Hi Last Fountain - Gave this a read, my thoughts:
Damn, you've put me in my Christmas spirit early, a really enjoyable read that got emotions out of me well along with great Christmas atmosphere straight from the title page. That definitely takes skill, a voice shines through here as well, all signs of good writing. Some odd formatting, I think you should make some things more conventional e.g parentheticals in the right place, ELLIOT NARRATION to ELLIOT (V.O), RING RING's to action lines. Wouldn't want others to close the script over it, they'd be missing out.
Quoted Text EXT. A CARTOON WINTER WONDERLAND � DAY
Cartoon snowflakes fall from the bright blue sky. The animated sunrays reach down to the winter wonderland below. |
The opening seems to want to beat it into my head that it's animated, overkill.
I like how the short starts with the animated sequence and then turns into real life, especially the pre-lap phone ringing. Elliot's character well established from the get-go through the phone call with Sir. Great dialogue here, I like how Sir's character isn't overplayed to nice or an antagonist.
The flashback is really well written, strongest part of the script. Pages are flying by.
Quoted Text P17: ELLIOT (sighs) I miss you, Kev. |
An unnecessary moment of Elliot basically talking to himself. It's already been established enough that he does plenty in the script, feels like overdoing it.
P23: Squirrel/Kevin killing the bird gives me mixed emotions. I envisioned them sort of like Tom & Jerry, especially in the opening scene of the short. Always at it, but they always remain intact whatever happens to them. Now the Crow is dead? I don't know, Squirrel seems pretty bloody cruel with the knife like that. Takes some heart out of the script, I'd rather see Crow fly off defeated.
From the start of page 25 things are starting to look rushed and somewhat cheesy. It feels like the scene at Kevin's relatives house deserves to be fleshed out more, and as it is I'm not buying into the squirrel/Kevin thing as much as I'd want to anymore. Now here's a suggestion: An alternative scenario where Elliot is the only one that can see the squirrel, they decide to go visit the family and Kevin tells Elliot what he'd want to see/know/say to all of them with that one chance to see them, somewhat being the middleman. It could have a lot of emotional response and yet we'd always be wondering whether it's all in Elliot's head or not.
Kevin's sister asking Elliot out - Very abrupt and a big reason for me using the word cheesy for what comes through past page 25. It may warm some cockles, but i see it as an overdone development for too big of a happy ending.
After finishing, I can't help but wonder whether Elliot had the right age for the script. The child in him was clearly present and some dialogue with Sir seemed to indicate that he'd be younger, early 20s perhaps, where the scars would be fresher (Uncle telling him to draw seemed more recent, 11-13 sounds like a better fit than 20 ; his job sounded more like he was an intern).
Well, that's what I got - hope it helped. I'd say this is definitely worth a revision, go for it. Good luck!