John by Rick Kinsella (decadencefilms) (You Break It, You Bought It)  Short, Romantic Dramedy w/ music - John, a lonely widower, reminisces and philosophises about life and death. Just what is it that keeps us going? - rtf, format

I was so ready to give this a bad review. I was gonna knock it for its lack of direction or really any action whatsoever and generally for being downright boring. The ending wasn't worth more than a chuckle but I appreciated it nevertheless. I worked on a film festival for a short while and we had to watch a lot of lame, preachy student films. It was pretty rough. This one seems like a slap in the face to that kinda fare, which is why I'll tip my hat to the writer. I'm sure it'll get knocked for being too short or being "a situation, anecdote, scene from something bigger..." blablabla. They'll be right too. This one just pushed the right buttons with me.

Thank you for a short short.

No, thank you for a beautiful short short!

Just look at your John, hehe, he wants a 20 year old to notice him - precious!

Very funny, very distinctive and original character. And a very touching piece really... at first... then it got really funny.
Loved the twist, and the lyrics.

Goes into my favorites.

my biggest question concerns the formatting...was john delivering his lines via V.O.???because that was the way it read...nice two pagers, would have loved to read more...like sex, it was good while it lasted...

I opened this in WordPad so i have no idea if its formatted correctly. i also have no idea what it has to do with the OWC???

I liked it tho. It was sad... n then BOOM! LAWL.

OMG.  That was really funny.  At first I was like...what a freakin downer...then BLAM!  Not sure this is a romance in any way.  Not sure the song really had any emotional impact but you gave me a laugh so thanks for that.  

Meeting the competition criteria: I just don't see how this can count as romantic dramedy. I don't see any romance, I don't really see any drama. There was a joke at the end, so you get marks for the comedy, I suppose. And you did slip the song in there, although I think the hardest part about this OWC will be trying to work out how the lyrics fit with the music! Overall, I'm afraid I don't really think this met the criteria that well
Characters: or character, really, since the titular 'John' is the only person who gets any real fleshing out. John's a widower, and he's old, but I didn't really feel like I got to 'know him' that well. Characterisation was pretty thin on the ground, but that was mainly down to length. Nothing really to say about the other two characters, because there was nothing really about them
Dialogue - apart from the very end, there wasn't any. I was also confused about whether John's lines were delivered as V.O. or directly to us, the audience, but that's more of a format concern. It was all a bit...pompous? Not the right word, but the right area. I remember reading a review of the Killers' album Sam's Town where they said that the lyrics were "cliches sung as myths". That's sort of what I was trying to say. What John was saying just wasn't particularly profound, or beautifully expressed...some bits were downright clunky. The punchline was well delivered, though
Story - this was really a sketch, not a short. Here's a plot summary: man walks down street, meets prostitute, enters house. As story goes, that's not much. Again, this is down to length...hard to fit much story on two pages
Writing/format: personally I prefer PDFs to DOCs, but that's a taste thing. However, this did have some formatting issues: no title page, no FADE IN / FADE OUT...people will think I'm being pedantic, but they were missing. There were also a few typing mistakes - extra spaces and whatnot. I've mentioned the confusion about how John's monologues are delivered before. The actual writing, however, is good - your action lines read well. I liked the "testament to his years" part

EDIT:

Quoted from wannabe OMG.  That was really funny.  At first I was like...what a freakin downer...then BLAM!

Whether you meant to or not, you ended up sounding EXACTLY like Peter Griffin.

I guess an OWC wouldn't be complete without a 2 pager, huh?

Not much to say here, nor do I feel it really deserves much to be said.  Lots of writing issues here, biggest probably the fact that just about all of John's dialogue should be a VO.

I don't see this meeting the challenge at all, nor does it really try.  Music and lyrics are here, but really nothing to do with anything...just a background song on the radio.

I'd like to give you an A for effort, but I don't see much effort here.  Sorry...

JOHN

Pros – Well written

Cons – Didn’t reach potential. Only 3 pages. Big blocks of text.

Comedy – One line does not a comedy make.

Romance – An old man holding onto one B&W photo does not make a romance. Nor does a prostitute.

Lyrics – Radio song.

Writer – Wait! Is this a brilliant way to show us the way to fill the requirements with minimum page count? Or is it a second entry to get a chortle?

Criteria – Not fleshed out romance/drama/comedy. Lyrics were OK.

Gary

I saved this and then opened it. The formatting appeared down the page so was very hard to read.  I can't really comment on it.

I feel good and bad about this one. My feelings are in one way, that you purposely misled the reader and I don't think that's good. Don't get me wrong, you can do this kind of thing and make it funny, but I didn't feel it was done quite right. Why? Let me think.

Ah! The problem I always have: Good old foreshadowing. Maybe if you would have lightened the tone and put a smidgen of comedy at the front end, we would be on that kind of edge and be more receptive to the humorous try with the ending.

In the beginning, I felt that this gentleman was mourning his wife; so you set me up to believe something that wasn't really intended by you. So I spent psychic energy not only on his mourning his wife, but also his own mourning the lost days of his youth.

Here are some other thoughts that went through my mind:

How we often only describe elderly people as only elderly. I think I've done the same many times.

As writers, we must challenge ourselves to get beyond this. Sometimes it's good enough, but not always.

Here, your interesting work with the name, John is lost because you might have portrayed him as an old man with arthritis in his duwap diddy diddy for a specific reason.

How old's the radio?

You might add a time in the slug or a super or something.

Also, timing's too perfect with the lyrics at the beginning.
Why not have him playing a record instead? Then he
is the one initiating the song rather than it being perfectly
randomly perfect.

Ad V.O. when John speaks in the beginning here:
>Age is a funny thing…

I still forget to do this sometimes.

I loved this here:

JOHN (CONT'D)

You don't know it then, but every one of those smiles is a doorway to a different life. As you get older, the looks get fewer. And fewer. With each passing year, you die a little more inside. Lipstick smiles hinting at mischief become smiles of friendship, of sympathy. Until in the end... there are no smiles at all.

The only trouble is, that it is long and you need to consider the images that are going to overlay this.

Perhaps you could break it up by inserting it into dialogue with someone and give us something else on screen besides.

This has potential.

I do like the turn at the end. Just make us ready for it by being more creatively deceptive and give us reason to feel good about being fooled.

Sandra

I liked this one!

I absolutely know who wrote it too.

I thought it was very sad, but true enough that I could relate...what does that say about me?  

Dialogue was perfect. Said a lot with just a little.

The ending was great too. You might get this one produced as it is simple, but still deep'ish.

Did it follow the OWC assignment? Not really, but you ended up with a really good 2 pager, so big congrats to that!  

I just kinda' felt a bit ripped off really. You've got a D & M in the opening and then it pretty much just ends on a joke. Also, I was trying to figure out if his monologue would work as V/O (which it wasn't listed as) - perhaps, direct to camera. I'm not sure. Nostalgic, yes ... romantic? Not in my view.  Drama? Not really. Comedy? Nuh. Amusing in part. The lyrics? Where were they? Oh, right - ok. So limited impression there.

Overall, I got something from it when he was talking about his youth - so, overall for two pages not bad. At least you didn't have to spend all week on it!

Alright, the (V.O.) has been adressed.


"You don't know it then, but every one of those smiles is a doorway to a different life. " - best quote from this scripts IMO. I really liked it.

It was a nice story, I like the twist at the end. But, still, no romance or drama IMO. I know, no way to put that into 2 pages. but you were given 12 for a shot... I wished you would've used em.

A great little piece though. Just not for the OWC requirements....      James

Strange thing for this OWC, but I liked it too. There's not much in it. It doesn't fill its quota through the theme given (although there was the song), but, God, what a deep view of disillusion! DEEEEEEEP!!! I could picture it as almost a documentary, in the gray of a sad town.

I don't know why but I made me think of David Bowie's song "Life On Mars".

It spoke to me. Only for this, thanks!

Very nice little script. Got a lot in there in just two pages and had a nice reversal at the end.

Interesting that so many people seem to think you've made a mistake by leaving out the V.O. It's clear enough that he's talking out loud. He even winks at the camera at one point.

It's a bit obvious that you've just bunged the song up front to get it over with, but it's still a good effort I think.

Quoted from michel I don't know why but I made me think of David Bowie's song "Life On Mars".

Holy sh*t! I meant "Rock'nRoll Suicide"...

Luckily it was only 2 pages with the formatting on this one! Next time see if you can convert your script to a PDF file so that we can read it as a normal script, and not have the words running down the page.

Ok this was funny, I laughed out loud when I read the punchline. But that's pretty much all it was, a set-up and a punchline. No real story or anything here so there's not much to say. Funny, but barely meets the requirements of the challenge.

Cheers,
Tim.

2 minutes well spent. Feel the pain of John, as the young girls all call me "sir" now.
The ending was awesome in response to the depressing, dark set up- nice to see this ol' man still has a spark of life.

Quoted from michel I don't know why but I made me think of David Bowie's song "Life On Mars".

I know you corrected yourself, but that was funny michel.  

Guess it could have been life on Mars if he had requested a male hooker.  

On to the script. Yeah it was funny. I liked it. It didn't fit the challenge though.

One point though. For the lyrics you have LYRICS like it's someone singing.
Is it male, female?

Cindy

I giggled at the last scene...so that covers a bit of comedy.
Yes,  you managed to use the Lyrics...so that covers the theme
and yes, there was a romantic suggestion...a love that has gone but is not forgotten.

As short as this story is, it stimulated my senses and made me think about the aging process we all dread,  for that short period of time.

As we age we are left with fading memories and become an outcast of society just because we simply do not fit in anymore but, that little twist at the end was cute and clever.

Where there's a will, there's a way, lol.

I liked it

Decent gag, but's that's about all there is to it.  No drama or story at all.  Just a weak joke with an okay punch line.  Hard to comment on this one, given the total lack of plot, but it seemed more like a twisted commercial for AARP than an actual screenplay.  I think the story could have much better if the writer had given it any time.  As someone said, there had to be a two pager in this OWC.  But the one back in April with the jizzed on sandwiches was a lot funnier than this.  

Thanks for all the comments.

I expected a certain amount of abuse for the two page effort. 2 pagers are always looked down on a bit by some. I think a story like this doesn;t really need any more time spent on it. No-one wants to watch a lonely old man doing lonely old things for any length of time. Not normal people anyway.

I just wanted to partake in the competition and figured I'd write something that had a shot at getting out there as a film in one capacity or another.

A 12 minute Romantic Comedy is a bit of a hard sell IMHO. To distibutors, festivals and audiences.

I'm sure that I would get offers for this fairly quickly if I posted it onto the short forum and elsewhere. There are a lot of competitions that require films below 2.5 minutes. Virgin Media Shorts comes to mind and I reckon if I got a recognisable face as the lead, it would have a good shot in that competiton.

Depict is another one that I think it would run well in as well. I think I'll probably end up making it. Only take a couple of hours to shoot.

Anyway, thanks again.

Oh and sorry about the RTF.

My Final Draft did the old "Invalid Printer Name" thing and wouldn't save to PDF.

Dec,

Self praise is no praise!

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films Very nice little script. Got a lot in there in just two pages and had a nice reversal at the end. Interesting that so many people seem to think you've made a mistake by leaving out the V.O. It's clear enough that he's talking out loud. He even winks at the camera at one point. It's a bit obvious that you've just bunged the song up front to get it over with, but it's still a good effort I think.

Tidy little short here.

The fact it deals with a prostitute when we are convinced it is going to wade in deep water was a nice comedic touch. Also, it reminds me of a guy I know, so it gave the joke a little oomph.

Not much to say, other than you put together a cheeky little alternative script.

Andrew