Wheelchair Indemnity by Alanna Carlson - Short, Horror - no logline - pdf, format 8)

Hmmm..no logline. And obviously one of the rejected OWC that was allowed back in (teens; additional location are the violators). At first I was a little worried due to the first page errors (a fe 'ings' here and there, some dialog starts off with non-caps ("goddammit") but after these hangups I got into this a bit. It's not great, but the ending cliffhanger of sorts suggests that the OWC did in fact help you get things going - this is a good little teaser for a full length script or a longer short.

Despite the cloggy start, it gets going, and I didn't mind it at all. Not too bad.
However, it's the second I've read where, well, in that case, a guy had what appeared to be the name of a girl In yours, a girl's name is Tristan. In both, I foundmyself looking around to see who's who. On p5 a crow spooks her, but Tristan is 'she' and 'her'. It's a new scene (you have a brief one with Calvin and  David before you return to the room) so it should read "A crow flies out of the closet, into Tristan's face". Then you can get to the She's and her's. Also the rule applies with the next scene 'They head back to the car'. They meaning David and Tristan (who were in the previous scene) but you include Calvin. I know that may seem really nitpicky, but I want to be more clear on who is where. ("They" is fine in the next scene when they serch the house for the keys, "they" being clearly understood)

Not a bad effort though. Could turn out to be something here.

But a logline! Alannah--give it a go and keep writing!

-DjS

Congrats on completing an OWC script, Alanna, and congrats that Don posted it, as it misses on so many of the requirements.

I stopped reading after page 4, as it just wasn't working for me in any way.  Lots of mistakes.  Horrible dialogue.

Just didn't cut it. Sorry.

Strange title.

The first five pages could be cut down, bit too heavy on the dialogue. I liked the face at the window. Always a freaky thing.

I found the pace improved after p5.

"Let's get out of here!" is a bit too cliched in film. Another line would have worked much better.

I'd say overall it has some good ideas, a fairly nice twist and some good imagery. Needs a proper polishing and tidying though.

Keep at it.

R xo

Alanna,

Thanks for the post.
I dug the corpses helping out in their won special way.
Other than that I kinda felt like this was played for laughs?
I didn't really get into the story much, but I understood it for the most part.
The formatting and dialog make this a tough read.
Perhaps you should consider looking over some other scripts here.
Good luck with your future material.

Regards,
E.D.

I'd say read some scripts... Read "some" of the better formating books and adhere to the challenge better.  This missed a lot of marks.  And that isn't to say I'm beating my chest on any mountain and saying what I've done is ace, but you need proper pace, structure and format.  Nothing here worked really.  I mean, you have structure don't get me wrong.  This looks like a screenplay by sight... But it's the little things.  "Sitting" instead of "Sits" and so forth and so on.  So, yeah, even the story is lackluster by comparison to others.  It doesn't seem rushed, just not versed enough.

Thanks all for the helpful comments! This was my first screen write, so hopefully it'll go better next time.

1 - Story: Overtly simplistic.
2 - Filmable & Budget: Fairly simple to film, only the roof caving in and floor collasing parts jack up the expenses.
3 - Horror & Audience: This is a pretty thin ghost story. PG, with caveats, audience. Determining the audience gets complicated: The overall love triangle is mature but the players are young adult, which are not unaware of gunplay but parents aren't too wild about demonstrating that cultural value to them. The dialog is on-the-nose enough for young adult broadcast TV, but again, the gunplay makes that difficult. The absence of blood, guts and gore with the inclusion of tidy corpses are great for young adult, but I don't know how you could get the emotional depth the gun brings to the scenario without it. The second story crushing Calvin and somehow giving back his ability to walk thus revenge is... needs a better solution. The initial bedroom scene kinda sorta violates the crireria, but many other people included vehicles which also were not included in the criteria, no one seemed too concerned about that, so I'm willing to forgive. Otherwise, date/cast/wheelchair/"Dark and stormy night" theme/no "Halloween" - check.
4 - Technicals & Format: "-ing"s and typos galore. Some of the descriptions are wonky.
5 - Title & Logline: Title has no corrolation with the story. Logline is a little brief. :)
General Comments:
A - Seriously - it's the gun that complicates this story. Either mature the characters, their dialog and behavior (not easy) or ditch the gun and have Calvin use the ghosts to exact revenge. This is like 4/5 Goosebumps material. Adults don't wanna watch this.
B - Have more horror more sooner, not as some "tack on" element.
C - Since names are almost always arbitrary, don't pick "non-gender specific" names (Tracy/Pat/Kelly/Tristan) and don't pick 'em all sounding near the same.
D - When all the characters are both of the same age and cultural demographic it's VERY difficult to have them all not speak alike to distinguish their personalities by their dialog - without making them polarized cliches. Not that I have a solution, just pointing out the situation.