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The Light by Michel J. Duthin (michel) - Short, Fantasy - In a (near?) dark future, the last family in the country waits for the light to come... - pdf, format
Sorry to say this, but this script is literally littered with mistakes of every kind, on every page...typos, grammatical errors, awkward phrasing, poor writing, action lines mixed in with dialogue, incorrect labeling of character dialogue, silly plot/story...
Really can't come up with any positives here, other than you produced a script that met the challenge for the most part.
I really don't want to come across as mean here, but you really need to work on your writing. Read more scripts. See what works and what doesn't...and why. Apply what you learn to your own writing. Everybody has to start somewhere. Good luck.
Right off, you forget to give us an age for Louise. I will chalk that up to time constraints, but annoying nevertheless. And description scooped up into the dialogue in spots. Misspellings scattered about. You did not proof this very well. The time constraints can only forgive so much.
And for such a decent set-up, I am afraid this story left me underwhelmed.
I am left wondering where this story went wrong. The abandoned family, the ominous knock on the door -- it's all quite good -- but after that, it is like your imagination suddenly ran out of gas.
Mixing in the good and bad, this one is a solid C.
Didn't really dislike anything but also nothing really stood out to me as memorable. Typos and technical miscues, but what really lacked for me here was, well, something to remember it by. Definitely an intriguing build up and a pretty torn family, and even going into the final climax there's hope that something enlightening is going to happen...but it doesn't.
1) "On her back is PETER (55). Bold, scarred, and two missing fingers..."
I thought Peter was literally on her back. He didn't do or say anything, before you introduced him to indicate that he was in disagreement with her. Then you, quickly, in a subsequent paragraph, tell us again that Peter is missing fingers. This is redudant.
2) "In the semi darkness, a young woman hums quietly a song. MARIANNE is blind. Her blond hair falls down on her elbows."
This is awkward --- Maybe, "A young woman, MARIANNE, hums.
And as Bert said, it'd be nice to know how old Lousie is as well as Marianne. Given the constraints of the challenge, we know they're adults. Still, It'd be nice to know her age relative to your other character's ages.
I think you did a good job setting tone. Your discriptive writing is good, if a little sloppy. Just a few changes here and there and it'd be fine.
I like that you opened with a lit candle and then closed with this same candle. It brought it all together nicely.
A decent sci-fi set up, but ruined by poor execution. I think this would have worked better if you had set this in some near future post-apocalypse with characters we could relate to instead of some strange world where the people tend to talk like Yoda.
PETER I'm sorry Mother.
I think you meant Thomas there. A few mistakes are understandable when you have a time constraint, but this one just had way too many.
I thought this one started out pretty good. I didn't even get bugged by all the typos and other errors. I had this post-apocalyptic vision of what was going on. The movie The Road even flashed in the back of my mind a couple of times, but then you ruined it IMHO by have the Dark Lord appear. Anything would have been better than that...even zombies.
Betrayal. Another dark subject worthy of writing about. Unfortunately for me, the story had holes. Needed a little more explanation. I dunno, maybe I missed the point. On a positive note I appreciate the effort of attempting to do something different and out of the norm.
I thought this was gonna be a vampire short, instead dark lord. Who's knocking on every door himself to own the country. Why did he need their son to go with him anyways? couldn't he just find out where they are and use his magic wand to blow open the door?
I'm sorry, typos are expected in the OWC but some of yours are unforgivable. I can't see how you even proof read this one time. Too much action for the challenge too IMO. Then again, guilty of that meself.
Not bad, I can visually picture what was going on in my head for the entire script, but I'd want some more explanation about the Dark Lord. Like what are his goals, what does he want, etc. I assume he doesn't just want the whole country. You still have four pages to expand the story.
The suspense is very good when Thomas knocks on the door. Wish you could give us the approximate age of Marianne and Thomas.
I think it kinda fits the theme, it has a dark tone but the story is a bit too straightforward. Wish it can be more layered and complex, instead of having every character giving us clues about Thomas and the Dark Lord.
Overall, it's a good job.
FEATURE:
Memwipe - Sci-Fi, Action, Thriller (114 pages) - In a world where memories can be erased by request, a Memory Erasing Specialist desperately searches for the culprit when his wife becomes a target for erasure -- with his former colleagues hot on his trail.
Man, this had all the ingredients for a really neat script: a post apocalyptic future, survivors huddled in their cottage(a very rustic, reminisce of Transyvanians fearing the coming night). Even the title was cool, hinting at a light/dark confrontation.
For most of the script it was good but, as evryone has pointed out, the ending was almost anti-climatic. Perhaps the writer was running out of time, or the initial inspiration had run dry. Formatting was good, and the wrting style ok. a re-write will bring about a much stronger story.
This one was equal parts interesting and confusing for me.
jwent, to answer your question about why the Dark Lord needed Thomas, the author set that up pretty nicely with an homage to the vampire movies, where evil cannot strike you unless you invite it into your home. So he needed Thomas in order to gain entry.
Others have pointed out mistakes - I would have let some of these go with the understanding that this is a OWC, but there are too many. Two of the more glaring ones for me are in Louise's dialogue where she says "Who's there?!" And also says "No answer!", which I believe you meant to be description, and the part where Marianne stares at Peter (she's blind).
I guess the issue I have with this is the one I have with all "twist ending shorts" - that it's less about the journey and all about the destination. We run crash bang to the ending because we know that's where the answer is (i.e., why is there no light? And what will happen to change it?), and we almost don't care about the setup.
It's the author's job to make us care about Louise, Marianne and Peter. Otherwise I don't care who gets their head chopped off or roasted alive.
Once the name was mentioned, I knew where this story was going in. This was very much inspired by Harry Potter.
I think you had too many characters for this type of short. This is something I learned previously before.
Also, I think you should have explained a bit more of the situation since the end seems to come out of nowhere.
Good effort though.
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