How do I end this?

[sina12345]

I thought I had a good idea for a comedic short and here is what I have so far...

Story revolves around a kid who lives his crappy life going to his school living his mundane life. He gets bullied, pushed around, and when he asks out the girl of his dreams, he gets rejected, and to add insult to injury, the girl also insults him brutally.

Later on that day when he goes home to his alcoholic father, he asks him "Why does my life suck?" (Or something along the lines of Why does nobody like me?) and the father responds drunkenly, "Because you touch yourself at night.."

So later that night, before the kid goes to sleep, he pulls his pants down to touch himself, and then stops, and thinks to himself..."What if I don't?"

So he doesn't, pulls his pants back up, and goes to sleep.

The next day as he drops his books in school, the bullies help him up, apologize for their behavior, and admit that they were abused as children and they are just trying to get even with the world. Without going into too much detail, everything that day goes well, the girl of his dreams comes onto him, he gets invited to a party, etc. etc.

....Then what? I CAN'T THINK OF A WAY TO END THIS.

If it's not obvious I have no past experience in writing scripts..or stories for that matter.

Thanks in advance.

PS. Sorry for the really long read, got a lot on my mind.

 

[sina12345]

Well, considering the fact that I'm not any kind of specialist in screenwriting, I don't feel like I should be giving lessons in it, especially since what you're asking is very much google-able. However, I like you, and I like this story, so I'll give you a quick nutshell, and then you can (should) google-away for more in-depth detail.

You're in high-school. Surely, you've had an English teacher talk to you about having a thesis statement for an essay. Whether it's 2 pages, or 5, or 20, or 100, you need to be able to sum the entire thing up in one sentence. What is it about? For an essay, if your reader is to remember only one thing, what is that one thing that you want them to get out of it? This is a very strong organizational tool.

It works the same for movies. Your logline is your thesis statement. What is the entire movie about? And don't make it a lame run-on sentence. Be as concise as possible.

Blake, a lonely, picked-on, virgin, high-school senior, is thrown into a world of chaos, and must conquer the something-something-we-need-a-plot, when he discovers that his balls are powerfully magic.

Whether it's a 3-hour epic, or a 60-second short, every movie needs a logline. For the pros in Hollywood, it's part of how they sell a script, or a movie. For schmucks like us, like your English essay thesis statement, it's a very strong organizational tool. You need to know what the movie is about.

The three-act structure? Yeah, I think you understand it. It's simple, but not really that simple. I guess it depends on who you talk to.

Appreciate taking the time to answer these questions. So basically what I should do is figure out the log line, and with that comes the themes and motives of what I want my hero to express, and maybe through that I can figure out my conflict, and my acts.

Having dealt with a life of trouble and hardship, Sina, a scrawny unfortunate mishap of a child, discovers the true powers of his testicles, and brutally unleashes (hmm unleashes, maybe he takes it too far?) them onto the world that did him wrong.

Haha, I'm thinking outloud here. (BTW reading that in a thick voice-over voice makes it sound 10x awesome-er)

Well, it's your baby as they say, but to me it lacks the outwardly exhibited creativity in the title or concept that you might want it to have to actually use something outside the box to tell a story.

There was a film with Paul Giamatti about a kid (I think) with an extraordinary flatulence situation going on. They didn't call the film The Kid That Farts Like A MFer, they called it Thunderpants.

See the difference?

EDIT: And I agree with Cracker here on a logline. Tell us the story in a sentence or two.
I personally do logline OR Title/Concept OR Both at once. (To me they all go hand in hand.)

-Thanks-

That makes sense..hmm..I'm trying to think of something clever, but not something trying too hard to be funny (or punny). I can't get the simple 'Cuz you touch yourself at night' name out of my head for some reason though.

I feel like the simplicity and recurrence of that quote in the actual short would emphasize it, and considering it is an internet short, would a short 1-word name suffice? (Considering metadata, keywords, and basically what people search and what grasps their attention)

Btw thanks for all the ideas guys, I'm trying to take the bits that I love and put them together into something amazing.

 

[Ccolebrook]

Touch Down. God that made me laugh pretty hard.

 

[sina12345]

I'm starting to think, what if I don't end this? I just realized that I don't want my character to really have a conflict from not touching himself, I'm not sure if that's me being lazy, or if I truly want to end it this way, but what if at the end of the day, he gets home, lies in bed, and a quick fade to black and some huge bulky text and a thick voice read, DON'T TOUCH YOURSELF AT NIGHT, and maybe a quieter, faster voice reading "a message from the local catholic church of so-and-so".

Keeping in mind this is probably a minute and a half short...I don't know, I'm torn between a few ideas, and as much as I think, giving my character a conflict seems to go against what I want him to feel, since he's had conflict his entire life, UNTIL he stopped touching himself.

hahaha, it's hard to have a serious conversation about this topic.


Thx again

 

[Buddy Greenfield]

Just keep kicking it around and writing different titles and concepts and loglines and scenes and drafts until you get what works within the means you have to film. You’ll figure it out.

-Thanks-

 

[wheatgrinder]

hey, this thread turned serious, for a few anyway.. good that..

sina12345, go over buddy's comments again, there is gold there.. mine it and make it your own..

 

[Cracker Funk]

It was always serious, wheat.

 

[MadMan]

@sina

Make this feature-length. Watch a hell of alot of GOOD comedies for homework. If you shoot this well. Even mediocrely (try do better than mediocre, but...) you could even sell it. It sounds like something the teen to immature adults demographic would like. Just learn a bit about filmmaking first. And try to get some money, you could make it better than you and a bunch of friends goofing around. Try make an actual movie.

 

[sina12345]

@sina

Make this feature-length. Watch a hell of alot of GOOD comedies for homework. If you shoot this well. Even mediocrely (try do better than mediocre, but...) you could even sell it. It sounds like something the teen to immature adults demographic would like. Just learn a bit about filmmaking first. And try to get some money, you could make it better than you and a bunch of friends goofing around. Try make an actual movie.

I know what you mean, but I simply don't have the money to hire anybody for this kind of small project. I mean I still have my canon kit lens, I don't even own my own tripod yet (borrowing), and right now our dolly is either a bmx bike or a janitors dolly that we will stand on (which should work well).

That's why I'm going to try and stick to the internet short standard of 2-5 minutes, because frankly for something as ridiculous as this, that's what the average attention span of someone would be.

 

[wcmartell]

START with the punchline, *then* write the set up.

What you are doing is writing the set up without knowing the punchline - so how can you know what you are setting up?

Just like with any script - you have to know the end before you start writing.

- Bill

 

[sina12345]

START with the punchline, *then* write the set up.

What you are doing is writing the set up without knowing the punchline - so how can you know what you are setting up?

Just like with any script - you have to know the end before you start writing.

- Bill

You know I've never thought of it that way, thanks for pointing that out.