Publisher's Synopsis
This is the Original Television Script for the Best Selling Novel, SEE JACK DIE, written by Nicholas Black, Phillip Schenkler, and Scott Silver
BONUS: YouTube Scene Contest!
After Reading the Script, we want you to ACT out a SCENE or an ENTIRE Act and post it to YOUTUBE. Then email us! We will be showing the top 10 entries to Hollywood Executives, Actors and Producers! This is your chance to show us what you've got!
Reading a screenplay is not simply a "read", it is a reread, or a creative act, it is an engagement actively with the emotional life of these characters.
When you are reading a screenplay you have to try and experience the characters in their world. Sometimes the world itself is a character. Reading a screenplay is a visual experience, more so than a novel. To read a screenplay or script effectively you have to both see and hear the characters and keep your mind open and sensitive not just what they are doing and saying, but what is implied and suggested by their actions.
When you read from inside the story, rather than simply as an objective spectator, you can interact with the characters at nearly the same emotional level at which they are functioning.
You are truly reading a script effectively when you are able to emotionally respond to the truth of the elements that comprise the main story.
When you are trying to understand the truth of a screenplay you need to separate your own personal truths, or those that we believe society (or the imagined society) of the writer. You only need to concern yourself with the truth of the script, immersing yourself in the details and beauty of the script without letting the outside world influence and color your thoughts.
Reading a screenplay is not only an art but it can be incredibly entertaining. You must be able to both here and see what is actually occurring intellectually, emotionally, and physically within the world created by the story and writers. You can't allow yourself to assume more or less than what is written about the characters and what they are doing. You have to get rid of any personal tendencies to judge the characters based on anything other than what is actually happening in the action and dialogue that you read.
Don't think, don't hope, don't assume... Leave your expectations and prejudices on the title page. Reading a screenplay is a lot like meditation in that it will naturally occur in front of you, surrounding you, and immersing you in a new world. Screenplays and scripts are incredibly interactive in the experience leaves you inside the most intricate details of our dynamic and thought-provoking new world.
Elia Kazan once said, "the first job is to discover what the script is saying, not what it reminds you of."
You have to maintain a certain degree of emotional detachment in order to understand and analyze a dramatic script completely. It's very difficult to do, because we all have ideas and prejudices in our past that frequently help us form decisions. And that's difficult because a script is meant to be an emotional experience. Many readers respond very deeply to the emotional stimulus within a script.
Just keep in mind, a script is the expression of a story that is to be played out by its actors. A script, and in particular a story, is a carefully constructed series (Mosaic) of vivid and emotionally charged actions. These actions create change and those changes attract our attention and implore us by the very virtue of those conflicts and the significance of each event to continue to read.
I have included some basic reading tips for understanding the structure of a script. Generally speaking, a single page represents one minute of screen time. You'll find them a few pages down, just before the beginning of the script.
