Ephemeral by Anthony Brennan - Short, Drama - A chance encounter changes the lives of two very different people. 11 pages - pdf, format 8)

Any way I can have a look at this without joining another website and making up another username and password of eight unique characters or more that I'll never use again?

R

Could only read 3 pages without signing up, so I read those. The meeting between Matt and Anthony is weak for me. Don't feel anything for either character. The action in the fist paragraph is far to passive with Anthony is waiting, is trying, is crying, is looking, and Matt is walking. You should work on getting active tense verbs so we see what is happening on the screen now. Anthony waits, tries, cries, looks, Matt walks.

I updated the link. You can read the entire script, now.

Don

- Title page is crowded.
- EXT. FREMANTLE BUS STOP - NIGHT TIME / TIME is unnecessary, NIGHT alone is sufficient
- Some people here would freak out immediately with your first action block: is waiting, is trying, is crying, is looking down, is walking - all in your first four lines. I'm not one of the people who strictly rule out the continous form in a screenplay, but in this case it's too much, even for me.

- First dialog seems overwritten:

Quoted Text MATT Mate, are you okay? ANTHONY Umm, yes, I’m fine MATT That’s a stupid question of me to ask, it’s a stupid question in general. You’re sad, you look sad and I’m asking if you’re okay and you aren’t okay. Stupid question ANTHONY Can you.. I’m fine, I’m honestly okay MATT okay, it’s just you don’t look okay mate ANTHONY Please leave me alone! Don’t you realise how embarrassing this is? I’m that guy, that guy that’s crying at a bus stop in public and it’s pathetic, it’s sad. I know you’re being kind but I don’t need your pity

Just this:

Quoted Text MATT Hey, what's wrong with you? ANTHONY Just leave me alone, I don't need your pity.

would do equally well and would save half a page.

- A little unispired here:

Quoted Text Matt walks away, and then comes back to sit down at the bus stop

Try to spice up your action lines a bit: Matt walks away. Stops. Gives in to his little do-gooder inside.

- This doesn't work:

Quoted Text ANTHONY I’m gay and I’m not doing this with you, if you want to pretend wait for a bus, then please do it quietly. I’m trying to feel sorry for myself and you’re making it very hard (anthony starts sobbing quietly)

(anthony starts sobbing quietly) has to be a separate action line. Try to avoid the constant use of 'starts to do sth., begins to do sth., tries to do sth.) - He does it or he doesn't.

The rest seems like all dialog, and it's not getting better. Flying over it now.

Okay, I get you are new to screenwriting and I'd guess you're not an english native speaker. Repetitive dialog, 90% of the action lines in continous tense, Punctuation is almost missing entirely. Lots of typos and grammar issues like 's and s errors, long monologs.

I'm not trying to offend you, but this really isn't good. Try to read a few screenplays, just google for screenplays of movies or tv series you liked, you'll find tons of them for free. Proof-read your script, if english isn't your first language try to find a native english speaker who is willing to proof-read it.

Good luck!