a screenplay
by clovenhoof
Genres:
drama
A young man, missing most of his life, must sort the truth from the lies when he's reunited with his family.
clovenhoof
member since 12/30/2002 |
last login 02/07/2013
Australian born, Canadian raised. Work as a criminal lawyer (prosecutor) in Vancouver for a decade or so....
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Bio
Australian born, Canadian raised. Work as a criminal lawyer (prosecutor) in Vancouver for a decade or so.
Submissions by clovenhoof
Reviews by clovenhoof 85
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A review of Slip Awayby clovenhoof on 07/13/2012This is very well-written in terms of form and structure, but I think there are some aspects of the story that need to be worked on. Overall it was a quick read, but some things remained confusing to me. I read it again, found a bunch of things that, having read it once, didn't really fit or make sense, and still, at the end, I'm not really sure exactly what happened in terms... This is very well-written in terms of form and structure, but I think there are some aspects of the story that need to be worked on. Overall it was a quick read, but some things remained confusing to me. I read it again, found a bunch of things that, having read it once, didn't really fit or make sense, and still, at the end, I'm not really sure exactly what happened in terms of the art gallery heist.
There are a lot of small things that you need to fix; most of them are addressed in my notes. But one fairly big one is the setting: why did you set this is 1992? It creates a bunch of problems for you in terms of your content. First, the world wide web didn't exist yet; the internet consisted of Usenet groups and FTP sites, all text-based, and I think other than AOL, the only access to the internet was through a university mainframe, the government, and (of course) the military. So the bit in the Sioux Falls library is not possible. Second, cell phones were still of the "brick" variety, and cost more than a thousand dollars. Characters randomly having access to them isn't realistic. Third, it may have been twenty years ago, but there were still money laundering laws in place that would make a cash purchase of real estate just not possible.
Another significant small problem is the whole witness protection angle. It seems like the only reason it's there is as a mechanism to provide her with a bundle of cash (which doesn't happen) so she can fund her revenge trip. There's nothing else about the whole witness protection angle which really advances the story, and in terms of realism, there is a whole lot missing. (Number one, she's not actually a witness. Number two, they don't just dump the person in a hotel room, unsupervised, before they've actually given evidence. Number three, I've been to Sioux Falls. It was 95 in the day, and above 80 at night. I grew up on the Great Plains and don't remember too many "chilly" nights in the summer.)
Okay, now for what I consider to be the big big problem. I'm a parent of a small child. You have a script that has a child getting murdered, and then you beat us over the head with it in the nightmare scenes. Well, for me, if you're going to do all that, the movie really has to be worth it. There has to be some degree of gravitas to the material, some kind of emotional lift that makes it worth going through that process. A by-the-numbers revenge flick really doesn't cut it, and I don't think this is anything more than that, yet.
I realize that this is a first draft, and I think you have the bones in place, but you need to find some meat. As it is, the characters aren't really developed at all. Lilly's arc is obviously stunted by the loss of her son; you (quite properly) don't get much of a chance to show who she is because of her emotional state. (By the way, lots of the details that convey her grief were done really well, with very nice economy.) Beyond Lilly, the difficulty is that right now, pretty much all the dialogue in the script is purely functional, people are saying what they need to say to advance the plot. Nobody actually talks about anything, which doesn't give us more than a bare sketch of who they are as people.
But you're off to a very good start. You just need to find something that rises above "revenge" as a raison d'etre.
Notes: {in squiggly brackets were added during the second pass.}
3 - it's obvious that the news is "you're pregnant". don't know if that's going to be a big reveal down the road.
4 - so is he giving her a bunch of passes for July, or is he giving her a bunch of sequential passes? If so, how did he swing that? I shouldn't be thinking about this at page 4. {not sure what the point of the bus passes thing is, other than to give her someone to not recognize her later on.}
{Okay, so page 8 we meet Walczak, and page 9 we meet Nick. So let's go back to page 1: What's the point of the opening scene? Is the audience supposed to recognize those voices from the opening scene ten minutes later? Are the voices that distinctive?}
{Frankie seems only to exist as a plot device to link Nick to the shooting via the photo seen on the aforementioned non-existent internet.}
10 - should be "he pulls out his Motorola from its shoebox-sized case. It's one of the new models -- only 9 inches long, two pounds, with a battery that stays charged for up to an hour. And a bargain at only $1499!"
13-14 the bit with the Lorazepam is a really good snapshot of her state of mind.
16 - I like the attempt to have Lilly convey what she's feeling, though I doubt in reality that any cop would need to hear it, or that any parent would be in a position to articulate it so soon after her child's death.
21 - Chilly nights in Sioux Falls in the summer? Uhhh... NO! {pretty much everything about the whole witness protection thing is wrong from a factual point of view. You can get away with that stuff in a strong story, but I think when you start off by killing a kid, you're in the unenviable position of having used up all your goodwill with the audience. You have to win it back, and if you don't, they're gonna nitpick and you just end up digging a bigger hole for yourself.}
23 - Huge believability problems here. There is no internet. Frankie's fate isn't news, unless he's tied to either the heist or the shooting of the boy, and if he did get space in the paper, there'd be a photograph of his face. The only photo they'd get from the cops is a booking shot, certainly not a surveillance shot of an ongoing investigation.
26 - Oh, you cheater. You can't tell us that Marty's there to take her to the shrink. You have to just write it, and let the reader draw the obvious conclusion. {There are actually a lot of these descriptive things in the script that can't be filmed. This one isn't a problem, but others really are.}
30 - Lilly is a nickname, wouldn't the name on the license be "Lillian"?
40 - This isn't how real estate transactions are done. {Same problem with the completion of the sale down the road. No way they take a big chunk of cash. And you need a contract between the vendor and purchaser, the agent has no authority to make a deal.}
41 - How do you film "illegally modified crossbow"? You might get some mileage out of actually filming her modify it....
43 - I'm not wild about this sequence. She's hitting a moving target while perched on a moving (bobbing up and down in the water) platform? As a rookie shooter?
58 - {Second time through and I still don't get it. "Walczak hears a familiar male voice on Russo's end." WTF?!? That's novel-prose, not screenplay description. If the viewers are expected to recognize the voice, and realistically speaking I don't think they can since it's been 50 pages since we saw Agent Brooks, you certainly need to tell the reader.}
{Gonna stop with the notes, because I don't want to seem like I'm beating up on you, when really I thought the script was pretty good, and most of these things are quibbled that are easily fixed. But in the end, I remain confused about what happened and why within the whole Nick-Callum-Walczak group. It starts with Nick trying to kill Callum, then Nick is super surprised when he "learns" that Callum tried to kill him with the crossbow? And Lilly ends up with the artwork?} read -
A review of NECTARby clovenhoof on 06/26/2012This was a highly imaginative, and really quite beautiful story. I only have a couple of quibbles with it. The first is with the formatting. You've put in some camera directions, and extended the length of the script somewhat artificially by breaking up some of your descriptions into one-line paragraphs (with a line space following) where you should just have a two-line,... This was a highly imaginative, and really quite beautiful story. I only have a couple of quibbles with it.
The first is with the formatting. You've put in some camera directions, and extended the length of the script somewhat artificially by breaking up some of your descriptions into one-line paragraphs (with a line space following) where you should just have a two-line, two sentence paragraph. The formatting of the songs I think also increases the page-count. I don't really care about the whole over/under 90 pages thing. The concern is more that you have a 98 page script where there really isn't that much happening; it would probably shoot in 75 minutes or less.
The second main issue is I think you're in audience limbo. While it's clearly intended to be a "kid's" movie, the content is too mature for a child to really understand. The basic storyline is very, very strong, in my view, and I wonder if the same story couldn't be told in a more conventional setting (ie with people), which would more closely bring the material to the audience. The other alternative would be to make the material even less accessible to a younger audience (ditch the songs, for a start). I'm thinking that you'll end up with something close to, say, Watership Down.
There are some things I would have done differently -- I wouldn't have killed the man, for example. I think if he's just injured, then it adds a lesson that attempts at revenge are often futile. But there is so much that's good about this piece (the dialogue was generally outstanding, with one exception in the notes below) that it's easy to overlook something like that.
Extremely well done, and I'm afraid, destined to languish on a site where most people think Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with "Save the Cat" enscribed on the two stone tablets.
Notes:
42 - "Death is sad" - this is really the first wrong note, and I think the discussion about it should be a little more intelligent.
59 - Isn't it a little too early for this? {Nope -- I thought Bliss was gone for good.}
80 - Enough with the songs already.
92 - I wouldn't have killed the man.
I can't ever remember reading a script and having so few notes. Very, very well done. read -
A review of Stoned Deadby clovenhoof on 05/31/2012I don't normally comment on formatting issues that much in my reviews (there are lots of users who are much better at it than me), but really there are a lot of problems here. What you've essentially done is taken about 60 pages of material and stretched it out to 96 by the constant "CUT TOs". There are sequences, such as the part from page 63 through 65, that really should... I don't normally comment on formatting issues that much in my reviews (there are lots of users who are much better at it than me), but really there are a lot of problems here.
What you've essentially done is taken about 60 pages of material and stretched it out to 96 by the constant "CUT TOs". There are sequences, such as the part from page 63 through 65, that really should take about a half-page, but you drag out to over 3 pages. Also, there are multiple pages that are almost entirely blank -- 45, 46, 47.
In addition, the script is full of exposition that is really meant for a novel, not a script. Right on page one, "It was much cheaper if they got (the flight) at this time." How do you film that? You don't. You can't. Nor do you need to -- it's not important. The screenplay is full of these kinds of descriptions (p. 16 - "We can feel the tension...". Really? I can? Actually, no, I can't.)
I'll also mention that there are tons of mistakes having to do with when to use an apostrophe (we're vs. were) and when not. Not a huge deal, but you'll need to clean those up.
You really need to find a guide to proper formatting for a non-shooting script, and stick to it.
Another weakness of the script is a serious lack of focus as to what your story is, and what you should be spending your time showing the audience. Supposedly it's a zombie movie, but the first sign of zombies doesn't come until page 30 or so. In addition, you spend an inordinate amount of time on stuff that really is of no interest to the audience -- 7 pages of them talking about how to smoke a joint, another 7 of them all at a bar. Then you get to your first money scene -- the fight with the zombies at the bar -- and the whole thing lasts about a page and a half. Then it's off to the hostel, where they spend another 20 or so pages doing absolutely nothing about talking about taking drugs.
This kind of movie needs to be about characters finding out they have a problem, attempting to deal with the problem unsuccessfully, then ultimately finding a solution (or not). You need to take some time with each of those stages. But the key is, they have to be taking an active role or it gets really boring for the reader/audience.
Anyway, good luck with future drafts! read
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Submissions by clovenhoof
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a screenplay by clovenhoofGenres: dramaA young man, missing most of his life, must sort the truth from the lies when he's reunited with his family.
Reviews by clovenhoof 85
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A review of Slip Awayby clovenhoof on 07/13/2012This is very well-written in terms of form and structure, but I think there are some aspects of the story that need to be worked on. Overall it was a quick read, but some things remained confusing to me. I read it again, found a bunch of things that, having read it once, didn't really fit or make sense, and still, at the end, I'm not really sure exactly what happened in terms... This is very well-written in terms of form and structure, but I think there are some aspects of the story that need to be worked on. Overall it was a quick read, but some things remained confusing to me. I read it again, found a bunch of things that, having read it once, didn't really fit or make sense, and still, at the end, I'm not really sure exactly what happened in terms of the art gallery heist.
There are a lot of small things that you need to fix; most of them are addressed in my notes. But one fairly big one is the setting: why did you set this is 1992? It creates a bunch of problems for you in terms of your content. First, the world wide web didn't exist yet; the internet consisted of Usenet groups and FTP sites, all text-based, and I think other than AOL, the only access to the internet was through a university mainframe, the government, and (of course) the military. So the bit in the Sioux Falls library is not possible. Second, cell phones were still of the "brick" variety, and cost more than a thousand dollars. Characters randomly having access to them isn't realistic. Third, it may have been twenty years ago, but there were still money laundering laws in place that would make a cash purchase of real estate just not possible.
Another significant small problem is the whole witness protection angle. It seems like the only reason it's there is as a mechanism to provide her with a bundle of cash (which doesn't happen) so she can fund her revenge trip. There's nothing else about the whole witness protection angle which really advances the story, and in terms of realism, there is a whole lot missing. (Number one, she's not actually a witness. Number two, they don't just dump the person in a hotel room, unsupervised, before they've actually given evidence. Number three, I've been to Sioux Falls. It was 95 in the day, and above 80 at night. I grew up on the Great Plains and don't remember too many "chilly" nights in the summer.)
Okay, now for what I consider to be the big big problem. I'm a parent of a small child. You have a script that has a child getting murdered, and then you beat us over the head with it in the nightmare scenes. Well, for me, if you're going to do all that, the movie really has to be worth it. There has to be some degree of gravitas to the material, some kind of emotional lift that makes it worth going through that process. A by-the-numbers revenge flick really doesn't cut it, and I don't think this is anything more than that, yet.
I realize that this is a first draft, and I think you have the bones in place, but you need to find some meat. As it is, the characters aren't really developed at all. Lilly's arc is obviously stunted by the loss of her son; you (quite properly) don't get much of a chance to show who she is because of her emotional state. (By the way, lots of the details that convey her grief were done really well, with very nice economy.) Beyond Lilly, the difficulty is that right now, pretty much all the dialogue in the script is purely functional, people are saying what they need to say to advance the plot. Nobody actually talks about anything, which doesn't give us more than a bare sketch of who they are as people.
But you're off to a very good start. You just need to find something that rises above "revenge" as a raison d'etre.
Notes: {in squiggly brackets were added during the second pass.}
3 - it's obvious that the news is "you're pregnant". don't know if that's going to be a big reveal down the road.
4 - so is he giving her a bunch of passes for July, or is he giving her a bunch of sequential passes? If so, how did he swing that? I shouldn't be thinking about this at page 4. {not sure what the point of the bus passes thing is, other than to give her someone to not recognize her later on.}
{Okay, so page 8 we meet Walczak, and page 9 we meet Nick. So let's go back to page 1: What's the point of the opening scene? Is the audience supposed to recognize those voices from the opening scene ten minutes later? Are the voices that distinctive?}
{Frankie seems only to exist as a plot device to link Nick to the shooting via the photo seen on the aforementioned non-existent internet.}
10 - should be "he pulls out his Motorola from its shoebox-sized case. It's one of the new models -- only 9 inches long, two pounds, with a battery that stays charged for up to an hour. And a bargain at only $1499!"
13-14 the bit with the Lorazepam is a really good snapshot of her state of mind.
16 - I like the attempt to have Lilly convey what she's feeling, though I doubt in reality that any cop would need to hear it, or that any parent would be in a position to articulate it so soon after her child's death.
21 - Chilly nights in Sioux Falls in the summer? Uhhh... NO! {pretty much everything about the whole witness protection thing is wrong from a factual point of view. You can get away with that stuff in a strong story, but I think when you start off by killing a kid, you're in the unenviable position of having used up all your goodwill with the audience. You have to win it back, and if you don't, they're gonna nitpick and you just end up digging a bigger hole for yourself.}
23 - Huge believability problems here. There is no internet. Frankie's fate isn't news, unless he's tied to either the heist or the shooting of the boy, and if he did get space in the paper, there'd be a photograph of his face. The only photo they'd get from the cops is a booking shot, certainly not a surveillance shot of an ongoing investigation.
26 - Oh, you cheater. You can't tell us that Marty's there to take her to the shrink. You have to just write it, and let the reader draw the obvious conclusion. {There are actually a lot of these descriptive things in the script that can't be filmed. This one isn't a problem, but others really are.}
30 - Lilly is a nickname, wouldn't the name on the license be "Lillian"?
40 - This isn't how real estate transactions are done. {Same problem with the completion of the sale down the road. No way they take a big chunk of cash. And you need a contract between the vendor and purchaser, the agent has no authority to make a deal.}
41 - How do you film "illegally modified crossbow"? You might get some mileage out of actually filming her modify it....
43 - I'm not wild about this sequence. She's hitting a moving target while perched on a moving (bobbing up and down in the water) platform? As a rookie shooter?
58 - {Second time through and I still don't get it. "Walczak hears a familiar male voice on Russo's end." WTF?!? That's novel-prose, not screenplay description. If the viewers are expected to recognize the voice, and realistically speaking I don't think they can since it's been 50 pages since we saw Agent Brooks, you certainly need to tell the reader.}
{Gonna stop with the notes, because I don't want to seem like I'm beating up on you, when really I thought the script was pretty good, and most of these things are quibbled that are easily fixed. But in the end, I remain confused about what happened and why within the whole Nick-Callum-Walczak group. It starts with Nick trying to kill Callum, then Nick is super surprised when he "learns" that Callum tried to kill him with the crossbow? And Lilly ends up with the artwork?} read -
A review of NECTARby clovenhoof on 06/26/2012This was a highly imaginative, and really quite beautiful story. I only have a couple of quibbles with it. The first is with the formatting. You've put in some camera directions, and extended the length of the script somewhat artificially by breaking up some of your descriptions into one-line paragraphs (with a line space following) where you should just have a two-line,... This was a highly imaginative, and really quite beautiful story. I only have a couple of quibbles with it.
The first is with the formatting. You've put in some camera directions, and extended the length of the script somewhat artificially by breaking up some of your descriptions into one-line paragraphs (with a line space following) where you should just have a two-line, two sentence paragraph. The formatting of the songs I think also increases the page-count. I don't really care about the whole over/under 90 pages thing. The concern is more that you have a 98 page script where there really isn't that much happening; it would probably shoot in 75 minutes or less.
The second main issue is I think you're in audience limbo. While it's clearly intended to be a "kid's" movie, the content is too mature for a child to really understand. The basic storyline is very, very strong, in my view, and I wonder if the same story couldn't be told in a more conventional setting (ie with people), which would more closely bring the material to the audience. The other alternative would be to make the material even less accessible to a younger audience (ditch the songs, for a start). I'm thinking that you'll end up with something close to, say, Watership Down.
There are some things I would have done differently -- I wouldn't have killed the man, for example. I think if he's just injured, then it adds a lesson that attempts at revenge are often futile. But there is so much that's good about this piece (the dialogue was generally outstanding, with one exception in the notes below) that it's easy to overlook something like that.
Extremely well done, and I'm afraid, destined to languish on a site where most people think Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with "Save the Cat" enscribed on the two stone tablets.
Notes:
42 - "Death is sad" - this is really the first wrong note, and I think the discussion about it should be a little more intelligent.
59 - Isn't it a little too early for this? {Nope -- I thought Bliss was gone for good.}
80 - Enough with the songs already.
92 - I wouldn't have killed the man.
I can't ever remember reading a script and having so few notes. Very, very well done. read -
A review of Stoned Deadby clovenhoof on 05/31/2012I don't normally comment on formatting issues that much in my reviews (there are lots of users who are much better at it than me), but really there are a lot of problems here. What you've essentially done is taken about 60 pages of material and stretched it out to 96 by the constant "CUT TOs". There are sequences, such as the part from page 63 through 65, that really should... I don't normally comment on formatting issues that much in my reviews (there are lots of users who are much better at it than me), but really there are a lot of problems here.
What you've essentially done is taken about 60 pages of material and stretched it out to 96 by the constant "CUT TOs". There are sequences, such as the part from page 63 through 65, that really should take about a half-page, but you drag out to over 3 pages. Also, there are multiple pages that are almost entirely blank -- 45, 46, 47.
In addition, the script is full of exposition that is really meant for a novel, not a script. Right on page one, "It was much cheaper if they got (the flight) at this time." How do you film that? You don't. You can't. Nor do you need to -- it's not important. The screenplay is full of these kinds of descriptions (p. 16 - "We can feel the tension...". Really? I can? Actually, no, I can't.)
I'll also mention that there are tons of mistakes having to do with when to use an apostrophe (we're vs. were) and when not. Not a huge deal, but you'll need to clean those up.
You really need to find a guide to proper formatting for a non-shooting script, and stick to it.
Another weakness of the script is a serious lack of focus as to what your story is, and what you should be spending your time showing the audience. Supposedly it's a zombie movie, but the first sign of zombies doesn't come until page 30 or so. In addition, you spend an inordinate amount of time on stuff that really is of no interest to the audience -- 7 pages of them talking about how to smoke a joint, another 7 of them all at a bar. Then you get to your first money scene -- the fight with the zombies at the bar -- and the whole thing lasts about a page and a half. Then it's off to the hostel, where they spend another 20 or so pages doing absolutely nothing about talking about taking drugs.
This kind of movie needs to be about characters finding out they have a problem, attempting to deal with the problem unsuccessfully, then ultimately finding a solution (or not). You need to take some time with each of those stages. But the key is, they have to be taking an active role or it gets really boring for the reader/audience.
Anyway, good luck with future drafts! read -
A review of Port Wikkalynby clovenhoof on 03/30/2012Okay, I hated it. But it is certainly an incredibly imaginative tale that shows great creativity on your part, and certainly is structurally very sound. It looks like there are already a bunch of reviews; I suspect that lots of people have taken you to task for the first 46 pages or so. It's very slow-moving up to that point, but picks up quite a bit once we get to Rosco... Okay, I hated it. But it is certainly an incredibly imaginative tale that shows great creativity on your part, and certainly is structurally very sound.
It looks like there are already a bunch of reviews; I suspect that lots of people have taken you to task for the first 46 pages or so. It's very slow-moving up to that point, but picks up quite a bit once we get to Rosco giving the sword and the speech.
I think there is a worthy tale to be told here; in its current form it's very confused, but I don't see it as being as over the top as your notes suggest it is. It's not that dissimilar to what one finds in the traditional Greek myths. That in turn is one of the script's biggest weaknesses: you're relying on the mystery to be solved to carry the story in the early going, but really it's not that mysterious. Okay, a guy gets attacked by seaweed, and we don't know why, yet. Sure, we'll find out why at some point, but does is a seaweed attack by itself so compelling that it keeps us in our seats? For some, maybe, for others, not so much.
If you want to keep the "not so much" crowd reading, you really need to create more in terms of depth of the characters, and conflict of substance. Lucas in particular needs to be fleshed out a whole lot more; as it stands, his suicide at the end is just a tack-on of no particular substance.
Consider as an analogy "The Sixth Sense". Right from the start, there's a whole lot going on: yeah, we're getting some freaky stuff early, but there's great dialogue establishing the characters, there's conflict between the boy and his mother, there's the relationship between the boy and the shrink that has obstacles to overcome before trust is established, and there are the issues (we are led to believe) between the shrink and his wife. There was a whole lot more going on there than just a ghost story.
You need your bad guys to be badder, and more devious, you need your good guy to be more conflicted about what he's doing, and you need your supporting characters to have more life in them. And the story...? In the words of the ill-fated Marvin from Pulp Fiction, "Man, I don't even have an opinion -- (head gets blown off at that point)". read -
A review of River's Crossingby clovenhoof on 11/16/2011You're going to get a lot of criticism from other reviewers on your narrative description in the script. I'm not going to dwell on that, I'll just say that whatever other people say is probably right. This script reads more like a novel than a screenplay. Two examples from page 1 are enough for me: "A stunned beat." Okay. How exactly does the director shoot that? It's... You're going to get a lot of criticism from other reviewers on your narrative description in the script. I'm not going to dwell on that, I'll just say that whatever other people say is probably right. This script reads more like a novel than a screenplay. Two examples from page 1 are enough for me: "A stunned beat." Okay. How exactly does the director shoot that? It's the sort of thing that you put in a novel but has no place in a script. The second is "...gives him an 'I just don't give a fuck' demeanor." In my view that's unprofessional. I have no problem with profanity, but it belongs in the dialogue, not the description. Again, as a line in a novel it would be entirely appropriate as the tone of the description is a part of the overall work. Screenplays aren't like that.
The underlying concept to me really didn't work. It was obvious, it's been done to death (no pun intended), and, early on, you have your characters being deliberately stupid in order to try and make it work. For example, why on Earth would Ethan just abandon the pursuit of two people in a boat rowing away? He can stare at the pair of tits all day long, but the boat is rowing away -- any rational person would see the urgency in the need to try and stop it. Similarly, everybody just abandons their inquiries at "What's the last thing you remember?" There's no attempt to probe any further -- "what do you do for a living, where do you live, where were you last week?"
Having said all that, I have to say that as much as I hated the basic premise, you really got a lot out of it. It was a fairly engaging read, and you kept enough balls in the air to get me to the end with some degree of interest.
I can't in good conscience encourage you to pursue this particular script -- you're a good writer, and I think you will have little difficulty coming up with a better story, and that's where you should focus your efforts. However, if you want to take another swing at this one, here are some recommendations I'd make.
1. Accept that it's obvious to most readers by page 16 what's going on, and certainly by page 31. Stop trying to make it a surprise that they're all dead or comatose or whatever. Have the characters realize it, fairly early (somebody should throw out the idea to the others no later than page 20), and go from there.
2. Take a little more time to introduce your characters. You basically have them all come in one by one until you're up to eight people by page eleven, and nothing has actually happened. Start with three waking up together, have them actually do some stuff to figure out what's going on. Consider whittling it down to six or seven primary characters overall.
3. Don't just send a couple of people to swim across the river then have them come back with their story of what happened. Take the action with them, show it happening, the difficulty they're encountering, and when they get into the thick fog perhaps that's when the first person disappears. Two swim out, but only one makes it back. Have a third person on the shore watching so there's no issue as to the truth of the survivor's story.
4. You can use the Ferryman as a tool to show the characters that perhaps they're not actually necessarily all dead yet. When they draw straws, whoever draws the short straw, have the Ferryman refuse to take him. "Sorry lad, I can't take you across. Not yet anyway." Then they all withdraw to consider the implications of that. Assuming that they're not all on board with the idea that they're dead, the Ferryman could be the source of some suspense -- who will he take, and who won't he take? And what exactly does it mean if he does?
Anyway, good luck going forward, whether it's with this or another project. My notes were pretty brief, but here they are.
p. 1 "A stunned beat." is meaningless. "gives him an 'I just don't give a fuck' demeanour". It's all a novel, not a screenplay. Lots more examples over the next few pages.
p. 6 - too many people too soon. You need some build up. Why did Ethan abandon pursuing the people in the boat? Why not some more probing questioning -- where were you last week, last year? Funny line at the end of the page by George, though.
p. 11 - really? we're now up to eight people, and nothing's happened?
p. 16 - If they're dead, and in the afterlife, I'm going to be pretty pissed. Let me guess: bus crash?
p. 31 - Okay, really? Really? It's not obvious to you how obvious it is to us what's going on? Come on, man.
p. 62 - The thing with Rod, Clint, and the axe has me thinking that you haven't thought through the internal rules of the world you've created. I have to say, though, as bad as the underlying concept is, you're getting some really good mileage out of it. It's pretty engaging. read -
A review of A Tru Fairytaleby clovenhoof on 11/13/2011I don't know why this script hasn't either been optioned or gotten you some assignment work. It's very good; I suspect it just hasn't been read by the right people. I do understand why it did well -- but didn't win -- in the competitions you entered. I suspect when a contest gets down to the last couple of scripts, they're looking for reasons to exclude rather than reasons... I don't know why this script hasn't either been optioned or gotten you some assignment work. It's very good; I suspect it just hasn't been read by the right people. I do understand why it did well -- but didn't win -- in the competitions you entered. I suspect when a contest gets down to the last couple of scripts, they're looking for reasons to exclude rather than reasons to award. Your script has a couple of those reasons.
First let's state the obvious: it's hilarious. It's a brilliant concept, maybe a bit of a tweener -- not enough originality for the "Shrek" folks, and too good for the "I Know What Princess Bride the Monsters Inc.'s Happy Feet Swept Away Last Summer Did" crowd. It's engaging, well-structured, and has enough to appeal to both adults and kids. (The princess counter was particularly inspired.)
There are some nits I can pick: I thought the dialogue on pages 5-6 with Tru and the serfs was a little clunky. I think you need to lose the "wash your hands" gag at page 88. It's funny, but when you're that close to the finish line, there's a loss of momentum there that I don't think you can afford. I think the last realistic opportunity to get away with a stop-start might be p. 71 with the old attendant, "do you want to hear my story?" You could start to show about three seconds of it, then have it freeze with the narrator giving the same line. At page 90, Albert's dialogue doesn't really work. I think he needs to be a little stupider, and she needs to more obviously realize that. Maybe the traditional approach with this is enough -- he recites all the things she went through, and she sees each of them, and how Cecil was there at every point, and that wakes her up to her real desires.
Here are the two serious problems I had with the script. The first was the Three's Company moment at p. 68, where Tru overhears Cecil in the bar, and that leads to the misunderstanding. Here's where I digress. Movies are about forgiveness. To tell any kind of story, the moviemaker has to take some kind of shortcut at some point. He only gets away with it if he's built up enough goodwill by then. That goodwill sometimes comes with an "A" list star, but here on the Street, it has to come from the script. When I got to this part, I groaned. I know you basically had to do what you did: you need your "boy loses girl" moment. But as much as I was enjoying the script, this part for me was a setback.
The second serious problem was the ending. Pulling the Pied Piper out of nowhere that late in the story, well, that was fine: you'd built your goodwill bank way up by that point. But the Giant was just too much. I think you need a cleaner way to save Oscar and Cecil while dispatching with Jack and his mother. (Maybe Oscar and Cecil have climbed down far enough that when the stalk crashes, they fall into the Prince's wedding cake?) I suspect that's the fatal flaw that cost you in the competitions.
I have one suggestion for you to consider: two narrators. The narrator you've written really sounds like John Cleese, but I think you need to think Rowan Atkinson -- Blackadder and his idiot sidekick Baldrick -- as the model for a double narrator setup. Or, maybe they can both be stupid -- like a couple of the Spinal Tap guys.
Anyway, it's a job very well done, and like I said, I think as it is it's close to being sale-worthy. read -
A review of Spook'dby clovenhoof on 10/27/2008The most valuable thing I can tell you is that big parts of this script were, for me, not funny. My notes break down what worked and what didn't. Humour varies. Some people will laugh at it all, others will laugh at bits and pieces. You need to basically keep track of what worked for how many people and then decide what needs to be changed. The second most valuable thing... The most valuable thing I can tell you is that big parts of this script were, for me, not funny. My notes break down what worked and what didn't. Humour varies. Some people will laugh at it all, others will laugh at bits and pieces. You need to basically keep track of what worked for how many people and then decide what needs to be changed.
The second most valuable thing I can tell you is something general: movies (and therefore screenplays) are about forgiveness. You can't make a movie without doing things (stupid things, unbelievable things) that you need the audience to forgive -- things that they'll willingly overlook and keep watching. You always start with a little goodwill, but that can disappear quickly. After that, you have to earn it.
For me, the first 40 pages were quite trying. Not a laugh, not a smirk, not a smile. It just wasn't working for me. That wasn't the "trying" part, though -- what made it difficult was that not too much was happening in those 40 pages. It was as though you'd traded in story for gags, and when the gags didn't work, that didn't leave me too much for me.
From, basically, page 41 onward it was a completely different script. Instead of broad slapstick, the humour got clever, and I laughed a couple of times, certainly smiled a lot more. And, the story took off. The story actually got good, and, I thought, clever. The interplay (in terms of the storyline) between Dean, Tess, and Waterlill was clever, and made for enough different angles and competing interests that it worked really well.
You're going to get criticized for your ending of the second act, the way you basically fast-forward through "they played the tape, arrested Dean, and he gave up Tess". I get that you know that you can't normally do stuff like that in a screenplay, and that it was a decision you made. (This is where the "forgiveness" part comes in. I was happy to look past that, because by that point I was greatly enjoying the script.) I'm not prepared to say it was a bad decision, but I will suggest that you give it some more thought.
Realistically, you're going to need to show all that stuff, because your first 40 pages are going to have to turn into 23 or so, and then you'll need more material.
Obviously this isn't a character piece. But I think you need to make a small change to Freddy that will make it funnier, and it will give him a bit of an arc. You have to make Freddy absolutely believe that all white people are stupid. So, in all the scenes where he's "shuckin' and jivin'" as they used to say, have him play it straight, confident, superior. I think it plays better, and it plays smarter. I have a specific example or two in the notes.
One other thing to consider is, do you think you got as much as you needed out of Trevor's ability to move stuff? I'm not sure that you did.
Anyway, you write really well, and with a retooling of the first 40 pages I think you'll have a real winner on your hands. Good luck with it!
My notes: {in curly braces means I added it afterwards}
17 Okay, so the dialogue is generally clunky, but otherwise the setup is okay.
28 The problem so far is that you've sacrificed things like story, conflict, and believability, in order to go for the laughs, but the results just aren't funny. So you're left with mostly empty scenes with uninspired dialogue and no characters that are at all interesting.
30 Young Freddy and the safe is the first interesting thing here. I don't necessarily buy it, but it's the first thing that doesn't seem recycled.
32-34 Trevor at the Mama's Box, where he fires teenage Freddy, doesn't really work. Nothing about it is real. You'll need to find a new reason why Freddy's got a grudge. {Or better still, eliminate it since it doesn't really have any lasting impact in the script.}
40 You know where you want to go with your story, but the scenes you're using to get you there aren't working, particularly the dialogue.
I'm also a little surprised you haven't done more with the funeral. Here's where Trevor can hear people talk about him with more candor than he'd have ever heard before, and you pass that up? You need to get more out of your scenes generally.
At this point, your storyline looks like it's just a frame to hang jokes off of. That's a dangerous approach, because if the jokes don't work, it will be a very, very long 90 minutes for your audience. Movies like American Pie and Knocked Up were comedies with very solid storylines, that still would work on one level even for those who didn't find them funny.
41-46 Hmmm... I may have spoken too soon. This is all pretty strong -- once they get out of the funeral, with all the machinations taking place in this five page sequence. Your story has really picked up and gotten into gear. I do think it's a little late, though, given what all you have, I think it should be more like page 23-28 of 95 or so.
49 Yeah, this is a different movie than your first 40 pages or so. You're reading like a different writer, too. Way more confident with your material.
51 You flip between Derrick and Derek a bunch of times starting here.
53 There goes that PG rating... full-frontal male in a sexualized context gets you an X.
57 Okay, the stuff with Trevor and Derek, that's funny. It got a chuckle.
- the stuff with Freddy here, trying to talk his way past Tess, it isn't funny. I think you need to make him really smoothe, in control when he talks this shit, like he actually believes it. The whole, "uh... uh... I'm a real estate agent, yeah, that's it! An estate agent!" just doesn't play. By making him play it straight, it sets up the funny on the "I'll leave you alone to speak with the police" line, which otherwise I don't think gets a laugh.
58 the dog chasing Derek/Derrick/Darykk (okay I made that last one up) through the window is funny.
62 Exterminator gag works.
71 I really like where you're taking the story. The whole Paolo angle & Waterlill... very good.
74 I have a feeling the "I'm an intern" line is a misstep. If it's there just for the "You want a raise?" line, well, that line isn't funny, and it may compromise your story. For Dean to trust her, she can't be an intern. She's either well-paid, or screwing him. Or, he's got dirt on her. But don't sell out any part of your story for a laugh that isn't there. {Can you handle another person entering the competition? You might be able to use Amy in such a way...}
75 If there's a hundred cops there, then there has to be a reason why they have to go NOW, as opposed to waiting until 4 a.m. You need to find some urgency.
77-8 I love all this dancing around with Gustav's pockets. Funny.
86 Meh.
93 I like what you did, more or less, up to the shooting of Freddy (which was brilliant). But I don't think you can just fast forward through "they played the tape, arrested Dean, and he gave up Tess".
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A review of Bike Crash Bluesby clovenhoof on 10/23/2008I really like the premise to this, and lots of the script is very well written. There's some problems, though, but I suspect I won't be telling you anything you don't already know. The first is that the music gives you a pacing problem. On pages 4-5 you have the band playing two complete songs and starting a third. That's seven or so minutes of music with no action. It... I really like the premise to this, and lots of the script is very well written. There's some problems, though, but I suspect I won't be telling you anything you don't already know.
The first is that the music gives you a pacing problem. On pages 4-5 you have the band playing two complete songs and starting a third. That's seven or so minutes of music with no action. It just doesn't work. It's less of a problem later on in the script, but it's something you always need to be mindful of.
The second, minor problem is you can't use a real celebrity as a character in your script on this site. You need to have the rights. So Danny Flowers has to become Donny Garden, or Timmy Tulips or something else.
The third problem is a biggie. Movies are about conflict, and you pull your punches in almost every situation where you're set up to have the sparks fly. The most obvious and egregious example is Gary catching Carl and Jamie in bed. At some point, he has to not be okay with that.
Moreover, I don't believe you have a movie unless Carl was the one who was responsible for the accident.
This can be a really compelling story, but you need to have characters with strong motivations, and strong forces eating away at them on the inside. Consider the movie "Still Crazy", which I think is the best reunion movie ever made. Everybody in that band never got over the "death" of their singer. It left wounds that never healed, and when they got back together the old pains resurfaced and nearly brought them down.
It's all hugs and kisses between Gary and Carl here. You really need to give them some venom, and putting the blame for Gary's injury on Carl gets you there, and gets you there fast.
Here are my notes made as I was reading.
21 The "guy from the past called in to save the day" isn't working. The trouble is you gave us too much of the past. We just saw these people together, now we see them again. There's no sense of anything having happened.
I think you need to establish more of a present timeline, have the past stuff more fragmented. There's really nothing from the past that we need that can't be shown in a few 3 second flashes, when it comes right down to it.
28 This bit with Gary and Clay doesn't feel real. I think Clay would know that it's going to be one step at a time. I think Clay's response to "Not like this" has to be, "The bandages will come off, Gary." Something more assertive than "Maybe we can..."
Yeah, dude, you can't have real, living people as characters in your script without them giving you permission.
40 The dialogue in this scene is clunky. You're not finding any real emotion in the characters. I think you're trying way too hard to write around it, when you need to face it squarely, and draw it out so it finds its way to the page.
As for the Clay's reaction to seeing Gary's new songs, I don't for a single minute think that Clay would go out there and ask for permission to help. Gary let him find those songs, then took off, for a reason. Clay would just go ahead and rework them. With these two there's always going to be some one-upmanship going on, on some level at least, for this to work.
48 I think you need to find some more unresolved problems between the two of them Clay and Jamie having a smooch on the side doesn't really cut it. These guys were great musicians, and each one threw something away. They each have to have a little contempt for the other as a result of that. Also, let me ask you this: would it kill you to have Clay steering the bike, or somehow causing the accident? You're missing an opportunity there. That's your fastest route to having more issues that need resolving.
49-50 Rusty and Steve "taking it back a little" is a really nice, funny scene.
53 Yeah, you have the right idea, with Gary's hand being a problem, but again you're dancing around it. The problem has to be something flowing from where he's been, and this just looks a little random, like he's coming down with Huntington's or ALS. If you're going the "Gary slowly loses it" route, it has to be from something meaningful, a consequence of his earlier behaviour, rather than just some random disease.
{You didn't do anything with that. Is it, and his memory loss, a residue from a problem in an earlier draft?
63 I like what you're doing with the Star is Born angle -- Gary's on the rise, Jamie's starting to fall. If you're going to let her fall all the way, though, it has to end with Jamie taking that shit song and making it something special... change the tempo, turn it into a torch song....
66-67 Again, great setup for a scene, Clay at the piano and Jamie coming in, but there's no emotion here. The dialogue is too stiff. The emotion is there to be found, You just need to dig a little deeper.
70-72 Clay and Jamie at the lake is a beautifully written scene. Bang on.
73 Okay, so Gary's reaction to his wife banging his buddy is a nice twist, but Gary can't be okay with it, long term. You can't just throw away opportunities for good drama and conflict. It's great in life if everyone can get along, but it's not so great in the movies. Gary's anger has to fester or you've wasted the relationship.
99-100 "This doesn't have anything to do with how many people are out there" needs to be Gary's line. Anyone who's played knows that's true -- 20, 200, or 20,000 are all basically the same. His problem has to be with the loss of control.
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A review of Ben the Barbarian: The Future Kingby clovenhoof on 10/21/2008"...I have more talent in my little finger than you do in your whole body." Yep. Like you say in your bio, you're definitely like those people on Idol who think they can sing but can't. Holy shit, man, how can you even think that? This is a brilliant script, from start to finish. Lots of scripts here have chuckles, or smiles, and every once in a while I get caught off-guard... "...I have more talent in my little finger than you do in your whole body." Yep. Like you say in your bio, you're definitely like those people on Idol who think they can sing but can't.
Holy shit, man, how can you even think that? This is a brilliant script, from start to finish. Lots of scripts here have chuckles, or smiles, and every once in a while I get caught off-guard and actually laugh out loud, but this was funny! I laughed close to a dozen times, and twice nearly fell out of my chair. ("You dropped your purse" and "Good thing she didn't see the second pile" of animals.)
I really don't have a whole lot to offer you, except what everyone else no doubt has told you: there are a SHITLOAD of typos and grammatical errors, at least 300 in the script. Mostly to/too errors, or your/you're or things like that. Also, I don't think the formatting is always according to Hoyle, but really, who cares? The concept is brilliant, the jokes are genuinely funny, the story is engaging.
I have a couple of minor suggestions. The first is, Ben is too old. Fat, short, and middle-aged is overkill. You can get the same mileage out of late 20's, short, and flabby (or even just out of shape) as opposed to muscular. Keep in mind, he's surrounded by golden gods, he doesn't have to be too far removed from that for your point to be made clear.
I was a little concerned at page 30 that you'd taken things as far as they could go, because while it was all funny, there wasn't really any conflict yet, and given that Ben is an idiot, it's not like we're going to be too interested in the decisions he makes. But you made it play. You could consider trimming the main storyline a little, and bulking up Uncle Cecil's storyline.
Cecil is actually a character who could conceivably carry the movie, if you'd wanted to go that route. Given that he's got ability and brains, he's the one that the conflict will revolve around. He's loyal to the king, but knows Ben is a fool, soldiers will be loyal to Cecil, but might want him to whack the kid and step into the number 2 role himself. There is a lot you can do with him, and I think you should do more with him, but I can't honestly say that would make it better, just different.
The unipeg joke is potentially riotously funny, but you need to set it up more and sooner. We need to start hearing about the power of the unipegs at around page 65, then about how gentle they are at page 77, then again at page 89 or so, at which point they're saying, "Yeah, yeah, the gentle Uni-fucking-pegs, if I got laid every time I heard that, there would have been no virgins for the volcano", whatever. Because the "Gentle my ass!" line is funny, but there is the potential for it to be so much more. It could be a laugh so big that it just carries the audience through to the end.
Anyway, get it proof-read, fix the typos, then get an agent. It's brilliant, it deserves to be sold. Good luck! read -
A review of table for one (lo-carb version)by clovenhoof on 10/19/2008I'm absolutely blown away. This is one of the best scripts I've seen on this site, and certainly the most moving. The characters are very well drawn, and generally compelling. In particular, you write very well, very authentically, about obsessive compulsives and depression. (My condolences.) You find some amazing stuff out of what on the surface appears to be nothing... I'm absolutely blown away. This is one of the best scripts I've seen on this site, and certainly the most moving. The characters are very well drawn, and generally compelling. In particular, you write very well, very authentically, about obsessive compulsives and depression. (My condolences.) You find some amazing stuff out of what on the surface appears to be nothing. Consider for example the section on Dave. His internal tensions rise very subtly, so even when you get to page 12 or so and nothing has really happened, it doesn't feel that way.
I have a few minor suggestions.
I'm not sure you need the first scene with Sarah and Beth as kids. I don't know that it gives you anything that can't be accomplished by, "Remember the tortoise I had as a kid?"
With Dave's sequence, I'm not sure that the bathing in the port-a-potty works completely, that it's clear enough that he's cleaning up for the woman on the bus. As I was reading, I was wondering if you could show some more cause-reaction. So the boss chains up the door. That day he can't clean up, so he deliberately misses the bus. The next day, he brings moist towelettes to work so he can clean up without using the john. Just a thought.
I also think he pounds on the kids too much. No more than two punches each, both to the head, leaving some serious bruises. I think as it is, with him repeatedly stomping on the one kid, he loses the woman for good and risks getting arrested. Two punches each repels her but isn't so brutish that she's lost for good.
Show him making an effort to finish the book by reading it at home.
The Colin sequence was depressing. Well-written, but not pleasant to read. No suggestions for it, just thought you should know that.
The Beth & Sarah skeleton threw me a little. The second and third scenes with them are obviously transposed temporally. It wasn't clear to me where the first one fit in, though it didn't really matter since it had no carryover content. Then the fourth one was the fourth one in time. I don't know if you achieve anything by having 2 & 3 reversed. If you were aiming for something by doing that, I missed it.
The Andy sequence again was generally well-done, but I don't think the big reveal worked. It really came out of nowhere. The problem is, you've clearly foreshadowed that he doesn't actually have a girlfriend, but that's all. I actually expected that the reveal was going to be that the photos were of some actress he'd never met or something like that. So that she was real but died, and in an accident that he blamed himself for, those two things were thrown out there like something you see on an afternoon soap opera. "You mean...?" "Yes. We call you two half-brothers, but really it's because you were the two ends of Siamese Quadruplets. The other two died in the operation... if only we hadn't gone to Adolf Hitler's private surgeon. Why? WHY, DAMN IT?!?!??" Sorry, I get carried away sometimes... Anyway, that aspect of the story was really the only thing in the script that jarred me out of it.
So I gather Eric won the lotto. Not sure you emphasized that enough. You certainly could have done more with that, rubbing it in the face of the banker, for example, once you've made it clear to the audience that that's what's happened.
I absolutely love how you tied it all together, I absolutely love how you had Beth recognize what it was that these four characters really needed. Overall just a wonderful, wonderful script. read
Comments About clovenhoof 55
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**DELETED ACCOUNT** on 10/07/2012
Thank you. I come across like Chris Christie. You come across like Lincoln. -
shedenbo on 08/06/2012
Hi, there. No worries. I've long since taken the lessons to heart, so those are two fewer things that can happen to me now. Hope things going well with you. -
gridlock on 07/14/2012
Excellent notes, thank you so much. I never mind getting beat over the head when it comes to helpful advice ;) And this will be very helpful when I do my next rewrite on it.
Thanks again,
JD -
J. O'Hanley on 07/11/2012
Ok, I'll really have to figure that out next time I do a rewrite. It's a bit of a fine line, I want him to be more than a damsel in distress, but he's also carrying his baby daughter around for the majority of the script. Hopefully I can find a balance.
Thanks again! -
J. O'Hanley on 07/11/2012
Hello, just wanted to say thanks for the Earth Day review. Thanks in particular for singling out the pacing, I always work so hard on that and it's the sort of things that reviewers never point out.
Just a couple of things…
-I have to agree about the lifespan thing not being explored that well. I only wanted a hint of bittersweetness in there, but part of me thinks I should have saved it for a weightier story.
-Max the Uberwuss. I'm concerned about this, because my intent is to make him a guy who was a loser, deadbeat sort in the past, who then gets to prove that he's changed over the course of the movie. With that in mind, reading it again, that first scene with his boss does seem to make him sort of a sap. If Max stood up for himself in that scene, but his boss still didn't take him seriously at all, it would hit the same sort of note and be more consistent with what I'm going for, so I can rework that, no problem. My question, was there any other moment where Max came off as pathetic to you? Or did that first impression of the character kind of color how he came across for the rest of the script?
Thanks again for the review! -
**DELETED ACCOUNT** on 07/08/2012
Touche' -
**DELETED ACCOUNT** on 07/08/2012
That's cool. All I'm suggesting is that you edit your language. If I had been a first time writer, your words, would have shut me down from ever posting any further projects. It's not right. As an OPTIONED writer I know that there will always be notes, but there’s a difference between criticism and douchery. And just so you know, the script you read, was the wrong draft. I wrote it back in '98, copyrighted in’02. I downloaded the PDF file of D!TCHED instead of D!tched. -
**DELETED ACCOUNT** on 07/08/2012
Thank you for reviewing D!TCHED. I guess if the story is as sub-par as your etiquette is, then you’re right, it is unsalvageable. -
**DELETED ACCOUNT** on 06/23/2012
Hey Jeremy, really appreciate you finding the time to read and review "Sam." (not so final :) Your thoughtful and thorough notes are truly valuable and will be close by for the rewrite. Thank you. -
gridlock on 06/22/2012
Good to know!
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Comments About clovenhoof 55
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Thank you. I come across like Chris Christie. You come across like Lincoln.
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Hi, there. No worries. I've long since taken the lessons to heart, so those are two fewer things that can happen to me now. Hope things going well with you.
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Excellent notes, thank you so much. I never mind getting beat over the head when it comes to helpful advice ;) And this will be very helpful when I do my next rewrite on it.
+ more comments**DELETED ACCOUNT** on 10/07/2012
shedenbo on 08/06/2012
gridlock on 07/14/2012
Thanks again,
JD