The Holy Blood by Michel J. Duthin - Thriller - An ex cop, now a priest, is called by his hierarchy to solve a special case. Jesus relics have been stolen. 115 pages - pdf, format 8)

It's a script I wrote a few years before I read Da Vinci Code.  Funny how things could float around. The "blood" of the title is in fact Jesus' blood on his relics. I've read too that Star Trek had an episode with a similar subject.

Michel 8)

If you wrote it a few years ago, you should have gone over it.  Just the teaser is loaded with grammatical and structural errors.

Why do you number the scenes?  That's for a shooting script, to make it easier to shoot scenes in a non-chronological order.  It has no place in a spec script, and makes it look amatuerish.

You use parentheticals for short actions between lines of dialogue.  THIS IS NOT A PLAY.  Parentheticals are for the dialogue intonation alone.

Research bullet-proof vests.  They don't magically repel bullets; at most they reduce a bullet from a fatal injury to a big blunt pain.  You can't shake off a bullet easily, vest or not.

Exploding heads?  Must I even elaborate?

Don't write paragaphs in Caps.  IT IS BAD WRITING.

Don't tell us Sanderson has just killed her; show us.  The audience can't read your exposition.

There are other problems, but these are the main ones.  Please clean up your script before posting it.

Thank you for your advices Jerdol.
This script has been read and read all over again. Unfortunately, I did what I could about the grammatical and structural errors.

I'll do a rewrite and resubmit it.

Michel

This is the second (third in fact) draft. I cleaned it up and hope I did better this time

Michel 8)

Whoah! I'm the "Unproduced Script of the Day".

What an honor!

Michel

I read the first 20 pages, and will say that you have a fascinating subject here. I'm interested to see where it goes.

Let me give you what needs fixing so far:

Say deserted dock, not desert dock.
Say hand up to his ear, not hand up his ear.
Young woman by his side, not sides.
Let the rain pour in, not pouring in.
Raises his eyes, not rises.
Slippery, not slippy.
At his back, not in his back.
Screams and falls, not fails.
Step out of the car and pace to the church (sounds better)
Use tinted, not tainted windows.

Thank you Monette to lay an eye on my script. I do hope the rest of it will entertain you and I'm anxious to hear from you again.

Michel 8)

I finished it, and I think you have a compelling story. It's visual images are great--the cathedrals, the spooky docks, etc. You've done a good job creating wonderful atmospheres and solid characters. I really enjoyed it.

I strongly suggest you change the title, because "Blood Rush" sounds more like a slasher horror movie than your subject. Maybe something with the word "relics" would fix this. The title, as is, could be holding you back.

Make sure your story isn't perceived as another " religious code breaking" type.

You have places where some words are left out, "tainted windows" must be "tinted", and other minor typos to fish out. Most of it looks pretty good.

The strong point is that people are intrigued by relics connected to Jesus. If you get your title to emphasize that, I'm sure there's an interested audience for your story.

Thank you Monette for your review. I really appreciate because it had been hard to have this script read after a violent criticism I had before with it. Glad you enjoyed it, because I really enjoyed written it. About the title, my first choice was "The Omega", referencing to Jesus. But I found it too generic. Another movies called "Relic" does exist. I'm gonna think about other titles. Would you mind if I'll submit them to you?

Quoted from MonetteBooks Make sure your story isn't perceived as another " religious code breaking" type.

As for my other "Bible" script "the Betrayal" (adventure section) I'm very aware to not hurting anyone. I always try to stay on the edge and not provoking religious from every part. That's not a very easy situation.

Thank you again.

Michel 8)

You may submit suggested names to me, if you like. Don't use anything with "Omega" or "Code" in it, as there are movies already using those.  You might call it "Stolen Relics", "Missing Relics", "Relics of Jesus" or something of that sort. Hope this helps.

Hi Monette,

Here are the different titles I thought about:

the Holy Blood
the Secret Blood
The Holy Clone
Blood Quest
Christ Quest
Clone raiders
Holy Quest
In the Name Of the Son
The Christ Project


Michel 8)

Just to let know that I'm working on the rewritting. It should be available soon.

Michel 8)

Without getting too much into story and plot, I’d like to show you a few problem areas with formatting.  Again, formatting is a very sensitive issue and not all will agree with what I say.  Some things pertaining to format are written in stone, where some other things just aren’t allowed.  There are, however, certain tricks of the trade that make your script so much easier to read.  Here are some examples.      

EXT. RINCON CHURCH - DUSK

A black limo with tainted glasses stops in front of the
church. Two young men in their thirties (BROOKS and DAVIS),
dressed in black, are stepping out of the car and paces to
the church main door. One of them is carrying a briefcase.
The front door being closed, they walk around the building.

“Watch what you write.  Read out loud to yourself.  Does this sound quite right?  I would re-word this a bit…

EXT.  RINCON CHURCH - NIGHT

A black limo with dark, tinted windows parks in front of the church steps.  

TWO MEN -- BROOKS AND DAVIS

Step out of the limo sporting dark shades and black suits.   They are in their thirties, clean cut and professional, very purposeful looking.  BROOKS is white and DAVIS is black.  Besides that, they are two peas in a pod.    

They hurry up the steps toward the main door.  Davis carries a briefcase.  

Brooks tries the front door, but it is locked.  He motions to his partner as the two men walk around the building.

“Now, you don’t have to mention that Davis is black in this other scene.  By now, the reader already decided that he is white or other.  Make your descriptions clear the first time.”        


INT. RINCON CHURCH - TOM’S BEDROOM - DUSK

Brooks and Davis are standing at the foot of the bed where
Tom is laid. They notice the empty bottle of tequila. Davis,
an Afro-American, leans over Tom and slaps him to wake him
up. After two slaps, Tom opens his eyes.

“Now that you’ve fixed this earlier problem, it should read…”

INT.  RINCON CHURCH - TOM’S BEDROOM - DUSK

Brooks and Davis hover over Tom’s bed, watching him sleep.  They spot an empty bottle of tequila curled up in Tom’s arms.  

Davis leans in and gives Tom a few good smacks in the face, waking him almost instantly.

“Set the scene with your descriptions.  Put the reader in that same situation.”

“This next scene describes Tom looking at pictures and crime scene photos.  You might wanna write these as inserts so the reader is actually put in Tom’s shoes and sees what Tom sees.  Inserts seem to help me when I’m reading a script that has to do with little details and photographs of crime scenes.”        


INT. RINCON CHURCH - LIBRARY - NIGHT

Tom is leaned over the first file. On different pictures,
Orsini’s dead body sliced at the throat and the police
report. Tom looks captivated by what he reads. He opens the
second file. Pictures of the French burned down church with
the graffiti on the walls.

“It would read something like…”

INT.  RINCON CHURCH - LIBRARY - NIGHT

Tom is leaned over the first file.  

INSERT -  ORSINI’S CRIME SCENE PHOTOS

A CLOSE UP of Orsini’s throat, sliced wide open.

BACK TO SCENE

Tom winces at the brutal picture.  He opens another file.

INSERT - CHURCH PHOTOS

The French church, now burnt to the ground.  The photos are taken from different angles, seeing the destruction from different points of view.  There is graffiti on the walls.

“Something like that.  I hope I was helpful.”

Take care,
Eric        

michel,

Ok, once again, I'm not going to bother commenting on your english, as I feel it would be a rather arduous task on my part.  Your english is by no means horrible, however, I feel like if you were to ever pass this out, you'd probably want someone to go over it with a fine toothed comb.  As it stands right now, like I said, the english isn't so bad I can't make it through it, so that's a plus.

I enjoyed your story, as I do usually enjoy a good mystery, but a few problems cropped up as I went along.  They're problems I feel like you can address, but you might need to do some fixing up.

First off, I don't buy that Tom, now a priest, comes out of retirement as a cop.  Not only does he have no authority and would probably have been stripped of his badge, but it seems kind of cheesy.  I'm wondering, and I know you might think this is a stretch, but is it absolutely necessary that Tom be a priest?  It seems like the story would work just fine as a man wrestling with his inner demons working on this case.  The idea of him being a priest seems kind of superfluous, especially seeing as he doesn't really act like one.

Second, the motivation that makes Tom take the case doesn't really work for me.  I understand he wants to see his daughter again, but Risi holding it over his head doesn't seem that believable.  I feel like, if Tom were really motivated to track down his daughter, he could.  I mean, he's a detective!  Or he could hire someone.  So Risi constantly holding this over his head seems weird.

(Oh, and side note, on page 25 they notice that something is missing from the dust in a safe.  Is there dust inside an air-tight safe?)

Finally, I think you need to do a better job of making the audience not suspect Risi.  I suspected he was involved from the minute he was introduced.  I hate to use the word "cliche", but in these types of mysteries, 95% of the time it's the person who hired them.  You might want to either change this entirely or work on something with throwing the audience off.

All in all, I liked the twists and turns of the script and the motives of the villains, but I really feel like you need to work on what I mentioned above.  For me, it kind of took me out of the story at times.

You said you have someone interested in making this?  How's that going?

Hi Matt,

thank you for reviewing, and most to bear my English. This one have been written several years ago (before « Da Vinci Code », thanks God you hasn’t talk about it because I’m so afraid people could compare then two)

Quoted from dresseme Ok, once again, I'm not going to bother commenting on your english, as I feel it would be a rather arduous task on my part.  Your english is by no means horrible, however, I feel like if you were to ever pass this out, you'd probably want someone to go over it with a fine toothed comb.

It will. I have a written agreement with a Canadian screenwriter who will help me to polish it at first, and work again on it. We already did it on one of my script you could find on SimplyScripts (http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-comedy/m-1150163876/). After one year of rewriting, it became « My Angel» and it’s ready to be produced. Then, we’ll work on Sage (ex- Incantations) (http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-horror/m-1189205485/) my only horror script.

Quoted from dresseme First off, I don't buy that Tom, now a priest, comes out of retirement as a cop.  Not only does he have no authority and would probably have been stripped of his badge, but it seems kind of cheesy.  I'm wondering, and I know you might think this is a stretch, but is it absolutely necessary that Tom be a priest?  It seems like the story would work just fine as a man wrestling with his inner demons working on this case.  The idea of him being a priest seems kind of superfluous, especially seeing as he doesn't really act like one.

I did some researches for one whole year to get everything the more accurate before writing and found some documentation about an ex-cop who turned priest. Not being a priest could turn to someone like Robert Langdon. And something I put very discreetly in the dialogues is the first time Laura saw Tom she called him « Father »…

Quoted from dresseme Second, the motivation that makes Tom take the case doesn't really work for me.  I understand he wants to see his daughter again, but Risi holding it over his head doesn't seem that believable.  I feel like, if Tom were really motivated to track down his daughter, he could.  I mean, he's a detective!  Or he could hire someone.  So Risi constantly holding this over his head seems weird.

Tom abandonned a long time ago the idea to see his daughter again. He explains it to Laura and tells her why. Tom toook as fate the fact that someone comes to him to offer him a second chance.

Quoted from dresseme (Oh, and side note, on page 25 they notice that something is missing from the dust in a safe.  Is there dust inside an air-tight safe?)

Mea Culpa. let’s say this safe is often open (LOL)

Quoted from dresseme Finally, I think you need to do a better job of making the audience not suspect Risi.  I suspected he was involved from the minute he was introduced.  I hate to use the word "cliche", but in these types of mysteries, 95% of the time it's the person who hired them.  You might want to either change this entirely or work on something with throwing the audience off.

The challenge was NOT to suspect or not Risi. Risi is not sympathetic from the start. Of course, I played along with the cliché. But it was a smoke to hide the fact who is really Laura. While people is busy to suspect Risi, they might not guess who she is really.

Quoted from dresseme You said you have someone interested in making this?  How's that going?

We’re about to write a second draft that certainly will start with details of Crucifixion and details every relic. One thing has already changed. We won’t talk anymore of foreskin but nail (easier to show :D)

Thanks again for that deep review, and glad you liked it anyway.
Michel 8)