Ideas, comedy mood board, and reflection

Link to group contract and expectations document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ucnxGGarOvfoQYnYCucXUVxiS4CybhDQrI4luwMJ5gQ/edit

Initial ideas and concepts

Brainstorm

• Revolving around one character, out of touch with reality.
• Some sort of social issue or external topic that we comment on through the character.
• A bunch of small sketches revolving around the same character.
• A person from an older time navigating life in 2024.
• Making fun of modern times.
• Start of one sketch: silent comedy OR black and white, giving background on the character’s previous life.
• Wanda Vision reference, The Wizard of Oz – Tone shift. She’s transported into today’s world.
• Each sketch revolves around her navigating different aspects of modern society; going to uni, social media, slang, clothing, technology.

Ideas, concepts, and narrative

• A person who’s been transported from an older time suddenly having to navigate life and society in 2024.
• Some aspects can be satirical, and comment on how times have changed or NOT changed from the past.
• The character is bewildered and confused of modern times.
• A group of sketches each showing the character navigate a different aspect of modern life, e.g. going to uni, social media, slang, clothing, technology.
• Using elements of incongruity, satire, parody, genre hybridisation (drama and comedy).

Comedy mood board

• This clip is from The Wizard of Oz, which shows Dorothy stepping into technicolour, when the film had previously been in a brown tone. We like the idea of having a sudden change like this in our project. Our plan is to have our main character transported from an earlier time (such as 1950’s) to 2024. A way we’d like to make this clear to the audience is to have the first part of the project in black and white and suddenly change to colour.
• The film 17 Again serves as inspiration for our project. The film revolves around a man who’s transported back into his 17-year-old self. Whilst our narrative, style, and form are a quite different, the overall concept of having a character transported into a different time and having to navigate life is an idea we are exploring.
• Another film with a similar idea is 13 Going on 30, in which the main character has jumped from 13 years old to 30 and has to navigate life in a different time. Whilst this a Hollywood blockbuster type of film and our project aims to have a simpler vibe, the concept in this film serves as inspiration.
• This clip is a part of Hannah Camilleri’s group of sketches called Little Shits. We aim to achieve a similar form of episodic type sketches that revolve around the same character/s and central idea. We like the idea of having smaller sketches put together to make a collection of them, each one showing our character navigating different aspects of life in 2024.
• Another inspiration we have is Mr Bean. We all were interested in our story revolving around one character who is somehow different to the world around them, and Mr Bean is a perfect example of this.

Reflection on the group’s first week

This week we got into our groups for the final project and started brainstorming ideas that we’d like to explore. In the first lesson we agreed we were interested in doing a collective group of sketches revolving around one character who is somehow out of touch with reality, like Mr Bean. We also liked the format of Hannah Camilleri’s Little Shits, a group of sketches put together with the same central idea and characters. In the second lesson, we created our group contract and expectations document, our timeline and schedule, and brainstormed ideas for the narrative. We decided on having a character transported from an older time, such as 1950’s, into 2024 and has to go through life in modern times without prior knowledge of it.

I believe my group works well together, we bounce ideas off each other and listen to what everyone has to say. We also identified our strengths and areas of production that we would most like to work on. We have a diverse range of skills in our group which is very beneficial, as we can have a leader in each area and also learn things from each other. I’m very excited to continue developing this project and working towards making something we are proud of.