Comments Made During the Contest

A.M. Wallace (Level 0)

This screenplay has a good story but it has way too much going on for 5 pages. You have a lot of characters to keep track of. You have a lot of back and forth going on and in 5 pages, it is too much to manage. You don't have time to get into anything other than the actions and I think that causes the story to be missing some key elements. You have some typos.

Audrey Webb (Level 5)

I just couldn't keep all the characters straight in my head. The relationship between all the men didn't seem at all clear to me. Who is "the boss"? Very murky, and it would seem to me that you could eliminate a few characters and make things are lot clearer in the process.

Brian Wind (Level 5)

I don't know if it was the fact that there might have been too many characters crammed in to five pages or something else that I just can't pinpoint, but I found this script very confusing and hard to follow. I gather that the suspected child molester is killed, but I really couldn't follow the events leading up to it or even determine whether or not he was, in fact, a child molester or not. The writing was good, the story needs a rewrite with a focus on clarifying the plotline in my humble opinion. Nice work.

Carl Rossi (Level 2)

Watch out for homonyms. "Your" instead of "You're" and "Wraps" instead of "Raps".

There shouldn't be any fat in scripts in general, but especially in shorts. The scene when Stan says, "I'm not gonna explain this again." doesn't seem to fit. I'd cut it or change it to something relevant to the script.

The scene after that: INT. LIVING ROOM. - LATER. The action begins with "Three men sit on a sofa." Identify the men in this case, since we're supposed to know who they are.

Leo and Stan don't know Cromartie's daughter's name? Why not? Aren't they working for him? If Leo and Stan are not working for Cromartie then this isn't clear. But if they were, then why was Cromartie going to a poker game when he knew they were bringing Ferguson to him to be castrated/beat up/ragged out?

I'd like to see it rewritten. It's an interesting story about not being able to avoid one's fate.

Caroline Coxon (Mod Emeritus)

"He recently turned thirty but looks closer to forty." - how on earth are you going to show this on screen?

"At thirty-four, he looks and dresses younger than his age." - ditto!

There seem to be an awful lot of characters and already I'm confused (on p 2) Better to have few characters who can come to life than so many who don't.

"Ferguson unknowingly leaps into Cromartie’s pickup bed and bangs his head on a cinder block." Uh? Whose head? Ferguson's or Cromartie's?

I'm afraid, even having read this through three times, I'm completely confused and bemused as to who is who and what has happened.

Charlie Hebert (Mod Emeritus)

Man, you're hard to keep up with. 8 characters introduced in the first page and a half!

Don't get your description of Leo and Stan as two guys who haven't paid taxes. That could be an entire spectrum of people.

Could Ferguson really make them believe he was dead? And then conveniently knocks himself out in the back of the boss's truck? Seems a tad too much to swallow.
Don't really get the ending either.

I think you could have a good story here, but it's so disjointed, coincidental and weird that it really gets kind of annoying. Think you need a little more work an that part.
Good luck.

Chris Messineo (Founder)

I think there is a good story here, but it is exceedingly difficult to follow.

Normally, I love inter-cutting but there are so many characters so quickly in this short that it makes for a confusing read.

I did read it a second time and it flowed better, although I'm not sure how much I believe the coincidence of him going from the van into the pickup truck.

I think this script might need a few more pages so that the pacing feels a little more natural.

Dawn Calvin (Level 5)

That was fun. Lots of twists and turns and action.

Elias Farnum (Level 5)

Ok, I like the twist of someone getting what is coming to him (I think). I would have liked to see more backstory (yeh, I know, 5 pages)and thought the girl herself was going to get involved when Ferguson comes running in. I don't think his guilt was firmly established. I got a chuckle at the end tho I don't think you meant this as comedy.

You write well, and I liked the character introductions except "just turned 30 looking like 40." How do I know he just had a birthday? Possibly too many characters at that, I had to read this twice.

Gary Murphy (Level 3)

The writing was really quite good, the action was described superbly. The story was really difficult to grasp though and even after 3 reads I am not sure what was going on at all.

Jane Beckwith (Level 4)

Good, chilling story, but a bit "busy", a lot of venues and people to keep track of. Seems odd that the concerned dad lights out for a poker game after the perfunctory confrontation with the daughter, even if the poker game is just a front for the kidnapping. I liked the "flashlight and shovel" line. Think it would work well with the perv still alive and listening too.

Jeremy Goodlander (Level 3)

This was very good, flowed nicley. I had just a tad problem keeping up with the characters, but overall a good read. Nice strong characters.

John LaBonney (Level 4)

I think that for a short script, this is a very ambitious undertaking for a writer and would also be challenging for a filmmaker to do properly. However I think I would enjoy watching it.

Michael Cornetto (Level 5)

That would have been great if it was longer. You had way too much going on in this little short, too many main characters and too many locations. It was confusing to read and without some expansion on the part of the director it would be confusing to watch. You're a good writer but you overdid it on this one. FAIR.

Michael Thede (Level 4)

It took me a while to be able to start putting together what was going on here, but it did manage to pan out nicely in the end. The coincidence that Ferguson would happen to dive into Cromartie's pick-up truck worked well to set up the ending, but wouldn't they have both ended up at the same address either way? After all, it seems like they both had plans to be at the poker game (perhaps not knowing that the other one was going to be there). Nevertheless, I think this could work really well if you expanded on it a bit to bring in some of the relationship he had with the girl and the reason why the gangsters wanted him dead, too. I'm scoring you a VERY GOOD.

Pia Cook (Level 5)

I think you had way too much going on here for a five page script. Too many characters and too much going on. As a result, we never really got to know any of the characters and as a result of that, I didn't really care what happened to any of them.

My vote on this is GOOD, but that is mostly due to the writing itself, not the story.

Rustom Irani (Moderator)

Boy! You sure go for full throttle don't you. This is like watching "Snatch" in 5 minutes.

Character's are introduced as they are in the middle of the plot and you don't even let me take a breath and figure out who's who before you have phone calls, kidnappings, mistaken identities, loony hit men...the works.

It will translate well on screen but needs some pace adjustments to slow bits down a tad. A slightly longer re-write to establish some more back-story about these guys especially Willoughby and Gallagher would help this very much. Both of them hardly play any part except serve as prop pieces or extras and aren't really involved in the plot moving forwards.

The resolution is good. I think most filmmakers will have fun with it.

Sussex Road doesn't quite work as a title and hardly hints at the plot to follow.

Technically you were fine.

Look forward to more of your scripts.

Sally Meyer (Moderator)

Very clever, very good writing. Action packed (would have been a good one for last month) I like the fast pace of the story, the twist at the end, and the writing style is strong.

Good work.

Spencer McDonald (Level 4)

Your story was confusing for me. The flow seemed off. And i found that some of your action could be trimmed. For example: "Two guys who haven’t declared any income since the Reagan administration." This is a piece that could be removed. It doesn't really move the story along. And it is not something we can see. The dialogue should indicated things like your description above. Anyway, writing is tough and and toughest will prevail.

Stephenie Ruffin (Level 4)

For a 5 pager, you had a lot going on. There were a lot of characters to keep up with. At times it was a little confusing, I went back a few times to see who was who. As for the ending, I think it might work better if Cromartie took Ferguson's pulse and then ask for the shovel and flashlight. (Otherwise, how would Cromartie know Ferguson was dead if he didn't take his pulse) For me, the story was just okay. I thought the writing was nice along with dialog. The pace was a little sketchy for me, maybe because you were going back and forth between the many scenes. (Fair)

Sylvia Dahlby (Level 5)

I thought I was in for a story about poker and then plunged into a world of action & intrigue. Except it might have been better ride if it weren't as jumpy, I didn't get much sense of the characters or identify with any of them. I suggest reducing the number of characters and tightening up to story to focus on one or two people so I can feel more connected to them, we also never got to see the girl who started all the trouble.

Tim Westland (Moderator)

This is a tough one for me to score/judge.

I mean, the writing is snappy, the direction excellent and the story is fast paced. Technically it is right on.

I think the problem is that there are so many character, so much action, so many things going on... but there isn't enough information for me to be sure exactly who is in trouble for what. I felt like I needed to have a score card.

Ultimately, if the reader has trouble keeping track of the players and what exactly is happening, then you may lose them and then all is lost... no matter how good the story.

But there is so much going for this script that I must rate it Very good.

Tom Shipley (Level 4)

Thought you did a great job of intertwining three seemingly separate scenes. Like how it's clear what's going through the action of the script... very little expository dialog.

The kidnapping stuff is a little hinky for me. If they duct-tape his mouth and think they accidentally suffocate him, i just don't see how he suddenly recovers from that.

I don't understand the "A.D.D." scene with Leo and Stan. Is it supposed to be picking up on an unseen conversation? Not sure what that exchange adds to the script.

In the last scene, I'd establish that Ferguson is motionless on the ground. In the previous scene, you end it with him hitting his head on the coffee table. You don't give any indication as to the severity of the injury and show what happened to him after he hit his head. I think that's important to establish.

Over all, good job though.

William Bienes (Mod Emeritus)

The writing was solid. There was a ton going on, but you did get a sense of the characters through their actions.

Comments Made After the Contest