Shoot me up

Definitly an improvement, however, I still don't really like the ending. Was does this imply? That Vick is non-existent? That he just doesn't pick up the phone? That he didn't pay his phonebill? And where are the police suddenly coming from? It was an empty busstation, killing the guy prob didn't make that much of noise, where there any camera's in the toilet? If he gets trapped by the police, and thats your ending, then the reason the police gets to him should be clear...
I said it before, and will say it again, I think your story has much more of an impact if Michael nails the audition, but realizes he did something horrible and kills himself, or gets taken over by Stanley forever. Something like that, think about it.
Good improvements though, but still not really finished I think...
Keep up the good work and good luck,

Fredric
 
good point with the motivation for police showing up. I could add a shot of a security camera capturing the violent piece in the bathroom.

the reason for the wide-open ending is to keep with the style of the piece I was encouraged to rewrite. I can't really recall any twilightzone that ended in a neat package, rather than presented a twist and ended it. I think the implication is that vick set this guy up, and you're supposed to take away from it that dependence leads to being hung out. Or maybe not. I dunno. If it's vague, I'll just call it "deep," or "kubrickian." That's a pretty good cop-out.
 
I disagree with Fredric, If you tie it all up then that's it AND you have a lot more answers you have to include. We don't actually know that the police are coming for him. I rather thought that they were heading somewhere else since as F pointed out there isn't any reason why they would know that it had happened. I assumed it was our leads paranoia. But Vic could have called them. In these sorts of stories (almost all of the original TZ series) the Vic character is the personification of fate or destiny. Vic is the answer to the question you ask your self after doing something really stupid, "why did I do that?" It's not a genre that gives you the answers. It's goal is to make you ask questions about the nature of reality.

You might (especially considering logistics and your budget) consider using the sounds of sirens rather than lights. It keeps it even more nebulous as to wether or not it's all in his head. And its a lot cheaper.
 
First off, let me tell you honestly -- and don't let this go to your head ;) -- aside from the mechanical problems of formatting and some grammatical revisions you could make, this is actually one of the better short film scripts I've read. And I've read a LOT of shorts.

My main issue is with the pills. I don't see what the point of them is -- both the ones Vick sends him, and the ones he's taking as of the beginning of the short. It seems to me that, as of now, you could eliminate the element of him popping pills and not weaken the story. Whatever their purpose is, try to make it a little clearer.

My recommendation in general would be to maybe make Vick a more active character.

Perhaps instead of getting a phone number through his agent (is the agent in on it?) this strange man Vick could actually sidle up to him at the bar, where he's struggling with the character, and just start talking to him like he does on the phone. Calling him by name, calling the character by name, etc. You could also then use Vick as a vehicle for the exposition of what a strange and contradictory character Stanley is, and it could work because even though he's telling Michael things he already knows, there's no way for Vick to know them. The audience gets important information about Stanley, and about the fact that Vick is one freaky dude.

Perhaps instead of calling Vick, he could actually meet Vick at his office a few times. Then after he commits the murder, he calls Vick's number, runs to Vick's office, but the number is disconnected, the building long abandoned. In this case maybe you could use him popping pills to explain his (what? Hallucination?) experience, but I still think that the pills require either a set-up or a pay-off that there isn't room for in this story.

Neither the agent nor Rachel are particularly necessary characters, other than to give Michael someone to talk to briefly, or to complain about the character of Stanley, so I'd say either drop them, or give them something more important to do in the story. Given the time restriction, I think you'd be better off dropping them.

Also, I don't know if this is an intentional error on your part to make some point about the agent character, but the muscular body type the agent refers to is actually called the mesomorph. An ectomorph is of the skinny body type that has the most trouble gaining weight or muscle mass. It's also not a great choice of title, but I'm sure that's just your working title.
 
I had the idea for the (working) title when reading an article on Dolph Lundgren. the idea of a person changing their body type for a role intrigued me a bit, which is why I wanted it in the title, for the suffix of the word, Morph, to suggest a change.

the motivation for the pills was to show escalation of his action into a more hienous (sp?) area. weight-lifting straight to murder didn't click in my head, but with drugs, anything's possible!

anyway, thanks for the ideas. I think I'll have a draft ready for Mr. Teacher soon enough. I really appreciate the help, and will bookmark this thread to remind myself of questions to ask when writing in the future.
 
I actually liked the ending. It had a very Twilight Zonish feel.

From the sound of it Frederic is a big David Lynch fan...and how the suicide thing worked in Mulholland Drive it seems excessive in this case.

The only thing I would advise...and once again the script is very good...is much like NOIZ said be sure that youu can create all of the scenarios you create in the script.

Can you access an empty bus station? Maybe a high school/office bathroom would be a little easier...just advice.

Best of luck and definately keep us updated.
 
writing realistically to your means is the number one thing I preach to new kids around here who want to shoot films.

Luckily, my middle-o-nowhere town has a shiny new bus station that, after 7 pm, has an unihabited lobby, bathroom, stairwell, etc for use. a beautiful location that i'd hoped to feature in my short ICEMAN, but have put to better use here.
 
Alrighty, a polished draft just got e-mailed to the teacher, and now I await approval. thanks again to everyone for help. feel free to continue to read it and give critique as it can still change plenty before shooting.
 
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