Operation Family Tree by Ken Barber - Drama - An unlikely group of Family & friends come together to grow marijuana when an unexpected bust by the DEA help solidify their destiny. 152 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hello Ken, decided to give this script a read.

The loglie is nice and short, but I think it could be a bit more engaging than it is now. I'll see how the actual story is.

Cut the "Operation Family Tree" from the top of page one. The only time this should appear is on your cover page.

Couple of problems with the first 2 pages, the first being the huge chunks of dialogue you have. You should either trim them down or cut them up because they can easily cause a reader to lose interest quick. Second problem is the lack of descriptions or action at all. You should describe the anchor, reporter, and especially the sheriff since I take it he'll be involved in the story later on. It's better to describe them as they show up. Give them an age too.

Don't need to tell us that the scene begins, as soon as you type down the scene heading it already started. Action should be no longer than 4 lines, trim them down or spead them up.

Should give us an idea of where we are in the next two scenes. For example...

INT. KEN'S HOUSE - BEDROOM - DAY

...just to be more specific.

Darlene and Ken should both be capitalized. All characters when they first appear in action for the first time should be in all caps.

Prime moment to tell us a little bit about Ken when he gets out of bed. What does he look like? is he fat? thin? clean shaven, or tattoed? They way you use action is kind of plain in some parts too. For example you can say...

The alarm blares, Ken, a mo-hawked physically fit man smacks blindly around for the snooze button. Fed up with missing he grabs the cord and pulls. The alarm goes dead.

I think the guy with the battering ram is only supposed to knock in the door not run in. Not serious but just a thought.

Dialogue is placed underneath a wryly, like so....

                    DEA AGENT
        (In a loud intimidating voice)
Sit down now and place your hands
behind your back.

"Camera pans room where officers are searching"

Be a lot better just to put a scene heading in here.


"Their granddaughter stays with them often. This is her room"

Cut this, only write what we can see and hear. Also this is why you need to tell us the age, how are we supposed to know he is a grandfather?

"He had his nose in the bag. Then he reached in and grabbed a handful of
buds."
"Nothing was said for several seconds."

Write in present tense, not past.

I think that whole "scene quickly joins" thing on the right side would be better as a montage. It would save a lot of time and space. For example

MONTAGE - DEA agents conducting house raids

-- Matt's house - agents smash the door in then flood inside.
-- Kevin and Cindy's house - the couple wakes up to find guns pointed at them.
-- Rick's house - A terrified Rick is chased up the steps by the agents, the opening of his robe shows that's all he has on.
(for all of the people)
then end with either BACK TO SCENE or END MONTAGE flush to the left side.

and then do the same for the other moments.

That page long dialogue on page 20 did it for me. You need to slim a lot of parts down in here, specially all of the house raids keep the number of people low so you can keep the story flowing smoothly. Right now it feels sluggish to me.

and it's spelt through not thru.

I will say though that I like the concpet of the story, just write lean, cut out the camera stuff, the novel writer's moments "The last few hours have been a
stressful ordeal for Ken & Darlene and now the preliminary
steps have been completed" for example, leave out the scene opens, and shorten the dialogue in places. Do all of these and I'm sure you will get more readers looking at this.



Andrew,

Thanks for the review. Changes are in progress.

Regards,

Ken