Quoted from Kevan But if I find out otherwise, that he has removed his screenplay because of the bullying that has gone on here I shall make a formal complaint to Don about this behaviour. It simply isn't on picking on a guy when he first joins these boards.

What bullying? Some regulars politely explained the rules to a new member, and said member respectfully disagreed with the existence of those rules. As far as I can see, nobody picked on nobody and both parties were respectful of each other.

I reckon some regulars seem to jump in too quick and are a little hard on new folk when they ask for help.. I realize from reading this thread that Clive was requesting a read and he didn't know the rules of read one of somebody elses and get your own read but some people do tend to come down a little hard on newcomers..

Its all about what you write and how you word the text you write..

If people think about what they write before they write it then what they write probably wouldn't come across as harsh or cutting.. Just a little consideration for a newbie..

As we are all writers to some degree on these boards then a little tact springs to mind.. This is all we expect from each other, a little common courtesy - it aint too much to ask..

Quoted from Kevan I reckon some regulars seem to jump in too quick and are a little hard on new folk when they ask for help.

I can´t say it never happened, but I´m sure it´s not the case here. Clive was treated politely.

Quoted from Kevan I realize from reading this thread that Clive was requesting a read and he didn't know the rules of read one of somebody elses and get your own read but some people do tend to come down a little hard on newcomers.

Nobody was hard on him. He was wondering why his work wasn´t read. Some regulars explained him the reason and gave him some tips to get more reads. Nothing wrong with that.

Quoted from Kevan As we are all writers to some degree on these boards then a little tact springs to mind.. This is all we expect from each other, a little common courtesy - it aint too much to ask..

Yeah, true... but... I´ll have to say it again: Nobody was rude with Clive.

If that's the case then ok..

I've emailed him personally anyway to let him know he's welcome here..

TRUE is a very good structured screenplay with all the right ingrediants just some formatting issues which could be easily sorted out..

Thanks for your comments on this issue Mr. Z..

Hi

The screenplay got removed because my option discussion has moved forwards and it's now inappropriate to have it in a public forum. Heck, I'd give up writing if I got chased away by the discussion in this thread.

Truth is that now everyone's got a sense of who i am and what I'm about and I've sussed out the way the forum works.

Kevan ... thanks for the review. Much appreciated. a couple of things where I didn't agree format wise

Quoted Text Your PARENTHETICALS are outrageous, who showed you how to do those? They’re disgraceful! You have action in your parentheticals so much so that you nearly take up half a page with one parenthetical which is actually several paragraphs of action – tut tut, very naughty this!

The issue here is actually what happens when you give a script to an actor. If you split two lines by the same actor by goiing to action and then coming back, the actor assumes the next line is someone elses. This always becomes a problem is rehearsal and nine times out of ten means that it becomes a habitual fault. By using parentheticals the actor knows the dialogue is still with them. it may mean that for a regualr reader it's more of an issue .. but for the cast it's absolutely the best way to lay out the script.

I guess the question is should I format for the reader witha spec script and then reformat for the cast in production. Personally I think that's dangerous, too easy to miss one and cause production problems.

I'll look at the flashbacks ... I know they're not dereguer at the moment, but I've fondness for them and I've always got great visual result with flashbacks in my own films.

Quoted Text A lot of your actions describe stuff in a literal sense but this cannot be filmed. How can we film thoughts and feelings? This writing style is for short stories and novels and not for screenplays.

Got to disagree with you here as well. The emotional state of the character is the key to the actor's performance ... actors hate scripts that read "He looks angry" but respond well to scripts that give them the motivation of the character. It's not impossible to film, because the film is a actor's performance recorded by camera.

When it comes to raising money for productions the key to getting a fim made is to attract the right actors. A script written with actors in mind is likely to attract names, because it looks like an interesting role. teh names bring the fiance with them. In essense script writing is the art of selling an actor on a particualr role.

Clive

I met an actor Scot Williams the other week and I asked him about parentheticals and he told me he crosses them out with a felt-tip marker pen..

He finds his own beats with the dialogue.. Even directors cross them out.. Apparently they're not encouraged for Spec Scripts..

Quoted Text I met an actor Scot Williams the other week and I asked him about parentheticals and he told me he crosses them out with a felt-tip marker pen.. He finds his own beats with the dialogue.. Even directors cross them out.. Apparently they're not encouraged for Spec Scripts..

That's useful ...

I've got a mate in LA ... he's the guru of spec script formatting .. I'll run it past him.

As for you're other comments, very useful.

The screenplay runs at 105 pages in regular format.

I think what you say about the dialogue is fair comment and actually it's the number one thing I always say to other writers. Remove half the dialogue and the whole thing will sharpen up.

I'm just going to copy and paste your review into a word document and then use it for reference when reading the script through again.

I think where iyou hit the nail on the head is that I do tend to use a very literary style in my action sequences. It's because the first screenplay I ever read was Withnail and I, and that reads exaclty like a novel. every screenplay I write I get a little further away from that, but it still informs my work.

I purposely tried to stay away from this and I don't mean to sound like a jerk here, but you're trying to get your work read on here and Bert and Martin suggested that you read other scripts and the author usually returns the favor.

I see that you tried doing that, but on the two scripts that I've seen you comment on, you gave up after pages 2 and 5, and they were by two non-regulars on the board so it's no guarantee to get your work read anyway.  Thankfully we have Mr. Kevan here who puts lots of time into his reviews regardless of the situation, but if you want to adjust to this community atmosphere you have to read more than 7 pages of two feature length screenplays.  Giving up that early is almost as bad as the one line reviews.

Again, I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but that's just the way it is on a community site.

Just my two cents.