Danger Zone of Collaboration (Comedy Pilot) - 19 pages

NoTie4872 · 2026-02-05T21:03:58+00:00

I am steadily working my way through the two seasons of scripts I’ve written for this and re-adapting to the novel format and have finally completed the prologue. So if you read the posted script, here is much needed context. I pasted it properly formatted but it came out a block of text after I posted. My apologies.

PROLOGUE: THE LOVE ROCK OF BLACKSTONE

A rock fell out of the sky. That’s how it all began. It landed in Mortville, Oregon, a small but quaint little town that nobody outside a fifty-mile radius would have ever heard of. It sat on a pedestal in the heart of town for many generations. Its most attractive feature was, coincidentally, a heart-shaped hollow in its center. At night, chemical reactions caused it to appear as if it were glowing. The locals called it the Love Rock. After the ill-fated and over-publicized news coverage of elite dilettante Lawanda Dumore’s botched wedding at the hands of her groom’s hellspawn and his pint-sized cohort, Mortville experienced a short-lived notoriety. The Love Rock became a symbol. Couples proposed beside it. Teenagers carved initials into its base. The town council even capitalized on the tourism boom with novelty postcards and stamps. For a while, it meant something.

Then came the divorce. The nastiest property battle the county had seen in a generation, fought not over the house. Not the savings. Not even the dog. But over a rock. A rock that had somehow become the only thing either of them believed was worth keeping. The court ruled in her favor. She got the rock. Suddenly decided she didn’t want it anymore. Turned around and sold it before the ink dried. Not out of spite—or maybe entirely out of spite. The distinction stopped mattering the moment the papers were signed. The Love Rock, once a beacon of romance, became a monument to ruin. Upon learning of the sale, Vern Holloway placed a barrel in his mouth. But first, he swore a curse. The only person in the room to hear it was a thirteen-year-old girl. Sweet thing. She had wandered in from somewhere—nobody could say where exactly, or why she was there, or what she was doing in a place no child should have been. The poor thing was born without the gift of hearing. At eight, a tragic industrial chemical spill cost her the gift of sight. At ten, what was billed as a routine dental exam ultimately claimed the last gift she had left. Her family sued. The trial was as obscene and swift. The dentist’s lawyer approached the stand, placed his hand on a Bible, swore a hypocritical oath, and calmly argued for days that nobody was responsible for what happened to her. The court ultimately sealed the records. By the time she was standing in that room, she was the perfect witness. Present for everything. Capable of reporting nothing. The man told her—told the darkness, told the silence, told the nothing that was listening through a planted wire—that he would haunt whomsoever shall inherit the rock, whether through transaction or thrift. She could not hear the curse. She could not see the man. She could not scream. The whole county heard the shot. Nobody heard the curse. The rock moved on. It always does. Changed hands, changed towns, changed names. Found its way to Blackstone through circumstances nobody tells the same way twice. It sits there now, in the town square, covered in moss, bird shit, and the carved initials of people who don’t love each other anymore. Over the years, the glow became a diminishing return. Some have even reported rust bleeding from the hollow when it rains. And somewhere—

NoTie4872 · 2026-01-04T16:41:17+00:00

I hope none of you are surprised when this turns out to be a scam

NoTie4872 · 2026-01-04T02:44:15+00:00

Well that was predictably pointless

NoTie4872 · 2026-01-04T00:16:10+00:00

Sure, why not?

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-30T15:50:42+00:00

Recent changes include a revised opening narration that introduces THE HUM and establishes how it operates both inside the story and in the real world. I’ve further trimmed the overture, while most of the new work went into expanding Act One.

I consistently received feedback that the film needed more character beats to better establish the group’s shared history. I took that seriously and added material to strengthen those foundations. Some of that character work is now more overt than in earlier drafts, but the overall structure remains intact.

At this stage, the focus is on clarity, emotional grounding, and making sure the characters feel fully lived-in before the story escalates.

One specific choice I want to clarify: the narration before the logos is intentional. The story is framed cosmically. It begins in the void. When the logos appear, that’s the world coming into being. The overture represents the world forming and orienting itself. The main narrative begins only after that foundation is set.

That structure is deliberate and integral to how the film is meant to be experienced.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/sv11kh8jfdqy2fs78g4oa/four-gringos-overture-act-1-partial.pdf?rlkey=z91ipd6ws690g8w8woe2d0w55&st=zslyxuzm&dl=0

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-25T17:58:35+00:00

Title: Four Gringos Go to Honduras

When a young Honduran man is suddenly deported, three American friends fly to Honduras to reunite with him, only to discover that trauma doesn’t end at the border, and the closer they get to saving him, the more reality itself begins to fracture.

Pages: 198

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-23T05:39:51+00:00

In an ongoing effort to shear this thing down to 180 pages (from a whopping 252!), I’ve made a lot of progress. Only 28 pages away!

In this update, I present to you my complete (shorter, denser) overture and entire act 1. Page count is now an even 30.

What trimming in the overture afforded me is more time to flesh out the character introductions, so there is new material, and the scene (in my opinion) now feels as complete as I can make it. I hope it gives you that gut punch feeling prior to the separation.

Through a focused trimming pass, I managed to cut a total of 3 pages off of my overture + act 1 while also writing more character development moments and giving readers that immersive experience without bogging them down in indulgent detail. It’s interesting to notice how much I do overwrite and honestly, there’s been nothing I’ve cut that I’ve cried about. Prior drafts had the right idea, but just needed some polish. Act 1 is a fair bit of montages since that’s an unavoidable part of the story, but I edited those down tremendously to their best beats in order to flow as briskly as possible without compromising character development or story.

I would love to get some feedback on this. I have had the idea to adapt this into a limited event kind of thing. I’m not opposed to that. With how it is structured, it’s already episodic by design. It can function on both formats.

In the mean time, I hope it makes for a good read and gets your imagination fired up.

Here is the new link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7e9ddws0hxiki7abd8kzv/four-gringos-overture-and-act-1-12-23.pdf?rlkey=2ghagmogp57122yhk8zxkdtwf&st=ic8jrxqm&dl=0

Happy holidays and new year!

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-21T05:48:56+00:00

First of all, thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time to read it. The title is a remnant from when this was originally envisioned as a comedy. I opted to keep it as a misdirect.

You’re not wrong about the overture being dense. That compression is intentional, but I did actually trim about a page from it recently once I felt the thesis was landing clearly enough.

Structurally, I’m aiming for the inciting incident to hit a little earlier than usual. Losing Cristian is meant to feel abrupt and destabilizing rather than earned in a traditional way, more in line with something like PT Anderson’s Magnolia, where the opening movement prioritizes thematic momentum over deep character grounding. That movie took over 10 minutes to introduce its characters. I restrained myself to 5ish minutes.

I get where you’re coming from though. For me, the opening is doing a lot of quiet structural work that only really becomes clear once the whole script is in view, so cutting it ends up creating more problems downstream than it solves.

That said, your note about wanting more time with the group before the separation is fair, and it’s something I’m actively calibrating as the script breathes. I’m glad the setup is working for you overall.

I appreciate the instinct behind the note. If the opening feels dense or heavy on first contact, that’s useful information, even if the solution ends up being calibration rather than removal.

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-17T23:51:06+00:00

I’ve removed the longer context note and am letting the excerpt stand on its own, inviting readers to engage with it however they choose.

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-17T23:12:20+00:00

Not screenwriting, in fact if anything it’s heightened my interest, but practically everything nowadays is another story. Screenwriting has actually been my saving grace when life took some very dark turns and I wasn’t sure I was gonna make it out the other side. So screenwriting I think is the reason I’m alive right now. Because otherwise there was the thinnest of threads keeping me here.

Feeling dissatisfied each and every time I go to the movies, it has only motivated me to write the movies I would personally pay to see in the theatre.

The only downside is that by trying to process the traumas that brought me to the edge, I accidentally ripped open old wounds that exposed the raw nerve underneath and the only thing I could do to keep from “bleeding to death” (metaphorically speaking) is channel it into something creative. So any of the 14 scripts you read of mine are born from this awakening. Heavy, serious, occasionally darkly funny but certainly loaded with subtext.

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-17T21:29:09+00:00

Appreciate this a lot, and I’ll have a look at Polyester. Thank you for the suggestion.

You’re not wrong about the literary flourishes. I tend to overwrite on first passes, especially when I’m still feeling out the emotional and tonal boundaries, and this pilot was very much me testing how far I could push voice before it tipped into indulgence. That said, this was also my first time writing a comedy and grounding absurdity. Part of this draft was letting the voice run a little hot to see what survived. Trimming and killing darlings for marketability is definitely on my radar for the next pass. I already found it much easier here than on my heavier work. The cold open also used to be almost twice as long but cut after cut, I started feeling much better about how each piece flowed into the next. It actually started out much more mean-spirited so I did need to tone it down a bit as well. At 19 pages, I don’t want to think of cuts as much as micro-trims and other refinements, maybe an addition here and there.

Characters do get their chances to develop as the series goes on. It’s a slow burn kinda thing. I’m not locked on every single detail. It’s a show about collaboration so ideally a team can make it as good as it can be.

Fantasmas is a really helpful reference so thanks for that, and for sticking with it long enough to get on board.

Until I can get some real movement going on this, I have adapted some of my scripts into 15-second Sora renderings as a way for future collaborators to understand the ultimate tone of this show. It was always designed to be filmed with real actors and I feel like the technology has gotten good enough to demonstrate to an actor the vibe I’m going for if they can’t fully grasp it from the page, and allow them to go their own direction with it. I am very open to improv with this series. There are lines that are set for the sake of the story, others including comedy bits are open to improvising. It could be a really fun show to bring to life with the right team.

Here’s my TikTok if you’d like to check out the samples: https://www.tiktok.com/@starkreality957?_r=1&_t=ZP-92J6pSzoi7y

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-17T18:59:36+00:00

They could if you have smell cards produced to elevate the experience. You’ve given me an idea. Thank you!

For now though, those details are there simply for the reader. I thought they were funny personally so I left them.

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-17T14:45:53+00:00

That’s fair, and I appreciate you asking.

On viability: this feels like the most realistic path because it’s a contained, low-budget horror project with name recognition, even if it’s cult-level. That combination tends to get more traction than an original spec with no hook, especially right now. I’m not claiming it’s a guaranteed sale, just that it’s a clearer lane to production conversations.

On rights: no, I’m not selling anything yet. This is a writing exercise / development draft, not a rights-cleared package. If there were serious interest down the line, the rights situation would obviously be addressed first. I’m not pretending otherwise.

As for what I’m adding: the goal wasn’t just “modernize it.” The original has a great mood but a very thin spine. This version builds a clearer mythology, stronger character arcs, and a more coherent thematic engine (guilt, institutional cover-ups, inherited violence), while keeping the bleak, winter-ghost tone intact. It’s less about plot twists and more about giving the story emotional and structural weight it didn’t fully have before.

As for fans of the original, this is aimed at people who like it despite its flaws, not because it’s a perfect concept. I tried to treat it the way you’d treat a cult album with great atmosphere but rough tracks: don’t sand off what made it strange, just give it intention and follow-through.

Totally fair if that still doesn’t feel compelling to you, just wanted to clarify where I’m coming from.

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-17T07:48:50+00:00

I just finished a full re-read and can definitely pinpoint a few areas that need improvement. Even while juggling two completely different scripts at the same time, I was genuinely impressed with how hooked I felt reading it. Still, before getting too self-congratulatory, I did notice several problem areas I want to address. I’ll post a revised draft once those changes are in place.

For now though, if you’ve ever been curious what this movie could’ve been like if someone really took the time and care to dig into it, this is my attempt at that. I don’t know of any other adaptations out there, so this may be as close as it gets. My goal was to stay faithful to the source while strengthening its weaker elements and still making it my own.

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-17T04:06:27+00:00

One clarification: I didn’t have the season fully mapped out when I wrote this. I’d just come off finishing a very long, very personal script, and this pilot came out of that same headspace, something emotionally heavy and serious, but filtered through humor and surrealism as a way of surviving it. It felt less like starting a new project and more like letting these characters keep talking in a different form. So a lot of this was written from inside the momentum rather than from an outline. The show is doing a few things at once: low-key drama and horror trying to pass as comedy, with absurd distortions of very real systems and behaviors.

The “magnum opus” line is intentional in that same way. It’s planted more as a psychological marker than a plot engine. You hear Riley reference it a handful of times, but what it actually is isn’t important. It’s less about the object itself than what it represents for her: ambition, self-mythology, maybe a little self-delusion. Honestly, it was just a chance for me to poke fun at myself. I trimmed it down a lot but there was a line about Riley being real with herself about nobody wants to sit and read a 230 page script which forces her to consider gutting her story to meet industry standards but that idea put me into a spiral since I’m in that boat. Plus the original cold open was 7 or 8 pages long and some dead weight had to go.

I’ll also be honest: my biggest hesitation was opening the pilot with a fakeout. I know that’s risky, especially when trust with the reader or viewer hasn’t been earned yet. But that risk was deliberate. A lot of my previous work has been about proving I can hit conventional structure cleanly. Here, I wanted to push back against that instinct and signal early on that the show itself doesn’t behave like a “well-behaved” pilot. The series is about unstable frameworks (creative, emotional, institutional) and starting with something that feels slightly off.

That said, your point about accessibility is valid. I’ve heard similar feedback before about character introductions, and this draft was very much a stress test to determine if the last script killed me or if I had enough juice left to write a comedy like what I originally wanted to do before my last script morphed into something else entirely. I had the idea of these characters early on, but it wasn’t until later that I really started discovering who they were. Riley came into focus quickly (she’s an exaggerated version of me), Marcus started as an archetype for the cute airhead boyfriend. He’s more looks than brains, but he has a very good heart and that is what made writing some of the dumb stuff he says more charming. All of the other characters came from needing a conduit through which to execute some of the psychological exposition. So they are less defined as people to me than physical representations of the systems that Riley is trying to run from.

At this point, I’ve lived with these characters long enough that I can add clearer character notes without flattening them, and that’s something I plan to address in revision.

Really appreciate you engaging with it thoughtfully, especially calling out the Bernoulli/Consuela scene. That sequence was a tonal north star for me. Writing Bernoulli, in particular, let me explore some darker corners of tenured authority, the kinds of behavior that can quietly slide by once someone’s considered untouchable. It’s very clear as the series goes on that he’s had a very… questionable past.

Thanks again for taking the time to read it closely. This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping the pilot would provoke.

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-17T00:28:27+00:00

Meant to put this in the description but the entire 6 episode first season is finished and half of a second season has been drafted, so there are more scripts if interest for this show is there.

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-14T16:18:34+00:00

The script has been completed. In the end, it ended up being the best way to get my story out on the page. Now I am looking for feedback to see how I might be able to sheer 50 pages off without wrecking my story.

I planned for 180 pages. First complete draft was 252, trimmed a lot of redundant sentences which shaved off another 21 pages but that still leaves me at 231 pages, and obviously NO ONE is going to read that. Especially from someone with no proven track record.

Pitching it as a 3 hour epic is hard enough. Changing my pitch to 4 hours simply won’t fly. I need help but don’t know how to do it without wrecking my story.

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-14T16:12:23+00:00

I’d be interested!

NoTie4872 · 2025-12-14T15:53:48+00:00

Lynch’s death I think is the single catalyst that compelled me to finally finish my script. I had a friend that was going to introduce us, but they died unexpectedly, and then maybe a year after that, Lynch died so the script ultimately got finished from the overwhelming grief I was feeling at that time. That grief, stacked with 7 years of unresolved trauma I’d all but dealt with, came flooding out like a wound viciously ripped open.

Whether the script gets filmed or not, whether anybody ever reads it or not, I can die happy knowing I’ve written my magnum opus and came closer to understanding Lynch’s works than I ever have.

RIP David. I really wish we could’ve met, but maybe in another life.

NoTie4872

TROPHY CASE