During the filming today I also finally received my feedback from Ed about my story and his notes were the following:
You crack me up, Remi. Cholesterol! Growling stomachs!
Domineering spouse! LOL! I want to party with you. But, listen the exercise is for a character to go up the stairs, not down them. You are giving yourself far too many things to worry about. If you want to have him sneaking some place in the house in order to do something he does not want his wife to know about, try imagining that he is an alcoholic and has a bottle of whiskey hidden in the dirty clothes hamper in the upstairs bedroom. (One of my many fathers actually did that!) We want to keep the focus on the guy climbing the stairs. You are doing a good job of evoking an emotion in the character, it is just too complex, that's all.
Not too bad I must say. But as I suspected, Ed did care about the fact that he was going down the stairs. He did have some interesting ideas though but as interesting as it would be to animate a drunk, I feel I have a big enough challenge already as it is so animating an alcoholic is kind of out of the question for me at this point. Another thing I reacted on was his suggestion to the character going upstairs to get his bottle of whiskey hidden in the dirty clothes hamper IN THE BEDROOM. I have absolutely no idea how I can communicate to the audience WHAT he is going upstairs for in this scene if that was his ultimate goal.
I discussed this with my tutor as well as mentioning the idea about the surprise breakfast and my tutor liked the idea so I decided to go for that and film my reference footage for it. I have also rewritten the scene to fit this new story:
BREAKFAST SURPRISE (THE NIGHT SNACK RE-WRITE)
It is mother's day and Lars has gotten up early this morning to surprise his wife with breakfast on the bed. Before heading to the kitchen to prepare the breakfast, he has stopped by his two children's rooms and asked them to clean up their mess and remove their toys from the staircase while he makes the breakfast.
After spending almost 1 hour in the kitchen preparing a delicious breakfast, he heads for the bedroom upstairs.
The scene starts with Lars exiting the kitchen with a tray coming around the corner to the staircase.
As Lars walks around the corner, he has an excited smile on his face which quickly changes to a disappointed expression as he stops in front of the staircase.
He shakes his head slowly and sighs and takes the first step carefully placing his feet to avoid the toys still laying in the staircase. He makes his way up the staircase carefully balancing his tray as he avoids the toys and shovels some of them away using his feet.
As he has gotten past the worst mess he stops and sighs relieved, smiles and heads for the bedroom.
ALTERNATE ENDING
As he has gotten past the worst mess he stops and sighs relieved, smiles and heads for the bedroom still looking the same direction as he takes the first step and therefore stepping on a toy car. The scene cuts to black as he starts his fall while sound effects reveal what's happening.
With this new story I have also tried to put together a character profile:
Name: Lars
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Health: Good
Physical Appearance: Slim, athletic, straight posture, blue eyes, short and brown hair.
Job: Currently a Bookseller but wants to be a writer.
Education: High school and a Bachelor in literature.
Cultural Background: American
Intelligence: Just above average.
Hygiene: Takes good care of himself, uses cologne almost daily.
Diet: Normal, balanced between junk food and healthy.
General Psychology:
Approachable, but not the type of person who is going out very often as he enjoys spending time reading a good book at home. Very kind person who always stands up for his friends and helping people around him. Observant to the people around him.
How Does the Character Feel about him/herself? He looks at himself as any average person and does not like to think highly of himself.
What Makes The Character Unique/Describe The Character In Short Words:
He's a hopeless romantic, does not stay angry for a long amount of time and usually deals with it in that moment instead of keeping it in. Very caring to people around him and always go by the phrase "The biggest joy one can have is to give joy to others"
There are still some missing rooms of some common attributes from the profile such as, Mannerisms, Strength/Weaknesses and what animal would fit to describe the character.
What bugs me is that almost every time, these point leave me with nothing more than a blank paper so it will just have to stay blank for now and maybe I will find something to fill in later on.
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