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Madame Laveau by Rebekah Hay (rdhay) - Short - In a city with a rich history of black magic, the daughter of a Voodoo queen must acknowledge her power and destiny to save the man she loves. 11pages - pdf, format
End of page 4, you write an unfilmable but I'll let that pass because it looks as if you know what you're doing.
Great job for pulling these little jokes off in an otherwise dark script.
In the logline, you suggest that Paris needs to save the man she loves? Would she really still love him if he just barged out the door basically hinting that he doesn't want anything to do with her? Just a thought though.
You've built a little universe here and IMO it's perfect. I'd really like to see where you take this.
Paris has a nice goal by the end but it seems like she doesn't really care? Would she? I don't know, something to keep in mind.
Not bad...not bad at all. Actually, rather intriguing and that's a very good thing.
The writing here is OK, but IMO, you took way too many pages to get to where we are. I'd say you can easily clean this up and show the exact same stuff in 7 or 8 pages - and I think that's rather important. Getting rid of all the orphans will sure help.
What's with "NEW ORLEANS" being in every single Slug except for 1? Your Slugs all need attention. It's a first draft, though, I know. Easily fixable.
On Page 10, who's Johnny? Did I miss something?
Overall, much more than a good effort, as this actually has the feel of a real feature that could have legs. You've already created some strong characters, and that's impressive in such a short time.
Great job. Fix it up, clean up the writing and let's see where this story goes.
Page 1. Paris, reminds me a little bit too much of Paris Hilton.
Money lives here. And hires a regular maid. Not sure what that means.
I also think that if you are going to describe somebody as biracial, you need to include what races. Black and Mexican? White and Asian? Know what I mean?
Page 10. Who is Johnny?
This wasn't bad at all, but I wasn't exactly bowled over either. I didn't get the mansion part in the beginning. Is that Collin's house? Is that to establish that he and Paris come from 2 different worlds?
Seems like everyone in this script knows something about Laveau. Everyone but me, who was left wondering why Collin took off and what was going on. I also did not understand what happened to him. Did Paris' mother put a spell on him or something? If so, why? What did he do to her?
Not sure what to say about the title. If this feature has Paris as our main character then maybe the title should be something different instead of being named after her mother. Unless Paris becomes a madam along the way somewhere.
Would I read on after these 1st 10 pages? Probably. So I guess you succeeded. Good luck.
The script is good too. I enjoyed the read. Amusing. I'm not entirely certain you could come up with a feature based on this but if you have a good second act ready then it's an excellent start.
I'm not sure why you placed that last super on the page. And who is Johnny?
Also, you'll probably not agree but i think you should start this script with Collin meeting Madame Laveau because that's really where this story starts.
Good work, however. The best I've read so far and I look forward to reading the rest.
Another good piece of writing on display here although I think the slugs could do with some work and there was some telling going on in Thomas’s description IMO.
On the whole I liked this but was left confused by the end about who Paris and her family are? Paris also didn’t seem too concerned about Collin? Hopefully these sorts of questions will be answered later on if you decide to carry this on? Have to ask about the mansion at the beginning, why was they there? Whose mansion was it?
An intriguing story which makes me want to read the next 10 pages to see where it’s going. Well done.
Title - initially doesn't mean anything but the "Madame" element does give a flavour, so OK, for the title
Logline - Not bad, gives us quite a good steer and conflict that will arise and what she needs to overcome, pretty good.
Story - i think you set the pro tag up nicely, we have a good fell for her by the 10th page. Sometimes the writing felt a little clever but it is good and crisp and moves along nicely.
I wasn't wholly sure about the infamous nature of the madame. This seemed a little forced, a bit too much. i think it would have been nice to have Colin not be aware, try to like her but whatever he sees it very appealing and he feels he has to leave. We can therefore have the foreshadowing from the reactions outside.
At present he runs away because of who she is. We don't see any of this power, so the force is reduced. Maybe she could mind read, explain something about him - a disturbing fact - which combines with the moment, maybe a raging headache comes on, forcing him to leave. I don't know, but more tension than discovering a name.
The Elevator Most Belonging To Alice - Semi Final Bluecat, Runner Up Nashville Inner Journey - Page Awards Finalist - Bluecat semi final Grieving Spell - winner - London Film Awards. Third - Honolulu Ultimate Weapon - Fresh Voices - second place IMDb link... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7062725/?ref_=tt_ov_wr
Is Paris going to assume the title of Madame Laveau?
Style took a couple of pages to warm up to. Tripped over a couple of things. --Biracial beauty. (Did you mean Creole?) --And hires a regular maid. --Every slug with NEW ORLEANS TOWNHOUSE or MANSION needs a dash inserted NEW ORLEANS – TOWNHOUSE.
Johnny is the policeman’s name she uses in an effort to get his attention. I think.
Not sure what to make of this. I love New Orleans stories. I like the witch you chose. Nice to see something different from Tabitha or some other teen witch. Those are getting old.
Oh, wait! We still have a teen witch. Well, she is different, so she gets an ok here.
The story itself needs a lot of tightening. Maybe I'll get a better idea how to help after another ten pages. Hopefully the writer is up to keep going.
We spend a lot of time with Collin, but I don't know if he is important to the story? And just how important is he to Paris? The reason I ask is because he doesn't really provide enough clues to what is going on. He knows something about the Laveau family, but doesn't help fill the gaps. Instead, he runs away. I was frustrated with his dialogue: He doesn't probe. Doesn't try very hard to get answers to all of the mystery. I'm still confused as to what Paris' intentions are. She seemed interested in Collin, but she doesn't really prepare him for what's coming. Initially she didn't want him to meet her family, and then she brings him home and just says "don't freak out" and "don't run away." Maybe Collin's reactions should have been: "Relax, it's not like I'm being cursed by Madame Laveau."
Finally, I would love to have seen what happened to Collin. Up to page 10 there has been a lot of talk, a lot of mystery, and hints at something frightening. Nothing visual, however. When the policeman comes knocking to question Paris about Collin, how about cutting to Collin's condition. Show, don' tell us about Collin. If he's possessed, let us glimpse the horror. This will give us a clue into the Laveau family. And will have us hooked to read on. This has very good feature possibilities.
Your writing is fine, but the pace seems slow. Trim some of the excess.
Want to add two things: A bit more description, please. What does a voodoo queen look like? We didn't get any physical description of Madame Laveau, other than frail. Also, we need some details of the French Quarters to get some flavor of the city.
And what is so bad about marrying into Laveau family? Rusty is described as a "grimy white guy," who kicks back and is watching TV when we meet him. I mean, this guy is my neighbor. Pathetic, yes. Cursed? I'm not seeing it.
Congrats on getting something submitted to the OWC.
P. 1 Typo. Up to this point the read was pretty fluid... Paris smile falls and she leaves the room.
P. 6 The flow was pretty decent at the start... But I feel like now the script’s playing footsie with the reveal. Perhaps I’d feel less railroaded with more character development. Feels to me there isn’t enough on the page yet to compensate.
P. 7 I couldn’t follow the dialogue here. At times Collin seemed in the know, others completely clueless.
P. 9 Man, it’s hotter than a witch’s - I thought that old saying was actually the opposite temperature.
P. 10 Who the heck is Johnny? Where did he come from?
I didn’t care for the expository data delivered by the cop. All that exciting possession business should be on the page. Movies are visual... so get more visual with your pages. Yes, it’s harder to write... but tends to grab readers more.
Regards, E.D.
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