My CS Open Submission
Round one of the CS Open took place over the weekend. After receiving a prompt on Friday evening, we had until Monday morning to submit a three to five page scene.
Here is the prompt we had to follow:
Your protagonist is crushed. His or her plans have been dashed; his objective now appears impossible. And yet if he throws in the towel, bad things will happen. Write a scene in which a mentor, friend, love interest or enemy rallies or provokes your protagonist in an unexpected way. Be sure to give us your best dialogue here as your protagonist comes around and rises – or falls — to the occasion.
I got my own entry in last night. You can hit the jump to read my submission. As per usual, feedback, whether good or bad, is welcome.
EXT. BASEBALL STADIUM – DAY
A summer afternoon. The ballpark is packed, buzzing. Every fan in the stadium in red-- as if God poured ketchup over the crowd. T-shirts, hats and even skin. That is, except for one.
In the outfield bleachers is MITCHELL SIMMS, in bright baby blue shirt and hat-- the only fan of the visiting team. And boy is he hearing it from those around him.
RED FAN #1
How’d your team make it this far?
RED FAN #2
Nice outfit. Headed to a baby shower after this?
RED FAN #3
Baby Blues suck!
Mitchell is hit in the face with a sunflower seed-- does nothing. He peeks up at the score: REDS 4, BABY BLUES 1.
RAY (O.S.)
(whispers)
I warned you not to wear that.
RAY, a little fella, sports a REDS’ HAT. He looks ahead, talks out the side of his mouth.
RAY (CONT’D)
Did I not?
MITCHELL
But we made the playoffs.
Baby Blues are up to bat. First batter, line drive to the outfield. The crowd MOANS. Mitchell covertly pumps his fist.
Second batter, base hit. Third batter, a walk. The crowd is agitated. Mitchell tries with all his might to hold in his excitement-- a smile still leaks from his face.
RED FAN #1
Come on! Let’s go Reds, let’s go!
And with that, the section, yet what feels like the entire stadium, joins in on the repeatable chant.
CROWD
Let’s go Reds, let’s go!
The PITCHER winds up, throws, CRACK! The crowd stands, watches as the ball soars into the outfield.
RED FAN #1
Uh-oh.
It keeps flying--
RED FAN #2
Catch it!
Further--
RED FAN #3
No, no!
It clears the fence, home run! The crowd plops down simultaneously, dejected. Mitchell rises, unintentionally knocks his NEIGHBOR’S beer onto his lap.
Mitchell doesn’t realize, raises his arms in celebration.
MITCHELL
Yes!
He hastily sits down, embarrassed at his outburst.
The Neighbor stands, brushes beer from his pants.
CROWD
Oooooh!
It’s then Mitchell realizes his mishap.
MITCHELL
Dear God, I am so sorry.
NEIGHBOR
I’m going to punch your face in.
RAY
(whispers to Mitchell)
Offer to buy him another!
The Neighbor eyes Ray.
MITCHELL
Let me buy you another beer--
RED FAN #1 (O.S.)
Kick his ass!
MITCHELL
No, no. Please don’t kick my ass.
NEIGHBOR
Stand up.
Mitchell cautiously does. Next to the Neighbor, he’s puny. He cowers as the Neighbor leans down, gets nose to nose.
NEIGHBOR (CONT’D)
You will buy me a beer.
(to crowd)
Who else is thirsty?
The three Red’s Fans raise their hands.
NEIGHBOR (CONT’D)
Make that four beers.
He points up to the scoreboard.
NEIGHBOR (CONT’D)
Bottom of the seventh-- beer’s cut off in the eighth. That’s three outs to get beers. We’ll keep your bud here, so you don’t ignore the beer stands on the way to your car.
The crowd SIGHS. The scoreboard changes to ONE OUT.
NEIGHBOR (CONT’D)
Now you have two outs.
Ray shoves Mitchell forward.
RAY
Go!
Mitchell climbs over fans to get to the aisle. They each give him a jab as he passes. He explodes up the stairs.
VENDOR SECTION
Mitchell scans the beer vendors, each with a line of ten. He gets in the end of one, grabs his cell phone, dials.
RAY (O.S.) (CONT’D)
(in phone)
Have the beer?
MITCHELL
The line is ten deep, Ray. It doesn’t look good.
RAY (O.S.)
Mitch, do what you need to. Get that beer!
BLEACHERS
The Neighbor holds Ray into a headlock, leans into his phone.
NEIGHBOR
You best hurry.
VENDOR SECTION
Mitchell runs up to a FAN in the front of his line.
MITCHELL
Anyway I could take cuts? I’ve got to get beer before the eighth.
FAN
We’re all trying to get beer, pal.
Mitchell looks down the line-- it’s grown even longer since he stepped from his spot. He puts the phone up to speak, but--
CROWD (O.S.)
(in phone)
We want beer! We want beer!
BLEACHERS
The Neighbor has Ray’s phone up to the crowd-- they chant.
CROWD (CONT’D)
We want beer!
VENDOR SECTION
RAY (O.S.)
(in phone)
Mitch, hurry up!
A TELEVISION above the beer stand shows the second out made.
GAME TV ANNOUNCER (O.S.)
(on TV)
That’s two outs now, here in the bottom of the seventh.
Mitchell gets on his knees in front of the NEXT GUY IN LINE.
MITCHELL
I’ll even give you cash. Order my beer-- I’m begging you, please.
NEXT GUY IN LINE
With that hat on? Take your Baby Blue butt to the lemonade stand.
Mitchell takes off his hat, frisbees it away.
NEXT GUY IN LINE (CONT’D)
Nice try. I know your true colors.
Mitchell checks the television. TWO OUTS, TWO STRIKES. A pitch-- the batter swings, fouls it off to stay alive!
Mitchell dashes to the stairway to check the bleachers. Ray is being crowd surfed against his will.
A stadium wide MOAN. The third out was made. A CASHIER yells.
CASHIER
That’s it for beer folks!
The entire line disperses. Mitchell sprints over.
MITCHELL
No! No! One last order please! It’s a matter of life or death!
The Cashier deliberates, then starts to fill beer cups.
MITCHELL (CONT’D)
Thank you... thank you!
CASHIER
Shut up, will you?
The Cashier slides over the tray of beers. He slyly lifts his Red shirt to reveal a Baby Blue one. Mitchell smiles.
CASHIER (CONT’D)
You can’t wear your stuff here, man. Unless you want to be killed.
BLEACHERS
Mitchell hustles down the stairs-- surprised to see the bleacher section completely empty. Nobody, except Ray.
MITCHELL
Where is everybody?
RAY
Kicked out. Unruly behavior.
Mitchell sits next to Ray-- the entire section theirs.
MITCHELL
Beer?
RAY
Please.
I was wondering if anyone else had done the CS Open this spring. I was pleased the prompt wasn’t as crazy specific as the Fall 2009 CS Open. It made things a little easier, which I appreciated in light of being in the midst of Screnzy!
As for your scene, I liked it — very cute.
Reminds me a little of BIG FAN, without the unsettling tone. Nice work, and good luck to you!
You did a good job with a tough topic. I completely wanted to stay away from sports because it’s just too cliche but you took it into the stands and made it work, BRAVO!
Now the bad news (LOL), I had difficulty picturing the scene because you used used both ballpark and stadium. You could have helped me a little by stating if it was Minor league, Major League or because of the situation, a College game seems to fit best.
There were a couple of places where I would have done things a little different.
Ex: The dialogue where Ray says “Did I not?” vs Didn’t I, makes him sound English or Aussie.
Leading up to the spilled beer was great. I could picture actually being there but instead of the crowd “plopping” down maybe something like- slowly sink back into their seats as Mitchell springs or leaps out of his, with his arms raised in triumph, accidentally spilling the beer of a neighboring fan.
Really bad news (LOL) I really don’t care what happens to anyone in this scene, before or after it happens and technically, I think you used two scenes. If I were judging this, which I have no credentials or experience to do and I could be completely wrong, I would give you between an 85-90. Good Luck and Well Done.
Elizabeth -
Appreciate your comment!
Thanks for your feedback.
Ron -
Thank you so much as well! I thought you made a lot of good points that would have made it better. To be honest, I was a little worried about going from the “bleachers” to the “vendors” in regards to it taking place a single location. I really appreciate your honest and constructive feedback! Thanks!
Good luck in the contest. I thought your scene was great. I would consider everything you wrote “one scene” and not 2, but I’m not one of the judges so who knows.
I disagree with the comment about “Did I not?” because I speak that way sometimes to make a point, and sometimes I even throw in the obligatory british accent. But what do I know? Sometimes I feel like I’m a small british school girl trapped in the body of a 38 year old meathead.
I wasn’t sure if posting our scenes on our own sites were against the contest rules, but now I see everyone else doing it… I will have to as well.
Keep up the good writing. I hope you make it to the top 100.
Hey Johnny -
Sweet, thanks so much for your thoughts! I’ll check out your site soon to read yours!
Just fyi, the CS Open video states that a sequence is fine, which is what you’ve got here. It’s one scene that takes place across a couple of locations, which is completely normal. So no worries on that end.
Really dug the ending! I know there are secret Dodger fan’s in AT&T Park and that makes me happy. Glad to see you entered again this year. Nice job!
Good luck!!!!
Looks like we won’t know who advances for 3-4 weeks as it says here:
http://creativescreenwriting.com/cyberspace.open.2010.html
And just an FYI, they’re doing another CS Open in the fall!!!
http://www.screenwritingexpo.com/writingtournament.2010.html
Anyway, keep writing! Dig this bit of direction “as if God poured ketchup over the crowd”.
Cheers!
Did you get past round 1? I didn’t make the cut.
Round 2 starts today. I’ve locked myself in the house. Self imposed exile from the world and I am going to write as hard as if i was still in.
I finally posted my first round scene on my website. Check it out and tell me what you think.
Any and all criticism (good or bad) is always accepted. good luck if you made it to the second round.
Hey Johnny!
Thanks for checking in. I think it’s awesome you’re participating still.
Yeah, I was able to make the cut. Getting a little bit of a slow start today with my entry.
I’ll check out your round one scene out soon! Thanks for the heads up.