You, My Monkey and I by Stephen Brown - Short, Anime - When islotation consumes you is imagination your only friend? 14 pages - pdf, format 8)

Thanks Don

This is an animation that I'm hoping to get made at some point.

Terrible logline haha don't know what I was doing there.

Ste

Hey Ste, this was one of the quickest reads.  It flowed easily and I could imagine this as an animation.

One thing that was a little strange though was that the first line of dialogue was almost half way through.  I liked the narrator and thought you were going to use this throughout.

This story comes across as two different segments.  The first fits the animation really well but the second, when Katie is introduced less so.  I like the loneliness monkey though, that worked well and the concept of it too.

The story was strong but I just can't help but feel it too divided at the moment.

Yeah, the original plan was to have it all with the narrator and no actual dialogue but then I wanted to put more story in. Couldn't really think of a way to do that without any communication between Logan and Katie.

The loneliness monkey is the part I liked about this too. Gotta love those monkeys haha.

Cheers for checking it out.

Ste, This is a really interesting piece and I can't make up my mind whether I like it or not! It's a strange one. I think maybe because I read your comment about it being written for an Anime I viewed it quite differently from the way I would usually read a script. But that always may be because of the way it was written, did you approach it any differently knowing that it was Anime?

It felt more like I was observing this story from afar rather than getting emotionally involved, the lack of dialogue early on I think contributes heavily in that. I felt no emotional attachment to either character really and therefore when the end came I did not really care that much at all.  But in saying that I am not necessarily saying that is a bad thing, it was a different experience reading this script that usual shorts I read and it was not an unenjoyable experience.

It was written extremely well, You are clearly working on your skills here and it shows, every scene was described in a really good way, your dialogue when it appeared was fine. A great and easy script to read.

The one real negative I would have is why have you got the narration at all? The Narrator told us nothing that could not already be seen on the screen or that you could have easily have shown us. I would really think about dropping the narration altogether and instead work on telling us the story visually. I am a bit of a fan of narration when it works well, but only when it has a voice, when it is a characters POV or the writers own take on the situation. When narration is just used to move the story forward and describe what we should be seeing anyway I think it is a cop out. I think this script probably deserves better.

Hope that does not sound too unfair?

Cheers Gary

Cheers Gary, no doesn't sound unfair at all.

The reason I used a a narrator is to show how Logan is detached from the world and people around him.

MASSIVE SPOILER!!!!
Katie doesn't exist, at least not in the way that she appears in this story. She works at the bookshop and this is the only person that Logan talks to. Due to his isolation he imagines that they fall for each other. Due to his depression he still can't be happy though and even imagines a terrible thing happening to her.

The only scenes that I feel need to be animated are the scenes in the forest - Logan's imagination. I guess a way to show the above better would maybe to have animation for the forest but then carry it on after his daydream about Katie.

Thanks for checking it out and pleased you enjoyed it even given your feelings about the narration.

Ste

Quoted from stebrown The reason I used a a narrator is to show how Logan is detached from the world and people around him. MASSIVE SPOILER!!!! Katie doesn't exist, at least not in the way that she appears in this story. She works at the bookshop and this is the only person that Logan talks to. Due to his isolation he imagines that they fall for each other. Due to his depression he still can't be happy though and even imagines a terrible thing happening to her.

Hi Ste,

I still think you can easily portray to us how detached Logan is from the world without resorting to narration, Reading it again I still do not see any need for Narration here at all. But if narration is the way you want to go maybe you could look at doing something more interesting with it. At the moment it is either telling us what we can already see or giving us some extra detail thats are not really that important. Maybe the Narration could add something that would not be possible to show without it, tell us what is going on in the world around Logan that being so detached from it he just does not see.

I think you have complicated things more by telling me Katie does not exist, It should really have been obvious in the screenplay. You tell us in the sluglines that a couple of scenes were in Logan's imagination but fail to do the same for the whole katie saga. I have re-read now and picked up on the scene where Katie disappears and he is back in a room with a single bed which i guess I should have picked up first time around but still not sure that that tells us she never really existed. I don't know, see what other people think, I may just be being thick but I think it is a stretch. If you use the "imagination" slugs to denote imagination scenes then you really should use them for all imagination scenes.

I would suggest that this works really well once you understand exactly what's going on, and this might well work brilliantly when produced but reading it without the benefit of knowing it is probably not that easy.

Cheers for clarifying for me and makes much more sense re-reading it now that I know.

Yeah Gary, a problem I have quite often is trying to make a script too mysterious. I didn't want to label the other imagination scenes because I wanted that to be the reveal near the end, with just a few hints thrown in throughout.

I understand the confusion -- like you say I'll see what others think, but I'm starting to agree with both of your points to be honest.

Ste

So hang on a minute, let me get this straight. Katie was just Lonliness evolved into a shape and form that suits Logan as an adult? (woman)

While this script was well written, I did not find the character of Logan all that interesting, It's one thing to be a writer but quite boring to read about a writer. (such a boring dreary lot)

I am huge fan of imaginary friend stories (Fightclub, Foster's Home, Drop Dead Fred) but this one sort of didn't work for me.

I couldn't see this as an amime but I am curious, thou it might be hard to show as words on paper, with the medium of animation would you make the realm of Logan's imagination stand out by using a palete of vivid colors as compared to dull muted colors of reality? That would be one advantage of animation.

  

Yeah, you've got it pretty much nailed there mate. She's just a different form of Loneliness.

The way I see this is dark, pencil or charcoal for the real world and watercolour for the imagination scenes. I think it would work better on screen than on paper, but maybe I have to work a bit more on this to get some emotion in the story.

Hi,
I'm going to read this before looking at the rest of the thread, so apologies if I repeat stuff already noted-fixed.

The more spec scripts I read, the more I begin to loathe voice-over narration, but for an animation script & this story, it works. Good flow, action text & dialogue are tight & clear. Started to lose interest around halfway through but the last act kept me turning pages. Very dark twists - interesting stuff. No major format or style errors noted, other than punctuation note below.

Punctuation nitpick - in several places, you have two complete thoughts separated by a comma instead of separate sentences. Not a lot of character dialogue to work with, but you might try to make each 'voice' more distinctive. Ideally, you'd like the reader to know who is speaking each line even without looking at the character tag.

I hope that's helpful - thanks for putting it up to read!

Patrick Sweeney

Hey Ste,

Personally i like the use of the Narrator i have no problem with it. Being an anime and manga fan for a long time i couldn't picture it in my head as an anime.

I'd like you to make it more mysterious and leave some clues through the way. As for the formatting i have no words, it reads fast like always.

Cheers

Patrick

Thanks for that. Always good to know if a script starts to lose interest at any point. I read my own scripts way too many times before posting, checking for typos and minor changes, so by the end I always get bored of them to the point of almost hating them. Haha, I digress.

The whole VO thing is something I'm trying to get away from, but it's so damn natural to use one. Really have to fight the urge. With this though I chose to use one for the reason I gave above.

Nik

The only scenes I figure have to be anime are the imagination scenes. I figure it might be difficult to make live-action and anime merge well on a low budget.

Thanks folks

You read my script recently and gave some sound advice, so hopefully I can return the favor. On to the script...

I have to echo most of the thoughts regarding the narration. I think it could work better if Logan was narrating it, but some of it still needs to be removed to prevent redundancy.

As for the girl being just another form of Loneliness (whose name should be mentioned by the narrator sometime when the monkey is shown), I kind of got this idea, but there wasn't enough there to make me think that was definitely what you were going for. Since you're planning to use animation, have you thought about giving the monkey and Katie some physical similarities? That way we get the feeling they're coming from the same mind without blatantly saying it. Maybe a close-up of the monkey's eyes, then later on a close-up of Katie's eyes and they're the same shape/color.

All that aside, I really liked the script and am sure I will like it and the ensuing animation even more once the idea that Katie is in his imagination is made more clear. Also I think going against Patrick's comment, the fact that Katie and Logan's voices are indestinguishable contributes to the idea that she's just a part of his mind. Best of luck with the project and hope I said something helpful. Can't wait to see the end result.

Cheers for taking a look mate.

Yeah the narration seems to be a miss for most people. Either going to have to reword some parts or lose it entirely I think. Losing it would mean the script is completely different though. Will have a think.

I'm actually getting an idea for expanding this -- think it was your comment about having the same eyes that sparked it. Might have a few more characters that Loneliness turns into.

Think this will be unrecognisable when I get round to doing a rewrite, but the monkey will be staying haha.

Thanks for your ideas.

Hello Ste,

I wanted to say that I thought your script was not bad.

I think you should make Katie a real character and that when she does die and Loneliness returns, it would make Logan's character come full circle.  Not sure how you feel about that.

The idea where Logan tries to get away from Loneliness, finds happiness and then his life is shattered.  Loneliness is there to pick up the pieces.  

Overall it was good and quick, and you've got my vote for the monkey staying for the rewrites. :-)

All the best.


Javier

Thanks for the read Javier.

That would be an interesting way to take this but I'm really wanting to keep the majority of the script imaginary. Maybe I'll have her really be with him but his imagination paints a different picture of her and drives her away.

I think there's a few different ways I can take this and I'll definately try your way in the experiments.

Maybe have the monkey as the only reality and Logan's a part of his imagination? haha

I'll have to take a look at one of your family guy scripts over the weekend.