My first attempt at this

[ilovemovies]

This isn't of coarse the first time I've attempted to write a screenplay. But it is, sadly, the first one I've gotten this far in.

So here are the first 9 1/2 pages of my first screenplay. I do know that I have to fix some formatting issues but any other opinions would be greatly appreciated:




INT. WILL’S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

Will lies there. Bloody and bruised on his shoulder and above the eye. It’s a small hotel room. Only one room and a bathroom.

Suddenly, he wakes up.

He looks around the room. He’s confused. He doesn’t recognize his area. In fact, he doesn’t recognize or remember anything.

He looks at the blanket on him. It’s drenched with blood.

He throws it to the ground, in a panic.

He touches his chest. He’s got blood on him as well.

He jumps out of the bad and into the bathroom. He looks into the mirror. He searches his body but doesn’t find a wound. The blood does not appear to be his.

He nervously looks at the closet by the door.

He very slowly creeps slowly to the closet. He then very slowly opens the closet.

The closet is open and nothing is in it.

He briefs a sigh of relief. He turns around and looks at the bed.

He searches through his pants pockets.

He then walks over to his coat on a chair next to the bed.

He searches the coat’s pockets.

All he finds are some matches from a local bar.


INT. WILL’S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

Will is in the bathroom, in the shower washing the blood off himself.


EXT. RESTAURANT PARKING LOT - NIGHT

Will is outside in the parking lot of the restaurant and walks in.


INT. BAR - NIGHT

He walks into the bar and takes a seat. The bartender comes to his service.


BARTENDER
Mr. Worthington, you’re back tonight.


WILL
I’ve been here before?


BARTENDER
Of coarse. In fact, you were just here
a few hours ago. What can I get you
now?


WILL
I’ll just get what I got earlier.


BARTENDER
Alright, I’ll be right back with your beer.


WILL
Thank you.


The bartender smiles and walks away.

Will looks around trying to see if he can remember anything. But he is not successful. Nothing around is familiar to him.

The bartender comes back with his drink.


BARTENDER
Here you go.

WILL
Thank you.

Will takes a sip of his drink.

He turns around and sees this mysterious old man in the corner. Something about this old man seems strange and it really catches his attention.

He turns briefly put his drink back on the table and turns back to look at the old man but he’s gone.

Will gets up and looks around. He sees nothing.

He looks out the window and sees what looks like the old man walking away from the restaurant and out of sight.

Will then grabs some money and leaves it on the counter and runs out of the restaurant.


EXT. OUTSIDE OF RESTAURANT - NIGHT

Will runs out but no one is in sight. He looks around. He’s completely gone.

He turns back and he sees from afar. Three people in the empty parking lot in the stores in the same area as the restaurant and they are creating a lot of noise.

It gives Will an uneasy feeling and he walks away.

He crosses the major road at the lights that leads into his hotel and notices the three guys catch a glimpse of him. An abundance of this uneasy feeling enraptures him and he starts to run. He’s at the middle of the parking lot and then notices an eerie silence that overcomes him.

He looks around and even kind of smells into the air.

He turns back around and suddenly this guy pops up behind him and pushes him to the ground.

He gets up and is surrounded by the three guys all corning him. But these aren’t just ordinary guys. They are all smiling and both have to long teeth, sort of like fangs.

The three guys are sort of like giggling and jumping up and down around him.

Will then notices some kind of blade pops out of his shoe. He walks around, circling all three guys.

Will suddenly does a cartwheel going backwards. As he does the cartwheel the blade coming out of his shoe rips right the skin of one of the guys, slitting his throat.

It causes that one guy to back up and he starts dripping blood. He falls to the ground.

Guy #2 and guy #3 then both walk over to Will. He kicks guy #2 in the chest with the back of his foot, which also has a blade coming out of it and it rips right into his heart and then the blade on his front part of his foot goes right into the chest of guy #3. Both guys begin seem to both explode and then evaporate into thin air leaving some ashes falling in the air and into the ground.

Will then rests briefly but remains guarded.

Suddenly guy #1 gets up and runs toward Will when a blade is thrown from afar into his chest and like the other two he seemingly briefly explodes into a cloud of ashes.

Will turns around and then sees the same old man he saw at the bar walk his way. He’s the one who threw the blade into guy #1. He looks at the old man totally confused. Confused at what just happened and of who he is.

The old man walks up to him.


WILL
Who are you?


JACK WELLER
The name’s Jack. Jack Weller.


WILL
What were those things? They certainly weren’t
human!


JACK WELLER
Those three you goons that you and I just killed
killed were vampires as you might have guessed.


WILL
No. That can’t be. Vampires don’t exist.



JACK WELLER
You’re right. Those weren’t vampires you killed.
Then how do you explained how they just blew
up into ashes?


Will looks confused.

JACK WELLER
What’s your name?


WILL
I don’t know.


JACK WELLER
You don’t know?


WILL
I woke up an hour ago covered with blood
that was not my own. I have no idea who I
am or how I got to that hotel room or how I
got blood on myself like that. I washed up
and found some matches in my coat pocket
from this bar so I came here hoping I’d find
something that I would remember and maybe
hopefully it would trigger something that would
make my memory come back to me.


JACK WELLER
I take it then from your reaction now that it
didn’t work.


Will nods.


WILL
I don’t remember a goddamn thing.



JACK WELLER
Well, I may be able to help you out.


WILL
How?


JACK WELLER
Well, judging from how well you fought
off those vampires and by that tattoo on
your arm, I’d say you are a member of the
Vanguard Unit.


WILL
The Vanguard Unit?


JACK WELLER
Yep.


WILL
What the hell is the Vanguard Unit?


JACK WELLER
The Vanguard Unit is a government project
created by a man named Milo Zissou about
twenty years ago after the government found
out about the existence of vampires.


WILL
Just twenty years ago.


JACK WELLER
Yes. Forget about anything you’ve read in the
movies or read in any books. Vampires are a
relatively new breed of people. It’s more like a
disease of some kind created in a freak accident
by a scientist who was trying to find a way to live
forever. Well, in a way he’s succeeded. But it robs

JACK WELLER (Cont.)
you of your humanity and turns you into some
kind of creature. When the doctor found out all it
does is turns you into a monster, the legend says the
doctor tried to tried to stop it but he became infected
and the thirst of blood took over. Over the years, god
knows how many people he killed drinking their blood
and how many people he turned into those creatures. If
the legend is true, then he’s still out there somewhere. Any
way, once the government found about the existence of these
things they tried using normal law enforcement to take these things
out but they found out that these creatures how super human strength.
So, the government created the Vanguard Unit as a way of combating
these things.


WILL
I don’t get how that helps anymore than normal
law enforcement.


JACK WELLER
What they do is they go to hospitals and search for certain kinds
of babies and essentially they kidnap them. And throughout their
childhood and all the way up to when they become adults they train
these kids mentally, physically. Also when they are still an infant
they are actually injected with the blood of a vampire. Not enough
to change them into one but enough so that they get their strength.
And, at 18 they are sent as part of a single unit to go out and take
out some vampires.


Will has a disgusted look on his face.


WILL
That’s terrible.


JACK WELLER
Terrible or not, that’s what the government did to combat
these creatures.


Will comes to a realization.
WILL
So you are telling me I’m one of these people?


JACK WELLER
Well, you do have the tattoo that all of them wear as
badge.


WILL
And if I’m one of these people, then I’ve never met my
parents? And I was captured at birth?


JACK WELLER
You do carry the tattoo so I’d say yeah. Definitely.


WILL
How do you know all of this?


JACK WELLER
Because I use to be one.


WILL
What happened to you?


JACK WELLER
I was one of the original people who tested being injected
with the vampire blood. For some reason it worked on me
but not on the other adults they tested. Anyway, I eventually
outlived my usefulness. I had to fake my own death. And now
I live a quiet life. Away from all that.


WILL
And how can you help me?


JACK WELLER
Well, we can get to a government facility and I
might be able to access secured information
JACK WELLER (cont.)
about the Vanguard Unit and find out who you
are. And maybe then you’ll be able to find out
exactly what happened to you and how you ended the way you were when you woke up like you said.


WILL
What government building?


JACK WELLER
There is a private company not far from here
that is really a government facility. We can
get into that building and try and find out who
the hell you are.


Jack looks at his watch.


JACK WELLER
But not tonight. It’s too late. We’ll do it
first thing in the morning.

[NobodySpecial]

I like how you open the script, but you need to sell it more. A guy wakes up in a room without his memory and he's covered in blood. That'll make for great film, so really play it. Take time with really showing his confusion, shock, and fear. Explore what he would do if he actually woke up like that.

INT. WILL’S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

What kind of hotel is this? Is it the Ritz or a Holiday Inn? What does the room look like? Are there things laying around or is it all nicely kept? Does it look like someone has been staying in the room for long or like he just walked in there off the street ten minutes ago?

Those are all things that you not only need to give the reader, but those are the kind of thoughts Will is going to have. He doesn't know where he is, so he needs to investigate.

You also need to make the fact that he doesn't have any memory of anything more clear through his actions. That is, a person watching Will on screen should be able to tell that he doesn't remember where he is. Doing the above things would help, but you should think of other things that would clarify that as well.

Will lies there.

"Will" needs to be in capitals because it's the first time we meet him. How old is he? Is he good looking? Is he over weight? Is he wearing clothes when he wakes up? If not, where did he find his pants later in the scene?

He jumps out of the bad and into the bathroom.

This needs to be a new slugline. Also, is there anything in the bathroom that would help Will figure out what's going on? Is it completely empty or are there toiletries there? Have any of the towels been used already? That sort of thing. It doesn't have to be Sherlock Holmes-style mystery solving, but Will would obviously scan the room to see what's there, right?

Will taking a shower strikes me as off. I understand why it's there, but it breaks up the energy of the scene. Taking a shower is a slow process, and you open in what is supposed to be a frantic situation. Rather than slow it down, try to keep the energy up.

You have Will go to a restaurant, which then turns into a bar, and then turns back into a restaurant when he leaves. You either changed the locations in rewriting or you're not setting up your locations correctly. If he's at a restaurant which has a bar section then the slugline needs to be --

INT. RESTAURANT, BAR SECTION - NIGHT

-- or something to that effect to indicate that the bar is inside the restaurant.

Also, what kind of restaurant is it? TGI Friday's or a four-star restaurant? Paint the picture for the reader.

BARTENDER
Mr. Worthington, you’re back tonight.

First, you need to describe the bartender so we know what kind of person this is. Second, the line sounds wrong. It sounds exactly like Will interprets the line, that Will's been there on a previous evening, but that isn't what the bartender means. Third, the bartender knows Will's name? Whoa. And Will doesn't say anything about it when that's made clear? He should be wondering how this guy knows his name, even more than the fact that he's been there before.

He turns around and sees this mysterious old man in the corner. Something about this old man seems strange and it really catches his attention.

All the audience will see is that Will turns around sees and old man and then turns back to his drink. There's nothing mysterious or remarkable described. You have to show the audience that this man is mysterious; you can't just tell us that he is.

Two more brief comments on the rest of this...

First, I think the fight scene happens really quickly and really out of nowhere. It feels out of place without proper buildup to it.

Second, Jack dumps a ton of exposition on Will. He just rattles off everything Will needs to know, which basically kills any sense of mystery you were trying to build. Either this is a mystery that's going to unfold or not. Starting mysterious and then having a dude just tell Will everything he needs to know about vampires doesn't work.

Hope that helps.