Street Lights by Nathan Everitt - Short, Thriller - Having killed her mobster husband, Jane retreats to a hitman's apartment, where they prepare to fight off the police and the mob. 7 pages - pdf, format

New writer interested in feedback on this work

This time I've confirmed that the script is downloading properly.  Apologies.  Let's try again.

Don

Third times the charm, then?

First of all, I would lose all the "we can hear" and "we can see". You are the storyteller, not the cameraman/director... besides that being a no-no in spec scripts, it's redundant.

"Piles of dirty clothes gather in piles"... redundant. You do have good visual action lines, don't get me wrong, but I would go back and cut a lot of the unnecessary words out. You'd be surprised by not only how much better it reads, but also how much page length you chop off...

Also, stay in present tense/active voice. For example...

"Jane shoves past Duster and into his apartment, where she pulls a BROWN ENVELOPE out of her pocket and throws it onto the couch, before turning around and marching over to Duster."

Could easily (and probably should) be written as -

Jane shoves past Duster into his apartment, pulls a brown envelope (doesn't need to be caps) out of her pocket, throws it onto the couch. She turns around, marches over to Duster.

See how more easily that reads, and how it is all present tense/active voice? Remember, this is a script, not a novel. Write it AS WE SEE IT unfold on the screen. With that being said, especially lose your "before doing this" and "before doing that" and all those "ing" words. Hopefully you get what I'm saying now.

"FADE OUT:
We hear the COOL TUNE of SYNTHWAVE MUSIC.
FADE IN:
4

EXT. LOS ANGELES – NIGHT
The credits appear over the Los Angeles skyline as the sun descends behind the buildings.
Once the credits are finished, the number “1991” appears on the screen before we...
FADE TO:"

You honestly don't need ANY of that whatsoever. It adds NOTHING to your story. Remember, your job is to tell the story, not to direct. Read up on the differences between spec scripts and shooting scripts...

I'm skimming a lot of these and reading just the dialogue now, which by the way, is actually pretty good compared to most scripts I read on here, which is extremely unnatural and cringe worthy, so good job on that...

Story wasn't too bad either, I would just look into some of the feedback/suggestions I gave. Good luck! :)

Nathan,

I got a sense of what you were going for but this is a tricky idea to nail in 7 pages - feels like the start/end of something bigger which leaves a few too many questions to work against what you do have.  You set a big expectation in the premise but that’s where it ends.  That we never get there isn’t necessarily a bad thing - doesn’t have to be a bloodbath. But nor does the scant time we’ve spent with these characters lend it much emotional impact.

The noir sensibility comes through, but there’s a few instances where it plays more to the style than the logic, for instance:

Duster’s worried about telling Jane his name as it puts her in danger.  Yet earlier he mentions they’ll come for her either way - she even hopes that they will.  This also makes the reveal of realising the mob are onto them somewhat moot.  There’s a degree of inconsistency here.  One moment they’re resigned to their fate, the next they seem surprised by it.

Wouldn’t Duster be suspicious of the phone call?  Feels like a rookie move for a pro.

How does Duster know the police will be on their way?  How is Jane directly linked to the gun?  Fingerprints?  Is it registered to her?  What’s the point in having someone else do your dirty-work if they’re so inept that they bring it right back to you?  That’s a bigger issue here.

Do you really need to mention the credits and music score in the middle of a 7 page short?

Again, I like what you were going for, but it missed the mark for me.

Steve