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Hey Marcello - I'm going to have to call you out on this one.
I liked a lot of this early on, and you had some character going on, and so early on that's impressive, so I feel you no doubt have a talent. I gave a couple of misses, but then things got a little too much.
on the likes:
Five rambunctious boys sit
She turns to Tommy. TOMMY Eggies? Cute.
WALTER(CONT) What’s a matter with you? You don’t feel that?
Joy shuts the running faucet off. Places the sponge next to her wedding band that rest beside the sink.
On the dislikes:
Oh! One day, One day
her wedding band that rest
And If I hear about one more lamp
Yea yea, well be good.
Sammy your the oldest.
I cant believe your still upset
...so I think you need to proof read a little and re-post this?
I’m kicking myself that I’m still letting a few of those slip through the cracks. I’m glad you liked the beginning. It’s a shame that some of those misspellings detoured you from reading it through. I’ll finely comb it at some point. For now, I’ll leave it up as is, and see how the rest of the story stands up to more reviews.
Well, I gave it a read-through. Actually liked the end, that was a nice little twist.
I wonder if Joy needs to confront Walter with her motivation -- and I'm guessing that it's the affair, her reason. Even having said that she seems a little 'out-there'.
I did have to wonder if you needed the police in there at all? I'm not sure that they'd give him all those reasons right off, and I'm pretty sure they'd not let him into the interrogation room? Not too sure what the options are, but could Walter head back to the house to get a lighter and find it silent -- then have Joy give him a cig while he's all over the place with grief??? Just some thoughts.
Would appreciate it if you don’t give anything about the story away in your first sentence. Seems to be a recurring theme for you. I don’t mind it being discussed shortly or at length in a post. Just not in the first sentence. Maybe I’m crazy. I’d just prefer to drop that in toward the end of a comment. But that’s just me.
I could see a scene with a flashback between Janet and Joy working . But I think the way I had it down, Joy never met her. Just just knows of her from Walter’s Job. Besides I wanted to kick start what was to come.
Now if a line was added in dialogue indicating she’s met before That flashback scene would open up Joy’s character and a confrontation between the two women who are madly in love with Walt. Interesting…definitely something to chew on.
Forgive
Yea she’s meant to be a little out there. Detached from reality a bit. So to have explain her motivation to Walter would seem uncharacteristic of her, giving her mental state. She’s passed anger and typical emotions. She’s now in a very different, very deluded state of mind.
With the cops I felt I wanted to open up that emotional Wave that hit Walter. Seeing his home taped up, neighbors outside sprawled about. I wanted the character to go through that hurt and pain, to eventual anger and I wanted it to be public.
If I would have kept it simple and have him just return home, it would have worked, but I’m not sure it would have had a greater impact.
That makes sense - the thing that caught me off was when she turns to Tommy. It might just be me, I felt a bit of warmth to her character there, which now seems a little uncharacteristic. I'm wondering if that might work a bit better if you kept the dialogue the same, but have her still stare out of the window?
Just on your production values - the whole police angle's going to kick the budget right out of touch for a short... I don't know if you've factored that in or not. Without the police, there's one location, a car, and from the angle of someone looking to film it, potentially three actors (there could easily be only one child). Just some more thoughts...
Wow, what a shitty day for these people. I think the writing is redundant at times, some things seem a little forced - like the dialogue from the detective - or weird - like the husband allowed to speak to his wife in the interrogation room without cops or lawyers present. Seems like it would be against protocol.
I got an idea of what was going on between them before Janet's actual phone call. I was shocked by Walter's response, though. I actually believed he was innocent of any and all wrong doing - anything mortal, anyway. I do wonder why, though, and I suppose that's a question that won't be answered in this draft. Joy seems pissed and moody and depressed, but she's allowed to be. Her husband's been cheating on her and it's been brought to her home, where her family is. I wonder what she was like before this - why did Walter cheat? - what drove him to it? It's not that big of a deal to me, but I am curious.
For a short, I have gained a great deal from this reading experience: writing errors/typos after errors/typos will make the reader lose their confidence in the writer. Presentation and appearance goes a long way. Also, the cop telling the husband what happened upon him showing up to the crime scene made me remember what Michael Mann did in Heat: he had Pacino stop the mother from seeing her daughter in such a tragic way, hold her, brace her, hug her - very powerful scene and not a word is said. It probably looks better on screen than on paper because of Mann's directing talent, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, maybe your scene could be handled a little better - like the cop bracing Walter and speaking into his ear "you don't want to go in there" and leave it at that. We'll get the idea that it's pretty bad. I don't know, just what I think.
Not gonna beat you up over the errors and typos since it didn't take me out of the story. Saying that I did enjoy the direction you took the story and the twist at the end was great. One thing did bug me towards the end though, I wasn't a fan of the way Walter was reacting to the deaths of his sons. I get that shock could play into the way he was thinking but at times he came off a little calm. Yes I know he was yelling here and there wanting to find the truth to what happen but once he did it came off like my boys died, oh well, where's my wife? I feel a little more emotion would help the scene. Maybe have Walter run up to the boys being carried away and hugging them one last time. Crying. Grieving. Then he could turn his attention to Joy.
When Walter confronts Joy and her question to him is do you have a cigarette? I would think Walter would flip out banging the cop car. Same goes for the interrogation scene, why Walter would remain calm and give Joy a cigarette is beyond me. Also, if Joy laced the cigarettes with poison I would almost think that poor Walter could have smoked one on his way to the police station to help calm his nerves and died on the way. Just a thought.
I was a little skeptical myself when writing that interrogation scene. Same points you brought up ran across my brain. Would they really let him in by himself in the room with her? I could have kept the detective in the room I guess. He could have been the one that passes the matches as opposed to a Plainclothes officer. And the no lawyer, I’d chalk that up to the fact that she never asked for one. And cops usually aren't insistent on someone calling one. I think in the end The Detective understands Walters tremendous loss, and in a way is kind of doing him a favor, so he could get some kind of closure. I guess that’s the best way I could justify that.
Powerful scene in heat. I see the connection and your point. I could have kept it more simplified, though I wanted to link the first image of the script to the scene at hand. The egg yolk being swirled in a bowl. If I didn't explain the cause of death, that little nugget would have been lost to just a setting of a scene. I like to sprinkle the story with clues, that when added up make the reader go “Ohhh….I see what he did”…lol
Dirk
Glad you enjoyed the twist. Good valid points about Walter’s attention shifting from loss to straight anger. I was thinking of possibly having him run over to the stretchers crying and sobbing. I guess I didn't want him to over do it. He did drop to his knees and cry a few times. I felt like the moment he heard that they were murdered and by who. That feeling of loss and pain, switched gears, right into anger.
When she asks for the cigarette in the cop car, his reaction is shock and he has to take a step back. The fact that she is SO out there at this point, completely oblivious to what is around her or at least that’s what it seems. Walter recognizing that, his emotion switches again. From anger to confusion and disbelief. I wanted him to go through a gauntlet of emotions. Sorrow, Hate, Confusion and disbelief. 1,2.3.
Now when she asks for it a second time at the precinct. His first reaction is ”A cigarette? That’s what you been thinking about?" At this point he realizes how fuckin crazy she really is. So he obliges. But only for an exchange.. A cigarette in exchange for the answers and the hope of some type of closure. The question that was eating him up. Why?
That was something I was thinking about to. If he’s a smoker and this had happened to him, he’d probably smoke a pack. I tried to I guess… work around that with showing that his lighter didn't work. He almost smoked one on his way to work. Keep in mind her plan was never for them to be in a precinct together. She even says. “I’m surprised to see you here“. That wasn't meant toward the fact that he would be hating her. It was to suggest she had thought he had smoked a cigarette by now. Even in the car, when she asks for one. She’s reminding him of his pack. In hopes that he does eventually smoke one. That and she wanted to die as well.
Hey Marcello, I read this yesterday morning, but my day got busy, so I'm actually skimming over the entire script again, as I write.
I'm going to start with the writing itself and give you some specific examples of where you may want to rethink what you're doing, and then I'll go into your actual story.
Please feel free to completely ignore this if you disagree or feel I'm being harsh.
For starters, this is just riddled with mistakes - mistakes of all kinds - grammar, typos, misspellings, sentence structure, repitition...argh, you name it, it's in here. I read your initial response to another poster who brought this up and you seemed to be surprised, which surprises me. IMO, a simple once over would catch 50% - 75% of these mistakes, which leads me to believe you didn't even do that. My recommnedation is to always give your work at least 10 reads before posting. There is absolutely no exuse for the amount of mistakes on display here.
You start off with the very generic "KITCHEN" Slug. IMO, that's a mistake. Tell us where we are, exactly - "EXT. NEALY HOUSE - KITCHEN - MORNING". Once you properly set your scene, then all those Mini Slugs will look much better that follow.
Your opening action/description line is a problem for me, as, first of all, it's totally directing the scene, and you just don't need to do that. What do I mean? Why is it totally directing the shot? If you simply wrote what's happening, you'd write something like, "JOY NEALY, 42, wearing a bathrobe and slippers, wisks eggs in a bowl, a blank look on her face. If a Director decided not to intro her here, he could show what you wrote, but it's just not your job and the reason this is an issue, IMO, is that so many writers make a mistake when trying to do this and it usually comes back to bite them in the arse. So...is there a mistake in this line? Of course there is. First of all, it isn't an "egg yolk", it's at least egg yolks, as she's making breakfast for a bunch of peeps. So, why is it only the yolk, as opposed to the entire egg? And if she's whisking the yolks (or even the entire eggs) together, she's either making an omelet, scrambled eggs, or some kind of quiche/frittata - but, on Page 3, Joy is using a "spatchelor" (which I've never heard of, nor does it come up when googled - how about a spatula?) to "flip over the eggs in the pan". So...what kind of eggs are these?
OK, listen, I know, you're thnking to yourself, "Really? WTF is wrong with this guy?" But, hopefully, nit picky as my opening comments are, they make sense, and what you chose to write, really doesn't, and so far, it's because you chose to open with a shot that you directed, and it was a mistake.
OK, let's move foward. Your 2nd passage also has issues. When you first intro characters, you know you have to CAP them, and here you did not. "boys" should be "BOYS". No clue why you then added a fragment about their ages, as opposed to including it in the prior sentence. Here's how it should look (IMO, at least) - "Five rambunctious BOYS, ranging in age from four to ten, sit around a long table." See the difference? See why I'm bringing this up?
You do the exact same thing again in your next passage - "Lit cigarette dangling from her lip." - This is not a complete sentence, and needs to be included to the prior sentence. And, c'mon now - is it really dangling from her "lip", or from her "lips"?
Little things for sure, but see how quickly they add up?
Tommy's first line of "Eggies?" is a good one. It makes him out to be a real kid and that's good attention to detail on your part. But, Joy's first line has a very common mistake that most peeps continue to make, over and over. When you use a name or anything that can be used as a name, in dialogue, it must be set off with a comma or commas. Like this - "Coming right up, Sweety." I also capitalize the first letter when using a word as a name.
Walter plants a kiss on "the" cheek. No, he plants a kiss on "her" cheek.
Page 2 - Walter says - "Ahh.." - This doesn't make sense to me. I think you meant "Uhhh..." - you need 3 dots, not 2, and Uhh and Ahh mean completely different things. Make sense, or did I miss what you intended here?
Joy's hands aren't in the "faucet", they're in the scalding hot "water".
"What's "a" matter with you?" - should be "What's the matter with you?"
Again, little things but IMO, obvious things that are really adding up.
"Places the sponge..." - again, another error many make again and again. Why is this "sentence" not part of the prior one? Why is the subject missing? It reads so poorly like this. Also - "...that rest..." - should be "that rests..." - with an "s".
These are either careless mistakes that you didn't catch in editing, or writing issues you don't understand or know. Hopefully, calling these out will help you going forward.
"braking" - "breaking"
"Sammy" - "SAMMY"
Why does Sammy's dialogue start with a " - "? Again, you need a comma between "good" and "dad". Also, "Right guys!" should be "Right, guys?" See the difference? See how the comma changes the way the line is read?
"REST OF THE BROTHERS" - I highly doubt that all 4 or 5 kids would say anything like this at the exact same time...know what I mean? And if they did, it's "Yeah, yeah", not "Yea yea".
Sammy's next line is incorrectly punctuated again. It would be "See?", with a question mark, right?
And Walter's line that follows is also incorrect - "Sammy, you're the oldest." Need the comma and you need to understand the differences in "your" and "you're".
OK, enough of the line by line stuff, let's move forward a bit.
"Where's my pack?" - Sounds odd, wouldn't it be better as, "Where're my smokes?"
"Walter grabs up his pack of Marlboro." - I'm sorry, but this is a terrible line. Why is "up" in here? Why isn't Marlboro plural? Again, little things that make a big difference in the read.
Walter's dialogue on the top of Page 4 isn't good at all. Lots of mistakes in it, but it's just odd and out of left field - obvious that it's here for a reason to make us think something different may be up. If you really want to use such a device, you need to do it more gracefully, IMO.
"Walter closes the doors behind him." - doors? Why are there more than 1 all of a sudden? Why even add this line? There are many, many examples of lines that aren't necessary because they are assumed to happen - as in, they will happen and we don't need to read about it or see it in a filmed version. Opening and closing doors, getting in and out of cars, etc, do not need to be told. Save yourself a line and skip it.
"EXT. HIGHWAY - MORNING" - Is this Slug correct? No, it isn't. The vast majority of this scene takes place inside Walter's car. Right? The whole thing about neighbor Randy calling is odd and out of place. Everything happens way too fast to make sense, unless Walter has a redonkulously long commute to work each way. Lots and lots of mistakes in the writing throughout this dialogue exchange - misspellings, missing commas, incorrect tenses, just very poorly written, sorry to say.
"WALTER's BLOCK" - Is this Slug correct? No, once again, it's not, as the majority of the scene takes place in what seems to be his driveway. Again, there are loads of mistakes on display, but the bigger issue is how long this scene runs - too long. Too much dialogue that goes nowhere.
"POLICE PRESCIENT/INTERROGATION ROOM" - WTF? You just can't have such blatant mistakes in your work. There's just no excuse for this kind of thing. Really?
"Joy sits at the table handcuffed, staring at deep scratch on the table. She maybe in the room, but her mind is far removed from it." - Again, this is just a very, very poorly written passage. You used "table" twice in your first sentence. Missing "a" between "at" and "deep" - just reads so poorly. "maybe" - should be "may be", but the entire last sentence is an unnecessary aside.
What follows is both unrealistic, mostly unnecessary, and just way too long. You end up with an interesting twist and this is what holds your entire script together, but I think there are better ways to get here.
What I like about the end is that you set it up nicely early on in the script and then brought it up again, at the house, when Joy is in the cop car. The great thing is that you did this all very deftly and I doubt anyone saw this coming.
It seems like you came up with an idea (and a good one!), wrote it down and submitted it without really thinking everything through.
This is brutally dark and mean spirited, so you really need to make it come off as believable and real as well. Cut out alot of the unnecessary dialogue. Cut the characters back to an easier working number. Ramp up Walter's reaction to what Joy did - show us his grief and anger, and then hit us over the head with your bleak, but well thought out ending and finale.
Most of all, clean this thing up, brother! Seriously, there's just no excuse for the multitude of glaring, obvious mistakes. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to put your best foot forward and present a well written script - you have not done that here.
Don't rush things. Think them through and spend the time it takes to make this a lean, mean beast that it can be.
I don't mean to be picky or harsh, but I hope it opens your eyes. This is a great premise and it's a ballsy script that can really shine. As written now, it doesn't.
Leave it to Jeff to rip my soul out and jam it into a meat grinder. Then carefully use a “spatula” to scrape it out.
Look man, that was all good stuff. I think with me… I have to read it over like 20 times. Then maybe hire someone to proof read the shit after I’m done. You interested? Lol
I never had a problem thinking up a story. I probably have about four just floating in my head at any given time. My problem is execution in regards to grammar and sentence structure. It’s not like I have my head resting on the keyboard and letters are just spewing across the screen. I’m sure that’s how Jeff see’s it. I wish I WAS an English major. This would all seem like very trivial stuff. But I’m not. Might have slept through a few classes though. Now I see that shit biting me in the ass.
But in all fairness your right. A lot of that does seem to be poorly written when you brake it down the way you did. So I take that in stride and hopefully some of it, if not most of it will actually stick with me.
This post alone is probably “riddled” with mistakes. But I digress…
Fucking spatula. Now that I think of it, I cant recall any time I have ever even spelled that word out. So stupid…“Spatchelor” doesn't that look right?….lol. Not to mention spell check let me down again. Embarrass me again spell check…I swear! Spell check is becoming a friend I can’t count on. How it didn't underline it with red…is beyond me.
Now on page two “ahhhh” when his hand touches the hot water doesn't make sense to you? You would say uhhh? Yea I’m gonna’ disagree with you on that one. I’m not sure how you express pain. But uhhh, sounds like someone getting kicked in the stomach. Something’s hot…AHH....uhh?....ehh.
The where’s my pack line….You see that as odd and you would prefer to say smokes. I could understand why. But where’s my pack(of cigarettes) is a term used pretty widely around my parts. So that might just be a difference in speech due to where ever you come from. I know across the pond they say Fag for a cigarette. And trust me, nobody says that in NY. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Walter grabs "up" a the pack of Marlboro. Grammatically that’s probably not correct. But I think you can see my way of speech infusing itself into the script. But I get it, dialogue is suitable but that’s it.
The extra door was a slip up due to an elusive S.
I did use table twice in that sentence. Didn't catch that. That would have been something I would have taken out.
I’m glad you got the premise and the tone I was trying to set for the story. Unfortunately the execution wasn't up to par.
I wish there was a better spell-check out there. One in which brakes down proper uses of comma’s and poorly constructed sentences. Something like…“did you mean“…and there’s my answer. Half the time I feel like my screenplay is littered with mines. I know it’s there. I just cant see the shit. Then you come along with a metal detector. Like there’s one, there’s one and there. Two right next to each other. Basically the whole field is “riddled” with them… But oh well…
Definitely appreciate your detailed review. I’ll soak up what you said. Wait…can I say “up” with that sentence? lol
Well if my previous post offended somebody, my apologies, I didn't realize it was that bad compared to what I personally see around here. Genuinely sorry, won't happen again.
Hey Marcello, didn't mean to rip any souls out, just trying to point some things out to help you going forward.
In terms of the "ahh" vs. "uhh", you're correct. I incorrectly read the line, thinking he was saying to his wife, "Uhh, don't you feel that?". I didn't realize he put his hand under the water.
It's not about being an English major or anything close to that. It's really just about having a solid basic understanding and knowing your weeknesses, and then looking out for them.
The typos, grammar, and thoe kind of mistakes are easy to fix, as long as peeps point them out and as long as you care to make the changes and understand why they're wrong. That's really the key, though - taking it in, understanding what's wrong, and why it's wrong, and then not making those same mistakes over and over.
Other things like using incorrect Slugs is something you should really think about, and again, understand what the problem is and how you can make it better.
Steve, I read the script...twice, actually. I did comment on the story and what took place, and I did make suggestions where I thought things weren't right. I also complimented Marcello several times for the good that he did here, and the bottom line is that the premise is great...maybe even unique.
But, 1 thing I won't do is write someone's script for them. In theory, the writer spends time coming up with his story and I personally hate it when some A-Hole spends 10 minutes reading and all of a sudden, he thinks he knows the story and characters better than the writer does, and therefor tells him how he should change it. I don't do that and I won't be doing that anytime soon.
Maybe I shouldn't post feedback at all, as it always seems to piss someone off, no matter what I say or how I say it.
Best of luck with this, Marcello. Sorry if I upset you.
But, 1 thing I won't do is write someone's script for them. In theory, the writer spends time coming up with his story and I personally hate it when some A-Hole spends 10 minutes reading and all of a sudden, he thinks he knows the story and characters better than the writer does, and therefor tells him how he should change it. I don't do that and I won't be doing that anytime soon.
This I understand. I now drop the subject and we can move on, although I never intentionally insisted on swerving the topic of the thread in any serious way.
Quoted from Dreamscale
Maybe I shouldn't psot feedback at all, as it always seems to piss someone off, no matter what I say or how I say it.
No, that is not the case with me, you're in fact one of my favorite members and I enjoy reading what you have to say - sometimes I don't agree with it - but 95% of the time I like reading your posts and like that you're here.
One thing I did gather from your review was that the cigarettes were poisoned all along from the very first frame they were in. I didn't notice that. Maybe a nice addition would be Walter saying with a quizzical face "hmm, coulda sworn I left 'em upstairs" or something like that.
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The Unthinkable
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