Thank you Prussianmoby. The name was too quickly decided. Maybe 'The Twelth Juror', or something.
I didnt think of this a short and that was my demise. It had a much more feature length longing and did not sit well as a short. If I redid it, I would start the short with Minny running in the woods and going right into the trial. Maybe a bizzare group of accusers to set up a disbelief that Minny was a witch. And maybe Christine ending up living through the havoc and Minny burning the church down.

Really? You think Minny and Christine are too similar of names?

And adding some spookiness to the house was too cliche for me and it would set the readers to know Minny was a witch beforehand. I should've toyed with Christine being one too. Next time...

Looks like it was written by a newbie to screenwriting. Lots of newbie mistakes. It also looks like some people have given you extensive comments so I will assume that a lot of the mistakes have been covered.

The story itself didn't exactly rock me. It takes too long, IMHO, for us to get to the trial which this story is supposed to be about. The first four pages are Christine and Matt driving and moving into a house. Once the trial starts, we never see or hear from Matt again. In other words, sort of wasted pages with him in the beginning. I thought he was going to be a main character. The trial was ho hum to me. Maybe Christine should've been the one on trial instead? Maybe since she's new in town, she's the one accused of witchcraft?

I see you already outed yourself as the writer.  Kinda spoils the fun, you know.

You can leave out 'Rolling Credits'

You don't have to put " around your dialogue in a screenplay.

Why in the world would there be a witch trial in modern times? Makes no sense at all to me. I'm sorry but this story was not for me.

I was confused by this one. The set-up doesn't gel with the rest. They whole doesn't feel connected.

Once the couple gets the mysterious letter why not show them reading it. Or arguing about it. I think the trial would work better if we knew our main character better. When she arrives at court I wondered if she stepped through time into the past. I was asking myself if she was related to the juror from the past? Was time repeating itself, trying to correct a mistake? Is she punished for a relative getting it all wrong? Yeah,  confused. Maybe explore some of these ideas. Or explain a bit more before the trial.

I guess my issue is you took the challenge too literally and basically had  a modern woman experience old witchcraft. It's like you showed us the old ways but didn't out a spin on it. Maybe I missed the mark on this one. But you had some intriguing ideas leading up to the trial.

You should limit your camera directions and you don’t need quotes around dialogue. Three weeks later needs to be Superimposed as well.

This would have to be a very odd jury duty process and I think that oddness could be played up compared to what happens here. I don’t think you need to build up from the house. Focus more on the trial and the absurdities inherent in it. Let that build up. In theory, the entire piece could take place in the courtroom.

Unfortunately this sort of missed for me. I liked the basic concept of a witchcraft charge being played straight in a modern court system, but it didn’t feel followed-through on.

Congrats on completing for the OWC, though.

Weighted Matrix: https://docs.google.com/spread.....TTUE&usp=sharing

Producer's Notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NNGaVlrrpkjIfp-BRGjpTE03W1e5lZuRceJ3wQECYaI/edit?usp=sharing

30. The Trial by Anonymous - Horror - A modern day presentation of another Salem Witch Trial.
Brief -

Location(s)  - Road, house exterior & interior, courthouse
Cast -
Protagonist(s)  -  
MATTHEW SATTER, 34, tall, skinny, and clean cut
CHRISTINE SATTER, 32, shorter, with long brown hair
Genre & Marketability -
Comments  -  Turn off your screenwriting program's mores and continued's feature.  Opening sequence "CLOSE UP: SIGN THAT SAYS "ENTERING SALEM"." As producer I'm deducting the cost of that sign from your pay as screenwriter. You don't need a dash between the character's introductory age and description. Boring first page. Cut the "CUT TO:s". Riveting second page. That courthouse scene just detonated the budget halfway through the screenplay, which isn't very interesting so far, BTW. Ciao.
Script format - Needs work
Final word - Too expensive. Too boring. Pass.

     Lo/Hi Estimated Budget Range
/      Screenplay Pages
= $      Estimated Cost Per Screen Minute

Adherence to Given Criteria:
Modern Witches and/or Warlocks -
Horror -

Hello Tollphone,

I hoped you felt not ignored, because I didn't answered you till yet. I had just too many scripts to read and also, in my view, the discussion has to start after the challenge. I didn't want to get bogged down in single treads, too.

Yes, your new title is much better, but title isn't as important until your work is ready IMO.

Yes, Minny and Christine sounds similar to me: They feel soft in the same way. Maybe it's because of the e,i,Y,n's. Imagine Minny and CHRISTINA. There must be a science about that; humanity has science for everything, right? I'm the wrong counterpart for that Enough small talk, now.

I'm a bit confused about that you seem to justify yourself about what you have done, too passive at all. It's not necessary. From my sight I saw you're not so far now and all that, but you definitely have a big potential in storytelling. You got especially a rhythm, you trust your audience, you even did something unpredictable with lines like: "Minny Hawkins. You have be accused of bewitching and other witchery. How do you plea?"
Coming so directly and unpredictable is a part of screenwriting to me, storytelling. And these fragments alone pushed you to a consider for me. And I gave more than pass to 17 here.

What you're gonna do with your talent, is the question?
By the way I was 100% clear that you had a connect in your thoughts inside your script to do it as feature.
And I mean every peace when you changed it to go inside the short. That might sound like I'm here the big teacher. Shit! No,No,No. It's just your strength in telling which shows a clarity, and in this clarity "every" divergence is obviously.

Coming back to the confident. If you want to do sth. sell, live for it, with such less confident, you need to have luck or be a genius. Think about what you want.

I don't want to explain you anything, see it just like kick saying: lazy or intensive. It's all or nothing, when it comes to the limited level. C U

You have a lot of work to do, but you're just learning, so I won't harp over what others have said - they've already given you some good pointers.

For me - the names Minny and Christine were no biggy - yes, they were both 'soft' names, but I presume you wanted those two characters to appear to be the 'softer' ones.  

I liked the whole witch trial in modern court scene. I thought that was a good idea.

Keep at it and you'll eventually get there with your writing.

Renee