man i just want check please! to be adapted into a netflix original and i want it done RIGHT
i have so many ideas for this ho shit:
MOVE-IN DAY//SERIES PREMIERE: all these wide shots of bitty absorbing the pretty ivy league campus and the pretty boys on this campus. a guy hands him his ID and says “the picture you picked doesn’t do you justice” and bitty gets so so blushy and then bitty’s mom pulls him away, cause they gotta go check out the gift shop!!! (boys will flirt with bitty So Much)
juxtaposition of the pretty ivy league campus with the gross frat haus
over the course of the season haus gets more homey??? it’s like a subtle change…like the lighting around it gets warmer and it looks generally cleaner
bitty’s roommate is a character. he’s a cs major and when bitty comes back from that first team meeting to this guy, he ends up being just. not a huge conversationalist. and bitty’s like “….ok!”
later when jack zimmermann starts banging on the door for bitty to come to checking practice the roommate has like. the best afterthought line. i haven’t figured out what it is yet.
since everyone who read the comic already knows how graduation in year 2 ends id draw out the moment between bitty leaving and bad bob’s monologue so that you see the alumni event and then bitty packing in this transcendent montage and you’re like “wait WHAT!!??? WHY ISN’T JACK RUNNING ARE THEY CHANGING TH–” for a little bit
also. ALSO. auditory parallel with jack hearing bitty sing “halo” through the walls of the haus and when jack opens the door, the song is less muffled
actually seeing the sunlight through the window as they kiss
SEASON 2 PREMIERE – COLD OPEN could be bitty looking at his cellphone as a callback to last season or like his cellphone buzzing with a text from jack on the counter – so we as an audience immediately know that jack and bitty have been keeping up with each other – as he’s getting ready and then jack and bitty see each other for the first time. suzanne’s like “oh i’ll pull out my camera” but they don’t take their eyes off of each other. and then we flash to ransom at samwell asking bitty “so what did you do over the summer?” and then we cut to the theme song cause we all know what who he did
and then the whole episode’s madison and then we cut back to samwell, bitty staring off dreamily, “oh, same old stuff.”
i. want. an entire episode called “34 Days” but we need to find kids who look like the 17-year-old versions of the actors who play jack and parse and maaannnnnnnn that’s gonna be tough
so some twitter events become episodes (spring c + bitty’s birthday so like ONE HALF of “kiss the ice” basically) but then some comics get consolidated into one episode (i.e. “the closet story”, “parse”, other half of “kiss the ice”, “graduation” and “goodbye for the summer”)
at the end of the episode before parse johnson says something like “you know shit’s about to get crazy when it starts in media res”
i got tired of typing but i have More Ideas
*bangs fist on table* •EPIC KEGSTER EPISODE WITH BEER PONG •POST CREDIT SCENES FOR EXTRAS •POP UP EFFECTS FOR WHEN BITTY TWEETS
YES YES I WANNA SEE THE BEER PONG TOO and yes, the johnson line i wrote in the last bullet point was considered with post-credit scenes in mind anD ALSO
hockey shit with r & h is a little short that starts off some episodes and ransom and holster are basically filming it with this low-grade shaky camera and in the butts one they’re whispering behind the camera and just PANNINGCLOSER AND CLOSER TO JACK’S BUTT, like zooming in and out to get the right focus but also to get as much butt-detail as possible, and then they pan to the mirror and YOU CAN SEE THE EXACT SECOND WHEN JACK NOTICES AND THEN IT JUST CUTS OFF THE LITERAL SECOND WHEN RANSOM SAYS “i think he saw us”
the pop-up effect happens with texts in house of cards too and one of the ideas i had for the madison ep was just a cold open of jack and bitty texting each other over the summer!
in addition to seeing clips of actual vlogs you actually see bitty make the vlogs so in “parse” you actually see bitty walk in his room, set up the camera and press record, and my idea for Women, Food, and American Culture was to have bitty’s voiceover the second after he Realizes and the real-time dialog between jack and bitty is something like
bitty: i uh…i have to go do [lame excuse]
jack: oh–
[bitty runs upstairs into his room and collapses on his bed]
and then bitty’s voiceover is “never fall in love with a straight boy” wHAM end of episode
IVE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS SO MUCH YOU DONT EVEN KNOW
The opening sequence is like, I’m imagining something like the Baccano! opening credits, short and sweet with like 70s style freeze-shots of the main characters staring at the camera with their name/number superimposed on the screen, set to bouncy cheesy pop music (Bitty’s pregame playlist??) and TONS of visual parallels between hockey / baking / college like
Countdown timer in the rink transitioning to an oven timer
Team assembling, someone tosses a stick, mid-throw transitions into Bitty catching a rolling pin or vice versa
someone pouring their drink into those awful red plastic cups, person lifts cup to drink then transitions to like, idk, one of the teammates chugging water/gatorade at practice
Like panning down a row of sriracha. Just an entire row of sriracha
While these words are superimposed: “BASED ON THE COMIC BY NGOZI UKAZU”
Just zooming in and out all around the Haus, with the credits scrawled on the wall in the basement next to the bylaws as well as in various places
While I think this’ll look AMAZING in Live-action as a homage to the comic itself it’d be cool to have little animated bits, maybe for the closing/opening credits
Anyway thats all I have they’re corny but (oh golly I’d love to storyboard that sometime if i had the chance sighhh)
More things I’d like:
The meet the team scene should probably be drawn out longer so that we the audience can get a better feel for all the guys’ personalities–like it’ll cut forward to Bitty sitting in his room in the dark going “Well. I met the boys.” and then flashback again to the entire thing with them just dEVOURING that pie while Bitty looks on with hesitancy and disgust
Just long shots that contrast Bitty’s height in the beginning to emphasize that whole “fish out of water” uncomfortableness thing–as the series goes on and Bitty becomes more and more integral to the team it’s less emphasized
When Jack is introduced–pretty much exactly the same as in the comics–first we see him pass in front of the camera, then cut to just him setting his tray on the table, then slowly tilt pan all the way up to his beautiful face with his very unamused expression before delivering his iconic “Bittle. You need to eat more protein.”
Cameos from actual hockey players might be too much to ask for but it’ll be hilarious
On a more serious note:
Since Jack is going to spend a whole lot of Year 1 being a petty dingus to Bitty there’s going to be a point halfway through (or earlier) that will probably be the “Make Jack A Sympathetic Character” episode which will probably be a combination of the comic episodes “Bad Bob” and “The Hockey Prince” but to make the transition much less abrupt there will need to be more foreshadowing of course
Earlier during practice Jack gets frustrated about sOMETHING, probably the fact that Bitty/the rest of the team isn’t doing ENOUGH to his standards and is being especially irritated about it that Coach Murray or the others maybe takes him aside for a moment and says a line thats like “Son, I know this is really important to you but u need to be mature about this,” cue Jack respectfully acknowledging it and trying to do better but still continuing to be pissy
THE HOCKEY PRINCE SEQUENCE OKay okay I have a lot of feels on how it should go, obviously I think the narration should stay mostly the same but I feel like in a video format it can both reveal (and conceal) sO MUCH MORE
It’s a very strange sequence in how it’s placed in the narrative, we’re not sure WHO is telling the story so I think it’ll work best as an opening to a new episode perhaps.
Like it’ll be like that stylized animated format that emulates the golden book style Ngozi uses for that episode, show stylized little Jack running around with his famous Hockey King dad in a golden shiny kingdom of trophies and paparazzi, then transition to like the dark bedroom where the shadows of his anxieties creep up on him
when it gets to the “And he slew trolls!!” Jack w/ the Memorial cup + PARSE CAMEO! To the side of the composition so he’s not emphasized but he’s THERE
Show Jack in the hospital, and here I have some ideas to show the whole unreliable narrator in Jack’s mind–show Jack sitting on his bed during the “So he was banished. The Kingdom would not have him…” scene. Show Bad Bob slowly coming inside, as if trying to talk to Jack, but Jack turns away and Bob sadly leaves the room, while the narration goes “He was a disappointment to the King”–idk how it would work but it would be interesting to show that slight inconsistency between the narration and the actual events (i.e., Bob trying to reach out and comfort his son, Jack not being able to accept it)
Extra thoughts (this is too long but whatever)
Shows and movies that take place at a college often get filmed at UCLA because it’s pretty accessible and is very generic-college looking, which also happens to be my school so for like the typical background campus scenes it will most likely be at UCLA, dressed up to LOOK like New England (snowy shots will be somewhere else ofc)
ANYWAY I can’t wait until this can be a REAL THING, obviously i feel like the comic would have to finish first so anyone who wants to develop this can actually have complete material to work with so they can do it RIGHT…sighh
oh oh this addition is amazing
I have also been thinking about the way that Parse is introduced into the show? As pointed out above he would obviously have to be in the Hockey Prince montage, but to the side, but I do think that he needs to get more attention, esp. if we want to understand in season 2 why bits dislikes him (the whole ‘bless his heart‘ attitude)
I mean I will honestly be the first to argue that Parse is not an antagonist per se but he is a very interesting character, more like a juxtaposition somehow? He adds so much conflict and ~drama~ around Jack as a character and that is so interesting to me. I think he would be one of the best plot devices to in fact show the sympathetic side of Jack
Honestly Jack is one of those characters that you learn to love over the course of the show…like Bitty hates him at first but then falls in love with him over the course of the first season, and you want the audience to go right along with him
So the Bad Bob/Hockey Prince would be the first episode where you get the Dark Jack Zimmermann Backstory and this would have to feature Parse as he is such an important part of Jack’s past
But Parse is also the great Contrast – he is where Jack would have been were it not for the overdose, and the show would have to show that somehow, but not to obvious, at least not to start with
Just any flashbacks to Jack’s past (which could be actual flashbacks but also ‘source material‘ for example a youtube video that Bitty comes across) would contain Parse by Jack’s side. The announcer refers to them as like ~an unstoppable force~ and ~unbreakable duo~ [cut to Jack sitting by himself in his room]
And remember that comic where commentators talk about Jack? Doing like a similar scene to that, the team sitting around having fun, drinking a beer, and in the background there are shots of Parse, and Jack goes from actively participating in the conversation to watching the screen, his face growing somber
And then obviously we Meet Parse at the kegster and we actually see the scenes where the team (including Bitty!) takes selfies with him and we see Lardo beating him at beer pong and he just seems like this laid-back cool dude
Cut to Bitty overhearing the conversation in which Parse comes off as a jerk and like- kind of desperate at the same time? and then Parse and Jack come out of Jack’s room, all rumpled (because honestly they have been making out) and with Jack’s feelings written all over his face
Only for his face to turn back into a mask when he sees Bitty
and the seed for bitty’s hate is obviously planted right there
and a tweet pops up that reads “that awkward moment when you thought some was really cool but you find out you were so wrong about them“
(also this is obviously where one of the hints is planted that Jack isn’t really all that straight. which. there should be several of those throughout the season so the Kiss doesn’t come as too much of a shock to viewers)
but yeah generally Parse being like a big reason for Jack’s angst and his growth throughout the first season, give me all of it
just moving along like everyone else 