All screenplays on the simplyscripts.com and simplyscripts.net domain are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. This screenplaymay not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
All That Glitters by Anonymous - Short, Western - A mysterious stranger confronts a widow and her daughters at their farm in Oregon during the American Civil War. 10 pages - pdf, format
It felt like you wasted quite a lot of energy trying to disguise the fact the Stranger was a woman. I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't know immediately.
The fact the stranger knows everything makes the whole thing a little expositional. It's usually better story telling when the characters find out at the same time as us, the audience. SO perhaps it would play better and be more exciting if the Stranger enters the house for rest, and then finds out about the plot whilst she's part of it all.
WTF? Ok, another Western, that's ok but...its eerily similar to Retribution Ridge in feel!
Pretty competently written with some good period detail. Some action - I'm getting a Jeff vibe for this somehow although he would've added some girl on girl stuff for sure lol. Is this yours buddy?
Agree with Rick re the exposition and as i mentioned about the Retribution Ridge script.
The other thing I noticed was there's no real reason beyond revenge why this is happening on this certain day? Perhaps in a rewrite add a birthday or anniversary to make it more convincing?
I feel like the descriptions could be broken up a bit for an easier read, but maybe that's just me.
You sort of lost me a little on page 6. There's a lot happening and I just can't visualize it. I literally had to re-read this page multiple times and I'm still not sure what has happened.
I really liked the story of this one and you even found a great excuse to use an all female cast. I can tell you worked hard on this. It's all very well written, just a bit chunky in spots. The page limit hurt you here. Still a good read.
The Elevator Most Belonging To Alice - Semi Final Bluecat, Runner Up Nashville Inner Journey - Page Awards Finalist - Bluecat semi final Grieving Spell - winner - London Film Awards. Third - Honolulu Ultimate Weapon - Fresh Voices - second place IMDb link... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7062725/?ref_=tt_ov_wr
Parts of this I loved. You had me there in that location - I know that some of the descriptive blocks were a bit long but I didn't really feel anything was wasted.
One premise issue - I had a hard time believing that they would not recognize Hope is a woman from her voice. That may also be a problem with the parameters of the challenge - i.e., I knew that she had to be a woman because of the rules - so no surprise element - but there may be for a reader who wasn't familiar with the constraints.
Several parts of the dialogue were just outstanding. Really had the feel of folks from that era. However, there were stumbles - too examples for me:
Quoted Text
EMILY(O.S.) I'm the youngest, Mama. I got to fight for everything in this world. I'm always impatient.
A bit too OTN for me. The line would never happen. Her Mama already knows these things.
And here:
Quoted Text
AGNES Elizabeth? Yes, she was here for a few days, remember Mama? We fed her, gave her clean linen to sleep in, comforted her.
Again, A bit too OTN for me. Why wouldn't Mama remember that? Have Mama give this info to Hope - not have her reminded by Emily.
A couple of other areas where this happened.
Overall - for a week - I thought this was a real solid effort.
OHHHH! A good ol' fashioned vengeance story. My only complaint is that I wished this was contained to a few moments, instead of us going from later to later to in the house outside the house. I loved the sisters!
Also, at the end, you have her as Rose still instead of Sarah. It's minor. Overall a good western and fit the theme nicely.
There's some tiny typos in there but nothing major, aside from that the only crit I've got is the Stranger/Hope/Sarah axis got a little bit confusing, maybe streamline it. And what Dave said about the female voice is a fair point, maybe fix that.
Anyway, aside from the meager criticism above, I thought it was good. The writing style was on the money, pacing was solid, and the different movements balanced well in the overall page count. The descriptions were clear, I could picture the characters in their scummy setting, and the action scene read well too.
I'm interested in reading animation, horror, sci fy, suspense, fantasy, and anything that is good. I enjoy writing the same. Looking to team with anyone!
You're obviously a good writer but this just dragged for me and after the intro with the appearance of the Stranger I started scanning. You had me in the beginning and I reiterate what others have said about the setting, period language authentic style etc. but there's too much extraneous stuff and I just feel the actual story needs to be tightened for a 'short'.
I found this one too long. While the action was fine, the freeing of the mine workers seemed to drag on. I know it was to show that the stranger was the returning spirit of Sarah, but perhaps that might have been shown in some other fashion. Not as complex as it might have been, but a good effort.
only BLANK pages -- that's odd, every other script pulls up right away. is it my software or yours?
When I first tried to open it as well, it did the same thing, but it gave me the option to download it and read it. Did it give you guys that option? If not, I could E-mail it to you, if you'd like.