CT Clark Columbus

I really like this concept and think it has huge potential. With a few adjustments I think aspects of this story could be greatly improved.

I took the survey on the Prime site and there was a question about how Jim should discover the Grim Avenger headquarters. I really liked the idea in this survey about his fixing items in the basement. One of my biggest issues in this draft was that Jim was too weak to be a convincing hero in the end. I think this is a critical fix for people to get the most out of it. I didn't find his character funny or likeable enough. He was in weird nice guy land with a dash of trying-to-be-a-good-dad-ness. Not a bad place to start, but manning him up a little would benefit his character.

Suppose he's trying to be more masculine to combat this insecure feeling of Mr. Momitis. He finds this broken down house as his manhood redemption of sorts. He WILL fix this house. Because he's a man. I think this character leads to more humor which in turn makes him more likeable. He's a dad that cares a great deal, but he's not the sharpest guy. So he stumbles into the basement and decides to start fixing some things. Here he finds the computer and he starts to find refuge. A mancave of sorts. He starts spending too much time here... it strains his relationship with his working wife who now has to pull some double duty.

Why is Jim out of work? His wife gets a better job, is he looking for a job? Is he struggling to find a job? In the basement he starts tinkering and fixing some of these Grim Avenger toys and figures he can't get a job so he starts doing super hero work.

In the world of 1990s TV dads, Jim felt a little too much Ray Barone (wimpy whiner), but I think he would benefit moving closer to Tim Taylor (manly kind-of-idiot).

I think making him a little more insecure with being Mr. Mom and trying to overcompensate on other things (like repairing things), might help his transformation more believable. He'd be the type of guy who'd want to be a superhero -- it could also lead to more humor and more authentic conflict with his wife.

Is this the only possible way to improve his character? No way. Just putting something out there to spark a brainstorm.

The Flamingo character was a neat idea (you made me pink... lol!), but the racial stereotype needs to be cut back. The F Word gag felt very out of place in the kids movie and it wasn't funny. Certainly not funny enough to overcome the parental cringes.

At times the Flamingo felt too broad, almost another movie. I didn't feel like he was this unstoppable force. Everyone seemed to ignore him. Unfortunately he seems to just come back on every 4th scene to do some other broad, random thing. Obviously he has to stay involved, but I think giving him a more clear goal would be helpful. Perhaps he has a plan that will draw out the Grim Avenger as opposed to just looking for him. His plan can be funny and light to fit the tone.

I thought the humor in most places was strong. There were a lot of good one-liners.

It did feel a little long until he donned the Grim Avenger ensemble and perhaps there can be some of the Fun and Games cut before it gets there. Kids movies can't drag. Having him play with toys earlier in the 2nd act. Maybe go out and try to do hero work can get another action sequence in there. Maybe a preliminary encounter with the Flamingo which is sort of a genre staple.

I think there's a missed opportunity where he's trying out things in the basement and it shakes the house... what are you doing down there, honey? Uh... the furnace. Furnace work. Just working on the furnace. Man stuff. You know, Mr. Mom still is... you know, a man.

I think it would be amusing if the computer voice was more out of touch. Perhaps there's been 10 years since they've been plugged in and the world has changed so the computer needs to catch up on things like lingo and social media. The spot out random 90s pop culture or political information. A female voice would be a nice touch to get it away from similar characters in the genre.

I found the conclusion with the computer to be satisfying and unique, but on the other hand the moment when the computer wouldn't let them go help their kids, was and example of a forced plot point which felt like an issue throughout (like the Mom needs a presentation sequence!). Making these moments more seamless would make the final product more cohesive.

There is a solid family film idea here. The animatic itself was impressive. The artwork was engaging and allowed me to concentrate on the story.

Hope these help! Best of luck!

Mind of the Beholder is an intense, gritty, imaginative, roller coaster ride. A pretty sweet roller coaster ride, not one of those broken down lame ones. The serial killer genre always is strong, but with some interesting choices, and exploiting your premise you’ve got something really good here.
I usually don’t spend much time on strengths, but I feel compelled.

Your writing is very strong, very visceral, rarely a wasted spot of prose. You are obviously seasoned, researched, and make choices that makes your writing feel fresh. In particular I enjoyed your meet the team sequence. In few pages you were able to give an accurate sense of who they are (in an entertaining way) and explain their value to this team.

The second act was particularly strong. Your psychics used their powers and continued to reveal the story and it continued to gain momentum as the deaths got more personal. You also did each of your characters the service of giving each of them their own unique voice and drive. You excelled with set-ups and pay-offs. There were nuggets all throughout this script that you reach back and used. I applaud you for that.

Now, with all that I feel I need to offer something to help improve your work. There are a few things, but these will admittedly more picky and I hope you can use them when you tackle another draft.

When Sera is made to go to the shrink around page 20, I thought something about it was a bit off. I can’t imagine her thinking that going to the shrink is useful in any way. For me it feels wedge, but I know you want to, in an authentic way, explore her past. Perhaps with more resistance from her, (because it makes sense Ito wants to do this) it will feel more real. It’s early in the story, but there could be more of an ultimatum so she has to make the choice to stay as opposed to going along with it. For someone with her gifts, I’d think she’d be less cooperative – that’s really my main idea.

The second story question I had was the build up to the date. You even address it in the screenplay. After the death of [name withheld] this seems to be the last thing on anyone’s mind. For me it’s a step to take, but honestly to take care of the beats, characters and plot the way that you did, you’ll have a make a fudge or two. I’m sure you have thought about it, but perhaps there’s another way to do the same thing – more authentically.

The only character that I had much of an issue with was Ichiro and it’s minor. He’s definitely the comic relief and he works. My only question is why would someone with his gift, be a TV personality. He’s obviously gregarious and it works to balance the group, but I just wasn’t completely sold with how everything made sense with them like the other characters.

Now, maintaining the nameless Killer throughout the whole story was a creative choice. I assumed you go this route because you really didn’t build any suspects. You built your story around stopping the killer instead of who’s the killer and I think you probably made the right choice. However I will admit when I read through and saw Ito’s brother name come up in the fight with Ito, I was like “Oh, shat!” when I realized this was simply a device, I’ll admit I was a little letdown.

Now here’s the world’s most obvious note. Creatively you choice to put this story in Japan with predominantly Japanese characters. First, I applaud you for the balls of that choice. I’ll also admit when I saw that was the way it was going, I felt a little intimidated. Mainly because I don’t know much about Japanese culture. For me, ignorant, it seemed like you did this well. You obviously put time into all your other research so I’m sure the same works here.

Now, I’m just not sure who American Hollywood does with stories that take place in other countries stocked with characters of that race. The other thing, at least it seemed this way to me was Japan was not really used. This story could have taken place anywhere. I guess I would caution/encourage you to think about a.) Putting it in the US so you may have a better market to sell it or b.) utilize Japan more as your set piece. In another way, either make it a story that HAS to be in Japan that takes advantage of what that means OR reconsider the purpose of it being in Japan.

Trust me, I like the choice you made. I’m just trying to give you some food for thought.

Even less important. I’m not drawn to your title. After reading it, get it, but there might be a better more high concept title lying around somewhere.

My page by page notes always end up being bad and little, but here they are

Rikki needs caps 25

31 Looks like you did a find and replace on Rikki, but didn’t keep the CASE LOCKED. been there.

93 The Killer reaches into her Call ** should be cell

104 capitalize ito.

What a nice little ride this is. You keep and maintain the chase piece swimmingly from page 1 to page 110. You have a strong mix of characters, a nice plot, and strong writing to support it.

For me my issues are few, which makes it harder to give good notes. However there are a few things that can help elevate it to another level.

Tone: I had a hard time getting a read on the tone you were going for. Perhaps after the strong opening I was expecting to be a straight thriller so once some of the light hearted moments began happening it rocked me a bit. Now these lighter moments are good. The first Ivan scene was really good. The bow and arrow stuff was good. I think it just swings very wide on the tone scale. Waking up next to a stabbed dead guy vs. 2 different guy naked scenes. In the middle of a life or death situation and bantering about losing her virginity.

Here’s a few examples of tone issues I made note of…

When the sniper takes out Simon right in front of her the “Are you dead? Oh, great. Another one.” Doesn’t strike me as the right reaction. She would be freaking out. Hysterical. In fact this leads to my next issue.

When we remeet Sara, she just had some sex. Considering the events of the day, this strikes me as off.

The sexy banter between Kari and Josh for me was weird. I know you want some sexual tension here, but I think it might better be unspoken interactions.

Kari’s Comfort Level: She a young college virgin, but she seemed awful adept and comfortable in different situations. In other situations she just didn’t seem to react like a normal person. In particular this is important to get right because you’re making the right choice to start with the dead guy in the bed. The only downside to that is you never get to know normal, regular Kari. For the duration of the movie, we only see what should be freaked-out Kari. Her sense of humor shines through, but she’s just so strangely good and avoiding these men.

I suppose the problem is that a college student who is obsessed with dying a virgin doesn’t strike me as someone who’d be very good at escaping. It’s almost feels like your trying to get the best of both world here (virgin comedy / cool action), but I’m not sure that world exists.

Given her comfort level and skill I was actually expecting a “Kari is really a [spy]” midpoint twist.

The Poison: I dug the poison and really the entire villain set up. It changed the vantage point from a more familiar movie which is a strong choice. Typically this movie from the perspective of Bobby’s character, so going this way is pretty cool. However the poison I thought was a promising. I liked Ivan a lot but thought the idea that he could get come up with a cure I thought was a bit ridiculous. Sure he’s a smart guy, but he’s not a doctor. Being able to do it quickly was kind of meh. I’m afraid to say I think it might have just been an excuse to get another Ivan scene. As I’ve been told many times, maybe save that for the sequel :-) I think the stronger way to go would be that the poison actually start to affect her. The extent to the effect was lines like “only six hours left and I’m going to be a virgin.”

This all comes back to tone. I think a darker tone in general is a stronger play here with this set up.

Logic: The only big logical problem I had an issue with was when the point was escaping and being safe she ends up going after the bad guys. Well rather the FBI agent brings her along, which actually makes it more logically skewed.

Overall these are issues that probably won’t take much work to improve. My final thought is tone, tone, tone. :-)

Best of luck with it.

You have a great premise here that loglines really well. There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s room for a film like this in the Holiday Season. Two strong, interesting characters, lots of jokes (in particular Mike’s letter and lady game in general), but there’s a room for a lot of story work so let’s dive right into it.

Premise: I’m not sure you milked the best cow for your premise. You milked a cow, but not the right one. I’m pulling this right from you logline: “When Mike gets Sara’s name in the Secret Santa pool, he has a chance to win her heart.” It’s a great logline, but in my opinion this doesn’t happen.
The first reason it doesn’t happen is The Secret Santa is the hook, this needs to be dramatic payoff structurally. Mike gets his present on page 39 and she gets her present on page 60. I’m cool with him getting his early, but the present he gets from her needs to be part of the climax in my opinion. Unfortunately the climax is “I wonder if he’s going to get beat up/fired.”

The second reason it doesn’t happen is he doesn’t need to win her heart. This is definitely the bigger problem I had with the story. She likes him. He likes her. There’s literally nothing keeping them apart. No reason they can’t be together. That just doesn’t work in stories like this. She needs a boyfriend. She needs to be married to her job. There has to be SOMETHING that gets in their way.
I thought Barbados was going to be the major obstacle. She was going to sleep with a dude or something. It would’ve came at the right time and given the drive the story needed at that point. Put she’s there and back from Barbados in a matter of a page.

There needs to be an up in the ante as far as the story goals and the relationship. He’s an intern. What’s he doing? Uh not really sure. It’s a simple fix to say that he’s working to become a full-time employee. He’s competing for a job. At least then there’s something at stake. At least it gives these job scenes some plot instead of seat warming time passers.

As I was thinking about this the strongest play might be to make him HER intern. SHE has a major presentation to do. She’s relying on him. She herself is looking for some kind of promotion or something. Maybe she’s trying to do something really creative, out of the box, but she’s out on a limb if she fails.

Maybe she’s an assistant to a total jackass. He’s her intern. Maybe the jackass has a presentation to do. I dunno something. In any event…

He likes her. She’s too busy. It logically gets them spending a lot of time together. He thinks she’s falling for him. He obsesses over getting the right present. She gets him some lame, terrible present. He’s crushed. They have conflict. They have to pull together for this presentation. He gets her a very very great Secret Santa present.

Whether or not you do something like that, I hope it illustrates the possible conflict for the 2nd act. Right now the only source of conflict is him strangling the other dude. I’m not invested in the other dude. If he loses his job, so what, doesn’t seem like there’s a ton at stake, he’s not working to get a fulltime gig. He’s already won the girl. Honestly her getting a boyfriend in Barbados, out of guilt or whatever, would be a strong enough choice for me. Just as he was making headway, the rugs pulled out from under him.

What was a really strong first act, turned in a whimpery 2nd act and a cringish 3rd. I only say that out of love.

Now you made an interesting choice of predominantly using Christianity throughout. The problem for me is this isn’t the type of movie Christians will flock to and the consistent use of Christianity could turn off non-Christians. In particular, while Mike isn’t a nice guy he doesn’t exhibit Christian behaviors. In fact he’s passed out hungover in his 2nd or 3rd scene. I’m not really sure what role it played into the major plot of the story. I mean sure use the is she Christian or Jewish or Muslim joke to figure out what type of present, but that’s probably as far as you need to go with it. If it’s important to keep it a Christian film then I would do much more rethinking, however I’d probably rethink using it.

Another rethink would be with your supporting characters. Outside of Natalie these are all blending in. I think Mike in particular could at least use one strong friend.

Just a few little things:

I’m not sure I buy that with all the witnesses of him dragging the guy around by the tie and video cameras, that they would have no idea it was him.

The second Sarah, since she’s in the story for a page or two might be more easily distinguished on the page by giving her an adjectivy first name. Rocker Sarah or something. I had to do a reread a couple times to make sure I was reading it right.

Final thought how can you make it harder for your couple? How can you keep them apart? How can you maximize your strong premise.