———–<.thom.>———–
The Great Works Project
a puppet play in multiple parts
Season 01, Episode 01
By Thomas Typewriter
(C) 2019
———–<:type:>———–

FADE IN TO BLACK

Across a dark field the following text scrolls up: 01-01. It scrolls up from the center of the bottom of the frame, ascending vertically until finally exiting the center of the top of the frame.

FADE OUT

FADE IN

INT. THE UNDECORATED SPACE
Open on an undecorated sound stage in a world of greyscale tints and incomplete sets. A gentle fog rolls across the ground. Partially completed walls and props sit scattered around, all painted in various gray tones. The feeling is of being inside a giant sound stage filled with incomplete sets.

A vertical slit forms in the fog, off to the side away from the scattered sets. The fog then rolls off screen to the left and right, like a curtain on a stage being opened.

AS THE FOG ROLLS ASIDE THE CAMERA MOVES FORWARD WITH A SLIGHT BOB,AS IF THE CAMERA WAS SOMEONE’S POV AS THEY WALK INTO THE DARKNESS.

A lantern or lamp turns on revealing a small wooden bridge.

THE CAMERA WALKS ACROSS THE BRIDGE, SLOWING IN THE MIDDLE.

The sound of RUNNING WATER catches our attention.

THE CAMERA PANS DOWN TO LOOK AT THE WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE.

A small creek of strikingly clear water runs under the bridge. It is not very wide but remarkably deep. In the water various books, albums, movie posters, and other artwork float by.

THE CAMERA RETURNS TO THE UPRIGHT GAZE AND WALKS ON.

The sound of TYPEWRITER KEYS CLICK CLACKING drifts from the darkness ahead.

THE CAMERA CONTINUES WALKING FORWARD.

Two unseen lamps turn on illuminating a revolving door. The door leads to one of the unrooms in the Undecorated Space, but there are no walls visible. It sits alone in the darkness.

THE CAMERA WALKS THROUGH THE REVOLVING DOORS.

The hands of the POV can be briefly seen as they move through the revolving door. Note that there will be no reflection of the POV character, or OUTER ONE, as he/she uses the revolving door. Instead a small log of the unroom number, “.7”, is visible on the door. Emerging from the door, the Outer One finds…

INT. UNROOM NOT.SEVEN

LS OF THE UNROOM FROM THE POV STANDING JUST INSIDE THE DOOR.

The unroom sits in darkness. Distance and scale visually unsure. Spindly lamps off to each side fade on, slowly bringing details of the room to light. A large wooden disk sits in the center of the room with rows of grey carpet squares surrounding it. The disk stands shrouded in darkness, just outside the illumination of the spindly lamps.

THE CAMERA MOVES TO A GREY CARPET SQUARE AND SITS DOWN. IT THEN TILTS DOWN TO LOOK AT THE GROUND.

The Outer One places a coin on the ground with the symbol of an anvil. Nothing happens. They replaces the anvil coin with a coin with the symbol of a trophy. Still nothing. They continues replacing the coins one at a time, working through coins with symbols of a sword, a harp, a shield, a light bulb, a quill, a castle, a wand, and lastly a saw. Nothing occurs for any of the coins.

The Outer One pauses, fingers tapping on the ground. Then an idea occurs to them. They lay all the coins on the ground in a row. A CLICK sounds followed by TYPEWRITER KEYS CLACKING.

THE CAMERA TURNS BACK UP TO LOOK AT THE LARGE WOODEN DISK.

Unseen lamps over the wooden disk turn on illuminating the TYPEWRITER ABSTRACT PUPPET STAGE. Bearing a basic old time typewriter form, it is taller than wider, the keys forming the base, the cylinder forming the top, and in between is the stage area. Covering the stage area are a set of red stage curtains. The sound of KEYS TYPING stops. The lights in the unroom dim.

THE CAMERA PANS IN TOWARDS THE STAGE CURTAINS.

FADE OUT

———–<.thom.>———–
The Great Works Project
a puppet play in multiple parts
Series prologue
By Thomas Typewriter
(C) 2019
———–<:type:>———–

FADE IN

INT HOSPITAL ROOM ICU. DAYTIME

A stark room of sterile whites and low artifice machinery, an elderly woman, THE-WOMAN-WHO-LOVED, lies in a hospital unconscious and unresponsive. Various tubes snake out of her face and limbs twisting their way to various beeping, wheezing, and pinging life support machines. Off to the side sits a nightstand covered in get well cards, all with bright cheerfullest pictures of flowers. Pictures of things not allowed into this sterile environment.

OPEN ON A MS OF THE WOMEN-WHO-LOVED FROM THE FOOT OF HER BED, LOOKING TOWARDS HER SLEEPING FACE.

A SOFT KNOCKING at the door.

THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES
(off-screen) “Hi, can I come in.”

From off-screen we hear THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES enter. FOOTSTEPS pad across the room to DRAG A CHAIR next to the bed.

THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES
(off-screen) “Wow that was loud. Sorry about that.”

A male hand, the hand of THE MAN-WHO-LOVES, comes into view, gripping the The-Women-Who-Loved’s hand. He squeezes it.

THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES
(off-screen) “So,how you doing today. (pause) The boys miss you and say hi…”

The man’s voice breaks, pausing, letting the sadness slip.

THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES
(off-screen) “…Sorry. Where was I. I’ve got something I have been working on. Would it be alright if I read it to you.”

INSERT CS OF THE-WOMAN-WHO-LOVED’S HAND SOFTLY SQUEEZING THE-MAN-WHO-LOVED’S HAND.

THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES
(off-screen) “Great.”

We hear the sounds of PAPERS RUSTLING.

THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES
(off-screen) “It’s a new script. Something I might actually finish. You’d like that wouldn’t you.

CUT TO CS OF THE-WOMAN-WHO-LOVED’S HAND SQUEEZING THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES’ HAND, THEN CUT BACK.

THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES
“Good. (pauses) Okay, it goes something like this: Fade In from black. A golden curtain delicately embroidered with threads of pure curiosity, stretches across the screen. A sense of any moment something magical will begin.”

CUT TO XCS OF THE-WOMAN-WHO-LOVED’S FACE. HER EYES CRACK OPEN AND SHE TURNS HER HEAD

CUT TO CS OF THE-WOMAN-WHO-LOVED TURNING HER HEAD AND LOOKING TOWARDS THE CAMERA.

CUT TO THE-WOMAN-WHO-LOVED’S POV OF THE END OF HER BED.
THE BACKGROUND GOES OUT OF FOCUS WHILE THE END OF THE BED REMAINS IN FOCUS. THE BACKGROUND FADES AWAY BEING REPLACED BY A GOLDEN STAGE CURTAIN. IT FILLS THE ENTIRE FRAME.

THE-MAN-WHO-LOVES
(off-screen) “The curtains part revealing a space of not here, not now…”
The golden curtains part.

THE CAMERA PANS INTO THE OPENING.

TRANSITION FROM HOSPITAL ROOM TO NOT HERE, NOT NOW.

NOT HERE, NOT NOW

A hazy void spreads across the frame. From below the frame, A HANDHELD, comes into view.

CS OF THE HANDHELD

A rectangular gaming device, with a small tinted screen and six activity buttons in two rows. The top row of buttons are deep blue and marked “Yes”, “Maybe” and “No”. The bottom row of buttons are deep red and marked “Sun”, “Star” and “Moon”.
From the right and left emerge two HELPING HANDS. They appear as someone reaching into the camera frame to grip and use the handheld. Helping Hands can also be thought of as the puppeteer using their hand as a puppet in the puppet show, interacting with the characters and the story.

From the right side of the screen emerges a right handed Helping Hand wearing pale blue fingernail polish. From the left hand side of the screen emerges a left-handed Helping Hand wearing pinkish finger nail polish.

The Helping Hands grip the handheld and tilt it towards the camera, allowing for a better view of the small viewscreen. One of The Helping Hands reaches to the top of the unit, clicking the power on.

ZOOM IN TO A CLOSER SHOT OF THE HANDHELD’S SCREEN.

The screen flashes to life. The title screen scrolls up from the bottom of the view-screen. It has a retro 8-bit monochrome title reading “The Great Works Project” and under that reads “press any button”. We see The Right-Held Hand press a button and the screen changes…

TRANSITION FROM NOT HERE, NOT NOW TO THE GAMETIME

THE GAMETIME – STAGE START INTERSTITIAL

The words “a walking about” scroll up from the bottom of the screen, pausing a moment in the center, then continue upward disappearing out of frame.

PAN IN SO THE VIEWSCREEN FILLS THE FRAME BECOMING THE NEW FRAME OR REALITY OF EXPERIENCE.

The stage title “00-01” scrolls up from the bottom of the frame, pausing in the center, then continuing upward. It scrolls out of sight off the top of the screen

THE GAMETIME – STAGE 00-01 CHOICE HALL

A pixel art version of THE OUTER ONE appears at the end of a hallway. The hallway extends out beyond the right hand side of the screen.

The Outer One moves right, CHIPTUNE MUSIC playing in the background. He moves right, down the hallway to the first open area. Choice Hall splits into two paths. The first is a continuation of the horizontal hallway. The second is a vertical passage made up from a series of alternating platforms. The Outer One jumps up to the vertical passage and climbs upward by jumping from alternating platform to alternating platform.

At the top of the vertical passage, is a small room. In the room is a large safe. The Outer One walks over to the safe and a pop-up game prompt “Press Yes” appears. It disappears as off-screen the Helping Hands press yes. A small screen pops up on the screen showing some text and a T9 keypad. It reads “Enter the combination to open the safe.” We see the cursor moving over the keypad to type in the combination of L-U-G-H-N-U-A-D.

Being a T9 style keypad, it should appear as twelve buttons arrainged in a grid three across by four tall. This is what they should read:
“1,.?!” “2ABC” “3DEF”
“4GHI” “5JKL” “6MNO”
“7PQRS” “8TUV” “9WXYZ”
“<-” “0” “->”
Also please note that since the keypad is a T9 style input, that the Outer One will need to press each button cycling through the characters until the correct letter is shown. To bring up L for example, 5 is pressed four times showing 5, then J then K, then L. The buttons to either side of 0 are used to move the cursor.

The keypad pop-up screen disappears, with the sound of A SAFE OPENING sound effect, once the last letter of combination is selected.
The safe door opens and golden coins bounce out and into the Outer One. Each coin bears a distinct symbol on it starting with a saw blade. The coins then cycle through a wand, a castle, a quill, a light bulb, a shield, and a harp before ending with a sword on the last coin. Once the Outer One has obtained the last coin they pulse, like a video game character getting a power-up. Their clothing and hair change to colors of silver and gold.

The Outer One jumps down the vertical corridor returning to the junction area. They return to traveling to the right down the horizontal hallway. They pass four doors on raised stairwells, each with a name written in the archway over the door: Fail, Find, Go, Murmur. The Outer One continues past the four doors to the end of the hallway.
At the end of the hallway, there is a small gap in the floor leading to a hallway under the main hallway. The Outer One jumps down. The under-hallway is dark and gloomy with occasional torches and dark purple spider webs.

They walk down the hallway coming to a fifth door, boarded, covered and abandoned. The name over the door, “QUINT” hangs at an angle. The Outer One punches and kicks the boards off the door. Bits and pieces fly off to the right. They then approach the door, standing in front of it.

A DOOR UNLOCKING sound plays leading to a door opening animation.

CUT TO DOOR ANIMATION. THE OUTER ONE TURNS AND WAVES TO THE CAMERA. THE DOOR THEN SPINS AND GROWS FILLING THE SCREEN, AT WHICH POINT IT SHRINKS TO A POINT OF WHITE THAT DISAPPEARS. AS IT SHRINKS, THE SCREEN IS WIPED TO BLACK. THE BACKGROUND AND OUTER ONE DISAPPEAR REPLACED BY BLACK.

The stage title “01-01” scrolls up from the bottom of the frame, pausing in the center, then continuing upward. It scrolls out of sight off the top of the screen

FADE OUT