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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Unproduced Screenplay Discussion    Drama Scripts  ›  Unforgettable Moderators: bert
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  Author    Unforgettable  (currently 2227 views)
Don
Posted: October 9th, 2010, 6:44pm Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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Unforgettable by George Galanakis - Drama, Romance - An unrepentant womanizer comes to reconsider his ideas of love when is drawn to a romantic, free-spirited woman. 97 pages - pdf, format


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fionaman
Posted: October 10th, 2010, 1:23pm Report to Moderator
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One word to describe this script: bland.

One of the biggest reasons why love stories fail in movies is because they are seriously underdeveloped. The writer/director thinks that showing a montage of cutesy moments is sufficient in showing the couple "falling in love", when really it's the exact opposite.

You need to show the characters connecting on a truly profound level. Love shakes you up and changes your entire world perspective. I don't think cutesy little montages and trite exchanges are gonna do that.

If you are trying write a real love story, watch films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to see how it's done. Characters that connect on a truly emotional, spiritual, and psychological level.

I mean, seriously, what are these characters talking about, work, past relationships, blah, blah, blah, BORING. You need to do better.
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rendevous
Posted: October 10th, 2010, 5:53pm Report to Moderator
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I'd have to agree with fionaman. I can see a lot of work has gone into this, but I just can't see it the same way as the writer can. Which means a director or a green lighter may not.

Eternal Sunshine is a good call. That is how it's done. Charlie Kaufman is not flawless, but when he hits gold he hits 59 carat.

There is good stuff in this. Don't stop. Edit, clarify, rework. Rewrite. That's The Key.

R xo


Out Of Character - updated


New Used Car

Green

Right Back

The Deuce - OWC - now on STS

Other scripts here
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screenrider
Posted: October 15th, 2010, 11:40am Report to Moderator
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George,

I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised.   This script has potential.  Very marketable.  Hollywood's always looking for a good love story.   Excellent plot twist, Pg. 73.  I never saw it coming.   The ending was heartbreaking.  Profound.   If I was you I'd enter this into the 2011 Nicholls Fellowship contest.   You'll never know until you try.

http://www.oscars.org/awards/nicholl/apply.html

Spotted a few typos. Pg. 9 "lighting" - should be lightening.   Pg. 10 "believe" - should be belief, Pg. 64 "I can believe you came" - should be I can't
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conwall
Posted: October 16th, 2010, 12:36pm Report to Moderator
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Okay got to about page 13 and stopped.  Here's a couple of thoughts.  Title page, good.  Thanks.  A lot of posts blow even this.

First line of the script:  "Cars cruise down the street."  Really?  Cars?  In New York?  Who knew?  You have to fight for every bit of "white space" on the page.  Fight!  If you don't need it, dump it.  As soon as you write New York, night, I pretty much get the picture.  While you're at it, dump the kettle drum players too.  What are they doing?  Talking to any main characters?  Dump em.  By the way are the kettle drums guys IN a streetcorner or ON a street corner.  Just wondering.

One word description of dialogue:  Clunky.

Way too on-the-nose.  In fact, in the entire piece I read, people tell the truth about what they are feeling and thinking almost 100% of the time.  People don't talk like this.  Remember, truth is boring.  Lying is interesting.  

Here's a piece of stage direction I hated:  "Ryan goes about to serve him."  How about "He makes the drinks."  or "Takes the order.  Comes back."  Anything.

You spend a lot of time, (and white space) describing the looks on people's faces.  "A look of superiority and disdain."  Makes it sound like a novel.  Just write the words, and let the actors worry about what emotions they show on their faces.  A lot of them are quite good at it, and they'd like to be able to decide for themselves what their faces show.  It's insulting when the writer does it for them.  They hate us anyway, don't you know.  

Format:  "12 even."  Don't use numerals in a script.  It's "Twelve, even."

Later:  Guy addresses customer as "Ma'am"  She's a young hottie and he's calling her Ma'am?  And she doesn't get pissed?  Doesn't say anything in fact.  

"Empty salt shaker is left on the counter."  Clunky.  Who left it there.  Better, "She waves an empty salt shaker at him."  

Format:  Totally cut out the "more's and cont'ds"  Final Draft software puts those in automatically but you can turn them off.  NOBODY uses them anymore.  It is old fashioned and makes you look like an amateur immediately.

Spelling, patrons, not Patrons.

"He feels the impact of her gaze."  Funny, when I was watching it in the theater it just looked like they looked at each other.  Get it?

Refrigerator?  Why would anybody put ice in a refrigerator?  To see how long it takes to melt?  No freezer?  Don't most bars have ice making machines?  Wouldn't it be better if the guy was getting a delivery of booze anyway.  At least the types of booze would tell us what kind of a joint it is.  Lots of beer, or expensive vodka?
Flesh it out.

Page 8, more on the nose dialogue.

What's the point of showing the whole scene of George asking what the buyer wanted.  WE ALREADY KNOW WHAT HE WANTED.  Answering this question is a waste of time and boring for us.   Skip to the middle of the exchange and start there.

"Floats your boat." is very cliche.  If he is in fact an interesting person, he should have a more "interesting" way to convey this statement.  Challenge yourself to think of something better.  NOW.

The kid is African slash American?  Really?  He's both?  Just write, "He's playing basketball with a bunch of black kids."  We can fill in the blanks.

"Pass the ball, I'm open!"  Nobody says this in a basketball game.  They wave their arms and say, "Here!"  On the nose... getting the drift yet?

This whole scene is a mess.

How about:

Big kid charges the lane in front of a smaller boy.

Dunks it hard, WHAM.

Little kid is disheartened.

Guy lines up a shot but passes to little kid instead.

Kid hesitates.  Shoots.

It's blocked by the big kid and sails over the fence.

More white space!  Write action scenes in punched up little bite sized sections.  Try to preserve the one page one minute rule.  

This is where I stopped:

"The flowers are for my father.  Next week is the anniversary of his death."  Does this guy have no secrets at all?  Wouldn't it be more interesting if he was intentionally evasive.  Doesn't want to give away too much to this woman he is attracted to?  Makes up some b.s. line to feed her, but then she finds out later and it's a little heart-warming type thing.  "Oh, maybe I was wrong about him, after all."

To summarize, I liked this theme.  Cassanova type guy finds true love.  Not bad.  Marketable.  Good role for a good looking star.  Cool.  Not exactly totally original, plus we have the guy who wants to buy the bar, cool.  But the dialogue!  Ugh.

I know you can do better, and I want to read it when you do.














Your comments welcome on:  GOD GETS FIRED.  Comedy, 89 pages.  Humans are such a failure that God loses his job.  Worse, his ex-wife is appointed to oversee Earth’s destruction.  Luckily, God has a plan…but it’s not about saving us.  It’s about winning her back.

http://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/GodGetsFired.pdf
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screenrider
Posted: October 16th, 2010, 1:15pm Report to Moderator
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Alright, I gotta vent.  This is what pisses me off.  Conwall, granted you left a very detailed review and I'm not trying to demean that at all, but basically all you did was pick apart formatting issues and as a result you missed the story altogether.

You read 13 pages?  Gimme a break.   You didn't even give it a chance.  

There's a good story here but you can't see the forest through the trees.   I'm not mad at you -- I'm just mad at the sysytem in general.  I've seen quite a few good scripts fall to the wayside because of this mentality.   There's alot of technical wizards floating around on this site -- well, Einstein said it best.  Imagination is greater than knowledge.    You can't finish this script?   You're pleading contempt prior to investigation.  It's your loss.

Sorry, had to get that off my chest.   And don't get me wrong -- all the formatting issues you pointed out were pretty much on the nose.  But still.   This story had a creative factor that shouldn't be overlooked.  People shouldn't even be allowed to leave comments on a script until they read it from start to finish, IMO.  

Alright, I'm done with my rant.  


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screenrider  -  October 16th, 2010, 1:30pm
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conwall
Posted: October 16th, 2010, 2:11pm Report to Moderator
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I'm interested in your "Rant"

Look man, you don't get a second chance in this business.  If there are Hollywood pros who are willing to "overlook the formatting to get to the creative factor," or whatever you said, I've yet to meet them.  Scripts need to work on ALL fronts or they get bounced immediately.  Not page 13 or 10, but 2 or 4.  That's all you get.  

This poster had major shortcomings on virtually every page.  If it was close, if it was better, I'd read to the end and make a bunch of dramatic or story arc criticisms but I didn't get that far, and most professional readers wouldn't either.  

So I stand by my post, as factual, coherent, and ultimately a lot more helpful than the typical, "Oh really good try" I usually read on these boards.


Your comments welcome on:  GOD GETS FIRED.  Comedy, 89 pages.  Humans are such a failure that God loses his job.  Worse, his ex-wife is appointed to oversee Earth’s destruction.  Luckily, God has a plan…but it’s not about saving us.  It’s about winning her back.

http://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/GodGetsFired.pdf
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screenrider
Posted: October 16th, 2010, 2:48pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from conwall
You don't get a second chance in this business.  If there are Hollywood pros who are willing to "overlook the formatting to get to the creative factor," or whatever you said, I've yet to meet them.  


Listen to this Radio Simply podcast interview with a professional Reader.

http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-RadioSimply/m-1267315577/s-new/

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nicole_1024
Posted: December 5th, 2010, 11:35am Report to Moderator
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I must say that I agree with most posters here. This just felt like another bland romantic comedy. Completely predictable. There was no reason that I should have kept with the story. Characters were bland as well; there was nothing that stood out with them. Frankly, I thought the main character was an arrogant jerk. So what if he changes? He's still a jerk for the good portion of the film. The lines were boring as well. I'd heard them so many times before. With romantic comedies, it's very easy to be cliche. I think that if you solidified your characters, gave the story a much stronger start, and spiced up the plot with some original element, you can really make it better. But it's true: you only get one chance in Hollywood to make a good first impression.
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michaelmcgennan
Posted: January 11th, 2011, 4:38pm Report to Moderator
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George, hi. How could you do it? How could you leave Ryan and Claire apart at film's end?

No audience wants that. You put them together, you make them 'work', and then... I can't even type it out.

Seriously, though, I really thought you were going to find a way for them to be together. All through the story you laid out how the two of them could link past what her brain injury was doing to her.

You even have a doctor say there's "good news", but we never find out what it was.

What if the "good news" was that her brain might be slowly repairing itself, by finding new links in an adjacent portion of the brain, for example? Such things have happened in the 'real world'.

What if how the characters find the way to build those links is through what you've already given them (and us): the flower book of memories, the fact Ryan smells of gardenias to her; and the tune of "Unforgettable", all things that cue them to each other.

Sight, smell, sound... all powerful senses, powerful enough to conceivably 'teach' a brain, which can be a self-repairing organ, to make those links, so that sight smell and sound ring "Ryan" in Claire's repairing brain.

Until, at film's end, they are seen by an audience holding it's breath, that she no longer directly needs any of these cues to know exactly who he is and she is.

It may have taken months of her needing to be reminded every day who he is, how they are together, and we should almost certainly as an audience be plunged to the depths of despair at some point, and lose hope that her brain is repairing itself... until that magic cinematic moment when she can't understand what all the fuss is because she wakes up and says "hello" to "Ryan", or turns a corner and walks straight to the door she couldn't remember a week ago, or plays a small riff from "Unforgettable", or hands George the paprika before he asks for it making stew...

And we know that Claire is back.

Don't have Ryan lose her. Don't have us lose them. It's a love story.

And if love doesn't conquer all when we desperately want it to, it ain't no use at all.

Michael
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