Time Umbrella by Tony Huges - Short - A  young man discovers time travel and uses it to score with his girlfriend. 15 pages - pdf, format 8)

Tony,

Title caught my eye, and the logline didn't sound too bad either. Time travel interests me.

Quoted from Time Umbrella JARED WILSON, 29 and plain looking, walks done the street. He carries groceries.

I can't say that's the best opening line I've ever read.

I was almost tempted to stop reading. But I'd consider it rude so on I went. It got better. Much better. Weird, but better.

Quoted from Time Umbrella He may not take kindly to being cock blocked.

This made me laugh out loud. I'm still laughing, and I'm not even sure why. The next line didn't help either.

I word on format. I kinda follow what you mean but it could be a bit clearer. I mean the Image Of: business. You also need to lose the continueds on each page.

You also need to be clearer on each character and scenario, Time travel is complicated by nature so I'd recommend you make it clear, for the reader at least, what we're supposed to be seeing.

The end of page five is what I'd planned if I ever got round to a time travel script. About bloody time someone did that. To plots like 'The Time Travelers Wife' i say 'my arse'.

There's a lot to like here. The characters came out with some stuff I wasn't expecting. After a few pages I was ready for anything and they were still coming out with some unexpected, but still rather good lines.

All that said though, it did feel like I was watching a particular episode of Red Dwarf.

Nevertheless, some pretty fine things in here. It has typos, and a couple of slow bits but most of it flew by. If you tightened up the slack this has potential. I'll keep an eye for any more of your work.

Hey rendevous,

Thanks for the read and the comments.

Glad some of the dialogue gave you a chuckle. Although I think I could trim some of the dialogue.

I showed it to a friend earlier today and he seemed to run into some confusion with the time traveling. Was there any part(s) in particular you found hard to follow?

I do plan on trimming and expanding on some ideas for this script. This was kind of written in one night and left to the side while  I focused on my feature.

I have never seen Red Dwarf before. Did they do something similar to this idea? I hope not...


Again thanks for the read. I'll look for Green when it comes out.

Tony,

It was unclear which Jared was which. I'd name both of them specifically more than you have. I also can't remember what they looked like. They should appear different.

Red Dwarf did do it, plenty of times. One particular episode is very similar. - Stasis Leak.
The series was very popular here for many years, they still show it regularly on a channel called Dave.

But there's plenty of time travel plots that have been done, and maybe it's just me.

The dialogue does need a bit of trimming. Thinking about it now the old man does seem to come out of the blue. Maybe if he was watching Jared before they speak it might not seem such a bolt from blue.

I did enjoy it though.

This is very weird. Hopefully the author's intent is to be comedic.

Story
Time travel is always an interesting plot device. The setup to the time travelling plot is generally good. But the way you used it is where your story falls apart. Jared's only desire is to make love to past Amelia, and I feel it was not a strong enough desire to cause all these events. In another words, the desire is superficial. The ending also suffers with the appearance of Old Jared. I still don't get why Old Jared would want to kill his younger selves. Doing that will not cure his disease. And then he wants to play Nintendo?!! What was going on there? It seems like you just tack on that ending because you couldn't find a way to end it. You need to completely change the ending and then modify the rest of the story to make the story coherent.

Characters
I don't like Jared but I can empathize with him in the beginning. But once he begins to time travel, my attention switches to past Jared. Past Jared is the only character I care about because I feel he was being bullied. So you did good with him. But a big no for Old Jared who came out of left field. Although he is an older form of Jared, he seems to be a completely different person. All of his actions are very questionable.

Dialogue
The dialogue are quite on the nose. All of the characters seem to say what they think. Some dialogues are funny but others are make me cringe and confused. Especially the ones from Old Jared.

Overall, I enjoyed reading it. You started out with a bang but you ended it with a whim. I feel indifferent by the end of the reading. Good effort though.

hey tony, I thought this was pretty d@mn funny.  I agree with rendevous, I dont know many people who would be granted super powers and jump right into being righteous and helpful.  Would have to spend a few decades getting laid and rich before that came up.

'you know I don't like to fu(k when I'm retaining water.'  Sexy line.
A little unbelievable to just pass a random old man and strike up a convo.  Might be more realistic if hes sitting down and the old man sits net to him, or something.  Just stopping while walking to talk to someone you don't know is odd.  But I like the old man asking if 'shes not putting out.'
"I hope the big one eats the little one" hilarious.
Bottom of page 12 missing a question mark after 'who are you'
It gets lost a little once old jared shows up.  I agree the plan doesn't make much sense, if you could think of a different way to end this would be a great piece.

Very funny short, consistently funny dialogue and a good premise.
Some of the writing could be tightened up, but overall pretty easy to follow.  I didn't have a problem differentiating between the Jareds, and on screen it would make sense.  Though I might mention what exactly the difference in appearence is between past jared and present jared that he doesnt recognize himself.  maybe a difference in facial hair, something to that effect.
For the girls it seemed like they jumped pretty quickly from being bitchy to each other to wanting to ditch the guys.  Maybe a few extra lines of them turning on the guys would help.
I agree the ending needs a bit of work, some other little twist that wraps it up, though I cant think of any suggestions.
Good luck

Tony,

This was enjoyable. Made me chuckle, and was a breeze to read.

As you already stated yourself, the script needs a tighten. The fact you boshed this out in one night is very encouraging, 'cos with the rewrite I think this could be worked into something very amusing.

The dilemma of the time travel was a neat way to look at how relationships diminish over time, and I liked how you brought the 3 Jared's together. The 'Old Man' with the umbrella was amusing, and he was quite odd. Would like to see more of him, and find out why he is so infatuated with Jared - I mean, is this Grandad Jared in disguise? That's what I half-expected, but it's seemingly not.

The only real weakness for me was it was a tad unbelievable, even as a fantasy-comedy. However, with subsequent rewrites, I think you could refine those edges, and create a lovely piece of odd comedy. The simultaneous weakness right now is the believability, so more work could weight it in your favour.

Good work.

Andrew

Coding, jackx, ophelia, and Andrew,
Thank you very much for your comments.

The whole past Jared and regular Jared thing is a hard thing to read. I showed it to a friend and he had a problem differentiating the two at times. Heck, I even managed to confuse myself while writing it.
I understand the ending is very rushed. Allen you're spot on about the Old Man being and older version of Jared...an idea I have been thinking of during the rewrite. But I'm still not sure how I would reveal it.

The rewrite is actually going to be very different. First of all it will simply be titled "Umbrella". I will also introduce Time Travel in a different way.
Coding I agree with you on that the original Jared is a character that is very hard to empathize with, especially towards the later half. That is something I aim to correct, especially since regular Jared suffers a rather grim fate.

The only problem I have now is I've changed it so much I can use those witty lines that I have no $#@!ing idea how I can up with!

Again thanks so much for your feedback. If any of you have anything you would like me to check out...short or feature....I would be glad to!

The only thing I'd suggest in addition to what has already been said, if I may, is that you might increase the amount of time between past and present (say make it 15 years), and have the past Jared just meeting and dating Amelia, while the future ones are married (maybe with kids).

Future Jared could then himself be running to fat, balding, etc - and in finding a way back tries to recapture his youth - perhaps Past Jared could be literally cheated on behind his back by his girlfriend (who turns out to have a thing for older men) and his future self, instead of being party to it.

Just a thought!

Niles,
That is an interesting suggestion. However I will most likely not go for that approach. This is a short I am hoping to film in the next year. Part of the reason I will not have a longer time is because I plan to use the same actor. I have no resources to make the actor playing Jared to appear any older. In fact I am going to make the elapsed time closer. I might use facial hair on the older Jared to make it clearer to the audience who is who visually.

This will also be an exercise in using editing software to make the same actor appear in the same frame.

Recapturing his youth will make older Jared's motive seem less superficial and a little more empathetic. However I understand that the audience needs a character to identity with and root for. This being a short, both Jared's have very little screen time. That is why in my rewrite I am introducing Younger Jared first.

Thank you for your thoughts and your time reading it. Are any of your features posted on this website? I would be glad to give them a read.

Thanks for the offer. I am hoping to post some new stuff shortly, having not written anything for some time due to severe writers block, and for me it is the new stuff that matters, not the old!

Thanks again, and good luck with your filming.