The Last Day of Charlie and Jody by Kemeul Butler - Short - A  love struck young man spirals into a descent of madness when he decides to propose to his high-school sweet heart, only to learn that she's conspiring to break up with him by the end of the day. 12 pages - pdf, format

Kemeul,

The ending signifies this to be a fairly irreverent love story. To me, that was a shame 'cos you perforated the - to my mind incomplete - story with some standout funny moments:

Quoted Text Alice finally raises up from Blake’s crotch, entering the frame. ALICE Now that I think about it. I did hear some stuff about Jody breaking up with you.

Very funny exchange, and this can easily be visualised.

Quoted Text JODY Yeah, but a little too much one thing is a sickening thing. I guess I love him though. He always does know how to surprise me. RICHARD See? that’s a start. JODY Yeah, and he always calls me nice names. CHARLIE (O.S.) WHORE!!!!!!

Ditto.

Quoted Text RICHARD Charlie, I’m gay. CHARLIE These days who the fuck isn’t?

Again, very amusing toilet humour.

It reminded me a little of 'Chasing Amy', but without the depth. However, that - appears - to be a moot point, 'cos you - seemingly - have written this for fun. That film was superb at chucking in toilet humour and tackling relationships in a comedic/dramatic way. A formula that Judd Apatow has followed with his recent offerings. It's pretty potent for the mass audience.  

Some of the situations seemed a little forced, and written to get you where you wanted to go. For example, bumping into Chris, bumping into Brenda - these felt like convenient devices to move the story along. A more organic plot would benefit the script, I think.

Andrew

I gotsta tell what the story is about...





The ending killed it. Why does Richard have a gun? He's gay. No set up for having a gun. Getting shot, or dying, is just such a cheap way out of a story with no where to go.

While a V.O. is generally done by someone alive, is this instance I can see it working, however the shooting seemed SOOOO out of place. Why? What's the point here? That Charlie's such an angry dude that he deserves it? I dunno, just didn't work for me in the end, although some of the set up did. All these chicks throwing themselves at Charlie and he's oblivious. That's what stood out the most for me, the most unique.

The intro was too loose. Could be tightened up.

Thanks for the feedback... well the whole point of the shooting was all for "dark comic" effect... he did deserve it for being so naive. Originally the shooting was just based on a really bad dream i had the day my girlfriend broke up with me in the same fashion hence the note at the beginning "somewhat based on somewhat of a break up"... but Richard was packing a gun because he was an armed campus security guard --- i kno... unrealistic, but my god did i have fun writing this.  It'll be produced by the end of this year.   I'll look into tightening the intro.