NOTE: The following contains spoilers for one of the most beloved musicals of all-time. If you do not wish to be spoiled, please climb every mountain you can to avoid one of the highest grossing films ever.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC FINE CUT 4 NETWORK NOTES
Hello hello hello. Thanks for addressing our previous set of notes. As per our conference call, we still have a long way to go before we have the show ready for air. The biggest problem we have right now is focus. What works for us at our network are sweet relatable shows about families with a lot of children. But we've never had one where all the kids can sing together! What a hook! We need to focus on that and dump all of the nun stuff. (All of the stuff at the beginning with Maria at the convent really feel like a different show. Maybe cut and repurpose it for something else? The Real House Nuns of Salzburg does have a great ring to it. Or maybe SuperNunny? Let's discuss) Here we have seven adorable, camera-friendly children who can sing harmony without scaring off advertisers. It's like 19 Kids and Counting without the David Koresh cult vibe. There's gold to be had here; all we have to do is mine for it!
Also the storytelling is just not strong enough. Whoever edited this should consider a career in hotel/motel management. Story is key! We are severely lacking in bites and b-roll transitions; a chyron pass is absolutely needed. (Can you tell the difference between Gretl and Marta on sight? Yeah, me neither.) You guys are making a lot of assumptions about what our audience knows. We need to make sure that this is as streamlined and easy-to-consume as possible. The less taxing the show is for the audience, the higher our ratings! Once these are addressed, we can send time coded notes. Won't happen until then.
PS. Are we married to this title? It's too generic. Let's go with "Von Trapped." It's fun and based on the focus group we did in suburban Annapolis, it'll go over very well.
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE
While we all appreciate all of the drone footage of the Austrian mountainside, we have a whole scene with Maria and no one else. What does this have to do with 7 brothers and singers who can harmonize? Every scene has to have TENSION AND STAKES AT ALL TIMES. What are the stakes of a woman with poor fashion sense twirling around in the grass? Guys, if we aren't aiming high in every scene, then the audience will lose interest and go back to YouTube. We need a stronger start; keep the b-roll, cut to Maria's arrival at the Von Trapp household with an intro bite like "My name is Maria. I'm a nun here in Salzburg, Austria and I've come to be the new governess for Captain Von Trapp and his children. I'm nervous that I won't do a good job. Hopefully I won't be fired." (Please get this verbatim)
THE CONVENT
For proper context, we really need a strong bite that sets up World War II. You can't assume that the audience will know what that is.
As previously mentioned, this whole section can be removed. We have 6 nuns we've never met (without a lower third on any of them) talking about a woman who all we saw doing was just spinning on a mountain. "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" Make it a snap-in.
MARIA ARRIVES AT THE VON TRAPP HOUSEHOLD
When the Captain catches Maria dancing in the closed-down ballroom, she seems startled and then walks out. I say "seems startled" because there isn't a bite there telling me how she feels! Guys, this is just so sloppy. Come on. Let's get a bite in there about how she felt about being caught, a bite from her beforehand to explain why she would go into the closed ballroom to begin with, an intro bite from the Captain so we know who he is, and a bite from Maria saying how intimidating the Captain is. And make sure this all flows and doesn't seem too bite-heavy.
The Captain says that Maria is the 12th governess they've had. Do we have footage of the other governesses? A montage of the former governesses trying to deal with the children could be fun and unusual way for us to meet the kids and set up the stakes. Let's think outside of the box, people!
When the Captain makes the children introduce themselves, this is a fantastic opportunity for a big juicy intro package. As each child steps forward, throw in some bio bites for each one so the audience can easily differentiate one from the other. The faster the audience can do this, the faster we can start having great hashtags all over social media. There are a lot of shows with litters of kids; we need to do what we can to stand out! Let's set their characters like this:
LIESL - The Flirt
FRIEDRICH - The Know-It-All
LOUISA - The Sarcastic One
KURT - The Goody Two-Shoes
BRIGITTA - The Bookworm
MARTA - The Cute One
GRETL - The Sweet One
Make sure that all bites and sound-ups from the kids reflect these singular character traits AT ALL TIMES. If we show some different personality quirks, the audience will easily be confused. We only have 42 minutes to convey each story; let's make every second count!
When Maria says that she's never been a governess before, let's get a couple of bites in from the kids saying how they can't wait to try to test their new governess. That way we know that they are fun and mischievous (in a relatable, family-friendly way, of course). As Maria produces the frog from her pocket, add in a cymbal scrape then a wood block. That way the audience will know that this is funny!
THE GAZEBO
We have a nice scene between Liesl and Rolf with the dancing and the kissing, but since I don't have any context for it, I'm just so confused! It's really obvious, guys. Let's get a fun flirty bite from Liesl about how much she likes Rolf, how long they've known each other and why she likes him so. Oh, and let's make sure we do a proper background check on everyone Liesl may date. Otherwise it's Josh Dugger all over again.
THE RAINSTORM
As Maria is singing about her favorite things, let's do a montage of images to go along with what she says. We can't assume that the audience knows what she's talking about. Just because we know what brown paper packages tied up with strings are, the audience may not. The more we spell things out, the stronger our storytelling is!
THE VON TRAPPS GO AROUND SALZBURG
As the kids are learning how to sing, let's get bites from all of them as the scene progresses. Are some of them nervous before they start singing? Are they worried about what their father will think? We need some stakes and conflict there. Do Re Mi doesn't really denote tension. Let's maximize our footage the best way possible!
THE CAPTAIN RETURNS WITH MAX AND THE BARONESS
Again, again, again: BITES BITES BITES! We need bites to establish both Max and the Baroness. Does she look forward to marrying the Captain? Is the Captain looking forward to spending more time with Baroness? Why does Max need to find another music group to manage? These are obvious questions and you guys totally dropped the ball here. Get these bites in here pronto and this dull driving scene will sing!
Speaking of singing, the first time we hear the kids sing is when they are way, WAY off camera as the Captain is arguing with Maria. How is this good producing? Again, this is the problem we're having. Currently, the focus is on Maria; it needs to be on the children! Let's start with the kids singing for the Baroness ON CAMERA. And that's where the focus needs to be! Get some bites from the Baroness about the singing kids, from the Captain about why he's so touched by the kids singing and how he's sorry for his behavior towards Maria. Our rule of thumb is: when it doubt, Bite it out!
THE LONELY GOAT HERD
Is there another take without the creepy puppets? If not, we may need to issue a trigger warning.
MARIA RETURNS TO THE ABBEY
Wait, why is Maria going to the convent? Oh right, she used to live there. I completely forgot! Let's throw in a flashback of her living there so we can set this up right. We don't want the audience to be confused!
Per legal, make sure the Mother Superior says "What is you [BLEEP] face?"
THE WEDDING
Maria's and the Captain's wedding is beautiful and lush, but I can't help but think about those fun kids. Are there any unused scenes where the kids make mischief all over the house? Any funny turns of phrase from Gretl or Marta? Any scenes with the boys goofing around? Let's comb through our footage and construct some extra scenes where the kids are front and center. Our audience wants to see a large gaggle of children wreaking adorable chaos. Let's give them what they want!
THE SINGING CONTEST
Are there any other takes of the concert without the Third Reich? Despite what our former market research told us, recent polling shows that our audience is actually turned off by Nazi groups. (We were surprised too). Let's recut the contest, show the Von Trapp's winning and then end on a big bite from the kids about their nascent musical careers. Cut out the escape into Switzerland and the family fighting for their lives; it's just too depressing and it's completely off-brand for our network. That may work on A&E, but not here!
Please finish these notes and send the cut with notes responses by 4:30pm EST today. Thanks a bunch!
NOTE: The following contains spoilers for a 52-year-old classic musical. If you don't wish to be spoiled, please go watch the film. Or see the stage musical. Or read the original Shaw play. Or just get out of the house for a damn minute.
MY FAIR LADY - NETWORK ROUGH CUT 3 NOTES
A good hello to you and your team. Thanks for attacking our notes with such vigor. While we are definitely getting closer to where we need to be, we are nowhere near where we should be. But the cut as it stands is way too long and we seem to be losing focus. Remember, this is a makeover show. If we’re going to show Eliza in a gown at the ball at the end, let’s do a side-by-side of how she looked as a flower girl. If we can’t shame her by how she looked before, then we aren’t doing our jobs! Also, the entire section with her father should be removed. (We have plans for that for a possible sizzle reel - see below)
Eliza is great casting! She's likable and feisty in a relatable sort of way and we do want to root for her as she does through the process. If people are watching Mama June go from Not To Hot, they'll watch Eliza go from Crass To Class.
One thing to keep in mind that Eliza wants and asks for this makeover; her complaints about the consequences for this experiment casts the show in a dark light. In order to do allay this, let's do some big restructuring in the latter third. Also, we desperately need a bite pass. Where are the bites we requested? Once we emphasize the makeover aspect for the show, we then will feel comfortable giving time-coded notes. Right now, we don't.
COVENT GARDEN
Higgins has a great introduction guessing everyone's hometown based on their dialect. And the fact that he does it to song is quite impressive. But since this is lacking a juicy intro package, the audience will have no idea who he is and why he's there. Get Higgins to say something like "Hello, my name is Professor Henry Higgins. I'm the top phoneticist is all of England. I can tell you exactly where you come from just based on you saying two sentences." Get this exactly and put this over b-roll of him working with students. If he's our expert, we need to have him say it and show it. Otherwise, our viewers will be lost!
Since Eliza is the subject of our transformation, we also need to set her up as well. She also needs an intro package that clearly states why she wants to do this. Has she always wanted to work in a flower shop? Has she always dreamt of going to a fancy embassy ball? We have to always plainly state what our main characters want at all times -- that's storytelling!
Every time Eliza speaks, she really needs to be subtitled. I know our audience really don't like to read but with this show, I'll take the risk.
"Wouldn't It Be Loverly" is nice but it doesn't really move the action forward. Please make it a snap-in.
ELIZA'S OFFER
Eliza comes over to Higgins' house and makes him an offer for him to teach her proper elocution. While she says this in scene, we definitely need for her to say it in bite as well. (We already gave this note once!) Our research shows that the bulk of our demographic watch this show as a second screen. They need to be able to follow what's happening while they are on Snapchat. If we don't, they'll be confused and change the channel. And we can't have THAT.
While we've already met Colonel Pickering at Covent Garden, let's go ahead and give him a big intro package here too. Have him say something like "I'm Colonel Pickering. I'm a master of Indian languages and dialects. I recently left the military and I love to help people in need." If he doesn't say it, how do I know he believes this? By merely watching his behavior in scene? That's just not enough!
Higgins agrees to take on Eliza as a client and says some bold things to her (having her sleep in the dustbin is one of my favorites). Does he say anything even more outrageous? If we are going to drive Twitter traffic and ratings, we really need to exploit this. Think less Stacy on "What Not To Wear" and more Gordon Ramsey on "Kitchen Nightmares." (Maybe call the show "Dreadful Diction'? Let's discuss!) Add in some more highly egregious phrases. Our female audience will eat up the insults and those will definitely add some power to the Supertease.
"Let A Woman In Your Life" should be cut. If Higgins is gay, that's fine. We don't need a whole number about it.
DOOLITTLE
Eliza's father has great presence on camera. His take on morality is very interesting and relevant to our current political situation. Which is to say: this is a total snoozeville and not appropriate for our show. However, this lecture tour of America where he talks about income inequality sounds like a great idea for one of our sister networks that wins Emmys. It's like a TED talk that's actually interesting! Put together a sizzle reel with that footage and I'll see what I can do on my end. "Doolittle Says A Lot" has a great ring to it, don't you think?
"POOR PROFESSOR HIGGINS" & "THE RAIN IN SPAIN"
While overly long, this extended montage showing Eliza training is very clever in its use to music and editing to show a passage of time. Kudos to your team for this; please cut it by 2/3's and add bites from all involved.
"I Could Have Danced All Night" is lovely but Eliza's happiness with her progress would be better suited in some bites during the montage. Let's make this number a web extra.
ASCOT GAVOTTE
The legendary race track looks glorious, as do most of the people there. This really need some context. Perhaps a great info graphic on the history of the track would be some great take-home information for the audience. That'll make them feel smart!
Please make sure that all of the horses on the race track have signed a release.
When Eliza blurts out "Move your bloomin' ass!", this is lacking the impact that it desperately needs. Let's re-cut the build up to this. Add in some more audio design and a few bites to help raise the stakes. If this moment is not important to us, it won't be important to the audience! Stakes and bites, bites and stakes! That should be our mantra, people!
"On The Street Where You Live" is nice but a bit stalker-y. Make it a snap in.
EMBASSY BALL
While it's obvious that Eliza, Henry and Pickering are nervous, again, some bites here would work wonders. Have Eliza say something like "I really feel out of my element here and I know I could do a great job. I hope I don't mess up! That would be gravely embarrassing for myself, Henry and Colonel Pickering!" (Please get this verbatim)
Let's play with the audio design during this scene. Every time someone compliments Eliza, add a cymbal scrape. Every time Zoltan the villainous language teacher gets stopped from talking to Eliza, add a cymbal bow. We need to underline every moment possible. Remember, subtlety is for scripted TV, not reality!
AFTER THE BALL
This whole romance between Eliza and Freddie is afterthought. Let's just go from Eliza's success at the ball to a pick up scene where Eliza is set up in her own flower shop. The whole section where she leaves and comes back to Higgins and the romance with Freddie... that's a whole other show. Based on the ratings and how the audience responds to Eliza, we can maybe do another show tracking her romantic life. As of right now, this just muddies the water and distracts us from what we bought in the first place: A makeover show taking a working class girl (and have fun at how rough she is) and making her a classy woman (without alienating our target audience). Got it?
Please turn these notes around by 5pm today with responses. Thanks a bunch!
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