methbomb

So this is my first Hollywood reader feedback on my screenplay Backpacking across love and 4 different kinds of smiles.
As you all know, I had a helluva time trying to come up with a title. I mean, I was absolutely thought-clotted. I hate the title and I don't blame anyone for not liking it either.
The reader gave me some insight to some missing angles in my story, but there's a few points where I felt he was off center court.
The story is about a young girl on a journey to bring her self centered family together, but it the Central Idea is about family and all the moral values that comes with it. So, the plot, while revolving around Cubby, also brought to the surface what each family member was going through. I wanted to draw in the audience to each family member.

didn't want to tell a story about family and have it revolve around one person, just as being part of a family never does.

The anime/realm of the story is meant to metaphorically show that each family member resided in their own world. Not an imagination of Cubby's. Maybe I took my artistic license and cashed it all in on that one. But I still wanted to tell a story in a different way. When each family member began to believe in the family values again, their "realm" shattered and they joined Cubby in the real world. I illustrated that and I wondered how the reader missed it.

Heck, some people understood the plot/structure for No country for old men or Pan's labyrith so...
Here's the reader's notes on my screenplay. Enjoy.

oh, if anyone is interested in reading the full script. Shoot me a message and I'll email you a pdf file.

Backpacking
#2384

What did you like about this script?

Cubby is an imaginative and creative heroine who packs plenty of appeal for a younger audience. Her family are incredibly frustrating, but she rises above all the bickering by re-imagining them as anime characters, elevating them above the petty squabbles and worries of their everyday existence by giving each one their own realm, with vassals to command and major villains to vanquish. The leather-bound book she lovingly illustrates and decorates is a powerful symbol of her love and inventiveness, and it’s satisfying when her father is eventually able to use it as a shield against the fireballs of her anger (p.107). The shifts between anime and live action sequences will give the movie a very distinctive look, and they add some interesting angles for marketing to kids and younger teens. The narrative has a dreamlike quality; we never know when Cubby’s imagination will transform everyone into their Westalia personae. These exotic, fairy tale versions of her family are much more interesting than the real ones, who are lonely, unhappy and disempowered – the venomous verbal sniping over dinner on pp16-19 demonstrates just how discontented the Wests really are. Cubby’s love for and belief in her closest relatives gives them all magic qualities. She sees their potential even when they have lost sight of it themselves – especially Roland, whose misery and isolation seems to border on mental illness. Many children will identify with her increasingly desperate efforts to bring everyone together again, both in reality and fantasy. She knows that deep down, her family are loving and strong, even if the vagaries of everyday life have temporarily got in the way – the fact that her parents forget both her birthday and Roland’s is a good illustration of just how bad the situation has become. Act Three provides some nice resolution as Macy, Robert, Roland and Marcella have to live up to Cubby’s belief in them and rescue her from her own anime world. This often-sad story has a very happy ending.

What do you think needs work?

The story needs a much tighter focus. Perhaps a good place to start would be the title: “Backpacking Across Love and Four Kinds of Smiles: Cubby's Summer Adventure” is rather unwieldy and nebulous – and will never fit on a poster. Why not refer specifically to Cubby’s book of drawings, as this is such a strong visual symbol within the narrative? As well as having an overcomplicated title, the story itself feels overloaded and indistinct, and is very heavy going in places. Particularly bearing in mind that this is aimed at a younger audience, and is complicated enough by the blurring of boundaries between Westalia and reality, the narrative needs to be streamlined. Cubby needs to be the main focus of all the action – there is currently too much emphasis on her family’s problems, and some rather confusing external factors, and this detracts from who she is and what she does. Is it possible to simplify the West family issues? For instance, why does their vacation get canceled? This is the inciting incident for the narrative, and it should happen in the first two or three pages in order to get the narrative moving. Currently, it seems to happen for a number of different reasons (Roland’s tantrum, Robert’s new location, Marcella’s over-riding work commitments) that play out over several pages. The story would move much faster if there was one clear and simple cause – probably to do with Marcella as she seems to be the dominant force in the family. The prologue, set in Cubby’s school, is a little confusing as it seems to be setting up an entirely different story, with different characters. If you begin the story on p.5, this means that the narrative is contained inside Cody’s summer holiday, and mostly within the West family home – this makes for a better structure. The next big event is the barbecue, and this needs, again, a clearer focus. Currently, their preparation spans too many pages. Marcella needs to share the invitation with her family earlier, stressing how important this is for her career, how they are all to be on their best behavior and pretend to be a ‘proper’ family. Then Cubby needs to make a very deliberate decision to hijack it in order to serve her own goals; the vague reference to an internet search is not enough – this is her turning point into Act Two, and it needs to be a moment of absolute clarity.