Happiness is… by Daniel J. Toemta - Short - A kid at home playing video games. What could happen? - rtf, format 8)

Hmmm... this is pretty short and could probably be condensed to one page if it wasn't so overwritten. Is this supposed to be a shooting script because there is a hell of a lot of direction in there making it a frustrating read.

I don't want to read about steady-cams and dollies, I want to read a story. Leave the direction to the director.

An example of what I mean by overwritten:

"It's a very small hall. Adjacent to his room there is another door. It's closed. A meter further down the hall there is another two doors. The one to the left is his parents bedroom. The one to the right is the bathroom. The hall ends by these doors with another door leading to the living room and kitchen. It's open. The other doors are closed."

Think about how much of this is relevant. Firstly, we have no idea where these doors lead if they are closed. We'll find out soon enough when the kid walks through them. You could quite easily delete this entire paragraph.

Another problem is that your tenses are a little mixed up:

"The Kid has opened a closet and is feeling around in there. He finds nothing. "

In a screenplay, nothing is past tense. This should read something like:

He opens the closet, feels around, finds nothing.

If anything, present tense keeps your descriptions short and to the point which is the way they should be.

On to the story, it's a fairly simple message you're sending out here but one we're all familiar with. My problem with this is that it's too short and simplified to have any impact. Let's see the kid really engrossed in the game, show the passage of time as he plays for hours on end, really try to get inside his head, give us more visuals to show his state of mind. As it stands, kid plays, stops, drinks water, gets gun. It reads like a commercial.

I don't want to sound overly critical. I mean, it's not bad it's just too straightforward and simple for my liking.

wow you actuall beat me to it! oh well i can't excpect to have the first say in all my scripts.


yes it is supposed to be a shooting script. my writing as always very describing. (i wonder if that's a word)

i thought of it when i was listening to a beatles song (this one: http://media.putfile.com/bang-bang-shoot-shoot ) and the story sprung to my mind. took about an hour to write. maybe less.

i never write nothing but shooting scripts (although they're probably never gonna be shot) cos i belive in being through and not vauge. (Which basicly means nothing like the script for Alien was) plus the setting is based on my room, my kitchen and my hall.


A commercial. he! i like that! i was gonna incorporate in the script that the whole thing was supposed to be shot in one shot but i left it out.

as for the shortness of it. well you might as well get used to it because i've got alotta short stories in me!


My stats:

i'm 15 years old.
this is my second script here on simply scripts.

here is the other one. please take the time to read it:

http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b=comedy,m=1129219869

I had no idea as to what was going on here.  It's not really a story, it's just...I don't even know.  Don't use camera angles though.  It might be your style, sure, but if you're gonna make it public then at least make it eye friendly.  Chizzle down your paragraphs, you want 4-5 lines max per description.   So yeah, create a story where the review won't be longer than the screenplay and then you may be getting somewhere.

I really enjoy reading shorts. Some are brilliant and some are, well, not brilliant. Seems there is no middle ground with respect to this level of script.

A common problem with the short script is exactly what the author states. (I wrote it in an hour).

I don't care if the short is one page or twenty if you aren't going to take the time to write and edit, and edit, and edit, and edit to make your story great then why bother. We don't care that you are 15 or that you actually pulled this idea out of a hat. As readers of stories we do care that the story keeps us intrigued, engaged, and delivers a powerful message.

You have a good start to a story. You should really take time to read it again and think about how you can improve the story. You have lots of potential to make this a great story.

Good luck to you,

Spencer McDonald

Coming Soon: BANKER BOY

*Sighs* A parents worse nightmare I describe it.

Anyways, some opinions from me...

Very short. I've never seen a screenplay with just description. No dialogue whatsoever. That's pretty cool. You can actually make this into a silent film or something.

Try not to describe too much, telling everyone which doors lead to which room.

I like the ending. I really didn't expect it until it got to the part where he actually found something in the closet.

So here are some questions:

So are like the parents gone or something? How old is the kid? Why does he want to look for the gun? Why do the parents even have a gun?

I like this script. If I were to rate it, I would give it a 7 out of 10.

I'm going to agree with everyone here regarding the camera directions and "we sees".  If this is something that you're planning on filming yourself, I guess it's ok for your reference, but to a regular reader it can become a distraction.

Not sure if I've ever heard the Beatles song you're saying gave you the idea, but to me it's the halfway point of The Doors song  "The End"

Father?

Yes, son?

I want to kill you.

I think it would have been cooler if he opened the closet door and his dead parents were already in there.  Makes his nonchalant walk through the house that much creepier.


Just my two cents.


Mike

Well, I like stories very short because I believe that how much we condense them much more challenging they will be.

So, about formatting, I have to agree with everyone, and in certain way with Mike comments.

How about the Kid and his parents speak in VO as Mikes suggest in this lines: Father? Yes, son? I want to kill you. (mine) Now?

Helio,

That wasn't a suggestion on my part....Just a line from the song 'The End'

OPS! Sorry Mike, but these lines fit so well in the script as VO, don’t they?

Not sure.....I think if you had something like that in there, it would take away from the ending by revealing too soon.  The picture  that's painted of this character isn't exactly tormented, in fact, his motivation isn't known at all, so to have him walking around hearing voices or giving the audience a voiceover wouldn't really fit here.

Yeah you are right...I’m thinking...Hum…

If after to kill his parents he goes back to his game? Maybe this attitude represent how disturbed he is...In other words who kills his parents and goes back to play a game? Just a nutty!

Maybe it starts with the kid playing the game (VO The End lines adding mine KNOW, SON?!) and flash back with him searching for the gun and opening fire against them.

That was a nice short read. I can;t imagine it bein in blak and white, but it would be cool if it was silent.

The interesting thing is the scripts starts off mundane, farely normal. Then at the very ending it takes a turn for the...surreal or wierd i guess. That was pretty cool.

I read this because there was mention of being based on a song by the Beatles, of whom I’m a big fan.

I don’t really see how this derived from “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” The song is about the feelings of power and security that go with having a gun in your hand and this is more like a public service announcement for child safety.

You need to avoid some redundancy. If we “Fade In,” we’re there. There’s no need to open on anything.

If the slugline says we’re in a hall, there’s no need to tell us we’re in a hall in the description. It just bogs the reader down to tell us information twice.

Some of the writing is pretty good, however. Definite potential. You flow from one scene to the next well. You break up action well, other than a lot of unnecessary tedium in some of your descriptions (I don’t care where a door leads unless and until the story goes there).

I think you’ve got the impression that you have to use shooting direction in order to paint a clear picture. This is actually a fault of a writer. You have to learn to draw the image for the reader whether it’s a shooting script or not. If your script is vague without the shooting direction, that means you need to improve as a writer.

Oh yeah, and grammar/spelling was good. A definite plus in my book.

Pretty good. You do strike me as a serious writer and I’ll keep an eye for your work in the future.

Quoted from Breanne Mattson I don’t really see how this derived from “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” The song is about the feelings of power and security that go with having a gun in your hand and this is more like a public service announcement for child safety.

I completely missed this.  I noticed the link saying "bang-bang shoot shoot", didn't click the link, and just assumed that was the name of the song.

I guess that helps to explain the title too.

you should click on the link and listen to the song.

the end by the doors? oh my god! this is the mother of all coinidenses!!! the way i was gonna shoot this if i ever were to film it is that i would chenge the videgame to the torture scene in reservoir dogs with the song "stuck in the middle with you" and have that song playing faintly in the backround while he walks around the house and at some point when he's walking around "The End" by the doors start to play over the soundtrack and when he gets to the room and stands up...and when he finally turns around and reveals the gun the song would have gotten to the point "This is the end" du du du du "my only friend the end" and the kid would leave and we are left there listening to the song.

far out dude!

as for my future projects. i do have a 40 page script about zombies which is almost done it'll be up soon.

Have you ever seen the film "Apocalypse Now"?

That film makes extensive use of "The End" throughout the story in a most effective way -- it really sticks with you.

This is one you should put on your list of "movies to get around to" if you haven't seen it already.  Particularly given your aspirations for directing.

Damn right, Apocalypse Now is a must see.

Alfred, I didn't realize you were only 15 when I read this. That's a compliment to your writing.
I think most writers your age would have gone for blood and gunplay. You went for something more subtle so credit for that.

“Apocalypse Now” pretty much took “The End” for its own. I think it would be a mistake to use the song for this script even if you could obtain the rights to it.

“Apocalypse Now” used it so effectively that people thought of that movie even when the song was used in the movie, “The Doors!”

i have seen Apocalypse now......three times. one of my favorite movies.

as for my aspirations for directing and writing. i realized a month ago that i have to reset my brain and try to let go of my dreams. movies has been my life all my life and i don't want to live my life hoping and striving towards a goal i'm probably not going to get to. i don't know what the future holds for me anymore and i like it.

having said that i'm not saying i'm gonna stop writing and shoot an occasional short. cos i still have a certain love for it. especially writing.

my computers hardrive broke down yesterday and i lost all my data....everything!!!! including all my scripts. fortunately there were only three of them and two of them are on this site. the third one (the one on 40 pages) i had sent to a friend of mine a while ago and i thank god that he hadn't deleted it! i also lost all the old arfred hitchcock episodes i had downloaded and was looking forward to see. must have been like 50 of them. oh well. when my new harddrive arrives in the mail soon i'll download it again.

"that's a credit to your writing"

why thank you. when i previewd the first scene of my zombie script on IMDb i got much praise on account of my good writing considering my age. i guess watching all those movies, reading all those scripts and listening to all those audio commentaries finally payed off.

Great talk, Al! I've a feeling  that you will be a great filmmaker, pal! I'm a Apocalypse Now fan myself. Magnificent example of a cinematic work! A Masterpiece in all time!

I'm sorry about you lost. It happened with me long time ago, but fortunately I saved some ideas at 3,5" diskettes and notepads, but the others ideas gone. Maybe they are on the air for anybody to catch them! My adivise for you is: save them down the mattress, inside the flowers pot, in the dog house and in the Armadillo hole, everywhere! Save them, Al!

As Breanne put it, it's like a public service announcement more than anything else.  And it could probably fit into a twenty second commercial spot.  Other than that, and the formatting, there really isn't anything to say about this piece.


Phil

that meaning the the formatting was good? i told you i read a lot of scripts (not the ones on this site)

"great talk Al."

great but you can call me Daniel. that's my real name. but hey! whatever floats your boat!

Sorry, DANIEL! What I'd try to say was that you defended well your point of view, that's all! No more no less!

ok. i meant no confrontation by it! sorry.

i was just trying to be friendly

Sorry, Daniel! Me too!

The problem is my poor English that causes lot of misunderstands to me.

How about to write a story named MISUNDERSTAND GUY (myself!)?

Overall,

1) I dont seem to understand why this is called "Happiness is..."
There is little to corelate with in this script.

2) While some camera instructions are good, as it shows as how you as a writer view and imagine the scene, but as a directing student I would take those guidelines or hints as to what you think rather than real camera instructions.

3) I think this is a good commercial for "dont keep weapons at home" or sthng , im serious..


Anyways, i think this is a diff genre and we all gotta try different horizons :)