Spore by Anonymous20 - An Elite Brazilian Airborne Rescue Squadron and a renowned Medical Officer must team up to search for the survivors of a plane crash in the Amazon Jungle, but the jungle holds secrets that may be worse than any plane crash. - Short, Horror

Met the criteria.

Decent premise, good visuals.I think this is the first script that deals with spores that realises hand sanitisers can't kill spores. Only major problem is the amount of dialogue at the end, your Doctor basically relates the whole story. It almost goes from a film to an audio drama.

A good effort.

This was pretty good. A hell of a lot of detail and research into the army logistics and chain of command, plus elaborate naming of perps. But it didn’t detract.

When the doctor reveals his plan for world domination it was a little off kilter but still fine.
I actually laughed when he solemnly declares that ‘he is the Queen and you are my hive’. Obviously it wasn’t meant to be funny but I laughed out loud. Actually between it and the Liver script I got more laughs than most of the Rd 2 ‘comedies’.  Lol

Anyway this was good

I gave this another go, with my best acting head on, and I just wanted to say I think my initial review sounds a little harsh. There's a lot of dialogue at the end, but a good actor could definitely make it work.

I think after the comp you should add a few beats from the other team members, just to break it up a bit. But with the surroundings, the atmosphere and the people suffering, the villainy speech at the end will still work.

Figured I'd start with the spore scripts since they are causing controversy.

Good, solid work by a writer who knows his way around. Here is a writer with the skill to craft a complicated feature.

I love the first two thirds of the script. The ending could work in a much larger work, but it also feels a little too much like some of those 60s plots where an evil genius tries to take over the world. This also comes with a sudden and long-winded exposition at the end.

Obviously, I think, if this kind of plot were expanded the writer would probably choose to go another direction than the hand sanitizer. That's not a knock at all. It meets the criteria.

I love the setting and the skill at detailing it. Brazil is a mysterious place filled with story potential. I've never been to Brazil, but I do know a few people from there. Very colorful, their culture very rich in complex tradition.

Excellent work for 72 hours. I think the apt word is competent. This is a very competent writer.

Some great world-building here. Densely written, but well done. (I love the Amazon. Have read many books on the conditions within... so, I'm naturally interested from the start.)

I wouldn't think the Doctor would have to brief an elite Brazilian rescue team on conditions in the Amazon (I would assume a great portion of their training took place there)... but, that's a nit.

Page 4 dialogue dump is a handful. Consider breaking up the block with a bit of action in-between -- strictly to make it easier to read.

Done reading...

There's an excellent story here. It's well told. The main reason this will fall just a bit short, is that most of the interesting bits of the story are dumped as exposition in dialogue. Clearly, this one suffers from the page limitations.

Don't worry about that, though. I think I know who wrote this... and from your comments on the board, you're aware of the issue. Without the page limitations, I'm hoping/expecting that you would work much harder at rolling all this out in ways other than dialogue... specifically action and character.

Not great as a five-page short. Really good as a proof-of-concept for a larger script.

SPORE

So, it's Spore time Part One. Bring it on!

P4 yeah, strange Doctor was suspicious from the start ;-)
A far too long speech of him though.

Yep, his speeches are too long and don't work in a visual experience. It also makes everything a little satiric.

I had high hopes for the third act but then I was reminded of the fact that we need to involve a damn hand sanitizer. Almost forgot this during that fine jungle stroll. Just sooo hard.

The journey was fun nevertheless. It just couldn't keep its level to the end and you needed to hammer the sanitizer in. Understandable. We had to walk with what came to us. Otherwise, super clean performance. Vivid jungle atmosphere. Pretty good.

I liked this one. Great writing, interesting atmosphere and a great climax. Though bit wordy in the end but it has some vital interesting story. So no complains there.

Some very good writing here. Nice visuals. You introduced the team, built the atmosphere, and threw us in to the action effortlessly. The real problem for me is the page count not allowing you to set up the ending.

Given more space, you can establish the Dr. Radcliffe twist so it's not a complete information dump. Maybe a few moments where he interacts with the crew as they're investigating. Obviously, not in a way that gives away the ending at all. Maybe he can talk about the human suffering he's witnessed as a doctor or something like that.

A tiny bit more interaction among crew members and with the doctor will give this added punch. Like this was great...

DOCTOR RADCLIFFE
It's beautiful isn't it? A perfect
web of life, death, rebirth and
decay; every plant and animal
connected by its thread.

BARBASO
It's a fuck-hole.

You get the contrasting views, it's funny, and it separates grunt from scientist. If I may suggest another little addition that might work along those lines...

DOCTOR RADCLIFFE
The Amazon is a dangerous place.
There are toxic plants, poisonous insects,
aggressive mammals--

GOMES
He's talking about you, Barbosa.


Okay, that's enough nitpicking. Very good overall. With a little more space this will be great. Nice job!

Spore.... catchy title.

After I finished,  I felt like I didn’t have the proper clearance to read this. Your writing really impressed me.  No doubt you put a lot of time and effort into this.

The doctor was a nice surprise.  Didn’t expect that.  I think he over indulged a little on his information, but in the same breath, you had no choice because of the page limit.

The doctor doing it ,to basically save us from ourselves type attitude ,gives him a real OCPD trait about him.

I liked how you incorporate the hand san. Lol . Clever .

Well done .

Hi writer,

This was going quite well until:

Quoted Text DOCTOR RADCLIFFE The pain you are experiencing is caused by a fungal parasite attaching itself to your nervous systems. I spent years in this jungle studying parasitic lifeforms capable of controlling their hosts and I have created a parasite that can modify and control a hosts neural network, and thus control the host's behaviour. The first iteration is aggressive and fatal, but once the parasite has incubated inside a human host it combines with human genes and produces spores. Those infected by the spores, which is you, will survive but the parasite will make them subservient to the person that secretes the compound necessary to modify gene expression in the host... He wipes his brow. A hint of green on the handkerchief. DOCTOR RADCLIFFE ...Which is me. I'll rule over you, the way a Queen Bee rules the Hive.

-- and the rest of the expositional, and might I say mind-numbing, dialogue.

This idea is too big for 5 pages, way too big, and it shows. You have more than a page and a half of expositional dialogue. It really hurts the rest of your story in my opinion.

Great writing early on but that ending just sent this into a nose dive for me.

An Idea that is potentially worth expanding after the WT, but here it doesn’t work for me.

All the best.

I'm going to be pedantic, sorry.

By law, a colonel must have 22 years of service and a minimum of three years of service as a lieutenant colonel before being promoted. Unless he served in the civil War... Or maybe Brazil is different?

Sorry, at 28, your guy just seems too young, and it stuck out.
Great opening, loved the set-up..

Okay, the Colonel is a 'she'. Goodo.

A hint of Cordyceps, The Last Of Us here.
And you don't need telling again about that overly long expositionary dialogue.
Another with the 'poison in the sanitizer trick.'

Love all the jungle description, prose is top-notch, and you evoked the atmosphere and environment beautifully.

Yeah I think Francisca should be Francesca  

Yes, agreed, Stevie.
Although, it's apparently the feminine form of Francisco.

Funny spellings some people use now for standard names too. Have no idea what gender they are. I think in this case the writer did their homework, it's just not immediately apparent she is a she. Good choice though. We need more females in lead roles.  

Quoted from LC Yes, agreed, Stevie. Although, it's apparently the feminine form of Francisco. Funny spellings some people use now for standard names too. Have no idea what gender they are. I think in this case the writer did their homework, it's just not immediately apparent she is a she. Good choice though. We need more females in lead roles.

Yep I’m all for equality Lib! As long as the same number of dudes and chicks get infected by plant thingies then it’s all bonzer mate

This was well written and built the world well.

Felt a little like the the group in Predator as they went through the jungle, especially with some of the wise cracks - nod bad thing.

But I think the ending with the Dr and all his exposition really killed the ending... probably just too much to try and explain in 5 pages.

Good effort.

This fine story screeches to a complete halt when Doctor Radcliffe begins his long-winded rant. This speech lays out the justification for his genocidal plot very well, but do we really need to know everything he tells us? Up until then, I was enjoying the story, and looking forward to a climactic battle with the fungus people, but instead it ends with the abject surrender of the soldiers.

Last one! Let's see what we got...

Okay, criteria met, I think.

Very descriptive, if not overly expository on the dialogue from Doctor Radcliffe.  At least he explained what was going on -- in most of the scripts in this challenge, I've had to guess motives and what the evil thing was and why it was there.  But you laid it all out.

A good setting for this, the Amazon and all, but here's the big logic leap I'm having to make. Why does Dr. Radcliffe risk going into one of the most dangerous places on earth (where he could easily be killed himself) to infect a few soldiers.  IF, as he claims, he has the ability to put this hand sanitizer in planes all over the world, why doesn't he just do it and then put his plan into action?  I know, you had to meet the challenge criteria, but still....

In any event, it's well-written and could do very well, I would think, in a longer form where you can build the world even more.

Best of luck,
Gary

Ola escritor

Why did you use Portuguese for all of the ranks apart from Colonel? should have used Coronel, it's only one letter different lol it obviously does not matter, I just like consistency

First question, why does the non-Brazilian doctor feel the need to tell the Brazilian officers about the dangers that lurk in the rain-forest... I'm sure they already know. But maybe his character is just a know-it-all arsehole... we shall see.

I was enjoying it until I had to sit through the lecture that was pages 4 and 5.

pages 1-3 very good - fell apart after that, did you run out of time or something? I dunno, writing is great though - I got a real feel for the Jungle, so top notch world building.

I get his motivations, all good - a bit of a stupid sentimental reason for him to be going into the jungle like this, risking his life, that is a bit of a stretch to be honest.

Overall a decent effort - good job writer

Quite the logline; do I need to read this? Last one, here we go!

Wow, a lot of detail in the action that won't be revealed in the filming. You tell us what E.A.S. stands for but a viewer wouldn't know. Who's F.A.B.? I.A.T.A.? Too many initials!

Dialog is way overwritten and expositional (if that's a word).

BARBASO: "It's a fuck-hole." Best line.

hmmm...both metric and imperial measurement used on the same page.

Dang, sorry, the dialog was just too over the top to finish.

Copyright notice in the wrong place, and FADE IN doesn't have a colon. Many points off! Just kidding.

The initial description of the jungle as silent doesn't jive with the cacophony later on.

Thermal Infrared is redundant, but also par for the course in explaining things to the audience. There do exist infrared imagers that aren't thermal scanners... those security cameras and baby monitors that show a black-and-white image when the area is dark. On a helicopter they'd be called FLIR (forward-looking infra-red). Anyway, moving on.

No need to cap a new character when mentioned in dialogue. They get capped the first time they appear in action (which should be near a description). So it'd be "She indicates a white man with piercing, intelligent eyes, DOCTOR RADCLIFFE (65)."

Why is Dr. Radcliffe telling the natives how dangerous their own jungle is? It'd work better if he simply explains things he actually sees/hears, or mutters to himself about the dangers, or anything else. A good example is how he drones on about the snake.

Minor point, but they'd probably say it was 1500 meters since they're not metric-allergic Americans.

"Fifty yards on, there are FIVE SURVIVORS, their faces and bodies similarly covered in fungus, writhing on the floor." And this, boys and girls, is when they put on their gas masks.

Fine, so Dr. Radcliffe is a monologuing mad scientist. They do love to hear themselves talk.

I doubt that Dr. Radcliffe could engineer all the hand sanitizers being replaced at roughly the same time, but maybe he just needs to seed his army.

Overall, I like the idea, though the dialogue really took me out of the story.

Not bad.  At it's core, the delivery, is very similar to my idea.  This one meets the criteria.  Nice setting.  The one character I didn't like was the doctor.  Not because of the story.  Is that she's a character you see from time to time in films and I've never really liked those crazy characters.  I like the title btw.

Excellent first three pages. I love the Brazilian angle, it adds a lot to this story. Great visuals, the dialogue works for me, the writing is strong despite its flaws (way to many capitals, for one). And the hand sanitizer is a delivery system, well done.

The super-exposition at the end is a let down after that great setup. Dude just won't shut up about his master plan. He's a bad cartoon villain. You couldn't show all that in so few pages because it's too big, but you didn't really need to explain it all. He's behind it, okay. It's mind control, okay. He somehow perpetrated this around the world, okay. Do we need to know why? I don't think so.

What confounds me is the spores incapacitate people. The first group is writhing around helplessly. The people in the plane have become spore-releasers. The soldiers are targeted for mind control. In all that explaining, I don't understand how the spores actually work.

Really good effort, a really strong start, but it fell apart at the end.

Hand sanitizer did not kill spores in my Spores either. It just repelled the orbs/spores. Heck, even cheap deoderent might manage to do that! lol