Your Big Break

INT. OFFICE - DAY

JEFF (27), sits in the middle cubicle, he’s staring at the large wall clock. It’s ticking slowly on 5:29pm. The second hand is on 40 seconds.

Stacked up on the side of his desk are a series of travel books - ‘Hidden Discoveries’, ‘Forging your own trails’.

Jeff reaches down to his backpack, which are next to a set of well worn hiking boots.
The clock gets to 55 seconds. Jeff stands up, his face filling with joy...

BANG! A stack of papers are slammed onto his desk. SANDRA (45) is standing next to him.

SANDRA
Hundred copies, need them by 8am tomorrow.

Jeff looks up to the clock on the wall, it ticks over to 5:30pm. He looks over to the photocopier in the corner of the office. It’s got a ‘Out of Order’ sign on it.

SANDRA
There’s another one in the basement
(motioning to the hiking boots)
You can go ‘exploring’ another day.

Jeff disappointedly drops his backpack onto to the floor. Around him lights are being switched off and people are walking out of the office.

INT. OFFICE BASEMENT - DAY

A fluorescent light flickers this old dusty storage room to life. There are books and papers everywhere.

Underneath strewn paper is an old, yellow-grey-ish PHOTOCOPIER. It’s huge.

Jeff struggles, but pulls it into the middle of the room.

He puts a piece of paper on the glass and hits the “COPY” button. It whirs into life slowly, finally copying the page.

He picks up the copy and looks at it puzzled - It’s a picture of water.

He opens the copier lid and pulls out his original page, which is a MEMO, filled with numbers and graphs.

He compares the two then puts the MEMO back into the copier and hits “COPY” again. This time, the MEMO is copied perfectly.

He sets the number of copies to 100 and presses “COPY”. As the machine whirs into action, he takes the picture of water and pins it up on the NOTICEBOARD on the wall. He takes a look, then steps back away from it.

The PHOTOCOPIER behind him starts shaking.

As he stares at the NOTICEBOARD, he’s startled when a drop of water falls out from behind the picture.

The copier shakes louder and louder. As it does, more and more drops of water drip out from the picture. Suddenly -

The PHOTOCOPIER stops copying.

He walks over and grabs the copies from the tray. As he flicks through them, he notices they’re all the same copy, but each with different tones and colours.

Jeff hits “COPY” again on the machine, but nothing happens. He looks behind the PHOTOCOPIER to the power cable.

It’s been unplugged the whole time.

Looking at the copies in his hand, he recognizes a pattern. He walks over to the NOTICEBOARD and starts arranging them up on the wall.

It’s like sticking together a puzzle, he switches images around until he finally pieces it together.

As he steps back, we see the full image is of a beautiful lake, surrounded by mountains.

Water starts dripping from the whole image, making all of the paper wet, but easier to decipher as a photo-montage.

Jeff anxiously opens up the copier lid - he reaches for the original MEMO but -

It seems to ‘sink’ into the PHOTOCOPIER glass! Jeff is startled. Slowly he reaches down into the glass -

To his surprise, it isn’t glass at all anymore, it’s liquid. He quickly retrieves his hand, now soaked.

He shakes it off, then dips it in again, testing the water - so to speak.

He hesitantly tastes the water and realizes something. He looks over to the NOTICEBOARD at the photo-montage of the mountain and lake.

He dips his hand into the copier again. Simultaneously, the paper on the NOTICEBOARD “ripples” in time with his touch.

A beat.

He smiles. He runs over to the NOTICEBOARD, grabs an extra piece of paper and scribbles something onto it. He pins the note up to the board.

He quickly yanks off his shirt and tie and stumbles across the floor as he takes off his pants.

He grabs a chair and stands up onto the edge of where the photocopy glass once was (it’s now a pool of water!)

He takes one last look at the NOTICEBOARD, then takes a deep breath.

He jumps into the PHOTOCOPIER! Water splashes everywhere.

PHOTOCOPIER MONTAGE -
We see quick flashes of Jeff’s face pressed up against photocopied glass.

EXT. LAKE UNKNOWN - DAY
Jeff rushes up to the surface, gasping for air. He gulps down oxygen and looks around his new surroundings.

He is at the centre of LAKE UNKNOWN, an incredible sight, surrounded by snow covered mountain peaks on all sides. He smiles to himself and starts swimming to the edge.

We pull back to reveal this stunning scene. As we do the image slowly transitions to black and white, and then seems to be made up of numbers - and we realize that we’re now back in...

INT. OFFICE BASEMENT - DAY

We pull back out from the photo-montage. It’s the next morning.

Sandra is looking over the abandoned clothes and water damage on the floor.

She looks over at the PHOTOCOPIER and lifts up the lid. The original MEMO is still pressed up against the photocopy glass.

She closes the lid and presses “COPY”.
As the machine copies, she walks over to the photo-montage, and sees the note Jeff pinned onto it.

It reads

‘Went exploring, discovered somewhere new!’

The PHOTOCOPIER suddenly stops copying.

Sandra walks over to it and grabs a handful of copies, its not of the original image, but black and white photocopied images of Jeff’s face, smiling happily.

At that moment, one more copy comes out, this time, its an image of a mountain top.

She stares at it puzzled.

FADE OUT.

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ABOUT ME

I'm a filmmaker currently based in Wellington, New Zealand. I've directed short films, music videos, television commercials, corporate videos and a whole bunch of other bits and pieces over the years.

I'm currently developing a feature film, and still love jumping outside with a camera and a few people to see what we can come up with.

I guess I'm still looking for that elusive 'big break', but I'm also resigned to the fact that I'll be making films no matter what the circumstance.

For me, filmmaking is pretty much life itself, I'm not too sure who I'd be if I wasn't making, talking about or dreaming up my next project.
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WORK SAMPLES

You can see some of my work here:
www.shahirdaud.com

I was also recently featured on the Film Industry Network website here:

http://www.filmindustrynetwork.biz/new-zealand%E2%80%99s-hidden-gem-shah...

A couple of music videos I've recently completed:

"Whoa" - Perceive, PNC and Flowz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d5BpHkccQY&fmt=22

"You and Not I" - Matt Langley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVxG1T1ievc

Making Of "You and Not I"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHv2-RAYfqs

"Parkour Is" - Physical Graffiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mX6g3z_yQQ&fmt=18

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MY PROJECT

Copy/Paste is a surreal escape from the daily grind of the office life, to the serene and undiscovered beauty of Lake Unknown, Queenstown.

One thing that's always stunned me about living in New Zealand is that there's usually some extraordinary place which I've yet to discover just outside my door (literally in some cases, I lived just on the outskirts of Belmont Regional Park for 12 years!)

The 'Your-Big-Break' brief posed a pretty interesting challenge as a writer. My goal is always to try and engage the audience and have them genuinely care about what's happening on screen, and at the same time, try to surprise them.

I usually work backwards from certain images in my head, and Copy/Paste was no exception. I'm not certain why, but when I heard about the competition, I immediately imagined a man travelling through a photocopier and ending up in a lake (who knows what's the source of these daydreams!).

The image persisted, and I decided to sit down and just purge out every idea I had around this concept. Four Drafts later, Copy/Paste took shape.

There are a few 'visual effects' shots in the film, however, they're nothing too strenuous, and can be achieved with fairly straight forward compositing tricks and on-set practical effects using techniques I've learnt over the years.

I'm a firm believer that any image can be achieved in some way, as long as the maker knows 'why' that image needs to created. The 'how' is a matter of creativity and resources.

Thanks for taking the time to read and watch the animatic!