Begins of the First Draft

[bmiles]

ok, after a few months of research on this website and others about script writing and horror movie making, i started writing my first draft. candid honesty would be greatly appreciated. im an 18 year old director/writer/sfx man and would also like to know if there are any actors or crew in the grand state of Indiana that would like to jump aboard this project. let me know if this is a good start, because i have a bunch of ideas and notes written down that furthers the story. thank you.
-brandon
FIRST DRAFT
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Establishing shot (after opening credits maybe, dont know if their will be shots inbetween)

It's night and the sun has fully gone away. But this night is not completelly dark due to a full moon that is illuminating the scene. SOMEONE can be seen
walking around near a wooded area (I'm thinking about using the reservior, to the right of the park.) SOMEONE seems to be wandering around with no certain
destination in mind, taking their time, listening to head phones. Walking towards the swing set and finally resting on a swing. SOMEONE'S cell phone rings
and he answers the phone. SOMEONE looks paranoid, and is checking out his surroundings every so often. We find out that SOMEONE is engageing in a
conversation with his girl friend. They talk for awhile and SOMEONE learns from his girlfriend that he has to go to her house. They end their conversation, and SOMEONE gets up, seemingly with more purpose this time. SOMEONE picks up his pace a bit and walks down to the docks with his headphones back on. He looks around for a minute. Gets a joint out of his pocket, knowing that his girlfriend would be highly upset with him. Listening to
music, smoking, sitting by the water. After smoking for a little while, SOMEONE can see lights above him, a car is turning and idles slowly parallel with
the top of the ramp. This obviously freaks SOMEONE out, and he flicks the cherry into the water, and hurridly puts the joint in his shoe. The car suddenly
stops, and sits there for abougt 20 seconds. SOMEONE turns his music down, and glances nervously over his shoulder, and quickly lights a cigarette,
blowing smoke on his shirt. The car's occupants role the passenger window down and yell mean things at SOMEONE. He just looks down and away, muttering something under his breath. The car sits there for a few more moments, and you can tell this makes SOMEONE nervous. The passanger says something else, with disgust and pulls back into the car. The driver then leaves in a hurry. SOMEONE whipes his eyes, smokes a few more hits of the ciggarette. SOMEONE then lays down the cigarette on the dock and fishes the joint out of shoe, and turns his music back up. Attempts to re-light the joint, but as he is doing this you can see from the cameras point of view that someone is slowly sneaking up on him.

[bmiles]

possibly more before all of this explaining why SOMEONE (which will be replaced with a name later on,) is wandering in the park. add in some good establishing shots and there ya go. one thing that i need to work on is the killer...not sure how i want him to be.

[AJ]

You should definitely try to arrange this into a more script-like format.

Try not to write stage directions like 'knowing his girlfriend will be upset' because we, the viewers, don't know that. Film is a visual medium, so you need to try and make images tell the story for you.

Your stage directions should indicate the required emotion, the character (please give him a name, even if it is just a temporary one) will be furtive, hesitant, wary or whatever other visually suitable behaviour will give the audience the information they need.

Right now all you have is a guy sitting on a dock smoking dope and someone creeping up on him. That's it. You should try and get some more of the story down.

[bmiles]

i dont want to arrange it into a script right now because im going to make the script out of this, i want it to bel ike a story so i know what it will look like and will explain to the actors certain character traits they need to portray. and i know thats all i have for a story so far, i just started the first draft and threw it on here. brandon.

[AJ]

In that case Brandon, you probably shouldn't refer to this as your first draft. Your first draft will be your first version of the script, what you have written is actually your script notes, or synopsis.

There are a few good sites on the net which contain helpful info on screenplay writing. Try this one www.screenwriting.info/

I think you should get the whole story down on paper, as a one or two page outline, then detail that a bit more so it is a longer document, your synopsis, then turn that into the first draft script, with stage directions, dialogue etc.

[bmiles]

Yea, thats pretty much what i've written, a synopsis. i'll have to look at that link, maybe i'll learn something.
partly when i write this i write notes about other things just so i dont forget them; everything does need to be arranged better. This is what I have now because I revised and added to what I had. Splitting out that camera stuff would be useful probably. Do you have a synopsis for a movie that you have already made that I could check out. Maybe it could be useful. Thanks for your help AJ.
But here it is:

It's night and the sun has fully went away. But this night is not completelly dark due to a full moon that is illuminating the scene. We now meet SOMEONE.
walking around near a wooded area (I'm thinking about using the reservior, to the right of the playground.) SOMEONE seems to be walking with no certain destination in mind, listening to head phones. The camera is beside him. Walking towards the swing set and finally resting on a swing. SOMEONE'S cell phone rings and he answers the phone. Camera in front of him. SOMEONE looks sad, and is checking out his surroundings every so often. We find out that SOMEONE is having a conversation with his girlfriend. It seems they are having a fight. NEED DIALOG HERE They end their conversation, and SOMEONE gets up, seemingly with more purpose this time. SOMEONE picks up his pace a bit and walks down to the docks with his headphones back on. He looks around for a minute. Listening to music, smoking a ciggerette, sitting by the water at the end of the docks. After smoking for a little while, SOMEONE can see lights above him, a car is turning and idles slowly parallel with the top of the ramp. The car suddenly stops, and sits there for awhile. SOMEONE turns his music down, and glances nervously over his shoulder. He just looks down and away, muttering something under his breath. The car sits there for a few more moments, and you can tell this makes SOMEONE nervous. The driver then leaves in a hurry. SOMEONE whipes his eyes, smokes a few more hits of the ciggarette. Turns music back up. From the cameras point of view, you can see that SOMEONE2 is walking towards SOMEONE. SOMEONE2 is mostly in the shadows, creeping up on SOMEONE. Then, camera is placed to the side of the actors at the other end of the dock and you can see both of them in the same shot. SOMEONE2 is right behind SOMEONE and it looks like he is about to choke him. Camera is back in front of SOMEONE and he quickly turns around to see who is grabbing him. SOMEONE2 laughs because he scared him. SOMEONE laughs kinda ackwardly, feeling stupid. He then takes his head phones off and they sit by eachother on the dock. SOMEONE talks about how he thinks his girlfriend is going to break up with him later on in the evening. He says has no idea why they would be breaking up, he loves her. SOMEONE2 is sympathetic to him, and they talk for awhile. SOMEONE2 tells him that a bunch of friends are getting together and going camping in the woods. The house's occupants are away on vacation. This seems to make SOMEONE feel better, and says he hopes his soon to be ex doesn't show up. SOMEONE2 says she won't be invited. They both get up and turn to walk off the dock, and begin walking to SOMEONE2's car. After off the dock the camera is above their heads and they walk under it while going up the hill. The camera remains here, and a shadow can be seen moving slowly towards them, from the right. The person enters the frame, and is still shadowed. A couple feet before the figure gets to them, the camera view changes to right behind SOMEONE. He turns around because he hears something, and a long blade is shoved into his throat up into his mouth. The camera goes to roughly knee level to SOMEONE, and is looking up at him and blood is dripping down to the ground. Close up and the killer is moving the knife around violently, and SOMEONE2 can be seen running away up the hill.

[AJ]

Personally I don't tend to do synopsis as such, I usually write lots of notes and ideas in a notebook, as they come to me, then write snatches of script and scenes until I have most of the story, then simply fill the gaps that remain.

The most important thing to bear in mind when writing a script, or any kind of story, is what your story actually is.

Try and write down a brief one or two sentence description of the entire thing.

i.e. "A family move into a newly built house, unaware that the property is built on an ancient burial ground. Vengeful spirits abduct their baby daughter and subject the family to a terrifying ordeal, as they fight to regain their child and escape from the house before it is sucked into the netherworld."

Right now, your story is very confusing, especially as you now have two "someones" and it makes it very difficult to read. I would highly recommend giving your characters names, even if they are just temporary.

I think perhaps you need to take a step backwards and try to get the entire story down as a very simple description (as above) then flesh it out from there. It might be easier to do it that way?

[bmiles]

i read through that webpage you point me towards, it will come in usefull. havent had the chance to work on it more because of school and work, but i'm gonna work more this weekend. thanks for the help
brandon