Breakfast by David Rodney Hulbert II (followmeproductions) - Short - In every relationship there is a certain distance between partners.  It starts at the breakfast table and grows throughout the day. Eventually we are nothing more than strangers living in commonality.  Stalkers from accross the table.   4 pages - pdf, format

David

This has never happened to me before when reading scripts but I can honestly say I didn't get this. I've read it and re-read it & still can't get to grips with it. I know the story sequentially, what happens and that, but it just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm intrigued as to what its about but I don't want to go asking you a series of questions, instead can you just explain the story form start to finish. Private message me if you want, instead of sprawling the spoilers all over the public forum.

On the grammar/typo front, you referred to Brett as "The Brett" in a few action paragraphs.

Please hit me back, dude, as I said I am deeply interested as to what the fu?k is going on with this.

Col.

Hello David,

Interesting David Lynch type script.  Was that what you were aiming for?

*Spoilers*

Anyway, I too didn't quite understand the whole object to the script although the ending does explain some stuff.  It's the beginning and the interactions between Tiffany and Brett that has confused me.

They are together in the morning, she refers to the maintenance man's apartment to clean the vents, leaves, goes to the maintenance man's apartment, Brett answers again.

Is this a case of forgetting to name the maintenance guy another name?

All the font should be in black 12pt Courier and the dialogue does not need speech marks as it's a given.  The slugs should start off like

INT. APARTMENT

All the best,


Javier

As soon as someone attached those two magic words to this script I just had to read it.

What are those two magic words I here you ask? Why that would be "David" and "Lynch"

I'm not going to comment on this script as I feel the words on paper does not justify the idea behind the script.

As it is I got the impression that Tiffany leaves the room, brett does his thing then a few seconds later there is a knock on the door and Brett opens it.  There is no location change at all.

But it is hard to tell with just the script.  Plus when second Brett open door is Brett one and The Brett all played by the one actor or two seperate actors?

So I've got no comment on this script.

Luckily this script was written by a filmmaker and hopefully he will shoot this soon and post here as I would like very much to see his/her visual version of this script.  

I had to reread this five times to follow it and im still not clear, i presumed brett (the brett was not there and she was chatting on the phone. I gathered he was watching her and liked the link that it was the camera blocking the vent, im just a bit confused as to how it appears at the beginning, are we meant to think hes there until she knocks the door and we know he isnt. Would have to see it made to see exactly whats in the writers mind with this one.
As a story its not bad but not very original, could be good if the filming were to do something unique, but can't be sure of that.

Okay, I can that this one is open to interpretation.

My take is:

I am guessing that Tiffany is on his monitor sat opposite him at the breakfast table - his breakfast table. The feed is from the vent, and the dialogue she is having is with someone else, who we do not see? She then knocks next door to speak with Brett.

It appears to me that the story is essentially a visual on how Brett is completely infatuated with her, and this is almost revealed to her with the "mov... work?" question?

I have to say, I did like this one, and think a short of this could be excellent. The writing and dubious format needs tweaking, however.

Look forward to seeing what happens with this.

Andrew

Yeah I think you cracked it, Andrew. Tiffany is on screen at the start, a C.U. shot would throw the viewer off, similar to the technique used in "Rightous Kill".

But if that is the case, would the lines of the vent grill partly obscure the view of Tiffany at the start when she is talking, as that is where Brett is filming her from. This would automatically give the game away.

Neat idea though.

I thought it would be filmed with him physically in the room so it would appear they were there together and chatting to one another. Only when she knocks the door is this illusion broken!

So why does she act like he's just the maintenance man later? We never leave his apartment for the duration of the story. When Tiffany is talking at the start she is in her own apartment but on camera. She never speaks to Brett directly. Thats why he has the TV set up on the chair across from him at the table.

It could be sort of be compared to Malcolm Crowe's wife in the "The Sixth Sense" also. When the twist is revealed and it goes over all the previous interactions between him and his wife, we notice she never talks to him, only to herself.

In Tiffany's case it could be a husband, boyfriend or housemate across the table, the illusion leads us to think its Brett.

Again all this is on the basis of Andrew's theory which makes the most sense to me.

A really cool idea that could do with a little tightening up.

Quoted from Colkurtz8 In Tiffany's case it could be a husband, boyfriend or housemate across the table, the illusion leads us to think its Brett.

Actually, he shows us that she's talking to someone on her bluetooth headset.

While I do feel like this script tells a complete story, I don't feel like there's any reason for the reader to be interested in it.  We really don't see enough of the characters to have any feelings for them.  I don't know whether I should feel sympathetic towards Brett or be repulsed by him.  Or some combination of the two.

In addition to this problem, I think the dialogue needs some real work.  It felt really robotic to me.  So much so that I felt your twist was going to be that these characters were actually robots - referring to the characters as "The Brett" and "The Tiffany" was reinforcing this idea.

David,

You shouldn't use quotations in your dialogue.  Also, having the characters names in a different color is a no-no.  Someone already mentioned The Brett and The Tiffany.  I don't know if that was intentional, but it just came off as awkward.

In that opening scene, because(as I understand the script), it takes place in Brett's apartment, and Tiffany actually isn't there, you should make that clearer.  It's just confusing to a reader.  I had to read this a couple times to see what you were trying to do there.

This sort of reminds me of an old movie I saw called Sliver, where a maintenance guy has every apartment in a high rise building wired for video.  

Interesting idea, you just need to tweak your formatting and make that opening scene clearer to the reader.

Cam

Wow!

ok, sorry it took so long to reply, been preparing for finals.  Ok, as for the color on the script. Sorry, I know it's bad, but the program I use to write in automatically does that. Any suggestions on a good alternative?

As in my other scripts, Grammar is my enemy. I am dyslexic and have trouble seeing my mistakes some times.  It doesn’t help that I type 80 words a minute ether.

Now some of you have figured out this script and i am pleased. Basically, the Brett is a maintenance man in this building and he has a interest in the woman next door to him.  In the beginning he is sitting at the table across from a screen watching a feed of Tiffany. Tiffany is talking on a Bluetooth headset to someone that we never meet.  When he writes down the movie info, I was trying to portray his motives to follow her later, once we all knew he was stalking her.  When she comes to his door she is still talking on the headset.  The part about him fixing the vent was him basically installing the camera.  Then at the end he moves it to open the vent back up, because it was blocking the air.

I know my writing needs help. And my attempt in this one was to use as little description as possible since my last script was said to be to descriptive.  Which BTW you can watch "Eternity" here: http://www.vimeo.com/3962172

I am gonna shoot this one as well and I hope you will get what I was going for.  

I am new to screen writing, but I take it seriously and hope with all your help that I can produce a sellable product you all will be proud of.


Thanks Again

David Hulbert

Quoted from followmeproductions ... I am dyslexic and have trouble seeing my mistakes some times.  It doesn’t help that I type 80 words a minute ether.

For someone who's dyslexic, you're doing well typing eighty words a minute.

I believe the average for a typist is sixty.

Quoted from Cam17 In that opening scene, because(as I understand the script), it takes place in Brett's apartment, and Tiffany actually isn't there, you should make that clearer.  It's just confusing to a reader.  I had to read this a couple times to see what you were trying to do there.

I don't think it necessarily needs to be made clearer. It is much nicer that we read the script as it would play on screen in my opinion. Maybe what needs to be made clearer is how the characters are situated, but not that there are two different apartments. Whilst it is more confusing to find this out later on rather than in the beginning, this is how it would/should play on screen.

And yes, we've done to death the formatting/grammar thing. But I think it's a great idea. Maybe just fix up some of the dialogue and this would be a great short  

Your dialogue is way too on the nose. For instance, take this, at the start of the script, as an example.

BRETT
Oh, you are up early.

No one says that, man.  They'd say "You're up early today" or "You sure are up bright and early today"

Tiffany's dialouge is also very stiff and on the nose. Almost robotic. I don't want to rip into your script, but the dialogue, while workable, doesn't lend itself to an easy ready.  You said you were dyslexic and maybe that is a part of it, I dunno... but you should spend a bit more time on your delivery of dialect more.

Also, when someone talks and it is broken up by an action or event... Then they talk again. Always include "CONT" behind their cue.

Another thing I noticed was your dialouge was cut off and carried over to the next page for Tiffany on the start of page 3. This is also a big no. Just kick that characters cue to the next page. Don't mind the wasted white at the bottom... it's actually better to see more white on a page than black. Trust me.

The Brett and The Tiffany have to go. Speaking in 3rd person just doesn't work in this day and age, bro.

With that said, I don't know if it reflects much David Lynch as another  poster had said, but it was a good hook. It's a novel idea and if fleshed out a tad more could be something. Right now it just has a lot of problems within the format and how it is written.  Again, great attempt and a good idea. Take some notes of what to do and not to do or read a couple books or other screenplays here from some of the top members.

Believe it or not, they do help.  Good luck on your future writing, man.