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The Conversation
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(Based on 5 ratings)
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Views: 90
Comments: 23
Comments: 23
Created 3 years, 10 months ago
Edited 3 years, 9 months ago
Category: Short Film
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My intention was not to offend, anyone.
I figure what kind of God could have his ego crushed by a human anyways. It's just a story.
Not touting it as truth.
Chad, I tried to take out some of the capitalized directions.
See, I listen.
I'm new to all this. Still cutting my teeth.
I wanted to try my hand at quick conversation between two characters.
Hope this comes across.
Namaste,
Greg
Break a leg ...
The Dream Giver - Bruce Wilkinson (try youtube) --interesting life principle--to action.
Thanks again for delivering a thought-provoking piece. Your intelligence and dramatic instincts are very solid, and I think as your confidence grows, you have a great deal of interesting tales ahead of you.
The first paragraph could be tightened - we don't need to know what happened in the past with the breeze having carried around clouds, defining the clear blue sky is fine.
While the description of what the soccer moms is doing would be fine when working with actors, it's not playable. This is something that you can only pull off with dialogue; otherwise, just have 'soccer moms strategize together' or something even more terse or playable.
Except for a few too many adverbs, the rest of the action description on this page is fine and focused.
Since there's not a lot of technical aspects of this to critique, I'm going to address some more general concerns for the most part.
First of all, the rhythms of the dialogue are very fine; you do give-and-take very well. The problem here is this: you haven't written a short film, you've written a play. This is tricky because I like the general idea of it (I've actually done an adaptation of a short story with a slightly similar theme, so I like the concept very much indeed.
But looking at it, there's just nothing visual about it at all. That's not to say to shove visual components in it for the sake of it. That's been the ruin of many a stage play adaptation. But the characters are somewhat didactic, more based in theme than character (especially in the first half). It's a thought-piece. By definition, that means it doesn't have a tremendously strong plot backbone, or the settings to take advantage of the medium.
On the other hand, theater absolutely thrives with stuff like this, and in that context, I love the provocative and lucid dialogue and choice metaphors. And I think the last page is just terrific as a capper. I really think you should take a deeper look at this and change the medium.
This is smart and funny (I especially enjoyed the exchange about holidays) - but it's in the wrong box.
I see a lot of use of '...' To me, this is distracting.
HOMELESS MAN
...your brothers miss you.... See, I dont know why its necessary here. Whats wrong with just a sentence? In other words, what do the dots represent? what are you trying to get across by using them? Because I dont know.
Also, Characters only need to be capitalized the FIRST time they are introduced, not every time you mention them in action.
The story itself, I must say, is a really good idea. Im not mistakem, its God and Satan talking right? Homeless man is Satan and the white guy is God? This is brilliant.
I like how the conversation between the two reveals this more and more and actually makes earlier comments make sense with later comments. The dialogue is great. It flows well.
Dimitri mentioned how this is a stage play, I agree, but it could be both. I can see this working as either/or.
Plus, it would be really cheap to film. You could do this with almost no money. Thats always a good thing. I have a problem with my scrips, which I plan on directing, not thinking about budget and when I g back to read I realize I wont have enough money for a scene, so I have to dumb it down or get rid of it all together. Thats not a problem here. I skipped some parts for time but I'll have more time to read the whole thing in its enirety on Sunday.
So in:
SHARP DRESSED MAN
...then you go and print all those lies about me...
HOMELESS MAN
The authors did take a little creative licence.
SHARP DRESSED MAN
...made everyone think I'm a monster...
HOMELESS MAN
Yeah, but at least now they're thinking!
SHARP DRESSED MAN
...What was I supposed to do?....
The Sharp Dressed Man keeps talking as if a monologue. The Homeless Man interject his lines at the ellipses.
They do change over in places like the one character will start doing this and come to an ending point, they'll be a conversational lull or changeover of momentum and then the other character will start this same format.
Or at least that's what I tried to do. I guess some it bled over into other lines because I use this same ellipse kind of a thing for pauses within single character dialogue lines. But it's the best I could think of at the time I started, given this limitation of Zhura that is not in Final Draft.
Thanks Jeff I appreciate you help on this. I look forward to your input on Sunday. I wanted it to cheap and easy to do. So I am glad that comes across.
So that you know. The homeless guy is god and the well dressed guy is satan.
Thanks again.
Namaste,
Greg
Yeah in the beginning it's weird because I was so confused. I was like "Wha? That dude is white and the homeless black guy is his dad? Huh? Adoptive father? what the hell?? lol. and then you keep reading, you stick with it and all is revealed through dialogue and without having to literally come out and say "Hello!!! I am God!! I am talking to Satan!! We are in disguise!!
Haha. So yeah. I love it. It's well thought out and very clever.
I think on page 5 "singing" should be an actual parenthetical.
SHARP DRESSED MAN
It was an idea who's time had come.
People were sick of...
(singing)
..."Roamin' round the heavens all day".
Page 12:
HOMELESS MAN
Well, they Jews understood me pretty well.
"The" instead of "they."
SHARP DRESSED MAN
Yea, but if you'll do that to your own Son,
while telling everyone's he's perfect,
what'll you do to them?
'everyone', not 'everyone's'
SHARP DRESSED MAN
Answer the question! DO I HAVE A MOTHER?!
HOMELESS MAN
...No.....(laughs)
SHARP DRESSED MAN
You suck.
That. Was. Awesome. Hilarious.
Okay. Finished. The ending is great. The entire read is a lot more clear now that I've actually finished it and I like it even better now. It's really well thought out.
I don't really know much about religion or anything like that. I'm not a believer, I don't go to Church or anything, but I still loved it and it still made sense to me. I like the little bit about Satan actually creating Earth and everyone. Is that something that is discussed somewhere else, or did you just throw that in there? Very cool indeed.
Jeff
LOL....
Jeff thanks so much for taking time to help me catch some of the things I wouldn't be able to otherwise. I am glad it was a good read, hopefully it will play well also.
Namaste, my friend
Greg
Its a big help