Your Big Break

Note: cell [phone] = mobile [phone], and vice versa

FADE IN:
EXT. BUS STOP - DAY
A young tourist couple stands some distance apart on a gravel roadside. In front of them, the wild empty beauty of NZ southern alps.
They take it all in. Their faces glowing with the beauty of it all.

SHE - a healthy, young mid 20s woman - struggles for a moment, takes out a hand held navigator, clicks a few buttons, then reads the screen. Looks about with some difficulty. Squirms a bit more and takes out a mobile phone. Dials. His phone pings. HE – a healthy, young late 20s man - struggles and wriggles and gets his phone; reads the screen.

TXT ON HIS MOBILE
West.

He taps a reply. Her phone beeps. She opens it.

TXT ON HER MOBILE
K.

They put their phones/navigator away and she turns left and he turns right, and both walk till they're off screen.

A beat then O.S. The sound of his mobile.

Snap to screen on his mobile.

TXT ON HIS MOBILE
The other West.

A beat and he staggers back to the left.

EXT. CAMPSITE - NIGHT
The young couple sit on a log at a camp fire, both with MP3 players in their ears and laptops open, both typing away furiously.

He stops typing. Looks at the distant hills barely discernable in the near darkness. Looks at her. Sighs. Looks at the campfire. Looks up at the stars. Looks at the laptop. Starts typing away.

She stops typing. Looks up at the distant hills. Up at the stars. Looks at him. She too sighs and looks at the fire.

Sparks of the fire flicker upwards to the beauty of the stars filling the night sky.

She puts her laptop carefully to one side, takes out her phone. Taps a message in.

His phone beeps. He juggles laptop and takes phone out. Looks at it. Puts the phone to one side, reaches over and takes the coffee pot off a gas burner, pours a coffee for her and hands it over to her.

She takes it. Puts it aside, takes out her phone, taps in a message.
His phone beeps.

TXT ON HIS MOBILE
thnx

INT. TENT - NIGHT
Her phone beeps.

TXT ON HER MOBILE
gd nyt

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL - DAY
And absolutely jaw dropping view. He and She snapping away with digital camera and video camera. Their respective camera POVs intersect with the other person, and they hold for a beat on each other, then turn away to other points of interest.

EXT. CAMPSITE NEAR RIVER - EVENING
He and she wander down to river, both with electric toothbrushes and plastic mugs. They fill the mugs in unison, then stand side by side on the bank brushing their teeth while looking up at the hills glowing in the setting sun, their actions perfectly synchronized.

Her eyes look sideways at him. He senses the change, and turns to look at her. Takes the toothbrush out of his mouth. Smiles a frothy smile.

She stops brushing. Indicates he has some froth dribbling down chin.

A beat. He mimes turning into a zombie.

She laughs with delight. Then on his delight, mimes shock and fear. Turns and begins a "slow motion" runs up the bank. He scampers up the bank after her.

While we turn back to the scenery, O.S. laughing and Squeals of delight.

EXT. CAMPSITE NEAR RIVER - MORNING
He and She are packing up camp. He takes out his mobile/cell phone. Types in a message.

A beat.

He looks at her organising sleeping bags. Shuts off his phone. Gathers up the courage

HE
Ah... I was...

She almost jumps in alarm.

SHE
Oh. I... Sorry. What...?

He fidgets. A shy youth again.

HE
I thought. We. Could. Take a walk together. Just for a while.

He indicates the countryside around them. A beat of silence as they look at each other. She nods. Smiles.

SHE
That'd be nice.

EXT. FORESTED PATHWAY - DAY
The young couple stand close together at a lookout point.

SHE
This is more the spirit!

He grins, offers her his hand, which she takes and they walk off into the sunset, hand in hand...though a few steps along they start dancing and kicking up their heels in fun.

Ends

---

One difficulty with tackling 'the spirit of NZ' is to 'show not tell', and for a few days now I've been going over this this theme, looking for something that wasn't too 'on the nose' or required a lot of explanation, and something also that spoke about the 'modern condition' and how the spirit of New Zealand might affect that. And this little bit of fun came about from that thinking.

The key to filming this will be to start with the characters isolated by not only the silence between them, but by framing each in a separate part of the screen, be that space broken up by a tree or tent pole or a sky line or whatever - or even focus - and then bring them closer and closer together so that when they are standing brushing their teeth at the stream, there is very little distance between them. They are still separated a little from the environment with electric toothbrushes and plastic mugs, but I think we'll pan down and find them with bare feet or something like that - the campsite we choose might give a few ideas.

Backdrops will be realitively important (of course) - but looking at points of interest at differing depths of field more than splendour - as will colour of the firelight, so probably will play just a bit with colour correctino and hsl adj in post.

Hand held nav separate from phone just so there is a larger number of gadgets used by the pair - a 'juggling of lives' symbolism happening at that level.

Costume choices - let's go for ecclectic clothing choices with a few 'layers' so that in the end, as they remove some layers, they can end up wearing similar styles of clothing.