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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Unproduced Screenplay Discussion    Short Scripts  ›  Dispatch - Filmed Moderators: bert
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  Author    Dispatch - Filmed  (currently 11383 views)
Andrew
Posted: March 20th, 2010, 8:43am Report to Moderator
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Sean,

I read this as it features a dispatcher, which is the foundation of my upcoming script 'EMD', but you take this in a very different direction. This script kinda feels a mixture of "The Taking of Pelham 123" and "The Fourth Kind", so it a good base.

You're onto something good here. The premise is promising, and you actually threw me with the ending, as I had not connected the dots with regards the girl being responsible. You managed to achieve that with involving writing, and while the style wasn't necessarily to my taste, I do think it was effective. It's open to interpretation as to how the girl became this creature, and how the situation developed, which I liked.

I agree with Cam regards the length, 19 pages is definitely too long as you currently have it set up. While it does help build suspense, you pushed it a little too far. There is a lot of time where we rely on dialogue alone, and it's too long, frankly. He made a good suggestion with another dispatcher, and it's a possible angle.

Regards the dispatcher protocol, you need to research that a bit further, I think. I know we're not dealing with real life, but this guy loses all sense of professionalism; but that's easily rectified. He could be shown quickly in a scene as a guy who rebels, not in an angsty way, but more subtly.

Trimming this to 12-15 pages, cutting out some of the exposition and just generally sharpening the writing would benefit a very promising script. As a premise, it's one of my favourites on SS for a while.

Nice job.

Andrew  


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Zombie Sean
Posted: March 20th, 2010, 8:57am Report to Moderator
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Andrew,

Thanks for giving this a read.

I haven't seen The Taking of Phelam 123, but I have seen The Fourth Kind (I actually bought it the other day, and I am anxious to watch it again).

I'm glad you didn't see that ending coming Though you're not the only one who didn't connect the dots of the girl being the creature until I had mentioned it. I tried getting the audience to understand that the girl was dangerous when one of the officers was screaming that she was biting the other officer.

The length I will try and work on. The dialogue does get a bit repetitive, and so I am going to give it another look to see what can stay and what can go.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the dispatcher becoming a rebel in a subtle manner.

I'll keep a lookout on the length of this script (I'm not sure if you read my comment earlier, but I didn't plan on it being this long). But I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks,

Sean


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ReaperCreeper
Posted: March 20th, 2010, 1:44pm Report to Moderator
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Hello, Sean. Good job on this one. Very enjoyable; very intense, though with that being said, there were some areas where it could have used improvement:

1. Dialogue -- I know Mary was scared, but sometimes she spoke like a heavily religious person and at others she swore continuously. After saying "dear Lord," which I personally would never say out loud without trying to sound sarcastic, I didn't buy it when she started swearing S-words. She just didn't strike me as someone who swore even during extreme circumstances. She seemed kind of a church girl to me. Just a worthless minor thing...I thought since we don't get to see Mary, it would add to her character if you kept her dialogue a little more consistent throughout to give her more of an identity, you know what I mean?  

In general, some of the dialogue felt a bit on-the-nose -- like Mary describing the creature as "skeletal." I had already built an image of the creature in my head, and it was much more terrifying to me than what Mary described it as. I strongly suggest toning her description of it down just a tiny bit, since what you got now kinda ruins what viewers had already built up in their heads before it. It kind of killed some of the suspense you had so expertly created earlier.

2. Story -- I'm sorry man, but "Susan" was extremely predictable. Maybe I just watch/read way too much of this stuff, which is my blessing and my curse.LOL.

Even before Mary shot the man, I knew there would be a supernatural twist. And the mentioning of Susan on every page made me think she was the monster. Another flaw in the script revolving around her is that there is no reason for Susan to morph (which works both for and against the story in the way you presented it)  and there is no reason for Mary NOT knowing that her daughter is a monster, either.

It just doesn't seem plausible (within the confines of you story, of course) that Mary and her family would be completely oblivious to it. And the man Mary killed is another plot-hole of sorts. If Susan was the monster, are we to assume she slaughtered her family, went outside to wound a stranger, and then went back inside? And if the man was a neighbor, which is the only thing that would make sense since he would have to live close by, Mary should have recognized him at least AFTER she shot him.

There are too many questions in this for a short. You could either make this shorter,thus deleting some details; or stretch it into a feature. It really could work both ways.

Despite my complaints, I think this was a solid effort. Very decent suspense, which seems like a lost art in mainstream Horror. And do believe me, it's a lot scarier for Susan to be the monster as opposed to an external threat, but an external threat would make a lot more sense, story-wise, since it would fix the issue with the man and Mary not knowing what Susan is capable of. I suggest you try to balance this out and it would make the script even better than it is.

Nice job. Good effort. Keep on writing man.

--Julio
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ghost and_ghostie gal
Posted: March 20th, 2010, 3:06pm Report to Moderator
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Sean,

I gave this a read.  I'm not going to repeat what others have said, because you have addressed them.

Your wrylies man, overkill.  No need for all of them.  The way you have things laid out IMO is a no brainer.  We get it and so would the actors.  Maybe one or two and after that throw in an actionline, "Voices down to a urgent whisper," or something like that would work.   But this is just ghost.  This is your script, so fair enough.

So at page#15 we hear screeching?  I'm assuming this is the police finally arriving on scene?  Page#16, we hear from them.  Now unless Mary and her family live out in the middle of nowehere, I don't buy the police taking 15 minutes to get to a 9-1-1 call.  I could be wrong here... but I'd like to think it wouldn't take that long.

For what you got, the story was solid and had suspense which is  good thing but a few underlining issues that you could address.

Good Luck

Ghostwriter



Revision History (1 edits)
ghost and_ghostie gal  -  March 20th, 2010, 4:46pm
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stevie
Posted: March 20th, 2010, 6:49pm Report to Moderator
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Hi Sean. I'd read some of the reviews so thought it out.

Nice premise! But i agree with any one else who mentioned it - its way too long. I have to admit I skimmed over large parts of it, especially in the middle. There was too much of the same dialogue and action.
I didn't have any prob with any 'logic' flaws that might be in it - eg, would a dispatcher tell someone to arm themselves, where was the supervisor, etc.
The only thing I would mention is the use of V.O. I would have had Mary's dialogue as O.S.
Now, there's always discussion -sometimes heated! - about the finer points of formatting. But Mary is technically in another room or area when on the phone, so it should be written as OS. VO would be used if Tim or Mary was narrrating the story.

Anyway, no doubt we'll hear more about that!  i really liked the ending though! I honestly didn't see that coming.
Your writing was well done and with some trimming, this would be a neat little short that could be well on low budget. Maybe it could work as a machinma?

Cheers stevie.



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Zombie Sean
Posted: March 24th, 2010, 9:26am Report to Moderator
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Julio:

Thanks for reading, man. How are you doing?

I see what you mean about Mary cussing, while also being seen as a religious woman. I'll fix that. And I'll cut down on the descriptions of the creature too.

What I was trying to go for was that Susan has been like this every since she was born. Just because she's able to morph into this horrific creature doesn't mean her family has to know about it. This could just be the beginning, the first time that Susan has morphed. Also, what I was going for with the man was that since he was covered in blood and banging on the door, that he was screaming at Mary to get out of the house because he knows what's inside, and he's trying to get in to save Mary. Maybe Susan had tried attacking the man, but the man was able to fight her off or get away before she could kill him, and saw where she was headed.

Ghostwriter:

I was kind of iffy about those wrylies. But I was never sure when it came to stuff like that. I don't really like mentioning in the action lines how the people are talking, so I just resort to wrylies for that.

Yeah, the time it takes for the police officers to receive the call to the time they get to the house is a bit ridiculous, but that's my fault for trying to get everything I needed/wanted in the script. If this were filmed, and I directed it, I'd try to move things along as fast as possible to keep the time to the ultimate minimum (plus, shortening the script, too).

Thanks for reading.

Stevie:

Sorry for the length. Skimming over? That's low

About the V.O. and O.S. stuff, yeah, I actually had to pause and think about it for a moment. I figured that since she's on the phone and we don't see her and hear only her voice the entire time throughout the script, then it'd be V.O. but your logic also sounds correct.

Thanks for reading and glad you enjoyed. If I get the time and actors, I could possibly quite film this myself.

Sean


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rock.
Posted: March 28th, 2010, 4:52pm Report to Moderator
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This was really scary, good work.  My heart was pumping the whole time.  I never watch horror movies because they scare me, and I thought I could just read the script instead.  Boy, I was proved wrong.  It really was scary, and the idea was creative and ingenious.  The only problem was maybe the fact that you'd be staring at a guy on the phone for 20 minutes.  This definitely could be expanded, and they could investigate on this creature and stuff like that.  I really liked it, intense and scary.


My scripts:

Façade:  In a "film noir" set in the 1950's, a detective investigates the murder of a teenage boy in the quintessential 50's American suburbs, and as he slowly peels back the veneer of the picture perfect family, he realizes nothing is what it seems, unaware of what secrets he will uncover.
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ReaperCreeper
Posted: March 28th, 2010, 6:44pm Report to Moderator
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I'm doing good, Sean -- haven't been writing much scripts as of late, but I still come here to read. I've been more focused on short stories for a while ever since I found out there was a rather easily-accesible market for them.

I think I was a little too harsh on the specifics of the story. We DO have to assume a lot of things, but I think this is the way you intended it. I just failed to make sense of how Mary did not know Susan's nature (that is, if this wasn't her first night killing).  But in retrospect, some of the best Horror films have no answers to many big questions (The Shining, Rosemary's Baby)

And I agree with Rock -- you have truly created real suspense here, Sean. It had been a long time since words on a page genuinely made my blood pump. It shows  true skill in your craft as a Horror/Suspense writer. Keep up the good work.

--Julio
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Zombie Sean
Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 6:11pm Report to Moderator
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rock.:

Thanks for giving the time to read this, and I'm glad you were scared by it. I find it hard these days to be disturbed or creeped out/scared by reading something on paper, as you had mentioned. But, I, too, was proved wrong, after writing this. I creeped myself out during the process. Also, another Simply Scripter on here, Matt Chisholm, showed me a short story about Russian scientists testing an experiment on prisoners by keeping them in a room filled with a gas that kept them awake, and they would study the prisoners as each day progress. Very disturbing stuff that kept me up later than usual.

I'm glad you enjoyed this one. It's true about staring at a guy for 20 minutes, but I'm sure if you had a great filmmaker working the camera and directing, you could create some good eye-candy for the audience. Looking at The Fourth Kind there's one scene where the actors are listening to a recording from a tape recorder, and the scene is about 3 minutes long, and it's all just noises. What they had to do was just focus on parts of the actors, their reactions, just different things to keep the scene flowing and more interesting. And when you have something as intense as to what was recorded on the tape recorder, you really start to miss what's being shot on camera since your focusing on the sounds rather than imagery. And when the sounds are intense and well-made, such as this one here if ever filmed (which, if it is, I'd really like to try and make it as well-made as possible for this very reason), you don't really need to focus so much on imagery since the audience will be pulled into the audio.

Anyways, back on track, thanks again for reading! Glad I could scare ya

Julio:

Short stories are fun to write. I've been wanting to write one for a while; a nice, psychological thriller, mainly with ghost stuff, but I haven't really been given the right ideas yet, so I'm pushing that technique aside and sticking with scripts, still.

Yeah, I know what you mean, and I am glad you brought up those questions, because I did think of that kind of stuff, but they just flew right over my head and I kind of left it open to the audience (along with the ending).

Thanks for the last comment, that means a lot to me. I'm glad I could create this effect on everyone who's read this script, as it had create the same for me when writing it.

Sean

P.S. I'd like to thank DON for putting up the poster I made for this script next to the link where you can download it. If you click on the picture, it will direct you to my blog for my different pieces of artwork and other bits of useless stuff!


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emcee
Posted: April 20th, 2010, 2:41am Report to Moderator
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Hey Sean

Sorry mate. This just didn't work for me. I found the whole thing unbelievable. How does a woman in complete distress describe how she has "just got back from out of town...." no way would she do that. And the dispatcher's advice to get a gun? Then to jump from a window? Dunno mate. Hope I don't get Tim when dey cum for me.

Maybe using an intercut between Tim and the woman would work better.

Generally your writing is sound but I was constantly put off by the use of (O/S).

I'm just a newbie, a deb, a virgin....what the f*** do I know anyhoo.

Good luck and keep on truckin'. I'll give Solium a read. No offense meant.

Em.
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Zombie Sean
Posted: April 24th, 2010, 10:47pm Report to Moderator
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Emcee,

Sorry you didn't enjoy this one (or Solium, for that matter). When someone is in distress, the stuff they say can be pretty outrageous and they can blabber on about something without them knowing it. There's a lot of stuff that goes through the mind when you're scared, and when you think you're being comprehensible, everyone else may think that you sound crazy. I just hope that if you do call 9-1-1 and you DO get Tim, that there isn't a killer creature on the loose trying to kill you.

Intercut would work, but that's not what I'm going for. Sorry.

O.S. would be good for the dialogue (had trouble choosing between V.O. and O.S. and didn't really think twice), but I did use it for descriptions (that should have been my hint to use O.S. instead of V.O. for Mary's dialogue).

Sean


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bert
Posted: April 27th, 2010, 6:35pm Report to Moderator
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Hey, Sean.  You gotta' a lot of comments here I have not read.  I looked it over cold.

This is really good.  I was worried that 18 pages was a bit much, but there is really no down-time here.  It speeds along with a lot of momentum.

But regardless of how much momentum it has upon reading, it is still 15 or so minutes of one guy sitting at a phone.  This is both a positive and a negative.

Positive as it would be dirt cheap to produce.  I would be surprised if you do not get contacted by somebody on this one.

But there are still those lingering negatives, with very little going on visually.  Try to come up with something -- anything -- for this guy to do.  Make him startled and spill his drink.  Stuff like that.

Also, there are a few spots where I strongly feel you should tweak a few things, primarily where your 911 guy is giving Mary really bad advice.

For example, he tells her to get a weapon.  Realistically, he would just tell her to get the hell out of the house.  But make it so Mary already has the gun.  She can still have never used it before, and still be hesitant to use it.  He can tell her to just haul ass, but Mary can insist on staying to find her daughter.  Much of your dialogue here can remain the same.

And again -- when Mary is hiding in the closet and the beast has left -- and Tim tells her to sneak out??  Again, bad, unrealistic advice.  But again, easily fixed by Mary insisting she has to go look for her daughter.  Tim tells her to stay hidden, but she doesn't.

What I am saying here is let Mary make the bad decisions that drive your story forward -- not the 911 guy -- he is frantic and helpless to stop her -- and I think this piece will be stronger.  And you can give him more emotional lines this way, as he tries to convince her not to do these things.

On a brief technical note, once you have established your scene -- with Mary on the phone and Tim listening -- you can stop using all of those O.S. cues in your descriptions.  They get annoying, and they really go without saying.  Nobody will get confused.

And I have an idea for the very, very end that you may or may not like.

Tim is sitting there, shocked and staring at his headset.  Silence for a while.  Then a creepy child-like voice comes on the line that says, "Send more."

Haha.  I honestly don't care if you steal that.  Or not.  This is really good work, Sean.  I liked it a lot.


Hey, it's my tiny, little IMDb!
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grademan
Posted: April 28th, 2010, 12:06pm Report to Moderator
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Sean,

Can't believe I missed this one when it was posted. Very good. Nothing to add that hasn't been suggested. Bert made some excellent suggestions. I'd like to see your next draft.

Liked the artwork. For a moment, I thought this was a made project.

Gary
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Zombie Sean
Posted: April 28th, 2010, 5:19pm Report to Moderator
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bert

Glad you liked it! I see what you mean with having Tim create some actions and everything. But there can only be so much to what he can do. Spill his drink and other big actions...Would smaller actions help as well? Such as rub his hands through his hair and stuff like that? I guess I was just focusing more on Mary's actions, even though she's off-screen the entire script.

Having Mary already start off with the gun (and start off with the man already at her door) would probably be a great way to start. Thanks for suggesting that. It would cut down the pages of the script, and with your suggestions (along with everybody else's), she'll have the gun and Tim won't have to tell her to arm herself, which would make everyone happy. I guess people don't realise that that's what us Southern people do

Overall your suggestions about Mary making bad decisions rather than Tim is great advice. I'll go through the script and see what I can do for that. Thanks

When would I want to stop using (O.S.) cues? Once I establish that the woman's name is Mary? Or after Mary speaks? Somewhere towards the beginning, I assume...

Ha ha that last suggestion is more of a dark comedic line. Reminds me of The Return of the Living Dead when one zombie goes to an ambulance that they ambushed and talks into the radio saying "Send more paramedics."

Thanks for reading and the suggestions, and I am glad you liked it!


grademan

Glad you liked it, Gary. I made the poster a while back. Took me a while...Nice to see that it looks professional


Sean


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Shawnkjr
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Hey, Sean

Nice short you have here. Very suspenseful and intense. The last few pages whizzed by. Don't really have anything negative to say really except I don't think Tim was very helpful. lol.
Never guessed the little girl was a  WereAlien /Creature. I think this hear it not see it thing works very well as such in movies like Pontypool but I think It would make for an excellent Radio Suspense Drama (My favorite is 'Sorry, Wrong Number'. check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorry,_Wrong_Number#Radio_play)

Really enjoyed this. Great job


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Spoiled - OWC Horror/Milk Exercise
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