Cat Person by Abel Orfao - Short - A man forced to take care of a small kitten learns the troubles and the rewards which come with being a cat person. 26 pages - pdf, format

Abel,

I'm in a rush so I'll be quick.  This was an excellent premise.  Very marketable idea.   A quick read, but it got a little redundant in the middle.  Seems you could've cut out some things, I.E.  Alan's training Snowy.   Some of that stuff didn't need to be repeated.  I instantly liked Alan.  Nice character arc.

Seems you could thrown in some more comedy.  I was waiting for Alan to wake up and step on Snowy's poop, but I liked the heartwarming drama part at the end.

Well done.  I'd like to see this get filmed.

Hello, screenrider, and thanks for taking a look at this short -- especially since I didn't realize it had been posted yet!

I've never been that interested in trying my hand at a short until an incident a little over a month ago sparked this idea. I've always heard some of the best ideas come from real-life situations and I felt a story loosely based on my brother's experience with two litters of kittens would be interesting to put on paper, especially since this is the closest I've come to writing a straight dramatic story.

As for your comments, I understand the training sequence may be overlong and I think I could streamline and simplify that section without affecting the message behind those scenes. I suppose I could have added more comedic moments as well but I wanted the focus of the story to be how Alan grows to care about his new kitten.

Thank you for reading my short, screenrider, and I appreciate your response.

Hi,

just read your script.

I think it's a good idea. The story progresses well. Liked the writing. And I think the ending is very good and funny too.

I think that your title and the logline give away the ending too much. A bit slow for me but maybe it's just me, I always favor upbeat scripts and themes.

The introduction of Kevin came too late in the script I think. P6 - dragged a bit for me, I think that part of it could be cut. And all the scenes where he teaches Snowy this and that could be shortened too, I think (or maybe some of them could be cut). I wish I knew more about Alan. What he does besides teaching Snowy and such... - but maybe it's because there were too many of these scenes.

Flows nicely. Liked it overall!

Hello, khamanna. Thank you for reading my script and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'll go over your thoughts below.

When I get a chance to work on this script, I promise I'll trim down the training sequence as it's apparently the main sticking point in the story. I'm certain I can condense this section over three "days" instead of the current four.

I can understand how the scene where Neil talks Alan into accepting Snowy may seem a little long, but I felt the length was necessary to establish how reluctant Alan was to take care of a cat only for Neil to undercut his excuses.

Kevin and Tilly are introduced rather late in the story, but that's mainly due to the minor relevance of their characters as well as lacking the opportunity to work them into the story any earlier.

Thanks once again for reading my script, khamanna, and I appreciate your response.

Quoted from screenrider Abel, I'm in a rush so I'll be quick.  This was an excellent premise.  Very marketable idea.   A quick read, but it got a little redundant in the middle.  Seems you could've cut out some things, I.E.  Alan's training Snowy.   Some of that stuff didn't need to be repeated.  I instantly liked Alan.  Nice character arc.

I agree with SR. Some of the training of Snowy could be shortened, but you tried to show him developing an attachment and that's good.

My feeling is that this was written by someone who doesn't know too much about cats, but also that they were writing from a real life experience, perhaps something they recollected from childhood.

In any case, I think it has potential and that you've done very well with this.

Sandra

Hello, Sandra, and thanks for taking a look at my script.

Your intuitions were almost right, by the way. The basic story was inspired by a recent real-life experience while the references to Grandpa Joe, the photograph, and the creek came from my childhood. The one thing you missed? I actually have a cat. I don't know what that says about my parenting habits.

Thanks again for the read, Sandra, and I appreciate your response.

Quoted from abelorfao Hello, Sandra, and thanks for taking a look at my script. Your intuitions were almost right, by the way. The basic story was inspired by a recent real-life experience while the references to Grandpa Joe, the photograph, and the creek came from my childhood. The one thing you missed? I actually have a cat. I don't know what that says about my parenting habits. Thanks again for the read, Sandra, and I appreciate your response.

Strange how that came through that aspect. It did feel real and not like it was written.

Good job on that. By the way, I have two cats. Merlin and Merry. I call them coordinating cats because if you see them from the side, you can't tell them apart. Straight on though, it's easy. They're both so very different in their personalities and they bring a lot of joy around our house. Merry, she's "the cave cat". She burrows under the blankets at mid afternoon for awhile. It's her "thing". Merlin, he talks up a storm, has a compulsion for the water taps, not because he's only thirsty, but because he knows he gets extra attention. Their favorite game is when we've got cardboard boxes kicking around. They jump in and it's guaranteed: Mom gives them "choo-choo train rides".  

Sandra

My cat is a one-year-old seal point with white I got from my brother. She also likes to be covered when she sleeps, even going so far as to pull back the bed sheets and crawl her way under the covers. My brother, meanwhile, has a dog, three cats, two kittens he's trying to give away, and two wild animals he insists are his children.  

Abel

In terms of the writing from a technical standpoint this was fairly solid, it read well, the 22 pages were easy to get through. However, in regards the story, I can't say I was too crazy about it.

There is a lot of repetition in here, particularly around the beginning of the second act when Alan has finally accepted the cat from his brother and is going through the motions of training it. I realise you wanted to flesh out and develop the gradual bond between master and pet but you over cooked it, in my opinion. From pages 7 to 12 all we get are short vignettes of Alan hitting a brick wall time and time again before eventually making the break through. I could just imagine these scenes been played over upbeat pop music in a montage if it were filmed but typically these sequences last no more then three minutes, four tops.

When one of these montages kick in during a film they usually encapsulate far more variety as basically all they are doing in condensing a transition in character or plot in the shortest amount of time possible without needless exposition. In painfully predictable Hollywood fodder nowadays they are practically a standard, not an hour and thirty minutes go by without one of these sequences wedged in somewhere to move things along.

In your script, for five pages, we are subjected to a guy trying to make his pet adjust to a scratching pole, sleep in their own bed, allow their ears to be cleaned before the cycle starts again. I dunno, I think you were aiming for comedy here but I didn’t find it all that humorous. Alan's coaxing words, the periodic giving of treats, the cat's disobedience just became infantile and silly. Personally, its repetitious nature got irritating pretty quickly.

For a guy who initially didn't want a cat in the first place Alan was caring for it remarkably well, a scratching pole?, swabbing out its ears? The man must've doled out about 10 treats in those five pages. We had a cat for ten years and never gave it the kind of treatment Alan gives Snowy in (what seems like) the first couple of weeks. I mean, we looked after it but cats are a relatively low maintenance pet and unlike dogs they generally they don't give two sh?ts about you (except to be fed an the odd rub of course), preferring to be left alone. Alan seemed to be treating Snowy as if it were a Poodle.

What do we know about Alan as a character besides his fear of responsibility? Sure, he does undergo a change, which is completed in the closing scenes where we get to see how far he's come but what did we know about him in the first place besides what I mentioned above? There is a character arc but unfortunately there’s no character drawn or developed to begin with besides his interactions with the cat. Because of this he never struck me as a genuine human being rather then a blank canvas you were using to tell your story through. Snowy nearly had more personality then him.

For a 30 years old who, as Neil points out, has no girlfriend, wife or pet, seemingly lives alone, there should be more to this guy other then simply fear of responsibility issues, there should be something deeper there. The only other facet of his life, let alone his personality or background information we’re given is about their father who died too soon, and the photo their grandmother gives them. Other then that Alan is an extremely one dimensional character, its all about him and his cat, nothing more.

I don’t want you thinking I found this to be without merit because, as I said, the actual writing itself was pretty clean and precise. I liked how you set up and paid off the photo by having Alan fulfil his transformation at the place where it had been taken when burying the cat, that was a heart warming touch an easily the highlight of the script as far as the story went. It’s testament to how much I liked that scene and was, in a way, moved by it even though I really didn’t care much for Alan (reasons given above) and what became of him or his cat, so well done on that. That’s the kind of “other stuff” required to fully draw a character out that I’m talking about which I would’ve liked to have seen more of in the piece.

I must mention that I’m not some cold, heartless cynical animal hater, I love cats but having a 22 page screenplay evolve around a guy “getting to grips” with one simply doesn’t interest me all that much, especially the way in which you told it, its structure and tone, didn’t work for me. And that’s just it, an opinion.

Best of luck

Col.

Hello, colkurtz8. Thanks for taking a look at my script and I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped. I've already discussed how I can cut down on the training sequence previously, so I'll focus on your other main complaint.

Having never written a short before, I wasn't sure how much background information the characters needed for the story to work effectively. I tried to keep characterization as brief as possible so as to spend as much of the focus as I could on the story. It's possible I went a little overboard and left Alan's character too thinly sketched. I'll reconsider this aspect when I get a chance to rewrite the script.

Thanks once again for reading my short, colkurtz8, and for your honest appraisal.

Quoted from abelorfao Having never written a short before, I wasn't sure how much background information the characters needed for the story to work effectively. I tried to keep characterization as brief as possible so as to spend as much of the focus as I could on the story. It's possible I went a little overboard and left Alan's character too thinly sketched. I'll reconsider this aspect when I get a chance to rewrite the script.

-- As I said in my comments, all I offered was a personal opinion on the story and while I didn't engage with it all that much, others will. So the fact that you consciously went for a plot driven narrative instead of a character one is fine. A bit lopsided sure but at least you were cognizant of your goals when setting out to write this and had a clear direction in mind.

I can't get this story to come up.  As a cat lover, I'd love to read it.  Can you send the story to Ides315R@aol.com?  Thanks, Richard

Finally was able to read it on my mom's computer, but not mine.

Have to agree that it got repetitious.  Maybe if you had the cat starting to sharpen the man's leg instead of the post, it might be a little more funny.  You might want to see if you can put some humor in the training sessions to make it less repetitious.

My new draft of Cat Person is online.

The main change I made was to completely rewrite the middle section of the script in hopes of making the scenes less redundant and more meaningful in terms of the story.

I've also slightly streamlined my action prose which hopefully will make the screenplay easier to read through as well as the expected minor tweaks to some scenes and dialogue.

For those interested, I'm willing to exchange short scripts.