Hey gage i just read it...
I made a few points then read the feedback and its already been covered
Fade in on the left
The room is branches out with a hallway...  confusing

It wanted to be a good short...but i think and is already stated its overwritten especially the voice over

Sorry I'm writing on my phone and in my car(not driving )


I would love to elaborate but the more i write the sicker I'm feeling ..  

Mark

Hey AJ.  Intriguing title and nice logline -- though it might pack a bit more punch if you could somehow let us know up front that Hunter is a kid.  I assumed he was an adult, for whatever reason.

I am confused by all the VO from Hunter, which makes up the bulk of this story.  We are hearing his thoughts as he reads?

A better way to do this -- particularly as there is so much of this -- and probably too much, honestly -- is to have the VO as the voice of Isolde herself.  This helps to make her character more concrete and relatable.  The part with the dog drawing was my favorite part of all this.  If you trim this down, and you should, do keep that part.

And I liked what I was reading up until the end.  You create a nice sense of dread that ends with a resounding...not much.  I do not get it, and the random text makes this even more confusing.

Looking back over your comments, I can respect what you are going for here, but I think it may be too subtle for its own good.

So, I guess I liked it, but my takeaways are less VO -- with this VO as the voice of Isolde -- and whatever it takes at the end to make your intentions clear.  The cell phone is not doing it.  For such a traditional story -- so largely focused on the written word -- the texting comes off as an intrusion, and almost anachronistic in a way.

Gage

This was a cryptic, intriguing script. You built thing gradually, it had a gentle yet disquiting tone that rose then fell by the end. Lots of questions in here and matters left open ended which I like but importantly plenty of directions for you take this in and possibly form it into a more complete piece.

The writing is baggy and cumbersome at times which I see other have pointed out so I won’t go into it as I prefer to focus on story.

I think it has a lot going for it in that regard, some may complain that you rely too much on VO but it’s so well written, believable and most of all touching that it didn’t bother me. Maybe changing the VO to Isolde’s voice will help enliven her character but I don’t think flashbacks are necessary as I feel you should be using these VOs to compliment the images on screen which depict Hunter’s lifestyle as oppose to Isolde’s which we learn enough about through her writings.  Although we don’t see Isolde and only learn about her via the pages of this diary and her mother’s shrine I was completely involved in her tragic recollections of her lonely, disconnected existence.

As I said, perhaps you could give more insight into Hunter’s life. I gathered that he was able to relate to Isolde’s pain but you give very little away about his situation and interactions with those around him. You show him reading the diary while walking the dog, cutting the lawn and brushing his teeth but these could all be actions done by a person with loads of friends and a loving family too. I felt you needed a scene or two to show his struggles of communicating with his own family or having trouble at school, lack of friends, getting bullied, etc. I appreciated the little hint at the end by having him send a “Hi” text on his phone as if he is making the effort to reach out to someone. It’s slight and effective but we need something more explicit in the scenes preceding that, in my opinion.

On the basis of the script as a whole I get you want to keep things understated and that’s cool but I reckon we need something more substantial for Hunter and the parallels between his isolated life and that of Isolde’s diary entries…sorry, “open letter”.

Think of the Isolde’s narrating words as pertinent commentary to Hunter’s secluded world and draw similarities from that. Again, nothing too obvious or heavy handed, just enough to convey the message.

I couldn’t help wondering how Hunter’s parents wouldn’t have discovered this rather creepy shrine in the attic of their house before now.

I have no problem with how you ended on a seemingly unfinished, anti-climactic note. What you need here is an indication that Isolde’s story has had a profound effect on Hunter and he’s willing to adapt and change which I think you achieved to a degree.

However, I should tell you that by around page 9 when Hunter is opening the locked door and we see the shrine I thought it was going to take on a supernatural or horror element. In that Isolde’s spirit (she could be dead after all, we can’t tell) was going to hold Hunter prisoner in this room as if to attain the company she lacked during her life. I thought the diary was an elaborate, sinister ploy to lure an unsuspecting person into her domain. Of course, this wasn’t what you were going for but I was certainly on the edge of my seat leading into that scene!

Overall, good work here, Gage. A poignant, nicely handled tale of loneliness and connection where a bit of fleshing out of Hunter’s story will benefit it no end.

Keep at it.

Col.

Ha, looks like this thread's been revived.  Thanks, Bert and Col, for your feedback.

It's funny how you can write something and a month later look back on it and think that it's cliche and awful.  Luckily my break has enlightened me and I see that this piece needs a LOT of work.

Thanks to you guys,
Gage

Gage, I think I started to read this ages ago and then forgot, oops.

As you've been very active on the boards recently I thought I'd finally read this.  I haven't read over other comments so sorry if I repeat.

First thing that occurs to me is, how tall is Hunter?  He's 13 but can reach the attic ladder, isn't this on the ceiling?

Family should be FAMILY.  Same with the boys playing football.

There are few instances of overwriting, here's an example of something you could easily trim:
There is a RUG on the floor. He lifts it, raising up clouds of dust.  The third arrow is there, drawn on the floor.
We know the rug is on the floor so no need to say the arrow is on the floor for me.

Has Hunter had the torch in his pocket all day?

Smack?  Don't like this for shutting a door.  Only my opinion thought.

Lorna/Isolde says she use the word 'so' too often but not when writing.  This would have been good to see as she stated the fact.

If the book was thin, which it said to be, I wonder why it takes Hunter so long to read it; he carries and reads it everywhere?

Something has come to me...the attic door, in the closet, does it have a cord that he pulls?

If there's a key taped in the book wouldn't Hunter notice before the final page.  The key would cause a bulge in the spine and add weight?

Not sure I got the end.  Who did he send the message to?

I think there's a bit too much V.O, especially with Hunter doing nothing but reading at the time.

I thought this was going all spooky ghost tale but it never delivered anything at the end.  I was really enjoying it but it fell a bit flat at the conclusion.  I imagined him reading that Isolde had said something like her mum had asked her to clean the two walls but when Hunter looked they were all covered, something spooky like that.  It's nearly there but needs something to leave the reader/viewer surprised at the end.  Hope this helps.

Well done, I thought it was great. I didn't notice any mistakes but then I make more than I read.

Gage- Great job on the script. I really enjoyed it. It reminded me of the Never Ending Story. Probably because your script is revolved around a young boy finding a book and starting an adventure of their own. Good luck on future scripts-

Hello Gage.

This story was a little too nuanced for me. Honestly, I'm not quite sure as to what kind of story this is. I won't even hazard a guess. I can't really comment on it because I'm not sure I fully understood it. But i can say it was intriguing. I definitely kept scrolling the pages expecting  a revelation-- the reveal it wasn't as explicit as I had hoped.

I do commend you for the clever production conceit you created: one principal actor (a voice-over and possible extras at the beach) and three locations--bedroom, attic, and beach.

Best regards
rmaze

There are typos and so on but that’s not my strongest skill, so considering the number of better qualified writers who will be helping I will not even try and give advice – which would only be way off lol.

So here’s my pitch in: Up to the start of page 4, or the start of the diary, I was beginning to really get into this. The scene at the beach is pitched spot on, and the atmosphere was building step by step.

The black-out and power-on were really good, made that part visual and sort of... fitted really well in story terms. The reference to Mrs Grayson also kinda worked (although it’s been done before, the “everyone had a Mrs Grayson at school” so .. can’t afford too many of these).

One query I’d have had straight away was the phone – there’s no set-up for who he’s expecting to call him. As far as I could tell he doesn’t have any friends. [//spoiler//]But the phone comes back in so I’ll leave it for now.

But I’m really sorry to say this – the problems for me really began when he begins reading the diary. The lead in combines with the use of Hunter’s voice to make me think at first it was his diary (with some sort of time play involved, either he left it for himself years ago or is about to get trapped in a time loop somehow). Even if it’s what you aimed for – it caused me difficulties.

And then the preamble... which was where I realised it wasn’t Hunter’s diary. “I’m a rambler. And I say the word “so” way too much” felt like the writer was speaking, getting excuses in early. I thought about it in the context of the previous pages and decided it was something you’d probably thought about yourself and decided to keep in as a “character” thing for Isolde, which you might potentially get away with – if her voice in the diary is established earlier. For me I’d need a standard bench-mark for Isolde’s voice before I could assimilate the preamble as a genuine part of her world, and not the writer’s.

The use of Hunter’s voice for the diary grew as an issue the longer it went on – and it went on a little too long, sorry. There are a lot of passages there which are ‘dead’ in story terms, and I’d prefer if they went and we moved through faster.

I liked the references to the two children’s shared loneliness, the way Isolde can guess if someone’s reading her diary it means they probably got similar issues – and the references to maybe you’re a 40 year old bloke worked pretty well.

There were also some mis-steps however with her narrative, which began to break down a bit. The psychological self-examination was too shallow for someone who’s self-examined their psychology even a little. And she does ramble - and even though we were warned – it feels like too much rambling. I’m probably repeating myself, I mentioned the preferred option of cutting already. But I guess that’s why.

So, to the denoument. I couldn’t get a handle on the room she led Hunter to, whether it was her dad’s shrine to her mom (he built it special for her memory?) or like her mom’s old room that Isolde had graffitied for her own – not quite explained – reasons. The torn out bit from the book as well – it didn’t quite – it just didn’t quite.

When I got to this: “It’s like each drawing is a friend that I’ve already made.” --- I thought “Aha! A twist is coming!” imagining it was going to be a trap the kiddy in the picture game. Or some such. and to be honest, I was disappointed to be wrong (not from like a personal failing to guess right but because it would have ‘made’ the story, imo). And the pages being torn out – it was a story non sequitur, no particular need to mention it as far as I could tell.

And, finally, the ending left me – I was let down, I gotta say it sorry. It didn’t make sense to me, I can get why you’d want Hunter to be moving on, allowing the light in, leaving the attic open and so on but there were no – tie-ups for the loose ends, and there were loose ends all over the place. Even the phone – who he message, did he even enter a number? Was he texting the diary? Or Isolde? Himself?

You told the story really really well, but the story itself? Didn’t move quick enough in the middle, didn’t make sense at the end, not enough unifying features, too many hanging question marks. And ok, leaving things open ended might be a technique - but you gotta select which elements you leave open very carefully, or it feels untidy. The last example I’ll give is Hunter’s context. We hear his mum but we don’t get a sense of his family at all – mum, dad, siblings, home-life – it’s like it doesn’t exist, and for a story about a little boy we can’t have the family not exist without an explanation why.

so. Now I’m done it feels like a hatchet job which it isn’t meant to be. For one, the voice, the descriptions, the way you tell the story in text – all these are spot on. I’d love to be able to write like that, I really would. The reason they haven’t been mentioned is because hell they really don’t need to be from my pov - it’s writing like that I’m trying to learn myself.

So you can damn well tell a story, but this story you told here - It just felt, meandery.

I guess, as with almost all feedback, it comes down to – cut it in half, and only keep the story elements that are essential to you purpose.

(I tried to get this ok, and any mistakes, typos etc are gonna get left unammended so please excuse any booboos. Ta)

Hey Marriot,

Wow.  That's what I call an excellent critique.  Thanks for being honest.  Looking back on this piece, I have to agree that I left it way too open-ended and ambiguous, and it definitely rambles.

Luckily, I've moved onto another project, a feature, that is much more straight-laced and to the point.  It should be on the boards sooner than later, and I'd very much appreciate it if I could have some of your feedback on the first ten pages or so.

In the meanwhile, you can expect a review of "Boy Racers" by tomorrow (was gonna do it earlier but have been quite busy lately).

Thanks again,

Gage

Gage

Reading your script prompted me to register and post a couple of  thoughts.  I enjoyed "Isolde" and hope that you don't abandon it.  I agree with a number of the comments concerning the V.O.  It would be more interesting and powerful if we were able to see Isolde and her story.  Of course this would mean casting more actors and making the film more complicated.  It may be a bit cliche but to solve the problem of why hasn't anyone found the attic room or diary before you might establish the family just moving in and Hunter is exploring the new home.  

Good Luck

Roy

Hey RJ,

The fact that my script played a role in encouraging your registration is a great honor.  Lord knows we need/love new members here.  

Thanks for your thoughts.  I'll begin a rewrite on Isolde very soon, and hopefully tie up some loose ends.

Thank you and welcome to the boards!

Gage