Clawed and Sally
Clawed and Sally
a short animated film script
by Roger Blonder
FADE IN:
INT. THEATER STAGE - PITCH BLACK
A spotlight FADES IN on THE STORYTELLER. He looks into the
camera and commences his poetic tale:
STORYTELLER
I'm here with a story
to expound on the glory
of life
in the most bewildering of times.
And it is the wish of my heart,
And you must know from the start,
That I am but a vessel
for the rhymes.
For how could a man as simple as I,
in a manner so blessed and awed,
speak words of honey
that flowed through my pen,
by the will of my good friend
named Clawed.
Upon reciting the word "Clawed", the storyteller extends his
right hand and contorts it into a claw, fingertips towards
the audience.
As he rotates his hand downward, it transforms into CLAWED
THE BRONTOSAURUS: his middle finger becomes the neck and head
of the dinosaur, his other fingers become the legs. A tail
peels up from the back of his wrist. The brontosaurus hand
speaks:
CLAWED
Greetings my friends
from a time that once was,
I am Clawed, the hand of pre-history.
It is I who compose
this river which flows
with the heavenly light
of an eternal mystery.
I'm a sort of a prophet
with nothing to lose
for in a sense, as you know,
I'm extinct.
So let's get on with the show,
for there's no place to grow,
but into the light of a wisdom
so clear and succinct that I have
little doubt it will evolve your view
of the meaning in life
and what you can do
to heal the wound
in the heart of the world
Prepare yourself for a journey
of wonder - Unfurled!
At "unfurled" the walls and floor of the theater stage fall
away and Clawed the dinosaur hand is thrust forward through
the blackness. The Storyteller trails behind his outstretched
dino hand, waving in the wind.
CLAWED (CONT'D)
First we need to set the stage
Take me out of this place
It feels like a cage!
A gateway of light opens up in the darkness. The Storyteller
dissolves away as Clawed passes through, falling into the sky
above a lush garden paradise.
EXT. GARDEN SKY - DAY
Clawed glides through the sky in a controlled fall.
CLAWED
I want to be free in a world without walls
with flowers and mountains
and tall waterfalls.
He dodges a flock of birds,
CLAWED (CONT'D)
A place where white birds
soar through lavender skies
scatters a swarm of butterflies,
CLAWED (CONT'D)
with crystal blue lakes
and pink butterflies.
poofs through a cloud, and approaches a Great Tree in the
middle of a garden meadow.
CLAWED (CONT'D)
A Garden I need to tell you this tale -
with a tree - in a meadow, beyond the veil.
EXT. GARDEN / TREE - DAY
On the ground beneath the tree, a female brontosaurus, SALLY,
arranges a pile of leaves into a bed, singing as she works.
Clawed flies past the tree, stirring a wind that rustles the
branches and carries up and away some of the leaves in her
pile.
Sally looks up at the source of the wind. She sees nothing.
Clawed looks back to see her receding into the distance. He
looks forward again to the surprise of a grove of trees on
the bank of a river fast approaching. He attempts to alter
his course, but it's too late. He loses control and crashes
through the branches of a moss covered tree, draped in vines.
EXT. GARDEN / RIVER - DAY
Two large boughs break off and plunge with him into the
rapids of the river. He churns in the water for a moment and
then surfaces, tangled in vines, righting himself on the
boughs like giant water skis. He gains his balance and skis
the rapids with some agility.
Quickly approaching a giant waterfall, he intentionally cuts
out on a huge rapid and crashes down on a lush embankment,
shaking the earth.
EXT. GARDEN / TREE - DAY
Sally the dinosaur stands alone under the great tree in the
garden putting the finishing touches on her bed. The earth
shakes, again rattling the leaves in the bed and on the tree.
She looks up quickly, alarmed.
EXT. RIVERBANK - DAY
Clawed rolls over, gets up, and shakes himself off. In the
crater that he gouged out, a trove of diamonds embedded in a
broken lava tube sparkles in the sunlight. He admires his
excavation with joy.
EXT. GARDEN / TREE - DAY
Seeing nothing, Sally sighs.
The branches shake again. She looks up.
SALLY
Clawed. Is that you?
Another rustle in the branches.
SALLY (CONT'D)
Clawed?
The SERPENT drops down in right in front of her, causing
Sally to jump back in fright.
SERPENT
Hello, Sally.
SALLY
You scared me!
SERPENT
To set the mood.
SALLY
Oh, spare me.
SERPENT
My intent, precisely.
She begins to turn away, but the serpent eases forward,
allowing his body to slip off of a large glowing fruit. It
catches Sally's eye. She stops in her tracks, stunned.
SALLY
It glows.
SERPENT
Yes. Isn't it sweet.
She cranes her neck to see the fruit. Her eyes widen.
SALLY
What fate does it reveal?
SERPENT
Come. Have a lick -
(correcting himself)
- a look.
SALLY
I mustn't.
Yet she continues staring, mesmerized.
SERPENT
Oh, come on - just a little peek.
You must be curious.
The temptation is strong. She eases forward.
SALLY
Perhaps just a peek...
She moves closer, drawn in by the intoxicatingly enchanting
crystal ball-like fruit. Her eyes widen in palpable
anticipation, but just before she arrives at ecstacy, the
serpent cuts up from below, blocking her view. The glow casts
an aura around his head.
SERPENT
Just one thing.
She backs off in surprise.
SALLY
(taken aback)
What?
SERPENT
As you can sense, the vision is
strong today. For your welfare I
can only permit you to gaze if you
make me one small promise.
SALLY
Promise?
SERPENT
If you believe your eyes, you will
allow me to keep you safe from the
terrible fate.
She backs away
SALLY
Terrible fate?
and looks around in desperation.
SALLY (CONT'D)
Clawed!!
The cunning serpent eases in trying to soothe her by hushing
SERPENT
(hushing)
Shhhh shhhhh shhhhhh.
He teases her by allowing his body to slip on and off of the
fruit as he glides towards her. His charming eyes are
authentic, irresistible:
SERPENT (CONT'D)
I must confess that sometimes I
watch you from my perch in the
branches. I listen to you sing. You
are truly the most graceful
creature in all the land. My heart
would break if your beauty would be
lost to the world.
SALLY
(in a daze)
Lost to the world..
She is held captive by the fruit and his charms. He lets his
body slide almost all the way off of the enchanting fruit and
beckons towards it with his humbled head. The glow
intensifies. The temptation is too strong for her to resist.
SALLY (CONT'D)
Let me see. Let me see!
SERPENT
Promise.
SALLY
(weakening)
Clawed.
SERPENT
Promise.
SALLY
(defeated)
I Promise.
The serpent bows out, pulling away from the fruit. Sally
eagerly approaches. She stretches her neck close up and peers
deep within the fruit. Inside, a miniature vision of the
garden paradise in which they stand.
Her POV becomes fully engulfed within the reality inside the
fruit and PULLS BACK in space to an out-of-body experience:
EXTREME LONG SHOT - GARDEN MEADOW - DAY
The tree sits in the center on a perfect peaceful day. Sally
is gazing into the fruit on the tree. The serpent lurks on a
branch.
A fiery comet breaks through the atmosphere heading straight
towards the meadow. The comet violently crashes and explodes
into the land. When the dust settles, everything is destroyed
except for the great tree in which the serpent still rests.
The scene disintegrates away, bringing us back to the
conversation
UNDER THE TREE
Sally frantically shakes her head and gasps as she snaps out
of the nightmarish vision.
Suddenly, she remembers Clawed. Her head darts left and
right.
SALLY
Clawed!
She begins to run, but the Serpent glides down to a low
branch and drops his head to the ground, cutting her off.
SERPENT
So, you believe?
SALLY
The eternal fruit can never lie.
SERPENT
Then you must let me save you.
SALLY
I must find Clawed.
SERPENT
For what purpose?
SALLY
We must save him.
SERPENT
I spoke nothing of the thing. I can
only take one. I have chosen you.
SALLY
But not without Clawed.
SERPENT
You gave your word.
SALLY
I won't go without Clawed!
SERPENT
Promise?
The serpent blows a thick cloud of smoke out of his lips. The
smoke envelops Sally causing her to cough and gag.
She fully disappears within the smoke. The serpent lifts his
head and inhales the smoke through his nostrils. When it
clears, Sally is gone.
The serpent quickly slithers to the highest branch of the
tree. He lifts his head up to an unripened fruit and exhales
the smoke over it.
The smoke swirls into the fruit, which begins to ripen and
glow, revealing inside a miniature vision of Sally.
Inside the fruit, Sally darts this way and that, bumping
against the inner walls of her new prison. She runs up to her
window upon the world and peers down into the garden and out
to the ends of the earth.
She WAILS in great distress, but NO SOUND ESCAPES her
enclosure.
From her aerial vantage point, we see Clawed prancing back
towards the tree below with his tree skis dangling by a vine
draped around his neck.
CLAWED
Hey Sally, I'm back!
Arriving under the tree, out of Sally's line of sight, Clawed
bends down his neck and drops his skis. He creates a small
clearing in a pile of leaves and twigs with his foot. He then
swings his tail around to the front. The end of his tail is
tied up in a knot. The knot unties itself, revealing a
perfectly round ring of shiny volcanic rock encrusted with
shiny diamonds.
Clawed slides the ring off of his tail into the clearing.
He uses the end of his tail to carefully hide the ring in the
leaves.
CLAWED (CONT'D)
Sally! Hey Sally, where you hiding?
He jogs back out into Sally's line of sight. She yells from
the fruit above, but he can't see or hear her.
CLAWED (CONT'D)
Come out, come out, whereever you are!
Clawed searches and calls for Sally to no avail.
The Storyteller narrates the scenes described.
STORYTELLER (V.O.)
Clawed searched under every
boulder, scoured every canyon,
peered over every cliff. Sunset
came. No Sally. The next morning;
no Sally. He called out to her as
loud as he could, he cried out all
day and all night, but she was
nowhere to be found.
Sally tries to get Clawed's attention as the Storyteller
narrates:
STORYTELLER (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Like, Clawed, Sally yelled and
jumped and jostled inside the fruit
to attract Clawed's attention. But
it was of no use.
The serpent sits watching the scene hidden from both Clawed
and Sally in the branches of the tree. The Storyteller
narrates as Clawed grows weary, lays down, and disintegrates
into a dinosaur sized pile of dust:
STORYTELLER (V.O.) (CONT'D)
After many days, Clawed grew very
tired. He stopped eating and
drinking. He had searched so long
and far that he couldn't walk
another step. One night, he laid
under the tree and went to sleep.
The next morning, he was nothing
but a giant pile of dust.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. GARDEN - SUNRISE
The pile of Clawed dust rests in the field beside the tree.
Sally wakes up inside her fruit. She desperately looks out
across the landscape. She focuses in on the pile of dust. She
lets out what, based on the look of her face, must be a heart
wrenching scream, yet trapped in her prison, it is silent to
the world.
The crystal shell of her enclosure CRACKS from the base of
the stem and down over the face of the fruit audibly
releasing her piercing WAIL into the world.
INT. SERPENT LAIR - MORNING
The serpent is roused from his slumber by the scream. He
lifts his head, realizes what he is hearing, and races up and
out of the lair.
EXT. GARDEN TREETOP - MORNING
As Sally's WAIL continues, the serpent blasts into the light
of the garden. A great wind rushes up behind him. The wind
tears down through the branches, across the land and over the
pile of Clawed's dust, lifting it up into the air.
We follow the dust blowing higher and higher up into the
heavens, out of the atmosphere and into an empty pitch black
space where each spec takes its place as a star in the sky.
The brightest specs form into a dinosaur constellation.
BACK IN THE TREETOP, The serpent arrives at Sally's fruit. At
the point where the crack in the crystal touches the stem,
the stem begins to turn black with disease. The disease
slowly spreads up into the branch.
SERPENT
What have you done!
The serpent eases along the branch in front of Sally's,
watching the disease as it spreads up into the tree.
SERPENT (CONT'D)
You have shattered the natural order!
Sally attempts to suppress her cries, but with each gasping
squeal, the disease spreads further into the branch. Leaves
and fruits begin to shrivel and fall.
SALLY
Clawwwweed!! Ohhh Clawwwed!
SERPENT
Stop your crying! You are killing
MY TREE!
SALLY
Your tree? YOUR TREE!
Shots of life around the tree:
HUMMINGBIRD SIPPING FROM BLOSSOMS
BIRDS NESTING
SPIDER SPINNING WEB
SQUIRRELS RUNNING IN CIRCLES
MONKEYS SWINGING THROUGH BRANCHES
SALLY (CONT'D)
(fuming)
You cruel, selfish, pathetic murderous worm!
The disease spreads into the serpent's branch causing it to
blacken and break. He crashes to the branch below. The nearby
creatures scatter.
The serpent regains his balance, looks up to Sally with fiery
eyes, rears up, grabs her fruit in his jaws, rips it from the
tree and hurls it to the ground.
The fruit explodes upon impact.
Sally, full sized, emerges from the smoke, coughing and
gagging. The serpent menacingly approaches her, but she backs
away, then turns and runs. The serpent chases her across the
meadow, but she escapes into the forest.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. FOREST CAVE - NIGHT
Sally lays at the entrance of a cave concealed by branches
and vines. Her head rests on the ground just outside the
cave, gazing into a sky full of stars.
Her labored breaths slowly begin to take on a melody.
She sings in a quiet voice. We follow her song up into the
stars.
SALLY
Whatever happened to happily ever after?
My heart cries to see you again.
No matter how long or how far my soul travels,
I know I will see you, but when?
A constellation of stars in the shape of a brontosaurus grows
brighter and begins to twinkle. She lifts her head to witness
the wonder in the sky above.
Suddenly, the serpent's head drops directly in front of her
field of view. She recoils in fright.
SERPENT
Because of you, my end is near.
SALLY
What do you want from me?
SERPENT
From you, nothing.
I have something for you.
She turns away.
SALLY
I want nothing from you.
The serpent bows his head so that the lava diamond ring
encircling his body falls off and rolls towards the cave.
SERPENT
It is not from me. It is from
Clawed. He brought it to you on the
day... On the last day.
She looks at the ring. The diamonds embedded within begin to
sparkle.
She lowers her head and closes her sparkling eyes.
SERPENT (CONT'D)
I don't expect your thanks or
deserve your understanding, but as
my end is near, because of you, I
must speak my piece.
With Sally held captive in the cave, the serpent continues.
SERPENT (CONT'D)
Since the beginning of time, I have
been alone; the only creature
forsaken a mate in the garden. My
cunning tongue, a curse. My only
purpose, to be the spoiler of
eternal life and love.
Sally moves her head, but still doesn't look at him.
SERPENT (CONT'D)
I did not seek to ruin your life. I
merely thought that if I saved you,
you would appreciate me - with your love.
The serpent lowers his head.
Sally looks up. A tear forms in her eye. In the distant sky,
one by one, the stars in the dinosaur constellation begin to
fall towards each other and coalesce into a singular heavenly
body which disappears behind the serpent's head
Her eyes squint as if trying to see through the serpent. The
tear begins to fall. The light from the newly formed comet
gleams off of her tear.
The serpent looks down to see Sally staring (apparently)
right at him. He sees the tear. Overcome by the assumed
acknowledgement of his existence, he pulls back his head. His
position shifts just enough to reveal the fullness of the
approaching comet in the sky beyond.
Sally's eyes widen.
The serpent sees the reflection in her eyes. He jerks his
head around to see the comet approaching. He tenses and turns
back to her.
SERPENT (CONT'D)
It approaches! Come, with me, to
the tree!
SALLY
There is nothing left for me at the tree.
SERPENT
But you can't stay here. You will
die, surely die.
Sally looks up to the comet. The flaming fireball is actually
an eternally blazing Clawed, joyfully soaring and tumbling
towards the garden, as in the opening scene.
SALLY
(blissfully)
Eternal flame.
The serpent stares perplexed at the hypnotised Sally. In her
eyes, the twinkling glow of the comet grows brighter. He
breaks his stare to look up at the fast approaching comet. It
is heading straight towards the great tree.
The serpent firms up with determination. He looks directly at
Sally.
SERPENT
Not like this!
He throws himself out of the tree and races out of the
forest. Sally watches him speed off, looks back to the Clawed
comet.
EXT. GARDEN MEADOW - NIGHT
The serpent races across the meadow towards the tree.
Sally steps out of the forest into the meadow to watch.
The Serpent arrives at the tree, spirals up the trunk and
twists through the dying branches which break off as he climbs.
Seconds before impact, the serpent launches himself from the
top of the crown and begins to open his mouth wide. At the
last moment, he sees that the comet is actually Clawed. Just
as the smiling, glowing Clawed disappears into the stunned
serpent's gaping jaws, rays of light burst forth from his
scales causing an explosion that TURNS NIGHT INTO DAY and
RESURRECTS CLAWED who comes crashing to the ground of the
EXT. GARDEN / TREE - DAY
He tumbles to a standstill at the base of the now healthy
tree in the middle of the lush garden meadow. He lies
motionless for a time, then shakes his head, slowly stands up
and dusts himself off.
He rises his head to see Sally 50 feet away, pools of tears
welling in her wide eyes. The reunited lovers stare into each
other's souls and walk, then run, towards each other.
They rub their necks together. Clawed raises his front leg.
Sally meets it with hers. They rise on their haunches,
interlocking legs and wrapping necks in a loving embrace.
Slowly PULL BACK as the Storyteller DISSOLVES IN around his
hugging dinosaur hands and the background around him blurs
away, placing him at the center of an
ETHEREAL SPOTLIGHT
STORYTELLER
When all seems lost and the end is near
and all the hope is lost in fear,
Our faithful hands will rise above
to resurrect eternal love.
The background of the Garden comes into view as the
narrator's dinosaur hands transform back into his human
hands, fingers interlocked as if in prayer.
STORYTELLER (CONT'D)
To life, to joy, to love, to laughter,
with a prayer for happily ever after.
As the Storyteller dissolves away, his hands transform back
into Clawed and Sally. They release their embrace and begin
to walk towards the forest. Baby dinosaur COMET dissolves
into the scene, frolicking around Clawed and Sally. The
three of them jump and dance into the distant paradise.
FADE TO WHITE.