Emptiness by Julien Blaecke - Short, Pyschological Drama - A career-oriented woman wakes up in an empty world.  8 pages - pdf, format

Hi Julien,

There’s a good underlying message in Emptiness but that’s all there is to this story and I feel it needs a lot more.

As to the script itself, you can use SUPER instead of SUPERIMPOSE and the second SUPERIMPOSE isn’t needed. The audience can see she is in a bedroom and it is early in the morning. Unless the precise time is important (which it isn’t) then show us rather than tell us what is going on.

You normally only capitalise sounds or important objects critical to the story. With modern scripts, if they are written correctly, capitalisation is the exception and not the norm. You certainly don’t need to capitalise actions like TAKING A SHOWER.

What then follows is a series of scenes which quickly become monotonous. Melanie is totally engrossed in her cellphone, we get it. The script is marred by clumsy descriptions and actions like, ‘The car leaves the place’ or ‘She gets into the building’ and my personal favourite  ‘VOICES are FAINTING.’

Melanie ignoring the world and texting all the time can be dealt with in a quick  montage or series of shots. This then frees up plenty of time for you to develop the story and characters further, which is desperately needed.

Things get interesting when Melanie wakes up to an empty world. If you speed up the intro, you can get to this section quicker and explore it more as it has loads of potential. I think it would be an interesting analogy if the only contact with other humans she can have in this world is via her phone, rather than the phone be silent as well. It’s one thing to choose to avoid actual physical contact and interaction with other humans, it’s quite another to have all that taken away and force all interactions via a device. But that’s just my idea, you go with whatever you want for your story.

The ending is unsatisfactory. This character hasn’t changed or learned a thing from her experience, so the whole journey seems pointless. Again just an idea, but what if she wakes up and finds herself trapped in the phone? At least then you have a twist ending.

I hope my notes are useful.

-Mark

Hi Julien, I think Mark has given you excellent advice here.  I think he's 100%  on in what he told you. I do want to add on to his last paragraph a little bit though.  When Mark says the "whole journey seems pointless", I agree.  When you tell us a story you are taking us on a journey. What you have you have done is the equivalent of put us on the train and it hasn't left the station.  We need to see a value change. Example: she is glued to her phone at the beginning but through this experience she realizes she needs to back away and interact with people on a more personal level by the end.  The value has changed. I believe you have the concept for a good story here. I liked the imagery of her being alone and even scared toward the end.  You have a character that isn't particularly likable, which is fine, I think many of us can at least relate to her on the technology level (I know I can sometimes).  But give us a reason to like her in the end.  Make us care about her.  She ends learning nothing from this experience and ends being just as unlikable.  Keep at it, you have a good idea you can run with.

Julien,

Some notes.

This one spends a lot of time pounding an idea you can express much more quickly.  We learn in the first minute that this woman is tied to a phone to the exclusion of others.  Fine.  then, for no apparent reason, she enters an empty world, which I can only assume is some sort of dream.  Because as soon as she closes her eyes and reopens, the world has come back.  Again for no apparent reason.  

We can understand how being connected to the net world can isolate in the real world.  This story simply doesn't work that well for me.  Our protag does nothing particularly to get into her predicament and nothing particularly to get out of it.  

best
Richard

In Production

James Monterde
Visual Effects Editor/ Sound Technician/ Craftsman
Les Productions Silver Marble Inc.
jamesmonterde@silvermarbleproductions.com
http://www.silvermarbleproductions.com/

Congrats!

Thanks again