Ever since Sharknado aired awhile back on cable, my muse has been urging me to develop a disaster movie idea of my own. I think I have it.
Get ready for your next bidding war, Hollywood. I don’t have a full script yet, but I do have a trailer script. Batten down your hatches for … Carbon City!
In the trailer’s opening scene, Tex Drillerson, CEO of Texas-based Axxis Energy, is having a bourbon with an industry lobbyist at the golf club’s Nineteenth Hole. “Just between you and me, Bill, an 'energy company' is just an oil and gas company with two solar panels and a windmill!” They share a manly laugh.
Cut to a television news van driving past a highway billboard that reads “Natural Gas. Bridge to a Renewable Future. AXXIS” The driver reads the sign aloud to herself, adding under her breath, “Bridge fuel, my ass. Causeway is more like it.”
Cut to a middle school science class in a corporate suburb, where students are hearing that the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has now surpassed 400 molecules per million parts of dry air, raising the intensity of hurricanes and other extreme weather events. Snoring can be heard coming from the back row.
LocalVision TV is on in the teacher’s lounge. “We interrupt this program to bring you a special alert from the U.S. Weather Bureau. Tropical Storm Rush, gaining force in the Gulf, has just been upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane as it moves toward probable landfall along the Texas coast.”
Cut to scenes of growing awareness and concern. Parents leaving work early to pick up kids from school. Families stockpiling groceries and water. Urgent cell phone calls. Prayers.
Cut to a traffic jam in the parking lot of a big box hardware store, where residents of Carbon City’s corporate suburbs are stocking up on emergency supplies as the hurricane approaches. We see traffic already at a standstill on the city’s evacuation routes.
We hear a deafening roar and see a storm’s-eye-view of the hurricane's moving path as it approaches land.
A news update reports the hurricane is continuing to move westward toward the city and gaining velocity.
Tex Drillerson studies the horizon from the office penthouse of his suburban corporate headquarters. He says, "If we're lucky, it'll change course and hit Mexico, and we'll be spared the brunt of it. But we'd better plan for the worst. Issue a news release. Disavow any responsibility for this tragic weather event, and let’s get down to the bunker. Just to be on the safe side.”
On a windy beach, a lone camerawoman emerges from a news van and sets up to send live images of the oncoming storm. She stands nearly motionless, facing the approaching storm, and we see just what she sees through her lens.
Back to the storm’s-eye-view. The roar grows louder. A major metropolitan skyline comes into view. The storm’s camera closes in on a beach, and on a tiny human figure aiming a shoulder-held camera at the relentless oncoming force.
Screen to black. Silence.
Carbon City.
Coming next summer to a theater near you?
originally posted in Danagram on opensalon.com
© Daniel Rigney, 2013
Get ready for your next bidding war, Hollywood. I don’t have a full script yet, but I do have a trailer script. Batten down your hatches for … Carbon City!
In the trailer’s opening scene, Tex Drillerson, CEO of Texas-based Axxis Energy, is having a bourbon with an industry lobbyist at the golf club’s Nineteenth Hole. “Just between you and me, Bill, an 'energy company' is just an oil and gas company with two solar panels and a windmill!” They share a manly laugh.
Cut to a television news van driving past a highway billboard that reads “Natural Gas. Bridge to a Renewable Future. AXXIS” The driver reads the sign aloud to herself, adding under her breath, “Bridge fuel, my ass. Causeway is more like it.”
Cut to a middle school science class in a corporate suburb, where students are hearing that the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has now surpassed 400 molecules per million parts of dry air, raising the intensity of hurricanes and other extreme weather events. Snoring can be heard coming from the back row.
LocalVision TV is on in the teacher’s lounge. “We interrupt this program to bring you a special alert from the U.S. Weather Bureau. Tropical Storm Rush, gaining force in the Gulf, has just been upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane as it moves toward probable landfall along the Texas coast.”
Cut to scenes of growing awareness and concern. Parents leaving work early to pick up kids from school. Families stockpiling groceries and water. Urgent cell phone calls. Prayers.
Cut to a traffic jam in the parking lot of a big box hardware store, where residents of Carbon City’s corporate suburbs are stocking up on emergency supplies as the hurricane approaches. We see traffic already at a standstill on the city’s evacuation routes.
We hear a deafening roar and see a storm’s-eye-view of the hurricane's moving path as it approaches land.
A news update reports the hurricane is continuing to move westward toward the city and gaining velocity.
Tex Drillerson studies the horizon from the office penthouse of his suburban corporate headquarters. He says, "If we're lucky, it'll change course and hit Mexico, and we'll be spared the brunt of it. But we'd better plan for the worst. Issue a news release. Disavow any responsibility for this tragic weather event, and let’s get down to the bunker. Just to be on the safe side.”
On a windy beach, a lone camerawoman emerges from a news van and sets up to send live images of the oncoming storm. She stands nearly motionless, facing the approaching storm, and we see just what she sees through her lens.
Back to the storm’s-eye-view. The roar grows louder. A major metropolitan skyline comes into view. The storm’s camera closes in on a beach, and on a tiny human figure aiming a shoulder-held camera at the relentless oncoming force.
Screen to black. Silence.
Carbon City.
Coming next summer to a theater near you?
originally posted in Danagram on opensalon.com
© Daniel Rigney, 2013
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