Jonah Hex: The Six Guns by James Fisher - Western - After capturing a train robber, the legendary bounty hunter finds himself hunted by a team of assassins and a person from his past bent on vengeance. 90 pages. - pdf, format

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I'm not a huge fan of fan scripts, though. I worry the typo in the logline is a sign of things to come...

I just thought the logline was poorly-written  and a turn-off from the get-go.  And I use to read the comic book as far back as the late seventies.

Maybe the logline should read along the lines of:

Quoted Text After capturing a train robber, a legendary bounty finds himself hunted by a team of assassins and a ghost from his past.

Keep it simple.


Phil

link fixed.

Don

And.... I was right. Lots of problems, man, starting with the fact that it's an rtf file, even though your log said PDF.

Get some formatting software, because your formatting's a mess. Celtx and Trelby are both free, and they make pdfs.

Slugs aren't good. Keep them brief. EXT. CHURCH will work.

Writing's a little passive... keeps verbs active. "A man is standing" would be "A man stands".

Your text on screen (1877) isn't formatted right. It should be:

SUPER: "1877"

...on its own line. Not in the middle of a paragraph.

A few big action paragraphs. Keep them at 4 lines or less.

And you have some typos.

Sorry James, but in the shape this is in, I'm not going to read past the first page. Sorry to be harsh... But luckily, a lot of the issues I mentioned above are easy fixes. Take these notes into consideration, clean up your script, and keep at it.

Will

I need the criticism! This was my first feature length script and the first script I've submitted here, I need to know the tools that are required to make it better.

Also the logline is a mess, I just wasn't sure how to keep it simple so thank you dogglebe.

I think it's a good thought, wanting to correct the travesty that was Jonah Hex a few years ago, with bad everything all around it - and hardly even getting the essense of the main character. I myself am a bit leery of fan scripts --especially those that are WGA registered or copyrighted by the writer - with characters they do not have the rights to. I could use the 40 dollars.

When you fix the script up, you can oinly shop it in one place and that's if they are willing to look at it. Given the fact that WB bungled up the previous film, I'll roll the dice on a DTV/VOD film, but I have doubts.

But that said, although the logline is clunky, let's say you take out the Hex character altogether and/or other supporting characters that have shown up in the comics. Now, after the cleanup, you can shop it around. It isn't hard to do. Get rid of the name and the face, and bingo. Now folks will think you watched a lot of the ol' Sergio Leone or Sam Peckinpah films.

Quoted Text INT. BACK ROOM OF CHURCH, A FAINT ORANGE TINT FROM GROWING FIRE -- CONTINUOUS

Try
INT. CHURCH - BACK ROOM - CONTINUOUS.

A fire spreads across a corner wall.
Jonah barges in
LARGE MAN slams Hex into the wall. Hex drops his guns.
The fire rises. Sweat fills Jonah's face. Smoke blinds him.

JONAH
Guess I'll have to save a bullet for Riggs.

Jonah head butts Large man. Elbows him in the stomach.
Large Man staggers back.
Jonah sees a hunting knife attached to the mans right pants leg.
Kicks Large Man in the left knee.

Jonah grabs him.  Slams Large Man into the same wall,
Steals the knife. Large Man struggles. The knife penetrates his neck.
Large man falls. Jonah puts the knife in his duster.

How do ya like me now?

Note that in the suggested revision, I took the "orange fire" out of the header and put it in the narrative. The color of the fire is irrelevant. It's also during the day. One less word to deal with. You say our character can't breathe. If you're going to have a fire, we might have smoke. So why not have THAT wall on fire? It'll increase the danger, won't it?

Next, keep it simple. No need to play fight commentator. A bad guy won't stand still and nobody moves at the speed of light. Keep it simple. The character's slug is JONAH HEX and not HEX, so to keep things clear we'll just use JONAH.

I kept part of the dialog in, although if I were doing this, I'd zap it out entirely.

Hope that helps.

-DjS

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't have any access to a computer. When it comes to fan script I do agree with being very cautious, it's very understandable that anyone would feel that way. This was more of a passion project where I wanted to write a Jonah Hex film that A. Felt like a western, B. Understood the character of Jonah Hex and C. Didn't destroy existing characters like Tallulah Black.

As for shopping it around I knew that the restrictions meant that I could only give it to Warner Bros. but I don't think I will even present it to them until I maybe have at least one produced script under my belt or have worked with them already. It's going to be tough to sell it to them but who knows, I always try to stay positive and hopeful Maybe by the time I do their already willing to work on lesser known or failed franchises from the DC film universe.

As for abandoning the Jonah Hex concept... that's a little more than I'd want to do. The characters like Jonah Hex, Bat Lash, Chako and the Six Assassins that I used are established in the comics already (granted I gave the six a lot more of a personality than in the comics where they were just canon fodder for Jonah's bullets). I have plenty more westerns and other genre stories in my mind that I'd like to write so I'll hold back on this script.

With the actual writing problems I had no idea about a lot of the do's and don'ts of script writing. I might as well have written a book with the detail that I went into,  I wasn't sure just how much detail had to be put in. I suppose I thought it would make certain fights more brutal if I went into great detail but as I see, it doesn't need a line like
HEX quickly pushes the man into the same wall and begins to force the knife, going for his neck. The large man struggles, trying to push it away but the knife penetrates his neck. HEX puts the hunting knife into his duster as the large man falls to the ground.

Also when he's fighting I'll try to keep Jonah Hex's dialogue minimal but I still want something to be there in a personal fist fight just because that's a character trait I saw in some of the comics.

Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated!

Does anyone know how to change the logline and send in a new draft of a script? Do I have to wait until the next wave of unproduced scripts or is there a way to do it now?

Resubmit the logline to Don or just PM Bert.  Either can change it.


Phil

Quoted from crookedowl Sorry James, but in the shape this is in, I'm not going to read past the first page. Sorry to be harsh... But luckily, a lot of the issues I mentioned above are easy fixes. Take these notes into consideration, clean up your script, and keep at it. Will

The new draft is up!

The new draft with hopefully most or all the problems fixed is now up! Please give it a read!

James, I started reading this and stopped at page three.  Here you habe Jonah Hex, the baddest motherfucker in the old west.  And on page three, you show show him entering a house to kick ass.  And you don't take us inside the house?  WTF?

Show us the fight!

Show us the &$@*$!! fight!

Hope this helps.


Phil

Please don't stop! That scene is taken from one of the Jonah Hex issues and it's just a little sneak peak at his brutality. The scene right after he closes the door is him torturing one of the Rednecks.
The rest of the story has him kicking a** and showing it. This is just an opening scene like with a James Bond film.
PLEASE READ ON!!!

Hey James. Well, I'm going to give this a quick read -- but, you know, you really need to read other people's work. From what I can see, you've posted on two other scripts, so you need to up the game some when it comes to reading other people's work.

For the time being, you get a look in on the first page from me. You might get more from other people once you chime in on their scripts. Also, you entered the 1+6WC, so try to feedback on some of those scripts.

First off - a slug is a slug, and an action line is an action line:

EXT. A DECREPIT HOUSE -- DAY
EXT. DECREPIT HOUSE - DAY

There is a house
... we know this from the slug.
- you use the term 'house' twice in this paragraph (as well as the slug). As an excercise, if you use it in the slug, try not using it in the action line.

Five redneck hillbilly’s walk out from around the house.
-- They either walk out of the house, or they walk from around the house.

Although at this stage I don't know if you need five rednecks ...

     REDNECK #1
That bastard Hex killed Ma and Pa!
-- is a good line to start on, but I'd drop the '!'.

     REDNECK #3
Well you guys shut up about him?!
-- Do you mean 'will'?

Redneck #1 opens the door.
-- So you meant from the back of the house, earlier?

Redneck #1 opens the door. The five walk into the house.
More focus is on the house. Suddenly a man appears.
-- Okay. This is horrible. I don't know what you mean by 'more focus ...', and the bit about a man suddenly appearing? From where does he appear?

INT. A BEATEN LIVING ROOM -- CONTINUOUS
INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY
-- Your slug is your location, not your chance to describe the location. Describe it in your action/description lines.
-- Your action is not continuous, so it's not necessary to use it here - there has clearly been a time lapse as the rednecks now sit on chairs.

The five rednecks are all sitting around on chairs
-- The rednecks sit on chairs

It's not without merit, and your dialogue apppears to be quite good. But if you read stuff, you will get a good picture of how it should look - and you'll learn a lot that way. They way you're doing it now -- you're really asking people to spoon-feed you. Read some and learn some - it's the best way.