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The Wanderer by Brendan Morrisey - Sci Fi - Max is a young man who was born with a psychic ability, but instead of reading people’s thoughts, he can envision their memories as if they are his own (sort of like retrocognition). He later comes across a group of people who share similar abilities to his own and he finds out that his ex-girlfriend Denise is some how involved in their plot. 58 pages - html, format
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Only a few from the site, but the names of them escape me right now. There was a Vietnam one, One about a woman with an abusive husband, and a zombie TV series.
I wasn't expecting anything out of anybody, but I do apologize for talking like the newb that I am.
I gave this a read Brendan and, to put it in a nutshell, it needs a lot of work. It’s very problematic. I strongly recommend hold off on producing it.
For starters, your formatting is way off in parts. When writing scene description, write only what the camera can record. Don’t tell us how a person feels or what he thinks. Show it to us. On page one, you wrote:
The room is dimly lit. In the shadows we see a man sitting in a chair, contemplating in a state of depression. This man is MAX. He is a 21 year old who has clearly lost grasp of things in life.
How does the camera film him being depressed? Or that he has clearly lost grasp of things in life?
On page fifteen, you wrote:
Denise is seen in the car again sitting beside a young blonde girl. this is her friend CATHY
How do we know it’s her friend? You have to show this to us through their actions.
I understand that you intend to shoot this, yourself, but you write your scripts as spec scripts first. Camera angles (and you have a lot of them) take away from the reading.
Give all your characters names as soon as you introduce them (unless it’s a minor character). For the first third or half of the script, Azarias was only know as ‘The Black Man.’ Even if the other characters don’t refer to him by name, you can still refer to him as this. You did this with a couple of characters here.
I found all your characters to be very two-dimensional. Nothing really set them apart from each other, except for Azarias’ long winded talking. I got the impression that you were trying to write him like Morpheus from the Matrix movies, all cool and mysterious. I took him as someone who loved to hear himself talk.
The story, itself, was very muddled. I saw a lot of things going on that didn’t have to happen. It was all needlessly complicated. From what I read of Tobias’ powers, he didn’t need Max at all. He could’ve taken on Az and his people all by himself and without guns. BTW, it’s an extremely bad cliché to suddenly give a character a gun at the end of the story and he is suddenly a great shot.
I found it disturbing that, for a fifty-eight page script about people with ‘super-powers,’ you don’t show anyone using them for the first third of the script. And then it’s nothing. You have to start the story with Max using his powers to get the audience interested. And show something while doing it. Your script includes a montage of someone driving around Boston. Show some of these memories that Max is pulling it.
The opening sequence between Max and ‘the girl’ dragged on forever and it wasn’t even needed. Their conversation went on for over ten percent of the script. Get rid of it. Get rid of the Girl; she’s not needed.
To end on a positive note, I did like the Tobias/Max twist at the end. It was creative and it did surprise me.
Thanks Phil, I understand completely. This was something I kinda did rush through and didn't want to go back to it until I got more opinions about it. The truth is I was originally trying to write it in a way so I could easily film it, and wrote the camera angles because that's how I pictured it in my head. Your advice is actually the first time I have gotten advice from a real professional (if that's what you are, at least you sound like one). Max was also using the gun at close range I guess too, but I guess its still a good idea to change it.
Getting rid of the girl was an idea I had as well but didn't know how to do it. In fact, that's where the story originally came from was that first scene I wrote in a playwriting class and I continued it here. So if any ideas on what you would think would be a good idea, could help.
I remember the first time I ever fired a pistol. It's not that easy if your shooting at a still target more than a few feet away. It's even harder if the target is moving at all. It's harder still (I'm hypothesizing here) when you're shooting at a person.
Also, in the beginning, Max's pistol barrel was blocked up. This would cause the pistol to literally explode. Max would've lost his hand if this happened.
If and when you rewrite this, jump right into the story. Right into the action. Start off with a bang (figuratively).
I'll go over again over the summer. Phil, I was wondering if maybe you'd like to see an older script I wrote once, to see what I'm capable of with less serious material as this. Its incomplete though so that'll make it a shorter read.
Because the painting that was used was called Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, and originally I had named it after a poem which I actually originally quoted at one point at the end and had Max walking alone on the beach, but then I changed it to where Denise alters reality while looking at the photo. Max is also sort of like a Wanderer because he has been moving through life with no purpose till now.
The Wander is a poem from the Exeter Book. There is also a poem in there called Azarias which is where he got his name, and when Azarias dies he quotes a poem called The Ruin. " days of pestilence came, death took all the brave men away"
He was sort of saying he viewed all these people obtaining psychich abilities to be almost plague-like.
This is just my opinion. But I think, Phil, things like "he's clearly lost grasp of things in life" would help a director set the mood for the scene, although I never do this because my descriptions are pretty wordy as it is (lol). However, I do agree that you can't TELL us that a character is friends with another....now that, you really need to show us.
I'm sidestepping all the technical and formatting errors that Phil has already pointed out, to focus on your story.
I disagree with Phil about starting with a bang. Sure, it's an easy way to hook an audience, but your original opening works well enough. I do think you should have the action begin just a little sooner.
One thing I didn't like was there was too much "made-for-the trailer" dialogue. Like Max's opening V.O.
I don't think a 21-year-old speaks like Max does. Not even an emo-ish suicidal one. I'd say make him older, tweak the stiory a bit.
Definitely remove the gun bit. Like Phil said, too clichè.
I thought Azarias was annoying and thought too highly of himself. I never found him mysterious, nor cool, nor, badass. He was just kind of "bleh..."
I think you should be more subtle about Max's powers at the beginning. The girl was introduced and began talking to him immediately. Audiences would be like, "whaa...?"
I think your dialogue needs some improvement. Make them talk like their own selves and not just clones of one another.
I'm not saying your screenplay was bad, but it does need a lot of work.
This was a strange script with the way you structured your story. When I started reading from page one, It felt like I had sat down in front of the TV and watching a movie half way through it. There was no introduction of character and his setting.
We have Max about to kill himself and a dead girl have a chat. It would have been confusing but you did a good job of bringing me up to speed by the conversation the dead girl have with max. The conversation anchored me into you story.
But if you did not have this conversation I wouldn't know what was going on and then you would have had to write a first act to show everything the girl explained.
It like the whole act 1 is missing from your story.
Which bring me the page length of your script. What is this? What where you trying to do when you where writing this. A feature length or a episode of a TV series?
As the story unfolds I like the concept of Max hired to hunt down a list of people with possible powers. The reason for the villian collection of freaks is cool. Every villian got to have a army. I have no problem with your story. it nothing mind blowing, but it not a waste of time.
I'll finish reading your script and conclude my review.
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