Script!

Nina stands centre stage, head down, her arms are crossed over her body, grasping her neck. The background is blank.

She stretches upwards with her elbows and lets her hands run sensually over her face as she brings them down the centre of her body, lazily.

When her arms reach her side a hand materializes at her right hand and brings it up above her head, her other arm follows.

She crosses her left leg behind her right and spins lazily to her left while a more definite male form appears, from the hand holding hers, behind her, and directs her action. She stops, facing stage right.

Fully formed man standing behind Nina and lets her arms fall slowly.He brings his right arm around her neck. While supporting the small of her back with his left hand he pulls her into a backwards lean very slowly and pauses. Nina’s arms hang limply.

Suddenly he pushes her upright and forward towards stage right.

The man de-materializes after pushing Nina away from him, almost instantaneously he re- materializes at stage right in time to catch her before she falls forwards. 

Note: whenever the male disappears or re-appears he has the appearance of transforming into a cloth and either crumpling to the ground before disappearing entirely or twisting up from the floor before transforming into a human form.

The man takes Nina’s hand and begins to spin her around him as they travel towards stage left. He stops her from spinning, face to face with him.

She lets her arm fall to one side of him and her body follows, fatigued. The man supports her and swiftly steps behind her and picks her up from the waist. 

Note: He does not lose contact with her waist as he steps around her.

Continuing the direction of his spin around her, he spins while holding Nina by her waist.

After 1x 360 spin, the man puts Nina down on her feet facing the audience. She tries, hastily, to break away from his grasp, shoving herself away from him.

When he tries to catch her waist again, she spins on tip toes in a tight circle around him while he chases her around.

The man manages to grab her hand and she tugs away, pushing back with her legs (her back to stage left).

He pulls her back and Nina crumples into his body before making one last attempt at tugging away in the opposite direction (stage right).

Nina breaks the man’s hold on her hand and he de-materializes as she spins away on her own travelling towards stage right.

Nina crumples to the ground, exhausted (facing stage right). 

There is a pause as she sits on the ground, her hair now loose, head bent forward, breathing.

A hand takes Nina by the chin and tilts her whole head upwards slowly. She stands up in order to follow it. Meanwhile, the man materializes starting from the hand and appears, fully formed standing in front of Nina when she is upright.

The man puts his arms around Nina’s waist (her arms are over his, hanging limply) and lifts her off the ground. Nina hangs in his arms limply.

The man spins slowly, roughly on the spot, still holding Nina.

The man begins to de-materialize in an upward direction (as cloth being pulled up past Nina’s neck)

Nina also begins to de- materialize from the bottom, upwards.

Nina hangs for a moment before transforming completely into a hanging sheet.

The sheet hangs for a moment suspended by an unseen force.

The sheet falls and crumples to the floor.

So, on paper the script is 2 pages long, which means by rights the film ought to be 2 minutes long- but we all know now that the choreography can fit into roughly a minute. I probably haven't written the script properly, it just occurred to me suddenly that we didn't have an updated one for the project under new direction. Perhaps I've been to descriptive and that's why it has ended up this long. At least this has helped me begin to split up the different natural sections to animate.