After receiving some feedback on my outline, I began to take notes on what I would need to change, for instance, fortunately the use of an apple corer as a murder weapon went down a treat, but sadly Jacob’s murder of Anton Mulby left a lot to be desired and was seen as a bit of a cop out. A feeling I have to agree with, as I struggled with how my other protagonist would go about dispatching the other member of the mafia. One of the other comments I received involved the inclusion of Ruffles the dog, and whether or not his character could be pulled in to tell a potentially larger part of the story. I decided to try and kill two birds with one stone, as Ruffles is already brought back to the house along with the Mulbys in the third act, so of course he would have a part to play in the final brawl. It would also give me a chance to flesh out the relationship between Jacob and the canine, as I imagine that the two tend to not get along to the point where I began to think about Ruffles playing a part in Anton’s murder and actually saving Jacob, strengthening their relationship (or not, as Jacob’s stubbornness means it might only make his distaste for the creature grow).
The only problem with this new resolution is that within the context of the script outline it still seems a little bit tacked on. I have a vivid idea of how the scene is going to play out onscreen in my head as, along with the rest of the final fight, it’s going to be ‘awkwardly-violent’ (Nerdwriter1, 2016) as both men are continuously struggling at the top of a staircase, struggling to overpower each other. There’s small snippets of Jacob trying to bite any piece of Anton his mouth can reach, to which Anton continuously becomes more and more confused by (“What the fuck are you, some kind of vampire?”) as the threat of the fall looms over them. This threat will of course be heightened by the continued shrieking bark of Ruffles who watches the fight. Then, Jacob gets a small release when Anton moves ever closer to the edge of the first step, but he himself loses his footing, in which case the comic relief in the form of Ruffles jumps in and applies enough pressure just to tip Anton over the edge, breaking his neck on the way down as Ruffles stares at Jacob pleasingly (“…I still hate you”).
It’s one of the problems with making script outlines without actually fully developing the script itself, as I find myself wanting to place so much of these small moments into the document when in reality, a lot of it doesn’t even remotely affect the plot.
Bibliography:
Nerdwriter1 (2016) Movie Violence Done Right . Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKiQs1dE0Tc [accessed 28/02/17].