Fight by Anthony Hudson (alffy) - Short, Comedy - The workplace can be a dangerous place, especially when you're forced in to a contest against the reigning champion. 5 pages - pdf, format

Hey Alffy,

I don't have much to say which is a good thing, I liked it. It was entertaining little short and you did a good job deceiving me here...

Spoilers:

When the conkers came out, I had to giggle. I remember playing this as a lad in school and all those memories came flooding back.

Not many issues with the writing, it flowed nicely and except for one instance "Jeff reveals a head." I was never tripped up. Might want to clarify that line "Jeff reveals the coin, its heads"

Also thought your parentheses with the ages looked compact, not too sure why but there was no breathing space.

On the whole, a fun piece which I'm guessing is exactly what you're going for.

Good job.

Steve

Hey Alffy,

Good to see some new work from you. Tightly written and well paced... As to be expected from a vet.

I had to look up what a conker was and read about this game which is inherently British. For that reason, much of the joke was lost on me. I've never heard nor seen this game in action. Had I been more familiar with it, I may have enjoyed this more.

The battle seemed a bit lengthy without a whole lot of payoff. I think this would work better if you continually build up Duncan's anxiety and fear of facing the champion. Then send it off when both of them reveal their conkers and get ready to do battle. I think this needs to end on some type of punchline to be more effective.

I think your UK friends will enjoy this more than I did. Btw, where is your Prometheus pisstake? I was looking forward to that having not been much a fan of the film myself...

James

Steve, glad you liked it.  I wasn't sure if only us Brit's played Conkers?  I wrote this having witnessed two kids playing one day and the memories came back.

I never thought about the 'head' confusion lol.  I'll look into that.

I love the Avavtar by the way; Bazinga!



James, you hit the nail when you said you never heard of Conkers, this is something I was worried about before posting.  It's basically a school boy game, so the men playing has it's own comedic image.

You're right about the length of the fight too but I think this is the essence of the story and would be quicker on film.

As far as my Prometheus spoof, well I posted it the same day as this so I guess it'll be up soon.  It's called 'Proposterous' by the way.


Thanks for the reads guys and if you want me to read anything of yours, you just have to say.

I love history, and I've spent a fair amount of time studying British history. Plus, my sister in law is English! And she's taught us many British traditions, particularly those related to the holidays.  Still, I learned something totally new here. Thank the gods for Google!

Ok, I will be very surprised if this is not filmed and filmed soon. It's a clever short and would be very easy to produce.

The part that instantly captured me was the passing of the post it saying "fight". Man, it's like grade school, only in the office, which is why it's so cool. And the post it is the perfect evolution from the note paper that would have been used in grade school. So I was hooked.

And I knew it was probably not going to be a real fight. I mean, I'm a writer, or try to be, so I know there'll be a twist. I'm eager to find out what it will be. I'm thinking something office related, maybe. And then there's shoelace on fingers...and a conker. I'm like what the heck is that? So I looked it up, went back to the story.

Conkers is a kids game. People can Google if they want.

And that's a perfect little twist. It suggests how we take on the trappings of adulthood, but deep down we're still just children at the school yard.

By the way, this concept could easily be Americanized for an American producer. Just use a different game. For example, flippsies, where you flip baseball cards. I'm sure there are plenty of games, depending on what audience you're targeting.

The writing itself is flawless, no need to comment on it beyond that.

Get this one on Inktip so someone can pick it up and film it!

Very kind words, Kev.  Thank you.

You pretty much grasped everything I was aiming for; 'there's a kid in all of us'.

I also thank google too.

Hey Alffy,

As you know I think this is a lovely script.

I particualry  love the "no pulling, no pulling" line, captures the ridiculous element of the scene

All the best

Cheers, Bill.

Hi Alffy, first post on here for me for a while. Glad to see you still writing.

I enjoyed this - thought it was a nice twist. I thought you were going to make it a back-to-school, fight with a huddle of people watching, sort of thing but I thought where you took it was funnier.

Well written and funny mate.

Ste

Ste, glad to see you, so to speak.

Thanks for the read and I'm glad you enjoyed it.  

When you mentioned 'the huddle' I was transported back to school for a split second, remembering the ring of baying observers chanting 'fight, fight, fight, as two nervous school kids took wild swings at each other, desperate not to lose and having the piss taken out of them for the rest of the year lol.

Anthony

This was ok, felt like something that just came in a flash of inspiration and you got it down on paper. For a humorous 4 pager is works fine when treating it more as a skit or sketch you could see on a TV show or advertisement.

I did laugh at the terse, straight to-the-point note that Peter passes to Duncan that simply reads “fight”

It was obvious it wasn’t going to be a confrontation in the traditional fisticuffs manner and funnily enough a conker fight crossed my mind, no jokes. Maybe I’ve seen it done somewhere else; it’s certainly up there with one of the more childish, old fashioned games you could drop into this modern work environment full of supposed adults.

Treating the contestants as boxers with the lovely Jenny parading around the champion and the plume of dust obscuring the two men when Duncan delivers that final blow was amusing.

I thought there might be a twist at the end, I’m not sure what but Peter worming his way through the crowd to snap a photo felt a bit anti-climactic. Again I see this being used allegorically in an advertisement as they try to correlate the most disparate things together nowadays in order to sell a product (just watch today’s commercials for proof, some crazy stuff out there) so the conker fight could be used to represent and energy drink or pep pill to get one through their daily grind at the office. Sounds mad I know but again I refer you to those absurd 30 second slots you see between TV shows every day.

Anyway, not bad for what it is.

Col.

Hey Anthony!

It's good to have something new from your brain to read!
Heck, it's just plain nifty in general for SS alum to post scripts.
So, here goes...

P. 1
If this were to be produced...
I can totally see using the post-it note for the title reveal!
And like an ominous Inceptionesque percussion gong!  

P. 2
This line reads wonky to me...
Their chitter chatter volume increases.

I'd just go for something like...
Their chatter intensifies.

P. 2
Word removal needed here...
The walls lined with portrait
photographs beneath a the heading;

P. 2
Jenny needs a properly ALL CAPS character intro here.

P. 3
The words "receive encouragement" feel inappropriately dry given the situation.

I'm ashamed to say that I had to look up what Conkers is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers

Us colonists types are a tad ignorant to such amusements.
I liked the crowd and Jenny's strut, but the game itself was lost on me.

Regards,
E.D.

Cheers, Col and E.D.

Col, you guessed it was going to be a conker fight?  Great minds...
Using it as a advert, never thought about it but I guess it could easily be changed to promote a number of things.  Good idea that.

E.D. cheers for your views, they're much appreciated.  Sorry you don't know the game, it's very popular here...or was, before the invention of the Playstation and Xbox.  Showing my age now lol.

Thanks guys.

Hi alffy,

Great to see some work from a member who appears to be everywhere, nowadays.

Haven't got much to add, really other than I enjoyed. That image of adults playing conkers is something that will stick for a while. Quite amusing.

I think it was on page 2, when you have the description "Narrow and claustrophobic." - I see what you were trying to get at, here, but "claustrophobic" to describe a setting? Not too sure about that TBH.

Otherwise, some great writing. Will definitely take a look at some of your other work in the near future.

Daniel

Quoted from alffy I wasn't sure if only us Brit's played Conkers?

Yep, pretty sure it's only Brit's because I've never seen a conker here in Perth - NEVER! The kids here are deprived of such wonders.