John Domini - Movieola!

Silver Lake: All day long you’ve got to listen. People walk in and say, We open on a country road, tumbling down the well of the headlights… .They say, We open in the city, smoke, drizzle, fire escapes, the figures amoebic…

Venice: Not that we don’t know how to open. Our first sequence, boom. Everyone thinks they know zombies, the zombie apocalypse. But what we’ve got, the way we open, I mean, not in their wildest dreams.

Silver Lake: Except, in dreams, that’s where it begins, doesn’t it—or shouldn’t it, in dreams in all their incompatibility?

Venice: Like, a zombie wedding. Boom. A zombie wedding, that’s how we open. Beauty. We trash everyone’s expectations.

Silver Lake: The expectations, the clichés, trash them all. How many times do we have to come face to face with a tottering corpse who was formerly our father? Our wife or boyfriend or favorite child? With a knife in its ear? Plus there are always the empty long shots. How many times, a long pan of some empty public space, no one in it except a couple of shambling undead.

Venice: It’s over, it’s so over . I mean, zombies have gone to cable!

Silver Lake: Commercial cable, mark of the plague, might as well carve the credits into a tombstone.

Venice: But we’re off the wall and never before seen. We open on a wedding, one look and anyone can tell. The invitations. The gifts.

Silver Lake: The flowers, the right sort of flowers, and it’s children who hold the flowers. Children in full dress-up, so many little brides and grooms—can’t we pitch that towards the strange? Can’t the kids induce a chill?

Venice: It’s going to get strange, as the camera keeps moving.

Silver Lake: The camera keeps tracking, and what are we seeing, all these disgusting corpselike details?

Venice: An open neck wound above the tuxedo collar. And there, in the knot of the tie, okay the four-in-hand can be tricky, but that’s a finger …

Silver Lake: And how long does it take for a pattern to emerge? We’re thinking, one long tracking shot and everyone gets the picture—it’s the groom’s people. It’s the groom’s lineup. How can you not notice, over on his side of the altar, his side of the stairs? One guy’s standing on two stairs at once. One leg, what, how’s this possible? Is he missing everything below the knee?

Venice: Now the girl, her side of the altar, her people, these are fresh-faced American kids. I mean, it’s got to be the girl who isn’t a zombie.

Silver Lake: How’s this possible?

Venice: It’s got to be, the girl saves the guy.

Silver Lake: The girl saves the guy. Isn’t that the boat that floats? Isn’t that Old Ironsides herself, sailing smack through the middle of our dream?

Venice: See, our concept’s such a risk, big big risk, and the opening sequence goes right to the verge, the consummation, you may kiss the bride …. You’d think you’d walked into an art film.

Silver Lake: But the romantic dynamic? The character arc? That’ll float.

Venice: Always. The girl saves the guy. Always.

Silver Lake: Think of Endymion, one kiss from Goddess of the Moon, and he’s youthful and beautiful forever. Isn’t that what we’ve got here? Isn’t that what our girl can do for her zombie?

Venice: For zombies everywhere .

Silver Lake: She’s the center of our dynamic, the one who saves the guy and saves the world and does the explaining—at least until our big Reveal. You realize she’s got to be some kind of scientist? A rare interdisciplinary specialist?

Venice: She’s got chemistry, she’s got botany, and, this is important, she’s the only person in the world with a doctorate in the undead.

Silver Lake: With a woman like that, don’t you see, it’s best if we go darker? Latino, mixed race, always tossing her hair? It’s best to add that layer.

Venice: Dead or alive, her and her guy come from different tribes. And then, You may kiss the bride! It’s almost an art film. It’s Juliet, wherefore art…?

Silver Lake: Because isn’t she the fresh-faced Creole kid, or something, the one who saves the world? The one with, so to speak, a head on her shoulders? Hehhehhehhehhehheh.

Venice: Ha-ha, ha-ha. We know what it’s like for you, listening all day to this stuff. But listen to this. Next sequence, we take a big big bounce.

Silver Lake: When you open on a wedding, ask yourself, where’s the last place you’d expect to go next? How about the apocalypse ? We flash back.

Venice: Flashback to the apocalypse! Zombies on the march!

Silver Lake: What’s the last thing you’d expect, just, just as he’s about to kiss the bride?

Venice: As for just how far we flash back, hm. Maybe a couple of years. We think a couple of years, but that’s your call. That’s you and the test audience.

Silver Lake: Any audience, they’ll never have seen anything like it, one moment he’s about to kiss the bride, and the next, what is this, the essence of Meet Angry? The very avatar of Meet Angry? We flash back, and he’s trying to eat her alive, she’s trying to chop his head off.

Venice: Certainly no more than a couple of years back. Come the wedding, she’s still got to be young and cute.

Silver Lake: She’s going for his head, maybe she’s got a hatchet, how’s that for Angry?

Venice: The visual, it’s eye-popping, ha-ha, ha-ha.

Silver Lake: Hehhehhehhehhehheh. But while these two are trying to kill each other, that’s a major challenge for the exposition, isn’t it? The backstory? Just imagine what our girl might have in her hand. Is it a hatchet, a pair of clippers, a letter opener? Whatever weapon she’s brandishing, plus the way she using it, these have tell us something.

Venice: Thing is, we’re in her greenhouse lab. Flashback to workspace, with ferns and Petri dishes. Degrees on the wall, chemistry and botany both. Plus this very weird doctorate in the undead. That’s important, and also we need an old photo or two. Sepia tones, a hut, a kettle, Grandma or Great-Grandma.

Silver Lake: Aren’t they both dark, the girl, the grandma? See how we cast the shadow of the exotic, even when we’ve got a scientist in her lab, working through lunch? Oh, and that’s important, she’s working through lunch.

Venice: It’s all important. It’s nothing you’d expect. Our girl’s exotic and educated. Nothing like you saw the last time you sat through zombie love.

Silver Lake: We know what it’s like for you, always remembering the last movie like the latest movie, putting the one up against the other.

Venice: But ours is nothing like the other. We sat through that last movie with zombie love too. Nice enough. Nice, but I already saw American Graffiti .

Silver Lake: We know what you need—there’s no dream unless it’s a new dream, and zombie love was last year. But when have you ever seen a lover like our Delta Lady? Exotic and educated and dedicated?

Venice: Working through lunch on her trial prescription.

Silver Lake: Working on a vaccine to save the world. It could be extract of Lil’ John the Conqueroo. It could be out of Grandma’s kettle.

Venice: Turbo-nutrients of Mojo Hand, could be, and then, once the zombie breaks in…. Oh, and don’t forget just which zombie. Don’t forget he’s the future groom. We’ll have an establishing shot.