Survival

[stevieg]

A mysterious man awakens to find himself seemingly dead and in the mortuary of a Hospital. Upon venturing outside, he discovers the world around him has been savaged by an unknown event that has taken place.

Buildings on fire, and vehicles burnt out, crushed or abandoned. All life, seemingly vanished from the world. As he goes searching for answers, he soon finds himself fighting for his life against creatures of an unquenchable thirst for blood and flesh, and support from a woman and her seemingly young daughter who has secrets of her own she hides from all.

Notes: The webisode series features a mixture of Zombie type apocolypse, along with science fiction of an invasion and other genres in a bloody, gory and limb ripping series of survival.

Starring:


Ben Foster as John

John is a mystery to himself, as much as everyone else. Awakening to find himself in a morgue of a Hospital is not the first memory he wishes to have, but beyond that morning his memory is blank. As much as he searches for answers to his own past, he finds he has to fight to survive the new world he awakens in, and finds himself protecting a woman and a young girl from the dangers that lurk all around them.


Lena Headey as Amanda

Amanda is a fighter, albeit forced into the role which was never her first choice. Moving around every few days to a new home and camp she sets up to escape the nightmare of creatures that track her down. Her only thought now, seems to protect a young girl who she claims is her daughter?


Chloe Grace Moretz as Emily

Emily is a young girl, whose voice seems to have been taken from her - maybe by the nightmares she has witnessed up close. Amanda has taken her under her wing, to protect her but in truth. Maybe Emily knows more about what is happening than anyone could ever think?

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Webisode Sequence One: Welcome To Hell!
Episodes 1x01 and 1x02 available to read by clicking on banners



Episode 1x01: 5 Pages

A man awakens in the morgue of a hospital, suffering from amnesia. As he sets out on his journey of discovery, he finds the world he left behind has been changed by an apocolyptic event and everyone seems missing.


Episode 1x02: 8 Pages
Warning: Contains strong language

After being captured, John is woke up and interrogated at the hands of a mysterious woman who hides in the shadows. He soon finds more questions than answers to what he discovers of what took place upon the world.

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Also includes the following episodes (may change)!


Episode 1x03: 9 Pages

As Amanda frees John, and shows him the truth of the world as it is now. He also gets a chance to discover the others that have been returned, but different in not only appearance, but now with a hunger for flesh.



Episode 1x04: 9 Pages

John discovers that Amanda was hiding a secret, of a young girl she claims is her daughter. But as he tries to come to terms with it all, the others arrive after picking up a scent... and there seems no escape.


Episode 1x05: 8 Pages

With Amanda and John discovering Emily has disappeared, and found herself outside at the mercy of the others. The two soon discover there is more to this young girl than was first lead to believe.


Episode 1x06: 6 Pages

When John expresses his concerns over Emily's actions with the others, Amanda takes her and sets off on their own journey, only to find themselves caught trapped by an awaiting group of others... who are hungry for fresh meat.


Episode 1x07: 7 Pages

Weeks have since passed since John discovered Amanda and Emily, and as they all take refuge in a cabin in some deep forest outside the city. Emily offers her first words as the return of the one's responsible come back.... bringing concern for all three.


Notes: This was one of the first attempts of a script I wrote a couple of years ago, and now trying to rewrite it into a webisode idea series which may work better.

[Amin]

Looks interesting so far and you've got a nice little cast going there. I just have to comment on one, not really related, thing: please, stop putting exclamation/question marks at the end of your episode titles. I've been noticing you doing it a lot and it looks rather cheap. Looking at these episode titles, it really isn't necessary at all.

Other than that tiny little detail, I'm looking forward to seeing more of this. Zombie apocalypses are always fun and I like that you seem to have some sort of mythology worked out, which is rare when it comes to this genre.

[stevieg]

Thanks Amin for your comments. I've redone the episode titles without the exclamation/question marks now.

First drafts of episodes 3, 4 and 5 have been wrote. Next onto the final 2 episodes which would conclude Sequence One of the series.

[Amin]

I've redone the episode titles without the exclamation/question marks now.

I still see them up there in the pitch.

[stevieg]

Sept 6, 2012 6:16:04 GMT -6 Amin said:

I've redone the episode titles without the exclamation/question marks now.

I still see them up there in the pitch.

Okay, strange. Shows up for me. May need to refresh a few times as kept same names and took old ones down, and just uploaded new ones after. Could be that causing issues and if continues will have to rename and modify the original post.

Anyway, episodes 6/7 now wrote in first draft form. Probably needs some touching up throughout the episodes, but first sequence roughly completed for now.

[Amin]

Alright, I've read your first two episodes. I have to be blunt and say that this has got some work ahead of it before it's ready to be considered. Firstly, the descriptions could be smoothened. They are rather clunky and you excessively describe simple actions. It gets a bit difficult to follow at points so I would suggest you look through your script and really try to shorten anything that can be shortened. I've found that less is more when it comes to scripts.
Secondly, my other real issue with this, is all the exposition in episode two. Rather than showing us the zombie creatures and giving us piece by piece of this alien mystery, you serve it to us in the first 17 pages of the show. This feels like the wrong way to go about it. You need to SHOW us all these things and not get it out of the way through dialogue. Show, don't tell.

Some minor nitpicks:

*John is described as being in his 40ies. His actor Ben Foster is 31 years old, which in TV Land translates to late twenties.
*Once again, your use of exclamation/question marks is something you really need to get over. They're used a few times in dialogue here where they look awkward. For example, when John says "That's murder?", that question mark is really not needed. It just looks off being there.

That's everything I could think of. This needs work, but you seem to have your head in the right place. Good luck!

[stevieg]

Gone back through, and tried to cut down some extra descriptions and tighten the scripts a little better, I hope.

Regarding the mystery and revealing. I've added a small part in Episode 1 which offers a little tease of one of the 'others'. But more of those will be revealed in episode three and beyond where you get a better view of them.

For the invasion background, I've added a little flashback of some moments into episode 2, as she describes what's happening we get to see a little of what took place without revealing too much too early.


Episode 1x01: 5 Pages

A man awakens in the morgue of a hospital, suffering from amnesia. As he sets out on his journey of discovery, he finds the world he left behind has been changed by an apocolyptic event and everyone seems missing.


Episode 1x02: 8 Pages
Warning: Contains strong language

After being captured, John is woke up and interrogated at the hands of a mysterious woman who hides in the shadows. He soon finds more questions than answers to what he discovers of what took place upon the world.

[Brady Brown]

This is a pretty interesting idea. I was left with questions after reading the synopsis, but I got the general idea of the whole thing, so props! You've got a nice little cast, none of them sound the same. The one iffy thing is that it sorta reminds me of 'The Walking Dead'. You know, a man waking up in a hospital, venturing out to discover the world is in chaos. But, anyways, pretty good pitch! Good luck with this!

[Amin]

Rereading the first episode, I remembered one more thing I was a litte iffy about... why exactly is John terrified of a cat?

[Brady Brown]

Hey, Steve! So, I read over your first two episodes, and here are my thoughts on 'Survival' so far...

Your premise is very intriguing. It sorta leaves me with some questions, which is always nice in a series like this. XD And you've got some nice characters, even though there are only three. I think with a seclusion of characters, that they can develop a lot in a short amount of time, and I love some good character development!

Now, reading your first episode, the descriptions are a bit clunky. There are many starts and stops where they shouldn't be, which really took away from the flow of the script. A quick run through can always fix things like that. Also, I feel like there's far too much description in your first episode. You're describing many things that, quite frankly, really don't need to be. And with only one line of dialogue, I fear that the reader might end of getting bored. So, the main point for the first episode would be to slim the description, and to try and make the flow better.

In the second episode, I feel like we're just thrown into everything a bit to early, and some of the dialogue seems a little stiff, in my opinion. But I think it was an improvement from the first episode, and there was some world building, which was real nice.

So, my main problem was the description and dialogue. If you just run through the script a few more times, this should be a very enjoyable series to read. Good luck!

[Deleted]

Okay, I am sooo sorry. I have been meaning to read these two episodes for some time now, and just got around to it this morning. Again, so sorry. Here are my thoughts. I definitely enjoyed the second episode, more so, than the first. In all honesty the first episode is just nothing but description. Don't get me wrong your descriptions paint a fantastic picture into the ruins of this world, but I think, in this format, you don't have the luxury of having 5 pages of description. I think you could probably tone it down a bit and merge the first two episodes into one episode. I can't really say much else about the first episode because not much took place, however the second episode, wow! When I first started reading the first episode my initial response was "Oh no, not another Zombie show", but dude was my face red when I read the second episode. That second episode was AMAZING, and is what really hooked me and made me want to see more. Who are these sky people? Why did they do this? Just some of the questions I found myself asking. Really good! And quite creative. I would like to see this brought to the voting round, but I suggest slimming down episode one, and combining it with episode two. Again, sorry for the late response.

[stevieg]

Thanks for the comments and advice etc, appreciate it.

The description I've been told I do overdo a lot, and can be squeezed down to a lot less. The dialogue also sometimes is a bit of an issue I have and needs work on.

First regarding the cat, I required something to make John jump at that moment. And what's more jumpy than a cat suddenly appearing out of the blue and hissing and growling. If you're not afraid of a cat when it does that, then you have nerves of steel.

The opening would feature 3 characters, but more would come and go over time - but these are the main 3 so far.

I may take Darrin's advice and try and adapt both episodes into one so the first isn't just all description and hardly any dialogue. I'll have a look at doing this and reworking it so the first episode is a bit more adventurous and action with dialogue than just what we see around us before see about taking it further. It does need work still, ie. dialogue/descriptions cut down etc.

I saw this as a a mixture of Zombie/Science fiction with drama and a bit of horror thrown in along the way.

Thanks for the comments and reading them so far, and offering advice where I'm going wrong and what can look to improve upon as always helpful. I'll do another reworking of it and then can take it from there and see if works better.