Douglas Martin is sleepless in Seattle.
From: [email address redacted]
To: [email address redacted]
Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
Subject: Romantic Comedy Pitch
Hey, [redacted]. Here’s that pitch for the romantic comedy I was talking about.
You know how you were talking about wanting a movie that appeals to the ever-elusive indie-rock crowd? Well, I have the PERFECT idea for one: a romantic comedy that’s titled– GET THIS– Romantic Comedy! If we’re going to have undergrad hipster appeal (they actually do buy things if you produce something they want– I mean, Urban Outfitters has been around for how many years now?), I think it’s important that we make this super-meta and break down the fourth wall a little bit. It is one of the reasons why Community is so fiercely beloved by educated, “cool” people, after all.
Romantic Comedy will be set in a suburban town (let’s say… Ridgewood, New Jersey?) and about these two guys, Ian and Alex, both of them songwriters in this band called Big Troubles. They’ll be total indie-pop dreamboats, too. Cardigans, bow ties, the whole nine yards. We’ll go into the movie as the band comes home from touring behind Worry, their first record, which we’ll say was a cult hit that was adored by large number of rock critics and a small number of fans. Maybe we can even get a real-life rock critic for a scene in the movie; I can only assume that it would be way cheaper to do it that way than to pay an actor to play the role.
While I was writing the script, I had envisioned what Worry would sound like in my head: a bunch of well-written pop songs buried under sheets and sheets of noise. Like, really, really assaultive noise; the exact musical equivalent of a chain-link fence made completely out of barbed wire. But the songs will be good. The songs being good will be a key element to Big Troubles’ appeal.
Of course, there has to be a leading lady. Let’s give her a really twee name, like Sunday or something. I was thinking maybe we could get Zooey Deschanel for this role, so that we could go full-steam toward the (500) Days of Summer crowd and have all of those Manic Pixie Dream Girls creaming in their pants. But aren’t people on Tumblr totally sick of Zooey? We can figure that out later. The point is that Ian and Alex both really like this girl, and she thought Worry was good but a little too loud for her. She tried to listen to it on her iPod, but she was afraid she’d get tinnitus and she really needs her hearing for her job at the animal shelter.
When Ian and Alex find this out, they hold a band meeting and announce that Big Troubles are going into the studio to record their next album. They’ll be obsessed with cleaning up their act (and their songs), but will be at a loss for ideas. Then, Slumberland Records will call and say that they’re interested in signing the band, and while in a rut and brainstorming for the album, they’ll say, “Dude! Why don’t we just record an album that sounds like a lot of the bands that are already on Slumberland!” And then, they’ll giggle while high-fiving each other, or maybe we’ll just give them a secret handshake. Indie dudes love having and doing things nobody else knows about.
Halfway through the movie, Big Troubles will release a single called “Sad Girls,” which will sound like this band I know called Girls that is led by this dude who sings in a comically over-affected voice. “Sad Girls” will have a toned-down version of those vocals, but over-affected in a histrionic teenage diary kind of way and not a “dude, buy a puppy or something” kind of way. “Sad Girls” will be a hit with the indie-pop crowd, and we can even make a joke about the bloggers using a preemptive strike (http://backleftlitz.tumblr.com/post/9257504092/ways-the-new-big-troubles-album-romantic-comedy) against critics who may pan the album for being too floaty and pleasant. Big Troubles would be the sentimental favorite among fans, and Sunday will think that’s really cool.
Maybe we can even get that band Seapony to make a cameo. Never mind. That scene would be boring.
So, we’ll show them recording their album (we’ll title that Romantic Comedy, too! Meta!) in a studio, and instead of being so ear-splitting, they’ll sound kind of like The Pastels or the Go-Betweens. (Don’t worry, I’ll burn you some CD’s of all these bands I’m telling you about.) Or maybe it’ll be cool to have a couple of really noisy guitar solos on there, just to show that they haven’t completely abandoned “their roots”. Their songs will have a total late-80’s vibe to them, because the 80’s were only out of style in the 90’s.
For the film’s climax, Big Troubles will invite Sunday to a show, and Ian and Alex will hang out her before the show, both of them being a total wreck around her (we’ve really got to play up this “super-shy indie musician” thing). And then, they’ll go onstage and alternate singing duties between songs and have Sunday’s plus-one remark about how “jangly” their songs sound now, and how everything sounds nice now that they’re playing a swank venue instead of a dirty basement. Maybe we’ll have her say quirky things, too. You know how those indie kids love their quirk.
Both Alex and Ian will keep their eyes on Sunday the entire time while playing the songs from Romantic Comedy, shifting from pretty guitar-pop song to pretty guitar-pop song. At first, she’ll be uncomfortable at them staring her down, then she’ll bob her head along joyously to the tunes, then she’ll leave with a leather jacketed garage-punk singer or something. They’ll see this, get really bummed, and head back to the dressing room after the song. Upon their return, they’ll play “Sad Girls” for the second time as an encore, with the whole crowd singing along with the soaring chorus: “Love is in their air, but I don’t care / ‘Cause I don’t want to love anyone / And if I hear the word again / I think I’ll drill a hole in my head!” At the song’s end, someone will fling a polka-dotted bra at the stage, where Ian and Alex will cut it in half, so that they can share the adulation equally. And then, they’ll say something about the power of being bros or something. Like I said, we’ll iron out the kinks if you like the idea.
And I personally think it’s a great idea! Romantic Comedy could totally do well with our demographic. It’ll have the best vintage gear, a total 80’s indie-pop feel, and songs that are easygoing and digestible, but somehow more “authentic” because it’s “indie” and not “mainstream”. It’ll be inoffensive in a way that will attract thousands and thousands of viewers! We’ll have these kids eating out of the palm of our hands. We could even get placement on the DVD racks at Urban Outfitters checkstands! Let me know what you think.
Best,
[redacted]
Download:
MP3: Big Troubles-“Misery”
MP3: Big Troubles-“Bite Your Tongue”
