Do you like Steamy Tales of Romance: New and Improved?

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After comments and criticisms I have made some
changes now and I for one feel that it is better.
I am begining to 'get it' I think.
Thanks again and if you would spare a moment,
to have another look and give your c&c again
that would be appreciated.
Text of Screenplay segment here...
http://www.members.shaw.ca/rsobie/HallR.html
Thanks in advance.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

"Rick Sobie" wrote:
[nq:1]After comments and criticisms I have made some changes now and I for one feel that it is better. I ... be appreciated. Text of Screenplay segment here... http://www.members.shaw.ca/rsobie/HallR.html Thanks in advance. INT. SQUARE 5 MI. LONG ANCIENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL UNDERGROUND TUNNEL[/nq]
I'd simplify this location to "TUNNEL" then describe it in Action.
[nq:1]FADE IN: BEGIN TITLES Music plays while shadowed archaeological team members walk down ancient tunnel, flashlights light up walls, show inscriptions, glyphs, titles in glyphs morph to center screen.[/nq]
What is a "shadowed archaeological team
"an" ancient tunnel.
[nq:1]END TITLES Music ends, flashlights lighting tunnel, glyphs like some ancient curse, foreboding, unnerving, images of torture, sacrifice and disease covered the walls on both sides.[/nq]
Mixing tenses again: "covered" is past.
[nq:1]They are investigators of the fourth kind. Members of the ARI. Anomalous Retrieval and Investigations. A little known branch of ... made public, might for instance, upset the balance of power or destabilize religious groups, or might embarrass the academic community.[/nq]
How do I know all that when I look at the screen?
This is just WRONG for screenplays.
[nq:1]The team members were all professionals, two men, two women.[/nq]
They were professionals. What are they now amateurs?
[nq:1]George, age 45, team leader, single, pensive, cultured, good looking leading man type with grey temples.[/nq]
Grey temples?
Gee I wonder what colour his hair is.
[nq:1]George stops to examine a large grotesque figure carved into on the floor of the tunnel as his flashlight strikes it. GEORGE How ugly is that?[/nq]
No idea. Why don't you tell us?
[nq:1]Halley, African American female, 37, gorgeous, shapely, perky, charming, quick to smile, nice teeth, almost always smiling, relies heavily on George.[/nq]
Description from the planet Clunky.
How do we know she relies on George? Can you tell by looking at her?
[nq:1]HALLEY Looks like something from an alien movie. Scott, age 38, slim, funny, expressive, history major, quick witted but easily distracted. Laura is his girlfriend.[/nq]
*** almighty, not a LIST of characters...
Rick: you are not going to get away withe breaking up the list with lines of dialogue.
This is a horrible amateur way to introduce characters. As you would know if you stopped writing and started reading.
[nq:1]SCOTT (somewhat scared, nervous) Not the a word, please not the a word. Not right now. Laura, young 37, girl next door, American sweetheart, innocent, lovable, has a thing for Scott.[/nq]
How do we know she has a thing for Scott?
This is NOT the way to do it in a screenplay. As you would know if you stopped writing and started reading.
[nq:1]LAURA Relax Scott. It looks Incan, Mayan maybe? Something small moved in the shadows ahead, and they stop. Startled, sweating, ... LAURA Please, not the m word... not right now. A tail moves back into crack under spotlight. They move on.[/nq]
A joke, right? This mouse business... not a joke? *** help us.
[nq:1]The tunnel is over 5 miles long with almost perfectly square sides. The entire length, a cool breeze flows through against their faces. Like a sea breeze.[/nq]
How do we know all this? You have to describe what you can see on the screen. No more no less. As you would know if you stopped writing and started reading.
[nq:1]Close up George, slight breeze blowing in face.[/nq]
Forget about camera angles like "Close up." As you would know if you stopped writing and started reading.
[nq:1]GEORGE Looks like a chamber up ahead. The tunnel opens up into the large hall. CUT TO: INT. LARGE HALL 100 FEET ACROSS AND 100 FEET LONG[/nq]
Horrible location slug.
Have you ever read a script in your life?
[nq:1]Team members enter hall from tunnel. They scan the hall revealing large Egyptian-like statues beside columns, large table in center.[/nq]
Oh, I see. You've decided that "terse" means you can drop all definite articles. Not a good idea.
[nq:1]Look of wonder on faces, leaning forward slightly, looking up and around, shining flashlights. SCOTT (smiling with wonder) Awesome.[/nq]
Useless parenthetical.
[nq:1]GEORGE (To Halley) What's our position? Halley checks GPS. HALLEY (a little surprised) Four miles off the coast of Bermuda. ... you think, Egyptian? It was as if this hall which was in Bermuda, had somehow been transported from ancient Egypt.[/nq]
Was it?
Or is it?
Tenses mixup.
[nq:1]The Winged Disk, the Eye of Ra, the symbolism was almost the same as any you might find in old ... thick. It must weigh several tons. LAURA Similar to the Sun Disk isn't it, with those wings on either side?[/nq]
Scintillating exchange. Also on the nose.
[nq:1]Flashlights scan the walls beside the disk showing wings engraved in the wall on either side. Then above disk, man with long woven beard on top of disk, carved into rock.[/nq]
Writing too terse. Easy Writer. Uneasy Reader.
[nq:1]SCOTT Yes. Look at the character sitting on the disk. I've seen this before... near Babylon. LAURA (puzzled) What is ... through the tunnel. All of a sudden the possibility of the greatest find known to man lay right around them.[/nq]
Read a script or two, for the love of ***. And stop writing.

Usenet · Answer

"Rick Sobie" wrote:
[nq:1]Text of Screenplay segment here... http://www.members.shaw.ca/rsobie/HallR.html[/nq]
I've got a better idea.
Work on it a bunch. Go read a bunch of the screenplays which others have recommended to you. Then come back and tell us what YOU think you were doing wrong.
Personally, I never like to ask someone for feedback on two successive drafts on something both because it affects their comments, and because it affects my writing.
You've still got a lot to learn. The notion that it could have become day-and-night better in a few hours is silly. Take some time, really study a bit, work on it some, study some more...
And then post it again.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]After comments and criticisms I have made some changes now and I for one feel that it is better. I ... another look and give your c&c again that would be appreciated. Text of Screenplay segment here... http://www.members.shaw.ca/rsobie/HallR.html Thanks in advance.[/nq]
Well, if you want it straight, the straight answer is this. I worked in development for years evaluating scripts, and if a script had come across my desk and these pages had been the opening pages of any screenplay that I'd read I wouldn't have even read to the end of the pages that you posted before rejecting it.
You literally could have saved whatever effort you were planning on expending in writing the rest of the screenplay. Leave the pages blank for all the good they might have done you. You will be rejected just on the basis of these.
By everybody.
To lay it out for you get the format straight. Nobody is interested certainly no professional is interested in whether you like it or not, or have difficulty with it or not, or prefer something else.

Maybe if you wrote something that was simply transcendentally brilliant and the format was screwed up, it wouldn't matter.

This isn't. So get the format right.
The way in which you introduce the setting is awkward, since clearly there is no vantage point within a space such as you describe that would reveal that it was five miles wide or five miles long. What does a five-mile long corridor look like?
Specifically, when you've got people who have to find their way around using flashlights what does a five-mile long corridor look like in the dark?
As a general rule (or you could make it a specific rule, if you'd like) you shouldn't tell readers things that an audience watching the movie will not be privie to for instance all that stuff about the organization I (presume it's not going to be running on a rolling screen while the action proceeds, nor will it be printed on their jackets. Audiences watching these people walking down the corridors won't know anything about the organization they belong to so don't tell the reader of the script stuff that a watcher of the movie won't know. It's not just a kind of cheating it's also a kind of script-writer laziness.
Ultimately the audience, I presume will also need to know that stuff you wrote about that organization. If you feel they need to know that stuff right up front, when you informed the reader then you need to find a way to put it into the scene the stuff that the audience will see, not simply put it into the text that a reader will read. And if the audience doesn't that information now, why bother the reader with it now? When the audience needs it, give it to the audience in a scene through characters saying or doing something and then the reader will get it at the same time.
The same is true with all that stuff about the characters and what kind of people they are. Don't tell us in little chunks of description. That is something that audiences also won't get to see. What they see are characters who behave and make decisions and interact with one another. That is how they learn who and what characters are about. And that is how a reader ought, likewise, to learn who and what a character is about.
Not to mention that those descriptions stand out as some of your more exquisitely clunky writing.
Laura is the cute perky 36-year-old girlfriend of this other guy who's 37 years old?
Hey, I'm 48 myself and I'm game for anything but all in all, this strikes me as a tad old for these two characters, especially since they seem to speak and behave like they're fresh out of high school.

Finally, and fundamentally isn't this supposed to turn out to be some sort of *** comedy taking place in ancient times?

Well, what you've written so far comes across as a not-terribly-interesting adventure-horror thing, sort of in the mode of Indiana Jones or maybe Alone in the Dark or one of those.

Nothing in the pages that you've written to suggest either the comedy or the romance or the ***.
And while you can have a short opening sequence in a movie that runs counter to the tone of the main body for instance they had serious action scenes at the top of movies like "Kindergarten Cop" or "Miss Congeniality" but those things have very strong premises they were both fish-out-of-water movies so they both started, in essence, with their "fish" in the water.
But that doesn't seem to apply in this case. Based on the rather confused attempt at a logline that you gave early on, I'm still not really sure what your movie is about, ultimately what it's central problem is what drives the engine of your story.

As it stands, though, what you've written is absolutely at the level of an amateur. If that comes across as cruel, or discouraging, I am sorry. What I am saying is not simply a matter of my opinion, it is the professional evaluation of somebody who did this for a living for a good many years, and if you're serious about persuing this, you need to take it to heart.
Anyone who ultimately ended up as a professional writer began as an amateur but the overwhelming majority of amateur writers never become professionals.
You need to reach the point where you can look at your own writing and distinguish between what you are doing and what someone who is writing at the level of a professional is doing. It is only by doing that that you can improve your writing and potentially reach a professional level.
Screenwriting is a very competitive and highly paid form of professional writing.
If you can't write at a professional level, you shouldn't expect to be able to write and sell a screenplay.
NMS

Usenet · Answer

Ohh, he says, as the lights come up
on Broadway..
The red threat, hurds the talent, whilst the blue
saviours keep them guarded, leading their flock
as it were, to pawties, where nerry a screewriter has yet to set foot.
Am I getting warmer?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]After comments and criticisms I have made some changes now ... look and give your c&c again that would be appreciated.[/nq]
[nq:1]If you can't write at a professional level, you shouldn't expect to be able to write and sell a screenplay. NMS[/nq]
Whew, tough crowd.
Which is a very very good thing! MC, ron & nm, you have been incredibly generous in the detail a clarity of your comments. I for one have learned a good bit, thank you.
-Sam

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