opening sequence script

INT. BEDROOM. NIGHT

Cornelius is asleep but is breathing heavily, is uneasy and is sweating

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

This is breaking news just in, on the attacks of the World Trade Centre in New York.

 (Pause)

 Cornelius wakes up abruptly and stares in a trance

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Is in a state of an emergency, it seems to be that a commercial air line has crashed into one of the twin towers.

Cornelius gets up and is fiddling with papers, trying to find a plain paper

 NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

The buildings in the south end of Manhattan seem to have been shrouded in smoke and debris which many hundreds of people

Cornelius, finds a piece of paper and sits down with a pencil, still in a trance

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Are trying to escape. Here is clearer footage of the towers, and it seems-

Cornelius is starting to draw two vertical rectangular shapes and looks up at his post-it notes and takes them in his hand to study

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

That the south tower is untouched, but the north tower however-

Cornelius takes another post-it note from the wall and reads it. The post-it will have one of the credits on it

 NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Has suffered a devastating collision

Cornelius’ vision is blurred and faints, he bangs his head on the table; Cut-back to a shot of Cornelius in a corner of an asylum wearing a straitjacket, he then wakes up and picks up the drawing.

/ NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

CNN is still working on retrieving more information as we are contacting our sources to

Cornelius has drawn his second building, without smoke. He is staring motionlessly at the piece of paper.

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Keep you updated on this matter, and we have…

(Pause)

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Oh my God, we- a- as you can see another collision has-

Then slowly, as the camera pans, we see the aeroplane drawn onto the paper next to the south tower.

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

Just happened, and it is the south tower this time, although just seconds ago we reported that it was fine, is now in flames.

(Pause)

NEWS REPORTER (V.O.)

It is 9:05am on September 11^th 2001, and the twin towers have just been…

(Cornelius looks at his calendar which says “June 6^th 2001” and then looks at his watch and writes down “3:17am, 06/6/2001”at the bottom of the page)

This was the second draft of the script that we used when recording. We chose this because unlike the first one, it wasn't saturated with facts and figures that would bore and confuse the audience. Instead it concentrated on directly getting the story across in simpler terms, and allowing the audience to make the connection between the narration and the visuals on screen. The intention was to have the scenes be parallel to what was being spoken about.For example, when the second tower is mentioned we wanted to have the shot of Cornelius drawing the second tower present on screen at the same time. However, whilst editing we had to ensure that the shots ran smoothly, so this had to be changed and reduced the effect that we were intending to achieve.