Fate of Jenna by Micahel James - Drama - Jenna Kane lives a fairy tale life..or does she?  After losing her famous father she'll have to keep believing even as her family is pushed to the breaking point. - rtf format.


Script removed by request of author

How could you miss a spelling error as bad as Unlce Sal?

Other than that I'm 8 plus pages in and your close calls than the actual crash is kind of predictable, when is an almost crash laughable? And award show winners always know ahead of time if I'm not mistaken so if he doesn't know than he either knows and doesn't want to tell anyone or what?

Wesley,

Thank you for the comments...yup missed 'unlce', sometimes it's easier to see the obvious things if you aren't looking at it everyday.  I'll correct that. 

Quoted Text when is an almost crash laughable?

I'm assuming your refering to the piece of action below...
-----------------------------------
A pair of headlights coming straight at the BMW on a collision course...

They go passing by harmlessly.

Jenna's voice from the phone again.

JENNA
Hellooo(louder)

DANNY looks at KELLY, she shakes her head and laughs.  He lifts the phone to his ear

DANNY
(in to phone) hello sweetheart
------------------------------------
I think you may have mis-read this portion.  The headlights appear to the audience like they were headed at the BMW but in actuality they never were,  thats why Danny never reacts to them and they go passing by harmlessly...just a piece to bulid drama.  Kelly's laugh was in reference to the sound of her daughters voice on the phone.

I don't know about the winners for awards show but either way I don't think it makes much of a difference.  For the purpose of this script he doens't know.

Thank you for taking the time to read it...I know it's quite long.  I really look forward to hearing your opinion of the story..thanks again.

Mike

Stellar formatting, my friend!  Bravo!  I like your style.

Just a minor note, certainly you know as someone with experience, names are only supposed to be capitalized the first time the character appears, right?    And while we're on the topic of capitalizing, I think you went a little capital nuts as far as with the actions and calling attention to your props and stuff.  Like I say, minor, minor.  I get a very, very strong sense you want to direct your own script though.  You get (what I think is) overly specific.

The first day to night transition seems a little awkward.  You've got the kids leaving the house on your typical Cali sunny morning and then you've got the father on the freeway at night in the rain.  Feels awkward such a dramatic time lapse right off the bat.  Same with the rain, especially since you do such a phenomenal (if a bit excessive) job of setting up the lead in to the house in the hills.  I almost wonder why do we have the whole scene at the front if not just to establish the whole Grammys thing, otherwise what other information furthers the storyline?  The kids are cute, but..?

The phone dropping seems convenient.  And how ridiculously clumsy is this Danny cat who just won a Grammy?  I mean he can create dynamic music, but holding a cell seems more than he can handle?  Seems a bit unbelievable. 

(Minor note:  I don't know how relevant, but the 101 freeway is completely divided by a wall separating north and southbound lanes in the Hollywood area.  What yellow line is this BMW crossing?  The driver would have to deliberately get on the freeway via an offramp and in that case, thus likely would be going at vehicles head on.  A "clip" would be amazing...not to mention a breathalyzer (sp?) would be in serious order.  I won't ask about the guard rail, but..?) 

I hate long posts though, so let me continue this later.

A/N, why am I being so harsh?  Because I've seen your reviews (quite thorough) and I want you to tear apart my script "After Hours".  I'm satisfied with it, but then I'm not, you know?  Just getting your attention is all.  Plus I see that you have a strong writing sense.  I really just want to help.  LA is where I live.

Take it easy,
L.

Hmm, the more I read, the more sardonic my expression.

I mean, any celebrity funeral is not going to have some reporter sticking his mic in front of a grieving widow's face.  These shows do exhibit some tact, you know.  They're not British papparazzi.  And what celebrity on Earth would sign papers they haven't looked over?  There's just no way, my friend.  No matter how urgent.  That's extremely unlikely a situation.  Do you know how many celebs have been defrauded in Hollywood?  They've been burned too many times not to read the fine print.

Why is the house in disrepair?  With that nice a neighborhood, if the mother went near comatose and didn't care anymore, wouldn't they have moved?  No way their homeowners association would allow the house to go into blatant disrepair.  But anyway.

I like your dialogue, but I think words like "lis-nen" and "go-en" kind of detract. 

405 bumper to bumper (damn, my commute on paper) which assumes they're going...southbound...and this muscle car is somehow driving recklessly across lanes?  Hmm...a muscle car (which attracts attention to begin with) and a shitload of highway patrol because it's morning rush hour.  Ok, yeah, I do it.  I'll grant you this one.  Have them exit at Sunset.  But no, you generally gotta wait in line because folks don't leave much lee-way for sneaking in there.  Yeah, that's a pretty irritating exit.  I would never get off there.  Sorry, rambling.     

City of "angles"?  And whoo, that girl is brave and three kinds of stupid all at the same time.  Taking someone's spot right in front of them and the driver just throws up his hands?  Are you nuts??  Did you see "Fried Green Tomatoes"?  That was minor in comparison to what would happen to this prize muscle car, I'll tell you that right now. 

Should I keep going?  I feel kind of bad now.  I'll wait for your reply.  That and oops, I'm up kind of late. 

Lesley...

Alright a fellow Los Angelino!  Well actually I'm outta the state right now, but I can't wait to get back.
Thanks a million for your in-depth comments, I really appreciate them.  I'll try to answer some of your questions..... 

Addressing the capitalization,  actually I was taught that character names were caps in every action paragraph.  I'll check around and if uncaps is the more widely accepted format I'll change it right up.  As far as the other caps go, they are unintentional.  A formatting error when I switched the file from screenwriting software to rtf.  I was actually shooting for the opposite, as few camera directions as possible.

On the opening scenes, yes I did go very quickly there...I really wanted to spend as little time as I could telling that part of the story, especially them as children since I knew the actual story would take place almost twenty years later.

Phone dropping...just one of those things. However if you consider that it takes place in the 80's, a time of big awkward phones, perhaps it's not as unbelievable.

Funny you caught the 101 thing.  I lived and worked off the 101 for seven years.  The other day I'm reading the script and that hits me...what was I thinking?  Oh well not really important  either way, the scene could take place on really any roadway...Maybe a stretch of one of the canyon roads?

On the situational realism,  the celebrity funeral, signing the papers, the condition of the house etc.  I wasn't shooting for the real world,  just what works in this movie...not to be a smart ass but I don't believe  a Delorian can be a time machine but that doesn't stop back to the future from being a great film.

The house condition, present day, sets up the feeling that the family has been affected by the death of the father, like they were never able to re-cover. They have no money to repair or move...the house is worth nothing because...well actually I don't want to ruin this for you in case you haven’t read that far yet.

So you don't like Phonic dialogue huh?  It's kinda an experiment of mine...I like writing the dialogues just as they would be spoken, it makes it easier for me to get into each character.  I wonder if anyone else does this?

"angles"?  darn that spellchecker!

Anyway, thanks again for the comments,  I truly appreciate you reading my work, that’s why I posted it here.  And please continue,  I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the characters and the story as a whole.  I’ll definitely check out "after hours" ASAP.  Keep em' coming!

Mike

Finished reading the script and it was a good read. I liked the structure and way its written only few spelling mistakes and occasionally you wrote Natasha for Vennesa. I feel somehow most of the things were expected while reading except for the stranger who was following them from the bar. That was a good suspence and came out very well. This is what I thought

Thanks for sharing your script

Awesome you didn't take anything personally.  And yeah I got that the state of the house symbolized the impact of the father's death upon the household. 

LOL at the Delorien reference and hmm... back in the 80s I figured those clunky phones were primarily for law enforcement and not yet as widespread among the public, celebrity or otherwise.  85, you say? 

Yeah, set it on a canyon road or something off PCH or whatever.  Topanga maybe?  Or is that too bohemian a neighborhood for your characters?

And you make morning KROQ sound really, really funny.  Wonder what Kevin or Bean would say? 

I give you your props though.  Outstanding tolerance for criticism.

Mike,
I am not finished.
You can lose a lot of the opening. Cut right to the rainy road and the car crash. We understand the character and what has happened before by the Grammy award in the car. All the stuff before that is not needed.


Kind of funny that both our scripts have 1985 and Delorean references. My guess is we are close to the same age and grew up not far frome each other.

I'll keep reading. SO FAR it's not bad.

Thanks for finding the time to read it....

Yeah I'm contemplating losing the Intro, but man it's hard to 'cut' my baby.  In the end I'm sure I will, gotta get it down to 100 pages max.

We may not have grown up in the same area, but I bet we grew up watching the same movies.  Back to the Future is one of my all time favorites and IMO ranks as an american classic.  When in town, one of my favortie things is taking Universal's back lot tour, passing the 'courthouse' set for BTF I/II/III is kinda surreal.