Alien Sighting by Simon Parker - Short, Sci Fi, Fantasy - A drunk man, about to kill himself in the back of his truck, now becomes for a group of aliens the most important human on planet earth. 5 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Simon, you have interesting loglines. (as I have commented on your another script too). But somehow your scripts don't meet that expectation. Try to rewrite this one with just a single location and concentrate only on the drunk man instead of including everything in the script.

I wrote your longline just to give you another perspective . Doesn’t mean yours is bad.

A boozed soaked man, ready to commit suicide, finds  out he’s worth more alive to a group of extraterrestrials than dead to the  world.

I  would ditch the ex girlfriend and the alien hunters group. You could show him holding a pic  of her maybe while he is sulking about his misfortunes of debt and losing his job. Sticks the gun under his chin . Finger close on the trigger.  He looks up and bright light zooms by breaking his concentration .

His raises the gun again but wait. He puts it down and grab his cell phone.  Calls his ex...she don’t answer. He goes on about how he’s sorry,  hopes she haves a happy life . He’s gotta go he has another journey to take . Jokingly he mentions the bright light and the aliens are gonna take him home.... then a bright light hits him in the face . He hangs up and puts down the phone.

Justin yells this area occupied leave me alone .  Calls his ex back and starts talking. This time multiple lights hit him. Now he’s pissed.  Slams the phone down. He goes to confront them.

Then the confrontation in the woods  .Maybe human suicide intrigues them. They was there to originally record data and the suicide to study? Self preservation is the Aliens number 1 goal. Humans are the only species in all  the galaxies that commit suicide..  Maybe they show Justin what his life would have been if he don’t kill him self. He finds happiness , has kids, fulfilling life.  Wow he wants to live ! The aliens give him the bad news. He has to either finish killing himself or they gonna take him with them. That outcome won’t be so great either.  But where he has seen them and they have to follow protocol .

Hope this helps out a little. As always it’s your story to tell just wanted to throw some ideas out to you .  Good luck!

Overall, I thought this was pretty good.  Nice Job.  Just like your other story Dark Birth, you have a little twist in there that is unexpected.  

My notes (for what they are worth)....

I didn't see much reason to have the ex-wife.  I felt that the reasons to commit suicide were explained well and didn't need to add a failed relationship into the mix.  If you do want that aspect, I'd say add it in like Kevin suggested, with a pic (maybe one phone call/voicemail).  But overall the scene in the ex-wife's house,  I think would be better if Kevin was home.  Then we can see through the setting as well that his life is in shambles. He could be locked away in a dark cluttered bedroom at home with all the drawings on the wall.

I also think Kevin's idea (re:  investigating human self preservation) about giving a reason to the aliens is good.  Right now, we have Aliens land, Justin discovers them, they try to erase his mind which doesn't work and then the aliens want to find out why.  But why did the aliens land in the first place?  Adding a reason that's related to the main character adds another layer to the story.

Technically/format  I only noticed this off hand...

Quoted Text Justin sits in a circle with others. An older man, older women, a young girl and a young boy. They�re all on hard plastic chairs and they all face him.

Names need to be in CAPS for man, woman, girl, boy since this is when you are first introducing them.  

Other than that, I'd suggest rereading this over again.  Saw a few simple mistakes like...

Quoted Text The young boy reaches out a places a hand onto Justin�s leg.

The young boy reaches out AND places a hand onto Justin's leg.  

Simon,

I wanted to give you a review of your script. Overall, I thought you did a great job on it. It's a very intriguing premise that  left me wanting to know more about the overall story, and Justin specifically. Why is he important to the aliens? That's something that I think should've been  hinted at by towards the end of the script. Maybe there's a much bigger threat coming, and he'll play a critical role in it( Kind of  like The Fifth Element). If that's the case, that'd be a great character arc for him given his circumstances.

On a technical front, I think everything is good--with the exception of a few issues. I think the way you describe certain scenes is cool--very easy to visualize. I also think, your dialogue is  a plus as well--very natural, rather than forced.

Here are some of my issues, though.

1.) You should begin your script with FADE IN: and end it with FADE OUT, as far as formatting is concerned.

2.) At the beginning of the script, you mention that Justin was fired and evicted. Show us that rather than tell us. A scene where Justin's talking to his boss about getting his job back (to no avail) could convey us that. Same with the eviction. Have an eviction letter among the debt collector letters.

3.) At the end of the scene in the woods, you had cut to: followed by  another scene  heading in the woods. I'd get rid of both and make them all one scene, ending the scene with CUT TO: followed by EXT. Tanya's house - Night(Since we already know the film begins in the woods).

4.) I liked the bit about the Ex-wife. It adds to Justin's backstory, and further drives home how much of a mess his life is.

5.) You need a Cut To: at the end of the scene in Tanya's house. Just because,  you're going to another location.

6.) On small observation. When Justin talks about alien technology, use "YOUR technology?" -- instead of "YOU'RE technology?"

Overall, I thought it's a cool premise. Hope this helps.

Matthew Lincoln

I think that Kevin's log-line for your script is pretty cool, but I disagree about ditching the Alien sighting group. His Ex-wife didn't believe him, based on his drinking, so it makes sense that He'd go to a group like that for help. It's also neat that the aliens had infiltrated the group. That was a cool twist.

This has been optioned.

- Don