I'll take a look at it this weekend if time allows.
I'm sort tired of westerns at the moment.

Is that what you normally read?  Westerns?

You must have been gone for the last week. The One Week Exercise thing was Western/ visiting the general store. There were 19 of them submitted.

Oh wow. Yeah I didn't have my computer for like a week and a half.  So I was very surprised that I wrote this rough draft with only 4 days of work.  Of course it is a bit short at 79 pages.

I find it funny how we have 3 pages of talking for an idea board, when the guy who requested ideas hasn't been on since January 8th.....

Yeah the miracle of finding new topics to talk about.  Well the topic was Slasher flicks so we are at least semi on task.

Sara,

I finished "The last one standing".

Very well done!

I liked the idea of a reality show gone bad a lot. I might even do my own if I ever have the time.

You are obviously a writer and your descriptions were good, but at times a bit wordy for a screenplay.

I also think you missed a lot of good opportunities to turn up the scare factor. You had a lot of good killings and I liked the glass coffins, but I think it could have been scarier. This could just be me, I don't scare easy.

This could easily be fleshed out to a 90 pager and I think you should. Like I said, I like the idea a lot, the heat just has to be turned up a couple of levels.

I'd be happy to give you the long version of my comments, but I tend to get nit-picky about silly little things and you may not want that. Also know that I'm not an expert and this is just my opinion and should be taken as such.

Story: Good
Descriptions: Very Good
Dialogue: Good
Scare Factor: Great potential

I guess you won't have access to a computer for a couple of weeks, but I can quickly refresh my brain on the script.

Hey,
I stopped in at the library, I couldn't resist.  I would love your detailed comments.  Like I said its a rough draft.  The more nit picky and gritty and down in the deep your comments are, the more I love em.  Harsh critiques are the best to learn from.  

Sara, I’ll do this in parts since it’s loooong.

“The Last One Standing”

http://www.sarapricebooks.com/scripts/lastonestanding.pdf

OK here we go.

Spoilers ahead.

I will leave the typos alone since I know you did this quickly and it’s a first draft.


First off, (English is my second language so I could be wrong) the beginning is written in past tense (I think it’s called).

“The large circular office sat quiet”

“ECHOES from the day’s broadcast bounced down the hallway”

Nice description, but hard to film. Only write what we the audience can see and hear.



“Alex leans back in his desk,”

You probably meant chair.


The Computer message says “Pier 35 June 3rd 6:00 P.M.” then we’re there. Later on, the island “traps” are quite elaborate so the question here is, how did George have the time to plan this on such short notice? Maybe you could ad something like “Three months from now on June 3rd at pier 35. I know he is the producer, but still, it seems too quick to me.


“The women snickered together.”
“A bombshell brunette waltzed over,”
“Mellissa followed Valencia”
“A figured crouched near some boxes”
“Mellissa fell on her knees”


That grammar thing again, which by the way pretty much ends here.



“The drab wood and stench of fish wafts in.”

It’s hard to film the stench of fish, but if you show that there’s fish everywhere most of us will get the point, especially if she makes a face too.

You introduce Jake as sort of a Cajun grit 55 years old with no teeth. He may be a little too obvious as one of the killers since everyone else is younger and attractive. I’m also not sure if his way of speaking is Cajun, but I could be totally wrong on that.

You have Jake speak of Crocs. Here again I could be wrong, but I don’t think there are crocodiles in Louisiana. If there are I think most people are unaware and will think it’s a mistake on your part. Most people do know that there are alligators there though.

PATRICK
Hello Mellissa. I’m relieved you
made it out of the ocean unscathed.
Might I offer you a drink?

Maybe I’m just out of touch, but do 30 year old guys nowadays talk like that?

I'll post more after the weekend.  

Here’s some more Sara, sorry I’m so slow.

Just one question here about the contest. There are 20 people including Nickton, if there will only be one survivor, wouldn’t that mean that the serial killers could expect to die as well?

There are a lot of contestants here. I had a hard time keeping them all apart. You might want to think about reducing the number and elaborate a little more on the ones left so that we can get to know them a little better.

When Kane gets his head chopped off I thought Kessler was behind it. Was that your intent?

It bothered me a little bit that Alex keep saying that they have to save Melissa and get her out of there. I know it’s his daughter, but it seems to me that you’d want to save all of them. Right now it just feels like he doesn’t give a darn about the rest and therefore he comes across as somewhat unlikable.

When Jake kills Tira I didn’t really feel any suspense or fear. I’m not sure what you would do here, but I think those feelings have to somehow be present here. Maybe it was too quick or not awful enough. He slashes her shoulder, tastes the blood then hits her over the head. Not lame, but I’m sure you can up it a bit.

I’m also having a bit of trouble with the believability of this being aired. If this was real, (which it isn’t) I think the whole world would know about it in a matter of hours. I’m also pretty sure that the government would step in immediately in order to stop this.

I liked the glass coffin idea a lot! Could be made even more gory and disgusting if the coffins were left in the sun, then they would start looking nasty real quick. Swelling, bugs and so on.

I was confused about Kessler in the tree looking and acting like a sniper. Did I miss something? Are we supposed to think he's one of the killers?

I also have a confession. I did watch Survivor last Thursday  

Hello,
I just got home.  The wedding was great, I don't have a voice though.   Your suggestions are wonderful, I will read through them in greater depth tomorrow when I'm not so tired.  

I really appreciate this.  My biggest downfall in writing is failing to see or know how to fix my own flaws.
Sara

More stuff,

“Nickton inspects the area just beyond Tilk and returns
quickly to the group, throwing up in some bushes.
NICKTON
God, what a mess. Let’s get outta
here.”

So, what did he see? I want to know. This is a good opportunity to gross us out, this is a slasher after all, not a mystery.

The killing of Mica was pretty good. Maybe you can make her suffering last just a little bit longer, leaving a chance for us to learn more about her and Jon.

Then we have the lesbian thing. It seems to be something that pops up quite frequently at SS.
I personally feel that if you’d like to explore this, it needs to be done or at least hinted at earlier on. I have a hard time believing that two people, anybody, would be even remotely interested in sex while two serial killers are out there hunting them. You’d have to be one hell of a horny person for that to happen.

The wild boar chase with Mellissa was pretty good.

I’m a little bit confused about who killed Mica. Was that Kessler? I had a feeling from the beginning he might be a bad guy, but later on you suggest that he’s one of the good guys even a possible romantic interest for Mellissa. (at least that’s how I took it the first time I read this)

“CREESON
You okay in there?

Ilya’s pierced head rolls out of the cave and settles at
Creeson’s feet. He steps away as if it had a contagious
disease.”

How about, jumps away from it in horror. After all, I think a chopped off head rolling to your feet is more horrific than a contagious disease, at least on the more immediate level.

Hope this isn't too trivial for you, I can only comment on what I see. Others may see things completely different.

Not at all   I've worked on the points you mentioned and uploaded the corrections.  I will go back in for a deeper look later.  Have to nurse a sick family.

Thanks for your help, and believe me I rarely find anything too trivial.

Quoted from Jdawg2006 sorry if someone already made a comment like this... but i read this and i become so confused i blacked out (not really)... but how the hell are any of these places (other than in the woods because that's been DONE so much) obvious places to do a slasher flick? desert (dessert is the sweet stuff... it has 2 s's because you always want seconds... remember? second grade?)... and did you actually think to yourself "i wanna write a slasher flick... hmmm.... space ship, or boat... space ship... boat" if you have an original story idea that has a reason for it taking place on a ship and you use that reason the whole time then please do that... but if it just think it'll be neat to plcae it on a ship then please spare us... please do something original... i mean... we've all seen this a 100 times... do we really wanna read it too?

sure, if its executed well... have you read some of the scripts up here? no one heres going to be winning any screenplay awards anytime soon, so why dont you kill the attiude?

Quoted from Herodreamer79 sure, if its executed well... have you read some of the scripts up here? no one heres going to be winning any screenplay awards anytime soon, so why dont you kill the attiude?

Actually a couple of us have won screenplay writing awards and have been/will be produced.  Maybe you should kill the attitude and actually finish a script that you've started.


Phil