Share The Light

Screenplay draft

Title: Share your AI art, my friends ✨
Credit: Written by
Author: Screenwriter
Draft date: 10.01.2024
Contact: 

FADE IN.

INT. MARCUS QUILL'S APARTMENT - NIGHT

Three monitors cast electric cyan light across a cramped Seattle studio. Stacks of prompt notebooks lean like bricks against the wall. Unpaid electricity notices lie scattered on the floor. One blackout curtain blocks the window. The only sound is the low hum of fans and the soft click of keys.

MARCUS QUILL sits in a worn office chair. Late twenties. Pale skin. Screen-burn shadows under his eyes. The same gray hoodie with frayed cuffs. Thin frame. Sleeves pushed to his elbows. His fingers hover over the keyboard.

On the center monitor an unfinished AI face stares forward. Skin texture incomplete. Eyes open. The pupils shift to follow the cursor as Marcus moves it across the screen.

MARCUS
(whispering)
Weight on the left eye. More fracture along the cheek.

He types a new prompt. The face updates. The left eye deepens. A thin crack appears in the digital skin. Marcus leans closer. The eyes track the cursor again.

MARCUS
(whispering)
Add light bleed from the right. Lower the saturation.

He adjusts sliders. The face flickers. Cyan light spills across his hoodie. Marcus watches the pupils dilate and contract with each cursor pass. He exhales through his nose.

MARCUS
One more pass.

His fingers move. New prompt text fills the box. The face sharpens. The crack widens slightly. Marcus studies it. He reaches for a notebook, checks a handwritten line, then returns to the keyboard.

MARCUS
(whispering)
Share.

He types the word. The cursor hovers over the button. Marcus hesitates. The face on screen continues to watch the cursor. He clicks.

The image uploads. A progress bar fills in electric cyan. The post appears on $SHARE. Marcus sits back. The three monitors glow. The unfinished face remains centered on the middle screen, eyes still following nothing now.

MARCUS
(quiet)
Nobody sees these anyway.

INT. MARCUS QUILL'S APARTMENT - NIGHT

Three monitors crowd the desk, their blue light the only source in the room. Prompt notebooks rise in uneven towers beside an overflowing trash can. A blackout curtain seals the single window. Unpaid electricity notices lie scattered across the floor, their red ink catching the glow.

Marcus Quill sits in the worn office chair, hoodie sleeves pushed up, staring at the notices. His thin fingers drum once on the desk edge. The center monitor flickers. On it, the newly uploaded self-portrait stares back, eyes half-rendered, mouth caught mid-breath.

MARCUS
(quiet, to himself)
Should have paid that last week.

He picks up one notice, folds it once, then sets it down without reading further. His gaze drifts to the stacked notebooks. Pages spill out, covered in crossed-out prompts. The monitor flickers again, sharpening the portrait's cheekbone for a second before it softens.

Marcus leans forward. The chair creaks. He types a single line, deletes it, types again. Nothing posts. The portrait on screen holds steady now, its pupil fixed on the cursor.

MARCUS
(hesitant)
Nobody's going to see it anyway.

He closes the prompt window. The apartment falls into deeper shadow except for the three screens. One of them still shows the self-portrait, its edges pulsing faintly with each flicker. Marcus watches the light play across the unpaid notices at his feet. He does not move to turn on any other light.

INT. MARCUS QUILL'S APARTMENT - NIGHT

A single monitor casts electric cyan light across the cramped room. Stacks of prompt notebooks lean like bricks against the wall. Unpaid electricity notices lie scattered on the floor. MARCUS QUILL sits in his worn office chair, hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, pale fingers moving across the keyboard.

On screen, the self-portrait stares back. The generated face shows fractured cheekbones and one pupil that dilates slightly as the cursor hovers. Marcus leans closer. The monitor glow picks out the screen-burn shadows under his eyes.

MARCUS
(whispering)
Add more fracture along the jaw.

He types the adjustment. The image updates. Pixels shift like skin settling.

MARCUS
Share.

His finger clicks the button. The post uploads to $SHARE. Below the image a single blood-red heart icon appears. The notification pings once, soft and final.

The screen cracks with a sound like ice breaking. A thin seam of light leaks through the fracture, bone-white at the edges, warm saffron bleeding in from somewhere beyond the glass. The crack runs from the heart icon down to the taskbar.

Marcus freezes. He reaches out, then pulls his hand back. The light pulses once, faint, then holds steady. The red heart flickers on the broken surface like a live ember.

MARCUS
(leaning in, low)
Graphics driver again.

He closes the laptop lid halfway. The crack still glows underneath.

INT. MARCUS QUILL'S APARTMENT - NIGHT

A single monitor casts electric cyan across the cramped room. Stacks of prompt notebooks lean like bricks against the wall. The laptop lid sits half-open. A thin seam of light pulses along the cracked screen.

MARCUS QUILL leans in, hoodie sleeves shoved past his elbows. His fingers hover above the keyboard. The glow leaks across his pale skin.

MARCUS
(hesitant)
Graphics driver. Just... a driver crash.

He presses the lid down. The crack widens under his palm. Light spills across the desk like liquid.

PRIYA (V.O.)
Marcus. Your room. I can see the notebooks.

Marcus jerks back. The voice threads through the hinge, clear and clipped with a Mumbai edge.

MARCUS
No. No, that’s not...

He stands. The chair rolls into a stack of unpaid notices. They flutter to the floor. He stares at the glowing seam.

MARCUS
(quieter)
It’s the backlight. Always does this after midnight.

PRIYA (V.O.)
You posted the face. I painted the same one. The portal opened on my end first.

Marcus paces two steps, stops. The blackout curtain trembles from the street vent. He returns to the desk, lifts the lid an inch. Cyan light cuts across his face.

MARCUS
Portals don’t come out of laptops. That’s not how any of this works.

PRIYA (V.O.)
Try another prompt. Add something real. Your fear, not just the pixels.

He closes the lid again. The seam brightens, bone-white at the edges. A faint saffron warmth mixes with the blue. Marcus sits. His hands rest on his knees. The room stays silent except for the low hum of the fan.

MARCUS
If I open it again... you’ll still be there?

PRIYA (V.O.)
We already are.

Marcus exhales. He reaches for the lid. His fingers stop short. The crack pulses once, steady, waiting.

INT. PRIYA LANG'S MUMBAI STUDIO - DAY

Warm saffron light cuts through open windows, mixing with the cool blue spill from a laptop on a wooden table. Canvases lean against cracked plaster walls. Street traffic hums below, distant horns and voices bleeding in. PRIYA LANG stands at an easel, ink-stained fingers gripping a brush. She paints the same unfinished face that glows on the monitor behind her: sharp cheekbones, fractured left eye, skin that looks half-rendered.

She steps back. Studies the canvas. Dips the brush again. The bristles drag thick ochre across the cheek, matching a pixel edge on the screen.

PRIYA LANG
(quiet, to the paint)
We give it weight here.

She sets the brush down, wipes her hands on her kurta, and moves to the laptop. The comment field under Marcus's post sits open. Her fingers hover. She types slowly, each key click sharp against the traffic drone.

PRIYA LANG
Every share is a portal.

The words sit on screen, cursor blinking. Priya leans closer, brow tightening. The monitor flickers once, electric cyan leaking along the bezel like a hairline crack. She doesn't notice. Her eyes return to the canvas.

She lifts the brush again. Adds a thin line beneath the painted eye, a seam of light that wasn't there before. The paint glistens. On the laptop, the single red heart icon pulses once, unnoticed.

PRIYA LANG
We start small.

She paints the right pupi

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