Saints Row by Greg Alvarado - Short - Billy Johnson has been given one last chance at freedom. As part of the governments new Juvenile program Saints Row, Billy will have no choice but to say out of trouble. But does he? 6 pages - rtf, format 8)

Hey,

I didn't like this.

Story wise I thought it was weak. It seemed pretty familiar, reminded me of Battle Royal. I didn't think you added anything that interesting to the mix. What you did have I didn't find that compelling. I wasn't invested enough in Billy to care about what happened to him. I felt like you beat me over the head with your theme.

Formating was ok. On the part where you use "continued:", I think the proper way to do it is to just have a new scene with the time being latter, but you should probably look it up.
Also, it seems like you dropped some words, or worded things poorly.

Another thing is a lot of letters mid-sentence were capitalized, I assume this is because of my browser, but you should look into using celtx(a free program), which can help with formatting and can generate pdfs(which I prefer).

So, I think this needs some work.

nice effort,

sheepwalker

I found this script to be a let down.  Your story, in itself, is a good one.  How far will the government go to control kids.  After all it is the government's responsibility to control teens and not parents, but I digress.

I found problems with the formatting.  You describe things in ways that can't be filmed.  One page one, you say that Billy feels a headache.  What exactly does that look like?  How does the camera record him feeling a headache?  That's how you describe things, in ways that the camera can record them.  Later on, you have Billy wonder if what Officer Ramirez says is true.  Again, how does the camera record that, instead of him staring off into space?

Your dialog was very on-the-nose.  Your characters talk like encyclopedia entries, telling us exactly what we need to know and nothing else.  People don't talk like that.

The whole story was rushed.  If this was spread out to a feature length you, you could set up the world that Billy lives in and show how horrible the government thinks things are.  In this script, you just made a statement.

Phil

You word things in a way that cant be filmed. Billy's headache, the wondering from the dr.,

and your dialogue reads like a lecture, too on the nose. I reccomend you stand outside or go somewhere where you can here people talking. Just listen to how people communicate with each other and i think the dialogue will get better for you.

Good effort,

Bryan.

I have to agree with previous posts here.

Your format needs tightening and you write things that can't possibly filmed.  The long and winded speech from Officer Ramirez wasn't great, I thought maybe a montage of the governments actions would be more interesting.

Also Billy asks his mother if this all a bluff then when at home his dad enters and says it's not a bluff, sounds a bit weird that he uses the same word as he wasn't there earlier.

Overall I thought this was good concept but missed the mark.