1st story meeting with Dave and Mike

Today was our first meeting with Dave Bull and Mike Smith focussing on the importance of story and developing a good script. We learnt about the elements that make a successful story in terms of plot, acts, sequence, scenes and the beats within them. It was good to reinforce elements such as dead scenes: elements that just serve no purpose in story and therefore shouldn't appear in your film. If it doesnt add anything to the story, its just wasted story.

Mike also brought up some very valid points to consider when working in a team which i think we need to keep in the back of our minds throughout the year. There's no doubt that the work load will increase and therefore the pressure and at times it will get stressful so we got to keep our feet on the floor and keep going....i may be saying that for my own benefit more than anything :)

Mike and Dave spent the afternoon talking to the groups. I was pleased with their comments as my aim of the first week was to really develop the story so we could get some feedback in order to take it to the next direction. I was ecstatic that they loved the new twist to the ending, was really great to hear. Dave suggested a really nice end of credits sequence involving the hero gluing back together the fragments of Lady Gnome...his humour is almost as cruel as ours! So now, myself and Matt just need to work backwards and figure out the gags to place within the place in order to show the conflict between the two guys and the increasing struggle for the Hero.

We discussed the catagories that our stories came under, typically a love triangle, however it was interesting to hear how typical love triangles usually see the villan (or the character whose winning the girls affections at the start) is actually uninterested in her, he doesnt actually want her. We need to develop this side of the Macho Gnomes character.

We also discussed the conflict and how we need to push the failed attempts of the Hero to try and be like Macho Gnome. Hero Gnome would be asking himself.

• why's she going for him?
• whats he got i havent got?

basically...he'll therefore try and mimic the Macho Gnomes character in order to try and woo her, he cant see that shes just not interested in him.

In short, we need to...

• set the world
• show how the world works (within constrained time limits)
• establish where the action/story is occurring
• Introduce the characters - Hero Gnome and Lady Gnome. We need to see that he is smitten with her (this would be slower pacing to the rest of the story)
• Then she goes off with the Macho Gnome
• We see the series of gags - Hero Gnomes failures
• Need THE pinicle moment to lead to the resolution
• Then...the twist
• roll credits!

So over the next week, myself and Matt are gonna be working on the gags for the piece ready for next week as well as experiment with colour and medians so we can start getting together a colour script. The final character designs need to be locked down too as well as development of prop and set pieces drawn.