4 Page Mystery Screenplay

RyanT

RyanT

Veteran
I'm working on my upcoming project for school and figured I'd try my hand at a mystery.

The story is about a man who accidently recieves an envelope meant for someone else. He's sent about town to find the clues and solve the mystery, only to find out....something. You'll have to read it to find out.

Click here for it!

EDIT: So it's 4 and then a little, but who's counting really?
 
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RyanT said:
I'm working on my upcoming project for school and figured I'd try my hand at a mystery.

The story is about a man who accidently recieves an envelope meant for someone else. He's sent about town to find the clues and solve the mystery, only to find out that it was all for a surprise party and it's definitely not for him.

Click here for it!

EDIT: So it's 4 and then a little, but who's counting really?
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I was gonna read it but your post reveals the story and twist. That kinda blows it for me.

You might want to consider edited the post.
 
brianluce said:
I was gonna read it but your post reveals the story and twist. That kinda blows it for me.

You might want to consider edited the post.
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I realized that when it was a bit too late! Woops.

You might want to consider editing your post now as well though, I edited mine, but yeah. Quote. You know...
 
EJ Pennypacker said:
But 4 is the magic number, Brian.

EJ
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Aha! but how long is a page? What if his pages are thousands of words long!

Or what if his script is in Ancient Aramaic? That could take months to translate!

Okay, to show how reasonable I am, I'll agree to read 2 of the 4 pages.
 
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Hey, just took a look at your script and enjoyed it. For a short, its nice and neat, gets to the point and tells a complete story, which is often hard to accomplish.

I noticed a few things, mostly associated with writing style that you might want to tighten up before a final draft (also is this to be produced by you? or is it a writing assignment?). There were a few places in the script where I had to go back and make sure what I read was correct because things didn't seem to make sense. Case in point:

3.EXT. MAIN AND 4TH - NIGHT
Richard finds the box, opens it and closes the box.

4 INT. RICHARD’S HOUSE - MINUTES LATER
Richard sits down at his desk, opening up the box.​
I had to go back and look if Richard took the box, which it doesnt say anywhere. Its safe to assume that its the same box, but any time a reader has to go back and double check something takes them out of a story. Also it couldn't hurt to add in that Richard takes the box with him, just for clarity.

You also start at least one scene in this manner:

2 EXT. PAY PHONE - NIGHT
He hesitantly walks up to the pay phone, looking around as
it starts ringing.

Who is he? We can assume its Richard, but for the best clarity each scene should be treated as completely seperate. This is a new location, and as its on a street it could be anyone walking up to that phone, so clarifying helps out.

It might have been an issue with me, but I missed the fact that Richard had fallen asleep trying to solve the rubix cube the first time through. On the second time I caught the coffee, but you might want to make a mention of him being splayed out over the couch, fallen asleep sitting up or something. Of course it could just be me.

The only other question I had deals with motivation - why is Richard complying with these demands? We know from his exasperated 'God..' and 'Fudge...' that he isnt real keen on playing this game, but then why is he doing it when he could just as easily toss the envelope down in the alley and continue on his way? Of course this is a hard question to answer over the course of 4 pages, and it didnt really become too much of an issue, but giving us some insight always helps.

Of course most of these issues deal with just the written aspect of it - if its a script you wrote to be produced by yourself then you know exactly what youre talking about, but for actors etc. you might want to tighten up. Overall I liked it - you hit the mystery genre very well and kept it interesting.​
 
Yes, this is also to be produced by me.

Thank you about clarifying as to how to treat scenes as far as names go. I wasn't quite sure how clear I should really be, but I'll have to go over that and tighten those parts up. Although it is to be produced by me, I would of course like the screenplay to be as good as it can be as far as clarity goes.

I was struggling with how to make it seem like Richard HAD to solve this mystery. I had figured that he had just gone out on a whim as far as the payphone goes, but then he possibly thought that his life could be in danger with what Tom had said over the phone. This is all keeping in mind that what he said could go along with someone who had a big birthday coming up. From there on out it was more of that as well as him just trying to solve it before that timer ran out.

I was quite sure as to how to give him motivation otherwise though, or maybe that wasn't put across strongly enough. If you have any other suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.

I'm glad you enjoyed it though, thank you for the helpful comments!
 
Not bad, Ryan. A few thoughts...

You describe Richard as "an optimistic man". First, I see nothing in the rest of the script that makes him being "optimistic" a requirement. But second, how is the audience supposed to know he's optimistic? They can't read the description portions of your script.

Next, why does Richard have to use a mirror to read what's written on the back of the envelope?

In scene 5, I didn't get a clear image of Richard's positioning. He's asleep, a coffee cup is on the floor, and yet Richard is still holding the coffee cup. You might describe that in a little more detail so we get a solid mental image.

I can't imagine "Tell me about the weather tomorrow" being written on one side of a Rubic's cube and the words being large enough to be readable by the audience. That's a lot of words for such a small object. Can you think of something else that would work here and require fewer words/letters?

I think it could be a very entertaining piece though. Personally, I'd want a more intriguing title, but that's just me. Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.
 
Hi, Ryan. I liked this, nice protagonist, and I chuckled in the end (very sweet that Richard didn't deck the freak who led him such a scary dance, showed good characterisation). As I'm sure you realise by now, there were some parts that you need to visualise better, in order to describe less confusingly/more fully. 'Richard finds the box' for instance, had me thinking - 'Where? On the ground? In the gutter? In a bin?' But I was OK with his being at home with the box in the follwing scene. To me it was pretty clear he found it and took it home. It seemed to be a good example of the 'get in late and leave early' scene writing so beloved of screenplay teachers. Also, I did get his following the instructions out of curiosity and then fear quite clearly. Hope it all goes well for you.
 
chapelgrovefilms said:
Not bad, Ryan. A few thoughts...

You describe Richard as "an optimistic man". First, I see nothing in the rest of the script that makes him being "optimistic" a requirement. But second, how is the audience supposed to know he's optimistic? They can't read the description portions of your script.

Next, why does Richard have to use a mirror to read what's written on the back of the envelope?

In scene 5, I didn't get a clear image of Richard's positioning. He's asleep, a coffee cup is on the floor, and yet Richard is still holding the coffee cup. You might describe that in a little more detail so we get a solid mental image.

I can't imagine "Tell me about the weather tomorrow" being written on one side of a Rubic's cube and the words being large enough to be readable by the audience. That's a lot of words for such a small object. Can you think of something else that would work here and require fewer words/letters?

I think it could be a very entertaining piece though. Personally, I'd want a more intriguing title, but that's just me. Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.
Click to expand...

I believe I started to try and do some character development sort of stuff that was required of us by my teacher and as I started writing it just sort of got thrown out the window. This is what lead that optimistic thing to pop in there.

I really need to clear up a lot of things in here, so yeah. Rewriting must be done with the positioning. I guess the back of the envelope wasn't clear enough either, as it was supposed to be written backwards. Putting it in front of a mirror allows him to read it...

I hadn't thought about how much that would be to fit on the side of a rubiks cube! Something I overlooked I guess. I wasn't too thrilled about the title either(too long?), so maybe if I switched that up it could land me with something a bit better.

Glad to hear that you got the curiousity then fear thing Zahra.

I'll be sure to keep you all updated on how it turns out. I'm starting with some lighting/camera tests tomorrow! I'll be excited to see this project develop.
 
I agree with others on tightening it up a bit. As an example here's the beginning of your script:

A man is walking down the street, RICHARD, an optimistic man
in his mid 20’s.

Richard walks up to a man standing against the wall.

TOM, a dark mysterious man, dressed in a trench coat and
hat, trying his best to hide his identity.

Here's what you could do:​
A smiling (note: adjective showing optimistic) man, RICHARD, mid 20's, is walking down a poorly lit/empty/foggy/dirty/etc. street. He approaches a shadowy figure in a dark trench coat and hat. This is TOM.

This is just an example but there are a few places where a choice adjective and rephrasing a sentence will cut some of the fat.

I didn't get this part:​
Suddenly, he hears a crash outside his apartment. He turns
around and notices the envelope left on the floor.​

Is this saying that something was thrown through his window?

And the Rubix cube seemed to come out of nowhere. I think I would have a scene where he is working on the "object" but it's out of view so we can't really see what he is doing - that way you could still have the Rubix cube as a "reveal," if that is what you are looking for. Instead, I had to go back and see why a Rubix cube appeared all of the sudden.

While the ending was a little soft - I appreciate that the guy doesn't DIE in the end. There's too many shorts where someone dies in the end - what a cop-out. So good job there. Another rewrite or two and I think it will work better.

Oh - one other thing - I don't think you have to have 15 hours pass - couldn't it be just 5? I think it would still work.
​
 
With the rubix cube. I didn't want it to be shown until he finally solves it. If that's what I want to happen, do I say that it's a rubix cube the entire time, but it's not shown. Or was what I did correct?

I just finished another rewrite, so I'll add in a few of your suggestions. I did think 15 hours was too much as well, but for some reason I never thought doing it in less was possible. Now that I've been away for it for a bit, I'm sure I can make it work in 5.
 
I've been taking a lot of your comments into consideration and took a few whacks at it. Here's my fourth draft. I'm much happier with it than before. Take a gander and tell me what you think...

http://www.rdvproductions.com/forums/Draft6.pdf

EDIT: Took one more whack at it today, talked with someone for a while. Figured I had missed a way to make it at least a little bit more suspenseful. The link is now a bit more recent.
 
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