• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

critique Script Critique?

S

Scorer

I have finished the first draft of a script that I plan on filming in March. It was supposed to be around a 15-20 min. short but wound up being 40 pages. In any case, I was hoping a couple of the regulars here might read it and give me critique on form, writing, story, characters, dialogue, etc.

I plan on registering it with the WGA after I have my final draft, but beforehand I would like some opinions. Because it is not yet registered though, I am a little bit hesitant to let it out to public eye. Looking for trustworthy filmmakers that understand the integrity of intellectual property, and wouldn't mind taking the time to read and respond to my script.

It is called Fink, and it details the story of a criminal in organized crime turning informer and telling his story in a preliminary interrogation.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
I do objective script critiques, and my general areas of writing are fantasy and sci-fi so you won't have to worry about me ripping you off.

(I do have a mobster/informant scene at the beginning of one of my screenplays, but A) I'm happy with what I've already written, and B) the overall plot is about asteroid mining.)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Okay, so, not too shabby, and a decent ending.

The biggest problem are all of the description sections that go into unshowable detail:

DAVID EAMES looks at JACKIE in shock. Until now, the
connection between AL GAINES and mob boss TONY CAPPA was
unknown to authorities.
Click to expand...

That second sentence should not be there. Only write what can be shown on the screen. There's a lot of these scattered throughout, so remove them and replace them with visual descriptions of what the audience should actually see.

There's a few spelling errors (like "metal" instead of "medal") but nothing major.

The only other issue is that, aside from the surprise ending (which was pretty well done), nothing unexpected happens. For a short film, that's fine, but for something that's 40 pages it kinda drags a bit -- it's just this guy narrating and the audience knows pretty much exactly what's going to happen on-screen before it happens.

Make some things unknown until they happen. For example, the death of Donnie shouldn't be known until it actually happens. Leave it a mystery up until that point so the audience isn't just sitting there waiting for something to happen that they already know about.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
escher said:
Okay, so, not too shabby, and a decent ending.

The biggest problem are all of the description sections that go into unshowable detail:



That second sentence should not be there. Only write what can be shown on the screen. There's a lot of these scattered throughout, so remove them and replace them with visual descriptions of what the audience should actually see.

There's a few spelling errors (like "metal" instead of "medal") but nothing major.

The only other issue is that, aside from the surprise ending (which was pretty well done), nothing unexpected happens. For a short film, that's fine, but for something that's 40 pages it kinda drags a bit -- it's just this guy narrating and the audience knows pretty much exactly what's going to happen on-screen before it happens.

Make some things unknown until they happen. For example, the death of Donnie shouldn't be known until it actually happens. Leave it a mystery up until that point so the audience isn't just sitting there waiting for something to happen that they already know about.
Click to expand...

Those description sections I had in mind for the actors, but if they are not proper in a script I will remove them. Also, now that you point it out, I totally understand what you mean about the audience knowing about everything before hand. I wanted him to be explaining most of the back while the film actually shows it, but that can be done while still leaving a bit of mystery. Thanks for that tip, I think it will help tremendously, and thanks for taking your time to give me some advice :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Scorer said:
Those description sections I had in mind for the actors, but if they are not proper in a script I will remove them. Also, now that you point it out, I totally understand what you mean about the audience knowing about everything before hand. I wanted him to be explaining most of the back while the film actually shows it, but that can be done while still leaving a bit of mystery. Thanks for that tip, I think it will help tremendously, and thanks for taking your time to give me some advice :)
Click to expand...

The description sections is something I had to practice at as well. For example, instead of saying, "CHARACTER feels uncomfortable", describe how that character behaves when he/she feels uncomfortable. This is how you build unique characters. You don't have to describe every little detail, just the major important actions and expressions that convey the feeling properly.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If you want to see an example of how I personally think description sections should be designed, ask and I'll send you a fragment of a screenplay I'm writing where the characters' body language and attitude/mental-state is a huge part of their character. (This is the screenplay where I figured out how to write description sections by trial and error -- my first attempt was horrible, but constant revisions helped me mold it into shape.)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I would love to look at your example actually, thanks!


And yeah I was wondering how far to go with describing things because I wanted to give the actors a little freedom of choice, and as far as industry standard went, I wasn't sure how much was too much or too little.

I was wondering on your opinion of the characters in my script? Any good or bad points? Also, what do you feel about Eames? I wasn't quite sure what to do with his personality, as he is in part just there to ask questions and keep the story moving, so I just tried to convey him as a typical detective that doesn't know much at all about what he is investigating (not uncommon in organized crime, even the Italian mafia until the last two decades.)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The characters were fairly generic. There was the still-criminal-informant guy, the stereotypical detective-interrogator guy, and a handful of stock mob guys. Thing is, for this script that actually works. If it was feature-length you'd definitely want to work on making them unique, but for 40 pages it seemed to work out okay.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Scorer, I've PM'd you a link to that screenplay fragment. There's still a few remnants of non-showable description lines scattered throughout, but most of them have been fixed up.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top