TFW your boss asks you to give in depth comments on a script professionally for a client…and it’s not even in format.
This script is hitting all of my “oh my god please stop” pet peeves.
“we see” check.
Writing what the person is thinking, check.
Out of format sluglines, check.
ONLY DESCRIBE WHAT YOU CAN FUCKING SEE ON THE SCREEN PEOPLE.
I am only on page 5.
THIS IS A SCREENPLAY, NOT A FUCKING NOVEL OH MY GOD
Remember, we can’t know what a character is thinking. We can see the expressions on his face, we cannot know that he is fondly remembering his childhood church.
Do we really need the five lines of the hot blond early twenty assistant oogling the main characters butt? Do we really?
Also, every time a character does something and the verb ends with ‘s’, he makes it possessive. Same with plurals.
So there are a lot of “hit’s” and “coin’s” and “slide’s”
Oh. Writer is an actor. Is is a script about an actor.
This is one of those.
We get that he’s an actor and a film set, we don’t need a montage of it.
Know the difference between “you’re” and “your”, people. Also, “you’r” is not a thing.
I just got “cock’s” as a plural. I’m done. I’m officially done. I’m only on page 12 and I’m done.
Wait, he goes from being in his element and kicking ass at the film shoot, where the line “he is finally happy with his life” is in the script, and then it goes to a discussion with his agent about how he wants to quit? WTF?
Remember, dialogue is where two people talk to one another, not monologue at each other.
Don’t do that.
Monologing is boring.
When you start a new scene, don’t use pronouns for the first description. ALWAYS use names.
Do we really need the scene of the father bursting in on his half naked 17 year old daughter flossing? Do we really?
We can infer that someone is vexed if they start punching someone in the face, you don’t need to say it.
Lets be real, if my boss hadn’t told me to go page by page and line by line I would’ve given up with all these notes.
But.
The project is going to be sent out to production companies over the break.
It needs to be so, so, so much better.
26 pages in and we got the first laugh out of me.
Still don’t know what this show will be about, though.
Don’t put a paragraph break in the middle of dialogue.
Please.
I’m on page 34 and I’m flagging. I’m so flagging.
I don’t know what this series is about. I don’t know what the main conflict is. I don’t know who or why I should be rooting for this characters, my mind is starting to accept that the typos are actually correct, and the slang is so thick my eyes are blurring.
Remember, having a character say information that all characters in the scene would already know, is kinda annoying.
Wait, what?
I mean, what?
This script just took such a huge fucking left turn.
I mean, what?
What?
It’s not a twist, this turn invalidates pretty much the previous 30 pages.
Like, if this was where the entire script was going, then there was about 30 pages of WASTED script. Utterly WASTED.
