I Wannabe Judged By You by Shaun Patrick - Drama - {no logline} 113 pages - pdf, format 8)

Logline:

A desperate TV talent show reject accidentally befriends a compulsive thief who helps her steal an invitation onto the show. However both teens become stranded on their way to the auditions when they get mixed up with a mentally confused oddball on the run.

Notes:

UK English, some strong language, formatted using Final Draft.

Hi there, if anyone has taken a look at this I would be very grateful for any critical feedback. Can also do likewise for your submissions if required. Thanks.

Hi Shaun, going to give this a go:

What instantly stands out to me are the action lines. "Offers photo to man. Man confused, response unintelligible." he/she/a/the are nowhere to be found in the script. The intention was most likely to reduce the length of the action lines, however this makes the script difficult to read. It doesn't flow and many of these lines just sound down-right ridiculous. If i was a producer/actor/director reading the script, I would not be pleased.


Scene 1: I can't quite imagine how this scene would come off on the screen. It would be a computer screen with the powers that be voices somewhere in the background over the videos. It's different, but not necessarily in an appealing way. I think it would look much more natural if it would show Bernie and Lackey viewing the videos on a computer. There would also be a lot to gain from seeing Bernie's facial expressions here.

Page 5: "Trane Boushay, TV God, 40, immaculate, sits on bedside of
dead GRANDMOTHER." TV God sounds very ambiguous and there is nothing clear on how to interpret it. You have a good character description in the page above: " A wannabe Sixties diva icon complete with big hair and false eyelashes." Do something similar here.

Page 6:
NURSE #1
Doesn’t remember.

I believe you mean "He doesn't remember". I'm afraid the lack of he/she/a/the's is also getting into the dialogue!

Page 7-9: The name "Rose" is mentioned in dialogue 12 times on 3 pages by multiple characters. Unless there's going to be a plot point of her getting sick of hearing her name and wanting to change it, this doesn't quite work. No one in real life says the other person's name this much in a conversation.

I'm going to stop on page 10 here, for today at least. I won't comment on the story, since by this point it hasn't really gotten anywhere yet. Not necessarily a bad thing in my eyes, since it seems like those 10 pages are being used to establish your characters. Work on your action lines, I believe all of them need a complete overhaul. The dialogue on the first 10 pages seems okay to me, apart from the over-usage of "Rose" on pages 7-9.


- DS

Hello DS, regarding the missing he/the words, I was , as you correctly suggested, attempting to reduce the word count here. It's a very interesting point you make there and I will certainly look at this during the rewrite.

I will have another read through the script with your other comments in mind.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read through the first ten pages. I know reading through someone else's work can be a real grind sometimes, you're observations are very much appreciated.

Shaun.