I read this earlier on STS. Good stuff all around.

Congratulations!

Congrats Pia, thoroughly well deserved!

Yeeha! Can't wait to see this.

Congrats with all that good news, Pia.

Pia -

Great news - and very well deserved!  Initiation's going to be a terrific short film - sure to clobber all the festivals!  )) (Plus, thanks for giving the nod to STS and SS in general.)  Though - of course - the honor belongs to you. )

--J (W)

Hey Pia,

Congrats on getting picked up, first of all. Congrats on your success in general, really. You've got a lot of wins under your belt at this point. Very happy for you.

I know you weren't looking for feedback, but I did read the script, so I'll give you a rapid-fire response to the areas you were looking to improve upon in this exercise.

Characters - Not bad. Amara is the better of the two, for sure, for reasons which have already been stated. The promotion and the ring were a little easy but perfectly effective, not to mention tried-and-true devices for establishing sympathy for Nico. He seemed like a pretty regular dude, so why not?

That said, very cliche. Red roses, red wine and chocolates have been done to death. You even made him a marketing director, which is like every male protagonist in every comedy-of-errors ever (Hollywood loves the title because they can use it as an excuse to insert product placement).

The only things that weren't cliche about Nico were that he was black, which I appreciate for the fact that you actually incorporated it into the plot. And the condoms, I guess. Weird. I do so rarely see characters shop for condoms in films.

Dialogue - Fine. Nothing special, but not bad. I guess if I'm not thinking about it, it's working on some level.

Tension - Excellent. I suppose you could've taken it further, but then you could've easily taken it too far. The only thing I would've added is Amara actually trying or at least pretending to scream. Then Nico would *really* have no choice but to do what she says. Still, it's no small threat that Amara introduces. I just felt Nico could've made one last ditch effort to shut her down, especially since what she wants also puts him in a risky situation.

Anyway, good job, and congrats again.

James,

good to see you around here again. You've been missed!

Thanks for the kudos. Weird how that works. Right when I plan to move on to short fiction, all these options are happening!

I wrote this one when there was a LOT of police brutality against blacks in the news. Then, I was watching American Graffiti and there is that scene where the guy in the yellow hot rod has to drive someone's little sister around and that's how it all came about. What if? Kind of thing. I can definitely see how a black man might be nervous in Nico's situation.

I hear what you're saying about the script, but I was pretty happy with it as is. It was just something fun to write, nothing I wanted to spend any precious rewrite time on. Still appreciate you reading of course. The guy who's making the film didn't ask for any changes either, so I think it works for what it is.

Cheers James. Thank you and please stick around.  

Pia, congratulations.

I gave this a read and I'll keep it brief as I'm aware you're happy with this and as it's already been picked up there would be little point changing anything now, besides which, I didn't find anything wrong with it anyway lol

Straight forward set up and then 'bam' Amara springs in and suddenly I'm feeling anxious about Nico and the situation he is now in.  It got me thinking how easy it would actually be for this to really happen.  I wondered how I would react to this.

I did think the police officer was easily swayed away from taking it further simply because Amara confessed to being Nico's sister.  There was still an opened wine bottle, condoms in the car and lube everywhere lol

still good though and some good, uncomfortable, tension.

This script had a bidding war going on. Then, the winner couldn't get the 30K funding he needed... It went back to the second producer who couldn't find an actress to play Amara. It then went to the third director/producer in London who shot it, but in post decided it didn't work. So, this script is now back on the market.  

That sucks. Same thing happened with my short A Day to Remember. Not the bidding war part, but the fact that is was filmed and then died in post. Seems like such a waste to go to all that effort then can it. Oh well, thats the way it goes I guess.

Hopefully yours gets snapped up again soon.

All the best.

I'd be over the moon with a 30K budget on a short. I know there are people out there attempting features for less.

Sorry to hear this has happened to what sounds like an excellent project. Does Don have an area for scripts out of option so they can get a chance on the home page again?

Either way, I hope the renewed interest in this thread brings this script a quality producer. Good luck, Pia.

Thanks guys!

Yes, very frustrating when things like this happen and especially when everything was good until late in post. I think they messed up majorly somewhere on the sound work.

Yes, 30K for a short is a lot, but there are a lot of people with money out there that want to try their hand at directing. This guy wanted a REALLY GREAT actress to play the part. He felt that was vital to the film's success.  I've seen other scripts from SS filmed with those kinds of budgets. They are usually VERY good. Which is great, but hard for amateurs like myself to match.

Two Psychos also had a bidding war going on. It's been two years now and I'm still waiting to see the film...

Don't know if there is a way to un-optioned a script's status here. Have to ask Don.

That was... really good.

Pia

This was a fun read and moved along nicely. I really felt the frustration/horror of Nico when Amara first jumps into the car and won't get out, threatening rape and scandal. Unfortunately, its rather topical given the events of the past few months. A fantastic premise for a script though

I could see when the cop pulled them over that she would bail him out, since there was no other way it could really go. On that point, the cop was very blase about the scene that greets him. Before Amara comes to the rescue, it looks damning, nay criminal, especially since she is handcuffed. Lots of explaining to be done here, methinks. Yet, the cop saunters back to his car to run a check on Nico's licence. Would he do this after what he's seen? Easy to restructure it anyway and not lose anything while maintaining a degree of realism.

So then the big question was why? Why is Amara doing this? In that regard, the ending, or punchline, felt a little underwhelming, perhaps because I anticipated it as soon as she asked for his undergarment. Other than that though, I did really enjoy this.

I see from above that you nearly got this produced, sorry to hear it fell through, a familiar story for some of us here. I am curious about the 30k budget since this looks like it could be filmed for a fraction of that. Has the script changed much since then. Was there a car chase or explosion omitted from the draft I read?

Col.

Hey Col! Long time no see! Hope you're doing great!  

Thanks for giving this one a read. I agree with your issues about the cop. I'm not planning to rewrite it however. I'm tired of this thing by now, lol. It was something I wrote in one sitting, if I remember correctly. It just flowed. It felt topical at the time and still does, imo.

The script posted here is the script that was going to be used.

The 30K budget was due to the filmmakers wanting a known and capable actress to play the girl. In such tight quarters of filming, great acting would be crucial. It had more to do about that than locations and such. Nothing might happen with it now though, although Dena and I have toyed with the idea of shooting it ourselves. We'll see.  

Thanks again for taking a look.  

Optioned, again.