For the doctor character, I have been looking at one existing character in particular for a bit of inspiration. The character I'm looking at is the very nervous doctor Doug from the tv show "Scrubs". He is always giving the wrong treatment to the wrong patient. Below is a clip tha shows Dougs behaviour:
It starts off in the same way with the doctor entering the room of the patient. The patient has just woken up and the doctor can't wait to tell him about the amazing job that he has done with his operation.
Doctor : Hello there, how are we doing today?
Patient : Ok I suppose, did everything go well?
Doctor : Yes, we've successfully amputated the gangrene affected area and you seem to be recovering nicely ("thank goodness", he mutters under his breath)
Patient : What? Gangrene? Amputation?.....(looking at his leg and the doctor back and forth getting more and more angry) I only came in to have my toenail removed!
Doctor : Oh no (he breaks down), It's happened again! I so sorry sir but we seem to have made a mistake.
Patient : Well, what is it, what have you done!?
Doctor : You may want to have a look at your leg(he starts to move out of the room as the patient looks at his leg)
Patient : MY LEG! WHERE'S MY LEG?! I'M GONNA KILL YOU YA LITTLE SHIT, I'LL CHOP YOUR LEG OFF! (He says this while getting up from the bed and hopping after the doctor who is escaping out of the room).
This scene would work much better than the previous idea. I think that it is much funnier because the doctor has actually done something wrong to the patient physically rather than just mixing up his diagnosis with another patients. I also think that there is a lot of opportunity to show the change in behaviour of the doctor. He goes from being pleased with himself because he has done something right to being really nervous and scared because he has realised that it's gone wrong again and he has to deal with the consequences.
However, when I discussed this idea with the masters group and we started to act out parts of it, we realised that there was too much dialogue to fit in to the 20-25 seconds that we have. If the scene had all of the above dialogue and it lasted 25 seconds, there would not be space to add in any of the thought processes that the characters go through and that is where the acting will come from so this can't be sacrificed. Therefore we discussed how to shorten the scene enough to keep to the time limit but also deliver the same punchline. The resulting idea will be in my next post.
Patient : Ok I suppose, did everything go well?
Doctor : Yes, we've successfully amputated the gangrene affected area and you seem to be recovering nicely ("thank goodness", he mutters under his breath)
Patient : What? Gangrene? Amputation?.....(looking at his leg and the doctor back and forth getting more and more angry) I only came in to have my toenail removed!
Doctor : Oh no (he breaks down), It's happened again! I so sorry sir but we seem to have made a mistake.
Patient : Well, what is it, what have you done!?
Doctor : You may want to have a look at your leg(he starts to move out of the room as the patient looks at his leg)
Patient : MY LEG! WHERE'S MY LEG?! I'M GONNA KILL YOU YA LITTLE SHIT, I'LL CHOP YOUR LEG OFF! (He says this while getting up from the bed and hopping after the doctor who is escaping out of the room).
This scene would work much better than the previous idea. I think that it is much funnier because the doctor has actually done something wrong to the patient physically rather than just mixing up his diagnosis with another patients. I also think that there is a lot of opportunity to show the change in behaviour of the doctor. He goes from being pleased with himself because he has done something right to being really nervous and scared because he has realised that it's gone wrong again and he has to deal with the consequences.
However, when I discussed this idea with the masters group and we started to act out parts of it, we realised that there was too much dialogue to fit in to the 20-25 seconds that we have. If the scene had all of the above dialogue and it lasted 25 seconds, there would not be space to add in any of the thought processes that the characters go through and that is where the acting will come from so this can't be sacrificed. Therefore we discussed how to shorten the scene enough to keep to the time limit but also deliver the same punchline. The resulting idea will be in my next post.
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