Burnout, The by Phil Clarke Jr. (dogglebe) - Action - When members of a defunct team of super-soldiers are being killed, their only chance for survival falls in the hands of a homeless man.  Before he can save them, he must first confront the ghosts of his past. 114 pages - pdf, format

Quoted from CindyLKeller I found it to be better than some of the produced screenplays that I've read.

Quoted from mikehill1215 And again...To the members out there still learning the craft - PLEASE, do yourself a huge favor and read this script.

Quoted from Troy Zuniga This is a well-written, polished, nicely paced and overally just skillfully crafted piece of work.  Best of all, it feels like that fluidity comes naturally in your writing.  That means nothing but good things.

Quoted from W This is probably one of the better scripts that can be found online.

Quoted from George Wilson Overall, I found it to be a very good read. The mythology of the Face characters is very well conceived and believable, which is a plus, since too much sci-fi starts out being too ridiculous to look at.

Quoted from bert It really sucks you in, and demands to be finished in a single sitting.

Good effort!  Nice to finally come across pro level type of work on this site. Just into the first act, and I can already tell this is quality.  

Members of this site would be doing themselves a BIG FAVOR by reading this and observing the structure and formatting.  Notice the simple, quick, yet descriptive action paragraps and sharp dialog.

I'll post more fomal and in-depth comments once I finish.

Thanks for reading my work, Mike.  I look forward to whatever you may have to say.


Phil

Phil,
I am having a hard time opening it. It says file may not correspond with converters.
Do you have it posted at any other site?

The Burnout is currently in .fdr format.  I've resubmitted it to the site as a .txt file and e-mailed you a copy of it.


Phil

The Burnout by Phil Clarke Jr. - Drama - The Burnout is a modern day retelling of the retired gunslinger who must strap on his guns one more time.  Whitey is a homeless man in New York, but he wasn’t always so.  When he learns that former friends are being murdered, he must ‘come out of retirement’ to stop further killing.  Before he can do so, he must first defeat the ghosts of his past.  note: The Burnout won second place for science fiction at Shriekfest 2004. - html format.

Hi Phil,
I just finished reading your screenplay.
First off let me say that the story was very interesting and original. I liked it. The dialogue was very good, too, but you were looking for feedback on ways to improve it.
The only thing that I could suggest would be to go over it slowly and proofread for errors. Here are some that I found:

Colleen gives Marty him a business card and suit from the bag.

MYERS
We were just trying to survive! You should that!

wee instead of were

CHERYL
Why did you want --

Dan pulls a cellsuit from the bag.

CHERYL
Me to bring leotards?

I would change that to:

CHERYL
Why did you want

Dan pulls a cellsuit from the bag.

CHERYL
(continuing)
me to bring leotards?

In the ambulance scene at the beginning where they are taking Freddie, you referred to him as Freddie then said Ruiz screams. I would change that to Freddie screams or change the name in the dialogue to Freddie Ruiz.

I have never seen numbering of flashbacks before.

Very minor things, but it could have made the difference to a reader for a contest. Just my two cents here. Take it or leave it.

Cindy

Cindy,

I appreciate you finding all these mistakes for me.  Even after reading my script dozens of times for errors, I still miss a number of them.

I want to point out one of things you pointed out:

Quoted from CindyLKeller, posted October 19th, 2004, 9:53am at here CHERYL Why did you want -- Dan pulls a cellsuit from the bag. CHERYL Me to bring leotards? I would change that to: CHERYL Why did you want Dan pulls a cellsuit from the bag. CHERYL (continuing) me to bring leotards?

As I mentioned in an e-mail to you, there is no one set of formatting guidelines.  The double dash [--] method implies that the brief action that follows doesn't break the dialogue up.  There isn't a pause between the words 'want' and 'me.'.  It just saves a line of space in the script.

Flashbacks should be numbered if there are more than one.  This is especially necessary in my screenplay as I refer to (practically repeat) one flashback.


Phil

Hi Phil,
I know what it is like to go over a screenplay and find yet another thing that  I seemed to miss in the last reading of it.
I'm glad you explained the numbered flashback thing for me. I can see your point now.
Like I said before though, the mistakes were very few, and the screenplay was very good. Like Mike said, I think people here would benefit from reading it.  
I found it to be better than some of the produced screenplays that I've read. Just fix the boo boos, and I think you might have a good chance with this one.
Cindy

The description leads me to believe this is an actual completed movie that won an award, not a completed script.  If that's right, then I'd really like to see this somehow.  I don't know how that would happen if you're not willing to put it on a file-sharing network, but I'd still like to see it before I read it, if that's possible.

Quoted from Troy Zuniga, posted October 23rd, 2004, 1:43pm at here The description leads me to believe this is an actual completed movie that won an award, not a completed script.  If that's right, then I'd really like to see this somehow.  I don't know how that would happen if you're not willing to put it on a file-sharing network, but I'd still like to see it before I read it, if that's possible.

It's a screenplay, not a produced film (atleast not yet).


Phil

Why is it in Drama if it won a Sci Fi award?

It has enough sci-fi elements to enter it as a science fiction screenplay.  It is primarily a drama.


Phil

Phil, this script fu*kin rocks.  Very orginal, made me think of Hellboy interviens with Goodfellas (even though I am not a big fan of Hellboy) I thought this was really a kick A** script.  You seem to know a little about what your doing when it comes to writing originality, unlike the majority of other scripts we have here.  I am coming to the conculsion of my picture soon,so look out for it.  Good job again, keep up the good work.