A couple of doofuses steal the sex tape and then try to blackmail the couple into buying it back. During the exchange things go wrong and Doofus 1 is killed. But Doofus 2 filmed it, and now he wants even more money for this tape. The wife seduces Doofus 2 and they have rough kinky sex, but the husband is filming it and on the video it looks like rape ... this could go on forever.

mood
Moody Writing
@mooderino

Well it seems obvious but

It would have to be in some area where perception or your persona matters.

Say politics.

A promising young politician...etc. I think that kind of writes itself.

Or education.

The sex tape is a MacGuffin. This is just the age-old story of one group of people who have to get to something before another group does. Examples: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World;Jingle All the Way - just off the top of my head; sure there are a zillion more. So the script is as good as the various comic set-ups along the way. If they're fresh or funny or outrageous, good. If they're tired or predictable, not good.

IIRC there was an episode of MAD ABOUT YOU that had the same plot.

Spy thriller:

Two spies lose a sex tape, but it's not the sex they're worried about people seeing, it's something much bigger and much more dangerous to their country and their lives that has found its way into the money shot.

James Bond 24

I'd go with --

Despite the couples best efforts, the tape leaked (end of Act One) and now there is a demand for them to produce MORE sex tapes.

To me, the recovering the tape itself seems to be very low stakes. However, becoming the porn stars next door, what that means to their children (if they have any), the community, the PTA, their job, their future...

...just seems like there's a lot more ways to go with it to create conflict, both positive and negative.

I could also see the story working if the sex act was something incredibly taboo. Like if it leaked, people would be instantly disgusted.

But that seems risky, as you risk alienating your audience who doesn't want to see man on donkey on monkey sweet love making action.

It's also subject to a matter of opinion, which is risky as well.

I like both James's idea of the couple becoming secret porn stars. If they really need the money to keep up their suburban lifestyle, it has a Dick and Jane feel. Also like Gary's idea of something else being in the tape being what's really important. What immediately popped into my mind is the couple is the President and First Lady, similar to CD's idea of the up and coming politician. What I like about them being the Pres and First Lady is it shows how pols are people, too, and their sex lives can get boring and need spicing up, just like everyone else. (Hello, timely!)

James, those ideas are hilarious haha

As I read these side-splitting responses to Scott's challenge (good heavens Scott, this is the closest GITS has come to a NC-17 rating!), it dawns on me that, basically, Kevin Smith covered this same ground rather nicely in his underrated "Zack and Miri Make a Porno."

For me? I like genre mashups. Thus, I'd set it 100 years into the future and it's not a sex tape, it's a sex HOLOGRAM! The quirk is that the guy taped himself during a secret extramarital affair and now, to save his marriage, must download himself into the "net" (a la TRON) and seek out the file, lost somewhere in the "clouds." ("clouds" being this hot new web-based storage stuff that seems to be getting all the ink these days...)

And that's what I would do. "The End of the Affair" as written by William Gibson?

Sheesh. No wonder my queries go unanswered!

Okay, some good brainstorming. In fact, I think there's yet another post worth doing - about MacGuffins. To wit: All MacGuffins are not the same. Look for that in the next day or two.

I'm also on the lookout for the spec script "Sex Tape" by Angelo to see what she did with the plot.

This brainstorming exercise is not just for fun. As a screenwriter, you have to be able to think like this. Take a simple conceit and develop a plot worthy of and big enough for a movie.

My initial thought was that it's from a community that is very puritanical...Therefore, what if it was an Amish couple that found a camera - and naturally what do all people do with new things they're unfamiliar with? Try and kill it or have sex with it... So, obviously them making this tape, would cause a huge scandal - and possibly have them ostracized.

The other thought was that the tape does indeed get out, and while they both are able to cope with the embarrassment, one of them feels that perhaps this is their calling. While the other feels they're losing their connection over this mistake. Sort of like INDECENT PROPOSAL meets BOOGIE NIGHTS kind of thing...

(Hi, I'm John btw, long time reader, first time poster.)

The couple's marriage is falling apart, but then their sex tape leaks and they become stars on the internet! :) It turns out to be positive until it starts going wrong, they can't walk down the street without being called names, their marriage is back on the rocks when their celebrity status runs out of steam.

I think I'd write it as a drama, but it could also be a comedy. Perhaps my idea is not genre specific so it would be a difficult sell.

This would be my approach to making sure the premise is big enough for a feature:

1. Make the couple have a relatable problem where, after other attempts at remedies, the sex tape is the last resort. And of course reasonable stakes for the tape being discovered. (Act 1)

2. Include a mystery about what's on the tape. Maybe the couple get black out drunk to get up their nerve. They don't remember what they recorded. (Something a la The Hangover.)

3. Act 2 is the fun and games of tracking down the tape, as well as the "idea" of the sex tape and its mysterious content revealing character and creating obstacles.

4. Have a reveal in Act 3. Either something unexpected on the tape (bad pitch: there's no sex on the tape), or something interesting the couple does after they get the tape back.

One thing's for sure: Focus on the couple, not the sex tape.

Leave the media out of it. It is too easily the thing they want to avoid, and really sex tapes are so common nowadays that unless you are a celeb to begin with nobody cares. Google X-tube if you don't believe me.

This is probably more in the vein of Date Night than Weeds or anything remotely serious. Maybe the couple has a high standing in a religious community (Mormons or Christian fundamentalists) that is under threat by a newcomer but as long as they are too straight-laced to take this in stride you have comic potential. Also, you could work a mystery angle on it where all the possible suspects seem too innocent to do such a thing at first and then the darker side comes out as the couple snoops about. The parlour scene could be very funny.

More good brainstorming. Each of the comments represent a fork-in-the-road, and that is at its most basic level the essence of writing. We have all these choices. You go down one path, it opens up opportunities, but also shuts others down (those that would have been available if you had chosen the other path.

For example: Media frenzy or not? That is a huge fork-in-the-road on multiple levels. Consider if The Hangover had taken the media frenzy route. What would that movie had become?

Feels like the basis of another post...

I would make it about the couple. The sex tape is merely a catalyst to rediscovering their love for one another, but over the course of a very long weekend. Naturally, hilarity ensues (underground neighborhood kinky sex ring, black market amateur videos, whatever).

Third Act twist: there is NO sex tape!! (programmed the VCR incorrectly or thought there was a tape, etc...)

The way I think I would go with it is to make the wife the identical twin sister of someone famous and important. Say, the wife of the president of the United States. That would sure juice up the stakes!

I also really like Moody's twist of someone dying in the trade-off, and a new tape being created.

Well, thanks to some bright folk at MIT, I got a title "Cambridge Crude," ostensibly about a sex tape, but really about a revolutionary new semi-solid lithium battery. Couple loses drive with recording of first success, to keep it under wraps, must convince folks it's a sex tape. Hi-jinks ensue, escalation occurs, by Act 3 foes know damn well it isn't a sex tape. When audience learns it's not a sex tape, the nature of escalation and conflict, nature of couple's relationship (married? grad students in lab? partners in new engineering start-up? Boston-prim demeanor? politically connected family?), all tbd.