Short Film: Nursery Rhymes
Handheld shakey-cam
Diegetic audio, ominous
Tractor slowly approaching
Expectation subversion with the man approaching with a crowbar
Overturned car. Looks like a family car
Single shot, no cuts
Crying baby
Building Blocks: The Scene
Death in samara. The salesman/merchant in samara. Oediupus type story
Writing Exercise: Writing as a Character — The Old Lady
1. It must’ve been, oh, fifty-something years ago now. Me and my husband, Dave, a wonderful, charming, lovely man, we went to New York for our honeymoon. It was a lovely time, and I dare say, a wonderful night too…
2. I don’t drive anymore, the Doctor says I shouldn’t — surely double vision just means I see twice as well! - but I did own an old Caterham that we drove down to the church on our wedding morning. It was yellow.
3. I love the morning haze, the dew on the grass tips, the briskness in the air. I love watching the sun rise.
4. My favourite work of art has got to be The Last Supper, you know, the one of them all at the table. The artwork is beautiful, and growing up in quite a religious household I saw it fairly often, but most of all, I love the idea that Jesus and his merry men went in and asked for a table for 24, so they could all sit on the same side.
5. The church where we married is where Dave is buried. It’s a bittersweet place for me to visit now, and I can’t help but cry whenever I go. But I do love to visit Dave; I still try to go every Sunday morning. I bring a flask of tea.
6. The rolling winter always filled me with joy. The warm clothes and the hot chocolates on an evening. The smell of firewood, the sound of it crackling. Most of all, I loved being cuddled up with Dave, watching some rubbish on the tele.
7. Money was never particularly important to me. Dave made enough down at the bank, and I always would choose staying at home with the children over going to work as well. I thought they needed a mother there with them all of the time, to keep them out of mischief.
8. Dave is the love of my life. I’ll never forget when we first met, we were both in our last year at school, just seventeen, and I never had eyes for another man since.
9. After Dave passed, I found it difficult to relax without his arms around me. But now I curl up on his side of the bed, watching whatever it is we might’ve watched together.
10. I haven’t had sex in three and a half years now. A few weeks before Dave passed, before he got ill. I loved him dearly, and he certainly knew what he was doing.
11. I would have killed or died for Dave, no question, but certainly now it would have to be my children. I known that I wouldn’t think twice — probably not even once — before jumping in front of a train for them.
12. Mary and Peter are the most important person in my life, and they were since the days they were both born. I would do anything for them, and not even a freight train could keep me from them.
13. I regret every silly fight me and Dave ever had. Every time he left a mug in the sink, or when I bugged him to get out of bed on a lazy morning. I wish I’d let him sleep in, slept in with him, just enjoyed our time together more.
14. My motto is to enjoy everything as it comes, and never to worry about things you cannot control. You never get to re-live a day, and worrying means you suffer twice.
15. Life doesn’t so much teach lessons as it does brand you with bad decisions. As a younger woman, I made many mistakes — but who doesn’t? My biggest take away from life is that if you let it get under your skin, it will rip it off.
16. The money I embezzled from the. My greatest achievement is my two children, without a doubt. But if it were just about me and things I’ve done personally, then the event I’m most proud of would have to be when, many years back, me and a group from the church managed to raise enough funds to be able to resurrect the local school after its roof caved in. We had so much support that we fed the children for six months with what was left over!
17. The living person I most admire would have to be Brian May. My husband loved Queen as a young adult, and took me to two or three of their shows! I love his love of animals, and Dave used to tinker with the guitar, so I think that in another life — who knows?!
18. Dave always said that I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. I’d blush, and tell him to stop being silly, but if he loved me how I looked, then I would risk chaining it for the world.
19. My favourite word is ‘unlockable’, because it can mean ‘unable to be locked’, and also ‘able to be unlocked’, which of course implies that it was able to be locked in the first place!
20. I would like to be remembered as loving. But I’ll settle for just being remembered at all! I try to always be kind, and although I know that I haven’t always succeeded, I would like it if people remember my virtues and not my sins.