Thursday 27 March 2008

Public Enemy is too alluring

I couldn't write Fade To Black anymore. I just didn't believe in it. I thought it was pretty good by my standards. But not by anyone else's. But the allure of rewriting Public Enemy was too much to resist. I am weak minded. So I rewrote the first page. I think I've done alright. It's a bit rough around the edges. But it's an improvement over the last draft. This is my sixth attempt at it.

So here it is.

PAGE ONE: (2 PANELS)
PANEL ONE

Wide angle shot. Looking down an alleyway, that's about wide enough to fit a car through. On the right hand side, a two-story building of some kind. Some of the windows are boarded up. Others have been smashed. Some sharp, shards of shattered glass lay hopeless around on the cracked, oil-spilled, asphalt tarmac.

There's two sheet-metal garages below. Rusted. Corroded. They look worse for wear. Scrawled in paint across them are -- Keep Out and -- No Parking --.

A damaged metal fire escape lines up around the dilapidated building. The ladder has been lowered down. But it tilts to one side. Broken off it's hinges. Probably vandalized by local hooligans. Tipped over garbage cans spewing their trash to the left. Split black sacks with trash gouging out the side.

Coke cans, torn newspapers and other lightweight junk are being pelted around by the choppy, hurricane-force wind. Thick, impenetrable steam hisses out the sewer grates in the center of the shot. A rotten odor of feces circulates the surrounding area. This place makes hell look like Beverly Hills. You'd want to keep the paying tourists away, that's for sure.

The sky above the scene is blacker than coal. Dense, thunderous clouds surge across the sky like charging bulls, lost and aimless but packing a horrendous punch.

But in the hazy, cream-colored steam. We can make out a shadowy figure of a young girl running towards us.

CAPTION
20th March 2039 - Newcity, England.

PANEL TWO

The young girl comes into full view. It's JODIE SUMMERS. Jodie's a beautiful english rose. About seventeen years old. She's very cuddly, girl-next-door-type look. Jodie has an aroma of sweetness and innocence. Her shoulder-length pitch-black hair is in a loose ponytail. There's the odd few strands running down her young, ethereal face.

Her crystal-blue eyes sharply focused to her wrist. Jodie's staring shockingly at the time. She's clad from neck-to-toe in a cola-black, and rose-red lycra suit. The rose-red are over the limb-joints and breasts. And cola-black everywhere else. It's skin-tight. And molds to Jodie's subtle, fragile body. Which means, it leaves very little to the imagination.

Slugged over her left should is a Heckler & Koch PSG-1 sniper rifle. It swings in motion to Jodie's rapid movements.

The dire wind belts around newspapers, and coke cans. They rattle, and roll around Jodie's tired feet. The newspapers explode into the air, shot down the alleyway like a speeding bullet.

JODIE SUMMERS
Must hurry myself up. I don't have time on my side.


What do you think? Better than the fifth draft that I posted? I hope so. Please tell me it is. I'm going crazy with despair over the whole thing. I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!

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