Abridged Script

Summary: 

An abused circus bear falls out the back of a truck and is left behind, separated from his beloved bicycle. Confused he travels through unfamiliar surroundings and meets a blind old lady who mistakes him for her guide dog before finding familiarity in a scooter. After re-finding the circus, he finds his bicycle and is pursued by clowns, who crash into the scooter left in the road, leaving him to cycle off. After the credits we see that he is living with the old blind lady and jealous guide dog.  

Characters:

Bear: a tamed innocent creature. He lives in the moment. Curious and childlike.  

Blind Old Lady: Mistakes the bear to be her guide dog.

Guide Dog: playful. In the end becomes jealous of the bear.

Bus Driver: (a shadowed out figure) (brief) does not turn to notice the bear and he hears the guide dog’s bark so just presumes it was the dog getting on the bus.

Frightened Pedestrians: (brief) run out of the bear’s way when he mounts the pavement.

Van Driver: (brief) wonders if he’s been drinking when he sees the bear

Clowns: (all look the same) try to recapture bear

Act 1: Beginning

There is a shot of a circus tent slowly zooming in, fading into the next shot we see a bear performing inside the ring riding a bicycle.

The next shot is of the circus trucks going along a bumpy country road. The bear being thrown about inside the truck. It goes over a bump, the lock on the door breaks so it slings open, he grabs at his bicycle, but let’s go at another bump in the road and roles out.

He ends up wandering down the road to a bus stop. There’s a blind old lady and her guide dog. She’s completely un-phased by the bear’s presence and stands still unaware. The three in a line while the bear copies as if to see what they could be staring at or waiting for. The dog then playfully sniffs and interacts with the curious bear before a bus pulls up.

The old lady then grabs the bear by the scruff of the neck thinking he’s the guide dog and pulls him onto the bus. The bear’s rather taken aback by this. The bus doors close, the guide dogs face hits the door as he tries to follow, and is left somewhat confused at the bus stop. The bear and the old lady sit together on the bus and she pats him somewhat comically on the head and shoves a biscuit in his mouth.

Fade to Black

Act 2: Middle

The bear gets dragged off the bus by the old lady when it pulls into a small town. They head towards a bakery.

As the old lady goes to buy some bread she looks through the shop window. He can see and smell it so tries to get at it. Though ends up knocking his face against the window. When he does this he notices a light blue scooter reflected in the window with a little red helmet on top of the handle bars.

A look of excitement goes across his face and he paces over to the bike and puts the helmet on. Grabbing the handle bars he braces his face pushing it forward into the wind enthusiastically, and begins to pedal. He peddles air for a few seconds accidently knocking the kick start.

Looking about confused he turns the handle by accident and the scooter speeds about in an S- shape onto the path frightening pedestrian’s then back onto the road.

After a few seconds he calms down and enjoys the fact he doesn’t have to pedal. He then goes level with a van window.

The driver double takes when he sees a bear riding happily along next to him. The bear then accelerates off. 

The driver swerves crashing into a hedge.

The driver puts his hand in front of his mouth to see if he’s had too much to drink. (Though this may be cut out depending if it works in the animatic or not).

Fade to black

Act 3: End

We see him riding the scooter that’s coughing low on petrol and the circus appearing in a nearby field.

The music beckoning him, he goes down to it leaving the scooter behind in the middle of the road. He sees his bicycle propped up against a circus truck. He grasps it happily, climbing on and peddles off.

A clown notices him points, the other clowns join him and they pile into their miniature clown car and chase after him, only to crash into the scooter sitting in the middle of the road. The bear having easily pedalled around it, endlessly off into the sunset.

Queue Credits

Fade to Black

After the credits the audience then realises he’s gone to live with the blind old lady as she sits in her worn armchair watching TV while he awkwardly knocks biscuits off the saucer on the arm of the armchair into his mouth (like when a dog nicks a biscuit). Much to her dog’s jealous disapproval.