One of the first things he noticed in the first scene, is we somehow forgot to add the intro to Annie in the action. This was there in the last draft, but we must have forgotten or accidentally deleted this by accident. This will obviously be the first thing we add, so we know it's there and we don't forget again.
In the third scene, there's some confusion as to who Annie & Dean actually want to see, so we need to make this clear. So one of Annie's dialogue in this scene is "We just want to see the grand kids, and then I promise we will leave." We will change this so instead of her saying "grand kids" she says "family" to make it clearer. Also in one of Marie's line of dialogue she says "No, you've got to leave now, I've got lots of famous celebrities coming in next week and I need to prepare." Simon suggested to take out the word "famous" just to make that line snappier and shorter, and also to add something along the lines of "I don't have room for ordinary anymore". This will create more tension which is needed, and clearly present Marie's emotions towards her parents. In that same scene, we have the newspaper being thrown onto the driveway. Simon understood what we meant by this, and he liked the addition, but he doesn't like that it is thrown onto the driveway. He said this is something you might see in an American TV show, as it is more common there, but not in England. He suggested maybe they are reading the newspaper in a car, to make it more realistic.
In scene 8, instead of Betty saying "Its a wooden spoon" when she gives Dean his present, we should just say "spoon" or something along those lines, as the audience know what it is because they can see it.
One aspect, presented throughout the series, that Simon wasn't convinced with is Arnold the robotic cat. He said that he had tried using a robotic dog previously in one of his productions and it wasn't realistic enough to look like an actual dog. We realised that he was confused as to the purpose of Arnold, as he hasn't supposed to be presented as an actual dog. We made clear to Simon that Arnold is a robotic cat, and he is known as a robotic cat to everyone but Betty. Her character isn't all there, and the robotic cat presents that clearly, as everyone else knows it's not real. Simon understood this upon our explanation, but he suggest we make it clearer, so people aren't confused like he was.
I realised, before going into the tutorial, that some of our scene numbers were formatted wrongs and this is something Simon talked about. When starting on a new draft, we need to make sure these are formatted correctly so there's no confusion.
In Scene 9A, we need to decrease some of the dialogue and make it less wordy, to get a better sense of the frustration from both Annie & Dean and Marie. Instead of Annie saying "it's our duty to check on our kids" change it to "check on the family" to make it clear as to who they want to see. Also for Marie's dialogue, instead of saying "No, Dad, I told you before, you're not seeing Violet or Alexander and they don't want to see you either", we need to change it to something short and snappy like "no Dad, just go away." By doing this, I think it clearly demonstrates Marie's annoyance and that she's just had enough, which is important in our script.
Much like the spaghetti bolognese scene, Simon thinks we should ditch the clock scene and change it to something else. It's not as sparky as the other scenes we have, and it's just not needed. We can change this to something thats works alongside some of the other scenes we have added.
He also thinks there needs to be a scene, after seeing the kids, where the two characters are utterly deflated about Instagram, the kids, and potentially baking. This will bring the audience's attention to the characters, and make them feel sorry for them which is what we want.
To quicken the pace after this, he suggested that maybe the oven timer goes off at the same time as the camera crew is spotted. This might be a nice touch to the show, and help bring everyone's spirits up simultaneously.
In the last scene, he thinks Marie should be portrayed as 'miss one word' which basically means we need to shorten some of her dialogue. And at some point in the script, he thinks we need to add about Jean Paul and how he's always away at work. This is because, at the moment, we only see Marie as a single mother, which isn't the case. This can be done through Dean's dialogue or Marie's.
Overall, we are really happy with the feedback we've got for this draft. We think everything is doable, and really helps bring the script to life. I am really happy with the development of our script and I'm confident we will get 6 drafts done by the time we have to have our book sent off to be printed.
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