Great White - OWC - Print Topic

The writing in this one is super fast and easy to read.

Love the QT feel and the woman gabbing on the phone turns out to be a bad ass bitch! Good visual of her shooting through the hand bag.

Fun little script can't find anything bad to say about this one. Wow...two down this morning and both were fantastic! Hope to read more after the drive home. :)

Only thing that may make it better was to know more about the characters...I was thinking Kill Bill...how we at least know how/why a character is doing a hit...ie revenge...money...psychotic...

Gonna be one of my favs.

what I liked:

- elevator is a good location to pull off a hit
- we'e used to the silent assassins...good to have a good talky killer, like the dude from Pulp Fiction. Add some more layers to her personality, some more color, and the character is well on her way!

suggestions to improve:

- Maybe she should check and see if her victim recognizes her name, and is annoyed when he doesn't? Shows her as having a touch of vulnerability(ego), which makes her human.
- I also wonder if maybe she should get in a cab, or her own car, or even an paid limo. I picture assassins working alone, so there would be some distance from the person paying her.

potential for expansion to feature or series:

absolutely!

filming potential:

affordable on no budget

investment in story and characters:

has that potential as the character is built. There was no situation investment because we didn't know anything about the characters.

I found this too cheesy but I suppose it could look very slick when filmed. It's not always all about story. What's pleasing to the eye also counts and I imagine, under the right director, this would be exactly that. Story-wise it's pretty basic, which is what my score goes on.

5 out of 10.

Nicely written. An obvious homage to Quentin Tarrintino's movies and you've not tried to hide this at all, which is good.

If I was being picky, which I am, I'd question the professionalism of Great White. She nearly misses her mark by almost missing the elevator. Plus, there's was no guarantees they would let her in anyway. A security detail like that with an asshole of a boss as Jankel proves to be wouldn't let anyone in there who could potentially annoy him. A pro wouldn't leave anything like this to chance.

She also explains to her target who she is in a manner that is obviously for the audiences benefit, which seemed a little off.

But still, this is very entertaining, fits the parameters perfectly and was easy to read/understand.

Well done on an excellent OWC entry.

-Mark

Intrigued by the log to this one.  See how it goes...

Thinking I might start a DING! tally…

Can’t help but think we should be ‘seeing’ the mindless chatter. Not a big deal.

So two guards stayed outside the room?  It read as though they all got on the elevator.

Functional with no real surprises.  The location strayed from the elevator a fair ways.  Feels like part of something ‘bigger’.  Quite liked the dialogue here and there (the Guard’s relaying of Janek’s requests) and it’s nice to mix it up with a bit of action; though overall not really my cup of tea.  And lets be honest here, the whole ‘golden glow’ from the stolen suitcase...  Was it a bag of Cuties?  -- S'pose they do travel well.

I'm pretty sure the gold glow from the briefcase was... Pulp Fiction? Obvious homage, and look no further than the pen name.

It was a nice little story and it flowed nicely scene wise near the end (not near or around elevator tho) where she takes off the disguise and gets into a black SUV.

Few problems here and there tho...

1.

Panic grows across his face.
GREAT WHITE <----- Think that's supposed to be Jankel
Who are you?
GREAT WHITE
Name’s Great White.
She gestures at the two guards with the gun.

2. There should be (V.O) on UNKNOWN MAN near the end.

Minor things I picked up on and that's it really, apart from that it was a clean read.

Written by someone who is capable. Didn't like the name of the char Great White. It didn't mean anything and is sort of silly.

The final scenes take it from the required location of strictly being in and around the lift so not sure how it slipped through?

Picked this to read first because of the title but nary a shark to be seen lol. Or a penguin

I took Great White to be the top predator where she is. And she lives up to her billing.

I enjoyed this. A lot. It was a fun read. You go from fearing for her life to a shocking 180.

9/10

One of the best I've read so far.

I don't know whether or not to like this one or hate it. I'm somewhere down the middle. Caught dead center. Everyone's got pet peeves. I got mine. One of them is "film geek call out" where the writer stops the script to either break the fourth wall ("This is a movie after all") to the "easter egg/get it" references to a film and/or filmmaker. (Tarintino- glowing briefcase, the watch) and I'm not sure why she's called Great White. She dresses in black. I would kind of get it if her codename was Miss White for obvious reasons - or "The Wolf" hey, why not go all out, right?

On the plus side, the script breezes by, and despite some of the nitpicks of mine, it does the job.

Quoted Text

The doors are a few inches from shut.

What?

Spoilers:

Well, I knew that Great White wasn't what she seemed almost immediately. And the one line (I'm a professional killer) was far, far too on-the-nose.

That said, I enjoyed the ride for this one alot. Clearly a good writer is responsibile for this one. And I laughed out loud at the "The A$$hole" nickname. Good stuff! And obviously expandable far beyond this OWC.

Well, this appears to be a sister script to 1 I just tried to read...by the same writer.

The voice here, to me, is very irritating, but it appears many enjoy it.

I stopped quickly, as, again, it's just so obvious this writer is trying to impress, and it's having the opposite affect on me.

I want to like this. I want to want to continue, but I can't.

Again, as I said on the other thread, just try and write good, solid, visual prose, and see what happens. Some may be entertained...for awhile, but keep this up for 90/100 pages, and I highly doubt anyone will still be in. It's a fine line, bro, or sis, but IMO, you crossed it over and over, right out of the gate.

Hi writer,

Right, so this was an easy read, nothing too complicated and/or original unfortunately. The line about 'Musak" getting on their nerves could be flipped around IMO. Musak puts quite a bit of research into ensuring it comes across as something to fill the void of silence, plus ensure (especially when you're on a crowded elevator) that people are going to be as predictable as possible.

But... that's why this works for what it is. Jenkel and his goons 'assuming' that Great White is there by coincidence only. Her sticking her foot in the door works better than her already being on the elevator, that being, they could easily have said "we'll get the next car"... then she's out of the game.

I think she's smooth enough in her approach (your approach, that is), however, if she's a trained assassin, I think she'd most likely just do the job and get the hell out of there, without taking his briefcase and all. Cause now she's just a low life murderer and thief... nothing professional about that. Unless you could somehow tie Jenkel to her misery... that is, she's also there on a mission to seek personal revenge from Jenkel. Just a thought.

I think this works well for what it is.

From start to finish, this story read like the opening sequence of a feature. It's a bit wacky in places that left me confused. The exclamation punctuation killed the asides for me, I wanted to like them, but it left a comedic broad stroke in the narrative.

The QT stuff was there. The dialogue or characters never had any essence of QT, so it felt out of place to me.

I enjoyed Great White's character, her quirks and stuff. All the swearing was a bit much, however, when Great White referred to them as "clowns" I realized the is dialect authentic. :P

Can I say I'm not a fan of the writing style? Never mind.

Overall, it was a snapshot of a character that could be bigger. She doesn't need cliches or callbacks to stand on her own IMO.

This was more in Machete style for me than Tarantino.
I liked how she started - she was funny. Then she came back to him with what he already said and she sounded bitter, not the way she started.
He was also funny at the beginning but then he stopped being him and I wish he didn't.

a killer in an elevator, reacting to something her prey said - then bam, bam, badmouthing her victim's wife... Definitely Machete.

You open with 6 paragraphs dedicated to him. Then you go over and over describing her, although not as many paragraphs. Tarantino does that?
Tarantino grabs us with the dialog and holds.

You have exclamation marks in dialog - a lot of them, and in action. Hmm.

This one was well done up to a point. But as in some stories, the protag has it way too easy. That she's a killer seemed obvious from the beginning. The body guards are typically moronic and unprofessional. Sorry, their first job was to search her purse, and they should have. And they should have found the gun and then the story would get interesting. As it is, it's not all that new or interesting. Put some real obstacles in her way and you have a tale.

Best
Richard

Few typos here and there... nothing a polish wont fix.

Two pages in and I want to kill Great White!

There's an error near the end
GREAT WHITE
Who are you?
GREAT WHITE
Name’s Great White.

She does most of her changing in the stairwell, but decides to take her wig off outside the hotel!!! Is this the same assassin from a couple of the other scripts...

Funny she says 'I'm a professionally trained assassin', but she doesn;t appear to be.

Anthony

I enjoyed it,even if a tad over the top.

Actually it felt more like the start of a film, where we are introduced to GW. The rest of her story then follows. You know the flash backs to those dark days in the girl guides :-)

I did quite like the bush line.

In terms of making her convincing I doubt picking an arguement is the best way. Politely putting away her phone, would be sound.

Id almost like it if the gangster knew her name, guessed her name. This could both add kudos and mean she hasn't had to mouth off

I would think that with three bodies in the lift and more goons in the building, the best thing is to disable the lift so they don't find the bodies for a while. Just a thought. Bullet into the controls ala Star Wars

So, it's a snappy scene but by its nature we are left wanting to know more, and that this felt incomplete.

Very funny situation -- bad guys on an elevator with a woman yakking on the phone.

I like this bit:

Jankel: Tell her to put the fucking phone away.
Guard: Ma'am, would you please put your fucking phone away.

The woman's phone conversation is well done. Such as --

Great White: "I know! I told her big bush is back. Yeah!..."

Some of the descriptions go too far -- "Her demeanor is that of a smart professional...assassin." And "This is a movie, after all."

I don't care for the Tarantino winks (or the author pseudonymn). Just let your story be your story.

It was going rather well until the 'glow.' I could hear the groans and feel the eyes roll. If you're gonna lift from a fine lifter then you need to lift from where it isn't so noticeable.

It's well written. The asides were a little too numerous and began to grind towards the end.

There's some smart bits. I was hoping for a bit more though. As it is it's a bit basic. Like my hair.

R

It would be good to have more of the conversation Great White has on the phone in the beginning. Seems like you’d be asking the actress to ad-lib a lot.

“He moves the case so she can see the inside. A golden glow reflects on her face.”

Hey, he’s got Marcellus Wallace’s soul!

Not sure why you chose to have her leave the building at the end. Kinda breaches the challenge and it’s really not needed. Overall this solid, well-written, amusing, with clever dialogue and characterizations. This is one of the good ones. Only thing that holds it back for me is the feeling like it’s merely part of something bigger; a set-up to a longer story.

Writing style is a bit repetitive, really can't understand why there's so much unneeded clutter in the first half page, you mention pretty much everything twice.

Very strange script, the plot's repetitive too, surprisingly. Great White is engaging, but really just unlikeable, maybe interesting, but no way anybody can get behind her decisions. We don't necessarily have to root for her, but the lack of her accessibility really hurts this script for me. The Asshole fellow is infinitely better than Great White, in fact, she's a complete bitch with 0 redeemable qualities. His annoyance was warranted, so I'm really not sure why you expect us to get behind his death. Or maybe you don't, but in that case, the story is just mute.

I'm not one to band behind 'you need to do this!' mentality either, so don't think that's where my thoughts are coming from, because they most definitely aren't. Tarantino's always been a mixed bag for me, but peeps seem to love this.

Great White

Okay. First three pages bored me, middle was interesting, third act was boring again.

I like her. The character Great White is definitely up my alley. Don't think the plot and story is ambitious enough to film it. Dialogue was partly intriguing but the story behind didn't stand ground. Still a solid entry.

Funny story idea.
Guessed that Great White was likely an assassin, but had second thoughts with the mislead of the robbery. Clever...
Well developed characters.
Totally entertaining.

Thanks to all of you who read. As mentioned before, I wrote this one with the intention of possibly filming it myself. I have now given up on that, but I will rewrite it and take your suggestions into consideration.

I wrote this in one day. Read it the second day, then sent it it. I guess the quality of the OWC scripts have gone up, so that won't work anymore. Something to remember.

Thanks again everyone. :)

Quoted from Grandma Bear

My frist suggestion is I want to play Great White.  I think I'd be perfect as her.  I have, umm, boobs, and umm, well, nothing, but, that'd be worth the price of admission and would instantly get you oscar consideration!  Isn't that what we all want?  To see me in drag, I mean, the Oscar is a side effect...

Seriously, you should film this by doing everything you can in a made up room that looks like en elevator and then shooting certain shots in the elevator.  It wouldn't be as hard as it seems.  I once made the sun rise through a house, and I didn't have access to any computer special effects, oh yeah, I did!!

Someone once asked me how I got the sun to rise and block out a house?  I said very carefully since I didn't want to burn it down.  They didn't get the joke.  I seriously need to get my movie transferred to DVD b/c that is still one of the coolest things about it.

So Pia, if I can make the sun rise through a house, you can fake an elevator...

Dan

I think the only way to do it would be to build a set. I do have a large garage with a 20' foot ceiling. I have thought of doing green screen stuff in there. I think that would be the only way to do it. I can't see a hotel or business or such to let me borrow one of the elevators for a day or two. Unless they have a lot of them and they are never busy. Another thing to work around would be the hotel corridor and elevator matching the built set.

Quoted from Grandma Bear

Yeah, you've got to bring your A game. I was lazy this go around too... but next time, I'm devoting 100% effort.

Quoted from DustinBowcot

but next time, I'm devoting 100% effort.

You throwing down the gauntlet? ;)

I'm not sure. I'm just going to craft a proper story next time around, but it will be more for my own benefit than anyone else's. So if I am throwing it down, it's only because I'm challenging myself. Be nice to win one of those mugs though. I drink a lot of coffee so it would get used a lot.

Coffee is shite Dustin, get some Bovril down you lad...

Get about 12 cups at Poundland, with powder in.

Quoted from DustinBowcot

I hear you. Everything I do as far as this writing thing goes is for me. Most nights I go to bed disappointed in myself for not reaching my goal. I set goals and standards for myself and when I reach them, I realize I've only climbed one other rung on the ladder and that there are still many to go. I can't even see the top of the ladder, so I have no idea what waits there or how far I have to go.

I'll fight you for that thong though! ;D