INKTOBER-John Hughes's Day Off by James Hughes-David Press.

This is based off a profile of John Hughes, the American Film Director of Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, and you know the rest. He was, apparently, an avid sketch artist and in this article from Vanity Fair David Kamp shows off some of his notebooks. This script is based off of the Kamp article and a Grantland piece Hughes’s son wrote.

PAGE ONE.

1.1: Let’s open up with three rows. The way I pictured this was the top and bottom tier will be two panels with the middle tier having three panels. Of course, things are totally up to your interpretation.

We’re opening on WRIGLEY FIELD and instead of a baseball game happening the field is covered in ice. Narration will be from the text of James Hughes’s story—mostly paraphrased.

1. CAPTION [JAMES]:         My father was from Detroit, but was a Chicagoholic.

1.2: Close on a pair of seats, just out in right field, where we can see JOHN HUGHES and his youngest son JAMES HUGHES. On John Hughes’s lap is a notebook.

2. CAP:                                   For him, writing was a way of life. Even when he was directing the Brat Pack movies of the ‘80s.

1.3: Close on the notebook: where we can see this image from James’s story. If you can, let’s try a sneak at the field where we can see the familiar colors of the CHICAGO BLACK HAWKS playing the DETROIT RED WINGS in a game of ice hockey. Here it is: https://espngrantland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/grant_e_hughes-nb01jr_576111.jpg

3. CAP:                                   After he left public life he never stopped his compulsive scribbling.

1.4 CUT TO: A jazz club and a spotlight stage where we can see a SAXOPHONIST [http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/photos/2010/03/john-hughes-slideshow-201003#8].

4. CAP:                                   He used Smythson and Moleskine notebooks. They were filled with memoirs, agendas, op-eds,

1.5 CUT TO: REDWING FARMS, in Northwest Illinois where John Hughes and his wife Nancy spent the last ten years of their non-public life. There are no photos of this farm—mostly because Hughes wanted his anonymity and people gave it to him—but we can see Hughes back standing in the field surrounded by Apple Trees.

5. CAP:                                   and plans for the farm…

1.6 CUT TO: A shoebox filled with notebooks. Looks like this: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4f/07/af/4f07af103929d3cdc876d21c95cdc7f9.jpg

6. CAP:                                   When he died in August 2009 my brother and I found over 300 notebooks filled with drawings that were similar in style to Saul Steinberg and R. Crumb.

1.7: A dark box where we can see the face of John Hughes.

7. DISPLAY LETT:               John Hughes, 1950-2009.

8. CAP:                                   On the day he died, there were some photographs and some notes a couple of steps away from where he collapsed. One thing is clear: my father only stopped writing when his heart stopped beating.

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