Writing notes as I read.

The logline is overwritten, uh-oh.

IN THE KITCHEN...sits a coffee pot and one lone mug. And nothing else.” Is it on the floor then?

These brief 80’s tracks on the radio would cost thousands.

Lots of random weird stuff going on, not following this at all but the tension is cut abruptly by the stop at the gas station.

I get it now, he’s having flashbacks to JJ’s death. The flashing back and forth is confusing though, hard to follow.

At the end he just has a little chat to the ghost and it’s all sorted. That’s a bit quick and very convenient. I think you ran out of pages and just finished it as quickly as you could, which is understandable.

Didn’t feel like much of a horror, although there was some suspense. More of a twilight zone style fantasy.

-Mark

Hello writer

Some of the writing is leaving me a little confused - probably just me - did the stickers randomly appear on his own car? was it his car headlights lighting him from behind - quite confusing for me.

Music, vintage cars, brand new stickers - I think we have some kind of time travel situation here.

less than half a second from hitting him and still avoids him - reflexes of a cat - seriously though, we are getting a tad overwritten here.

Stephens reasoning with ghost JJ feels a little forced and not built up to - Like he suddenly understands him - maybe he does, but I'm still a little confused.

The ending was supposed to be some kind of link between Stephen and JJ? If it was, It didn't land for me - JJ was murdered and torn from his family, Stephen appears to have just had a breakup, I fail to see the connection.

So, I think this is a ghost story about a haunted car - it was very jarring at times and overwritten - after the challenge, it would benefit greatly from a rewrite.

The suspense was there but I had no feeling of horror, the car was heavily featured so well done there.

Well done for entering the challenge

Mattt

GUT SHOT

Code IN THE KITCHEN ...sits a coffee pot and one lone mug. And nothing else.

When I think of a coffee pot, I think of either a French Press or one of those jugs that come with coffee machines. I think something is missing here. I find it very strange that those items would be there but no actual coffee or wherewithal to make a cup.

Code The car HONKS. Over and over. Stephen HITS THE GAS. He looks ahead and spots the tall and bright lights of A VERY LARGE GAS STATION. And here come the HIGH BEAMS on Stephen's tail. The car once again HONKS like crazy. And Steven once again HITS THE GAS. But the car doesn't let up and RAMS HIS BUMPER. Stephen CUTS A HARD RIGHT into the busy lot of the multi-pump gas station.

Too much upper-case. It detracts from the writing - lessens its impact.



The writing is good in this if a little confusing at times but I think on screen it would translate better. I didn't get the point in showing the apartment in the first couple of pages. Seems to me, that could all be cut very easily.

The story tied up a little too nicely at the end and the speech about 'life goes on' is forced. Needs some work but a decent story.

"Short, sharp, shock.." -- Pink Floyd

Hm. It seems you are aiming for a sorta shellshocked vibe.

From my perspective, there seems to be a lot of heat, but very little light.  I mean, there's a lot going on here, but there's no real clarity to it.  Don't get me wrong -- a nice premise,  and believe it, or not, I did like it.  It just needs a bit more work.

What you choose to describe/or tell us, is a cue to the audience to pay attention. Details mean "this is important."  But...you dedicate a lot of lines to tell us what songs are playing.  Mind you, songs that probably won't be in the script If it were ever filmed.  Methinks it's unnecessary and misleading because I'm waiting to find out why you told me all that.  So I didn't connect what that had to do with anything.  Probably nothing, If so, fine, but you're wasting real estate.  I'd use that space for more important things.  If anything, I'd scale back...

Oh, one more thing, The Simpsons is a great study in pop culture anthropology.  Just food for thought. -Andrea

I don't understand this rash of extra blank pages in some of the submissions and the laziness to not delete them?! I'm curious if the three (or four?) writers use the same software.

Logline tells the whole story? Let's see....

What year is this supposed to be? Present day or in the eighties? The encounter on pg. 3 is quite confusing as written. A lot of spotlighting (is this direction or an actual spotlight?). The '78 is on his windshield now?

Thankfully the logline told me what was going on because I got lost. Still not sure exactly what happened but I think there is a decent story here. Somewhere. After the OWC is over, out yourself and give a synopsis of what you were going for. Congrats for entering, writer.

Well, I really enjoyed this but there were some gigantic bumps in the road (pun intended). The beginning sequence in the apartment I thought was well-described and got the sense of emptiness, abandonment. The start of the drive had a nice feel to it as well, though as another poster pointed out was a little overdone with the 80s music references -- in that it would be hard to license for the screen. But I liked ow it worked on page, like a Stephen King book (he sometimes includes song references). With that, I found it odd the main character finds more than one station that plays that music. I would think if anything he'd just get that one station and hang on to it for dear life,lol.


Now... the sequence of seeing the 78 stickers on the windshield. I had to read that two or three times to get what was happening. The sequence of the main character making hard turns to avoid phantom sights to the gas station lumbered and clunked along - the writing wasn't paced fast enough to convey the action it was supposed to.


The remainder of the script felt cluttered, although I was able to find the narrative through it all, but feel a lot of cleanup needs to be done. I felt the onlookers at the gas station were unnecessary and some aspects were far-fetched: Him opening right to the news article on the crash on his phone. Then some of the other characters in the gas station.


The ending was satisfying, with the whole analogy of letting go and moving on.

I hate to simply reiterate what everyone else has said, but I was confused for a lot of this. Even though it is very clean and nicely written, the story had me having to re-read a lot of the action. This led to the script not having a great flow for me and hurt the suspense in the end.

The horror is lacking and the script seems to lean more into sci/fi territory. I feel like this has been done before on Twilight Zone or Outer Limits type show.

The music references were overdone I think.

A decent entry but loses some points due to lack of horror and confusion.

-Really love your title and like your logline.
-Sounds interesting and I love a possession story and all in a corvette, nice!
-This is a pet peeve of mine, but I can tell you must use a non-standard writing software, the off spacing drives me nuts, but that's a my weird pet peeve thing.
-Love the way you have used the songs
-Love the way you have named the cities
--I think I'm a little confused at the wrap up on this one. Did JJ possess his body for a while.. was the corvette the connection? I think this story has a ton of good things going for it but feels like the end was rushed because it had me a bit confused. I will mention that although the writing is very good and I loved your dialogue, it takes a while to get the story going and I think the actions and descriptions need to be trimmed way back. We only need enough to visualize the scene.
--Good job here writer.

The bulk of reviews for GUT SHOT could be summed up as "I didn't get it" or "I gave up by page 8" and "I was confused by most of it".  

It's really the opening pages of a feature-length concept disguised as a short film.   I'd have to chalk this up to being mainly a feature length screenwriter who has little to no experience writing in short form.   I'm really used to writing in a slow-burn style that reveals only pieces of a mystery.  One small piece at a time.  

This may explain why this didn't quite work as a short script.  Or why it seemed unsatisfying and anti-climactic as I was in a hurry to "wrap things up" by page 12.  

It seems most of you were completely lost most of the time and didn't find the significance of the yellow stickers on Stephen's windshield.   Or why they appeared and then disappeared.  Or what it even means.   Or the significance of his girlfriend's breaking up with him.  

The intended suggestion was that Stephen's car may actually be JJ's car, before he was carjacked by the three gunmen in 1985.  This is revealed when Stephen finds the photo on the abandoned gas station wall and sees the same 78 sticker on the Corvette windshield.    

He gives JJ the speech about letting go of the past and realizes that he must too let go of his past life in LA with his girlfriend.  Hence, him throwing the photo of him and ex girlfriend in the trash.  

Yes, a hurried and rushed ending that was unsatisfying.  

The main area of confusion was my use of the two gas stations.  The Racetrack of 2019 and JJ's Auto Wreckage of 1985.  I saw spots in my description that could've made this a whole lot clearer and have since cleaned this up.    

I've seen sequences like this written out as...

INT.  JJ'S AUTO WRECKAGE - DAY (1985)

Or...

EXT.  ROUTE 66 - DAY (FLASHBACK)    

Or...

INT.  RACETRACK GAS STATION - DAY (PRESENT)

I read a few articles on how this is an accepted form of flashback if it is used sparingly and you are only using that location a single time.    

In closing...

I was surprised at how confused everyone was by GUT SHOT as I tried to simplify the descriptions as painfully as possible.  

Since last week, I've been working tirelessly on the feature version of "A SHOT TO THE GUT"

GUT SHOT got beat up pretty bad, for the most part.  I'd love for any and all feedback on the feature version which should be posted soon.  It's called A SHOT TO THE GUT and it's what this short was really meant to be.  A slow burn thriller with twists and surprises.  

I've taken all of your notes to heart and applied them to the feature version.