Leaf Peepers by Sean Friel - Short, Comedy - A day in the life with two stoners in New Hampshire. 46 pages - pdf, format

Fresh meat!

I hope you have thick skin, Sean.  I can't promise I'll read the whole thing, but I'll give you a few notes.

As I go:

• You need to tell me more in the logline in order to entice me to read your script.  Right now I expect to see two guys sitting on the couch eating Funions while playing Call of Duty.
  
• What's with the "Life in NH" on the title page?
  
• There's no need to date your script.  It can do more harm than good.
  
• You should have "FADE IN:" left justified on page 1.
  
• You don't have a time of day in your slugline.  Is it DAY or NIGHT?
  
• The massive 11 line block of text is going to scare away 90% of readers instantly.  Break it up into 2 or 3 line blocks.
  
• You're overwriting.  You don't need to say "There is an alarm that is audible in the background."  You could just say, "An alarm clock BLARES." Incidentally, having an alarm clock go off at the beginning of a script is a movie cliche that you should try to avoid...UNLESS you do what you did and have the "hand" reach for a bong.
  
• You don't need parentheses around your character's name.  You could put parentheses around the character's age...if you showed it.  Be sure to indicate your character's ages.
  
• You don't need to indicate camera directions in a spec script.  If you're filming this on your own, then having things like"(out of frame)" are acceptable.  
  
• There's no need to cut to a title screen.
  
• You only need to capitalize a character's name when they're first introduced.
  
• Your dialogue isn't horrible which is great for a new writer.
  
• You should try to avoid using 3 line parentheticals.
  
• There's no need for "(CONTINUED)" on the bottom of the page.  I know it continues.
  

Here are a few notes from page 1.  I'll give you more later.

Jordan

Hey, thanks for the read! I really appreciate you taking the time to read even the first page. I'll try to clear some stuff up.

this is the first thing i've ever written, beginning to end. I have no writing experience or training at all which would explain some of the glaring mistakes in there. I use celtx (because it's free) so i just assumed every spot they had on the title page needed something in it. After reading some scripts on here I've noticed most people don't put that stuff on there. Sorry if the logline blows, didn't really think it through. I am planning to shoot and direct and edit yadda yadda myself which is why some of the stuff you were talking about is in there. To be honest until I found this website i didn't have the balls to show my work around. So thank you, like I said before, for the pointers and for reading some of it. If you do get through the first few pages you might find it's more than just a stoner story.

Sean,

I'll get around to reading all of it sooner or later.  I can't say that I'll give you as detailed of notes on the whole thing, but I'll give you an overview of what worked for me and what didn't .

If this is the first thing you've ever written then you're far ahead of the masses.  The fact that you used Celtx shows that you care about the craft.

A couple things I forgot to mention in my earlier post:

• 1.  There's no one way to write a script.  Read a lot of them, write a lot of them, and find what works for you.
  
• 2.  All of my comments are merely my suggestions.  Others will have their suggestions too.  We're all going to have our own opinions on your work, but ultimately it's your opinion that matters most.
  
• 3.  You may want to get a Dropbox account and upload your scripts there.  That way you can just link them when you submit here, and if you need to make a revision, you don't have to wait for Don to post the revised script.  Don's a busy man.  Just look at how many comments he has.
  

If you want any advice, feel free to message me.

Jordan

Thanks again Jordan. I am here to learn and grow as a writer, so I put on my armor before posting my script. Hopefully my last post didn't seem overly defensive. Also, even though it's clear that I'm a newbie if anyone wants me to read their stuff I will throw my opinions at them. On topic however - dialogue is favorite thing to write, the other stuff I'm never really sure if I'm overdoing it. You're definitely right about that wall of text on the first page. I looked at the script for the first time in a while and thought, 'He's totally right.' Looks like I got some work to do!

Here's a pretty good breakdown of Industry Standard format.

http://www.movieoutline.com/ar.....ript-formatting.html

I'm sure there's better articles out there.  Just gotta do the research.  

Thanks caleb, I read that article and it was pretty informative. I'll be working on the re-write tonight after work so if there's any last minute notes I'd love to see em. Also, if anyone want to trade notes for notes please let me know, I'm always down to help someone out when I can.