My review of "The Humane Facade"
First of all, how bad of a person am I if I found Samantha to be funny? The line "got a waterbowl for me?" had me laughing out loud. To your credit, Samantha was written so well that her obnoxious behavior was consistent and amusing, as well as sad.
I liked the concept. This was an easy script to get into and you combined two themes not used often, bringing two characters together, as if by fate, and showing their special connection which ultimately was what each other needed. This is definitely the kind of script I enjoy reading and your execution was well done. The story seemed to pace itself well and was an easy read. I would've liked to see more of an arc with Jason, because I felt his importance was somewhat watered down. Obviously, he's not the focus, but there was clearly a lot of conflict within and I felt it wasn't fully explored. I also thought there was a lot of Samantha for long periods of time, and maybe there could've been some equal time for Shen. I wasn't sure if you intended this to be Samantha's story, or Samantha and Shens. Either way, the scenes between the two of them were fun and were very much the highlights. I LOVED the story/dream about the boy and the bricks. I appreciated the heart and depth that went into this, and find it a rarity amongst scripts and even films these days.
The dialogue was great. Especially Samantha. I felt that would be a hard character to write but you wrote her well. I feel that you knew your subject well and stayed true to the characters and their dialogue throughout.
As it stands, I think your biggest obstacle is the structure. You have the important aspects down, but a few things I noticed:
Do some research on parantheticals. They should have their own line. There also shouldn't be spaced breaks in dialogue. Try to break it up with some action, or another paranthetical.
You missed a lot of question marks within dialogue. I've actually found a lot of scripts that do this and have discovered that apparantly, the easiest mistake people make is to leave out question marks. I started typing page numbers, but after so many, I stopped. Probably just a habit you either need to force yourself to learn to do, or something you might want to learn to catch on edits.
I was also distracted by your capitlization of all names in action lines, and you had a lot of unnecessary scene headings. I'm not positive that it's necessarily frowned upon to have names in caps, but I'm pretty sure it's not something you're supposed to do, and it's highly distracting. I kept feeling like I was reading a new character. I think some of your action could be condensed into a smoother read. The scene headings shouldn't switch as often as you do unless you're actually setting a new scene in a new place. I noticed sometimes you'd have two characters together and you'd define where each was by changing the heading. Also, you shouldn't have camera directions. That's for the director.
But in the end, of all the elements you need to make a script workable, you have the right ones in place. You're talented and have a good eye for dialogue and a strong heart-felt plot. The mechanics are nothing to get worked up over, because it's just something you'll get better at as you continue to write. The important thing is that the variables that aren't easily learned, are more natural in your writing.
Thanks for the enjoyable read and best of luck in the future.
Other Reviews by mcbrainder
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The concept was pretty good. I was pretty excited to read this based on the idea.
The characters were a little dry. I thought they could've been fleshed out a little more. It read a little like a terrorist movie of the 80s where people are either good or bad and there's no inbetween.
The dialogue was also good. Not great and not poor. It seemed like everything was aimed...
The concept was pretty good. I was pretty excited to read this based on the idea.
The characters were a little dry. I thought they could've been fleshed out a little more. It read a little like a terrorist movie of the 80s where people are either good or bad and there's no inbetween.
The dialogue was also good. Not great and not poor. It seemed like everything was aimed at moving the story forward, and while that's not a bad thing, it kinda made the characters feel cardboard.
I liked the story. It seemed to combine the elements of movies like it, but it was still fun. It seemed like you accomplished what you set out to do, but the only complaint would be that you seemed a little in over your head, only because you're writing about an operation that would be seemingly hard to know much about. I got the impression that a lot of what I was reading wouldn't be too accurate in a real life situation, down to the fact that Sean himself shouldn't have been a part of that group due to the mental preparation each would be subjected to just to be a part of this.
I don't mean to be too nitpicky, but I think in the long run, things like that will matter. Overall, it was a fun read, but I think it needs more substance in there.
I liked the opening quite a bit and when Sean decides to stand in the way of the mission with the Christmas song and the girl that reminded him of his daughter. There was a lot that worked in this and I think you have something there. The structure was good and the pace as well.
Thanks for the enjoyable read and best of luck in the future.
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I'm always excited to be assigned a script that I see around the block, and the blue star next to this one is well deserved.
For starters, there's something flawless about this story in terms of how well thought out and detailed it is. The script is smarter than I am on the subject, so if I find myself thinking of things to complain about as I write this, just take it for...
I'm always excited to be assigned a script that I see around the block, and the blue star next to this one is well deserved.
For starters, there's something flawless about this story in terms of how well thought out and detailed it is. The script is smarter than I am on the subject, so if I find myself thinking of things to complain about as I write this, just take it for what it's worth.
It was an easy story to get into. The characters were outlined well and the story became clear pretty quickly, although I wasn't sure the direction it was headed, but that intrigued me all the more. Halfway through, I was still trying to decide if I believed Emilie to be an antagonist or not. It was certainly easy to sympathize with the situation, but feel the height of what she had done to someone else as something tragic. My complaint here is simply that it wasn't clear how Emilie really felt about this. From beginning until the last page, I felt she had no internal struggle about the decision she had made. Maybe that was who she was, maybe she was simply content, or maybe she was just written without, but the result of her actions would be hard to ignore, even if it meant your own life being saved. It's a small detail, but it stayed with me throughout. I wasn't sure if I sympathized or not because I didn't know her position.
The ending wowed me. I was on the edge of my seat. I'm sitting here now wondering if I loved it or hated it. I suppose it's a little of both. Not every story has a happy ending. This one was replaced with a powerfully tragic ending, which displays how unfairly life turned out for Mireille. Rest assured, as a movie, there are many people who would despise the course you took. I don't. I liked the realism. I liked how it hit me. I completely dislike Andre and Emilie and sympahtize with them at the same time. What exactly you wanted to say...wanted to accomplish--I have no idea. The truth is, I'd like to though. This was a great script written by someone very talented. You have a great voice. I wish I knew more, but that feeling that no good comes from the story, the feeling of the unfairness to who gets what in the end, and how the world in any way is balanced by this...well I suppose it's a great parallel to things that happen in real life. I finished and simply thought "some people are just victims of tragedy" and if that's what the writer wanted to say, then you did a great job.
Structure was perfect. Not too much of anything and the dialogue flowed well and was very real. I found on page 34 and 89 there was a line of dialogue that needed question marks.
Congratulations on a well-deserved ranking and thank you for such an edge-of-the-seat entertaining read. I look forward to seeing where this goes, and I wish you best of luck with your writing in the future.
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we see
page 2: convenient store: convenience store
The sprint: they sprint
page 4: hime:him (in case you haven't figured out my formula: what you wrote:what you meant/should've written.
page 7: ant:and
page 8: interrups: interupts
page 24: What did you do to your hair--needs the question mark
page 38: will:well
page 39: how about you do some rehearsing line needs a...
we see
page 2: convenient store: convenience store
The sprint: they sprint
page 4: hime:him (in case you haven't figured out my formula: what you wrote:what you meant/should've written.
page 7: ant:and
page 8: interrups: interupts
page 24: What did you do to your hair--needs the question mark
page 38: will:well
page 39: how about you do some rehearsing line needs a question mark.
page 40: abou: about
page 42: b:by
page 46: I'lll:I'll and though:thought
page 48: regogniable: recognizable
page 55: come: cum
page 66: tel: tell
page 68: how long with the cast, needs a question mark
it has been awhile, hasn't it, needs a question mark
page 70: yo: you
page 72: though: thought
You have a lot of characters and I'm not having trouble, but there are some you don't need to name. Gary the tattoo artist is a good example. You never use his name, so he doesn't need a name, and shouldn't have one because he's so minor. Tattoo artist is all he needs to be.
page 82: an staine: a stained
Ed and Chauncey are another good example. Especially this late in the script...no need to introduce new names.
page 93: What is their problem, needs the question mark
page 94: vidoe: video
Onto my review:
I enjoyed this script for the most part. The typos definitely need to be fixed and are probably the biggest setback for you.
Other things I felt could be better:
Not sure you need a narrator, though the dialogue is great. Just not sure you need it.
You sometimes were over-descriptive. Some of that should be left for the director/actors. An example would be when Jennifer and Mom are smoking together. You broke up the dialogue just to tell us each time they inhaled. It seemed unnecessary and slowed the read down.
I thought the flashbacks of the most punk thing anyone's seen were great, but late in the script. It seems like in the end, you were trying to show in a way how legendary Ryan had just become by his "kick heard around the scene", and it almost feels like that should come full circle to the most punk thing anyone's seen. I assumed that's what you were trying to do, and if this is the case, the earlier conversation would be much more effective much earlier in the script. That's just my opinion though.
I wasn't sure where you were going overall, but after finishing, I really don't think you should do anything differently. There were a lot of characters, but the dialogue was spot on and their personalities were easy to read. This wouldn't appeal to everyone, and the plot is somewhat watered down, but I'm not so sure this needs to be anything other than what it is: a shoutout to punk. You captured the times well and I liked how thoughtful you were about sprinkling events from the time period throughout. I also thought you wrote a subject that you were knowledgable about which made it more enjoyable.
I don't have much to say beyond that. I think you did a pretty good job with this, but I should definitely remind you (and I'm sure you've heard this) that typos as extensive as they are in your script, can serve as a fatal flaw. It's definitely something you should look at fixing because you're very talented and it would most certainly suck if something like typos stopped someone from completing this.
Thanks for the enjoyable read and best of luck to you in the future.
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