Manimal Crackers

Ups & Downs of Script-Writing

Over time, Scott gave fantastic advice over Twitter concerning "how" to write a decent script. Like:

Some Good Questions to ask yourself when writing an action scene:

1. What's the craziest, most interesting thing that could happen here?

2. What's the most interesting thing the characters could do?

3. How does the action scene affect/move forward the story?

4. What happens if the hero loses?"

My responses:

1. Dr. Chase bites Dr. Olsen (the antagonist of the series) in the bath & screams "YOU CANNOT REASON WITH A TIGER WHEN YOUR HEAD IS IN ITS MOUTH!"

2. See #1.

3. If Dr. Chase drowns him, it's b/c he's FURIOUS about what happened to his daughter.

4. Dr. Olsen kills him and harvests his stem cells FOR SCIENCE!

It wasn't always easy to stay on track. My parents, realizing that my school was too easy for me, decided to put me in a more challenging school to help prepare for the SATs. They even had an after-school club dedicated specifically to just that! Afterwards, I was so mentally exhausted that I would just aimlessly surf the web as opposed to using the internet for, well, more productive things. I even had a few more story ideas I wanted to do, but due to my brain's sudden shift in productivity, I had no focus and they were immediately scrapped.

Until I thought of something. The following year brought 52 weekends to do work. If I wrote one page every weekend day, I could get it done by the end of 2013. Since I easily forget these kinds of things, I pulled up Google Calendar and jotted out some work time. And lo and behold, I was able to reserve an hour a day every Saturday and Sunday at 3 pm. I realized that life isn't always set in stone and that something could come up, like my Dad dragging me to yet another event at his university, so I might have to adjust my calendar. Well, one day at a time.

And I met up every Thursday night with the Manimal fan club, watching all of Dr. Jonathan Chase's crazy adventures. Whether it was protecting feral children from being experimented on, or trying to stop drug pushers, I just couldn't get enough.

"You know, one of the reasons I like the show so much was because it reminds me so much of my dad. He's blond, from New York, and teaches British history. Not to mention, Simon's personality is very similar to Dad's!"

"Nice, Jess, you are so lucky," said Brad. "Is he taking adoption requests?"

"Very funny. No, he doesn't have time for that right now. Two daughters are plenty!"

I could hear Brad laughing through his microphone.

We were watching Dr. Jonathan Chase at a racetrack, complete with binoculars, watching out for cheaters. Then suddenly, a Madonna-esque woman came to speak with him. (Not sure if this was intentional, because Madonna had barely come onto the scene when this show came out. She was like, 12.)

"My horse has been stolen; I believe someone has just kidnapped it," said Madonna. "Can you see if he's on the racetrack?"

"I'm on it," said Dr. Chase.

Can't you just turn into a horse and enter yourself in the race? I thought to myself. It'll be much easier. Oh wait, if you did that, the episode would be about five minutes long, and then we'd have nothing to watch.

"Hey, what should we do after this?" asked one of the members. "Should we still keep watching old episodes of other junk shows?"

"Sounds good to me!" said various others..