Schaefer's Schorts
Writer - Short Screenplays
Solo Projects
Solo Projects
I find one of my favorite ways to keep my storytelling skills fresh, to explore the ideas floating around in my head, and to exercise clear, concise plot and character conveyance, is by writing short film screenplays. Presented here in reverse chronological order are a few of my favorites, ones where I feel both my voice and the story’s shine through – ones I wouldn’t mind putting to film someday. And yes, the spelling of the page title is intentional.
Deep Clean
As I said to my proofreaders for this story, as I consider to be the unofficial tagline of this story, “body horror can be self-care if you’re not a coward.” If you’ve ever wanted to give your brain a hot bath when you have a headache, or take off your jaw to get at those hard-to-reach places while brushing your teeth, or disassemble your clicking joints like an uncooperative ballpoint pen, congratulations – you are not a coward. In all seriousness, I find a visceral appeal in the idea of direct physiological intervention, of a more effective relationship with one’s body, particularly given my being neurodivergent and stimulation-seeking - the core story concept started with a sleepless night of overstimulation and sensory fantasies. But then looking even deeper (under the skin, you might say?) I realized the metaphorical potential – the vulnerability of self-care, the need for external support (be they female friendships or professional help), the healing that can occur when you expose those parts of yourself you never let anyone see. The burnout of our lives is an open wound (and poking at it certainly made parts of the writing process both cathartic and painful), and this story is about nothing if not making the internal external. When it comes down to it, healing and self-care, body horror or not, is not for the faint of heart – it takes guts (pun absolutely intended) to address the root of your pain, be it through this physicalized fantasy or your psychological reality.
Content Warning: Mild body horror
The Snowman
The first draft of The Snowman was the first complete screenplay I ever wrote, and my first foray into adaptation. I often listen to spooky stories while relaxing or doing chores, and something about the eponymous short by Loretta Burrough stood out to me – something in the blend of suspenseful atmosphere, isolated setting, complex female protagonist, and contrasting character relationships. 2 months of writing like a woman possessed in my free time later, there was the first draft – one which, in retrospect, read far more like a novel or theatrical script than a film. Where the first draft established the updated story, characters, and the bulk of the dialogue, for this second draft I returned to the project with a dedicated screenwriting course under my belt, reformatting the document and reconfiguring exchanges and scene descriptions to streamline pacing – making it more like an actual movie. Speaking of reconfiguration, while I was eager to put my own spin on the story for a current audience, it was important to me to preserve the feminist themes and radical significance of the original which drew me to it in the first place. Looking at the final product, I think I’ve succeeded in striking that balance, maintaining the character and agency of Nancy while updating and fleshing out her relationships with herself, her partners, and her world.
Content Warning: Abuse, dangerous situations, language, mild suggestive content
Earthmen
Exploring ideas of identity, community, masculinity, and survivorship, Earthmen tells the story of a teenage boy taking shelter in a drag club during an alien invasion. While the initial seed of this idea – “drag queens vs. aliens” – came about in a rapid, throwaway brainstorming session, the implications took root in my brain – how existential threats break down barriers of identity, the strength and resilience of those society frames as weak, the power of queer solidarity and joy, the struggle both external and internal to live life on one’s own terms. Fleshing out the concept, I spent quite some time mulling over each character, building their backgrounds and considering their relationships to the world, each other, and themselves to figure out how they’d respond to such a crisis. I found delving into the individual queens was not only important to writing a good, dynamic story, but also to not representing drag or gayness as a monolith, to showing the variety and vibrance of the queer experience. I also worked to say as much implicitly as explicitly, to make subtle refutations of masculinity and references to LGBTQ+ history which would build up characters and move the story forward, rather than try to force any specific messages. All in all, I feel I succeeded in creating something compelling, hopeful, and respectful, overcoming my doubts along the way - after all, "the show must go on".
Content Warning: Violence, dangerous situations, alcohol, strong language
Rain Racer
Rain Racer is my ode to childhood imagination, the emergent environmental narratives which arise from interminable boredom. Maybe it’s obvious or cliché for someone in my line of work to say, but we really owe so much to our imaginations. Thus in this nested narrative I worked to display how creativity, reorientation and recontextualization, can provide new solutions to problems ranging from the mundane and universal to the perilously specific. There was also a strong element of nostalgia I drew on when writing this piece, rooting it in the familiar and relatable – the framing story is something any kid on a long car ride has done (I can’t decide if the apparent collective subconscious of young children is magical or spooky), and the racing story drew heavily on my memories of Saturday morning cartoons. I enjoyed the challenge of scriptwriting without dialogue, experimenting with visual storytelling while leaving space for hypothetical collaborators (animators, sound designers, etc.) to contribute their skills.
Cover Image: TJakobs of the German Wikipedia,
CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons