Scene Mastery, Week 3 Day 3 – TAKE IT TO EXTREMES BRIDESMAIDS
Watch first time for:
Basic Scene Components, which are:
Scene Arc – The bridesmaids try on dresses in the fancy bridal shop. Annie wants a cheap simple dress she can afford while Helen wants the expensive one. They each try something on. But are slowly coming down with food poisoning from the cheap café Annie chose. Their symptoms get worse. Sweating. Gas. Need to vomit. The trots. Some puke in toilet. Megan poos in the sink. Lillian in the fancy jiu-jiu white dress poos in the street in the dress. Helen agrees to buy all the dresses.
Situation – They must choose the bridesmaid dress in the fancy bridal shop. They each try on something. But the symptoms of food poisoning form Annie’s cheap café choice send them into fits of fashion disaster.
Conflict – The conflict is between Annie wanting something cheap, and Helen wanting something expensive for them all. That’s the main conflict between the characters. But the other level of conflict is between each of these women and their bodies. How will they deal with extreme food poisoning in public?
Ent. Value – The food poisoning is super entertaining to see these women stuck in an extreme situation. Watching Annie pretend she’s not sick as Helen challenges her to eat fancy Jordan almonds. Megan Poos in the sink. Lillian poos in the wedding dress in the street in traffic. Super entertaining.
Moving story along – While the food poisoning expressions are super entertaining, the moving-story-along is delivered through Helen’s challenge of Annie to eat the almonds. Now we know Helen is deliberately goading Annie. For Annie, and also for us viewers, this means GAME ON. We MUST see what happens next.
Setups/payoffs. They are 5 violently sick women wearing expensive dresses they don’t own. This gives us 5 scene payoffs to see how each one will deal with it.
2nd time:
What makes it great?
Escalation on a gradient from normal to extreme. Onset of food poisoning. From gas. To sweating. To needing to barf. Needing to poo. Can’t stop either. Barf at toilet. Poo in sink. Barf on friend’s hair. Finally, poo in traffic in the street.
Each step DEFINITELY takes us further outside norm
Interesting action. How each one deals with violent food poisoning in public is increasingly out of the norm and funny.
Interesting dialogue. SO MANY good lines. The scene starts with “Welcome to Heaven.” Then ends with the fashion experience from hell. Great lines: “dress by Lady Petswa de Jiu Jiu.” “Let our bodies decide.” “There’s no question, no question – well maybe there’s a question.” “So pretty it makes my stomach hurt.” “Don’t care, just need to get off this white carpet.” “I don’t know what to say…BARF.” “No, I had the same thing and I feel fine… BARF.” “No, Megan, NO!” “Look away!” “Gray kind of lamb or weird chicken.” “In fact, I’m hungry for a snack. Starving.” “Coming out of me like lava.” “It’s happening, it’s happening… it happened.” “Really doing it – shitting in the street.”