Comments Made During the Contest

Ayal Pinkus (Level 5)

First action paragraph leaves me wondering what type of city street. I'm imagining New York...

The narrator states the obvious, then apologizes for it. Characterization of the narrator.

It is "passerby" I think, not "passer by".

It has something surreal about it, being in one body and hearing some one else narrate.

Ah, I'm the first-person viewer, and the movie plays the role of the omnipotent being. Great idea for a short!

Then we're introduced to the second omnipotent narrator, and they start a fight. Great surprise, and now it has become comedy. The female narrator clearly represents the world outside of storytelling. She wants the first narrator to just give up telling stories, and for him to go to a student party instead.

I liked the way you depicted that. Unconventional as it might be, it worked for me.

Excellent open ending, makes us want to know what the omnipotent narrator wants to show us. Great way to show what it feels like to be a story-teller! You are the boss, you decide on what the scenery is, and then people start to crowd the scenes and they start to do things.

"SMASH CUT TO BLACK.", what is that?

Great original idea for a short!

Bob Johnson (Level 4)

Very well written, formatted nicely, didn't spot any typos or grammatical errors.

I wasn't sure about the 'first line of dialogue being the same as the last line of dialogue' because the start and ending dialogue seemed to be a continuation of more dialogue.

Story didn't seem to have any real substance to it, seemed like the start of one of those crazy Walt Disney documentary type films from the 1950's.

Put together nicely, just not much to it.

Brian Howell (Level 5)

The bit with the sheep, then cutting to a dinner table with roasted lamb is pretty funny. But outside of that, there isn't much to this. It feels like an exercise in writing narration.

It draws too much attention to itself and not enough happens to make up for it. The writing isn't bad, it's just there is a tremendous lack of story. A few witty lines and the sheep joke, and that was about it.

I. Think you have talent as a writer, I would only suggest putting your efforts into something a little more involving by way of story and character development. Not terrible, not great. Good job.

Brian Wind (Level 5)

This was written, paced and formatted very well.

Obviously there wasn't much story going on here, but I feel like I missed the joke. The fact that the script started over seemed like a punchline to me, but the problem was that I just didn't get it at all.

There are long stretches of VO dialogue with no descriptions in between so how is a director supposed to know what is supposed to be on the screen during that time? (Example would be almost all of Page 3. That's a minute of film time with nothing onscreen.)

Nice effort. I can appreciate that you were certainly thinking outside the box on this script, I just wish it made sense to me.

Chris Messineo (Founder)

I thought this was very clever. It was different and unusual and I liked that.

I'm not sure how well it would play on film, the visuals are never quite as entertaining as the VO, but I think with good actors (as the narrators) it could be really fun.

Well done.

Dan Delgado (Level 5)

Fun, different, no vampires or zombies -- what's not to like?

This is my fifth Excellent this month.

Good luck. Thanks for entering.

Denise Jewell (Level 4)

Nice job. This is entertaining and thought provoking, kind of Monty Python esque. It does, however, need some work to make it cinematic. When the two voices are talking to each other, I'm not sure what we are seeing -- I think it's the dinner scene. You should go back over this and think about filming it - what would each shot be as the voices speak? Maybe you add that the scene shifts and so the first voice reacts. Look at the comic animated pieces in "The Holy Grail." Even though the comedy is completely in the dialouge, Terry Gilliam gives us stuff to look at with his moving animation that pulls the whole thing together.

Ed Jones (Level 4)

As a script this is well written with only one formatting problem, as far as I can tell.
SMASH CUT TO is not generally advisable but here it seems to have no value.
How is it faster than CUT TO? As far as I understand it SMASH CUT only works as a sudden transition between two (often contrasting) scenes.

That said, for me this is a mildly amusing joke that goes on too long. It has no compelling story and no memorable characters. Not to my taste but I score it Good.

Gary Rademan (Level 5)

summary: an omnipotent god pokes fun at different perspectives

deja vu: phrase worked better at beginning than the end * Hi there. Welcome to the movies."

comments: story was hard to make sense of * movement of the camera between scenes was great *

Graham Trelfer (Level 4)

I think with no real story to contend with, this could be cut in half and still not lose anything. It is a nice to have the narrator to become self aware and show off his power, but this just read like a stream of consciousness that didn't really focus on any strong idea.

Greg Tonnon (Level 5)

The title works; it sets the mood and tone well. The craft is flawless. The story reminds me of "2001: A Space Odyssey". The dialogue is good, natural and unique. I would have liked more of unique story or twist.

Heather O'Connell (Level 4)

This was a fun and interesting exchange. I love the two narrators. I think you could do something really good with this, but the end didn't live up to my expectation.

JeanPierre Chapoteau (Moderator)

No story, so nothing to really rate it on. It's attempt at humor was okay, I wasn't really feeling it.

I didn't see any typos.

Josh LaMar (Level 2)

I'm not really sure what to say about this. I think it had potential but it didn't really make much sense. It just... was all over the place. I saw myself going back and trying to read it again but I didn't even want to finish it the second time. Try again man...

Kelley Allen (Level 3)

Fun! Not much of a plot here from what I can gather but more of an exercise in playful banter. Some funny moments that I really enjoyed include the comparison of the people to the sheep and the roast dinner that bahs. Not much of a point but the narrator points that out in the script already.

Khamanna Iskandarova (Level 5)

The idea of filming your own movie is good I think. It's also not many characters...
I couldn't understand what the movie is about. I know it's a comedy from the tone of it. I think it could be funnier. He starts with the people on streets, then mentions that he's an omnipotent, then films animals... Then another one comes into play and wants to be an omnipotent - for me it's a bit lack of central idea.

KP Mackie (Level 5)

Clever and funny. Loved jumping from the city street scene and "People walking" to the field scene with "Sheep doing nothing." The mental picture of "A sheep looks up and BAAS" is a scream. Not a fan of addressing the reader/audience, but totally bought the Narrator, in his omnipotence, offering to show the cutting back and forth from the city street to the sheep again. The arrival of the Woman voiceover adds some conflict and tension, albeit tongue-in-cheek. Assume the Narrator is male; the male/female combination plays well off each other and it's funny. Could envision that Intercut flipping from city street to field of sheep to dinner to party, etc, etc. Cool.
Difficult to pull off this type of writing. In order to keep the slick pacing, might want to streamline the dialogue even more to, perhaps, two lines max, especially after the Woman appears.
Entertaining and enjoyable. Amazing how easy a fun read can be...

Margaret Ricke (Level 5)

The title is okay.

I had a hard time understanding the following the first few times I read through this:

NARRATOR (V.O.)
Oh yes, that’s changed it. And, you
know what? I’ve just realized I’m a
clever omnipotency with the people
then sheep thing. I’ll do it again,
just in case you missed it.

It seemed like there were a word or two left out or misplaced, but I couldn't think what they'd be. I did figure it out eventually... it takes me awhile sometimes. You might want to consider wording this differently. See what others say.

The tone of the dialogue reminds me of one of those films they used to make us watch in school. The ones where a cartoon red blood cell explains the circulatory system, you know? Think of the DNA sequence in "Jurassic Park." The tone is sort of condescending. I know that's the way it's supposed to sound, but it gets old fast...

I'm not sure what you intend with this. The weird part is that I could sit here and speculate all day... there's plenty of food for thought... I just don't care. This doesn't move me in any direction at all emotionally. I'm not even bored...

Martin Jensen (Level 5)

Points for doing something experimental, although I felt that, like the omnipotent man, you were just looking for something to say but never really found anything meaningful. Maybe the message is that there is no message? That's pretty existentialist.

Michael Berg (Level 3)

Why capitalize "BAAS?" Unless we know someone is physically manipulating a camera, it's best not to keep mentioning that the reader/audience is looking into camera.

I have to say this reads more like a stage play then screen. There's hardly anything visually happening, it's all talk. What would the audience be really watching during all this VO? Sheep and people walking? There's got to be more.

I'd try to set it up with more visual cues.

Patrick Skaggs (Level 3)

Fun script...most so far in this contest have been of a serious, tedious nature..this came along at the right time for me. I can't say I completety understood everything that was going on, and there probably was some larger point to the story that I missed, as I usually do, but I did laugh a few times...I had never found sheep funny before.

Your writing and technicals seemed flawless to me. very good job.

Paul De Vrijer (Level 5)

I think this is a little too easy. At first, it's funny but it goes on too long without a specific point. Would be stronger if it had more of a theme to it.

The woman is introduced and then she just dissappears.

I don't find the loop so strong either.

Cool idea, but very underused. I mean, you can do ANYTHING with this concept. Yet you just did this. Field and street. Get more omnipotent!

Sally Meyer (Moderator)

I gave you a good, because the story is unique and fun. The thing that trips me up is the constant voice over. What is going on on the screen while the whole page of voice over is happening? The narrator is someone we never see and so it's hard to get a handle on his character. Then we have a woman come in and they go back and forth with dialog in voice over.

Voice over is very very tricky. Lots of people don't like a lot of it.

I think the story needs work, but it has potential.

Spenser Davis (Level 1)

In a craft where some artists look down upon the use of voice-over, I love that your entire script was nothing BUT voice-over. However, I think that is where the cleverness ends. I would have liked it if the omnipotent characters had more moments where they were dumbstruck, as if to falsify the script's title. Also, in an exercise like this one (where we the readers know what the final line has to be), I could already see the unsatisfying ending coming from a mile away. Making the other omnipotent voice female could've led to some interesting dynamics, but nothing was really explored to the full extent.

I do think your central idea will help making your script stand out, though.

Stephen Brown (Level 5)

So a narrator without a story to tell. Interesting and potentially funny idea. What does an omnipotent narrator do on his day off?

I don't think you've used the idea to the best of its potential. I'm sorry to say that I thought this was a little boring.

My advice, keep the idea but think about a better way to use it. Good for the idea alone.

Tim Ratcliffe (Level 4)

Yeah, didn't work for me at all. Seems like you were trying to be a bit too clever for your own good and the end result is it falls flat. I'll give you points for trying something different, but I don't think you pulled it off here.

Travis DeStein (Level 5)

This was cute, but it never had any point at all. Even the silliest but good comedies have some kind of direction or purpose. This was just tedious in its randomness. I wish you would've explored the whole concept of the omniscient narrator, it seems like a one-page idea stretched to fit five right now.

Comments Made After the Contest

Chris Messineo (Founder) ~ 5/1/2011 12:30 AM

I thought this was very clever. I really enjoyed it a lot.

KP Mackie (Level 5) ~ 5/1/2011 12:48 AM

A VG from me. How did this not place? Clever and funny.

Philip Whitcroft (Level 5) ~ 5/3/2011 8:21 PM

Thanks for all the comments. This was another entry from me where I couldn't resist the temptation to try something "experimental". Inevitably it works for some people and doesn't work for others.

I had fun with it and feel good about how it turned out.

Kyle Patrick Johnson (Level 5) ~ 5/5/2011 4:23 PM

Philip, I'm sorry I didn't get to this one in the contest. Great job as usual, with your clever take on screenwriting. That was a really interesting way to break the fourth wall. Good stuff!