The Spelling Bee by Steve Nazarian - Short - A cocky 8 year old gets his comeuppance during a blatantly biased spelling bee. 6 pages - pdf, format

This one has an excellent premise, then ruins it by taking it way, way too far.

Scale this one back.  Tell a simpler story that is cheaper to film -- and you might end up with a very nice short on your hands for somebody looking to film something.

Thanks for your thoughts!

What specifically went too far? The parents deaths? My sense of humor leans toward absurdity so for me it's a natural progression + it wouldn't be too expensive to shoot. To be honest I never even thought about shooting it, but I would think it would be pretty cheap as it's basically a one shot of the stage with the judges and audience offscreen. Or maybe you meant the swearing, which to me would be biggest hurdle getting a little kid to say the things he says, but if this were to get made I see it more as an SNL type skit that would be done by adult actors playing kids.

Anyways, appreciate the feedback and any other thoughts you or others might have. Thanks for hosting the script!

Steve

Holy crap.

This script was gold. My cousin walked up to me and looked at me like a crackhead because I was laughing so hard.

This could definitely work as an SNL script, or as an animated short. Everything was random and unexpected, which is what comedy should be. The only thing I saw that might be wrong was that the majority of things you capitalized didn't have to be. "JUBULENT APPLAUSE FILLS THE AUDITORIUM" doesnt all have to be in caps. But that's just a note on your formatting. As far as your dialogue and story goes, I got nothing to say but: hilarious.

And I just read bert's post. I don't see how this would be expensive. All you'd need is an auditorium, a couple of kids, a couple of adults, and some special tools to make the wife slitting herself look real, because that's got to be the craziest part.

Quoted from stevenaz226 What specifically went too far? The parents deaths?

Yeah, mom slitting her own throat and dad blowing his head off with a shotgun.

I thought it was funnier in the realm of "almost could be real", but N.B.T. up there found it to be funnier with those aspects, so there you go.  Comedy is subjective.

You always have to decide for yourself if you agree with feedback or not.

Quoted from nextbigthing I don't see how this would be expensive.

I did not mean it would break the bank, of course, but adding those kind of effects would cetainly make it more expensive.  Any film student can find an auditorium, but adding in the FX for the kills would add cost.  Not a ton of money, but maybe enough for them to consider something else.

I just thought it worked better before the absurd bloodshed, but that is just me.

Wow thanks for all your thoughts!

Comedy is definitely subjective and the parent suicide thing for me was the funniest thing that came out of the writing. It just fit with my sense of humor and I know sometimes you got to cut your babies but for me it's like the big laugh of the script, so offing it is kind of tough. I definitely could do a toned down version though that gets same point across.

I definitely need to work on my formatting. I kind of have the habit of capitalizing sounds, especially ones that are supposed to be offscreen. My idea was to have the judge and audience off screen, so I never am sure how to put something offscreen that is a sentence like "applause fills the auditorium". If I just cap APPLAUSE does that then make the reader think we see a shot of the audience in their mind? Am I then getting into direction too much and should just leave it up to director what they want to show? The answer probably is just better writing, but I do need to cut down on caps because they take up more white space.

Cost is something to definitely consider. I guess viewing it as an SNL skit I would think it would be as simple as a fake knife and some ketchup, and then a shotgun in mouth cut to the banner being sprayed by blood and guts (which are fun to make!)

Thanks again for your comments. I really appreciate the input! This was just a fun little script. I hope to post some longer more serious works down the line. Best of luck to all of you in your writing,

Steve