Moving On by Isaac Kiener - Short, Comedy - Mike, his sister, and his new girlfriend frantically search for his son, Jake, after he runs away from home. 16 pages - pdf, format 8)

Thanks, Don. This is my first attempt at what we'll call drama. It's the end of a longer piece so some thing will seem to come out of nowhere. It's pretty sappy, so get some tissues.

-RH

No offense but I feel like your title page is a little under-written. :-/


Yes please tell me that this was the end of a much bigger piece 'cause if it's not then my god it was forced! It really doesn't work as a  short. The ending scene with the father talking to the dead mother just comes on to suddenly is all. Just needs a little bit of tweeaking. Otherwise the story is quite good! Lots of potential.

You format on the other hand needs serious work. First off never use beat. Write what the character is doing in stead. You grammar is good but your headliners were off at places which I wont point ouit 'cause it's over 12 o'clock at night and I feel like fainting. I'll leave it up to the other guys.

Good job.

Hey Isaac,

Just finished your short.

The first part kinda made me laugh cause I just got back from a trip and spent 3 hrs just standing in line to get my boarding pass, then another hour in the security line up, so I kinda know how these people feel...LOL

I thought Jake's dad was kind of a jerk to is son, not in what he did, but the way he spoke to him about not caring if they went or not, seamed kind of mean.

On page 6 you have "Mike, Lindsay, and Mel separately knock on neighbor's doors asking if they've seen jake.  After 6-8 such clips they converge...."

I think it would be better if you showed it instead.

The fact that Mike thinks he would be arrested for child neglect because his son ran away feels kind of false.

I saw the ending coming, I had a feeling it would end up at the cemetery

I think there is a little to much dialogue with mike talking to his wife, maybe cut that down a bit.

I think Jake changes to quickly in the end, instead of him doing a 180 it should be a little more gradual.

In the end it was a nice story.  I could relate to Jake in some ways.  I was 10 when my dad died so I know what it's like when your other parent starts dating again, it's not an easy thing, especially at such a young age.

So I think if you trim it a bit it would work better, and make a few changes in the way these characters act as well.

Nice work :)

Thank you for your posts. What did you guys think of the interplay of the public buses and the 3 adults? Was there any drama in the situation, before they get to the cemetary? Thanks again for your reviews.

RH

SPOILERS!! I have not viewed any of the above comments.

This was a nice little short. Funny, and one part made me really laugh out loud. Mel's line, "Oh my God, he's dead?!"

There were a few spelling errors and some missing punctuation endings, and there were parts where your descriptions were sounding like you were telling us what was happening. Such as:

Quoted Text After 6-8 such clips they converge in the middle of the street.

Quoted Text I suppose we could go with Casablanca.

Also, I saw some "We sees" in there. That's a no-no.

Some of the dialogue wasn't the best or not that believable and I feel that in some parts the characters weren't rounded out completely.

But the ending was good and I enjoyed this little short. Just work on it some more and maybe you could even try and expand it just a bit more.

Sean

Thanks Sean. The reason the descriptions are so choppy is that it was for a class and these pages were basically my final assignment. It was right in the middle of all my other finals, so I didn't get to work on it as much as I wanted to. Anywho, thanks for the review. I may repost it one day.

-RH

Quoted from Alfred Hitchcock You format on the other hand needs serious work. First off never use beat. Write what the character is doing in stead. You grammar is good but your headliners were off at places

.

Dan, stop telling people not to use beat.  It's a perfectly acceptable formatting term.

Isaac, you biggest problem wityh this script is that it was rushed.  This story could easily be fleshed out to feature length and probably should.  You dove straight into the conflict of the piece and then went straight to the resolution.  There was hardly any character development as a result of this.

Cut back on the scene headers.  When writing spec scripts, you only use them when you cut from one scene to a different scene.  You don't need individual headers when a character goes from one room to another.

On page 5, you wrote:

They watch some classic movie. I suppose we could go with Casablanca.

Don't ever write anything along the lines of 'I suppose we could go with...'  It catches the reader off guard and pulls him out of the image you created.  In this case, it doesn't even matter what movie they're watching.  Doing what you did was a big distraction.

Write only what the audience can see or hear.  And only what's important.


Phil

Funny, you guys tell me to stop using it but... :-/

He can use it if he wants, just saying it's better not to.

I don't recall telling people not to use it, unless it's being used incorrectly.

BTW, Isaac, you're using it incorrectly.

(beat) is used to show a pause in a conversation before a person talks.  See below:


        FATHER
Bobby, your dog is dead.

        BOBBY
   (beat)
My dog?


When placing a pause in the middle of someone's dialogue, use an...ellipsis.  Those three peroids are...the ellipsis.


Phil