tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34276120285727451202024-03-14T02:38:40.552-07:00ScriptShadow: Screenwriting and Screenplay reviewsScriptshadow: Screenwriting ScreenplaysCarson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comBlogger1112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-16522442060774421742012-11-19T04:46:00.002-08:002016-06-14T19:29:45.297-07:00SCRIPTSHADOW HAS MOVED! Check out the new site here: <a href="http://scriptshadow.net/">SCRIPTSHADOW</a><br />
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<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-56891032157626215242012-11-16T01:04:00.004-08:002012-11-16T01:04:53.824-08:00Twit-Pitch Review - Ring Of LiarGenre: Romantic Comedy<br />
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Premise: (Original Twit-Pitch Logline) A lifelong bachelor accidentally proposes to his clingy girlfriend then tries to trick her into dumping him, but the tables soon turn. </div>
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About: For those recently joining Scriptshadow, I held a contest a few months back called "<a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/04/official-scriptshadow-twit-pitch-100.html">Twit-Pitch</a>," where anyone could pitch me their screenplay <a href="http://twitter.com/Scriptshadow">on Twitter</a>, as long as it was contained within a single tweet. I picked my 100 favorite loglines and read the first 10 pages of each (which I live-reviewed on Twitter), and then from those, <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/06/twit-pitch-contest-finalists-announced.html">picked the Top 20</a>, which I've been reading the entire screenplays for. Today is the final Twit-Pitch review.</div>
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Writers: Graeme McPhail & Kristoffer McKeown</div>
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Details: 105 pages</div>
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<i>James Franco for Jeff?</i></div>
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A month back, Twit-Pitch came to me and was like, "I need a vacation." I was like, "Vacation? But you only have one script review left!" "It's hard doing what I do," she told me. "Putting up my pages in front of the world, week in and week out. I need a break." So after much deliberation, I paid for Twit-Pitch to spend a month in Honalulu. She was able to relax, get some sun, and let loose a little. I figured, with that kind of rest, she'd be primed for a big return. And so here we are, with the final Twit-Pitch entry. There's an old saying that goes, "saving the best for last." Does <i>Ring Of Liar</i> give us Twit-Pitch's best? Or should she have stayed in Hawaii and left us alone forever? <br />
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Jeff Bloom is almost 30 and LOVING LIFE. He's got a cushy advertising job. He's got lots of friends. And he's got a longtime girlfriend who he hasn't had to make the big commitment to. Well, that's about to change. Sam (the aforementioned girlfriend) is ready to take that next step. She wants the house, the kids, the whole ball of wax. <br />
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Except Jeff's just fine with the wax he picks out of his ears. So he makes a tough decision. In order to avoid those dreadful wedding bells, he's going to break-up with Sam! However, he doesn't want to go out on bad terms so, before the break-up, he buys her a friendship ring (huh???). That night while Jeff is sleeping, Sam stumbles across the ring and thinks Jeff is proposing to her. Before he's even fully awake, she's calling her friends and family. "Oh my god. We're getting married!"<br />
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Jeff considers telling Sam the truth, until Sam's big scary Irish step-brother, SHAY, shows up ready to pummel anything that so much as glances at Sam. Which means, now, if Jeff breaks up with Sam, I.R.A. over here is going to give him a taste of his brass knuckles. So Jeff moves to Plan B. He'll just be the worst boyfriend ever and make Sam break up with <i>him</i>. <br />
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His first order of business is buying a dog to terrorize Sam's kitty. But it backfires when the dog and cat become best friends. He then pretends to like really kinky sex, hoping it will scare Sam away. But it doesn't. It turns her on. He even goes so far as to become a Rastafarian, something he knows Sam hates. <br />
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It's then that Sam realizes something is up. After a little investigating, she becomes keen to his plan. But instead of calling him on it, she decides to play right back. She starts tempting him with a bunch of marriage bait such as promises of 3-ways, and even pretending to win the lottery. The plan is to get him to the altar, call him out, and then leave him there, a total humiliation smackdown.<br />
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This leads to Jeff finding out that Sam is going to screw him over which leads to Sam finding out that Jeff knows she's going to screw him over, which leads to one whacked-out crazy wedding. <br />
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I remembered the first ten pages of Ring Of Liar immediately. You had this amusing guy, dribbling a basketball around his agency, trying to figure out how to market it. It was fun and promised a light-hearted marketable comedy. Unfortunately, the script didn't keep that up, and I believe it's because writers McPhail and McKeown fell into a lot of romantic comedy traps. <br />
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First, it's hard to make this kind of set-up work. You're telling the audience to root for a guy who's screwing over a girl we like. It's by no means impossible to pull this off, but I can assure you it's really hard. Why would we want to root for that to happen? <br />
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But if you are going to go with that premise, you have to commit to it 100%, and I was disappointed by how safe the writers played things. Jeff's first attempt to get Sam to break up with him involves buying a dog to mess with her cat?? I don't know. That's pretty tame. And even when Jeff tries to use sex to get out of the relationship, it's tame (he threatens to wear women's boots when they have sex?). Seinfeld had an episode with a similar premise once, and in order for Jerry to get out of the relationship, he told his girlfriend he wanted to have a 3-way with her roommate. Things backfire when both women are into it and Jerry gets cold feet. If a sit-com is pushing the boundaries of comedy further than your feature, that worries me. <br />
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The writing was also lazy in key places. For example, we go through this elaborate yet nonsensical set-up whereby to break up with Sam, Jeff decides to buy her a "friendship" ring to soften the blow. There's no way in a million years anyone would do this, so it looks super-lazy when we realize it was only so Sam could mistake the ring later on for an engagement ring. Why not have Jeff holding an engagement ring for a friend and that's the one she finds? It would've been so much smoother. You never want to be lazy around your plot-points, because that's when your storytelling has to be the most invisible. If you try to force anything during a plot point, the reader <i>will always</i> spot it. <br />
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When I really gave up, though, was when Sam decided to dual with Jeff. Not only was it not in her character to do so, but it was so far removed from what would really happen that it was impossible to go along with. I know romantic comedies are not real life - that the rom-com world is a more exaggerated world. But you have to play within the boundaries of believability. You'll find that in most great Rom-Coms, characters make logical decisions. They don't start acting wacky because it's a rom-com and in rom-coms, characters act wacky.<br />
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The character with the most potential here was Shay, the Irish step-brother. I liked how McPhail and McKeown used him to raise the stakes. If Jeff tried to get out of this relationship, he'd pay a steep price. He was easily the funniest character (his issue with horses was my favorite part of the script). I also liked the attempt by the writers to dig into Shay's character, making him afraid of girls. My problem was that it had <i>nothing</i> to do with the rest of the story. It was like this subplot occurring off on Subplot Island that didn't affect anything or anyone. Why not give Sam a female co-worker (or heck, male!) that Shay likes, and Shay needs Jeff to help him talk to her. That way, his character arc is happening within the main plot as opposed to off in the middle of nowhere. <br />
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This is another analysis I hate doing because Ring Of Liar does have a relaxed, fun feel to it. I was certainly smiling a lot. But for these types of scripts to sell, the reader has to be <i>laughing</i> a lot, and that only happened a few times. The reason for that is the underpinnings of this screenplay aren't where they need to be. You're asking us to root for someone to screw over a character we like. Your plot points are way too forced and obvious to the reader. Neither character is acting logically most of the time. Cleaning these things up is going to bolster the believability of your script so that we start caring about what's happening. With that said, comedy is the most subjective of the genres. And I<a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2011/11/shotgun-wedding.html"> have seen scripts like this sell before</a>. So maybe I'm totally wrong on this one. Ya never know. What did you guys think? <br />
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(As for the "winner" of Twit-Pitch, I'll name both him and the runner-up this weekend! :)<br />
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Script link: <a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/nvwrjw">Ring Of Liar</a><br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[x] wasn't for me</div>
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[ ] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius<br />
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What I learned: When the big problem in your comedy is set up, it's important that your characters consider the most logical solutions first. So if your character is a 10 year old boy who wakes up in the body of a 30 year old man, you have to ask, "If this happened to me, what's the first thing <i>I</i> would do?" You'd probably go to your mom, scared, and ask what's happening. Then you might go back to the machine where you made the wish to be "big" last night. See if it could turn you back. I think once you establish that your character tried all the logical avenues, you can start playing with the more ridiculous ones. So if you want your girlfriend to break up with you, is the first thing you do really going to be to buy a dog to scare her cat? Come on. I would probably leave messes all over the apartment, leave the bathroom seat up, play video games all day, pretend I got fired from my job, make a list of everything that pushed my girlfriend's buttons and do all of them. It just didn't feel like the writers treated this situation logically so I never bought into it. <br />
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<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-164553359483711982012-11-15T04:46:00.001-08:002012-11-15T04:56:50.825-08:00Movie Review - SkyfallGenre: Action<br />
Premise: When a former MI:6 agent-turned-hacker starts hunting James Bond's boss, M, Bond will have to turn back the sands of time to save her, as well as himself.<br />
About: Bond is back! And in an unconventional choice, the director of American Beauty, Sam Mendes, is at the helm. Turns out all it took was a chance encounter with Daniel Craig at a party and for Craig to ask, "Fancy doing the next Bond?" and that was it - Mendes was in. That's the secret to success in this industry. It's not about spending millions of hours practicing your craft. It's about practicing how to get Daniel Craig to ask you if you'd fancy doing the next Bond. Don't you guys know this? -- Skyfall has already made 2.5 trillion dollars at the box office and, from my understanding, they're going to use the profits to build a life-size diamond replica of the abandoned island featured in the movie which they will name "Diamonada Island."<br />
Writers: Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and John Logan (based on characters created by Ian Fleming).<br />
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"Boring."<br />
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"<i>James</i> Boring."<br />
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Oh calm down. I'm just kidddd-ing. Okay, so I'm only half-kidding. I mean let's be real - Daniel Craig doesn't exactly exude personality. And extended periods of his huffy brooding stares can make a man lose faith in the entertainment spaceship. I know we've graduated from the wise-cracking winking-at-the-audience Bonds of the past, but it wouldn't hurt to loosen up a little bit, would it? It's hard to identify and care for a hero who's <i>sooooo</i> guarded. <br />
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With that said, this had to be one of the wackier Bond films I've ever seen. In fact, I was just telling someone, "That didn't feel like a Bond film at all." Yet I was <i>mostly</i> entertained. And I say "mostly" with reservations because there were long stretches of this script where not much happened. Most of the good stuff came from the bad guy, played by Javier Bardem. Yeah, Bardem's played versions of this character before. But he's such a blast to watch that you went along with it anyway. <br />
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Although here's the thing with Bardem's character. Even though he ignited the film, he kind of tainted it also. I don't know what movie he thought he was in, but it definitely wasn't the one I'd been watching for the previous hour. Since the dawn of Daniel Craig Bond, the Bond character is more serious, the Bond tone is more serious, and the Bond <i>villains</i> are more serious. So to see Bardem play this creepy broad 80s Bond villain, I thought I'd been slipped whatever drug Mendes was on when he conceived of that opening title sequence. <br />
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And that wasn't the only time I confused Skyfall for an acid trip. Mendes brought a more "artsy" vibe to the series, and decided to turn Bond into poetic opera as opposed to hard core action. The Shanghi high-rise assassination sequence was a personal fave, with all the neon lights dancing along the endless panes of glass. I'm not sure why Bond sat there and watched a man assassinate his target before doing anything - but why should that matter when there's an 80 foot digital jellyfish swimming around behind him??? <br />
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Screenplay-wise, I'm not sure what to make of Skyfall. The pacing never felt quite right, and instead of past Bond films where a writer would solve a problem with an over-the-top action scene, Mendes solves his problems with slow deliberate talky scenes. I mean yeah, it's sexy watching a Bond girl shave Bond in a backlit apartment terrace in some strange beautiful country, but do we really need that scene? Doesn't it bring the movie to a screeching halt? (note: I've been told by Bond-heads that this woman's later name-reveal is a big deal - still, you could've done a lot more with her than this scene) There were numerous moments like this, where I said, "Let's see some action! Let's see some fun! This is Bond!" When the annoying little douchey youngster dude tells Bond that they don't do exploding pens anymore, I was like, "WHY NOT???" When I was a kid watching Bond films, I <i>liked</i> those exploding pens! Are you telling me now we're too good for exploding pens?? <i>Humph</i>. <br />
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Anyway, I'm going off book here, so maybe I should get to the plot. I'm excited to report that I was able to follow the entire plot of Skyfall! The reason for my enthusiasm is that I wasn't always clear on the happenings of the last two Bond films, particularly Quantum Of Solace. At one point I remember thinking Bond's goal was to visit as many countries as he could before the end of the week. The Amazing Race meets Goldeneye. Here, they did a much better job of keeping the plot clear, even if they took their precious time between actual plot points.<br />
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Skyfall starts out with a brilliant hacker who manages to get his hands on an MI:6 operative's hard drive which happens to be carrying the identities of every major MI:6 agent embedded in terrorist cells around the world. This playful little programmer decides to start releasing these men's identities on Youtube every week five at a time. If they don't find him soon, more and more of these superstar agents will die.<br />
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Bond, who's been weakened by a mission-gone-bad, probably isn't the one to be put on the job, but finds himself on it anyway because...well because if he wasn't, we wouldn't have a movie and Sam Mendes would have to film a bag blowing in the wind for 120 minutes. Hmm, come to think of it, Javier Bardem giving the rat monologue to that blowing bag would've been a hell of a scene. <br />
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So Bond finally finds this do-badder who turns out to be a former agent, Silva, who's since gone rogue. But Silva's not really in it for the exposing of agents, like we initially thought. That was just a ploy to get their attention. What he <i>really</i> wants to do is kill Bond's boss, M, for leaving him to die in the field and forcing him to get some serious dental work afterwards that MI:6 did NOT cover. <br />
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With Bond and M outmatched in the modern world due to Silva's technological superiority, Bond makes the call to go "back in time" to his childhood foster home where he and M will wait out Silva and force him to take them down without a single computer chip or text message. <br />
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So, what can we learn from the screenwriting here? Well, the most pronounced aspect of the screenplay was the focus on theme. The writers really pushed the "Everybody gets old" stuff, and while I found it admirable that theme took such prominence in a Bond screenplay, I'm not sure I agreed with the theme they chose to explore. Bond getting old? Bond is <i>eternal</i>. The guy's had, what, 20 movies? He's like the Simpsons or South Park. He will <i>never</i> age! So I just found it to be a curious choice. In addition to that, they pushed the theme way too hard in the opening act (every other scene was about Bond getting older) and it added even more darkness to a franchise that already had its feet firmly planted in darkness. <br />
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You'll notice, however, that the script really started to pick up upon the arrival of Silva, and not just because Javier Bardem is a great actor, but because now we had a <i>face</i> to the villain. Until that point, the characters spent most of their time having quiet conversations in big rooms about "who could this mysterious person be?" It got tiresome and the writers didn't move that part of the story along nearly fast enough (see above - chick shaving James Bond's face). <br />
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But once Silva was in the picture, his goal of killing M FORCED Bond and the agency to work faster. Gone were talky scenes in rooms, replaced by real honest-to-Goodness action. That's what we came to see! And look, I know you have to use the first half of your script to set up a lot of these second and third act scenes. The scene where Bond and Silva engage in a game of "who can shoot the glass off the hot girl's head first" succeeded mostly due to the earlier Bond scene where he struggles during target practice. But there's ALWAYS a way to move things along faster. You can combine scenes, cut scenes, accelerate scenes. I just felt they were taking too much time. <br />
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Having said that, I was surprised at my reaction to Bond revisiting his childhood foster home. The thing about these Bond movies has always been that Bond is a blank slate. He doesn't have "issues" and "troubled backstory." He just kicks ass and beds women. I know they've changed that with the re-boot into "Breaking Bond," but this was the first time where I actually felt some depth to the character. And I kind of dug it! For once Bond felt human, and that made me want to root for him more. He was one of us. <br />
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Unfortunately, I don't think that final sequence worked as well as it could've. If they're giving you 200 million dollars to make a film, your set pieces better be big and they better be unique. I mean that's the whole point of having that kind of money - you can do whatever you want. Bond using a bulldozer to reattach a train car so he doesn't lose the target? That's something I hadn't seen before! A villain inhabiting a deserted city island? Hadn't seen that either! People using mirror tricks to shoot the bad guys invading their farm? I've seen that plenty of times. I'm not saying it was bad. It worked for the film. But this is Bond. I wanted something more...betterish.<br />
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As you can see, this movie perplexed me. I liked it, it lost me, I liked it, it lost me. I felt a little bit like that 80 foot jellyfish, which is a good analogy because Bond 23 chose to swim where past Bond films would've run. And that was sorta cool, if a little confusing. Skyfall doesn't hold up to my nostalgic memories of the Roger Moore Bond years, but of the three Daniel Craig films, I believe this one to be the best, if only because of its unique unexpected tone.<br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just watch?<br />
[ ] wasn't my kind of movie<br />
[x] worth the price of admission<br />
[ ] impressive<br />
[ ] genius
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What I learned: Don't overstate your theme. Usually we're talking about writers <i>not</i> having a theme. But it's almost as bad if you're overstating your theme - if every scene, characters are hammering it home to the audience. "You're getting old, Bond." "It might be time to retire." "It's a young man's game, Bond." Oh, here comes the super-young handler dude to remind us how old Bond is again! For theme, you usually wanna go with one scene (sometimes two) that states your theme out loud and then try and subtly weave it into the rest of the film underneath the surface. <br />
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<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-59945735258451444252012-11-14T03:43:00.004-08:002012-11-14T03:52:06.741-08:00Screenplay Review - SomniaGenre: Horror<br />
Premise: When a grieving couple adopts a young boy, they soon learn that his dreams manifest themselves into reality. <br />
About: This script finished high on this year's <a href="http://bloodlist.com/">Blood List</a>. It appears that the writers are just now starting to make some noise. They wrote and are directing a feature called "Oculus" in which two sibling orphans witness a haunted mirror killing someone - a murder the young brother is charged with. Looks like these two like orphans!<br />
Writers: Mike Flanagan & Jeff Howard<br />
Details: 114 pages - February 7, 2012 draft<br />
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Were tears shed during my reading of Somnia? I will neither confirm nor deny this rumor. I will confirm this though - Somnia is probably the best straight horror script I've read since The Ring. Just when I was ready to declare the death of intelligent horror, this comes around. Actually, I wouldn't call Somnia "intelligent" so much as well-crafted. Nobody <i>crafts</i> horror screenplays any more. They just slap together a bunch of creepy-looking children or old women who move in that creepy herky-jerky motion and expect us to shell out big bucks. Why would we do that? You haven't given us anything new and you haven't given us anything deep. <br />
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I mean seriously - creepy imagery is going to compose of 10, maybe 15 pages of your script. What's happening during the other 100 pages? You need to build a story with characters we care about going after things we care about, and present it in a way that's relatable but unique. Not an easy task by any means but I can tell you this - putting forth the effort is the first step. If you treat your horror script with the same kind of love and attention that you would a drama -- making sure every single emotional beat is played just right -- then you've quadrupled your chances of writing a good horror flick because most horror writers don't care about depth. <br />
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Somnia is about a kid, Cody. He's six years old and an orphan. He's actually had a couple of sets of foster parents already but neither set worked out (for mysterious reasons). Enter Mark and Jessie, a young and eager-to-adopt couple who unfortunately experienced a horrible tragedy. Their son, Sean, drowned. Finally, after a couple of years of mourning, they're ready to move on, and adopting Cody is a big part of that process. Is it a little freaky that they're adopting a boy who's the same age as their dead child? Yeah. But both parents have good intentions. Well, at first anyway.<br />
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The couple quickly learn that Cody doesn't like to sleep. In fact, he stashes soda and sugar in a secret box underneath his bed so he can stay awake. At first it seems like a minor quirk Mark and Jessie have to deal with. I mean foster children aren't exactly known for being trouble-free. But then things start getting weird. For example, Cody loves butterflies. And when he sleeps, butterflies start appearing all around the house. Hmmm...<br />
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Then, one night, after Cody sees a picture of Sean, Mark and Jessie are shocked to see, in their bedroom, SEAN! Like, ALIVE! Well, kind of alive. He looks just like he did in the picture, unmoving. But he's there, in 3-D. <br />
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The next day Jessie puts 2 and 2 together. Their new little boy can manifest his dreams into reality. This gives Jessie all sorts of ideas, so she starts showing Cody some home movies of Sean. Sure enough, that night, Sean shows up! <br />
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Marc, being the more psychologically stable of the two, realizes that this is so not okay and encourages Jessie to stop trying to recreate their dead son through their new son. But Jessie's already hooked on this creepy version of Tivo. Unfortunately, it isn't just dead sons that manifest themselves in Cody's dreams. It's this really freaking scary-ass monster dude called "The Canker Man." The Canker Man is thin and tall and toothless and moany and really f*cking f*cked up! Like he eats people n shit!<br />
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Things start getting worse not just at home but at school since Cody can only go without sleep for so long. I did read an article once about this Vietnam man who claims to have not slept in 40 years. Oh, and I saw a Dateline Special (is Dateline ever not special?) about this family who had this super unique genetic mutation that made it impossible for them to sleep once they reached a certain age. And they went into detail about how if you don't sleep for a week, you start turning into a zombie. It becomes impossible to think. And then after a couple of months your brain pretty much turns to mush. The point being that Cody's going to fall asleep sooner or later. And when he does, nobody in his life is going to be safe. Cause the Canker Man is coming to get them. <br />
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With these horror scripts, I'm always looking for an emotional component, some "in" I can latch onto so I care about the characters. Of course, you're trying to do that in every script, but I think it's especially important in horror scripts because it's the difference between the scares feeling cheap and the scares feeling <i>deep</i>. The more we care about the characters, the more we'll fear for them, and by association, the more we, ourselves, will be afraid! <br />
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You do this by establishing strong relationships with characters who have [typically] troubled backstories. In this case we have Cody, who's had to go through all sorts of shit including being left by his real parents <i>and</i> two sets of foster parents. On the other side of the fence, we have this couple who lost their son to a terrible tragedy. In other words, we have two very sympathetic situations, and audiences/readers latch onto and care about people they sympathise with. By pairing these sympathetic entities together, you establish a dynamic that we want to see work.<br />
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To keep us invested, this opening is followed by a mystery phase where we get the feeling there's something wrong with Cody. He smuggles sugar under his bed so he doesn't have to sleep. Butterflies appear whenever he goes to bed. Then there's that whole opening scene where his last foster-parent tried to shoot him. What's going on?? We want to find out! <br />
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Now truth be told, it's not that difficult to write the above. I wouldn't say it's "easy" because a lot of young screenwriters still haven't learned how to make their characters sympathetic. But most professional screenwriters can achieve this opening. Where I realized that this wasn't just another script was when Jessie started using Cody to see her dead son. Now we were introducing a dynamic I haven't seen in this kind of story before. Most writers would've stopped at just "kid projects crazy spooky shit when he's asleep" and called it a night. Here the writers utilize pre-established emotionally-charged backstories (the loss of their child) to twist the story in a new direction. I sat up after that and said, "Oh. OKAY. These guys are <i>writers</i>."<br />
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And they continued to deliver. I loved all the little touches they added. For example, Cody's love of butterflies plays prominently whenever he's dreaming. But whenever he gets mad or upset or sad, butterflies become these dark gray musty moths that tease the arrival of the Canker Man. Now was the Canker Man the most original monster I've ever seen? No. But like a lot of things here, he was just different enough to make it feel fresh.<br />
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Now I'm not going to spoil the ending but for me that's what put this over the top and into the "impressive" category. I always tell writers that if you really want to impress a reader, write something that connects with them on an emotional level. I'm not talking melodrama here. I don't mean go write a sequel to The Notebook. I just mean make us care for the characters and want to see their issues resolved. When we find out what happened to Cody and why he's like the way he is, I'm not going to lie, I choked up a little bit. It was powerful stuff. And that moment stemmed directly from the writers going that extra mile and making this more than a screenplay full of empty scares (like <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/11/screenplay-review-stephanie.html">some other scripts I've reviewed recently</a>).<br />
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So yeah, I thought this was really good stuff. Nice to see some great writing in the horror genre. I've been looking for a script like this for awhile!<br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[ ] wasn't for me</div>
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[ ] worth the read</div>
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[x] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: <i>Don't fall in love with your clever 3rd Act explanation</i>. The only complaint I had about Somnia was that the writers were too on-the-nose with their final act Cody explanation. It was a good explanation. I actually loved it. But it felt like they <i>knew</i> it was good so they <i>really</i> - <i>hammered</i> - <i>it home</i>. "And it's because <i>A</i> happened to you that <i>B</i> happened to you which is why <i>C</i> and that's why you're going to be okay now, Cody!" I think you have to give your audience more credit. They like connecting the dots themselves. If you have to spell it out for them, they'll feel cheated and pandered to, and that can actually ruin a solid ending. Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-5685808234308478072012-11-13T17:55:00.002-08:002012-11-13T20:19:25.624-08:00Yay! Sanctuary sells!!!For those who missed it, <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/11/cool-new-script-out-on-town-sanctuary.html">I was excited about a big script that I thought could become the next Matrix</a>, with a supernatural twist. After going into all the studios last week, <a href="http://www.deadline.com/2012/11/joel-silver-finds-sanctuary-at-paramount/">Joel Silver picked it up as his first non-WB deal</a>. Alex Heineman, who works with Silver, championed the project. Really excited. This project could not only be amazing - but spawn a hell of a franchise (pun was not intended - I swear!). I'm still a little bummed that I couldn't be part of it but very pumped for the writer. :)Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-67126623557503523502012-11-12T21:58:00.000-08:002012-11-12T22:08:41.496-08:00Screenplay Review - Giant Monsters AttackGenre: Comedy-Drama-Supernatural<br />
Premise: A boy and his father move to Tokyo only to learn that it's routinely invaded by giant monsters set on destroying the city. <br />
About: Lawton has been working in the industry for a long time and is best known for writing "Pretty Woman," or more specifically, the dark spec draft titled "3000" that would eventually become the playful romantic comedy, "Pretty Woman." Since then he's worked on a ton of things, including creating the Pamela Anderson TV show, "VIP. " This script landed on the 2007 Black List, although I believe this is an updated draft. Lawton appears to be a guy who likes to experiment. He avoids the more traveled path, as evidenced by today's script.<br />
Writer: J.F. Lawton<br />
Details: 130 pages<br />
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<a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/11/amateur-friday-zombie-reserection.html">Friday's script</a> was offensive. <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/11/screenplay-review-back-east.html">Yesterday's script</a> was boring. Today's script is racist. Script reading is like a box of choc-co-luts. You never know what you're gonna get. Okay okay, maybe "racist" is going a little far. But to assume that our neighbors in the far east must deal with giant monsters constantly invading their cities because <i>they're Japanese - </i>I'm thinking somebody out there's going to be offended by that. It's not me. But somebody. <br />
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On the plus side, the idea here is beautifully original. When you're searching through hundreds of loglines, you're always looking for the one idea that stands out, that promises a unique voice, that clearly states, "Hey, I'm different from everyone else," - because the truth is, 99% of us are the same. We're rehashing the same ideas with the same characters and the same plots. Doesn't mean we can't become professional writers if we master those elements. But for script readers, the true gems are the scripts that don't sound or read like anything else, and I think it's pretty safe to say that a script about a father and son who move to Tokyo only to find that the city is overrun by giant monsters is a unique script. <br />
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William Smith works in upper management at your standard Fortune 500 tech company. Unlike most characters we meet in this situation, however, William <i>loves</i> his job. But what he's really excited about is a Japanese company he just convinced his bosses to buy. It's the kind of acquisition that, if it turns out how he thinks it will, will solidify his standing in the company and lead to that big promotion he's been anticipating.<br />
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Well that promotion - if you want to call it that - comes sooner than expected. Turns out the company they just bought is falling apart! And it's William's job to go over there and fix it. Or else the only promotion he's going to be getting is the one to the front of the unemployment line. So he grabs his energetic son, Johnny, and the two fly to Tokyo.<br />
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They immediately meet Seiji, William's passive-aggressive handler. Seiji likes to say things like, "It's alright, Smith-san. We consider all Westerners to be barbarians. You will be cut considerable... if I may say... slack. Johnny-san will have time to adjust." "Barbarians?" "I mean it in a good way. Your most modest effort to adapt will be met with accepting amusement. Please follow me." <br />
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Before they even have time to grab their luggage, however, a giant monster named Mongomash comes stumbling towards the airport, destroying everything in sight. Within a few short minutes, William learns why their new acquisition is struggling. It's not because of TPS report mismanagement. It's because giant monsters are constantly destroying all their factories! <br />
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While Johnny seems to think this is the coolest thing ever, William is justifiably freaked out. But it's about to get weirder. Once they reach their new home, they're met by a couple of female ninja neighbors, one of them Johnny's age. And then there's a samurai waiting outside (complete with badly dubbed English) who declares it his duty to always keep Johnny safe. <br />
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So Johnny goes off to school and William goes off to work, trying to solve this giant monsters destroying factories problem. The big (no pun intended) issue seems to be Cyclotron, an angry reckless monster who likely doesn't have any specific issues with William's company, yet reeks a ton of collateral damage whenever he goes out on one of his morning rampages. If William has any chance at saving his company, he's going to need to kill Cyclotron.<br />
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And they really only have two options to achieve this. The first is to use one of the company's giant robots to fight off Cyclotron. The other is to send Johnny to Monster Island so he can ask Megamonster to come back and take down Cyclotron. Megamonster loves kids but is apparently sick of helping every little boy and girl who asks for safety from some new giant monster, so convincing him is going to be difficult.<br />
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The stakes are pretty high because if William doesn't figure this out, he'll have to limp back to America with nothing to his name, bringing Johnny with him, who's become so in love with Tokyo that he can't imagine leaving. Well Johnny, you better display some hard core convincin' skills then, cause without Megamonster, your chances of defeating Cyclotron are slim. Says the guy who knew nothing about giant monsters before reading this script. <br />
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I liked "Giant Monsters Attack" immediately. And I actually read it without knowing J.F. Lawton wrote the thing. I thought this was some crazy young writer trying to make a name for himself, not a veteran who had carved himself a place in spec lore with a script 20 years ago. I mean if you had told me the writer of "Pretty Woman" had penned this script, I would've told you you were nuts. And yet I was stoked when I found out. What writers out there, particularly writers of famous romantic comedies, are trying to push the boundaries of their writing 20 years later with totally out-there concepts?<br />
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Besides the neat premise, I loved the sweetness Lawton established with the father-son relationship - how they were going off on this journey together and how their individual happiness was dependent on one another. I also loved the clever little ways he would explain the absurdity of what we were witnessing. For example, we needed a reason for why nobody in America knew about these giant monsters. Lawton has one of the characters explain that Japan has been sending out giant monster reenactments to America in the form of documentaries for years, but apparently the Americans mistook them for entertaining TV shows. <br />
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The structure for Giant Monsters Attack is quite solid. Our main character, William, has a clear goal - to stop Cyclotron before he destroys the company. The stakes are his job and therefore his family's livelihood. And the urgency is that Cyclotron is going to strike again soon. So they have to act fast. Characters are always doing things here - going after things - so the script, the first half especially, is always moving along, which is what a well-structured screenplay needs to do.<br />
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The problem is Lawton falls too in love with his idea. Once William sets off to build a new robot to kill Cyclotron and Johnny heads off to recruit Megamonster, the script, speaking of monsters, becomes a bit of a Jeckyll and Hyde act. The big mistake in my eyes was the inclusion of the bandit subplot. Johnny has to battle these rogue bandits while on his journey to Monster Island. The problem was...WHO CARES ABOUT THESE BANDITS??? They don't have anything to do with the plot. They were a random speed bump that destroyed any momentum the script had. <br />
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I see this sometimes - a writer including a subplot that doesn't need to be included. You especially have to be wary of these in a script that's 130 pages long. If your script is 130 pages long, stuff needs to be cut out, and the whole bandit thing, particularly because the bandits were so disconnected from the rest of the story, would seem like an easy cut.<br />
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Unfortunately, this drifty approach of focusing on things that didn't need focusing on continued. William's storyline with the construction of a new robot really started to go off the rails, at one point including a secondary character being an alien-in-disguise with a secret master plan. It was there that I confirmed the second act had gotten away from Lawton. <br />
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The second act is so key because it's the biggest act by far and therefore the easiest to get lost in. If you're not on top of your game - if your characters aren't constantly targeting specific goals and objectives that are <i>plot-relevant</i> - pretty soon you're going to be writing vague scenes with unmotivated characters talking about stuff that doesn't tie in with your story. When William went off to ask the old boss how to build the perfect robot, that's where I gave up. I mean it was fine. The character was still pushing towards his goal. But at a certain point, you have to move your story along, not have your character searching days for a solution.<br />
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Despite all that, I still recommend this script because it's funny, it's original, it's got charm, and I loved the father and son characters. If Lawton could tighten the plot up, I would LOVE to see what a director like Spike Jonez could do with this. <br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[ ] wasn't for me</div>
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[x] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: Avoid throwing subplots into your second act unless they're 100% relevant to the plot. For example, the bandits. If those bandits would've been, say, working for our villain, Senjei, their inclusion would've made a lot more sense. Instead they were random obstacles with no real connection to the story, making defeating them seem irrelevant to the reader. Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-8285317942648891672012-11-11T22:28:00.000-08:002012-11-11T22:46:09.846-08:00Screenplay Review - Back EastGenre: Drama<br />
Premise: A young writer, sick of the LA scene, decides to head home to Connecticut, but when his car breaks down in a nowhere town, he befriends a young woman, on her way to LA with her boyfriend, and starts to fall for her.<br />
About: Did you know that the Whedon family is full of screenwriters? Their dad was a screenwriter. Their grandfather was a screenwriter. Joss, of course, is a screenwriter. And then they have another brother who's a screenwriter, in addition to Zack here. Imagine the Thanksgivings at that place. You wouldn't be able to get a turkey leg without establishing a character flaw for the stuffing. Zack has worked on a lot of TV shows including Deadwood, Rubicon, and Fringe. This is one of his earlier efforts, which landed on the bottom half of the 2007 Black List.<br />
Writer: Zack Whedon<br />
Details: 91 pages<br />
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Back in the day, I used to be a lot more open to down home simple character pieces - stuff like "Beautiful Girls." Remember that movie? A guy comes back home and has to deal with a bunch of "home-like" shit. It's relatable. It's identifiable for writers especially. It's one of those stories you can imagine yourself reading by the fire with a glass of wine (even though I don't drink wine).<br />
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But the more screenplays I read, the more I realize how "non-movie-like" these types of scripts are. That's not to say they shouldn't be purchased or made. It's just that movies work best with stuff that's actually - well - <i>moving</i>. And these stories don't move. <br />
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Most people go to the movies to see things a little more exceptional than everyday life. When you get to a movie and all you see is characters sitting around talking about life, in the back of your head you're thinking, "Can't I get this back home with my family and friends?" What is it about this movie that's different? That necessitated you leave your home? I'm not saying everything has to be James Bond. But these simple character pieces have to be almost perfect to work - like American Beauty. And finding another American Beauty is like finding a brad in a studio garbage dump. <br />
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Having said that, a part of me still has a soft spot for these scripts. I still wanna find that golden character-driven brad. There's something beautiful about the drama of everyday life, that if you can capture it, people will relate to it and allow it to impact their lives. That's what I was hoping to find when I opened "Back East." I mean, there's some strong screenwriting pedigree here, so you figure it has a shot to kick butt, right?...<br />
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William is 24 years old and lives in LA. I think he's a writer but Whedon never really makes that clear. Whatever the case, he's having a tough go at the whole LA thing. You get up. It's 70 degrees out. You go to a job you hate to make money so you can write, you go back home. You're tired. You wanna go to bed. But you know you have to write. But it would be so much easier to just go to sleep now and write tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow will be the day. That's when you're going to write 50 pages! Tomorrow it is. Today is a day of rest (none of this is actually in the script - I'm assuming that's what's going on in William's head though cause he's a writer). <br />
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William is tired of pretending tomorrow's going to be the day though. He wants to go home. Back to Connecticut. Back east. So he grabs all his stuff and begins the cross-country trek. Somewhere between point A and point B, though, his car breaks down, and he gets towed to a little nowhere town called Dry Lake by an 80 year old grouchy mechanic named Jeffrey. <br />
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It isn't until they get to town that Jeffrey tells William he's retired, and that if William wants his car fixed, he'll have to fix it himself. Jeffrey will give him some guidance, but he's too old to be doing any physical labor. Great, William thinks. Like most upper white class offspring, he doesn't even know how to change windshield wiper fluid. How the hell is he going to fix a car? <br />
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However, it's not all bad. While hanging out at the local hotel, he meets a beautiful young lady named Tamara. Tamara's fun and flirty and up for having a good time. But she's also with her boyfriend. The two are traveling the opposite direction, going from the East coast to LA. Our aforementioned boyfriend, the perpetually angry "Evan," notices this little flirty friendship developing between Tamara and William, and does everything in his power to stop it. <br />
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And this is pretty much how the next three days go down. William goes over to Jeffrey's body shop to work on his car, then comes back to the hotel where he repeatedly runs into Tamara. The two run off to flirt with each other but never quite take it to an inappropriate level. However it's clear that that's exactly where William wants to take it. In fact, he really likes Tamara, which means he's gotta find a way to somehow steal her from Evan and get her to come back to the very place she left so they can be together. <br />
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Well, I wanted something simple. AND I GOT IT!<br />
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Really simple. Dangerously simple. <br />
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But was it good simple?<br />
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I'll say this. The first half of this script was boring. And it clearly stood out as one of those early efforts we're all familiar with reading. You know what I'm talking about. The story tends to be personal, maybe even autobiographical. The writer uses huge paragraphs detailing things that <i>soooo</i> do not need to be detailed. Like strapping up the car to the tow mechanism. Like getting out, walking over, opening the garage, and pulling the car in. I think young writers believe they're keeping it real by putting a spotlight on the mundane, but all they're really doing is boring us. I don't need to know how the strap is hooked up to the car when someone's towing it. Just get us to the next scene where, hopefully, something interesting happens. <br />
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You also see the occasional camera action: "Track in extremely slow." And at least one character will be introduced sans capitalization, making us wonder if they were introduced beforehand and we missed it, so we go back and check and find out they weren't, annoying the hell out of us. The thing is, all these little "first effort" flags pop up and it sucks because you out yourself as a beginner, lessening your credibility to the reader, resulting in them trusting you less. Which is why even though these are all ultimately unimportant things, tallied together they do have an effect on the read, whether fairly or not. <br />
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I think what surprised me was that "Back East" eventually won me over. If you're going to write a simple story based around a few characters, you better have some lights-out character development. The first half of the script didn't have any. Even the character who had the most potential for depth, Jeffrey, was being used as a sort of quasi comedic sidekick. <br />
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But once Whedon started capturing the loneliness of that character, and William fixed his car on his own, helping him realize how capable he really was (and thus, the emergence of a character arc), the script came to life, as if the entire time it was hiding in the bushes, waiting for the right time to strike. I mean, it wasn't world-changing or anything. I thought all of that could've been explored way deeper (and earlier), but at least now the script was breathing. <br />
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Strangely, the second half of the Tamara/William relationship was also way better than the first half. (Spoiler) Once the relationship got to that "all or nothing" point, where a decision had to be made, I was genuinely curious which man Tamara was going to choose. And more importantly, I wanted it to be our protagonist, which meant that Whedon had done his job of getting me to care about our tow leads.<br />
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But in the end, this script runs into the very problem I brought up initially. It's fun. It's cute. It's fine. But that's all it is. It isn't a movie people are going to grab their friends over and say, "We gotta go see this!" or "We gotta rent this!" It just doesn't carry that kind of excitement behind it, which is why the script can end up on the Black List but that's where it stops. Managers and agents can't do anything with it beyond that. <br />
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The only way these scripts tend to get sold/made is if the script is impeccable (American Beauty) or if the writer is also the director and scrapes up the money to shoot the film himself (Garden State). I thought Back East was cute. But I didn't see anything beyond that.<br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[ ] wasn't for me</div>
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[x] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: If you're new to screenwriting and you have access to somebody who reads in the industry, have them read your script and ask if there are any telltale "early effort" signs. If you don't have that access, take note of some of the ones here: 1) Really basic semi-autobigrophical story, usually about a guy disenfranchised with life (and at only 24 years old!!!) 2) camera directions. 3) lingering on mundane unimportant shots for too long. 4) huge paragraph chunks that could easily be cut by 75% and lose nothing. 5) lots of extremely basic dialogue scenes with no real tension or suspense - it's more about the characters trying to be cute and quirky. --- There are, of course, more of these signs (and feel free to list them in the comments section). But this is a good starting point. Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-84749194427457954892012-11-08T18:42:00.002-08:002012-11-09T01:06:36.354-08:00Amateur Friday - Zombie ReserectionGenre: Horror-Comedy<br />
Premise: (from writer) When an experimental male-enhancement drug turns all the men in town into sex-crazed zombies, it's up to a rag-tag band of women to survive the assault and stop the epidemic from spreading.<br />
About: This was a holdover from last week where we chose a group of amateur scripts based on<i> <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/choose-next-weeks-amateur-scripts-to.html">this post</a>. </i>I ended up moving things around so we could get that <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/screenplay-review-alfred-hitchcock-and.html">Hitchcock script</a> reviewed on Halloween, but now the Res-<i>erection</i> has arrived. And I don't think any of you are ready for it. <br />
Writer: Phil Laaveg<br />
Details: 93 pages<br />
Staus: Available<br />
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I feel a little dirty. No, I feel <i>a lot</i> dirty. I feel like bathing in the saliva of chipmunks for a week. I feel that being a man is wrong somehow after reading Zombie Reserection. Of all the first 10 amateur pages laid out for Scriptshadow readers last week, Reserection got the most attention. People said the dialogue snapped. They said the writing crackled. They said of all the choices, this is the one that popped the most. <br />
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Of course, it just had to be the script about men growing large zombie penises and trying to rape all the women in town. Sheeshkabob. What am I supposed to do with that?? Okay okay, I'm going to try <i>not</i> to be the uptight J-Crew decored Christian mom at the parent-teacher conference who says, "How dare you teach my children this filth!" But I mean come on. This script is like a giant rape gang-bang. It's all done in fun. But it's hard not to feel a little strange while you're reading it. Every time you giggle, you feel like you raped life a little bit. Of course with all that said, it's definitely a script you'll have an opinion on, and those are in surprisingly short supply. So grab some viagra, chase it with some Red Bull, and as Barry White would say..."Let's get it onnnnnn." <br />
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The raping begins...err, I mean, the story begins with an oblivious "Carl's Jr. commercial-hot" hitchhiker plopping down for a ride with a trucker trucking a truckload supply of one of those "Male enhancement" drugs you always see in your spam folder. Well, apparently Mr. Trucker decided to try out the pills himself because he's one horny little pedal-pusher. This results in a lot of awkward advances that are getting worse by the minute. Like scary worse. In fact, he almost seems to be in a trance. <br />
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The next thing the hitchhiker sees is the man's bulging gigantor donkey-sized penis (no, I am not making this up) and the two start fighting as the man tries to, um, get some action. Typically, when the driver and passenger decide to fight in a moving vehicle, things don't end up well. But it tends to be really bad when that vehicle is a SEMI! Bang, clack, whoosh, SPLASH, the truck goes over the railing, soars through the air and splashes into a lake, the entire supply of male enhancement drugs gobbled up by the water, which, as you can guess, supplies the nearby town.<br />
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Cut to said nearby town where we start meeting a few of the locals, mainly a team of hot and horny teenagers which include the all American Ashley, the curvy sexpot Josie, and the tomboyish-ly beautiful Max. The three are trying to make it through work at the local chicken fast food joint, where their skeevy boss (the appropriately named, "Dick") leers at them from his little backroom security video haven. <br />
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But as soon as they're done, it's off to getting wasted and finding the big party in town, which doesn't take long. What also doesn't take long is how weird all the guys start acting. I mean of course they're horny, but it's like they have no control over themselves. This culminates in one of the drunk girls throwing off her top to go skinny dipping and a dozen guys following her. That's when we see it. All of them have huge donkey penis bulges in their pants (again, I'm NOT kidding), and therefore can no longer control their urges. And these aren't ordinary urges. These urges lead to a full-on attack!<br />
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Ashley, Josie and Max realize something is very wrong and with more guys lingering, they decide it's probably best to disappear. They meet up with a few other scared women at a local bar and eventually come to the conclusion that it's the water that's turning all these men into donkey-penis sized sex zombies and that the only way to stop them is to....well, shoot their balls. I mean, I suppose you could shoot them in the head as well but that wouldn't be nearly as dramatic. So balls it is! <br />
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But the bad news keeps coming. It turns out the local hydro plant, which has infected the water supply for the town, is having some sort of "water dump" tonight where they're going to send half the water into the big river, which will affect the drinking supply of the entire state! Yikes! So our group of women only have a few hours to get to the plant and stop the dump. All while trying to avoid the rapidly increasing population of bulged-pantsed male zombies.<br />
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Okay, so obviously this was written in the same vein as movies like Piranha 3-D. It's not meant to be taken seriously. It wants to exploit, titilate, and ejaculate, so to speak. You're supposed to be scared and entertained. But man! This idea walks dangerously close to disturbing. The rape undertones (or overtones??) are everywhere you look. I think Phil does a good job dancing around it whenever a situation becomes too detailed, but sometimes that's impossible, and every time that happened I clenched my teeth and made that 'sucking in' sound. Ugh, 'sucking' is probably the wrong word to use. Man, I'm going to have a hard time getting out of this review in one piece. Argh! "Hard." I did it again! That's what she said! What??<br />
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Placing the disturbing nature of the concept aside for the moment, here's my qualm with the script, or should I say the genre in general: There's no character development. And I'm not even sure if that's fair to criticize. Are characters supposed to have depth in these kinds of movies? On the one hand you'd think no, because the movies are just about having a fun silly time, not unlike a drunken party at your buddy's house. But my feeling is that any time you're asking us to pay attention for 90 minutes, we're going to have to care about the characters, and it's hard to care about anyone for 90 minutes if they don't have anything going on underneath the surface. I don't know. What do you guys think? I'm not that familiar with this genre so I don't know what the audience's expectations are. Are thin characters okay? <br />
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Because that led to my other problem which was that there was a huge character count. It's one thing to write thin characters, but if you introduce a ton of them, it's hard to keep track of who's who because nobody's deep enough to remember. <br />
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I also would've liked more irony in the story. <i>That's</i> something this genre is built for. For example, make the hero some oversexed teenage boy who's disturbingly horny - like he lives every second to try and get laid. And then he becomes the <i>only guy</i> in town who's not hopped up on these super-penis pills and is therefore tasked with being the "un-horny" one for once and saving these women. You could then work in a fun love story where he's obsessed with one of the girls who would normally never give him the time of day, but this situation allows him his one and only shot. I think that's so much more fun than the whole Ashley-Josh relationship, which was sorta boring. <br />
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This was a strange one. Just like you guys promised, the writing was really good, particularly in those first ten pages. The writing style was sparse and therefore flew by. There was a lot of urgency. The stakes of keeping the water from infecting the entire state was a good call. But the risky subject matter, even for a subject this broad, and the lack of any true character connection, made it a tough read for me. If I were Phil, I'd go back and really study character before re-writing this or moving on to the next script. Even in the simplest of genres, the characters have to be memorable, and none of these characters were. That can be attributed to a distinct lack of depth, so let's remedy that. <br />
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I'm afraid I have to send Zombie Reserecton and its male enhancement plot to my spam folder. :(<br />
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Script link: <a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/k3bdp7">Zombie Reserection</a><br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[x] wasn't for me</div>
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[ ] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius<br />
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What I learned: I know I'm a broken record at this point but the easiest way to add character depth is to give your character something personal they're trying to overcome. Bonus points if you can tie it into the concept or the theme. So the theme here has to do with sex - maybe Ashley's a virgin with really strong Christian beliefs. But she really loves Josh and wants to sleep with him. So she's going through this internal struggle the whole time of staying true to her beliefs or just saying "fuck it" and having fun. It's not too deep, stays within the tone of the movie, but it gives our protagonist <i>something</i> she's struggling with, which adds much-needed depth. It could work well with the new Josh character I suggested above (the oversexed one). </div>
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<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-87956623856913068582012-11-08T00:36:00.002-08:002012-11-08T13:32:48.275-08:0010 Screenwriting Candidates for Star Wars 7<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;">UPDATE - <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2012/11/star-wars-episode-vii-may-have-found-its-writer.html">Vulture is reporting</a> that Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3, Little Miss Sunshine) is the lead candidate for the Star Wars 7 job. Disney refused to comment so who knows if it's true, but it's a name I bandied about for this article since he's a Disney guy. I just didn't see any sci-fi in his background. If true, I really like the choice. There are very few writers in Hollywood who know structure and character like Arndt, so he's going to give us a strong draft. Also, if true, you gotta think Brad Bird would then be the lead candidate for director, since it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to bring in a writer without already knowing the director this close to release, and Bird is Disney's other big Pixar treasure. </span></div>
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Yes, I'm a dork. I'm a geek. When Star Wars appears anywhere in the news, I read it. And over the past seven or so years, there hasn't been whole a lot of good Star Wars news for me. The only news that people seem even remotely interested in is whether Lucas will ever release the original trilogy on DVD? Or is it Blu-Ray? I still don't know because I could care less. And I can never figure out if they mean the original trilogy as in <i>without the added scenes</i> or like the original <i>original </i>trilogy, as in without any of the effects he added later to get rid of the 1977 mistakes. If it's the latter, I'm not sure I even want that. Do I want to see a land speeder with a mirror on the bottom just so I can say I own the "original trilogy?" Hmmm...<br />
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But this recent news of Disney buying LucasFilm and making three more movies (or is it an unlimited amount of movies? I'm still confused. Their press release says they're making <i>another trilogy</i>, and then later in the press release, they say they're going to release a new Star Wars movie <i>every couple of years</i>. Does that 'every couple of years' refer to the new trilogy, or do they mean forever? This needs to be clarified Disney! Jesus Christ!) has totally changed my life. I mean, all you have to do is <a href="http://twitter.com/Scriptshadow">follow my Twitter feed</a> to know that. Scriptshadow has become StarWarsShadow. I even find myself stopping at the toy isle at Target and staring wondrously at the Lego kits for Tie and X-Wing fighters, kits that were too expensive for my parents to get me when I was a kid. I find myself obsessively trying to convince my lady friend to buy <a href="http://gracieecee.tumblr.com/post/15789058793/r2d2-dress">this dress</a> and wear it, like, once a week at least (I'll keep you updated on what she says). My intermittent checking of Variety, ESPN and Deadline has changed to intermittent checking of <a href="http://theforce.net/">Theforce.net</a>. My days are now measured by how many Star Wars rumors I have accumulated. <br />
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Which leads us to today's article. The director rumors are flying. Matthew Vaughn is getting a lot of pub to direct Ep 7, although <a href="http://www.slashfilm.com/mark-millar-explains-matthew-vaughns-x-men-departure-they-needed-to-get-moving-on-the-secret-service/">this recent article at Slash-Film</a> says he won't. There are also rumors that Colin Trevorrow, the director of "Safety Not Gauranteed" <a href="http://www.slashfilm.com/more-lucasfilm-rumor-safety-not-guaranteed-helmer-colin-trevorrow-up-for-star-wars-vii/">might be on the short list to direct the film</a>. Hmm, I question the authenticity of that one. But it's funny what these rumors can do. Even a false rumor can give an up-and-coming writer or director a career boost. I'd never thought of Trevorrow as anyone other than a young indie director. Just the idea that someone would consider him for Star Wars, though, makes me think he's got more going on than I originally gave him credit for.<br />
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But as you know, this site isn't called DirectorShadow (hmmmm?). It's called "Scriptshadow." I'm more interested in the writer side of things. If you want to point to the big fault of the prequel films, it was the abysmal writing. And I mean it was really <i>really</i> bad. I know I'm not stating anything new here. Any Joe with 10 bucks to his name could offer that observation. But it went deeper than that. It was the laziness of it all that got to me. It's one thing to try your hardest and fail. It's another to give an audience a second draft that's not even close to ready and film it.<br />
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Which is why I'm so excited for the future! Star Wars will once again be written by real writers, not directors putting haphazard unfinished blueprints together that they'll fix while filming. The possibilities are endless, especially because this isn't just any job. Whoever takes this job is going to treat it like gold. This is the franchise of all franchises. Nobody's going to be filming lazy second drafts this time around. Which leads us to the candidates. I've culled a list of ten potential Star Wars 7 screenwriters from rumors, fan speculation, and good old fashioned assumption. It's time to look at each of them and see what they bring to the table and what they don't. This will be the most difficult writing job in the last few decades of Hollywood. Which is why I'm dying to see who they'll pick. So here are the leading contenders, and what we should expect from each. <br />
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<b>Name</b>: Damon Lindelof<br />
<b>Relevant</b> <b>Credits</b>: "Lost" pilot parts 1 & 2, "Lost" episode "Walkabout," "Lost" episode "The Variable," Prometheus, Star Trek Into Darkness, World War Z<br />
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Like it or not, Lindelof is at the top of everyone's Star Wars 7 list. Why? Simple. For every genre, the studios have a list of the top writer in that genre. Right now, Lindelof is at the top of the sci-fi genre. Think about it. Who would you put above him? Not only is he involved in all the biggest sci-fi assignments, but he just sold a huge sci-fi spec to Disney last year (which I'm looking for if you have it - ahem). It doesn't mean he's the right fit, but he definitely needs to be in the conversation. Now much has been made of Lindelof tweeting dismissively about Star Wars 7, and therefore how he shouldn't be considered a real candidate. I'm not sure about that. If a Lindelof deal were gestating, complete Twitter silence on his end would look really suspicious, and hence we'd be getting the complete opposite. <br />
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<b>Pros</b>: Lindelof is a great storyteller. <a href="http://www.slashfilm.com/more-lucasfilm-rumor-safety-not-guaranteed-helmer-colin-trevorrow-up-for-star-wars-vii/">Not writer, but storyteller</a>. And we need good storytelling back in Star Wars. Go watch the pilot episode of Lost, or the episode, "Walkabout," which is one of my favorite episodes of TV ever. In addition to this, Star Wars needs imagination, and Lindelof's got it. Lost was the most imaginative series ever put on television. And the extensiveness of that mythology is about as close as you'll get to the extensiveness of the Star Wars mythology today. Being born in 1973, Lindelof also grew up right in that sweet spot of Star Wars taking over the world. There are lots of good things Lindelof brings to the table. <br />
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<b>Cons</b>: If there's a big weakness people will point to with Lindelof, it's plot holes, using Prometheus as their key example. Here's my take on that. Plot holes are typically a result of time. With enough time, any plot hole can be fixed. Any writer who gets to that level in Hollywood isn't dumb. They know when there's a plot hole. But unlike us, who have years and years to hone our scripts, these guys have months. I don't know when Lindelof came onto Prometheus and how much time he had. But for all we know, he could've spent the entire time fixing hundreds of plot holes the previous writer left and he simply didn't have time to hash out the final few. What I'm more concerned about is Lindelof's propensity to raise questions that don't get answered. He was responsible for a lot of that in Lost, and I saw it in places in Prometheus as well (I still don't know what the opening scene was with the super-white alien dude drinking black liquid or whatever). The last thing we need is a bunch of open ends in a Star Wars movie. I want this thing to be tight. <br />
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<b>Name</b>: Jane Goldman<br />
<b>Relevant Credits</b>: Stardust, Kick-Ass, X-Men First Class<br />
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I actually <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/01/screenwriter-interview-jane-goldman.html">did an interview with Goldman</a> awhile back and was impressed by her screenwriting knowledge. I must admit a part of me thought she may have been riding on Matthew Vaughn's coat tails, but this woman clearly understands and cares about screenwriting. Now obviously, Goldman's name jumps into the mix because Vaughn is being mentioned as director, and he'll almost certainly use longtime collaborator Goldman to write it. So let's take a look at what she brings to the table.<br />
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<b>Pros</b>: I really liked "X-Men: First Class," specifically the emphasis on character development and character relationships (I found the relationship between Charles Xavier and Magneto to be flawlessly executed). You could easily call that film a character piece as much as you could a popcorn flick. The prequels were absent of ANY interesting characters or relationships whatsoever, so to have someone who cares about character as much as Jane would be great. I also think Goldman's got the imagination required for a Star Wars flick. Don't believe me? Watch Stardust. It's not a perfect film, but you'd be hard-pressed to call it unimaginative. <br />
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<b>Cons</b>: These two can get a little screwy at times and go off the reservation. In Stardust, the whole seven ghost kings thing was too much. And I remember an excised scene in an early Kick-Ass draft that had giant spiders crawling on walls that was just...odd. If too many of these choices start stacking up, the story starts to feel floaty - not desirable for a Star Wars film. Also, and this is just a feeling I get from interviewing her, but I don't think Goldman's heart is in sci-fi. Goldman's love skews more towards comic books and horror, specifically zombies (as she told me she's obsessed with them). If you're going to write a Star Wars film, you have to be absolutely in love with it for it to work. In many ways, I believe Lucas fell out of love with Star Wars, which is one of many reasons why the prequels felt so empty. This is a great lesson for any screenwriter actually: Always try to write something you love. If you don't, that lack of passion will show up on the page. <br />
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<b>Name</b>: Jon Spaihts<br />
<b>Relevant Credits</b>: <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2010/02/darkest-hour.html">The Darkest Hour</a>, Prometheus<br />
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Spaihts is the biggest sci-fi writer you don't know yet. He busted onto the scene with the high-ranking Black List script, <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/04/passengers.html">Passengers</a>, about two people who fall in love after falling out of hyper-sleep on a giant empty spaceship. I din't like the script at first, but over time began to realize that it's kinda genius. Spaihts used the buzz from that script to get numerous sci-fi jobs around town. But probably the bigger reason he should be up for Star Wars 7 is <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/09/shadow-19.html">Shadow 19.</a> This is the script that got Ridley Scott's attention and which parts of were used to build the story of Prometheus. The thing is, all the stuff they <i>didn't</i> use in Prometheus was really big and ambitious and fun, and that's the kind of stuff I'm sure he would throw into a Star Wars film. <br />
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<b>Pros</b>: Scope. Star Wars's scope is as big as it gets. And you gotta be able to handle that scope if you want to make it work, which isn't as easy as it sounds. When new writers try to do too much, they get lost, specifically losing site of the little things that make audiences care, like characters. Shadow 19 makes me believe Spaihts can handle the scope and Passengers makes me think he can handle the characters. I also like the "unexpected factor" Sapihts brings. Star Wars has been too predictable lately. We need a voice who's willing to take chances and go in less-traveled directions. Passengers, with its strange plot of two lovers having to live out the rest of their lives on an empty spaceship, gets me thinking that Spaihts will do some new things with the franchise. <br />
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<b>Cons</b>: Is he ready? It takes a certain kind of writer to be able to handle the rigors of writing giant studio material. Lots of needs need to be met. Lots of cooks are in the kitchen. Younger writers want to make everyone happy so they try to incorporate every note given and the script ends up a mess as a result. More experienced writers know who the true shot-callers are, whose notes they need to apply and whose to ignore, and their veteran status affords them the respect they need to put their foot down when they need to. I wonder if Spaihts would be pushed around too much. <br />
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<b>Name</b>: Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci<br />
<b>Relevant Credits</b>: Star Trek, Transformers, Cowboys & Aliens, All You Need Is Kill<br />
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Before Lindelof was the hot hand in every major sci-fi project in town, it was these guys, and since they've not only worked on a lot of the biggest sci-fi scripts out there, but those films went on to become extremely successful (save for Cowboys & Aliens), there's no doubt Disney is eyeing this pair as a possibility. <br />
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<b>Pros</b>: These two will get the job done. They're not going to knock it out of the park but they're not going to give you something mediocre either. You'll get a decent Star Wars movie, and "decent" will probably look "exceptional" next to the recent Star Wars offerings. These two also know how to keep a story moving. They've written one of my favorite scripts, "<a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2010/02/titan-week-tell-no-one.html">Tell No One</a>," a story that just flies by, and I bring that up because the best two Star Wars movies, Star Wars and Empire, are both "chase movies," which is why they moved so much faster than the others. We need a writer(s) who can bring back some of that pace to the Star Wars universe. <br />
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<b>Cons</b>: I feel these guys are workmanlike. They get the job done but that's pretty much all they do. They're not going to take many chances, which means we'll get a fun story, but one that's ultimately empty. When Lucas still cared about Star Wars, he gave us Yoda - a jedi master who was essentially an old frog. Talk about chance-taking! Yeah, we won't get any Yodas with these two. Also, I feel like their voice is a little too "old hat" now. We already know what it sounds like. It's kind of like listening to a new Dave Matthews album. You kinda enjoy it, but it's just not fresh anymore. <br />
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<b>Name</b>: Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio<br />
<b>Relevant credits</b>: Pirates Of The Carribean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl, Deja Vu<br />
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These two are strong contenders. And by strong, I mean really strong. They've made <i>tons</i> of money for Disney, and when studios have a formula that works, they don't like to stray from it. Which means that even though their body of work may not scream out "Star Wars," I could see Disney trusting them to set up the franchise. <br />
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<b>Pros</b>: These two are amazing storytellers and amazing at working within the classic 3-Act structure, which Star Wars movies are basically designed to exist in (until Lucas started creating 30-act structures with the prequels - oh sheesh, is there an end to the terrible choices he made in those scripts?). Look no further than their excellent, if a little dated, website, "<a href="http://www.wordplayer.com/">Wordplayer</a>," where they constantly stress the importance of structure. They've also proven with Captain Jack Sparrow that they can create a memorable funny roguish character, something the prequels were missing. I just feel like we'd get a good old fashioned story with these two. The script would move where it needed to and take its time when it needed to. <br />
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<b>Cons</b>: Due to their ambitiousness, their plots can get a little confusing at times. After a few viewings, I knew what was happening in "Pirates," but that first time, I had a hell of a time trying to keep up. That's what was so great about Star Wars. Even though there was all this elaborate backstory and world building, the story itself was pretty easy to follow: <i>bad guys chase good guys</i>. I also don't feel that their sensibilites quite fit the Star Wars universe. They're kind of like Orci and Kurtzman in that sense. You know what you're going to get with them, but the feeling is it won't quite gel with what you want out of a Star Wars movie. <br />
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<b>Name</b>: Lawrence Kasdan<br />
<b>Relevant credits</b>: The Empire Strikes Back, Return Of The Jedi, Raiders Of The Lost Ark<br />
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The old man is still in the mix. I mean, he's gotta be, right? He wrote Empire! I heard a long time ago in an interview far far away that he'd never write another Star Wars movie, but things change. I mean, maybe he didn't want to deal with George's weird story requests at the time. That issue ain't an issue anymore as he'd be working with an entirely new painter. <br />
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<b>Pros</b>: You're bringing back the man responsible for writing hardcore Star Wars' fans favorite film of the franchise. You'd be getting a darker Star Wars, which is what the core fans want. But I think the big thing with Kasdan is he really knew how to have fun with his relationships. From Han and Leia to Han and C-3PO to Luke and Yoda to C-3PO and R2-D2, the dynamic between all those characters was never as good as it was there in Empire. A lot of that has to do with Kasdan's dialogue, which is easily the strongest in the series. And it's been awhile since we've heard "good dialogue" and "Star Wars" in the same sentence, hasn't it? <br />
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<b>Cons</b>: Is his heart still in it? Kasdan would have nothing to prove with a new Star Wars script because he's already written a great one. Contrast this with a young writer who's been dreaming his whole life of getting a crack at Star Wars, and I'm just worried that Kasdan couldn't compete with that kind of energy. Also, it's been almost 20 years since he's written anything good. They'd be taking a huge risk on Lawrence, but if he came to them with an amazing pitch and the promise that he'd give it his all, I'd listen. <br />
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<b>Name</b>: Travis Beacham<br />
<b>Relevant Credits</b>: Clash Of The Titans, Pacific Rim<br />
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If you're a reader of this site, you know this name well. If not, you probably haven't heard of Beacham. Basically, he steamrolled onto the scene with his screenplay, <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/08/killing-on-carnival-row.html">Killing On Carnival Row</a>, which has since become one of the most beloved scripts in Hollywood, even though its R rating practically ensured it would never be made. But now that Beacham has started to earn some street cred working on bigger material, the idea of someone plunking down 120 million to make "Carnival" doesn't seem so far-fetched. One of the big reasons why Beacham's name is in the mix is because Guillermo Del Toro is in the directing fold, and Beacham just worked with Del Toro on Pacific Rim, another big sci-fi project. If these two combine to do a Star Wars movie, I wouldn't complain.<br />
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<b>Pros</b>: World-building. This guy can build a world like nobody's business. Go read "Carnival Row" if you don't believe me. And as we've already established, this new Star Wars saga is going to need a lot of world-building, so we need a writer capable of that. What I also like about Beachem is his attention to detail. In "Carnival Row," he seems to care about every little character, every little crevice in this city. I love when writers know their world that well. It beefs up the authenticity of the piece, and I'd love to seem him bring that to Star Wars.<br />
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<b>Cons</b>: I think his version of Star Wars might be a little slow. There's such a thing as <i>too much</i> character development and <i>too much</i> focus on the world you're building, to the point where your story sort of falls asleep. Not to beat a dead horse, but this is a huge mistake Lucas made in the prequels. He just kept building and building (Naboo, Coruscant, the Senate, underwater villages) to the point where the stories never had a chance to get going. I'd like to get back to the simple clean storytelling of Star Wars and Empire. Let's have some fun! <br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><u>Writer/Directors</u></span></b></div>
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<b>Name</b>: Wachowski Starship<br />
<b>Relevant Credits</b>: The Matrix Trilogy, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas<br />
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These two are kind of a long shot and would be in it for both writing AND directing, but I wouldn't bet against them being courted. Cloud Atlas hasn't exactly lit the box office on fire, but the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s">extended trailer alone</a> reminds you what these guys are capable of when they're on their game. In many ways, The Matrix was the <i>next</i> big special effects leap forward from what Star Wars did originally. I'd love to see what these guys could do with Disney money.<br />
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Pros: These are the writers of The Matrix! Isn't that enough? What I like about the Wachowskis is they really hash out their characters, putting a ton of effort into each and every one. They're good at creating distinct memorable people, something that the prequels were sorely missing. Outside of Jar Jar, everyone was so plain and forgettable in those films (of course, we only wish Jar Jar could've been forgettable). They're also great at creating villains. Agent Smith and those freaking Albino twins were badass. Star Wars is desperate for a new memorable villain. <br />
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Cons: Here's the thing with the Wachowskis - they need time to make their scripts work. The Matrix script was honed over ten years. The Matrix sequels were written over a couple of years. The disparity in quality is evident to anyone with a set of eyes. I also think the Wachowskis lose sight of keeping the story moving in favor of long monologues detailing philosophical rants that really make little sense and that the audience doesn't care about. Even moreso than Beacham, I'd be worried that these two would slow their Star Wars movie down too much. <br />
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<b>Name</b>: Christopher Nolan<br />
<b>Relevant credits</b>: The Dark Knight, Inception<br />
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Nolan is a longshot but he's still the most in-demand director in the world. So if he wanted to do Star Wars, I'm pretty sure Disney would say "name your price." I just have no idea how Nolan feels about Star Wars. I know he's a huge James Bond fan, and I'm not sure the James Bond and Star Wars fan bases cross over that much, which makes me think Star Wars isn't his thing. But what the hell do I know? Someone from Disney will definitely put a call in to him, which means he's worth discussing. <br />
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<b>Pros</b>: He'd rein the world back in a lot. We wouldn't have two-headed blathering announcers calling Pod-races in a Nolan-scripted Star Wars film. I get the feeling that Nolan would center his Star Wars around the Boba Fetts and the bounty hunters of the universe. It'd be grittier. It'd be nastier. It'd be the kind of film Lucas kept threatening to make with Episode 3 but never did. <br />
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<b>Cons</b>: Let's be honest, Nolan can be long-winded. He stays around for a lot longer than he probably should, and the good Star Wars films aren't constructed that way. They're always moving. I'm sorry, but the whole "take over the city" thing and the six month wait in The Dark Night Rises was akin to watching paint dry. That kind of pace just won't cut it in Star Wars. I also think Nolan's gotten lazier in his storytelling over the years. Watch how he deftly hides exposition in Memento compared to how he sloppily slaps it in there in Inception. Star Wars movies are exposition-heavy because of all the worlds and cities and characters. For that reason, badly-handled exposition could kill a Star Wars film. I'm also afraid he might ground the universe too much. Nolan seems afraid to let his imagination go wild, and obviously you can't have that limitation when doing a Star Wars movie. <br />
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<b>Name</b>: JJ Abrams<br />
<b>Relevant credits</b>: Super 8, Lost, Armageddon<br />
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JJ is a huuuuuge Star Wars fan. In fact, he's so much of a Star Wars fan that he constructed Star Trek to be like a Star Wars movie, figuring that would be his only shot to direct something remotely close to Star Wars. Well guess what, JJ? The Mouse House may have answered your prayers. A Star Wars film is up for grabs and as long as James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Peter Jackson, or Guillermo Del Toro don't want it, it's yours. <br />
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<b>Pros</b>: Concept. I feel that JJ would come up with the best concept for a Star Wars movie of anyone on this list by far. He'd also be able to handle the huge task of mapping out the new mythology. He also knows how to incorporate mystery into a script like no other, and with him scripting the film(s), we'd likely get a couple of new "I am your father" shockers. JJ also brings charm to the table, as was evidenced in Super 8, and would do some stellar character work, as we saw him do in that movie as well (with the kids). With a JJ-scripted Star Wars, I think we'd get a lot of the "wonder" of the series back. <br />
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<b>Cons</b>: I'm not sure JJ cares as much about the details as some of these other guys. The genius with Lucas was that he cared about Monster #8 sitting in the furthest reaches of the bar. He knew where that guy had been. I think JJ's more of a "big picture" guy, and might miss some cool story threads or subplots that could emerge from a background character like Boba Fett. I also feel like we might get "Star Wars Light" with JJ, sort of like we got "ET Light" with "Super 8." We'll see though. JJ is a very strong candidate. <br />
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Here's the x-factor in all of this. The person who writes Star Wars 7 has to be a huge Star Wars fan. It won't work otherwise. And I don't personally know how all of these people feel about Star Wars. So I think passion should definitely factor in. George Lucas lost that passion and we paid for it on the script end. The crazy thing about this whole decision is that there are so many <i>directors</i> you can point to and say, "They would make a GREAT Star Wars movie," but there isn't a single writer you can point to with any confidence and say the same thing. Does that mean screenwriting is harder than directing? I don't know. But there's definitely no clear cut choice. Which is why I turn the question to you guys. Who would you pick? One of the writers/teams above, or someone completely different?<br />
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<i>edit: Some people have brought up Brad Bird and Joss Whedon as possibilities, but the indication I get is that Bird would come on as director, with someone else writing it, and Whedon is focused on Avengers under the Disney blanket, taking him out of the running for Star Wars (even though he'd do anything to change that situation). </i><br />
<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-830830412164162192012-11-06T00:29:00.004-08:002012-11-06T00:30:42.612-08:00Guest Review - My Dark Places<i>Between keeping track of Star Wars 7 rumors and this whole voting for a new leader of our country thing, I had to take a day off this week But fear not. I'm leaving you in good hands. Ralphy is one of the sharpest screenwriting minds I know. If I have a question, this is the man I go to - when he's around at least. He can be more elusive than even I. But I found him long enough to get a great review of an older script out of him. Enjoy...</i><br />
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Screenplay Review – My Dark Places <br />
Genre: Crime-Drama <br />
Premise: As a publicity stunt, a successful crime novelist tries to solve the thirty-seven-year-old murder of his mother, from whom he was estranged. <br />
About: Apparently, this script has been around for quite a while. The last time I checked IMDB, the project was listed as “in development.” <br />
Writer: Jan Oxenberg. Based on the autobiography by James Ellroy. <br />
Details: 125 pages. Draft date: June 18, 1999. <br />
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James Ellroy, author of such notable dark crime novels as L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia —both turned into films, one critically acclaimed, the other not so much—published his autobiography, My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir, in 1996. In it, he chronicled his attempts to unravel the mystery of his mother’s thirty-seven-year-old murder by hiring a retired Los Angeles detective noted for his ability to solve old, unsolved cases. The crime itself had a profound effect on Ellroy’s life—it inspired his desire to write crime novels. <br />
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The script, penned by TV writer/producer Jan Oxenberg, takes that basic premise and creates a character study out of it, an exploration of an outwardly callous, fast-talking joker whose constant barbs at his mother’s expense never really hide his confusion about his relationship with her. The story opens in 1958, when James Ellroy is just ten years old, and his father, Armand, is actively trying to get dirt on his promiscuous ex-wife, Geneva “Jean” Ellroy, so that he can prove she’s an unfit mother and therefore win custody of James. Right away, we see that the relationship between Armand and James is much more reminiscent of that of best friends than of father and son. We get the sense that they survive by propping each other up—that they’re in life together till the end. Nothing is taboo between them; they’re just two guys hanging out, cooking frozen hot dogs and talking about the shaved pubic region of a woman in one of Armand’s girlie mags. They also discuss James’s mother, for whom Armand has little respect and isn’t shy about dissing in front of James. At one point, James refers to his mother as a “hairy bitch whore,” and Armand just laughs. It becomes obvious in just a couple of quick scenes that they’re a team trying their damnedest to take her down. <br />
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As juxtaposition, Jean is presented as a beautiful woman prone to serial dating—looking for attention but not commitment, thanks to having been in a loveless marriage with a man who could offer her neither. When we meet her, she’s dancing with a Swarthy Man in a tacky desert inn. She’s talkative, flirty, coming onto him in every way she knows how. But he seems bored with her, unwilling to give in to her advances. They drive out to a diner, then to a secluded wooded area near Arroyo high school. And there he strangles her to death. <br />
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One of the things that immediately stands out in this script is its deft ability to shift between tones. Irreverent humor, hard hitting crime fiction and pathos take turns vying for our attention, letting us know that there’s always something deeper going on here. After a while, however, the tones blend together, and we realize that the division between them was always arbitrary at best—a product of our own minds. For instance, an early moment of irreverence turns into something much deeper in the long run: when James finds out about his mother’s murder, his reaction is not one of shock and sadness—he smiles as a photographer takes a picture of him. Moments later, he again refers to his mother as the “hairy bitch whore,” right in front of photographers, detectives, and his mother’s neighbors. It’s a simple reaction from a child whose first impulse is to feel relief because he can now be with his dad, unconditionally. And it hits hard for us because it’s a jarring moment. The kid doesn’t understand what just happened… or does he? We’re not quite sure. Do we have a sociopath in the making? Or will James grow out of it? It is in these initial scenes that the script establishes its voice and signals to us that it’s going to keep us on our toes for the duration. And it is here that the script becomes impossible to put down. <br />
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From the murder, we transition to 1995, where the adult James Ellroy, now a successful crime novelist, is at a book reading and signing with his girlfriend Helen, also an author. Ellroy is now a smart-alecky, verbal wordsmith dazzling his audience with colorful, improvised turns of phrase, which are very “crime noir detective” in their temperament. While this bit of bookstore theater is taking place, Henry Stans from Unsolved Mysteries bursts into the room and confronts Ellroy about participating in a period piece episode about Southern California unsolved murders, in which an entire segment will be devoted to his mother. Not surprisingly, Ellroy wants nothing to do with this at first, telling Stans that “the only person who exploits my mother’s death is me.” Apparently, Ellroy hasn’t grown out of his disdain for the woman his father turned him against. At the very least, he’s developed a frosty self-defense mechanism designed to keep that part of his early life firmly in its place. <br />
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But Helen, Ellroy’s confidante and conscience, convinces Ellroy to learn more about his mother. Believing he can get some publicity out of this, Ellroy acquiesces. So they fly out to Los Angeles to take part in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, and there Ellroy hires retired homicide detective Bill Stoner, who is known for solving cold case murders. Stoner’s first impression of Ellroy is that he doesn’t give two shits about his mother, especially when he watches Ellroy interacting with the actors portraying young James and his mother in the dramatic reenactment for the show’s segment. At one point Henry Stans asks Ellroy what he thinks of the actress playing his mother, and Ellroy replies, “She doesn’t look cheap enough.” Stoner is immediately put off—to him, this is all just a publicity stunt. To make matters worse, he and Ellroy clash, Ellroy making it quite apparent that he doesn’t want Stoner’s pity—just his help. <br />
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From there, the script flips back and forth between Ellroy and Stoner’s 1995 investigation and sequences dealing with young Ellroy and the original investigation. It’s not a revolutionary structural device—some might even consider it trite—but it works well for this story. Young Ellroy’s relationship with his mother is obviously strained due to her sleeping around and his father’s constant criticism of her, but what is also obvious is how much she always cares for Ellroy, no matter how he treats her. And on some level he knows this. Always has. There’s a scene early in the 1995 investigation where Stoner and Ellroy are in an interview room looking over the old file on her murder, disorganized and overflowing with notes and crime scene photos, and Ellroy, prone to bouts of OCD, straightens out the papers, creating neat stacks. Stoner pitches in and helps him, and it’s a surprisingly touching moment because it’s the first time we and Stoner really see Ellroy’s human side. From there, the beat where Ellroy sees the crime scene photo of his mother’s corpse hits hard. Ellroy tries to play it off and remain professional and detached, but Stoner notices that something more is going on. Throughout the script, Stoner tries to figure out which Ellroy is the real one: the human being with genuine emotions or the smartass who seems not to care about his mother. And as the story progresses, and Ellroy’s obsession with this investigation grows, we and Stoner understand that Ellroy is far too complex to be pigeonholed into either category. <br />
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There’s a wonderful motif: a collage of Jean’s death Ellroy has plastered over the walls of his hotel room, consisting of crime scene photos, newspaper clippings, a police sketch of the Swarthy Man based on interviews with two witnesses, and other evidence. As Ellroy’s obsession grows and the case becomes more personal to him, the collage becomes denser, more and more obsessively ordered. Toward the end of the script, the nature of the collage changes as Ellroy picks up old photos of his mother from her relatives. It transforms from a detective’s wall to a tribute to her, no longer about publicity for his book or his attempts to play detective and solve a crime. It’s now about his love for his mother. <br />
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The investigation itself is wonderfully played as Stoner and Ellroy plow into old leads and question old witnesses, each bringing his own unique personality to the proceedings. Also, there are some great little details in scenes that in less capable hands might play out in a boring, same-old-same-old way but are made livelier by unique and creative touches, like one in which Ellroy and Stoner interview a 14-year-old girl whose grandmother was a carhop at a diner where the Swarthy Man took Jean. The girl tells them that her grandmother passed away a couple of years ago; that she had brain cancer and died in a beauty salon. And the kicker is that she apparently hemorrhaged while she was getting her hair done. Such a seemingly small detail adds a great deal of richness to the story. Ellroy and Oxenberg have created a vibrant world here—a crime story infused with voice. <br />
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A lot of the dialogue is incredibly sharp and entertaining, but not in a way that draws attention to itself—in a way that breathes life into the characters. At one point, Stoner reveals to Ellroy that “Freeways are the Southern California victim drop zone of choice.” He then goes on to say, “I hate ‘em. One thing I swore was, once I retired, I’d never drive these freeways again.” Yet here he is, doing just that, and it’s a sign that he’s unable to retire… that he may never be. There’s another great line when Ellroy interviews his mother’s old neighbor/landlord that lands perfectly thanks to what we’ve learned about his past. When Ellroy was a kid, he used to compulsively stab the banana tree in front of his mother’s place with a knife, to the point where his mother’s landlord had to call in a tree surgeon. As such, the landlord couldn’t give Armand the full deposit back after Jean’s death; she had to take fifty dollars out to pay to have the tree revived. Thirty-seven years later, adult Ellroy introduces himself to the landlord as “James Ellroy. The kid who ruined your tree.” And these types of exchanges pepper the script, giving us insight into the people who populate its world. Not one line of dialogue is a throwaway. <br />
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The investigation comes to a climax in a scene where Stoner and Ellroy confront the man their investigation has finally led them to, almost by accident. He’s their prime suspect—a man who used to work with Jean. Now 75, he’s still muscled but skinny. In the face of Ellroy’s accusations, he’s scared to the point where he pisses himself. (SPOILER) But it turns out he’s not the perpetrator. (END SPOILER) And here we discover the script’s true purpose. It’s not really about Ellroy solving his mother’s murder as much as it is about his coming to grips with the fact that she truly loved him. In the process, he also makes peace with his own feelings about her, including some confusing childhood sexual fixations. There’s a great moment at the end when he and Helen are in his hotel room, facing his wall of photos, and he addresses his mother directly, telling her, “Swarthy Man took you away from me. I want you to meet the woman who brought you back.” <br />
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Irreverent yet moving, straightforward yet complex, My Dark Places is a subtly wrenching glimpse into an obsession that transforms over the course of its narrative as Ellroy allows the layers of emotional armor, secured into place over thirty-seven years, to drop off piece by piece until all that’s left is a vulnerable human being, abandoned early on by the world (including his father, who passed away when Ellroy was 17) and forced to fend for himself. The script is infused with a voice that strengthens the story rather than distracts from it, and characters actors would no doubt want to sink their teeth into. I hope that after floating around for over a decade, most likely stuck in every circle of development hell at one point or another, it finds its way to movie theaters someday soon. Unfortunately, I fear that its dark approach and constantly shifting tone might make this impossible, especially in the current climate. With that in mind, I strongly recommend that anyone who likes crime dramas, specifically those penned by Ellroy, give the script a read. <br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read? <br />
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[ ] genius <br />
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What I learned: Character, character, character. My Dark Places works so well because every scene not only reveals something about Ellroy but revolves around why Ellroy is the way he is. There are no faux-clever, throwaway lines of dialogue; no meaningless actions. The script is strictly about this human being, and even at 125 pages, it is tight.<br />
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<!--EndFragment-->Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-27682052526695701932012-11-05T13:26:00.001-08:002012-11-05T13:39:42.975-08:00Screenplay Review - StephanieGenre: Horror<br />
Premise: A young girl who lives alone in a house is shocked when her long-absent parents return and settle back into their day-to-day lives. However, it appears that they may have a hidden agenda. <br />
About: This script finished high on the recently released <a href="http://bloodlist.com/">2012 Blood List</a>, run by Kailey Marsh. <br />
Writers: Ben Collins & Luke Piotrowski<br />
Details: A very lean 94 pages<br />
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Well that's a bit of a tease, isn't it? I talk up this whole Equalizer script and all of a sudden don't review it?? Oh, the perils of script reviewing. Don't worry, I'll review it at some point down the line. Stay tuned. I will say this though: That script was one of the best I've ever read at executing the 3 act formula. It didn't exactly bring anything new to the table, but it was so good at what it did bring, you hardly noticed. From the sparse but information packed writing style to the designs behind how McCall killed people to the depth behind the secondary characters to the careful escalation of the plot to the several expertly crafted twists. It was like an entire screenwriting course packed into a single screenplay. That movie's going to be badass!<br />
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Speaking of badass, let's talk about Stephanie. Not so much the script, but the title character. This girl's only seven years old and she's been able to live on her own in this giant house for weeks (months?). She goes about her daily routine, snacking on leftover peanut butter and Little Debbie packages, while every once in awhile, the house rocks back and forth, moaning like a broken foghorn. It's in these moments that Stephanie heads into her dead baby brother's bedroom.<br />
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Oh, one thing about her dead brother. HE'S STILL THERE. Yes, the poor little baby died weeks (months?) ago, yet continues to lay peacefully in his crib, where hundreds of flies buzz around him. Stephanie's pretty sure that whatever's making these noises in the house is connected to her dead brother's soul - that he's a ghost of sorts - so she tries to comfort him to keep the horror to a minimum. <br />
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Writers Collins and Piotrwoski are pretty damn brave in their first act plotting as very little "happens" throughout the first 30 pages except for Stephanie trying to keep some semblance of her daily routine going. But little mysteries do pop up here and there. Why does the house groan? Why is her dead brother lying in his crib like he's still alive? Why are there x-ray negatives scattered about showing a tumor growing in someone's brain?<br />
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The story finally ramps up when Stephanie's parents return to the house, or at least two adults who we assume are her parents. Whoever these people are, they appear to be cautious of Stephanie. They're always speaking in whispers when she's not around. A decision is being weighed. And it's a big one, evidenced by the gun the man always seems to be carrying. <br />
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But before that decision is made, the man and woman try their best to put life back together in the home. Everything is cleaned up, the fence in the backyard is rebuilt, and most importantly, Stephanie's little brother is properly buried. You wouldn't exactly call things "normal," but they're definitely better than a 7 year old girl living alone eating hostess cupcakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Where are child services when you need them??<br />
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However, the semblance of normality quickly disintegrates when Stephanie's dead brother appears back in his room and the man and woman decide to play operation on this little girl who may or may not be their daughter. Stephanie doesn't like the game Operation, and that means Stephanie is going to make these people who have invaded her home pay.<br />
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Stephanie has its share of strengths and weaknesses. Its biggest strength is probably the creepiness factor. Watching this little girl wander around this house alone, looking at and talking to her dead baby brother with flies buzzing all around him, is the kind of stuff that makes you lose your appetite. <br />
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And it uses that tone, combined with a series of intriguing mysteries, to pull you in. It's not easy to write 30 pages of a character wandering around a house by herself and keep it interesting, but stuff like the dead brother and the mysterious x-rays achieved just that. You were definitely frustrated that things were moving along slowly, but at the same time, you couldn't stop turning the pages. You <i>needed</i> to find out where this was going. <br />
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And I really admired Collins and Piotrowski for using so little dialogue in the story. This was not about long conversations between daughters and parents. It was about visuals, images, sounds, moments - the kinds of things that make a horror script a horror script.<br />
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However, there were a couple of things that bothered me. The first was that the writers were always waaaaaaaay ahead of the reader. I mean you didn't have ANY IDEA what was going on at all. And after awhile, that started to get frustrating. You wanted answers, and the script wasn't going to give you a single one until the very end. <br />
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It's important to reward the audience every once in awhile with an answer to one of the mysteries, so that we feel like we're making progress. Take "The Others," for instance, a movie about a mother and her children living in a giant house alone during the war. They start hearing noises around the house and at first believe it may be a Nazi trying to take refuge in the home. We have an "answer." But when that doesn't prove to be right, it's implied that it might just be the kids playing tricks on their mother. Okay, we have another "answer." Then, when that's proven wrong, we genuinely believe it's ghosts. Another "answer." In other words, we keep feeling like we have a beat on things - only to have a new development prove us wrong, forcing us to start over again. <br />
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There's nothing like that here. Outside of maybe an implication that the dead brother is causing all this, we're given very few if any answers, only more questions. The parents, in particular, act so damn weird that I don't know what's going on. I don't even know if they *are* the parents, which is kind of cool in a "what the f*ck is going on right now?" way, but since we've been asking "What the f*ck is going on?" for an hour now and still don't have any leads, we're antsy. <br />
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And without getting into spoilers, I'm not sure the ending provided those answers. Visually, it was really cool to see Stephanie lose it, but I still wasn't sure what happened to her brother. I still wasn't sure what prompted the parents to leave and why they came back. I didn't know how long they were gone. I didn't know why Stephanie wasn't sure if they were her parents or not. And I wasn't sure how Stephanie became...super-power Stephanie (unless the arrival of this tumor caused it - which felt like it needed way more of a detailed explanation). <br />
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On the one hand, I can see why this has received attention. It's really spooky. It's a story I haven't quite scene before. The mysteries keep you turning the pages. I just wish we were rewarded more often and got more answers in the finale. This wasn't quite for me. But, if you liked the second half of Looper, you're probably going to like Stephanie a lot. Let me know what you think. <br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[x] wasn't for me</div>
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[ ] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: I think it's a huge gamble to be too far ahead of the reader for too long. You can do it for a little while, but sooner or later the reader wants answers. If you ignore this advice, your ending has to be, like, the best ending ever. We *really* have to feel rewarded for reading that long without any sort of payoff. Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-5737734239969977412012-11-04T22:54:00.005-08:002012-11-05T13:30:56.450-08:00Screenplay Review - The EqualizerGenre: Thriller<br />
Premise: A former Black Ops soldier, Robert McCall, is trying to make a quiet life for himself, when he's inadvertently pulled into a battle with the world's most notorious Russian criminal, a man with endless resources who always gets what he wants. And all he wants is to kill McCall. <br />
About: Based on an 80's TV show (which I've never heard of), The Equalizer will star Denzel Washington. Writer Richard Wenk has written a half dozen produced films, including 16 Blocks, The Mechanic, and The Expendables 2. Don't let that fool you though. This script is his best work to date by a million. <br />
Writer: Richard Wenk (based on the television show by Michael Sloan). <br />
Details: 106 pages - 1st draft (June 25th, 2012)<br />
Status: In development<br />
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<i>WOW!!! This is the script/franchise <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-shot.html">Jack Reacher</a> wishes it could've been. One of the best scripts I've read all year. Top notch writing in virtually every category. But all night working on other Scriptshadow stuff (which will be revealed soon) means the review won't be up until 1:30 pm Pacific Time. :(</i><br />
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<i><span style="color: red;">Update: Due to a combination of my laziness and some polite e-mails asking me not to review this yet, I'm going to hold off and review it another time. But there is a new script review up today. <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/11/screenplay-review-stephanie.html">Go check out Stephanie here</a>!</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="color: red;">Sorry for all the foreplay and no climax! In short, though, this script was awesome!!!</span></i><br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[ ] wasn't for me</div>
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[ ] worth the read</div>
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[x] impressive (TOP 25!)</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: Just a wonderful way to add backstory and depth to a character by showing and not telling. McCall is always reading books. Eventually, we find out why. His wife was trying to read the "100 Books You Need To Read Before You Die" before she passed away. So now McCall's doing it, as sort of an ode to his wife. We have physical images (the book) to SHOW us key McCall backstory (that his wife died). Great writing! Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-71599123653643067352012-11-02T14:24:00.001-07:002012-11-02T14:40:02.447-07:00Cool New Script Out On The Town - Sanctuary!Awhile back I read a script called Sanctuary under strict confidentiality from writer Todd Warner. I thought the potential was so freaking high (it felt like that "Next Matrix" everyone had been looking for since 1999) that I tried to get on the project myself, but Todd was already working with people so it was impossible. However, I believe in the project so much that I'm unabashedly letting everyone know that this IS the next Matrix. It's basically about this tiny percentage of people who are possessed by demons. However, with the right training, you can learn to control your demon and actually use them to unleash powers within yourself that the average human doesn't have, such as shooting fire or moving faster than the average person, etc. etc. It's just really cool stuff. I also thought it was cool that Todd made his main character a woman, a way to differentiate itself from The Matrix, yet still make it familiar. Anyway, the script went out today. If you have it, read it! Really hoping something good comes of it. And if not, well, that's not so bad either. Maybe then I'll be able to convince Todd to let me jump on board. This is the kind of franchise potential project producers dream of. I want to be involved! :) :) :) Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-69775183045485726592012-11-01T22:20:00.002-07:002012-11-01T22:30:24.882-07:00Amateur Week - USS Nikola Tesla<i>Welcome to Amateur Week! All week we're reviewing scripts from amateur writers that got the best response from <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/choose-next-weeks-amateur-scripts-to.html">this post</a>. We've already had one script perform REALLY WELL in "<a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/amateur-week-fascination-127.html">Fascination 127</a>." And today we review the highest concept of all the entries, "USS Nikola Tesla." Is it only a cool concept? Or is the execution just as good? Let's find out... </i><br />
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Genre: Sci-Fi/Supernatural<br />
Premise: (from writer) The American Navy's latest destroyer, the USS Nikola Tesla, disappears without a trace. Two years later she reappears with no sign of her crew. But no one realises this ship holds a dark secret that dates back to World War Two and a horrifying experiment.<br />
About: The big worry when you open up a high concept script from an amateur writer is that that's all it's going to be. The writer will set up the high concept in the first 20 pages, we'll be riveted, and then once they don't have that crutch to lean on and actually have to tell a story, the whole thing falls apart. I PRAY whenever I read one of these scripts that that's not the case. Because if a reader finds a high concept script that's also a great story? It's like finding gold. You can start printing the money.<br />
Writer: Anonymous (more on this in a second)<br />
Details: 99 pages<br />
Status: AVAILABLE<br />
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When I recieved the e-mail query for this script, it was accompanied by a very cryptic note from the writer, who explained that he couldn't include his name on the screenplay. It was something about...I don't know...how he had top secret clearance at Area 51 or something and if his name was associated with the script, men in black would visit his home and terminate him, along with all other members of the Resistance, except for the ones who were sent back in time to save humanity. I'm not sure what any of that means but it has me curious as to what happens if this script sells. Who do they write a check to? The writer obviously can't accept the money. Maybe I'll take it. Seems like a logical compromise. <br />
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Of course, I've gone down the anonymous writer path before. You'd be surprised at the lengths writers will go to get their scripts read, and the "anonymous" route is a popular one. Oftentimes the writer will imply a bunch of vague allusions to "big name actors" circling their script and how they'll get in trouble if they send it. But they're going to risk it all and send it anyway! They just can't reveal their name. <br />
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There was even one guy who told me he had come across an old screenplay during a yard sale. He bought it for kicks and it turned out to be the most amazing thing he'd ever read. If I was interested, he noted, he could send it to me. I said, "Sure" just to see how far he'd take the story, and he magically sent me a PDF document of the script that was converted from a word processing program. If this was an old script he found at a yard sale, wouldn't it have had to be scanned? Anyway, I opened the script up out of pure curiosity, and the first scene was a 10 pager focusing on urinal humor. Look, I respect playing the game a little. Just know that when a reader feels like they're being taken for a ride, they're going to be hard on your script. So, will that approach doom USS NIKOLA TELSA? Let's find out. <br />
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"Tesla" begins with an ode to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. A bunch of American soldiers in Afghanistan walk up a hill in the desert to see, below them, a giant half of a submarine. No, not a submarine sandwich (I should be so lucky). But an actual submarine.<br />
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Meanwhile, in Glasgow, two teenagers are making out on a foggy dock when a huge naval destroyer comes bearing down on them. They run for their lives, barely able to make it to safety, but soon afterwards, there's a loud groaning noise from inside the ship and then a shockwave of energy shoots out, vaporizing the couple. And before the dude could even make it to second base!<br />
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Cut to army officials in rooms making hushed phone calls. "It's back," they tell one another. The USS Nikola Tesla. Apparently it had gone off on some training mission two years ago and disappeared! Naturally, they need to figure out what caused its return, so they e-mail the experts.<br />
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Two of those experts are Lieutenant Robert Montrose and Lieutenant Claire Allen. Montrose is a notorious Navy playboy who's constantly looking to get his turret waxed. And Claire is a no-nonsense engineer who's next sexual encounter will probably be her first. Obviously, when these two get paired together, conflict is going to fly!<br />
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And they do get paired together, along with a group of other officials who have been brought in to check out the mysterious return of this boat. It isn't long before they realize something's up. The boat likes to groan a lot, and it seems like everywhere you look, something is dashing behind a corner. Add a little magnetism to the mix - a pen will be yanked out of your hand and stick to the wall - and boarding this boat becomes its own little house of horrors.<br />
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But the biggest question of them all comes in the form of Charlie, a young man dressed in a World War 2 naval uniform who tells Montrose and Claire he'll give them a tour of the boat if they're interested. Once he touches them, a flash of light occurs, taking our characters to Nowheresville, and the story along with them!<br />
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Montrose and Claire end up in a 1950s military hospital and Charlie informs them that he was part of the original Philadelphia Experiment and when his boat was destroyed, he decided to use this <i>new boat</i> to show the world just how stupid they were for messing with science. How he plans to get his point across? By blowing some cities up mothafuckuh! And he has the powers to do it! While poor little Montrose and Claire only have the power of persuasion to stop him. Dammit these paranormal Navy ghost World War 2 Philadelphia Experiment castoffs. They always seem to screw up a perfectly good day. <br />
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Okay.<br />
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To put it bluntly? My biggest fear was realized. Strong setup. But with every page afterwards, the story fell more and more apart. And it's not Anonymous' fault. Well, not entirely. This is why there's such a steep learning curve with screenwriting. You have to learn how to tell a story, <i>not just set up a story</i>. It's a mistake I see made <i>all the time</i>. Writers think that all they need is a cool idea and they're finished. No, you need a cool idea AND the knowledge of how to write a second act. The second act is where the concept takes a back seat to the characters. If the characters aren't interesting in some way, if they aren't tackling something substantial within themeselves and between each other, then the second act will rest too heavily on a series of forced plot points that we won't care about because we don't care about the people inhabiting them.<br />
<br />
And that's what happened here. Once Charlie shows up, the script just becomes one goofy nonsensical sequence after another. Look at Aliens. That was a hardcore action sci-fi thriller, right? But in that second act, you have Ripley battling her trust issues (she doesn't trust Burke or Bishop or the entire operation) and trying to protect this surrogate daughter, Newt. In "Tesla," we have Montrose and Claire bickering with each other via cheesy dialogue and Charlie being super-dramatic and often confusing with his scientific explanations. I'm still not sure how Charlie became a part of this ship in the first place. <br />
<br />
I suspect that this stems from another common amateur mistake - the refusal to outline. You can almost always tell an un-outlined script because the further the script goes on, the less it makes sense. It feels like the writer is making stuff up as he goes along because that's exactly what he's doing. When you write this way, you feel this pressure to "keep things interesting," and so you try and top whatever outrageous scene or sequence you just wrote with an even MORE outrageous scene or sequence. It's kind of like that desperate boy pining for a girl's attention. Sucking up jellow through a straw into your nose didn't work, so why not rip your shirt off and start dancing on the table?<br />
<br />
That's not how screenplays work. You need to carefully plot out what's going to happen 20 pages down the line so you can build up to that moment, whether it be through suspense, set-ups, or character development. "Tesla" certainly had a lot of stuff going on, but none of it felt cohesive. It felt more like a distraction to make sure you didn't realize that there wasn't a story.<br />
<br />
If I were Anonymous, I'd focus on three things moving forward. First, learn the value of outlining. Once you know where your script is going, you can create a more logical and plausible plot. Second, <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2011/07/article-how-to-conquer-your-second-act.html">learn how to tackle your second act</a>. A second act isn't just a bunch of crazy shit happening. It's a slow build, where you tackle most of your characters' issues. Which leads me to the third focus - character development. Give your lead characters something inside of themselves that they're trying to overcome. With Ripley it was trust. But it might be the recent death of a family member, an inability to love, or the desire to prove that you belong. The possibilities are endless. But if a main character isn't tackling SOMETHING inside themselves, chances are they're boring.<br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[x] wasn't for me</div>
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[ ] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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<br />
What I learned: A screenplay isn't just a high concept you parlay into a cool first 15 pages. The other 95 pages are going to be read as well, and those are the ones that are going to be more tightly scrutinized. Cause every reader worth his salt knows that that's where you find out if you're dealing with a writer or just an idea guy. Consider your high concept to be your "good looks." It's what gets you in the door. But you still have to be charming, you still have to be intelligent, you still have to be interesting. Your second and third acts are what's going to prove your value as a writer, so make sure they kick ass. <br />
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<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-8876401131892305572012-10-31T13:11:00.002-07:002012-10-31T13:47:28.012-07:00Blood List 2012 - Disciple Tops Them All!<i>Kailey Marsh's <a href="http://bloodlist.com/">Blood List 2012</a> is out. And guess who's at the top of the list! <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/02/screenplay-review-disciple-program.html">Go Tyler Marceca and Disciple Program</a>!!! If you have any of these scripts, send them my way. :)</i><br />
<br />
<b>"The Disciple Program" by Tyler Marceca </b>25 Votes <br />
Logline: A "Manchurian Candidate"-style thriller in which a man's wife dies and upon investigating, he discovers it was no accident. <br />
Agents: Rich Cook & Phil d'Amecourt (WME) <br />
Managers: Bard Dorros & Michael Sugar (Anonymous Content) <br />
Status: Mark Wahlberg attached to star and produce for Universal, with Morten Tyldum attached to direct.<br />
<br />
<b>"Stephanie" by Ben Collins & Luke Piotrowski </b>19 Votes <br />
Logline: Psychological horror film described as "Paperhouse" meets "Carrie" that concerns a young girl whose strange powers seem to doom her to a world of lonely solitude. <br />
Agent: Emerson Davis (UTA) <br />
Manager: Nate Matteson (Gotham Group) <br />
Status: The Gotham Group producing with Bryan Bertino and Adrienne Biddle of Unbroken Pictures. Jonathan Van Tulleken ("Off Season") directing.<br />
<br />
<b>"Lockdown at Franklin High" by Joe Ballarini & Gregg Bishop </b>17 Votes <br />
Logline: A girl and her brother must break-out of their locked down high school while a monster stalks the halls. <br />
Agents: David Boxerbaum, Ida Ziniti & Tanya Cohen (Paradigm) <br />
Managers: George Heller (Apostle) reps Ballarini, while Andy Cohen (Grade A Entertainment) and Cindy Cowan (Cindy Cowan Entertainment) rep Bishop <br />
Status: Set up at Sony with Benderspink and Platinum Dunes producing.<br />
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<b>"Story of Your Life" by Eric Heisserer </b>16 Votes <br />
Logline: Sci-fi drama about alien crafts landing around the world and Louise Banks, a linguist expert recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat. As Louise learns to communicate with the aliens, she begins experiencing vivid flashbacks which become the key to unlocking the greater mystery about the true purpose of their visit. <br />
Agents: Barbara Dreyfus & Jon Huddle (UTA) <br />
Manager: Julie Bloom (Art/Work Entertainment) <br />
Status: Set up at 21 Laps.<br />
<br />
<b>"Country of Strangers" by Sean Armstrong </b>13 Votes <br />
Logline: Based on true events, thriller follows an inspector during his 40-year search for three siblings taken from an Australian beach in 1966. <br />
Agents: Bill Weinstein & Rob Herting (Verve) <br />
Managers: Peter Dealbert & Susan Solomon (Principato/Young) <br />
Status: In negotiations with unnamed buyer.<br />
<br />
<b>"February" by Osgood Perkins </b>13 Votes <br />
Logline: Horror pic about an unidentified young woman who makes a pilgrimage to the site of a demonic possession at an all-girls boarding school in the dead of winter. <br />
Managers: Scott Halle (Gramercy Park Entertainment) <br />
Status: Bryan Bertino and Adrienne Biddle of Unbroken Pictures producing.<br />
<br />
<b>"Interstate 5" by Seth Sherwood </b>11 Votes <br />
Logline: Described as "Jacob's Ladder" meets "Natural Born Killers," this psychological thriller follows the son of an infamous serial killer and the daughter of one of the victims who go on the road in hopes of tracking the killer down, only to find themselves haunted by demonic forces intent on driving them mad. <br />
Manager: Kailey Marsh (Station 3) <br />
Status: Available.<br />
<br />
<b>"Somnia" by Mike Flanagan & Jeff Howard </b>9 Votes <br />
Logline: Horror pic about a couple who recently lost their son and take in a young boy as a foster child. They soon discover that the boy's dreams manifest themselves in the real world when he sleeps. <br />
Agents: Sheryl Petersen, Debbie Deuble & Chris Ridenhour (APA) <br />
Manager: Nicholas Bogner (Affirmative Entertainment) <br />
Status: In negotiations with unnamed buyer.<br />
<br />
<b>"Darkfall" by TS Faull </b>8 Votes <br />
Logline: Supernatural thriller about a group of residents who must survive the night in their apartment complex as they slowly learn that Darkfall (the rising of demons to take over the Earth) is upon them. <br />
Manager: Michael Botti (Industry Entertainment) <br />
Status: Available.<br />
<br />
<b>"Viral" by Dustin T. Benson </b>8 Votes <br />
Logline: A thriler with action and sci-fi elements described as "I Am Legend" meets "Outbreak." Told from the first-person point-of-view via the helmet cam of a bio-safety suit, story follows a scientist who joins an extraction team through quarantined areas of Manhattan while secretly searching for her missing daughter. <br />
Agents: Ramses Ishak & Mike Sheresky (UTA) <br />
Manager: Brooklyn Weaver (Energy Entertainment) <br />
Status: Adrian Askarieh (Prime Universe) attached to produce with Weaver and Energy Entertainment.<br />
<br />
<b>"The Importance of Blood" by James Breen </b>7 Votes <br />
Logline: Horror pic about the mute servant of a modern-day vampire who returns home to her estranged family 20 years after her disappearance. As she grows closer to her family, her loyalties to her master are finally tested. <br />
Managers: Jarrod Murray & Allard Cantor (Epicenter) <br />
Status: Available.<br />
<br />
<b>"Shut In" by T.J. Cimfel & David White </b>6 Votes <br />
Logline: Horror-thriller about an agoraphobic woman who must fend off a home invasion while she protects a dark secret. <br />
Manager: Marc Manus (Manus Entertainment) <br />
Status: Available.<br />
<br />
<b>"Peste" by Barbara Marshall </b>5 Votes <br />
Logline: Sci-fi/horror pic about a 16 year-old girl who begins to record her life for her high school media class just as a terrifying virus begins to spread. <br />
Agents: Debbie Deuble & Lee Dinstman (APA) <br />
Manager: Ava Jamshidi (Industry Entertainment) <br />
Status: Set up at IM Global with Sherryl Clark producing.Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-40284108053297727252012-10-30T21:36:00.001-07:002012-10-30T22:05:02.986-07:00Screenplay Review - Alfred Hitchcock And The Making Of Psycho<i>Taking a break from Amateur Week because it's HALLLOOOOWEEEEEEN and that means Scriptshadow must be spoooooooooky for 24 hours and that means a horror script review but since I don't have any good horror scripts, I'm reviewing a script that is ABOUT a horror film. Sound fun? I hope so cause I ain't giving you another choice here.</i><br />
<br />
Genre: Biopic'ish<br />
Premise: The struggles behind the making of Psycho, the project that would become director Alfred Hitchcock's most famous film. <br />
About: Anthony Hopkins will star as Alfred Hitchcock. Helen Mirren will star as his wife, Alma. Scarlett Johansen will star as Janet Leigh. Sacha Gervachi will direct. I believe this is Sacha's first feature film as a director (he's made a documentary). He's best known as the writer of Steven Spielberg's wackadoozy film, "The Terminal." John J. McLaughlin adapted the book into a screenplay. You probably recognize him as the writer of Black Swan. <br />
Writer: John J. McLaughlin (based on the book "Alfred Hitchcock and The Making Of Psycho" by Stephen Rebello. <br />
Details: 104 pages, fourth revision, Oct. 19, 2011 draft<br />
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First of all, WTF!!!???<br />
<br />
Disney bought Lucasfilm yesterday. Disney just BOUGHT Lucas. Lucas doesn't get bought. He buys other people! And now we're getting another Star Wars trilogy. And you know what I say to that? WOOOO-HOOOO! I love it. I've been dying to get Star Wars into real writers' hands forever now, and it's finally going to happen! <br />
<br />
How does this tie into today? Well, George Lucas was a bit of a pudgy filmmaker. And so was Alfred Hitchock! Actually, to be serious, I was not looking forward to this script. I don't like when entities try and mine a famous event when there isn't a story there. Like, oooh, it's Psycho! Let's make a movie about the making of it! Err, but the making of the movie wasn't any different from the making of any other movie. So what, let's do it anyway!<br />
<br />
I hoped I was wrong. That there was some fascinating story behind the making of Psycho that I'd never heard about. But something told me this wasn't the making of Citizen Kane. <br />
<br />
So here's the story. Hitchcock is coming off of North By Northwest, which is a monster hit. But he's bored. Everyone wants him to make another North By Northwest but Hitchcock, like his movies, wants to do the unexpected. Something unlike anything he's done before. And when he reads Pyscho, he knows that's it. That's his next movie.<br />
<br />
But this is a strange move. Hitchcock doesn't do horror. Only schlocky talentless directors do horror in 1960. On top of that, it's not something the studios are interested in. They think this flick is dead before the end of opening weekend. But Hitchcock has plans to do something a little different with it. He particularly sets his sights on a shower scene, which he believes he can immortalize. You see, there wasn't much nudity in films those days, and definitely not from movie stars. Yet Hitchock had a plan to imply a ton of nudity without actually showing any. It was going to be unprecedented.<br />
<br />
If only the studios agreed. They tell Hitchcock there's a reason everyone in town passed on Psycho and they're not funding it. I have to admit, I was a little unclear about this. Hitchcock makes mega-hit North By Northwest and the studio won't fund his next movie, which he's doing for 800,000 bucks? But whatever. The movie business was different back then so I'm probably missing something. Anyway, Hitchcock pulls a Passion Of The Christ and funds the movie himself. <br />
<br />
In the meantime, Hitchcock starts fighting all sorts of battles. He's the master of suspense, but he's 60 years old, and the establishment wants to know when he's going to retire. Hitch doesn't like getting old, and he feels that this movie is going to make him young again. Then there's his weight problem. The dude cannot stop eating. And he hates himself for it. He sees a monster whenever he looks in the mirror, and that kills him. But the biggest battle of all is his wife, who becomes the almost-star of the movie.<br />
<br />
Alma was Hitch's right-hand woman throughout his career and, if you believe this script, someone he wouldn't have been nearly as successful without. But Alma's getting sick of Hitch's lack of attention so starts paying attention to a dashing but not very talented writer named Whitfield Cook. They start writing a script together while Hitchcock films Psycho and it starts to weigh on Hitch, who realizes that if he doesn't rekindle his relationship with Alma, she might run off with the hack and Psycho will turn out a disaster. <br />
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So what do I think about "Alfred Hitchcock and The Making Of Psycho?" Well, it's a good enough script. It includes some interesting tidbits about the making of. But after I read it, I found myself asking, "Why did this movie need to be made?" "What new does it bring to the table?" I suppose the story of Alma is entertaining, but the script chooses to focus on Hitchcock as the main character even though her story is probably more interesting (mainly because it's less known). <br />
<br />
At times, the writer seems just as unsure as we are about the point of the story. I mean, we start with two tightly focused scenes regarding Hitchcock's age. So naturally, Hitchcock's inner conflict will be his inability to accept getting older. However, after those scenes, the age thing is never brought up again.<br />
<br />
Instead, we seem to focus on Hitchcock's food obsession (in particular his foie gras craving), which is unfortunately quite thin. When things don't go right, he eats. There's really nothing deeper to it than that.<br />
<br />
Finally, we move to Hitchcock's issues with his wife. He rarely pays attention to her, despite all she's done for him. This is what leads her on this quasi emotional affair (one which she never physically acts on) and while I guess it's kind of interesting, it's also kinda not. Nothing really scandalous happens. It's just a bunch of stares and devilish thoughts, leaving the storyline without a satisfying climax. And that summarizes my feelings about the script. It just kind of stands there with little to say.<br />
<br />
What saves it are the few behind-the-scenes looks at Psycho's famous scenes and stars. A heavy emphasis is put on the shower scene, which had never been done before in Hollywood. The most interesting thing about that storyline was the Censors Board. I guess before you even shot your movie back then, you had to go to a "Censors Board" and get approval from this dreadful stickler who decided whether everything was okay to shoot or not. For example, toilets weren't shot back then. So you couldn't shoot a toilet! Wtf??? <br />
<br />
And with the shower scene, every freaking angle had to be approved of. And it wasn't. They wanted Hitch to shoot Janet Leigh from the neck up. How boring would that have been? So Hitchcock ignores the censors and shoots the scene the way he wants it, because he knew that scene was going to be the one everyone talked about. <br />
<br />
I have to admit, there is something cool about being behind the scenes of one of the most famous films of all time, and it is enough for me to give this script a pass. But I'm left with the very same question I had at the beginning of this review. Is there a compelling enough story here to build a movie around? I'd probably say no. <br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[ ] wasn't for me</div>
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[x] barely worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: <span style="color: #030404; text-indent: -0.25in;">This is mentioned in the script as one of Hitchcocks' staples and a scene that always works - A character needs to get someplace but is held up by someone who wants to chat (Marion Crane just wants to buy that car but the salesman keeps talking to her). Write this scene into your script. It always works! </span><br />
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<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-11505931443001871202012-10-30T00:21:00.002-07:002012-10-30T00:21:15.679-07:00Amateur Week - Fascination 127<i>Welcome to Amateur Week! All week we're going to be reviewing scripts from amateur writers that got the best response from <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/choose-next-weeks-amateur-scripts-to.html">this post</a>. Time for you guys to take advantage of the opportunity. Hope we find something great. But even if we don't, it should be a great week for learning why screenwriting is so hard!</i><br />
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Genre: Heist/Thriller<br />
Premise: (original logline) A group of men are hired by a mysterious client to remove Jim Morrison’s casket, give it to him for 24 hours and then return the casket into the ground before it is publicly exhumed to be moved to the United States.<br />
About: This was another logline I wasn't very excited about, mainly because I'm not a Jim Morrison fan. But longtime Scriptshadow reader Poe Sterling went on a endorsement campaign worthy of Lena Dunham in the comments section, touting "Fascination" to anyone who would listen. Oh well, I thought, I'll give it a shot. <br />
Writer: Alex Carl<br />
Details: 113 pages<br />
Status: <i>AVAILABLE</i><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vJIa3R8UCnk/UI9_1Jv2EOI/AAAAAAAAEpQ/Ghy_QePnFig/s1600/Jim-Morrison-toast-Henry-Ha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vJIa3R8UCnk/UI9_1Jv2EOI/AAAAAAAAEpQ/Ghy_QePnFig/s400/Jim-Morrison-toast-Henry-Ha.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/amateur-week-pocket-dial.html">Yesterday</a> I didn't want to read the script because I didn't like the logline. Today I didn't want to read the script because I didn't like the subject matter. Jim Morrison? Snore. I knew something about the "conspiracy" behind Morrison's body being buried in Paris, but it sounded like one of those college conspiracy conversations you have when you've smoked too much dope. "Yo man...like...I bet you Jim Morrison is like...totally still alive n stuff. Like I bet he owns a record store in Mexico." "Totally man. He's probably still making music under, like, the name Jimano Morrison." "Dude, we should GO to Mexico.." "And look for him!" "Yeah, and like go to one of those donkey shows!" "But we need, like, more weed first." "Yeah." Long pause. "I'm tired." "Me too." Long pause. "Let's light another joint." "Yeah." "What were we talking about?" "No idea, man." Three minutes of pot laughter follows.<br />
<br />
That's honestly what i was expecting here - a college take on the Jim Morrison conspiracy theory that had about as much thought put into it as a Poly-Sci essay. But boy was I wrong. This is a real f*cking script here! With some cool characters, cool situations, and a heist unlike any I've seen on-screen before. I think that's what got me. You think you've seen everything in a genre before - particularly the HEIST genre - which has been done six thousand ways to Sunday. And yet this writer still finds a whole new spin on it.<br />
<br />
A little background on Jim Morrison's death. After he died, Morrison was buried in Paris, much to the disappointment of the music world, particularly his fan base. There was a 40 year lease on Morrison's cemetery plot and that 40 year lease is about to end. Morrison's coffin will be exhumed and brought back to the United States, where many people feel it should've been buried in the first place. <br />
<br />
Enter Eddie Hanley, a 40-something criminal lifer who's riding out the last days of his latest stint in lockup. It's this latest stint that's gotten Eddie thinking. Does he really want to do this anymore? Isn't he getting too old for this? Now would be a good time to get out. <br />
<br />
But there are a couple of things standing in Eddie's way. The first is Mr. Azadian, an Armenian gangster who's about as sketchy as they come. He basically runs an underage prostitution ring out of his mansion and refuses to kill anyone who's crossed him without first putting them through the most unimaginable torture possible. This is a guy you don't want to fuck with, and unfortunately Eddie owes him for keeping him safe in jail.<br />
<br />
But Eddie explains to Azadian that he's out of the game, which leads to his second problem - his son is dying. He can't help his son if he gets thrown back in jail for another job-gone-bad. So he wants out. For good. Azadian looks him over and says, okay, that's fine. But if he finds out Eddie is involved in <i>any</i> jobs with <i>anyone</i> else, he will find Eddie, kill him, and then kill his family. <br />
<br />
Ouch!<br />
<br />
So Eddie heads home to his ex-wife, where he learns that his son is actually way sicker than he thought. He's got a few months to live unless he can get a kidney transplant. So when an old friend, Chapney, comes calling, saying he's got the job of all jobs with a five million dollar payout, Eddie has no choice but to say yes. It's the only way his son's going to live.<br />
<br />
The job? Why borrow Jim Morrison's coffin for 24 hours for an unnamed suitor of course. The catch? The day they're exhuming Morrison's coffin for transfer to America is only a month away. That doesn't leave Eddie a lot of time to get the job done.<br />
<br />
So he puts together the old team, flies to Paris, and opens a donut shop near Morrison's cemetery (the idea being to develop a cover business that absolutely zero Parisians will be interested in), then start digging a tunnel to Morrison's grave, where they can execute the plan.<br />
<br />
Of course, it isn't long before Azadian starts wondering where Eddie is, and starts sniffing around. When Eddie gets wind of this, he begins having second thoughts. Azadian is ruthless. If he finds out Eddie's on the job, he will go straight to his family, rape his wife and probably his child, before torturing and killing them. However the alternative is just as devastating - the death of his son.<br />
<br />
The heist itself seems pretty straight-forward. Dig a tunnel, borrow the coffin, get it to the mystery suitor, then put it back. But when everything imaginable starts going wrong, this heist will turn out to be the most complicated job Eddie's ever had to deal with.<br />
<br />
I loved this. I knew I was dealing with a good writer right from the get-go. The story gets moving <i>immediately</i>, with Eddie leaving jail. Our really nasty villain is set up right afterwards, adding instant stakes to the story. We knew that Eddie was going to take a job later, so the threat that Azadian lays down (that he will kill him and his family) fills us with instant fear. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/amateur-week-pocket-dial.html">Yesterday I talked</a> about the "Uh-oh" moment. Today I'm talking about the "Sit-up" moment, where something happens in a script that's so strong, you sit up and start paying closer attention. Azadian's threat was that moment for me and I'll tell you why. A lesser writer wouldn't have included the scene. He would've only included Chapney offering Eddie the job. But notice how much more interesting having Azadian threaten him first is. There's a ton of weight attached to Eddie accepting Chapney's offer now - he's risking his family's as well as his own life. With the second option, saying "yes" to Chapney means next to nothing. He's just taking another job. There are no stakes attached. <br />
<br />
I also like how Alex includes multiple ticking time bombs. One ticking clock is good. Two is better. Here, Eddie and his team have to dig to Morrison's grave before it's exhumed. That's the first ticking time bomb. But we also have his dying son, who needs a transplant soon, another ticking time bomb. It's preferable to always have urgency behind your characters' goals. And the more urgency you can add, the better. <br />
<br />
On top of all this, we have a couple of mysteries that need to be solved (Jesus, this is like textbook Scriptshadow scriptwriting! No wonder I liked it). The first mystery is what's in Morrison's coffin. Alex does a nice job of explaining, to those who don't know, the Morrison death conspiracy. There's also this mysterious box connected to Morrison, titled "Fascination 127," that's been locked up all these years and which will be opened concurrently with the exhuming. <br />
<br />
And then there were just little things here and there that made Fascination 127 different. For example (spoiler), there's this big set-piece shootout inside the underground tunnels at the end, with a great little payoff from an earlier setup. In most heist movies, we get the big "been-there-done-that" final shootout in the bank. This was so different!<br />
<br />
Having said that, there were some weaknesses that kept me from giving Fascination 127 an "impressive." The first was Azadian. The guy definitely oozed evil, but he went over the top a few times. It became almost comical that every time we saw him, he was with a different underage girl, kicking or torturing her. That needed to be dialed back. <br />
<br />
I didn't like the media stuff either. I can't get into it too much without getting into spoilers, but there was a Geraldo-like media guy associated with the plan to steal Morrison's coffin who just felt too silly. I'd prefer that Alex find someone else to associate the heist with, someone more tone-appropriate. Had his role paid off in the end, I might have been okay with Geraldo, but I don't think it did. Will be interested to hear what you guys think of that choice. <br />
<br />
And then there were a few missed opportunities. The guys open a donut shop for cover, assuming no one will be interested. Well, it's hinted at that cops occasionally come in for donuts. We should've built a way bigger scene or series of scenes around that. If their shop became an unexpected hit with the local police force and cops were always coming in and out for donuts while, just underneath them, one of the biggest crimes in recent Paris history was taking place, that could've lead to some wonderful scenes.<br />
<br />
There was also a scene in the tunnel where they accidentally busted a water pipe and the tunnel started filling up with water. I thought it was going to be a scene where their lives were in danger as there was a chance they'd drown. But all Eddie had to do was casually walk back to the shop and turn the water off. I would've preferred a scene where their lives were in danger. Also, a city water official should've been called to the scene, having received a report of a broken water mane. Our team would then have to figure out how to get rid of him without him finding out they'd built a tunnel to Jim Morrison's grave. You always want to make things difficult for your characters. That's what creates drama which is what leads to entertainment!<br />
<br />
REALLY liked this though. It's got a few things that need to be fixed, but overall, a <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/screenwriting-article-storytelling-vs.html">VERY STRONG story</a>. Can't wait to see where it goes!<br />
<br />
Script link: <a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/a32v1s">Fascination 127</a><br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[ ] wasn't for me</div>
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[xx] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: You gotta make your lead attractive to an A-List actor and I'm not sure Eddie is quite there yet. I keep thinking back to the Showtime show, Homeland, and how the main character is bipolar and needs meds to keep her from freaking out and if the agency were to find out, she'd lose her job, which is her whole life. It's little things like that that actors get a hard-on for, those layers that make them more fun to play. I'm not saying Eddie needs that specifically, but he needs <i>something</i> extra for sure, something that would challenge and therefore entice an actor.<br />
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<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-64678178975024089332012-10-28T21:57:00.002-07:002012-10-28T21:59:38.951-07:00Amateur Week - Pocket Dial<i>Welcome to Amateur Week! All week we're going to be reviewing scripts from amateur writers that got the best response from <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/choose-next-weeks-amateur-scripts-to.html">this post</a>. Time for you guys to take advantage of the opportunity. Hope we find something great. But even if we don't, it should be a great week for learning why screenwriting is so hard!</i><br />
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Genre: Comedy<br />
Premise: (original logline) With temperamental technology thwarting them at every turn, three brothers get tangled up in love, lust and infidelity.<br />
About: For those who remember, I wasn't a fan of this logline. The phrase "temperamental technology" tripped me up (seemed way too complicated for a simple premise), and I always get nervous when loglines don't lay out a clear objective. My experience is that when there's no clear objective stated in the premise, there's no clear objective in the script, and we get a wandering story as a result. However, the people who read the first ten pages of Pocket Dial spoke, and the general consensus was they liked'em. I was more than happy to be proven wrong, so I pocket dialed Chris Head with the hopes of leaving him some good news.<br />
Writer: Chris Head<br />
Details: 99 pages of script on the wall<br />
Status: <i>AVAILABLE</i><br />
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This isn't going to be good news.<br />
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I <i>wanted</i> it to be good news. But we're going to have to turn this review into more of a lesson. I realized pretty quickly that Pocket Dial was going to dial up my initial fear when I read the logline - that an unclear logline will always result in an unclear screenplay.<br />
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When you read a subpar script, you always have that "Uh-oh Moment." It's the moment where you realize the script isn't going to work. And it's a sad moment, because most of the time it happens early, and you still have a hundred-plus pages to go.<br />
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In "Pocket Dial," the "Uh-oh" moment comes when one character tells another character he "fuck-ranks" women at work when he's bored. Not only did the conversation not push the story forward, but it was told to us via flashback. Why are we flashing back within 15 pages of the opening to an event that seemingly happened a few days ago? It just feels sloppy, like the writer is more concerned with forcing jokes into the script than moving the story forward.<br />
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It's not that you can't put fuck-ranking into your script, but Chris should've figured out a way to do it in the present - in the midst of a scene that mattered. It seems like the point of the scene is to introduce a hot co-worker to one of our characters? So why not make that meeting a real scene then? Something that matters? Something that sets up a storyline for that character at work (i.e. he's got to close this account or he's not getting the promotion). Then he and another worker can be trading scraps of paper where they're "fuck-ranking" the women in the room. Now the "fuck ranking" is happening in the midst of an important scene so you get the joke WHILE pushing the story forward, as opposed to forcing an unnatural 2-days-ago flashback into the first act (in general, you should just avoid flashbacks at all costs. Unless they're done perfectly, they're usually terrible).<br />
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As for the plot, Pocket Dial focuses on three brothers, each with a unique problem. The first brother is 32 year old Clint, who's trying to date a girl, Amy, who thinks he's boring as hell. Clint is way too nice, but Amy is kinda desperate so she's going out on these 2nd, 3rd, and 4th dates out of fear that if she doesn't, she's going to end up alone. <br />
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Clint's younger brother, Jim, is about to get married. But his wife is a workout freak and is so obsessed with their wedding, that when Amy's boss, Liz, takes a liking to him, he helps Clint out by double-dating, if only to extend the amount of time Amy gives Clint to change her mind.<br />
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Finally, there's Brad, the oldest of the three. Brad is already married but is miserable because his God-fearing wife won't give up the sexay time. This has driven Brad to take an interest in his young supple hot co-worker, Padma, an Indian girl who does't seem to believe in traditional Indian values (she purposely mispronounces Brad's name as "Bad") and makes it clear that whenever Brad wants to kama, she's sutra. <br />
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If there's a main thread to the story, it's the brothers trying to help Clint man up and get Amy. Because Clint is so nice and sweet, he has NO GAME whatsoever, which means the brothers have to pull out all the tricks to turn him into a man. In the meantime, we watch as both Jim and Brad try to resolve the issues with their own significant others, both of whom seem so far gone that there's no hope.<br />
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Okay, we'll start with the obvious here. The title and logline indicate somewhat of a hook, in that we're going to see how present day technology affects realationships. However, outside of a "butt dial" within the first ten pages, I'm not sure I saw one other instance of current technology affecting these relationships. That's going to be frustrating to a reader - that you promised something and didn't deliver. And since there's only that one instance of technology affecting relationships, the script really doesn't have a hook. It's just three guys dealing with relatiopnship problems, which is something we've seen thousands of times before, and done much better, leaving the reader with the question of, "What's the point?" <br />
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Another huge issue for me is that the main character goal in the script - Clint trying to get Amy - is one we don't care about because Amy's such a bitch. She thinks she's much better than Clint. The only reason she's even going out with him is because her boss wants to hook up with Clint's brother. So we're watching this guy obsessively try to get this girl who we detest. If I don't want the main character to achieve his goal, why would I want to read on?<br />
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In Chris's defense, though, I feel like there are instances of this approach working. I just can't think of any (can you?). Maybe it's just me, but when the main character is going after a goal we don't want him to achieve, it's hard to enjoy the story. <br />
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The script also falls into that dreadful "observational comedy" pitfall. You know, when characters are sitting around, discussing superheroes and their take on Dora The Explorer. No story is being moved forward during these scenes. We're literally just watching two people share their observations about innocuous things. I suppose this can work if the writer is really hilarious and has great unforgettable characters, like in "When Harry Met Sally," but even the observational comedy in "When Harry Met Sally" was theme-relevant. All the observations had to do with love versus friendship, which was the theme of the movie. What do Dora The Explorer and superheroes have to do with current technology?<br />
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If I were advising Chris on this script, here's what I would tell him to do. I'd give each of the brothers a strong goal in their storyline, either relationship-related or work-related, something that pushes their story along whenever we cut back to them. For Clint, that goal is obvious - get Amy. For Brad, it might be a work goal - to get promoted (then we make Padma the boss's daughter, a direct obstacle to him achieving his goal). For Jim, it might be that he thinks his wife is cheating on him, so he follows her around to catch her in the act. Now, whenever we cut back to anyone, they're all going after something, making sure the story is always <b><i><u>moving</u></i></b>.<br />
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Second, we need to make Amy someone we actually want Clint to win. If she's an annoying selfish "I can do so much better than the main character" type of chick, we're going to be frustrated cause we WON'T want Clint to get her. I'd also consider making Clint less of a wuss. He's just soooo nice and so naive and such a wuss. I kind of detested the guy. In general, be wary of making your main character a wuss. Audiences tend not to like wusses. <br />
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And finally (or probably firstly) you have to decide what the hook of your story's going to be. It can't just be three guys experiencing relationships in life. There's no hook there and you're going to be compared to other movies and scripts that have done this much better. If you're going to use the hook about technology, then you have to go all out with that hook. Scene after scene needs to be dealing with the way today's technology affects relationships. You can't just slap a snazzy idea on a logline to lure people in and then not explore it. You're going to piss readers off.<br />
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I think this speaks to the importance of a logline. If you go back to the logline for Pocket Dial, you'll see that it doesn't define a clear objective. It's not surprising, then, that the script tends to wander. I know this critique was in your face but I'm hoping Chris realizes how the importance of getting all this stuff right is going to vastly improve his writing. These are the things you need to nail if you want someone to pay a bunch of money for your screenplay. I'm wishing Chris lots of luck. Get back in there, apply these changes, and kick ass!<br />
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Script link: <a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/z6j8a6">Pocket Dial</a><br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[x] wasn't for me</div>
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[ ] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: Writing scripts like these (the wacky misadventures of modern-day relationships) are tough because the writers who are good at them are naturally gifted at finding funny unique current angles to the dating world. Just read the original spec draft (not the dreadful final movie draft) of "Going The Distance." Those are the guys you're competing with. It's probably a better idea to find a unique hook for a story and exploit it. That way, you don't have to be perfect because a producer might fall in love with the hook and buy your script on the strength of that alone. Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-16453224391609705462012-10-25T23:15:00.003-07:002012-10-25T23:24:55.095-07:00Amateur Friday - Luna Found A Dragon<i><b><u>Amateur Friday Submission Process:</u></b> To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.</i><br />
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Genre: Family/Action-Adventure<br />
Premise: (from writer) A ten-year-old girl finds a dragon egg in the desert behind her New Mexico home. The egg hatches and the girl befriends the creature. After discovering a way to return the dragon to its natural world, the duo embarks on a cross country journey, flying at night, with government agents on their tail.<br />
Writer: Troy Warren<br />
Details: 99 pages.<br />
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I know I don't review many family scripts on the site, but a producer was telling me the other day that the two genres that have been the most dependable throughout the years - dating back as long as the movie business has been around - are Action and Family. Those movies make a ton of bucks and they make a ton of bucks all over the world. Now I know most family films are developed internally, and the total historic box office is swayed by the ridiculous grosses of all those Disney animation classics, but the comment did open my eyes and is what persuaded me to go with Luna this week. <br />
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I'm also really curious because I received two early reactions regarding the script. One called it charming, cute, and essentially perfect. The other said it was the worst thing she'd read all year. Hmmm, which one was right? <br />
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10 year old Luna Cruz lives in that magical desert land known as New Mexico. She resides in one of those adobe houses that sits amongst dust, tumbleweeds, and roadkill, without a hint of civilization in any direction. In other words, 10 year old Lana lives in a pretty boring town. But that doesn't mean her life's boring. She has a brother who thinks he's a young John Travolta, a grandmother who wears a house arrest bracelet, and a little brother who finds pooping his pants to be an almost zen-like experience. <br />
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But none of these characters are as wacky as the one who's about to enter her life. During an Easter egg hunt, Luna's pooping little brother finds himself a giant easter egg that quickly hatches. But it's no bird that comes a chirpin' out. It's a baby....<i>lizard </i>maybe<i>??</i> Oh, she wishes. It's only when the little ball of scales starts burping out fire that Luna realizes - Holy Baloney - she's found herself a real live DRAGON! <br />
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Meanwhile, over in Los Alamos, Californigh-yay, some government types get all uppity about a strange energy blast that occurred down in New Mexico. The implication is that something other-worldly went on, and they wanna get their hands on this other-worldliness. So they send agent Sophia Bailey down to get to the bottom of it.<br />
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Back in New Mexico, our little dragon friend, who Luna's decided to name "Gordo," is growing faster than Rosie O'Donnel at an Old Country Buffet. Since Luna realizes she's in over her head, she tells her grandmother about Gordo, and after doing a few Google searches, realizes that Gordo probably got here via some time vortex from the past. They find a bunch of Ivy League nerds who know all about these vortexes and decide to travel to New York to meet them.<br />
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With Sophia, and soon the military, hot on their trail, they make it to New York where the Vortex Nerd Patrol uses a mathematical equation to determine where the next vortex is going to appear, the one that can get Gordo back to mama. It turns out it's in Nevada (Area 51 to be precise) and they only have 44 hours to get there. If Luna and Gordo miss that window, there's a good chance our little dragon buddy is going to live the rest of his life as a lab subject, something Luna will do anything to prevent!<br />
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So who was right? The extremely negative reviewer or the extremely positive reviewer? To be honest, I'm not sure either of them were right. My issue with Luna is that the story is <i>too average</i>. Those who read the site know I can't stand when I'm 40-50 pages ahead of the writer. And that's the problem I ran into with Luna. I always knew exactly what was going to happen 50 pages ahead of time. And it's hard for me to be entertained when that's the case. <br />
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Now I had a discussion with another reader about this and they pointed out, "Yeah but you have to realize, Carson - this is a kid's movie. To kids, it IS going to be surprising and new because they haven't seen thousands of movies and read thousands of scripts like you." It was a good point and something I've thought about before. Is the bar just WAY LOWER for the general audiences out there? Specifically children?<br />
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On the one hand I'd say, yes, it is. But on the other, I still think it's a problem. Whenever you write a script, it has to get past the bullshit detectors. Whether those detectors are readers who have read hundreds of scripts or producers who have made dozens of movies. These guys are the line of defense your script must make it past to be both bought and made. And their bar is just as high as mine. They're looking for a freshness, a new take on familiar stories, an unpredictability to the characters and structure, just like me. <br />
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I look at a movie like Up or Wall-E, popular children's movies, and there's definitely an unpredictability to those stories. I mean, one of them has no talking for 45 minutes and the other has a house that flies around the world via hundreds of helium balloons. Those are both things I haven't seen before. And I feel like you need those elements, even when you're playing to a super-young audience. <br />
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So moving forward, I believe Troy needs to dig deeper here. I think the story needs to be more complex and less familiar. A couple extra subplots could help, just to make the story less linear. And I think we need to do more with the characters. Where's the fatal flaw in the main character, Luna, for example? Luna was a blank sheet of paper to me. She was cute. But because there wasn't anything complicated or difficult going on in her life (other than her schoolmates making fun of her) I never felt more than one-dimension with her. And your main character needs more than one dimension!<br />
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Take her family. Clearly, something's happened to Luna's family. It appears that her mom and dad are absent? There's some interesting backstory there which we're not privy too. Then you have this dragon, who's been ripped away from his mother. Why not make a connection there? Why not explore that? The effects of a child who grows up alone? Who doesn't have that mother/father figure in their life. If Luna can get Gordo back to her mother, it's almost like she's able to get herself back to her own mom. <br />
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You don't have to go that way, obviously. But that's the way you need to approach it in order to add depth to your story, in order for it to be more than just names on a page. You want to make audiences and readers <i>think</i> and this was too simple of a plot, too obvious of a direction, to get us thinking. Both from a standpoint of depth and choices, there wasn't enough meat on the bone. Look at Bailey, who had the potential to be much deeper, not unlike Tommy Lee Jones' character from The Fugitive. Start her off emotionless. Then, as she gets to know this kid and what she's going through, she starts to turn, and by the end, she's trying to save Luna. Maybe you tie in that theme of being alone and Bailey herself grew up without that all-importnat mother figure. There's SOME OF THAT here now, but not nearly enough. <br />
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I also think more could've been done with the ending. And this goes back to many of the choices here being<i> too simple.</i> As it stands, (Spoiler) Luna has to get the dragon to the Vortex without getting shot down by the military. So what happens? <u>Luna gets the dragon through the Vortex without getting shot down by the military</u>. It goes EXACTLY the way it's supposed to go. That's not interesting. That's not drama!<br />
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What if we establish in the past that the mama dragon is looking for her baby, and when that Vortex opens up, she surprisingly comes bursting through to get her baby back. So now we're not dealing with one dragon, but two, with the military forced to make a tough decision. Do they start shooting? Do they take down the bigger threat? Every part of the plan is thrown off because the mother dragon has arrived. And now you have a finale that could go in a million different directions (maybe the mother is killed. Maybe the mother is injured. Maybe Gordo is injured and the mother has to save him). That's the way you want to write your stories, by throwing things in there that open up a bunch of fresh options, not just stay on that obvious straightforward path. <br />
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I realize I'm being a little harsh here. Luna is actually one of the better written Amateur Friday scripts I've read, but I think that's why I'm so passionate about its flaws. I know Troy can do better. He has the writing chops. But like a lot of writers out there, he has to challenge himself more. Your protagonist's journey should feel troubled, impossible and unpredictable. There were a few speed bumps here, but none of them felt <i>that</i> difficult to me. I always knew Luna and the dragon were going to be okay. Do you remember when E.T. died?? Yeah, E.T. DIED!!!!! How devastating was that???? That's something I DIDN'T EXPECT. I wanted stuff like that here. I know Troy can do it, but he's gotta push himself. And so do the rest of you. Always PUSH YOURSELVES when writing scripts. If it's too easy, you're probably not working hard enough. <br />
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Script link: <a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/7qd0ga">Luna Found A Dragon</a><br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[x] wasn't for me</div>
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[ ] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: I have a rule. If you feel like you've seen it before, erase it and write something else. That goes for lines of dialogues, scenes, action sequences, characters, whatever. If you feel like "I've seen this in another movie," <i>pound that delete button</i>. Add a little twist to it, go in a different direction, or completely rewrite it. Do anything BUT write what's already been done. I specifically kept thinking of E.T. while reading "Luna." The secret pet aspect. The military aspect. Getting the dragon home aspect. Let's go back, erase all those references, and replace them with something new and fresh. This should not feel like an E.T. update. It should feel like its own individual movie. Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-75012707796813614172012-10-24T22:13:00.002-07:002012-10-24T22:13:24.969-07:00Choose Next Week's Amateur Scripts To Review!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Those arguing that American Beauty didn't have a great logline shall rejoice! (Well, not really).</i></div>
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Today's post is going back to that age old nightmare - <i>loglines</i>. When I look through the amateur submissions to see what I'm going to review every Friday, I often find myself saying, "How in the world did this writer think this was a good idea??" I know that's harsh but spending months (or even years) on a bad idea is one of the worst mistakes you can make as a screenwriter. So I try to be harsh. Because I don't want you, the aspiring screenwriter, wasting hours your life on something that nobody's going to read. <br />
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On top of this, I continue to get loglines that don't make sense, that are grammatically incorrect, or that are loaded with spelling mistakes. It's one thing to mistake a bad idea for a good one, but it's another to screw up the one sentence you're using to sell your screenplay. <i>I mean it's only one sentence!!!</i> And you spelled a word wrong? Or worded it in a funny way? Why haven't you gone over this line hundreds of times? Why haven't you sent it out to all your friends and have them proofread it for you?? This is your shot to get read. Don't give anyone a reason to say no.<br />
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Having said that, there are logline-unfriendly scripts. American Beauty is a logline unfriendly script. The Help is a logline-unfriendly script. The Kids Are All Right is a logline-unfriendly script. As are Milk, Babel, There Will Be Blood, and Atonement. Not every script is going to have that "I have to read it now" logline. But what I will say is that unless you're a known entity who has worked in this business for awhile, rarely will anyone read your logline-unfriendly script. They just won't. They can see from the logline that it's going to be a hard sell. History's also taught them that scripts from unknowns usually suck. So why would they waste their time on a script that's probably going to suck and even if it turns out good is going to be impossible to sell? <br />
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But Scriptshadow to the rescue! I'm going to offer up the loglines that you, the readers, have submitted, and let you, the readers, decide whether they're review worthy or not - irregardless of any of those funky industry standards. I'm going to post the first 10 pages for you as well so that even logline-unfriendly scripts get a shot to pull you in. Whichever scripts are getting the most heat in the comments section, those are the ones I'll review for next week. And hey, hopefully we'll find something great!<br />
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Now while you're looking through these, I want you to be aware of the "<u>But I'm different</u>" bias. This is a common problem us writers have where we believe that even though our logline isn't very good, <i>we're different</i> because we've been writing longer or we're a better writer or we have a cool third act twist. As you look through these, imagine your own logline in there. Does it sound as uninteresting as the majority of these? Try to be totally objective. Would you pick up your script off your logline if it was sent to you amongst a sea of other submissions? <br />
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As a reminder, most managers, agents, and producers gravitate towards three types of loglines. Loglines with some sort of conflict - <i><b>note, these are not full loglines, just synopses</b></i> - (A small beach town must battle with an influx of shark attacks), some sort of high concept (A cyborg is sent back in time to prevent the birth of the man who will one day lead the resistance against his kind), or some sort of irony (A genius MIT janitor is recruited by the university's top mathematician). The only exception to this is personal preference. If you're covering subject matter that the receiving party is partial to, they might take a chance on your script even if the logline stinks. So if you send your otherwise unexciting tennis concept to a tennis nut, they might still read it. But, as you can guess, that avenue is completely dependent on luck.<br />
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So, now that you've ingested all that, here are 30 loglines to choose from, including the first 10 pages of each. If any of these loglines or First Tens excite you, make sure to talk about them in the comments section, which I'll be watching closely. Whatever gets the most reaction/interest is what I'll review. And don't bring in your friends to tip the scales in your favor. I always get suspicious when a bunch of random new commenters love an idea, that something fishy's going on. Otherwise, just give us your opinion on these loglines (or pages). Oh, and I DID NOT filter these ideas. They're all randomly submitted loglines <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/amateur-friday-nine-twelve.html">for my Amateur Friday slot</a>.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/wjufsi">The Steps</a> </b><br />
<i>Suspense/Thriller/Paranormal </i><br />
After moving to a quiet town, a young family's new neighbor; with a disturbing past, becomes instantly infatuated with the wife and young daughter. When his sexual advances are rebuffed, his warped psyche spins frighteningly out of control.<br />
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Would I read? - This has some nice conflict built into the logline. A contained and easy to imagine scenario. Can see the poster. Could be good if the writing's good. I might check this one out.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/ovqhtk">Against Time</a></b><br />
<i>Action/Sci-Fi</i><br />
To stop terrorists from destroying New York City, a rookie bodyguard must take an experimental drug that reverses time.
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Would I read? - Very high concept. A little confused why they'd send a bodyguard back in time, but this is another idea I can see the poster for. I'd give it a shot.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/gjmw21">The Legend Of Spring Heeled Jack</a></b><br />
<i>Horror</i><br />
An aristocratic woman born for marriage disguises herself as a man in order to join the London metropolitan police force and catch the infamous serial killer known as Spring Heeled Jack.
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<br />
Would I read? - Hmm, not sure why we're including that this woman is born for marriage. What does that have to do with the concept? Also, "metropolitan" seems extraneous. Makes me think the writing is going to be extraneous. With that said, serial killer movies sell, so if this were good, you never know what might come of it. I MIGHT give this a shot.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/sul6el">Zombie Resurrection</a></b><br />
<i>Horror/Comedy</i><br />
When an experimental male-enhancement drug turns all the men in town into sex-crazed zombies, it's up to a rag-tag band of women to survive the assault and stop the epidemic from spreading.<br />
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Would I read? - I don't know. This sounds a little too goofy to me. It is a zombie take I haven't seen before, so I'll give it that. But otherwise, it's just too broad for my taste. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/pfx4h0">Time and Time Again</a></b><br />
<i>Sci-fi</i><br />
Only one man can help fiery-tempered Louis save multiple universes from destruction and rescue his kidnapped wife... her lover.<br />
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Would I read? - We do have a high-ish sounding concept here, but some things worry me. What does being "fiery-tempered" have to do with this story that it's so important it be included in the logline? It just feels random. Plus, the ending confuses me. Who's "her lover?" Is that Louis' lover? Isn't Louis a man?? I never want to read the script for any logline that confuses me. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/zktjx5">Snallygaster</a></b><br />
<i>Horror</i><br />
While investigating the disappearance of her best friend, a college coed and group of Amish teens on 'rumspringa' encounter a monster out of Penn Dutch folklore that preys on wayward kids.<br />
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Would I read? - There's nothing exactly wrong with this logline, so maybe it's just not a genre I'm interested in? A monster that preys on wayward kids seems kinda random so I probably wouldn't open it up.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/3z273p">Gideon</a></b><br />
<i>Drama</i><br />
A mysterious boy brings together a racially charged small town before the Mayor's son kills him.<br />
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Would I read? - I'm not sure this logline was very well thought-through. It's almost as if it was thrown together right before it was sent. A logline should tell a story. But this one just tells us a boy does something good and then he dies. There is some conflict implied (racially charged town and a clearly unhappy Mayor's son) but it's thrown together so haphazardly that it makes me question if the script itself will follow the same sloppy formula. Wouldn't pick it up. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/ebqso1">Collosal</a></b><br />
<i>Horror</i><br />
An alcoholic mother living in a desolate town must protect her teenage daughter when a man she tormented as a child shows up looking for blood.<br />
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Would I read? - The logline implies a sort of "History of Violence" vibe, which could be cool. There's a clear line of conflict here. But there's something a bit plain about it. I might pick this up if I'd just read 15 bad loglines in a row and was tired of looking for something to read, but it doesn't have that 'wow' factor that makes me want to read it RIGHT NOW.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/muouaj">Dark Side Of The Moon</a></b><br />
<i>Dark Fantasy</i><br />
A depressed young writer, spiraling down to a suicide attempt, discovers he may only be a character in a movie – the worst reviewed movie of the year.<br />
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Would I read? - First think I notice is how depressing this sounds. The "may be a character in a movie" thing is kind of interesting, even if it's been done many times before. What concerns me is the end, which states, "the worst reviewed movie of the year," which places us in comedy territory, something that's not included in the genre. That worries me. Probably wouldn't pick this up.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/r1pbcx">Judgement Date</a></b><br />
<i>Contained Thriller/Suspense</i><br />
A poker pro on death row gets a chance at freedom on the live comeback TV show of a cruel, disgraced Idol judge<br />
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Would I read? - This is what I call a "too many disjointed elements" logline. A poker pro. Death row. Chance at freedom via a reality show. By a disgraced Idol judge (American Idol?). What does an American Idol judge have to do with poker reality shows? Why would a poker pro be on death row? This logline is all over the place - too unfocused - which tells me the script will be the same. Wouldn't pick this up. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/63xhlb">Facade</a></b><br />
<i>Drama/Noir</i><br />
A detective delves into an investigation following the murder of a teenage boy in the quintessential 1950's American suburbs, unaware of the secrets buried behind the veneer of this picture perfect society. (*Note: intended to imitate the style of classic '40s-'50s film noir)<br />
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Would I read? - Put simply, this isn't my thing. So I wouldn't pick it up for that reason alone. The investigation of a murdered boy gives the story some structure, but I'm not sure the murder of a boy in the 50s is unique enough to warrant a read, even if I was a big noir fan. This idea needs something extra.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/8qewcn">The Lasso Man</a></b><br />
<i>Genre not given</i><br />
The protag: Andy, a London kid. Whose passion with the lariat accompanies him through many escapades: Some hilarious,some compassionate and moving, life affirming, life changing and life saving. As the war clouds gather in the late 1930’s. his sister forges his birth certificate at age 17 so he can join the R.A.F and become a fighter pilot.
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<br />
Would I read? - Whoa, lots wrong here. Starting your logline with "The Protag:" already screams amateur. Then you have a period after "kid" when there should be a comma. That's two punctuation mistakes and an odd sentence beginning all within the first seven words. Writer needs to go back to basics - study punctuation, grammar and sentence structure before submitting anything. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/1oosnj">Recovery</a></b><br />
<i>Drama</i><br />
When a man involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident learns the victim is his brother's wife, he must decide whether coming clean and appeasing his conscience is worth the risk of shattering his family.<br />
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Would I read? - An intriguing situation. Some implied dramatic irony. There's definitely a story here. Is it big enough? Can the writer create a compelling enough second act to keep us interested long enough to get to the end? That's to be determined but I might give this one a shot. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/ta4n0o">The Gentleman's Prestige</a></b><br />
<i>Comedy</i><br />
An insecure homeless man puts everything on the line when he enters a male beauty pageant in hopes of proving to his talented family that he's not a loser.
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<br />
Would I read? - I'm confused by writers who keep placing these trivial adjectives in their loglines to describe their protagonists. What does being "insecure" have to do with this idea? Had the writer said, "unbearably ugly," that would've had more relevance, since he's entering a beauty pageant. Regardless, there's something about this idea that feels off. Homeless man in a beauty pageant. I can imagine a couple of funny scenes that might come out of that, but not an entire movie. Probably wouldn't read this.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/rn03k0">I, Henchman</a></b><br />
<i>Action/Comedy</i><br />
A henchman for a terrorist group sees a chance at redemption when he's inspired to write a story. But before he can develop his newfound talent, he not only has to flee the group, but also confront his worst fear: the hero hell-bent on eliminating the terrorists, including him.<br />
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Would I read? - Hmm, this logline feels unbalanced and confused. A henchman who decides to write a story doesn't sound very cinematic or interesting. Main characters who are writers are rarely interesting since writing is (as I'm sure you guys know) pretty boring to watch! Also, why do terrorist groups need henchmen? Aren't they, almost by definition, henchmen? When I have too many confused questions, I'm not picking up the script. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/1jlrny">Deux</a></b><br />
<i>Action/Thriller</i><br />
A twenty something signs up as a weapons tester in a high-tech duel to wipe his debt, but to get his pay he must defeat his next opponent--an adversary he can't seem to kill.<br />
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Would I read? - This logline suffers from being too vague. A "twenty something?" Can we come up with a protagonist we can actually visualize? How about "A genius computer hacker?" Also, the ending kills this logline: "An adversary he can't seem to kill." Way way waaaay too general. You need to be more specific. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/c4yvjj">Geek and Destroy</a></b><br />
<i>Comedy</i><br />
Two sexy female spies turn the world’s largest video game convention upside down when they are hired to steal a hard-drive containing millions of dollars worth of online weapons.<br />
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Would I read? - Clever title. Very important since if a writer can make me laugh at the title of his script, there's a good chance he'll be able to make me laugh <i>in</i> the script. I've read these comic-con-type heist scripts before, so that's a strike against the writer, but this is the comedy with the most promise so far. I <i>might</i> read the first ten pages. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/x9195p">Manic Pixie Dream Girl</a></b><br />
<i>"High School" Horror</i><br />
When indecisive high school student, Charlie, falls for a beautiful, enigmatic older woman she turns out to be a homicidal maniac.<br />
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Would I read? - Hmmm, something's not adding up here. What does a pixie dream girl have to do with an older woman? Is she the pixie dream girl? How does that work? Are we dealing with a "woman" or a "girl?" Also, there's a comma missing after "woman," which may only be a comma, but there are only 21 words in this logline. It shouldn't be hard to get all the commas where they need to be. Finally, the "homicidal maniac" portion of the logline seems to come out of nowhere and therefore feels random. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/zd3zuo">Bond Of Blood</a></b><br />
<i>Drama/Faith</i><br />
Contemporary telling of the parable of the Prodigal Son, set in modern day South Africa.<br />
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Would I read? - This is a very general synopsis of the story, not a logline. There's no conflict or irony implied anywhere. There's not even a main character. On top of that, it feels really heavy, and therefore boring. I would rewrite this sucker with a focus on trying to make the story sound as exciting as possible, because it very well might be. I'd just never know after reading this logline. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/9cm7az">Forbidden Fruit</a></b><br />
<i>Creature Feature</i><br />
After a horrifying vision, the town drunk finds a purpose in
protecting the locals of a sleepy southern community from a mysterious
tree and its fruit that addicts all who taste of it. His resolve is
challenged when it appears something more insidious may be using the
fruit as a vessel from their world into ours, and the people as the
final gateway.<br />
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Would I read? - I don't know. There's something here. But the ending of this logline really kills it. It just dissolves into general muckery. "...the fruit as a vessel from their world into ours, and the people as the final gateway." Plus, this is pitched as a creature feature and yet I don't see the creature in the logline! Wouldn't pick it up. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/ac0dm9">Pocket Dial</a></b><br />
<i>Romantic Comedy</i><br />
With temperamental technology thwarting them at every turn, three brothers get tangled up in love, lust and infidelity.<br />
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Would I read? - This is one of the most confusing loglines of the 30. I'm not sure I have any idea what this script is about. What's "temperamental technology?" That seems to be the hook of the concept yet I don't know what it means. And what does "Pocket Dialing" have to do with what's stated in the logline? Then the three brothers getting tangled up in problems is way too general. Wouldn't pick this one up. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/9isovf">Seventy-Three</a></b><br />
<i>Sports/Heist</i><br />
A washed up major league pitcher is blackmailed into a scheme to steal one of baseball's most coveted pieces of memorabilia, Barry Bond's 73rd home run ball, the very same ball he threw to Bond's that fateful night.<br />
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Would I read? - There appears to be some irony in that the pitcher who pitched to Bonds must now steal the home run ball he hit off him, but there's something very low-stakes about it. I start thinking about things like, "Is this ball really that important anymore?" Hasn't the whole steroids thing destroyed the value of memorabilia like this? Feels like we need to go deeper into history here - a home run ball hit by Maris or Gherig. In the writer's defense, my reaction to this feels personal, not so much a judgement of the logline itself.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/pnl5yd">The Power Of Max</a></b><br />
<i>Sci Fi/Rom-Com</i><br />
Max wants to be with Emma, but first he has to get past Ricardo...and survive an alien invasion.<br />
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Would I read? - This is one of those loglines that really doesn't tell us much, but then hits us with the shocking wild ending. Whether that ending inspires you to pick up the script is up to the individual. Unfortunately, this sounds a little too random to me. Why does he have to get past "Ricardo?" Who's Ricardo? That information seems important. And I'd personally like a little more set-up as to why there's an alien invasion. Wouldn't pick this one up.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/deaqu7">The Suicide Theory</a></b><br />
<i>Crime/Thriller</i><br />
A disgraced former New York cop must track down the man who shot the Mayor in order to uncover the truth about an identical case that led to his own downfall three years earlier.<br />
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Would I read? - This is not my thing but I do like the idea of a man hunting down a criminal who ruined his life to clear his name. That personal journey tells me the main character would probably be pretty interesting. This would have to be written well, but I'd read the first 10 pages.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/zm78n2">Like Father, Like Daughter</a></b><br />
<i>Sci-Fi</i><br />
The hunter for extraterrestrial animals has to take his teenage daughter with him in search for traces of an alien civilization. The adventures they experience together give them an opportunity to fix their family relationships.<br />
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Would I read? - Some grammar mistakes in this one. Not "The hunter" but "A hunter." Not "relationships" but "relationship." Some of these elements have potential, like extraterrestrial animals and alien civilizations, but they don't really come together in a cohesive natural way in this logline, so I probably wouldn't open it. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/qudkj6">Chase The Night</a></b><br />
<i>Crime/Thriller</i><br />
On his 25th birthday, a troubled orphan receives information about his estranged mother, sending him into a world of corruption as he investigates the circumstances behind her life and death. <br />
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Would I read? - It's not "must read now" material, but I like the idea of orphans having to come face to face with the lives of their real parents, and this story seems to take that to the extreme. This is something I'd probably read the first ten pages for mainly because the last 15 options have been so lackluster. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/uppmxv">Breakup Rehab</a></b><br />
<i>Dramedy</i><br />
A broken-hearted young woman is told by a psychic that she'll never find true love if she doesn't get over her ex-boyfriend by her 25th birthday...which is one month away.<br />
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Would I read? - The premise feels a little forced, but then these romantic comedy ideas usually do. I like the ticking time bomb here, which creates a lot of urgency. If we love the main character and really want her to find true love, this might work. But if she's just an amalgam of all the other romantic comedy protagonists we've come to know throughout the years, Breakup Rehab could find itself dumped. I might open this. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/2opl1e">Fascination 127</a></b><br />
<i>Thriller</i><br />
A group of men are hired by a mysterious client to remove Jim Morrison’s casket, give it to him for 24 hours and then return the casket into the ground before it is publicly exhumed to be moved to the United States.<br />
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Would I read? - Personally, I'm not a Jim Morrison fan, which pretty much takes me out of the running for reading this. Also, I'm not sure the general mystery of someone wanting to exhume his casket for 24 hours gets me very excited. Maybe if something was added like, "...to see if his body was really inside," that would at least provide a more specific storyline. Will be curious to see if Jim Morrison fans think this sounds interesting but it's not my thing. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/1hnq79">U.S.S. NIKOLA TESLA</a></b><br />
<i>Sci-Fi/Thriller</i><br />
The American Navy's latest destroyer, the USS Nikola Tesla, disappears without trace. Two years later she reappears with no sign of her crew. But no one realises this ship holds a dark secret that dates back to World War Two and a horrifying experiment.<br />
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Would I read? - Hmmm. I've seen the whole "ship disappears and then reappears years later" idea before. I mean, we've seen it as early Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. So I'm wondering if there's anything new here to mine. I might thumb through the first few pages to see if the writing was strong, but despite this being high concept, the familiar-factor would probably keep me from picking it up. <br />
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<b><a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/dbia5f">Maneater</a></b><br />
<i>Horror/Comedy</i><br />
A bottomed-out actor takes a Vision Quest to reasses his life – one week in the wild without women or booze – and is targeted by a sexy forest ranger with exotic, uh, tastes.<br />
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Would I read? - Why does the main character need to be an actor? Wouldn't it be more ironic if he was a businessman who's never left the city? That would make him more of a fish out of water. I'm also not sure what a "Vision Quest" is. Isn't that a video game? Is the "one week in the wild without women or booze" the definition of a "Vision Quest?" If so, why is it not placed right after "Vision Quest?" The elements don't quite come together naturally here so I probably wouldn't open this. <br />
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And that's it folks. Read what you can and discuss your thoughts in the comments section!Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-47191988489105872372012-10-24T09:01:00.003-07:002012-10-24T09:10:25.869-07:00Screenplay Review - The OutsiderGenre: Period/Crime<br />
Premise: In post World War II Japan, an American former prisoner-of-war rises in the yakuza.<br />
About: "The Outsider" finished 4th on last year's Black List. Writer Andrew Baldwin hasn't done any major work that I've heard of up until "Outsider," but he did script a draft of the in-development remake of "Logan's Run." The last rumor had "Safe House" helmer Daniel Espinosa directing "Outsider" with a dream-casted Michael Fassbender starring as Nick.<br />
Writer: Andrew Baldwin<br />
Details: 125 pages, June 2011 draft<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-poOpHsznK4k/UIeBitRCVnI/AAAAAAAAEmU/RMc3n486A-8/s1600/Michael+Fassbender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-poOpHsznK4k/UIeBitRCVnI/AAAAAAAAEmU/RMc3n486A-8/s400/Michael+Fassbender.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
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I must confess, I don't know much about the Yakuza other than that they have a really cool name: THE YAKUZA! I like it so much, in fact, I'm thinking of naming my first kid after it. "Yakuza!" It has such a nice ring to it, don't you think? <br />
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But here's the reason this Yakuza script has been sitting near the top of last year's Black List and 10 months later I still haven't reviewed it: <i>I don't connect with the crime genre</i>. When a bunch of tough guys are trying to out-tough each other with toughness - when <i>that's</i> the focus - I can't get into it. I need some heart. I need something to relate to in the characters. And the crime genre is more about honor and codes and stuff that really doesn't interest me. Every once in awhile, if a writer can come at the genre from a unique angle, I can be entertained for a couple of hours, but that's about as much as I can hope for. I'm never going to think of one of these scripts as amazing.<br />
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With that said, The Outsider is one of the few crime scripts that <i>does</i> come at the genre from a different angle. We're not dealing with the 15 hundredth movie about the Italian mafia. We're dealing with the first movie about a guy rising up through the Yakuza in 1954. Was it a little too familiar? Ehhhhh, probably. There were times where you could've laid in scenes from Goodfellas, Casino, Carlito's Way, etc., and no one would've noticed. But there were also moments where I genuinely felt like I was learning about the unique culture that is the Yakuza. <br />
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The Outsider begins on a train in 1954 Osaka, Japan (hey, just like <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/screenplay-review-invasion.html">yesterday's script</a>!). The car we focus on is filled with prisoners being transported to their new prison. One of those prisoners stands out, as he is the only Caucasion in the bunch. His name is Nick. He's 30 years old. And what's spooky about the dude is that he actually seems okay with where he's at. <br />
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There's a reason for that. Nick has gone AWOL since the war after murdering his commander who did something terrible (you'll have to take Baldwin's word for it since we never find out what the commander did). But the American military sees it differently. They see Nick as the bad guy, and they want to try him. Which is why Nick's fled and is now hiding out in Japan. In a prison. In a Very. Bad. Prison.<br />
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It's at this prison where Nick gets all Mike Tyson on some big Japanese oaf who dares test him in front of the other prisoners. Nick gouges his eyes out, blinding the man, and just like that he has the respect of everyone in prison. But it's Nick's cell mate, Kiyoshi, who pays the incident the most mind. You see, Kiyoshi is part of one of the biggest crime families around, the Matsuoka Family, and he decides it wouldn't hurt to have a crazy-ass motherfucker like Nick around to do some dirty work.<br />
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So when Nick's released, Kiyoshi snatches him up, and pretty soon Nick's hitting up the locals for the Matsuokas, unafraid to beat them into a pulp to get his point across. He soon becomes feared in the real world as well, and as a result becomes one of the rare Americans accepted into a Yakuza family. <br />
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It would be nice to celebrate such a feat, but the nature of living in this reality is that your'e never safe. And the Matsuoka's much bigger and badder rivals, the Seizus, start getting a little testy when Nick begins throwing his weight around town. They blame Akihiro, the leader of the family, and pretty soon, the two sides find themselves on the eve of war. <br />
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As if inadvertently leading your new employers into a war they didn't want wasn't bad enough, Nick also ends up falling in love with a beautiful but dangerous woman named Miyu, who happens to be the sister of Kiyoshi, Nick's biggest ally. Kiyoshi only had one rule when he brought Nick into his world: <i>Don't fuck my sister</i>. So a big fat "oops" on that count. This means Nick will not only have to figure out a diplomatic way to end this war, but if he doesn't, he'll need to protect Miyu from the Seizus, protect <i>himself</i> from Kiyoshi, and protect the Matsuokas from his big ass mistake. I'm not going to give anything away here, but the nature of this genre is that things end badly, and I'm guessing The Outsider is no exception. <br />
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I'm glad this one popped into my reading pile because it takes a storytelling angle <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/screenwriting-article-storytelling-vs.html">I didn't talk about in my "Storytelling vs. Writing" article</a>. If you remember, I said that most stories are run by either two engines: character goals or mysteries. If you aren't using one of those, your story probably isn't very interesting. <br />
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The "Rise Up/Crime" genre is one of the exceptions to this rule. There's rarely a concrete goal in these scripts. And there's rarely a mystery either. It's more about watching a protagonist rise up through the ranks of an organization. Goodfellas is another example. Or Scarface. There's something about watching someone rise to power that's exciting. I can't exactly explain why - maybe it's because we know that sooner or later they have to fall - but it definitely works. <br />
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Except you know me. I <i>need</i> those goals and those mysteries to keep me going. I <i>need</i> more of a story than "guy rises up" to get my juices flowing. And The Outsider didn't have that. It had a unique backdrop. It had authenticity. And I guess there was a little mystery as far as our main character's past. But other than that it was pretty straightforward. Guy rises up in Yakuza. No twists. No turns. That was it. <br />
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To Baldwin's credit, however, he did infuse his script with TONS of conflict - essential for this kind of movie. Remember, you're always looking to make things tough for your hero (have them encountering conflict). If you're not doing that, then you're not entertaining us. We had the Seizu, the rival family pushing up against Nick. We had Nick's past (his court martial) pushing up against him. We had Orochi, a brash young member of the Matsuoka family who doesn't like Nick. And we had Miyu, the girl he falls in love with who he <i>can't</i> fall in love with because he'll betray his only friend in the family. Conflict leads to drama. Drama leads to entertainment. So The Outsider was strong in that respect.<br />
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But yeah, where The Outsider fell apart for me was the third act. And it's not surprising. When you don't have a goal or a mystery, you don't have a clear-cut finale. Think about it. If your protagonist isn't going after something (i.e. the Ark in Raiders) then you don't have anything for him to do in the third act. Or if there isn't some big mystery we want answers to, then there's nothing to reveal in the third act (what the Ark does). <br />
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This is what really hurt The Outsider. Its characters are basically <i>reacting</i> - waiting for the other crime family to make a move. And making <i>reactive</i> characters interesting is a lot harder to do than making <i>active</i> characters interesting. Don't get me wrong, it can be done. I think this is similar to how Goodfellas ends, but it's just not my thing. I like characters who are active, who are going after things (goals) and there just wasn't enough of that here. For that reason, despite recognizing this as a very well-written script, I couldn't <i>personally</i> get into it.<br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[x] wasn't for me</div>
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[ ] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: The power of the Underdog in this genre. Without a goal or a mystery, you're stacking the storytelling odds against you. However, if you can give us a protagonist we love, we won't mind as much that there aren't any goals or mysteries. Why? Because we'll follow a likable hero through anything. And what's the easiest way to make a likable character? <u>Make them an underdog!</u> Audiences LOVE underdogs. Nick is as big of an underdog as they get. An American prisoner in a Japanese prison - someone everyone hates, despises, wants nothing to do with. You'll see this underdog quality in all of these types of movies, from Goodfellas to Scarface to The Godfather. If you're going to write one of these "rise up" movies, make your lead an underdog. I promise you it will pay off. Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-32469740521167146792012-10-23T16:22:00.001-07:002012-10-23T16:40:24.548-07:00Screenplay Review - InvasionGenre: Sci-fi <br />
Premise: A group of survivors search for answers in an ash-fallen Los Angeles after an alien invasion. <br />
About: Ben Magid first gained traction in Hollywood with <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2011/02/pan.html">his dark take on Peter Pan</a>, which reimagined Pan as a serial killer. He sold this script, Invasion, a couple years later to Summit. <br />
Writer: Ben Magid <br />
Details: 8/11/09 Draft – 98 pages <br />
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I was able to escape the Cambodian village I was being held captive in last night, hitch a ride from a local one-eyed chicken farmer, and make it to Phnom Penh Airport, all before the screenwriting terrorist organization known as “Eat The Cat” knew I was gone. However, I did manage to secure a producer credit should their reboot of “The Adventures Of Pluto Nash” make it to theaters. I also hold the rights to my story, which will be the focus of a primetime special on 60 Minutes. More on that before Thanksgiving. <br />
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It all seems rather serendipitous, seeing as there was that big debate on TV last night, what with the presidential election and all. I expect screenwriting terrorism to be a hot topic moving forward, and I want to make sure my story is known. For those of you wondering which way I’m leaning, I’ll just say that there’s nothing more annoying than political junkies arguing about politics. It’s almost creepy in fact, and sorta makes me not want to vote. By the way, when the heck are they going to make it so you can vote online??? Voter turnout would go up 500%!!! But nooooo. They have to make us go OUT and vote. You wanna know what that is? That’s bias against lazy people. If the lazy people in this nation were allowed to vote, I promise you things would be a LOT different. <br />
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Don’t I have to review a script today? I guess so. Except today’s script is so….average. How is one supposed to get excited about an average script? And it shouldn’t be that way. I like invasion scripts. Well, I like the IDEA of invasion scripts. But they need that little Sunkist twist so that they stand out, and I’m not sure Invasion has that. With that said, surprisingly enough, I believe Invasion could be a cool movie. But it’s going to need some characters and it’s going to need a pulse – two things it’s lacking at the moment. <br />
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Invasion starts out sharply enough, with a group of commuters travelling through Los Angeles via subway (L.A. has a subway?) when they hear a giant BOOM from above. Their train goes haywire in a way that would scare even Chris Pine and Denzel Washington. It accordions into a wall and the survivors, after checking to make sure all their limbs are intact, make their way up top. <br />
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They’re greeted with a Los Angeles awash in what looks like snow, but it quickly becomes apparent that this is ash. LA has been nuked, and not by your friendly neighborhood North Koreans either. But by aliens! The only reason our crew survived is because they were in some lead-lined portion of the subway tunnel. <br />
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But that hardly means they’re out of trouble. This ash limits visibility to about 30 feet, which means they’re walking blind in this battleground, with strange alien forms always looming just beyond your field of vision. That and the GOOP. What’s the “goop” you say? Well, the goop would be the big puddles of sticky gooey goo that seem to be everywhere. Our survivors realize that this goo used to be PEOPLE! And if you touch it, the goo contaminates you, turning you into fellow goo. <br />
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Like most group survivor movies, the goal is to get to the survivor rendezvous point, which our guys make a guess is at the Federal Building in Westwood. But when they get there, there’s no one around. They do find a radio transmission, however, that states the Navy is sending ships over to Santa Monica to save all the survivors. So away they go again, this time encountering some heavy casualties. For those who manage to survive, they’re met with quite the shocker, a big surprise that’ll have them wishing they were K.O.’d back at that subway crash along with the rest of the commuters. <br />
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Before I get into my problems with the script, I have to admit Invasion's kind of a clever idea for a movie. When you take on these giant cataclysmic events, it’s a smart idea to localize things. But that usually means putting your characters in an ordinary location, such as a house (i.e. the way “Signs” did it). In this case, we’re actually <i>in the middle of the chaos</i>, however it plays like a contained thriller, since we can never really see beyond 30 feet. We’re watching things play out, but only within this tiny fog-limited bubble. I thought that was cool. Remember, our imaginations are always worse than reality, and wondering what was just outside that bubble made for some nice suspense. <br />
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However here’s the problem. I didn’t care. You’ll notice that I didn’t mention any characters in my review and that’s because I don’t remember any. Oh sure, there was the tough former army type and the annoyed businessman type. But there wasn’t a single character who had anything unique or interesting going on. Even Magid seemed unsure about his characters, as he didn’t really decide who to focus on until the third act, where I guess this dad and his daughter became the de facto protagonists with a broken relationship that all of a sudden needed mending. <br />
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I seem to say this until I’m blue in the face but you gotta spend more time on your characters people! You gotta give everyone AT LEAST ONE unique trait, something (or a combination of somethings) that make them unlike anybody else we’ve ever seen before. Because if a character doesn’t feel real, then we’re bored by them, and if you have a script like this with 7-8 generic stereotypes running around, it doesn’t matter how cool your plot is, you’ve written a script without a pulse. <br />
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But some of you are probably saying, “But wait a minute, Carson. This sold!” True true, it did sell. But it sold on the concept and Magid’s heat due to his hot script, Pan. That’s the thing – when you sell a script or you write a hot script, companies are much more comfortable buying from you, and won’t hold you to the same standards unknowns are held to. I know it’s backwards thinking – but it’s the way the business works. If you’re not known to Hollywood, you need to be amazing. Because if someone buys something from an unknown and that script has a lot of problems, people won’t want to push it through the system and whoever was responsible for buying it could get fired. But if you bought a script from a celebrated writer with a hot script that everyone loves, that’s something people want to get behind, even if the script isn’t that great. So it's a much safer bet, even if it's not as good!<br />
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But I’m getting off track. The point I was trying to make was this: NAIL YOUR CHARACTERS. Put everything into your characters. Make them flawed and mysterious and conflicted and relatable. But most of all, <u>make them unique</u>. We’re more likely to see someone as a real person if we haven’t seen that person before in a movie. <br />
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Invasion: Cool concept. Could be a neat movie. But needs unique and way more interesting characters. <br />
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[ ] What the hell did I just read?<br />
[x] Wasn’t for me. <br />
[ ] Worth the read <br />
[ ] Impressive <br />
[ ] Genius <br />
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What I learned: Even when you're focusing on a group of people, it's a good idea to have a lead protagonist. Not that "a group as protagonist" can't be done, but if you're not focusing on a lead person or a lead couple, it's hard for us to make that connection with the characters so that we actually give a shit about them. And that's exactly what happened here. I didn't know who the main character was so it's not a surprise that I didn't feel a connection to anybody.<br />
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<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-52523340169596096572012-10-22T10:02:00.000-07:002012-10-22T10:02:52.692-07:00Guest Review - Borrowing Girls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>Hey guys. I am currently being held captive in Cambodia by a group of hardcore screenwriting enthusiasts, one of whom wants me to teach him how to write the next "The Adventures Of Pluto Nash." This is why I'm unable to write today's review. Assuming that my village cleaning duties are limited to today, I should be back tomorrow. In the meantime, guest reviewer and elusive Canadian-born writer/reader "Rich," who's had the privilege of studying at both NYU AND AFI, is going to be taking over reviewing duties. Pray for me Scriptshadow Nation. Pray for me to make it back to the states alive. </i></div>
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Genre: Erotic Thriller<br /> Premise: After a sexually adventuresome couple moves into an upscale neighborhood, the woman accidentally murders her new neighbor while defending herself against rape. When the couple chooses to dump the body instead of confessing to the police, things take a turn for the worse.<br /> About: According to Variety (June 2011), the script sold to Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. David <br />Writer: David Schickler<br /> Details: 90 pages, Mar. 10, 2011 draft<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>James Franco for Daryl?</i></div>
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In full disclosure, I knew nothing about this script before I’d read it, other than that it was “Hitchcock-ian.” But for me, the word has always been something of an invitation, so with a touch more curiosity than “nothing” should warrant, I dove right into this baby, this script called “Borrowing Girls.” Gee, I wonder what I’m supposed to be thinking about this title... <br /><br />It all starts with a young couple moving into an idyllic neighborhood called the Pinnacle Estates. Gretchen and Daryl Gift are that perfect unit that maybe we’d all like to be. She’s 27 and gorgeous, a former actress now selling makeup at an upscale department store. He’s 30-something and confident, having recently scored a major contract as an architect. Daryl and Gretchen’s new home isn’t the biggest on the block, but still, in Daryl’s words, “they made it.” <br /><br />Oh, and they share a very healthy sex life, too. (More on this later.) <br /><br />They soon befriend their neighbors Samantha and Todd. Samantha, as one local puts it, is the queen bee of “the Pin,” while Todd, it turns out, is persona non grata for having lost a ton of money for people in the town with business deals that all went south – paying for it in the bedroom, even, being routinely rejected for sex. <br /><br />One night, Gretchen and Daryl have them over for dinner and afterwards, the guys split off from the girls into the basement (where a lot of the fun of this movie takes place). Drunk and bonding, Todd presses Daryl for his “secret,” how he gets Gretchen to be so hot for him all the time -- code for, “I noticed your wife is quite hot and I would very much like to boink her.” But whether Daryl gets the subtext or not, his answer to Todd’s question will prove to be most consequential. Be warned, the next little bit is going to get complicated, so just bear with me. For a movie like this, it kinda goes with the territory... <br /><br />The thing about Gretchen and Daryl’s sex life is that it’s wrapped around a pretty unique fetish (or maybe it isn’t unique? And I’m just too tame?). They do this thing where Gretchen dresses up like various women in their lives, people like the realtor, the nanny, the Denny’s waitress, etc., and then has sex with Daryl – in character. <br /> <br />Schickler, a novelist and screenwriter, previously adapted his own novel "Sweet and Vicious." <br /> <br /> They videotape these sessions and keep a whole library of DVD’s, one for every woman, or character, I should say, played by Gretchen. <br /><br />To answer Todd’s question, Daryl decides to SHOW him these DVD’s (which they keep in the basement) of Gretchen getting screwed while disguised as various women from around the Pin. But because Gretchen is such a good actor, Todd is in total awe of Daryl – thinking that Daryl is actually having sex with all these women! At first, Daryl tries to correct him, but Todd is so impressed that Daryl can’t help but let it ride. Daryl adds to it, however, with a lie – that Gretchen allows him to sleep with other women, and that the two of them regularly watch these DVD’s together. <br /><br />Todd becomes so jealous and curious that he steals one of these discs on his way out. He becomes instantly addicted, so much so that he sneaks into the Gifts’ house the next day to steal another one. When he returns home to watch the second DVD, however, he’s stunned to find Daryl having sex with his wife Samantha! Todd rushes over to the Gifts’ to confront Daryl about it, but Daryl’s out. Gretchen’s home alone. Tearing at the seams from pent up rage and sexual frustration, Todd ends up trying to RAPE Gretchen, who, after struggling to fight him off, manages to bury a fire poker into his skull. Yup. Todd drops dead, and later, when Daryl comes home to discover the bloody scene, he immediately tries to call the cops... <br /><br />But Gretchen won’t let him. <br /><br />And while thus far, the movie had me thinking Adrian Lyne or David Cronenberg, this is where the term “Hitchcockian” finally comes into play... <br /><br />From here on out, the movie’s about whether or not the two will get away with it, of course, tracking Gretchen’s evolution (or devolution?) from a seemingly nice girl with a sexual kick to a full-on femme fatale as she convinces her husband to dump the body into the river. Enter Detective Corry Donner, a cop who’s not even in the right department for the case but is handpicked by Samantha for the fact that they share a personal history. Corry does manage to make things difficult for Gretchen and Daryl, who do their best to survive his meddling, but in the end, it’s Gretchen’s unrelenting commitment to getting away that causes the greatest strife for all. <br /><br />But let’s just stop here for a second. While the rest of the script does play out as a taut little suspense piece, more or less, there was one question that I just couldn’t get out of my head during the entire read: Why didn’t Daryl just tell Todd the truth?! I just didn’t get it. And I’ll get this out of the way really quick – I personally can’t stand it when a major plot point is forced into being by way of inebriated characters. Like, anything that doesn’t make sense can happen just so long as the character’s had a few beers or a couple of tokes. Wrong. Drugs and alcohol help characters do what they secretly want to do but can’t under the inhibitions that society forces on us. Drugs and alcohol do NOT make nonsensical plot points suddenly make sense. <img src="file:///page2image27344" /> <br /> <br />I say this because I reread this scene several times in search of a better motivation. The only other contender was that maybe being new to the neighborhood, and wanting to prove to Gretchen that they do, in fact, belong in the Pin, Daryl was overly eager to ingratiate himself with his new neighbor. But still, it’s overkill because all this occurs after Todd offers to sponsor Daryl’s application to the country club. I didn’t feel Daryl needed to go that far. <br /><br />The other problematic aspect to this issue is one of logic, I suppose, that the story Daryl gave Todd was less impressive than the actual story, which is that Gretchen’s figured out a way for him to have sex with other women – without having sex with other women! I know, at a glance, the notion of having sex with lots of different women is far more impressive to most men, but for a movie such as this, it’s more interesting and appropriate for a character to be psychologically and emotionally capable and desirous of sexual experimentation. While Todd can barely get Samantha to have vanilla sex with him, here Daryl has a wife who does this sh*t voluntarily. Awesome! That, to me, seems like a better answer to, “How do you two keep things hot?” <br /><br />But logic aside, the basic issue still remains – I didn’t buy that Daryl had to let Todd think he had sex with all those women. I mean, yeah, there was no way for Daryl to know that such a lie would ever lead to such a crazy chain of events, but still, there were so many other reasons to stick to the truth. If Daryl was, in fact, having sex with all the women in town, is that something he should advertise to someone he hardly even knows? I think not. The problem is, everything that Gretchen and Daryl endure after that point seems so... unnecessary. And this unfortunate thought popped into my head every ten or so pages, sometimes prompted by something on the page, sometimes just because. <br /><br />But this might just be me. Another reader might be fine with it. But even so, there’s another issue that they’re likely to run into, which is that the main characters disappear for too much of the remaining plot and their reactions to major events are all but buried, barely even thought of! One clear cut example of this is when, after they dump the body, Gretchen and Daryl attempt to sneak into Samantha’s house to retrieve the stolen DVD in order to clear the path of evidence. This is totally in line with their overall goal, which is to get away with the murder. But then, this DVD retrieval objective takes a backseat for an entire sequence of the film (too long, in my opinion), such that by the time the plan resurfaces, it feels like the movie should have moved on to something else. <br /><br />The added problem to this is that the lack of a more consistent effort toward the goal also undermines the urgency. It’s rare that characters are less motivated to pursue their goals than the audience is in seeing them do it. For a movie like this, where the stakes are clear enough – and high – it’s not only a momentum killer but a failure to deliver on the genre. Don’t deflate the tension by allowing, or worse, making your main characters lay off the primary objective! <br /> <br />Another form of this “presence” issue came up in the lack of reactions to certain key events, one obvious example being the discovery of Todd’s dead body. Shouldn’t this be the event that comes about, say, at around the midpoint to raise the stakes and danger for our protagonists? Why do we not even get a moment where they react to being invited to the funeral? Why do we never see the two freaking out but then regrouping and adapting to a new course of action? Yes, you do need scenes with Samantha getting the investigation going, and fine, I’ll even deal with the expository business with Samantha’s history with Corry (more on this in a moment), but if your main characters are, for a while, going to be in the backseat as far as pushing the narrative is concerned, then you have to at least track their reactions to and attitudes about all that’s going on in the meantime. <br /><br />But regarding Corry and Samantha’s backstory, although I appreciated that the cop role in this film had a more personal involvement in all the goings-on, it felt at times like it was either too much or too little. Either keep him as just the cop, or go all the way and resolve whatever issue it is that’s still bugging Samantha. And make it RELEVANT somehow. And not coy or deliberately vague. Yes, they have a brief moment in the end that’ supposed to imply resolution, but I’m not exactly thinking about their subplot at that point because it occurs right after the most violent scene in the movie. And ultimately, even in hindsight, it was too little, too late. <br /><br />Finally, I wondered about the movie’s theme. What was it? I’m not sure. I hate to come off all post-feminist or whatever, because I’m anything but (as my girlfriend is happy to point out when I demonstrate this fact myself), but what does it mean to have a woman who accidentally murders someone out of self-defense against rape go on to become the monster of the movie? Is it saying that anyone with a gamier sexual appetite is inherently immoral? Is the movie simply saying not to lie? To keep your perversions to yourself? Without any clear answers, I was left with a touch of “meh” and a dash of “So what?” <br /><br />To be fair, the script does several things well, one of which is that it earns the prefix to its thriller genre. Boy, is this film erotic when it has to be. Whether it’s something as small as flirtatious banter or as extreme as having sex simply to deceive, the sexual content of the film is quite effective. It arouses. It smolders on the page. And it leaves you wanting more – even though you get plenty enough. And the whole thing of getting dressed up other women, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a movie before. I personally thought it was an interesting enough to be the novelty of the movie. That, along with the fact that Gretchen is a compelling character with so many sides, ultimately makes for an easy if not enjoyable read. It’s a script that I hope undergoes the necessary improvements because with them, the movie will do what it promises. <br /><br />[ ] what the hell did I just read? <div>
[ ] wasn't for me<br /> [x] worth the read<br /> [ ] impressive <br /> [ ] genius <br /><br />What I learned: Sometimes, there is such a thing as being too short. While Borrowing Girls’ 90 pages were a breeze to get through, in the end, the story you’re left with is missing a good amount of material that needs to be there in order for the story to be fully satisfying. </div>
Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-405912037338476002012-10-19T00:41:00.001-07:002012-10-19T00:41:40.912-07:00Amateur Friday - Nine Twelve<i><b><u>Amateur Friday Submission Process:</u></b> To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.</i><br />
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Genre: Drama<br />
Premise: (from writer) A man embarks on a relationship with a 9/11 widow after claiming to have lost his brother in the attacks.<br />
Writer: Edward Ruggiero<br />
Details: 107 pages.<br />
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<i>Bradley Cooper for Artie?</i></div>
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I actually read Nine-Twelve awhile ago and always wanted to review it for Amateur Friday. So when the writer, Ed Ruggiero, sent me a new draft, I thought, "Perfect." Don't worry. That doesn't mean I'm not checking all the submissions you guys are sending me, just that I don't like them! No, I'm kidding. But I do want you to remember there are a lot of submissions. If your concept is just "okay" or "decent," it's probably not going to be picked. I mean sure, it might be amazing, but I could use that same logic for each of the hundreds of other "okay" or "decent" concepts. So why should I pick yours over theirs? You know? I'd rather pick a concept that gets my juices flowing - that has a little more POP.<br />
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Artie Grossman is in his late 30s and doesn't have much to show for it. He has some inheritance money, which he's learned to squeeze every penny out of, and when he's not taking money out of his dead parents' bank account, he's pulling charity scams on local businesses. Oh yeah, Artie's not a good person. He's pretty much a piece of shit. He's negative. He's dishonest. And as we've already established, he's a thief. Yup, a total winner.<br />
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But not everything about Artie is pathetic. He actually takes care of his dysfunctional brother, Dicky, who's so terrified of the real world that he rarey goes outside. Artie's working with Dicky a day at a time to get him back into society. So we got a pathetic asshole thief and a guy who's afraid to leave his apartment. Talk about a gene pool. I'm not sure even Axe Body Spray could make these two attractive.<br />
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That is unless they LIE. And Artie is one hell of a liar. After spotting a homely but beautiful woman on the subway, he follows her across the city into a random support group, a support group he soon realizes is for peole who lost family members in the 9/11 attacks. Spurred on by this woman's unique energy, he joins in, and quickly finds himself recounting a story about how his brother died in the attacks. It's moving and powerful and total horse shit. But the woman, Kerry, buys into it, and afterwards the two recount their 9/11 memories with one another.<br />
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Turns out Kerry lost her husband in the attacks, and hasn't been on a date since! She just can't let go. Particularly because she had a chance to answer her husband's final phone call, but carelessly sent it to voicemail, figuring she'd talk to him later. She was a different person back then. Not a very good one. And she's paid the price for it ever since.<br />
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However now, with Artie in the picture, she gets out there and starts to feel good again, which you'd think would make her frustrated mother happy. But it turns out her mother doesn't trust this new guy. She feels there's something suspicious about him. A mother's intuition is always right! But Kerry's too wrapped up in remembering what it's like to feel happy again so she ignores all the warning signs (number 1 of which is - don't date guys without jobs).<br />
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What starts out as just a meaningless little jaunt becomes serious, and before you know it, Artie is all in, which is strange. He's never been all-in before. And when you're all in, all your secrets have to come out. You can try to hide them, but your significant other's going to find out sooner or later. So what's Artie's solution to this? To run away with Kerry. Go somewhere as far away as possible. In other words, avoid the problem. But this appears to be one of those problems that's never going to go away.<br />
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Dramatic Irony.<br />
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We know something about our hero that the romantic lead does not. That he's lying to her about the worst thing imaginable. It's dispicable. It's unthinkable. And it's great writing. Because this entire relationship is built on a lie that we're aware of, a lie that we know, if told, will destroy the relationship, we want to stick around and see what happens when Kerry finds out. Dramatic irony creates suspense. It creates anticipation. It keeps our ass in the seats. <br />
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The question is, can <i>one instance</i> of dramatic irony carry an entire film? Reading this a second time, I found myself impatient, particularly during the second act. It felt like not enough was going on, and I realized just how much the script was leaning on that dramatic irony. It was the ONLY thing driving the story forward, and the longer I read, the more I realized it wasn't enough.<br />
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In contrast, let's look at Good Will Hunting. We have the same thing going on in that story. Will is lying to Skylar. To impress her, he tells her he's well-off and has a huge family, when he's actually poor and an orphan. There's not as much at stake with the lie as in Nine-Twelve, but you'll notice that that's <i>only one part</i> of the story. We also have Will's relationship with Sean (the therapist) that needs to get resolved, his inner conflict, his future as a math genius, his issues with Ben Affleck's character. There are more <i>developments</i> in that screenplay, more subplots, and therefore the entire movie doesn't feel like it's resting on a single wooden beam. <br />
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Another thing I want to talk about here is rewriting. Now, to be honest, I don't remember the notes I gave Ed on this script, so I'm not saying he's guilty of this. But when he said he had a new draft, I know I was expecting...I don't know, just more changes. It feels here like just a few scenes were changed and another couple added. <br />
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It's something I've noticed a lot of lately as I'm reading more and more rewrites. Not much has been rewritten! Changing a few scenes here and there isn't a rewrite. A rewrite may entail redeveloping the theme, eliminating or combining characters, adding new subplots, eliminating entire subplots. coming into the story 30 pages later, changing the setting so it better matches your concept, changing your character's fatal flaw. If all you're doing in a rewrite is adding or taking away scenes, you're probably not doing enough (unless it's one of your final drafts).<br />
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Having said that, there's something about this script that got to me. I like the way Ruggiero writes. He has a unique point of view. I love how he's not afraid to make his hero dark. I understand that that's going to turn some people off, but while I didn't like what Artie was doing, he did keep me interested. I wanted to see if he was going to change or not. If he was gong to move on from this disgusting person.<br />
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I also liked the touch of humor. There was something funny about Artie. I can imagine a young Bill Murray absolutely killing this role (who *is* the next Bill Murray by the way). So I guess my final suggestion would be to inject this script with MORE STUFF. In the meantime, the voice is unique enough and the writing good enough that it warrants a read. But I still feel like something's been left on the table in this rewrite.<br />
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Script link: <a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/ybfllu">Nine-Twelve</a><br />
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[ ] what the hell did I just read?</div>
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[ ] wasn't for me</div>
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[x] worth the read</div>
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[ ] impressive</div>
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[ ] genius</div>
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What I learned: What I'm looking for in a concept breaks down to three things. The first is a high concept (i.e. Time travel, aliens, monsters - any big idea combined with a unique situation). The second is something with some clear conflict. Two warring families is more interesting to me, for example, than a generic guy trying to find love. The third and final one is irony. If there's an ironic component to the concept, I get excited. Look at the irony in this logline. A man pretending to have lost someone in 9/11 starts a realtionship with a 9/11 widow. That same concept isn't nearly as compelling if, say, a man who just lost his arm starts a relationship with a 9/11 widow. There's no irony there! <br />
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<br />Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3427612028572745120.post-10997779453434116952012-10-17T21:38:00.002-07:002012-10-17T21:41:35.940-07:00Screenwriter Interview - E. Nicholas Mariani<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3f1vEKhf1vU/UH-HoY9IGJI/AAAAAAAAEjw/H2Q7waA3Sso/s1600/johnny+depp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3f1vEKhf1vU/UH-HoY9IGJI/AAAAAAAAEjw/H2Q7waA3Sso/s400/johnny+depp.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Hip hip hooray! About a month ago I reviewed a script that went straight to the top of my Top 25 list, <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/09/screenplay-review-desperate-hours.html">Desperate Hours</a>. I since swindled the writer, E. Nicholas Mariani, to join me for lunch, trapping him in a situation where he had no choice but to say yes to an interview. I was blown away by Nick's preparation and dedication to the craft. He admits he has his weaknesses (where?? I don't see them!), but tries to overcome them with good old-fashioned hard work. Here's our interview! </i></div>
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<b>SS: Can you tell us a little about your screenwriting background? Before The Flight of Nez Perce got on the Black List, how many scripts had you written? How long had you been writing?</b><br />
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ENM: I started to really focus on screenwriting shortly after graduating from film school. Like many other people, I came to LA with dreams of being the next Steven Spielberg, but quickly discovered they weren’t just giving those jobs away. Writing was the one thing I could do in the midnight hours that didn’t require a crew or significant amounts of money. So, every night after work, I’d come home, sit down at my computer, and force myself to write until one or two in the morning.<br />
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My first real effort was a screenplay called THE LAST LONE INVENTOR, which chronicled Philo T. Farnsworth’s epic “David vs. Goliath” battle with David Sarnoff over the invention of television. It was based on a book that a friend of mine had optioned. We were about 110 pages into the script when it was suddenly announced that Steven Spielberg and Aaron Sorkin were doing a Broadway play based on the same story. As you can imagine, that promptly killed our project. So I put that script into a desk drawer – where it remains to this day – and decided to focus on another story I had always been passionate about: <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/guest-screenplay-review-flight-of-nez.html">THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE</a>.<br />
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<b>SS: Did you get your agent before that happened? How did you get your agent? Actually, how did you get your manager AND your agent?</b><br />
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ENM: After I finished THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE, I gave it to a few industry friends to read. We were all working as assistants at the time and my assumption was they’d skim through it, have a good laugh, and then ridicule me for wasting six months of my life. As <a href="http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/10/guest-screenplay-review-flight-of-nez.html">your guest reviewer rightly points out</a>, it’s not exactly a “four quadrant summer tentpole” movie. But, much to my surprise, they liked it and started passing it around. One of my friends, Adam Yoelin – who is now an executive at Flynn Picture Co. – sent it to Britton Rizzio at Circle of Confusion. She read the script, asked me to lunch, and signed me before the check came. I was honestly thrilled. A few months later, an executive at Dreamworks sent the script to Charlie Ferraro and Jenny Maryasis at UTA. I ended up signing with them, as well. And the rest, I guess, is history.<br />
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<b>SS: Desperate Hours sold to Johnny Depp’s company. How did that happen? Can you explain how the sale went down? </b><br />
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ENM: The process was actually pretty simple and straightforward. After I finished the script, my agents sent it out to a few places. Johnny Depp’s company really responded to the material and brought it to GK Films, where they have a producing deal. Graham King read the script and offered to buy it. The entire thing went down around Thanksgiving and made for a very nice holiday weekend.<br />
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<b>SS: I tell a lot of writers to avoid period pieces because they’re such hard sells. You obviously haven’t been listening! For those other writers out there who love this genre, what’s your advice to them? How do you write a great period piece and how do you sell a period piece? </b><br />
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ENM: I’d offer three pieces of advice, for whatever it’s worth.<br />
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First, make sure that the story you’re telling has a modicum of cultural relevancy so that it resonates with audiences today. The best “period pieces” have always had more to say about the times in which they’re made than the times in which they depict. Take any John Ford western from the 1950s and compare it to the westerns of the 1970s, for example. Or consider for a moment why Arthur Miller wrote THE CRUCIBLE during the McCarthy hearings. The power of history has always been rooted in its ability to inform the present through events of the past.<br />
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Second, if your goal is to sell a piece of material (as opposed to finding representation or creating a calling card for yourself), then I would highly encourage writers to tell stories that are contained, modestly budgeted, and offer great roles for leading actors. There’s a reason why DESPERATE HOURS sold while THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE remains on the market. Writers should bear this in mind before putting pen to paper.<br />
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And finally, at the end of the day, period pieces may be tough sells, but it’s also important that writers tell stories they’re passionate about. That’s the only way you can hope to distinguish yourself on the page. Personally, I can tell you that every good thing that’s happened in my life – both professionally and personally – has come as direct consequence of doing something I really believe in. The deck is already stacked against you as a writer. There’s no reason not to swing for the fences.<br />
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<b>SS: One of the biggest problems I see with amateur period pieces is that the writer doesn’t seem to know that much more than I do about the subject matter. With you, it’s the opposite. Desperate Hours is so rich with backstory and history. How do you achieve that? What’s your secret?</b><br />
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There’s no secret, it’s just a matter of doing your homework. I read more than 10,000 pages of research material before starting THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE. For DESPERATE HOURS, I read books on everything from the Rough Riders and the Spanish-American War to World War I and the Influenza pandemic. I also tracked down survivor testimony and even spoke to a few people who had lived through the crisis. I’m currently writing a movie for Alcon Entertainment that takes place in Romania during World War II. I knew very little about that country’s history when I started, so I got my hands on every book I could find and also read biographies on all the real life people who are depicted in the movie.<br />
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The research ends up being a lot of work, but I think it’s essential for the script to feel authentic. And, if I’m being completely honest, I have to say it’s also my favorite part of the process. I feel very fortunate to have a job where I get paid to educate myself. Very few people are that lucky.<br />
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<b>SS: One of the things I loved about this script was the inherent conflict within all the relationships. They all dated back to many years ago and needed to be hashed out here and now, within the timeframe of this story. What’s your approach to your characters and your relationships? Do you hash all that out ahead of time or do you figure it out on the way?</b><br />
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ENM: I’m sure every writer’s process is different, but I’ve found that I really need three things to get started: the world, the theme, and “the way into” the story. Once I have those elements, the narrative starts to unfold and I’m usually able to figure out the rest as I go along. For example, it wasn’t until the second draft of DESPERATE HOURS that I had the idea of combining the town’s sheriff and the mayor into one character in order to underscore the town’s utter devastation. Similarly, Edward’s limp was just a character trait until I suddenly realized that I could use it to catalyze Tom’s turning point in a critical moment of the story. This type of approach probably results in a longer writing process, but it’s honestly how I get my best ideas.<br />
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<b>SS: That leads to an obvious question – How long did it take you to write Desperate Hours, from conception of the idea to the final draft? How many drafts did it take you?</b><br />
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ENM: The process took about a year from start to finish and I ended up doing three separate drafts before turning it into my manager. That probably seems like a long time, but in my defense, I booked a couple jobs in between and, as I mentioned earlier, there was a considerable amount of research involved.<br />
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But if I’m being completely candid, I also have to admit that I was unaware when I began just how difficult it is to construct a truly effective “slow burn” thriller. Writing DESPERATE HOURS gave me a whole new level of appreciation for HIGH NOON. That film is so elegant and deceptively simple. Figuring out how to ratchet up the suspense scene by scene, while developing theme and characters in concert with a real time plot is, by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as a writer.<br />
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<b>SS: Since rewriting is the area where scripts get perfected, I’d love to know what your rewriting process is like. </b><br />
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ENM: For me, rewriting isn’t just where scripts get “perfected” (if that’s even possible), it’s where the real writing begins. Once I’ve finished the first draft, I print out a hard copy and go to a neighborhood restaurant with a red pen and just start to tear the thing apart. I write whole new scenes by hand, move things around, combine characters, etc. By the time I’m done, there’s usually more red ink on the paper than there is black.<br />
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I really love this part of the process because it’s invigorating. You begin to imagine the story and the characters in a whole new way. It’s almost as if you can put yourself in the audience’s position for the very first time. It’s here that you begin to come up with all those great little moments of connective tissue and “scenes between scenes” that really flesh out the arc of the story and propel the characters forward.<br />
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<b>SS: Another thing I really loved about your script was that each act was distinct and unique. You had the first act, which had our hero coming back into society, the second, which centered around the mystery of the girl, and the third, which was the town invasion. Do you deliberately try to make each act unique or was that just a byproduct of this story? How do you approach structure in general?</b><br />
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ENM: That specific example was a byproduct of the story, but I do give quite a bit of thought to structure before I begin writing. I just ask myself the basic questions: What am I ultimately building towards? What’s the thematic arc of the story? And what’s the most effective way to take an audience on that journey?<br />
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For example, what I always found so gut wrenching about the Nez Perce story was the fact that 800 people, mostly women and children, began a journey and less than half of them survived. So the logical question then became, “How do you make an audience feel that kind of loss?” And what I ultimately concluded, for better or worse, is that the movie needed to be an ensemble – centered around Joseph – and that it needed to be populated by a large community of characters – each with their own personal stories – who would then be killed off in a very brutal fashion. I knew what I was building towards the entire time: the penultimate scene on the train where Joseph and Oyema glance at each other and the audience realizes they’re the only ones left.<br />
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<b>SS: You caught some flak (from others, not me) about your script starting too slow. Why did you start it slow and how did you plan to keep the reader interested when you really weren’t getting into any story until the second act? </b><br />
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ENM: Well, I’d start by asking all those people who threw up flak to stop and consider how their favorite “period pieces” are structured. The Godfather begins with a twenty-minute wedding sequence whose sole purpose is to establish the world of the movie and introduce you to all the characters. Braveheart spends its first forty-five minutes building a love story only to have it end tragically and trigger the main plot. Road to Perdition spends its first thirty minutes setting up the world of Michael Sullivan and then uses the ACT I climax to incite the rest of the movie.<br />
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When it comes to period pieces, I think it’s critically important to establish the world and characters first before triggering the main plot. In my experience, when you try to do all three things at once, you end up creating something that’s muddled and contrived. Honestly, it’s one of the main reasons I think movies are really suffering today. Everyone feels like they need to hit the ground running. The problem is, when you hit the ground running, you don’t have enough time to really hit your stride.<br />
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Finally, and perhaps most importantly, starting a movie like DESPERATE HOURS or THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE with a “slow build” allows you to pull the audience in and make them really care about the characters. In my opinion, this is the most important thing you can do in the first act and it will always pay dividends later on when you start turning the screws and putting your characters through hell.<br />
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<b>SS: You told me that your biggest weakness is your dialogue. Why do you think it’s a weakness and what do you do to combat that weakness?</b><br />
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ENM: Yeah, I do feel like dialogue is my biggest weakness and it looks like many of your readers agree with me! LOL.<br />
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What I’m really trying to work on right now, especially with my historical scripts, is cadence in the language and making each character voice sound unique, as opposed to different versions of myself. David Webb Peoples really sets the gold standard here, as far as I’m concerned. Whenever I want to feel bad about myself, I watch UNFORGIVEN. I am so envious of the dialogue in that movie and how it sounds so crisp and authentic. There isn’t any doubt in my mind that’s how people spoke in 1870s Wyoming.<br />
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As far as “combating my weakness” goes, I’m honestly not sure. Part of me hopes it’s a function of age and that I’ll improve as I get older. I suspect it’s like developing any other muscle. You just have to work hard and see if it gets stronger.<br />
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<b>SS: I’ve been running into a lot of writers lately in their 5th or 6th year of writing who are frustrated that they haven’t made it yet. It looks like it took awhile for you to break through. What would you tell those writers? How did you yourself find the motivation to keep going? </b> <br />
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ENM: I would just say keep trying and be yourself. I struggled for years, in part, because I was trying to imitate others instead of developing my own voice. Find the stories you’re passionate about and don’t try to be something you’re not. And, most importantly, if you love writing, then keep doing it – regardless of whether you “break through” or not. Paper is free. Ideas are free. There’s no excuse to quit. So keep typing and remember that Norman Maclean was in his 70s when A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT was finally published. I’m sure he would’ve loved for it to happen sooner, but he got the last laugh just the same.<br />
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By the way, do you know what I love most about A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT? The slow build. :)<br />
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<b>SS: Last question: When are we going to see Desperate Hours made??</b><br />
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ENM: That’s a question for the studio, my friend. :)Carson Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08439555051697115476noreply@blogger.com