Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Willie's logorhhea outline

It's mostly just the caffeine talking folks- don't let it scare you:

I messed up and went to a restaurant an hour early for lunch. My lovely luncheon companion agreed to adjust her schedule AGAIN, so I didn't have to wait too long, but I did have time to sketch this out:

Scene I: Main Female Character wakes up. She brushes her teeth and begins to check the Eye.

A little later ( the camera has followed her) she goes to work or to some place where she interacts with a friend. Along the way, we have seen and learned a little about her- a cute and perky quirky type any actress would want to play. Wherever she sits down for a little while, she has the opportunity in
SCENE II, exposition. She shows the Eye to her friend and explains a little about it- a handy FAQ / Q&A to establish what we need to know about the Eye and Peterman and the Eyesters.

Scene III: Meanwhile, in a Wifi cafe halfway across the country, we meet Male Character I. He is friendly, attractive, nice to waitresses and dogs.
Scene IV is the first of several "General Posting scenes" where the Eye is displayed and as we pan down the postings, various posters read their posts aloud. The camera might look over at the Avatar and the Avatar can come to life, reading the post. Of course, there is opportunity for postings to be read by a voice in the wrong gender, with exotic accents, etc. As the poster reveals a little more, maybe their speech patterns change.
Scene V is a posting by the Main Female Character. She tells a story, maybe a fantasy, maybe a reminiscence. She enacts it for the camera. Along the way, people pop up, or pass on the street, in the lobby, etc. Those people may actually be the other posters, but she doesn't necessarily recognize them and they don't recognize her- though a lingering smile may pass between them.
Scene VI is another General Posting, in which JP announces a contest- the JP INgathering-Homecoming-Reunion- Family Reunion. Call it what you will. Peterman solicits ideas for events to make it exceptional and promises to provide transport and accommodations to the winner(s). As the camera scrolls down, we notice for the first time a poster (named ___) whose posts are always in the form of book titles.
Scene VII Enter the second male character. He is the comic one, somehow.
Scene VIII. Second male character goes to a cocktail party or a bar and finds himself sitting down with the three female characters- maybe slightly dolled up versions- and they repeat their postings from earlier in the day. He may or may not recognize them, but if this is a true fantasy, they are movie star editions of themselves and he knows them. Flirtation and fascination. Does he just wake up? Or do real people at the party morph back and forth between their real conversations and him hearing them tell the postings from earlier in the day? Hmmm.
Scene IX is a general posting and we first glimpse the weirdo poster, who will appear more and more often, always claiming dead people as members of his/her cult, group, secret society, etc. Every so often, the book poster comes in and says the title of a book, then disappears again.
Scene X Split Screen. Main Female Character and Second Female Character have a conversation ( email?) What do they discuss?
Scene XI 3rd Male character, who has had some postings, will emerge as a full character, with a life, a dog a house, whatever
Scene XII One female character has a bad day and sits down at the computer to tell the Eye about it.
Scene XIII Male character ( any one) has a bad day, but seeks his relief by being distracted, rather than telling his troubles.
Scene XIV???

Maybe one of the male characters is the one who dies- lives at home and his parents, no his brother, figure out that he has been a-posting for months while his body slowly shut down... Maybe the Ingathering becomes a chance to meet and mourn the departed eyester...Maybe it fails to launch, but the five or six poster-characters meet anyway.
The book poster is a computer program. It reads posts and every so often, will cite a book whose title seems to refer to the topic, just like those g-mail ads that sell you what your friends have been eMailing you about, supposedly...

I don't know beyond this- maybe some actual flirtation, maybe some cute mistakes as to gender, certainly some ironic contrast between real life and the beauty of one's postings.One character might UNDERplay her wealth and influence. When she meets her electronic friend, she doesn't tell him about the family fortune, or how she knows Peterman in real life from I don't know- owning the horse farm down the road. At the end, Peterman explains to the assembled group, or maybe only to the guy who has fallen in love with her, that she is "The Connecticut Lady" or one of his patrician characters from the Manual. By this time, our very regular guy is so taken and she doesn't care about his money, or whatever.

A couple of movies to watch and assimilate:
PETER'S FRIENDS, which is a good reunion movie, though the corpse ( oops) is not yet dead. and SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLEY HILLS, which is a neo-Shakespearean comedy, with two adjoining big houses, servants, bed swapping, and a bet...

I do not think this needs to be about 6 characters all at the same position and stage in life- there can be people who have rich happy lives beyond the eye, people whose lives are sucked up into the eye, people who are young and single, old and single, young and happily attached, ready to be led astray, No Longer Interested, etc. Think of the WWII foxhole novels, or of Agatha Christie's Mousetrap- a gang of disparate souls united for one purpose. What these people have in common is being thrown into THIS. And what we know about them is what they tell us.
Shhhhssshhhsshhhsshhs no more, no, more, nomore.....

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