Night Shift by Ray Jackson - Short, Black Comedy - Jeff, an insomniac has just got a job working nights at the local "Lidl's", but this night is going to be something he'll never forget. 14 pages - pdf, format 8)

Your story doesn't make any sense to me - it's not even plausible in the way you tell it. You need to work out the mechanics of whats actually happening and show us.

The Lidl culture and lay out of the shop you present is a bit iffy. An incompetent manager, okay, we've all come across them, but not that moronic. I think the least he'd know is that he has a new employee.

The Lidl chain of supermarkets are all open plan with goods wheeled in on pallets to save on restocking cocts, so hiding around the store is not as easy as you make out. Any other chain of supermarket with shelving would lend itself better to this story, any one but Lidl.

As for the script itself, there a whole heap of expositional dialouge where characters explain who's where and who's doing what. It's also on the nose and unnatural. Show us, don't tell us. You need to move this story quickly with short sharp visuals. Spelling mistakes, like:

                                                       JEFF
                                                   defiantly!
are distracting. I presume you mean definitely! You need to comb through your script and correct these.


The humour, even in the dark sense you intended falls between the cracks. The style of writing lends itself more to a goofball spoof than a black comedy script. I love black comedy. It takes far too long to get to the actual story here and when it gets there, well there is no storyas such because we can figure out at the start it's one of the staff, so we know what's coming. It's Scream territory.

The searching for weapons bit, naff. Kepp the style of writing consistent. Black comedy is at it's best when the characters are genuine and not 'playing to the camera'.

I know this might seem harsh, but I hope you find it constructive. if you post a rewrite i'll take a look.

I'd have to agree with Eoin. I personally have never shopped at Lidl so can't comment on the layout, but definitely the spelling and grammar errors are distracting - for instance 'should of', should read 'should have', or even 'should've'.

Story-wise, I found it predictable. I know it's only a short script, but I would like to get to know the characters, maybe introduce a flaw, and possibly vary their death scenes?

The 'why can't we leave' lines were wooden and obvious. If it was me, I'd maybe have the key snap in the lock as they're trying to escape (that's actually happened to me!) Or think up another way to keep the characters in the shop that's original and realistic.

I only mean these comments to be constructive. Hope you find them helpful.