Jaws: Pe'ahi by Kamakawiwoʻole - Short, Shark - A surfer travels to Hawaii to ride the one of the most dangerous waves in the world.  - pdf, format

While researching my script, I didn't realise there had been so many shark attacks in Hawaii over the last 100 years.

I think this one is by a newbie, as it has some formatting issues. But the dialogue is not bad.

Nice visuals out in the waves and stuff. There's no story here more a vignette of a shark attack.

But it was ok. I give it a 6.5

Could have done with a proofread. If it's error free, or almost, reviews have to concentrate on the story. There's nowhere else to go.

I know nothing about surfing so most of this went over my head.

Another straight lift of the bigger boat line. I think you could have done better.

I'm losing interest by page six. Not much has happened, apart from some surfing and a slightly cut finger.

Quoted from Jaws: Pe'ahi EXT. UNDERWATER. DAY Surrounded by dark blue water, Zach swims under the water waiting for the turbulent wave above him to pass.

Are they in the water? Ah, yes. They must be. As you mention it three times in two sentences. I probably sound harsher than intended but -

EXT. UNDERWATER - DAY

Ten feet below the surface Zach watches the waves above before he makes his move.

- might be a bit better to read.

There's some nice writing, now and again.

I didn't quite work out what happened at the end. Maybe I zoned out but I read it twice and feel like I'm missing something. Or something's missing.

Wasn't there supposed to be just four characters? The waitress and the two at the end make it five. Or maybe I'm in the wrong mood and being over critical.

R

*Spoilers*

Despite the typos - and the occasionally dense descriptives - one can tell that a competant writer did this script.  Solid sentence construction, some nice beats (like the shark mounted behind the waitress and the false alarm when Justin disappears the first time) and a decent premise.  Kudos on all of those points. (And the 'bigger boat' Easter egg.)  

Some nitpicks...  The story does get to a slow start.  Then, once the shark attack does happen and Zach finds the bloody jetski, he doesn't even *try* to find Justin again?  This is his bro, dude!  He doesn't even scream out one last time to see if he's still alive?  

The rest of it is pretty straightforward 'shark survival' territory.  Loved the couple's banter near the ending, though the last minute attack on Steven left alot of story threads hanging...

Oh - and this one's relatively high on the budget scale.  But I don't think budget will be a consideration with many of these OWCS!  

Man, your descriptions are stellar! I think, at one point, I actually smelled Sea Salt... and blood!

OK, I don't surf, never have, and probably never will. So as one who cannot give you definitive feedback on the whole culture; I believe it all came from someone who knows what it means to be out on the big waves.

The chunks of action need to be broken up a bit, they're a little too clunky to get through, and I found myself re-reading them to get an idea what was happening, but I'm going to chalk that up to the 12pg limit and you trying to cram it all in.

Excellent submission!

A bot too wordy in description, not sure I can "see" the waitress' digits on the napkin, but overall, this isn't bad at all. It's actually good...to a point. I look at iy this way. The writer may be into the surf culture. It shows some of that or feels like it. Cool. Play-by-play of how they surf and jetski? Gets a bit repetitive and thin after awhile. As a result, the script takes it's dandy time and requires an audience to be patient.

Quoted from me, myself & I" Four characters maximum, either gender. This does not necessarily include a dead character previously killed by the shark offscreen

Why not the WAITRESS be SUSAN? Saves you the trouble. Or have SUSAN and STEVEN meet ZAX and JUSTIN at the Crab Cooker. Give WAITRESS zero lines/stocjk character and that'll work too.

A decent entry in any case. Watch out for the Slug Police. You might get busted.

DjS

Your sentences drag on for too long and I can't really take in all the description you stuff into them. Split them up and avoid having too many big blocks of text.

Wait, we were allowed to use crowds? Doesn't that count as like a dozen characters? Not including the Waitress who plays a part in the character count.

Ended on an underwhelming note, it didn't really have the effect since you introduce this characters after the script's climax, where really, it should've ended. Another one where I didn't see anything special, just the same old shark story. I liked the location and the surfing angle was nice but, like I assume with 90% of the entries, there's not much here since it's been done before.

I have to admit, I googled Pe’ahi to see what it meant and then I was like whoa dude, very cool, because I thought you were referring to ‘Jaws the shark’ at first! So, hats off for the good title.

I feel like this one didn’t get going fast enough for me. In fact, I may drop that whole first scene in the crab restaurant altogether if I were this writer. It really doesn’t serve much purpose, especially when in the ‘Beat Up Truck’ one scene later they tell us the same thing that the waitress told us. Too much back story. Make sure every scene in your script counts. With scenes, I’ve read ‘get in late, get out early’.

The dialogue did sound ‘surfer’ so that was good, but when two people talk to each other, they don’t use names usually like this. Think about it...when you talk to your best friend, how many times during a conversation do you actually say his/her name?

Ok, by page 6, no shark and I’m getting a bit tired of the two guys talking back and forth about how scary or how epic this place is. We don’t have any conflict. There is a bit of tension, but not close to enough in my opinion.

And then it’s just too convenient: the blood on the jet ski, then it won’t start, and then the cell phone cuts off, then it mysteriously will start.

I’m not sure the scene with Susan and Steven does much for the story.

Some good visuals in this. My guess is that the writer has done some surfing. Decent for a week’s work, but this one needs a bit more of a story for me.

I really liked this until about page 6. After that the action got very confusing. I liked it but it definitely needs a rewrite for clarity. The thick action blocks took away from the tension a bit. Writing needs to be leaner for sure.

As far as meeting the parameters of the challenge...you had 5 characters. :/

This was a good effort though. Congrats on completing a script for this difficult OWC.

Pg. 1: "The website of a surf forecast website on his screen." HUH?

Pg. 3: So far I'm loving your descriptions. Although the action blocks could be split up and trimmed in some areas, they are so visual and create a realistic atmosphere.

Pg. 4: "Zach and Justin take turns towing and riding colossal wave after colossal wave." -- Problem here is this is probably about 2 hours. Probably best shown in a montage.

Pg. 6: "Zach swims under the water" - this is repetitive. You tell us he's under water in the slug.

My first of the batch...and I'm more than a bit schlammied...sorry, writer...

OK, your opening Slug isn't formatted correctly, but maybe this is some new thang with a period instead of a dash?  Just not the way to start, my friend.

Andyou begin with a 3 line passage, endiing in an orphan?  Really?  Again, just not the way to start your script.

Next passage is awful, filled with a crazy amount of errors.  5 lines, 3 sentences.  Last 1 shouldn't be included in this passage.

Already way over the # of characters alotted.

OK, sorry, but the writing is not great and I won't bring anything else up.  I'm going to read through and  make a few comments at the end.

Sorry, but why are they yelling at each other on the bottom of page 2?  Trust me, exclamation points in dialogue can be so WAY OVER USED.

You need to look into how to use commas...the abuse going on is making me want to go eat more ribs.

Can't help but say, the writing needs lots of work, and the dialogue is approaching pisser realm.  But...in terms of lots of stuff we'll come across this OWC, it's not half bad, bro.  Look back at it closely and you'll see where it just doen't work, as intended.

No reason, IMO, to ever go over 4 lines in a passage.  Your pasages are far from correctly broken up and you're way overwriting.

Ok...skimmed to the end.  Redonkulous, cliche, poorly written, and kind of what I expected from the lot.

I know this sounds very mean and harsh, but, in reality, if you take what I've said to heart, I hope you'll see and I hope it will help you going forward.

Good job entering this OWC

First one I've read so my enthusiasm is high right now.

A handful of errors that should have been caught and sort of leads me to think this might have been a last minute submission. If it was turned in mid-week, it probably would have been better to have given it a few days.

There wasn't much to work with in terms of story here, but I'll agree with everybody else - good show of skill painting a word-picture in this.

Some thoughts as I went - you've got a character eating at the start and I found that ironic. And aren't you supposed to wait 30 minutes?

Anytime someone says: "one more time" regarding anything remotely dangerous (or if it's an eating challenge) it's always going to end badly. Would be fun to see this shot just for the scenery and surfing alone.

The final visual was good, but needs to be tweaked.

There was a lot going on, much to digest here. And I'm not talking about the extended passages, even though you should watch that. And the commas like Jeff pointed out.

As straightforward as this story is, it can be easily rendered for an easier read. I recommend shedding a lot of the adverbs. Even "quickly clamors", (which I think you meant "clambers") can be just "clambers" because its connotation doesn't promote "quickly". And even if it did, it creates more for a reader to compare. When a reader has to weigh two words intertwined, it can slow down the read, because it affects the predicate.

You are a good writer, but I suggest you sharpen your tools and go over this. It has some nice visuals and tension.

Good effort,

Johnny

I like the story and you definitely have skills.

As previous comments stated, more practice is needed to better understand what to include and what isn't really needed.

Although I enjoyed the script, I do think your ending was, well, poor. What was the point of the story? Did anyone learn anything? Was there a character arc?

I think you have real promise as a writer... just keep practicing/writing/reading.

As I read on, I thought your writing in the descriptions was actually pretty clear. I’d break up some of the longer paragraph blocks, though. It makes things feel dense and can really kill you when you’re trying to build suspense. But-

Opening lines like, “The website of a surf forecast website on his screen”, suggests this is either a newbie, or a last minute entrant.

Pg. 2 Two spoken lines and I can already picture Justin being eaten by a shark, yelling, “Save me, bro!”. Please don’t let me down.

Pg. 7 I don’t think people normally react to their cell phone dying by chucking it in the ocean.

Pg. 9 Just once, I’d like someone pale and unattractive to strip pointlessly for the camera.

Well, this story just kind of ended, and there isn’t much story to speak of. It felt like it could be a random scene from almost any shark attack movie out there. To be fair, you’ll probably be in good company with that.

What would I add going forward? Finish Zach off. And have Justin scream, “Save me, bro!”

Congrats on entering the OWC.

One thing really bugging me is your serious lack of commas. I can get over small errors, I really can. But the severe lack of commas really disrupts the read for me. The reason for that is that I find myself mentally putting them in for you, which actually makes me lose track, so I then have to reread to get into some sort of flow.

Introducing two more characters so late is a bad move I feel. I feel that the surfing went on too long. On a positive note, there are some moments of tension.

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.