This is a 7 page screenplay for the LDS Film Festival. It's a contemporary geek romance. I have to mail it Friday, so I'll be checking my emails, or reply here. This is 13 lines less the dialogue tags:
quote:AN INSTITUTE OF RELIGION LOUNGE, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH – AFTERNOON (1990) The camera begins focused on a chessboard, then pulls back to reveal ROGER and DEL playing. She is losing. GRANT emerges from the lunch crowd.
GRANT May I play the lady next?
DEL It’s tradition to play the winner.
GRANT But that’s not going to be you, Ma’am.
ROGER Eh, that’s okay. It’s mate in one either way, and I need to get to class. Thanks for the game, Delaine.
DEL Thanks, see you, Roger.
Grant is seated and begins to set the board.
DEL He didn’t really have a class you know.
GRANT Ah, but he has class, don’t you think?
DEL Speaking of which, you haven’t introduced yourself. I’m Delaine Li.
Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
If I get it this a.m., I may be able to read it (I'll be away from my computer starting this afternoon). Sounds interesting to me.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Almost too cute, but I can read seven pages easily enough.
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
I did try to email that, I just realized it bounced back briggs. I've changed it substantially anyway, and plan to change it more.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
By the way, this gets better after the first scene Posted by Josh (Member # 4394) on :
A quick comment. Should it be a warning sign when you have to tell folks "It gets better after..." X amount of pages or story? I've seen a lot of agents and editors comment that if an author tells them the story is best if you start on page 50, or some such (maybe this is different for screenplays) but that you should then start the story when it is best and has the strongest hook.
It is a warning sign, I think that the dialog in the first scene is pretty stilted, particularly at the start. It's also the truth, in my notsohumble opinion. This really did pick up in some of the later scenes. And her new opening lines are less stilted, though they aren't posted here.
Anyway, she's already sent it, so it's too late now.
Posted by januson (Member # 4194) on :
style thing: you say it's from page 7, so i suppose we've met DEL already? if not, you need to tell us del is a "she" before you say she is winning
edit to say, i read that wrong. this isn't from page 7, the whole thing is a 7 page screenplay, so you definitely need to tell the "reader" that del is a female. hell, though the name is obvious, you should probably tell us the other two are male as well
content's good
[This message has been edited by januson (edited December 02, 2006).]
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Um...she does mention that DEL is female. But she doesn't need to tell us that except in the cast list, which isn't included. I guess the most relevant point is that it's hard to get good feedback on a screenplay, since most of what we think of as writing isn't applicable.
Posted by DeepDreamer (Member # 5337) on :
I just want to jump in and say I love the title. Hope things go well with this!
Posted by januson (Member # 4194) on :
to survivor:
proper screenplay format should not actually include a cast list as such, so you should introduce any character without an obvious gender, such as "del" by telling us the gender.
"The camera begins focused on a chessboard, then pulls back to reveal ROGER and DEL playing. She is losing." -- this does not tell us del's gender. we have to assume del is the "she" because we know roger to be a male name, but in my experience, "del" is male as well, so the "she" should not have been there until the screenplay had established a female was present.
