Young Writers Society

I'm still accepting all criticisms and approvals. So give me more, MORE!

Scene two

(We fade in from black to Jeff, staring blandly. The camera turns around to see what he is looking at. It is just a wall. There is suddenly the sound of knocking. It echoes and is very loud. Jeff shuts his eyes tight, and pushes tight on his ears. After a moment of enduring the sound, he sits up and runs over to the door. The door opens. Standing there is Charles Martin)

Jeff-Hi, Charles.
Charles-Hey Je-- (Looks closely at Jeff's face, which we get a close-up of) Hell, you don't look too good.
Jeff-I didn't sleep well.

(Charles steps in the house, and Jeff shuts the door behind him)

Jeff-What do you want, Charles?
Charles-James stopped by my house and he wants to see you.
Jeff-I...I don't know, I'm not really feeling that well.
Charles-Come on, we haven't seen you since you got back.
Jeff-I, uh...

(Jeff sneezes. He looks down into his hand, and there is a large amount of blood in his palm)

Jeff-Huh.

(Charles looks into his palm)

Charles-Holy crap. (Looks at Jeff) You need to go to the doctor.
Jeff-I'm fine.

(Jeff walks over to the sink, and washes the blood from his hands. He takes a paper towel and holds it up to his nose. Charles takes a seat at the table, and Jeff takes the seat across from him)

Charles-Are you sure you're okay, you look like...
Jeff-Listen, all I need is some sleep, and I'll be fine.
Charles-Take a nap.
Jeff-Believe me, I tried. (Coughs wheezily)
Charles-I really think you need some help.
Jeff-I don't have insurance for a doctor.
Charles (with Jeff coughing in background)-Whatever, man. It's your funeral. (Gets up, walks to fridge)
Jeff-I'm not going to die. I need some sleep. Come nightfall, i'm going to fall asleep, and then i'll be able to come over. I'll work past it.
Charles (pouring milk into glass)-Mmhmm.

(Jeff is sitting there for a few moments, and then he gets a distressed look on his face. He looks as though he is becoming sick)

Jeff-I'm, uh...
Charles (Turns around)-What?
Jeff-Kind of dizzy...

(Through Jeff's eyes, we see the room rippling. We cut to a full shot (Full shot is a shot of the entire location) of the room. Jeff's head falls onto the table. We fade out to black. Then, we fade back in from white into a blurry shot of Charles, and James, looking over the camera)

James (Voice distorted)-Hey, he's awake.

(The picture becomes clear. We cut to a full shot of the room they are sitting in)

Jeff-What happened?
Charles-You blacked out.
Jeff-Hi, James.
James (laughing)-Hi.
Charles-You need to go to the hospital.
Jeff-Okay.

(We cut to them, helping Jeff walk, moving over to the door. They open to the door)

James-All right, come on, Jeff.

(We see, through Jeff's eyes, them approaching the door. We cut back to a medium shot (A smaller version of the full shot, so you can just see the characters and/or important objects or locations) Of the group. Jeff suddenly stops)

Jeff (Frightened)-Hold--Hold on.
James-Just come on.

(They continue walking forward. Jeff will not move)

Jeff-No, NO! Stop! Just, just stop!
Charles-What is the matter with you?
Jeff-It's...it's not going to happen. I'm not going out there.
James-W-why?

(We cut an Italian shot of Jeff. His eyes are bloodshot, and the bags under his eyes are now very large)

Jeff-I..I can't. I'm not leaving.
Charles-You're not leaving your own house? You've been out there a thousand times.
Jeff-No. No... I'm not going.

The end. Give me reviews, or else!

Hi! I'm really fascinated by mental disorders, particularly schizophrenia, so I'm liking the premise of this. The main thing I would suggest is looking into a script writing program because your formatting is a little odd. Celtx is a really good program. I use it, and I love it. It installs to your computer so you can use it without being online and it formats dialogue and actions and everything for you, which is very cool. For example, though, scripts should read like this:

INT. JEFF'S KITCHEN - LATER

The room is blurry. Charles and James stand over Jeff.

JAMES
(distorted)
Hey, he's awake.

The room clears up, and we can see the men much better.

JEFF
What happened?

CHARLES
You blacked out.

JEFF
Hi, James.

Etc., etc., instead of this way:

(...Then, we fade back in from white into a blurry shot of Charles, and James, looking over the camera)



James (Voice distorted)-Hey, he's awake.



(The picture becomes clear. We cut to a full shot of the room they are sitting in)



Jeff-What happened?

Charles-You blacked out.

Jeff-Hi, James.

While the camera angles you include help us picture everything more as a movie, they don't belong in the actual script, which is solely for action and dialogue and descriptions of the setting. The audio-visual script is what has all of the angles and lighting and music.

The other thing I found to critique is Jeff sneezing out blood and passing out. I'm not sure if he has some other sort of illness/health problem we don't know about yet, but schizophrenia alone won't give him those symptoms, at least not to my knowledge.

Very good job, though, overall. You seem to have a good plot going with this, so. =]

yeah, I screwed up the blood thing, so i'm going to cut that out. But... and i've done a lot of research on this, patients will commonly pass out if they start having hallucinations, so I think i'm going to replace the blood thing with a hallucination. Thank you and I downloaded CeltX!