Little Loud: Pre-Production, Character & Scriptwriting

Helen feedback:

2 min pitch was a little longer than I thought it was. I dont think I would even need much more time to pitch. The 5 minutes pitch we do in two weeks will feel very long but once you factor in presentation slides and images it should work out. Helen wanted us to answer 5 questions. Below is how I should have answer then in hindsight.

5 questions:

What is it about?
My piece is called Little Loud for which the tagline is "Good Girl. Bad Shadow." It is about an average 8 year old girl who has a secret... Her shadow is a living, breathing monster.

What happens?
Our story begin in her house during a thunderstorm on her fathers birthday. Little is playing a
game of hide and seek with her shadow. But the game ges out of hand when Loud discovers her fathers birthday cake. Little must tame her shadow, save her dad birthday and all before her mother come home.

where does it happen?
who's in it?
what will the audience take away from it?
where did the idea come from?

Helen told me to consider the main character as a boy and questioned weather I would be able to write a female lead. I tried to reassure her I would be able to. Lana then mentioned I had a twin sister and could use that for the influence of the shadow. I feel as thought I hit the key points I felt were important but it needs to be tightened when moving between the different aspects of the pice and smooth the transitions.

I was also advised to consider male character which i really don't want to do. A female lead is just so much more interesting to me. They also mentioned the gender of the shadow being male and suggested I keep it gender neutral which I think is a good idea. My only issue is that if a character is based on a monster would it not have masculine characteristics by default? No. Apparently.

Sash mentioned tying the idea of the shadow with sibling rivalry and the idea of one child always being the jealous "shadow" of the other. Helen is encouraging me to use the idea of twins/ sibling rivalry

Marc Cullen did give me some good advice; if you show the shadow as "naughty and nice" in the art you will be able to sell the gender neutrality of the character and do not use the word "he" to to use "it" instead. Make more tomboy-esque sounds like a good idea but I till want to fight for female character if that means getting help from some of the girls on my course then so be it.

Phoebe's Concept Art:
DISCLAIMER: I DID NOT DO THE BELOW ARTWORK.

Kitchen Concept. Copyright Phoebe Herring 2012 

Living room concept. Copyright Phoebe Herring 2012

Further Recruitment:
Art director: Sasha
Character design: Megan Smith
Graphic Design: Tom Hughes