tous
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Post by tous on Mar 28, 2010 22:29:55 GMT -5
Whoa, he didn't kill his brother. If you actually read it, which now I think you skimmed- his mother proposes the possibility because she's worried- that he could die. AND- "How am I supposed to relate to that? Am I supposed to imagine what it must be like to kill my sister and then get shoved back inside my mother's womb?" - Sweet baby jesus, dear god no- you're not supposed to relate to that! Haha (I hope) But! out of all that I found what you are talking about. It's the wording I used. And all I have to do is change egg into room. And have her say " your grounded". Because I was thinking too much into their world and you are right, I needed to relate more in humanly terms. When Dori says "Hey party balloons" when she said that-- I caught that and questioned it. How would she see a balloon? What kind of fish teaches them that, they don't need to know what a balloon is. And furthermore, I thought she had short-term memory loss. Point being, I thought too much and that caved in my ability stretch out it's relation to humanity. I was trapped in this world and that can be very bad. So, clearing that up- the relation was simple enough. When your a kid and you do something bad, even without the intention, you are sent to your room until you understand your mistake. That your sent their to grow up, and learn the consequences. But Sonny doesn't do that because his fear demands that he leaves home because he over-hears from the signal about the Sun eventually blowing up his guilt of course, forces him to correct his mistake. But do me a favor. You're feedback sounds more like back-talk. Example: (Wow i feel like a lawyer) " I think saying a script is confusing is a valid criticism. " - I was never arguing that point. Mtf's -- Should have kissed her:"Really? No help at all? So you're fine with the first 10 pages being weak, because you think a reader will read to page 15 or 20 and get hooked? Good luck with that."You can't get offended when people don't trust your advice, because your not letting them- its like who the hell are you dude? So give someone's work a chance, if your not interested and if you have no constructive feedback to say, don't say anything at all- So w/e, sorry to post it here but- just-- be more considerate, because in all this, you actually helped me. So thank you. Sonny The Spec - NEWEST. www.mediafire.com/?tmiltzgv23m
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tonym
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Post by tonym on Mar 30, 2010 10:31:56 GMT -5
Whoa, he didn't kill his brother. If you actually read it, which now I think you skimmed- So, the following quote from your script doesn't mean Sonny killed his brother? SULFIE: Your brother could die out there Sonny! He could die. SONNY: No...that's not true. I saved him. He has a chance to live now, you'll see. CARB: No, son, I'm afraid no one lives out there. * * * Hey, there's a nifty anecdote in Syd Field's The Screenwriter's Problem Solver that I'd like to share with you. When Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay for Platoon, some of the people who read it loved it. And some said "I don't get it" and that it didn't hold their interest. And what happened to this screenplay? It sat unproduced for ten years. Then Stone re-wrote the first ten pages and cut out a lot of characters to make it less confusing and the screenplay was produced. Isn't that fascinating? I thought you might find it relevant to our discussion because, like some of Stone's readers, I was confused by your screenplay. Oh, wait. You said that you suspected I only "skimmed" your screenplay, and that's why I was confused. Nevermind, then.
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tous
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Post by tous on Mar 30, 2010 11:14:49 GMT -5
Dude why are you in defense mode right now? You practically just gave me a rant? I'm trying to say thank you that you helped me, even if I had to uncover it I still got it. So please, I'd like you to not post here again. I don't want your help because: 1: Your advice, the only one you seem to be giving isn't something I will ever hold dear to my heart. It doesn't feed into my creativity. 2: I don't care about whatever stigmata you have, but you trying to prove something that has somehow been following me since page 2, is quite obnoxious And your sarcasm in your last post was a nice touch. (See what I just did there, that's sarcasm)
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tonym
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Post by tonym on Mar 30, 2010 11:39:04 GMT -5
Dude why are you in defense mode right now? You practically just gave me a rant? I'm trying to say thank you that you helped me, even if I had to uncover it I still got it. So please, I'd like you to not post here again. I don't want your help because: 1: Your advice, the only one you seem to be giving isn't something I will ever hold dear to my heart. It doesn't feed into my creativity. 2: I don't care about whatever stigmata you have, but you trying to prove something that has somehow been following me since page 2, is quite obnoxious And your sarcasm in your last post was a nice touch. (See what I just did there, that's sarcasm) Tonym - PLEASE DO NOT post here ever again. Thank you. (you probably will, but I'm hoping you won't cause this is nonsense) Please forgive this final post. It was never my intention to bother you. Your screenplay is groundbreaking and original, as I'm sure you know. Good luck with your re-writes. EDIT: On second thought, I guess my previous post was meant to bother you a little bit. Oops.
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Post by trellicktower on Mar 30, 2010 12:01:05 GMT -5
My first reaction (20 or so pages in) is this is a hard read. It takes a lot of work. I'm not against work - after all I write movies in my spare time - but as has been noted before, the greatest scripts are effortless to read.
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tous
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Post by tous on Mar 30, 2010 12:12:54 GMT -5
Terllicktower, thank you. I think initial reactions are the most important.
Is it my descriptions or just some things do not make sense? Is it the world that have set up, as noted by Tonym, which seem too much unrelated?
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Post by trellicktower on Mar 30, 2010 15:05:02 GMT -5
Take the first scene for example (below, with my confusion noted in bold and followed by my suggested re-write based on how I interpret the scene). I just couldn't visualize the scene, because I spent the whole time reading it trying to figure out what was going on.
EXT. SPACE A star twinkles in the distance. Except it’s growing bigger. It’s gaining (confusing choice of words) closer. A satellite (is the star actually a satellite?) rips across our vision. LOKI (V.O.) (is loki in the satellite?) What news. (who is loki talking to? if it's tweak, is tweak in the satellite too?) A RED BEEP appears (appears where? if it's red, it has to appear visually as red, otherwise it should be "A LOUD BEEP" or "A QUIET BEEP") after each planet he (loki?) passes: Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars...(I wouldn't name the planets unless someone will actually be naming them, instead, show visually that this is the milky way) TWEAK (V.O.) Life. Earth. LOKI (V.O.) Where? TWEAK, a metallic stick bug, quietly falls under shade. (shade of what? what is the significance of "falling under shade"? it sounds very cerebral but is meaningless to me. what is its relation to loki, the satellite, and the entire space-time continuum?) TWEAK (V.O.) Region: Center of Universe. LOKI (V.O.) That far... TWEAK (V.O.) Location: Milky Way Galaxy. Revolving: Outer strand. Local Arm. LOKI (V.O.) Show them. (confusing) Tweak orbits to the lighter side (of what?), catching particles of light in it’s beak. Receiving interference. (from what? what is the point of the interference and what is the source? again i find this confusing) TWEAK (V.O.) I require life. Static turns into tapping.
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EXT. SPACE
A star twinkles in the distance. It gets bigger, closer. It's a satellite. As it rips across our vision we see two beings, LOKI (description of LOKI here) and TWEAK (a metallic stick bug), are inside.
LOKI (V.O.) What do you see?
A BEEP sounds after each planet the satellite passes. It looks remarkably familiar to us: it's the Milky Way.
TWEAK (V.O.) Life. Earth.
LOKI (V.O.) Where?
TWEAK shuts his eyes.
TWEAK (V.O.) Region: Center of Universe.
LOKI (V.O.) That far...
TWEAK (V.O.) Location: Milky Way Galaxy. Revolving: Outer strand. Local Arm.
LOKI (V.O.) Show me.
Tweak spins and conjures particles of light in his mandibles. He's receiving a transmission from the (something), and he displays it overhead for LOKI to see.
TWEAK (V.O.) I require life.
The static of Tweak's transmission turns into tapping.
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tous
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Post by tous on Mar 30, 2010 22:16:18 GMT -5
Tweak is the satellite. A metallic stick bug. He was the twinkle, that we would think is a star, but then he zooms passed us.
TWEAK, a satellite, closely resembling a metallic stick bug zooms cross our vision.
LOKI appears in a later scene, and in the interconnected one that shows Tweak nibbling on little dots of yellow/ or light. Anyways, I didn't want to show Loki yet. Kind of like the bad guy in the dark. "Them" is referring to his pack of comets that he will send out. Which you'll see in a later scene, but perhaps when he says them- people are expecting to see to what he is referring to. But then I wanted that mystery.
And RED BEEP. Ah, I see how this is so confusing. Um, it's just a beep like negative, no life, error- so I guess I put two in one without evening knowing it.
So instead of naming the planets, I should just say passing one planet after another?? ....
Earth. A blue planet.
Then Tweak falls under shade, he's orbiting the dark side of the planet, this was in an earlier draft. I combined 2 drafts into 1, so the wording is somewhat misplaced.
This has been so much help to me. Thank you!
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Post by trellicktower on Mar 31, 2010 8:21:28 GMT -5
You could get away with naming one planet only. That would be enough to tell the reader where Tweak is, and what the other planets are. If Tweak says "Saturn" as he passes Saturn, and you show Saturn on the screen, and then Tweak passes another planet, and another, I would guess he's in our galaxy.
I understand the need to keep some things secret, just try not to make it too confusing. Particularly with a creative concept like this. You need to spell things out and make it easy on the reader to follow your vision.
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Post by Jeff Messerman on Mar 31, 2010 16:18:01 GMT -5
To quote Slim Pickens in Blazing Saddles...
"What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports is a-goin' on here?!"
As always, I appreciate the enthusiasm and totally understand the extremely human impulse to defend one's stance.
However, I ask if you folks could be a bit SUPERhuman 'round here and fight those urges. Raise above that stuff n' all that sort of rot. Be an example! Seize the day! Be all you can be! Win one for the Gipper!
Er, sorry... I just watched The Blind Side the other day and I'm feeling awfully sappy and faux-inspirational since...
Anyway, you all get the drift. Making nicey-nice is the order of the day. Go to it!
Jeff
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2010 18:24:32 GMT -5
Yeah! Don't make dad pull the car over because he swings wildly into the back seat and I am the one that usually gets the smack upside the head!
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violet
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Post by violet on Apr 10, 2010 22:35:09 GMT -5
First off, I have to apologize for taking so long- I started reading, got confused, then got busy, had to travel, had to finish my script, etc. BUT
I'm Back. I scanned it again.
And I read everyone else's advice, and I guess it's time to add my two cents.
First of all, (or is it second of all, since I started the post with "first off"?) I have to preface this by saying I don't watch or like a lot of animation (I didn't even as a kid). Lion King is a great movie, I love it, but that's about the only animated film I've LOVED. I haven't seen Finding Nemo, or Cars, or Toy Story, which have all been referenced in previous critique. So I am probably not your ideal/target audience, tous.
But this is what I have to offer:
It's confusing. First time I tried to read I got about seven or eight pages in. I tried again. I got to about twelve. I read the post in which you said your inciting incident is on page 17, so I pushed through to about page 23 or so. And then to 35.
I'm getting lost, again and again, for several reasons:
1. I have no idea what anything looks like. If I can't visualize it, it becomes mush. Maybe I missed out on astronomy but... what does a nebula look like? What exactly is a spec?
2. I have no idea who the characters are, individually or in relation to each other.
3. I have no idea what they're talking about- until sonny is talking to his parents and they're trying to talk to him. That's something I understand: parents trying to coax their baby into doing something (coming out of his shell, in this case). The only other relationship I understand is Daphne and Sonny (although I'm murky on how exactly he keeps travelling between inside of her and outside of her).
4. Your inciting incident is 17 pages in. That's a lot. Why do we need all the descriptions of space? If it's not important to Sonny, if it's not important to the story, it's not important to me.
My advice to you, to make it less confusing, is to imagine your target audience- five year olds. Seven year olds. Nine year olds. Line them up in your head, pretend it's story time, and tell them the story of Sonny the Spec. Better yet, find some non-imaginary kids and try telling them the story. See if they're interested- they will not spare you're feelings. If they get bored, they'll act bored, and it'll be up to you to keep them interested.
Write the story in as simple words, pictures, and actions as you can- and tell us what things look like in terms we can understand. Does a nebula look like a sneeze frozen in mid-air? Tree roots? Does Sonny the Spec look like a chicken's egg? Or is he more like a ball filled with Jello? Ultimately, of course, it's up to the animators to show us what they look like, to give them shape and personality visually- but the animators (and readers) need something to imagine. Something simple and easily identifiable.
That said, I think Sonny and Daphne are really charming- but they kind of get lost in all the other descriptions, characters, and details.
I hope my feedback helps at least a little bit. I like this idea, and I feel like it could be really vivid visually- but I think you should simplify it greatly, to help us get on the same page.
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tous
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Post by tous on Apr 11, 2010 13:57:43 GMT -5
I love you. So much that I'm taking your description, assuming I have your permission (I will fight you) of the Nebula and of Sonny. They were fantastic. Writing non-stop. Another draft. Completely new. Finally using BS Beat Sheet formula down to the mark-KAY. And reading Save The Cat this week, for a third time, really helped put things in order. So I hope you all trust that I've done more Homework.Violet. I am going to go back into this draft I just did and make sure it's even simpler. -- And I would agree. I should tell little kids about this story, but I haven't the time to find them. And the only one's I know of, play with blocks and wouldn't know what to do with the words I give them. (They'd just gargle) - (And then I'd think they were making fun of me) - But I think if I TOLD you what the story was about, you'd love it. So thank you for your words. I will put them to use. Also: I have a bunch of shorts that I haven't put up. I'd like to share one, so I'll post that - it's only 5 pages so I think that floats in your area. But it's another animation so maybe not.
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tous
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Post by tous on Apr 13, 2010 15:24:58 GMT -5
Okay, all done. www.mediafire.com/?tmiltzgv23mFinding Nemo meets Wizard of Oz-- and then they meet me. A Spec from the Sun must find his way home with the help from a Planet who has a few problems of her own.
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Post by fastfreddie on Apr 13, 2010 23:24:39 GMT -5
Mr. Tousignant
Just finished Sonny the Spec.
Are you French? Because only a Frenchman could write something like this. I thought it was positively BRILLIANT. I loved it.
It's as if Albert Camus and Carl Sagan sat down with the creators at Pixar and decided to knock out a screenplay.
Derek
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