Back to Shawshank by Helio J Cordeiro - Short, Suspense - To be a screenwriter is a dream for a lot of guys around the world but it could be a nightmare from time to time. Do you want to see? Try once! - pdf, format 8)

That was..uh..something. I'll bet this was an actual dream you had, Helio. (Which is a really odd coincidence - this is the first script that I read today after waking from an amazingly cinematic dream I had and wrote down). It doesn't really make much sense to me, but it's probably not meant to. It's definitely an interesting read, and well-written.

Care to elaborate?

Wow, what a surreal little short. Linda Seger as your mom? That in itself is funny. I'm not sure I understand what this is all about but maybe that was your intention. It's some kind of bizarre dream about screenwriting gurus.

I enjoyed it though. Your writing flows very well and the excellent formatting lets you zip down the page. Considering you're not a native speaker, you have a firm grasp of English.

I like your work, I'd like to see something longer from you.

Hi DS!

Well, I'm doing something long but it has been very dificult for me. But I'm traying anyway. When it  be ready I'll post it here.

Back to Shawshank was a good exercise, a type of screenwriting training session for me. I'm very thankfull you understood that.

By the way Pete what did mean with "Care to elaborate?"

I meant do you want to tell us more about what this script means? What it based on an actual dream or not? Is there some kind of hidden meaning to all of it?

Thanks, Pete!

What I meant with this script was to do a exercise with a dream inside a dream using screenwriting gurus and myself as joke. As the logline says: "...time to time to be a screenwriter could be a nightmare..."

I really want to read it... but it keeps saying I don't have the right harddrive or something like that. But if I get a chance to read it in class... I will.

Hi Michael!

I appreciated that and I hope you read it in class as soon as you can.

Look, as a exercise was nice to write this script cause to write in English is very difult to me, but I try doesn't matter how many erros it has to have.

Okay so, no more crying! I'm waiting to hear from you any kind of revews about it, if you wish, of course.

Thanks for the kind words on "Someplace", Helio.  Your own shorts seem to be pretty well received, and since you seem particularly fond of this one, I gave it a read by way of payback.  Got a few comments (with spoilers):

*  Very early, you have O.S. dialogue, then describe, "The birds twitter..."  Where are these birds?  Move this line into the second paragraph of description, and rearrange it a little.  You must establish where the birds are -- on the patio -- before describing what they are doing.
*  You give Helio a "huge nose"?  Ha!
*  The mask, and the secret identity, is also a nice -- if odd -- touch.
*  Upon reaching the end, I have no idea why any of this is taking place inside of a prison.  What kind of prison has kids watching television in the living room?  Eh.  I'll just chalk that up to the overall weirdness of this little story.

Helio, I know you struggle with getting your English right.  And as a result, your dialogue is sometimes a bit "off" -- but just a bit -- and in a good way, actually.  It is stilted and formal somehow, but somehow very natural at the same time, and this strange combination ends up making your dialogue very distinct and unique.  For some reason, I really like the way your characters speak, even if I can't tell you why.  Just thought I would put that out there for you as a good thing.

As for the story, I read this twice (it's not too long), and could not make heads or tails of it!  But I suspect that was your intent.  "Surreal", the description Der Spieler gave you, if quite fitting.  Look that word up if it is not part of your vocabulary yet.

So, this piece is interesting enough to see the reader through to the end, but I'll wager that every single reader ends up scratching their head, wondering just what the heck you were talking about  :)

Thanks, Bert!

As I said I'd tried to write about a dream, a nightmare. The dream inside a dream...I know it is very difficult task, but I've been trying this, indeed pursuing it.

My first attempt was also a short script named "The Dream" (It is obvious, isn’t it?) I don't know whether it is the rigth place to confess this , anyway...I had just a feedback about this type of concept when a young videomaker optioned it but unfortunately he got a financial problem and gave up the project.

I'll tread your spoilers!

Helio,

This script is crazy. It hardly makes any sense. I love it!

I don’t know what you’re trying to say here, but who cares? It was wild and surreal and bizarre and creative. I know there’s something you’re tying to get out and it’s buried deep. Perhaps too deep. But it’s definitely not for people who want to be led by the hand through a story. That’s a good thing, in my opinion.

I follow the dream aspect of it and I understand that completely. Very nearly everything I write (anything that’s any good anyway) is based on a dream.

Some of it is no doubt lost in your English but, even so, you do a very good job and improve with everything I read by you. It can’t be easy to write surreal stories in English when English is your second language but you really do a good job.

Brea

WOW!  It was so stimulating, Brea!!! As you know screenwriting is ever and constantly exercise, sometimes a pain on a…* but it has its compensations like to receive words like yours.

About to write in English, I’d tried to solve the problem when I wrote “Vine Leaf” I had co-writing deal with a Texan screenwriter as you can see in the script front page. I think I found a best way to put my crazies ideas out.

About "what I tried to say with this script" I think it was a type of critic about methods, rules, conventions etc. I don’t know who said….”the rules are to be broken!” I’m trying to do so!

Thanks a lot Breanne!

I'll agree with everyone else and just say "Surreal man. Totally surreal."

anyway i didn't really understand it but i was fun to read. if i didn't know better and if it weren't true then i figured that it was all the fantasy of an inmate at Shawshank or something. i really don't know man i'm so confused right now.

anyway is just want to nitpick on something. when you have a format like this that shows pages there is one thing you have to be aware of with dialouge. if a dialouge starts like on the bottom of a page and continues in to the next you can't just continue the dialouge on the next page. you have to write the man who's talking's name again on the new page and then put up a "(cont'd)" by the name.

Thanks for your post, Al!

I'm not saying that it has to be any sense. This is a nightmare. Maybe has been a nightmare to read it. I'm sorry if I disturbed you with this, but try to understand that the idea was just to make an analogy between screenwriting and distortion of the mind. (who knows I'm not a screenwriter, but a guy with distorted mind?!)

About to forget to put CONT'D in next page, unfortunately I comet this error every time. Anyway, thank you to remember me about this!

Helio,

I sometimes wish that I was a psychologist just so that I could more easily decipher your stories. I know you're smart and it's easy to miss the meaning of your scripts if you just breeze through them. This one was a little tricky since you used a dream within a dream. I read it three times and I think I have an idea of what you were trying to do.

SPOILERS:

This is a story about a writer, a frustrated writer. That writer is Helio, but the frustration and emotion here could be said for many writers everywhere however.

I�m guessing the Shawshank reference symbolizes a feeling of being "stuck" and maybe not getting anywhere with your writing as well as wishing you wrote or will someday write something amazing like Shawshank.

The explicit bird mating dance�.hm, I'm thinking this is just Helio's mind working in its randomly wonderful crazy way.

Helio with small eyes, a big nose and short stature? I know you told me your height, but don't let that bug you. Your wife thinks you're a good lover and that proofs height  doesn't matter, haha.

Linda Seger, hm, I'm guessing you might have read her books?

Frank Darabont/Samuel Norton, not really sure what he symbolizes other than a bad warden.

Don Boose had you figured out. He caught you. Not sure with what�..and maybe some hostility towards Syd Field or am I just trying to over think this whole thing?

It seems to me that this is a nightmare, but not a horror type nightmare. More like one out of frustration

Love your quirky ideas Helio. They may seem crazy at first glance, but usually they have a lot of meaning to them that can, like in this case, be hard to find but are often worth looking for.
8) ;)

Great Pia! Welldone psychological work here. You're the first fella on SS that decoded the meaning of one of my works with accurated thinking and uncovered how huge is my insanity.

To tell a story just  to tell a story for me doesn't work at all. I love to say more, but not explicit and even when I'm very explicity I'm not: always has something behind this explicty.

Thanks anyway my dear psychologist!

I quite enjoyed the script. I'm not sure where I started, and I definitely don't know where I landed but I liked the trip.

Yes, I wrote a horror, and I am just sick, sick, sick! If there is one script I don't want my parents reading ... They haul me off to the aylum and lament where they went wrong.

Nomally I'm not a fan of weird scripts. I liked this one, because it catches the weird disconnect between writing and the face we present to the world.

I'm a nice, girl next door. However. in my writing I do explore some dark aspects of human nature and that would include the dark parts of my own mind.

Your short captures that weird duality, the mask of normality we need to get through life, have friends, get jobs, and then the real lives we share with our families and in our writing.

And the screenwriting references were hilarious. They added another whacked touch to a surreal script. Well done.

Hey Grace! Thanks a lot for you mature comments, dude. I loved realy to see how the SS girls taked from this unpretentious piece some portion of juice!

Your welcome.

Hello Helio! Thank you for welcoming to the site as well as many other writers here. I thought I'd check this out. Don't roll your eyes if I state what has already been said.

This was definately a surreal script, and I don't get it one bit! From what I've read from other board prowler's posts is that you are a surreal writer.

I had a few laughs reading this, because how violent this was, and how the characters just went on going "dadada..." like nothing was happening. Now I'm just rambling, and not helping you at all... *Sigh*

I guess it helps you, knowing you pleased another reader. A good short, even as maniacal as it was. You have good formatting. A strange story. And my thumbs are up for you.

: )

Thanks a lot  Peter. Less by less you will get the thing. Haha!

Merry Christmas!

Helio

PS Let me know about your script and I will read it, okay?

Hey, Helio. It's been a while since I've read one of your scripts so I decided to take trip back to memory lane. And I must say the trip was a doozy. Not reading any reviews before, I'm keeping this in my honest perspective. I was so confused reading this, yet it was very funny.You keep surprising your readers everytime. And I congradulate you for that. other than that, i'm speechless with a befuddled mind and a touch of humor in me.

Gabe

Has just one word for this....Thanks a lot tmas, Gabe! Oops, five words! Jingle, jingle, jingle...HA-HA-HA a funny holiday and Merry Christmas to you by Santa Clown!