Billy the Bomb 3 by AtholForsyth - Short - A pimp a hooker and some cocaine, what could go wrong? 5 pages - pdf, format

Hey Athol,

Don't believe I've read anything by you so I thought I'd give this a look.

"EXT. GRAVEL ROAD - MORNING"

This is not how you want to establish a location. I get what you want us to look at with your first action line, but a gravel road can be in the desert or in a forest. I don't know which to imagine.

"A pair of feet in smart shoes walk along"

I would assume there's feet in the shoes had you written, "A pair of smart shoes"

"a gravel road"

You told us it's a gravel road in the slugline.

"until they meet a FORD MUSTANG."

Instead of using until, you're better off separating the two actions of walking and stopping and putting them on separate action lines for better flow, like so:

"A pair of smart shoes walk along it.

They stop at a FORD MUSTANG."

"INT. CAR - MOMENTS LATER"

Moments later really isn't necessary.

"He admires himself in the mirror, pulls out a little bag of
cocaine, snorts it off a spoon and drives off into the
distance."

Too much action for one action line.

"He admires himself in the mirror.

Pulls out a little bag of cocaine.

Snorts it off a spoon.

Drives off into the distance."

Not that I actually like it this way, but this would have been likely how you should have written it.

"EXT. INDUSTRIAL ESTATE - LATER"

Again, no need for later.

"ANGIE a hooker (35) mini shirt, long hair, high heel shoes"

Is her having long hair vital to the conflict in the story? My question is, can she live without it? And how is her appearance after you mentioned she's a hooker any different than what's likely the image I'm going to get of the stereotypical hooker of every other movie out there? Had you said she's wearing a pink panther costume, you have a point.

"Jackie, you’re young, you have your
whole life in front of you. You
won’t make the same mistakes as me.
I’ll make sure of that."

For some reason I imagine her saying this while chewing really broadly on a thick piece of bubble yum.

"and sends her on her way."

Where did she send her to? Is she walking home or what? I don't understand. Where was she coming from? Why were they together in this scene? Did she drop by after school to visit her mother after "work" or what?

"Keep Jackie out of this."

What????

"EXT. INDUSTRIAL ESTATE - AN HOUR LATER"

Again, I don't understand why you indicate this since there's no way to know precisely an hour past.

"Nice car but you can’t park here
Sir.
BILLY
Fuck off.
TRAFFIC WARDEN
I’ll issue you a ticket, the
vehicle is illegally parked.
BILLY
I’ll stick the ticket up your
fucking arse, Meter Maid.
TRAFFIC WARDEN
Don’t threaten me Sir, I don’t make
the laws, I just enforce them,
challenge the fine through the
council’s parking complaints
procedure if you don’t agree with
it.
BILLY
Last chance Hitler, fuck off."

So are the two just staring at each other during this dialogue because if so....... awkward.

"Billy gets out of the car, approaches the Traffic Warden,
noses touching."

The two actions need to be broken up.

"him just above the eye."

The forehead? The eyebrow? Use less words whenever possible.

"Angie who’s been watching goes over to clean the Traffic Warden up."

With a dust pan? Is he dead?

What was the whole point of this encounter with the traffic warden? And why is Billy just roaming around the building where he just beat the daylights out of the warden, to put it mildly. And there was a "pool of blood"?

"She’s around here somewhere."

Just the kind of answer I would expect from a sixteen year old who doesn't know where her parent is.

"In amongst all the commotion nobody notices the Traffic
Warden coming from behind. He opens Billy’s door, pulls him
out of the car, Billy falls to the ground."

Way too much going on. You shouldn't write action like this as it just kills the pacing of your script.

"The Traffic Warden pulls out a gun and pops one in Billy’s
dome."

I have no idea what happened in this thing. Everything was so vague. I had no idea why there was any conflict to begin with, but there certainly was conflict. It was like watching cats fight. Only I don't think I'd watch them do so for four minutes.

I don't really know what to suggest apart from learn to write action better and learn to write the slugs in a more understandable way.

-J.S.

Quoted from J.S. What was the whole point of this encounter with the traffic warden? And why is Billy just roaming around the building -J.S.

The point of the traffic warden is to show Billy's a nasty bastard.

There is no building but he's roaming around the street because it's his patch.

I've changed the slugs and action lines so they read better, I think.

I know certain things seem vague but I meant it this way so people have to think a bit, also I think it will be easier understand visually.

It's only a 4 or 5 min short and I'm trying to squeeze as much as I can into it.

Thanks for the feedback tho and it did help as now my slugs are changed and action lines split up.

Love the log-line, and you're getting some more emotive angles in which is cool -- not sure about the ending???

New ending.

I've been working with a script editor who has given me a better idea of how to shoot this, like how to show emotions using cut-aways.

The script up here now is before his input,  he recons it's better if I show Billy to have a human side? I'm not sure about that.

Anyway, I'm going to start shooting this on Saturday and I'll put some clips up to show you what it's like to shoot a first short film.

Any input before Saturday would be good.

Cheers

You've transformed Billy the Bomb into a complete A-hole.  Now if you could just get Vinnie Jones to play the part.  Being that you're flming it yourself I won't bother to point out typos, but still...

All in all, I like the new ending, it fits, but is there any redemptive value to this story?

I guess fact that the prostititute has him at gunpoint is a good cliffhanger.  If it were me shooting it I'd cut to black, then have the sound of a GUNSHOT.

Bye-bye Billy.   Justice served.  

I look forward to seeing the finished product.

Hey Athol - I think this works - it feels a little cleaner than before, and having it set in the docks will make it easier to film rather than being in town.

The only thing for me was Angie's rather melodramatic 'Noooooooo' - I'd have preferred to have her cover her mouth, or her eyes widen with horror or something, causing Billy to spin his head round to face the barrel.

If you do film it, cutting to black and getting the gun sound in is easy; you could test it with/without the gun sound -- I'm tending toward the sound of gunshot, as it still leaves things open... (potentially he could grab the gun and the shot could go amiss) so it doesn't close things off too much.

Let us know how you get on - planning to film it soon?

I don't get this one. With the title and the line about smart shoes walking I thought it was an animated short. Then I thought maybe it was some 50's gangster story.

I got through to the end not understanding why Billy is doing any of this, it makes even less sense if he's a cop. The way he's acting it's lucky he's still in a job and alive.

It may help to understand why Billy has suddenly become this a*hole bomb that's gone off big style. What has made him go psycho, what is his motivation? Just coz he can is not enough, nor is it believable.

I see you are filming this though so good luck and I hope you learn a lot from it.  

After reading this, my immediate thought was "Yeah?  And...?"  Nothing really happened here.  You're characters were pretty two dimensional.  I felt no attachment to them.  And when you don't care about the characters, you don't care about what happens to them.

I don't understand why you called this script Billy the Bomb.  You never explained the name, or even mentioned it in dialog.  If I watched this on the screen, I would know him only as Billy.  You might as well have named him Billy the Dripping Faucet.

Billy's confrontation with the traffic officer was simply gratuitious.  You want to show him as a nasty bastard, but he just came off as an asshole to me.

One of your headers state that it's AN HOUR LATER.  How are you going to show this passage of time on film?

You say you're going to shoot this short on Saturday?  IMHO, I think you should hold off.


Phil

007

I had a meeting with the actors and they think that the ending should be left open  , so I'll shoot both and see what works best.

One option is that Jackie is the one that gets shot.  She needs a blood transfusion and as it unfolds, Billy is her dad. He's the only person that can give her one.

He doesn't know this,  Angie has kept it a secret for all these years, but now she has no choice.

What does Billy do? is he that fucked up that he doesn't care or does his conscience kick in?


Mark

I can see where you'r coming from about the smart shoes walking along the road and how that could be confusing.  I meant that you see the bottom of a guys legs walking along a gravel road outside his house.

Billy is an asshole and that's it, he doesn't need a reason, in westerns, do gunslingers tell you a back story? prob not, you don't have to know.  Do you really think that he would care about his career? He's not all of a sudden became an asshole, he always has been.

Phil

What do you mean ' Nothing really happenes here?'  he's a coke head, a pimp, he beats up a traffic warden, tries to get the hookers daughter 'into the game' and in then end gets shot. Is that not enough for 4 pages?

He's called Billy the Bomb because he's a ticking bomb waiting to go off, cant you see that?  Do you know what pulp fiction means? and if you do, where does it tie in? and do people really care.


You think I should hold off? you only live once and time waits for no man, you learn as you go along.

Live and learn... you can only do it by doing it. Yeah, I like the option of maybe Billy grabbing the gun and it going off at Jackie - builds a new dimension in, but one that's also probable as well, given his relationship with Angie.

Don't get too fussed about what people say -- you're starting out with this and there's a couple of nice levels working here, with Angie's daughter getting drawn into something that Angie started, but never wanted her daughter involved with - a sure fire emotional tug.

Best o' luck with it

Thanks 007, I'm starting to shoot this on Saturday. I'll let everyone know how well or bad it went and the problems that I came across.

Cheers

Quoted from AtholForsyth What do you mean ' Nothing really happenes here?'  he's a coke head, a pimp, he beats up a traffic warden, tries to get the hookers daughter 'into the game' and in then end gets shot. Is that not enough for 4 pages?

When I say nothing happened, I mean nothing happened of significance.  Nothing left an impression.  You throw a bunch of things into a four page script but, in the end, it's 'so what?'

You could just as easily have thrown in fighter jets taking out a church in the background.  It would've meant nothing.

Quoted from AtholForsyth He's called Billy the Bomb because he's a ticking bomb waiting to go off, cant you see that?  Do you know what pulp fiction means? and if you do, where does it tie in? and do people really care.

No one refers to him as 'Billy the Bomb.'  If someone saw this in a theater--and he didn't see the title--would they know your character was Billy the Bomb?

Quoted from AtholForsyth You think I should hold off? you only live once and time waits for no man, you learn as you go along.

There's nothing wrong with grabbing a bull by the horns.  But you should atleast know what a bull looks like first.


Phil

Phil, I jet fighter bustin up a church would be awesome but the budget can't reach that, maybe Billy pissing in the holy water would work? what you think ?

Well Billy the bomb is the only guy called Billy in the show so If they cant work that out maybe they should watch other shit, like paint dry.

I know what a bull looks like....YOU ....oops I'm getting mixed up again, bullshit was what I meant to say.

On an honest note, I treat this script like an instruction manual but it's still a script, if you want me to fill the gaps in , Ill send you the answers on a postcard.

The first version is still the coolest one .  Your third, this  script, improved definitely with regard to the second one...

Best of luck at the set Athol.