The Miami Story by Daniel J. Toemta - Short - Three stories about a couple in love, a ruthless drug dealer and a private investigator. 29 pages - pdf, format

Hey Daniel

First of I'll mention that your font is a bit small, no biggy but when you have a monster hangover like me it does hurt your eyes. lol

Right on with the review...

Julie refers to Dan as Corey early on, is this meant or have I missed something?

If Mia and Julie are such good friends wouldn't she have told Julie that she was thinking of going away rather than telling her 24 hours before she's going?

'You can tell they've been friends for a long time'  You don't need to add comments like this.

I like the way Mia subtley lets out her true reasons for being in the dealers apartment.

The paragraph when Chick enters the surf store needs work, it doesn't read too well.

The dialogue between Chick and Steve is good mate but then you out Steve 'shits a brick', I'd lose this line.

You put that there's a huge character change in mother but you don't need to cos we can see it ourselves.  It's a good change by the way.

Dan has some funny dialogue.  Made me chuckle at times.

If Maria lies under the covers bow do we know she wears nothinf underneath?

Johnny talks to himself in the car, should this be a V.O?

Is it not a Smith and Weston not wesson?

When Julie and Mia do their party howl and you say thay've done it all their lives.  This is the second time you said this and you don't need it either time.

Johnny picks up Chick on his back, you don't mention how big they are when you first introduce them but I guess Johnny is a big guy cos picking up a dead weight aint easy.

Final thoughts time...

The stories tied together well except for Dan, Julie and Mia.  I didn't get their part in the story, their just there to bring Chick to the alley.  Maybe work on their storyline and intertwine it with the others, maybe into Johnny's or Simon's.  The Chick daughter kidknapp scenario is good and a nice twist.

Overall I enjoyed this and it read fast and easy although you could trim this by removing sentences that can't be shown on screen.  You do mention a lot of things like, they were good friends and you have a lot of facial expressions in there too.

Good stuff though Daniel, I liked this short.

Hey Daniel,

Overall I think you have a great story here, but my final opinion is right on the border over whether this is a complete short script or should be a feature.  What I mean is that you have 3 stories mixed in here, and then it seemed like you wanted to keep it as a short, so just kind of ended it abruptly.  However, there were no lose ends.  Everything was neatly tied up at the end and I felt satisfied with what I had read, for the most part anyway.  I mean when Johnny shot Maria...ehhhh.  It  just kind of seemed like a forced ending to me, but everything else tied in nicely, so I'd say most of this works as a short.

You got some nice dialogue in here.  Some is excessive, such as Chick Mother describing how Steve is gonna die, and Johnny's voice overs got a little annoying after a while.  I think the problem with him is that you introduce him very late in the story and then he's got these VOs and stuff.  I'd open the script with his character, even if just briefly, THEN transition into the other stories.  Including VO that late in a script throws it off track.  But as I said, good dialogue all around.  Had some well molded characters, all had distinct personalities and were very easy to follow.  Liked the trio of Dan, Julie, and Mia.  You did a good job of separating Chick's personalities between the murder and him trying to pick up his daughter and also talking to the potheads.  Some funny quirks from them, too.  "You know why you always have coconut? BECAUSE NOBODY EATS THEM!" haha.  That's always true. I  never eat coconut anything.

I mentioned this to you earlier so...figure I'd mention it again.  We saw how Chick had a temper, but I was expecting something more after the ear story.  Cause really, the way the murder went down, Chick didn't seem that sadistic.  It was a pretty "casual" murder if you ask me.  Mia talks about the ear, Chick mentions the ear, but he just shot Steve in the gut and took the money.  Pretty routine, really.  Plus Chick has a daughter, so I think in the sense he's talking the talk but not walking the walk when it comes to creative killing, as dorky as that sounds.

Flowed nicely.  Didn't stay on one section too long, and the crisp dialogue helped move it along.  Kind of had a 40s-mafia feel(maybe Johnny was a homage to those 40s/50s posters?) to it with some modern day themes.  Good blend.  As I said, I did like it very much.  Very impressive.  As a short it works for the most part.  Ya know, there's that piece of me that's eating at me that's thinking ehhhh he just shot her and then it's the end.  But ya know, I've read alot of shorts that just ended abruptly bad and made me go what the fuck?  But I felt good after reading this.  Despite that shooting criticism, I think this script gets away with it and it's one of those rare big-small stories that ties everything up at the end.  We already know the daughter's fate, so you didn't need to go into that, and you didn't.  Which is good!  

Well done, sir.

Thanks very much for the review.

Quoted from alffy Julie refers to Dan as Corey early on, is this meant or have I missed something?

This is a nod to Corey Feldman, a guy who starred in teen beach movies in the early nineties.

Quoted from alffy If Mia and Julie are such good friends wouldn't she have told Julie that she was thinking of going away rather than telling her 24 hours before she's going?

You missunderstood this one, how did you get the impression that she was telling it to her for the first time? You'd expect Julie to be a little more shocked then.

Quoted from alffy 'You can tell they've been friends for a long time'  You don't need to add comments like this.

I put that in there for the chemistry of the two characters, this is also for the actors so they know how to act and for the director so that he knows how to direct it. People don't have the habit of yelling out party howls in unison unless they've done it for a long time together. Leaving it out would only confuse the reader.

Quoted from alffy The paragraph when Chick enters the surf store needs work, it doesn't read too well.

Yeah, I was a bit iffy about that one myself.

Quoted from alffy The dialogue between Chick and Steve is good mate but then you out Steve 'shits a brick', I'd lose this line.

This one I do agree with you on, but I liked the expression.

Quoted from alffy You put that there's a huge character change in mother but you don't need to cos we can see it ourselves.  It's a good change by the way.

Again, for the actor and the director to know how to make it, and also to try to wake up the reader and get them to notice the change in the character. This way they'll read it more carefully.

Quoted from alffy Dan has some funny dialogue.  Made me chuckle at times.

My nod to those good old Corey Feldman movies.

Quoted from alffy If Maria lies under the covers bow do we know she wears nothinf underneath?

Her shoulders + thin sheets.

Quoted from alffy Johnny talks to himself in the car, should this be a V.O?

It is in VO, hehe you must really be hungover.

Quoted from alffy Is it not a Smith and Weston not wesson?

No, what would give you that idea?:S

Quoted from alffy When Julie and Mia do their party howl and you say thay've done it all their lives.  This is the second time you said this and you don't need it either time.

I put that in there again to bookend the characters and their story. Again, it wakes up the reader and makes them read more carefully.

Quoted from alffy you have a lot of facial expressions in there too.

I don't see how writing what the facial expressions are supposed to mean could be wrong, it helps the actor to know how to act it, and helps the reader to understand the characters better.



Thanks much for your review, Greg

Helped a great deal.

Quoted from greg I mentioned this to you earlier so...figure I'd mention it again.  We saw how Chick had a temper, but I was expecting something more after the ear story.  Cause really, the way the murder went down, Chick didn't seem that sadistic.  It was a pretty "casual" murder if you ask me.  Mia talks about the ear, Chick mentions the ear, but he just shot Steve in the gut and took the money.  Pretty routine, really.  Plus Chick has a daughter, so I think in the sense he's talking the talk but not walking the walk when it comes to creative killing, as dorky as that sounds.

Ok, well let me ask you something if you don't think it's too sadistic... Have you ever been shot in the gut and left for dead?


Thanks again, reviews are largely appreciated.

Smith and Wesson, I stand corrected - I just googled it lol.

As far as the V.O.'s go I noticed that on one occassion in the car Johnny doesn't have a V.O. that's the one I questioned.  Oh I wasn't have a dig about the facial expressions by the way, I don't know if you can include them or not?

having read Greg's review I think he touched on the point that it was a little abrupt at the end, maybe you could extended this and tells us more about the characters.  You have plenty of scope here and a story that unfolds well.  just a thought.

Okay, Daniel, here I'm. So I read and I like it, but I thought it needs more to be a very good Miami Tale. We have many plots that needed to be more developed:

1- Mia, Dan and Julie;
2- Chick Mother, Simon,
3- Maria, Johnny



I had I thought when I read Johnny VO. Why do not start with him telling this story in VO?

Chick Mother is a nice character to left way.

It seemed to me incomplete the way it is. Definitely you have a story for a feature script and as a short it doesn't work well for me.

Another thought: when Jonny says he will leave Chick body in the swamp, I've remembered that Simon said will send Chick daughter in the swamp too. Instead you make us thinking Chick had shot Johnny at the final why don't you do they meet each other and make Johnny to save the Maria daughter? Just a thought.

Nice dialogues and congrats for the Surfboard Store scene, because it was nicely developed.

Helio

Thanks for your comments Helio and thanks for your surfingboard scene comment. This whole script was written in like 4 days or something with about 2 hours of writing each night, writing usually two scenes per night and it wasn't until when I got to the secluded alley I knew how to end it. And to have Johnny shoot Maria that was not planned in any way, I was gonna have them talk in panic while the blood dripping out of the car was in CU but as I was writing the scene I found that killing Maria would bookend every thing nice and good.

About the swamps thing, I've thought much about this myself, we'll see if I get the writing urge again any time soon.

Chick Mother by the way is a nod to the Full Metal Jacket character Animal Mother, I was trying to think up cool names for these people and Animal Mother came to my mind and then I just thought like.. surfer CHICK beach movie + MOTHERfucking hard ass people = Chick Mother.

Daniel,

You wanted me to read this so I did. I also assume that by you wanting me to read this, you wanted me to be honest. So here goes, my honest review.

First off, I know how young you are so I'll take my hat off to you and tell you I'm impressed with your English. When I was your age "hello, I'm Pia, where's the party" was about the best I could do. Ok, so A+ on the English.

You also get fairly high marks on the plotting.

I did however have a lot of problems with other things, I don't have enough time today to write everything so I will give you more general comments.

I thik my biggest problem is that this story could be trimmed down easily to 20 pages or less. You are way too wordy and there's a lot of dialogue that simply don't need to be there. A bunch of chit chat that leads to nothing. I'm sure you've read or heard that in a script every action needs to move the story forward. That goes for dialogue as well. You also tell us way too much in the dialogue. Like the characters are telling us the story instead of you showing us. I would seriously go over the dialogue if I were you.

"It's Rose, not Rosie" did you get that from NBK?

Next major problem for me was that you have essentially three storylines going on here, but somehow in this short they don't connect enough to make sense. You start with Julie, Dan and Mia and then they're just dropped in the end. They just go off to party? That's it? Very unsatifying, IMHO.

Chick was okay as a character and I give you high marks for the plot twist with his daughter and the guy in the limo. I admit that caught me by surprise. So good job there. Still had problems with Chick though. He really wants the money from Steve, but then he kills him. If you want money from someone don't kill them, unless you are the beneficiary of their life insurance. You don't become deaf because you loose your ear btw. The hearing part is inside your ear.

Johnny was introduced way too late into the story and I didn't care for his V.O. At that point in the story I didn't know him enough to care about his contemplating life stuff.

The ending was very abrubt and I still had questions.

I think you should rewrite this one Daniel. It's not great right now, but I do think you have a kernel of something good here. Rather than starting on something new, fix this one up. I think it can be turned into something good.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Pia

Quoted from tomson I thik my biggest problem is that this story could be trimmed down easily to 20 pages or less. You are way too wordy and there's a lot of dialogue that simply don't need to be there. A bunch of chit chat that leads to nothing. I'm sure you've read or heard that in a script every action needs to move the story forward. That goes for dialogue as well. You also tell us way too much in the dialogue. Like the characters are telling us the story instead of you showing us. I would seriously go over the dialogue if I were you.

I've had this problem with my other writing too and I wroked hard to make the dialouge and action move the story forward and develop the characters. This is the best I can do so far. It'll be better next time.

I've had so many mixed reviews with this short, some say I rule at dialouge, some say I suck at it, some say the flow is great, some say it sucks ass. I guess I h ave to mainly listen to the negative reviews in order to improve.

Quoted from tomson "It's Rose, not Rosie" did you get that from NBK?

Yeah, you understood that? My tribute to that film, I will admit though that it is merely a tribute. I could have easily cut the line. But I find if I cut too many of those lines and just have story dialouge then everything just sounds dumb, expecially in these kinds of scenes.

Quoted from tomson Next major problem for me was that you have essentially three storylines going on here, but somehow in this short they don't connect enough to make sense. You start with Julie, Dan and Mia and then they're just dropped in the end. They just go off to party? That's it? Very unsatifying, IMHO.

This is very thin Pia, what more do you want? I mean, they've served their purpose and you know their fate, no need to follow them anymore. I might though in any re write I might do.

Quoted from tomson Chick was okay as a character and I give you high marks for the plot twist with his daughter and the guy in the limo. I admit that caught me by surprise. So good job there. Still had problems with Chick though. He really wants the money from Steve, but then he kills him. If you want money from someone don't kill them, unless you are the beneficiary of their life insurance. You don't become deaf because you loose your ear btw. The hearing part is inside your ear.

Chick knew all along that he had the money and where it was because Simon had told him, he was just toying with Steve and subsequently killed him because Simon wanted him dead. I thought that was pretty clear.

Quoted from tomson Johnny was introduced way too late into the story and I didn't care for his V.O. At that point in the story I didn't know him enough to care about his contemplating life stuff.

This one, I'll hand to you, I believe this is the biggest problem with the short and it will be fixed in any rewrite.

Quoted from tomson The ending was very abrubt and I still had questions.

Ask away, by all means! I love talking about my own work.

Quoted from tomson I think you should rewrite this one Daniel. It's not great right now, but I do think you have a kernel of something good here. Rather than starting on something new, fix this one up. I think it can be turned into something good.

I have contemplated making it into a feature and making it do justice to its title, only the title will then be changed to "The Miami Stories". It'll start with a voiceover by Johnny introducing maybe himself and talking about Miami in general and so on and it'll follow a certain character for a while and then he will meet another and we will follow him in his stories and we will follow many people in Miami and watch their stories. And I'll make sure they all mean something. What do you think of this idea?