Elliot Locke is the college dropout son of local politician, who has mixed emotions towards him due to his failings and depressed state of mind. Homeless and in between jobs, Elliot is staying with his dad when a sudden turn of fate changes his life. However, a political attack turns into a tragic accident, resulting in the death of Elliot's father. From this tragic loss, however, Elliot discovers a hidden gift: He is able to control his soul. Taking flight as a spirit above the city of Phoenix, Elliot finds comfort in this new freedom and uses it to escape the life he hates so much. This soon changes when he finds everything his father worked for being destroyed. Elliot decides to fight for his father's legacy and in the process discovers his own.
SOUL
PAGE 1.
There will be 7 panels on this page: In the top row, one fairly large square one followed by 3 narrow rectangles that decrease in size as we read across, focusing in on the subject. The 2 panels in the middle row will show his face in two different expressions lit up by the light from a telephone screen and backlit by a streetlight. The last panel on this page will be a large one across the bottom, giving a more panoramic view of the scene.
Panel 1.
We are looking down on a deserted street at night in a british town area that hasn't been renovated in around 20 years. The buildings are offices and shops, not houses. There is a streetlight about a yard or so in front of a young man walking down the street away from our angle; it hits him in such a way that he is mostly lit up by the light, and his shadow is much smaller than his actual frame. He is slightly slouched, but only slightly. All shadows are jet black, and the yellow light is solid. The dialogue box should be at the top of the panel, above the streetlight. This is a narrative section, and so the writing can be stylised to symbolise a 23 year old male or just be plain writing.
DIALOGUE.
Elliot: Have you ever had one of those days where things just go from bad to worse?
Panels 2, 3, 4
In these much thinner panels, we are zooming in panel by panel to the back of the upper body of Elliot. As we get closer, he is lit up more and more by the street light as he gets closer to being virtually beneath it. The dialogue in these panels can go across the bottom, it will be one continuous dialogue block that expands across all three.
DIALOGUE.
Elliot:
Box 1: Where all your plans fall apart, Things just don't go right
Box 2: …And the people you expect to be there for you …
Box 3: …let you down?
Panel 5.
This is the first larger middle panel. It is our first view of Elliot. He is looking down at his phone, and our picture is the view from just above and out just to the right of the phone, so Elliot is looking just to the left of the bottom line of the panel at his phone. He looks similar to Aaron Johnson but with a squarer jaw, bigger, darker eyes and his hair is a but shorter, more jagged and straight. He looks exhausted and fed up. His face is lit up pale white-blue from the phone, and is backlit from the streetlight, which is just visible in the top right corner. The dialogue box is in the top left of the panel, and is relatively small.
DIALOGUE.
Elliot: I was having one of those nights.
Panel 6.
Almost exactly the same picture, except Elliot's eyes are now closed in sorrow and he looks thoroughly miserable and frustrated. There is no dialogue in this box: This panel is intended to see the full anguish of the character, just from his facial expression.
Panel 7.
This is again a panoramic view of the street, but instead Elliot is walking towards the camera, with the light behind him as he's walked past it. We are still on the other side of the street and up high, and we see Elliot slouched even more now, and his shadow looms out massively in front of him. At the bottom of the panel should read the text: 36 hours ago.
PAGE 2.
The top half of page 2 will be three large horizontal panels stacked vertically. Above those panels will be the title of the first chapter: LOW. The panels will be once again be landscaped, following Elliot from a distance. The view is panoramic - Elliot is fairly small and we get to see all of his surroundings in fine detail as he walks home from town.
Panel 1, 2, 3
Elliot is walking down a different street, still within a town area. He is on a street on the right hand side of the panel, with It is still empty, maybe a few rats near the gutters, or possibly shadows in nearby alleys. The next, Elliot is in a suburban area, just fairly large, nicest houses. The lighting is less frequent. In the last horizontal panel, Elliot is walking in a rural area, he is on a dirt path with trees and fields all around. He uses his phone as a light in front of him. The sky seems to be getting lighter, indicating its very early in the morning. the stars are still up - and very very bright- but the sky is now a very dark blue, not black. Short dialogue boxes hover within each panel.
DIALOGUE. (in each box)
Elliot: I'd lost my job, flunked my exams, and then Elly…
Elliot: Elly…
Elliot: You get used to one thing, and then…
Panel 4,5
These two panels are like one big panel, but divided diagonally, from the bottom left to the top right.
In the first one, We are close up to the right of Elliot's head, looking over his shoulder. he is looking across the path but slightly in front of him.
DIALOGUE:
Elliot: I heard something first -
The fifth panel we are above Elliot and facing his right side, but a bit further back down the road, angled so that we can see further up the road where elliot is walking. A large Jeep and a car have come up the road immensely fast, and we see they are extremely close to hitting him. The both cars are black, the smaller is at the back, and it is visible only from the dazzling rear headlights and the the twilight. The licence plate is lit up but blurred from the velocity of the car.
DIALOGUE.
Elliot: - And then i saw it.
Panel 6.
This panel is another horizontal panel that is taller than the earlier ones. We see the left side of Elliots head on the right of the panel, far away enough so that we can see the top of his head. This time we can make out the plate: L0CK M6.
DIALOGUE:
Elliot: Dad's car.
PAGE 3.
Panels 1,2.
These two panels take up the top half of the the page, and basically show Elliot racing up the path. the first one shows him from behind, sprinting off up the track with Red lights in the very far distance, basically two dots. The path is pretty straight but has some curves. We can see it bears right a lot further up, where the car has got to and is about to turn.
DIALOGUE.
Elliot: I sprinted. I was pissed off they almost hit me, and upset that either Dad was extremely stressed or he'd had a drink again -
The second panel shows Elliot's face and his right shoulder, with the dark path behind him. His face looks tired, angry and most of all worried. He is slightly sweating from sprinting and concentrating on his footing.
DIALOGUE.
- He swore he'd never drink again after Mom left.
Panel 3. This takes up half of the bottom half of the page, and is a horizontal panel. Elliot is now at the corner previously mentioned, and we can see that just around it is something lit up… this panel is very atmospheric, there is this massive, twinkling sky, and this looming darkness at the bottom right of the page from where Elliot came, but this glow comes from behind the trees and Elliot is lit up. This panel introduces the second character, Nathaniel who is revealed to be a police officer in the next panel. His dialogue should be placed in a grey box.
DIALOGUE.
Nathan: Hold on, kid, when did your momma leave? Did you now who was in the Jeep? And who did you get a text from?
Elliot: What, oh she left years ago, I was like 17. I'm over it. The text…
Panel 4.
This is the very bottom of the page. We are in a very hectic police office. there is a lot of movement of people and papers. The colours are all very muted, and nothing seems in focus other than Elliot and Nathaniel. Nathaniel is a large black police officer in his mid thirties. He seems tired and a little deflated, but is paying close attention to Elliot. Elliot looks like he's broken down emotionally and physically. He looks a bit roughed up, with a few scrapes on his face and knuckles. His dialogue in this box will be in a speech bubble. The view is a side-on look of the pair, angled so that we are looking more from Nathaniel's view.
DIALOGUE.
Elliot: The text was from - it was from - Elly. It read… It read "I'm, sorry, I'm not changing my mind. This is it." I'd just come from her house. Like the message wasn't clear face-to-face.
PAGE 4.
Panels 1,2
Again, the top half of the page is split into two vertical rectangles. The first shows a very similar scene to the last panel, except this time we can see more of Nathaniel as he speaks.
DIALOGUE.
Nathaniel: Aw I'm sorry kid, women can be a mystery to us men. Now i'd love to go through all those smushy details about how it didn't work out, but -
The second panel frames Nathaniel's face dead-on. He looks very serious and completely unamused. He is staring right into the eyes of the reader. The light is bright and so he is well lit up, there are no shadows - it is Nathaniel talking straight at you.
DIALOGUE.
Nathaniel: There's been a murder, kid. Your daddy's dead. Your home is GONE. Now is NOT the time to be talking about girls. Now is the time to be explaining what the hell happened, and how you were dead for at least five minutes and yet you're here with me now breathing. So go. You were running.
Panel 3.
This is another horizontal panel, but this time its alot slimmer: It's a close up view of just Elliot's eyes. They are bloodshot, full of tears and his expression shows pure anguish. This view is toward the left side of the panel, so that the text can float in the space next to his head.
DIALOGUE.
Elliot: Excuse me? I'm not here for the benefit of my [frick]en health either. My dad DIED yesterday, and I wanna make sure you know who did it. Just before i got there, I heard the explosion.
Panel 4
We are back at the Locke home, and this is a fairly large horizontal panel and is basically a shot of Elliot rounding the corner as he sees his home explode. His home looks Greco-Georgian, and is fairly massive. massive plumes of fire and smokeare billowing from all of the windows, and the garage door and some foundation have exploded across the lawn where something clearly exploded at the base of the house. The Jeep and car are idle in the drive. The dialogue box is at the bottom right of the panel.
DIALOGUE.
Elliot: My first instinct was to go in.