The Pumpkin Carver by Ron Houghton - Short, Mockumentary - A mockumentary about a Portland man enthralled with Halloween.  19 pages - pdf, format

Ron,

Some notes.

I liked this.  it tickled my fancy.  I think you might shorten it and tighten it because it got better when the film switched from him in his garage to him doing other things.  And I don't think you put enough pumpkins out on Halloween. I would think he would have 100 pumpkins of various sizes and colors all around the house, a pumpkin army.  The flashbacks didn't work for me.  I think you might dump them and do more scenes with the people he fingers as his oppressors.  

Since this is a parody of a documentary, push the envelope.  It's not enough to have him carve.  His garage is painted orange.  His hair may be orange.  Everything that touches his precious pumpkins is orange.  He's petitioned the government to rename Halloween to Pumpkin Night and sought signatures for his petition--got 20.  Make him about as mad as you can.  And if you add a narrator, make it a very serious narrator who takes this farce as gospel.  

Best
Richard

Richard, once again I appreciate your time and thoughts.

I like a lot of your ideas. Orange, orange everything, (maybe not the hair), and the notion of a petition is hilarious. 100 pumpkins might be a tad much. I still want Larry to come off as more of an artisan than some kind of pumpkin factory.

I knew the re-enactment's were trouble, but I fell in love with the idea of the grainy, Super8 footage capturing Larry as a child, even though it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the piece. More stuff with his old rivals could be a lot of fun to write.

As for the narrator. I'm using a stodgy professorial type in another feature I'm working on, so I moved away from that for this one, making it more of a university student film by a girl who grew up in the area.

Thanks again.
Ron

Ron,

I like the mockumentary style, there’s not enough Spinal Taps in this world.  Have you seen the NZ film 'What We Do in the Shadows'?  One worth checking out.

I could see this working; kind of an offbeat feel about it.  I’d almost bet a quick internet search would turn up such a person as Larry...

I found it a quick read.  I think you could stand to trim the dialogue/weaker scenes without harming the overall idea.  One reason I like this style is because you can let loose with the dialogue and get characters really talking - almost directly to the audience - letting the humour play from that.  On the other hand it’s easy to get carried away and let a character talk for too long.  I can’t say that any one scene/moment really stands out after reading.  Perhaps that’s what this needs to really grab the attention?

p.9 ‘So you never went trick or treating yourself then?’  Not sure how this line connects to Larry’s preceding dialogue.  Feels like the question is just forced in there.

Best of luck with it,

Steve

I  have to say  I loved this. I'm a massive fan of mockumentaries and this didn't disappoint.

Was reading this as a passenger in a car so I wasn't taking notes. I did notice a few typos and missed commas, easy to pick up.

Also, I'm not sure about this one but I thought O.C. was more a sitcom type thing and in a feature or short we used O.S., again no big deal. It didn't take away from the fact that this is well written, well formatted and just a fun read through and through.

I'm surprised there aren't more comments.

Great job.

Warren, Steve -- Thanks for the positive feedback. I've always been a huge fan of Christopher Guest's work. He has a gift of somehow taking ordinary people and making them extraordinarily funny.

Also --  I don't know about you others, but sometimes, when writing a character, a particular performer gets stuck in my head to the point I can't see anyone else doing it. For me on this piece it was Fred Armison. (Now if I only had his phone number)

Best
Ron