Here is my first OGR for the From Script to Screen project. There are a few things that are still being worked on, such as the premise but other then that everything else is decided upon.
Over the last few days of this week I will be seeing if I can adapt my story anymore and change a few little things if needed any feedback or advice would be really helpful.
Edit: Upon looking at the upload, it seems that messed up the layout on some of the pages, I apologies for that and will try and fix it in the meantime.
OGR 22/01/2015
ReplyDeleteHey Lewis,
In a way, your three components lack light and shade, because they all share a carnivalesque quality - which you're picking up on in your idea here. In truth, the whole 'dead wife' thing feels like it's bolted on, principally because your set-up doesn't actually help your audience understand that this man is grieving (it's also not completely clear that he is a taxidermist, as opposed to just a guy who collects stuffed animals). Right now, your story idea feels decorative - it's images only (though wonderfully atmospheric) - and I think you're feeling that slight depthlessness too.
I can't help feeling there's a darkness bubbling under these three things; an American Horror Story-style vibe. I'm thinking suddenly about a bouncy castle that consumes children - rather like the animation Monster House. I'm thinking if you were a force of darkness who liked nothing more than turning children into statues, then maybe using a bouncy castle as a lure might be a suitably creepy and effective way to snaffle the innocent. I can sort of imagine this bouncy castle just arriving over night in outdoor spaces - in people's gardens - and like some big stomach, just gobbling up the children who are drawn to it, before disappearing again, just as suddenly. Maybe the children are then deposited before the Taxidermist, who takes out their insides (life-force) and turns them into statues... I wonder if the circus could be your classic dark circus that comes to town, as in Ray Bradbury's classic, Something Wicked This Way Comes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up7KHbJTmoo
I'm also thinking about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2F4ZWTjwTU&index=2&list=RDo8DRoX2C0F8
Maybe Lewis you need to go 'horror' this time around? I can see a story structure built on a horrible loop - where we see a sequence of events play out in one place, and then we're shown how this terrible circus just goes on and on throughout the land...
Short version is: I think there's a darkness created when you put these three objects together - an implied creepiness; after all, I think it would be very hard indeed to tell a story in which lots of stuffed animals come to life without it becoming uncanny very quickly - I suggest you embrace the shadows and come up with something that would scare small people half to death!
I was trying to avoid doing anything too generic or horror based as that affected my first project and kind of put me off the whole idea of doing something in that area, but I do like the idea that you have come up with, so ill go back over my story and change some things up.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback Phil, that's really helpful.