Short Film Script for Review 5 pages

S

solow1

Member
Can you please give me feedback on my script please and thank you?View attachment Screenplay.pdf.zip

The title is: Crossroads, the genre is drama,

Synopsis:

Three people meet on an internet suicide chat line. After confessing to each other that their family issues have brought them to the brink of suicide they find sanctity in knowing that they have found friendship and security in each other.
 
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one too many characters in the same suicide train station spot, and the title of the movie is crossroads, why have the chat room thing at the start.

if i could edit (just my opinion),

remove the chatroom part, leave the prostitution part not revealed and make the character just upset and nerdy(make the audience imagine a story for now), let the guy occurred-ly meet the random girl(or guy, hint hint) near the tracks, and let them start the dialog(drama) instead of a fight(action), with a bit of tension that eases a bit and let them reveal both their stories to each other, if you wanted a drama. make the train is coming at the end of the story. that would make the title more meaningful and the story a drama.

edit: i was going to say the fight was almost unprovoked, and their determination or their reason extremely weak.
 
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the synopsis did not match the short film, how many times did you change the story to the point that got you confused about the events?
 
Hi Team,

I appreciate the feedback thus far. This is my first narrative script that I have written. I really like this story and would like to polish it up.

I am thinking of having Jake bump into Marrisa near the old age home and knock her phone from her hands. They would not exchange words as Jake would be in a rush and then when Marissa picks up the phone it would say "ill be there" and will have realized it was Marissa who was chatting with him.

All and any honest feedback is appreciated. Thanks team.

Looking forward,
 
solow1 said:
Can you please give me feedback on my script please and thank you?View attachment 63599

The title is: Crossroads, the genre is drama,

Synopsis:

Three people meet on an internet suicide chat line. After confessing to each other that their family issues have brought them to the brink of suicide they find sanctity in knowing that they have found friendship and security in each other.
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Point one... the 'color' #000000 is not a good color to be read on this site.

On to the script.

For the amount of text in the first block, I have no idea what 'jake' looks like. In general on introducing a character the first appearance of that character's name is written in CAPITAL letters. Further some brief indication of age, appearance, etc. are usually given as well.

The first block of text is too large and dense. The usual suggested 'paragraph' length in scripts is 2-4 lines of text. Which is about 1-2 sentences. Big blocks of text look like 'novels' which a screenplay is not.

Example:

[scrippet]
INT. CITY APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT

JAKE, 16, skinny, half lying on his bed, types to his cell phone chat session "Does anyone want to die with me?".

A bed bangs into the other side of the wall. A woman's voice screeches with exaggerated sexual pleasure.

JAKE
Mom, I'm trying to study here!

MALE VOICE
Shut the F*#K up!

The woman's voice continues with shrill squeals.

The male voice grunts twice.

Slience.

Off in the distance a police SIREN echos through the streets.

Music wafts from outside.

LYRICS:
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
Asked the Lord above for mercy, "Save me if you please.
...
[/scrippet]
 
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solow1 said:
Thank you. Anything else you can tell me? You seem to really know what you are talking about.
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I don't have time to give you a blow by blow review. I gave a bit of what I've read in terms of 'style', and what I use for my own short film writing. If I have time I'll perhaps look at a few other items.

But you could review your script and start some rewriting to make it more like a series of images and sounds, rather than blocks of prose.
 
Great thank you. I really appreciate what you did, writing that for me. I really just want to concentrate on dialogue cause I find all the sfx and scene desriptions unnessary for me. I guess if you are reading it is very necessary but being an editor all the sfx and character profiles, and scene descriptions are in my head. I guess I didnt find it necerssary to write it all out ya know. But will take another stab at it tonight.

Thanks again
 
Try to get your hands on a copy of "The Screenwriter's Bible" by David Trottier. It's on Amazon, and would probably be available in most libraries, I'd imagine. It will get you up to speed on fundamentals faster than any other source I know of.

PS: spelling and format issues (like jclark spelled out for you, and as Trottier's book would), stopped me on page 1. I may give it another look but like many other 'readers' I often have a hard time getting past these things...
 
Hmm understood. Do you think the story is good? What about dialogue? I guess I look past spelling and grammer.

I also realize that some people I guess are really concentrating on the screen writing itself rather that the whole idea and whether or not it will be a good film. Thats where I think dialogue is important and the story arc and events. And I guess thats the feedback i need the most. I realize there are some spelling mistakes possibly and a formatting issue and hope you could look past that.....

thanks again....every comment counts....and i will fix the mistakes pronto.......
 
please try and get past the formatting and grammatical errors....you seem like you really konw your stuff and would really appreciate your feedback...
 
solow1 said:
Hmm understood. Do you think the story is good? What about dialogue? I guess I look past spelling and grammer.

I also realize that some people I guess are really concentrating on the screen writing itself rather that the whole idea and whether or not it will be a good film. Thats where I think dialogue is important and the story arc and events. And I guess thats the feedback i need the most. I realize there are some spelling mistakes possibly and a formatting issue and hope you could look past that.....

thanks again....every comment counts....and i will fix the mistakes pronto.......
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This is my personal philosophy... for short films, visuals are king, to the point where dialog in many cases is unnecessary.

Very few short film scripts, and almost no feature length scripts written by 'non-pros', that I've read, have dialog that I'd give a 'good' mark to.

Definitely there are few to none 'Tarantinos' out there.

In your first scene, there is in fact no real need to have any dialog, or just an unanswered complaint by the kid. I did put in a response, but it was terse...

In the later scene with the mother, again, the dialog that's there is sort of cliche. You could just as well boil it down to the mother saying something like:

[scrippet]
INT. APARTMENT - KITCHEN - NIGHT

IRMAGARD, 30's, make up smudged, hair disheveled, robe askew, sits smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table, reading "National Inquirer".

Jake walks in to the refrigerator, opens the door. Empty. Jake glares at Irmagard.

IRMAGARD
What are your looking at me for?

Jake wheels out of the kitchen, his footsteps recede down the hall to the front door. SLAM.

Imragard returns to her newspaper.
[/scrippet]
 
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solow1 said:
please try and get past the formatting and grammatical errors....you seem like you really konw your stuff and would really appreciate your feedback...
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I can 'look past' many grammatical errors. However there is a certain 'formatting' style which I prefer to read in scripts.

Scripts are intended to produce images quickly, as if the reader is 'seeing the movie' in their head. Getting bogged down with prose sort of kills that stream of imagery. Same is true for long passages of dialog, unless written by a Tarantino... I use Tarantino as an example of 'snappy' but often 'long winded' dialog.

People who attempt to emulate him often fail... and people who write gobs of dialog which is not snappy... fail worse...
 
www.sonorocreative.com
www.videocreativeandcommunications.

This is some of my work thus far. I haven't shot any narrative stuff....mainly corporate videos, music videos and marketing promos. I have been told I am a really good editor. Some of my experience includes digital artist for IMAX on Harry Potter 6, I worked at MuchMusic/MTV for 5 years and have been an editor and segment producer for a couple youth television series.
 
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