SHORT FILM ANALYSIS. TITLE XXXXXX GENRE Comedy Fantasy. WRITER(S) XXXXXX CIRCA Present SUBMITTED BY XXXXXX LOCATION UK

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1 SHORT FILM ANALYSIS TITLE GENRE Comedy Fantasy WRITER(S) CIRCA Present SUBMITTED BY LOCATION UK FORM / PAGES Screenplay / 21 BUDGET Low DATE May 17th 2014 ANALYST David LOGLINE When an unruly boy makes a wish that there is no such thing as parents and unwittingly freezes them solid, he and his siblings have to find a way to get them back to life after the fun of freedom wears off. SYNOPSIS At home, two young boys, KAI (4) and JAMES (7) are scolded by their mother, MRS. JOHNSON, for misbehaving. Kai is sent to bed, where he takes a book from his bookshelf Wish Upon a Star. Angry at his treatment, he decides to make a wish that there was no such thing as parents. The next morning, Kai, James and their sisters, ABBI (9) ISABELLE (11) and HANNAH (10) SOPHIE (13) find that both their parents have been frozen solid. The kids quickly come to the conclusion that this is the coolest thing to have ever happened now they can do whatever they want!!1

2 All the kids have fun and invite their friends over for a party. They manage to fool their teacher and parents over the phone into thinking they are all home from school because they are sick. The kids wake up the next morning after a wild party, but the place is a mess and there s no food. Kai breaks down and admits it was probably his fault their parents have frozen solid after he made the wish. So, they all set about trying to reverse the spell. They find another book called, Three Wise Monkeys. As soon as they make a wish on the book, three monkeys appear in the room, AISLINN (14) BONNIE (14) and GRACE (14) who have the idea of using a time machine. They find one of James s books called Mr. Who a time traveller and make a wish for him to turn back time. MR. WHO (14) then appears in a time machine with his assistant ELIZABETH (14). All the children get in his time machine, but somehow Mr. Who makes a mistake and they are transported back to 1910, to the laboratory of a mad scientist, DR. RABBIT. He s been expecting them, but the kids are mortified; especially Kai who bursts into tears crying, I want my mummy! COMMENTS Thank you for submitting your script,. Over the next couple of pages I m going to point out both what you did well in the script and what needs still to be worked on. I think in general, you are near to finding a good hook, kids films are always popular, and there are some sweet and funny moments throughout the script. However, I think there are still some story points and plot issues that still need addressing, especially with the rules of the world, and there are a number of character issues to deal with as well. So, let s get started. As always, I like to start with the hook and main concept, as this is where the core conflict of every script lies. Your script is a fantasy / comedy about a kid, Kai, who makes a wish that, There was no such this as parents, and wakes up to find them frozen solid. (I presume you mean as ice, as it s not clear) After Kai and his siblings realize it s not as much fun as they thought not having them around, they try to get them back. I really like the idea that an unruly kid makes a wish about his strict parents that goes wrong. This is a great hook and very marketable, but I feel it needs developing a bit to reach its full potential. I had trouble with the premise that Kai makes a wish that parents don t exist and then finds his mom and dad have been frozen solid. Surely they d just disappear if there was no such thing as parents? And possibly the kids would too because the parents didn t exist to!2

3 conceive them. You need to clarify why the parents have been frozen due to the spell. Later on in the script, a teacher and a mother call the house wondering where the kids are, so obviously the spell hasn t affected all parents All of this needs to be clarified. If you re going to make Kai s wish turn his parents into inanimate objects remember that, once you do this, you re taking them completely out the story and losing some potential comedy. It might be worth trying to come up with a wish that keeps them alive as characters. Maybe they re turned into a cat and dog who can still talk, or into fourteen year old kids themselves? Another issue I d like to address with the concept are its rules of the world. With any script involving magic happenings in an otherwise normal world, it s important to be clear on how and why the magic happens. At the moment, I don t feel your script sets up or executes the magic as well as it could. Let s deal with the execution of the magic first. The way the magic freezes the parents needs to be made much more exciting. As it stands, in the second scene Kai picks up the book, looks out the window as a star falls in the sky and says, I wish there was no such thing as parents. Then he goes to bed and falls asleep holding the book. For this script to fully become a kids film involving magic and fantasy, we need to see the magic and the fantasy! Make something fantastical, funny and surprising happen in this scene as he unleashes the magic within the book. And we need to actually see the magic working on the parents as they change. That way you create dramatic irony when Kai and his siblings come down in the morning, because we as the audience already know what s happened to them and are waiting in anticipation for the kid s hysterical reaction. Also, the magic needs to be set up more logically. Why only now do the kids discover all these magic books sitting on their bookshelf and the fact they re able to conjure a time machine at will? Maybe the script should start with the mom and Kai going to an old dusty bookstore and unwittingly buying a magic book. Or moving into a new home and finding a magic book in the attic. That way we can understand a little better where all this magic is coming from and why it s not been used before. Another point to remember is that an audience will go with along for the ride with one piece of magic the lightening that enables Nick to hear women s thoughts in What Women Want, or the fortune cookie that switches Tess and!3

4 Anna s bodies in Freaky Friday. Any more than one and a film loses believability. In your script this one piece of magic should be the wish that freezes the parents. But later on in the script the kids find another book which makes three wise monkeys appear in the room. Then, they all decide they need a time machine and so they grab another book and make a wish. A time machine duly appears piloted by Mr. Who, which then transports them back to a mad scientist s lab in So, in total, we have three magic books, a time machine, a time lord, a mad professor, and three talking monkeys, all in a twenty-one minute script. All of this needs to be simplified down to just one piece of magic and one (maybe with a sidekick) magic character. Your script has a protagonist in Kai (but then his siblings take over, more on this later!) and a goal to bring his parents back to life. But who s the antagonist? Without a strong antagonist a script tends to lurch episodically from one random event to the next, which is what happens in yours after the kids have decided to try and get their parents back. It s good that you have a Call to Action with the kids realizing that their parents have frozen and your Act One Turning Point is the decision to get them back to life on page nine, but after this the script becomes increasingly haphazard and unbelievable. This is because there s no antagonist to cause conflict and shape the kids actions; they are left to simply try one magical thing after another with no opposition. One way to solve this is to make the actual book the force of antagonism, much like the board game in Jumanji in which the kids can only stop the mayhem if they finish the game. Maybe the antagonist is a character who comes out of the book and wants to become their new dad? Or maybe it s the parents themselves who decide they prefer their life in another dimension rather than being stuck with such horrible kids. Whatever you decide, though, the kids need to realize what they need to do to get their parents back and then try and do it, only to be opposed by an antagonist. You also need to clarify your protagonist a little. In the first act, Kai is the one who gets scolded, makes the wish and freezes his parents, so Kai should be the who drives the story in the second and third acts also. Instead we have his brother, four sisters and all their friends coming into play, muddling just who the protagonist really is. Cut it down to Kai and James, or Kai and Sophie and try to create conflict between them too differing ways they think the situation should be handled. Right now, for example, when the kids realize their parents have been frozen solid, they all react the exact same way let s party! and there s no contrast between any of them.!4

5 Also, make Kai older than four, and the relationship with his parents better defined. For him to make a wish that his parents don t exist, it feels like they need to be pretty awful strict disciplinarians. Why is Kai so angry with them? At the moment, his mother just tells him off for using her lipstick and tells him to go to bed. We don t even see the dad until he s been frozen sitting on the toilet. Either the parents need to become real villains, running the house like a military boot camp, or they need to be pretty innocent and Kai needs to become more of an unruly brat, swinging from the light fittings etc. At present, neither Kai nor the parents are fully exploiting their character functions. The script assumes that all kids are unruly without actually showing us the kids misbehaving until after the parents are taken out the picture. Furthermore, we only see Kai misbehave and therefore have any possible reason to be happy when their parents are frozen, so why are James and all the sisters so happy also? I didn t fully understand the ending. What had Mr. Who done wrong that landed them in 1910? Who is Doctor Rabbit and why was he expecting them? It also feels unresolved, as all is not lost just yet; they have landed in a different time zone but there s nothing to say they won t be able to fix the problem. So much magic has already happened it feels like they ll just whip another book out, cast a spell and return to the present day. It s also a bit of a downer ending for a kid s film. I m not convinced children would want to see a film that ends with everyone getting stuck in 1910 and crying for their mom. If this is a comedy the climax needs to be upbeat the kids achieve their goal, all is good in the world again and they ve maybe learnt something along the way. Finally, there are also a few formatting, proof-reading and technical issues that need to be addressed. Firstly, every script should start with the words FADE IN. Also, right off the bat the first scene is pretty confusing as the mother is offcamera. She needs to be on-screen, not off. This is an important scene as it sets up why Kai is so upset and then wishes she d disappear, so we definitely need to see her being angry with him, not just Kai acting upset. There are also many typos throughout the script spelling mistakes, sentences not ending with a full stop and character s names changing. The script definitely has potential, though. I think you just have to re-structure and simplify the story a bit so you have just one magic book, one (or two) protagonists, one goal and one antagonist. Although the first half needs work it s!5

6 after page nine, when the kids decide to unfreeze their parents, that needs the most attention. Remember this is a kids film and try to make the magic scenes more dramatic and exciting. Also, enhance the characters, fix the set up and give more explanation as to why Kai and his parents are so angry with each other. RATINGS GRID 1ST CLASS SOLID NOT BAD WEAK Concept Story Structure Protagonist Antagonist Stakes Character Minor Characters Dialogue Scenes Pacing Theme Tone Writing Style Marketability Formatting Grammar Title!6

7 SCRIPT RECOMMENDATION: Pass WRITER RECOMMENDATION: N / A!7