After Image by Michael Cornetto - Short, Thriller - Every one of his photographs focuses on the subject of his guilt. There is only one way he can appease it. 6 pages - pdf, format 8)

Michael,

Good crisp writing as always. I love your dialogue, more is said with less.

I'm sorry though, I just don't get it. Ariel dissapearing from the photos at the end made me think she never existed. If thats the case, I can't decypher this. Is she a demon who shows up in his photos only? The flashback of her going out the window made no sense to me after that.

I read it twice and digested it for about twenty minutes. Still don't get who she was.

It was a fun ride, well executed. I just missed the pay off. Maybe a PM on that since I'm the first to post.

James

Some little things that stood out to me:

Behind him, almost invisible in the distance, a defiant young woman ARIEL
dares us to come closer......seems an oxymoron to me...she's both invisible but daring us to come closer? The daring part makes her seem active and highly visible.


"a manor you'd obey"...should be "manner...unless his house is particularly assertive.

"Joseph rubs his face to wake up then he hurries to the
enlarger. He zooms past the old man".

This confused me a bit because I thought the old man was in the picture with Ariel..are they actually pictures hanging up..or is he really there?

"Joseph runs after the boys but they are too fast for him.
The boys tear up the photo. Fragments from the torn photo
pelt Joseph as he runs.
Joseph stops. He looks down. Ariel’s eye stares out from the
sidewalk, a fragment. Other fragments rain down around it."

Lovely little scene.

Overall: Nice, haunting atmosphere with a fitting noir feel.

Maybe you could have Candy say It's over one more time to make the point a bit more...Eg "Ok, if you say it's over, it's over". First time I read it the emphasis seemed entirely different to the way Ariel would have said it, so it didn't quite seem to fit. Maybe just me, but worth a look at.

I also thought that Candy took up too much of the script...she's not the important thing here...I'd try and condense her a little.

The violence for some reason threw me out of the script a little bit...but I'm not sure if that was a bad thing, maybe just because I'd got used to the flow.

Final thing was a somewhat ineffable feeling that we'd not seen enough of Ariel's haunting presence, on the street, or in photos to really make the final image pop.

I like the final image a lot by the way.

Good stuff...enjoyable and atmospheric.

I think I put the wrong version of this up (because of that manor error - I definitely corrected that).   So I'll look for a later version when I get home from work and update it.  This is definitely close because I did read it before I posted it and It might only be that the manor error was not corrected.  

Thanks for reading. But I think anyone else should hold off until I can check the version.  I'll let you know when it's changed.

Ok. Correct version of this script is posted.

Hey Michael,

The title is perfect for this one. The story was a bit of a struggle to piece together but I liked it, esp the ending. The confusion I felt was similar to that of Joseph. Kudosl

Gary

Michael...I preferred you leaving Ariel's reasons for leaving him out of it...it was more powerful.

The explanation in this one is unncessary IMHO.

Michael,

Your story is replete with visual reversals and "double talk" imagery.
As an enthusiastic amateur photographer, things like that get me creatively erect. :P
Given the etymology of Ariel, I saw the conclusion coming.
But that's works just fine, I dig the inevitability of it all.
I like watching a visual mind unravel like this, and it moves along well.
The flashback did zilch for me, this nasty nugget didn't need it.
Fine work, Michael.

Regards,
E.D.

Thanks for the reads and comments, in the case of Rick the second read.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films Michael...I preferred you leaving Ariel's reasons for leaving him out of it...it was more powerful. The explanation in this one is unncessary IMHO.

That's what I get for listening to comments.  The draft you read earlier was the first draft.  This is like the fifth - after comments were incorporated.  

Quoted from Electric Dreamer The flashback did zilch for me, this nasty nugget didn't need it.

Again. See above.

This is more likely to get rewritten than Lady of the Night.   So comments are truly appreciated.  

Hi Michael.

I thought this was very good. Your descriptions, crisp direct dialogue, the whole mysterious feel of the piece...all excellent.

The sidewalk scene was particularly clever and would look great on film.

I actually felt a tad sorry for Candy, a working girl doing all she can to make a buck, clever with words...maybe a little too clever as she uttered the two words that cobbled the whole thing together for me...'It's over'. I enjoyed that simple mechanic a lot!

I can imagine any guy reading this, who's fallen for a girl, then had her dump him for someone else, relating to this. It certainly evoked some repressed memories for me.

Lastly, I was happy with the uncertainty of the ending. Is Ariel  a figment of Joseph's imagination? Is he locked in some form of Freudian trauma?

Made me think...good job!

Best

Martin.

Hey Michael,

I liked a lot of the descriptions you put into this story. This story has a lot of visual flair. The dialogue for the most part was sparse when needed and never droned on. I did like the final shot as well; leaving us with an ambigious ending. I had to read the script twice as the jumps between the present and past thre me off and seemed a bit jarring to me at first.

The biggest qualm I had was with Candy. She seemed very unnecessary and to me was an annoying character. Her dialogue fell flat to me with the usages of "Sugar" and referring to herself in the third person. I understand those were some of her character traits, but she was a character that I couldn't wait to exit the story for good.

Overall, though, this was a pretty good read. Good job.

Rob

Thanks Martin and Rob for reading and commenting.  

Not sure why so many people feel Candy is unnecessary, she's a really important character and she establishes a lot of what going on for Joseph.  I think you have to assume a southern accent for Candy.  But for the sugar thing, it's an act, part of her job.  Candy's good at her job.  

I read this last night while working on my own painstaking script.  I really liked the imagery.  Photos are/can be creepy.  You wrote a very distinct, albeit short, short that really stood out to me.  It was offbeat enough to miss twilight zone but land somewhere inbetween tales from the darkside or monsters.  Good work here.

Hey Michael.

I'm with you 100% on Candy!

Martin.

Michael,

It's just how the character came off to me, personally. You made this character clear and gave her a specific personality to differentiate herself from the other characters. Just myself, I didn't like how she came off in the story. Candy is certainly good at her job, guess I would be passing her up.

Again though, story was good with some great visuals.

Rob

I thought this one had some interesting motifs, namely the use of photographs, and I think the end with the wife blowing a kiss and blowing out the windows was an inspired piece of surreal imagery. I also don't think Candy was unnecessary. I think some people get carried away with scripts being to the point. With the exception of the name Candy being one of the biggest cliches in the book, I think she did bring out some interesting facets of the character and if not, at least some interesting luridness out of the story as opposed to uninteresting luridness which is rampant amongst scripts.

The story itself was pretty tired. Someone here once put up a short list of most overused ideas for short scripts and come to think of it, a guy dealing with the loss of his dead wife in one way or another is definitely one of them. Now I do think you did a number of different things with the formula but maybe a few numbers too short of transcending it.

I like your writing style a lot. It's your own and very much distinct. The story, not so much. I suppose I enjoyed it regardless so good job with this one.