Whoring Streets

[nouou]

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/43040/1235716307.jpg

Logline:
A masked rider aims to stop two bandits.

[seansshack]

great title.

[lawriejaffa]

Yeah! Commendable title!

[Ezekiel667]

Agreed about the title. Sounds like a good one.

[conlanforever]

Yep, I agree...the title is certainly an attention getter. Looking forward to seeing how the title and tagline come together.

[nouou]

thanks.

final draft finished.

[Tormod]

Great job!

[seansshack]

Roll up the upload and reviews!!!!!!

[Keth Andril]

Interesting title. Can't wait to read the story behind it.

[jamiejay]

can't wait to read your script! hope you are still in...

jamie :)

[lawriejaffa]

Hey hey!

A classic tale of the masked avenger ;) Well this one only worked for me on some levels - I liked the relationship of the two bandits, and the reciting of how one of them gained a new pistol was great. I was really absorbed by that.

The dialogue seemed to float (for me and it is subjective) between what would be authentic (presumably) curse words and at other times an almost tarantino -esque gangster style which at times conflicted. I wouldn't get too concerned about that - as thats probably lol just something i thought!

So - It's all exciting - its reving along. But the holdup goes a bit peculiar - is there a reason this man stands - and refuses to comply with the bandits (causing his inevitable execution.)

So we have the masked rider - and to be honest this is actually where it gets a wee bit less exciting for me! The number of short films where a guy ends up bound in a room with a confident antagonist is just too much (lets shake up that location for a start!!!) Our rider speaks in moralistic monologues that are quite sentimental really, and don't seem to bare a reflection or understanding of the violent world both these characters obviously occupy.

You have rider basically saying stuff like 'now you killed that guy, his kids will never have a pa' type stuff - but nobody could be oblivious to such consequences (except perhaps kids playing violent computer games in a consumer driven society heheh) So im sure a western bandit wouldnt!

It's maybe a bit too superhero black and white moralism going on here - I think it can all work - but the monologue really needs a little work i think (to have the profound intention it seeks) and with a more original location and setup for the end

Hope you don't mind the abstract nature of my feedback im a producer/director by nature not a scriptwriter!

:)

Rock on bro! *Bang bang* ;)

[conlanforever]

I echo some of what lawrie has already pointed out.
I like the relationship between the two bandits., well done creating these characters. There banter was fun.

I was taken out of the story a little by the 'direction' pieces of writing, like 'off screen' and talking directly to us 'from this point on he'll only be known as the rider' It might just be me, but it pulled me out of the story a bit. But nothing major.

I liked the bank robbery and chase scenes, you wrote the action well and how it took place.

The monologue at the end is pretty long and could benefit from being tightened up.

Overall, I think you have a good little short here and I enjoyed the read.

[nouou]

all good points, thanks guys. the feedback is highly appreciated.

[TimCollins]

I enjoyed the way this one was written. I think lawrie mentioned that it was a bit Tarantino-esque which I did notice, especially how in the beginning there was a benign conversation in a bar that all of a sudden turned into a robbery - which is, of course, the opening of Pulp Fiction (except in a coffee shop).


Next open mouth will be eating a lead bullet.
...Awesome line there!

Also, I did like the way the action scenes were presented and your imagery was well done.

But I have to say the Rider seemed a bit cliche. Also, his monologues seemed a bit long-winded and could use some condensing.

But it was a cool story and fun to read nonetheless!

[seansshack]

Would always avoid using different fonts changes in scripts - bold or coloured. It distracts.

Dialogue was a tab bit long winded in places. I know it;s fun to write this way and I've done it myself. But have had readers come back to me...well throw things back at me and say "stop writing like Tarantino" and find your own voice. It's a shame to say that if you use a lot of dialogue these days, you get compared. So stick to to the rule that less is more. Especially pages 9 to 10 (almost all dialogue).

In all love the title. Story works for me and the action descriptions are well written (a few could be shorter). Too much talking for my liking - altough all well crafted.

Well done.

[nouou]

Would always avoid using different fonts changes in scripts - bold or coloured. It distracts.

Dialogue was a tab bit long winded in places. I know it;s fun to write this way and I've done it myself. But have had readers come back to me...well throw things back at me and say "stop writing like Tarantino" and find your own voice. It's a shame to say that if you use a lot of dialogue these days, you get compared. So stick to to the rule that less is more. Especially pages 9 to 10 (almost all dialogue).

In all love the title. Story works for me and the action descriptions are well written (a few could be shorter). Too much talking for my liking - altough all well crafted.

Well done.

i think you're right about the bold factor. i hope the action really is decent enough to follow. the way i wrote it is i wrote out the whole thing, then went back and modified some sentences over the next few days, and lost track of where i was. i was pretty busy and thought that what i wrote had made no sense at all.

thanks for your feedback.

[Blaine]

For an action piece, the long winded monologues gave it a "talking heads" feel. Now, the Rider's dialogue was a mixed bag. It shifted from eloquent to common speech and back, which tended to pull me out of what he's saying. I curious, after you were through, did you read it aloud? I think if you had, you'd have rewritten a lot of the dialogue to sound more natural.

The "tell him the whole story before you kill him" is really over done, very clichéd in style.

In the bar, I'd have preferred to see some kind of resistance from the guy who stood up...even if it was verbal resistance. The way it was done didn't feel quite right. He just stood up but then did nothing. He took no action to stop things and said nothing in defiance. He seemed to be TRYING to get himself killed.

I was curious as the story was going along who this "masked avenger" was. He felt like a comic book superhero. And the money not being real felt a little weird...kinda like they keep counterfeit money on had just in case of robbery. Another little nit I had was when the Rider said, "To me you’re no better than a rapist, a drug dealer, a murderer." You've set your story in 1884 and there were no illegal drugs in the US. Some communities had ordinances against opium, but it was because of their concerns over the Chinese more than the drugs so the term "drug dealer" felt out of place.

Just curious, was this set in Australia? The name of the town as well as it being "a town resting on the edge of water. It’s fairly concentrated but surrounded by nothing but desert." along with the spelling of "whisky" as opposed to "whiskey" made me wonder about it.

To emphasize a word, I'd suggest capitalizing it or underlining it rather than bolding it.

I didn't quite get the title. I was expecting a completely different story than what you wrote, based on the title.

That's a lot of criticisms but on the positive side, the story pulled me along to the finish. It seemed to move quickly and it had me interested in finding out what happened.

[DarkElastic]

Hi Nouou, just read your script, thanks for entering.

I thought it was a good read, but I do reiterate a lot of the points already made - long dialogue, man tied in chair, direction, etc. I also agree with their good points - good action, great opening exchange, nice robbery.
A bit more of the confrontation with the man would have been good and I think a reveal of the masked avenger, something to make him do what he does... Something that gives him a cause.

Overall though, I enjoyed the read. Well done.

[nouou]

For an action piece, the long winded monologues gave it a "talking heads" feel. Now, the Rider's dialogue was a mixed bag. It shifted from eloquent to common speech and back, which tended to pull me out of what he's saying. I curious, after you were through, did you read it aloud? I think if you had, you'd have rewritten a lot of the dialogue to sound more natural.

The "tell him the whole story before you kill him" is really over done, very clichéd in style.

In the bar, I'd have preferred to see some kind of resistance from the guy who stood up...even if it was verbal resistance. The way it was done didn't feel quite right. He just stood up but then did nothing. He took no action to stop things and said nothing in defiance. He seemed to be TRYING to get himself killed.

I was curious as the story was going along who this "masked avenger" was. He felt like a comic book superhero. And the money not being real felt a little weird...kinda like they keep counterfeit money on had just in case of robbery. Another little nit I had was when the Rider said, "To me you’re no better than a rapist, a drug dealer, a murderer." You've set your story in 1884 and there were no illegal drugs in the US. Some communities had ordinances against opium, but it was because of their concerns over the Chinese more than the drugs so the term "drug dealer" felt out of place.

Just curious, was this set in Australia? The name of the town as well as it being "a town resting on the edge of water. It’s fairly concentrated but surrounded by nothing but desert." along with the spelling of "whisky" as opposed to "whiskey" made me wonder about it.

To emphasize a word, I'd suggest capitalizing it or underlining it rather than bolding it.

I didn't quite get the title. I was expecting a completely different story than what you wrote, based on the title.

That's a lot of criticisms but on the positive side, the story pulled me along to the finish. It seemed to move quickly and it had me interested in finding out what happened.

i'm not even sure what i was aiming for regarding the rider to be honest. in retrospect i guess i wanted him to come off as a cold vigilante. the guy in the bar, yeah i agree with you, i am sortof laughing because it's the kindof guy you'd watch on screen and say, "WTF U IDIOT". i wasn't aware about the drug policies back then so thanks for that, if i continue to develop this script in the future i'll keep that in mind.

regarding the title... that's what i was sort of aiming for if you expected something else. there is a meaning to it and i wanted whoever was reading it to interpret it as they see fit. to me it's how the rider views this city he 'works' in. i plan on working on this into a feature and i'll delve deeper into that, but for a short story it's kindof not so obvious.

don't hold back on criticism, it's more helpful than a sugar coated compliment.

did anyone find it difficult to read through the horse chase sequence? was anyone going back and re reading that section twice to understand it, or any part for that matter?

[NJPage]

Hiya! Not sure where I am on this script. In reflective mode, on 1st read, the lengthy dialogues seemed okay. Sadly on 2nd read through, I'm surprised Buddy (last page) didn't grab the gun and shoot himself just too... escape the Rider's monologue.
But, the Rider himself has such potential in the script - as a scavenger of the plains - ridding the West of scum like Buddy and Ray.
I'm just not convinced he'd take that much trouble once he'd caught a baddy - to lecture him on morality.
The long speeches of the Rider would work fine in a short story???

[Tim Joy]

The whole time I was thinking, " Okay, this Rider is going to turn out to be the sheriff from the beginning, and I'm going to say it was predictable", but you didn't go there, so good going on that!
I did feel a little cheated that we never found out the identity of the rider, and it could've been someone relevant to the story and got us a little more engaged.

As others have said about too much dialog- Have a couple people read this for you, and I'm sure they will find it difficult to perform, and it would be a difficult movie to shoot, because as the rider gives his Soliloquy Buddy is stuck there with nothing to do. Sure, you CAN tell a story through dialog like Shakespeare, but if you do, lines like, "I'm going to kill you" are not going to work.

Sorry if I'm being harsh, but I think you have the possibility of a good script here, but it needs some serious attention from the red pen.

On the good side, I followed everything clearly, and you painted a nice picture with the descriptions. Good work.

[MrKilloran]

Sort of nitpicking but the way you structured your sentences sort of threw me off, felt difficult or was chore-like to get through some.
The water is dark blue and the sun bounces all over it,making it painful to look at.Why not try: "The blinding sun bounces over the dark blue water."

Don't change the font style by bolding.

The dialogue is rather lengthy and makes for an equally lengthy read. It's almost nothing but talking esp. page 10. I felt like I was reading a lecture, that being said why is he lecturing someone he's about to kill anyway? Maybe while The Rider is giving his big speech you could have buddy breaking away at his restraints to get free or at least have some action to break it up. Even cut away at the dialogue to keep the essentials.

Good camaraderie between the bandits and their dialogue in the beginning didn't take away, flowed well.

The title makes me think the Rider felt that the immoral and unjust of the west are whoring out these streets for their gain and he won't have any more of it. Not bad, some good stuff.

[Mark C]

I enjoyed reading this story! Great dialogue between characters. I think that although it looks long on paper it could work out well visually. (probably would depend on the casting of the characters) All of the action sequences were easy to follow and it it moved along at a great pace. It may have been cool to see the rider placed in there a little bit earlier (like maybe somewhere before the robbery) but I think the whole thing works pretty well!

[Rustom Irani]

This story essentially is bogged down by structural issues. In a sense it is a bit Tarantinoesque, with regards to their early chatter about the gun and the hold-up. Seemed like an Homage to "Pulp Fiction."

Things like describing the atmosphere of the town helps dictate the pace. And this felt slow due to this.

The pacing is uneven but the shift in tone from slight humor, to serious robbery to again a Thriller scenario with the Rider which leads to psychological drama is too fast, too abrupt and distracting.

As the audience I'm trying to figure out why didn't Buddy think of a simple thing like the Rider coming after him? Why rest? Why not change hiding places? He didn't seem dumb.

Rider came across like "V" in "V For Vendetta" in that regard, trying to dispel justice but you better know why and I'm gonna tell you so, kinda way.

In essence you have a lot of elements, some really cool going on in these 10 pages. I'd focus on one or two. Keep it simple.

Or go the whole hog and expand.

All the best.

[TimCollins]

Rider came across like "V" in "V For Vendetta" in that regard

That's what I immediately thought of too. I think because of the cape.

[Kmaia]

Nice work. I enjoyed The Rider's strength and Ambiguity.

[nouou]

Rider came across like "V" in "V For Vendetta" in that regard, trying to dispel justice but you better know why and I'm gonna tell you so, kinda way.


it's funny you say that. my inspiration for the rider was partially based on that character.

thanks for the feedback everyone else, it's highly appreciated.

[RodThompson]

I thought this script was a great read all the way up until he captred Buddy.

The rest of the story was good, don't get me wrong, but the didn't make sense. You have the longwinded expository teachings of the Rider. He's going through all of the details of killing someone, and their relatives and such...then he kills him. It's like he's trying to teach him a lesson to change his ways, then kills him.

That whole closing dialogue after the capture is pointless. He should have just walked up to Buddy and shot him in his sleep. If he were a James Bond villain, in that time, Buddy could have escaped or pulled something off. In his current form, he's just a long winded murderer.

See where I'm going? Let me know if I missed something. I dug the story though.

[Blaine]

If he were a James Bond villain, in that time, Buddy could have escaped or pulled something off. In his current form, he's just a long winded murderer.I actually thought of the scene between Bond and Goldfinger while reading it.

[leepback]

Well seeing everyone is mentioning Tarantino...

I think the monolgues would be difficult to make visually interesting.
This is film afterall.

Monologues need to be clever and not cliched or boring.

Tarantino himself forgot about this in "Death Proof". I'm not sure if he actually wrote the screenplay but the dialogue was uniteresting and tedious and all we got to see was some chicks sitting and drinking in a bar for the most part.

BTW - the title doesn't seem to have relevance

Don't get me wrong I'm not an action affectionado but if characters like the masked rider are going to say something it's got to be profound especially since he seems to be alknowing.

Don't get me wrong, there's things to like in this script but overall it lost me. Hope this helps in some small way.

[nouou]

BTW - the title doesn't seem to have relevance

they don't always need to.

obvious titles are tedious.

[leepback]

they don't always need to.

please point me to a few that aren't


obvious titles are tedious.

no they're another opportunity to display your imagination and wit (and you certainly don't seem to lack wit)

[jamiejay]

i really liked the opening scene (though i am a huge pulp fiction fan..lol)...

when it came to the rider, i was hoping his identity would be revealed and it would be someone related to the story... such as the sheriff he stole the gun from... or death... or something. ;)

i also agreed the end monologue was way too long.

other than that, it was a good script and i liked it :)

jamie

[nouou]

please point me to a few that aren't

off the top of my head: reservoir dogs, there will be blood, REC, state of grace.


i really liked the opening scene (though i am a huge pulp fiction fan..lol)...

when it came to the rider, i was hoping his identity would be revealed and it would be someone related to the story... such as the sheriff he stole the gun from... or death... or something. ;)

i also agreed the end monologue was way too long.

other than that, it was a good script and i liked it :)

jamie

thanks man. it had never even occurred to me that the rider's identity could be suspected as the sheriff from the opening scene. someone else mentioned it earlier in this thread i think.

thanks for your feedback.

[leepback]

off the top of my head: reservoir dogs, there will be blood, REC, state of grace.

OK, OK you win but it's still false advertising (a crime punishable by hangin)

I came her lookin for whores and want my money back!

[nouou]

OK, OK you win but it's still false advertising (a crime punishable by hangin)

I came her lookin for whores and want my money back!

just trying to say i prefer titles that make people ponder its meaning.

in the feature length version i am definitely going to include a couple of whores :)

thanks for your feedback btw.

[arroway]

The very first action block had the word “fairly” twice which bugged me.

There’s no segue between his story and their planning to rob the place. One thing followed the other so quickly I was left thinking “what?”. It also seemed overly similar to the opening to “pulp fiction” where the two people are having a conversation when all of a sudden they jump up with guns.

“Overall, he’s about the same frame as Buddy.”

Why does this matter? IMO there’s too much talk of people’s “frames”.



the end of the script brought to mind a james bond villain. gab, gab, gab, instead of kill, kill, kill. maybe it's just a personal thing with me, but it never feels genuine. i think you could condense his speech into something much more powerful. and if he thinks the first guy wasn't really that bad of a guy and the second guy really IS a bad guy, i thought it was strange that he tortured the first guy and shot the second guy in the head. for someone who seems so hellbent on being fair, that felt anything but.


I love the title (my favorite title of the fest) but it doesn’t seem to reference or describe anything in the script?