Deaf Janitor by Andrew Lightfoot - Short - An over-exaggeration about a janitor's loss of hearing. 4 pages - pdf, format

Andrew

The logline interested me and I've enjoyed some of your other works before so I said I would take a look.

I can't say this done a whole lot for me. I understand at four pages it’s always going to be hard to create an immersive story. So, you went down the skit route which will either work for someone or not, there isn't usually any middle ground. Unfortunately, I belong to the latter.

Everything hinges on the punch line in these type of scripts and I found it rather lame, a bit too silly for my tastes.

On the plus side I did like the opening scene in the darkened gym, it was nicely constructed but other than that I didn't get much else from it.


I took some page by page notes below while reading:

"A man’s face, roughly shaven and wrinkled with age comes into view."

-- Its probably just me but I always like to know the age of characters, especially since all it takes is to insert the number in brackets after the name. Then again, I'm very thin on character descriptions unless a feature of theirs plays some part in the story like Harry Potter but that's extremely rare. I believe their actions and words during the course of the script should paint the picture of who they are. I mean, its not as if we know who is going to be playing the part at the spec script stage so my reasoning is why go into detail about what they look like. Anyway, my advice would be to always include the age, of speaking roles anyway.

"In front of him is a circuit box, he closes it up and extinguishes his lighter."

"Footsteps echo out as he walks over to the desk and plumps down into the chair."

"He takes out a laptop and places it on the desk a bright glow caresses him."

I would try to limit your usage of "and" in the narrative. Most of the time it’s not necessary as a comma will suffice. Above are just three examples on the first page alone but its the trend throughout the script. I'd suggest going back over the piece to see where this can be done as it will greatly help the fluency of the read.

Is his office in the gym? Seems a bit strange, no?

"He takes out a laptop" -- Where does he take the laptop from?

ELECTRONIC VOICE
Being a janitor has its perks I guess, like for instance I can check out the daily lost and found. This is how you can hear me and see me now. Actually I might keep these, they are handy.

ELECTRONIC VOICE (CONT’D)
...but I’m not here to tell you a lifelong story, more so a moment.

-- Why is there a break in dialogue?

What does he mean by "these" and that "they are handy". Is he talking about finding the laptop in the lost and found? Should it not be "Actually, I might keep this, it is handy"

"The bright glow flicks to a beige color, the sounds of two women overcome with orgasm spill out into the gymnasium. Mr. Brathsmen is oblivious."

-- I can see this is an attempt at comedy and I hate to be a killjoy but why would this happen?

ELECTRONIC VOICE
I lost my hearing the day the punk band played at the high school. It was a freak accident, one no man should have to undergo.

-- Include (V.O.) after the name

"All girls scream and do their best to get at least one foot out of the way."

-- No reason to be so specific, its something I'm often guilty of doing myself as well.

"Four teenagers equipped with acoustic guitars walk coolly towards the now fully lit up stage"

-- Again I hate to be a nitpicking wanker but are all four members carrying acoustic guitars? If so, they sound more like a folk group rather than a punk band. Where are the drums, bass and at least one electric axe. Sorry if I'm being overly fussy here.


Maybe attempt a rewrite with this. Perhaps a different approach or put a bit more thought into the closing sequence.

Best of luck

Col.

Thanks for the read colkurts,

Yeah this is a silly one for sure, got the idea when I was at a bar with a couple of friends on new years, had some garage bands playing there and literally, the music they played was drowned out my the cheers of the girls in the bar, those high pitched annoying ones.

It's been a long time coming since I've written a script and some things such as showing the age of a character have slipped my mind, but I'm amazed there was no spelling errors in this one. Then again it was only a 4 pager

I've never got past the use of "and" at all, it's the norm for me and I agree, it's over used. Probably in all of my scripts, but anyways I think it'll be best to switch to commas. They feel too "point form" for me though.

Yes the labtop came from the lost and found and I also wanted to have him film this using a small camera on a tripod. This explains the "These are handy, I might keep them"

Yeah I guess a punk band should have drums and bass, but they can also do acoustic shows, right?

Maybe I'll attempt a rewrite, but I'll have to wait and see if anyone can even get a smile off this. No sense polishing a turd.

Thanks again, like always your comments are helpful.

"Yeah I guess a punk band should have drums and bass, but they can also do acoustic shows, right?"

-- Mmm, not really. Maybe you're mixing up punk with the more recent Pop punk groups like Green Day, The Offspring possibly Blink 182. Punk in its truest form came about in the late 70's with groups like the The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, The Ramones...Lets just acoustic guitars were kept to a minmum, especially on tour.

Lightfoot...

First time I read anything of yours.  Colkurtz8 pretty much covered everything IMO.  so i'll just give you my quick thoughts.  I wouldn't call it a turd as you've mentioned in your comment.  For four pages for the most apart the writing was good.  I think to wordy in some spots.

Your story, it was alright but nothing really stood out for me in this.  Other then being somewhat sad and maybe a little far stretched.  

Page#2 "He takes out a laptop and places it on his desk a bright a bright glow carasses him."  I think your missing something here.  Probably a period.

Anyway,

Good Luck

Ghostwriter

I read this piece. It was well done for a short. Colkurtz is right on about the punk band mentality. At 4 pages, its hard to create a character arc, but you did a good job exploring a character's past feelings about something. I'm just curious, what are the dramatic questions you want to ask your audience?

As I was reading this, I kept trying to think of what your script is asking the audience, but I couldn't think of anything.

I actually enjoyed the electronic voice doing the voice over; it was an interesting storytelling idea.

Other than this, I felt that this script was a first draft. There were instances where the writing came off as clunky or just odd.  An example:

Quoted Text A broom pushed by Mr. Brathsmen moves across the poster.

So the janitor swept the wall?

And there was also the punk band on stage with acoustic guitars. And the janitor typing on a laptop in the middle of the gymnansium.

The script just needs another rewrite.  I recommend that I put it aside for a week or two and then rewrite it with a clear mind.


Phil

I read the script during lunchbreak today. The basic idea is good; there is some ambiguity what was already told above so no use recallin it.
I s'pose the script would work out as part of a tv-sketch comedy! I somehow imagine the band beeing like this german group of brayers (Tokio Hotel).
After all I liked it!

Thanks Ghostwriter, Konishdutta, Dogglebe, and Tommy for giving this a read, sorry for my very late reply.

Hey Andrew, what up?  Just read this and took page by page notes.

This didn’t work for me in any way, sorry to say.  Not much of a story here, and what there is really doesn’t make any sense.  What is the meaning of this?  What are we to take from it?

No one is developed even remotely.  There isn’t any real plot…just some weird V.O about a single event that we probably aren’t going to care much about since we don’t know anything about anyone here.

Only 1 character is even named, I think, so I guess he has to be our Protag.  Who is the antag?

Lots of clunky writing, missing punctuation. Grammar is poor for the most part.  Story is almost non-existent.

Sorry, bud, but this doesn’t do anything for me.  I don’t mean to be harsh, and I hope in some way, this helps.  Take care.

Page 1 – Incorrectly labeled as page 2.

Need an opening Slug.  You can open on darkness, but you still need a Slug telling us we’re in a gym, or whatever.

You need to use all CAPS when you first intro a character…you didn’t do that here, based on the fact that you originally intro’d Mr. Brathsmen as just a “man”  Intro your characters immediately when they’re first shown onscreen.

“He takes out a laptop and places it on the desk a bright glow caresses him.” – This is actually 2 sentences.

These V.O.’s, which aren’t correctly labeled, IMO, are too much.  Wording is so un-natural…even if it’s being typed.  I’m not sure exactly what’s going  on here.

Page 2 – What’s with the 2 women having an orgasm?  Are they in the gym or something?  I’m really confused.

Some awkward phrasing as others pointed out.

OK, this is definitely now a V.O with the electronic voice.  Needs to be re-labeled.

“Girl’s” – Girls”

“All looks with mad excitement at the microphones.” – Awkward, and grammatically incorrect.

Page 3 – “girl’s” – “girls”

Why is a concert taking place during the day?

Page 4 – “All over the first few rows all the girl’s eyes flash wide, they breathe in deeply, preparing for a screaming war cry.” – Really awkward, and missing punctuation.  Probably better as 2 sentences.

“His owns yells are easily muffled out by the screaming of the girl’s, tears well up in his eyes.” – Really awkward again, and filled with grammatical errors.

Not sure why Mr. Brathsmen went deaf, actually.  Why didn’t anyone else suffer ill effects?  I don’t really get it, nor do I get the entire meaning of this story/script.

I'm sorry to say that I couldn't get involved with your story. The entire script feels like an over-dramatize and stretched out incident, which could've been told in even less pages.

The main thing is I don't remotely understand or care about the janitor. He didn't do much for the entire time. He mops, cleans up, and regurgitates the incident to the audience. Overall, he's too passive to be an interesting protagonist. It would work better if the incident plays in front of our eyes, instead of having him narrating to us.

Another thing is I don't understand the incident. How did the liquid explosion come from? From just a cup dropping onto the floor? And then the janitor comes in to clean up and the band starts playing. Why is he the only one who becomes deaf and not the others in the gym?

The punchline at the end doesn't really fit the tone of the story. The entire time is a drama/tragedy, and then it becomes comedic.

Dreamscale and coding,

No worries guys, glad you both told it like it is, the explanation for this script is in a previous comment of my own, above.

This was never meant to be a serious script, with big characters or an even a fraction of a story line, this was a quick, no thought to it, what the hell type of script.

Thanks for giving this turd a read guys.