First script

[songswithoutwords]

Hiya,

You've done this before?

I laughed out loud at the end of page 2. Good good stuff.

I read through to page 9 or so and I don't have time for more at the moment, so I'll give you some initial impressions.

- Starts right. There's no way I'm putting this down after the first few lines
- Lots of good twists and humour in the dialogue
- So far nothing which is impossible to shoot on no budget

Some areas I can already see for improvement:

1) It's 1/4 done and already 40 pages. That means a screenplay of 160 pages/minutes. The longer it is, the harder it will be to keep up the quality in production

2) I'm already getting bored of Joshua's monologues. These can become voiceovers to give us something more interesting to look at. And, perhaps some ancillary information coming out in those lines can just be omitted

3) One or two formatting things. I won't add anything to this point - there are plenty of people here who will give you advice on that. Obviously, if you're not writing to sell the thing, formatting issues (especially minor) are not worth wasting time over.

I hope to find time to read more and give you some notes, but I can't promise anything. Overall I'd say, keep with your current voice, finish the thing, and then start cutting it. Don't start cutting / editing it now, get it all out first. I'm guessing that if you go back and try to tweak these 40 pages before you've got the rest out, you'll just distract yourself from finishing.

As for characters, well too early to tell, but so far I like them. At the end of page 10, I'm still waiting for each one to come out and show me what makes them unique.

Good luck with the rest. I love it when people write with the intention of actually shooting.

Andrew

[paulmackie]

Hi Andrew thanks for your comments, glad I managed to give you a bit of a laugh anyway. Was kind of thinking that about the monologues myself, guess it's just a part of me that's trying to keep it nice and easy to shoot but you're probably right and they may well end up as voiceovers. I'm just estimating that it's about a quarter but when I write some things down some turn out longer than I expected and some a lot shorter it's pretty strange really. As for the format of the thing I'm really just making it up as I go along, hell I've never written a script before I drive a forklift truck for a living. But I am enjoying it at the moment though, and it would be great if you could find time to read the rest and let me know what you think about it, be much appreciated. Anyway I'm going to go and try and get back into it for a bit, thanks for taking the time to get back to me.

Paul

[LF]

Hey Paul,

I just read all of it. It was quite an interesting read and has an unique voice and tone. I enjoyed it.

I think songswithoutwords' thoughts are valid. I'll add some other stuff that I think might make it easier as you approach production.

1) Write SLUGLINES (What you have now as "Scene XX") as

SCENE # - INT. (or EXT. for Interior or Exterior) - LOCATION NAME - TIME OF DAY

This will make it easier when you breakdown your script to see what locations you have and how much you can shoot in one location. As far as making productions easier, the less locations you have, the better. Having less means that you can spend more time making each location great.

2) Try writing your action lines so that they are broken down into specific actions. For example, format this big chunk of action at the end to:

Joshua and Greg shut their eyes as Marcus throws a grenade-like object in the air. It EXPLODES in a shower of intense glaring light.

The VAMPIRES cover their eyes and SCREAM in pain.

Marcus pulls out a GUN from his inside pocket. He shoots. The vampire explores in a glow of fire and smoke.

Marcus shoots again. Joshua and Greg watch in shock and awe. Three more vampires go down in quick succession, leaving just the man Joshua and Greg originally followed out of The Oasis, wounded and clutching at his leg.

Marcus raises his gun.

MAN
Who the hell are you.

MARCUS
Your redemption.

The vampire explodes. Marcus turns to Joshua and Greg.

MARCUS
Come on, there could be more of them here any second.

I'm trying to break the action down into the important moments. This will help give you a better idea of how long the scene will last because it will match up better to the 1 page = 1 minute rule of thumb that songswithoutwords mentioned earlier.

It'll also be helpful to the director and everyone in general, though since you guys are working together, the second bit isn't as crucial.

3) Think about the length, like songswithoutwords mentioned. Are you going for a feature? If you're going for a short, you'll want to keep it under 20 minutes if at all possible. That'll make you more eligible for film festivals and the like, as well as give you an opportunity to sell the film to TV.

But of course, just go ahead and finish the first draft. Then pick the best bits to keep

(Anyone else have thoughts on writing for production? I'm not the most experienced so I'd find that helpful too.)

Good luck,
L

[escarondito]

Love it. Love it. Love it. A vampire kidnappy set in england. I'm down. Excellent hook beginning. Besides the first long monologue, every one past that actually slows down your story. It's good because it will lower production budget necessary while eating up script, however right now its efficient but not effective. On the whole they don't add much to the story most like a recount of events the way a show lets you know the highlights of the previous episode.

Small typo errors, but those are easy fixes.

Thought the dialogue banter between Josh and Greg is funny but I don't think it reveals too much about either character, but I can't see the full script so I don't know their character arch. In saying that as well, I'm not sure there currently is a character arch for your characters. Josh has a clear external issue but I don't quite see a strong internal flaw. But again this is first draft and also not a full script so perhaps more info will be revealed.

All in all, things look good and I hope you post the final product when it's finished.

[Paul]

Hi again guys, first off thanks for all the feedback, much appreciated and it's all being taken on board. So far It all seems to be going quite well and I hope to have the first draft done and dusted by the the end of the week, so I'll post that on this thread when I'm done. After that I'm hopefully going to go through it with a friend of mine, and between the two of taking on board what you guys have said we'll, fingers crossed, come up with something half decent at the end of it. Really glad I found this site and grateful that you guys would take the time to read it and get back to me. So again many thanks.

Paul