At Eternity's Gate by Dunk Franklin - Short - A lonely widower goes on a coach holiday. And get's a sharp reminder of how close he is the the end, and how little he has accomplished.  7 pages - pdf, format

Hello Dunk (great name!). Your logline - despite its poor punctuation - intruiged me, so I read the script. I'm often a fan of retrospective stories tinged with nostalgia and regret, and this was certainly that.

SPOILERS

Firstly, your formatting is a little off. I believe your sluglines should go...

EXT. BUS STOP - DAY

...rather than...

EXT. BUS STOP. DAY

You've also numbered the sluglines, which is something I've only seen in shooting scripts. If this IS a shooting script, then fair enough. If not, then I'd take the numbers out.

A few other writing points: you start with a double introduction, which I think you can cut. Why say "An old man" when the next words are, "Donald, late 70s"? His name and age tell us he's an old man. Also, you use a lot of -ing words. These should be avoided wherever possible, since they constitute 'passive writing', which is just less engaging to read. So, the first couple of action sections should read:

A dreary, overcast day. DONALD, late 70s, stands alone at a bus stop. Cars drive past through the water on the road.

Donald wears an old-fashioned cap, and a suit. To his left is a large, worn, brown leather suitcase.

Obviously I've moved and tweaked your weather description, but hopefully you can see how what I've written is more 'active' than your original. I've also removed a couple of bits which constitute 'telling' rather than 'showing'. How do we know that's the suit he always wears? Nothing onscreen shows us that. And also, how is it obvious the suitcase has been used for decades? Just telling us it's worn is enough.

'Excited but nervous, but mostly nervous' - this is the first time you're missing a full stop at the end of sentence, but you do it quite often. Look out for that. Again, I think this sentence is a little too much. He's nervously excited, leave it at that. At times you do seem to put in things that aren't neccessary. For instance, the hotel room is over-described. It's usually better to describe things only when characters interact with them. Props (things characters interact with) should be described; the set (everything they don't interact with) should not. Same with the boulder Donald sits on - it doesn't matter that it's perfect for sitting on. Leave that out.

The story itself is pretty good. Donald's struggle to urinate actually told me quite a lot about him, strangely - that worked well. However, I think it would be more effective if he didn't like the room. I see that he's supposed to be a very nice man, which should boost our sympathy for him, but I think him being disappointed in the room would make him look more pathetic.

Also, the ending was quite unsatisfying. The way you suddenly introduced Gabriel made me expect that the two would have a heart to heart, but we didn't get that far. Also, one of the last lines - 'it's gut-wrenching seeing this man lose his dignity' feels straight out of a novel. It has no place in a screenplay.

So...all of that is critical. Overall, however, I liked this. The scene by the loch, where Donald sees his younger self, was actually very good, especially when Donald looks into the eyes of his younger self. While this is at times over-written, some of the writing is really nice. I particularly liked 'the most amazing kiss either of them will ever have'. Really gave me a sense of its passion. You need to go back through, look for passive writing and maybe think about the end of the story. But I sympathised with Donald as a character, and I can see the potential for a nice short here.

One last thing - I'd change the title. 'At Eternity's Gate' is a good title, but it sounds like a war movie or something. It's too grand for a story this low-key and intimate. It's not particularly fitting.

I look forward to any new drafts,

Jon

Hi Jon,

Firstly, thanks very much for reading the script and taking the time to give feedback, I really appreciate it.

The story was loosely based on a true experience I had when I was working in a hotel a few years back. I was 'Gabriel' the barman stealing brandy! Not that I'm Romanian, but there it is. I saw this old guy choking and when he breathed again he cried his eyes out, it was pretty unnerving. The rest is all made up, I just thought about this guy's life.

I get the points about over-writing etc and you're absolutley right, I think I got carried away. I think I'm always trying to over-compensate by writing too much description, I used to write a lot less and was told I needed to add more, so I suppose I'll have to work on a compromise.

It was one of those stories where I thought of the ending first, this poor old guy breaking down and having nothing. I can't think of any other way of ending it, maybe a scene with Gabriel might work, I'm not sure.

On the title, I took it from Van Gogh's painting of a depressed old man, I thought it was fitting, maybe a little over-dramatic for this, I concur. I just thought it underlined the fact he is closer to death than he thinks.

Anyway, thanks again for reading it and your criticism, I'm very grateful.

Dunk

Hello Dunk,

I didn't much favour this story.  Too much unnecessary description.  You could probably shave 3/4 pages off this.

I felt a lack of a story here.  I was trying to follow it and by the end comes the story.  Too little too late.

All the best with any future rewrites,


Javier

Hey

I agree with the other guys. I waited and waited until something actually happened in the script. It was like there was no conflict until he almost choked on his foo

I don't know about other readers, but you constantly describe things which are not inportant got annoying.

If you can cut down the description and give Donald a bigger problem of some sort it can be much better. The grammer was quite OK, for me.

Anyway good luck.

Later.

Dunk,

This was one depressing script.  I hope to hell I don't wind up like old Donald.  But, I think you actually have an interesting character study here.  I think a lot of people, by the time they hit their 70s, just haven't accomplished much in their lives.  Thoreau said "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."  That's this guy.  That scene of this geezer trying to take a wizz while his wrinkled old butt hangs out of his pjs is memorable.

The script is too wordy.  Cut down on any unnecessary description.  Also, your logline said that Donald realizes he hasn't accomplished anything in his life, but you never really show us that.  Try and think of some way of showing his overall failure.

While reading, I had the feeling that Donald went on this trip maybe to kill himself.  He's old, he's alone, off by himself in Loch Ness.   One suggestion I had for the story is that, what if Donald planned to kill himself that night, but then he has that near-death choking incident and it changes his mind.  Maybe he decides he's finally going to do something with his life with the little time he has left.

Cam

Hi,

It is depressing, I was in a mood when I wrote it! Maybe I should have Donald find treasure or save the planet in some way.

I just think the elderly are fascinating, not sexually of course, but as people. I don't think they're given the fair 'crack of the whip' in films. I'm about to turn 30 and that is scary enough, and my twenties went so quick, so I think turning 70 must be quite a shock, thats kind of what I wanted to show.

I like the idea of him going to commit suicide but nearly dying before, it's good. I know there is no real story here, and it's supposed to end unsatisfactorily, kind of like Donald's life will be.

That 'wizzing' scene was inspired by memories of my Grandfather taking 1/2 an hour to piss in years gone by, thin walls.

Thanks for reading!

Dunk

http://www.youtube.com/worldaccordingtodunk