Sunday, March 12, 2006

The other day Shelley suggested reframing the show, instead of about a senior ______, rather about some of the junior ______ who work for (and want to be) him. That's been helpful. One way to flesh out a show is to reconceptualize as a different kind of show, while keeping the background you worked out for the old version of the show. Is your show about the senior doctors? Try reframing it as about the interns -- while keeping those great senior doctor characters you built. Is it about detectives? Try making it about their informants, while still using the world you created for the detectives.

On Naked Josh we started with a show about a geeky kid in college. Showcase wanted it aged up. So we made Josh a young, hot professor who used to be a geeky kid in college. We just caught up with the character 7 years later. It worked rather nicely.

Any time you can look at your show from another angle is helpful. What is the co-viewing version of the show? What's the HBO version? It will help you find the place your show really wants to be; and it will give you more richness.

1:58 PM

1 Comments:

I have also found that shifting locations/setting for a script can open up new possibilities. I recently shifted my scifi-action "rural" story set in the Rockies to an "urban" setting of downtown Detroit and came up with something so fresh (to me) that I got the giggles...

Switching things up - whether its genre, setting, or even gender - is a great way to open up your story and look inside.

By  Cunningham, at 11:55 AM  

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