You know what though? This is of limited utility at the moment. We can just focus on how boston will be and make sure we give ourselves some leeway.

We have the PSA but I think that to show as much as tell we should use the chance of showing that the east coast damage was mighty serious. Boston itself may survive but there could be large numbers of refugees from NY and some damage to coastal and riverside areas. We explain that as fictite attack but it also gives us a reason why the fights with the hydra are in deserted locales.

Also let's give a sense that regions are cyt off to some degree. We already have the right elements. The psa and hikaris radio suggest government appropriation of the airway... Crumbs I can't recall if he had a tv or radio but if it wad a radio then it suggests that maybe they have problems with tv. What we can also do is have hikari piece together information from both official sources and a pirate station to show that while there is some communication major broadcasters have lost control/ resources

For some reason when thinking of pirate station names, Section 4 came into my head. Maybe some use could come of that?

Again on the phone so inform me if I missed something from the original episode description.

Re: naginata/sword: That explains a lot.

Remember, this is A World Half Full, not a World Half Empty.

Anyway, I don't think we'll have time to fit the PSA in the pilot—since we have less than ten minutes to establish the main characters and tone, it might be good to save the exposition for later.

edited 14th Jan '10 1:48:28 PM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Anyway, we discussed some ideas for slimming down the original episode and making it fit the new premise for the first season.

• Switch the original TV broadcast to radio, and only feature the story about the Wind of Light—it should be fairly apparent that Hikari is the person mentioned.
• Hikari is on the run because people think he's dangerous. The only problem is that he has Chronic Hero Syndrome, and thus frequently ends up pushing himself over his limits and summoning the wind, forcing him to move again.
  • Have Hikari run into the hydra not because of his comedic inability to read a map (or, you know, notice anything happening around him), but rather because of aforementioned Chronic Hero Syndrome.
  • Have Hikari join the team because he fits in with a traveling team of people who use their powers to do good, not because he's a fanboy for them (since, you know, they aren't part of TV Tropes at this point). Note that him joining would stop Kara from being the Token Good Teammate.
• Give the tropers a circuit that the regularly follow, helping communities along the way. This circuit will take them back along the Gulf Coast near Baton Rouge (where Murky went to college) so that Murky can search for information about her parents. Her (to the other character, likely futile) search will be mentioned in the pilot. My tentative idea for the circuit is this.
  • Have Eddie and Janitor hear about the tropers due to their efforts on the circuit.
• Move the site of the hydra attack to somewhere on the Gulf Coast, with the hydra having lived in the swamps nearby.
• Have the team stop in major cities primarily to salvage supplies, with most of their actual work in the (generally safer) smaller communities.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Oh, and we still need to figure out tone. Campy? Silly? Deathly serious?

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

If it were up to me, it'd be serious. Not dead serious, just regular old "this show takes itself seriously" serious.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Oh, I just updated the How To Write Season 1 to fit our current needs for the pilot. Note that the profiles themselves will need to be updated (including Ironeye's—I'll be doing that next week).

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Matrix's entry is fixed.

No, it's not.

Notice that the list of profile requirements has changed.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Okay, now it is.

I'd say we'd need to have a balance, so serious but not too serious.

Let's see if I'm following this right: So basically we've got our six members going around in a van (looking at the route you suggested, I'd suggest they'd be stopping at Mobile to get supplies). Hikari overhears something about a Hydra lurking around (or maybe he finds it himself accidentally anyway) and reckons he can take it on as it's obviously going to be a threat being so close to the town and it's going to kill someone eventually. Meanwhile we've got the group doing something, probably getting supplies, one of them looking after the van is listening to the radio when it goes to a newsbreak, giving the blurb and info about Hikari, down to his height and eyecolour, if you see this man contact Crime Stoppers on 9291 29101#. Hikari then tries to attack the Hydra, which ends badly for him. The group noticing the cries or the wind of light rush over and try to disable the monster. The team eventually win with everyone's help and Hikari asks if he can come with them.

Missed anything?

lazy note here, I'm going to be away for the next week on camp... so yeah

edited 15th Jan '10 3:29:47 AM by CorruptDropbear

Help! I'm stuck in these tabs!

I pefer the original flavour where it was a report of damage caused by Hikari, with witness views of his powers, without knowing what caused it.

@Dropbear: I think we're trying to stick to the original version as much as possible. The team would be really bad at, you know, protecting people if the guy who just showed up in this state has better monster intel than the people who are here on a weekly basis and have established contacts. Also, in a world like this one, a guy who goes glowy and destroys things isn't exactly someone you'd send the local militia after. As a final note, this episode isn't supposed to be Hikari's story, guest-starring the team; it's more like the story of how Hikari became a main character. The version you are proposing gives a completely different vibes about the team.

@SSOT: We don't have time for that. There really just isn't space for a second news report so that the first one seems like it was just establishing that the radio/TV was on before Hikari saw the new story that he was hoping to find. Sure, we won't go out and say that he's the person on the radio, but considering that the Law of Conservation of Detail is in full effect for episodes this short, it will likely be quite clear by Scene 3 that he's the person in question.

edited 15th Jan '10 4:25:29 AM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

I have a problem with that phrasing, in that it's too vague. It's like saying something should be "gray". But what shade of gray? It could be anywhere from 10% gray (the light one) to 50% gray to 90% gray (the dark one). Until you make it specific (like, say, whipping out a color swatch and pointing out this gray in particular), you leave room for confusion and things-not-getting-done-because-we're-too-busy-squabbling-over-the-little-details-ness.

Sorry, I didn't mean for it to be a major point like that, but sometimes I end up rambling anyway.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Local Millita...? Crime Stoppers over here is the cops. You'd call the cops to arrest someone who was blowing stuff up.

Apart from that, yeah, I do see where you're coming from with it being a bit Hikari based... Re-read the Season1 plot and it has it better planned out. (note to self: READ) If we just slightly edited that it would probably be better, just remove the fanboy part and the fact they're going back to base instead moving to the next town.

EDIT: I would rate "Serious but not too Serious" as somewhere near NCIS or Harry Potter in humour. So it has a serious plot and there's danger and serious parts, but you have some minor jokes and other more lighthearted parts to counter it...

Also, apologies if I am vague sometimes. I'll try better at getting my sayings right.

edited 15th Jan '10 5:13:46 AM by CorruptDropbear

Help! I'm stuck in these tabs!

@Dropbear: This is the sort of setting where a small town's two cops just won't cut it when it comes to keeping everyone safe. Thus, a militia will be necessary for most of the places the team visits.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

I'd rather think of it as Serious in that the actions have real consequences, but not Serious in that only mature people will understand it.

♥♥II'GSJQGDvhhMKOmXunSrogZliLHGKVMhGVmNhBzGUPiXLYki'GRQhBITqQrrOIJKNWiXKO♥♥

I think we should go for serious, but self aware. We shouldn't be above throwing in a healthy dose of humour, and if the worst happens and we make a Wall Banger, we shouldn't be above laughing at ourselves. I also think we should have some episodes be almost entirely serious and some almost entirely comedic, for the sake of variety. We could even have some that rapidly shift from comedic to serious, for deliberate, shocking Mood Whiplash.

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I think we should be serious in that we have consistency and continuity. We are trying to make a world and characters that people can believe and relate to even if the premise is far fetched. Still, we are tropers, and it would be against the nature of TV Tropes if we didn't get meta every once in a while.

Video Game Census. Please contribute.

I'd be rather disappointed if we didn't go meta every now and then—it helps that the characters themselves are quite aware of just how ridiculous this whole situation is and can lampshade all sorts of things.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

I have a silly scene idea for Matrix. he's in Skitty form and meets a regular housecat. This cat gets all defensive and territorial and is all like "MRRRAU!" Then Matrix goes into Catboy form, brings out his claws and yells at the cat. Said cat does the feline equivalent of OSHI- and runs away.

Then someone's all like "What the hell, Matrix?" and Matrix is like "What? He was challenging me!"

Alright, here are my notes on the (new) Episode 1 outline.

The episode opens with a C-Day montage. The sound in general should be rather subdued. Cut from city to city as the silent shatter effect reveals fictites that are appropriate for that city. Tokyo, NYC, LA, and London are all but guaranteed here, but we should probably have a few more. Only a few seconds is spent on each, with the total time for the sequence being less than thirty seconds. The title of the show (TV Tropes) appears on the screen as the last city fades to black. Throughout this, there is a musical haze (talk to arks) that finally resolves into hints of a melody once the title appears.

Cut to Hikari's room. Text near the bottom of the screen:
City, British Columbia
Z Months Later
We have to go back and review this scene after we have the entire outline, so I'm going to leave this bit blank for now. Let's move onto our next scene. The team arrives in Grosse Tete, a town about a half hour before Baton Rouge on the team's route. Someone from the town had previously gone to Baton Rouge for help dealing with a rather uncomfortable haze that was flowing into the town from the nearby swamp.

Open on Grosse Tete, Lousiana—distance shot, with the (rather small) town and the haze, with the swamp in the background beyond some fields. Display the name of the town in text near the bottom of the screen, then display below it "X months later" (X TBD). The camera pulls back and down to the edge of town (as the text fades), where the mayor and a small delegation await near a freeway off-ramp, looking off down the highway, which runs off just to the right of where the swamp was (now obscured by the mist). Everyone is wearing an improvised mask of some sort over their mouths and noses. There is a brief snippet of dialog about how the group is waiting for some people who were recommended by someone else (the contact in Baton Rouge, not that the audience will know that).

A motor home appears out of the haze, towing another vehicle (TBD later—this is the team's "field" vehicle). The team gets out and "poses"—low shot for dramatic purposes—we're going for a low-key version of the Justice League Shot.

• Murky—has her Naginata, face blank, leaning against the van, gives the general impression that she's not someone you want to mess with—use a Badass Arm-Fold
• Kara—non-flashy, shoulder-satchel with a first aid kit
• Matrix—air-boxing and ready to go
• arks—Cracking his knuckles and neck (with appropriate head-tilt), metal baseball bat strapped to his back
• Cody—TBD
• Ironeye—Armed with a Glock on his hip, a machete on his back, and...a legal pad in his hands (with some notes on the top of the paper, not that it is apparent in this shot)

After the "pose", the team walks over to talk to the delegation. Kara and the mayor go through introductions; Ironeye asks some clarifying questions about the information on his notepad, revealing to the audience what's going on and making it quite clear that he is the information guy. The Mayor should also mention some creature sightings in the swamp

Cut to Hikari entering [we're going to figure this bit out tomorrow night]

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Yaar! I have pilot outline!

Scene 1: The Convergence

The episode opens with a C-Day montage. The sound in general should be rather subdued. Cut from city to city as the silent shatter effect reveals fictites that are appropriate for that city. Tokyo, NYC, LA, and London are all but guaranteed here, but we should probably have a few more. Only a few seconds is spent on each, with the total time for the sequence being less than thirty seconds. The title of the show (TV Tropes) appears on the screen as the last city fades to black. Throughout this, there is a musical haze (talk to arks) that finally resolves into hints of a melody once the title appears.

Scene 2: Introducing Our Heroes

Open on Grosse Tête, Lousiana—distance shot, with the (rather small) town and the (light) haze, with the swamp in the background beyond some fields. Display the name of the town in text near the bottom of the screen, then display below it "X months later" (X TBD). The camera pulls back and down to the edge of town (as the text fades), where the mayor and a small delegation await in a parking lot near a freeway off-ramp, looking off down the highway, which runs off just to the right of where the swamp was. There is a brief snippet of dialog about how the group is waiting for some people who were recommended by someone else (the contact in Baton Rouge, not that the audience will know that).

A motor home appears out of the haze, towing another vehicle (TBD later—this is the team's "field" vehicle). The team gets out and "poses"—low shot for dramatic purposes—we're going for a low-key version of the Justice League Shot.

• Murky—has her Naginata, face blank, leaning against the van, gives the general impression that she's not someone you want to mess with—use a Badass Arm-Fold
• Kara—non-flashy, shoulder-satchel with a first aid kit
• Matrix—air-boxing and ready to go
• arks—Cracking his knuckles and neck (with appropriate head-tilt)
• Cody—TBD
• Ironeye—Armed with...a legal pad in his hands (with some notes on the top of the paper, not that it is apparent in this shot)

After the "pose", the team walks over to talk to the delegation. Kara and the mayor go through introductions (note: the mayor and all other locals should pronounce the town name "grow-tate"; Ironeye asks some clarifying questions about the information on his notepad, revealing to the audience what's going on and making it quite clear that he is the information guy. The Mayor should also mention some creature sightings in the swamp.

Scene 3: Introducing Hikari

Cut to the interior of a bar/restaurant behind the crowd outside. The news story on the radio is about a young man in [placeholder town] who emitted white light that destroyed everything it touched. A voice off-screen politely asks the waitress to shut the radio off. Pan over to Hikari, who matches the description on the radio. He is finishing up his meal in a booth. When the waitress comes over to give him the check and ask how his meal was, he asks her about the crowd outside (visible through the windows of the restaurant). She recognizes representatives from the town hall, but she doesn't know anything about the newcomers, speculating that they may have something to do with the haze that's been coming into town at night. He asks about the haze, and she tells him about that noxious haze that killed the tigers at the restaurant, as well as rumors about a swamp dragon living near the town. He noticeably perks up when she mentions the creature. When he stands up to leave, she asks if he's going to stay long in "grow-tate", to which he replies that he's got work to do (not actually answering her question). As he walks out the door, she tells him, "Don't run afoul of any fictites, now!"

Scene 4: Preparation Montage

Scene: Cut between Hikari and the team as they prep for the swamp. Emphasize the contrast between the team's practice/equipment and Hikari's lack thereof.

• Ironeye filling the team in about the monster in the swamp

Scene 5: Introducing the Monster

Night in the swamp. The team starts hearing the hydra, then it lunges out of bushes at them.

• Cody's carrying a maglite, the rest have normal flashlights. Someone has a large lantern. Ironeye and Murky have head lamps.

Cut to Hikari, who hears the hydra and starts running

Cut back to the team. Kara is yelling out orders. arks tries to get the hydra's attention. The hydra bites him, revealing that he is invulnerable. Murky takes advantage of this to slice off its head. As arks extracts himself from the jaws, the hydra grows a pair of heads to replace the one it lost. "Goddammit, it's hydra!"—anyone

Murky throws up a burst of water in front of the hydra to distract it and buy everyone some time.

At this point, Hikari shows up and uses razor wind. Cody and Matrix distracted by his arrival and are hit by the hydra. Matrix isn't seriously injured, but he makes a fuss; Cody is in trouble, but nobody notices at first. As Hikari uses razor wind, someone (or multiple someones) yell at him to stop because it's a hydra. It soon becomes quite clear to him what's going on. The hydra, now pissed with the newcomer, attempts to attack him, and he uses his normal wind powers to try to hold it back. This sends Hikari over the edge into Wind of Light mode and he obliterates the hydra (as well as a good chunk of the swamp around it) as the team retreats to a safe distance. As the team is retreating, Kara realizes that Cody isn't with them and runs back for him (with someone else?). The Wind of Light ends as Kara starts tending to Cody.

Scene 6: What to do with Hikari?

The team gets into a sort of huddle to hide their conversation from Hikari, though his comments throughout make it quite clear that he can hear every word.

• Matrix—he should join the team
• Murky—kill him (without actually intending to do it)
• arks—"a swift hit to the back of the head so he can't follow us" as a reaction to the reaction to Murky's suggestion of killing him
• Ironeye—don't kill him until I have a chance to figure out how his power works
• Kara—let's take him with because it'd be better to have us watching over him than having him run loose
• Cody—???

Matrix's comments tend to be dismissed because the two team members who actually like him (Kara and Ironeye) don't take him seriously. Hikari's comments from outside the circle are only acknowledged to tell him to shut up.

Everyone ignores Hikari until he realizes that the hydra has regenerated, at which point the fight is on again. Kara orders Hikari not to use his powers. Ironeye stands next to him to make sure he behaves. Ironeye heats up Murky's naginata blade so they can cauterize the wounds—Hikari comments on how cold it's getting, to which Ironeye responds with a humorless quip (he's trying to feel hate, after all) about the heat having to come from somewhere.

After the hydra's last (invincible) head is cut off, arks goes to retrieve it and gets himself bitten again.

Scene 7: The Ending of the Beginning

The light of dawn is seen on the horizon. Hikari is filling in a shallow hole (with the hydra head in it) in the middle of an area with no plants (cut out by the Wind of Light). Ironeye is behind him, holding a filled vial (it's hydra blood) with some tongs and washing it in the swamp. As Ironeye finishes and walks by, putting the vial in a small padded case pulled from his back pocket, Hikari grumbles about having to do all the work. Ironeye makes a smart-ass remark about how Hikari said he wanted to help, but then takes the shovel from Hikari to finish up. Murky and arks carry over a large rock and put it over the filled hole. Kara walks over and tells Hikari that he's welcome to come along with them if he likes, under the condition that he only uses his powers when explicitly ordered to do so (with [placeholder] chiming in to say that Matrix can't give such an order). As the team walks back to town, fade to black.

Scene 8: End Credits

Nothing special here.

Scene 9: The Stinger

A quick shot of the shadows of the Wicked Witch's minions falling on the rock—iconic silhouette.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Woah, all that already? Was this all designed in Vent? I'm sorry, I'm busier than normal IRL and will be for the next week, but I still want to be involved.

That outline is really, really good. What kind of a runtime are we looking at?

Regarding Cody's missing information: for the pose, I'd expect him to look arrogantly confident, probably brandishing the rifle or a knife dramatically. His opinion on Hikari, under the circumstances, would probably be a compromise: to take him with them for now just to gauge how powerful he is, and ditch or kill him later if he proves a liability.

If Cody is to be injured without being noticed, he would have to be making much less fuss than Matrix. A cry of "Help me!" ought to attract the others' attention, but it would be in character (at this point, before he realises quite how much he is ignored) for him to feign stoicism and not call for help while there was the immediate threat of the hydra to be dealt with.

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That was more or less me taking the outline for the first few scenes, cannibalizing elements from the original Episode 1 outline, taking a scene change idea from SSOT, and running it by Kara and whoever else was on Vent in order to make sure I wasn't doing anything too stupid and to otherwise get interesting ideas for little lines or character quirks. If it looks like Ironeye gets more little moments than everyone else, well, yeah...I know that character the best, so it's easier for me to come up with something interesting for him to do.

Our runtime goal is as short as reasonably possible, to save on art and animation time, with the Youtube limit of 10 minutes being another issue. Ideally, all episodes will clock in under that, but we can split them into two pieces if necessary. One thing that we can take advantage of is that good action scenes don't take that long. In this particular case, the two action scenes are fairly short and straightforward, so if anything is an issue, it'll be the talky bits.

Regarding Cody's injury, we considered making it something that would knock him unconscious, but it didn't particularly matter for the purposes of outlining, so I didn't specify. Really, whatever you think is best.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Unconscious could work, but I'm a little concerned that he'd end up The Scrappy as a result. That's not exactly the best debut appearance you can have, and he's already a heavily flawed character.

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