Customer Service by Zack Van Eyck - Short, Comedy -  A customer driven insane by his bank's ridiculous policies and its clerks' incessant salesmanship tries to get even by robbing it.  But can his stick-up message get past the corporate red tape or will he simply open a new account?  Male lead, female lead, any age, several supporting roles/extras. Interior and exterior of small bank branch.  Comedy, 6 pages. - pdf, format 8)

Beware! Another entry from Zack! ;D I'm not gonna bother reading unless the author is around.

Also, the logline is over written. :P

What is with this guy and his drive by script posting.

Couldn't quite recall the name - had a quick look at the script and then saw the posts. I'll not bother reading anymore of the script, but let's just say I got half-way past page one, and thought I'll check the posts...

Quoted from Ectoplasm What is with this guy and his drive by script posting.

I would remind some of you newer guys that many people never make it past the home page.

They submit their scripts to Don, happy to see it online somewhere (anywhere), and never even know the discussion board exists.

Alot of times guys like ol' Zack here will show up six months later and be, like, "Wow, I had no idea."

It still doesn't mean you should read their scripts, though -- but little point to busting their chops about it, either.

Quoted from bert I would remind some of you newer guys that many people never make it past the home page. They submit their scripts to Don, happy to see it online somewhere (anywhere), and never even know the discussion board exists.

Pure hogwash! Beneath every UP script is a link to the discussion board. I've seen people take forever to find the secret portal, but not their scripts discussion board link if they want feedback.

Maybe he's just looking for emails from film makers and doesn't care to discuss his scripts with us. Maybe he's got ten short films made already???? Or, maybe he's a douche?

James

Zack if your are reading this:

Your logline is overwritten again.

"Male lead, female lead, any age, several supporting roles/extras. Interior and exterior of small bank branch."

This is unnecessary, as it is in your script(probably)

I`m guessing Zack does not appear very often.

Mark

I think it would have worked better if Hoyt had to wait and wait for service, standing in line behind other people, amd was greeted at all by the staff, who would be overworked and tired.

Peter -- my experience at the banks here in L.A. is that there are way too many people available to help you.  They have someone to greet you at the door, someone to give you water and someone to point to an empty teller's window!  Like we need that!  So wasteful and I always feel like I'd rather wait in line without water and not be greeted by anyone and have the guy behind me tap my shoulder when the next teller is available rather than know that my bank is spending all of its money unnecessarily on these employees' wages!  So, that is what inspired my thinking.  I also wrote the original version of this before the bank crash and I'm not sure I captured all of our collective "bank angst" on the rewrite.  i have not had a staged reading of this one yet, probably this spring, so we'll see what feedback I get there.  I appreciate your comment.

And again, to explain to Mark, the details about characters, their ages and the locations are included at the end of the logline for the convenience of producers.  Is it possible for you to simply not read this part?  Because I'd still like that information to be available for producers as it helps them decide whether or not to read the script.  Thank you!

And, yes, I had no idea there was feedback here until someone finally e-mailed me, and it wasn't any of you who have been commenting on my scripts.  Since my e-mail address and the e-mail address of all other writers here seem to be easily accessed, I hope in the future if someone doesn't respond to your feedback in a timely manner, you'll consider the fact that they may not know about the posts and just drop them a friendly e-mail to let them know.

Thank you kindly!

Zack Van Eyck

Quoted from bert Alot of times guys like ol' Zack here will show up six months later and be, like, "Wow, I had no idea."

Pisses me off when Bert is right, he's sitting in front of a computer somewhere gloating, I'm sure...

Good to see you on the boards Zack. If, for anything, at least thanking people for reading. I gave this a read...

Your slugs don't look spaced properly. Your script looks too busy because of it. I would give the first three bank workers names since they are speaking parts and would have most likely be wearing name tags anyway. Makes it easier for the reader to discern who's speaking.

The last dialogue box should be Donna's dialogue, no?

This was pretty over-the-top. I smiled while reading it, but i didn't get any real laughs. This just seemed to lack too much realism to be funny for me. And Hoyt's fatal mistake of dialing 911 wasn't a good enough punch. I did like the future pain in the ass reference. All in all, this was just okay for me.

There are some who dig this over-the-top type comedy, I've just never been one of them. Good luck with it. Welcome to the boards...

James

i read this for two reasons...

1) you commented in the thread
2) this script was at the top of the batch already

that being said, this was okay for me. there were too many conflicting ideas here. no character remained constant. i liked the idea of a super friendly teller who is completely oblivious to a bank robber, but let's face it...it's been done before. and this one lasts WAY too long. it's a one joke script that keeps going.

your formatting needs some work. your slugs are a bit off at times. furthermore, some of your dialogue is too on the nose. and there's no need for your parantheticals.

do me a favor and contribue a bit more on the boards. once you do, i'll start going more in depth. as is, you owe A LOT of people A LOT of reads...

Hey Zack

note: I think there is a character mistake at the end, where Hoyt is supposed to be Donna. I do that all the time, and never notice until someone points it out.

The story did not quite grab me, though there is some cleverness, and I could see where it could certainly work for some people. Obviously scripts are all subjective, but nothing is more distinctly subjective then humor.

Donna is so clueless that she seems more like a computer program. Until the end, when she jumps out of character and is smart enough to make wisecracks.

However, with some adjustments, I could see a script like this maybe appealing to the SNL type people. The basic idea of a frustrated customer trying to rob a bank but struggling to get through to the perky and inept staff is potentially very funny.

I had no problem with the writing in general.

Sorry I couldn't help more, no ideas hit me.

It’s well structured, but I wasn’t really into the conversation between Donna and Mr. Hoyt.
It had some funny lies but it just didn’t do it for me. I guess I just found it unrealistic.
Why would a bank robber be willing tell a 9-1-1 operator he’s robbing a bank?
Doesn’t make sense.
And why doesn’t he just run out after they tell them they’re on the way?
He’s getting stonewalled on the money, what’s he sticking around for?
Does he want to get caught?