Quoted from tomson In case someone doesn't already know this, but this script placed first out of 53 scripts last month at MoviePoet. It had the highest score ever! 4.5 out of 5 possible and it was the first time ever I gave a 5 and I've read several hundred scripts there by now. (all scoring is anonymous btw) Great Job "Beast from the East"!!

Wow, congrats Mr. Z. I don't know you, but that is still a remarkable feat! Do you have any other screenplays on here?

Quoted from Pia Great Job "Beast from the East"!!

Thanks “Mouth form the South”!  

Quoted from Phife Wow, congrats Mr. Z. I don't know you, but that is still a remarkable feat! Do you have any other screenplays on here?

Welcome to the site Phife. Thanks a lot for reading my script and for your feedback. I’ve got some other shorts posted in this site. None of them received such good response like this one so read at your own risk, haha, they might be a let down. “Fear is the Key” and “Side Effects” are posted in the short section.

Let me know when you post a short of yours, I will gladly check it out.

Quoted from Blakkwolfe Glad to be accompanied, but poor.

I’d rather be rich and alone.

Thanks for checking this out, man. And thanks for the suggestion; the horseshit line will be gone soon.

I told my friends that if they ever want to find me, look for the closest Fantasy book, and I'll be on the other side of the earth.  Our earth.  So I don't even know why I gave this a second glance when I was going down the list.  (Maybe because the title reminded me of 'The Dark Tower' from Stephen King, which I actually did read.  So I opened it expecting a little short about Roland and his friends.)

I have to admit, like everybody else on this board, I really did like it a lot.  And congratulations on winning that contest.

I know that the very first thing they teach in screenwriting books and seminars is "God help you if you use a voiceover, scribes!"  I say f*ck them.  It's your story and you tell it how you want to.  (How many of those authors and teachers have Oscars, anyway?)  With that particular story, I think you're right, it called for one, and making her voice a whisper added a certain sexiness, I think.

The descriptions were vivid and I did like that a lot.

You've definately caught my attention, Matias, but I ain't running to the sci-fi section of the library just yet.  :-)  I will keep a look out for your name on here, though.

-Mark  (rc1107)

I had no problem with the horse dung comment.  I loved this piece.  As a newbie, it shows me how far I have to go until my stuff is post-worthy.  Thanks for sharing it.

Quoted from rc1107 I told my friends that if they ever want to find me, look for the closest Fantasy book, and I'll be on the other side of the earth.  Our earth.

Haha! With that introduction I was getting ready to get slammed.  I’m as surprised as I am flattered that you liked this piece. Thanks for giving this one a chance, man. I can totally see where are you’re coming from, and I think it’s understandable that some people find the fantasy genre a bit tedious.

The problem with fantasy is that it’s usually written by pussies for pussies. But I still have faith that one day I would be able to seat at the theatre and watch an R-Rated dark fantasy movie written with and adult public in mind.

Quoted from rc1107 I know that the very first thing they teach in screenwriting books and seminars is "God help you if you use a voiceover, scribes!"  I say f*ck them.

Glad you liked the V.O. - I’ve been getting mixed reactions about it. Voiceover is indeed a tool with bad reputation since it’s usually used the wrong way. But, I agree with you, advising scribes to take this tool out of the toolbox completely is a bit extreme.

Thanks again for the read, Mark. Let me know if you have something posted on the site, I’ll take a look at it.

Quoted from yosef91 I had no problem with the horse dung comment

That’s a first. Thanks for letting me know and I’m glad you liked the story.

Let me know if you post something on this site so I can check it out. I’ll be reciprocating reads over the next days.

As long as you post your best effort at a given time, the script will be post-worthy. It doesn't matter if it needs work, early efforts always do. Don’t worry about it.  

Lol.  Your exact words were 'The problem with fantasy is that it’s usually written by pussies for pussies.'

Well, those pussies making those movies right now are making hundreds of millions of dollars and topping the box office with every release, so I will never in my life dream of knocking them around.  :-)  Maybe when you make those hundreds of millions, Matias, you can throw me a couple grand so I can make my little indie short films.  :-)

I also forgot to say before, somebody had mentioned it, but it does have a very Aesop-themed lesson to it.  That was another reason I liked it so much.  It's one thing to tell a story, but it's another to teach a lesson.  That's something I try to do with my stories.  I hope my lessons come across like yours did.

Some of the shorts I have on simplyscripts are 'Pearl Dive', 'The Glim Dropper', and the rich-in-voiceover 'fix', all of them by Mark Lyons.

Well, Matias, once again, I will be on the lookout.  Godspeed, Fair Beast.

-Mark

Hey Matias,

This one reminded me of King's Dark Tower.Very similar to it except for the dragon. But Ireally liked it. i really didn't get the lust part. It took me a few minutes to get it. I think you should fix that part by adding another image of the female. I'm also confused about the female part since he has the ring. And the money part as well. Does it work if he puts it on and goes to that other world?  

Hope this helps,
Gabe  

Thanks Thomas. I might have to check Dark Tower, since it's not the first time the name comes up. I'm intrigued.

Quoted Text Does it work if he puts it on and goes to that other world?

There isn’t any travelling between worlds actually. At least I didn’t intend it to look that way. If you’re talking about the flashes, they’re just quick visions of the backstory behind each of the objects. Hope that makes some sense.

And thanks for checking this out. Much appreciated.

Mr.Z, it's not hard to see how you beat out the competition at all.  You've managed to tell a great story with a bigging, middle, and end without being dry, hasty, contrived, or vague.  I wasn't even bothered by the horseshit.  Mostly because I have a feeling that Drake is quite familiar with the stuff.  Still, after the others' comments, I would think it's not quite the right expression and it may be better to describe how Drake's face changes.  I loved Drake's entrance to the script and the cave.  First, I respect going through the trials of preproduction (taming a dragon) to ensure success during production (getting to the top of the spire).  Second, he's so uber-heroic and hyper-masculine, I halfway expect him to raise his arms and proudly exclaim, "I am Drake!"

For future scripts (Since this one is pretty much as done as it should be), it's worth a little more soul searching to find a way around the voice over.  For instance, do we really need the information we get in it?  Really?  Isn't it a bit more interesting/intriguing not to know why all of the fuss to get up this spire until the game of pea under the cup?  Redundancy and show-and-tell were more useful before the days of stop-rewind-play and video ownership.  Nowadays, if you've said it once, you've said it a million times.  Then, it's only advisable to repeat something that's said if the meaning behind the words have drastically changed.  And don't feel obligated to wrap everything up in a nice little bow.  You can save some page space and leave a few things to be implied.

Other than that, you've got mad skills.

Thanks for the read Gwydion.

As you can see from this thread there were mixed reactions about the V.O. And so are my feelings about it right now.

Making the nature of the tower a mystery for the first pages as you suggest is a great idea that never crossed my mind. I really like your suggestion.

Thanks again and let me know if you have a short posted around here.

Congratulations on the win.  I can see why, as this script is pretty much perfect.  I would of gave it the highest possible score.

No problems with the formatting.  Your descriptions are simply amazing.

I noticed that you sometimes avoid using pronouns when you write.  I've seen this before in screenplays and I'm pretty sure you're doing this on purpose.  The problem is that it's sometimes confusing to figure out what you mean.  An example would be when you wrote, "The button, the coin and the ring slip from Drake's hand into his pocket as he walks away from the table.  But falls to the ground with a splash."  Now I think the problem with this is that when people are reading fast they don't have time to process what's going on and will immediately think that you're saying the contents of his pocket are falling into the water.  Just by adding "He", you clarify what's supposed to be happening.  

I like the V.O.  I mean, it's not entirely expository, it's not too short or too long and you can't deny that it will sound cool on film.  

I think I saw someone confused about the chaining, thinking that at one point Drake's feet are chained and a second later they're not.  I, too, had to go back and read that again just to make sure I was understanding it right.  To clarify the whole chain switcheroo, I suggest writing, "He looks up at the Guardian, whose feet are no longer chained."

Since I don't really think you could do much to improve this(besides polishing it a bit by clarifying a few things), consider this a bump because a lot more people should be reading this script.

Easily one of the best shorts on here.  I'll be on the lookout for any other scripts you write.

Thanks for the read, I appreciate it.

Your suggestions are well justified and make a lot of sense. I'll have them in mind when I find time to do a polish on this one.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

This was an amazing script. I have no idea why I didn't notice it when it was first posted. Oh well...

It was tightly-written and very intriguing. The idea of having to make a choice such as Drake's is very interesting indeed. He chose the logical answer of taking both objects, but I knew that old fart would have a trick up his sleeve.

But the reason I liked this so much was not because of the writing, or even the story itself. I liked it because it read like a fairytale--a new, original fairytale. It was a joy to read it. There were some faults in the structure of your paragraphs. I felt they got sloppy in some parts. But it was all very minor; nothing worth mentioning, really.

A question, though: Sorry if this just flew me by, but did you even specify that the guardian's feet were chained in the beginning? I can't remember (I read this yesterday). Eitherway, it was a nice read.

--Julio

I'm not really a fan of this particular genre but I have to say your descriptions and style of writing kept me hooked till the end. Onething though, Mr. Z. The dialouge. When the Knight says: What the...?....I don't know, man. I just can't imagine Knights using these types of expressions that us, modern day (Knights) would use. The Knight's dialogue just sounded too modern for me.. Also, in the beginning of the conversation he addressed the Guardian as Old Man, not sure how he knew the guardian was old even though he was hooded, I think he was...

This was very nicely written, I like it alot.

Gracias, Julio. Yep, the old man’s chains are mentioned when Drake enter’s his lair. Glad you liked it.

Thanks, Ayham. You bring up some interesting points that were not previously mentioned. Gonna think them through.