Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest 2013

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  • #16
    Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

    Originally posted by Mr. Earth View Post
    By the way, it probably doesn't change anything, but did you notice that the total number of votes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd are all different totals? 1st has 14 votes, 2nd has 12 (I think), and 3rd has 13 or something.
    Whew, you made me think I'd seriously screwed something up. 14 + 12 + 13 adds up to 39, and there were 13 voters casting 3 votes each, 13 x 3 = 39. So somehow, it all works out! Er, I think. Any math professors around?

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    • #17
      Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

      Note to self: next time enter something original! This is the scene "You Had Me At Hello" was spoofing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTHfZFGoXoE
      FADE IN:
      PERSEVERANCE OVERCOMES ADVERSITY
      NEVER FADE OUT.

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      • #18
        Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

        Well congrats to SC111.

        When's the next contest?
        Hell of a Deal -- Political Film Blog

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        • #19
          Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

          Appreciate the effort all. This was fun, and I'll try and contribute next time.

          My top three were:

          1) Bestiality.

          Easily the most memorable, though I don't think the writer pushed the idea far enough. It took a bit of a predictable path once we got over the initial excitement of the idea. Lots of potential though. I'd love to have seen it tweak various rom-com tropes, and actually try and establish a genuine emotional connection between the man and the animals, however twisted the idea. In other words, have the characters take this very seriously. Also, 'Bestiality' gives the game away right there in the title. How about 'P@ssy'?

          2) Secret Admirer

          I voted for this one as it came closest to real, grown up human emotions. It was a little unclear as to what happened, but I appreciate the writer trying to tackle something straight forward and relatable.

          3) She's The One

          It made me laugh, though I didn't think Mia offered enough to justify Gary's change of heart. That said, an 'R' rated update of My Fair Lady ain't a bad idea at all. Someone get on that.

          As for the others, in no particular order:

          - You Had Me At Hello

          I guess this was spoofing romantic tropes, but it came across as vaguely misogynistic to me. That may not have been deliberate, but that's what going to happen if you just reverse a trope and stop, without going the extra step and looking for the humor in that reversal.

          - It Would Have Been Great

          This relied on its twist, but unfortunately the twist was clear from the moment Cindy says "It's Thursday. He comes in on Thursday".

          - Valentine's Days

          Had a lot of heart, but tried to pack too much story in via the flashbacks. I think that last scene would make the basis of a solid short in itself, without the backstory.

          - Bad Romance

          While Craig's a solidly written douche, Darla's behavior didn't feel real to me at all. I had no sympathy for her.

          - Buick

          Atmospheric, but I'll be honest, I'm not sure what happened. The empty car is supposed to be the big reveal, but I'm not sure what it means.

          - No Bunny

          Another atmospheric entry, but using cancer and dead spouses to garner sympathy for some bad behavior felt too forced and obvious. All a little too coincidental.

          - London Underground

          Doesn't quite come together for me somehow. The valentine's element felt crowbarred in. I do like the idea of this man and woman trapped below, while something unseen but terrible happens above.

          I guess I don't buy the man 'falling in love for the first time'… I think the 'love' angle doesn't have to be as dramatic as the backdrop to be effective. It can just be something small - a glimmer of hope in a dark world, rather than big, teenage declarations of undying love.

          - Oysters

          A curious little tale, but again, I wasn't quite buying Sabrina - she didn't feel like a real woman about to enter the convent. The 'oysters' payoff was also a little too weak to hang a whole story on.

          Thanks for sharing everyone.

          Karl

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          • #20
            Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

            Originally posted by Jai Brandon View Post
            Note to self: next time enter something original! This is the scene "You Had Me At Hello" was spoofing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTHfZFGoXoE
            When I read it I was aware of what you were up to but the original overwhelmed the spoof aspects for me, the humour or "take" must be pretty strong to win out, I reckon. Also -- retaining so much of the original dialogue made it hard to forget JM.

            However you must come back in the next compet and have a pop, getting creamed, mangled, whatever is part of the fun, and being critiqued is a good thing, after the initial smart Jai. Thanks for entering - that's what matters.
            Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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            • #21
              Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

              The feedback is excellent in here.

              As an example, all of it is also spot on and as an example this is how it nailed my little entry:

              I often take bigger risks in these little compets and think, "doing this will isolate some peeps".

              @ Earth, oh yeah, those damn PAUSES, but here's the weird thing, I expected to get crucified for them and left them in to see how it went. I don't like beats either. I used a downbeat Pinter play as inspiration, of sorts anyway.

              And the scene where the subjective camera finds them, risky and may have been a mistake. some horror films use this I believe. It diorientates.

              @Derek yes, after a brief rewrite I twigged he'd have his Denison Smock on, duh, it was dusty though, ha ha, the old style para jacket, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denison_smock
              kind of pictured this as something perhaps you'd find in early Brit SF, say from Quatermass or early Dr Who maybe. "1970s".

              And the "MAN" and "WOMAN" thing, oh boy yeah, was laughing as I kept that in, they'd only just met, it was all very constrained, but again, bland, huge risk, just the sort of screw up to try out in here. Ha ha.

              BOOM - BOOM - BOOM ...seemed very risky as this was intended not so much as BIG GUNS slogging it out so much, but something weird, unseen, creepy, plasma weapons, huge machines smashing up the ground, who knows? I didn't.

              @Karl Oh yeah, it was definitely clunky and jammed in, one of the probs with these short scripts, I like what Sc111 said earlier about leaving punch lines out, and leaving it open. Originally, I just wrote something on the note like "some Valentine's huh..."
              Thanks for voting/the feedback dude.

              LONDON UNDERGROUND is a risky title in the UK, it's so familiar, but I wanted to slow it down into LONDON.... underground! and try to erode the corporate familiarity some!
              Last edited by The Road Warrior; 02-23-2013, 01:32 PM. Reason: links/pruning
              Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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              • #22
                Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

                I didn't take notes when I read - sorry - and will have to go back to reread the entries later to give proper feedback.

                However, I do recall thinking It Would Have Been Great reminded me of a film in which (I think) Clive Owens starred as a bank robber? So I sort of knew what was coming.

                It's interesting to read the feedback on mine to see where it fits in with my thought process.

                I liked the visual image of the pet shop as last man standing in a row of vacant storefronts. That put me onto the Walmart thing -- the harsh reality that Walmart, in small towns, is like a cancer eating up local businesses. So I chose to go with "cancer" as a recurring idea uniting the characters. I didn't like the newscast either but I couldn;t think of another way and wanted to finish it in one sitting. However, if I were to rewrite it I'd likely toss that and find another way. I'd might also rethink the cancer angle too.

                I fun exercise all around.
                Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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                • #23
                  Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

                  I guess since everyone else is sharing...

                  Mine was adapted from a short story I wrote awhile ago that has been rejected more times than I can count. I've always liked it, and wondered if I could adapt it since the short story relies a lot on atmosphere and internal monologue since the guy in the story isn't quite...right.

                  Oh, and Bestiality as a title is a little too spot on, but I've always thought of it as not so much the literal interpretation, but a word that describes how men can regard females: as "pets" or objects for nothing more than their own satisfaction.

                  Or, it could just be based on true events that happened to...a friend of mine.

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                  • #24
                    Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

                    Originally posted by Richmond Weems View Post
                    Oh, and Bestiality as a title is a little too spot on,
                    I like the title because I think it starts a rhythm of sorts. Beasts?!; no, just a cat; oh but wait...; but good we don't see them actually doing it; but wait, now there's a dog?!;...

                    While I think I understand what you mean by the underlined note - not seeing their lips move "except as noted" (or some such) - I was ultimately unclear on that because (and maybe I missed it), I didn't notice the parts where we are supposed to see their lips move.

                    FWIW, I've agonized over crafting notes of that sort - to make them both concise and clear.

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                    • #25
                      Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

                      Originally posted by polfilmblog View Post
                      Well congrats to SC111.

                      When's the next contest?
                      Halloween will probably be the next one we run.

                      That's: Dpaterson/Roadwarrior Short Exercise Productions.

                      With the 3 weeks or so each compet typically runs over, anymore might overload on workload and entrant interest. This is based on the gaffs we've made over time. We've bombed before being too hasty.
                      I've already been sketching out something for Halloween in spare moments here and there but we tend to leave it wide generally, and open on interp. 8 pages, something evil!
                      Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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                      • #26
                        Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

                        I'd like to throw some of my feedback up, just got to try and read my notes, read the entries a few times, x3, and so made brief messy notes. Always a mistake later in.
                        Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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                        • #27
                          Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

                          Originally posted by Manchester View Post
                          While I think I understand what you mean by the underlined note - not seeing their lips move "except as noted" (or some such) - I was ultimately unclear on that because (and maybe I missed it), I didn't notice the parts where we are supposed to see their lips move.

                          FWIW, I've agonized over crafting notes of that sort - to make them both concise and clear.
                          Actually, I wasn't sure how to do it, either, but I didn't want anyone to think any of the animals, including my main character (an unreliable narrator), as really talking. But I didn't want to do it all as VO 'cause that would've been distracting, and the reader would've possibly been wondering why the hell there's all this VO when the characters are carrying on a conversation.

                          I tried to make it as clear as I could and I guess I succeeded somewhat.

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                          • #28
                            Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

                            I pictured it like the old post apocalypse film A Boy and His Dog. IIRC Don Johnson spoke to the dog, but the dog's dialog was all VO. It worked well.

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                            • #29
                              Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

                              - just wanted to try some basic feedback, from the gut for the most part, may not cover each and every entry, as some of what I would have said has been more than adequately covered by other entrants.

                              Doing a Noah here... two by two.

                              Bestiality, I enjoyed this, but it was one of the examples that screwed up my initial efforts at trying to find a criteria by which to judge, as it struck me as being out of and inspired by Weird Tales, or the genre of Weird Fiction. That's fine because that's what we want, but I just had to think, how do we compare these.

                              Very well written, obvious ease and confidence in the writing and left me feeling uneasy as it should have done. I saw it like you might see a straight domestic drama play but without the weirdness, because of that I had no trouble in deciding not to try and red into it, as metaphor, or by some other criteria, weird fiction doesn't seem to work like that, you just get that it is taking you into some other uncomfortable reality.

                              And then there's Oysters which unfortunately didn't score many votes this time!

                              Alas that was a shame but there's only three to be allocated and the writer shouldn't worry about that. That's how it goes down here in WE.

                              Anyhow, I for one enjoyed this entry and feel it's been overlooked. Maybe that's in part because of how it all began.

                              That beginning struck me as a cheeky, playful form of hyper-reality, even though it was in screenplay form, I felt like I was inside the woman's head.

                              And if that's what goes on girls in these moments, well, the less said the better.

                              But yeah, I'd say there was some good solid writing in there, saw what you were up to, experimental, crazy, risky, and well, completely bonkers in places! I had to do some rereading though, as it went on, it may have digressed in places, all of that intense chatter, tended to confuse a tad occasionally, we men get easiy confused you see.

                              However, got the impression you slogged at it, seemed very polished and that you'd worked hard at it too.

                              ...I'll leave it at that for now.
                              Last edited by The Road Warrior; 02-24-2013, 08:43 AM.
                              Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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                              • #30
                                Re: Results - Voluptuous Valentines contest

                                Sorry I'm so late getting back to this party, I've been pretty sick for a week. Nasty bugs going around, not fun.

                                Anyway, as usual I used the exercise to try something new, completely outside my comfort zone in genre and storytelling devices (voice-over & flashback). Great notes on that, thanks! I'm happy with the writing and like the story, but agree that the format is flawed. It doesn't help that I crammed the 12 pages of first draft into just over 8 for this exercise, but it didn't break the script, only accentuated the fundamental problem.

                                I really like "No Bunny", great writing and a lovely story with a nice solid hook, and strong dialogue and characters. The only drawback is it's too convenient, it could use a few more pages to balance the pace for believability.

                                2nd for me was "Secret Admirer". Writing is good, believable characters, decent dialogue. The Valentine's Day requirement felt tacked on. Also, logic question: why would a tow truck driver call the cell phone and not the police?

                                3rd choice was "She's The One", highly original with decent dialogue and an unforgettable character in Mia. The pace was derailed by exposition with Gary's backstory and the whole intervention, but otherwise it has great potential.
                                Vancouver Screenwriters Meetup Group

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