Coke Spot, Story

How does one tell a good story?

Its got to be something that resonates. Its got to be primal. We all want food, love, sex, survival or gaining higher social status. Those are really the only motivations that hit us. A story about a man who wants to fall in love with his goldfish will play in about 1 theatre. Once. No one can relate. But stories where the underdog gains a higher social status, or gets the girl, or saves the viallage, or saves the world. We can relate to that. So in our little Coke spot what is instantly going to capture the audience?

Relief from the heat.

We can all relate to dying of heat and needing a cold frosty beverage. That's the product, so the hotter it is, the more primal the protagonists need.

A cute little girl.

Everyone feels sympathy for a needy kid. Put in a cute little girl and everyone wants to see her get what she wants. Hell, Walt Disney used that formula in pretty much all his movies.

An underdog.

Everyone feels they're the little guy. Look at any great story and the protagonist is the little guy. Even if he's the man (Indiana Jones, Spiderman, Will Smith in any movie), the hero is the underdog socially in the world they encompass. Indy was always getting trumped by the Nazis....Spiderman was a dork at school (if he was a cool kid at school the movie wouldn't have been relatable), and Will Smith always has to answer to his superiors even though he knows more than them. They're underdogs and we love them! So this spot needs an underdog we can root for.

With those 3 components in place, it seemed logical that the hero wants a Coke because its hot. Then has to decide to give his Coke to the little girl, then gets rewarded with a new Coke.

Now it wasn't as easy as that to get to that point. I toyed with making the girl in the painting be a little fond of the hero. Thought he was cute. I also had the guy solely see the magical girl in the painting so the waitress could deliver the punchline. Essentially I thought of every permutation....but in the end, if you allow yourself plenty of time to explore (develop) the story, the cream rises to the top. So we ended up with this:




It was a start. But it could be better. The dramatic tension of the piece, will he give the little girl the Coke or not?, wasn't as strong as I would have liked. So I went in and spent more time to really sell the emotional stakes for this guy. Which meant going back to act 1 and setting those stakes up. Its REALLY HOT.



So now I've got an animatic that gives a beat by beat blow of the story. After which point I showed this to everyone. EVERYONE. I want to make sure it reads, is entertaining, and most of all is fun. People laugh and smile while watching it, so the story is now bullet proof (it could be different, but given the story I want to tell, this is the strongest version).

Now comes the fun part. I've got to find all the 'tools' I'm gonna need to tell this story. Cast, lighting, location, sound design, effects design, musical score, color palette.