Comments Made During the Contest

Adam Grage (Level 4)

Unfortunately not much 'happens' in this piece. Instead we have to people just talking back and forth to each other which made me skim the piece more than read through it.

You name all the protesters at the beginning as though to make them players in the piece yet they have no speaking parts and don't appear in the piece after the beginning. They could easily be stated as:

EXT. CITY HALL

Five Protesters stand outside the City Hall holding various signs.

Unless you want to expand on their roles in the piece, that would serve the purpose of the opening. it is just a suggestion but any unnecassary parts should be cut if they don't add anything to the piece.

Find the parts of the story which can be shown through action. Make Zenora get out and do things which move the story forward.

One part seemed confusing which was not just Sydney and Zenora talking--

EXT. CITY HALL

SUSAN HANNAN
It is time that government realize
that it just cannot impose its will
on the people! I speak for the
majority of my community!

We as a reader don't know how this is being shown. Is Susan talking to the audience? Is there someone there interviewing her? This needs to be clarified better.

I also would remove the Fade INs they really don't add anything and would be addressed with the shooting script.

Ali Barr (Level 4)

I will have to go check the original and come back to this. It seems heavy on conversation and begs to be illustrated more through action. You could show the hypotheticals rather than have your characters talk about them. Be sure to proofread for typos also. See if you can put a bigger action (visual) sequence somewhere in the middle.

Ammar Salmi (Level 5)

Hi,
Interesting. At last, something new.
The script was only a dialogue. That's Ok. That's all you need for this kind of stories. But having the dialogue as the main element of the script, you should have crafted it a bit more than you did. Some lines just sounds unnecessary. Their meanings were too abvious to write them in the dialogue. Like this:
ZENORA
Why?

SYDNEY
It’s about getting readers. Which
gets us numbers. And those numbers
get us more advertisers.

ZENORA
So it’s just a money game.

SYDNEY
Journalism is about reporting the
problems. That is what we sell.

ZENORA
What about the solutions?
You could replace it all only with:
ZENORA
Why? What about the solutions?
That's all. You were great at else things.
Good luck

Audrey Webb (Level 5)

I think you missed a very key element in Poe's original, and that was the humor of getting yourself into awful scrapes and then reporting on it. The conflict in your story never seemed very important, nor did the people. There was nobody in your version to really identify with...I wasn't clear on who they really were (perhaps there were too many of them for me to care about), or what the five people wanted, so I therefore didn't really care what happened to them.

Austin Jones (Level 4)

Nicely written and I like the thematic commentary driving the story. I will say that I do not empathize or find anything that intriguing about these characters. I think you need to find a way to bring them off the page more and make the reader care about their future. You have done a wonderful job giving the story flow but it feels a little wooden.

Brian Wind (Level 5)

This needs polish. There were some formatting issues but the bigger problem was that for a solid page and a half, there isn't a single line of description. Are we just going to be watching two heads talking for that minute and a half because that can make for some pretty boring film. Cuts and Fades can be omitted from these scripts since that sort of thing is left up to the director to decide. If you want something shot a certain way, find a way to describe it.

Caroline Coxon (Mod Emeritus)

Although I'm not that familiar with this particular tale, I thought that, as a script, it contained a lot of exposition - explanations about story-writing, which, for sure is the subject, but will never make for very entertaining cinema.

The characters you first described with such detailed ages then didn't really figure in the story. It needed more action, more conflict to make it palatable.

Brave try though.

Charlie Hebert (Mod Emeritus)

When I saw the selection I knew it would be a difficult one to translate to the screen.

I like the way it begins and the twisting of the truth, but think you really need to work on your dialogue and "moving the story" along to get this one in the right place. Some of the dialogue seems very stiff and unnatural and you have several typos. The setup is really interesting, but gets bogged down with unnecessary dialogue. Like when you cut to the group in front of City Hall and the "master" is going to explain his technique...before you know it, they're back in the office arguing before he's really told us anything.

The ending left me wanting as well. She caved in and then says she hopes she can write what she wants later - kind of just fizzles on the vine.

Hope you rework this one, could be interesting.

Chris Messineo (Founder)

I am big Edgar Allen Poe fan, but I had not heard of this story before. I read your script first and I'm afraid it left me a little confused. I then went and read the original Poe piece. I think you gave yourself a real challeng trying to adapt this.

Looking purely at your adaptation, there isn't much story, drama, or arc there. I did like the way you opened it on the people protesting and then had the voice-over dialogue leading into the next scene, but it didn't really go anywhere from there. The conversation felt a bit stilted and repetitive.

Looking at the original work, I wish you had included the bit about writing about her own death/suicide as I think there is some great drama there and I would suggest focusing on that if you do a rewrite.

Dan Delgado (Level 5)

(Note: My comments are probably more subjective than objective.) Too talky and "on the nose". Nothing happens.

Elias Farnum (Level 5)

I was not familiar with the title. I perused the original and found it impossible to read. Seeing it was totall narration, I do not fault you for too much dialogue. Plus, this script made more sense than the original. Excellent adaptation.

Erich VonHeeder (Level 4)

I felt like this story kept such an even keel throughout...the message was established early on (re: integrity in journalism) and it never really wavered. I think the meat of this story is the choice that Zenora must make regarding her future. Make that choice the CENTERPIECE of everything. Highlight the lure of "the fake", and the reward of integrity...and make us invest more in Zenora as a character. The whole analysis of the situation as performed by Sydney and Zenora was almost clinical. It just needed a spark.

Kirk White (Level 5)

I think this could have been a great story and actually a rather timely indictment on the media. I say this with no knowledge of the original Poe work. However, I think you founder with the way it's laid out. We have three solid pages of two people TALKING about something...then one or two lines of ACTION (the what happened) and then almost two pages of people talking ABOUT what happened. I'd challenge you to really make this active. Show us Zenora's struggle...don't just give us a 5 page argument.

giving a fair, but really think this could be something with a few re-writes.

Lewayne White (Level 4)

Points on for choosing a lesser known work for inspiration.
Dialogue is a little stiff.

Margaret Ricke (Level 5)

Good adaptation. I think I can tell that English is a second language for you, but that wasn't a problem here at all. I like that you deided to work with a lesser known Poe story. Nice work, good style.

Marnie Mitchell Lister (Level 5)

This was an interesting idea for this particular adaptation. It wasn't an easy read though. Too much dialog dragged it out. If you broke it up a bit with some action lines, it definately would have added to your story as well as help it move along better.

Matias Caruso (Level 5)

I felt like it was a bit too talky for a screenplay, almost reads like a play. You need more visuals to drive the story.

This is of course my subjective opinion, but the topic of conversation didn’t seem original or interesting to me. This story, IMHO, needs some kind of hook to grab the reader.

Michael Thede (Level 4)

I got tripped up on a lot of the dialgoue here. I had to read "The whole group I am lead to believe is only five people" over a couple of times before I realized that Zenora wasn't saying that she leads the group, but that she was saying she believes there are only five people in the group. "I just reporting the facts" should be "I just report the facts." Those are only two examples, but generally the dialogue read like proper written English and not spoken English. I also didn't care too much for the transitions and the camera directions either. A lot of the dialogue seemed to much on the head of the nail, so-to-speak, and bordered on being very moral-lesson oriented. I'm curious to know how much of the original dialogue/story was retained for this (I'm not familiar with the original story). I also wasn't clear on the period in which this was taking place until you mentioned "blogging".

Neal Barringer (Level 0)

the exposition appears to be mostly dialogue. I understood the theme of the piece; not quite sure of the ending -- she got a reward. Are you sure it wasn't an award? rewards are usually monetary and don't hang on walls.

Philip Whitcroft (Level 5)

Your story is a nice quick read. It is definitely something that you see all the time in journalism.

Having read the source story I can see that you have simplified the issues given a lot. I think that perhaps they are too simplified, your story might be stronger if some of the expansive extravagant story telling devices were expounded. Also it would be a better visual story if the two journalists were out in the street looking at the protesters and maybe interacting with them.

As a technical note I don't know that naming the protesters really added much.

Pia Cook (Level 5)

Pretty good, but not without faults...

Why mention the people by name (the protesters) when they don't have anything to say or do? Those people would be extras in a film. You only have to introduce us to those that have speaking lines or do something specific for the story.

Although the story is good, there isn't much going on visually. It's mostly just dialogue.

Also check how many times you use the word just...

Numerous typos. Not that it matters too much, but after a while it can get annoying.

My vote: GOOD

Robert Newcomer (Level 4)

This is a very interesting choice. I had never heard of this one, and it seems that Poe clearly had an axe to grind with this bit of satire. I wonder if it were based on an actual person. I suspect it was.

I liked this, and was with you right up until they started talking about blogging. I had simply assumed we were in some bygone era, with a cigar-chomping editor facing a green, cub reporter and typewriters banging away in the background.

"Blogging" pulled me right out of the story and had me rethinking the whole piece.

That is not to say the message is not relevant today, but it seems more to lend itself to the old-school newspaper offices of the past, and the author is encouraged to make a simple switch to place it there. My thoughts on that, anyway.

For a few small nits, it hardly seems necessary to name all five of these protestors at the outset. That is wasted space. Also, the final newspaper article calls Zenora by name, but having never called her by name (aloud) in the story, we would have no idea who that is. Better to have a photo of her beside the story.

Aside from the abrupt time-shift (for this reader), I liked this well enough.

Ron Blizzard (Level 0)

Flowed well, but the dialog came across as bits of a speech. Felt more like a moral lesson than a story.

Sally Meyer (Moderator)

Good effort, I am not familiar with this particular Poe story, and I'm really working hard to get some reviews in. I think it was interesting, but would have been more so, if the characters didn't do so much talking. I think the dialogue went on a little too long.

Stephen Brown (Level 5)

There were a few problems with this one.

First; The names of your characters shouldn't be in brackets - plus you don't really need to name the protestors.
Second; You can lose the continued at the bottom of the pages, it's not needed anymore.
Third; This isn't very visual at all, you have a number of pages that is just dialogue maybe with one line of action. That won't be interesting on screen - people just standing still and talking. Show don't tell.

There was also a number of typos and camera directions. You should look to cut these out in furture scripts. Unfortunately, the only thing I can say that is positive is I liked the dialogue. FAIR attempt.

Stephenie Ruffin (Level 4)

The story for me was just okay. I thought the descriptions were written well, but the dialog seemed a little on the nose or just plain off. I like your adaptation of the poem, but to me it just didn't seem like there was much tention in the script. (Good)

Sylvia Dahlby (Level 5)

Overall, I enjoyed it. I'm not familiar with the original Poe story, so trust this was a good adaptation. It came off as good social commentary about the responsibility of the media. I thought the characters were pretty good, but I would have liked to see more of a dilemma or conflict between them or at least inner conflict of compromising one's values. The other problem I had is that visually this wasn't very interesting, it was a talking-head piece with most of the action sitting around an office just talking (and a bit much, considering they said the same thing in different ways a few times). I'd suggest spicing it up, by having more of it taking place on scene or in the editing room where decisions are made to "spin" etc and snapping up the dialog with an argument.

William Coleman (Level 5)

Even with updating I found this piece to be rather tepid. Why? I think you should have spent more time on conflict and elements that moved your plot forward.

As an additional note - don't use FADE To and CUT TO - that is implied when you go from locale to locale. The director chooses whether it is a cut or fade.

William Dunbar (Level 5)

I think I more or less get what you're aiming for, but the presentation of the idea is not all that compelling. It's too bad, since it is a good idea. First, make the dialogue more natural. As it is, it doesn't sound like real people talking. Next, I haven't read the original, but there must be a way to have something interesting happen in the story, rather than just two people nattering away about journalism. And finally, proofread carefully. There are a lot of typos.
WD

Comments Made After the Contest