In particular, I'm a sucker for random generators (whence my work with Abulafia), and tvtropes does not disappoint. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you tvtropes' Story Generator, which will most amusingly outline an episode of an imaginary TV show for you. The result I just got was:
Which is totally a show I would watch!You had me at Genius Bruiser vs. The Libby, but throw in a Violent Glaswegian and set it in cyberspace and I'm there! It's going to be all Mean Girls meets the Matrix meets Macbeth! Heathers meets Hackers meets Highlander! Here's my quick plot outline based on the above:
Beat 1: Our hero, Gordon [genius bruiser], is big, strong, and a talented hacker, but not good looking. He hosts a [science show] (within a show) on public access tv/Youtube [cyberspace] where the format is lessons in computer security punctuated by backyard Mexican-style wrestling matches between Gordon and his crew (show name: Linux Lucha Libre!). Megan McFadden, the morbid red-haired goth chick recently moved next door from Scotland [violent glaswegian], watches the wrestling from her window; develops crush on Gordon. Gordon's sister Julie [the libby] also has an ongoing video podcast series entitled "Jules & the Gang" and its her and her popular friends dishing gossip and being catty about the losers at their school, which to Julie definitely includes Gordon & his loser friends [acceptable targets]. Their show is wildly popular, all the wannabees at school watch Jules & the Gang hoping to be favorably mentioned or looking for who to pick on. Everybody loves and hates Jules & the Gang. Until one of the nerdy kids they've been ripping apart on the show kills himself [jumping off the slippery slope]. That's all just setup, the first 15 minutes of our hour-long pilot.
Beat 2: The first day of school. Megan decides the only way to stop Julie and get with Gordon is to infiltrate Jules & the Gang, and so hides away the leather & eyeshadow in favor of cool kid clothes [dressing as the enemy]. She hates them all with a violent Scottish passion, but it turns out she's actually really good at being popular even though she's all conflicted about it [cursed with awesome]. Meanwhile she and Gordon start to flirt a little. Climax of this beat comes when Jules & the Gang make fun of Gordon and Megan has to join in or risk the whole operation. She does - Gordon is devestated.
Beat 3: Megan's plan hits stage 2 - she's going to sabotage the Jules & the Gang videocast, inserting scenes of (gasp!) Jules and the other girls without makeup, or showing them as the insecure girls they really are (she's been sneaking footage of them with this weeks product placement - a small videocamera). But in order to make that happen, she has to get Gordon's help computerwise ['I heard you were the best']. Gordon and her get together, sabotage videocast. Day after the new Jules & the Gang hits the web, Julie and the other girls come to school furious and looking for a fight. Megan, now back in her goth garb, gets into a catfight with several of the Gang in a hallway, kicks ass, pulls hair, claws faces, shouts awesome Scottishisms at them. All looks resolved, except for the teaser for next week where we see Julie plotting sweet revenge.
That's my random show - thank you tvtropes and thank you Davey - you've had your revenge while I thought about all this instead of work.
Edit: Now with casting!
*Gordon: I'm thinking Jesse Plemons of Friday Night Lights fame might be sufficiently big but nerdy.
*Julie: Emilie de Ravin (sans Aussie Accent as in 'Brick') or even Heroes' Hayden Panettiere would be good.
*Megan: This one's tricky, but maybe with proper dialect training, Bonnie Wright (whom you know as Ginny Weasley from the Harry Potter films) might do the trick.
10 comments:
Crap,
I have tons to do today at work, and instead, all I want to do is make up tv pilots.
Curse your name Dave, curse you.. oh, wait a minute, lets think of something else to curse. Not the name, there are way to many of us.
I'll be looking forward to reading a TV pilot here in these comments from you. If you're man enough.
Ye barry, sleekit loon! (hee, hee.) May yer lums reek lang and weil.
OK, posting here rather than above b/c I do intend to post up there. I had work to do today! Really! Lots of it, and instead I'm trying to create some sort of... well, I'm not gonna gripe here. I'll post later, but in case I haven't said it in a few hours: Dave I hate you and you are ruining my life! Plus, are you gonna make it to New York next weekend?
I hate you too, Davey, in the best possible way. Why else would I keep doing stuff like this to you.
I won't be in NYC next weekend - it's my wife's birthday and I'm gonna stick around for that.
yeah, that was pretty much a carbon copy of mean girls.
or, a dittoed copy, all purle and white... and slightly damp and odd smelling
I liked it. I want to get cast in it, as the comic relief.
Oh, jeff, didn't I tell you? You're already in it as one of Gordon's Luchadore friends - the one nobody wants to wrestle because of his B.O.
Now, Where's your entry?
AWESOME! That's how you could justify having such a skinny dude on the team. He vanquishes all new-comers, unaware of his latent talent!
Dave, this is awesome. But yeah like david said, the jargon tvtropes provides is confusing and requires a remarkable amount of thinking outside the box. Ouch, hurts my brain.
Post a Comment