americanunderdad-blog

[americanunderdad-blog]

DJ and Max Introduction

CUT EXT - PARKING LOT

Jason walks toward a green minivan. He taps a button on his keychain and a door slides out from the side. He throws his briefcase and jacket inside, still nervously looking around. He taps the key again as the door closes. He opens up the driver side door and gets inside.

CUT INT - JASON’S MINIVAN

Jason turns his car on, it starts with a slow rolling thud before sputtering to life. The radio comes on “Welcome back to the drive at five, I’m your host Joan, we’re listening to the hits of the 90s so sit back and relax” Jason adjusts his mirror which was turned at at an odd angle. He buckles in and drives off, finally breathing a sigh of relief.

CUT EXT - HIGHWAY ABOVE JASON’S VAN, PANNING DOWN TO LEVEL WITH JASON

Jason’s hit gridlock traffic. His windows are down, the car is in park on the highway, he’s sweating profusely in the hot sun. He’s in good spirits though, quietly thumping his hand on the window singing along to music on the radio. He gets a call come through the car radio “Call from David” Jason taps a button on the radio. “Daveyyy Jones what’s going on my man!” “Hey hey hey JJ what’s good? Just getting out of work man. I was looking for you at the lot but couldn’t find ya” “Ahh yea Gubbie gubbster was trying to get me to stick around after the clock struck midnight so I got OUTTA there” “Atta boy! We still on for carpooling tomorrow morning?” “Ah yes sir we are. I’ll be up and early ready for your big ass tomorrow at 5” “Alright good. I’m gonna hit the gym early so we can just get on the road. I’ll let you know when I’m at your place. Say hi to Jennie for me tonight.” “Sounds good, will do. Say hi to Sam for me with a big smooch DJ.” “Can do. See ya when I see ya” “See ya when I see ya!” Jason hangs the phone up. An advertisement is on the radio, “The best way to watch the Olympics is with clearandtrue cable. Where your quality is our name” Jason says along with the commercial, laughing to himself as he does. He passes by construction workers on the highway, giving them an overly excited wave. A gruff looking construction worker flips Jason off. Jason is put off for a moment, looks confused, shrugs, and goes back to singing along to the music.

CUT EXT - ABOVE JASON’S CAR, CLEAR HIGHWAY VAN DRIVING AWAY

We can still hear Jason singing along to Willie Nelson’s on the road again, as he hums along to words he doesn’t quite know.

CUT EXT - SMALL RANCH HOUSE

Jason’s van pulls up. He excitedly gets out, half dancing as he does. He closes the door and begins to walk in to the house, stumbling a little bit. We hear from a distance “Hey Neighbor!”

CUT EXT - ANOTHER SMALL RANCH HOUSE

A man stands outside a house watering his lawn with a hose. “Excited for your vacation?” He’s late thirties or early forties. Wearing a golf shirt and shorts that don’t quite match with funny socks on and loafers. He has a thick upper lip mustache.

CUT - Close up of Jason, at his doorway now

Jason is visibly disgruntled before turning around “Sure am!” He turns back to the door

CUT - The other ranch house

“Wow I sure would have liked to go on a vacation. Aruba right?”

CUT back to Jason

Sighs and turns around, “YUP” Turns around again

CUT back to the other man

Golly. Well, I just might end up buying myself a ticket to go with you guys.

CUT Back to Jason

Jason shouts back, “You can do whatever you want Max.” He turns and whispers quietly, “Just not that.” We hear in the distance from Max “WHAT?” Jason “Nothing, nothing, we’d be happy to have you” Jason says with finality before opening up his door

CUT INT JASON’S HOUSE

Jason’s in the doorway, walking inside before he firmly shuts the door.

[americanunderdad-blog]

Setting the stage - the office escape

American Underdads

The Americans had the last stone, needing one final push in order to move on to the qualifying round. One member of the americans lines up his shot, teeing off down the lane, releasing with an anticipatory look on his face, his tongue out of his mouth in concentration. The camera stays focused on the man’s face, his eyes widening, he begins shouting, no sound is heard though. He seems angry, then a look of hopeful disbelief, crescendoing in a crestfallen expression of devastation. The screen fades to black on the man’s face.

TEXT: Almost four years later

We see a man sitting in a too small cubicle. It’s adorned as most cubicles would be, a calendar hangs on the wall with a week highlighted as VACA. There are black Xs on all the other days. He’s clean shaven and wearing a tie, his shirt has a small coffee stain that’s been worked on with some kind of stain pen.

Suddenly we hear, “Fink” being shouted from a distance. He turns around, sighs, seems to summon up the courage to stand, falters a moment, sits back down at his desk, looks around quickly. A mousy looking woman peers over the cube wall “Jason, Mr. Gubbler wants to see you,” “Well tell Mr. Gubbler that I’m not home”. She ups her nose at him and disappears. “FINK” we hear, even louder now. Jason looks around, pushes his chair out a bit, and squirms underneath his desk. “FINK!”, we see the chair being pulled back in, a small squeak comes from a wheel as it is rolled into place. The camera leaves the cubes, begins to move down Fink’s row.

Text begins to flash across the screen. “Based on what everyone thinks could be a true story”

Camera stops

An angry looking man rounds a corner of the cubicles, “FINK!” 

Camera backtracks focused on the man

 The man is short, but menacing. He starts walking down the aisles,  keeping the focus on the man. He peers into cube after cube, “Fink?” “No sir.”

“Have you seen Fink” “No Sir” “Have you seen Fink” “No Sir” “Have you seen Fink” “No Sir”

We see the man approaching Jason’s Cube, he stops at the mousy haired woman’s desk “Have you seen Fink” pause “No Sir, I believe that he is not home” We see the man stop outside Fink’s cube. The man reads the name tag “Jason Fink”

The camera moves around to the back of the man, he’s looking down in the cube, there’s a bit of jacket hanging out from under the desk.

Close up of Jason under the cubicle, he has one hand over his mouth, sweat beading down his head, an old flip phone is in the other. We see a line of the same text, SOS SHARK APPROACHING BASEMENT being sent to someone named Molly. He gently shuts the phone.

The camera goes back behind the man who approaches the desk, back to Jason, back to them man still getting closer, heartbeat sound in the background becoming more and more prominent, back to Jason. Jason appears to be getting ready to get out of the desk.

A women’s voice now “Frank!”

Camera rushes out of cube - focuses on blonde woman at end of aisle “Frank, what’s going on?” She asks as she starts walking down, her heels clicking with every step 

Camera turns back to Frank

“Oh well uh I need Fink to do some extra work for me” “What work was that?” “Well uh some very important work for the Currier case” “Ok, and why does Jason need to do it” “Well uh, he’s a good worker and I know he’ll do it right” “I thought you said the Currier Case was wrapped up” “Well uh yes, yes I did, I want him to review case files before the settlement” “But isn’t the settlement signed already?” “Well yes, but I want it to be reviewed again. You know, I don’t need to explain myself to you Molly don’t look at me like that. Stop questioning my methods. I need to go find Fink. I’ll go check the bathroom. FINK” The man yells and storms off.

Cut back to Jason, we see the chair being pulled out, hear that squeak again. He breathes a sigh of relief. Molly crouches down, “JJ you can’t keep doing this. One of these days he’s going to catch you.” Jason climbs out from under the desk, looking quite ruffled after doing so. He whispers back “I know but he’s just trying to make me miss my vacation for another one of his bullshit power trips .” “Everyone knows that, it’s part of the job” “Yea well this job sucks” “Then quit”. The mousy women is peering over the cube again. A smug grin across her face. “Just quit and you can have as much vacation as you want.” “Thanks Janice” “My name is Janet” “Sure, go hang out with your 12 cats.” She ups her nose again and disappears. We hear quietly “It’s 13 thank you”.

Molly grabs JJ’s shoulders. He stands about a foot taller than her, but she seems to be the tall one here. She just stares at him a moment, searching. He looks back, defiant. “Oh JJ.” She lets go, crestfallen. “Get your stuff, you gotta get out of here before the shark comes back” “Right.” Jason grabs a briefcase next to his desk. “I really owe you for this one Molly” he pecks her on the cheek, crouches low so his head is below the cubicle walls, and begins to walk out. Molly is left behind, shaking her head as she leaves. The camera then follows JJ as he crouch walks down the line of cubes. Cat-lady’s cube is seen briefly, she quickly closes a picture of a cat when she hears someone walking by. Sees that it’s JJ, scoffs, and reopens the cat pictures, making baby cat noises.

Jason taps the down arrow for the elevator, walks in. The camera focuses on him as the doors close, then swaps around, to see Gubbler standing at the end of the aisles, still yelling for Fink. Jason shuffles so he can’t be seen.