Just Another Model

Abbreviations:

VO: voice over

Int. :Internal

Ext. :External

Characters:

Model and Dancer: Helen

Film Director and model: Nadja

Hit man: Howard

Drug Dealer: Axle

Spiritual Anthropologist: Dave

Photographer: Russell

Bardo Director: Rusty

TITLES:

A WILLIAM R. MISTELE PRODUCTION

JUST ANOTHER MODEL (OVER PICTURE OF TRAIN STATION)

INT. AMONG PILLARS—MORNING

Helen walking into great hall between pillars, disrobing.

Cut to Russell taking picture of graffiti

Cut to balcony second floor of Russell approaching window frame and looking down at Helen finishing walking into great hall where she dances alone.

TITLE: THE SPIRITUAL ANTHROPOLOGIST LOCKS ON HIS TARGET

INT. STUDIO--AFTERNOON

VO: (DAVE)

Some say she is just another model.

[Note: in the youtube version the photos below take the place of the dancing that follows]

Cut to hand turning pages of book of photos of Helen

Pics:

goddess Shiva,

trust,

the chair pose upside down,

the goddess Dawn,

dancing by wall shot

Cut back to rest of studio scene including below

DAVE

When she was relaxed, I simply ask,

Meditate with me for a moment. Indulge me.

HELEN

(her eyes closed)

Sure

DAVE

It takes me seconds to hypnotize her. Then I ask the spirit within her,

Are you a human being?

HELEN

No.

DAVE

Are you a shape shifter, half human and half animal, a creature of the night?

HELEN

No.

DAVE

Are you a higher being descended from the realms of light?

Close up of Dave’s face leaning forward

Answer my question.

(with determination)

Cut to video of Helen’s dance as Dave and Helen do voice over of who she says she is when hypnotized or 30 seconds of stills edited in and ending with rest of studio scene.

VO (Helen)

Where I dwell I am called “the jewel that contains eternity.”

But among your race I am known by another name--the wish fulfilling gem, for I gratify the deepest desires and reveal paths to perfection.

DAVE

Tell me, what is the essence of your race and your innermost dreams?

HELEN

Seek me in my receptivity—

There is nothing within you that I can not feel, that I can not heal, no secret desire or mysterious skill that I can not reveal.

DAVE

What is your mission and the task you must accomplish before you depart?

HELEN

The essence of my race is freedom.

My mission is liberation.

My task?

Cut back to studio

HELEN

(her eyes open as she speaks)

It is to give you whatever you ask

As long as you are willing through the depths of my soul to pass.

The door to room opens and Russell enters.

RUSSELL

Sorry. I didn’t know anyone was in here.

(Helen who is now awake and smiling and standing and with her ordinary voice.)

I am ready for the photo shoot.

How do you want me?

TITLE: THE GREAT HALL

INT. GREAT HALL—MORNING

Cut to scene of Nadja undressing with dialogue

Axle, fleeing a hit man, comes into the hall and looking at girls and moves off. This takes place during Nadja’s dialogue and undressing

NAJA

(facing directly video camera which she is recording herself on)

Is she just another ordinary model? Or can she embody any goddess? You be the judge.

Nadja: as Najda undresses

NAJDA

There are three things male photographers can not conceive:

1. They can’t see a woman as a symbol—that something is familiar and that something is forever unknowable.

2. They never take a picture of the actual woman in front of them—what she feels and who she is, only what they want the woman to be.

3. They only do the bright, shiny side with the beauty, never the dark side—the power is in the dark--the pain, anguish, sorrow, broken heart, and emptiness. The women can feel what men can not.

Turning to Helen getting closer to her face, “I wish so much that a man could just see and feel me as I am. I get so lonely.”

Nadja mentions placing camera at a certain angle to do take on Helen.

NADJA

(to Helen as Helen gets down on floor)

It was said in Atlantis that once every 10,000 years that Divine Providence would send a woman into the world who could dance the Song of the Universe. I want you to be that woman.

Very brief video of dance on floor

Axle, carrying a small knife, stumbles onto Russell who is photographing graffiti.

RUSSELL

Whoa

Videos/shots of empty places in building: halls, rooms, etc. as if Russell wandering around dead. Russell appears out of thin air in hallway, such as where “lost souls” shot is.

Russell appears to Helen but Nadja can’t see him

RUSSELL

Why am I here?

HELEN

Its called a sending. You died and you appear to someone to say goodbye, anyone who can see you and I am the only one around who is available to you.

NADJA

Who are you talking to?

RUSSELL

I don’t feel like I am dead. This can’t be right.

HELEN

Didn’t the light appear to you?

RUSSELL

The light? There are lots of lights.

What do you mean?

Let me show you.

TITLE: The Bardo: Entering the Light

The two are before a door of light.

Like this one.

1. Balcony window frame outside second floor: This one looking out on to balcony with vision of future (pose: back to window frame out on balcony arms above head holding frame)

She walks up and does pose:

HELEN

This one is a vision of the future in which justice has been established between the nations. You will have to pay a great price if you step into this light,

RUSSELL

What price?

HELEN

Find the divine within your desires or fall into a pit of darkness.

Cut to

Axle stalking Nadja, several angles as he moves toward her.

Cut back to Russell and Helen

2. (in room with very colorful graffiti)

(cut to photo of two hands stretched out against pillar pose)

HELEN

You’re looking at my ass.

RUSSELL

Sorry, I thought it was another source of light.

HELEN

This one is freedom

RUSSELL

And the price of failure?

HELEN

The darkness inside of you that you fail to illuminate becomes your obsession.

Howard’s sequence of entering hall

Axle continues stalking Engel

He walks around looking for her seeing her following her at a distance.

3. (bright blue graffiti first floor)

RUSSELL

I thought I lost you.

HELEN

Now this light here makes the world new.

She steps against wall disrobing.

RUSSELL

I love it when you do that.

She assumes pose and smiles at him.

RUSSELL

What’s the price?

HELEN

This light’s price?

To really love another person, to know what that feels like in the depths of your soul? You have to die to the person you are—that is the price of a really great love. (humor) Too much to ask?

RUSSELL

You change form so easily. Can anyone ever know who you really are?

HELEN

I am always in the flow—why cling to one identity?

Goes to non verbal sequence of him seeing her nude in the hall waking into a room and she wears one thing in that room and changes as he goes down the hall following her in the hall as she goes through the doors of each room. Last room she is in but vanishes and then she is down the hall farther on and again nude, laughing and walking.

Scene of Howard killing Axle

4. Same location as graffiti room, #2: She is with spray can seeming to spray the wall nude.

RUSSELL

Back here again?

HELEN

Its great graffiti!

She assumes a pose.

HELEN

This one is invisible to most people. But it shines everywhere.

RUSSELL

What is it?

HELEN

It is infinite peace.

RUSSELL

The price?

HELEN

Make your mind open and as pure as the sky.

RUSSELL

And if you fail?

HELEN

You reincarnate as a priest who no longer believes.

Shots of Axle continuing to stalk Nadja

RUSSELL

VO (off screen): Why is stalking that girl? Doesn’t he know he is dead?

HELEN

VO (off screen) He is trying to enter the light but keeps reliving the moments before his death.

Shot of face or off screen voice over of Axle stalking Nadja:

RUSSELL

A girl that beautiful is worth dying for, don’t you think?

5. Prajnaparamita animation

RUSSELL

What is this light? I see only darkness.

HELEN

It is the source from which all light arises.

RUSSELL

The payoff?

HELEN

Enlightenment, which is to say, not just freedom but the perfection of freedom.

RUSSELL

The price?

HELEN

To be so open, so empathic, you feel one with anything that exists.

RUSSELL

And failure?

HELEN

Attempt this and fail and you will no longer know what love is.

RUSSELL

Why do you appear like that and then disappear?

HELEN

Because in this light there is no need of form or identity, only pure

consciousness.

6. Empty room of pillars: her back to a pillar looking toward window hand above and over head.

RUSSELL

(simply looking at her pose)

This one?

HELEN

This is living at the edge of a moment.

RUSSELL

What’s the payoff?

HELEN

You get to see the world through God’s eyes.

RUSSELL

What’s the price?

HELEN

The price is you have to let go of all that you know. For you, right now, you would have to enter the next moment as if I no longer exist.

RUSSELL

Can you teach me how to do this?

(they reappear half way center of empty room with pillar—she has back to pillar gazing at window off screen)

HELEN

This one is sooo you.

RUSSELL

If I fail?

HELEN

You become a hungry ghost who clings to a past that no longer exists.

She leans against pillar in second story room and he walks from beside her on other side of pillar and into the light.

Shot is of the light on her becoming very bright and then fading back to normal room light as he is off screen walking into the light.

TITLE: EPILOGUE

He comes back to her from “going into the light.”

HELEN

I didn’t know you could come back after going into the light.

He looks at her.

HELEN

You’re not dead.

RUSSELL

Never said I was.

HELEN

Am I dead?

RUSSELL

You are the most alive person I have ever met.

HELEN

What do you want from me?

RUSSELL

Share with the world what you know.

Bardo Director appears out of a burst of light

HELEN

Who are you?

BARDO DIRECTOR

I’m the regional director of this section of the Bardo. I have a report of an “entering the light” violation.

(pointing at Russell)

That would be you.

HELEN

He’s not dead.

BARDO DIRECTOR

Obviously not. Between you talking to him as if he were dead and another recent death, the system glitched and kept trying to match the light to someone who hadn’t died.

HELEN

Did I do something wrong?

BARDO DIRECTOR

(ignoring her and walking up to him)

(to helen)

Just a moment.

(to Russell, looking into his eyes with realization)

No one informed me a Brother of Light was running an

operation in my sector.

Recruiting?

Russell nodes.

BARDO DIRECTOR

Pardon my interruption

(as he disappears into the light)

I was never here.

HELEN

Is there anything else?

Cut to first floor hallway behind pillars

HELEN

This is the domain of lost souls. Why have your brought me here?

RUSSELL

(shots of Helen sitting on floor in a room, in a ball)

Who is that?

HELEN

There is a place in my soul that is locked, forgotten, and lost. No one has found the key to pass through and find me. This is what wakes me up every night in screaming pain. Have I answered your question?

RUSSELL

Thank you.

HELEN

Where is my dance of the Song of the Universe?

Ending #1:

RUSSELL

Its in the director’s cut.

(possibly cut to two characters on balcony overlooking city)

RUSSELL

Till we meet again?

HELEN

Until then.

Both fade and vanish.

Last shot of trains station as in beginning.

Ending #2: [director’s cut] (deleted from youtube version)

HELEN

Where is my dance of the Song of the Universe?

Two to ten minute slow dance.

Credits (over picture of train station)

Model as the model Helen and also as co-producer, assistant director, artistic director, editing, makeup, dancer, photography, and photo editing.

Engel plays film director and the second model

Lew as Howard, the hit man, and video, video editing, lighting, security

Joe as Dave, the spiritual anthropologist, and as sound engineer, photography consultant, location

William as Russell, the photographer, and as co-producer, director, writer, photography, video, and video editing

Malachi as Axle, the drug dealer and stalker

Bardo Director as Jack

Kamryn Starkey as our special “After Death Consultant”

Location: Michigan Central Station and Midwest Photography Workshop studio

Special Thanks to mpw.com for use of staff and workshops

Acknowledgement:

This movie was loosely based on new Beatitudes channeled through the soul of the model in the movie:

Blessed are those who trust, for they have entered the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who pass through their inner darkness without fear or shame, for they shall attain freedom.

Blessed are those who find the divine hidden within their desires, for they shall establish justice between the nations.

Blessed are those who find in their hearts the power to become one with another without hesitation or limitation, for they shall do as I do--make all things new.

Blessed are those whose minds are as clear and pure as the sky, for their peace shall be as a sea that has no shores and as a stream that flows from the dawn of time to the ends of eternity.

Blessed are those whose compassion casts aside all barriers separating one from another transforming conflict into harmony and malice into nobility, for these grasp the mysteries of the kingdom and I shall hide nothing from them.

Blessed are those who let go and flow as each moment unfolds, for they shall see through the eyes of God.

Blessed are those whose compassion knows no limitation, for these have attained the perfection of freedom and nothing can bind them.

A William R. Mistele Production