The 'Help needed' thread

Hey guys, I'm currently carrying out a research project at university to do with eccentric people and I need a large number of responses, and preferably from people with a wide range of demographic backgrounds. So I was wondering if you guys could help me out and fill in my online questionnaire for the project?

Here's the link; http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/204204/eccentric-people

I'd really appreciate it if you guys could, and you might find it quite interesting!

Thanks!

Done

Thanks Joe! Appreciated.

SPAM!

I'm going to get in on this. Here's my short film script (it's 14 pages in format, meaning it would be about 5-6 pages top were it written as an essay, won't take long to read). It's supposed to be a farce/parody of Irish politics and an overbloated, nameless/faceless banking sector (the whole public sector actually), and how the Irish public just puts up with too much shit (but does like to moan a lot) without taking action - which is shown through the main character constantly doing what he is told, despite it not often making sense. It is a first draft (first drafts are always crap) so I wouldn't mind getting some feedback from people: what you liked, didn't like, what could use improving, etc. Mary Harney btw is an incredibly corrupt and useless politician (the most unpopular Irish politician I personally can remember) who constantly refuses to answer questions because she "does not have the facts of the matter at hand." Bertie Ahern was our Taoiseach (prime minister) and was chiefly behind Ireland's huge economic boom over the last 12-ish years, but has to be the most corrupt man in democratic politics over the past decade (not named Berlusconi).

http://drop.io/ikvhzao#
You might need to zoom in a bit.

Well the way I did it was to just judge as best I could from the passage.

For instance with John the mechanic, I thought he wasn't that happy (imagining myself in that situation), his personal relationships weren't great as he 'has few friends', and was averagely successful at work since that's all you have to go on in the passage. Doesn't say he's great, but since he's in the job, he can't be a disaster. In my opinion.

If you think they have psychological illnesses, but don't know what, its fine to put 'not sure'.

Does that answer your question RoM?

Thanks for trying anyway!

Cheers

All these replies and not one of you has got back to me about my script; shame on all of you!

Guv'nor I did you a favour in filling it out...

Don't mind me though, on a fairly heavy dose of sleeping pills and STILL cannot get to sleep with this on my mind (that's a positive though I reckon - been struggling for AGES to get this interested in something). I will, however, be spamming the balls out of any-and-all NSR threads/forums for the next few days until I get my answers! :-D

Come on folks, there are many 'multi-quote, to-and-fro' POSTS on here thhat are shorter. Even just responses of 'I like it' or 'its shit' will do at this stage. I have posted in in three other forums and despite double-digit viewings I have yet to get any feedback.

Please please please help me here! From the moment you open the document you will know what I mean: 14 pages of film script is really only about 5-6 pages (if even) essay wise and I have made it quite accessible, too. I am at this stage literally begging... and high as a kite on these skeeping pills Shouldn't take longer to read than a Guardian footballing column...

Here's the script: http://drop.io/ikvhzao#
Think Monty Python/Coen Bros/South Park in terms of style & demeanour.
You might have to hit the 'zoom' button a few times

P.S. This post was not to be intended as naggy/needy as it appears, but I have it due Friday and I DESPERATELY need some help here. #

Apologies to the Guv however, I am not trying to hijack your thread and did resond when sober a few hours ago it. You probably are familiar with the 'castrating mother' term, but if not them Google it. It mainly relates to literature from what I know but surely ties in with what you are looking for. It relates directly to the 35y/o guy living at home struggling to find a girlfriend after breaking up with a fiancee-to-be over his mother's religious views.

Sleeping tablets (when they do not get you to sleep) put you in the most f;ked up state of serenity ever. Please don't have a med expert tell me they are straining the endorphines from me now, only for me to wake up to a catatonic morning?!!?

Wow I am f'ked right now.

Thanks for filling it out Billy.

I read the script, I'm not an expert so don't know how useful my feedback would be, but I'd add in a bit more description of the main character - like a bit more about the apartment (how its bare but messy at same time), his appearance etc so you get a better image of him - and more description in general to help picture the scenes better.

Hope this helps!

Well I'm certainly no movie script expert, but my take is that it flows decently, although, you don't really get a sense of his frustration at the bureaucracy other than what he says, of course. Maybe have the apartment in a bit of disorder, a bill or two scattered, but nothing overly obvious.

I guess you could go one way or the other with the people he interacts with at the bank and tax office. Either make them overly cheerful or overly depressed, for some effect there. Just don't make them too human and relatable, suppose. And maybe draw out his interactions with them just a bit.

I guess it's tough for me to discern from the script, but are we supposed to feel the guy's paranoia, or get a bit of comedic effect from his interactions?

"Yeah, Homer, um, most movie scripts are 120 pages. This is only seventeen. And several of the pages are just drawings of the time machine."

RE Guv'nor: Yeah that's the tough bit about looking for help on a script - it's tough to find people who can properly 'read' them (no offense to anybody, film script it literally just a different form of literature than novels, journalism, etc - words are intended to be kept minimal & efficient in order to let the director & cinematographer have their own input). I considered putting more detail into his appearance and might still do (e.g. his suit getting more disshevelled as the story progresses), but I have already ran about a page over what we were supposed to do. Cheers for the input all the same.

Achtung: Good idea on the bank notices. I will probably put his wallet laying on a bank notice at the very end, and maybe him holding one in hand in the first scene. Again, thanks for the input. I was curious as to how the mindset of Jack would translate to non-Irish people; he is not paranoid, just getting dicked about by an irresponsible and clueless system/administration (so yeah, it was comedic effect I guess). Again our scripts were supposed to be 10-13 pages, so I have already ran over a little and thus cannot really flesh out the interactions any more (though I really wanted to - e.g. the bank branch manager's 'official financial advise' was to "put it all on red" (as the banks have been basically gambling with our savings since self-regulation... the irony being that Jack goes with black at the end, and it DOES hit red).
- For example I got my emergency tax back last month. It is supposed to take 3-6 working weeks, yet I applied for mine in DECEMBER or last year, and then again in January (new tax year), April, June & August.

The good news is that I got an email back from my lecturer today, and despite a few small typos and moments of flat dialogue and/or indescriptive descriptions (??) he was actually over the moon with it. Apparently it's one of the more action-packed and lively scripts he has got from a student in years... and the first time anybody has had the balls to go with satire (since there is a fine line between satire & just nonsense). I am in the middle of re-editing and may well have it finished before kickoff in the France match.

F'king chuffed!

Congrats!

Ha ha

Thanks alot RoM!

Bump!

So, how is it coming?

I read it and thought parts of it were really funny (The subtitles on Mary Harney and the first scene with the man with the gun both made me laugh out loud).

I thought you could have made his interaction with Desk #4 a bit more absurd. I wasn't sure how to read her "haha", and it generally seems like that section of several lines where she makes the mistake and realizes it is too mechanical. The scene doesn't seem to have enough bureaucratic bullshit once he's actually talking to her.

Took it.

Cheers for getting back on that.

I got it all finished and handed in; still a tiny bit rough around the edges but I got an email back from the lecturer calling it 'excellent and timely' so it was certainly up to snuff, at least. The bad thing was only a week or two later my computer got wiped out and I didn't have the script backed up. Thankfully I found somewhere where I had uploaded what I think was the final version to show to a friend, but I still am not 100% definite if it is: http://drop.io/dmlirxl#

The main problem with adding more to the 'clerk #4' scene was that we were supposed to try to stick to 12 pages but I finished on 14 iirc, so I had to cut some bits out. I removed the 'haha' and replaced it with a 'giggles' parenthetical, as well as making significant changes to directly before the 'man with gun' scene. I honestly don't have a vivid memory of what else I changed up, but it's all in the link above, so give it a whack.

OK so, I got carried away. Apparently, I really really don't want to do my work.

First of all, I really like it: it's funny and the satire works.

Some specific thoughts:

There's some disconnect between the end of the first scene and when he goes to the office. It seems like he relaxes after the phone conversation (with a beer and the TV), but I would think you'd already want us to see him as a little exasperated? Or maybe he chugs his beer to try to de-stress, or he flips through the channels frustrated and distracted. He seems ho-hum and relaxed just hanging out in his apartment after the phone conversation when I would expect him to start building up frustration.

The "librarian" scene still bugs me in those lines where she laughs. It just seems out of line with bureaucratic nonsense that she would realize she'd made a mistake and admit it (that implies a competent response, in the end), plus she seems nice when she laughs (It comes across as "oops, silly me, sorry" when I would want to see it as "I don't care if I mess up; F you.) Maybe if you illustrate that she makes a mistake rather than have her say it (she could read back his number and get it wrong, maybe she gives the wrong number and then insists that he must be Mrs. so-and-so since that's what her paperwork says -- I don't know, just something more absurd and frustrating.) Sorry to harp on this again, but it seems important to set the stage.

I love the man with the gun scene and the part immediately preceding. Brilliant.

OK, maybe I'm just totally missing something about the receptionist. She bugs me on page 11 too. Maybe I'm just not getting how her character is supposed to come across. Hrrmmm?

I like your revision to what Harney says at the end. Much stronger.

I don't know what else you could cut for the page requirement. That's always tough.

It looks really good though; you'll have to post the finished product. Are you actually going to film it?

Yeah, welcome to my world. every post I make is intended to be 8-10 sentences tops, yet I frequently wind up with scriptures of Biblical proportions by the time I hit 'reply' - just like with this one. :-D

Well that's a tricky one. I know you teach/lecture English, right? so let me apologise in advance if you know this and it comes across as patronising. The thing here is that screenplays, largely unlike scripts for stage, should be left as devoid of direction as possible (this is something I had to continuously whittle down throughout the process). On stage the writer is 'God' whereas in film that role belongs to the director. There is also a serious emphasis on brevity of language, as whomever reads your script that could possibly get it made should be able to pick up on the cues themselves. 'Readers' that studios, agents, etc hire to look over scripts are often overloaded with stuff to get through, so you need to make it as concise as possible and avoid breaking these two key rules - and in the first few pages, at absolutely any cost. Any hints towards a poor script or one that does not adhere to format will be thrown away before the reader even gets close to your inciting incident.

So basically, the director and actor would pick it up from there, obviously notice he should be frustrated, and bring that across in his actions. Other elements such as lighting, sound and camera work also serve a heavy purpose here. For example, anybody who has never seen nor heard of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas could tune into it halfway through, watch it for five seconds, never hear or see a single drug reference, yet pick up that these guys are out of their mind on something due simply down to the distorted sound and 'twitchty' camera work. The script would never at all even allude to these, unless it was a 'shooting script' (as opposed to a 'spec script) which the director would have heavy influence in. You usually have to be an established name to gain that privilege.

That's a very good point, it hadn't actually occurred to me.

I did throw in the laughter though very intentionally so as not to entirely dehumanise her. The intention was to start off with this guy in a normal situation that a huge number of us can relate to (banks looking for money), then to gradually increase the obsurdity throughout to get a more 'natural' feel to it. If she had been as dehumanised as the Man With Gun, or the receiptionist looking for money, I felt it would have lessened the comic impact of those characters who enter at a later stage.

I am not 100% definite but it would strike me as a rule of comedy to not start off with the biggest laughs or highest impact, because all that follows it will have to escalate further as a result. Going much further than the Eight Ball or Man With Gun I figured, would have lost the potential audience. I am not sure if you are familiar with Irish comedy and humour, but it tends to essentially be 'British humour, only more offbeat'. Going further than the Eight Bull for Man With Gun could work on an American audience quite well but outside of animation, it just wouldn't be swallowed up as well here. You would probably think otherwise given our history in a literary context, but the Irish public don't lend themselves to surrealism all that well.

That's a kind of local joke. Since the Celtic Tiger boom, the public sector in Ireland has gotten ridiculous in both it's size and the pay levels of even it's more peripheral members; it is essentially a money-leeching entity that gives nothing back (for all the people therein, the inefficiency of the public sector would not be tolerated in ANY other western country). While employment shot up from about 6% to 18.5% in just over a year, these guys refused to take paycuts of 10%, the government made next to no cutbacks, and apart from the collapse of the construction industry it was the single most detrimental element to our ravaged economy. It's complicated to go into detail over, but struck a chord with anybody from Ireland that I have shown it to.

The 'Sticky Fingers' reference was about a crooked higher-up in the public sector who on the very day of the bailouts (when we were literally hours away from pulling an Iceland, and that is no exaggeration) gave himself a bonus of €1mn, earning the nickname 'Sticky Fingers Fingleton' - a high end scumbag.

Good to hear you liked the adjustments to Harney & Man With Gun .

I reckon that is very close to the finished product; I kind of lost my momentum when my computer went splat and I couldn't edit anything about it for a few weeks. Not sure if it will get filmed, the module was split into two parts with two separate lecturers - the first guy (screenplay specialist) loved it and the second seemed quite fond of it too (kept referencing it in class, which was kind of cool) but did also figure that with so many outdoor scenes and need for office buildings and whatnot, that it was probably logistically impossible to make on a college budget.

Still, there are a round of national 'short film funding' awards coming up soon so I might throw it into that to see how it gets on, and I am also going to be entering it into a good number of online short screenplay competitions to see how it gets on. Funny way how the movie industry works, I'll probablhy be using this as more of a 'CV builder' than anything else since nobody will make your stuff until you get an agent/manager, yet most agents/managers won't pick you up unless you have got something made .

I'm moving on very soon now to a feature-length script about a man who hates advertising and gets thrown into an 'advertising world' in a Dorothy in Wonderland type of way. It is probably going to be a bit more absurd, and a loose adaptation of True Romance/Badlands... I'm think of calling Adlands.

That makes a lot of sense. I would hate to give up that much control as an author, but it's true that the director is in charge.

I see what you mean, but I still think she should be a bit more absurd. You still have a lot of ground between that and man with gun.

Heh, that sounds cool. Keep us updated.

I'm writing a paper on a career in microbiology and decided to use the University Of Florida as a place to pursue it. I have to make an outline of the courses required to take and whatnot. I was able to find all the courses except for the electives.

College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

* Semester 1 Fall

CHM 2045 + CHM 2045 Lab (GE-P), 4 credits
MAC 1147, Pre- Calculus (if required for MAC 2311 in spring)
(GE-M), 4 credits
Composition, Rec. ENC 1101 (GE-C-GR6), 3 credits
Humanities (GE-H+I), 3 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 14

* Semester 2 Spring

CHM 2046 + CHM 2046 Lab (GE-P), 4 credits
MAC 2311, Calculus 1 (GE-M), 4 credits
Humanities, Rec. ENC 1102 (GE-C-GR6), 3 credits
General Elective, 3 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 14

* Semester 3 Fall

BSC 2010 + BSC 2010 Lab (GE-B), 4 credits
CHM 2210, Organic Chemistry I, 3 credits
Social/Behavioral Science (GE-S), 3 credits
MAC 2312, Calculus 2, 4 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 14

* Semester 4 Spring

BSC 2011 + BSC 2011 Lab (GE-B), 4 credits
CHM 2211 + CHM 2211 Lab, Organic II, 5 credits
MAC 2313, Calculus 3, 4 credits
Humanities (GE-H+I+GR6), 3 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 16

* Summer

*MCB 3023, Principles of Microbiology, 3 credits
*MCB 3023L, Principles of Microbiology Lab, 2 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 5

* Semester 5 Fall

*MCB 4303, Genetics of Microorganisms, 3 credits
SPC 2600 or AEE 3030C, Oral Communication, 3 credits
PHY 2053/L, 5 credits or PHY 2048/L, 4 credits
Social/Behavioral Sciences (GE-S), 3 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 13-14

* Semester 6 Spring

*CHM 3218 Organic/Biochemistry 2, 4 credits
PHY 2054/L, 5 credits or PHY 2049/L, 4 credits
+MCB5303L, Microbial Genetics Lab, 2 credits
Statistics, 3 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 13-14

* Summer C

CHM 3120 + CHM 3120 Lab, Analytical. Chemistry + Lab, 4 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 4

* Semester 7 Fall

+CHM 3400, Physical Chemistry, 3 credits
+MCB 4403, Prokaryotic Cell Structure and Function, 3 credits
+MCB 5136L, Techniques Advanced Lab, 3 credits
MCB 4905, Undergraduate Research, 2 credits
General Elective, 3 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 14

* Semester 8 Spring

*PCB 5235, Immunology, 3 credits
AEE 3033 or ENC 2210 or MMC 2100, Written Communication, 3 credits
ECO 2023 (S) or AEB 3103 (S) or AEB 2014 or ECO 2013 (S), 3-4 credits
MCB 4905, Undergraduate Research, 2 credits
General Elective, 2 credits

TOTAL CREDITS = 13-14

TOTAL DEGREE REQUIREMENTS = 120 CREDITS

Could anyone assist me in finding choices for the electives? I would really appreciate it

http://microcell.ufl.edu/Students/undergraduate/schedule.shtml

I got the courses from here.

EDIT: I found what I needed.

I ate a bunch of mushrooms an hour and a half ago and nothing has happened.



help.

Hey guys,I have decided to give GMAT....I want to do an MBA....I have a work experience of 2 years and I am 23.....
Could any of you let me know what the ideal score would be for me to get into a good B-School?...