Clue (Murder Mystery-Drama)

[David]

"You are invited to a murder. Arlington Grange, home to Mrs Peacock, twice widowed. Colenel Mustard, a foreign advisor who served in the war. The reverend Green, who counts his blessings thanks to donations made by Mrs. Peacock. Professor Plum, graduate from Harvard Business school. He and Colenel Mustard both share an interest in Miss Scarlet, step daughter of Mrs. Peacock, lives at Arlington Grange. Her passion is for fast cars and faster men. Mrs. White, trusted housekeeper. She hides a secret. Six people with murder murder on their minds."

Solve a mystery before everyone else does. Who is the murderer? What weapon did they use? Where did they do it?

The general episode consists of someone coming to Arlington Grange, meeting the six suspects, pissing them all off, then dying. At the end of an episode, I will leave you with a cliffhanger. After reading the episode, you send me a PM of who you think did it, where they did it, and with what. I will announce the winner at the start of the next episode as well as an explanation of how they did it.

CAST

Mariska Hargitay as Mrs. Peacock

A widowed billionaire who is nice to those who are nice back. She helps many different charities and organizations as well as funding scientists' work.
Pierse Brosnan as Colenel Mustard

A colenel who has a thing for both Miss Scarlett and Mrs. Peacock. He is an associate with foreign contacts and is willing to do anything to protect his friends...
Matt Bomer as Professor Plum

The bad boy professor who vies for Miss Scarlett's affections. He was the smartest in his class at Harvard University and is a long time friend of Miss Scarlett. The two have been friends since they were in diapers. He would kill to have her...
Idris Elba as Reverend Green

A preacher at the local church. He is loyal to his friends. He is nice, but with a dark side.
Eliza Dushku as Miss Scarlett

Miss Scarlett is the rich stepdaughter of Mrs Peacock. She treats Peacock like her own mother and treats the rest of her friends like her family. She shares a close relationship with Mrs. White. She is madly in love with Plum but could never tell him
Helen Mirren as Mrs White

She's more than just the maid. Mrs. White started working for Mr. Scarlett about 30 years ago. She is loyal to Mrs Peacock and Miss Scarlett, treating them like a daughter and granddaughter respectively. She treats the men fairly as well.

One Part of the Mystery is to figure out what room the murder was committed in. Was it the Drawing room, the study, the billiard room, the dining room, the kitchen, or the library?

Weapons subject to change.

[stevieg]

A wonderful idea if can be pulled off with lots of mystery and intrigue, plus those of-course 'red herrings'.

Ensembled a great cast also, with some big names and this could be very interesting a script and show. I'd certainly look to give it a read if you make anything of it, and hope you do give it a go.

[David]

Thanks Steve I am currently writing the pilot episode

[David]

I'm kinda having trouble finding the perfect things for them to say, and I am also having trouble getting Mr. Green an atequite ammount of screentime

[Brady Brown]

Just do what you think feels right, because you can always go back and change it if needed. And don't stress too much over, unless he's in it for, like, a second. XD Then that'd be a problem. ;D

[David]

Sept 13, 2012 16:47:08 GMT -6 Brady Brown said:

Just do what you think feels right, because you can always go back and change it if needed. And don't stress too much over, unless he's in it for, like, a second. XD Then that'd be a problem. ;D

Thanks for the advice, Brady

[David]

Sept 14, 2012 14:43:49 GMT -6 monkmanism said:

When do you finish the pilot episode?

Either today or tomorrow

[David]

www.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/7/9/12794741/clue.docx

[David]

the pilot has been posted

[Ms. Kerry]

Alright, I have read your pilot David. Before I make any statements about things that need to be fixed let me say that think this story idea has potential. I read the clue books all the time when I was younger and I love the movie. With that said I think you could create something worth reading if you accept my advice with an open mind.

Your script is very bare. Scripts aren't supposed to have pages and pages of description, but this style needs to have some prosey bits to tell us what characters look like and what they are doing. In this script there is a lack of that and it is needed in order for the reader to know what is going on. I suggest that you read scripts from everyone on the network and see what they do. The shows that are airing have had success and they are good ones to emulate.

Secondly, I know this is a cliche mystery type story but the characters are very flat. All of them could use some work to make them seem realistic, get to know your characters and make sure when they speak it really conveys them and their personality. That way the dialogue won't sound/seem stilted.

The biggest thing I can suggest is reading and reading example of scripts on the network. When I first joined it took forever for me to hash out what scripts should be like and it wasn't until a year after I joined that I got a show picked up. Don't rush to get something done when it needs to be perfected. However, don't lose heart! Keep trying to get your script up to par with what you see airing on the VPN.

Good Luck David!

[Deleted]

Review Clue 1x01 - Who Killed the French Maid?

I'm just going to jot down some stuff as I go through this, so bear with me.

Okay, right off the bat, within the first two scenes your lacking descriptions to help the reader picture the setting and characters. In a pilot, I feel, that your should have descriptions of locations, room color, important items, just to give the reader an idea of what your world looks like. As episodes go on it's not needed as much, unless your introducing new locations. However, character descriptions are crucial. When introducing a character you should have their full name, and a brief description of what they look like. The description should have to do with their looks, not their attitudes. Show who they are through their dialogue.

What is Blanche White making over the stove? Just little things like that could add to the scene. "She stops and takes a look at them" - This line is a little confusing as you have just mention two women, which woman looks at the nails? I'm not sure if you need the line "She turns them to Blanche" considering she just asked "What do you think?". So far, there's some grammatical errors, so I would suggest another read through, or even getting someone to edit spelling and grammar for you. Sometimes when you're so close to the project it's hard to see the errors, I know from experience. There's missed conflict opportunities between Elizabeth and Blanche. Elizabeth tells her not to burn the caramel, then Blanche says calm down and Elizabeth says alright... It just seems too easy. The dialogue is little off. Might I suggest going through and reading it out loud. Their dialogue is coming off flat making the characters very one dimensional. This needs to be worked on because it's the characters that bring people back for more. Week in and week out people want to know what's going to happen to these characters they love.

Final assessment... It's a good start, but needs work. I would suggest reworking the teaser and the first two acts. It seems like there is too much introduction going on in these acts and not enough action. Maybe find a way of bringing act threes problems (ie. Maggie ending her business relationship with Elizabeth, and Maggie eliminating funding to the church) into earlier acts, so you can build on those scenes. Because, lets face it, those are some of the reasons she's dead. So answer questions like why is she ending the funding for the church, specifically. Same goes with her ending the business relationship with Elizabeth, was it entirely because of Vivien, or was there more to it?

Like I said though, really good start. I see potential in this, I really do, and I think, with some reworking, it could be great!

[MJ]

Okay, sorry it took me so long to get around to reviewing this, I've been really busy with uni XD But anyway, onto the review of your pilot episode for 'Clue'.

Okay, first up this is a little too short of a script for a mini-series. I'd say a mini-series episode should be at least a half-hour show (so 30-ish pages minimum) but what you've got here is more webisode in length. So I'd consider either lengthening your script or changing it to a webisode rather than a mini-series.

Also, your script formatting could use a little work. It's not in the correct font and your missing transitions after a lot of scenes.

Now on to the actual episode, and please bear with me because I might be jumping around between ideas and comments as they come to me

Character's need a lot of development is the first thing that comes to mind when I'm reading back over this. The character's motivations are all very flaky and the dialogue is quite poor and very generic. There is no personality with each character, and if they do start to show a defining characteristic they're just as likely to turn around in the next scene and act completely opposite. For example: Peter. We seem him early on talking to Maggie over the phone and he obviously cares for her, using the words 'I love you' and there's nothing in the action lines that give us any indication that he isn't very happy with her. Then, later on in the script, he suddenly turns on Maggie and declares his love for someone else. Is poor characterisation and it's poor planning as far as story line goes.

While we're talking about Maggie and also feel the need to point out that she's a rather pathetic villain and I felt like you were trying way, way to hard to turn her into someone who deserved to be murdered by someone else at the party. First of all, nobody goes up to every single person at a party and deliberately says inflammatory things, it's just plain stupid behaviour, really. Not to mention there are more ways to make someone want to kill you than making them angry. For example, she could have overheard something that someone didn't want her to hear, could have seen something someone didn't want her to see, maybe her death would result in someone gaining something, like money, property, an object, etc. As far as murder victims went she was just ridiculous and I spent a lot of my time scoffing at her lines.

Another major problem is you're telling us and not showing it. The dialogue has a very children's show quality to it. You know how in children's shows the characters explicitly state things to make it easy for children to follow the story? That's what the dialogue in Clue felt like. Rather than point everything out to us with big flashing signs you should attempt some subtlety. For example, if Peter wasn't really in love with Maggie you could have show that in his actions, eg. he could have frowned when he said 'I love you' over the phone.

Another technical thing, you often change how you refer to characters. Such as in the action lines you might say Colonel Mustard but then when he speaks call him Mike, which just makes the script confusing.

Finally, probably the biggest problem with the script is that it's supposed to be a mystery that people can work out. From reading the script all I can say is that any of the main characters could have committed the murder because every single one had motive and a weapon nearby. Not one character stood out from any other and if people are trying to figure out the mystery it's going to come down to a guess and not any actual detective work. Not to mention, what happens to the person who did commit the murder? Do they get caught? Do they go to jail? That's going to whittle away your characters pretty quickly. And if every character gets away with murder in every episode? That's a bit silly too.

Also, the idea that people message you about who they think the murderer was and it not revealed in the script? I feel like that makes this less of a virtual series and more just a long-winded game. Why not just write out a scene where we find out who the murderer is? People can still guess on their own and then continue reading to see if they were right, rather that having the episodes cut off and not reveal it.

In all honesty, it's nowhere near the worst pitch/script I've seen. That said though, the whole concept needs a lot of work still, as does the script. There is potential there but it's going to need a lot of work.

Don't let my long review get you down though, just keep on working at your ideas and scriptwriting because you can only ever improve

[Brady Brown]

David, why is it that you have been left three reviews, and you have yet to reply, or even acknowledged/thank, one of the three people who decided to leave you a review, all with spectacular points I must say. Are you even continuing with this? If you're not, you need to state it, so that the Committee doesn't waste their time looking at this, when they could be looking a different pitch, which is still being developed. But if you are still going through with this, please at least thank your reviewers and take their advice, because they're not giving you all these tips for themselves. It's for you.

[David]

Sorry been a bit busy. Thank you all for reviewing and for the constructive criticism I will try and make all of those changes

[Brady Brown]

Hey, David. I don't want to get redundant, because everything everyone else has said is pretty much everything that needs to be addressed. But one thing (and if this has been said above; or if it's just not looking like a script on my computer, my bad) you're not writing in the proper screenwriting format. I would suggest using Celtix, which is a free screenwriting software that gets the job done. Anyways, I just needed to point that out. Good luck on everything, David.

[David]

thanks Brady Ill give it a try