Bullion by Josh Park - Short, Comedy - A stand-up comedian, in the midsts of a dramatic new life change that's forcing him to grow up, finds Nazi gold in the backyard. 27 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hey Josh,

I'm making some notes as I read along.  

You never introduce the woman properly with her name in all capitals.  And if her name is Betty, why not just introduce her as Betty?  Josh doesn't know until she says her name, but we can know.  Personally, I always like doing this, rather than switching her name from woman to Betty in the middle of their conversation.  

On page five, top of the page with Marty's dialogue, you is capitalized.  

Page seventeen, I'm not sure why Tyler is capitalized.  And then you say "Tyler realizes it probably didn't go super well".  That's not really filmable, show us that he realizes it.  Maybe something like "Tyler frowns, nods his head slightly in understanding".  Something along those lines.  I'm sure you could come up with something better than what I just wrote though!

Same thing on page twenty-two, "Tyler just hears inaudible screaming...".  All you need to write is something like "inaudible screaming catches Tyler's attention".  

On page twenty-five, what about using slug lines to set up different scenes and have Marty speaking in a voice over, instead of using an insert?  The use of the insert just doesn't look right to me.  I'm not saying it's wrong, but I think it would look better with the slug line and the voice over.

So overall, I didn't find there to be much comedy in this.  That's just my personal opinion though.  

Why would he go back and bury it in the yard?  Why not just take it to the police?  It seemed odd to me that he would just bury it again.  Technically, they still have it.  It's just out of sight, out of mind.  

The writing seemed fine to me, although I thought you could have done a better job at using some more descriptive words.  For instance, "Marty sits on the driveway" could be something like "Marty parks down on the driveway" or "Lisa walks out of the house" could be something like "Lisa saunters out of the house".  Those are just small examples, and probably poor ones at that!  But, you get my drift.  Liven up the writing a bit, get me interested in reading on.  It read kind of bland throughout.  I used to do that too.  After a few scripts, I started looking at the thesaurus a lot!  

Anyway, hope some of that helps.  

Good luck with this!

Nolan

Hey, Josh - read through ten. Just a couple of nit comments.

Quoted Text We hear a SCREAM from the bathroom. LISA (24) jumps up and down near the toilet with a pregnancy test in hand. JONAS (25) runs in, worried. Lisa shows the positive birth test to Jonas. His eyes widen, and he GUFFAWS with joy. They hug

This is a little awkward set up wise, Based on the slug, we're in the bathroom - so why would we hear a scream FROM there.

Also - you don't really need the WE hear -

I would suggest you open up in the living room. Jonas sitting on the couch or something and then a joyful SCREAM pierces the air. Something like that.

Quoted Text BETTY And yours? MARTY Marty.

Betty just saw him do his routine - wouldn't she know his name?

This overall was not bad - I did find the dialogue between Betty and Marty a bit tedious - curt. I think having one of them speak that way is okay, but having them both speak that way makes it less interesting.

Best of luck with this.

Thanks y'all! I did some edits, and I actually just did a table read today and it worked out pretty well.

Josh made a film:

Oh sweet, the draft posted here is fairly early and differs drastically from the finished product but it's fun to look at. Thanks Don!

Watched this. Sent some notes via PM!