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Paradise by Jordan Mounteer - Drama, Gangster - The tale of the Three 6's. Belial, Beezelbub, Baal. Cypher, the enigmatic leader of a dying dream. And Samantha, a teenager swept into the maelstorm. These are the characters, the heroes, the villains, of a lost Paradise. - rft format.
k, this just occured to me, with the help of a second perspective. if you want to read this, and do, and then want to post here, and decide to....don't just go 'oh yeah, awesome screenplay, well done, blah blah'.
this would boost my self-esteem no-end, but what i'm really looking for, especially with this screenplay, is ideas about what i should change and correct and rectify and modify and...well ways to make it better.
p.s. formatting glitches in the screenplay make LEFT and RIGHT simultaneous dialogue completely screwed up. sorry for that
I'm working on it, right off I see some screenwriting spelling errors... Maybe I'll clue you in some day as to what they are tho I am just really talking about his name not being capitalized when you first mention it
I'm your biggest fan, Shaman. A bit overloaded per the mo (summer quarter for me ends next week and I still got three finals to do including a 15 - 20 page script), but I shall do my best.
So correct me if I'm - I'm allowed to rip it a new one??
Sorry to say but this is typical of many of the scripts posted here. This work suffers from a lack of understanding of what makes a good screenplay. I am beginning to sound like a broken record when it comes to critiquing the work posted here.
First off, it's totally overwritten. Screenplays must be economical in their use of words. Don't describe simple action that does not promote the story - i.e....
"Castor gets out of his car, and we see he's dressed in a black leather jacket and baggy blue jeans. He pockets his keys and walks to the front door of the house. It's in a very decrepit and ragged state, with the exterior walls peeling back like dried flesh."
We don't need to know what he does with his keys do we? Why even have this action why not just skip to him entering the home? A famous line about screenwriting goes..'get in late and leave early‘. in other words don't bog us down with unnecessary action.
Secondly you've got your tenses all mixed up. Everything should be written in simple present, for example... Don't write - "She's walking around the room" Instead write- " she walks around the room"
Your choice of certain descriptors are, in the very least, questionable….
"The song 'Highway to Hell' by AC/DC chimes in." - Chimes? Chimes? Since when has highway to hell ever 'chimed' in?
"the idyllic fat chef " - Is the chef really 'idyllic'? Is he really peaceful, because that's what idyllic means, and if he is what kind of description is that?
Stick with simple descriptions, don't over write the scene.
Overall I think there is just way to many wordy action paragraphs and lengthy dialogue pieces. As I've said a million times (this it the part where I feel like a broken record) you must write a screenplay visually! Stop writing as though you are the character and in their heads - instead write as though the story is unfolding in front of you while watching through a window - because that's how an audience sees it.
so um.....i just need to like clarify and stuff. the action scenes that have too much, could you suggest a way of shortening them? because everything i wrote (through the eyes of an amateur) was very necessary [especially at the 'triangle' scene near the end].
and yeah, the dialogue. i seem to have a knack for bad dialogue. as in, it goes on for awhile. trying to fix that :p
and the tenses!!! ahhaahah.....how sad am i.
whether you believe it or not, i did that on purpose depending on the mood of the scene.....but i guess it's meaning got lost. whoops!
Okay- so why are you using it here? Why use it to describe a character that we just met? How are you showing us he's 'peaceful'? An audience can't read his mind.
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the action scenes that have too much, could you suggest a way of shortening them?
Yes, as I said in my first post, cut out the unnecessary. Using the example I posted earlier- Why do we need to see him get out of the car? Why do we need to know where he puts his keys and that he walks to the front door? Why do we need a description of the condition of the house on the exterior if we will be in the interior in the very next scene? That entire paragraph is not needed - it does nothing to move the story forward.
It would be better to simply cut it entirely and open on Castor at the door. Have him ring a broken door bell- you see the broken door bell will give your audience a VISUAL clue as to the disrepair of the house rather than a long WRITTEN description that does nothing for them. You give them a broken doorbell clue and bingo the audience assumes the house is in disrepair. Quick, easy and VISUAL.
Again, a key for a successful screenplay is to be efficient (read- as few words as possible) in your writing- No Hollywood reader is interested, nor do they have the time, to muddle through long winded descriptions and dialogue....
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Chaser is tied to a chair with rope. Lyza (21) walks into the room, clothed in leather pants and a leather T-shirt, both black. She's walking around the room, pacing, her dazzling long red hair swinging about.
write this instead...
Chaser is tied to a chair. Lyza enters, black leather pants and t-shirt. She paces the room.
Now read both of them. The shorter version gives you just the information that you need to move the story forward. It's quick and easy to read. You can see how if your entire story was written in that manner it would be a fast, easy read that pulls you through instead of bogging you down.
Remember that it is not your job to set the mood or tone of the story- that's for the director. You are simply writing a road map. Additionally, you don't need all the parenthicals you have included with the dialogue- if you write the dialog properly the actors will know how to deliver it- they don't need to be told facial expressions or tone of voice.
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whether you believe it or not, i did that on purpose depending on the mood of the scene.....but i guess it's meaning got lost. whoops!
Huh? What does using the wrong tense have to do with the mood? Mixing tenses is a structural error - it has nothing to do with the mood of the story- that's like saying you miss-spelled a word because of the mood?!
I think the advice about writing as though you are watching through a window is key. Don't write as if you are inside the heads of the characters and know their thoughts and motivations. Instead just show us how they act and re-act. Keep it simple.
no no...what i meant is, writing in present tense then switching to future tense, for instance, tends to switch the mood of the story. disagree or agree, i've noticed it in other 'terrible scripts', and they accidentally and unintentionally get away with transforming the pace of the story.
but being a structural error, the majority of people will HATE this. for now, i think i'll keep myself 'in the box' and keep to the traditional style of screenplay writing.
thanx a lot for your help! i'm making my action and dialogue more succint, as it were lol
thnx! feel free to humiliate me in the worst possible way. i've been preparing for the imminent doom of this.
like...when you know you're gonna get kicked in the nuts, and you manage to clench your stomach muscles and mentally prepare yourself for the agony of a lifetime.
Personally this may not sit with people well but at least I can tell what's going on in this screenplay, overwritten at points maybe but you can visualize everything that happens unlike a lot of screenplays that suffer from a complete lack of originality
When I actually finish I will send shaman a review because I don't need to say anything for everyone else to see. I noticed a lot of people review a script and than start talking about there script which takes away from the script there reviewing