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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Unproduced Screenplay Discussion    Drama Scripts  ›  Windowville Moderators: bert
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Don
Posted: March 21st, 2015, 4:17pm Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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Windowville by David Odessey - Drama, Crime - A Caribbean resort seems like Paradise masking the fact that violent crime lurks just beneath the surface. 77 pages - pdf, format


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Equinox
Posted: March 22nd, 2015, 4:59pm Report to Moderator
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Hello David,

I had a look at this, but I stopped about at the middle. I hope you are not mad on me if my critique sounds a bit provoking at times, I'm just judging the script, it's nothing personal and I hope my points will help you to improve it.

P1:

- 'is cruising', 'is catching' - try to use active present tense. This goes through the whole script.

- 'she seems like the essence of contentment' - write only what is seen.

- 'The CAMERA pans the ship' - no camera settings, leave it to the director.

- description of 'Captain FRANK' - again, only write what we can see. How would an actor be able to get across how the image of the captain's former self was?  This also repeats numerous times across all the script, so I won't list up all lines.

- Characters with an impact on the story should have first and last names.

- 'Pardon me sir, lunch is ready. Shall I serve it now.' - Watch punctuation, it should be 'Shall I serve it now?' - this is also a major problem across the whole script, so I won't list further examples.

- Only the first occurance of a character must be written in CAPS, but you write all characters in CAPS, everywhere which is plain wrong.

- 'Damn it / Damn you' - sounds bad to have two consecutive dialogues start with the same phrase.

- Try to keep actions at 4 lines max. After 4 lines, insert a blank line.

P2:

- 'he dutifully serves his wife' - how would an actor 'dutifully' do something? Remember, always only write what is seen and keep it as short as possible. If you want someone to come across submissive try using dialog. He could say things like I'm sorry or thank you or it's all my fault overly often. Instead of writing 'he is submissive' in an action.

- 'CARLOS and JUAN are joking about their boss's.' - if they are joking, write the jokes in dialog. An actor can't play 'to be joking'. Also, as said before. fix the tense you are writing in.

- After only two pages I get the feeling you have no clue about screenplay format. Your scene headers are all wrong, you CAP every character, you CAP places and sounds, have camera directions everywhere. You should really read one of the many tutorials out there from start to end and fix the format. This is the basic stuff.

- It's fishermen instead of fisherman

- 'GINGER doesn't know it but she is being watched. From the tower of the White Castle an older woman is spying on her with a high-tech telescope.' - just for an example, this could be much shorter:
'Ginger doesn't notice an elderly woman spying on her through a high-tech telescope.'

- Overall, way too much description of details which don't matter. Keep things short. You need to get the plot across only with what the audience sees. This reads more like a novel.

- It's 'Lucretia murmurs' instead of 'Lucretia murmers'

P3:

- The same mistakes as in previous pages, I won't list them anymore. I'm sure you got the points, use them to rewrite the whole script. Going to focus on the story/characters/dialogs now more.

- Oh, in the middle of the page I finally learn that Frank's last name is Miller. Write first and last name once, when you introduce a character, after that the first name in no caps is enough.

- 'When the barkeeper' instead of 'When the barkeep'

P4:

- Absolutely NO CAMERA DIRECTIONS, period. A POV change is ok, but then write

LITTLE GIRL'S P.O.V. -

Action

Action

Dialog

BACK TO SCENE

In this case, however, I don't think a POV change makes sense. The little girl doesn't look at something interesting or sees something important for the story. Switching to the POV of a character is a new camera setting which costs money. So only use it to highlight something important like a reveal.

- 'She has an earnest face that needs to know the answer to her question.' - Again, we can't see that she needs to know anything, so don't write it.

P5:

- Another thing you do often in your script: The dialog (or better monologue) of Neil Jordan (and other characters) sounds like he is reading a novel. He lists up facts to transfer the background story - but actually nobody would talk like that. Neil calls Max to tell him he is on a big story. Why would he also tell him the whole history of the town and all the characters that live in it? Doesn't make sense.

P6:

- Same in Ginger's telephone monologue. I expect Ginger and Lucreatia have known each other for a while, and most probably they also know each other. So why would Ginger tell her all about her relationship to Frank and Carlos, what she likes about them and what not and so on? This rather sounds like she is dictating her life to a ghost writer.

- quietly instead of quitely

P7:

- 'captain's quarters' instead of 'captains quarters'
- Two blank lines in a row.

P9:

- 'when they're happy' instead of 'when their happy'
- Sorry, but why is somebody fucking on every page? Can't you make up some different actions for the characters? I'm on page 9 and I already have enough of the fucking...
- After a few minutes she nurses him back to life? Think about how odd it would be to watch a movie where the characters wait a few minutes before they do or say anything.

P10:

- 'You're the wife. You will be the prime suspect.' - Wow, really? Sounds simple, I guess that would make all criminal investigations much easier. Joke: But isn't it usually the butler?

- 'GINGER'S ladies gun made for a neat killing.' - Are you missing an 'is' here?

- 'JUAN goes ballistic. After a heated debate he agrees to help CARLOS dispose of FRANK'S corpse.' - Write the heated debate. Or should the actors make up what to say on their own?

From here on, I just skimmed over the rest. I think this badly needs an overhaul. Get the format right, fix the grammar, spelling and punctuation issues. Remove the endless monologues which tell us the background story, as it doesn't matter for the rest of the script anyway. Remove all unnecessary descriptions of objects, locations, characters which don't add anything to the story. Write out actions and dialogs instead of writing 'they have a debate' or 'they are making jokes'.

Maybe take this as a blueprint for the script you want to write. Read a few other scripts of criminal stories, not here on the board. Think of movies you liked and google their screenplay, most of them are available for free. Then write this new from scratch.

A few general things to mention:

- I don't see a structure in your story. Read about the 'save the cat' structure, either google it or search here on the forum, I'm pretty sure it's described here somewhere. Also, as this is meant to be a feature script, read up on the three act structure, for example here (http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/pruter/film/threeact.htm)

- Rethink Neal Jordan. In my opinion, it takes way too long until we get to know his role, which makes him unrealistic. He talks to the DEA agents like they are his pupils, and we don't know what gives him the right to do so. Also, his dialogue is often not very good. It reads a bit like you have his plot in mind, but you only write half of it down. For example, on page 23:

NEAL JORDAN
I want you both to know that this
thug is part of the plot. He's Al
Rosetti's main man here. His name's
MIKE MASON. You should put him
under surveillance.

AGENT KELLY
We'll take that under advisement.

NEAL JORDAN
O.K. So we have a deal. I'll stick
close to the lady. But you KELLY,
you keep your distance. You make
her nervous.

I wonder how Kelly's statement implies any kind of deal here. Neal gives him a hint and Kelly confirms they will look at it. So what is the deal in this? I understand, Neal is one of the most important characters in the story, but especially then you should focus on him more.

- Practically on every 2 or 3 pages, someone holds an endless monologue and tells someone else all that has happened. Why don't you just let the audience actually SEE what happened instead? It's your script, you write it. Don't let your characters recite what you are too lazy(?) to write.

Good luck with it!


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