TREATMENT

Still developing this idea so any feedback would be GREAT. The name of the blog says it all.


While pushing his cart through a parking lot, a homeless man is listening to an fm radio. Strange frequencies pervade the air. After the song finishes playing, William Hung’s version of Rocketman comes on. As he is about to change the station, a beeping sound catches his attention. A car’s lights start to blink, the car doors unlock, and the engine turns on. The homeless man keeps walking, and the car’s lights and engine go off and it locks itself. The homeless man continues walking all the while still listening to William Hung’s Rocketman, and as soon as he approaches another car, its lights begin flashing just like the last one, its engine revs, and the doors unlock. The homeless man keeps walking, but curious, backs up once just out of the range of the car, and as soon as he nears that same car, it starts back up again. He does this a couple more times to make sure that this really is being caused by the radio, and when he makes that connection, he decides to steal the car. Once inside, having left behind everything in his cart except the radio that he now clasps as it continues to play that same song, he pulls out of the parking lot and into the road. About a half mile down the road the song ends and a new one comes on. Immediately the car goes dead. Panicked, he comes to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road. With a telephone booth in site, he leaves the car and radio behind, horns honking and cars swerving all the while. He searches the phonebook for the radio station to make a request, finds it, but gets put on hold. The hold music is William Hung’s Rocket Man. He hurriedly pulls the phone out of the booth, running towards the car, but it has already started to roll backwards down the hill that he just came up. In a climactic chase, choreographed to the tune of Rocket Man, the homeless man runs down the hill after it. Cars light up all along the way. Cut to a woman coming out of a storefront with a load of shopping bags. Inter-cut between that woman and the out of control car that’s clearly hers. The cord attached to the phone yanks the homeless man back, just as he is about to catch up. The engine cuts and all goes silent. Launching itself off of a ramp, like trailer, the car gracefully floats through the air, over the women with her groceries, and straight into the storefront of Acme Fireworks. The store explodes with colored fireworks swirling out of it in every direction. The homeless man sees this, and then makes eye contact with the shopper. Slowly he takes his shopping cart that was left where it originally was, picks up the radio off of the ground, and walks away quietly, all while maintaining that eye contact. The radio continues to play William Hung’s Rocket Man. He switches the station. Cut to Black.