The Projector

Start CLOSE ON the eyes of a TROUBLED MAN. An abstract image beams across his face. A slow DOLLY OUT reveals a series of slides projected onto him, changing with the beat of the music. Slides of a life lived too close to the edge: booze, parties, women, drugs...

Running the slide projector is the man's SISTER. She approaches him but he remains motionless. She crouches down and tenderly takes his hand. He wakes from his trance and looks in her eyes. She gives him a loving embrace.

A light fades up in the distance revealing THE BAND performing the song: "Don't forget sister, she'll always be true. We come from a good home that won't forget you."

Suddenly, he's alone again and walks up to the projector. He replaces the current slide carousel labeled "NOW" with one labeled "THEN" and grabs the remote. Images of himself as a child, his old house and his family swipe across the wall. As he advances through the milestones of his life he lands on an image of a younger, happier him, so full of life and potential. How far has he strayed from himself?

Click. Advance. Empty. The back wall is blasted with light. The lead singer's silhouette appears: "So don't forget sister, she'll always be true. We come from a good home that won't forget you."

BLAM! A roof hatch flies opens fifty feet above him. It's the way out!

He looks around for something to climb and comes upon an industrial chain dangling in the darkness. As he grabs on, it pulls lose and drops in a pile. Desperate, he searches the warehouse for something, anything.

He swipes past the slide projector and accidentally steps on the remote. The projector advances and reveals an image of a ladder. Could this be it? It's still too short. Just then, he get an idea.

He wheels the projector to the furthest wall and the ladder grows until it finally reaches the ceiling. He sprints back across the warehouse and leaps for the ladder. It works! He climbs the projection higher and higher toward daylight as he band sings the final chorus: "So I won't forget sister, she'll always be true. We come from a good home that won't forget you."

He reaches the top but he's still too far from the hatch. He makes a jump for it and grabs onto the hatch door handle. With nothing to leverage his weight, it looks like he's going to fall when suddenly...

A hand reaches down and pulls him onto the roof.

As we PULL AWAY, we see a beautiful city all around him. He is alone, on top of the world, finally free.


MY APPROACH:

The song is about a "poor boy" who is on the wrong track. The warehouse is a metaphor for his empty life.

When his concerned sister intervenes, it wakes him from his dark world. She is not literally there with him. She is there in spirit.

Once she nudges him out of his trance, he reviews where he came from and rediscovers who he is. Then, when the hatch opens, he sees a way out but can't get to it. Through ingenuity and courage, he climbs out of his dark hole.

The projector is a device that allows him to review his current life and his life from the past. Later, it offers him a way out of the emptiness by providing him with a ladder to climb.

Though the lyrics paint a dire image, the music is tremendously inspiring which makes me feel the intent of the song is to lift this troubled, lost man out of his misery. The story, like the song, builds in increments all the way to the final shot, soaring over the city, soaring like the music.