The Night Roarer

by David O'Brien

Short Film
Email: [email protected]

The petrol is about to run dry, Reg has been raving at the world through his blog. Now he wants the world to rage back. He's organising one last rev.

This film was written for 48 hour EcoFilm Competition and won the specially made Woulda Coulda Shoulda trophy. The film was disqualified because it got the required line of dialogue wrong. It was made from concept to delivery in 48 hours. It can be found under the title SHORT FILM ABOUT WHEN GAS RUNS OUT on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILYODxFv5Sg&feature=relmfu

 

 

 

 

THE NIGHT ROARER
OR
REG'S LAST RAVE

Produced, Written and Directed by

DAVID O'BRIEN

 

Recut and with new sceneas from seven minute version.
Winner of ‘Woulda Coulda Should’ trophy of 48 EcoFilm Challenge 2012; awarded because the required line of dialogue was wrong.

NOTE: THE NIGHT ROARER
was madefrom concept to delivery in 48 hours.
It can be found under the title
SHORTFILM ABOUT WHEN GAS RUNS OUT
on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILYODxFv5Sg&feature=relmfu

 

 

 

 

CONTACT: 0488 956922
[email protected]

EXT. A SUBURBAN STREET. - NIGHT
In an exclusive suburb, a discarded pushbike has been tossed into the grass verge.

Speakers lashed to the bike have been discarded.
A police car flashes blue as the well-known current affairs reporter MAX THURSTON SINCLAIR tells the story:

MAX:
Shortly before midnight, a cyclist dressed in black was rammed from his bike by an unknown assailant. Peter John Gantry, outspoken and eccentric urban activist, died before he he could reach hospital. A man I came to know and even respect was hunted. He often invaded the streets of the rich and powerful blasting them with sounds that are now but a memory.

INT. REG’S HEADQUARTERS
Speakers large and small abound as Reg tunes and adjusts the cacophony that issue from them: the sound of many motor vehicles revving and roaring at once.

REG in headband addresses camera.
REG:
Y’hear the sound of the motors all around. Y’hear the cars coming out of the speakers.
I’m the one that’s been keeping you all awake.

EXT. SUBURBAN STREETS - MORNING
It’s another day in suburbia, recently abandoned cars line the gutters, none of them going anywhere; petrol is now just a memory but the sound of the internal combusion engine roars across the otherwise still morning.

INT. REG’S HOME - THE BLOG
Reg delivers his blog to the world.
REG:
All I ever wanted was to head out on the highway looking for adventure and whatever came my way. But I couldn’t do that.
I was married, with kids.
(MORE)

REG: (CONT'D)
But you got to make a stand for something and my time to do that had arrived.
It’s time for us to shout at the moon and the sun.
We'll be united! We'll fume and roar.

EXT. SUBURBIA - DAY
Images of suburbia with cars going nowhere.
REG:
Deep in Sydney’s haunted urban landscape, a society in denial simply parked its cars and shrugged its shoulders.
With power rationing, hybrids and electric cars shared the kerbside; the home office returned to pen and paper. All available power was reserved for essential use like following Reg’s blog and watching this programme. We were keen to know more about Reg and what. . drove him. At our last meeting, he even admitted to praying for guidance

Ext church:

REG: (V.O.)
Haven't prayed since Father John gave me ten Hail Mary's from behind the velvet curtain.
But that’s another story.
REG lovingly admires his hot rod
REG: REG
Joylene understands me well enough. We’ve got our share of stress and debt, never could afford the beast and that was long before we couldn’t feed it.
But who’d buy a thing that drank fuel like that? I was like an Arab in the Sahara with a pet elephant.

Joylene and Reg reminisce. She tells him to get rid of the car and buy her a steak. They talk of funerals.

The reporter takes up their story.

 

MAL:
The few times my crew and I visited their hideout, tension between Reg and Joylene was palpable.
Reg would risk everything to rev the Beast. It was as if he wanted to be found.

REG gets into his hot rod.
REG:
I was never one of them radical types, not till the tankers stopped.

REG going off to work
REG: (CONT’D)
We were saving for holidays, we reckoned the year after next. We’d get on the electric and go up to Brizzy.
Used to drive the family car to work and home again, got little Natalie across to softball on Saturdays, till she found Craigie.

EXT. URBAN BACKYARD. EVENING
Bogans CRAIGIE AND NATALIE offer their wisdom to camera.
NATALIE:
What they’re sayin’ bout my dad. He’s not some urbane terrorist. I mean, what would I know?
I wouldn't know nothing!
Not even a little bit. Nothing! You ask him. You ask my dad.
He knows how much I don't know.
Natalie turns from camera.
Anyhow, I don't want to answer no more questions!
Did you ask anything worth asking? I bet you didn’t did you?

CRAIGIE:
Natalie’s right!
Why you asking us this for? Answer that why don’t you.
You got no right to come asking stuff. We don’t know!
Why would we?
What makes you think we'd know? We don’t know nothing!
(MORE)

CRAIGIE:   (CONT'D)
We’re ignorant of all the facts that we don’t know.
Why don’t you ask yourself what you think we’d know.
Go on! Ask yourself that! Alright?

EXT. HOT ROD IN STREET - DAY
REG at the wheel of ‘THE BEAST’ revving hard.
REG: (V.O)
They’re closing in.
If they catch up with me, they’ll close me down f’sure and in a serious way.
They’re looking everywhere for me now. I get under their skin.

One more blast. . Visuals around the hot rod

 

INT. BLOG HQ - NIGHT
Reg to camera

 

 

REG:

It’s all gone!
Everything that was ever worth living for.
It's the V-8s at Bathhurst Wednesday night at Eastern Creek Track days at Wakefield Park
The glorious bloody Summernats. Canberra never smelt so good!
Vroom bloody vroom! Blue smoke and glory!

EXT. PIZZA HQ - DAY
Pizza delivery person makes comment to camera.
PIZZA PERSON:
I deliver pizzas. You ever wonder what its like to deliver a pizza before it gets cold?. .on a pushbike.

 

EXT. PEDESTRIAN SIGN - DAY
REG: (V.O)
If we were born to be pedestrians, God wouldn’t given us internal combustion.
How could they let it get like this? We was driven to madness and drink. Nattering bloody pollies.
Yes No Yes No Maybe Perhaps!!
So sunlight’s hotting up the world Isn’t that what sunlight does?
First we have to stop sunbaking now we’re out of gas.
Wasn’t going to happen in my lifetime.
Til it did!

EXT. ABANDONED CARS - DAY
REG speaks over images of abandoned cars Cars in wrecker’s yards
Abandoned highways.

REG: (V.O.)
How sad is that.
All that highway and everyone staying home with lights off
No telly, pooters on the blink, No road repairs these days, just jackhammers carving tar to make urban bloody gardens.
This whole campaign came to me one night, made me sit bolt upright in bed. Start a blog!
End it with a roar. .
Never go quietly into the silence.

VOX POP FROM VARIOUS PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEIR CARS
All are distressed about having just a little bit of fuel left in a jar or a bottle.

COMMENTS FROM EACH ABOUT WHAT THEIR VEHICLE MEANS TO THEM HOW THEY’LL BE THERE AT THE LAST ROAR
HOW THEY COPE WITHOUT PETROL AND LITTLE POWER. USE THEIR LAST BIT OF PRECIOUS FUEL.
AT FIRST HE IRRITATED THEM AND THEN ANNOYED THEM BUT THEN THEY SAW WHAT HE WAS CALLING THEM TO DO.

 

JOYLENE:
He'd go out at nights on his bike and come home sober as cement.
It’s always a worry for a wife. You don't mind it when they’re screeching like a sulphur crest at dusk. There had to be a woman!
First sign was just before the tankers stopped coming.

EXT. THE BEAST - DAY
Reg sits in his hot rod making motoiring noises.
REG:
Started with an occasional burble but grew to a throaty roar.
Only takes one pebble to get an avalanche.

 

INT. BLOG HQ - NIGHT
Reg to camera:

 

 

REG:

Its two months now. Here’s what we do.
We take those precious last drops and put them in our empty tanks and fire up. We roar and rage until it’s all gone and the silence is on us.
Tonight we make our stand.
Gather what you've got and let’s go and let’s roar at the night.

EXT. MONTAGE OF CARS REVVING - NIGHT AND DAY
Variety of vehicles roaring at the universe; the earth turns in space.

REG:
It was a night to remember, the last gasp of the internal combustion, the beast was dead, long live the beast.
Motorheads united for one last gasp. Tomorrow belongs to us

The roar ceases, the earth turns in space. CREDIT

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