a screenplay
by AlCielo
To justify waiting for Mr. Right, a woman invents a crude fiance but falls for her married marriage counselor.
AlCielo
member since 12/17/2002 |
last login 05/18/2013
As a screenwriter, I specialize in low-budget offbeat comedies with the emotional depth of drama (not unlike "Little Miss Sunshine"). In reviews, I tend to focus on how successfully the script involves the audience (both the reader and especially the moviegoer). TRIVIA:...
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As a screenwriter, I specialize in low-budget offbeat comedies with the emotional depth of drama (not unlike "Little Miss Sunshine"). In reviews, I tend to focus on how successfully the script involves the audience (both the reader and especially the moviegoer). TRIVIA: The screen name AlCielo is from Luis Bunuel's Mexican potboiler, "Subido al Cielo," usually translated as "Mexican Bus Ride." The current avatar is a screen shot of me as a zombie extra in "Dance of the Dead."
Submissions by AlCielo
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a screenplay by AlCieloA vice principal coaches a drama team against the the vamp who wrecked her marriage and acting career.
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Reviews by AlCielo 298
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A review of Unseenby AlCielo on 03/13/2013"Unseen" is based on a strong premise--a young man hounded by guilt for his brother's kidnapping seeks revenge. Having such a clear, important concept is critical--if the basis for the story is unaffecting, then it doesn't matter how well written the screenplay is. My goal here is to help you develop the strengths of your premise. To do that, I'm going to focus on weaknesses... "Unseen" is based on a strong premise--a young man hounded by guilt for his brother's kidnapping seeks revenge. Having such a clear, important concept is critical--if the basis for the story is unaffecting, then it doesn't matter how well written the screenplay is.
My goal here is to help you develop the strengths of your premise. To do that, I'm going to focus on weaknesses in structure, character, and dialogue, but please don't let the negatives distract you from my great appreciation of the core of your story. Instead, think of these suggestions as a kind of workshop. Try out any that seem helpful in developing your script into what it can be, and ignore the rest.
Structure, character, and dialogue are all interrelated, but I'm starting with structure because it's the most physical (like a schematic drawing). Structure draws the audience in without announcing itself (except in rare cases like Memento). Structural weaknesses allow the audience's attention to wander. A strong structure keeps readers / viewers on track.
The kind of structure a story has is often dependent on the genre. Your story is essentially a revenge plot. Someone does something bad to the protagonist, who then seeks out the wrongdoer and attempts to punish him. However, the revenge angle doesn't kick in until well after the midpoint (p. 56), when Derek learns his brother is dead. Before that, you have a rescue story, punctuated by stretches (up to 5 years) where Derek gives up. Your premise and genre are fairly conventional, so an unclear structure is likely to weaken their involvement / identification with Derek. There are (at least) 2 better alternatives: (1) make the story / genre a rescue tale, with Derek learning of his brother's death only at the end (and then deciding what to do to Mike), or emphasize the revenge angle by letting Derek know (by the end of Act 1) that someone has killed his brother. This means condensing the set-up so that Mike kills Evan by p. 22 or so, or using a flashforward / flashback structure, which is tricky at best, so that Derek learns early on, but after that, the story flashes back to the events leading up to the discovery.
Restructuring means rethinking characterization as well. For this genre, the protagonist and antagonist should have clear, plot-driven goals. Can you imagine a 5-year (or even a 5-minute) pause in Liam Neeson's quest in Taken? There must have been times when the character went to the bathroom, but the movie's not going to show them. Derek's goals for much of the story are fuzzy at best (fuzzy to the audience, not necessarily to Derek or you). What is Derek's core? If you factored out his revenge goal and the death of his brother and parents, what motivates him? Of course, you can't factor out these tragic events, but he should do something more than react passively (in real life people often react passively to catastrophic events, but their lives don't make good movies)--he should acquire a goal and whatever the core of his being is will determine how he attempts to achieve that goal. The antagonist's situation is a little different. In most cases with a psychopathic opponent, the antagonist's motives may be explained in a single sentence (e.g. Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs), or the antagonist may be a cipher--all the more menacing because we don't know what drives him. However, he should be driven and he should be powerful. The antagonist is what keeps the protagonist from achieving unity with himself; if the antagonist is half-hearted or ineffective, the protag's quest will be flaccid. I'm never really clear what Mike's central motivation is--he seems to be a composite of movie psychos rather than a unique and hyperfocused individual. If an antagonist messes up (as Mike does on p. 45-46), the error should motivate him to become even stronger / smarter, or the error should occur (or become evident) only at the climax, after the protagonist has fought the good fight. In many cases, the protagonist is the shadow side of the protagonist, and can be defined as a kind of inverse of the strengths of the hero. By defeating the antag, the protag overcomes his own inner demons and becomes whole again.
The key to good characterization is to let the characters drive the story, not vice versa. When the story tells the characters what to do, it often tells them what to say, and the dialogue suffers. The more important an interchange is, the more indirect or oblique people tend to be in their discussion. The old public speaking advice "Tell your audience what you're going to say, say it, and then tell them what you said" is the wrong formula for movie dialogue. The discussion between Kevin's mom and dad (who should have names, by the way) about dad's drinking is driven by the story and sounds expositional. They should be talking about practically anything but drinking. And in stressful situations, people rarely make long speeches. The problem with long speeches (esp. the ones over 4 lines) in this script is that they lack tension and movement; everything stops while the character talks. Now it's possible for a lengthy monologue to move the story (and the audience), e.g. the "I coulda been a contender" speech in On the Waterfront, but it should arise from the character's drive to do something, not the author's. Take the sheriff's 21-line explanation on p. 74. The solution is not to break the speech up into 4-line blocks with interruptions like "The sheriff stops to scratch his nose"; the trick is to remove anything that doesn't absolutely HAVE to be there, and at the same time not lose sight of the subtext / agenda of the speaker (which in this case is to persuade Derek not to act hastily. I'm not rewriting your dialogue for you--this is just an example of how to streamline the passage:
SHERIFF
But, nothing. I checked with the owner. He's been renting it out, says the tenants are fine people, always pay their rent on time.
DEREK
Tenants? More than one?
SHERIFF
Old guy--retired military he thinks--and his grandkid.
DEREK
What's the grandkid like? Is he black?
SHERIFF
Nothing odd about that. Lots of mixed marriages these days.
DEREK
What the hell? Don't you see.....
etc.
Overall, I'd recommend you consider your revision in that order: structure, character, and finally dialogue. As you improve the structure, you'll change what the characters do, and as you develop the characters, you'll fine tune their speaking.
You have an excellent start--not just the premise / concept, but the characters and the vivid, visual actions. You are a strong writer and a perceptive one. The scene where Derek and Evan face each other but don't see each other (p. 46) is a brilliant moment, and I think more of these will fall into place as you polish your story and your storytelling. read -
A review of The Sun the Blood and the Sandby AlCielo on 06/27/2012Combining Dante and Leone is a gutsy choice, but not necessarily a futile one (filming the Inferno would be another matter). The Inferno is first and foremost a quest / journey (un cammin) and the spaghetti western protagonists normally undertake a quest. Both Dante and Leone present a larger-than-life world (but one that depicts our own with accuracy and restraint). In this... Combining Dante and Leone is a gutsy choice, but not necessarily a futile one (filming the Inferno would be another matter). The Inferno is first and foremost a quest / journey (un cammin) and the spaghetti western protagonists normally undertake a quest. Both Dante and Leone present a larger-than-life world (but one that depicts our own with accuracy and restraint).
In this draft, however, the Dante background doesn't illuminate the spaghetti storyline, (and vice versa, for that matter). I'm dividing this dual critique (Dante/Leone) into Structure and Character.
STRUCTURE
The Inferno starts with a simple enough structure (9 concentric circles and an antechamber) but then shreds the simplicity to show the illogic / disorderliness that sin wreaks on an orderly universe. One circle (Limbo) isn't for sin at all (you reflect this in the famous cowboy bar). The remaining 8 circles depict 7 sins divided into two categories--Incontinence and Malice (again you follow this with Fort Dis for lower hell). You tend to reflect the messiness of the Inferno, but without its clear analysis of the seven deadly sins (the movie Se7en did a better job)--I had a difficult time deciding who everyone except Lust, Gluttony and Avarice were, though I think the Indian was Wrath.
Leone's categories tend to be somewhat simpler (though they get more complex in his later films)--Good vs. Bad, or Good-Bad-Ugly. There was no psychological advantage for the 7 categories of villains, other than providing each with a different personality. The Magnificent Seven / Seven Samurai, on the other hand, use individuation to present different facets of heroism (not sin of course).
Structurally, this draft seems to me a hodgepodge. If you have to choose between simple and complex, simple is almost always the better choice for a film story. I'd recommend one goal (for Virgil to get Dante to Beatrice, as in the Inferno) and seven opponents (like the repeated antagonists in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), without, if possible, the numerous flashbacks (flashbacks are valid if they're hooked into theme, but here you use them simply for exposition).
CHARACTER
The Divine Comedy depicts perhaps the ultimate character arc--not only does the protagonist go from lost to saved (and reunited with his love, who represents this beatitude), but he learns so much that he writes a 100-canto poem about his experience. Even Virgil has an arc--he becomes more aware of his own insufficiency (which reflects the poet's contention that reason alone is necessary but insufficient as a guide to revelation).
Arcs are more common in later Leone, but they're never a bad idea as long as they're organic. Unfortunately there's no arc, no inner story in your script. Yes, James Bond does not arc, but Dante the character (both your protag and the "hero" of the Divine Comedy) is NOT James Bond. Dante starts off as a fallible everyman--that's how both audiences connect with him. But even though you symbolically dispense with Virgil at the end of your story (reflecting Virgil's disappearance at the end of the Purgatorio), he pretty much calls the shots (except for Dante's piloting the train (Geryon--not Greyon), which is not a psychological development but a symbolic substitute. If you look at how Dante the protag of the Inferno reacts to sinners as they interact, you'll see a most definite change. The one exception seems to be Virgil's sliding down the hill with Dante (which you echo on p. 106). But the symbolism here is that Virgil--normally Reason--must act instinctively after he's been deceived by the rational-seeming devils. In your script, there's no resonance with character growth (of either Virgil or Dante), just a parallel action.
In short, I'd recommend making your script as simple and archetypal as possible on the plot level but as detailed and analytical as possible on the character level (the old saying "Simple stories, complex characters" is even more important for film stories than for literary allegories. Think like Dante but write like Kurosawa.
Two negatives: The grammatical errors are very distracting and sometimes unintentionally humorous--not a good thing in a cerebral script. The action descriptions are often more detailed than what anyone but a set director would need, and frequently there's no payoff for the details (e.g. the forest on p. 103 is a reflection of the Wood of Suicides in the Inferno, but there's no connection to Dante's attempted suicide at the beginning of the script--the forest in the script simply provides some atmosphere that's unconnected to action or theme). Many of the action paragraphs could be trimmed by 50% or more.
Some positives: I like Virgil's Clint Eastwood dialog--you've nailed the cadence and sarcasm. The ending was positive in a Hollywood way but faithful to the theme (if not the symbolism) of the Divine Comedy. Those action paragraphs I mentioned earlier represent visual thinking, an asset for any writer.
Any work is a journey, and a draft is but one step of that pilgrimage, but you've started well and with persistence and diligence you can end your journey at the paradise of your choosing. Best wishes for the trip. read -
A review of Rebel Interrogatorby AlCielo on 06/26/2012"Rebel Interrogator" takes on a difficult genre mix: comedy-drama. An imbalance in either direction can cause problems--too serious to be a comedy or too flippant to be a drama. But getting the mix to work can provide audiences with a fresh and memorable story that stands out from the remakes and imitations. For me, the two genres aren't blended but kept apart. Act 1 is a... "Rebel Interrogator" takes on a difficult genre mix: comedy-drama. An imbalance in either direction can cause problems--too serious to be a comedy or too flippant to be a drama. But getting the mix to work can provide audiences with a fresh and memorable story that stands out from the remakes and imitations.
For me, the two genres aren't blended but kept apart. Act 1 is a comedy in the vein of "Dumb and Dumber"; Act 3 focuses on serious political intrigue a la "V for Vendetta"; and Act 2 is a long and not entirely smooth transition. Act 2 is normally where you develop your characters, but in this case, the two protagonists are at their flattest in the long act.
I have two suggestions. (In my opinion, it's best to deal with these issues before doing anything else.)
1. Move the discovery of uninterviewed prisoners to the end of Act 1 (by shortening previous scenes). This is a small change, but it may help focus your energies on the challenge of Act 2.
2. What do most second acts do for reader involvement? Typically they heighten involvement by increasing the stakes and risks the protagonist faces. Like comedy, stakes are most effective when they're not imposed from the outside but when they evolve from the inner life of the characters. Until Act 3, the stakes are relatively low. The protags live in a totalitarian state. Sure, their bumbling increases the likelihood of punishment, but in such a state, they'd probably get punished unfairly for some minor infraction anyway.
Stakes / involvement should grow from the inner needs, changes, development of the protagonist. It's as important for the inner story to proceed seamlessly as it is for the external one to do so. As the protagonist grows, so do the stakes, and so do the obstacles until the story reaches a climax so tense that the story must resolve or break (at least in traditional narratives, which yours is).
If you look at Die Hard 1, 2, and 4, or MI 3, or Lethal Weapon 4, you'll notice that the stakes are amped up not by increasing the firepower but by putting the protag's family in jeopardy. This is a natural progression, because the protag's arc is normally tied to growth in his relationships (see Dara Marks' The Inside Story). Now you do this to an extent in Rebel Interrogator, by making the protags care about Turbot, and through the romantic entanglements with Tanyetta and Elisa, all of whom are threatened by Tighthand. However, these three relationships aren't interconnected, nor are they integral to most of Act 2 (where relationships are normally incubated). The romance in particular comes in as more of an afterthought in Act 3.
I'm not telling how you must revise your story, but here's an example: If you move the discovery of the hidden prisoners back to the end of Act 1, then you can use Act 2 to develop the romances (starting as soon as possible). Turbot could be either a block or a helper in developing these relationships. As the romances grow during Act 2, so do the threats from Tighthand--not toward Rufus and Darnell so much as toward Tanyetta and Elisa. (Remember, an antagonist is not necessarily a villain and vice versa. Tighthand should probably be both, but in Act 2, he has little impact on the protag's goals. Try making him more of an adversary earlier. Be sure to make Rufus' seeming capitulation to Tighthand more an outgrowh of his needs / desires as well--it seems artificial here.) Then Act 3 (pretty much as it is) will be a natural outgrowth from the arc and conflicts you've set up in Act 2.
You have many strengths to build on as you develop your characters and their arcs. Dialog works well. Rufus' family provides a nice model for how people accommodate under totalitarianism. And you've provided very different personalities for your two protags. Tie together the inner and outer worlds of your story, and you'll increase audience involvement tenfold. Best wishes with the development of an interesting and fresh idea. read
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Submissions by AlCielo
-
a screenplay by AlCielo
To justify waiting for Mr. Right, a woman invents a crude fiance but falls for her married marriage counselor.
-
a screenplay by AlCielo
A vice principal coaches a drama team against the the vamp who wrecked her marriage and acting career.
-
-
a screenplay by AlCieloA college student obsessed with normalcy must recover her inner deviant to save an ex-boyfriend from a doomsday... more
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a screenplay by AlCieloGenres: dramaA cynical woman who makes sleazy roadshow movies with her husband in the 1930's must successfully defend their... more
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a screenplay by AlCieloGenres: comedyAn overly philosophical sheriff must stop whoever's exterminating the mild-mannered zombies of Potterville before... more
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a short story by AlCieloGenres: comedyA writer and his alter ego create a story too convoluted to summarize. ("The Big Eye," "Femme Fatale," and "Edited... more
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a short film by AlCieloGenres: horrorA woman and her psychiatrist h ave similar dreams with different interpretations.
Reviews by AlCielo 298
-
A review of Unseenby AlCielo on 03/13/2013"Unseen" is based on a strong premise--a young man hounded by guilt for his brother's kidnapping seeks revenge. Having such a clear, important concept is critical--if the basis for the story is unaffecting, then it doesn't matter how well written the screenplay is. My goal here is to help you develop the strengths of your premise. To do that, I'm going to focus on weaknesses... "Unseen" is based on a strong premise--a young man hounded by guilt for his brother's kidnapping seeks revenge. Having such a clear, important concept is critical--if the basis for the story is unaffecting, then it doesn't matter how well written the screenplay is.
My goal here is to help you develop the strengths of your premise. To do that, I'm going to focus on weaknesses in structure, character, and dialogue, but please don't let the negatives distract you from my great appreciation of the core of your story. Instead, think of these suggestions as a kind of workshop. Try out any that seem helpful in developing your script into what it can be, and ignore the rest.
Structure, character, and dialogue are all interrelated, but I'm starting with structure because it's the most physical (like a schematic drawing). Structure draws the audience in without announcing itself (except in rare cases like Memento). Structural weaknesses allow the audience's attention to wander. A strong structure keeps readers / viewers on track.
The kind of structure a story has is often dependent on the genre. Your story is essentially a revenge plot. Someone does something bad to the protagonist, who then seeks out the wrongdoer and attempts to punish him. However, the revenge angle doesn't kick in until well after the midpoint (p. 56), when Derek learns his brother is dead. Before that, you have a rescue story, punctuated by stretches (up to 5 years) where Derek gives up. Your premise and genre are fairly conventional, so an unclear structure is likely to weaken their involvement / identification with Derek. There are (at least) 2 better alternatives: (1) make the story / genre a rescue tale, with Derek learning of his brother's death only at the end (and then deciding what to do to Mike), or emphasize the revenge angle by letting Derek know (by the end of Act 1) that someone has killed his brother. This means condensing the set-up so that Mike kills Evan by p. 22 or so, or using a flashforward / flashback structure, which is tricky at best, so that Derek learns early on, but after that, the story flashes back to the events leading up to the discovery.
Restructuring means rethinking characterization as well. For this genre, the protagonist and antagonist should have clear, plot-driven goals. Can you imagine a 5-year (or even a 5-minute) pause in Liam Neeson's quest in Taken? There must have been times when the character went to the bathroom, but the movie's not going to show them. Derek's goals for much of the story are fuzzy at best (fuzzy to the audience, not necessarily to Derek or you). What is Derek's core? If you factored out his revenge goal and the death of his brother and parents, what motivates him? Of course, you can't factor out these tragic events, but he should do something more than react passively (in real life people often react passively to catastrophic events, but their lives don't make good movies)--he should acquire a goal and whatever the core of his being is will determine how he attempts to achieve that goal. The antagonist's situation is a little different. In most cases with a psychopathic opponent, the antagonist's motives may be explained in a single sentence (e.g. Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs), or the antagonist may be a cipher--all the more menacing because we don't know what drives him. However, he should be driven and he should be powerful. The antagonist is what keeps the protagonist from achieving unity with himself; if the antagonist is half-hearted or ineffective, the protag's quest will be flaccid. I'm never really clear what Mike's central motivation is--he seems to be a composite of movie psychos rather than a unique and hyperfocused individual. If an antagonist messes up (as Mike does on p. 45-46), the error should motivate him to become even stronger / smarter, or the error should occur (or become evident) only at the climax, after the protagonist has fought the good fight. In many cases, the protagonist is the shadow side of the protagonist, and can be defined as a kind of inverse of the strengths of the hero. By defeating the antag, the protag overcomes his own inner demons and becomes whole again.
The key to good characterization is to let the characters drive the story, not vice versa. When the story tells the characters what to do, it often tells them what to say, and the dialogue suffers. The more important an interchange is, the more indirect or oblique people tend to be in their discussion. The old public speaking advice "Tell your audience what you're going to say, say it, and then tell them what you said" is the wrong formula for movie dialogue. The discussion between Kevin's mom and dad (who should have names, by the way) about dad's drinking is driven by the story and sounds expositional. They should be talking about practically anything but drinking. And in stressful situations, people rarely make long speeches. The problem with long speeches (esp. the ones over 4 lines) in this script is that they lack tension and movement; everything stops while the character talks. Now it's possible for a lengthy monologue to move the story (and the audience), e.g. the "I coulda been a contender" speech in On the Waterfront, but it should arise from the character's drive to do something, not the author's. Take the sheriff's 21-line explanation on p. 74. The solution is not to break the speech up into 4-line blocks with interruptions like "The sheriff stops to scratch his nose"; the trick is to remove anything that doesn't absolutely HAVE to be there, and at the same time not lose sight of the subtext / agenda of the speaker (which in this case is to persuade Derek not to act hastily. I'm not rewriting your dialogue for you--this is just an example of how to streamline the passage:
SHERIFF
But, nothing. I checked with the owner. He's been renting it out, says the tenants are fine people, always pay their rent on time.
DEREK
Tenants? More than one?
SHERIFF
Old guy--retired military he thinks--and his grandkid.
DEREK
What's the grandkid like? Is he black?
SHERIFF
Nothing odd about that. Lots of mixed marriages these days.
DEREK
What the hell? Don't you see.....
etc.
Overall, I'd recommend you consider your revision in that order: structure, character, and finally dialogue. As you improve the structure, you'll change what the characters do, and as you develop the characters, you'll fine tune their speaking.
You have an excellent start--not just the premise / concept, but the characters and the vivid, visual actions. You are a strong writer and a perceptive one. The scene where Derek and Evan face each other but don't see each other (p. 46) is a brilliant moment, and I think more of these will fall into place as you polish your story and your storytelling. read -
A review of The Sun the Blood and the Sandby AlCielo on 06/27/2012Combining Dante and Leone is a gutsy choice, but not necessarily a futile one (filming the Inferno would be another matter). The Inferno is first and foremost a quest / journey (un cammin) and the spaghetti western protagonists normally undertake a quest. Both Dante and Leone present a larger-than-life world (but one that depicts our own with accuracy and restraint). In this... Combining Dante and Leone is a gutsy choice, but not necessarily a futile one (filming the Inferno would be another matter). The Inferno is first and foremost a quest / journey (un cammin) and the spaghetti western protagonists normally undertake a quest. Both Dante and Leone present a larger-than-life world (but one that depicts our own with accuracy and restraint).
In this draft, however, the Dante background doesn't illuminate the spaghetti storyline, (and vice versa, for that matter). I'm dividing this dual critique (Dante/Leone) into Structure and Character.
STRUCTURE
The Inferno starts with a simple enough structure (9 concentric circles and an antechamber) but then shreds the simplicity to show the illogic / disorderliness that sin wreaks on an orderly universe. One circle (Limbo) isn't for sin at all (you reflect this in the famous cowboy bar). The remaining 8 circles depict 7 sins divided into two categories--Incontinence and Malice (again you follow this with Fort Dis for lower hell). You tend to reflect the messiness of the Inferno, but without its clear analysis of the seven deadly sins (the movie Se7en did a better job)--I had a difficult time deciding who everyone except Lust, Gluttony and Avarice were, though I think the Indian was Wrath.
Leone's categories tend to be somewhat simpler (though they get more complex in his later films)--Good vs. Bad, or Good-Bad-Ugly. There was no psychological advantage for the 7 categories of villains, other than providing each with a different personality. The Magnificent Seven / Seven Samurai, on the other hand, use individuation to present different facets of heroism (not sin of course).
Structurally, this draft seems to me a hodgepodge. If you have to choose between simple and complex, simple is almost always the better choice for a film story. I'd recommend one goal (for Virgil to get Dante to Beatrice, as in the Inferno) and seven opponents (like the repeated antagonists in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), without, if possible, the numerous flashbacks (flashbacks are valid if they're hooked into theme, but here you use them simply for exposition).
CHARACTER
The Divine Comedy depicts perhaps the ultimate character arc--not only does the protagonist go from lost to saved (and reunited with his love, who represents this beatitude), but he learns so much that he writes a 100-canto poem about his experience. Even Virgil has an arc--he becomes more aware of his own insufficiency (which reflects the poet's contention that reason alone is necessary but insufficient as a guide to revelation).
Arcs are more common in later Leone, but they're never a bad idea as long as they're organic. Unfortunately there's no arc, no inner story in your script. Yes, James Bond does not arc, but Dante the character (both your protag and the "hero" of the Divine Comedy) is NOT James Bond. Dante starts off as a fallible everyman--that's how both audiences connect with him. But even though you symbolically dispense with Virgil at the end of your story (reflecting Virgil's disappearance at the end of the Purgatorio), he pretty much calls the shots (except for Dante's piloting the train (Geryon--not Greyon), which is not a psychological development but a symbolic substitute. If you look at how Dante the protag of the Inferno reacts to sinners as they interact, you'll see a most definite change. The one exception seems to be Virgil's sliding down the hill with Dante (which you echo on p. 106). But the symbolism here is that Virgil--normally Reason--must act instinctively after he's been deceived by the rational-seeming devils. In your script, there's no resonance with character growth (of either Virgil or Dante), just a parallel action.
In short, I'd recommend making your script as simple and archetypal as possible on the plot level but as detailed and analytical as possible on the character level (the old saying "Simple stories, complex characters" is even more important for film stories than for literary allegories. Think like Dante but write like Kurosawa.
Two negatives: The grammatical errors are very distracting and sometimes unintentionally humorous--not a good thing in a cerebral script. The action descriptions are often more detailed than what anyone but a set director would need, and frequently there's no payoff for the details (e.g. the forest on p. 103 is a reflection of the Wood of Suicides in the Inferno, but there's no connection to Dante's attempted suicide at the beginning of the script--the forest in the script simply provides some atmosphere that's unconnected to action or theme). Many of the action paragraphs could be trimmed by 50% or more.
Some positives: I like Virgil's Clint Eastwood dialog--you've nailed the cadence and sarcasm. The ending was positive in a Hollywood way but faithful to the theme (if not the symbolism) of the Divine Comedy. Those action paragraphs I mentioned earlier represent visual thinking, an asset for any writer.
Any work is a journey, and a draft is but one step of that pilgrimage, but you've started well and with persistence and diligence you can end your journey at the paradise of your choosing. Best wishes for the trip. read -
A review of Rebel Interrogatorby AlCielo on 06/26/2012"Rebel Interrogator" takes on a difficult genre mix: comedy-drama. An imbalance in either direction can cause problems--too serious to be a comedy or too flippant to be a drama. But getting the mix to work can provide audiences with a fresh and memorable story that stands out from the remakes and imitations. For me, the two genres aren't blended but kept apart. Act 1 is a... "Rebel Interrogator" takes on a difficult genre mix: comedy-drama. An imbalance in either direction can cause problems--too serious to be a comedy or too flippant to be a drama. But getting the mix to work can provide audiences with a fresh and memorable story that stands out from the remakes and imitations.
For me, the two genres aren't blended but kept apart. Act 1 is a comedy in the vein of "Dumb and Dumber"; Act 3 focuses on serious political intrigue a la "V for Vendetta"; and Act 2 is a long and not entirely smooth transition. Act 2 is normally where you develop your characters, but in this case, the two protagonists are at their flattest in the long act.
I have two suggestions. (In my opinion, it's best to deal with these issues before doing anything else.)
1. Move the discovery of uninterviewed prisoners to the end of Act 1 (by shortening previous scenes). This is a small change, but it may help focus your energies on the challenge of Act 2.
2. What do most second acts do for reader involvement? Typically they heighten involvement by increasing the stakes and risks the protagonist faces. Like comedy, stakes are most effective when they're not imposed from the outside but when they evolve from the inner life of the characters. Until Act 3, the stakes are relatively low. The protags live in a totalitarian state. Sure, their bumbling increases the likelihood of punishment, but in such a state, they'd probably get punished unfairly for some minor infraction anyway.
Stakes / involvement should grow from the inner needs, changes, development of the protagonist. It's as important for the inner story to proceed seamlessly as it is for the external one to do so. As the protagonist grows, so do the stakes, and so do the obstacles until the story reaches a climax so tense that the story must resolve or break (at least in traditional narratives, which yours is).
If you look at Die Hard 1, 2, and 4, or MI 3, or Lethal Weapon 4, you'll notice that the stakes are amped up not by increasing the firepower but by putting the protag's family in jeopardy. This is a natural progression, because the protag's arc is normally tied to growth in his relationships (see Dara Marks' The Inside Story). Now you do this to an extent in Rebel Interrogator, by making the protags care about Turbot, and through the romantic entanglements with Tanyetta and Elisa, all of whom are threatened by Tighthand. However, these three relationships aren't interconnected, nor are they integral to most of Act 2 (where relationships are normally incubated). The romance in particular comes in as more of an afterthought in Act 3.
I'm not telling how you must revise your story, but here's an example: If you move the discovery of the hidden prisoners back to the end of Act 1, then you can use Act 2 to develop the romances (starting as soon as possible). Turbot could be either a block or a helper in developing these relationships. As the romances grow during Act 2, so do the threats from Tighthand--not toward Rufus and Darnell so much as toward Tanyetta and Elisa. (Remember, an antagonist is not necessarily a villain and vice versa. Tighthand should probably be both, but in Act 2, he has little impact on the protag's goals. Try making him more of an adversary earlier. Be sure to make Rufus' seeming capitulation to Tighthand more an outgrowh of his needs / desires as well--it seems artificial here.) Then Act 3 (pretty much as it is) will be a natural outgrowth from the arc and conflicts you've set up in Act 2.
You have many strengths to build on as you develop your characters and their arcs. Dialog works well. Rufus' family provides a nice model for how people accommodate under totalitarianism. And you've provided very different personalities for your two protags. Tie together the inner and outer worlds of your story, and you'll increase audience involvement tenfold. Best wishes with the development of an interesting and fresh idea. read -
A review of Twin Confusionby AlCielo on 05/21/2012Twin Confusion is a breezy romantic comedy based on Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. You have 4 stars in all categories from 33 reviews, which is a pretty good sign that a script is probably ready to send out (the 33 is more significant than the 4, I believe). However, I'm going to suggest a fairly radical rethinking of your storyline and concept. For me, there are problems... Twin Confusion is a breezy romantic comedy based on Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. You have 4 stars in all categories from 33 reviews, which is a pretty good sign that a script is probably ready to send out (the 33 is more significant than the 4, I believe). However, I'm going to suggest a fairly radical rethinking of your storyline and concept. For me, there are problems with audience identification caused not so much by your script as interference from the Shakespearean background. Even someone unfamiliar with the source has probably seen enough comedies to have evolved some of the same expectations as a viewer who knows the original.
Typically, an audience identifies with a protagonist who has a strong need or desire. At the beginning of your story, only one character has an expressed desire: Meg. Patrick's settled into a relationship with Matt (though he's a little dissatisfied--more on this later), Jake is engaged (though even more dissatisfied), and Natasha has everything she wants and needs (ironically, it's Natasha who gets left out in the cold, which is not a problem, since you've made her fairly unlikable). So pretty much the first act is Meg's, with the suggestion that Jake will be challenged to venture outside of his safety zone eventually and link romantically with Meg.
Already, there's a structural imbalance. We see "twin" in the title, we may recall "Comedy of Errors' plot, and at the very least we expect twin stories based on twin storylines of confusion. But not until Act 3 does Patrick emerge as a character (if not protagonist) with a strong need / desire independent of what drives the confusion plot. Jake arcs (which is necessary both to satisfy the audience and to develop your theme), but almost by whim Patrick decides that he really loves Matt and should make up for the damage he's done. Now in theory this parallels Jake's rejection of Meg (actually she rejected him) and return to Natasha for the second half of Act 2. But Patrick and Matt are essentially reactive (which means they serve only as plot devices for the Meg-Jake-Natasha story--actually Matt has no impact on any story and is completely passive.
Now what does this imbalance mean in terms of audience identification?
--Meg's a likable character and the audience is clearly yearning for her to achieve a happy ending. But after she tells Jake off, she becomes inert, waiting (not consciously) for Jake to take an action and/or chance to intervene (both of which are necessary in the story). The audience, then, is losing some of its vicarious drive toward an ending.
--Once Jake returns to Natasha, he becomes mopy, a victim of various comic misunderstandings. No drive there either.
--Patrick has pretty much a good time, until his eventual moment of regret. There's no resistance to desire, no setback, no movement forward.
--Natasha develops a goal--to regain control over Jake--and takes active steps but we don't want her to succeed, and she does, at least temporarily.
As a result, most of Acts 2 and 3 have no momentum for the audience. What holds things together is not movement but a series of visual and thematic parallels that convey hunger and longing (primarily restaurants and museums), and a slew of comic errors that don't really serve as obstacles because there's nothing to impede.
For me, the simplest solution to what I consider a major problem (and it's not so simple to achieve) is to give Patrick's and Matt's story the complexity that Meg / Jake's story has, and then let the characters from each line get in the way of the desire of the other set.
This would solve a second problem, namely your depiction of a gay protagonist. Although you've sidestepped one quagmire by citing the statistic about identical twins with different genders, you leave yourself open to the charge that Patrick is driven by libido while Jake strives for love, i.e. the storyline implies (though I'm sure this is not your belief) that Patrick's dalliance with Robert (and Giorgio and Dick) is acceptable because gay men are promiscuous by nature. I'm not saying Patrick can't be "torn between two lovers" as Jake is, but he should be torn, not simply changing partners, if your storylines are to parallel. Again, an imbalance may suggest a viewpoint you don't intend.
I have only one small quibble (the script is very polished--in the way that a gem is), and if you want to ignore my suggestion to restructure the twin tales, this is my only other advice: Patricia and Jake's conversation on p. 8 is too expositional. It stands out mainly because the rest of the dialog is so natural and unforced, and in spite of the complex storyline, you convey actions / motives clearly and compellingly.
Best wishes with the script, whichever direction you take in revising. The concept is intriguing and the interplay of interesting characters will work well on screen. read -
A review of Cody Dumas: Demon Hustlerby AlCielo on 04/25/2012"Cody Dumas: Demon Hustler" is a well conceived thriller with a welcome sense of humor. Your synopsis mentions the Indiana Jones films as similar films, but your story is much closer to "Wanted" and that's the model I'm basing my review on. Usually I focus on one or two major weaknesses and leave the remainder for later revisions, but I think there are only two here, so this... "Cody Dumas: Demon Hustler" is a well conceived thriller with a welcome sense of humor. Your synopsis mentions the Indiana Jones films as similar films, but your story is much closer to "Wanted" and that's the model I'm basing my review on.
Usually I focus on one or two major weaknesses and leave the remainder for later revisions, but I think there are only two here, so this is more of a complete review. For me the most important problem is audience identification with the protagonist, and far less significant and far-reaching are some on-the-nose and/or expositional dialog passages.
Usually I note at what point I got hooked in to the story. Ideally this should be within the first 10-15 pages, regardless of whether one is using a particular template or none at all, and this is especially true in a an adventure tentpole like yours (especially a big budget one). I didn't really find myself in movie-theatre-audience mode (as opposed to reader / reviewer) until page 68. That of course is the spot where Cody learns that he may have to die to save the world. Until then, everything is just a big adventure. This may have been a Karate Kid sequel (except that the stakes are less personal in your script). There is danger galore until p. 68, but no emotional investment by the protag.
I realize you're drawing Cody as a nebbish in order to have him arc into a superhero later, but for your genre, the transformation should occur at the end of Act 1, when the protag makes a (literally) do-or-die choice. The time for Cody to horse around with his new role is between the appearance of the hunters and the turning point to Act 2. This is formulaic, but you're writing a formulaic--in a good way--story, not a subtle indie drama, and postponing an expected turn will weaken audience involvement.
It's good to have "fun and games" in Act 2 (primarily in the first half), but these amusements should be made under the shadow of the eventual crisis (live and the demons get free or die to keep them in hell). Notice how lukewarm / passive Cody's acceptance of his role is at the end of Act 1 (which I locate on p. 28). There's no "I'm not going to do that!" ... "All right, dammit, I'll do that." sort of decision-making. If Cody doesn't get involved, the demons will take over, if he does, then the audience assumes (given the genre) that he'll triumph. The hunters know the real danger and they mention it to each other (as a kind of "I told you something bad was going to happen" foreshadowing for the audience, but Cody is kept completely unaware. If you wanted to, you could allow the hunters to tell Cody there was one major catch (without revealing what it was), but as long as he's completely in the dark, his acceptance creates no traction for the reader.
The dialog here consists mostly of flippant banter, which is just fine for the Indiana Jones tone ("snakes, I hate snakes"), but there are a few places where it bogs down the story--most of the descriptions of the demonic apparatus are wordy and often repeat what the viewer has already seen. Sometimes (particularly at emotional points) the characters don't use subtext to hide their feelings, as they would in real life, particularly at key emotional moments--Bobby's reveal to Cody, Marson's death / Sarina's anger, Alric's revelation (90-91). In these passages, I get the feeling the dialog is motivated by the storyline, not by the characters.
But overall, dialog is quite good. Hooking the audience earlier on will make a major change in how readers and viewers identify with Cody and his mission, even if you don't change much after the hook. The ending, which I like very much, will have even more impact.
Congrats on a lively story with a fine audience-pleasing resolution. read -
A review of Project Jingle Bellby AlCielo on 04/20/2012"Project Jingle Bell" tells a tale with a good heart. I like the secular spirituality tone you establish--neither South Park nor a Sunday School lesson. The screenplay works well at the one-sentence logline level and at the level of the 3-sentence synopsis you have here. I think, however, if you wrote a 2-page treatment, you might see some of the problems that I believe weaken... "Project Jingle Bell" tells a tale with a good heart. I like the secular spirituality tone you establish--neither South Park nor a Sunday School lesson.
The screenplay works well at the one-sentence logline level and at the level of the 3-sentence synopsis you have here. I think, however, if you wrote a 2-page treatment, you might see some of the problems that I believe weaken the story.
If you look at practically any movie with a metaphysical / theological / cosmological / existential dimension, you'll see that at the heart of the movie is a personal story of a protagonist with a clearly defined goal and a more abstract but still vital need. Examples: Here Comes Mr. Jordan / Heaven Can Wait; Defending Your Life; The Bishop's Wife; Ghost; Little Nicky; The Trial. If you subtract the theological plane from the
plane, the story may not make much sense, but the basics of the story will still be identifiable (Example for Heaven Can Wait: A wealthy man who always wanted to be an athlete takes on a new personality so he can play pro football.)
In Project Jingle Bell, the story of Andrew and Kate (or just Andrew) is fuzzy throughout, as is his goal (actually he has several local goals, marginally related, but no overall desire that motivates him throughout the storyline). In fact, practically each time the "spiritual" figures intrude into the story, they interrupt whatever progress Andrew has made. The spiritual figures (esp. Neil) are helpful in advancing Kate's character development, but while she has a definite need, she has no real goal that I can see (until the very end).
So here's what I'd recommend before you begin your next draft: tell the story as a page one with only Andrew's goal and none of the spiritual intrusions. His primary goal could be one of one of the following (your choice) or another one: saving the mission, saving Shane, or saving Kate (the other two goals can be subplots--a B story and a C story). Shoot for about 75-80 pages with whatever organizational structure you prefer, but don't worry too much about structure or beats at this point. This story should stand on its own, though obviously it will be to short for a feature film. Then go back and add in the spiritual story / stories. Should you include the terrorists? The answer should be clear at this level of planning. Try not to introduce any major new characters after about the midpoint (though you may save reveals for later if you wish). Ideally you'll end up with about 100-120 pages, and the introduction of the spiritual characters should at all times either further or hinder whatever main goal you choose for Andrew. (If you try this strategy, please let me know how it works.)
Some suggestions on a smaller scale:
The dialog is usually properly oblique (for the characters and theme), but there are a few spots where it becomes expositional and on the nose, e.g. 67-78; the conversation between Kate and Andrew becomes intimate / serious awfully quickly (p. 77); and a few other spots.
I think you have way too many characters who aren't central to the plot (some are important but could be combined into fewer roles). My favorite character was Jesus (the "not Chesus" Jesus rather than Neill). He seemed more individualized in terms of speech pattern and quirkier in motivation. Many of the minor characters seemed to exist simply to advance the plot. Introducing characters beyond the midpoint also tends to distract a reader (and likely would distract a viewer if filmed that way).
Overall, I think you can make Andrew a much more dynamic character by suggesting a conflict between his goal and need, and by using this conflict to tie together the three salvation plots (mission, Shane, Kate). Ideally if you keep the terrorist thread, you can connect it more clearly to one of these 3 plots / subplots.
The ending, for me, is very satisfying. Andrew and Kate satisfy their needs without "miracles" (i.e. divine intervention), and that brings the story to a rewarding end. read -
A review of COURIER TWELVEby AlCielo on 03/28/2012Courier Twelve is an ambitious attempt to put a contemporary spin on a classic story and still keep it universal. "Ambitious" is a good thing, in my opinion. A derivative story that plays it safe can never succeed, no matter how well written it is. But my goal here is to provide some suggestions that can make your story more salable. At any point if I seem to be telling you... Courier Twelve is an ambitious attempt to put a contemporary spin on a classic story and still keep it universal. "Ambitious" is a good thing, in my opinion. A derivative story that plays it safe can never succeed, no matter how well written it is. But my goal here is to provide some suggestions that can make your story more salable. At any point if I seem to be telling you what your theme should be or what specific direction you should take, I'm only doing so as an example of the possibilities before you.
This is the least creative, least global suggestion, but I'm making it first so that as you consider revising certain scenes, you can take this potential modification into account as well. Since your audience is likely to consist mainly of indie fans, you'll probably not be able to justify the expense of some of the scenes (particularly the action thread). Anything you can do to minimize locations and costly sfx will increase the odds of selling your script.
The remaining suggestions involve increasing audience involvement. I'm separating reader from viewer here, because I believe the script as written is not to easy to follow on the page as it would on the screen (costumes, photography, etc. would help distinguish the separate film stories--an aside: I believe the method you chose for sluglines turned out well).
DRAWING THE READER IN
(a) The first few pages are critical, but nothing much happens to bond the reader to the protagonist / theme. I don't mean you need explosions or car chases (those are more for viewers anyway), but you should ASAP create emotional resonance between the protagonist and reader (the reader is like a baby duck emerging from an egg, seeking to imprint on someone to guide it through the next stage of life). It's clear you want the reader to bond with Theo, but why? In fact, the first action I connected with was Babe's returning Theo's recorder on p. 8--not because it was a Save the Cat moment of kindness (though that helped), but because it was out of character with what I had seen before--a development of Babe's personality. Until that point, people are mostly talking about action rather than acting. I'll talk about dialog later, but I believe you're relying on it too heavily to convey information. So the first thing I'd recommend doing is to give Theo an action that connects him to the reader (if he's to be Dorothy, it should be at least as powerful as rescuing Toto).
(b) I'd also give each of the supporting case a significant (but not necessarily powerful) action that defines them, before the separate stories start. Actually I think you've done this, e.g. Zeke slamming the toner door on Babe's hand, but for me, these actions should be more relevant to what the characters want or need. Rather than having them talk about the movie / script business, give them something to do that shows their dedication.
(c) So after you've bonded the reader and major characters, you can start the separate sub-plots. I'm very impressed at how well you coordinated transitions between fantasy stories and reality, but I'm afraid the rapid "editing" is a bit disorienting. Emotionally, you're not giving your reader time to develop a strong reaction (longing, fear, pity, etc.). This would require a major restructuring, but using fewer but longer passages for the genre stories would draw the reader in and actually create suspense (in my opinion, the reader is spending too much energy wondering what is happening rather than what will happen). I'd recommend not many more than 3-4 blocks for each of the genre stories and the intervening reality, and not fewer than 2.
INVOLVING THE VIEWERS
The above suggestions should make the script an easier read, but you also have to take into account the viewing experience (many scripts that read well would--and sometimes do--make bad movies; reading well isn't enough).
(a) There are some clever parallels between the separate genre stories (and the underlying Oz characters help unify things). However, I believe (as one of your reviewers pointed out) that these stories should stand on their own. You could have the genre stories function as parodies or as straight (though sometimes tongue-in-cheek) stories. I'd recommend the straight (with some irony) approach because I don't think that the heart of your story is a criticism of the film industry but an attempt to show what it could/should do. Each of the genre stories has its own protagonist. It's just as critical that the sub-protagonists have as strong a controlling desire as Theo and friends to. On the surface, everything's fine (the goal of a horror protagonist is to avoid being killed by the monster, usually), but if you can bump up the reasons for each protag's choices (motivation, background, irony, et al.) the entire journey will consist of desire and fulfillment (or frustration). And certainly Theo's quest should be a uniting force (doesn't have to be Campbellian).
(b) The risk of having five different stories / protagonists / desires is that the impact of the movie will be fragmentary. Successful multiple-part films like Babel or Traffic or Crash connect diverse storylines with parallel themes. I think there are some similar themes congealing here, but for me they're not quite definite enough (I don't mean they should be stated in the dialog, but they should at the least create a similar mood, even if the viewer never becomes conscious of theme. And of course, there should be a way to link the master theme with the goal / desire of the framing character (the screenwriter). Screenwriting itself is not a particularly good topic for a theme, but there are plenty of enthralling movies with screenwriters as characters (e.g. Sunset Boulevard--William Holden's thematic goal is not to write a script but to maintain his integrity, a struggle anyone can relate to).
DIALOGUE
Expository dialogue almost always creates distance between audience and story, and a large percentage of your script involves people talking about action rather than action--even in the genre threads. Here's an example of expository dialogue that doesn't carry the story forward:
AGENT FREE/THEO
What’s the problem, Stone?
AGENT BLACK/RUSTY
Not fun anymore. I want out.
AGENT FREE/THEO
Don’t throw away all you’ve worked
for. They’ll make you director some
day. The country needs you, Frank.
AGENT BLACK/RUSTY
I don’t know, Clark. My heart’s
just not in it anymore.
AGENT FREE/THEO
Then you’re not gonna like that I
have orders to bring you to the
President.
AGENT BLACK/RUSTY
Of course you do.
I'm not presuming to write your dialogue for you, but here's a sample reworking (pretty much the same story but with less info):
-----
AGENT FREE/THEO
Something's bothering you, and it's not acronyms.
AGENT BLACK/RUSTY
Boring--the job, not the names.
AGENT FREE/THEO
This is no time to turn film critic.
Agent Black yawns.
AGENT FREE/THEO
Stifle it, Frank. I've got orders to take you to the President.
Agent Black turns both of his thumbs down.
-----
Even if the original dialogue was SUPPOSED TO sound expository, as a kind of parody, it slows the story down. If you wanted to keep the expo-as-parody, the trick would be to have Black and Free dodge bullets or speeding cars as they talked about boredom.
CONCLUSION
At the beginning of many heist films, the protagonist sets out an elaborate and probably foolhardy scheme, and the person he's trying to convince to join him replies with something like "That's crazy.... But it just might work."
You've broken a number of unstated rules (e.g. "Don't write a spec script about a screenwriter"), but you've done so in such a bold and innovative way that this script can make a fine movie. Just involve the audiences more, and the remaining problems will solve themselves. read -
A review of Ashlandby AlCielo on 02/17/2012"Ashland" is a carefully planned character study that doesn't oversell its premise. Still, I think there are two central problems. I should note that since the ratings are high and from a large sample, and since this has been a Featured Submission, I'm going to be in the minority, so please use whatever sized grain of salt you find helpful in considering these suggestions... "Ashland" is a carefully planned character study that doesn't oversell its premise.
Still, I think there are two central problems. I should note that since the ratings are high and from a large sample, and since this has been a Featured Submission, I'm going to be in the minority, so please use whatever sized grain of salt you find helpful in considering these suggestions.
What first struck me was the beautiful writing in the action descriptions: concise but evocative prose with individualized, active action verbs. A strong, clear writer's voice and a consistent tone. But then I noticed a major problem with the characterization, and I believe that these well-written paragraphs are one of the sources of the problem.
For me, all your characters lack the semblance of autonomy--they serve to move the story forward, but they have no inner life. Grace is an alcoholic mother, not Keith's mother. Keith himself has a mysterious backstory, but it's not at odds with anything. At the end of Act 1, when--according to convention--the protagonist chooses to commit to action, Keith does in fact decide to fill out the application, but while he's shown as procrastinating on that decision, there was never any real tension. Grace did oppose Keith becoming a fireman, but he wouldn't do what she says anyway. Later, when Madeline appears and is described as Paul's sister and married, the audience knows that soon she and Keith will hook up. And when Jason has to be removed quickly, he's providentially killed in a car accident.
I think that instead of investing power in your characters, you retain it for yourself in those action paragraphs. You may get some feedback that you frequently use unfilmables. For me, the problem isn't that you insert statements that can't be shown visually, it's that these authorial comments serve to communicate meaning ("to tell"), when the actions of the characters should do so ("to show"). There are often several "tells" per page. Here are a few for examples:
He tries the radio again -- nothing he wants to listen to, only country music. So, he punches the console. (p. 1)
The silence between them is tense and too familiar. (p.1)
Her glare promises a long ride back home. (p.3)
...his eyes widen at the amount of product needed to keep Grace’s hair in place (p.3)
Thomas just feels awkward. (p.4)
Technically, the glare and eye-widening are visual actions, but it's necessary to then tell the audience what they mean. These passages would be fine in a third-person novel, where the author presents the thoughts of the character. But film doesn't do so, except with voice-overs--and ideally few of those. If you forced yourself to avoid narrating the inner world of the characters, and instead conveyed the same information with dialog and action (preferably action), you'd give your characters the complexity and autonomy that they need to draw the audience into the story.
The second major problem for me is action-as-structure (in addition to the action-as-character problem described above). Specifically, you have a second act--half your story--without any driving goal on Keith's part. He joins the fire department, and lots of conflicts ensue, but these don't prevent him from serving. They're spats, not stumbling blocks.
Of course I'm describing the traditional Hollywood formula. A low-concept character study might SEEM different. But if you look at something like The Station Agent, you'll notice that while the protag's goal might seem insubstantial or weak, the subtlety results from an inactive character, in fact the character is deeply committed to a goal, but the goal is simply more personal (not more trivial) than what we expect in a Batman film. This would not be such a problem with a novel--it's not unusual for the drive of the narrator to do the job of the character. But in film, it's all on screen.
The intelligence and subtlety of your approach are great strengths. Focusing more explicitly on the goal / intention of the protagonist won'd dumb down the story. Instead, it will capitalize on the strengths of your presentation and offer the audience a story that's fresh as well as familiar. read -
A review of Lucidityby AlCielo on 02/05/2012Lucidity is an engaging fantasy with great potential. To succeed as a fantasy, a script has to be translated from the author's private world to the audience's. Too many fantasy / sci-fi screenplays I've read here create vast, overblown worlds that never draw the reader in. Fortunately, your story uses the theme of bravery overcoming personal fears as a means... Lucidity is an engaging fantasy with great potential.
To succeed as a fantasy, a script has to be translated from the author's private world to the audience's. Too many fantasy / sci-fi screenplays I've read here create vast, overblown worlds that never draw the reader in. Fortunately, your story uses the theme of bravery overcoming personal fears as a means of making the protagonist's struggle universal and appealing--a rare achievement.
Now there are some weaknesses, and I'm going to focus on them, in the order I believe you should work on them in the next draft.
The first flaw is, in my opinion, fatal--as far as audience involvement goes. When Cid tells Frank at the end of Act 1 that if he fails he will simply return to his previous world, you lose your audience for the rest of the movie. No one wants to get caught up in a story that can return to square one at any moment (even in Groundhog Day, each return is incremental, and it's NEVER to square one).
Think about Back to the Future. If Marty fails, he doesn't return to the present, he annihilates his existence. Immediately, create a disaster scenario if Frank fails (the worst of all possibilities). Then when Frank accepts the challenge, we'll be on his side till the end. Every now and then, remind the audience (and Frank if necessary) of the potential for doom. (Behind all the fun and games in the Harry Potter series, Valdemort is always lurking.)
Flaw 2: I appreciate what you do with the Audrey private demon, but Isabel is too undeveloped, both as a symbolic alternative and as a character. It's nice that she's sarcastic, but why is she? And (most importantly), why is Frank attracted to her?
Flaw 3: The break from Act 2 to 3 (and from the second demon to the third) is too abrupt. You did introduce the giant earlier, but there's no THEMATIC reason for his sudden appearance. Here's a pushy suggestion: you could make the third challenge a renunciation. In order for Frank to save Madison, he (apparently) must sacrifice his challenge and suffer the dire consequences, though it turns out saving Madison WAS the third challenge. That will really put the audience on his side and when it matters most.
Flaw 4: The epilogue is 10 pages long--audiences expect a much briefer final scene--a minute or two at most. I understand what you're doing, but starting the epilogue with Frank and Isabel at his parents' house waiting for Madison would accomplish the same thing (be careful not to overload the dialogue with expo).
Flaw 5: Speaking of dialog, most of the speeches are wordy (even though they're under 4 lines in most cases), and many are unnecessary. Sluggish dialog with no subtext and no omissions makes reading a script a chore--it's the most noticeable weakness. But don't trim / polish dialog until you've fixed the above structural flaws. That conversation may not show up in the revised draft.
Miscellaneous flaws: The "medieval" English is inconsistent among medieval speakers (I understand that Billy and others from Urth will sound more modern). The dialog can't sound like Middle English (Chaucer) or even Early Modern English (Shakespeare, the King James Bible), so why not adopt a plain style with no contractions or modern slang)? Also, the medieval setting never captivated me as much as it could have (and the cost of this setting could make your spec a difficult sell unless there's a really compelling payoff). You might watch some time travel films to see what works. Finally, the nanobot stuff put me in a tech mode, but there was never any explanation for why technology was necessary.
Although I've focused on the problems, your script has many strengths: a sympathetic protag with a mission, a credible set-up / premise, an appropriate use of the 3 act structure, an audience-pleasing ending that is earned by the protagonist. You've done the heavy lifting, and if you continue in this direction you will accomplish your own mission. Not as a fantasy but a proud reality.
Although I've focused on the problems, your script has many strengths: a sympathetic protag with a mission, a credible set-up / premise, an appropriate use of the 3 act structure, an audience-pleasing ending that is earned by the protagonist. You've done the heavy lifting, and if you continue in this direction you will accomplish your own mission. Not as a fantasy but a proud reality. read -
A review of Any Legacyby AlCielo on 07/27/2011I loved the individual parts of this Dostoevskian reflection, but it always seemed that there was something greater--as in "the sum is greater"--and it turned out the real strength wasn't the acting, photography, editing etc. (you don't need me to enumerate these achievements) but the way you added the individual pieces, or more accurately contrasted them, like Eisenstein's... I loved the individual parts of this Dostoevskian reflection, but it always seemed that there was something greater--as in "the sum is greater"--and it turned out the real strength wasn't the acting, photography, editing etc. (you don't need me to enumerate these achievements) but the way you added the individual pieces, or more accurately contrasted them, like Eisenstein's approach to montage (not "shot plus shot" but "shot times shot"): angles, speeds, camera distance et al., UNTIL the death scene. For the living reflections of the narrator--like his life--were apparently a series of disconnects, but with death, his (and our) awareness shifts, and for the first time the pieces connect, underscored by the ecstatic guitar music.
The best short films don't try to be long films. They examine small moments and make them big, and in this respect they are greater than features. Yours succeeds on all counts. It's a masterpiece, but not a miniature. You've given us a post-death perspective without requiring us to die. This is what great art does. I'm awed and grateful for the blessing of your film. read
Comments About AlCielo 352
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stephjones on 04/17/2013
Hey there,
Just wanted to tell you I thought "elder hostile" was brilliant! I smile every time I think about it.
How's ship of fools going? -
chipperoni on 04/05/2013
DebraSwan wrote:Most excellent post!
I concur! -
DebraSwan on 04/04/2013
Most excellent post! -
emd on 03/12/2013
Thanks so much for responding to my query on how to format some scene. It is very much appreciated.
The way you wrote it is perfectly clear for a reader to follow.
Thanks.
Elaine :) -
AndrewAlderete on 03/04/2013
Apologies for the comment spam. I have removed the user. -
Dannie on 11/28/2012
Thanks for the comment, Al! Appreciate it! -
**DELETED ACCOUNT** on 11/07/2012
Thanks for your help with the uploading issue. I appreciate your guidance! -
gridlock on 10/12/2012
I just got my Dara Marks book in the mail, thanks so much for recommending that. Just a quick flip through and I already know it's going to be a HUGE help. I plan to devour it in detail this weekend! -
stephjones on 10/10/2012
Send me what you have if you'd like feedback now. Be happy to check it out. -
stephjones on 10/10/2012
Finally rec'd my Dara Marks yesterday. Looks good, thanks for the head's up about her.
How is the boat story coming?
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Comments About AlCielo 352
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Hey there,
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DebraSwan wrote:
Most excellent post!
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Most excellent post!
+ more commentsstephjones on 04/17/2013
Just wanted to tell you I thought "elder hostile" was brilliant! I smile every time I think about it.
How's ship of fools going?
chipperoni on 04/05/2013
I concur!
DebraSwan on 04/04/2013