Detritus script v1

1. Detritus - Short Animated Film
EXT. DESERT(COLD ONE) MORNING
Our unnamed female character (Jane for ease) is walking
across a desert landscape.
JANE IS A NASA SCIENTIST, ON AN 18 MONTH LONG MISSION TO
TEST THE FEASIBILITY OF CRYOGENIC SLEEP. THE WORK IS
HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL; DUE TO THIS AND THE UNSTABLE NATURE
OF THE EXPERIMENT, IT IS BEING HELD IN THE SVALBARD SEED
VAULT, ONE OF THE MOST GEOLOGICALLY SAFE LOCATIONS IN THE
WORLD.
JANE
It was about 7 months into the
18 month experiment testing
induced torpor technology -
hibernation if you’re not a NASA
scientist. 7 months since I had
talked to anyone, 7 months since
I had read the news, 7 months
since I had last breathed. My
last emotion was excitement,
excited for the large cheque
about to be deposited into my
bank account.
CUT TO:Titles
JANE
At the start I was blissfully
unaware as the people around me
were catapulted at 375 miles an
hour towards the east facing
wall of the observation room.How
that would change.
CUT TO:Diagram of Earth
JANE
Evidenced by what I saw when I
woke up, the earth stopped
spinning, but everything else
didn’t. That means that the
atmosphere kept spinning, and
375 mile an hour winds were
screeching past the vault door.
CUT TO:
CUT TO: Desert

2. JANE
Understandably it took me a bit
of courage to open the door.
Once I got out, it was
beautiful. The town of Svalbard
had gone. Cliche, but it was
wiped off the face off the
earth. I would love to say that
it had been reclaimed by birds
and penguins and polar bears,
but again, 375mph.
CUT TO:Remains of Hut
JANE
I met BeepBoop in the remains of
the guard hut, embedded into the
wall of the vault. The program
was controversial before I went
under, apparently threats were
serious enough to warrant
security drone.
BEEPBOOP

3. BEEPBOOP is a security drone,
based. It flys with a fan based
design, and is circular in
shape.
JANE
I wasn’t really sure how much
Beepboop was meant to help with
the security, saying he just
bobbed around my head, but it
was nice to have company.
CUT TO:Walking across wasteland
JANE
After a while the winds started
slowing, which was a nice
relief. I tried talking to
BeepBoop, tapping him, trying to
make him do anything other than
bob around and beep at me.
Jane starts to mess about with BeepBoop, tapping on him,
chasing him, trying to capture him.
JANE
I wasn’t really sure what I was
expecting to find in Svalbard,
but I hoped it was more than
nothing. The weather was oddly
warm; I ended up having to take
off my coat.
CUT TO:Viewpoint of Longyearbyen
JANE
There was nothing. Actually,
there was something, but
something else. A river. There
was a river before; but this was
huge, covering half the town.
Longyearbyen sits in a valley
which splits off from the main
Longyearbyen glacier further
uphill and merges at the bottom
with the river created from the
melt. The river meant a huge
amount of glacial melt was
flowing down, and it was melting
from much further uphill.
CUT TO:Svalbard Seed Vault
JANE

4. I was running out of food; it
was normally supplied from
regular shipments coming into
Longyearbyen in the summer, but
everyone was dead. Just as it
happens, my glorious hotel for
the last 7 months happened to be
the largest seed vault in the
world, holding seeds in case of
famine or extinction. The
weather was still too violent
outside so I went full Mark
Watney dragging soil inside to
one of the empty vaults.
Fortunately backup generators
had enough fuel for months, so
there was enough for lights.
Unfortunately the server
containing the catalog of seeds
was currently embedded in wall,
so I just guessed. I mean, how
are you meant to pick from
30,574 different types of bean.
CUT TO: Seed Bag Montage
JANE
Peas from the UK, let’s try it!
Barley from the US, ok!
Asian rice from laos, chuck it
down!
Oh wow erm, stuff it - Corn from
North Korea!
CUT TO: Longyearbyen
JANE
I kept returning to Lonyearbyen,
trying to get there while
managing the crops. Day to day
the wind was slowing, and the
temperatures growing. I managed
to make a thermometer out of
salvaged parts from the
hibernation pod, and from the
trends, the increase of
temperature was accelerating.

5. The glacial melt, having
completely covered the south
side of the valley, started to
spread across to the north side.
CUT TO:
ZOEY
That was Wednesday. /19th july
2028/. Over the next week the
permafrost in the top levels of
the vault started to melt.
Temperatures inside the vault
that stayed at a constant -4c no
matter the weather 3 weeks ago
were now rising. By Thursday the
melting of the permafrost was
flooding the crops, and by
Friday the humidity was reaching
that of a jungle. I spent
sleepless few days bringing the
hardiest of the crops that
survived down to the deepest
levels of the vault, and
replanting them.
On Friday I went for a final
expedition out to Longyearbyen.
CUT TO:Longyearbyen
ZOEY
There was barely a trace of
civilisation. Pretty much the
only things left were roads,
coming down into the valley on
either side, winding down the
side and then gently running
into the new sea. Climate change
had arrived, whether humanity
wanted to have a say or not.