Originally posted by: PatboyX
oh man. now i cant read my notes. my first impressions were:
i had pacing issues. im not sure how the film is supposed to feel but the beginning makes it seem somewhat cute and maudlin and then it justs busts into action. but...violence is always nice to throw into a love story.
we need more on the character of the mother from the beginning. no need to lay it on thick, but start slowly so that we actually care when it is revealed that she is unstable.
some trite moments: all same suit, time montage (although it seems to work here) two bits of conversation between josh and gab where josh says something like "this isnt the right profession..." too overused. dont use it. will look bad. and his exposition of "the sleaziest blah blah" is too much as well. i think you can say a lot more with actions than with the dialouge in a story of this type. like, we dont need to know that a character named "boom boom" is the c4 man. trust us to figure that out on our own.
the tone of this is hard to tell based on the script. sometimes it seems melodramatic and sometimes it seems quite tongue-in-cheek. it would work best as a dark comedy, in my mind. allowing for those sort of nothing conversations and violent moments, giving us the opportunity to accept gab as a loving character to get behind despite being a killer.
panning from the shoe up on a female character intro should be outlawed. her foot should be removed if she playfully moves it in and out of the shoe. this happens every 15 minutes on the USA network. a good test of writing is to ask yourself "does this ever happen on the USA network?"
Freddy Krueger is brought up at some point. it seemed like a dated and somewhat inappropriate comparison.
maroon is not yellow. but maybe the character was supposed to make a mistake. if so, why? unclear.
the quote isnt that obscure toward the end. that is a writing pet peeve of mine, though. it seems slightly cocky to write something like that. i also feel the same way about our hero being a shy writer. a little too close to home to the author, i always fear. makes me lose interest.
purple vs. gab convo is good as long as it isnt done too glibbly. maybe cut back on how cool they are being. key to realistic conversations is to forget how people talk.
anna has a good intro. picture her funny and perky. sweet. again, not big on him being able to open up so quickly to every character he meets.
in bar: please do something about line "love my mother, hate my job" no woman on planet earth would miss that red flag.
walk on beach is overdone as romantic catalyst. maybe it should move slower.
physical:
they walked to coney island and didnt notice? from where?
would not an explosion in the place cause alarm? if not, would it not at least leave more of a mess than is neccessary, considering their goal?
why would a hitman not expect to take damage on any given day? joshs anger seemed displaced.
those are all the notes i have that i can read. i have others and im sure more will come to me.
nice work.
