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#1
06-30-2007, 04:51 PM
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The Revision... i hope this gets the point across clearly
EXT. TWISTED HOUSE - Sunrise
Cockadoodle doo. The day is a gray and an eerie temper circles about the house. The two-story manor looks like something out of a surrealistic nightmare. Like it was built soley for the dead to inhabit. Lightning splits open the sky, and strikes the house. INT. TWISTED HOUSE Lucas is thrust from his slumber. The thunder screams in his ear, cracks and roars then fades away. A picture falls off he wall. LUCAS Jesus! Oh jesus christ. Lucas breathes in heavily and lets out a sigh of relief. He exits the comfort of his bed and moves to the fallen picture. He picks it up. PICTURE Lucas is clothed in a priests robe. Sporting the preist collar. He smiles along with a young woamn. She's bald, pale, and sitting in a wheelchair. Lucas flips the picture over. It reads "Halliluya, there is a god! Thank you for your faith and your prayers, Lucas." Lucas neatly places the picture back in its place. Lathargicly and with a yawn he moves over to the newspaper siting atop the red oak dresser. NEWSPAPER Its picked up. Through Lucas' eyes we see a TRagic Headline... "Fire takes many lives at Sunday Worship." 23 dead. LUCAS Oh Lord. There's a Devil as well. Lucas shakes his head, disgusted. He cant read anymore and tosses the paper in the trash. The phone rings. Lucas answers. LUCAS Hello?.... Hello sweetheart. Yes I am and i will meet you shortly... I just have to get ready.... Alright.... Luv you to. Alright.... bye bye. INT. BATHROOM - SAME THe sink is running. Lucas' hands are cleansed. He Looks in the mirror and then opens it. Various bathroom supplies and medicine and a bottle of toothpaste. Lucas takes the paste and burshes his teeth. INT. HALLWAY - SAME A toilet flushes and LUcas enters the hall through the batthroom door. He's wearing a robe. He walks down the hall, passing several pictures of him smiling with terminally ill survivors. There is a cruciix seperating each picture. INT. BOTTOM STAIRS - SAME Lucas trots down the stairs. He's chipper and snapping his fingers to a juanty tune as he reaches the bottom of the stairs and the entrance of the kitchen. LUCAS Stops in his tracks. Fear devours his happy face and he gasps as if the air is sucked out of him. LUCAS' FEET... ...Slowly backing up. Across the tile floorring, under the table a gray, boney, HELLISH creature that might resemble a man if only it had any facial features at all. It lays curled up in a ball. Lucas continues his retreat but slowly. Fear has gripped him and It wont let him go. The thing convulses , bends and twists its body before CRAWLING out from underneath the table. Its head is a smooth pale surface that lacking eyes, mouth nose, ears, etc. LUCAS With the lord as my savior whom shall i fear With the lord as my light and salvation (he begins to cry) of WHOM SHALL I BE AFRAID! Then it attacks with the speed of a tape fast forwarding on high and before you can say the devil went down to georgia the faceless creature is upon LUcas. It knocks him down and hovers over him. Lucas whimpers. CREATURE's FACE Two vertical slits made by a phantom force slice up the right and left side of the creatures face. Eyes bulge out of the middle of the slits. It growls and screeches. EXT. TWISTED HOUSE - SAME BOOTS ....Running up the walkway of the porch. They skip steps on the way up. INT. TWISTED HOUSE - SAME Lucas is whimpering as the creatures looms over him anticipating its kill and salavating over Lucas' sweet sweet flesh. LUCAS God save me. Just as the words leave his mouth the front door is blown off its hinges and a blinding light fills the house. A silhouhette appears, the light shining all around him. The Creature screeches like its in agony. Lucas can't believe his eyes. The light fades and the silhouette is revelaed to be a long-haired man. He's holding a 2 foot blade in his right hand. He charges towards the creature. The creature growls and whips his head around, splattering bloody saliva all over the walls, to confront the attacker. The long haired SAVIOR does a quick hop step towards the creature. The creature lunges but all to late as the SAVIOR's blade lops his head off with a full 360 degree spinning swoop. The SAVIOR Spins his blade around and places it back in a sheath on the side of his belt. He stares at Lucas. LUCAS (Mesmerized) Are... you... SAVIOR I am. LUCAS My gaurdian angel. SAVIOR Your savior, your gaurdian angel. Whatever you wish to call me. LUCAS Bless you. Oh lord bless this man. SAVIOR I'm an angel. Dont waste your blessings on me for i am already blessed. LUCAS Oh. SAVIOR Haha. Come on now. We have somwhere to be LUCAS We do? SAVIOR Yes. Follow me. LUCAS Wait. What.... who was that? Pointing to the headless creature. SAVIOR Well if i am an angel then he must be.... LUCAS A demon? SAVIOR Yes. LUCAS I cant believe it. Jesus... Christ. I can' believe it i was an instant away from dying and yet i feel strangely calm. SAVIOR HA! I was not far from you. That demon had no chance. I might of showed up in the nick of time but as long as your still standin here right? LUCAS I guess. My savior. SAVIOR DO NOT call me that. My name is James and we must be going so come on if you're ready LUCAS I am. JAMES Then follow me. They exit the house real skorry. EXT. TWISTED HOUSE - SAME The sun brings light to what was a gray day. LUCAS and JAMES exit the house and bask in the golden light. The day seems illuminated. THey both begin walking down the side of the road. JAMES Its a beautiful day isnt it Lucas? LUCAS Uh yes... where exactly are we going Sir James JAMES Hehe, dont call me sir either. I am taking you to be babtized. LUCAS What? I was babtized as a boy. JAMES Yes im sure you where but... you've been tainted by evil blood. You cannot enter the kingdom of god unclean. LUCAS Your going to take me to the kingdom of god? To heaven. Wait a second, am i dead? JAMES Hehe, dont be stupid. You're not dead. Far from it. And im taking you to heaven because the Lord Himself wants to see you in person, my friend LUCAS Jesus Christ himself? JAMES Yes, lucas. Jesus Christ himself. LUCAS I can't believe it. JAMES Hehe. LUCAS Well... if we're going to church then we'd be better off driving. JAMES Drive? But lucas we have already arrived. Lucas eyes go wide. He stands in the front yard of the SOUTHSIDE CATHOLIC CHURCH. LUCAS How in gods name.... How did this happen? JAMES It happened right in front of your eyes, Lucas James smiles and winks. JAMES AFter you. JAMES follows LUCAS into the Church. I'm not writing anymore untill i know that story and theme are connected and all that cal. I think this new version is real horrorshow. If you would viddy at it for me then i wont have to tolchock you and then give you the old in out in out real skorry. Last edited by ZombieEater00; 06-30-2007 at 05:03 PM.. 
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#2
07-02-2007, 08:15 PM
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go bump yourself
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#3
07-02-2007, 08:34 PM
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Quote:
Thus, I feel that if you're not going to appreciate my feedback, I don't have much reason to give you any more on this piece. Maybe someone else will. Last edited by XvoorheesX; 07-02-2007 at 08:45 PM..
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#4
07-03-2007, 01:42 PM
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?
Ignore your feedback? Maybe i just didnt understand what you wanted me to do. Maybe im not as smart as you. And as for typhos i could give a fuck because i'm not selling anything and telling someone to use spellcheck really isnt helpful at all. Chances are they know there are typhos but they're worried more about the more important aspects of their screenplay. I didnt change the descriptions or typhos because i was in a hurry and i wanted to understand premise and theme a little better. I can change descriptions later on. That i understand.
This forum is a great thing and i'm very grateful for it. I consider it a privledge to recieve advice from knowledgable people but don't act so condenscending when we do something stupid because we dont know any better. I can just picture you rolling your eyes and thinking of the right words to say to make me feel like an idiot and to make you sound oh so smart. But if you wanna make me look stupid in the form of beneficial feedback then be my motherlovin guest. I mean if your not gonna give me feedback then why post just to tell me that? Just for the record i didnt ignore you at all. I'm trying to learn as much as possible about the craft and dont need someone telling me about typhos and refusing to give me feedback because of them. I'm not as far in the "game" as you might be. I appreciate your advice so dont tell me i ignored it. Dont automaticaly think "omg the fuckin typhos are still there fuck that guy he ignored me. I'm not giving him any feedback." I changed the whole ending and added on a whole extra scene to try and make the theme show up a little better. Even if the new ending and new scene doesnt do anything then tell me. Maybe i just didnt understand. You cant blame me for that and you can't assume i ignored you. And dont say its a waste of time either because if i learn something from you then its time well spent. You shouldnt consider it a burden or a chore to give us feedback. It should make you happy that helping someone.
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#5
07-03-2007, 02:22 PM
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Here's the thing; you need to learn to walk before you learn to run.
You're very new to screenwriting, so I'm trying to give you practical advice that will help you now. Baby steps. The type of thing they would teach to beginner screenwriters in an introductory class. If you were taking surfing lessons, they would teach you how to stand on a board before they taught you how to tackle a 50 foot wave. That's what I'm trying to do for you. Theme and structure is a very complicated thing to learn, and a very difficult thing to teach (and I feel I must add, that I did try to help you with, along with Ron and Nima). It should be something you start to work on after you have the basics down and a very solid understanding of the fundamentals of structure and character. Which, no offense, you do not have yet. This is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time. You need to read a lot, and actually study the scripts you read. Sit down, go through scene after scene, and figure out why something works, or why it doesn't. If you think anything is as easy as just posting a thread, getting a response, and then having it all figure out, you're wrong. It doesn't work that way. So I gave you feeback on things that I thought would help you now, and I gave you specific examples of how you could fix them. Maybe you didn't think they needed fixing, or maybe you didn't care, but either way, you did ignore what I said. What I said wasn't superfluous: the problems I pointed out in your first draft (that still litter the new draft) seriously hamper the reading, and in fact, muddy up whatever scenework you might be working on. It's hard to think about theme and structure when I find myself having to constantly reread action and description because it doesn't make any sense. And about the typos: I noticed them in all your other posts, but I bit my tongue. However, seeing them in a script, let alone a "revision", needs to be addressed. You (and a lot of other newer members on this board) need to pay attention to this part: You say you don't care about typos, and other people have said in the past "yeah, ignore them and just critique about the story". But they are important, in more ways then you realize. You say you want to be a writer, yet your posts (and scripts) are riddled with problems in spelling, punctuation and other grammatical errors. So there is infact a major contradiction in what you're saying. You want to be a writer? The english language is the writer's tool, the same way a scalpel is the surgeons tool. If you want to be a writer, you need to care about this. You need to not only learn it, but master it. If you're too lazy to even pay attention to these errors, then I see it as you not wanting to put in the work as a writer. If this was a forum on painting, and you said that you wanted help creating great art, but you didn't care to learn anything about brushes or paint qualities, you wouldn't get any responses either. (And as for why I bothered to respond at all, if I wasn't going to help -- If you really are serious about being a writer, then this is definately something you needed to hear). Last edited by XvoorheesX; 07-03-2007 at 02:27 PM..
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#6
07-03-2007, 03:14 PM
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Vorhees gets to the point I've made elsewhere about taking ownership of your work.
Typos, look, sorry, you say you're not trying to sell this, but that's not the only problem. The problem is that the unspoken message of typos is: "I don't care enough about this to create the best possible reading experience." So how is that likely to make us feel? Giving meaningful notes requires effort. But if you're not willing to put effort into making the script as perfect as it can be, why should we put effort into giving you notes? You should care more than we do. Typos happen, and nobody's going to hold your feet to the fire if an occasional one slips past. But you should be looking for them and fixing them all the time. To not do so bespeaks a lack of care and effort. You're doing something here that lots of people do when they're starting out. They write something - rush rush rush - put it out, get notes, dash through some changes and put it out again for notes. But that's bad. And it's, ultimately, the reason why I don't give notes on successive drafts on something here. You need to take ownership of and responsibility for your own work. To quote Morpheus, we can show you the door, but you have to walk through it. That means, when you get a note that you don't understand, you ask. You don't just ignore it and ask for more notes. And, honestly, while you drastically changed the ending here, it doesn't seem like you really grappled with what the story really is - I could just repeat my prior notes, for the most part. Character, want, obstacle. I think it might help you to take a step back and think about the logline for this story, because it's still not even really a story yet. What's it about?
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#7
07-03-2007, 08:56 PM
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idk
Behind the walls of my skull there is a mind. In that mind are random scenes, ideas, dialogue, characters and so forth. I've been reading the "Art of Dramatic Writing" and I understand that a strong premise will move the story along and will help decrease the amount of writer's block. I understand what premise is i just can't execute it on my own paper. It all seems so clear when i read the book but when i put it down to write everything just goes blank. The sentences that are evntually forced out look like a first grader writing about his weekend in his daily journal. Every scene i write seems generic and boring. This only happens when i seriously decide to write. When i'm out in about caught up in my daily activities or at the movies or anywhere i'm flowing with ideas but they're all random. I might get lucky and an idea for my current story might make a special appearance but i can't just sit around all the time and wait for the idea's for story continuation to just pop in my head. It's like i have creative anxiety or something. And i have no artistic sensibility what so ever but im trying to develop some.
Thats what MY story is about.
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#8
07-03-2007, 09:04 PM
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Re: idk
Quote:
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#9
07-03-2007, 09:10 PM
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Re: idk
Quote:
I'm sorry, but what you're presenting us right now is like a half-cooked meal. Would you want people to judge you on your work or on your typos? We both know the answer to this and I know that it sucks to get this type of feedback, but I respectfully say it because it really is something that people think and do not say. Last edited by inglourious basterd; 07-03-2007 at 09:13 PM..
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#10
07-03-2007, 10:06 PM
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I think, like the last time there was a major issue like this, that this is a matter not of what you say but how you say it.
I'll be honest, XvoorheesX, I think what you wrote to ZombieEater was very rude and extremely condescending. You wrote telling him how he feels about what you said, which is, I'm sorry to say, ridiculous. Instead of saying: Quote:
Instead of saying: Quote:
Instead of saying: Quote:
I don't get it. Do you know something about ZombieEater that I don't? I mean, you're treating him like he's retarded. "you need to learn to walk before you learn to run"? Seriously? The sad thing is substantively you're absolutely right. One shouldn't show writing to others that isn't probably error corrected. But the way you wrote that I would have told you off too. I would like to also add, with regards to what Ronaldinho said, that I think there's definitely a place for rapid rewrites. It's part of some people's process, and sometimes its very helpful when you're trying to figure something out. The problem, of course, is people who aren't you tend to get tired of reading the same thing over and over again, even when "the same thing" is a completely different page of text. As a rule I generally either make major changes or only show people the small snippets that have changed. In my experience people have been more willing to give feedback in that circumstance. Finally, there seems to be, at least to me, the suggestion from both Ronaldinho and XvoorheesX that ZombieEater not making the changes they called for as something bad. I disagree. It's up to ZombieEater to decide what story he wants to tell and how he wants to tell it. He may have read your notes and chosen not to implement them because they would alter the story he had in mind, or maybe he tried to implement them and this was the result. It doesn't matter. It's up to him what he does. It's up to you whether or not you want to give him more feedback. As I said in a previous thread, I have a serious problem with people talking down to others. I don't think it's right.
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#11
07-03-2007, 10:08 PM
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umm
I love the feedback i'm getting. But any advice on my last post would be satisfying. I'm more creative when i "just dont care that much" and everything seems to flow more freely. But when i care, when i try to sit down and really create something extraordinary i lock up. My mind always needs that push but i can't figure out any healthy ways to do so.
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#12
07-03-2007, 11:12 PM
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...
What about the dialogue. Did the dialogue read well? Did it illuminate the characters a little bit? Did it jump off the page? Where you rivitted by the brilliance of my writing? If the genius of my dialogue is comparable to a symphony composed by Johan Sebastian Bach or Mozart then, please, let me be aware of it.
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#13
07-03-2007, 11:34 PM
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Re: ...
Quote:
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#14
07-03-2007, 11:48 PM
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I don't think I was talking to down to ZombieEater, or being condescending. I was being harsh, yes, but that's because I felt I needed to be in order to get my point across.
Nima -- I could have said all of that. But I already more or less said it to him the first time. Listen, I'm not here to offend anyone, I'm here to help. If I said I'd never been offended here on these forums, I'd be lying. But I'd also be lying if I said that it was never necessary. I wanted ZombieEater to open his eyes and realize something very important. Maybe he realizes that now. The sting will wear away eventually, but if he learns something important, that will last a lot longer. Which is why I have nothing to apologize for. Nima, if someone was being unnecesarily picked on, I wouldn't blame you for sticking up for them. But this was necessary. ZombieEater, if I didn't tell you this, you would have continued on committing the same mistakes, and getting the same reactions from others. Eventually someone else would have told you the same thing. And since this is an important thing to learn and realize if you want to be a writer, then it's better you learned it sooner than later. Quote:
Because writing is fucking hard. And when you work on something and it gets ripped apart, it sucks. But you need to go through with it. If you want to be a professional athlete, you need to put in the time at the gym, sweating and gruelling, you need to run all the laps, you need to feel awful when you get cut from the team, and you need to look at your flaws and work to improve upon them. If you want to be a writer, you need to put in the same work. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Lots of people try, lots of people quit. Do I think that ZombieEater will quit because of what I said to him? Of course not. Do I think that what I said will help him? Yes, I do. And the fact that he will continue to write and seek to improve his craft means that he's already that much ahead of the competition. I don't want to make this post any longer than it already is, but writing is very serious to me, which is why I try to help people here. Sometimes (and not very often), I feel the best way is through a little tough love. If anybody has a problem with that, then by all means, call me out and I'll explain myself. But if anybody thinks that I'm only trying to pick on people, then you're wrong.
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#15
07-04-2007, 01:19 PM
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Re: idk
Quote:
A more literal answer to the question of what this script is about would do more to help you improve it. Quote:
Everybody has to work the way they work. For some people that's fixing every typo as they go. For some it's blasting through a draft. But if you're going to do the later, you need to recognize that you're not done just because you've blasted through a draft. Last edited by Ronaldinho; 07-04-2007 at 01:35 PM..
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#16
07-05-2007, 03:36 PM
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yo
To Ronaldinho
If you dont mind me asking what are the names of the movies you've written? And could i maybe read one of your scripts?
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#17
07-05-2007, 04:31 PM
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Nothing I've written professionally has made it to the screen yet, which is not surprising since I've only been paying my bills from Screenwriting for under two years, and even highly successful pros are lucky if they see a quarter of their work make it to the screen.
eg, somebody like David Weisberg (who's most successful film was The Rock) has been working basically non-stop since that film came out (I don't know him, but we have some mutual friends) but has managed, in the decade since, to get a single movie made. Another typical story might be someone like Neal Marshall Stevens, who I know through a different bulletin board, who broke in with "Deader" in the mid-90s (a million-dollar spec sale, I believe), worked pretty consistently, got a single movie made and eventually had his spec turned into a made-for-video sequel to a franchise (whereas it was a stand-alone piece when he wrote it.) Those are typical success stories for Hollywood writers. And I don't, as a matter of business sense, send out scripts to people I don't know in a non-professional context, because I believe that controlling access is an important part of maintaining the value of an unsold script.
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#18
07-05-2007, 05:35 PM
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I think it would be fine not to post something you're working on or trying to sell, but I find it very hard to believe that you don't have ANYTHING that you can post. You've never written a short? You don't ever write for fun?
There is also the issue that once you send material out it does grow stale, so even if all you had was features that you were trying to sell (which doesn't sound right to me) you would eventually be able to show them to people, like young writers you're trying to teach. I'm just saying. PS: I wrote this entire thing on my iPhone!
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#19
07-05-2007, 07:06 PM
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I do have material that I'm not trying to sell. It is, however, older material. My first script - a highly derivative action-horror piece - probably has some scenes I could post. That being said, it's not material that I'm particularly proud of, and I think it's fair to say that it's the work of a talented amateur, rather than of a professional.
Maybe in the next week I'll dig around through it and see if there's a scene or two I want to post. Part of the problem is that the material in it that I do like is stuff I'm exploring ways of recycling in a more original script. As for shorts, it's been a long time since I worked on one, so I don't really have anything that I consider "current" and worth sharing. Although I wrote a short recently, I don't think I'm going to post the script until I'm closer to shooting. I was thinking it might be interesting and educational to post a script, to post my strategy for breaking it down for production, and then to link to the finished film - but, as strange as this may sound, modesty makes me not want to do that. It feels a little like me saying, "This is the what you should all be emulating" when I would rather point to genuine masters of the craft - Spielberg and Cameron and Coppola to positive examples. Honestly I don't write much for fun these days. I try to keep my creative energy focused on my work - but I enjoy my work a lot, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds. (I'm jealous about the iphone, btw. I'm strongly considering buying one. How bad is the web speed when you're on the EDGE network?)
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#20
07-05-2007, 07:24 PM
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It's basically dial-up, so excruciating! It's alright for getting email or checking movie showtimes, but EDGE gets old fast. Wi-fi, on the other hand, is golden!
I can't recommend this thing enough. This is my first smartphone/PDA and I don't think I could go back to not having email in my pants.
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