Tom Cynova’s Review of:
“Sun Burn”
By Jonathan Clancy
clancy_jonathan@yahoo.com
*What I enjoyed about the script:- Original concept with the sun
- Formatted correctly
- Reads smoothly and crisp
- Good use of images, verbs, and descriptions
- No use of distracting camera cues and focuses entirely on the story
- Could easily envision the scenes and the characters
- Likable and believable characters by their personalities, behavior, and choices
- Enjoyed the style and pacing
- Great control and understanding of the story and it’s details as well as the genre and establishing a horrific vibe
- The choice of where to enter and leave scenes, flows well and keeps the pacing refreshing
- Paragraphs were light and significant, where most writers tend to flood the page with blocks of information
- The description of when her skin was coming off with her hand made me cringe, the lotion turning pink… *shivers*, and the bathtub scene ugh! Imagining Penny drag herself along the wood of the pier… Great job on these scenes
- The juxtaposition of many of the scenes is fantastic
- Great job putting us into the experience of each character with as few words as possible and bringing it to life, this really helped me stay immersed in the story even more as the plot unfolded
- Dialogue is clear and significant, no exposition or drag
- The scene of Penny and Connor making love is handled perfectly and the conflict of experiences each of them is having is explored very well. Penny’s experience especially. (probably my favorite scene for the conflict, how much was going on, and how much things changed in a short time)
*Personal notes, criticisms, and suggestions:- Just a slight overuse of parenthetical's, especially when most of the dialogue is easy to understand how it’s said and the purpose, and can also be defined by the preceding and following description
- Parenthetical's generally don’t need to be capitalized
- I don’t like to compare anyone’s work to other’s, yet this story felt very similar to “Cabin Fever” with the tone of “Friday The Thirteenth” at the beginning of this script. Maybe the execution of some scenes particularly at the beginning could be done differently to explore this story
- Connor’s first line on page 2 has a “(CONT’D)” that isn’t necessary there, as the scene has changed as well as what he was talking about. I would also just remove all “(CONT’D)”’s unless it’s at a page break between a line of dialogue
- The plot of Penny and Connor’s relationship was very intriguing, but in the grand picture of this story, it didn’t serve or connect to the main story very much. It was great to learn about Penny’s interest in Rachel and her true feelings about Connor, but with a story at this length, and the original and interesting concept of the sun and it’s effect on Penny, I felt that time should have been used to further explore the primary focus of the story and the characters reactions to it, instead of the relationship. The characters are definitely interesting, but ultimately the details of them didn’t go anywhere and I’m left unsatisfied
- A lot was setup here, but not much was explored or resolved. It feels more like a beginning and the very ending, without much in between
- Overall this was an entertaining read. I like your style of writing. I loved how the story began and all that ensued. But the story feels incomplete. If it’s kept at this length, it will leave a lot to be desired. I would either extend it or replace some of the relationship plot to make more room for Penny’s experience and even invite some of her friends or boyfriend more into the experience. Perhaps let Connor see signs of it and begin to speculate or let the friends become frightened by it and worried by what Penny might do. Their reaction would have amplified the fear level and opened more doors to exploring this frightening and horrific phenomenon that’s happening to Penny
*My Overall Rating: 6/10