Film Courage: Sean, would we be able to hold up the two cards? [Reads cards from Plot Storm] Okay,
so we have the character and plot cards, so an aging Butler reminiscing about their glory days
and discovers a terrible secret about their own family. Our working title is The Internal Butler
and we're still fleshing out ideas. Do you have any potential subplots you can imagine?
Sean Reid, Filmmaker: I think now that we've decided that this Butler will be in the first
act in this comfortable and maybe working environment where they're in their home,
where they've been their entire career and perhaps their father was a butler before that
and the father was a butler before that and then a terrible family secret discovered perhaps that
they're even related to the other family or that there has been whatever it is that questions his
entire life and what he believes in because he was truly someone who believed in whatever that cause
was in that household or whatever that was and then it turns out that a lot of that is not true
and he literally strips his garb of butlership, of butlering and wonders out and perhaps even
first live some life of debauchery perhaps just gets a little weight down drunk and maybe gets
into a fight and ends up on a bus and it's out in the middle of nowhere and ends up at this
somewhat dilapidated desert hotel that is run by (I still haven't decided exactly who's running
it) and I think that the drag Wing would be too obvious at this point in our way do we watch
movies but perhaps maybe a someone that like a gruff old dude like another gruff old dude
that they can just butt up against like maybe a gruff old black dude if it's a gruff white
day yeah whatever it is just somebody who's really just where they can really just have the
gruff old dude thing and because the aging butler is going to be he's going to still he's going to
be very set in what he what he perceives as what things should be and there will be a lot of people
trying to tell him that that's not the way things are and I think that's what's going to be really
interesting I think I'm bringing a lot of the comedic elements that I could see in it as well
yeah so and then yes well I guess go what you were going to say yeah I was thinking because sometimes
like people that work sort of on the outskirts of a lot of wealth money and things they adopt those
same principles even though they don't really have it but they almost have this delusion that they do
and they become snobs I've seen that a lot so I maybe he has a snobbery about him but then they
strip them away of that like if you're so great why are you here what what land did you hear
absolutely it's it's the it's it's exactly that it's exactly who are you and you just wander it
out here you don't have any money anything you're maybe now he's been put to work there and he's
trying to like help at this hotel this hotel and I've always loved been fascinated by like low end
hotels or motels maybe it's a hotel and not just a motel but a hotel like a like a just a it used to
be this great Palm Springs or Palmdale duster was trying to be this great it just never was so it's
like the Royale or something like that and it just never was quite that Royal just never was quite
that it's just a little bit too dingy but that I think that would be fascinating or or it used to
be and then the sun inherited sort of the nerdwell sun inherited it and then his own whatever issues
took it down and the area changed yeah I think so and I definitely see this now as a 70s era film
like I for some reason I'm just fascinated by how this would look as in the 70s and just like
the whole especially like late 60s early 70s like where it's still like because then they're like
the hotels like there there's hippies and and free livers and granola eaters and and and then there's
also just maybe like the people were just like I'm just trying to survive just trying to like
those first families coming over the Border just trying to find a place to figure things
out or just survive essentially some Vietnam Vets Vietnam Vets I also also see for some reason it's
making me see a lilies in the field don't ask me why but like I do I just see Sidney Poitier
helping out the whatever and I see some of that like well we've got to build something or we've
got to do something we've got to do something that that makes whatever that brings them all together
type of thing in a very simplistic manner is there an inciting incident that takes the Butler
from the contained beautiful clean world of the family home where he has maybe an outburst and
realizes I think it's the disguise I think it's just the the overwhelming reality of his reality
being crushed by discovering a secret that's within that environment I think his I think his
he's put so much on it by now at this point in his life that that will just take him out
well he maybe throw some dishes or no I just think that just like he'll just end up
questioning everything who he is what he is where he's been what he's been doing for his entire life
thinking that he was putting something into this and it turns out that they're
worth not worth it whatever it is does he give us two weeks notice does he do the gentleman's no I
think it's like he barely I think he can barely even I think it's like a a not I think it's like
one of those things where whoever he discovers or whoever whatever they make an excuse for him and
even hope that he may come back and lie whatever the deal thinking that he may but and maybe even
trying to so worried about them him knowing that and have something that they've got to be hunting
him down to try to find him so we got we got a little witness scenario going on which could be
hunting him down in the Wake would be like just something around to like eliminate the secret
yeah if we want to make it if we want to raise the stakes just raise the stakes and also too
maybe he knows these other secrets that don't involve him but the family secrets he knows he
knows so much that they're now concerned it but he feels that he's so portrayed that they're worried
that he would actually portray when they've never been worried about it but now it's like because
they are that nefarious that they may that it may be just sending him out to eliminate him
so now I've raised now we've raised the stakes and we've also created a ticking clock which
is very fun he had a little sister act action going on and also too there might be a you don't
appreciate us we we helped you seeing sort of you're good as long as you're underneath
us but if you try to become our equal that we can't have that and don't we helped you thing
yes and then now you've also made a movie that has potential to be a bigger movie with us still
that still the same budget level with just like some ticking to clock elements adding a little
bit maybe not going too far over the top in the hotel but just making it heartwarming and
the characters like not so over the top but cocoon 2 but maybe more than cocoon 2 because that would
be a little too mundane but now not making it like that Robert De Niro movie that Michael
Schumacher directed that was he was oh and it did Philip Seymour Hoffman in it what was that movie
essentially where he was a cop Janeiro was a cop that gets hurt and the only person
that can take care of him is Phillip Seymour Hoffman's drag queen character in the hotel
so that type of that type of thing because you can bring those types of casting to something
like that if you can bring characters that care that they're interested in playing
what are your final notes on this story before we move on
I'm starting to like it more I think it's starting to have some potential
bringing in some of the elements that I'm discussing like from like lilies in
the field to the ticking clock element with like like which makes me think of witness
with being out with the different lifestyle in a different place
but then having that Invader come into that sacred place now that's been sacred and have
to fight back type of thing so you can have two you essentially have the character going through
almost three little mini movies on some level which people will I think the genre band would
be interesting so I'm excited about I love genre bends by the way so what other characters would
you like to see in this story I definitely see in the family that whatever that family is that
will be there almost a semblance of normalcy and balance I definitely for some reason see
this Gruff counter character that's going to be maybe it was even a woman that he just doesn't
get along with doesn't get along with and that's the person that he'll end up getting along with
so I see that like that like friction type of thing for somebody who was never looking for a
deal funny that part of that breakthrough will I think be having some a real love relationship
for someone who's given that away giving up that possibility I think that's people who get that
Gruff are often people who have let those things like that possibility go and I think by reopening
that channel up from him will creep that and so that character that can do that and that will be
there so I see that and definitely like somebody who's a performer or someone who's like says one
thing but really doesn't know that he can really just Mentor in some way and maybe that's in the
family maybe that's all of them in some level giving them certain things that he can supply
that where he can see some value again in his life so it's really those people that can reflect those
things back to him they're going to give the best version of or the worst version of the internal
Butler when he gets to the hotel is he viewed as a threat no he's viewed more as like a
somebody may be a little local a little crazy but definitely not a threat someone more who's like a
grew someone to be humored or even feel sorry for because maybe there's just
like some homeless dude who's gotten this idea they don't know they do who he is or
what what he's lived he's like even though it's like it's still what he's experiences
still in many ways more than they can ex they've experienced and at that level
and it takes a certain thing so they're not even giving credit for that in the beginning
so I think it'll be he'll just be like yo you're just a homeless dude just watered in here with
all these weird stories be quiet yeah be lucky you're here and clean the pool or whatever it is
maybe I'm envisioning like a laundry room scene where let's suppose somebody's left their laundry
in the dryer and hasn't removed it for hours and he becomes enraged because maybe he would never do
that because then the clothes would wrinkle so he his his training starts to come out and his sort
of very rigid way of of keeping a home in order and they're shocked by it and they realize oh
maybe he's telling the truth I definitely see that there'll be opportunities for him to have to like
we to earn to re-earn his own trust and to earn their trust in the sense of who he is as a person
and in that process of that the or in even having to in some level subjugate himself or be not the
butler because the butler is essentially the head of the household the butler's not just a servant
the butler is a head of a household of servants so they're responsible for not just whatever their
duties are but making sure everyone within that household and usually we actually have a butler
you have traditionally if you a true one you you have a staff of five or two five to ten servants
or if you're you're one gentleman gentlemen where you have a butler who essentially is
a travel companion where they're with that person almost 24 hours again in serving that
person so they essentially live their lifestyle so that understanding those types of things I
think would be like understanding that background and what they've seen and what they've learned.