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Script Review Questions:

Birdman

Birdman

Using online script review companies:

I have written a full-length SciFi Adventure. It would be similar on the intellectuality meter as "The Fifth Element." It's a fun, over-the-top Sci Fi with many elements of comedy along with a more serious premise lying underneath. It is not at all like "ALIEN", ...but it has the slapstick shoot-em-up fun like "AILEN II".

I submitted my script to an online review outfit and I got slammed fairly hard. The problem is I can tell by my review that the reader was "looking" for something other than what the movie is really all about. The reader was expecting a serious Science Fiction script (Like "X-Files") where careful research should have been done for believability.

The reviewer provided a synopsis of the movie at the beginning of the review which did not reflect what actually happens in the script. I have an evil alien race in my script. The reviewer had the wrong alien race being the evil race in their synopsis. The reviewer also had the wrong aliens having the ability to do shit "at will" that they don't have the power to do in the script. ...Very confusing!

I have my lead character needing to use a Titan supercomputer to transmit a message back to her people. She re-aligns satellites and causes all kinds of mayhem using this supercomputer. I chose this route because there was a larger "fun factor" available with a supercomputer than her using a satellite dish or radio transmitter (as the reviewer felt would have been "more believable"). What would appeal more to an audience? A cute little alien girl melting the U.S. government's $170M supercomputer and disrupting the world? ...or sending a signal out over a radio tower in true scientifically-correct fashion?

This all leads to my questions:

(1) How much credit should one place on these professional online script reviews?

(2) My script is not a comedy, but it's also not a serious sci fi. "The Fifth Element" was not a comedy, but it wasn't a serious sci fi either. "Galaxy Quest" was clearly a Sci Fi comedy. How does one denote a Sci Fi as to reflect what it really is? BTW: I listed "Sci Fi Adventure" as my genre.

(3) The major complaint I received was "unrealistic characters". Was Zorn a realistic character in "The Fifth Element"? I have my characters doing off-the-wall things because the entire movie is off-the-wall. Is it just "luck of the draw" on who reads/reviews your script that they understand why your characters are the way that they are or behave the way that they do?

If your reviewer is expecting Lord Marshal (from Chronicles of Riddick) and you've designed your bad guy to be more like Zorn, you're doomed from the start because of the reviewer's pre-determined expectations. Is this a common occurrence in the "script review world?" Do you face the same thing when Producers/Agents review your scripts?

(4) I have my main character sliding an object of great desire into her chest pocket. After that a bunch of shit happens. She ends up zooming away in a damaged escape craft after mayhem and a huge explosion. After that I have her relaxing, then suddenly slapping her chest, sighing, and pulling the object from her chest pocket to admire it.

What I was conveying was that she was worried that she may have lost the valuable object in all the mayhem, so she slaps her chest to feel and make sure she didn't drop it. I have done this many times with my wallet. It is a common thing to do. My script reviewer criticized me for not thoroughly explaining why she slapped her chest. At the same time I was told to strip my page count from 125 pages to no more than 110.

Here's the rub. MOST of you guys say not to include a lot of character instruction. Keep the action short and tight. Sure, I can FULLY EXPLAIN why she slapped her chest, or I can simply figure that most people would understand this as a common reaction when you think you've lost something. Unfortunately, when you make all of this shit perfectly clear ....your page count gets higher and higher. So what do you do in this case? Hell, the reviewer can't make out what's happening with 125 pages ...so how can I explain it even more clearly with 110 pages?

Lastly,

I feel like my reviewer didn't really read my script. I think my reviewer made it through the first 25% and pre-judged it based on that. I think it got skimmed after that section. Most of the reviewer's comments reflected shit happening during that section of the script. ...Is this most likely the case? ...Anyone else had this happen?

-Birdman
 
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Inarius said:
What do you mean?
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Oh, C'mon, man, ...You know. You can write in multi-million dollar effects with a few taps of your keypad.

Here we go:

"Twenty seven gigantic spaceships emerge from a moon-sized alien craft floating over the New York skyline. They fire lasers into skyscrapers. The skyscrapers explode and fall onto city streets killing thousands of people."


See? ...I just spent $100 million dollars.

-Birdman

P.S. Sadly, even with my humorous example, I STILL can't spend money faster than the U.S. Government.
 
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Inarius said:
What do you mean?
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Seriously?

Great (OTT) example, B'man!

Inarious, it could be as simple as the writer making the setting in NY city, London, Paris, or Jerusalem rather than in some unremarkable generic metropolitan city.

The writer could write "the car crashes and explodes" instead of "the car crashes" or even "the car drives off the road."

"The wedding had hundreds in attendance" instead of "the wedding had dozens in attendance."

The crime thiller setting is 1975 when it could just as easily be in a contemporary setting.

"The antagonist pulls a mini-gun from the trunk of his car" which could easily be "The antagonist pulls a M4 rifle from the trunk of his car".

Six body guards when two or three would suffice.

Party bus when limo would suffice.

Alien requiring CGI when prosthetics & make up would suffice.

That sort of stuff.
 
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Birdman said:
As per my previous stats I really only have five characters of noteworthy consequence, so I'm on par with what you suggest. The rest are there to bounce off these five characters and allow them to shine.

The biggest problem I'm having: I have six aliens land. They assume the bodies of six humans. Later they revert back to their alien bodies ...and the idea was to give just a few small clues that they weren't in the human bodies. I wanted to keep the audience guessing/wondering who was who.

In my case I have the six aliens "cloaked" in the woods. The six humans are a government investigative team (NSA Agents) that arrive shortly afterwards. Green laser lines criss cross the humans creating the suspicion something is happening. In the scene they just become "surprised", but seem to be perfectly okay. When they emerge from the bottom of a hill they are the aliens (who have killed them and assumed their likenesses).

The audience doesn't realize what has happened until later in the movie when my lead character uses a device that "mimics" another human. When she uses the device, the victim is suddenly criss crossed with green laser lines. This clues the audience to what happened to the six agents way back in the beginning.

My analyst thought the agents (aliens) didn't ask "true" government agent questions. ...But these aliens are just winging it! They're using what little they know to pass themselves off as agents and all of the questions they are asking are focused on one thing: Finding the female alien. The government doesn't know the alien is female or anything about her.

Now the hard part:

Keeping all of this straight to where I can keep a page-skimming analyst engaged and not add more pages to a 125 page script.





...I didn't know that! I hope he did a better job than Tarantino does in his movies.

Thanks for the feedback,
-Birdman
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Birdman, this sounds really cool but I would imagine that if your aliens are too awkward as agents that it may either (A) spoil the ending because something's already off about them or (B) make it hard to follow and take away from the ending in that aspect. I imagine that having the aliens come off as competent agents would create a greater effect at the end. Of course, there should be something about them that clued us in to who they really are (something small/misleading that makes sense in retrospect but doesn't give away the ending). Of course I say this not reading your script but I'm all for the false setup. For example, something about these "agents" makes them seem corrupt or up to something maybe but in the end we see that they simply aren't human.
 
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Just some examples of the reviews I got from various websites(not from professional review services out there)...:
"Slayer of Mage and Sorcerers is a very poor title for a very poor effort"
"The dialogue is mostly pretty lame but does get a little better toward the end"
"He goes around killing witches and destroying demons without any trouble from police."
And for another script:
"They say to just keep writing as it is the law of physics that you have to get better, but in all honesty the brutal truth please stop!"
"This just didn't seem like a lot of effort was put into this. If that's an unfair assumption I apologize, but the outcome is weak and sloppy."
Another script, another website:
"Just reading the first few lines one realizes that it would be easier to say what was NOT wrong with the script"
"Erg, I give up.

The entire thing reads like a bad ‘hack and slash’ Dungeons & Dragons game, and I’m afraid that the only thing I can say that is good about it is that it’s short."
Of course, from the same websites I also got wonderful reviews that were really helpful...:) I mean, I know I'm not at a very high screenwriting level so I never ever expect who knows what praises or someone to tell me that my writing is great and so on, but come on...Criticize positively, point ou the errors and give solutions, don't simply write that my script is horrible(I already know that) in a thousand different ways...
 
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directorik said:
This is strange logic. Are you deliberately misunderstand the point? Or do
honestly not understand it?
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You're talking about taking part in a movie making, seeing and learning what is written and what is likely to be made. What is real, what is not, what is suggested, what is easier, what is faster, what is cheaper... And how a screenwriter learns what should be written in the screenplay, so that the producer won't be scared by thinking how much he needs to fund it.

Was that the point?

And why do you think this logic is strange? I'm not talking about exaggerating with expensive settings, but suppose if I explode a few cars in my script, they can change it, so that cars will be shot to the wheels and drive off the road.

If you're talking about something else, please explain.
 
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It is understood that you may have explosions and "car damage" in a script. A certain amount of expense is expected. You can probably have cars crashing into each other at an intersection and a big gang-banger fight break out in your script without raising too many eyebrows.

...But what if (according to your script) your car collision/fight happens in the middle of New York's busiest intersection during rush hour?

You have to pay the film crew to set up everything at the intersection, pay for security, crowd control, arrange for your actors to get to New York, staging areas, stunt men, props, ...and of course, ...give de Blasio a nice little bonus on the side for him to "allow" you access to the N.Y. streets during rush hour.

Sure, a scene like this can be changed to Ashland, Nebraska or something closer to home ...but if your characters are black, inner-city thugs selling crack on the N.Y. city streets ...then they'll look kinda funny wrecking their cars into a bunch of hay-chewin' white boy Cornhuskers.

-Birdman
 
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