Dead Therapy - Print Topic

Brett,

Some minor issues right off the bat. For one, there's no title page, and the script doesn't even start with a FADE IN:.

It's best that you leave out camera directions for a spec script, since it takes you out of the story (reminds me I'm reading a script) and a director will most likely ignore it anyway.

What do you mean by "the mist?" This whole paragraph is kinda confusing.

A lot of the writing here is redundant and borderline flowery. "Almost as if a heavy trash bag is being pulled across remaining grains of beach sand," "[the doorknob is] worn and hacked with scratch marks along the outer screws." How does any of this serve the plot?

Same with "A sadness to this place that seems as if it travels back through the fibers of history." How do you film this? All we see is a gray floor. Same with "She carries the weight of this place on her shoulders." All we see is her sitting there. Find a visual way to say this, like maybe "she frowns" or "sobs" or anything to get the point across.

Basically, only write what you see on the screen; Show, don't tell.

NOT A FAN OF THE BOLD TEXT. Type it normal (even use caps) and it still has its effect. But I'd stay away from bold in action lines.

You confused "it's" and "its" a few times. "it's fingers," "it's body" should both be "its."

MALE VOICE would be V.O. not O.S. V.O. is voice-over, like narration, but O.S. means someone in the scene but not in the shot.

The narration is out of place here. Generally people recommend you steer clear of V.O. unless it's crucial to the plot, since it's very hard to get right. Here, you have almost an entire page-- a minute on film-- where we just listen to this guy talk while we watch a girl sit still and do nothing. And the voice we're hearing isn't even the same person we're seeing.

So overall this could use some trimming. You could cut a few pages off of this with some minor rewrites.

Hope this helps.

Will