In The Woods by Miles Trahan - Short - Two teenagers get a lot more than they bargained for after discovering a dead body in a nearby preserve. 10 pages - pdf, format

For ten pages, you really packed in alot...
A very enjoyable script.
Your characters are good, your dialogue is tight and i liked the action, so that was good.
A thing I've been getting bashed for on this forum is blocky paragraphing, which i see you have done too - so i'll give you the heads up on that.
Apart from that though,
I couldn't say much was wrong with it.
I was a little skeptical on the fact that they weren't going to call the police, they were going to bury the man themselves, it doesn't seem very humane but it did leave a nice climax.
Muchlove, Jayden

Miles

I found the first two pages dragged a little (something I have been accused of too, numorous times)

I liked the "vomit" banter & anyone who quotes CSI in the context of real life situations is an idiot anyway.

Inter-cutting the man on the ground revealing various parts of his bloody corpse was a lovely touch.

MIDDLE AGED MAN’s bloody,
unmoving body.

Stating that he is "unmoving" reads a little strange "lifeless" might be more fitting.

CLOSE ON the front right TIRE of Dale’s car, coming to a
SCREECHING HALT in the middle of the empty road.

I presume you've been warned about giving direction & it not being a screenwriters job leave it up to the director blah, blah, blah. Personally it doesn't bother me I think when you are writing there are certain scenes you have visualised in your head so what harm is a few lines describing your vision.

Some of your prose dragged a bit & Jayden already said this should be limited to four lines max so I won't dwell on it.

Your style of descriptive writing tho not conventional is interesting & varied. It would really fit an action script where a lot needs to be conveyed as economically as possible.

In terms of your story it started well & up until the end I was drawn in mainly due to the exchanges between the two characters which for me was definitely the piece's trump card, the dialogue overall was excellent.

Howver I have to agree with Jayden again that Elias wanting to go back was just plain dumb, ring the cops, man.

They hadn't touched the body so they wouldn't get done for it. Even an annonymous call from a payphone or something, but going back there when it was getting dark is just asking for trouble.

Overall I liked this a lot in terms of your clever dialogue & energetic prose, pity the ending didn't do it justice.

Cherrs.

Col.

Sorry for the huge bump, but I figured it was worth noting that this script has been produced recently (and is in post at the moment) by an LA filmmaker who came across it on this very site. He put up a short "test" video online not too long ago, check it out here: http://vimeo.com/6707497

Kind of weird hearing people I don't know speak my dialogue, but also all kinds of cool. I'll be sure to update you guys on when the actual film starts making the rounds and/or finds it's way online. Thanks for the feedback!

Miles,

I thought the ending was excellent.  The vomit and gold cross bit, superb.   Too bad you couldn't rework the believability factor a little better.   Anyone in their right mind would call the cops without giving it a second thought.

I myself would've had their cell phones be out of range, so they have to go to a payphone, make an anonymous call to the cops and then one of them realizes he dropped his wallet at the crime scene, so they have to go back...or something like that.  But that's just my take.   Overall I liked your syle of writing, regardless of the quirks.  You're not afraid to take chances.  

Very well written. I could picture everything that you described. Wonderful pacing as well. The dialogue - superb.

However I didn't care for the story very much. The characters were interesting, but their actions weren't believable. Even if i suspended my thoughts on how real people would act, I dont think id enjoy it. i cant quite put my finger on it either. it felt like Stand By Me and Road to Perdition mixed together - which I guess is a compliment. but in comparing it to that, i was a little disappointed by the ending. maybe its because i didnt find the ending that surprising or shocking.

either way, when i look at this script objectively, its a tight, very well written script. a superb example of how i one day hope to write.

Yeah I'd be the first to admit the story was kind of rushed and doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you really look at it objectively, but at the same time I know people who would react exactly that way (freak out/flight, feel bad about it and go back) so at the time I didn't think it was too much of a stretch. Thanks for the comments about the writing, nice to know other people enjoyed it since the draft that's up here is still an early one, before I worked out a few "kinks". This wasn't the draft they shot with, and unless I'm mistaken they may have taken one or two liberties with how the story plays out as well.