The Amperage of a Ghost
Artie polishes the copper sphere of his carnival game, feeling another piece of himself flake away with the tarnish. When a customer's simple question unlocks a memory he didn't know he'd lost, the hum of the machine begins to sound like a threat.
# The Amperage of a Ghost
**Format:** Short Film / Anthology Episode | **Est. Length:** 10-12 minutes
## Logline
A weary carnival game operator discovers his machine doesn't just test nerves but siphons memories from its players, forcing him to confront the horrifying realization that his own identity has been slowly stolen and given away as cheap prizes.
## Themes
* **Memory and Identity:** Explores how our memories construct our sense of self, and the terror of losing that foundation when memories are no longer reliable or even our own.
* **The Commodification of Experience:** Examines how genuine human moments and emotions can be extracted, packaged, and devalued into meaningless, mass-produced trinkets.
* **The Cost of Apathy:** Illustrates the danger of a passive, monotonous existence, showing how routine can mask a slow, parasitic erosion of one's soul.
## Stakes
At stake is the very essence of Artie's identity—if he doesn't uncover the truth, he risks being completely hollowed out, becoming nothing more than a ghost operating a machine that feeds on others.
## Synopsis
Artie is a hollowed-out man running "The Static Tamer," an electric endurance game at a travelling carnival. His life is a monotonous loop of taking tickets and watching customers fail to withstand the machine's charge. He chalks up his profound emptiness to simple job fatigue.
One night, a young woman named Traci plays the game. She gets unusually close to winning, and a brief touch between them creates a literal spark. After she pulls away, Artie instinctively gives her a better prize than usual—a small glass horse. As she takes it, she casually asks about a pale, crescent-shaped scar on his wrist.
The question shatters Artie's reality. He is thrown into a vivid, sensory memory that is not his own: the smell of pine, the feeling of bark on his hands, a girl's bright laughter, and a painful fall from a tree. The memory is more real than his current life. Stunned, he returns to his booth and begins touching the other cheap prizes. With each touch, he feels faint echoes of other people's lives and emotions—the frustration of a math problem, the joy of a small success.
He realizes the horrifying truth: the machine siphons off small pieces of its players' experiences, embedding them into the prizes. The grand prizes, which no one ever wins, must hold entire memories. His final, devastating epiphany is that the machine has been feeding on him, too. His own past has been eroded and replaced with these stolen fragments, leaving him to question how much of his own identity is even left. The familiar hum of the machine is no longer a comfort but the sound of a parasite.
## Character Breakdown
* **ARTIE (40s-50s):** A man worn down to a nub by a life he can barely remember. He is detached, weary, and operates on a kind of listless autopilot. He is a ghost in his own life, unaware that his condition is not fatigue but a literal hollowing-out of his soul.
* **Psychological Arc:**
* **State at Start:** Numb and compliant, operating on autopilot. He attributes his emotional void to "job fatigue," completely unaware that his very self is being drained away by the machine he operates.
* **State at End:** Horrified and awakened. He understands the true, parasitic nature of his work and his own condition, realizing he is both a victim and an unwitting accomplice in a soul-destroying process.
* **TRACI (Early 20s):** The catalyst. She is observant, genuine, and possesses a curiosity that cuts through the carnival's artifice. She is not a prize-seeker but an experience-seeker, and her simple, direct question is the key that unlocks Artie's buried consciousness.
## Scene Beats
1. **THE GRIND:** We establish Artie's monotonous routine running "The Static Tamer." He moves like an automaton, his face impassive as he cycles through customers. The machine is a constant, humming presence in his small, dimly lit booth.
2. **THE CATALYST:** Traci arrives, a point of genuine light in the artificial gloom. There's a palpable spark when their hands touch. She plays the game, and her calm endurance is unsettling. The needle on the gauge climbs higher than Artie has seen in years.
3. **THE PRIZE & THE QUESTION:** Traci pulls her hands away just before winning, laughing at the intensity. Acting on an unusual impulse, Artie bypasses the cheap keychains and gives her a cloudy glass horse. As she takes it, her gaze falls on the crescent-shaped scar on his wrist. "How'd you get it?"
4. **THE FRACTURE:** The question triggers a powerful, visceral flashback. The world of the carnival dissolves. We are with a young Artie in a sun-drenched forest, feeling bark under his nails, hearing a girl's laugh. We experience the gut-lurching fall, the snap of a branch, and the hot, sudden pain in his wrist. It is vivid, real, and utterly alien to him.
5. **THE REVELATION:** Artie snaps back to reality, shaken and pale. After Traci leaves, he stares at the shelves of junk prizes. He picks up a plastic compass, then a keychain. As his skin touches them, he feels faint but distinct echoes of other people's memories and emotions. The prizes aren't just plastic; they are an archive of stolen moments.
6. **THE HORROR:** Artie's gaze sweeps from the cheap prizes to the unattainable crystal swan on the top shelf, then to the scar on his own wrist. He looks at the humming machine, the central copper sphere glowing like a malevolent eye. The connection is made. The machine has been stealing from everyone, including him, for years. The hum is not the sound of a game; it is the sound of a monster feeding.
## Visual Style & Tone
The visual world will be built on contrast. The carnival midway is a chaotic blur of over-saturated neon, motion, and noise. In stark opposition, Artie's booth is a claustrophobic, dimly lit cage, dominated by the antique, menacing presence of the machine—all weathered wood, polished brass, and humming copper. Close-ups and a shallow depth of field will isolate Artie, emphasizing his profound loneliness.
The flashback sequence will break this style completely, shot with natural light, vibrant greens and blues, and a handheld camera to feel immediate, visceral, and tragically real.
The tone is one of creeping psychological dread and existential horror. It aligns with the unsettling, speculative nature of shows like **Black Mirror** and **The Twilight Zone**, combined with the quiet melancholy and identity-focused paranoia found in the work of Philip K. Dick.
**Format:** Short Film / Anthology Episode | **Est. Length:** 10-12 minutes
## Logline
A weary carnival game operator discovers his machine doesn't just test nerves but siphons memories from its players, forcing him to confront the horrifying realization that his own identity has been slowly stolen and given away as cheap prizes.
## Themes
* **Memory and Identity:** Explores how our memories construct our sense of self, and the terror of losing that foundation when memories are no longer reliable or even our own.
* **The Commodification of Experience:** Examines how genuine human moments and emotions can be extracted, packaged, and devalued into meaningless, mass-produced trinkets.
* **The Cost of Apathy:** Illustrates the danger of a passive, monotonous existence, showing how routine can mask a slow, parasitic erosion of one's soul.
## Stakes
At stake is the very essence of Artie's identity—if he doesn't uncover the truth, he risks being completely hollowed out, becoming nothing more than a ghost operating a machine that feeds on others.
## Synopsis
Artie is a hollowed-out man running "The Static Tamer," an electric endurance game at a travelling carnival. His life is a monotonous loop of taking tickets and watching customers fail to withstand the machine's charge. He chalks up his profound emptiness to simple job fatigue.
One night, a young woman named Traci plays the game. She gets unusually close to winning, and a brief touch between them creates a literal spark. After she pulls away, Artie instinctively gives her a better prize than usual—a small glass horse. As she takes it, she casually asks about a pale, crescent-shaped scar on his wrist.
The question shatters Artie's reality. He is thrown into a vivid, sensory memory that is not his own: the smell of pine, the feeling of bark on his hands, a girl's bright laughter, and a painful fall from a tree. The memory is more real than his current life. Stunned, he returns to his booth and begins touching the other cheap prizes. With each touch, he feels faint echoes of other people's lives and emotions—the frustration of a math problem, the joy of a small success.
He realizes the horrifying truth: the machine siphons off small pieces of its players' experiences, embedding them into the prizes. The grand prizes, which no one ever wins, must hold entire memories. His final, devastating epiphany is that the machine has been feeding on him, too. His own past has been eroded and replaced with these stolen fragments, leaving him to question how much of his own identity is even left. The familiar hum of the machine is no longer a comfort but the sound of a parasite.
## Character Breakdown
* **ARTIE (40s-50s):** A man worn down to a nub by a life he can barely remember. He is detached, weary, and operates on a kind of listless autopilot. He is a ghost in his own life, unaware that his condition is not fatigue but a literal hollowing-out of his soul.
* **Psychological Arc:**
* **State at Start:** Numb and compliant, operating on autopilot. He attributes his emotional void to "job fatigue," completely unaware that his very self is being drained away by the machine he operates.
* **State at End:** Horrified and awakened. He understands the true, parasitic nature of his work and his own condition, realizing he is both a victim and an unwitting accomplice in a soul-destroying process.
* **TRACI (Early 20s):** The catalyst. She is observant, genuine, and possesses a curiosity that cuts through the carnival's artifice. She is not a prize-seeker but an experience-seeker, and her simple, direct question is the key that unlocks Artie's buried consciousness.
## Scene Beats
1. **THE GRIND:** We establish Artie's monotonous routine running "The Static Tamer." He moves like an automaton, his face impassive as he cycles through customers. The machine is a constant, humming presence in his small, dimly lit booth.
2. **THE CATALYST:** Traci arrives, a point of genuine light in the artificial gloom. There's a palpable spark when their hands touch. She plays the game, and her calm endurance is unsettling. The needle on the gauge climbs higher than Artie has seen in years.
3. **THE PRIZE & THE QUESTION:** Traci pulls her hands away just before winning, laughing at the intensity. Acting on an unusual impulse, Artie bypasses the cheap keychains and gives her a cloudy glass horse. As she takes it, her gaze falls on the crescent-shaped scar on his wrist. "How'd you get it?"
4. **THE FRACTURE:** The question triggers a powerful, visceral flashback. The world of the carnival dissolves. We are with a young Artie in a sun-drenched forest, feeling bark under his nails, hearing a girl's laugh. We experience the gut-lurching fall, the snap of a branch, and the hot, sudden pain in his wrist. It is vivid, real, and utterly alien to him.
5. **THE REVELATION:** Artie snaps back to reality, shaken and pale. After Traci leaves, he stares at the shelves of junk prizes. He picks up a plastic compass, then a keychain. As his skin touches them, he feels faint but distinct echoes of other people's memories and emotions. The prizes aren't just plastic; they are an archive of stolen moments.
6. **THE HORROR:** Artie's gaze sweeps from the cheap prizes to the unattainable crystal swan on the top shelf, then to the scar on his own wrist. He looks at the humming machine, the central copper sphere glowing like a malevolent eye. The connection is made. The machine has been stealing from everyone, including him, for years. The hum is not the sound of a game; it is the sound of a monster feeding.
## Visual Style & Tone
The visual world will be built on contrast. The carnival midway is a chaotic blur of over-saturated neon, motion, and noise. In stark opposition, Artie's booth is a claustrophobic, dimly lit cage, dominated by the antique, menacing presence of the machine—all weathered wood, polished brass, and humming copper. Close-ups and a shallow depth of field will isolate Artie, emphasizing his profound loneliness.
The flashback sequence will break this style completely, shot with natural light, vibrant greens and blues, and a handheld camera to feel immediate, visceral, and tragically real.
The tone is one of creeping psychological dread and existential horror. It aligns with the unsettling, speculative nature of shows like **Black Mirror** and **The Twilight Zone**, combined with the quiet melancholy and identity-focused paranoia found in the work of Philip K. Dick.