critique Seeking Feedback for Short-Film Manuscript

Where do I sign up?



Sorry I'm not really sure what to make of this peice.

sfoster said:

Where do I sign up?

Sorry I'm not really sure what to make of this peice.

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Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing

Good work, I enjoyed reading it.

Here my 2 cents:

Character Name Consistency:
You introduce the recruiter as `STAFF SERGEANT BRIXX`, but all his dialogue is attributed to `RECRUITER`. It’s best practice to be consistent. Change all instances of `RECRUITER` to `STAFF SERGEANT BRIXX` (or just `BRIXX`) after he is introduced. This makes him a specific character rather than a generic role.

Too many "beat":
You could also be more descriptive in an action line to create a pause, for example: `He lets the statement hang in the air for a moment before continuing.` This often has more impact than just `(beat)`.

Formatting: parenthetical like `(beat)`, which indicates a pause or a brief action for the speaking character, should be placed on its own line within the dialogue block. It should be indented further to the right than the dialogue itself.

Minor tuning:
> `"shatter like sand castles"`: This is a powerful image, but might feel slightly too poetic for the otherwise gritty description. Consider something more visceral, like “buildings crumble to dust” or “shatter into concrete and rebar.” This is a stylistic choice.
> `"open vaccum"`: This should be spelled “vacuum.”

I hope this will help.

VictorMKammer said:

Please, let me know how you interpret the setting, story and character, whether the themes are reflected through the piece, and how it makes you feel. Make sure to also point out if anything confused you or could use improvement.

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It's all quite confusing, and (sorry) doesn't sound at all convincing as a "motivational" speech for military recruits. As a recruitment campaign, the speech should be short and snappy; instead it wanders all over the place, from pushing the brothers-in-arms message to soapboxing about global threats.

The cuts to the video clips remind me of the worst kind of YouTube video, packed with random stock video clips that have nothing to do with the narration. How, for example, does "Multiple clips of buildings getting blown up" relate to "knowing who you are and what you stand for"? As it stands, it feels like some kind of corporate employee welcome video done on the cheap (with AI ? ) that most people sleep through while waiting to be shown to their work station.

It's also very hard to reconcile the statement "Until this threat has been dealt with, countries will keep participating in a war that may lead to our very end." with the stuff that's going on right now in real life - the images of and references to "Iraq" make no sense in a modern context. If you're setting this in the past, you need to indicate this in some way in your description; if you're setting it in the present (or future) ... euhhh, well, let's not upset our transatlantic friends just yet ...