Commoners by Andrew Pitt - Series, Comedy - Teenagers Ben and Mike have difficulty finding a baby shower gift for a girl who hates them. 26 pages - pdf, format

New writer interested in feedback on this work

Andrew - there are issues from the get go.


FADE IN:

Quoted Text INT. BEN'S BASEMENT BEN and MIKE, both average-looking 16 year olds, are, on a Saturday afternoon, downstairs on a couch eating apples.

- No night or day in the slug.

- "on a Saturday afternoon" is unfilmable.

- should not be a comma before or after "are"

- You don't need downstairs - you already said in the slug it was the basement.

- not written in an active voice. Better as -

BEN and MIKE, both sixteen and average-looking sit on a couch eating apples.

You don't need this.

Quoted Text END OF COLD OPEN

Quoted Text INT. BEN'S BASEMENT

No night or day indicated in slug.

Quoted Text Ben and Mike are at the couch looking down into the camera,looking at something.What they're looking at is a piece of paper that includes a photo of a baby and an arrow pointing from the baby to the word 'present

This really needs work. Get rid of the "ares" - don't reference they are looking twice. And - how are two people looking down the same camera? And is there paper in the camera or are they taking a picture?  Also - how is a piece of paper a photo - it's one or the other.

Should be something like:

Ben, on the couch watches Mike as he stares at a digital photo on the display of his camera....

Anyway - that's just the opening. You might want to give this another going through.

I read the whole thing, and I enjoyed it. If you re-write it, I would love to read it again. Now here are my notes:

A time of day is needed in the slug.

Typically, if you plan on using act breaks, then you put the heading of the act (COLD OPEN or ACT ONE) centered at the beginning of the act, and then have the END OF... at the end, also centered. Then, you start the next act in a new page. All you noted was the cold open, so I'm not sure if you intend to use act breaks or not, but I think if you just want to set apart the cold open, you would probably follow the same rules for it, then just write the rest like a normal screenplay.

I liked that your cold open let us know what place these two are in socially, they are not popular. However, I feel like it is a bit short.

I would condense what is currently page 2, as the dialogue really starts to get interesting with the chem class part.

Try to avoid telling the camera what to do, as that is the director's job. The only time you would really want to do this is if there was some sort of reveal, something that we can't be allowed to see at the start.

For an insert, you just put INSERT: and then what ever it is. Also, instead of saying LAPTOP SCREENGRAB, just use INSERT again.

I didn't see the point of the part where they are making food. It didn't end up affecting the plot in any way.

I feel like the conversation between Marvin and the man goes on too long. I think all we need is the reveal that they were working together.

I wish you hadn't skipped over the actual baby shower, because I think a lot of humor could have been created there, such as seeing Ben and Mike not fit in, and the reaction to their gift.

Andrew, I only read first 5 pages but I enjoyed reading this. These pages were filled with dialogue, which I found a little tiring. Some action wouldn't hurt.
Somebody mentioned unfilmables. At one point I completely stopped using them because people kept pointing them out, but to be honest I've read things like 'on a Sunday afternoon' even in produced scripts. So now I happily throw unfilmables in. I may be back for more.