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Knock me dead full screenplay

Boosh. Done!

Knock Me Dead
Length: ~13 mins
Action/fantasy/comedy

Synopsys: When the relationship with a psychopathic girlfriend is about to come to an end, a cowardly small time thief must prove to her that he is ready do be a part of girlfriend's criminal life; but when he faces ballsy death defining situation, he will learn the dangers of pretending to be something that he isn't, before his final commitment to his decision.


Let me know what you think! Time to do preproduction on this beast!

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0mxCCM9gdK3MGQ4ZDc4NWYtNzdlZC00Y2ZmLTkwNTktNTAzZWE4NzE5MTAw

:rolleyes:
 
holy cow

I started making notes on it, until all hell broke loose. I think you've put two different stories together. The love story, and the stasis story.

I think you should just stick to the love story.

They start at the garage, then he helps the old lady with the groceries, but while he's in the car and she's inside, he realizes that two cops are watching them. He sees two other cops approach the garage.

He goes inside to warn her, she thinks he's imagining things.

She tries to make him kill the old lady.

He pities the old lady, and forces Alisa at gunpoint to escape out the back with him.

Or, he decides to give her up to the cops. Or her kills her.

I don't think you need the stasis. I think it just makes the story cluttered and confusing.
 
Thanks for reading, Maralyn! Sorry that the story got a bit confusing. Hopefully it will be a bit more clear when you will see it, or else I'm in a biiiig trouble ;))
 
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dlevanchuk that script is amazing, I really want to see a feature length film of this one!! The two storylines work great together because while he has stopped time in our minds we stop thinking about what's going on with the girl and concentrate on just marcus. He seems like a really great character. However, I was surprised at the killing of the girl (maybe not in a good way, although I assume you had to reach some kind of conclusion in a short film script)

Overall 9/10 from me, I want more!
 
Woot!!! Thank you very very much for reading!
I'm actually preparing to write a full feature, And this short screenplay has few elements that I want to experiment on the "smaller scale" story, to see how the scenes will come out :)

I'm glad you liked it! I'm diving elbow deep into preproduction today!
 
Excellent job! Just a couple things stuck out for me as out of character and discontinuous.
p.9. Bathroom--Marcus is squeamish. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would stitch his own wounds. He's cowering rather than fighting back. It is, IMO, totally out of his character. Then the jump to the Kitchen and suddenly time is restored? Because Alyssa is talking.

If you want the sense there are two planes of time co-occurring, there needs to be something that makes it distinctive. As a very stark example--stasis time is B/W while 'real' time is color. Of course, visually you can handle it as you wish, but it needs to be distinct. This threw me when I read it.

p12 - "and she swings the bat over her head" Did you mean the old neighbor's head or Alyssa's head?

This is the kind of story that when I watch it on TV, I wonder why the author didn't really fully utilize the device. So I'm going to lay it out from my perspective. Here is a guy who loves this sociopathic girl. He has a device that freezes time. He could use it to (1) move the old lady to safety (say, her bedroom free with a note to call the police) and/or (2) he could disarm his lover of the bat, gun and secure her until the police arrive. If he loves her, it makes no sense why he would kill her with such a powerful tool at his disposal. Especially since it's hinted that he used it to remove the clip from her gun.

I think I would close the scene with him comforting the old lady as the police arrive. All seems tidy until she breaks free, runs into the room and shoots at him. At the last second, he activates the unit as she pulls the trigger. He's sad and moves her body in the line of the bullet. He walks through the door and sees the police rushing toward the bedroom frozen. Once outside, he starts time again. He weeps and moves back to the engineer's house. He gathers up the blueprints, presses the stasis button and vanishes. Cut back to see the medics checking out the old woman and them bring Alisa out on a stretcher zipping up the body bag.

Okay. Now I KNOW this is a short with limited budget. But the point is, he has a device that stops time and he can only think to shoot her? He loves her. There needs to be a compelling reason for him to act outside of his nature, which to this point is pretty low key.

Perhaps on p12 she actually does fire at the woman after glaring at Marcus. Marcus freezes time and makes the switch. And your script can go on as before. I do think, if I were Marcus, I'd want to scoop up those blueprints, however.

This is really a very creative, inspired script and will make a fantastic short. Good luck with pre-production.
 
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Thanks for the detiailed review, Scifi!

My main theme that I wanted to translate through the story was how dangerous it is to be somebody you are really not, and when you are not true to yourself.

In the story Marcus wanted to be a bad ass, but as soon as he got on the other side of the gun barrel, he realizes the consequences of his actions. By killing Alisa he kills the part of himself that wanted him to impress Alisa.

Pretty much Alisa is the metaphor for people's behavior that doesn't correspond to who they really are: depressiation of intelligence, and embracmen of ignorance, so some people choose to act stupid to be accepted into social circles. Or fear of harrassement of homosexuality in certain states so gays and lesbians forced to act differently, and not be who they really are.
Or in my example I was not encouraged to speak out against certain political or religious beliefs in order to maintain a harrassement free environment..

So by putting a bullet into alisa, Marcus sort of capitalized and reassures his stand on individuality and saying "no, I will not become like you".

I'm sure there are many ways to tell this story, but this Version strongly speaks to me.
Some people will like it, and some wont haha we will see!

Again, thank you very very much for your read and extremely valuable review !
 
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TIn the story Marcus wanted to be a bad ass, but as soon as he got on the other side of the gun barrel, he realizes the consequences of his actions. By killing Alisa he kills the part of himself that wanted him to impress Alisa.

I respect your choice. All I can say is that is not the sense I get of Marcus. He starts off cowering. He acts threatening but ends up helping the old lady carry her groceries. He's not acting bad ass. Taking money doesn't make him bad ass. He runs from the mobsters, not very bad ass either. It seems like he's trying to impress Alisa. And when the gun goes off, it seems more like he's learning what the device can do. I only got the sense that he was afraid to die. The flashbacks, to me, just emphasized to Marcus the terror the old woman must be experiencing with the gun focused on her. I honestly can't see Marcus killing anyone, he's terrified of a finger. I didn't get the impression that he even killed the engineer. I was led to conclude she did and he simply removed the jewelry. If he's squeamish over a finger, he'd put on bandaids rather than try to stitch himself. Especially, if as you suggest, the gun scene at the bridge convinced him this was a mistake. Why go all bad ass now? It didn't follow. Overall, he seems to me like a Peter Parker-like kid who wouldn't harm a fly with nothing bad ass about him. I think he just needs to be more bad ass from the start in that case. We don't see him transition from bad ass to nice guy. He's just wimp all the way through. I don't see him capable of killing her.

Pretty much Alisa is the metaphor for people's behavior that doesn't correspond to who they really are ... So by putting a bullet into alisa, Marcus sort of capitalized and reassures his stand on individuality and saying "no, I will not become like you".

Again, I respect that. I just didn't get that in the read. Perhaps because TV and movie crime dramas have made women equally sociopathic to men. I took her behaviors at face value. I don't get the impression that he wants to be similar to her, rather he wants her to like him. Very much like women who fall for convicts. They revel in the power the dominant partner exudes but only in their presence. He doesn't come across as wanting to be an individual, he's way too submissive. I didn't get that she was a metaphor, just a killing machine that he desperately wanted to love and change her in the end but couldn't. I can only see him killing her by accident or in self-defense. In my mind, killing her makes him more like her, a killing machine. Which I think is what weakened the symbolism in my mind. "I don't have to be like you. I don't have to kill." speaks more strongly in my mind to his differentiating himself from her.

I'm sure there are many ways to tell this story, but this Version strongly speaks to me.
Some people will like it, and some wont haha we will see!
I totally support that position. For what it's worth, I'm just passing on my impressions of your characters. I can understand what you envision from your descriptions.

My gut response is that the emotional presentation of your characters doesn't match their actions or choices. It's like the 'paint can/paint brush' example you mentioned in another thread. The emotional piece is off. It's my subjective (emotional) read. I think the other elements of your script are well done.
 
Hey maybe instead of killing her in the end, he shoots her, but it only goes through her shoulder, but this is enough for her to finally have some respect for him, and say yes to his proposal.
 
I ll think about it :)
You guys REALLY don't want Alisa to die, eh??? Haha

Quite the contrary, she needs to die. However, Marcus needs to be STRONGLY compelled to act against his cowardly nature. I just don't know if he feels strongly enough in the favor of the old woman to cap Alisa, his more dominant love interest. There's a bit of Stockholm Syndrome there. Maybe if the lady was one of his former teachers, someone whom really cares about, that would create the driving conflict needed to motivate him to shoot Alisa. I just think it's more interesting to have her die by her own hand so that he can remain 'innocent'. I respect that you want him to kill her. As you've said, there are many ways of telling the story. I look forward to seeing your version.
 
I've made a few changes in the final version of the script. Trust me, now you will WANT that b*tch to die haha ;)

Cant wait for your guys to see this movie!
Got the soundtrack figured out, found a couple of interesting locations..

Its going to be AWESOME!

I will post a couple of links soon where people could follow the movie progress. I will be uploading test footages, different sketches of Stasis, their wardrobes, etc.

Again, thank you for reading everyone!
 
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