You should make a film about four friends who form a pact to have sexual intercourse with a female before graduation. What they do for the duration of the film is pretty much irrelevant, but they must go to a lot of parties where people are drinking out of plastic cups and dancing to Sum 41 and Good Charlotte. In fact, Sum 41 and/or Good Charlotte should be playing in the background for a good 90% of the script. Hollywood has been yearning for some originality lately and this script will certainly dish it out!
Seriously though, if you’re honestly going to write a “teen-movie” screen-play, you’d do better to start with a list of what NOT to include:
-Obnoxious yet zany Alpha Male character who speaks entirely in one-liners and put downs.
-Any sort of compulsion about getting laid a.) before a deadline or b.) at an important event
-Hot foreign exchange student who everyone is trying to bang.
-“Cool” character names. No “Erykk”, no Gunner, no Stryker, and certainly no Tyler (why does every Hollywood movie have to have a cool guy in it called “Tyler”?). How about, umm, Jeff, Chris, Mike, Dan?
-Any stupid drug reference, like a class eating hash brownies and seeing the Grateful Dead bears.
-NO FUCKING SUM 41 OR GOOD CHARLOTTE!
I second the recommendation to focus more on the teachers. They’ve been almost completely overlooked in most teen movies. A lot of them DO NOT WANT to be there and have funny stories to tell or interesting personality quirks.
I had a Wood shop teacher who belonged as a character in a movie. Physically, he greatly resembled the captain of the shark boat in “Jaws”…leathery skin coated in motor oil and soot, extremely gruff demeanor and always squinting at something. He would always speak with this horribly profane eloquence, with such lines as “that girl over there has a face that would make a maggot puke!”. “That girl” was usually a female student, often within earshot. His biggest and most disturbing “quirk” was his obsession with knives and sharp objects. He’d spend a lot of time fashioning spikes and spears by sharpening long pieces of wood in the rotary sander. No exaggeration, he’d produce at least one or two of these wooden weapons every period. Our football field backed onto the parking lot and during practice we’d see him filling his car trunk with his wares at 4:30pm each day. Now, you might assume that he was sharpening these for a purpose, for example to make wooden stakes for surveying or for political signs, but this was not the case, as they’d be of different lengths, shapes and materials. Sometimes he’d get ambitious and make a multi-pronged one, not unlike Neptune’s trident or a Klingon dueling weapon.
Looking back over the semester, I’d conservatively estimate that he spent about 25% of his time providing us with actual instruction, and 75% of his time sharpening wooden weapons on the sander. If a student had a question, he’d briefly stop his sanding to assist, and then go right back to it. We’d occasionally ask him “what are you doing?” and he’d always give some vague, cryptic response like “sharpening” or “making something”. I know this sounds like an exaggeration, but it wasn’t. This guy was fucked.
At first, seeing this compulsive sharpening served to lighten the mood of the class, but the amusement turned to concern and eventually borderline dread as the class entered its 10th week. Finally a student asked him very directly in front of the class “why in the hell to you keep making those things?!”. The teacher stormed over to the student’s backpack, emptied the contents and held up various textbooks to the class, asking “well why do you have this?!..what about this one, why do you have this?!”. “They’re textbooks. I use them to study” the student replied. “Ok, well those things you see me making, I use them too!” said the shop teacher defensively.
The confusion in the air was palpable. So was the fear.
The class proceeded as it had for the remainder of the semester. We’d be making CD racks and piggy banks, and the teacher just kept on sharpening his implements with eerie efficiency.
About a week prior to the final project, we had a supply teacher. This was strange, because as incompetent and downright spooky our regular teacher was, he was always extremely punctual. The supply came back for a second day…then a third. After a few more days, the principal came down to speak to the class. The teacher was missing. AWOL. Nobody had any idea where he went.
School finished, and we got into summer. The disturbing memories of our absentee teacher sharpening wooden blades faded away. In August though, they came back…the local paper did a story on the teacher. He had sold his car, sold his cottage, and emptied his bank account, all without his wife knowing. He had told her he was going to the liquor store and that he’d be back shortly. Never heard from again.
Wherever he was going, he presumably felt that hundreds upon hundreds of sharpened wooden blades would be of use to him there. I hope he found what he was looking for.