Darren -
Not in depth reviews. In depth responses, kind of like yours.
Deal.
I have a few irons in the fire this week, so... (grunts in overcommited frustration.)


Clorox -
Ech. You have some thing going on about people being cut up in slaughterhouses.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...

I like the dialogue. A lot. The descriptions...not so much. They are stilted. Why do you write that way? Just curious.
Yaaay! Waaaah!
Reason is everyone's (fairly righteously) beats and wails on my wooly, novelistic writing.
So I chop my visions down to semi-mono-syllabic grunts with little more than subject + verb fragments often spliced together with commas.
When you write (and I honestly don't recall reading much of your work over the last six months) about how much of what you see in your mind's eye never makes it to the page?
I'm only putting in about... maybe... 10 to 20%.
It kills me.

SAM, 55, comfortable in his business suit, pen over reports,WHAT IS THIS?
Pen over reports?
Station manager/ Editor in chief Clorox, you are responsible for the station's budgets, expense reports, programming schedule, assignments and checking the fact checkers. You have a lot of responsibilities which means you read a lot of... reports.
Odds are you scribble notes on them.
So you're working at your desk, PEN OVER REPORTS, while waiting on Yvette to come b!tch about something. Joe's already there, dying, or trying not to.
Cool?

THIS STEVEN SPIELBERG AND POLTERGEIST? DOOR BURSTING OPEN?
I don't understand this.

He halfway gets up from his seat towards the door.????????????????????
There's a chair, near the door, that Joe sits in.
He get's halfway up from it.
He's not standing all the way, and he's clearly not sitting either.
He will be exiting through the door.
He hesitates as he asks for permission to leave.
Cool?

THE GOOD ACTION SENTENCES READ WELL BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPLETE SENTENCES. INCOMPLETE SENTENCES DO WORK IN SCRIPTS, WE KNOW THAT, BUT NOT HERE. HERE THEY HINDER THE READ AND STOP THE FLOW OF THE FUNNY DIALOGUE BETWEEN JOE AND YVETTE.
Sorry.
I have little trouble reading everyone else's broken, comma spliced sentence fragments.
I'm rarely confused.
But I'll honestly try to make mine equally lucid.
??!


Jeffro -
Whadap?
I?m going to give you detailed feedback in hopes that it will help you get on the right track.
That's what I'm stickin' it out here for.

... this is definitely an improvement over everything I?ve seen from you, but you?re still making it hard on yourself and I?m not sure quite why.
Hooorayyy!! 'Cause I'm an idiot. (And what you guys call "hard" I don't even flinch at. Pansies.)  

Script length ? 18 pages is a tad long for a short, IMO, unless there is damn good reason for the length, and I don?t see that here.  IMO, this would work much better as a 10-12 page script.
Yeah, I try to keep these no more than about twelve pages, but everyone, including yourself, grieved over the absence of story for ON THE OTHER HOOF, so... here's a story (although I see later you remain unsatisfied. Grrrr!)

Perhaps the architecture of the story is flawed, but there are many elements going into it. The removal of any one de-substantiates later events.
Did I cover too many bases?

... if you?re using dual dialogue in which 2 characters say the exact same thing, and it?s just a word or two, just use a dialogue box of ?JOE & SAM?
I didn't know that was an available option.
Have never seen it done or mentioned.
Will do. Thanks.

... you continue to use too much in terms of your action/description lines, as well as your character descriptions.
Yeah.
Same question as I posed to Clorox, about how much of what your mind's eye sees do you put to page?

You know I personally detest asides as well, and you?ve got an awful lot of them in here.
I'd benefit from a few citations here.
I don't know what you'd call an aside vs. what I'd call a story element.
Thanks.

Transitions ? ?FADE TO??, ?CUT?, etc. all go on the right side, not the left.
Understood. Thanks.

SERIES OF SHOTS... I?m not saying it?s incorrect, but there are numerous ways to do this.  
Definitely.
But I think we're getting into director's territory at this point.
To me, it's relevant to provide the sequence of events that will become the fate of Yvette and Bill.
Like I replied to Phil, having the cattle go into a box with blinking lights and come out the other side in nice, emotionally sanitized patties... just... doesn't work for me.
That's BS.

IMO, the scene would require several Slugs, as you go from actual scene to screen.  If you don?t follow...
Are there mistakes in dialogue boxes on Page 17?  Looks like you?ve got SAM in there, when it should be JOE.
I'll address the second part first. No. "SAM" is correct.
As the slug states, Sam and Joe are in the editing room.
Sam and Joe are watching the video, the audience is watching Sam and Joe.
Now, if the director wants to change this to primarily watching the monitor then that's fine by me. But the way I wrote it is the audience is watching Sam and Joe, primarily.
Once again, I think we're talking director stuff rather than story stuff.
Now, back to the first part - more slugs.
I wanted to avoid more slugs because by this point the "short" is already stretched.
Doing it the way you're suggesting, and my way isn't "wrong" so much as it's different, makes the script longer.
I'm trying to pay attention when I can.

Someone incorrectly told you that you can?t go over 3 words in a Slug.  TOTALLY FALSE!
Okay you guys gotta get your story straight.
You and Gabe go duke it out.
FWIW, I kinda side with "whatever it takes" slug, but can abide by the one line limit.

Story ? Not much here again, sorry to say.  You have characters now, but there really isn?t any conflict or resolution.
What criteria do you qualify a story by?
Conflict or resolution?
Yvette's conflict with Joe was that he was interfering with recording her. He stopped interfering. Kinda resolved. Sorta.
She got what she asked for.
That'll teach the b!tch a lesson!
Ha!

Hope this helps, brother.  Keep up the good work.  You?re getting close!
It does. I will. Thank you.
Beat it. Pound it. Make the b!tch submit.

THE MANSOUR CIRCLE INCIDENT moves onto a whole new set of formatting issues.
I'm guessing you'll likely have many of the same action description issues with my writing, but at least you should be pleased with the almost nonexistant character descriptions!


Thank you, guys.

Quoted from RayW Clorox - Ech. You have some thing going on about people being cut up in slaughterhouses. Yeah, yeah, yeah... I like the dialogue. A lot. The descriptions...not so much. They are stilted. Why do you write that way? Just curious. Yaaay! Waaaah! Reason is everyone's (fairly righteously) beats and wails on my wooly, novelistic writing. So I chop my visions down to semi-mono-syllabic grunts with little more than subject + verb fragments often spliced together with commas. When you write (and I honestly don't recall reading much of your work over the last six months) about how much of what you see in your mind's eye never makes it to the page? I'm only putting in about... maybe... 10 to 20%. It kills me. YOU'RE RIGHT ABOUT THE MINDS EYE STUFF, AND IT'S FINDING THE IMAGE LANGUAGE TO GET THE IDEA QUICK. MAYBE COME BACK TO THE NOVEL JUST A ITTY BITTY TAD. SAM, 55, comfortable in his business suit, pen over reports,WHAT IS THIS? Pen over reports? Station manager/ Editor in chief Clorox, you are responsible for the station's budgets, expense reports, programming schedule, assignments and checking the fact checkers. You have a lot of responsibilities which means you read a lot of... reports. Odds are you scribble notes on them. So you're working at your desk, PEN OVER REPORTS, while waiting on Yvette to come b!tch about something. Joe's already there, dying, or trying not to. Cool? OH, SO HE'S HOLDING A PEN WAITING TO SCRIBBLE...EITHER WAY, GOING OVER REPORTS SAYS THE SAME THING. THIS STEVEN SPIELBERG AND POLTERGEIST? DOOR BURSTING OPEN? I don't understand this. DOOR GENERALLY DON'T BURST, THAT'S ALL. IT'S A GRAMMAR THING, REALLY, AND SOME GRAMMAR THINGS STAND OUT MORE THAN OTHERS. He halfway gets up from his seat towards the door.???????????????????? There's a chair, near the door, that Joe sits in. He get's halfway up from it. He's not standing all the way, and he's clearly not sitting either. He will be exiting through the door. He hesitates as he asks for permission to leave. Cool? STILL READS WEIRD. HE'S HALF OUT OF HIS SEAT, HEADING TOWARD THE DOOR, BEFORE HE'S CALLED BACK. THE GOOD ACTION SENTENCES READ WELL BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPLETE SENTENCES. INCOMPLETE SENTENCES DO WORK IN SCRIPTS, WE KNOW THAT, BUT NOT HERE. HERE THEY HINDER THE READ AND STOP THE FLOW OF THE FUNNY DIALOGUE BETWEEN JOE AND YVETTE. Sorry. I have little trouble reading everyone else's broken, comma spliced sentence fragments. I'm rarely confused. But I'll honestly try to make mine equally lucid. ??! I'M NOT CONFUSED READING IT AND I GET IT. NOT SURE HOW TO GIVE AN EXAMPLE...COULD BE LIKE, BOB FORGES THROUGH THE JUNGLE, HACKING AWAY VINES WITH A MACHETE WHEN... HE COMES FACE TO FACE WITH A TIGER. A BIG ONE. A REALLY BIG ONE. THOSE SHORT SENTENCES FLOW. Sam looks at his watch. Furrows brow. FURROWS BROW DOESN'T WORK. IT NEEDS SOMETHING. IT WOULD BE LIKE WRITING... BOB FORGES THROUGH JUNGLE, HACK VINES, WITH MACHETE, WHEN... COMES FACE TO FACE WITH A TIGER. BIG ONE.