Feedback on Script - Island (Horror) (31 Pages So Far)

Hi Ben,

You have a few issues with this, the most serious of which has prevented me from reading further than page 7... You’re mixing up your own characters. It begins on page 6, when Nick suddenly becomes Greg. I had continued to read, assuming that you’d simply forgotten to mention that Greg was also in the room. However, on page 8 Alex speaks to Greg, who laughs, before Nick speaks, directly answering Alex's preceding question. You really need to fix this, as it makes it very difficult to follow.

Other than that, a few other issues:

Your first scene is EXT. AIRPORT – DAY, where a plane takes off. We are then seeing a computer screen. The way you have it written, this computer screen should be somewhere outside the airport, where the slugline has told us the scene is set. We know that the computer screen is actually being watched by Nina, who is on the plane – the following slugline informs us of this. It feels as if you’re trying to be too clever about this. You’re trying to withhold information in order to reveal thing in a certain order, the way you might when writing prose. However, with screen writing, you really ought to try to be more blatant about things. Show us where this computer screen is and tell us who’s watching it, before showing us what’s on the screen.

You might want to consider some form of description for the plane. With no point of reference, having never been privileged enough to fly on such a plane, I have no idea what a plane with a lounge and a lab actually looks like. The only thing I can think of to reference this against is the plane in “Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Is that the sort of thing I should be picturing?

Nina’s first line on page 2 has (to Greg) in parenthesis. This shouldn’t be there. She’s been talking to Greg all along, and you haven’t put it on any of her other lines. It just needs deleting.

You’re use of a montage seems wrong to me, although I’m not completely sure of how to use them myself. You shouldn’t have scene headings within the montage, as that pretty much defeats the purpose of having the montage in the first place. In fact, I don’t see this needing to be a montage at all – each part just follows on from the one before, so really, you’re just showing Nina cultivating a sample. I’d remove the montage and just write it as part of the scene.

Other than those issues, your screenplay is relatively well formatted. Certainly more so than a lot of first time screen writers tend to present. Some of the dialogue feels a bit forced, but I’m sure that will be fixed in a subsequent re-write.

If you could fix some of these problems (particularly that of the mixed up characters), I’d be happy to continue reading some more.

Keep at it!

Your story is quite good. I like how you hook the reader on page 1 with the hospital patient. Your dialogue is also good. As for the slug lines, instead of saying:

EXT. ISLAND - RESORT - VOLLEYBALL FIELD - DAY

Why not just name the Island at the beginning and explain it's a resort. Then if the Island is called Turnberry for example you can now use something like this:

EXT. TURNBERRY VOLLEYBALL FIELD - DAY

Thank you so much for the feedback, guys!!

mad_hatter, thanks for letting know about the character mix-ups on page 6-7. I can't believe I overlooked that as I was writing that scene. Just letting you know that the only three characters interacting in that scene are Nick, Alex, and Nina, and Greg isn't involved, so I went ahead and switched all the Gregs to Nick. Hopefully that will make the read a bit easier.

I also attempted to address the COMPUTER SCREEN slugline and have added small descriptions for certain locations on the plane. I originally wrote the lab as a LAB ROOM, but it's essentially a small lab station on the plane where the researchers can analyse the cell cultures, not an entire room dedicated to being a lab, that would be a bit too much for a small plane. And no, the plane is not meant to be an "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D" type of aircraft; I haven't seen the show but based on the films you're thinking that it is a very large aircraft but it's really not.

Here is a link to the updated script: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B56PpALhta-ZVEFkeUdtX3hOdEk/view?usp=sharing

Let me know what you think

I've read a bit further on, although you've still got some character mix-up's there on page 7.

You're directing inside the script. Not as much as some people do, but you are doing it, normally within brackets. For example; Nina (only her hands can be seen) opens up one of the... The director will decide what will be seen. You ought to remove the bracketed part, and just write what Nina does.

This whole montage section doesn't need the sluglines. You can write that whole section as one continuous piece. It's the same with the part after the crash. You seem to be cutting from FOREST AREA to FOREST AREA to FOREST AREA... It's unnecessary. Having FOREST AREA - TREE is 100% unneccessary. Just say that Nina sees the tree.

Does Nina wake up in the CRASH SITE? Or is she away from the crash? I think the whole cut to the crash site doesn't really work. It's advised to not use transitions, but I think in this case you may want a CUT TO BLACK beforehand. Perhaps somebody else can advise on this.

Keep going!