Sometimes you bomb...

As I've waxed neurotically before, once your screenplay is in the hands of the production, your job is essentially done. There might be rewrites or revisions along the way, but by that point there's little influence a writer can have on the final product.

Hopefully you get lucky, but sometimes you bomb.

Way back in 2005 I posted about a comedy video that Dave did for Brunching Shuttlecocks starring yours truly as a bumbling adventurer. When it premiered on Brunching several years ago, it was well received and got lots of laughs.

So earlier this week I shared it with a friend from work.

Who was genuinely, deeply, profoundly... appalled.

Now, as a performer, that's exactly the response you're looking to get. Revulsion.

So what's the point here? Sometimes a joke tanks. Or a scene. Or an entire screenplay.

Or sometimes what plays well for one audience doesn't work for another. The gag about cats being scared by a vacuum may be high comedy to an old 40-something codger, but play like a lead balloon to a 22 year old just out of college, where they don't know what vacuums are, and cat humor usually involves forced-feline jaegerbombs.

Really, though, all you can do is make it and put it out there. Hope for giggling, not gagging. Cheers not chunks. Be moved, but not have a movement.

Guess we'll see how it shakes out for Siege. Until then, I'm crossing my fingers. And not showing any more videos to people from work.

- Charlie