The Script

THE SCRIPT

Rough Plan:

·      Surfing

·      Eaten by a whale

·      Haunted things happen in the whale belly

·      Blow out of blowhole and land on island

·      Party on island

Surfer 1: Emily K.

Surfer 2: O

Narrator: Emily O.

Old Man Bob: P

Agiler Fish: K

Mermaid: T

Special Effects/Party Dancer: C

Surfing in ocean

Emily O: Surfer 1 and surfer 2 were surfing at Myrtle Beach on a nice, sunny day.

Emily K: Whoa this is awesome man!

O: Have you ever been surfing before?

Emily K: Uhh sure?! (looking like he is lying)

Emily O: He has to be lying, look at his face!

Emily K: Nu uh! I totally got this!

Emily K looks away and crashes/falls off surfboard

O: *sigh*  Come on man!

O jumps after Emily K leaving both surfboards behind.

Emily K and O are swimming underwater

Narrator: Surfer 1 and Surfer 2 are now struggling to swim underwater thanks to surfer 1’s ”accident”.

O: Look at all the pretty fish out there!

Emily K: Why is that one fish getting bigger?!

Emily O: They begin to swim towards the pretty fish that was getting bigger.  Little did they know, they were swimming towards a whale.

Dun dun dunnnnnn!!(C)

O: Oh no! We’re in trouble!

Emily K: BIG TROUBLE!

Emily K. and Omee scream as they get eaten by a whale.

Emily O: Surfer 1 should have seriously gotten surfing lessons because now they are trapped in a whale. 

Inside whale belly

O: What do we do now!?!  You crashed and now look where we are!

Emily K: Well you shouldn’t have taken me out surfing in the first place!

Emily O: It wasn’t surfer 2’s fault, if surfer 1 would have told the truth and not have gone surfing they wouldn’t be stuck in the whales belly in the first place!

Emily K (to audience): Don’t listen to him/her! I was perfect!

O: Ok would you please stop arguing so we can figure out how to get out of here!

First illusion= floating fish bones

Emily O: Surfer 1 and 2 were walking around the belly until they saw some floating fish bones near by.

O: Ew! That is soooooooo disgusting!

Emily K: Yeah that is totes gross! How long has that even been here? YUCK!

Emily O: It’s leftovers! Now surfer 1 and 2 kept walking around until they found Old Man Bob, the Zombie of the whale belly.

Old Man Bob walks out

O: Who are you?

Old Man Bob (P) (southern accent): Howdy! My name is Old Man Bob, and I’ve been here for over 1000 years. *in scary voice And you’ll never ever ever find your way out!! Mwahahaha!

Emily K: *gags, Dude you need a shower!

O: Yeah, you smell disgusting!!

P: You know, that’s not a bad idea, I’ve been thinking about that showering thing…with a tub and pipe and water and stuff…

A angler fish swims up behind the group.

P: *screams! Ahh a angler fish!!! *runs away

Surfers turn around and see the angler fish

O: That thing seriously needs to brush it’s teeth!

Emily K: Yeah, there’s somethings that are unknown to science in there!

Emily O: The PL got so mad at what the surfers said, that he angrily swam away.  As the angler fish swam away, a mermaid sneaks up behind the surfers.

Mermaid (T): Sneaks and yells BOO!

Emily K: Oh my gosh, that outfit is so ugly and gross!!

O: Well she’s not that ugly Steps forward toward mermaid She’s just gross!

Emily O: The whale suddenly started making a really weird sound *C makes whale sound * and the surfers are blown out of the whale’s blow hole.

Surfers jump over part of set and land in disco party scene

Emily and O: What is going on!?

P DJ: It’s a party!

Everyone comes on to scene dancing

P DJ: It’s party…

Everyone: TIME!

END

We're Making Progress!

Sorry for the delay everyone! As my college semester winds down, I have been swamped with projects.  HOWEVER, here is an update on the great work that the OMers have been doing.

SPONTANEOUS

To start every meeting, we practice at least one spontaneous problem.  I find it really gets the kids focused and their creative minds going as we transition into working on our solution.  The past few weeks we have been working with the SCAMPER model to help us think more creatively.  Many OMers have really latched on to this idea and are coming up with some really great spontaneous answers.  The past two weeks, I have been challenging them to not only think creatively as an individual, but also as a team.  For instance, in the verbal spontaneous problems, if someone says a really creative answer, how can you use that answer to inspire you to say an equally or more creative response.  I've also been introducing more hands-on problems for the team to tackle.  While the hands-on problems are new for them, it does force them to start thinking about each others ideas and building off each other.

THE NOT-SO-HAUNTED-HOUSE

Brainstorming the Set

I am very proud to say that over the course of the past 2-3 weeks, the team has made MAJOR strides in completing a solution.  Just last week, the team decided on a movable set piece, several illusions to be included in the set, finished writing the script, and assigned roles to the script!  They have been working so hard! To continue this pace, I have been encouraging the team to gather as much cardboard as we can through cheap, dumpster diving methods.  I hope we will have enough by next week to put the set together and start discussing painting options.  Additionally, since they have finished the skit, I want to start running through their lines as often as possible.  For future weeks, I am going to replace spontaneous practice with rehearsal of lines.

How do we make a whale?

I am reaching out to Mr. Douglas in hopes of letting the team perform their solution to at least the fourth grade, if not the entire school.  He seems very eager to make this happen, however, nothing definitive has been made.  However, I feel confident that if the team is willing to stay focused these next few weeks, they will be able to put together a really great performance.

Designing our Solution

This week the students are working very hard in trying to get some decisions made so that we can move on to working on the actual script and scenery (which is the fun part!). Over the past couple of weeks we have been brainstorming potential characters, settings, and reactions to our "haunted house". Last week we came to the conclusion that we were going to try to focus on the reaction "grossed out".  I think this might change as we continue developing our plot, but we'll see what the kids come up with.

To kick off our practice, we started with a simple verbal spontaneous problem.  The team did fairly well working with it.  Several students are really starting to use the SCAMPER technique as well as build off of what the students in front of them said.  The second part is critical, especially as some students start answering with high creative or humorous answers every time!  If my OMers who struggling to say something creative every time can begin to shift their thinking based on what someone in front of them said, I think their ability to give consistently creative answers will increase.  After discussing this idea with the team we re-did the same spontaneous problem.  Using this technique in conjunction with SCAMPER the team was able to double their score! I think by seeing the "payoff" from not only thinking creatively on an individual level, but also as a team, their spontaneous score can really improve.

Once we started working on our longterm problem, the team made a lot of good strides and really started thinking creatively! As a group, we decided that our basic plot was going to be some characters (we haven't completely decided who yet) were going to start off by surfing in the ocean.  As they are surfing, they wreck and end up getting eaten by a whale.  Inside the whale belly is where our "haunted house is going to occur.  Our surprise ending is going to consistent of the characters who were trapped in the whale belly to get shot out of the blow hole and land on an island where a party is taking place.

I personally love their base story so far.  I think the idea of having the "haunted house" take place inside the belly of a whale is genius and it lends the kids lots of different "haunted" things that could take place.  During this practice we also watched a couple of the performances from the teams that competed in the competition.  I can tell that the students really looked critically at each of the skits and tweaked what they saw to go into their own skit.  I'm really excited to see what they come up with once we start script writing and set designing!