Opening Scene: The photographer dreams of photographing the smallest lizard in the world. It is a chameleon that lives only at 1000 meters on one mountain in the Republic of Madagascar, to him, a remote and exotic location. He wins Wildlife Photographer of the Year. The woman in the front row has a silver ring in her nose and braids in her hair. She smiles at him.
His phone rings. It is National Geographic, “Hey!”
Hey? Is that professional?
“Hey!” It is his boss. “Lunch is over! We mustn’t keep the clients waiting mustn’t we?”
Mustn’t we? What does that even mean?
Today, he gives a presentation to a dozen teenagers at the dollar store on how to upsell the customers $2 and $3 items that are strategically arranged around the cash registers.
$2 and $3? Isn’t this a $0.99 store?
After about 20 minutes, a boy in the back raises his hand. He cannot be more than 15. He seems to have just gotten out of bed. His hair is still flat on one side.
I
s he still in his pajamas?
“Yes?”
The boys’ hand is still raised, “Why are we doing this?”
The photographer stares, mouth agape. There is no malice in the boy’s eyes. The photographer has no answer to this question.
(Note to casting director: Is Paul Giamatti available for the part of The Photographer?)
Cut To Montage (Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” plays as the montage unfolds):
Sequence 1: The photographer and his boss are in a heated argument. He quits or gets fired. It is unclear. Many bridges are burned.
Sequence 2: The photographer pours over a map of Madagascar that is spread across a small desk. On the bookshelf behind him, a dozen books on photography are neatly arranged in alphabetical order by author: The Nature Photographer’s Handbook, The Art of Seeing, Macro Photography Made Easy, the DSLR Bible, etc. The corners of the map are held down by two large tomes: Complete Lightroom for Photographers and The Landscape Photographer’s Guide to Photoshop.
The photographer circles Amber Mountain on the map in red ink and taps it with his finger, then underlines the name of a travel agent he has jotted down on a scrap of paper laying atop one of the tomes.
Sequence 3: The photographer drains his bank account and closes it. The teller looks concerned. (Note to casting director: Maybe Brendan Frasier or Billy Zane for the part of the teller.)
Cut to words scrolling across the screen: Covid has struck. A worldwide quarantine ensues. Madagascar closes to tourism for two years. During the quarantine, the world’s smallest lizard is discovered on an island off the coast of Madagascar. Our photographer’s lizard is now only the second smallest lizard in the world.
Scene 2: The photographer works for a temporary agent stuffing mailers for a motorcycle parts company. He walks home through the rain. He has sold his car. He eats cold top roman and rice. His once rotund body is now thin, his eyes dark. He has a beer, then another, and another. His safari clothes hang in the closet, dingy from age and disuse. The books on his shelves are scattered and no longer in alphabetical order. The map of Madagascar lays crumpled in the corner.
He sleeps, then wakes. Today, he will sell pewter from a temporary display at Costco. He uses his breaks to eat as many free samples as possible. He checks the travel advisories on his phone. Madagascar has reopened to tourists. He walks away from the pewter table and does not look back.
Cut to Bollywood Style music video dance scene. (The producers maintain the rights to proceeds from the international market.)
Scene 3: The photographer follows his guide along a steep narrow path that winds through rainforest trees. His camera, with flash attached, is strapped across one shoulder. A canteen is strapped across the other. His safari clothes are wrinkled and wet from exertion. He smiles to himself and thinks,
This may be the most remote place on earth.
Around the next bend in the trail, he collides with three cows. He falls backward twisting his leg and dragging his camera through the mud. The cows, with tethers wrapped around their horns and dragging loosely on the ground, stare blankly at him as if to say,
“What?”
(Note to casting agent: make sure to hire cows with appropriate facial expressions.)
He climbs from the ground testing his knee and camera. The knee will hold, but he uses his tripod as a crutch. The camera seems intact, but the flash seems glitchy. His guide stares, but offers no hand, then turns and continues up the trail. The cows also stare and offer no hand. He claws through the forest to circumvent them and continues to climb.
Scene 4: The photographer reaches a wider trail around 1000 meters in elevation and recognizes he is where he needs to be to find his lizard, the chameleon Brookesia tuberculata, the second smallest lizard in the world.
Second. Hmmph…
The photographer crawls around on his hands and knees searching through the leaves at the base of every tree. Searching for his lizard. It begins to rain.
He is triumphant! He finds his lizard. It is an adult, just over an inch long.
Perfect!
It appears dead, but he knows it is not. He places it on a moss covered bolder which will create the perfect background for his photo. Brown lizard, gray rock, green moss.
Scene 5: The photographer carefully places his camera and flash on his tripod, lowers it toward the ground while eyeing just the right angle for the composition he desires. The sun emerges from behind the clouds and illuminates the lizard. It turns both eyes towards him and he prepares to shoot. It is the shot he has dreamed of, but before he can snap the picture, he is distracted by voices approaching. A group of 8 tourists in loud shirts and flip flops approach as their guide points to the lizard. They crowd in around it between the photographer and his subject.
Can they not see him? Where did they come from anyway?
He frowns at his guide.
“From the cruise ship,” the guide states matter of factly and shrugs his shoulders.
They are parked in the parking lot just 100 meters up the trail.
Cruise ship? Parking lot 100 meters away? What was with the 2 hour long hike up the narrow winding trail?
The guide just stares at him. He does not understand the question.
The other tourists snap photo after photo of the lizard with their smart phones, never once acknowledging the photographer. He catches glimpses of their photos. Stunning!
Cut to side-by-side comparison: On the left a smart phone with a $700 price tag super imposed. On the right, the photographer’s DSLR camera with flash, macro lens, and tripod. Prices flash over each piece of equipment. $3700 for the DSLR (Kaching!), $2500 for the lens (Kaching!), $900 for the flash, which is now largely disfunctional and semi-encased in mud (Kaching!), tripod $399 (Kaching!).
Cut back to photographer: Group after group of tourists from the cruise ship move in sequence in and out from between the photographer and his lizard, each ignores him as if he is not squatting there behind an enormous conglomeration of electronics. This group a family with young child, that group an octuplet of octogenarians. This one speaking Polish, that one speaking German, the next speaking French. Apparently, the whole world has just photographed his lizard!
Finally, the procession stops and it is just him, his lizard, and his guide.
“Okay, hurry up,” his guide says, “We need to be our of the park before 5:00.”
The photographer looks at his watch, it is 2:35 PM. They have a 2 hour hike back to the car and a 20 minute drive to the park entrance.
Why didn’t we park in the parking lot at the start of this trail?
His guide just stares.
He takes his shot. The muddy flash does not fire. The forest obscures the sun. The photo is blurry. He adjusts his settings and takes another. Less blurry, but both the lizard’s eyes are facing away from him. (Yes, chameleons can move their eyes in different directions and independently.)
“Okay, time to go,” the guide says somewhat forcefully.
The photographer looks at him annoyed, and takes his last photo. It is glorious! The eyes are sharp and both looking at the camera; the sun has peaked through the trees spotlighting the lizard against the green and gray of the rocks and moss; the flash has fired just enough to soften the shadows and create a sparkle in the lizard’s eyes. This is the shot he has dreamed of. This is the shot he has sacrificed for. He begins to cry.
The guide stares at him. His expression is unreadable.
(Note to casting director: Consider Javier Bardem for the part of the guide.)
Scene 5 (Outside the airport in Diego Suarez, Madagascar): The photographer and a young woman are the only westerners present in front of the airport. She wears a tie-dyed skirt and a shirt with dancing bears on it. She wears a silver ring in her nose and one around the middle toe of her left foot. Her hair is in braids. She smiles at him.
She tells him she is here with the Peace Corps. She has just completed her Ph.D. in Agronomy. She will help the local people produce more nutritious food in greater quantities with less environmental damage. She is no more than thirty.
He ponders her for a moment. His knee throbs, and he shifts uncomfortably. He is 58 years old. He is thin to the point of emaciation. He has no job, no money, and no sense of what he will do when he returns home.
What he does have, is a perfect shot of the world’s second smallest lizard sitting on the memory card in his camera.
Does she want to see it?
“Of course.”
She views it and smiles, apparently impressed.
“Wow! You must have a really great camera!”
He stares at her, mouth agape. He has no response to this. He walks into the airport, leaving her holding his camera. He will take up an easier hobby, maybe golf, or theoretical physics. Maybe crochet; everybody loves a good sweater.
Final Scene: The girl boards a rickety old pickup truck with seats over the wheel wells along each side of the bed. The truck drives away. The cinematographer zooms into a scuffed up old DSLR with a mud encrusted flash lying on an empty bench. What need does this girl have for a camera? What need does this girl have for a memory card with a perfect picture of the world’s second smallest lizard? She will not return to the society from which she came. She has no need for photographs. She will live her experiences. She will keep only her memories.
THE END
(Final casting note: Consider Florence Pugh for the part of Peace Corps Girl.)
(Screenwriter's Note: The Amber Mountain Chameleon, Brookesia tuberculata, is not actually the second smallest lizard in the world. It is probably the 4th smallest chameleon at just over an inch long. The smallest lizard and chameleon currently known is Brookesia nana that measures somewhere between 0.5 and 0.7 inches.)
This film is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people, places, or events whether actual or fictitious is purely coincidental.
No chameleons were harmed in the making of this film.
From the plane on the way to Masoala, Madagascar
Beach at Mosoala.
Ghost crab at Nosy Mangabe. I'm always excited to see ghost crabs. It means I'm in the tropics :-)
This is not the world's second smallest chameleon, but it is quite small.
Tree Frog at Mosoala.
Leaf-tailed Gecko.
Sure, I'm in. This bridge looks safe.
Tree bark.
Sleeping butterfly on a night hike.
"I know where you live, Photographer. Sleep with one eye open!"
This guy makes me smile :-)
Who knew sleeping chameleons were so cute. Dreaming of thick forests and giant insects.
This flower is about 1/2 inch across.
Lined Leaf-tailed Gecko.
This guy was about 1/2 inch long.
Fly catcher.
Madagascar Malachite Kingfisher.
Sure, I'm in. After crossing that bridge, this boat looks safe to me.
Hey, who's that behind the waterfall?
Reef at Masoala. Very overfished :(
Blue spotted ray at Masoala.
Seastar at Masoala.
Mossy Leaf-tailed Gecko at Nosy Mangabe.
Mom loved the photo and sends her love!
I am not sure why the 58 year old’s sister is not in the script? She will be played by Kate Blanchet. I’m pretty sure that boat is from Gilligan’s Island. Miss you:)