Full Screenplay and Commentary

 I am now finally revealing my screenplay in its entirety. I didn't want the opening scene to have too much dialogue (there's still a good amount, since it's a dramedy and I wanted to set the humorous tone early). I timed it out so that the dialogue takes a little less than a minute. This does not include the cutaways, but I did time it out with some pauses. So here it is (some of my commentary will be between pages):

The first thing you'll notice is a change in the title. I already had the idea of a Clash song playing during the final seconds of the opening scene (the two siblings love the band), so I thought looking through their songs to find a good movie title was my best bet. And I turned out to be right, the song itself has the themes I'm looking for in my movie, with the song (alternatively titled "Stand By Me") being about sticking together through harder times (and one person not standing by the other, hence the lyrics "stand by me, or not at all"). It's a good title and a reference to a Clash song with a lot of meaning. Now, before I go on to comment on some more of my script, I need to address what my target audience is. I'm definitely trying to make it as accessible as possible, with viewers potentially able to relate to the siblings' relationship. But, I do want to zero in on those who are in their later teens to late 20s. This story really is a lot of coming-of-age, with Maya going through her own struggles and figuring out her place in the world. And the wry humor might work well for those in their late teens and all the way through to those in their 60s or 70s. There is not a specific target audience for the wry brand of humor, but it sort of contains one in and of itself. Now, back to the script:

I made sure to add some of that wry humor. I really wanted my dialogue to capture the bond between the two, so I made sure there was some sibling bickering (and by some, I mean the entire thing). I wanted them to each have their own speaking style (though they both are very sarcastic). I made it more colloquial (there is definitely some cursing) and I made sure to add some of the paralinguistic features and prosodic features during their conversation (not sorry for incorporating my AICE Language knowledge into this), but I do want my actors to naturally include some of their own tendencies when speaking. Again, I just want the conversation to be as authentic as possible. And I did take note of the way some of my Midwestern family speaks, and made some corrections according to that (the two siblings are originally from Wisconsin). 

I'm happy with how my screenplay turned out. My next step is mine-en-scene planning (mostly props and costuming), and I'll share my final storyboard later on in the week.