Story Department says:
We want your script to be the best that it can be, so we’re sharing with you the following feedback from our Story Department. This feedback is provided for informational use only, and is not in any way a request on our part for you to make changes in your screenplay.
Title: I THINK MY FACEBOOK FRIEND IS DEAD
Draft: Script 1
Writer: Donnie Clark & CT Clark
I THINK MY FACEBOOK FRIEND IS DEAD has memorable characters, snappy dialogue, and a fun view on contemporary society. At the core of the story is a quirky ensemble of friends who are forced to emerge from their online cocoons to take action in the real world and figure out who they really are. We feel there is a lot of promise here.
That said, as of now the story becomes a zany hostage thriller, a choice that feels a little dissonant from the coming-of-age romantic comedy promised in act one. We’d like to refocus the story into a quirky romance/road trip film, more along the lines of NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST or Rob Reiner’s THE SURE THING. To accomplish this, we’d like to build on the story’s strengths while addressing the following issues:
• Owen’s Character
• The Love Interest
• Owen’s Friends
• Theme & The Online World
OWEN’S CHARACTER
Owen doesn’t live at home with his parents, nor is he in college, so the fact that he’s basically an adult with no drive or ambition renders him somewhat unrelatable. To make sure we connect with Owen, we need to understand a little more about who he is: What is it about the real world that scares him? How does a person subsist without leaving his apartment? Giving Owen a stronger social and emotional context will provide a frame of reference and make him a more sympathetic lead. In other ‘loser comedies’ like REVENGE OF THE NERDS, NAPOLEON DYNAMITESUPERBAD, KNOCKED UP, and (especially) NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST, the lead characters are grounded in realistic social settings, allowing us to identify with their plight. While Owen’s social anxieties and personal insecurities form a strong part of his character and motivations, we feel that seeing his life in greater context will help the audience relate to him better.
We also think there is an opportunity to make Owen a more appealing character. Right now, compared to the hilariously offbeat Jeff Pants, the mysteriously intriguing MoBu3 and the wannabe womanizer Rishi, Owen is noticeably Vanilla. He may have the occasional funny moment but, for the most part, he’s listless and little sad. It makes us wonder why Jessica, MoBu3 and Jeff are so attracted to him in the first place. How can we make him more likeable?
While we want to make Owen more fun to be around, we also shouldn’t lose sight of his fundamental problem: he’s romantically inept. We need to believe that he may have misread Jessica’s feelings for him, and also that (if she is interested) he may completely flame out when he meets her. Right now, with MoBu3 and Jessica both head over heels in love with him, Owen doesn’t seem like a loser at all. In fact, the more women want him, the lower his stakes become and the less invested in his quest we are. When MoBu3 tells Owen that she loves him, we’re suddenly less concerned about how he fares with Jessica, because we know Owen will end up with a girl either way. We need Owen to be the star of his own movie, but he should still be a loser.
What could separate Owen from the rest of the losers in the world, however, is his potential; the ‘drive’ we mentioned earlier. Perhaps he needs a dream of his own, beyond just getting Jessica to love him. As written now, he piggybacks on Rishi’s dream of the Plug It In café in the epilogue. This is Owen’s story, so what is Owen’s grand plan for his life?
Also, since this is a script about identity in the internet age, we’d like to establish from the start how Owen misrepresents himself online. Rather than have Rishi help Owen build a cool new identity to impress Jessica, could Owen have been compiling this persona for years? His understanding of his own identity could then evolve as the story unfolds, giving him a more defined character arc.
THE LOVE INTEREST
We’d like to delve deeper into the idea of Real vs. Virtual relationships (and whether virtual relationships can be real), as well as the concept of the modern day identity crisis (misrepresenting yourself on the internet, or building an idealized version of your identity on the internet). As Owen continues on the adventure, he could slowly find out that Jessica isn’t who he thought she was, and has been misrepresenting herself all the time, the same as him. Perhaps Jessica has portrayed herself as a nice small-town girl, and then we slowly discover that she’s a stripper/drug dealer. Or she may have represented herself as an outrageous daredevil personality, then turn out to be Vanilla herself. In any case, Owen and Jessica could be shocked to learn the truth about each other, but then realize that they are actually perfect for each other as they are, without the false personas they’ve created.
Because Jessica is absent for a large portion of the script, it’s difficult to build a real relationship between her and Owen. One alternate possibility is that Jessica is not Owen’s real love interest at all. Perhaps his real love interest is MoBu3. Maybe, while Owen has built Jessica up as this perfect woman, his real life soul mate has been in his life all along. Isn’t it possible that Owen, so used to obsessing over Jessica, would completely fail to recognize a relationship with MoBu3 blossoming right under his nose? When he finally finds Jessica he would then be faced with a difficult choice: Which girl does he want? In this version, it could make sense to have Mobu be more of a presence in Owen’s life before the road trip starts. She might be a quiet girl in his school, and only when she responds to his request for a ride does he realize that she’s also the online gamer who has been saving him in MMORPGS.
OWEN’S FRIENDS
Though much of the script’s appeal comes from the band of mismatched characters, their motivation for going on this trip with Owen is questionable. Though it’s understandable that MoBu3 would ride along if she were in love with Owen, the allegiance of Rishi and Jeff is harder to explain. We’d like to have more defined reasons for each of them to drop everything and head across the country with Owen. For Jeff Pants, this might be a chance to blog about America, while for Rishi, he may fantasize that the road trip will be a endless chance to get laid.
In a larger sense, we just want better context for each character and a better understanding of how each relates to Owen. Owen is our hero, and part of the purpose of a supporting cast is to define our hero better. This is a movie about finding the confidence to step out from behind a persona and reveal one’s true self. Every character needs to somehow contribute to the dialogue around this issue and contribute to Owen’s ultimate self-revelation to be true to himself.
(Notes continued in 'Amazon Studios Story Feedback for I Think My Facebook Friend is Dead, part 2' on the project page.)
Title: I THINK MY FACEBOOK FRIEND IS DEAD
Draft: Script 1
Writer: Donnie Clark & CT Clark
I THINK MY FACEBOOK FRIEND IS DEAD has memorable characters, snappy dialogue, and a fun view on contemporary society. At the core of the story is a quirky ensemble of friends who are forced to emerge from their online cocoons to take action in the real world and figure out who they really are. We feel there is a lot of promise here.
That said, as of now the story becomes a zany hostage thriller, a choice that feels a little dissonant from the coming-of-age romantic comedy promised in act one. We’d like to refocus the story into a quirky romance/road trip film, more along the lines of NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST or Rob Reiner’s THE SURE THING. To accomplish this, we’d like to build on the story’s strengths while addressing the following issues:
• Owen’s Character
• The Love Interest
• Owen’s Friends
• Theme & The Online World
OWEN’S CHARACTER
Owen doesn’t live at home with his parents, nor is he in college, so the fact that he’s basically an adult with no drive or ambition renders him somewhat unrelatable. To make sure we connect with Owen, we need to understand a little more about who he is: What is it about the real world that scares him? How does a person subsist without leaving his apartment? Giving Owen a stronger social and emotional context will provide a frame of reference and make him a more sympathetic lead. In other ‘loser comedies’ like REVENGE OF THE NERDS, NAPOLEON DYNAMITESUPERBAD, KNOCKED UP, and (especially) NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST, the lead characters are grounded in realistic social settings, allowing us to identify with their plight. While Owen’s social anxieties and personal insecurities form a strong part of his character and motivations, we feel that seeing his life in greater context will help the audience relate to him better.
We also think there is an opportunity to make Owen a more appealing character. Right now, compared to the hilariously offbeat Jeff Pants, the mysteriously intriguing MoBu3 and the wannabe womanizer Rishi, Owen is noticeably Vanilla. He may have the occasional funny moment but, for the most part, he’s listless and little sad. It makes us wonder why Jessica, MoBu3 and Jeff are so attracted to him in the first place. How can we make him more likeable?
While we want to make Owen more fun to be around, we also shouldn’t lose sight of his fundamental problem: he’s romantically inept. We need to believe that he may have misread Jessica’s feelings for him, and also that (if she is interested) he may completely flame out when he meets her. Right now, with MoBu3 and Jessica both head over heels in love with him, Owen doesn’t seem like a loser at all. In fact, the more women want him, the lower his stakes become and the less invested in his quest we are. When MoBu3 tells Owen that she loves him, we’re suddenly less concerned about how he fares with Jessica, because we know Owen will end up with a girl either way. We need Owen to be the star of his own movie, but he should still be a loser.
What could separate Owen from the rest of the losers in the world, however, is his potential; the ‘drive’ we mentioned earlier. Perhaps he needs a dream of his own, beyond just getting Jessica to love him. As written now, he piggybacks on Rishi’s dream of the Plug It In café in the epilogue. This is Owen’s story, so what is Owen’s grand plan for his life?
Also, since this is a script about identity in the internet age, we’d like to establish from the start how Owen misrepresents himself online. Rather than have Rishi help Owen build a cool new identity to impress Jessica, could Owen have been compiling this persona for years? His understanding of his own identity could then evolve as the story unfolds, giving him a more defined character arc.
THE LOVE INTEREST
We’d like to delve deeper into the idea of Real vs. Virtual relationships (and whether virtual relationships can be real), as well as the concept of the modern day identity crisis (misrepresenting yourself on the internet, or building an idealized version of your identity on the internet). As Owen continues on the adventure, he could slowly find out that Jessica isn’t who he thought she was, and has been misrepresenting herself all the time, the same as him. Perhaps Jessica has portrayed herself as a nice small-town girl, and then we slowly discover that she’s a stripper/drug dealer. Or she may have represented herself as an outrageous daredevil personality, then turn out to be Vanilla herself. In any case, Owen and Jessica could be shocked to learn the truth about each other, but then realize that they are actually perfect for each other as they are, without the false personas they’ve created.
Because Jessica is absent for a large portion of the script, it’s difficult to build a real relationship between her and Owen. One alternate possibility is that Jessica is not Owen’s real love interest at all. Perhaps his real love interest is MoBu3. Maybe, while Owen has built Jessica up as this perfect woman, his real life soul mate has been in his life all along. Isn’t it possible that Owen, so used to obsessing over Jessica, would completely fail to recognize a relationship with MoBu3 blossoming right under his nose? When he finally finds Jessica he would then be faced with a difficult choice: Which girl does he want? In this version, it could make sense to have Mobu be more of a presence in Owen’s life before the road trip starts. She might be a quiet girl in his school, and only when she responds to his request for a ride does he realize that she’s also the online gamer who has been saving him in MMORPGS.
OWEN’S FRIENDS
Though much of the script’s appeal comes from the band of mismatched characters, their motivation for going on this trip with Owen is questionable. Though it’s understandable that MoBu3 would ride along if she were in love with Owen, the allegiance of Rishi and Jeff is harder to explain. We’d like to have more defined reasons for each of them to drop everything and head across the country with Owen. For Jeff Pants, this might be a chance to blog about America, while for Rishi, he may fantasize that the road trip will be a endless chance to get laid.
In a larger sense, we just want better context for each character and a better understanding of how each relates to Owen. Owen is our hero, and part of the purpose of a supporting cast is to define our hero better. This is a movie about finding the confidence to step out from behind a persona and reveal one’s true self. Every character needs to somehow contribute to the dialogue around this issue and contribute to Owen’s ultimate self-revelation to be true to himself.
(Notes continued in 'Amazon Studios Story Feedback for I Think My Facebook Friend is Dead, part 2' on the project page.)
