The Tenant by Brandon - Short, Drama - A homeless outcast secretly lives in the basement of a wealthy family's home.  12 pages - pdf, format

Hey Brandon,

I had a strange experience while looking at it for worthiness to read when my two kids, bored as usual, came over by the PC and said “Hey Dad, we’ll read this for you, okay?” Why? Cause I’ve been trying to get them to read one of my scripts I’ve been working on. Kids. Go figure.

They alternated reading lines and had fun doing it. It’s always great to listen while others read. When we were done, I asked their opinion of it. Being 15 and 13, they said it was okay but they wanted to know who the man was… Was he a robber? Was he just some guy living in the basement? And who cares about two mice?

That’s it. Confusing story. Stories with a character identified as The Man are seldom as clever or clear as writer’s think they are.

Gary

BTW, I count this as three reads in one.  

Hi Brandon, I also found this confusing. The Man seemed to be all over the house at once, living in the basement but also spying on the family from their landing without being seen and then up into the attic. Towards the end he's on the street with the basket and then suddenly back in the house.

What's all the stuff with the installer and the DVD and the safe?

his VO was very on the nose - the line about the nail in particular, and why does he want Brad dead - is it this family's fault that he's become destitute?

There's nothing to make us connect with and sympathise with any of the characters and the descriptions are just too wordy to give any tension.

There are several typos throughoout.

I think you could cut a good 5 pages from this, ratchet up the tension and make the man's motives a bit clearer, it's all a bit aimless at the moment.

I agree with what has been said, but I think I can add something here.

Geography and continuity.

The storage room is part of the basement, yes, but it is still another sub-location. The header should look like INT. BASEMENT - STORAGE ROOM - EVENING or INT. BASEMENT - WINE CELLAR -EVENING

It makes a huge difference.
By the way, a TV set and stuffed bear are the only two things downstairs? How 'bout a Christmas bear? The kitchen is decorated; why not here too? Also, if we didn't catch Christmas decor in the kitchen, a tree would show the season without problem (*see below).

In addition, our first scene is in the Kitchen. There are no Christmas decorations to be seen until later on.

No need to have the word "Christmas" or "X-Mas" after the first time you mention it.  You keep switching between the two...but since these are (empty) boxes, boxes are boxes. Christmas (or X-Mas writing) is understood. Another repetition is describing The Man ("short hair, trimmed beard") When we first see him, we don't "see" this, but that's alright because we can connect a few dots and see that he has cleaned himself up a little. You'd still want his hair slightly unkempt though. Unless he's one heck of a barber. But then he has long hair again. Then he trims his beard again.

"She opens the closet door exposing Man." - one good reason to give him a name. You might not know how that looked when you first wrote it, but it's awkward and her scream is real, I'm sure about that. Later, Man is outside. Man becomes way too generic.

*"Dark, Christmas tree lights provide the only light."
Where's the tree? In the living room or the kitchen? And what's with dark light?

It becomes clear he's there to rob the place. A couple of other Ho-Ho's join him although they aren't really needed. It also reads like they are not together on the score.

I guess what really bugged me other than "Man" with No Name is the frequent use of "X-Mas" and then switching to "Christmas". I ignored at first (as X-Mas was on a few boxes) but in a narrative? It's abbreviated, and therefore lazy.

Spell check will tell you "Claus" is wrong. You probably added the "e" thinking it's the correct way. It's a case that you should ignore and keep it Claus. It's a typo a lot in the script, and cannot be ignored.

Hope you can fix this up.
-D

I liked this, i thought it was well written, but maybe it could do with a bit more tension. And it might be nice if it had a title page.