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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Drama Scripts  /  Where In The World Is Matthew Redstone?
Posted by: Don, June 19th, 2010, 12:32pm
Where In The World Is Matthew Redstone? by Johnny Mann - Drama - Imagine walking around not knowing your true identity for twenty-five years due to a concussion from a trucking accident. 120 pages - pdf, format 8)
Posted by: jackx, June 26th, 2010, 1:02pm; Reply: 1
Hmmm, reads like if Jason Bourne woke up with a bank account implanted in his hip only to learn that he was a absentee father with a trucking job.  And then decided to be homeless for awhile.

fill out the title page.
How do we know he's a self employed trucker?  Unfilmable.
You want to superimpose the words:  A father/son moment?  Really?
"It pains me to be gone so much..."  Who talks like that?
"The truck EXPLODES into a FIERY, FLAMING, FIREBALL."  As opposed to a fireball of the non fiery and/or flaming variety?

Read maybe twenty pages in.  Some serious issues.  

First, The concept of unfilmables:  Since this is basically a blueprint for what the camera will be shooting, you should not include anything that the camera does not see.  This means any and all background on the characters that is not shown.  "He owns a company, employs such and such drivers..."  Also intentions: "two thugs follow him intending to rob him"  Bad screenwriting, and entirely unnecessary since shortly after they jump him.  Just stay in the moment and let it happen as the audience sees it on screen.

Second, dialogue:  Needs serious work.  Two much exposition, such as when they talk about the dead mom.  It all feels very forced as you try to convey the two's history.  Doesnt sound believable in the least.  Also unnecessary.  If you show a father and son alone for awhile, doing what they do, the audience will feel the lack of a mother and wonder where she is.  Especially if its mentioned that the kid stays with the uncle.
Also the kid himself barely has one believable line.  He doesnt talk his age, or really any age.  "Find my daddy, officer, I dont want to grow up alone"  Sure, he might feel that, but what kid would ever say that, in those words?

From what I read this could be chopped down at least to one hundred pages just by cutting out unfilmables and unnecessary dialogue.

Seems like an interesting story idea, good luck with it.
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