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From the description, I thought the cabbie was going to be a ghost from the 1950s, about the last time anyone with a Brooklyn accent and Mets cap drove a cab in New York! I like the simple pay-off, I feared he would turn out to be a demon driving him straight to Hell or some such nonsense. It might be more plausible if he turned out to have spotted him for a free cab ride?
For the writing, I would have many picky issues such as use of ampersand but it is an OWC. I've seen rearview, rear-view and rear view used in this challenge, and you use two different twice each. If you can't be right, be consistent. Same with the accent - if "shady tings" are going down they are "goin'". Like others I found the phonetics distracting.
I don't see a need for the zoom in from satellite or the specific address. It's Wall Street.
I would prefer not to use voice over, it reminds me of an episode of Twilight Zone, or the bit in AIRPLANE! "Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home..." You might have been able to show his increasing discomfort through dialogue and loosening his tie, etc. Instead of "Do I know a Jack Turner?" he could just ask.
The story builds on tension once we know it's his conscience working, yet it seemed a short time to go from callous gloating (he must realise that $12m comes from somewhere) to cringing wreck. At one point you let him off with "The executive is beginning to look a little more relaxed with each passing moment" and there is welcome silence, then he's back to panic and sweat. I don't believe he's learned a lesson by the end.
Since it is a simple story, it could be told quicker. With an edit it could be 5 pages and fun. A good effort.
From the description, I thought the cabbie was going to be a ghost from the 1950s, about the last time anyone with a Brooklyn accent and Mets cap drove a cab in New York!
I'm going on my own guilt trip here as I struggled with this one. The establishing shot is extraneous and would be added in a shooting script. It's a nice little touch but time would have better been spent on story and character development.
If you are going to use VO then it should reveal interesting and entertaining information we can't glean from the visuals, like how it is done in Fight Club or Mr. Robot. Here we can see the Executive is growing increasingly uncomfortable as he tries to put 2 + 2 together about the driver and his connection to the housing market crash of 2008 but we get all this from the dialogue and the character's actions. You show us, then you tell us basically the same information in the VO.
You did reverse it in a way I didn't see coming at the end so hats off for that, it was a nice touch. It just didn't feel enough of a payoff from a script which is mainly dialogue.
I don't see this as a trapped in a taxi scenario either. This guy got in the cab voluntarily and got out at the destination he specified. He may have felt a bit trapped towards the end but that is stretching it.
-Mark
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I was going to bail on this because of the V.O.'s but I started just ignoring them and reading the actual dialogue. Surprisingly, the dialogue is solid. Actually, the whole thing is a very solid little mistaken identity/guilty conscience tale.
You need to get rid of all the V.O. stuff. All of it, every single line. You can show the executives growing discomfort/fear through a worried glance in the driver's mirror, a squirm in his seat, etc. There is zero need for voice over and it almost destroys an otherwise well executed story. I am asking you, no, I am begging you, please get rid of the V.O.
I think someone could do a good job of this one. Axe all the unnecessary V.O., lose some extraneous dialogue, give the Driver a couple more lines to make the Executive feel like there's a bad past here, and I think it'd be a very solid short film. A great challenge for a director with the main bulk of the conflict told through visuals.
I think hugging the Driver at the end is a bit much -- I don't really buy that he's been reduced quite to that point. And I'd hammer harder on the lost-a-job-in-08 thing. But yeah. Thumbs up from me. Enjoyed this one and didn't know how it was going to end.
Lots of tension coming at us in just a few pages. I thought you were going to pull out all the stops on this, and shoot us an elaborate story on how this Wall Street Exec ruined the cabbie's life... glad you didn't, probably would have suffered.
Although, I think the cabbie could whip out a Blue Chip portfolio, or some bullshit like that, and ask the Exec to give it a once over to really heighten the tension... make the Exec think this driver doesn't just slice Lox in his spare time and, just might be intelligent enough to put him in the vice for his previous deeds. More tension is always better.
Great title, ambiguous and clever. Alas, I won't bang on, you have more than enough comments to go on... good work.
It's a good idea having the voice overs to help build the tension, but maybe cut them back a bit, they started to get annoying after a while. Also lose the continued's at the top of the page.
Apart from those niggles, and a couple of typos, this worked for me. It came across as a serious version of Peep Show (UK programming, not sure if it made the USA) with the voice overs. Also it's great to see a potential psycho taxi driver actually just be a good guy.
Out by page 1. Basically, what Dreamscale said. (Never thought I'd agree with him)
Never number your first page. Amateur mistake. What program did you use? Not a good start at all.
How on Earth are you going to film Earth? Do you work for NASA? Scale model? CGI?
Opening paragraph is a tad too long.
(MORE) followed by (continued) is redundantly redundant and another rookie mistake.
CONTINUED: didn't work for me. It reads like a slug or shot. CONT'D should only ever be used for dialogue that starts at the bottom of Page A and ends exactly at the top of Page B, with no action, shot change, etc. I between.
I didn't care for it either. No one was trapped in a cab. The VO stuff got dull. And the ending was a gigantic disappointment.
Starting in space isn't cheap either...
I agree with everyone else. It could be interesting, perhaps if you add in names and if you gave us examples of the people the executive did screw over, as he's recalling his life.
Also, a big test for me, does the ending make the beginning make sense? In other words, the driver knows he paid the executive's bill. So, why wouldn't he say good seeing you again or mention about the time in the bar?
4/10 because he wasn't trapped and wasn't cheap. So, the OWC wasn't met. Sorry.
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I like this one. I agree that the VOs should be cut down, but I think you'd be hard pressed to do it this without them completely. There's no cheap visual way to portray a man trying, and failing, to remember something and have the point come across like it does here. Just try to keep succinct and not have it be blatantly expositional.
Oh, and starting from space is odd for reasons that have nothing to do with budget. But overall I liked this a lot. It's hard to say how you could add more, so I’d just tighten it up in the ways others have mentioned and execute the heck out of it. The story itself is pretty much already there.
I liked this one, and I liked the way it ended. I was hoping it wouldn't end with the driver killing the executive out of revenge, which is where I thought it may have been going. It kept my interest throughout, good job.
It went somewhere I didn’t expect, which was a nice touch, though I’m not sure it really stands out - more of a slow-burn to a damp fizzle. It's an interesting premise - ratchet the tension with the subtle questioning and growing paranoia but I’m not convinced the ending satisfies. I’d like to have seen Executive (why not just give him a name?) really put through the wringer or taught a lesson at least. There’s the suggestion he pulled something shady, which in turn suggests he’s due some comeuppance and the payoff falls flat when nothing of the sort materializes.
Fancy satellite intro feels completely unrelated to what follows, puts me in the mind of a thriller and kind of a red herring for what follows.
Nice idea, falls a bit flat and I’m not sure Executive was technically trapped. Maybe he felt trapped?
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