OK then-
First off, sorry for the long delay in getting around to critiquing your work. As much as I love helping out here at MovieTreatments.com it's pretty far down on my list of priorities at the moment for various reasons and that makes putting off my work here much easier than putting off other things so . . . oftentimes I won't come through with a critique as fast as I'd like, or as soon as I had promised.
Anyway, on to the treatment.
As I said before I love the title. It's meaningless to me in and of itself but has some vaguely precious, sought-after quality. A rare element that can do something amazing? A new alloy that is so special people will kill to find out the secret to making it? A rock band? I don't know, but it has got me thinking and if this title were plastered on a bus or billboard and you (well, not
you , dkl4335) and a friend spotted it I'm sure something like that would occur. "What?" "Where?" "Who?" "Why?" and most importantly- "When does it open?"
Grab them with the title. Check.
First off I noticed the professional layout and overall feel of your treatment. It's long, too. This is a good thing- as I mentioned above. I've noticed lately that people who write longer treatments will include a very short (1-2 max) synopsis at the beginning. Even if it isn't requested, this can only help you. (Everyone note this
, it is good advice I promise you.) In Hollywood, I oftentimes would wonder just
when my treatments were being tossed in the can by some bored exec. Was it before the amazing plot twist that
IS the movie? Was there anyway to prevent that? Sure, you can tell your readers what you are going to tell them
before you tell them. Like a topic paragraph in a Comp 101 paper. But if your treatment is short, under fifteen pages or so then it's a bad idea. Even though we writers all know that the studio execs who decide our fate are complete fools (unless they buy it), you're not doing yourself any good implying that they can't handle ten pages of text.
So, twenty-six pages if fine. For me, twenty is the magic number. But it's not written in stone. "Take only what you need to survive," said a friend on this topic (quoting which film forumites?). If it takes twenty-six, it takes twenty-six. A screen writing teacher once told me the best writer needs the fewest pages, something I've never forgotten.
Also, I see you have registered it with the WGA. For the small amount of time and money it takes to do this there's no reason not too UNLESS you have no intention of shopping the project OR you write at such a furious pace it's just a hassle. (I'm not kidding about that, either. I friend of mine would crank out a full script (almost) weekly. He just let them pile up and after a few months and a few dozen scripts it would have cost a bit of money so he just put a fake number on the title page and figured it was just as good. Kind of like the people who plaster fake home security stickers on their windows. He never sold anything, anyway.)
I recommend everyone double-spaces their work. For the simple reason that it makes it more inviting, easier to read. Twenty-six single spaced pages will take longer to read than fifty-two double-spaced ones. (Or feel that way.) Trust me. Of course that cuts half your text or gives you a fifty-two page treatment so what do you do? Cut, cut, cut is pretty much the only option. But single spacing is fine, no one will complain. For me though, I've always double spaced and always will. (I wish I had a story about a single spaced treatment I shopped for
years before making it double spaced and selling it instantly! But I don't.)
First paragraph, very important. And it's good. We have a hook planted (the flash? what was
that?) and some nice details. But I'm already worried. You've got half a page spent describing the chaos in the control room that you could have gotten across with something like "chaos erupts in the control room." Sure, it reads nicer the way you did it but keep in mind someone else will probably write the script and change- or ignore- small details like that, if the director actually films them. When it comes to treatments if it's not essential to the story, ditch it. You know those paint-by-number things that kids do? Consider yourself to be making a write-by-numbers template for the eventual screenwriter. Just the blank framework, enough to let the details flow out easily later but not enough to bog things down.
"Langford smiles wryly . . ." Don't use the word wryly. Hollywood people hate it, because it's really overused in treatments and screenplays and especially because it seems amateurish. I even think Syd Field wrote a chapter in one of his books about unnecessary, overused words and he used "wryly" as an example. Plus, I don't think anyone actually knows what it means.
Anyway, a few pages and so far we have a murder-mystery with a little end of the world scenario thrown into the mix (it's 2012, of course). Timely, that. Our male lead is a no-nonsense homicide detective and our female lead is not yet on the scene. The probable "bad guy" is completely revealed shockingly early it seems, but maybe I need to keep reading. (And the good news is- I
want to keep reading, to find out what's really going on. You've hooked me so far-)
This bothered me, though: "In the car Langford and Ruiz speculate as to why Simmons didn't mention [Benning's absence] initially, but finally relegate it to insignificance." Really? Two veteran cops hashing out a murder decide that Simmons omitting her during their discussion is "insignificant"? It's their only lead and she's been "sick" so he just decided to forget about her completely? This is something of a "Oh, come on!" moment for me. Of course, we the audience will think this points to a cover-up by Simmons. And sure enough in the next paragraph that's revealed to be the case. It makes our cops seem a bit lacking in their deduction skills. It kind of deflates the audiences "lost in the movie" feeling when the audience surrogate- Langford- seems to act in an unbelievable way.
Also, I'm starting to notice the "novel-like" way you are writing. It's good writing, but overly descriptive and unnecessary for a treatment. The four or five sentences describing Reece and the way he walks, and what that lets on, for example. I would lose all of it. Say "An average-looking man deftly negotiates the city environment on the way to his hotel." It's a structural consideration, not a stylistic one. There's just no place for so much description in a treatment. But at least it's well-written.
Now, the hotel room scene itself is good. But- we haven't seen Benning yet, correct? So we don't know (officially) that they are talking about her (even though we saw the picture) until . . . well, I'm not sure. It's revealed to the reader but not mentioned in the action. " . . . how he knows the target, Catherine Benning." Just seemed like an odd way to reveal that. Nice job with the priest's last words though, getting around the 'no dialogue' rule of treatments effectively.
We are told about Jack's daughter briefly, how loving she is and how close Ruiz is to her . . . and I'm already worried about her. She will probably be taken hostage or outright killed, I predict. In any event she will certainly come up again, mostly likely as leverage.