Wednesday, 16 January 2013

From Script to Screen: Script Ideas

Environment: Joke Shop
Character: Contortionist
Prop: Egg

Idea 1. A man lives above an old joke shop. One day he wakes up and goes downstairs, stepping on a misplaced whoopee cushion on the way, and notices a large box outside his window. Intrigued, he brings the box inside, struggling with it's weight, and opens it to find a huge egg. After many attempts to crack the egg with various items found in his joke shop, he finally takes a running swing with a giant pencil and manages to break the shell. He falls to the floor and watches as the shell breaks away to reveal a contortionist hidden inside the egg. The contortionist unfolds and quickly runs out of the shop, leaving the man confused on the floor.

Idea 2. A man who owns a failing joke shop stages a competition. He claims to have a magical golden egg which he will give to the greatest performer. Many different types of performers arrive, hoping to win the magical item, and amongst them is a young girl who is practiced in the art of contortion. After all of the performers are finished, the contortionist is announced the winner and given the golden egg.

Idea 3. A child visits the circus with his parents and is amazed by all of the unusual people he meets there, including a contortionist. He then enters the circus gift/joke shop. He looks around at all of the items for sale and finds a box of rubber eggs emblazoned with the warning - extremely bouncy. Ignoring the warning, he picks up an egg and throws it to the ground. It bounces around knocking everything over, resulting in chaos. Eventually the egg disappears and the child is left surrounded by a destroyed shop and disgruntled circus performers.
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2 comments:

  1. tutorphil19 January 2013 at 10:06

    Evening Megan,

    Right now, your story ideas are reading like sequences of events, as opposed to satisfying narrative structures - but this is normal at this stage; that said, the idea of the contortionist hatching out of the egg makes for a memorable image. You're still not really using your components in a punchy way though - the jokeshop, for example, just feels like a back-drop here - likewise the contortionist. They don't seem particularly embedded or inciting.

    Maybe think about the contortionist for a bit; if you were a contortionist, i.e. if your whole life was characterised by the ability to bend your body into strange shapes, how would you live your life? For example, would a contortionist eat a boiled egg with his feet, for example? What might a contortionist need from a joke-shop? One of the classic 'joke shop' props is the 'rubber chicken' - I don't know, maybe your story idea concerns a joke shop rubber chicken whose defining goal is to lay an egg? (Have a family!) And if you were a rubber chicken, I bet you'd make for an amazing contortionist too... Maybe the story of the rubber chicken wanting an egg is more Toy-Story like, in so much as other things in the joke-shop are also alive and well?

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  2. tutorphil19 January 2013 at 10:08

    for your reference!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVWD_DYzBSk

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