Ok. Two days is a pretty respectable time period for a response.
I can’t share it all (not yet anyway) but the gist is: “It has potential, but feels a bit underdeveloped at the moment”
I think the synopsis was stronger than the script, to be honest – certainly the synopsis honed in on certain elements and ignored others that were in the script- and the script added characters that weren’t important enough to fit in the synopsis. I think in my gut I knew they were superfluous but I couldn’t see how to get from A to D without these guys distracting you with a little dance in B and C – and Matt spotted that sharpish.
So, I’m doing a rewrite. Or really, I’ve rethought it, dropped those characters and refocused on the core emotion of the story (I’m not really sure I’d grasped the core emotion until I’d written it twice).
In order to amuse myself and keep track of them, I named the two unimportant characters Bert and Ernie – names the readers would never have seen. Not named after the Sesame Street Bert and Ernie, but after the Bert and Ernie from It’s A Wonderful Life who were also the template for their characters.
(I should have called then Rosencratz and Guildenstern)
Here is the entirety of their scene (now excised):
Panel 1
We’re at the opening to a room past the greenhouse, if we can see anything inside it’s shadowy (but it’s Bert and Ernie going through valuables).
Dialogue (from room): ’Ere, what do you fink this is worth?
Panel 2
Inside the room. Bert and Ernie are talking – they both have holdall bags Ernie has a torch, Bert is holding up a small ornament of a plant. Ernie is looking at another ornament of a small dog.
Ernie: I dunno, do I?
Ernie: Just stick it in the bag.
Panel 3
There’s a noise from the direction of the greenhouse. Ernie is startled, Bert ignoring it, has picked up another worthless ornament.
Ernie: Wait… you hear that?
Ernie (link): I think it came from the green house…
Bert: Oh this is nice.
Panel 4
It’s silent. Ernie is looking suspiciously towards the out-of-frame greenhouse.
Ernie: if he’s done the old bird in…
[ENDS]
Anyway, away they go. I’m not as disheartened as I thought I would be – a two day response is good. Matt read the script from the synopsis- I buried enough caveats in the opening email he could easily just replied “thanks giving it a miss” and promising is pretty good start for any script. I’m also pretty confident I can address the suggestions easy enough to make a stronger more emotional story. But I’ll sit on it a few more days before sending a revised version on the Monday.
Farewell Bert and Ernie, we hardly knew ye…