We’re Not Borg: P3
In this third and final post in the We’re Not Borg series, I have included the opening scenes of a romantic comedy I am working on. Bear in mind this is a first, rough draft. The idea is to note how many emotions are evoked and what techniques are employed to do so.
Among the emotions to look for are anger, desperation, frustration, remorse and fear. Yes, all within what will only amount to approximately four minutes of film.
Please read the linked example below then return when done. I’ll apologize ahead of time for the formatting. Somewhere between converting from Final Draft, to PDF, to RTF to HTML the formatting got dorked up. The piece doesn’t have a name yet so we’ll just call it “My Ball”.
Read the Script Snippet Example Here
Alrighty, welcome back! So, did you spot the several ways the audience will be caught up in the emotions?
1) We’re either hating Samantha because she’s being a spoiled, snobby brat and we remember being picked on like that ourselves, or, we were laughing our ass off because we WERE Samatha when we were younger and remember how much fun that was.
2) We no doubt empathized with Frankie. Felt his desperation, his anger and his sadness.
3) Frankie’s fear leaped from the written page straight to our hearts. Our hearts were pounding as Frankie lay there on the cot, afraid he would die. And the mothers out there were stricken with the emotions a mother feels when a child is hurt.
4) Perhaps a tear broke loose when we saw how terrible Samantha felt. How she was filled with remorse for what she had done.
5) The basic human desire for, or need for, atonement was present also. Nothing Samantha could have done would have undone what had happened. But in an attempt at atonement she first offers Frankie his ball back, then offers to keep it for him until he returns.
Then there is the context of the scenes in their entirety. We go from light-hearted picking, to the whole range of emotions including anger, fear, sadness, desperation, remorse then we follow this up by promptly telling the audience that the first scene would not be the overall tone of the movie.
The bar scene accomplishes a few things. One, it let’s the viewer off. Lightens it up. It says that this movie will ultimately be about a man and his quest to find love and companionship. The concluding scene and Frank’s words, “And it hasn’t gotten any better since” now sets the tone for what will obviously be a romantic comedy.
These opening scenes also demonstrate “foreshadowing”. Once I have finished the script I will demonstrate this technique as well.
So there we have it. Emotion. With it you can take the viewer anywhere you want. Take them to the clouds and allow them to freefall back to earth. You can have them laughing in one scene and crying in the next. Try it!