Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest

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  • #16
    Re: Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest

    Originally posted by StoryWriter View Post
    Ah, FINALLY, something important to discuss.

    I didn't use a double dash, I used a double hyphen which is the typewriter's code for a dash.
    Gawd knows what came over me. I guess a double-D whore of alliteration tempted my tongue away from the path of linguistic righteousness.

    Courier (or any monospaced/non-proportional typeface) cannot adequately accommodate the different widths of the hyphen-minus, en dash and em dash. So yes, in screenwriting (and typewriting) a double hyphen-minus is the substitute for a dash. However, just a single hyphen-minus, with a space both sides, is the standard separator in scene headings.
    Know this: I'm a lazy amateur, so trust not a word what I write.
    "The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty, never." ~ Oscar Wilde

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    • #17
      Re: Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest

      Originally posted by The Road Warrior View Post
      But... did you spot my biggest gaff.... no?.... the Penny Farthing, fish tank, sticks of crystal suspended in water arrangement..... would not have worked you see, good...hmmm... - I got away with it perhaps.... below the Penny Farthing is the big wheel - yes?

      In my mind I had a "space" to hang that damn fish tank, just below the seat, so the power source had no space to hang. I'd got the ladder part right, I think, it's a long way up and that was for comedy and effect!

      But... what year was all this set in, I didn't say, the Penny Farthing is precious, where did Davies get it from? A museum, is it a contemporary piece, I left that to the absence of logic in writing and stories, it was an who-cares moment. I thought, there are things in writing that have to make sense or be justified and those that don't need to be.
      Like that novel/film, where the main character is riding along in a boat out at sea with a tiger.

      The very slow speed of cycling that was needed to produce the time travel... cough, cough, hmm, was supposed to be the opposite of the very exciting and racy Back to the Future style of time-travel, that was intended as a a sort of joke/inversion.

      I stated precisely the pedal speed for that reason.
      It was supposed to look pretty naff on the big screen.
      I presumed that the penny-farthing was a contemporary detail, and the story is set in a circa 1880s boarding-school. But the batteries in the fishtank and Speake's torch put that into question.

      Regarding the time-travel assembly: just put the whole bike in a Victorian bathtub, or at least the small back wheel in an old tin bath, so it's even more Heath Robinson.

      I think that your concept could be worth developing. There's potential for a series of rip-roaring boy's own style THE TIME MACHINE meets THE FAMOUS FIVE meets THE HISTORY BOYS meets STAND BY ME adventures.
      Last edited by Crayon; 09-26-2016, 01:00 PM. Reason: add encouragement
      Know this: I'm a lazy amateur, so trust not a word what I write.
      "The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty, never." ~ Oscar Wilde

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      • #18
        Re: Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest

        You can never go too far wrong with a Victorian bathtub.
        Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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        • #19
          Re: Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest

          Originally posted by dpaterso View Post
          Kronos
          An interesting enough read, in places, but it left me wondering what the heck, I just couldn't quite join the dots. Dark Agent?
          Thanks for your feedback. I think all the dots are there, and clear enough to join. (Daniel returns to the family home to bury his elderly father - an agent offers him the chance to time-travel to his childhood and alter his life-path - he does that, and causes his father to die earlier, and sets his child-self free - the agent comes to collect the debt from the altered-life-path Daniel.) I don't understand your question: "Dark Agent?" He is evidently 'dark' in appearance, and he is evidently an 'agent' that deals in time-travel. What more would one wish to know?

          Originally posted by The Road Warrior View Post
          Kronos
          This was eerie and imaginative and there was lot of attention to detail in this script. I had a feeling that we weren't being told everything that as going on here, that may have been a wrong impression, it did send me back to reread, but the darker aspects to this script and the fact that it was a bit unusual got it a vote. I too was not comfortable with 'dark agent,' I wanted to ask, what kind of a dark agent? - was this the devil's messenger?
          There may have been reason that it was left more vague..... but heck, I got the whole sense of weird menace and atmosphere that pervades this piece of writing... and the dark details of going back to right -wrongs.... and thought it probably trumped other scripts on being a bit different so got my third vote. Ahhh- who knows?
          Thanks for your vote and your feedback. I'm pleased you feel that it's "eerie". I aimed for a sense of unease, but it's hard to know if one succeeds in creating an atmosphere. I didn't deliberately withhold information. It's all there for the reader to piece together. I don't think knowing any more about the Dark Agent would be good. It's clear "what kind of a dark agent" he is: he facilitates Daniel's wish to change the past. (Although he may just be a figment of Daniel's bitter desires.) And I think it's good, especially with short films, to leave the audience with some things to wonder about.

          Originally posted by 14001 View Post
          K R O N O S
          -
          Had to read it twice but then I got it. A well written story that has some loopholes and lacks a bit of stakes for the protagonist. All too easy. Got my first vote.
          -
          Good intro description.
          There's a lot of setup in this story, too much maybe. When does the action begin?
          By the way who is he calling bastard?
          Very good descriptions, very atmospheric, but slow. 40% of the story is setup. Let's see who is this dark agent.
          And the agent just goes, who is that?? Did Daniel call him? He just appears?
          Original concept for time travel, no machines, that's good.
          Question... do they see him in the past? It seems like they don't, but still he can do things... like a ghost? this is a bit confusing.
          So I guess the father dies at the beginning and then he goes back in time to - sort of - kill his abusive father and set himself free, with the help of the agent (a coincidence?).
          My main concern about the story is the lack of stakes. Daniel goes back, fixes the past, everybody is happy. Where is the irony or the risk? And why didn't he do this before? Yeah, I know, the agent, but who is that?
          Thanks for your generous vote and your feedback. I was careful to avoid "loopholes", and plot holes, and there are none that I'm aware of. I'm not sure that a lack of stakes is a big problem for a short; and I think mystery and tension keep this story engaging. Any "action" is incidental. I wrote it as a requiem for a lost life. I think it's clear what bastard he shouts about. (He's just buried his estranged father, and later he instigates his father's early death.) The Dark Agent is no more than how he appears to Daniel and what he does for Daniel. You're right, Daniel's presence in the past is not concrete. There is something like irony when the Dark Agent comes to collect what he is owed from the contented Daniel at the same time/age as when the Dark Agent made the deal with the abused Daniel.

          ************************************************

          I don't understand the discontent that some have with the Dark Agent's identity. Many influential movie characters remain a mystery. For example: who exactly is the High Plains Drifter? Or V with his vendetta? Or The Stranger in The Big Lebowski? More information about them would ruin those characters and the roles they play.

          But for those of you still perplexed by the Dark Agent, and frustrated by his reluctance to open up on camera, maybe the following short bio will satisfy your curiosity: His name is Dirk Nugent. He's the only offspring of Titus and Gaynor. He's a native northerner who moved to the metropolis to fulfil his manifest destiny. He's been a sales rep of the Kronos Corporation for the past 123 years, along 81 time-lines, offering alternative paths to those who feel that death and decay is their only option. He's currently single; has a pet salamander called Ignatius; and enjoys horology, train travel, blackjack, fugu sushi, and the works of Nicolaus Copernicus, Bertrand Russell, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. For further enquiries please call: 0800-IT-TOLLS-FOR-THEE.

          [I hope that doesn't come across as sarcastic. I liked the idea of creating a pointless backstory for a metaphysical character.]
          Know this: I'm a lazy amateur, so trust not a word what I write.
          "The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty, never." ~ Oscar Wilde

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          • #20
            Re: Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest


            Good to see you defend your script, Crayon, that's the spirit, we don't see that enough.
            BTW.
            I'm fine with the actual use of the dark agent, that may not have come over in my notes. My bad! As you say, it's a stock character, in literature and film, often used as a bridge between worlds, or to fill in some details that might ruin the hero if the hero had to, say, actually discuss himself at any length or give away too much bio.

            I just didn't like the name DARK AGENT it seems. Oh well.

            Now if you'd said ESTATE AGENT?
            I'd have got it instantly: obsequious, evil, unnecessary, damnable.
            Ha ha.

            Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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            • #21
              Re: Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest

              Thanks for the explanation, that clears things up a bit. Though if I were watching the movie, I still dunno if I would have got all of that. But I seem to be the only one who got muddled, so maybe it's just a me problem. If others had said the same thing then perhaps the old writer's caveat would have applied: if you gotta explain something to your reader, maybe that something wasn't clear enough in the first place.

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              • #22
                Re: Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest

                Originally posted by dpaterso View Post
                ... if you gotta explain something to your reader, maybe that something wasn't clear enough in the first place.
                But, as you surely know, that is not always strictly true. Some of the most popular and respected works of literature, cinema, and art are created with intentional ambiguity, to be open to interpretation, and raise more questions than provide answers.

                "Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything." ~ Holden Caulfield

                Although, for example, many watch 2001: A Space Odyssey without the faintest idea what's going on, and think it's complete nonsense.

                "If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me." ~ Holden Caulfield

                Get out, Caulfield. The school is sick of your senseless ramblings.

                We shouldn't forget that to write with complete authority is a luxurious lie. Life, people and events, and one's memories of them, are far from set in stone. And I thought it was worth taking that into account when writing a time-travel themed script.
                Know this: I'm a lazy amateur, so trust not a word what I write.
                "The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty, never." ~ Oscar Wilde

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                • #23
                  Re: Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest

                  Originally posted by dpaterso View Post
                  Thanks for the explanation, that clears things up a bit. Though if I were watching the movie, I still dunno if I would have got all of that. But I seem to be the only one who got muddled, so maybe it's just a me problem. If others had said the same thing then perhaps the old writer's caveat would have applied: if you gotta explain something to your reader, maybe that something wasn't clear enough in the first place.
                  Agree with that. I don't think you were the only one thinking the Agent needed more room. And despite the explanation clarifies things, it's impossible to know that just by reading the script (and I don't want a leaflet explaining these details before I go see the movie, I just want to see the movie!). I believe less is more, in that I agree with you, Crayon, but there must be something. In this situation, an Agent coming like this, out of the blue, is the same as if it was Fairy Godmother visiting to fix your problems. and Cinderella had a lot of trouble after that anyway.

                  Anyway, it seems the thread is losing steam. Four writer out of seven sent reviews. Are they coming or is that it? To me reviews is where you really learn what you are doing right or wrong. Voting means nothing really. Or it means something but not everything, not at all, it's subjective.
                  Check out my website with my productions: http://www.picturesplusproductions.com

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                  • #24
                    Re: Results - Hot Tubs and Time Machines Contest

                    The feedback reviews are quite useful, it's where you at least get to see how others think, or what could have been done differently, what else could be tried..... and you see how a, theoretically at least, audience might read your film/writing?

                    I don't think we'll get any more feedback, it's best to move on now, be thinking of the next exercise, and be glad that some entrants, at least, had the time to feedback. Everybody has got different priorities and time restraints. With that in mind we have to be very accepting of what gets done or doesn't get done around here. Thanks for entering, to those who did, time for thoughts on Halloween now! Get thinking, get scribbling... campers!

                    Forthcoming: The Annual, "I JUST GOT DUMPED" Valentine's Short Screenplay Writing Competition. Keep an eye on Writing Exercises.

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