True Love by Ben Pearce - Short, Comedy, Romance, Thriller - When Randy finds his girlfriend dead in her apartment, Randy and his friend, Greg try to solve the mystery themselves. They want to get to the bottom of the mystery. They want to get the killer and kill him or her themselves. But when the two friends turn on eachother, they soon discrove that they are as hostile, if not more dangerous as the killer who killed Randy's Girlfriend in this comedy/romance thriller. 22 pages - pdf, format

Our "feature film" of "True Love" will be released on youtube this Sunday. If you wish to read the script, go to:
http://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/TRUELOVE.pdf

Or if you wish to view the preview, go to:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vPPYgPnA0Nc

Well, let me just say that, first off, the synopsis is a tad too long. Though not a genius in the art of screenwriting, I do know that it is much preferred that the summary or log line be composed of, well, a line. Try turning

Quoted Text True Love by Ben Pearce - Short, Comedy, Romance, Thriller - When Randy finds his girlfriend dead in her apartment, Randy and his friend, Greg try to solve the mystery themselves. They want to get to the bottom of the mystery. They want to get the killer and kill him or her themselves. But when the two friends turn on eachother, they soon discrove that they are as hostile, if not more dangerous as the killer who killed Randy's Girlfriend in this comedy/romance thriller.

Into something a bit more brief. Long winded log lines can turn a reader away from a piece of work. Something like

Quoted Text True Love by Ben Pearce - Short, Comedy, Romance, Thriller - When Randy finds his girlfriend dead in her apartment, he and his friend Greg set out to solve the murder mystery. But when the pressure mounts, will the crime fighters become worse than the criminal?

Don't state a second time that this is a "comedy/romance thriller" (which is an odd genre combo to begin with) a second time. Repetition is not necessary at all.

Now, to the script...

Right from the get-go, the scene direction is about as long-winded as the logline was. Compression is key in short screenwriting; what can be said in four sentences, say in two. Even single sentences can be shortened. For example:

Quoted Text The guy laughs in a evil voice and turns on the radio.

can easily become

Quoted Text The guy cackles, turns on radio.

The use of commas in screenwriting can really be your shortcut to compression. Also, the use of verbs like 'cackle' is something you should look into. For example, 'an evil laugh' and 'a cackle' are synonymous; we get the same effect either way. So the fewer words, the better.

Also, in instances like:

Quoted Text RANDY But you can?t just not tell her that you don?t want to go with her.

The wording is not only long-winded, but confusing. Tidy this sucker up. If the readers don't understand the dialogue, don't expect them to sift through it and grasp the meaning. Instead, they will more than likely close the window, and move on to read the next script.

Greg's reaction to Lea's corpse is not funny at all. You were going for ironic humor; instead, you wrote unrealistic jabbering. Also, while this may be an attempt at satire, the boys would not be allowed on a crime scene. You did not write this piece satirical enough for we the readers to accept such leaps in logic. Were it a good script, a la Network or Hospital, we would accept the ridiculous scenarios as fact. Instead, we are left shaking our heads in annoyance.

And while I am at it, who exactly called Randy to let him know Lea was dead? If it were a relative, or a friend, or even a cop, you'd assume that that person would also be at the crime scene. Yet they're not. It looks like you've taken a nice trip to Plot Hole Central.

Your motivation for Greg and Randy's crime fighting campaign is "They could become local heroes." Sorry, I didn't buy it. And if the audience doesn't buy it, they also won't buy whatever events that follow.

Change "NARRATING" to "VOICEOVER", or even better, "V.O." It is a better-accepted formatting tidbit.

I like Greg's reference to "the flashback we were just watching." But again, your execution of the scenes and dialogue cheapens the joke.

Greg and Randy find the van, grab the wrong guy, realize the mistaken identity, and move on. Why, if they found the killer's vehicle, would they not then search the surroundings until they found the right man? Again, Plot Hole.

On page 18, turn the three RANDY lines into one larger dialogue sect, perhaps through the use of parenthesis or "/" marks for seperation symbols.

The ending was bad. I mean, REALLY bad. This wasn't witty or genre-twisting in the least. Instead, it looked effortless and weak. Also, please remove the "romance" genre from the description of this piece. The closest this came to romance was the face that it was his girlfriend who died. That's it. Keep the genres strictly applicable.

I'm with Pants on this one. Scrap this screenplay. And yet, it seems like such requests are pointless, seeing as how you have filmed it already. Why you would then post the script for critique and advice that you were never planning to apply to the piece makes almost as little sense to me as the whole of this script did.

I'm sorry. This is one of those instances where I implore you, toss the script and start from scratch. But who knows? Maybe the finished film will surpass the quality of the words on the page.

Thi sone did not work for me. Your dialogue was very weak and confusing. The whole premise didn't make sense to me. None of it was believable and there was pointless gore at the end. I'd start over with this one or just move on to a completely different idea.