OobSexyRoofersRevisionNotes

Out of Bounds 2003:

Sexy Roofers, LLC

Revision Notes

Revised Script

What Needs Fixing, and How Badly Does It Need to Be Fixed?

The Peter sez:

Ugg. I think this one needs some pretty serious fixing up. My most significant problems:

• The bailiff. I like the character, I think he could be even more fun than he is now, but when he starts talking for any length of time, it kills the scene dead. If we have any narrative momentum, we can't afford to let this guy rant and deflate the story.
• The thirty million dollars thing reads like gaggy comic exaggeration. Ordinarily I have no problem with gaggy comic exaggeration, especially at the end of a piece. But here, I don't think it's funny, and so it puts us in an awkward position of expecting the audience to laugh at the line "30 million dollars" and getting nothing. Thoughts?
• There is a big ol' gaping hole in the plot. How do we get from the bad signature to Tom Selleck? Granted, we could make it work as just non-causality surreal 'theatre' theater, but I think the audience is just going to think we're incompetent.

That said, again I think the concept is sound, but I think we gotta hammer this one into shape.

After some edits, it looks like this one is in passable shape. I might take another look at the 'explanation' towards the end to make sure it reads okay and doesn't have superfluous words.

The Bob sez:

• The original times out at 3:40, not including outro theme.
• The bailiff's first line is too long, too vulgar. Need to keep the Mamet more in the pocket until the third line or so. I agree, he's less effective, the longer his line.
• I bet I'm mentally filling in the gap that Tom Selleck disguised himself as both Mr. Windage and the Bailiff to expose Damn Sexy Roofing, LLC. This is probably why I don't see a huge plot hole around the signature. Whack the section about the gun and the melon, and have the judge say something like "Order, order - Hey, you're not Don, you're ... Tom Selleck!"

I made one editing pass so far.

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Footnotes