Samebito by John Robbins & Tim Westland - Short, Shark - Ten years after losing his brother to the jaws of a mythical shark named Samebito, a 12th century Japanese fisherman enlists the aide of a ship's Captain to hunt down and exact his vengeance. - pdf, format

Another unique take on the challenge. I liked the setting and the direction this chose to go down. It created some nice visuals. The story’s decent, but not without drawbacks…

I think there might be some overwriting here. It seems to read well at first, but then a couple lines go by and I realize I don’t have a picture in my head of what’s happening. At the bottom of page 3 for instance, the trap’s construction seems to be meticulously detailed, but when I get through to the end of the scene, I find I still don’t have a clear idea of what it looks like or how it’s supposed to function in a practical sense.  Here and there are instances of over description hindering my ability to picture your visuals, this was one of them.

Pg. 4 The word “moreover” is lost in a screenplay (and I’m not even sure its use here is correct)

The story takes way too long to get going. The first hint of action in your main story comes at page 9. After all was said and done, I wanted more on-the-boat scenes and less of the extensive set-up that came before it. The manner in which Nagayo goes about his revenge is absurdly insane, but it’s also my favorite part of the story. I just wish the read had been easier.

Congrats on completing the OWC

Two words; Utterly flawless.

I only wish I could write this good

I'll be interested to find out who wrote this.  I'd like to read more of your scripts.

Outstanding, IMO.

I dug this one a lot. Excellent visuals, powerful and evocative writing, a solid grasp of the era and the culture, and strong on character. Most important, it's a damn good story.

I also had a bit of trouble with some of the imagery, getting lost in descriptions without getting a clear picture of what I was reading. Not that it was over-written, I enjoyed the length of the descriptions and the time taken for imagery and tone, but a bit more attention paid to specifics and geography within the scenes would help.

I'm highly impressed, this is far more polished than usual for an OWC. Great job, I enjoyed reading it.

Your opening reads like it's going to be a feature. 2 1/2 pages of VO then you hit us with the movie title. It was visual and extremely well written but for a 12 pager, to add the title at over 2 minutes in, IMO is a little much. I'd lose the title card. Just leave it with Nagayo saying it as dialog.

Pg. 4 - "It illuminates cherry blossom petals that dance in the tranquil breeze -- autumn's confetti."  Novel worthy descriptions. I remember saying this to someone in one of the recent OWC's. I wonder if this is the same writer.  Hmmm.

Okay...so you've gone WAAAY over the four character limit. What a shame. This was shaping up to most likely be my vote for fave.

Anyway, excellent work for only a week. You are an amazing visual writer, which can be a hard talent to tame when writing a short screenplay.

Beautifully written, but hard to take in and visualize much.

Lots of unfilmables that should go.

Too much dialogue that almost reads like a history lesson – I applaud the knowledge and probable research on display, but IMO, it’s overkill and again, it makes this a very, very tough read that seems to go forever.

Well, for me, this didn’t work, but I can easily see where some will fall in love with the style on display.

Too many characters, an insane budget and an ending that came as a letdown.  Hard to criticize such a monumental effort, and I won’t.

Very impressive effort and congrats on entering.

At first the title sounds awful. Absolutely awful.

I opened it with the numbing dread of a man waiting for his phone bill whose just worked out what roaming charges are, after he's just returned from a holiday where he spent most of it phoning everybody he knew back home for long chats.

But it's quite good. As Dreamscale said, this does appear to be well researched.

Halfway through though and there's not much happening. In a longer piece that would be okay, but in a short it feels as though it's treading water.

Maybe to someone who knew more about Japanese traditions and culture this story may have had more impact. Unfortuately I know little, so most of this is going way over my head. It's like that time I tried to show my dog a magic trick, only this time I can empathise with the dog.

It'd be great if it had more action and the bar was set a little lower for the more ignorant among us. Like me.

R

The seppuku followed the shark fin coming out of the water is an awesome scene. Great imagery. Awesome script as well. The only hard part in reading it was that it was so densely Japanese. I also think this movie would make a spetacular Japanese woodcut.

This is an insane script for a week's worth of work. There is a lot going on in these 13 pages. Very very good.

You seem like a good enough writer so it's just strange that you'd start the script on such a strange word that nobody knows. Amanohashidate? A location? If anything, that should belong in the slug. And then isthmus? Okay, it's descriptive but what if a producer was reading this? This is literally the first line he or she comes across, I'd probably be rolling my eyes right about now. Don't invest that much into the reader so early.

And then the note? There are ways to avoid it, maybe by just saying that dialogue in italics is in Japanese. It throws you out of the read. Anyway, moving on...

You've already gave us two middle fingers regarding the four character rule.

I literally got like two things from that exposition filled voice over.

And it's still going? WTF?

Wait, what did the father do? Treason? For what?

The way you write it, it's almost as if the words Kanji characters are in the super itself.

Okay, I know I shouldn't be harping on about this but the four characters, major part of the challenge itself. I know plenty of writers, me included, who struggled to follow it. And it's not a stretch to say your script would be nothing alike if you were forced to reduce it to just four. Losing a lot of its quality whilst doing so. Which is exactly my problem, other scripts lost the same quality so I find it almost rage inducing that you couldn't read over the rules once more. Any more characters after Kenji and I'm out.

The writing, although a little too technical, was solid for the most part. The research was definitely there, it's just that most of the expositional garbage was lost in the voice over and I didn't really understand why they were after Samebito, he killed his brother? That's a solid enough reason, I wouldn't push it further.

Not sure about this one, I really do appreciate the effort but I had trouble getting into it, almost like I was looking at this from an outsider's perspective rather than being invested into the story. There are good moments here and there, but it's was just lost on me. Good effort.

Very good writing on display here.

Not much to say about this one except I didn’t find one mistake. This writer knows his way around a story. Wish I could say more.

Great job.

Samebito

Interesting start and place, quite like it
He got what for rescuing a tortoise - did I read that right?

Powerful scene - his son killed as soldiers arrive to get him. Twin attacks. Excellent. I will remember that for my own scripts.

Mind you I would say there is a lot of VO
SMASH TO BLACK - not required and doesn't really add.

By p9 I am well overloaded with backstory and history - if true great research but way too much for a short, especially as it's Japanese and I've never heard of any of it. You could lose some detail and the story would improve, less is more sometimes.

Very Japanese with honour being served - but why did he have to revenge in a wild animal performing it's normal function? Isn't that against karma, or whatever it's called. Yes it killed his brother but what's a shark meant to do.

Overall a big story, maybe too much for a short, but that said a decent, decent effort.

I'll repeat everyone on the writing points. Great writing!

But this was thick. Real thick. So much description and back-story that I sort of lost what the story was about.

It's almost like sensory overload where there is so much in front of you, that you can hardly see anything.

This should be a setup for a feature.

Shawn.....><

Impressive. Impressive. Impressive. <--- Yeah, it was that good. My only gripe was that it took too long for the action to get going but once it did I didn't want it to stop. Topnotch writing, very visual throughout. Dialogue sounded natural. Can't comment too much since I don't know a lick about Samurai's and there culture. Great job!

Congrats on completing the OWC.

Stylish. Historical epic.

Right away I'm in love with your style. All it took was the titlecard in Japanese. 1197, japan. And it's subtitled. Yes!  Nice imagery throughout.  Heavy beginnings with the son killed. Nice editing technique with the blade fin transition. Great. Intense. And the sound design would be interesting too.

I loved the images of small to large jaws, mounted on the wall. And the transition to the blank wall. Nice work here. For me the manipulation really worked. I assumed this tale was being told by an elderly nagayo. This image also instantly tells us we're in the past.  I love the detailed descriptions. Like a sash of hooks across his chest, like a soldier's ammo.

Cool gadget, pelican hook. Intense way to show its use and foreshadow. Now I'm really anticipating its use vs shark.

I love the period setting and all the locations but this kinda breaks the low budget aspect. But man did I love that you took time to describe the establishing shot with the cherry blossoms. We've seen nature's horror, nice to see its beauty too.

Great throughline... 10 warriors bring forth one colour... red. Afterall nagayo represents his father and mother on his quest for revenge.

Intense character meeting. Don't move! With the trap. Great stuff. I like that their motives are clear. Teach me and get revenge. I like this story, it would be nice to experience in feature form. There's a lot of history to explore here. I liked itl I wonder how you would expand on these elements with more pages. Good work there.

The action rushes by. Nice clean descriptions. Consider removing short slugs. It's a stylish preference. For me it works better with more set-ups, here it's just 2. Trap. Boat. I also liked the black makeup on eyelids. Badass. He's imagining what the shark thinks.at ine with the beast. Like traditional war paint. Cool imagery.

Such savage revenge. All that matters is the shark dies. And honour is restored. Powerful motivation.plus fishing industry thrives now without monster shark.

Good style, unique flavour. Samurai! Strong period setting with good emphasis on history. Intense moments. A compelling tale of restoring honour.

Ancient Japanese Moby Dick – A very interesting, rich and compelling addition to this OWC.

I have no idea  about this 12th Century world or its culture but you gave me enough information to visualise it and follow it smoothly enough. My favourite moment is when he closed his eye to reveal the painted black eyelids that match his adversary; it made me go cold and sent a shiver down my spine.

My only comment, not a criticism, is it may be a tad too rich for some. A Director would struggle to put their own stamp on something so well described, they have egos even bigger then authors apparently! If you submit scripts to studios (and you should with talent like this) consider that scripts are blueprints for collaboration; the producers and Directors will want to add their touch; if you do your job too well it may put them off.  

But this is staggeringly brilliant.

Well done for a top notch OWC.