MSWC #1: The 17th floor mystery episode

#21

Hi matsman,

I have been pretty busy as well. But I will post my script tomorrow evening if that is still ok. I am not satisfied with it but I’ll stop to give you all material to criticise. later on!

#22

Hi Matsman,

Sounds good to me. I will read and write in a couple of days OK. I look forward to reading all the scripts.

I tried to look at that link about checking but it would not open. I will try again later.

BTW Charles was called Jed.

I had already hit 7 pages and looked like i going to hit 8 or 9 so i had to go back and write the ending and edit it. There were other bits in that good but in the end i took them out so i couldbe with in the page count.

Kev

#23

HI There

MArcus still waiting for your entry! Where is it dude?

I will write and post my comments tomorrow or Sat by the latest.

Kev

#24

I still can’t access the checklist page. I have emailed them about it. I want to read that page 1st before i post my comments. However the rest of you can begin to post your comments!

Kev

#25

Hmmm weird stuff… I had no problem when I posted the link… and checked two days after, when I saw you had trouble, it was still no problem. Today I couldn’t reach… strange stuff.

Well anyways I’ve had a busy week and was hoping to have Marcus his text last monday and then write the whole judging thing. And on tuesday appointments crept up on me and I haven’t had an hour whole week in which I was able to sit down and type my opinions on the scripts… but I will do so now.

AllWritey:

When reading through your take on the 17’thfloor mystery I really liked the duo thing you got working there. But I do think it became more important then the story. The story feeled kinda rushed, and the ending was forced (which I understand, given the time and space shortage) What I did like was where you tried to tie it all together, the powerouts, the elevator, the reporter being there. Finally I am somewhat critical on the lady from the machine… she seemed a little stoic ((ok?) lacking emotion)

Kadetkebab:

You went for the murder mystery and had some great atmosphere going on with a late night at the comicbook store and faces in the wall… very silent hill. I liked that a lot. However… critical points here are the fact that your victim was kinda still okay and Charles being right on time and everything… but that only happens by very small chance, which broke the illusion a bit (some of my friends have even more trouble with those kinda things) and the same goes for the elevator remote that no-one ever heard of existing and she having one and actually being able to use it while in a wall.
Your ending was better integrated however would have been stronger if the bad guy didn’t actually get killed. It was that kind of non dramatic death that has no purpose, except the writer needing someone to die.
The bit with the ambulance was good… very much like a televesion series would end.

Some things that I noticed. We all had a little romance going on in there, Charles was a clerk in a bookstore wanting to write, a reporter on the edge of breaking through and the owner/ manager of a comicbook store. We had a crime story, a ghost story and a sci fi story.

I really liked seeing the different approaches, wouldn’t have thought they would turn out the way they did.

Finally my vote goes to… maybe unexpected (and this is because I am very big on good atmosphere) Kadetkebab

Okay! that is my addition. Lets hear it! (BTW didn’t use the checklist for this)
Cheers guys! really enjoyed all this!

#26

hey guys

sorry for the late reply…seems we have a lot in common about busy weeks

anyways…here is my verdict

AllWritey:
overall i agree with matsman that the story may have seemed rushed and a bit whimzical. but i was surprised that almost every line i read had me cracking up. i suppose in some ways i kinda fell for Brian as a character. his sly remarks and his sarcastic nature just added so much personality to the scene that in the end the scenario really didnt matter. and i think you kinda hit the nail on the head there. for me a good piece of film is about the characters that engross you more than the actual event. so overall, despite the nature of how odd the scenario was, the charaters complimented each other well. i really liked it.

Matsman:
i liked the beginning where you kinda introduced a scenario with Charles having probs with the elevator and then moved into the actual script. that was a nice touch. i liked the idea of using a spiritual possesion. it added to the errieness of the story but what kinda destroyed it for me was the character Raja. i found her to be a bit odd considering the circumstances that was happening to her. to me, the comments she made to charles made it seem that she wasnt too bothered by what was going on around her. in the end when she said write me a copy and walked away, kinda degraded the intergrity that these people were frightened by their experience. so in some ways although the story was good i didnt really connect with the character. but overall, you did good.

now in relation to my script. initially i had written 12 pages of outline and in the end i had to cut out a lot of interesting detail that i really didnt want to. and according to your analysis matsman, it really degraded the integrity of the story. in the original outline the killer was discovered to be the maintenance man and that he was already killed prior to Charles decapitating him. and so they were told by the police that the real killer was still out there. but since i couldnt introduce another speaking character i had to end it on that note. and Annett even went into detail about how the killer lured ppl on the 17th floor. but no space for all that.

in the end i found it hard to try to fit it all into 6 pages. that was the ultimate challenge.

well, like u said matsman it is very interesting that we all took such a different approach to the whole concept. but for me, i would have to go with AllWritey. the Brian character had me cracking up. good dialogue although the scenario was a bit H.G. Wells meets Wizard of Oz…haha! overall, great work guys

#27

Great! :thumbsup:

Thanks for that Kadetkebab… good review! I had no room for more extreme emotions… and really wanted to give the feel maybe in a the second episode the fling would go on. But it seems I failed there. Will work more on my romantic scenes :smiley:

now for the last one… try not to be biased kev :slight_smile:

#28

Howdy Guy and Gals,

Thanks for the comments especially that i was able to crack you up KadetKebab.

Matsman:
Charles is at the point of paranoia about the elevator. That works well at the beginning but then you don’t seem to do anything about later. Not sure why Charles is blocking the other people from pressing the buttons. If they did it would only prove or disprove his theory about the 17th floor and the elevator.

Why is the girl called Raja? In India Raja is a boy’s name not a girl. It means Prince!

I am a little surprised that she would say so much about the stalker to a stranger who only have just exchanged names. Wouldn’t she be afraid he too was a possible stalker? I think that would take some getting used to, that a stalker killed himself over her. Also it isn’t clear why the stalker/elevator chose Charles since he and the girl hadn’t met yet?

I really liked the concept of the possessed jealous elevator. Personally, I would have added a fireball face after the elevator crashes for more dramatic effect!

Kadetkebab:

How did she get the package to the postman? If no address how did he know where to deliver it? I am not too sure a postman would deliver an unknown package to someone. What if it was drugs or something? How was she able to pack the book before she was put inside the wall? How did she know she would wear an iron mask, when the others didn’t?

Why didn’t the other people who lived on the 17th floor hear anything, notice the discoloration or do anything for that matter? The death of the man was totally non dramatic.

I liked the ambulance scene. The really went well. Over all I liked the story and you was able to create atmosphere for the script.

Well my vote goes for
.

Before I say! He! He!

I tackled mine as a couple of scenes from a longer script. Even though it was rushed it gave me ideas for a much longer script.

Hey Marcus you can if you want to chip in with what you think of the scripts. I am interested in what you thought about them.

And my vote goes to Kadetkebab.

Well done to all.

Kev

#29

WHieho! we have our winner!

Congrats kadetkebab… it’s up to you now to come up with a new challenge, post it in it’s own thread and moderating/ judging…

AllWritey: Cool I didn’t know that was an indian name… and completely contradicted myself with the naming of the girl, because I got bored by writing “girl” all the time so I picked a more or less random name with the correct characteristics, I wanted something short and kinda exotic. thus not spending the time of researching it.
And getting very personal very quick was neccesary to get the plot through within 4 or 5 pages. I’d rather taken my time with that.
The first scene I thought was a good intro to the story and it shows nothing is going on inside the elevator and all works as should be, the second scene shows nothing going on outside the elevator, Charles talks about him having called the service guys, all that is left is a supernatural cause…
And the elevator more or less stalks the 17’th floor because Raja lives there… not because of Charles… but that didn’t become clear at all.
Finally I find the fireball face a little too far out. I’m sure they would have done it if this was an x-files script, but I go with more subtle most of the time.

Thanks… Great review once again!

#30

thanks so much for the votes. should i say a speech?! haha! seriously thanks guys. this was fun. all the scripts were great and it’s always fun challenging urself and having the opportunity to take part in something like this. unfortunately i suppose not everybody managed to put in their work like we all anticipated. but three scripts was fun nonetheless.

in relation to your questions AllWritety: i suppose i wont go into detail as we are all passed the whole 17th floor mystery by now. but i do have one answer to answer all questions. six pages was just not enough. hehe!

well i dont know if we should wait for the others but i plan to start the new thread at the end of the week. i suppose i wont give you several options to choose from as i will just come up with one concept that we can all work from.

again thanks guys for the vote. look out for the new thread the end of this week.

#31

six pages was just not enough. hehe!

i suppose i wont give you several options to choose from as i will just come up with one concept that we can all work from.

Actually its all up to you now. If you feel you have trouble getting it down to one idea , feel free to post several in this thread and open a new one once the choice is made. Looking forward to the next one!

It was great fun for me too!

#32

hey guys

i want to apologize for my lack of presence the last week. i know i was suppose to have given you some concepts but my week has been extremely busy. and i am having kind of a hard time coming up with some concepts of my own.

i know i initially said i was going to give you all one concept to do but thought in the end that that might be selfish of me as it would be great for you guys to do something you want to do. so please give me a little more time to come up with the concepts. i promise to have them in a few days. so by friday hopefully we will choose one. again forgive my absence.

thanks guys

#33

No problem!

Feel free to take the time you need, we are all kinda busy I think… at least I am, working on a new portfolio, doing a game design course at university and my usual work… and still having some stuff to do, that does creep back on me.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for your idea’s!

Later!

#34

hey guys

once again sorry for the very long delay. i wanted to ask you all if you think it might be worth it to continue these challenges as there were only three of us taking part. i was hoping others would put in their pieces since i havent posted anything in such a long while. but that didnt seem to be the case.

if allwritety and matsman want to continue then i suppose i can list the concepts i had in mind.

if you think it is worth it just continuing the old thread then by all means im up for it as well. let me know what you want to do.

thanks

#35

I’m up for it!

I was going to ask what happened one of these days… If we want to attract more people… then we have to get going with this… the problem is mostly that this is a forum for the visual arts mostly so you don’t get the target audience for this.

So one can argue to move this over to another forum housing more writers… just keep going to see what happens… or do some marketing so people know this is going on.

But the main thing has to be that it continues regularly so people know what to expect so I say: post your ideas and tell us what you think is a good number of participants and what your opinions are to get those people involved.
AllWritey once said that 5 would be more then enough since judging would be quite tough having to read more scripts… and writing critisism.

Waiting for your ideas about this all

#36

Hey guys

Okay, so I suppose I will go ahead and post the concepts here. After that I can make a new thread with the chosen concept and all the requirements.

So this time I wanted us to focus on dialogue most importantly. With the last challenge, I believe the challenge was trying to put a fully developed story inside six pages. This time, with these concepts, the event is kinda pretty much laid out or left for interpretation. And now we have to focus on the dialogue of the characters to carry the story through.

Well here are the concepts I have so far ladies and gentlemen:

Concept 1:

James Titchener (mid 30’s) walks into a small dimly lit room with a briefcase in his hand. In front of him he sees a small wooden table and chair. Across from the table sits a much older gentleman. A single light bulb dangles from the ceiling. James takes a look at the man, sits down and places his briefcase on the side of the table.

Concept 2:

Laan, a young space pilot, makes his way onboard the mother ship that rests just outside the orbit of Earth. A battle between humans and the aliens ensues all around. Amongst the chaos, Laan manages to find his way into the lair of the queen alien. There, he approaches his arch enemy. A dialogue begins between good and evil.

Concept 3:

Myles (early 30’s) wakes up one day and looks out his window only to see the city that he has been living in for the past 5 years have been reduced to nothing more than what looks like a nuclear holocaust. Suddenly he hears people running outside his hotel room. He looks out his door and a passing woman grabs him by the hand and leads him with a crowd of people into the hotel’s casino. They seal themselves in. Myles ask what is going on. They try to explain.

Concept 4:

Timmy (5 years old) lives with his widowed father in a small village in Wales.  His father, an aspiring writer of children’s fantasies, sits besides Timmy on his dying bed.  Timmy is dying from a case of tuberculosis.  Timmy asks his father why he is dying and his father tells Timmy a short fantasy story that is used as an analogy to try to explain life and death.

Concept 5:

Elmira (early 30’s) sits frantically in the passenger side of an old Ford pickup truck.  The driver, an older man, holds her up at gun point.  He is taking her in the middle of nowhere in the woods.  He plans to kill her.  Elmira begins to try to talk the stranger out of killing her.

Well I am beginning to wonder if I am really good at coming up with concepts. Well for these they are open to whatever names you want to give the characters. I want to more or less stick to with at least 2 characters. You are more than welcome to introduce another 2 characters. I want to aim for between 4 and 6 pages as these aren’t suppose to be focused on actions but more dialogue. Also I am open to any changes to the short plots you guys might have or think would suit the situation better.

Please guys, these concepts are open to whatever ideas you may want to integrate into them. So let me know which one you would like. Damn I hate this part of the challenge. Never really one for conceptualizing. HAHA! Well pitch in! Thanks guys. Great to be doing this again.

#37

Hej!

Nice… I like concepts 1,2 and 5…
Number two seems a little weird to me since one would expect a big combat scene but I am a fan of spidermans emotional dialogues with his enemies… So i gotta try that.

Number one reminds me of neo meeting smith in the first matrix movie but is very open for interpretation… which is very good.

Number five is simply a good idea. Here in my country they made a movie with this concept which premiered past february…(title: TBS) so there is definitely an idea there.

concepts 3 and 4 are basically a story in a story and have the tendency to go way overboard again. And because one party is doing the telling and the other is mostly listening I don’t see a nice dialogue happening real quickly. So that is why I am not that happy with those.

Now we wait for more arguments…pff taking long aint it :stuck_out_tongue:

#38

Howdy Partners,

I think they are all great concepts. (I have a Q about the destroyed city - Why wasn’t Myles bedroom destroyed? Now that is something to talk about!)

I liked 4 & 5 the best and since 5 was mentioned by Matsman and unless we have any more voters that might be our story.

Please let me know what the final count is and the verdict.

Cheers

Kev

#39

hey guys

well last time when we voted, three of us excluding the one who came up with the concepts (that’s you matsman) voted for the 17th floor mystery. In this case, we seem to may have been abandoned by the others when it comes to these challenges. so since both of you voted for concept 5, then concept 5 it should be. if the others want to join in, then they are still more than welcome to do so.

so i will open a new thread with concept 5 maybe a little more fleshed out. but the naming of characters and age range is all open for your own imagination. will post the new thread later today guys. and thanks for the little voting.

#40

hey guys

well the new thread is made. if you have any questions or concerns please let me know. and i suppose we now start posting all quieries in the new thread. here is the link to the new thread:
MSWC #2: The Road to Nowhere