Unveiled by Luis Garza - Drama - After the tragic death of one’s mother, emotional turmoil spreads throughout a group of four faithful friends.  Battling different emotions, the four friends find themselves trapped in a Victorian mansion, a mansion whose abstract mysteries appear differently to each person.  142 pages - pdf, format 8)

I was going to test my theory on page length with this one but the link does not work for me.

Yep, link doesn't work... and btw 142 pages seems over the top for a drama script.

Don't know why link isn't working. Hopefully I did everything right. And yes, it is a bit long. Theoretically, this would result in a 2 hour 22 minute film. However, I wouldn't put a defined genre on this movie. It is very abstract and it sits in its own world. It has drama elements, horror elements, fantasy elements, I didn't know what genre to define this with.

Hello, LuisAnthony,

Your script is too long, and I haven't seen it. Look at your logline:

Quoted from Unveiled After the tragic death of one’s mother, emotional turmoil spreads throughout a group of four faithful friends.  Battling different emotions, the four friends find themselves trapped in a Victorian mansion, a mansion whose abstract mysteries appear differently to each person.

That does sound like Drama to me. I don't know what information is important yet you can give it in about half the words.

On what level is the death tragic? If personal, to what extent does it impact the story, was one of the friends responsible? I anticipate you can leave this adjective out, if the death needs to be mentioned at all.

Is emotional turmoil at the heart of the drama, or a causitive effect? Will the story be different if everybody remains calm?

Quoted from Unveiled spreads throughout

You might find a way to say this without cliche.

Quoted from Unveiled a group of four faithful friends

Friends are a group, that's what they are, and faith implied. Where they are mentioned again, "the four friends" can be just "they".

Quoted from Unveiled Battling different emotions

If "emotional turmoil" makes the cut you won't need this.

Quoted from Unveiled find themselves

Can probably be replaced by "are".

Quoted from Unveiled Victorian mansion

Adjective not needed, mansion is repeated.

Quoted from Unveiled abstract mysteries

Adjective not needed. I'm slightly intrigued by this, and hope that the differing appearance of mystery is what the story is about.

I'll give UNVEILED a look when the link works, and it will be evident from the first couple of pages if the script is overwritten, in which case I won't read the other 140.

Good luck.

Thank you NW3, for your detailed feedback.

It was very very hard to come up with a logline for this film, I pondered far too long.

The script does have drama elements that blend in with horor. It is very abstract and its very hard to pinpoint a specific genre.

But, I myself would describe it as a Dark Fantasy. but it kind of sits in its own world.

I'm going to try and get the link working.

Thanks again,
Luis

The link has been fixed.

I checked out the first ten pages:

I like that you opened with a foreboding scene in the house. From the logline I gather that's going to be where they end up for the majority of the film so a teaser at the start is a nice touch.

Next scene at the town center is a problem... having a kid who just lost his mom sitting there watching another mom and her son and a tear trickles down his face... gotta be more subtle than that. I would cut this completely.

Next scenes with the kids driving and showing up at Jesse's house... I would cut all of this too. You're gonna have to be as efficient as possible in every scene. Think about every scene and whether you absolutely need it to build the characters and move the plot forward. What do we actually learn in the car? That Jesse's mom died. That he's pushing people away. That the various friends have different opinions about how to help Jesse... which in turn kind of reveals something about a few of his friend's own personalities (although even that's vague). That takes 4 pages.  

You could just go straight to the school scene and have Jess meet up with his friends, they say a few condolences and maybe a line about how "we haven't heard from you in forever man"... that would be less than 1 page.

Efficiency is key if you wanna tighten this story and get the page count down which I definitely recommend.

A different angle you could try which would still be shorter --
Have Jesse walking alone to school. He crosses this big gate that leads to a giant mansion (the same one from the opening teaser). Something causes him to turn, he sees a woman (same one from the teaser), talks to her... says he remembers his mother mentioning this house, then her response leads him to talk about his mother dying recently, the conversation ends and when he looks back the woman is suddenly gone.

Next scene is the school.  

Thank you for checking out the screenplay MarkItZero!

I will 100% cut out the town center scene, we find out in the next scene that Jesse's mother passed anyway.

I guess I got a little too carried away with the page count. 142 pages theoretically equal 2 hours and 22 minutes of film. I guess the reason I didn't cut down the film is because movie audiences seem to not mind watching 2 hour and 40 minute films in the theater. Today's films are getting exesively long, even horror movies seem to be leaning in this direction. (Conjuring 2 is 2 hours and 20 minutes long) However, I will obviously cut out scenes that appear inecessary, sometimes you need other eyes to notice this.

I guess part of the reason I develop these characters too much (car scene, school scene, etc..) is because their personalities are what make all the abstract things in the mansion make sense (Jesse is depressed due to his mother's death, and so he sees the personification of depression in the house) same for all the other characters, except they all deal with different things, therefore they see the demon that inhabits this mansion differently as well.

I guess this film is about self exploration, your inner demons and stuff. That's why its too long, there is a lot to cover.

I will take your advice and really open my eyes to scenes that end up slowing the film's pace, maybe I can get it down to at least 120 pages.

Thanks for the read!
Regards,
Luis