The Menu (Screenplay)

Bio: Jack Simmons is a slam-poet and screenwriter from Austin. Contact.

Note: For the sake of protecting aspiring writers Jack is a pseudonym.

Logline: Ralph and Marty eat the same thing at the same restaurant day after day. Then one day, the menu changes. (SHORT)

PDF.

Comments --

Jack,

I’m going to ignore formatting or grammar and talk about big picture stuff –

First things first, page count in a short is immense. Usually in feature length scripts shaving off a page or trimming down a scene doesn’t change much to the over arcing story. Here, in a short, doing the same thing will drastically cut down your story by a 1/6th, 1/5th, 1/4th, etc. I bring this up because your story needs some overall reduction. I’ll get into that later.

Thematically, I take away the idea of monotony, that people are slow to change when change comes. You do a good job of visualizing this with Marty and Ralph’s dialogue. Day after day, we learn that they order a “spinach salad,” or a “Miami soup.” These elements introduce the viewer to the idea of repetitions, and you establish theme efficiently.

But, theme is also what hurts you more than it helps you. Audience members are smart. We understand repetition quickly. You spend almost 3 pages establishing (in a short this is HUGE) this. I’d cut this down. You can introduce that Ralph and Marty do this in almost 1.5 pages. I’d estimate with jump cuts and scene blending, you could merge the first 3 pages by half.

How to do this?

• Cut the first 7 paragraphs of descriptions into two. I’ll walk you through it --

FROM—

Booths line the windows, spinning-stools stand near the serving counter.

Patrons occupy less than half of the seats.A single host podium rests near the entrance. The HOST, a 17 year-old girl, stands and doodles pictures of islands with
the children’s crayons and place-mat.

On the front host podium reads a sign: “THE MENU” This serves as the title.

The entrance door CREAKS open, the Host looks up. A sign of recognition.

TWO MEN walk in the foyer: MARTY JACBOS (30s), a taller, bearded man with glasses and a white t-shirt, shorts, and RALPH MEIZEL (30Ss) a shorter, cleanly shaven man with a white polo shirt and jeans.

They reach the host podium. The host places her scribbles away. Grabs two menus.

INTO—

American diner. Few patrons occupy booths.

The HOST, 17, doodles islands with crayons, bored. She greets MARTY (30s), taller and RALPY (30s) shorter. Places her “art” away and grabs two menus.

It’s economical without losing too much of the necessary description. Do we need to know the title? No, an editor or director will take care of that placement.

Eliminating extraneous description will be useful in cutting down page count and will also be a blessing for the readers. When revising it’s important to always always look at what can be said in fewer words.

Next—

• Use jump cuts to shorten repetition or clever editing you can direct through your writing.

You’re aiming for theme here, trying to set us up for the ending, when the sandwiches and salads don’t arrive; our protagonists are slow to change. There are more clever ways of doing this. For example, you could set us up with them ordering even before the waitress hands them menus. What does this establish? Repetition. Your goal. So check that off. Move further into the scene. They sit, bark off their orders and then food arrives. Then cut several times to new plates and the same food arriving. Maybe three times, maybe four. Here's how I would tackle this (It's modeled after Josh Schwartz's method) –

SERIES OF SHOTS –

-- Miami Salsa Soup’s set down.
-- Spinach Salad's set down.
-- Same items, new plates, are placed as the days go on.

Repetition? Another check mark. Plus, it’s got that Jason Reitman/Flight of the Conchords indie quirk to it. I can just picture all the table clothes changing and the plates dancing as more and more plates are set down.

I’d estimate you could write all this in a few lines. A huge success, because ultimately, your short is asking to be five minutes.

Moving on—

At the end of page three you establish conflict. The familiar teenage waitress is now replaced, the first hint that repetition for our protagonists is about to be broken. But this comes in at—

Page three.

Conflict should be earlier. Often, grizzled screenwriters introduce conflict by page one. This is why I sometimes cannot stand novels. I am just itching for conflict. A huge personal side note so let's move on—

You wait a significant amount to introduce conflict. If your short was a feature length and we maintained a ratio of page count, you would probably introduce conflict on page 20-25. This is bad news. For a short, we’re looking at page 2, even earlier if we can.

Now, with rewrites you can push onwards, trim descriptions and use jump cuts/Schwartz's montage method and introduce the change of the waitress by the beginning of page two.

Here’s what I see as major conflict –

1. Waitress change
2. New cook
3. Menu reduction/elimination

You’re following the rules of threes. Which is perfect. I’d establish all of these by midway through page three. Skip the introductions; get the audience to the familiar booth, start with the lines of dialogue, and introduce reactions from Marty and Ralph.

The ending—

Your ending lacks a conclusive bite. I’m done reading it and I’m left thinking “What? That’s it?” I read all of that for the two men to leave? I wanted something bigger, something grand. I felt anti-climax to the tenth degree.

As your short is set up, unfortunately I don’t imagine the ending changing rather than a few logistics. Conceptually, it will stay the same. The men decide to leave after their food they’ve become so accustomed to no longer exist. This is a problem conceptually in your short. If this changes your entire story changes. I think eliminating the extraneous pages will get us to the ending faster. If we can tell this story in four minutes? All the better. People may not ask these questions.

I imagine this short being successful at some place like NYU or some artsy school in San Fran (excuse the over generalization). For me, it’s rather boring or “snore.” The execution is solid, the concept shaky. A big problem is when I’m reading this, I’m not really rooting for anybody and furthermore, I don’t have a sense of either character. Except that they like going to the same place and eating the same entree every day, which in turn, says something about human nature, but I don’t have any quirks (read: Seth Cohen from the OC, Sock from Reaper) or memorable lines (read: Vic Mackey from The Shield), or humorous (all three). This leads me to your biggest issue—

Your major problem – Why do the characters want this? We know they want repetition. But why?

It could be as easy as a line fix to the waitress, -“What do you want?” –“Comfort.” (not that but you know). I want to see a rewrite soon, Jack! Get on it!

Readers: feel free to criticize my comments or the script. Round table is the best type of table.