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Meat by Robbie Hardy - Short, Dark Drama - A short character study, looking at the relationship between a psychopathic father and his young son. 31 pages - pdf, format
Hi Robbie - don't know if you are around - good effort, but this does need a little work on it to make i the full article - you spend a lot of time telling us what we are seeing - what's important is to show what we are seeing in the way you write - so --
... We watch them talk should be something like -- They talk.
Hope to hear from you & best of luck with your work.
Hi Si,... Thanks for the feedback. First time on here, so look forward to all constructive comments.
With the 'We watch them talk'...I was trying to convey the feeling that the shot should convey an almost voyeristic feel...where as with just 'They talk' may have not gotten across this to the reader.
I really appreciate you reading my script. Thanks a lot.
It's not bad ... but it needs some work. Here's my take on various bit and pieces:
## ADAM is at the far end of a long tunnel: He is sat above a feeding pen that is channeling him a never ending supply of frightened cattle. Electric cattle prods hang behind him. He is holding a bolt firing gun that he places against the head's of the cow's that flow towards him. He uses his left leg to pin the animal against the wall, whilst at the same time expertly managing to grip the cow's head in a securing device.
-- This is too big a block to include in a script - it may read better if it were broken down, and given more of an 'action' focus ...
ADAM is at the far end of a long tunnel - sat above a feeding pen.
Frightened cattle channel toward him.
Electric cattle prods hang behind him - he holds a bolt-firing gun --
he places the gun at the head of a cow - his left leg pins the animal to the wall - he grips the cow's head in a securing device.
-- I've not really added a great deal of words - it's mainly deletions, but it's cut up the big block, and has focussd a little more on the actions that are taking place. It may not be to your taste, and there's lots of different ways of doing it - but it just helps frame it in a slightly different way.
## Once stunned, the animal is lifted by straps attached to it's hind legs and winched off to be processed. -- This sounds a little like dialogue from a documentary - interesting but dull - if there is action on the screen, then it needs to be conveyed:
A Bolt THUMPS into the animal's skull - the beast slumps to the floor ... etc etc.
... or something along those lines. We don't want to know what the reader might do if they wished to slaughter animals - we want to get a feel of what is actually going on, on the screen.
## with the other smoker's -- with the other smokers (plural, not possessive).
NAMES only need to be in CAPS when they are first introduced.
## ADAM is rushing to get changed out of his overalls. -- Adam whips his overalls off. (?) -- Adam, rushing pulls his overalls off. (?) -- The way you've written it, doesn't really convey his sense of urgency - it needs to be written a little shorter and sharper - just like Adam's actions.
## INTERCUT: INT. LOCKER ROOM & INT. ABI'S SCHOOL OFFICE - DAY -- I've not seen an intercut done this way before. Another possibility is:
INT. SCENE - DAY
Blah-titty-blah.
INTERCUT WITH:
INT. ANOTHER SCENE - DAY
--------------
All of the names seem to be a little too similar: Adam, Archie, Abi.
I wasn't convinced about the supermarket scene - I've not read the whole thing, so I don't know that it won't come into play later on - but this could have really been done in about four lines - are you absolutely sure that the script would suffer if this scene were to be deleted?
Anyway - that's my take on it to this point - and it is just IMO - one of a number of different opinions. Let me know what you think - it does sound like it has potential, but I've not really taken on the story due to the way it's told & presented so far.
Thanks for the feedback. I see that the describing parts do go on for a while and so I will, in future, break it up so not to seem too large.
Thanks for reading a bit more of it. I agree - that part does read a bit like a documentary...I think I wanted the scene to convey just the reality of working in this enviroment. This film, though very dark, should come across as a realistic character study, rather than as, say, a slasher/horror film.
It's a shame you couldn't read a bit more, as after the supermarket scene the script takes a more sinister direction and if only getting to the supermarket scene I can see how it may be a bit boring...but this was the purpose: Juxtaposing a relatively normal everyday scene with that of something much more dark.
If you could read on a bit more, I'm hoping you'll see where the story leads, and I'd welcome your thoughts...?
Hi Robbie - yeah I get what you mean re. the character bit, and not wanting it to come over like a horror flick - so if you're going to cut the paragraph chunks up some, maybe look at cutting when he puts the bolt-gun to the animals head - or a quick cut to his hesitant reaction - but still - I'd say - cut the action down to the key feature of what is going on.
Like --
ADAM makes sure that ARCHIE is in the Community Centre safely before driving off. He watches him from the car as he walks up the steps with some other Cubs. At the last minute ARCHIE turns around, smiles and waves. ADAM smiles and waves back. ARCHIE goes inside. ADAMS smile slowly fades into something sinister. He drives off quickly.
Could be --
Adam watches Archie and two CUB FRIENDS as they enter a Community Centre - Archie turns - waves and smiles at Adam - and enters the centre.
Adam drops his smile.
Looking at these two - I'm not sure how differently they'd film, but the dropping of the smile is still given emphasis with it being dropped to another line.
I can see that factors from the supermarket are actually coming into play here - might be worth doing a montage for the supermarket - I'm thinking along the lines of the supermarket scene in '28 Days Later' - you can still add emphasis to particular things with a certain look etc - so draw attention to the fizzy pop that way.
... And as for the story ... ???
Yeah - I quite liked it. I thought it was cleverly put together - things snapped into place very well - take this in the best possible way - but it's no doubt poorly written - both in terms of grammar and format - there are scenes that are - IMO - plainly wrong - but I do think this has got something to it.
The Good: The ending, I liked - there's a couple of holes that could be picked, but I though it was well conceived - good on you for that.
The Police bit was also a really good idea - in all honestly, badly executed - but added a great bit of tension.
Holding the victims in the pit - reminded me of 'The Lovely Bones', but a nice idea nonetheless.
The hammer and the kid was very good - really liked the moving of the hair to hide Archies features - very nice detail - great mini twist that Adam didn't do what I expected him to have done.
The tension at the end, the interchange worked very well.
The girls' escape from the pit - what I liked about this was that it was obvious - but I didn't think about it - and that's always a hole-in-one when you have an 'easy out' that the reader/viewer can say 'should have seen that'.
The Bad: The writing. The writing. Oh, and the writing. Given a couple of re-writes, this'll work - I liked the pit, but some'll say it's a copy of 'the bones. You may have to work something different in however convinced you are that this is good - your choice, though.
The log-line - I think it's mis-leading. Some may disagree.
Benign relations. Try re-reading the bit when Adam comes home and 'cough' interacts with Abi. Then see if the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. If they just so happen to be awake.
And the PLAIN UGLY: What's with your slug-lines? Maybe consider doing you, me, and the whole script-writing community a favour and LEARN SLUG-LINES! Some people get wound up about them.
This will need -- no doubt -- a couple of re-writes. Given them, yes - I think it's got a lot of potential.
Good stuff Robbie - thanks for insisting on the read - glad to have read it.
Well thanks for reading it. This was my first script I ever wrote...so your feedback is appreciative.
I will definitely try and cut down on the action like you say: It just makes it less cluttered and more clear.
The police scene being poorly excecuted - do you mean with regards to the dialogue, or just the scene as a whole?
Yeah, never seen The Lovely Bones, but will check it out now...
**Benign relations. Try re-reading the bit when Adam comes home and 'cough' interacts with Abi. Then see if the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. If they just so happen to be awake.** -- Do you mean the kitchen scene dunking biscuits and discussing the missing teacher friend..??
Yeh, like I say - first script - no idea about slug lines...I'm guessing they are the extra bit of action before dialogue....will try and google around about slug line etiquette.
Thanks Simon. I appreciate your honesty and will post my second (and latest) script shortly.
Police - scene as a whole & lots of 'items' within it: Yes it's opinion, but - he looks nervous, he's heading in the wrong direction, he works at an abattoir, and he's got a pink phone (while the police are looking for a missing woman) - and they send him on his way???
Benign relations - dunking biscuits etc. Yes. As in 'character study' vs 'I've got a big cock' jokes. The scene ain't deep - but I think it needs to be - this guy has a lot of heavy issues on his mind - I just can't believe he'd be so light-hearted - and I don't think I'm learning anything about him - not really anything in depth.
Slug-lines:
This is one of yours -
23. Int. Adams car - moRNING
This is how a slug-line should look.
EXT. HOUSE - DAY
But yeah - if you can check out how to do them, it'll make a big difference to how the script comes over.
I've only had a skim-read of the feedback, so far, so I hope I don't repeat too much of what anybody else would have said.
Overall, I enjoyed the script. I've seen that this is your first script and I personally think that it was executed quite well for a first script. I'm new to screenwriting as well.
Anyway, onto my feedback...
You tend to capitalize a characters name every time we see them. Personally, I see no reason to do this and it does get a bit annoying. I can understand capitalizing a character's name at the start, when we first meet them, but there's no need to continue on with this, IMO.
Some of your paragraphs are a bit long, but that's already been mentioned. What I did like about your long paragraphs is that they didn't include anything that you didn't need. It's not a matter of shortening it, just breaking it up.
Just a note... I can't specify page numbers on this one, because you don't have any. Who's going to bother going back and counting the pages every time??
"Adam's shift is over." - You don't have to tell us this as we will probably work it out for ourselves.
ADAM Ok, Okay...
Is there a difference between the two okay's?
At one point in your script (again, I can't specify a page number...) you have:
ADAM If she's written chocolate cake... (ARCHIE laughs)
"Archie laughs" needs to be in a different action line.
Before some of your slugs there's large spaces of white.
Some of your slugs have a mixture of CAPS and lowercase letters... Really distracting and a little bit careless.
All these problems can be fixed easily. I did enjoy this read. The dialogue was quite brilliant; nothing that was on the nose or cheesy.
I'll leave you with this... I would be quite willing to make this one into a film if: 1) I had the money to do so. 2)Your minor formatting issues were fixed.
So keep working on this one and you might receive a few offers
This was top of the list so decided to give this a look but unfortunately I couldn't get far into this one, too many problems going on IMO.
Long action paragraphs, try to cut these down to 4 lines max but less the better.
A lot "we" in the first few pages which was a real turn off and not needed.
You don't need to cap Adam all the time, only on first intro.
A lot of awkward sentences which read all wrong and need to be looked at.
Vague descriptions like "an ordinary man" try to be more visual, help us picture the scene.
Why are the scenes numbered?
Why no title page?
These are just some of the bigger problems I noticed but I have to be honest and say there was quite a few more but this is your first script so you'll improve the more you learn.
I had a little peek at the feedback and Simon has given you a lot to work on and that's a start so I hope you take that all in and it helps you to move forward.
I would also suggest you read and comment on other scripts which will let peeps know you're around and in turn they're more likely to leave feedback on any future script.
An impressive first story as a concept, but the structure needs work. The good thing for you is that the structure is easily fixed; creating a story is the harder part.
The first scene action/description is broken up appropriately; think a new action/decription for every distinct sequence within the scene. From then on, you use quite long passages of text to convey several elements together.
I like the juxtaposition of the everyday lifestyle against his psycho side.
A few minor issues that a external (ie not you) proofread would fix (ie "slither" on p24 should be "sliver"), and your slugs are weirdly type set.
your spacing at the end of many scenes is too large.
some other suggestions:
p3 -you started calling the guts "innards", later referring to them as "offle" (sp. offal); keep the description the same throughout.
p5 "heely's" should be either "Heely's" (proper noun) or "Shoe Skates" (product desc.)
p7 -"transfer's" = "transfers"
p8 -"caged like" = "cage-like"
p9 -some of your writing is verbose; i.e. "The padlock is re-locked. The astroturf replaced. This has been planned down to a minute detail." could be tightly re-written ", re-locking the padlock and replacing the astroturf with well-rehearsed precision."
p10 -"O.O.V" is "O.S."
p11 "Good (squeezes a whole chocolate biscuit in her mouth) I donk luff you." parentheticals longer than a couple of words should be broken out of a dialogue block into their own block
p13 -as most of this happens in the house (as with the previous couple of pages), use mini slugs after introducing the house interior
p24 -"As we focus in on the double doors they bang heavily." no "we". Just make it "The double doors bang heavily."
Gerry: Your detailed feedback was very helpful and is really appreciated. Thanks for the positivity too. It really helps the first time writer to feel they can carry on, learn, and get better...
Steve: I numbered the scenes as this is how scripts I've worked on seem to be laid out, so I simply took the cue from them, but I suppose it helps for giving feedback on here for both the reviewer and the writer..??
You mention that there are " a lot of awkward sentences that read all wrong and need to be looked at"...any chance of pointing out these? And are they in the dialogue or action?
I will re-write MEAT with all feedback taken on board.
I look forward to reading peoples full work and hopefully offer my opinions too.
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Meat
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... but I'll read on some
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