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critique WORK IN PROGRESS scripts

Hello everyone,

I’m posting some links to some of my scripts. If you want to jump in here’s the links:

1

life as a screenplay miniseries

Logline: An actress turned vigilante hunts down a rapist, afterwards, her sister falls for a club owner caught in the wake.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14lBbnQAvG88A9AwJSjUlHWInl5QMD5za/view?usp=sharing

2

life as screenplay 1st episode coming of age

Logline: Ronnie fills her daughter in about the rape of Miranda.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T_borDcLZKQGgzZt1loeYLlGaRu5AJ8J/view?usp=sharing

3

Bob’s Burgers

Logline: When Bob considers expanding, it is without his family.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y_fnPGa794rZrMqvEmr7uszUFfQMOWRR/view?usp=sharing

4

Fantastic Four script

Log Line: The Fantastic Four gain their powers and their first nemesis is one of their own: Malice.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1StdZCvVOZlXwd6mZJHjF0PtyFhTBXRNI/view?usp=sharing

If you want to know more read below.

Why I’m here. I hope get 1 to be read and get feedback.

2 find a writing partner.

My stuff is ruff. I need help with understanding structure, acts etc. As you’ll see if you take the time to read.
With ADD etc it’s like putting together a puzzle without a picture to go by.

Life as a screenplay: is an early version of my writing. It was to be a movie. I will rework it as a mini-series as it is a springboard to launch four series off from it.

The min-series is I know to descriptive. Closer to that of a novel. These are my babies and I went overboard. Hopefully you can stay with it and just give me feedback on the characters, scenes etc. I plan to make the concept clearer in rewrite. I plan to lose some characters etc. But, the basic idea will be the same.

Life as a screenplay: coming of age E1.

Is the first spin off. It is a coming of age show that will focus on the three girls. I am also reworking this to cover events from the mini-series.

Bob’s Burgers was for a contest I entered. Just read for example of my work.

Fantastic Four the heroes within.

Was meant to be a movie. Then, I had so much it had to be a series. Of course this idea was when FOX had them and wished they were open to ideas. Just read for example of my work.

I think a started to get a style from ‘age’ on.

Anyway, read share your thoughts, here or e-mail me.

clarkratliff@ymail.com

More on Fantastic Four:

A little bit about the script I’m working on and me:

I had planned on making this a movie with about 5 altogether, but I got so into it it would've had to be a series.

So this script is what
would be a season, only a season would be more stretched out and more developed. Such as, the hate monger and Sue/Malice. The Monger would be able to spend a good part of the season messing with her head like it was on the Hannibal TV series.

I of course would have liked to submitted the idea to the studios/comic company but they don't take submissions, ideas etc. I think the idea is there with the right help it could've been interesting. Hopefully something people would've liked. But, we'll never know.

I'm still learning about writing, so, understanding the three act structure etc and time is a challenge for me.

This version is based on the John Byrne era in the 80's. Plus, I tried to honor the original Stan Lee/Kirby version of Sue's dad is in prison for murder and he didn't want Johnny to know, to say he was dead. I took that and tried to build and twist on that. Such as I try to explain why each one has different powers even though same cosmic rays, etc. I twisted things around by having the hate monger play a part in their development making Malice the first villain as he will be a professor-x to Sue. Also, I didn’t like in the comic the Monger was an android I think it was. Mine, he’s just a twisted individual.

I didn't set out to make this version dark just because it's the in thing now, but the first one sets up the others and to come from a place of the FF to be being so dysfunctional. It gave me something to build on.

I added at least three characters that are not I the comic. One, to lighten the mood such as Johnny's agent Amy. It was getting depressing enough to where the script should come with a razor. So she added humor without making it silly (I hope). So my dynamic would be Reed and Sue are the parents and Ben and Johnny are more the kids. Eventually the FF would be more like the comics more fun etc, but they have to get there after all the dysfunction. There's a reason to get there.

So I would like feedback not just from writers, but people who enjoy reading, fans of film and television and of course, fans of the Fantastic Four comic. Do they like my vision of the FF?

I know I could use notes on my writing its self. I have an alphabet of learning disabilities, so stating the obvious may not be that simple for me. I've tried reading script books and checked on a few sites and everyone says something different etc.

So my hopes by putting this out there is one, to get read and hopefully maybe find the Hall to my Oats and find a collaborator who can work with me that has the same twisted visions I have.

Also, just in general, fans of the FF comic, I would like to hear from them as well. Keeping in mind this is a version of them, not trying to say it is the only version, just how I see things. I can go more into here or e-mail me. I could talk for hours about what I would've liked to have done. Things such as, in the comic the ship was on a military base and they stole it and I don't think it was mentioned anymore. I have it where to keep from jail they work with the military for some time. Also, Reed has money, so when he learned of Sue's dad he bought the prison to make sure her dad was taken care of and respected his wishes to remain there.

I have a DVD-Rom of the first 40 years of the FF. I wanted to go through and work it in and honor all that came before, but I wanted to get this out and only if it were go get a lot of request would I continue it. But if no one is interested, then it's just for me. That’s at least one good thing about the internet, you don’t have to suffer alone in never getting anyone to read what you have.

My hope of course is maybe someone will like this version and maybe see fit to let me collaborate on something.

Also, my writing style, though I know it needs work, the overall content, do I capture dialogue well, execute this and that. Basically, is it anything you'd like to see? One of my script heroes is Shane Black. I enjoy just reading his scripts and for someone with ADD etc. That’s saying a lot. I hope to have a style one day like his to have it easy to read/hard to put down and some of the best movies out there.
 
This conversation is hilarious though. I didn't read the scripts, just the conversation, but it's clear that before the semantics argument broke out, a guy wrote a script for Bob's Burgers, where bob leaves his family (abandoning your kids, that's perfect for a comedy!), then wrote a Fantastic Four script, literally a notorious money pit that Roger Corman didn't have enough friends to pull off, then apparently wrote a screenplay called "Life as a Screenplay". I could make jokes about that title, but just picking out which jokes to use would take hours, so pass.

When people are saying "there is no structure or purpose to your writing" and the reply is "I'm leaving, your feedback sucks", I'm able to make a pretty decent educated guess about what's in that 250 page screenplay. This is what happens when people try to reverse engineer things from a superficial perspective. It happens a lot. I would never bother writing anything without the structure in place first, because I'd just have to throw it away. I'd go as far as to say that the structure is the writing, and the exact dialogue is almost more of an opportunity for stylization.

Example scene:

Structure beats -

Rob tells his wife he has been laid off, because the factory is being torn down.

How he tells her, his demeanor and word choices, help define his character. Her reaction and lines help paint her. Her reaction can also be a structure point. Stylization is not a substitute for structure, in the way that wallpaper is not a substitute for foundations or walls.

To write this well, you should know where those lines connect in 4d. Once she hears the news, she becomes worried that they wont be able to pay for Timmy's medicine, a structure point established in an earlier scene. Later on, she will agree to be part in a criminal conspiracy to steal from her employer, because she heard this news. Timmy needs medicine>husband laid off>no money for Medicine>crime for money>tension from crime>dramatic resolution of tension formed by subplot. There's a 4d thread.

So you'd write the lines to compliment the events they were setting up, and direct the actors likewise. I think some people saw the Royale with Cheese scene, and thought you could just write scripts by having two characters chat about nothing for a while, and then interrupt it with some action scenes.
 
Yea, I read the posts too. Humorous, but still, a little, demoralizing. I would love to bump into, on the Netflix, a thing about Bob of Bob's Burgers somehow joining the Fantastic Four. I would be genuinely happy for the guy.
 
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