Glass
half empty: Script.
Equilibrium
The man is lying in bed with his eyes open. The curtains
are letting light shine through. He is waiting for his alarm to go off. There
are pleasant sounds of birds (and perhaps the occasional vehicle driving by).
There is an empty bottle of vodka next to his bed.
The alarm goes off a few times while he stares at the
ceiling, almost motionless. He slowly reaches over to turn it off and then depressing
music starts to play over the top of the animation from this point on.
He showers in silence, head hanging as the water hits
him. He dries himself off in the bedroom and takes a brief moment to look into
a mirror. He stares blankly at himself and then his head lowers.
His toast pops up from the toaster and he begins to
butter it (with Vitalite, bitches). He is dressed by now. He eats it while sat
at a table on his own.
He applies toothpaste to his brush and brushes his teeth,
looking despondently at his reflection.
He puts on his coat and begins walking to the bus stop.
He catches the bus and finds a place to sit on his own where he stares out of
the window until he arrives at the destination. His heart races at every stop,
dreading that he’ll have somebody sit next to him, while at the same time
wondering why nobody does sit there, is something wrong with him?
Eventually he gets off at his stop and people seem to be
walking right at him, he always feels that he has to move for them, like he is
invisible.
He arrives at his office block and spends the day typing
away in silence, never talking to anybody. He wonders whether people are making
fun of him behind his back.
Fast forward to going home and he catches the bus and
goes through the same fear cycle that he had on his way there. Eventually he
arrives at home and makes chips and beans for dinner. He then slumps in front
of the television with some alcohol. He also has his laptop open and is forever
looking at the notification bit. He gets a notification but it’s something
mundane like a facebook update or something along those lines. This drives him
to drink heavier.
He stumbles to the bathroom where he clumsily brushes his
teeth with his head down. He looks in the mirror and becomes frustrated with himself.
Perhaps he even punches the mirror and recoils in pain. He then decides that
tomorrow morning he is going to call the Drs. He collapses in bed and we fade
out on that image.
The next day he calls the doctors before going to work
and writes down an appointment time. The rest of his day goes as usual but we
speed through it slightly faster with slight variations to the original day we
see. For instance, the weather may change and he is wearing a different tie.
Disruption
This is the Doctor day. The man is lying in bed with his
eyes open. The curtains are letting light shine through. He is waiting for his
alarm to go off. There are pleasant sounds of birds (and perhaps the occasional
vehicle driving by).
The alarm goes off a few times while he stares at the
ceiling, almost motionless. He slowly reaches over to turn it off and then
depressing music starts to play over the top of the animation from this point
on.
He showers in silence, head hanging as the water hits
him. He dries himself off in the bedroom and takes a brief moment to look into
a mirror. He stares blankly at himself and then his head lowers.
His toast pops up from the toaster and he begins to
butter it (with Vitalite, bitches). He is dressed by now. He eats it while sat
at a table on his own. As he eats, he looks down at a piece of paper that he
has. It says Dr Barnette (or some other name to be later confirmed) and a time,
10.35.
He applies toothpaste to his toothbrush and begins to
brush his teeth. After he has finished he notices that he has gotten some on
his top. He responds with a sigh or another lowering of the head (or eyebrows
to depict his unhappiness).
He puts on his coat and closes the door behind him. He
starts walking to the bus stop and it starts to rain. It gets heavy and he gets
splashed by a car driving through a puddle.
When the bus arrives the rain begins to stop. After he
has paid he tries to find a place to sit but almost everybody has put a bag
next to them on the bus. He sits reluctantly towards the back of the bus where
a couple of kids are sat. They whisper to each other and make him nervous. He
occasionally glances and tries to forget them but he can’t. He stares out of
the window and gets all hot and sweaty.
He arrives in town and heads to the doctors. On the way
people seem to be walking at him and he is forever moving out of their way.
When he arrives at the doctors he is sat in the waiting
room. He glances to the clock which shows the time to be later than his
appointment (which will be reinforced by looking back at his small piece of
paper). Eventually, ten minutes late, he is called in.
He sits slumped in the Dr’s office. The Dr appears
uninterested and irritated at the mention of a patient who is permanently
unhappy. He offers the man a prescription and the man leaves feeling worse than
ever.
He stands in his bathroom looking at himself and takes
two of the pills. His evening then follows the same routine except he doesn’t
drink.
One week later?
He struggles to awaken for once and his expression has
changed from unhappy to emotionless and tired. He takes his pills with his
breakfast. He does everything that he does in the equilibrium but at a much
slower pace with less panic but with a real sense of overwhelming apathy and
takes his pills in the evening with dinner too.
Recognition
He begins to realise that this hasn’t helped him; it’s
only put him in groggy state where he feels absolutely nothing. That morning
before he takes his pills he looks at them and decides to leave them alone. He
wants to go back to the original equilibrium because feeling anything is better
than feeling nothing at all.
New
equilibrium
His routine has returned to normal except now he drinks
either a bigger bottle or drinks two bottles. This could be interchangeable
with cans but it’s more likely that he will have chosen a beverage of choice
and stuck with that.
Additional
notes
· -In order to make the drinking more poignant,
it’s possible that he won’t be drinking at all at in the initial equilibrium
and that the antidepressants and lack of help have actually pushed him into an
even greater state of depression.
· - I’m currently undecided on whether the final
equilibrium should be a state of suicide.
·
If suicide DOES occur, then it’s important
that we don’t see it and that we only see preparations for it. For example,
tying a rope or researching methods of suicide on the internet.
· - Remember to incorporate idiosyncrasies to the
character’s actions depending on what he is doing – for example, when he is
looking at his social media website, he might type something out to talk to
somebody but then deletes it for fear of seeming stupid or being ignored.
· - It’s very important to show that the Dr’s
attitude is a massive contributing factor in this extended depression. I want
it to seem like the Dr was in a rush to get him out of his hair and the easiest
method would have been writing him a prescription rather than all the
additional help that could occur.
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