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Do Anna and Zafir know each other? Seems like they do . . . then they don't.
Does David hail Irsa's cab or does he track her down?
The intercut between the two cabs doesn't work for me. I get the intermingled dialogue but I find myself trying to keep track of which cab I'm in rather than enjoying the single conversation.
Overall the writing is too much of a gimmick for me. And I don't see anyone trapped in a cab.
The back and forth between the two cabs got confusing. Try writing it with less of that, like a few lines in one, a few lines in the other. Good story though.
Up to p4 I was wondering what's going on and didn't understand the interactions and context. If you go mystery, in my eyes, things should be more exciting. Then we experience the mayhem and eventually the meteor while following the love story. It felt designed and all over the place. The romantic stuff was the potential I could go with, but as said, it reads mixed up and put together in an odd way…
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
It's a nice little story, or tragedy maybe, but all of the aforementioned formatting issues did a fair bit of damage to the reading experience.
Also whilst the meteor is a good turn, the expense of this would blow the budget out of the inexpensive bracket required. Youu could always attach a painted tennis ball to some string, but that would be too close to Be Kind, Rewind territory.
What's Muslim attire? Since it's a visual signifier, it'd be nice to know what you mean.
I'd rather have seen a story about two people than four. There's coincidence and there's coincidence.
Kinda Seeking A Friend for the End of the World boiled down to ten pages. What really worked here is that the emotion generally felt genuine. I think the story just needs to happen in a smaller way. Maybe they're just at opposite ends of the same street for the entire short. I dunno, I think the smaller and more personal this story is -- two characters instead of four, one-ish location instead of several -- the more impact it will have.
Like the ambition. Not an easy read, as is. But I think you can turn it into a rewarding one with a story rewrite and, yes, some formatting.
The idea that two estranged couples could reunite, however briefly, before the world ends, is interesting but needs some rewriting/rethinking to work well.
Unfilmables - E.G. In the cab (from a rival cab company) - how do we know it is a rival cab company?
Bad descriptions - "They try to open her door so they can drag her out." - Here was me thinking they were opening her door so they could get in.
Plus formatting issues and a confusing intercut made this one a chore to get through. A nice idea, way beyond most low-budget producer's reach and no-one was trapped in a taxi but I can see what you were trying to do.
Just out of curiosity to anyone who has made a short film? Are scenes in a moving car expensive to the budget?
It all depends on how official you make your production or how guerrilla style you are willing to go. It cost me $400 to hire a rig for a day to hold the camera in place on the car. For the rest we borrowed the car from one of the crew and shot it on a road out in the middle of no-where, otherwise it would have become very expensive indeed.
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Took me two goes to read this as the format made it tough. but I tried a second time and got to the end. Very ambitious script with hardly any low budget lol.
But i liked for what you were aiming at despite getting there the long way.
Consider though budget problems may be an obstacle.
Just out of curiosity to anyone who has made a short film? Are scenes in a moving car expensive to the budget?
Coincidentally am getting a book from the library which deals with something similar to what happens in the final scene of this script lol
It depends on what you are shooting and what you are shooting on.
If you're keeping everything tight, and you are shooting on a dslr...then it costs practically nothing, and you can get some decent results. There are numerous options for dslr car rigs, that with image stabilisation lenses can give you good results.
Your problem comes when you're using Pro cameras. They are too big to comfortably fit in a car seat once the lenses are on...you'd be limited to wide angle lenses.
What this means is this you would need a "Wide boy". It's a flat cart that you put the car on, and then you can move around the outside of the car and film from there. It can be towed by another vehicle, so it looks like they're driving, even though they aren't.
It's not massively expensive, though considerably more than a dslr/blackmagic type of set up.
The major problem is that you're going to need permits to film on roads....and you'll have to pay a LOT if we're talking major roads. So if you're in a City environment, unless you're going fill Guerilla style it's going to cost a large amount.
This was a let down because I think you have something here but you probably ran out of time. Not sure why you waited till the end to reveal the meteor... it made the whole thing more confusing.
I thought maybe it was just a country-wide riot or something. For me, it did not add intrigue, only confusion. You're already intercutting between multiple cabs with lots of stuff going on in the background... that has the potential for confusion. Not knowing why any of this is happening exacerbates it.
The dialogue was hit or miss. Some of it was good, even poignant. Some of it rang untrue.
I think there's a lot of potential here but it needs a thorough re-write. This is going to be a challenge to turn into a smooth read. I would recommend studying pro scripts that have scenes with cars and mobs of people and switching back and forth. Off the top of my head, Body of Lies I think is one you can find online.
I was totally lost on what was happening in each cab, sorry to say, and, after having to re-scan each page more than a few times to no avail, I'm gonna have to bow out. Muslim attire? A quick Google search can go a long way, just saying.
Muslim attire, my friend? I know several ... most wear denim. A quick Google search can go a long way, just saying.
Yep, cross-cultural references and stereotypes get confusing for some. My guess is the writer is trying to convey a visual here. Perhaps the use of taqiyah, or rounded skullcap? As Rick sayss, Int search engines and old fashioned reference books like dictionaries are a writer's best friend.
I tweaked that post just a bit after I put it up, but you managed to catch my initial draft. Good thing I didn't say something dumb(er)... than I usually do. In this case, I was just being facetious for the sake of pointing it out.