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Slam-Dunk Love by - Billy P - Short, RomCom - A Los Angeles attorney plans a Valentine's Day surprise for an associate he's smitten with, but a change in her attire throws things into doubt. 8 pages - pdf format
I thought that basketball was going to play a much larger role in this.
pg. 1 - ‘stands under his door’, reads awkward. I would write ‘stands at his door’. pg. 1 - Funny when he stands up to declare his affections pg. 4 - I think you need to make it more clear Alexandra removes her jacket before entering the meeting.
I found that most of the dialogue in this was stilted with too many irrelevant and unfunny lines. The romance aspect was more effective, though was also lacking in my opinion. Still, I feel this has potential to be improved with some changes to the dialogue and additional pages. I could see this as a feature with more of Mark trying to unsuccessfully woo Alexandra, until he finally does.
The story issue I see -- you're making the dialogue do all the heavy lifting. That's not necessarily bad, but... this was just okay for me. I have always found this genre excrutiatingly difficult to write. So hats off to you.
I see where you were going with this. The physical mismatch often looks amusing, especially when the tall is very tall. I think you made a nice choice but didn't quite pull off the story as is.
My advice to you, apart from the interplay between them being way too formal is to make it more difficult for Mark to win her over and the misunderstandings more comedic. In a typical RomCom the flowers would have been mistakenly given to another woman vying for his affection and the game would be on.
Also, Alexandra says yes to all his advances. In fact at one point she asked him to lunch and he said no, which threw me a bit.
I'd focus on the mismatch even more if I were you. If you do a rewrite make her a basketball player, make her personality casual and him a bit stuffy and uptight, then ramp up some misunderstanding with gifts he keeps sending her to woo her i.e she thinks they're from someone else perhaps. A good RomCom needs an obstacle to the path of true love.
I liked the way you wrote the environment around them, I could picture the streets, got the vibe etc. Well done there.
There is so little conflict here. Everything comes up roses for everyone, pun intended. The only hint of conflict is the misunderstanding about the jacket, and that doesn't lead anywhere except to drag the story a little longer.
The dialogue was kind of stage-play fake, not real at all.
I did appreciate the height issue. It's not often used, and here it wasn't even an issue, but it was still nice to see. I just wish there was more of a story here.
Straight away there are things for the readers benefit, not the viewer - hope it doesn't continue.
As pointed out - stands "under" his door is strange.
I'm not a fan of this writing style, personally preference maybe.
I'm half way through and I'm a little bored tbh. Not a lot driving this story forward.
Finished - Didn't really gain any traction for me, as others have pointed out, the dialogue needs a lot of work. The only reason I finished is because this was a OWC, and I want to finish them all - If this was a normal script on the site, I doubt I would have.
The comedy visuals of the tall/short would play out well, but you could have played on it more, chance for some big laughs in there that were missed.
Your character descriptions need a lot of work. Unfilmable to the point of being pointless in a script. I don’t mind an unfilmable description if it gives us an insight into the character but stuff like:
Quoted Text
junior partner at the downtown firm
Quoted Text
a newly-hired blonde labor attorney
Quoted Text
the visual antithesis of a florist.
-- don’t give us a visual or any useful character descriptors.
Quoted Text
Mark sits at his desk, still unsure about what Alexandra meant earlier
There are actually quite a few unfilmables throughout, but things like the one quoted above have no place in a screenplay. How will the viewer know what he is thinking?
The weakest part of this script is the dialogue. It’s too matter of fact and on the nose. Subtext can be hard to figure out but the only way to do it is to read lots of scripts and keep practicing.
2 pages in and the exchange in dialogue is very fake. There's no character to what they're saying it's very robotic.
Mark hands him a $20 bill. ... wow i thought he was handing him 20 billion for a second... those are some expensive flowers. Usually numeric values are written out.. twenty dollars
Try to keep your actions down to at the most 4 lines otherwise it looks blocky.
He hands her chocolates and roses and calls her Dear then pages later" Would I make you uncomfortable by asking you out?"
I think it should have been the other way around lol
I thought this was gonna be about basketball ..
Not much going for this I'm afraid as far as story very bland
Opposites attract? It's nice that Alexandra doesn't mind dating short guys, but Mark may be an inch too far. His brand of romance is rather banal, and she just drops into his lap without much effort on his part. Make him work harder to win his true love.
The only thing that I would get rid of was the extra jump in time to the future at the end.
I don't think it added anything to it.
Keep it in the time we're in and maybe see how creative you can get with the ending.
More comedy would be nice, but yeah, the story is really good.
BTW... I did get with the antithesis of a florist! I imagines a big guy with hairy arms who likes to drink a lot of beer and he's wearing one of those undershirts without sleeves. That was good.
I don't think the height thing is such an issue these days, so wasn't convinced by the 'conflict' that created.
I completely did not buy that she'd wear such a jacket to a law firm where she'd just been hired as an attorney - it doesn't match the professionalism implied by the setting.
I also didn't buy that en educated thirty-something would resort to such cliche, and cheap, gifts.
As mentioned, some of the dialogue reads a little off... but I think that can be fixed with an edit or two.
And as mentioned, having the flowers delivered to someone else just seems such a better way to go for creating a romcomy type misunderstanding.