Lens - Full Feature.

[oz]

Okay, Open, here we go ; )

I have to say, first of all, I was disappointed that there wasn't more of a difference between your first and second version. I understand the excitement in being read and wanting feedback, but I think it's really important that we all bring our best to the boards. You said you reduced the 'novelistic' style as much as possible and I would really beg to differ on that.

Here's the thing. I'm going to assume you're kind of new to this and that's great. The single best piece of advice I can offer is this: Write your script without a single bit of description of any person, place or thing the first time through. Just tell the story and get it down with the basic "Bob walks into the room. Shelly kisses him. BOB Why did you do that? She blushes. No stylistic bullshit, no adverbs, no adjectives, no descriptions of ANYTHING. Then when you're happy with how the beginning, middle and end of your story has shaped up, you can add a LITTLE bit of what a place looks like and how the quirks of the person plays out and MAYBE what they're wearing. Until you learn how to just get the story down, no matter how good your story is, it gets lost in your attempt to be stylistic.

Back to your pages. Suzie's death should be on page 6, maybe 8. Since it happens on page 20, 21, you can understand why I think there's a problem. The biggest problem, again, in my opinion, is you have TOO much of everything and yet nothing. I have some line notes that I hope illustrates what I'm saying:

Pg 1--"We meet our heroine." She's killed in the first act. How can she be the heroine?

-- It's so novelistic and yet confusing. Just keep it simple. "She, for instance, is holding..." Why do you have 'for instance'?
--Silver, diamond-decorated watch--let the stylist worry about that, it has nothing to do with the story.

Pg 2--Your entire first paragraph can be cut to one line--Typical movers and shakers party.

-- When you introduce a character, just give us one name, we'll be able to figure out when someone says Wesley that they're talking about Wes.
---And your introductions need to be a broad stroke yet instantly clear in the mind. "He looks among his puffy equivalents." What does this mean?
--I don't understand ending a 19 word sentence with .... You do this too often. Write complete sentences. That's what writers do.
--"Perplexed, she listens to the conversation, inattentive." What? Is she perplexed? Is she listening? Is she inattentive? You don't want an actress to look at this and think, 'they're not paying me enough'.

Pg 4--"The very noticeable man is clearly a producer of some sort." How is he NOT noticeable? He's standing right there. How is he clearly a producer of some sort? Is he wearing a baseball hat with PRODUCER in block letters?

Pg 5--Ethan's in the alley talking to Serge on the phone but then Serge throws a cigarette down and steps on it. Then Ethan hangs up and walks out of the alley. Continuity problem.

Pg 6--You START a sentence with .... and it has NO SUBJECT. The next sentence is "They're all gathered in front of a shiny building." WHO?

Pg 7--The description of Ethan setting up his camera to catch Suzie & Ron makes no sense.

Pg 9--You waste 8 lines to describe LA and what it means to Ethan. The lighting director, the producer, the stylist, the actors, hell, probably the director don't care what LA means to Ethan. That should come out in dialogue if it's important to the story otherwise it's a page meant for a novel.

Pg 10--You don't need this entire page.

Pg 11--The ingredients of the sandwich don't matter but you waste three lines on them.

--He stayed up all night developing photos? No one develops photos in that industry anymore; it's all digital.

Pg 13--Your delivery of exposition is too clunky and obvious.

Pg 14--The dialogue doesn't sound real. "I didn't sleep during the night, too." If you're trying to make Serge speak broken Russian, I'd establish that much sooner.

Pg 15--"Whoever saw this room for the first time...." Again, this belongs on the page of a novel. Just tell us what's in the room if it's important to the story.

-- SOOOOOO many sentences ending with ....

I quit reading around page 20, 21 with the line "The flash vivifies him." You have a lot of thesaurus words throughout, a lot of them spelled wrong and even when they're spelled correctly, save them for novels. Scripts need simple, easy words to convey the image. But vivifies doesn't even work here. "Looking like a water-rinsed dog, he shakes his head". This evokes happiness and animation. He just found her dead body. Although it's better than the first version (where I also stopped reading at this point) where you said wrote something like 'His facial expression is indescribable." It's YOUR JOB to describe it.

I scanned down a bit and liked the flashback at the store but, like I said before, you've got to bring your best foot forward here. I'm happy to read and I'm happy to help however I can, but this requires more work than you put into it. Do the work. You presented your idea, not a script. I don't mean that disrespectfully, it's just a fact.

Again, take out all the garbage that weighs it down and find the story and make the story as crisp and fabulous as it can be. Then let's talk about the story and see how it works. Then worry about how the rooms look and what color the lipstick is if you want. Right now, I can't find the story and that's what I want to read.

Probably more important than anything, you need to read scripts. A lot of scripts. I've said it here before because we all realize it about the time we finish our first script; ideas are easy. Novels are hard. Scripts are even tougher. Decide what you want to write and learn the craft. No one comes into this without reading tons of scripts. If you want to describe everything, great, write that novel. Nothing wrong with that at all. If you want to write scripts, read them and learn the craft before you try to create your own, unique style. The industry just doesn't bend as easily for scripts as they do for books.

You can do this. But bring your best.

[openup]

First, I'd like to say thank you. I've never received real constructive criticism on my work, so this is a first-timer, and it feels good to actually be criticised, because I see the error of my ways.

I've had a friend of mine read a few of the other screenplays I've written, but they're "all good" to her. She doesn't know what a screenplay should look like, and... (... <- )

As much as I'd like to kill myself now (plus, I'm embarassed that I put something this badly written here), I understand what you're talking about.

Take out all the "garbage", is your main point. I'll get to it right away, and spend some more time trying to make the dialogue look more genuine. See, I'm not american, or british, and english is my third language, so... I'm trying to learn stuff, all the time, but if you don't live in that country, it's more difficult. I won't give up, though.

The thing is, I "see" a lot of the scenes in front of me, when I write. And I see it all: atmospherics, lights, clothes... I guess I'll have to fight with myself.

I've read scripts. I know it's not believable, from the way that I write, but it's true. I've read Field's books too (they're the most available outside of the U.S), to learn some rules. I think this is still a language problem, since where you guys need one word to describe a room, I'll need a few more (example: You said "typical movers and shakers party", I was like: "you're a genius!" See, I wouldn't know that "term" existed...)

-- About the photo development: yes, it's all digital, but nowadays, the development is done with photoshop. And if you ended up taking pictures in a dark room, you'd want to spend a lot of time to lighten, and crispen the pictures up a bit (it's not easy). Hope you see my logic behind this ()

-- pg 10 - the entire page, or just the room description? Throw out the dialogue as well?

-- (...) Is something I picked up from (surprise surprise) a few screenplays I've read (guess it was one of those times when I decided to hold the useless, and not the useful). Collateral made effective use of this "feature". I guess I overused it. (Cut cut cut.)

-- Continuity problem - my bad.

-- Camera on broomstick = no sense - if you could explain why, I'd be very happy. I'm already looking for an alternative idea, of course, but... Just out of interest.

-- And a last one. Such phrases:

Susie’s smile darkens, when she sees them. As she approaches Wes, she runs her hands on the surface of her dress, and kicks her hair back.

When they’re separated only by a breath’s distance, she smiles, eyes rounding up. Wraps her hand around Wes’s elbow.

Is this ok? It's mainly description of movement, and her actions. She's unsure about herself, but still wants to be liked by him. Is this a more correct approach?

And thank you again. Very much. I see what's wrong now, and I will try to correct it the best I can. Probably will read a few scripts along the way as well, to pick up the vibe. Will re-post when the re-write is done.

[mscherer]

openup,

I did not read the original post so I can come at this with fresh eyes. Also, I decided to read the script as if I were a creative exec or studio reader or producer. This was partly for my benefit -- helps me understand what these folks are looking for when they read a screenplay. With that in mind, let’s do this!

I’m going to be brutal, but brutal in a way that you would want your best friend to tell you truths rather than lies. For example: you really should do something about that piece of broccoli in your teeth. ;D

I could not read past the first two pages. Nothing happens. We watch Susie struggle to put her make-up on. So what? We get a detailed description of Susie. So what? We learn she is at some type of party or gathering. So what?

Start with some action -- this is a murder mystery after all. Perhaps open with her running through a dark parking lot. Is she late for an important meeting? Is someone chasing her? Is she in danger?

We see the shadow of a man.

Clearly someone is chasing her. Who? We only see her pursuer as a shadow -- a shadow with something in his hand. A weapon?

Susie makes it safely into the building. The shadow dissolves into the night. WTF is gong on here?

Now you have the reader’s/audience’s full attention. Now you can show Susie adjusting her make up. Show how she goes from frazzled, to calm. This gives us a sense of her character. She is adaptable. Quickly recovers. We like her.

Okay, then I jumped to the end and imagine my surprise to see BOLD action slugs and italic text. No. No. NO!

Starting on page 86 you go into a flashback -- all well and good -- but you use a bold font for your action slugs and italics for the remainder of the script. Bad move. This immediately tags you as an amateur. Keep the fonts consistent throughout the script: COURIER 12 pt.

Sorry to be brutally honest, but this is how we all learn. By our mistakes. Continue to rework this script. Make if flow. Write it as if you were telling this story to your friends around a campfire or in the comfort of your living room. Make it more conversational. I know you can do this, just a matter of thinking. Think about what you are putting on the page. Think about how to make the story flow. Think about how to capture the reader’s interest. And most of all,

Keep Writing!

[openup]

Hey mscherer,

And thanks for the good piece of advice, and encouragement!

I started the script with action, the first time I wrote it, but the characters needed background, and that's why I added the party at the beginning. I can see why the start's slow. I'll find some way to improve it.

And the italics... That's something I picked out of another script, where the flashbacks are in italics. I was very sceptical about using them, but I needed some way to make the flashbacks "stick out". I figure I'm just gonna write FLASHBACK before the sluglines, and nothing else. Thanks for the remark, I was worried about it.

And I'm totally okay with the brutality. How else would I do something about that green broccoli piece in my teeth?

[oz]

Okay, Open, no fair using the language card! : ) Just kidding. I'm glad you took the notes with such an open spirit because they were written with nothing but a want of something better for you.

Seriously, though, I don't think it's as much of a language problem as you think. It's more of a HOW versus WHY problem. You want to write the HOW and you need to be writing the WHY. You said you "see a lot of the scenes in your head...", again, that's writing the HOW of the scene; how it looks, how the people got from point A to point B, how the person is dressed, etc. What you should be writing is WHY a person looks like they do, why the people are in the room, why they bother going from point A to point B. WHY DOES ANYONE DO WHAT THEY DO? If you can get used to that, alone, you'll find you write less and more concise.

On the photo development issue, fine, then you should have just said, up all night photoshopping. The point is, you can't have someone with all that equipment and not know what you're talking about. Your character has to be credible.

You asked about page 10 and again, that page is ALL HOW. None of it matters to the story. You literally can remove it and it doesn't change or effect anything.

The issue on the .... and the italics, well, those writers have earned the right to present their scripts that way. You and I haven't yet. Unless and until we sell one hell of a hot script, we'd better make certain we can put up a script all 340 offices that receive it will tolerate the standard, acceptable format for scripts.

The camera on the broomstick scene just is too difficult to understand visually. Again, your HOW is too confusing. Break it down to VERY SIMPLE.

I did something for you that I NEVER do. (I think you got me with that lame language excuse on top of only about two hours sleep last night)

I rewrote your first five pages -- used your words and scenes--just to give you an idea of how much excess you have and how tight it can be. I think it more clearly shows how frustrated Susie is with Wes, how much of a fame whore Wes is, and I was able to lose an entire page. Everyone's last name is Smith because in your pages you didn't even list their last names until later!!! I'm just trying to show you an example of the WHY versus the HOW. I'll send it via private email on this account so you can read but feel free to ask any more questions.

Listen, I don't think anyone here is an actual expert. It's just degrees of experience so no worries. And I've had some pretty crappy notes on some scripts over the years so rest assured, you're not alone ; ) But i definitely learned a great deal from those notes and I'm hoping you will, too.

[openup]

;D So the language card worked! (just kidding)

I've been running everything you and mscherer said over and over in my head, and I've already got another beginning drafted, which I will sit and write immediately (and this, will lead to correcting the rest of the draft...).

I am with you on the "don't get too freestylish", and I'll definitely add that to those Ten Commandments over my bed. (eleven, now...)

And experts or not, your opinion matters a whole lot. You're the person who "watches" the whole thing, and since you're a writer, too, then your words become golden. Plus, we don't have the luxury to debate with an expert, but we do have it, between ourselves. And that's what makes your opinions even more valuable.