Still writing - this time a fake script!

A few months ago - I met some new people by attending this fun social workshop where people proposed their script ideas for fun.
I, of course, arrived late - and, of course, was also feverishly sick.

Anyway - everyone's ideas were fun and outlandish.  The vast majority of pitches were sci-fi or fantasy based and involved gratuitous amounts of imagined CGI.  Needless to say - the budgets for these movies would have been extreme. 

I actually didn't really come to the workshop with any ideas.  I mean, I know nothing about pitching a script or story, so I went along just to rub elbows and bask in the glow of other people's talent.

To my horror, I was still asked to take the stage and there I stood, red faced and wobbling slightly from fever as I pitched an old idea to a relatively unimpressed crowd.  One girl even vocalised that my idea, and those of others as well (so in this case I wasn't singled out, and I certainly wasn't offended), were pretty crap.  Can't please everyone I guess.

My idea was also fantasy based.  But unlike everyone else's, I wanted a low stakes fantasy film.  In fact, it was so low stakes it was basically a family drama.
What I wanted was a small quiet movie about the quest of a dwarf father, finding his feet and the strength to move on after his wife, a gnome, passes away, leaving him and their three children behind.

It would be set in a modern fantasy universe where magical/fantasy races are commonplace.  Basically, BRIGHT without the swears, gangs, racism and poorly executed exposition.  It was meant to be in the vein of similar family drama movies like the Descendants, Moonlight and Valentino, and any movie with Diane Keaton.

Anyway.  I left early, mainly because I couldn't keep my eyes open and my fever was making me sweat something awful.  But my idea percolated in my brain while on the train home. 

I wanted to deal with the changing faces of families and the roles of parents in them.  Naturally, using a dwarf and a gnome would inject some silly fantasy into it, but I decided it might be fun to use imagined dwarf and gnome culture to create the tensions of coping with losing a spouse, family members or loved ones. 
I thought about whether there would be conflict as to how to perform funeral rights according to their cultural norms and what grieving might look like from their imaginary perspectives. 
(I mean this is what happens when I get sick.  I get gross and snotty and hyper-imaginative).

So I started with the idea that maybe this dwarf/gnome household did function according to very old school roles, but they're reinforced by their fantasy cultures as well in some way. 

To be honest, I didn't really know, but I had something in mind.
So, when I got home, I wrote a half pager 'script' (I use the term 'script' as loosely as a 20 year old g-string in the dryer).

Anyway - here is the loosely written script.  I've done a few edits and I'm annoyed that I've really doubled down on mum's role being a home-maker role, but at the same time, maybe it isn't, and mum's role was more complex than it appears and she maybe just loved cooking... and more needs to be fleshed out as to how this coupled carried out their lives.

Ah well, let me know what you think:

Grabbar the dwarf sits at the edge of the stairs.  He's having his lunch break at work.  He looks down at his lunch container on his lap.  It is the half eaten remains of the microwave dinner he and the kids had last night.  He cringes, and sighs guiltily, knowing the kids had similar packed lunches at school today.  Without Igunn to make their dinners, he felt more lost and even more worried that he wasn’t going to be able to raise his kids the way he and Igunn had planned.

Ted, a human friend from marketing, approaches Grabbar and sits down next to him on the stair. He is carrying his own sad looking, home-made lunch which oozes slightly from the oils staining the paper lunch bag.  Ted sets aside his now-cold take away coffee next to him to inspect the contents of his lunch. He looks over at Grabbar's lunch and makes a face...

TED: You holding up there bud? That lunch smells of depression.

Grabbar:  *grunts* Guess so.  Just wondering if this is what me and the kids have to look forward to for the rest of our lives; slow death by processed fats. 

T: Hmm, don’t worry, my sister ate frozen pizza for a month after she divorced her wife.  I know its not the same, but she eventually started cooking for herself after weeks of staying at home doing nothing but watch the Food channel.  Guess that Delia whatever-her-name-is show is good for breakups.

G: So your sister became a good cook huh?

T: Nah, *Ted takes a swig of his cold coffee and burps* she was shit at it, still eats frozen pizza. She gained 8 kilos too, and her skin looks like a cheese melt from all that oil in her food.  But hey, it was something to do at the time when her world was falling apart.

G: You humans have really strange grieving rituals.  But they’re less complicated I guess. 

T: Ritual? Hell no, Ellie would have eaten her weight in frozen pizza even if Marie hadn’t left her. 

G: So what did your sister do for her grieving ritual?

T: What? No, we humans don’t have rituals for divorces, I mean, not formal ones.  I mean some people start dating again, or take up a hobby, or get fat on ice cream and watch Julia Roberts movies or something, but we don’t have rituals like you know, you guys with your er… stone stuff…sorry. I mean, yeah - we'd have funerals, but we only do that when... uh... you know...

G: *turns to Ted, bewildered and despite his exposure to humans, appears culture shocked* - you don't have a rituals for the end of a relationship? Then, what do you do when someone you love is not there anymore?

T: *smiled sadly and shrugs* well Grab, we just cry.

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Oh - obligatory fun youtube video:  I'm loving Janet's return to her old look. Yey! - the song is ok - but the dancing is ding dang awesome and the costuming is utterly divine.