Kowabunga! by Helio J Cordeiro - Short - Here hopelessness and recognition walk together. 7 pages - pdf, format

Helio -- Kowabunga Dude!

A nice little piece. Had good mental conflict, and redeeming resolution. Would liked to have  had more dialogue, but  this works.

I see more and more writers going to the two line descriptions. Make for a fast read. You had some good descripters, like when the dude crashes into a wave as he leaps into the ocean to save that teenager.

Still...

I think you could tighten this piece even further. Here is one example.

Inside the store TWO STORE EMPLOYEES

Inside - TWO EMPLOYEES.

Hey, just a thought. Good to read your stuff again.

Spencer

Hi Mc! Thanks for your reading, dude!  This is my 48th script and this piece I tried to direct myself, but it was very expensive, mainly the diving scenes (to rent a ARRI MARINE UNDERWATER HOUSING 16SR ARRIFLEX). It was to run the last year AXN Latin Film Festival. Maybe I?ll film next time with any government financial support.

Btw, I know how hard is rewriting process, dude, anyway, good luck with "Shotgun"!See you in Dheli!

Perfection, thy name is Helio Thursday J Cordeiro, you'll just have to spell it differently now. Heh heh, just kidding, it sucked. Alright, it didn't suck at all. In fact I was pleasantly surprised.

I have a couple niggles.

You have an opening shot but it needs to be an establishing shot.
Like this.
EXT. BEACH – DAY – EST.

Also, when he is looking at the surfboard I imagine you want to show the price tag. You would do this by

INSERT SURFBOARD

The price tag reads $800.

BACK TO SCENE

Sure, you didn't have any dialogue but the story didn't need it. You had a clear goal and clear obstacles. First, he can't afford it. Second, someone else has bought it. These clear obstacles can make for a nice denouement.

Unfortunately the conflict was predictable which detracted from the unique feeling the story created. I knew ahead of time that someone else bought the surfboard. You want to be one step ahead of the audience or else they'll be yawning at just another cliched story.

A little error in logic. When he saves the drowning kid there is no one around except when they come out of the water they are helped by BATHERS. You even say the beach is deserted. Fix it or I fix yo face! hehhah, jes kiddin.

I found your descriptions very vivid and your character sympathetic. Effin-A, this is going to ruin my *bad* critic image.

Somebody told me I was in this one...

So I looked, but fact is, Bert don’t surf.  In fact, he might be amongst the most sedentary guys you know.  But you did get the good lookin’ part right.  Anyway...

The gun to gun cut, ending the dream sequence, is nicely done.  But soon after, you repeat yourself with the dummy in the window.  You state this twice.  Edit one of these out.

And only one word of dialogue to be found on these pages -- and it is just the right word.  Very nice.

What a poetic little story.  I know your surreal stuff has its fans, but honestly, I prefer these type of stories from you.  This was quite good.  

Hey Electric! Thanks for your review, dude. It was well reviewed. It shows that you was very sober. After all, your review didn't hurt very much! So, I passed though! Congrats and well come!

Dear Robert, yeah the similarity between you and the guy of the story could be onthers things than surfing...Let me see....Hmmmmm...That's it!  Saving coins!

Thanks for the review! I owe you one!

I was a little surprised that this script didn't have the Helio weirdness that many of your other scripts have.  This was a straightforward story and nicely told.

One thing that threw me for a loop is on page four.  You say, after Bert counts his money, he has an upset look on him.  Two lines later, he has a big smile on his face.

And the image of Bert in a bathing suit scares the shit out of me....


Phil

Hi, Phil!

Hey man, thanks for  taking your precious time reading it. I really apreciated that!

Yeah maybe I didn't write (page4) that right, but as soon as I can I'll fix it.

About my weird scripts I write them just when I'm sober, no drunked at all!


JIT, about Bert's bathing suit, yes, Newcomer's look like Borat's one!

A great short little piece I have to say. Confilt, conflict is solved. Easy as that? Yes it is, I thought he only wanted the yellow surfboard for the girls, thats why he was so lonley. I guess he just wanted to be a Hawaii Warrior

I'm new to this stuff, but I couldn't pass up reading a script called "Kowabunga!"

First, I don't know how important this is, but it seems like the story could work better if Bert was younger. He was 25 but he was acting like a child the whole time, it just seemed a little odd.

The script was simple and straight to the point, can't really fault you for that, but I couldn't really get into it. I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that it was a short with no dialogue, but I wasn't really interested or feeling sympathetic for the character.

So overall, it wasn't bad but I just couldn't get interested, sorry.

Also, I think at this point on page 5 you make the mistake of repeating an action.

---
In the Store window the Store Assistant places a naked dummy in the window display where the yellow surfboard previously was.

Bert looks into the window.

A Store Assistant inside the store-window puts a dummy in the place where the yellow surfboard was.
---

Quoted from SkyBlueHue He was 25 but he was acting like a child the whole time, it just seemed a little odd.

Acting like a child?  That does sound like our Bert.



Phil

Hey Toran and KyBlueHue I really appreciated you comments. Both of you are right and I recognized it, so have to say that next time I’ll be careful about this type of story and how to tell it better.

Indeed, Phil, I really thought on you 5 years ago, but I didn't hurt you, dude!

Hi Helio,

I thought this was pretty good. You managed to fit quite a bit into your seven pages. You had the hero's first serious attempt at reaching his goal fail and then the story seemed to reach a satisfying ending in a way that didn't seem too contrived.

The only thing I didn't think was absolutely necessary was the scene where Bert goes in to the store and has the little kid stick the toy gun in his back. I didn't think it did anything to push the story along, so I reckon you could edit that out if you wanted to.

I also noticed that there was virtually no dialogue, so I guess if you were going to make a short film out of this you would probably have a musical score running with it the whole time. Have you thought about what music or songs you could use with this?

It's good to see you have a crack at a more conventional story.

A very quick, to the point story told without dialogue has a lot of merits in a visual medium.  There tends to be times when people tell more than show, and obviously, this doesn;t have any of those problems.  There's a nice, tight arc that shows Bert as a dreamer, but at the same time, he does make an active try for what he wants, which was very good to see.  We also get an idea of how active he can be on an ongoing basis thanks to the rescue.  No shots are really wasted.  I don;t even think the kid with the toy gun detracts.  Use of grays to show Bert in crisis works very well and didn't feel to formulaic.  The script has a definite rhythm to it and I agree, ending with the only word puts a firm puctuation to the piece.

If I had one crticism, it would be that we should see Bert get some sort of praise for the rescue.

Hi EBurke!
Thanks a lot for your reading, dude. I thought very much to give Bert a praise for the rescue. Our Pia said maybe was nice to give him the girls that we saw at the begin. I'm not sure, maybe Bert was happy just to possess the yellow surfboard. I'll think about that.

Anyway, thanks so much! Hey, have you any shortscript to read? If so say, okay?

cheers
Helio