Alive April Chase
March 9th, 1999 | Back to Blog Listing
Alive April Chase is the first movie I've ever shot on actual film. The film is being shot for my RTF314 class on a Super-8 reel.

Script

Open with computerized credits.
* three-o-three productions presents (hold and fade)
* a film by: Kevin Ludlow (hold and fade)
* Alive (fade) April (fade) Chase (hold and fade)

SCENE 1
(the printing press)

Opening shot takes place in the Daily Texan newspaper room. A person is sitting at their desk hard a work on a sketch. After a few seconds of shooting, they get up and walk out of the room (cut).

Begin in the hallway outside of the door and follow them from the front down the hallway with the paper in their hand. (cut)

As they walk into the pressroom we are behind them again following along to a table. They reach their hand down to the table.(cut)

Do a close shot of their hand setting down the paper on the desk and zoom out as they walk off and someone else picks it up. The person who picked it up walks it over to the press machine and appears to be laying it for the copying process. (cut)

We follow the press machine along and it should appear that we are following the paper that was just put in. (cut)

Do a close up of two of three of the machine processes.

Finally get a frontal shot of the paper coming out of the machine as it slides down the beltway. (cut)

Somebody walks in from the other angle and picks up the stack of papers and sets them down on a desk. The person leaves the room and the camera “walks” over to the papers and up above them. In this same shot the camera slowly gets closer and closer to the papers from the top until the shot is completely black and out of focus. (cut)

SCENE 2
("April Chase")

We zoom out of the blackened paper and as we do it opens to the comic section. We pan over on top of a comic strip titled “April Chase”

The "April Chase" scene is animated in single frame 12fps mode. There will be 360 frames shot or 30 seconds of 12fps animation. When played back at 18fps this will appear to be a faster 20 second shot of “April Chase” moving about. (cut)

The paper quickly closes itself up and we see yet another person tying up the papers with rope or twine. As they do this a light blinds the camera (slowly pan a flashlight at the lens). (cut)

This shot is the hardest to film because it is so time consuming. The camera sits atop the roof for one hour before sunset. Every 20 seconds one frame should be shot. After one hour of this, 180 frames will have been shot, or 10 seconds of a time lapsed sunset. (the flashlight in the previous shot is necessary to make a smooth cut from the dark shot to the sun shot)

SCENE 3
(delivering)

We see the paper trucks driving out on their way delivering papers to the boxes. (cut)

There is a shot of the driver getting into his truck and backing out. (cut)

We are in the street as he pulls into the street as well. (cut)
We see him at a Daily Texan box dropping off a stack of papers. (cut) and then at another one (cut) and then at one more. (scene fades to black) (to do this, completely underexpose the frame one F-Stop at a time).

SCENE 4
(reading the comic)
(scene 4 is subject to change)

We follow one more person as they make their way in the morning.

Shoot them walking down the street and picking up a Daily Texan from the stack. (cut)

As they open the box door of it, the camera appears to be inside of the box but is really behind it. We see them reach towards us to pick up the paper. (cut)

The camera moves out of the way as the person walks over to a bench and opens the paper. The camera is steady in front of them as they chuckle just a bit. They throw the newspaper down on the bench, get up, and leave. The newspaper is sitting stuck to the side of the bench due to the wind. (use a fan and a piece of tape on the back of the newspaper for this shot). We zoom into the newspaper once more and again see "April Chase". (cut)

We go back to single frame animation but this seen will only appear to be 5-10 seconds long at 18fps. "April Chase" turns and looks at the camera and shrugs her shoulders at us. (fade to black). (cut)

'No Mas' fades into the screen.

THE END.