Hey Lewis, I know you were rather attached to your bouncing rabbits, but your premise etc. reads so effectively and succinctly, I hope you're not too sad to see them go! Now, your HUGE challenge in terms of getting this to the screen is to appreciate fully that you're dealing with farce, slapstick, and big physical comedy. You need to plan the escalation of the war meticulously, so the audience really gets a sense of terrible (but satisfying) inevitability. In terms of character design, there's fun to be had; my instinct is that your patissier should derive his proportions from cakes and your pet-shop owner should derive his proportions etc. from somekind of animal - not in some slavish way, but just to ensure that they're both wildly different in terms of their looks, so we know them to be rivals from the outset.
In terms of your ACT 1 set-up, you'll need to tell the audience in the opening shot all about the competition and its prestige; one way I can imagine you doing it is perhaps tracking along the quaint highstreet of some quaint town, and the camera zones in for a moment on one of those news hoardings you see outside newsagents:
It could the headlines from some provincial local newspaper - so 'Best Dressed Window Display Competition! Winner announced Saturday!' - or some such announcement, and then the camera can continue tracking towards the patissier's shop front. It needs to be set-up nice and quick, because the lion's share of your screen time is going to be spent establishing the rival.
I suggest you spend some time working out your gags - your set-pieces. Work out what's funny, work out the sliding scale from 'small stunt' to 'absurd' and then seek to sequence them.
Lots of opportunities to have fun here, Lewis - not least in terms of character design. I look forward very much to seeing this come to life.
OGR 21/01/2016
ReplyDeleteHey Lewis, I know you were rather attached to your bouncing rabbits, but your premise etc. reads so effectively and succinctly, I hope you're not too sad to see them go! Now, your HUGE challenge in terms of getting this to the screen is to appreciate fully that you're dealing with farce, slapstick, and big physical comedy. You need to plan the escalation of the war meticulously, so the audience really gets a sense of terrible (but satisfying) inevitability. In terms of character design, there's fun to be had; my instinct is that your patissier should derive his proportions from cakes and your pet-shop owner should derive his proportions etc. from somekind of animal - not in some slavish way, but just to ensure that they're both wildly different in terms of their looks, so we know them to be rivals from the outset.
In terms of your ACT 1 set-up, you'll need to tell the audience in the opening shot all about the competition and its prestige; one way I can imagine you doing it is perhaps tracking along the quaint highstreet of some quaint town, and the camera zones in for a moment on one of those news hoardings you see outside newsagents:
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/DXRC7Y/newspaper-a-boards-outside-a-newsagent-in-the-centre-of-edinburgh-DXRC7Y.jpg
It could the headlines from some provincial local newspaper - so 'Best Dressed Window Display Competition! Winner announced Saturday!' - or some such announcement, and then the camera can continue tracking towards the patissier's shop front. It needs to be set-up nice and quick, because the lion's share of your screen time is going to be spent establishing the rival.
I suggest you spend some time working out your gags - your set-pieces. Work out what's funny, work out the sliding scale from 'small stunt' to 'absurd' and then seek to sequence them.
Lots of opportunities to have fun here, Lewis - not least in terms of character design. I look forward very much to seeing this come to life.
Okay Phil thank you!
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