Search Results for: day shift
Genre: Horror
Premise: A PTSD-afflicted Marine must fight for his own survival when he finds himself held captive in the Alaskan wilds by a family with a horrifying secret.
Why You Should Read: This script has done well in some notable contests and I’d like to see how it fares in the AOW battlezone. Clocking in at a lean and mean ninety pages, Greenhorn is crammed with GSU, moves at a swift pace and has the kind of deeply flawed hero an audience wants to root for. Thanks in advance for the reads.
Writer: Ryan Lee
Details: 90 pages
It’s always fun talking about what you thought you were walking into before you read a script, especially in the context of Amateur Offerings. Because if I’m being honest, I thought 1500 Degrees Fahrenheit was going to win. It was a fresh take on a thriller as opposed to being yet another monster or contained thing. And it had that emotional element built right into its DNA with the family struggling for survival. Yet poor 1500 barely managed 2 votes, giving it a paltry 1502 degrees.
In the case of Greenhorn, I thought it would finish near the bottom. I actually threw it in the mix as an afterthought, figuring it’d be lucky to get one vote. Why? A couple of reasons. For starters, whenever I see “PTSD-afflicted” anything, I groan. But I groan twice if it’s a marine. Can’t we have one marine come out of a war who ISN’T afflicted with PTSD? Just one? As for the rest of the logline, it’s a mish-mash of generalities. “Fight for his own survival.” “Held captive.” “A family with a horrifying secret.” The ONLY specific element in the entire logline is the word “Alaskan.” That’s the only thing that differentiates it from other ideas.
And here’s the irony about that. The script is one of the more unique amateur thrillers I’ve read in years. It just goes to show that you can be a good script writer but a terrible logline writer. You have to work on both, guys. Your logline is your movie equivalent of a billboard. It’s your sales’ pitch. This logline could’ve been so much better. And if Ryan would’ve contacted me, I could’ve helped. Here’s a quick rewrite that would’ve been way more effective (and accurate): After a cash-strapped ex-Marine is forced to take a dangerous job on a mysterious crabbing vessel, he learns that the Nordic crew has ties to an ancient pagan religion that worships a Norse Sea God.
30 year old former marine Sam Brennan is trying to make some money for his growing family. That’s right. In addition to having the perfect wife, Sam’s going to be having a baby soon. One of the only things he knows how to do is crab, so he’s in Alaska for one of those month-long sea trips where you fish a bunch of crab and come away with enough money to get you through the year.
Unfortunately, the captain of Sam’s crab boat tells him at the last second that they’re fully staffed, and Sam is stuck searching for a job. As luck would have it, he meets a Nordic guy named Henrik in a bar, who says they’re short one spot on their boat. Sam jumps at the chance, even though the boat and the men on it are all a bit, shall we say, fucking weird.
Sam is joined by one other newbie, a tough-talking 19 year old named Cody. Cody is so brash, so cocky, that the crew expects him to be the ringer and Sam to be the bust. But right from the start, Sam proves himself to be an all-star crabber. Cody, meanwhile, starts to have second thoughts about the job, to the point where he asks the Captain if they can leave him off at the nearest island. The Captain laughs and tells him to suck it up. As time goes on, we find out Cody has no idea what he’s doing and thought he could con his way into some easy cash.
While the crabbing is going great, Sam’s starting to sense that something ain’t right between the bows. That’s confirmed when, after Cody goes apeshit, the Captain chops his hand up in one of those fish shredders. When the crew senses that Sam may be encouraging Cody to hold out til they can get to land and call the cops, they head to a tiny remote island where we learn that these guys are part of one big Nordic chainsaw massacre family… THAT SACRIFICES PEOPLE TO THE NORSE SEA GOD.
The wimpy Cody doesn’t last long on the island. And Sam doesn’t look like he’ll fare much better. But he’s able to escape, running around the island Rambo-style, killing the chasing crew members one by one. But the island’s small. The only way Sam’s going to survive is if he finds a way off. And that option is anything but guaranteed.
Greenhorn is a good script. I’m not surprised it’s done well in competitions. But everybody who does well in competitions wants to know, “Why doesn’t it do BETTER in competitions?” Or if it does better in small competitions, “Why doesn’t it do better in BIG competitions?”
I can tell you exactly why Greenhorn is capping out in its competition run. Its second half isn’t as good as its first.
The first half of Greenhorn is great. It was hovering around a double worth the read or impressive for me. I especially liked Cody’s story. The writer could’ve easily brought only Sam onto the ship. But I think if he did, the story wouldn’t have had legs (or “sea legs”). By adding Cody, you get this whole fun storyline where Cody starts off as a cocky asshole, falters when it comes to work, is revealed to be a fraud, and then is brutally maimed. It was the perfect way into this creepy crew. And it set up a situation where it was now: Okay, so how is Sam going to handle this?
One of my favorite scenes was when the coast guard boarded the boat and the crew hid Sam and Cody inside the walls of the engine room. The suspense of whether they were going to find our heroes or not made for… while not a “Quiet Place” level labor scene… something that was almost as fun.
Then we get to this island and something about the choice is… off. I don’t know what exactly. But I immediately felt safer. When you’re in a boat out in the middle of the ocean… there’s nowhere to run. Now we’re on land. You have options. I wasn’t as afraid.
But the bigger problem is that the boat added structure. The island turned the story into this all-or-nothing chicken-with-its-head-cut-off mess. You don’t get scenes like the coast guard scene because there’s no form. It’s just a guy running around trying to survive. It was messy and not nearly as compelling.
After thinking about it, I believe the problem is that we get to the island too soon. I think it’s at the midpoint? That’s too long of a time to be on the island. And it’s one of the reasons the script’s pacing gets all wonky. We’re used to the island within 20 pages yet we still have 25 to go. I would take a page out of sister movie’s “The Ritual’s” book. Save the island for the last act. That’s going to mean packing more story into the ship, but I think that’s the more interesting stuff anyway.
This one has a lot of potential for sure. I would keep working on it. In addition to shifting the structure, I would keep populating the characters, Sam included. He’s a little thin. Everybody here needs about 20-25% more depth (save for maybe the Captain). Spend as much time figuring these characters out as you do describing this boat.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I would only include PTSD-afflicted marines in your story if they’re absolutely ESSENTIAL and ORGANIC to the situation. Otherwise, these guys are at the top of the cliche food chain. Why not make Sam a former Navy officer? Wouldn’t that make more sense anyway?
Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations. Logline consultations go for $25 a piece or 5 for $75. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. I highly recommend not writing a script unless it gets a 7 or above. All logline consultations come with an 8 hour turnaround. If you’re interested in any sort of consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!
Genre: Crime-Thriller
Logline (from writer): When a Minnesota homeowner exploits the state’s self-defense law to get away with the murder of two teenage girls, their parents start looking for various hitmen to break into his fortified safehouse and kill him.
Why you should read: “Castle Doctrine” is a topsy-turvy “Fargo”-esque small-town thriller that plays around with some of the genre conventions (who’s the hitman, and who’s the prey) while at the same time respecting the classic noir formula.
It takes place in 2016 and shows modern Minnesota in the grip of high-speed Internet and social media. Its “richest man in town” character may have made his fortune in startups while its “vengeful mother” archetype may run an Etsy crafting shop out of her house and hire her hitmen online. It even may take place in the nice little township I was born and raised in, and not in the usual backwoods sort of place.
But it portrays (unflinchingly, I hope) the downward spiral of a community destroyed by a particular kind of crime where EVERYBODY knows who the killer is, but NO ONE has the guts (or the means) to do something about it. It chronicles the last days of several individuals who live out their lives thinking of either murder or survival and not much else. Its plot driver is the pendulum of retribution, the one you draw back in the first act, let fly in the second and watch it bring about a 24-hour bacchanalia of blood and mayhem in the violence-steeped third. — It doesn’t get any more noir than that.
Writer: Alexander Bashkirov
Details: 109 pages (this is an updated draft that used notes from the Scriptshadow community)
Another script I’ve consulted on wins Saturday. Congrats to Alexander! I went back to my original notes on Castle Doctrine and this was my initial observation: “You used Fargo as a reference in your e-mail and I think that’s appropriate. There’s an unpredictable twisty-turny quality to this script that echoes what made that film so incredible. But twisty-turny narratives are a lot like bucking bulls – very hard to control. If you don’t have a good grip, you can easily get thrown 20 feet from the ring.”
When I originally read this, I felt Alexander got thrown from the ring. There were too many threads going on and while it looks easy to do that from the outside, it’s actually one of the hardest things to pull off in screenwriting. Let’s see if Alexander has fixed this problem with his latest draft (and with the help of you guys!).
Wydell is one of those psycho gun nuts who bleeding heart liberals and Europeans point to to bolster their argument that America is crazy. But to be fair, Wydell’s way over the top. I mean, he’s got every gun known to man and he’s built himself a CIA-level safe room in his basement.
I don’t have a single friend with a safe room.
Yet.
When Wydell hears that teenagers are breaking into houses around town, he posts on a website that he’ll be out of town for awhile, when in actuality, he’s very much in town, in his house, waiting to spring a trap. His plan works. The teenagers, two girls, come to rob his place, and because in Minnesota you’re allowed to shoot anyone who enters your home uninvited, Wydell does just that, killing them both.
The story then shifts to the parents of each victim. There’s Gillian, a single mom with a clothing business she runs out of her home, and Leo, a single father and the richest man in town. Both of them want revenge.
At first, they do their own thing. Gillian does some internet searching to find a hitman, and Leo hires some local thugs to do the job. The thugs run into the crazy that is Wydell, who easily kills them, so Leo decides to spring for half of Gillian’s hitman fee.
The “hitman,” it turns out, is actually a hitwoman named Nell. Nell has killed over 50 people, most of them in Mexico. You’d think that after playing for the cartels, this bitch would be unstoppable. But she hasn’t met the insanity that is Wydell yet. Get ready for the showdown of the century, folks.
Not that it’s fair to compare an amateur script to an Oscar winner, but since Alexander brought Fargo up as inspiration, I thought it’d be fun to do just that!
The big difference I noticed between Castle Doctrine and Fargo was that one sets up its story in a single scene, while the other takes the bulk of its second act to do so.
In Fargo’s first scene, our main character hires the kidnappers to pretend-kidnap his wife. From there, we’re off to the races with the kidnapping, the accidental murder, and what becomes the bulk of the movie, the fallout – Jerry desperately trying to cover his ass.
With Castle Doctrine, we start with the event (two teenagers getting killed), a court case, then the bulk of the second act turns into the setup – Gillian and Leo preparing to kill Wydell.
I don’t know what to think about this because we do have a GOAL driving the story – our characters planning to kill someone. So it’s not like we don’t have something to look forward to. But it did feel like a lot of screenplay real estate to cover something that probably could’ve been covered a lot faster.
Both scripts also have dual-protagonists. In Fargo, it’s Jerry (the man who hired people to pretend-kidnap his wife) and Marge (the cop who investigates the murder). In Castle Doctrine, we have Gillian and Leo, the two parents of the slain teenagers.
Here’s my issue. In Fargo, there was a symbiotic relationship between the two leads. One was trying to get away from the other. In Castle Doctrine, we have a repetitive relationship between the two leads. They’re both attempting to do the exact same thing.
This, in part, contributed to the first issue. Since TWO people are attempting to try and kill Wydell, it meant TWICE the set-up time.
While noticing these differences, I reminded myself that these are different movies and therefore require different story choices. You can’t copy and paste choices from one movie to the next because, even if they worked, you’d be rewriting the same story.
However, since I wasn’t as engaged as I wanted to be with Castle Doctrine, I kept looking for reasons why.
The more I thought about it, the more I went back to the “repetitive” thing. Something felt off about TWO people attempting to do the exact same thing. It’s kind of like having two MVP candidates on the same baseball team. Neither wins because they end up splitting the votes.
Then something hit me. I didn’t like Leo. His choices are surface-level (throw money at the problem), whereas Gillian makes scarves for a living. Now that’s a character. The pleasant little mother who makes scarves has to figure out how to hire a hitman and kill a man. Something about her being a woman also makes her decisions more compelling (the gun-happy macho Leo doesn’t have to think twice about putting a bullet in Wydell’s head – but for Gillian, it’s a much tougher moral decision).
If you added this component to her character that she’s the poster child for anti-violence and anti-gun, and she decides to use violence and guns to kill a man? You don’t need any other characters to tell that story. You have a strong enough character to carry the whole shebang.
I believe Alexander included two parents because there were two victims involved. To ignore one of the parents would’ve seemed odd. Hence the repetition. But maybe Leo commits suicide after the murder, leaving only this nice suburban mother to deal with the problem. That would draw a huge actress to play that part – I’m sure of it – and you wouldn’t have to reel in this extensive ensemble to tell your story.
Then again, I’m not convinced that’s the movie Alexander wants to write. Either way, I’d like to hear your takes. Simplify it? Keep it the same? Did you like Leo? Am I off here? This is one of the tougher scripts I’ve reviewed on the site. Usually I know exactly what’s wrong with something. But Castle Doctrine’s got me baffled.
Script link (new draft): Castle Doctrine
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Make it so your main character has to make tough moral decisions that conflict with what they believe in. If you have a character who doesn’t believe in guns realize that the only way to solve the problem is with guns, you’ve got yourself a compelling character.
Genre: Period (Based on true events)
Premise: After a lifetime of failure, John Brown attacks the United States Armory at Harper’s Ferry in one last ditch effort to free the slaves.
Why You Should Read (from writer): In earlier forms, this script placed in the top ten in Final Draft’s Big Break, was a semifinalist in Page and received a “Consider” from Coverage Ink. I’ve worked hard on the notes I’ve received and I think I’ve made it better. I understand that it’s a period piece (but isn’t Catherine the Great?), however it’s a really cool moment in history that has been ignored on the big screen. I like to think of this story as the American version of Braveheart.
Writer: George Gier
Details: 110 pages
Little tip for those of you who want to be industry readers. Don’t watch a new Star Wars trailer 814 times and then try to read a slavery script. You kind of have to be in a certain headspace for slavery. And replaying Forest Whitaker saying, “If you continue to fight…” [wait, I forgot what he says next – an excuse to go watch the trailer again! – one second] oh yeah… “What will you… become?” When you get all warm and whitaker, it’s not easy to shift into slavery.
BUT I’M GOING TO TRY.
59 year-old Reverend Isaac Smith seems to be your average devoted man of God. His sermons are powerful and engorge local churchgoers with plenty of faith meals, important on the to-do list of most people living in 1859, especially since they didn’t have Uber Eats yet. But Smith has a secret. His real name is John Brown, an abolitionist on the lam, and he’s got a plan that’s going to change the United States forever.
Brown wants to invade a large armory in nearby Harper’s Ferry, steal all their guns, recruit local African-Americans to join him in his cause, then go from plantation to plantation to liberate those black men and women who are still being held by slave owners.
So Brown puts together a ragtag crew and heads to Harper’s Ferry. Here’s where things get dicey though. You see part of Brown’s plan is to simultaneously recruit local African-Americans while he’s taking over the armory. Without those men, he has nobody to carry out all those guns. So his plan is really two plans, and one will not work without the other.
Brown actually takes over the armory easily. But every local man his team tries to recruit tells them… well, they basically tell them to fuck off. In real life, the average person doesn’t want to join a revolution. They’d rather stick to what’s familiar, even if what’s familiar sucks. This recruiting delay allows a militia to sneak into town and challenge Brown, which, unfortunately, is something Brown’s not prepared for, and dictates the unfortunate series of events that follow.
You know, it’s funny. This setup is actually quite similar to Rogue One. A ragtag crew is thrown together to tackle an impossible mission. So maybe this wasn’t such a bad script to segue into after all. But there was a major difference. That was Star Wars. This was a period piece.
Today’s writer, George, seems well aware of the difficulties of writing period pieces, and I’ll get into one of the biggest challenges of tackling that genre in a second. But first I have to get this off my chest. When you write a script where race is a crucial component to the story, it is ESSENTIAL that you tell us the race of all the characters.
Because you know what? I didn’t know if John Brown was black or white! This in a story where it’s critical that I know the main character’s race. And it was a good 30 pages before I was able to guess.
This is a common problem, where the writer is so close to the material that they assume you know what they do. We don’t know. I mean, some people might know. But I didn’t. So I know other readers won’t either. And this kind of mistake isn’t forgivable. It’s a first class script-killer.
But back to period pieces. Here’s one of the reasons readers hate period pieces: They know they’re going to have to memorize 30 characters. And no one can memorize 30 characters. So one of two things happens. If the reader is considerate and has time, they’ll write down every character with a little description next to them so they can check back later if they forget who’s who.
Or they just keep reading and accept the fact that they’re not going to remember half the people they come across. This results in a strange pseudo-read, where the reader has a general idea of what’s going on, but all the subtleties and subplots are lost on them.
But even if the reader is taking notes, do you know how annoying it is when you don’t remember a character, and have to read back through a list of 30 people to figure out who they are? EVERY TIME you forget? Which is a lot? It takes the reader out of the script, which means instead of being fully immersed in your story, they’re playing “Who the hell is this guy again?” And that game’s only enjoyable when sex is involved.
This is one reason I encourage writers to read a lot of scripts. Once they’ve read a handful of huge-character-count scripts, they think twice every time they’re going to add a character to their own script. “Do I really need this character?” they ask. And often times they realize they don’t.
So what does this mean? Does this mean you can never write a script with a high character count? What if the story you’re telling naturally requires a bunch of characters? Yes, THERE ARE WAYS to make high character counts more palatable. I won’t go into all of them, but here are a couple. Develop a description hierarchy that you STAY CONSISTENT WITH. Big characters get longer extensive descriptions, medium characters get one sentence bare-bone descriptions, and small characters get one or two word descriptions. This is a nice subliminal way to indicate to the reader who they need to commit to memory and who’s okay to forget (if they must forget someone).
But the REAL key to making a big character count work is that when your characters are introduced, you need to introduce them with something MEMORABLE. If a character gets a distinctive memorable intro scene, I WILL REMEMBER THEM THE ENTIRE SCRIPT. If a character introduces himself with a nod, I will probably need to check who they are every time they reappear. And when I have to do that, I get really annoyed. And if I get annoyed a bunch of times, I take that anger out on the writer. I think to myself, “Why doesn’t this writer understand how to make characters memorable?”
Now you may say, Carson, I’ve seen plenty of movies where characters don’t have big memorable entrances. Shit, Neo is introduced in The Matrix sleeping in front of his computer. I’d say, first, a lot of those movies had smaller character counts. But second, you have to understand that THOSE WERE MOVIES. It’s a lot easier to remember a physical face. But we’re not seeing a physical face on the page. We’re seeing words. So you need to do other things to help us remember that face.
And that means, yes, you will approach your script differently than if you were writing an already-greenlit-movie. In fact, a lot of writers will write bigger memorable character intro scenes understanding that, once they film the script, they’ll likely get rid of that scene and bring the character in more naturally.
But getting back to John Brown’s Body as a story. I thought this had potential. You have a group of people with a clear goal and the stakes for that goal feel pretty high. But my big issue with John Brown’s Body was that John Brown’s plan kinda sucked. It didn’t seem well-thought-through at all. Other characters even tell him that. Which I guess is okay, but the thing is, it makes John look kinda dumb. If he doesn’t even know where he’s going to get his army by the time he takes over the armory, I’d say that most intelligent people wouldn’t go through with that plan.
This conceptual faux pas weaves its slimy tentacles throughout the rest of the plot. Because every thing that goes wrong reminds you just how ill-conceived this plan was in the first place.
So if I were Greg – and it seems like he’s open to criticism – that’s the first thing I’d fix. Give John Brown a stronger plan. The more solid the plan, the more delicious the drama when things start to go south. From there, I’d stop introducing so many darn people, especially since half of them never make appearances again. Place your focus on the key characters and make sure all those characters get the kind of memorable introduction a big character deserves. That’s going to help a lot of things here. I wish Greg luck. Many Bothans died to help this review get written.
Script link: John Brown’s Body
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Think of character introductions in terms of camera shots. If a character is important enough to get a close-up in the finished film, he/she’s important enough to get a proper description and memorable opening scene.
Is there such thing as the perfect concept? Today’s script poses that question. And no one makes it out alive before the answer is given! Time Shark baby! TIME SHARK!!!
Title: Time Shark!
Genre: Spoof/Action Adventure
Logline: A retired marine biologist goes back into the water when inter-dimensional time-traveling sharks invade our world. But an overzealous military-man has nefarious plans for the strange fish. Airplane! meets Jaws.
Why you should read: Hey there! So I’m a first time screenwriter, starting this a little later than most, (I’m in my early 40s) and I had a story to tell about time traveling sharks. So I did. I don’t live in California, I’m actually a tv sports producer in Florida, a cuban-american dad, and write as a hobby on the side. I think you should review my script because it’s a comedy about time traveling sharks. And time travel is awesome, and so are sharks. And spoof comedies aren’t all that common anymore, so why not? I really hope you give it a look. Thanks.
Writer: Enrique Bertran
Details: 97 pages
First off, I want to apologize to the four OTHER applicants of last week’s Amateur Offerings. Because, seriously? Did anybody REALLY stand a chance against Time Shark? We’re talking about time travel and sharks. The two greatest things that have ever existed on the planet. I once conducted a survey of the greatest pairings of all time once and you know what the number 1 pairing was? Peanut Butter and Jelly. Except there was an asterisk next to it. The asterisk stated: “Unless you’re counting time travel and sharks.”
The only bad thing about putting time travel and sharks in the same script is that the expectations are stratospheric. Anything less than genius would be a literary catastrophe. But no worries. We can be sure that today’s screenplay will be perfect. Why? Because if it isn’t, we can just send a shark back in time to rewrite it. Boom! Splash goes the shark’s fin.
Pentagon worker Sarah Lightman has just been informed of the impossible. All over the world, ancient sharks – sharks that have not existed in millions of years – are attacking and killing people. We’re talking megalodon sharks here, those giant prehistoric motherfuckers, and flying sharks, and sharks with two heads. Sarah and her co-worker, Chairman Higgins, are tasked by the government to figure out a solution to this growing problem.
It doesn’t take long for Sarah to realize they’re in over their heads. Luckily, she knows a man. Gil Baitman, the world’s number 1 shark expert. The thing is, Baitman hasn’t been seen in years. Ever since his wife was chewed up by one of these dorsel-finned gravy gobblers, he can’t so much as mouth the word “shark.” But desperate times call for desperate measures, and the curiosity factor of prehistoric sharks using our beaches as buffets is too big for even Baitman to resist.
The goal is to capture one of these sharks so the government can study what they’re up against. And somehow, Gil and Sarah pull this off. Little do they know, however, Chairman Higgins never had any intentions of studying these sharks and their time-traveling ways. He wanted to create the ultimate time shark army! So he starts cloning these sharks and strapping weapons to them (like lasers), and before you know it, he’s sending this shark army off on missions.
But wouldn’t you know it – those bastard sharks rebel. And now that they’re armed with weapons, they have one goal in mind – to settle the score with their makers. It’ll be up to Gil, the only person who knows enough about sharks to stop this kind of attack. But will he be able to put past tragedies behind to pull off this impossible feat? Only time will tell. Or should I say, only time SHARKS will tell.
I honestly considered giving this script a “worth the read” on its title alone. I’m serious. There have only been five screenplays in existence that were worth money on their title alone. Monster-In-Law, I remember, was one of them. Then there were… those other ones. And Time Shark would definitely be in that group.
But Enrique makes a critical mistake. He mixes two types of comedy that shouldn’t be mixed. “Spoof” is the kind of comedy that works when you have a generic subject matter – like an airplane. The spoofing is there to “spice up” up the otherwise bland concept. But when you have a spicy concept to begin with, you don’t need any more spice. Too much spice can turn a relaxed dinner at an Indian restaurant into an all-night date with your toilet.
I mean Russians speaking with subtitles, then looking down to read their own subtitles and then, because they’re upside-down relative to them, turning those subtitles right-side up so they can read them – that’s pretty funny and something that would work in a movie like Airplane. But it doesn’t work here when you’ve already got a wacky concept to begin with.
Every bit of comedy here needs to stem from two things – sharks and time-travel. When you’ve got scenes centered around the cloning of Kim Kardashian’s ass, you move from “buzzworthy so-bad-it’s-good” type movie, a la “Sharknado,” to “Vampires Suck,” which is the trash heap of the comedy genre. You don’t want to get anywhere near that. I mean a joke about Abe Vigoda? Really? I suppose that’s sort of time travel related. As in time traveling jokes from the 90s.
As for the plot itself, it’s a mixed bag. Having Sarah and Gil try and bag a time shark was okay, I guess. But once they deliver the shark, the movie shifts over to Chairman Higgins, who’s driving the story with his whole “weaponizing sharks” plan. In the meantime, our main characters are just hanging out on a boat for 30 pages.
There’s this misconception that when you’re writing comedy – ESPECIALLY broad comedy – that nothing matters. That you can do whatever the hell you want because ‘who cares, it’s comedy.’ But the standard pillars of storytelling still apply. And having your two main characters inactive for 30 pages is a bad idea. You want them to be driving the story at all times.
The script picks back up when the time sharks rebel and Gil and Sarah are tasked with cleaning up the mess (so they’re finally active again), but it’s too little, too late. By that point we’d gotten bored of the two.
I DEFINITELY think this is salvageable though. The idea of megalodon sharks attacking people on beaches is genius. I also like the idea of the government weaponzing them. I would try and keep Gil and Sarah closer to the action in that second act though. You never want your main characters waiting at the side of the ring to be tagged back in. They need to be fighting the fight at all times. And stop trying to mix two different types of comedy. I’d go so far as to say this will never go anywhere if you keep the spoof angle.
Out of my own curiosity, I’d like to hear other commenters pitch their Time Shark movies. This is something I’m almost sure will be turned into a film, even if it’s just on Syfy. And if we can help Enrique see a better version of this script, we could help him speed up that process. So, fire away!
Script link: Time Shark
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Guys, if secondary characters are making the decisions that are pushing your story forward, it means your main characters aren’t. That’s bad storytelling 101.
Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.
Genre: Horror
Logline: When Emma’s sister Sadie is kidnapped by a witch and hidden in an abandoned mine, Emma must search the witch’s lair in an attempt to save Sadie’s life.
Why you should read: If you enjoy horror then I have a treat for you… This Amateur Offering comes paired with a 5-minute award-winning short film based on the feature I wrote. The script itself has received two 7’s on The Black List and has been read by respected agents and studios around town (my witch script is among Alex Ross’ HEXEN on TBL, it’s cool to be among fellow SS readers. I don’t feel so lonely). Alas, I have yet to reach the level we all hope to be apart of, “produced writer.” So please, watch and read and give me your thoughts on what more I have to do to sell my first screenplay. I’d really appreciate it.
Writer: Joseph I. Martinez
Details: 103 pages
Well last week sure got testy, didn’t it? But in the end, traditionalists prevailed, as American Witch won over what some referred to as a screenplay abomination – a direct attack on the very foundation of the craft!
All kidding aside, a “get noticed” script is a legitimate strategy for breaking in. And if you’re going to write one, you might as well go all out. I mean what would be the point of writing one otherwise?
I will say that you should use your creativity to connect in clever unexpected ways, rather than resort to swear-laden first-person attacks on the reader. There’s a fine line that exists between fun and annoying, and that choice usually goes on to offend a hefty percentage of the readers. So you’re playing with fire, brother.
Also, “Get noticed” scripts have become cliches in and of themselves. Patterns have been established. So if you’re going to tackle a genre that thrives on originality, it’s paramount that you find new avenues to explore. Don’t do what the “Get Noticed” scripts did before you. Show us how you’re unique.
Okay, onto American Witch. Wow, what an opening scene, amirite!? I can see why you guys voted for this. One of the quickest ways to identify a good writer is if they can take me out of my apartment and into another world.
When this crazy motherfucking woman was being buried in a hole with hot tar and she sticks a walnut into her vagina and we time-lapse to see a Walnut Tree grow out of it, taking us to the present day… I WAS FUCKING IN IT, MAN! I was planning to send this to a studio.
But then the script slows down (we were just discussing this last week!) and becomes Setup Castle. Here we meet the fam, which includes 18 year-old Emma Ore, her single mother, Amanda, and her little sis, Sadie.
Amanda’s found a male suitor in Dr. Burns, and with Emma making it into the college of her dreams, the family’s fortunes are looking up. But then that very night, Amanda sleepwalks out of her bed into the stormy night, never to be seen again.
Cut to a year later where poor Emma, who never ended up going to college, has weird panic attacks where she sees her dead mom. Dr. Burns has provided her with some time-sensitive medication as well as a calming-phase (“Cashmere roses, wicker shakes, twenty-two”) to repeat so that Scary Maggot-Infested Version of Mom disappears.
No later than a day after we re-join Emma, her sister, Sadie, disappears just like mom did! We seem to have terrible timing popping into this girl’s life. Soon after, Emma gets word from the voices that Sadie’s being held in the local mine, so she takes her controlling boyfriend, Cole, to go look for her.
The rest of the script plays out exactly the way the logline says. We creep around this rickety abandoned mine, peeking around corners with our cell phone light, looking for sis. Occasionally, we run into the ghosts of unfortunate miners who died down here as well as a few souls dumb enough to cross paths with a badass witch named Icka Crombie. In the end, Emma will have to make some tough decisions in regards to how far she’s willing to go to save her sister. Will she kill to do so????
American Witch has some nice moments. The aforementioned opening. There’s also a scene where a little ghost boy who died in a cart asks to be pushed (with his one stipulation being that Emma CANNOT LOOK AT HIM). So she’s pushing him, looking away, but she wants to look and we want to look and we’re all terrified at what we might see, and when we do end up seeing him, he lives up to the curiosity.
But American Witch suffers from one of those annoying little things that, if gone unchecked, can kill a script. I’m talking about LACK OF CLARITY. The writer, Joseph, keeps things clear 75% of the time. But the other 25% we’re on our own to wonder what the heck is going on.
For example, I didn’t understand the family dynamic. Was Dr. Burns Amanda’s lover? The step-dad? A family friend? Your guess is as good as mine (get it!). And then I couldn’t understand the prescription pill chant combo. Emma was taking a pill that was time-sensitive down to the second (do those exist?)?? And in addition to taking the pills, she had to repeat a random phrase? How did those two things connect exactly??
It seems like a minor criticism. They’re such small details. But the whole point of writing is to have the reader exactly where you want them to be. You want to be in control of their emotions and feelings and interest at all times. And if they’re gradually wandering off a few degrees here and a few degrees there because you’re not making the details clear enough, they’re now experiencing a different story than the one you’re writing in your head, and who the hell knows what that story is?
This is a common problem, guys. I literally just gave notes on a script I read two days ago on the exact same issue. You have to be clear.
Moving forward, Joe should spend more time figuring out how to incorporate the mythology of his opening scene into the present-day storyline. That opening scene was awesome. It was rich with detail. It was unexpected. It dug into you a Hilton bed bug. But once we get to the present, we’re listening to borderline dopey scenes of characters saying things like, “Did you get into college??!” It was like going from watching The Godfather to Anchorman. The shift in sophistication was too drastic.
But the script shined in the moments where it did connect the mythology. We saw the witches dump severed heads into the cave in that opening scene. It’s no surprise then, that one of the best scenes has Emma checking in that cart to see the little boy… only to see that he’s a severed head.
That’s where this script is going to come together. And Joseph can pull it off. We’ve seen he’s capable of writing some great scenes. Let’s write more of them then. It’s a matter of pushing yourself to be better. Of not being satisfied with “okay.” This one had potential. But it’s not quite there yet.
Screenplay link: American Witch
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you have a non-traditional family dynamic, don’t assume the reader will just understand it. You have to explain it to us. I read a script not long ago where I thought I was watching a traditional nuclear family. Then 40 pages in, I learn that the “dad” was actually the “uncle,” who had come in to help the family out when their father died. How the hell was I supposed to know this if you didn’t tell me? Never assume, guys. Especially with things that are easy to misunderstand.