The Silence of the Night by Michel J. Duthin - Short - A lonely woman marked by life. A man on the run. Why would they need to talk? 8 pages - pdf, format 8)

Nice for a 7 pager.

I was interested to see where it went. When it got to the major revelation of Jane’s nature, I admit my interest waned a little. It wasn’t a bad revelation, it’s just that I’m a bit burned out on her particular type of character.

I do think you did a good job of keeping it moving and keeping things interesting.

Not sure why you wrote night has fallen when the scene heading has night in it already.

Overall, it’s interesting and would be relatively cheap to produce.

Good luck with it. :)


Breanne

Overall I liked this Michel.

I loved the ending with the owl, it really made the rest of the story work. Up until that point I found the story to be a little dull.

For me the lack of tension and build towards Nick's death made it lack significance.

I would have liked to have seen more done with the "love" scene, tied into the flashbacks, maybe to bring in more conflict and tension for the two of them, leading to more significance in his death.

Nice first two pages, it drew me in.

I agree with Breanne! This would be fun to film.  :)


On a side note I'm new to the forums so hello everyone!  ;D

Some of you might remember, a few years ago, I wrote "Silent Blue Eyes" http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-short/m-1151549165/ (produced this year as "Silent Dark Eyes"). I took that script and tried to turn it to something completely different.

Michel 8)

The French version of the script has been selected for a national contest. Results will be on September 1st. Cross my finger. The winner will have his script filmed.....

Michel 8)

Hi there - yeah, I quite liked this - I think the above comments have validity: I get the feel of the whole thing, but I don't think that the writing gets the feel of it over quite right. I think it's clever that it's done in silence, and the revelation that Jane cannot speak does help to keep the interest going. I think that some of the petty areas that need mentioning will help to improve the story-skills - there's a little too much repeating a words - 'Nick' is used too often and in writing this is frowned upon - needs a little more story-telling imagination in the way that you manipulate and use words. I certainly agree that this could work very well in film, but it has to be remember that what it lacks (dialogue) has to be made up elsewhere (dramatisation), and the potential for this is written all over the script but not truly manifest in its current state. Really worth re-jigging to get the most out of it.

Michel,

I started reading this and remembered the old script right away.

I do believe I like this version better.

Good luck with the contest. Let us know what happens.

Cindy

first and foremost, congrats on the contest and best of luck.

overall, i found this one to be pretty good. i feel like your writing style was the strongest aspect of the script. everything flowed nicely and was easy to follow. i liked jane. her "handicap" made her naturally intriguing. i moaned a little bit when i reached the fang part (but that's not your fault, im just getting tired of the genre). i expected this to be a period piece but obviously its not. however it might add some more depth to the story. i found the flashbacks to be a bit disjointing but i always feel that way when reading scripts. on screen, it would probably flow much nicer.

overall a decent read. not genre shattering for me but i doubt that's what you intended to do in the first place.

Quoted from albinopenguin i expected this to be a period piece but obviously its not.

It could be a period piece. It all depends how the director feels it. I wrote this without any indication, opening the mind to any interpretation. I tended to express an "universal" and "timeless" atmosphere.... Hope it worked....

Michel 8)

In that regard, I definitely think it did. I initially imagined the script taking place in nazi germany. dont know why. I think your descriptors evoked it. as i continued reading, i altered my mental picture to a new england/woodsy type setting.

it's interesting to have a different point of view. I mean when I wrote that piece I visualized it almost in B/W, very inspired by German expressionism period (Murnau or Lang).