Steve,

Thanks so much for reading and commenting. Great suggeststion and I'm glad this worked for you - for the most part. I have given this a trim, but just now thought of the WHY, and I think it'll be what some of you were asking for from this. Thanks again!

Steve

Hi all. Little bump for the revised version. I took a stab at explaining WHY mom killed her son. If anyone wants to have a go and give me your thoughts it's appreciated. Thanks!

Steve

Hey Steven, hope you are fine

-- endless notes, don't hate me--

Your title and logline, while qualified, read more as of your familiar drama territory, especially the logline. It got quite a lot of conflict bound to characters and their relationships, but there's no true hint at what action and theme, movement, the script has to offer. A Thriller imo has to stand for movement – example: Bourne 123 is a violent cat and mouse game in the world of spies or sth. whatever (we immediately connect even that bland phrase to politics, intelligence, guns, fights, interests, fraud… lots of associations there)

…"must come to terms with the childhood disappearance of his brother" is the statement about your protagonist's task here

but what does he actually do, no clue here???
What's thrilling about the story, hard on tone and clear on scenario?

^^ I'll come back to that when having read the script.

---

"Close to sunset" that's suggestive in case of the title, you did the same when calling them BROTHERS, with regards to the description before. Just saying…

Your writing seems to be flawless here again. Not that I know English or AE very well but from my scriptwriting standpoint, it's very good.

Madison is presented as the teenager who storms off upstairs to her room, then few seconds later she's at the foot of the stairs again… The screen-time feels not 100%. The whole location here, clearly isn't that interesting, so, imo, you should be 100% precise to make it work – with perfect timing. << fucking nitpicking I know


EXT. MOM'S HOUSE – DAY

Not sure about the slug here…

In General, this slug works, sure, although, only with the logline in mind it does I believe…

But who would mom be if we'd just read over the logline.

Possibly, it should be GRANDMA MCKEAN'S HOUSE or sth.


End of page 5 – still full on drama

Still very good execution


Okay, there's a woman that held that camera.

I must say I had a problem here with understanding the context. Point is the first SERIES OF SHOTS: -- Now I see those were actual few separated images running over camera.

IMO Separate them via foregoing dashes. You should, imo, indicate clearer that there's a third person at the playground-- somehow. It wasn't clear to me. I've seen the grainy movie thing more as a say romantic, stylistic choice of you rather than a part of the story!

"It's good to see you, sis.

It's good to see you, too.

Her reaction may be authentic as is, but it's somehow slow and static.

P7 I like the mystery, I like the suspense, the slow that I know from you – though clearly this is no thriller. I made the same mistake recently. IMO It's a hard socio cultural drama.

Especially because you stretch it so much: "We never did talk much
about that…etc. " The audience, we, already think to know, or better said, got a feel what's going on…

In a sense: There's much more reflection than movement happening in this experience.

Which isn't bad at all – it's just a matter of fact to me that this reads not like a Thriller.

Wait, I remember that Trish is forties and Jack's fifties which produces a whole other context now I see. She wouldn't had even been alive when things around Samuel's disappearance happened,,, thing is, this reads very complicated for an audience to perceive as simple viewers.

Second half 10/ first of eleven is when dialogue and conflict gets pretty active and masterful.

Okay at 14 I think the cat is in the trunk, the boy lies in the grave let's see

"The shadows grow long. Close to sunset." Here, you got again the reference to the title. It's really an open suggestion to the director to carry the title with such shots… I'm not sure what to think about it… Really. It's done well but imo a title should stand on its own and shouldn't make sense afterwards or be ambiguous, just my opinion.

All right. It's one of the few stories of you I read that I think are not ready when reading them.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and missed a part but I completely missed the mother's motive to kill Samuel, and not Jack. So, Jack has, must have, grown up with his mother and even with his younger sister Trish – but somehow his mother chose to kill off Sam and leave Jack at the playground alone. Thos strings are loose and open to me. The drama, the slow of you, is once again awesome here.

Personally, I see no Thriller here. The last page's twist were not reasoned well to qualify it as a thrilling piece. This is a drama to me throughout, so I won't come back to the logline now.

Feel free to ask more. I'm a completely fallible guy and possibly I missed what's needed to understand the mother.

Your writing is so strong that I even enjoyed reading this story, a good story I feel, the third act just should have say equalized the whole.

Man, I hope my notes help. And anyway, I'm a fan of you and would like to know why the mother killed Samuel, and when she dragged Samuel, at the playground, away from Jack, and  into the car, then who was the woman with the camera.

Damn, now I reread your initial question…

Had Samuel done something toward mom's cat??? Truly no clue without rereading your statement on the mother's motives, sorry.

And also sorry for my grammar mistakes

I'm sure you find a way to bring this story to screen too. Lots of clever and intelligent storytelling there yet. It was like EVENT -  tons of sensibility in storytelling and arts – and then BANG

That bang was not balanced yet. The overlong second act was strong.

All best and forgive me my grammatical issues, I might edit some tomorrow

Alex

Alex,

Thanks for reading and your detailed notes.

I know this logline stinks. Not my strong suit but I'll think on it some more.

Re: Madison storming upstairs. I'm confused as to how you got that because nowhere in the opening does it say that Madison stormed upstairs or left in a huff.

Re: the opening series of shots. That was just a teaser to set the story up and show the brothers in happier times. Not real time. There is no one else at the playground and no camera.

Re: thriller. Technically you may be right. It certainly has elements of drama and mystery and suspense. I think, if rolled into one, it would qualify as a thriller. I could be wrong about that, but so far no one else has taken me to task on that, but that doesn't mean I'm right.

Re: title reference. That started with a short I wrote a couple years ago. I wrote an action passage "but for the water and the wind," and I thought what a great title. So I lifted it. Since then I've developed a habit of dropping the title in the story itself, and here it's sandwiched at the beginning and the end. It's more a stylistic choice, if anything, but I think it fits.

My last rewrite included a reason for mom to kill her son. Reasoning that the cat was disabled after getting hit by a car and had to be put down, I figured that the mom - who is crazy - would use that very same logic towards her disabled son. I'm not sure if that's the best explanation, but peeps wanted one and I thought it fit the tone of the story.

Thanks again for reading, Alex. Much appreciated!

Steve

2. What a way to set a scene! Kudos. Sucked me right in.

3. "Yeah, I know. I'm gonna get head over there now."

This typo is hilarious.  You probably want to fix this.

4. Very well done flashback.

7. Your painting a hell of a picture here.  Great seeing the sibling relationship.

8. "So, when are you leaving?"

Wow, Debra is a total B lol. Nice job with the characterization.

11. And quit smoking. Fucking stinks.

Okay, didn't see the violent outburst coming but damn! Very all written. I'm glued to this script.  Uber compelling.

12. "Jack wipes his forehead. Hot for September. He looks up at the
SUN, blinks several times, looks away."

Feel like the order should be different, like....

Jack wipes his forehead. Looks up at the
SUN, blinks several times, looks away. It's hot for September.

The hot line needs a subject to be clear. It took me an extra millisecond too understand what you were saying, which pulled me from the story.

-----

Okay, I actually stopped taking notes because I got so damn sucked in. Really loved everything here, with one tiny exception. The ending.

Something about that very last scene with the picture didn't quite feel right. I'm not sure what.

With that said, most of this was just flat out stellar. This is the type of script that depresses me because it's so well written that I personally feel inadequate lol.

Way to go with this one.

Cooper,

Thanks for finding this! This is one of my favs that I've written, and seems to have gotten some good responses across the board.

That typo you pointed out. Funny stuff, I laughed for a bit on that because I never really read it as such until you mentioned it. Nice catch.

And all your other points have been duly noted. Appreciate the read and the bump very much. As per your comment on Warren's Nutcase, I'll give your script a look see. Thanks again!

Steve

Some production pics:



Jake and Car (click to embiggen)


Jake (click to embiggen)


Samuel (click to embiggen)

Very cool

Congrats, pics look good.

Thanks, Don, for adding the pics and giving this a bump! Thanks for your thoughts Dave & Warren.

This is another script where the guy contacted me, then like two weeks later he tells me it's already in production. Love that. This script is long for a short (15 pg), so I give kudos to the filmmaker, Siet Pictures, for taking on a project like this. And he doesn't seem to be just mailing it in. If you tap on the pic of the car - this guy actually rented a classic car just to fit the script (the green sedan). Not green, but pretty cool! Anyway, will keep you posted.

Steve

Look forward to watching it

Nice, Steve. Sounds like it's going to be a quality production.

Good luck, mate.

Congrats!  Best of luck with it.

Thanks, Dustin. And thanks, Steve, for reviewing this. Probably the reason it got picked up in the first place.