Addiction by Gregory J. Baldwin (Greg) - Comedy, Internet Period Piece - Buddysearch.com is the nation's social networking obsession - until a dorky teen stumbles over the webmaster's evil intentions. 41 pages - pdf, format

Um...it may be a small problem, but friendfinder.com actually exists, man.

Damn, so it is.  That's the first note for a revision.

Friendzone or Buddysearch...virtually everything else related is taken.

Buddysearch would work well with the comedy feel I think, especially with your synopsis.

Just use it.  If it exists, learn about it and come up with a plot that subverts/promotes them.  Why not, eh?

Yeah, I'll have to either do some serious reconstruction or think up a clever name.  Cause really, in the end the story doesn't support the website.  I didn't realize there were so many online friend websites, yeesh  

I had a read of this yesterday and it was quick and easy read. I found it pretty funny at times, the pacing was good, as was the structure. The character's were likeable and i liked the way you build up a buzz around friendfinder. "You can view profiles and leave comments!" etc lol

This is a lighthearted comedy and an entertaining read. There's not much that sets it apart from other movies in the genre but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I can't really suggest areas for improvement (except changing the website name) since it's a pretty tight script that achieves what it set out to do.

Overall, an fun read- good job!

I found the evil webmaster to be the most intriguing character by far, and was more than a little amused by the fact that his name was "Don".

Was that coincidence?

Completely random!  Don just happened to be the name that I chose.  I use it in at some point in many of other screenplays as well.  So yes, it was a coincidence.

Well, I enjoyed this, but the two male leads were hard to separate based upon the dialogue alone.  They spoke alike, you know, and I sometimes got confused as to who was who.  But I always knew when I was listening to the nerd.  

And I enjoyed the spiral into addiction; it seemed allegorical, and it may be an angle to pursue should you choose to expand this (it's kinda' short) at some point.

The formatting was good, and this was refreshingly free of typographical errors

Thank you!  All feedback is greatly appreciated!  Sometime in the future I plan to submit a revised version with, above all else, the new website name.

A revised version is currently in the works but I'm curious as to what additional sequences I should add.  Any ideas would be helpful.

play on the whole internet geek thing.

maybe one of them downloads a virus, or cant log on to see how many comments he has. Maybe the website goes under maintanance and nobody can log on, causing a riot in the school.

SPOILERS




The character at the end, i forget his name, the boring one who makes the speech. You should introduce him earlier, develop him better. He's the one who saves the day after all.

I liked it, but I think you could make it so much better, but it needs to be longer.

anyway, heres some notes I took while reading it:

I liked the gag about how illegaly downloading music is actually sharing.

Some of your dialogue could use some work, it doesnt seem to be thing that your chracters might say.

you use a lot of exclamation point and it gets kind of annoying.

I like how realistic the addiction is, how it's only a slight exaggeration of te truth.

of my own curiosity what does the erm "ECU" mean?  Ive never heard this before, and it looks like something I could use.

Ben is a good character, and if I were you I would make him the main character.  I would actually have everyone become obsessed but ben and brian ( who is the funniest character in this entire thing) team up to stop danny an don.  Id have don get alot farther too, like a plan that gets stopped at the last second by brians boring rant.  It would make it a lot longer, but I think it would be a really great read.

When danny drags ben out of burger king, you describe ben as "resilient"  which means able to bounce back.  I think you meant to describe him as resistant.

you mention that brooke goes more insane than derek, but you mentoin derek going insane after brooke, which is confusing.

you randomly capitolized the verb PACK any reason I missed?

anyway, I kind of liked this, but I think if you took it just a bit bigger, it would be so much better.

Quoted from Higgonaitor of my own curiosity what does the erm "ECU" mean?  Ive never heard this before, and it looks like something I could use.

Higgs,

If I'm not mistaken, it's a shot direction for extreme close up.  I usually try to avoid things like this in my scripts so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

Thanks for the review!

ECU does mean Extreme Close Up, and since this year is kind of a rebirth of my screenwriting, this one included some of the camera thingies to enhance the visuals, but I've stopped.

Thanks again

Wow! This was friggin hilarious! "Wired Un-Desired"!  . The only problem I had was about 10% of the dialogue was fake. but 90% was exellant! This script is 50 pages of magic! Although... You could go back and add some more scenes. Perhaps another attempt to destroy the website. I wont critisize for shortness but more pages is more laughter. I liked the script as much as I enjoyed The Misfortune by Oney Mendosa. and that is my fave. unpro script. Congrats on this good script!

It amazes me because some of these websites do exist.

LOL...I see where the addiction comes in. I agree with the Fantastic Mr. Higgins, some of the dialogue does need a little work. There is a lot of potty mouths in the story, and it is not real funny and it can get kind of annoying sometimes. The story is realistic also, I kind of do the same thing (go to forums and see if they get replies) and I enjoyed the story.

"You All Suck!" - Danny - that is the line where I went laughing.

It be good if you made it a bit longer. I can see a sequel heading it's way.

Addiction 2: The Revenge of the Webmaster.

Yeeeah no.  No sequels, no remakes.  Thanks for the read though.

There will be  PDF, cleaned up version up with the next batch.

I was thinking more of:

Addiction Part 2: The Other Webpage

But since you don't want to , never mind.

Quoted from Martin On topic, did you make any major changes when you resubmitted? It's ages since I read this one.

I re-edited it so it's 100% spec, added in a new scene here and there, but nothing that will make it an amazingly new reading experience for ya.

And I saw Jimbo earlier as well...hmm.

I was hoping to possibly use this script for my acting and directing class at Northampton High school and I was wondering if I needed your permission or if i simply needed to cedit you with it's creation, which i certinly would. Please post back, as I would like to use the script as soon as possible.

Thought I'd give this a bump and say congragualations on getting it produced!

~Zack~

Wow, back from the dead.  Thanks for the bump, Zack.  Yes, this was a year-long project for a couple broadcasting classes at Clarkson University in New York.  It had reading sessions, rewrites, the actual shoot, a marketing campaign, a brief discussion with a local newspaper, and even "unauthorized leaks" on YouTube.

It was quite a thing to watch take place, as I was consulted with changes and rough cuts of the film, trailers, etc.  All in all, like everyone else has said, it's a rewarding experience to see such effort and energy going into something that you created...and all you have to do is sit back and watch it happen.

June 16, 2005, wow.  Ha.  Time does fly.  

Bumping this from the depths of SS obscurity.

Thanks Don for posting the new draft.  Can't believe the most recent was from 2006.  

The net has evolved quite a bit since this story's first conception, which made the ideas in here pretty out of date when I revisited it.  That said, I elected to rework/update the story while also keeping it as a "historical" piece, hence the sub-genre Internet period piece.  Part of it is that current social networking trends are an entirely different story altogether.  The other part is that the early days of social networking was like the wild west of what we have today and IMO still make for a helluva fun story.

Anyone who happens to stumble upon it - hope you enjoy and thanks for reading.

Best,
Greg

I think Addiction can be shot in different senerios, one of which with the addition of more script could have Iphones incorporated into it. I think this is a good starting video to be used as an educational video. Or purhaps a thriller with lots of action taking place, someone set out to  kill Don. I shall not say any more other than the plot can be changed several ways with out to much rewrite of the script.   Good Job    Greg

3 Eyed Fish Productions
http://www.3eyedfishproductions.com

Hi,

Thanks for the read and your thoughts.  I'll keep that in mind if I ever go back on this.

Greg

Very cool script. I especially love the scene where Don is being disturbed by his mother. Up to this point I thought all the time: "Man, why doesn't he just say Facebook?". Now that "The Social Network" is out, this would be THE perfect script to pitch, I guess.

The entire thing is sociocritical yet funny, and not many films are like this today.

The story could've been longer, but so far it's full of really witty and intelligent homour. The addiction is really well described, and not too much exaggerated. (To be honest, I know people who are even worse off ) I just loved the character of Ben, since I'm basically the same kind of person: I never got the hang of all this Social-Network-Stuff.

Basically, everything about the few format flaws has been said already, so I'll just leave it this way. I like it.

Hi Lex,

Thanks for the read and your words.  I'm glad you enjoyed it.  This was conceived years before Facebook was even open to anyone not in an Ivy League school, back when Myspace was the big thing.  When I revisited it recently I had to decide whether to update the script for the changing times or keep it set in the past.  Changing it entirely would have just required a new story altogether (which I'm thinking of doing as a sequel), so I elected to keep it as a "period piece," as I think that still makes it relevant.  Kind of like a prequel to the times.  

Thanks again!

Greg

Quoted from greg Kind of like a prequel to the times.

Yeah, seriously. I didn't pay attention to the time of publication, so I thought this woulda been a new script poking fun at the Facebook-movie, because so many things COINCIDENTALLY concur. I mean like the scenes where all the kids sign up to the network for instance.
You really anticipated something there, Kudos on that!

And I would really love to read a sequel to this, maybe set in 2011, but featuring the same characters.

Yeah, some people didn't "get it" when it was first written, but as social networking has expanded it seems to have more relevance.  

Quoted from Lexalicous And I would really love to read a sequel to this, maybe set in 2011, but featuring the same characters.

You're pretty much spot on with what I had in mind so far.  It would take place at the height of a new website similar to Facebook.  Closing in college graduation as well as nearly nabbing a career, Danny finds himself getting relentlessly trolled by a computer hacker who soon takes over his account and subsequently defaces it with obscene pictures and whatnot.  With fear of his potential new employers finding his profile, Danny seeks out the help from Don (who still lives in his mom's basement and works at Taco Hell) in order to get his profile back and stop the hacker before he does something even worse to the entire *insert Facebook-like website* network.  

Yeah, that's what I got so far.  Still playing around with a lot of stuff but the possibilities intrigue me.

Thanks again for checking this out and if you've got something you'd like read just PM me.

Greg

Gee, I sure like these ideas. I'm looking forward to reading the script.
Keep up the good work!
thx for the offer, once I'm done with my current script I'm gonna write u.

Thanks a lot, Lex.  Let me know when you have something you'd like read.

Greg

Hi Greg
I just read your breath consuming script ADDICTION, it’s well structured from its diction, tone, characterization, and pretty amazing the person you hate the most happens to be the one who give you a great solution. I’m talking about DANNY and BRIAN.

And a character can influence the people around him, through the words he verbalizes on, and that a good attitude will make everything dance according to what you have imagined- DON's attitude killed everything he wanted...

Greg, its beyond creativity, keep it that way, i would love to see you mount to elevated heights..................
Talent

Talent,

Thanks a lot for your words and your review!  I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Greg

What's up, Greg?

Lol.  You're story, while creative and interesting and cute, wasn't very prophetic.  These sites are still brainwashing millions of people out there, and I think it'll take a lot more than a nerd telling boring stories to bring them down.

I'm not really into the social network thing, except for Simply Scripts, that is!  (And I also belong to an Amish dating site (I haven't gotten too many views on my profile though, stupid technology) but that's besides the point), so I enjoyed all the little stabs taken at how entranced people get with those sites.

Reviewing some of the other posts here, I saw that you've gotten this one produced since you first posted it.  Is there a version of it crawling around anywhere?  (I tried checking YouTube, but all that came up were films about drug addiction and a few about facebook addiction, but none that resembled this story.)  I'd like to check it out.

There was some great pacing in the story.  40 pages and it zoomed by, which is what I think a comedy should do.  I think the quick, short scenes helped with that.

Danny and Ben were a little confusing for me in the beginning.  I had to keep going back and seeing which one the football player was.  I think there were just a couple instances in their dialogue that made it hard to differentiate between the two.  A couple of times, they both sounded like the same character.

But this was a really enjoyable read all in all.  I'd really like to see the film version of this if it's online anywhere.

- Mark

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the review and your words!  I'm glad you enjoyed it.

The film is now hidden online somewhere so I'll look for that and post a link.  Originally they had a whole website dedicated to it with the Buddysearch theme and whatnot -- it was cool.  

Thanks again!

Greg

Found the movie link: http://media.clarkson.edu/

Scroll about a third of the way down to "Internet Social Media Addiction."  It's a 2007 production.  An interesting interpretation of the script.

There's also this one I randomly found online one day of the opening scene:



I say randomly because I think these guys may have asked for my permission but forgot to show me whatever they did.  

Greg

Greg,

Congrats on getting this produced.  

I wonder if they were watching this online and said, "We're up to 45 views! Yes!"  

It was a fun read.

Cindy

Quoted from CindyLKeller Greg, Congrats on getting this produced.   I wonder if they were watching this online and said, "We're up to 45 views! Yes!"   It was a fun read. Cindy

Hi Cindy,

Thanks and I'm glad you enjoyed it!  And you know they were

Greg