Quick scene

This is a scene I've just knocked out. It's to go into an existing script (which I put on here a while back) which I'm doing a huge rehaul of.

SID ENTERS THE OFFICE. LEE, THE MANAGER OF THE SUPERMARKET, IS SITTING AS HIS DESK READING A NEWSPAPER.

SID
What are you reading the paper for? I mean look here: "30 dead in Syria bombing". That's just not relevant to my every day.

LEE
I'm keeping abreast of current affairs. And wait, weren't you a politics student at uni?

SID
Well yeah I was. But I dropped out. I mean I could understand it you were reading it because it said "Sainsbury's goes into administration, all stores nationwide to close".

LEE
What they're closing my store? What will I do?

SID
No I didn't say that. Look I've come to ask for a favour.

LEE
But I've worked so hard to get here. Sid...oh, all those backs I scratched. Literally, I mean. Before I got this job, when I was over at corporate, they had me scratching my boss's back. He had an awful case of psoriasis. It was like stripping wallpaper.

SID
Why on earth did you agree to that?

LEE
I got me where I am today.

SID
What? Managing a pokey little supermarket in south-east London?

LEE
Oh God. All those times I turned a blind eye. Like that time they were using fox meat in the staff canteen.

SID
Fox meat? They were feeding us fox meat?

LEE
Or the time when that toddler lost a hand in the automatic doors and we blamed it on that mental old crackhead that used to beg outside the store.

SID
Oh yeah, I remember that. He went down for 10 years didn't he?

LEE
Sid, I was the one who put the dinner knife in the crackhead's coat pocket. After I had smeared it with the blood from the severed hand. All to protect this job, to protect this store.

SID
But wait...didn't the mother see it happen? The accident that is?

LEE
Yeah she did. But she was an alcoholic. She was easily convinced. We said to her "we'll stick it on this crackhead, and we'll let you shop here free for a year". Luckily enough she died of liver failure before the trial even came to court. It must have been all that free booze she was drinking.

SID
But what happened to the severed hand?

LEE
Oh, we binned it.

SID
You missed a trick there, you could have bloody fed it to us in the canteen.

LEE
Oh, Sid, all of that, the lies, the fraud, it was all for nothing.

SID
The store isn't closing.

LEE
But you said you saw it in the paper.

SID
No I didn't. I told you, I don't read the paper. Look about this favour...

LEE
Oh thank God. What changed their minds? Have we been taken over? Was there a merger? Oh, I hope it's with Waitrose. I know the manager of the store in Beckenham. I don't recall him ever telling me about having to falsify evidence. And they get such a better class of customer. No toddler's mothers screaming on about their kid's severed hands there.

SID
Well you could have handled it better. What was it you said to her? "I can assure you madam, these automatic doors are hands down the best that money can buy".

-----------

Any opinions?

To be quite honest Morgill, this is more drama than sitcom, also there's too much exposition, it's a lot of recapping...i.e. telling and not showing.
I think what you should do, as you can obviously write is to think up a full story line...i.e... beginning/middle [muddle] and end. Keep redrafting it until the story is to your liking, then start doing the dialogue.

One thread of the story could be something like...it starts off with a robbery, someones nicked all the condoms and it turns out later it's your dad....or something

This is kind of a bit where the sitcom deviates from the story for a moment - just trying to establish Lee's character (i.e. paranoid).

Quote: morgills1 @ February 4 2010, 5:02 PM GMT

This is kind of a bit where the sitcom deviates from the story for a moment - just trying to establish Lee's character (i.e. paranoid).

View original

I'd still suggest doing a full story line first. That's the most difficult part to do in any genre. Otherwise you go blindly on without a blueprint and it usually gets nowhere. Have a think about it. The stuff you have done already won't be wasted and once you've established the story, you'll be able to use some of it
Just as an exercise, write one, if you're struggling, then that is the test

Point taken on board...but is any of it funny? When I edit this again it'd be useful to know which bits fall flat on their face and which parts are worth saving...

I read all your 'sitcom' on the other thread.
I can't judge if it's funny till it's in some sort of order. I did like it but again it wasn't sitcom....Sitcom is a different genre than all others
It has to be the story first Morgills...then do the dialogue
Have a look at Robin Kelly's website

http://www.robinkelly.btinternet.co.uk/stage.htm

Even though I am a 'n00b' to all this writing shenaniganery, which means that you should take my waffly nonsense with a pinch of salt, I do have to agree with bushbaby. It's looking back and telling us what was, rather than taking us on a journey forwards.

I can see how this can build up the character, which is good, but it's hard to assess properly without knowing what comes before and after it!

However, I did particularly like this...

Quote: morgills1 @ February 4 2010, 4:25 PM GMT

LEE
Sid, I was the one who put the dinner knife in the crackhead's coat pocket. After I had smeared it with the blood from the severed toddler hand. All to protect this job, to protect this store.

SID
But wait...didn't the mother see it happen? With the doors?

LEE
Yeah she did. But she was an alcoholic. She was easily convinced. We said to her "we'll stick it on this crackhead, and we'll let you shop here free for life". Luckily enough she died of liver failure before the trial even came to court. It must have been all that free booze she was drinking.

View original

"It must have been all that free booze she was drinking." - Clever!

Yes I agree with Penge but couldn't you rewrite and put the incident in as the present and later in the sitcom the mother comes in and gets a free trolley full of booze, then later in the same episode she comes in again for a trolley full of booze etc

I understand that story is key, but there's actually quite a few great sitcoms that tend to jettison narrative in favour of longer-dialogue led scenes.

I absolutely loved the Phoneshop pilot that was on C4 recently - and it had absolutely no plot. It was more like a series of sketches sewn together. It was actually rather refreshing.

Hi Morgills, it's up to you how you go forwards. I didn't see the Phoneshop but according to the synopsis, there was a storyline...i.e.... below.
................................
On High Street UK the priority is to 'shift units, make money, smash targets...' and no one knows that better than the staff of PhoneShop. New recruit Christopher is on the infamous one day trial, but will he make his first sale by 6pm and secure the job, or will he be yet another victim of the vicious 'retail battlefield'?

PhoneShop centres on the everyday lives of the employees of the mobile phone shop, the like of which you can find in every high street and shopping mall across the country. In this pilot episode, Christopher, the 'new man', is charged with replacing super salesman 'Little' Gary Patel (who has been arrested (again) for attacking the lads from Top Shop). Christopher, a graduate, needs to quickly adapt to this new world where street smart is the order of the day and degrees count for nothing. Will he survive the dreaded one-day trial? And if he does will he fit in with the rest of the team?

Go find it online, was very funny. It didn't have much of a plot, I assure you...

And as I said this is merely two pages of a 20 page script. There is something (admittedly not enough) of a story in there - and Lee's paranoia and dedication to the store plays a big role in the final scene so it needs to be established.

Quote: morgills1 @ February 5 2010, 4:28 PM GMT

Go find it online, was very funny. It didn't have much of a plot, I assure you...

And as I said this is merely two pages of a 20 page script. There is something (admittedly not enough) of a story in there - and Lee's paranoia and dedication to the store plays a big role in the final scene so it needs to be established.

View original

I understand what you are saying but normally the paranoia trait would come out in dialogue and the way he works/behaves with customers/staff etc...within the story line

Hmmmm...

BB is right.