Juan Andrés Alvarez J.

“THE ALVAREZ” SCRIPT COVERAGE Title: Form: Length: Writer: Genre: Sub-Genre(s): Submitted By: Location: Period: Budget: Verdict: Date Covered: SHUNGO THE SERIES Tv Series Script Screenplay / 123 pages Glo Fren & Marco Pareja Thriller Suspense | Police | Crime Glo Fren Somewhere in Latin-America 2 weeks | Present Medium Consider August 22, 2018 Logline: A young, crooked and drug-addicted police agent has been relegated to solve shitty transit crimes for his trespasses, when he stumbles upon a case that could lead to unsolved murders dating back 20 years. Could it be that he stumbled across the return of a notorious serial killer? -and- Can this be the way to redemption he has been striving for? EXCELLENT IDEA GOOD FAIR X PLOT X CHARACTERIZATION X DIALOGUE X PACE X SETTING X POOR Shungo Synopsis by Juan Andrés Alvarez J. Its night and its cold. The street is abandoned with the exception of a Food Truck. Folky Andean music comes from an old radio on the truck. A 30-year-old men in a suite, looking like shit has his eyes and consciousness lost in his smartphone. A dorky clueless fat guy in a horrible suite accompanies him. The order is ready -Two hot dogs- Fat guy starts talking while eating, revealing in the conversation that both of them are police agents off-duty - partners. Somebody is not hungry. Leonardo Larrea, a crooked, coke addicted police agent who has more important things to worry about than eating a damn hot dog stares at his phone in shock. His career is destroyed. He has been relegated to transit crimes -coming from- being one of the top agents on the force. All for his trespasses and narcissistic attitude. This guy is a disaster for the police force. He breaks every rule in the book, does things his way, cares about nothing or no one to get results and admiration and has a coke addiction acquired allegedly to infiltrate a drug cartel whom his brother -an icon in the police force- just disarmed. On top of that, he just found out on his Facebook story, that his ex-fiancé is marrying somebody else. Now his life has ended. The silence is broken. Police radio sounds – Attention! Attention! a person has been run over on the Occidental Avenue, all units nearby report – Leonardo looks up to the skies blaming the universe for his misery, takes his badge from the nasty food-trucks counter, takes the radio and exits the scene. At least this “shitty transit crime” will distract him from the tragedy his life has become. What Leonardo doesn’t know is that this is no “run over”. This is the opportunity he has been looking for years to redeem himself, but it won`t be the kind of redemption he has planned in his twisted heroic mind. Still… Leonardo arrives at the scene of the crime with an attitude. The scene is a park surrounded by some 10 angry nearby neighbours complaining about how the police does nothing on their hood. People open up as Leonardo enters and says -Good night, the police or what’s left of me has arrived. Who reported a run over? – As the scene is revealed, a corpse of a women wrapped up in plastic claims the total attention of Leonardo. This is a crime scene, and not any crime scene. For the next weeks, Leonardo follows the corpse and its clues, breaking every rule on the book and arrives at the conclusion that this is no “transit crime”, no “ordinary murder”, this is the resurgence of the most feared serial killer in the city, dating back 20 years ago. His search will lead him to join forces with a retired top police agent Coronel Roca, and his past history with the serial killer -and- a Colombian deputy prosecutor named Roxana. The events that will succeed will reveal a police cover-up, deep corruption, and a serious of killings leading to the inside of the mind of a greatly disturbed human being, that has been able to kill with no remorse or punishment for years, hidden in the dark, using death as a cleansing ritual of humanity. As days goes by, events lead to Leonardo´s arrest and escape, to Roxana kidnapping by high ranking officers and politicians; and to Coronel Roca´s only daughter being taken by the serial killer who calls himself Angel. Just when Roca and Leonardo think they have trapped Angel and found Roca´s daughter, he escapes. Leaving behind a fugitive Leonardo, a kidnapped Roxana, and a destroyed Roca whose daughter is lost and probably dead. Comments: Hi Glo! Thank you for submitting your script for review – I have to say, couldn’t stop reading it until it was done. It was quite a suspense trip all the way. Can’t wait to help you make your vision come through. So, let´s get down to it, what do you say? Let´s do it. Overall you have a strong, well written, really easy-to-read script with a good story that keeps you wanting more. I kind of see it more like a movie cut in pieces, rather than a typical suspense series. This I believe comes from the writing, structure, dialogues and the story plot of the script, which is written in kind of a slow climb to an exploding volcano scene. It´s attention to the characters details and arc through the story puts me more in the mood of feeling it as a movie, or as a Netflix original series in which the whole season can be watched complete, more than a suspense series for one episode a week. I kind of think the viewers will find themselves crying for more every time. Still, the writing allows us to meet the characters, their deepness, their motives and their struggle. So, to summarize the good in the script, you have strong lead characters, strong justified story, a “can´t stop reading” script, and a uniqueness that makes this a suspense series with a definite open opportunity to a second season, which is written like a movie cut in pieces. The uniqueness being that it is a series written as a movie. Now, there´s always room for improvement. So, what I´m going to try to do here is help you understand how the audience is going to perceive it. An audience that does not know what is going to happen the next week and have to wait. I´m also going to recommend some actionable changes for how the character presentation is going to be perceived by the viewer, without affecting them or the story, so that such a great script can be appreciated as it deserves. I´m also going to recommend the review of some important character motivations and their backstories, which I think have to be rock solid for a project like this. Finally, I´ll recommend some rewriting of the dialogues of some lead characters in some important parts of the plot, because I believe that this type of series have the potential to become cult series, and for that you need strong iconic lines that people won´t forget even if they want to. This script deserves unforgettable characters and unforgettable lines. Let´s begin with the perception of the audience and the character presentation to them, if the story is told as it is right now. In the first three episodes, you present the 3 main characters of the series. You use the first episode to present Leonardo Larrea, the lead character that through the series drives the story. This I approve of. It’s a good episode. It presents the main character in a mysterious way, leaving door for interpretation and it gives the first push to the story and the premise is set. Well done! But then in the next episode you introduce Roxana, the next supporting character and co-lead. What happens is that the lead character does not have that much presence because the point of perspective of the series changes and the story is told through her eyes. In the third episode you introduce Roca, the other supporting character, very juicy by the way, but again the same happens ant the main character is not at all moving the story along. For me as a script reader, this is fun, I get to know them, I can skip some parts to know what`s next, etc. Reading is faster. But the audience can´t do that. If I were to see this, I will get bored by episodes 2 and 3 because as artistic and unique as they are, the reality is that you only get those 3 episodes to hook the audience to your lead and to your story. So, I propose that you use the second episode to present both Roca and Roxana in a parallel story way, while the main character keeps moving the story forward, and unite the lead character with the other characters in episode 4. This will make the audiences loyalty and continuity towards watching far more likely. Other solution is to find a buyer/streaming platform that allows you to launch the whole season all episodes the same day. Now let’s analyse some of the characters. Let´s begin with the lead. Leonardo Larrea is clearly a young police agent that has been punished by the system for doing things as he thinks they should be done and taking what he thinks he deserves. He has been punished then, for being unique. I love this character; I only recommend that you work this a lot more to make this a memorable character. You know that Al Pacino characters? De Niro characters? Joaquin Phoenix or James Spader characters? It´s a very deep and damaged character, it´s obscure, it´s not likeable at first sight, it´s aggressive and narcissistic. But remember something. As much as he is an asshole, he is in a lot of pain -and- HE is the lead. Work more towards a charismatic asshole for example -or- a vulnerable asshole. Work carefully towards this character. There´s nothing that kills the audience more than a lead that´s not relatable or likeable. Find in his pain, the way to make the audience understand him, relate to him, and love him. Moving on to Roxana, I think it´s well accomplished so I´ll move on to Roca. Enrique Roca, is a retired police agent in charge of the abandoned case of a serial killer that was never captured. It´s clear to me that he has his motives to escape his past. The serial killer threatened the only thing he loves in the world, his daughter. In chapter 4, Leonardo Larrea goes to visit Roca and Roca is blinded by the truth. He tells Leonardo that he is mistaken, that it´s impossible for the serial killer to emerge again after all these years. Clearly, he is in denial, which is understandable. But in my opinion, he is too calm for what his backstory suggests when confronted with the truth that Leo brings him. It has to be clearer, that his character was once a passionate police agent that probably resents his past, and when confronted with it he has to bring to live his old self. Being that he is angry, in pain, a man of the law, ethical men, almost “I´ll do anything to catch this asshole” men. Throughout the series I feel that he is not experienced as it should be, but calm and scared of acting. This in my opinion should be clarified. Decisions towards this will make this a great character, or a forgettable character. To conclude my recommendations, let me get to what I think will change this script from great -to- IT MUST BE DONE. The dialogues. So, throughout the script you have a very smart dialogue, controlled, almost movie like. And I love it. I do. Its elegant, it’s not over the top, it allows characters to do more with actions than with words which is something I respect. Body language accounts for 90% of our communications. But what if you could spice up some lines, specially from the lead character and the spicy supporting characters around? For example, in the first episode, first scene you have the main character in a food truck in the middle of nowhere with his dorky clueless fat partner. The dialogue is awesome. Both of them have lines that define their characters and are memorable, but it stops there. Re read the script and find iconic moments that require small dialogues, but those phrases have to stay in the minds of the viewers for all eternity. How about giving it some “Say Hello to my little friend…” type of lines. What happened to those great lines? Believe me, a lot of people say that’s cliché, ITS NOT. Pop culture needs these references right now. Find 3 to 5 memorable lines for the lead, and you will make this a MUST BE DONE script.