Coco by One With The Water - Cass and Spence just want to go to this dope art party.  Location: Public Bathroom. Object: Urn of ashes.  Short, Comedy

The writing really needs some work, here. The description of the urn in he opening block is confusing -- I had no idea what I was looking at until the next scene.

And why are they doing cocaine at a funeral home lol? It's funny, I guess, but why wouldn't they just wait until they got to the art party? And why did they bring the urn into the bathroom? Why do they even have the urn? I know one of them had the urn made, but what exactly are they doing? Putting the ashes into the urn? I dunno, I was confused by this one.

The dialogue was fine, I guess. But the formatting was off -- you interrupt dialogue with description blocks, but then you just include the dialogue after without writing the character name. The writing was just a bit wonky for me. And I wasn't a huge fan of the story, the characters didn't really do it for me. Good effort, though.

-- Michael

Dialogue - pretty good.

Descriptive blocks - a little confusing - and no need for it.

There is a lot of space dedicated to this urn -

Quoted Text A pair of manicured hands adorned with rings grip an ASYMMETRICAL SHAPED TOWER-LIKE OBJECT that looks like a mid-crashing wave. Dark indigo and cobalt in color, encrusted in Swarovski crystals. Expensive.

When you could have just gone with expensive urn. or Ornate Urn.  You really don't need it to be that detailed for your story - which is about coke.

Story - was just okay for me.

Oof!

A pair of manicured hands adorned with rings grip an
ASYMMETRICAL SHAPED TOWER-LIKE OBJECT that looks like a
mid-crashing wave. Dark indigo and cobalt in color,
encrusted in Swarovski crystals.

To read that right off the start, and then have to read it three times to try and figure out what it was describing, really derailed the focus going forward. The character descriptions were lost on me (What's a twink? Is a So-Cal Valley girl the same now as back in late 80s-early 90s?).

Sorry, the humor was a bit all over the place and lost on me.

I spent too much time rereading it, that any ounce of comedy was lost.

I'm sorry this didn't work for me.

Hi writer,

I'm not sure you understand what a cold open is.

Quoted Text A pair of manicured hands adorned with rings grip an ASYMMETRICAL SHAPED TOWER-LIKE OBJECT that looks like a mid-crashing wave. Dark indigo and cobalt in color, encrusted in Swarovski crystals. Expensive.

A bit too much going on here.

Quoted Text SPENCER (22, twink)

What the hell is twink?

The dialogue is super cringey.

This couldn't hold my attention, even at four pages.

Not for me, sorry.

All the best.

While the script does have some humor in it, it needs something more, because accidentally mixing a dog's ashes with cocaine just isn't that outrageous a premise anymore. A 32-year-old episode of Married With Children saw Al cooking hamburgers with Marcy's aunt's ashes.

I like that this is about atypical characters. Almost felt a little like a cult punk film from the eighties. However, I do wish the humour worked with me a bit more. Still, good job, I definitely felt a little Jubilee or Dudes or even Repo Man nostalgic waves with the characters.

Writer,

I like the premise, but not how you handled it. It reads incomplete and ends like you just ran out of pages. A funny premise that doesn’t deliver.

Steve

The writing is confusing. Safe to say messy. Dialogs were cringy. The premise is typical - people messing up things idiotically. Still, a nice effort.

Drop the first block of description as that isn't doing the script any favours.

Having said that once it gets going I did actually enjoy it for the most part. Unlike the some of the other readers the character descriptions worked for me. Twink made me chuckle. Dialogue had some decent moments too.

I think with a bit of work this could be a really fun little short, even if the overall premise isn't that original, the characters bring a refreshing angle to it for me.

Good effort

Quoted from Warren What the hell is twink?

Go ahead and google that.  ;)

I'm not going to hate on the writing as much as others. It's awkward at times, but physical comedy isn't easy to write. The more important thing is the tone, which the dialogue carries but the descriptions don't as much. The dialogue does work for these characters though, even if it does venture into caricature territory.

The actual funeral sounds like the more interesting story. Be careful with that, better to just skip the details and get to this story. I thought there would be more to the mixing of the ashes with the cocaine, something unexpected, but it never really pays off in a meaningful way, it just amounts to two idiots doing idiotic things.

Good attempt, doesn't really work for me.

Something's off with whatever screenwriting template you used. The continued just waste space, and this whole thing is a cold open?

I got a bit lost, but that's probably because I have no experience whatsoever with illicit drugs or their terminology. But putting that aside, there was no need to be cagey about what the urn was, and two questions keep bugging me:

1. Why on Earth would they pour out $5000 worth of cocaine onto a toilet tank lid? Must be a fancy schmancy public restroom to have toilet tanks at all.

2. Why did they take the dog ashes out of the urn? Was the plan to smuggle the dime bags in the urn?

The duo act like complete idiots, complete with panic-induced Really Bad Choice (TM), which is fine for comedy. Their reactions show that they really care about the dog... in a room-temperature-IQ kinda way.

The third one showing up at the end doesn't really add anything to the bit, though it could set up something if you intended to extend this later.

Cleaned up and/or extended, this would probably look great with some good physical actors.

Good effort!

I appreciate the intent here and the characters feel more memorable than most.  Cassandra’s dialogue on page 1 is good stuff - really stood out.

However, you lost me with the toilet stall scene. Read this a couple of times and I can’t figure out why they’re transferring the ashes to a plastic bag or why Spencer threw it when it started leaking.  I guess to transport the coke? But what’s with Cassandra’s baggies then?  What’s going where and why?  Urns, plastic bags, ziploc bag with dime bags inside - it’s busy and easy to lose track without understanding what it is they're trying to do.

A different approach, just felt like the setup promised more than the payoff delivered and the abrupt ending only leaves it feeling more incomplete.

I appreciate the effort to make the characters authentic and they certainly sounded it.

You could see where the story was heading and then it just ended without an ending as you ran out of pages. Reads like the first scene of a longer concept, maybe a TV pilot. Worth working on some more to see if you could flesh this out.

Quoted from ReneC Go ahead and google that.  ;)

Haha!

Hi Writer

I quite like the pair of numskulls you created. Although there is a lot of confusion in the story for me.
Don't think you need all that talk of Renee's demands in the beginning. I quite like the idea of the ashes and cocaine getting mixed up though, but I am not entirely sure what they are doing.
Why would she stash some drugs in a funeral home, to then smuggle them out? (Presumably in the urn, is that why they are emptying it?)
Why are they even in a funeral home for a dead dog? is that a thing?

Quoted Text They freeze, look at each other. Cass mouths the words: YOU DIDN’T LOCK THE DOOR? Spence mouths back: THERE’S NO LOCK!

This is the wrong way around  - Cas was the last one to walk in the room, she should have been the one to try and lock it.

Sloppy execution so I am assuming a last-minute entry. Well done on the memorable characters though.

Best of luck

I'm struggling to understand this one, the story, the humour and even the premise. Read it a couple of times to try and get to grips with it but having no joy. On the plus side you managed to cobble together some sort of story and submitted it so well done for getting this in.

Sloppy writing distracted me quite a bit, and none of the comedy really landed with me. Good news is that comedy is subjective and it could just be me. :)

Good effort to get something into round 2.

Well this is a bit uneven, funny in places and yet confusing in others.

And I'm not really sure this need setting in a funeral home?

Decent effort

Cold open? Did that ever end?

The wave urn description hurt my head.

So this wasn't for me personally, but I recognize it as a decent effort.