Nice pics, Mark. Did you have a hand in the drawings?

Mark,

Glad to finally read something from you. You've been around here a while now.

I liked your story for what it was, but you need to clean up your typos. Your slugs change from caps to no caps at one point. And my biggest issue here is that your script is SO busy. There's a lot of action scenes, and you need to cut then from three lines or so down to two or one if you can. Break em up. It feels like it takes us forever to get to the end. At least that's how I felt. It also seems like you just got so wrapped up in your writing that you just got careless, the adrenaline pumping, and kept writing though it. Slow down, go over this slowly, rewrite then rewrite again. You've got a decent story here, but the read is a bit tedious.

If you didn't go over this before you posted, then bad on you. If you did, then you've still got a lot of work to do. But keep at it. This one might be worth it if it read more clearly. Clean this up. Take it from a smelly garbage dump to a clean, green field--if that makes any sense.

Steve

Quoted from DV44 Nice pics, Mark. Did you have a hand in the drawings?

Ha ha no, if I did it would have looked like a 3 year old using crayons. This actually got into pre-production but didn't happen. The pics are from a storyboard from an artist.

Quoted from SAC Mark, Glad to finally read something from you. You've been around here a while now. I liked your story for what it was, but you need to clean up your typos. Your slugs change from caps to no caps at one point. And my biggest issue here is that your script is SO busy. There's a lot of action scenes, and you need to cut then from three lines or so down to two or one if you can. Break em up. It feels like it takes us forever to get to the end. At least that's how I felt. It also seems like you just got so wrapped up in your writing that you just got careless, the adrenaline pumping, and kept writing though it. Slow down, go over this slowly, rewrite then rewrite again. You've got a decent story here, but the read is a bit tedious. If you didn't go over this before you posted, then bad on you. If you did, then you've still got a lot of work to do. But keep at it. This one might be worth it if it read more clearly. Clean this up. Take it from a smelly garbage dump to a clean, green field--if that makes any sense. Steve

Thanks Steve, I'm very guilty of merging several drafts here and I have been lazy. I do need to tidy this up and there's no excuses but I'm glad you can see something through the haze. Cheers for the feedback.

Mark,

For the most part, I enjoyed the read and appreciated the energy you put into most scenes.  The Kane character was interesting and he did have that cowboy, Hollywood bravado about him.  Didn't care much for Finch at this point.  He's kind of bland, and doesn't always ask questions or smart questions.

With that I'm going to launch into the areas I think you could liven up, so to speak.
Just before the woman in white is plowed over by the ambulance, there was a thump on the vehicle roof.  It can't be the woman, because she steps in front of the ambulance.  What happened to the mystery creature that appeared to land on the roof - page 3?

I'd drop the line on page 4 about the "dead" woman being a VAMPIRE! You've provided adequate description, so it's obvious. We can do the math.

Something bothers me about the scene in which Kane passes his business card to Finch; complete with e-mail and twitter addresses.  Kane seems more old world, and I think the crest tattoo is sufficient. The card seems too new school, for my taste.
Or, if want stay with the card, keep it simple: the name of a clan or society.  Kane xxx, vampire hunter.
I like keeping old world and new world distinct.  Finch can represent the new school vampire killer.

My biggest beef isn't the suspension of disbelief. It's the consistency of the story you tell.

Kane is a vampire hunter, but in what world does he hunt vampires?
Are you telling us that Europe has been plagued with vampires and the U.S. is just now getting hit?
Until Kane's arrival on this night, there didn't seem to be a vampire invasion in this city.
Was there a hole punched in time, bringing the vampires from the old world into the present? It almost feels that way.

As EMT guys, Finch and Mac have surely seen these "animal bites to the neck" before.  Perhaps you can tell us that there has been a wave of such bites on victims.  That would create energy in the dialog between Finch, Mac and Dispatch, too.  Like, WTF is gong on?

I'm not getting the whole syringe thing with mystery serum. It doesn't work for Mac or Kane — they both turn.  Did it not work for Kane because he administered it too late?  He checked his stop watch, then was writhing in pain, so I took that to mean he needed the serum in his system now. So, is there some lab experimenting with anti-vampire serum?  Not sure on how to take this.

While I think Kane is the most colorful character in your story, I also think he's Typhoid Mary. Where he goes, death seems to follow.

At what point did Kane realize he is going to die? He's passing along this vampire hunter mantle to Finch, but there seems to be a strange joy in the process. Kane does that strange little dance before sunrise.  I thought, what an SOB that dude is. He just dumped his Curse on this poor sap, Finch.  Just like Kane unwittingly turned that little girl vampire on the church folks.  What a piece of work.

It is as much a curse to be a vampire hunter as it is to be a vampire, ha ha.
I guess that's why his name is Kane.

I cracked up on re-reading that line by Kane to Finch. — Focus on the family and getting them through the night. — Yeah, good luck. The Finch family was just fine before Kane arrived.

the scene where Mac emerges out of smoke in the front cab would work better if Finch is more distracted at the wheel.  I'm thinking with all those vampire attacks, maybe there are vampires in the road or sky. Or a vampire on the ambulance hood.  That would get our attention, and subsequently, Finch's attention.
We would not be paying attention to the front passenger seat.

A thought:  while fending off a Big Mac,  Finch can use something organic to the story. I'm thinking Mac's crucifix. If that is still hanging around, Finch can wedge it in Mac's mouth.  Oh the irony.
Reminiscent of Roman Polanski shoving a book in an advancing vampire's mouth - Fearless Vampire Hunters.

A few times Finch is instructed to "breath."  I think you mean "breathe," with an e at the end?

I really think the crest and the legacy thing works best if it's kept in the family. That Finch is a descendant of the Van Vordenburg clan. The vampire hunter role would be his destiny, not his bad luck.
But that's just my take.

Despite my nitpicks, I still loved the action. Vampires blowing up, bats exploding, all while driving through the city, satisfies my sweet tooth for reckless blood-letting.  Clean up the inconsistencies and this tale could go places.

Good luck.
Abe

Thanks Abe. that was a great review - lots of good feedback that I can incorporate into the next draft. A lot of your questions were answered in a previous draft, E.G. it was more obvious the serum was highly experimental and unstable but the director at the time felt there was too much on the nose dialogue so I trimmed it a lot. It's difficult to get a lot of these ideas across without a lot of unnecessary exposition.  

However I've got loads of great feedback from you all here and it's helped immensely. That script has sat on my PC for months without me having a clue what to do with it next, now I've loads of ideas.

Thanks everyone, you are amazing!