First and foremost, your page count is extremely high for a found footage film. Usually they run from 70-90 minutes/pages. Yours is just over 2 hours long if filmed, based on the page count. That is really long, even for just a regular movie. This better be a blockbuster hit, otherwise, I’d decrease the page count at minimum 20-30 pages.
Commenting while I read...
For the interrogation scene, maybe it would be better structuring it as an INTERCUT rather than bouncing from slugline to slugline. Something like:
INTERCUT: PETER/MARLON
And just use CUT TO to differentiate when we’re focusing on Peter’s interrogation and when we’re focusing on Marlon’s interrogation.
Speaking of CUT TO, you don’t necessarily need to utilize it every time we cut to a different location/scene. With the slugline we already know we’re in a different location. The only time I would feel it’s appropriate to use CUT TO for a found footage script is when there’s an obvious cut in the footage, but for the same location. As I said, a change in slugline indicates a cut.
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Quoted Text THE SHOT IS A POV OF SOMEONE WALKING TOWARDS A CONVENIENCE STORE. IT STAYS RUSSELL’S POV THROUGHOUT THE SCENE.
It is dark out with only a few cars parked in front of a convenience store. Russell (who’s POV we are seeing) approaches the window and looks inside. A voice comes from one of the cars beside him.
JOHN Fucking disgusting, isn’t it? |
1) I say cut down the CAPS action line and just say “THE SHOT IS RUSSEL’S POV AS HE WALKS TOWARD A CONVENIENCE STORE” 2) We already know that it’s Russell’s point of view so we don’t need to be told again 3) JOHN’S line should have (O.S.) next to it, I believe
John and Joe are really similar names. Might wanna consider changing one of them so that it reads a little bit smoother.
I hope that this scene at least introduces characters that appear later in the script, but really it seems out of place especially with its racism. We jump from a ghost story to sudden drama with racist comments. Are we currently set in a small town? Also, why is Russell filming this? He’s just setting himself up for criminal acts and harassment.
Also, I’m curious as to know whether this is a documentary found footage, or just a compilation of found footage-esque shots/happenings, or if someone has actually found all of this footage and has put it together for us to see.
The whole “inside of the motel room” scene can be cut. This will help reduce the page count.
I’d say cut the last half of the scene in the compound/meeting room with Russell, Stephen, and Hagan. After the “Alcoholics Anonymous” comment.
Where are these hidden cameras coming from? Does Russell have a whole setup of the entire compound? Unless I’m mistaken/confused.
Page 50 -
Finally, something spooky is happening. If this is gonna be a horror, you gotta jump to the horror sooner than this. We start off with a horror, then it’s mostly drama from there on out. There aren’t really any horror bits in between the drama either. Cut out a bunch of scenes involving the skinheads. Get back to the horror as quickly as you can. Remember to enter a scene as soon as possible and leave as soon as possible. There’s a lot of talking, even for a found footage script, where audiences are probably going to be getting bored real quick. If this is going to be marketed as a horror movie, audiences are going to want to expect horror stuff to happen throughout.
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This scene seems way out of place. We just saw Russell get killed/possessed? Is this a “flashback”? Or, footage filmed from earlier? Also, she just ran off, how could she be halfway into town right when she ran off?
Page 76 -
Finally Peter’s brother is coming back into the picture.
Page 102 - 106
They’re just having this casual conversation while there’s a bunch of dead people roaming around? They should be shutting the hell up!
Page 107 -
Why are they feeling sorry for Hagan now? After all the hate that he and his group had brought to the town, they’re now feeling sorry for him?
Okay finished…
That was quite the doozy of an ending. So I’m assuming it wasn’t a Wendigo, and it wasn’t Nazi demons, but pure evil? That sort of…”infects” people? What is this vortex? Does it open to another dimension? Is it a portal to Hell? How does all of this tie into the person jumping off of the bridge at the beginning? I get the smiling man that comes out of the water, because everyone who gets “infected” are smiling. Is Fred a demon? Is he this evil god? Or is Ross Helms the evil god, since he claims to be? What was the deal with Marlon at the end, shooting everyone up? Did the same thing that happened to Adam happen to him? Why didn’t he just kill himself? Is he another “evil” person? As you can tell, I have a lot of questions that I hope you can answer.
I’d say you can cut out at least 20 pages of this script by leaving out the majority of the skinhead and racist stuff. I understand you’re trying to bring in real-world events, but they really do not correlate with the story you’re trying to tell. The beginning tells us it’s going to be probably a ghost story, as well as your title, but the majority of the script was talking about skinheads, racism, and people trying to drive out minorities. This can all definitely be drastically cut and only implied without showing it. Like toward the end when Alice is talking about the Wendigo, and the skinheads, and how Hagan talks about something like a skinhead cult or demonic ritual, that is all good information to give us toward the end. We don’t necessarily need to see it all happening.
I honestly believe you can cut out Eka, Dana, Bill, Theo, and Robert. You could keep the scenes with Stephen, Joe, John, and Karen, and just shorten them down. But the scenes with the other characters don’t really move the story any further. Focus on only the main characters and leave these minor characters out of the story to help move the story faster. As I had mentioned previously, you’re selling this as a horror, but it reads a lot more like a political drama. It starts off as a horror and had me really intrigued, but then it slows down dramatically with all of the skinhead fluff. The main story and the horror elements don’t pick up until page 50 or 60 which is really late for a horror movie. As a found footage, your audience is probably going to get real bored real quick.
Try to give our main characters a bit more voice. They all sort of sound the same for the most part. Make Marlon sound more black. Give Hagan an accent, even it’s cutting off ‘ing’ endings and making him say “hangin’” or “bringin’” or have him say “ain’t” a lot. He’s a skinhead, probably not very educated, so make him sound more dumb. Have Peter maybe cuss less and sound more like a fatherly figure. In the end, a lot of the characters were sounding similar to each other, and especially with so much going on, it was hard to tell them apart. Have a character say “yeah” a lot, even.
Focus on condensing this script. Like I said, unless this is going to be a blockbuster hit, you have to cut back a lot. Try to make it a goal to make this at most 100 pages, but go even further than that and make it 90 pages. Cut out a bunch of the talking. As I mentioned above, enter the scene as late as possible and leave as early as possible. Get to the horror aspects a lot quicker. The first 10ish pages are super intriguing, but then it slows down dramatically afterward, and gets more dramatic than it should be if you’re going to sell this as a horror.
This could be a good horror found footage, just leave it more as a horror if you’re going in that direction and sprinkle the dramatic/political aspects throughout.
Sean