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Great White by Queenie Tarantela - Short, Crime, Thriller - A crime boss and his goons, regret letting an extremely annoying woman into the elevator with them. 9 pages - pdf, format
The writing in this one is super fast and easy to read.
Love the QT feel and the woman gabbing on the phone turns out to be a bad ass bitch! Good visual of her shooting through the hand bag.
Fun little script can't find anything bad to say about this one. Wow...two down this morning and both were fantastic! Hope to read more after the drive home.
Only thing that may make it better was to know more about the characters...I was thinking Kill Bill...how we at least know how/why a character is doing a hit...ie revenge...money...psychotic...
- elevator is a good location to pull off a hit - we'e used to the silent assassins...good to have a good talky killer, like the dude from Pulp Fiction. Add some more layers to her personality, some more color, and the character is well on her way!
suggestions to improve:
- Maybe she should check and see if her victim recognizes her name, and is annoyed when he doesn't? Shows her as having a touch of vulnerability(ego), which makes her human. - I also wonder if maybe she should get in a cab, or her own car, or even an paid limo. I picture assassins working alone, so there would be some distance from the person paying her.
potential for expansion to feature or series:
absolutely!
filming potential:
affordable on no budget
investment in story and characters:
has that potential as the character is built. There was no situation investment because we didn't know anything about the characters.
I found this too cheesy but I suppose it could look very slick when filmed. It's not always all about story. What's pleasing to the eye also counts and I imagine, under the right director, this would be exactly that. Story-wise it's pretty basic, which is what my score goes on.
Nicely written. An obvious homage to Quentin Tarrintino's movies and you've not tried to hide this at all, which is good.
If I was being picky, which I am, I'd question the professionalism of Great White. She nearly misses her mark by almost missing the elevator. Plus, there's was no guarantees they would let her in anyway. A security detail like that with an asshole of a boss as Jankel proves to be wouldn't let anyone in there who could potentially annoy him. A pro wouldn't leave anything like this to chance.
She also explains to her target who she is in a manner that is obviously for the audiences benefit, which seemed a little off.
But still, this is very entertaining, fits the parameters perfectly and was easy to read/understand.
Well done on an excellent OWC entry.
-Mark
For more of my scripts, stories, produced movies and the ocassional blog, check out my new website. CLICK
Intrigued by the log to this one. See how it goes...
Thinking I might start a DING! tally…
Can’t help but think we should be ‘seeing’ the mindless chatter. Not a big deal.
So two guards stayed outside the room? It read as though they all got on the elevator.
Functional with no real surprises. The location strayed from the elevator a fair ways. Feels like part of something ‘bigger’. Quite liked the dialogue here and there (the Guard’s relaying of Janek’s requests) and it’s nice to mix it up with a bit of action; though overall not really my cup of tea. And lets be honest here, the whole ‘golden glow’ from the stolen suitcase... Was it a bag of Cuties? -- S'pose they do travel well.
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I'm pretty sure the gold glow from the briefcase was... Pulp Fiction? Obvious homage, and look no further than the pen name.
It was a nice little story and it flowed nicely scene wise near the end (not near or around elevator tho) where she takes off the disguise and gets into a black SUV.
Few problems here and there tho...
1.
Panic grows across his face. GREAT WHITE <----- Think that's supposed to be Jankel Who are you? GREAT WHITE Name’s Great White. She gestures at the two guards with the gun.
2. There should be (V.O) on UNKNOWN MAN near the end.
Minor things I picked up on and that's it really, apart from that it was a clean read.
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!
I don't know whether or not to like this one or hate it. I'm somewhere down the middle. Caught dead center. Everyone's got pet peeves. I got mine. One of them is "film geek call out" where the writer stops the script to either break the fourth wall ("This is a movie after all") to the "easter egg/get it" references to a film and/or filmmaker. (Tarintino- glowing briefcase, the watch) and I'm not sure why she's called Great White. She dresses in black. I would kind of get it if her codename was Miss White for obvious reasons - or "The Wolf" hey, why not go all out, right?
On the plus side, the script breezes by, and despite some of the nitpicks of mine, it does the job.
Well, I knew that Great White wasn't what she seemed almost immediately. And the one line (I'm a professional killer) was far, far too on-the-nose.
That said, I enjoyed the ride for this one alot. Clearly a good writer is responsibile for this one. And I laughed out loud at the "The A$$hole" nickname. Good stuff! And obviously expandable far beyond this OWC.
Well, this appears to be a sister script to 1 I just tried to read...by the same writer.
The voice here, to me, is very irritating, but it appears many enjoy it.
I stopped quickly, as, again, it's just so obvious this writer is trying to impress, and it's having the opposite affect on me.
I want to like this. I want to want to continue, but I can't.
Again, as I said on the other thread, just try and write good, solid, visual prose, and see what happens. Some may be entertained...for awhile, but keep this up for 90/100 pages, and I highly doubt anyone will still be in. It's a fine line, bro, or sis, but IMO, you crossed it over and over, right out of the gate.
Right, so this was an easy read, nothing too complicated and/or original unfortunately. The line about 'Musak" getting on their nerves could be flipped around IMO. Musak puts quite a bit of research into ensuring it comes across as something to fill the void of silence, plus ensure (especially when you're on a crowded elevator) that people are going to be as predictable as possible.
But... that's why this works for what it is. Jenkel and his goons 'assuming' that Great White is there by coincidence only. Her sticking her foot in the door works better than her already being on the elevator, that being, they could easily have said "we'll get the next car"... then she's out of the game.
I think she's smooth enough in her approach (your approach, that is), however, if she's a trained assassin, I think she'd most likely just do the job and get the hell out of there, without taking his briefcase and all. Cause now she's just a low life murderer and thief... nothing professional about that. Unless you could somehow tie Jenkel to her misery... that is, she's also there on a mission to seek personal revenge from Jenkel. Just a thought.
From start to finish, this story read like the opening sequence of a feature. It's a bit wacky in places that left me confused. The exclamation punctuation killed the asides for me, I wanted to like them, but it left a comedic broad stroke in the narrative.
The QT stuff was there. The dialogue or characters never had any essence of QT, so it felt out of place to me.
I enjoyed Great White's character, her quirks and stuff. All the swearing was a bit much, however, when Great White referred to them as "clowns" I realized the is dialect authentic.
Can I say I'm not a fan of the writing style? Never mind.
Overall, it was a snapshot of a character that could be bigger. She doesn't need cliches or callbacks to stand on her own IMO.
This was more in Machete style for me than Tarantino. I liked how she started - she was funny. Then she came back to him with what he already said and she sounded bitter, not the way she started. He was also funny at the beginning but then he stopped being him and I wish he didn't.
a killer in an elevator, reacting to something her prey said - then bam, bam, badmouthing her victim's wife... Definitely Machete.
You open with 6 paragraphs dedicated to him. Then you go over and over describing her, although not as many paragraphs. Tarantino does that? Tarantino grabs us with the dialog and holds.
You have exclamation marks in dialog - a lot of them, and in action. Hmm.