Score by Gary A Jones (GaryJ5161) - Short, Comedy - When Ethan's girlfriend wants to take the relationship further, she invites him to meet her parents over dinner. However, when he arrives, he realizes, fathers are a force to be reckoned with. 7 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hey Gary,

Your first slug just needs to be day instead of morning IMO, it doesn't matter what time of day it is. What is thunder across the sidewalk? I'm only on page 1 and already there are lots of problems and questions arising. Get rid of all the cut to's as well, the first 3 pages get confusing, changing scenes so quickly without changing slugs.

The light bulb goes off in his head, are we seeing this on screen? Some grammar issues and you are over describing scenes with things that are not even relevant. What is with all the blue and date thing at the top of every page? Does the time matter in your slug? Who is message? Is he writing or talking a text message? I'll stop with the formatting problems now and concentrate on the story.

You could cut this down to between 3 and 5 pages easily, get rid of the whole first four pages and start with Ethan and Lauren meeting. It's not a good story to be honest but i did enjoy the ending with the revealing but you should have ended it right then! It would have left a better image in the readers mind instead of more over descriptions to finish with.

Good luck and keep writing.

Steve

Honestly looks a bit of a mess really - I found it a bit confusing  - in particular the use of numbers - they threw me a bit; CUT TO's: need to be cut. Agree that the thundering is redundant - or 'quickly' is; use one or the other. First cut to the girls needs a location indicator of some kind.

This was a cute read.  It wasn't an original story (it's an urban legend, IIRC) but it's the first time I'm seen it written as a screenplay.

AVAST, THERE BE SPOILERS!!

I did have some problems with it.  For starters it was a bit too longer.  There was way too much banter in the beginning.  It was three and a half pages before Ethan and Lauren hook up in the coffee shop.  You can easily take a page of dialog away before they meet.

There was some missed opportunity at the coffee shop.  When Ethan learns he wasn't getting dumped, you could've shown the reaction of the other guys.  They shouldn't be too happy over someone being better off than they are.

The drugstore scene could've gone on a bit more, with Ethan describing a little of what he wants to do, regarding the condoms.

There were a lot of formatting problems with the script.  There were page headers (BLUE mm/dd/yy) that made me wonder WTF?.  There were the asterisks on the right side from your software's edit mode.  Both these things were very distracting.  

Steve mentioned the problems with the headers.  It's true.  Finish a header with DAY or NIGHT.  That's all that matters.  If you need to show that it's a particular time, put a clock on the wall, or incorporate it in the character's dialog or something.


Phil

Gary

Enough has been said on cutting the page length and format etc

I liked the tale and with work could be a fun, lighthearted short.

One thought I had was about "thee" coffee shop. It didn't really make too much sense but i liked the idea of a cafe for the dumped. I think could be an interesting, different story and maybe worth looking into.

You turned an old joke into a funny script, good job.  

Blue draft is an industry term for 'second' draft or rewritten draft of a script.  This was written using a 'shooting draft' format hence the asterisks on the side of the page - which should be numbers actually, not asterisks.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_script

let's review as i read along, shall we?

p1

thunders? woah buddy

"You don't want to be late to get dumped." - reads a bit awkwardly

glides? is lauren an ice skater? use better verbs such as stomps, strides, etc.

p 2

don't write "3" instead write "three"

"guy's" require no apostrophes

i think i know where this is going. lauren's not breaking up with ethan. no, instead she's going to propose. (okay, guess i was off by a bit...but on the right track)

p 3

your slug is incorrect. you say morning but you wrote "12:10 PM." come on man.

did ethan just talk to his phone (in response to a text)? jake should call ethan instead of texting him.

p 4/5

this dialogue is just oozing cheese right now.

p 6

has this guy ever had sex before? night light condoms? that always gets the ladies wet...

p 7

ugh, ethan is 27 and he's talking like he's 14. quite frankly i'd cut this whole pharmacy scene entirely. it's trite...the whole thing. (now that i've finished it, i've realize you can't cut this scene. i would fix this entire dilemma by changing the age of ethan and lauren. make them 17)

p 8

okay the hand on the lap thing was pretty funny (and spot on). for some reason, EVERY girl thinks it's funny when they "tease" their bf in front of her parents. and its super annoying (and disrespectful to her parents to be quite honest).

p 9

the long prayer isnt necessary.

okay i finished it. i like the whole dad/pharmacist thing. however, you completely ruin it at the end. my biggest question is wouldnt the father put two and two together when first meets ethan?

my advice overall? shorten it. the payoff is too weak for a script this long. and please fix your descriptors.

lastly, wasn't this the premise of a levi's jean commercial? i've seen this set up before. just cant put my finger on it...

Your logline is just terrible to the point where I'm not even going to open the script up.

Seriously...check this out...

"When confronted with meeting his girlfriends parents over dinner, an unexpected guest shows up."

"his" - Huh?  Who are we talking about?  There's no subject in this entire sentence.

"girlfriends" - missing an apostrophe.

"over dinner" - Huh?  for dinner

The whole thing just reads so poorly and makes absolutely zero sense.

BTW, I see someone said you can't or shouldn't use "MORNING" in a Slug as a time element.  I'll disagree completely.  If it's morning and it matters, that's perfectly cool, just as "AFTERNOON" or "EVENING" is.  Now, understand, if it's not important, then "DAY" or "NIGHT" is more "standard, but there's definitely a different physical look to morning and evening, when in an EXT scene.

Thanks so much guys for the critique... This is my first script so the more the better. I have taken a lot of what you guys have said into account and have revised it. I cut it to 5.5 pages, taking out a lot of the bullshit. Is there a place I can put the new one up?

Best
Gary

Hey Gary, glad to hear that you're taking our advice into consideration. to post a new version of the script, just submit the script like before, except make a note that this is a revision in the comments section.

furthermore, although it's not necessary, it is common courtesy to read/comment on other members' scripts. become an active member and you'll get more reads. let me know when you post the revised script. i'll happily take another look.

Awesome. Thanks for the heads up and will most definitely do that!

I was thrown with the "thunder" and "glides" descriptions on the first page. I thought they were rollerblading at first.  Change those.
Also, on page 3 "there" relationship should be "their".
You took too long for the payoff as well at the end. The father would know right away who the guy was and there would be a confrontation when he walked through the door.

Just my two cents.