Actions Speak Louder Than Words by Jamie Press - Short, Drama - Aaron is the last person to speak to Kevin, the kid who has just shot up his school. In these final seconds of Kevin's life, Aaron gets some hints as to the reasons for this terrible tragedy. 12 pages - pdf, format

Jamie,

This was a little difficult to get through because of the long blocks of dialogue and the over described action lines.

A couple of thougts I had while reading:

-All of the dialogue definitely needs to be trimmed down.
-Don't use passive verbiage.  
-Avoid unfilmables such as, "Aaron is kicking himself." "He's not lucky today."
-You could lose a lot of the wrylies too.  Let your actors do what they do.  Only use wrylies when absolutely necessary.

The dialogue isn't bad, it's just really long and it could be trimmed down a lot.  There's talent in your writing, but it needs to be honed.

Hi Jamie,
Just finished a quick read of your script.  I have to agree with Nomad - some really big chunks of dialogue.  Could you break them up with some action lines maybe?  Or possibly just let Kevin speak a little less.

I really enjoyed the first couple of pages.  You've done a great job of creating an atmospheric beginning.  Maybe you could extend the tension and delay the introduction of Kevin.

I think Kevin explains far too much, have you tried a draft with him being less chatty?  A more enigmatic Kevin would sustain interest and suspense.

Good luck

Tony

Yeah - I think this is quite a good idea with not great execution - I agree lots of the dialogue is way too long, and too many of the action lines are written straight out of a novel.

I like what you have created, and it could work with a little refining - tension building up during the dialogue etc - but really break it down. I initially thought that these two guys knew each other - maybe an angle worth checking?

Simon

Hey Jamie,

This wasn’t great I’m afraid to say, I started to browse after page 2 and I’m glad I did when I saw those massive lines of dialogue. Cut down on these and also try to keep your action at 4 lines max.

Going back to the first page. The slugs weren’t great but you then went on to describe the location again in the action like:

“INT. CLASSROOM - COLLEGE – DAY

Inside a classroom”

This happened six times on the first page with every new slug and didn’t look nice to me.

I would be happy to elaborate even further on your script here if you’re around?

If not then all the best with it.

Good luck and keep writing.

Steve

Hi All

Sorry for the late reply, I only just got noted that my script was up on the site a couple of days ago.

Anyway as for all your feedback, I very much appriciate it, I'm glad to hear some of you liked it, I take this as an improvement on my previous project so thanks everyone

As for the feedback, I'll take everyone's advice on board, including the "Inside the classroom" advice, thanks CoopBazinga, when I was writing it I never noticed this but now it's been pointed out I will definetly avoid this in future projects. Thanks to everyone else for their advice, it's much helpful.

I'd also like to ask to see if people know anything about a person called Adam N. He recently contacted me via email stating that he'd like to produce it as an indie feature. Obviously I'm very cautious as to just giving my work away in the hope of getting it done, this is the internet after all. So I'd like to ask you all if any of you have heard of this Adam? Have you worked with him? Can anyone verify this person? I just want to be fully convinced that it's legit before doing anything else.

Thanks guys!

Hey Jamie,

Congrats on getting someone interested with this.

If this was mine though, I would make cuts on the dialogue. Even though you tried to show his reasoning for what he was doing with his dialogue, my thoughts started to wander while reading them.

If someone produces it, they will change what they want to anyway.

Congrats again,
Cindy

Quoted from jrpress I'd also like to ask to see if people know anything about a person called Adam N. He recently contacted me via email stating that he'd like to produce it as an indie feature.

Don't know about Adam specifically, but everyone in your position needs to start by giving this a read:

http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-screenwrite/m-1254958906

Good luck with it.

Thanks for all the help guys. It seems after sending him a reply asking for more details about himself he has yet to reply so I think I got my answer. Thanks anyway guys