Nowhere

REFLECTIONS OF

P R AC T I C A L APPLICATION OF LEARNING

a complete screenplay
by Issa Sabah
Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 1

Aims and Rationale

Dealing with issues and exploring them has always been central to my creative work. Approaching

them on the other hand, proves to be the most challenging aspect to my creativity. It is to this extent that I

am going to use an experimental short film’s screenplay, targeted at conventional adolescents between

the ages of 13–19, individuals who will be able to relate to a film exploring the teenage zeitgeist of this

decade drawing from their own experiences. The screenplay is bound to be interesting to receptive adults

as well, as it can demonstrate to be reminiscent of their own adolescence.

The experimental short is meant to be slightly challenging to watch due to a nonlinear narrative but

should be simple enough to grasp and enjoy due to its music video nature – I plan on using independent

music to complement the varying scenes – which can elevate the diegetic action portrayed. I expect the

screenplay to be sparse in dialogue, specifically in the four basic micro-elements of filmmaking mise-en-

scène, editing, sound and cinematography.

As the screenplay has to be vivid and memorable yet marketable I plan on having three characters

between the ages of 13–21 of both genders – a boy and two girls, representing the anima & animus of the

script’s main character Kiran (who in term is a massive generalization of suburban western-influenced

youth of this decade), and since I eventually plan on making this film using drama students, I’m going to

spare no expense on detailing the shooting script with exhaustive camera directions to maximize my

cinematographic vision. Furthermore, I plan on using realistically feasible shooting locations that would

make the world of Reflections of Nowhere more familiar to my audience.

Developing the screenplay from a shooting-based critical approach is mandatory for the film to

reach fruition and knowledge from FS1 and FS2 studies is going to be useful in drafting the screenplay to

cater to my needs. The main narrative theme is inspired by my FS6 studies in experimental cinema which

I did further reading on. Jørgen Leth’s The Perfect Human fueled Lars Von Trier’s The Five Obstructions

which in turn fueled my desire to create a film that can be both relevant and timeless.

Having watched some recent feature-length films using certain aspects of my potential screenplay,

notably Cam Archer’s Wild Tigers I Have Known, I noticed a certain trend with coming-of--age films

both experimental and commercial – they tend to develop style over substance, rarely lending themselves

to the actors’ vital performance. It is my underlying aim to break-free from this constriction and depict a

film aesthetically appealing that seems both natural and surreal.

Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 2

Screenplay

OPENING INTERTITLE
Reflections of Nowhere
KIRAN: her + him + her

1 EXT.
SUBURBAN
PROJECTS
- ORANGE
BRICK
WALL
- DAY
1

The screen fades into life with a long shot of an orange brick
wall that has seen years of neglect. KIRAN, a teenage girl,
wearing a blue loose-fitting summer dress of a bohemian nature
and calf-length flat boots walks into the shot from the left,
standing in front of the wall facing us, looking at us uninter-
ested and bored. KIRAN, a young boy walks into the shot from
the camera wearing a striped hooded sweater holding his skate-
board by his side – he stands next to the girl and is in the
center of the shot but doesn’t acknowledge anyone, his hood
slightly obscuring his eyes. KIRAN, a young adult then walks
into the shot from the right with an obscenely large smile, her
white sundress flowing in a nonexistent breeze. The scene looks
like a surreal photo. They all begin to wave in manners respec-
tive to their attitudes – the teenage girl waving as if it was
a burden, the boy shyly and the young adult with all her heart
as we crossfade to the next intertitle.

FADE TO:
Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 3

INTERTITLE
Question 1
How she slowly nosedives

2 EXT.
PUBLIC
BEACH
- SHORELINE
- DAY 2

Mellow drum and bass (Citizen Cope’s Deep) starts playing as

the screen fades from black in to a profile of KIRAN’s youthful
legs shimmering in the sunlight. Starting at her feet, panning
slowly towards her upper body, we notice the glistening mixture
of baby oil and sweat that rolls off her navel onto the sand.
We reach her face.

She was sleeping. As she wakes up, she wipes at her face drying
the sweat with the back of her hand. She begins standing up,
the camera doesn’t follow her movement, revealing the beach. We
see Kiran slowly walking into the distance, shaking her hair
loose sprinkling sweat and sand as she walks into the water.

The camera drifts closer to the water. We reach KIRAN as she

stares into the sky, her lips slightly apart, in awe of it all.
Her head slowly turns facing the water and she sinks in, head
facing us, the camera following her into the shallow depths,
fading out into darkness.

FADE TO:

3 INT.
APARTMENT,
HIGH-RISE
BUILDING
- OPEN BALCONY
- NIGHT 3

The music repeats two beats and we fade into KIRAN’s complacent
face with her hair filling either side of the shot, flowing
slowly in the cool air. Moving backwards we see she’s dancing
slowly, rhythmically to the music, in her own little world.
With a cigarette in one hand and a plastic cup in the other,
she unawarely fends off the SITTING BOYS slowly undressing her
with their eyes.

SLOW PAN TO:

We circle her while she dances, shifting focus to the sitting

boys, their feet tapping to the music, KIRAN’s slender legs
give in, her slender figure collapsing. The tapping stops, the
music’s volume goes down and we circle back to her face.

ZOOM TO:

The diegetic music abruptly stops as KIRAN breaks the fourth

wall and stares at the camera, slightly menacingly. We zoom
into her face as the shot goes out of focus.

CROSSFADE TO:
Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 4

4 INT.
WHITE
ROOM, IN KIRAN’S
SUBCONSCIOUS
4

The camera gains focus. We cut revealing our stoic teenager,

Kiran, naked sitting in a foetal position in a stark white
room. She wakes up from unconsciousness. We see her looking
around, not understanding. We close in to her face. Interested
in where she might be, we see her eyes darting around the room,
before finally settling straight at us. The camera is still.
KIRAN is still. Her face slowly changes into an expression of
boredom as the shrill sound of a violin reaches a crescendo
right into a loud crashing BANG.

FADE TO:

INTERTITLE
Question 2
How he openly obfuscates

5 EXT.
HIGH-RISE
ROOFTOP
- NIGHT
5

Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries by Broken So-

cial Scene, a haunting scratchy post-rock track, plays right
after the bang. The screen fast cuts to heavy skate shoes shot
at a low angle clomping on the concrete ground, louder than the
music, running away from us, filling the screen. We hear a
young boy’s voice, crisp.

KIRAN (O.S.)
(out of breath)
I know I’m nothing. Quit pointing it
out,

We relentlessly pursue the boy with sharp angular camera move-

ments, the distance between us always constant giving a sense
of moving without covering no ground.

CUT TO:

Fast cuts of his heavy breathing and heavy footsteps dominate

the soundtrack between different views of the same shot of him
running away alternating between medium close-ups to long
shots, disrupting our sense of direction and distance.

CUT TO:

We see as the boy reaches a dead end on the rooftop, his back
to us, the night sky in front of us. He finally decides to look
at his pursuer, his neck twisting quickly, making his whole
body turn around, looking back at us in pure emotional anguish
for his pursuer has always been chasing him, judging him.
KIRAN’s gaze is right at us.
Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 5

KIRAN (CONT’D)
(pleading)
Won’t ya?

The camera zooms quickly to his face, zooming out slowly yet
jerkily, revealing the same boy standing on a skateboard with a
smirk on his face. We lose balance and fall, looking into the
sky. We fade to white.

FADE TO:

6 INT.
HIGH-SCHOOL
LOCKER
HALLWAY
- DAY
6

Shaky camera movements bring us into bustling school life. We

watch from far off as the boy walks on through a crowd of
teens, traversing the hallway with difficulty. Fast cuts of
shot-reverse-shots show kids greeting him, their words sounding
like brute grunts to him, and it can be seen on his face.
Everything is in high-contrast from the colours to the sounds
of the teenagers – blaring lights reminiscent of a bad hango-
ver, surreal and raw.

CUT TO:

We watch as cheery faces painstakingly contrast our boy’s own

through medium shots elongating points of perspective making
KIRAN stand out. The music only enhancing the feeling of being
lost and confused within one’s own insecurities. Reaching his
own locker near the end of the hallway, we shake cut into a
close-up shot from within his locker; the boy’s insecurities
manifest in a mood swing as his face crinkles in pure annoy-
ance, slamming the locker’s door shut.

FADE TO:
Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 6

INTERTITLE
Question 3
How she supinely wonders

7 EXT.
GRASSLANDS
- DAY 7

A haunting vocal piece starts playing, Atem by Kukui. We see a

beautiful girl, Kiran, in her early twenties strolling merrily
down a bright flowered path via a long shot. An ethereal yet
vivid mise-en-scène used, colours of the rainbow blended per-
fectly, making the scene a reflection of a far-lost memory. We
cut to a side shot of her pacing through knee-length grass
which she strokes. The way she touches the grass is both at-
tractive and disturbing. Her pace slows down and she lowers
herself to the ground, rolling and luxuriating in the world be-
tween grass and pavement. The camera following her, curiously
watching from overhead through a medium shot – tight camerawork
in a vast spacious area.

CUT TO:

Her actions seem daft and perplexing but as we get closer

through a series of cuts, we see numerous intimate pleasurable
connections forming within her. We cut between the angles of
her elbows, her freckles, her lashes and the tip of her cute
nose, our vision is dominated as the music goes on. The colour-
cast varies between pink and black ever so slowly magnifying
the dreamlike quality of the scene.

KIRAN (V.O.)
I am KIRAN. When I am not walking
through the motions of life mundanely
or worrying myself to death, I. AM.
KIRAN. I dream, I wonder, I forsake
my existence right until the next
worthwhile moment. Why?

FADE TO:

As her monologue draws to a finish, the atmosphere suddenly

darkens, things (with the help of dramatic lighting) shift, the
ground turns muddy and the music fades drastically to an upbeat
alternative rock track, That Time by Regina Spektor. The music
is highly complimenting the images on the screen. We cut to see
the beautiful girl is now in rags and looks wretched. She’s
walking with a limp, mouthing profanities, cries for help and
asking who she is over and over again. The sound of a roaring
wind muffles the music slightly. The camerawork calms down as
the girl limps towards us, her mouth in a horrible smile when
she’s not mouthing anything.
Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 7

She reaches us, and begins eating us. We are covered in pitch-
black darkness as the sounds of the music is drowned by the
crunching of bones, gunshots and varying sounds of laughter of
KIRAN.

CUT TO:

8 INT.
WHITE
ROOM, KIRAN’S
SUBCONSCIOUS
8

Uncoordinated sounds from a cello bring an end to the sounds

and with a slow fade the screen shifts to an extreme close-up
of the beautiful girl’s face. Her eyes were staring off-screen,
she notices us and looks at us and we watch as she hums a lit-
tle jig full of fervent emotion.

FADE TO:
Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 8

CLOSING INTERTITLE
Reflections of Nowhere
KIRAN: her = him = her

9 EXT.
SUBURBAN
PROJECTS,
PRESENT
DAY - ORANGE
BRICK
WALL - DAY 9

The first shot of three KIRANs resumes as they each slowly

lower themselves down on to the dry gravel. The teenager girl
sitting using her boots as support, the boy sitting on his
skateboard and the young adult laying on her stomach as she
moves her feet excitedly in the air. The camera pans down to
compensate for the loss of height and equal signs chalked into
the wall slowly fade in between each KIRAN.
Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 9

Evaluation

My aim of creating an aesthetic short abstract story about

today’s youth was perfected with the work and time I’ve

spent on this screenplay. My audience received the screenplay

well, the little of the script that we did film turned out just

right and working with the aim of shooting the film proved

not only practical to me as a film student, but insightful into

the world of filmmaking, amateur or not.

Working on the screenplay for Reflections of Nowhere was a very eye-opening experience as it

helped me develop my screenwriting and directing capabilities. I learned how to compromise filming

faithfully concerning the script with minimum concessions and though it seemed at first to be a bane I

realized this comes with the territory of onset locations.

I started shooting the film with fellow film student Mansi who helped me with the only scene shot. I
realized that making a film could never be a one-man job and that camerawork can be quite difficult to

perfect. We still plan on shooting the principal footage of the film once weather conditions inconducive

to filming have subsided. The script proved to be an ideal resource once we finally were at the on-

location set of filming the beach scene and the only change we had to make at the spot was to change the

sandy shore to a rocky outcrop by the beach. This helped me understand that including cumbersome
camera directions in the script is useful if one is shooting as they provide a guide to an otherwise fallible

creative memory.
Practical Application of Learning – Reflections of Nowhere 10

The script was reviewed by many people composed of cine-literate and mainstream audiences. The

general consensus was that the screenplay excellently portrayed the visual and aural intricacies of the

script. According to some people, the screenplay represented a sort of ‘polaroid-feel’ which I consider to

be an accomplishment. They appreciated the ‘vivid and artistic imagery’ and enjoyed the nonlinear narra-

tive commenting that though the film might make one think, it’s bound to confuse many mainstream

audiences.

My choice of using music as a pivotal theme to each of the different aspects of Kiran’s personality

was well received although I think the screenplay was a bit too subtle in indicating that all the teenagers

were the same person.

The symbolism of the script in short was a personalization of various problems of most of today’s

urban youth – complacent children bored with life, insecure of themselves and their surrounds whose

mood swings affect their quotidian lives. I found that my readers were able to notice these aspects in the

screenplay and notably link similarities between my style to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Trois Couleurs tril-

ogy, a compliment I fully appreciate.

P.S.The screenshots above were taken directly from the footage of the film with a slight colour-cast representing what practically the final product will look like.