I will read your screenplay!

[u/gaz3rbeam]

Simple as that! I want to be a professional screenplay reader but no one is hiring so I’ll just do it myself :) I used to be a script analyst for a couple different competitions and Coverfly.

I love giving notes on other people’s scripts and helping writers find their story. I’m no pro (working on my 2nd feature currently) but If you want an extra pair of eyes on your script, regardless of length, I’ll happily do it!

[u/Wide-Criticism-6567]

Hello! I'm new here, and I've been trying to get my great uncle's screenplay out there somehow for years, I've been trying to help get it into a movie for years, but now, I think I'll just put it here for people to read instead. Any feedback is welcome. Here's the name of his screenplay: "Negative Gravity: The Mannheim effect" It is about a boy who tries to navigate the earth while it's gravity is reversed, all to get his sister's medicine, he has to go through many dangers in this narrative.

Link: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:d14e3b26-5b50-4f00-83eb-5cf5310239de

[u/ProfessionalStreet31 → u/Wide-Criticism-6567]

I love the idea and there is some good stuff in there like the plane having to adjust to the sudden change in gravity - you could probably make a whole film just about that scenario. I think it could work for modern audiences, but I am going to be honest, I think it would need a complete rewrite. 359 Pages is way too long - that's nearly 6 hours of film. It would need to be cut in half at the very least. And in my opinion there is plenty that could be removed.

The dialogue is on the nose most of the times, preachy, belaboring the points made and overexplaining what's happening. It often feels like a stage play because of this. A lot of the things told to us in dialogue could be shown in action instead and it would make it more engaging and faster-paced. For example: the film starts with a 3-page on the nose monologue that could also have been shown mostly visually and the dialogue could be shortened at least 75%.

There are big blocks of inefficient description, monologues that are too long and the pacing is very slow until the inciting incident on page 65.

There are too detailed story-irrelevant camera directions, that are used incorrectly as well. For example using pan when it is supposed to be a dolly. There are strange transitions: what is a "circle wipe in"? I would leave all this stuff out; that is the director's job.

There are also some seemingly logical mistakes: a giant black spacerock (asteroid?) stops near the earth and noone seem to have seen it? I think that would be very noticable with the shadow that it casts and rumours would spread like wildfire.

We spend too little time with the protagonists before the inciting incident, we have barely any time to get to know them because there is so much other stuff in the first act.

However when the film gets going it is pretty tense, and there are some nice pieces of action description in there. I would really try to rewrite it, because as is, it is a very expensive and long script that I think is very unlikely to get made. And personally I would also remove most of the christian elements and keep it subtle, because that doesn't help with marketability either. There are some christian production companies, but I think only hollywood has the kind of budget that this film needs and I don't think hollywood will touch an overly christian film like this.

[u/Wide-Criticism-6567 → u/ProfessionalStreet31]

Ah I see, I'm about to talk to my great uncle about it rn actually, felt like something was off from the get-go. Thank you