Flip the Script

 We have a film almost ready to go, but we ran into a snag. After careful deliberation, and asking around for feedback, we discover the fact that we do not have a clear plot. There is no real conflict for our protagonist to eventually overcome, and thus no real story. So it's time for a revision, and I believe we have all we need.

To create some conflict we need an antagonist, someone or something that the against the protagonist. We also need this antagonist to have a real motivation to go against him. So we can use two elements that are already in the script and storyboard, the phone and the stack of papers on the table. There is a phone conversation with protagonist, Carrion, to someone we do not know in the original script. So we can turn that from the fade away into the antagonist's introduction. He can become Carrion's boss from work, and have him berating Carrion for him missing work. This can tie into the big stack of papers he has on his table. Those documents are his missing work that he needs to catch-up on, and he's hard to reach because he uses a house rotary phone as his main phone.

The two aspects used to make the plot in the original storyboard

We can also use this addition as a motivation for Carrion's obsession. The whole film is him falling further and further into his obsession of bugs. Having a poor work life gives a justifiable reason for his descent into the bug obsession as a sort of relief from the work stress.

A shot from the new storyboard showing Carrion looking at his work being stained by spilt coffee

All these aspects I presented here were set up from the very first script, however a big thing that was missing was the cohesion of each element. It could be interpreted that Carrion has a bad work life and is always behind in work, however it is exponentially more difficult to piece that story together the original way we had it. All me and my team did to fix it was to add 9 quick lines of dialogue and now the story and motivations for the characters appear much clearer.

As I am writing this though, it comes before judgement. Truthfully I can show my classmates this and they would still be confused as to what the conflict is and why Carrion is doing what he's doing. As I have the inside scoop in I already understand how the story would go, however it takes an outside point of view to truly see what you have created and how to improve and grow.