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Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Hold Your Breath – Short Script Review (Available for Production) - post author KP Mackie

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“Hold Your Breath”

An aspiring producer creates a unique way to deliver his pitch.

“Sell your story, sell yourself. Be creative, be brief.” And above all, be unique.

Ahhh, crafting an effective pitch. Ever hear about the writer who sent his shoe and a note — “To meet the talented one-shoe writer…” — with his contact information? How about the scribe who arrived with buckets of chicken for producers, only to ask them to supply the napkins? Or, the guy who handed the exec a softball — an actual ball — and declared, “Here’s my ‘soft pitch’ of an idea.”

Going up?

In the short, “Hold Your Breath, prolific writer Rick Hansberry flips the proverbial elevator pitch right on its head. As the story opens, aspiring reality-show creator Jason (24) corners a senior producer in the elevator. The fast-talking kid manipulates his way into the exec’s office, and drops the name of the producer’s boss — network chairman “Don” — who Jason claims is family friend, “Uncle Don.”    

Security is summoned, and Jason threatened with arrest. Does the name-dropping fly? Armed with only 30 seconds and charm, will Jason propel his reality-show concept all the way to the top? And what is this breath-stopping concept anyway? Let’s just say, the story’s surprise employs a trick that’s one for the books…

“HYB” is a clever and fun comedy riff, delivering a creative spin to the traditional elevator pitch that we’re all so painfully familiar with. The doors are wide open — come on in!

About the writer: Rick Hansberry has written/produced several short films, including the SAG Foundation award-winning “Branches.” His first feature is set to be released in the summer of 2014. Trailer available here . He teaches screenwriting seminars and workshops in the Central Pennsylvania area and is presently available for hire for new story ideas, rewrites and adaptations. He can be reached at djrickhansberry – AT – msn, (cell phone 717-682-8618) and IMDB credits available here.

Page Count: 5

Budget: Low. Quick shots inside an elevator, a producer’s “office”, a cast of three, plus a couple extras to portray security guards. Plenty of elbow room.

About the guest reviewer for “Hold Your Breath”: California uber reader/reviewer KP Mackie is working hard on another animated feature. Maybe John Lasseter’s in the elevator Rick envisioned for his story? Hey, um, Rick? –

READ THE SCRIPT HERE – AND DON’T FORGET TO COMMENT!!

FOR YET MORE SCRIPTS AVAILABLE FOR PRODUCTION:

PLEASE SEARCH SIMPLYSCRIPTS.COM

OR THE BLOG VERSION OF STS HERE.

All screenplays are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. The screenplays may not be used without the expressed written permission of the author.

3 Comments so far

1.

Kassandra Konecny
July 3rd, 2014 at 9:15 am

Rick,

Thanks for posting your screenplay. It looks good. I am applying for a script editing position, and I wanted to read some well-written screenplays to polish up my applicable skills. I think the formatting looks great, and, for the most part, the story is engaging. There are a few moments of dialogue that I didn’t think sounded realistic or made a lot of sense (right around where Jason says “What the Hell?”), but, other than that, it looks good. Thanks for posting! Good luck with your feature film. 🙂

2.

Henry Christner
July 4th, 2014 at 4:54 pm

Was with you all the way — crisp pace, believable. I had a Huh? moment at the end, though. Had to go back and reread, then I got it. When filmed, it may be fine. If it were me, I’d tinker a bit with the concluding dialogue.

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