The Shark Doctor by Ned Hrulebender - Short, Shark - A marine biologist suffering from sex addiction is called by a theme park to diagnose what is killing the great white sharks they plan to feature in a new exhibit. - pdf, format

Considering I think I know who the writer is, this was a very weird choice of story's to tell, IMO.   I was expecting more.  Format-wise, I believe it could've been edited down in places.  

Last but not least, Gary's last line of dialogue was totally unrealistic.  Almost goofy.  Not sure if that was intentional or just not thought out too well.  Strange ending, too.  All in all,  I was expecting more.

But good job on completing the OWC.  

I don't know if vets work on sharks like mechanics do cars but having the shark suspended in mid air seems odd. The fact the shark, though restrained, is able to eat shoulder is odd. I guess I'd be pissed to if I was hung from the ceiling. (Having read the whole script now I think at the very least bite marks on the shark at this point would be appropriate.)

The first six or seven pages is nothing but exposition. Gary's family dies, sharks keep dying, Linda's family died. Very large shark tank, guy escaped from NK who may or may not be 69 years old? (If he was from NK and was really 40, I'd say he should look more like 69. They don't like well over there you know. The fact he's got a football physique AND is from NK makes no sense if you think about it. What does this have to do with sharks?) Or Gary?)

Gary is a sex addict supposedly but is on his laptop and NOT looking at porn? Say what?

Oh, the NK is a kind of shark vampire? That is......odd.

Gary finds Tori's bracelet and the first thing he wants to do is slit his wrist? Very odd.

This whole script is strange. Not sure what the very beginning has to do with the film. Not sure how the North Korean is able to swim with and bite the "man eating" shark before it gets him. Wouldn't the world's biggest state of the art artificial salt lake have security cameras around it? Why are the sharks rotting away from the inside? If there was less exposition more time could be spent developing story and maybe address those issues. Sorry, I just didn't get where this script was going.

There were a lot of good elements, although the execution of this could've been much better.

The logline gave me a chuckle, and when I got to this line: A milky-white and stringy substance dangles from his mouth. Well, you can guess what my reaction was.  

This seems like best attempt at a Jaws sequel yet, but the characters weren't grounded in the characteristics promised. Instead, Gary comes across more of a wuss rather than someone who struggles with sex addiction, Tori is shark food, Linda only exists to explain Gary, and Sung-Ki only gets a half-hearted thrust at best.

Did I miss the Sung-Ki/Tori connection?

Anyway, my number one issue with this with the protagonist, Gary. This is a great mystery to be solved, it's clever and original. But there must be an overt subtext of what Gary is going through in regards to sex addiction, furthermore, he needs to overcome it -- or it shouldn't be a crux to begin with. Have some fun with it instead of buckling Gary each time it slaps him in the face. Linda seems like a great place to start. And his backstory? What's the significance and how does it factor in here?

The plot is engaging, and the writing was good. A few typos, but the story moved regardless. Dialogue was okay, fix Linda wanting Gary to guess Sung-Ki's age. Jaws call-backs were done well. The ending presented no climax, which is kind of a downer, considering the mystery was top-notch. Maybe change the title too.

Great mystery and promising story, doesn't deliver.

Best regards,

Johnny

Hmm...not sure about this one. As odd as it was, I did breeze through it. The writing itself was very good. The only thing that stopped my in my tracks was Gary's dialog on page 11 where he begs Sung-Ki to stop killing sharks. It had a completely different tone. Came across as forced and unrealistic.

I didn't really understand it. The milky white substance thing...my mind went somewhere...I'm going to stop thinking about that.

"We're going to need a bigger tank" --   

You missed the mark on the challenge parameters with more than 4 characters.

Congrats on completing something for this challenging OWC!

I didn't count the characters that had dialog, but I'm pretty sure it went over the limit. The overall story flowed nicely though, moving between scenes and introducing characters. I don't really get how Gary was a sex addict though; one hooker doesn't seem to paint that picture for me.

Some dude from North Korea? There is some freaky ass sh*t going on over there, but the average height of one of these little dudes is about 4 feet I think, not a linebacker. Unless he was some type of government experiment or something, that's probably the only way he would get out of the country in my opinion.

I thought the Dolphin bracelet would interrupt as a signifier for Tori's salvation; Dolphins have been known to attach sharks in schools when they detect a danger, especially when a human is involved. Not that the bracelet could offer anything more for protection than say...  a talisman, but could intervene with an event to prevent her death, whatever.

Great attempt to put a story together with the concept put forth, and definitely different than most I've read so far. Good work!

Shark doctor

A few missing words as we go along - usual rushed OWC I assume

Oh, this is low budget - the largest salt lake which you can see from space, plus a great white in a harness - oh, well might as well aim big!

Well, you didn't hold back, I'll give you that.

Sorry, this wasn't for me. A depressed security, shark expert, who bangs hookers and looks after the great white section at a theme park, discovers a sinster North Korean who bites sharks that feed on humans. As a short, that's too much. As a feature I think this would take a lot of buying into but it would have more space to set the scene.

So, it's creative, but lacks cohesion, IMO

All the best

Wild opening, but lots of early mistakes, typos, missing words, awkward writing, poor description, and ridiculousness left and right.

It seems like you can write, but you’re not writing well here at all.  Lots of orphans, extra words tacked on the end of sentences, poor choice of wording.  Just not working at all for me.

Page 2 and we’re already at the character max.  Too much has already happened as well, and I have a feeling an awful lot more is going to happen – it’s too big a concept for a short, IMO.

Page 5 – Again, I have to say this – I can tell you know how to write, but what you’ve written here just isn’t working.  Maybe it’s rushed, maybe you were high on crack when you write, it, but even the dialogue is the same way – shows potential but it’s not being realized.

All this Sun-kI stuff is odd.  Actually, everything is odd here.  
“NEXT MORNING” is not a time element you’ll find in a Slug.

Now the writing is falling apart quickly.  Lots of passive writing going on.

Page 8 – Getting odder by the second.  Problem is that it’s so obvious what’s going on here and you’re playing it like it’s a mystery.  Return of Tori, the hardest working Pro in whatever area this takes place in.

“…like a facet…” – Really?  As I said, things are going downhill fast.

OK, so kudos on the very complex story you came up with, but you also need to understand that it’s WAY TOO big for a 12 page short.  It’s also way, way too big an costly to film this, as it would cost literally millions to film this.  As written, it does not work, but it’s also 1 of a few that will not be forgotten and will stand out.

Congrats on entering and kudos for the thought you put into this.

There's some errors I noticed throughout but that's not what we're focusing on.  We're focusing on story elements and I think that's where we should focus our primary reviews, so I'll skip the spelling errors and such.

As far as the story goes... well it's confusing, sorry to say.  I tried to decode it, but I think you need MORE pages to tell it.  12 (as Dreamscale said) seems to be too short to tell a tale as complex as this one.

It's a bit too complex for a 12-pager, but WOULD work more effectively as a full-fledged feature tale.  

Nice entry here, but could certainly use more exposition as it's somewhat confusing.

Short: 6/10 (could be expanded to deliver more of a coherent story as a feature)
Shark: 4/10 (also could be expanded, though the shark was present, we only really saw its brute force once)

There are some issues I had with this, telling me something "is seen" for example. The piece seems rushed and it...well let me get to a BIG positive The short by itself may be left to be desired and I had a "huh" moment or two. That said, there is something going on here, andthe whole idea that Ki kills for longer life by feeding ppeople's dead bodies to (mistreated) sharks in a hi-tech lake aquarium is nice.

In a previous thread, there was a big discussion regarding budget. As a short film, the budget won't be justified here. Expanding this out to 86-90 pages and making Ki and his shark like a slasher/creature feature flick? Gold! I'm sold!.

Very enjoyable on a B-film camp exploitation level. I think this was rushed but the concept wasn't. Almost close to magic, and if you had the time, I think it could have been something special. Still might be.

Keep it at all costs and work on it.
I kind of dig it.
But clean up the spelling and grammar.

-DjS

Simon McCorkindale was an actor in Jaws 3 so good tribute there.

An interesting take on the challenge. Had some good parts.

Give it a 6

Quite an ambitious opening.

I'm quite enjoying this. Need a bigger tank... At last. Somebody gets it.

Well. It's a interesting plot. A bit of a stretch but interesting.

Some of the dialogue needs work, as does some of the writing but overall this has a lot of promise.

R

A large tub? Like a bath tub? I'm having A LOT of trouble visualizing this first scene, chains? On a shark? In a tub? Ceiling? What the hell's happening?

You've already broken the four character rule... If I see any more, I'm probably just going to quit and read another entry that hopefully followed the actual criteria.

Dialogue between Linda and Gary, please, don't ever do this. Firstly, it just reads really poorly. And secondly, it feels like you're trying to shoehorn down my face the fact that his family died and I should care about him. Drunk driver? What's that got to do with anything? This is just poor storytelling and if it really did matter, the story should lead to this fact naturally. Again, don't do this.

Having a lot of trouble visualizing the scenes with your descriptions. I have no clue where we are and what we're looking at. Be clear.

Mmm, another character... Seriously thinking about quitting right now, especially since we're four pages in and I haven't the slightest clue where we're headed and what the story is about.

And the guy just disappears? It's so obvious you wanted to show him now because he plays a part later, but it doesn't work since it feels so damn fake. Avoid this too. Don't show characters just for the sake of introducing them, he didn't belong in the scene, especially since he just says sorry and strolls on his merry way. Like, really?

They've lost 3 of their 4 great whites and nobody bats an eye? WTF! Where's green peace with shining banners flipping them off? God knows if three of my dogs suddenly died I'd have the whole neighbourhood think I'm a psychopath, let alone the official banging on my door, telling me how shit the living conditions are in my house that they kill actual animals...

The North Korean guy is evil?! That's a surprise... Also, what the hell were they doing there anyway? Stripping their clothes to have a casual swim?

Church of God? Not sure what that has to do with anything.

He just sliced his wrist? What the hell is wrong with him? What if he hit a vein or an artery?

Not buying that human tissue BS.

And another two characters...

Well, I feel like I've been a douche for all my other reviews so I shouldn't stop here. It would be an understatement to say I wasn't a fan. Look, it seems like the idea you had is cool but the story didn't make much sense and then coupled with the fact that half your characters are useless and add nothing, this was a recipe for disaster IMO. Needs a rework.

*Spoilers*

This got off to a rollicking start, with a shark death on page 1!  The writing itself is solid and I give the writer credit for being extremely creative with the challenge, and trying to pack so much into such a small page count.

Which actually is one of the problems. The issues you tackle in this (OMG sex addiction, suicide, and Asian mysticism all wrapped into a shark story?) are too big to be properly explored in this short of a script.  Honestly, you need at least 25 pages minimum for something like this, if not more

Yes, there are other issues that I don't feel really work in the story; the Asian/magical aspect is pretty one dimensional, and boy, Tori comes across as a huge - shall we say - tramp?  And I just didn't feel that the story elements really gelled together as a cohesive whole (partially because of the short length.) But you get a 9 for imagination on this one!!

Cheers,

--J

Oh - and needless to say... the budget on this one would be over the moon....

An interesting logline and a powerful opening despite me not believing it for a second - it had me hooked.

But it just got stranger and stranger and I quickly lost interest. I think there's a good story here and it certainly is a very interesting take on the challenge but it feels way too big to work as a 12 page short.

There's a lot going on, a lot of characters and not enough room to get it all across in a believable coherent way.

Well done on completing the owc though and for coming up with a very creative idea.

Mark