Screenvision seeking 2-minute film scripts

Cinema advertising outfit Screenvision has launched a 2-minute script contest. The winning script will be performed by the Upright Citizens Brigade and featured within a screening of Screenvision’s High Definition Preshow. It’s open to “qualified professionals in the advertising, marketing and media industries.”
   Following my success with the recent Chevy Super Bowl commercial contest, I’ve decided to enter. I figure, mixing the college thing with some gunplay and irony yields instant social satire. So ...   

Admission Denied!
   (aka Scream VI, aka Die Hard VII, aka American Pie IX)
   [Fade in: college admissions office]
   [The Admissions Officer, middle-aged, shifty-eyed, with a five-o’clock shadow and Ward Cleaver haircut, sits behind his desk. Seated before him is Chad, the applicant and hero of our story, in his late teens, clean-shaven with an Eldridge Cleaver haircut. Suspense builds during close shots of their eyes as they size each other up, their hands twitching, nervous, expectant.]
   Admissions Officer: Chad, we’d like to let you attend our school. But your grades simply aren’t up to our standards. You only managed a 56 on your SATs.
   Chad: That’s impossible. They give you more points just for writing down your name.
   Admissions Officer: You spelled yours incorrectly.
   Chad: My last name’s Tricky.
   Admissions Officer: Which you spelled with two ‘k’s. And there is no ‘i’ in Chad.
   Chad: Maybe that’s how I spell it. Maybe I don’t play by your rules!
   [Tense music swells with heartbeat sounds pounding through the mix.]
   Chad: Maybe it’s time I taught you a lesson!
   [As the soundtrack explodes in a heavy metal crescendo, the Admissions Officer rises, draws a sawed-off shot gun from beneath his desk, as Chad pulls an automatic pistol from his waistband. Slow-motion sequence: The Admissions Officer fires, knocking plaster from the walls and winging Chad in the shoulder. Our hero grimaces; the force of the blast sends him tumbling backwards in his chair. As he falls, Chad unleashes a spray of shots from the pistol. Owing to the arc of Chad’s fall, they strike the Admissions Officer in a straight line beginning at his groin, continuing up his stomach and chest, terminating with a single shot to the center of his forehead, right between the eyes. The Admissions Officer’s blood-soaked body slumps across the desk, face-down in a stack of application forms. Gripping his wounded shoulder, Chad rises from the floor.]
   CHAD: I guess you won’t be getting tenure.
   [As Chad starts to leave, the Admissions Officer looks up from his desk, gun at the ready.]
   Admissions Officer: Only ... (gasp) ... faculty ... (cough) ... get ... (moan) ... tenure ...
   [The Admissions Officer pulls the trigger ... CLICK! The gun is empty. He sputters, dies. An attractive co-ed enters, throws her arms around Chad.]
   Chad: (after several beats, with an ironic smile:) Fade to black. (He gestures around the room and winks right at the camera:) It’s a film school.
   [Fade out.]
   I’ll consider attending the Oscars if I win, but there’s no way I’m sitting next to Russell Crowe. (That guy’s nuts!)

—Posted by David Gianatasio

October 2, 2006 | Permalink