The Schizo Express by Glenn Bresciani (tonkatough) - Short - Toby Frabbit has a new life with new medication to suppress his schizophrenia. But when he returns to work, Toby has a nervous breakdown when he is the only one who can see trains gliding through the office on rail tracks. 8 pages - pdf, format

Hey Glenn,

I see you've also crossed over into the land of shorts.  I liked this quite a bit.  Particularly how Toby put up pictures of fleas throughout his office to scare away the large blue cats he thought were after him.  It's so obsurd it almost seems plausible.  

It kind of brought up memories for me of growing up.  One of my mom's friends was deathly afraid of cats.  Everytime she came over it was my job to go find our cat and lock it in the basement before she would set foot in our house.  And our cat was, like, the most adorable, harmless thing you could ever see.  

As for the story, I knew this could only end up one of two ways - either he was sane or not.  I was almost expecting there to be an additional twist but I liked how it ended with him huddled like that under the desk like that.

Toby Frabbit - cool name.  Sounds like it belongs in a nursery rhyme.

I don't have much else to say.  I think maybe if you expanded on this you could find additional ways to have Toby question his sanity.  Maybe he could hear voices from the conductor talking to him or something.

Otherwise good job.  The more short scripts I read, the more they all start to sound the same so it's good to read something that's so different and unusal.

Tonka,

This is different. Not what I expected. I thought, given the subject matter, that the script would be replete with the typical "insanity" motifs. It wasn't. So points there!

Trying not to give to much away, I didn't catch on to the turn or twist until page six. Well done.

I thought the characters were well drawn, believable. I did, though, have a couple of problems with the story. 1) I had a difficult time buying into the idea that the pictures would, after a couple of months, still be hanging. I think you could leave just one that had, perhaps, been missed. This, I think, would be more believable and, at the same time, not effect the story.

2)  Again, I found it difficult, no, impossible, to believe Trudy would give, as a gift, to Toby, the framed photograph that she does. I understand that you needed to establish the fact that Toby, when sick, curled himself up beneath his desk. This, though, could be done through dialogue.

Even so, the above may come off on screen better than it does on paper -- depending on how it's played. In any event, I think this script could easily be produced, and on a low budget. It would require a lot of track, but it could be moved and moved again for all the various shots.

A technical comment - your first slug, INT. WATER COOLER - DAY. I wonder, given that a water cooler is an object, not a location, if OFFICE or INNER OFFICE might be more
appropriate?

I liked this little short.

A few things:

- page 1  INT. WATER COOLER - DAY

I think you mean EXT. instead of INT.  ?

- "He fills a paper cup with water from the water cooler".

You can omit 'from the water cooler'.

- page 3 "...Sam has failed to acknowledged"

acknowledge

!!! SPOILERS !!!

I really liked how you used the concept of a miniature train to question Toby's sanity. It also makes sense for Toby -not- to ask others if they see the train. He is already insecure and embarrassed enough as is.

The ending about the train being real isn't too surprising, but I don't think that matters much. The story as a whole is good.

One thing that I don't really get is why his co-workers confront him with his past lapse of reason? When Sam and Toby tear down the flea posters/drawings, Sam treats Toby a bit like a mentally challenged person or a kid. Toby is 42 years old, so it looks kinda weird. Unless you wanted to stress the fact that people tend to treat people that way when dealing with mentally challenged people?  

Trudy's 'welcome back' gift is a bit far-fetched in my opinion. Not sure how somebody could enjoy a picture like that, or even have a reason to give it as a gift.

At that point, to be honest, I thought they were purposely trying to make him insane again, to get him fired from his job, so they could get a certain promotion or something. LOL. (I am paranoid, shoot me).

I think it would have been more realistic if all evidence of his past lapse had been removed from his work office. No flea posters around, no weird welcome back gifts.

Don't get me wrong. I really liked this short. It had a good pace, good descriptions, and I really felt for him. I just didn't get the "confrontational part" of it all.  

Two people have mentioned the picture in the frame, saying that it isn't believable and perhaps should be changed.

For me that part is a stroke of genius, I absolutely love it.

If you are going to change things around I certainly would keep hold of that.

As regards the twist I'll be honest and say that I realised from the outset that the train set was real. The reason for this is because we have already been informed that he has been seeing things so as an audience we expect at least one reversal, which at that point is that he is sane. So from that point of view the ending meets with our initial expectations.

If he starts the story completely sane and only thinks that he is going mad then what he is witnessing can either be real or not real.

Knowing you as I do, I had a little rush of excitement when we came across the train station. I was expecting to be introduced to some tiny commuters. I was looking forward to some real craziness, seeing what was going on now that his mind had been opened to the true reality of things. I won't say I was disappointed because the script is satisfying as it is, but I just recognise that there were other avenues for you to explore.

One funny thing that occurs to me that could happen is at the very end of the script. I'd like to see the office completely deserted and for the filing cabinet to open slowly. Two huge blue cats  could climb out and look around the office nervously. One could turn to the other and say "Are you sure it's safe? I've heard they've got fleas as big as a mans head...

I think the reversal of sanity/insanity would be interesting. He's been sent round the twist twice by things that were actually there.

Anyway, as always an interesting and enjoyable read.

Rick.

Wow, I was amazed by the varied reactions and different perspectives to my silly little script.  Thank you everyone for the read.

MGJ

Yeah, I was fed up with the feature thread. I would do a script review exchange and not have the other writer return the favour. I noticed that this is where all the action is at the moment so decided to jump into the Short thread.

Seth

I must admit I was a little surprised by what you wrote. You write your scripts with some haunting, dreamscape, surreal imagery.  I thought you would be a little bit more tolerant and excepting of the oddities in my script.  

Movemycheese

I would love to return the favour. Do you have any shorts here you would like me to read?


decadencefilms@37.com


Yeah, I could’ve went all out total crazy with this script but decided to restrain myself. I’m just glad to finally write a script that involves a model train set. I’ve been wanting to do that for years and just glad to get it off my chest. It’s done so now I can move on.  

Quoted from tonkatough Seth I must admit I was a little surprised by what you wrote. You write your scripts with some haunting, dreamscape, surreal imagery.  I thought you would be a little bit more tolerant and excepting of the oddities in my script.

Tonka,

I enjoyed your script. I thought it was original. As for the framed photograph, as I said, this might work better for me on screen than it did on paper -- depending on how it's played.

You're a very creative writer with a unique touch. There are few shorts that I read and think, "I'd like to see this." This short is one 'em.

Seth

Comedy has got to be the hardest to pull off. That being said, your script is the best one I've had the chance to read so far. I laughed all the way through. My favorite bit is when Toby calls his wife for moral support. Anyone whos ever been married knows that's a no-no. Great. I loved it. Now I gotta find your features since I heard that this is a departure from your past styles. I'm interested to see...-MsN

Thanks for the read. MsN. I wasn't even attentionally trying to be funny when I wrote this script so I'm please to hear you got a laugh out of it.

If you want to read more of my stuff I recommend Perplexity Grove. It's written as a comedy-  on purpose I might add.  

Hi,
This was a cool short, very quirky. For some reason the tone of the story reminded me of Being John Malkovich.
The only thing that bugged me was his Wife's last comment, seemed out of place in the story...I could picture her being frustrated with him rather than being so demeaning. Also thought the story might benefit from the train doing a "choo choo" or two during an inapropriate time to add some comic relief.
Overall it was really well thought out, you got a lot of Toby's character across in a real short script.

Hey Glenn, this was a pretty cool script, I think you set it up well and you gave it a nice pay off, even though I did see it coming, I had a feeling the train set was real, not all in his head.

On page 5 you have,

                               TRUDY
              It’s so amazing. You used to hide
              under your desk, scared to death, and
              you WHERE still the best accountant in
              this firm.

I think you meant WERE still the best........

I think the weak part of the script for me was the talk with his wife, maybe it's just me but she didn't seem like the wife of someone who went through what they went through, it just rang false to me.

All in all it was a good read, the drawings of the fleas, the blue cat business, that was pretty funny.  Good job.

I though it was okay. I agree with the above user, the boy who could fly, the conversation with his wife felt... unreal? The story itself just didn't really do it for me. I understand and apprecaite what you were trying to accomplish but it just didn't work for me. There were a lot of grammar errors, I'm sure you've heard. Much of them concerned "where" and "pass". Overwall, it was a decent little script. Thanks for posting it. Keep writing.

Thanks for the read people. I like it when people read my script cause it makes it easier for me to decide which scripts to read next. Read for a read, #1 Simply Script policy.

Hey tonka,

This short was funny. Poor Toby, if he only asked. The dialgoue was top notched and hilarious especially btw Toby and his wife. I think you should give the wife a name. For some odd reason, I got feel of the OFFICE for this script. Good job.

Gabe

Thanks for the read Mr Ripley

Poor Toby indeed. That's the beauty of fiction. someone gets to suffer for our amusment.