Sweep by Catherine Hall (cmhall) - Short, Gothic Horror - What wreckage is formed in the crossed paths of human lives... how can we ever know? 12 pages, 6 characters, PG Rating - pdf, format 8)

Hello Franklin,

Melancholy. That sums this up, well until the last part.

In truth I found this a heavy read. It has depth, I thought well written in part and if I may guess, has an Irish tone( most of the time my guesses are wildly wrong!)

A few things;

You forgot copyright at the front
Not sure about the montage
P6 branching darkness??? Not sure what this is?
In general I found this a bit over worded, for a script.
No fade out.

I think you have depth. You have an eye for intensity. The key issue arising to me is balancing this up with something the average reader wants to read and enjoy.

All the best.

I think there's a good story in here and would be interested to hear from the author but this was very hard to read.  Very overwritten, slow, and dragged quite a bit.  Honestly, I couldn't tell you what was going on as it just didn't grab me at all.

Sorry.

Greg

Man this was THICK!

Seeing the bee's pollinating the vines actually cheered me up.

Over all a decent enough story but very mired down in description and tone.

Congrats on the OWC submission.

Shawn.....><

It had a lot of atmosphere and the dialogue worked very well at times. But then, at another times I had no clue what was going on. Overly reliant on description, it slipped to the land of prose quite often. Some of the parts I had extreme difficulty visualizing.

The ending was very nice indeed and gave new life to a story that seemed to be on predictable rails. But I would've liked that the connection between the ghost and the bees would've been set up. Now it just happens.

A heavy read indeed and hard for me to wade through, had to re-read a few passages as I got lost by the next one.
It is well written in terms of language but lacked flow and pace (albeit a sedate pace).
Good premise and different to the usual fare.

Evocative but overwrought downtrodden atmosphere.
The multi page ghostly discussion doesn’t progress the story.
Mortimer came out of nowhere, are we flashing back here?
Had a hard time figuring out what happened in this one.
Your protag was more of a witness than a participant.
Novelistic prose slows down the story.
Some good atmospheric elements, but a pretty inert tale overall.
Thanks for playing OWC.

Regards,
E.D.

Finally, a perambulating skeleton.  I've been waiting for one of those.  The story was pure Gothic with the dreary cliffside manor and morose history of the doomed female ghost.  As other have already commented, the going was a bit slow at times, and I occasionally lost track of what was happening, especially toward the end.

Clever use of bees to show the rebirth of life at the old place.  

Although plodding at times, I did enjoy most of the story and the effort you made to create atmosphere.

I'm of two minds of this one.

On one hand, a very gothic atmosphere - from the setting to the background to the characters themselves.

Kudos, too, on both the visuals and the underlying emotion on this one.  You have an interesting feel for evocative visuals and colors.  And there's obviously been alot of thought put into really creating a connection between William and Coleen (and between Mortimer and his lost lady.)

For some reason, the end didn't gell for me.  In thinking about it, I *think* it's because the story needs to be a little more streamlined, crisper and straightforward.  With perhaps a bit more back story on Mortimer himself, and a clearer understanding of how everything ties into the village's blight.  

Do that, and this one could be very evocative!!

I'm sorry, but page 3 and I'm out.  No clue what's going on...probably cause very little is going on, other than heavy handed writing, that's tough to keep up with.

Visually, this seems pretty cool out of the gate, but you've got to hook us somehow and what's on the page isn't doing that.

Very slow... Very weighty.  I said it about only one other script you all have written so far.  It's written well enough, and I'm sure it has a broader scope that's just lost on me at this point.  It meets all the criteria, except holding me captive till the end.  I did finish it, of course, but i feel little after doing so.  Again, good set peices, decent dialect... Bang on atmosphere... Just no real excitement to be found in such a low page count.  

It seems like it was a tough challenge...

Would the pastor really introduce a 20 year old girl by her last name?

Pastor Walker’s mention of blackberry preserves seems inconsistent with his earlier desire to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Time passes? Days pass? Wasted space.

A lot of description made this drag a little and sometimes I got a little lost in it. But the story was compelling enough to keep reading.

Overall, I liked it. Needs some cleaning up but it’s a good effort.


Breanne

I definitely got a Gothic vibe from this but the writing just bogged the story down for me. It was tough to get into.
Things started to clear up a little about halfway through but it then went back to sounding like a novel. It was difficult to finish but I did, although I'm none the wiser as to what happened.
I did enjoy the visuals and general feel seemed strong, its a shame I just couldn't get a handle on the story.
With a clean up, I would check this out again.

In some ways the description works, but at the same time it is vague. I think what the problem is:

IS that on the first page, you are providing description yes, but not context.

Let's consider the first piece of dialogue:

>PASTOR WALKER
Not much farther, girl.

On screen, how can we even know her name if the pastor calls her Girl?

And it IS important because she is "the sweeper" I will call her and here I must say, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS IDEA...

I can really feel it and so it's a shame that the execution of this piece lacks. It really hurts me because this is one of THE MOST SUBTLE BUT ENERGETIC SCRIPTS I'VE READ.  

I'm really feeling worn and I wish I could devote more time to this one, but I'll say this:

Please consider introducing Colleen without so much banter between Pastor Walker and Louise. Try and ISOLATE Colleen. Place her front and center and maybe make their conversations as whispers in the background. That might be a suggestion.

This story loses itself because it doesn't concentrate on Colleen. There's too much conversation, I think, for its own good.

The visual with the bees and nothing to pollinate but brown leaf is excellent!

Really really really... I hope you come back to this one. The sweeping... oh the sweeping and scrubbing...

And how:

LOUISE
Most sound is painful for him. So,
when something is pleasant he's... almost tipsy...

It's so beautiful. I don't want to call it a "beautiful line" because to me, (and I could go into a big long story right now, but I'll spare you) is not a line at all but REAL. I love that so much.

This is a script with marked potential. It's beautiful at its core.

Sandra

Slow, wordy and a bit overwritten.

You seem to know how you want to paint the picture, but you take too long to paint it. If that makes any sense. Over descriptions tend to bore people and they will stop reading.

I like where you WANTED to take the story. The tone and atmosphere were all there. Just how it was presented was a bit wonky. In my opinion.

I'd have to echo much of what has been said already. It was very dense read, needs to go on an Atkiens Script Special diet. It did have a Gothic feel to it though, so thumbs up on that.

The description of Colleen is more fitting of a much older woman IMO when first introduced.

The dialouge had a nice lilt to in places.

A little too heavy on the ellipsis . . .

Action descriptions like this give a nice period feel, but are just too novel orientated 'He strains to hear the steady sounds of the broom, it almost clears away the hollow noises of the house.' Poetic but unjust . . .

That fog machine in the hallway is doing overtime.

The exchange between Willian and Colleen on page 8 is a little bit of overkill. This little action description is redundant 'He's sorry he said that.' ?

Locations & Sets  -   EXT grand old house on rough coast's edge. INT furnished kitchen. Brick and stone fireplace, INT great hall w/ staircase
Actors  -   PASTOR WALKER (50), COLLEEN WRECHT (20), LOUISE (40),  WILLIAM MANSARD (25), YOUNG WOMAN (20), deep MORTIMER voice, MORTIMER YOUNG MAN (25)
Costumes  -  period costumes for all, black pastor outfit.
Props  -  broom and wash rag, scrub brush, skeleton in a woman's nightgown
Audio FX  -  sea noises and wave crashes, wind sounds, spooky echoes, sweeping, machinery sounds, high pitched howling, brushing against stone,
Visual FX  -  overhead branching darkness from hall to stairs, dark shadowy ghost effect on stairs, ghostly skeletal form passing through Colleen, and again up the stairs followed by smoke and shadows, smoke swirls into flesh on the skeleton in the nightgown, ghostly skeleton changes into ghostly woman, dark ash and fog, ghosts embrace and disappear in light, flying bees in the hallway
Other  -  light for sunlight effect, MUA for Colleen and William's paleness and her face bruising, fire in fireplace, fog machine, spray bottle for dew on floor effect, pulley system or other to create floating skeleton in nightgown effect.
Comments  -  "Pastor Walker, ready to run in the other direction, feels obliged to inquire" "Ready to run" and "feels obliged" are emotions and cannot be filmed, so they are thus called unfilmables. Fine for novels, but not for screenplays. Turn off your program's dialog (CONT'D) feature. That was a slightly creepy and strange little story. I'm not real clear on what the catalyst was for Mortimer's return, but, eh...

I like the atmosphere here, but this is a really tough read. It's pretty wordy, and you've got plenty of unfilmables as well.

The main issue for me is that I'm not sure I understand what's happening with the ghosts - why does this reunion happen only now? Is it because of Colleen or is it a big coincidence?

Also, the whole sequence with the priest doesn't seem to contribute to the story, so you should probably cut that and use the space to develop the rest more.

I think this could be a really good story. Good job:)

The script title seems a bit off on the title page. Don't sweat it too much, it's an easy fix.

Pastor Walker. His name slug is PASTOR WALKER. Sometimes in action he is Pastor or Pastor Walker. I think you could get away with simply 'Walker' (so long as you use a thesasarus so 'Walker don't walk') But use one or the other.

Quoted Text A short time later...

better served with a header : INT. HOUSE - DAY or NIGHT
What is "later"? An hour later? Six hours later? Are we still in the Kitchen, or another part of the house?

SERIES OF SHOTS or MONTAGE and when that's done, either a new scene or END MONTAGE. Make sure you CAP 'em like I show you. Lowercase them, and they get lost quick, and some folks might think you are careless.

As my peeps have pointed out, there are several unfilmmables within the script. Such as:

Quoted Text the Pastor's guidance has been meager and now he's leaving...

Just have him leave. We can see that.

A lot of atsmosphere packed within; adter awhile I got tired hearing about the fog and the waves, the noise the waves make. Once some things are established, there's some things you don't need to write anymore. They take care of themselves. Only time you should mention them again is when something is different.

I tried to get into this. I failed. Not a bad effort for a week though.

Thank you Reef Dreamer, greg, Ledbetter, henrik, darrenjames, Electric Dreamer, Ryan1, wonkavite, Dreamscale, Baltis, Breanne, Scoob, Sandra, TheUsualSuspect, DarrenJamesSeeley, RayW, Eoin, Rdhay and Hugh for your comments, they are all useful and appreciated!

If there are any individual comments that anyone would like to have addressed please let me know, I will do my best to answer.

Generally, regarding the script, I guess I got quite caught up in the Gothic Atmosphere.  I know the writing could be clearer and more refined and better attention could be paid to format issues.

to Ray: regarding the catalyst for Mortimer's return... my idea was that things get going because of the sweeping, which calms everybody in the house, then William (calmer, less crazy) notices that Colleen is beautiful, Colleen (still bruised from some previous bad experience) is uncomfortable with the attention, tries to hide in the shadows / fog (ghost), gets the attention of the ghost whose footprints appear on the stairs, Colleen touches the footprints and all of the characters get a jolt of life.  Enter Mortimer!

to Breanne: in answer to the question "Would the pastor really introduce a 20 year old girl by her last name?"  My intention was to show that Colleen has no social rank at all, she's the omega female... the Pastor is doing her a kindness by presenting her as a potentially productive worker.

Also, "Pastor Walker's mention of blackberry preserves seems inconsistent with his earlier desire to get out of there as quickly as possible".  True, but I was hoping to show that he was trying to make the best of a bad situation.

to Sandra: regarding your comment "Please consider introducing Colleen without so much banter between Pastor Walker and Louise..."  I certainly will consider it.  I had hoped to establish Louise's need for (but inability to achieve) intimacy of any kind with the Pastor -- and then to contrast that with the female and male ghosts' powerful love for one another -- and of course, with William and Colleen's potential relationship.  

Also, Sandra, your note that something in the script is  "beautiful at its core" ... I cherish that!

Hugs to everybody and / or firm handshakes... nope, gotta hug you all.

Cathy

Okay read this one.

IMO one of the better written ones of the bunch. Very good sentence structure.

This helped with visualizing the scenes easily. The story was classic Gothic so that was covered as well.

Very good job indeed!

Good idea with some interesting visuals but lacked cohesiveness. The story unraveled when the ghost/skeleton came up the stairs. Tone and feel were noticeable tres Gothic. The idea that sweeping is calming to the young man was inspired. If you rewrite introduce the ghost earlier.

CM - One of your better scripts. Sweeper girl had a charming Cinderella type thing going on.

You had the pastor backing up at the door, then the wind came up.  I thought he was departing and  Mansard was talking to the girl.  Then he reverses to come in, which surprised me.

Pg 4  A short time later...
I've been told by others that you can't pass time like that.  It has to be implied by other means, perhaps sluglines?  And you use (CONT.) after those five minutes.  Has he been talking that whole time?

Pg 4
You do this again with "Time passes"

Pg 4. Yes, she needs a place.
I assumed we were well beyond this. She's the new housekeeper, no?

Pg 6
Wow. She's been sweeping for days and days.

Pg 7
It speaks!  And in English!

Pg 11 Silence!
An exclamation mark on quietness!

Does their last name Mansard help describe this Psycho-like house's roofline?  I assumed so.

RKeller, thanks for the read.  Yes,  Mansard is the family name and the type of roof.  And yes, I think silence can be shocking, sometimes, deserving of an explanation point.
A script from the Oct. 2011 OWC unexpectedly shaken from the dustbin -- but I appreciate your comments!