Quoted from Grandma Bear I remembered it after I was halfway through. I thought you did well with it. IMHO, you do not need to flesh it out. It would work just fine as a 5 pager, but you need to fix the ending some. IMO, you need to save the reveal that Jenny and Tye were in love to the very end. The later the better. The way you have it right now it's slowly revealed over a few pages. It loses any punch or twist that way. This one has enough conflict/prejudice going on in it that I wouldn't be surprised if someone would want to produce it It wouldn't be very hard. Good job.

Thanks Pia,

Here's you old comments... Pretty much the same, although you seem a bit nicer this go around. Ha ha

Quoted from Me Okay, so what we have here is a black man accused of being a sexual predator. They were both teenagers at the time, but he's listed as a sexual predator with the government. He is shunned by society due to this. Your script wants us to think it's because of skin-color until the sex-predator angle is revealed. Tye ends up killing himself and the girl ends up looking at him at the morgue. Not bad, but it reads a little too pedestrian to me. Why? Because it feels like something we read in the news every day. I felt that Tyegave in too easily. Why wouldn't he want to opt for other options before killing himself? Move to another city or something like that. I also think that the reveal about the girl being the "victim" needs to come at the very very end of the script. If not, you're losing any potential punch of this story. Ideally the reveal should be the very last line. Other than that, good work. Hope that helps. Pia

I agree the ending is still flat. Other then that I liked this one. Hopefully it will get some interest. I see you are making your own short film now. Good luck! Can't wait to see it. I'm gonna try some shooting myself. Thanks again for reading again...

James

I honestly thought Tye was thrown in the river by the folks at the bar!  Truly.  And everyone just thinks he killed himself...  Or maybe that's just how I would of twisted it.

I'm not sure what to say about this one. It seems... adequate, I guess. I do think the story is sad and I liked that you don't find out why Tye's being treated the way he is until the end. But I guess it just sort of felt like it was going through the motions of a presumed drama.

The opening conversation was especially speedy, like you made a conscious decision to use only the most necessary lines. There's supposed to be (or have been) something between these characters but the haste and overtness of the conversation doesn't feel like it has much life to it.

The ending came abruptly. The preceeding lines (That's where I first kissed her... This ain't no life worth living) makes it feel that way even more so, the way he just jumps from thought to thought. I think it would've worked better had there been a little more meat in previous scenes. Maybe if the coroner's office scene served as bookends to the script, the whole thing might have a little more dramatic punch.

I don't know. I guess I'm forcing myself to give substantial feedback. The script seems more or less fine. It just didn't have much of an impact on me. Not as much as what you've said about the true story, anyway. I guess that says something, in and of itself.

Quoted from James McClung I think it would've worked better had there been a little more meat in previous scenes. Maybe if the coroner's office scene served as bookends to the script, the whole thing might have a little more dramatic punch.

Yes! That is a great idea. I can already envision the rewrite starting in the coroner's office. Then we flasback to the phone conversation(in which I need to change some dialogue to save Jenny from looking like a bitch). Then we do two back and forths. Jenny wants to see the body... Then flashback to the bar where Tye gets kicked out.

It all stems back to the suggestion by Bert and E.D. that this shouldn't be told in a linear timeline. I feel I could build mystery there without boring the audience.

Thanks James!

The other James.

James,

Interesting little script here.  Pretty heavy material.  I have to say I never fell for the whole racism red herring.  I assumed as soon as I saw that the word "monster" was painted on his doorway that he was some sort of predator.

Beginning the script with Tye on the slab at the coroner's office is a pretty good suggestion, great visual opening, and would cause instant intrigue.  

I think it would help if you showed more clearly and painfully how his criminal record has ruined his life.  Maybe at a job interview, the employer looks at his record and says something like "no way in hell."  Then a date with a girl he really likes, but he has yet to reveal that he's on the sexual predator list.  Once she finds out, she's not interested in his reasoning, she just runs out.

As it is now, he just comes off a little weak and its harder to sympathize with his suicide.

The two hicks at the bar work, and I wonder if you could use them to add some ambiguity to the cause of his death.  Maybe Tye is drinking on the bridge, appears to be contemplating suicide, and sees two headlights approaching in the distance.

Then Jenny shows up at the the coroner's office.  Tells the coroner the real reason he's on the offender registry.

So, you have a good idea here, I just think you need to finesse the story a bit more to keep us guessing.

Ryan

Although very brief (TOO brief) i found this a very interesting and an enjoyable read..

Tye's character is very interesting as to why the world has shunned him away, and the build up to revealing WHY was well thought out and contained alot of mystery.. Still would like to know more about him as Jenny made him seem very misunderstood!

The whole premise was very visual, the highways, the bar, the apartment - very interesting visual stuff.. enjoyed that alot!

As a whole i enjoyed the concept and the mystery of this script.. The dog was a nice touch and added a 'cut off from society' vibe to Tye's character which is obviously what you were going for, just thought this part was well written.

What are your plans for this, perhaps you will write more??

I have to say that I really enjoyed this. I could visualize everything. The script was very well-written as with your other scripts. Jenny was pretty sympathetic character. I like how you built toward the twist. The script kept me guessing as to why Tye was being treated differently. I do agree with Pia about saving the reveal for the ending. I think it would've worked better. Overall, great job.  

Thought this was good, however I could get no image of Jenny into my mind, but I enjoyed the story as the subject matter really interests me, hopefully you 'll expand on it more, would love more backstory of the incident.

Thanks for reading guys. This is gonna be a short response because I'm on my phone.  My DSL and phone landline are completely fuckered at the house. Takes a week for a service call. I'll. Get back to you guys in more depth when I'm back online. And I'll return some reads. Thanks. James

Good script.  The dialogue felt natural and the story had a very dark aura about it.