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Anyone want to look over movie script?

M

movieman1005

I just finished the first draft. I cannot seem to find a way to post it publicly, but will gladly send it to anyone who asks. Please give me an email to send it to, as thats the only ay I know how to send it. Comments preferred to be posted here or through an email. Feedback appreciated!

NOTE: Read before reading script. You may realize this script is not in the professional form. There is a REASON for that. First of all, please realize that I am in high school, so the people I will be working on this with are also in high chool. They know much less about this than I do, so I wanted to make it as easy for them to read as possible. I know it can seem a little ameteur, but I had them in mind. It should still be readable. ALSO, I am looking for advice mostly on the actual story, sequence, dialogue, etc, not the grammar mistakes in the script. Please give advice on that, and not on other stuff. I just want to see how good this story seems. Thanks again!

p.s. Any title sugg. for this script would be appreciated. Can't think of a darn thing!

p.p.s. I thought this would be a feature length project, but it seems it would only be about a half hour, maybe a little longer.

P.p.p.s. The story is of two groups of people (teens)who end up tangled up in a situation, but don;t know that the other group works for organizations that are enemies of eachother.

p.p.p.p.s.Kind of weird sypnosis at first glance, but the script tells it better.
 
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Back there when I was at Seminary School,
I knew a man there who put forth the proposition
that every screenplay should be put into the closest thing you can get
to correct screenplay format.

There's a REASON any screenwriter should, and needs to, train themselves to work in the format, not just because others expect it, but because it's part of the process to disciplined filmmaking.

I wouldn't harp on it, except I'm not suggesting you invest $$$ to buy Final Draft etc ... there are basic FREE format downloads, I suspect.

If you're in highschool, I salute you for writing and filmmaking. But one should always try to do it RIGHT.

Hell, I was in a college TELECOMM class, and the professor didn't demand we use absolutely correct format ... and in later years I thought: There was one sloppy, lazy bastard who wasn't teaching us the discipline a class full of students was PAYING to be taught.

So there's the best and sincerest advice I can offer you! (Better than any help I could give you reading a movie)
Don't allow yourself slack, don't ask others to allow you slack ...
because someday you will be in a dog-eat-dog competition with someone who NEVER had any slack.
And You will be the 10,000 Persians who find themselves unexpectedly up against the 400 Spartans who won't let you pass.

And nothing is EASIER to read than the proper SPEC screenplay format (which doesn't have camera angles or moves or shots, as you know)

That's so the idiots who greenlight movies (rather than we artistic souls who CREATE movies) don't have their haids 'splode from READING.
 
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I agree with SoulCinema. You don't want to start out by developing bad habits. You should really strive to know the rules and follow them before breaking them. I have friends and family read my scripts in progress, and it only takes a few minutes to explain the abbreviations. Plus, the format breaks down to roughly one minute of screen time per page, so you can get a decent idea how long your finished film will be based on the number of pages you have written. There's a method to the madness.

We had a good discussion on spec format here:

http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=12739&highlight=spec+format
 
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I finally got around and read it. I'm not some film critic or anything, but I'll just say what I think in plain words. First things first--just like SoulCinema and VPTurner have said, you should use proper script formatting. It can be learned pretty easily, especially if you use Final Draft, or CeltX(it's free). It took me about a month to learn pretty much everything about it, without any help. It will help you (if you ever decide to write scripts "for real") and it will make reading easier. Although you said:
First of all, please realize that I am in high school, so the people I will be working on this with are also in high chool. They know much less about this than I do, so I wanted to make it as easy for them to read as possible
Click to expand...
I find it confusing to read, and it would be much easier to read it if it was in proper format.

For the script itself--don't take this wrong way, but it's not anything special. There are no grammatical errors, which is refreshing, but the story itself is weird. So these 15 year old kids are some kind of secret agents? They have skills and gear of a CIA agent. How did they get them? In intro it's said that they just decided to use them for fighting other kids and that's it. It sounds like Spy Kids or whatever, I can't tell for sure, because I never saw that movie.

It would also help to name your characters because names like number1, number 2 etc. are not names. They must either have real names, or some kind of code names. One more thing--I didn't get the part where "numbers" are captured. First they are knocked unconscious, then they escape, then they are captured again in matter of minutes, then they escape again. How did all that play out?

To conclude, this needs a lot of work. I'm not saying this because I enjoy to bash someone, but because no one will take it seriously as it is now. If you're gonna film it yourself, then improve the story. If you're looking for more feedback, use proper format.
 
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fyi: This is the first script or project ive ever attempted. Thanks for criticism. I was planning on doing everything with the script format right in the future anyway. I have the free software. Any sugg. for short films?
 
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