SimplyScripts Discussion Board
Blog Home - Produced Movie Script Library - TV Scripts - Unproduced Scripts - Contact - Site Map
ScriptSearch
Welcome, Guest.
It is March 29th, 2024, 2:13am
Please login or register.
Was Portal Recent Posts Home Help Calendar Search Register Login
Please do read the guidelines that govern behavior on the discussion board. It will make for a much more pleasant experience for everyone. A word about SimplyScripts and Censorship


Produced Script Database (Updated!)
One Week Challenge - Who Wrote What and Writers' Choice.


Scripts studios are posting for award consideration

Short Script of the Day | Featured Script of the Month | Featured Short Scripts Available for Production
Submit Your Script

How do I get my film's link and banner here?
All screenplays on the simplyscripts.com and simplyscripts.net domain are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. This screenplaymay not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
Forum Login
Username: Create a new Account
Password:     Forgot Password

SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Unproduced Screenplay Discussion    Sci Fi and Fantasy Scripts  ›  Monkey Boxing Moderators: bert
Users Browsing Forum
No Members and 3 Guests

 Pages: 1
Recommend Print
  Author    Monkey Boxing  (currently 1469 views)
Don
Posted: February 6th, 2005, 10:49pm Report to Moderator
Administrator
Administrator


So, what are you writing?

Location
Virginia
Posts
16381
Posts Per Day
1.94
Monkey Boxing by Robert Walker - Sci Fi - Bike Week in Daytona will never be the same after a team of ghost hunters discovers that many of the bikers belong to a secret society of paranormals that date back to the days of man’s origin. The team get more than they bargain for as their investigations backfire on them. - rtf, format


Visit SimplyScripts.com for what is new on the site.

-------------
You will miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
- Wayne Gretzky

Revision History (1 edits)
Don  -  March 4th, 2005, 9:26pm
Logged Offline
Site Private Message
Robcwalker
Posted: February 7th, 2005, 9:03am Report to Moderator
New


Posts
6
Posts Per Day
0.00
THis is my first script, so please let me have it , so I can learn and or make corrections. Also I could use help on my Query letter.

It all starts over chicken wings and beer, when Bart Green and his ghost hunting crew stop at a Bar and Grille. Through pure accident the team picks up paranormal activity amongst a group of Bikers; serving as the catalyst for an investigation uncovering a secret society of paranormals dating back to man’s origins. Digging deeper leads them to Daytona’s Bike Week where two of their crew are captured by this ancient society of hunter gatherers.

Rick, a recruit starts off as the leading man, then becomes a diminishing character as he transforms into the darker world of the secret society.  A love triangle develops between Rick, Katrina and Dan. Katrina, the society’s sexy recruiter for high level prospects, crosses over from the antagonist side to the protagonist as she falls for Dan, another recruitment prospect. In the end, guy gets girl, all individual needs are satisfied and even gaps in the theory of evolution receive a creative solution.

MONKEY BOXING is written with interwoven mini stories that tie up along the way and can be interpreted/directed as a  Thriller/Sci-Fi/Paranormal, a Pulp Fiction or a rock -n- roll celebration of motorcycles similar to Easy Rider, The Wild One…perhaps all in one.  There are seeds planted in the script that can be germinated into a sequel. Thank you in advance.



Logged Offline
Private Message Reply: 1 - 6
Robcwalker
Posted: February 7th, 2005, 10:04am Report to Moderator
New


Posts
6
Posts Per Day
0.00
Please excuse the formatting , I had it in somewhat of correct formatting however the transfer from Works to RTF  threw all out of wack
Logged Offline
Private Message Reply: 2 - 6
mikehill1215
Posted: February 8th, 2005, 12:05am Report to Moderator
New


Posts
29
Posts Per Day
0.00

Robert-

Interesting idea.  Good job on your log line, it's simple but intriguing.  Unfortunately the script is not as well written.  Among many issues, the most glaring as I see it is the dialogue.  I read in your post above that this is your first script.  


Quoted Text
                      ROB
Man, how’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since our days in the Talk Radio biz. We got some catching up to do. Let’s see I’ve settled down, recently married and just starting a new career as a Mortgage Broker , How bout you?.


OUCH-  that just might be the most 'on the nose' and forced piece of dialog I've read in a while. Could you possibly squeeze any more character information into those couple of sentences?

Most new screenwriters struggle with the idea of "movie dialogue".  That is,  good dialogue in a script has very little to do with the typical 'proper writing technique'.  Unlike other forms of writing, screenplays are meant to be visual and in terms of dialogue more representative of true conversations.  Think about how you talk with your friends.  Dialogue should be quick, witty, natural and clean.  Use as few words as possible to get the message out.  

It's also a bad idea to use dialogue to drive your plot or reveal all your plot points.  Be clever with your audience, respect our ability to make certain assumptions rather than tell us every detail. Instead of telling us ' i'm going to do this' or 'i did that' show us.

My advice is to keep the concept as written in the logline but blow up this draft.   Rewrite the entire thing after penning a solid treatment.  Give the characters depth and interesting things to say.  Good Luck.  

Logged Offline
Private Message Reply: 3 - 6
Robcwalker
Posted: February 8th, 2005, 3:03pm Report to Moderator
New


Posts
6
Posts Per Day
0.00
Thanks for the reply, and you are right on your comments
Logged Offline
Private Message Reply: 4 - 6
NW3
Posted: March 10th, 2005, 11:42am Report to Moderator
New


Posts
121
Posts Per Day
0.02
Robert,

The title drew me to this, and I agree it's an interesting idea, but the script is disappointing. You set big ambitions - "a rock 'n' roll celebration of motorcycles" sounds great, but this isn't that. I don't want to 'let you have it' as you ask, but there is a lot to be improved if you can take free advice. Nothing personal and nothing here should discourage you, but if you're thinking of sending MONKEY BOXING out with a query letter, time would be better spent on a thorough rewrite. What you have is a first draft. You've read The Screenwriter's Bible (how did I know?) so use what you've learned to improve it.

Screenwriting form shouldn't get in the way. It's up to you if you want things like (beat), INSERT, and BACK TO SCENE but leave out mention of POV and CREDITS because that's not your concern as the writer. Just tell a story.

I'll excuse the RTF transfer as you ask, but there are other things any writer ought to take care of. It's not a good sign for a script to have a spelling mistake in the very first scene heading for example.

There's another problem with that.


 EXT. AREIAL VIEW OF SMALL TOWN, YULEE FL, SPIRAL DOWN - DAY


This doesn't easily transmit what the filmmaker would need to know. Sufficient is:


 EXT. FLORIDA, SMALL TOWN - DAY

 From above, it looks like...


...leftovers on a dinner plate. Start big and home in. Pick up on a motorbike as a dot threading between cars on I-95. Sunlight glints off the chrome of a hundred bikes at Murray's Grill up ahead. There is the WHINE of the jalopy engine as it pulls in among them, a RORT and it settles. A dusty boot kicks down a stand and ROB eases off the saddle. In this way, you achieve the aerial shot and the spiralling down in the mind of the reader, without the intrusive camera directions. A film producer will be smart enough to see this as an opening sequence without being told where the credits should go.

Rob heads in to the restaurant where he meets old friend Bart, who backs him right out the door again with unnecessary commentary on the food he's holding. It's the opening scene and you have what is presumably your main character literally led backwards. This is not a good thing. Rob should know what he wants and waste no time getting it - march him up to the bar where he orders a beer and sucks it down to turn and meet Bart and your story can begin.

Note the comments above ('OUCH' is about right). Cut the exposition and take it as a given that your characters know each other’s circumstance. Look for a way to reveal information to the audience only if they need to know too. A pedestrian way would be to bring in another character: 'Hey Karen, come meet my old pal Rob, we used to work at the Talk Radio station together.' A better way might be to have them make small talk about something else, catching up and revealing personality in giving just a few intriguing remarks about their past. Out at the van, the radio jingle comes on and they share a joke about the old days together on air. The audience will catch on pretty well that they share history without the 'Is the wild bachelor man now the family man?' stuff. As it is, that has little to do with your story.

You can adapt some lines you already have to serve the plot:


                       ROB
         Man, we used to talk about some
         crazy stuff didn’t we?

                       BART
         And now I’m doing that crazy stuff.

                       ROB
         What do you mean?

                       BART
         Come on, I'll show you.


This will bring the audience in as Rob gets the story. The way it is, you have Bart tell Rob what he does for a living and as incredible as this is - the set up for the whole movie - he may just as well be saying he runs a pet shop. Have Rob get a hint of something mysterious, so there is a sense of anticipation. Aware of the unconventional nature of the job but trusting the sound advice of his old pal, Bart needs help from Rob. He prepares the ground and leads his buddy out to the van where he reveals the contents. This lets Rob make the slightly disbelieving remark, 'You're a ghost hunter?' instead of Bart casually saying that's what he does. You'd better believe it and it's serious business.

Bart offers the unusual information that he hunts ghosts with his wife, but he has just made weary remarks about marriage so we aren't expecting much of a partnership. You let Karen down because hers could be a strong part.

None of the characters are well drawn. JOE, MARK, RICK are among many early introductions tossed in without a word of description. Who are these people and what do they have to do with the story? You know already, but you have to let the audience in too, and don’t think leaving it open to imagination is a good thing. The effect is that none of them seem to matter and the story is entirely uninvolving. As a start, Bart should introduce Rob to his team as we learn something about the work they do, before the bikers move in abruptly to break things up. We get the idea something strange is going on.

Have something at stake. What are they up to and why does it matter?


                   BART
         Mark from our team has a brother
         who’s a physics major. He says he’s
         is working on something that’ll
         make our ghost hunting look like
         child’s play.


Now we can't wait to meet this more interesting guy, but it takes a while for Dan to show up. There's no point setting up a future event if what is happening right now is not very interesting. Why should Mark even need a brother? Have him all ready with the new discovery and move things along.

If characters are not even so much as sketched in, events too seem to unfold without meaning or logic. What is the Poker Run? What is 'amazing' about Joe's custom chopper? Describe it or don't mention it. Emblem of the primate? Static? Lighters? What's going on? So far it isn't intriguing enough to want to stick around to find out.

The paranormal aspects seem underdeveloped. Come up with something strong and original. It seems you have an idea of what the story could be, expressed by a lot of people explaining evolution and genetics to other people. Take the time needed to lay this out for the reader, not only to explain it, but give the sense that events have a purpose. The story should be leading somewhere. They all head off to Bike Week without any clue as to who they are after or why. The ghost hunters just seemed to latch on to the fact that they have a gang of paranormals running around on motorbikes and there is not the least sense of how or why, just baffling references to something called Lucy. If there are six million 'ghosts' then it will seem unremarkable. A select band is far more powerful and threatening.
Logged Offline
Private Message Reply: 5 - 6
NW3
Posted: March 10th, 2005, 11:43am Report to Moderator
New


Posts
121
Posts Per Day
0.02
[Pt ii]

The story (such as it is) is confused. Forget trying to interweave mini stories, that isn't working. Focus events around a main character. Build the story world. 'Bike Week in Daytona' sounds interesting but there isn't any sense of what it is about. Make that opening scene Rob arriving in the thick of it: one bike joins others and these few become a hundred and then the chaos and excitement of thousands of riders converging on Daytona. Against this backdrop the story can live. You seem to have the action all ready to move to someplace called Fernandina, but the next scene 'a few weeks later' has Bart saying the trip was a waste of time. So why mention it? Get control of events and take the reader on a wild ride.

Who is your main character? Since you open on Rob, stay with him. As it stands, Rick arrives soon after the beginning and gets nicely caught up in the interesting biker world while Rob is still peering at a laptop, so as a big step I'd suggest making these into one character and changing the story to suit. Rob meets up with Bart, is introduced to Karen and gets no more than a hint that something very strange is going on. When Bart disappears, a desperate Karen contacts Rob, reveals the ghost hunting background and together they go into the paranormal underworld. That way we know what is at stake and what has to be done by which characters to put things right.

You know what a protagonist is, so make it Rob and give him something to do. He can get on the trail of the biker gang by infiltrating it as he tries to find out what they have done with Bart. Taking over the scenes you have with Rick, Rob can be initiated by the gang, falling for Katrina as he goes. She is Joe's girl and he proves a powerful enemy. As things take a sinister turn we can guess that this is the same path trodden by Bart. Tension and danger. As it is, Rob seems incidental to the story. I note the comments above about PULP FICTION but this isn't anything like tight enough for that kind of comparison. Yes, there are substories going on and the narrative jumps around, but this serves no purpose and makes events seem only random.

Having the INJURED MAN promise to reveal 'the most amazing set of facts' is a good thing, but this unexplained character is the wrong one to be doing it. This should be a turning point in the story, delivered by a major character (Rick redeeming himself after being initiated into the gang). Joe should be the mastermind, teaching Rick how to pick up the girls in the bar for example. Charming and devilish.

Again, Rob can take the scenes from Mark where he visits Dan. Instead of a brother, this character can be a nerdy school friend. Rob has no idea about ghost hunting but has the equipment left behind by Bart. Dan is the only person he can think of that might make sense of it, but what he learns only thickens the plot. Katrina has been sent by Joe to keep tabs on the investigation and if necessary eliminate the threat. Intrigue and more danger. Her real feelings for Rob are what starts her turn to the good side.

That's an interesting image where Katrina sees waves transmitted from her cell phone.

I'm guessing you will resist attempts to turn this into a conventional narrative, but I can honestly say that the skills needed to do anything different aren't in evidence here. The story is incoherent to put it kindly.

When Rick gets the lengthy 'Originals' explanation from Joe at Bike Week it is neither incredible nor mind boggling, just tedious. Salvage the core of it and construct a sequence where Rob/Rick uncovers the truth himself. The way you have it, a reader would wonder what makes Rick so special, highborn nobility or not. It might work if this were Rob getting the lowdown from Katrina after falling irretrievably for her. A sort of 'You have no idea what you have become part of/Try me' routine. The normal way of these things is to have one character as the unsuspecting catalyst, the Promised One born to their destiny and caught in a desperate race against time etc. It wouldn't make any less sense than what you have now.

Apart from the clunky exposition ('Refresh my memory' indeed!) dialogue is generally poor. I have to say it's sometimes even ridiculous:


                   BART
              (slams wheel)
         I’ve turned my best friend into a
         Zombie.. Damn I knew they shouldn’t
         of gotten involved


No kidding. It's going to take more time than I have to help with that, so I suggest you get the story worked out properly as a start. Proof it at least. There are countless spellcheck errors which won't bother everyone but can obscure meaning. Where Dan remarks, 'I just fasten off the shelf components' I had to read and reread before I guessed 'fashion off-the-shelf components'. I guess 'checkout their layer' is more vivid than 'check out their lair' but it's anyway unintelligible. Not to sound harsh but that's my impression.

So what's good? The title, as I said before. Maybe better suited to a primate buddy comedy but certainly memorable and distinctive. The central idea has possibilities, and with a bit of research the world of motorbikes has excitement, danger and glamor ready with it. Cut down on the number of characters and jargon, inject a light touch of humor, and you'd be heading the right way.
Logged Offline
Private Message Reply: 6 - 6
 Pages: 1
Recommend Print

Locked Board Board Index    Sci Fi and Fantasy Scripts  [ previous | next ] Switch to:
Was Portal Recent Posts Home Help Calendar Search Register Login

Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post polls
You may not post attachments
HTML is on
Blah Code is on
Smilies are on


Powered by E-Blah Platinum 9.71B © 2001-2006