Brown Balloon by David Bussell - Comedy - For his hotly anticipated second novel, literary darling Daniel Merkin pilfers the life story of Dunston, a raggedy dreamer, but when their lives become entwined, Daniel inherits Dunston’s tendency for calamity and the only copy of his manuscript vanishes. 92 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hello all,

I posted a short short here a short while ago. Under advisement I'm now posting this long script, which took me a long time to write but shouldn't take you long to read.

So long.

David

David,

Attempting to look at some comedies today, and thought I'd start with this one.  Some thoughts.

My first observation is that other than Rocket, who you've described simply as an old man, we have no way of knowing how old these people are.  Late twenties, early thirties, varying ages?  It really helps to picture the characters with that bit of info.

You've got some odd descriptions in here, but nothing that proved distracting.

Other than that, I found this to be a pretty enjoybale read running more on the subtle side of comedy.  I'll have to admit I didn't particularly care for the ending though.  Not only was it abrupt, but it made the entire script seem like a public service announcement against the dangers of drinking.

The characters were interesting, and the dialgoue flowed well.  I just wish I could have had a more vivid picture of them.

Anyway, nice work.  You've got a well rounded script here with a minimum of characters and locations that I think would make a decent low budget feature.  Maybe just expand the ending by a few pages.

Hi David,

I just read your script, and I thought it was very good. The only thing I didn't like was what Mike also said about just describing the characters but very bluntly, without age ranges or anything like that. And there was one line I didn't get. I didn't really understand the line on page 13 where David says "And you're binning this shit?" or something like that. I didn't quite understand what he meant, but that's probably just me. Good work!

Alanah~  

~Rockin the Suburbs and Fallen Angels are now on simply scripts~

Thanks fellas, much appreciated. I'll be sure to give your scripts a once-over to return the favour. I'm about to go on holiday and I could use some reading material.

I take your points about identifying the character's ages, I'll remedy that in the next draft.

I wondered about the ending too. That it's too abrupt I mean. I don't have a problem with the message. The script is meant to be a wake up call for Dunston. His moment of clarity. Daniel is the sacrifice.

I'm pleased that neither of you felt Dunston being American and kind of dumb was a sleight of some kind. That was something I was worried might come up.

Regards,

David

PS. Surferchicky - I think the "bin" line was maybe one that didn't translate too well. I don't have time to hunt that line out right now, but I meant for Daniel to be asking Ryan why he hadn't binned the crappy manuscripts on his shelf.