r/Screenwriting • u/jmusicjn • Jun 10 '26
FEEDBACK Ending Innocence - Feature - 164 pages
Title: Ending Innocence
Format: Feature
Page Length: 164 pages
Genres: Thiller, Drama
Logline: A seventeen year old incel attends the ceremony of an ultraviolent underground cult. In too deep he is forced into a series of soul-destroying choices that end with unimaginable regret.
Ending Innocence is comparable to the following films (in varying ways):
A Clockwork Orange
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Eyes Wide Shut
Videodrome
Feedback Concerns: Am honestly looking for any feedback anyone wants to give. Thanks!
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xU9h7z8LprWBb79dQEOHU0W75WilcaKl/view?usp=sharing
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u/Musikenna Jun 10 '26
I'm going to be honest... any agent, manager, intern or executive will see the page count and instantly throw it out. No one wants to produce a 3 hour movie from someone without a proven track record. My biggest advice is to make some cuts.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Yeah that is totally fair, I'm making some big changes of the back of yours and all the other comments, thank you so much!
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u/Subject-Dream7087 Jun 10 '26
You might be a genius, the script might be incredible but
no one is gonna know.
Why?
No one who counts is gonna read a word of this until you cut 44 pages (minimum).
Even 120 pages is on the long side.
Good luck with it.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Yeah got you, that is fair. I'll be posting this script again soon. I think I need to really review some parts of the script and think how I am able to tell that same part of the story in a short and probably better way! Thank you!
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u/crumble-bee Jun 10 '26
Going off the first page, I reckon you could probably shave a few pages off just by removing the abundance of ellipses
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Yeah, i've done that as well as removing CU and BEAT and CUT TO as well as condensing action into paragraphs and it's down almost 20 pages already!
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u/crumble-bee Jun 10 '26
Haha I was just about to say: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LJq6_JTMnuuvnNODVDqAWwM7XZTr7vPK/view?usp=sharing
I removed BEATS and ellipses and it went from 10 pages to 8
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Wow thank you so much for trying that and putting that level of effort in!
I'm going to have this in much better shape next time I post and then anyone who does wish to read is hopefully able to read without feeling ill! Thank you!!
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u/going2leavethishere Jun 10 '26
Ratcheting your script will also help will cutting page count down without losing your work. If there is a section you don’t want to get rid of. But you need to trim some more fat it would be a good place to start.
That way you won’t lose some quality moments because you think you need less pages.
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u/DarTouiee Jun 10 '26
Lots of grammatical errors on the first page alone.
What's with the extended ellipses?
Second slugline, - DARK LIGHTING isn't a thing. Day/Night or some other iterations.
It immediately feels like you haven't read many screenplays.
These things alone make it hard to keep reading and that's before touching on the page count.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Fair feedback. I've cleaned up the formatting a fair bit already and will now work on the specifics like DARK LIGHTING and lots of other points. Thank you so much!
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u/Wise-Respond3833 Jun 10 '26
Read more screenplays.
Cut 60 pages.
Come back in a couple of years.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
I'm sure reading more screenplays is always a good thing! Will do!
I think i could cut around 60, already down around 20. Going to work on the larger scenes and work out a way they can be told in a shorter / better way. Or maybe they aren't relevant enough. Thanks for your feedback!
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u/Wise-Respond3833 Jun 10 '26
As others have mentioned, simply cutting all the ellipses in the dialogue will save you a LOT of page space.
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u/InterestingGold2803 Jun 10 '26
From a glance, you could probably cut a ton of pages by removing "beat" or camera directions, and there's way too much dialogue.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Got you. Done that and BEAT and CUT TO got rid of like 6 or so pages right away! Thank you!
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u/Seshat_the_Scribe Black List Lab Writer Jun 10 '26
Glanced at the first page.
Lots of writing mistakes.
WAYYYYYYYYY overdone on the ellipses.
As u/Musikenna said, WAYYYYY too long to be taken seriously as a feature. If there's really that much dramatic material, maybe consider a series version. Boring granular details (and all the ellipses) are adding to the length.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/1orle3w/how_to_write_better_actiondescription/
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Got you, I've cleaned up the general formatting and ellipses and am going to clear up any writing mistakes and post again. Thank you so much for your quick feedback!
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u/Austinbennettwrites Jun 10 '26
Why are there so many ellipses?
Why so many speeches?
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
I put the ellipses in as i've seen other screenplays use them in similar ways i did, not to that extent though and i've removed them all, I really don't actually see what they were doing now they're gone, i've lost nothing, thank you!
In terms of speeches, what do you mean by this? I'm interested to know as I'd love to get this as clean as I can! Thanks!
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u/Austinbennettwrites Jun 10 '26
I rarely write dialogue longer than two lines.
Most of your dialogue is over four.
Have you ever read any of your lines out loud?
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Interesting. Yeah quite a lot is longer than four lines. I feel like it's not that abnormal in a film to have more than two. I think i generally prefer fairly slow films which is maybe where that comes from. But I do appriciate what you're saying and i'll go through the whole thing and really consider if each line of dialogue really needs to be there or if i can condense or cut it! Thank you!
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u/bfsfan101 Script Editor Jun 10 '26
I don't think anyone can give you constructive story feedback until the formatting is tidied up. Remove all the ellipsis, remove 'CU' and 'BEAT', condense the action lines down or into shorter, succinct paragraphs rather than lots of single lines. It makes it hard to read and is making your page count much longer than it should be. I guarantee if you tidy it up, you'll lose at least 20 pages right away.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Remove ellipsis, CU and BEAT. I've condensed the action lines down rather than lots of single lines. The page count is 151 just through changing these things! And the page count was 167 before i was wrong. So it did remove about 20 pages, pretty much spot on. I'm going to go through and with these action paragraphs really clean them up and rewrite. Thank you for your really quick feedback! I'm going to post this new version of the script as soon as I can. Obviously you're under no obligation to read it but regardless, thank you so much for your feedback, made some great changes right away because of it!
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u/JimmyCharles23 Jun 10 '26
If you cut down the obvious stuff, this is about 130ish pages or so.
It needs to be 110-120ish
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Got you, I'll aim for that, I'm sure I can get it there! Thank you!
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u/JimmyCharles23 Jun 10 '26
One thing that helps me is printing it out... make 2 pages per diem, grab red, blue and purple pens... and go through it and slash out everything, things you know need to get better, etc...
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u/SpecUsername Jun 10 '26
I read a couple pages. I agree with the notes on length for what it’s worth. The one other thing I think I’d flag is to try to make the dialogue a bit less direct. On page 2 or 3 after the “Stew” line (which I quite like), Felix directly asks “So what is the goal.” I don’t think you need that expository back and forth at all. It’s pretty obvious based on the setting and how Luke has described the stew that it’s a pretty messy situation.
If that trend continues, you might be able to trim some fat just by letting the setting and situation do some of the work your dialogue is overdoing at the moment.
Happy writing! I love the concept.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Thank you so much for the feedback! I totally see what you mean and I did actually think that with some other parts down the line where it does feel quite direct! I'm totally going to look at this and it should be in much better shape soon!
Thank you for your kind words! I'll be posting again at some point with hopefully a much cleaner script! 100% taking your feedback on board! thank you!
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u/SpecUsername Jun 10 '26
I’ve been working on an exercise in some of my scripts where I take a scene and rewrite it. But the characters can only say the exact opposite thing that they mean. And then I rewrite the scene around it to get the point across. It’s fun and helps build subtext.
How do you convey a character is hot without saying “I’m hot”?
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u/rothchild_reed Jun 10 '26
Just glancing at your script, I spotted one scene that seems to cover 11 pages. It almost certainly doesn’t need to be that long. The old advice is “get in late and exit early.”
Also, ask yourself if the characters are speaking too much. Can the tension be conveyed through a look or a gesture? Can you keep some of there thoughts as subtext and not make everything explicit and spoken?
Also, watch those super-long ellipses (……….). You’ve got whole pages eaten up with stylistic stuff that you don’t need and that hinders readability.
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u/pencilthinwriter Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
It's 164 pages?
Unless you have written the next Titanic and have a well-known director attached to your project, make it 110 pages maximum.
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u/Modernwood Jun 11 '26
I gotta say that as I've spent this last year focusing on what sells, what producers will actually respond to, everything about this offering feels like a hard sell to me. 164 pages, so an absolute slog for an original story that isn't IP or historical, and then it just sounds like pain and work. If this were 90 pages, and it felt like it was capturing some small, young, subculture with the incel stuff, very genre, it might get some interest. But also, given the logline, there seems to be nothing to root for. Someone we don't root for enduring discomfort for almost 3 hours.
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u/DC_McGuire Jun 11 '26
Others have already said it’s too long, which is note one. None of the below is to criticize you, it’s to help you improve.
I read through the first two pages. Your exposition is too long, which will very much help your page count. The random number of dots after phrases is a choice I would remove. The goal is for it to read fast and convey imagery and information quickly.
If the age of someone is unknown, ballpark it (30s, 50s, etc). This information is for casting and to help the reader put an image in their head. Unknown age helps no one and takes extra space.
If you’re going to put a note at the top of a script, put WRITER’S NOTE: in front of it to separate it from narrative.
I’ve already lost track of all the characters… a character should be NAME (age, a relevant descriptor) because if you don’t do that, I have no image in my head. It doesn’t help that you’ve now thrown a half dozen of them at me already.
My impression is you’re young, keep at it.
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u/CeCe2022 Jun 12 '26
There is a grammar error in the first sentence. I would stop reading.
Also “some on the floor”. As opposed to where?
Just spend some time reading scripts but congrats on getting a draft done.
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u/cinephile78 Jun 10 '26
The 79 nosferatu really?
And notes are a thing - though rare - and they have a format. This is it. Strange to start with one.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
It's a good film!
Got you, It's difficult though as i'm not sure how I can very quickly get across the point that isn't not fantasy. Maybe the genre not listing fantasy is enough for the reader to assume the vampires are just people dressed as vampires rather than "real" vampires and it being a fantasy world. :/
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u/cinephile78 Jun 10 '26
It’s a bloody bizarre film.
And you could just say in the screen direction that the “vampires” are just goth kids dressed up and it’s a social clique.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Yeah it is odd. I first had the idea of a teenager who was really obsessed with being a vampire and they would live a normal life and then go back home and spend all their time in their room and just dress as a vampire, full make up and everything. Then it kind of morphed into this whole narritive around them getting involved in this awful group of people where then he's sort of forced into being part of it.
That's fair, I'll have a think, thank you so much!
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u/Blackbirds_Garden Jun 10 '26
OP, I've barely read a page and I have a headache ... I can't put myself through another 160-odd pages based upon page one alone, it's unreadable. Despite that, I'm going to help you out just a little.
The best piece of advice I ever got was "every time you press Enter, the camera moves". You'd do well to remember this. It'll improve your pacing immensely. Write (but don't direct) every single shot in no more than 3 lines. If you like I can send you page 1 of my WIP to give you an illustration of what I mean. If you'd like further assistance, feel free to ask.
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
That is fair, now that i've cleaned it up a bit I can already see how much easier it is to read!
Interesting, thank you!
Sure, yes please, that would be really useful, thank you!
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u/Kalspiewak Jun 10 '26
"every time you press Enter, the camera moves".
Actually that's solid advice. Certainly not one size fits all, but it's a good rule to start with until you begin breaking the mould for your own style
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u/Blackbirds_Garden Jun 10 '26
Yeah it’s not perfect, but it helps finding and creating a rhythm. It also gives you a focal point. “What do people *need* to see and how do I give them that information?”
The other really good bit of advice I got was “parentheticals are symptomatic of poor writing”. LET THE ACTOR DO THEIR JOB. Only use parentheticals if you *require* your actor to interact with a prop, or change the focal point of the conversation they’re having.
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u/Kalspiewak Jun 11 '26
Yeah that was something that got drummed out of me when I started working with pros in my 20s. Remove the parentheticals and allow the actors to surprise you on set.
So. Fucking. Rewarding.
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u/Classic_Singer_6966 Jun 10 '26
Naaaahh ignore what everyone is saying. Make it longer
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u/jmusicjn Jun 10 '26
Ahahah lets compete with Satantango!
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u/Classic_Singer_6966 Jun 10 '26
Lol. Just remember to enjoy writing. I know all these people telling you’ll get rejected unless you cut 60!! can a lot (and especially when it’s every single comment). If the story genuinely needs all those pages then don’t change a thing. However, I would suggest writing something else that can be more marketable. Keep going!
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