Don Patterson

Premise -- What people will do to win! Human nature at it's best or worst can be very funny. The scenes in this script should be pushed even further. Visuals do not go far enough. Too minimal. I thought some of the scenes had far more humorous potential then written. The authors put more emphasis on dialogue then visual. With the dog poop scenes, then the wet lottery ticket scene(s),
add more creative visual imagery -- it will have the audience roaring.

Story structure -- could use some tightening. I think, Amanda should appear in early scenes -- not at mid-point. What if she deserts Pete in front of the KWIK MART due to the rain, before he buys the lottery tickets. Maybe an argument starts in line, Fred over hears, becomes involved with some 'oversight'? There are many ways to incorporate such. Be creative!

Character -- You have a lot of room to add flaws to your main characters, and in so doing, make them funnier, make them more 'human'. Create a history for each character, with unique flaws or specific strengths. You did well with PONDERSON (could do even more). You need to do equal with others.

Dialogue -- Far too much 'talk' that doesn't move the story forward, on many pages, dialogue is redundant, keep in mind -- the audience (or reader) needs name or character 'explained' only once. Add to the story, not space on a white page.

Emotion -- Yes, but please get off the soap box. Let the story convey it, not words said over and over. You have a good comedic sense -- push yourself a little more. Just needs some fine tuning! Keep writing. Wish you tons of luck.

Premise - At first I had a Déjà vu of X-Men's Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, or Hellboy's Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD). But that was short lived, for Scott takes us for a completely different kind of ride.
Touching Blue deals with an emotional and physical balancing act; individual human beings that need suffer for the attempted well-being of the American citizenry. A special branch of the F.B.I. seeks to save lives, (by searching out for those that do harm to others and criminals) by painfully manipulating a few uniquely gifted children, young adults. Touching Blue is more realistic then the standard comic book hero/mutant story line, diving deeply into the fragile psyche of human beings with uncommon, unusual talents, while being emotionally weak and isolated from society. The talents are given believability in a very well-crafted story of former gifted members that are being systematically murdered.

Story structure - While Scott nailed the 3 act play, with nice plot points, he really shined with his character arcs. Nice pace. I am a true believer in letting the audience add 2+2=4. In a few places the visuals did not need the attached dialogue, body language would suffice.

Character - The characters were not only believable as the story progressed, you could almost feel emotionally what they were going through. By the end of his script -- you felt like you knew several of these people. That they were real. That is something very hard to do. Scott did it well with this story.

Dialogue - In several places I felt there was some unnecessary dialogue. While minor, it felt derivative; giving me information I already had. Scott stayed away from any boring oratories, thus, over all the dialogue rang very true for me. With only a few exceptions, he captures the way people talk. Very believable, moved the story forward.

Emotion - This script oozes emotion for you care about these characters. You want them to succeed and survive. To overcome their plight.

In closing, while TOUCHING BLUE is aimed at young adults, I think many would pay to see this movie. I think there are a lot of actors that would love a shot at portraying many of the characters in this film. Not a lot of eye candy or SFX, this movie does deliver, very well.

Premise -- It is a good story, but it is very rough. With some interesting twists in dire need of more what-we-will-see and 50% less on what-we-will-hear. Too much talk, not enough vision. Movies are visual - if you want lots of dialogue, go see a stage play. I sent the author a detailed breakdown of his script with plenty of examples. THIS is an action movie with questions. Since many of the characters are clones of vampire blood, do they not have a problem with daylight? What about eating food? Does Christian, Styx really eat Pizza? These are questions that need to be developed to set a standard of believability within the premise that are never answered.

Story Structure -- I liked the author showing lots of white paper, however the ACTION sequences need a bit more description. The standards for 3-act play, plot points and character arcs were there but need more definition. e.g. How many times does the audience (or reader) need to know that Claudia is Mihnea's twin (redundant plot point)? Let the audience put 2+2=4.

Character -- Some of the characters were defined, most were not -- but quality actors could have a field day by pushing the envelope. All heros, villains need parameters, strengths & weaknesses. Your ideas are good but far too stereotypical. Step outside the box. Be different! What if the Store Owner was black, Rick was Italian or Irish or Russian? What if Darmune was in the employ of the Russian Mob? I found too many comparisons to other films. Be different. Take us some place we have never been before. You can do it with this premise.

Dialogue -- was the weakest part of this script. This script screams ACTION! It started well, but by the half way point it was far too oratory. Yes, some of the dialogue was crisp, especially when it was kept to two sentences or less. But that was not consistent within the whole script. By the end, it left me bored listening to all those words, especially by DARMUNE. This is a script, that could easily get away with no more then two sentences per character. I gave the author many examples. People just don't talk like they do in portions of this script.

Emotion -- Think the Father (Bram) Stoker ending with Claudia is a bit too cute, think it would be better if she drained him. Your characters need to be more intense before one can feel any emotion. THIS is an action movie where only the bad guys get killed. One had no sense of loss, no emotion for anything that took place. As many well versed screenwriters have written before, all heros, villians need parameters, strengths & weaknesses.

I liked the beginning. This is a good story in need of more editing, writing and development.

I read your script -- the whole thing -- not just the first ten pages! I am NOT a pilot, or one who knows much about flying, (though 30 years ago I did do some skydiving), some notes on your premise...

Premise -- 1st, Your script takes place in 2012 -- There will be NO more shuttles after Atlantis, the 135th shuttle flight in July 2011!

2nd, GPS is only one of many forms of navigation used in flight -- celestial navigation (Planes can fly above clouds and do often in bad weather!). Most aircraft are equipped with sextants. Given two fixes they could apply Rothko's method for VOR, though probably with less accuracy. On transoceanic flights, terrestrial radio navigation facilities aren't of any use. Instead, inertial navigation systems keep track of the plane's position by measuring gyroscopic precession. Note that none of this technology mentioned above has been obsoleted by GPSes. GPS is still for convenience, and IIRC you still can't open an IFR (flying by instruments, not out the window) flight plan in which both the primary and alternate destinations are both GPS approaches, and while all IFR-equipped aircraft have VOR, ADF and ILS equipment not all have GPS. I'd bet the majority of aircraft used primarily for VFR (visual, checking your position against landmarks) flight still have no GPS. Airways tend to be between radio nav facilities (VOR-to-VOR, etc) anyhow, so there's a good chance that your next commercial flight is using "before GPS" navigation anyhow, or at least in combination with the GPS. GPS won't be replacing ILS for instrument landings anytime soon either.

3rd, How technical can you get before your non M.I.T. audience gets bored ?
Not sure how much power a bank of lasers falling into Earth's atmosphere is going to have -- burning up with friction, weight, batteries heating up and such. But then again, I am 'no rocket scientist'.

Characters read like cardboard. Went through the motions but had little or no substance, no surprises, quirks that made them human.

Your dialogue is fine for those that might want accuracy (or what sounds like accuracy). ME? I just want to be entertained at a movie theater or on the tube. I wasn't entertained with this script. Your striving for realism left me bored. The action was not that thrilling. It did NOT take me somewhere I have never been before.

I get tired of the same "Liberty? Do you read?" dialogue. Might be accurate, but ...

Emotion? You need some more stuff happening during the individual disasters, short scenes of characters being hurt, killed, etc. THAT WILL matter to the reader/viewer -- disaster movies need several parallel plots or character arcs. I want to feel the pain or joy in the survival. Here there was neither.

Your structure was very strong. Good formatting! Don't think I saw any miss spelled words...

Nice opening. Like the mind control angle. The forced but limited telepathy angle. With some proper editing, redo of scenes, tightening of the dialogue -- you can get this script down to 100 pages without loosing any content. Currently at 132 pages, way too many pages long!

Kill all the AND's. 95% of the AND's do nothing for advancing the story, except slow the flow of the read.
Page 10 -- MIA "It wasn't a thief. She knew that she was going to die." ALBERT "It was a theft!" I think you meant thief, not theft.
Try to avoid '...' One period works, If there is an interruption, use (Interrupted) under Character or (interrupts).
On page 12, have DANIEL look at car rearview mirror before he says "We have company".
INT. DANIEL'S CAR - DAY The tension is high, not the word tense. ALBERT would not blurt out in a car chase "We created a drug that makes invading the conscious mind possible." Let the audience add two plus two, let them come up with four, they will love you for it! Instead, have him say something like "How much are we holding?" or "Knew I should have hid the stuff."
Page 14. Shouldn't MIA have worn protective glasses when looking at the eclipse of the sun?
No cell phones? Technology moves forward! You might loose some audience with lack of modern believability.
Dialogue to wordy, as an example on page 23 (you wrote):
DANIEL
You won't leave me. You'll just
stay in there for a while, promise
me that you won't move till I call
you, and I'll return to you later,
got it?
(I wrote)
DANIEL
Stay there, promise you won't move till
I call. I'll return later, got it?
LET the images tell the story, scripts (movies) are a visual medium. Think what the audience is experiencing. Show it don't say it -- use only the dialogue needed to move the story forward!
A trick to use, try to keep all your characters name start with a different letter, Albert = Arthur, both 6 lettered starting with an A can be confusing to some readers.
If the drug allows the creation of false imagery within the minds under it's influence, how is it possible that the helicopter crashes on page 65 due to a tree branch as a ground-to-air rocket launcher?
By page 71, I am starting to get a bit confused by your action sequences. I thought the illusions were only possible through the eyes of those under the influence of the drug? Unless. At this point in the script, (I am starting to believe that) everything taking place is Daniel (and possibly Arthur/Albert) stuck in the mind of Sara, the little girl in a coma. However, if my mid-script speculation is correct, can one mind (Sara's) split control to two separate levels of action, one for Daniel, the other for Arthur/Albert (as is on page 71)?
Typo on page 77, ALBERT "Are you out of your kind?" Should be MIND? There are a lot of typos in this script. It happens but you should try to clean it up more. On every page I could offer suggestions, but you need to write the script. Here is another suggestion, on page 93, this being a none-real sequence, have the small bathroom window expand, so Sara with Arthur in hand may leap through the window together before Mr. Tomas pulls the trigger.
On page 94, Daniel lies in the middle of a muddy lake?
EXT. SARA'S HOUSE, FRONT YARD - DAY
Suddenly, the Cyclone face pops up in the scene. He has an
axe on his hand. Daniel calls in fright and jumps out of his
place a moment before the Cyclone hits him. The axe hits the
ground instead.
I think I became confused as I progressed or your script has lost some cohesive reality.
Maybe. Need more accurate descriptions within your ACTION sequences withe less words. There are too many scenarios that intersect only to confuse. Add to that the many typos. I would advise setting his script aside for several months then doing a complete rewrite. I liked the story -- it needs more work. Clever.

From the office Christmas gift exchange opening -- I was drawn into this script, laughing. There is a lot of good things to say about your script. But it still needs a lot of work. Rewriting and poishing. Below are some random examples of what I mean. Take them for what they are worth. You have a basis for a good comedy.
On page 4: INT. ELEVATOR LOBBY -- DAY
Santa flies into the lobby, the mail cart slamming into
the wall. He pushes the button and then runs and hides
up against the wall.
I would rewrite it as (kill the 'and then, and') flows better:
Santa flies into the lobby, the mail cart slamming into
the wall. He pushes the button, runs, hides
against the wall.
Watch out for 'COKE MACHINE', or are you getting endorsements by up-dating old ads? LOL!
I would clean-up, change some of the dialogue like (example):
MIKE
Those the Secret Santa
envelopes? Bet that's a lot
of fun.
On page 7, Don't say it -- show it, far more effective. Plus, would a temp, MIKE confide in SYKES?
MIKE
The girl of my dreams. I love her.
All of my desires? In this envelope.

KILL THE AND(S) -- 95% of the time they do not advance the story, just create stumbling blocks for a nice reading flow.
Suggestion for page 15, do not write dialect or pronunciation -- leave that to the actor's desecration instead write MIKE (has a hangover, slurs his words). First half of the script, I was thinking, MIKE is a good vehicle for Will Ferrell, but after page 30, you lost Mr. Farrell. Page 28, I would not have him say that he play's in a 'Christian' Rock Band, could turn off many possible readers (viewers of the movie), say band, then (keep the office rendition of song) add 'Christian' later as a side sketch (an additional great vehicle for more humor):
MIKE
We're doing a pretty sick version
of Drummer Boy for Christmas.
Starting on page 28, Sara, Natalie's continued diatribe of virgin/he's-a-looser gets old quickly, add to it with some new push on character. Be aware that one has to procure the 'rights' to specific copyrighted music for use in any movie (U2 I Will Follow). As with trademarks, write carefully -- both can turn off those that might give a green light to this script. Page 32-34, the bar scene was a tad too wordy -- hint: one could do a lot more with comedy thru character. Don't get your Sara's (Sarah's) mixed up in the dialogue page 34 (also too long).You are overkilling the point, your audience is smarter then that. Page 39 -- far too wordy with no purpose/reason. Use the space to add to plot point or character arc.
By page 55 I was getting a little bored with the romantic 2 cent shuffle, repetitive. Page 69 why did Mike suddenly bring up Sarah with an 'H' ( is a lesbian?) in the bedroom conversation? Is he a telepath picking up Sara's worries about Mike being in love with Sarah? The dialogue has finally collapsed into becoming repetitive -- adding very little to push the story forward.
Page 79 brings back some quality dialogue -- excellent! Strong interaction, character devlopment through dialogue. However, editing is still needed. e.g. CONNOR "Do you see him?" (have him point) "Put him in the hospital!" The rest of CONNOR's dialogue is wasted words.
Film is a VISUAL ART, show it don't say it!
Don't like to repeat myself but get rid of the many AND(S)!
JON needs more then MIKE's Drummer Boy, rings hollow, trite, needs a better resolution -- kick in the pants as the final DOES work. Ogilvie slams the office door yet Mike, Sara don't hear (while having sex at an office X-mass party)?
The firing doesn't read well for me. There is so much potential for more humor in this script.
The barroom wedding works even less -- remember copyright on music? Plus, you might get away with Drummer Boy being sung in the office, but with the group in the bar singing again at the wedding?
This is a great start. Needs rewrite.