Sample Screenplay Coverage
 

Title:	Log Number: 050
Author:	Date: July 13, 1999
Form: Screenplay	Read by: Bonnie Orr
Length: 118 pp.	Submitted by:
Genre: drama	Submitted to:
Location: Dallas	Time Period: 1975
Elements: None	Rating: 8

Logline: When a college dropout ends up in Dallas needing work, he finds the "real world" he was looking for.

Overall: This script is good. It's one of those rare scripts that paints a picture of a world that we don't often get to see. Like Flashdance or Backdraft or An Officer and A Gentleman, the characters engage us and beckon us into the new world. RECOMMEND WITH REWRITE (This writer also wrote Jimmy HiFive.) Give the college boy role to a good-looking actor and who knows where this script could go with some great music!

	Excellent	Good	Fair	Poor
Concept/Originality	X
Characterization	X
Dialogue	X
Structure	X
Domestic Cinematic Value	X
foreign cinematic value	X

	Recommend	Consider	Pass
Script	X
Writer	X

Budget: Could be done for $5 million with no name talent.

Synopsis: CORY, a six-year-old boy is picked on in the first few scenes in 1961. We jump to 1975 and meet a hitchhiker named MIKE that Cory picks up. Cory is on his way to California but runs out of money when he has to pay for repairs to his van. Mike tells him about Centennial, a huge developer who is hiring.

Cory starts working at Centennial, sleeps in his van with his dog and meets MAX. Max is the crew chief who becomes Cory's mentor and teaches him to be a bricklayer. Cory has dropped out of college where he majored in philosophy.

Cory helps Max and the other crew members achieve the all-American dream of having their own business when they win the annual bonus by laying brick on more houses than any other crew. They get enough money to form a company and buy the machines they'll need to be self-employed.

Along the way, we meet SPOONER who is crooked and treats Max badly because he won't "play along."

Comments:

• The writer draws the characters well. We really don't like SPOONER and we really like CORY and that's half the battle.
• The structure is tight. The writer sets up the goal: "to win the bonus and beat Manno's crew" and then they go about overcoming obstacles to do just that...classic.
• The writer uses the location so well that it becomes a supporting character.
• The writer is very good at introducting a "cast of thousands" but not overwhelming us with so many characters that are necessary to the spine of the story.
• The back story is nice, but I don't understand why he had to leave town and why there's a break with his parents over what happened. Would clear this up with another scene.
• Love that Cory can get all races to respect each other and work together.
• Love the details like paying the guys on Monday.
• Love when Max gives Spooner the reverse finger.
• The goldrush is on again...update the script to now.
• Would like to see another woman in the script...She could be the driver of the Roach Wagon or a member of one of the crews.

• Don't think font is industry standard Courier 12.
• Cut dissolves and cut to's.
• No morning in sluglines.
• Toom much space before last Mike dialogue on page 1.
• Should say a large trailer sits, not is parked. Keep verbs active.
• Page numbers are in the wrong place.
• Bottom of page 6...too much description
• Top page 9, dialogue should be cut down.
• Widow at bottom of page 11.
• Page 13, word left out...a cup of ?
• Lots of widows, pgs. 14, 15, 16, 20, 31
• Page 19, need comma before too.
• Use soul handshake when it might not be appropriate.
• Spell out 100, 50, and 288.
• More widows on pages 35, 45, 56, 82, 83, 88, and 93.
• On page 56, writer uses the word giant twice...change one of them.
• On page 56, need INSERT: for card.
• Don't understand reason why Max chooses to eat alone on page 74.
• Page 114, all caps SCREAMS.