Tom Persists

I am back on this romantic comedy idea. I know I need to write a feature length movie script, its a goal of mine to write several movie scripts so I should probably get started on it.

Instead of staring at a blank computer screen I decided to plot it out by hand using my only table and sticky pads. I have act one sort of plotted out, I am trying to get at least a rough plot breakdown finished this week because I really need that table back. I spilled soup on my stomach earlier today, a direct result of not having a usable table.

Here's a one sentance tagline for my romantic comedy idea: What exactly are we calling 'internet stalking' these days?

Tom's Rom-Com

To follow along with this story you can either scroll down a couple entries and read parts 1 and 2 or click HERE.

Con'd... 

 

Andy's sits up on the couch and picks up his phone. The light of the screen softly illuminates his face against the dark of the room. Andy takes a closer look at Cassie's profile, he glances through her profile and smiles. He flips through her pictures and smiles even harder. He looks at her message.

CASSIE

(text)

Hey. I am Cassie how are you?

NARRATOR/ANDY: This chick has to be fake, right? Beautiful women aren't sitting around on a Saturday night messaging strangers are they? They're supposed to be out, having strangers buy them drinks and throw themselves at them all night. I am being catfished, I know it. I shouldn't even bother responding...on the other hand those pictures...

ANDY

(text)

I am good, I am just chilling with friends. What about you?

CASSIE

(text)

I am just watching a movie right now with my friend. I was supposed to go to a club but we decided not to. Thank god!

ANDY

(text)

Why?

CASSIE

(text)

I hate clubs :)

NARRATOR/ANDY: Marry me. 

ANDY

(text)

Marry me.

CASSIE

(text)

Haha. K. 

ANDY

(text)

What are you watching?

CASSIE

(text)

Archer. Have you seen it?

NARRATOR/ANDY: Oh my god, I love her already. If this girl ends up being some dude then I am going to kill him.

ANDY

(text)

Love it!

Cassie?

CASSIE

(text)

What?

ANDY

CASSSSIE?

CASSIE

(text)

:) What???

ANDY

(text)

CASSSSSSSSSSSSSIEEEEEEEEE???

CASSIE

(text)

LOL Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

ANDY

(text)

Danger zoneeeee.

CASSIE

(text)

HAHAHA OMG. LOL. YES!

NARRATOR/ANDY: Yeahhhhh, you kind of had to watch Archer to get that one but trust me, it was funny. AND SHE GOT IT! I made a dorky, obscure reference to an episode she may or may not have seen and she actually got it. She LOL'd. 

CASSIE

(text)

Haha. I don't want to keep you from your friends so I'll let you go. I just wanted to say hi.

Talk later? 

ANDY

(text)

Definitely

The phone fades back to black and the room falls dark again, Andy is alone and it's quiet. The soft light of the room just illuminates enough of Andy's face to see that the smile on his face still hasn't faded as he falls back to the couch.

Cont'd

 

-APE-

Tom Starts Writing A Romantic Comedy Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...Now.

Well this is a change of pace for me. It's been a while since I've posted and I believe the article directly below this one involves a picture of me having my guts cut out. Correct? Alright, well regardless; I am starting my romantic comedy. I am going to try to write a full length feature script and I'll be plowing through my first draft on this blog. I am not really prepping, and a lot of this will be me just winging it on the fly so I am not going to worry about character descriptions or synopsis just yet. These characters are however you envision them in your head as you read this. Let go. 

NARRATOR/ANDY: We had only been dating for about a week when I knew...

Andy and Cassie are walking through a park, Cassie is munching on a bag of popcorn. Each time filling her little hands with more than they can hold. Her beautiful blonde hair sparkles in the sun, Andy steals every look at her that he can. He likes looking at her, she stands about a half foot shorter than him and every time she looks up at him with her big brown eyes he feels himself slipping. He's really falling for this girl.

NARRATOR/ANDY: I feel like that's the best place to start, there's no interesting story about how we met. We found each other online and hit it off. To this day I can't believe she actually turned out to be real. I went into that first date positive that I was getting catfished by some dickhead, I almost called it off actually. The only reason I decided to take a chance and see it through was because "OH MY GOD! Her pictures". 

The couple walks along a pretty pathway on this sunny day, a flock of birds fills the skies around them.

ANDY

If any of these birds tries to poop on you I'll be ready. I'll push you out of the way.

CASSIE

(laughs)

DON'T. You'll spill my popcorn.

They're not going to poo on us.

ANDY

(big smile on his face)

I've seen it happen.

CASSIE

Oh my god. Really?

ANDY

I was with my friend, he just bought a sub and we were walking back to his car. From behind me I just hear "FUUUUUUUUUCK!", I turned around and he was covered in bird shit. It went all over his neck, his shirt, his arm, his sandwich...

Cassie laughs, then her eyebrows wrinkles a little. There's confusion on her face, this girl's thought of something.

CASSIE

Why do they call them subs?

ANDY

It's short for submarine sandwich.

CASSIE

I know that. Why are they called that though?

Andy thinks about it for what seems like way too long.

ANDY

That's one of the best questions I've ever been asked. I honestly don't know. I'd have to look it up.

CASSIE

I know what it's going to say, its going to say its because of it's shape. Like it looks like a sub, but...I mean it doesn't.

ANDY

No. It just looks like a long sandwich.

Cassie again laughs, it's actually adorable. This time she spills out a good bit of her popcorn and when she does the birds descend on it. The pair quickly find themselves surrounded by a flock of frantic, flapping, noisy birds all scrambling to get a nibble of the fallen kernels. Andy goes to make a move.

ANDY

Here, take my hand...I am going to...

CASSIE

It's okay.

Cassie elegantly reaches into her bag of popcorn and flings a handful into the grass a few feet behind them, all the birds take after it and leave the pair alone. They continue their walk however Andy seems almost speechless, he's been left in amazement. 

NARRATOR/ANDY: What she just did right there was the single smartest thing I've ever seen anyone do. It was such a perfect display of practical intelligence; she left me in awe. Seriously. Do you know what my plan was? I was going to sort of shuffle my feet along the ground so I wouldn't step on any of the birds but I would be able to kick them out of the way until we were clear. That was what my idiot man-brain came up with, this girl's a keeper.

That was the exact moment I realized I loved my wife.

Cont'd...

-APE-

This Is Real. I Did This and Not To Be Funny.

Is a single man with little long term relationship experience qualified to write a romantic comedy about falling in love? Yes and you can consider this my resume.

 and last impression.

Consider that a free taste.

Romantic Comedies. Why I Hate Them And Why I Am Going To Write One.

At exactly what point did Hollywood decide that all characters in romantic comedies should live like the Rich Kids of Instagram? Super trendy, young professionals with lavish lifestyles and lots of free time. Y'know the rest of us go on dates too don't you Hollywood? The average person. I know you like to tell us that we love the fantasy that you present, we're supposed to get lost in the escape of it all. When I see Anna Faris and Chris Evans playing a game of strip H.O.R.S.E in the middle of Madison Square Garden I am supposed to giggle about what a cute, sexy date that would be rather than sneer at the TV screen for showing me something so stupid.

...I'll forgive it this time.

MSG's kind of an important arena, they don't just leave it unattended, and a bouncing basketball in an empty arena is pretty damn loud. Did they pay off security to look the other way? Do they have the kind of clout where they can just walk onto the most famous court in the world and drop their pants? I am telling you right now I can't do that. No arena in the world will let me take girls onto their courts to mess around with, they make that very clear by how many people they employ to keep me out.

I rage watch all romantic comedies, they really bother me. Of all the one's I've seen I think 'Friends With Benefits' did the most damage to my coffee table. Justin Timberlake played a 25 year old guy who started up his own very successful media company who's being recruited by a huge firm that wants to hand him the keys to their media division and a six figure salary. Justin's always being told how talented he is throughout the whole movie, frequently by Mila Kunis. His f**k buddy. She's not the trampy kind of f**k buddy either, she's a beautiful 23 year old executive assistant in charge of talent aquisition who makes her own schedule and has 24 hour access to the company limo and all the city's most exclusive clubs. Just like you and me. You know what's really annoying? It's never enough for this guy. He's never happy. He's always conflicted about his beautiful life full of riches, admiration, success and casual sex.

shut the f**k up, crybaby. 

Enough is enough, I can do better than that. I can write a romantic comedy that doesn't need eye popping first dates to get my love story across. I'll write about how real people actually date and fall in love. I've been feeling pent up lately, badly looking for a new project to start writing and this idea will finally let me tackle my first full length script so I am going all in on this. I intend to write a romantic comedy script, posting my progress on my blog with frequent updates. That's what I am going to be working on for a while. My characters won't have long tearful monologues about their feelings because that almost never happens in real life, they'll actually have regular jobs and regular boring lives. They'll have to fall in love because of how they click as people without the cheat of being impossibly beautiful and successful. The friends of the male character won't be a mix of playboys who want to keep him single and married guys who try to sell him on the beauty of relationships. The female characters won't just stand around waiting to be swept off their feet and they won't be fiercely independent to the point where it just comes across as snotty and annoying.

I've written a script about prisoners under house arrest being investigated for posting d**k pics online.

A show where a bunch of government employed ghostbusters take on ghosts, vampires and zombies.

A bloody, violent superhero short.

And a lost at sea horror about a girl alone, adrift at sea being stalked by an underwater monster.

A sweet, funny romantic comedy is the next logical step for me. 

-APE-   

Thomas actually did try writing some relationshipy dialogue a couple times before:

http://apeday.blogspot.ca/2013/04/lets-try-writing-some-relationshipy.html

http://apeday.blogspot.ca/2013/05/toms-still-writing-romantic-comedy.html

Let's try writing some relationshipy dialogue for the first time in my life

So, I am writing a Romantic Comedy. I decided that and now I am doing it. I've never really tried anything like it either, I've done a lot of writing but I've never tried anything romantic or about relationships in general. I am just going to dive right in somewhere in the middle to a crucial point in the script and see if I can knock out some decent dialogue. For inspiration here's a picture of the girl I love the most in this world.

To recap, here's the movie synopsis:

Brandon is madly in love with his girlfriend Mika and is finally invited to meet her friends, he hopes he can win them over because he knows how much they mean to her. He can't. At the diner party he clashes with every single one of them, by then end of the night Brandon can honestly say he genuinely hates every single one of them and he knows the feeling is mutual. Mika's friends mean the world to her and Brandon feels a distance growing between them as she's forced to constantly choose between her boyfriend and her friends. Brandon decides to right his wrong by winning over the affections of a group of people he absolutely can't stand, who absolutely can't stand him.

Here I go.

Mika
Do you hate my friends?

Brandon is caught off guard

Brandon
I don't "hate" your friends. I fundamentally disagree with Stephanie, and her views and who she is as a person but I don't hate her, or wish harm upon her. Emilio and I don't really see eye to eye on a lot of things, like getting drunk and harassing people and hiding their shoes. Does that mean I hate him? I actually do; now that we're talking about it. I hate Emilio, I'll admit that. He ruined my shoes. I don't think Adam's funny and if he's got a problem with that; I don't care. Divine's a bit much, she's kind of loud and she says her own name a lot but I can look past that. She's named Divine, if I had a name like that I'd say it all the time too.

Mika

That's not her real name.

Brandon's disgusted

Brandon

Are you serious? Why is she calling herself Divine all the time?

Mika

She chose that name. Her real name is Michelle.

Brandon
I am going to start calling her Shaq, he made up all sort of names for himself too. You can't just give yourself a name. That's annoying.

Mika

Brandon I don't like this. They're my FRIENDS! Do you think I am so stupid that I can't chose my own friends. I don't give a shit what you think about them, you don't know them like I do. Stephanie has had my back everyday of my life since we were in high school together. She beat up the girls that were mean to me. Say what you want about Emilio but he's successful and I respect him, he's the reason my career took off. He's helped me so much and never asked for anything back from me. Adam is funny, you just don't like to laugh and Divine might give too much advice but that's just because she's ALWAYS trying to help people. These are my friends, they help me, the love me.

Brandon

So do I.

Mika

I know but I am not going to chose between my friends and my boyfriend because it's not fair Brandon.

Mika's in tears. Poor girl. Brandon's never felt this low in his life, she's his heart and he hurt her so badly. He did it just by being himself too.

Mika

I am going to Stephanie's for the night. 

Brandon

Mika..

Mika

Don't. Brandon I just want to spend a night with my friend. 

She walks away.

Mika

Do us all a favor and don't call me or try to come by because we all know you're not wanted there. 

She leaves, Brandon is driving the the thing in his life that makes him the happiest away from him and he's going to have to fight to win her back.


** Not so tough. That flowed out pretty easily actually **

Thomas Holler is a writer working out of Toronto, and can be contacted at apescripts@gmail.com

Tom Writes a Romantic Comedy

 

I don't like this picture either but I wanted to use a drawing of a couple for this post and if you think it's easy to find a drawing anywhere online of a couple that ISN'T done in Japanese Anime THEN YOU TRY.

I am going to write a romantic comedy.

I am going to write a romantic comedy and I am going to make it as real as possible. I hate romantic comedies; that's why I want to write one. I always hear people say that romantic comedies represent to women their perfect fantasies, that's why all the women are well educated, successful, flawlessly beautiful career driven women who have great friends and families but are missing that ONE special thing in their lives; a man who's ruggedly handsome and incredibly stylish who is both incredibly smooth and adorably able to laugh at himself because being charming is effortless to him. He's very successful but has a really chill job where he plays pool in the middle of the office, has tons of free time and hangs out with his boss like they're best friends. It's all horses**t. Who lives that life? Who's first date involves walking onto the floor of Madison Square Garden and playing a game of strip horse? Who's first date involves going backstage at the art exhibition where you get to meet all the artists and get invited to a lavish penthouse party? It's hores**t. You know what a first date is? A coffee in a small cafe and maybe a walk. It's going shopping together and struggling through awkward conversation until you finally start clicking. It's pretty rare that anyone ever walks up to a total stranger and has a perfect little conversation with her and how many couples do you know do crazy, goofy things like spontaneously running backwards through a street or have a cute little food fight in a restaurant booth? If you do know a couple like that; in what world are they anything but insufferable?

If you can't relate to the movie then how can it be an escapist fantasy?

 Seriously, it's SO hard finding pictures to accompany a post about romantic comedies.
What do I even type into google? 'Romance' 'Couple'?

I've hated almost every romantic comedy I've ever seen so I figure I should probably try to write one myself.

Here's my Rom-Com idea:

Brandon is madly in love with his girlfriend Mika and is finally invited to meet her friends, he hopes he can win them over because he knows how much they mean to her. He can't. At the diner party he clashes with every single one of them, by then end of the night Brandon can honestly say he genuinely hates every single one of them and he knows the feeling is mutual. Mika's friends mean the world to her and Brandon feels a distance growing between them as she's forced to constantly choose between her boyfriend and her friends. Brandon decides to right his wrong by winning over the affections of a group of people he absolutely can't stand, who absolutely can't stand him.

Or something like that, I don't know. I am going to play with it a little and use this blog to work on it but for real; there are no good pictures to go along with this subject matter so I don't know what I am going to do about that.

People. Until next time, have a good morning beautiful day.

-Thomas Holler-