Going to try and keep this brief & I've only skimmed some of the other reviews.

Story fails for me here; writing's good enough to keep me in. I agree with a previous poster that Susan should be the waitress, and maybe Steven could be worked in - some rivaly going with one or both the other guys. I didn't like that these two characters were crow-barred in at the end, and then to no real effect.

Since the events of the story were fairly simple, I think it would benefit from a bit of a B-story line going in there. Easily re-worked.

Right. Just 29 more to go.

Well the name given to this writer is an extra something!!

Holly boy? not sure i understood that

We’re gonna need a bigger boat - thats twice in four scripts, will there be more

p6 - lots of slug lines - better to use  mini's if required

not sure i would introduce new characters just at the end, even if we see another kill

i like the surfing, shark angle , but this needs a few tweaks for me. things like the waitress and her number don't form part of the script, so IMO, should be excluded. I prefer to keep everything mentioned to serve a purpose, but i accept somethings do expand a character.

i've seen jaws - the surfing point - on the Tv. i may be wrong but i kind of assume its popular, but thats a minor issue really.

Not much of a story here. Honestly, I was kinda bored until page 5 or so.

Formatting could use some work. Also, some of the dialogue is a bit too on the nose for me.

Overall, just a sequence of a events. Not a bad entry, but I'm still hungry for more.

C- for me. Congrats on the entry!

I don’t know anything about surfing or jet skiing yet this script put me right there alongside the dudes. The action could do with formatting a bit better, also there’s a point where you include a montage without formatting it as a montage, but well done for taking me to the sea and dunking me along for the ride. Also, it’s so cool there’s a place called Jaws Beach for real!

However, story wise this felt like a scene out of any of the many shark attack movies out there rather than a story in its own right. Maybe that was the intention but I prefer stories to scenes. There was an attempt to include a little twist at the end, something unexpected but it felt flat.

But yeah, well written and some nice bits of tension there. A decent addition to this OWC.  

Mark

Nice straight up surfers shark attack.

I like how you introduce us to the characters before the water. Some flavourful surfer dialogue, bra. I liked the waitress stuff with the napkin and stuff.  I really think you should consider her return later at the cliffs. She came to check him out with fellow waitress in bikini. By the way nice t and a inclusion.  Keeps this fun and that b movie vibe flowing. But replace couple with waitress for an overall arc. She can run to save him like any good citizen would... right. Right?

I'd amp up the intensity by mentioning how dangerous the rocks are. Just add another element of danger, like you conducting an orchestra of tension and terror. It's exciting as is, especially when dodging waves amidst attack. Maybe one wave cracks a board in half. So, yeah, crank that nob to 11.

There's a lot of beautiful imagery. I liked the blood in waterl consider a more severe injury than soda slice. Maybe rock bashes and slices leg a bit. After all everything goes wrong here. A great horror cliche put to good use here. Nice work. Down to the seadoo stall and cell phone.

I would prefer more shark attack shown, and more glimpses of the shark like what type is it? Cutting away to the cliff hurt the momentum for me, if waitresses we already know one, so no set-up required. Maybe they watch from beach instead? Add a brief they watch scene earlier during surfing, and you're set. I make some suggestions because I enjoyed the ride and, think it deserves a rewrite. I'd also show a fin at the end.

what I like:

No major problems with the writing. Easy enough read.

Good job building excitement in the characters to surf an apparently legendary spot. I can FEEL their excitement.

Nice call on the surfer idea for this genre!

what needs work:

Could be helped by some conflict between characters. Right now there is none.

Not much dimension to the characters. Standard surfer dudes. No reason to like or dislike them. Or anyone. Even by their actions, we know nothing about them. Are they heroic? Probably...but they don't do anything heroic, so I don't know. Even Zach...when he swims toward his buddy, he has no idea about the shark, so it's not a heroic act.

So the  story is entirely situational. Fine for a starting point, but need to add some dimension and drama to flesh this out.

11. Jaws: Pe'ahi - A surfer travels to Hawaii to ride the one of the most dangerous waves in the world.
Brief - Two Hawaiian dudes get attacked by a shark, do-gooder suffers same fate.

Characters to Animate/Voice - 5/4
Zach, Waitress, Justin, Susan, Steven
Scenes to Build  - 8/7
Crab Cooker restaurant, Hawaiian Hwy → INT. truck, Wave breaks, Ocean 2x, rocky beach, cliff
Accessory Visual - 11
Taco tray + taco, drip, Jet ski 2x, surfboard + tie, cell phone 2x, soda can, c/u of finger getting cut, dark shape in water, shorts
Accessory Audio - 10
Restaurant din, taco crunch, Highway white noise, off road drive, wind, ocean waves, breaker crashes, seagull calls, spray, jet ski motor running + idling, plop

Genre & Marketability - Drama horror
Script format - Fine
Comments  -  I’d ditch that entire opening sequence, just start with them in the truck already with the tacos. Stupid boat line, (shakes head). I’d animate their arrival at the beach as a ground up shot so that all I gotta do is make sky above/behind them. It’s a forgivable cheat. Saves me a scene to build, gotta have a sky anyway. By page four I’m concerned about how to effectively animate these wave crashes with the technique I have available, (maybe if I could do cell animation I could pull this off). But I gotta say that other than these two dudes talking like bonehead dudes you’ve created a good feel to the story, albeit sans shark by the end of page five.
     Pg.6:
EXT. JAWS BREAK. DAY
Zach gasps for air as he come up. He has just enough time to
fill his lungs with air before another massive wave bares
down on him. He barely makes the dive under.
“bares” should be “bears”, #6: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bear?s=t
This FYI service has been brought to by grammar Nazi: “Hi!”
By page seven I can tell I can’t use this, despite being a fine drama story.
You blew the four character limit with Susan or Steven - except that I had already cut the waitress from the story.
Another good thing is that I could continually use the same sounds within the story = ↓$$, and really not  a whole lotta additional visual elements.
Final word - Pass. This is fine drama and all, but not really a crowd pleaser, more of a drama-documentary. While economical to make, not marketable. Needs a lot more horror or action, er... ACTION! But you’ve written nice work here, I just can’t use it. No harm, no foul.

10/15           Lo/Hi Estimated Build Hours per Screen Minute
x 10.6          Screenplay Pages
= 106/159     Total Build Hours Time Cost

I feel you could eliminate the opening scene in the restaurant and go straight to the surfing site. It would make for a quicker read + get to the action quicker as well. Not a bad story but a rewrite could help condense the action lines down and flow better with the dialogue. Definitely has potential and the research shows which are good signs you know what you're doing. Keep at it and best of luck.

Congrats on completing the OWC.

Thanks to everybody who took the time to read. All positive feedback as far as I'm concerned which is why I wrote it. I am a new screenwriter and I wrote this to get feedback on my writing style to use for my full length screenplay. This was very useful and I've made some adjustments already based on the comments here. Again thanks.

That said, I wrote this in a day. The first day of the contest actually and I was ready to submit the next day. I do surf and a shark attack while surfing is always a terrifying thought. I hate seeing seals out in the lineup because I know what eats them I also knew of the Jaws break from surfing mags and videos so it seemed a perfect fit here considering the theme. But, my main focus is my screenplay right now, so I wanted this to be my writing at a glance, with all my errors and mistakes up front for all to see, and hopefully point out.

I do like the opening scene in the restaurant though many didn’t. I thought it was a nice opening image of Zach eating fish and the shark head above him. I should have incorporated stakes into the scene so it means more but I wanted to show more of Hawaii besides beach. Maybe a restaurant isn't the best location to start but I'm gonna keep it. Also if I just threw the guys on the beach to start it would feel too sudden I think. Who are they? Where are they? Why is this place special? I know I went over the character limit but I did try to stay low budget. For example you never see the shark as some mentioned and there are really only two main locations, the restaurant and Jaws itself. A lot of people mentioned the waitress should come back at the end and I agree. I tried to make the attack tension filled and suspenseful and I think I did an ok job of that. It had a kind of "Open Water" feel to it I thought with a lot of things going unseen. I tried to make it feel like you were on the water with the guys and a lot of people responded to that so I’m glad I pulled that off. I’ve never been big wave surfing, and never will, but I know a bit about it. The end may feel cheap and sudden and I agree. I could have done more to wrap things up. If the waitress comes back that opens up a lot of options.

I might tweak this and resubmit to the short section so keep an eye out for it to return. Thanks again. This a fun exercise and I enjoyed it.

I liked the story in its simplicity. The title confused me a bit, since I thought it would be Jaws fan-fiction, but it turned out to be a reference to Pe'ahi's nickname. And of course, a shark is involved.

I for one didn't catch most of the formatting issues, since I was paying more attention to the story, so it's the story I'll talk about. I like the simplicity. Surfer goes out to surf, gets attackd by a shark. The scenes in the beginning did drag on a little, though. As mentioned before, we don't need four pages of Zach and Justin surfing. Just a quick montage should get the point across. After all, this is a story about a shark attack, so it would do to get to the shark attack as quickly as possible. That being said, the opening scene at the crab resturant also seemed kind of pointless, since it doesn't really set up anything about the characters.

The ending I had a big issue with. It wasn't really an ending, since the main conflict of the script isn't resolved. I consider a conflict to be resolved when the protagonist either fulfills his goal (don't get eaten by a shark), or it becomes clear that he won't be able to fulfill his goal (the shark eats him). The way it is, the story is pretty much incomplete. Zach doesn't get rescued, but his conflict is still unresolved. He is still able to continue his fight for survival. It's only an ending when something concrete happens. Basically, a conflict is resolved when there is no more conflict, regardless of whether it ends in Zach's favor or not.

And lastly, the most interesting protagonists are active protagonists, meaning that they actively influence the events of the story through their efforts to achieve their goal (note that the protagonist doesn't have to influence events in the way that they expect to, so long as their actions have some sort of direct impact). To this end, the ending should be something that Zach brings about via intentional action. Zach simply lying on a rock isn't really him being an active protagonist. If he were to wave out and yell at Steven to come rescue him, that would count as an active protagonist. And as I mentioned before, this (or some future action) should lead to a conflict resolution.

Anyways, that's what I've got from reading this script.