Transference
A short film by Todd Sharp
From the feature-length screenplay
The Film
“Transference” is a ten-minute scene from a full-length screenplay of the same name. Gray DuPlain, a wealthy entrepreneur, visits an estranged college friend with whom he shared the dream of artistic success. But Gray's revelation that he will have the neurons of a dying composer implanted in his brain and finally obtain the renown they both desired does not get the reaction he hoped for.
The Screenplay
The implanting of the composer Peter Solis’s brain cells into Gray’s mind has hidden costs. Gray discovers, to his unease, that memories are inextricably intertwined with creativity. Along with the dead man’s prodigious talent, he begins to experience strange visions that hint at a dark secret.
Gray finds himself obsessively driven by the composer to continue work on an unfinished symphony--a requiem for the composer’s sister who committed suicide. The music pours out, gorgeous and melancholy, full of love and remorse, and success seems certain. But the increasingly disturbing, distorted memories threaten to derail everything, including his romantic relationship with the composer’s niece.
Origin
The idea of a dying successful composer’s “talent” transplanted into another man’s brain originated with my son, Aaron, a graduate of UCLA’s Screenwriting MFA Program. But I approached it from a different, older perspective—one of looking back with the desires and frustrations of an artist who hadn’t attained his early dreams and isn’t sure anymore if they are attainable without help, in this case, from the speculative idea of cerebral transference.
Scientific Inspiration
Perhaps the idea of transferring talent and memory from one human to another through brain surgery is closer to reality than imagined.
