After my mind maps surround my 3 main points (Santa's little helper, warehouse and helium balloon) I've come up with 12 potential plots. This is a lot harder than I first thought it would be as there is just so many different Christmas based films and shorts out there, it's hard to have a plot that doesn't tread on an already exsisting piece.
Plots 1, 5, 9, 11 and 12 are my favourite 5 so far but I'd love to hear people's feedback and some pros and cons between some of the plots I should aim for. Thank you! :)
Story ideas:
1. Baby reindeer becomes Santa's new helper and the elf before him becomes jealous and plays a series of pranks on him before baby finds courage. From smoke bombs to sending him on wild goose chases, locking him a crate to tying him to a ballon. He over comes his woes and a the reindeer asks Santa to let the both of them work side by side as equals.
2. Dangerous explosion in the factory resulting in helium leaking meant for the balloons. The head worker runs to Santa to tell him of the news but his voice is so high pitched that everyone laughs as they can't understand the imminent threat.
3.Christmas has finished for another year. The story follows the mischief of the elves as they fight the boredom of waiting for Santa to return from holiday with those all important orders for the next years toys.
4. Mother polar bear tells her cub a story/fairytale to fall asleep too and she begins to dream the tale.
5. The unsuspecting intern shows up for a once in a life time job in one of the worlds largest toy companies. Little does he realise that Santa is his boss.
6. Baby reindeer plays in Santa's workshop. Gets lost and crawls into a crate looking for food/Santa. Crate gets shipped to toy warehouse in the city where he must find his way home using only helium balloons...
7. Estranged helper battles to prove his worth and save his job. Voice recognition systems lock every door and to disguise his voice, he uses helium to change his voice to another worker.
8. Santa's helper joins him on his journey every year. This year a troubled ride leads to him falling from the sleigh, miles away from home. He must battle his way home or be lost forever.
9. Part of an organisation of elves that create the concepts behind the new toys, they feel they're losing their touch. To get them back on track a completion has been launched. Competitive coworkers begin to sabotage others work.
10. Santa has a evil brother. He believes that he should have been Santa and begin to poison the elves against him. It's a battle against time to get things under control in time for Christmas...who will win?
11. Contrary to common belief it is Yeti's that are Santa's faithful workers. Every year elves turn up asking for jobs and are slowly 'accepted' into the crowd. Yetis retaliate and place all elves inside a container and hover it off the ground with the use of helium balloons until a truce is called.
12. This year a large warehouse has been converted into a 'Santa's Grotto and Wonderland' for the children of the city to visit. With a fake village built inside and reindeer to pet it is a bigger hit that anyone could have expected. They run out of presents with hundreds of children still waiting. Instead of letting the child down, one helper begins to blow up balloons for the child and drawing snowmen, reindeer and elves on them, telling them that Santa has a the most amazing gift in store for them if they can behave until Christmas.
I love the idea of the 'intern' - and actually I can see how you could combine this idea with the 'competitive co-workers' idea - I know that interns tend to be treated pretty poorly by established staff - or at least practical jokes are played on them as part of some kind of initiation. I also think the idea of the helium balloon making someone 'elf-voiced' has potential too, and this brings me in mind of the Yeti idea; that somehow, 'Elves' are actually frightening, deep-voiced things, that are 'converted' into the high-pitched fairy folk we know and love as part of Christmas-branding. I can almost see the warehouse as a warehouse that supplies Elves - so for example, Santa is bad - kidnapping 'badly-behaved children' (for example) and through a variety of horrible methods -including force-feeding of helium - they're turned into Santa's elves.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking now that it could be like an expose of Santa's 'sweat shops' - perhaps it starts with an elf escaping - a press conference - or an under-cover elf, with a hidden camera, going in to expose the situation.
So, there's some magic formulation here between your ideas of the intern, elves not being what we think of them as being, and that helium being used to 'make elves squeaky'...