Thread: THE ADVENTURES OF MR. MOTH MAN

THE ADVENTURES OF MR. MOTH MAN

INT. BEDROOM

A bird's eye view shot will show Mr. and Mrs. Pat lounging on their
bed, half awake and seemingly separated at the far end corners with
their backs facing each other. Suddenly, an alarm begins to scream,
which is haphazardly placed on a night stand besides Mrs. Pat. For a
few moments, both are visibly awake and motionless, thus the alarm is
still sound. Out of irritability, Mr. Pat turns over to the direction
of Mrs. Pat, grabs her shoulder and motions her to his face.

MR. PAT

(Sarcastically, in a rather preachy tone) Oh my god, thank thee ole
mighty god! For a second their Molly, I thought you were dead!
(Stretching an arm over her, he hits the alarm and then complete,
utter silence.)

MRS. PAT

(Even more sarcastic, still glaring up at Mr. Pat) Oh, Boo Hoo Bronco!
(Serious and calmed) And what would you have done? (A close up on Mr.
Pat's face announces his sudden confusion; he dose not know what to
say), Poor baby, go back to sleep. (She starts to imitate a child,
with her hands clasp at her head, while she begins to sleep).

MR. PAT

(Irritated) Can't mama cause baby goes to work for a living. (He
starts to get out of bed).

MRS. PAT

(Startled, she forcefully sits up and crosses her arms).
Oh really?! Then where's the bacon baby?!

MR. PAT

(Turning to her, at first angry and then understanding, he realizes
that they really don't have much, this fact is executed by a side shot
of the entire bedroom revealing a barren room). Ah come on now?
Alright, shit your righty right! (Saddened) You're always right, I
mean you were.

MRS. PAT

(Angry) Oh god bronco, fucking shit! This shit hole! You shit hole!
(Explosive) Fuck! (Calmed and seemingly drained) You know what, for
Christ's sake, I mean really for Christ's sake, not mine! Grow the
fuck up.

MR. PAT

(Angry) Oh and how can I grow without water, huh? I go out there, out
of my goddam way, you know, I could just stop and then what? Eh? Eh?
Ya won't be sleeping on clean sheets my dear! (Begins to cry) I go out
there, work, work, fucking work and I'm thirsty, so then I come home,
you sitting on your ass all day (Mrs. Pat turns to Mr. Pat giving him
the look) Alright wow, honey wow me with your pathetic fucking roast
and your liquid mashed potatoes, sour ass cherry pie! (Mrs. Pat smirks
and turns back over to sleep) I mean I work, I work and I'm thirsty
and all you do is throw more dirt on me?

MRS. PAT
(A moment of silence) Good night Bronco.

MR. PAT

(Fed up, and furious) Wake up and smell the coffee, its fucking morning bitch!

CUT




INT. BATHROOM

Mr. Pat is standing in front of a fogged mirror, noticeably wet, with
only a towel around him. He opens the door while a flood of steam
starts to rush out. He grabs another towel from a cabinet and starts
to dry his hair.


MR. PAT

(Speaking to Mrs. Pat in the other room) Hey honey, I'm still mad at
you you know that was some shitty shit you said so don't think because
I'm calling you honey I forgave you, but anyways, hypothetically
speaking, what if our lovely daughter was in her bathroom, and I was
here in our bathroom, drying my hair like I am now, and you know it
takes so long, and you happened to have the urge to piss, but you
still didn't let me use your blow dryer, which, I mean, would cut my
time to go to work and your waiting time to piss in half, what would
you do?

MRS. PAT

(Groggy, yet responsive) I would piss on your head, bronco.

MR. PAT (INTERNAL MONOLOGUE)

(Looking in the mirror, still drying his hair) Ooooh now wouldn't that
be nice, thirteen years of bad sex, I mean I got it, you on the other
hand Mrs. Abyss, Mrs. Saggy lips, you don't. If I'd get you to do
something kinky like that, we'd have three more kids. Ah, what am I
saying, sex is sex, but it's different with a cave.

MR. PAT

(Chuckling to himself) Yea Ok.

LAUREN

(Running into the bathroom, hugging Mr. Pat) Daddy, daddy you know
what today is? It's Christmas Eve, and today at school were gonna have
a party, and lots of candy, and secret pal presents but we only get to
open one and what did you get me?

MRS. PAT

(Fully awake) Oh, baby girl come here, let your daddy get dressed for
work, he'll be running really late, super soon!



MR. PAT

(Bending down to the height of Lauren, and squeezing her cheeks) And
we wouldn't want that to happen now would we?

LAUREN

(A bit saddened) No daddy. (Excited) But come on! Come on! What you get me?

MR. PAT

(A little irritated) Ah come on, later ok? Now go over there to your
mommy, cause I got something real, real big to tell both of you.

LAUREN

(Sitting on Mrs. Pat's lap) How big, look daddy, this big? (She
motions her hands as big as she can).

MR. PAT

(Now shaving) Now, I meant to tell your mother first thing this
morning, but I knew she would be too excited and I would have broken
her precious sleep.

MRS. PAT
(Nonchalantly to Lauren) Mmmhmmm.

MR. PAT

But, Wilson and Co. just gave me a once in a lifetime promotion, and
all I have to do is give a little speech to the board members. And I'm
a killer; I'd kill anything for my family, so you know I'll kill this!
(Shaving and admiring himself in the mirror) Just imagine, I will be
making triple, Mrs. Pat and Mrs. Lauren will accompany me to all, I
mean all, if I can, trips and what nots. Tokyo, London, Paris… (Mr.
Pat finishes shaving and moves into the bedroom to find both Mrs. Pat
and Lauren gone; he hangs his head down low). So much for water eh?

CUT

First two scenes

You have really got a knack for writing dialogue. Good. Sounds like how a husband and wife would talk to each when things are not going well. Believable.

I too really enjoyed the dialogue, and think you could have the start of something nice here.

Perhaps take a look at the formating though - I've made a few suggestions in the quote box, plus a couple of 'in my opinion' style pointers below. Sorry it's so long, but I liked the dialogue/characters so much I wanted to give you my full two cents...

You don't need to 'direct' the actors dialogue, the emotions etc. should be obvious from the lines you've written. The actors might find it a bit preachy, plus it breaks up the flow of your script (a general exception to this is if they are being sarcastic, but this shouldn't really be vital, especially here where it's so obvious). If you want to represent a change of emotion or something, you could always break up the dialogue with a character action in the scene description that indicates this (i.e. 'show don't tell', although I hate saying that it's even more important in a script. Don't put anything in the script that can't be directly represented on the screen. So don't say '(fed up)', have them do something that makes it obvious. Your job as screenwriter is to describe actions that represent emotions, not the emotions themselves.).

You should always want the general experience of reading your script to be as close to actually watching the film as possible, if you know what I mean, so pacing is pretty important. Try and break up the scene descriptions in such a way as the 'beats' follow the pace of the film. Also try and keep them to 3 lines or so max (you'll see what I mean below), because this makes it clear and easy to read.

Originally Posted by hello12345

THE ADVENTURES OF MR. MOTH MAN

INT. BEDROOM

A bird's eye view shot will show Mr. and Mrs. Pat lounging on their
bed, half awake and seemingly separated at the far end corners with
their backs facing each other.

Suddenly, an alarm begins to scream.

For a few moments, both are visibly awake and motionless. Out of irritability, Mr. Pat turns over to the direction of Mrs. Pat, grabs her shoulder and motions her to his face.


MR. PAT
(Sarcastically)
Oh my god, thank thee ole mighty god! For a second their Molly, I thought you were dead!


Stretching an arm over her, he hits the alarm...

...then complete, utter silence.


MRS. PAT
Oh, Boo Hoo Bronco! And what would you have done?


A close up on Mr. Pat's face announces his sudden confusion.


MRS. PAT (cont.)
Poor baby, go back to sleep.


Mrs Pat starts to imitate a child, with her hands clasp at her head, while she begins to sleep.


MR. PAT
Can't mama cause baby goes to work for a living.


Mr Pat starts to get out of bed. Startled, Mrs Pat forcefully sits up and crosses her arms.


MRS. PAT
Oh really?! Then where's the bacon baby?!

... I'm sure you get the idea.

I think you get more of a feel for the finished scene that way, personally.

One other thing - if a character is speaking off screen, you should put [O/S] under or next to their name to make it clear. And if Mr.Pat goes from the bathroom to the bedroom, it should be a new scene - as a rule, you need to change the scene every time you'd need to change the camera set up.

Good luck with the rest.

To Lazerbeak,

Wow, that advise was excellent. I write nonfiction but I'm curious about script writing. I learned something here too.

That's what the writers forum is about. Helping each other and learning from one another.

I thank both of you, because I was soon to consider to discard both peices and restart.

ahh,... It reminds me of the Invader Zim series. Bacon baby... *chuckles *

Lose all the parentheticals.
Trust the speech to show anger, don't put action direction in the speeches.

Lose the "will show" thing in the first line. VERY off, that.

Lose "suddenly"

Rework the whole initial description of their positions. Start by chucking out "seemingly"

Get rid of " thus the alarm is still sound." Makes NO sense at all.

"turns over to the direction of" is confused and too wordy.

The whole first paragraph needs to be radically reduced. It's only two lines of direction, really.

MR PAT--description here--and MRS PAT--description--lie in bed back to back. The awake to a jangling alarm. Mr. Pat grabs Mrs. Pat's shoulder and
(I have no idea what "motions her to his face" means, but it's like three words at the end of this thing)

That's the way scripts work.

Lose "CUT"

The last speech is a real train wreck. Aside from bald expostion, it contains TWO parentheticals which are actually direction that don't belong in a speech at all.

Read some scripts and work this down until it is the way they are written.