SimplyScripts Discussion Board
Blog Home - Produced Movie Script Library - TV Scripts - Unproduced Scripts - Contact - Site Map
ScriptSearch
Welcome, Guest.
It is March 29th, 2024, 2:49am
Please login or register.
Was Portal Recent Posts Home Help Calendar Search Register Login
Please do read the guidelines that govern behavior on the discussion board. It will make for a much more pleasant experience for everyone. A word about SimplyScripts and Censorship


Produced Script Database (Updated!)
One Week Challenge - Who Wrote What and Writers' Choice.


Scripts studios are posting for award consideration

Short Script of the Day | Featured Script of the Month | Featured Short Scripts Available for Production
Submit Your Script

How do I get my film's link and banner here?
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.
Forum Login
Username: Create a new Account
Password:     Forgot Password

SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    October 2015 One Week Challenge  ›  Duty of Care - OWC
Users Browsing Forum
No Members and 1 Guests

 Pages: « 1, 2 : All
Recommend Print
  Author    Duty of Care - OWC  (currently 3625 views)
bert
Posted: October 28th, 2015, 1:38pm Report to Moderator
Administrator


Buy the ticket, take the ride

Location
That's me in the corner
Posts
4232
Posts Per Day
0.61
Lots of style on display here.  Another Brit, pretty sure.

THE GOOD:  Great writing and good dialogue.  Totally my speed.  Lots of menace in the early going, in either direction, from either character, and that is tough to pull off.  The random kid in the hallway is rendered a perfect detail by virtue of his utter pointlessness.  I was very impressed by the talent on display here.  Until...          

THE BAD:  Until we reach the kitchen.  I was willing to forgive this story's reliance on the telephone up until Francis decides to just wander off and leave Victor totally unattended.  This was far too convenient -- far too blatant a device in service of the story -- and it took me out of a script I was otherwise enjoying.  From there, while the writing maintains its high standard, the story devolves into formula.  I would also caution against the single line of dialogue you give Victor on page 10.  That kind of stuff undermines the tension and only comes off as comical.    

bert's grade:  A-  


Hey, it's my tiny, little IMDb!
Logged
Private Message Reply: 15 - 28
eldave1
Posted: October 29th, 2015, 10:55am Report to Moderator
January Project Group



Location
Southern California
Posts
6874
Posts Per Day
1.95
Solid for the most part.

The telephone scenes need some serious streamlining.

Some over writing, IMO - the opening windshield wipers scene while poetic, read more like for a novel then a script.

Victor's voice was perfect.

Okay done - nice job here.


My Scripts can all be seen here:

http://dlambertson.wix.com/scripts
Logged Offline
Private Message Reply: 16 - 28
wonkavite
Posted: October 30th, 2015, 3:35pm Report to Moderator
Guest User



*Spoilers*

Cool!  One of my top three (at least for now - though more to go...)

Beautifullly written.  Solid dialogue, visually rich - and a nice modern twist on the Frankenstein tale.

I'll grant you - it's a *major* and suspicious cooincidence that Victor just happens to target Francis.  And that Francis *just happens* to have a use for him at that time?    

Also, I'd argue that you need to show a point at which Francis realizes that he needs to do away with Victor - and hint a LITTLE at why the man's useful to him, now.

Oh - and one teeny tiny stylistic recommendation.  "The body used to be a teenage boy. (Period.) Once. Not now."  Just a dramatic little flair I think would be fun.

Cheers,

--J (W)
Logged
e-mail Reply: 17 - 28
oJOHNNYoNUTSo
Posted: October 30th, 2015, 10:08pm Report to Moderator
Been Around



Posts
817
Posts Per Day
0.19
I'd vote favorably for this if I could - sorry writer.

The opening passage was a bit undeserving, but if there's some sort of symbolic purpose we can say it's paid its toll. Even though it has pop on the page, we're dealing with windshield wipers so...

Little details from start seem legit. The briefcase is given a visual purpose rather than a stylish accessory. The phone clamps to his ear... in the rain... gives the story a nudge in the right direction. I think Victor looking in the rearview could be moved down to split Francis' talking bit into the phone.

Francis carrying Victor into the flat was an intermittent sequence, but the writer rebounded once inside. Big time. The monster's description is very well done - in writing and magnitude.

+ The dark ride gets darker...
+ Good job with the dialogue, hey - I was really impressed - it's alive!
+ The monster is this wordsmith's explosion, denonated at exactly the right time

- Title blows
- The transition out of the cab into the flat was ROUGH
Logged
Private Message Reply: 18 - 28
SAC
Posted: October 30th, 2015, 10:53pm Report to Moderator
Of The Ancients


… but some dreams do

Location
Upstate NY
Posts
3201
Posts Per Day
0.79
Writer,

Not a bad story, but based on your ending it just seemed rushed. Like it hasn't the chance to end the way you really wanted it to. Very busy script. Lots of visuals, with lots of words almost took me out of the story. Just went on too long, IMO. But you had some very tense moments going on, and what seemed like it should end with just Francis and Victor became something else entirely. That's why it felt forced. Almost like a the end, in order to meet the challenge requirements, you threw in the Frankenstein's monster. Not a bad effort here, just seemed like it wasn't the story you wanted.

Steve


Logged Offline
Private Message Reply: 19 - 28
rendevous
Posted: October 31st, 2015, 8:33pm Report to Moderator
Old Timer


Away

Location
Over there.
Posts
2354
Posts Per Day
0.43
I've not read other comments yet, as I don't like to be influenced. I thought it was going quite well.

You gotta be careful with words though, writing is all about being careful with words. For instance... " Victor’s hand shoots out,"

The problem I had is you've set up a confrontation, quite well as it happens. If you use the word 'shoots' before the gun is in hand the reader gets confused. Or at least this one did. May seem picky. But I'm a picky pecky typa fecker.

Good fight. It's hard to describe those effectively. Nice twist there.

As they go, it's not bad. I was expecting something a bit more at the end. But not bad.

R



Out Of Character - updated


New Used Car

Green

Right Back

The Deuce - OWC - now on STS

Other scripts here
Logged
Site Private Message Reply: 20 - 28
LC
Posted: November 2nd, 2015, 5:52am Report to Moderator
Administrator



Location
The Great Southern Land
Posts
7582
Posts Per Day
1.34
Remind me never to get in the car with you considering your windscreen wipers are like scythes.

A typo of sorts near the bottom - he scrambles back, press himself against the wall, obviously should be 'presses' - didn't read comments so forgive me if that's been mentioned more than once.

Overall, very nice. A great sinister feel to this, suspense, good characterisations, fizzles a bit at the end but terrific effort nonetheless.

And I'd take a stab at guessing this author...
When we're allowed to.


Logged
Private Message Reply: 21 - 28
PrussianMosby
Posted: November 3rd, 2015, 7:44pm Report to Moderator
Old Timer


Posts
1399
Posts Per Day
0.37
Duty of Care

First three pages drag on quite a bit. From the first paragraph alone it's clear you like to write a lot.

The transfer to the action parts isn't that well executed yet. It reads to me as if Francis originally couldn't have realized that Victor takes a gun; because the descriptions told me it's pretty dark inside – but then Francis immediately decides to fight and tackles him...

"Twenty-five storeys of bleak concrete. Bad things happen
here, and from the look of the building you can see why."

There's a lot of stuff like that, right from the first paragraph. Less is often more - too much writing can hurt story. I mean, I get the tone, no need to emphasize any more, just get to the point. (@ don't use such "comparisons" anyway - it's not that creative)

This is good work but it feels also fragmentary. The reveal has nothing to do with the story. The presentation constantly tries hard to serve atmosphere and mood through extra-writing whereas the framework would have needed your attention and investment instead, imo; too literary; still good.



Logged
Private Message Reply: 22 - 28
EWall433
Posted: November 4th, 2015, 8:38pm Report to Moderator
New



Posts
423
Posts Per Day
0.11
The set-up for this one confused me a little. It was written well, but felt written on the fly. Basically, Victor has a plan to kill Francis. We can tell from his leading questions. But when the encounter goes down, Francis has a needle ready with knock out drugs and ends up kidnapping Victor instead. So they were stalking each other? It was unclear to me why anything was really happening.

Francis says something about a Nigerian which makes it sound like he’s not even the one responsible for what happened to Victor’s wife. So what happened to her? Why does Victor blame Francis? Why does Francis kidnap Victor? Maybe I missed it, but it was never clear to me what Francis intended to do with him.

Like I said, the writing was generally good, but it felt like the whole story passed by without me knowing why anything was happening.
Logged Offline
Private Message Reply: 23 - 28
wonkavite
Posted: November 7th, 2015, 9:08am Report to Moderator
Guest User



Jon -

If you have time - PM me on this one?

Cheers,

--J (W)
Logged
e-mail Reply: 24 - 28
DustinBowcot
Posted: November 7th, 2015, 10:49am Report to Moderator
Guest User



Nice work writer, not sure who you are. Some excellent writing on show.
Logged
e-mail Reply: 25 - 28
JonnyBoy
Posted: November 9th, 2015, 8:51am Report to Moderator
January Project Group



Location
London, England
Posts
994
Posts Per Day
0.18
Hi all,

Thanks very much for the reads! Good to get some new material up, and to flex the ol' writing muscles. I'm currently trying to get back into the writing habit, so this has been a very useful exercise.

To 'fess up straight off the bat: this is actually a page 1 rewrite of an OWC entry from five years ago (yikes). That script lives here - http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-10OWC/m-1287544048/. Not sure if that counts as cheating, but I don't really think so as it's a radically different version of that earlier draft. I only realised there was a challenge happening a couple of days into the week, and once I'd read the criteria it seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally do a rewrite that had been at the back of my mind for ages. I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Main problem for most people seems to be that it's just nothing special:


Quoted from Scar Tissue Films
It felt a little redundant to me. Just a simple re-telling of Frankenstein.


Quoted from Angry Bear
Not bad, but felt chunky to read and didn't really offer anything special.


Quoted from Mark Renshaw
I just felt it didn't really offer anything new story wise.


Quoted from AnthonyCawood
Overall I liked this, though maybe a little straightforward.


Quoted from rendevous
As they go, it's not bad. I was expecting something a bit more at the end. But not bad.


(For what it's worth, Ren actually read the original and said it was: 'fucking ace. Pages few by. Good story, true horror, echoes of classic movies. Fine work.' An example of a rewrite actively making a script worse?!)


Quoted from RKeller
It just doesn't gel or have drama or logic for me.


Ouch!


Quoted from EWall433
It felt like the whole story passed by without me knowing why anything was happening.


Oh dear.

To summarise the story - and if it wasn't clear please do tell me - Victor's wife, Liza, died due to a botched surgery, but the case was settled out of court. In his grief, he decides to abduct and kill a doctor, any doctor, to strike back against the community he feels has wronged him. Francis wasn't involved in any way, he's just the one he picks up, hence his insistent questioning to make sure he's got the right person. Francis' own son died in an accident, and he's been using his skills as a surgeon to rebuild him from body parts harvested from people he's snatched off the streets. Victor's bereavement and low social status makes him an easy target - as Francis says, it's unlikely anyone will even notice he's gone missing. At the flat Victor escapes, blunders into the bedroom where Francis has been keeping his half-finished son, and the ending plays out.

What I wanted to practice was misdirection and suspense: you're supposed to think that Victor is the dangerous one, only to be surprised when suddenly it's Francis that takes control. Likewise, the fact that the body 'animates' at the end was hopefully a surprise? Probably not. I also wonder if that moment drifts a bit into the supernatural - HOW is he alive? Originally he was going to have life support machines, a heart monitor, and lie in a hospital bad - but I scrapped all that thinking it would better match the 'low budget' requirement. Perhaps it should go back in.

With hindsight, I should have known Frankenstein was going to be everyone's first monster pick. But as explained above, what excited me was the chance to finally rewrite a story I'd started years previously - which was a Frankenstein story, so that was that. The script admittedly does hinge on a major co-incidence - that the man Victor randomly selects as his victim HAPPENS to be a surgeon who's on the lookout for body parts. So that may need smoothing over.

In terms of not explaining things properly, there's actually a moment on page 3 that's supposed to suggest Francis is up to something:


Quoted Text
VICTOR
You fix what is broken.

FRANCIS
(beat)
I try to.


There was originally an action line that said: 'A shadow passes across Francis' face. Just for a second.' But that had to go due to space. The suggestion that he's lost someone is also supposed to crop up just before the bedroom ending, too, when Francis says:


Quoted Text
FRANCIS (CONTD.)
Not entirely certain why you
decided to take your anger out on
me, but there you go. I understand
what grief can do to a man. Yes, by
God, I understand that.


This is probably nowhere near enough, however. Clearly it's an issue if people think the ending just comes from nowhere.

Thanks for the kind words about the dialogue. For my day job I work in marketing for a company that publishes playscripts - and for a little while, screenplays, before I told them you could find the scripts online for free, legally, so no-one sensible would pay £15 for a printed copy. I've also done a bit of theatre directing over the last couple of years, so I really do think dialogue is absolutely key. I must have gone over every individual line half a dozen times adding a word here, taking one out there, changing a phrasing. That old rule that you should be able to remove all the character headings and still know who's talking is something I always try to bear in mind. Dialogue can be a tricky skill, but it's something I'm determined to be good at. So thanks for the encouragement.

Writing-wise, I don't really know what conclusion to draw. I wanted to go heavy on atmosphere, and also this is sort of the natural mode I settle into. Some people seemed to enjoy it, others appreciate it, others thought it was 'clunky' or 'extreme'. In a way a negative consensus would have been easier to take something from. Obviously readers' tastes are to a certain degree subjective, but if it's damaging the read that's obviously something I need to look at. No point making life harder for myself.

(On the very opening: I remember a Hitchcock quote from an old episode of BabzBuzz, which went something like 'a good screenwriter doesn't fill the page with words; they fill the screen with images.' To me I thought that was a strong opening image. But yes, the way I've written it might be slightly overkill.)

Just finally on the writing, I do want to pick you up on this comment, Jeff, if that's okay:


Quoted from Dreamscale
Passages are not remotely broken up correctly and it's killing the read for me.

Mistakes and awkwardly written action are the death knoll here for me.


Could you possibly give me an example of the 'mistakes' you're referring to? Obviously as I say writing is subjective, and we all know that opinions can differ over 'correct' formatting, but want to make sure I'm not making any obvious errors, whatever they might be.

Okay, there's a lot there. Thanks for all the reads, and I'll get on with returning any I've missed this week. Well done to everyone who entered this OWC, or indeed read scripts!

And Janet - PMed you.

EDIT: Just to add - thanks so much to those who really did enjoy it! Canis, Dustin, bert, Lib - always happy to please.


Guess who's back? Back again?

Revision History (2 edits; 1 reasons shown)
JonnyBoy  -  November 9th, 2015, 9:12am
Logged Offline
Site Private Message Reply: 26 - 28
James McClung
Posted: January 3rd, 2016, 8:43pm Report to Moderator
Of The Ancients



Location
Washington, D.C.
Posts
3293
Posts Per Day
0.49
Hey Jon,

Read through this one twice. Not sure how I feel about it in its current incarnation, but I do think it's got potential.

You've got two solid characters in the sense that both have a tragic past and an axe to grind, and you've got some fun, even grotesque horror elements to play with. The writing was also pretty solid. A little flowery, but I enjoyed it, and that's something I still struggle with anyway. What you don't seem to have, however, is a really strong story that follows through to the end.

What I took from this is three interconnected scenarios, each with their own "monster," where only one has a fully formed payoff. The first monster is Victor, the second is Francis, and the third is... whatever that thing was. Sick, btw. In a good way; genuinely disturbing.

The first scenario with Victor is a fine start. The dialogue is a little verbose, but I don't think that would've been quite as much of an issue if you didn't have a cutoff point as far as pages. Since you do, it seems to take up a lot of space.

I'd try to cut back on some of the banter here, namely to provide some space to straighten out the complete story, but also for reasons specific to the passages. The phone banter has already been mentioned, so I won't go into that much more.

Victor seems a little forced, for one thing, leading Francis on and whatnot. Francis is consistently indignant and defensive, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it adds to the page count so that the last two scenarios are completely rushed and truncated. I would try to have Victor act more casual, since they're ultimately going to end up in the lot anyway (and it'd be more of a shock to do so if he was), and Francis less defensive. He doesn't have to buy into Victor's logic that it's a small cab and he "hear," but perhaps he's too worn out to really bite back with as much vigor (sounds like he easily could be anyway).

The muscularskeletal bit could definitely be condensed, for one thing. It's a simple bit that doesn't need to go on as long as it doesn't, even if it's not THAT long.

Interesting twist to make Francis the "monster" in the second half, but this is where things get the most awkward. His trek back to the flat with Victor's body seems highly ill-advised. Wouldn't it be easier just to leave Victor where he is? Sure, Francis drugged him, but Victor also planned to kill Francis, so I doubt he'd want to involve the authorities.

I was thinking it might work better if he DID leave Victor in the lot. Victor wakes up. Perhaps something felt out of Francis' briefcase during the scuffle with identifying information (say a business card). Anything that would at least serve as a breadcrumb for Victor making his way over to Francis' flat. Not sure exactly what would happen here, but in any case, I think it might be better for the story if Victor found a different way over to Francis and remained the antagonist for a bit.

Scene in the kitchen is by far the most problematic, in that we don't even find out what Francis' plans for Victor were, and it's a cheap device (the phone) that closes out the scenario and segues into the finale... which I loved. All good here. Janet had a suggestion above that I think could accentuate it, but other than that, I was pleased.

All in all, some very interesting pieces that don't fit together so well, at least IMO. The middle is the most problematic, as I said. If you could come up with a smoother, more plausible transition between Victor's plot to kill Francis and the "thing" in Francis' bedroom, I think you'd be on your way to something great.

Hope this helps.


Logged
Private Message Reply: 27 - 28
JonnyBoy
Posted: January 4th, 2016, 6:20am Report to Moderator
January Project Group



Location
London, England
Posts
994
Posts Per Day
0.18
Thanks very much for that, James. Very useful feedback, and it's clear what most needs work is the 'joins' between the scenes. Why does Francis decide to use Victor, why now, and a less obvious reason why Victor escapes the kitchen (a rushed narrative trick I'm not surprised people called me out for, I'd have done the same). I've got a couple of ideas.

I'm gonna take this and everything else away and come up with a new, probably slightly longer version (now that page count isn't an issue), which I'll submit once it's done. Thanks again to everyone for their feedback.


Guess who's back? Back again?
Logged Offline
Site Private Message Reply: 28 - 28
 Pages: « 1, 2 : All
Recommend Print

Locked Board Board Index    October 2015 One Week Challenge  [ previous | next ] Switch to:
Was Portal Recent Posts Home Help Calendar Search Register Login

Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post polls
You may not post attachments
HTML is on
Blah Code is on
Smilies are on


Powered by E-Blah Platinum 9.71B © 2001-2006