Feedback would be greatly appreciated.
I've been really enjoying Happy Endings and wanted to create something similar, with a fast-tempo, variety of jokes and young, nubile, sexy characters for me to fantasise-- I mean, "write" about.
Here is the first scene, four pages.
I'd just like to know what your initial impressions of the tone, characters are,
[UPDATED DRAFT 21 MARCH] http://www.scribd.com/doc/86212135/Untitled-Sitcom-Pilot
First of all lose the description of "you know the sort" sounds a bt racist.
That first joke about the M names is very good it's a nice played out bit of character comedy. Especially the nod wink reference to him losing interest.
But after that way to much tell and to little show. They spend to much tell us what they do and are.
But you've got some decent characters work on them.
"You know the sort" sounds racist? The smart, young black male is just a stock character at the moment so I was taking the piss out of that. But it's expendable, obviously.
I was just trying to establish the dynamic between the two characters, some background on them, the nature of the humour and I wasn't sure action was necessary. But I'll have a work on it.
The dynmaic is good.
But lines about you're a law student etc feel a bit clunky.
Quote: sootyj @ March 18 2012, 8:27 PM GMTThe dynmaic is good.
But lines about you're a law student etc feel a bit clunky.
Yeah that's one line I wasn't sure about. I've got alternates but I'll probably just excise it altogether.
For anyone interested, here is a revised opening.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/86212135/Untitled-Sitcom-Pilot
(don't worry, it's still pretty short)
Shamelessly late bump.
You know I thought it was a pretty good, the dialogue seemed real, the gags were quite good and the ending MARY(extremely loudly)ANDY?! HI! was clever. I think the only critism is the characters mostly can all be described with the same words. I know its only one scene but it just seemed they all had the same "voice" so maybe more character development is needed, or maybe I'm being anal, but its defiantly got potential.
Thanks Jowan. I know what you mean about different "voices", I'm finding that the hardest part at the moment.
I thought that the way you write sitcoms is to just make that shit as funny as possible before letting the actors find that voice? Nah, I'm just kidding (but not really). Does anyone have any tips?
Clunky, you will need some extremely practiced actors to pull this off or some crazy imagery to get the comedy flowing. I think you have it just need to be less precise with your writing, remember that comedy is usually a twist of the reality of language.
Quote: andrew ebert @ April 15 2012, 8:45 PM BSTClunky, you will need some extremely practiced actors to pull this off or some crazy imagery to get the comedy flowing. I think you have it just need to be less precise with your writing, remember that comedy is usually a twist of the reality of language.
Less precise?
What do you really mean when you say "a twist of the reality of language"? Because that just sounds like words people say. I understand that the nature of comedy is twisting of the expected but I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Quote: masterfox20 @ April 15 2012, 10:28 PM BSTLess precise?
What do you really mean when you say "a twist of the reality of language"? Because that just sounds like words people say. I understand that the nature of comedy is twisting of the expected but I'm not sure what you're getting at.
I think you are writing TOO prose, TOO professional, TOO grammatically correct, etc. I used to do the same thing because I used to write tons of research papers. Remember that the audience is only used to a certain level of language, presentation, and understanding. 
The clothing descriptions are unnecessary. You should definitely remove them.
Also, you haven't been consistent with your age descriptions, most say 26 but Mary has early-twenties. You should probably just change all the ages to mid-twenties. 26 is way too specific. You've used too many words to describe Mary, and I'd probably just drop the descriptions of all the female characters, as you'd assume they were attractive anyway. It's television.
The script reads like a cross between Seinfeld and Community, but it doesn't really go anywhere. The writing is good though, it's smart but I can't really see much of a plot. It seems like more of a 5 page set up for an all caps texting joke. I think it suffers from being such a short sample though, and I would think (and hope) it progresses and goes somewhere. I've followed you on Scribd, as I'd like to read any updates you'd post.
For now, I'd just focus on removing all of those little specific character descriptions, as they suggest the script shouldn't be taken seriously. Those are jobs for a wardrobe designer and a casting director, not a script writer.
(Most of this advice is influenced by reading How Not To Write A Sitcom by Marc Blake that I'm about halfway through, I'd really recommend it to you based on what I've read so far).
Seinfeld/Community was kind of what I was going for (it started off as an English version of Happy Endings, which is basically Seinfeld/Community) but yeah the plot is still something I'm working out.
I also think it might work a little better as an "episode 2" rather than a pilot? What do you think?
Quote: masterfox20 @ April 20 2012, 10:00 AM BSTI also think it might work a little better as an "episode 2" rather than a pilot? What do you think?
I'm not sure, it's too early to tell from what I've read, it only was a few pages. Is the rest of the episode already written?