Redeemer by Julio Weigend (J_Gomez) - Short, Drama - A man faces his last moments inside a prison cell. - pdf, format

This one fit the theme and genre well, it moved at a good pace and told a complete story in 8 pages.

page 5 you wrote

GUARD (O.S)
Nah, take your fucking time. No
else works around this block but
me.

I think it should be " No one else"

The descriptions were good and the dialogue. for the most part, flowed well.

anyways good job on this entry.

SPOILERS.........

I liked the pacing of this one, and it stuck to the genre of taking place primarilly in a prison cell well. I liked your dialogue, but your last Guard speach had a couple of mistakes.

The "life flashing before your eyes" moment I really liked, I could see it happening, and I was genuinelly rooting for Marlon to try and find a way out of this because I knew there was no hope for him.

Anyways was a good quick read and I enjoyed it.

Robert

Hi, very good imagery in this script. Thought it was a fast read.

It's not really explained why the guys are coming after them though. He was framed for killing his wife and dog? Not like he's a paedophile or something.

Good stuff tho.

Little points as I'm reading:

"Bullet holes on its chest." On or in?

It seems cheating that we hear what skull man said to Mel in Maynard's flashback. Could've been avoided by some line by Mel throwing guilt May's way.

You say Marlon can't take his eyes off Maynard, but isn't Maynard in another cell? I can't figure out how he can take his eyes ON Maynard.

Try to condense your flashes. 3 quick flashes are written as almost a page. Ex: No need to give Mel age if the local is Kindergarten. We'll put it together.

Kinda just ended. I have to wonder how the Skull gang got in. I went over it and it makes no mention of them wearing prison attire, a la inmates. They don't even seem to be bribing the guards to get in.

And the crime itself is very unclear. Was he framed for his wife's murder? He acts like he did it. And other than the flashback with Skull gang and when he actually shoots up, the whole "junkie" angle is no where to be found.

Oh, and if someone's complelety crazy, how does he smoke his cigarette slowly?

It's good but has a bunch of loose ends and inconsistencies. Regardless, nice entry and good show.

Okay, this short included the theme and genre well and all, but, like Souter, I have some unanswered questions too.

Why did the Guard let the Skull gang in and beat him up (friends of the guard's?)? Why is Maynard in prison in the first place (I don't completely understand)? Maybe I didn't catch on to this, but is there even a reason why the Skull gang is after Maynard?

Oh, and another thing that bothered me was that Maynard and Marlon, the names both sound alike and I continued to get confused on who was talking and whatnot.

The ending with the flashbacks was good, and how he died smiling.

Sean

Hello,

This one has some problems.

I'm with Sean and Souter about the unanswered questions. Why is he in jail? Was he framed for his wife's muder?

And who is the skull Man? Just some drug dealer? If so, how come he is allowed in the prison barracks?

Loose the CONT'D, they are not needed.

I don't like the Skull Man's V.O. about his 'standards'. I don't think it's needed.

Overall, I nice try. But I really think you should have used the entire 12 pages.

I'll give it a C-

~Zack~

I too think there's a lot of unanswered questions here. Some of them aren't too serious. Maynard is a junkie and his wife has been murdered. There's a lot of possibilities for him going to prison. I gathered the Skull Man killed him for not paying his debts. Like I said, not too serious. There are, however, two things I would've liked to have seen addressed.

1) I can buy the crooked guard but he needs insentive to let these guys do what they do. Crooked cops always do in the movies and I imagine in real life too. I think these guys should have some kind of deal worked out.

2) What's Marlon's involvement in any of this? Never explained at all. Not even a hint. You need at least that.

Anyway, I thought this was a decent read. The general concept seemed pretty standard but there was one thing that stood out to me. Usually junkies are portrayed as spineless scum with little to no development. You gave Maynard a backstory, which hasn't been done a lot, I don't think. It was a refreshing twist on an otherwise familiar scenario.

Yeah, I'm gonna echo everyone else here.  There are a lot of plot holes that aren't explained and it kind of taints an otherwise well written piece.  Why was Maynard involved in all of those?  How was he involved?  What's going on here?  And why the flip did the guard let Skull Fuck and his boys in to kill Maynard?  I'll just assume that this takes place during Donald Rumsfeld's time in office.  

Imagery was good.  The final series of quick flashbacks were very well done.  Just would have liked some more explanation.

An interesting morality tale and definitely met the challenge.  I thought the writing was good, full characters, terse actions, and unforced dialogue.

However, I had a couple of problems with this.  The first was small, too many M names.  It gets confusing to read.

The second was the story, I found it far fetched.  If the Skull Man was a pusher then why is he holding his junkies in cells.  He would be getting them to steal for their next fix or something like that.  He wouldn’t kill the wife, he would hurt her until Marlon cooperated. I found a complete lack of motive for Skull Man’s actions.

Still it would probably look good on film so I’ll give it a CONSIDER

I liked this for the most part, with the exception of Mel...I think she would have been hiding in a closet when all these killings were happening, and not just standing there holding her dead pup...She'd have called 911 or run to the nieghbors...After the crime, the cops would have had her out of there way before she had the opportunity to watch her paw shoot up...The tension with Skull Man is cool; he's a good villainous character...The flashbacks during the beating are unneeded, as it's already established with the earlier flash back...the "critters" on the first page breaks the mood and tone of the short...

This is one of the better ones that I've read for the challenge so far, despite several plotholes.

- Why was Maynard in there?
- How is a gang allowed into the prison?
- What does Marlon have to do with anything?

All of those have been asked and are very valid questions.

The main thing that came to my attention, though, was the title.  Maynard never redeems himself in any way.  Unless I just missed something.  I'm pretty sure all that happens is that Maynard admits that he's a junkie and his family got killed for it.  That's not redemption.  That's an apology.  He's the 'Apologizer'.

This would be a good story to work with outside the guidelines of the challenge after it's over.  The writing and descriptions I thought were pretty good, and the story definately has some potential, as long as all the questions are answered.

- Mark

I liked this one as well, although I agree that the execution seems a little confused. A week is not very much time to write a short and with more time to refine I think this would be better.

I don't mind the unanswered questions, you give us enough information to fill in the blanks as to what happened with Maynard and his family. You need to put in a little more about Marlon, though. Why Skull Man is after him, why's he's in prison, etc; would be nice to have those questions answered; or at least have the answer hinted at.

All in all, a good short. Quick and to the point, fit the genre very well. I really liked the quick flashbacks during the beating. Very poignant. Like I said, it's a bit of a confused script, but with some rewriting and refining of the material, I think this could be a great short. Well done.


Matt.

Try to fill your audience or hint us what happened in the past, there were some  plot holes(i think anyway) that i couldn't figure out.

However i this fits the challenge really well, a good story for the prison theme. touching thing with the flashbacks, my fav part, i can see anybody having in a situation like that.

A well told story which was fast to read, Congrats!

EDIT: i Read over a second time and had one more thing to point out. Are the names anything special to you, becuase i think there is one name too many that begins with an M. Had it confusing. Srry, wanted to point it out.

It’s a nice effort that would sit well within a wider story.

However the story is graphically unpleasant without really explaining why. There are places here where the dialog goes a little unnatural and expositional.

Philip

I liked this one. It was written pretty well and was a quick read. I think you could of used more pages and fleshed it out but I loved how there were things that were open to interpretation. There are a few small typo/errors that are mentioned above but besides that, good entry.

I might hafta read this a second time. It made very little sense to me. I don't understand why a dealer would kill a man's wife n his daughter's dog over n unpaid fix. Why not kill the junkie or beat the shit out of him? N why is he n prison? My head is spinning.

um, the writing itself tho was great...loved the action scenes.

Early on I felt the cursing was out of place. More for shock value than dialogue. When The Skull man swears later it fits but not any of the early stuff.

Also you wrote in a description "Remorse?" as if asking us if the character has remorse. If the scene itself doesn't show this, it is not needed.

If The Skull man is violent and sick why would he be shocked by a smile on Maynard's face? How can you show the shock instead of telling us about it?

Why do credits roll? This is not a short film... yet, so it doesn't need a cue for credits.

It was a fairly decent short but had no characters that as a reader one felt anything for.

This was a nice and quick read. Well written and easily to follow.

Story problems have already been brought up so I won't go into details about those.

Good job though.

Good take on the challenge. Good characters. Good writing style. Interesting read.

I agree with the readers above me. The protagonist’s crime must be clarified. It should be clear why he’s in jail.

I wasn’t too fond on the quick flashes. They don’t reveal anything new to move the story forward. Since they’re there for dramatic effect, it comes off as a bit melodramatic. Not that it was a big problem for me, but that was my reaction.

I think you did pretty well, overall. Good job.

I liked the script in spots, but the holes and the questions just kill your story.

If I'm not overly confused, the Skull Man murders Maynard's wife because he hasn't paid his drug debt?
And then the Skull Man kills the puppy and tells the daughter, her daddy is to blame?
I don't get the second flashback.  Maynard is told he has "redeemed" himself and given 3 syringes, so he can shoot up.  I think Skull Man leaves the briefcase, right?  Why??  How did he redeem himself?

It must have happened after Maynard discovered his wife's murder, because he's got blood on his clothes and we hear the approaching sirens  --- which I presume will lead to his arrest.  

Why does Skull Man want to kill Maynard?  He had his chance.  As far as I could tell, Maynard didn't do anything to retaliate for the Skull Man killing his wife, so I don't get the ending.

And how does Maynard know the Skull Man is coming for him?  Does the guard tell him so?   Make this clear.
And I just don't get Marlon's involvement.  He does the expository Q&A thing early on, but you tell us early that he's "involved" in the crime.

How can Skull Man easily enter the prison?  We need to see the exchange of money bet. the Skull Man and the guard.
Anyway, this story could have a Tarantinoesque edge, but I cannot connect the scenes.  They don't make sense as is.  This story feels really rushed.  However, I think you can fix it and make it work.  

How much $$$ does Maynard owe the Skull Man?
Not sure it makes any sense that Maynard would be on the SM's erase list for not paying for his fix.  How about if Maynard stole from Skull Man.  

Your explanation to this story might be more interesting than the story itself. LOL.

Hmm...I'm not crazy about this one. First of all the story has a major plothole: How and why would Skull go into prison to beat up Maynard? This was never explained and it ruined a lot of the script for me.

The flashbacks didn't work too well either - it was total exposition, and the ones in the end got really really YIKES-mushy.

Also, the story is not really that interesting and there's no real protagonist here. Maynard is a piece of shit junkie who got involved with the wrong people and suffered the consequences. Big deal - what's new?

As it seems, my complaints (and compliments) run alongside those of others.

First, the complaints: As someone (I think it was Sean) mentioned earlier, Marlon and Maynard sound quite similar, and when explaining this short to someone, I found myself attaching the wrong name to the wrong man. Not a big thing, but it wouldn't hurt to look into changing a name or two.

Also, I don't see why the guard allowed a group of gang-bangers to come in and beat the life out of one of their past customers. There doesn't seem to be any form of bribing taking place, although if I had to guess (which, because of this plot hole, I do), that would be my first explanation for it.

In terms of the flashbacks, two main things jumped out at me: (1) if the Skull Man is willing to kill Maynard's wife for his not paying for drugs, why would he then leave behind (you guessed it) drugs at the scene of the crime? True, it implements Maynard for the crime; it just seems that the Skull Man, so tight with money as he seems to be, is in the business of losing it too. (2) I liked the flashbacks, especially the "flashes before his eyes" sequence. Note, however, that you forget to place (FLASHBACK) at the end of such scenes as EXT. KINDERGARTEN - DAY. Just a little technical glitch you may want to look at.

And the ending... there didn't seem to be one really. Maynard's in prison for a crime he didn't commit, he's beaten to death, the end. I would have liked to see more of a conclusive, um, conclusion, though I don't know what that would be.

Now, the compliments: great imagery. You seem to enjoy writing descriptions just as much as you do dialogue. Nice, grimy stage setting. I liked the mental pictures you painted for us from the get-go.

You stayed within the boundaries of the OWC, inserting flashbacks here and there for backstory, and it seemed to (aside from the plot holes) click well enough.

Good luck.

There isn't much to add here. I also wondered about the involvement of Marlon. What did they do that was so stupid? And I'm unclear as to why Maynard was in prison for reasons previously stated. The whole idea was good and a good read.

James

Most things have been covered here, why is Maynard in jail, what's Marlon's purpose, is he merely a sounding board?  How did the Skull man get in and more importantly why?  If Maynards going to be excecuted why murder him in his cell?  Especially when the Skull man has already set him up for murder.

As for the actual writing, I thought it was good, a few mistakes but nothing major.  I like the montage with the birth of Mel and some important times in Maynard's life.

This is another one that is well-written, but suffers from the same logic flaws and unrealistic scenarios that plague a number of these jailhouse scripts.    

Starting with some technical nits, using two characters with similar names -- Marlon and Maynard -- is a little confusing for the reader.  You should avoid that when you can.

And your use of (cont’d) is wrong.  I do not use them at all -- I mean, it is obvious who is speaking -- their name is right there above the dialogue -- but if you do use them, it goes beside the name of the person speaking, not as a parenthetical.  Roll credits is another instruction that need not be included.

But my biggest problem here is that Maynard does not seem all that guilty.  Pitiable, sure, but unworthy of the fate that befalls him.  The same goes for his family.  What happens to them seem like overkill.  And why is Marlon on death row for the crime?  That just doesn’t make any sense, even in movie-land.

The final flashbacks do not quite fit with the tone of the story.  Maynard can have regrets and remorse, but the implication that his own death somehow improves things and somehow brings him inner peace is a very strange message.

Just how is it that he has been redeemed, as the title implies?  He has been killed, sure, but that is not redemption.

Again, this is a well-written tale, but the story does not meet its potential.  Maynard needs a crime that fits his punishment, and a redemption that truly exonerates.

OWC Score: 75%