Trope of the Week Script

I'm making an attempt at Noodle Incident for an Echo Chamber script.

I guess one last question would be are there any sort of storytelling "rules" in place for Echo Chamber? Obviously you have to stay within the realms of budget and ability to film within a week (no 1,000 plus person mob scene), but is there an underlying "do's and don'ts" that you follow with each of your own episodes?

I have a question. What's Echo Chamber's thoughts on using "Substitute Extras?" Like, say you do need a scene that has extras. What about using life-sized human cutouts for people, kind of like you sometimes see faceless people in anime? It's definitely a different kind of medium, and doesn't really go along with the vblog element though...

I'll be sending a guidelines document out shortly. I've been saying that for days now, but I've been continuing to tweak it. I'm trying to find the balance between overwhelming you guys with too much information, and giving you too little to work with.

The cardinal rules of Echo Chamber are:

-Demonstrate the trope. -Tell a story.

Do both of those within budget, and without making it a Wham Episode, and you're probably fine.

Re: substitute extras, it depends on the context. If it's one of Tom's ideas, and it's treated as a bit strange within the world of the show, then sure. If it's just a feature of the background and is not commented on ever, then that might be a bit more surreal than the show normally gets.

edited 21st Jun '11 5:43:47 PM by Tanzmetall

Avoid the unnecessarily surreal. Gotcha.

I was considering doing Dropped A Bridget On Him for Echo Chamber instead of doing a pilot, but that'll require a one-shot character. Darn.

But at least I know the competition is thin.

Will a one-shot chatbot character be too surreal? Can I have a cameo as an unshown user on a site? I have a trope in mind.

edited 21st Jun '11 6:00:39 PM by chihuahua0

Go for meta surreal instead. We have a few Mind Screws in mind for the future—if you are interested in doing something surreal, I will fill you in on a few plot developments which would make your life easier.

And can I have one-liner characters in your script like how you had characters in the Terrible Interviewee Interview episode?

As stated early on, one-shot characters won't eliminate you, but they could hurt your competitive stance.

I don't know that they'd necessarily hurt you. We have a large pool of actors to cast from—far more people are interested in the show than can appear in it—so casting isn't a problem. Just make sure that any one-off characters are in the script for a reason.

What we couldn't do, is have forty of them in the scene at once. Keeping the scale down is crucial. Whatever you write should be filmable in two weekends.

Hmmm... needs a Growing the beard episode <contemplates script ideas>

I have an idea for an episode dealing with If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!, but so far all I have is

"If you kill him, you will be like him... A dumbass".

Hm... I think I have an idea, albeit brief.

edited 26th Jun '11 12:34:31 PM by Psyga315

oh god you linked them to my undergrad work. oy. I'm really hoping somebody comes up with a good Eldrich Abomination or Evil Twin. Just saying. I really _really_ want to do something dark and nightmarish.

Evil Twin would be fun to shoot. I think the clearest opposition could be drawn between Goofy!Zack vs Evil!Zack.

I want an Evil Twin episode where the twin is quite clearly NOT even remotely twinlike. And then the episode is just bitching about a shitty sfx budget.

Sounds a little too far outside the fourth wall for my understanding of the Echo Chamber world.

But wasn't Tom trying to engineer a Walk and Talk situation? He could just try and engineer an evil twin situation, and come to realize how utterly bad at this sort of thing he is!

That's something that can be done entirely practically, though. I guess it could go in a similar direction to the bad title sequences in Idiot has a Point.

I think you vastly overestimate Tom's competence in editing!

So...would Goof Zack and Evil Zack both just be voices? That could be confusing...

No, they would break standard procedure and be on camera. But Evil Zack would have a paper goatee cutout, whereas normal Zack would just have facial hair.

This whole twin debate is legitimate Echo Chamber dialogue, fyi.

Good call.

Is there a certain date an Echo Chamber script would need to be in by?

You have several weeks, at least. Once there is a hard and fast deadline, it'll be posted about here.