Friday, June 08, 2007

Call me Panda


I got called up for jury duty yesterday but I got it postponed so I ended up home by 9:30 am. I had a sub for the day so Writing Partner and I spent the entire day working on the script. Like we were professionals or something.

At the rate Partner's going he might be unemployed soon. He's sort of started neglecting his paying job to work on the script more. But at least he'll have the awesome screenplay to keep him warm when he's homeless.

We probably spent a total of four hours on the phone but we got it done. We read through the entire script from beginning to end which is a hilarious event all by itself. Sometimes we ad lib. Sometimes our ad libs are so funny they make it into the script. I spent a good portion of my day doubled over in giggles.

After we finished our final draft of the script and the day was over and we were all prepared to go to sleep we realized we forgot the title.

Usually I'm good with titles. They just pop into my head when I first think of the script and that's that. But the nature of this story, with the chapters and all, has made it difficult to think of a clever way to sum up our story.

There's a Taoist quote about water Partner wrote into the script and we discussed at length how it sums up our primary theme. So I said, "Running Water"? And he said it sounds like a Hallmark Channel production. He said "Still Water"? And I said that sounds like a Tom Selleck Western on TNT.

We sat for a minute.

"Bamboo Killers," Partner said.

Duh.

A Friend and I had a conversation recently that involved the use of the phrase "bamboo killers". I thought the conversation was interesting so when I needed a character to say something random I yanked the discussion from my memory. When Partner and I read through the script yesterday I told him about the real life conversation and we realized how perfectly it summed up our primary theme.

Plus it sounds cool. Bamboo Killers.

I was so pleased with the title I kept repeating it as I fell asleep.

Bamboo killers. Bamboo killers. Bamboo killerssszzzzzzz.......

5 comments:

  1. You shouldn't eat pandas!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's where it came from!

    Every time I pass a panda express I say that. A friend of mine suggested that if you call them bamboo killers instead of pandas it would be okay to eat them.

    I put that in the script and a title was born.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Let me tell you something about "professional." It's all in the mind. And the wearing of pajamas. Go get em, bamboo killer.

    ReplyDelete
  4. seriously...who kills bamboo? It's defenseless!!


    We should eat pandas.

    ReplyDelete
  5. WILLIAM
    (voice now to deep)
    How about Stillwater?

    BEN
    Crazy. New album... their third...
    starting to do something.

    Ben shuffles through papers, looking for a tour itinerary on
    his promotional-material laden-desk, automatically plotting
    the piece aloud.

    BEN (cont'd)
    (pleasant, terse)
    Stillwater. Hard-working band makes
    good. Get 'em to respond to the critics
    who dismissed the first two albums as
    workmanlike. Guitarist is the clear star
    of the band. Crazy. Let's do three-
    thousand words. You'll catch up to them
    on the road. We'll set up billing --
    don't let the band pay for anything.

    ReplyDelete

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