Loserville by Mark Moore (irish eyes) - Series, Comedy - A pet shop worker's life becomes unbalanced with the news that his pet store belongs to the mafia and not his family. 63 pages - pdf, format



Loserville Episode 1 by Mark Moore (irish eyes) - Series, Comedy - An average, no nonsense pet shop owner, has his world turned upside down, when his uncle gets released from jail early. 50 pages  - pdf, format

Loserville Episode 2 by Mark Moore (irish eyes) - Series, Comedy - The pet shop gets robbed. Mickey unintentionally pushes Sally into a suicide attempt and Jimmy finds out an unwanted dark secret. 56 pages - pdf, format

Loserville Episode 3 by Mark Moore (irish eyes) - Series, Comedy - Mickey goes to desperate measures to satisfy Sally. 63 pages - pdf, format

Hello Mark, welcome to the boards. Took a look at your series. Here are my comments up to page 10.

Title Page & general format: Even though there are differences in the format of teleplays and screenplays, the general format is pretty much the same.

Things to get rid of. Lose the large font, copyright, WGA etc. You may well see them on produced work, but they are considered a no no.

Underlined slugs, action description in CAPS, BOLDING, the heading repeated on the first page and teaser, lose them like a bad habit.

Lose the line spacing between the lines of dialouge and tighten it up. Lose the Scene and Act information.
It's about getting reads at this stage for your spec series and this looks like a quasi shooting script for a recorded sitcom.

What's the series about??? The title is confusing, Loserville? It's about a guy trying to run a pet store and his interfering ex con uncle, right? We should open IN the pet store or have an establishing open shot of the outside.

Kick a few title ideas around, Pet Hate springs to mind, but use something more imaginative than that.

The first introduction of MICKEY. You need to include an age. I had absolutley no idea through out the script what age he was suppsoed to be.

From the Mom! exclaimation (you can leave out the exclamation marks, actors usually know how to act) at the start, I thought this guy was around 9.

If he is older and I assume he is, given that he's running a pet store, his childish reaction to his uncle is a little OTT.

This guy is your main character, we need to get to know who he is, what he's about, his 'ordinary world' and what's about to change.

Some people  will frown on character comparsions to literary fictional characters, maybe just a homeless reference will do.

Alot of the dialouge between Peggy and Mickey is very unnatural, people just don't speak like that. You're explaining what's going on right off the bat.

The story needs to grow organically and be shown. Watch the very first episode of a few sit coms you like (or even don't like) Friends, Mike & Molly,
My Name is Earl, Modern Families whatever and see how the characters and their little worlds are introduced.

Some of the quips aren't bad, they just need a bit of polish.

There's a real quirky throw back to 50's style staged comedy shows about this - comedy today is alot different, fast witty, manic and impossible situations for the main character, themes that run through the show

Page 5: Way too much explaining through dialouge - to reference an example, My Name is Earl, Earl , the main chaarcter narrates scenes that are shown to us as a flashback.
This gets around stilted exposition of two characters having a back and forth static boring exchange. Wouldn't it be funnier if we SAW His uncle try to rob the store with a staple gun and the clerks reaction?? (I think the clerk would have fought back with letter, A4 is used more commonly in the UK & Ireland, or so I believe?)

I'll have a look at the rest later.

Just to point out: The formatting follows the established industry standard for sitcom teleplays and is technically flawless. You are confusing it with the established drama/film formatting so your suggestions for those changes are incorrect.

Just to point out: The formatting follows the established industry standard for sitcom teleplays and is technically flawless. You are confusing it with the established drama/film formatting so your suggestions for those changes are incorrect.

'Even though there are differences in the format of teleplays and screenplays' & 'It's about getting reads at this stage for your spec series and this looks like a quasi shooting script for a recorded sitcom'

Reread what I said.

If you wish to contribute positively Henrik then at least read the script and leave feedback  - otherwise save personal catty comments for PMs that you can direct to me personally.

I believe you've misunderstood what I said. My intention was not to lash out or belittle your comments. I just wanted to point out that this is indeed how a sitcom spec should be formatted.

Eoin and Henrik thank you both for your feedback....

Sorry Eoin,  I learned this format for sitcom spec from a few contests that I entered and from david trottier bible book of screenwriting and Ellen Sandler`s(taxi, everybody loves raymond) writing for tv book. So all the acts and scenes, caps and underlined are all necessary for a spec sitcom.. Again sorry I had to change my style of writing to fit the format.

Eoin, I really appreciate you taking a look at script
Loserville could be changed, it was basically everyone linked to mickey were losers. Orignally it was Life of Riley, but a lot of copyright issues, I will definately give it better thought.

The series itself is about a Pet Shop owner leading an ordinary life, having his whole world  turned upside down in a short period of time.. As the series moves on there are a lot of twists relating to the Pet Shop, who wants it, who wants to get rid off it and who Mickey can and can not trust, in hopefully hilarious fashion.

Again thanks Eoin, for your comments and i will definately take notes.

,

Page 10 on.

The exchange on page 10 here between Jimmy and Mickey, too stale, reads very awkward. This is one of the biggest reoccuring problems through out the script. Dialouge delivery needs to be razor sharp for a sitcom.

Page 14, a few chuckles.

Sally Weston, heavyset, easy on the eye . . . okay.

SALLY
How about a Brazilian wandering spider?

MICKEY
Try Brazil.

Why not, 'It's easier to just get a brazilian'?

Page 23 - the chat in the bar is all too cliche, needs something fresher than Asian jokes.

Page 30 The drunk constantly interrupting everyone worked, by i think he's a distraction to the main conversation, which needs more purpose. Alot of the humour here relies on character exchanges, it needs more 'situations', more action.

Eoin

Thank you again for your comments, they are duly noted and greatly appreciated.

Hey irish eyes,

Here's my review. I write it as it comes to my head.  

Comedy's subjective so don't be offended when people tell you they didn't find things funny. I chuckled a couple of times.

Lose the double caps and double spacing. The double spacing goes against you. Use that empty space for scenes.

You explain to much through dialogue. Show don't tell. For instance, in the bar scene where Michael and Sally talk about their lives, why not show it as oppose to having them tell us?

There needs to be more conflict between Michael and Jimmy. Michael needs to come off as trying to battle this guy eventhough he loses. He seems to be giving in alot. For instance, the will, why doesn't Michael go to a professional and examine it?  

For your character descriptions, supply ages and some physical descriptions. For example, we don't need to know Chad's a karoke singer early on. We would know this later on in the bar scene and in the other episodes you decide to write. You can write it as Chad (50s, Asian). They're are other ways of writing character descriptions which leads me to...

Suggest for you to read other scripts. You'll learn a lot from here and it'll help with your cred so more people can read your work.

Hope this helps,

Gabe

Thank you Ripley for your feedback.

I understand everybody is different with comedy, some people find certain aspects funny, while others may think it`s insensitive...It`s entirely upto the person, so i don`t take any offence if some people dont find it funny, I didn`t set out to offend anybody in particular.

As far as dialogue.... From the screenwriting and tv writing books that I read, they stated that comedy is basically an exaggerated drama, and when written it is more dialogue based than action,  as it is a stageplay on screen..
If you notice sitcoms, they are all dialogue driven.. Just my wee perspective.


Thanks again

Mark

Quoted from Don With the aid of his two dimwitted friends and his new suicidal girlfriend, Mickey Riley must save his Pet Shop and his sanity, from collapsing at the hands of his convict Uncle.

Irish, I will take a look at the script soon. I have another to finish first. But some comments on this log:
--is the pet shop collapsing, or the business? Not trying to play semantics, just wondering it that is appropriate.
--can sanity collapse?
--is the uncle a convict or an exconvict? I think convicts are usually still in jail, ex-cons out.
--should Pet Shop be capitalized?
--should Uncle be capitalized?

If these are indeed mistakes, the last place you want them is in the log. Ok, will take a peek tomorrow hopefully. Hope this helped.

Lol..

All excellant questions leitskev and you haven`t got past the logline!
I was never happy with my logline,  I get writer`s block every time I try and write it, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The uncle is released early on good behaviour,  so he probably should fall under ex-con.
Pet Shop I thought should be capitalized, as it`s a name of a building, then again I could be wrong.
Uncle...probably not...


Thanks

Mark
.

Hey Irish

Sorry I haven't had time to dig in yet. Every time I see this on the portal it will remind me!

Pet shop should be capitalized only if that is the name of the place. Usually they have a specific name. Like Dunkin Donuts vs the coffee shop.

Mistakes in the log are the worst, because mistakes in there will ruin all the rest of your hard work. Few will read if there are mistakes in the log. Try to get this fixed ASAP.

Later, Kevin

Thanks buddy im on it!

Have a question here...for Henrik I guess. Is this really correct format? ALL CAPS? Just asking because I opened this one up, but didn't get very far due to the format. CAPS mostly. It hurt my eyes and it all seemed to scream at me. If I'm wrong and this is correct way of writing. Let me know and I'll give it a second try.