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Forgotten by Don Black (donb036) - Short - A story about a man's struggle to cope with the loss of his son in a tragic car crash. 31 pages - pdf, format
Once at the register, we rotate around Jake body until we can see his face and some of his chest. (p2)
And we get a lot of that on the first two pages. It's a fancy way of saying "these are the camera angles". But you overuse the we stuff to even where you get confused. Check this: We are in a hospital room, with the typical equipment. We hear begin to hear words
First, since the header already stated where we are, you don't need to tell me where I am. Second, if a character hears something, I can hear it too. In addition, the wording as quoted above is awkward.
We zoom in towards all the kids in an blue graduation outfit. The scene appears to be glowing. We zoom until we see Jake and his MOM in a the shot (p7)
Drop all the ZOOMS, watch the grammar. Jake Ross begins to move on stage as the crowd applause.
Quoted Text
EXT. HOME - 3:20 PM The scene starts off with an establishing shot of the outside of the home and shows Jake pull up in his taxi, get out of the car and walk down the sidewalk into his home. Jake knocks on the door, then tries the handle, finds it unlocked and pushes through into his home
FOYER Jake walks into his home, which is seemingly empty
And that's where I decided to stop reading. Why is there a precise time in the slug? Why mention it is an establishing shot? "The scene"? Then a switch from an EXT to an INT without it being in the header. I have a better suggestion. Try something like:
Quoted Text
EXT. HOME - 3:20 PM The scene starts off with an establishing shot of the outside of the home and shows Jake pull up in his taxi, get out of the car and walk down the sidewalk into his home. Jake knocks on the door, then tries the handle, finds it unlocked and pushes through into his home
INT. JAKE'S HOME- AFTERNOON Jake glances around the lifeless foyer.
That was a long passage, full of grammar errors, prose and gobbledegook. While it could be corrected to have a more active present tense, take a step back. Is there anything about the house or yard that you really need to show? If so, then this is what you would have done:
EXT. JAKE'S HOME- AFTERNOON
A taxi drops off Jake in front of a house.
PORCH Jake stares at the door in front of him, finds the door unlocked.
INT. JAKE'S HOME - CONTINUOUS Jake glances around the lifeless foyer.
Note that in your passage Jake pushes open the door; this implies that the door is already open and unlocked. But when you consider it, the action outside of the house isn't needed all that much. You can either shorten it or snip it out and lose next to nothing.