updated treatment

The main changes made here are as follows:

-The man has been collecting plastics and cans for recycling, and is bringing them up the hill to be recycled for change at a plant.

The majority of all other revisions adapt the story to that change.

While pushing his cart through a parking lot, a homeless man is listening to an fm radio that has a sticker for WHXR on it. We see that he is walking towards a huge hill lined by tall buildings, on the top of which is a recycling center. His shopping cart is full of empty cans in large translucent trash bags. Strange frequencies pervade the air. After the current muzak on the radio finishes, William Hung’s version of Rocketman comes on. As he is about to change the station, a few familiar sounds catch his attention. A car’s lights start to blink, the car doors unlock, and the engine turns on. The homeless man keeps walking,
and we pull back to see that all of the cars within a thirty-foot radius of the man and his radio are lit up and ready to go. The perimeter of red and yellow flashing lights moves with him as the epicenter. The homeless man continues walking, noticing this strange occurrence, all the while still listening to William Hung’s Rocketman. With his eyes on the cars, he switches the station, back to the muzak we heard before. The cars immediately turn off. Back to Rocketman, and the cars surrounding him all turn back on. He continues to walk, but now with just his sacs of cans over his back and the radio in one of his pockets. Having found a suitable car, he loads it up and starts driving towards the hill and up it. He nears the recycling plant, but as soon as he reaches the top, the song ends and a new one comes on. Similar muzak to what was on before. As soon as this happens the car goes dead. He drifts to the side of the road. With a telephone booth in sight, he leaves the car and radio behind. He searches the phonebook for the radio station, and we see an advertisement for WHXR. He dials the phone number to make a request, and goes through the automated menu. After several steps, he gets put on hold. The hold music is William Hung’s Rocket Man. With wide eyes he runs back to the car, and grabs two cans, some string. He leaves one can in the car, and another he carries back to the phone booth. He holds the other end of the makeshift “telephone extender” up to the
phone. We follow the vibrations along the string back to the other can, which is now on the ground. The car has 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, with the one can playing Rocketman held above his head. 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 string attached to the phone finally runs its course, and yanks the homeless man back, just as he is about to catch up. The engine cuts once again, right after he got within range, 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. A pause, and then 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. He puts the one can he has left in his hand back into the cart. The radio is now playing William Hung’s “She Bangs.” He switches the station.
Cut to Black.