Okay, sorry I’m a few days late. I’m not sure if my feedback would help now, but let’s see.

Commentary for ‘The Scream’

#1 I haven’t watched ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ yet, but is the opening scenes somehow inspired by it?

Anyway, the character introductions are confusing and I had to keep referring to them. Perhaps you should use the same pic in the avatar as the large pic. I especially have this problem that Oleg and Sergey have similar facial structure. I’m having difficulty telling them apart.

Also, there’s mention of the ‘incident.’ I suppose this is what induces the scream. Oleg seems to be narrating the story after he at least survived that incident.

#2 not sure if you got the icons right re: the Christian images, assuming this bloke is a Russian Orthodox. The right looks flat which is okay, but the Mary and Child looks detailed and might even look like a Catholick image.

#7

Paired with the title, I am anticipating this to be a horror.

#15

Good idea that you included a YouTube clip that makes you feel what you’re describing

#17 I wonder if mentioning bear is related to the recent man v bear meme.

#22 shit hits the fan…

#28 here’s the scream in the title. A sound can be heard in space <how?!>

#31 a visual of the threat

#34 so for lack of a better term, the threat is also called ‘scream’. For some reason, that’s impossible at this point, the scream causes a scream to be heard.

#39. RIP Denis….oh wait, Oleg is trying to rescue him still

#41-42

Not sure I understood. All I know is that Denis is unconscious and Oleg went to save him.

Do I understand it right that the Scream had something to do with Denis being conscious again to rescue Oleg?

I can’t follow what’s happening in the succeeding frames.

#45 what horror to see the scream after it controlled Denis

…then again, this frame ends with the Scream seeming to be friendly

#46

“
Perhaps we were insignificant.
But not so insignificant as to consider our lives worthless.”

A good line but sounds cliché that you’ve included it. Perhaps this is what judges would like to see.

Conclusion:  

Seeing the Scream for the first time must be a horrifying experience. As far as horror is concerned, you did a great job.

But something seems to be missing in frame no 45. First there were horrified, and they immediately knew that the Scream is rather friendly. I wish they tried to fight it first before realising that it’s a friendly entity.

• • Enchanteur

    Saturday 15th June at 19:01
    

    Hello. Enchanted to see you here!

    Didn't you ever watch 2001?! Know this: I immediately get on a plane, with tons of weapons, assault rifles, grenades, rocket launchers, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Commando": I kill the president of your country and become dictator there. I institute a ruthless law: every school-kid must watch 2001. ahahahahaha!!!!

    Otherwise, it's not inspired by any particular movie. Just something I like. But let's give some interesting movies around the subject: 2001, Interstellar, Gravity, Apollo 13. After writing the first draft, I read a few pages of Gravity. I saw that the screenwriter was getting away from the INT/EXT indications. So I corrected it and did the same in my 2th draft (in the Western Screenplay version).

    It's cool that you came later, because since I first published, I've done a 4th draft. So you got the final version and not an earlier one.

     

    #2.

    Yes, you get the idea. Oleg is telling this from the future. We guess he survived.

    At first I had a general picture of the three. But when I changed the last draft, I put 3 separate images. Sorry this is confusing. I should add a line (which I deleted by the way), saying that we see them successively.

    The images of crosses and saints come from real ISS images. This is how the Russians decorated their module. It's probably the Orthodox Catholic Church. I got feedback from a Russian woman writer, and she said it sounded realistic. Cool.

    On this series of images, I also put a meaning and a priority: what needs to be achieved by a man. First, spiritual (or religious) fulfillment, without which nothing is possible in life. Then the family. Then the homeland. Then what we accomplish in life, work. Here, a very important job (or for me, just telling stories, aaaah, it's so facultative, what I do with my life?).

     

    #15.

    What's crazy. After I put the link on the video, I thought, "hey, my description is incomplete". And in the last draft, I changed the text. I added that they look like ants and that sunrises flash blindly.

     

    #22.

    "How." Yes, that's impossible. I don't give an explanation. Maybe it's a process that just crosses the zones where a sound can be perceived! In any case, "the scream" emits waves into the cosmos. And creates a zone of silence around it. The poor alien is deaf. But we see that he perceives as an empath.

     

    #41-42.

    It's the opposite! Denis comes to Oleg's rescue (Denis possessed by "the scream").

     

    #45.

    Make them more scared and wondering how to fight? Good idea. At this point, I was short on time. I was supposed to tell this in 10 pages and failed. I hesitated to change the lines. Denis was supposed to be the one who says "the scream is not hostile", because he's seen more than Oleg. But I was torn with the idea that Oleg was more the protagonist of the story. It is also a fake "horror" story. We think about "Alien" at first, but this trope is subverted. For once, the alien we think It's hostile (and I say in a line it's "a threat") turns out to be peaceful.

    Although it's hard for them to see The scream, I focused on the psychological stability of the characters. I've seen lots of movies with astronauts, where the characters act stupidly or argue. I don't like that. Because the reality is this: out of 10 astronauts with the same skills, the one chosen is the one with the best psychological stability. So I avoided unnecessary drama.

     

    #46.

    This line says that "the scream" wanted to save them. I don't know if this comes across in the story, but "the scream" isn't really friendly, It's just an alien with a sense of responsibility. That's what I wanted to emphasize. The dust hit the space station because of It. The dust followed It as a natural phenomenon. And rather than fleeing into space, It came back to repair its mistakes and save the men. This gives the idea of a strange alien, with a sense of what conscious beings are, and not wanting to hurt them because of the mistakes It made.

    "The scream" sounds like a sea urchin, a defensive animal, not a predator. And the sound it makes is similar to the spines of a sea urchin.

     

    An important change I made in the 4th draft was to put Oleg's opening lines in voice-over, so that they would resonate with the lines at the end. There are also details like the opening lines: "Silent ocean of infinity.". Every word is important. "Silent", for the confrontation with the scream. "Ocean", for the sea urchin aspect of "the scream" (and also ISS "floating" above Earth). And "Infinity" for the last line of the story.

     

    If you haven't watched them, I recommend the movies: 2001, Interstellar, Gravity, Apollo 13.

    Now, I'll come back to W2 screenplay rewriting. This short was the occasion to breath and to grab skills, for my main screenplay. Hoping to stay alive and not to die in a nuclear explosion before I end it.