Just got done reading your script, there is some good comedy in here.
However, I feel it takes too long to get started. The first 3 pages seemed to drag a little and didn't seem to move the story along. It's only when we get to the conference room that we realize the conflict, and the movie really begins for me.
That being said, I know your going for something bigger than 30 minutes and you want to flesh out the story. I just feel this type of story can be told in less time and you can get to the comedy sooner. For example, when we are in the conference room, we stay there for 5 pages and then we get to the funny part of the auditions. I feel if you are going to pitch this film, or you just want to make it funny, you should get to the action sooner.
I love a lot of the dialogue in this film though, especially the line, 'You are as menacing as a pillow full of dandelions'. Your writer definitely has a knack for comedy. I'm just a little concerned over how your going to display the world of the villains and this fantasy element with the real world. For instance, when Destructopus (I liked his back story by the way) was fighting Supreme. I had trouble picturing the setting and whether I was going to believe what was about to happen. This is probably 'the gap' issue, which needed filling.
pg 1 - YO, have you seen the trailer for Kick Ass? Because Nick Cage's superhero character is named Big Daddy...just so you know.
pg 4 - Tell us who each of the executives sitting at the table are that are actually going to show up in the movie, and give us descriptions of each.
pg 5 - Don't use Doc Ock as an example, come up with something on your own.
pg 8 - The John 3:16 joke could be funny if one of the guys auditioning was named John and that was apparent to the audience - if each of the judges held up a sign with a name and score and it was like Hank - 7.04, Biff - 5.27, John - 3.16
pg 8 - It'd be funny if you inserted a kid or a midget or something into the montage of people auditioning - you need more people who clearly wouldn't be great super villains.
pg 10 - Who is Punster? Who is Gunker? You need to tell us specifically who is on this panel of judges.
pg 12 - The UofA joke will be lost on anyone that doesn't go to ASU, ie: festival audiences.
pg 21 - "Supreme had surgeons remove..." You mean Destructous, I assume?
pg 21 - Ok, the conversation starting at my last comment and going through the end of the scene - I don't understand what's happening. These three are trying to find a weakness in Supreme? They never explain this. The audience never got a good look at Supreme? This needs to be clear. I literally have no idea what's happening here.
WHAT. David, I don't understand. Richard gets in a car accident. He gets out of his car. He hears someone being mugged and somehow runs into Supreme. He recognizes Supreme and makes note of this, but we're never told who exactly he is under the mask. Then Richard almost gets mugged - the cops show up at the perfect time, and Richard finds someone to use for the competition. I guess I just don't really see the conflict in this or how anything ties into anything else. It's like a bunch of scenes but no real goal or resolution. I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but I think this script needs serious revision.
I really enjoyed the screen play and its light-heartedness the whole way through, i personally like the UofA joke.
I do have to agree that it does take a little too much time in the beginning and found that i lost interest to some degree. i would also like a little more clarification on the characters as erica had pointed out. I loved how the script began though, it gives a great sense of the hierarchy through the company before we meet them. Maybe there is some way that he can tell part of the story so it doesnt take as long, and it can dive right in.
Hey David, Just did a quick read-through of your newest Draft, and since I only have about 20 minutes to post, I will give some brief but (hopefully) beneficial notes!
First off, I agree with the people above about the overall pacing of the story. I felt that the little here'n'theres (like as Dominic mentioned the first few pages... I feel like the Tour Guide SAYS to much, while you should be SHOWING us more!!!) For the most part, I felt that the story flowed pretty well, and kept up with a comic-book like pace (which I am assuming is your goal!).
I thought that this was going to be a feature film for some reason, so I was quite surprised by this draft being only 26 pages long... which I then remembered that you were turning it into a TV series, but isnt now being written by you (written by Laurent Taillefer)? Is this something you are directing for class now???
I think that the whole auditioning setup is great! Have you seen MYSTERY MEN? There is a similar scene where the "super"hero team (The Mystery Men) are auditioning for some new team members, and get a ton of lame tryouts. You have an opportunity at some real comedic gold in this scene, so please use it to its full potential (I liked Erica's idea with using some little people, or even Children).
I think the story ends great! You've got yourself a pretty funny script here man, I just hope you can pull this off on screen (if that is what your intentions are)
P.S. Big Daddy is a character in the KICK-ASS trailer for the KICK-ASS movie, but he was originally a character in the KICK-ASS comic book series... Give credit where credit is due Erica(:P)!!!
I'm at page 3 at the end of your opening scene and I like it. It's interesting and engaging and I can see the ridiculousness you are going for. BUT. One thing. You do a good job of explaining the way things are and establishing at least a few rules that exist in this world, but you don't establish what happened to the police and the government. More importantly, how could a corporation bent on what is most certainly terrorism, operate without the military itself attacking them. You also establish them as a corporation which openly operates as an operator of terror, but they exist within the government. You need to explain a way in some ridiculous fashion as to why the govt allows this and why they aren't all simply arrested or blown up or had war declared upon them by the United States. Something like this, of this power, would cause an all out civil war in my opinion
P8 - Reminds me a lot of Mystery Men - with the boom box and having super villain auditions
P9 - So far all we know is the economy is in a downturn and there isn't an apparent specific conflict yet. We just know they need help. I can already tell that this is about finding some ultimate super villain to get them out of the red, but I think this should be explicit by now, opposed to alluded to
P10 - Where did Gunker and Punster come from? They sorta showed up out of nowhere.
P14 - You need some action or description on INT BIG DADDYS OFFICE NIGHT...it is unclear as to where they are or who they are around or that Big Daddy is even there...you need to set the stage
You have this same problem over and over again. Only dialogue and no action. You need action or it's just noise.
In general.
The dialogue is interesting enough and the material you have here is pretty funny, but I don't really know what's going on a lot of time because of the action problem. I'm also confused about the story. I started getting bored and cofused about 14 pages in. Your conflict and overall goal of the story isn't very clear. It's about that shining moment of finding some great villain in that mugger, but I didn't really feel that way. Right now there is too much going on...you need to figure out the central story and build around it opposed to the opposite. Right now it looks like you have a lot of good ideas for scenes and shots and you're trying to build the story around them.
David, I really like this project. I love the concept and everything. (page): 1: i really like the tour guide set up speech. gives a good explaination of this world you created. And I love the ham-burgler bit. 2-4: I agree with Dom that it takes a really long time to "get this going" for lack of a better phrase. To keep the audience into the beginning, you might want to add scenes that show BIG DADDY doing whatever the tour guide just described him doing. and intercut them so we're just not listening to this guy talk. I like the pics of the villains, but I'm a fan of intercutting. 6: . CRUEL creedo is nice touch. Love the fact that you refer to previous events such as Gray Skull incident. It adds more to this world. It's small, but means a lot. 7: similar to your doc oct reference on page 5. on page 7 PITTMAN's suggesting names for the vampire villain, you could take that line one step further and make it "The Fang, or Bloodman, or Blood Hunter, or EDWARD...or...well you get the idea". 10: moment of silence/moment of violence is hilarious! 15: the narration of the fight is great. nice dialogue. This script reminds me of mystery men somewhat. But i really like what you've done with it. Great job! Is this something you plan on shooting? or just writing for a tv series? I think it would make a great tv series or even a great feature. Really solid work here!
Thanks everybody who has posted so far! Much appreciated.
Just to clarify to all future posters, this is the pilot episode of a 30min TV series, which I ideally hope will end up being about the 24-26 pages I have here, allowing us to shave a few minutes off bringing the end project to 23-24 minutes.
So the first three pages seem like filler pages. Yeah there’s back-story but I bet you could narrow it down a bit. Maybe we could be following the tour for a little back-story about who Big Daddy is and then they stop by the Pittmans desk and we leave them and start following Pittmans story instead. Love the conference scene Pittman is going to be a great character. I like how there’s a word that has meaning. So many companies do that and everyone reacts just like Leonard and Dana do. Good stuff there. I think for the audtition montages you need to have many more try outs this is a good scene, have people who would be ridiculous such as maybe a little kid, or a priest or some weird things like that. The Twilight reference is great. Really funny and fits well with the vampire thing being big. Nice UofA diss…haha. The middle of your script has some good parts but I think you should narrow it down a bit. For a short film it’s a bit lengthy and there are a couple parts that don’t really move the story forward. However, I think its a great start and such a great story concept and idea.
Hey David, I read through the script you posted and I liked the over all idea. I have a few suggestions... When I read through I kept thinking that this is a mash up between Mad Men, Team Fortress 2, and The Tick. But I wanted a little more Tick comedy, Mad Men snappy dialogue, and TF2 rivalry between Evil Inc and Good Co.
I can see where you're going with all of this, but I have a few problems with some parts. I think around page 17 things really slow down. We put a lot of energy into learning about Destructopus and the audition for the vampire guy, but then we switch to Big Daddy dying and the new competition for finding new villains. If you're going to turn this into a TV series, each episode should have a great story arc and also ads to the overall series.
When I was reading some parts, I kept imagining 30 Rock and how the corporate world of Jack & GE encroaches on Liz Lemon's world of TGS. Vise Versa too. I think that its a good balance to show the corporate stuff butting up against the super hero stuff, but we need to see how they shouldn't work but they do some how...
I liked what Chris said earlier. There's ALOT of dialogue and not much action. Show us what's going on and don't tell us so much.
Overall I like how you're mashing up alot of genres and coming up with something fun and different. Great start!
There's a lot here that I'm liking, but it's definitely still a raw piece.
I liked the history of the company at the beginning, getting a lot of the exposition out of the way for the rest of the season. To make it more visually interesting, you could have the photo start off as a memory flashback, then have the flash snap back to the photo hanging on the wall.
I'd definitely be careful about the use of names for your villains and heroes. As Erica mentioned, Big Daddy is a Kick Ass character and then there's also the Bioshock reference. It'd be fine for smaller characters, but big important ones should have a fairly unique name.
Pg 15: Destructopus says "Soundwave" and not "Soundbite." Mix up?
In regards to Big Daddy, I think he should remain a shadowy figure that people are terrified of based on his reputation. At this point, he'd have to be extremely old, so it could be humorous if everyone was terrified of this small old guy, but no one knew Big Daddy's true identity except for the higher ups.
I would like to see the characters introduced within in the script actions. Most characters just appear with no history or no mention of job title so I really don't know where they stand or why they are important to the story. Pg 19-22: These pages are really dialogue heavy with little to no action. Could use some work. I'd introduce Good Co. earlier. The conflict should really start by the end of the first act, yet the exposition of the company and its day to day actions goes on for longer than it probably should.
Overall though, there's a lot to be played with in regards to the idea. I'm excited to see how it turns out.
I would like to see more comedy in it, I don't think it is lacking but I would just like more. Also is this going to have more of a cartoonish feel or realistic?
You don't need to capitalize the names of the characters after you have introduced them. Is there a reason why TONY is capitalize in Richard's dialogue? Is he yelling his name? Or LEONARD in Dana's dialogue?
When the tour guide is giving the history of the company does she put up her fingers and make quote marks in the air when she says the words in quotes? If she doesn't then why are they in quotes?
Cute intro, but it's kind of long. I guess it works for the pilot episode. Are you planning to shoot this pilot?
Great montage, reminded me of the Mystery Men montage.
Is Big Daddy supposed to talk like Foghorn Leghorn?
You have some good dialogue but the you still need to fill in the action. That will definitely add to your script and make it drastically longer? Can you cut this into two episodes? Make it like a comic book where it's To Be Continued at a critical place.
I love the character names! They are totally awesome and fit the genre or audiences you will most likely attract. This is a great time for this kind of show. Comic books are back in it and now with Kick-Ass coming out, you know the studios are looking for the next option.
Are you going to storyboard this at all? I know someone who draws comics and would love this!
Okay so first of all, when I pictured Evil Inc. it was about how this corporation could get away with evil-doings and still exist within the system. That was where I saw most, if not all, of the humor. Cover-ups, lies, misinterpretation of the name Evil Inc (which is hilariously obvious). You seemed to just go into other territory. Giant pictures of Osama Bin Laden kind of blow that concept out of the water.
Not like this is bad, but like Chris said something needs to explain how they get away with so much. LIKE OTHER "EVIL" CORPORATIONS. (wink, wink, wink)
Anyway, that aside I felt that the dialogue was funny but not snappy. It seemed to run thick at some times and some moments of comedy were never fully realized. Auditions! So many opportunities missed. Doc Ock reference? Use something that's more of your own, something funnier.
All I'm saying is, if you're going to have a dialogue driven satire, you need to punch out more jokes per page.
Otherwise, it was entertaining enough, but if you're going to go with that much talkieness (real word?) More groundwork needs to put down for a series and I just think a lot of people only wound up confused.
I just read your script for the first time. Without having read any of the above comments I was going to say that the exposition is too long. I understand it's a pilot for a TV series but it takes too long to get to the meat of the story. I've talked about this with Crystal in a similar situation and even though you are trying to setup the characters and recurring jokes/plot there needs to be an immediate problem and reward that's addressed in the first episode.
This is a nation of people with too much choice in entertainment (99% is crap but that's beside the point). My point is that when you watch how TV is made today, there's something different happening every 2-3 minutes. If scenes last any longer that than, people stop paying attention and start surfing facebook.
I like the dark comedy, I'm really down for that. However, I think that some of the beginning comes off really kid-like and for the first few pages I honestly thought it was going to be in the style of a pixar animated short. Then it got a bit more mature so I was confused on your intent.
Great start though, I look forward to seeing this one play out. Super villains are awesome.
I really like it! I'm glad that you got it up and have your idea now! :)
on page 2, there is one line "he required other villains to assist him", i feel that it might sound kinda weird out loud, awkward. I jut feel it could be written a lil better.
There are a lot of words. I would like to see a little more actions/ know what the actors are doing (as I am sure you would so you know exactly what you want when you are filming).
I really like the tone of this whole film! I think it is quite funny. Maybe a little more room for humor (i'll add instances soon), but overall- awesome!!!
Good job!!!! Cant wait to see what you make of this!!!
Thanks for all the posts. It has really been a big help in solidifying the concept for the pilot. We’re currently reviewing a second draft which I think is a vast improvement over the first. In addition to being entirely rewritten, it has also paid much more attention to the fact that it is meant to be a comedy. Hopefully this new draft more closely resembles the shooting script which, I’m told, will actually be filmed. I look forward to reading your comments in the future and I hope it will be as much fun to read as it was to write.
Dave,
ReplyDeleteJust got done reading your script, there is some good comedy in here.
However, I feel it takes too long to get started. The first 3 pages seemed to drag a little and didn't seem to move the story along. It's only when we get to the conference room that we realize the conflict, and the movie really begins for me.
That being said, I know your going for something bigger than 30 minutes and you want to flesh out the story. I just feel this type of story can be told in less time and you can get to the comedy sooner. For example, when we are in the conference room, we stay there for 5 pages and then we get to the funny part of the auditions. I feel if you are going to pitch this film, or you just want to make it funny, you should get to the action sooner.
I love a lot of the dialogue in this film though, especially the line, 'You are as menacing as a pillow full of dandelions'. Your writer definitely has a knack for comedy. I'm just a little concerned over how your going to display the world of the villains and this fantasy element with the real world. For instance, when Destructopus (I liked his back story by the way) was fighting Supreme. I had trouble picturing the setting and whether I was going to believe what was about to happen. This is probably 'the gap' issue, which needed filling.
Good job man.
pg 1 - YO, have you seen the trailer for Kick Ass? Because Nick Cage's superhero character is named Big Daddy...just so you know.
ReplyDeletepg 4 - Tell us who each of the executives sitting at the table are that are actually going to show up in the movie, and give us descriptions of each.
pg 5 - Don't use Doc Ock as an example, come up with something on your own.
pg 8 - The John 3:16 joke could be funny if one of the guys auditioning was named John and that was apparent to the audience - if each of the judges held up a sign with a name and score and it was like Hank - 7.04, Biff - 5.27, John - 3.16
pg 8 - It'd be funny if you inserted a kid or a midget or something into the montage of people auditioning - you need more people who clearly wouldn't be great super villains.
pg 10 - Who is Punster? Who is Gunker? You need to tell us specifically who is on this panel of judges.
pg 12 - The UofA joke will be lost on anyone that doesn't go to ASU, ie: festival audiences.
pg 21 - "Supreme had surgeons remove..." You mean Destructous, I assume?
pg 21 - Ok, the conversation starting at my last comment and going through the end of the scene - I don't understand what's happening. These three are trying to find a weakness in Supreme? They never explain this. The audience never got a good look at Supreme? This needs to be clear. I literally have no idea what's happening here.
WHAT. David, I don't understand. Richard gets in a car accident. He gets out of his car. He hears someone being mugged and somehow runs into Supreme. He recognizes Supreme and makes note of this, but we're never told who exactly he is under the mask. Then Richard almost gets mugged - the cops show up at the perfect time, and Richard finds someone to use for the competition. I guess I just don't really see the conflict in this or how anything ties into anything else. It's like a bunch of scenes but no real goal or resolution. I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but I think this script needs serious revision.
Hi david.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the screen play and its light-heartedness the whole way through, i personally like the UofA joke.
I do have to agree that it does take a little too much time in the beginning and found that i lost interest to some degree. i would also like a little more clarification on the characters as erica had pointed out. I loved how the script began though, it gives a great sense of the hierarchy through the company before we meet them. Maybe there is some way that he can tell part of the story so it doesnt take as long, and it can dive right in.
Hey David,
ReplyDeleteJust did a quick read-through of your newest Draft, and since I only have about 20 minutes to post, I will give some brief but (hopefully) beneficial notes!
First off, I agree with the people above about the overall pacing of the story. I felt that the little here'n'theres (like as Dominic mentioned the first few pages... I feel like the Tour Guide SAYS to much, while you should be SHOWING us more!!!) For the most part, I felt that the story flowed pretty well, and kept up with a comic-book like pace (which I am assuming is your goal!).
I thought that this was going to be a feature film for some reason, so I was quite surprised by this draft being only 26 pages long... which I then remembered that you were turning it into a TV series, but isnt now being written by you (written by Laurent Taillefer)? Is this something you are directing for class now???
I think that the whole auditioning setup is great! Have you seen MYSTERY MEN? There is a similar scene where the "super"hero team (The Mystery Men) are auditioning for some new team members, and get a ton of lame tryouts. You have an opportunity at some real comedic gold in this scene, so please use it to its full potential (I liked Erica's idea with using some little people, or even Children).
I think the story ends great! You've got yourself a pretty funny script here man, I just hope you can pull this off on screen (if that is what your intentions are)
P.S. Big Daddy is a character in the KICK-ASS trailer for the KICK-ASS movie, but he was originally a character in the KICK-ASS comic book series... Give credit where credit is due Erica(:P)!!!
I'm at page 3 at the end of your opening scene and I like it. It's interesting and engaging and I can see the ridiculousness you are going for. BUT. One thing. You do a good job of explaining the way things are and establishing at least a few rules that exist in this world, but you don't establish what happened to the police and the government. More importantly, how could a corporation bent on what is most certainly terrorism, operate without the military itself attacking them. You also establish them as a corporation which openly operates as an operator of terror, but they exist within the government. You need to explain a way in some ridiculous fashion as to why the govt allows this and why they aren't all simply arrested or blown up or had war declared upon them by the United States. Something like this, of this power, would cause an all out civil war in my opinion
ReplyDeleteP8 - Reminds me a lot of Mystery Men - with the boom box and having super villain auditions
P9 - So far all we know is the economy is in a downturn and there isn't an apparent specific conflict yet. We just know they need help. I can already tell that this is about finding some ultimate super villain to get them out of the red, but I think this should be explicit by now, opposed to alluded to
P10 - Where did Gunker and Punster come from? They sorta showed up out of nowhere.
P14 - You need some action or description on INT BIG DADDYS OFFICE NIGHT...it is unclear as to where they are or who they are around or that Big Daddy is even there...you need to set the stage
You have this same problem over and over again. Only dialogue and no action. You need action or it's just noise.
In general.
The dialogue is interesting enough and the material you have here is pretty funny, but I don't really know what's going on a lot of time because of the action problem. I'm also confused about the story. I started getting bored and cofused about 14 pages in. Your conflict and overall goal of the story isn't very clear. It's about that shining moment of finding some great villain in that mugger, but I didn't really feel that way. Right now there is too much going on...you need to figure out the central story and build around it opposed to the opposite. Right now it looks like you have a lot of good ideas for scenes and shots and you're trying to build the story around them.
David, I really like this project. I love the concept and everything.
ReplyDelete(page):
1: i really like the tour guide set up speech. gives a good explaination of this world you created. And I love the ham-burgler bit.
2-4: I agree with Dom that it takes a really long time to "get this going" for lack of a better phrase. To keep the audience into the beginning, you might want to add scenes that show BIG DADDY doing whatever the tour guide just described him doing. and intercut them so we're just not listening to this guy talk. I like the pics of the villains, but I'm a fan of intercutting.
6: . CRUEL creedo is nice touch. Love the fact that you refer to previous events such as Gray Skull incident. It adds more to this world. It's small, but means a lot.
7: similar to your doc oct reference on page 5. on page 7 PITTMAN's suggesting names for the vampire villain, you could take that line one step further and make it "The Fang, or Bloodman, or Blood Hunter, or EDWARD...or...well you get the idea".
10: moment of silence/moment of violence is hilarious!
15: the narration of the fight is great. nice dialogue.
This script reminds me of mystery men somewhat. But i really like what you've done with it. Great job!
Is this something you plan on shooting? or just writing for a tv series? I think it would make a great tv series or even a great feature. Really solid work here!
Thanks everybody who has posted so far! Much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify to all future posters, this is the pilot episode of a 30min TV series, which I ideally hope will end up being about the 24-26 pages I have here, allowing us to shave a few minutes off bringing the end project to 23-24 minutes.
So the first three pages seem like filler pages. Yeah there’s back-story but I bet you could narrow it down a bit. Maybe we could be following the tour for a little back-story about who Big Daddy is and then they stop by the Pittmans desk and we leave them and start following Pittmans story instead. Love the conference scene Pittman is going to be a great character. I like how there’s a word that has meaning. So many companies do that and everyone reacts just like Leonard and Dana do. Good stuff there. I think for the audtition montages you need to have many more try outs this is a good scene, have people who would be ridiculous such as maybe a little kid, or a priest or some weird things like that. The Twilight reference is great. Really funny and fits well with the vampire thing being big. Nice UofA diss…haha. The middle of your script has some good parts but I think you should narrow it down a bit. For a short film it’s a bit lengthy and there are a couple parts that don’t really move the story forward. However, I think its a great start and such a great story concept and idea.
ReplyDeletehaha wouldn't you know i'd read you're comment after i posted. Anyways, never mind on the cutting your script down part then.
ReplyDeleteHey David, I read through the script you posted and I liked the over all idea. I have a few suggestions... When I read through I kept thinking that this is a mash up between Mad Men, Team Fortress 2, and The Tick. But I wanted a little more Tick comedy, Mad Men snappy dialogue, and TF2 rivalry between Evil Inc and Good Co.
ReplyDeleteI can see where you're going with all of this, but I have a few problems with some parts. I think around page 17 things really slow down. We put a lot of energy into learning about Destructopus and the audition for the vampire guy, but then we switch to Big Daddy dying and the new competition for finding new villains. If you're going to turn this into a TV series, each episode should have a great story arc and also ads to the overall series.
When I was reading some parts, I kept imagining 30 Rock and how the corporate world of Jack & GE encroaches on Liz Lemon's world of TGS. Vise Versa too. I think that its a good balance to show the corporate stuff butting up against the super hero stuff, but we need to see how they shouldn't work but they do some how...
I liked what Chris said earlier. There's ALOT of dialogue and not much action. Show us what's going on and don't tell us so much.
Overall I like how you're mashing up alot of genres and coming up with something fun and different. Great start!
There's a lot here that I'm liking, but it's definitely still a raw piece.
ReplyDeleteI liked the history of the company at the beginning, getting a lot of the exposition out of the way for the rest of the season. To make it more visually interesting, you could have the photo start off as a memory flashback, then have the flash snap back to the photo hanging on the wall.
I'd definitely be careful about the use of names for your villains and heroes. As Erica mentioned, Big Daddy is a Kick Ass character and then there's also the Bioshock reference. It'd be fine for smaller characters, but big important ones should have a fairly unique name.
Pg 15: Destructopus says "Soundwave" and not "Soundbite." Mix up?
In regards to Big Daddy, I think he should remain a shadowy figure that people are terrified of based on his reputation. At this point, he'd have to be extremely old, so it could be humorous if everyone was terrified of this small old guy, but no one knew Big Daddy's true identity except for the higher ups.
I would like to see the characters introduced within in the script actions. Most characters just appear with no history or no mention of job title so I really don't know where they stand or why they are important to the story.
Pg 19-22: These pages are really dialogue heavy with little to no action. Could use some work.
I'd introduce Good Co. earlier. The conflict should really start by the end of the first act, yet the exposition of the company and its day to day actions goes on for longer than it probably should.
Overall though, there's a lot to be played with in regards to the idea. I'm excited to see how it turns out.
I really like this idea.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see more comedy in it, I don't think it is lacking but I would just like more. Also is this going to have more of a cartoonish feel or realistic?
You don't need to capitalize the names of the characters after you have introduced them. Is there a reason why TONY is capitalize in Richard's dialogue? Is he yelling his name? Or LEONARD in Dana's dialogue?
ReplyDeleteWhen the tour guide is giving the history of the company does she put up her fingers and make quote marks in the air when she says the words in quotes? If she doesn't then why are they in quotes?
Cute intro, but it's kind of long. I guess it works for the pilot episode. Are you planning to shoot this pilot?
Great montage, reminded me of the Mystery Men montage.
Is Big Daddy supposed to talk like Foghorn Leghorn?
You have some good dialogue but the you still need to fill in the action. That will definitely add to your script and make it drastically longer? Can you cut this into two episodes? Make it like a comic book where it's To Be Continued at a critical place.
I love the character names! They are totally awesome and fit the genre or audiences you will most likely attract. This is a great time for this kind of show. Comic books are back in it and now with Kick-Ass coming out, you know the studios are looking for the next option.
Are you going to storyboard this at all? I know someone who draws comics and would love this!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDavid!
ReplyDeleteOkay so first of all, when I pictured Evil Inc. it was about how this corporation could get away with evil-doings and still exist within the system. That was where I saw most, if not all, of the humor. Cover-ups, lies, misinterpretation of the name Evil Inc (which is hilariously obvious). You seemed to just go into other territory. Giant pictures of Osama Bin Laden kind of blow that concept out of the water.
Not like this is bad, but like Chris said something needs to explain how they get away with so much. LIKE OTHER "EVIL" CORPORATIONS. (wink, wink, wink)
Anyway, that aside I felt that the dialogue was funny but not snappy. It seemed to run thick at some times and some moments of comedy were never fully realized. Auditions! So many opportunities missed. Doc Ock reference? Use something that's more of your own, something funnier.
All I'm saying is, if you're going to have a dialogue driven satire, you need to punch out more jokes per page.
Otherwise, it was entertaining enough, but if you're going to go with that much talkieness (real word?) More groundwork needs to put down for a series and I just think a lot of people only wound up confused.
Keep up the good work tho. You have a good start.
Hey buddy,
ReplyDeleteI just read your script for the first time. Without having read any of the above comments I was going to say that the exposition is too long. I understand it's a pilot for a TV series but it takes too long to get to the meat of the story. I've talked about this with Crystal in a similar situation and even though you are trying to setup the characters and recurring jokes/plot there needs to be an immediate problem and reward that's addressed in the first episode.
This is a nation of people with too much choice in entertainment (99% is crap but that's beside the point). My point is that when you watch how TV is made today, there's something different happening every 2-3 minutes. If scenes last any longer that than, people stop paying attention and start surfing facebook.
I like the dark comedy, I'm really down for that. However, I think that some of the beginning comes off really kid-like and for the first few pages I honestly thought it was going to be in the style of a pixar animated short. Then it got a bit more mature so I was confused on your intent.
Great start though, I look forward to seeing this one play out. Super villains are awesome.
I really like it! I'm glad that you got it up and have your idea now! :)
ReplyDeleteon page 2, there is one line "he required other villains to assist him", i feel that it might sound kinda weird out loud, awkward. I jut feel it could be written a lil better.
There are a lot of words. I would like to see a little more actions/ know what the actors are doing (as I am sure you would so you know exactly what you want when you are filming).
I really like the tone of this whole film! I think it is quite funny. Maybe a little more room for humor (i'll add instances soon), but overall- awesome!!!
Good job!!!! Cant wait to see what you make of this!!!
Thanks for all the posts. It has really been a big help in solidifying the concept for the pilot. We’re currently reviewing a second draft which I think is a vast improvement over the first. In addition to being entirely rewritten, it has also paid much more attention to the fact that it is meant to be a comedy. Hopefully this new draft more closely resembles the shooting script which, I’m told, will actually be filmed. I look forward to reading your comments in the future and I hope it will be as much fun to read as it was to write.
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