Where to begin. . .
POSTED BY: Cybersnark
UPDATED: Sunday, November 18, 2007 03:18
VIEWED: 3066
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I'm stumped by a script, so here I am to throw ideas around.
I know what form the script will take; it's a dark-fantasy action series (like Buffy, Angel, Supernatural, or The Collector), set present-day. I've built the world, populated it with characters (both older, played by established, marketable actors, and younger, played by the less-experienced Beautiful People), and figured out the conspiracy that'll slowly be revealed through the series. This likely won't be produceable, BTW, it's just another portfolio piece.
Only problem is that my lead character (Alex) is Ordinary Guy (like Xander if he had never met Buffy or lived in Sunnydale). He doesn't believe in magic, secret societies, or government conspiracies, and has no curiosity or desire to step out of his comfort zone. He wears a suit, has a steady girlfriend (they're waiting until they have enough saved up to get married), lives in an apartment, works in a cubicle (in fact, he's about to get a big promotion, and his own office), reads the Washington Post, and has Dilbert strips on his bulletin board.
I've been looking to the work of others for inspiration, but I can't really find anything that won't seem derivative.
So, what are some of your favourite "outsider becomes insider" moments from other shows/movies?
Some of mine:
-Xander overhears Buffy & Giles in the library. (Won't work, 'cause Alex would just assume they're talking about a TV show and ignore it.)
-Matt spies on Will, and follows her through a Portal to Meridian (W.I.T.C.H.). (Alex has no reason to follow and spy on anyone. At most, he'd hire a detective or call the police.)
-Simon rescues his sister and goes on the run. (Alex doesn't have any family connection to the Game.)
-Sketchy becomes a tabloid reporter, and discovers Max, Logan, and Alec's collective secret (Dark Angel). (Alex is not interested in tabloid journalism.)
-Elisa investigates a battle at Xanatos Enterprises and comes face-to-face with a Gargoyle (Gargoyle). (Alex is not a cop.)
-Dean comes to get Sam after their father goes M.I.A. (Supernatural). (Needs the protagonist to already have been an "insider" before leaving the fold.)
-April is a lab-tech, who gets chased by Mousers and rescued by the Turtles (TMNT). (Again, assumes she had a reason to be involved [via Stockman's labs].)
-April is a reporter who angers the Foot clan and gets rescued by the turtles (TMNT: The Movie). (Again, she brought it on herself, and the turtles went out of their way to save her.)
-Manta takes a shortcut through the cemetary, sees ghosts, blabs about it, and draws the attention of Yoh (Shaman King). (Alex wouldn't take such a shortcut, and wouldn't talk about what he might see.)
-Sakura discovers a strange book in her father's library, and accidentally breaks the seal on the Clow Cards (Cardcaptor Sakura). (Alex isn't that curious.)
-Chuck gets an Email from an old acquaintance, pulling him into the conspiracy (Chuck). (Been done.)
-Winston answers an add in the paper (Ghostbusters). (Thousand-year-old demon-run conspiracies do not advertise their job openings.)
-Sam turns 18, and the contract his parents signed comes into effect (Reaper). (Alex is too old; other people don't make deals for him.)
-Trinity and Morpheus contact Neo, and rescue him from Agents (The Matrix). (Alex has to get himself into the Game --he isn't any kind of "chosen one.")
-Sam buys a car, it turns out to be an alien robot (Transformers). (Again, Sam was chosen beforehand, due to his ancestry.)
-Link (an orphaned Hylian) is raised as a Kokiri, and the Deku tree gives him a quest (LoZ: Ocarina of Time). (Again, Alex isn't "The One.")
-Kagome gets pulled through the Bone-Eater's Well (InuYasha). (Because she was the reincarnation of Kikyo [Chosen One].)
-Apropos kills his friend and unwittingly usurps his destiny (Sir Apropos of Nothing). (Alex is too
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Well as Shakespear once said, "There are only forty stories and after that everything is just a copy of those forty stories," [sic]so I wouldn't be too worried about seeming derivative.
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Well, that is a pretty comprehensive list. But here are three moments that stick out in my mind.
ALIAS - In it's first season, Will spent that first season investigating the death of Sydney's fiancee. By the second last episode, I think, he was in Paris tied to a chair and getting tortured by the bad guys Sydney was tracking. Sydney busts in, takes them all out, Will is just looking in amazement, and then then Sydney looks up.
Will makes eye contact, and then give the funniest gasp/scream I've ever seen and snaps his head back hard enough to probably give him whiplash. It was always one of my favorite moments from the series and a great example of a character int eh dark finally learning everything all at once.
BUFFY - In season 2 when Buffy stakes a vampire on the front porch in front of Joyce, and Joyce finally find out that her daughter is The Slayer. I always loved that turning point between the two of them because you saw a side to Joyce that you wouldn't have if she had been kept in the dark about what her daughter does for the longest time. You saw that even though she knows that her daughter is this super-powered heroine with the task of keeping the creatures of the night at bay, she still treats her like her daughter and is always the concerned parent.
SHREK - Near the end of the movie when Fiona allows herself to transform into an ogre in the church in front of everyone, and then Shrek says "Ah, well...that explains a lot." Great character moment followed by one of the funnier jokes.
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"And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? Each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame."
Loudon Wainwright III - "Strange Weirdos" off the "Knocked Up" soundtrack
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Well, first we need to know more about the universe in which Alex exists. It's modern fantasy, sure, but just what does that mean? Are there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose? (Heh, just a little "Train Job" joke, there...) What is the purpose of The Game - and more importantly, its nature? I am also inclined to agree with Rallem, in that I wouldn't worry too much about whether or not it's derivative (cuz it's ALL been done before). As long as it's honest and consistent, and the audience can relate to Alex's motivations and experiences, then no one will mind.
"Mwah ha ha ha...mine is an evil laugh. Now die."
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Well, secret conspiracies (or their front organizations) probably have lots of boring paperwork, ICT support and accountancy work that no self-respecting fantasy character wants to bother with. Perhaps Alex just thinks he's handling the tax returns for an online retailer of fantasy games and goth paraphernalia.
I'm sure that's not original, either.
Wasn't there a Simposns ep. where Homer unwittingly gets job as a gopher at Bond-style supervillian's HQ and foils his world-domination plan through sheer incompetence without ever really realizing what is going on?
Other classics:
This Island Earth - engineer orders some parts, but what arrives are incredibly more compact and efficient than ususal. Noticing that they hadn't arrived from the usual supplier, he gets a catalogue and orders a mysterious device... (the book is better than the MS3K-fodder film!). Obviously not for you, but its still a good setup.
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Arthur Dent discovers that his best friend is from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and not from Guildford after all. (Don't even mention the film!)
Brazil A bug gets into a machine in the office of Information Retrieval and prints the name "Tuttle" instead of "Buttle" on a form...
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There's no completely Ordinary Guy, so maybe he's got a hook that somehow gets him involved.
--Sure, Alex doesn't believe in magic, but maybe he plays a MMORPG to exercise his inner fantasy world, and one of his fellow players lets slip something about how some of it is REAL.
--Or maybe Alex goes to the food court at the local mall every Tuesday because there's this hot chick there for lunch too and he flirts with her. Turns out SHE'S part of something.
--Or smack Alex in the face: No matter how secretive things are, someone screws up somewhere along the line. It's human nature. Tough for Alex to deny magic when a fireball thrown by a troll wizard destroys half his car!
--Might also be worth exploring some of the ideas you've already nixed and saying "Okay, but what IF..."
For example: The Game takes place far outside of any areas where Alex would reasonably be [sewers, rooftops, back alleys, secret sub-basements, private mansions, the deep forest, etc]. Sure, but what if he winds up in one of those places for some crazy reason at the exact wrong time? Maybe his car breaks down, and he winds up taking a short cut through the wrong alley. Or he's invited to a work party and takes a wrong turn and ends up at the wrong private mansion.
Or maybe he's got an interesting hobby or pal: "ordinary" doesn't mean BORING. My friends and I all have pretty "normal" jobs, but periodically like visiting sites from WEIRD NJ magazine. I've been in two different abandoned insane aslyums, for example. But that doesn't prevent me from being engaged to a normal girl or holding down a normal job.
Or: Those inside the Game have no need to call outside for assistance. Sure, they NORMALLY don't, but as I said before, things can always go wrong. Random stuff happens. What if some Game-related fella is leaping from rooftop to rooftop and he screws up and falls? Or gets hit by a car? Or shot as part of an attempted robbery or mugging? Alex can help out, or even simply WITNESS events, and his world is changed forever.
www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."
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Quote:
Originally posted by GWEK:
--Or smack Alex in the face: No matter how secretive things are, someone screws up somewhere along the line. It's human nature. Tough for Alex to deny magic when a fireball thrown by a troll wizard destroys half his car!
I love this method. Take normal guy and put the heat on him in an instant. Maybe the "explosive" event kills his co-worker, friend, lover, etc. causing him to vow to figure out the mystery, magic stuff. He realizes quickly maybe he is not so prepared for the world he lives in. ...and most of his preparations for his "5 minutes ago" reality mean nothing anymore.
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Neil Gaiman 'Neverwhere'
Richard Mayhew is a very normal bloke who works in an office in London. He has a boringly normal life and a normal, if scarily efficient, fiancee.
Then he stops to help the victim of a mugging. (He's not a native Londoner, after all; they will cheerfully step over, or on, someone who has fallen flat down an escalator. I had the shoemarks on my nice smart suit to prove it.) His girlfriend will have nothing to do with it, since helping homeless people only means they will bother you for money...
Anyhow, some very...interesting people start to turn up in Richard's life after that. The sort of interesting that make Jules and Vincent look cuddly. And his old job doesn't seem to exist, and nobody from his old life, including his fiancee, seems to remember him. And his landlord lets his flat out to some other people. Even ticket machines and ATM's don't recognise his existence.
And that's how he finds out about London Below. Old Bailey, who keeps pigeons on the roof of St. Paul's. The Rat Speakers, and the Knight's Bridge. The Marquis de Carrabas, Hunter, Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar, the Floating Market, the Black Friars, and the Lady Olympia, oldest of the Seven Sisters. And then there is the Angel Islington...
Brilliant, bonkers and bizarre.
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I think there are generally 2 option categories.
Out of the blue, like in Pay It Forward when the Jay Mohr reporter gets the car, just out of nowhere, and needs to investigate.
The other is The Chosen. Whether you know it or not, destiny has some root cause for you to follow a path.
What if Neo wasn't the One, but while they were searching for the One, Neo was one of the candidates that didn't bear out.
What if some school friend, or other Alex met in a bar, mistakenly mentioned something they shouldn't have, and now Alex knows something he doesn't realize is improtant, or they just think he knows, or might know. Perhaps like The Man With One Red Shoe, they draw him in under false assumptions, then he is involved.
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The girlfriend. If he really loves her, he'll follow her into danger, rescue her, be jealous of her, whatever.
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