Bright by Tom Peterson (DivinityFilms) - Short, Drama - Locked in a dark room for months, a brave and intelligent young girl surprises her captor in a way he never expected.  6 pages - pdf, format

Hey Tom, read through this pretty quickly, but noticed that there are a couple of spots on the first page where you have Anna speaking when it is clearly the Captor that is speaking.

I'm sure I missed something in the first read-through, but I am baffled on why he offers to let her go and she says no, then immediately afterwards the police arrive.  Does she somehow know they are coming?  I'm also not sure if you're trying to show there is some existing bond between the captor and Anna (were you going for a Stockholm Syndrome type of effect, perhaps?).

The writing itself didn't bother me as much as the plot development itself--but again, it was a quick reading for me and a second reading might help.  I just was hoping for a little more backstory to understand why she was acting the way she was.

Gary

Quoted from Gary in Houston there are a couple of spots on the first page where you have Anna speaking when it is clearly the Captor that is speaking.

Hey Tom,

Gary is absolutely right.  

ANNA
You need to eat.

and

ANNA
After you eat, you can tell me why you won't sleep in your bed. It's more comfortable to eat up here.

That's the captor speaking, right?

ONEY

Hey Tom,

I think you have a lot going on with this one. The title and logline are very engaging and I simply couldn't resist opening this one up. After opening up, I will admit to being slightly disappointed with the execution of the story. I'll explain why a little later.

First of all I know your opinion on the "FADE IN:" issue. I read one of your posts on another thread and I agree with you to a certain extent. You should only have to write what's pivotal to the story. Fair enough. However, I will warn you... You will hear screenwriters around the world constantly say this... "You need to have FADE IN at the start and FADE OUT at the end, not because it's pivotal, but because it's the industry standard." We all have to compromise at some point and I think the whole FADE IN issue is something you're probably going to have to give in to at some stage. Readers will automatically develop a negative vibe towards your writing without it. Trust me, it's not worth it.

Right I'm noticing a lot of CAPS in the action at the start. Not a bad thing, but you don't need to CAP entire sentences. TRY READING A WHOLE SENTENCE LIKE THIS, WITHOUT WANTING TO HIT ME! It's hard on the eyes, man. I understand that you've learned to CAP sounds, but you only have to CAP the sounds. For example...

"A LOUD BANG FROM OUTSIDE"

should only be...

"A loud BANG from outside" - Make sense?

Something I picked up on numerous times with the script is you constantly describe sounds starting with "The sound of this, the sound of that..." - BORING!

For example, on Page 1: "The sound of objects sliding against wood outside." - You don't need to have "the sound of..." here. You could easily write it like this...

"Objects SLIDE on wood outside." - The CAPS on SLIDE let me know that it is a sound.

"The light from the hallway beams into the once pitch black room." - We know it was "once" pitch black. Seems a little weird to include that in the narrative.

PAge 1: "Her eyes squinting, tightly..." - Passive. This could easily be written as this...

"Her eyes squint..." - Passive writing is something I've only recently properly learned. Have a look at this thread, where it is explained by some much better writers...

http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?m-1357252840/

Slugs in the same location should be labelled as "LATER" rather than just the complete slug again. For example you have this...

INT. DARK ROOM - DAY

Random action parts, with a bit of dialogue.

Creepy dude leaves, young girl eats.

INT. DARK ROOM - DAY


The second slug should be just LATER to show that time has passed. Just a little tip to save space, I guess.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Now, onto my issue with the execution of the story. We've seen it all before. The creepy guy captures the young girl. He talks for a while in a condescending way and then gets arrested. Yuhp, just like every other abduction short film. The biggest issue is nothing is explained. We have no idea WHY Anna was abducted. We have no idea what this guy's relation to the Girl is. It's all a bit of a miss for me.

Then there's the logline which ended up letting me down in the end. Don't get me wrong, it's written brilliantly, but it's not all true, is it? "A brave and intelligent..." - Brave, yes. But intelligent?! I don't see staying in a dreadful place when you have been given the option of leaving as a particularly smart thing, TBH. Her actions just seem a little unrealistic. When given the opportunity, people trust their instincts and run. I just don't understand it. Maybe that's what you were going for. To me it doesn't work.

Hope none of this is too harsh. Feel free to PM me with further questions.

Dan

Tom,

Not sure what to make of this. The Captor’s dialogue felt creepy enough and the ‘visual’ of Anna eating the food alone in the dark could be a strong one. Overall the story didn’t work for me. These sort of shorts (captor/captive) are a good way to pack in the emotion and conflict, but what you have here is way too ambivalent.  

What did the Captor want with Anna to keep her locked in a basement for three months only to offer to let her go? What makes her opt to stay and importantly how was she found?

As to the log-line, what was the surprise ‘he never expected’ -- and how did it relate to Anna’s release?

Not saying it can’t work; but for me I needed more understanding of the characters and their situation to bring this piece together.

Best of luck.

Steve.

Hey, guys thanks for pointing the errors especially with the character name!

You're right about the "FADE IN". It's not too big of a deal to add it in. The capitalized actions and sounds are meant to express the power of them. It's not meant solely for sounds as much as it's meant to express the sudden impact of when the actions or sounds occur. I did overuse it quite a bit lol.

These are great tips to improve my writing.



This story could span out to be a feature in which I once imagined it to be, but I wanted to focus on the raw situation that is this very disturbed individual and this young girl who he has kidnapped.

Just as horrible and frightening as this situation is for Anna, the story isn't focused on her fear as much as the strength she has built up in the three months that she has been trapped there. She had to develop a way to cope with being alone and cut off from the world.

There is a lot of build-up and backstory intentionally left out but addressed and is the reason for all of the events and actions that take place.

This story is essentially about the irony of power. While the captor has Anna trapped and is seemingly the one in control, he can't figure out why in all the time that she has been his prisoner, that she hasn't done what he asks her to do. He doesn't force her to do anything, he wants her to want to do what he says by her own choice. By doing so would meet his deranged satisfaction. He would never harm her knowing that it would be forcing her and that satisfaction wouldn't take place. So his goal essentially lies in Anna's hands and she knows this. She intentionally doesn't give him what he wants and because of this she has the power in this situation.

He finally makes the ultimate choice to gain back that power by offering to let her go which he believes she wants more than anything and will choose to accept and do what he wants. Anna would jump at this chance, but she is intelligent enough to know that if he kept her this long and treated her the way he has, she knows him enough to know that this is something he wants her to believe so he can win. She believes he won't let her go even though he offers it and she chooses to keep her power over him by refusing his offer. She believes the only way she will get out of this place is to hold on until the day she is found.

Anna's knowledge comes from the time she spent with the captor and learning about him. She was brave enough to let go of the light and remain in the dark if it meant defeating him.

The further details behind why Anna was abducted, who the captor is, or his relation to Anna isn't entirely necessary in the story. We learn that the captor wants Anna to appreciate him. He could want that for many reasons, maybe a wife that left him or maybe he was a school teacher and the students treated him like garbage. He's clearly sick and has abducted Anna as a means to gain appreciation in this twisted way.

Anna makes it clear to him that he could never trap her, because she is always free whether in the dark room or not and he has no effective control over her. She is basically saying that he lost.

Thanks for reading guys. All of your comments have been helpful in the new re-write.

Hi Peter - I had a quick look at this, then wrote some stuff up (I write them off the boards first), but I didn't see all the replies, and then realised that most of what I have to say is already covered -- mainly by Dan-Dreamscale-in-training-Botha. But I thought I might as well post seeing as you are around ... not too much to add but make of it what you will:

It's the right kind of material for a short - limited cast and location, and doesn't really stretch anyone's acting ability.

I wondered if you were going to film it yourself given your board-name?

Story-wise, there are some open strands here - we're not sure why the guy has taken the child - it might be useful to have some kind of clue to what his reason his. Bottom of p2 he says a lot of the things that he hasn't done - and these may be the usual motivators behind an action like this, and they are not the reasons, we're left wondering somewhat.

Anna also is a bit of a mystery - we are not given a reason or a hint as to why she would wish to stay -- and then she does not resist when the policeman comes, so some might argue that there is a bit of a contradiction between what she says and does.

Bottom of pg2 - there are two pieces of dialogue that are down as Anna's, and appear to be the Captors.

I think the captor should have been given a name - there appears to be an attempt to give a sympathetic portrayal of him, and there is the beginning of an interesting character, but not really enough room in a piece this short to develop him.

Anna's age is not given - 'young' could mean a fairly wide age-range.

One the writing side of things, there's a couple of thing you need to look out for. Overall, I think the writing may need improving a little, but a couple of things popped out:

p2
"He lifts the tray of an apple core and an empty glass"
"He sits before Anna." He sits by/in front of etc.
p4
"The captor stairs up with his mouth open."
p5
"A completely bewildered expression in his face."

Could do with a FADE IN:/OUT:

Best of luck with it.

SPOILER SPACE

This script started out with some potential but it just petered out at the end.  I expected it to delve more into Anna's relationship with the captive and then he gets arrested.  And she's enjoying the sunshine and the grass.

There were one or two instances when you gave dialog to the wrong character.  THat's easily fixable.

You're too heavy-handed in using uppercase with sound effects.

Quoted Text THE SOUND OF OBJECTS SLIDING AGAINST WOOD OUTSIDE. METAL LOCKS BEING UNDONE.

should be written as:

Quoted Text Something SCRAPES against a wood floor.  Tumblers turns as locks CLICK open

Hope this helps.


Phil

Thanks for the feedback guys!

We may produce this script in the future, right now it's a working script still being developed.

Much of the background is meant to be ambiguous to focus on the elements of Anna and The Captor's intention, but in the re-write I'd like to show that relationship more as it does skip over it in this draft.

The main thing to know in this story is that Anna is intelligent. She knows who is telling the truth. The Captor she didn't believe and the detective she trusted when he said he's been looking for her for a long time. There is no contradiction in her actions. Anna stayed on her objective all the way through. Had the detective not shown up, she would have stayed until the one day they did come.

There seems to be a lot of backstory missing.  Anna was very passive.  She didn't say much and all she did was lay on the floor and look at the light.

It wasn't very clear why Captor had her locked up either.  He wasn't doing anything to her or with her, so why did he have her?

I see this is a draft, so hopefully a lot of the questions will be answered in the next draft.

Jordan

Hey Tom.

A good story you have here, but it really peters out at the end, and I know exactly why.

I knew right away when Anna declined to go that she didn't want her captor to have any kind of power over her, but where this all went wrong is the police come in DIRECTLY afterwards.  That made it seem like Anna knew the police were coming, and that's what threw everybody off to what the situation really was and what idea you were really going for.

You are right, there doesn't need to be any backstory for this piece.  But, if this were my story, I'd ask myself 'exactly how necessary are the police?'  Yes, they rescue her and give her a happy ending.

But I'm wondering if a more powerful and less confusing idea would be, after she declares she's always free, to have her look out a tiny window to the outside, then look back at him and say 'I have all I need looking at the sky until I waste to nothing.'  (Of course, you'll have to find an anorexic actress to play her if you're filming this yourself.)

Kind of a bleak ending, I know, but still proves her point she's a strong person and she's not going to let him get to her, and you won't have to give a messy explanation of how the police find the hideout, which for that to work, you'll need to show backstory.

But a good job on this nonetheless, Tom.  I'd really look forward to watching this someday.

- Mark