Sorry, Not Sorry by Hunter Vogt - Short, Comedy - Following an aggressive game of Sorry!, two friends try to repair the relationship between their other two friends, who had been dating for a year, which was damaged by the game. - pdf, format

I played this game many times as a kid but don't remember the rules -- or how you "target" someone. It's not that clear (to me) in the script, so the tension about this issue is less effective than it could be. I imagine someone who has NEVER played Sorry would be lost.

Spoiler:
The resolution -- losing on purpose -- was a letdown.

Age designations were weak (eg. "around the same age"). Padding also a problem -- eg. an entire page devoted to choosing the game.

I like the title.

Writer,

Decent effort, but not much at stake here save for some hurt feelings. I think you missed your chance to make this less pedestrian by adding some conflict and tension to beef it up a bit. The tension that is building isn't enough to carry this, as Caleb's hurt feelings at Leona's gloating doesnt provide much drama. You had a blackout going on, too. That could've made a good backdrop for something deeper.

Overall, not bad but not for me.

Steve

I felt that it was too long.  Too much dialog that wasn't needed for the idea to work.

The games didn't really "matter" to the people.  

The power outage didn't serve any real purpose except to give them a reason to play games.  Why can't people play games b/c they like them, not b/c there isn't anything else to do?

Still, the games were the majority of the story, so, you did fulfill the parameters of the project.

Oh, one more thing, When the couple went to Celeb's house, you say he goes outside, and they sit on the couch.  Is his couch outside?  Or did I read it wrong??

5/10

This one took a long time to get going. I don't think we need to go through the chosing a game process. That could've worked if the jokes related to the dismissal of the other games were funny. Playing Twister with a group of gay dudes, didn't really cut it.

The story is very lightweight, but there was nothing in the rules that said it had to be heavy drama. Just for my own satisfaction, I wished it had been a little more weight to it.

I would trim some of your descriptions especially. Why write more than you have to?
"
PETER, a man in his early-to-mid twenties" could easily be written as, PETER (24)...

"LEONA and CALEB, a couple that are around the same age as Peter" could be, LEONA and CALEB both (24) or LEONA (24) and CALEB (24). Good screenwriting is using as few words as possible, but using the right words.

Not a bad effort at all, even if lightweight story wise.

I do like the premise of this, but I feel there should be more to Leona and Caleb. The standout part for me was when Leona gave them the business when she won.

The beginning was oddly nice about things and kinda funny in my mind. This short seems like it's missing that one ingredient. I'm not sure if I got the Monopoly joke at the end other than - we're not doing this again. Not bad.

I found the descriptions to be over written - yeah, I got what I was supposed to see - it just took more words than needed to get there.

Not sure you needed the debate about which game to play -I think it would have read crisper just to get to it. i.e., all we have is Sorry  groans.

Quoted Text Mary, Leona, Caleb, and Peter are all sitting around the Sorry board. The pieces are all over the board. Mary's blue "home" is empty, and her "start" has three pawns. Her forth pawn is four spaces away from "start". Leona's red "home" has two pawns, and her "start" has one. One of Caleb's yellow pawns is just outside Leona's "safety zone". His other three pawns are in his "start".

Interesting - I think the above is going to be a challenge in all scripts - that is - how much detail do you add about the specific game you are using.  The above is a lot to remember going forward (i.e., am I really going to keep track of each character's status?). This is not so much a criticism is it is an observation on what I think is a unique challenge for this OWC - how to describe the game itself. The above took me a few passes - but I got it.

I don't think the "CUT TO" on  page 4 is needed. You next scene is LATER.

Okay - same issue on page 5 - the CUT TOs are not needed. I think you can get rid of them all.

I think this could have been a few pages shorter - it started to drag a bit.

I don't recall ever playing 'sorry' so got a little lost with your long winded description on page 3.

Sorry that was pretty weak and predictable.

At least you used actual games for the main emphasis, as opposed to other scripts I read.

Good job on entering just need a stronger story

A few thoughts and some or all of them could be useless...

The game selection opening seemed a little long winded, could be easily shortened.

Never played Sorry so you do a good job in explaining it.

The targetting felt very real and believable, I used to do that as a kid.

But then the final sequence with Triv just seemed too easy and then the power coming back on... sorry a co-incidence too far imho.

Oh, and why was their a powercut for days?

Liked the start but not the end on this one.

A lot of the action paragraphs read very clunky.  Why does the writer continually tell us about candles not being lit and flashlights not being turned on during the day scenes?  This happened throughout the script.  

It's hard to justify 11 pages for such a minimal outcome.  Two unpleasant characters reunite over a board game.  Sorry, gotta pass on this one.

Logline was promising, but I personally think that a idea like this should've been bit shorter than what it was.

I've always had Sorry, but have never really bothered to play it.

There are a few things you can cut in your action, like telling the opening scene is in a living room of a one bedroom apartment, we only see the living room so I think you can just put that into your scene heading, one other thing would be telling us the flashlights were off and the candles extinguished , you can just simply say daylight is coming in through the windows.

Now a bad story, just wish the ending had more of an impact than it did.

Sorry, not sorry

Logline is a bit of a mouthful, not that I can lecture on logline said.

Let's see...

Falling out over a game and then having to get back together again is a sound foundation. However, I wassnt  sold on this . The reactions seemed a little over the top and the get back together a bit simple.

Reading some comments above, I also agree that I didn't care for the characters and that makes a difference.

I think I would challenge you to see if this can be pulled off in one scene. That should add focus.

All the best

Reads like a newbie script and being a newbie myself I see a lot of commonality to the errors I make and have made (If you have been screenwriting for 10 years, Sorry... oops, bad pun)

The description of Sorry layout was a chore to read. The dialogue just didn't ring as genuine in parts, some repetition some conversations that didn't really add much to the premise. Quite a lot of prose writing in the action, like a short story.

The ending was a real anti-climax. Didn't really go anywhere for me. But maybe I'm getting used to cannibalism, dysfunctional murderous families, freaky kids and supernatural entities when it comes to these OWC games

Page 10 'capital' instead of 'capitol' .

I don't know this game at all, so wasn't 100% clear on what was happening or why they were upset. But I got the gist of it.

Ultimately it just felt like the story itself was very threadbare. There's not really a great deal that happens and it seems a stretch their relationship would be in jeopardy over this little incident, so it's hard as a reader to get emotionally invested in this script. At the end of the day I just didn't care enough about them or what happens.

As others have mentioned, it's really overwritten. You can be way more economical with your words. For example, your first paragraph could be written as, "Candles and flashlights illuminate the room." In six words I've conveyed the same thing you'd see on screen as what you've done in 26.

Second paragraph could be, "PETER, 20's, sits in a chair. On the couch opposite, LEONA and CALEB, also 20's. All three stare at their phones."

These are just rough examples of course, but your scripts will read much crisper when you get rid of all the extraneous words.

Writer is guilty of the same sins many of us are trying to overcome (well, at least, I know I am): Try to avoid is, are, ing, ly, (wrylies) and beats - both regular and small.