The 10-Page Torture Test

Clark Nova => 10PTTs => Topic started by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 07:45 AM



Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 07:45 AM
(https://10ptt.com/smf/10ptt_shake.gif)

Lo and behold and verily it came to pass that another spec first 10 pages got me fired up enough to 10PTT. I present for your angry drunken consideration:

23 MINUTES by Trevor Mayes
(pages used by author's permission)

I stumbled onto the script while browsing http://talentville.com/

Quote
Talentville is an online community specifically created to give a voice to screenwriters and playwrights everywhere who may lack insider connections but still share the dream of being produced. By bringing together writers from all over the world in a collaborative environment, by banding together as a whole to help each member be the best that they can be, we aim to create not just an online community but in fact a city of writers, where each member can work on their craft, gain valuable exposure and ultimately benefit from their own hard work.

It's maybe the second time I've gone to the site since joining a long time ago.  And frankly, the place looks to be the Google Plus of screenwriting forums.  Not much activity.  But the place is giving it the old college try, so good luck to them.  If I weren't so lazy and lousy at networking I'd be on there more often, for sure.

Trevor himself runs http://scriptwrecked.com/ where he deals in script notes, proofreading, and Stampy the Elephant.  Swing by sometime and browse through Scriptwrecked's plump categories of screenwriting goodness.

Reading this script, what got me excited was Trevor getting excited. It makes a HUGE difference when the author's enthusiasm bleeds through the page. A vibe like this can carry a reader through a story's uneven patches, because we feel the storyteller having a grand ol' time, and it's infectious.  Despite the judder from an occasional pothole, we want the author to JUST KEEP GOING!  This isn't the bullshit bravado faux excitement some authors manufacture. You know what I mean: those all-sizzle-no-bacon guys (down, accursed pointing finger!).  No.  Trevor's having a blast writing about STEVE DERRING.  Maybe you're grinning from ear to ear along with him, maybe you're not -- doesn't matter because Trevor's too busy enjoying himself to notice. That's a Very Good Thing.

First he throws down a delicious challenge: Slow-mo... an entire movie. You've got to be kidding, right? An insanely genius gimmick or endless torture for an audience? We don't know. I've seen nothing like it except for, I suppose, parts of THE MATRIX and similar balletic slow-mo action sequences. I know this: I WANT TO SEE SOMEBODY TRY. So thank you, Trevor, for taking the first step.
 
Usual reminder: the suggested edits aren't gospel. Aren't even 'right'. Just right for me, right now. Tomorrow I could change my mind and undo them or redo them or shout at you, "No, YOU'RE THE GRAMMAR NAZI!"

Strong verbs swiped green. Most changes labeled and noted.

NOTE: When I wrote this 10PTT I had not seen the promo sheet below.  Obviously the promo sheet firms up the story spine and answers some of my conjecture.


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 1
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 07:50 AM
1. We know Steve's plummeting (in glorious slow motion) but how do we know it's happening outside the 20-story Voldeck Oil office building, which ties this first scene to the killer Voldeck truck and the second Voldeck offices scene from page 10? Sure, we can let the director figure out how to present this visually, but why not go the extra mile on the page.  Slug descriptions may be plenty enough context for a reader, but its information an audience never sees directly.

2. "chiseled features" strikes me as textbook cliché. Let's forgo it and save a line of whitespace. Or we could slip the descriptor back a bit: "The eye becomes the chiseled, panic-stricken face of STEVE DERRING..."

3. I'm super-sensitive to Shane Blackisms, so I can't not tone down the author voice a little. To me, invoking Michael Bay's name sits right there with invoking Hitler during a debate.  Careful.  The tactic can backfire.  Here, the mention earns a cheeky grin, so no problem.  Plus, the edit wins white space.

4. Classic one-word-for-two switcheroo.  My first choice was 'scrutinizes' but at four syllables that's a mouthful/brainful and it negates the word saving.  If there's a verb for 'studies' that better conveys 'intently watching' then use it. That's the wonderful thing about writers, yeah? We have abundant suitable verbs tucked away in our recepticle of words container thingy. Cornucopia, if you will.

5. "The flies buzz into the air." -- "buzzing through the air" then soon after, "buzz into the air."  If you've read my other 10PTTs you'll know I jump all over word/phrase repetition unless it's for deliberate effect. That explains my itching to slice out the second instance here.  So: "The flies buzz away."  That's not the end of it. What I really itched for was a little extra buttoning, like: "The flies buzz off drunkenly" or "The stunned flies buzz away."  Something to suggest the flies also don't know what the hell just happened or how it was even possible.


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 2
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 08:02 AM
1. "Releases the ball -- a lob."  Sounds flat. I don't watch baseball (FLASH MOB WITH PITCHFORKS, GNNNAHHHHH!) so maybe "releases the ball" is appropriate description for a lob. In any case, there's gotta be a better single verb.  My first choice was "Pitches -- a lob" but we mentioned "pitcher's mound" in the prior sentence, and you know I'll gnaw off my arm rather than allow repetition on a page. But, on second thought, "pitches -- a lob" probably does the best job. Typically, my secondary motivation is clawing back white space, which we can do here.

2. More repetition: "sprints toward the batter" and "spins through the air toward home plate". "Toward" seems a very formal, clinical word, and I always question its appearance.  The second use does feel right: "The ball spins toward home plate."

3. Another bit sounding flat, allowing the narrative tension to sag: "The BAT CONNECTS with the ball." It's an emotionless way of saying "The BAT WALLOPS the ball" or the aural painting of "The BAT WHIPCRACKS against the ball."  I don't know if "whipcracks" is a real verb, but it sure feels (and sounds) right in this moment.  I'm guessing Trevor's intention here was to convey watching the slow motion of the baaat connecting with the baaall, but do we need reminding that we're watching slow-motion?  Maybe we do.  I know that while reading these pages I'm not mentally slowing down the visuals to faithfully reproduce the look of the finished film.  Hmm, does that make or break the case for constant on-the-page reminders?

"... back on the ground... " -- excised because losing it cost the sentence nothing.  Where he lands is no surprise to anyone.

THE TRANSITION -- "and life is just like baseball..."  Here's the first signpost telling us our storyteller knows what he's doing: the ebb and flow of FORTUNE.  As we ride the fist-pumping triumph of Steve's impossible and presumably game-winning catch, we're only seconds away from a gut-wrenching tragedy.  Great storytellers know to put one against the other: Triumph to tragedy to triumph... The contrast -- where it doesn't overstep the mark and turn melodramatic -- can be devastating or thrilling, and THAT's how you keep a reader turning pages, keep an audience rooted to their seats: your main character's fortune must ebb and flow, peak and bottom out, like a roulette ball bouncing from red to black to red to black, and dear god in heaven where is that ball gonna park itself!


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 3
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 08:07 AM
1. "SCREECH" -- yup. Used again halfway down the page: "The TRUCK SCREECHES through the intersection."  Nothing wrong with the repetition, but that doesn't stop me wanting to color it slightly differently in those two places: A + B = C instead of A + A = C.

"On a collision course with the family car." In this moment we're seeing the approaching runaway truck -- presumably a Voldeck Oil company truck, but it doesn't say so on the page -- through Steve's young eyes.  So for me, stepping back into third-person narrator viewpoint detracts marginally from the tension. "Headed right at them" -- something short and alarming as Steve's high-speed brain calculates the horrifying, inevitable slow-motion trajectories.

An interesting stylistic question arises in this scene: how to visually convey the out-of-control speed of the truck when we're limited to slow-motion shots. Will that be a problem?  Probably not.  Consider the ultra-slow-motion credit sequence that opens Zombieland. Most of those shots capture a tiny slice of frantic, violent motion. In some, maybe not even a full second of realtime.  And those shots have a palpable sense of speed and action nonetheless. Zombieland's Phantom-camera shots are overcranked way more than the slow-mo Trevor invites in his film.  If Trevor's movie gets made the way he intends and it's a hit, you just know the next guy will follow Hollywood golden rule #27 ("more is more") and do the same film BUT WITH SLOWER SLOW-MO.

2. "METAL CRUNCHES, as the car tumbles down an embankment." A small personal style choice for commas: When punching out action sequences containing short sentences, often you can easily do away with commas to accelerate the read and keep the pace fast. That's my preference.  Only leave the essential commas that must remain for clarity.

Mwahaha. Yikes, the trophy's awful and darkly ironic purpose: literally adding insult to injury.  Folks, what we have here is a writer determined to pack his protag's baggage so full of guilt, jeez, that zipper's not closing easy.


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 4
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 08:09 AM
1. "stuck" -- not sure why, but "stuck" doesn't fit perfectly here. Maybe because you can attach hope to "stuck."  "Aunty May got her thumb stuck in the ice-cube maker again, LOL."  But Steve's mother isn't just stuck, is she?  No.  Steve's mother is DOOMED.  That's what Steve's witnessing, and he knows it.  "Trapped" implies an urgency "stuck" leaves out.

"Some gift."  A bitter, satisfying scene button and transition that Trevor immediately builds on with the glass-breaker keychain tool.  Holy shit, what a cool protag token, and it kills me not to know that token's narrative payoff later in the story.  I love the way Trevor handles this transition between boyhood Steve and teenage Steve: the window, the keychain tool.  The transition moves us forward narratively and emotionally. Expertly done.

2. "extracts" only seems right if Steve removes the stereo with great care.  Certainly we come to see Steve as a person of precision and grace.  Otherwise a less clinical word performs better in this sentence.


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 5
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 08:12 AM
1. "with a key in his hand, staring daggers..." = "key in hand, staring daggers..." right?  We don't save line space in doing so, but when there's nothing else to justify it there's always the rule of thumb: say it with fewer words if you can.  On the other hand, sometimes the character or situation requires that you be wordy.

2. Skip this if you hate listening to me debate stupid petty things that make no measurable difference overall. Sigh.  I do fight it, believe me.  I'm nothing if not consistently pedantic.  "Thrusts" is a great visual word, but I'm not fond of it here. Thrust invites the notion of acceleration. I'm imagining "the Behemoth" halting his pursuit every few steps to grab a pedestrian by their belt and collar and hurl them violently off to one side.  It's an amusing image, but wrong.  How about "shoulders people out of the way...", "shoves" or the more frenetic "slams".  Those imply disturbance as a consequence of the guy charging through the throng.

"There's something about being chased down a blind alley..."  More dark insight into Steve's twin demons of guilt and self-loathing.  No coincidence his name's STEVE DERRING. This guy's a risk taker, but for all the wrong reasons.  Passively challenging Fate to choose a path for him.  Live, die, win, lose.  Steve thinks he controls none of it.


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 6
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 08:17 AM
And we've come full circle: back to adult Steve Derring from the first scene. Another seamless transition, this time using motion continuity. Trevor's not just telling this story, he's telling it visually.

1. "the guy we got to know from the opening scene" -- I know what Trevor means, but that statement isn't accurate.  The only things we learn about Steve in that opening scene are a) he doesn't want to die, and b) Steve is supposed to have some sort of "gift." In later scenes we learn about younger Steve's fatalism and self-destructive streak, and that contrasts with older Steve's terror at the prospect of his death in the opening scene.  Clearly older Steve WANTS TO LIVE compared with younger Steve's indifference. And in later scenes we learn about "the gift."  To be accurate, that quoted line should read innocuously: "the guy from the opening scene".

In answer to your question: yes, I can. I can most definitely feel Trevor glaring daggers at me right now while he ponders my mental fitness to drive a keyboard.  I often stand beside myself and wonder the same thing. And another self stands beside that second self and wonders... and so on.  It's crowded in here.

So. We get another interesting story-world rule: preternatural reflexers ('PRs' -- my designation) age faster than regular folks.  Stands to reason.  Is the aging only accelerated when Steve's actively exercising his abilities, or is it a slow continuous thing?

Your brain should be throttling up as you consider that, forming new questions about this slightly left-of-center story world.  Is Steve the only one with "the gift"?  What would it look like to have two PRs battle each other?

I confess, I've not fully thought through the handling of slow-mo and Steve's place within it.  Trevor will need to be our authority.  But I think it works this way: Steve is in sync with the rest of the slow-mo visuals (that is, in sync with his story world clock) except for the moments when he displays his PR gift -- snatching the flies from the air, for example. At those moments he switches to something more akin to audience realtime. And then, with the PR action complete, it's back to regular slow-mo for him.  That way, the only time he looks unusual to those inside his story world is during those moments of PR activity.

If I've got that wrong then it means Steve is CONSTANTLY immersed in his PR hypertime, and we're watching the story play out through Steve's perception of his own world: the world is running at real time but Steve's perception renders it slow-mo.  I'm going to stop wondering and wait for Trevor to clear up how it's supposed to work on screen. Then I won't be chasing my tail.

You see what I mean, right, about this idea being either unworkably batshit crazy or a chance to do something really fascinating, moreso than the familiar slow-mo techniques used in THE MATRIX, WANTED and such?

Back to the page we go.

Beautiful day in the rugged outdoors. Not for Steve.  He's in full don't-give-a-shit mode.  No appreciation.  No safety rope.  No regard for himself or any of you assholes.  Just Steve daring the world to hurry up and pull the trigger.

Take a good look at Steve arrogantly scaling that rockface, 'cos next page Steve's world changes forever.


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 7
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 08:19 AM
One last stupid, reckless risk and the universe screams "Steve! Dude, seriously. ENOUGH!"

An invisible pulse ripples through spacetime.  The planets shift their orbits. And the universe delivers unto Steve: LAURA.  Cheesy hyperbole aside, this is quite the meet-cute.  "A scorching silhouette" -- she literally comes to him out of the sun.  "Any man would see this woman for the first time in slow motion" -- and any grumpy Shane-Black-weary script reader would smile at that slyly effective sentence.

"She had one big flaw... a boyfriend." BAM. And there we have it. Page 7, our antagonist, our love interest, and now the real conflict can begin.  Does your script put all the elements in play inside your first 10?


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 8
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 08:27 AM
1. Another interesting thing to ponder: in the next few pages we'll get a feel for how Trevor handles direct character dialogue.  I'll skip ahead and reiterate Trevor's script note:

Quote
"READER'S NOTE: Since EVERY SCENE in this movie is in slow motion, we'll never hold on actors' faces as conversations play out.  Only glimpses, if necessary, then the shot would quickly change to key objects or actions in the scene."

Now, back to page 8, where Trevor introduces boyfriend/antagonist Evan's band of merry men.  Seven of them.  Seven.  Don't even think about dwarfs or I will knock you the fuck into next Wednesday.  Oh wait.  Plus Evan equals eight.  So the allusion doesn't hold.  Let me help you the fuck back up.  No hard feeling, bro.

Remember, the audience wont know these supporting characters by name until informed through dialogue or visual exposition.  Trevor visually differentiates each character pretty well, so maybe it's not so important we (the audience) attach a name to them just yet, or even at all.  Trevor's brief character descriptions suggest these players will quickly become familiar to us through their looks and deeds alone.  But just noting the issue here: from their page 8 introduction through to page 10 none of these characters have dialogue or get spoken about, so we remain ingorant of their names.  I don't have the rest of the script so I can't tell you how far along this remains a potential problem.

So Steve has two powerful forces motivating him to join this motley crew. First is Laura. D'uh.  Second is the ripe promise of badass thrillfuckery oozing from this collective's every orifice.  Is this bunch alluring enough for badboy Steve?  Reread the group intro and tell me that's not a boiling cloud of GETTHEFUCKOUTOFMYWAY coming at you during your Saturday morning mall shopping.  Dude's piloting two rottweilers, for fucksake! Yes, this is an extreme sports family our Steve will slot into nicely, thank you.

Thinking on it, there's a third simmering motiviation leading Steve to join this gang.  He knows a little about them already.  He knows what they do: environmentalists.  So in his mind there's a strong possibility aligning with them will bring him sooner or later to the steps of Voldeck Oil.  His subconscious knows that's a path he needs to follow.


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 9
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 08:40 AM
1. "Their attraction to each other is palpable."  Trevor knows why that sentence gets the walk of shame.  It's one of those things we slip into our scripts just to keep moving forward when we can't be much bothered, all the while knowing tomorrow that sentence will bust the writer's ass wide open like yesterday's chili tacos, but to hell with it, today I'm taking easy street.  (At my urging, the previous sentence voluntarily agrees to join Miss Palpable's walk of shame.)

2. I mentioned this reader note a page or two back. I wondered why it's sitting here on page 9 when it's an important framing device we need to know about up front.  I figured it should appear much earlier.  Reviewing the pages, I see Trevor's a step ahead of me.  Prior to page 9 the only external dialogue is from Steve, and those are just a few brief V.O.'s.  Until now there was no need to explain the handling of external dialogue. So having the note here on page 9 is fine and dandy.  Oh, don't worry, Trevor. I'll get you and your little dog too!

The floating, detached dialogue could hinder audience engagement. This needs testing to find the right approach -- if there is one.  Watching a character's face as they speak is hugely important in traditional cinema. There are plenty of narrated films, yes, but I can't think of a film that does multiple intertwined voice overs like this will.  Oh snap: TREE OF LIFE.  Of course. That does some of what Trevor plans here, i.e. lots of voice-over and disjointed visuals.  But not the always-on slow motion.  Hands up who found TREE OF LIFE distant and unaffecting?  If you did, could one reason be the separation of dialogue from characters?

So, handling external dialogue will be a big challenge to get right.  Happily, challenges are wonderful fuel for creativity.

Back to the page.

We get this delightful moment between Steve and Laura when she fastens his safety line. A couple of things happen quickly.  First, the unexpected flirting and intimacy.  Steve gets the confirmation he hopes for: she's into him.  Has Steve been in love before?  Really in love?  Maybe no and that's part of why he's an asshole. Maybe yes, it didn't work out, and that's partly why he's an asshole.  One thing's certain: Laura's a compelling reason to stay alive.

Then there's the revelation of Laura's fast hands. She's so fast Steve didn't feel her attach the safety rope. Which means they have something unique in common. How much in common?  Could Laura have "the gift" too?  Could be she's just unusually fast for a normal or perhaps it's due to all her outdoor training.  Either way, that's a new, intriguing connection between them.

On this page and the next Trevor builds the foundation for conflict between Steve and Laura's boyfriend, Evan.  The group's Alpha Male is unsure if Steve will be a challenger, but he's taking no chances.


Title: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 10
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 18, 2012, 08:52 AM
1. When you're falling from a slackine hundred of feet from the ground you might leisurely "reach" for it as you tumble past... or you might holyFUCK-grab-GRAB-IT-GRAB-IT!!  Depends who you are and your state of mind. As written, Steve comes off as still not giving a fuck about himself.  Granted, he knows he's golden because the safety line's in place to do its job.  Nothing to worry about.  So the scene plays out fine with Steve being his usual arrogant, devil-may-care self, still doing his best to impress everyone.

But... if now Steve's in the early stages of losing his grand sense of infallibility because now Laura's on his mind and he's starting to wonder if maybe he should go easy on the death-defying antics on account of how dead people have lousy love lives... then if he feels himself falling he's going to panic -- probably the first time in his adult life -- and he's going to LUNGE FOR THE SLACKLINE, miss it, drop for a despairing heartbeat til the safety line catches him... and he's going to swing there feeling like an idiot for panicking when there was never any real danger, hoping she didn't see him lose his cool when he momentarily forgot about the safety line.  Forgot because of that brief, sudden, unexpected need to live at all costs. Not live for himself. Live for someone else.

Circling back to the first interpretation of the scene, how exactly does a fellow with preternatural reflexes miss grabbing for the slackline?  One explanation is he's too damn cocky and trusts his safety line won't fail.  Another explanation is he misses deliberately.  More grand-standing for Laura.  Another is precisely the one Steve gives voice to: "There aren't any tells that you're in trouble until it's too late" -- something about balancing on a rope thwarts even his preternatural instincts.  Is that like his kryptonite maybe?  His special power's weakness?  I don't want to overly frame "the gift" in superhero terms, because it's not by any stretch a super power.

In any case, Laura's actions appear to save his life.  No safety rope + missed grab = splat.  (Would he have acted differently if no safety rope?)  I say "appear" because there remains a slim possibility Steve orchestrated the fall to test and strenghen his relationship with Laura.  I don't think that's the intended reading, but I can't rule it out because I feel there's no plausible explanation offered for why Steve's preternatural reflexes are entirely ineffective on a balance rope.

The reading of this scene hinges on a couple of words. This nicely illustrates how crucial it is to choose the right words and remove ambiguity from the page. You might think you wrote a scene that matches the schematics in your head. The true test is for others to read the scene and offer conflicting interpretations where they arise.

"Reaches" supports a reading where Steve is unperturbed by the fall.  He's the same guy he was before he met Laura.  "Lunges" supports one where Steve has begun his arc from carefree to caring, from selfish to selfless.  Being his old self has begun to itch uncomfortably for reasons he doesn't understand yet.

"Smiles at Laura." -- "Smiles" adds nothing to our reading. It's too neutral in this context. Is Steve smiling bashfully?  Smugly?  Genuinely amused?  Any of these colorings would tip the scales to one of the two suggested scene readings.

Perhaps a full reading of the script yields clues about how to interpret this early scene.  But I would argue each scene should be unambigious except where ambiguity forms part of the narrative.  When filmed this scene will take on nuances in performance and action that will likely remove any ambiguity about what's going on between them.  The faces will tell the story -- even in slow motion.

Oh wow, have I ever prattled on.  Back to business.

2. Some minor trimming with the simple purpose of eliminating unnecessary parts to quicken the read.  Let the context do some of the lifting.

3. Plain edit to trim fat and squish a word group down to a single word.  Forgot to excise a comma. The edit should read: "Fischer and the guys laugh, hoot and holler from across the gorge."  I wonder if that fits on one line now.  Arguably there could be an additional comma after "hoot", but that would be British listing.  When in doubt leave the comma out -- if there's no ambiguity.

One more note.  In other 10PTTs I've argued the importance of anchoring your reader in time and space at the beginning of sentences.  It lets your brain construct a more concrete mental picture.  If your time/space references trail at the end, your brain may have to erase the picture it was building while parsing the front of the sentence and start a new one based on the new geospatial/temporal information.

So we could switch this sentence around and write: "Across the gorge Fischer and the guys laugh, hoot and holler."  There's no discernable difference between the two, but where you place your time/space references CAN have a subtle but important effect on the framing and sequence of shots that flow logically from the page.  Head back to the other 10PTTs for more discussion about this.  Pretty sure previously I've flogged the issue to death, to life, then back to death.

4. Drinking game: throw back a shot each time you see an edit like this and moan "Come on!" or "You shitting me?" or "Pitchpatch?  More like... mmm--Bitch Patch, amiright?  More like... sh--Shit Patch, yeah?  More like shhh... muthaf--back off, people, it's go time in barf town..."

We finish this page with Steve's initiation into Fischer's environmentalist group.  Last scene on the page draws a line back to the opening scene. Now we have an inkling about the story throughline: Steve's day is approaching when he gets to face off with those corporate bad boys.  Assuming it was a Voldeck oil truck that cleaned up his family (oh, that phrasing is just not right), there'll be hell to pay.

And what of the Fischer-Steve-Laura dynamic? Will it sour quickly?  Will it come full circle?  Will Fischer eventually concede dominion over Laura and return to participate in the group's final fight against Big Oil, or will he be the principle antagonist opposing Steve's arc?  Anything can happen from here.  Trevor did a bang-up job laying the foundation in his first 10 pages.  I know I've enjoyed a first 10 when part of me wants to read no further. Whoa, wait -- that reaction applies equally to the scripts I hate!  Rephrase: I know I've enjoyed a first 10 when part of me wants to read no further BECAUSE I dread the author letting me down.  I want to camp at the page 10 threshold and bask in the possibilities ahead and dream the author beats every one of my best story projections. If I read no further I'm pleasantly, perfectly, perpetually balanced on an fulcrum hovering between anticipation and satisfaction.

But that's a Happy Place you can only visit.  They kick you out at 11 AM.  So one day, probably soon, I'll email Trevor and ask for his full script. "Oh yeah," he'll say, and I'll listen to the crackle of stressed plastic when his fist curls tighter around his phone. "I remember you," he'll say. "The fuckin' ten-page-torture guy.  Yeah.  The guy.  You know, you never did tell me where you live.  Give me you address, friendo."

I'm in the Happy Place, Trev.  Thanks for booking me in.


My name's Bitch-- oh there we go.  So that's in my head now.  Fuck.  My name's Pitchpatch, okay?  It's Pitchpatch.  And this was a 10PTT for 24 SECONDS written by Trevor Mayes.  You've been a great audience, especially the search engines who always come back.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 25, 2012, 02:44 AM
One thing I did not think much about until now is SOUND.

The movie's unspooling in slow-mo and so is all sound save for narration and music score.  What will it be like to experience 90+ minutes of sound with the brakes continuously applied?  How will that affect the action scenes?  Will it lull the audience into a trance state, a state of excessive relaxation?

Thinking back to THE MATRIX, no, the sights and sounds in those slow-mo sequences lost no excitement. But we're talking short bursts of slow-mo, not an end-to-end feature.

It's another fascinating creative challenge bundled into this intriguing movie concept.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 28, 2012, 11:09 PM
Finally I have some free time to delve into the succulent goodness that is this review! Pitchpatch -- if that is your real name (muahahahaha) -- you've done a fantabulous job of critiquing the first 10 pages.

Sometimes you were so on point that I had to quell the need to shout, "Get out of my heeeeeead!"

Thrilled to hear that my enthusiasm for the story bled through onto  the pages. I'm looking forward to adding my two bits, answering questions, and generally stopping to applaud your critique.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 1
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 28, 2012, 11:21 PM
1. We know Steve's plummeting (in glorious slow motion) but how do we know it's happening outside the 20-story Voldeck Oil office building, which ties this first scene to the killer Voldeck truck and the second Voldeck offices scene from page 10? Sure, we can let the director figure out how to present this visually, but why not go the extra mile on the page.  Slug descriptions may be plenty enough context for a reader, but its information an audience never sees directly.

2. "chiseled features" strikes me as textbook cliché. Let's forgo it and save a line of whitespace. Or we could slip the descriptor back a bit: "The eye becomes the chiseled, panic-stricken face of STEVE DERRING..."

3. I'm super-sensitive to Shane Blackisms, so I can't not tone down the author voice a little. To me, invoking Michael Bay's name sits right there with invoking Hitler during a debate.  Careful.  The tactic can backfire.  Here, the mention earns a cheeky grin, so no problem.  Plus, the edit wins white space.

4. Classic one-word-for-two switcheroo.  My first choice was 'scrutinizes' but at four syllables that's a mouthful/brainful and it negates the word saving.  If there's a verb for 'studies' that better conveys 'intently watching' then use it. That's the wonderful thing about writers, yeah? We have abundant suitable verbs tucked away in our recepticle of words container thingy. Cornucopia, if you will.

5. "The flies buzz into the air." -- "buzzing through the air" then soon after, "buzz into the air."  If you've read my other 10PTTs you'll know I jump all over word/phrase repetition unless it's for deliberate effect. That explains my itching to slice out the second instance here.  So: "The flies buzz away."  That's not the end of it. What I really itched for was a little extra buttoning, like: "The flies buzz off drunkenly" or "The stunned flies buzz away."  Something to suggest the flies also don't know what the hell just happened or how it was even possible.

1. I don't quite understand the comment on this one. Could you please clarify?

2. Chiseled features on its own is something of a cliche, which is why I've put it in the context I have. I think it works as is.

3. Yup, you're right here. It's a risky play to invoke the Bay, and also the Shane Blackism. But I think it works. I also like explicitly stating that this is a first just to drive the point home as to what's truly being attempted with this script.

4. Agreed.

5. Buzz away work. Don't want to put too much undo emphasis on the flies otherwise the reader may start to ascribe a greater significance to their disposition.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 2
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 28, 2012, 11:35 PM
1. "Releases the ball -- a lob."  Sounds flat. I don't watch baseball (FLASH MOB WITH PITCHFORKS, GNNNAHHHHH!) so maybe "releases the ball" is appropriate description for a lob. In any case, there's gotta be a better single verb.  My first choice was "Pitches -- a lob" but we mentioned "pitcher's mound" in the prior sentence, and you know I'll gnaw off my arm rather than allow repetition on a page. But, on second thought, "pitches -- a lob" probably does the best job. Typically, my secondary motivation is clawing back white space, which we can do here.

2. More repetition: "sprints toward the batter" and "spins through the air toward home plate". "Toward" seems a very formal, clinical word, and I always question its appearance.  The second use does feel right: "The ball spins toward home plate."

3. Another bit sounding flat, allowing the narrative tension to sag: "The BAT CONNECTS with the ball." It's an emotionless way of saying "The BAT WALLOPS the ball" or the aural painting of "The BAT WHIPCRACKS against the ball."  I don't know if "whipcracks" is a real verb, but it sure feels (and sounds) right in this moment.  I'm guessing Trevor's intention here was to convey watching the slow motion of the baaat connecting with the baaall, but do we need reminding that we're watching slow-motion?  Maybe we do.  I know that while reading these pages I'm not mentally slowing down the visuals to faithfully reproduce the look of the finished film.  Hmm, does that make or break the case for constant on-the-page reminders?

"... back on the ground... " -- excised because losing it cost the sentence nothing.  Where he lands is no surprise to anyone.


1. Releases was used, as opposed to pitch, to focus on that one component of the pitch -- to help keep the reader dialed in to the slow motion.

2. I have this debate a lot. If I use the word "to" instead of toward, the brain connects the dots, and the ball, etc. is already there. "Toward" is sometimes a necessary evil for clarity's sake. If I use "for" instead of "toward" in this instance, the reader may believe that there's some intent to do something to the batter.

I like the elision of "through the air" though.

3. I like "whipcracks" -- but not in this script. Any words like "whip" break you out of the slow motion vibe. I agree though, there's probably a better word than "connects" -- although "connects" is somewhat onomatopoeic with its hard K sound, and it does emphasize that moment as you astutely reckoned.

"back on the ground..." -- yeah, I labored back and forth over that one. I ended up using it for clarity's sake. Adding that clause makes sure the reader knows I'm not referring to the ball or the mitt.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 3
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 28, 2012, 11:44 PM
1. "SCREECH" -- yup. Used again halfway down the page: "The TRUCK SCREECHES through the intersection."  Nothing wrong with the repetition, but that doesn't stop me wanting to color it slightly differently in those two places: A + B = C instead of A + A = C.

"On a collision course with the family car." In this moment we're seeing the approaching runaway truck -- presumably a Voldeck Oil company truck, but it doesn't say so on the page -- through Steve's young eyes.  So for me, stepping back into third-person narrator viewpoint detracts marginally from the tension. "Headed right at them" -- something short and alarming as Steve's high-speed brain calculates the horrifying, inevitable slow-motion trajectories.

An interesting stylistic question arises in this scene: how to visually convey the out-of-control speed of the truck when we're limited to slow-motion shots. Will that be a problem?  Probably not.  Consider the ultra-slow-motion credit sequence that opens Zombieland. Most of those shots capture a tiny slice of frantic, violent motion. In some, maybe not even a full second of realtime.  And those shots have a palpable sense of speed and action nonetheless. Zombieland's Phantom-camera shots are overcranked way more than the slow-mo Trevor invites in his film.  If Trevor's movie gets made the way he intends and it's a hit, you just know the next guy will follow Hollywood golden rule #27 ("more is more") and do the same film BUT WITH SLOWER SLOW-MO.

2. "METAL CRUNCHES, as the car tumbles down an embankment." A small personal style choice for commas: When punching out action sequences containing short sentences, often you can easily do away with commas to accelerate the read and keep the pace fast. That's my preference.  Only leave the essential commas that must remain for clarity.

Mwahaha. Yikes, the trophy's awful and darkly ironic purpose: literally adding insult to injury.  Folks, what we have here is a writer determined to pack his protag's baggage so full of guilt, jeez, that zipper's not closing easy.

1. Yup, you're right on this one. I HATE repetition. Actually, I probably would have used SCREECH for the first one, and SQUEALS for the second one. Only because a faint squeal could be something other than a car/truck.

Your point about shifting perspectives is bang on! Great observation.

2. Yeah, the commas. Another stylistic point that I labor over. I think you're right. It reads smoother and takes up less space than with the comma. But in a script like this, I'm deliberately trying to slow down the read in ways that don't feel contrived. So I'm still torn.

Glad you liked the trophy hit. That's one of those things that's works really well in the way you describe, but I can't honestly say I made that connection consciously. I just needed something big to whack the dad on the head. :) But that'll be our little secret.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 4
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 28, 2012, 11:46 PM
1. "stuck" -- not sure why, but "stuck" doesn't fit perfectly here. Maybe because you can attach hope to "stuck."  "Aunty May got her thumb stuck in the ice-cube maker again, LOL."  But Steve's mother isn't just stuck, is she?  No.  Steve's mother is DOOMED.  That's what Steve's witnessing, and he knows it.  "Trapped" implies an urgency "stuck" leaves out.

"Some gift."  A bitter, satisfying scene button and transition that Trevor immediately builds on with the glass-breaker keychain tool.  Holy shit, what a cool protag token, and it kills me not to know that token's narrative payoff later in the story.  I love the way Trevor handles this transition between boyhood Steve and teenage Steve: the window, the keychain tool.  The transition moves us forward narratively and emotionally. Expertly done.


1. Stuck! Ugh! Trapped is SO MUCH BETTER! Nice one.

I love how you immediately knew the glass-breaker keychain would have some greater significance later in the movie. Kudos.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 5
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 28, 2012, 11:51 PM
1. "with a key in his hand, staring daggers..." = "key in hand, staring daggers..." right?  We don't save line space in doing so, but when there's nothing else to justify it there's always the rule of thumb: say it with fewer words if you can.  On the other hand, sometimes the character or situation requires that you be wordy.

2. Skip this if you hate listening to me debate stupid petty things that make no measurable difference overall. Sigh.  I do fight it, believe me.  I'm nothing if not consistently pedantic.  "Thrusts" is a great visual word, but I'm not fond of it here. Thrust invites the notion of acceleration. I'm imagining "the Behemoth" halting his pursuit every few steps to grab a pedestrian by their belt and collar and hurl them violently off to one side.  It's an amusing image, but wrong.  How about "shoulders people out of the way...", "shoves" or the more frenetic "slams".  Those imply disturbance as a consequence of the guy charging through the throng.


1. Normally I'd agree with you on this one, but I think it works because it helps the reader complete the thought from the earlier page. Hmmm. I may change my mind about this tomorrow.

2. You may be right about "thrusts." Plus thrusts is a "fast" word. Shoulders, or shoves is better I think.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 6
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 29, 2012, 12:04 AM
And we've come full circle: back to adult Steve Derring from the first scene. Another seamless transition, this time using motion continuity. Trevor's not just telling this story, he's telling it visually.

1. "the guy we got to know from the opening scene" -- I know what Trevor means, but that statement isn't accurate.  The only things we learn about Steve in that opening scene are a) he doesn't want to die, and b) Steve is supposed to have some sort of "gift." In later scenes we learn about younger Steve's fatalism and self-destructive streak, and that contrasts with older Steve's terror at the prospect of his death in the opening scene.  Clearly older Steve WANTS TO LIVE compared with younger Steve's indifference. And in later scenes we learn about "the gift."  To be accurate, that quoted line should read innocuously: "the guy from the opening scene".

In answer to your question: yes, I can. I can most definitely feel Trevor glaring daggers at me right now while he ponders my mental fitness to drive a keyboard.  I often stand beside myself and wonder the same thing. And another self stands beside that second self and wonders... and so on.  It's crowded in here.

So. We get another interesting story-world rule: preternatural reflexers ('PRs' -- my designation) age faster than regular folks.  Stands to reason.  Is the aging only accelerated when Steve's actively exercising his abilities, or is it a slow continuous thing?

Your brain should be throttling up as you consider that, forming new questions about this slightly left-of-center story world.  Is Steve the only one with "the gift"?  What would it look like to have two PRs battle each other?

I confess, I've not fully thought through the handling of slow-mo and Steve's place within it.  Trevor will need to be our authority.  But I think it works this way: Steve is in sync with the rest of the slow-mo visuals (that is, in sync with his story world clock) except for the moments when he displays his PR gift -- snatching the flies from the air, for example. At those moments he switches to something more akin to audience realtime. And then, with the PR action complete, it's back to regular slow-mo for him.  That way, the only time he looks unusual to those inside his story world is during those moments of PR activity.

If I've got that wrong then it means Steve is CONSTANTLY immersed in his PR hypertime, and we're watching the story play out through Steve's perception of his own world: the world is running at real time but Steve's perception renders it slow-mo.  I'm going to stop wondering and wait for Trevor to clear up how it's supposed to work on screen. Then I won't be chasing my tail.

You see what I mean, right, about this idea being either unworkably batshit crazy or a chance to do something really fascinating, moreso than the familiar slow-mo techniques used in THE MATRIX, WANTED and such?

1. WRONG! I am most certainly not glaring daggers at you. It's too bad you're not a sexy woman, cuz I'd be more like a cartoon character with those little heart bubbles popping up at you. :)

These little details are sooo important. Anything that gives the reader pause should be eliminated at all costs. You're absolutely right, the line should just read, "the guy from the opening scene."

So here's the deal on the slow-mo. It's your second idea that was the correct one. Steve is constantly immersed in his PR hypertime. To the other people in Steve's world, they don't see him move any faster than they do. The only difference is that he's able to react a whole lot faster, and therefore anticipate things in a way that no one else can.

There are basically 3 different slow motion speeds in this movie, and they shift between them in a way that could be very cool stylistically.

One: Super Slow-Mo, for things like bullet shots.

Two: Regular Slow-Mo, for every day interactions, movements.

Three: Pseudo Slow-Mo (or slight slow-motion), for things like dialogue.

More on pseudo slow-mo later...


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 7
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 29, 2012, 12:06 AM
One last stupid, reckless risk and the universe screams "Steve! Dude, seriously. ENOUGH!"

An invisible pulse ripples through spacetime.  The planets shift their orbits. And the universe delivers unto Steve: LAURA.  Cheesy hyperbole aside, this is quite the meet-cute.  "A scorching silhouette" -- she literally comes to him out of the sun.  "Any man would see this woman for the first time in slow motion" -- and any grumpy Shane-Black-weary script reader would smile at that slyly effective sentence.

"She had one big flaw... a boyfriend." BAM. And there we have it. Page 7, our antagonist, our love interest, and now the real conflict can begin.  Does your script put all the elements in play inside your first 10?

Booyah! Very well put. Glad you're diggin' it!


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 8
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 29, 2012, 01:23 AM
1. Another interesting thing to ponder: in the next few pages we'll get a feel for how Trevor handles direct character dialogue.  I'll skip ahead and reiterate Trevor's script note:

"READER'S NOTE: Since EVERY SCENE in this movie is in slow motion, we'll never hold on actors' faces as conversations play out.  Only glimpses, if necessary, then the shot would quickly change to key objects or actions in the scene."

Let's chat about this for a second. Everyone who's read the script really enjoys it. But for about half the people, they just can't get their heads wrapped around the slow-motion, and what they're supposed to be seeing in the scenes.

This mostly stems from the reader's note I think. In scripts, you really need to tell readers what they're seeing. So to say to them, "Well, you'll sorta see them talking for a bit, then it'll flash to other key elements of the scene... just go ahead and use your imagination" -- that doesn't quite cut it.

So here's what I'm thinking. I'd like to change the reader's note to:

READER'S NOTE: For visual variety, different levels of slow motion will be utilized in this movie -- from super slow-mo, to near real-time. Scenes where characters speak to each other will be shot in near real-time, or using a slow motion lip-syncing/dubbing technique that's common to music videos. (e.g. Coldplay's video, "Yellow")

What do you think?


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 9
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 29, 2012, 01:26 AM
1. "Their attraction to each other is palpable."  Trevor knows why that sentence gets the walk of shame.  It's one of those things we slip into our scripts just to keep moving forward when we can't be much bothered, all the while knowing tomorrow that sentence will bust the writer's ass wide open like yesterday's chili tacos, but to hell with it, today I'm taking easy street.  (At my urging, the previous sentence voluntarily agrees to join Miss Palpable's walk of shame.)


Haha! Yeah, you got me.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 10
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 29, 2012, 01:42 AM
1. When you're falling from a slackine hundred of feet from the ground you might leisurely "reach" for it as you tumble past... or you might holyFUCK-grab-GRAB-IT-GRAB-IT!!  Depends who you are and your state of mind. As written, Steve comes off as still not giving a fuck about himself.  Granted, he knows he's golden because the safety line's in place to do its job.  Nothing to worry about.  So the scene plays out fine with Steve being his usual arrogant, devil-may-care self, still doing his best to impress everyone.

But... if now Steve's in the early stages of losing his grand sense of infallibility because now Laura's on his mind and he's starting to wonder if maybe he should go easy on the death-defying antics on account of how dead people have lousy love lives... then if he feels himself falling he's going to panic -- probably the first time in his adult life -- and he's going to LUNGE FOR THE SLACKLINE, miss it, drop for a despairing heartbeat til the safety line catches him... and he's going to swing there feeling like an idiot for panicking when there was never any real danger, hoping she didn't see him lose his cool when he momentarily forgot about the safety line.  Forgot because of that brief, sudden, unexpected need to live at all costs. Not live for himself. Live for someone else.

Circling back to the first interpretation of the scene, how exactly does a fellow with preternatural reflexes miss grabbing for the slackline?  One explanation is he's too damn cocky and trusts his safety line won't fail.  Another explanation is he misses deliberately.  More grand-standing for Laura.  Another is precisely the one Steve gives voice to: "There aren't any tells that you're in trouble until it's too late" -- something about balancing on a rope thwarts even his preternatural instincts.  Is that like his kryptonite maybe?  His special power's weakness?  I don't want to overly frame "the gift" in superhero terms, because it's not by any stretch a super power.

In any case, Laura's actions appear to save his life.  No safety rope + missed grab = splat.  (Would he have acted differently if no safety rope?)  I say "appear" because there remains a slim possibility Steve orchestrated the fall to test and strenghen his relationship with Laura.  I don't think that's the intended reading, but I can't rule it out because I feel there's no plausible explanation offered for why Steve's preternatural reflexes are entirely ineffective on a balance rope.

The reading of this scene hinges on a couple of words. This nicely illustrates how crucial it is to choose the right words and remove ambiguity from the page. You might think you wrote a scene that matches the schematics in your head. The true test is for others to read the scene and offer conflicting interpretations where they arise.

"Reaches" supports a reading where Steve is unperturbed by the fall.  He's the same guy he was before he met Laura.  "Lunges" supports one where Steve has begun his arc from carefree to caring, from selfish to selfless.  Being his old self has begun to itch uncomfortably for reasons he doesn't understand yet.

"Smiles at Laura." -- "Smiles" adds nothing to our reading. It's too neutral in this context. Is Steve smiling bashfully?  Smugly?  Genuinely amused?  Any of these colorings would tip the scales to one of the two suggested scene readings.

Perhaps a full reading of the script yields clues about how to interpret this early scene.  But I would argue each scene should be unambigious except where ambiguity forms part of the narrative.  When filmed this scene will take on nuances in performance and action that will likely remove any ambiguity about what's going on between them.  The faces will tell the story -- even in slow motion.

Oh wow, have I ever prattled on.  Back to business.

2. Some minor trimming with the simple purpose of eliminating unnecessary parts to quicken the read.  Let the context do some of the lifting.

3. Plain edit to trim fat and squish a word group down to a single word.  Forgot to excise a comma. The edit should read: "Fischer and the guys laugh, hoot and holler from across the gorge."  I wonder if that fits on one line now.  Arguably there could be an additional comma after "hoot", but that would be British listing.  When in doubt leave the comma out -- if there's no ambiguity.

One more note.  In other 10PTTs I've argued the importance of anchoring your reader in time and space at the beginning of sentences.  It lets your brain construct a more concrete mental picture.  If your time/space references trail at the end, your brain may have to erase the picture it was building while parsing the front of the sentence and start a new one based on the new geospatial/temporal information.

So we could switch this sentence around and write: "Across the gorge Fischer and the guys laugh, hoot and holler."  There's no discernable difference between the two, but where you place your time/space references CAN have a subtle but important effect on the framing and sequence of shots that flow logically from the page.  Head back to the other 10PTTs for more discussion about this.  Pretty sure previously I've flogged the issue to death, to life, then back to death.

4. Drinking game: throw back a shot each time you see an edit like this and moan "Come on!" or "You shitting me?" or "Pitchpatch?  More like... mmm--Bitch Patch, amiright?  More like... sh--Shit Patch, yeah?  More like shhh... muthaf--back off, people, it's go time in barf town..."

We finish this page with Steve's initiation into Fischer's environmentalist group.  Last scene on the page draws a line back to the opening scene. Now we have an inkling about the story throughline: Steve's day is approaching when he gets to face off with those corporate bad boys.  Assuming it was a Voldeck oil truck that cleaned up his family (oh, that phrasing is just not right), there'll be hell to pay.

And what of the Fischer-Steve-Laura dynamic? Will it sour quickly?  Will it come full circle?  Will Fischer eventually concede dominion over Laura and return to participate in the group's final fight against Big Oil, or will he be the principle antagonist opposing Steve's arc?  Anything can happen from here.  Trevor did a bang-up job laying the foundation in his first 10 pages.  I know I've enjoyed a first 10 when part of me wants to read no further. Whoa, wait -- that reaction applies equally to the scripts I hate!  Rephrase: I know I've enjoyed a first 10 when part of me wants to read no further BECAUSE I dread the author letting me down.  I want to camp at the page 10 threshold and bask in the possibilities ahead and dream the author beats every one of my best story projections. If I read no further I'm pleasantly, perfectly, perpetually balanced on an fulcrum hovering between anticipation and satisfaction.

But that's a Happy Place you can only visit.  They kick you out at 11 AM.  So one day, probably soon, I'll email Trevor and ask for his full script. "Oh yeah," he'll say, and I'll listen to the crackle of stressed plastic when his fist curls tighter around his phone. "I remember you," he'll say. "The fuckin' ten-page-torture guy.  Yeah.  The guy.  You know, you never did tell me where you live.  Give me you address, friendo."

I'm in the Happy Place, Trev.  Thanks for booking me in.


My name's Bitch-- oh there we go.  So that's in my head now.  Fuck.  My name's Pitchpatch, okay?  It's Pitchpatch.  And this was a 10PTT for 24 SECONDS written by Trevor Mayes.  You've been a great audience, especially the search engines who always come back.

1. Yup, you're right -- "lunges" is better than "reaches." Though I think smiles is fine. I think putting too many qualifiers in that regard leaves less room for the actor to insert their nuanced take. He's smiling, he's digging her and the moment. Beyond that it's for the actor to infuse. Unless there's something very specific that could have a payoff later (like on the previous page, Laura has a "wry, tight-lipped smile" that we we'll call back to later...).

2. Trimming = good.

3. More trimming = very good.

4. If I were playing your drinking game, I'm not sure I would even have had the first sip! Loved all of your input and niggling. It's the type of stuff I do in my scripts (and that I wish everyone did in their scripts), so I really respect it and appreciate it.

Dare I say, I think it's time to venture out of your happy place and into a *happier* place when you've read the complete script. It's one of my favorite scripts (and the ones my pro-screenwriter friends get all giggly over), so I think you'll really enjoy it.

For everyone else, after I tweak some things I've learned from this "torture" test, I'm going to post my script on Scriptwrecked.com. In fact, I'm going to post a bunch of my best scripts. Time to put my money where my mouth is, or something like that.

This is the year that I finally pursue getting represented and making some waves outside of the blogosphere. I've sorta been in stealth mode for the last couple of years while writing some kick-ass specs. Stay tuned...

Pitchpatch. Thanks again for taking the time to do this. It was very helpful for me. You've got a great eye for detail. Don't ever let anyone tell you that being a grammar nazi is a bad thing!

Cheers,

Trevor


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 1
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 29, 2012, 01:57 PM
Oh my.  Great feedback, Trevor.  Thorough.  Scary and thorough.  You know the sickening SNICK! of the pressure trigger arming when your boot thuds the dirt over a landmine?  Neither do I.  I imagine it's close to the sound in my head just now when I realized you'd critiqued all of my critiques.  All of them.  My gut says run but that would be certain death. Any chance of survival, gotta keep my foot planted.  Hey, I can do this.  I survived Jawbreaker (http://10ptt.com/smf/index.php/topic,147.0.html), and that guy's super scary.  You critique that guy, you'd better bring your dictionary, a lawyer, a physicist, and a priest.  :P


1. I don't quite understand the comment on this one. Could you please clarify?


In this scene, the slug (EXT. VOLDECK OFFICES) is the only thing telling us these offices belong to Voldeck.  That slug must be translated into exposition.  In pre-production the director, DOP and production designer will sit down and figure out how to tell the audience this scene takes place at Voldeck.  Maybe a freeze frame on Steve's frantic face accompanied by a title: "4:27 PM, VOLDECK OIL HEADQUARTERS"  Or early in the tracking shot with Steve maybe he falls past the VOLDECK OIL sign mounted high up on the building exterior.  Some kind of visual exposition.  Or maybe the director asks you, the writer, to slot it into the Steve's opening monologue: "Holy shit. This can't be happening. Not at Voldeck Oil's head office. Not to me. I'm supposed to be the guy with the gift."  On the nose, but I'm just saying: somehow we need to know this is the Voldeck Oil building.

If we don't know it's happening at Voldeck we won't connect the opening scene to the Voldeck references used during the flashback.

I know we can assume the talented artists making the film will do the brainwork and legwork to convert sluglines into meaningful exposition, but aren't you curious how you might do it?


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 2
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 30, 2012, 08:25 AM

1. Releases was used, as opposed to pitch, to focus on that one component of the pitch -- to help keep the reader dialed in to the slow motion.

"back on the ground..." -- yeah, I labored back and forth over that one. I ended up using it for clarity's sake. Adding that clause makes sure the reader knows I'm not referring to the ball or the mitt.

I realized too late I read much of the pages in 'normal' mode, mentally correcting for the slow-mo grammar devices you inserted deliberately, and thereby undoing the moments of slow-mo written into the description.  Am I a typical reader among your readers for this script?  If I'm not, if other readers dialled in to the slow-mo visuals effortlessly and continuously, no problem. If I'm not alone in finding the slow-mo easy to lose grasp of, perhaps there needs to be a stronger device to keep the reader in mental slow-mo mode.  I can think of two things: (1) put a seamless, overt visual reminder on every page, worked into the narrative, to keep the reader locked into visualizing in slow-mo at all times; (2) slip in a page-one preface describing the slow-mo style in greater detail, similar to how you clarified it in your comments here (http://10ptt.com/smf/index.php/topic,293.msg1234.html#msg1234).

"back on the ground..." -- you are right.  Leading into that sentence, our most recent mental picture was the mitt. So with that image lingering, logically the sentence could be read as: "Lands [it, the ball] with a huge grin."  As written keeps that ambiguity at bay.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 3
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 30, 2012, 08:47 AM
But in a script like this, I'm deliberately trying to slow down the read in ways that don't feel contrived.

Interesting point about wanting to slow down the read and the reader.  Perhaps using some punctuation other than a comma, which has a fairly rigid set of rules and context.

Ellipses are... too halting.

Maybe ---- something as nutty ---- as a double em-dash?  A single em -- seems too short to do -- the job effectively.  I'm just cruising with my stupid wheels on here.  No internal censor.  You're pitching a crazy stylistic gimmick with the 24/7 slow-mo, so why not invent a crazy grammar device to complement it?

Or just --

space it the hell --

out on the page.

Okay, boring round wheels swapped in for the trapezoid-shaped ones.  Conformity field activated, all level nominal. Stupid wheels are stupid, but when I passed the lady out walking her dog the look on her face was ---- priceless!


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 8
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 30, 2012, 09:03 AM
Scenes where characters speak to each other will be shot in near real-time, or using a slow motion lip-syncing/dubbing technique that's common to music videos. (e.g. Coldplay's video, "Yellow")

Whatnow?  First time I've seen you point this out... and can I say HELLSYESPLEASE.  The record-faster-playback-slower device is super freaky but seems very apropos to this movie!  It needs testing -- we watch music videos differently to theatrical films. But it could sweep away that potential lack of audience engagement I talked about earlier (re not lingering on faces).

Gah!  TEST FOOTAGE NOW PLEASE.  I need to see how all this hangs together -- music, dialogue, sound, picture.  Kickstarter this sucker and I'll throw you $10 and do my bit.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes - Page 10
Post by: Pitchpatch on May 30, 2012, 09:56 AM
This is the year that I finally pursue getting represented and making some waves outside of the blogosphere. I've sorta been in stealth mode for the last couple of years while writing some kick-ass specs. Stay tuned...

I need to correct something.  Folks reading this 10PTT might get the impression we're having some kind of back-slapping, mutual-admiration love fest.

Folks, you are so wrong.

Because I hate you, Trevor.

I hate how much fun you have writing.

I hate that you made me post barely edited pages.

And especially I hate that right now if I had to lay down a hundred bucks on who sells first between us... it has to be you.  I'm so happy for you and there's not an empty bourbon bottle big enough to catch my tears of joy.  Maybe if I stack 'em into a pyramid.  And then smash it down.  With my high school English Literature trophy.  Bash that pyramid until it's a thin, ragged sea of slashy, glassy pebbles.  I will walk barefoot across that sea, and when my feet are bloody red ribbons I will crawl, and when my knees are red ribbons I will roll, and when I am ribbons I will rest and gaze in wonder at the ceiling and wait for the paramedics, and when they arrive I will ask them: "Did Trevor sell?" And when they shrug to each other, turn to me and nod, I will sigh my last sigh and whisper: "Good.  He owes me two Benjamins."





Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: scriptwrecked on May 31, 2012, 11:44 PM
You crack me up, man!!!

I'm looking forward to seeing some of your stuff. I'm willing to bet it's quite good. Given your punctilious nature, however, it's also entirely possible that you have some of the best half-written scripts the world will ever see.

But I will not take your bet, sir! You have poised-for-success written all over this site. And I hope it's a photo finish to a couple of spec sales.

Love your idea of coming up with some creative formatting to keep users firmly grounded in the slow motion deliciousness. I'm officially clicking "Save As..." and will give it a shot. I think that's the final missing piece of the puzzle, shrouded in a mystery, wrapped in a dumpling. Or something. Will keep you posted.

Glad you like my new Reader's Note! That will definitely make the next draft. I'm enthused by your enthusiasm (and hatred)! Hopefully the check will be in the mail soon.

Cheers!


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Pitchpatch on June 01, 2012, 01:23 AM
Given your punctilious nature, however, it's also entirely possible that you have some of the best half-written scripts the world will ever see.

Painfully true.

From the 10PTT intro to my own early script OBLIVION:

Quote
My first real screenplay, way way back in the day.  I wrote 150 pages and realized I was only halfway through the story.  Whoopsie on the outlining.

Man, those were the days.  ScriptThing for DOS, writing through the nights, then smacking against the realization you weren't writing a feature but a mini-series.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Jawbreaker on June 03, 2012, 08:58 AM
Now for the bad cop...

I wouldn't keep reading after the first 10.  Why?  The slow-motion idea is distracting/derailing the story.  You don't really know how to slow the image down on the page.  I kept reading it in real time like Pitch.  That's how it's written.  You write in quick, punchy fragments -- which you sorta have to do for the reader's sake -- but you are losing the visual.  And slowing down the read will not help your cause.  You gotta find the in-between.  The sweet spot.  We also gotta know what Steve is seeing.  Is everything in Steve's world slow motion?  Do we go into real time when he uses his power?  Do we go from slow motion to super fast?  Or do we go from slow motion to ultra slow motion?  None of this is clear on the page.  There should be a distinct tonal shift on the page to differentiate the power from the rest of the script.

But anyway, you really need to ask yourself -- does the slow-motion idea enhance the narrative and characters?  I call it the Zack Snyder test.  The "speed-up/slow-down" effect he puts on all of his fights sequences (and in regular scenes) are generally unnecessary and distracting.  They don't help tell anything.  You already know how I feel, of course.  Like I said before, I wouldn't keep reading after the first ten pages. But I don't think it's impossible to do a story like this.  You just gotta be more creative and precise with your visuals and words.  This is my small stab at the concept:

(http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h410/pewterslimsme/Capture2.png)

And I gotta give ya props for the interesting idea.  If you're going to fail, do it big!  Swing for the fences.  Each failure is bringing you closer to that next home run.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Pitchpatch on June 03, 2012, 09:16 AM
Everybody will see it differently on the page.  The only way to understand how the slow-mo multi-level device works or fails is to shoot tests.  I hope Trevor sees merit in doing so.  It'll confirm he's got something.  Or not.  Doing a no-budget test shoot might require simulating the slow-mo in post-production software, but no matter.  (550Ds are cheap and do 720p 48/50 fps.)  The effect will work or it won't.

But, Jawbreaker, you nailed the thing I was asking for in the opening scene: a visual way to show we're at the Voldeck Office tower.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Jawbreaker on June 03, 2012, 09:18 PM
The only way to understand how the slow-mo multi-level device works or fails is to shoot tests.  I hope Trevor sees merit in doing so.  It'll confirm he's got something.  Or not.  Doing a no-budget test shoot might require simulating the slow-mo in post-production software, but no matter.  (550Ds are cheap and do 720p 48/50 fps.)  The effect will work or it won't.

I couldn't disagree more.  It's our job to show proof of concept on the page.  That's on us.  We gotta show what cool shit could be done -- and more importantly, how the story could be enhanced -- with such an idea.  Just look at Inception.  It's our job to inspire the reader and make them want this script.  "What the fuck?  How did I not think of this?  Guys, did you read this?  Holy shit, that was insane!  People will go nuts for this!"

What you are saying/doing is waving a giant surrender flag.

Everything here feels half-baked.

Feels like a first step.

See, for example, the car crash.  Trevor merely describe what's happening.  That's not enough.  If Steve sees every agonizing detail, then show us every ... agonizing ... detail.  That's the sort of thinking that should represent Trevor's whole approach -- he should be amplifying.  It's not enough to take things one step further.  He should crank this bitch to 11.  After all, Steve's experiencing the death of his family -- in slow fucking motion.

And I don't say this to discourage.

I want Trevor to rise to the challenge.  The further you put the target out there the more you have to step up your game to hit it.  That's how it works with all of us.  The idea isn't impossible.  You don't need to do fucking tests -- you just need to better execute the idea.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Pitchpatch on June 04, 2012, 04:08 AM
Capture it on the page.  No contest.  That's what we strive for.

BUT... I'm talking about selling the script and making the movie.  How many pre-viz script packages have sold these past few years, thanks to cheap consumer video production?  It pumps the buyer's confidence seeing something real, something beyond words on a page.  It nudges a concept over the threshold into reality.  Holy shit, that looks cool versus Wow, that sounds [reads] cool.

In a perfect world, in purest form, yes, the script should sell itself.  It should be a complete, easy-to-follow blueprint for building a film.  Only the best screenwriters achieve that.  There's no shame in the rest of us doing what we can to compensate for what our scripts lack.  Packaging a known name, making a pre-viz, cross-promoting via another medium (turning your unsold screenplay into a graphic novel, for example).  WHATEVER IT TAKES.

If the script expresses only half of what's in Trevor's head then a test reel or demo teaser COULD get him a sale on that promise alone, script as is, a sale that otherwise might be a pass if it crossed a reader's desk only.  This script lives and dies on the slow-mo.  Why leave that to chance?  Your argument, Jawbreaker, is: get it on the page and then you're not leaving it to chance.  That's a persuasive argument.  But what if you, the writer, can't quite get it on the page?  What if the guy who can greenlight 23 MINUTES can't get his head around 'the look' despite your best writing?  My argument is: What if first he watches the three-minute promo, then he reads the script.  Is he not perfectly primed to visualize how things play out on screen?

IMO, best case scenario is, Trevor does another pass and gets the slow-mo device working on the page.  We agree it needs tweaking in this draft.  Then he pulls together the resources to make a short test/promo.  (Trevor knows the importance of packaging.  See his one-sheet in the first post in topic.)  Do the visuals work as hoped?  No?  Back to concept.  Yes?  Get that script + video package in front of buyers.

A creator who figures out a new way to tell a story would be nuts to not test it first.

Quote
James Cameron has revealed that he shot early test footage for Avatar with Lost star Yunjin Kim.

Speaking to Popular Mechanics, the filmmaker said that he convinced studio 20th Century Fox to spend $10 million so that he could film the scene where protagonist Jake Sully first meets Na'vi alien Neytiri.

"We shot a five-minute scene," Cameron said of the early prep work. "I hired two actors, turns out one of them is now quite well-known - Yunjin Kim who is in Lost. There was Yunjin and a guy named Daniel Best. I took these two young actors and just did the scene. From that we took 40 seconds, because that's all we could afford, and had [visual effects studio] ILM take it through to a finished product."

Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington went on to fill Kim and Best's roles when the sci-fi blockbuster eventually went into production.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Jawbreaker on June 04, 2012, 09:03 PM
Do I agree that you should do whatever you can to help get a sale?

In a word: Yes.

But you're comparing apples and oranges.

Cameron was shooting with completely new tech.  He needed to see how his precise facial scanning process worked in real world shooting.  He was doing something never done before.  That's not the case here.  Trevor is just mixing visual styles that we've seen a dozen times.

But yeah, I would only do the above as a last resort -- and if I thought I couldn't achieve said visual on the page.  But like I said before, I think this concept is totally doable.  That brick wall is there to test how bad you want it.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Tom & Jerry on June 05, 2012, 02:13 AM
Just from reading the little bit of the script on here.  I do prefer the way Jawbreaker explains the visual as compared to scriptwrecked's version.  Of course just my opinion.  And like jawbreaker, I think the concept is an interesting one but a tough sell as well.  The higher the concept, the better your chances of being noticed so it's hard to argue with that concept in that way.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Pitchpatch on June 05, 2012, 03:23 AM
More clarification.  In an email discussion Trevor mentioned:

Quote
The Voldeck Oil point. In the opening scene, I don't want the audience to be aware of where Steve is. It's not relevant at that point. It's a mystery to solve as the movie progresses. The audience will organically catch up with the fact that he's at the Voldeck Oil Building through the unfurling story.

Which moots my in-topic comments about showing we're at the Voldeck offices in the opening scene.  Trevor wants it to play as 2+2 -- let the audience connect the dots.  That's something I must watch out for when doing 10PTTs: the natural desire to join the dots within those ten pages, forgetting that plot points can build and build and pay off much later in the story -- which I knew to be the case with the keychain tool.

Also, huge congrats to Trevor for winning the annual on-the-spot scene writing competition at Great American PitchFest this year.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Pitchpatch on June 09, 2012, 02:18 PM
How to encode on the page the idea of time slowed down, of slow-motion cinematics?

This is what Trevor grappled with after getting his 10PTT feedback, amid ongoing feedback from his friends and colleagues.

Jawbreaker from this forum had some ideas.  He saw a path forward where the writing itself constantly holds the reader in the slow-mo moment, like the regularly spaced blips on a heart monitor.  Jawbreaker's run at the opening page is here (http://10ptt.com/smf/index.php/topic,293.msg1249.html#msg1249).

(http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h410/pewterslimsme/Capture2.png)

Zero in on the words Jawbreaker precisely selects:

slow
blurred
suspended
flutters
streams
waving
billow

And the phrases:

"moves like seaweed underwater"
"suspended in mid-air"
"tears struggle down her face"
"her hair streams out, waving gently"
"curtains billow"

All of it working to constantly remind the reader about the exquisite slow-mo visuals.

This approach is a smart bet.  It has a languid, literary feel that lulls the senses.  Poetic.  Hypnotic.  Like a dream.  Form and function in harmony.

Trevor could go this route.  It's perfectly respectable.  The script would read well and go places.  Heads would nod agreeably and hands would be shaken affably and smiles would be smiled.  No readers would kick back their chair and leap on the desk and bellow, "Oh no you fucking didn't!"

Well.  Trevor didn't.  He saw another way.

It's a riskier route compared with the generally agreeable approach above.  Trevor's approach could polarize his readers.  Some will love it; some will hate it.  Few will hold no opinion because this approach makes it hard not to.

It's not a new approach, mind you.  Scriptophiles will recognize it and know the screenwriter (and the screenwriter before him) who made it his signature style.  But I do believe it's the first time this technique has been wed so perfectly to the concept.

Let's wind back about a week to the day Trevor's idea took hold.  He emailed me a new draft with a couple of layout changes.  He explained:

Quote
Basically there are only two differences.
 
1) I used double spaced action stacking.
2) When more than one sentence appears in the descriptions, I put four spaces between them.
 
Maybe the subtle reminder of the spacing is enough to remind the reader that it's slow motion. But at the same time, this thought occurred to me -- if the Director does his job correctly, there should be times where the viewer forgets about the slow motion.

Remember, this is Trevor noodling over how to conveying visual slow motion on the page, because lazy readers like me tended to mentally slip into realtime mode every couple pages, robbing the script of its coolest feature.

Four spaces.  Trevor could've told me he was considering "switching off the internet for the weekend as a, you know, bit of an experiment," and I'd say, "Oh, you mean like unplug your modem?" and he'd say, "No, I mean switch off the internet.  For everyone.  Everywhere.  I can do that now," and I'd be just as horrified.

Hey, read for yourself.  Here's the email I shot back:

Quote
The thought of it turns my blood cold.  You know readers and studios HATE format gimmicks other than typical whitespace techniques.  My gut says do not, but I'll confirm or refute later today.  "Double-spaced action stacking" on the other hand sounds FUCKING AWESOME.  Whatever that is, Michael Bay approves.  Looking forward to it.

I was quick to RTJ on the experimental four-space sentence ends, or as the thing came to be named: the quadrispaces aka the quadraciraptor.  That last one was Trevor's, and do we really need to dig into the paleontology books to know why that breed fizzled out long before an asteroid extincted quadraciraptor's dinosaur buddies?  Oh, RTJ = Rush To Judgement.  But yeah, after seeing quadraciraptors on the page, my RTD was definitely a confirmed TIMK-RTFM.  That's a Thing I Must Kill (dash) Right This Fucking Minute.

I wrote Trevor:

Quote
The quadrispaces are distracting and make the text look fully justified in places.  Whitespace flows down.  Never across.  NEVER ACROSS!

But of course words are weaksauce when you need something killed RTFM.  So Trevor received this:

(http://10ptt.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/boomstick.jpg)

Which surely removed any doubt he held about the professional nature of the advice I was giving.

So quadrispaces/quadraciraptor was out (I hoped), but the 'double-spaced action stacking' looks great on the page, leaves generous whitespace, and goes hand in hand with the slow-mo visuals.  That had to stay.

Turns out it didn't take much convincing for Trevor to axe the quadrispaces.  He wasn't really sold on it either.  But -- and finally we get to the real point of this post -- he needed to try it on the page to see if it worked or if it nudged the search for a suitable style in a new direction.

Many (most?) writers are too scared to try things on the page, to experiment within the ruleset.  They fear looking like an idiot.  You know who else is an idiot?  Not Jim Cameron.

Quote
NASA has this phrase that they like: "Failure is not an option." But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration, because it's a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. So, that's the thought I would leave you with, is that in whatever you're doing, failure is an option, but fear is not.

-- James Cameron, TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/james_cameron_before_avatar_a_curious_boy.html), 2010

There you go.  Jim Cameron just gave you permission to fail -- but only if you do it fearlessly.

Scaling those grand sentiments down to the level we're at, it means don't be afraid to experiment with your writing when you think it suits the script and the story.  It can mean framing your story with beautifully styled and toned language -- read THE LOW DWELLER by Brad Ingelsby.  Or, as here, it can mean tooling your layout to better match your story device.

I'll add the unspoken caveat that you can't fundamentally change script format.  If you're Cormac McCarthy you get away with it.  Your weird-looking script gets fed to the nearest office shredder.  Industry format exists for several hundred excellent reasons.  But screenwriters do have some leeway.  We play chess on the same game board as everyone else, but how we get to checkmate is up to us.

So Trevor demonstrated he's unafraid, and Jim Cameron approves.

Moving along.

The double-spaced action stacking was good, but something was missing.  I urged Trevor to keep exploring, keep pushing that stacking a little more.  Rather than stretching out the thoughts/shots/sentences across the page, per Trev's slyly dangerous quadraciraptors, what about marching them down the left half of the page?

Trevor kept pushing himself.  He tried some things and quickly settled on a style and word flow that he felt did justice to the story device (the slow-mo).

New pages arrived in Pitchpatch's inbox.  Pitchpatch read the new pages.  And as the Good Book tells us, he saw that it was good.  Then God spake unto Pitchpatch: Knock off that third person crap RTFM, asshat.

Here's where we start dividing folks.

I love the style Trevor went with.  You might not.  That's okay.  Pages RTFM so you can decide for yourself.

Page 1:

(http://10ptt.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/23mp1.png)

and something you haven't seen.  Page 24:

(http://10ptt.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/23mp24.png)

Summing up: A lot of the time you have to cross the line to discover where it lies.  So long as you can step back from the brink, where was the harm in it?  Do not fear failure; fear not trying.  If you try and fail nine times and stop then more the fool you, because winners take it to ten.  And beyond.  To a hundred, to a hundred thousand.  TO INFINITY AND --  and as this post jumps the shark, I bid you farewell.

PS -- Seriously.  Don't be a timid pussy in your writing.  Me, I'd rather look like an idiot nine times in a row if on the tenth time I get the job done, and as God is my witness, one day I WILL get the job done.

Meantime, buckle up for more of me being an idiot.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Jawbreaker on June 09, 2012, 10:38 PM
I'll give Trevor this -- the action lines are lot more readable and crisp.  Kudos for that.  But -- there's always a 'but ... ,' isn't there? -- we still get no fucking sense of motion.  That can only be conveyed with words.  I can't stress this enough.  Fucking around with structure is a waste of time.  I mean ask yourself this: If a person got a version of your script without the notes and premise, do you think they'd pick up that it's all slow motion?  Honestly, do you think they'd pick it up?  No they would not.  Do think they'd get the idea with my version?  Yes.  Yes, they would.  It's your writing.  Stop fighting it.  You're gonna have to change your action lines.


Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: Pitchpatch on June 10, 2012, 03:40 AM
we still get no fucking sense of motion.  That can only be conveyed with words.

In our discussions it was clear right away Trevor wanted the opposite: less words and in fast flowing spurts of description.  No bogging down in verbose slow-motion language.

Like I said, it's a polarizing choice.  I see merits and risks with both techniques. Maybe there's a middle ground.  I'm not the author so I don't have to worry about these things :-)

I've read the full script now and I like it.  It's a fast read for a fast action movie that goes into ultra slow motion in the final sequence (nod to the Matrix) and somehow loses none of its kinetic mayhem.  I wanted more from the central relationship, but maybe the movie playing in my head wasn't the balls-to-the-wall action flick Trevor wants to make.  Anyway, I take it as a good sign when I read a script and want it to keep evolving.  The bad scripts get dunked and drowned in the gene pool for the good of the species.


Title: TRIPLE TIMe
Post by: Pitchpatch on March 03, 2015, 07:37 AM
Trevor's making a movie!  Not 23 MINUTES, n'awww, but this new one could end up 23 minutes long -- which would be an awesome achievement in frivolous synchronicity.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/triple-time-short-film

Trevor's new project is TRIPLE TIMe.  I read the script.  I laughed silly.  And now I understand how Trevor will achieve the complicated ORPHAN BLACK-like visual effects.  Watch the proof of concept...



All this on a tiny budget of $4K.  The funding campaign is three-quarters done as I write this, which is fantastic news.  There's still time to throw some love Trevor's way and support micro-budget indie film-making.  Be in the first audience to watch the finished movie or pick a bigger, tastier contributor perk if you're feeling extra hungry.

For those who want to make movies but can't quite believe it's possible to do something clever and exciting and visually amazing on a tiny budget, this is a ride you'll want to get aboard.





Title: Re: 10PTT: 23 Minutes by Trevor Mayes
Post by: scriptwrecked on March 03, 2015, 09:46 PM
Wow, been a while since I've seen this thread. Tons of genuinely insightful comments and ideas here about 23 MINUTES. Thanks, everyone!

And Mr. Pitchpatch, I really appreciate the shout-out for TRIPLE TIMe. So far the enthusiastic response has been both wonderful and surprising. I can't wait to shoot this thing. It's going to be EPIC!

If anyone has any questions about the short, or just wants to remind me that I have a face for radio (and a voice for silent film), please drop me a note!