Feedback Appreciated

[ronibrown]

Hello all! Here are the first 10 pages to my horror film "The Devil's Door"

Logline: The bridge between our world and the world of evils is found in a little girl.


Read the Passage here!


Thanks!

 

[FantasySciFi]

Hello all! Here are the first 10 pages to my horror film "The Devil's Door"
Logline: The bridge between our world and the world of evils is found in a little girl.

Read the Passage here!

Thanks!

This doesn't go to where you want it to go. It leads to a web hosting service advertisement. By typing in the link directly, I was able to navigate to the document.

-----------------------------
I'm assuming this is a production script, as a spec script normally would not use the camera references. There are grammar and punctuation errors scattered throughout.
Ex: "Noone" -> No one or Nobody
"A baby gasp for air O.S." -> "A baby (O.S.) gasps for air."
etc.
"The priest composes his self." -> The priest composes himself.

Content points:
DMSA or DMSP are used for heavy metal poisoning, not DMSN.
" ... NICU BEEP ..." - > "... Neonatal Intensive Care Unit beep ..." (production crew shouldn't have to guess)
"Images of Evil arise. Demonic paintings and drawings. Disturbing prophicies and text. ..." How are you going to show "Disturbing prophecies and text", especially in the home movies section?

Formatting Points:
Not every sound needs to be capitalized. Only those which are uncharacteristic for the scene. Also if a character has no speaking role, there is no reason to capitalize the name (when he flips of the man).

Many of these paragraphs have multiple actions being carried out by different actors which should be broken out.

The dialogue could be handled better in some places. It's too chatty and irrelevant.

Will turns on classical music.

                 WILL (CONT’D)
     Classical music is good for the baby.

                 JOLEE
     It sure is. Calms them down.

Jolee coos at Baby Sammie.
--------------------
Could have been condensed to:

Will turns on classical music.  Sammie begins to calm down.  Jolee smiles and 
coos at the baby.

Storyline, to this point, is pretty standard for this kind of feature. I think the scene with the 'crazy priest' was a bit unbelievable. Since nothing was explained, it was a rather pointless addition. Why didn't they just lock the car? Why was he running along the cars? Why did he just plunge to his death? From that point on, the death is only referenced as a reason for moving. Since it serves no purpose, just cut it out. Start the intrigue part with the stranger watching at the birthday party.

After the "rolling credits" line, it would probably have been better to use a "SERIES - SAMMIE GROWING UP" and then broken out the shots. It's bothersome to read through the paragraphs to identify the separate shots.

The writing, overall, is good but needs some basic revisions.

 

[ronibrown]

thanks

thanks. the point with the priest killing hisself (himself) becomes significant later in the story so it stays. I think it intrugued you, since you want it out so it did it's job. It's a book mark for what happens later, the story later splits into two storylines. From Jolee's point of view then it flips to the man standing outside the birthday party and they join together for the final act.

Do you think the dialogue is really chatty? Two lines about classical music and a baby doesn't seem that chatty to me. I'll see what a few more people say before removing the two lines.

With the medical jargon I have some research to do for sure, the scene in the emergency room and a few other scenes later will need to be tightened up with the medical talk. I kind of tossed in what I heard on Grey's Anatomy, lol. I'm not even sure if the remedy they used on the baby would actually kill her in real life.

I do write in shooting scripts because I produce what I write so I go ahead and kill two birds with one stone and add the camera references, although a camera reference like O.S. is necessary even to a spec script. It should probably actually be worded (O.S.) a baby gasp for air, now that I really look at it.

Disturbing prophecies OF text it will be changed to. Although you can show prophecies such as Nostrodomis' cual train paintings, biblical drawings from Revelations, etc. I'm sure you've seen it in films before. How to describe it in the script is the question. In other words it's simply a series of gruesome threatening foretelling images mixed with images of the little girl growing up, so I'll reword that if that isn't clear.

 

[ronibrown]

Here is the google doc link! sorry you'll have to copy and paste into your browser I know I know

 

[ronibrown]

This doesn't go to where you want it to go. It leads to a web hosting service advertisement. By typing in the link directly, I was able to navigate to the document.

-----------------------------
I'm assuming this is a production script, as a spec script normally would not use the camera references. There are grammar and punctuation errors scattered throughout.
Ex: "Noone" -> No one or Nobody
"A baby gasp for air O.S." -> "A baby (O.S.) gasps for air."
etc.
"The priest composes his self." -> The priest composes himself.

Content points:
DMSA or DMSP are used for heavy metal poisoning, not DMSN.
" ... NICU BEEP ..." - > "... Neonatal Intensive Care Unit beep ..." (production crew shouldn't have to guess)
"Images of Evil arise. Demonic paintings and drawings. Disturbing prophicies and text. ..." How are you going to show "Disturbing prophecies and text", especially in the home movies section?

Formatting Points:
Not every sound needs to be capitalized. Only those which are uncharacteristic for the scene. Also if a character has no speaking role, there is no reason to capitalize the name (when he flips of the man).

Many of these paragraphs have multiple actions being carried out by different actors which should be broken out.

The dialogue could be handled better in some places. It's too chatty and irrelevant.

Will turns on classical music.

                 WILL (CONT’D)
     Classical music is good for the baby.

                 JOLEE
     It sure is. Calms them down.

Jolee coos at Baby Sammie.
--------------------
Could have been condensed to:

Will turns on classical music.  Sammie begins to calm down.  Jolee smiles and 
coos at the baby.

Storyline, to this point, is pretty standard for this kind of feature. I think the scene with the 'crazy priest' was a bit unbelievable. Since nothing was explained, it was a rather pointless addition. Why didn't they just lock the car? Why was he running along the cars? Why did he just plunge to his death? From that point on, the death is only referenced as a reason for moving. Since it serves no purpose, just cut it out. Start the intrigue part with the stranger watching at the birthday party.

After the "rolling credits" line, it would probably have been better to use a "SERIES - SAMMIE GROWING UP" and then broken out the shots. It's bothersome to read through the paragraphs to identify the separate shots.

The writing, overall, is good but needs some basic revisions.

Question, was it obvious the priest was coming after the baby? Again its the first 10 pages so the whole story behind the priest isnt there. But I do want the audience to see he was coming after Jolee and Will's car on a mission and not just going into a random car that could have been anyones. Also they didnt lock the door because not all people lock the door when they get in the car. I'm guilty of that one, I could be carjacked at any moment of the day.

 

[FantasySciFi]

thanks. the point with the priest killing hisself (himself) becomes significant later in the story so it stays. I think it intrugued you, since you want it out so it did it's job. It's a book mark for what happens later, the story later splits into two storylines. From Jolee's point of view then it flips to the man standing outside the birthday party and they join together for the final act.

I can understand from a writer's view how you want this to appear. However, as a 3rd party viewer, I didn't get that sense. It wasn't intriguing as much as disjointed. If the baby's eyes glowed and then the priest when zombi-like and jumped off the bridge, it would be expected for the possession genre but also give a reason for this abrupt behavior. As it is, a priest just kind of bolts between cars in a traffic jam, splatters up against her window, and then hurtles himself off a bridge. I had the sense it scared her but nothing more--as a viewer. If the scene is vital, I would have him say something meaningful and prophetic before he takes the dive.

Do you think the dialogue is really chatty? Two lines about classical music and a baby doesn't seem that chatty to me. I'll see what a few more people say before removing the two lines.

It's not endlessly chatty. I only pulled it as one example of how it could be tightened. There the dialogue really doesn't convey anything that can't be shown. The dialogue in the NICU, the dialogue at the kid's party could be made more visual with fewer words. As a verbal writer myself, tightening dialogue is always a challenge. And sometimes, artistically, the choice is to keep it in (which is usually when the director ruthlessly cuts it out!). It is a fine line. I think you have some good scenes. Since it's your show, it is your choice. My personal suggestion would to look at the dialogue to see if it is really relevant to the flow of the scene. In the end, it saves you money to have a tighter production.

With the medical jargon I have some research to do for sure, the scene in the emergency room and a few other scenes later will need to be tightened up with the medical talk. I kind of tossed in what I heard on Grey's Anatomy, lol. I'm not even sure if the remedy they used on the baby would actually kill her in real life.

You'll always have the medical folk who will laugh about it after the fact. Most shows have their share of mistakes. When I need to write legal stuff, I have a paralegal friend read it over. Again, most audience members you could inject the kid with paraminoniquilidine* and no one would care. I like to make sure my scripts are as reliably accurate. (*I made that up, btw.)

You're asking the audience to suspend reality. There are many legal hurdles that would preclude a baby from a crime scene to be adopted by an attending physician. Having the child as a foster parent and then later adopting her would be more plausible for a small town. Most avid horror watchers will forgo a certain amount of commonsense to enjoy the real entertainment--the demonic possessions, etc. But after the show, the inconsistencies are what people will comment upon. At least my friends, who are self-anointed movie critics, do this.

I do write in shooting scripts because I produce what I write so I go ahead and kill two birds with one stone and add the camera references, although a camera reference like O.S. is necessary even to a spec script. It should probably actually be worded (O.S.) a baby gasp for air, now that I really look at it.

Actually, I was going to suggest you take out the reference to the baby altogether. I mean a cough or gasp that is unseen, how can you know it's a baby or a small child? So in the script, I would have written something like, "The CHIEF stops when he hears a faint gasping in the distance. He jogs in the direction of the small sputter." Again from the audience perspective, there's no reason to assume it is a baby unless you specifically say "... from a mound of bodies the CHIEF hears the small squawl of a baby."

Disturbing prophecies OF text it will be changed to. Although you can show prophecies such as Nostrodomis' cual train paintings, biblical drawings from Revelations, etc. I'm sure you've seen it in films before. How to describe it in the script is the question. In other words it's simply a series of gruesome threatening foretelling images mixed with images of the little girl growing up, so I'll reword that if that isn't clear.

You hit it on the head. The script describes what the audience will be seeing, so just put the images in the series of shots instead of "disturbing prophecies ...":
....
D. INTERFADING SHOTS of Nostradamus' quatrains with biblical woodcuts from Revelations

What was drilled into me, is that a strong script is a good blueprint and is cost effective. As the director, you have great flexibility. I think the writing in the first 12 pages is overall good. Obviously without the whole script, I can only comment on what I've read. Based on that, the priest scene is without context that comes later. I like your idea of converging storylines. I would anchor this key scene with some cryptic remark that pulls everything together in the end.

The priest's hands smack against the window causing Jolene to jump and 
clutch Sammie tightly to her.

                             WILL
        What the f....

He starts to get out of the car.  Jolene reaches over and grabs him.  He
pauses and looks at her then proceeds.

Will comes around the car, the headlights reflecting off his pants as he
hurries around the front towards the priest, his arm and fist cocking back.

PRIEST (50s) stands his eyes wide, hair cast about wildly, his hands wringing
as he totters anxiously.

                             PRIEST
          They wait breathless at the keyhole ...
          watching ... waiting ... I know!

He casts his eyes at the baby, calm and asleep in Jolene's arms.

The priest moves towards the car.

Will steps between and punches the priest, knocking him to the ground.

The priest starts to rise.  He gazes up at Will's menacing figure.  He pulls himself
upright and moves away from the car.  His lip is bleeding.

Obviously I'm fabricating based on later facts I don't have here. But the idea is now the audience sees that the priest is connected to the kid and the kid has a special role. There is also a visual sense of futility if you use a worm view shot, so the priest is 'defeated'. Now he has a reason, perhaps, for taking his own life.

Sounds like a cool movie. I'm really curious about your converging storylines. Best wishes.