Fame by Gabriel Moronta (Mr. Ripley)  (OWC name - F'lar)  - Short, Thriller - Negotiator Gary Dwayne is called in to handle a hostage situation.   August '07 One Week Challenge entrant. - doc, format

right away I notice simple errors like "his" instead of "he's" and "all times" instead of "at all times."

"his" instead of "he has" .....this script is full of these mistakes and I am doing my best to get through this for you, script writer, but you're making it hard.

I don't think a veteran hostage negotiator would use the term "newbie."

"If not, I’ll shoot her in the head and then shoot myself in the head."    Could that be anymore on the nose and non realistic?

Overall, the story was lacking, the errors made it a tough read, but A for effort!  I hope I didn't come off rude in this review.  

I am sorry, but I found a lot of 'wrongs' in this script.

There were a lot of typos and inconsistencies in the script. I will list the majority of them, not to hammer/rub it in, but in order to give you a chance to fix them.

I know I have a long list of objections, but please consider this to be constructive criticism. I am trying to help here.

page 1 - You describe a lot of people entering or exiting the park. Since they don't play any part in the rest of the story, there is no need to be so detailed really. Try to keep it general and lean. You could say "A lot of people visit the park on this hot day" and let the director (and his associates) worry about the specific details there.

page 1 - You forgot the second (O.S.) for the Radio Dispatcher. No biggie.

page 2 (and onward) You type "his" a lot where you mean "he's " throughout the script. Keep an eye on that.

page 2 - You start alternating the names Michaels and Michael.

page 3 - You describe Gary Dwayne's clothing. Since he is jogging in a park, we can pretty much imagine what he would wearing. You could use those lines to describe more about his other characteristics, like demeanor, what kinda guy we are dealing with or something?

page 3 - "The two previous attractive females" sounds a bit weird. Maybe "the two attractive females seen earlier" sounds a bit better.

page 4 - "An old photo consisting of: Greg (around mid 20’s) holding his cute baby daughter, EMILY". I believe you meant Gary instead of Greg here.

page 5 - You type EXT. LAKE, but you then say "The light blue ocean sparkles."

page 6 - "Emily breaks contact again from Gray". Gray = Greg. A bit further on you call him "Gray".

page 6 - Kidnapping scene. I think the crowd would already have panicked at the first roaring gunshot (the one that kills Greg), not the second. I got the impression that Emily wasn't sitting that far away from the crowd. If she is, then you might want to clarify that a bit, but out of range of a roaring gunshot might be tough.

page 7 - description of the kidnapper. Since he was wearing a mask and sunglasses, I think it would be very tough to tell what age he is, let alone say "mid to late 20's". Caucasian can be determined from hands/arms, I agree, but the age estimate is a bit far-reaching. Can't really accurately base it off a voice or whatever.

page 11 - "INT. TELEVISION SCREEN - DAY". I'd say "INSERT TELEVISION SCREEN" or something along those lines.

--------------
Try to watch your typos and name-inconsistencies. Not only do they take the pace out of the story, but they lead to confusion.

The main problem that I had with your story, is the fact that I don't see a plot really. The guy kidnaps the daughter as a distraction, because he says he really wants the dad. So when the dad gets on the boat, he blows them all up. Why? Did they know each other from the past. Is the kidnapper in reality a hit man for the mob, not minding to kill himself in the process?

In some places your descriptions are too detailed or even unnecessary. You could use that space to work out the plot a bit more, so the readers won't be left with too many questions at the end.

The dialogue is fine. I didn't see any problems with it. I actually think the beginning of the script (with the two officers inside the car) is strong and I liked their dialogue throughout.

I am sorry for all the criticism here. Before writing this post I considered keeping it very limited, but then I realized that it wouldn't help you in any way then.

The numerous spelling infractions have already been pointed out.

How about rookie instead of newbie? Or something. Newbie is such a…I don’t know. It just sounds kind of….silly.

I think you spent way too much time with two supporting characters scoping out the park for Gary.

I think it would be better if the police officer says, he’s got Emily instead of he’s got your daughter. Just to personalize it.

I don’t see the point in a flashback of the precipitating incident to the opening scene. Why not just start the story with the hostage situation and then go straight to the police picking up Gary. You need to get the story moving. I feel that with the park stakeout and the flashback, you missed an excellent opportunity to start off with an exciting kidnapping sequence followed with an immediate introduction of the main character.

Whoa. Whoa. First Emily is kissing Greg. Then she breaks away from Gray. Then suddenly it’s Gary. Then it goes back to Gray. Then back to Gary. I would suggest giving her boyfriend a name other than Greg since Greg and Gary are so similar. For a moment, I thought it was a flashback to when Gary was a teen. That or he was making out with his own daughter--Ewww.

You call officer Jenson by Jenson in the earlier dialogue and then later refer to him as Ralph in the description. It’s best to call him one or the other consistently for orientation sake. Officer Michaels started out as Michaels (his last name) and morphed into Michael, losing the “s.”  In fact, Jenson and Michaels are really nothing more than the guys who give Gary a lift to the scene. It would be better to cut their roles down. They need do nothing more than inform Gary his daughter’s been kidnapped, Gaby’s talking to the kidnapper, and the kidnapper wants to talk to Gary. From there, Gaby can fill Gary in at the scene. Gaby has a lot of information but isn’t really even used for it.

While I’m here, you’ve got Gary, Emily’s boyfriend, who is Greg or Gray, and another character named Gaby. That’s three characters with four letter names beginning with “G.” You’ve got to try and generally differentiate them more.

You need a little work on doing live reporting scenes. It’s wasn’t too bad but it could certainly use some tightening up.

This suffers a great deal from lack of proofreading. It would be nearly impossible to proofread and miss some of the name change errors. You had the main character kissing his own daughter over a name error so I’m assuming you either threw this together late or didn’t care enough to bother. Hopefully, it’s the former.

It needs work. No doubt. It’s really more of a scene than a story. The villain never reveals any type of motivation.

Stick with it, though. You’ve got potential.


Breanne

I am not going to pick on the typo's or accidental name swaps in your story. This has been covered enough in the other reviews. having said that, reproof your work that one last time before submitting or have someone else read it.

I think there is a lack of suspence throughout and some scenes are over explained.
I would have like to have known the kidnappers motivation.

But I did like the story line.
Good effort.

Thank you for the read.

People have already commented on the various formatting stuff and spelling mistakes and what not, so I'm gonna avoid that here. I really liked your police speak throughout the script. That seemed genuine to me.

However, I thought the ending was kind of a cheat. Blowing up the boat seemed like a quick fix, and I think you could have done better. I understand the restraints on time and page numbers, but still. I think you have potential as a writer, and I would love to see maybe an extended draft with another ten or so pages, just to round it off more cleanly.

Despite the ending, this was a decent read. I liked it enough to give you a thumbs up. And I would if I could remember the emoticon for thumbs up, but I can't. Good work anyway!


Matt.

This started off quite good. I thought to myself, "Okay, this is going somewhere". Unfortunately it didn't really go anywhere. You never told us why Samuel had a problem with Gary or why he had to blow up himself alongside Gary and Emily. After finishing this I was left with more questions than answers and that's not good. You really need to give Samuel a motive, since he specifically targets Gary and his family. The story doesn't work the way it is.

You should lose the flashback, it doesn't drive the story forward - it just tells us what we already knew: Emily had been taken hostage.

SHARP
Our only dilemma is how to
eliminate him without hurting
your daughter.

Duh! That sorta goes without saying.

Please proofread your work before posting it. This had a lot of typos and whatnots.

Writing is a lot of work.  It shouldn't even be called writing; it should be called rewriting.

With that in mind, I suggest you take this draft and put it away for awhile.  When you come back to it, you'll say, "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"  Or maybe you'll have a few more choice epithets.

You spent a lot of time introducing with capitals and space, "A group of teenagers, Two attractive females, A male bicyclist, a lovely couple...

You might want to collapse all that down.  And get rid of adverbs unless you really feel they're necessary.

There were lots of typos in this and it really needs cleaning up.

I'm sure you've got good ideas in your mind, but it's not transferring properly to the page.

I just feel lost reading this.  Michaels turns to Michael.  

It feels like there's a lack of any POV.  

Michael says, "...so now you can get those feelings out of the way..."

This is far too casual.  It didn't seem real at all.

We need to feel sympathy for the characters and if one character speaks like that, how can we?

There are a lot of names moving about on the page, but it's hard to follow.  I said that already, but it's really cluttered.

Consider trying to put "The Built Man" at the beginning when he says his thing about "I had to make this situation important.  You understand that?"  

But if you do this, cut it way down.  

If we see a scene with this guy holding someone at gunpoint in the beginning, it would be more effective I think.  Then maybe intercut it for contrast with the people you describe entering and exiting the park.

Keep crafting.

Sandra

Premise: A little bit passe. A sicko has taken a girl hostage  4/10

Relation to Theme: It's got the boat, it qualifies as a police thriller 7/10

Story: Far too much of the story told through dialogue. Weak characterisation, particularly the villain. You really need a more interesting villain for this type of film.
The ending was a bit "Deus Ex Machina". Not terrible by any means but not polished enough.

Good effort though.  5/10

Quoted from movemycheese page 11 - "INT. TELEVISION SCREEN - DAY". I'd say "INSERT TELEVISION SCREEN" or something along those lines.

INSERT TELEVISION SCREEN is wierd.

I think something like this works better.

_______________________________________________________

INT. LIVING ROOM - MORNING

Karen is channel surfing

TELEVISION SCREEN

Home shopping network, MTV cribs, a clown juggling cats, a hair restoration infomercial.
________________________________________________________

I will like to thank and offer appoligies to these following reviewers in reading this script with such glaring mistakes. I'm a very slow writer. I like to take time with my scripts. But I will need to better prepared for the next challenge. This was my first time actually writing a script within a week and I've learned so much more than before.

I'm planning to revise this script but not at this moment since I'm busy in revising Closed In (which at the moment I am stuck in) and Obscure (which, oddly, I'm writing too much).  

To answer most of the criticisms, the genesis of this script came to me with the idea in becoming famous. I wanted to portray one's man's quest in becoming famous, and one's man's turmoil of being famous. Not being famous, people are invisible. Being famous, people are called up all the time. So I thought how about getting the not famous person to kill the famous person. There is no deeper agenda then that.

The explosion at the end was intended, not as a way to quickly end the script but to show the villain's intelligence. In my mind, I thought no one would guess that.

The park scene with the joggers, bicyclists, etc. was utilized as a distancing technique for the audience to know where the protagonist was in the park. If he was close to exiting or far away.  

I at least did some good in the dialgoue especially for the two cops at the beginning. For the killer's diagloue of shooting himself and the girl in the head, I wanted it to be direct since in my opinion, saying 'I'm going to kill her", or " you know what will happen next" didn't sound strong to me. being direct allowed the situation to become more dangerous than it already is and will force the protagionsit to go on the boat. But that was what I was thinking.  

Thanks guys for the read; and for those who dare read this, you were warned.
Gabe