Killer Vibes by 0 - Short, Action - Sent to a music festival to perform a hit, a reluctant assassin struggles with both the mission and the unknown foe that stalkes her. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

This one is my favorite script so far. It has a good interesting story and is something I would watch. I hope to see this on screen someday.

Title Page is a dead giveaway that this is going to be problematic, with the "cutesy" little blurb about the permission issue.  Not the way to begin a serious script.

No clue what's happening on Page 1.  You transition with a Mini Slug from Carla's house to some road.   How does that work?  Then, you have Carla staring at him (from inside her house, even though we're now on a road, and then this Mr Grey walks through a faceless cloaked figure?  WTF?

What is a "draw"?

I'm just completely lost.  So, this 25 year old chick, Carla, is an assassin, and her hit happens to be at some giant music festival, that just so happens to be in the same city that she lives?  And we have some cloaked figure walking through peeps randomly.  Really?  Oh...and she just so happens to have a special tent set up at the is music festival?  Wow...

OK, wait...there are all sorts of tents at the music festival, huh?  Where the heck are we?

I'm pretty clueless to what this is supposed to be, but 1 thing I'm very clear on is that it's not for me in any way.  You have Slugs of NIGHT, then DAY, and then back to NIGHT, but they seem to be going on at the same time, which makes no sense.  Carla 2?  WTF?  No clue.

Not for me, sorry to say.

I got to draw the line somewhere. There is absolutely no connection of the story or the characters to hot or cold. This:

Quoted Text In the warm sunshine Carla sets up the chair, opens a slim file and sits down to read. Inside is a small card.

Is as close as it gets and it's not near enough, IMO.

I liked it. It was an easy read and kept me interested.

I don't think the flashback is necessary. It would work just as well without it.

I definitely saw suspense, but not much of any summer heat.

Good job though. I liked it.  

Whilst I disagree with Dave's weather Nazi angle,  this one doesn't seem overly hot so not sure it qualifies.

The story really does roam. We've got 6 full pages and it just puts on it's hiking boots and rambles all over the place, making questionable sense as it goes. In fact you've gone so far into the page count that there's no room for a FADE OUT or END.

The writing was alright and the author seems to know how to create a story, but I think you've tried to flood the 6 pages and so we end up lost. At least I got lost, could be my fault but don't think so.

Well done for entering,

Cam

I agree that the summer heat link is tenuous at best her but man, what a script. I love this. You've taken an assassination story and given it a great original spin. 6 pages and you even fit in the backstory.

This shows imagination and creativity.

My favourtite by far so far. Well done writer, well done.

-Mark

Quoted from Cameron Whilst I disagree with Dave's weather Nazi angle, Cam

You gave the laugh of the day - thanks. If I wouldn't lose track of my threads from changing my user name I would no doubt change it from eldave1 to Weather Nazi

Damn - I could have even used that as a title for a script. Where were you when I needed the inspiration!

Quoted from eldave1 You gave the laugh of the day - thanks. If I wouldn't lose track of my threads from changing my user name I would no doubt change it from eldave1 to Weather Nazi Damn - I could have even used that as a title for a script. Where were you when I needed the inspiration!

Haha, kinda stolen/influenced off Sienfeld but I'll claim it!! Just another success from the Cam Gray Nickname Generator TM

Quoted from Cameron Haha, kinda stolen/influenced off Sienfeld but I'll claim it!! Just another success from the Cam Gray Nickname Generator TM

No heat for you! Next!

As well as no weather input, there would be snippets of dialogue within the crowd so two birds lol

Very ambitious for a 6 pager and written pretty well. But I think it tries to be too mysterious and ethereal for its own good.

Right out of the gate: It "stalks", not "stalkes".

This better be 1000x better than "Too Hot," which couldn't have lived up to its title less. In other words, if I make it past page 2, pat yourself on the back.

@Jeff, fuck you, I like the copyright notice. The font, not so much. I'd stick with 12pt Courier.

That being said, I would have capitalized "This screenplay," and I most certainly would have avoided the two spaces before the exclamation points.

Bold slugs? Some like 'em, some hate 'em.

Does the music festival have a name? Like Woodstock? Altamont? Monterey? Lollapalooza? Coachella? Warped Tour? OzzFest?

Is this regular Courier? "a" and "s" look weird.

"long[-]range"

Quoted Text A sniper’s cross hairs on his head.

"crosshairs" is one word. Regardless, this reads awkward.

Quoted Text MR[.] GREY

Grey? Is this gonna be... Oh, he's 65. Couldn't be THAT Mr. Grey, unless this is the AARP version... 50 Shades of Actual Grey.

Why is "through" in italics? Nothing should be in italics, ever.

Quoted Text Like the ghost from A Christmas Carol.

Be specific. It's The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (or Future). Remember, there are four ghosts, if you count Jacob Marley and don't count Scrooge himself. Also, I would put this at the end of the previous paragraph.

Quoted Text Carla sits on the bed, the target photo alongside [her].

Reads better.

Is Carla Batgirl?

Quoted Text Her face softens, as an old memory returns.

Remember, we can't hear her thoughts unless you show us, either visually or auditorily.

Quoted Text She delves into a draw, finds a necklace made of beads.

You mean a "drawer"? A draw means a fight that neither side won. Or it means (as a verb) to draw something.

"Buzzing" with excitement, alcohol or insects?

Quoted Text An excited crowd queues to enter.

Huh? I'd change "queues" to "waits".

"Rucksack"? Why not just call it a backpack?

Quoted Text Carla, carrying a rucksack and dressed in colourful clothing, plus the necklace, heads through security.

Remove that modifier and your sentence will read better. You can add the necklace in a separate sentence.

What is a pre-assembled tent? Don't you have to set them up?

Quoted Text In the warm sunshine[,] Carla sets up the chair, opens a slim file and sits down to read. Inside is a small card.

Carla sets the warm sunshine up on the chair? "Inside" of what "is a small card"?

Quoted Text LAUGHTER [no comma] from some FESTIVALGOER’S [cause] her to look up.

Very unprofessional grammar. This is clearly a first draft. Not sure if English is your native language.

I would cap the ROCK BAND.

Quoted Text Carla, 12, and her MOTHER, (40, an older version of Carla)

Literally? As in the same actress?

Flashback sequence? You just did a montage.

"semi[-]conscious"

Okay, your English is better than I suspected, but you still need to work on punctuation.

It's "Mr." with a period.

What officials?

Who or what is Yurt?

Quoted Text A sprawling field of YURT’S.

Redundant. Scratch it out.

Quoted Text Lots of ‘happy campers’.

Is that sarcasm?

Hawk capitalized? Why? Hawk lenses? Ethan Hawke?

If I were you, I'd remind readers who Joseph is, since you've only mentioned him once up to this point and then forgot about him.

Any specific beer? Bud? Coors? Corona? Jägermeister?

Just "Joseph" or his full name? Good luck with Google, then.

Google says a yurt is a portable tent. Never heard of it. Why is it capitalized? Proper noun?

"Friends" capitalized? The TV show?

"Carla 2"??? WTF are you even talking about? If this weren't the last page, I'd bail.

Which Carla is which? Tell us.

"headphones" is one word. And I hope they're good ones.

"Walkers"? Is this a Walking Dead crossover?

Quoted Text Behind, Mr Grey collapses off the bench.

And then what happens? No FADE OUT? No THE END?

The writing is clearly a first draft, and the story is meh.

Writer,

Maybe it's me, maybe it's late. I just couldn't get a handle what was going on or why. I didn't get the references to young Carla, or why she had a last minute change of mind. Or any of it, truth be told. Nice effort getting one in, but the story was lost on me.

Steve

For me the summer heat thing is an issue when judging. If writer don't stick to the brief, they could just put any old short they already have in.

Having said that - I'm sure that's not what's happened here. I quite liked the end but you really need to make this easier to follow.

I don’t see any real connection to the ‘Summer heat’ theme here - yes, it’s set during the summer but the heat doesn’t play any role in the story.

I think this has potential - I liked the twist ending and think this could definitely be expanded to a longer short, it just doesn’t really fit into this challenge.