Thanks Scripter for keeping it going!
For anyone who needs to refresh their memory, here is the first sequence.
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INT -- CABIN -- NIGHT (1946)
A dark, empty room. The door bursts open. A MAN and WOMAN
enter, drunk and giggling, horny as hell. No sooner is the
door shut than they're all over each other, ripping at
clothes, pawing at flesh, mouths locked together.
He gropes for a lamp, tries to turn it on, knocks it over
instead. Hell with it. He's got more urgent things to do,
like getting her blouse open and his hands on her breasts.
She arches, moaning, fumbling with his fly. He slams her
against the wall, ripping her skirt. We hear fabric tear.
He enters her right then and there, roughly, up against the
wall. She cries out, hitting her head against the wall but
not caring, grinding against him, clawing his back, shivering
with the sensations running through her. He carries her
across the room with her legs wrapped around him. They fall
onto the bed.
CAMERA PULLS BACK, exiting through the window, traveling
smoothly outside...
EXT -- CABIN -- NIGHT (1946) 2
...to reveal the bungalow, remote in a wooded area, the
lovers' cries spilling into the night...
...and we drift down a wooded path, the sounds of rutting
passion growing fainter, mingling now with the night sounds
of crickets and hoot owls...
...and we begin to hear FAINT MUSIC in the woods, tinny and
incongruous, and still we keep PULLING BACK until...
...a car is revealed. A 1946 Plymouth. Parked in a clearing.
INT -- PLYMOUTH -- NIGHT (1946) 3
ANDY DUFRESNE, mid-20's, wire rim glasses, three-piece suit.
Under normal circumstances a respectable, solid citizen;
hardly dangerous, perhaps even meek. But these circumstances
are far from normal. He is disheveled, unshaven, and very
drunk. A cigarette smolders in his mouth. His eyes, flinty
and hard, are riveted to the bungalow up the path.
He can hear them f***ing from here. He raises a bottle of
bourbon and knocks it back. The radio plays softly, painfully
romantic, taunting him:
You stepped out of a dream...
You are too wonderful...
To be what you seem...
He opens the glove compartment, pulls out an object wrapped
in a rag. He lays it in his lap and unwraps it carefully --
-- revealing a .38 revolver. Oily, black, evil.
He grabs a box of bullets. Spills them everywhere, all over
the seats and floor. Clumsy. He picks bullets off his lap,
loading them into the gun, one by one, methodical and grim.
Six in the chamber. His gaze goes back to the bungalow.
He shuts off the radio. Abrupt silence, except for the
distant lovers' moans. He takes another shot of bourbon
courage, then opens the door and steps from the car.
EXT -- PLYMOUTH -- NIGHT (1946) 4
His wingtip shoes crunch on gravel. Loose bullets scatter to
the ground. The bourbon bottle drops and shatters.
He starts up the path, unsteady on his feet. The closer he
gets, the louder the lovemaking becomes. Louder and more
frenzied. The lovers are reaching a climax, their sounds of
passion degenerating into rhythmic gasps and grunts.
WOMAN (O.S.)
Oh god...oh god...oh god...
Andy lurches to a stop, listening. The woman cries out in
orgasm. The sound slams into Andy's brain like an icepick. He
shuts his eyes tightly, wishing the sound would stop.
It finally does, dying away like a siren until all that's
left is the shallow gasping and panting of post-coitus. We
hear languorous laughter, moans of satisfaction.
WOMAN (O.S.)
Oh god...that's sooo good...you're
the best...the best I ever had...
Andy just stands and listens, devastated. He doesn't look
like much of a killer now; he's just a sad little man on a
dirt path in the woods, tears streaming down his face, a
loaded gun
held loosely at his side. A pathetic figure, really.
FADE TO BLACK:
1ST TITLE UP
I used the first few scenes because it shows us the full picture of what is going on. According to my final draft, this is the first two pages. Just another example how you must hook your audience ASAP.
What did this opening give us?
I think the most important aspect of these scenes was that it opened up the main question...Did Andy kill his wife and lover? Was he capable of murder? Through most of the script this question plays in the back of our head, we wonder...Does Andy belong in prison, does he deserve to be locked up, does he deserve the sexual abuse, to have his life taken away?
In the real world we would say yes. Obviously he was drunk and out of his mind, he had a gun with the entent to use it, the people he sought out to kill are now dead. In the real world, adultery is no excuse to kill another human beings no matter how badly they hurt you. Murder is murder.
However the writer paints a very different picture of Andy. We don't see him as a cold blooded murder, instead we see him as the victim.
In the first scene we see Andy's wife and her lover going at it like a couple of teenagers, they have no care of who they hurt, no guilt. Of course we don't know this until we see Andy and his emotional state. Then we think...Oh my God, that poor man. And what's worse, he's hearing everything. Immediately we feel sorry for him, were transported into Andy's shoes, we see what he sees, hear what he hears, feel what he feels. So when we see the gun, it's alright. Despite what we know he will do with it, we are rooting for him. The writer manipulated our thinking into believing that Andy is the good guy, and in the process he planted the seed of doubt.
In one description we see Andy as being capable, angry and without emotion.
He grabs a box of bullets. Spills them everywhere, all over
the seats and floor. Clumsy. He picks bullets off his lap,
loading them into the gun, one by one, methodical and grim.
Six in the chamber. His gaze goes back to the bungalow.
In another we see Andy as hurt and pathetic, incapable of killing a fly let alone murder two people.
Andy just stands and listens, devastated. He doesn't look
like much of a killer now; he's just a sad little man on a
dirt path in the woods, tears streaming down his face, a
loaded gun.
Could he have done it?
Could Shawshank Redemption work without these first few scenes? Could the writer have not introduced Andy in the courtroom? I don't think so. Without these first few scenes we would not have seen the two sides of Andy, the one side being capable of murder, the other side incapable. The writer needed these first few scenes to plant the seeds of doubt. In the courtroom we see only one side of Andy, the side that tells us he's innocent. We would have no reason to doubt him, nor doubt anything else he does within the script.
The doubt is what keeps us intrigued, keeps us guessing. On one hand we see Andy as a caring individual who gives his fellow inmates hope and encouragement, but then again we have a feeling that Andy is up to something. He's hiding something, and because we don't know what it is, we see him as cunning and manipulative. Again is the doubt. Is Andy really a caring person who is innocent of murder, or is he a sneaky man who tried to lie his way out of his crime?
We don't know, and because we don't know, we keep reading (or watching) in order to find out.
I think this is what drives any script. In every script there is a goal and the doubt that this goal will be obtained. In order to show doubt, you have to show conflict. And that's what Shawshank Redemption did in these first few pages. Not only did it show the outside conflict, but the inner conflict. The outside conflict clearly obvious. The inner conflict being that he is angry and hurt and the struggle between these two sides that brings us to the doubt.
Analysing these first few pages has helped me further understand how important they really are. We need to ask ourselves...Do our first few pages of our own scripts add up to what is necessary to hook our reader? Does the main question intrigue our reader enough to keep them reading? What is it that makes our reader root for our main character? Do we show a three dementional character with an outer conflict and an inner conflict that will show both strengths and weaknesses? And most importantly do we plant the seed of doubt well enough to keep the reader guessing until the end?
Steph
Thanx Scripter! I really wanted to get this going again.