Mindwalker - 'Anchored' (pilot) by Thorsten Loos - Series, Supernatural, Detective - When a grad student gets caught in the crossfire of a murder on campus, he finds himself able to travel outside his body, enlisting the help of an unlikely ally to find his way back home.  - pdf, format

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I just got done reading this and it isn't bad.  There are a lot of ideas going on here, but, I sent him an email bout those.  

It's an interesting read.  Lots of fun ideas and I think this world, in time, would be one worth spending time in.

Thanks alot for the read and your notes, Dan. I'll get back to you later today.

This is frighteningly close to something I'm currently working on, so I can't read it. Good luck with it though.

Quoted from DustinBowcot This is frighteningly close to something I'm currently working on, so I can't read it. Good luck with it though.

Dustin, I am gonna assume that you are working on Astral travel or some other sort of out-of-body-experience, as Libby told me, there are no original ideas, just rehashes of them.

I have seen similar ideas that took totally different paths, so, sure, they can be the same idea, but, executed totally differently.

If you want me to read yours and let you know how similar it is, I'm willing, but, as long as your "rules" are different, I don't think it will end up similar at all.  That's like saying the 2 shows Medium and Tru Calling and the movie the 6th sense are similar.  Yes, in all of them, people talk to ghosts, but, the execution of the world they created was totally different.

I have to also take credit, and I wish I had done it sooner, when I saw the 6th sense, the first thing that popped into my head was this should be a series, and I was right as it spawned a whole genre for a while, and really, Izombie is just a continuation of that idea.

Dan

Quoted from DanC Dustin, I am gonna assume that you are working on Astral travel or some other sort of out-of-body-experience.

No, neither of those. I tend not to read or see things similar to what I'm writing as I don't like to be polluted by the ideas of others.

Out of curiosity, can you reveal a bit about what you're writing, Dustin?

Hello Thorsten just like to say very intense start. Just got a little past the teaser and I got to say I didn't expect that. I'm curious to how the season will pan out. Keep it up and if you ever have the time please check out me and my sister series called TheRemnant. The main protagonist is Shikauhno Lee and after a failed suicide attempt she moves back to her hometown Ryojima, Japan to start anew. Here's the link, http://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/TheRemnant-Episode-01.pdf

Hi TheRemnant,

glad you liked the teaser, thanks for reading. I remember flying over your script a while ago, but I found it a bit hard to read due to some format issues. I only read the first few pages, not enough to understand what it's about really. Especially the long action paragraphs are a bit problematic, and it looks more like a shooting script with all the SFX and camera angles on every page. I'll check it out again and get back to you.

Hey, looks like this is the updated version / pg. 1 rewrite now. Any comments welcome

Hi Thorsten, I read the teaser and liked it very much. I also like the title of the script. Just a small thing on page 2 – pick either SPRIGHTLY OLD MAN or PROFESSOR MARSHAL as the name of the character. They are one person, right? I'm still intrigued by your living in Germany. Is your mother tongue German?
I'm hoping to be back and read more
Marcela

Hey, Marcela.

Glad you liked it, hope you come back and read a bit more

About SPRIGHTLY OLD MAN / PROFESSOR MARSHAL, I agree something's wrong here. When they talk, Andrew doesn't use the professor's name - so there's no way to know this is Professor Marshal. We can figure out it's his professor, but not his name. Will change that, thanks.

Yes, I live in Germany and my native language is german.

Thanks for the read

Thorn,

Please get out of the habit of using "we" -- I thought I was alone reading this, scared me for a sec

OVER BLACK:

RANDOM VOICES

CAR HORNS

ENGINES

It's not really background noises since you haven't established a foreground yet. Keep it simple as possible.

Next scene, same thing --

FADE IN:

EXT. NEW YORK CITY - NIGHT

Establishing.  (or you can mention any landmarks that are important to your story).

INTO A WINDOW OF

INT. SMALL APARTMENT - SAME

Nothing special.

ANDREW KINDERMAN, 25, unshaven, unshowered, lays on a couch. (How will you film that he ran out of blades 3 days ago?)

ON ANDREW'S T.V.:

Need an age for Anna. Describe the suit. "Plays a government suit..." sounds a bit weird. I get it, but describe the suit, if it's even important.

"Like a criminal caught in the act, Andrew steps out of the
room and away from the treacherous boob tube." Don't like it. If he's infatuated with her, show him drooling at the screen, or hugging an autographed picture of her or something.

"I need to hurry now, my wife's waiting with the diner." try: "I gotta go. No way I'm eating a cold dinner again." Unless you meant she is actually waiting besides a diner?

"The deserted building seems eerie at night. Only the ECHOS
of his FOOTSTEPS follow Andrew on his way to the lab. Ready
for the next crucifixion..." Eerie looking BUILDING. I don't care for the rest of the paragraph.

Pg. 4 Andrew runs, TEARS open a door, which should make a considerable amount of noise, sees everything, including 2 murderers ransacking a corpse's belongings, and then is able to close it and spy on them without them noticing? How far away are they?

"...his head puffed out of the lab door..." I would change this a bit.

His buddy flips the light on and then their busted?

"He runs upstairs. Aware of the danger he's in." ...runs up stairs, face petrified with fear. Pretty sure we all know he's in danger at this point.

"Driven by his fear of death, Andrew jumps up and runs on. He tries several doors as he passes by, no luck. All sealed."  Desperately runs, checks every door. All of them locked.

Last door... opens it. Now on the

ROOF

He's on the roof at this point and I doubt he'll hear the footsteps of the hit men following him from behind the door to the roof.

Good visual ending to the teaser -- a guy laying in a pool of blood on top of a truck roof. I think you can make the teaser read faster, cleaner and more intense.

"Readied up for a fight," Yuck. Give him a baseball bat, or a kitchen knife. Maybe something from the panic room, which I'm guessing has nothing to do with the rest of the story?

I like the Twilight Zone situation you have going on here.

So Ethan is a Pig who cheats. Good, create something for Anna to deal with and perhaps the Protag to take advantage later. Andrew knows this cuz he's doing the Patrick Swayze from Ghost. Can't wait to see if he tells her.

Pg. 15, should really try to give each character intro his own paragraph, but I know it's hard when you're pressed for page space.

"Leslie finds Andrew on the bed and is immediately agitated by the view." I think I figured this out but try not to use view... that suggests looking at scenery or something inanimate.

"Another man, FBI AGENT THOMAS JANKOVIC (27) turns around the
corner and enters the hallway." Another man??? Oh no, not another man! lol. Just start the sentence with FBI AGENT...

"The doctor flies over the pages of the printout." Skims through reads better, IMO.

                  CHLOE
         I see... So you didn't separate
         from your body voluntarily.

I doubt a young girl holding a doll will start a sentence with: I see.

Pg. 30 Bold the Flashback to. I actually missed it, read and had to go back from the V.O.'s Don't want that to happen to anyone.

Pg. 30 "His eyes move back to the apartment block." Looks at the apartment block.

Pg. 34  "After quite a while, the GIGGLES of two people are heard before the door opens up.  In front of Anna stands MELISSA, a hot redhead in her late twenties, only wearing a male's shirt and Ethan in his boxers hugging her from behind."

GIGGLES from within. Door opens to: MELISSA, late 20s, fire-red hair, hot bod barely covered by a man's button down shirt. Ethan draped over her, hands playfully pawing at her back side.

                   ANNA
          (about to explode)

Don't make about to, just make her explode!

                   ANNA
               (sobbing)
No, it's not. I'm actually glad you
told me, who knows how much longer
he would've jerked me around if you
hadn't. Seems like I'm too stupid
to realize when someone just takes
advantage of me.

An emotional woman who just got cheated on and is sobbing in the car with a ghost-stranger is not gonna speak rationally like this. You need to ramp this up more.

Pg. 41 "Anna wears dark sunglasses and covers her face under a hood." Reads a bit messy.

Pg. 43 Capitalize America.

Pg. 46 She googled all the hospitals in NY? They must have some idea where to narrow down the search for his body.

Pg 47,48 had me thinking about Venkman in Ghostbusters... rofl.

Pg. 55 "William chases down the hallway and approaches his office." Chases reads awkwardly.

"William stares at the screen, waiting for a reply. Not sure he will like it..." Williams intently stares at the screen, cautiously awaits a reply.

"As the words sink in, his expression turns to black despair." Black despair? What does that look like?

Okay,

You created some intrigue here. The ending of each act wasn't particularly grand -- which is why I hate the act structure. I wasn't particularly invested in Andrew's character as much as I would have liked. I also think you could have distinguished individual voices a bit more, especially since you did introduce a large number of characters in a short time.

Matthew's cliffhanger, while is a reason to tune in to episode 2, could have been set up better.

Overall, interesting mix of PG rated sci-fi themes. Nothing really too new. Missing a really geeky character. Andrew wasn't too much of one. Good Job.

Tony.

Thank you very much for the read and the detailed notes, Tony. I'll reply later when I got more time.