Three former strippers trying to survive their last night in Sin City.

SYNOPSIS:

Three strippers work the club scene and live their lives as locals. Lisa, Miley and Jasmine's lives are all connected with the criminal activity of an Hispanic drug lord, Miguel, and his sons.

Miley has problems with men, always choosing abusive men that keep her from moving out of the Vegas life for good.

Lisa, new girl, is seduced by the dangerous life of drug abuse.

Jasmine longs for the good life of designer things and fast cash, but she searches for true love.

Fast forward two years later, and their lives run parallel, caught up in a dangerous drug family in their own separate ways. They all come together again and fall apart in a night that leads to destruction, violence and death off the strip in sin city.

Some come to Vegas for fun. Some come for a life. But does it all lead to death?

Coverage for: Off The Strip

https://www.stage32.com/profile/365232/jennifer-taylor-whitehorn

By Kennard Dru Holley

Genre: Drama Pages: 119

Logline: The lives of three strippers unfold in tragic ways as they soak up the desolation that is living in Sin City.

What I think works:

As a professional reader, I often get so turned off by formatting errors or spelling mistakes that I find it hard to continue on reading, but the dialogue, the grittiness and the absurd (Karl and friends) were all there, making this a really quick, really intense read. I was pretty much riveted the whole way through! You really owe it to this story to fix all those small errors so your story can really shine, because it was a really powerful script.

I loved the use of the desert. Most Hollywood movies don’t show you the real life of Las Vegas, and it is so HOT there! Like painfully hot, so I loved how this script used that element to create just another level of discomfort for the characters and the audience.

Though the structure took a while to get into, I actually liked it by the end! I think basing it around these women was really an interesting way to tell the story. I also like how matter of fact the women were in this. There wasn’t any melodrama here at all, all pure drama. Their dialogue and actions felt so organic to what was happening. Miley handling her ex, Lisa’s reaction to her baby being gone, Eva taking the rep for the gun shots—it just all felt so “business as usual” in the best possible way. There was such a real grittiness here, and I so appreciate not making it so over the top. Every character really had a different agenda that made them unique and distinct from each other. Well done.

And on that same point, even some of the minor characters had a nice voice to them, even Valerie, where I loved her comment about finding the mailman if Mikey didn’t get home on time. I also think that characters like Miguel, and Mikey and Kayla all sounded pretty distinct. This isn’t easy while juggling all of these characters, but it was handed very well!

What I think could use work:

PROOFREADING and FORMATTING. Don’t let this script get tossed aside for easy, silly fixes like this! There was action in dialogue and dialogue in action. Whole sections were repeated like reintroducing the leads in the dressing room (don’t do that, pick up where we left off every time. Screenplays just don’t have time for straight up repetition), and just straight up careless spelling mistakes like “topples” instead of “topless”. This is a good script, treat it like such. And don’t think people won’t pass up a good story because of these things: they will. Think about it: a writer’s tools are his/her words, you wouldn’t trust a carpenter who couldn’t use a hammer, why trust a writer who can’t wield a sentence? These things matter, and your script is too strong to let it get passed up for these things. CELTX.COM has free screenwriting software that is industry standard that if you’re not using, I suggest you do instead of these templates. Okay, rant over 

Though I thought the characters had really clear motivations for survival or making a better life for themselves, some things seem to come out of the blue. Eva’s fiancé didn’t make a lot of sense to me—was it the guy she met who wanted her to have finer things? How did she meet him? Where was he the whole time? Did he know she was a prostitute? How was she going to turn her life around so fast? This didn’t feel harbored throughout the story well. I liked that everything came together and how the characters were all linked together, but I wasn’t convinced that this relationship was legit or going to be a turning point for Eva. I’d love to see more of her and Bryan and how that relationship started/developed or at least a hint of why they would be together.

I also didn’t get why Mikey killed Miguel. It felt a little convenient that they just all died in the end, and didn’t really seem organic to the story, as I didn’t see tension between them. What happened with them? I think it had to do with Kevin and Chris, but I wasn’t certain and that part could be clearer.

And on that note, why were Kevin and Chris friends? Especially with the swastika on his neck—I didn’t get their relationship until Chris killed him—were they in jail together? I think so, because of their flashback (which was gross, and felt unnecessary in the story, not just because it was nasty, it just kind of came and went so quickly that it didn’t feel important. If a scene can be taken out of the story with NO consequences to the main action—take it out.) I wanted a little more from why they were together—was it just a work thing? Did the African American Hostess not see Kevin’s swastika tattoo? He seemed like a great character to build tension with, especially racial tension, yet his tattoo was really the only Neo-Nazi thing about him—was that on purpose? Or did I miss something? I didn’t understand their relationship and found it a bit distracting. It’s not that I think they shouldn’t be like that, I’d just like a little more of an explanation as to how they got there.

There were a lot of little conveniences that I thought were a little too easy for the story—like Mikey finding a car seat in the meth house—a man on the run with someone’s baby taking the time to install a car seat that was just sitting there didn’t really seem plausible—especially since car seats are such a pain in the butt to install, so I doubt people take them out much and leave them in the nursery, especially these ‘parents of the year’.

When introducing characters—try to introduce them with an essence of their characters and not just a physical description. Actors want real characters that have meaty roles, and describing women just by their ass or the way they look don’t lend themselves much to that. Describe her essence, weaving in physical traits that reveal more to us than just appearance. For example: MARTHA (26) a fiery red head who even makes last season’s heels look brand new, saunters in. This way we get a description and an essence of her and we can tell what she’s like, rather than strictly what she looks like. AND FYI Hollywood is getting really tired of female characters being just described by their appearance, whether they’re hot or not. It’s a big Hollywood turnoff right now—and these women are meaty roles, and more than their looks, so make sure they seem that way.

Great job though! This was a really intense, and terrifying drama (in the best way  ) Good luck with it!

JT Whitehorn

Courtney Potts

Program Manager

Writer: Kennard Dru Holley

Read by: Dawn Murrell

https://www.stage32.com/profile/478565/dawn-murrell

Genre: Drama/Action

LOGLINE: Las Vegas is the backdrop to tell the stories of three showgirls whose lives take a dark and deadly turn for the worst.

PREMISE:Off the Strip is a sad, painful, violent tale of drugs, crime lords, desperation and death. It started out a little diffrent be cause it starts out two years earlier. Where they met, then takes you two years later.

And shows you where there life ends up.Follow and you will be hooked.

This story is slick, edgy, gritty and so well-executed and orchestrated. The way you put together the connections to each girl and related them through the actions that brought them to the places they end up was absolutely brilliant. I especially loved how Karl the buzzard/vulture almost seemed like an omnipotent presence. It’s like he was the narrator illustrating in the animal world how they are like us in the human world. He was trying to eat all of the dead animals on the road and fighting to survive, just like our stripper girls and the crazy criminal minds we were following in the story. Was that the point? It was so good. I got really into it when I saw Jasmine and Maria going to the party at the Palms and finding out that Bryan and the bachelors were there too. I literally gasped at that section where Bryan got hit by the car, it was so well written! Bravo.

I am still trying to get the message or “moral” of the story and I will tell you honestly I had to read it twice to try and follow it better and understand all of the interactions clearer. I don’t know if you need to superimpose names of people in the movie but trying to follow each character’s name and how he/she relates to each other person in the story might be difficult unless the character says its name somewhere in the dialogue. I was confused who was who the first time I read it. Your character development is incredible though. I was even saying some of the Spanish dialogue in my head in a Hispanic accent which made the movie come to life for me. Each character said the things they needed to say spot on with what you needed them to be. Very hard core and sad in the way that they all had such crazy motives: drugs, power, love, money, a baby, a drug empire. Everyone seemed to be so messed up and you illustrated that so well!

THE MESSAGE: I loved the fact that Bryan, Jasmine’s fiancée was absolutely an innocent bystander and ended up being killed by Rico’s driving high before he could get the chance to marry Jasmine. So sad!!! Rico gets killed by his father Miguel because of Mikey’s master plan and Mikey is all cold blooded putting his body away, then Mikey is killed cold blooded by Miguel because of his own greed. Right? Crazy!! It really seemed like poetic justice except I didn’t like that Lisa got killed when she was about to go to rehab for her daughter. I was literally yelling at her when I saw her leaving her baby alone to go get high. Ooh!

I could assume you know about and choose to associate closely with those terms because you know about or do those drugs. Or I might assume that you cannot write in a way that a professional screenwriter would sound like because you are former addict or “tweaker” yourself. I am sure you are very educated and professional but your writing almost sounds like you are “about that life.” My suggestion is to “translate” your own words to where the ordinary joe from Mayberry or Kansas can understand it as well as somebody from Hollywood or Compton.

Proofread it over and over again. My scripts have spelling errors too so I know that we both just need to have someone edit it with a fine tooth comb until it is all perfectly punctuated grammatically and spell checked.

Always make it clear who is talking and that you can follow the complex actions of a scene. Your sluglines were great but you may need to cut out pronouns and use character names during the action of complex exchanges. If there are more than two men you just don’t know who did what or who followed who during the action statements.

READER COMMENTS: When it comes to drugs I myself truly do not know what a “bar” is or meth or a molly or SMURF. Some of those things were spelled wrong/inaccurately several times too so I was not sure if those names were street slang or not. I didn’t know what these drugs are supposed to do and how dangerous they obviously are so remember that other readers may not know either. I think your movie could do just as well or better than movies like “Crash” which won an Academy for best picture. If you could get it in the right hands that would tell a violent, grisly and contemporary story with such a strong message of drug abuse, sex and underground crime, I think Quentin Tarantino could an amazing job of directing it! I really did like this story. I love the narration by Lisa at the beginning and Karl’s finding a meal at the end. Send it out more! Be relentless!!!! You will succeed!!!

OFF THE STRIP