Assignment for my Explore Filmmaking course (Week 5: Lesson 5.3)
“Maybe I Shouldn’t Live Alone.”
The camera follows closely as a little old lady shuffles into the kitchen in worn slippers and housecoat, yawning, sets her table for breakfast and then turns on the kettle for coffee. She goes to the fridge, takes out a carton of eggs and wax-paper wrapped homestyle bacon. She reaches for the milk and finds barely enough for half a glassful in the carton. She pours the almost empty carton down the sink after looking at the best-before date. Close-up on the date. She grabs her change purse from the counter, and walks out the side door to go to the corner convenience store, still in her housecoat and slippers.
Cut to her (medium shot) entering the milk store. A jarring bell announces her. She waves without saying good morning to the clerk and walks toward the back of the store.
Cut to her close-up studying a cooler stocked with dairy and juice cartons. She squints, quickly searches her pocket for glasses and comes up empty. She squints more closely at the glass door, then opens the door of the cooler, grabbing a litre size carton.
Cut to her medium close-up paying at the cash register at the front of the store, and leaving with the carton in a bag.
Medium close-up cut to her kitchen counter. She leaves the bag and quick cuts to making scrambled eggs and bacon, spooning coffee into a single size filter, the kettle starts whistling. She pours water into the filter, it steeps into a large ceramic cup.
Cut to breakfast close-up ready on the plate. Coffee is ready and she goes to the sideboard, opens the bag and pulls out the carton. She squints, camera very close, quickly grabs her glasses off the counter and her eyes widen.
“Mango juice!!??” she yells. Close-up on her face. She looks to the coffee and shrugs, and pours the juice into the coffee. “Hmmmmmm, it needs a little more sugar,” she says medium close-up – as she picks up the pepper and begins to shake it into her cup!!
Copyright © July 2018: Lorraine Dmitrovic-Giampieri
Lorraine Dmitrovic: The Surreality of it All.... Film, books, the arts 
🙂 Poignant.
I felt angst when she couldn’t find her specs in the store, but didn’t expect the whimsical resolution. Poignantly sad in the end!
(Have fun with your course. Keep posting!)
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Thank you, Larry. Yes, her angst and adaptability. Basically, “No milk? Okay, it’ll have to be mango juice.” And then the sad, funny twist. You really do feel for her.
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I was challenged to write a half page of script for a quick writing exercise recently. It’s kinda fun! : )
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I agree. You discover there are so many ways to say something in dialogue, depending on the effect or mood you want. A great and fun challenge in developing characters.
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Reviewing old notifications today, 26 January 2021, I skimmed the script. Since my earlier comment I’ve enjoyed watching tv shows and thinking of their scripts. : )
Nice writing Lorraine.
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Kind thanks, Larry. 🙂 When writing scripts long or short, I think a little more visually with full effects of sights and sounds and senses than with fiction, although I have written some things as if watching a movie unfold in the big screen of my mind’s eye. Writing that way keeps you anticipating what will happen in the next scene; kind of spurs the imagination and imaginative flow.
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