Sometimes I can't think of anything all week. But once I think of something, it doesn't take long to write. The idea that hit me, hit me so hard that I had to write it, even though I didn't actually plan on ever posting it. It was just something that I had to put down in words once I thought of it.

And then I couldn't come up with a 10 page beginning to a feature, even though I had plenty of time!

By Thurs I only had 4 pages toward the feature, and was still researching a subject I knew next to nothing about. So I just sent the other.

It's tricky starting a feature, because the first 10 pages are the most important. You have to set up your whole story with it.

Yeah, i agree. At first i thought it was fab but i kept on running into holes and needing to do more and more background work, because it was a feature,  and i wanted it all in the right place.

The short scripts have been, on balance, easier.

Is anyone else, sort of gagging to know who wrote what? I'm sad, but it kinda feels like Christmas, and I'm after opening all my prezzies.

Okay. That should be very sad. With bells on.

Quoted from Forgive Is anyone else, sort of gagging to know who wrote what? I'm sad, but it kinda feels like Christmas, and I'm after opening all my prezzies. Okay. That should be very sad. With bells on.

I dunno, but can I sound cool and say PAGAN MAN has legs.  

Can you imagine the fantasy of that? One guy in a coven of witches?!

Who the hell can beat that?  

Sandra

Quoted from Forgive Is anyone else, sort of gagging to know who wrote what? I'm sad, but it kinda feels like Christmas, and I'm after opening all my prezzies. Okay. That should be very sad. With bells on.

I hear ya, pal.
But I'm hoping we'll give it the full week before the reveal.
Work's a swamp and I'm only half way through them.

E.D.

Quoted from Electric Dreamer Work's a swamp and I'm only half way through them.

Strive on, good man - it's worth it!  

I still have ten or so left to read.

I guess I was the only one that had trouble with the Pagan, so it must be me. The switching back and forth and the blended location VOs left me lost and frustrated. That story actually made my blood pressure rise in frustration. The only one that did that. Even though some of the writing was quite excellent at times.

Maybe I am not patient enough as a reader, and that's the problem. When I get to around page 5, I need to have some sense of the basic contour of the story. If I don't, unless the narrative is somehow drawing me in, I start getting frustrated.

Let me compare to Dry Spell. I had no idea what the witch was in London for. So I really didn't know where that story was going. But it never left the cell, so it didn't bother me. It had a straightforward narrative.

Had Dry Spell started jumping around to unconnected or loosely connected locations, I would have been frustrated too.

This happens to me in film also. You take a movie like LOR. Once it gets going, there's a lot of jumping around. But it doesn't bother me, because I'm in the story. I'm captured. I have a sense of the world I am in. The beginning of part one of LOR stays on the hobbits while it captures us. Part II is different, jumps around from the start, but if you saw part I, that's ok. You're involved with the story.

The Nazis in Poland story was done correctly as far as sequencing. The early scenes are all in Poland, so you always know where you are. Once the story is framed, THEN it jumps to London. Had it jumped there earlier, and then used that dreadful VO scene mixing, I would have been frustrated with that story too. So it really was an issue of technique for me. Pagan was probably better written, but the Nazi one used better technique. IMO denseheaded opinion.

Quoted from Grandma Bear I still have ten or so left to read.

So we really are talking Christmas, then?  

Quoted from leitskev I guess I was the only one that had trouble with the Pagan.

No... I had some problems with it as well - it doesn't jump all the time, I think that mainly happened toward the end of the script - I like the first half, and felt it was developing into some fairly interesting, but then went somewhere else.

As such, it does 'set itself' as it spends some time with Gus, then moves to the commune, and then mixes the two, so I didn't have a problem with the structure in that way - it was just the way it blended the two didn't work for me at all.

I hope the writer doesn't mind our discussing it. I have no idea who it is, but obviously a strong writer, no doubt light years better than me, so probably annoyed as he!l.

I did my best to explain the problem I had, hopefully that helps, because obviously it's a supereasy thing to fix. I like Gus as a character, so while the overwhelming majority of entries don't have feature legs, and probably aren't really intended to, this is one of the few that could.

Maybe this will help a little, too. When I was working on my last feature, I realized a problem. The reader/viewer should at some early point be able to describe in a few words what the story is about. All he knows is the title and what he's seen. Assume he's not read a log line or seen a trailer. That's why title is important.

Look at Jaws. If you ask someone what it's about, a film buff might say it's about a man overcoming his fears to do his duty and save his community. Fine. But that could be a thousand movies. Jaws is about a killer shark. Yeah, the other stuff matters, but when you're talking with your friends about what movie to see, you'll say it's about a killer shark.

So you always know what the movies about. As long there are shark scenes, you won't feel lost.

Most stories are a little tougher. You can't usually tell just from the title. So you have to establish that in the movie as early as you can. In The Godfather, people might have gone in thinking it was just a gangster movie, but within minutes they knew it was about family, the role of the crime lord in the Italian community as a leader.

In the Nazi script here(no idea of writer) we know early on that it's about the Nazis hunting someone who's very important to the war effort. We know she's important by connecting it to the title Secret War. That sounds big, important. We see the Nazis killing, so we know the stakes. So certainly within a few pages you have a sense what the story is about. I think giving people that sense is important, and risky when you don't.

Anyone else think the words "Good Effort," while having the best intentions, will always sound like a bad thing? =D

I'm sure there is a thread about this somewhere in the forum, but what are your opinions on FADE IN? I personally see it as wasted space... I would never take "points" off from someone for having it in their script, but I don't really see the point.

I know I'm probably making the veterans groan right now by bringing up a format question... Sorry.

Quoted from Felipe Anyone else think the words "Good Effort," while having the best intentions, will always sound like a bad thing?

yes. as well as congratulations for finishing.....

Had forgotten that one. haha

Negative feedback is great because it helps you see what could be better in your story, but those last words always feel like an added slap in the face.

I'm not saying people shouldn't use them, because I know they are used with the best intentions. I actually get a kick out of it. =D

Carry on.

I do agree. The intentions are good, but it's a form rejection letter.