can. can we see a bit from the cowboy-samurai movie script. even just a tiny excerpt please I'm begging
yeah okay I'll give you the notes for the opening- WIP and I ain't good at script formatting, bite me (also you don't get my pretty colour coding bc tumblr ate it, alas)
also naturally if anyone steals this shit I'm coming for you with a loaded kazoo and there will be no mercy :)
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Opening shot: Exterior, day AND night.
The screen is split in the centre along the horizon.
The top screen shows a sunrise in oranges and gold, and maintains that colour scheme throughout, the lower shows a sunset, turning from red-purple to indigo-blue and likewise stays that way. In this way it appears as though the sun is leaving one screen and entering the other at the same time: we are watching the same sun from two different parts of the world.
The top and bottom films are complete parallels of each other, the top showing a western and the lower a samurai movie.
When a group of riders on horseback charge across the screen (very wide shot), the top screen has them travelling from left to right, whereas in the samurai picture they stream from right to left mimicking the direction of reading in these two cultures.
After some cuts of these identical shots (from wide, to underfoot, to overhead) the two movies start to contrast in shot type, but their movements are still the same- as though we are watching the same scene, but filmed from different angles.
e.g. The top will be an overhead shot, while the lower is a long shot of the samurai group sneaking up and planning to secretly enter the courtyard of a grand mansion. Then above at the we have the opposite- we see the cowboys doing the same thing to enter and strategically place themselves in a remote village, almost as if they are going to be fighting the samurai, while the lower screen is now a top-down view of the samurai dispersing as they discussed. What is clear from the tension and body language is that Shit is About to Go Down.
There is a little difference in how they communicate asides from the literal language split. The cowboys are more disorganised, spontaneous and sarcastic. Sometimes their gestures are impatient and rude, though still speak in their typical Victorian time-oriented politeness. The samurai are co-ordinated and respectful, and have clearly executed operations like this before, but there are flickers of comedy from the background actors- facial and physical rather than spoken. While the leader is silently giving orders to the main group, in the bg one of the pair trips, but the other catches him before he hits the deck.
A pair of pairs split off as agreed in both teams. These are the odd-balls of the two groups. They have a mirrored conversation- A and B are cowboys. D and C are samurai. Both conversations happen at the same time, and the actors do not speak over each other appear to miraculously coincide with the conversation on the other side of the world. The Samurai speak Japanese (nb. Perhaps the subtitles can interact with the film at various points!)
A is very slick and has the air of a survivor. Amoral, but a quick wit.
B is comic relief incarnate. Jittery, but pitiable. Tries hard. Kind hearted. Doesn’t know how he got into this mess.
C is similar but a little less twitchy (less visual noise/distraction)
D is similar to A but less ‘bastard’ energy, more long-suffering. Deadpan.
D: (after a tense pause) …They are going to get us all killed.
C: (makes an agreeing face, while-)
A: Well, maybe not all of us will be funding the funeral director today. At the very least, I’m surviving this.
B: (sweating, has been anxious the whole time) Huh?! How’s that then?
-(D seems to answer as A checks his revolver’s ammunition)
D: If we left now, we could both still get out of this with some blood left in our veins.
A: It’s common sense. If you don’t have that then- well, I s’pose it goes a long way to explaining how you ended up the way you did.
B: (‘Heyyyyy’ expression- his attempt to mimic A’s smooth flip to realign the barrel of his revolver fails and the bullets all fall out. He scrambles to pick them up.)
C: But... the others need us, the plan-
D and A together: “The plan do(es)n’t account for my needs, namely to get out of this alive, and I’ll bet you didn’t count on dying today either.”
B and C together: (gradual noises of reluctant agreement/mutiny)
A pause of silence and a wide shot of the respective envornments. A shot of the Sun and Moon as a cloud passes over both forms of illumination in the two worlds (tension build, no music).
C: (nervous) ...So…?
B: What do we do?
(A/D look at B/C, to be sure they are in on the plan)
A: Well. We wait for the signal to start…
B: Uh-huh uh-huh...
D: You see that wall? The one covered in vines, with the dead tree besides it?
C: Uh-huh uh-huh…
(The Upper screen shows the wall as D describes it, and we cut to A pointing- to the camera but as if to point out the wall- as the shot swaps to have the wall shown in the Lower screen)
A: ‘n when it all kicks off we bolt straight for that.
D: We climb up that, dive over the wall in the confusion, and make a break for it.
B and C: Why wait ‘til then?! Let’s just go right now!
(B lunges to go for it, but A grabs his shoulder)
(at same time C actually DOES go for it, escaping D’s reach)
D: No no no not yet-!
-Visual joke- the cowboys are on the top screen. A sighs and looks down, as if he is watching the movie below.
C runs out across the courtyard, gets halfway up the tree and is immediately cut down by an arrow. C’s corpse slumps to the ground, and we cut back to D pinching the bridge of his nose.
A: (looking back up at B) ...‘you really don’t got much of an imagination, do you.
There is a sudden gunshot. A looks surprised and pained for a moment, then slumps dead onto B as cries of alarm go up at the same time in both settings- the fight has started unbidden. (Note that D can flinch as if he has heard the gunshot, but it’s really the alarm on his side going up)
The two screens slide so that the focal point of the two survivors moves to the centre to establish our main characters: B, the comedy relief of the Western setting, and D, the straight-man of the Samurai setting. They both look straight ahead at the camera, which cuts to the walls, which cuts back to an extreme closeup of both sets of eyes. After a beat they run, and from behind their heads appear the words of the title. This is followed by an animatic-style credits roll which shows their respective escapes and travels to explain how they both end up in the same part of the world in the same year.
