Friday, September 28, 2007

And Now...The Rest of the Story

ROBOWRITER'S ASSIGNMENT


Assistant Director’s Cut: Fake Deleted Scenes and Alternate Endings

Courtesy of Mr. Chris Othic.

This assignment is one of my favorites. I like it so much that at one time myself and a group of writers did an entire show based on this premise.

The basic idea is that you are writing fake deleted scenes and alternate endings for your favorite movies. When you are choosing a movie to write a scene for, you should know the movie fairly well and it’s best if the Average Joe probably knows a little bit about it also. This means you will probably be writing fake scenes for movies like Star Wars, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, Brokeback Mountain, and similar movies. You can probably get away with writing about a movie that is a little more obscure, but it should at least have an element to it that most people know about.

First you want to generate a list of movies that you are familiar with. You can do this from your own personal choices, or look up lists of top movies at sites like IMDB or Blockbuster.com. Then you can go down the list and start generating ideas. You can either do fake deleted scenes or alternate endings.

For instance, in the show we did we had a deleted scene from Star Wars, which was the surprise party for Darth Vader thrown by his staff to celebrate the completion of the Death Star. Vader got some gag gifts, and we made fun of his funny breathing. We also had a scene from The Exorcist that was the “lost” slumber party scene where a possessed Regan invites her girlfriends to sleep over. You can imagine how that went with some vomiting and head spinning. When you are doing a deleted scene it’s really a parody of the tenants of the film (vomiting, head spinning) and also add some comic elements. The Exorcist slumber party was also a clash of context as in incorporated typical slumber party behavior with horror movies.

Alternate endings are a little different in that you are obviously taking the ending and giving it a comic twist. For example, we had an alternate ending for the movie Seven in which Brad Pitt’s character opens the box that contains Gwyneth Paltrow’s head, only in our version the box had anything but her head in it because apparently John Doe kept getting his seven deadly sins confused.

One last note: it is probably easier to make fun of any genre except comedies. You may be able to pull it off, but most comedies are already funny, and when you try to make fun of them it doesn’t always work. The other genres tend to work much better.


THE BS NEWS OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"The Guolizhuang restaurant in Bejing claims to feature China's only what?"

34% answered "Pancreas Pancakes"
- Nope. It was only added because it sounded better than "Pancreas Platter," which they don't have either.

10% picked "Poop- Poop Platter"
- Even though it's what we all think of when we order the Pu-Pu Platter anyway, the answer is "no."

10% thought "Palate Platter"
- No. Probably the boringest answer, but really gross when you think about it. Ew, you're eating a mouth!

46% ordered correctly with Penis Platter

According to The Telegraph, situated in an elegantly restored house beside Beijing's West Lake, Guolizhuang is China's first speciality penis restaurant. Businessmen and government officials can sample the organs of yaks, donkeys, oxen and even seals. In fact, they have to, since they form part of every dish - except for those containing testicles. Choke on that!

Dog penis with plum, anyone?