Thursday 8 March 2012

Unit 5: Animation - The Oafish Lamp Idea 6: Premise, Log Line, 3 Act Structure & Step Outline

The Oafish Lamp Idea 6: The mysterious antique shop arson

Inspired by this video:


Premise

A mystery that can only be explained through true stupidity.

Log Line

An antique shop can be seen on fire with a broken lamp lying on the street outside. In the form of a recorded flashback the shops demise is shown to be the workings of an accident prone standard lamp.

3 Act Structure (End, Beginning, Middle, End)

Act 3: Security camera footage shows an antique shop on fire with a broken lamp lying on the street outside, the footage is rewound causing the camera to zoom toward the broken lamp instigating a flashback to the beginning (Act 1).

Act 1: An old lamp with a flickering bulb awakens & shakes the dust from its head, the lamp turns & hops over to the other lamps on display, the lamp forgets that its cord is plugged in which causes it to trip over its own wire & fall into the other lamps. The old lamp rises to its foot & panics.

Act 2: The lamp tries to hide the broken bodies of its display fellows; in doing so the lamp trips over its own wire again which aggravates it. The old lamp tugs hard on its wire this time ripping the socket from the wall which begins to emit sparks; the carpet is set on fire despite the lamps efforts to refit the socket. The lamp exits the shop unplugged with diminishing energy. The lamps bulb flickers one last time before it collapses cracking its bulb, taking us back to what we saw in the beginning (Act 3).

The end credits show the security camera footage stopped, which is then systematically erased by an unknown party, the mystery lives on.

Step Outline

ACT 3 (END)

SCENE 1

EXT. ANTIQUE LAMP SHOP – DAY

3:15PM

DIP FROM BLACK

A security camera shows a huge fire emitting from an antique shop across the street, an old broken lamp can be seen lying on the street outside, a curios question for many.

The video footage is suddenly rewound which causes the camera to zoom toward the broken lamp & revert to a flashback earlier in the day.

DIP TO WHITE

ACT 1 (BEGINNING)

INT. ANTIQUE LAMP SHOP – DAY

SCENE 2

2:13PM

An extravagant antique shop can be seen, quiet and still.

The camera is alerted to the flickering bulb of an old dust ridden lamp; all of a sudden the bulb cuts out... and remerges bright as day.

The old lamp begins to move as if waking from a sleep, shaking the dust from its hat.

The old lamp looks around & then playfully dashes over to its static antique friends, the lamp forgets of his wire & trips hurtling head first into the light displays.

DIP TO BLACK

ACT 2 (MIDDLE)

SCENE 3

The old lamp awakes, rising to its foot only to panic when surveying its broken allies.

The lamp tries to hide the broken bodies of his antique friends; in doing so it trips over its wire again which aggravates it.

The old lamp pulls hard on its wire which gradually rips the socket from the wall, sparks begin to emit from the open socket.

The old lamp turns to notice the carpet on fire which it attempts to stomp out, failing miserably.

EXT. ANTIQUE LAMP SHOP – DAY

SCENE 4

The lamp backs out of the shop entrance just before it fills with flames, the old lamps energy begins diminishing at an alarming rate.

The lamps bulb flickers one last time before it collapses, ultimately cracking its bulb.

DIP TO WHITE

ACT 3 (END RETURN)

The end credits show the security camera footage stopped & then systematically erased by an unknown party, with the mystery living on indefinitely.

DIP TO BLACK

END

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