A Place of Whispers by Mark Newton - Short, Psychological Horror - On Halloween night, a sons attempt to play a practical joke on his mother and her friend doesn't quite turn out as planned. 19 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hey Mark.

I want to get out some positives before the negatives.

Aside from what I will mention below, this was a surprising brisk read. While I would have liked Mike to be a VO and a dramatization of his great grandfather going up the stairs, I'm fine with what is there. The girls point out that he's not the best spook storyteller, and that saves the long scene of babble. It could be better to break up the mundane, but what you have is suffice for average.. The idea is still conveyed, and that's what matters.

I can tell who's talking, the characters are individuals with proper names. Nobody's generic. Thank you for that.

You'll need to break up some of the long blocks of text no more than three lines and CAP characters as you intro them. This is a short script, so on the good side you have something that won't be too much of a task to correct and something to hone some of your talents on. (see also p16)

You don't need the exact time of revision/draft submission on the title page; the date of your revision will be suffice (although I wonder just what was revised, since the first page suggests this is still a bit rough)

There was a time, not too long ago where I had my FADE INs right justified. While the debate continues to be on the right or left, many folks like FADE IN flush left. Of all the corrections and revisions one can make to a script, changing this is a drop in the bucket. It won't drive you bonkers to move it left. Also, no need to have the title in the headers and 'target productions' as footers of the pages (and CONTINUED'S) - you can do better without the clutter. That includes CUT TOs (one too many) and the shot lists. These things are distracting.

WE SEE and WE HEAR are not needed. What does a character(s) see and/or hear? If they hear it, we already do. Also "WE SEE" is too close to a camera direction.

The script switches tense. Keep actions in the present, not the past tense. Other grammar errors include p7 ("Mike is still sat at the table")

Quoted Text Both girls step into the toilet and close the door.

I'm going to tak a wild guess here that they step into a BATHROOM or LOO and close the door- although I wished for a hocus pocus moment, the ghost shrinks them and they step inside the commode (hopefully the previous user flushed) and closed the lid (read="door")...also is the toilet overflowing? One of the descriptions suggested that it might have been,,,

In all, this piece was average. It could be filmed as a short film (with some trims) but it isn't standing out or standing up. It isn't mysterious, isn't moody or scary. A good filmmaker and the right music could help the piece, but for the moment it needs to be cleaner for the read.

-DJS

I thought it was nice. Kind of predictable though.

Yeah - I agree with much of the remarks made above - it was quite well written - I would like to see some of the action sections trimmed down alittle - some of them were a little 'overly wordy'.

Character were fine, but there wasn't much need to get to know them in depth.

The idea was fine / good, but it's been done before, and does not really add anything - it's not real improvement on what we have seen.

Many of the point above (by DarrenJamesSeeley) are fairly minor, and if you read a number of produced scripts, you will see the same mistakes, so your abilty to produce a formatted script isn't really in question - it's just a case of if you have anything interesting to add.

The pace of the work went well, and I felt it was generally well interpreted. Some of the dialogue came across a little bit 'flat' - sometimes felt like the characters had been fed lines, instead of a completely natural reaction.

Overall pretty good, script fine, good piece of storytelling, but something more original in terms of the actual story needed.

Hey,

Just wanted to thank you guys for posting your comments. All points will be taken on board and hopefully my next piece will benefit from them.

Cheers
Mark.

Hey Mark,

I liked the piece. It was a fast read. Much of what I wanted to say was said. I will say that the story line has been done before and perhaps a twist at the end would help.

Overall I thought it was slightly above average.

Peter