Quoted from alffy Steve (coop), I wonder if you wrote this after the match last night...stinging lol Sorry this didn't work for you.  The 24/7 thing was meant to be taken literally so I guess I could drop that bit, I thought that with Davidson saying it, it would have a harder impact on Michael.  Some of the points I've answered previously but I'm glad you liked this...only kidding, sorry it wasn't for you.

I’m sorry if I was harsh – not my intention. I wrote the feedback the morning after when I saw the result but I promise it didn’t affect my attitude at all!

You can’t get away with not meaning things literally unless it’s hinted at. Normally comedy can do this through sarcasm and what not, but with the type of story you had here with a powerful core, it’s difficult to follow. Maybe it would be best to just drop it and save confusion.

One point you didn’t answer and because I’m a curious bugger; what does the pen laying in water at the beginning mean? Was it supposed to be lying in water? Is it supposed to fit in with the final reveal?

I see you have now explained a little background on the Man Watchers but I still am not a fan of this. So a group of victims get together to WATCH these people that have in Michael’s case caused him some terrible emotional trauma. It’s all a little timid for me – to think that these victims would just watch these offenders in their free time.

Looking back through the comments, it appears I was the only one who had any issues with this so I would take my opinion lightly. If others had similar problems then it may be a bigger issue.

I think it’s also because we didn’t get any background on Davidson and what his life has been like.
And the decision to hand over Michael to the police must have been a difficult one and something which could be explored to give Davidson some substance.

Again, I apologise if I can off as harsh as I was only trying to point out areas that didn’t work for me and ways to maybe improve the story.

Best of luck with it.

Alffy

I always enjoying reading something from you. This had its moments but I don’t feel it entirely worked.

“His eyes catch sight of Davidson’s hidden hand. His knees buckle and he
drops back on to the bed.”

MICHAEL
Jesus, don’t do anything stupid, I
won’t leave, I won’t leave.

- I had a hard time visualising this, it seems awfully, for want of a better word, chicken sh?t of Michael to react like that. I know he’s just woken up, disorientated, in a strange place, with a stranger but this comes off as too appeasing and too readily intimidated.

Somebody has been catching up on their psychoanalytic literature!

“His hand itches toward his
jacket.”

- Should be “inches” instead of “itches”

Too much spacing at the top of page 6. Get back those lost lines, man!

I’m struggling the belive in the plausibility of this “Man Watcher” agency. Wouldn’t you not think if someone like Michael had that kind of past that he would be under some sort of regular psychiatric evaluation? I recognize that these Man Watchers are there to, yep, watch potentially dangerous, mentally unstable people but it doesn’t seem very effective. It looks like they just wait until someone commits another crime before intervening like what we see here. Which is implied at the end with Michael opening the bathroom door, that he’s just done something equally horrible as his past offense.

MICHAEL
How did I do it? How?

- Is there a need for the repetition of “How”?

DAVIDSON (V.O.)
You gouged out my daughters eyes
with a pencil, Michael.

- I don’t reckon this had the dramatic punch you had hoped for. Contrarily, it reads a little odd to me. Perhaps that was your intent but on the basis of the rest of the script it feels ill-fitted.

Like I said, there are some decent moments in this, the initial set-up asks a lot of questions, the mysterious man knowing everything about Michael, the looking at the phone building up the tension that something is about to go down, unfortunately it goes down the road  of telling us everything, lots of expository dialogue to fill in Michael and the reader about the context of their meeting and the history and back-story of how we got to this place.

I’m always wary of using amnesia stricken characters because then the writer tends to use them as convenient conduits for explaining the plot to the audience. Since the protagonist knows as little as we do, they try to wedge in as much story to explain important plot points.

Maybe think of more exciting way to convey this information; flashback, abstract imagery, visual clues or props.

I wrote a short sometime ago that suffered from the same problem of trying to shoehorn all this backstory into a short script that essentially only chronicled the culmination of these events, the final confrontation if you will. It was only during a rewrite last year that I realised there was enough material in there to make a feature out of it. I think you got similar case here, with all this stuff that Davidson informs Michael about you could probably make a feature or at least a longer short out of it, build everything up to this concluding showdown.

Obviously you can’t flat out give away Michael’s condition so some oblique storytelling techniques would have to be deployed i.e. non-linear and dual/multiple narratives. By the looks of it, Davidson comes off as a more interesting character then Michael so maybe have him as your protagonist with Michael just being one of his many “cases.” This could even work as an opening scene.

Anyway, enough rambling, you’ve got an interesting concept here, kinda reminds me of “The Adjustment Bureau” this idea of people looking out for other people and keeping an eye of them. Or chillingly enough, it’s probably closer to the real world than we’d like to admit in some countries.

However, I question the conventional, talking heads method in which you went about delivering the story, this could be restructured to make it more interesting and filmic.

Regards

Col.

Steve, sorry I forgot to answer the pen in water thing.  It was to show that he gouged out the ladies eyes with the pen then cleaned himself and the pen, leaving the pen wet.
No worries about it not working for you, you're not the only one lol.

Col, cheers for reading this and sorry it didn't work for you either.  I kind of limited myself to write a short in one location with two actors.  I was thinking of re-working it as I've had some good feedback but I got an email the other day from someone wanting to shoot it so, I guess it worked in that respect.  Think I'll see what they do with it first before deciding whether to tackle a rewrite.

Hey alffy,

Sometimes you have to add restrictions to your creativity in order to get something out of it.

Good luck with the shoot. Hope this gets made.

Gabe

Hey Anthony,

Sorry to say I wasn't a fan of this one. I think the minimalist strategy is fine and I understand and respect why many writers try to take this approach. I also support the assertion that limits enable creativity; I'm sure we've all seen it happen many a time before.

At the same time, I think the whole "two characters, one location" scenario can be a trap. I think when under these guidelines, there's certain concepts that most responsible writers will come up with immediately from the getgo, i.e. protagonist wakes up in a hotel room with a stranger. In fact, I'd say this particular one comes up a lot; I know I've read this same script hundreds of times before.

If you're gonna keep things this sparse, it's important to keep them fresh as well. This one felt extremely vanilla. I haven't read anything about Man Watchers before but I still don't think that info really makes the script come off as more interesting.

I wouldn't say the issue is so much originality as it is that the premise is just kinda flawed, dramatically. I mean, here's a classic case of an amnesic character who can only ask questions or react in shock, terror, or confusion to a character who can only ever explain the whole story through the dialogue. It's really not very compelling at all.

I think most people opt to make the stranger cryptic and deceptive so as to up the creep factor and remedy the blandness. A fair attempt, I guess, but again, it happens so often that it can hardly impress anyone. I've skimmed over the comments here and it seems you were going for something different; Davidson was meant to be more jumpy in a "walking on eggshells" sorta way. I think that's at least a somewhat different take and yet his dialogue still seems like he's trying to toy with Michael. "Too many questions." "My name's Davidson, but that's irrelevant." Why would he say his name's irrelevant unless he was trying to convey that he, not Michael, knows what's up and thus he's the one in power?

I'd up the "walking on eggshells" angle. On both sides, actually. If both Michael and Davidson are acting jumpy, not only does it up the tension, it adds mystery to which one is really dangerous.

Nevertheless, I think you still need a multi-pronged attack as far as improving the scenario. Amnesiacs are always an issue. They enable an "ask questions, get answers" type of rhythm that is utterly expository and conflict-free. Boring, in other words. The stranger can be anyone, essentially. Them having the answers gives them at least some semblance of strength. A character devoid of insight who's forced to ask questions is always dull. I think Michael needs to go about getting to the bottom of things in a different way. I think him having some memory, at least about his day to day life, could remedy things some. If he's in a position to provide some information to the reader/viewer instead of the story being 100% one-sided, that's a start.

The ending was okay. Eye-gouging is always grim. At the same time, these types of scripts always hint that they're going to end with a revelation of murder or some kind of violence/abuse. This was no exception and macabre as it is, you end the script with a line of dialogue. Not particularly strong. I suppose you could show the photo but that's still just a step down from showing the body itself.

Sorry I can't offer anything more encouraging but indeed, I've read so many of scripts with this exact same scenario. At some point, it inevitably gonna get played out. Right now, you've got a great shot at getting produced; it's still a "two characters, one location" package. But it really doesn't do much for me. I think you need to majorly spruce it up.

Hope this helps.

Hi alffy,

Haven't read anything from here in a long time. This was a good place to start. I've not read any of the other comments so bear with me. I liked the basic story but do think you could improve it significantly with a rewrite.

While reading, I thought Michael killed his teacher and I'm sure that wasn't your intention. Also, there's a block of dialogue fr on Michael that should be Davidson, but that's probably been pointed out already. Another small problem for me was the lack of any real action. I thought that Michael would true to use the pen as a weapon to escape. I know if I woke up in a room with a stranger, I wouldn't just ask questions.

I also thought Davidson would want something more after 20 years. He was extremely calm and I thought he would take matters into his own hands. The police arriving didn't really do the story justice, in my opinion.

I did like the general idea, even if this situation has happened in many stories before. It would be really easy to produce, and I'm confident someone will be happy to take this script on. You can tell a good story, and one of your previous shorts is still in my top 3 that I've read.

Good work.

Brian

Quoted from Mr.Ripley Sometimes you have to add restrictions to your creativity in order to get something out of it.

Very true.

James, sorry this wasn't for you.  The general consensus is that this was a bit of a miss but it was something I just wanted to try out and as I type this it's going to be produced, so it wasn't all bad.

I think maybe I'll stick to comedy as they seem to be best offerings lol.

Brian, thanks for the read and you're right, the errors hae been pointed out previously.  Again, sorry it didn't thrill you but thanks anyway for finishing.  Just out of interest, which one of mine is in your top 3?

The Chocolatier. I can still remember it after all this time. I did like Man Watcher, I liked the mystery and I wanted to keep reading. My comments didn't really come across that way because I'm typing on my phone and couldn't take notes. You did a good job.

Thanks Brian, The Chocolatier is my personal favorite as I worked on it a lot.  Something I don't do for shorts these days.

Alffy,

I have nothing new to add as many of these readers did. I do like the concept of the story and i love the ending. I would like to suggest that since Davidson has some kinda vendetta against Michael, he should show less emotion in the beginning. In my opinion, he was trying to calm Michael too much in the beginning. I would rather Davidson be cold.

Irish Eyes,

I would chose O.S or even O.C

Hodan, I see you checked out another short of mine, cheers.

I know were you're coming from with Davidson being quite calm throughout but I guess that's the British in me; keep calm lol.

If you have anything posted let me know and I'll check it out.

hey alffy;

Liked the set up and the concept here; reminded me a little of the Watchers in the old Highlander TV series-citizens keeping tabs on those in society who might present a danger to themselves or others...

Would have expected a bit more hostility from Davidson concerning his connection to Micheal, that he would delight in the fact that even though that crime went unpunished, this crime would not...Perhaps he was set up or at least enabled by Davidson to unleash his fury on the prostitute in order to fulfill Davidson's dramatic need for revenge...He's too matter of fact or sympathetic, given his emotional tie to Michael...

Quite an enjoyable story...thanks!

This script fell kinda flat for me.  Two guys talked in a hotel room for eight pages and the closest thing to action was Michael putting his pants on.


SPOILER SPACE!!!


Your two characters were extremely two dimensional.  Michael just accepted what Davidson told him.  After reading the script, I couldn't describe what he is like; he had no personality.

Davidson just prattled on; he should've been more commanding with a mysterious presence, like Agent Smith in The Matrix or like the Observers in Fringe.  I wondered why Michael began listening to him.

This group that Davidson belongs to doesn'y work for me.  While you tried to be mysterious, you just ended up being vague.  The fact that the group would have Davidson watch Michael as he picked up his daughter is pretty far fetched, IMHO.

Davidson needs a total revamp for this story to work.  And you need to show more than the two characters.  Use flashback when going over Michael's past.  Give us something to look at.

Hope this helps.


Phil

Hi Anthony,

I didnt like the ending. You write

Davidson reaches in his jacket and pulls out a photograph.

THEN

Michael turns the bathroom door handle and swings it open. His eyes almost burst from their sockets with shock.

i think this needs to be rewritten so that there is correlation between the two. Maybe have Michael open the bathroom door first, then Davidson show him the photograph (which I assume is of his daughter?) and reveal the twist.

interesting stuff though, enjoyed it. Have to agree a little with Phil, they both need a little bit more about them, tho i dont feel the need for a flashback or anything.

Im happy for it to be mysterious,even after reading it a few times. i dont feel the need for questions to be answered (tho im happy you did answer a few lol) I kinda feel that some people on here may have been reading too much into it. There were certainly some aspects which could be looked at again and tweaked but its supposed to make us ask questions isnt it? I dont want everything to be handed to me on a plate

good job.

-Gavin

Blakkwolfe, Phil and Gavin, thanks for the reads guys.

Sorry it didn't work for you Phil.  I toyed with the idea of flashbacks but I mentioned earlier that I really used this as a personal exercise to try and write something in one location with two actors.

Blakkwolf, I understand that you'd expect more hosility from Davidson but I guess I have him as a broken man who has waited years for Michael to lapse so he can finally get him behind bars, but of course he didn't want the girl to die.

Gavin, cheers for the read, not seen you around so feel free to let me know if I can return the read.  Glad you enjoyed and yes, I didn't want to soill all the beans but I do explain a little more background about the Man Watcher program in an early post if you're interested.