Til Death Do Us Part by Andrew Lightfoot - Short - An elderly man finds a VHS tape holding the memories of his life. 9 pages - pdf, format

Hi Andrew, a few thoughts, just my opinion of course

1) There's a few typo's that are a little distracting e.g.
'A old man ADRIAN MILTON' - should be 'An old man...'
'takes of his coat'- should be 'takes off his coat'
'fumbles in is pocket' - should be 'fumbles in his pocket'
These are all in the first ten lines, you need to have a good read through.
2) You don;t need CONTINUED at the top/bottom of your pages, think your software is doing this automatically, you should e able to turn it off.
3) I found it difficult to follow in places due to the cutting between scenes and timelines, so you might want to look at how these are constructed/paced.

I thought there was a tone that built well in the script and I think there's promise here, just needs some polish.

Anthony

Andrew, things get by all of us but...

It's always a good idea to proofread more than once and get someone else to proofread as a backup before you post something. Case in point:

He says a quick silent prayer before stuffing a napkin in
the front of his shit.

And then:

he behinds walking towards the main hall.
by until hit hits "1:04"
laying on the on the couch.
arms. she gazes
suddenly the T.V turns to
The clearing of a throat is hear.
slowly closerto
the lights in he living room
It’s slowly fades to black.
on. the T.V shows nothing
Her coat she hangs
The END

I don't want to sound like a hard-arse but there's no real excuse for this number of typos/mistakes and it makes your actual story very hard to get into.

Is this perhaps an earlier draft?

All thoughts are welcome, thanks for the read

As soon as I finished it, converted it to PDF, and submitted it, stupid thing to do I know, but it's my first crack at writing a script in 4 years, kind of jumped the gun with this.

Yes, the software I use does do the continued automatically, I use celtx, I'm going to take a look through the options and see if I can shut it off.

I'll take a good look at the timeline too, I wanted to have it so that Adrian's (who is in the afterlife sort of thing) time is the same time as Mirra's. I checked it out now and I certainly should've added the time in on more scenes like Steven's first scene. I just don't know the best way to properly portray this.

Thanks for read and tips Anthony,

LC

Thanks for taking the time for this, clearly wasn't an easy read.

Proofreading is certainly something I need to start doing again.

This, unfortunately, is the first and only draft, as soon as it was done it was submitted.

No problem Andrew

And to turn off Contiueds in Celtx, assuming you are using the Desktop software, then do the following...

1) Load one of your scripts up.
2) Go into the Typset/PDF tab.
3) Next to Save PDF, you should see Format Options - click on this
4) You should get a popup box with two tabs, 2nd one is Mores and Continueds - you can amend your setting in here.

Careful if you are saving things in CeltX with the desktop, it's not saving properly to their Cloud anymore, I lost days worth of writing last week... support wont help because the Desktop version isn't support anymore... if you are using the online version I think you should be ok.

Anthony

Awesome! thanks, now that continued issue is solved.

I've seen the advertisement for the cloud, never used it though, I just save files as PDF right on the desktop.

Quoted from AnthonyCawood Careful if you are saving things in CeltX with the desktop, it's not saving properly to their Cloud anymore, I lost days worth of writing last week... support wont help because the Desktop version isn't support anymore... if you are using the online version I think you should be ok.

That has never worked for me. I assumed it was because I'm using a linux OS.

Could have been for you Dustin, but was working fine for me and meant I could use laptop, iPad, iPhone and always have the right version to work on... then last week I lost about 12 pages of work which according to CeltX support is a new but known issue and there's no fix because they don't support the desktop now. So 12 pages gone...

To say I was a tad miffed is an understatement ;-(

Anyway finally shifted to FD, that has Dropbox save/sync so hopefuly more stable!

@Anthony- I moved to FD as well.  Celtx just didn't work for me on the go.

I am still waiting on info on where to click to read scripts on the forums.  Still can't see it argh

@ Edith - you're in the forums, you managed to post here!

Go to the top of this page, click on the second instance of the script title and it will launch a PDF version for you to read.

You can navigate round by using the links at the top too, they are just black text on grey so not so obviously links, but you'll soon get used to it...

These are the ones I mean, near the top of the page
SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  ›  Unproduced Screenplay Discussion  ›  Short  ›  Til Death Do Us Part

Andrew,

Good comments live forever.  Bad ones die an ignominious death.

Frankly, I found this one a bit confusing. We have old Adrian going to bed. Was the photo of Mirrra?  If so, why isn't he at the hospital?  She's dying, he finds the tape of him and mirrra?  Then her spirit arrives and they're both young. Was Adrian already dead?  As you can see I'm confused.

Others have pointed out problems and mistakes, so I won't.  This one needs some cleanup.  Dialogue and description.  

Best
Richard

Richard

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read it.

Yes Adrian is dead already dead, I have done a poor job of showing this, originally I wanted to have a scene where we see Adrian's passing, but decided to try a different route. I wanted the reader to suspect he was still alive but find out at the end that he was actually dead.

I'm doing a big re-write of this, mostly to fix poor grammar and action. Also to change the dialogue in places. I will try and find a better way to show Adrian's story too.

Hi Andrew.
I thought this was a wonderful little story, but it needs some smoothing out.
There were things I read that stopped me, and took me right out of the story like the time, and introducing characters later on who really don't do anything to move the story forward. You could have showed his wife in the hospital bed to begin with surrounded by family. Maybe she mumbles his name and family says she's thinking about daddy, transition to the man at his home...

Just my two cents.
I think it is a lovely little love story though, just needs tweaking along with checking for typos.
Cindy

Cindy

Yes, that sounds so much batter having his wife's scene first, I can completely remove the stupid times.

This was a redo of a short I posted here like 3-4 years ago that I just found today, titled Life Without, I sort of went the way you suggested, but didn't have the wife passing away, but obviously doesn't have the happy ending that this one does.

I'm going to try and merge this together the best possible way, I think this will solver all the issue you have.

Thank you for the comments

I'd like to read the new draft.
Let me know when it's up.

Cindy

Will do Cindy, still working on the re-write while at the same time trying to pump out my first feature screenplay, will hopefully finish the re-write tomorrow, I'll dedicate most of the day to that, should be able to get it done.

I see you already have two under your belt, have any tips? my creative side has no trouble writing scenes out, it's just my analytical side rips it apart after.  

Actually, I've written five feature scripts. Well, even that could be six because the rewrite on one changed the whole script... a lot.

You want tips. The best tip I could give is don't overwrite. Don't write big blocks of description. Leave a lot of white space on the paper. It makes it snappy and easier to read.

Oh, and one of my all-time worst pet peeves is don't give a character a page-long speech. Try to keep dialogue down to a maximum of four lines.
Remember one page is equal to one minute.
You don't want to watch a character talk for a minute, and it would probably give the actor a heart attach if they had to memorize a page of dialogue.  

Good luck,

Cindy

Andrew,

As others have mentioned the typos are numerous and distracting, This could make all the difference depending on who reads it.

I found the story emotional and powerful but confusing. I had to read your comments to work out what was going on. Another draft can easily sort all these problems out. This has a lot of potential to be a great low budget production.

-Mark

Thanks Mark

Yes I agree 100% that I have not done very well to tell the story fluently, but I have re-written and I believe it would be much better, I am just waiting for the 16th so I can submit it.

and thanks for the tips Cindy, right now I'm making sure my writing is lean and both action and dialogue aren't too large.

as for this re-write,

- I've changed the starting
- a few of Adrian's scenes are cut
- I also cut Jessie's and Steve's house scene.
- The clock times, which is probably what messed it all up are now completely out
- Spelling has been improved
- I tweaked the ending a touch

I feel the re-write is much better compared to the original, I'm pumped to submit it and get more great, constructive  comments on it.

Thanks again everyone.

Updates version is up.

Code A heart rate monitor gives off a slow but steady beep.

A heart rate monitor beeps slow and steady.

Code An old woman, MIRRA, lies on a hospital bed, her breath is slow, her eyes closed.

An old woman, MIRRA, her breathing irregular and eyes closed,
lies in bed.

In the above you use 'slow' to describe her breathing after also using the word to describe the heart rate monitor. You also don't need to mention that it is a hospital bed as the slug already informs us as to the location.

Try to keep your writing as active as possible, one way to do that is to avoid the word 'is'.

Code A hand comes to rest on her own, that hand belongs to JESSIE, her eyes are red and puffy from crying.

Jessie needs an age. I'm not overly fond of the intro, but I suppose it works.

Code Her eyes fall to the flow as a fresh set of sobs takes hold.

Her eyes fall to the flow?

Code Mirra opens her eyes, but not very much.

Weakly, Mirra half opens her eyes.

Try to write what is. You shouldn't really write what is, then place a but in there. Screenplay writing is about writing visuals. If you write that they open their eyes and then place a but after it, the reader must backtrack the image from fully open, to half open. Write what we see only.

Code Jessie looks up and smiles at her mother, tears roll down her face.

Why would Jessie look up if her Mother is below her in bed? Tears roll down whose face? It's unclear whether you mean the mother has started crying now too or Jessie has yet even more tears.

Code JESSIE Dad always used to sing that to us. MIRRA It was his favorite.

Unnatural dialogue. They would already know this information so why would they mention it to each other? This is deliberately spoon feeding information through dialogue, which is a no-no.

You need another rewrite.

Thanks for the tips Dustin and sorry about this late reply, I'll certainly improve the action and dialogue on the next re-write.

Andrew

“A old man”

- Should be “an”

“front of his shit.”

- Eek, that’s a misfortunate typo Should be “shirt”.

Jessie becomes “Jammie” on page 3.

There are a lot of typos and grammatical errors throughout the script, might be worth looking into that.

This seems like an interesting piece attempting to say something about second chances, diverging life paths and reconciliation but I never really got a firm grasp on what exactly you were trying to say.

We see Adrian alone in his house, effectively waiting to die so he can be reunited with his deceased wife. This is intertwined with what appears to be a completely unrelated situation of Mirra on her deathbed surrounded by family.

It’s then revealed that Adrian and Mirra once knew each other, shared a moment (as we see on the VHS) but I got the impression that’s all it was, both went their separate ways soon after since Adrian obviously isn't part of her family around her bed. Now, all these years later the supposedly expired Mirra appears at Adrian’s house where they reunite while morphing into their younger selves. It’s almost as if they are getting another go at being together.

There are numerous correlations between Mirra’s approaching death and Adrian in the house that suggests some kind of cosmic connection between both; the thudding and ruffling noises, the frequent time references to hint that both scenes are occurring simultaneously, the mysterious phone call which serves to wake Adrian up so he can be directed towards unearthing the VHS right at the moment Mirra dies. Is it a portal of some sort, facilitating Mirra’s reincarnation to Adrian’s doorstep?

It’s all kept rather vague and unexplained so I assume we are just supposed to go with it. Which I can appreciate but I would like to hear about your intentions with this.

Col.