Jon Reedholm (Austin)

Scott,

Well done. Great characters. They are real. You want to know them and know what happens. Same with premise and dialogue and emotion. All well done.

And most importantly, you have the craft down. Read like a script because it is - you showed instead of telling. Had a couple of camera usages that I think you could drop without losing the shot sequence you want. Having the word CAMERA in a script (especially in first 10 pages) is a big flag and could give a reader/producer excuse to not read rest of the script.

If you're going to focus on fixing anything, I would focus on the structure - especially isolating the plot point between Act I and II. Can't put my finger on it, but something is missing.

The biggest flag I had was lack of closure of Brown Jacket. The story spends the first 11 pages, the dramatic introduction of Blue, Spencer, etc. - and then we never go back to this. So we never know what happens. Thus, I've been setup for one type of hunt and am tossed into another. Need to cut down the chase for Brown Jacket to a lot less - or have him caught after Blue is burned.

Now for my wild idea - which I apologize for, but couldn't get it out of my head:

As I read the first 10 pages, I was not ready for it to go where it went. And maybe I'm just leary of another x-men/scanners chasing and killing each other off getting made. Hope I'm wrong and this gets made and makes lots of $ for everyone involved.

But if it stalls in development, here's an idea for a big rewrite:

Keep Blue of course - she's it. Make her a few years older and drop the burn part - along with all the other screamers, etc. It is just her and only her. And she cannot find someone from holding objects (or maybe she can), but is more like EMMA (liked her power better) where she can see the crime occur when she touches the dead body. She's introverted and loner, but smart with skills - works for FBI as freelance, etc. Sort-of like Girl With Dragon Tatoo, but with story more like Dead Zone, but with different power of course (not seeing into the future).

Still has touching issues even with live people, keeps seeing what they just did - so when having sex it is like constant flashbacks - maybe she drinks or takes vic's when getting intimate - which is source of conflict with her sometime boyfriend/girlfriend.

Act I is setup - would you've got works great. They chase Brown Jacket him because she saw his face (which she can trace) and spot quickly in a crowd. The main killer they cannot get because he's wearing a mask, which is eventually torn off by a victim at either plot pt 1 to 2 - depending upon how you want the tale to go. Basically Blue is reacting to crimes until she sees his face, then she is after him because she knows him - it's the face that killed her mom when she was 3 while she watched and gave Blue her powers. Feels better to be plot point 2, but makes it tougher to get killer-Blue connection - unless he kills one of Blue's friends and starts stalking Blue in Act II. Maybe that is plot point 1. In the end, she must kill him - by herself.

As part of setup, besides or in addition to Brown Jacket, she could just go into crime scene and ID killer as ex-husband or something benign in beginning.

If anything, the nicest thing about this version is that will be a lot cheaper to make - it all stays in one city and no private jets to rent!

- Jon