The Fill by Steve McDonell (stevie) - Comedy, Esoteric Austrialian Comedy - The misadventures of an Australian supermarket nightfill team... - pdf, format 8)

wow, thanks don! that was up quick.
i just wanted to say a few things about this script. it is apurely Australian script, so there will be references to Aussie sportsmen, slang, etc  that won't be that familiar to a lot of the SS regulars.  the idea for this script came from my work! I work in a nightfill team, three nights a week and saturday afternoon, at  a local supermarket. now, the reality of it is sorta boring compared to the stuff going on in my script! but its a good job and i enjoy it. working in an aisle alone gives me time to think of new ideas for my writing.  anyway, wanted to mention all this. cheers and any questions are most welcome.

talk about life imitating art!  some of the characters in my script have sex in the freezer and cold room at the supermarket.
last week at the supermarket where i work, two of the day staff were sprung doing the biz in the dairy coldroom!  they hadn't read my script so there's no plaigarism involved!
naturally it's all over the store and has made for some great jokes. cheers!

I am not Australian but I decided to give this a read anyways. I am no expert at grammar or formatting so I will mainly focus on Story and Character development.

Essentially this does not have any story, it is just a bunch of characters doing random idiotic things, the jokes and gags are hit or miss, some are humorous and some fall flat.

This had the feel of a sitcom much more then a film, I think if you took this setting and broke it up into smaller segments I would enjoy this much better in that setting.

As far as Characters for this 53 page script you had too many characters. It was hard to keep track of them all and we didn't get to know any of them that well.

But you did create a diverse cast of characters that I think would be much better served in the Sitcom format.

The funniest parts of this script were the times the characters addressed the camera, that completely caught me off guard and I really enjoyed those segments. I actually think your characters observations on the script were right on the money.

I wanted to like this but At around page 24 it became very difficult to continue reading mainly because it had no story.

I understand you were going for the random off the wall comedy but you still need some sort of structure of a story. If you can work on building more of a beginning middle and end to this then you could have a pretty solid script on your hands.

Like I mentioned before you have very interesting characters to work with you just need to develop them more and give them an actual story to live in.

So overall I have to say this script just did not work for me, However I think you have the pieces here to make a solid script. Consider turning this into a TV sitcom and work on some actual stories to put these crazy characters in and I think you will be in good shape.

Hey YBT! Thanks for the review! I know there's a lot of Aussie stuff in the script so cheers for bearing with it.  This started from my line of work, as I've stated before. I
began writing it as a joke and kept going . which explains the random lines and stuff.
I was sort of looking at a 'clerks' feel.
I agree,it would be better suited for TV. I pictured it as an hour long show, preferably done by Aussie actors. I was going through a comic phase when I wrote it and was able to do it fairly quickly. i did no revision as i wanted to keep the humour fresh.
Anyway thanks again for the comments. Have u any scripts i could look at? Cheers

Stevie

Hey, man, in the process of reading your script. Typically I like to review as I read, so you get a more accurate idea of reactions & impression of your work as a reader would.

Watch out for the prose paragraphing, 3 to 4 lines max.

I liked the line below.

LENNY
(shaking head)
No, can’t be.
(beat)
You are.

But I thought the hysterical laughter that followed was a bit much. I mean it was a humorous quip but not that funny, you know.

BRAD
The filler’s
paradise! – Nice phrase

I love Brad's character so far, very entertaining banter between himself and Nick.

I liked the transition with Margo's speech (O.S) to when Brad & Nick enter the Tea Room.

Good natural opener, the conversations are crisp & readable.

I presume it’s your intention to have Brad & Rick almost caricatures, their first meeting outside the truck is really vamped up, slang-wise. It would be funny on screen though to see a 40 year old man complete with bandanna & baseball cap talk like that & engage in not one…but two high fives. :)

"Good workers but only cos’ they’re on speed and E all the time." -- Ah, that goes some way to explain their earlier hysterics. (Maybe have them stoned some of the time too, to justify the opening scene even more)

"And for some reason, she loves him." -- Good line.

"spritely" -- should be "sprightly". Good use of it here in the context of the old timer though.

Good ole’ "dry humping" in a public place on pages 9 & 10, you can't beat it, brother...well except for, you know...

"ebony twins!" -- Ha

"Got the munchies." --- They must be stoned, man. E & Speed tend to have the opposite effect on your appetite.

The exchange between the "Grumpy Customer & Lenny & Scum had me laughing out loud which is something that rarely happens me when reading scripts, good job. Sharp tough name calling, I love it.

However, on the basis of the argument between them I don't think the "Grumpy Customer" would have taken the boxes falling into his trolley as lightly as he did. There woulda’ been consequences, a punch-up or something.

Not sure about the "Director" interaction, I suppose in the context of this script: its tone, dialogue & colourful characters it fits better then it would in most.

Again great banter between Jimmy & Brad. A 81 year old fu?king a 20 year old, what a legend!! The ear & nose plug story was classic.

Funny rap from Brad, you have a flair for quick-witted banter, it’s definitely the highlight of the script & drives the piece along.

Didn't really dig the Muslim bit, not that it was offensive or anything I just didn't find it that funny. I found the punch line a little lame. For me its the first "conversation faux pas" thus far.

The sex scene in the freezer is absurd, but in a good way, it suits the script.

They commence smashing each other again, as Brad walks on. --

Is it a regular occurrence in OZ for fights to break out between two grown men & for nobody nearby to do anything to intervene? Especially since it’s one of the new guys, he might appreciate some protection, no? (I'm well aware of the random nature of this script so for that reason it isn't that big of a deal)

Its just people are nonchalantly watching Tim & newbie knock seven bells outta' each other, its madness! (but in a good way I may add again)

"that’s she’s happy." -- Should be "that she's happy"

The second Director interaction was better. I enjoyed the dialogue between them, kudos on the jab at SS regulars, always welcome on the site, take them down a notch or two.

"Paramedics gently remove Brad from eh side of the crusher." -- "The" instead of "eh"

From the crusher scene onwards it is abundantly clear that all caution (or whatever minuscule amount was left) has been well & truly thrown to the wind, tongue is planted firmly in ones cheek & belief is suspended somewhere in the stratosphere. Glorious lunacy, my friend.

Yep this was pretty nuts. It gradually got more and more crazy as it progressed so as the reader it was difficult to determine how far you were willing to run with it…the answer: Pretty fu?kin’ far. Between the inexplicable Zombie inclusion & Nesty & Jim’s perpetual fighting I finally started to get up to speed with the craziness of it all.

The ending was brilliant, the boat wasn’t only pushed out it was flung as far as the Indian ocean & back again. I laughed for most of the last few pages.

Yes, its maybe not the most marketable of scripts, lacked a clear plot with goals, antag’s, protag’s etc but fu?k it, it was damn enjoyable to read. I’m more then happy I took it on, a refreshing break from the regimented norm, well done, bud.

Nice work, keep at it.

Col.

Thanks Col! glad u liked it. I had fun writing it. the boys at work encouraged me and i

ran with it.  I mentioned earlier in this thread, that a guy and a chick at work were

caught in the cool room getting it on! that was after i wrote this!

I've sent this and my other comedy 'God's Dartboard' to a producer here in OZ but no word back

yet. He seemed interested on the phone when i first approached him. he asked 'why

comedy? they're the hardest genre of all to do'. hopefully he might like them.

anyway thanks again for the kind words Col!

As promised  I started reading this but lost interest about twenty pages in.

I just don't have much patients for a story that have no story.

The characters were obnoxious and pretty much all spoke the same lingo.

While funny and kind of cute at first the way they mouth off at each other, the characters quickly become tedious when they all start sounding and behaving the same.  

If you are serious about script writing I suggest you learn up on plot structure, dynamics of character personalities to create drama and just the basic nuts and bolts of a story.

You are a good writer (God's Dart board proves that even thou that was flawed all so) but just need discipline.

It's a shame I didn't make it to the end of your script cause I would love to have seen how you incorporated the Beatles into a story about a bunch of slackers doing half arsed work in a dead end job.      

Hi Glen! Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry this wasn't your cup of tea. That's understandable, as yes, there was no story, etc, in this. Like 'God', i had an idea and ran with it. Once that happens, especially with a comedy, i have to get it down while its fresh. Nearly of this was written ad libbed so it will be kind of disjointed.
I needed to get the funny stuff out of my system ,after labouring on my sci-fi script, 'Sent'. I've finished the 2nd draft of this, knocking 40 pages off. Maybe u could look at my serious stuff?
It was good to hear from you again, man. what have u been up to?

ps- good point about the Beatles! actually, I didn't mention them! didn't even think of it till u mentioned it! But i've started a new comedy, a parody of Batman/Terminator, and the boys get a guernsey on page 10!  cheers!

Hey Stevie,

You did pretty well with the comedy in this but it didn't really start to make me laugh until somewhere in the middle, but I would have stopped reading before then if we weren't doing a review exchange.  

My main problem with this was the lack of story.  There were lots of little vignette stories in this, and that's good, but it really needed a main story to tie them all together.  It doesn't need to be a big story but it should be something where you could clearly say this is the main story.  This just didn't have that.  

I think you should go for the zombie as the main plot.  Maybe he can show up right in the beginning and some people realise he's a zombie and some don't - and I would give him some extra characteristic like maybe he's wearing a club t-shirt and he barracks for some team no one else cares for.  Something like that anyway.  Or maybe people mistake him for someone famous. You could come up with something.

The stuff where the movie comes to a halt, while cute, didn't really work for me.  More so the specific mention of SS.  Most of the audience you are going for would never have heard of SS.  Why limit yourself like that?

I didn't really have much of a problem with your characters or your dialogue and after a bit I started finding the jokes funny. And I liked most of the little stories you did. So you did ok with that.

So, overall, I think you accomplished what you wanted with this and I think now you need to make some changes to broaden your audience appeal.  First, I would get rid of the "this is a movie" storyline and second I would add an overall story that everything can sit in.  

Wow that was quick, Michael! Thanks for the read and your comments are noted.
I don't know if I'll develop this further yet. Maybe in the future. As I said before, I thought of it, wrote it, done.
But I like your idea with the zombie! He was an adlib as I wrote actually. Came out of nowhere!
Because I do this for a living (nightfill - not writing - ha,ha) I used my experiences to show what we do at the supermarket. Thta's why it jumped from aisle to aisle. I didn't have an outline just wrote off the cuff, which does show.
Thanks again for the read - i'm reading 'Husbands in Space' right now! I have time as my infant son is asleep!
Um, I debated trading scenarios for the web series but think I'll stick with mine. Personally, I don't think they should've given us the trade option - too distracting? Cheers buddy!