Red Light Madonna - Print Topic

Posted by: Don, September 7th, 2014, 5:41pm

Red Light Madonna by Phillip Richards - Drama, Noir - The year is 1956, the place, Los Angeles. An ambitious young deputy DA isn’t convinced that a wealthy real estate developer’s death was really a suicide. His investigation exposes the secrets of the rich and powerful as it unravels a decades old murder. 107 pages - pdf, format 8)

Posted by: Emanuel, September 7th, 2014, 8:37pm; Reply: 1

I got a 404 message. I'll take a look when it's fixed. Looks like my type of script. For starters though, the log line is a little long. Break the synopsis down to one sentence or 2 short ones.

Posted by: Don, September 7th, 2014, 9:20pm; Reply: 2

Link Fixed. Apologies. Too much birthday debauchery.

- Don

Posted by: DustinBowcot (Guest), September 8th, 2014, 12:08pm; Reply: 3

Not sure what's going wrong with this script. It's not formatted correctly at all. I think you're going for a stage play?

Posted by: Emanuel, September 8th, 2014, 4:10pm; Reply: 4

For me, It's in a fine format. Could be something on your end, Dustin. I'll give 10 pages, unless i'm hooked.

So, as I said --

"The year is 1956. The place, Los Angeles."

You have to use a superimpose for this. Show not tell.

Pg. 2 -- A little too much action in your parentheses for my taste.

By pg. 6, there's a lot of dialogue. An you have a ton of exposition. I'd get some of the info in there without getting it too on the nose.

By page 10 I got a bit bored. It shoved a bit to much info at me for not enough action or background info on the crime. It starts a bit too fast without time to build up to the arrest.

Good luck with the re-write,

-Emanuel

Posted by: rendevous, September 8th, 2014, 7:26pm; Reply: 5

Quoted from Emanuel

For me, It's in a fine format. Could be something on your end, Dustin.

The format is a little off.

The opening line should be a super, or a heading.

When they go in the conference room there's no heading. It's still under the Lobby one.

There's some large paragraphs and the like. It's not hugely off format, but it does need some work.

R

Posted by: DustinBowcot (Guest), September 9th, 2014, 1:41am; Reply: 6

Quoted from Emanuel

For me, It's in a fine format. Could be something on your end, Dustin.

You're right, well that was weird. The downloaded file must have gotten corrupted. All the action was formatted as dialogue and the dialogue formatted as action when I downloaded yesterday.

Posted by: DustinBowcot (Guest), September 9th, 2014, 2:03am; Reply: 7

Lots of exposition on page 3, 4 and 5. From what I know of criminal cases, all evidence must be shared with the defence so a defence attorney wouldn't go into a meeting blind like that.

So after skipping to page 6, the talky stuff is over and they leave. Nothing new learned. Everything simply repeated from the arrest. IMO, these 3 pages are completely unnecessary.

Code

INT. TAYLOR STONE’S LAPD OFFICE - DAY DEV enters the outer office of TAYLOR Stone, 50, Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. The secretary waves him by. He enters the inner office. TAYLOR is seated at his desk. There are "Taylor Stone for Mayor" posters in a corner of the office.

There should be two separate slugs for the above.

Code

INT. GARLAND PRICE’S BEDROOM - NIGHT PRICE is sleeping. The sounds of someone walking into the room can be heard OS. Two men wearing coveralls walk up to either side of the bed. We can’t see their faces. (We don’t see their faces throughout the scene). We will later learn that they are Detective Jason REED, 28, a sharp dresser, down to the French cuffs on his shirt and expensive cuff links made in the shape of LAPD badges; and Detective SCOTTY Sullivan, 55, overweight, slovenly, an old hand at the LAPD. They grab PRICE. SCOTTY shoves an icepick wrapped in a towel into PRICE’s temple. The towel absorbs the small amount of blood from the wound. PRICE struggles for a moment, then goes limp. The two men lift PRICE from the bed.

The above is too much for one action block. What's the point in not seeing their faces if we know who they are anyway? There will surely be another opportunity later in the script to find out who killed him.

Code

INT. IN JASON REED’S CAR - DAY

As it is an INT. we know it is internal, so mentioning 'in' in your slug is unnecessary.

There is a lot of exposition but I think it does flow. So you can write dialogue. Your action reads fine too, mostly. Keep practising and you'll get there in no time.

Posted by: PhillipRichards, September 21st, 2014, 7:28pm; Reply: 8

Thanks for the crits, guys. I know I tend to get talky, I'm trying to discipline myself about that. I've done a revision which I'm submitting today. I hope you'll take a look at it and tell me what you think.