The Perfect Plot by 0 - Short, Thriller - When Donald becomes involved in an old friend's paranoid crusade, it seems like an event that could only have been scripted. That may well be true. - pdf, format 8)

Decent title, fits the story.

Don't stick Proper Nouns like Donald in the log-line.

Over written, cumbersome opening, though visually its sets the scene well enough.

Terrible, on the nose dialogue, at times.

Very strange character reactions. Particularly from Donald

None of which quite manage to derail what is actually a good story. Rewrite in order.

Painful death. Got it.

Solid spin on familiar territory. Doesn't over-do the meta stuff, which is nice.

The conspiracy of the first half is so familiar that I think it could be cut down significantly. If Max spent less time explaining and the two had a bit more back and forth conveying personality, I think that'd help the story feel whole.

The trunk reveal came too late, I thought. Could've been placed much earlier without losing anything. It'd make us doubt Max more, but that could totally work in the script's favour.

Agreed with Rick above. A solid story deserving a rewrite.

Who was trapped?  Donald’s daughter?

Story wise this wasn’t for me.  Too scattered to keep up with and too many logic problems to keep me invested.  Why would Donald just go along with it?  If Max is looking for somewhere to hide then why not hide at Donald’s?  Character choices end up feeling way too forced for sake of plot.

I realise we’re all writing against the timer but think carefully about what it is you’re wanting the reader to visualise.  You lost me early on within the first few lines:

You start off by giving us a repetition of British Countryside in the slug and in the first action line.  And this may seem like a niggle but countryside is not what I’m imagining when you tell us we’re flying over wealthy residential estates.  You’re also telling us this is happening at NIGHT -- could we realistically be seeing all this and understand what it is if it’s dark?  It seems like minor stuff, but it’s important not to lose the reader in a series of conflicting visuals.  Better to keep it simple and clear.

Sorry but this wasn’t for me.  Too unfocused.

The script definitely needs work, but those things did make sense:

1. Donald knew him, and we find out he's used to a life of skull-duggery, so why not go with him?
2. The Group knows everything, they will know of their acquaintance, so Donald's house was out. It's probably even bugged or being monitored.

I think the opening, which is badly written, also mentions that the houses are illuminated with spotlights, so the actual visual is OK.

Good effort,

Straight off, it's a lot of dialogue, loads and loads and loads of it. Also there's no variety in pace (may be deliberate), it's 100 miles an hour and it doesn't really stop.

Kept me interested throughout but I'm not really sure about the stuck in a taxi brief being met. They seemed to only be locked in at the end, apart from the boot dweller out back of course.

Anyway, decent enough but probably needs work on pacing, and also questionable regarding the brief.

Cam

An interesting one here. It does strain the limits of low budget.

At times the dialogue was a bit long - I think it was well written enough but would have worked better if chopped up into bite size morsels - it got a little tedious.

I will have to re-read. I never figured out what was going on with the girl in the trunk.

Good effort - has some issues - going to give this another read later.

I rather liked the story and concept; the ending was a touch over the top, but I understand and respect that (though I wonder what it would do to the budget!)

Here's a few thoughts/notes I took on this one - not much, they may be of help.  

Very well written – a bit TOO literary for a screenplay? Streamline a little more.
p. 1 oak door (lower cap)
p. 3: For a creative person, this is really unoriginal – love the line!
p. 10: attaches itself to the roof (lower cap)
Wait – I’m wondering why Donald originally stayed in the taxi once he realized Max was looney tunes.  Maybe Max has a gun?  (Then later, it’s because Donald’s in on it?)

Cheers!

--Janet

I do see the character felt trapped, but the large chunks of dialogue had me jumping over it, then I just jumped to the end. Sorry

Cindy

This feels very familiar and doesn't really introduce anything new to theese conspiracy Iluminati types tales...

It's also too reliant on exposition, needs more show than tell, which is, of course, a challenge in a cab!

But I did quite enjoy it, was wondering who was trapped in the cab until the daughter reveal, which felt a little tacked on. With some polishing this could work though.  

right out of the gate, ballsy title.

Not sure that opening slug is written correctly, but I’m not gonna harp on stuff like that too much.  I’m just looking to see if this holds my interest really.  That’s my approach to shorts.

I’ve done it, I think we’ve all probably done it at some point or another, but man am I tired of reading amateur scripts with screenwriter characters.  I tend to think that’s a huge joke around Hollywood.  No disrespect to you, but I bet they get scripts from Jo Schmoes all the time and laugh at the fact their script has a screenwriter character.

That being said, this is a clever enough spin on that.  A screenwriter who writes the news… now that I get past my complaint, I think that’s actually a pretty cool idea for a character in something.

Max is a bit too manic, while Donald is a bit too calm, imo.  Nice contrast between the two, but they never rang 100% true to how I envisioned this going down.  Not a huge deal.  It is a little too “talky” though.

“Donald’s” plan seems very reminiscent of that Dan Brown book, Inferno.  Actually, the “cleanse the earth by killing a chunk of the population” tactic has been used many times at this point.

I’m sure some will say the “trapped” portion of the script comes too late, but to me it fits the theme just fine.  I guess the trunk girl actually fits the theme the whole way too.  … with that said, the “low budget” went out the window on the last page.

This was pretty cool.  Wordy, overwritten probably, but held my interest for the most part. (I won’t lie, blocks of dialogue make me sigh, and a lot of the words here could be slashed.)  I could see this being a cool opening scene to something longer about government conspiracies and the like.  Not necessarily my genre, but I’d watch it.  The writing was solid enough.  

An ambitious one we have here.

I thought you did well in containing the script largely within the taxi but allowing it some breathing space.

Inevitably we get a few talking heads style scripts within a contained location, mine is, so I think we have to accept this a bit. Plus once directed the dialogue can be mixed up.

The girl in the boot didn't really do much so felt a little unneeded.

So, a fair effort, a few loose ends.

Pass/consider

Lots of loose ends.  This needed more then 10 pages to really dive into the characters.

I was lost at times.  So much long dialog that it slowed down the pace somewhat.

When your dialog is the plot, it really slows down the story.  I'm guilty of that too.

Way overwritten.  I'd say this writer has spent a lot of time writing prose (novels or short stories).  

Keep in mind one thing when writing screenplays.  You are writing it with the actors and director in mind.  Your descriptions for things like houses should be minimum views.  In other words, the more you describe something unique, the harder it is for the director to find that.

You could easily write upscale neighborhood.  As I've gone further into writing, I've learned that you really only have to establish bare minimum for the characters/buildings/ etc.  Only dive into something if it is DIFFERENT from what we'd expect.  

In other words, if a millionaire lived as a pauper, then we'd need to know that.  If someone was wearing dragon sunglasses that can summon a dragon later in the script, then we need to know.  

I never felt he was trapped in the taxi.  Story was hard to follow.  It was exciting, but, hard to find any realism in it.  

Now, if the guy lead his screenwriter friend there to be crushed, that might have worked better for me...

4/10

Dan

So over written.

Just chunks and chunks of dialogue that essentially tell your whole story, I might as well have read a book. I really struggled to get through this.

The O.S. should be a V.0, off screen means they are in the scene but not on the screen, obviously that is not the case for the radio presenter.

I imagine that a magnet and car crusher wouldn’t come cheap, so I don’t think this is low budget and does not meet the criteria of the challenge.

Writer,

I kinda liked this. Yeah, I thought it a tad overwritten at first, but eventually it became engrossing and I was in for the ride. I'm not partial to conspiracy theorists, so perhaps that was the allure, and it kept me turning pages. I though the choice of screenwriter as Max's occupation was a bit off -- could've been a journalist, that would've worked better for me. Didn't really look for typos, grammatical issues. Just followed the story, and this one wasn't bad at all. Good work.

Steve

Confusing conspiracy theory story that needs streamlining imh. Girl in the boot seemed to come from left field too. Might just be me but I had trouble connecting with the characters and the story.

Some notes

these huge conspiracy tales always seem to over reach.  In this case, incredibly long dialogue on just what is going on.  For me, it doesn't quite work.  

Best
Richard

Poor start with an aerial view, as your low budget is already gone.  This opening passage is 4 lines long, overwritten, and completely unnecessary.

Your next Slug is incorrect, as the 3 passages that it contains are all EXT shots, not INT, as indicated.

Sorry, but that's enough for me to bow out very early.

No grade.

Really wordy dialogue with a lot of exposition. Max is a really talkative guy.
No reaction from Donald at all when he hears his daughter has been kidnapped?
Definitely meets the trapped in a taxi criteria.
Just not my kind of thing

Pretty good. I think some of the dialogue towards the end was unbelievable, particularly how quickly Donald believed the story and barely batted an eyelid when he found out his daughter had been kidnapped and was in the boot.

I'll have to pass, but with a rewrite I could see this one being produced.

I actually thought this was a pisser but then read all the other comments and a lot seem to dig this so my mistake!

Still, it's not for me. There was way too much exposition and unbelievable dialogue. The conspiracy theory stuff has been done to death. I did like the idea of a screenwriter working for the Illuminati and writing the news, that was a new spin on things. If any members of such a group are perusing these boards I'd be up for that job!

-Mark

It wasn't so much writing the news... it was writing stories that keep people in the same frame of mind.. like hypnotism. So people feel they have to fit into one stereotype or another just to be a normal functioning person.

This isn't my story... but it is something I've thought of before and is actually quite logical. People copy what they see on TV... a part of the reason I stopped watching it. Well, most of it. I'll still tune in to a good drama... just tune out when it starts dictating what I should be thinking.

So, I really do like this script. However the execution lets it down at present.

I'm perceiving this as an alternate take on the opening scene of 'Conspiracy Theory' with Mel Gibson, but re-scripted into a somewhat coherent short story. However, It's difficult to take in exactly what you want to say because, well... there's just too much information to process.

While much of what you're saying rings true, and while this (script) may stoke the imagination of your readers, it can also drop on them like a shitstorm.

Perhaps, take one topic or perceived conspiracy (like Project Green Air), and try to unravel it within the page count, but buried within the theme at hand. That can be utilized to drive this script in one direction only... currently, it's all over the map.

The story itself is actually very engaging, IMO, and I read it under the guise that some 'brave new world' enigma would rear its ugly head. I can dig this, well done.

     I liked the story. I liked the character and the dialogue. Maybe Donald wasn't as interesting as Max, but it wasn't a big deal. So this whole thing was solid at many levels.

     Except (there is always "except"), some flaws took away the chance from this script to be brilliant. First flaw was the lack of suspense. The story Max was telling was intriguing, even though most of it didn't have anything we didn't hear before, still I was hooked. But as he told it you could have injected suspense here and there. There could have been a roadblock, and Max reaching for a gun in the glove box before slowing down. What about the officer asking to open the trunk. Do you see where I am going with this? The dialogue was good. But suspense was only introduced in the last act where they got trapped. You had so many opportunities to make it way more suspenseful.

The second flaw for me was the way twists and turning points were delivered. The news on the radio. The woman in the trunk... etc. You delivered them in a blunt manner. Kinda like throwing them on the table unceremoniously. You should have milked those moments. As contradictory as it may sound, you should have been more elegant while hitting us with them in the face.

Also, I wish you have took a k-pax-esque approach to this. I wish you would have found a way to leave us in doubt . Leave us in doubt about the validity of the whole conspiracy thing, or about the way they die. The silhouette  character was a bit over the top.

But I do understand the time limit and pages count will always have its toll on a script. So you did an amazing job everything considered. Well done. Please rewrite it after the contest.

Interesting concept, but the dialogue did not feel right. Very often, I found myself thinking "who would actually say this?"

Ahh, my kind of tale.  Conspiracy.  Love the start, but too much exposition and too big of budget and not really trapped until the end, throws this out of the challenge.  If set up right, would be an excellent feature.  I would love to help develop it into one.  It's like 1984, Conspiracy Theory, Michael Clayton, etc. wrapped up into one.  Interesting take on things, but needs to be developed slowly.  Hope you continue on with it, but for the challenge it doesn't work.

Call the driver a driver not an occupant. Donald is Donald not Don. Max was a good name for the hyper conspiracy buff.

To me, a dressing gown is for women. Striped doesn't matter.

Radio broadcasts are a quick way to deliver exposition at the cost of being overused.

When Max gives four options, that was too many for one block of dialogue. Break it up or reduce the number of options. When you see long blocks of dialog like this, check your dialogue for unnecessary verbiage.

I thought Donald was going to kill Max but you fooled me. Good job!

Sorry I struggled with this one... The budget is blown from the first passage alone.
Overwritten but at the same time well written, obviously one of the usual suspects.

Quoted from Richard The script definitely needs work, but those things did make sense: 1. Donald knew him, and we find out he's used to a life of skull-duggery, so why not go with him? 2. The Group knows everything, they will know of their acquaintance, so Donald's house was out. It's probably even bugged or being monitored. I think the opening, which is badly written, also mentions that the houses are illuminated with spotlights, so the actual visual is OK.

Usually newbies reply with explanations after a few comments ;D;D;D I'm not saying it's yours Richard but...

Pretty good stuff. Formatting needs work, dialogue needs to be trimmed in places, a few commas needed. But otherwise, a recommend. A