Comments Made During the Contest

Ammar Salmi (Level 5)

There was too much story for 5 pages. Too many characters. I was confused. I couldn't understand the point of the opening scene. I felt disjointed for me. May be it's just me.
Good description and dialogue though.

Audrey Webb (Level 5)

I'm going to be brutally honest: I didn't want to read past the first page, which absolutely grossed me out. I really can't imagine viewers wanting to see a film that starts out so crassly, nor could I imagine a producer or director wanting to find out what was beyond the first page.

I'm not sure why you choose a series of short vignettes instead of just one whole movie. You had some funny bits with the vendor selling weird stuff for the eclipse, and I enjoyed that, but none of the vignettes ended off with any kind of satisfying conclusion...with the exception of the last one. I couldn't see any through-line with any of the segments...what is connecting them thematically? Why did you put these four together? I was left scratching my head over this entry, and know I would feel equally confused if I saw it as a film.

Brian Wind (Level 5)

I like how you did 4 micro stories. The first one with the worms was very entertaining.
The second one was too much like the film 'Storytelling' and had no real point to it. The third was kind of funny, but at the same time ridiculously unbelievable. The last one was okay, but there were elements of it that didn't make any logical sense. HOw did the woman make all the lights go out at once and why are we to assume she could hit what she was aiming at in the pitch black? In all of them, the dialogue was a little rigid and there were points of confusion, possibly due to cutting lines to makeit all fit in to five pages. Overall this was an entertaining read, but I think the first one was easily the best. I would have prefered to see that expanded to five pages.

Calvin Peat (Level 4)

This is a very original and imaginative, but also very weird, anthology of scenes.

The second of the four scenes is probably the weakest, as it seems a little pretentious.

The fact that none of the scenes are too long lends the script a sense of pace, and, while it may be random, at least avoids boredom (with the possible exception of the second scene).

The writer's sense of humour seems rather strange, although it is nevertheless funny to an extent, in a completely random way. The third scene is probably the funniest.

There doesn't seem to be anything to link the four stories (other than the eclipses, obviously), but given the randomness of the individual stories, this seems fitting.

Caroline Coxon (Mod Emeritus)

I completely loved this, with only one reservation, I think - that they were all stand-alone, and despite the thread of the eclipse running through them I would have liked them to be linked in a more substantial way.

As it is, you could have submitted each one under different names (except Chris would have spotted it!)

Of all of them, the black teacher/white student worked less well. Very VERY oblique and obscure.

You're a very clever writer. I'm sure you could have linked them without it seeming contrived.

I loved your wit and humour. Bravo!

Chris Keaton (Level 5)

Here is my review.
- Scene headings are simply INT.erior / EXT.erior, location, and DAY or NIGHT. Don't add description to the scene headings put that in the action block.
This was interesting. I'm still not sure what it was though.

Chris Messineo (Founder)

I love the idea of four vignettes tied together by a solar eclipse.

However, I wish there was a bit more than that to connect each of these stories.

Still, your writing is very good and the vignettes were oddly original. I was definitely intrigued.

Christopher Castle (Level 4)

Good title. I like the idea very much of four seperate eclipses but I felt that you should have connected them together somehow. I don't feel I got to know any of the characters because the ideas were restricted. Sometime the action flowed and others it felt strained. There was some good dialogue in there and some good ideas but overall I wanted to find a more common theme apart from the eclipse.

David Birch (Level 5)

most of it was written at a high level...some of the sound cues were excessive (i.e. thwup, tunk)..."distinguished-looking"...how...describe him so that we see that he is distinguished-looking...you told us about the "painted blue and white" walls of the indoor tennis court (and that didn't have any significance to the story) be consistent...things that are germane your story (and that we need to know) should be illuminated...other, less important details only serve to slow the read down...

Elias Farnum (Level 5)

That was truly bizarre.. EXCELLENT

Faith Friese Nelson (Level 5)

A screenplay about worms and slugs! Hmmmm. I guess it's animated. If not, the director's going to have a heck of a time!

Actually, I thought the bug part was funny. The rest of it, however, confused me. It's probably just me.

Felice Bassuk (Level 4)

Brilliant! Imaginative, diverse, original, incisive, humorous! I loved these. Can’t find anything to comment on to improve these. I think they’re immaculate the way they are. In each, dialogue, characterization, action, tone were all perfect for the particular story. Not even a typo. Well done!

Garrett Box (Level 4)

I’m probably one of the few people that didn’t get it. I know this shows man different types of eclipses, but I didn’t see a connection. Also I think that the beginning story the slug should mention something about corn in their “bounty” from god.

Jeannie Sconzo (Level 5)

I didn't understand the connection between the different scenarios.

Jeffrey Slocum (Level 4)

Very confusing. Too many charcaters with not enough detail or intro.

Joe Belzberg (Level 3)

That was , interesting. the first sketch was fairly funny, in an Adam Sandler, gross-out comedy kind of way. I like the contrast between the two screens in the second bit. I think the third sketch was the funniest. however, the fourth sketch didn't do anything for me. It feels out of place.

Your biggest problem is cohesiveness. Apart from the fact that they somehow involve an eclipse, the sketches feel unrelated, both in style and theme. The first and third sketch were each funny, but I doubt that an audience who wants to watch a gross-out comedy like the outhouse scene would enjoy the rest of the sketches. Work on linking these two sketches together, and you could have something great.

John Brooke (Level 5)

Wow shades of 1916 DaDa philosophy in the twenty-first century expressed through your filmscript rather than in graphic art.

Wonderfully absurdist, I particularly laughed my ass off reading your first expression of an eclipse from the viewpoint of a worm. Very earthy, wonderful take on the prompt.

All the vignettes were wonderful Dadaistic expressions, each an absolute howl. They were all good.

The sound of a gunshot at the Fade Out was a masterful touch.

Great original courageous exploration creatively expressed.

Excellent.

Jonah Yarden (Level 4)

Very nice. Punchy, cerebral, well paced and well written. Didn't like the last line but other that a fluid and rich read, your I tentions were layered and I appreciated that.

Jose Batista (Level 5)

These are some strange event happening during this eclipse. The first scenes was pretty strange, earthworms praying for rain and fertile soil. God responded, however funny that was. The third scene with the vendor was hilarious. A few comical parts. The other scenes I simply do not get. There is not coherent story here to understand. If there is something connecting the four scenes then it must be too subtle to understand.

I like your visuals and descriptions and the format is correct. Dialogue was not bad, but the script seriously lacks in story.

Kevin Carty (Level 4)

Good story or stories rather. All connected by an eclipse and five pages. Descriptions are great. The dialog seems a little bit stilted. I almost feel as if you couldn't decide where to go with this one so you just added them all.

Kyle Patrick Johnson (Level 5)

Is this supposed to be like a "Robot Chicken" episode: a bunch of random, unrelated incidents that are supposed to be funny? There are some comic moments, but I don't think I'd much enjoy watching this cobbled-together bunch of instances. But I'm glad you went for something different. It certainly is.

You got a groan out of me on page 1. Not a laugh, just a groan.

I hope the poem on page 2 was supposed to be absurd. It doesn't play well as a serious work of art. The third stanza is quite good, but the first two are odd enough that a reader may skip the whole thing altogether and never even get to the third. The problem lines that I see are "road flare etc." and "fairy wings etc." Road flare tosses in a flavor of the mundane, and fairy wings brings a hint of silly child tales, both of which completely distract from the supposedly thoughtful poem.

After the rapid-fire of the first two segments, the third episode seems exceedingly long! You created a pace and then immediately dropped it.

The fourth scene ends on a hackneyed note. Lena's final line felt way too forced.

You never properly introduce "POSSIBLY A SENATOR" in the action line preceeding her dialogue.

Laureen Muller (Level 4)

Way to all over the place for me. I understand that we are seeing 4 individual stories, but none have large audience appeal, IMO, they seem like partial stories that are waiting for their endings (except the first one). They are not visually appealing and don't flow real well. The first one I am not too sure of the purpose of the story, not comedy, not drama, not wisdom, just not sure. Number 1 ran into number 2 with no transition or hint that we were switching stories as did the next 2. Number 3 I was not sure what you were trying to accomplish, comedy, stupidity or what just seemed like a piece of a strange story. Number 4 was too fast and had no chance to build or to give us a reason to care for the characters, the end, was a good twist, just needed more (and had nothing to do with a SOLAR eclipse).

Leigh Smith (Level 4)

You have a good title.

I guess it was your intention to have all of the ladies names begin with "L" and the men with "T". It can work. However,your characters must be unique and amazingly memorable. After reading the script a few times the only three characters I could recall were Liima, Todd and Layla. Todd seemed a bit younger maybe around 16. Layla image stuck with me.

The scene between Lauren and the professor didn't work for me at all. It added nothing the story and could be left out. However, if this was made into full length script it could work because you would have time to develop the relationship between the two characters. The ending scene seemed forced to get to the ending gunshot. I didn't care about them and it didn't seem realist that she would shoot him and think she wouldn't get caught. The scene isn't bad. There just wasn't enough space to develop it fully.

My favorite scene was the opening one with the worms. I was sad to see it end so soon. I was a little disappointed that the entire script wasn't about the worms. That was very unique, creative and funny.


As I stated before, you have a strong beginning to a full length script if you wanted to continue to develop this as such.

Margaret Ricke (Level 5)

This is brilliant! I absolutely love it!

Excellent work.

Martin Jensen (Level 5)

I liked the four stories that interwove with the eclipse event, but couldn't help feeling that the last was the strongest of the four and really deserved its own five pages.

Tonally the stories didn't gel together, and while the first was cute, the second surreal, the third funny and the fourth quite surprising, it just felt like you had three different ideas that you couldn't separate.

I still enjoyed it immensely.

Micah Ricke (Level 4)

Format and style are near flawless, and I found each tale very interesting. However, I don't think there is enough continuity to string them into one film. The second and fourth tales work together, but the other two seem out of place.

I think that scene one and three stand on their own.

Michael Hoffman (Level 4)

First off, from a creativity standpoint, I loved the idea. Top notch. Made an interesting and truly unique idea to jam four shorts into a five page script.
However, when breaking it down as a whole, I had to grade it only average.
The first segment was great. Witty and grossly funny. Executed and delivered well.
The second part didn't do much for me. Maybe I was expecting humor following the first and was somewhat let down but it came off flat.
The third had great potential but it didn't read very smoothly. It seemed to jump back and forth a little too much between Todd and the others. I liked the brand of humor but it needed some refining.
The final segment seemed somewhat uninspired and unfolded a little too quickly for me to become engaged with it. I think a bit of cutting in the third segment would have allowed more time to improve #2 and #4.
Like I said, I enjoyed the approach and I think it could have really worked well with a little more crafting. I would have also liked some unity between the stories to tie them together a bit. Maybe all four could have taken place in the same park. The outhouse, the professor and student on a blanket somewhere, the vendor and the tennis courts also at the park. This might have been a fun way to add cohesiveness with four different perspectives of the same solar event.

MJ Hermanny (Level 5)

wow, this challenge really stirred up your creative juices!

The worm one was very funny, a little uh, ploppy, but amusing.

I loved the poem.

Some very unscrupulous vendors in this challenge but your guy really takes the biscuit, an amusing and absurd romantic comedy.

The tennis match was the weakest but very visual.

I applaud your imagination.

Neal Barringer (Level 0)

I didn't quite understand this piece. I was entertained by the opening scene of the outhouse worms believing a person sitting on the toilet was a total eclipse. the rest of the scenes went over my head. I would prefer you just stopped the piece with the worms' scene.

Nicholas Ziolkowski (Level 4)

I really like the idea of having four different stories. Reminds me of FOUR ROOMS where there's one central element, but four completely different circumstances.

I have to say that, although it's pretty much a fart joke, I really enjoyed the worm eclipse. Nice touch.

Your second and fourth eclipse stories are the ones that I would really like to see fleshed out more. I want to know more about those characters, and see where their lives end up and how.

The Central Park eclipse ran on too long for me. As I was reading it, I couldn't help but think that there wouldn't be a fourth eclipse. This story was fun for a bit before feeling recycled.

Nick Miranda (Level 4)

I was waiting for all of these stories to converge, but I kind of understand why they didn't. Kinda.

The first segment was a little juvenile even though you tried to class it up with: "Lo! A great flatulence!" Why not just say "A FART!" The sound effects were also not needed. I understood what was going on.

The second segment was beautifully written. I like the character juxtaposition, speaking the same lines at different points in time.

The third segment was a pretty good social commentary, but I don't understand Layla. Is she supposed to be important because she is a female doing a job usually held by a male?

I found the third segment my lease favorite. I kind of saw the twist coming. I would have actually preferred it if the lights didn't explode but just went out and when they came back on and the guy was standing there by himself looking like and idiot. I think it would have been just as powerful.

Paul Williams (Level 5)

I applaud your imagination in putting this all together, but I gotta admit I don't understand how this all relates to each other or what the theme throughout is. Perhaps others will have better luck with it than me.

I was hoping this would all somehow tie together in the end, in the vein of "Crash" or "Pulp Fiction," but that doesn't seem to be the situation.

There's a lot of characters here, at least ten with speaking parts. That might be too much for a five-pager.

Try to give the script more of a lean look, it appears chunky in spots with the narrative parapgraphs. Your format appears in order.

Peter Tolosa (Level 3)

I didn't laugh at any of the jokes in this story. I didn't understand the ending. Your format is outstanding, that's the ONLY reason why I'm giving you a "Fair" rating. Aside from that I don't like how unrelated these stories are, and that overall they don't end up all that resolved. I bet somebody would laugh at this, but not me. I'm sorry.

Philip Whitcroft (Level 5)

There is a whole lot of stuff in here and although there is a unifying element I'm not sure that the mix of these stories works that well for me because they are each really their own thing. Within them are many good things and some that don't work so well for me.

(1) The page one story is amusing but would be difficult to produce visually in a way that was not so gross out as to disgust most of the audience.
(2) This one is the most intriguing and I like the visual concept. Unfortunately it is also the most underdeveloped as a story.
(3) The longest of the four makes a very strong parody point about people selling safety equipment.
(4) The last of these has a simple clean thrill to it. However the woman is playing tennis with a light destroying device and a gun that she can aim in the dark concealed on her body?

"God is great." - I'm guessing this is a coincidence but you might want to be careful with this specific phrase because it has particular significance to a major religion, and as such risks people reading more into it than you intend.

Rob McCarthy (Level 2)

Very good! A really playful and poetic approach to the subject matter, and shows wonderful imagination. I think it's almost at risk of coming across as slightly pretentious, but this really is my kind of thing. It really made me want to go back and read the whole thing again, which says a lot! I'll be thinking about it for hours, now.

Rod Thompson (Level 3)

I like the four story approach to the eclipse theme. Definitely cool! The vendor was a hilarious look at the way everyone HAS to have the latest something. Definitely a top ten finisher. I wouldn't change a thing about this script, though the ending didn't come out too clear as to if the wife knew about the affair and killed the mistress already.

Sally Meyer (Moderator)

Not sure why you wrote four eclipses. Each one on their own could have been a stand alone story. As it is, none were really complete stories imho. You've got a good sense of humor as evidenced by the first story with the worms and the toilet. The strongest eclipse I think was the vendor one.

The two weakest were the girl reciting the poem and the tennis one. I think you would have been much better off just writing and developing one story line.

Scott Merrow (Level 5)

Holy moley! I didn't get this at all. The worm thing (although kind of gross) was funny and seemed like it might have been heading toward a clever satire of weird quasi-religious rituals. But then it ended. I totally missed the point of all the others. And just when I thought I couldn't be any more confused, the lights go out, and there's a gunshot. The end. Maybe I'm dense (well, okay, probably I'm dense), but I completely missed the point of your screenplay.

Shane Shearer (Level 4)

I don't think there was enough depth in any of the stories, other than the worm one. A little more time was spent on the comical one, the methhead sroty. The rest borderline on absurd and seemed rather forced. Had you stuck with two stories and elaborated on them, this may have been a more dominating script in this contest. Personally, I think it just falls a little flat. Rewrite and focus more on two elaborate stories rather than four thin ones.

Stephen Brown (Level 5)

This seemed like a collection of skits, which is fine, but I don't think that is the purpose of these competitions. All your episodes included an eclipse and they were all pretty good, but where was the connection. If this was your technique I think you needed something else to tie them together other than the eclipse.

Maybe I missed it but these seemed like isolated ideas put together. Was well done though, just would have preferred you chose one of your stories and expanded that.

Suzanne Smith (Level 4)

Nice work coming up with four different stories, all very dramatic and completely different from each other. Not so much into the toilet humor, but I really enjoyed the tennis match at the end. Liked to have seen some kind of transition from one story to the next, as to tie in all of the stories, as it stands, it's like submitting four stories, the only thing tying them together is the title and theme. Maybe a sky scene with the sun/moon in different positions of the eclipse, and insert? Maybe the moon talking to the sun? Very imaginative. I thought it was very clever what you did!

Sylvia Dahlby (Level 5)

The first page of this had me laughing - bravo! This reminded me of the words of the cockroach on the lower case keys who once overheard the survivors of a colony of ants that had been partly obliterated by a cow's hoove, seriously debating the intentions of the gods towards their civilization... but I digress...

From there it fell apart. Mostly from being overpopulated with characters (Todd, the Vendor, the Cop, possible Sentator, Lauren, Layla, Dr Teelen, Toby, Lena) - who the heck is this story about?

I had to read it twice before I connected the dots and got the title (duh) - there's four stories here crammed into five pages. Only the first one was Good, in fact it was Very Good for being clever (the "moon" blocking the sun, yes I got it). Unfortunately, the rest read like excerpts from other works and weren't working for me.

Consider, one character or some other thread - and smoother scene transitions -- that might have sewn this together rather than unconnected vignettes. I was forced to rate the "four eclipses" separately:

Part one = Very Good.

Part two = Fair, the character relationship was cliche and the dialog was contrived. This could have been better if it was a real story. The split screen direction also wasn't working for me; too much camera direction not enough plot.

Part three = Poor. Didn't get it. Got confused, no character for me to relate to, I assume this was about the Vendor but there was too much going on so the humor fell flat.

Part four = Fair. This was better than part two, but again I'm not feeling it, too incomplete and sketchy.

Overall = Fair, but I gave a bonus point for originality and style so gave this a GOOD.

Tejas Patel (Level 3)

I like the four different views of the eclipses but don't think the worms scene fit too well with the others. It starts off as an animation then to live action, kind of threw me off.

Wes Worthing (Level 5)

I like how you have comedy/drama/comedy/drama--breaks it up nicely. The four "L" and "T" names: LIIMA LAUREN LAYLA LENA TINHAS TODD DR. TELEEN TOBY, wouldn't be confusing to watch, but as a reader it's distracting and it may be a good idea to vary them. The first story is very funny. The second more depressing and poetic, but so brief I couldn't be engaged with it. The third, funny again, but a bit too drawn out. The fourth, worked for me--I don't really feel I need to know the details--dialogue has a dark comedy feel to it. A change of pace from the rest of the scripts. Strong writing. I think this would be exciting to witness on the screen.

William D. Prystauk (Level 5)

Juxtaposition for certain! Great way of using the poem as the center of the tale.

A great, quirky and WTF? narrative I enjoyed.

Things to consider:

Change "SCREAMS comically" to just "SCREAMS" - we know enough by now to laugh.

And use ellipses... not..

Great stuff!

Comments Made After the Contest

Caroline Coxon (Mod Emeritus) ~ 4/1/2009 12:25 AM

This was definitely one of my top two. Shame it didn't place.

Rod Thompson (Level 3) ~ 4/1/2009 12:34 AM

I agree with Caroline, I saw this one coming in high

Margaret Ricke (Level 5) ~ 4/1/2009 12:48 AM

This was my shortest review, but it started out shorter - "Brilliant! Excellent work!"

MJ Hermanny (Level 5) ~ 4/1/2009 5:44 AM

What an imagination you've got Joel! great to see this was yours.

Joel Davis (Level 5) ~ 4/1/2009 1:05 PM

I'm glad people liked this. I debated for a while if I should submit this or not. I knew it wasn't for everyone, and didn't really have a snowball's chance at placing in the top three. In the end, I was curious about what the reactions would be, and submitted it for that reason, and I'm glad I did. I learned a lot from everyone's responses.

It's interesting (and rewarding, to me) that each of the four was someone's favorite, and also someone's least favorite. I was worried that perhaps everyone would love the last one and hate the third, or something like that.

Thanks, John Brooke, for picking up on the Dadaist connection. This wasn't meant to be completely dadaist (it still makes far to much sense for that, I think), but I was more interested in the reactions caused by these four disparate pieces placed in such close proximity, than the reactions caused by the pieces themselves. I spent an ungodly amount of time choosing the order that these would appear in, and tweaking the transitions between them.

I was also curious about if people would feel that these were connected strongly or not at all. The connections were the eclipse, and details like the letters of the character's names. For those of you looking for convergence or a thematic connection, my apologies. I was curious to see if I needed a thematic connection, or if readers would each draw their own connections between the segments (as they can between random plot elements). It's clear now that I do need to provide that thematic connection.

Also, I've got to say, my goal for Feb. was to write a simple, straightforward narrative for MoviePoet. I reaaaaaally tried, but somehow I ended up with this. I blame Chris entirely, for picking such a fertile theme. :)

Elias Farnum (Level 5) ~ 4/1/2009 6:03 PM

In light of this entry, I find your comments on mine somewhat paradoxical. Meh