Craigslist Casual Encounters section

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Has anyone ever had any dealings with someone they met off the CE section on Craigslist? I'm just curious. And I know by posting this up I might come across as a male in need of some CL affection but its for a mockumentary I was thinking about. Sort of where a guy breaks up with a chick. Now sexless and in the dumps his friends decide they wanna get him laid and four of them try CL but have varying experiences. Just wanted to know if there was any real credence to the ads up there or is it just a bunch of hookers. Please feel free to use "a friend of mine used it once" if you;re not cool with revealing you fetish with anonymous sex :lol:
 
No, and I dont have a friend that has..

Potentially very funny things could happen, and since your doing a Mocumentary, anything goes. Right?

You could just make up some very funny situations.

Or, do your own research. Call in on a few of those and see what happens... report your discoveries if you please!
 
I'm afraid I'm going to have to invoke my rights under the 5th amendment here...

dude, read a few days worth of the ads.. you will get a MILLION ideas on potential weirdness and funny situations that could happen.
 
I have read a bunch of them, I just wanted to see if anyone here had any firsthand exp. lol.

I had this one image of a guy who goes to meet a chick at a nice hotel goes inside and there's like candles everywhere witha red glow all over the room, there's some wine but next to it is a big ornate knife, he walks in a the women comes out of the bathroom looking to take fetish to the next level. Then there's the spam I was reading about that gets you to prove how you're real just to get your credit card and I thought it'd be funny the various ways peopel came up with to prove they were real, a girl fingering a wet vagina over the phone "are you sure you're real because it sounds like a plunger in a toilet". Needless to say I've had some ideas, that monastery idea is really funny, but realistically it might be more like dead in a ditch lol.
 
I'm with wheat. No need for you to make a movie that is accurate to reality. Because, really, how many people could share their experiences? Very few, I would think. For the vast majority of people, I think, this is probably a very foreign world. And that means that you can just make a bunch of crazy shit up. Could be a fun movie!
 
brianluce said:
Fertile ground but keep in mind some really unfunny and ghastly things have been associated with CL girl services. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Markoff
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I heard about that guy and there were teh girls found on long beach in NY this past summer. It'll probably be a lot more lighthearted than anything related to the real life encounters of the countless unfortunate.

Cracker Funk said:
I'm with wheat. No need for you to make a movie that is accurate to reality. Because, really, how many people could share their experiences? Very few, I would think. For the vast majority of people, I think, this is probably a very foreign world. And that means that you can just make a bunch of crazy shit up. Could be a fun movie!
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I agree that reality might need to be suspended here. Would be funny though if because of his experience he is so traumatized that he commits himself to a life of silence and celibacy in a monastery. I'm thinking now about it would be funny if it started as this one monk opening up about what drove him to be a monk, then go into "dramatic" reenactments dateline style like I'm shooting a Helter Skelter movie lol. Not sure though.

How would I go about writing something like this, it wouldn't be a typical story more like a camcorder and really frank dialogue.
 
Thanks. I just checkd that out. Funny story lol. And that picture is priceless. How do I write a mockumentary though? Is it all improv kinda stuff or should I have a basic outline like a regular genre script?
 
Improvisation requires the right actors.. but you could get gold..

I like your premise of interviewing monks.. the fun could be in SHOCKING the interlocutor, who happens to be a Nun from another order who is investigating a upward trend in young men joining monastic orders.

The mocumentry discovers that that failed CL escapades is the largest force driving the upsurge..

And finally our interviewing NUN's last interview is cut short when one of the monks says.. "Hey, dont I know you.. !"

lol.
 
The key to mocumentries, I believe, is having a consistent premise. Not real, or even believable, but consistent.

If there were aliens living in South Africa, what would they do. Who would you talk to, who would you interview. Start from the BIG concept and make the world around it fit.
 
Sounds like it could be fun. I've been thinking about the Christopher Guest mocumentaries lately. If you like those films, you might try looking at their screenplays. Well poop, I was going to link you to those screenplays (I would like to see them too), but wouldn't you know it, they don't seem to be readily available. :( Anyway, they include Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighy Wind etc. Maybe they don't have the right vibe for your film. But I think what makes them work, as it's often said about successful comedy in general, the players play it earnestly, they commit as though they were playing serious drama, as opposed to playing it with a wink and a nod to the audience --like they're in on the joke and know how silly it all is.

Hope to see what you do with it!
 
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Thanks guys yea I agree that improv takes the right actors, luckily my friends one of which is an upright citizen's brigade actor and another who's in another similar group are both into imptrov and might have some connects in that regard. I dk though it might be fun to come up with an actual screenplay. EDIT: They're not really friends one's a cousin who lives kinda far, and the other is more of an acquaintance I used to play beer pong with in college.

Spinal tap is definitely what I was thinking but with out the rock music and more about the mission to find out what CL casual encounters are really about. I was thinking I could have one guy get involved with a weird group sex thing kind of like an eyes wide shut thing., a couple of guys posing as women on the internet hoping the responders won't notice when they meet, a girl who falls in love way too quickly, a normal girl who's a day job clown so no one takes her romantically serious, an old cougar playing down her age way too much, I like that idea of why there is a surge in Monks at the local monastery. Then the documenter would go on to research and find out the underlying reason. Maybe they discover like a sex ring in the midst of their documenting. Maybe they interview the nun and she says the recent surge could be representative of a maturing male gender, not believed by the documentor, he decides to interview the younger priests, who are all, quiet and say they like the life of solitude, then he interviews one older priest who's says "craigslist". Thats all he's willing to divulge which prompts the guy to dig deeper discovering this whole underworld of casual encounters in NYC that are some times too shocking for some men and leads them to a life of celibacy. Or forgetting the monks, maybe there's a recent craigslist killer, targeting men, so some friends try to find the killer and lure him out, but they're not sure if he's a man or woman and they happen to get freaked out pretty easily. I dk what do you guys think would have the most potential for comedy, but like The Office comedy, like you said they pretend its all real and not with a wink and nod.
 
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I like the idea of the movie being a supposed documentary about one thing that leads to something completely different (the monastery upswing/Craigslist). You could make it a new reporter's first fluff assignment at the TV station and he takes it soooo seriously that he won't stop until he uncovers all of the dirt.
 
richy said:
Sounds like it could be fun. I've been thinking about the Christopher Guest mocumentaries lately. If you like those films, you might try looking at their screenplays. Well poop, I was going to link you to those screenplays (I would like to see them too), but wouldn't you know it, they don't seem to be readily available. :( Anyway, they include Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighy Wind etc. Maybe they don't have the right vibe for your film. But I think what makes them work, as it's often said about successful comedy in general, the players play it earnestly, they commit as though they were playing serious drama, as opposed to playing it with a wink and a nod to the audience --like they're in on the joke and know how silly it all is.

Hope to see what you do with it!
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I'm not sure if your comment was tongue in cheek or not, but the reason you can't find Christopher Guest's screenplays is that they don't exist. His M.O. is to meticulously create a character: backstory, traits etc. Then he knows what he wants to happen (in a general sense) in each scene. Everything else is improvised. According to him, post production is a nightmare, but that's how he makes those movies.

He did an interview on Charlie Rose, which is available free on the CR website, in case you're interested. :)
 
CHamburger said:
Thanks guys yea I agree that improv takes the right actors, luckily my friends one of which is an upright citizen's brigade actor and another who's in another similar group are both into imptrov and might have some connects in that regard. I dk though it might be fun to come up with an actual screenplay. EDIT: They're not really friends one's a cousin who lives kinda far, and the other is more of an acquaintance I used to play beer pong with in college.

Spinal tap is definitely what I was thinking but with out the rock music and more about the mission to find out what CL casual encounters are really about. I was thinking I could have one guy get involved with a weird group sex thing kind of like an eyes wide shut thing., a couple of guys posing as women on the internet hoping the responders won't notice when they meet, a girl who falls in love way too quickly, a normal girl who's a day job clown so no one takes her romantically serious, an old cougar playing down her age way too much...
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Those sound like a whole lot of fun!


Dreadylocks said:
I'm not sure if your comment was tongue in cheek or not, but the reason you can't find Christopher Guest's screenplays is that they don't exist. His M.O. is to meticulously create a character: backstory, traits etc. Then he knows what he wants to happen (in a general sense) in each scene. Everything else is improvised. According to him, post production is a nightmare, but that's how he makes those movies.

He did an interview on Charlie Rose, which is available free on the CR website, in case you're interested. :)
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Oh no, not tongue and cheek...it was all ignorance! I didn't know that about him or his films at all. I just glanced at his IMBd page and his writer credits, and I saw that they were attributed to him. Thanks for setting me straight. I love Charlie Rose interviews and I'm glad to hear that Guest has been on. I'll definately be heading over there to catch that interview(s). Thank you for the heads-up, Dready! :) Go Charlie! Go Charlie! Go Charlie! ...
 
Syd Field cites some screenwriters spending one year to do their research.

A mockumentary is a form of satire.

Satire must be based on a perception of a defect in its subject.
 
Thanks guys.

Yea wheat I was thinking it might be the way to go. Its not about the casual encounters section originally but something leads him to it. I like the whole reporters persistence for a frsit story. Like he's Geraldo.

I was thinking along the lines that Dready said Guest does his films. Like create a topic and a reason for investigating the topic, then just creating events that I want to take place then let the actors act. Like I said I'm hoping I can get my cousin and the other improv connection to help out. I'm gonna try to get a basic outline and see what you guys think. Might even go Harmonica244 of this lol.
 
Don't forget that part of the reason Guest's method works is that he has an amazing cast that makes it work. Notice how he pretty much hires the same people? Most of them have been working in Second City/improv for decades, usually together.

Not trying to discourage you, but rather emphasize the importance of thorough casting. Give your actors a lot of time to work together and get comfortable.
 
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