Overview: the clash of the private and professional lives of a New York City casting director.

Summary/Synopsis:

A New York City casting call is field of play for pranksters in the advertising business who would like to see hard working fast talking casting director Twyla Morgan find happiness as she struggles to find just the right people for a commercial shoot in Jamaica for a laxative marketed as antacid.

Short film by T. D. White shooting Spring 2015.

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Budget: $10,000

Shares/Units: $ 500

Opening Scenes:

EXT. MANHATTAN - DAY

Montage of NOISES and street traffic as Monday morning gets into gear.

RADIO V.O.

.. No surprise here. Serena Williams has done it again.  “ ... there’s life in the old girl yet,” says she.

INT. ON A BUS - DAY

A thin woman, early 30’s, is strap hanging, swaying in the breeze.

TWYLA MORGAN V.O.

Great, just great.  Workin’ on my birthday .. Boo hoo ...

She starts to SING out loud but lightly, a doo wop kind of melody ...

TWYLA MORGAN

Workin’ on my birthday ... boo hoo, workin’, workin’ on my birthday ... boo hoo, workin’, workin’ on my birthday ... 

THREE SHOT ON BUS 

A seated YOUNG college age WOMAN moves to the rhythm of TWYLA’s song; a tight-assed strap-hanging suit tries to balance a folded over newspaper and briefcase.  He rolls his eyes.  A seated OLD WOMAN chuckles and tries to snap her fingers ...the bus stops.  LOUD WHIRRING sound.  TWYLA looks at her watch.

ON TWYLA

TWYLA MORGAN

(frustrated)

Doggy doo.  Doggy doo doo doo.

INT. K-MART - DAY

TWO SHOT. TWYLA, rushed, is at checkout counter, looking at watch.  The checkout counter is stationed by a very ODD-LOOKING CHARACTER.  TWYLA gives him or her a business card.  

TWYLA MORGAN

Although this technique has never actually yielded very good results, could you send me a pitcha ...?

ODD-LOOKING CHARACTER

(disinterested as any disinterested New Yorker can be)

Yea sure.

INT. THE HALLWAY OF RIPLEY-GRIER STUDIOS - DAY

Outside, say, 16B, some audition hopefuls sit waiting or filling out forms.  One or two stand and pace, mutterings, stretching, actor stuff ... one is a thirty-plus good looking large man in a wheelchair (QUINAN MALIK). Another is a tall, geeky, gawky, well-dressed white-haired man in his late fifties, early sixties (LLOYD BERKELEY).  A scrawny young guy (BILLY BOND) sits behind a very small table with stack of piled up headshots holding a cel phone to his ear.  A short heavy woman (MYRTLE AVENUE) ENTERS FRAME, hands BILLY BOND a headshot and sits.  Out the door flies a small young black man who will pick a backpack up off the floor and walk OUT OF FRAME.

BILLY BOND

(punches numbers into phone)

He just left.

PHONE V.O. (BRAD)

Any second now I .... should ... be  ... getting ...(faint RING sound)  ah, there it is!  So far so good, Billy boy. Bye!

INT. STUDIO B - DAY

A mirrored 16 x 28 foot room with upright piano, a couple of church basement-like tables and six or seven aluminum chairs.  One of the tables, and the piano by the way, is littered with all sorts of papers and headshots and resumes, schedules, etc., And the modern electronic necessities ... a lap top or three, an IPAD or two, three or four different style “smart” phones ... pencils, pads  ... a thin cable along the floor  connects a sound recording audio pak to a mic stand.   

The other table supports four highly decorated cakes of different sizes and shapes and styles.  And there are four, five mock-ups of a product labeled “MYLOSOVICK.”  

TWYLA MORGAN paces about the room with cel phone.

TWYLA  

Pick it up, pick it up you moron ...

PHONE V.O.

(disgustingly chipper)

Good morning!

TWYLA

(not so chipper)

Brad !! ... What in hell have you been sending me?

BRAD V.O.

Good morning.

TWYLA

You keep saying that.  It isn’t.

BRAD V.O.

Problem? You said you wanted attractive black men  ...

TWYLA

I know I didn’t specify six feet or more, Brad, but this guy could walk under a turnstile.   He’s not going to inspire ... female ... fantasy

BRAD V.O.

(belaboring the point)

Good lookin’ kid.  Starred in that off-Broadway run of PIPPIN.

TWYLA

“Pippin, PippIN?” PipSQUEAK,” you mean.  He was kinda cute, actually, and to answer your next comment, no shot’s going to be able to hide the obvious fact that he’s puny.  God, Brad, do I really have to spell it out for you ...

INSERT - any extant Club Med commercial clip with limbo dancers in the sand

TWYLA MORGAN V.O.

... again, it’s a market target spot for the not so new new professional woman who needs to GET AWAY ... to get some, uh ...  a CLUB MED kinda thing, Brad ...we need to associate the product with FUN for today’s stressed out

drinking woman.