You Blink When You Lie by Brett Bentman - Short, Thriller - A man avenges the death of his daughter. 16 pages - pdf, format

A few notes as I go:

• Pg. 1  FADE IN: goes on the top left.
  
• Pg. 1  "BACK ALLY" should be "BACK ALLEY".  "Ally" is someone on your side.  "Alley" is a back road.
  
• Pg. 1  "...the nosey vibration"  Noisy, perhaps?
  
• Pg. 1  The opening paragraph is too novelistic and confusing.  The slug says "BACK ALLY" [sic], yet you say we're at an abandoned shipping dock.  
  
• Pg. 1  You put in camera directions, which isn't a bad thing if you're directing this yourself.  Most directors will decide what the camera is doing.
  
• Pg. 1  You don't give an age for Jessup.  He could be anywhere from 4 to 94.
  
• Pg. 1  You use a passive voice instead of an active voice.  "Occasionally checking his watch and glancing down the street."  Should be written:  Occasionally checks his watch and glances down the street.  Plus how do we know Jessup is bald if he has a cap on?
  
• Pg. 1  You use 14 characters to say that Kale is in his "early thirties" when you could just say he's "31" or "32".  Personally, I know exactly how old my characters are.  If a director wants to change their age, that's their prerogative.
  
• Pg. 1  How do you show that Kale is a man of many vices?  I understand that you're giving the reader a clue as to who Kale is, but as I watch this movie in my head, I picture a Lloyd Bridges from Airplane.  "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue"
  

That's enough for now.  I'll wait for the writer to comment before I go any further.

Jordan

Hi Brett

While you have created quite a nice suspenseful story here, unfortunately for me, it kinda fell flat and bordered on the predictable side a little bit. Felt a bit rushed too. It is a revenge story using very underdeveloped characters. While I did get Kale's obvious motivation to seek revenge, I felt that I did not know much about him to aid in my sympathy with his quest. As well, the locating of the culprits felt quite rushed, and I felt there wasn't enough exposition to explain how he found them. I think this kind of story is meant for a bigger medium than a short film. I will leave it at that

-Silva Sly-

Hey there! Don't have much more to say than I enjoyed your script! There are a few spelling errors here and there I would fix, though. It had kind of a Max Payne feel to me. Like to Kale had nothing but his vendetta; which I absolutely loved. I also think it could have been longer. I want to know the characters a bit better. Good work and good luck with this!