First Screenplay Idea Some Help Please?

[ComicStix]

Hello! I am such a noob you don't even know! Anyways, this is technically my second screenplay but the first one was for school. Alright, so I wrote a "treatment" and it's about how these girls (friends and I) have a sleepover and one girl kind of tricks the people to come to her house by promising food. Then they play the game 10 fingers (not inappropriate don't worry my parents would have a cow AND milk it) so then they start playing and the girls find out she is kind of crazy by what questions she asks and then the girls find excuses to leave.

I know this isn't Spielberg work but it's a start. It's just a comedy.

Second Idea. These girls meet in a park and are very competitive and they challenge each other to stuff in the park and then they do all these crazy challenges and no one wins because they keep blaming each other for cheating. Don't be too harsh cause I am a teenage girl and that's all I could think that relates to me. I couldn't write a drama for my life they're too sad Thanks for the help!

 

[directorik]

I think both ideas would be great. You should write and
shoot both of them. I've always thought that doing movies
that relate to the moviemaker and the actors you will use
is the best way to get started. And that usually ends up
being the best movie. It IS the way Spielberg worked. He
used what he was interested in and his friends and family
as actors.

Get your friends together to come up with the crazy questions
the girls could ask and pick the funniest ones to put in the script.

Same with the second idea. Have your friends come up with two
or three challenges and how someone could cheat. then use the
best three for your script.

And you know what? I think you should seriously consider writing
that drama for your life. You know a very sad drama about a teens
life won several Oscars yesterday. Who knows....

 

[TheBuck]

Maybe it's because I'm not a teen but I do not find anything interesting about the 1st one. The 2nd one sounds like it has some promise to it. Since you are new make them both, you need the exp and that's what they will give you. Don't fear anything when you go about making them. Keep in mind that they are a learning exp.

 

[backlash]

I think that both ideas are a good setting for a story but they don't have a story in them.

Take into account the number of characters, if you only have 5-7 min to tell the story the viewer can't cope with more than 2-3 main characters.
Also what is the idea that keep us watching. The fact that girls go to a party is just an act, there is no story. But if one of them goes there because she wants to make a point to her parents about how mature she was, but turns out that she couldn't actually behave. Or if the girl organizing the party wants to actually tell all the otehrs that she's pregnant but doesn´t know how because she thinks she'll be rejected...
The situations you created are vehicles to your story, make the story and then put it in a situation.

I'm also learning, so my ideas are just things that came into my mind.

Also if you take the screen play seriously, rewrite, rewrite, and let people review it, and rewrite.

 

[ComicStix]

Alright I took all of your opinions and took a lot from them. But how would I keep a story with a 5 min short? I can't make it full blown. What about if this girl was addicted to those phone numbers you can text and they give you advice and her friends try to convince her to stop using it because it's ruining her life. Just an idea.

 

[wheatgrinder]

I would suggest this ( Im a father of three teenage girls, so I have SOME perspective

Go with some aspect of your life that you know a LOT about. Texting might be it, or clique infighting etc.. but what ever it is.. HYPE IT UP. Here is where being a "dram queen" works to your advantage.. (if your not one, fake it!)

Average people doing average things is pretty dull on the screen... So instead of just texting in the typical places, your character texts on the toilet, texts while driving, she SO good at texting that she can leave her phone in her purse, and by feel alone send text messages while sitting in class.

The "advice line text addict" is a pretty cool setup. You can have a lot of fun in 5 mins with that..

How about the advice she gets form the text number, being almost the exact same advice her friends are giving her, that could be funny! she ignore BOTH and keeps asking for more advice! Making the viewer go DOH!

You do need to create a story arc. That is, we start here, girl is doing OK.. we peak the story arc with some crazy drama.. like the girl is on her death bed.. (following bad advice for trying "new things" such as Sky diving) then she fights to overcome her addition to the advice.. but because she failed to ask for advice one last time.. she misses the BEST THING EVER and never knows it.. but we the viewer see it and again go.. DOH!

Read about LOG lines on this forum. Make that work and the short will write it self!