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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Series  /  Mad House
Posted by: Don, September 23rd, 2007, 3:51pm
Mad House pilot by David Caffee - Series, Comedy - An eccentric scientist and his bizarre family deal with personal issues while simultaneously fending off experiments gone wrong, aliens and loads of other weirdness. In this episode a new neighbor walks in on Staci (daughter) while she is changing. Dr. Ma'ad is accused of developing WMD. 35 pages - rtf, format 8)
Posted by: MZPtv, March 6th, 2008, 9:32am; Reply: 1
So! Let's have a look at this, then.

First off, you have the 'Assorted boxes' bit stuck into the Scene Heading - it needs to be part of the direction below instead. Likewise the 'Danny and Ma'Ad house' bit - keep scene headings nice and short, like:

EXT. STREET - DAY
INT. DANNY'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - DAY

You also forget to introduce the Doctor properly - he gets dialogue despite not being mentioned as being round the barbeque as Danny approaches! Also looks like the conversion into RTF here has thrown some of the Act Breaks around. And you don't need a new page for each new scene, either!

What I can see straight away here is you need to get hold of some proper screenwriting software - there are free programs like ScriptSmart or Celtix out there to start with, and more professional stuff like Sophocles or Final Draft, so invest in those. You'll see a whole world of difference right away ^_^

The rapidfire humour actually works well here - the weather machine gag and schizoid old guy, for example - so keep that element in. In fact, it's very Futurama with all the SF gags that Dr. Ma'ad gives you access to - which is A Good Thing!

So overall, I'd have to give this a:



Work on your formatting and you'll find that the good parts here - namely the quirky cast and fast-paced humour and sight gags - start to show themselves off much better.
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