Dream Job by Farch Carbone - Short, Sci Fi, Drama - With a promotion to the top of his plant-based meat company in his sights, an ambitious tech worker preps for the presentation of his life. 6 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

A nice and dark vision of the future - I like that. Definitely has the sci-fi box checked but really lacks the horror element of the challenge.

Questions: Are Tyler and Carl just reliving a memory through VR? If they had the tech, why wouldn't they be living a fantasy high-life instead of reliving a bummer?

Good job, writer.

Hi writer,

Cool premise, especially now that every Tom, Dick, and his Dog is working from home. Virtual integration into society, and you don’t even have to get out of your jammie’s.

One issue I’m struggling with is the title versus the final outcome; why are these two corporate stooges holed up in a piece of shit apartment if they’re supposedly working their ‘Dream Job’? I get the sense that ‘dream’ here refers to working on your own terms, but what’s the point if the pay is bunk and you’re forced to live in squalor anyway, why would Tyler or Carl give a shit if their job was on the line, doesn’t appear they’re interns with a stellar office view. There’s a concept in there that I may have overlooked.

Tyler should get into protein farming; he could live on a maggot farm and still be better off cause he’s outdoors and still going full throttle on the meatless meat angle. Now I’m just rambling.

The skyscraper. I like the idea that it’s the all watching or seeing eye for the meek down below. Seems aptly fitting, especially if we make a comparison with The Willis Tower (Formerly and informally: Sears Tower) located here: Chicago, Illinois 60606 <-- check out that freakin’ zip-code, man (666?) and then take into consideration the informal name: Sears Tower (Seers Tower), as in we are the ones who ‘see’. That’s just icing on the script-cake.

FAUX-GIE… nice, lol. And some imitation, or mock chocolate to boot; I think it’s called ‘mockolate’

Alrighty Farch!

Straight down to business, unlike Tyler...it was well enough written, aside from the large chunk of back and forward in the office that really didn’t go anywhere.

The futuristic elements were definitely there, kudos on creating the world, really engaging and good visuals, but on the horror front I got nothing. Not sure if that’s just me, but there wasn’t any real tension, owing largely to the build up, and we got a twist at the end rather than a sucker punch or similar horror trope.

It wasn’t bad, in fact it was good in parts, but for me it falls down on half of the parameters and the scene writing could be tightened to increase space for plot/character. What we have at the moment (IMO) is a decent sci fi drama.

All the best,

Cam

This is well written and evokes the future office element really well, captures some of the corporate bullshit well too... but the ending threw me.

Are they playing a VR game, and if so why play something that dull? Re-living a memory, why one where things go wrong?

Decent effort.

The writing was pretty solid. Crisp, clean and very few errors.

I really liked some of the visuals like his shirt blending into the sky. That being said – the required change of shirts seemed odd – didn’t really add anything other than filling the page.

Liked the football toss and the dialogue – well executed.

The story, not so much. It just didn’t quite land for me.  

Not sure what the horror element was.

So, well written for sure and kudos for that.

The future of remote working! I do love this concept. I also love the dialogue and how you made it visually interesting as well with the football back and forth, very slick.

Unfortunately, there was no horror and this would cost a lot to film. The shot of him walking through an office filled with supermodels alone would blow any low budget as is, but there are many ways you can get across that this is a virtual dream job in a more streamlined manner.

The idea of an exec losing it all simply because the company has switched from plant-based food to instect is great commentary, it just feels more like a scene at the moment than a full story.

I do like this and would encourage you to expand on the idea outside the challenge.

-Mark

Low budget?

Anyway, some parts of this are bold, with some interesting dynamics. But other parts felt a bit too glossy

That it was all a VR scene has some merits but needs to be played well

To me the interesting angle is the friendship - what makes a friend, how differences are accepted. How they have to adapt to the new world etc

I would almost bring that in early, even have the reveal in earlier perhaps.

All the best

Love the world you've created. A really cool concept that, unfortunately, didn't fit the challenge. (Which, by the way, seems to be a common thing on this go 'round. I'm reading a bunch of scripts that couldn't quite pull it off... mine being one of them.)

Anyway, I did enjoy the script. I could see this as a jumping off point for something bigger.

Thanks for sharing.

Story: Poor Tyler and Carl.  Even in a VR world, they get the raw end of the deal. Interesting story and was wondering where you were going with it, and the twist at the end I think capped the story off pretty well.  Good execution on this.

Characters: The setup for the characters here is good. We think of Tyler as sort of a cocky, self-assured business type but we find out in the end he’s just the opposite.  Same for Carl.  Pretty good development on these.

Dialogue:  Good.  Solid, snappy, hits the marks. No complaints.

Writing:  Clean, crisp, works from beginning to end. Liked it a lot.

Meeting the challenge:  After reading this I went back and looked at the challenge parameters.  Supposed to be horror and sci-fi, so if I had to ding you on anything, it’s that it lacks any horror element (except for how filthy their apartment is).  The sci-fi is there, for sure.

Pretty good effort. Dystopian for sure. A well-worn theme of augmented/dream reality versus actual reality but handled quite astutely. Some pertinent commentary on outsourcing. Shades of Matrix, Vanilla Sky. Again not too sure about the horror aspect per se but a good story nonetheless.

I really enjoyed that. Fantastic writing too. Other than lacking the horror element I thought you did a great job. Very impressed.

Very nice story. Great characters. And the virtual world was well constructed. One problem: where’s the horror? It’s disappointing what happens to Tyler and Carl, but their fate is everyday reality for many people.

This one was okay for me. There definitely was a sci-fi aspect of this, but it was absent of horror. Might be a little pricey for a short. I'm sure a cheap office building can be made to look futuristic, some shots can be cheated. It looks like special FX will have to play a big part in production. Some can be cheap, but they often look cheap on screen.

It was an interesting twist and nice effort overall. A bleak look into the future. The writing was good, but a little prosey and detailed for my taste at parts.

Quoted Text Cut back to Tyler now wearing a clean WHITE SHIRT. He models it, looking like a lone cloud on the sky backdrop. Carl nods.

Probably do a...

MOMENTS LATER

Tyler now wears a clean white shirt.

To show a time lapse.

Overall, this was a nice effort. Not really for me, though.

-- Michael

"...where, JEAN, 60, and welcoming,..." - HA!  Read this back a few times.  See what's wrong?  Every character should be given an age at intro, so the "and" is redundant here.  I had to read it several times, as I thought you had omitted another trait.

So, I'm on Page 4, about to go into the boardroom, and I'm not really sure what to say, or how to say it.  I'll do my best...

On one hand, you've somehow managed to create a futuristic world and 2 actual characters with character, which is hard to pull off.

But, on the other hand, you've probably overwritten these first 4 pages by almost an entire page.  I think 1 issue is that you seem to want to add a passage between almost every single dialogue box, which you just don't need to do.

I'll try and concentrate on the positives, and that's the characters you've created here.  They come off as real peeps and their interactions and dialogue is well done.

I don't see any glimpse of horror, though, and if you really think about it, horror is a tone, a feeling that you can see on film, and read on paper.  I don't see any horror here at all, and that's too bad.

Well, for me, everything from the boardroom to the end is a fail.  I don't get it completely, I guess, but you lost the great characterization you had going.  The writing itself isn't as good, and I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to be left with.

There's no horror element here at all, and the story itself is confusing...maybe sad, but it's just not set up correctly.

I want to stress how well you wrote Tyler and Carl over the first 4 pages.

I don't want to say much at all about the final 2 1/2 pages, but I will say this is a miss, based on the complete lack of horror.

***

Great world and visuals. Fun premise. The problem in my view is that the story doesn't really start until Tyler's fired, and that's close to when the script ends. I think at the very least the threat of insect-based companies should be front and centre from the start. Tyler's a good character in need of a full story.

No horror and definitely bigger budget, as discussed here previously.

Very impressed with how you wrote the characters and built the world.

The trouble is that we get the stakes revealed to us in hindsight. Up until page 3 or 4 it looks like Tyler's going to be kicking ass one way or the other, whether he gets the job or not. So it was hard for me to invest in the story, despite how gorgeous this would look on screen and how fleshed-out the characters were.

And as with seemingly all the VR stories I've read here, I'm confused about the ending. Love the dystopian society, and the virtual commuting... I suppose that "work" is a game and if Tyler or Carl "succeed" at the job, they leave their squalor?  If that's the case, this is an idea really worth mining.  Good job.

AJR

I think a better idea is to have Tyler get the "dream job", only to find out that it's not what he thought it would be, which is the true horror this lacks.

This is crisply written. I like the contrast between truth and reality. When you think about it, isn't an office a kind of lie, with people dressing up and filling corporate roles? I think the script could probably use some sort of macabre turn. What if Tyler get stuck in some loop, replaying his humiliation again and again?

if anyone cares...

So, I’m not gonna lie. This was a Friday afternoon idea – concept to FADE OUT. I saw the contest really late but haven’t written in a while so figured I’d go for it. Maybe I shoulda held back, but i already started writing within what i thought were the paremeters, so i dove in.

Once I hit submit, I knew the “horror” wasn’t gonna come through, so I’ll just explain where I’m coming from.

I agree, it’s barely there if at all. I think my entire approach was probably always gonna be too subtle to really qualify as “horror” anyway, it’s more depressing.

Thinking about this afterwards - I wanted to set a not so distant future where - due to pollution and whatever else you want to say has ravaged the earth so much - people never leave their house (like say we’re quarantined forever.) By that token, with the advance of technology, the workplace has moved on from Zoom meetings to the virtual world, so it actually feels like old times when you gathered in an office space… but like everything else, the 1% have corrupted the VR landscape, so you can’t even really do the cool “Ready Player One” type shit unless you can afford it. You can change your appearance, go to extreme places you could only imagine, etc… but it’s gonna cost ya. That’s essentially the “vacation” in this world.  

Is this a concept or a word salad?

The “horror” was supposed to be that “work” has essentially become “play.” Work is literally the highlight of the average person’s day, b/c you’re not in the real miserable world. Is that commentary, or extremely cynical word salad?

This company gives you one shot to move up and work with the elites in the ivory tower, while everyone else essentially lives in real life squalor. There’s a huge class gap. Maybe it’s just me, but the idea of work being the highlight of your life is horrific. That’s scarier than any monster or ghost to me, then again I’m a Millennial slacker.

Tyler doesn’t want to leave work b/c he essentially can’t do much else but sit in his shitty apartment with his roommate Carl, who is an elderly sad sack, future vision of everything Tyler would like to avoid, who may or may not be losing his job and missed his opportunity at the good life years ago. - this was all supposed to track, and clearly didn't.

That all sounds pretentious, I’m sure NONE of this comes across, b/c I didn't have enough time to cook - it's my own fault.

I’m trying to say “horror is subjective,” but I don’t even know if that’s true. It’s not my genre.

I also tried to be cute and not exposition dump too much. You guys are all right with the critiques. Maybe I’ll flesh this out and re-write it. Let me know if this idea sounds worth working on or if this is all the aforementioned word salad. I’ll have to fight my urge to somehow make it a comedy though, b/c that’s basically all I can do.

in conclusion, "word salad."  thanks for the notes. I will check Simply Scripts every Sunday going forward so i can actually get back in these things on time.