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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    October 2013 One Week Challenge  ›  The Rift - OWC
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  Author    The Rift - OWC  (currently 4600 views)
rendevous
Posted: October 27th, 2013, 1:03am Report to Moderator
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Surprising amount of tension in this, despite the well known plot. It was a pity it ended so quickly.
Whilst I smirked at the "you know where this is going" line I don't think many others will.
It needed to be a bit more modern and with a few new ideas to fulfill it's potential.
Enjoyable, nonetheless.


Out Of Character - updated


New Used Car

Green

Right Back

The Deuce - OWC - now on STS

Other scripts here
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RJ
Posted: October 27th, 2013, 9:16pm Report to Moderator
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This was quite a fun little read. Yeah it was predictable, but fun none the less. This was also clean and easy to read. I think the kids were enjoyable because so many of the other entries have been more adult based. Although I do think that if the scene with Andromeda eating the bird wasn't in there then it would lessen the horror factor quite considerably.

All in all - good job.

Renee
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mmmarnie
Posted: October 27th, 2013, 10:21pm Report to Moderator
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Your character descriptions are impossible to film. That kind of description is great for a novel but for a screenplay, you need to show us these things.

Writer intrusion...it slows your story down. It ruins the flow, especially when you ask a question.
--This monster better not mess with her!
--Did something move in there?
--The driver...well, you know where this is going.

ANDROMEDA - Come in, come in, it’s colder than a...well, it’s quite cold. - LOLOL Great line!

Hooded Parker? Yikes. It's Parka, not Parker. :/

Was really liking it until the end. I might not have minded the SUPER convenient, predictable ending so much if you didn't interrupt the story and say, "you know where this is going".





boop
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SAC
Posted: October 28th, 2013, 5:33am Report to Moderator
Of The Ancients


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Writer,

This wasnt really for me. Your visuals were fine, and you seemed to set a good pace. But the story felt very contrived, like everything was a little too thought out at times with certain elements only existing to benefit the story. I didn't buy Sam grabbing the keys off the hook on a hunch at all. You just knew she was gonna use them!  Things like that. The ending was predictable, as much as I was hoping you'd pull a rabbit from your hat and twist this in another way. And way too many asides. They just sound too cutesy for my taste.

Good job on entering!

Steve


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RadioShea89
Posted: October 28th, 2013, 7:32pm Report to Moderator
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Didn't care for the beginning too much, but I felt this one got better. I did feel for these kids, and I haven't found too many characters in this OWC that I really felt for.

Some good dialog technique with questions not being answered directly. I can't stand Q & A sessions. Liked "Sadly, they don’t make Pop Tarts in the flavor I’d prefer." Funny.

Couple of good set-ups and payoffs. Nicely done for a OWC.


“Every piece of writing... starts from what I call a grit... a sight or sound, a sentence or happening that does not pass away... but quite inexplicably lodges in the mind.” ~ Rumer Godden
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wonkavite
Posted: October 29th, 2013, 1:00pm Report to Moderator
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You know, I think this is one of my top three (or top five at least) favorites.  Simply written, engaging.  With lots of really good dialogue.  How the heck can't you like a witch story that has this line?  "Come in, come in, it’s colder than a...well, it’s quite cold."

A modern Hansel and Gretel.  Nifty!!  
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RayW
Posted: October 29th, 2013, 4:31pm Report to Moderator
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Weighted Matrix: https://docs.google.com/spread.....TTUE&usp=sharing

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

33. The Rift by Twenty-Five - Horror - Hooky playing siblings seek help when they lose a friend in a monster inhabited woods, and end up ensnared in a witch's trap.
Brief - Kids playing in the snow find a modern Hansel & Gretel-esque witch

Location(s)  - Snowy mountain, cabin exterior & interior
Cast -
Protagonist(s)  -  
SAM, teens??, serious kid
BRAD, 12, ski bum surfer kid
WILLIE, ??, Sam's kid brother
Antagonist(s)  -
ANDROMEDA, 70?, wrinkled old woman
Genre & Marketability - Supernatural ??. Classic Judeo-Christian witch doesn't meet requirements.
Comments  -  H!F!S! WTH izzup with that title page?! You know, this is gonna be a PITA to shoot in the snow, or just waiting to shoot it in the snow. Quail = $$$$. I start glazing over details about midway pg4... Make your character intros the proper way: Name in all caps, approx age, brief description of three or four words. Not seeing any witch stuff by pg7. Alright found classic Judeo-Christian witch on pg7 = fail. Don't care for the story, anyway. Ciao.
Script format - fair.
Final word - Criteria fail

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

Adherence to Given Criteria:
Modern Witches and/or Warlocks - Nope. Classic Judeo-Christian demonized witch
Horror - Not before I quit




Revision History (2 edits; 1 reasons shown)
RayW  -  October 29th, 2013, 5:12pm
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Dreamscale
Posted: November 1st, 2013, 11:50am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from KevinLenihan
Excellent craftsmanship.

The writing is effective all the way through.


OK, Kev here you go...right back at ya, bro.

And you bring up "jarring hypocrisy"?  Really...

The problem is that when you read your opening page, it is crystal clear that your above comments on your own work are far from reality.  As stated in my feedback, it is impossible to have a clue where these kids are and what they're doing.

That does not show "excellent craftmanship" and the writing is not effective, sorry to say.

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PrussianMosby
Posted: November 1st, 2013, 1:13pm Report to Moderator
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Hi!
I agree to that "not have a clue where these kids are and what they're doing". I also felt a little bit thrown inside.

But I would disagree, if somebody would say these kids are bad characters. For me the opposite is fact.

I made something like a general chart for best shots, most Horror etc.

The rift was under my top 3 in characters:

The kids are definitely not perfect developed. But, I experienced an extreme emotional connection to them. Here a few of the lines to follow my opinion about how: She walks over to the bottom of the hill, maybe a couple dozen yards from the wood’s edge. Draws a line in the snow with her heel. She faces the woods. Arms folded across her chest. This monster better not mess with her!

Last sentence is not direct, but necessary and justified by the consequences. Because from that point I love the kid, the most important thing is that they all survive for me. Best connection maybe from every script for me.

The problems I see here were other points, you can notice in my comment.

But nobody mentions how difficult it is to reboot one of the Grimm's most famous tales. By the way: There's a possibility to reboot some of them together in shorts. They have the power and also there must be a society interest. You definitely got an audience for that.

The rights of the tales must be free for everyone. Actually you have to push this forward IMO



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KevinLenihan
Posted: November 1st, 2013, 1:49pm Report to Moderator
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This will be my last response to Jeff on the issue. To the mods, my apologies, but his accusation was personal and baseless, and I could not properly defend until after the reveal.

(Prussian, thanks, I'll respond in a separate post)

Jeff needs to learn the meaning of hypocrisy. When you accuse someone of doing something that you ironically did yourself...you are in fact by definition a hypocrite. That conclusion is inescapable.

I did not bring the accusation, so there is no way it applies to me. I only exposed the hypocrisy.

To the charges: he accuses me of attacking the "good" scripts and supporting the "bad" ones in order to perhaps raise our own.

If you look at Caeserean Fiction, you'll see a purposely messed up title page and blatantly nonstandard slugs. Dena and I had discussed it beforehand, and we didn't care about votes. We were in it for fun, and regarding our work just wanted reaction to the story. We knew most regulars would never vote for a script constructed like this...but we didn't care about winning. Which disproves Jeff's theory.

Regarding the nature of my reviews, if you stack them all up, you'll see the effort was always focused on giving useful, constructive feedback to the writer. Some writers needed a confidence boost, and I tried to find the good in their work. Other writers were clearly very talented, but the stories suffered from flaws that prevented them from reaching their potential.

If the remarks failed to be useful, or occasionally came off harsher than intended, I apologize. There were a lot of scripts to read. I tried to be helpful.

As for my commenting on this script...I've never done that before(except toward the end of the contest). And I would not have done so here if Jeff actually read the story and then left negative remarks. All we wanted was reads...and we figured it would get few reads when the first remark essentially calls it unreadable. So I wanted people to see it's quite readable.

Other than Jeff, no one had trouble reading this. Many didn't care for the story...that's ok, that's fair, we appreciate those comments very much. Jeff had trouble reading it because it didn't fit his rigid understanding of rules. Could the writing be more polished? Of course. It's an OWC. But no one else was confused. Jeff was checking off his list, so happy to find scripts to dismiss. Nice work if you can get it.

Meanwhile, we go to Samhain, where most of the early remarks just happened to be from Jeff's friends...and where one was from him, calling it "easily one of the better entries". Hypocrisy really doesn't come in any clearer flavor.

Dena and I did not tell a single person which scripts were ours until later in the contest, and then only a couple of people. And those people didn't vote for ours. Again, all we wanted was to have fun with it, and for the writers to all help each other learn something to improve their craft. The OWC was a success from that perspective.
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KevinLenihan
Posted: November 1st, 2013, 2:19pm Report to Moderator
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Prussian, thank you. You raise good points, as have others, let try to explain our thinking.

We wanted to jump right into the story. The kids are playing hooky, and they have gone to an area to sled known as the Rift...an area with strict rules because there is a legend of a monster in the woods.

We described Sam as having a crush on the older boy figuring that the actor can show this to a degree. She doesn't want to be there, she is not the kind of girl to play hooky. She is there because she is enthralled with Brad.

But she is worried about the monster. We tried to write it so people would visualize them focusing on the dark, mysterious woods.

The idea came about this way: I asked Dena what scared her the most. She said alligators. You see, when she was a little girl, they used to swim in a lagoon where there were gators, and someone was always assigned gator watch...usually her.

So we tried to recreate that fear in another setting with a different monster.

From there, we wanted a standard fairy tale in a modern setting.

Prussian, you explain that scene perfectly! When we said "the monster better not mess with her!"...the rules people will scream "aside!!".  But we think this kind of thing captures the scene for the reader. This girl is scared, but determined. No monsters on her watch. And an actor can convey that. We want to root for a character like this. She's not just a kill buzz kind of kid...she's a fighter when needed.

With the rest of the story we ran into some problems that we couldn't solve in time. That's why we want feedback, not grades. How the kids are captured by the witch and how they escape needs a lot of work, and frankly some different ideas. That key thing just didn't work.

As for the ending, well, we knew every writer would see it coming. So I don't know, that's probably a problem too. Though it might fit if someone was looking for a standard type ending.

Thanks to all the other readers! Pia, thanks for the lesbian sisterhood witch idea, which could be cool. We wanted this to have a standard fairy tale feel, but if someone wants us to write in lesbians, I'm game!

Final words on asides and descriptions: these things are used, selectively, but to great affect by ALL pro writers...some more than others...but all. Don't take my word. Get your hands on the top black list scripts of the last few years. And don't do it because they do it...do it because it's the most effective way to convey the story you want.
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Dreamscale
Posted: November 1st, 2013, 4:47pm Report to Moderator
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This will hopefully be my last response to Kevin on this issue as well, but I do need to respond to this.

First of all, you know damn well that I do not like revealing my script to anyone, and you can go on pesonal experience on that.  I did relunctantly reveal my script to a total of 3 peeps over the entire course of the OWC, so don't say my friends reviewed my script early and gave it glowing priase, because that's horseshit.

You, on the other hand, gave yourself glowing, untrue praise in the 2nd post, and for some reason, you still can't explain where my feedback to you was incorrect.

Well, it's clear the reason you can't respond to it, is because you know it's spot on and don't want to admit to your mistakes the entirety of Page 1.  No one could possibly know what "the rift" was or what these kids were doing, until a sled magically appeared in one of their hands.

I understand if this was a rushed effort and the fact that you didn't remotely set your scene escaped yuo, but why can't you just do it now?  What's the big deal, man?  Seriously...

Feel free to continue with your ridiculous unfilmable and meaningless character intros - they obviously fool some peeps into thinking your characters have character, but don't be upset or surprised when others roll their eyes or call BS on them.

I merely was trying to help and didn't know who wrote this, so don't take it as a personal attack.
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Pale Yellow
Posted: November 1st, 2013, 9:03pm Report to Moderator
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You guys....I appreciate all the reads and feedback on this little story. It was supposed to have an old fairy tale-ish feel to it, and I'm happy overall with it.

I know the Monster was a bit confusing to some of you. How that started out was a question and answer session. Kev asked me some questions...what scared you the most growing up etc. Well, I was the gator watcher most times on our dock...so when people would swim...I'd sit up on the dock and alert my Dad if I saw an alligator nearby watching. I still have night dreams about gators. And that's sort of where that monster in the woods thing came from.

We wanted it to sort of have a moral(hidden though it was) that bad things happen when you skip school and follow the 'bad' boy. I know we didn't do as well as we'd planned on letting this theme shine through, but heck...we wrote it with only a day or two until the deadline. We are just amateurs. All of us... not pro writers. Some ailments are to be expected I suppose.

Anyway, I don't know why there is such a bitter debate over this story ...it is only a little fairy tale ...sort of based on an old German witch story. I'm very happy with it, knowing it needs some work, but overall, I'm happy with it.

Thank you again to those of you who read it. I appreciate all of the feedback good and bad. It helps us grow as writers.
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RayW
Posted: November 2nd, 2013, 1:45pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Pale Yellow
Have to give him a YAY blast even if he thinks all my scripts are utter shit.

Such a drama major.  

Yeah, modern variant of Brothers Grimm 'Hansel & Gretel.'
I think this is fine Goosebumps material.
http://www.scholastic.com/goosebumps/

The monster thing kinda obliquely hangs off the front quarter-panel.
In addition to making the Sam & Brad relationship pre-teen steamier the association between the magically-appearing-in-the-forest witch and the "monster" needs more reinforcement.

Nice Twilight Zone-esque ending.


Nah, I don't at all think this is utter sh!te.
For crying out loud! It was a week!
The re-tread bones are there.
Just a little bit of tinkering and someone with three kids (probably could do this with two kids and one adult) and an adult in a snowy climate (sure to be available soon west of the rust belt) can film this with the requisite cabin in the woods.

Locations: snowy mountain/forest, cabin in the woods.
Cast: have adult actor pull double duty for "monster" & witch, and 2 or 3 kids.
Costumes: winter wear for kids, witch costume for Ann + few yards of furry fabric to wrap as a shawl (that sh!t's expensive. Like $30 a linear yard. Pfft!)
Props: go crazy. It's your cabin & budget.
$ 500 4 or 5 actors x $100 ea. per day x 1 day
$ 100 Witch & moster costumes
$ 100 Candy cabin decor
$ 100 Got cabin? Day rental
$ 100? Gas + craft table + misc.
$100? Festival submission fees
$1,000 Direct costs
+ $500 - 1,000 Indirect costs (camera + lenses, tripod/track, Steadicam, audio + gear,
          lights/cables/cards/batteries, computer, NLE, director/producer, sound guy, editor,
          audio editing, soundtrack/score, marketing/fundraising/festival rigmarole.)
$1,500 - 2,000 Total budget
/ 9.8 Screenplay pages
$153 - 204 per screen minute

Look about right to you to bring a contemporary retelling of H&G?



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DustinBowcot
Posted: November 2nd, 2013, 1:54pm Report to Moderator
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Hi Ray... why pay so much for the actors? There are a zillion actors out there all waiting for a chance to get on film, to be in something that is produced. Actors for shorts can cost as little as £5 ($10) per day.

On a casting call for one of my shorts there were over 80 applicants... all willing to work for free.
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