Hidden by Hector Camile Loius Daumerie - Short, Drama - A secret is revealed after the death of Donna Simpson. - rtf, format 8)

This one was rather boring. Nothing exciting.

Furthermore, The formatting is poor. This is no Courier-12. Too much CAPITAL LETTERS. Even in the dialogs. It looks like a (very) bad episod from CSI

I hate camera directions in scripts, maybe that's why I found this so hard to read. Format was a major issue that needs to be fixed.

As for the story, it was pretty standard. I was expecting something bigger, with a better twist but it was not to be. I think having one of the daughters find evidence that their father was the killer just before the police arrive will make this a whole lot more exciting than it currently is.

I agree with Michel. Bad formatting, and it did remind me of a CSI episode, but written poorly and not too much happened. What really made me laugh, though, was how dumb Danny was to take his gun out of it's holster and point it at his head. Even people with great gun experience know not to point guns at other people or themselves (except when holding someone at gunpoint for a specific reason), especially with the magazine still inside. Something could have happened, and he'd either put a bullet in his brain, or in Beryk's.

What's strange is that we were never introduced to anyone part of the family before the detective scene, so we had no idea what had happened until Danny explained. I think it would have been better if you had a different introduction, such as announcing Donna's death, and show shots of Mr. Simpson and his kids crying or something, something to tell us that Donna died and that they're going to get started on figuring out what happened. The beginning of this script came out of nowhere, really.

The descriptions were written incorrectly at some points, using "we see's" and "us" and telling us rather than showing us (i.e."Danny rubs his chin, something he does when he's thinking." To show us, have him do it a lot, especially when we know that he's contemplating about something.)

Sean

Meeting the competition criteria: You have the drama and the secret. However, the way I see it, a backyard BBQ isn't a family picnic - 6/10
Characters: not really much in the way of characterisation. I know this is just 9 pages, but even so, there's nothing to these people beyond their names - 4/10
Dialogue: while it sounds acceptably authentic, there are quite a few cliches in this. I just never believed in the tension, I'm afraid - 5/10
Story: not really my cup of tea, I'm afraid. You don't have any sort of definite resolution. The detectives come across as pretty inept, taking ages to piece together simple clues - 5/10
Writing/format: the format isn't great. No separate title page, too much capitalisation in action lines. 'We's everywhere. You're also guilty of telling rather than showing a couple of times - 4/10

TOTAL: 25/50

Yeah, I agree...with everybody here.  Poorly written, tons of passive verbiage, poorly formatted, slow, dull, boring, and although it tried to be realistic with all the particle stuff, it came off as extremely juvenile, and very unrealistic.

Sorry, but no go here.

Get yourself some screenwriting software.  It will help you a lot.  I agree with Sean, the scene with the detective pointing the gun at his head was unintentionally hilarious.  I believe you also said that Danny was studying the path of the bullets into the woman's skull.  That bullets, plural.  If she got shot in the face more than once, does it really take a detective to figure out it wasn't a suicide?

Never use directions like "we see" or "we keep moving."

Very strange, weak ending.  If the cops already had the gunpowder evidence from the dad's hand, they would have had enough evidence to arrest him on the spot, or at least have a warrant when they showed up at the door.

It's true, you had only a few days to write this.  But you needed to make the "Mystery" a bit more complex.

I'm guessing this is one of your first attempts to write a script and if so it's not bad.

The format is a bit off and while a free screenplay software like CeltX or an expensive one like Final Draft will fix that, it's easy enough to do in MSWord. Here are the guidelines to follow when formatting a screenplay: http://www.simplyscripts.com/WR_format.html

As for the story itself, the big problems were that the characters were under-developed and there was a lot of telling rather than showing. Usually it takes awhile to develop characters and you sure had a lot for such a short script. Try removing all but one or two of the kids since they didn't really add anything to the story. Also, you have two cops, an asian detective and a captain? I think you could just as easily get by with just the two cops that show up at the house and get across the same information in the beginning. That way you can focus on the other characters and giving them more distinct personalities and voices.

Also, the showing rather than telling is key. The script may be an okay read but if you imagine the whole thing as a film, it'd just be a bunch of people telling a bunch of other people what happened in regards to the murder. This needs more action... have the cops tear through the house for evidence, the dad resisting arrest, the kids at first siding with their dad but then helping the cop make sure he doesn't escape.

Again, not a bad attempt but it's ultimately a bland read and with practice I'm sure you'll get better. Read lots of scripts, write lots of scripts, good luck!

I think a story like this maybe too big for a short? Especially one that you only have a week to write. The format was off, and yes the story didn't imo work. But the writing itself, the descriptives I thought were good. One thing that I think you should avoid in the future is naming characters by race.  

Here's where I started. The bottom of the list trying to help the poor saps that got pushed off the portal.

So where to start. Well, welcome to the site. I can see that you used this exercise to get your feet wet, and it's not a bad effort for jumping in. A lot of people have tagged the obvious issues when it comes to formatting. You don't need software, just a little instruction and experience on making word sing for you. I usually write in Word myself, and my format turns out just fine because I know how. Special software only helps you with tabs and margins. Have a look at this page on format, and you'll be that much better.

Looking past the format, you've also got to use your spell check. Capatin was used a couple of times, which a spell check would have tagged. Proofread your work a couple of times looking for problem words just as you're instead of your. Now, you're in good company with mistakes like that, but it still looks sloppy.

Let's talk story. Or rather, some plausibilities. There's an awful lot of bickering for a post death picnic (the concept is weird in and of itself). And someone attacks a detective after he delivers the shocker of dad killed mom? Weird as well. Now, I'm no expert on detective work, but having seen more than one episode of cop shows like this, I can't see the detectives letting that much spill to the suspect and his family. They tell him they need him for questioning and say nothing else.

Now, how would you do it better with such a low page count? Well, either start at a different point in the story or have dad react to their presence and he could spill his own guts about it. They already knew, so they would only prod him with questions, but not state anything. If they give him all the information, that's leading the accused and probably wouldn't hold up in court. You have to let the guilty party implicate themselves.

Another thing that didn't work at all was Danny's "demonstration" of how people kill themselves. No one (and I mean NO ONE) in their right mind would EVER place a loaded weapon to their temple or in their mouth to show how a person would commit suicide. NEVER. Sure, there's a safety, but those things fail. Sure, he wouldn't touch the trigger, but that doesn't guarantee that an earthquake wouldn't jar the world and set it off. One could go crazy with ways that a gun could accidentally discharge, and someone with training on weapons would have some ideas of their own and never do this. That one move took me completely out because it was beyond unbelievable.

Oh, and why the five minutes to the conference room? This is movieland. Everything happens NOW. "Conference room. Now."

So, again, welcome to the site, and best of luck in future works.

Yeah, I appreciate the effort, but this one really didn't work for me.  I had a bit of a problem with the evidence meeting, when Danny asks him "so who did it?".  If I were the Captain, I'd be like "isn't that why we hired you?".

Also, during the picnic, when he asks the kids whats wrong.  " I don't know, mom just took two bullets to the face.  BUt the corns great!"

As was said, you need to work on your formatting, and some software may help you there.  

This one didn't quite work, but it was a good effort, and it's difficult to write something polished in a week.  Keep working at it.

If this was your first script, I don’t think this was so bad. I think your just starting to get the idea on how a story works and from what other people here are saying, you now know what to change for future stories.

More action, less talking heads. And I’d suggest having a sense of realism, because this one wasn’t so realistic. At all.

Again, I don’t think it was horrible at all. My only suggestion is to read, write, and review! That’s really the only way to truly learn in my opinion.