Belief - Print Topic

Posted by: Don, December 6th, 2015, 1:34pm

Belief by Richard Russell - Short, Dramedy - A first-year coed experiences the vagaries of a new social order. 6 - pdf, format 8)

Posted by: AnthonyCawood, December 6th, 2015, 5:24pm; Reply: 1

Hey Rich, a few thoughts, just my opinion of course

1) Why are Finn and Carl 6 years apart? Is this normal for US Universitys?
2) I'm guessing this is an alternate reality setting? But it was a little difficult to work out, as there's dialogue about 'ancient constructs of ownership' but later the secret meeting talks about capitalism... so the timeline seemed unclear to me.
3) Perhaps the alternate reality could be shown more. maybe Finn walks into Engels building, Carl taps on his Leninpad, that sort of thing.
4) CARL
I can’t wear those.
Is that meant to be Finn speaking?

Anyway, just some picky bits... overall I liked this.

Anthony

Posted by: RichardR, December 6th, 2015, 6:54pm; Reply: 2

Anthony,

In American schools, undergrad and grad students are mixed. In fact, you might find 30 year olds among the students. At this point, in America we have gender neutral restrooms and indeed locker rooms. Personal property will soon be gone. Without personal property capitalism is dead. Hence, the mention.

Carl's comment refers to her underwear. He gives back because it won't fit.

Thanks for the read

Best
Richard

Posted by: SAC, December 6th, 2015, 7:57pm; Reply: 3

Richard,

Overall I liked this. Most of what you were going for you cleared up in your last post here.

Good storytelling, especially liked the end where the door was cracked with Finn trying to get a bead on what was inside. Can't say I'm a fan of the social commentary thing unless it goes a bit deeper. This was pretty straightforward, but a good read and tightly written.

Steve

Posted by: Logan McDonald, December 7th, 2015, 12:20pm; Reply: 4

Hey Richard,
I liked the first half the script. We’ve all had horrible roommates and Carl takes the cake. It was over top but that is where the funnies came from.

I didn’t understand the last two pages. It seemed like a complete tonal shift and left me confused as to who Finn was talking to and why. It felt like the beginning of a second script. Finn messing with Carl’s things because of the “no personal ownership” philosophy felt like a good ending.

Anyway, it was short sweet and to the point.
Nice work!
Logan.

Posted by: alffy, December 7th, 2015, 3:40pm; Reply: 5

This is not a script to my liking; not that it's bad but the theme is something I'm not really interested in lol.

Anyway, it's pretty well written and has good comedic moments.

A decent short, well done.

Posted by: RichardR, December 28th, 2015, 11:17am; Reply: 6

Posted by: eldave1, December 30th, 2015, 9:43pm; Reply: 7

A very good knack for dialogue - rang true for the most part.

The ending left me a little wanting more. I would have liked to see Finn compare and contrast communal vs. capitalistic living. i.e., once she goes through that door - is it better? worse?

Oh well - that's it - nicely crafted.

Posted by: RichardR, January 15th, 2016, 11:37am; Reply: 8

Eldave1

thanks for the read and the comments. Unfortunately, I don't have any story going forward. Have to think about that.

Best
Richard

Posted by: DustinBowcot (Guest), January 15th, 2016, 11:47am; Reply: 9

Quoted from RichardR

Without personal property capitalism is dead. Hence, the mention.

Personal property is a fallacy. You don't own your car, your house or your children. You merely care for those things on behalf of your government. When you buy a car, you are only buying the right to drive it and the responsibility of keeping it taxed, licensed or whatever. If your government chose to, they could take back their car, house or even children. Nobody actually owns anything.

I'm not sure how you can jump from mixed bathrooms to a loss of personal property. Sounds like right wing paranoia to me. Not that I'm left. I know there are many Americans that believe there are only two sides to everything.

Posted by: RichardR, January 15th, 2016, 12:06pm; Reply: 10

At the risk of starting something, the logic goes like this.

You own yourself.  You own all the things about you--ideas, speech, life, etc.

If you can own yourself, then you can own other things.

Personal ownership is not granted by government--at least according to US standards.  You are endowed with personal rights that are yours irrespective of any government.  Among those rights, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  And no, in the US, the government may not take your car or child without reason and due process.  Is tyranny right around the corner?  Perhaps, but it does not negate the inalienable rights of the individual.

You can buy a car and never license it or even drive it, simply add it to your collection.  It's your car.

When you write a screenplay, it's yours.  You own it--at least so far.

best
Richard

Posted by: DustinBowcot (Guest), January 15th, 2016, 12:22pm; Reply: 11

Quoted from RichardR

You own yourself. You own all the things about you--ideas, speech, life, etc.

If you can own yourself, then you can own other things.

You don't own yourself either. Your government owns you and can send you to war or force you into labour at any time they see fit. If you say no, you can always say no... then they can shoot you in the head.

I don't own my car, the DVLA does. If I wanted to buy a car to add to a collection I could do that too, but when all is said and done, the car will still belong to the DVLA, which is a governmental body. There will be something similar in your country.

Posted by: Gum, January 15th, 2016, 1:34pm; Reply: 12

I agree Dustin…

I agree to the extent that there was a deception put in place many generations ago to ensure the state could legally control a person outside of universal justification… some call it the ‘Strawman”

Your identification shows proof of this, meaning: on all government issued ID your entire name is in uppercase, making you a corporation of the state. You’re bound to the state as a corporation, not as a person, that is how they impose regulation on your existence.

Your corporate name is bound to a land title if you own a home, however, Try NOT paying your property taxes for just one year… you’ll find out soon enough who actually owns your home.

Posted by: DustinBowcot (Guest), January 15th, 2016, 2:26pm; Reply: 13

Yeah these laws were originally put in place to 'protect us from foreign enemies'. It needs to be easy for the government to commandeer land and vehicles in the case of war. Makes sense to people thrown into the chaos of a world war.

Also, people and children are owned by the government they have citizenship with. If you say no to their demands, even if those demands are that you run over the top of a bunker into machine gun fire, you have to do it. If you don't, they have the legal right to shoot you in the head.

This is what I mean by North Korea having nothing on the west in the brainwashing stakes. People, hypnotised by the shit the TV pumps into them, are everywhere. When a big event occurs, it's often akin to walking amidst zombies. It's amazing, but also very scary that people can be so easily manipulated.

Posted by: MiguelP, October 5th, 2017, 12:00pm; Reply: 14

I really enjoyed this script quite a bit, the dynamic set immediately between Finn and Carl is awesome, and the ending is very well written. Huge props!

Posted by: Colkurtz8, December 30th, 2017, 9:19am; Reply: 15

Richard

This didn’t make much sense to me. Perhaps, it would if I was American, i don’t know. Is it a commentary, at the extreme end of the spectrum, on skewed modern values, primarily liberal ones? Are you saying Communism is on the rise again? If so, I don’t really see it, in real life that is. If not, then I’d be interested to know your intentions.

Other than that, It feel like it’s the start of a bigger piece. At present, it seems to end just as its beginning.

Col.

Posted by: AustinT, March 3rd, 2018, 9:35pm; Reply: 16

Incredibly interesting subject to tackle. I commend you for that.

However, something that doesn't sit well for me is the ambiguous ending. From the way you wrote it, I wasn't sure how to feel about Finn's decision to go seek out supporters of capitalism. Mainly because you shadowed the supposed Capitalists in such mystery that they felt threatening. Almost evil. It didn't seem to me to be a happy ending.

BUT, because of how unlikable you made her roommate, it's set up that we as the audience should support Finn's end decision, yet because of just the way you presented the faceless Capitalists, I found that decision to not be a happy one.

Because of not really understanding why Finn's end decision is good or bad, I'm not really sure what to take away from this. My best guess, and this is also factoring in most of the comments on the discussion board, is that Capitalism is the right thing to do?

And this has nothing to do with my political beliefs or yours but I'm just not quite sure what you are trying to say. I fell like we need to see Finn's life with the Capitalist to show a poignant contrast between that and her roommate life with Carl. Whether it's a good or bad experience, for the sake of storytelling and clarity, I personally would love to see just another scene that touches on that.

Because, again, right now, from the way I read it, it seems that neither social construct is the answer.

Overall, it was a fine read, the characters where fun, Carl is a butt hole and the dialogue was snappy.

Keep up the good work.

Happy Writing!