Truth or Bear by Judy - Short, Comedy - Bandmates James & Oliver visit a Rock N' Roll History museum, with their pizza delivery guy/best friend/neighbour Eric. Hilarity ensues. <12 pages - pdf, format

Hey,

As a follower of Stephan T. Colbert, I had high hopes for this and after reading I'm not sure what to say.

I found most of the things directly involving the bear pretty funny, especially the bear in a hat. (The only thing funnier then bears or hats is a bear in a hat.) I also liked the thing with Oldie, I thought he was pretty good.

With the exception of James flipping over the table in anger at the very beginning I found most of the stuff between James, Eric, and Oliver not that funny. They did have their moments, (like the bear alarm exchange, some of the stuff at the end). Also, most of the stuff that happened before they got to the museum I didn't like.

Concerning the theme, there was hardly any mention of pumpkin carving, in fact as I recall no pumpkins were actually carved. Also at one point they ask Why they should carver pumpkins when its not Halloween, then ask why would a muesum be open on Halloween. That confused me.

Overall, I found it mildly funny (some stuff, the bear/oldie was really funny other stuff not so much, averages out to a mild funny) Also there was no pumpkin carving only a little bit of pumpkins.

sheepwalker  

-Elvis line was funny.
-Mistletoe line was funny.

James pulls a pumpkin out of nowhere...TWICE. Odd.

They say it's not even near halloween, then the next page they say it's halloween.  ?

I didn't like this one much, but some of the dialogue was good.

Oh no! It's that newbie's script - I'm gonna be mean to him on purpose.

j/k

It wasn't bad.  It didn't really have much to do with carving a jack-o'-lantern but it caught a nice rythym.  There were a few chuckles and you seem to have a knack with dialogue.  I didn't really mind that pumpkins appeared out of mid-air but I think the script could have been edited down a bit more as it dragged on at times. Are you a Mighty Boosh fan?  Can I ask?

13

A good effort in place but definitely not, a “carving a Jack O’Lantern” story.

I was a little slow and boring at the beginning.
Things finally fell into place after meeting the old man.

I assume you tried to create a comedy type set up with the slow motion bit and, it kind of worked OK!

The story is a little hazy and needs refining.
You added magical sequences such as the pumpkin and the guitar, but they added nothing really amazing to the story.

This is an Ok story, fairly well written and formatted but, off the OWC challenge.

My OWC Challenge rating of your script:  1/10 - consider yourself lucky there only because you at least mentioned the Jack O'Lantern.
Comedy Structure: 3/10
My rating of your script overall:  6/10

Not on the theme at all, but I did find some of it funny.

It felt sort of like a Bill and Ted kind of story to me, but I think it fell kind of short, and still needs more kick to it.  

Imagine, bears allergic to pumpkins.
Truth or bear? I don't know...

I did like the ending when the bear broke the guitar.

Cindy

Talk to Don about that dslah!

The other thing is your name on the script. No one is really going to give you a bad review because of it, but that does not give you permission to post your comments here in regards to it

It's been changed and fixed now.

So I guess I should delete this post...

I've re-read your story and although you have made a few changes, it does not alter my original thoughts towards the OWC challenge.

I think it is a good little story and quite interesting but it simply lacks humor and theme; otherwise as a neutal topic story, it is quite OK.

Keep writing and I look forward to reading some of your work on SS.

I've gotta be honest, this script wasn't written particularly for this competition. It was written as an animated short which we plan to produce over the next year. This is why it's not big on following the theme of the contest.

The story does have one small part where James carves a Jack O' Latern and the pumpkin does become integral to the plot, but next time I'll definently write something more on topic.

Quoted from dslah I've gotta be honest, this script wasn't written particularly for this competition. It was written as an animated short which we plan to produce over the next year. This is why it's not big on following the theme of the contest.

It shows.

I'm going to let the comments stand as is.  dslah is new to the Challenge and I give props for giving it a go.  The OWC is tough.  

Don

Okay.  You are new to this, so just know that everything I say is here to help you and not hurt you.

You have some really funny images in here, and some really funny nonsense jokes.  That's fun, and I smiled a couple of times, but it's not enough to fill a twelve page script.  When you have a script with nothing but nonsense jokes, even if they are funny, you have a script that is nonsense.  What I recommend is keep a slight sense of surrealism, but ground it more in reality so that we see the contrast between the nonsense and the real world and can laugh at it.  In case you didn't mean for this script to be nonsensical, here are some examples of building reality:

1. Motivation.  Everything a character does must have some motivation behind it.  The character must have a reason to do what he's doing.

2. "Real" characters.  Your characters said and did things that no real people would do.  This is okay, and can be funny in moderation, but when you don't have a single real character, and they're all doing just the craziest things all the time, what I'm reading is nonsense.

3. ...make sense.  The whole pull a pumpking out of nowhere thing.  Then the whole put a pumpkin in my pants thing, then the whole guitar shooting lazers bears with hats, halloween/far away from halloween... all that stuff is just too much.

Now I'm not saying you should get rid of all that stuff, what I'm saying is that pick one.  Either make your characters real in a crazy world where bears run around with hats and guitars shoot lazers, or make your characters crazy in a world that is normal.  You need som element anchoring the story in reality, or else you're just wasting peoples time.

I hope this helps, I think you could have a funny script, but as is, you've got... a project.

-Tyler

Quoted from Higgonaitor In case you didn't mean for this script to be nonsensical

Actually the whole show is meant to be non sensical. It's not meant to be based in reality, it's just meant to be a crazy fun cartoon.

Thanks for the critiques though.

Quoted from Don I'm going to let the comments stand as is.  dslah is new to the Challenge and I give props for giving it a go.  The OWC is tough.   Don

Don,
Can you please disallow from now, the replies from dsah, it is a post suppose to remain writer anonimous and therefore, comments by the writer is not allowed.
Although I do agree he is new but the rules should apply to all.
Thanks

But everyone already knows that it's my script...

Judy, Judy, Judy!

I'm sorry, but this didn't really work for me.

I'm going to repeat what someone said about my comedy entry in April. "This isn't very cinematic. Mostly just dialogue, reads almost like a radio play". This is a dialogue driven script, but I don't find the dialogue to be that great. Nor did I think it was funny. I found your three main carachters to be very much alike. They way they talk and act.

The story itself wasn't very engaging either.

My suggestion would be that you try to think more visually and then try to describe better for us what we see (without using WE SEE's of course).

I ditto what Higgonaitor said. He's right. Your carachters need better motives and everything should move the story forward. If it doesn't, then it just makes the story drag.

I'm sorry I couldn't be more positive. Don't take it too hard though. You should've seen my first script here. Yikes!!

Heeeeey Punk,

Well, as others have said, and I read your explanation too so don't worry, you didn't really use the theme in this script. Two mentions of the jack-o'-lantern and that's it.

I thought the part where James randomly smashes the glass was pretty funny. Same with the Old Man wearing Eric's nametag. I had to read it over a few times to get it, and you said, "PULL BACK TO REVEAL: The Old Man is wearing a name-tag which says 'Eric' on it!" but I think it'd be funnier if he was just holding it rather than it got stuck on him when he hugged (if that's what happened).

And if they're going to be moving in slow-motion the entire time when they're in the muesum...well, that'd just get annoying, but I assume that that's not happening.

Nice work.

Sean

Not sure I get this.  Think most things have been mentioned, not near Halloween then it's Halloween moments later.  Pumpkins being put in pants, how big are these pants?

But overall I just don't get the story, truth or bear is a funny concept but I think I need a good toke to get any of this lol.

Format wise this aint to bad except for a few camera directions.  The pumpkin carving seemed to be missing though.  Final thoughts arfe that this is just too weird for its own good.

Well, there was a pumpkin...sort of, not carved in any kind of jack 'o lantern style, but incredibly useful for fending off a bear with food allergies chasing you down in the Rock N Roll Hall of fame...

Forgot too many jimmys in your list...What about Buffet?! Eat World? Why did Jerry Sienfeld make the list over James Hedfield??

Looking at it as bizarre creative writing short, it's OK, but as an entry for this specific challenge...not so much.

Everyone knows Jerry Seinfeld is more Rock N' Roll than Metallica...

Also, "not near Halloween then it's Halloween" -- I better clear this up, the joke is that it ISN'T near Halloween, and that Eric is so stupid that even though Oliver already mentioned it not being near Halloween, he still thought it was, just because James was carving a Jack O' Latern.

I'm sorry, but I just didn't get any of it.  How did he come up with this idea of playing "Truth or Bear?"  How is it that a bear would chase him for his life?  Is the bear some kind of metaphor for trouble?

I think the problem is that we're not inside your head.  As writers it's our job to get what we mean across to the reader.  If we don't, we can't blame the reader.  It can be a real challenge because we take things for granted.  It may be obvious to us, but that's as far as it goes.

Sandra

There's not meant to be any real weight to it, it's just meant to be silly jokes.

dslah, you aren't supposed to comment until after the challenge.  Have some consideration for everyone else who has to wait until the names are announced.  You aren't making any friends on the board by behaving badly.

Apologies.

I shall not comment again. I didn't think I was causing any harm...

Fine script but I think you'll get more out of the challenge if you try to stick closely to the theme and genre. It's interesting having to write within set confines.

Quoted from mcornetto dslah, you aren't supposed to comment until after the challenge.  Have some consideration for everyone else who has to wait until the names are announced.  You aren't making any friends on the board by behaving badly.

Quoted from dslah Apologies. I shall not comment again. I didn't think I was causing any harm...

that's what I was trying to tell you before dslah  

Understanding that this was supposed to be nonsensical, I still found it kind of...blah.  I think it has to do with neither Eric nor Oliver having much in the way of motivation.  I think if James really wanted to be on that list of guitar playing Jimmys, he'd have put up a fight about more than playing bridge in the beginning during the truth or dare part.  Also, when coming out of the slo-mo, Eric should just apologize and look embarrassed, telling us it's a joke kinda kills the joke.  But good work on the funny part.  I liked the bear smashing the guitar at the end.