Hear Before You're There (was "The Time I Don't Exist") by Alex Brauck - Horror - In a volcanic region, a young witch hunter on a foreign assignment has his fate already in tow. 6 pages - pdf, format 8)

A few notes as I go:

• Pg. 1  Should "marshes" be "marches"?
  
• The overall sentence structure seems like this may have been translated.
  
• Pg. 2  Shouldn't Derek have filtered the water he just collected from the creek?
  
• Pg. 2  "CREEPY LITTLE SURGERY" Should be a flashback.
  
• Pg. 3  Are the cabin and the wooden-hut the same thing?
  

I had to stop taking notes after page 3.  The sentence structure made it difficult to piece everything together.
::SPOILERS::
This reminds me of Hostel but in the jungle.  There wasn't any witchcraft to speak of.  Just a couple of cannibals.
::END::

Jordan

Unique setting of Asian jungle. This wasn't too horror filled or all that witchy. It was different because it was an existentialist take on the potion. More philosophical ending than others. What's with all the potions in these scripts, by the way. This was unique at least as the drink let him experience death. Or am I confused on that?

Some weak exposition through voice over of thoughts and sudden appearence of Fabrice to explain motives. But at least it was a different cultural take on witchery.

I applaud your effort to make this original.

Logline - should be volcanic region but that reads poorly as well. The idea sounds surprisingly cool though. But using common sense, if there is a mistake there, the script will also reflect the logline.

Original title too but not sure how it adds up with that specific logline. Anyway, onto the script.

Marshes? Is that even a verb?

Well, there hasn't been one script yet where I haven't found a mistake on the first page. "Remind me to the upper China." Peeps got to at least give their first page another read through.

Writing needs a lot of work, awkwardly phrased with a few mistakes.

"screws up his face in pain" Screws doesn't read well, change it to contorts or something.

It feels to me as if English isn't your first language? I'm going to stop focusing on the writing from here.

I thought tomahawks were Indian American weapons? Guess you learn something new everyday.

There was a strange surreal aspect to the script which I liked. But the writing lets it down, understandable since English doesn't seem to be your native tongue. I'd suggest having a writer friend who can speak it have a look and fix up all the errors. The ending didn't make a lot of sense, and Derek's predicament didn't really stimulate the reader. The story didn't have any flow, it kind of mumbled around until Derek died. Nothing was really achieved between the characters, just that Derek dies. VOs did nothing for me, very very hard to get right for any script though. Needs work.

Grade: D

I haven't been around these boards for a while. I thought I'd return, for a little while at least. On with the script -

I liked the title. Caught my eye.

The opening header "Asian Countryside" seems a little too vague. Actually, it's enormously vague, unless I'm missing something here. Which is perfectly possible.
Hang on... Nope, read it back. I'm pretty sure this header needs to be somewhat more specific.

I've never been a fan of 'we' in a script. Best avoided.

There are some typos and unusual phrasing here. I think this needed a good proofreading, but still, this was a time sensitive comp and all that.

Mosquitos don't fall to the ground when you slap them. People in the pub might, not that I'm recommending that kind of thing, but mosquitos just end up as little smears on the hand.

"Have a new mosquito prick."

Eh? Erm, that sentence certainly woke me up. And how, pray tell, did you gain such an appendage?

Enough of this type of banter. You get the idea. I could go on, I often do.
Suffice to say there's a lot of room for improvement here. I get the sense this was written at speed and needs rewriting. There are many phrases that give the impression English isn't the writer's first language.

I liked some of the ideas. Unfortunately the writing standard lets it down.

Having watched an episode of Myles Barlow Review last night I'm tempted to say "two stars". I'll refrain lest I cause a row about marking.

R  

Oh man, I'm seriously losing what little patience I still have.  Sorry, but Page 1 and I'm out again.

Sentence stucture is just abysmal.  Typos galore.  Poorly edited or not edited at all.

Very dense - passages not broken up properly.  Long winded blocks of V.O.

Not for me, I'm afraid.

Congrats on entering this OWC.

This is a difficult one. I'm not so sure that this was translated (it's a bit too clean), but definitely has the feel of an ESL script. As for the plot, I got five pages out of eight and I saw nothing in the way of story. The closest I got was the mystery jungle guy with the Nike pants. I almost thought I could have seen something interesting with the doctor guy shooting Derek up, but it didn't turn out to be sinister before I closed the script. I'd have almost stuck with the creepy doctor more and less in the jungle where Derek literally does nothing.

D-.

The time etc

Logline - interesting, quite different

Marshes! Along a path
The volcano is next in the right , ha ha, sounds like road directions
Neon nike pants with a spear - well it's different
Making soup with his foot!! Gosh

Finished

Ok, that was different. I'm not sure it works as a script, too much internal contemplation about having your foot cut off and eaten. Not such how much fabrice added, other than to explain.

Grade - this comes across as someone new to scripts so I shall leave at that. Not for me.

Writer,

Hard where to begin with this. Doesn't really seem like horror save for the cannibal scenes. I was intriqued by Derek's journey-- that's what kept me reading. But there was no horror-like tension that you should see in a horror script. And when we meet Fabrice it seems more gratuitous than anything that he happens to be a witch. Like it was just thrown in to meet the parameters of the challenge.

Not a bad effort, but not for me.

Congrats on completing this!

Steve

First thing I notice is this is overwritten in places.  For instance, “a massive natural stone”. Considering the setting.  I doubt anyone would question the ‘naturalness’ of the stone he sits on. Also the very next sentence “He opens out a landscape” is confusing because I don’t know what that means.

The voice overs gone on a little too long. Try to cut it down, or break it up with action maybe.

The writing definitely falls apart the farther along it goes (“Derek’s face attacks sweating”).

Well I enjoyed the change of scenery. Volcanoes, a jungle in China and a tribe of Natives was definitely an original way to go. But the story that came out of it didn’t really capitalize on the setting and the writing made it hard to get through.

Congrats on completing the OWC

I'm going to lay off the writing itself. I'm in agreement that English is very likely not the writer's first language. It is extremely poor though. I'd recommend you spend some extra time proofreading next time.

Nevertheless, the format could use a lot of work. This is the second script I've seen with dashes after INT/EXT. Stop that. It's unnecessary and looks sloppy. Lots of dashes and colons in the action as well. Nothing wrong with this per se but many of them seem to be there for no reason and the frequency with which they're used makes everything look broken up and messy.

There's some pretty hefty blocks of dialogue here as well. I'd cut them down and try to break them up with some action lines if they're still too dense. There's something wrong with the dialogue margins as well. Maybe invest in some screenwriting software?

Also, DEREK'S INNER VOICE (VO)... just write DEREK (V.O.) and leave it at that.

As for the story, I don't think it worked at all. Not horror for one thing. The timeline jumps around a lot and makes it difficult to follow and all the supposedly existential dialogue is too poorly written to come across the way I think it's meant to.

Also, you're definitely supposed to get your vaccinations before you travel, that is, in your own country. That goes double - no, triple for visiting jungles and the like. The bugs in those places are no joke.

Points on the location but overall, not good.

Quoted Text (while we fly across Asian countryside)

Aside from the 'we' problem, this wrylie isn't needed. It does not belong Period. When doing wrylies, the action is that of the character, and for clarity. It should be used sparingly. Furthermore, some (over) description had already set the location.

I like the fact that the 'witches' aren't really spelled out (forgive the pun) but I think some might not be clear on this. Witch cannibals. Okay....I'll roll with it. Some grammar  and spelling issues get in the way here and there (as pointed out by others) and the vo's get a bit long in the tooth. Not too scary or creey. Just enogh for a fair read.

Can definitely tell in places that English is not your first language (or if it is - needs a reread for errors).

By page 8 - ew, ew, ew (exactly the reaction you want, by the way) with the hacking and the eating - yucko. However, I'm not a big fan of the VO's on this page.

All in all - this wasn't too bad. When you look through the nitty gritty stuff - there's a half decent story in here. I like the setting of the jungle and the volcano etc. and actually thought most of the scenes fit together nicely, including the doctors visit. I liked the "I have no vaccination for that" reference.

Needs a good go-over to sort out some of the English issues, but other than that it was good.

INT. – CREEPY LITTLE SURGERY – DAY -- ??  Is that the name of the place?

DEREK'S INNER VOICE - this is new. LOL. I think just Derek's name and VO is all that's needed here.

BY SILENCE - ????  

Well, I didn't understand it. It was eerie though. I liked the vibe you created but I just didn't understand what was happening. Derek was on a journey to the volcano, got bit by a mosquito, ran into some creepy people and this is where I got lost: a witch cut off someone's foot and stirred it in a pot. Why? Gross and cool but...why?

The writing could be leaned out, format needs to be proper (no made up stuff like I pointed out above) and grammar checked but it wasn't too bad. Story wise, I just didn't get it.  

Good job getting something completed for this OWC.  :)

I really hate to do this, but I'm out after the first page. If it turns out you're a new member, but read a lot of the entries, I will get back to this one after the writer's names are revealed. There's lots to correct and comment on, which I will be happy to do if you read a lot of the OWC yourself. If I forget, just shoot me a pm to remind me.  :)

The first scene didn't really do anything at all...except intro the character.

Creepy Little Surgery -- hmmm I'm not a slug judger BUT this one was very 'off' as to the scene that followed it. You may want to rethink it. And once in the scene...Your dialogue between Derek and the Doc needs a lot of work IMO.

I'm four pages in and this story has gone no where. In 10 pages by page 4 something needs to be happening IMO. I'm going to have to bail by page 5...it's just dragging too much for me. Sorry. Good job completing an OWC.

Weighted Matrix: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsBznn8D13zOdGJValQtbHU1LUNPVWQzY0gzajRTTUE&usp=sharing

Producer's Notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NNGaVlrrpkjIfp-BRGjpTE03W1e5lZuRceJ3wQECYaI/edit?usp=sharing

17. The Time I Don't Exist by Ten - Horror - In a volcano region, a backpacker contacts the isolated natives.
Brief - Young traveler transverses the globe to an odd fate. Spirit en tow.

Location(s)  - Countryside, jungle, tropical field, jungle hut, cave
Cast - 5/3
Protagonist(s)  -  
DEREK, 20s?, long haired backpacker
Antagonist(s)  -
ASIAN DOCTOR
OLD MAN
FABRICE, 44
WOMAN (tropical)
Genre & Marketability - Supernatural Horror, light. Although certainly supernatural I don't really know if this is horror. This COULD be done on a budget, but boy it had better be deliberately creatively engaging. Plus the story has gotta be reworked a fair bit, but it has definite "Pursue" interest.
Comments  -  Okay, on pg 1 we got an Asian countryside (that we "fly across" as some point) and a jungle. Umm... greenscreen, fo sho. This could make for some surreal sh!t if heavily composited using green screen tech. Check out the 'Aiden 5' series: http://www.youtube.com/user/Aidan5Series/videos
I'm thinking what could be interesting would be to have the same actor in makeup play the ASIAN DOCTOR, OLD MAN, and FABRICE. From around the world Derek and these modern witch(doctor)s are bound together in fate.
Script format - fair.
Final word - Pursue further development. Acknowledge it's light on "Modern Witchcraft."

$200 - $1,000      Lo/Hi Estimated Budget Range
/ 7.9               Screenplay Pages
= $25 - 126          Estimated Cost Per Screen Minute

Adherence to Given Criteria:
Modern Witches and/or Warlocks - Yes
Horror - Back-ended, but could be worked in on rewrite

Hello people,
first of all, thank you for reading and commenting on my script. It helped.

The rewrite is almost ready. I will talk to Don and upload if possible. Hope you watch out...


Here is an extensive
SUMMARRY OF MY OWC WORK - "THE TIME I DON'T EXIST"


Prologue:
As non-native speaker, I can understand that many people broke up the reading process.

The writing simply cannot convince to see it as a conventional play. So, it was a lot/bit bold to take part here. I try now to do things better in the rewrite.

It was definitely my hope that people follow the story with a reflection saying: That foreign guy is not here to sell in English. He wants to exchange narrative aspects.

The working process:
First I thought about the connection between the genre and the theme.  My first question referring to the OWC was: Where are witches today? Modern witches? The pure rational approach.

The answer was: There are no witches. But! From my knowledge there are still occult ways of living today. I know that voodoo is still alive. There are also some natives in the deep South-American jungle using some plants-liquid with a drug-impact. But not a common drug-effect, it's heavier, stronger than absinth or anything else. After that, these natives do different spiritual rituals.

The conclusion of that was for me: Today's real occultism is settled in the isolation, and not in what we call our common society.

I followed that way.  A short which I saw a long time ago came to my eyes.
People living in volcanic zones are often isolated nearly by centuries because of the potential danger.

I decided to step on that way and invented the lonesome backpacker, Derek, whom you should follow on his way into the Horror.

I wanted him travel along in a slow pace to establish a fake-security for him;
accelerate then more and more; a heavy twist into Horror, long climax and ending. Even if you think I failed here, that was the plan :-)

Facts:
The people of you who saw the organ dealer, Patrice, as explaining character were right. I don't write shorts usually, and thought in less than 10 min I can do such a decision- No, I can't. Biggest fail was to write from the start and think, in that little world, I'm clever enough to hide my construction and add the last logical connections during the flow of the story.

When you compare to my first thoughts above (There are no witches; and; Today's real occultism is settled in the isolation), I had the problem that, without Fabrice, I might be misunderstood by readers in that way generally. That the way, in which I see the whole theme, might not get finally through.

So, I gave Fabrice the last picture and changed him a bit, to let HIM constitute the MODERN WITCHCRAFT. Shown in: Manipulation of people; here, the Natives. With his black tattoos Fabrice makes the Natives believe he ascended out of the volcano. His witchcraft is his greed, his rhetoric, and his seduction.

So, for sure the Natives were just occult isolated cannibals.
No character has supernatural craft in my script. None.
Only the punch has a mystic recipe, which I didn't explain in the script.

Short Rewiew:
As many get right, I like to write a bit surreal stuff. I try always to decide for rudiments of philosophy and experiences in similar cases.
That are my kind of stories actually, and that's what I wanted to run into examination. It doesn't fail completely, if I analyze the comments right. It would have been a disaster of result for me if my intentions, the generally style of my scripts, wouldn't get recognition referring to these philosophical, surreal things. Even if most comments partly ripped the script. But that's the game...

The ending:
I was sure about from the start, Derek will die in the native volcano-village.  At the middle, there was the decision to set it up in a cave. I closed my laptop and don't know exactly when the following came to me:

Derek is a naive, lonesome and selfish backpacker. He got no constant relationships to people. So there was one question: Because of the punch Derek has got no extreme pains -
How will a guy like him treat the situation of seeing his own dead from the first row and watching the cannibals eat his body step by step?

-I was clear about he would just think about himself.

There was coming another question: His instinct of self-preservation had to stop in a point. There's no way he could survive, without feet, cannibals, and an organ dealer around, so -
Where is somebody mentally who loses the instinct of self-preservation, what is something like the last gateway of physical human being? (And I mean in a complete other way than having disease or being old and waiting for day X.)

-I let him take the step behind that last instinct.

I explained it through the dialogue how he feels at that point. It's another dimension, maybe a whole life which Derek found there. He relinquishes his life on earth, because even the instinct of self-preservation has gone. Maybe it feels endless for him. Not for us. We see him just dying. We see him dying, but he's already at another place of being.

His existence has changed. I wanted him to speak direct to us and explain: That there's a hidden point he's at, something neutral between life and death. Not even myself was clear about, from the writer's view, what I found and try to describe there.

Hope you saw my adventure-philosophy end as an approach I loved to share without even knowing the whole complexity myself.


THE EXPERIENCE TO SHARE MY VIEWS WITH SUCH A MASS OF AMBITIOUS WRITERS WAS AWESOME. COMPARING ALL THE DIFFERENT WORKS, STYLES, AND THOUGHTS OF OTHERS, SEEING ALL THE COMMONALITIES. I WILL NEVER FORGET THAT I READ 47 SHORTS IN 7 DAYS. I WRITE 6 YEARS, BUT NEVERTHELESS IT WAS A KICK WHICH HAS, AND WILL MAKE ME BETTER. THIS EXPERIENCE WAS SO UNIQUE AND INTENSIVE.

Upon further reflection and having digested the massive number of shorts, I still remember this one fondly.

When you compare it to some of the others, this one has so much originality going for it. The setting specifically. The culture. And the philosophical underpinnings. This element is what kept me thinking after days had passed. How unique to be aware of death and the transference to the next realm. The idea is haunting. Melancholic.

Originally I felt this was light on horror, but really it's a different method. Philosophical horror. Not psychological horror.

I think this idea can be pushed even further. Can you exit the Netherworld. Cross back into life? Who can he meet there? I can imagine a horror villain like Freddy Krueger coming into play. Or South American Shamans guiding him back? There are intriguing possibilities to continue expanding this unique universe of philosophical horror. Good work. I'm interested to see what you deliver next.

As for all the harsh criticism on English as a Second Language - forget that. I understood the script. And I think it's great that you challenged yourself to write in English and to a largely English population (?) This must have been hard. Respect. Maybe this different perspective lead to this unusual impressive take n witches.

Thank you Don,

Hey, the script is a rewrite of my OWC Oct13 short "The time I don't exist"

There's an important thing to mention before you read:

Imagine characters in the same age as same actors in makeup. It's a part of the story.
(That special idea refers to a helpful suggestion of RayW)

Thank you again for the reviews and helpful comments during the OWC.

Every comment is welcome.

Alexander, you've given excellent notes on many scripts here, glad to return the favor. You've mentioned that English is your second language, so as I take notes I will try to watch for things to help.
p1
Derek: should be "prove it under water"

- not sure what LITTLE SURGERY means. Just a small OR?
- no exclamation on No!...unless he really is afraid.
p2
-"Hello my friend, you God-given thing.
You're none of these dangerous
creatures." This doesn't sound American. The sentiment behind it is good,just work on the actual wording. It's also an opportunity for the character to question how this world can have both wonderful creatures of God, and monsters. The idea behind it is good because it shows Derek is not a bloodless killer.

p5 Not sure an aristocrat would describe himself as "a smart noble guy". Maybe better to say "gentleman of my station". If that's too British sounding, you can consider other ways: "man of my pedigree" "gentleman of my breeding".

Ok, the idea is that Derek does not believe in supernatural evil, such as witches...and yet he works for a preacher, traveling the world exterminating people accused of being evil. In the end, he will find out that evil does in fact exist, as he is captured and killed by a true witch.

Some things that could help make this more effective.

1) make it clear to us, and clear early, that Derek doesn't believe in witches, even though he kills them. This is at the heart of the story, and it should be clear in the first kill. Not sure it is, except in hindsight,which isn't strong enough.

2) we never really see that Derek is really good at what he does, but we certainly are given that impression. He's a paid assassin, a veteran, one who fears nothing and has succeeded in many assignments.

And yet he is defeated by Suitman whacking him from behind with a branch.

I know it's hard in a short, and hard anyway, but a writer has to push himself to come up with a convincing way for our hero to be defeated. In a short, maybe you might have to have him fall in a trap, which is still not great, but is better than a guy with a branch.

Ok, Alexander, good images, good setting, good vibe! Keep working on the writing, that's what we're all here for...to keep improving.

Kevin