Forefathers by Jake Hulse - Thriller - The catastrophe did not come from above or below, it came from within; American citizens have taken to the streets in the most violent riots this country has ever experienced.   Sensing weakness, a foreign super power begins to test the dying empire’s fraying borders. Forefathers a modern day action-thriller about American economic collapse, and Lieutenant Colonel Walter Murphy’s struggle to protect two members of a top secret government organization charged with the task of rebuilding a crippled American government.130 pages - pdf, format

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Hello All

I've rewritten this a couple times, the newest version is posted, I've also rewritten the logline:

FOREFATHERS; an action-thriller about American economic collapse, and Lieutenant Colonel Walter Murphy’s struggle to hold together the pieces of our once great nation.

The catastrophe did not come from above or below, it came from within.  American citizens have taken to the streets in the most violent riots this country has ever experienced.  Sensing weakness, foreign militaries begin to test the dying empire’s fraying borders.  Murphy must protect two members of Team Satus, a top secret government organization charged with the task of securing and reconstructing American infrastructure, if our nation is to have any chance at survival.

If you'd like to do a script exchange, I'd gladly read your stuff in return.  Please just let me know what you'd like me to check out.

Hey, I'm starting to read you're script. I'll let you know what I think within the next 24 hours. One thing I just wanted to say is I had/have an idea like yours I've been toying around with, with america getting invaded, though a very different story. But I'm glad to know there's somebody else on this planet who digs the premise too. I'll be reading it over the course of the next day and will get back to you then.

Great news...let me know if there is a script of yours you'd like/prefer me to read so I can return the favor.

Jaykur

I'm 40 pages in, and since this is your first script I'm taking notes of pretty specific things to help you in the future.  I don't know if I'll finish tomorrow, but expect a review this week.

Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it...sorry about the newbie mistakes I really did try to get it right.l

Jaykur

Alright, so since this is your first screenplay I went into some specific details about certain things.  Don't be discouraged by what I say because none of this is supposed to offend you in any way.  If it makes you feel better, there were no instances in this story where I was thinking "oh my god, this story stinks."  So here are my notes and below is my review.

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

NEWSPAPER HEADLINES: May want to consider an Insert for these

The Narrator's speeches are far too long.  The one on page 4 covers almost the entire page!

Page 6: Soldier 1(AJ) Soldier 2(Parker).  Don't do this.  Simply introduce them in the description as AJ and PARKER, or, since I don't know if they play bigger part yet, SOLDIER 1 and SOLDIER 2, or descriptive titles such as FAT SOLDIER and UGLY SOLDIER.

Page all over: Avoid capitalizing action words.  You can put shtuff like BANG BANG BANG!  But MACHINE GUN FIRE should be small cased.

Page 8: Thus far you've worked in alot of time speeds and technical shtuff.  I think some of this may be okay, but I'd consult a guide or ask on the board.

Page 13: Caller ID reads 000-000-0000.  I'm just curious if this is based on fact, cause it's a pretty neat aspect.

**Page 15: "A man(the president) in a suit and tie hangs(noose) from the doorway of the White House." Since this is your first script, this is a perfect example of things you shouldn't do.  Never use parenthesis unless it verifies some sort of key information piece(for example, in Scorsese Club I put (pronounced Steven) after his character is introduced, since there's a whole fiasco on the pronounciation of his name.

Suit and tie...the president is always in a suit and tie and you're slugline already says that we're inside the White House, so this is how you can rewrite this sentence: The president hangs from the doorway with a noose around his neck.  That simple.  Don't over complicate things, you want to keep it as simple and short as possible.

Page 16: Murphy: "...My men call me...nhgg"  What's nhgg?

Page 16: Jack's babbling is a nice touch

Page 18: That CSU thing is a big no-no.  For one, I didn't know what a CSU was, but you can just say it's a large artificially intelligent robotic tank or something of that sort.  Never put in gigantic things such as that, cause it looks like it came from a dictionary, unless you wrote it which makes you sound very sophisticated.  In general, keep your description paragraphs between 4-5 lines in length.

Page 26: "War on Terrorism" hahahaha

Page 32: You can just use SUPER for subtitles.

Page 35: ahhh another gigantic textbook description!

Page 37: The two shake their heads up and down.  That would be nodding, you can't really shake your head up and down

Page 39: "The president, ashamed, sighs, the weight of millions of lives and the future of a nation weighs on his conscious."  Big rule, write only what the camera can see.  If this was a movie, nobody would know that line even happened.

Page 49: "...with a raging inferno connected to our only means of escape?" hahaha, sorry, the word "inferno" always cracks me up.

Page 49: Murphy slaps him and tells him to stop being a bitch?  That's almost a contradiction!  Big tough army guy, I think he'd shove or even punch if you like, but not a slap.

Page 50: There's a C.S.U. here, and most of the other times you refer to it as CSU.  Don't go back and forth, stick with one.

Page 51: "Pulls out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes." Depending on what you want to do with this story in the future, I've read that you shouldn't use brand names unless you get the copyright mumbo jumbo worked out.  "pulls out a pack of cigarettes" works the same way.  That's something I'm working on in my rewrite of TSC.

Page 64: Ah, I was wondering when the opening characters were gonna be explained.

Page 70: I don't know if this was on Shelton's cliche list, but in every single movie the enemy helicopter could be looking to shoot a group of rebels or something, and one person goes running out and every time the chopper follows them when it's obviously a distraction method and usually the least important person.  I'm not saying you should get rid of it because it's actually pretty well written, but maybe consider some other method or strategy.

Page 73: When using a radio or something, you can call the person on the other line SOLDIER or something but put a (VO) next to their name

Page 83: "now don't fuck up" to conclude Harris' speech.  Yeah, I know this is a desperate time of war, but I think this guy should be giving them confidence.

Page 88: HIGHWAY TRANSPORT CHASE SCENE.  Sluglines are just the setting, they don't contain the scene description.  You could simply put EXT.  HIGHWAY - DAY

Page 97: The explosion sprays bloody chunks all over the American's face and body. Ewww.  Nice!

Page 101: I believe the standard montage method is as such:

MONTAGE

--Blah

--Blah

--Blah

--Imagine a few more blahs

END MONTAGE

Page 104: I've seen this several times in recent pages where the dialogue structure is all screwy...don't know what's going on there.

Page 111: I think you should take out the execution, it damages Murphy's character.  Right now I'm on the edge of liking him and that brutal killing really makes him unlikeable.

Page 120: Murphy's "luck" speech is well written.

Page 122: Nickle for a paper?  I guess this is kind of like the country jump starting again after that huge depression.  nice!

Page 123: Unless I missed something, what happend to the vice president and the cabinet and all of those other politicians?  There's a huge line of backups for president in case tragedy after tragedy may strike.

Page 125: Okay, his speech is 2 pages long.  That's TWO MINUTES.  What you could do is have a montage which shows America rebuilding and people going back to work and what not.  But that speech is far far far too long.

Page 128: Ok, I guess he's not president after all hahaha.  I seriously thought he was dead, so that's a nice turn around.

Now, pat yourself on the back.  For a first script this is exceptional!  The format was close to standard, just some things that you need to remember which I explained above.  

I love the concept, mostly because I believe something like this can happen and it's pretty scary when you think about it.  One day there may be a complete collapse and the Chinese invade or the Russians and so on.  You do an excellent job by including the political and economic aspects of it, so that part is well done.

The characters I'm iffy about.  They all had their fun quirks here and there, but they lack depth.  I can see Murphy as the Tom Sizemore character from "Black Hawk Down," but after he executed that Saudi Arabian I was kind of disgusted.  Jack's babbling is a nice touch and I found Cindy to be likeable, but again, it's the lack of depth where we lose interest in them.  Maybe one of them has anger problems and frequently explodes in namecalling or something.

The action was excellent.  Not much to criticize there.  One thing that you need to avoid is using precise numbers in your descriptions.  There were so many instances where you used "100 yards away" or "2.5 liters of liquid" or something like that.  Use descriptive words, avoid the numbers.

Why didn't Europe come to our aid?  That was one element which I think should have been involved.  If this were to happen, even despite how many countries dislike us now, I think someone would come to our aid, specifically England of all countries.  

Some of the dialogue, actually alot of the dialogue is overly wordy.  Say some of it out loud.  If you get tired of talking then you probably know there's too much.  That speech at the end is a fine example and it's often a newbie mistake.  I used to do that all the time too, so don't worry about it.

If this were made into a feature film on the way it's written right now, I think it's target audience would be limited.  A film like this where America collapses and there's war going on everywhere would reach out to a large audience, but I think you restrict by using fuck alot.  I suggest taking out many of its usages.  I believe the PG-13 rating today allows for 3 uses of the word fuck.  

Overall, for a first timer, this was very well written.  Great concept, pretty well executed.  I hope my comments help you for future rewrites and future stories.  Well done!

First off Doc, thanks for you feedback, awesome, I‘m glad it didn‘t stink.  In no way am I offended you bring up some great points and now I have some direction on how I can improve.  I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me which is great, thanks for your detailed feedback and patients with a newbie.  Now if I may I have a few questions/responses…

1.  Did the beginning grab you?
2.  Were twists in the story sufficient to hold attention?

Quoted Text    “NEWSPAPER HEADLINES: May want to consider an Insert for these”

     -ok, I’m unfamiliar with usage on this, did you use this in a script that I can look at for an example?
     -did you like the newspaper bit or was it boring?
     

Quoted Text    The Narrator's speeches are far too long. The one on page 4 covers almost the entire page!

     -dang, I was afraid of that…I have way too much to say…Any suggestions on what to cut or keep…what did you care about/not care about?

Quoted Text    Page 13: Caller ID reads 000-000-0000. I'm just curious if this is based on fact, cause it's a pretty neat aspect.

     -Based on fact…yes.

Quoted Text    Page 16: Jack's babbling is a nice touch

     -good I was concerned humor would be an unwelcome addition.  

Quoted Text    Page 18: That CSU thing is a big no-no. For one, I didn't know what a CSU was, but you can just say it's a large artificially intelligent robotic tank or something of that sort. Never put in gigantic things such as that, cause it looks like it came from a dictionary, unless you wrote it which makes you sound very sophisticated. In general, keep your description paragraphs between 4-5 lines in length.

     -ok slightly confused.  Should I have not used the term “CSU” or is it that description I wrote (too long.  I’m thinking the latter but I wanna be sure.

Quoted Text    Page 26: "War on Terrorism" Hashanah

     -good, I’m hoping that doesn’t offend people.

Quoted Text    Page 32: You can just use SUPER for subtitles.

     -ught…dumb newbie question…did you use this in a script that I can look at for an example?  Or is there a resource I can look this up on…?

Quoted Text    Page 35: ahhh another gigantic textbook description!

     -haha, consider it gone.  

Quoted Text    Page 37: The two shake their heads up and down. That would be nodding, you can't really shake your head up and down.

     -your to doc, you’d know.

Quoted Text    Page 39: "The president, ashamed, sighs, the weight of millions of lives and the future of a nation weighs on his conscious." Big rule, write only what the camera can see. If this was a movie, nobody would know that line even happened.

     -okay, I see your point, I pose a question I’ve seen this in some scripts where descriptions you wouldn’t necessarily hear are written in a similar fashion.  Is it just a matter of  my name doesn’t end in Cameron, or Spielberg??

Quoted Text    Page 64: Ah, I was wondering when the opening characters were gonna be explained.

     -question: does this not work?  Do you need to know earlier?  I wanted to create a situation where the audience is like what’s going on, and I slowly reveal the story, and the back story.

To Be Continued

Quoted Text    Page 70: I don't know if this was on Shelton's cliche list, but in every single movie the enemy helicopter could be looking to shoot a group of rebels or something, and one person goes running out and every time the chopper follows them when it's obviously a distraction method and usually the least important person. I'm not saying you should get rid of it because it's actually pretty well written, but maybe consider some other method or strategy.

     -haha, good point.  I’ve been caught.  

Quoted Text    Page 83: "now don't f*** up" to conclude Harris' speech. Yeah, I know this is a desperate time of war, but I think this guy should be giving them confidence.

     -good point

Quoted Text    Page 104: I've seen this several times in recent pages where the dialogue structure is all screwy...don't know what's going on there.

     -yah that’s weird…gotta check out what I did.

Quoted Text    Page 111: I think you should take out the execution, it damages Murphy's character. Right now I'm on the edge of liking him and that brutal killing really makes him unlikeable.

     -That’s what I was afraid of.  I love the scene though, what did you think about the scene itself?

Quoted Text    Page 122: Nickle for a paper? I guess this is kind of like the country jump starting again after that huge depression. nice!

     -Great…that’s what I was trying to show.

Quoted Text    Page 123: Unless I missed something, what happend to the vice president and the cabinet and all of those other politicians? There's a huge line of backups for president in case tragedy after tragedy may strike.

     -ok….  Now this might come across as argumentative not my goal, so bare with me.  I was thinking the same thing a couple days ago so I threw a line in there that says:

“Everything happened so fast
that the emergency evacuation
order for Congress was never
given, we were taken
completely by surprise.”

*Is it not enough/cop out, or did you miss it??

Quoted Text    Page 125: Okay, his speech is 2 pages long. That's TWO MINUTES. What you could do is have a montage which shows America rebuilding and people going back to work and what not. But that speech is far far far too long.

     -awesome idea…I’m gonna have to do a combo shorten and montage.  

Quoted Text    Page 128: Ok, I guess he's not president after all hahaha. I seriously thought he was dead, so that's a nice turn around.

     -you didn’t see it coming?  That’s my big twist…

Quoted Text    Now, pat yourself on the back. For a first script this is exceptional! The format was close to standard, just some things that you need to remember which I explained above.

     -thanks for those I will add them in.

Quoted Text    I love the concept, mostly because I believe something like this can happen and it's pretty scary when you think about it. One day there may be a complete collapse and the Chinese invade or the Russians and so on. You do an excellent job by including the political and economic aspects of it, so that part is well done.

     -It is very scary I agree, I wanted this to act as a warning for our generation…on the political/economic aspect…there is a school scene, where basically I teach the audience Marxism in 2 minutes or less…the bit on controller controlled and those trapped in the middle.  Did it fit or did you find it unnecessary?

Quoted Text    The characters I'm iffy about. They all had their fun quirks here and there, but they lack depth. I can see Murphy as the Tom Sizemore character from "Black Hawk Down," but after he executed that Saudi Arabian I was kind of disgusted. Jack's babbling is a nice touch and I found Cindy to be likeable, but again, it's the lack of depth where we lose interest in them. Maybe one of them has anger problems and frequently explodes in namecalling or something.

     -this is what I feel a newbie will struggle the most with at first.  That being character development, especially being an action movie it’s even harder.  How much do they need?? (weird question I know)  But are they all totally blah, or do they need just a little bit more?  You’re right Murph=pure badass, Jack he’s the wuss, Cindy strong independent type.  I’m thinking depth comes not from their stereotypes but from their weaknesses as people?  I don’t know I’m struggling not with your observation but with solutions.  

Quoted Text    Why didn't Europe come to our aid? That was one element which I think should have been involved. If this were to happen, even despite how many countries dislike us now, I think someone would come to our aid, specifically England of all countries.

     -again not argumentative just wondering…Basically I thought the same thing it’s a hole in my story, maybe I’d just need to have the audience accept it, or I could make the admiral English.  I did have a line with Harris talks with the President
“they
don’t need us and they’ll
remove us from the cycle of
trade.
30
Other countries will cut
themselves off from us to
lessen the blow and that will
only aggravate our grave
situation. Everything will
collapse in a domino effect
of unemployment, food
shortages, and finally ending
in mass rioting.”

Not enough??  Not plausible?

Quoted Text    If this were made into a feature film on the way it's written right now, I think it's target audience would be limited. A film like this where America collapses and there's war going on everywhere would reach out to a large audience, but I think you restrict by using f*** a lot. I suggest taking out many of its usages. I believe the PG-13 rating today allows for 3 uses of the word f***.

-yeah I have a bad mouth…good point.  3 though gosh, I better use them well.

Again I appreciate your time

jaykur

Ok, the quotation thingy is being all screwy so I'm gonna try and take this in order.

1. The beginning was well done, especially the part with the newspaper headlines because I think that's a good time to put opening credits in if this were to be produced.

2. An INSERT is used when you want the camera to focus on something, such as a poster or bulletin board or newspaper headline.

INSERT: NEWSPAPER HEADLINE

AMERICA AT WAR

BACK TO SCENE

3. The problem with the narration is that it's well written and flows nicely, but you need to be able to take out shtuff.  I'd probably try taking out the specifics of corporate accountability, maybe try to work that in later in the story, because I noticed that most of what was said in the opening naration was eventually repeated somewhere else in the script.

4. You can use CSU, just leave out that chunky definition of it.

5. SUPER: SAN CARLOS, CALIFORNIA
or
SUPER: FIVE YEARS LATER
Scorsese Club used both inserts and supers and a montage

6. Unless you were named Cameron or Spielberg with unlimited amounts of money at your disposal, you shouldn't use the poetic shtuff that you can't see.

7. Regarding opening characters, the placement was fine.  Don't worry about it.

8. The scene(in regards to execution) was fine, just change around that one part.

9. The vice president thing...it could be a time of war, intergalactic aliens can come down from Planet Ooga Booga with their laser heat rays, but you're still gonna have a hard time convincing the audience that during all the mayhem they appoint a professor as President of the United States.

10. To flesh out your action characters, take John McClane(Die Hard series) for example.  An alcoholic jerk with temper tantrums, that made for some fun entertainment.  Or you have Chris Burnett(Behind Enemy Lines), a cocky son of a bitch who eventually is in the fight for his life and needs to step it up.  Jack Sparrow(Pirates of the Caribbean).  He was a goofy alcoholic etc.  If you want the basic stereotype of an action hero, watch Christian Slater in Broken Arrow.  Tough guy goes through a million explosions and stylized fight sequences, gets the shit beaten out of him, and still comes out alive and saves Denver from a nuclear explosion.  That's what you want to avoid.

11. Again, with the foreign aid thing, it's just not believable.  America is the backbone for so many other countries.  If there's a conflict, attack, natural disaster or pretend nuclear weapons, the United States is obligated to help out, and I don't buy the fact that even if we are the middle man then we'd just be forgotten.

Jay,

Just so you know, I haven't forgotten. I'm about halfway through and I'm making a lot of notes. I'm pretty busy atm but hopefully I'll get a review up by the end of the week.

Jay, apologies for the delay on this one. I've had a hectic week. I'll post the first part of my notes and hopefully finish the review in the next couple of days.

I haven't read Greg's comments so apologies if this is repeated info.

Page 3: The narration is good but too long. Try to break it up with
actions or images.

How can people look 'almost' dirty?

Pages 4 and 5: The narration is too long again. Break it up with your
description of how the city is changed.

Page 5: Typo- MUNUMENT

You have a few 'we sees' in your description that could be easily removed.

Page 6: you have 'shear' instead of 'sheer'

I like your descriptions of the mob and the combat. Sometimes a little
wordy, but I could visualize it.

Just call them AJ and PARKER

Page 9: If it as a voice "get down Mr. president" you should have a
character heading.

Page 10: Try and keep the professor's speech short, or break it up
with description. You have line-breaks in-between his dialogue. This
is incorrect. To denote a pause, use elipsis (...)

It seems strange that Harris is dealing directly with the President.
Also, who uses 3.5 inch floppy disks? This ain't the 1980s

Page 15- lose the parenthesis in your description, just tell us what
we need to know.


Page 18- Describing the CSU- only tell us what we can see. How do we know it fires a black paralysis serum? We learn about this later anyway so you can cut a lot of this description.

Page 23: Cindy is down to her bra already? I like where this is going lol

Page 25: She's down to her boy shorts haha. You don't waste much time.
I'm not sure if this is necessary though.

You said somewhere that this was an Action-Comedy. So far, I don't see
it that way. Action movies usually have elements of comedy e.g. Die
Hard, but I wouldn't call Die Hard an Action-Comedy. Here, you have a
very gritty opening but you seem to be going for a lighthearted tone
with Jake's babbling etc. I'm not entirely sure it works.

Page 26-27: Watch out for long speeches. Harris is a professor so he
talks that way, granted. But in this case, I'd get straight to the
layman's terms.

Page 29- the President speaks twice with no action in-between. Add
action description or merge this dialogue.

Consider your use of (BEAT) in dialogue. You often use it for a short
pause. Use three periods instead "..."

Page 30 "our development as a people be lost" is this intentional, or
are you missing the word 'will'?

Page 34- Again you have two consecutive dialogues from Harris with
nothing in-between.

They have a thumb-print recognition on the door, but a voice activated
elevator with a password. With all this technology wouldn't it just be
voice recognition? Anyone can overhear a password.

Page 35- you have almost a whole page of description. Break it up or
people will simply stop reading. Screenplays are all about white space
on the page.

General note: avoid passive voice in your description e.g. "Jack is
staring" becomes "Jack stares"

Watch your punctuation in dialogue otherwise your meaning is reversed
"and I'm glad those pieces of shit killed my men" A comma makes all
the difference to this line.

The lack of commas in you description is becoming a distraction. You need to work on that.

So far I'm enjoying it although I'm not sure where it's going. You have some good ideas and I like the way you move back and forth through time. It works quite well. It feels like a first draft though. There are a lot of long descriptions and speeches that need to be cut down. You want your screenplay to read quickly and trimming your descriptions will help.

I am a bit confused by the tone so far. I'm still not sure if the comedy works given the circumstances your characters face. This opinion may change by the time I'm finished

I appreciate your time and you comments...though I've put a fair amount of work into it it will seem like a first draft because I'm new...

Thank you for your initial feedback I now have some things to go through and look for so that I can avoid them in later drafts.  You feedback is extremely helpful

Jaykur

This is a very good first script and it would make a great movie. Very enjoyable. Kepp on writting.

Thanks for the read rymatt...

I'd like to pose a question to anyone really:

1.  What are your thoughts on the short description, I'm considering, using it in my query letter?

Please be painfully honest if it suck just say so.