It's not just the boring classes in oily rag making and gasoline sloshing that are driving Trent crazy, it's the endless parade of heavy "Italian-style" meals prepared by goombah cooks shuttled in from New York and New Jersey by greedy capos. You can only have spaghetti carbonara a few times in your life before your heart explodes in a shower of blood and cholesterol, but these greaseballs are serving it-- or even heavier cuisine like Fettuccine Alfredo with sausage-- for every meal!
And there's so much bread! Just sitting there wafting fresh-baked fumes from underneath that black cloth napkin, and when you finish it they just bring more! A little oil-- molto delizioso!
Trent vows to go on a cleanse, or at least do a few weeks of Atkins, as soon as his time at this dumb camp is up. But before the summer's over he's noticed by the camp Godfather, Bennie Prosciutto, and ordered to burn down several warehouses. "Make it look like an electrical fire," says big Bennie over a heaping plate of Pesto Alla Trapanese. "or you and your whole cabin will have to spend the night up in Mud Canyon, and I'll tell them you peed your bunk."
Trent has no choice, since everyone knows there are ghosts in Mud Canyon. The warehouses go up like roman candles, the police don't suspect a thing, and Trent's bunkmates are safe. But perhaps Trent did TOO good a job. The next thing he knows, he's finding a note in a delicious cinnamon cannoli, and two midnights after that he's being "made" in an arcane Mafia initiation ceremony underneath New York's little Italy. Now famous in the criminal underground as the youngest person to take the pledge of Omerta since Al Capone Jr, Trent wants to use his newfound influence to do one thing and one thing only: provide healthier meal options to his fellow campers. Can he do it???
7 comments:
Wow. Just found this blog. It seems like just about anybody thinks they can write a screenplay these days, yourself included. Personally, I can, but my screenplays are too personal, too emotional, too thought-provoking, too self-aware, too all-encompassing, too masterful, too grandiose, too symbolic, too Hollywood-ready, too life-changing, too face-slamming, too heart-wrenching, too tragic, too adventuresome, too much, too European, too frank, too Orwellian, too emotional again, too soon, too sexy, to0 baroque, ttt00 , tt0000 FILE NOT FOUND, too synergistic, too ADJECTIVE, too ERROR, too sweaty, too gorgeous, too morally vague, too modern, too too train, too days, too01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001, too01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01101101 01100101, too 01011001 01110101 01110010 01101001 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01000111 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01001101 01100001 01110010 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100.
BEEP. BEEP BOOP BEEP.
Summer Camp. Break it down to its roots. Sum. Mer. Camp. Break. It. Down. The first part: Sum. My vocabulary defines sum as "the total" or "the act of adding."
Second part: Mer. Sum-Mer. Makes me think of merfolk, the people of the sea, using tridents and swimming through seaweed and such. Which then, thinking point-A-to-point-B style, brings me to: Did King Triton ever get over losing Ariel, his most precious daughter, to Prince Eric, the two-legged land-dweller? Not likely. Mayhaps he still mourns, for what is power if it cannot give you the one thing your heart truly desires (e.g. Cruella DeVille, who had power and wealth and servants, but still could not murder 101 dogs).
Last part: Camp. While I am forcibly made to acknowledge the "fact" that camp can mean a place in which children stay, either outdoors or in wood cabins, and that while doing so the children will often play games, eat s'mores, make candles, etc, all while arsonists/mafia members lurk amongst them... among camp's other various definitions, it can also mean something similar to "kitschy." And I mean, Hello-oh! Calling Mr. John Waters, the king of that type of camp definition! John Waters! WATERs! Like a waters-y mer-grave. Like the grave in which Nemo's mom lies, after being eaten alive in the opening minutes of Finding Nemo! Or, more accurately, the grave in which Prince Eric ALMOST drowned, were it not for the saving graces of the mer-princess Ariel.
I had more, but I was just informed that you did not, in fact, title this screenplay "Summer Camp." My apologies.
PS. I must also acknowledge that "Sum" could also be short for "Sum 41," which my friend and commenting partner here reminds me was a killer band.
This comment may seem unrelated to your blog post at first, but please: bare with me.
I've come to believe that at night, while I'm sleeping, time/existence stops and reboots itself. Basically, the entire infinite universe is tied to me being awake. Can you imagine that? You can't if I'm sleeping, because you don't exist until I wake up. It's nothing personal; nothing does.
But now that I'm thinking about it, maybe what I'm really talking about is a question of consciousness and the human experience. Maybe each individual is their own universe that is constrained by their own perception and beliefs. Maybe what the multiverse really is, is the endless viewpoints of each person, animal, unique to them. As the mind shuts down, so does each particular universe, be it in sleep or the final death.
Which brings me to the screenplay for Camp Fire. Personally, I could eat a gallon of Fettuccine Alfredo - I don't care how heavy it is. I love it that much!!
Hey Yelp Reviewer! I think you make an excellent point, but I happen to think there's another, better way to imagine our place here on earth. Rather than as the "camera" that by filming (seeing,experiencing) the universe creates it, we are instead "actors" being filmed by the universe at all times. The "cameras" in this case are the eyes of the people always watching us and evaluating us. Eyes that hope for success, and are disappointed by failure. Will they punish us if we let them down (for example by not succeeding as screenplay writers)? No, but even worse is the disappointment, the derision, the sadness in their invisible everpresent eyes. At night, when we can never sleep, they whisper their variety of disappointments and disgusts. Success doesn't come easy, we say. But maybe for you it will never come, they whisper, over and over, over and over, until the sun is coming up and we can snatch a few hours sleep from the jaws of our racing, endless self loathing.
Hello Steeb,
On March 23rd of 2016, I'll be hosting what I hope to become an annual screenwriters convention. I'm gathering up to 75 selected screenwriters from around the internet, and I'm inviting them to my ranch in California. At this convention, screenwriters will network with their peers and discuss such things as "the creative spark," the "the anti-antagonist," and "how to commercialize a screenplay." Fine dining and drinks will be made available for consumption. To wrap up the convention, only those willing will be locked in the basement of the house. Using obscure and hidden tools that I'll have strategically placed throughout my underground network of tunnels, they'll need to use their wits and keen screenwriter observational skills to escape. Occasionally they may need to sacrifice others in order for the group to survive. Should the lone winner match the name I'll have randomly pulled out of a hat, that winner's screenplay will be fully financed by myself. As a bonus, I will also offer 5 back-end points and final cut privilege to the screenwriter, something I'm sure you're aware is basically unheard of in Hollywood, particularly for an unproven talent. Again, participation in this part of the convention, while strongly encouraged, would at this point be strictly voluntary. Should you decide to decline the final section of the convention, no hard feelings, and while I wouldn't be able to finance the screenplay of your choosing, you'd still leave wiser for your troubles, having met and convened with other screenwriters of comparable talents.
Steeb, I'd like to formally invite you to attend this gathering, as I firmly believe it could make your screenwriting abilities even better.
Hey Geep Zaroff! I will be there, and rest assured I'll be the first screenwriter to escape your weird and dangerous writing basement, thanks in no small part to the extensive research I did while writing my two screenplays "Dungeon Cellar Hole!" and "Confinement Refinery Winery." I'm going to begin swallowing parts of a gun now.
Heads up, the screenplay you'll be paying for once I win is the gangster/talking baby film I finished writing this morning. "Look Who's Squealing" features a six-month-old that is the only witness to a series of extortion attempts by the Gambino Crime Family of New York City. Will she testify?????
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