Marilyn & Me by Jean-Pierre Chapoteau - Short, Rom-Com - After an art freak meets the love of his life, he will stop at nothing to protect that love. Even if some of it is fabricated. Maybe all of it.. 6 pages - pdf, format

Something about this really doesn't work for me. I think there is a story there, but it seems that the formatting is all wrong. I'll give it go, and you're welcome to bat back at me.

Second line: Children play. People walk their dogs. Everyone is happy. Doesn't do it for me. I need a sense of place; a suggestion of a physical description first. Some detail that's going to open this up.

BERT, 20s, artsy guy. He stands next to an easel with his boring-as-fuck landscape painting. This was my big turn-off moment - could have quit reading here, but carried on. It's just nothing. I feel that I know nothing about him. And worse, I'm not sure that I like him. He's the protagonist, right? It's his story that we're supposed to hear? Is this the guy we're cheering on? Well I don't like him if you don't like him.

Marilyn jogs past Bert, who is lost in her beauty. This is simple. Who is lost in her beauty? Go on tell me. Who?

Marilyn jogs past Bert. He is lost in her beauty. Oh. He is. I see now.

For the first time, we reveal Bert's ill-fitted track suit. Oh. Okay, then. Earlier shot was a close up. Thanks for the heads up on that one.

Bert keeps great pace directly behind Marilyn. This was confusing - he hadn't started to run had he?

The group charges on... You see, this is the kind of thing you need to be careful with - they trotted earlier on, and now the mood has changed - you've created inconsistency.

I was down. But not despaired. Needs changing.

It had to be a fluke. The probability of my Marilyn being in relations with such an uncultured, insolent fool was close to none. - If I have to read it twice, it interrupts the flow, and that's not a good thing.

The group charges past Bert. He stretches his legs -- Then hops on his bicycle. This is dis-jointed.

You may have a story, and you may have the structure of formatting to hand, but the two have to work in unison. You've taken a story idea, and just stuck it into a rigid (ill)understanding of the formatting process.

You need to learn how formatting sharpens n' enriches a good story.

Best o' luck & sorry I couldn't be more positive.

Wasn't into this one, sorry, small mistake on page 6 "Bert drops his weapon, mermerizes". This wasn't romantic or very comedic in my opinion, it seemed more like the creepy tale of a psycho stalking his prey, keep writing.

He body.
Your story is interesting. I am not the best to give suggestions, but in my opinion: You'd better keep Merlyn instead of a new girl. It would look very cool to see them two running and everybody else staring at them, jelous.  Another thing, it would be better to put some imagination scenes to make (V.O) less.

regards
Jahon Bahrom

The story itself could make for a cute little short, but I think it could use some work.  As mentioned in the first comment, more (or better) description would be helpful.  

The "boring-as-fuck landscape painting" line is fine for me if you follow it up with a more edgy story or adult humor.  But that didn't happen here, so I wondered why it was there to begin with - it didn't fit the tone of the rest of the script.

There's a feeling of creepiness, but if done in a light-hearted way on film, I think it could work.

Good luck!

Ok, I really liked this. I think this would film nicely, however if you are after rom/com I think it needs some work.

There wasn't much comedy in it. The first part of this where Marilyn jogs by, he could have tipped the easel over spilled paint.

Several times he went after her jogging...you could have had him either pass out and fall while jogging or even riding his bike, he could have hit a tree or anything just to make him seem that much more desperate, hopeless romantic, too shy to make a move.

Some of the descripts...didn't work for me. The first one, I see others have mentioned about the painting in the first scene. Another one for me was "Whatever cool shit Bert is not".  BUT overall I really liked your descripts. I liked the (V.O.) dailogue with good adjectives. I liked that you used 'hip' things in a lot of your descipts(that the younger people will catch right on).

The dialogue(V.O.) about Marilyn's mother Jane....he wouldn't know her mother at all if he didn't know Marilyn so, I would change this dialogue or cut it out all together.

One other confusing action to me, was on the final pages where The Devil appears again without Marilyn and "Bert hastens forward". At this point I thought Bert was following him again, but then you have Nickie appear and Bert's still at his painting. That was confusing, but easy to fix.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this. I can see it filmed. I think with a few changes it's super good.

Is this suppose to be a comedy? Maybe i'm wrong but this protagonist is a stalker, he just watches and follows women around, pretty creepy!

I didn't like the swear words in your action descriptions, it didn't feel like they were necessary and looked out of place IMO. Like other posters, the descriptions in general could so with some work, especially the opening one, everyone is happy!  Where are we? Heaven!

I kind of like the ending, to show this character being so shallow as to forget about Marilyn as quickly as he finds another love interest.  It summed him up to be fair.

This was different and because of that i liked it, but if you work on certain aspects and change the theme slightly.  I think you could have a really good short here.

Good luck and keep writing.

Steve.

Marilyn n Me? More like PORTRAIT of a Serial Killer. see what i did there? because the protag's a painter? oh nevermind...

was this a comedy? no. was it romantic? no way in hell. it's creepy. you have this guy who stalks this chick and instead of thinking her delta-cum-beta boyfriend broke up with her, he assumes that he hurt her. there's a lot of logic missing here. unfortunately i dont know if it's purposeful or not. this guy is obsessive by all means. and does he experience the repercussions of such actions? nope. instead he's rewarded. so i'm a little confused about what you're trying to say and do with this short.

the descriptions need work. the whole frat-guy, class-clown, valedictorian, doesnt work because those categories conflict with each other rather than build. in other words, it confuses the reader more than it clarifies.

best of luck with it.

Hey JP...I liked the darkness of this.  Not sure I would classify it as a Rom/Com though. A psychological drama maybe?

Anyway, I liked the idea of Bert's obsession with Marilyn.  I would like to see a little more about why he is so obsessed though.  Is it just because she's beautiful?  Maybe if we catch a glimpse of another side to her.  

I don't really think you need the Private Investigator scene.  To me it took my out of Bert's head.  

I like the fact that this guy could snap at any moment and he's so crazy that his obsessions can switch quickly.  First marilyn, then the Devil, then Nickie.  I think if you trimmed it down a bit in the first few pages that would quicken the pace and would make it more tense.  Not knowing if he was going to really kill someone.  

Nice work JP!