let’s try this—do you find this time-jump (‘epilogue as prologue’ device) effective, or just disorienting?
GUNPOWDER
By James Luo
ON BLACK - TITLE CARD
2075
FADE IN
Dashing Don’s Diner is quiet.
PHOEBE (age: 105) sits on the sun-warmed bench.
Across the square, a small group of children play.
The veranda overlooks the collapsed quarter, low arcologies nestled between what remains of the old city’s bones.
Phoebe looks at the cup in her hands.
It had been broken once.
Someone had put it back together with gold.
CUT TO
TITLE CARD
1995
Hottest summer on record and the elevator’s broken again. KARIM and Phoebe lug their groceries up five flights. Before he’s finished dead-bolting the door, she’s peeling off her sodden dress.
KARIM
(mock pleading)
Babe - it’s too hot to fuck…
She flips him two birds and rushes, nude, to the shower.
PHOEBE (O.S.)
Jeeezus - the pipes are boiling!
2 people like this
I think the time-jump is effective, James LO. Jumping from 2075 to 1995 got me interested in knowing what happened to the characters and world in between those years.
2 people like this
James LO It’s absolutely effective to jump start the story . I’ve used it myself in my current script, I circle back around to that scene at the end and show it in its entirety.