Summer Filler

I'm very mindful that as I cram what remains of the holidays with Tomb Raider and Pokémon, all the while there's a blog to be updated. The answer? Yet more old stuff pulled from my college application portfolio. What follows is a storyboard version of a "pitch" for a web-based cartoon partly-based on what my co-workers and I went through when our store went into administration in 2008.

The main characters would have been two kids and an ancient man.

I didn't realise it at the time, but it appears I accidentally ripped off Gary Baseman somewhat. Oh well. (Click 'Read more' for storyboard)

F/X:

Muffled voices

BOY:

Whups.

GIRL:

Okay...

GIRL:

...where the hell are we?

BOY: Um...

BOY:

It's a music store!

GIRL:

A what?

BOY:

A music store! They haven't been open for hundreds of years! Legend has it, people used to actually go out and buy albums.

GIRL:

No way.

BOY:

Singles too.

GIRL:

Fuck off.

BOY:

No, really.

GIRL:

Don't tell me they actually bought movies too.

And that's all she storyboarded. However, she wrote more*:

They continue to explore the store. The girl finds a switch and turns on the lights. In the corner they come across two huge piles of DVDs under which sits an ancient man clutching an endless sheet of pricing stickers. He takes a DVD from one pile, slaps a sticker on the corner, and places it in the other pile.

BOY:

How long have you been here?

The old man can't remember. He explains of how the chain ran out of money, but how he and his fellow staff stayed on to keep the store going. Now, he's the only one left. The boy - young, naive, mildly stupid - suggests that he and his friend, along with the old man, re-open the store, pointing out that here in the future--

GIRL:

You mean the present.

BOY:

Whatever.

--they would have no competition. The girl argues, but relents once the old man points out the wide range of basket spends they have to offer.

What would follow over a series of episodes (after the mandatory fixing-up/redecorating montage set to some classic from the 1980s) is the day-to-day goings on in the store, with customers of the future (a chance for cool character designs) wandering into the re-opened shop and rediscovering an old-fashioned (i.e. modern) record store.

With some effort, it could have been funny. Maybe.

*And to be clear, by 'she' I'm referring to the old saying. Yes, Laura, I'm talking to you.