My Own Xmas Special

I have recently finsihed my animated sitcom xmas special...thats a bit of a mouthful I would really appriciate your views on it be brutal I really wanna know if you think it's strong enough to be comissioned or if you think its Funny I did have pdf previously but since my script mentor is chopping whole chunks of my beautiful work I thought I'd paste in the results we're on revision 5

INT. NEWMANS’ BEDROOM – NIGHT (DREAM SEQUENCE)

SARA is asleep in bed. Toilet flushes in adjoining bathroom. MIKE comes out of the bathroom, skips across the cold floor and leaps under the covers, cuddles up to Sara for warmth.

SARA
You're cold...get off!

LANCE emerges from the shadows and searches the room.

MIKE
Honey, did you see that?

Sara moans sleepily.

MIKE
Hon?

Mike gives a Sara a nudge.

SARA
We'll do it in the morning. Go to sleep.

She rolls over and goes back to sleep. Lance stops at the foot of the bed. Mike looks surprised to see him there. HANNAH comes from underneath the bed and joins Lance. Their eyes glow.

MIKE
Kids? What are you doing in here?

Mike pulls off the duvet. His body is being wrapped in bright Christmas paper from the feet up, by some invisible force. Sara sleeps soundly, oblivious of the mayhem.

MIKE
What the-?

The kids climb onto the bed, sit on either side of Mike’s feet. They snarl at him, turning into monsters. The paper wraps itself all the way up to his chin and the kids tear at it greedily, as if their best Christmas gift wish is inside.

MIKE
No-oo stop! Read the label... it's me!

END DREAM SEQUENCE

INT. NEWMAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Mike bolts up from bed. The room flashes intermittently illuminated by the neighbours Christmas lights. The sound of his mechanical Santa chuckles outside its voice box is broken and now chuckles eerily. Mike wipes beads of sweat from his forehead, as he looks across at the calendar it’s the 19th of December.

as a side note every one there is a recurring character in the series hence no descriptions

Hey, Where is the link to the script? I was almost done reading it.

lol sorry here is the link again

www.greenmanmedia.co.uk/NEWMAN.pdf
pass:youshallnotpass

I dunno if any ones had time to read it, but I'm going to post the revised version to so any opinions you have will be taken in to consideration

Hi Gavin. To be honest, I found it was a bit heavy going with lots of description that seemed unnecessary or unhelpful. eg dancing like leather face from texas chain saw massacre(no use to me as I haven't seen the movie), wearing a whatever it was Rugby shirt, sitting in front of the so and so bitter pump etc. Also, there were way too many typo's and instances of poor grammar that just got my back up and almost made me give up reading it more than once. I did persevere though, as I know people have read my postings but if I was reading in a professional capacity, I don't think I would have.

There were some amusing ideas in there though, but I didn't really find the execution that funny. If this is one in a series where we have grown with the characters for a while then it may work better in that context. I wonder too, if the whole thing is so complex that it is very difficult to convey it on the page and it would play a lot better than it reads.

Sorry if this sounds negative, I'm almost certainly not your target audience.

no that sounds fine mate thanks for reading I am at the minute running through it all with a script reader, who's helping me sort the grammer out ahh and the biter pump bit is becuase throughout the whole thing the twelve days of christmas happen in the background
I think the problem is that its diffficult to read and by the time you get to the gag your already peeved off and dont find it that funny. So I'll work on it

Thanks again Steve

Hi Gavin

I did enjoy it. I particularly like the sketches, although on a couple of occasions the scene around it felt quite contrived just so you could do the sketch (I'm thinking primarily in The Otley pub). I think a couple more jokes/reasons while they're in there would help the flow.

Particularly like the 'Mum as devil, Dad as angel' sketch. Very funny! The 24 rip-off and the Mary and Joseph scenes were also well thought-out, clever and very concise. Well done -- the temptation to 'overwrite' these has been avoided and they're the perfect length.

Steve's right about the typos. They do begin to grate and if it wasn't for the fact that you obviously have some very good and funny ideas, I'd have probably given up reading it. Not sure a script reader would be that forgiving though!

I know you seemed to be getting annoyed with the script guru earlier on, but you can see the input she's had to your work! Seems to be paying off!

One thing that I think we've all broached before on here. Your descriptions are too storylike; use of metaphors. You don't need them. For instance, scene 23 (Mike in tool shed):
'MIKE OPENS HIS EYES. HIS HEAD FEELS LIKE THE MALE WELSH VOICE CHOIR ARE SINGING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM USING HIS BRAIN AS A TRAMPOLINE.'

This is too 'novel'-like. You just need:
'MIKE OPENS HIS EYES. HE HAS A BAD HANGOVER.'

Also early on:
'SARA'S DAD, A MONSTER OF A MAN. HE LOOKS LIKE HE'S SWALLOWED A PROFESSIONAL RUGBY PLAYER'

You just need:
'SARA'S DAD, A MONSTER OF A MAN.'

The less you write, the more the script readers will like you. There is an argument to say the better writer is the writer that can convey the correct image in the least words. (Says me, with his massive posts!)

One word of note: be careful not to be *too* Family Guy here. You're borderline in their territory and you don't want to be seen as a straight copy of that show.

On the whole, well done, I enjoyed it.

Thanks

Dan

Thanks Dan for those points, I am very cautious of being to "Family Guy" I originally had 4 more sketches in there and a whole section abot buying a dog but I just cut them becuase it was to jumpy and I felt didnt really go anywhere.
I was a bit pig headed to start with with the guru but now I'm actually listening I've noticed the difference. It's no good me being able to understand if no one else can right

Thanks Dan I have taken onboard everything you've said and thanks for taking the time to read it

Quote: Gavin @ January 10, 2007, 10:12 AM

I was a bit pig-headed to start with with the guru but now I'm actually listening I've noticed the difference. It's no good me being able to understand if no one else can right

View original

Ditto for me when I went on my comedy-writing course last year. 'What gives *you* the right to tell me how to write, eh?'

Well, the fact that a) they've done this kind of thing before and b) they're trying to *help* you! Well done for graciously taking the advice!

Nice to see the script guru is working

Dan