Hey Mark,
How you going mate? Always happy to check out your work.
I enjoyed this one overall. A tale of forgiveness and compassion, the fact that it's the brother and innocent child who is the one to stand up and show empathy to the family of the man who killed his brother was a nice touch.
The moment between Raymond and Marianne was the highlight here for me... I really felt sorry for Marianne and Bradley in what was just a short appearance so great job.
I felt the opening voice overs were a little confusing and clunky as worded:
"(I've) learned at a very early age to hate money." should this be just "I learned at a very..." Same with the next passage.
"it wasn't making them any less sad, either." This was awkward to me but I think you were trying to make the dialogue a little childish as in the way Raymond talks.
In saying that, I do think the voice overs worked on the whole for this story although I would question one towards the end where he tells us about the drunken blond man - think you'd already done a great job of getting this message across with the bent post, wrecked pick-up comment and Bradley getting taunted at school. I think the image of the basketball on the snow beside the flowers would be powerful enough visual to end this story on without the voice-over.
The writings good as usual but you need to keep an eye out for lay when it should be lie - no big deal really. Also, the action kept changing from Raymond Dre to Raymond, not sure if this was intentional but I always think it’s best to be consistent with this especially with a character name like Reginald added into the mix. Could cause some confusion.
I did have one question, this line:
"Marianne, the white woman"
Didn't really feel relevant to me, wondered if you meant (blonde) woman? Otherwise, not sure why her skin colour mattered and it stuck out to me.
Anyway, good job with this one. I really liked it.
Steve