Bitten - My 1st Screenplay -

[Manio]

Bitten is a screenplay revolving around creatures from legends, and myth called Werewolves. The synopsis is, after a class lesson a girl named Stephanie becomes instantly interested in the culture of Werewolves. She then meets an odd boy named Cole, who helps her understand the myths and lore of lycanthrophy. Soon, people start disappearing and dying and its up to Cole and Stephanie to figure out what's going on.
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I hope you guys like it, it's roughly 34 pages long. Any comments and criticisms would be appreciated

Download the screenplay here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2KP4AGK9

 

[jghenderson]

I like some of the ideas you have, and werewolves can be really interesting. Unfortunately though the script has a lot of issues you would expect from a first time script. I wrote some notes as I read it and will put them here. Just remember to try and not take it personally, I am doing this for your own good.


-Some sentences are written poorly, i.e. “The MAN peered around the corner of the cabin just for something large to tackle him, and sending the AXE flying behind him somewhere”

- Too many camera directions

-So the Indians made a pact with wolves, but when the wolves fulfilled that pact they get cursed?

-Who is wolfsbrook??

-Why does a random high school professor have access to papers from the 1800’s? Are they protected?

- STEPHANIE leaps back as she was just frightened - ?

- How did she draw a picture of a werewolf in between school ending and her walking home? Didn’t she only become interested in werewolves after the class?

-Does this take place in present day? Because if it was only the 100 year anniversary of the massacre that would not make any sense because that would put it around early 1900’s, and there were no native American tribes roaming everywhere nor Spanish invaders at the point in time.

-Why does jack go from teasing Stephanie about cole to 10 seconds later trying to pick a fight with cole? Why would he do that?

-how could a young girl tear a werewolves ear off, especially if she is being attacked?

-if it’s a stupid idea, why is Stephanie convinced so quickly?

-“ The bear is eliminated too, because this is too big for a bear also. “ - too clunky

-how did this guy hear they were hunting wolves? Who would they tell something so crazy to?

-why would a werewolf throw the carcass of a dog at it’s owner? How could this possibly knock the man off the bench? If he’s so old, how can he run away?

-So Cole says it’s pointless, but then one line later he says they can do it?

-Shouldn’t it be a much bigger deal to Stephanie that her brother just got bitten by a werewolf? She seems to shrug it off.

-“Mark gets up”…what does he get up from? I thought they were playing basketball? And why exactly does he pick a fight with Jack? Jack just did a super cool basketball move, why would Mark immediately afterwards think Jack is a wimp and a schoolgirl?

-How does cole get to the truck so quickly? I thought they were standing away from it?

-Why would running on two legs as opposed to four legs make the werewolf go faster?

-How do they know it’s the wolfs territory? Isn’t it possibly the werewolf is just wandering around and randomly killing people?

-How do they know the werewolf wants to mate with Jack?

-why will killing the female werewolf prevent Jack from transforming?

-I thought they were having a tough time finding materials about werewolves? How does Cole suddenly get so much information?

-If there are two sisters, and one of them dies, the other one is still there. But if you are saying the identity was mistaken and it was actually the other sister that died and Jennifer became a werewolf, wouldn’t everyone wonder what happened to the other sister?

-How do you “brush” blood off of a sweater?

-So Stephanie flips out when Jennifer even mentions her parents, but when Jen pulls out her parents HEADS, Stephanie doesn’t react at all?

-Can a girl with a shovel really decapitate anyone?

-Overall way too much cussing in the script in my opinion. It's one thing to try to be edgy, it's another to try to spice up bland dialogue just by putting cuss words in there.

- I thought it was supposed to be a massacre? There were only two werewolves the entire time. Shouldn't there be dozens?

 

[JonathanLB]

Just to add to something he wrote, as far as camera direction, it's considered very amateur to have a lot of camera directions in a script in general. I mean a spec script. The reason for that is because the director is going to decide what camera angles he wants, not you, not the screenwriter. That's not your job at all. To suggest what camera angles to use is presumptuous and will be ignored. You can, however, suggest without using the words camera or any other camera words. You can, for instance, say, "John opened the cupboard, startled to find his father's old Glock 9mm." Now what director isn't going to get an insert of that? Obviously he is. You don't have to say, "Close-up on a Glock 9mm inside of the cupboard." There are a lot of examples like that, where you can subtly suggest without telling.

I personally hate second person throughout a script, like, "We see," and "it becomes clear to us" or things like that. I just hate it. I think it should be avoided at all costs, but it's a style thing and I guess some writers get away with that. I think it's awkward and clunky to see. Don't write "we see" just tell us what we see. There's no need to indicate.

Also, it's a style thing, some books will tell you to capitalize every SOUND you HEAR in a script. I wouldn't. That's not your job. You're the writer, not the post-production folly artist. It's totally the wrong advice that books even suggest that and a lot of writers don't do that. If you think it is more effective, I'd go for it, but not because some book says oh it's a sound it needs capitalizing. It looks like crap -- the English language should be more important than someone's opinion of screenplay style; write well, that is good enough advice. I only capitalize character names the first time they appear, I will never capitalize sounds for any reason. I can't figure out why HIGH SCHOOL and BLACKBOARD are capitalized at the start of your script, for instance, that is just distracting. Why is DESK capitalized? Why is TEACHER capitalized the second time it appears? You only capitalize a name the first time it appears, not every time after.

This is also wrong English: "The classes APPLAUSE'S the teacher"? Huh? The class applauds the teacher you mean?

Also don't keep capitalizing things in dialogue, that is really confusing, if you ever capitalize something leave it only in description not in dialogue. That should be lower cased unless you're trying to convey shouting, and even then I'd put it in parenthesis after the character's name like: Erik (shouting) WHY IS EVERYTHING CAPITALIZED FOR NO REASON?! GRR!!

The other various leaps in logic were covered well in the post above. Just keep plugging away, you'll get better and better and understand all of the little things. It takes time.