Miss Chambers by James Hughes (Tony) - Short, Comedy - A canister of hairspray changes one man's fate when it meets his car's windshield. 15 pages - html, format
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James/Tony,

Was this supposed to be an entry in the one week exercise?  I kinda got that feeling with all of the gunplay.

I found this story to be amusing, and you definitely did a good job of painting the main character as a loser right from the get go.  The one thing I found a little odd was the hairspray in the windshield.  I don't think enough force would be generated to break it, but that's kinda nitpicky since this is a movie after all.

The only recommendations I would make, would be to break up your descriptions a little, after about two sentences.  You have some pretty large chunks in there that would benefit from it, and give it a read through for typos.  You've got some you'res that should be yours and so forth.

Nice work.

Thank you Mike for your comments.
Yes this was meant for the one week challenge. I started it about one day before it was due and handed it in about 12 hours too late.
I was so desperate to get it in, I ignored many of the errors that are present in the script.
I just submitted a revision correcting some of the problems you mentioned and I added just a few more bits of dialogue. Nothing major.
Again thank you Mike.

Yeah.  I dug it.  Nice writing, although the typos didn't help.  Easily correctable though.

"All the factories in Jersey can't top the size of the hole in the ozone layer this bitch has made."  <---- Great stuff.  Great line.

The only suggestion that I would have is to take the town farther.  I mean, it's a weird almost Lynchian town, right?  Make it wierder.  Make it like this guy's stepped through the Twilight Zone.  Other than that, I enjoyed it.  Good job.

Thanks Leanordjenkis for the feedback. I'm currently reading your script Pause and will have feedback for you later this week.

The revision is up, just fixing the basic typos that were in my script and it is available for those of you who want to read it. That is any of you can still handle another "why is every one shooting at me?" topic.

Your welcome.  Hope you like Pause.  Remember that it's not 148 pages, itclocked in at 130 in Final Draft.  Just thought that might help.

Good luck!

Too bad this one didn't make the deadline, Tony.  It makes a good introduction to your writing.

You have a very wry, sarcastic voice here -- as if you don't really like your characters all that much -- which is fine.  I like that.  Purists may tell you that you need to tone down the descriptions a bit -- and they would be right -- but I don't mind it.  And plenty of others don't, either.  As long as it doesn't get out of hand.  I think it lends the work character.

A few spoilers:

*  "The car whizzes past a sign".  So...what's it say?  This is a wasted detail if it isn't utilized, and it should go.
*  Drums don't "hum".  Choose something else.  A "stacatto beat", perhaps?
*  A can is "wedged into the windshield".  What?  Perhaps it sails through an open window, landing in his lap.
*  When we meet Samantha, I would like her age.  She tells us later, but that is too late.  I thought she was much younger.
*  It's "Satan", not "Satin" haha.
*  The "flashback", or "alternate version" of Miss Chambers' demise (whatever you want to call it), is a bit jarring while reading.  For a second, one doesn't understand what is going on.  Try to make a smoother transition into this so it is clear what we are "seeing", you know?

So, I imagine Miss Chambers' feet poking out of the wreckage much like those of the Wicked Witch in "Oz".  This Samantha is a pretty weird chick, and the idea of forcibly arming an entire town might deserve a bit more attention.

There are plenty of clever ideas packed into this story, but if forced to pick at something, I might say that most of the comedy here comes from your descriptions -- your writing itself -- as opposed to what we are actually looking at on the screen.

It's still pretty good, though.  If you ever come back to this one, I would encourage you to spend more time with Samantha.  I liked her character the best -- she seemed well shaped for only a few pages -- with clear motivations for her actions -- which is not so easy to do in a short.  This is nice work here, Tony.

There was some good humor in this but I think, for the most part, it was downplayed. The idea of a town full of trigger happy religious fanatics is quirky and amusing as were a few situations and moments in dialogue but I don't think there was enough humor to keep it grounded as a comedy. For the most part, the story felt pretty straightforward. Personally, I'd recommend you beef up the dialogue as you're very good at it. Lines like "I feel like my head's being dipped in the Jersey shore" and "Is he on the crack rocks?" are great and I think they could help the story a lot as a comedy. Other than that, good job on this one. Ashame you couldn't submit it on time.

I liked this, but I felt it was lacking in energy.  I just didn't get that sense of WHOOOA as much as I was hoping for.  The good news though is that you do have a nice little story here.  It's very satrical in a way.  A town of psycho Christians who all carry guns because their city government is insane.  Then Ben kills someone but it doesn't really think that much about it.  

I also enjoyed Samantha's beauty dialogue...kinda quantum actually.  Then when she picks up the tierra and proclaims "now I'm beautiful!"...I think that's where you see that this is a satire and it's just fun in that sense.

I guess this is one of those stories that if you don't think too much about it then you'll enjoy it, which I did.  Little too much description in some areas and some typos and also be sure to put space between your dialogue and descriptions.  So overall it was very nice to read something from you!  At last!  Well done!

PS-It was Alex Gonzalez who blew the 2003 playoffs for the Cubs, not Bartman.  Alou may or may not have caught the ball, but on the next play Gonzalez had an easy double play and let the ball go through.  It's all his fault!!!

  Thank you Bert, James, and Greg for your feedback. I really appreciate it!
I found your feedback very helpful and insiteful.
Firstly I agree I did really stray from a comedy short. I have to admit I wrote not knowing where I was going entirely, which I hate doing. I'm still down about my ending.

Quoted from bert So, I imagine Miss Chambers' feet poking out of the wreckage much like those of the Wicked Witch in "Oz".  This Samantha is a pretty weird chick, and the idea of forcibly arming an entire town might deserve a bit more attention.

I'm glad you caught on to that allusion Imade of "The Wizard of Oz."
The town being forcibly armed was the inspiration for my story. A week before the topic was assigned I heard in conversation about some placE (I'm really not sure where) that required all of it's citizens to carry weapons for safety. As a result they had almost zero crime.
I tried to research it, but I had no idea where to look or how to find that kind of fact. It's a shame I would have really liked to included that referance in my script.

Quoted from greg PS-It was Alex Gonzalez who blew the 2003 playoffs for the Cubs, not Bartman.  Alou may or may not have caught the ball, but on the next play Gonzalez had an easy double play and let the ball go through.  It's all his fault!!!

Haha, I'm glad you caught onto that joke! I'm not a Cubs fan, I have an overwhelming amount of sympathy for poor Bartman. And it's not like it was entirely Ben's fault he crashed into the float killing poor Miss Chambers.

I wasn't planning on any revesions but all this feedback has inspired me to do it (plus it would be awfully rude not to).

So I'll keep you posted on any revisions in the near future.
Again thanks for the feedback!

Great funny script, Lames. Cogratulations...Very funny indeed! What a pity it is no low budget script because it could be optioned by some moviemaker easely.

Send to us more of this, please!

Lames?!!! Sorry James!

Hey Tony, I missed this one. It’s got some good stuff. I like the Samantha character. Defacing beauty magazines and crying - haha. Reminds me of someone -- haha.

You do a lot of telling us things that we would never know watching on screen. How do I know the countryside was undisturbed until recently?

How do we know Ben is a pathetic excuse of a human being? That whole second paragraph could be cut without changing the effect of the script.

You need to be clearer with your action descriptions. I didn’t know Ben’s car was upside down for certain until it was at rest.

Surprisingly not uninjured? - I understood and the fact that he was limping later reinforced that but the double negative was a short snag.

A few spelling errors like P3, Ben “losses” control should be “loses“, P6, just don’t tell them I’m “hear” should be “here,” “Satan,” not “satin,” that sort. Nothing too diverting. There are too many though.

And some words left out here and there like P6, “Why does everyone in this (town) have a gun?” That kind of stuff.

The Steve Bartman remark went by me. I have no idea who he is. So did the Emperor remark.

The Samantha twist was good. And the ending was good even though the odds of these kinds of people being into Science Fiction was pretty slim.

Good effort.

Brea

Thank you Breanne and Helio, sorry I took so long to get back to you two.

With the little time I have for writing at the moment, I am cutting down a lot of the description in my script, making it less wordy and much more clear.

Steve Bartman was a Chicago Cubs fan who unfortunately reached over the rail and caught a ball that a Cubs player was about to catch, giving the Florida Marlins a home run. The real blow here is that many believed it caused the Cubs to lose the game. Had they won they would have gone into the world series. The Cub's first world series since 1945
He had to be escorted out by the police and had to deal with a lot of death threats afterwards....

I'm a Yankees fan though.

Again thanks for the comments.