THE BENCH

SCENE CONTEXT
Blue hour at a municipal five-a-side cage. @leo sits on the bench beside the
pitch, dressed to play and not playing. Six strangers score in front of him.
He is glad for them, his body starts to join them, it stops, and then he
looks down at his own legs.

ACTIVE REFERENCES

LOCATION MAP
@bench on the tarmac path in the foreground; @cage behind and to screen right
— green chain-link across the frame, worn astroturf beyond it, two floodlight
masts already on. The floodlights are the only warm source and they sit on
@leo's right for the whole scene; everything on his left falls to blue
shadow. The camera stays on @leo's left side of the line in every cut — his
eyeline runs screen right, the pitch is always screen right, never flipped.

FIRST FRAME / BLOCKING
Already in motion: @leo leans forward, forearms on his thighs, and laces his
fingers — the knuckles tighten as the frame opens. Head turned screen right,
eyes tracking something fast beyond the fence. 16:9, he sits on the left
third, the fence and the negative space on the right, the side he is looking
toward. The bottom edge of frame is the front lip of the bench seat.

FORMAT MODE
Four cuts, 14 seconds. Cuts at 1.7s, 4.6s, 9.2s. No other cuts, no dissolves,
no slow motion anywhere.

CUT 1 — 0.0–1.7s, medium, chest to mid-thigh, 40mm:
His laced fingers tighten once and loosen. At 0.9s his head tracks a fast
movement from frame right toward frame centre, the chin following half a beat
late. Slow 8 cm push, no tilt. His legs are NOT in this frame at any point.

CUT 2 — 1.7–4.6s, over-the-shoulder wide, 50mm:
Cut on his head turn. His head and left shoulder fill the lower left quarter,
close to the lens and heavily out of focus; the game fills the right two
thirds beyond the fence. At 2.4s a player takes the ball down and turns with
it. At 3.3s he plays it square and a second man runs onto it. At 4.2s the
striker puts it in the small goal and the net snaps back — a goal, on camera,
plainly readable. At 4.3–4.6s the scorer wheels away with one arm up and a
team-mate jogs at him. Slow 20 cm push past his shoulder. @leo's face is not
seen in this cut.

CUT 3 — 4.6–9.2s, medium close-up, chest and head, 65mm:
Cut on the scorer's turn, while the celebration is still running off screen.
4.6–5.2s his eyes stay on them and the corners of his mouth pull up — a
small, closed-mouth smile that arrives LATE, after the goal, not with it. The
eyes do not narrow with it; the smile does not reach them.
5.2–5.8s he leans forward, weight coming onto his forearms as if he is about
to stand, and his right hand unlaces and lifts ten centimetres off his thigh —
the beginning of a call for the ball — and stops dead in the air.
5.8–6.4s the hand comes back down onto the thigh and the fingers lace again.
He does not look at it.
6.4–7.1s the smile stays on his face but stops moving. The lower lids tighten
and go wet, floodlight catching the water in them. No tear leaves the eye.
7.1–8.0s a deep breath in through the nose, chest rising, held for most of a
second.
8.0–8.6s released. On the exhale the smile goes — the mouth simply returns,
it does not collapse — and both shoulders drop.
8.6–9.2s he lowers his head, chin toward the chest, eyes down, one unhurried
movement, and holds there with one slow blink.
The camera pushes 10 cm across the cut and does NOT follow his head down.
Bottom of frame stays at his lower ribs — no legs, no prostheses in this cut.

CUT 4 — 9.2–14.0s, POV at his eye height, 35mm:
Cut straight from his lowered head into his own eyes. The game seen head on
through the fence, the frame drifting 3–4 cm with a breath: at 10.1s the
players walking back to their halves, at 11.0s the ball rolling out to the
restart. At 11.9–12.7s the gaze goes down — a single smooth tilt, 55°,
decelerating into the last 15°: fence, tarmac, then his own body. 12.7–14.0s
held on his own legs: black athletic shorts to mid-thigh, both knees, and
below them TWO matte black carbon prosthetic pylons with dark grey silicone
liners, ending in everyday prosthetic feet inside white low-top trainers,
both flat on the tarmac. His laced hands come into the bottom of frame and
tighten once at 13.2s. Nothing else happens. The frame holds to the last
second. One tilt only, downward; the camera never tilts back up and his face
never enters frame in this cut.

OPTICS
CUT 1 40mm T2.0, CUT 2 50mm T2.2 with focus on the midground players, CUT 3
65mm T2.0 with focus pinned on the near eye so the wet lower lid is readable,
CUT 4 35mm T2.8 deep enough that the prostheses are sharp from 12.7s. The
players stay soft shape and motion in cuts 1 and 3 — never resolved faces. No
rack focus in the tilt; depth carries it.

CAMERA
Cuts 1 and 3 locked with 2 mm of handheld breath and a slow push. Cut 2
handheld, 3 mm of breath, slow push. Cut 4 POV at human breath, 3–4 cm drift,
one downward tilt. Every move under 2 km/h. Cuts land mid-movement — on his
head turn at 1.7s, on the scorer's turn at 4.6s, on his lowered head at 9.2s.

ACTION
Six players, plain prose, no references: ordinary amateur footballers in
mismatched training tops and shorts, mid-twenties, unremarkable, playing at a
real unchoreographed Tuesday pace. They stay behind the fence for the whole
scene, never look at camera and never react to @leo — the goal is theirs and
they celebrate it among themselves, briefly, the way men do on a Tuesday.
Apart from them, only @leo's hands, head, chest and breath move.

PERFORMANCE
Arc: absorbed → gladness for them → the body starting to join them → stopping
→ wanting → letting go. Every step is a tell, never a mood:
- gladness is the late closed-mouth smile at 4.6s that does not reach the eyes;
- the wanting is the lean at 5.2s and the right hand that lifts ten
  centimetres and stops — what almost moves carries it, not the face;
- the ache is the smile held on a face that has stopped moving at 6.4s, with
  the lower lids wet and lit;
- the release is one deep breath in at 7.1s, held, and let out at 8.0s.
He plays at the intensity of a man who does not know he is being filmed.
Calibration: the smile is small and closed-mouth, never teeth, never a laugh,
never a grin. The eyes go wet and stay wet — no tear runs down the cheek, no
sobbing, no shaking, no trembling lip, no theatrical eyebrows, no hand to the
face, no instant emotion switch. He never speaks and never looks at camera.

PHYSICS
The sweatshirt creases at the elbows where his weight sits, stretches across
the back when he leans in at 5.2s, and folds at the collar when the chin
comes down. Rubber crumb sprays where studs bite. The ball deforms on the
strike and the net snaps back on the goal; the chain-link flexes, rings and
settles. Hair moves in the light onshore wind. The trainers rest flat with
the full weight of the legs on them and the pylons do not sway.

LIGHTING
Naturalistic and fully motivated: two floodlight masts on the far side of the
cage and the open blue-hour sky. Nothing else. Key: cold white floodlight
5600K from screen right, raking his face and the front of the sweatshirt.
Fill: open sky 8000K from above, one and a half stops under; his left side
stays blue-grey shadow throughout. The key is what catches the water on the
lower lids at 6.4s — no extra source, no added eye light. At 8.6s the key
loses his eyes and lights only his brow; let it, do not lift a fill. From
12.7s the light falls two and a half stops onto the tarmac and the
prostheses, with one hard floodlight edge along the outside of the right
pylon. There is no warm light anywhere in this scene: his skin is the only
warm, fully coloured thing in the frame.
AUDIO
One continuous bed across all four cuts, unchanged in level at every cut:
studs on astroturf, light onshore wind, distant traffic. Events: 0.4s a clean
strike; 1.5s the ball hits the chain-link and the mesh rings; 4.2s the goal —
the ball in the net, one short shout of "yes" and two young men laughing,
carrying over the cut and dying away by 5.6s; 7.1s his breath in through the
nose, audible, close; 8.0s the breath out, audible, close; 11.0s the ball
rolling on turf and a flat call for the restart, far, not intelligible. From
11.9s through 14.0s the pitch sound continues at exactly the same level —
nothing ducks, nothing stops, no cue marks the tilt. No music, no voice-over,
no dialogue except the players' shout at 4.2s.

STYLE
Photoreal live-action, modern digital cinema camera, clean sensor, no grain,
no artefacts. Muted cool environment with blue-grey shadows and clean white
highlights, but skin stays warm, luminous and saturated — his face is the
only fully coloured thing in frame. Low contrast, lifted blacks, soft
highlight roll-off. Environment desaturated: the astroturf and the green
fence are pulled away from yellow toward cool grey-green, the tarmac and the
sky sit blue-grey. 1/8 Black Pro-Mist filter — gentle bloom around the
floodlights, no visible grain. Kodak 2383 print emulation.
Avoid: sepia, amber wash, golden-hour tint, yellow cast on skin or on the
tarmac, teal-and-orange grade, heavy film grain, crushed blacks, HDR look, AI
gloss, glow particles.

POSITIVE LOCKS
- @leo is 100% his reference sheet — face, hair, stubble, wardrobe. Studio
  sheet background and layout NOT inherited.
- His legs, shins, feet and prostheses are NOT in frame in cuts 1, 2 and 3.
  They appear for the first time at 12.7s and are sharp and present in every
  frame from 12.7s to 14.0s.
- Both legs are below-knee prostheses, identical, matte black carbon pylons in
  white low-top trainers, exactly as in the reference sheet.
- The smile exists and is small and closed-mouth. No teeth, no laughter, no
  grin, no tear running down the cheek, no sobbing, no hand to the face.
- The right hand lifts no more than ten centimetres at 5.2s and stops in the
  air. He never stands.
- In CUT 4 the camera IS @leo's eyes: his face, head and shoulders are never
  in frame, no mirror, no reflection, no second person.
- Exactly six players. No player ever crosses to @leo's side of the fence.
  The ball never travels toward the lens and never leaves the cage.
- No blood, no wounds, no scars, no medical setting. No text anywhere, no
  logos, no signage, no scoreboard.