So, here's my response to my challenge. It is a small snippet from the "CJDL Storyverse", happening at some point between the current "Dianne needs braces" story, and when they all go on the 3-month European tour with Northern Girls.
Written in one sitting, yes, I'm sure the story could have been better developed, but who cares. And I have a couple of potential ideas from it for the ongoing CJDL story threads...
According to Word, it's 1500 to 1600 words long. I thought about extending it, but I'm happy the way it is!
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Part 1
"Sorry to interrupt, can you ladies spare me a few minutes?". Brian and Paige had just walked into the music room at 'the house', where Jenny, Carol, Dianne and Linda were working together on a new song. Callum was also there
"Sure..." replied Jenny. The five of them joined Brian, and they sat together on the sofas.
"So, been talking to an agent who was wondering if you'd like to do an advert?" explained Brian. The band had never done anything related to adverts before: they had rather shied away from it, not wanting to associated with one of the big brands, lest it come back to bite them. However, more recently they had been discussion the concept, realising that, at the current point in their careers, it could be very lucrative.
"What for?" asked Carol, "let me guess, perfume?"
Brian smiled. "Nowhere near!".
"Ok, lipstick then?"
"No..." replied Paige. "You'll never guess this one...."
"Go on then..."
"Breakfast cereals..." replied Brian. The girls burst out laughing.
"You're joking?"
"Nope, deadly serious."
"What we talking about then? 'Special J'?" suggested Linda, smiling, and showing off her relatively new metal braces, still sporting the original pink ligatures.
"Well, right brand, but they are about to release a new range of ultra-healthy and natural cereals, and would like you to 'be the faces' for the new products."
"Well, if it's them, they should be able to afford us at least!"
Part 2
"So, we were looking at you doing a total of four different adverts, in 4 different situations, eating the 4 different cereal varieties." explained the lady from the ad agency. The 4 girls, along with Brian, had agreed in principle to doing the adverts: the amount being offered made it worth their while, and they had already had a chat with the 'product development team' to understand exactly what these new versions of the products were, and it appeared that it was all quite legit. So today they had come to meet the advert agency, to talk details.
The lady explained the 4 scenarios they had come up with, where the four girls would be eating the cereals: one in a hotel restaurant, one in a hotel bedroom, one in the tour bus, and one 'at the venue', plus gave them a few details of the content of the adverts. "Of course, when you're recording the adverts, I'm sure you'll have a few little things you may wish to add in...".
"You realise that, if you have us eating cereals, we're going to get them stuck in our braces?"
"Yes, absolutely. We were rather counting on that!"
Having chatted about what was expected of them, they all agreed they were happy to proceed, and sign the contract.
"Ok," said Jenny, "if you can afford to pay us for this, I'm assuming there must be some more marketing budget around that's available for further ideas?"
"Sounds like Jenny has an idea that might be good for us all..." added Brian. "So?". he looked over at the guys from the advertising agency.
"Yes, we are always interested in ideas," replied the lady's boss. "And if the ideas are good enough, we might be able to persuade the customer to create some more budget. What are you thinking of?"
"Product placement...."
"Product placement? In what way?"
"In the middle of our first concert at the O2. If we think carefully, we could do something that could not only be fun for us and our audience, but we'll be filming it... edit it overnight, get the advert out for breakfast TV the following morning...." explained Jenny.
"Do go on...."
"I don't know. Maybe Northern Girls finish a song, we 4 walk on with a table, with dishes and cereals on it..." There were a lot of smiles around the table.
"Yes, a VERY interesting idea.... I think we definitely need to look into that further, and I'm sure the customer could be persuaded..."
They chatted a bit more.
"Ok, if we're thinking silly ideas, can I also make a suggestion?" asked Linda. "Something I was kinda thinking of on the way here."
"Sure, go on...." replied the agency man.
"Ok, let me play you this first....". Linda got out her phone, and searched You Tube. "Ok, this is a Japanese band called Baby Metal....". She started the song, and played it for about 30 seconds. "That's called 'Gimme Chocolate'. So, let's change it to 'Gimme Cereals'!"
"Nice idea... but it's a bit generic...."
"Ah, not finished yet. Remember a song from back in the 1970's I think it was called 'I'd like to teach the world to sing'...".
"Ah, right, yes..." he replied, remembering the advert. "... the Coke advert... yes, I see...." he had a big smile on his face.
"We'll need clearance from Baby Metal to do it, but I'm sure they'll be ok. And we're gonna need Northern Girls to help: they play it, while we sing and dance" added Linda.
"Linda, that is brilliant!" said Carol, "and even if these guys aren't interested, I'd LOVE to do something like that!"
Part 3
Day 1 of filming started in a function room at a hotel, that was playing the part of being the breakfast room. There were several extras sat around, pretending to also have breakfast (even Brian, Paige and Ben were sat at one of the tables!). The four girls walk in.
"So, I fancy some cereals, what they got. I hope they have something better than just cornflakes or those tasteless wheat things..." says Jenny.
"Hmm, what's these?" asked Carol.
"Says 'Natural' and 'Healthy' and even 'Ethical' on the box!" replied Dianne.
"Can't taste any good then...." replied Jenny.
"Come on, Jenny, we could at least give them a try..." suggests Linda.
Camera shows them pouring out cereals into dishes (six retakes), sitting at their table, pouring milk over the cereals (ten retakes of that, 'just to get it right'!), eating the cereals. Suitable 'yummy' comments, and four smiles in closeup. Smiles with braces, pink ligatures, and lots of cereals stuck in them!
The reality of it was that, with several retakes and versions needing to be filmed, the girls couldn't actually EAT all the cereals. Instead, they had several buckets nearby, where they could just spit the cereals out, without swallowing!
The second advert was set in a large bedroom: the hotel had a large room with two double beds. The scenario was simple: as you'd expect, when on tour, CJDL sleep together, sharing two double beds (as if!!!). The alarm goes off, duvets are pulled back to reveal Carol, Jenny, Dianne and Linda in pyjamas. They all jump out of bed (as one does, when waking up!!!) One of the girls gets the tray of breakfast from outside the door.
"Oh, what's this then?" asks Dianne picking up the box of cereals, and the script follows a similar story to the first advert, although this time ends up with one of the girls in the bathroom, brushing the cereals from her teeth. As well as the 'serious' takes, they did a load of silly ones, throwing the cereals around and that sort of stuff. Stuff that was fun, but would be fairly easy to clear up later on.
The third advert was filmed on the morning of the next day, in a meeting room that was set up to look like a 'green room' backstage at a venue.
"This is NOTHING like what we have when we're on tour! I mean, where's all the beer?" joked Carol. (The real joke was that, whilst there always WAS beer, they didn't actually drink it all that much, they usually took it out for the road crew!).
The scenario was similar to the first two scenarios: "Where's the cereals we're supposed to have?" asks Dianne. Linda points out the new products, they eat it, yummy yummy, and inevitably ending up with cereal filled braces. And again, they had a bit of fun afterwards, making a bit of a mess, but the video's producer was canny enough to know that such 'out-takes' could be very useful.
The last advert was set on a tour bus: they had managed to rent a bona-fide tour bus, and had suitably kitted it out. There were a couple of acoustic guitars and tambourines around, some stage outfits thrown around in suitable places, to make it look vaguely believable. It had been arranged that the bus would go up and down a fairly long piece of quiet dual carriageway, so that there would be nice scenery in the background, and the bus would be a little bumpy too, all trying to make it realistic.
The camera starts at the front of the bus, where a handful of extras are pretending to be asleep in the seats, and goes along to the back.
Linda pulls back the curtain that's in front of her bed, and gets out, still in her pyjamas. She goes to the back of the bus, where Carol and Dianne are standing, eating bowls of cereals. Linda sees three boxes of cereals... but there's a gap where the fourth one should be: there's one missing.
"Ok, where's the Honey & Nut Cornflakes gone?" she asks. The other two feign ignorance. "Come one, where is it, you know I ALWAYS have the Honey & Nut Cornflakes for breakfast!"
"Last I saw them was when Jenny came up, about five minutes ago..." replied Carol.
"Jenny.... where ARE you? JENNY!!!". Camera goes back to the girl's beds, and Linda pulls back the curtain of Jenny's bed, to reveal.... Jenny sat in bed, three boxes of Honey & Nut Cornflakes in front of her, and eating them straight from the packet. Jenny smiles, revealing her lovely metal braces, with the pink ligatures obscured by lots of cereals.
The customer was very happy with the four adverts. Not only that, they also liked BOTH of the other ideas, but as for what went on with those... well, they are two OTHER stories.