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The Essentials by Masked Taxi Driver - Short, Drama, Crime - Currently out of work due to the city-wide lockdown, Cameron, struggling to support his family, decides to knock off a local corner grocery. 6 pages - pdf format
Writer interested in feedback on this work
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Don's edit. This script received a query request by a director. The writer has been notified.
Nicely done. I really enjoyed this story with its little twists and turns. Good job, writer.
Some of the formatting I found distracting and unnecessary. No need to have the title card included; it just took away from the read. And kinda funky title page too with the large out-of-spec font. You don't want eyes to roll before people ever read a word of your story.
Ah right, only thing is I wouldn’t throw Cameron in the logline. Maybe keep it generic going forward. JMHO. You've got a nice writing style... easy to read, which is always a super plus. It flows well. Seen the twist coming, but still enjoyable. Not going to nit-pick. Sorry for the useless notes.-A
A crisp tale of desperation and murder. I like the different levels of robber--Cameron just wants some groceries, but runs into a more serious robber. It was also a good idea to open and close with an essential worker--one trying to do right and the other operating as a pure criminal.
When I initially read it, I thought the Masked Robber was another random robber that had stepped into the store. I didn't realize until later that he was with the guy behind the counter. I was actually kind of intrigued by that possibility. What if two guys with guns were in a standoff and another armed man walked in?
Is it possible that we could see a little more of the shopkeeper who was killed? What if he is not fully dead and is able to plead a little for his life? That might make his death even more gut-wrenching. Just a thought.
I enjoyed this story – pretty clever twists, although the last one with the cab driver might have been a little too convenient. Still, it was a fun, quick read. Solid dialogue and action sequences combined with the plot twists make for a very good effort here.
I know you’re going to get reamed by others for the title page thing, which is really the director’s call, so just leave those out in the future. Didn’t bother me, but I know how others are sticklers for that kind of thing.
Best of luck.
Some of my scripts:
Bounty (TV Pilot) -- Top 1% of discoverable screenplays on Coverfly I'll Be Seeing You (short) - OWC winner The Gambler (short) - OWC winner Skip (short) - filmed Country Road 12 (short) - filmed The Family Man (short) - filmed The Journeyers (feature) - optioned
So I was waiting for someone to use the masks in a crime drama...
This is very Tarantino-esque, in the shuffling of one person's arc to another, and in the escalating violence.
Not sure if it could be filmed safely in this current environment - are people still taking taxis in NY? I honestly don't know the answer; I know the subways are running and that's not the place to be at the moment.
This left me more sad than anything, as Howard and Cameron, the two decent people in this story, are the ones that die. Definitely an allegory for risking your life during the pandemic.
Very well-written and compliments to you on the plot turns.