May The Best Man Win by Jake Fallon - Short, Action - Sometimes the best man wins in more ways than one. 8 pages - pdf, format

Good job entering the OWC. While I did have some early (and quick) frowns at ALL NIGHTER BAR - NIGHT (and one slug that follows is ALL NIGHTER -NIGHT) and the names John, Jason and Janet Jerry and a fella named Sam Jenkins ...see where I'm going with this? (maybe last names would suffice?)- and then there's forgetting to turn off the continueds as headers/footers.

sp errors "Maine" "hoarse"

Overall, it's short and sweet little bar room drunken scuffle over a woman, although an unfilmmable happens ("The fight may have been worth it!") - for a little action with a little character in a OWC it's not bad. But way to many Js.

The ending would have more of a punchline if "Janet" was...well, you remember that Tone Loc song Funky Cold Medina? "You must be sure. That your girl is pure. For the Funky Cold Medina"

Yes. It's just a suggestion.
And it's late, I have a dirty brain.

What's with all the J's?  Kinda confusing.

Plenty of typos.  Maybe written at the last second?

This honestly didn't do much for me. Couple guys hit on a hot chick, a fight breaks out, then ends with a threesome (that's actually a good interpretation of the "action" theme).  

I really think you could have shaved several pages of idle chit chat from the beginning off and gotten right into things, had a bigger bar fight, then ended on the threesome.   As it is now I was pretty sure a bar fight was going to break out but it came too late for my liking.  

The ending I did like.  That was cool.  The rising action though could use some work.

But nice job on submitting for the OWC.

Greg

KABOOM!

Is this Adam West's Batman?

There were some typos, I'm guilty of this myself, but a lot of times it was distracting. I think you wait a tad too long to get to the action as well. So I agree with Greg on that note.

Jason and John read like teenagers to me, yet one is 30. Maybe it's just how I read the lines, but they came off as younger than what you described.

The action is a few lines and that's it. To me it read as a comedy more than action. You have more set up and pay off than struggle.

Good job on finishing the OWC.

MAY THE BEST MAN WIN

Action: Had a ‘throw down’ fight
Budget: Low

The set up was for Janet to be a guy at the end. Otherwise it reads like Penthouse Letters story. The energy level was good.

I liked it but would have preferred the script continue beyond the final scene for the real action.

Gary

Okay, how to review a script that features a hot babe named Janet, that men end up fighting over?  Hmmm..  

Sorry to say, this one just didn't do it for me.  There were a number of typos, but it was decently written (although the description of the two men at the beginning felt  clunky.)

The pickup scenes came off (to me) as sleazy - though perhaps that's what you were going for.  Small hick bar, scruffy characters.  

Probably my biggest problem is that as soon as Janet's rough voice is revealed, I'm expecting her to be a tranny.  But there's no obvious payoff at the end, if that was meant to be the case.  And if that isn't what you were going for, the ending sorta fell flat.

Still, thanks for the read!

Best, and cheers -

Wonkavite (Janet)

I agree with much of what has been said. I was waiting for the payoff of Janet's scruffy voice. You mention it twice, so it HAD to be important, right?

Anyway, the characters, a bunch of their lines, and even the action blocks all seemed fairly cliche. Nothing really appeared to be something it wasn't. Janet is smokin' hot. The boys are good looking and above average looking, even their names are very common (in fact, I couldn't keep any of them straight, they are all too similar).

OK, I'm going to try something new and just throw out notes as I see them, so you know how I'm feeling as I'm reading along.

Not a good start - opening passage repeats your Slug and ends in an orphan.

Poor intro's of your first 2 characters.

Typos, missing punctuation, another poor intro..not working...just not working at all.

Oh boy...and now we have the "CONTINUED" crap at the tops and bottoms of every page...no...please, no...

Shocking how much punctuation is missing...like in every line almost.  Lots of misspellings as well.  Writing is not good at all.

What's with the exclamation point attack starting on Page 3?  Like everything these guys say is screamed...Damn that's annoying...

No story at all so far.

Uhoh, the "raspy voiced" babe, who may not be a babe at all...

Oh boy, now we get the bar fight...which is not written well at all.

And no pay off, no resolution, and nothing on Janet's true nature.

Damn, dude, no...no, this doesn't work at all.  Poorly written, poorly conceived, poorly executed.  Definitely in the bottom 2 of the first 5, and that's saying alot...

Sorry for being harsh, but I've got to be honest.

First, congratulations on finishing the OWC, but I have to say this didn't really fit, I wouldn't consider this action at all, it just had a little bar fight, so I don't think it really fit the challenge, but on the positive you finished it and there was at least a bit of effort put in, so good job on that.

Nothing really too much to add to this one, as I had about the same feelings as everybody else above.

I thought it was really funny that all the apostrophe esses were backwards.  (Words that were supposed to end in apostrophe 'S' didn't have it, and words that weren't supposed to end in apostrophe 'S' did have it.

I've actually read two authors here before who have made that mistake.

Well, there was action, albeit brief, but there was still action, so the challenge I believe was met, although it wasn't all that satisfying a story.  Might have ventured a little too much maybe into slapstick.

- Mark

As I go:

Page 2:  "I didn't see one..."  I thought it might be neat if this was, "I don't see a ring one on her finger"...kinda Pam making a little dig at Jason.  The reason I mention that is that I think things could be spiced up a bit off the top.  Very straightforward so far.

Page 3:  John and Jason sound VERY similar to each other.  To some extent this informs us about their relationship, but to a a greater extent it makes it hard to care...especially when the script centers around a competition between the two.  Would like to know what potential advantages/disadvantages each guy might have...

Page 5:  The exclamation marks are a little excessive.

Thoughts:

Don't get it.  Kinda evokes Beavis and Butthead Do America for me...

I think there might be a neat premise hiding in here.  Two friends get extremely competitive over a woman, maybe to the point where one hits the other or something, and then they're forced to reconcile and work together when the woman is approached by two other men.  That's where I would have seen this plot going, maybe?  As is it doesn't really go anywhere.

Definitely wanna do a quick read-through and fix the typos.

Thanks for the fun read and great work on writing for the OWC!

#5 May The Best Man Win -
Sometimes the best man wins in more ways than one. 8 pages.

Format: Perfect - Good -  Close Enough
Action: H3ll, Yeah! - Good - Eventually - Needs More
Breakdown: Eight pages of blabbin' and maybe one page of brawling. This action short is short on action.

Budget Considerations:
Locations - Bar w/ pool table and dartboard, parking lot,
Props - Beer bottles, empties (I'm going to assume that if you get permission to use a bar that you'll probably get permission to use their clean-up platters), breakable table, fake blood
Costumes - Outfit for Janet, Barmaid outfit,
Vehicles - None
Actors - Extras/natives in bar, John, Jason, Janet, Pam, Sam, Jerry, Bartender, Bouncers x2
SFX - Neon sign for the All Niter Bar, smoker, dance music, Did you plan on roughing up her voice in post or with ADR?,
Other - body pads for fight stunt sequences.

Budget Guesstimate: Maybe $100.  Permission to shoot in the bar after hours would be the biggest hurdle.
What I like: Favorite line: "She disrobes. From behind, the outline of her beautiful cleavage can easily be made out." W. T. F?
What I'd change: Turn off your CONTINUED feature.
How I envision this looking: At best, like the late Patrick Swayze in ROAD HOUSE.
What I'd like to know from the writer: Did you know I never, ever, ever, never want to see my best buddy's erect penis?

Never.

I don't want to see anyone's erect penis, frankly.

Jake,

This one's a mixed bag for me. Plenty of things to like and dislike.
The spelling was pretty atrocious and the descriptions were cumbersome.
The small talk didn't engage me much, nor the characters.

However, you did follow the rules pretty close. Much more than most so far. Kudos.
And you ended on a nice note, your protags gets the Golden Fleece.
But why set up Janet to be a guy and not pay it off? Felt weird.

Thanks for playing. These OWCs are the better for your effort!

Regards,
E.D.

Not all that much going on in this story, but it really felt like you were setting us up for a twist ending.  What was the point of giving Janet a "rough" hoarse voice.  You sort of set up a joke but then never delivered a punch line to go with it.  I assumed Janet was smuggling plums down there, but apparently not.  Well, at least you had a bar fight in this one.  Other than that, not too memorable.

Congrats creating this in a week.

  

Sounds like someone trying to put their own sexual fantasy on paper - okay, whatever you're into - as a script however this just didn't deliver for me and didn't really stick to the action premise.