So, part of my job is to monitor students in distance sites during broadcast classes to make sure they can hear and see their professors. It is very enjoyable to watch what they do to entertain/distract themselves as they sit in a room all alone listening to a teacher on a screen. Right now, I'm sitting here watching a girl take really disgusting close up pictures of the inside of her mouth and sending them to people. I wonder how often they realize that I can see what they're doing...
My brother told me that my life would make a really good television series, and then he gave me the assignment to figure out what kind of series it would be, who the main characters would be, and what kind of plots would be common in each episode. After much thought (meaning I'm about to just type whatever comes to my mind), I am going to complete the assignment tonight.
Series Title: Live It Up
General Setting: Rodd living just off of a college campus with several roommates. All his classes have nothing to do with each other and have ridiculous caricatures for professors. Most common filming locations are on campus, out on the town, Rodd's family's house, and occasionally his apartment.
Motif: I feel there would be two standing motifs throughout the series: (1) Rodd discovers some kind of problem in the school/community/world, and decides to fix it with some outlandish idea. This usually includes doing something potentially embarrassing and more complicated than necessary. It also necessitates some kind of spying or infiltration of a flawed system, and disguising himself or his friends in order to get needed information before making the world a better place. (2) Rodd taking ideas that everyone talks about but no one ever does, and doing them with a group of friends. It often ends up getting them really messy or beat up, but very happy. A unique filming technique is Rodd having some kind of crazy vision/dream near the beginning of the episode, and then seeing it come to pass (but not generally in the way the audience expected) by the end.
Meet the Cast:
Rodd: The main guy. Spends most of his time finding out whatever he can about others and then finding ways to make their impossible dreams come true. He's a little haphazard in his approach to life, but still fairly level-headed and ready to take on the world. Perhaps too ambitious for his own good, he lives a life of excitement and fulfillment. Generally thrilled about life, no matter what is going on.
Duke: Rodd's best friend who is always there for every mishap, climax, and victory. Rodd and Duke make that dynamic duo, where each of them alone lives a brilliant life, but it is when they come together that you know to expect something epic. By coincidence, they end up running into each other all the time in the most obscure places, usually trying to accomplish the same thing. As the series moves on, they practically are one mind in two bodies, pulling off shenanigans that make everyone else do double-takes, without even talking about it. They make the classic "Gus and Shawn" team as known from the series 'Psych.' Every once in a while, Rodd mistakes some miscommunication as a sign that Duke is in grave danger, and ultimately finds himself stuck in a dumpster or clinging to the outside of a speeding vehicle or starting fundraisers for curing rare diseases in his attempts to save his friend, only to find out that there was never actually anything wrong.
Addison: Rodd's ex-girlfriend. Addison and Rodd get together all the time to give each other dating advice. There are many situations in which they need to take on the role of a couple for some project, and they pull it off so naturally, most people in the series wonder if they are still dating. With each episode as they sit down and laugh as they make references to things they've done, you slowly begin to realize that they probably have the most exotic and confusing past you've ever known. Reminiscent of Ned and Moze from 'Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide.' Throughout the series, it gets dramatic as even Addison and Rodd question whether or not they have been dating all this time without knowing it. Addison is Rodd's master planner. When he and she get together and plan something, they end up pulling off some three-day event that successfully leaves everyone's heads spinning. Addison is the one that participates in most of the disguises with Rodd, ranging from six-year-olds to old fogies to zombies to sci-fi characters. They can do it all.
Clarissa: Clarissa knows people. She is the expert in social networking and getting into that place that you usually need a badge to be admitted into. Another of Rodd's best friends, Clarissa is always trying to get Rodd and Addison to get back together because she thinks they are perfect for each other. They have a very "Doctor and Amy" kind of relationship from 'Doctor Who.' She's that friend that the others love so much, almost half the stuff they do is usually dedicated to Clarissa to show her how cool they think she is. She is the humorous friend who usually gets dragged into the craziest of situations, dreading the outcome (usually with good reason) and then ends up being the one who enjoyed it the most. She's the one that most viewers get most attached to throughout the series' run.
Shelby: Rodd's sister. She's that character that is usually heading up to go on an adventure with Rodd and friends, but ends up falling down a manhole or being mistaken for a lost gypsie leader's daughter and being kidnapped or getting lost down a dark alley inhabited by forgotten carnies, and never shows up. They are a very "Ron and Ginny" kind of siblingship, from 'Harry Potter.' There are always snippets of film throughout the episode showing just how ridiculous her unprecedented misfortune is this time, and clever things she does to get out of it just in time. This usually contributes in some ambiguous way to the success of the others in a way that no one ever understands or realizes.
Drake, Cam, and Brad-um: Rodd's roommates. The end of every episode shows Rodd arriving home late that night, all in disarray. Drake, Cam, and Brad-um look up in expected disbelief, and ask what in the world happened. Rodd usually just shrugs as there is no way to explain. Sometimes, there is also foreshadowing for the next episode when Drake asks Rodd what the strange package is that just arrived for him.
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Wow. The more I think about this series, (1) the more I want it to actually exist on film, and (2) the more I realize how it scarily resembles the old Disney series, "That's So Raven."
....
I'm okay with that.
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