EXT. LOADING DOCK – NIGHT.

BRIAN and DUSTIN are sitting next to each other on a bench.  BRIAN is a somewhat scraggily dressed drifter, and DUSTIN is an absurdly dressed pretentious filmmaker.

DUSTIN lights a cigarette.

BRIAN
So, ‘to inter’ means specifically to put in the earth?

DUSTIN
I guess.  At least I can see how that would come from the Latin.

They both sit there, looking at each other.  DUSTIN smokes.

DUSTIN
So I was wondering if we should go completely pretentious, or not pretentious whatsoever.

BRIAN
I think those are different things.

DUSTIN
What do you mean?

BRIAN
Whether or not it’s pretentious.

DUSTIN
I don’t understand.

BRIAN
Could we show in a non-pretentious fashion something that would be interesting to people besides us?

DUSTIN
I think so.  I do.
(beat)
Yeah, I do.  Because I think, um, certain . . . subtleties and accuracies about regular everyday life, things that people do or say but don’t really think about in their normal life, can be really interesting if done well in a film even if it isn’t interesting when lived.

BRIAN
Such as?

DUSTIN
. . . hmm.

BRIAN
I mean, it’s easy to say that, but I mean, can you come up with any?

DUSTIN
Hmm.  No, yeah, um.  . . .  Uhh . .

BRIAN
I mean, that’s why I think it’s just it’s a tough question – I mean, we still have to figure out what the story’s gonna be.

DUSTIN
Yeah, I guess that’s true.  You can’t make a film without an easily describable story.

BRIAN
We could always, you know, just come up with a title and work from there, just kinda . . . let the title tail wag the content dog, so to speak.

They both laugh.

DUSTIN
Well what’s a good title?  . . . Thing is – well, the same question arises for the title.  ‘Cause there are clearly pretentious titles and there are non-pretentious titles.

BRIAN
I think a good pretentious title would be Meaning.

DUSTIN
Yeah that’s good.  Or like Self and Other.

BRIAN
Ha ha.  Self-slash-other.
(beat)
I saw that in a movie somewhere.

DUSTIN
What?  As a title?

BRIAN
I think.  Not of the movie.  Just as a title in the movie.

DUSTIN
Hmm.  It’s so hard to come up with anything really worthwhile that hasn’t already been done.

BRIAN
Well does it matter if it’s already been done?  Because if we agree with some literary people of our times, that everything’s been done.

DUSTIN
I think that’s bullshit.

BRIAN
It’s just that in some ways it’s just like why make another car?  ‘Cause cars have already been made, but people still do, you know, to make them better.  Make it more efficient, a more better expression of something.

DUSTIN
Of the true car.  Of like the archetypical element ‘car.’

BRIAN
Uh, yeah.

DUSTIN
I don’t know.  I mean, no, yeah, I don’t know.

BRIAN
I mean because I would love to make the huge sci-fi action spectacular – which has been seen – but needs to be seen again and again I believe because it continues to be fresh and up-to-date.

DUSTIN
Really on time.

BRIAN
Definitely right now, with what’s going on in our world, I think we need to show that the threats that we might see within our world are nothing compared to the threat of alien invasion and annihilation.  And I think people forget that.

DUSTIN
Annihilation of aliens?

BRIAN
No I mean us.  If aliens invaded and they tried to annihilate us.

DUSTIN
Oh I see.

BRIAN
I mean presumably we would annihilate the aliens unless it was some you know, weird quirky piece where it’s like . . . “Oh, and at the end they lose!”

DUSTIN
It could be sort of a sci-fi-epic-tragicomedy.

BRIAN
And that’s what I think they need to see.  I mean it speaks to me.
(beat)
But wait, um –

DUSTIN
I’d sign up.

BRIAN
For what?

DUSTIN
To fight the aliens.

BRIAN
Oh.  Ok.  I just wasn’t sure what you meant.

DUSTIN
What if . . .

BRIAN
No, I was thinking about something that had to do with robots from the future.

DUSTIN
Ok, I’m with you.

BRIAN
I just don’t know how you could do it.  I mean since we have effectively a no budget kind of scale.

DUSTIN
Yeah, and also it’s hard to uh . . . it’s really hard to attach the viewer to any characters in a short because I think it takes time in a movie for the people to get attached to the characters, and when you’re dealing with a short, like we’re planning on, you know, it’s gonna be a few minutes.  How can the audience care about um . . . you really have to make it really concise. 

BRIAN
Well what do you think the maximum length is?  I mean I know that maximum length is like forty minutes or something.

DUSTIN
What do you mean – technically, of a short?

BRIAN
Yes.

DUSTIN
I don’t know.

BRIAN
But like how long do you think it’s gonna be?  Like ten, fifteen?

DUSTIN
It depends on what we come up with.  I mean we could just have two guys sitting around talking for hours, and make a feature.

BRIAN
A feature!  We can make sequels!  After coffee . . . they go to a bar!  Continue it from there.

DUSTIN
Yeah that’d be really great.

BRIAN
Do you think we should have a girl in it?  I mean I think we . . . I don’t know, it’s just.

DUSTIN
It’s seems like every good story has a girl.

BRIAN
I mean I like girls.

DUSTIN
But there’s something interesting about the idea of not having a girl, just because –

BRIAN
Maybe there aren’t any.

DUSTIN
What?

BRIAN
There aren’t any girls.

DUSTIN
Where?

BRIAN
Anywhere.

DUSTIN
Oh so this is like an alternate universe-Twilight Zone kind of thing.

BRIAN
Yeah kinda like Sliders.

DUSTIN
But I think it would be cool if there wasn’t a woman because . . . because . . there’s not always a woman.  You know?

BRIAN
Well I mean I understand, but I dunno, maybe –

DUSTIN
I feel the need to somehow diverge from the classic structure.  I want to make something which -

BRIAN
Ok, so it’s going to be pretentious then.

DUSTIN
Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s pretentious. 
(beat)
Or does it?

BRIAN
I don’t think it necessarily does and somewhat it has to do with our intent, just in some regard.  But also there’s the element of how it’s going to be viewed by people who aren’t us.  Hopefully.  And um, just . . I don’t know.  But of course we could be working in the different medium of with-no-females because simply we don’t know any girls who would help us.

DUSTIN
Yeah.

BRIAN
I mean we do, but . . .

DUSTIN
Well I think it’s also an accurate expression of our lives.
(beat)
Having no girls in them.
(beat)
Or at least yours.

BRIAN
No, I have no home, you forget.

DUSTIN
It could be just the tragic tale of a drifter.

BRIAN
I really think that my life is truly just the story of America right now.  You know, I’ve grown up and become educated and then I am cast aside by the world, and now I make caskets for a living.

DUSTIN
I love that line – I make caskets for the living.

BRIAN
That’s not what I said.

DUSTIN
I think there’s something really poignant about that.  I think that in a movie, like, ok . . . we’re talking about the movie we’re going to make.

BRIAN
Ok.

DUSTIN
And in every movie, ok. 
(beat)
In every movie, everything you choose to put in a movie is significant.  Because you have the choice between it and anything else.  So I honestly think –

BRIAN
And it and nothing.

DUSTIN
And it and nothing.  That’s right, you have the choice to put it in.

BRIAN
I think we should just have a movie which is fifteen minutes of nothing.

DUSTIN
And it can be called, “Choice.”

BRIAN
I think we should package that with whatever we end up making.

DUSTIN
Um, but anyway.  You know, everything is significant.

BRIAN
Maybe we can call it “Posttention.”

DUSTIN
What?  Oh.  That’s horrible.

BRIAN
I’m sorry.

DUSTIN
Um, what was I talking about?

BRIAN
Everything you put in the movie has meaning.

DUSTIN
Yeah.  Yeah, that’s right.

BRIAN
So is that it?

DUSTIN
No.  Oh yeah.  So everything you choose to put in the movie is specific and purposeful, and I think that when we’re thinking of a character, assuming that this is a movie that has characters –

BRIAN
They are necessary.

DUSTIN
Yes, I think they are necessary.  Um.  I think what the character does for a living is very significant.  And I think it has a lot to say.  It’s sort of an overtone which shadows over the character the whole time.

BRIAN
I mean, I agree to a certain extent, but I just don’t think that – I think that in movies and also in life that what we do does in some ways define us, but also certain people are not really hardly at all defined by what they do.  And, I mean, I may, you know, make little widgets which are attached to caskets – I don’t know what widgets they put on caskets.

DUSTIN
Widgets aren’t real.

BRIAN
I meant like small manufactured objects.

DUSTIN
Oh, ok.  So like tomorrow when I’m eating snipe . . .

BRIAN
Or McNuggets.

DUSTIN
What?

BRIAN
It’s a small manufactured object.

DUSTIN
Oh, I thought you meant McNugget McNuggets, and I was like – those are very real.

BRIAN
You don’t mean like the guys?  Like the characters?

DUSTIN
What?  No.

BRIAN
You don’t mean like the Fry Guys?

DUSTIN
No!  Like the McNuggets, the things you eat.

BRIAN
I think we’re getting off track.

DUSTIN
Anyway, um.  What were you saying?  About – something about – oh, how a person’s occupation doesn’t always have bearing on their life or personality.  Well we’re not talking real life.  We’re talking about a movie.

BRIAN
Wait – ok.  Let’s just take for example like, if I was a character in a movie and I actually was making caskets for a living.  I mean, what would you – what I would automatically assume, or one way you could think about it is like, maybe I’m trying to contain death in some sense.

DUSTIN
No, no, the way I see it is your character is –

BRIAN
No, no, you’re wrong, this is how I see it.  That’s what we’re talking about.

DUSTIN
Maybe that’s what you’re talking about.

BRIAN
You can talk about how you would see it.

DUSTIN
Ok, how I see it: Is that the character of you, this character who you play in real life, but assuming this weren’t real life, this were a movie based on something else, and your character makes caskets for a living, as you do.  What I think it says about you, is that – because you’re probably going to be working in like a factory line –

BRIAN
Kind of.

DUSTIN
Ok, you’re gonna be working in a factory line.  This is your character.  He works on a factory line and he makes one part of a casket, which is then made into a full casket.  And every day at the end of work, you know, he walks past the pile of caskets which is bigger because of his work, every day.  And it just says to me how this factory line – the routinization of his life and his, uh, sort of his modern place in this capitalist society is just sort of a momento mori for him, a reminder of his purposelessness and his journey towards death.

BRIAN
I think so, I mean I can see where you’re coming from, but I also think that it could be perhaps very heartening to see the pile of caskets because he’s being productive.  I mean he has a visible representation of his work that day.  I don’t think it matters so much that they’re caskets.  I know that you feel it’s all meaningful.  It’s just that these are just objects which he helped make – he created something.

DUSTIN
Yes – ok, but.  Listen to yourself.  Caskets.  How can you deny their intrinsic, like, Joseph Cambellian meaning?

BRIAN
Hmmm ..

DUSTIN
Anyway it doesn’t matter because –

BRIAN
I think that kind of stuff is bullshit.

DUSTIN
Oh come on.

BRIAN
No seriously, I think that stuff is just what people .. say .. when

DUSTIN
No.  Look – not everyone is going to interpret everything the same way, this is true.  But caskets are always going to be connected with death.  They are an instrument of death.  Not in that they kill people, but you know …

BRIAN
Ok, ok, ok.  Ok, alright.  I mean perhaps the fact that it was caskets might have influenced my decision to work there.

DUSTIN
No, no, that’s not even what we’re talking about.  We’re not talking about reality.  Not why you chose to work at this place.  We’re talking about the significance of a character working at this place.

BRIAN
I’m not a character.

DUSTIN
.. Yes.  Exactly.

BRIAN
Well then that makes no sense to me at all.

DUSTIN
Wh – why?  We are not talking about you.  A character.  Just because it’s inspired by events in your life .. no no.  Look.  It’s ..

BRIAN
It’s just that you always seem to think that these things have to be meaningful even if the meaning itself is subjective.

DUSTIN
Look – everything can be taken as meaningful.  Of course it’s all subjective!

BRIAN
Exactly!

DUSTIN
Ok, no, hang on-  I mean.  Of course .. look .. of course everything is subjective.  Just listen to me for a second.  The whole, dude the world is subjective.  Everything is only what you think it is.

BRIAN
No it’s not at all!  That’s ridiculous.

DUSTIN
Can I speak?
(beat)
Are you gonna let me finish?

BRIAN
Go ahead.

DUSTIN
Everything can be taken by any given different individual as whatever they .. or their subconscious or whatever it is .. chooses to take it as.  Everything is something totally different to everybody .. else.

BRIAN
That was vague.

DUSTIN holds up a finger to signify that he is not finished.

DUSTIN
So I’m not trying to say that .. well no sometimes I am.  Some things .. look, have you ever read Jung?  Campbell?  I mean .. you just have to admit that some things do mean one thing to most people.  A casket.

BRIAN
You just said that wasn’t true!

DUSTIN
A casket ..

BRIAN
You just were saying that wasn’t true!

DUSTIN
God damn it, wait – ok?  A casket.

BRIAN
You just were saying that everything is subjective.

DUSTIN
Fucking I am appending my statement.  I am many volumes, and this is only one.  Wait for the end!  Ok?

BRIAN
(Sigh)

DUSTIN
What was the point of all this?  Ok.  Here.  Do caskets signify death to you?

BRIAN
I think we’ve totally gone beyond what we were ever possibly talking about ..

DUSTIN
Do caskets signify death to you?

BRIAN
Dustin – what does it matter what they signify to me?  I thought it was all about what you thought.

DUSTIN
Do caskets signify –

BRIAN
What one thinks ..

DUSTIN
death to you?

BRIAN
Yes.

DUSTIN
And they do to everyone else too.  I guarantee you.
(beat)
If your culture uses caskets, or wampas, or whatever they’re called in other cultures, that object will signify death to that person.
(beat)
This character makes them..
(beat)
Therefore he makes death.

BRIAN
So what’s the theme of the movie gonna be?

DUSTIN
Hmm . .
(beat)
To inter.

BRIAN
You mean to put in the earth?

DUSTIN smiles.