Experimental - Amy McDonald

I. Anonymity when dealing with others / leads to / unrestrained emotional responses.


II.  A drama unfolds on the bathroom stall in the women’s bathroom on a college campus.


III. A young female college student walks into the bathroom on the 2nd floor of Mandeville. She is excited to see if there are any new comments on the bathroom stall walls. There has been a thread that has been going on for several weeks now and she is always thrilled to see the latest comment as they have been getting more extreme. As she enters the cold, dank bathroom a smile of anticipation crosses her lips. She walks directly to the last stall on the left. She closes the door, and turn around to read the back of the door..

The “thread” began with one simple line “Why did he have to leave me?” and has ballooned into a web of hate, anger, and empathy - all coexisting in one unlikely place.

Camera zooms into the comment “Why did he have to leave me?” which is written in cursive. As the camera zooms in, the text fades to semi-transparent, as if written on the lens of the camera and a brief scene of a young woman fighting with her boyfriend is behind the text. We can’t see her face, but the tension is palpable as she begs her  boyfriend not to leave and he gets angrier and angrier. The camera then moves along the arrow that is drawn off that comment and zooms in on the next comment. First showing clearly the comment against the dingy bathroom wall, then it becomes semi-transparent and a scene unfolds behind it. This pattern continues until the story plays out completely and we are taken back to the female reading the comments. The images were merely her projections each of the women commenting. The comments will progress into a heated debate over feminist ideals and empathy for the broken-hearted. The inciting incident and convergence play out in the mind of the woman reading the comments as the story we see behind the comments. The protagonist will be the original commenter and the antagonist and ally will be the other women commenting on her original “post”. Bathroom stall writing is the original form of anonymous commentary and conversation threads; which is a large part of our online culture today. I want to draw a parallel between these two forms of anonymity and how the unabashed cruelty that it sometimes produces can have unintended consequences on a complete stranger.

The story above is just an example. For the script, I will use photos of a real bathroom stall “thread” and build a similar story around it.

Script 2 - Amy McDonald

Following one's instinct / leads to / a life of honesty, integrity, and spiritual fulfillment.

Premise: A young priest who has never known a life outside of the tight, abusive grasp of the Catholic Church stumbles across some documents that lead him to question the authenticity of the resident Bishop, and ultimately that of his own ordainment. In his quest to find out the truth, he enlists the help of his dearest friend, a nun burdened with similar suspicions. However, their search will not be easy as there are many who do not want the dark secrets of the church revealed.

His stature alone would cause most to cower in Father Benedict’s presence. But combined with his high level of authority and strict adherence to the Church’s and boarding school’s rules and expectations most children beginning there life at the Saint Patrick’s Academy make efforts to deliberately avoid him and his threatening appearance. But by avoiding him, most children do not realize that Father Benedict is the most dedicated and thoughtful priest in the congregation. His involuntary stutter during his sermons begins to humanize him to the children; an infliction since childhood that years of prayer has not rid him of.

Father Benedict understands the fear and confusion of the school children as he was one at the Academy himself. His parents, upset with the changes of the Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II, moved Michael Lewis (his birth name) from Los Angeles to a small town in Washington when he was 9. Before the move, Michael enjoyed a fairly normal childhood that was lightly influenced by their Catholic Church they attended. But then when it was revealed that Pope John Paul II would accept the English mass instead of Latin and would allow women to wear pants and no head cover inside the Catholic Churches, Michael’s parents felt threatened that their belief system was being attacked. So they found a boarding school/church in the Northwest that rejected the Pope’s lenient standards. Since that time, Michael was beaten at the hands of many priests and began to associate the Church with fear, and only God with love. Bishop Shoecart was the head of the Church and Michael endured the most beatings from his hand. Michael’s commitment to be a good person and live a life dedicated to God began before the move and with zero influence from his parents or their church at the time. He had always felt drawn to that life and knew it was his destiny. He followed through with that commitment at Saint Patrick’s Academy, but after the abuse he endured he did so more out of obligation and fear than for his love of God. His faith in God had not wavered over those many years, but his faith in humanity had.

Father Benedict has done some terrible things himself. His fear of Bishop Shoecart is still prevalent as an adult and because of this fear; he has disciplined children in the way the Bishop demanded. This meant physical abuse. It may have been out of habit as well. This is what he knew and to do different would be to question the culture he knew. But father Benedict’s guilt has led him to whip himself at night, his personal form of penance – knowing that this abuse was wrong and not what a loving God would want. His remorse for his actions also led him to begin studying in secret the theology of Catholicism in order to reconcile his and his Church's brutal actions. The Bishop could never know about his curiosity for the historical and theological past of the Catholic Church. Benedict knew that the Bishop fervently fought to keep outside sources and teachings out of the Academy, but Benedict could not stop himself from researching. He also knew that there was only one person in the world that he could trust, Sister Maria, he oldest and dearest friend. It was she that he could confide in and talk openly about his questions with the Church. Together they organized a plan on how each one of them could leave the Church grounds in order to speak with local Catholic theologians and other local Bishops. For the one day that each of them were able to do this, they both discovered the same thing, but could not be caught by the other priests and nuns talking about it in person. They had to write letters and sneak them to each other’s sleeping quarters. Their letters revealed their findings: that with the rejection of Pope John Paul II’s orders, Saint Patrick’s Academy is not recognized as a Catholic Church by the Vatican. This was not that surprising to both Benedict and Mary, but there was something more shocking. Bishop Shoecart was not a Bishop at all. He was never ordained in the Catholic Church; instead he just had forged several documents and then started his own Church (Saint Patrick’s) where no one would question him. This information was both devastating and exciting. Devastating because this meant that no one ordained under Shoecart was officially a priest or nun in the Vatican’s eyes. Hundreds of people’s lives will change forever if this information is revealed. Their belief system will be crushed and the many dark secrets committed by the nuns and priests will come out; including Benedict’s.  The exciting part is that Benedict now has an out, a chance to leave something behind that he has known as wrong for far too many years.

As Mary and Benedict's planning on how to reveal this information accelerates, Shoecart begins to notice their suspicious behavior. He has Benedict watched and followed and discovers that Benedict has information that can destroy him. (I have not decided how their convergence will take place yet).

Benedict and Mary end up revealing the information and the Church is in upheaval and Benedict has to go into hiding. But there are many in the Church who refuse to believe the revelation that their lives have been a lie and choose to stay and rebuild the institution. A bond that was built in turmoil became unbreakable, and Benedict (now Michael again) and Mary (Anna) allowed themselves for the first time, to embrace their love for each other; moving  to Las Vegas where they can marry and live out their Christian lives in peace and without the condemnation that they received in the Northwest. They still practiced Christianity, but not in a church. Instead, they were able to finally express their spirituality in a loving and accepting environment; each other's company.

Assignment 1 - Amy McDonald

I. The need to control external forces leads to unintended consequences.

II. A young woman living in a small apartment building is forced to confront her insentient need to control what goes on around her when a couple moves in next door to her and she has to share bedroom walls with them. Through the old, thin walls of the building, the young woman hears the reverberation of couples late night talks that last hours. The young woman is consumed with how she can gain control of the situation by getting the couple to stop keeping her awake. Her tactics to rid herself of the couples' insensate talking and noises, results in a successful brief resolution but has an unexpected outcome.

III. Emma has always taken control of her life. When adversity arises, she does not whine and complain, but rather takes actions and seeks a solution. By all accounts, life is good for Emma. She has a loving boyfriend, a successful career, and her life experiences have led her to be a well-rounded person. However, when her new neighbors move in next door, her patience and ability to control situations are put to the test. Her bedroom wall is a shared wall with the neighbors' bedroom. This was never a problem with past neighbors; however, this couple has a habit of staying up late talking. For hours sometimes. This sometimes leads to fighting. And it never fails, it all begins around 11pm and can last for hours.

At first Emma was forgiving, thinking that it is just an old building and no way around it. It's not like the couple is throwing a raging party. No. Almost more annoying that a huge party is the constant mumble of talking at a voice level normally reserved for daytime. In fact, the more she thought about it and the more nights she endured only a few hours of sleep the more pissed she got. They should know better. Apartment living is completely different from living in a house. You must be conscience of your neighbors and aware of how loud you are being, especially between the hours of 10pm-8am. Isn't this common knowledge?

After living with the noise for several weeks, there had been no change; no softer voices at night, and no relief from their nightly conversing. Instead of confronting the couple, Emma devises many small plans in the hopes of forcing the couple to change their ways. She assumes she can control the situation by making an environment that is intolerable to the couple. She tries blasting her radio, speakers pointed at the wall, early in the morning. Soon Emma realizes that this has caused the couple to get louder by slamming drawers and dropping things on the hardwood floor. Emma then decides she must really take matters into her own hands by convincing her upstairs neighbor to move out so she can move upstairs. This would not be an easy task but Emma is up for the challenge. Knowing that her upstairs neighbor has expressed some interest in moving to a particular neighborhood, Emma goes on Craigslist and prints out several ads for apartments in that neighborhood. She then posts the ads all around the surrounding area where she lives. Emma had been posting ads for about week when she unexpectedly runs into her upstairs neighbor, who mentions that he has found a great apartment in the neighborhood he wanted and he will be moving this month! It worked! Emma can hardly contain her excitement. She rushes inside to call her landlord to arrange moving upstairs. Emma is so pleased with herself and is thoroughly convinced she can control whatever she needs to in her life.

Emma turns the key to open the door her new upstairs apartment. She breathes a sigh of relief as she goes into the bedroom... and there is silence. She pulls up the window blinds to check out her new view. As she does so, a group of people in the courtyard catch her eye. They are struggling together, trying to maneuver a large dresser to the street. Wait a minute, Emma thinks.. who else is moving? After they load the dresser into a nearby truck, Emma hears the group shuffle upstairs and then enter the apartment next door. She then sees them bring another large load of boxes down the stairs. Her heart sinks as Emma sees the quiet, single woman who she would have been neighbors with, holding one of the printed Craigslist ads. She is moving out. As this reality is setting in, Emma then sees the loud couple walk up the stairs with huge smiles on their faces.