P.H.O Pilot by Julian Barragan Cardozo - Short, Action - Five unique men are hired by an unknown organization to complete the hardest job of their lives. 10 pages - doc, format 8)

Howdy Julian! :)

Overall I like the way you tell the story of Andrew. I suppose you'll do this with every character, so you might wanna do it all in one or two episodes because five episodes of the same would be boring. The story has potential -- the story of five guys that are part of a huge organization/sect and are trying to get out.

NOW ON THE TECHNICAL SIDE -

--You might want to get a screenwriting software -- Celtx is an awesome software and it's FREE! It also converts to PDF, which will make it look nicer.

-- Your formatting is good, you know where everything goes and all that basic stuff; however, you should avoid present continuous verbs (i.e. he is walking, she is reading), and use simple present verbs instead (i.e. we write, they run).

--There's lots of small typos, so proofread carefully.

--You might want to update the copyright notice since it's not 2010 anymore.

-- AND MOST IMPORTANT, some of the dialogue doesn't seem realistic. I recommend you read it out loud as if you were the character and make appropriate changes.

Keep writing :)

--Chris Ramos

Thanks for the awesome feedback. I've posted an update already, might even continue posting the other episodes.

I had problems with this script, Julian.  It read like a first draft of a writer's first script.  I don't know why you highlighted the sluglines; it's wrong and distracting.  Your use of progressive verbs (not present continuous verbs) needs to be fixed.  It's a sign of a new writer.  You'd be surprised how much space you'd save if you wrote everything in active tense.

I found all your characters to be two dimensional and cliche.  I got the impression that Andrew is supposed to be the charming rogue, but there wasn't enough there for me to like him.  His Everybody has something important chat came off as philosophical bullshit.

Your dialog is extremely wordy and artificial.  The above-mentioned dialog is a great example.  No one talks like this!  The conversation between Andrew and Man2 (started on page eight) was ridiculously artifical; Man 2 talks so casually after being shot... twice.  It's also very on the nose; all the dialog, here is on the nose.

Read some scripts and pay attention to how people write dialog.

Hope this helps.


Phil

makes, sense, That's why I uploaded it here, broader opinions help a lot. Thanks!