The Final Trip - 10/12 OWC

Yeah sorry, but this doesn't hit the challenge requirements.

On top of that it's lacking somewhat in what I would call a decent story.

The frequent use of the f-bomb is a turn-off for me as well. It seems like you've become reliant on it, as opposed to using it to express your characters.

I don't like any of your two characters. They're a bunch of idiots, IMO. Quite frankly, I don't care when they die. You want to play with knives, you deserve it...

What they were trying to achieve with the whole knife thing was never actually revealed. What's the point?

I thought that, given the story, the short is a little too long. I reckon you could easily bring this down to 7-8 pages.

The dialogue is inconsistent. You have these moments where your characters are swearing left right and center and then this...

"We must use what
resources we have available at our
disposal to do what we need to do."

One minute you have this swearing lunatic, the next you have this guy who talks like one of those politicians with carrots stuck up their ass. Keep it consistent.

Not for me, sorry.

Good job on getting the challenge completed, though, even if you didn't quite meet the requirements.

Dan

I appreciate the different take on the challenge but this didn't have much juice to it. Just barely touched the challenge requirements but I guess that's better than nothing. For some reason Ace turned British halfway through. Not sure what's going on there.

Pretty simplistic otherwise. Not much else to say.

Greg

What a shitload of Fucking cusses and a story to match...

Sorry dude wasn't for me

Good job on entering

Mark

I didn't see the good versus evil thing. Also, there was no choice and no sense of trying to survive the night. The only thing the story sticks with is the supernatural part - barely.

There's a lot of unnecessary and uninteresting actions here. For example on page 8, the author uses "pause" 3 times. It's like using "beat" three times. I'm guilty myself of using "beat" but it's just not necessary here. Also, it should be used sparingly in a feature and even more so in a 10-12 minute short.

Congrats on completing the OWC but the story does not do much for me.

Some harsh responses here. Given the parameters, I lowered my expectations somewhat. The writer knows his way around the language, so in that way, it was fairly easy on the eye.

I got confused about the 'Mum' bit too. Freudian?

Story elements were there, so structurally is wasn't too bad. As far as the characters go, this wasn't an exercise in intelligence, so were pretty right for what they were doing, but they could have done with being fleshed out some.

I've read that some of these scripts were punched out, like a day before deadline, so I wondered if this had been given a little bit more time?

Okay. 35 to go ...

This reads like an Aussie author giving it a go.  Pretty damn strange tale, but never generated any suspense or scares.

Your first page is actually numbered 2.  And on that first page "A door slams open."  That's a new one.

Did Ace and Ted really pay for a room with a bare mattress? lol that was funny.  But I had no idea what these two wastoids were doing at the motel.  Why were they drinking the tea?  Just to see the vision of the Mum?  Didn't get why Ted would want to kill himself after accidentally killing Ace.  "I'm coming buddy!"  Then I thought Ace's ghost was trying to save Ted, but then we get the sound of the body collapsing.  Ah, well.  Just didn't get it.

Pg 2:
Title page is not supposed to be page 1.
Not sure but Ace's description doesn't need to be in parenthesis, just the age.  Same with Ted.

Pg 3:
“We must use what resources we have available at our disposal to do what we need to do.”  I think this line can be redone.  Doesn't sound right.
Ace is now okay with the room?  After his opening dialogue when he first walked in, this didn't make sense.  I know, I'm too picky.  He is just easy going, right?

Pg 4:
No time indicators in your slugs.  Is it LATER, DAY, NIGHT, etc.?

Pg 5:
Ted, “That’s hot as.”  I assume you wanted an ellipsis here.
The trees bent in the car park earlier, now they continue to bend.  I know this is the OWC, but could have done something better here.
Again, no time indicators in your slugs.

Pg 11:
Not sure if I get the ending though.  I assume Ted is the one who hit the floor?

I guess I should first say good job completing a script for this challenge.  Not sure if they had to make a choice between good/evil, and not sure it fit the other elements.  I liked the Title, but the title page started with page 1, and normally it doesn't get assigned a page number.  That's not a big deal, but noticable.  The writing was okay.  The dialogue needs some work.  Overall, the story going from them trying to get high, to guardian angels, to killing each other (whether by accident or not) felt somewhat rushed.  I guess that is how it is in a OWC!  It was a pretty fast read.  Was the story my “cup of tea?”... not really.  Again, good effort completing this on time.

Yeah, this one wasn't so good, overall. I kept thinking to myself, when they continued to swear every fourth word, "This reminds me of the script for 'Tales From the Hood'", where every other word was basically, "Fuck", "Shit" or everyone's favorite N-related racial slur.

Anyway, the guys in the story are kind of dumb and I'm being generous when I say there is a story. To be honest, there wasn't. This was just an all-around mess. Not a complete disaster, but it is in dire need of a real story.

D.

Yeah, I didn't care for this either. Cussing is fine, as long as you're using it well and aren't just using it to be "cool" or whatever.

The writing itself needs some work, IMO. Many awkward lines here and there.

I didn't like or care about the characters. It's not important that people like your characters-- they can be total jerks if you want-- but they have to be interesting, and we should be able to empathize with the characters. They shouldn't be annoying, either.

So, fix the dialogue, improve your characters and this'll be ten times better.

Good job completing the OWC.

Some people actually do talk like this you know...

I don't know what the big fuss is over this one - in being really terrible, I mean. Have none of you seen Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure?

I didn't see any good v evil, but the supernatural element was there-- with a couple of stoner guys.

No, it's not genius on any level and it's not going to win any awards, but I don't find it offensive as per the critiques above. It is what it is. It definitely was an easy read, I just wasn't overly fond of the ending and thought a bit more creativity was in order there.

Ok, so you've had all the feedback above.

My suggestions;

Reveal the reason they are there more clearly and tie this into the story
Don't spend too much tie on the boiling up, it didn't seem to add much to the story
The core is about guardian angels, do they exist, what can they do etc this is where the action, dialogue needs to be more focused
Things like the ants in the tin don't seem to add, as far as I could see, so it is a distraction.

This OWC was a tough challenge so kudos for getting something in.

Who are these guys?  Why are they even together?  They seem like total opposites.  Ted says he has a beach house so he's obviously got money and Ace..just seems like an a-hole.  So what is their relationship?

After 11 pages I should know who they are, shy they are there, what the plot and conflict was....and I didn't.  You have to remember that we're going into this blind.  we have no idea what's in your head.  You know who they are but we also have to know.

Just keep writing.

I certainly didn't find this as offensive as everyone else.  People do talk like that in certain parts of the world.

I thought this met the requirements on all levels and I thought this worked structurally as a story.

However, personally, I didn't like the resolution.   I also didn't feel like the characters existed beyond this stretch of script.  Like Marnie, who are these guys?

I think maybe this would work much better as a comedy.  You need to up the humour here and come up with a different resolution - one that is uplifting and makes us laugh.

Either that or you need to really dig deep into the characters and give us some dialogue and some action that tells us a bit more about the characters and their relationship to each other.  That is the only way to make the current ending effective.

Good work for an OWC.

Page 3. Ace’s dialogue stopped me mid-tracks. Very clunky and unnatural.

Since they are best friends, wouldn’t Ace already know how many beds are in Ted’s beach house?

Page 5. You’ve now had two EXT. slugs telling us the trees bend in the wind. It feels very unnecessary as this is story telling, not editing. If nothing has changed outside there’s no need to tell us about the trees again.

Reading their dialogue, I never got the feeling they were best friends. They didn’t seem to know enough about each other to be great friends.

What’s with the FX: on the last page?

All in all, not too bad. Not a whole lot happened in it to me at least. I bet if this was filmed, it would be quite short.

How to improve this one? Fix the dialogue. Make the story a little deeper and not quite as shallow. Good Luck! :)

Yeah, I definately have different tastes than everybody else.

The last two entries I've read have been comedies.  The last comedy ('One of God's Special Children'), everybody blushed over, but I didn't like it.  This one, almost everyone bashes and expressed their dislike over it, but I liked it.  (And I'm not even a stoner!  I've never even smoked weed.)

Now, it's not great by any means, but the dialogue is true to their character.  (Eventhough I'm not a stoner, I have quite a few old friends who are.)

And, I think what happens in this story is rather clever.  I don't think it's exactly funny like it's meant to be, but the story is clever.

It meets the challenge.  A motel with a hurricane (bad storm) approaching, supernatural element that happened in the past, (guardian angel), and a choice that's evil (sticking a knife against somebody's throat (for a 2nd time)) that results in somebody not surviving the night.  It may be a little loose on the decision part, but I'll still qualify it.

I've noticed a lot of people said they were wondering what the boys were doing there, but I thought it was made obvious that they were on their way to the beach house, but got derailed because of the storm, and that was the last room left.

Those last two lines of the script, however, is why I can't give this any high marks.  I LOVED how you made the one that died the guardian angel over the other one, but it would've made a lot more sense to have him save the other one from killing himself, rather than him failing.

I think because of that is why some people didn't get the story.

Nevertheless, a good job mainly because I liked the clever, twist ending.  (except the last FX line.)

- Mark

Not many challenges were met. Also it took awhile for the story to get going. The cussing didn't bother me, some people talk like that as stated above. Kudos for you taking the challenge a different way than the others and congrats on writing for the OWC.

It was kind of fitting that one of the characters was called Ted because as this story went on, I couldn't help but think that this really should be retitled as "Bill (Ace) and Ted's boneheaded crusade."

I'm sorry but I didn't get into this one at all. Looking past the "amateur hour" mistake on the first page, the writing was terse and it's a fast read but there was too many one line actions which didn't need to be and made this longer than it should be. This could easily be trimmed down by a few pages. I would also watch out for starting the action with the same name or "he" over and over again which looks horrible on the page. It's more visible with your one-line style.

The dialogue was pretty decent if a tad inconsistent at times, they did seem to become more mellow but maybe that's the drugs taking affect. With the use of "mum" over "mom" I get the feeling this was written by a Brit or Aussie.

Is there story here - barley, but I guess you could make a case that you've ticked off a few of the requirements. A few questions though.

Would someone who owns a big beach house really be this stupid and actually kill themselves or even be in this situation? I would get rid of the beach house, raises too many questions about why Ted is even hanging out with this douche.

And why were they travelling with a kettle, gas stove and bottle if they're heading to a beach house? Doesn't it have a kettle or gas for that matter? Very strange, now if they were going camping I could understand this but they're heading to a bloody mansion on the beach. They probably took some sunlounges as well just in the case beach house was running short.

The ending was confusing, I thought Ace was trying to save Ted but then you hear the body hit the floor "FX" style.

Sorry, but this one wasn't for me but it's taught me one thing - don't go looking for your guardian angel because they suck at their job. I mean they didn't save either of these guys anyway.

Congrats on completing the OWC. :)

Steve

The Final Trip by - A hurricane turns what could have been the ultimate road trip for two best friends into a real-life nightmare. The culprit? A cup of hot, steamy tea...
Brief - Two druggies discover their own guardian angels.

Locations & Sets  -  Interior, motel room @ night
Actors  -  ACE (21), TED (20), Ace’s MUM (40)
Costumes  -  Ace’s MUM’s white robe
Props  -  empty can of baked beans, bags of something? sticks, wooden boxes x2, gas stove, kettle, cups x2, small gas bottle, a small zip lock bag full of green leaves, bleeding filet knife, liquid stage blood, sword, cut neck prosthetic, knife stabbed neck prosthetic
Audio FX  -  wailing wind, door slam, can crashing into sink, body thump into floor
Visual FX  -  surreal effect applied to Ace’s MUM x2 + Ace; probably will have to green screen them & superimpose
Other  -  Ants + ant wrangler, hurricane wind and trees stock footage, makeup artist
Genre & Marketability - Supernatural horror suspense
Comments  -  Ants. What part of “no animals” is so elusive to everyone? Just eliminate that entirely. Only the character’s age goes within the parenthesis. Turn off your screenwriting program’s mores and continueds feature. Ace straightens the dirty mattress? For really? Dialog’s a bit wonky. Bags of what? There are sticks lying in the motel room floor? WTF? Ace straightens the bed covers - while there are sticks in the floor? Crazy. By pg4 I’m wondering if the hundreds of ants (that shouldn’t be in the story to begin with) are now crawling out all over the sink and counter. But at least the filthy bed covers are straightened! “Ace drops to the ground, begins doing push-ups.” Seriously, WTF? Story’s fair. Good usage of a single setting, minimal cast and props. No survival of the night issue nor choice between good and evil. Script format: needs work. Final word: Although I like the guardian angel aspect the story’s un-impactful between a couple of druggies.

$500 - $1,000  Lo/Hi Estimated Budget Range
/ 10.8 Screenplay Pages
= $46 - $93  Estimated Cost Per Screen Minute

Adherence to Given Criteria:
Odd but interesting character(s) - nope
take refuge from a hurricane - yep
in a beat-up motel - yep
and are forced to make a choice - nope
between good or evil - nope
in order to survive the night. - nope
Each character must -
have some history involving a supernatural event in their lives - yep
that factors into their choice. - nope
Genre is open. - Supernatural horror suspense
This is a micro-budget short, - yep
so no destruction of the motel, - yep
no children or animals - I’ll eliminate that
and minimal special effects. - yep
BONUS! Story also included:
mime(s) - nope
dinosaur(s) - nope

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WBdeA3ZfngPz7NfJg_5DSBUFsZXkicfyNQHRc8Bg2SQ/edit

An easy read. Things were ok until page 8 where, IMO, it went south. If the choices were based on them being 'high', I was a little confused as to whether they were or not. Seems like this one was really rushed and probably could have been a lot better given more time.

Good effort.

;D ;D. Okay a lot of problems here but I thought it was silly/fun. Seems like a semi-pisser, didn't laugh but smiled at the ending. Two friends just messing around and this is what happens.

Could be filmed easily even though it doesn't meet the requirements. If this was for fun, than good job but if it was a serious attempt, I'd recommend a rewrite.

My grade: C.

It kind of rambled at the beginning, but i find this funny towards the end. I'm not sure if they were meant to be high in the second part, they seemed pretty coherent to me, and if so, them getting high didn't add much to the story.

I thought these guys testing the hypothesis of guardian angels was a funny idea, especially when his mum turns up to save him, and later Ace. But it didn't make sense, if she was there to save him why didn't she, and the same for when Ace turns up.

This script takes a while to get moving. I don't mind all of the swearing, but I can see how some may find it gratuitous.

This also suffers from too much exposition as do most of these scripts, mine included. I liked what you had going here, but I was confused a bit at the end. Did Ted kill Himself or did Ace kill him. What was the bang?

This is an interesting idea, though. I wonder who was Ted's guardian angel before Ace became his.

Good effort for the OWC.

James

Sorry to be harsh, this is the worst one I've read so far.

I didn't like the characters or the dialogue. It took too long to get going for being only 10 pages and by the time it ended...I didn't care, I wasn't really involved.

Congrats on submitting something for the OWC - this just wasn't my cup of tea.

Congrats on entering the OWC!

Tonight on a very special Beevis and Butthead...

The swearing didn't bother me, but it wasn't entertaining cursing like in a Tarantino
or Scorsese movie.

These two idiots could have been likeable if the writing was funnier.
Dude, you're bleeding!  Far out! Cut me again!

Didn't see anything resembling a plot.  Something about proving the existence of
guardian angles.

Thanks for playing.

First of all. I can tell that this is a short R rated type of twilight suspense DVD package story.

When you introduced your first page as a title page,  It is incorrect.  The FADE IN page should be your page 1, And your name should be underneath the title just as in the following example:

                                                    FINAL  TRIP

                                                         by

                                                    Edward  Doe

When you introduced ACE and TED for the first time. It should look like this:

ACE, (21),  and TED, (21),  The Parenthetical is not correct when used in narrative description.

Also when we see the term (beat) as described underneath Ace's character cue.
I am most certain you are describing Ace's out of this world blood pressure and heartbeats by the seccond. Good work, And I like your writing spirits.

But the term (beat) was used years ago and used only in telephone conversations.
You very seldon see that term in screenwriting today in 2013.

We see on page 4 and 5 the scene heading as the following:

EXT.  CAR  PARK, This is incorrect, It should be like the following example:

EXT.  CAR  -  PARKED  -  NIGHT

Now in your story. At the very beginning, Ace and Ted enter into a motel room.
Then we see on the table, An old can of baked beans which is clobbered with ants all over it.

It raises this question.  What type of Motel Attendant would neglet a Motel room, Even though it is a cheap rundown place?

I'll give you my story summary and sum it up later.

Darryl
It raises

Quoted from DarrylLuster

Edward, When a character speaks in dialogue and says a number in dialogue speech, It should be written out as words. For example on page 5. Ace's dialogue speech should be as follows:

                                             ACE
                                Once we drink this,  there is no
                                going back.  They say four to eight
                                hours.  Not a short trip,  my friend.

Quoted from DarrylLuster

The POV term is rarely used in screenwriting today. So it would have been okay to omit Ace's POV, And then continue with Suddenly, Ace's Mum. and so on.
The MUM should not be in Caps.

But then again it's okay to use the POV in this story because it helps move the story forward. And I also notice that we do not see the Angel at all in this story.

It is my judgement that you are allowing the producer to think of and visualize the shot to his own descretion. However, You do need to place in caps SHE. Becaues she appears for the first time.

Quoted from DarrylLuster

I looked up the meaning to these words. Culprit and Mum.

You gave us this word and as question in your logline: Culprit?

In order to apply this to your story. I would have to say yes. But

not culprit, How about Ted is the Malefactor?

I looked up the word Mum? The best way I describe it to match your story is that it stands for Voiceless.

Edward we have two young men in thier early twenties. Who are driving in a fierce storm. They quickly take shelter in a rundown motel out of nowhere.

When they check into the room and walk down to the door, And enter. The first thing they see is a can of baked beans that are wallop with ants crawing over it upon the wooden lamp table.

After these two young men get setteled down, The strong storm outside gets rougher and rougher. They plug in a gas grill and make themselves some hot tea.

When they begin to sip and settle down, Ace out of the blue yonder ask Ted, Did I ever tell you that I sometimes see my mum?

Edward the word means Voiceless to make your story clear.

What I see is that this is 100% Murder and suicide with with self-slaughter written all over it without a prayer in sight.

It's a good R rated short self inflicting womb twilght on behalf of both parties.

Darryl

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