Saturday 21 January 2017

@Phil: From Script to Screen - Story Outline Ideas (UPDATED)

Story Outline 1:

There are two rival brain surgeons in town, both twins of each other, like a mirror. One good and one evil. Both wanting to be the best brain surgeon in London.

The evil brain surgeon decides to get the one up on the good surgeon by ruining his experiments via a prank. So he travels to the joke shop to buy a fake brain.

He then sneaks into his brother surgeons lab, to replace the real brain with the fake one he bought from the joke shop.

The good brain surgeon then carries out a brain transplant with the fake brain. Due to this, after the operation, the fake brain turns the patient into a crazed threatening monster, causing the monster to go on a rampage around town.

The brothers fix their problems and come together to fight the crazed patient, with their main mission being to remove this brain from the body.

The brothers manage to catch the patient and successfully remove the brain.

Story Outline 2:

(POSSIBLE DESCRIPTION) The joke shop has rules. The rules being that you can become anything your heart desires. Simply by wearing a mask. But this comes at a price. A price that is not initially found out by the victim until its too late. 
When a victim wears a mask, (which was originally made from real faces) they become what that mask previously came from. Also, within this joke shop, everything is real (or is fake until someone laughs). Real blood instead of fake blood, real fingers with nails through them, real brains and real knives ect. 
The joke shop has a big mirror at the back, which when you look into it, it shows you your hearts desires. Or maybe all of the bad things about yourself (all insecurities and imperfections and physicalises them), or maybe even takes you to the place you want to go the most?. 
The price to pay when being granted you wish could be:
- Selling your soul, so you can never leave the joke shop
- Selling you mind, so in giving it away you are losing a part of yourself, or perhaps losing all of your memories (no longer yourself? all your memories and past self is stuck within the joke shop.)
- You have to sell a part of you, eg a finger? to then become one of the jokes within the joke shop. 
POSSIBLE BACK STORY - owner of the joke shop was constantly mocked as a child, so he created this joke shop as a way of having the last laugh. (Twisted laughter)
BRAIN SURGEON VARIENTS:
- Mad brain surgeon,
- Compassionate brain surgeon,
- Humiliating brain surgeon,
- Evil brain surgeon,
- Romantic brain surgeon.

A brain surgeon walks into the joke shop. He is greeted by the cashier, who then welcomes him to the joke shop. He looks around the joke shop, in awe.

The cashier takes him to the back mirror, and is told that this will show his true hearts desires. The mirror shows him finding the answer to eternal youth.

The cashier shows him the mask selection, 5 different variants of brain surgeon. The man picks one, and is then told to put the mask on. But nothing happens, he is told that there is a price. The man offers him a price but is told that they dont take cash. He must sell his soul to begin the process within the mask. He doesn't believe the cashier and jokingly agrees.

His soul then gets taken, and is told he may never return home again, this is his home now, he can never leave. The mask begins to work, and he becomes the brain surgeon he dreamed of. (He chose the evil one)

Being trapped within the joke shop, he then begins to lure children into the joke shop, harvesting their brains, to create an elixir of forever youth. But many of the kids manage to escape, leaving him trapped within this joke shop, forever trying to collect enough brains to finally find the answer.

ALTERNATIVE ENDING:

Due to children escaping, and people finding out about the joke shop, it gets attacked, resulting in it burning down. This then releases the surgeons soul from the building, he is free, as he cannot be trapped within something that is not there.


Story Brief Idea 3:

Brain surgeon is too clever, goes to joke shop to be made less smart as he cannot connect with anyone, but then gets made really dumb, to dumb to function in the world.

Struggling to find the knowledge to bring him back again, he attempts to remind himself by using objects he knew before, such as fake brains, mirrors and operation equipment to bring his knowledge back.












1 comment:

  1. Hi Polly :)

    Good to see you pushing more alternates out. I do think you have a tendency towards over-complication, when the trick is to make things simpler for the audience, so in a way, everyone's motives and behaviours are communicating clearly. There's something about the brain surgeon not being a very nice chap; there's something about a rubber brain as a purchase from a joke shop, and there's something about having another character in the mix, and making it a rival of somekind.

    I was thinking that the brain surgeon could be very conceited and very vain - we know this because he's always looking in the mirror - and he puts his own fame and wealth before the considerations of his patience and his staff. Maybe in the operating room, you've got a lovely gorgeous nurse, and a second male surgeon assistant. The nurse is besotted with the brain surgeon - the second male surgeon is besotted with the female nurse, but he is invisible to her because she only as eyes for the brain surgeon. You could set up this dynamic really quickly and in one scene - just looks, glances and expressions etc. So, the rival's goal is to get the girl, but first he has to discredit the brain surgeon, and so he hatches some kind of plan... involving a rubber brain.

    The question is - do you want us to enjoy seeing the Brain Surgeon get his comeuppance? Is it a story about the rival getting taught a lesson? Is there a 'moral' to this story?

    Hmmm - so, let's see - use the mirror as an indicator of your brain surgeon's character (a visual way to tell us something about him) - indeed, it might be that the rival's ruse might involve a 'two-way mirror' bought from the joke shop, so when the surgeon looks into his 'mirror' he actually sees the rival doing something to scare him to death, or send him mad, or whatever? Anyway - I'd suggest that a love triangle would set things up really fast and with a minimum of 'in story' back-story...

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