JarrettWright

A review of Exhume

by JarrettWright on 02/04/2012

Great work so far! I could really see this being made as an independent film. I liked the characters a lot, and each of their individual personality's shown through clearly (Kevin did seem a bit static to me though). The dialogue seemed natural for the most part, and each character clearly had a voice of there own. I thought that the concept was excellent, actually literally... Great work so far! I could really see this being made as an independent film. I liked the characters a lot, and each of their individual personality's shown through clearly (Kevin did seem a bit static to me though). The dialogue seemed natural for the most part, and each character clearly had a voice of there own.

I thought that the concept was excellent, actually literally digging up his buried dreams from the past. This is obviously a universal feeling that most people can empathize with- having dreams that don't come true because other things in life happen. I feel that the pacing of this story works well, that you change things up a little just when it starts getting redundant, and that the length of the story is no more than it needs to be for one with this concept. The message and what not is left open-ended enough as to not seem too preachy.

I guess my only concern was that I got a little confused about what the demon at the end represented. My take on it was that it represented his resentment toward his wife and child for getting in the way of his dreams and his deep down belief that his life may have been better without them? If this is what it was, then I guess there was enough in there to get it, and you don't need to change anything. If not, it went over my head at least, and you might want to consider making it more clear as to what it is. If it's just supposed to represent his dark side in general, then I think it would be a better story if you pick the one aspect of his dark side that relates best to the theme of the story, and commit to making the demon best display that.

Lastly, a small note, the supernatural thing with the TV was very reminiscent of Poltergeist in my mind, so if you feel the need to have to add a supernatural explanation for why this is happening, you may want to change that part. Personally I think the story would be better off with the events just happening without any explanation of this sort.

In conclusion, for a first time read, there really weren't any huge mistakes in my mind for this kind of story that screamed at me "FIX THIS!!!" So, Good Work! read

A Fun One

A review of The Objective

by JarrettWright on 02/02/2012

I enjoyed this for what it was. I thought it was funny and well done for a sketch of this sort. The locations, costumes, and props were all great. The production value was good enough for a fun sketch like this, and you got enough shots that the editing was good enough as well. Overall much better than I thought it was going to be when I read the premise. Well Done!

Great Visuals!

A review of Can't See Me

by JarrettWright on 02/01/2012

I have to admit that conceptually, this story and what it was trying to get across went right over my head. However, the shots were all amazing, and the production quality throughout this whole film was great. I am personally a fan of shallow depth of field, and you seemed to utilize it well and a lot in this short. Looking back a couple of the shots that really stuck with... read

Good Action/Fight Demo

A review of Battle At The Serenity Temple

by JarrettWright on 02/01/2012

Admittedly, the quality of the footage when I saw this was not very good. I'm not sure if this was because of how it was shot, uploaded, or my media player, but I'll give you my thoughts of what I did see. To me this was obviously made as a demo to show off a fight scene. So keeping this in mind, I thought it was excellent. The editing was flawless and quick. The things done... read

Lots of Interesting Aspects, Dialogue Needs Work.

A review of HERO WITHIN

by JarrettWright on 02/01/2012

I'd like to start out by congratulating on tackling such an ambitious story. In one story you've: A) established a futuristic world, with its own set of politics, B) Created characters all with different and interesting super-powers, who are divided into several separate factions, and C) have woven an immensely intricate web of relationships between these characters. This is... I'd like to start out by congratulating on tackling such an ambitious story. In one story you've: A) established a futuristic world, with its own set of politics, B) Created characters all with different and interesting super-powers, who are divided into several separate factions, and C) have woven an immensely intricate web of relationships between these characters. This is a lot to cram into 108 pages.

Perhaps too much. By putting in so many interesting things, you've actually made each aspect less interesting, and thus the whole story. It felt like everything was just sort of thrown in to add another layer of depth, but in fact nothing was given enough time to really be fully explored and fleshed out. In extreme cases (which are often debatably the best), a story will choose only one theme to explore, and reveal it from all sides and perspectives. Look at any play by Shakespeare. Obviously you're A story here is Drake's transition from criminal to hero. And, I give you kudos that you have clear steps for his arc and development that show this change: robbing at the beginning, then trying to help people but actually making things worse (I thought this was funny), burning building start of a real hero, saving the city at the end. However, what was not so clear was his reasoning and motivation for making each of these changes. this was because there were simply too many subplots that you didn't have enough time to explore these changes: Drake and Natalya, Drake and Violet, Drake and Maven, Drake and Xander, Xander and Lexi, Drake and Chris, Drake and Julie, the two bad guys, the bad guy and maven, Stone, Riggs, and the s.p.e.l., and so on and so forth.

Secondly, I like that you thought about and know the backstory for every character. I like that you give us insights to their past. However, I don't like that we know every little detail about everyone's life, and that the information is usually just blatantly shoved on us and serves no further purpose then to show that they have a past. For instance, at the end of the one scene when you have the one line thrown in there to reveal that Natalya was adopted, after the action (purpose) of the scene had happened. Then things just move on. It has no effect on the rest of the story, or on Natalya's character really in anyway. I suppose it was put in with the intent of adding depth to Natalya, but instead it just screams of intent. Look out for this in your script. Another example is when the mayor says that his childhood dream was to become president. The audience can already tell he has political ambition because he wants to become governor, and will do anything to become so. The viewer gets this, you need to respect that the audience is not dumb and shouldn't try to spoon feed them so much with blatant lines like this.

Lastly, my main problem with this script is that to be honest with you, the dialogue needs a lot of work. A cliche in the writing world is "When you write something clever, take it out." It seems like you try to force something clever into every line. the reason this saying exists is because in real life, nobody talks like that, so we feel removed from the film because the dialogue seems fake. Also, with your script in particular, since you try to make ever single line clever, it dilutes the effect of some of the really witty lines I did enjoy. Besides the wittiness, the other aspect of dialogue that needs to be addressed is that everyone blatantly speaks what's on their minds and explain what's happening too much. Let the viewer infer something occasionally, it will make the story much more interesting.

Other than that, structurally you kept the pacing and timing of everything interesting and on point. Like I said I did like that there was a lot of interesting things going on, but my main advice would be to trim the fat and pick what's truly important to you for this story and really explore that aspect in depth.

Also, this is not in the least bit story related, but for the love of god PLEASE PROOF-READ THIS SCRIPT!!! A few typos is to be expected, but one or more in every paragraph is unacceptable. I looked at your reviews for others' scripts, and the grammar is not bad at all. The errors in this script were extremely distracting. It makes in impression in the reader as well that says that if you, the writer, didn't even take time to care enough to proof read this story, then why should I care about it at all?

I know I was a bit harsh with some of this stuff, but I hope you find it helpful. read

Good Characters, Stylized Dialogue, and 1st Act - 2nd Act Needs Work

A review of Detroit

by JarrettWright on 01/31/2012

To start I would just like to say that I love the style you have for dialogue. Each character truly had their own voice, expressions, and mannerisms that made them who they were. However, although I liked how the characters said it, at times what they were actually saying came of flat. They either said too much period, said things to direct about the things happening around... To start I would just like to say that I love the style you have for dialogue. Each character truly had their own voice, expressions, and mannerisms that made them who they were. However, although I liked how the characters said it, at times what they were actually saying came of flat. They either said too much period, said things to direct about the things happening around them and their place in the scheme of things, or just continually basically said the same thing too many times. Just keep this in mind when you work on the next draft.

I thought the opening first act to this story was phenomenal. The way the characters spoke, the description of the things going on around in Detroit, the mystery surrounding Joe and all the hype about him made me genuinely excited to read this script. However, I have to admit that by about a little past halfway through, I was starting to lose my interest. I've given it much thought, and think I've pinpointed the reason why this started getting boring, at least for me.

Basically nothing really changes for a huge chunk of the script. Joe, who I presumed to be the main character at the beginning because of all the build about him and airtime he was given, is for the most part entirely inactive. He doesn't really do anything to move the story forward. I realized about halfway through that that may have been your intention here, and that perhaps the real story was about how Al and his gang were dealing with Joe's passiveness. However, they react to everything in the same way for most of the script, "he's playing games, he'll come around to us." So I felt like all that time no one was really doing anything to move the story forward or change it at all. There were occasionally things like kidnapping Marleana, but even those were instantly resolved with little problem, and things were back to exactly how they were. I felt like this was the entire second act, until they final do decide to do something about Joe and attempt to kill him. The things that happen in a lot of the scenes are very repetitive and similar to previous scenes.

Also, I don't feel like any of the characters really changed during this story. We get that Joe changed a lot during prison, but from page 1 to the end, he is the same Joe the whole time. I would have liked to see Joe change during the story. Al and Billy also remained unchanged. The only person who really changed at all was Julius, who I felt was a fairly minor character.

Those are the main problems I thought this story had. I feel that if you're going to have Joe do nothing the whole time, you should vary Al's reaction to this more and maybe put more emphasis on their reaction to Joe's arrival at the beginning than focusing on what Joe is doing. Also, since I did like the characters, something I would say to consider if you really felt like changing the story entirely would be to write the story with the betrayal in the 1st Act, prison and his transition from being vengeful to peaceful for the second act, and condense this story into the 3rd Act. But otherwise I would just pay some attention to the things I mentioned earlier. Hope this helps! read

Good Concept, Needs More

A review of EQUALIZE

by JarrettWright on 01/30/2012

I feel like the two instances chosen here dragged on a bit too long for the point they were trying to make, especially the first one. I think this would be stronger if it had more anecdotes, preferably short ones. Other than that I like the concept of this short, I just feel you should do more with it.

All Webcam

A review of Ten Thousand Shadows: Human Trial

by JarrettWright on 01/30/2012

I thought that it was a neat idea to come up with a concept that could be done entirely using a webcam and still make sense. I thought the dialogue was believable and the acting was decent. Wasn't entirely sure what was going on the whole time, not sure if that was intentional or not. The glitches and what not tended to just be more annoying rather than stylistic, and in my... read

Keeps You Turning Pages

A review of The Lament (rev)

by JarrettWright on 01/30/2012

Unfortunately I am not really well versed in short story analysis, so I will just give you my opinions as a random reader. I can't really put my finger on anything I truly disliked about this piece. In my opinion there were no glaring flaws. I apologize because you probably posted this hoping people would give you ideas to make it better, but it seemed pretty solid to me. I... read

Decent Starting Point, but Needs Improvement.

A review of Lucidity

by JarrettWright on 01/29/2012

To start off, I liked the concept of the magical dream-catcher as a means to actually literally fighting off his inner demons in a dreamscape. I felt that adding the sci-fi aspect after that actually hurt the story more than enhance it. Although I understand why you put the sci-fi rules in that Cid explains to make the story work, i.e. his brain not being able to handle the... To start off, I liked the concept of the magical dream-catcher as a means to actually literally fighting off his inner demons in a dreamscape. I felt that adding the sci-fi aspect after that actually hurt the story more than enhance it. Although I understand why you put the sci-fi rules in that Cid explains to make the story work, i.e. his brain not being able to handle the other universe yet and what not, they all just seemed forced for the purpose of the story, so that at the end the whole world could be changed. Perhaps you may want to consider just making the magic from the dream-catcher change the world at the end, or if you really wanted to change the ending up, consider just having him return to the world from the beginning just with a different perspective. Just be advised that, at least in my opinion, having both the sci-fi aspect and the magic dream-catcher just muddled things up too much, and detracted from the story.

Secondly, there were not many plot twist in this story. it seemed to go, for the most part, straight from point A to point B, besides the standard structural turning points. This made the middle drag on a bit and was a bit predictable. He trains up, Billy makes fun of him, they compete, Frank doesn't lose, rinse, repeat. The story would be more interesting if there were some set-backs along the way, the whole time it seems like Frank is just progressing forward. Although Cid resembles the archetypal mentor, bestowing magical gifts upon Frank, you have a couple of scenes where Cid talks about wanting to stay king. Perhaps to meet this end, he might actually try to sabotage Frank so that Frank fails so he can stay king? Something to consider. (Otherwise I wasn't really sure what these scenes were for).

Also, during the training sections, Frank's arc would be greatly enhanced if you focused not only on the physical training of beating Billy, but also on the mental weaknesses of Frank that have made Billy such an important projection in his life.

Other small things to consider:
Possibly making Isabel someone unimportant from the beginning who ignores him, like the secretary.
A big deal is made about the present for Madison at the end, but there is no pay off.
Possibly have one flashback at the beginning be about Medieval(?) Times.
Dialogue to on the head, i.e. when Frederick offers to help them, Frank knows it's in both their best interest, Fred knows this, and so does the audience, and they all know that everyone knows it, so don't just blatantly say it.
Finally reread it once for grammar- lots of typos.

Other than that I did like the initial concept and feel that you've got the beginnings of a good story here. Good Luck! read

TriggerStreet

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Submissions by JarrettWright

Reviews by JarrettWright 13

Comments About JarrettWright 6

Michael Keller on 03/11/2012

Mr. Cinema on 02/09/2012

Anthony J. on 02/04/2012

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