Time We Have Left Episode 1 "Pilot" by Jason R. Harris - Short, Coming of Age - Time We Have Left. is supposed to follow a group of lower middle class teens as they try to dominate their abstinence. 10 pages - pdf, format 8)


Time We Have Left Episode 2 "Broken" by Jason R. Harris - Short, Coming of Age - After finding out that Harry had cheated on her with Liz's cousin Emily, a depressed Gracie runs away. With nowhere to go she comes upon a good friend. 10 pages - pdf, format 8)

Time We Have Left Episode 3 "Positive" by Jason R. Harris - Short, Coming of Age - Gracie has big news, but she's not sure how the group will react. And a new group member is made. 96 pages - pdf, format 8)

Time We Have Left Episode 4 "Billy Winston" by Jason R. Harris - Short, Coming of Age - The group heads to Billy's party, and hell takes a stab at them. 13 pages - pdf, format 8)

Time We Have Left Episode 5 "End Of Days" by Jason R. Harris - Short, Coming of Age - In the Time We Have Left. season finale: With Gracie gone; the group is heart broken. But Alfie and Harry have a plan, and they bring the cavalry with them. 11 pages - pdf, format 8)

Time We Have Left Episode 6 "First Day Back" by Jason R. Harris - Short, Coming of Age - The actual season finale! The gang head back to school, but things aren't as they seem… 10 pages - pdf, format 8)

Time We Have Left Season 2 Episode 1 "New Beginnings" by Jason R. Harris - Short, Family, Coming of Age - Season Two of Time We Have Left starts off with a bang when Alfie has to choose which girl he stays with. 15 pages - pdf, format 8)

I opened this up and kind of skimmed through it.  I have a few quick comments, a few more if you are around to receive them.

I open nearly every new script for at least a quick look, and the reason I read through most of this is the truly bizarre description you gave Harry:

Quoted from script HARRY MARTIN, 15 and a half, tall, handsome, dark brown hair, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

This is quite wrong -- but intrigued, I read on to see if there was more of this sort of thing.  But no.

During the phone call, there is a useful formatting convention called "INTERCUT."  Google that and it will help you out in the future.  Save you a ton of space, too.

You conclude with Gracie crying, and I had to go back and look her up.

This scene carries no resonance because you only give Gracie 2 lines of banal dialogue, 6 words in total.  If this is to be your "cliffhanger" of sorts, it is vital that you flesh out her character a bit so we care about the betrayal.

Overall your formatting and such is not really bad, so it seems you are not starting from scratch here, but could certainly use a few pointers in the right direction.  Let us know if you are around.

Cracked this one open because the name seemed familiar. You wrote the Evil Dead script, right?

It's good to see more work from you, and from what I remember of that script, this is an improvement. You still have some issues though.

IMO, you have some awkwardly written lines here and there...

"He pulls out his phone and dials seven numbers into his phone." (You said "the phone" twice in one sentence).

But that's something that will improve the more scripts you read and write.

When you introduce your characters, while it's good to give them a brief description so we can visualize them, you don't need to go overboard by mentioning things like hair color and weight, unless they affect the plot in some way.

Avoid unfilmables, too. Like saying Harry likes to drink and party. Or that Alfie is Harry's best friend. This is telling and not showing, and won't translate to the screen really well. Remember to only write what you can actually see on screen.

Make sure you're always writing in present tense. I noticed this line: "Harry giggled and moved Gracie and him aside." Be sure to read through your script a few times before sending it out so you'll catch these errors (like the typo on page 10, Harry's dialogue: "I say, how oes someone like him..." Should be "does".)

There really isn't much of a story here, and I almost lost interest halfway through. It was just Harry and Alfie walking to their friend's house. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing did.

Also, if this is a live action TV series, I don't think 15 pages will cut it. I'm not expert on TV scripts, but usually these shows run from 25 minutes to 50 minutes (not counting commercials).

I agree with Bert about Gracie, and the cliffhanger. You need to give her more lines if you want us to care about her.

But like I said, big improvement from your last short, and I'm sure your next one will be even better. Hope this helps.

Looking forward to part 2...

Will

Thanks so much you guys for reading my new script! I know it's a little odd, and I completely agree with everything that you're saying, the second episode however will be much much better. And again thanks for commenting.

Hi Jason,
I like the attempt in the direction that I think you are going for. In a way reminds me of the film KIDS, don’t know if you have seen it or not. It’s a bit long and clogged with unneeded information. I think you could cut this down to five pages. Something that may help: film dialogue is not small talk it has a direct purpose in telling the story. I would look at each character figure out their goal for each scene and the entire episode. Show don’t tell if you don’t see it on screen, don’t put it in your script. I would also take a look at set ups and payoffs, make them pop. As far as the end of the episode, ask yourself why should we care about Gracie.
One last thing keep writing, you only get better by doing.
Hope some of this was a bit helpful.
Stefan

Thanks a lot! I see what you're getting at, but yeah you'll care more about Gracie and the rest of the gang when the other episodes are finished. And again thanks for the look!

Jason-

Only read a couple pages and got bogged down in some of the negatives: camera directions, writing tense, overly descriptive.

I have a suggestion, because I just went through this with a pilot I wrote. I picked 10 pilot scripts from successful TV series ranging from 2006 to 2012, and studied the format, style, etc. I was surprised at the range of acceptable formats and style, but also reassured by some of the similarities, too. Here's the website - it was a huge help:
https://sites.google.com/site/tvwriting/us-comedy/pilot-scripts

Good luck!

Rich

Quoted from Stefan007 In a way reminds me of the film KIDS, don’t know if you have seen it or not.

Hey Stefan,

Just saw KIDS for the first time, 1.) I'm now hooked on that movie. And 2.) I realized that you're kinda right, Alfie and Harry's friendship do remind me a lot of Casper and Telly's. I uploaded the rest of the season and when they come out, if you could let me your thoughts on the rest of the episodes that'd be just awesome. So thanks a million for the recommendation of KIDS and have a great day!

Until then,
Jason R. Harris

Alright, season 1 is now completely posted! Thanks Don!

Quoted from bert Let us know if you are around.

I'm around Bert, it'd mean a lot if I could get your opinion on this.

Discussion For: The End of Days
Mr. Harris please don’t take my criticism with too much personal weight to it. Everyone in here I believe has a good story.
1.)     Title Page I believe could have been formatted better.
2.)     The description of Harry seems odd in the beginning. Perhaps the attributes could be weaved into the character somewhere in the dialouge.
3.)     What does Harry do with the alarm clock after he examines it? Perhaps the wording could be” He looks at a contact named alfie who is his best friend.
4.)     Alfie  is  Harry’s best friend. Not was
5.)     Edge of bed repeated twice.

Mr. Harris I hate to be brutal but I cannot continue reading not only because of technical errors but the thread just does not make sense.
This may very well be a good story but it is not what I can see as an actual screenplay.
The first and third person and past present tenses were nonsensical from the beginning.
The internal and external aspect was lost right from the beginning. My advice is to learn how to thread or keep cohesiveness to your story. A screenplay is not about dialogue and a story only.
Most of all, don’t give up if this is a passion of yours. Most will not be that nice if you ever actually tried to pitch it. Which means to sell it.

Hello All!

It's been awhile since I've written this show but I realized how much this project has changed me. Sure the formatting might be crap but if you look past that and into the story I'm sure there are aspects of each character that defined you when you were theses kid's ages. A fun fact about this show which might be why I enjoy it so much is the part where it's true. Each one of these kids are real people that I know, but for important reasons I changed their names. So I might not be able to pitch it, I don't care, but it's my life and I've decided to keep writing about it, so I guess this is me saying that I'm going to start writing Time We Have Left. Season 2. Because there's more stories to be told.

-Jason R. Harris

^ however I obviously want this to be made someday

I didn't get past the phone conversation, it made me dizzy with all the Scene Headings.