Of course, it's maybe harder to make a good short film than a longer one because you've got less time to tell your story. But still I find myself wanting to find some elements of "story" in even short films. Also, I see that you're mainly doing this for the experience and practice of doing it, which is cool. But I'll critique your screenplay as if telling a story was your primary objective. Here's my first reactions after reading the script just once:
From the first few lines, I had the impression that it might be a murder mystery. But then you quickly see that Stephan is the would-be murderer. So then I was wondering if someone might try to stop the murder somehow. Joe seems very concerned about it all, but in the end makes no effort to warn Elvis or stop the stunt or expose Stephan [who will likely just set up a more deadly, impossible stunt for the next show until he succeeds in killing Elvis]. By the end, I realize it was meant to be a more a comedy than a prevent-a-murder film. It's hard to make a comedy about something as dark as attempted homicide (though I'm sure it's been done, and probably even well by someone).
How can this be changed or fixed or improved? Here's some ideas, not necessarily all to be implemented together, that might've made it more satisfying to me:
1) explore, even briefly, why Stephan wants to kill Elvis and destroy the show (even something trivial like Stephan is stuck in a bad contract, or hates the show, or Elvis, or something)
2) explore John's struggle against needing $ from doing the show versus wanting to prevent the murderous stunt.
3) have John try to stop the stunt somehow, fail to stop it, but then be quite relieved when Elvis survives it.
4) have John try to talk Elvis out of doing it, but have Elvis arrogantly blow him off
5) Have Stephan's motivation be for better ratings at all costs (even Elvis's life) instead of attempting to destroy the show.
I wish I also had suggestions for how to make it more funny, but maybe I'll post some later if I come up with some. The only obvious one to me is to give Elvis a real over-the-top Elvis Presley look-alike persona using the LEGO big wavy black hair part, E.P.'s voice imitated, etc. If you go that route, I think I can pull of a passable Elvis voice imitation if you'd want me to try it. Good luck.
BTW my favorite character is John.
