Script Notes - 2 Samples below

SAMPLE SCRIPT NOTES 1

What I Liked:
 
The first half of this script does everything right. I felt that I knew the characters enough to make me care about their fate. The writer creates an effective air of mystery by presenting a handful of unanswered questions in the first act. Who sent this check? Whose ring is in the unseen part of Nancy and Susan’s picture? Did Brigitte kill Jeremy? I was drawn into the script, and genuinely curious about where the writer would take it.
 
Nancy’s experience as a newcomer in Chicago felt authentically frustrating. As a relatively small town girl from Oklahoma City, Nancy faced looming big city Chicago, written effectively here as a cold, forbidding, dishonest and callous place. Her rapid hiring and firing at (what I guessed to be) an ad agency was so surgically executed, so soon after she arrived that I had literary whiplash reading it. Oh! She lost her job already? That’s not good. Her attraction to the dubious and flaky Jake also fed into the gnashing teeth of the city waiting to devour her. Likewise the loud, fighting neighbors heard through ultra-thin walls. I liked the writer’s development of Nancy’s isolation. Even before anything truly strange and tragic started to happen, the reader already got a feeling that Nancy was in a world of trouble. I thought that as the events started to escalate with the arrival of mysterious checks, a couple of dead bodies, and a non-existent church address, the script was building to a promising crescendo. The writer had my interest in spades.
 
The pinnacle of this buildup in my view was when Nancy woke from nightmares to find herself living one. She woke to find herself encircled by cult members. Wow! That was terrifying, and I could see it as clearly as if it had been projected on a screen.

What Needs Work:
 
The unfortunate truth is that I felt that the script lost all the flavored elements that made it work after this event took place. The second half of the script almost feels as if it belongs to another writer and another story entirely. The thing about the first half that really grabbed me was Nancy’s isolation. When awful things start to happen around someone who is alone and helpless in a big city, this constitutes real visceral and believable terror. This could happen to any of us, and is a great repressed common fear. However, once Nancy got to the cult, I felt like the writer had dropped many of the threads picked up in the first part of the script, and failed to utilize the elements that he so effectively laid in place. Nancy’s vulnerability suddenly disappears. Jehovah doesn’t bother to exploit her joblessness, aimlessness, lovelessness…nothing. He simply dives right in with the equivalent of “You are my daughter, now you will mother my child. Now.” There’s absolutely no finesse here. It feels as if the writer is suddenly rushing the story out of desperation to reach the end. The ruminative quality of Nancy’s arrival in Chicago has been replaced by a crazy-world logic. It seems as though Nancy’s mentality might be just imbalanced enough to make her ripe for the kind of brainwashing that seems to have worked on Brigitte. Why not have Jehovah aim for her weaknesses? Something tells me that a cult that just whips and bullies people into submission isn’t one that is destined for much success. Theoretically, cults work because they offer family, philosophy and love to those who are desperate for all three. That desperation is exploited for shady gains by the cult leader. Jehovah, again, lacks this finesse. So, overall, I wasn’t buying this part of the script.
 
Also, the writer introduces characters such as Jake and the police detective, and then leaves them stranded in the second act. Why not let the detective find Nancy at the compound, rather than a brand new character hired by Susan? I thought that the relationship between Nancy and the detective could have provided an interesting subplot. He worries for her safety, believes her innocence, and seeks her when she disappears. Maybe he discovers that the corpse in Brigitte’s apartment isn’t Brigitte and becomes suspicious? There are many interesting ways that the script could maintain the first half’s depth by beefing up some subplots.
 
Finally, the ending was really unbelievable. I couldn’t believe that Nancy would be crying and hugging Susan so affectionately after she just found out that Susan lied to her about her father for her whole life. That’s kind of a major piece of information that might serve to upset someone in real life. The writer might want to assume that this reunion would be a bit more emotionally complex than it is in this draft.
 
SAMPLE SCRIPT NOTES 2

What I liked:

The writer has excavated an interesting historical event to translate into a script. The systematic removal of the Chinese population of Tacoma in the late 1800s is a tale that is likely to be wholly unfamiliar to the casual reader, but the writer does a solid job of setting up the facts of the event without resorting to clunky exposition-filled dialogue or any hint of political soapbox preaching. The story that is on the page is one where characters on both sides of the argument seem to be ambiguous in their intentions, and although the writer clearly angles for Chinese sympathy, he/she doesn’t do so by turning the villainous town officials into caricatures.

There are also several nice touches in the script that bear mentioning. On page 47, the writer adds a good comedic grace note when Anna McFarland greets the town council members at her door. Though her initial reaction to their anti-Chinese ordinances seems flippant, and she very casually excuses herself, when she returns she does so with glancing blows from a swinging broom. I found that to be a wonderful introduction to a character that would prove to be one of the most interesting of the script. Also, I very much enjoyed the camaraderie between Anna and Mattie. Especially well-done was the scene at the parade where Mattie endeavors to trip passers-by maliciously. There are many scenes that were well-written, actually. These are just two that particularly stood out.

What needs work:

Overall, there are a few concerns I had while reading this script. One of them was that while the story was fresh and historically interesting, I felt that there were many times when the writer could have taken creative license in order to heighten the tension. For instance, in the third act, Whyte calls in the US military, but the cavalry arrives too late to make any difference. Although this is historically accurate, it would have been great to see the writer add a sense of urgency in the cavalry’s arrival. The fact that they just missed the driven-out Chinese townsfolk, could have been used to greater effect if the reader would have been given a sense that help was on its way…if it could just arrive in time! Instead, their arrival has all the gravitas of a simple shrug of the shoulders. Though they arrest many of the town council, this is also ambiguous as a resolution since soon after, the men are free to return home to great fanfare.

Also, there was a sense that the Chinese accepted their fates too easily. Again, though this might have been historically accurate, it would have been far more interesting to see a composite character that tried to rouse resistance to the orders of exodus. It would have changed the facts very little in exchange for a heightened sense of Chinese heroism and pride. As the town councilmen return from their arraignments, the continued anti-Chinese sentiment lends an unfinished ambiguity to the end that makes the story feel less than satisfactory as a narrative drama. Though Mattie and Whyte marry and reunite with their ex-pat friends in Oregon, there is no sense of a battle won or lost, or much of a sense of fight at all. Did Mattie and Whyte continue to lobby for the Chinese townspeople’s return after the military deemed their expulsion unconstitutional? Or did they merely settle down on Mattie’s little island and ignore the politics of the town? I wanted a sense that someone continued to stand by their convictions. All the characters simply seemed to roll over too easily.

On a more specific note, it would have been nice to have seen Christie continue to be a prominent character after his prominence in the opening scenes in Eureka. Though, ostensibly, he is part of the anti-Chinese movement in Tacoma, his character is largely forgotten. In general, it often feels as though the script is overpopulated. The writer could have combined Christie’s character with one of the other council members very easily.

Finally, though this is a small note – on page 43, Hylebos informs Mattie about the attempts of the town to expel the Chinese population. He mentions that he wanted to tell her before she found out elsewhere, but it is difficult to believe any sense of urgency in this intention considering that he is portrayed as getting a shave and a haircut at the time. Why would he take the time for a leisurely haircut if he hoped to give her warning of this decision? It doesn’t quite make sense, and it makes the character feel false.

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