And He's Back

I can't believe I haven't updated (a real update anyway) in over a month, but I've been busy at any rate. It just seems that the older I get the faster time seems to move, and the month of November has come and gone in the blink of an eye.

So let's see... I received the feedback from the development service. They like the story but they feel it could stand to be tightened up a bit, be a little more original, and not have such a sad ending. I received "fair" marks for everything but the dialogue, which was rated as "good" ... so I have that going for me. The story was compared slightly to an episode of CSI only becuase I thought to use some forensic science in the casework. My lead character isn't a forensic scientist. The forensic scientist doesn't solve the case. At no time is there a scene of the forensic scientist doing the lab work. He merely reveals some information about the case and then goes on to do his own thing. Naturally since there is a forensic scientist in the movie it has to be related to CSI... which bugs me (obviously) since I dislike the show.

I have a few ideas kicking around to make the supporting characters a little more solid and to change the ending to make it slightly more happy. Not sunshine and daffodils happy or anything, just slightly moreso than what it is now. I'm glad I went to the development service, they had a number of good suggestions so I'll be working on that soon.

I finished my slasher movie. It still doesn't have a title but I'm thinking something along the lines of "_____ Woods" or "_____ Park" since it takes place in a woods/park behind a housing development. Simple and to the point is what I'm looking for, plus it seems that all the holidays have been taken. "Arbor Day... the trees strike back" ... nah.

I've had a few people read the screenplay and they all seemed to like it. I put into practice all of my previous blog entries to try to make the best slasher movie I could without breaking the genre conventions. I've gotten some good feedback about the first third of the movie where I tried to build up the characters as much as possible, and of course I tried to go for over the top with the death scenes, so overall it's a pretty fun script.

I suppose I'll go to a development service with this one as well to see what they say. It's a shame these things are so expensive or I'd do it sooner rather than later. Still, aside from contests that I generally dislike it's really the only "in" that I can think of. I suppose I could send a query letter to a few agents, with the strike going on maybe they're not all that busy. Then again, maybe a million other people have the exact same idea.

Another avenue I could explore would be the Inktip preferred newsletter, so I'll be looking more into that (the deadline is Friday to get in, so maybe next one). I think a bit more sprucing of both screenplays will put me in better shape regardless. If any of you are interested in reading the slasher movie (and giving me a title) I'd be happy to send it on over.