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Topic: Help Us Write The Trapezoid Kids Script  (Read 22002 times)

Nikaer Drekin

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I've got the day free tomorrow, so I might try to knock out a quick draft of the script! I'll go through everything that's been posted here and on the shared document, incorporate whichever seem good, and see what people here think.
Nifty Nif

Zekka

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I may also do a draft, but it's probably going to be biased towards my opinionated crap, which based on the doc is probably different from Nikaer's opinionated crap.
Nifty Nif

eldritchhat

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School ended today, so I will also attempt to assist with the draft (and avoid using memes), hopefully I will be of some use.

Ashto

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I'll put in no effort and just wait for the final product.  Goodbye!
RoeCocoa chai tea latte Fanzay Ganymede

Nifty Nif

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I'll try to step out of the process at this point. My opinions are in the doc and I think that's about as much as I should contribute. I'm a problem-solver who works well within defined parameters, but I'm not a writer or a creator. I will watch the comments and I'm excited to see what happens!

Ganymede

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I think so far Aljonso has the most promising plot.  It's concise in premise but there's a lot of room for 5 minutes of play.  Applying some of Zekka's wonderful suggestions to it would, I am sure, bear fruit.  The basic plot itself calls for Dozerfleet to corrupt the shapes to his influence, so right off the bat we've covered a justification for 80% of everyone's shit-talking-Dozerfleet needs as we show the audience what he thinks of as ideal and upstanding.  The brief nod to Stationery Warriors as prior victims is also pretty funny, dunno if it's final draft funny but it made me smile.  A lot of people have been talking about jokes based on the rhombuses being rhombuses etc, and it's hard to think of a way to do that without taking exclusive time for it.  I poked around playing with the fact that they're never specified to be paper-thin or whatever, just shapes, but that's clunky too and the only short-form gag I could think of based on that was ending the cartoon with a side-angle that reveals one of the characters just extends infinitely into the background.  Not the best.  I think my current contender is just having the characters referred to as different 4-sided shapes every time they're mentioned in the script, emphasizes how little it matters despite being part of the show's title. 

Also HI BALLP.IT!

eldritchhat

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I think we are focusing way too much on attacking Dozerfleet personally, trying to mock his personal failings and struggles in life. If we are trying to make this cartoon more accessible to a larger audience, and have more meat in its general comedy (which is what I think Zekka was getting at with his post). Also, I apologize for spiting out the references and meme shit, I was trying to find some foundation and style from which we can expand from, and I see that we are past that phase now.

From how our ideas have developed, it appears that we want to make a clear message about Dozerfleet's ideology and egotism, which alienates him from performing  well as socially functioning human being, as well as a creator. I think we can express this pretty well in a single, five minute skit, but a lot of people's proposals for the plot appear to be a bit overly ambitious and reference heavy. I like Aljonso's idea, but I think that would work better for an entire television episode, not a five minute short. I think Zekka is spot on when he talks about expanding out from a single concept, but always linking back to that concept, even if you are making a reference.

What I personally think we should focus on is Dozerfleet's casual sexism, both because it is one of his most pervasive themes throughout his 'work,' and because it's a pretty pervasive thing throughout the internet in general.

While the audience for this short is primarily fans of the F Plus and people on Ballpit, we should at least try to make it accessible to a wider audience, I mean, I doubt Portaxx would wanna spend so much time animating something that is basically a five minute circle jerk. No, I think the character's and subject matter should be reference enough, at least for the major aspects of the short. We need to look at her previous short (the one with Pokemon being interviewed) for an example, because, while it is probably funnier to a well-versed fan of Pokemon, to someone like me, who has only passing knowledge of it, it was still very funny. Look at the F Plus's jokes as well, while they usually contain references to outside things, or even references to itself, it is always to take advantage of the absurdity of what they are referencing, and could be equally as funny if the original thing it stems from didn't exist.

Thus, my proposal for the plot is this (it takes a lot from Nikaer Drakin's suggestion):

The short is a PSA about STDs, which the Rhombus Tykes are here to explain to their impressionable young fans. At first the PSA is very childish in the way it explains things, trying to scoot around explaining what sex is by using almost baby language (this could be a nod to the adult babies stuff, but even if it isn't it relates back to the original idea). The audience surrogate, and ostensible main character is polly, the female of the group. She will be played as an incredibly naive character, while the others appear as figures of authority (though they are all ultimately mouths for Dozerfleet). The character of Polly at this point will represent the innocent and stupid side of the dichotomous image Dozerfleet has of women.

As the short goes on, however, the male shapes continually, and casually, present accusations against Polly, to her horror and constant attempt to defend herself. Each STD that they will explain through scenarios will have different characters playing out different roles, but it is always the rhombuses playing out these scenarios. In all of these scenarios, however, it is presented as if Polly (the stand in for all women) is responsible for everything bad that could possibly happen. Polly will challenge this, but because Dozerfleet is supposedly writing this, she will always be too stupid to break the flimsy arguments the others make.

Eventually, Polly will storm off because she does not want to deal with this abuse anymore, and one of the male shapes will have to take her place. Because Dozerfleet is now angry, the other shapes become much more aggressive to the character that has taken Polly's place (maybe Enclo) and start diverging from their original topic to the point where they are doing nothing but violently (comically) trying to assault the stand in for women. In the end, though, Polly returns to be the naive victim again, and Dozerfleet calms down, bringing the short back down to a more casual misogyny, like earlier.

You don't have to go with this exact idea, but I think the basic plot structure could work well with a comedy short based on repetition. If you object to anything said above, or just want to expand on what I have said, then I graciously await your response.
Ganymede

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I'm not sure what Portaxx's thoughts are on this currently, but my own personal approach is that while I've got personal opinions on how the thing could go, I'd rather let the Writer's Room hash out the structure and end up with a script they're happy with. After which point Portaxx and I can work on enacting it.

Which is to say, please figure this out amonst yourselves.

Zekka

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I've written a possible script treatment which I estimate at about ~4:30 long. (knowing my luck, it could be as long as nine minutes if I'm a shitty estimator) I'm going to be linking in the GoogleDoc and in here. Plunder freely from it!

Trapezoid Kids: Pilot

PS: I just realized "Comert" is actually "CORNERT" Uh, in my script he's COMERT. I thought that was a stupid name.

PS2: I like Nikaer's dialogue a lot better than mine, but I don't know how to make that work in such a short format.

E: This version's basically obsolete, since imho NIf's changes make a massive big difference. See next page.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2016, 10:33:06 pm by Zekka »

Nifty Nif

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Looks like we've got 2 viable scripts!  Thanks to Zekka and Nikaer Drekin for spending your free time on writing these!
Are there any other scripts that we should consider?  Not that there's a hard deadline or anything.  If anyone wants to write a script but needs time, feel free to chime in.

The two we have so far are excellent and distinct.  I think we need to page Portaxx and Lemon at this point to take a look at the length.  Nikaer's looks like it will run long, but I think it could be condensed a bit and still tell the story effectively.  It'd be good to have an animator's eye on both scripts since they're formatted differently and might need a different approach to editing since the stories and dialogue are so different.

Yeah, I know, I said I was going to step out of the creative process.  I just like organizing things.  I am really jazzed about this and I was thrilled to read the scripts.  Thank you both again!  [yay][yay][yay]
« Last Edit: May 30, 2016, 05:57:02 pm by Nifty Nif »

Zekka

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(Note: I originally wrote mine without looking at Nikaer's, then looked at Nikaer's after.)

My impressions right now: most of the dialogue in the second half of my script is weaker than the dialogue in the first half. Most of my characterization comes from moment-to-moment gags, and my characters are super stock to facilitate this. Nikaer's are mostly one-note, but most of them deliver more than one kind of gag and the pacing makes them feel a little less forced.

Dr. Kevorkian in mine is kind of an asspull and I tell the same joke more times than I would like in delivering Pagliacci's outro in the final scene. If Pagliacci did something more interesting I think it would improve my script. I don't have any glaring inadequacies like that to point out in Nikaer's.

I'd like to just slather a little more dialogue everywhere, probably after the fashion of Nikaer, but I'm worried it would break the time constraint. There's just a whole lot more overt mocking in his, and better wordplay.

I don't have a strong opinion on which plot I like better. I think Nikaer's is much more on-the-nose and holds better to genre conventions for an old cartoon. I had some of the structure, but didn't really hold to it: he kept the structure and kept a lot of the superficial stuff that comes with the genre. I think mine is probably more surprising but the pacing is rough.

I'd like to do an editing pass of mine to correct this stuff but not really until after someone else delivers thoughts on what worked, what didn't.

Nifty Nif

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Do either of you want a close reading with comments on your script?  I'd be happy to do that.  I'm not a genius writer, so you'll have to take my comments with a heap of salt.  I am thorough and I do consider myself an exceedingly good proofreader.

Zekka

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Do either of you want a close reading with comments on your script?  I'd be happy to do that.  I'm not a genius writer, so you'll have to take my comments with a heap of salt.  I am thorough and I do consider myself an exceedingly good proofreader.
Nifty Nif, May 30, 2016, 06:25:28 pm

Yes, if you were to do that I would appreciate it.

Nifty Nif

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Do either of you want a close reading with comments on your script?  I'd be happy to do that.  I'm not a genius writer, so you'll have to take my comments with a heap of salt.  I am thorough and I do consider myself an exceedingly good proofreader.
Nifty Nif, May 30, 2016, 06:25:28 pm

Yes, if you were to do that I would appreciate it.
Zekka, May 30, 2016, 06:33:09 pm

On it!  Will return comments in via PM.  Stay tuned!

Nikaer Drekin

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Do either of you want a close reading with comments on your script?  I'd be happy to do that.  I'm not a genius writer, so you'll have to take my comments with a heap of salt.  I am thorough and I do consider myself an exceedingly good proofreader.
Nifty Nif, May 30, 2016, 06:25:28 pm

Yes, if you were to do that I would appreciate it.
Zekka, May 30, 2016, 06:33:09 pm

On it!  Will return comments in via PM.  Stay tuned!
Nifty Nif, May 30, 2016, 06:39:16 pm

By all means, I'd be glad to have feedback as well!