Okay, I’m finally catching up on some more commentary entries for Sketchwar. The week of 2/13/09, the topic was “Pimp My TV”.
Author: Peter Rogers
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Grosvenor Square
Sketch War
A Bit of Fry and Spiner Edition
“Grosvenor Square” -
FSW: Pimp My TV Edition (Peter’s entry)
Friday Sketch War
Pimp My TV Edition
“Quantum Leap Trailer”FADE IN:
SERIES OF SHOTS (1995)
Brief glimpses of shaky digi-cam footage:
A) SAM BECKETT (30s, likeable) works in a high-tech science lab.
B) He steps into a pillar of smoke.
C) He vanishes in a flash of blue light.
Meanwhile, the caption “1995” appears and fades, and a clear female voice narrates —
ZIGGY (V.O.)
In 1995, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the main accelerator of Project Quantum Leap and vanished —
OVER BLACK
ZIGGY (V.O.)
— until now.
EXT. MILITARY OUTPOST (1976) – DAY
A dusty, utilitarian building in the middle of nowhere. A caption — “1976” — appears and fades.
INT. INTERROGATION ROOM – CONTINUOUS
A small, white, antiseptic room with minimal furniture. A massive mirror takes up one of the walls.
MILLINGTON (20s, intense, creepy) looms over OTIS (8, farm boy, scared).
OTIS
I’m Otis Beaufoy.
MILLINGTON
No. You’ve temporarily taken Otis’s place. Otis is cooling his heels in a lab in California, thirty years in the future.
OTIS
That’s crazy!
MILLINGTON
Is it —
Millington GRABS Otis’s arm (cree-py), and something odd happens —
Otis morphs into Dr. Sam Beckett.
MILLINGTON
— Dr. Beckett?
He nods to the mirror.
MILLINGTON
Kill him.
Sam dives for cover just as GUNSHOTS shatter the mirror.
EXT. LAKESIDE (2010) – DAY
AL (60s, cantankerous) walks and talks with an UNSEEN FIGURE in idyllic surroundings.
AL
Sam randomly leaps from person to person, and decade to decade. Even I can’t find him any more.
Most of this line is voiceover for a —
SERIES OF SHOTS>
A) Sam looks into a smeary mirror in a gas-station bathroom. His mirror image is an elderly black man. (Caption: “1958”.)
B) Sam drives a Cadillac through the desert. He wears sunglasses and a hat, and he smokes a cigarette in a cigarette holder. In the car’s rearview, Hunter S. Thompson looks back. (Caption: “1971”.)
C) Sam clumsily applies lipstick in a ladies’ restroom. In the mirror: an attractive blonde. (Caption: “1985”.)
BACK TO SCENE
Still walking and talking.
UNSEEN FIGURE
Maybe we can help.
New angle REVEALS that the figure is MILLINGTON, now in his 50s, still intense, still creepy!
OLD MILLINGTON
So. What makes Sam tick?
EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD STREET (1993) – NIGHT
Fire trucks flash their lights on a suburban street as a three-alarm fire dies down. ONLOOKERS gape at the destruction. (The caption: “1993”.)
A three-alarm fire dies down.
ONLOOKERS gape at the destruction.
Sam, in full firefighter’s gear, hands a bottle of water to RHEA (30s), holding a cat, still attractive despite the soot, grime, and singed clothing.
SAM
I know what it’s like to lose your home. You’d give anything to get it back, and —
RHEA
Wait, how did you even know we were trapped in there?
SAM
I’m a time-travelling scientist from the future.
Beat.
Rhea laughs.
RHEA
Whatever.
INT./EXT. SURVEILLANCE VAN – CONTINUOUS
Two scary-looking GOVERNMENT AGENT types watch Sam and Rhea with high-tech equipment.
AGENT #1
We’ve acquired the target.
RADIO VOICE (FILTERED)
Get him.
The agents depart the van, weapons drawn.
INT. SHABBY LIVING ROOM (2010) – DAY
GUSHIE, a little technician with bad breath and odd clothes, shows Al a cryptic readout on a homebuilt computer.
AL
What does any of this mean?
GUSHIE
Sam has a trackable signature. We can find him.
AL
Tell me where.
INT. MOD NIGHTCLUB (1966) – NIGHT
An over-the-top nightclub full of garish colors (caption: “1966”).
A rectangle of light appears in the air; HOLOGRAM AL enters through it.
A PASSERBY walks straight through Al like he’s a ghost.
Al crosses to —
A NEARBY TABLE
— where *three* Sams sit, all scribbling equations.
AL
Sam. I’m back.
SAM #1
Al?
SAM #2
Al?
SAM #3
Al!
Sam #3 leaps up and tries to give Al a big hug.
He sweeps right through the hologram.
Al rolls his eyes.
EXT. WHEAT FIELD (1959) – DAY
In the middle of nowhere, a small airplane bears down on Sam, North by Northwest-style. Sam hits the ground. Holo-Al stands nearby, the wheat sweeping through him. (Caption: “1959”.)
EXT. WHEAT FIELD – LATER
Sam and Al hide out from the plane.
SAM
Why would someone be after me?
AL
You’ve had this hero gig, going from place to place, setting things right that once went wrong.
This serves as voiceover for another quick —
SERIES OF SHOTS
A) In Yankee Stadium, Sam hits a fly ball into deep center field. (Caption: “1967”.)
B) Sam pilots a Medivac helicopter through a sandstorm. (Caption: “1992”.)
C) Sam kisses a movie starlet in a Douglas-Sirk-looking scene on a film set. (Caption: “1957.”)
BACK TO SCENE
Right back where we were.
SAM
What, was somebody setting them wrong in the first place?
Al doesn’t answer, but he looks worried.
The plane makes another pass.
INT. UNIVERSITY LAB (1958) – NIGHT
Al follows Sam through a lab full of boxy old-style lab equipment (caption: “1958”), and he’s mad as hell.
SAM
I have to stop these people.
AL
I made you a promise. I promised you I was gonna bring you home.
Sam approaches a big red button.
SAM
Not yet, Al.
Sam hits the button.
Suddenly, the room dissolves into —
INT. HOLO-ROOM – NIGHT
Now Al is all alone in a plain room similar to the Enterprise’s holo-deck.
AL
Dammit!
EXT. KHE SAHN, VIETNAM (1968) – DAY
Sam, now in military fatigues, drags a WOUNDED SOLDIER to shelter while bombs EXPLODE nearby and airplanes lay down STRAFING FIRE. (Caption: “1968”.)
WOUNDED SOLDIER
Leave me! That’s an order!
SAM
We just have to go a little further!
INT. PROJECT QUANTUM LEAP (2010) – DAY
Al, bruised and bleeding, picks his way through the lab we saw at the beginning.
Except now it looks like a bomb has hit it.
Smoke and sparks everywhere.
The same voice from the opening —
ZIGGY (O.S.)
Initiating auto-destruct sequence. Good-bye Al.
AL
What? No!
INT. CONTROL ROOM (2010) – NIGHT
A high-tech center that puts everything at Project Quantum Leap to shame. Three-dimensional holo-projections float about the desks and big e-ink maps cover the walls.
Al, still looking beat-up, sits handcuffed to a chair.
Millington stands by a control pad and lectures him.
MILLINGTON
You lost, Al. We won. And now, *we* decide what happens to Sam!
He turns a key on the control pad and pulls a lever.
EXT. FREE-FALL – DAY
A BLINDING FLASH OF BLUE as Sam leaps into a body that’s in free-fall, 10,000 feet up, plummeting towards earth.
SAM
Oh boy.
SMASH CUT TO:
QUANTUM LEAP LOGO
The first few notes of the original theme song play faintly.
A jumble of different years fade in and out in the background.
“2010” fades in beneath the main logo, and sticks.
FADE OUT.
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Peter’s Commentary on the ‘Cartoons’ Edition
I’m finally writing commentary for the last month or so of Sketchwar. The January 10th war had the theme of “Cartoons”.
I think “Cartoons” is the best war I’ve been in so far.
It wound up being one of the best topics, certainly. Mr. Porter (AKA “Coyote”) suggested “Looney Tunes”, I proposed generalizing it, and we were off and running. I loved that we all sat down and wrote cartoons. We could done something lame like having cartoonists talk about cartoons, or have a live-action scene that seems somehow cartoonish, but face it: if a reader comes to this war knowing the subject, they’re going to want cartoons, dammit.
And even though we all performed the same basic task, we each had our own takes on the material. As Mr. Porter said, “We’ve got a Hanna-Barbera, a Loony Tunes, and what I’m picturing as a Tex Avery. Good stuff.” So not only did we like cartoons enough to try writing them, we also knew enough about cartoons to aim for (and hit) very particular styles.
This time we had three entries: this one from Mr. Robertson, this one from Mr. Porter, and this one from me.
Mr. Robertson did something cool with his sketch that you might not have noticed. By line four of the sketch, you think you know how it ends: Daphne and Velma reveal that they are lovers. Lots of sketches do this: there’s a setup, there’s a clear endpoint, and you spend three minutes bridging to that preordained conclusion. There’s no tension and there are no surprises — the plot is basically a clothesline you can string the jokes onto.
But Mr. Robertson gets to that conclusion, and he still has about a third of the sketch to go. We don’t expect it to expand out into “the entire mystery-solving thing is a scam”, and we certainly don’t expect “Shaggy has been spying on Daphne and Fred.”
That said, the whole thing needs to be about half the length. Mr. Robertson posted earlier about employing a looser style reminiscent of improv, but I don’t think it works here. The big problem with writing ‘loose’ sketch is that you run smack into audience expectations. The audience for an Apatow feature might expect loose improv-style comedy, but they expect a sketch to be a haiku. They want whatever happens is either funny or directly setting up something funny — anything else, however well-intentioned or brilliantly-observed, is going to feel like it doesn’t belong.
So: a good six-minute sketch with a better three-minute sketch somewhere in there.
Mr. Porter came through with a much more Tex-Avery-style cartoon.
And my god it’s a good premise. Elmer Fudd accepting an award for his research into Hammerspace is a great idea for a setting — it’s meta, but it’s meta like the original cartoons were, not meta in that godawful, too-cool-for-the-material style. And the mayhem that happens makes perfect sense for the cartooniverse.
That said, there are ways to improve the sketch.
I’d find a different (and faster) way into the material. I’d cut the opening news segment and just establish in the first shot that Fudd is at an award ceremony. Bugs can announce that Fudd has won for black holes. Fudd can extract his acceptance speech out of one such black hole.
Then you follow it up with anti-physics mayhem á la “Presto“
Then there’s my sketch, “Frank Defeats the Angel of Death”.
By this point, I have a straightforward workflow for Sketchwar. I get the topic on Saturday, and then I spend a few days freewriting, writing down lots of sluglines for what my sketch might be about. And as I’m doing this, I’m trying to find the one interesting thing that will get me from an idea to a completed sketch.
Every time I’ve written something decent for Sketchwar, there’s been that one aspect of the piece that’s seen me through it. For the history piece, it was Joey’s overenthusiastic voice. For the first-date piece, it was the image of a couple at a restaurant suddenly attacked by ninjas. There’s always that one little thing that makes you giggle like mad, and you write a whole sketch just as an excuse to include it.
In this case, I started thinking about cartoons. Then I started thinking about the great silent cartoons. And I thought about how those usually have simple objectives and really clear protagonists and antagonists. I figured I might have a cat as a protagonist.
Somehow from that I wrote down the title “Frank Defeats the Angel of Death” and, well, that’s the sketch I had to write. You can’t think of a title that cool and then go write something else.
All in all, I’m happy with what I wrote. I got the buildup going the way I wanted it — start with just the lobbed Christmas-tree ornaments, and then go from there. I got some good re-use out of the few elements in the room: tree, drink, fireplace.
The ending was a bit wobbly. I knew I had to have Frank accidentally topple the tree — I think that’s what everybody expects, no? — and having that happened as the party guests arrived was a good way to make the situation even worse.
I had a devil of a time figuring out where to go from there. In early outlines, I had the angel merely injured in the climactic battle, and then come back from the trash later on. I had Frank’s “explanation” fail utterly. I just never got a good ending out of it.
The first good step was incinerating the angel. (“Ah! I can re-use the fireplace!”) The second good step was throwing in the reversal — Frank is in desperate trouble, and then everybody feels sorry for him and gives him tuna. I don’t know if re-using the popcorn rope really works as a last beat, but I needed some kind of reincorporation.
That said, I think the whole thing could be funnier. I got a certain amount of humor out of Olive’s[1] yuppie yammering, but the scene itself is more “straightforward action” than I’d like.
All in all, though, I’m content with my cartoon. The next two I wrote? I’m less happy with those.
More later….
______
[1] Note: I didn’t intentionally name-check Frank and Ollie with this, but I did notice it about halfway through writing. -
FSW: Advertising Edition (Peter’s entry)
Friday Sketch War
Advertising Edition
“The ServTech Focus Group”FADE IN:
INT. MEETING ROOM – DAY
DAVE (30s, sharply dressed) and SAM (20s, nerdy) sit at a big table.
Behind them sits an easel with a poster covered by a sheet. Dave has a clipboard on the table in front of him.
Around the rest of the table sit ENGINEERS with name tags, including PHIL, RONALD, and HARPER.
A video camera next to the exit door records the proceedings.
Dave addresses the engineers —
DAVE
— so I’ll show you a new slogan for Sam’s company, and we’ll talk about how you customers feel about it.
The engineers murmur agreement.
DAVE
Great! So: drumroll…
He removes the sheet, revealing a slick “ServTech” poster that reads —
DAVE
“Solid. Secure. Servers.”
Dave picks up his clipboard.
DAVE
Now, my first question is —
PHIL
Wait, Dave.
DAVE
Yes, Phil.
PHIL
So this is saying that we don’t know how to properly operate a server?
DAVE
I’m not sure I —
PHIL
I see this, I think, “Oh, sysadmins are too boneheaded to fix a system on their own.”
HARPER
As if they’re giving us the easy, safe, kindergarten scissors.
SAM
People, ServTech doesn’t think —
DAVE
Sam? Great. Keep those opinions coming. Obviously, nobody thinks you’re stupid.
RONALD
Oh, so now you’re coddling us?
HARPER
Like children in a delicate garden.
RONALD
Yeah! That’s what this ‘secure’ crap is about. You think we’re all just a bunch of neurotic whack jobs?
SAM
It means the *servers* are —
DAVE
Sam. Good, just let it all —
SAM
They’re jumping to conclusions that are crazy!
RONALD
“Crazy?!”
General distress.
RONALD
This ad is just ServTech’s coded little way of saying sysadmins are crazy.
HARPER
Like foxes afflicted with herpes.
SAM
People —
DAVE
Sam.
SAM
Look, if you talked to any other sysadmins, they’d tell you this is unreasonable.
RONALD
What’s that supposed to mean?
PHIL
Sam is telling us we don’t have any friends.
RONALD
Oh, that’s low.
HARPER
The slogan really means, “Solid and secure, unlike you pestilential hordes who are fated to die alone, friendless, and in some quantity of your own vomit.”
SAM
What?
PHIL
This is, without question, the most offensive slogan I have ever! had the misfortune to lay eyes upon.
RONALD
I ain’t putting up with this crap.
Murmured assent.
The engineers get up and leave.
The last engineer slams the door behind him.
DAVE
That slogan is a no-go.
SAM
Yeah. We can’t offend our customers like that.
DAVE
We’ll go with the previous slogan?
SAM
Yeah.
Dave removes the “Solid. Secure. Servers.” poster to reveal the ServTech poster under it, which reads —
DAVE
“ServTech: because other servers will go down on you, and suck really hard.”
CANNED AUDIENCE LAUGHTER.
Sam and Dave react to this noise.
SAM
Where the hell did that laughter come from?
DAVE
I don’t know —
Dave draws a gun.
DAVE
But I’m gonna find out.
Sam produces an automatic and a wicked-looking knife.
SAM
Let’s go.
Sam kicks open the door.
They exit.
FADE TO BLACK.
-
FSW: Borders Edition (Peter’s entry)
Friday Sketch War
Borders Edition
“52.3°N, 119.9°E”FADE IN:
EXT. BORDER CROSSING – DAY
A little hut occupies a desolate, rocky landscape. Truly the middle of nowhere.
A worn sign reads “Border Crossing” in Russian, Mandarin, and English.
LUBOV
(Russian, subtitled)
I spy with my little eye —
INT. BORDER PATROL STATION – CONTINUOUS
LUBOV (20s) and BOROVICH (30s), military men, play chess in the shabby little hut. The hut contains the bare necessities — an old communications radio, some tin pots and pans, and (oddly) a taser.
Both men speak subtitled Russian throughout.
LUBOV
— something beginning with the letter ‘S’.
BOROVICH
(immediately)
Sky. Go.
Lubov makes a move; Borovich makes him take it back.
BOROVICH
Not that, Lubov. You do that, I get your queen.
LUBOV
Oh! I spy something beginning with ‘R’.
BOROVICH
(immediately)
Rocks.
Lubov picks up the taser.
LUBOV
You’re great at ‘I Spy’!
BOROVICH
That’s not a toy.
Lubov shoots the taser’s little electrical clips into the huts ceiling. It makes a BZZT sound.
Lubov notices something out the window.
LUBOV
Huh. Now I spy something that starts with ‘M’.
BOROVICH
‘M’? What, outside?
LUBOV
There’s a man out there.
EXT. BORDER CROSSING – DAY
Lubov (taser in hand) and Borovich stand outside the little hut.
XIAO is running full-tilt towards the border station.
Lubov nervously raises the taser.
Borovich pushes Lubov’s hand down.
BOROVICH
Stop! This is a protected border!
Xiao doesn’t stop; Borovich grabs Xiao.
Xiao only speaks in subtitled Mandarin.
XIAO
I’m being chased by a man with an axe!
Lubov picks a little book out of his pocket, thumbs through it quickly.
BOROVICH
What’s he saying?
LUBOV
It’s “I am…” — here it is — “I am enjoying my morning run.”
BOROVICH
He can’t — you can’t run here! It’s the border!
XIAO
I don’t speak Russian! There’s a guy with an axe!
Xiao mimes appropriately.
LUBOV
He really wants to cross.
BOROVICH
Hmm.
EXT. BORDER CROSSING – DAY
Now all three men occupy the little hut.
Borovich places the last chess piece into the starting position.
BOROVICH
Simple. You win a game of chess, and you can cross.
LUBOV
Is that legal?
BOROVICH
Who cares? I haven’t played decent chess in seven months.
LUBOV
Hey!
XIAO
What?
BOROVICH
Your turn.
Xiao and Borovich start playing, blindingly-fast.
In the background, Lubov tries to juggle the taser, a pot, and his hat.
LUBOV
It’s lucky you showed up. Things were getting a little dull here at crossing #5201/B.
XIAO
What?
Lubov digs out his little book as Xiao and Borovich continue their game.
LUBOV
(Chinese, subtitled)
We are happy for your dog because we have spoons here.
XIAO
I’m so confused.
BOROVICH
Huh! I lost! Already!
Borovich shakes Xiao’s hand.
BOROVICH
Well-done.
LUBOV
Wait! He also has to — uh — juggle these things!
BOROVICH
Lubov, a deal’s a deal.
LUBOV
But it would be fun. Right? Sir?
EXT. BORDER CROSSING – DAY
Xiao stands in front of the building with the taser, the hat, and the pot in his hands.
Xiao looks confused.
Lubov mimes juggling.
Xiao juggles —
LUBOV
He’s really good.
BOROVICH
He gets to cross into Russia, no question.
Meanwhile, a crazed BRUTE WITH AN AXE appears behind the two men and raises his weapon to strike Lubov.
Xiao notices this, stops juggling, and shoots the madman (with the taser). The brute drops, unconscious.
Borovich, of course, only sees Xiao shooting at them — he jumps towards Xiao and punches Xiao out cold.
BOROVICH
Lubov. You gave him the taser?!
LUBOV
Uh, sir?
They both look at the felled brute.
BOROVICH
Are you sure the visitor said ‘morning run’?
LUBOV
Not 100%.
BOROVICH
Hmm.
Borovich points to the brute.
BOROVICH
Tie him up with something.
Lubov produces a length of rope from his pocket and starts tying the brute’s hands.
LUBOV
What’ll we tell command?
Borovich ponders a moment, then points to the brute.
BOROVICH
We’ll say he’s an evil spy —
Lubov props the axe against the hut.
Borovich checks Xiao’s pulse, props him up against the hut.
BOROVICH
— and this guy is a valuable informant — someone we need to detain for further questioning.
LUBOV
That’s an excellent plan, sir!
Borovich opens the hut’s door, drags Xiao in.
BOROVICH
It’ll be good to have this guy around.
Lubov follows Borovich in and closes the door.
FADE OUT.
-
FSW: The Heist Edition (Peter’s entry)
Friday Sketch War
The Heist Edition
“The Team”FADE IN:
INT. ABANDONED WAREHOUSE – NIGHT
BILL sits at a table piled high with schematics, maps, and diagrams.
Guns, rapelling equipment, and electronic gadgets sit on another nearby table.
A nearby chalkboard shows the (heavily-annotated) floor plan of a large mansion.
A giant photo thumbtacked to the chalkboard shows a big, glittery diamond.
Beyond the tables and chalkboard: darkness.
Bill scribbles on the papers, checks a map against the chalkboard floorplan.
A DOOR OPENS somewhere in the dark.
JULIAN steps into the light.
JULIAN
Mr. Ellis. Our employer hopes your plan for obtaining the Zawabi Diamond is coming together?
BILL
It’s the perfect heist, kid. Just gimme manpower.
JULIAN
Excellent. Mr. Ellis, please meet your team.
EZRA enters the area, holding a Boggle game.
JULIAN
Mr. Ezra Diablo, three-time regional Boggle championship.
Ezra shakes the Boggle game.
EZRA
Let’s boggle!
MARY enters, holding a chihuahua who wears a hand-knit sweater.
JULIAN
Mary Williamson, editor of Doggie Sweater Enthusiast Magazine.
MARY
Hello!
JEAN-CLAUDE enters in full chef costume.
JULIAN
Jean-Claude Brillac, expert pastry chef.
JEAN-CLAUDE
I am without equal!
STEPHEN HAWKING wheels forward in a motorized wheelchair.
JULIAN
And renowned physicist Stephen Hawking.
Mr. Hawking speaks via a computerized voicebox.
MR. HAWKING
Let’s do this shit.
Beat.
BILL
So… all the real criminals have gone into banking?
JULIAN
Afraid so.
BLACKOUT.