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bartlebee
Nov 5, 2008

Rogetz posted:

Ok, got a new draft of the webseries up. Reworked based on feedback I've received from different sources and I think it's much stronger now. I'll send it by email rather than hosting it this time.

Title: Badfellas
Genre: Crime/Action
Synopsis: A thwarted heist leads a group of thieves on a hunt to regain their stolen goods, but a rival gang has something much more sinister in mind.

A critique of the synopsis (logline) here is that it doesn't offer anything new or explain how this is different from any other heist movie. "Much more sinister" is vague. What separates this from other offerings in the genre?

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bartlebee
Nov 5, 2008

Golden Bee posted:

When an actor gets into a role, though, they can really improve it. In my stage play, my director's favorite phrase was "keep it in", which adds a TON of laughs to lines that were really just bridges.

Because certainly, this is the sign of a script that could be polished no further.

bartlebee
Nov 5, 2008

Sporadic posted:

The more I write, the more I realize that my strengths are dialog/action and my biggest weakness is description.

I am currently at another wall. I pushed this out, in hopes of getting over it, but I have the urge to delete it all. The setup is the walls are caving in and Katherine is presented with a tough solution to her problems. I don't explicitly state it in the screenplay but this is the scene where she retreats to a place that use to be a refuge for her.

code:
                                              CUT TO:

EXT. PARK, PLAYGROUND - AFTERNOON

A little boy chases a little girl around a big playground 
structure. The boy is trying his best to catch her while the 
girl is enjoying being chased. The girl runs up the stairs to 
enter the playground structure and the boy follows. A women, 
who could pass as a younger Katherine, carrying a toddler 
boy, sits him down at the stairs and he joyfully runs up the 
stairs. As the toddler goes through the structure, the women 
follows him outside like a shadow. When the boy makes it to 
the raised corkscrew slide, at the end, he stands triumphant 
at the top. The women stands at the bottom and beckons him to 
come down. The toddler slides down with his arms in the air 
and a big smile on his face. When he reaches the bottom, the 
women grabs him under his arms, lifts him up and spins him 
around with carefree abandon. In the background, Katherine 
sits, somber, on a bench watching it all. 
The idea is that the camera would follow the little boy and girl until they go up the stairs (and off screen). It would than follow the women and the toddler, before stopping on Katherine in a long shot. She is on the outside, away from the fun and joy. Almost like a ghost. Did any of that come through what I written or is it all poo poo (like I'm afraid it is)?

I'm twenty-one pages in so far, which is pretty wild (to me) considering this is my first attempt at writing a screenplay. I'm not going to kid myself. It isn't twenty-one pages of pure gold but with some polish, I think it can be good.

I definitely feel like I'm having an issue with how much detail I should use to describe the environment. Since I don't know what I'm writing this for, I'm thinking no-budget "as long as it has the few things I describe for the scene to work, good, it works" but I'm having second thoughts about that. Is that a problem to save and address in later drafts?

Not to mention, this is a HUGE amount of text to use in action description. Your formatting is off (characters like LITTLE BOY and GIRL should be in caps the first time they appear on camera) and you typically don't want a block of black text. Paragraphs like that don't read well. I'd suggest breaking it up. You could cut back on your adverbs and bridge phrases to reduce bulk. Present tense is also your friend. So from "The boy is trying his best to catch her while the girl is enjoying being chased" you get "The boy tries to catch her, but the girl enjoys the chase" or "being chased." "Joyfully runs" uses an adverb; try to find a noun that embodies "joyful" without having to explain it.

As for describing the environment, you need enough to indicate mood and critical set necessities, but remember, usually you're not directing or designing the costumes or building the sets or storyboarding.

And twenty-one pages? Is it supposed to be a short? Feature-length will run anywhere from seventy to a hundred and twenty pages, generally speaking. And I'll tell you one thing, if it's your first screenplay, don't expect gold. It's okay to not be perfect while you're just figuring things out.

bartlebee
Nov 5, 2008

York_M_Chan posted:

I hand wrote my first screenplay, my friend lost it. I think the gods were telling me something. Just like the Ronco Rotisserie, "Set it and forget it."

Jesus, why on earth would you hand write a screenplay? How would you even edit it? It may be best to let it scatter to the winds.

bartlebee
Nov 5, 2008

Death By The Blues posted:

Hey! Somewhat new to these forums and if anyone is around and still wanting some feedback I can give a look and try my best to send feedback as quick as possible.

Credentials include working as a script reader for a couple of months; tis not as fun as it sounds.

Also me and a friend are stuck in a wall trying to work on the latest draft of a pilot we have been hammering away at for 4 years, if anyone wants to take a look

Feel free to send it along to plantainmango@gmail.com.

bartlebee
Nov 5, 2008
I recently relocated to the North Hollywood/Burbank area, and I thought I might ask some questions of our television goons here, if there aren't any objections. Is that kosher in this thread?

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bartlebee
Nov 5, 2008
See, now that's useful advice. :)

This one is more of a general question. My writing partner and I are just now getting settled and apartment searching while we live in an extended stay. So, those of you who have worked in TV, how did you go about getting your first couple of jobs? We're looking at applying through some of the major employers in/around Burbank. NBC Universal has a pretty streamlined application site that I just checked out today. I have enough money saved up to basically not do anything for several months, and I'm applying to transfer to a couple of bookstores in the area, but I'd like to focus on getting some entry-level PA stuff to get my feet wet and hopefully start figuring out how things work from the ground floor. So anyone who wants to talk about their beginnings, even in general, would be appreciated.

Just to be clear, I'm not asking anyone to find me a job or tell me about job openings. I'm just interested in hearing about how people got started, since there's a bunch of different avenues. We're working on our sitcom spec scripts in the downtime, but that's just a given, I'm assuming.

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