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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Comedy Scripts  /  Lenin's Last Night Out
Posted by: Don, December 8th, 2013, 7:46pm
Lenin's Last Night Out by Lee A. Miller - Comedy, Political Satire - Magic vodka allows two drunks to steal the body of Lenin the night before it is to be buried. Most people don’t know the history of Lenin’s last night before burial. - pdf, format 8)
Posted by: Levon, December 9th, 2013, 12:13pm; Reply: 1
Ok, Lee, I'm not much of a politician or historian so I can't comment much on the story or the dialogue etc. But I'll pick up on a few things I noticed format-wise.

You're not supposed to have a quote on your title page. If that's meant to be on screen, you're gonna want to add a super for it.

Scrolling through, I noticed big blocks of action sequences too. It's always best to keep these to a maximum of 4 lines.

Your first slug doesn't specify whether it's night or day.
  
I'll repeat myself here to emphasise the point but I'm looking through the script and all I can see are these huge parables of description. It's seriously off putting. It takes the flow out of the read and just makes it all the more daunting. What you need to do, is trim the fat off the script. For example...

'The story begins with two well dressed but drunken men
entering the bar in the restaurant Glavpivtorg at
Luybyanka. We will soon come to know the men as Alexei
and Dmitry. It appears they have been drinking before
arriving.'

This is plain and simple, overwritten. It could just as easily be written as...

'Two well-dressed men, Alexei and Dmitry drunkenly enter the restaurant bar.'

Obviously, it doesn't have to be exactly that but I've condensed that action sequence into about a third of what it once was. This makes it a whole lot less intimidating if you ask me.

I hoped this helped. Adios  
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