Crappy Job by Frank MacCrory (FrankM)  writing as Dam Impressive - Short, Comedy - During the Great Depression, a desperate young man takes the worst job in a factory. The closer he gets to finishing his task, the worse things get. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Someone trying to go for that five in dialogue by having no dialogue at all! I like your style but you're Shooting for the Moon.


It was a laborious read. With so much information about small, dull processes, it was like reading a technical manual. If I was being completely honest, I'd say it was about as funny as Arse Aids, but let's just say the type of humour on display here doesn't jive with mine.

I think it was too convoluted a story to tell without dialogue, especially when you focus so much on the minutiae of the plant's processes.

Hi writer,

Quoted Text EXT. FACTORY - DAY - ESTABLISHING

I've never quite understood the point of an establishing shot. What difference would it make if you left out the work ESTABLISHING?

I just started the song, will listen as I read.

Okay, stopping the song. Not a fan.

Halfway through page two and I'm not even sensing an attempt at comedy, it's all very depressing.

Quoted Text Series of shots of Custodian digging at the blockage to show passage of time.

So are you just telling us to imagine a series of shots? That's not really how a script works. If you have a series of shots in mind, describe them to us, even if they are just shots of him digging.

Although this is all action no dialogue, you're still attempting to write it lean, but you're doing so by omitting words that affect the read, like this:

Quoted Text [Workers hold noses

I'm sorry, I really don't do this often but I'm tapping out early. I cant see any comedy, maybe it comes later. This is just a really hard slog to get through and it's only 5 pages.

I might check back in after I'm finished the rest and before I cast my vote, but for now its just too much.

All the best.

Another very ambitious take...

I'd say you're a natural prose writer.
The level of detail, cast, crew, and locations, for a five pager just seemed too much for me.

A screenplay, even with a lot going on, needs to jump off the page and enthrall me in a different way to reading a novel.

You have some great visuals in this but it was too dense for me writing wise and I found myself doing the ol' scan.
As with Underneath The Streets Of New York this one is admirable re how much work and attention to detail you've put in.

P.S. You have put so much into this I think it deserves a more inspired title.

Hello writer

Crappy Job = Crappy title. Sorry, couldn't resist.

1 page down - Is all the action to the beat of the music? Maybe it would be funnier if I was listening to the song... I'm at work so I can't.

OK OK - no dialogue in this - That is not a bad thing, it's a brave move and sometimes dialogue just gets in the way. BUT, dialogue is wonderful at breaking up a page, helping with the flow of a read - without the dialogue doing that, the action needs to be succinct - this isn't.
The result is large blocks of action and description without dialogue to break it up = a struggle of a read.

I commend your bravery in doing this, I just don't think it has paid off.

Quoted Text Series of shots of Custodian digging at the blockage to show passage of time.

That doesn't work - and a missed opportunity to break the page up here.

Some passages are quite overwritten - You can cut this down a lot

I feel like there is a funny story here - one that would be much, much funnier as a film rather than a script - But the story is buried in so many words it is hard to find it.

With a good old choppity-chop of the excess, this could be quite good. The comedy is definitely there so criteria met

you put a lot of effort and thought into this - Well done.

Thank God, oh writer of Crappy Job.  You have saved me from an evening of drudgery and regret over reading script after script of shit jokes.

As a child growing up on Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner and other Hanna/Barbera classics, I can appreciate a great little piece like this.  I'm sure some will ding you points for no dialogue, but I think this works perfectly fine without it.  THe only thing I will ding you for is utilizing Frank Mills "Music Box Dancer."  That is fate worse than death for me.

This is the most imaginative script I read during the first two weeks of the challenge.  Great job here.

Well, I wish the others would have given it a full read.

This is ambitious, and it works for me. I loved it.

Hawkeye had it right in his review. There are several cartoon classics that incorporate classical music as the backdrop. This fits right in. (He was also right about Music Box Dancer... and so was your character.)

Is it overwritten? I don't know. Maybe. I don't care. This was fantastic. A most excellent job, and a risk worth taking.

Quoted from PKCardinal This was fantastic. A most excellent job, and a risk worth taking.

After this review I thought I'd return early.

It's okay. I can’t see anything fantastic personally. I think a lot of the issue for me is the specific music choices. You may know them very well and in your head it all complements the script perfectly. I don’t know them, other than the one I started and disliked, but you can’t expect people to know all that music, or to look into it and see how it complements the piece.

It’s a good effort with no dialogue, I do think he writing needs a fair bit of work though.

Quoted Text at a cabinet labeled “Safety.” INT. FACTORY FLOOR - DAY Sewer Monster, now wearing a yellow hardhat, continues to chase Workers to and fro as “Happy Worker” plays.

This made me laugh, so there was definitely comedy on a second pass.

I didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. Middle of the road for me. Was still a slog to get through.

Hugely ambitious script but delivers zero comedy.

Where’s the bobble heads when you need them?  The funniest Rd 1 script was funnier than all of these in Rd 2 put together.  Why is comedy such a hard genre for most? It’s baffling...

I've read it three times now.

I can credit the attempt but its a brutal read, and there is so much time spent on menial stuff.

It's a one gag script. All you need is an image showing the machine's broken.
One image showing him failing to dig.
One image showing the boss unhappy at the money situation.
One image showing the jackhammer.

Then the dynamite, then the gag.

The rest just slows it to a painful crawl.

Maybe film it in black and white... change the music to something older and more public domain. This does suffer through no dialogue. I'm kinda seeing this as Buster Keaton thing and even he would resort to speech now and again with those 'speech cards' (apologies, I don't know the technical term) to feed necessary exposition.

Code Foreman beckons to a lanky, yellow-hatted CUSTODIAN (20) who rushes over. Foreman points to the vibrating Waste gauge. Custodian gulps, points to his chest. Foreman scowls, nods forcefully, points at a circular hatch in the floor.

The above is an example where a speech card or dialogue would have helped. You stretched things here and this should lose marks.

Code Here, the music is Peter Tchaikovsky’s “Marche Slave.”

Who can resist Tchaikovsky first thing in the morning? Listening as I read... with pleasure.

I've never heard 'Happy Worker'... not that I can gladly remmeber, anyway. I have no intention of Googling Tori Amos. I have heard of her (him?) but I'm an old skool raver and hip hop fan. Commercial music irritates me for lots of reasons.

Code Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5 in C Minor

Better.

Never heard of Frank Mills. Sorry.

Code Gioachino Rossini's “William Tell Overture”

I like the trick with the music. It's a decent effort for 72 hours work. Using the music to convey mood and even tell the story to some degree. Once Rossini's (by the way, you don't need to use first names - everybody knows who Rossini is) William Tell Overture gets past the first couple of minutes it's a very beautiful piece of music. So, I'm assuming you only want me to take the first minute for this visual?

Code Holt's “Mars, Bringer of War” plays ominously.

How else could it play?

This is a very brave attempt and I have enjoyed revisiting some great music. Unfortunately, I enjoyed the music far more than I did what was going on on screen. In fact, I'd watch this for the music. I'd be about to switch it off and another track would play.

It does have funny moments and is a very brave try. The trick with this perhaps is in getting the music just right. Some of your choices may not quite play out how you expect. You need to be more specific on which part of the musical pieces you want to use as they can change quite considerably from one minute to the next.

This is an ambitious attempt at something different, but for me it just doesn;t work in the context of the challenge.

The comedy is almost non-existent (to me at least) and the whistle seems unimportant. It read like it could be from an animated take on Brazil or 1984... certainly had a Soviet Russian feel to it... not known as ahub of comedy.

The writing is very dense, not helped by the lack of dialogue- which I know is an intentional stylictic choice.

This feels like it may work better as straight prose.

The one quote that springs to mind is, "Are you not entertained?"  

No, no I wasn't.

It's an accomplishment to create a story with no dialogue.  But the comedy was sacrificed.

This to me doesn't meet the criteria.

It's not funny watching someone try to break up a fatberg.

Sorry.  This one was not for me.

No reason to include "ESTABLISHING" in your Slug.

"Cartoon rendering of a Depression-era factory running half a dozen smokestacks at full power. Sign reads “Worldwide Whoozits and Whatzits.”" - Hmmm, what am I supposed to see here?  Several confusing things for me...

"Cartoon rendering" - so, this is animated?  Both sentences omit (Shit, can't remember what it is exactly) a word in the very front, which makes then read very oddly.

We have music?

And, now we have this lovely aside, "Yeah, this story won’t be passing the Bechdel Test."

No dialogue?  Oh boy, this is going to be a slog, as the writing is so sterile, so dull, so "this/that".  I'm absolutely hatting this.

"Custodian glumly raps the large “Waste: Number Two” pipe with a wrench. The pipe responds with a hollow sound, so the Custodian moves on." - So, here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about - You start with "Custodian", then in the 2nd sentence, you have "the Custodian".

Ah, from acoustic Tori Amos to Tchaikovsky.  Really?

I feel like I'm reading a very long, detailed shopping list.  This is as dull as dull gets.

"Series of shots of Custodian digging at the blockage to show passage of time. He stops mid-step when a loud STEAM WHISTLE blows O.S., shoulders his shovel, heads back toward the steam tunnels and factory." - Huh?  Where's the Series of Shots?  Is this the whistle here?  Hope that's not all.

By the way, I thought this was supposed to be a comedy?  Not a single attempt at humor so far and the tone is just plain odd, not comedic at all.

"Many Workers mills around tables and a water cooler. The room is filled indistinct banter and laughter." - Wow, the writing is just terrible, sorry to say.  Incorrect words, missing words.  The slog is bigger than I expected - especially with no dialogue.

"The music here is still “Happy Worker.”" - It is?  I thought Tchaikovsky was playing?

I'm sorry, I can't take anymore.  The writing is just terrible, almost as if you're trying to skip words to save space.  It's just way too much, ZERO comedy.

Appears you took a chance here, and for me, it's an epic fail.

Hi Writer,

This one is both ambitious and brave. An admirable effort.

The writing is great, and the attention to detail you put, extraordinary.

It quite didn't work for me though; it was too dense. I started rushing a little after page three to get to the end faster (which, by the way, was my favorite part).

The visuals were pretty good. I think that it would work a lot better on screen than on the page. I don't know why, but I imagined it in black and white, like the old cartoons (Felix the Cat, Betty Boop, etc.).

Sorry, but I can't say more. I don't know, I have kind of mixed feelings about it. I know you wrote something unique, but I couldn’t bring myself to like the script in its entirety.

Good job anyway,
David