Zenzy lab: Comedy screenwriting
In August 2023, me and my co-founding partner at Zenzy enrolled in a year-long course for screenwriting that is carried out by the Moldovan National Cinematography center. Now we are in month 4 of 9, and in the latest session we leaned about Joseph Campbell’s “Monomith”. The course mentors are excellent and the course itself is going swell.
In the meantime, we were asked by a local comedy team to write a scenario for a short 10–15 minute film. In this article I will briefly go into the assignment and how we handled it.
The client: Zebra Show a local comedy project that does short funny video sketches for the purposes of entertainment and advertising. The project was founded about 6–7 years ago by Pavel Sîrbu, Dumitru Roman and their friends. They participated in the Romanian talent show called “iUmor” and they are popular on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.
The brief: They were asked to do a short comedy film that promotes the services of bus company “Miloș Tur”. The short film could be about anything related to travel as long as it has the product placement (2–3 insertions). The video needed to be in the style of ZebraShow and it needed to be funny. The client (Zebra Show) asked us to provide 2–3 ideas that would match this request.
How did we handled the assignment?
Step 1. We did a brainstorm and came up with 3 different concepts.
Idea 1: Two Moldovan brothers, unemployed in Italy, get the chance of a substantial inheritance from their grandmother, provided they bury her in Moldova. Trying to avoid costs, they hide the body in a trunk and set off for Moldova. But in a motel in Hungary, their car is stolen, leaving them with no inheritance and a secret to keep. When they return to Italy, they see their car stopped by the police and the thieves arrested, forcing them to decide whether to recover the body or run. Note: Milos Tur is present in the film with the coach that takes them on their way to Italy, left without a car.
Idea 2: After a superstitious Moldovan man interprets a series of ominous signs — from videos of plane crashes to a black cat and a broken mirror — as warnings not to fly to his daughter’s wedding in Paris, he and his wife decide to drink brandy for courage. But, while they were getting drunk, the plane takes off without them. Heaving a sigh of relief, the couple choose to travel on a friendly bus, discovering that sometimes delays can be blessings wrapped in comedy.
Idea 3: After years spent in Italy, a Moldovan with Italian slang and luxury clothes loses his wallet with documents at customs between Moldova and Romania. Trying to cross the border with only a bus ticket as identification, he is rejected by both countries. Desperate, he takes refuge on the bridge over the Prut, where he shares breadsticks with a stray dog. In gratitude, the dog brings back her lost purse, allowing her to finally cross the border.
Then we transformed each of the 3 into short loglines:
- Two Moldovan brothers in Italy embark on a chaotic journey to bury their grandmother in Moldova for an inheritance, only to face dilemmas when their car and the hidden body are stolen in Hungary.
- A Moldovan man’s fear of flying, fueled by superstitions, leads him and his wife on an unexpectedly humorous bus ride to their daughter’s wedding in Paris, after missing their flight.
- A stylish Moldovan man, after losing his wallet at the Moldova-Romania border, finds unexpected help from a stray dog, leading to heartwarming and humorous cross-border adventures.
We delivered this to the client.
Step 2. The client chose idea 1 and asked for an outline for the script.
We developed a logline, a 1 page synopsis and a scene-by-scene outline with 10 scenes.
And we delivered this to the client.
Step 3. The client provided feedback and we started working on the script.
The first script draft was 16 pages long and it was written in 1–2 days. This was delivered to the client.
Step 4: The client provided feedback and together we decided to take a step back. The problem was that the script was a bit too ‘dark comedy’ and even if they got a green light from their partners, the team decided to go into a different direction. They came up with a similar concept that is more ‘romantic comedy’. This required that we go back to logline and we started from scratch. We planned our first brainstorm with the client and we got back to work.
We delivered a new 13 page script draft.
Step 5: We got feedback. The direction was good. They asked for a slightly different script. Based on their feedback we developed the draft further. We reached a (sort of) final draft that was 11 pages long and we delivered it.
At this moment, the client accepted our work. We got paid for our contribution. A small fee, but nonetheless it was the first time that we got paid for a screenwriting assignment, which in itself is cause for celebration. The client also stated that they liked working with us and that they will get back to us in 1–2 months for a follow-up assignment.
Step 6: The client made some further adjustments to the script and developed the video. Here is the link to the final published work:
The video got very good audience reactions and its metrics were good too…
For us, at Zenzy lab, this was our second screenwriting assignment in 2023. The first one was to develop a full feature movie script for a comedy coming of age Romanian film. We are constantly developing short scripts for our animated film products. Even so, we are learning and getting better at feature film. At the end of our Litfilm course, we will have to develop 2 whole movie scripts based on 2 books. Stay tuned for more updates on this.
