Genre: Drama
Premise: A strange cult kidnaps a girl from a small town
and uses a local radio talk show to promote their twisted beliefs.
About: This is the duo who wrote one of my favorite
scripts from last year, “When The Streetlights Go On” (finished #2 on last
year’s Black List). Not sure if they wrote “Broadcast” before or after
“Streetlights” but if you liked that script, you’re going to be plenty
satisfied with this one.
Writers: Chris Hutton & Eddie O’Keefe
Details: 127 pages - undated
I’m still baffled by these writers. I do not believe they’re only 23 years
old. Not because the writing is so
specific or so good, but because they seem to understand things about life that
you don’t understand without an older perspective. I mean, when your generation’s most famous
singer is Justin Bieber, you don’t reference The Beatles. When you grow up during the Iraq War, you
don’t know the intricate make-up of Vietnam.
Yet these two seem to know things that are way beyond what their years
would imply. I guess they’re just old
souls. But I won’t be convinced until I
see them in person.
I mean let’s start with the first page - a centered 30
line paragraph detailing the world you’re about to be transplanted into, which
includes segments like: “The Final Broadcast takes place in an era neither here
nor there. It could be 2012 as easily as 1952. It’s a vacuum; an America that
exists only in our collective unconscious. The kind of place Edward Hopper
might have painted.”
Normally I’d slaughter writers for this. The audience can’t see this paragraph. These
aren’t titles or a voice over. It’s
never meant to be seen onscreen. So if
it’s not in the film, it shouldn’t be in the script! And yet I believe it’s
indispensible to the story. We need to
understand this world. We need to wrap
our heads around its idiosyncrasies and rhythms and tone to understand how it’s
going to play out on screen. And this
paragraph does that. So I’m in. Even though I’d never recommend anyone else
trying it.
But what really sets these two apart – and I probably
mentioned this in their last review – is how every single scene in their
screenplay feels different. Read the
first 10 pages of Broadcast for example.
We get a monologue from a “Carl Sagan Lite” character in some cheap PBS
show about the origins of the Universe.
He tells us, in no uncertain terms, that our existence is
pointless. It’s jarring, unnerving,
unsettling, and yet there’s a poeticness to it all that propels you forward.
You need to read more. You WANT TO KNOW
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT – the only thing that truly matters in a screenplay.
So what does happen next?
Well, we meet a girl named Teresa Carnegie, who happens to be the
daughter of the host of that show. She’s
watching a drive-thru movie with her friend when she’s kidnapped by some very nasty
men.
Afterwards, we run into Gary Glossup, a transplant from
the big city who’s just moved in to take over the local talk radio gig. Gary’s DJ’ing career is turned upside-down
when he receives a live call from the men who took Teresa. They call themselves “The Association” and proclaim
that the end of the world is coming.
Because the local cops are morons, Gary has no choice but
to get involved in the investigation and save Teresa, a task that’s personal to
him as he lost his own daughter many years ago.
So Gary buckles down and starts investigating the
kidnapping, which brings him to another boy who went missing some weeks back
named Billy Turman. Rumors were that
Billy was abducted by aliens. But he was
eventually found hanging from a tree during Halloween. Everyone just assumed he was a prop, until
the smell clued them in.
Gary’s helped by a strange young reporter named Claire
who happens to be in town doing a report on a rare moon eclipse. But when Gary finds out that her credentials
don’t check out, he begins to wonder if she’ telling him the truth. As the eclipse draws near, more insanity
begins to unravel, and Gary finds himself questioning everyone and everything
around him. All of this leads, of
course, to a shocking conclusion.
You know that show The Killing? You know how you’ll be watching an episode of
it and you’re wondering why the f*ck nothing is happening?? But there’s still something entrancing about
the tone and the characters that keeps you going? And since you want to find out who killed
that damn girl, you stick around? Well
imagine The Final Broadcast as the best episode of The Killing ever written
times a thousand – because it has that same kind of dark spooky tone, but it’s actually
entertaining!
And because there’s some actual urgency to it (the
eclipse – ticking time bomb!) it moves where The Killing does not. Speaking of urgency, I have to point out that
while these guys do break their share of rules, the core dramatic storytelling pillars
are in place. You have the GOAL – find
the girl. STAKES – her life, as well as
the lives of others the cult keeps kidnapping.
And URGENCY – the impending eclipse, when they promise to kill Teresa
by. So with that core there, they can go
off-book in a number of other places.
Like the way they write their scenes. I’ve been Twit-Pitch Reviewing every night and
not enough people are surprising me. I’m not talking about big surprises. I’m just saying, when you write a scene, you
have to know that TYPE of scene has been written tens of millions of times
before. So it’s ESSENTIAL you add a
minor twist or two to keep it fresh.
I was just talking about this with a professional screenwriter
the other day in fact. She had a scene that
had been in thousands of movies before but she still had to write it. Just the fact that she knew she had to
approach the scene differently put her ahead of 99% of the writers out there,
because most writers don’t think about that stuff. We talked it through and
found a few new elements which would allow her to write a unique version of the
scene, and it turned out rather well.
So here, in The Final Broadcast, we have the sort of
common “femme fatale” trope. Our hero
sees the drop-dead gorgeous stunner at the end of the bar and we’re assuming
we’re going to get that boring predictable “one-up each other” clever dialogue
laced with sexual subtext scene. Then, in the end, he’ll convince her to come
home with him. Instead, he buys her a
drink from across the bar, she walks over, hands him the drink, says she
doesn’t go out with men twice her age, and leaves. The conversation is over before it even
started.
“Hmmm,” I thought, “that’s a little different.” And the thing with this script is, it’s
packed with dozens of moments like this.
I can’t stress how important this is because it’s the
only time I truly get excited by a screenplay these days - when I’m not
sure how scenes or a story are going to unravel. That was my experience with
“Streetlights” and that was my experience here.
It’s rare that I give a writer two consecutive
“impressives” in a row. Their follow-up is
almost always a let-down. But these guys
have done it. And in many ways, this is
actually a step-up from “Streetlights.”
It’s more structured. It’s
cleaner. But it doesn’t quite reach the
heights of that script and I think it’s because there’s a lack of character
connection here. We really identified
with and bonded with the main character in “Streetlights.” Here, it’s more about the story/the plot. Luckily, the plotting and story were
top-notch, which is why this still makes the “impressive” pile. I love these writers.
[ ] what the hell
did I just read?
[ ] not for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I always say – don’t write 5-6 line
paragraphs in a screenplay. And I’ll continue
to say that until my very last script read.
However, any rule can be broken if there’s a direct correlation between
the rule and the writer’s strength. These
two are so good with prose, so smooth with their writing, that I actually
ENJOYED reading their long paragraphs, which is incredibly rare. Take for instance, this description of Gary: “He
was once a very handsome twenty-five year old.
However many years and many six-packs have softened his features a bit;
softened everything but his old school heritage and sense of resolve. He’s a
man cut from the same cloth as Newman or McQueen. The kind of guy they just
don’t make anymore.” That’s a long
freaking paragraph. But it flows so
naturally and gives you such a great understanding of the character, that you allow
it. So a big part of breaking the rules
is understanding your strengths. If you’re great at dialogue, you can get away
with 8 page dialogue scenes. If you’re
great with prose, you can write longer paragraphs. The trick is to never blindly assume you’re
good at something. Make sure you
KNOW. Because that’s the reason behind a
lot of bad writing – writers assuming they’re good at something they’re not. Play to your strengths people!