booklet_TOMATS

Up in the air. In a wheelchair.

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Up in the air. In a wheelchair.

Log Line

Fired because of his teenage ego, an old aging pilot meets the woman of his life when he gets locked
up in a mental institution. Driven by his passion to fly, they try to escape together and find a way
to fly again before it’s too late.

Contacts

email: [email protected]
website: www.theoldmanandthesky.com

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Up in the air. In a wheelchair.

Table of contents

Synopsis…………………………………………………………………Pag. 1
Director's Vision…………………………………………Pag. 5
Comparable Films……………………………………………Pag. 8
The Picture Language…………………………………Pag. 9
Characters Description……………………………Pag. 11
Director's Profile………………………………………Pag. 13

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Up in the air. In a wheelchair.

Synopsis

Canary Island, 2015 1

Harry is a passionate but aging pilot who, inside, is still 14 yrs old. The only love of his life is his old
plane, Martha, who some would say has also passed her “best before” date. On Harry's 75th birthday, he lets
his 14-yr-old self take over Martha and pulls a crazy aerobatic with his plane full of passengers, just to
prove he's still got it.

In spite of the unspoken debt Harry's boss, Frank, owes him, Frank fires Harry. He says he can't cover for
him any more – and Martha will be sent to the scrap yard. Harry will be replaced by his young prodigy,
Alberto, and Martha will be replaced by a newer, shinier aeroplane.

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Harry's family attempts to smooth the transition to retirement, but Harry just treats them badly. After 2
Harry's several dangerous attempts to reclaim his right to fly his son, Peter, is forced to deliver Harry to
an institution.

There, Harry meets Gerda, an habitual and good-hearted thief. Gerda is able to break out of the institution
whenever she likes, but announces that her dream is to go to a remote island to reunite with the family she
hasn't seen since childhood.

Harry seizes this excuse to fly again, with the noble mission of reuniting Gerda with her family on their
island in the Mediterranean. First, though, they must track down his plane, Martha – and so begins their
adventure.

In a hilarious road trip, with the help of Gerda's Rastafarian taxi driver friend, Muntzie, Harry and Gerda
manage to locate Martha's body parts and reassemble her for one more trip.

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They manage to get Martha airborne, but her old engines finally die in mid-air. Gerda parachutes safely to 3
the ground, and Harry goes down with the ship.

Harry wakes in hospital to learn that he is permanently grounded – his only transport an electric wheelchair
– and sinks into a black depression.

Irascible as Harry can be, his family and friends rally to support him. Gerda holds Harry to his promise to
find her family and construction begins to build Harry a flying wheelchair and rebuild his life. Nobody but
Harry really believes it will fly. As always, Harry's talent and determination are underestimated and Harry
proves his wheelchair can fly.

On the night that Harry and Gerda had decided to make their final escape from the institution, Gerda quietly
passes away in her sleep.

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At Gerda's funeral, Harry learns that the island they were destined for exists only in Gerda's imagination. 4

Angry at her deception, he hurls his unanswered anger at her grave. Without her, the adventure can't go on.
She has taught him to feel again, to love, helped him reconnect with his family. But then he realises that
she has done this all so that he will go on.

Finally in flight mode, Harry revs up his wheelchair engine and heads to the airport. Before anyone can stop
him, Harry is on the runway, his contraption rattling to shake itself apart, but doesn't, and as his speed
increases, Harry is finally airborne.

With a big grin on his face, Harry takes a final glance at the Earth he is leaving, and the people there who
are diminishing in size, staring in disbelief. Harry laughs with pure joy and he and his flying wheelchair
disappear into the clouds.

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DIRECTOR'S VISION

Hi, I’m Dieter Primig. I am a young inspired director from Austria. My grandfather was actually one of my 5
biggest inspirations there ever was, I think he has a lot to do with me being able to write these lines to
you. He was one of my best friends, somebody who showed me the world with different eyes than anybody else
was capable of and I always felt like he could make me understand how the world truly works.
My grandfather also told me that he always wanted to join the Austrian army as a pilot but unfortunately he
had problems with his eyes.
Such is life; it all went differently for him. He was always very inventive and with the background of being
the small town’s locksmith he knew how to build things. Sometimes he also used to build funny small
contraptions but more importantly, he showed me how to fix broken things and insisted that I should always
follow my path no matter what.
There are enough people (I love to call them “energy vampires) who keep on telling you that you’re not good

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enough at this or you can’t do that. My grandfather
insisted that I could literally pull off anything if I just
want it bad enough. Nothing can stop you! Wow, this was
inspirational!

Despite his age he was so patient and playful, not like all
the other people around. I’d say we were goofball maniacs
too, the neighbors had to endure quite some shenanigans.

Funnily I thought because of his age, he had to hurry and 6
couldn’t just spend time with me, a kid back then. But he
and I, we were a team. Best friends. Two inseparable pals.
Forever. Three years ago my family and me carried his ashes
to the local small cemetery. It wasn’t even his death that
hurt the most - it was seeing the old man completely giving
up on everything in his final years and it surely felt like
he was completely giving up on me.

It broke my heart. What happened? The old man, now in a wheelchair and once so adventurous, strong, willing
and proud declared himself defeated. And I always kept asking myself, what would have happened if he hadn’t
gotten up? Our bodies may age but we’re young at heart, right? What about staying true to yourself and giving
a crap about being told you’re too old for this, you’re not good enough at that – bullshit! I was mad. But
thinking of him and about all the fun we had made me smile again.

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He was the one who always wanted to see me succeed and believe in my dreams. And he being the best friend I
ever had, being an irreplaceable mentor for my life was the inspiration for my debut feature film story “The
Old Man And The Sky”. Oh I am sure he’d love to watch this one with me: It’s a story about a man who is
seemingly too old for living up to the standards of his dream but decides not to give up and tries to achieve
the impossible. It’s a story about a grand adventure, about risk, friendship and believing in yourself –
nothing can stop you! It’s a hell of a ride and unparalleled fun, which will keep you on the edge of your
seats. It’s a grand comedy, which comes from a very real place and from the heart. I hope this story will
make you laugh out loud until you cry.

7

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COMPARABLE FILMS

8

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THE PICTURE LANGUAGE

The look & feel of the film draws its strength from the visual variety. In a very simplified way, this story 9
is not only about freedom and belief, it is also about old vs. young and it literally shows: the images have
a large stylistic dynamic range of alternating focal length, light settings and closeness to the protagonist
in order to express the vast conflicts between the ageing main character Harry and how his persona is pitted
against everybody else.
Therefore this should transcend into the visual language of the film, showing the materials, props, clothes
he wears with signs of age and the obvious visual gap between the younger generation and their core beliefs
about older people and their dreams. This goes as far as to consider the character’s old skin, imagining two
hands of different ages holding each other.
In the further manifestation of the story, the two main characters’ core passions are literally representing
the elements of air (the sky, Harry is a pilot) and water (the sea, Gerda is a passionate swimmer). This
causes the film to work a lot with the imagery of a perfect sky and seemingly endless sea just divided by the

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horizon, giving us the natural feeling of freedom and longing which the story is so much about. 10
Besides those two visual core elements, the story features a beautiful countryside setting and a small city
with its local airport, which is set up to be filmed in a warm Mediterranean surrounding. An island somewhere
at the ocean with beautiful coastlines, an open countryside dominated by fields and rocks and small very
southern style cities with narrow streets, market places and an open harbor. The settings themselves are the
base for the color scheme with colors of green, brown and a beautiful wide range of blue tones.
We’ll harvest every possibility to let the audience breathe in all the beautiful landscapes, set pieces but
of course it’s all for the sake of the story. It’s in the mix, the magical connection of how we will be able
to combine the personal story of the characters on their journey with the world surrounding them.
Finally, this is a comedy, so we aim for a bright happy look for the film and want to make sure that the
action concept for the various set pieces will shine with a wide dynamic range of camera framing decisions.
We’ll probably jump from the broad landscape of the breathing ocean with a plane slowly descending to a plate
of cake, which gets splattered. Let’s think big but retain the necessary “passion for detail” mentality,
which will make this motion picture absolutely stunning and awesome.

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CHARACTER'S DESCRIPTION

HARRY 11

Harry (75) is a passionate but aging pilot who, inside, is still 14 yrs old. The only love of his life is his
old plane, Martha, who some would say has also passed her “best before” date. Still, the old man is
a womaniser, a strong opinionated fellow who has probably one of the biggest egos around. And most
importantly, he doesn’t let anything get in the way between his passion to fly: Neither his boss Frank and
friends who tell him he’s simply too old and he has to quit, nor his actual age. This all goes fine until one
day he’s getting himself fired because of his crazy behaviour and unstoppable ego. Everything changes again
when he meets Gerda after thrown into a mental institution - a great plan arises to leave
together “flying"...

ACTOR REFERENCES

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CHARACTER'S DESCRIPTION (cont.)

GERDA 12

Gerda (70) is a great bright character, young at heart, a strong woman and an habitual & good-hearted thief.
Her parents were thieves actually but she never met them - they seem to live far away on an island. Besides
being always a unique maverick, she turned her stealing abilities into a great talent to help other people.
She actually started to steal from the rich and giving it to the poor but always took the blame and went to
jail for what she did. While this may sound crazy, the general public actually thinks she is mad and she’s
getting locked up in mental institution to spend her twilight years. Everything then of course changes when
Gerda meets Harry who promises to take the lady “flying" to her family’s island...

ACTRESS REFERENCES

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DIRECTOR’S PROFILE

Hi, I’m Dieter Primig. I am a freelance director, currently residing in Berlin, Germany. 13

Besides diving all into the world of making my debut feature film “The Old Man And The
Sky”, I have a large number of short films under my belt, which have won numerous
international festival awards and I constantly keep on working for high quality
commercials productions, Most recentlyI have Directed two feature length Documentaries
that are in Post-production at the moment and will be released in 2016 and 2017.

I am a storyteller and I love the bright and funny side of life, things that make us
laugh, even though they might come from a very real and sad background and reminds us
more of drama. For me drama is comedy too, you just have to look closely. That’s why I center my work around
comic approaches and projects to “road test” my skills and abilities again and again, getting ready for the
big show of my debut feature film.

Stories about adventures, dreams, friendships and walking through it all together even though the odds are
against you, films featuring characters larger than life and plots that make you sit on the edge of your
seat, wondering what’s going to happen next – those are my kind of movies which I deeply love. I began
putting my own first stories to ink at an early age as a child but then started getting lessons in the craft
of screenwriting five years ago when my passion took off “flying” and now I am on my lifelong quest to
develop new stories for your entertainment.

So how did I start out in my career path? Well, I always thought that it is super-important to know all the
aspects of what it means to be a director. By “all” I really mean ALL. It basically meant to me that you have
to know everything about all aspects of the moving image, striving for the perfect realization – a hard nut

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to crack. In my own Austrian/German language you’d say you have to be a “Tausendsassa” which translates to 14
being a “jack of all trades”. After my successful study of film production in Salzburg and the realization of
my first two critically acclaimed short films, I really wanted to go to Los Angeles to see some big sized
productions. I worked as an assistant director for numerous international commercial & promo productions of
America’s major TV networks (ABC, NBC & CBS) at the flourishing production company Kandoo Films.

In addition to the main goal of becoming a great director, my other passion was special effects make-up,
prosthetics and creature design. Fueled by this passion I strived for a degree as a make up artist & special
effects designer, which I originally started in Los Angeles and continued in Milano, Italy. But I really
wanted to know more about storytelling and filmmaking. So with the encouragement of my colleagues in L.A, I
enrolled in UCLA'S “Professional Screenwriting Program” and received my official certificate from the school
for screenwriting. Due to my enriched knowledge of film, art direction, screenplay and special effects in the
beginning of 2010 I was offered the great opportunity as a Visual Effects Art Assistant on Roland Emmerich 's
"Anonymous" where I was responsible for handling more than 30 Artists and over 300 VFX shots.

My latest achievements were in Berlin's Landesfilmfestival Berlin Bradenburg, where I was awarded Best
Comedy, Best Director and Best Film for my short film "Guantanamo Baby".

Having passed those milestones I was finally able to get a foothold in the film industry and started my
career as a director in Berlin working for numerous production houses and companies, always pursuing my main
objective: Telling great stories to my audience.

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Up in the air. In a wheelchair.

Copyright Trix. All rights reserved. Infos and inquiries: [email protected] www.theoldmanandthesky.com