Kid Blue: Frozen in Time - 10 Pages for Review

[ceej82178]

Cast:

Kyle Bloom aka Kid Blue: 13 years old. Tan complexion. White hair with gray highlights. Ice blue eyes.

Ike: 35 years old. Peach complexion. Brown hair and eyes. Think John Barrowman as your dad.

Zero: 16 years old. Albino with Ichthyoidal features. Shark like teeth. Dressed like a sci-fi surfer.

Blue Man: 30 years old. Tan complexion. Sapphire hair with teal highlights. Imagine Alex Ross modernizing a sixties cosmic hero portrayed by Naveen Andrews.

Cato Singh: 45 years old. Bronze Complexion. Black hair with white streaks. Imagine Dr. Strange if played by Ricardo Montalban.

Lorna: 30 years old. Peach complexion. Blonde. Sea green eyes. Imagine Cheryl Ladd.

P1/P1
Est. Shot – Moon nestled in space – Generic portrayal

Kyle Narration: I am not of your world. I am not even of this one, really.
Kyle Narration: I just grew up here. On what you call the moon.

P1/P2 – Zoom In
Est. Shot – Lunar Colony Exterior – The colony is built from a crashed orbital colony.

Kyle Narration: People in here call it Luna.

P1/P3 – Zoom In
Est. Shot – Lunar Colony Interior – Looks like a high-end mall with parks, urban farming and grazing plots, and artificial sky. It is sunset.

Kyle Narration: I live here…in Lunatica. It means “Moon Lady,” I think.
Kyle Narration: Although I live here, I am never at home here.
Kyle Narration: I wish I was somewhere else.

P2/P1 – Splash
Lunatica Space Port - Kyle Bloom (aka Kid Blue) is being beaten by three bullies. The bullies wear nearly identical clothing. Each one has a family sigil on their clothing. Kyle has a blue “A” on his clothing. Witnesses either freeze and gawk or continue on whispering their gossip to their significant others. Some place their hands over their children’s eyes while pulling them away. Kyle

Narration: My name is Kyle Bloom.
Kyle Narration: I wish I was someone else.
Bully #1: Get him!
Bully #2: We’ll teach you to pretend you have family!
Kyle Narration: “A” means you’re adopted. It’s the law here.
Lead Bully: My mom says only weird celebrities adopt!

Caption: Kid Blue Part 1: Frozen in Time.

P3/P1
Low Angle Shot – Kyle is looking up and being punched by the three bullies who surround him.

Kyle: Do you have to hurt me!
Bully #3: You’re hurting us!
Bully #2: My auntie says that “A” stands for “anonymous!”
Bully #1: What’s that around your neck?

P3/P2
CU – Lead bully’s hand trying to tear Kyle’s locket from his neck.

Bully #1: You pretending to have a hand me down or something?

P3/P3
Bully #1 is pulled away by his shirt collar. He tears the necklace from Kyle’s neck in the process.

Bully #1: You mock us! You offend us! You…
Ike: No! You offend us!

P3/P4
Kyle on the ground. Ike, his adoptive father, is shooing the bullies away. The three bullies run in different directions. Bully #1 drops the locket.

Ike: If you punks were any better than us, you’re folks would be here to back you up!

P3/P5
FG - Ike holds Kyle, escorting him away from the space port. Ike turns his angered gaze onto the crowd.
BG – Rude witnesses gawk. Some have shocked expressions over the accusations Ike hurls at them.

Ike: Go ahead! Gawk! Just keep throwing your unwanted out of airlocks only to persecute them when their rescued!
Kyle: Ike…shut up. Just shut up.

P4/P1
Kyle is holding Ike’s hand. A worried and scared Ike looks down at his son. A bruised and scratched Kyle bends down to pick up the locket.

Kyle Narration: Ike is my dad. He’s a really good one. He moved up here to escape the Earth Wars.
Kyle Narration: Lunatica was built for families. “Real” families.
Kyle Narration: Ike says he found me in an airlock as a baby.


P4/P2
Kyle and Ike stand at mag-lev monorail line. The monorail’s doors are open. Everyone waiting to board stands far away from Ike and Kyle.

Kyle Narration: Some day, someone’s going to put me right back in that airlock.
Kyle: I just know it.

P4/P3
Monorail Interior – Kyle sits adjacent to the window overlooking the colony’s farmlands and parks. He sulks feeling so defeated. Ike sits next to Kyle, looking at him with both disappointment and curiosity. Behind them, the other passengers pretend not to eavesdrop.

Ike: So, Kyle, mind telling what you were doing down by the space port?

P4/P4
CU – Kyle almost presses his nose to the window as the artificial sunset pours through the glass.

Kyle: Wishing I was somewhere else. Maybe someone else somewhere else.

P5/P1
CU – A worried and scared Ike stares at the OP Kyle. We can see on the single dad’s handsome face all the wrinkles accumulated over the years from raising Kyle in Lunatica.

Ike: Well, at least those little Saturday Night Mistakes stopped you from running away.

P5/P2
CU – Ike looks down in disappointment. His fingers hold the dangling locket. The artificial sunset makes the locket glisten.

NO COPY

P5/P3
Kyle’s Room – Kyle sits on his bed sulking. His locket dangles around his neck creating a subtle focal point in the shot. A poster for a rock band called “Scii-Fii & the Aliens” is on a wall in behind him. Another poster displaying a futuristic city in Antarctica is on another wall. Ike stands in the doorway checking on the trouble teen. Ike wipes his hands with a kitchen towel.

Ike: Kyle? I made your favorite. Comet Tangerine Cream.
Kyle: Not hungry.
Kyle: Ike?
Ike: Yeah, son?
Kyle: I wasn’t going to run away. But I was thinking about it.

P5/P4
Ike sits down next to Kyle.

Ike: Kyle, I know having to grow up here is hard, but…
Kyle: I don’t want to get beat up again! I don’t want some…Pro-Nature or Anti-Nurture nut eject me from an airlock!
Kyle: There’s peace on Earth now. Why can’t we go there?

P6/P1
Kyle looks up in desperation at his silent dad. In contemplation of his son’s question, Ike rests his chin against his fold hands, his elbows on his knees.

NO COPY

P6/P2
Same Shot – Except Kyle looks quizzically at his locket upon hearing Ike’s request.

Ike: Kyle, may I see your locket?
Kyle: Why?
Ike: ‘Cause it’s time you see something, son.

P6/P3
CU – The locket is now open in the palm of Ike’s hand. The photograph depicts a baby Kyle with his radiantly beautiful mother. She looks really happy holding her smiley face son.

Ike: As you know, this locket holds the only picture of your mom. I told you I found you in an airlock.
Ike: I lied.

P6/P4
Ike’s fingertips remove the picture to reveal micro-circuitry underneath.

Ike: Your mom was an inventor, Kyle. A very bad man wants what is hidden inside this locket. I don’t know what it is. I’m too afraid to find out. But I was told to keep it with you.

P6/P5
Kyle’s eyes widen in shock as he listens to what Ike (OP) says next.

Ike: And to keep you up here.

P7/P1
Kyle now paces, running his hands through his abundant hair. He looks as though he might vomit. Ike keeps his composure, due to regret and shame than anything else.

Ike: Her name was Lorna. And she was my best friend. She wouldn’t leave Earth without your dad. As the nukes were falling, she went back into the Antarctic wilderness for him.
Ike: She never came back.


P7/P2
Kyle now stands over a regretful Ike, snatching the locket back. He grills Ike for the lifetime of lies.

Kyle: You said you found me in airlock! That my real parents must have not wanted me! Every day, I get beat up because of that story!
Ike: I didn’t know that family would become so…politicized up here.

P7/P3
Kyle’s eyes are closed as tears stroll down his cheeks. Ike is OP.

Kyle: I hate you. Tell me. Tell me the truth! Who was my dad?

P7/P4
Ike looks up but can’t muster the will to look Kyle in the eye.

Ike: However you decide to act on this, just don’t hate me forever.
Kyle: Now, Ike! Tell me, now!

P8/P1
Ike now stands face-to-face with Kyle. He puts his hands softly on the boy’s shoulders and musters up the courage to look him in the eye.

Ike: Your father was the Blue Man. He perished trying to save South Pole City. He killed Cato Singh and saved you, your mother, and two million other people.

P8/P2
Kyle tears away from Ike, stomping his way toward the door. Ike clenches his fists and tenses his face in frustration.

Kyle: Oh, !@#$ you, Ike! Just !@#$ you!

P8/P3
Kyle is nearly out the door when he is startled by Ike reaching beyond him to slam it shut.

Ike: @#$% me? @#$% ME?!

P8/P4
Ike grabs Kyle by his shoulders, this time harder. Ike is blowing his top here. Kyle is scared a little. He has never seen his dad like this before.

Ike: I absolutely hated your dad! I hated everything about him! I hated the trouble he brought with him! And most of all…

P9/P1
Ike staggers back away from Kyle. He realizes just frightened the boy is of him right now. Kyle just sobs from fear and hurt feelings.

Ike: …I hated the hold he had over your mother.

P9/P2
CU – Ike covers his eyes in shame.

Ike: Kyle? I lost everything because of your father’s “good deeds!” My career! My boyfriend! Your mom! And then, I…I…
Ike: …I had to raise you! And, god damn it, you’re just like him! Going wherever you want and leaving everyone behind to pick up the pieces!

P9/P3
Same Shot – Except Ike has uncovered his eyes to reveal a surprised expression.

Ike: Kyle?

P9/P4
Pull Back. Ike stands all alone in his son’s room. He hangs his head low with sorrow forever carved into his aging handsomeness.

Ike (whisper): God damn you, Lorna. Just god damn you.

P10/P1
Lunatica Space Port - Kyle stands with his back to us. He is looking up at the Transit Shuttle in the middle of the Space Port. Kyle is dressed for a long journey with a lot of pockets and a backpack.

Kyle Narration: Well, my one wish has come true. I am someone else. But I don’t know who that someone is.

P10/P2
FB – Kyle sells the locket to an excited street vendor.

Kyle Narration: Gold is rare up here. So, I got enough to travel and survive for a while.

P10/P3
The thrilled street vendor peers into the open locked. Both the micro-circuitry and photograph are now gone.

Kyle Narration: I was careful to keep the pic and that little gadget, too.

P10/P4
Transit Shuttle glides away from the moon.

Kyle Narration: I feel free. So free, knowing Lunatica is behind me.

P10/P5
Kyle stares out the window. He is smiling and excited.

Kyle Narration: And so excited. Earth is full of war orphans, just like me.

P11/P1
Shuttle arcs over the Antarctic coast. This is the temperate peninsula near South America. Climate change and terra-forming has transformed this place. Part of it remains the Antarctica we know. But only a part of it.

Kyle Narration: Maybe I’ll make some friends there.
Kyle Narration: Oh, @#$%

P11/P2
Est. Shot. - South Pole City. Day. The city is situated on a coast along a mountain range. The blue ocean water sparkles from the sunlight. Spears of sunlight are reflected from the snow painted mountains right at the oncoming shuttle.

Kyle Narration: I’ve never been anywhere before!
Kyle Narration: Now what?

P11/P3
Kyle stands in the middle of bustling commuters coming and going. He stares up at an awe-inspiring sight OP. Kyle is wearing wireless headphones.

Kyle’s Headphones: Welcome to South Pole City, Antarctica’s capitol! South Pole City was founded in 2178 as a proprietary dictatorship by Cato Singh.

P11/P4
CU – Kyle is looking up at something awe-inspiring OP.

Headphones: During the Earth Wars, South Pole City owes its independence thanks to its only resident superhero…

P12/P1 – Splash
Low Angle Shot – Kyle is looking up at huge framed photograph of Blue Man fighting Singh high above South Pole City. Blue Man is held aloft by a cyclone and has water shaped into bladed weapons around his fists. Singh crouches on a levitating rock and projects fire emanating from around his fists.

Headphones (cont.): …The Blue Man, Champion of the Southern Skies! This photograph was snapped by a journalist embedded with the World Army 9th Airborne…

P13/P1
CU – Kyle looks over his shoulder at something OP that has startled him.

Zero (OP): Part the way ev’rybody! Desperate man truckin’ through!

P13/P2
Zero is running right for Kyle. Zero looks like he is crazy and out-of-control. He is an albino with some Ichthyoidal features. A startled Kyle is frozen in the oncoming Zero’s path.

Zero: If you don’t move, I’ll have no choice!

Caption: Next! Kyle Bloom vs. Zero!

[Shaun]

I like the settings of this world(s) and I think you've set up some pretty interesting character developments to come. The first thing that jumped out at me was a lack of detailed description on 1/3 & 2/1. I guess you can get away with brief descriptions when it is a generic location like a present day coffee shop, but when you're describing something that doesn't exist and could look wildly different based on personal opinion, it warrants a little detail. What does this colony base look like? Is it shiny and hi-tech or a more lived in approach. All the bullies dress alike but what are they wearing?
I would also pay attention to grammar and make sure you always proof read. I caught a couple "their" instead of "there" and "your" instead of "you're" instances. As well as confusing misspellings, like 6/5 with Ike "hanging at waits". Also just as a nit picky thing, use ellipses (...) to indicate a pause, use a dash (--) to indicate speech or thought being interrupted.
As for the story you seem in a real hurry to set up all the background and get into the story, which is understandable, and you certainly do have a lot of story to set up. The problem is a lot of this feels very forced and unrealistic. Would a 13 year old abandon the only father and home he has ever known so quickly? If it is in his personality to do that, to be so risky and impulsive, would he be the one getting bullied or would he be the bully? And when he realized he made a mistake would he really say to himself "It's hit me" (sic)?
I think you would be better served starting your story later, perhaps with Kyle already boarding the ship to Earth and set up his reason for leaving home in caption. Or maybe with him arriving on Earth and piecing it together. Whichever, the spirit of my note is, slow down, do a service to your characters and story by not rushing the story telling so much.

Hope some of this helps and welcome to PJ!

[ceej82178]

Thanks. I teach a class on comics at my job. The kids-who are second, third, and fourth graders-came up with the story beats. I accidentally loaded up the version that one of them proofread. Of course, they made mistakes. The purpose was for them to craft a story they understood. Regular comics are over their heads. As for the kid friendly books, those are too simplistic for them. They love the story so far. Other kids who are not part of the club want more. No excuses here. Just telling you the technical and audience reasons why there are grammatical errors and lack of detail. They are now drawing the layouts and a lack of detail allows them to use their imaginations. Otherwise, they get upset they can't draw Star Trek or Caprica-like buildings.

[Shaun]

Gotcha. Actually pretty advanced story telling for 2nd-4th graders, smart kids. And good program for them. The comic writers of the future!

[ceej82178]

Thank you. I love those guys. I went back to the script playing off your advice. I explained your advice to one of my kids, a little girl who writes a lot. She said do something on the train to explain Kyle's motivation and why he was at the space port in the first place. Another little guy said put some cursing in there. So, I did.