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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Series  /  Any Given Day
Posted by: Don, June 30th, 2006, 9:55pm
Any Given Day: Chapter One: The Phone Call by Matt Layden (theusualsuspect) - Series, Short - The Phone Call is the first chapter in a series of shorts that detail the lives of several people and how they all connect on one fatefull day that changes thier lives forever. 9 pages - html, format 8)

Any Given Day: Chapter Two: Police Watch by Matt Layden (theusualsuspect) - Series, Short - Police Watch details the night of two police officers who take down a drug addict. After an inncident happens with their police car, they get a call about the accident that Robert had witnessed. Now one must deal with the incident with the car, while the other must go to the accident with Robert. 17 pages - html, format 8)

Any Given Day: Chapter Three: The Family Man by Matt Layden (theusualsuspect) - Series, Short - The Family Man details the day of Greg and his family. His daughter has a school play tonight and greg promises to be there. Unfortunately his work load is too much and me has to miss it. But at the last second his decided to go to the play and races in his car to get to the school, only fate has something else in store for him.17 pages - html, format 8)
Posted by: Balt (Guest), July 1st, 2006, 9:50am; Reply: 1
Well, since I'm not supposed to say what I really feel here... I took the liberty of changing everything you did wrong and I re-wrote your script. Yes, you can use it too... Be thankful cause now it's actually entertaining and makes more of an attempt at being a cohesive story.

Work with this.

Now, I'm sure I'll have people tell me how big of an asshole I am "again" for doing this but you know what...? Nobody else would've taken the time to do this for you. Instead of telling you where you went wrong, I re-wrote your entire script.

I tightened up the dialogue and made your scenes flow better and faster. The page count is down nearly 2 pages too.  

911 calls are free. Your quarter theory wasn't needed.

Jimmy and Robert are now old friends... just read it. It's better... I  re-wrote this all in 13 minutes. That's it. It took me 13 minutes...

So, since I can't review how I'd like... I'll try this out. I hope you enjoy it.

Just click on the link down there and copy and paste it into your own screenwriting whatever... Yes, I'm even gonna host it from my own website for ya.

Baltis~

http://www.freewebs.com/baltis/Re-write.pdf
Posted by: Coleman, July 3rd, 2006, 3:05am; Reply: 2
i like the original but the touched up version is a lil better. still, would a drunk person speak as clearly as Robert spoke...i think not.  that was the only problem i saw in the story. i like where it's headed though.  it sounds something like 'Crash'

~Brandon~
Posted by: jerdol, July 8th, 2006, 5:51pm; Reply: 3
Before getting onto the review of the two scripts, I'd like to heavily criticiz -Baltis.  Instead of helpinh theusualsuspect improve his script so the next one is better, you took the opporunity to brag about how great a writer you are and how quickly you can write.  At the very least you could have explained the changes you made and how they improved theusualsuspect's script, so his next is better.  I think you don't properly understand the purpose of script reviews on this forum.

As for the actual script (the original), it was good, although too short.  If you're ever going to publish an actual series, it has to be longer than that, or it's not sellable.  A standard TV show is between 20-40 pages, and most importantly all of the episodes are around the same length.  The disjointed nature of the series makes me think that morfing a few episodes together at a time could work fine.
Your format has little problems, though you should capitalise names the first time they appear.  The structure is a bit too focused on dialogue, however; this isn't necessarily bad, but too little action can sometimes equal boring.  
Your dialogue is fine; my only problem is that Jimmy's clearly developed obscene drunk character seems to contradict his claim that he's a doctor.  The character portrayed earlier feels like a low-life who spends every night in this bar harrassing strangers.

As for -Baltis' version: awful.  I'm not just saying this because I'm annoyed at what you did by writing this; your dialogue makes no sense and you destroy important elements of the script by adding your own style.
Your motif of percentages for humoristic purposes feels staged.  You similarly pepper the script with bad jokes that don't fit the characters.  Your switching of the "I'm sorry" line completely kills it; it makes sense as a stereotypical guy-to-guy advice cliche, not as what a specific husband actually says to his wife.  You also reverse the percentages about the cheating, btw.  Most importantly, you didn't fix the format by capitalising the names at the beginning; and if you're not even going to fix the format, what's the purpose of "fixing" the script?

EDIT:  I'll return to review the later chapters soon, but it's 2 AM right now.
Posted by: TheUsualSuspect, July 9th, 2006, 12:08am; Reply: 4
Thanks Jerdol for reading the script and for the feedback.

Although, this is not for a tv series. They are a bunch of shorts, that fit all together in one long piece of a screenplay. Instead of writing one long screenplay and dividing it up into chapters, it's simply being told one chapter at a time.
Posted by: dogglebe (Guest), July 9th, 2006, 4:04pm; Reply: 5

Quoted from Balt
911 calls are free. Your quarter theory wasn't needed.


I haven't read this script but thought I'd chime in about this.  In the United States, it's against the law for pay phones to charge for 911 calls.


Phil
Posted by: DOM (Guest), July 16th, 2006, 2:34pm; Reply: 6
I like the idea of the show. I guess it would hook the reader to see how the all connect. I've only read The Phone Call so far, and I like the way you write, but I don't know where you were going with it. Maybe I'll understand at the end of the season, but right now it seems that you wrote that script just for the sake of writing a script.
Posted by: TheUsualSuspect, July 18th, 2006, 2:10am; Reply: 7
Has anybody read anything other then the first Chapter?
Posted by: jerdol, July 18th, 2006, 5:31am; Reply: 8
Chapter 2 seems weaker.  The dialogue has too many curse words in it, and doesn't seem to represent actual characters.  Injecting heroin into your eye...I'm not an expert, but it sounds absurd and impossible.  And a police-man who beats a suspect for nothing - that's what comes from watching too many cop shows.  The suspect would have bruising that would be easily tracable to the cop, and he'd have his badge removed and be arrested and tried for assault.  This would happen the first time he did it, and the script suggests it's a habbit of his.
I felt unconvinced with the three-cases-at-once thing, but can't point out anything specific.  The plotline could work, but the dialogue has to be done better.  How would a real cop react what he had so many things on his hand he had to effectively abandon one case?

By the way, -Baltis, your "improved" version is inconsistent with chapter 2.  It ends with sirens sounding off in the distance.
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