Them's Fightin' Words

Which is a pity. Because I really used to like Kevin Spacey – he seemed like a really nice, genuine guy. A stand-up dude who would recognise amazing talent the second he saw it.

That’s what motivated me to enter the Jameson First Shot competition at the end of last year. Ol’ Kev was running the competition and it sounded like the break I’ve been waiting for.

It was pretty straightforward; write a seven page script for a short film, send it through and if Kev liked it, he’d let you direct it while he acted in and produced it.

I went all out. I wrote a script that melted fucking FACES, man! EVERYONE who read it was like, “Holy shit dude. You just mind-fucked me so hard my brain is dribbling out my fflleelruirsrhushr!”

But did I hear back from my buddy Kev? No. I did not. So fair enough, I let it slide. I’m sure there are way better writers and way better scripts that were entered, no hard feelings.

Until I saw this. The winning short from SA.

 

 

A dentist. Who helps pirates. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight…

Then I saw this interview on my favourite South African show of all time and instantly understood why the flippin “grenaad-mond” who wrote and directed that went for the dentist angle.

 

 

Eloquent chap, ain’t he?

What gets me is that part of the brief was to submit something that hints at a bigger story so that if the short does well at the film festivals it plays at, it could get funding to be made into a feature film.

Would you watch a film about a pirate dentist? What’s the bigger story here? Does the dentist end up getting caught up in a swashbuckling pirate adventure after Jack Sparrow swoops in for an emergency root canal treatment?

Level with me here guys, because I’m too close to this to be an impartial judge.

Would you have chosen that script to win?

-ST