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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    January 2017 One Week Challenge  ›  The Venus Heist - OWC Moderators: Mr. Blonde
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  Author    The Venus Heist - OWC  (currently 3759 views)
Nolan
Posted: January 31st, 2017, 4:49pm Report to Moderator
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I couldn't get into this.  I found it to be a little confusing, and actually had to go back and read it again.  I was still confused after the second read.  

The dialogue didn't really work for me.

Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of this one.  Sorry.  
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PrussianMosby
Posted: February 1st, 2017, 1:52pm Report to Moderator
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Pretty solid title
Logline fits the genre and explains central plot. Yes.

P1 tone is there

Lots of comparisons, but it works with me; however, quite risky in case of if it works with most others…

A quick read.

This script hasn't unfolded its potential yet. There was a bit too much unserious irony (Froot Loops, dialogues) which mirrored the insecurity of the story.

Solid effort. It was a bit repetitive constructed, so that the plot felt also a bit tedious, honestly. Although the general atmosphere was there, I missed some more noirish coolness from the characters' actions, this weird genre-typical stuff. However I recognized the effort to try to serve some. It just hasn't fully delivered yet. Not bad. Not bad.



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JEStaats
Posted: February 1st, 2017, 3:35pm Report to Moderator
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No sh*t, there I was....

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So much said already. I just didn't get it. Noir or not, it just distracted me and I quite trying to figure out where this was going. Got to the end and was still scratching my head. When the bank tellers started talking back, that just killed it. When the teller asked 'All of it?' What's the bandit going to say? No, $50 bucks should do it. Sorry.
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EWall433
Posted: February 1st, 2017, 8:40pm Report to Moderator
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Rikki doesn't really show initiative in this story. If it weren't for characters coming to her and dragging her places, I get the sense she'd just as soon stay at the office eating cheerios.

I like what this was attempting, but there's too many plot points thrown into this small space. Things race along, but the characters are never built. Considering it's a mystery, where anyone could be the culprit, you need to build character into it more. Who’s got the motive? Who’s got the means? What about one person makes them more suspicious than the other? I couldn't really detect a difference between Ivy and Amy, so trying to guess who was guilty was more like flipping a coin then solving a mystery.

By the ending, I’m guessing they were working together and trying to frame each other. That's a good twist, but the setup and development just needs more space for it to be an “Aha!” moment.
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Lightfoot
Posted: February 3rd, 2017, 8:35pm Report to Moderator
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kudos for getting Film Noir and still being able to get something out. I'm not familiar with that genre so was interested to give this one a read.

Wouldn't it be better to call the shdaowy figure "it" instead of "she", how are we able to see exactly what she is carrying with her? Unless you mean the silhouette of the Burlap sac and the Bowie Knife?

Not sure why they would call P.I's and not the cops.

started off well enough, but by the ending I was losing interest,

Hope you plan on re-writing this after the OWC is done, this could be an interesting short with some adjustments.
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Female Gaze
Posted: February 3rd, 2017, 10:19pm Report to Moderator
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[quote
]ROBBER
Come on, I ain't got all night, hot
cakes!
[/quote]

BWAHAHAHAHA! Hot cakes?


Quoted Text


RIKKI
Only banks I've ever heard of are
on Earth, sweetie.

Amy SLAMS the paper down on the desk, eyes cold and hard.
She glares at Rikki.

AMY
You. Slimy. Bitch.

A flash of lightning. THUNDER.

RIKKI
Okay, okay. What's the poop?


Umm..ok? I'm gonna keep going with this.

Well, Rikki is the laziest PO ever! And, I'm including that fat one from family guy. And she just took her with her? Ok.

This one suffers from identity crisis. It claims to be the present day, but reads like it's from 40 years ago or more. I got confused. Sorry. Good effort though.
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Reef Dreamer
Posted: February 4th, 2017, 10:04am Report to Moderator
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Well done for the effort.

I liked the set up with a love triangle, who's the baddy so to speak?

The script doesn't quite hit the spot, and for a short, I would suggest fewer scenes and locations, but that's just a preference.

The twist being that they both were robbers is also good.


My scripts  HERE

The Elevator Most Belonging To Alice - Semi Final Bluecat, Runner Up Nashville
Inner Journey - Page Awards Finalist - Bluecat semi final
Grieving Spell - winner - London Film Awards.  Third - Honolulu
Ultimate Weapon - Fresh Voices - second place
IMDb link... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7062725/?ref_=tt_ov_wr
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ChrisBodily
Posted: February 5th, 2017, 1:05am Report to Moderator
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*WARNING: LONG POST *

I know a lot of you have questions, which is a bit of a surprise to me, but I’ll go along.


Quoted from Scar Tissue Films
I had a bit of trouble with imagining the opening.

It's at night, and we have a shadowy figure entering the building, but then the Bank is still filled with customers. It all felt a bit weird.


To answer your first question, originally, the robberies and Ivy all happened in the daytime, but I feared people would tell me it’s not noir if there’s even one scene that takes place in the daytime. I played it safe and changed everything to night in the final draft. It read better to me, and it felt like a noir. Originally, only two or three scenes took place at night.

I added stormy weather whenever Amy visited to differentiate it from Ivy’s visits. Maybe now that the challenge is over, I can rework it a bit? I agree, the Amy/Ivy switch (“Amy/Ivy’s a serial robber, blah blah”) read better switching from night to day, rather than night to night.


Quoted from stevie
Picked the bottom script to start and will work my way up!

Some elements of comedy in there, perhaps unintentionally?


If you’re talking dialogue, sure. I wanted to give the robber some quips, while everybody else (including Amy and Ivy proper) play it mostly straight (Rikki gets a few deadpans). It’s the kind of snappy dialogue I would assume to be in a noir.


Quoted from grademan
The title suggests a female based crime drama.

The author's name suggests a tough guy style.


I came up with the concept first, then the title, then the story, characters, etc.

The pen name is intended to be: Alex is an androgynous name (Alexander, Alexandra, Alexis), and Mann (Man) is pretty self-explanatory. It’s not the first time I’ve used a pen name that tied into the OWC theme:

Board Game OWC: Jim Onji (Jumanji)

Taxi OWC: Utah Kintumi (Taxi Driver’s “You talkin’ to me?”)


Quoted from MarkRenshaw
This reads as a parody of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. Not sure if that was the intention but it doesn't quite work for me.

The problem for me was I didn't buy into the premise. Do people report crimes to detectives or to the police?  They normally report things they want investigat[ed] to detectives and crimes to the police, so I wasn't buying into this early on.

It also felt like some of these characters were male, the P.I. especially.


Nope, no parody. I wanted to write a straight noir.

You brought up a very good question. I figured the cops would say Amy and Ivy don’t have much of a case naming someone without proof. Since, the robber disguised herself (including her voice), the only way to get proof/evidence of identity would be to catch them in the act, which would go beyond a cop’s job description. Also, perhaps Amy and Ivy didn’t go to the police because they already have records?

Here’s some things a PI can and cannot do:

https://www.pinow.com/articles/456/what-a-private-investigator-cannot-do

Police vs. private Detective:

http://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/justice-studies/blog/private-investigator-versus-police-detective/

I wrote the characters in such a way that they could be either gender and the story would still work (to the extent that it does).

And now… (deep breath) …onto Jeff.


Quoted from Dreamscale
There are also a whole lot of "DARK CORNER" scenes.  Is this the exact same dark corner each time?  If not, that's an obvious mistake that wo[u]ld be Hell to try and figure out in production.


Of course it’s the same exact dark corner, each and every time.


Quoted from Dreamscale
I really dislike the snarky style, not naming characters, but saying, "we'll call her...Asswiper, how about?  Yeah...that's hat we'll call her.  Does that work for you, Reader?  If not, how about you call her anyfuckingthi[ng] you want to, because I'm  not going to name her, because it's so cool to write like this and show everyone what a talented writer I really am.

End of rant.


I’m concealing the characters’ identities so as not to spoil the twist ending. And I’m told this is the correct way to do it.


Quoted from Dreamscale
OK, so what kind of bank is open at night?  Really?  Just a terribly fake setup here


See above about me changing day scenes to night. I was afraid people would blast me for doing a noir in the daytime, but the actual complaint is the opposite? Wow.


Quoted from Dreamscale
"OFFICE OF RIKKI WESSON, P.I." - Seeing (or writing) this Slug numerous times should have told the writer that it's not a great Slug...at all.  It just sounds terrible.


I disagree, but different strokes. Maybe DETECTIVE’S OFFICE would have worked better. But it works for me.


Quoted from Dreamscale
So this "Witness" has only 1 eye?  That's very odd.


Only one of her eyes (and the area around it) is visible. It could be either eye (I prefer the right because it would be on the left-hand side of the screen), but the viewer would never be able to tell with the rest of the body obscured by shadows. I didn’t want to write anything unfilmable.

This is basically what I had in mind:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/dark-eye-stock-footage/161330225


Quoted from Dreamscale
Oh...now it's OK to reveal the Witness's name?  Why is that?


See above. I only conceal their names when they’re involved in the robberies, because I reveal that they were both in on it; I show Amy as the robber, which logically, makes Ivy the witness. Perhaps they’re learning from one another and pulling off every other heist, alternating between each other.


Quoted from Dreamscale
Page 3 - Why are you repeating the Slug again?  Looks to be exactly the same Slug we're already in.  OK, so it's a different night or time, huh?  Think how that will look on film?  You end the scene with Amy talking, then the next scene is the same place with a different chick walking in.  That's don't work, brother.


See above. I agree, when I changed all the scenes to night in the final draft, I tried to make this transition work by changing the weather. After the fact, I thought about inserting a calendar and ripping off yesterday’s date. But now that I think about it, I could have left it alone to begin with.


Quoted from Dreamscale
Page 8 - Wow...now we have INTERCUTS going on?  Oh man…


Ramp up the suspense, man.


Quoted from Dreamscale
OK, the end.  I don't get the end at all, but at this point, I don't think it really matters.

As noted above, they were BOTH in on it.


Quoted from Dreamscale
This isn't for me in any way...the story, the writing, the characters, the dialogue...none of it.


You said the same thing about Mad Max: Fury Road and It Follows.


Quoted from Conz
Also, Bogart as a woman is not drawing an image in my brain at all.


Yeah, this one. I’m sure there’s some woman out there who looks like Bogart, at least in the face. Someone like Melissa Leo or Mickey Faerch.


Quoted from Conz
Oh and Rikki is in no way coming across as a woman to me.


I wrote her a tad butch and manly, admittedly. The characters could be either gender.


Quoted from Conz
“Back in black!” – I don’t get it.


I take it you’re not fluent in AC/DC? Just one of the robber’s quips/one-liners.


Quoted from Digitaldecayfilms
Why does she use a knife?!?  Why not a gun?



Quoted Text
JOKER
Do you know why I use a knife? Guns
are too quick; you can’t savor all
the… little emotions. In... you see,
in their last moments, people show
you who they really are. So in a
way, I know your friends better
than you ever did. Would you like
to know which of them were cowards?


Knives are more intimate. Why do you think Michael Myers uses a knife instead of a gun? Jason? Freddy? Norman Bates? Imagine the shower scene with a gun; it’d be over in five seconds. Bernard Herrmann wouldn’t have bothered writing that iconic screech.


Quoted from Digitaldecayfilms
Why don't any of the bank guards have guns?


I actually didn’t think of that. I figured she got away before the guards could do anything. Hence, the smoke bomb in the first robbery, the titular heist. And I never did say they did or didn’t have guns; I just never wrote them in.


Quoted from Digitaldecayfilms
Why go to the same P.I. instead of the cops?  Why would Ivy go at all?  Just a ton of logic gaps here.


I did the best I could in a week’s time. Why go to a PI? See above, to catch them in the act. Maybe Rikki is investigating in between scenes? There’s only so much I could do within 12 pages, but I’m happy with what I accomplished.

Ivy is going so she can catch Amy. Rikki is suspicious of both of them at some point.


Quoted from Zack
How many customers are in the bank? You never specify.


I never specified because the customers aren’t that important to the story, but it would only be a handful.


Quoted from Zack
"An unseen woman inches towards..." How do we know this if she is unseen?


It’s her P.O.V. Should be obvious.


Quoted from Zack
You've now introduced "The Witness character three different times. Not good. It's actually slowing down the read for me.


See above.


Quoted from Zack
You have Rikki pick up the newspaper in one action line, then you have Amy slam the paper down in the next. I'm confused.


Rikki is reading the paper. Amy, on the opposite side, slams the palm of her hand onto the paper. Again, should be obvious. Sorry if it’s confusing.


Quoted from Zack
"What's the poop?" I really hope this is a typo and you meant "Scoop".


poop
noun, slang.

relevant information, especially a candid or pertinent factual report; low-down:

Send a reporter to get the real poop on that accident.

Origin 1945-50, Americanism; apparently extracted from poop sheet


Quoted from Cameron
Some typos and formatting issues didn't help matters.


I read and re-read several times to make sure I caught everything. I wonder what I missed?


Quoted from LC
I also tried but couldn't really make head nor tail of the story.

I think the terms: 'sister' 'dame', 'hotcakes' 'dollface' et al really only work if it's a male noir character speaking to a female. Do cell phones belong in noir?


I was sort of trying to be ironic and/or turn that convention (hotcakes, sister) on its ear. Ditto the hard-bitten detective archetype.

Cell phones, I never actually used them in the script, but I thought I should update the noir genre somewhat.


Quoted from EWall433
What about one person makes them more suspicious than the other?


Ivy Murdoch is pretty suspicious. First of all her name. “Ivy” is associated with poison Ivy. Then “Murdoch” sounds like “murder.” Then there’s the fact she reports the crime AFTER Amy already did so. Then, Ivy implicates Amy, who we’ve assumed is a protagonist. Plus, who would suspect somebody named Amy Swan? Amy is a very agreeable name, and a swan is a very innocent animal. All of this was intentional and very much thought out.

...

That should answer everything.   Thanks for the reads and honest feedback. I had a lot of fun writing it.


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