Who's In There? by Javier Torregrosa (jayrex) - Short, Comedy - Lisa needs to use the bathroom and gets caught up in a family inquiry. - pdf, format 8)

Ack. I can't say I enjoyed this. I can't even believe I read this. Sorry. Not for me. I don't care about the characters or the potty stuff.

Hey Javier

Probable SPOILERS!!!

If the light in Lisa's room isn't enough for her to see her clothes are scattered, how can 'we'?

You give a quick description of Lisa but not Andy.

Where does Lisa sit in the bathroom...oh I see lol

'She's a look of despair', doesn't read right to me.

Jeff says 'Who ever's in there, wake up.'  I think it should read 'Whoever's in there'?

'Jimmy's dials his phone...'this doesn't sound right to me either?

You have a few slugs in the bedroom where Mike speaks but you have (O.S) but then who's bedroom are we in if not Mike's?  Is the O.S. not for Off Screen and I'm not getting it?

O.C.?  Off Camera?  but we can see them.  I'm a bit confused now.

Jimmy says 'I'm gonna to piss in the kitchen', don't need the 'to'.

Why did you add more character details for Lisa so late in the show?

When did Lisa get her clothes, didn't she just leave the bathroom?

One thing had me confused till the end.  I thought Lisa looked at her phone and she had a text message because you said 'text: 2.59' lol, me bad, I'm guessing it was just the time.

I found this quite amusing actually.  I got me thinking to my old single days of drinking hard and pulling anyone but I don't think I got that bad that I couldn't remember bringing someone home lol.  Out of interest, is this written from someone's experience?  Anyway, it's a bit long for a 'shit' gag but it was quick and very entertaining in a crude way.

Hey Javier.

Wow.  All those people and only ONE BATHROOM?!  Must be hell.

I actually got 6 pages before setting it back down.  All the characters got lost in somewhat redundant conversation and vague slugs.  None of the bedrooms are labeled and with very little description other than Lisa, it was like I was just lost.

Toilet humor isn't really my thing so this was a miss for me but I did like the trapped-rat kind of thing you had with Lisa in the bathroom.  Best of luck.

Johnny

Hi Javier,

I managed to get through all of this, although it was a bit of a close call. This is one of those screenplays that could go either way. Your reader will either love it, or they'll not be a fan. For me? I can certainly see the appeal for some readers, but I'm not a massive fan of this. Toilet humor hasn't been my thing since I was 8. I just don't enjoy this sort of stuff, anymore.

I think the story is pretty straight-forward. Not a bad thing, although it does seem to read a little long for something like this. I'd imagine watching an eight minute skit on this would lose momentum by the end. Think about it, the story doesn't really develop much after the third page. By page you're just dragging on with the same joke, where people wake up to this dreadful smell. I think you could have a script with more comedic impact if you got to the kicker, earlier. Don't quote me on that one... The one comedy I have written ended in almost complete disaster. So storywise? Nothing special, but it does the job.

I think part of the lengthy feel to this one comes down to a lot of "fluffy" writing, where you write too much detail or you over-state certain details. To me, it almost seemed as if you were trying to impress the reader with your writing. This script is ultimately riddled with redundant phrases like: "After the storm, comes the silence." and "...if anyone woke up from her early morning wake up call." - You're over-complicating things with your writing, IMO. You could easily just write: "Silence. She listens for a moment." - Both give the same message and both would play out exactly the same on screen. When in doubt ask yourself: "Is there a shorter way I can write this phrase, where it would play out exactly the same on screen?" - Taking the time to think about these things can make the world of difference.

There's a sequence on Page six I'd like to address:

"INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

MIKE O.S.
What? No, why?

CORRIDOR

JIMMY
Someone’s using the crapper, no
idea who it is.

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

MIKE O.S.
Your dad?

CORRIDOR

JIMMY
He was top of the list.

BATHROOM

Lisa stands next to the window, waving the smell out.

CORRIDOR

Jeff wakes up BILLY.

JEFF
Billy, any of your dumbass friends
stayin’ over??

BEDROOM

Billy rolls his head towards the door. "

All of these added slugs tend to add a lot of length to the screenplay, perhaps giving a false perception of how long this one might play out on screen. I would suggest finding a way of eliminating all these slugs so as not to make the writing monotonous. If the reader knows where every character is beforehand, is it really necessary to include a slug whenever they make an appearance in moments like these? You could set the entire scene in the corridor and just have the heads poking through doorways. This might leave a less complicated piece.

Hope you're around to read all this. I didn't hate this, I'm just afraid this sort of comedy isn't my thing.

Good effort.

Dan

Hi Javier,

Not quite my thing and it was a little longer than necessary. Lisa has the dilemma that she does not want anyone to know who is in the bathroom. i was hoping she would  find an inventive way out of there, but in the end no one even knows who she is.  Have you thought of hyping it up a bit, raising the stakes, something like making her a celebrity who wouldn't want this ending up on twitter?

Thanks everyone that read the script.  Took a week off for my birthday.

For the ones that don't know me, I've done a few of these types of scripts, and probably will do them again.

@Alffy, you've brought up a few good points.  Have you seen Man Bites Dog??  The black & white film made in the 90's.  If you have, remember the scene in the warehouse where the lights were off and it was completely dark.  You as the audience can't make out what is there absolutely but you can just about make out what's going on.  It is possible to film in a documentary style approach to show different shades at night.

Mike isn't shown on camera ever, only his voice is heard.  It's not a v.o. voice over, but rather an o.s., but if you think it should be something else, I'm open to suggestions.  Then again, the o.c. thing, well the camera stays in the bathroom and only those characters are heard.  Perhaps I should have used o.c. or o.s. for both situations...

By the time Andy re-enters the story, he's standing at his bedroom door which adjoins the corridor, so the camera's in the corridor, Lisa has her dress & heels in her hand, not actually wearing it, she's only wearing his t-shirt at the time.

Yeah the time thing, well that's just for the camera to show the time on screen rather than for her to say it.

It may read or seem long, but a lot of characters have very short sentences, this would film quite quickly, I'd say no more than 5mins tops.

I have got so blind drunk that I've ended up in a strange place in Barcelona.  But I may have accidentally taken drugs, not sure.  And we all have friends that can't remember a thing once they've drank a lot.  Not quite this experience though.

@danbotha It may end with page 8, one minute per page, but this won't film for 8 minutes, no way.  So many lines are short that'll be a fairly quick film.

As for the extra phrases/lines, it's what I wanted to write.  Your alternative line is quicker but I feel that's got no character in itself.  I totally know about writing short sentences.  I never use 'is' words for example in all my scripts.

As for the slugs thing, well people are all sleeping, they sleep in bedrooms and stand at the entrance of that room, it really doesn't matter in the end of the day.

@harrietb this was less about the bathroom and more about the embarrassment factor.  Don't think it would matter if it was a celebrity or not.

I'll try to return the reads for anyone that read my script as soon as I can.  I'm going to see if I can do this OWC in like 24hrs.  Just starting it now.