Escapement

Suffering from chronic depression, a young woman, feeling the deep cuts of isolation, spends the day trying to reconnect with society.

  • Phil McCarron
    Writer
    Ghosts in the Ink
  • Project Type:
    Short Script
  • Number of Pages:
    22
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Derby, United Kingdom
    September 8, 2019
    Best Short Film & Best Producer
Writer Biography - Phil McCarron

Phillip McCarron was born in Grangemouth, Scotland to Alexis Brien and Gordon McCarron. At the age of 11, he emigrated to the suburbs of Chicago, USA. While attending Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream, Phil began taking an interest in writing, beginning with poems, song lyrics and short stories. After graduation, he returned to Grangemouth where he started to explore the medium of screenwriting.

He drew inspiration from his Great Uncle, British novelist, journalist, film & theatre critic, Alan Brien. Alan once said to him, "writers are like gods, they are the only other people that can create something from nothing." The power of the written word to become anything, from a mantra to a movement, he found to be profoundly true.

Six years later, he moved back to the suburbs of Chicago where he wrote and published a collection of humorous & satirical essays, "The Great Facepalm: The Farce of 21st Century Society". The book was not a success. From there, he returned his focus to screen writing and attended community college with a focus on film production. Working on various student projects, his love of film and writing for film grew. He found that the beauty of screenwriting is that you're never alone. There is always a hive of creative minds adding their own talent to the words written on the page.

In 2019, he completed his first independent short film, "Ghosts in the Ink", acting as writer, creative/financial producer, additional editor, and sound editor.

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Writer Statement

The ancient cliche is true, a writer does put a piece of themselves into everything they right.

As a sufferer of chronic depression and a survivor of suicide attempts, I wanted to write a piece about what I call, "The eye of the storm." It's that brief moment in time where the torrent of the mind calms to an eerie stillness and you begin to notice all of the briefest moments in life: both beautiful and tragic. It's in these moments that we live. It's in these moments that we have the ability to help or be helped, to change or be changed, to live or to die.

When I wrote Escapement, I wanted to infuse this experience with some of classic master painter's most dark, introspective, and profound observations that happen in the blink of an eye. Moments that we miss every day because they are in society's blind spot.

I also wanted to mesh this ASMR, truly focusing on the soundscape and the heightened awareness of someone living in the eye of the storm.

As with all storm eyes, the worst is yet to come, the storm surge; that wall of water, cresting high and white in the ocean as rampages onto shore and crushes everything in its wake.