Revised story

The Laboratory

The first scene is of three scientists working in a high security biohazard lab. Two of the scientists are looking serious as they work while one has a cheerful expression on his face, wearing his lab coat open, and whistling as he works. This is the main character and will be referred to as Joe for the rest of this script. As he is maneuvering around the lab, he accidentally knocks over a canister. As he reaches over to pick up a hand towel, he notices that the other scientists are running out of the room screaming. He casually walks over to the door and finds that its been sealed shut. He walks over a single observatory window and has a non-verbal conversation with the scientist looking out from the other side.

Joe makes a smiling face and points to the door, the scientists on the other side shake their head. Joe than makes a “pretty please?” gesture, to which the scientists point to a sign on the wall. The sign has in bold letters “IN CASE OF ACCIDENT” and has a set of pictures under it that show a scientist knocking over a canister, the other scientist running out and locking the door, and the final picture shows the scientist inside dying of plague like symptoms while the other scientist looks on safely though the window. When Joe sees this sign, he facial expression changes to fear for the first time as he proceeds to run around the laboratory in a panic and banging on the door. The next scene shows him after hes calmed down a little and starts looking though a book to find an antidote. When he finds the page matching with the symbol on the canister, he finds the antidote listed as “Fire, and lots of it”. To which he again runs around the room in a panic and banging on the door. *cue sad music* The final scenes are shown from behind the glass window as he gets sicker and sicker and finally dies.

I tried to work in a little more character development into this one and play with the audience expectation that this was going to be comedy.