Rip 'n Strip Bandits - Print Topic

Review: Rip ‘n Strip Bandits

A word about format:

This script is written in an incorrect font. It should be in Courier or Courier New. I can’t tell for sure about the font size. It appears to be 12 point, which is correct. The font is easily corrected, though. I just wanted to let you know because professional producers won’t normally accept it in anything other than Courier because the standard format is used to meter scene timing.

Converting the font, however, is going to exacerbate another problem. The blocks of text are going to get longer. The standard is to keep your description blocks no more than four lines and you generally want to keep dialogue blocks down. Most of your script looks good in that regard - as best as I can tell with it in a different font.

These are just some things to be aware of. These changes will help make your script look more professional and presentable to a professional agent or producer.

The first paragraph approaches novelistic - something to generally avoid. Your description is pretty good, however, and I suspect you’ve experimented in the book writing arena. Be careful to write visually and tell us what we see. We cannot, for example, see that Lisa is “high profile” until you show us. Descriptive insights into characters mean very little in a screenplay. A viewer will not be privy to those descriptive words. Write more as though you’re describing a movie as you’re watching it.

Now about the story:

**** SPOILERS ****

As far as being funny, the script does what it’s supposed to do pretty well. I laughed quite a few times and found some of the lines - and some of the writing - to be very funny.

The biggest problem was the lack of story arc. The characters didn’t go through any sort of transformation. It’s essentially a funny scene - but just one scene. And a 16 page scene at that. A short needs to have a story arc just the same as with a feature length. Lisa was essentially the same person at the end as ever. The bandits were the same. Neither Lisa nor the bandits were changed in any way from their interaction.

Viewers generally want some sense of meaning from the films they watch. They want to see how the experience might affect the characters. It seems pointless to voyeuristically look into the lives of others if what we see makes no difference. People don’t generally appreciate walking away from a film feeling that it served no purpose. A simple change in the characters as a result from their interaction would elevate this script a great deal.

More Stuff:

I would avoid the fade out in the middle of the script. Fade out is usually reserved for the very end. I almost thought I was at the end for a second. People who receive hundreds of scripts a week might close it up at that point. It’s not that big of a deal but I wouldn’t give them any unnecessary reason.

The scale in the pizza box was a bit overboard. Maybe if the scale was in the backpack or if Lisa had a private bathroom in her office with a scale in it but the pizza box was too unfeasible, I thought.

You do have talent in both the descriptive and dialogue departments. I sense that you may also be a talented storyteller. There’s no story here, though.

Breanne