Reviews of Sow The Wind 1 - Low Hanging Fruit 4

• 
  Fantastic start!
  A review of Sow The Wind 1 - Low Hanging Fruit
  by lucyriches on 01/06/2012
  I kept having different opinions during my read of this. But my final opinion is extremely positive. You had definitely won me over with the surprise eco terrorism twist at the end! Unfortunately a lot of the first half made me distrust you as a writer. The way that the law dealt with everything just seemed like a huge sham. Terrorism is huge deal these days, which you are... I kept having different opinions during my read of this. But my final opinion is extremely positive. You had definitely won me over with the surprise eco terrorism twist at the end!
  
  Unfortunately a lot of the first half made me distrust you as a writer. The way that the law dealt with everything just seemed like a huge sham. Terrorism is huge deal these days, which you are clearly aware of. So I think that they would be far more professional in their dealing and swiftness than you made out.
  
  Glorious opening scenes could totally visualise it.
  
  Apron - very british, liked it.
  
  I thought Jeremy's tv interview were very unbelievable, I think he was revealing things far too prematurely.
  
  Lines like these were far too cheesy:
  
  ROBERT (CONT’D)
  Better do our bit to save the
  planet eh?
  
  If all flights are grounded and there was a major terrorist threat, Robert wouldn't be allowed to go home and sleep.
  
  Lines like this are a waste. How does this carry the story forward? It doesn't.
  YVONNE
  ..busy? Just try to relax when
  you’re here then eh?
  He closes his eyes.
  
  Would have had cctv within minutes. Should then have followed the cars movements from cctv cameras. You turn the reader off right there. Can't believe or trust that you have informed knowledge on this subject.
  
  Got excited about the dna leading to heathrow. Let down that is was Tariq. The police would never have him dragged out in front of the paps that early. You are making them out to be a bunch of school boys. Not the highest ranking security officials in the UK.
  
  So the only evidence they have is the stolen car and yet they interview the guy for two seconds and just go.
  
  Fiona wouldn't reply like this.
  
  ADAM
  What? Pakis?
  FIONA
  You can’t say that.
  
  You have to remember that people will be comparing your work to things like 24 which are extremely high paced. I think you have to get things moving a lot quicker.
  
  Waste:
  YVONNE
  I’m off up, you coming?
  
  Very funny.
  THE EXPRESS - "Did this man kill
  Diana?"
  
  Cheesy.
  JEREMY
  We must catch him, before he
  strikes again.
  
  
  I think you use artistic license when it comes to the airports being shut for three days, but I think you just about get away with it.
  
  I can definitely see this on British TV. Just up the tension a little more and you have a winner for sure here my friend.
  
  Good Luck with everything! Pleasure to read!
  
  
  
  
  read
• 
  Like a film, only different.
  A review of Sow The Wind 1 - Low Hanging Fruit
  by philip halmarack on 01/05/2012
  Firstly, nice to find another Brit on TS. Secondly, well done on the script, a winning combination of Three Lions and Spooks. It was all very cricket and parkas, bobbies and mosques. Very New England, really - I kept expecting tea and crumpets to arrive. Makes a change from all those fast, teen aged market missiles that often miss their target audience. I think you might... Firstly, nice to find another Brit on TS. Secondly, well done on the script, a winning combination of Three Lions and Spooks. It was all very cricket and parkas, bobbies and mosques. Very New England, really - I kept expecting tea and crumpets to arrive. Makes a change from all those fast, teen aged market missiles that often miss their target audience.
  
  I think you might get some flak for this script. First, it's not complete - or for the cinema. There must be sites that where TV based material can be assessed. But, if you work in television you must know that, so perhaps there isn't.
  
  So, let's see - this is a well written script, good dialogue, well plotted, moves at the right pace, and doesn't outstay its welcome. It kept me amused and engaged the whole time. I laughed now and then (the DNA on the rocket), enjoyed the interplay between the characters, like the eco-ness of the plot. Very up to the minute, clever use of identity.
  
  What it lacked - 1. a coherent title - the reader will feel cheated that it makes very little sense and carries no indication of the plot. It's like being given a menu and then being told they don't have what you've ordered. What does it mean? Surely some explanation in the notes would go some way to clearing this up.
  
  2. It lacks a sense that you were in tight control of the script. I was told to do away with scene numbers in my first lesson - no one else does it on TS. There's a real throwaway sense to parts of it, like it's a joke. The log line's funny, but almost dismissive. On page 2 you say - 'If this were a concert' - but it isn't, so get on with the story. Leave the lightness in, sure, but get it back to the bare bones, simplify, trust the reader, put more meat on the bone.
  
  There's very little action in it - and lots of scope to rough it up a bit. Let the police get heavy, conflicts break out, people get meaner. I guess you don't want to go down that road, but there's no other way to sell it.
  
  On page 28 you offer - family, eh? - in the action lines. There's no reason why this can't be dialogue and it seems almost perverse to keep feeding us lines like this.
  
  Page 8 - Hit me - almost as cliched as 'Give it to me, baby'. Create a new and different dialogue that has it's own voice.
  
  Something that I've started correcting in my own work - proper and simple signposting.
  Example -
  'It'll probably be cancelled'
  'Have you been there?'
  'Cowes? - No.
  I'd check all the way through and make sure everything's labelled.
  
  Page 59 suggests a montage, but it reads like a series of scenes.
  
  All said, I really enjoyed your piece and would be more than happy to read Part Two. I think writing for telly has a completely different beat and I think you have a handle on that. Your work is charming and always readable and with work could turn into something significant. But there's a little way to go yet. Good luck. read
• 
  Need part 2!
  A review of Sow The Wind 1 - Low Hanging Fruit
  by Gough376 on 01/05/2012
  The genre of your screenplay is not one I am personally fond of, however I got into the story and found the ride quite interesting. By the end I was looking forward to discover what happens in the next. I thought the dialogue was well written but I personally found the large amount of characters hard to follow. The concept and the story were good. There has been plenty of... The genre of your screenplay is not one I am personally fond of, however I got into the story and found the ride quite interesting. By the end I was looking forward to discover what happens in the next.
  I thought the dialogue was well written but I personally found the large amount of characters hard to follow.
  The concept and the story were good. There has been plenty of terrorist related stories told since 9/11 but this one was a bit different and its better that way.
  I loved the ending, the cliffhanger was well set up and I am eager for the next part.
  read
• 
  Review of Sow the Wind
  A review of Sow The Wind 1 - Low Hanging Fruit
  by mdoliner on 01/04/2012
  In Bambi vs. Godzilla David Mamet comments that auditions are bad because the director is sitting being critical of a performer whereas an audience wants to be seduced. I feel the same way about some of the criticism here. So I am going to give my comments as I was reading along. If further down I realize that I was wrong I will correct it, for a screenplay works for someone,... In Bambi vs. Godzilla David Mamet comments that auditions are bad because the director is sitting being critical of a performer whereas an audience wants to be seduced. I feel the same way about some of the criticism here. So I am going to give my comments as I was reading along. If further down I realize that I was wrong I will correct it, for a screenplay works for someone, a director, who knows where it is going.
  
  Nice beginning
  
  What does Choudary's touching the missile have to do with the story?
  
  Kind of skimpy on names. By page 9 we know Choudary. Yvonne mentions Robert's name but only right when she sees the missile. Viewers will likely have missed it in the excitement.
  
  Jeremy's call should do more than just make an appointment for Robert. What is Jeremy like? What is his relationship to Robert?
  JEREMY
  What’s the control zone?
  Jeremy is clearly unaware of certain key things.
  PETER
  (to Robert)
  Sorry, he’s new.
  
  Jeremy is a minister, Robert's boss. Wouldn't Robert already know if he's new?
  After 17 pages it's all shop talk. The characters are hardly differentiated except in relation to their jobs.
  
  Exposition through the TV is awkward, dramatically dead except in very special occasions, and this is not one of them.
  
  Crooks and cops both want out. Be careful. Viewers may want to join them.
  
  Fiona's wanting to leave is not because of what is happening on screen, hence is irrelevant to the story.
  
  Through p21 mostly shop talk.
  
  Why the drama of the cylinder and Ruth? This kind of thing is usually to show that someone else is a nice guy. Carla? No she's a bit player.
  
  Scene 37 seems to throw in sexual problems for Robert. Seems a bit beside th point which, as far as I can tell right now, is that somebody aimed a missile at the plane and they are trying to find the ones who did it.
  
  At 41 the game of the authorities tracking the bombers ends suddenly with all the bombers on TV. Or did the bombers want them to see this. The TV footage would let you know that.
  
  Looks like it will be pretty much all shop talk. This can be successful—Aliens for example, but the actions got to be superb. After all, there are no characters— they are all just jobs.
  
  By scene 44 or earlier the viewer might suspect a false flag – an attack designed to fail and be pinned on arabs.
  
  Who is the protagonist?
  
  Way too much TV news. It's very boring cinema.
  
  POV is the province of the director, not the screenwriter.
  Wouldn't Imran have noticed that the keys were gone? Oh well.
  
  Page 40 still have no idea who the protagonist is. Tariq? Robert? Someone else?
  
  I find it hard to imagine Wasim so closed-mouth with those attitudes. Revolutionaries usually scream from the rooftops. Of course he wouldn't answer questions, but ask them. Wasim seems more like a regular criminal. Maybe he is. As an arab militant he is a caricature, a comic book Arab, likely to bring forth laughter. Is that what you want?
  
  All right this is completely my opinion and should be taken that way. Fiona rounds on Wasim for being hypocritical, but it seems as if she is rounding on Islam itself. But just as you can be a good or bad Jew, good or bad Christian, you can be a good or bad Muslim. To blame a religion for the hypocrisy of one of its practitioners is to slip one over on the audience. They may not know it consciously, but they will feel they have been had, and it will leave a dirty taste in their mouths. It will affect their feeling for the movie.
  
  In 61 Robert and Fiona finally begin to flower as human beings.
  
  I still don't know who the protagonist is, but now I'm inclined towards Robert. However, then comes this:
  
  ROBERT
  I can see that. You know it doesn’t
  do to get too principled
  
  Do we want our protagonist to be not too principled? Gittes, in Chinatown is a protagonist like that, but Gittes, like all hard boiled detectives, has his own code that he does not violate. Far from being unprincipled, he is more principled.
  
  Still nobody wants anything from anybody else.
  
  What does 62 do?
  
  Whenever a character gives information without any personal stake, they become a messenger. A messenger is always a bit player, perhaps the smallest. So to make a character report to another or give messages, is to diminish him.
  
  So Awaki begins to be sucked down by a maelstrom of shit Peter lets loose with the press. And apparently nobody else can stop this shit squall even though their stupidity, when they dragged him in even though they knew he did nothing, is the cause. Sounds like the government all right. That means the protagonist is Awaki?
  
  Oh, God, 66 is a dreary scene on TV and Robert and Yvonne have domesticated themselves into complete meltdown.
  
  Why would they deliver pictures ahead of time? That just makes their task harder.
  
  More TV in 71...
  By 77 it's clear that we are witnessing governmental and then societal paranoia. The protagonist can only be one of the Asian characters, but which one? Or is it all?
  
  Fiona seems to see clearly what is happening, but she lets it happen.
  
  But of course Gee really is a terrorist “south Asian,” a generic bad guy who is ready to fuck over his own people just as much as the enemy. Or is he? We saw that he was white, which doesn't mean he's not a Muslim, but in this screenplay it is probably supposed to. Perhaps he's only a pretend terrorist wanting to ground planes, really an environmentalist or something. That I like as an idea except that he seems too ready to throw innocent people to the wolves.
  
  So in the end Gee is the protagonist. I think you'd do much better focusing on him. He must be passionate about what he is doing-- and he is the only one who is.
  
  Oops, Gee becomes the lone assassin working alone.
  
  For a minute I thought the white guy with piles of money and missiles could just as easily describe the government, but I think your ending undercuts that. read