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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Short Scripts  /  Pull
Posted by: Don, June 9th, 2009, 8:49pm
Pull by Garrett Detrixhe (gdtree16) - Short, Drama - Four friends must decide what to do when an accident occurs. 23 pages - pdf, format 8)
Posted by: LC, June 10th, 2009, 9:28am; Reply: 1
Hi Garrett, few things I hope you will find constructive. First off, none of your characters are distinguishable from one another. All we get are their ages, and they all speak pretty much the same way. I had to keep reading back to discern which one was which. Differences in physical appearance and/or differences in "voice" are really needed.

Try writing descriptions/action without the "we see".

Lots of camera directions here - are you personally filming this? Your script is loaded with all manner of dolly shots/ angle on/reverse-angle/master-shot/ etc. I don't mind a few for visual effect but you should definitely cut this one: -

   "The camera (handheld) pulls back in
     a Reservoir Dogs style reveal
.

Sorry, but imo: no, no, no.
SPOILERS BELOW:


In your opening you've got "Smells like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana & "I Shot the Sheriff' by Bob Marley. Mmm, are you a director with a big-budget?Copyright specialists chime in here.

Now, onto the old "show" don't "tell" mantra. Using the scene with Vince as an example his suicide is OS right? And we just hear the gun-shot, so no need to tell us about it as well; just show the result i.e. his face blown off.

Similar examples:

"Vince could simply not bear the burden of being the one who shot Graham." & "Kent is very vulnerable".  
The actions of your characters show us these things.

Now as to your repeated slug-lines going back in time i.e.

INT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - DAY ? PREVIOUSLY
INT. PARTY - NIGHT -THREE WEEKS EARLIER ?
INT. KENT'S HOUSE - DAY - ONE MONTH BEFORE

If you're going to do it this way (but imo you really would only use this device in a feature-length) you need "supers". For a "short" incorporate flashbacks for your back-stories instead, and delete their long lead-ins. Go straight to those flashbacks "climactic points" i.e. in the Men's Bathroom, Roadside, etc. It'll quicken the pace and take us back to the present day tragedy which is your main action.

Your formatting needs work. Don't put BEAT in your action lines ? if you use it at all it should be under your dialogue. Watch out for passive verbs and also some dialogue appears in your descriptive lines: notably, "Pull" which is one of your character's lines.

As for your dialogue it needs refining & editing. Those big chunks of dialogue and exposition esp. in the middle & spec. on page 18 need major editing and revising in terms of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Example: page 18  
"Graham's lifeless body is laying (lying - watch tenses) right there under that blanket has drug me back into it."

"Who drug you out of a fucking pile of wreckage when you decided to get shit-faced and run (ran) yourself into a ditch, huh?"

Supposing that's a typo and you meant "dragged" - well, you still need to fix it grammatically.

Ok, now I've been quite critical here but I hope you'll see it as being constructive and not be discouraged, 'cause you've got something here. You've taken a familiar plot the old "cover-up of the accidental shooting/death etc.", but you have added some nice little touches of your own - and the final scene with "Dad" arriving home from war was nice. I didn't see that one coming.

I'd like to see a second draft.
P.S. One thing that also crossed my mind - there's not one supporting female cast-member in sight (apart from "Mum") . I don't think all of these young men are gay, are they? "Not that there's anything wrong with that".
Libby
Posted by: Ophelia, August 9th, 2009, 5:16am; Reply: 2
A few issues as I read.
Whats a lease road?  Not sure if that's a regional term, but I don't know it.  
LC already mentioned the camera directions and music, so I won't go into that.  
The flashback format of the script didn't really work for me.  I think part of the problem was that they were entirely focused on those quick events that were supposed to be really meaningful, but don't ever give us any sense of the characters or seem realistic.  
You kind of throw in the idea that one guy is the wimpy inexperienced one, the other is the poor tragic one (who's dragged himself out of a horrible life at the tender age of 18), the one who's looking out for everyone, and the secretly gay one.  But most of this isn't really backed up by anything more than one specific scene or a expositional bit of dialog.  These traits need to be explained and backed up throughout.  Like LC said, they all sound the same.
With some work it could be quite a good story, good luck with it.
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