THE TWITS

JUST A FEW HIGHLIGHTS
(with some of David’s humor throughout)

A note from Laura: I have way too many emails and voicemails and recordings to sift through, but these few emails will give you a flavor of the process. David began the conversation (it was his idea to turn THE TWITS into this animated film, after all) via a Skype call, and so this email thread begins with him as well.

Hi m’love,

New idea. … I’m gonna do some of Mr Twit’s sound effects … eating spaghetti … groaning … exasperation, etc. And you can do Mrs Twit with SCREEN CREDIT !!! YAH!

[David sends along links to two music snippets he’s found online to license for our production.]

I think we can use the opening of this [music clip #1] to introduce the story, using the breaks in the piece to time with the music. Selected bits and pieces of this music becomes Mr Twit’s theme while [music clip #2] introduces Mrs Twit and bits and pieces become her theme.  

Haven’t yet decided if I need to get yet another couple of pieces for Muggle-Wump and the Roly-Poly Bird.  

BTW, the TWITS book I got in one day has some brilliant color shots. Also, going through the story, we have to locate specific sound effects … not too many … just the most significant ones (like the frog in Mrs Twit’s bed or Mr Twit slurping the wormy spaghetti … etc. … the monkeys in the cage … the Role-Poly Bird makes a really weird, individual noise that our ‘local’ birds don’t make (no tweet, tweet, tweet). We’ll have to find something unique.  

More later. Shall I call tomorrow?

Love,
Dxxx

Good morning.

I overslept. Woe is me. But I’m gearing up! Drinking coffee. Making a list of to-do items.

I have not yet received any of the copies of the color version of THE TWITS yet. Amazon and eBay both say they’re en route, gave me a date of ‘anytime after May 20,’ and here we are three days later with no-show, but they ARE on their way.

I did download the music you sent. You asked which I liked and I love them both. I found myself smiling listening to each of them. Shall I just experiment with and/or use both pieces?

Mxo
(Translated in emoticon: M😗)

Now … why didn’t I think of that? Guess that’s why you’re there to show me the light!!! Brilliant!

Also (below) check out the cropped “beauty-shot” close-ups of Mr & Mrs. A couple of afternoon heartthrobs, eh?

Nevertheless, maybe this is a better way to introduce them, leaving the surprise of the Hugtight paint and the cane until introduced in the appropriate chapter.

In addition to the adjustments we’ve already discussed, I think we need to add some text on a few of the earlier cuts starting with:

1. Mr Twit: “There you are …” etc.

2. Mr. Twit: “Just look at you …” etc.

3. Mr Twit: “You’ve got the shrinks …” etc.

Lemme know your thoughts.

Love,
Dx  

Herewith the edits we made today, O Captain, my Captain.

I did clean up his beard some and fixed typos and timing and balancing and stuff.

See you tomorrow!

Mxo

G’d morning, Sunshine,

I’m beginning to feel like I am trying to “TOP the next Chapter” … to outdo what we’ve done before. And maybe I/we need to stop trying so hard to outdo ourselves and the story itself. I don’t want to change or destroy what is already such a wonderful story just by itself.

Witness this: My grandson was here a week ago with his parents and he absolutely loved the opening chapters I showed him. And then I just played the audio for the rest and he loved that just as much. His creative mind pictured what we are trying to visualize. I’m just thinking that we have to be careful not to make this OUR story, but rather tell Dahl’s story. Just a thought and a reminder. I need to remain judicious and faithful to what the master wrote.

Will call later to regurgitate all of this and to get your thinking.

Love,
David xx

[David has some music ideas]

Hi,

What I am sending are a few samples of possible musical scores for the introduction of the African-based characters that can mix with the sounds of the ‘talkative’ monkeys and/or Roly-Poly Bird and the screeching horde of birds. We’ll play these sounds against the stodgy TWITS, always working toward the triumphant celebratory finish.

We will need:

1. Isolated sounds of a few monkeys, probably talkative Spider Monkeys

2. Lots of monkeys (4) all talking and screeching at the same time

3. Bird sounds, lots and lots of different groups as the flock grows and grows

4. A mixture of monkey sounds and bird sounds toward the end

Then we need to bring in our music for the TWITS as they go to buy guns and return. Think about adjusting what we have to make it more desperate … as they get stuck to the ceiling.

We can discuss all, but have a listen to the music I sent. I like the vocal harmony one at the top very much … maybe not right … have to see it against pictures, but I like the idea of it.

Love,
Dxx

[Many of David’s emails were instructions he sent after our morning meetings, so I had them to work on that afternoon and we could then see our magic come to life the next morning when we met again over Skype; here is just one example of that kind of storyboarding.]

Hi there,

Use this instead of the visual ‘Chapter 13’ and the music.

I’ve had a think about it and I think I‘m trying too hard and pushing the envelope. I don’t want it to come off too ‘cutsey-putsey.’ Let the story tell itself rather than me imposing myself. We don’t have enough alternative artwork to add and I don’t want to create too much just to make things more explicit. As much as possible, everything should happen ORGANICALLY as written. So …

1. CUT the text ‘CHAPTER THIRTEEN’ as well as the following music cue (da-da-dum) and simply replace it with the title, “Mr Twit Gets a Horrid Shock.” Add the Voice Over (V.O.) from the original recording. 

2. Dissolve through to a textured blue sky (ala Quentin Blake). Dialogue begins simultaneously with the dissolve to the sky. Text starts immediately and type over the sky. Obviously we will be removing the rooftop of the house and Mrs Twit’s flight down altogether. Replace it simply with the text down to and including “… old grunion!” Then …

3. CUT TO HER her as she says, “You rotten old turnip! … etc., adding dialogue on screen. If you are able, photoshop Mr Twit out of the picture and replace him with a textured blue sky (ala Quentin Blake) as the background canvas. We won’t be using C.U.s (close-ups) at this point. Save them for later. 

4. CUT immediately TO: Mr. Twit for his reaction (use the shot as is on the page as dialogue continues. Add text on the screen with, ‘He looked up. He gaped. He gasped. He gurgled. A few choking sounds came out of his mouth.’ Then add the voiceover gurgling that I recorded and sent to you. Take out the GASP effect you added and take off my last “Ouchhhhhh” (we’ll save that for the beating [that Mrs Twit gives Mr Twit] or I’ll record a new one).

5. CUT BACK TO HER (slightly tighter, but without him in the frame): Dialogue continues (text on screen) … “I’ll get you for this!” ‘She was floating down right on top of him. She was purple with rage’ … (start the swishing of the stick earlier and keep it going (use my recording) … ‘and slashing the air with the long stick which she had somehow managed to hang on to all that time. “I’ll swish you to a swazzle!” she shouted. “I’ll swash you to a swizzle!” I’ll gnash you to a gnozzle.”’

6. CUT TO A MATCHING MEDIUM SHOT OF MR TWIT (Photoshop her out) and Mrs Twit continues, “I’ll gnosh you to a gnazzle!” (V.O.). Then …

7. CUT TO THE WIDE SHOT on page 31 with the two of them and the balloons, petticoats, et al (no text on screen). Just let the voice dialogue run as we dissolve into DAVID, adding his on-camera comments and perhaps save one last errant hit from the stick and an OUCH or something to which I can react.

Hope you could follow the above. We will REFINE on Friday. 

I’ve got a few notes for Chapter 14, but more on that on Friday. One thing, take out the drum effect on “THE BIG DEAD TREE … BECAUSE IT’S DEAD!” BA-DA-BOOM. It doesn’t work. Also take out the monkey jibber-jabber under the vocal piece when introducing the monkeys. The music wants to be a simple INTRODUCTION to the monkeys who “You will hear about them later.”

I also have a few changes (simplifications) in Chapter 15, but will get into them tomorrow. 

Hope you had a good breakfast with the family and, of course, my other girlfriend … Gene [Laura’s mother; she and David had a thing going across two continents, each trying to outdo the other in sarcastic banter]. Lots of love to her.

Love,
Dxx

Dear David,

More family arrived this weekend to support my cousin who lost his mother (Gene’s sister) and we were together for hours today and I didn’t get anything done on THE TWITS except to look at artwork for circus tents and footballs, and to do the Photoshop work on the images we isolated.

[Laura sends David pictures of circus tents and footballs to choose from for the timeline.]

Talk to you tomorrow!

Mxo

[David sends Laura an image of what looks like (to Laura) a soccer ball.]

Hi you,

W/call at 9:00/AM your time.

This (below) is the only football we’re talking about. TWITS is written by an Englishman … Here in England and around the world, when someone says ‘football,’ this is what they are talking about … NOT American football which should be called ‘PASS, RUN, AND TACKLE FOOTBALL’! It is NOT football which is played everywhere else on the planet. 

Till tomorrow, my lovely,

DAVID XXX

PS: What do we need circus tents for? Did I actually say that?? What’s wrong with me? This is not a story about circus tents. Shame on me. 

I don’t think I’ve had a really good laugh at myself in a long while, so thank you for this. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Mxo

Notes on yesterday:

1. Maybe we could replace Mrs Twit’s response to Mr. Twit “BRILLIANT!” and use this (from the cover). You could place the word “BRILLIANT!” over her head; lose the birds and continue the dialogue above her head. See how it works. (Obviously, lose the bucket of glue and give his clothes a purple hue if you can). Also, you might put the words, “How’s that?” in the space between Mr. Twit’s head and the thistle bush.

2. On Mr Twit’s walk to the cage (in preparation of the Twits walk into town), make him smaller (lose his feet behind something ) and move his body, if possible, behind one of the thistle bushes. Also darken his clothes.

3. I was wrong about my ‘genius’ blank screen. It doesn’t work. It’s shit!! Instead CUT immediately on the word, “Obediently,” etc., to the first monkey along with the dialogue. Question: Do I need to re-record anything in this section? Can you hear “… with the birds” clearly? Anything else need vocal touchup?

Sending the music a bit later. See you at 9:00.

LOVE,
DXX

[And lastly, another instruction email, complete with graphics scribbled with his crops and notes.]

Hi there,

After listening again, carefully, to the recording, I don’t think we can cut too much out of it. So … we need to find a way to both use and break up a selection of Quentin Blake’s artwork and pieces of the pictures to tell the story. You’ve put together the first part brilliantly, up through the release from the cage. So now we’re looking at the following section, below, when they’ve been freed. 

Dialogue with the ‘kids’ (using selected images and isolated pieces of selected images. I’ve actually forgotten how we were going to visually handle this little section. Hope you recall. If not, we’ll have to figure it out.

KIDS: “We are free!” cried the two little ones. “Where should we go, Dad? Where should we hide?”

MUGGLE-WUMP: “Don’t get excited,” said Muggle-Wump. “Calm down, everybody. Before we escape this beastly place, we have one very important thing to do.”

KIDS: “What?” they asked him.

MUGGLE-WUMP: “We’re going to turn those terrible Twits UPSIDE DOWN!”

KIDS: We’re going to what?” they cried. “You must be joking, Dad!”

MUGGLE-WUMP: “I’m not joking,” Muggle-Wump said. “We’re going to turn both Mr and Mrs Twit UPSIDE DOWN with their legs in the air!”

Now we start this part of the scene using the TOP part of the picture below (p. 68) with Roll-Poly Bird questioning. You can cut between a 2-shot, singles & close-ups on each character as the scene builds.

ROLY-POLY: “Don’t be ridiculous,” the Roly-Poly Bird said. “How can we possibly turn those two maggoty old monsters upside down?” (2-shot)

MUGGLE-WUMP: We can, we can!” cried Muggle-Wump. “We are going to make them stand on their heads for hours and hours! Perhaps forever! Let them see what it feels like for a change.”

USING THE FIRST IMAGE ABOVE, CUT BACK TO ROLY-POLY BIRD FOR HIS REACTION.

ROLY-POLY: “How?” said the Roly-Poly Bird. “Just tell me how!”

(CUT Mug-Wmp’s dialogue. ‘MUG-WUMP LAID HIS HEAD ON ONE SIDE AND A TINY TWINKLING LITTLE SMILE TOUCHED THE CORNERS,’ etc.)

Mug-wump continues …

MUGGLE-WUMP: “Now and again,” he said, “but not very often, I have a brilliant idea. This is one of them.”

CUT TO this (below) on p. 60:  

MUGGLE-WUMP: (place the following close to his mouth) “Follow me, my friends, follow me.”  Then … (in the space above his head) … ADD ‘He scampered off towards the house and the three other monkeys and the Roly-Poly Bird went after him.’ Or place the dialogue on a clean page and drop down slowly to include the two little birds at the bottom of the page (see below).

… and then we quick dissolve Roly-Poly Bird and Muggle-Wump out as the camera drops down to isolate the 2 birds sitting there (at the bottom of the frame, p. 68) completely bamboozled.

(I would love to put “WTF?!?!” in a bubble above their heads [and so we did]).

[David got such a good laugh out of seeing “WTF?!?!” come to life. He really did enjoy creating this video, too. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well. He would love to know that you did.]

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