Quoted from jayrex It's okay.  Not a fan of the over use of the Narrator.  I think this was done once before in this very competition. I did wonder, Allison at 23 is in college.  Isn't that a little old for someone of 23?  Maybe she's at university?

Most 23-year-olds are roughly 23 years old.

Pretty much all politicians in the US have law degrees, which a considerable number of years beyond one's bachelor's degree.

Quoted from jayrex There's a few spelling errors in there, I'm sure someone else has mentioned them. As I don't know the parameters, this one could be the winner.  Who knows...

The parameters were posted in the voting thread.

The intro over black is a good jarring start.

Oh no. Columbine? This is well written but by focusing on this good taste is gonna be an issue. Not really sure where this is going and the narrator is getting on my nerves a bit. It could work on screen, but seems almost too concerned with drama. Not sure what he (or she) adds right now. Most of this would work just as good without it.

Making a big deal of the 2nd amendment now? Are we getting political?

Now the dude is a Russian agent? This is kinda all over the place at this point.

Getting heavy handed

What?

The end kinda lost me. Too much time spent on setup I think that culminates in a rushed ending. This really reads like it wants to be a full length story and the first and second acts just got crammed into a short. That said, the heavy handed 2nd amendment references lost me. Are we trying to make a political statement here? Guns are bad because.........

Well written no doubt. But the story choices don't really work for me here.

I gave this one high marks for (1) the scope of what the writer attempted, and (2) the degree of success he achieved.

Great story, I had no problem with the V.O. For a short with a big story it works well.

The 'weaving in and out of bookshelves' was a strange visual for me.

I liked how in the end it was an American corporate that had organized the shooting. A good take on who the real terrorists are.

Because this is seems to be a tragic love story, showing the President at his grave grieving would tie things up nicely towards the end.

Would make a good feature...

Nice Job

An ambitious and epic tale for 18 pages. We covered generations and countries.

Would like to see a lot of the narration cut out, it gets a little much after a while.

I feel this writer left nothing in the tank with this script and I'm glad he takes home the title for his efforts.

Massive congrats to both of you!

Many thanks to all who read and commented on the script.  

I have corrected all the typos and missed words – chagrined that I didn’t see them. Appreciate that peeps took the time to point them out.

Re: the 18 pages. Yes – it’s very long for a short. Partly because I struggled with the parameters. e.g:
-     Why would anyone vote for a woman who’s estranged husband was a hitman?
-     Why would the Secret Service let a hitman anywhere near a presidential candidate?
-     How is it that the husband hitman would gain knowledge of the assassination plot?

Anyway, when I started prepping, a lot of it was backstory. By the time I got to writing it, I saw no rational way not to include the backstory in order to address the above and to void a ton of WTFs?  I felt that my choices were a lot of clumsy expositional dialogue in a shorter story or a lot of narration in a longer one. Obviously, there is an ideal way that one could have been accomplished this objective without either crutch – I just didn’t think of it.  

I also wanted to write something that could be developed into a feature at some future point. I had not done that with any of my shorts and I thought this one would be a good possibility - So, it kind of ended up being somewhat of an outline for a what ultimately will be a much longer story.

In terms of a potential feature. My thinking was:
- As a premise – the different paths and life arcs taken by two involved kids involved in the Columbine shooting.  One becomes a gun control advocate and one takes the opposite direction creating friction in their lives.
- Will add balance to the debate – both sides of the issue will have a say.
- I can lose the narrator as the exposition won’t need to be delivered in that fashion.  
- The Hitman aspect will be eliminated. The soldier/sniper aspect will remain.

Basically, it would just become the life-arc of two close people that survived Columbine.  
Again – I appreciate all of the suggestions I received – many were very valuable and the ones I disagreed with certainly gave me food for thought.

This read as a feature dying from being stuffed into a short.

The issue you'd have trying to avoid becoming too preachy or over handed on the gun control debate. You'll have to be very subtle and let the story ask the questions and raise the points naturally or else I don't think it'd work well. It could be difficult to pull off, but the setup you made is an interesting one that could work.

Quoted from CameronD This read as a feature dying from being stuffed into a short. The issue you'd have trying to avoid becoming too preachy or over handed on the gun control debate. You'll have to be very subtle and let the story ask the questions and raise the points naturally or else I don't think it'd work well. It could be difficult to pull off, but the setup you made is an interesting one that could work.

I agree. Subtlety and balance are going to be the keys