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I found the prose to be kind of irritating. It read to me like a writer trying to convince me that they were clever instead of doing it with a clever story. I thought it was an interesting idea to have the alternate past urban legends, but it didn't serve the story, I don't think and I felt that the voice over was unnecessary. Once again, it read as being faux-clever instead of something that really needed to be there. A disappointment from somebody who does have talent.
The script got a bit of everything which some may like. Not for me. Flashbacks, stunts, then a massacre, don't know, just didn't arrive at me this bus.
The outline of the story is right up my street, but I found it quite difficult to read smoothly and a bit confusing. There were a lot of lines and descriptions I had to re-read because I just didn't get the terminology used (my fault, not yours).
There were several UL's used too, which for me made it all seem a little too busy.
4 more to go, so usually I try and give more detailed feedback, but the last time I gave detailed feedback, it didn't go over too well, so looks like I should try and play nice and keep things short and sweet.
Well, I can tell from the logline what kind of writing I'm in for and sure enough, it is what I expected it to be...and it's not for me in any way, shape, or form.
Very strange style on display here with so many missing words, bizarre "look at me" descriptions, and just hard to follow writing that thinks its alot smarter than it really is.
Based on reviews, looks like alot of peeps like it, so good for you.
I'm out on the top of Page 2, and like Rick, I have absolutely no desire to go any further.
The opening voice overs were too long for my taste and in part unnecessary since the action that followed did a nice enough job of explaining the plot point. If you are going to keep the action blocks, then I don’t think the detailed dialogue is required and is really redundant. For example:
Quoted Text
SMYTH (V.O.) Legend has it I fucking hate cars because my dear father, working as a gas station attendant, was murdered trying to protect a lady customer from a maniac hiding in the backseat of her car.
Could simply be:
SMYTH (V.O.) Legend has it I fucking hate cars because my dear father was chopped to death at a gas station.
Quoted Text
SMYTH (V.O.) Yet another legend has it I fucking hate cars because my sweet mother, helping an old lady find her own car in a parking lot, was almost murdered, or worse, by a hairy armed nutcase in an old lady’s dress.
Could simply be:
SMYTH (V.O.) Or maybe because my sweet mother was almost murdered in a parking lot.
Basically, since the action that follows details what happens to Mom and Pop - I don't think you also need to include it in the dialogue. There were other instances where I just felt the dialogue could have been crisper.
There were several parts of the script that were very well written – a nice clear flow.
Maybe I’m thick headed, but I didn’t get the link from the opening and the ending of the story – i.e., the link between his hatred for cars vs. killing the inmates and the scout ghosts.
The logline has me thinking this is a proper pisser – let’s see…
As Jeff would say, there are problems right out of the gate, or big red flags waving around giving me signals but I’m not sure if this is on purpose or not yet?
Yep, that’s it! This feels like it was written in spite of good old Jeff – everything he picks up on is on display. I’m not even gonna bother and just enjoy the spectacle.
Hope you don’t mind – I skipped the quick flashes.
Truth! I can’t get past page 3 – I’m tired and can’t read any further. My apologies if this is a serious effort but this needs work. If this is a pisser then there is nothing remotely funny here IMO.
Edit: Read through the reviews so decided to give this another chance – maybe I was thrown by the logline.
“Deputy Stephenson riding shotgun with his shotgun”
“The literally chained inmates are figuratively off the chain with alarm.”
I think it's missing something - and it's Smyth's motivation. I know from the logline that he did it for their crimes. But I don't see why Smyth would decide to play judge all of the sudden. I also don't know why now. I think these are two important things you have to build up to. Instead - entertaining though- the first part didn't seem to render any support to the second part. The first part was about why Smyth hates cars. So it's like two different shorts in one for me.
But it was incredibly entertaining. And I still wanted to see what Smyth's plan was. That's good.
It wasn't easy to read for me.
Some of the wordings completely lost me. Like "radiates heat distorted air" or "coke-bottle tub-o-lar". And there are many instances like this. "rides shotgun with his shotgun" - is this intentional?
Lastly, there's a blend of comedy and horror here which works for me. But I'd work on that first part - it should go together with the second part in my opinion.
For one of the shorter scripts in the challenge this seemed to take a while to get through.
There's a lot going on here and not much of it worked for me. I usually don't mind flashbacks but here they just seemed to be used to cram in as many different legends as possible. The second half of the script confused me.
A glib, mirthless “That just happened” kinduva story. I don’t think there’s much of an audience for essentially just a scene or sequence. Smyth’s motivation for killing the prisoners is there, but you need to tie in the girlfriend’s significance more otherwise his rant about hating her is meaningless.
Writing style: The montage in the flashbacks in the beginning were a bit confusing. I had to read them a couple of times to understand what's going on. Some misspelling too.
Dialogue: It sounded alright. I didn't find the inmates lines funny. I didn't mind the voice overs.
Character: Even though all the events were centered on Smyth, he still seemed flat to me. I didn't care nor root for him.
Story: The setup which consisted of his previous flashbacks had no connection to the ending. Everything felt detached. If I didn't know better, I'd say this is what the members call "a pisser."
SS alumni know I do my homework. You name it, I read it. Multiple times, in 31 flavors.
Urban legends tend to be stupid, and are frequently dumb situations a normal person wouldn't find themselves involved in.
So, I started looking for something in common between a few of them I could string together, maybe let some dominoes fall as one character escapes predicament after predicament or madman aggressor becomes the next madman's victim.
Fortunately for the vengeful Smyth these three madmen were not only at some point captured and incarcerated but also all being transported in the same vehicle at the same time that he happened to be driving, in which they would all become victims of 'Boyscout Lane.' 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scout_Lane
Smyth was "Prepared", as in the Boy Scout motto "Be prepared."
The deputy gets his name from Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell
Smyth's motivation was Inmate One murdered his father, Inmate Two would have killed his mother, and Inmate Three almost killed young Smyth - with a great deal of hapless assistance from young Smyth's panicky girlfriend.
IDK WTH some of you were reading. All the clues are there, some points are not even clues, they're spelled out.
Now, what I do see plain as murder is that I didn't kill Stephenson in any meaningful manner - should let the escaping inmates kill him with his own pistol immediately after they got out of their cage. And I wholesale failed to have Smyth plot to go hunt down his old girlfriend to wrap up with a bow this sordid affair. Major fail. (But that's what happens when you finish writing at four in the morning! Ha! Dumb@ss me.)
For the life in me I don't know why what trips you guys up on the reading of the writing of the screenplay doesn't seem to be a problem that will transfer to screen. Anything "confusing" in a screenplay will be solved by people paying to direct or produce the film. But if you wanna win pretty pages contests then I'll concede.
"She" looks good, right?
To those of you who could "see" the actual story (good or bad) for the trees: Thank you. You guys make legit points.
Thanks for breaking it down this way. All the cues/clues were there. Fascinating to see how you put things together.
Just goes to show how the chore of reading so many scripts and making a comment can cause some to get short-changed and/or treated in a flippant manner.
Next time around, i'll take the entire two weeks to read. Somehow I missed the fact that we had two weeks and got it all done in one.