TPG Week 21: The Script Goes To Everyone

Page 1: Prologue:

4 Panels

Panel 1
Birds eye view – City park – Day . We see a great view of the park and the metro area . People are walking, cars and cabs Good reference would be central park west in NYC. (Like I said before, I’m not going to hit too much on punctuation in the panel descriptions…)

Caption: My name is John Eboigbe. tThis is where I used to live. (However, punctuation is part of the puzzle that is clarity. You need a period here. That means there’s also a change in capitalizations.)

Panel 2
Wide shot – City park – Day To the right of the screen we see various people walking along the sidewalk, all connected to a  smooth patch of grass that runs to the curb. Everyone is enjoying the day an old man siting at a park bench feeding the birds, a couple walking close, a woman jogging, a woman walking a dog, a father and son at a hot dog stand. To the left of the screen high-rise  buildings  as well as in the background. Good reference would be central park west in NYC. (This, John, isn’t good. I can puzzle out what you’re trying to say, but I shouldn’t have to. I understand you’re primarily an artist, but you still need to learn how to write if you’re writing scripts. Remember, the script isn’t just for you. It’s for the entire creative team, so they can understand what’s going on. That means learning the rules of punctuation.)

Caption: Not in this city, but in this world.

Caption: A parallel world. (This line right here? Terrible. I’m doing you a favor right here by excising it. Your readers wouldn’t be as kind.)

Panel 3
Medium shot – City park – Day The couple reacts to an obvious earthquake as do others in various stages of falling (everyone is falling.) (Where is the camera?)

Caption: Where I came come from, super heroes were real. (Come, not came.)

Panel 4
Birds eye view – City park – Day  A sink hole appears. People are all over the ground and grass scattered. Some daring to get close to the sink hole, others motionless as tremors start. (This cannot be drawn. You don’t have enough information to draw. Where is the sinkhole? Is it in a paved area, or a grassy one? How big is it? How are you going to show tremors starting? Last panel, you had an earthquake going on. When did it stop in order to start? See all those questions I just asked? Important.)

(SFX)

Rummmmmmmble

Page 2: (Page break)

2 Panels

Panel 1
Close up – City park – Day The earth explodes! (Yannick? Thanks.)

Caption: They were all very, very powerful.

Panel 2
Wide Shot – City park – Day People are running for there lives bodies and cars are flung into the air buildings are and glass are shattering the devastation is unfathomable. (Spelling, punctuation, and things that cannot be drawn. Where is the camera? How are you showing unfathomable devastation?)

Caption: some could have shaken the very foundations of the earth. (Capitalization, and over-writing.)

Page 3 (Page break)

Splash page – City park – day A brightly illuminated man bursts from the city street. The source of all the destruction and chaos. Screaming in shear agony. (Here’s the thing about splash pages: when talking webcomics, the placement of the splash doesn’t matter. When talking print, then the placement of the splash matters. Except for the first page, splashes should be on even-pages, so that they don’t lose power. Something to keep in mind.)

Caption: Some had only speed, others had only strength. (Unnecessary word.)

Page 4 (Page break)

2 Panels

Panel 1
Reverse Angle – upper atmosphere- day  We see the same man hurtling skyward into the clouds. (What else can we see? What does the guy look like?)

Caption: Still others had both, speed and strength.

Panel 2
An Extreme close up – upper atmosphere- day Of  the man blond hair blue eyes with a terrified look in his eyes. (Extreme close-up of what? His face? His eyes? What?)

Caption: flight and strength. (Capitalization. And where did flight come from? When did that enter the picture?)

Page 4: (Page break, and this is misnumbered. This is actually P5.)

3 Panels

Panel 1
Medium shot – upper atmosphere- day Clasping his hands to his the man glowing in red with a smile on his face seems surprised that he is alive. (John Lees. What’s wrong here?)

Caption: Others could create quantum energy fields and manipulate them at will. (Create quantum energy fields. Really? Again, another set of powers that seemingly come out of nowhere. And this is really something of an infodump. Uninteresting after a certain point. We reached that point two panels ago.)

Panel 3 (Watch your numbering. This is panel 2.)
Close up – upper atmosphere- day Fists clinched and arms raised in a show of triumph he shouts.

Caption: Optical concussive energy beams with super speed. Or manual electrical ignition and super strength. (Bad, bad dialogue. I’m feeling my eyes roll, which is never good. The only one who cares about the permutations right now is you. We’re talking superheroes. That means it is even more important to show and not just tell.)

MAN IN RED

It Worked!

Panel 3
Medium shot – upper atmosphere- day  The man in red is spread eagle shouting even louder with a sonic boom.

Caption: Magnetic containment with the ability too create a focused supersonic boom with the mere utterance of a phrase. (Spelling. And you’ve lost any interest you could have built up with the telling of power combinations. Simply put, it’s boring, and boring is death.)

MAN IN RED

It Worked!

SFX: BOOM

That’s where I’m going to stop. This is already back on the shelf. Let’s run it down.

Format: Page breaks. Other than that, your format is fine.

Panel Description: These aren’t good. Close to terrible. The bulk of that is punctuation, which causes the reader to have to slow down and parse what you’re trying to say. The other part is that there are some things that can’t be drawn. Slow down, put in your punctuation, read the panel descriptions out loud, and see if they are getting across what it is you’re trying to say. If they are, then you’re good. If they aren’t, then you have more work to do.

Pacing: It’s okay. I’m not wild about the placement of the splash page, but there’s a bigger problem. You’re taking too long to be interesting. You’re hoping the action will cause readers to stay, but the dialogue they’re reading is going to send them away in droves. Be more interesting, and do it faster.

Dialogue: As a whole, it wasn’t good. It didn’t give me any physical reactions, but I did want to stop reading it after a while. Like, after the second page. That’s never good. It needs to be ripped out wholesale and replaced.

Content: Not good. Actually, I’m going to go with terrible, because there isn’t much after the second line to draw the reader in. They’re going to put it down after two pages, if not three. Especially with what you have passing for exposition/power explanation/point of interest. This is the opposite of good. This is not the way to start this particular tale.

Editorially, this is a mess. Clarity, spelling, punctuation, knowing what can be drawn…all of these are problems in this script. I know you’re an artist, but like I said, the script isn’t just for you. It has something for every part of the creative team. As an editor, I’d have my work cut out for me in getting this into shape that the rest of the team could work from.

And that’s all I have for this week. Check the calendar to see who’s up next!