SERIES LOGLINE:   After a horrific late-night collision with a bicyclist, novice Metrocity Bus Operator Myles Walker is dragged into a gruesome cover-up with a secretive, desperate and dangerous group of Drivers who have conspired to bury each other’s fatal mistakes.

SYNOPSIS:

SERIES LOGLINE: After a horrific late-night collision with a bicyclist, novice Metrocity Bus Operator Myles Walker is dragged into a gruesome cover-up with a secretive, desperate and dangerous group of Drivers who have conspired to bury each other’s fatal mistakes.

Episode Synopsis: It’s the spring of 2006 when a FLASH FORWARD brings us to the Dead-End Diner where an SUV towing a small boat pulls into the dark lot. MAX (an imposing, bitter early 60s widower) steps out from the Yukon with awkward and frumpy BUMPER (a 30s repelling incel), charismatic RANDY (late 30s married philanderer) and wide-eyed MYLES (mid-twenties with small-town naiveté.). All four wear Metrocity Transit Bus Operator uniforms, looking like they spent the night on the far side of trouble.

Inside, KAITLYN serves TRUCK DRIVER at the counter while Max and company take a booth. As they conspire, Max holds court while Myles looks especially frightened. Randy is “freaked out” by the evening’s events while Bumper jokes about protruding bone as he decides his order. The four rogue Bus Operators – DEADHEADERS – having “crossed their I’s and dotted their T’s” try to convince themselves they’re almost out of the woods. What they’re covering up isn’t said, but their talk implies potentially big trouble.

Months earlier, Myles is fired in humiliating fashion from a car rental company. Dinner with fretting SIS and boozer brother-in-law BRODY reveals Myles recently lost his mother to cancer and his girlfriend to world-travel. His father, a truck driver, is long gone after a tragedy on the road. A reluctant Myles realizes he’s wasted three years earning a Geography degree when Brody offers to help him get work as a Bus Operator for Metrocity Transit, saying it’s a good job with potential to move up. But after a few whiskeys, Brody hints at a dark work-related event in his past, muttering something about an Operator named Max.

Broke and with few prospects, Myles applies for the job. In the meantime, his only escape from his stalling life is riding his beloved mountain bike through The Hills north of Metrocity where he’s almost killed by a logging truck. Eventually, Metrocity Transit calls. As one of a dozen new hires, he reports for training at the fenced-in headquarters. Unfortunately, his mountain bike is cut from the chain link that first day. How could his life get any worse?

Myles discovers six weeks of training is barely enough to deal with the outrageous incidents he soon faces. Early on, he backs a 60-foot articulated bus into a lamp post, knocking it across a parked car, immediately putting his career in jeopardy. From fare disputes to road rage, from a naked man singing onboard to gang fights in the aisle, his quiet demeanor and shy tendencies make his new career feel particularly difficult. He feels imprisoned by the system, trapped and alone despite being surrounded by strangers.

Despite the late shifts and ennui Myles becomes a professional, courteous Bus Operator, adapting and growing more confident driving behemoth machines along angry streets. He soon meets and falls for the enigmatic BRIDGE (30s legal assistant from a coastal town wearing spider-shaped jewelry) who keeps him company on her commute from work. Meanwhile, upon a narrow miss in downtown traffic, a sticky confrontation with a punk BIKE COURIER foreshadows a fatal accident.

Winter brings slick, snow-covered streets. WHYTE, the Jamaican-born Transit Union leader on the verge of retirement (cancer-ridden and a fellow DEADHEADER) helps Myles avoid a collision, offering some inciteful driving tips while divulging he is a friend of Brody’s. The cold brings in the homeless who use the bus as shelter. One night, Myles finally meets Max who (after treating Myles to a coffee while spewing twisted, hateful wisdom) proceeds to pummel a vagrant in the back of Myles’s bus, tossing the man unconscious into a snowbank. Disgusted as he drives away, Myles recalls Brody’s warning to avoid Max.

Episode one ends late one mid-January night where Myles runs down a young man on a bike while deadheading through a desolate downtown corridor. Panicked by the crushed body (he’ll soon recognize as the Bike Courier) and smashed bike (he’ll soon recognize as his own) under the articulated bus, he stands in the blood and the slush as a second bus rounds the corner, stopping close behind. Myles is in shock as the driver climbs out and approaches. It’s Max, who makes an offer Myles is too afraid not to take…

I am currently producing the opening scene as a teaser through Motion Capture and Unreal Engine to support this material. Visit cinemotion.la/deadheaders for updates.

DEADHEADERS - EPISODE 1 - "BIKE THIEF"