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White Picket Fence by Jared Shipley - Drama - A New York college student returns home to Utah after his alcoholic father dies in a house fire. He lives with his hard-hearted, Vietnam veteran grandfather in a small, rural town. While there, the two decide to rebuild a decaying picket fence in the backyard, a symbol of their decaying family, and the young man is thrust into an odyssey of self-discovery, forcing him to face his demons about his family, himself, and the true nature of love. 98 pages - pdf, format
Read the script and enjoyed it. My only problem is this:
Pg. 1: I like the opening with the gravestone, but it might be a bit confusing to the viewer. I think that the part with COLLIN in his dorm room needs to be cut. It doesn't really fit. Why is it suddenly a week earlier and seemingly the same conversation? If you keep it in the rental car it wouldn't be confusing.
Other than that, it was a well written script. Good job.
"If my film makes one more person miserable, I'll feel I've done my job." - Woody Allen
Numbered scenes? The title on every page? Continueds? All this junk doesn't belong in a spec script and just clouds up the fact that there's not much happening here. I got as far as page 20. The dialogue, such as it is, seems awfully banal ("How are you doing? I don't know. How are you doing" ...) This feels like one of those painfully slow movies where everyone just stands around, mumbles, and stares wistfully off into the horizon. A movie about building a fence and sharing memories of a dead person? Pass.
"It's just a rehash of something that wasn't very good to begin with. I found it flat and trite..." Sunset Boulevard (1950).