Millennium Dawn: Pilot Episode by Douglas Snook - Short - 11 year old Tru is awakened from Cryogenic sleep on an interstellar voyage, only to discover that the ship is badly damaged, wildly off course, and that the malfunctioning AI is only waking kids. 28 pages - pdf, format

Please be brutal, dear readers- I'm a new writer working to make this project as good as it can get, so I'm prepared to take my lumps!

I didn't get through all of it, but not because I didn't like it.

I really dig the relationship between Millie and Tru. A detached AI who cannot really help the situation, but offers comic relief while giving the protagonist someone to talk and convey emotion to is a good literary device.

On page 3, when you have the pod door opening, you say "The Queen's "Shhhh" becomes the sound of the glass cover of Tru's pod sliding away." I think that's kind of awkward.

Instead, I would start your new scene description backwards, describing the hiss of the pod opening first. That way, the first thing the reader sees when you bring them to this new location (or rather hears in their head) is that sound. Then you can go into your description of the room, which should flow well, as this will be the first time the that Tru sees the room too.

Since you ended the previous scene with the queen saying "Shhh," opening the new scene by describing the sound of the door opening would create a natural juxtaposition of the two sounds that any filmmaker could notice without needing to be explicitly told to meld them together.

Does that make sense?

excellent point- leading with the sound makes that transition much less cumbersome. Thanks jabtooth!

Hi Douglas,

Much of what is true of single camera film format is also true for mult-camera format. The principle differences are these:

* Shot heading and transitions are underscored;
* direction is typed in all capital letters;
* dialog is double-spaced;
* sound cues are underscored and
* arentical characters direction is embedded in dialogue.

Also:

* Don't put a colon after character.
* If 'a thing' makes a sound capitalize the thing that makes the sound and the sound itself (only capitalize sound humans make if they ar OS). Try not to capitalize the word sound itself. (for complete rules see The Holleywood Standard)
* Put a colon after FADE TO/DISSOLVE TO/CUT TO BLACK etc

Hi

No fade in

Usually Pilots start with a cold open/teaser, the few scenes before the credits.

Act one should be in the middle

Description/action way to long 4 lines max, preferably 3
No description of major characters

Act 2 should start on a new page.

A robot rolls up, carrying a tray of intricately decorated
cupcakes.... carrying is past tense.. try it carries a tray

All the best

Mark

ALSO - CONT'D

Sorry, CUT TO BLACK.  ends with a period.

For format look at:

http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/How_I_Met_Your_Mother_--_Pilot.pdf
(and yes, a lot of script (on simply scripts/scriptcrawler/daily script are in movie script format)
tv
* Try not to use camera angles and pov but just describe what is going on.
* Don't use scene numbers in a spec (only in prod script).
* Don't use CONT'D at the end of page and beginning of next page in a spec (only in prod script).
* Don't use term lik e DIM LIGHT in a scene heading. In 'deep space' don't even use DAY or NIGHT'
* Sentences are further apart
* Big text blocks is a no-no. Absolute max of four lines.
* Don't use words like  'we see' or 'we feel'. They are redundant!

INT. MECHANICAL CORRIDOR

Tru follows Sharvali through a dim lighted room...

DAMAGED CORRIDOR: INT

becomes

INT. DAMAGED CORRIDOR

............................................................

Your story makes me think about a comic book I once read called STORM; the Last Fighter. This astronaut is trying to reach a safe zone – being the control room -  in an alien space ship with all kind of booby-traps.

I like your the story and the dialog.

So I'm not a native speaker/writer (as you already noticed), so for grammar and sentence construction I really don't dare to help you.

But speaking (as a novice) I like your the story and your dialog.

With regards,


Rutger
  
  

Referring to writing a pilot,
you can do it ANY WAY you want to.
Yes, there are a lot of things that you SHOULD or should NOT do, but
with the exclusion of making your script look like a script,
all the minor details are up to the author of the pilot.

Since you are the creator of the (possible) series,
you make the rules. (ie page numbers, spacing, character/scene descriptions, bolding, camera directions, usage of day numbers and/or day/night)

In the tv series writing classes I took, we were taught that none of that matters.
On the other hand, if you're writing a spec of an existing show, you most definitely
have to have it look exactly how the writers of the show format it.

Hope this helps some.

Thanks for all the feedback so far! Steex, I like your point, but I also appreciate everyone's pointer about proper formatting- I should probably at least learn how to do everything the proper way.

Mike, you're right about my having left out character descriptions- on Amazon Studios we had to submit a show bible as well, so since I had character descriptions in there I left them out of the script. Without the bible accompanying it, I should really put those back.

And a couple of you pointed out that I get a little carried away with my actions/descriptions- you're right, it's a sickness. You should have seen my first drafts- believe it or not, that's me dialed down! When I go through and incorporate the pointers I'm getting here I'll try to make some tough cuts.

In addition to the structural stuff, is the story working for you guys?

Hello,

I liked the story, it's interesting.

As everyone has told you, there's a few formatting errors, but that doesn't matter as much.

Also, keep the dialogue like you have it in here. Don't double space it, that only goes to multi-camera series. Besides, the producer and director, or maybe even the company decide what type of filming they're using, so just keep writing the dialogue like you're doing now.

It's a good story.

Keep writing,

Chris