This is the first draft of a screenplay I've written for a three-minute short for uni. It is the first assignment we've been set fiction-wise. Despite the fact that the industry standard is 1 page = 1 minute screentime we were told to make our scripts 4 pages long because these are our first and that way we'll be able to cut them down to the required length. The original ending was changed after my lecturer (one Nigel Orillard) informed me that audiences don't like randomness in film. As I'd decided I was gonna play ball, structure wise, I changed the ending. In fact, I scrapped the idea I was going to go with for the same reason - I want to get good marks, and if I have to shape my ideas to their conventions I'll do so. I'll save the good stuff for extra-curricular activities. ;P

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THE ARGUMENT (1ST DRAFT)
BY ADAM CHESHIRE


1. INT. ROOM. DAY.

Cardiff, Present day. Light reflects off of a television
set, framing a doorway. Voices can be dimly heard in the
background getting louder, joined by echoing footsteps. The
door opens and TRENT JONES and RICHARD CHAPMAN enter the
room. They are arguing fiercingly with each other,
shouting, pushing and shoving, generally getting up in each
others face.

RICHARD CHAPMAN
...in The middle of queen street!

TRENT JONES
Nobody saw shit.

TRENT walks over to the couch and sits down. He begins to
play with a knife that is on the coffee table in front of
him. RICHARD paces around the room.

RICHARD CHAPMAN
How the fuck do you know?

TRENT JONES
Psssh... You really think people
pay that much attention to each
other on Queen Street? You really
think the average consumer ever
lifts his head out of his own
shopping agenda? Get a grip, man.
The most conscious thought they
put into the people around them
is making a note of where all the
big issue sellers and charity
shouters are so they can avoid
them. Everybody is too wrapped up
in their own shit to give a fuck
about anybody else.

RICHARD CHAPMAN
Your one to speak, always with
your head in the clouds....

TRENT stands up and begins to wander around the room as
RICHARD is. He still has the knife is his hands.

TRENT JONES
Can you fucking blame me? You
seen the papers lately?

RICHARD shoves TRENT.

RICHARD CHAPMAN
What a cop-out. "ooooh, life is
so fucking hard, nobody
understands me." Why don't you
just kill yourself?

TRENT shoves RICHARD back.

TRENT JONES
Wouldn't want to give you the
satisfaction, you sanctimonious
asshole!

RICHARD walks around TRENT as he talks.

RICHARD CHAPMAN
You know what your problem is?
Your a walking cliche, spouting
your cynical little observations
and your witty little ironies.
Your so fucking myopic, you can't
even think outside of your own
box, can you? Everything you say
or think is filtered through the
same fucking gen-x, hipper-than
thou lens.

TRENT JONES
You motherfucker, you
intellectual asswipe! Read a
couple of books and you think
your Jean-Paul fucking Sartre,
Howard Bloom and Einstein rolled
into one! You go around
regurgitating half-remembered
quotes trying to come across as
some great thinker when you
haven't got an original thought
in your head, you pretencious
cunt!

RICHARD CHAPMAN
Fuck you, shit-bird. Least my
personal reading matter doesn't
consist of second-hand Hate
comics and the backs of cereal
boxes. At least I don't spend my
entire giro on getting fucked off
my face on whatever I can get my
hands on. At least I'm doing
something with my life.

TRENT JONES
You pompous little prick! You
really think what your doing is
better? You think your going
somewhere? It's all just a
distraction man, we're just
wasting oxygen till we pop our
clogs. The only place your going
is back to the ground, when they
bury your ass.
It doesn't matter what we do in
the meantime, none of it means
shit. The human race is a fucking
virus with shoes, you think we're
going to last another 1000 years?
Or even 100? Shit, I'd be
surprised if mankind is still
around in 10.

RICHARD CHAPMAN
You know what your problem is?
You think you know it all, you
think it's all laid out in front
of you like a fucking map. You've
already reached your conclusion
and now preaching the apocalypse.
You know what I think? I think
this doom and gloom attitude is
just an excuse so you can shrug
off all responsibility and
continue your hedonistic
lifestyle without guilt. Look
what you did to your own mother,
man, and you won't even visit her
at the hospital, you selfish self
obsessed shithead.

TRENT storms right up to RICHARD, his eyes ablaze with
anger, one hand closed into a fist, the other closed around
the knife handle. His entire body physically shaking.
RICHARD looks nervous, becomes frightened. He knows what
TRENT is capable of when he is angry. TRENT looks RICHARD
right in the eyes and points at his face with his knife. We
see a flash of what is going through TRENT'S head; him
standing over RICHARDS corpse with the knife, a pool of
blood beneath the body. Trent drops the knife on the floor.

TRENT JONES
I'm going for a walk.

TRENT storms out of the room slamming the door behind him.
The look of relief on RICHARD'S face is blatantly apparent,
as is the internal telling-off he is giving himself for
over-stepping the line.



2. EXT. NEWPORT ROAD. DAY.

TRENT walks down the street, his ears buried in headphones,
his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, his brow
creased and his eyes staring straight ahead. Noise can be
heard on the soundtrack and we're not sure whether we're
hearing what TRENT is or whether the sound is non-diagetic.



3. EXT. QUEEN STREET. DAY.

The crowd is heaving and it flows around TRENT like water
around a rock. Everybody is doing the consumer thing.
Charity workers and big issue sellers try and make eye
contact with TRENT but he just keeps on walking, driven on
by the noise in his ears; past starbucks, past mcdonalds,
past groups of scallie teens, on and on, running the
gauntlet, all the way down to Castle Street.



4. EXT. ENTRANCE TO CASTLE GROUNDS. DAY.

The soundtrack suddenly becomes silent as TRENT pulls his
earphones out and stands in the entrance to the castle
grounds. He enters the grounds and starts walking. His body
language is calmer now, more relaxed. His hands hang at his
side and his brow is uncreased. He looks around at his
surroundings at people on bicycles, couples walking slowly
hand in hand, children playing football. He keeps on
walking. He sits and watches students playing frisbee. He
stares up at a kite flying in the wind. As he is doing so a
football rolls up to his feet. He looks down to see a child
running up to him. The child looks up at TRENT and smiles
before picking up the ball and running off. TRENT keeps on
walking.



5. EXT. RIVER SIDE. DAY.

TRENT sits on a rock, his knees hunched up to his chest,
his arms encircle them. He watches debris floating
downstream.



6. EXT. WOODED AREA. DAY.

TRENT lies on the ground staring up at the trees. He has a
spliff in his hand which he is smoking. A slow smile
spreads across his face.

THE END.