Garbage by Cindy L. Keller - Short - Following the path of a one dollar bill. 3 pages - pdf, format

Cindy, this is excellent. A very original and powerful piece. Great imagery and overall solid writing. A pleasure to read.

Really? Cool! I wasn't sure how it would come across to others. I'm glad you liked it.

It's stories like this that inspires a person to want to write more, in hopes of creating a story just as great, be it short or long. Simply put... I was amazed with this story, Cindy! I could actually see what was happening, how everything flowed perfectly. What was the inspiration to write this? I don't know if anybody else smiled to themselves after reading this, but I sure as heck did! Reason being just cause it ended so cool! And the way you used the eye!!! Clever indeed little lady. Definetly an enjoyable little read. I look forward to your next story...

Original, yet simply written it's easy to follow. That's what I like about it. Thanks for the story, Cindy. Keep it up!

I enjoyed it a great deal. I like the innovative use of the dollar's eye. This was a very hardend look at life as a whole and the most involved part to me was that it wasn't thru the eyes of a man, woman or even child... it was thru the unsuspecting eye of a dollar bill... Fantastic stuff! This is a very original piece. You should be proud from opening scene to the grim reality of the last scene.

Very good work.

You should, maybe, try to film this one... Is that a possible outlet you could seek?

Balt~

Memphis Raines,
I've kind of been in a bad mood lately, and living where I do (metro Detroit) it's stuff like this that I see, so I decided to write something about it, and try to make it easy for someone to film. My son-in-law painted the earth on a string and a hand with scissors years ago. That image stuck with me.
I'm glad you liked it.

Balt,
Wesley brought that up to me. It could be easy enough for me to do, but I'd have to find a couple actors for the alley scene. I might try it if I can't find someone who knows what they're doing. Maybe someone might like this for a festival or for a piece to use for a class, then I wouldn't have to film it.  
I'm pleased that you liked this.

Cindy

POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!



What a fantastic concept, Cindy! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Your description was so well done and the pace of it was perfect. I loved the way the eye changed through each encounter. This is by far one of the most unusual storylines I've ever come across and certainly would love to see this visually on film too.

It stands on it's own at just 4 pages, but each one is filled with something new.

I only noticed one typo - page 2, you write "busses" insted of "bus's".

I can't remember what the dollar bill looks like now, but I have one at home. I could visualise the eye well, and when it shed a tear, I thought it was very moving. What a clever way to show the impact of money eh?! Money made the world fall down, not go round. So interesting.

All in all, a terrific piece and one of my favourites on the forum, definately hon.

Andy xxx

Cindy, what a wonderful short.  No dialogue.  Wonderful images.  An exquisite piece of work in its simplicity.

A couple of minor technical points:  Slugs should read “EXT. SOLAR SYSTEM – DAY”, with a period.  None of your INT or EXT slugs have a period in them.  And sounds that happen off-screen, like SPLASH or BANG, would be designated as such by the abbreviation "O.S."

Another easy fix:  While subtle digs at our current administration are always welcome from this reader  , you might want to reconsider using a whopping "80%"!  That seems impossibly high, and strikes a false note that injures the piece.

It occurs to me, after reading your post about the painting, that this could work wonderfully as an animated short. You might want to consider that option.

Great work.

I agree about the "80%" being a little over the top.

Otherwise, absolutely great, and I really like the idea of this as an animated short.  I think that done right, the animation could really add to the feel of the story.

Hi Andy,
I'm glad you liked the script. I went back and fixed the busses. Thanks for catching it.

Bert,
I have the periods in my original. Somehow they dissapear when the script gets changed from Word to Rich Text. I don't know why.  ??????
The price of the condos at the beginning is pretty high, too. I wanted this script to be a little futuristic (sp?). I changed the 80% to 63%, a little lower, but I want to keep it at a high number. People around here are loosing jobs like crazy. It seems like everyone is looking for work. If the world keeps going the way it is, maybe that will happen one day, and I can see the Pres turing his back.
I'll fix the splash, bang, and the horn, add the OS. Thanks.  

Heretic,
I'm glad you liked it.

Thanks for reading it.

I'm thinking about entering this script into the Queens festival.   ??????????
Cindy

I found a typo...

"A HORN blows. A cloud of black smoke is released from a busses exhaust pipe."

Should be bus's not "busses". Sorry to be picky.

I really liked it though. The ending was amazing. Really impressive. You have a really creative mind and you dont let reality bring your ideas down.

-Andrew

Hi Andrew,
Thank you for reading it. I've gone through it and fixed some things in my draft at home. The busses was one of them.
I wrote the first draft of this one in about an hour. I let it sit for a few days then went back to it and changed a quite a few things, even the title, but I seem to focus too much on the story, and end up missing typo's.
Anyway, I think I have them all fixed now.
I sent this one to QIFF. Queens International Film Festival.
If anyone's interested, the entry fee is only $20 if you want to enter a short, $40 if you want to enter a feature. If you are a finalist, they want you to attend the festival. Winners get a trophy, $, and get to meet others in the film industry. I think I will post it in the section for contests.

awesome! what are the requirements for this film festival? and what else have you wrote? I would love to read more of your stuff.

-Andrew

Hi, Broken Windows. I posted the link in the Film Contests and Looking for Scripts.
I have also written Masquerade (it's in the horror section) and Tattoo (in the Short section).

P.S. A producer contacted me through e-mail and said he was interested in giving the final draft a read.

Can someone fill me in on whats so beautiful about this script? I think I could be missing something...
I found the "story" to be pointless and a rip off of the Forrest Gump feather theme. Also, the formatting of the script has flaws in it.
And what's with the ending?

Hey Alex,
This script wasn't meant to be beautiful.
I watched a short film recommended by Roger Dodger in a thread on the Chat Board titled A Really Good Film. I watched it, and thought it WAS really good. The guy could play God and make things turn out different, and there was no dialogue.
I was in a rotten mood before writing this, disgusted with a lot of things. I got to thinking about God and wondered if he was completely disgusted with the world what would he do.
Trust In God came to mind, that fliped over into In God We Trust (the saying on a one dollar bill).
I looked at a dollar, front and back. does anyone know why there is an eye above the pyramid? I don't think so, I may be wrong, but I thought of that eye as being the eye of God.
The dollar dropped out of the sky in the beginning and blew around town. Everything is from the point of view from the eye above the pyramid (God's eye). In the end when God had seen enough garbage, he cut the string that kept Earth in the solar system, and Earth fell into a garbage can.

Hi Cindy. Good script.

Just for the record, the “All Seeing Eye” as it’s called is an ancient symbol that traces back to at least the time of the Egyptian pyramids and is rooted in very old pagan religions. The Master Craftsmen of ancient times were precursors to freemasons which in turn spawned the Illuminati of later years.

The motto on the dollar bill, E Pluribus Unum, which means “out of many, one” is another version of the Illuminati motto, “out of chaos, order.” Many of America’s founders were freemasons, hence why there is so much freemasonry imagery on the dollar bill.

It should be noted that many pagan religions were actually peaceful and deeply based in the belief in one supreme God. Only when certain other religions deemed themselves superior and declared war on lands where these pagan religions were practiced were these mostly peaceful religions obliterated and demonized. Sadly, most of history is actually just the spoils of war.

In any case, the “eye” on the dollar bill traces back to deism and paganism.

Ok. Maybe this script was meant something to you. Sorry if I critizised it, i just didn't get it.

Hey Alex,
That's okay. That's what this thread is for, right?

I never read Forrest Gump, until last night (well, the first page anyway). I had to see for myself what you were talking about. I see a slight similarity, only because something falls from the sky in both scripts, but they are still not that similar at all.
In my script, the dollar bill is up above the clouds when it decends to Earth.
In Forrest Gump, a feather drops from the sky, probably from an overhead bird in flight.  

Hey breanne,
That was enlightening. Thank you very much for sharing that.   I figured it had to be something like that, but wasn't quite sure. What I had always thought was that it just went along with the mystery of the pyramid, you know how those structures could have possibly been made that many years ago (the eye, being the unseen force, that helped build them).  

The 'all-seeing eye' represents God watching over us.  He is obviously unhappy with what he sees...the problem that money has created.

The ending is God giving up on us.



I could be very wrong, here....


Phil

Yep, Phil,
You're right on with that.

I'm right about both things?

Wow...

That's rare.


Phil

Hey Cindy,

In talking about the eye, I got sidetracked from the script. I have to say that the Forrest Gump feather comparison is ridiculous in my opinion. I see no real similarity. Objects blowing in the wind have been featured in countless movies.

Did Forrest Gump rip off the Frosty the Snowman cartoon where the “magic hat” blows onto Frosty’s head? Last I heard, the wind wasn’t copyright registered by anyone. Hey, that gives me an idea…

On any account, you have to admire any script that makes its point completely without dialogue.

Anyway, here’s my idea; we make a film called, “Blowing in the Wind.” In it, we feature shot after shot of various objects blowing in the wind, perhaps even with the Dylan song on the soundtrack.

Then, every time a movie or television program has a scene with an object blowing in the wind, we’ll stir up attention for ourselves by accusing them of ripping us off.

Maybe we’ll even sue a few for the publicity. It could launch our careers!

Hey breanne,
Maybe it could work... People would be whispering, "Who in the heck are these people".
No, I'm just joking, but the thought made me laugh.

I really liked this one, it felt like you had something to say and you did it with images instead of words, great for you, that can be a difficult thing to pull of without being cheesy.  I thought the images you portrayed really hit home, whenever I go to vancouver I see these things all the time, especially needle use, it's very sad.   good job and keep up the great writing

I was surprised to see a reply to this one after so long.
I'm glad you liked it.
Cindy

Fascinating piece you got here.  There's a couple messages that I think you can attribute to this short, like money is the root of all evil, or George Bush is gonna send this world down the crapper.  Lovely transitions from one sequence to the other and overall a solid little piece of imagery you got here.

Congratulations again on its production!  Should be a rather cool little feature!

Other than the part about the President, I thought this was a pretty good read. Not much can be said about the script considering how short it is and how many comments you already have.

I can't wait (if I ever get to) to see this after that guy makes it into an animated film.

-Chris

Greg, and Chris,
Thanks for taking a look at this little script. I thought I'd be able to do some work on it today, then got called in for a 13 hour work day... Oh, well...
This one is going to be changed quite a bit, but I'm still going to keep the theme of the story the same.
Thanks again for taking time to give it a read,
Cindy

Well, this one is available again.

I did get a couple short clips of this via e-mail, but the producer has been very busy, working on paying gigs.

I can understand his situation.

Anyone looking for a 4 page animation?

Cindy

What a weird little script. i liked it. You really know how to tell a story Cindy! Do you have any more shorts? 8 out of 10

Thanks Zack.  

I have two shorts that I am pretty happy with. One of them is on this site titled, "Tattoo". You might like it.

Thanks for the read,
Cindy

Hey, I just read your quick short. It was really good, and got me thinking about a lot of things. A script that gets me thinking is a great one, and that's what won me over. And your ability to tell a story without dialogue is magnificent.

Great job!

Phife

Thanks for giving this one a read Phife.

I had forgotten about this script. Wrote it three years ago, and it has been sitting. It was one of my first scripts I ever wrote.

There was someone who was interested enough in it to produce it a while ago, but it ended up being too much work along side of his other projects, so he dropped it...

Oh well...

Glad you liked it.

I opened it after your reply... The formatting from word to rtf looks really bad.  
Looks like I'm going to do a rewrite on this one now.  

I do have a new short, "Home for Christmas" that will be on the boards soon.

Thanks again for giving it a read,

Cindy

Hey Cindy,


Well, this one was at the top of the shorts page and I decided to do a little reading starting with shorts and soon move to features (since I haven't read any features in a long time; school was eating up my schedule).

So, this is one of your old scripts, considering it was written two years ago. The formatting, yes, a bit off, but that's understandable. I wonder how many people pointed that out (P.S. I didn't read most of the previous comments).

I really liked this one, though. Nice way to use the eye on the dollar bill and how it shows sympathy for everything it sees, from the girl in the dump to the hobo who gets shot...which was a confusing part:

Quoted Text EXT ALLEYWAY - DAY A young MAN, 20s, slows from a run. In his hand, a purse. He opens the purse, riffles through it. BEHIND THE DUMPSTER A dollar bill by his foot. The man takes the dollar. BANG! He falls back. Blood flows from a gunshot wound in his forehead. The young man stands before him with a gun in his hand. He takes the money.

That really confused me. Since there were two men, I didn't know who got shot, so I'm assuming it was the hobo and that the robber got away with the dollar.

This was a really neat script and it was cool how you told a story with no dialogue. Good job.

Sean

Simple, straightforward, and with an easy to understand message.  I recall there was a politcal message in the one week challenge, but where that threw me off the one week challenge story, it works very well here.  I like the use of the eye and over the top situations (i.e. 80% unemployment!) to tell the story and reveal the message.

I would have liked to see if there were bills all over the world (pound notes, euros, etc.) in the same situation.  This was U.S.-centric, but the end was the whole world going in the garbage, so I wonder if a brief, world view before the final image might sell it even better.

Hey Sean,

I cringed when I saw that someone had read this old script again because it is so old, and I knew the formatting would be way off.

I did a rewrite on it last night, to try and make myself feel better.   It's much clearer now (who shot whom) and it looks 100 percent better on paper.
I'll have to send it in to Don.

Thanks for giving it a read.

EBurke73

Thank you for giving this a read, too.
You have brought up a good point about the bill and different parts of the world.
In the rewrite I did last night (if you read it) it's going to be more of a universal cleansing. God sending a single bill to different planets.

I've got it trimmed down to four pages now, too.

Thanks again for the read.

Cindy

I remember reading this years ago, before I became a member, hence I didn't leave a review.  

Anyway after reading it again I came to the same conclusion, I think.  I loved it.  It's very touching but I seem to remember someone once commenting that this was gonna be produced as an animation?  Am I confusing this with something else?

Anywho loved it.

Hey Alffy,

Thanks for giving this one a read.
I had to do a rewrite on it since it popped up again and I was mortified by the format.

Yes, it was going to be produced (in animation) but the producer had to stop and work on things that brought him money...

Still looking to get it produced though.

I did get a request from someone else to have a look at it so who knows.

Thanks again for the read,
Cindy

Hey,

I thought this was alright. I think for what you were going for you really succeeded, but I found it a little depressing.

I was confused about having us experience everything through the bill though. Based on the other posts I have gathered that the eye on the bill was supposed to represent God? While reading through it I didn't get that at all. If it's important for you to get that point across maybe you should work on that. I think it works fine with out, but I think some people, like me are going to be confused by it. Having us see a benevolent God take the form of a bill adds some nice irony though. Good job on that.

So, overall well written, nice concept, kind of cute in its on way, and a downer.
Nice job.

sheepwalker  

Hey sheepwalker,

Thanks for giving this one a read.

The all-seeing eye, as it is referred to, wasn't supposed to be God.

It was just his way of having a look around...

I got the idea for this script from a painting that my son-in-law had done of the planet suspended by a string. I thought to myself, I wonder what it would take for God to cut through the string.

I know it's depressing. We are destroying the planet.

Hopefully it will make people think. Even if there were the tinest change, it could be infectious.

Thanks for giving this a read,

Cindy

Hey Cindy,

All in all, I did like this story.  I agree with some of the others that the theme came across very well without having any dialogue whatsoever in it.

Unfortunately, I've only discovered Simply Scripts a few months ago, so I missed the release of the earlier version of 'Garbage', where you claim there were horrible formatting errors.  (And maybe that's why I didn't understand the 80% thing other people had commented about, which I'm guessing in an earlier draft, you stated that unemployment was at 80%?)From the version that I've read, it looks like you cleaned most of those up.  Most of them anyway.  There was, on the last page, a part that I had to read a few times to understand it, but it wasn't a big mistake.
-
(EXT. ALLEYWAY - DAY

A MAN (20s) slows from a run. In his hand, a purse. He opens
the purse, and riffles through it.

BEHIND THE DUMPSTER

A dollar bill at his foot.)
-

I didn't understand whose foot the dollar bill was at.  The twenty-something year-old junkie, or the hobo's.  I really didn't understand that the two were near each other.  But, like I had said, it's no real biggie as I understood it with a re-read.  (Also, and I don't mean to be a stickler, there should be no coma between 'purse' and 'and' when you say 'He opens the purse, and riffles through it.'  (And I think you meant 'rifle' instead of 'riffle', since riffle is a way of shuffling cards, and 'rifle' means to ransack and rob.))

But as for the story, I think it was very strong and I received the message and moral of the story very clearly.  (I loved the tear while the little girl was eating garbage.)  And I know you didn't show it, but I could almost see George Washington shaking his head with a 'what the f*ck' look on his face when we read how 'President vacations while unemployment skyrockets'.

Thanks for entertaining me for a couple minutes and I do plan on finding your other stories on this site and giving them a read.  I actually have read 'Home for Christmas', but I haven't posted a comment about it yet because I'm still thinking about it.  Don't worry, I did like it, so don't expect to get a negative review from me.  I'm just, still thinking what to say about it.  (I'm hoping to post a reply to it by tomorrow.)

Anyway, I hope you have a happy New Year.

- Mark

Hey Mark,

Thanks for giving this one a read.

Oh yes, the other draft looked awful. Thanks for catching the type o's.   They were over looked in my haste to replace the script.

I'm glad you liked the story though.

I just wanted to say thanks to all who have read this.

I'll return the favor after I read a feature that I promised someone I would read.

Cindy

I was blown away by this.  I thought it was very powerful.  Yes, there are a couple of typos that others have already mentioned.  To be honest, I was enjoying the story so much I didn't even notice.  

I have to admit that those of you who are talented short writers are making me very jealous.

Yosef91,

Thanks for your read.  

I've corrected the type o's with this script on my other computer.

I'm very happy that you liked it.
Now if I could only find a filmmaker who would be as happy to produce it...

Thanks again,
Cindy