Pre-Production - Script Draft 5 & Feedback

Condemned Script Draft 5

Content and Changes

The changes made in this draft are fairly limited, with the opening four scenes requiring no changes. As such, I have made no changes to these scenes, with the first change appearing in scene 5 where David is interviewed by Nick. I have gone through with the idea of changing the location of the interview, now it is held in the garage as opposed to the living room. This is a necessary change as it takes us out of familiar territory.

The next change is very minor, I have added the boiler to the jobs required at Stephens house. No changes in action or dialogue (apart from the mentioning of the boiler) are made here. I have also added a new scene 9. The scene is only small, but it highlights the fact that Stephen was a firefighter early on in the story. No changes made to scene 10.

I have added extra lines of action as suggested to scene 11 for a more visual and gripping piece. David has a quick flashing image of some flames, hinting at what David may have been convicted of (at this point it has not yet been revealed).

More dialogue has been added to scene 13 to further illustrate the kind of relationship the pair would have had in the past. This gets the ball rolling for later scenes such as the drinking session as well as the final few scenes. The pair make little jokes about Nick being a bit of a hardass with Stephen taking small digs at David, having a bit of friendly banter. Scene 15 in the park has also had some dialogue changes, referring back to the older conversation. Here the conversation between the pair is far more natural than in the previous draft.

In scene 17, more inside jokes are made between the pair to further develop the previous relationship the pair had together.

I have added a new final scene to the script. Instead of finishing up on Stephen, we finish with David walking away from the location stern but tearful look on his face as he leaves Stephen to die.

Feedback

Given that this will not be my final draft of the script, it is safe to say that going into my sixth, and most likely final draft, I am in a good place. The changes to be made are very minimal, just a line here and a piece of dialogue there.

The biggest of these changes however is the ending. While I had changed the ending so that we finish up on David outside of the original location, we still needed something more, a bookend image that we can refer back to. An idea I had was to finish up in Davids house in a very similar way to the way we first see it. A moment of deja vu for David, maybe another fresh start for him.

Other changes include:

• The advert in scene 4 should instead read "plumbers mate wanted - apply within" as opposed to work experience
• Do not forget about the boiler, we are still focussed on the sink and only the sink
• The grammar in scene 11 needs looking into
• No dialogue is necessary at all in scene 12
• In scene 13, have the characters reminisce on an older character
• Keep the phone speech by Nick fairly simple
• Give the wife a name and a personality, she arrives out of nowhere