Beginnings, Episode 1 by Jason Gulati (eljefedetonto) - Series, Drama, Comedy - A frustrated teenager forays into high school with dreams of climbing the slippery social ladder. 28 pages - html, format

Beginnings, Episode 2 Spud Gun by Jason Gulati (eljefedetonto) - Series, Drama, Comedy - The boys decide to take on the weekend venture of building a potato gun... unfortunately, after you build one, you have to wait a day for the glue to set. 31 pages - rtf, format

That's it, I need to slow down.

I've numbed my mind going over "Beginnings" (series, comedy) each day, and while I pick out things I want to change almost every time, it's starting to become drivel to me... I can't re-read it right now, at this point the only way I can affect the script now is through other people's commentary. I could at least use some general feedback, to give me a general idea of how it's being interpreted, even if it's a genuine "this sucks".

If you want to do an exchange, that's fine, I can give pretty decent feedback on other comedies. Anyone?

Read this last night while scribbling some thoughts.  Series is not my thing, so keep that in mind when deciding how much to weight these comments, which contain spoilers:


*  Right off the bat, I didn't find much humor in the boxer shorts scene.  While I get the feeling that it is important for Jason to have suffered some past humiliation, this probably isn't the best choice.  Aside from being a tad unlikely, boxer shorts are really no big deal, you know?  They are just shorts.  School life is filled -- filled -- with humiliating episodes, and I'll bet you can come up with something better.
*  Greg is "especially quirky".  This tells me nothing.  Is he wearing bowling shoes?  A tutu?  What?  I am afraid that all of us (me, too) need to hear this again and again:  "Show.  Don't tell."
*  I like the idea of a handicapped posse, but again, I'll need more details to really "see" this.  This sounds like an interesting group for you to work with.
*  Boy, I really hate the (alt.) dialogue.  Pick one and go with it, man.  That should be your choice, not the reader's.
*  What is a "snap-point"?  Maybe it's a regional thing, but I've never heard of it.
*  The interplay between Jason and Julia is nice, but Julia's...umm...let's just call it a "character trait"...emerges way too fast to be believable.

Overall:  Like I said, series is not my thing, but I think it's safe to say that a pilot should introduce the major characters, the tone of the series, and set up a few conflicts.  Jason and Julia are really the the only characters that emerge from this with some concrete character traits.  The remainder are vodka-swilling teens, and I have to say that I have seen that before.  As for the tone, too much of the story is removed from the high-school to get a solid grasp on what you are going for.  Some comedy, sure, but "finding ways to adjust"?  The freshman, attending a kegger on the FIRST day of school (wouldn't that be a Monday?  Is this Monday night?)...well, they seem pretty well adjusted to me.  Which brings up the final point.  You need to establish some conflicts between the principle characters.  Everybody seems to be getting along just fine here.  People may eventually become fond of these characters, but early on, the most interesting thing to watch is interplay between characters that do NOT get along.

Hope some of this gives you something to go on.

I have a couple of problems with this script, Jason.

The first is that you're cramming too much into the first episode.  You have the first day of school.  Football practice.  Band try outs.  And the big party.  And then there's the flashbacks.  That, itself, is four episodes.  Spread it out a little more; you're rushing everything.  It was a long time since I was in high school, but I don't recall football practice and band tryouts on the first day.  Everyone is still getting their act together.

And the party was that night?  Wouldn't that be at the end of the first week?

Because you're cramming all these events into a (presumably) one hour episode, you're completely glossing over the characters.  And you must've introduced us to fifteen or twenty characters.  We, as the readers/viewers, need to meet them and get to know them.  You don't need to bring them all into the first episode.  Introducing Paul could be an episode in itself.  I don't know what a handicapped posse is, but get rid of it.  

You have to rewrite Julia.  The female lead of a series shouldn't be such a whore.  Send her to a chiropractor who could adjust her spine so she could close her legs.  Jason (the character) should have to pursue her a little bit.  There's more of a wait at whorehouses than there is for her.

Too often in the script, you describes things improperly.  On page two, you introduce Greg as 'an especially quirky little guy.'  How is he quirky; he just standing there.  On page four, you do the same with Ashley and Julia.  You say they're best friends and you describe their personalities.  Don't tell us how they are; show us!  And how can Laura and Ashley be best friends when Laura came in from Canada the night before?  Is Canada really that lonely?

Reading this script was like speedreading my way through a feature length teen-angst script.  Break it up and slow it down.  Keep it simple.



Phil

First of all, thanks, guys.

I will go ahead and say that I did have one or two school years start out on a Thursday, so that's how that came up. But most people didn't, so I'll keep that in mind.

Otherwise, yeah, I thought there was somerthing odd going on. Use of the boxer shorts scene was only because it was based on a true story... haha, so very unlikely, but very true. And while it certainly carries no weight now, as a youngster that is made a bigger deal of. But in adapting to a screenplay, I could definitely find something more embarassing.

I guess my biggest issue is that my inspiration comes from true stories, mine or others', and I try to implement them here, but then they end up not making sense because I don't adapt them to a wide audience. ex: tryouts didn't usually happen on the first day at my school, they usually took place before it even started. so I pushed it all into the first episode, not really thinking about the length of time I had to work with.

So there's mixed thoughts on a group of sped kids... maybe I need to re-word the phrase "handicapped posse", as it's just a referential term for Paul's fellow sped friends. I have planned to make an entire episode out of it.

All the rushing of things... I have no idea what order I wanted to write the next episodes, so I wanted to leave all the doors open, which left me jamming everything in the first episode. But if I planned the next three or four out, I think that would help.

Quoted from dogglebe You have to rewrite Julia.  The female lead of a series shouldn't be such a whore.  Send her to a chiropractor who could adjust her spine so she could close her legs.  Jason (the character) should have to pursue her a little bit.  There's more of a wait at whorehouses than there is for her. And how can Laura and Ashley be best friends when Laura came in from Canada the night before?  Is Canada really that lonely?

Man I'm forgetting stuff like crazy... well I just woke up, so it's fine. Just wanted to address a couple of other things.

I know you skimmed it, but Laura is local, Julia is from Canada. But still, the whole idea of portraying her as, well, a whore, was that she was sort of a promiscuous party girl who finally finds someone she's attracted to beyond sexually. But by the time she realizes that, Jason wakes up the next morning in the arms of Laura (BUT no sex was involved), spurning a strange situation. Nevertheless, I see your point. I could still portray her as the promiscuous party girl without actually making her look like a total whore.

NOT REALLY THAT MANY SPOILERS...

There's not much to spoil, really.

Well, I finished it and there's definitely a lot going on. The problem is that I'm not sure what was supposed to happen. This is all events but nothing emotional to attach to. We get a general glossing of everyone, but not much more.

One thing that needs to be established is who the main characters are and who the supporting characters are. TV Series traditionally have between 4 and 7 main characters that we follow routinely. There are any number of supporting characters, but we focus on the main 4 to 7. You need to work out who this series is going to focus on, since besides the Jason character, everyone else kind of whirls around.

The basic storyline was ok. It feels like a sketch show or something in its current state. The party, by itself, could be at least one episode to get all the minor subplots going on. The greatest story weakness is character development. I know this is to be a series, and character development can move a little slower in some respects, but by the end of episode one, you have to care about the main characters.

Also, I guess I am not sure what a "spooning position" is since the term to spoon (as close to this context as I can get) is to flirt in a shallow manner. How can you flirt when you're asleep?

As for the actual writing, you are guilty of pet peeve number one: We see. If you write something on paper in a show, not tell, medium, that indicates that we will see it. What works better:

"The sun is out. We see a bunch of cars shuffling around an overcrowded parking lot, kids walking all over the place and school buses pulling in and out."

or

"The sun shines over an overcrowded parking lot. Students walk without regard to boundaries or sidewalks. School buses pull in and out."

you also need to work on making the descriptions more descriptive and less what the camera or director should be doing or concerning himself with. When it is filmed, the director will decide where the focus is. If you're the director, you will scribble it all over your own copy.

I didn't take a lot of page notes because the overview comments apply to a lot of it. A couple of specific things:

3: We had a flashback earlier about no gym shorts. Either the flashback goes or Jason recalling it here has to go. Unless it pays a crucial role in the plot, we only need it once. Don’t put in the dialogue stuff the audience can see.

4: “An attractive Canadian Exchange Student” attractive can be seen, but Canadian exchange student cannot. This would need to come out through dialogue. Ah-ha, comes out on pg 7. Then it can be removed here.

5: Fair enough? I don’t understand. Would have been complete at “Sure do.”

6: A teacher speaking in the manner that Mr. Engels does in his intro scene would be fired.

33/34: Ashley says “Hey, he’s here,” and immediately after says “Okay, he’s here” Lose one of them.

That's it on my end.

Very nice notes, I still haven't started the re-write so I'll take these down too. Spooning refers to cuddling, in the spoon position... sort of like when you take two spoons and stack them. But I'll eliminate the lingo and go with "cuddling" should the scene appear again.

This is the first script I actually read in its entierty on SS. Others seemed to ameteurish or just didn't catch my interest. But I really like Beginnings and am into its attitude and theme. I love its honesty, and my favorite characters are Jason and Julia. Though I do have a few suggestions:

sometimes I don't buy the emotions, or just what they're saying. I know we're limited here, scripts being unproduced and all, but, for instance, the scene in the garage where they're all sampling the vodka and root beer. When Ashley says things liked "Hey, we drank the whole bottle!" and they slap five, it seems fake and awkward, not like something they would really say. They sound like 6th or 7th graders, not 9th or 10th graders.

Ohhh, did we have to bump this?

I guess it wasn't nearly as horrible as I remembered, at least there were likeable characters and people liked it. But yeah, some of the dialogue seems pretty ridiculous, and the characters uninteresting. One of the major problems I remember was introducing a million characters at once for a series.

This one isn't actually on my computer anymore, but I suppose it's worth downloading and fixing up.

edit: where are my manners? thank you for the read.

I know this is a double post, but it's a complete rewrite, albeit a year later than I planned. As suggested, I pushed back some plotlines/characters into other episodes, or dumped some entirely. I found that creating a short synopsis of later episodes helped a LOT. I also dumped "we see" as I've found it tough to deal with in other scripts.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what people think of the re-write... in the mean time, I see a few new scripts on here I'd like to read.

I liked this a lot.  It reminded me of my first day of high school ... except I didn't get invited to any parties, nor did I have a clique yet ... but the dialogue worked very well, and the part about getting into trouble on the first day was totally like my first day of high school.  On my first day, I got intro trouble for accidentally saying something rude to a teacher during morning prayer.  See, I went to a Catholic High School and it was ...

... well, long story short, this script caused flashbacks.  It's a throwback to high school's "Beginnings", and I loved it a lot.  It was even better than the first episode of the long-running web-series THE LUNCHROOM which is a great series, and I strongly suggest that you should look into writing for that one on the side.

Thanks. I'm an avid Lunchroom reader, actually.

Anyway, it's nice to get this started on a positive foot this time. Maybe I should do all of my writing stranded in foreign countries...

Hey, finished yours first since it was a short. There was no plot, yet I enjoyed reading it. It seemed parellel to Clerks. There were some funny scenes and intriguing characters. That's all I can comment on since their was nothing else.

Gabriel  

Thanks, I'm glad some positive feedback is coming through on this one.