Feedback on my short

While I think you have an interesting story, it is too hard to follow as you have written it. I have included your first page below:

There is way too much dialogue and not enough visual description of what is happening. Which boy is the one in the middle-- Ben, Tom or Mickey? Why not just say
"Three friends, 18-20s dressed in sports/urban, walk side-by-side, through a rough, neglected
area. MICKEY, surrounded by his friends TOM and BEN, can't contain his news any longer."

Also, there is a lot of redundancy in the conversation. This violates an important principle of good script writing--avoid giving too much exposition. You want to be ruthless and cut it down to what's really important to the script. The important points are Keighley had sex with Harris. Get to the point. Also, break up the conversation with a bit of action so the audience/reader knows what happens between point A and point B. We are at page 3 when we find out that they enter the store. As a general guide, there should be some visual description after every 4-5 exchanges. It makes it far easier to understand what's happening.

And unless you're preparing a shooting script, you don't need to number your scenes.


Unless the details of the blow-by-blow account are REALLY REALLY NECESSARY, keep it short and to the point. It's not important to direct the actions of the actors, but by adding some visual cues, it gives a sense of movement and can show rather than tell the audience/reader what is being felt.

In the slugline, I changed it to be more typical. The "(Continuous)" in this case means that they are moving. I don't need to specify all the details of the location. If I were moving about through a house, I might use continuous and just use the name of the room for reference.

Also, you need to focus on showing not, telling in your descriptions. Also break up distinct actions that might make a single shot. On page 4, you wrote:
"Without even communicating, the three friends run across the road and reign a fury of heavy blows in to the boy." Somehow they did communicate.
As the reader/audience I am watching the scene unfold. If you intend to shoot the script yourself, it often helps to break out the shots. While this is typical of more recent action scripts, older scripts often have dense paragraphs. As a general guide, readers for agencies and production companies often prefer to see more white space on a page.

I think that the story pacing is a bit slow at first. It gets interesting when we start to meet Jimmy. But by that point, I've already started to wander a bit. I think fixing the dialogue and making it more visual will help to keep interest and move the story along to the real meat.

It shows promise. Good luck.

Hi, I Am Tetsu

I enjoyed the read.

What's the story on it being "based very loosely" on a graphic novel? I haven't read the novel, but it raises copyright and story-infringement issues in my mind. Be careful with that.

FantasySciFi has done an excellent job dealing with formatting issues, so I'll forgo mentioning those.

A good rule of thumb when writing a scene is "always begin a scene as late as possible and end it as early as possible." That applies to the entire script, as well. Accordingly, I'm afraid I can't find any good reason for the whole shagging conversation between the three boys that you open with. It doesn't provide me with any deep insight into Mickey's character, nor do the other boys appear anywhere later in the script. Consider opening with Mickey getting the iPod from the boy, and cutting all the rest.

The second suggestion I would make would be to have the conversation between Mickey and JImmy about the reason for their mother's suicide BEFORE their father appears. As it stands, I don't see that anything has changed enough to motivate Jimmy to retaliate against the father; it seems like any other example of the father's brutality that must have occurred often in the past. Why does Jimmy snap THIS particular time? Knowing the truth about his mother WOULD give him leave to react as he does, and would be more believable.

Best of luck with it!

-Charles

Thanks for the feedback guys... You've brought up some very valid points and (when I get a chance) will amend the script a bit.

I wanted to open the script with a bit of banter, between Mickey and his friends, because I wanted to establish straight away that Mickey wasn't your typical 'Good-Guy'. He does swear, he does smoke, he does fight and steal. This would then provide a more three-dimensional character when he eventually shows love and care for his brother, as well as anger. I just wanted to make him a complicated person.

Not only that, I tried to make it seem like an urban British drama, to begin with, before becoming a completely different story when Jimmy is introduced.
I also like the idea of starting a film with a conversation, like in Reservoir Dogs. Although I am aware that Quentin Tarantino's writing is far superior to mine.

Although, after reading your comments, there are several new directions I could start the story with.

Thanks again guys. I appreciate the time you took to read it.