Gotcha!

With no extra space before the last bracket it would look like this.

Quoted from Grandma Bear Bla Bla

With the extra space.  

[quote=Grandma Bear] Bla Bla [/quote ]

Congrats on you all finishing. It was a fast, easy read.  

I would've liked to see something about the Stalker a little sooner.   Did you ever consider making it see humans from the beginning?   Since humans have electrical signals in the body, maybe it sees those as weak signals unworthy of attention at first?

To foreshadow, maybe they stop at the park entrance to take a group picture and see those strange clouds hover over them. (Darby sneaks and deletes it off the phone later on)Shannon checks her pilot weather app, and it's not showing up on the radar.  

Maybe one of the girls has an artificial heart/bio tech from an accident or disease, and that's how it spots one of them.

Would it add anything if Darby hid that fear/paranoia from her friends until the Stalker hurts Adrienne?   The Stalker causes her fear to come out, and they see  Darby was just putting up a front that everything was okay.   As an example, the girls give Darby a makeover. They do her hair/ bling her out in Chanel etc...  Then they hand her the airline tickets, and she catches on they are trying to change her back to the old her and flips out. Not in a panicky way but more aggressive they need to accept this is her life now.    

What if something happens to a secondary character before the Stalker goes after the girls? Your owl sparked this idea.   An animal researcher walking through the woods looking for missing animals with portable antennas and gear comes in contact with the Stalker.  

The lightning striking the lake seemed a bit too lucky.    What if Darby makes something? Like a bow and arrow. She soaks a bunch of fishing lines, tying one end to the arrows, and the Stalker gets tangled up in the other in the lake.     She shoots the arrows up into the sky, finally attracting the lightning and causing the Stalker to get smoked.    

I thought the ending felt a little rushed. Maybe something like...

The police/ambulances or military surround the carnage. Darby pays final respects to her friends in the body bags. Apologizes to them.  She tells the authorities she doesn't know them. They were campers from a few sites down. (Can't take any chances on her anonymity) Gives the authorities one of her friend's IDs and sneaks off. Darby jumps in the 4-Runner and takes off. She's on the open road. All these emotions as she finds an old picture of her and her friends on the floorboard.   At the last second, we see a "cloud" following her. Showing it's going to be... Relentless.

One last thing I saw. Tress gets killed on page 67  , on page 70  she says, "What's plan A?"

All the best!

Hey Kevin. I just now saw this. Bad of me to not keep better track of things!!!!
I will respond to this tomorrow morning. Sorry I missed it.  

Quoted from Grandma Bear Hey Kevin. I just now saw this. Bad of me to not keep better track of things!!!! I will respond to this tomorrow morning. Sorry I missed it.

No worries!  If you're real busy and stuff going on.   Don't worry about it.  

Quoted from Kevin_L Congrats on you all finishing. It was a fast, easy read.

Thank you for reading and commenting.  

I'm glad it was a fast and easy read for you. That's essential when it comes to getting people to read. If it's a slog, they usually leave, regardless of how great it is later on, if you just stick with it. Readers seldom do.

Quoted from Kevin_L I would've liked to see something about the Stalker a little sooner.   Did you ever consider making it see humans from the beginning?   Since humans have electrical signals in the body, maybe it sees those as weak signals unworthy of attention at first?

First off, we have decided to call it AR as in Alien Robot. Reason being is that it seemed too many readers got confused and assumed it was an alien here to kill people. Our intention with the AR is that it is an alien probe sent here to analyze this planet for some other alien civilization. It doesn't see animals or humans, which by the would be the same thing initially, as something bad out to get it. Just some creatures that live here. Something to analyze, nothing more. It's not until Adrienne shoots it that it needs to be aware of humans and protect itself.

Good thinking there about the electrical signals in the human body!!! Libby and I are currently rewriting two different versions of this script and I think I will definitely try to to make use of that. I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier.

Quoted from Kevin_L To foreshadow, maybe they stop at the park entrance to take a group picture and see those strange clouds hover over them. (Darby sneaks and deletes it off the phone later on)Shannon checks her pilot weather app, and it's not showing up on the radar.

That's another great idea!  

Quoted from Kevin_L Maybe one of the girls has an artificial heart/bio tech from an accident or disease, and that's how it spots one of them.

Not a huge fan of this idea however. To me, there has been so many movies in the last several years where someone has some ailment that has to be handled before that person dies or such that it has sort of become cliche. At least in my book. Usually it's someone who needs insulin though, but still...

Quoted from Kevin_L Would it add anything if Darby hid that fear/paranoia from her friends until the Stalker hurts Adrienne?

We actually had the first draft more along those lines. I might revert to that.

Quoted from Kevin_L The Stalker causes her fear to come out, and they see  Darby was just putting up a front that everything was okay.   As an example, the girls give Darby a makeover. They do her hair/ bling her out in Chanel etc...  Then they hand her the airline tickets, and she catches on they are trying to change her back to the old her and flips out. Not in a panicky way but more aggressive they need to accept this is her life now.

Don't know about that. I don't think we ever saw Darby as being that type of person ever. In fact, none of them were. That's why they are so shocked at what Adrienne has become.  

Quoted from Kevin_L What if something happens to a secondary character before the Stalker goes after the girls? Your owl sparked this idea.   An animal researcher walking through the woods looking for missing animals with portable antennas and gear comes in contact with the Stalker.

Not a bad idea. I had a few requirements for this project when we first started out and some of the biggest ones were, it has to be low budget, read fast and easy, all female cast, one's location, and it has to be intense and scary. Now that last part, I think, was actually the hardest.

Quoted from Kevin_L The lightning striking the lake seemed a bit too lucky.    What if Darby makes something? Like a bow and arrow. She soaks a bunch of fishing lines, tying one end to the arrows, and the Stalker gets tangled up in the other in the lake.     She shoots the arrows up into the sky, finally attracting the lightning and causing the Stalker to get smoked.

Boy, you're just full of great ideas, aren't you! I love it!    

Quoted from Kevin_L I thought the ending felt a little rushed. Maybe something like... The police/ambulances or military surround the carnage. Darby pays final respects to her friends in the body bags. Apologizes to them.  She tells the authorities she doesn't know them. They were campers from a few sites down. (Can't take any chances on her anonymity) Gives the authorities one of her friend's IDs and sneaks off. Darby jumps in the 4-Runner and takes off. She's on the open road. All these emotions as she finds an old picture of her and her friends on the floorboard.   At the last second, we see a "cloud" following her. Showing it's going to be... Relentless.

This has to be low budget, but I totally dig the idea of Darby leaving without a trace, so to speak.

Quoted from Kevin_L One last thing I saw. Tress gets killed on page 67  , on page 70  she says, "What's plan A?"

Good catch! Easy fix.  

Quoted from Kevin_L All the best!

Thank you so much for taking your time to read and offering up some really good ideas. We very much appreciate that.  

Hi Guys, finally read Relentless, mainly for my own development, because I knew the writing would be top notch, and it is.

So first thing, well done - I cannot image how difficult it is for 5 writers to collaborate on one feature - and to keep the continuity that you have done is impressive - couldn't tell that there were 5 different writers on board..

So, in regards to the your concept - I do believe you have a potential USP here as there are unique elements to your Stalker. And I think the sell mainly lies with the Stalker. If you're going to enhance anything I would concentrate on him (or it). Maybe on its appearance (not sure you actually fully described its look?) or concentrate on its behaviour. I think its a machine and there might be opportunities to extend on its unique behaviour when duelling with the Ladies. The lady characters are great btw.  

A couple of points during my reading experience :-

First couple of pages I gotta little confused as I wasn't familiar with Airstream as an American camper van. Because it was a dream sequence, I thought it was a literal airstream, like a misty, foggy air current. So you could change that to Airstream camper van/caravan, or just leave it on the notion that Colin's a dumbass

Later on, you have a number of continuous scenes particular when the action picks up - I personally like continuous in the slug line as opposed to night. I think it gives the narrative more flow. You can always remind us that it is night time in the action.

I think there is an over use of slug lines in the final acts. Particularly with the slug line for inside the Runner. I would get rid of them. Just bold 'inside the runner' in the action. See how it interferes with your narrative flow in the below example -

Excruciatingly slow, Darby pulls Adrienne free from the drill. Blood and bits of bone fly off the rotating probe.
Darby stops pulling, eyes dart up to the roof, sees --
EXT. WOODS - 4RUNNER - NIGHT
The Stalker, still engulfed in flames, leaps on top of the 4Runner. Stares down at Darby.

The exterior slug line completely gets in the way of what Darby sees.

Anyway I really enjoyed the read and learned a lot from it, particularly how well you guys write your action sequences.

Great job so far and I would love for somebody to have some feature success from simply scripts - I think this has a chance. Good luck - cheers.

Colin, thank you for giving this a read, and for your feedback.
Apologies for the delay in responding to you.

So addressing your points:

Quoted from ColinS Hi Guys, finally read Relentless, mainly for my own development, because I knew the writing would be top notch, and it is. So first thing, well done - I cannot image how difficult it is for 5 writers to collaborate on one feature - and to keep the continuity that you have done is impressive - couldn't tell that there were 5 different writers on board..

Thank you! And you're right, it was no easy task putting this together with so many writers, and so many ideas flipping back and forth. It's somewhat of a minor miracle that we pulled it off, but mainly down to Pia who kept us all in line.

Quoted from ColinS So, in regards to the your concept - I do believe you have a potential USP here as there are unique elements to your Stalker. And I think the sell mainly lies with the Stalker. If you're going to enhance anything I would concentrate on him (or it). Maybe on its appearance (not sure you actually fully described its look?) or concentrate on its behaviour. I think its a machine and there might be opportunities to extend on its unique behaviour when duelling with the Ladies. The lady characters are great btw.

You make an excellent point. There's a case imho for it being hidden and only glimpses to a degree (think Alien) especially at first, but I think a little more description, even if just a hulking 'something' looming in the darkness wouldn't go astray.

Quoted from ColinS A couple of points during my reading experience :- First couple of pages I gotta little confused as I wasn't familiar with Airstream as an American camper van. Because it was a dream sequence, I thought it was a literal airstream, like a misty, foggy air current. So you could change that to Airstream camper van/caravan, or just leave it on the notion that Colin's a dumbass ?

That's a fair point actually. I wasn't aware of the brand myself in the beginning. Some things become a household name in their country of origin, but are not necessarily wider known to all, so point taken on clarifying that in the slug, or in description to make it clear.

Quoted from ColinS Later on, you have a number of continuous scenes particular when the action picks up - I personally like continuous in the slug line as opposed to night. I think it gives the narrative more flow. You can always remind us that it is night time in the action.

Will definitely take a look at this.

Quoted from ColinS I think there is an over use of slug lines in the final acts. Particularly with the slug line for inside the Runner. I would get rid of them. Just bold 'inside the runner' in the action. See how it interferes with your narrative flow in the below example -

Likewise yes, this does need looking at.

Quoted from ColinS Excruciatingly slow, Darby pulls Adrienne free from the drill. Blood and bits of bone fly off the rotating probe. Darby stops pulling, eyes dart up to the roof, sees -- EXT. WOODS - 4RUNNER - NIGHT The Stalker, still engulfed in flames, leaps on top of the 4Runner. Stares down at Darby.

The exterior slug line completely gets in the way of what Darby sees.[/quote]
I see what you mean. Mini slugs might work better here.

Quoted from ColinS Anyway I really enjoyed the read and learned a lot from it, particularly how well you guys write your action sequences. Great job so far and I would love for somebody to have some feature success from simply scripts - I think this has a chance. Good luck - cheers.

You'd be surprised. Quite a few people on the boards have had Feature success, Pia being one of them.

Thanks again, Colin, very much appreciated!
A new draft will be underway shortly (still lots to work on) and you make some valuable points going forward.

Thanks Libby for your response - Wow at the feature successes!

Thanks for reading and commenting Colin! I read. your response earlier, but we kind of alternate with our responses so to not hog the portal with our Relentless bumping of the script.

My features weren't exactly successes IMO... Chris probably has more and impressive. Including having written and directed his own feature that currently has 10.6M views of YT.

Again, thank you for reading. We are currently in what we hope to be the last rewrite for this script, so your comments are very valuable.  

Thanks Pia

Getting people to produce your feature scripts is a staggering success IMO! Appreciate you can't always control what they do with them though.

In regards to Chris - That's just inspirational. Another wow.

Look forward to reading the final draft!

Hey all, congrats on this draft!
I know some have already commented on many of the same things that crossed my mind. So, I’ll just second a few of those quickly:

• I thought you handled the introductions of the characters well. Each felt like their own person. I was never confused about who was who.
  [list]
  
• I  think the red door could just be an action line rather than a slug.
  
• I liked the opening, almost like a mini-puzzle trying to figure out what’s going on, but not so much it takes you out of the story, just engaging one’s attention.
  

SPOILER

I think the only consideration I can offer has to do with Darby and what’s at stake for her. The survival stakes are very apparent to me as the creature stalks and try to kill her and her friends. But what specific to her is at stake? The three things that come to mind for me: are her life (survival), her friend’s life (friendship), and her “way of life” (peace of mind). There’s already so much established for all three. I think you can milk the friendship and “a live/way of life” even more.

1.)     In this draft, everyone dies but Darby, who lives isolated (question on this later). It could be worth exploring what each character has to offer Darby (as quasi-mentors) to give her the tools to return to the “world of the living.” Each one already represents an aspect of life: Shannon and her career, Meg and her love/sex, Tress and her family, and Adrienne (love or hate her, lol) her personal care.  

2.)     At some point, Darby says something to the effect that “she just wants to live.” But what does “to live/living” mean for Darby?

On the one hand, living in the woods seems like a self-imposed prison (is that how she’s choosing to live?), which is why I suggest the friends act as mentors giving her the tools to move on.

However, if living in the woods is her ideal of “living” (totally valid) because it brings peace of mind, one could lean into her bond with the area even more. For example, the inciting incident when Shannon spots the shape in the cloud, a fantastic hint of the threat, and it gets even better when the cloud descends over our girls, but right before then, a flock of birds flees. I love this moment. If in the montage, or perhaps it’s one moment, we see her bird watching as a mark of “living” (peace of mind), then when they fly away, we know how the threat is disrupting her ideal of living/peace of mind. I also think something like this could strengthen the ending which is missing just a little “umpf” of catharsis for me. If she looks up and sees a flock of birds before dozing off it feels full circle, we’ll see visually things may be okay in terms of her peace of mind. She still has work to do because she just lost all her friends.

Although it was difficult for me to imagine, I loved a lot of what y’all came up with in terms of the creature. That moment when Ethan’s voice comes over the radio was chilling and deserving of a freakout. I don’t know how well it would work but in theory, at least in my mind, it would help to lean into that even more because if the creature sees her reaction to that voice, he may want to use it more at moments of conflict. This method of attack was one of my favs because it directly applies to the logline “forced to confront the fears of her past.” I also really liked the revelation that the creature not only controls electric machinery but adapts to it.

Hopefully, something in my ramblings helps. This one definitely has legs, and I can’t wait to see the next draft!

BLB

Hey, BLB, thank you for your comments and feedback.
Getting late here, but will respond further tomorrow.

If I get some time to myself tonight I will respond as well, but We have company here with little kids, so hard to tell. We definitely appreciate it though.  

Quoted from Busy Little Bee [*] I thought you handled the introductions of the characters well. Each felt like their own person. I was never confused about who was who. [*] I  think the red door could just be an action line rather than a slug. [*] I liked the opening, almost like a mini-puzzle trying to figure out what’s going on, but not so much it takes you out of the story, just engaging one’s attention.

Great about the characters.   I will look into the red door thing. I’ve read the script so many times it’s easy to skim certain things. Happy about the puzzle comment. We tried to keep some things sort of mysterious.

Quoted from Busy Little Bee SPOILER I think the only consideration I can offer has to do with Darby and what’s at stake for her. The survival stakes are very apparent to me as the creature stalks and try to kill her and her friends. But what specific to her is at stake? The three things that come to mind for me: are her life (survival), her friend’s life (friendship), and her “way of life” (peace of mind). There’s already so much established for all three. I think you can milk the friendship and “a live/way of life” even more.

Are you referring to why we are following her instead of the other characters? Darby has her ex also trying to find her. He’s very dangerous to her and the whole reason we are out in this remote area away from civilization and communication. So, she has two things she’s trying to survive. Unless you meant something else.  

Quoted from Busy Little Bee 1.)     In this draft, everyone dies but Darby, who lives isolated (question on this later). It could be worth exploring what each character has to offer Darby (as quasi-mentors) to give her the tools to return to the “world of the living.” Each one already represents an aspect of life: Shannon and her career, Meg and her love/sex, Tress and her family, and Adrienne (love or hate her, lol) her personal care.

That’s actually a great idea that I didn’t think of. IDKW. It seems so logical now that you mention it.

Quoted from Busy Little Bee 2.)     At some point, Darby says something to the effect that “she just wants to live.” But what does “to live/living” mean for Darby? On the one hand, living in the woods seems like a self-imposed prison (is that how she’s choosing to live?), which is why I suggest the friends act as mentors giving her the tools to move on.

We actually based this a little bit on a friend of mine who’s one of those people who lives off the grid in a vehicle. My friend used to have a converted/modified Chevy Astro of all things. Now she has a schoolie. An old school bus converted to an RV type thing. Only problem with those is that they can’t go over a certain speed limit, so she frequently holds people up on the roads. Anyway, there are thousands and thousands of people living this lifestyle and they also meet-up every now and then here and there. Anyway, that’s where the whole idea of her trying to hide from her ex by living off the grid came about.

Quoted from Busy Little Bee However, if living in the woods is her ideal of “living” (totally valid) because it brings peace of mind, one could lean into her bond with the area even more. For example, the inciting incident when Shannon spots the shape in the cloud, a fantastic hint of the threat, and it gets even better when the cloud descends over our girls, but right before then, a flock of birds flees. I love this moment. If in the montage, or perhaps it’s one moment, we see her bird watching as a mark of “living” (peace of mind), then when they fly away, we know how the threat is disrupting her ideal of living/peace of mind. I also think something like this could strengthen the ending which is missing just a little “umpf” of catharsis for me. If she looks up and sees a flock of birds before dozing off it feels full circle, we’ll see visually things may be okay in terms of her peace of mind. She still has work to do because she just lost all her friends.

Again, a great idea! I don’t think that has ever occurred to us!

Quoted from Busy Little Bee Although it was difficult for me to imagine, I loved a lot of what y’all came up with in terms of the creature. That moment when Ethan’s voice comes over the radio was chilling and deserving of a freakout. I don’t know how well it would work but in theory, at least in my mind, it would help to lean into that even more because if the creature sees her reaction to that voice, he may want to use it more at moments of conflict. This method of attack was one of my favs because it directly applies to the logline “forced to confront the fears of her past.” I also really liked the revelation that the creature not only controls electric machinery but adapts to it.

I hear you about the ending and we’ve had many ideas on how to improve it, but as the pretend “producer” I had to make sure we stuck to our original goal of keeping this low budget. It still is as far as Hollywood budgets go, but it might be pushing the indie market’s.

Quoted from Busy Little Bee Hopefully, something in my ramblings helps. This one definitely has legs, and I can’t wait to see the next draft! BLB

Thank you VERY much for reading and offering us some great suggestions. Libby and I are both working on re-writes. My goal is to be able to send in a draft to the Screencraft horror comp which is due at the end of this month, We’ll see how that turns out. Thank you so much again and sorry it took me so long to respond. I’ve had family staying at our house and then they tested positive for Covid so decided to do their isolation here too. The only one that tested negative and never got sick was me, so I’ve been busy trying to take care of everything.

Pia.

Hey Pia,

No worries, lol. Thanks for the reply!

I'm glad some of my comments were helpful.  Yeah, I didn't think I was being clear initially when I asked about Darby living in the woods. I think I was just trying to draw the distinction between her choosing to live in the woods and it being a self-imposed prison because of her ex. It seems like the latter. For me, it determines how I'm supposed to feel about her leaving. That's all. Everything feels like it's headed in a good direction by the end.  

Good luck w/ ScreenCraft!

BLB