Here is the reference footage that we gathered using my rough script:




The first attempt shown in this movie is me having a go at the scene myself. I think it works ok but it wasn't particularly funny and I hadn't really though about the character of the doctor whilst acting it out and as a result, it feels very generic.

However the footage that I got when James does the scene (the second attempt shown) was really good. He had the idea of making the doctor seem like he is forcing a jolly attitude for the patient which I really liked because I could show a lot of character in the animation taking this approach.

I also would like to use the part where he shouts after the nurse as if it is somebody elses fault and not his own. These two ideas combined really tell the audience a lot about the doctors personality.

Another nice little touch that came out of this footage was that Margunn, who played the patient, seemed genuinely shocked and surprised that the leg had been removed. I really liked the little pauses which made it seem like the patient didn't know what to say and was in a state of shock. I think this is better than having an aggressive reaction because it is very hard for people to relate to a person who would react in a physical way.

I have created a rough script using the ideas and footage above:

Scene : A patient is waking up in a hospital room after having an operation. A doctor comes in to check on him.

Doctor : Ah awake already I see….

…Well, we’ve successfully removed the leg.

Patient : What!?

Doctor : The leg, gone, incinerated, will not trouble you again.

Patient : But.. but… you weren’t supposed to….

Doctor : You are Mr Smith aren’t you?

Patient : No!

Doctor : Oh for gods……. NURSE!, IT’S HAPPENED AGAIN!

I will be showing this to a few people and will talk about the feedback that I recieved in my next post.

Reworked Scene

After the discussion I had about my scene idea, I came up with a slight variation that will fit to time. The scene starts in exactly the same way with the doctor greeting the patient as he wakes up after his procedure.

Doctor : Good news, the leg was removed successfully.

Patient : What!?, Where's my leg? What Have you done?

Doctor : You are Mr Smith aren't you?

Patient : Ah.....right........I'll be back in a moment.

As you can see, the diagogue is much less and leaves much more time to animated the thought processes of both characters, particularly the patient when he realises that his leg is missing, he would be looking back and fouth at his leg and the doctor and would probably be a bit speechless.

The area where this scene needs to improve is the ending. I will act the scene out with a couple of deifferent endings because it would end differently depending on what sort of character the doctor is. For example if the doctor was very confident, almost arrogant, then he would probably blame it on somebody else because in his eyes, he could do no wrong. I will make another entry when I have got this reference footage.

Second Idea

My second idea also involves a doctor and a patient. The doctor is nervous, newly qualified and is prone to making mistakes. The patient is short tempered and he is a doer rather than a talker.

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.

Initial Idea

For this task we had to come up with a scene in which one character gives the other character some good or bad news.

My first idea is that a Doctor enters a patients room and tells him that he has some bad news.

He tells him that he is going to die and he has only got 2 days to live. The patient then breaks down and goes way over the top in his reaction.

The doctor then refers to the patient as Mr Smith and the patient tells the doctor that he is not Mr Smith. The doctor is very embarrassed by the mistake and tries to apologise and make a fast exit.

I think this idea is ok but it is not particularly funny. Also, when I started to write a rough script I realised that with all the setup for the scene, there was too much to fit in to the time given. Part of this scene was that the patient was going to be a flamboyant, artistic person and because of this, the humour in the scene was coming mostly from his over reaction which took a lot of dialogue and left very little time to get across the character of the doctor.