The Plan by Tom Pascal - Short - A young man outlines and puts in action his plan to pick up girls. But what happens when he picks up the wrong one? 8 pages - pdf, format

Thanks for putting this up Don.

Guys, this is a silly little short which was fun to write. Partially based on a personal experience. Check it.

dude this was a laugh out loud comedy fest! great job Tommy!

I really enjoyed this, very funny!

The ending was a good one, If I was John then I would (after laughing a bit)  have a lot of respect for Barry for finishing his plan to the end.

Thanks Aaron and Lightfoot. Glad it made you laugh, that's the aim!

Sorry, Tommy, I just didn't find this very good or funny.

First of all it's repetitive. You have Barry tell us how he does it and then you show us. Pick one of them. Second, the plan itself is kinda flawed. I mean, how does he get the girls home number? How does he even know what their names are? What will he do if the girl doesn't have a landline? How does he explain to the girls just how exactly he's gotten a hold of their phones?  "Ooops, I accidently grabbed a phone from the wrong purse"? These girls must really be have been last in line when God handed out IQ. Anyone who falls for that (or the battery thing - I mean, who the hell accidently takes out the battery?) could probably have been picked up with a cheesy pickup-line anyway.

Sorry, there are simply too many things wrong with this for the story to be believable. And the end? He fucks her. Okay, so she's fat and ugly but Barry doesn't really learn a lesson here. There's no punchline.

Rob

Harsh! Which is great. Thanks for reading.

Barry is showing us what he does, as well as with the voiceover. So really it's only happening once. I thought the home phone number would be on the phone. Her name would be on the texts to the phone. If the girl doesn't have a landline, then he can't really go ahead with his plan. Unless he calls another number in the phone book. He would tell the girls he picked it up off the ground.

The ending. Now. I was hoping that everyone would think that Barry wouldn't touch the ugly girl, but it's a twist in a way that he does. Bit of a suprise.

I wrote this because I found a phone in a club on the dancefloor when I was very drunk one time. Instead of handing it in like a normal person, I took it home. Called one of the numbers on it that had been texting the phone all night, and a few days later I met up with the friend of the girl who owned the phone. And she was hot! So that's why I wrote it.

Anyway pity you didn't like it. Thanks for the help, what you are saying will help with the next draft.

Quoted from Tommyp And she was hot! So that's why I wrote it.

Bet you didn't get laid, though

Well she's my wife now! Sooooo!! Jokes jokes. I didn't get laid. But my life isn't a script

Hey Tommy. I liked John and Barry and their witty repertoire, but I felt like this was a good idea that just didn't live up to its potential. And I think it was a little lengthy (Johns story about the snakes?) for a simple idea.

We are all still learning here, but I have some advice. Do a very thorough read-through on this script. It has a lot of errors that make it hard to read. I had to re-read a number of times to get it. Use correct grammar and punctuation in your descriptions (not necessary in dialogue obviously) and avoid using -ing (write in present tense).

I am finding more and more that VOs are mostly not necessary. I understand that you want to remind the reader that Barry is telling all of this to John, but it gets redundant when you are telling something while showing it.

Ex: JOHN - "I'm going to move closer..."
John moves closer.

I think John's camera was entirely unnecessary. And I think that Barry probably would have left instead of bringing Sarah home. And I definitely don't think he would have done the deed with her.

This could be good if it was tightened up. Go over it again and throw out the unnecessary stuff.

James

Hi Tommy,

I have to side with Sniper mostly.  It doesn't quite work.  There are some humorous instances, but not enough.

Quoted from Tommyp I wrote this because I found a phone in a club on the dancefloor when I was very drunk one time. Instead of handing it in like a normal person, I took it home. Called one of the numbers on it that had been texting the phone all night, and a few days later I met up with the friend of the girl who owned the phone. And she was hot! So that's why I wrote it.

This is the story I want to read, only with a punchline.  Whereas your character took the phone, you found it in the back of a cab, which is very common.  You should use your story as the template to your story.

All the best,


Javier

Hey Tommy whats up man...

Where have I read this before? Have you posted it up somewhere on here before? (Either under a different name, or on the Work-In-Progress section?) I remember reading this script, or at least a portion of it before...

"Sexy times ensue"; it was funny when Borat says "sexy time"... it's lost its novelty now bud.

Some of the dialogue worked, but some of it wasn't. I liked when John was talking about the snake, then when he said that it was a movie... that made me laugh. Could definitely work well on screen. But some stuff tried too hard to be funny, and failed. Especially in the first half of the script.

I didn't like the ending of the script... It didn't feel satisfying mate. Okay, it resolved the story (to some point), as it showed that Barry's plan doesn't always work, and I like how Sarah was the chick that John threw up on, that worked well, but for some reason, the ending was (to me, anyway) a bit of a let-down.

Personally, I didn't have any issues with the voice-overs. I felt that it worked actually pretty well. But that's just me; I'm a sucker for voice-overs, hehe

Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable script... Okay, so the plan was a bit stupid, and far-fetched, but how many comedies are actually realistic? I'd re-work some of the dialogue, as I said, mostly in the first half of the script. Make it feel more natural, and less 'try-hard' mate. Also, work on the ending. Make it feel more satisfying... Not too sure how you could do this, I will have a think. Oh, and cut out the camera part... it was pointless, and pretty corny mate.

Good luck on the re-write

Cheers, Toby.

James... errors are bad! It's hard to find them when you have read the script a million times. Your mind has learnt to ignore them. Will fix them up. Present tense? I'm new to this, and that it one thing I'm still trying to improve. Thanks for pointing it out.

Camera wise, I've decided to have it all handheld, or no handheld camera at all.

Javier... It was a club. And I thought of a guy who would steal phones and meet up and how stupid that is. So I wrote it haha.

Toby... It was in the "work in progress" section for a bit. Point taken about sexy times. I wanted the dialogue to be natural... obviously... So was the first half of the script unnatural, unfunny or both? I spent ages on the ending. I didn't know how it would end. I will change it in the next draft. And cut the camera.

Thanks for reading guys! I really do appreciate it.

It felt un-natural, because it was trying too hard to be funny... Kevin Smith's dialogue works so well, as he manages to get the perfect mix between realism, and comedy. I like his dialogue because it doesn't try too hard to be funny... I don't think Smith is that funny, but damn, he writes awesome dialogue.

Page 4 is what I am talking about... I really didn't like the exchange of dialogue at all on this page... It was trying too hard to be funny, and felt un-natural. I couldn't imagine me, or any of my friends saying anything like what John or Barry (especially Barry with the whole vibrating thing) say on page 4. And I'm guessing me and my friends are meant to be pretty similar as your characters (English, 17, 18, 19). Oh yeah, that's another thing; you should give a description of John and Barry when you introduce them mate.

Toby.

Sorry to say but I too was not a fan of this piece.  The idea was super cool of how dude steal woman's mobile phone to get into her panties, but the wriitng was poor.

What I didn't like was the dialouge. It was too self concious and felt awkward and as Toby put it above unnatural and false.

For good example of excellent dialouge I recommened you read a couple of Shelton's scripts. His dialouge is very clever plus the characters he write about are a bunch of chatter boxes who could talk under water with a mouth stuffed with M&Ms.

But the one thing I found very offensive was your attitude towards fat women.  Not funny at all and just pissed me off.  fat, chubby or full figured women are just as cool as any other woman and don't deserve to be ridiculed for a cheap laugh.