Sunday 24 January 2016

@Phil Storytelling and Commission - Script to Screen - Post OGR Feedback - Story Tweaks

Following my OGR feedback these are the points I took:
  • Home furnishings element is 'too much'
  • Need to make it simpler/less convoluted
  • Need quicker conflict set up between father/son

New story idea -

Premise:
The son of a taxidermy-animal collector finally has enough of his fathers' macabre hobby.


Logline:
The discontented son of a taxidermy-animal collector whose only wish is to have a real, living, pet decides enough is enough when his father discovers the tray cat his son has been feeding is the final addition needed for his taxidermy cat collection.


Step Outline:
A taxidermist whose passion is collecting full "sets" of taxidermied "pets" is on the hunt for the final addition to complete his cat collection, a rare ginger and grey mix. 
(see macabre check-list, and inner view of house, taxidermy cats surround the fireplace, space for 1 more)
He is frantic, him and his begrudging apprentice son travelling all over town to different pet shops, looking for the perfect specimen, but no shop will sell to him, they know about his diabolical hobby. Meanwhile all the boy wants is to play with the pets. To his dismay he is shooed away by angry shop keeps. 
In a manic stroke of thought one night, the taxidermist takes to the pet cemetery, dragging his protesting son along. They argue, "this is sick" says the boy. The father is angry, yells at him to hold the candle up and steady, they cant be too bright or too loud, or they will be found out. They find nothing, the father becomes more irate. They go to different cemeteries each night. 
Meanwhile, the son finds a stray cat going through their bins. He tries to shoo it away in fear for it's life, but it is bedraggled and hungry, and friendly towards the boy. He feeds it scraps, the two bond, it becomes a daily routine.
The father becomes increasingly irate over not being able to find the missing piece for his prize collection. (More scenes of frenzied cemetery digging with the protesting boy holding the candle.) That is, until he sees a grey and ginger stray cat waiting by his own back door, as if by fate.The son comes home from school, grabs some scraps and heads to the back door. The cat isn't there. He hears a faint meow and hiss coming from upstairs.Bolting up the stairs and into his fathers attic studio, the boy sees red.Cut to black, and open on the boy in his bedroom, reading in bed with the (no longer) stray cat on his lap.Pan round, to see the boys father, in a twisted turn of fate, stuffed and taxidermied, now the one holding the candle for the boy.





1 comment:

  1. Hey Pip - okay - time to get it down as a script then :)

    ReplyDelete