"Four friends try to recover from the recent death of their friend, but discover more about each other in the process."

link: http://www.4shared.com/file/599052/..._Red_Light.html

(Click the download button on the bottem.)

Reading it over, the start is kind of iffy. I plan on trying to film this for a contest at an art university, if I win I'd get three years free tuition.

So if anyone reads, please, just pummel the **** out of the piece and tell every single thing you dislike about it so I can fix it up nicer.

Sorry, here's the real link.

Click "Download" on the bottem.

I understand that this is a character drama you've written here, about the aftermath of a disaster, not the disaster itself. The problem with any story like this is describing the situation, and the easiest short cut is usually through dialogue.

This is why dramas are traditionally much longer than other genres, so that the context can be delivered through dialogue (among other things) very thin and smoothly. When you try to pack all that drama into 15 pages, however, talking heads are almost impossible to avoid.

The solution is visual. Images are, in most cases, much more dominant dramatically than dialogue. Throw in a flashback, a montage, or even open on the overdose. Just take some of the load off your character’s backs.

And finally, as a smoker myself, I can tell you that in such a stressful situation, a smoker would sooner forfeit his left pinky than his cigarettes. But all said and done he's your character, not mine.

to be blunt i think it needs a lot of work. I wouldnt even center it around one thing...they talk about Joey too much. There's not a lot revealed about the characters,this is why I mean dont have one "direction" to the movie, this is a movie not a play...you can jump aroudn and show all sort of other stuff going on. Maybe only two characters really gave a ****, what are the others doing and how could maybe the character's death influence their lives. regret could be an issue, for not ever knowing joey...so what could the character do in response to maybe change their way. and if you do stick with joey dying, why not show him...maybe through the movie we see glimpses of his life. reasons for his depression. how does he see it? how does he see his friends.

@Brandon.

I can understand what you mean. I should definantly add some sort of "action" to the story. I'll brainstorm and see if I can come up with anything to seperate all the conversations.

For the most part, I was trying to make a very minamalistic sort of script, something which would mostly be told through the characters faces, or reactions. I sort of wanted to keep Joey more of a mystery than anything. I'm not too much for flashbacks, since I didn't want to focus on Joey, but rather, what the characters feel about him and about themselves. I tried to hint at a comment about the "masculinity walls" that men put up between each other. So I'm thinking I might try to hint more at that as well.

I going brainstorm some sort of motif of montage to put throughout the script, like you suggested. I'm thinking that maybe a flashback to the overdose scene, or maybe Joey's final thoughts, might be a good way to keep the whole thing from "talk talk talk."

I'm also gonna make Mike pick the lighter back up, because in retrospect, I don't think that a smoker would throw the ciggarrette away either. =P

Thanks for reading and commenting!

@Kyle.

Like I said above, little glimpses of Joey's life is a great idea I'll put some more thought into. I really want to make as best a screenplay as I can.

Most of the characters did have certain notions and opinions on Joey's death. I planned on Sal having more a philosophical point of view, he reviews his life compared to Joeys, and thinks about death, etc. Steven feels guilty for not realizing the possibility of Joey overdosing. Axel looks to Joey's death as some sort of sign that he should stop taking drugs, or he could overdose as well. And Mike just feels sad that Joey's gone, but can't express it well.

I'm planning on doing a rewrite pretty soon with all your opinions in mind. Thanks a lot for reading!

Here's the rewrite. Any more critism would be awesome. Like I said, I'm interested in making this better.

Download:
http://www.4shared.com/file/622725/128c3dd2/Red_Light_Green_Light.html
(Click the download button on the bottem.)