Thread: A Crimson Shade of Gray - Working Title

Greetings all, this is my first post here and I'm not really sure how you guys run the show. At the moment, I'm a student, and an amateur screenwriter in my spare time. This was my first attempt at a feature length one, although I've only written ~20 pages so far. It has the incredibly shite WiP name A Crimson Shade of Gray, that I will keep until I can think of something less terrible. The genre is Science Fiction. If you don't understand anything, or would like some context to make sense of any of it, I'll be happy to help. I'm posting here to get some critiques, so feel free to hate on it for as long as you want (the more the better). I've already started rewriting the whole thing, so negative feedback would be appreciated (so I know better what to cut, what to change, etc).






*edit* Unfortunately, I'm unable to link to the darned thing, because I don't have 10 posts, and I can't copy+paste it into here without destroying the formatting. Any advice guys?

*edit edit*

10 posts! Here's the link:

Celtx - Login

Do eight more posts.

Or post it...it wrecks everybody's format, we're used to it.

I'll just go the 8 more posts route, I guess. Thanks anyway, but I tried to post it initially, and it destroyed all spaces, and lumped the whole thing into one giant paragraph. I don't want to do that to people

Woo! Ten posts!

Celtx - Login

There it is, finally.

You have to creat an account somewhere to see your script????

Ah! Gorramit.

Try it now, I just set it to "public access" instead of private. Sorry guys. The link works now, afaik, even though on here it still says "log in".

Hi Adamcarvosso,

I read it and I have a few questions and a few comments. First of all, you seem very intune with your genre of choice and it reads like many sci fi scripts I have read in many places. So, kudos for being a screenwriter hobbyist and making it this far.

A few questions I asked while reading this were:
-Who exactly is my protagonist? It's so much easier to latch onto one person among all of the people introduced in your script and go from there, but I wasn't sure if it might be Grif, or maybe even Hales out in the field. Whoever you choose, it's important to keep them around as much as possible so we can feel like it's their story.

-What are the stakes? I'm witnessing a lot of exciting events, but I don't know why we are attacking Mars or the grays, or why suvillians are already living with the grays. Maybe this is part of your mystery, but set up would be nice. You have a political room onboard where they ask why the New Zealand war folks are on loan... you can also bring up the war strategy of taking on the capitol with suvillians and Grays. Might be a good way to explain what we're up against and why the capital is being seized.

-Have we ending about page 15/ the inciting incident? Usually what happens in the 1st 15 pages of a script is set up, more like, we see day in the life, then something happens around 15 pages in to change all that. It's usually unforseen... and I feel like getting to Cydonia is really the end of ACT I, or is before the inciting incident that leads the reste of the story. Of course, it all depends, but rigt now you have a lot of questions and mysteries going and it might help to use one of those at this point as well.

Technical issues:

Avoid passive phrases as best you can. (This is the first line) The USS HYPERION, is drifting silently through space.... try instead The USS HYPERION, drifts silently through space.

Introducing people. I'm going to admit, I get really confused being introduced to this many people, wondering since they are all officially named, if they are all important characters. Instead, only officially name important characters and give them defining characteristics and speech. Maybe a dirty mouthed Colonol or a real startched collar of a General. Then your characters will have more interaction. You have best character definition and action with the people waking up, because it's comedic and more memorable. Other characters I get lost in their war jargon. In movies like these, it might be easier to have someone on the team who can react to their plans or can be less informed to get a simplified version.

Last but not least, I'm lukewarm about your working title. I think it's a little too poetic for what I've read so far.

Hey, thanks for reading it. In regard to specific comments:

-Who exactly is my protagonist? It's so much easier to latch onto one person among all of the people introduced in your script and go from there, but I wasn't sure if it might be Grif, or maybe even Hales out in the field. Whoever you choose, it's important to keep them around as much as possible so we can feel like it's their story.

Initially it was going to be Grif, but now it's not so much a single protagonist as it is 3 protagonists now. Grif, Hales and Brooks all have the lead in various scenes. This may be one thing I should clean up.

-What are the stakes? I'm witnessing a lot of exciting events, but I don't know why we are attacking Mars or the grays, or why suvillians are already living with the grays. Maybe this is part of your mystery, but set up would be nice. You have a political room onboard where they ask why the New Zealand war folks are on loan... you can also bring up the war strategy of taking on the capitol with suvillians and Grays. Might be a good way to explain what we're up against and why the capital is being seized.

Yup, this ambiguity is currently a huge problem. Also, I'd like to say that "grays" refers not to aliens, or any specific kind of person, but when the soldiers on the ground spot a person of unknown intent, their networked battlefield overlays the person with a gray diamond. I could go into the technical workings, but I won't bore you. Basically, "gray" is code for "unknown person". It mentions them becoming red. They flag a gray as "red" (hostile) if they are seen to carry a weapon or make a move against them.

To clarify - all enemies are human. Mars in this case has undergone a process known as "terraforming", a large scale engineering project to make a world other than earth habitable for humans. Several colonies have been established on this newly habitable planet, and after some time, they demand independance from their respective countries (The United States of America and the People's Republic of China own the majority of the established colonies). The countries refused, and as such the colonies violently rebelled.

Being that they are a huge distance away from earth, and that the respective country's armies can not be brought to bear on a place outside of earth, three warships, not truly designed for inter-planetary travel so much as being orbital weapons platforms, are dispatched to Mars to re-establish control.

It may be compared to the American war of independence in this respect.

-Have we ending about page 15/ the inciting incident? Usually what happens in the 1st 15 pages of a script is set up, more like, we see day in the life, then something happens around 15 pages in to change all that. It's usually unforseen... and I feel like getting to Cydonia is really the end of ACT I, or is before the inciting incident that leads the reste of the story. Of course, it all depends, but rigt now you have a lot of questions and mysteries going and it might help to use one of those at this point as well.

My influences when writing this were ALIENS, Starship Troopers (the novel, not the terrible movie) and to a lesser extent, Saving Private Ryan. The latter two examples do not share this conventional structure you bring up, and it's likely that the finished product that this will eventually turn into (IF it ever gets finished) will not either. That said, the first few pages of the script in it's current form "kind of" fits that role.

Introducing people. I'm going to admit, I get really confused being introduced to this many people, wondering since they are all officially named, if they are all important characters. Instead, only officially name important characters and give them defining characteristics and speech. Maybe a dirty mouthed Colonol or a real startched collar of a General. Then your characters will have more interaction. You have best character definition and action with the people waking up, because it's comedic and more memorable. Other characters I get lost in their war jargon. In movies like these, it might be easier to have someone on the team who can react to their plans or can be less informed to get a simplified version.

Yeah, I'm starting to think that I have too many characters. In the war room before the first action scene, I name a bunch of extremely secondary characters - which may confuse a reader. Only three of the characters there will play any real role in the scenes with those characters. Then there's 2 more (AM and Brooks), and then 4-5 secondary characters in the form of the ones who woke up in that room together. I'll probably have to cut one of the groups entirely if it doesn't work out.

Last but not least, I'm lukewarm about your working title. I think it's a little too poetic for what I've read so far.

Indeed, it's not really related at all. I was trying to think of something to call it other than "Work in Progress", then that came to me as I was falling asleep one day a while back, so I slapped it on until I can think of something more appropriate.

Thanks for your time.

Definitely change "is drifting" to "drifts". Has nothing to do with passive--it's just the construction of scripts: simple present tense.

I'd be ragging on the title, too, but I see your comments that it's not the end product. Good.

A massive warship, the USS HYPERION, is drifting silently through space towards an unrecognizable, Earth like planet, accompanying two vessels of equivalent size, the USS TITAN (leading the group) and PLAN Beiji Dadi.

TITLE CARD: MARS


INT. USS HYPERION

Lights turn on one at a time, and the whirring of machinery slowly dies down as a large row of individually spinning cannisters (slightly larger than a man) come to rest. A red light on each cannister turns green a moment later, and they each begin to let out a long hiss as the pressure on the inside and outside of the cannisters equalizes. They open slowly, and the people contained in them stir to life. PRIVATE FIRST CLASS ADAM GRIF, in foremost cannister, grips the sides and slowly pulls himself out, moving weightlessly towards the cannister next to him.

These action paragraphs share a problem that's hard to get specific about, but the general thing is, they're too wordy for a script. You should break action into paragraphs of about 4-5 lines. If you can't do that, you might have a problem.
The reason I say general is something like your description of the three ships in space. It's awkward, and has lines that smack of afterthought. You are basically saying something like:

Three massive warships drift towards an Earth-like planet. Lettering identifies them as the USS Titan, the USS Hyperion, and the PLAN Deiji Dadi.

See what I mean. This is one of the things you look for in reading scripts, the spare, laconic way the good ones get things across. And what they ignore. Does it matter which is in the lead? How would an Earth-like planet be "recognizable"? Etc. Same goes for another obvious "stick-in", the "man-sized" container.
You need to cultivate an elegance of expression in scripts that is easy to emulate than describe.

By the way, I would think about only capitalizing NAMES on first appearance. Essentially you cap what will be in the character tags. Officer RON COPP, etc. Of course, PFC is already caps
Notice that you are using PFC in your voice tags, but not COLONEL. Just use names is your best bet. Especially when they all seem to be PFC's.

I would encourage you to avoid the whole overthinking approach to scripts that you run into on screenwriter sites. I consider the whole use of the term "protagonist" to be useless to writers, and it can mess you up. Plenty of great films lack a central character.

And more to the point, that character very often emerges later than in the first 15 pages. These cookbook number schemes for scripts can get in the way of your story as often as help it.

Let's take an example close to yours: Alien. The first part of the film we have what you have, a bunch of guys on a spaceship about to embark on something that isn't quite routine. None is singled out. Your guess for future hero would probably be Dallas, the Tom Skerrit character.
They go down to investigate a ship and zap something happens. But is it an "inciting incident"? No. It's a quick Boo! then they're all back on ship eating and THEN something happens that instantly sends the film into its trajectory. But what page does the little critter chew its way out of the poor guy's guts?
Well, in the script I have...which is 155 pages...the original attack b the Alien is on page 47, the emergence is on 87.
And MUCH of the intervening stuff is just small talk among the crew, nothing heavy.

So what am I saying? Beats me. Oh wait...I'm saying to look closely at good scripts and pick up their style. This is one thing that jumps right out at a reader: this guy knows how scripts work, or this guy is a beginner. Seriously.

The big danger is not in dialog, it's in the descriptions. (Once you are completely squared away on slugs) Keep them short and terse and in simple tense, remote third person.

But get the important stuff in. In the second direction, you have a lot of stuff that is not necessary (man-sized, foremost, etc) yet there is no general description of where they are. Nothing like: Long rows of sleeping pods stencilled with serial numbers flank an immaculate corridor painted Navy gray.

Good luck

Oops. Not that everything I say doesn't bear repeating....

Originally Posted by adamcarvosso

My influences when writing this were ALIENS, Starship Troopers (the novel, not the terrible movie) and to a lesser extent, Saving Private Ryan. The latter two examples do not share this conventional structure you bring up, and it's likely that the finished product that this will eventually turn into (IF it ever gets finished) will not either. That said, the first few pages of the script in it's current form "kind of" fits that role.

Okay, I probably didn't explain myself correctly, but with those examples, I could probably make it clearer. What I call an inciting incident is really where the event or incident that happens to set this story on this particular path. It's the different between have a plain ole day and something exciting happening. It's usually and act, action, or new information and then everybody has to react to it.

In Aliens you could say that it's when all communication has been lost with a colony that could have fell prey to aliens.
(In Alien, I'd say it's the first "attack" of a face hugger).
In Starship Troopers (I have to use the movie here as an example, I'm afraid, since we are using movie structures) but a meteor hits Brazil and then they decide to launch off to the bug homeworld.
In Saving Private Ryan, it's that Gen. Marshall discovers 3/4 of the Ryan boys have been killed within just a few days of each other and their mother will get each notice.

Becuase of all the events in each movie, the movie goes in the direction is does. Because the colony may be in trouble, Ripley has to agree to go and face her demons. Becuase of the meteor/bomb attack on the wold, troops are going to go attack the bugs. Because 3 of the Ryan boys have been killed, orders are issued to go save the last one.

So, when I said I didn't know what your inciting incident was, it means I'm not sure if the attack on Cydonia is important, or maybe something goes awry once they get to cydonia, getting the story into action. I'm just not sure yet. If you let me know, I wouldn't mind talking to you more about this.

And as far as Lin says about following a page count or rules that screenwriting books teach you, he's right, you don't have to have everything on a certain page or 1 protagonist (you can do 3 protagonists) but nothing matters if the story doesn't work or is confusing.

Lin:

I won't comment on your individual points, but I will certainly take what you said under advice. Thank you.

In Aliens you could say that it's when all communication has been lost with a colony that could have fell prey to aliens.
(In Alien, I'd say it's the first "attack" of a face hugger).
In Starship Troopers (I have to use the movie here as an example, I'm afraid, since we are using movie structures) but a meteor hits Brazil and then they decide to launch off to the bug homeworld.
In Saving Private Ryan, it's that Gen. Marshall discovers 3/4 of the Ryan boys have been killed within just a few days of each other and their mother will get each notice.

I see your point. In that case, I guess as of now there really isn't an inciting incident in the story; or rather, there isn't one in it's present structure. I can certainly include one at a later date however, the justification for the characters (or rather, the armed forces) to show up at all - armed rebellion. I'm obviously going to have them in a difficult situation later, but that's the same with every script.

I started rewriting the other day, but ran out of time and had to get to a family commitment after I'd only written 1.5 pages. *sigh*

What would I have to do to work as a script writer (form movies or sits)?

Sell your soul to Satan.

Not to put you off, simone, but this isn't the best place to ask that. There aren't many scriptwriters here. I'd recommend you ask on screenwriting sites, of which there are MANY and on tvwriter.com which is the main source of info on TV writing.

It helps to be young and dedicated, willing to move to LA and work in the proverbial mail room while playing angles.

Along the way, learn how to write a killer script. When you can do that, start looking for jobs working on scripts, rewrite, etc. TV is probably easier to break in and is better money.

Good luck

Originally Posted by simone.marini82

What would I have to do to work as a script writer (form movies or sits)?

There are many many ways a person gets their foot in the door. And once I do it, I'll patten my way and sell it on ebay.

Unfortunately, it helps to be in LA becuase the only way I know how to do anything in this town is via networking. The sooner you immerse yourself in the cesspool that is LA, the sooner you'll meet fellow people in said cesspool.

And, have the writing to back it up. Be polished, top notched, and irresistable. This is also a pain in the butt becuase, let's face it, it can be a long learning process. So, be patient with yourself and keep at it.