V.O., is all me. Enjoy and God Bless...

Hamlet: Noir
Directed by Tyler Keating
Screenplay by Tyler Keating and Jared Evans

(Voice over soliloquy) (Every so often, it’ll go between the opening credits and a view of Andrew and Stephen’s characters and views of the room with different angles)

Drew Keller (Andrew): Liberty city. Where crime’s invited to invade the recumbent minds of the innocent, and few are really aware of what’s going on. A lot of people come to me, with their pleading eyes, and it’s understandable considering I’m the only private eye in this city that doesn’t have a hidden agenda. When I reveal the truth, most people get upset; it’s not like their subconscious really wanted to know what their conscious already understands. December 27th, 1943. Ignorance shrouds this city like a veil. I guess it’s the constant rain that pits our tone. Maybe it’s just nature’s cry of agony for the anguish around us. I’ve been contacted by a new case... Said she was going to “stop by” later...

(Music swells, title seen on screen)
(Fade out on smoke)

Chuck Williams (Stephen): Say... Boss, you know those cigs will kill you, right?

Keller: Nicotine is like any woman, Chuck. Starts out simple but you get too wrapped up into it to quit.

(Enter Unnamed Mysterious Woman; music starts to play. Camera starts at bottom of high heeled boots and raises up to a behind the shoulder shot)

Keller: Say... You must be the broad that gave us the call.

Mysterious Woman (Hailey): I’m definitely that (with emphasis) “broad”. The death was a suicide. At least that’s how Coroner said my father went…

(Interrupting)

Williams: (Mockingly) But you think it was something else because you know your father was too smart or too sane do that.

Woman: (Bitingly) But I wanted to let some professionals dig a little bit deeper into this tragedy then I have enough time for.

Keller: Look here kid; asking questions in this city is dangerous business. Ya get yourself bruised up...maybe even ‘offed. Our services won’t come cheap, but we’re the cleanest private eyes in town.

Woman: I’m willing to pay for your services...I need closure and I really do owe it to my father. (Long pause as Keller and Williams begin to really figure out the situation)

Keller: Alright kid, we’ll take the case. No one else in this grimy pothole would be willing to… What about your mother? Is she around?

Woman: Yes she is; she lives in the old district...That neighborhood near the old water tower. You know where that is?

Keller: I sure do... I grew up in those slums.

Williams: What about the incident itself? You don’t happen to have a picture of the body, do you?

Woman: Yes, here… from yesterday’s paper.

(Hands picture to Williams and he investigates it for a few seconds)

Williams: Hmm... Looks like a paint-by-the-numbers suicide...hmm... Wait! (Short pause) Keller... What’s this? Knife wound, left Achilles. The jig is up.

(Voice over; camera angle shifts to a slow motion close-up of Andrews face and then another from his eyes with Hailey and Stephen gazing at him intently)

Keller (Voice over): Williams was right. The jig was up. Proven by the cut on the leg of the deceased, the pestilence of our local mafia has run rampant like some four horsemen gone renegade in the streets. It’s not too uncommon around here. He probably only tried to provide his family with things they deserved, and yet all he died with was empty pockets and crushed dreams of grandeur. Did this make them undeserving, then, since fate did not allow…?

(Cut slow motion and revert to old camera angle; cut voice over)

Keller: Williams, weasel your way in with the don.

Williams: I’ll see what I can get him to cough up.

(Exit Williams; cue music; very long pause)

Woman: (Clears throat) Thank you both. Say, how much is this running me for?

Keller: You can worry about this when all is said and done. Now, I’ve got to get to work on unveiling this... I’ll show you out.

(Cue Music; exit Andrew and Hailey; end of scene 1; as music plays, soliloquy begins)

V.O. (Andrew): So this was it- the forgotten days of long past…like territory long excavated. I remember every fragment of my childhood spent here, in these slums. This place couldn’t feel less like home. The old district is swallowed by crime; this city is dead. Sounds of grief fill the translucent air just as my nightmares had long been fascinated with. Is this really the same district? Steel nerves tensed like curdled blood as the ubiquitous asphalt slowly became a supernatural portal my mind had taken to my destination (short pause)—and maybe my demise. Time had misshapen the walls, and the aura is not in the least bit as it used to be. Intuition coincided information as I walked up to the location to which I was led. I am going to regret every second I relive this…

(Andrew knocks on Door; Lauren answers)

Renée (Lauren): Oh, hello. Can I help you?

Keller: Yes. Yes, I think you can. Name’s detective Keller. I’m going to ask you some questions about the death of your husband, so maintain your composure and take a seat.

Renée: I take it you plan on coming in.

Keller: Yes, Thank you very much, ma’am.

(Andrew steps inside; cue music; camera at Dutch angle takes in Andrew and Lauren walking into a den type area)

Keller: Beautiful place you have here, Mrs...?

Renée: Sweetie pie, you better call me Renée or you’ll make me feel like an old woman.

Keller: Keller: Err... Renée...forget the small talk. Now, about your husband. What kind of man was he? Was he loving, and did he treat you well?

Renée: Oh, such a kind loving man. And so sensitive! Oh he treated our family well, so very well. Always tried to provide us with what he didn’t have.

Keller: Ah... So maybe he would have needed help...financially?

Renée: Oh goodness no! He worked hard as an ox on those skyscrapers! Oh dear, he always smelled of the city lights too. Oh wow, I really do miss him. (Faked crying) Oh why did he leave us? We can’t take care of ourselves!

Keller: Well in this maelstrom of crime, I bet someone like him would come in handy...Why do you live in this place anyway?

Renée: (sniffing back up tears) Well. It’s home. ‘Taint much, but it’s what we’ve got, you know?

Keller: Yes, I know. But why here, in this pestilence? (Casually) S’like the Don himself could walk down the street like it’s no big thing.

(Music gets more tense; camera focuses on Lauren’s eyes; Lauren’s character becomes more defensive)

Renée: (Demandingly) Whaddo you know ‘bout the don!?

Keller: (under his breath) That’s what I thought. (normally) Ma’am, I’m a private detective. I’ve seen plenty a ruse in my day, and I can tell you’re no different. (Getting very close for intimidation; sternly) Lose the façade and tell me what you’re hiding.

Renée: Well I never! (Scrambling to collect her thoughts)I..I...I mean me... err(split second pause; panicky) My husband and I were very close and the fact that you’d even mention another woman is simply loony!

(Music calms down; Andrew’s character has Lauren’s character right where he wants her)

Keller: (Wryly) I don’t believe I said anything about another woman?

Renée: (Breaks Down) Oh god...here’s how it happened.

(Cue music)

Renée: Antonio Bianchi... You’re familiar with him right?

Keller: Leader of the Italian Crime syndicate?

Renée: The one and only. Antonio has a wife, goes by Dora. Dora Bianchi. That ol’ harridan ain’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer...Turns out the hag was oblivious to her husband’s real endeavors. Thought he sold insurance! Hah! Well the quiff had a lot of time to herself. Started hangin’ out in bars where she met and seduced a handsome metalworker... They had been seein’ each other ‘bout a month before...(Trails off)

Keller: Before you found out?

Renée: No! Before that woman had a child! My husband told me he wanted to adopt a child... Said he already found the perfect one and had even gotten her registered. I raised her not knowing the child was really his from an alternate agenda, raised her up until she was about eighteen. That was when I found out about his shenanigans. I was furious! I mean, I may not be much to look at, but I’ll tell you what, I’m more woman then that hag will ever be! I can’t believe he’d do that to me!

Keller: So you took it up with Antonio?

Renée: This is confidential, right? You’ll never disclose this information to anyone, right?

Keller: Right.

Renée: (Pause) Yes... I took it up with Antonio. Set up an appointment and everything. We talked about it, thought it over...The don and I agreed on having my husband...killed.

(Cue music swell; camera at Dutch angle to show disorientation caused by new information.)

Renée: Oh god, I’m such a terrible person! (Breaks down crying)

Keller: (taking advantage of her hysteria) Woman, Do you have a phone? I need to speak to someone.

Renée: (still crying) Down the hall, take a left.

Keller: (Leaves down the hall and takes a left where a rotary phone is found; dials numbers; music deadens; Stephen character answers)

Williams! This thing goes way deeper then I thought, buddy boy! I just finished speaking with the wife of the departed and...Williams!?

(Scene shifts to Stephen’s character, partying with the Don, His wife and some brutish guards)

Williams: Oh man, Tony sure can throw some wild parties. And his wife! She’s a total vamp! I wonder where she went...

Keller: Look Williams, you need to get out. They’re hiding something and it could turn ugly, really quick!

(Scene shifts back to Stephen at the party)

Williams: Hiding something!? (Jokingly) Hey Antonio! Haha...What’s your secret? Plotted any murders lately!?

Antonio Bianchi(Ryan): Cut the line.

(Two guards cut the line; Scene switches to Andrew on phone)

Keller: Williams? Williams!? (Yells out of frustration; Camera set at Dutch angle shows Andrew walk out the door.)

Antonio: Kid, do you know what happens when you ask questions like that? (Short pause) Bad things happen. (Snaps his fingers and two guards hold him; Cue music) Mr. Williams, I know exactly what you do. People like you are bad for our operation...Truth is a VERY dirty thing, my good man. (Pause; Ryan Snaps his fingers) Take him. (Guards, Kyle and Tyler, Drag Stephen out of the room)

(Music Swells; Voice over; end Scene 2)

V.O. (Andrew): With every case I solve, only a bit of the surface of the massive lie that is Liberty City flakes off...Scrapes and dents mean nothing in this leviathan-like armor of facade. Williams, he’s dead. He was just a kid with dreams of finally unveiling our shrouded city; gone in an instant, just like me. Yeah, maybe he was looking for a cup of excitement to cure his insipid life...Got it served to him via plenty of 9mm bullets, courtesy of Thompson Machine Gun Edition 6K3. I had to at least begin to close out some of the mystique, maybe more for my satisfaction then theirs. Yeah, I knew it was late but the broad didn’t seem to mind meeting me at the office. That doesn’t seem unusual, considering the fact that my office is one of the safer locations in this sublime district…

(Back at the office; Andrew looking intently at something. Hailey enters the room with a similar entrance as last time, though this time she is much more shaken and is obviously being devoured by the death of her father. Makeup is all messed up, tousled hair, dirty-ish clothes. Eyes a wide enough to make audience uncomfortable.)

Keller: (not looking up quite yet) Good, you’re here. I need to talk to you (looks up) about... Oh geez! What’s eating you!?

Woman: (Unconvincingly) Nothing.

Keller: Oh...Okay. Well I spoke to your mother...although you aren’t her offspring. Your real mother is Dora Bianchi. You were born from your father’s affair with her...Your mother found out about this and hatched a plot with the head-honcho of the mafia, Antonio Bianchi, to off your father.

Woman: (Unphased; still has a glazed look going off into the distance) is that... so? Mmm.

(Awkward Pause; Hailey still staring straight through Andrew)

Keller: (to himself) Ugh, her too, eh? (aloud) Well kid, I didn’t say it was going to be pretty but I guess it’s closure, and like you said you really needed--(Interrupted)

Woman: To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream—Ay now you’re on the trolly!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil. But why die so bleak, when there’s so much more to the art?
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
the ignorance of the public, the stagnance of the observer.
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
given by skeptical surgeons so late,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin, a blade? (Draws knife; Twirls in fingers)
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
Conscience matters not, and the cowardess truly escapes.
This is where humanity is set free.
(Points knife at Andrew)
Where can I find my mother?

Keller: Off the corner of fifth and main... Some bar behind Scapolini’s.

(Cue Music)

Woman: (Glazed as ever) I’ll be going now.

Keller: (Slow transition to Dutch angle) And so she left. Alone, in my own microcosm of disbelief, still wondering what was going on in her head, yet all the while knowing exactly what was going on inside her, elsewhere. She’d lost it. All sanity, gone even sicklier than her dearly departed father. My mind was in overtime, and the sky beyond overcast, swept up in some combination of lunacy and tragedy. At least they go so well together. (View of Andrew from back pouring a glass of something and taking a chug) Not feeling so receptive, all I needed was short chat with my good friend Jack Daniels and a few cigs to calm the nerves, then I’d know exactly what needs to be done I grabbed my intricately woven fedora and time-worn overcoat and proceeded out the door.




(Screen goes dark; all you hear is a girl struggling to breathe. Camera fades in on an extreme close-up of Hailey’s face with the background out-of-focus; a small figure is seen in the distance. Hailey’s breathing stops and she falls forward onto her face from her knees. Camera focuses on background and Andrew’s figure begins to walk toward bodies; music swell. Camera zooms out and reveals bodies of Hailey, Ryan, Lauren, Jared and Jennifer, arranged Jared/Hailey/Jen and Lauren/Ryan; wide angle shot.)

V.O. (Andrew): There I was, too little, too late. But that was known before one foot stepped into the smog. It always turns out so. Stench of death was in my nose and nothing else seemed to exist. There wasn’t even a bad memory to play through my head like a bad record. Silence, just like the old days. I guess that past does repeat. Stricken with insomnia, somehow through the eyes of madness she still wanted to bring her “happy family” back together. Apparently the viewing of her father’s body was set for tomorrow. Figure she’d save herself some time by getting there on her own instead of being brought there later. She had gone to get her mother for a little family reunion (Camera focuses on Jen’s face) ---Liberty City Style. But I guess that’s just how it is here…

(Flashback 1: Jen slowly lights up as she recognizes her daughter. Hailey, still glazed over and insane, kills Jen. Jen falls over and from a camera behind Hailey, Ryan sees the death of Jen. Lauren will also be seen in this shot, maybe in background.)

V.O. (Cont’d): The broad had gone off the deep end and into a pool of null brainwaves and short receptiveness. There was no need to explain how hard the death of her father hit her. Since they couldn’t be with each other in life, why not try death? The other side has the possibility at least of being something better, whereas Liberty City certainly doesn’t. She took off toward the bleak cemetery, shrouded in grey clouds and reasonable fog, to be with him... I guess rationality must become obsolete when your mind has gone and left you. Worse yet, the man who had schemed the death of her father had to witness the slaying of his own wife, his own lover. Like the French say, Revenge is a dish best served cold. Renée must have been coming to speak with the don about the little chat her and I had. Fueled by adrenaline and with the afterburn of testosterone, Antonio must have thrown her into the car and darted after his dead wife. (Camera focus goes to Ryan’s face) God knew it’d be his last decision. So did he.

(Flashback 2: Ryan charges at Hailey, only to be quickly subdued. Lauren cowers in the background.)

V.O. (Cont’d): Like some kind of arch angel, she’d mutilated the head of the Italian crime syndicate in cold blood. Did he expect something warm? Oh well. She saved me the trouble, for once. All that was left was the woman she grew up with. Maybe she killed her out of spite...wanted to make her pay for what she had done. Maybe it was so that there were no incriminating people left... (Camera goes to Lauren’s face) Whatever the reason, she’s dead like the rest.

(Flashback 3: Quick and concise, Hailey pulls a knife out of Lauren’s back and Lauren falls foreward.)


V.O. (Cont’d): Police reports said that Renée had died of a single knife wound to the back. Kind of ironic considering how much backstabbing she did on her own. (Camera focuses on family, sort of floating around them.)
Well there they are. Together at last. A happy family. Lies seem to have a tendency to continue...Feeding off of each other, getting deeper and deeper. That’s exactly what happened to this family. Consumed by deceit, and a double edge sword of a father’s ripe adultery. (Camera focuses on Lauren and Ryan, sort of floating around them) This city’s full of two things: Liars and Rats. It’s a symbiosis of the two, both benefit each other by spreading constant confusion and a charade of what really goes on in Liberty City. (Camera focuses on Hailey’s face between Jen and Jared floating ever-so-slightly) Truth is so rarely seen here...She couldn’t handle the fact that even her own family was grimy and dark, just like the city around them. Her life was a short one...At least she lived it oblivious to the grime of this metropolis.

(Camera focuses, above bodies so all that’s seen is Andrew as he throws a rose that lands on an off screen Hailey; Andrew turns and walks away; music swells. As soliloquy goes on, camera slowly floats down as Andrew goes out of focus to Hailey with a flower lying on her)

V.O. (Cont’d): They were all there... The Liars, the Rats, and the Happy Family... (Pause) As for me, I’m going to keep doing what I do. (Volume swell) I’ll keep telling the truth.

(Andrew is completely out of focus. Camera finally stops on Hailey’s dead body with a rose resting on it.)











V.O.(cont’d): Expressed in typical Liberty City manner, this chaos, this mayhem came to no surprise. If only these people weren’t bleeding under their eyelids. If only ignorance were served by other means. Why do we continue to feed this atrocity? They sit where end’s meet planned to meet them. Was it a trap even for her? Planchettes and facades may finally wash away once the acidity of their gazes increase. Each case is the same. I go in with a catalyst mindset…wanting to change things, fix things for once. I now realize my own blindness in the matter. Only if things actually were, then Liberty City wouldn’t hold it’s identity. There’s no identity crisis because the true repuatation is already established. We need a place like Liberty City, even if it’s just to be an example. Then again, perhaps we need a catalyst like me to keep things going, to keep something in action. Maybe everything means everything, or nothing means everything. Is this all a distraction for what’s truly there, or is nothing there at all? Are we to find our own answers, or are they already there, watching for us to wake up? What if nothing were real? What if life were an alter-ego, looking just to fade and escape from those who take notice? Solicitly falling, we still fall. No matter how we meet death, death is met. Is this how things were meant to be? Well, it is how they are. They saw the gleam in my eyes and didn’t shoot me down. With this in mind, I honorably rest and await Liberty City’s next dawn. The past must repeat because something was done to trigger this. This is another’s memory, replayed over and over. That is no matter, because this is Liberty City, a metropolis where crime is invited with open arms. At least they’re open. We like it that way…

(Closing credits roll, maybe with a few outtakes.)

[In My Mind]

Mucho (RC) needed from CGR.

[In My Mind]

Thanks guys.

[Ordinary Sarah]

I don't know, I think it's pretty good. Some parts sound a little cheesy... but they're not nearly as bad as some things I've heard.

Overall, it's interesting. I like it.