The Future Quiz by Chris Beadnell - Short, Mystery - Three strangers have a chance to win one million dollars each if they can correctly answer just one question. Their future depends on it. - pdf, format

*Spoilers*

The time travel concept was interesting, but its only purpose was to prove the validity of Happenstance rather than serve as the crux to the three contestants. Their fates should be tied to the questions. Bonus points if it all links to the 70s. Also, their deaths only verify Happenstance was telling the truth. It's a loose-end situation.

Formatting is cluttered, slugs are inconsistent. The "letters of payment" were clear, though I don't really think they'd translate well onto film, maybe Happenstance can speak the rules himself.

This had a "Would You Rather" vibe going on. Brett and Sven seemed to give up too soon. Karate moves were funny to me, I thought of Mac from "Always Sunny". I would dig this entry more if the Future Quiz synchronized with the players, not the host. Not bad.

I get what you were trying to do here, but logically, I don't buy the story. I thought the contestants reactions were over the top. Why get so mad and why crying? It seemed to me that none of them even tried to answer the questions. Questions which btw, didn't seem that bizarre. iChip is definitely something I would have tried to guess something for.

I also didn't really get what Happenstance got out of all this. Maybe it's just too early in the morning here.

The writing could use another go over.

Decent idea, but IMHO, motives need to be more clear by all characters.

Logline is interesting enough here.

But what is Future Quiz? Is that a board game? I've never heard of that one but I'm not a huge game fan.

I am a bit confused because they go there for a chance to win a million but then they think the man is a psycho killer? It isn't clear to me how they go from point A to point B.

On page 8 you have Sven storming down a hallway under a slug that says EXT DRIVEWAY. May need another INT slug there or something.

I didn't like Happenstance really nor any of the characters. I love the concept though. Maybe you could focus on one of the characters that really needed the money so we care and want them to win....

Love how you incorporated the Apple stuff and Facebook Good job.

Violates a main rule of this OWC -- the game can't be one you made up.

Plus, klutzy formatting/pacing/characterization kept me from enjoying the premise.

Quoted from Stumpzian Violates a main rule of this OWC -- the game can't be one you made up.

I thought the same at first, but maybe it's in bounds because it's a quiz. Still too early to tell, but I think we'll see more entries that reimagine different games.

Writer,

Not a bad job here. As Johnny mentioned, perhaps a violation of the rules but maybe not that big of a deal. My main issue here is, while the story is told well, then ending kinda leaves more to be desired. Am I to believe that the three participants in the quiz died in the landslide? Maybe that's not what you were going for. I'm not sure and that's my problem. A nice effort, but just not for me.

Steve

Don't recall ever playing this on a Friday night


Dam security! He linked to her Bank account !

Don't know why 'Later' is all the way to the right.

Sven shrugs his shoulders.... Sven shrugs.   keep it simple

We never got to see Penny's answer... It all seemed kind of pointless and who would Happenstance be? Does he work for apple?

Sorry this was little confusing,  but great job on entering the OWC

I loved this one! Very interesting, and I was totally into it the whole way through. I do have a couple of notes though.

On page 2 you say they are in a discussion. Instead of saying that, give them a couple of lines.

I wished I had seen their answers to the questions. Also, it seems surprising that neither one said the Apple store for the second question, which would have been a correct answer, according to the rules.

I also wish that we knew why each of these people decided to participate. Most people would be very cautious and stay away.

A DQ for me - it is a made up game.

Haven't read it, but I think perhaps calling it 20 Questions or something may have qualified it.

The game has to be a real game. Even I-Spy would count as far as I understood the rules. It has to be a game we all recognise, or, in the case of an obscure game, one that shows up on a web search.

I'll come back to this one later.

My thoughts are just mine own. disregard as needed.

The formatting looks er, a little quirky in places, different formats for slugs, some indented etc... and do we really need so much BOLD?

I think the reaction of Brett and Sven to the slide is a little OTT, yes it's a little weird to ask about the future, but they all replied to an anonymous email, jumping up, karate poses etc, didn;t buy it.

I think Sven and Penny would have both got iChip right and should have $1m each

Sorry this one didn't really work for me.

good idea and I think you should play with it some more.

the question I developped rather early as soon as I started reading it - what's in it for Happenstance. And I can't see why he would do it as I reached the end of it.

The main character seems to be Happenstance. At the same time he's not your main character as I don't see any motivations behind his actions. In fact, I don't know much about your characters. I think you should add some drama to it and make it whole. Connect a person's life to something happening in the future. Right now it's light on the story for me, it's a good idea though worth exploring.

Agreed, DQ due to the rule that the game has to exist before the contest,

That aside, borrows the premise from Would You Rather.

The formatting is hit and miss.
The audience has to read the email off a computer screen?  Might be better to use VO.
Happenstance assures their safety, then they all die in a landslide?  Did Happenstance cause this and how?
Then you include the flashback from 1980 with Happenstance at the same age.  Is he Satan?

Didn't care for any of the contestants.  Didn't feel you gave us any sympathetic characters.

Conceptually, I think this is okay. Didn't much care for the characters. Furthermore, the execution didn't work for me.  The potential here is what kept me in the game. I wish we could have seen the answers given by the contestants. Especially Penny's answer to Galaxius.
One thought: this could have been set as a comedy of klutzes n 1980. I would love to see how they define Facebook and the iPad. Well, maybe love is too strong a word.

Maybe you can reshuffle the story and let the 3 yokels work as a team to get the right answer. That would centralize the conflict some and give us a clue how these people think.
Another thing that crossed my mind was that these contestants are from the near future, and have already been implanted with the iChip. Apple can be big brother. We can see how the iChip crashed and burned. But that's going out there.
Good try, but by story's end, the wheels fell off and felt buried under a landslide of WTFs.

Future quiz

I'll cut to the chase, this doesn't work, as written....but there is something here. Really is.

The challenge as I see it, is to make a meaningful link between those in the current day and what they can guess etc

If someone can time travel why do they need those in the present? If they can't travel, how do they know the terms?

But what if some once can see glimpses of the future and what they need is the other side, the other yang to their yin,  that sees the other half of the glimpse. Are they out there? Actually, a rather good idea.

If you can get a good idea out if an OWC, what else do you want?

All the best

I think it's a terrific premise for a story. I did find Happenstance's dialogue a little tedious after a while but having said that there is clear and different dialogue for all characters, so that's a good thing, and he's meant to be an objectionable kind of character to, so...

Did you misunderstand the OWC brief? You'd get points definitely it was a game we had to create. Sadly that wasn't it.

Overall, it's enjoyable but one thing I didn't get was Happenstance's motivation. Was he just a nut case getting off on manipulating people? I looked back to see if this is listed as SciFi which might explain the mysterious deaths of the unsuccessful contestants but the genre is Mystery.

Hmm, you should consider developing this as it's a good idea, and on screen it would work well.

I did think I had the writer of this one pegged, but now I'm not so sure.

P.S. I forgot to add: What is the significance of April 16??
September 11 is obvious.
Seems I'd get the chop for not knowing.

Yeah, sorry but it didn't work for me either.

It was semi-clever.  Were they behind the fatality or was that "happenstance"  (see what I did there)??

It was hard to read, hard to follow, and the characters weren't interesting...

sorry

And I don't know the game at all.
4/10 (low score for the lack of a game, the reason for the OWC)...

A lot of issues going on here, including scene headings that are really messed up.

Aside from the things others have mentioned, the start of the script is a massive problem for me. Having just an email on screen is like the least visual and interesting way you can present the information. Even having the character read it would be better, although best of all would be to cut this altogether. There's enough explanation at the house that it just makes the opening scene redundant.

Too many unanswered questions here and just strains credibility. Sorry, but this didn't work for me.

Clayhorn,

On the first page, the slug tells us we're in a driveway, then looking out a windscreen? Think you missed a slug.

2nd page.. Flamboyant bow should be an action.

This is a pretty decent concept. Could definitely be trimmed and could do with a tidying up, but it kept me reading as I wanted to see what the hell was going on. Ultimately, I'm still left with a few questions that I feel should and could have been answered.

Decent.

Glenn

The story itself was promising. There's a great little thriller/mystery in this story, but the execution is spotty.

On the first page alone, you forget to FADE IN, and the slugs were awkward throughout, about as awkward as rap on a country radio station.

I don't know whether you made the game up, but my guess was that it was a variation of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, 20 Questions, Would You Rather, and/or the MASH/fortune-teller/origami game.



Any of which would have qualified. I'm not really sure this Future Game qualifies, but I forgive you.

The characters could be fleshed out more. There's a right way (The Hunger Games) and a wrong way (Halloween: Resurrection) to approach these types of stories with a large group of characters. It's like they're forgettable characters in some run-of-the-mill horror movie that no one will remember in five years.

7/10

Hmmm... Love, the ending - and I think this one's got the bones and structure to be a darned fun script when it's rewritten.  You can tell that the writer knocked this one out pretty darned fast.

It does feel like it drags on - and can use both tightening and a gloss on punctuation.  But... once it's put through the re-write wringer, it could be a quirky Twilight Zone-esque slam dunk.  (Does it count as family game night?  Not really.)

A few typo notes:

p. 2 - 28 female? Awkward
P 2  - 'are in discussion' -  too passive a description
p. 2 – hair as slick as his personality. Really good line!
P 4 a EXTRA SPACE silver remote

Cheers!

--J (W)

Some notes.

I don't see why you go through the whole first scene.  Have them arrive and keep the audience in a bit of suspense.

And What does the contract stipulation mean?  They won't see the changes because they will die?  HOw will Mr. Happenstance make that happen?  What is in it for him?  

And how would anyone have a clue as to what the future holds?  It's a bad idea.  Might work, though, if one of the participants actually wins the contest, and the prize is...he becomes Mr. Happenstance who is only too glad to drop this gig after a century or two.  

You can explore some different outcomes and make this one more enjoyable.

Best
Richard

The Future Quiz

This reads like a 11p joke with a missing punch line.

I liked the concept and journey, but logical coherence and the fun, I was expecting because of your overall effective build-up, wasn't just  there in ending and resolution. I liked first and second act pretty much; the third was a complete miss from my sight.

C

Thanks for the reads and comments on this one. I take on board the formatting issues and thin plot development and confusing, uninspired ending. I probably did stretch the validity of the Game Night theme, I just thought that a quiz is real thing, not made up,... and the rest of the fanciful stuff appeared.

For me Happenstance was outer worldly, perhaps the devil (I had a wink to that with the $66.24 retainer to the possible contestants.. 6, 6, 2+4). Gets his kicks every 35 years in playing the Future Quiz.

The turn in the script was the questions... 3 questions which today mean nothing but could perhaps be guessable. But Happenstance, maybe immortal, was in the same spot 35 years ago doing the same thing... And those questions are completely obvious to us now. It wasn't time travel, and perhaps I should have written flashback for the scenes in 1980. I made the old man a winner on that night, he's now recruited by HS.

I did write scenes of the questions being attempted but in the end they didn't seem to matter to the story. And they were bring the page count up. No-one in 2015 got a question right so I just cut to when they leave the house.

There was some great feedback received from you guys with this and I will do a re write as it seems there was some positives identified.

Thanks again. I have learnt so much in such a short time.

Not a bad script at all, mate. With a bit of a tidy up and if you clarify a thing or two I'll definitely read again and give my thoughts. That is, of course, if you want to further develop this one.