A bus, a hammer and a fountain walk into a bar. Film script.
Awais Ali Clausen Buchartts Mollie Griffiths Caitlin Latimer Jones Jake Stephenson Bartley
Film title: A bus, a hammer and a fountain walk into a bar This surreal and joyful short film amplifies the voices of the young, the old and the non human to help change our perspective of the city. This anthology film follows the lives of the main characters in a multispecies urban environment in the not so distant future. Characters: Plastic Bag Schoolgirl Bus Grannie Tree Ki The News Reporter Schoolboy Hammer Fountain Kianda Mermaid Kiandologist
Chapter pages: Film title, chapter no. and extract of script directions.
Opening: In the style of Forrest Gump with the same music, a plastic bag floats down to the shoes of the schoolgirl. She places the plastic bag into her box that shows the objects inside that link to each of the individual stories.
Scene 1: At the bus stop, with the schoolgirl (SG) and grannie (G). SG: Hello miss, how’re you today? G: I’m not too bad. SG: Why are your hands so dirty? (hands over leaflet, guerilla grannies gardening) G: I’m a gardener/activist/legend/ I plant where plants ort to be. Guerilla gardening granny, I’ve been locked in for days! Months I gotta get out, My kitchen is too tall, My bathroom sounds like a demon, Broken lights, exposed pipes,
This managed decline got me mad, I gotta get out. Guerilla gardening granny.
Scene 2: Grannie (G), Tree (T) (zooms into grannie’s face! / zooms out / Granny and Tree, hand in hand) G: Take your time, I don’t have a choice, How does you body feel, It hurts, but I have you my tree, Me, you, me, together for eternity Im leaning into your warmth, safe and calm beneath your bower Our love will blossom like a springtime flower, You energise me, my eternal sunshine You bring me joy like a flowering calendine. Being with you I feel no pain, I need you more than you need rain. (Granny and tree in hand walking down the street very slowly) X 2 the scenes walking in and out of shot (looking for places to stop) (Granny and the Tree Planting together) (Granny and Tree, protesting about the toilet being closed) (Granny getting tired and needing to rest) (She sits on the log, nearly sitting on the trees face) (She sits at the spot where she has done plenty of gardening, another person joins them and they enjoy a chinwag, maybe a flask of tea. While The the Tree has a Monologue) T: I was all alone Taken from my home I was to big disrupting the earth with my rhizomes Then this lady came along, Hand in hand, song in song I plant the seeds of life around the high street, I spread my arboreal life throughout the high street
I’m not alone, I’m not alone any more And soo with the beat of my own drum, I’m set free, to become oh so free I have found joy o so much joooy I am, talking finally I am being who want to be, soo splendidly (Then there is a moment where its the tree, the granny, the tree, they have a moment) Final shot is of the Grannies face, it zooms back out and she is at the Bus Stop, where she gets helped onto the bus. G: Don’t worry darling, I don’t need to catch the bus I can teleport. (Granny Teleports)
Scene 3: Gran teleports and schoolgirl (SG) sits back at the bus stop as she waits for her bus. The bus (B) walks over drearily and sits on the bench. The school girl plays with her toy bus and looks up at the bus. (bus person points at the toy) B: That’s what the big red buses used to be like. I remember them well. (schoolgirl plays with toy bus) SG: Yeah? My mum often talks about growing up getting the bus around London. How she’d sit on them and watch the world go by. (bus taps on the top of their head) B: The view from the top deck is a vantage point like no other. SG: True. I guess you see the streets of London all day and all night. (bus smiles then looks and points at schoolgirl’s toy) B: What does your mum tell you about the buses when she was younger? SG: She said you could see all sorts from the top deck of the bus. How streets are the most public of spaces. (looks up at camera for monologue) SG: She said you could see people you recognise from school outside the chippy. You see someone drunk and slumped on the bench.
You see an argument between two friends. You see the blue lights. You hear the sirens. You see a couple kissing. You watch the delivery men, back lights flashing. You see the bikes on the floor outside the corner shop. You see a pair smoking their Marlborough Golds, Out of sight of the office. You see the woman begging by the cashpoint. You see the kid having a tantrum. You see friends laughing in their car. You see a group of boys sharing a spliff. You watch a grandad pushing a buggy, the toddler kicking its legs, Desperate to go faster. The bus rattles past. (camera pans back out to them both at the bus stop and the schoolgirl turns and looks back at the bus) B: Ah the good old days. SG: Good?! (gestures hands around) this is so much better! Since all teenagers have been given the right to vote, the adults have had to listen to us.
Scene 4: Ki the News Reporter (K), schoolgirl (SG) and hammer (H) stand outside the Bingo Hall with stickers saying ’I voted’. K: We are now live outside the polling station with London’s young people and nonhumans, who have both been given the right to vote since the last national election. Now their votes count, it’s not just the adult people that get a say. They vote for the people that represent them! In the last 4 years we’ve already seen a huge increase in the youth provision in the city, young people congregate in places that aren’t just the park. Tree population has quadrupled in the city and are aiding the elderly in their daily lives. (Hammer grabs mic and headbutts it) H: We build the city with the people! K: Sounds like some exciting developments for the youth and hammers of London. Back to the studio.
Scene 5: Back to the bus stop with the schoolgirl and bus sitting on the bench. (school girl smiles towards the bus person) (camera pans to bus who tilts head sadly) B: I know that these changes are necessary but now I’m redundant. SG: No you’re not! You’ve changed with the times. Today’s buses don’t just take you from A to B, you can even learn and make things on them now. (looks up towards road) My bus is coming, I gotta go, bye! (schoolgirl walks away and bus person smiles wearily from the bus stop)
Scene 6: school girl (SG) is on the bus with schoolboy (SB) and the tree. (schoolgirl sits in the middle seat at the back of the bus, other characters on either side of the aisles a few rows apart) How streets are the most public of spaces. The buildings stand beside each other. The people brush past, taking respite on the wooden benches. The trees sacrifice themselves for us. The tools speak louder now. They build our cities with us. They now populate our buses too. What can you see on the bus? You see the students listening, scribbling. You see the students sawing, sanding. You see the bus stop full of teenagers, clambering on board wanting to learn by doing wanting to learn by making wanting to learn outside of the classroom or is the bus now a classroom? It moves between schools, It moves between subjects It moves beyond the curriculum. Passengers side by side Face to face tables in between,
The bus is filled with conversations congregations. People talk, People listen. To listen is an act of power. Who listens to you? What can you see from the bus? You watch a grandad pushing a buggy, the toddler kicking its legs, Desperate to go faster. The electric bus glides past silently. (characters sit on bus silently, rocking with the momentum)
Scene 7: The schoolboy (SB) gets off the bus and walks from the bus stop to the fountain, where he meets the hammer (H). (A moment of time passing by with the hammer and young person sat quietly on the bench, watching things go by) (Zoomed in view of them, still staring into the distance, hand on hand in the middle. Then schoolboy (SB), whilst still looking forward, says SB: I don’t like school, it’s not for me. I don’t know what to do! (The characters again, face forward, preferably with people/life passing and walking by. Text on a Sandwich board comes into view, written: Young people that don’t fit into the ’one size fits all’ education system shouldn’t be made to feel isolated. Alternative education methods need to exist, that provide long lasting community led projects or spaces with young people at heart. (Zoom in on text with a voiceover) (A lil huff and puff then young person turns their body and looks at the hammer, who’s still and is always looking forward. SB: I wish we could be together (sigh) (Then it goes into a dream state/ visuals. Video edit: Some sort of white heavenly transition effect.)
H: I love being able to put you at the heart of functional 1:1 design and build projects within your community. (Hammer lies down and schoolboy hammers the prop onto the fountain) SB: Real ownership, and being able to hold you like this has helped develop and build upon my confidence and has further equipped me with social and practical skills. (Further 10 to 15 seconds of this headbutting. The Hammer then sits up and the schoolboy sits up too) SB: I think you and I have something really special here. (Schoolboy puts hand on top of hammers head) H: yh SB: I think community based participation and collaborative projects need to become a common practice in everyday life, and encouraged just as much as, if not more, than the so called teaching I currently get at school. H: yh (5 second pause) H: For this to happen though, I must get my friends, who are equally as accessible as I am, and not shy, to hang out with more young people. (Schoolboy now facing the hammer, with the hammer finally looking back at him) SB: You’re the best. I agree. People must look towards highly convenient and accessible participatory culture methods, producing more prosperous places to live that leave no one behind. H: yh (Dreamscape ends)
Scene 8: Schoolboy (SB) is left sat on the fountain (F) for a few moments. Camera shakes as the fountain comes to life. SB: What the fuck was that?!
(fountain walks around lost and then camera zooms in on face for monologue.) F: It used to be me. Star of the show. Up, front, centre stage, gushing with joy. Emanating health and vitality. I was the welcomer. You know, visitors would travel from far and wide to see me. Oh and of course you had the locals, the regulars. Every morning, same time. A quick dip before work, a nod to me on the way out. It’s funny, isn’t it? The little things you remember. Like Mrs. Perkins, who ran the old veg stall on Rye Lane. She was of course, and early riser. Had to be in order to unpack the stall, layout each vegetable just so. I’d hear her talking about this to Mr Bennett. Explaining to him the meticulous detail in which she planned her layouts. This always conjured up great, beautiful patterns in my mind, and sometimes, I would long to see outside of the park in which I was born, and where I would live out the rest of my life. The day they pool died. Well, I didn’t see it coming. Certainly I’d heard the rumours, I’d noticed fewer of the locals turning up for their routine slots but hey, people were busy. It was 1987 for god’s sake and me? Well I was 64 years old. No spring chicken some might say, so I was waking up a little later in the day. 9am instead of the old 5am starts. And yes the water in the pool was looking a little dirtier than usual, but it was autumn and the leaves always muddied up the pool. Still, I never expected her to die. I watched on helplessly as they filled her in. Spade fulls of dirt thrown onto her body. ”ashes to ashes, dust to dust” I thought. It was a gruelling and seemingly never ending process, the funeral. She was big, and I mean big, fifty meters long, twenty five meters wide so you can imagine how long it took. How much dirt it took, to fill her in. Me, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Your best friend, sixty four years spent together. Born on the same bloody day. People would say, they’re inseparable those two! There’d be no fountain without the pool, no pool without the fountain. A real pair, you know? So can you imagine how it felt, how vastly my loneliness was deepened when one day I woke, to see a dozen men stood all around her. shovels at the ready, fury in their eyes in the way that men often do. I think back to that day a lot, wondering if there was anything I could have done to stop them. Wondering if she knew she had a limited time left in the green paradise we claimed as our own. Deep down I know that I couldn’t. After all they would have never listened. Plus I’m anchored here. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. My concrete belly holds me down. It was a few days after that the water stopped flowing through me. It wasn’t sudden like you’d imagine. But slow and steady. I could feel the
pressure waning. Where once water used to cascade, now it only trickled. Until eventually I was left, dried up and bare. My beautiful costume stripped away. My glittering light, snuffed out. After that I felt completely without purpose. Isolated and alone. It was especially tough throughout the winter, what with the dark mornings and the short days. I barely saw a soul, and the few people that did pass trampled over her grave without a second thought. Like they’d completely forgotten her already which made me even sadder. In time, surprising me in the way that Spring always does, the muddy patch which marked her body started to grow into grass. She started to become one with the park, until eventually you could no longer see the line where she ended and our home began. In a way, this pleased me. Even if no one else remembered, I would always know she was there. My own shining secret. Buried underground now are the memories of long summer days in the sun, eased by her presence. I hope that when people see me they know that I am not just one, but half of two. For sometime after the death of my beloved friend. My role within the community changed quite significantly, I became more hidden from the eyes of the public day by day. The men with the shovels returned, this time to form a man made mound facing me. I could only see this as a personal attack as it blocked my view toward Dulwich and hemmed me in further. As my water had dried up, the public decided to fill me too with earth. Although nothing beautiful grew from me like it did the ground. Instead I poured out litter. Heaps of the stuff. Crisp packets and cans and bottles and chocolate wrappers and baggies. They stubbed out their cigarettes out on me. Emptied their guts on me. It seems the trees create the perfect shelter for outdoor sex and so they threw their filled up condoms into me. One fellow even stuffed twenty pounds into me. Unfortunately sir, I cannot grant your wish. At the ripe age of 93 I think it’s fair to say I’ve witnessed my fair share. I’ve watched this area change yet I have stayed constant. My purpose changing, yes. But inside I have remained. These days I am a piece of art. Apparently. My costume has returned but in a different form. I am cloaked in white like a Greek god. A blank canvas. I am tended to, nurtured. My innards are filled with mass of a different kind. The giving kind, the growing kind, and so my costume changes. Blooms and once again I gush with joy. I am connected to other parts of the park that I will never see, yet I know they exist. They see my mop of white hair through the breaks in the trees. Visitors amble from me to them. My distant peers. Some old and some new. All with stories to tell, I’m sure.
Scene 9: Continuing within the park, the Kianda Mermaid (KM) is by the water and the Kiandologist (K) walks towards her. (Kiandologists in the park hiding, sneaking, looking at the mermaid) (On screen text: Kiandologist = scientist who studies the Kianda mermaid) (Kiandologist calls the mermaid, she answers and the screen is split) K: I can’t believe that I am looking at the kianda mermaid. I grew up looking at different paintings of how she could be and she looks even more beautiful in person. KM: Hello Humanos. Thank you for your compliment. But I am not very popular now. People used to send offerings to me in the past. (Kiandologist student starts jumping rope in the park in lab coat and glasses, goes to drink bottle of water and then feels Kianda’s presence and stops and studies the water.) K: I spent years studying you. One of my students made an experiment to please you. I am planning to publish my work to make you popular again. The student was doing some jump rope. Then he got thirsty and wanted to drink some water. But as soon as he thought about water he felt the environment was a bit strange. He kind of felt the presence of the Mermaid Kianda swimming along the canal. As a way of respecting you he decided to take some water from the canal, filter it, drink half of it and give the other half back to you. Then the flooding stopped. (The Kianda Mermaid is smiling) KM: I can’t believe it! My powers are coming back as people respect the water more! K: Yes, it worked!! The flooding not only stopped here but also where my heart lies in the country of Angola! We please the Kianda mermaid and the flooding waters are controlled! The waterways of the world are all interlinked and connected because of you. KM: I didn’t think my powers could work again. K: Yes, but the science is important too. The more people filter and store
rainwater, less rainwater would be on the urban pavements and reduce the risk of flooding. KM: The coming together of science and myth is crucial for maintaining an ecological balance. You truly are a Kiandologist. K: (dramatically spoken) You gave me the power to do this. I am the bridge between science and myth. KM: How true you are, in the end it is about protecting nature and connecting humans for a better multispecies future. Together, we clean the seas, rivers and oceans and my powers run through the currents. To please me is to please the waters of the world. Humanos need to realise their influence and power in this. You and other Kiandologists are mastering this. You must continue this important work. (Kiandolgist puts back on his lab glasses, does up his lab coat and runs off into the distance, jumps and clicks his legs together.)
Closing: Plastic bag starts floating through the air and lands on the feet by all the characters doing their thing in the park. Frank Ocean’s Forrest Gump plays.
Written and directed by: Awais Ali Clausen Buchartts Mollie Griffiths Caitlin Latimer Jones Jake Stephenson Bartley Tech sec: Awais Ali Costumes: Linda & the prop cupboard Music: Young & Holtful, Young Holt Unlimited. I Only Have Eyes for You, The Flamingoes. The Time of My Life, Bill Medley. Can It All Be So Simple, El Michels Affair. Dream Factory (Instrumental), Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn. Liquid Love, Roy Ayers. Shimmy Shimmy Ya, El Michels Affair. My Friend The Forest, Nihls Farm. Big Trouble, John Lurie. Move On Up, The Dynamics. Forrest Gump, Frank Ocean.
Fumbling Futures. M Arch Symposium Central Saint Martins 2021