Treatment for Johnson's Jewelry

This is a treatment I wrote for a web series.  I wanted to post it on here to get some feedback on it.  Thanks!

Johnson’s Jewelry

Tyler Chadwick

TREATMENT OCTOBER 16^TH, 2012

OVERVIEW:

“Johnson’s Jewelry” is a lighthearted family sitcom web series that follows the Johnson Family as they try to run a family jewelry store with little knowledge of the jewelry business besides the mothers experience in making craft jewelry.  The family experiences many humorous trials and tribulations while trying to start up and operate a successful business while dealing with stiff competition from the other jewelry store in town.  Throughout their journey, they learn about each other through missteps they make in their business and hijinks they pull on their local competitor.  While there are serious undertones in this series that deal with the bad economy, being without a job, trying to find a career, and support your family, Johnson’s Jewelry follows a dysfunctional, yet loving family’s journey to create their own family business and legacy.

CHARACTER SET-UP:

The story follows 45 year old, John Johnson and his family: his wife Jill (42), his older son John Jr. (20), and his younger daughter Jessica (16).  John is a failed Computer salesman of 20 years and was recently fired from his job.  He is a smart man but lacks social awareness and common sense.  His wife Jill, a pushover stay at home mom who loves jewelry and crafts, convinces John to use their retirement and savings fund to open a jewelry store.  John decides that it’s a good idea and he can apply his computer sales experience to computer.  His son Jr., as they call him, is a college dropout and plays in a crappy garage band.  His daughter Jessica is the smart and successful one in the family, sometimes to smart for her own good.  She is a start athlete in volleyball and a scholar with high ambitious but is arrogant sometimes and is a narcissist.  The family fights a lot, always more playful than serious, but are considered the protagonists in the story.  Some episodes will find certain family members as the antagonists but that wont last more than an episode at a time because there is never any real tension.

The true antagonist of the story is Bobby O’Brian of the Jewelry Palace.  Bobby has a pompous, egotistical, and narcissistic way about him and refers to himself as the Jewelry King.  He is well known for his annoying commercials that air on Television and Radio.  Up until the Johnson’s start their jewelry business, Bobby had the only jewelry shop in town and now the Johnson’s are in direct competition with his “empire”.  He makes many trips to the Johnson’s shop to provoke the Johnsons, trying to ruin their business and always trying to shut the Johnson’s business down.  As a family, the Johnson’s decide to constantly prank the “Jewelry King” as they become rival businesses, always creating trouble with each other to see who has the better jewelry store.  Jr. usually leads these pranking attempts while Jessica has to be corralled over time to join in with the family’s activities. 

This will all take place in Lancaster, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia, PA, and Harrisburg, PA.  Lancaster is a fairly metropolitan, yet suburban town that is famous for it’s Amish people, which will add to some of the humor in the web series.  We meet this family just as John is getting fired from his Computer Salesman job.

STORY:

The story starts on a medium shot of John Johnson and you hear the words in the background, “You will never work in the computer business again.  You have disgraced this company for the last time. You are fired!”  This is the audience’s first look at John, painting him as a failed computer salesman and by his overexpressed emotions from the few shots in the beginning, he is already being painted as a goofy guy who hasn’t succeeded at much in his life; always getting new, well paying jobs, and then somehow screwing them up. 

The next scene is John arriving at his typical average American home to his wife and two children, who are going about their everyday business.   While Jill cooks, Jessica and Jr. are in the midst of a heated argument and from it, you get the sense that this is a daily thing.  John then breaks the news to his family about losing, yet another job.  Both of his children just kind of sigh and walk away because they have seen their father fail many times before.  Jill tries to console John by telling him that he can find another job like he has before but John seems fairly distraught.

This fades out and then fades back in to an overhead shot of John and Jill in bed with the lights off showing that they both are close to finding sleep.  But then, Jill turns to John saying that she has an idea.  John, half asleep, agrees to hear her idea out but it is apparent that he is much more concerned with falling asleep.  Jill begins to talk about all of the crafts that she does and all of this new jewelry that she’s been making, mainly out of necessity because they don’t have the money to buy the extremely expensive Jewelry Palace downtown.  She tells John how all of her friends love her jewelry and wish that there was a place in town that sold more inexpensive, nice jewelry.  She then pitches the idea to John and in his stupor, he agrees that it would be a good idea. 

When he awakes to an empty bed the following morning, he stumbles into the kitchen to see books, papers, charts, posters, everywhere throughout the kitchen and living room with Jill sitting at the center of it all writing furiously on a piece of note paper.  When she looks up to see John’s astonished face, she tells him that she’s been working all night and morning on a business plan and idea and she’s already found a place that they could buy to put the business in, and all they would need to do is get a loan from the bank.  John, tries to calmly talk with his wife about how he was asleep last night and thinks he should try and find another job.  Jill clearly becomes distraught, and with a few tears, John gives in and says that he will read through her material and look at the building with her. 

They cut to a scene of them looking at an extremely crappy old gas station store that has hundreds of rodents living in it, chipping paint, caved in ceiling tiles, dirt everywhere, and many other things that are aesthetically pleasing about it.  Throughout the walkthrough with the realtor, Jill tries to put an overwhelmingly positive spin on everything, even though it is clearly a mess.  After all is said and done, they go ask the bank for alone to start the business which ensues into another funny scene of them begging the bank and entering into a back and forth negotiation with multiple people at the bank before they prevail. 

The first episode ends with them getting the keys to the place and bringing their kids with them to unlock it.  The kids have not visited the place yet so when the parents open up the doors and let them inside, the kids freak out.  The last shot will be a tight medium shot on both of the kids’ faces, clearly astonished that their parents would do something so stupid. 

In the following episodes, the family cleans up the jewelry store, starts compiling an inventory of jewelry, and meets the Jewelry King of the Jewelry Palace who is very upset that they have ruined his empire over the Lancaster Jewelry market.   In the episodes to follow, he will begin to do things to try and ruin the Johnson’s plans: everything from delaying shipments, planting mice in their store, and paying people to try and sell the Johnson’s fake gold and jewelry.  The Johnson’s will fire back, with pranks led by Jr. that are meant to get even with Bobby O’Brian, the Jewelry King.  

Copyright Tyler Chadwick October 16th, 2012