I Left Through The Window by Phil Reynolds - Short, Drama - After his car has broke down, Scott goes in search of help on the hottest day of the year and comes across a phone box in the middle of nowhere which is waiting for him to pick up the next call. - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

The first page is literally just we see, we hear, we pan, we, we, we, and a lot of passive writing.

You need to show us what we see not tell us.

First off you need to get rid of  all of these, it really distracts from the read.

Hi Phil

You need to put your contact details on the first page... just in case someone wants to produce it.

EXT. OPEN SPACE - DAY what sort of open space? A field, a highway, the ocean? You need to specify so we know where it's set.

Definitely do not need all the WE SEE stuff, just describe what's happening in an active voice.

PAN is a camera direction, these normally dont get put in a spec script as its the director of photography who selects shots.

Watch out for 'ing' words they are passive, e.g. We hear a telephone ringing. would be better written as A telephone RINGS.  You don;t have to capitalise rings but significant sounds often are in scripts.

Introducing Scott, no need to put brackets round his name. SCOTT, twenties, stumbles down the track... etc

Why would he look around to see if he's alone, he'd be be aware by now...

Watch out for unfilmable asides - e.g. Is this some kind of dream? how will that be shown on screen?

So lots to work on re formatting and stuff, but suspect you may be a relatively new writer... so just part of the learning curve.

Story... saw it coming from a mile away and it's a well worn theme, but it would be relatively easy to film and the phone box in the middle of nowhere makes for a striking image.

Some notes.

There are a number of errors and problems with the writing.  But those are fixable.  It just takes some attention to detail.

Others have pointed out all the 'we see...hear...smell...etc' that isn't necessary.  If you describe it, it's for sure the audience will see and hear it.

The story line is familiar.  Death is not death but merely a step through the window.  What you need is something that sets your story apart.  The phone box in the middle of nowhere is a nice image, but I think that's been done before also.  It might be nice if the guardian guide or whatever he is makes a mistake.  Scott shouldn't be in the corn fields, he should be in a forest glade...quick change of location.  You need something.

Best
Richard

Hey Phil,

A title and a logline that intrigued, although I’d say the logline needs a re-write. I felt a little out of breath when I read it.

As others have mentioned, there’s lots of we see and we hear and camera angles. In addition, you tell us how the actor feels and how he reacts but we don’t see action on screen which represents this. The key to script writing is ‘show don’t tell’. Your script is full of telling and very little in the way of showing.

There’s little in the way of action. For example, based on your script, it takes around 2.5 minutes for the main character to walk to an annoying ringing telephone box and pick it up. 2.5 minutes of screen time is a lifetime for the audience when nothing interesting is happening, you will quickly lose your viewers if you don’t spice things up.

The story itself has a lot of heart but is a very familiar tale. The idea of conveying the introduction to the afterlife via a public phone box is intriguing but it doesn’t go anywhere. We don’t see or hear anything we haven’t many times before. Take this premise and think what twist could you add to take us down a different path just when we least expect it. For example, we’ve heard from the good higher power who wants to reunite him with his loved ones, what about the ‘other guy’ who wants his soul? Could there be two calls for our main character to answer? Or what if the whole thing is a ruse?

You could include flashbacks to the car accident as well as flashbacks to this guy’s life as the telephonic angel explains things to him.

I hope my suggestions give you some ideas.

-Mark

I won't say anything much about the "we sees" and camera direction because the others have mentioned it. I'm not a stickler for those sorts of things because I think once or twice in a script is fine. A whole first page is too much. That first scene could be a few lines long, not a whole page, giving you more space to get to your story.

MALE VOICE
You need to keep calm, Scott.

VOICE
CALM DOWN!

This was probably not meant to be funny, but it was for me. Why is Scott yelling to calm down? Was it meant to be a question: "Calm down?".

Your formatting issues make this seem a lot sillier than it needs to be. You've got a good idea of what your script should look like, as evidenced by your descriptions. Bad format bogs that down.

Celtx can be used free, as can writerduet. They make your stuff look 100X better and you don't have to worry about spacing, line centering, which you seem to have struggled with here. Highly recommend.