D'enouement by Bryan Mora - Short, Drama - Tranquilize, unravel, and let love possess us all, until it feels like home again. The year 2039. - pdf, format 8)

I enjoyed the tale. The Characters and dialgoue felt real. I enjoyed the two stories kind of interwined together. However, I would have liked to see how it would ended. But the logline tells nothing of the tale, its simply a quote from the first page. My only negative about this short.

Hope this helps,
Gabe

13 pages, ran a little long for a 12 page challenge, but aside from that...I don't understand the story, but that might just be me.  Was Emile a hero trying to fight his brother, the mind controlling gas Colonel? Flashbacks should be labeled...Well written and poetic dialogue though and some good characters...Just unclear what Emile's role was in all of this...

I am not entirely sure how I feel about this one.  I actually liked the logline until I saw it repeated on the title page, and then it felt a bit pretentious.

But I can forgive that, as this story is struggling to lift itself up into something meaningful, I think.  Something more than just a simple tale with a beginning and an end -- even though it does not really end at all, does it?

This tale is reminiscent of Orwell, with an idealistic protagonist battling a totalitarian society that may or may not be evil.  There is ambiguity here.

But in 12 (or *cough* 13) pages, this story is too compressed.  We never learn how Emile ended up in his present situation, why he is immune to Francois’ cult of personality, or why Emile even constitutes a threat.

Those details are important to understanding the significance of anything that occurs in this story, and the final reveal of Francois’ plan to release this mysterious gas is reduced to a last-page afterthought.

We do not know what Emile will decide, but then, we also do not know why it matters.

Much of the dialogue here is almost lyrical, intentionally overwrought for effect, and many fine ideas are present.  But ultimately, this script does not do them justice. The ideas are kind of jumbled together, and more often than not, a bit confusing.

This is not the type of script that can be composed in a week, and even if it were, it could not be confined to 12 (or *cough* 13) pages.  But high marks for effort.

OWC Score:  85%

First off just gotta say I loved the line "How he's brainwashed you all into twats". Just made me laugh.

The story itself was pretty good if a little old hat. It seems to just follow the same formula of 'A Brave New World' only set in a prison cell. In fact if you had set it in the outside world it would have worked better. You'd have had the metaphoric prison of no free-will so it would have fit the challenge but would have left allowed more ideas.

As it is I don't feel there's any development throughout the story and the characters remain the same at the end as they were at the beginning.

It was quite a slow read too with some bulky discriptions and dialogue.

I have to say that the descriptions here were fantastic, it made the script very easy to visualize, you get top marks for that.  As for the story, it did feel a little bloated, seemed there was too much to tell in such a short script, maybe this was a longer script that had to be cut down to fit the page count.  I did think that Emile was an interesting character and his conversation with the guard was well written.  This fit the theme and genre so good job on that.  All in all I thought this was and interesting idea, ever though it is a bit over stuffed, and it had wonderful descriptions through out.

This has some nice visuals and early on the characters are interesting.

However the story is not structured cleanly. What I think was the central theme of the story did not appear until close to the end. It needs to appear near the beginning and then some kind of statement or resolution of it is made near the end.

The formatting and grammar need some straightening out most of the way through this e.g. Darkened hair.

Philip

Along with Blackkwolfe, I didn't really understand the story here either. First, following the theme, a man is in a prison cell. But then we find out that there's war all over the place, and you even have one line where figures walk across the street in a "city of decay" with "hungry eyes" and I had the feeling it was going to be a zombie apocalypse, but I'm wrong.

One thing I have to complain about this script is that the guard speaks for, like, half of the script, so you might as well give him a name.

Sean

  Oh for page 15.
  Left me wanting to see where this one was going. Aside from my own internal soundtrack kicking in when I read "there was a girl" nothing script wise to break the moment. The confusion was fine but I think I wanted a bit more payoff.
  Actually, thinking on it, not payoff but less confusion.
  I have the impression Emile was dying from his wound. Why is his decision important?

  Is my impression of the seriousness of his wound incorrect?

GUARD
Our champion requested I take care
of his injuries. But I only found small
cuts on his face. This I couldn’t see, and
it’s too late, it’s too deep.

He begins to cry.

GUARD
Too infected.
Genuine tears of shame spill. Emile inches himself back in
query.
GUARD
(acknowledging Emile)
Why wouldn’t you let me know

  Yes, definitely confused.
  If this was intention.. success ;)

This was odd. The set up was great. It drew me in (who doesn't love a post-apocalyptic tale?) but around page 7 or 8 it felt like either A) someone else took over who wasn't quite as talented as the first or B) the author decided to rush it to get it out and get it done. The typos began coming at me faster and more often and it just made it confusing (to echo cybercelt- if this was intentional you succeeded).

I loved the idea, but this one needed more to develop the story.

James

Is paradise without choice really paradise? How can you be free from evil without the freedom to choose not to do evil?

I enjoyed the ambiguous ending because it left me trying to answer the same question that Gaston had to answer; ending it the way you did made it a much stronger ending than it would’ve been if Gaston had answered. In fact, I appreciated the fact that your script raised more questions than answers; it made a nice change from being spoon fed information and having all the loose ends nicely tied up.    

Obviously the formatting and spelling suffered a bit from the tight schedule of the OWC, but the dialogue flowed well and the world you created was an interesting one.
I also agree with what a previous poster said about the nature of Gaston’s injury; you need to make it clear that whilst his injury is bad it’s not fatal, otherwise it does undermine the importance of his decision at the end.

Anyway, now that you have the time to give this a rewrite and smooth out the kinks, you should be able to turn it into a very solid script. I look forward to seeing the next draft.      

I always love love LOVE the feedback stages. It always confirms what i've been thinking or feeling about a piece when i'm unsure.

First and foremost thank you. Because the long and honest reviews do me a great deal.

It had been awhile since the last OWC and i wanted to participate... no matter what. Whether it was the worst thing i had ever written or the best, i wanted to see what i could do in a week. So i did, and im actually surprised my submission was taken. Not only was it over the limit but it also (i believe) a few minutes over time.

When i submitted it i knew it wouldn't 'win' but i wanted to see how people would react to this. Any reaction was better to the nothing in my head. Yet i'm actually proud of myself because I had only spent the friday afternoon(my only day off) writing this piece.  Six straight hours composing,structuring, and finaly writing the piece.

And i think almost everybody caught on to the fact that in the second half...everything was quickly put together and poorly structured.

I plan later on to make a feature. But i have a few things to get to first. Just to find myself through some difficult things.

So for now...i'm getting a VAY-CAY.

Thanks again to everyone who reviewed. Comments and critiques were greatly appreciated.

Signing out for now...

also P.S. what the hell is with people and zombies? Is their a fetish im not aware of?