The Interrogation by Jerome Gilden - Short, Drama - A captivating interrogation between two parties -- a veteran FBI Special Agent and mysterious stranger.  8 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Jerome, some thoughts

UKNOWN TIME - not a very standard slugline, i'd use DAY or NIGHT unless it's somehow important.

no reference to anything... not sure what you are trying to say with this, remember you are describing what can be seen on screen so this confused me.

Grynn's opening dialogue shouldn't be V.O. as he's in the room, O.C. (Off Camera) would be more suitable.

You are mis/over using -- it normally denotes speech or dialogue that is interuppted or missing a word. You seem to be using it for . and ,

LATER, this is implied by the fact that it's a new scene, again I'd recommend DAY or NIGHT

Are the late 60's allowed to still be in the military, thought max was 60?

However I did find this quite intriguing, It did have me wondering what was going on... not entirely sure about the twist BUT I didn't see it coming.

So decent effort but the formatting stuff needs some work imho.

Anthony  

Hi Jerome,
Im just learning myself so ignore anything I say that makes no sense....

I liked this, easy to read, left us guessing for a while, believable dialogue.

The part where they say they know a lot about him could be fleshed out. Just my opinion...Maybe giving an example of one thing he has been up too, we dont really know why they have him there in the first place. I like the mystery of him it plays well, but just a hint of why they bought him in before tbe change would tie up a lose end...

Twist is cool, didnt see it coming.... something so small as an interrogation turns into a world issue.

Nice work

Hi Jerome, I'm also new to this, so I will not comment on the format.
In short, I liked this; the dialogue was ace and a nice twist.

Some notes.

Without some reference info this one could be anything--from dream to hallucination.  Like Anthony, I don't believe a special agent in his 50s or a general in his 60s.  They don't work that long.

For me, the setup doesn't work.  Why would this superior being, this creature from off planet, be in an ordinary interrogation room?  If they came back to retrieve their stuff, why don't they just do it?  And why do they need to do something to the special agent?  For me, there are just too many questions.

Best
Richard

Jerome,
my first question is "who is Cameron?" An extraterrestrial or a criminal...why is he involved with  a Special Agent...military SA? What are they try to accomplish? To be fair, I'm not a fan of this genre...I prefer real story, of real human beings. But this is me.
I would work on the style (slug line night/day) Remember that to "day and night" are attached huge expenses for lighting, scenes, etc. The director has to know the time of the day.
Dialogue is good. Polish the script.
Best of luck.
Fausto

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL THE  DISCUSSION BOARD MEMBERS  (of course the American members).
Fausto

Thank you to everyone so much for the read.

@AnthonyCawood -- Thanks so much for the feedback. I'll definitely take all of that onboard for the next revision :)

@Kirsten -- Thanks :D

@#GaryManson -- Thanks Gary. Appreciate it!

@RichardR -- Thanks for the feedback, I'll take that onboard. My intention was to make the scene both vague and 'off' to set the scene the for the eventual revelation that this was all in his mind. But I definitely agree there are a still a lot of questions that are raised at the end of it. I'll address those in my next run-through.

@Fausto -- Thanks for that Fausto. Yeah, I'm still very "fresh" when it comes to shorts. I've spent most of my time working on TV pilot scripts and this was something I wrote early on before I had a true understanding of the genre. I'll take your suggestions onboard.

Thanks again to everyone for your feedback and time :)

Jerome: The writing is promising but there was a huge logic hole for me that starts here:

Quoted Text The door opens -- it’s Dr Hanlin and Commander Jins. COMMANDER JINS Did he tell you what you needed to know? SPECIAL AGENT GRYNN Yes--

Aside from the fact that it doesn't make sense that Grynn would say yes - what the heck happened to Hanlin and Jins in the scene. They are in the room when Cameron becomes Grynn, throws him aside, declares his mission etc. and we never hear from them again? They say nothing - they don't try to stop Cameron - it lost me.