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I got to page 4, and the only reason I continued from page 3 is because your dialogue was above average. It's written how people actually talk, for the most part. Well done.
A few notes:
Don't start the script with something that sounds like a line from Forrest Gump. Just say, "Life is an adventure. A really big adventure." And you don't need to say, "I know this from personal experience." We know it's from personal experience.
Once you're 18 you're no longer considered a BOY or GIRL. MAN and WOMAN, are more accurate.
The orange rusty chains aren't important. Or if they are, I didn't get to that point in the script. It's a wasted line and it doesn't do anything for the story. Remove it.
To say the school is, "Modern looking", and "Fresh looking" is redundant to say that is what the school looks like. Notice the redundancy?
"Gym building" sounds weird. Just say, "Gym".
Just say, "A floral banner hangs above the entrance."
Ah, this is my favorite line, "Teenage school pupils". Uh... do you mean, "Students"?
"Current main-stream" = modern
You don't need to capitalize TEEN GIRL twice.
We already know that Remy is standing next to the drink table. You don't need to tell us again when she sees a BOY approaching.
Several lines of good dialogue. Well done.
What are, "two medium sized bottles of EMPTY vodka"? Is Empty a type of vodka? This is written awkwardly.
I didn't continue reading because I have a very short attention span. I need to be hooked right away and if I'm not, I'm gone.
I would suggest that you write a couple shorts in order to hone your skills, but since you already wrote a feature, take in all the advice you get, and learn from your mistakes.
As always, these are just my thoughts. There is absolutely no absolute way of writing.
I do like the story. It's a very mature and delicate them. Very nice to see a younger writer doing something like this instead of a zombie script or some other horror movie fanfic piece.
Your writing can be much tighter. One mistake you make regularly is how you introduce a character:
Quoted Text
A GIRL and a BOY sit on a swing. The sky is a glorious deepshade of red. Night is closing in. The girl we see is --
REMY ADAMS (20) -- Bubbly, beautiful and sweet. An American small-town girl to the bone. Earnest to a fault at times.
She’s smiling at the boy across in the opposite swing. His hands are holding onto the orange, rusty chains. This is --
DYLAN REBER (21) -- A short-haired, handsome bloke. Not quite jock, but not a nerd either. Consider him a sexysomewhere-in-between mix. Just right.
could be better written as:
Quoted Text
REMY ADAMS (20) and DYLAN REBER sit in adjacent park swings, against a bright red dusk sky. She is the all-American girl; he is cute in a boy band sort of way.
Saying things like: A MAN enters the room. He is DOCTOR CHARLIE is a waste of space. Just write DOCTOR CHARLIE enters the room. All this extra wording does is make the script needlessly longer. Looking at what I've read so far, I'm guessing you could trim this script by twenty pages. And that makes a big difference to a script reader.
Try to avoid director shots and WE SEE's. We don't see anything; we are not there. And don't include a title card. That's the director's job.
Several times, you used unfilmable descriptions:
Quoted Text
Then in rushes VICKIE MEXTON (mid 30’s) -- a control freak who only likes things done her way. She knows she’s hated by Remy, but she doesn’t care.
In Vickie’s hands are TWO COASTERS.
You need to describe things that can be recorded by the camera. When you introduced Vickie, you gave us a complete breakdown of her personality and her relationship with Remy. If I was watching this, I would only see a woman rushing in with coasters. If there is bad blood between Vicki and Remny, you need to show this to us, not tell us.
I thought Doctor Charlie's explanation of cancer--while necessary--was too friggin' long. We have a doughy-looking doctor talking for about forty seconds, which is way too long. Try to cut it down to a third or a quarter the length.
Why does everyone think that going to law school makes people experts in crime scene investigation?
On page 23, Vicky refers to her fiance's daughter? Her fiance has a son.
I'm going to keep reading this and get back to you with the rest.
Phil and Jordan, thanks very much for the constructive feedback.
I already have Final Draft open, and am in the midst of editing and rewriting, I have already learned so much. Thanks so much guys, really means a lot.
And on page 23, Vicky refers to her fiance's daughter is correct. Remy is Dave's daughter. Dylan is Bree's son.
"No matter what you do, your job is to tell your story..."
Seen you on the boards of late, so I thought I'd take a quick look at this.
As far as I know, your OVER BLACK: isn't a transition, so belong son the left hand side of the page.
First slug: generally stick to DAY or NIGHT.
As far as character descriptions go, a lot gets said on what to say and what not to say. If it's one of your key characters, then go for a little extra in the way of description - something that sums them up. Here, you've said 'earnest to a fault'. I'm not sure it nails her character in one go it leaves it a little vague to my mind - but's something you can play around with.
p.1 "She’s smiling at the boy across in the opposite swing." - This is a very horrible sentence and requires intervention.
'She smiles at - ' blah, blah, and describe him - we know he is on the swing, because instead of going 'A BOY etc' in your first line, you did things different - see? And such is the art of trimming.
(BEAT) You probably want to know how it ends. -- Nope. Only if. Since we know nothing of the aventure. You have to entice us in with something, and if you have to say something like this, then there's something going awry.
Okay, so I got to page three. But, like some of the reviewers have said, this script feels like you've packed enough for a three-week holiday when you're going for an over-night stay.
It's a good bash for starting out, but it should be pretty clear reading everything on the board on where to go from here.
The problems I listed earlier run through out the script, which isn't the worst thing to say. These formatting problems are fairly easy to solve.
My big concern deals with the story. And, honestly, I think you should take the murder out of it. This is a love story, more than anything else. Two 'kids' in love, only one of them is dying. And their running off means that they spend more time together, as long as Dylan is alive. Everything else is fluff.
The relationship between Remy and Dylan is in a weird grey zone. If you step to the left, it's a straightforward dramatic piece. If you step the other way, you havge Raising Arizona. Pick one! Personally, I would go with Raising Arizona. Kick everything up a notch or two. Be a little surreal with your characters and their stories.
FWIW, I thought Casey was extremely unrealistic. Having a waitress agree to take in two strangers is plot device theater. Having the pharmacist give out free painkillers to someone who looks like he's in withdrawal is also unrealistic. Allowing Remy's family to stay in the house during the investigation is also unrealistic; no one should be in that house!
As I said earlier, I think this is a very mature story for someone your age. And you did a good job in telling it. But now it's time to cut away everything that isn't needed. Strip it down to bare-bones and tell us a love story.
I didn't read reviews so if I repeat anything... my apologies
Page 1
Your OVER BLACK needs to be on the left.
I like your presentation on the 1st page, in other words it's not 8 lines clumped together, making it unbearable to read. So at that point, you know what your doing.
As for the actual writing :
A GIRL and a BOY sit on a swing. The sky is a glorious deep shade of red. Night is closing in. The girl we see is -- REMY ADAMS (20) -- Bubbly, beautiful and sweet. An American small-town girl to the bone. Earnest to a fault at times. She’s smiling at the boy across in the opposite swing. His hands are holding onto the orange, rusty chains. This is -- DYLAN REBER (21) -- A short-haired, handsome bloke. Not quite jock, but not a nerd either. Consider him a sexysomewhere-in-between mix. Just right.
It's a nice setting, but you're mentioning the same people twice and over writing it.. in other words, why not start off naming the boy and girl and lose the opening sentence.
Lose the "we see" and "we realize"
You could write
SLOW MOTION
I think Gym is necessary not gym building and I don't know what fresh-looking is?
Page 2
You really like your FOCUS ON
TEEN GIRL then arrives at a HORNY BOY in a bad vomit-green tux, it’s then that we leave her and..
This reads awkward and again lose the "we"
And I read forward to page 12 and so far I believe I have 9 or 10 characters which is a lot to keep track of as well as your slug times...
It's probably been pointed out, but a lot of actions are of what we can't see on screen:
Something terrible has happened.
We can’t really hear anything.
And a few are over written:
PULL BACK -- the hospital is dull. TINSEL hangs on the walls. A tacky and feeble effort to brighten the place up for the season. It actually makes the place look worse
Tinsel hangs from the hospital walls to brighten the otherwise, dull surroundings.
Just an example.
By the way, I have also had a few laughs so far.
Upto page 14 and I realize you've used every technical instruction possible..
Over black, Slow Motion, focus on, the screen is engulfed in pure white, title card, we cue, pan down, super, pull back, fade to black, and now cue series of shots...
Maybe you're trying a little too hard to be fancy.
Had to stop at page 15, not because it's bad, it's more because i'm tired(late night at work)
I will read it all over the next few days.
So far, i'm actually enjoying the storyline, there's a lot of jumping back and forth, but the outline is pretty clear.
Should be interesting to see where the relationship goes from here.
I would suggest cutting down on the characters and lose some the technical jargon, especially all on the first 14 pages.
Curt, I am impressed by your writing and i'm sure the grammar has being pointed out from previous feedbacks, so i'll concentrate on the story and give you feedback on it when i'm finished.
Thanks everyone for the pointers, between school and work, I am trying my best to rewrite this to the best of my ability. Excited to have a third, better draft for this. . Thanks to everyone, it means a lot guys
-- Curt
"No matter what you do, your job is to tell your story..."
I'm on page 20 it's pretty good so far, I really like the idea of Remy telling the story as it goes on V.O. Your character development was good too, seriously everyone talks very natural and how a teenager would talk.
I'm going to read more later, I'm really enjoying it so far.
There are a couple of misspelled words like instead of stairs you wrote stares.
page 14 Dylan who is lying in bed hooked up to a machine... passive writing
Dylan lies in bed
page 15
- DYLAN lying in a different room as a female nurse draws blood samples from his arms.
Dylan lies
REMY watches from behind a glass window as this happens to her boyfriend.
Just ... REMY watches on from behind a glass window.. we already know it's her boyfriend
-- DYLAN is in bed, DR. CHARLIE is addressing him.
Charlie addresses him
INT. REMY’S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS
INT. REMY’S HOUSE - HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS
When you go from room to room in a house, I like to use mini slugs, for example
INT. REMY'S HOUSE - CONTINUOUS
Living room
Remy stands up. REMY I’m ‘gonna go shower guys and then head back to the hospital. Tori, would you give me a ride? TORI Not a problem. Remy “smiles”, and walks out into --
Hallway
-- the hallway. She goes for the stairs. KATE approaches from the other end of the hallway.
Curt, just watch out for the passive writing... I learned that lesson myself
She climbs the rest of the stares. .. stairs
ANGLE ON REMY. As she passes by the CAMERA, in a swooshing motion -- more technical instructions and I'm only at page 20.
Wow, your script just took a huge turn and i'm glad, cuz it was starting to get a little monotonous.. Nice job
Russ and Tori stand on the sidewalk with their two friends as an old GREY-HOUND pulls up by the street and stops... you might want to say BUS here, otherwise it's a dog and that wouldn't make much sense
- INSIDE THE GREY-HOUND is almost empty. ... EWWW poor dog
Through the glass, we see Russ and Tori wave good-bye as the bus pulls away... lose the we see
page 34
There lucky day.... Their
page 40
CASEY (CONT’D) She’s hilarious ... I think you mean Dylan here
page 41
Back in Dylan and Remy’s small town, night was arrived... night has arrived... also does the town not have a name.
page 42
Nurses pass us. Doctors rushing to and from places. It’s almost as if one of their Leukemia patients hadn’t have went on the run with his innocent murder-suspect better half.
Reads awkward, you could clean this up
page 44
We hear the FAINT sound of a toilet-flush, and a door opens... lose the "we hear"
page 49
ok, I think i'm onto the 4th series of shots..
page 68
Jesus, she’s killing me here Russ. Anymore of it and I swear you’re going to see the Hover Dam rush out of my eyes. ... Hoover Dam
page 75
But then... FLASH TO -- A FLASH BACK... flashing to a flash back, that's a new one
page 76
INT. CITY-EDGE INN MOTEL - MOTEL ROOM... Motel room is not a time of day, I guess you mean SAME here
page 85
One officer, PRESCOTT, nods. And walks towards a pay-phone.... wow the cops have a pretty shitty form of communication
page 86
After this, he glance at the WALL. .. glances
Ok Curt I finished it as promised..
It turned out to be an emotional rollercoaster... with Dylan slowly fading away trying to capture his last moments with his true love. I really enjoyed it, except for the anti climax ending to which Vicki gave herself up all too easy after being a complete bitch throughout.
How did Dylan know Remy was in Casey's apartment?... they had just been thrown out into the streets and he took off.
This was a great script and held me til the end, I thought the dialogue was excellant. But you had way to many camera angles for a spec script.
It's becoming very clear to me that I'm not going to get the time to read your script all in one setting, and I didn't want to keep putting you on the backburner anymore, so I'll read this in the biggest chunks that I can.
I got the first act done tonight, exactly on page 30.
Though it definitely needs a lot of work, (Dan and Phil and others gave you some great examples on how to cut down on your novel-like descriptions and actions), I do like the story and I am very interested to see where our two protagonists go from here.
But, on the other hand, I'm just not buying Vickie's frame up. It's way too easy for the story. Don't forget, Vickie'll still have the blood on her hands (she's the one who threw Remy the vase for crying out loud), and she'll most definitely have more blood on her than Remy will. You definitely need to work the frame-up better to get people to buy into it. That moment changed the pace and tone of the movie and it was too big of a jarring jump. Now it feels like a Coen brothers movie. (I think Phil mentioned 'Raising Arizona', but 'The Man Who Wasn't There' and 'Fargo' jumped into my head first because of the subject of framed murder.)
I also don't like Tori and Russ, either. They're not bringing much to the table and are very unlikable. Tori's weird (and very long) tantrum in the restaurant didn't sit well and Russ was just kind of a boring goof. They're just not adding much and this story can be told without them. I'd suggest either fixing them up or cutting them out altogether.
But like I said, I do want to know what happens next and that's your main goal as a writer to to make the reader keep reading. With everybody's advice about how to cut down on your descriptions and your actions, you'll end up with a very decent first act in no time.
And, just for the record, you're way ahead of the curve, so don't let all the people who checked out of the story early bother you. You're on the right track by trying to get better and everything'll come to you without you even knowing it.
Hope you're doing good, Curt, and I'll be cracking open Act 2 as I get the time.
To everyone who is continuing to read this, and who has read this since my last comment, thanks so much.
With work and school and other things at the moment, I hardly find time work working on this and editing it and making it the best it can be. I will get there though, hopefully a revised version is posted before the end of March when I jet off to the land of where Apples are la'big.
As for the story, the murder and the framing, I think I will edit this and fix everything but keep the story the same. I didn't post this here to get it produced or anything like that, I simply wrote this because I wanted to see could I manage an original feature/and learn some more.
Mark, thanks very much for getting through it all, despite it's many flaws. All the errors you pointed out shall be handy when I sit down to have a heavy edit/rewrite session.
And Mark (um, wait two Marks?! I shall call the above Mark, "American Mark" -- Mark, thanks for getting through the first act. Glad you're liking the story. I understand all your comments and criticisms and shall take them onboard. Again, I don't think I'll be making any changes to the story, maybe later down the line I will if I ever want to get serious about this.
Thanks everyone for the support!
-- Curt
"No matter what you do, your job is to tell your story..."
Hey Curt, I just found your script now. You have been posting excellent, helpful feedback since you started and deserve all the feedback you can get, yourself. This is exactly how SS is supposed to work.
I've read through the feedback quickly. Sounds like I might as well wait for you to make some changes. When you repost, I'll jump in and see if I can help as well.
- It makes no sense the police would know Remy went to the hospital, but then not know where Remy's family is, especially when the murder happened at one of Remy's family members house. Remy's family would lead them to the hospital, so they'd already know where they are.
- Also, I'll say real quick before I get back to the story. Way too many camera directions. Keep them out and just tell enough to get the story across. We don't need to know that the camera PANS or TRACKS. That's all shooting script talk. This is supposed to be a spec script.
- Another thing you're doing that's pulling me out of the story is making way too many references to other TV shows and films. For instance, on page 41, a description reads:
'It’s like something right out of “CSI.”
That's a big no-no! You want to keep people in the spell of the story. When you make references and asides to the reader, you're reminding us that we're READING a script, instead of LIVING the lives of two people on the run. Just stick to the story and the main action.
- Wow, you're trying to fit every camera and editing direction you can in this script, aren't you? Keep in mind. Just tell the story. If and when it comes time for filming, THEN make these suggestions to the director (if he lets you.) Remember, keep us in the spell. Technical garbage takes us out of the read.
(That being said, there is a time and a place for PRE-LAPS, as I've used them myself, but it's not a necessity in this story. Especially since it hasn't been utilized in the previous 40-some pages anyway.)
- All right. I love carnivals. But even I just barely skimmed pages 45-50. The carnival doesn't push the story forward at all. We don't learn anything new, except that Remy likes dolphins. If that's really important, I'm sure you can say it without taking up 5 whole pages of story.
I know it's fun to go on our own little personal adventures in scripts, but try to always keep the story moving. It's at a total standstill right now.
- I thought Remy and Dylan were going to call their parents the next day, then all of a sudden it's four days later. That seems like an important scene to skip over.
- And you end a scene with this little tidbit:
'ON VICKIE -- she sighs. Thinking she’s still getting away with it. Stuck in her own little reality world.'
I know how this one ends now. :-) Remember, not only are you using camera directions to take us out of the story, but you're also telling us how the story ends, also. You have a SPOILER in the middle of your own story!
- I don't find it believable that Casey just let them go, and then didn't even go to the police. Casey needs some brushing up character-wise also.
-
Welp, I was able to make it to page 64 today. I know it sounds like a lot of negative stuff I brought up during my read, but the good news is that I'm still interested in where this story's going to go, and I'll be reading more as time permits.
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Run For Your Life
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