The Adrenaline Suicide by Andrew Lightfoot - Short - A man takes the phrase "Jumping to your death" to a new height. 9 pages - doc, format 8)

Yep, yep, enjoyed this. Although why are there so many suicide shorts on this site? Jeez, can't people write shorts that end in a wedding, instead?! So much death... :)

SPOILERS

Jackson was funny, although just one of his bits of dialogue sounded wrong:

                           TIM
Well I’m sure there was a reason behind it.
                    
                        JACKSON
Stupidity is more likely the reason, the names Aron by the way but you can call me Jackson.

I'd change this to: "Yeah, she was fuckin' stupid! Name's Jackson, by the way." Or something. And the moment where he says, "God man," to Tim, might be better as "Man, what are you doing?" or something. Apart from that, I liked him. His simple question, "Was she boneable?" made me laugh, given the context.

Also, and this may be just because I'm a fool, but I completely didn't see the Siarra thing coming. You mentioned the suicide and then she appeared, but I completely didn't make the connnection. (Although question: if she's a ghost, how can Tim hand her the photo?) don't know if you perhaps overplayed the fact that she wasn't really there on the plane...not sure about that. But even so, when she appeared next to him in the air it did have an effect on me. So well done there. The 'do you wear what you die' in line - PLEASE cut it. I hate that. Everyone uses it whenever ghosts are about (e.g. in Ricky Gervais' Ghost Town). Tim's plummeting to oblivion, and he's asking about what she's wearing. And the 'eyes/soul' line I found a bit sickly. Maybe that's just me. (A little pracitcal note - how exactly would this be filmed? Capturing clean sound is always a problem even in normal settings, so how you'd have a recognisible conversation between two skydivers is beyond me. Although that's not really relevant to the SCRIPT.)

I actually nearly didn't bother to read the final scene, because as soon as I saw the beach setting I knew exactly what was coming. It's right that you end it that way, but it's not exactly original. I liked the final moment of the flash going off...but in a way I'd like an ending where we see Jackson looking on as people rush to the scene of the accident, some funny line from him ('Shit, not again!'), and Siarra in the background, who then walks away. It's just more satisfying than the very standard ending you currently have. They're even on the beach at sunset, for jeez' sake! But again, that's a personal taste.

Overall, I liked it. You refer to Jackson as a bully but he's actually my favourite character. Tim verges on wimpy, although Siarra is nice. I knew Tim would jump even before the script started (the title was a bit of a clue, to be honest), but that feeling of inevitability, of things moving towards a foregone conclusion, probably worked in your favour. Until the ending, that is. The 'funny line from Jackson' ending would be a very nice twist in my opinion, since people might be expecting the happy-beach-ending you currently have. The writing was generally good, although a few typos and strange moments:

PAGE 4: Tim: "No I'm not one of them." - might be better as "No, I'm not one of those."

PAGE 5: Siarra: "So is that why you're jumping?" - Is this line necessary? Seems to me to be a little TOO unsubtle.

PAGE 9: "...and disappears from..." - 'sight', not 'site'

PAGE 9: "He falls for just a bit longer when with a sickening loud CRACK Tim's body hits the ground." - This doesn't read right. I think you want BEFORE instead of WHEN, sickeningLY loud, and are you are actually intending for this to be shown? If not, perhaps something like, "He falls for a few more seconds, the ground rushing up to meet him, the wind in his ears becoming a roar, until a moment before impact - " and then the scene change. I think you want a SMASH CUT to black, not a FADE. Although I know scene transitions aren't really our business...

PAGE 10: The beach description is just a bit weird for me. "Evening sun losing its lighting power" is a strange line. And the "heavy silence"...it's all a bit ominous, which I don't think was your intention. How about a gentle light from the evening sun and a peaceful, tranquil silence? This is heaven, right? And the trees with all sorts of fruit...where are they? The white dresses might be a bit much. And finally, you need an apostrophe on "it's Tim."

Thanks, I enjoyed it!

Jon

Thanks Jonnyboy for taking the time to read this!

Sorry for the typos and the wierd descriptions in the ending.

I like your opinions on Jackson's dialogue and will definitly take them into consideration.

" How can Tim hand her the photo?" Good question, I'd like to say just because but that will be taking the easy way out. I wanted her to seem like just another skydiver. I didn't want the photo falling through her hand then have her explain why it did that, specially after we hear about girl dying in that program a couple of years ago.

" How exactly will this be filmed" Well even though this wasn't meant to be filmed I guess I'd have really sad classical music  playing softly as he falls from the plane in to the blue sky, eveything is silent. Tim's body is above is the sunlight breaking over his shoulder creating sun spots as he passes us on his way down.. When Siarra approaches on the side the music fades and instead of a defeaning blast of wind there will be a gentle whistling as if God wanted these two to have a conversation they could actually hear.

I like your opinion about the ending too, I just wanted to show Tim getting back together and have a sort of happy ending to a script involving suicide. Also I'm going to chnage Tim's body hitting the ground.


I wanted the ending to be a strange as possible to give the feeling that they are in a completely different world but I guess I screwed that up haha. Hmm maybe I can keep this and when that camera flash emits I can cut to EXT. LANDING ZONE-DAY and have Jackson realize that the new friend he made didn't deploy the chute.

Thanks again for the read! If you want a read on anything just ask.

it was a nice enjoyable little script. A good idea. Well written in most parts except for one or two typos. Your a good script writer.

Good Luck in the future,

Xavier

Thanks for that great comment Xavier!

If there is anything you have that can use a read just ask.



Andrew.

BIG BAD SPOILER!!!


I really enjoyed this. Very imagintive   The skydiver freefalling and the ghost skydiver just drops in besdie him is brilliant took me by suprise and made me smile with delight at how novel it is.

The writing itself needs a bit of work and seemed very dull and felt amerturish.

"Further down the aisle Jackson is seated. Soon spots Tim, gets up, and walks over to him".

"Tim stares out in thought. A smile begins to form on his face, growing with time."

You have to remember that script is for the visual medium of film so you should only write what you can see on screen. writing about adstract things is a no no.

"Time seems to slow dramatically, seconds feel like hours".

no no.

Just keep this in mind when you write. Oh and read other scripts to see how tight creative writing should look. Do this and I confident that after you write a few scripts you really be writing just as good as the best of them.

But all in all I loved the idea for this script, very cool.  

Thanks tonkatough for the read & review. Glad you like the idea and sorry for the amerturish writing.


Andrew,

I thought this was kinda cool, imaginative definetly.

The writing however, and i agree with someone who stated it before, was... amerturish. However that can easily be improved upon. Reading other people's work
is a great way to see what you can improve on.

Reading on how to time sequences, how to capture reactions, ect.

Just keep the attitude that this is something you want. You have nice ideas, now just find the time to improve details.

"Time seems to slow dramatically, seconds feel like hours".

This line stood out light and beyond all the others. As A BIG no-no.

I say nice job with the piece though.

Also i liked your title.lol

Thanks for the read BryMo

I'm glad you like the idea and I agree that the actual writing can be improved.  


If there's anything that you want a read on then feel free to ask me


Andrew,

So, after thoroughly body-slamming "Golden Glass Inn" to the point that you now want to take it down, I decided to give something else a shot.  Lucky you haha.

I am pleased to report that this is a much more solid effort.  I think the title and logline might give away too much of the story.  It would be better if Tim's plans were revealed as a surprise as opposed to something we knew up front.  I would not use the word "suicide" anywhere if it were me.

You can drop hints at what Tim is thinking, but to me, I think the first time we should learn of Tim’s suicide plans are when he meets Siarra beside him falling through the air. The true nature of her character is a nice reveal that I did not anticipate even though I knew, generally, where the story was going.

You do have a few patches of clunky dialogue along the way.  For example, when Siarra says, "Your eyes aren't able to see what your soul does" is kind of a "huh?" line that I still do not understand.  And why bother having Jackson introduce himself as Aaron at all?  An unnecessary detail, for sure.

For the sake of simplicity, I think I would tone down Jackson a bit and then combine the characters of Jackson and the Jump Leader into a single character.  I would also make most of the characters experienced jumpers, as new jumpers are always strapped to experienced jumpers, and you undermine the credibility of the story a bit by not including this detail.  But if everybody is an experienced jumper, problem solved.

I would also like to see Tom's demise described a bit better, with more than a sound effect.  Stretch it out a bit more.  What is he heading towards?  Where will he land?  It is one of the key payoffs for this story and you just kind of gloss over it with a single sentence.

Also (as with "Glass Inn"), you need to start telegraphing the end of the script a bit better.  If the script ends with a photographic FLASH, then let us know.  Fade Out or The End or something.  It is a very minor point, but it is also a little disconcerting to believe the story will continue then scroll to find only another blank page.  Put some kind of a period at the end of your scripts, you know?  And look into PDF while you are at it.

Nice script, clever story.  Hope some of these comments help you out.  

Thanks for giving me a second chance Bert  :)


All your comments have helped me a lot. Thank you