Captain Steve by Douglas Lennox - Short, Dark Comedy - Can Steve call upon an inner hero to help save the day? 5 pages - pdf, format

Hey Douglas, just read your script. I'm not a professional or anything but I can sure give you a few tips. First, your headings aren't complete. For example:

EXT. STREET= WRONG
EXT. STREET- NIGHT= RIGHT

Also, when you transition between Steve's daydreams, you need to put in place some kind of transition heading like "FLASH TO:"

It might be a good idea for you to read a few professional scripts before you write your next short.

Good story tho

I know this is a little late, but hey.

So, unfortunately I stopped reading very early on. Why? Well...

There's no FADE IN:. There's no DAY/NIGHT on your slugs.

Does Steve have an age?

Descriptions are much longer than they need to be. It's also good to break it up into chunks of, at max, 4 lines, but preferably 2-3. It just looks less daunting and more professional.

I simply couldn't be bothered to read through 10+ lines describing one scene, and I highly doubt others could be too. And if they can, they're much better people than I.

Can't really comment on the story because, as I said, I stopped reading early on.

Hoped this helped.  

Big blocks of action -- daunting stuff.  Break it up a bit and tighten it up as much as you can.

It bothers me that you call the teenagers "youths."  Just call them punks.  It sounds better.

When the girl comes in the comic book store doused in mustard and ketchup, I thought we were going to get a cute story where the nerd sticks up for the girl - and possibly wins her heart - but that was not the case (I mean, she does give him an abrupt kiss and hug at the end but it felt forced.  Give this girl a name, make her someone Steve is nervous to be around and wants to impress.  Make her real).  Maybe that should be the main focus of this short (that, and all the technical jargon)?

Co-worker should have a name just like Steve.  Also, I liked the co-worker's first line of dialogue but the spelling typos kind of deflated the "coolness" of it.  Speaking of Steve, I'm assuming he is also "man"?  I was confused by this.  Just call him Steve.

Your "fantasy sequences" and your "reality sequences" are not clear at first and are quite confusing.  I had to re-read the scenes because I was wondering how a 40oz glass bottle of beer didn't knock out our protag after shattering across his skull.



--Steve

Hi Douglas,

The action is way too long. Too put it into perspective, one page of a script translates into one minute of screentime. So if you spend most of that minute describing how people look and what they are thinking that's most of a minute the camera is pointing at something doing nothing. The audience will get bored.

Also, people reading this script will see a big wall of text and just not read it. It needs to be in the proper format so people will read it and also so they can get an idea of the pacing. Break the action up into 3-4 lines per 'chunk' at the most and cut anything extraneous.


I'm echoing what's already been said but hopefully it gives you some pointers.

All the best,

Mark