This is the second part!!!
Page 1 - 2 IMO, the first two pages can easily be slimmed down. That scene is no more than a minute. I know both of you are great writers, so I don’t see why you are using so many words to get to simple visuals.
Page 6 At this point, I’m thinking, Will’s wife or girlfriend was killed by a truck driven by the boss’ son. Fine, I can see how that would upset Will. However, it also appears to me that Will himself, drives while not sober. That kind of makes him a little less sympathetic, no? I think Will could use a Save The Cat moment here. How about giving the horse some food?
Page 8 Will is our hero. We’re supposed to if not like him, at least empathize with him. I can see what you are doing with the set-up. His wife/gf died in an accident. He blames his boss’ son. He’s depressed and drinks. He gets in fights. He has no money and he struggles to pay to enter these horse trials where people with money has it so much easier than him. He’s the underdog. I get that, but does he have to be a slob too? You’re pouring it on and it doesn’t work in Will’s favor IMO.
Page 9 Was the woman who died in the truck accident his mother?
Also, Kathryn has two consecutive dialogues.
Page 10 The first ten pages, The story is set-up well, with the goals ahead and his struggling situation and even some back story. I would’ve liked to know right away though that the woman who died was his mother and not a gf. And, I also would like to like Will a little better. Simple fix. Have him feed the horse and have him trying to keep his truck neat and tidy. That shows that even though he has flaws, he tries at least about certain things.
Page 12. He tied the lead to his boot? VERY dangerous move that no experienced rider would do. Plenty of people have had their hands and arms pulled off from having had leads wrapped around them and the horse spooks. Happened to a girl where we had our horses too.
Page 14. Cari sounds just like a writer who received notes s/he didn’t like.
Page 15. Somehow I have a hard time picturing this guy in a muscle convertible…with two missing teeth. Is there a reason for the two missing teeth?
Page 17. I see. I guess Terrance was the guy in the fight> I had forgot his name.
Why can’t Will find a job as a rider? If he’s that good, he should have no problem. There’s always a need for good riders to train and start horses. At least in my opinion.
Page 18. If Will is a good eventer, I bet he wouldn’t be aching from riding a bike. Besides, most event riders I know are tough as nails.
Page 21. Is it important that Mr. T is an arabian? Just asking because they’re not known to be great jumpers.
Page 25. I like Kathryn best so far. A no nonsense woman who doesn’t play games.
Hemingway’s feet? I think it will give this script a more genuine feel if you called them hooves.
Page 28. I can’t say I sympathize with Will right now. It really comes across as him not trying his hardest to do things right. Going out to blow the money on beer, getting drunk and over sleeping just doesn’t sit right. Maybe later on you’ll have Will do something amazing to fix this, but this is how I feel at this time in this script.
Page 29. I don’t want to question some of your decisions here. I’m only speaking from experience, but it’s also been about 5 years since my daughter evented. Kathryn is an older event rider with lots of experience at the big shows. IMHO, a person like her doesn’t call the vet for a sole bruise. She would be able to examine and make her own conclusion on what’s wrong and what to do. This is just my opinion, so why don’t you have her take the vet’s place here?
Page 32. Kind of an odd transition here. We go from Cari watching Will take Yaz to a paddock and in the next scene he is parking his truck in the farms parking lot as if he’s been somewhere. Why not have him walk to his truck instead and then notice Cari’s flat tire.
Page 37. When Kathryn tells Will that the girls have worked harder, Will asks, and I haven’t? I felt he was being really stupid there. As far as I can tell, he has not.
Page 39. That’s a very long phone conversation with Will’s dad. A lot of it we already know so it’s repetitive for an audience. It’s also a very boring scene visually. Maybe you can try to entertain our eyes some while this conversation goes on.
Page 40. Will’s reads screens…???
Your characters seem to do a lot of drinking and driving. May want to be careful with that.
Pge 44. I was wondering when Will was going to start working on his dressage. If he’s thinking he’s going to a 4 star event, he’s got to be good at dressage…and the horse too. There are some hard movements in those tests.
Page 47. Nice transition going from the discussion of the x-country frnce to James jumping it.
I don’t quite get what was going on here at the bottom half of this page. Will is running to what cart? What ropes ar raised? Is he on Hemingway or just walking him? Maybe make this a little more clear?
Page 48. Funny, but true about Cari thinking Will was gay. Sadly, most people, even riders often assume that male riders are gay. I had Jan Brink over for a symposium a few years ago. He said he used to play hockey when he was young, but he switched to horseback riding because that’s where the girls were and there was no competition.
It woul’d been nice to see Will’s response to Cari’s comment though.
Page 49. Still having a hard time picturing an Arabian at this level…
Page 56. I actually agree with Alexa here. It doesn’t seem to me either that Will adds a whole lot to the team.
Btw, you started the scene by saying that the riders sit apart. You might want to mention which riders are there. On the following page, I realized that Will must have been there too since he leaves. I first assumed they wouldn’t be talking about him like that with him there. Since he’s there, it would be nice to see some reaction from him.
Page 58. IMO, you shouldn’t have Will drink so much. At least not to the point of passing out. It doesn’t do much for his character. It just makes him look like he’s not really taking this seriously and he’s also got a serious drinking problem. It doesn’t make me feel more sympathetic for him at all, which is what I think what you’re going for. Another thought I just had is who is your target audience with this story? As you know, most people into riding are females. LOTS of young teenage girls…and older women. You already have your characters drink and drive and Will’s continuous drinking problem. From a marketing standpoint, that might not be that good. The older women won’t care, some of them could probably drink Will under the table, but maybe the MPAA would.
Page 61. Maybe I missed it, but what exactly does Bauer Industrials do?
Page 56. Who is Roddy Will?
Page 70. Why won’t Will let the farrier take a look? If there’s something that visibly wrong with Hemingway’s leg, it doesn’t make me like Will more if he ignores it. In fact, I think one thing that’s missing with Will is that it does not appear that Hemingway is as important to him as he should be.
Page 71. Still having a hard time picturing this arabian at a three star event.
Page 76. Good portrayal of the end of the x-country day. Soldiers being lead away from a battlefield.
Page 80. Cari starts to sound whiny here. Also, if she’s that amazing of a rider, it hasn’t really come across so far in reading this script. I know she’s been doing good at shows, but she still doesn’t come across as an amazing rider. Neither do any of the others. I think needs to be fixed for this script to be believable.
Page 81. Something about this whole Cari “opening up” here doesn’t feel right. It’s almost like we suddenly know her more than Will and he’s supposed to be our protag. Not saying it’’s bad, but if we learn this deeper stuff about Cari, we need to see more stuff from Will too. IMHO.
Page 83. Missing word in Rex’s dialogue.
Page 86. Kind of a bonehead move of Terrance to do the fireworks. Can’t he figure out that someone could get hurt and by him spray painting over the Bauer logo, someone at Bauer would be suspect? It just seems like an uber dumb move.
Page 88. Not sure I buy that a local news station would do an interview with Will about something that happened awhile back and has been settled in court. After all, there are no new news here. They’re just going to let Will talk about what he “thinks” happened. That doesn’t seem believable to me. Are they going to have Terrance doing an interview later from his point of view?
Page 91. Your series of shots seem a bit off in order. Will is packing his dressage clothes. Cari leads Yas into the trailer along with all their gear, giving us the impression they are about to leave, but this is followed by shots of Will practicing his dressage, Cari doing flat work while Edward and Kathryn watches. Then they all get in the trailer and leave. Nothing wrong with these shots, they just don’t seem to be in the right order.
Page 95. IMHO, Kathryn’s little rant about Alexa seems a bit out of character. More like a whiny young girl rather than an older wiser event woman.
Page 99. Sad isn’t it? But true. Stadium barely filled for dressage.
Page 100. The way you set everyone up until now, I have a feeling I know exactly how this will end. Something bad will happen to Alexa. Either she gets hurt or something else, but she definitely won’t win. Will? He probably will win. That’s the problem with so many sports stories. The hero will always win which makes it predictable and less satisfying in the end.
Page 106. Alexa dumping into the water jump felt very predictable and expected.