Quoted Text A script born out of an original concept simply meant to be edited

This tells me that your script is first draft, Will.  A lot people hear don't want to read first drafts; they just to problematic.


Phil

Almost! I meant I was the editor, literally. I was meant to just do grammar, but took over the whole story as it had huge holes. Still, what you first saw before my re-post was about a second draft, or so. I hit that wall as a student, where I really needed that boost to push it to the next level. I've gotta say, between Crookedowl's and Dreamscale's posts, with other's, I think I found that push. Their advice made immediate improvements, all around, and I'm extremely proud of what it's become over just this last week.

I'm glad to say, that the newest version (and most final, probably, that I would like to put on the internet), will be posted in the next series, along with an 8-page short called Pendulum that I've also implemented those tips on... with equally helpful results.

The actual writing process, however, is my own, where Rick's input and opinions were included wherever I felt they could be (with respect to his love of the genre, and his "baby"). It's huge length probably had to do with fitting in so much from two minds clashing. The next you will find to be at a proper length and of more proper format, as best as I could manage.

In the future, of course, I will have a much better concept for what passes as readable on this site, and should be able to achieve those goals, now known, before posting any work. Thanks for the honesty, though!

What do you think of the new log-line? Still too unspecific and theme-driven, or am I getting closer?

Take care, dood, and keep those eyes peeled for the new work, and better log-lines! I'm making the rounds to as many other's scripts as I can get feedback to, as well, and will remain an active participant for as long as I'm able.  

Gotta lose the entire script being in Italic, bro.  Courier or Courier New only; no bolds, no italics, etc.  Though some writers have taken to bolding their scene headings; judgment call, I suppose, but traditionally, it's not welcome.

That said, it's still over-written.  You're describing in detail things that don't matter, such as the physical set up and location of each vehicle and character in the opening party scene.  Take a look at the first four paragraphs and strip them down to the essentials.  And watch your SLUGLINES; a CAMPFIRE isn't a location.

EXT. FIELD - NIGHT

A full moon hangs over teenagers partying around a campfire on
the edge of a forest.  Music blaring, kids hooting and hollering,
vehicles scattered about.  Lovebirds TOMMY and JANEY make out
on a blanket near Tommy's truck.

So there are your first four paragraphs distilled down to four lines.  In spec script writing, think broad strokes.  Conveying the general idea and ix-naying the unimportant details.  Let the director stage and block the scene and determine which kids are going to be sitting where and all that.

For a great example of how to write action/narratives, check out Brian Helgeland's script for L.A. Confidential and compare it to the actual film.  You'll see that his action/narratives are about as bare-boned as it gets, yet that didn't prevent the director, cinematographer and set decorator from filling every screne with rich detail -- because that's their job.  Yours as the writer is to tell the story.  You give us the meat and potatoes; let the director worry about how to arrange them on the plate.

Damn.  Now I'm hungry.

Anyway, if you approach the rest of your script with that in mind you'll drastically whittle down that 138 page count, which is WAY too long for a spec script.  If one page of script equals one minute of film, you're talking about an almost two-and-a-half hour long werewolf movie, and you don't have two-and-a-half hour's worth of story here.

Keep at it.  You'll get there.

- Lon

EDIT -- sorry, I just noticed you mention that it's still the old script.  Ah, well...

The newer version is up... still recognizing that the writing is more of a novel-like prose, but with way fewer unfilmables and paras, you can see how vastly improved that advice has made it, opening up a clearer narrative and more proper length.

Hello WillJonassen!

I just wanted to update my progress on your script. I'm up to page 20 (Really just started).

Now some people will talk about your writing style as being "overly writen" or to "novel like" or something to that effect. I actually like this style of writing. I call it "cumulative" or using the "cumulative sentence". Dont know if thats what you intend but thats how I read it. I ordered a DVD course in writng from a professor at an Iowa university and this is the style the teacher taught so it works fine for me in a screenplay.  
Now as to the story so far I'm digging it. It starts out with a good and gory Teens/young people getting killed at a party scene. Its a fast start and we dont waist any time getting to it. Sure its been done before, but works fine here IMO. Then we meet the surly Sheriff and his crew and continued menace from a bear. Good stuff. And of course the nosey reporter (wonder what happend there? lol will find out later Im sure)
As I said I'm just now getting into the script so I'll post a full review when I'm done. Just wanted to let you know what I think so far. Keep up the good work.

HGW

Other Will, I've seen you popping up around here lately, which is good. Review scripts to get your script reviewed... And writing reviews is a great way to improve your own writing as well.

I already have some notes regarding the first ten pages on my other computer, but I got sidetracked over the holidays. I'll finish this when I get a chance.

All I can say so far is, this is a big improvement from the last draft. Still needs work, but you're on the right track. More notes to come...

Will

Crookedowl.... I feel I might even be able to still recognize the areas you would personally want to see re-touched, in this. You're advice was/is fantastic, but in my writing and with a work of this length, hitting all those paras and unfilmables just so is like swatting a room-full of flies. One or two of the buggers always get away, and just pop up again.     It's been extremely enlightening, though, and shocking what it did with the length.

Keep in mind, I come from directing and animation experience rather than a pure writer, and it gets so damned hard to meddle with certain lines that I think are part of the essence of the whole. Even hidden double meanings here and there like poetry, and easter-eggs just for people "in the know..." This is tailored to a very specific demographic, in other words. I hope the broad audience might get it and find things to like, but only a very specific - very focused on a certain culture - portion of the audience, will walk out having gotten this thing fully, I think, and that's exactly what I am hoping for. Think... Syd Barrett. Think the old Pink Floyd. Think punk rock. Think Tool. Not for those who don't/can't get it, in a way. In the face of them, but not for them. This script is meant to be jazz, then, where "it's the notes you don't hear," in many, many ways.
Does that help clarify the intent, when judging the product? You're reviews have been great, absolutely.

(PS: on the other works where I see you, which is practically every one, you're my virtual critic now, or news write-up, where you pretty much set the standard for what I'm really about to see. Haha, it's great)

Hugh... man, thanks! I love the impressions you're sort of glancing at so far. You might be the first to be responding to the rhythms and trickery I was trying to employ.

Don't overlook, though... well, the "jazz" thing from above, but also, this is very much as if Wes Anderson and Nicholas Winding Refn had a meeting, with the Cohen Brothers as consultants, and decided to collaborate on a classically true werewolf story, with abstractions like the main characters not having names and so on. Doing that feels right, because in an abstract way, as characters, they are two sides of the same person. The reporter is two people in one, in the reverse (people I really knew). The others represent a general sense of disconnection and uncaring, unempathetic/self-centered stupidity so prevalent in this world. I'd be interested to see if any of those subtleties come out as you go along, or do you really take something else entirely out of it, like to the core werewolf tale or some other social thing? If not that, is the action or arc natural and satisfying? Entertaining? For me, it takes what you know, like teens in the woods, and warps it as it goes, it's my hope. By Act 2, you should see the jazz aspect at work, kinda. Also, it's a bit of a character piece/personality study. I feel like some voice in my head wrote it, really, so I don't know.

A line that appears late in the story, for example, where reporter Melanie James is at the hotel:

"She makes a retching motion - finger in mouth - to the wall. It doesn't react."

Seems like a joke at first glance, and it is (it's a joke just for the crew, almost, being so away from normal), that I laugh at every time. I forget it's there, then come across it, and just laugh and laugh.... but I do feel I literally want to see a shot of the wall on screen, somehow, being a wall and not reacting. I think a talented and eccentric enough actress like a Shannyn Sossamon might pick up on that immediately, and even make a small face at the wall's lack of response. This is because she is such a judgmental person as a character, she would even judge a wall. It's an essential part of her. I could never take that out as silly as it sounds. That's the sort of fine line I'm walking that I hope people might pick up on as they read, or overlook and find something totally different in it.  

It's made to be so subjective, I would not be surprised if ten different people ended up with ten entirely different points of view, and I would absolutely love that result.

"You... In all things in your life, in every moment lived, are in preparation for something important: your poetry and your writing can not, if it is of any quality, be written to reassure or to entertain. If you have been chosen, living perpetually in a condition of fire, your life's effort now is to create some small part of the Sublime...

Here, if the writer has accepted his or her creativity and goes forward toward a constant condition of inner fire (burning bright), that writer will lose the ability, forever, to remain 'in the moment' (as we say today). Every action, external and internal, every interaction, every emotion, every reaction, will be coldly observed as if by Yeats's stony Sphinx with its gaze blank and pitiless as the sun...

Your parent dies. You hurt. You weep. You mourn. You do and say the necessary things even as your disciplined askesis has you (against your will) coldly taking notes on what the emotion feels like, how others around you react to the death, what the corpse of your parent looks like, how you feel while looking down at it, what voids there are in that feeling, what pretenses, what posturings... Are you the clay or the hand? Both?

You make love. You surrender to physical sensation and emotional connection. But your mind's cold burden of kinesis has you taking notes even as the sensations surround and overwhelm you, even as the emotions wash over you like high waves washing across a black-pebbled beach. What physical absurdities and efforts of the moment?

What held back? What given and what more never given? Thus, we can watch the most nihilistic and hopeless play in the history of human mimetic art. The worst of our fears have been faced and shown baldly and brilliantly: our fate is fickle except for the absolute certainty of loss and inevitable nothingness. And yet, through the art of a man dwelling with his daemons perpetually, we are consoled - even strengthened - by even the hardest truth when written by a hand on fire.

'Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is.'  P.B. Shelley"  

- by Dan Simmons, On Writing -    
Hugo Award winning Author of The Hyperion Cantos


"How, my dear Mary, -- are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written,
Because they tell no story, false or true?
Why, though no mice are caught by a young kitten,
May it not leap and play as grown cats do,
Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,
Content thee with a visionary rhyme..."

-from P.B. Shelley's The Witch of Atlas -

*** SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS! YOU’VE BEEN WARNED! ***

Other Will,

I kinda feel bad for taking so long with my review. I got sidetracked with other stuff… but hey, at least it's here now. The notes get pretty detailed (as far as my reviews go) so I hope this helps.

All right, so I see what you mean about the writing, and how many "overwritten" lines can set a tone to this. That said, there are still some lines that could be shortened without losing the meaning.

See, when I say overwritten, I don't mean descriptive. Overwritten is when you use too many words to say something, causing the line to take up more space than it should. When something like "The body lands in the campfire. She shrieks" is written as "The body lands in the massive bonfire, in the flames. She shrieks loudly, in terror."

Basically, it's when an extra word or two don't add anything to the tone/story/characters etc. You can get the same meaning and vibe without using the "extra" words.

A lot of things like "looks at him with a predatory smile" and "She BURPS in a way only a woman can, with a graceful bounce" are fine when used a few times, as they definitely add a tone. But soon they add up and instead of adding to the tone, they distract.

Another thing that may give the effect of overwriting is the use of long sentences-- "He POPS it open to take a long swig with Janey watching him, but can’t get it all down, and chokes"-- that could be broken down into shorter sentences.

Another thing… An issue I first noticed around the ten page mark. It's just so damn long. Some parts, I lose interest, find myself doing other things. If you look at every page individually… not very much happens. A big thing is the writing, because it's so descriptive sometimes it takes up a lot of room. What would normally be a four minute opening kill becomes eight pages. It takes an entire page just for two characters to say a few lines. The police investigation is three pages of dialogue.

Another good example is the scene on page 18, which is basically a half page description of the police station. Look, I know it sets a mood, but I think we get the idea after the second paragraph describing the interior decorating.

I just feel like less is more when it comes to descriptions. Look at some pro screenplays and you’ll see what I mean. They can be vivid and full of atmosphere while barely describing details like locations and the clothes the characters are wearing. That’s because, the atmosphere doesn’t come from the character’s surroundings… it comes from the character themselves, and the situations you put them in. Tell the story… let us fill in the details on our own.

And, you’ve got some passive writing here and there. “The Sheriff is standing” “He is holding back tears”. These could all be cleaned up, easily.

When you’re sending this out to readers and agents, you want them to read it. And read the whole thing. Which means you have to keep their interest… keep it concise, make sure it’s a quick read, because the quicker they get through it, the better chance you’ll have in actually getting this thing sold/produced. And that’s the ultimate goal, right? If they lose interest and stop halfways through... well...

I don't want to spend too much time on the writing, though, since I've already gone over it before, and you seem to know where you're overwriting. Just keep what I said above in mind.

The length is a bit long for horror, IMO. I'd shoot for around 100-110.

Have you noticed the spacing of this? Looks like your leading is set to "loose" or something. When you compare it to other scripts, the space between each line is slightly off. It's very slight, but take a look at this. It'll cut a few pages at least.

But anyway, I wanted to focus more on story than anything, for once.

First, I think your opening is a bit cliched, and I'm not sure if that's your intention. Couple of teens sneak off in the woods, killed off by a monster… We've seen it before. It's not much of a surprise Tommy is killed.

I'm guessing you're trying to make a self aware horror film-- the Scream of werewolf films-- but the thing is, this scene isn't ironic enough to seem self aware at all. It's like you played it straight, made a totally serious scene.

But, I thought the body flying into the fire was a nice touch. And I liked how you took it farther than just "two teenagers killed". The monster attacking everyone was unexpected and well done, IMO. It's just the very beginning that's been done to death.

I still advise against using CUT TO after every scene, like I said with your Pendulum short. It does have its uses (I'd leave it there on the first scene, when you cut to the forest-- has a nice effect there) but sometimes you need scenes to flow. When you're writing a fast-paced chase, you want your scenes to flow together so we breeze through them. We don't want the chase noticeably broken up. For example, when the monster is chasing the teenagers. Instead of writing CUT TO, just write new slugs for separate scenes. You could even use mini slugs.

The police investigation just after the attack could be considered a common slasher trope.  Opening kill, police investigation, establish protagonist. Again, this has been done, and it's not "ironic" and self-aware enough to work, IMO.

On a more technical note, I think it's a little confusing to call him "JANSEN” for dialogue, but "The Doctor" in action lines. Might get confusing… makes it look like they're separate people. (And later, he’s “Doc Jansen”).

The thing about the length of the investigation is, we already know there’s a monster. When the cops are saying things like “I wonder what that was...” “Nothing could throw a car like this!” there’s no suspense for us because we already know that it’s a werewolf. There’s no “I wonder what did this!” “I can’t wait to find out!” We know what’s going on. There’s a werewolf. So cut some of the dialogue... make sure they aren’t just talking about things we already know. Or worse, they’re trying to solve a mystery we already know the answer to.

Maybe the investigation uncovers things we missed during the opening. They figure out a body’s missing. Someone’s still alive. The monster drank all the beer. I dunno... Something. Anything that we don’t already know from the opening. “They threw this car!” Yeah, we already saw that happen. It’s not a shock. Surprise us.

I like the hunting scene, though. I was actually not sure what was going to happen… Are they going to find nothing? Is the beast there? Will it get them, or will they escape?

Still, I think you need a scene between the cop investigation and the hunting scene to establish some sort of protagonist. At this point we still aren’t clear who we’re rooting for, which made me feel a bit emotionally detached from this. Maybe add some sort of quick scene between these… introduce some sort of protagonist, a hero. Right here, we’re at page 15 and there’s no sign of a main character.

(I’m a little further now, and I’m getting the feeling the sheriff is the protag… but maybe I’m wrong. As it is, there isn’t enough backstory or character development on him to really be sure. Also, he doesn’t have a name… just The Sheriff, which makes it harder to really empathize with him.)

Damn!! The bear!! That’s fucking cool!! You get a chance to inject a little more “horror” into this without resorting to fake-out scares. Plus, it raises the question… is there really a werewolf out there, or was the bear the killer all along?

But wait a minute, so they run into a bear chewing on a human leg and they just laugh it off and walk away? There’s a severed leg sitting there! What are they doing?!

I also liked the scenes of The Man. Plus the song choice, Nature Boy. Very cool.

But like I said before. You've got a really cool story and some really good scenes on your hands... but the writing itself is just too much. Occasional descriptions are fine, but describing every little thing makes everything almost blend together. Things are so bogged down in details, basic actions aren't clear. Details blend together, and it's hard sometimes for me to visualize what's happening "on screen."

I’m sorry, man, but I’m out at page 30. I’ve got a lot of other scripts in my queue, as well as my own scripts to write. But most of all, this is just too much for me to wade through. It’s not bad by any means, just… way too much. The plot isn’t slow, it’s the writing. I will admit, the read got a little smoother by page 16 or so (after the bear scene), but it’s still not quick enough. It seems like simple dialogue exchanges are streeeetched out over multiple pages. And when it comes to horror especially, this should have been a breeze to read.

Still, this isn’t bad by any means, and you’re nowhere near some of the other shit around here, so good job. You’ve got some really good ideas here, stuff that I could definitely see as a real movie. It’s just that this needs another rewrite, I’m afraid.

I’m looking forward to that too (if you do plan on doing another draft). Really. You’re willing to actually learn and improve your work, and those are the kind of writers I tend to want to help.

So, I hope this does help.

Will

Will, what is the line spacing set as in this script?  It looks like 1.5, instead of one.  If you bring it to one, this script would drop to eighty pages, or so.

UPDATE

I'm reading this script and finding it overly-detailed and slow-paced.  The opening sequence (the party and massacre) just went on-and-on for me.  You could probably cut the first twenty pages down to ten opages.

I do like your characters, particularly Bobby.  His Barney Fife-esque personality seems well devloped and it brings a lot to the character interaction.


Phil

Quoted from dogglebe Will, what is the line spacing set as in this script?  It looks like 1.5, instead of one.  If you bring it to one, this script would drop to eighty pages, or so.

Wow.... it does. I checked by copying to Word, and while it isn't exact... it's around 80 pages. And thanks to the overwriting, you're basically looking at a 70 page story padded to 120. Which isn't good.

Hey Will!

Update:

Sorry about the length of time for a full review but life sometimes gets in the way of reading! lol

Either way I wanted to let you know I havent forgot about it and I'm almost finished and will post my thoughts shortly (I hope!). I will say so far so good.

And again your writing "style" doesnt bother me that much, it reminds me of cumulative style.

HGW

I'm sorry for my absence. Death in the family and resulting chaos...

Looking back to these times, I wonder if at least some of the  over-detail in my writing wasn't some product of my extreme mental escapes into these created visions... it could be, maybe?

WOW on the spacing... what a f-up... but oh well. I'm on it... My eyesight is utterly terrible by the way, so I do all my writing with my screen super-magnified to the point, I guess, it just slipped right by me.

Bare in mind guys, too, that once again, my experience is with Directing.

It does help when you point these things out about the pure-writer's point of view, and I'm glad people are finishing it, but when talking details (and in a world where animation/vfx are increasingly blurred with classic film), some of these lines you point out as extemporaneous are direct nods to certain crew departments, and written from my direct experience with the available technologies. Animator first. Director and Storyboarder second. Screenwriter third.... that's been the order of my training.

A person going into this writing not knowing design concepts, for example, may not see a word like "warm," as something seen on screen. But it is, in fact, a direct reference to the color temperature, and therefore specific to lighting and filter. It refers to yellowish and redish based hues, and if worked into the prose correctly, is an efficient way to perhaps tell one reader about mood and action, depending, at the same time someone in set-design and/or camera will immediately note the color tone reference. I've placed many of these types of lines in here. Many many...

It's a valid argument that a writer may not need to consider this when selling a piece, but again, I'm not a writer. I've been a Director and an Animator. I've made my best attempts to work these types of things into single, double-meaning lines or sentences as much as possible. So, while on some of your points you are right and make a lot of sense, on just a few, you have honestly missed the subtlety there (and it's not really your fault, but my training in other parts of a film crew at play, and about who I wish to communicate to). That's just one such example.

Another, I should say, is that this thing is full of easter eggs. I did it for security, and in each act, there are no less than three easter eggs. I'll clue you in on one: There is a line in this script that is literally just the title of a Sonic Youth album, "The Destroyed Room," which I worked into the prose in a very particular way. I knew I would be publicly posting all over a long time ago (It's since been in the Wildsounds LA contest, and got some nice reviews but didn't win), and in case it was taken/stolen, or I hadn't gotten it's protection together correctly, I would have a legal basis with which to argue my being the original writer.

I highly recommend this practice.

To sell it as a writer of your own type, of course, I would need to effect the exact changes you all have mentioned, absolutely.

To your narrative comments Crookedowl? I might be able to help clarify some points... and this was on an earlier response, basically, but it was long so I will rephrase. When this thing landed in my lap it was a collaborative effort. It came as a 70 page thing that had nothing going for it at all. It had no less than TEN SPELLING errors on the first page alone, and I was simply asked to edit it. Format is one thing, but spelling? Man, it needed help. When editing, some huge plot holes came forward. He had a sheriff basically ripped off from television answering to a Mayor like some Law and Order episode, for example, when Sheriffs work for a county and not a city. Just one of many.

There probably still are some as a result of this, in a way, because trying to fill them all was like a game of wak-a-mole... I had to really, reallllly, realllllly get "creative" as they say, by which I mean higher than two kites. And mushrooms. I wrote half of this thing on mushrooms, the other half being reworks of my collaborator's beginnings, the "third half" going back to my original task of editing.

Things really "streeetch" out a hell of a lot, I can tell you, when being payed a visit by one of our little green and fungal friends. But if you WATCH such a movie on such an occasion... perfect. You want to go on a meandering journey like frodo - not take a roller coaster ride, per say.  

I then had to get creative in my discussions with my counterpart. I began to add and change things. To be blunt, his fiance left him at that time and he completely gave up on life. He stopped even participating, but after long talks, it was decided that if this was going to get done then I had to do it myself, and any monetary deals would be negotiated with him later in fairness to his coming up with the concept. He then stepped down after losing all confidence and changing gears.

It was definitely sad, but that's why I push this how I do... for him.

This may help answer, that yes, the first ten pages are a direct assault on the cliched werewolf opening, because when he tried it first he did it in a literal way, not understanding its cheesiness, and I wrote the monster to SMASH the scene. I still almost get a kick out of it, but does it lack in self awareness? I just don't know, honestly, but I'll take your word for it. It's my own opinion that it gains its awareness very shortly, and that the audience is meant to be left just as unaware as the characters themselves are, at those moments - only becoming self aware when the characters become self aware, I mean. I think...  

I didn't even make the title! ha...  I kinda want to burn it... and I think if you look very closely, where the story is going up and down in sense and DEPTH, you might see what are his ideas versus my ideas, because I respectfully wanted to include SOME true spirit from his original at the time. Yet, his characters had no depth at all. I had to completely rework them and all of the intertwining material from my own, true life experiences with people.

The Man was not in his original version - a perfect example, and I'm glad you like him, because he's mine. Originally, the Sheriff and the Werewolf both had awful names... so awful that I just removed them all together, and went with an old trick of connecting them as Protagonist and Antagonist by making them the only primary-level characters without names. You see, on a subconscious level, doing this makes The Sheriff and The Man actually two parts of the exact same person... myself in each of them... and while extremely nuanced in its execution, once noticed, the connection between the two becomes obvious IMO.  

Bear was mine, too, so thanks. So far you've put down everything my roommate came up with that I tried to shape into anything, and have complimented all of my own ideas lol (technicalities not included, but that's okay and exactly what I needed).

Are they late in coming? Yes... but while this film may be horror, it is actually based on Wes Anderson scene pacing, now, which I'm sure you realize is extremely abstract. My version of the rework from the original is an abstraction on cheesiness, met with brutal, blunt violence, and the characters developing from my real life. It's Wes Anderson and Riffen's "Bronson," meets a cheesy, awful werewolf story. That said, to establishment of the protagonist? You couldn't know, but would easily in the story-boarding phase, that The Sheriff's introduction as the protagonist would (and can) be established by a simple low-angle (or worm's eye view) shot, highlighting his large and "heroic" presentation in his very first moments on screen. That's just how that sometimes works imo... as an experienced story-boarder, that's sometimes just part of what we have to interpret later.  

Shot angles can establish much in the subconscious, but are definitely one thing even I know not to include in a screenplay. They're just a mess.

I would want to see this be between 1:30 to 2 hours long as a result, on screen... at LEAST... all breaks from horror conventions completely beside the point. Your spacing point complicates this, errrm, against the desired 1:1 ratio, of course. Still, it's Moonrise Kingdom and Life Aquatic and Bronson and Drive... not American Werewolf in wherever. Pretty much. I think fans of the former would like this movie a lot, especially once it's gotten to the meat of the second act and they realize what kind of ride they are really on (more stuff like the bear, but all about character, ultimately).

I like the part where you wonder about the leg, lolol... that's too funny. I guess you're right on that, overall... just an interesting and unexpected interpretation.

The line, "The scene is beginning to attract flies..." ?? A direct nod to the basis of his original writing. I didn't want to murder his work, per say, but it could be so difficult to work with sometimes, some of the overall strangeness of this work is the result of a blending with the cheesy and the deadly serious (my own), which results in the sum total being something like a horrific mushroom trip - with a werewolf.

I won't argue that the opening scenes are the weakest and always have been... rather than remove the original, I focused on their interactions in the investigation as pure character development as we watched how they first get along with one another, and establishing the hint of old conflict between the reporter and the Sheriff - as well as some loyal friendships, too. We see who's who, there, but not yet why they are who they are... That was my way of trying to make it valuable, but my true work (purest in getting away from the original until coming back to the bar-fight scene, and this is why it seems so random) begins at Act 2 around the transition to the sheriffs office.... In fact, I place plot point one as being the scene where Mel and the Sheriff meet in the interview room, and you see their true, deepest natures towards one another come out. After about page 25 or so, it literally becomes like a different movie.... it does a complete 180 in tone, I mean, and as a result of an intentional but confined thinking.

I tried to keep that spirit going, while still being forced by circumstance to come back around to the first draft of awfulness that it began its life as... Does that makes sense of it a little for you all?

I hope that helps clarify, and thanks for all of the great technical and experienced advice from you all.

Hey Will, I wondered where you went. Glad you're back, and I hope things are going well... or at least better than they have been. Sorry to hear about your loss.

Nice to hear your explanations for the script. I didn't realize how damn clever some of this stuff is... "The scene begins to attract flies". That's hilarious. As well as the wolf metaphorically... or literally... tearing through the previous writer's scene. Wish I could come up with that kinda stuff.

I can see where you're coming from about the directing angle. Personally, I think of myself as a writer, first and foremost, but I have made a few short films and I plan on shooting some of my stuff on my own. So, I can appreciate the extra visual details you added. My only problem with them is that, IMO, sometimes there are so many details things get tedious and hard to follow. If you think it's fine, that's all right... I won't keep repeating my problems with the writing.

It's weird, in the months since I first read this, how certain things have stuck with me. The thing I remember most  -- it's something I mentioned in my review -- is when the man gets in his car and drives away while the Grace Slick song plays. Everything came together for me at that part. I could see it on screen perfectly. It's weird, I didn't even finish the damn thing and I still can't forget that part.

Anyway, if you revise this sometime, let me know. Have you written any other features? I'd like to read more of your work.

Take care.

P.S. Thinking of this as a Wes Anderson-type movie helps. Also, I loved An American Werewolf in London.