In which we find Mr b lobbying for his new button, the orange one to be used in the episode. Jim is cagey.
Nigel (resident giant squirrel) has discovered a new instrument that might be less annoying than his bongos, let’s hope eh?
Sadly, inevitably Jim and Mr b, land the Jelly Trumpet podcast on a desert island. Could it be the fabled ‘Treasure Island?’ Yes. Yes, it is.
The podcast starter motor loses a spring on landing. How will they manage to return to ‘sunny St Albans?’
Wait! This may be Treasure Island but for some weird reason (must be the writer) the characters inhabiting the island, don’t quite…well, make sense.
Stuff We’ll Hear in this Episode:
Thank you for listening to the Jelly Trumpet Podcast!
SUPPORT THE PODCAST
For super Jelly fans
Patreon: Jelly Trumpet
JOIN US ON SOCIAL FOR EXTRA FUN
Facebook: Jelly Trumpet
Instagram: jellytrumpet
w: jellytrumpet.com
Stay fab,
Mr Jim & Mr b
In which we find Mr b lobbying for his new button, the orange one to be used in the episode. Jim is cagey.
Nigel (resident giant squirrel) has discovered a new instrument that might be less annoying than his bongos, let’s hope eh?
Sadly, inevitably Jim and Mr b, land the Jelly Trumpet podcast on a desert island. Could it be the fabled ‘Treasure Island?’ Yes. Yes, it is.
The podcast starter motor loses a spring on landing. How will they manage to return to ‘sunny St Albans?’
Wait! This may be Treasure Island but for some weird reason (must be the writer) the characters inhabiting the island, don’t quite…well, make sense.
Stuff We’ll Hear in this Episode:
Thank you for listening to the Jelly Trumpet Podcast!
SUPPORT THE PODCAST
For super Jelly fans
Patreon: Jelly Trumpet
JOIN US ON SOCIAL FOR EXTRA FUN
Facebook: Jelly Trumpet
Instagram: jellytrumpet
w: jellytrumpet.com
Stay fab,
Mr Jim & Mr b
Season 2 Episode 07 – Rearrange Part I
RIFF 1
S/FX: FADE IN
MR B:
About my new button Jim.
JIM:
Yes?
MR B:
The orange one.
JIM:
Yes?
MR B:
Have you written the orange button into this episode of Jelly Trumpet?
JIM:
I have.
MR B:
And you’ve written that the button works?
JIM:
Yes. But I don’t know what it does yet.
ELEANOR:
I do.
JIM:
Thank you, your majesty.
MR B:
Your majesty, the podcast should be landing any minute in medieval France, the year 1150 AD.
JIM:
Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine back in medieval France eh?
MR B:
I’ll miss her.
JIM:
Me too. Shouldn’t really have picked her up should we. I mean what is a medieval queen doing in our humble podcast?
MR B:
Well, isn’t that a question? You know Jim, you should write more. You know, explain things.
JIM:
And you Mr b should be doing more of those experiments of yours.
MR B:
Thank you Mr Jim.
JIM:
Think nothing of it Mr b.
S/FX: A WHOOSING SOUND LIKE A PLANE MAKING A RAPID DECENT
S/FX: A FEW NOTES ON AN OBOE
JIM:
For God’s sake WHAT’S THAT!
S/FX: A FEW MORE NOTES FROM AN OBOE
MR B:
That’s an oboe.
JIM:
Eh? You gave an oboe to Nigel? What happened to his bongos?
MR B:
I thought you were annoyed by Nigel and his bongos? I mean a squirrel the size of a St Bernard dog playing bongos, isn’t to everyone’s taste.
JIM:
Not that! What was that first noise? It sounded like the podcast was crash landing?
MR B:
[LYING] No. No. No. This is a controlled decent.
JIM:
Really? So, the Titanic just clipped the iceberg did it?
ELEANOR:
Now, now Mr Jim this is ‘un podcast amusant!’
JIM:
I know. I wrote it.
MR B:
We shall touch down in the Aquitaine in five, four, three, two..
S/FX: A SOFT THUD
JIM:
Well, all in all a gentle landing. Thank you for flying Jelly Trumpet Airlines…
MR B:
Can I press the button now?
JIM:
The orange one?
MR B:
Yes.
JIM:
No.
MR B:
O?’ Why not?
ELEANOR:
Nigel un air joyeux!
S/FX: SOUND OF A SQUIRREL CHIRPING
S/FX: SOME MEOLDY PLAYED ON AN OBOE
JIM:
Just one thing Mr b.
MR B:
[PROCLAIMING] FOR ALL MANKIND! Sorry, had one of those flashbacks where I save planet earth from Michael Bay.
JIM:
Well, if I’m not much mistaken.
S/FX: SOUND OF OBOE
MR B:
Yes?
JIM:
You’ve landed Jelly Trumpet on a desert island.
MR B:
What makes you say that?
JIM:
O’ I don’t know. Maybe it’s the coconut palms stretching into the distance.
MR B:
Ah.
ELEANOR:
Merde!
JIM:
Not mud your majesty, that’s sand.
MR B:
Pushing the, er…the green button now!
S/FX: BUTTON BEING PUSHED
S/FX: JELLY TRUMPET JINGLE
TRAILER
TONY:
Welcome to Jelly Trumpet. The world’s only comedy show about creativity.
Jelly Trumpet makes you more creative with tips, tricks and ideas for expanding your imagination. Especially good for business people wanting to be creative online!
In this episode:
• A checklist for being more creative called ‘The Nine Trumpets of Creativity’, our sixth Trumpet is: ‘Rearrange’.
• Challenge at Home. A creative exercise for you to try at home
• Challenge Jim, where Mr b challenges me with an exercise in creativity
Plus
• A brand-new micro sitcom called ‘The Start up’ with our hero Mary ‘The Entrepreneur’ starring in an episode titled: ‘Pulp Baby, Part 1. Part 2 later.
S/FX: JELLLY TRUMPET JINGLE
9 TRUMPETS OF CREATIVITY
JIM:
This season on Jelly Trumpet we’re talking about the ‘9 Trumpets of Creativity’.
It’s a list of nine different ways of being more creative. In our last episode we talked about the easy joy of substitution.
This episode: Trumpet 6, ‘Rearrange.’
Download the PDF of all ‘9 Trumpets of Creativity’ from the Jelly Trumpet website.
This list of creative tools is rearranged from Osbourne’s Checklist also known as SCAMPER.
It’s a great list but when you want to do your best creatively, you’re going to adapt things so they work best for you.
If you’ve listened to the first season of Jelly Trumpet, you’ll know talked a lot about keeping a journal of how you worked on each creative project. We called the journal ‘Your Medicine’. The idea is you build up your own armoury of ideas, the journal becoming your creative self-coach.
So, here we go with No. 6 in our ‘9 Trumpets of Creativity’.
Rearrange
Like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Always loved that line.
Rearranging is so simple and so much fun.
For example, if you are a writer and you’re writing a screenplay, a stage play a sitcom or a book etc how do you keep track of the different scenes or chapters?
Do you have a massive list in longhand? Or an app on your phone?
I use index cards. I once saw a tv programme that showed a couple of US screenplay writers, they were using post it notes on a wall.
I wanted something more robust so I invested time in working out the plot, the characters, the visuals, music, lines of dialogue using standard sized index cards.
Leaving aside the extras, like a card for visual pictures I think may be entertaining. I have a card for each scene.
I usually workout how many scenes by the time wanted for the piece. Then I write more scenes than necessary.
Using pencil, I write down what happens in each scene on one side. And I mean only what happens. Eg Character A enters a coffee shop. Character A sits down in front of character B. And I keep going, usually I have an ending in mind, which can change because once you have created believable characters the little devils go their own way.
Before you know it, you have the first line of each scene on say 20 cards. Now I add ideas as they come to me on the other side of the cards. I also give each scene a title, which is most likely never used except as a reference in my head.
I used to do all sorts of other notes, like colour coding a score, eg using green for sharp dialogue, red for visuals, blue for music etc. But I have another way of dealing with the score, something we’ll pick up on another episode.
The Takeaway:
Now you have every scene written and you’re very happy, aren’t you? Well, now try this, remove a card. Does the scene before still link to the next without the removed card?
What if you moved the cards around? So, the plots not linear? What if you removed the first three cards? Would the piece make sense? Does entering the action this much later make the piece more dramatic? What if you put your original first card at the very end?
You can have endless insights into your work simply by rearranging.
S/FX: INTERLUDE MUSIC
RIFF 2
S/FX: THE LAPPING OF WAVES ON A SANDY BEACH
JIM:
I suppose we could rearrange your buttons Mr b.
MR B:
And then perhaps rearrange your words. You know, so the podcast lands us back in St Albans in time for the German Grand Prix.
JIM:
Well, well, well…
ELEANOR:
What Mot Homme? Do you know where we are? Is it the new world?
JIM:
Oui, your majesty. I believe we are in the Caribbean.
MR B:
I think not.
JIM:
Why’s that?
S/FX: OBOE PLAYING
ELEANOR:
Nigel, play something silently.
MR B:
I set the podcast to 1150 AD, the dials confirm that, so it was just the Aquitaine part that went wrong.
JIM:
So?
MR B:
Coconuts are not native to the Caribbean. Looking at the wind, feeling the tide on my toes, the height of the sun and that man over there with the wooden leg and tricorne hat, I’d say we’ve landed on Treasure Island.
JIM:
O’. But Treasure Island is set in the 18th century.
MR B:
All I can say Mr Jim is strange things happen in podcasts all the time.
ELEANOR:
All the time! I have a province to run you know, Mot Homme!
JIM:
Sorry, your majesty. We’ll get out of here unless the starter mo…
S/FX: SOUND OF A SPRING TWANGING
MR B:
…motor loses a spring.
JIM:
What’s the matter with Nigel? Look!
MR B:
He’s panting heavily. Heat stroke I suspect. We should put him in some shade and run a cold iron over him.
JIM:
Yes. All that fur. Poor chap, hasn’t enough spit to pucker up for the pink oboe.
MR B:
Pink oboe? O’ I see.
S/FX: MUSIC INDICATING THE PASSING OF TIME
TONY:
Some time later!
JIM:
Where did he go?
MR B:
The man with the wooden leg, the tricorn hat and lobster on his shoulder?
JIM:
O’ it was a lobster! I thought I had heat stroke.
MR B:
Definitely a lobster. Feel sorry for him, he should have a parrot of course.
ELANOR:
I claim this land for France!
JIM:
Very well your majesty.
MR B:
Certainly, your majesty but the thing is we don’t go around claiming another peoples land because we can’t see the people. O’ no, we don’t do that sort of thing anymore.
JIM:
You’re right of course Mr b.
ELEANOR:
But I want it!
S/FX: CANNON FIRE
JIM:
By the way your majesty technically you couldn’t claim the island for France as France didn’t come into being until forty years after we picked you up.
ELELANOR:
I don’t care. I want it.
JIM:
What was that?
MR B:
Shouldn’t you have written that line immediately after the cannon fire?
JIM:
Good point. It won’t happen again. I must get a script editor you know.
MR B:
And I get to press the orange button?
JIM:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Now I suggest we go inland and find that spring.
MR B:
What about that chap with the wooden leg?
JIM:
I’m not sure he’s got a spring. Now, that would be a coincidence
MR B:
I’ve got it! What you need is a script editor.
JIM:
What? Er? I totally agree Mr b. I mean he could put your line earlier, where it makes sense. Only, I believe script editors are overrated. It’s like pouring a nine quid bottle of wine into a Sports Direct mug.
ELEANOR:
Was that a petit ours, a petit âne and a petit tigre?
JIM:
Wait a minute. Your majesty, how did you know about France?
ELEANOR:
I have the Wikipedia app on my iPad.
MR B:
Now she knows everything. We really do need to recover the starter motor spring Jim.
JIM:
I see. The little bear, the little donkey and the little tiger. That’s not Treasure Island is it?
MR B:
With no starter motor spring we’ll be trapped on Treasure Island, with, well…with strange things. Aren’t those three in ‘Winnie the Pooh?’ Strange how some podcasts work out.
JIM:
Strange things happen in podcasts all the time Mr b. This wouldn’t be the first time Mr b. Remember that night in Borehamwood?
MR B:
I’d rather not.
ELEANOR:
What is a Borehamwood? Is it like a real wood, full of ham?
JIM:
Not really, more like an ambush waiting to happen.
MR B:
Focus Jim.
JIM:
I’m focused. [TWO BEATS] What am I focusing on?
MR B:
SPRING JIM!
JIM:
I’d rather not, the knees you kno…O’ yes. Well, do something Mr b!
MR B:
Very well! Tony!
S/FX: BUTTON BEING PRESSED
TONY:
Challenge at home!
CHALLENGE AT HOME
JIM:
The ‘Cut-Up’ method used by David Bowie for one is a wonderful way of rearranging words to find new meaning.
So Mr Bowie would cut out words and lines from newspapers, magazines and even his own diaries.
So, find yourself some nice sharp scissors and things you can cut up. Cut out what appeals to you at first sight. Don’t think too much. Keep cutting till you have a small pile of word on strips.
Now turn them over and read. Next rearrange them. Are they song lyrics? Are they a poem? Perhaps part of a character monologue? Are there keywords you can use to make a difference in a marketing campaign. For an artist what is the visual for say five of these words put together?
Mr Bowie said:
“What I’ve used it for, more than anything else, is igniting anything that might be in my imagination,” … “It can often come up with very interesting attitudes to look into. I tried doing it with diaries and things, and I was finding out amazing things about me and what I’d done and where I was going.”
The Takeaway:
David, bless him, coined the phrase ‘western Tarot’ for this exercise. It is in a way a form of divination. By divination I mean it is not the actual cards that you believe but rather the different viewpoint you gain, and would never have had without this exercise to kick thoughts in a different direction.
Do let us know what you came up with. Email us, jelly@jellytrumpet.com or leave a post on our social feeds.
RIFF 3
S/FX: A WHIRLING SOUND LIKE TANK TRACKS
JIM:
We have to find the starter motor spring Mr b or we could be stuck on Treasure Island forever.
ELEANOR:
Merde!
JIM:
No. That’s sand. Volcanic sand that’s why it’s black. O gawd! Don’t tell me we’ll be running from a volcano about to explode; my knees just won’t take it. Let’s find the starter motor spring, we need that spring!
MR B:
No, we don’t.
JIM:
What?
MR B:
I’ve got a spare spring.
JIM:
Hang on. Let me check the script. [READING] Jim says ‘We need that spring…blah…blah…Mr b says Let’s go that way after the chap with the wooden leg…hang on [READING] Mr b says No. We don’t. I say ‘What? ‘ Mr b says ‘I’ve got a spare spring.’
MR B:
Well, if it’s in the script. I’ll fit the spring and we can get back for the Grand Pr…
JIM:
Wait! That last bit was added by a pen. That’s not my handwriting!
MR B:
[CHANGING THE SUBJECT] Shall we get Nigel and return to the podcast?
JIM:
This simply won’t do Mr b! No. No. No. You can’t go around just writing what you want to happen!
ELEANOR:
Why not? You do.
JIM:
But…but…but I’m the writer!
MR B:
It’s in the script. Let’s go.
JIM:
[TO MR B] We will not. Hang on!
S/FX: FRANTIC TYPING
S/FX: A LOUD THUD
MR B:
Arrragh! My head. You just wrote that didn’t you?
JIM:
Yes. I wrote ‘…a small coconut falls on Mr b’s head. Aha! I have the script and…
ELEANOR:
Merde.
JIM:
For the last time it’s sand!
S/FX: A WHIRLING SOUND LIKE TANK TRACKS
JIM:
[Cont.] What’s that Mr b?
MR B:
I’ve put sand tracks on cMac.
JIM:
Why have you put sand tracks on our coffee machine?
S/FX: SOUND OF COFFEE BEING POURED AND STEAMED MILK
MR B:
Latte on the go Mr Jim
JIM:
Excellent. Thank you Mr b. Great idea. Now what? Hang on! What have you written on the script ‘a coconut falls on Jim’s…
S/FX: A THUD
JIM:
Awwwww! You bas…
MR B:
[CHANGING THE SUBJECT] Time for our micro sitcom, The Startup.
S/FX: THE STARTUP THEME TUNE
THE STARTUP: PULP BABY
PART 1
TONY:
The Start up! A micro sitcom.
Meet Mary ‘The Entrepreneur’ going about creating her online business.
The Scene:
An empty village hall.
This Episode; Mary, ‘The Entrepreneur’ chats with a video director, Alan, about making a video for her new business ‘Babymaker’ a makeup brand for babies.
SCENE 1:
MARY:
What do you think of the space Mr Smithee?
ALAN:
Call me Alan.
MARY:
Alan, what do you think of the space?
ALAN:
Plenty of natural light, spacious. Yeah. I think it’ll work.
MARY:
Now, ‘BabyMaker’ is a brand-new brand.
ALAN:
What’s it do again?
MARY:
‘BabyMaker’ is makeup for babies. You know pretty them up, make them more appealing…less grubby.
ALAN:
O’ right. Cool.
MARY:
Have you filmed many videos?
ALAN:
This will be my three hundred and eighth.
MARY:
And how many have been broadcast?
ALAN:
Two.
MARY:
I see ‘BabyMaker’ as a brand that is edgy, a bit punk, a bit sophisticated, cool, market defining, cheerful, and natural…You know a bit like Elizabeth Arden meets Rage Against the Machine.
ALAN:
[USING HIS FINGERS TO CREATE A FRAME] I see a robbery.
MARY:
What?
ALAN:
A pair of gangsters, a man and a woman enter the nursery. The woman leaps on the table. She shouts ‘This is a robbery, any of you motherfuc…
MARY:
No swearing!
ALAN:
OK. We’ll use a…other words, erm friendly, happy words.
MARY:
The brand is all about babies remember?
ALAN:
How about the word Labrador?
MARY:
Perfect!
THE START UP: PULP BABY
END OF PART 1
S/FX: THE STARTUP THEME TUNE
TONY:
Part 2 of the Startup later!
CREATIVE RITUALS
TONY:
Creative Rituals!
JIM:
In season 2 we’re highlighting a book called ‘Daily Rituals’ by Mason Currey. It’s full of short essays about the rituals creative people have used in their lives.
Patricia Highsmith, the writer of such books as ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ had a very particular way of arranging her writing sessions.
This is how her biographer Andrew Wilson describes it.
‘Her favourite technique to ease herself into the right frame of mind for work was to sit on her bed surrounded by cigarettes, ashtray, matches, a mug of coffee, a doughnut and an accompanying saucer of sugar. She had to avoid any sense of discipline and make the act of writing as pleasurable as possible. Her position, she noted, would be almost fetal and, indeed, her intention was to create, she said, “a womb of her own.”
The Takeaway
What to do you take away from that? The doughnut, with an extra helping of sugar? Making the creative act as pleasurable as possible? Quite a contrast from the early morning self-discipline of Antony Trollop we talked about in the last episode.
Some of us will martyr ourselves to create, while others, that includes me, work on the pleasure…
S/FX: COMING UP JINGLE/MUSIC
COMING UP
TONY:
Coming up!
• Interview Countdown
• Challenge Jim, Mr b will issue me a challenge
• And List of the week
Sponsored by Conversion Detectives, the really creative digital marketing agency. Search Conversion Detectives.
RIFF 4
S/FX: JUNGLE ANIMAL NOISES
MR B:
Now Mr Jim?
JIM:
If you mean pressing that orange button then no.
S/FX: WHIRRING OF TANK TRACKS
ELEANOR:
Est-ce que tu vas bien Nigel?
MR B:
I think he’s coming around.
ELEANOR:
It was a good idea to let him ride cMac.
MR B:
We couldn’t leave him on the shore. Did you see the size of those crabs?
ELEANOR:
Géantes.
MR B:
Jim…where are we going? I have a spare spring you know, tucked behind the big settee in the Jelly Trumpet studio.
JIM:
Aren’t you curious? A man with a wooden leg, a lobster on his shoulder, wearing a tricorn hat. Not to mention a small bear, a donkey and a miniature tiger.
MR B:
No.
ELEANOR:
Why not?
MR B:
Because of that tall girl in the red riding hood walking over there holding a large axe.
ELEANOR:
I see her. The axe glints in the sun. An executioner perhaps?
JIM:
The script! I’ve lost the script Mr b!
MR B:
O’. Not again? That means we have no idea how to deal with a potential axe attack.
ELEANOR:
Think of something Jim!
S/FX: SOUND OF OBOE BEING PLAYED
JIM:
RIGHT! Well…let me think…not a bad plot development. Bit like Raymond Chandler, when in doubt have a blond with a gun come through the door…Perhaps, we could. That’s it. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
S/FX: SOUND OF RUNNING ON A ROAD
TONY:
Who is the man in the tri corner hat? Is the lobster dangerous? Why are characters from children’s stories running around Treasure island and will Mr b get to press his orange button?
Listen to Jelly Trumpet Episode 6, Part II to find out.
S/FX: TUMBLEWEED BEING BLOWN ACROSS A DESERT LANDSCAPE
END OF PART I