Treatment for "Spiralling Out of Control" - Read

Hi,
This is a treatment for a sitcom I wrote a while ago. I haven't done much with it yet. It is a kind of gross-out comedy but hopefully a bit satirical as well. There is a brief outline and synosis of three episodes. Please, please let me know what you think!

Spiralling Out Of Control!

Spiralling Out of Control! is a sitcom set in Sydney and revolves around the life of notorious party girl Ella Shelley. Ella, aged twenty, is the spoiled daughter of a record company impressario - Robert Shelley, and his former television actress wife - Bette Shelley.

With money no object and responsibility absent, Ella and her best friend Melanie (Mel) Braxton cavort their way through the worlds of entertainment and fashion, Sydney nightlife and up-market holiday destinations - becoming fodder for the gossip pages and leaving a trail of disaster and scandal in their wake. Supporting characters include Ella's more sensible sister Rochelle, who is a year older, and her antagonistic younger brother, Drew.

Regular guests include Mel's television producer father Harry Braxton and his former model wife Hilary Braxton, Ella's sometimes boyfriend - rocker Keith Coombe and her media arch-rival - pop princess Kirsty Shore.
The show is about the lives of outrageous female characters. The stories center around Ella and Mel's boozy party exploits, outrageous man-hunting tactics, and Ella's ill fated attempts to earn money and take control of her life as her parents encourage her to stop relying on them.

The humour is visual and verbal - arising from satire of celebrity, in-jokes about the entertainment and fashion industries, ridiculous 'hip-speak', alcohol fuelled slapstick antics and heinous fashion misdemeanors. The idea is inspired by the stories of of young celebrities and the children of older celebrities that fill the gossip pages of magazines every month. Below is a synopsis of the first three - episodes.

Episode 1 - Escape

Ella is on the run from the paparazzi. After a very public break up with Keith outside a Sydney Nightspot - Ella and Mel take refuge at an -up-market Surfer's Paradise hotel. As Ella promises her mother over the phone that she will not create any further bad press, she and Mel settle in for some topless sun bathing on the veranda - to the great excitement of the bell boys who are bringing them drinks. A spot of shopping is next on the list and Ella and Mel try on some outrageous fashions at the local boutiques.

Feeling a little bit tipsy at lunch, Ella is surprised when Mel points out that Keith is coming into the bar with Kirsty Shore on his arm. Frantically trying to finish her cocktail and leave, Ella drops a lemon from her cocktail down the front of her top. As Mel frantically tries to retrieve it, they are spotted by Keith and Kirsty.

Following this humiliation, Ella resolves to forget her problems with a night out on the town. With the help of a flamboyant stylist, Ella and Mel frock up in ridiculously skimpy outfits and very impractical shoes. As they approach the nightclub, they once again spot Keith and Kirsty, but Ella is determined to show him that she has moved on. In the nightclub, Ella and Mel disgrace themselves, dancing wildly and flirting - with Mel snogging a man on one of the nightclub couches while Ella and another man have fallen to the floor and roll around wildly. Mel is promptly dumped however, when she vomits on her man's shoes.

Ella is still cavorting when Keith walks past to order a drink for Kirsty - she staggers to her feet to let off a flurry of abuse and declares that she does not need him, but when Kirsty approaches and tells her to back off, she lunges at her and the two girls fight as a press photographer snaps frantically and Mel keeps drinking. There is a montage of photos of Ella in various stages of drunkenness and unruliness as Mel and Ella are taken to the door by the bouncers and ejected.

After the credits roll, we see the two girls arrive home with Rob and Bette complaining of their unruly antics. In spite of the trouble, however, the girls remember having an enjoyable time - and in a flashback we see the girls in a king sized bed in their suite - each with a man wrapped around them. Mel has the man Ella was with at the club and Ella has Keith. When Ella asks what happened to Kirsty, we see Kirsty on the lawn outside shouting for Keith as the sprinkler system turns on and drenches her.

Episode Two - Work

Ella needs to earn some money. Rob and Bette have told her that she needs to be responsible and take control of her life - they can not be her keepers and clean up her messes forever. Ella and Mel protest that she recently was paid well for a photo shoot for FHM - but Rob, Bette and Ella's sister Rochelle agree that a photo of her in a g-string with a couple of pieces of gaff tape over her nipples probably was not in the best taste - even if her brother Drew thinks it was one of the better FHM shoots he has seen.

Ella and Mel are found casual jobs in an up-market boutique. After navigating the roadworks outside to get to their job, they manage to offend several customers as they offer less than diplomatic style advice. On top of that, they have been liberally trying on the shop's expensive clothing.

When a wealthy, but portly customer leaves after being offended - she leaves her purse on the counter. Ella goes after the woman and follows her out to the parking area. Seeing the woman is about to get into her car - Ella cuts across through the roadworks and falls into a ditch. When Mel arrives - Ella emerges from the ditch a muddy mess. While the girls are away, several expensive items are stolen - and Ella and Mel are fired for their behaviour.

Frantic to put the girls to use, Bette decides that the girls talents may lie in exploiting their fame - and arranges with Mel's father Harry for them to model and assist in the cooking segment of her midday television program. The girls are quite confident about modeling, but Ella is very nervous about the cooking segment. The modeling goes well and Bette congratulates the girls during a commercial break.

With Ella still nervous about presenting the cooking segment, Mel convinces her to go back to the dressing room for a drink. Quite tipsy, they re-apply their make-up for the cooking segment. They stagger onto set for their cooking segment garishly made up and the cooking segment quickly descends into a food fight as Bette and Harry look on in horror. As the credits roll, we see the girls getting increasingly messy as the scene fades to black.

After the credits roll, at a table by the pool at Rob and Bette's mansion - Ella and Mel are being admonished by their parents about the chaos in the television studio. Ella stands up and announces that as a result of her ridiculous behaviour she has landed a reality television show. Mel jumps in the air in excitement, tripping and falling into the pool.

Episode Three - Reality

Bette, Rochelle, Ella and Mel are sitting around in living room of the Sanders' mansion reading magazines - most of which seem to carry scandalous news about Ella and Mel's antics - drinking binges at a Sydney nightspot, Ella's latest feud with Kirsty Shore, a snapshot of her boobs falling out of her top and another of her cavorting naked with Keith Coombe on the balcony of a Surfer's Paradise motel. Ella argues that nothing can be seen in that picture as Keith is in the way. Drew, who is sitting at a nearby computer, interjects that another shot is circulating on the net - and it is quite a bit more revealing. Ella switches off the computer.

Bette pleads with Ella to cancel the reality television series that she is about to commence but Ella insists that, since her parents want her to earn her own living that they should let her. Soon after this, the camera crew arrives. Ella is dressed in another tastelessly skimpy outfit and quickly shoos Rochelle out of the kitchen, so that she can pretend to have cooked lunch. The cameras are rolling as Ella bends over to get something from the oven, exposing her lacy panties. Bette and Rochelle are horrified and Bette agrees to let Rochelle move onto campus to avoid being part of Ella's antics.

Drew is in his room frantically removing pictures of of a partially-dressed Mel from his wall before Ella arrives to introduce him. Ella sees the pictures and is disgusted but Mel is flattered and does not seem to mind. At the end of the day, Bette announces to the crew that there will not be another episode, much to Ella and Mel's dismay. Bette will not have these people in her house exploiting her daughter. She then suggests that Ella and Mel try getting an acting coach if they want to be on film.

Ella and Mel commiserate with a night on the town - with paparazzi following their antics as they become increasingly inebriated. In the parking lot, Ella gets behind the wheel of their convertible with Mel by her side, and they are involved in an accident. Neither are hurt, but they are both revealed to be drunk and marijuana is found in Mel's purse. Weeks later, wearing ankle bracelets, the pair recline by Ella's pool as the camera crew returns - this will put a whole new angle on their show!

Well first of all these thick blocks of text are hard to read.

It's not a sitcom it's more of a soap opera.

I can't see where any of the humour comes in. Sitcom needs conflicting relationships to make them work. For example Ab Fab focuses on the central relationship where Edie is irresponsible, is encouraged to be more so by Patsy the eternal child and pulled back by Saffy the child adult. Everything else grows from that.

ALso in most sitcoms there needs to not only be conflict, but a reason why those who are conflicted are stuck together.

I'd writer the first 2 pages of the sitcom. But I'd work out why it's funny and how the characters actually interact first.

Thanks Sootyj.
I Guess what I want is for Ella to be pulled between the irresponsible and selfish Melanie and the demands of her family to behave better and find direction. The comedy, I hope, will often be broad and visual and arise from various opportunities turning into disaster because Ella cannot resist her irresponsible urges. Hopefully, the gross out humour will not be too much.
I will work on some script.

Hi Todd, this is my first venture on to the critique forum, so not sure if my paltry opinions will account for much but you said you needed some feedback so here goes.

Do I detect some inspiration in there from Ab Fab? Just a guess, but I could be wrong.

The scenarios are very entertaining, and imo, it all depends on whether a prod co. would think the general situation and background could still be done without infringing too much on previous sitcoms' ground.

If you can convince them it has its own life entirely independent of the situation used in Ab Fab or Veronica Vile or anything else similar in tone, then they may be interested if they still see a market for this kind of sitcom.

You're the best judge of that as you are in Australia, but I'd also do some basic research first to see if there is indeed a taste for this kind of comedy still. If Ab Fab is still pulling in the viewers there, I suppose you could construe from that there is a market for similar material, but with its own identity.

My final advice is to make the layout itself easier to read for them. Each scene in your treatment can still be divided into much smaller paragraphs that are easier and less daunting to read, imo. Ah I see Sooty has already agreed with me on this. And he makes good points about conflict too, but I assumed your conflict would come from authority figures? Good luck.

Thanks very much, Alfred!
Ab Fab is, of course, among my comic influences, but this centers on much younger characters and, I hope, will reach a younger audience. "Bridesmaids" gives me some confidence that audiences can accept some kind of 'gross-out comedy' with female characters.
Cheers!

Well I definitely think there's generally a huge market for female comedy, the success of Ab Fab, Miranda, Bridget Jones, Legally Blond etc etc is very loud proof of that. It'll be mostly about finding the all new character to tap into this market with, I'd reckon. Cheers.

Also I think Out Of Control is a much snappier, more sitcom like title.