Business Trip by Joseph Cahill - Short - Two men, one young one old, in a motel room... - doc, format

This was disturbing and creepy and you should've let us in on a "little" bit more of the 5 pager "if that" I myself didn't want to read something like this and the worst part... or best in your part cause you are a clever writer in the fact that you masked it pretty well.

I give you credit for your writing. It's very sharp and very inspired. I don't agree with you not sharing a bit more about this script... This site is chalk full of under 18 writers and this disturbs me to a degree cause they don't need to read stuff like this just walking into it... I don't believe so, anyways.

Maybe you should give us all a bit more to bite on... you're a good writer, that means you should be able to craft a sentence or two without giving away your centeral hub story and plot.

Just my two cents.

Again, you are a good writer... I'm not taking anything away from your skill or craft as a writer you just... I dunno... I didn't agree with the script. I suppose you did your job... Shock and disturb. G'job!

Balt,
Wow. It must of been pretty dark to have "disturbed" the likes of you. It is only five pages due to a contest I'm submitting it in. They required a setting in a hote/motel room and between 1 and 5 minutes. That was the reason for the restriction on length. Thanks for taking a look at it, though. Maybe I'll follow your suggestion and give a little more info in the logline. I want people to read it but I don't want anyone to read it thinking it may be something it's not...

CTF,
Thanks for the read. I appreciate the comments.

J

You have nothing here that should offend an average reader too terribly, and I would encourage you not to give too much away in the log line.  The subject is disturbing, sure, but there is nothing grossly inappropriate here.  And at five pages, how much description do you really need?

(Spoiler space)

*  Some technical things:  Your dialogue goes way too far off to the right, and page numbers are in the upper-right.
*  I guess "Middle Age Man" is enough for the older one, but I really think you should give us the age of the younger guy, whom you sometimes call a "man", but at other times refer to as a "boy".  A 25-year-old will give us one type of story, and a 15-year-old will give us something else, you know?  This detail is too important to omit, I think, so give him a definite age.
*  At the end, you have "...freshly scrawled words on the mirror", but no indication of how these words are written.  Soap?  Lipstick?  Something else?  This is a detail that you need to fill in for us.

Good luck with your contest.  Be sure to keep us posted.

If you don't mind my asking, what's the contest?

And that is true... Reading it and thinking it's something that it's clearly not. I feel I've over stepped myself on this one a bit and I do appologize for that.

The content is very um... very... uncomfortable and it would be very hard to convey something like this on paper, or it would for me anyways. I do, again, wanna praise your writing style, it's simply fantastic and very clear.

I would listen to Bert on the SCRAWLING thing, though... and the age of the boy/man is very important. I took him for a boy... I did. Maybe that's why I was so disjointed from it, though.

G'luck with all of your writing ventures, though.

Joseph

I enjoy reading shorts best. Those are the ones that could make it into a film festival somewhere. Your short was routine in my opinion. What I mean is the ending was ho-hum. Heard that story about "welcome to the world of AIDS" a hundred times in other stories. I agree with others that you are a good story teller. With a solid ending that has more imagination might be fantastic. Also, if you actually give your characters names the impact of the story would also be much better. Keep up the writing. I keep the reading up.

Spencer McDonald

Coming Soon: Reckless

Bert,
Yeah, you are exactly right. I was too ambiguous on the age of the younger man and I'll  indicate how the words were written. Thanks for the read.

Heretic,
The contests I found actually on this website. Go to "Contests" section and look for an old post by "Businessfilm" looking for short scripts. They have an ongoing contest for feature length and different short scripts...and it's FREE!!! I sent a short last year for their short contest. Was sent an Email stating I wasn't selected...anyways, glad I posted here before mailing it(had to actually open the envelope!). I know what I should fix before sending.

Spencer,
Thanks for the comments. You know I thought the ending was a little cliched...I may consider changing it somehow. I want somthing similar but not so....ho-hum...I guess. I will also give a name to the older man, at least. Thanks, again.

J

Like Spencer, I heard this story a hundred times.  You could probably find it in snopes.com or urbanlegend.com.

spoiler space!

I don't understand why the young man was crying in the beginning.  I'm thinking that maybe he works with the older guy and could get fired by him.  He was forced into it.  Then I see that it's just a sexual encounter.  A male prostitute perhaps.  So why does the younger guy cry?


Phil

Dogglebe,
I'm realizing that I will, in fact, need to make some adjustments to the ending. About the boy crying, I wanted to give the impression that he was only somewhat willing. Though , we're not sure why he's crying...when I wrote the character I had the idea of a male prostitute in mind hence the initial description. I think making the younger man cry tells alot about the situation without "telling"...

I think making him cry puts him over the top.  Assuming that this isn't his first trick, he should be numb to what's going on.


Phil

I've rewritten the script taking the considerations given to me...you know, it looks and reads better. I gave the main character a name, included a specific age for the young man and changed the ending. Thanks everyone. I took that last line out and replaced it. It didn't change the essence of the story...just made it better(I hope!)The revisions should be up soon.

Dogglebe,
About the 'crying'...did this take away the essence of the story? Do you think it would be more realistic without it? Again, I wanted to show something about the character regarding his partial willingness to do what he is doing. What else could be done to show this?

J

I was under the impression that this kid was forced into the situation.  Hence, the tears.  How about having the two talk a little more before going at it.  Maybe show this way that the kid isn't happy with what he's doing.  Suggest the dangers of what he's doing (without revealing anything).


Phil

Good writing. The topic wasn't really all to creative. But I do like the way you describe your setup scenes. That is very unique and it helps the reader paint a picture (or atleast for me that is).

Good job!

-Andrew

Well you're a very talented writer but the subject is kind of trite.  I'll just say for what it is, it was well done.  It wasn't anything too disturbing unless you're sensitive to that kind of thing(which I'm not poking at, just stating).  

Descriptions of the action were pretty good except maybe the sentence structure could have gone smoother.  And you use "cheap" like 3 times on the first page...check the thesarus or something.  Overall, it was a good read and I wish you luck in the contest!

Umm, well, it's a real quick read. And the subject matter came out of left field (after reading a logline like that). But I guess it was half decent. Perhaps you could build up the character of the old man more, and tell us of his wife and kids before the actual event. So we know more going into this....Just a suggestion, i don't care if you take it or not.

Joseph,

I could basically figure out what was going to happen from the logline. Still, it was interesting subject matter so I read it.

I like the part where the young man cries. I think it shows a conflict within him with regards to his behavior. I do, however, agree with another poster that there should be more to it than that. Some kind of interaction between the two men where the young man reveals a subtle hint of his inner turmoil. If he’s planning on doing something so despicable as to deliberately risk transmitting AIDS to another person, he’s most likely going to reveal his fury, hate, etc. in some way during conversation.

In fact, delving a little deeper into the characters seems to me like the best, possibly only, way to distinguish this as a more original work.

The older man talking to his family is a keeper. It’s disgusting behavior to be sure, but it shows the kind of scum the young man has been dealing with.

breanne

By the way, just to clarify, when I say I could figure it out from the logline, I meant that I could tell the two men were going to have a homosexual encounter, not the AIDS thing.

Thanks for reading and commenting...I too think more could have been shown regarding the two characters but, again, I was limited to only five pages due to restrictions of the contest. Also, I realize the subject matter has been dealt with in the past but most things have for that matter. I know it's cliche...but I can only hope that the overall story tellling(description, action, dialogue, etc) makes up for topic itself.  That's what makes story telling fun and interesting...the same thing can be told by five different people and be completely different and fresh for each one. I think too many writers obsess with the idea of having a nice, packaged story with an "original" twist or ending. They lose sight of the real gem in stories...the story itself. American movies rely too much on a beginning and ending and forget to tell a great story in the meantime. The resolution is the most important thing...I like watching(and try writing) movies that have interesting character interactions throughout. I don't care about the ending...I don't care if I've "figured it out" early on...I care about how the story itself is told. Take away the ending of any movie. Would it still be good without it? Could it stand on its own as a well told story? That is a good story...anyways, off my soap box and back down to earth....again, thanks everyone for reading. I really appreciate it.

J

Hey JC

You’re absolutely right about too many writers (and producers, unfortunately) getting caught up in that whole “Sixth Sense” shock twist ending and it’s almost always at the loss of character development which, in my opinion, is what makes a story in the first place.

If you couldn’t write more than five pages, then you’ve done good.

Good point about taking the ending away. A lot of scripts would be at a complete loss if that were done.

You’re right.

And good luck with the contest.

J


I like the story better after the revisions and wish you much luck in the contest. Still not quite sure about the ending but thats just me. Great job. Let me know about your results.

Spencer

Hey J

Ok been thinking bout your ending. Still a bit troubled by the mirror thing. It's your call but here is an alternate idea.

Basically your 40 year old character is doomed with AIDS from sleeping with a prostitute infected. So... What if the character sees a hersheys kiss on the empty pillow next to him with a note. He reads the note while talking to his wife and discovers he was sleeping with an infected person. Terror in his voice and face as he reads the note.

"Last night was as memorable to me as it will be to you. With this one night stand I give you this kiss of death called AIDS."

Again, good luck in the contest and keep me informed. I am pulling for you.

Spencer

Spencer,
Thanks for reading again. You know it's funny you mention your alternate ending idea...I was actually going to use exactly that instead of the mirror thing. The "message" was going to be different but the set up was to be similar to what you described. Thinking about it, it would've provided for more drama if the guy had read the message while he was talking to his wife. Unfortunately I've already sent the thing off...it is what it is. Thanks again for taking another look at it. I'll let you know how the contest goes.

J

Woah, Breanne, I'm sorry but I disagree with your statement that too many writers and producers get caught up with a twist ending, that takes away from character development. And to use the example you gave, the sixth sense, definitely one of the biggest twists in film, and also if not one of the best. But Malcolm Crowe and Cole are very well developed. This is true because the twist wouldn't have been so powerful if you didn't like the character of Malcolm Crowe. He's a lonely person, searching deep down for an answer, about his wife, why things got so screwed up.

I'm just saying this because I disagree, and I believe that what you said is untrue.

Ken Kabatoff

I didn’t say anything negative about “The Sixth Sense.” I thought it was a very good movie. My comment was in regards to all the writers and producers who feel the need to imitate a movie like that, to have a surprise twist.

I’m talking about originality. For example, after “Jaws” became a box office success, every creature that lived in water and had teeth suddenly got its own movie.

I could go on. The point is that the “Sixth Sense” had a great original twist and now a lot of people feel the need to duplicate it. It was so good because it was original and because it had good character development.

There’s this whole Hollywood thing about having a hook at the beginning and a twist at the end. All I’m saying is that some of the greatest movies ever made, “Citizen Kane” for example, would never even get read in the current Hollywood climate.

You certainly have the right to disagree. No one will support your right to do so more than I.

However, Hollywood just got their butts thoroughly stomped this summer by a documentary about penguins. That’s because people are tired of the poor quality formula films, not just the high ticket and concession prices.

In my opinion, what we need is another Orson Welles, not another rip off of something that someone else did better the first time around. All I’m saying is that too many people don’t want to give originality a chance.

We'll just have to disagree.

Ken,
I have to agree with Breanne. About the Sixth Sense, I don't think it would of been the movie it was if it didn't have the twist in the end. It wouldn't have gotten the acclaim it did in the states, anyways. Don't get me wrong, the movie was great without it, in fact that is the style of movie I enjoy watching(without the twist). Again, good story telling is good story telling...without the gimmicks. Mainstream Hollywood may not agree with that.

Hollywood is like a prostitute...they don't care about the foreplay...they want the client to get to the climax. Then get paid. Do what sells. They'd rather give a quick blowjob than wine and dine. Me, I like at least a Big Mac...

J

Oh, well, it seems we're talking about different things here. And about your point.....I do agree. We do need anaother Welles. Originality needs to be given a chance. I think you're right, the people have had enough on formula movies. It's time for a change.