Vengence by Gerry Satrapa (gerrybuilt) - Short, Drama - A young man begins to feel the presence of a Vengence Stalker...  - pdf, format 8)

Hey Gerry,

You're missing a title page. The dialogue seems forced and unrealistic. There are some errors in formatting and some spelling errors that need to be fixed.

Those errors aside, I don't get it. Sam's vengeance (your title is misspelled) on the guy who killed his family in an accident was to key his car, give him a flat tire, put trash on his lawn, and throw eggs at his car? It just doesn't really make sense and is pretty weak vengeance.

Personally, I didn't care fot his at all. Maybe others will have a different point of view.

Good luck

Hi Gerry seen you post on the site a number of times, and you have give some confident reviews & raised some interesting points, so I thought I check this out.

I'm thinking that this is probably a fairly early script - you've got a lot of the basics, but I think some refining might be needed.

Overall the story is there - I'm not saying that the story is great, but the principal structure is outlined - there's some intrigue, cause, effect, motivation and so on.

Mehdoh's pointed out that the vengeance itself is doesn't sit neatly with the cause - so maybe that's something to look out for in the future.

Whilst your take on the story is fairly sound - there's very little to be said of the characters. The script is very short, and there's probably a little room to give the characters a bit of 'body' - something that we can relate to - maybe Jack could have a buddy or a girlfriend - a relationship that is collapsing, so that this is all happening on top of that - this would enable you to give Jack (and/or friend) some dialogue so that we could see what kind of character he is.

On the formatting & stuff - there were some minors here and there that could easily be tidied up:

## JACK (20s, clean and tidy; trousers, shirt and tie)
-- could easily be JACK (25), smart suit. - but maybe also go for a little more physical description so that there's a visual in the reader's mind.

## brief case in one hand, shopping bag in the other.
-- This changes to satchel, later on, so one for consistency.

## In the shadows; the figure of Sam.
-- In the shadows - the figure of Sam.  A debatable one this, but many people go for avoiding semi-colons in script-writing - it slows the reader down a little. Using the dash almost encourages the reader, like pointing an arrow to the next bit.

## Jack driving. Jack is visibly angry.
-- Jack likes clapping. Jack is happy.

INT. JACK'S CAR - NIGHT
Jack driving. Jack is visibly angry.

-- This kind of thing can bug some people - others don't have an issue with it. Maybe try:

INT. JACK'S CAR - MOVING - NIGHT
Jack is seething.

Removes the 'Jack is driving bit' and the 'visibly' - which is obvious as we've a camera stuck in his face.

## Jack hoses the rear glass clean.
-- this kinda comes out of nowhere - possible to have a LATER stuck in.

## Though unrecognised by Jack, the car from outside Jack's
house in the traffic ahead.
-- I'm not too sure this bit makes sense ...

          JACK
     (angrily)
It's called a fucking accelerator!
(beat) Retard!
-- Your (beat) wryly should be formatted as per your (angrily) one, and then 'Retard' needs to go on another line.

I don't want to go on sound too negative, as there's lots of good points - action lines are generally short and to the point - new shots are brought in with a new action lines, and generally the slugs are short and to the point. So I'd see this a point from which to improve really - lots of positives, so best of luck going forward.

Simon

Hey Gerry

I apologize in advance for repeating what anybody else might have said, so far. I've had a skim-read of the comments and there is a possibility that I'll repeat Simon on this one.

Some of your sentences I tripped over, meaning I had to go back and decipher them, which is never a pleasant experience...

Page 1: " Surrounded by office buildings, a three-quarter empty car park with a handful of nondescript OFFICE WORKERS walking to their cars or already driving." This sentence doesn't read well at all. You don't need to mention that we are in a car park as the slugline notifies us of that.

Page 2: " Though unrecognized by Jack, the car from outside Jack's house in the traffic ahead."  - Didn't make sense at first. How does your audience know that the car is the car from outside Jack's house?

I noticed a few formatting issues. I usually don't comment on formatting as I am no guru myself, but here we go...

Page 1:
                                     JACK
                  (yelling after car) Ya tool!
Should be...
                      
                                     JACK
                            (yelling after car)
                   Ya tool!

Page 2:

                                      JACK
                  (yelling) What the f***!!!

Should be...

                                       JACK
                              (yelling)
                   What the f***!!!
* Also, as far as I know, using more than one exclamation mark is frowned upon in terms of grammar, but I could be wrong.

                                       JACK
                               (angrily)
                       It's called a f****** accelerator!
                       (beat) Retard!

Should be...

                                       JACK
                                (angrily)
                       It's called a f****** accelerator!
                                 (beat)
                       Retard!

"EXT. ROAD ACCIDENT - NIGHT" - Not quite sure how a road accident can be a setting. Try "HIGHWAY" or just "ROAD"

In general, this one didn't feel like a 3 page short. It took a while to read.

Sam's actions seem a bit childish IMO. Egging someone's car and keying them isn't exactly vengence on someone who's killed your kids. Personally, I'd take Sam's character a lot further than that.

With a bit of a clean up, I reckon this script will do quite well.

Daniel

Hey - thanks for the reads and feedback all!

I have just started using the (newish) cloud version of Celtx, and it currently doesn't allow for title pages (although that is their first planned update); does the unusual page numbering and  headers and footers (I explained that in the notes with my submission - I didn't realise those notes don't get posted - being my first submission).  I'd check out Trelby, but currently use a Mac (no Mac version).  This is actually the first script I have written from scratch; I'm usually Art Department; but am trying to extend my skills to benefit my students.

Wow! I left some woeful rookie mistakes!   (Including typos even in the one-word title! WT???) - eeeek (don't tell anyone I'm a teacher :/ ).  

Clearly there wasn't 'vengeance' enough; I based the story (and the title) on the "vengeance stalker" definition (rather than a Batman-style hard core vengeance) - however Sam comes off as little more than a nuisance.  I guess I limited myself due to the research I did on stalking laws - and how far Sam could take his actions before the law intervened (and also my limited imagination in these types of actions). I was trying to establish the two characters; an everyday guy and a stalker, then at the end, flip the tables on who the viewer thought was good/bad. Sam's behaviour was supposed to simply start as irritating, then scale up - but I can see I didn't quite get there.  I think in the next rewrite; Sam will have a 'snap-point' where he takes it over the line...

I'll fix up the formatting issues, and build a more defined, determined 'vengeance'.

I'll certainly take a word of my own advice next time, and proofread ;-)

Thanks again for the reads and feedback...