Amateur Friday Submission Process: 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 effects 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.

Genre: Psychological Thriller
Premise: (from writer) After a radical exorcism leaves a possessed teen in a coma, a psychologist reluctantly helps the clergymen, who performed the rite, wake the child, but soon suspects foul play and finds himself trapped in a secluded monastery with only one person to turn to for help: his newly awakened patient.
About: Inhuman won the Amateur Offerings Weekend two weeks ago. Submit your own script for Amateur Offerings via the instructions above.
Writer: Steffan Ralph DelPiano
Details: 96 pages – 4/21/2013 draft

Last year I met with this company that holds preview screenings for studio films to find out what’s wrong with them. They have ten years of data on hundreds of films, and they can basically tell you exactly what an audience will or won’t like at any particular moment in a film. For example, they explained to me something about how an audience has never liked when the best friend character turns on the hero (I’m not exactly sure that was the example – but it was something like that).

Their research is also so extensive that they can predict exactly how much money a movie is going to make. They know which genres do the best. They know which type of heroes garner the best response from an audience. You’ve probably heard of these people before. And I think there was even an article in the New York Times about them last week (I’m guessing it’s the same people I met with – but I still haven’t read the article – we met because they wanted to expand their business into screenplays).

Out of curiosity, I asked them which specific kind of movie, in their research, generated the best return on investment. The president thought about if for a moment, as he mentally cycled through their research, and I had to admit I was kind of surprised. If I were a studio head, this would be the first question I’d ask this company. Yet he appeared to have never been asked the question before. But the light finally came on, and he defiantly said, “Exorcism movies.”

I thought about that for a moment and it made complete sense. Exorcism movies are incredibly cheap to make, and also incredibly easy to market. People will always go see exorcism movies. Since that meeting, I’ve always kept my eyes open for a good exorcism script. One of these days, I’m going to produce a movie, and I’d prefer it be a movie that actually makes money. So when I started reading Inhuman and I realized I hadn’t checked the page number for 30 minutes (note: I usually check the page number within the first 10 pages), I knew I was onto something good.

Inhuman centers around 39 year-old Simon, a psychiatrist specializing in defense mechanisms. Simon is kind of arrogant, sort of into himself, and doesn’t have time for tomfoolery. Which is why he’s agitated when a priest comes along asking him to help him save a young man. A young man who happens to be possessed.

Naturally, Simon doesn’t believe in any of that nonsense, so he ignores him. But the Father and his Church Team are persistent, hounding him with letters and videos that show this young man, Peter, doing and saying terrible things that couldn’t possibly be from a human being. Simon continues to refuse, but after a surprise attack by one of his patients, he has a change of heart.

In order to make sure the creepiness-factor is raised to level 12, Peter is being held at an abandoned asylum with our priest, Father Bryant, and his right hand woman, Sister Collette. Simon’s immediately able to make a connection with Peter, whom he believes is a paranoid schizophrenic, but Peter keeps saying and doing things that just don’t make sense. He knows what Simon is thinking, what he’s feeling, what he’s doing when he’s not with Peter. Simon eventually starts to question his diagnosis.

(Spoiler) Eventually, Simon learns the truth. He IS Peter. Or, more specifically, Peter’s last level of defense that the possessing demon must defeat. Simon is essentially keeping the demon from fully possessing Peter’s soul. Obviously, this is a lot to take in. I’m sure it isn’t easy learning you’re not real. But Simon eventually jumps onboard with the plan and attempts to rid the demon from Peter’s body.

Yesterday I talked about breaking the rules. And I’m happy to report that Steffan does break the rules here. Or, if not break the rules, he takes one hell of a chance. This isn’t your traditional exorcism story. It becomes more of a psychological, and even METAPHYSICAL, story. And to that end, I give Steffan credit. He did not go down the obvious path, and for that reason he has quite the original screenplay.

Unfortunately, just because you do something different doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do. As I stated yesterday, the bigger the chance you take, the bigger the chance at failure. For 60 pages here, I was riveted. I was thinking, “Oh my God, I’m going to call Steffan after this, we’re going to raise money, and we’re going to make this movie!” I NEVER say that when reading a script. That’s how into it I was.

But as soon as Simon becomes Peter’s defense mechanism – as soon as he’s no longer real – the story starts to get murky. I wasn’t always sure what Simon was going after, and I began asking questions like, “Well then, where was Simon during the first half of the movie? His office? All those people he dealt with? None of them were real??” It didn’t make sense. And of course, “If you find out you’re not real, what’s the point?” I mean, why try to save anyone? If I found out I wasn’t real, I’d go sit on my couch and be super freaking bummed out. I don’t care if the person I’m inside of is possessed by either the devil, or an In and Out addiction.

It reminded me a lot of that movie, “Identity” with John Cusack that came out a decade ago. It started off with all these great questions, but the more we found out, the less interesting it became. At one point, Father Bryant kills Collette and I don’t know WHAT’S going on anymore. Why is this priest killing the one woman he knows and trusts the most?

If I were a producer giving notes on this script, I’d say to Steffan, sadly, that we’d need to get rid of the stuff that makes this unique. Drop the metaphysical third act and see if we can come up with something more “real,” more “solid.” If I’m not sure what the consequences are for anybody because certain people aren’t real, I’m not sure we care about what happens to them.

The stuff that resonated with me was this showdown between ultra-smart Simon and possessed Peter. It looked like we were going to watch a prolonged dragged-out war between these two. And that’s what I wanted to see. But we only get a couple of scenes with them duking it out before the world turns upside-down with the super twist of Simon not being real.

Sometimes we can get carried away with our twists. We want to go so big, so shocking, that we write a twist in that we can’t write ourselves out of. I think that may have been what happened here. Despite that, I think Steffan’s a really good writer and that this is the kind of script that could get him some meetings around town (if he hasn’t had those meetings already). It does lose itself in the third act, but those first two acts are damn good. And two-thirds of good has to equal a “worth the read” right?

Script link: Inhuman

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Have a third person come into a scene to be a ticking time bomb, pulling at our main character while he’s dealing with something/someone else. On page 8 here, there’s a scene where the Church Team is asking Simon to help them. At that moment, Alexis, Simon’s assistant, pops in to inform Simon that Group is starting. As the team tries to explain Peter’s possession to Simon, Alexis keeps saying, “So should I start without you or…?” It adds an element of immediacy and conflict to what would otherwise be a very straightforward scene: A group asking our main character to help them. So look for those opportunities to introduce a distracting element (or ticking time bomb) into a scene to spice that scene up.

The current rule-bending king – Malick.

Art.

The essence of purity. It should be intrinsic, effortless, natural. A poem. A painting. A short story. All of it should emerge from that illogical, dreamer part of the brain. Write down whatever exists within the deepest recesses of your mind and then (and only then) have you been true to your artistic self. Containing it, rearranging it– sticking with the common word, scenario, characters, etcetera, with which a viewer or reader is all the more familiar, and you are no longer an artist. You are a machine, bottling up art into a series of rules.

It’s a debate that’s been going on way before screenwriting. Should there be “rules” or “guidelines” to art? To me, the answer is obvious. It is a resounding “yes.” But to many, the belief is that you’re defeating the purpose of art if you’re trying to structure it. You’re restraining that part of yourself that expresses creativity. There should be no filter on our imagination. It should exist unimpeded.

Here’s the way I see it. Let’s say you have two writers. One of these writers has been told to keep his scenes under three pages and to focus mainly on pushing the story forward with each one. The other writer has been given no restrictions whatsoever. Have your scenes last as long as you want them to. Focus on whatever you think up at the time, regardless of the story. All else being equal, the focused writer is going to write a better script. It’s rules (or “guidelines”) like this that make us better writers, which results in better screenplays. Therefore, rules are an essential component to art.

Here’s the catch, though: I think every script should break the rules in some significant way. That’s what makes a script unique – its deviation from the norm. Look at Pulp Fiction. It’s a story told out of order and many of the scenes are ten minutes long. Those two “rule-breakers” are what made Pulp Fiction feel so unique. BUT it doesn’t mean Tarantino wasn’t following ANY rules. For example, he made sure each and every scene was packed with conflict so it could sustain a ten-minute running time. “Conflict” is one of the “rules” many consider essential to writing a good screenplay.

The idea here is that you want some semblance of structure to dictate your story, but you pick two or three areas where you go against the mold, where you do things you’re “not supposed to do.” This is what’ll set your script apart. And it’s essential. Because if you write a movie where you follow every single rule to the T, you get a safe “by-the-numbers,” generic screenplay.

It should also be noted that the places where you break the rules will likely be what either makes or breaks your screenplay. Whenever you break a rule, you swim off into unchartered waters. You’re doing something that isn’t usually done. And since there’s no blueprint for the less-traveled path, you’re usually on your own, figuring things out as you go along. Breaking these rules then becomes a huge gamble. And the more rules or the bigger the rule you break, the greater the gamble is. It’s the equivalent of putting all your money into that young up-and-coming company. It can either tank, resulting in you losing everything, or succeed, turning you into a millionaire. You just don’t know until you hand the script to someone else.

With that in mind, here’s what I hope will be a helpful guide to breaking the rules with your screenplay. These are seven of the more common rule-breaking approaches and how to make them work for you:

1) The No-Holds-Barred – This is probably the most dangerous path you can take as a screenwriter. You go into the writing with only the barest sense of what you’re going to write about. There is no plan, no outline. You just feel like writing about something and you let your imagination take you wherever it wants to go. It’s the “David Lynch” approach, if you will. Note that these are typically the worst scripts that I read (by far), and that the only real people who succeed at using this method are also directing the film (like Lynch). I’d strongly advise against this path. Then again, it usually results in the most original material.

2) Out of order – This is one of the more common forms of breaking the rules, and therefore there’s some precedent for how to make it work. You simply tell your story out of order. Movies like Pulp Fiction, 500 Days Of Summer and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind succeeded quite well with this device. All I’ll say is if you tell your story out of order, make sure there’s a reason for it. If you do it just to be different, it will show. What was so genius about 500 Days of Summer was that it showed you the greatest and worst moments of a relationship crammed up against each other, something we never get to see in a romantic comedy or love story. So there was a purpose to the choice. I can tell pretty early when there’s no reason for a writer to be jumping around in time in his script. They’re just doing it to be edgy or, they hope, original. But it often ends up feeling so random that I check out before the script is over.

3) Multiple protagonists – You’ve seen multiple protagonists in movies like Crash and Breakfast Club. The reason you should avoid multiple protagonists if possible is because audiences like to identify with and follow a single hero in a story. Once you have two people (or three, or four) to follow, you start losing that close connection that’s required to get sucked into a movie because your interest is being pulled in too many directions. The exception here, and the way to make this work, is to sculpt amazing characters. Each character should have their own goals, dreams, flaws, fears, compelling backstory, quirks, secrets, surprises. If you can make each one of these characters deep enough so that they could theoretically carry their own movie, you can get away with a multiple protagonist story.

4) No Goal – To me, one of the biggest rules you can break, and one that almost always spins the story out of control, is not having a goal for your main character. Without a goal, your main character won’t be going after anything, which means he won’t be active, which means the story will feel like it doesn’t have a purpose. One of the most famous movies to do this is The Shawshank Redemption. Our hero, Andy, is just existing. He’s just trying to make it through life in jail. I believe the key to making these movies work is conflict. You gotta have a lot of conflict. Andy is attacked repeatedly by the rapist, Boggs. He’s thrown in the hole for playing music. His one witness who can free him is murdered.  And there is the constant fear that the dictatorish warden and his corrupt officers will take you down if you step out of line.  You have to be tough on the protag, make him feel the pain of life, and we’ll watch to see how he deals with it.

5) The anti-hero – Most people will tell you your hero should be likable. And for the most part, I agree. If we’re rooting for your hero, we’ll be invested in whatever story you tell us, whether that story is big, small, slow or fast. But there are a few dozen movies out there with anti-heroes as the lead that have done really well. You have Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, Lester Burnham from American Beauty, or Riddick from Pitch Black. In my opinion, the way to make these characters work is to a) make them dangerous and b) don’t hold back. You feel at any moment that Bickle might fucking go ballistic and rip your head off. Or with Riddick, the guy is a serial killer. If we’re a little bit scared of these people, we’ll be fascinated by them, and we’ll want to know what they’re going to do next, which is the key to getting a reader to turn the pages. Also, don’t hold back. You have to take some chances with these characters or else what’s the point of writing an anti-hero? Lester Burnham is trying to nail his 16 year old daughter’s best friend. That’s a HUGE chance, and it’s one of the reasons this movie remains so memorable – it didn’t hold back.

6) The long script – It’s one of the most “set-in-stone” rules there is in spec screenwriting: Don’t write more than 120 pages. Yet there are plenty of great, long movies out there. So, how does one get away with breaking this rule? I know this is going to sound like a cop-out but the truth is: great writing. The longer your screenplay is, the better the writer you have to be. Because remember, it’s hard enough to keep a reader’s interest for FIVE pages. Look back at Shorts Week if you don’t believe me. So each additional page you write, you’re increasing the chances that the reader is going to lose interest. In my experience, the long scripts that do well, such as Titanic or Braveheart, show skill in character development, dramatic irony, scene-writing, a keen sense of drama, knowing when to up the stakes or add a twist, theme, conflict, dialogue, you name it. They’re usually INCREDIBLY STRONG at 90% of these things, which is what allows the writers to write something both long and good. A lot of writers (especially beginner writers) BELIEVE they can make a 180 page script work, despite barely understanding any of these things. I (and fellow readers) are the unfortunate recipients of these delusions of grandeur. They are never ever good. So my advice to you would be: Don’t write a long script unless a) you’ve already written 10 full screenplays and b) you’ve found some level of success with your work (some sort of proof that you can tell a good story – a sale, an option from a major company, a win in one of the major contests, etc).

7) The Act-less script – A close cousin to the “No-Holds Barred” and the “No Goal,” the act-less script shuns traditional 3-Act structure in favor of letting the characters and one’s mind take the story wherever it will go. Terrance Malick movies are well known for this, and to a lesser degree, Sophia Coppola’s (watch “Somewhere” to see what a truly act-less script looks like). It should be noted that the 3-Act structure is built on the idea of a hero with a goal, as the first act establishes that goal, the second act is about him pursuing it, and the third act is either him succeeding or failing. So if you don’t have a character with a goal, you’re more likely to run into an act-less screenplay. If you’re going to shun traditional act-breaks, it’s important, in my opinion, that you ask a lot of dramatic questions and include your share of mysteries in the story. Since we’ll want these questions and mysteries answered, we won’t be as concerned with the lack of a traditional setup and strange story direction. 2001: A Space Odyssey shuns traditional structure, but it finds a substitute for that structure to keep our interest in the mystery of the monolith.

The above is a look at some of the bigger rules you can break, but they are by no means the only rules. There are lots of smaller rules to play with like stakes, urgency and conflict. I mean, we’re taught early on in this craft to never come into a scene too early. Well, you can obviously break that rule and come in a lot earlier if it fits what you’re trying to do with the scene. The message I want to get across is that you should break these rules from a place of knowledge and a place of purpose. Understand the rule you’re breaking and have a reason for wanting to break it (which means studying screenwriting as much as possible). Memento is a great example. It’s about a guy who keeps forgetting. Well, if we tell that story in order, then we know way more than our character knows. Tell it backwards (break the rule) and we know just as little as him, which is an approach that fits our main character way better.

Yes, you can go with your gut and make choices knowing nothing about how storytelling works and become that lucky 1 in a million shot that creates something genius. But it’s more likely that the opposite will happen. In my experience, the people who have written these amazing rule-bending screenplays have been in the business for a long time, guys like Alan Ball and Paul Haggis and Charlie Kaufman. Tarantino came out of nowhere, but he’s like the exception to the exception to the exception (and it should be noted he’d seen just about every movie ever made before writing Pulp). I think as long as you’re being true to your own unique voice, to the way you (and only you) see the world, you can still write a script that largely follows the rules and it’ll still come off as original. But you definitely want to break SOME rules along the way. How you do so will largely determine the way your script stands out from the rest.

Before Star Trek Into Darkness, before Lost, JJ Abrams wrote a draft of Superman. This is that draft.

Genre: Superhero
Premise: A slightly reimagined Superman origin story which includes an enemy from his home planet coming to earth to take him down.
About: This is JJ Abrams Superman entry, written in 2002, back when JJ was just your average TV show producer, finishing up work on Felicity and starting up work on Alias. The show that would make him a household name, Lost, was still just a twinkle in his eye.
Writer: JJ Abrams
Details: First draft (July 26, 2002) – 138 pages

Superman is still stinging from its horrible previous installment, which very well may have destroyed Bryan Singer’s reputation. The film was just so…forgettable. And badly written. Nothing made sense. Superman, who looked 25, had supposedly left earth for ten years? So he left when he was 15? Already I’m confused. Then nothing really happened. I couldn’t tell you what the story was about. There were no stand-out scenes. Superman was horribly miscast, as was Lois Lane.

I think the scene that epitomized the screw-up for me was the shuttle scene. It didn’t have anything to do with anything. What I mean by that is: it wasn’t woven into any sort of plot. It was just this standalone short movie of Superman saving a shuttle.

I said then that if they were ever going to reboot Superman and get today’s audiences interested, they were going to need to go darker like Batman. I know, I know. That’s “not Superman.” But it’s what audiences are digging, and Superman needed a makeover to appeal to today’s youth. I haven’t seen the movie, of course, but Zach Snyder’s version already looks a thousand times better than that previous abomination.

Which brings us to this draft, which I’ve heard at least partly inspired the most recent movie. But let’s face it. That’s not the reason I’m reviewing it. I’m reviewing it because it’s the JJ Abrams draft. I just had to know what he would’ve done with Superman. And the results are both encouraging and…not so encouraging with an ending so sacrilegious and “out-of-left-field” that I’m pretty sure it was born out of JJ’s first experience with peyote.

JJ’s Superman is basically an origin story with a few twists. It starts out with an awesome battle between Superman and an alien baddie named Ty-Zor from his home planet. They’re throwing each other through buildings, that sort of thing. And Superman is basically getting his ass handed to him.

Eventually we cut back to Krypton and get a detailed look at the civil war going on there, with 100 foot tall robot machines shredding up Kryptonians like a top chef. We get the familiar scene with Supes’s dad putting him in the spaceship, sending him to earth, where he lands at the Kents’ farm, where he grows up with them and yadda-yadda-yadda.

Where the script starts deviating from lore is that it makes Lex Luthor the head of the CIA. Lex is obsessed with UFO phenomena and is trying to convince his bureau to spend more time and resources on it, convinced that little green men are going to become a threat to earth at some point and they need to be ready for it. When a young new reporter, Lois Lane, writes an article about Luthor’s exploits, he has no choice but to tell the world that the U.S. has actually FOUND a UFO.

This freaks Superman (now Clark Kent) out, since he figures Luthor may be referring to him. And he doesn’t want any part in being exposed. Eventually, Luthor’s obsession with UFOs starts to piss the bureau off, and they fire him. Well, you don’t fire Lex Luthor and not expect consequences. Luthor eventually finds and teams up with Ty-Zor, who’s come to earth specifically to kill Superman. Superman may be super and all but (spoiler) he’s apparently no match for these two and is KILLED. Yes, Superman dies.

Or does he?

Eventually we learn that Superman isn’t dead at all, and comes back to take down Luthor, who’s since been awarded the planet by Ty-Zor. Finally the truth is revealed about Lex Luthor and the reason he’s so obsessed with aliens. Turns out Lex Luthor IS AN ALIEN. He’s from Superman’s home planet and has been hiding here. Which results in a final flying city-wide battle between Superman and… Lex Luthor? Holy origin-destroyer Batman. What the hell just happened??

Oh sheesh. Where to begin…

First of all, I’m convinced my man-crush JJ Abrams had nothing to do with this bizarre choice to make Lex Luthor an alien. Some producer came up with that idea. I know it. One thing good writers know is when they’ve gone too far. Or when a choice is too ridiculous or not believable. They just have an intricate feel for what works and what doesn’t. JJ had been working as a screenwriter for a decade at this point. I just don’t think he would’ve personally incorporated this bizarre choice into the story. Maybe I’m in denial. But I can’t accept it. And whoever DID come up with that idea needs to be escorted out of Hollywood permanently.

As for the rest of Superman, I think the challenge for this franchise has most recently been about making it current. It was designed in a different time. We don’t have the “aww shucks” newspaper photographer anymore. Heck, we don’t even have newspapers anymore! Combined with this need for comic book nerds to keep Superman “pure,” it’s just really hard to update it. JJ does his best, but the story still seems stuck in the past.

In particular, the gears of the screenplay seemed more focused on getting in all the necessary “lore” as opposed to just telling a story. Gotta get in the introduction of the suit and cape! Gotta get in that Lois Lane-Superman interview for the paper! Gotta get in the kryptonite intro! Instead of just a naturally flowing story, the screenplay seems designed around artificially incorporating these elements.

The truth is, when you’re telling an origin story, you’re dedicating 40-70 pages of your script to setup alone. And no matter how interesting that setup is, it’s still setup. The audience wants to see the plot get going. Singer tried to do this in the last Superman, by nixing the whole origin story in favor of sending Superman home then bringing him back again, but it was the wrong story element to use, as it was simply too confusing and clunky.

When JJ’s plot gets going, it sort of loses its way as well. Part of the problem is we have two villains here. Now I’m all for double the villain-ry. It’s fun to see a superhero have to take down two assholes instead of one. The problem is these villains never quite gelled together. It felt more like JJ was trying to decide which villain he liked best as he went along. And that may have been the case. Remember, this was a first draft. But I didn’t know where to focus my attention. Was Luthor the more important guy to take down? Or was Ty-Zor?

I think what Nolan did with Batman Begins was kind of genius. He didn’t introduce the best villain of the franchise in the movie. He waited until the second movie to do that. While it’s hard to imagine a Superman movie without Lex Luthor, Ty-Zor was a pretty damned worthy adversary. I mean this guy is throwing Superman through buildings ‘n shit. We just should have built a story around him and brought in Lex for the sequel.

Despite the unending amount of setup here, JJ does manage to plug in a lot more action than Singer’s abysmal version. We have the Air Force One scene (which has since been ripped off numerous times), the Ty-Zor/Superman battle, the Superman mech-machine battle, and just some really imaginative cool scenes back on Superman’s home planet. Those things almost saved the script, but in the end, this messy first draft hadn’t figured itself out yet. Maybe JJ did it with the next one. But any script that has Lex Luthor with the same powers as Superman is going to be a fail in my book.

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I love reading scripts like this because they remind me of how influenced we are by the moment. Whenever we write a script, we write through the filter of “right now,” of what the world is talking about, of what movies everyone’s watching, of how the writers of these movies are approaching their stories. JJ’s Superman feels very much like someone writing a script in 2002. It’s an origin story (just like X-Men from 2000 and Spider-Man of 2002). Just like X-Men, Superman’s flaw is that he believes he’s a freak, which is the reason he doesn’t reveal himself. There’s not a lot of originality here. For this reason, I encourage you not to be too influenced by the moment. Don’t write what everyone else is writing, or be swayed by the current trends. Try to write something that’s wholly unique, that, if looked back at 10 years from now, would stick out as its own thing, as opposed to just another version of what everyone else was doing.

So I just read a cool story the other day (I believe on Slash-Film) about how George Lucas was stressing out over the release of Star Wars. He visited buddy Spielberg on the set of his current production, “Close Encounters” and was so impressed by the grandiosity of it all and was so convinced Close Encounters would do better than his film, that he begged Spielberg to trade profit points with him on the two films. Spielberg figured, “Why not?” and he’s reportedly been collecting ever since, to the tune of more than 200 million dollars. Nice little trade there (though I’m sure Lucas isn’t losing any sleep over it. According to “Celebrity Net Worth,” he’s worth 7 billion dollars – Spielberg is at a paltry 3 billion). Close Encounters went through a lot of different iterations before it got made. Spielberg was originally going to shoot it before Jaws with only a 2.5 million dollar budget. He had UFOs landing on Robertson Boulevard, which nobody seemed to like (ironic since that’s all they want nowadays). After Jaws’s success, every studio was willing to let Spielberg make any film he wanted, but the script for “Close Encounters” still wasn’t there. The main character was a Project Blue Book agent, and then a police officer, but Spielberg said he couldn’t identify with those people. Hence, he eventually settled on an everyday normal blue collar worker for the protag. This is what finally allowed him to see the movie clearly. Though a ton of people worked on the screenplay, Spielberg ended up with sole credit.

1) If possible, the audience should identify with the hero – One of the keys to Spielberg’s mega-success is his penchant for building a story around a character everybody can identify with. Here, we have the everyday working man. And typically Spielberg uses a boy as the main character, as it’s instantly identifiable to the core audience, boys and men. I mean, who doesn’t remember the innocence and wonder associated with being a young boy?

2) Know the everyday man’s limitations – To be honest, you don’t find many movies today focusing on the everyday man in the extraordinary situation. Instead we have police officers and secret agents and former agents and former Navy Seals being placed in extraordinary situations. The reason for this is that when the action heats up, producers want your main character to be able to keep up. We have to believe that our hero can take down a military trained baddie or escape a building surrounded by the FBI. It’s hard to buy that a “normal guy” would be able to pull that off. Thus, we get “exceptional guys.” So, if you are going to write an “everyday man in an extraordinary situation,” make sure all the extraordinary stuff he does is believable and logical, which “Close Encounters” does a good job of.

3) The Teaser – The “teaser” is something that’s typically used in a TV pilot. It’s that first scene that creates a sense of mystery or wonder or suspense or shock or all of the above. “Teasers” are also often used in big splashy blockbuster-y type movies, such as Close Encounters, where we start with air traffic controllers tracking a strange blip on the radar that eventually disappears into thin air. A teaser is a great way to grab the reader’s attention immediately so it’s highly advisable if it fits your story (but please, avoid the cliché, “Cut to X weeks ago” after the teaser. It’s so overdone and should only be used if it’s absolutely essential to the story).

4) When writing a big set-piece scene, pretend that the producer nixed it because of budget. What would your replacement scene be? – The opening of Close Encounters has several planes coming in contact with a UFO. We could’ve seen this play out up in the air, but instead we see the scene exclusively through the eyes of air traffic controllers. The scene is tense and exciting for the very fact that we DON’T see what’s going on. It’s the difference between a 2 million dollar scene and a 20,000 dollar scene. And I’d argue the 20,000 dollar scene is better. You see, most big set piece scenes tend to be obvious. Cars chasing after another. Explosions. Shootouts. Space battles. We’ve seen all that stuff before. When you ask yourself to come up with the “low budget version” of a scene, you often have to be more creative, and that creativity results in something way better.

5) The second act is all about STRUGGLE – Remember that the second act boils down to your hero struggling. He should be struggling inside, outside, with the world, with the people in his life. Struggle struggle struggle. Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), our hero, is struggling with this thing that he saw. He’s struggling with his wife, his kids, with what he should do. Every step of his life becomes a struggle. Struggle results in drama, and when done properly, anything dramatic will keep an audience interested.

6) Get those “marketing scenes” in there – Spielberg is a master at thinking of the marketing while writing his script. He looks for those 4-5 scenes that are going to look great in a trailer, that are going to make people HAVE TO leave their homes to drive to the theater and see his film on opening night. You get it here with the little boy being summoned by the big giant lit-up UFO outside the house. You get it with the headlights behind Roy’s truck going UP ABOVE instead of AROUND him. You see it, obviously, in Raiders of the Lost Ark with Indy running from the boulder. As “sell-out’ish” as it sounds, you need to be thinking of the marketing of your film as you’re writing it. Never let it dictate the story. But be aware of how important it is.

7) Explore your second act in your first few drafts, then streamline it for the final draft – Close Encounters actually has a very slow and wandering second act. This makes sense, as they rebooted the story several times during development. Spielberg likely threw his shooting script together with time running out. Hence this draft has a second act with a first draft feel. Tons of scenes with Roy driving around for his job, at home talking to his family, all mixed in amongst an unending amount of UFO sightings all over the world. I encourage you to use a few drafts to explore your second act. This is where you find those unexpected storylines and snazzy subplots. But at a certain point, you have to streamline: That means cutting out all the stuff that doesn’t relate directly to the protagonist’s goal – and that goal here is Roy trying to find an answer to these UFOs. If that’s not the focus of a scene, it should probably be cut.

8) A passionate main character – I believe that we, as people, are drawn to passion. Whether it be the butcher down the street who loves chopping meat for you, the musician who couldn’t imagine himself doing anything else with his life, or the blogger who wakes up every day excited to write about screenwriting. Movie characters are no different. We love to follow and root for passionate people, people who are driven by their goals and dreams. Roy becomes so passionate in his pursuit of these UFOs (who can ever forget the model mountain he builds in his own living room?) that we can’t help but root him on and hope that he achieves his goal.

9) Once the aliens show up, so what? – Another genius thing about Spielberg’s movies is he understands that once the cat’s out of the bag, the cat’s no longer interesting. He famously held the cat back with Jaws (despite it being by necessity), but does it even more so here, waiting until the very last scene to reveal the aliens. He knows that if he reveals the aliens early, that sense of mystery and intrigue and suspense is gone. It’s getting harder and harder to do this in a day and age where audiences require eye candy as soon as their butts hit the seats, but executed well, it can still work.

10) Close Encounters is a great reminder that you have to continually take chances to succeed in this business. Sci-fi was NOT popular at the time this movie was made. Hollywood thought a movie about UFOs would be stupid. People who claimed they saw UFOs in the 70s were considered to be loonies. Spielberg could’ve made anything he wanted after Jaws, but he took a chance on something he was really passionate about. I’m a firm believer that you have to take a big chance with every screenplay you write if you want to succeed. If you’re just following the latest trends, you’re not going to stand out.

The new Star Trek film underperformed. But all we at Scriptshadow care about is, “How was the writing?”

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: Captain Kirk and crew go after a mysterious villain who performed a terrorist attack on the Federation. After chasing him down, they learn that it’s actually someone within their own ranks that they need to worry about.
About: This is likely JJ Abrams’s last foray into Star Trek, as he’s been asked to take over the most glorious awesomest greatest franchise ever (coincidentally both mine and JJ’s favorite franchise): Star Wars. One other thing of note here: Current screenwriting whipping boy Damon Lindelof contributed to “Star Trek: Into Darkness.” That makes TWO huge summer movies he’s written (with the other being the troubled zombie flick “World War Z.”). If you want to read a great article about Lindelof and his insecurities as a writer and how he was terrified to come in and save World War Z, check out the article here.
Writer: Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman & Damon Lindelof
Details: 132 minutes

Where are all the Star Trek fans? I heard the studio was hoping to make 100 million dollars this weekend and only made 70. Trekkies, wuddup?? We even got to see the Klingons in this episode. And the previously established greatest Trek villain ever!

I don’t know why I’m getting all upset. I was never a Trek fan. I’m just a JJ fan, who was also not a Trek fan (I’m still confused why someone who hated a franchise would choose to direct a movie for that franchise). But I guess all I really care about is, “How was the writing?” and, “Is Trek 2 better than Trek 1?”

Unfortunately, those aren’t easy questions to answer. There was definitely something exciting about getting to see a re-imagined Star Trek the first time around. It was new. It was fresh! That freshness is gone. And some of that Star Trek luster is gone with it.  On the flip side, you don’t have to spend half the screenplay setting up the world, like the first did. You can jump straight into the story. Which is what Into Darkness does. But was it successful??

Into Darkness has our Trek crew doing what it was created to do – explore new worlds. That’s THE PLAN anyway. But when Kirk finds a neophyte civilization about to be wiped out via an active volcano, he and Spock decide to save it. They barely do so, but in the process alert the civilization to their presence (a big no-no) AND almost die. This leads to Kirk being relieved of his command.

Meanwhile, a terrorist blows up a Trek archive building, (MAJOR SPOILER) who we later find out is the infamous Trek villain, Khan! Khan then jets out to the Klingon home planet, where he know he’ll be safe, since the humans and the Klingons are on the brink of war. But Kirk and crew go after him anyway, capture him, and find out the truth: that the President of Star Federation (played by the original Robocop!) is trying to kill this dude.

When Kirk won’t follow orders and kill him himself, then, Robocop comes after him, hellbent on destroying not just Khan, but everyone on Kirk’s ship as well. Kirk will have to decide who’s more dangerous here – Khan or Robocop – and stop them. All while trying to protect the thousands of crew on his ship.

99% of the time, I can get a sense whether a movie or a script is going to work within the first scene. How that scene is constructed tells me a ton. Is there drama involved? Intrigue? Suspense? Is it original? Is the scene meticulously plotted out? Or is it sloppy? If it’s sloppy, for example, that usually sets the tone for the rest of the movie. I mean, if you can’t make your very first scene clean, how can I expect you to make the following 59 scenes clean?

Into Darkness started out… wrong. It wasn’t entirely clear to me what was going on. You had Kirk running from these natives. Then we were cutting to Spock being lowered into some lava pit. For the first 60-90 seconds of the sequence, I thought Spock was on a completely different planet. I wasn’t linking him to the native stuff.

Eventually I figured it out, but if you look at a similar opening sequence, Indy going into the cave in Raiders of the Lost Ark (which clearly influenced JJ in this scene) – that’s a sequence you’re never confused by. I suppose JJ may have been doing this confusing cross-cutting on purpose? Maybe he wanted you to be be curious about how the two related to one another? But I think that’s the wrong move. Like I said – the opening scene sets the tone for the movie. It’s gotta be clear. There are instances where you want things to be confusing to establish intrigue (the layered dream sequence opening of Inception), but this wasn’t one of those times. And for this reason, I was really scared for Into Darkness.

But the script does rebound. The mystery terrorist put the story on a clear path: Find the terrorist, take him down. There were also quite a few of the mystery boxes JJ is known for. Like a) who is this terrorist? And b) what’s in these missiles that everyone seems so up-in-arms about? (Spoiler) – We eventually find out that the missiles are holding humans inside, which was a nice unexpected surprise. Although I thought for sure when the first one was revealed, as it appeared to be holding a bald guy, it was going to be Captain Jean-Luc Piccard (from the Next Generation). I had no idea how they were going to make that make sense, but it got me revved up (alas, it was not to be).

And I think that’s where JJ really excels. He keeps putting those mystery boxes out there so that you always have to find out what’s inside of them. Even when you’re not 100% into the movie, you still want to see what happens next. But I think the real feat here with the writing was how “follow-able” the writers were able to make the plot, despite how much it jumped around.

We talked about plot points a month ago, and how you want to keep changing up your story in order to keep it fresh. But (at least in my opinion) the plot point changes in Into Darkness were pretty severe, to the point where I wasn’t sure where the story was going. Or really what the main plot was. I mean first “Darkness” is about Kirk getting canned. Then he’s reinstated as a second-in-command on another ship. Then the terrorist attack happens. Then the terrorist runs away. They have to go chase the terrorist, with some foreshadowing of a potential Klingon war.  But there is no Klingon war.  Then the Federation President comes after them, as he’s revealed to be the bad guy. Then Khan kills the bad guy, and becomes the reinstated bad guy.

The writers do a good job keeping all of this clear, but it’s a huge gamble, as at a certain point, your reader/audience may throw up their arms and scream, “Dude! What the f*&k? is this movie about?!” When you write a script, you can write it two ways. You can establish the goal right away and spend the rest of the script showing your main character trying to obtain it. Or you can constantly keep changing the storyline and the goal, with new twists and turns dictating the narrative.

So with Raiders Of The Lost Ark, for example, we know the goal from the outset – find and bring back the Ark. Into Darkness, we’re not sure. We’re not really ever sure. And that’s what’s so dangerous about writing these types of scripts. They’re a bag of mysteries. And it takes a tremendous amount of skill to keep a story interesting that doesn’t have that constant. Whenever I see amateurs try to pull this off, it’s a guaranteed fail. They’ll keep throwing in new surprises and twists every ten pages or so, but it feels like it’s being made up as they go along. They only know how to change the variables. They don’t have an overall game plan.

I think that’s the difference when a professional takes on one of these scripts and when an amateur does. The professional outlines and makes sure it all makes sense, that there is something underneath that’ll support all these twists. Whereas the new writer will simply make up twists on the fly and believe that’s enough. At least, that’s what it feels like to me.

In the end, Into Darkness was sort of a strange, daring film, in that it did have a weird, constantly changing plot. But it found a way to make it work. The natural conflict between Kirk and Spock always kept things interesting. The “flying through debris” action sequence was really well executed. Khan was an interesting (if not exceptional) villain, who had a lot more meat to him than Eric Bana’s villain from the first film. And after a bit of a slow section following the opening scene, the script never lets up, pounding us with immediacy – an ingredient essential for any good summer popcorn film. I liked it. I mean, it wasn’t amazing, but it was solid.

Script rating:

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

Movie rating:

[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] not fit for a Klingon
[x] worth the price of admission for anywhere but the ridiculously expensive Arclight
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: If you’re a new writer, I’d suggest mastering the “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” model before you move on to the “Star Trek: Into Darkness” model. Establish a goal for your protagonist right away, then have them go after it, repeatedly running into obstacles during their pursuit. If you keep changing your character’s goal and keep rearranging the plot’s purpose the way “Into Darkness” does, you’re going to find your plot a lot harder to wrangle in. It can be done, but you need a lot of practice before you’re ready for it.

What I learned 2: I don’t know why this particular movie made me think of this, but I think IMDB should start including a section for “Contributing Writers” on each project. We know, of course, that they can’t get an official title card for the movie. But there should be a place where these writers are recognized so an internet search can bring their names up. IMDB seems like the perfect place to put this information. They’re not obligated to only include the “official” writers, and as long as it’s properly noted, I don’t see how this could do anything but help the non-top-tier writers in the business.

Hey guys.  In celebration of, well, all of us being alive, I’m making Scriptshadow Secrets just $4.99 through the weekend!  Many of you have asked when the book is coming out in hardcopy.  It will, I promise.  I just have to carve out some time and get it done.  In the meantime, remember, you DO NOT have to have a Kindle device or an Ipad to read the book.  You can download, for free, the Kindle for PC (or Mac) app, and use that to read the book right on your computer.

Get Scriptshadow Secrets for $4.99 NOW!!!

Note: Stores outside the U.S. may have a slight delay in the updated price.  But it should show up soon.  

This is your chance to discuss the week’s amateur scripts, offered originally in the Scriptshadow newsletter. The primary goal for this discussion is to find out which script(s) is the best candidate for a future Amateur Friday review. The secondary goal is to keep things positive in the comments with constructive criticism.

Below are the scripts up for review, along with the download links. Want to receive the scripts early? Head over to the Contact page, e-mail us, and “Opt In” to the newsletter.

Happy reading!

TITLE: Pâtisserie
GENRE: Drama
LOGLINE: A young Jewish woman in occupied France escapes the Nazis by changing places with a shop owner. But as her love grows for the other woman’s husband and child, so does her guilt.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): My screenplay finished in the top 6% of last year’s Nicholls, perhaps you can tell me why it didn’t crack the top 5. It was also the Screenplay of the Month on both Zoetrope and TriggerStreet.

TITLE: A Call To Respond
GENRE: Action/Thriller
LOGLINE: A first responder is the target of a madman, but his greatest enemy may be the public he vows to protect.

TITLE: X-9
GENRE: Scifi/Action
LOGLINE: In a world overrun with monsters, a futuristic city thrives behind a massive wall. But when a conspiracy threatens to destroy it all, the city’s last hope rests on the shoulders of a criminal in a stolen combat suit.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): You mean besides the guy in the armor punch fighting monsters? Well. There is some solid character work, themes dealing with duty and what makes a hero, and a few twists and turns. It’s something that Hollywood flips for: something that feels familiar but isn’t.

TITLE: The Golden House
GENRE: Period Drama
LOGLINE: A young Roman risks his life and his friendship with the emperor when he secretly pursues a woman who has sworn allegiance to the cross, a crime punishable by death.

TITLE: Drug War
GENRE: Action/Thriller
LOGLINE: A US Marine enlists the help of a Mexican journalist to rescue his father who is being held hostage by a powerful drug cartel.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): I was a finalist in the Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest immediately following Tyler Marceca. I even had the same mentor. It wasn’t hard to accept that following Tyler’s path was a real long shot when hit by the reality of turning a solid 15 pages into my first full length script and juggling writing deadlines between the pull of work and family commitments. I learned a lot from the mentoring and script notes, but did not win. Based on the script I submitted, I knew the only way I would win is if the other scripts were not good. Seven months and several versions later, I believe it’s ready for an Amateur Friday review–comments and all.

Today we learn just how important structure is to comedy writing.

Amateur Friday Submission Process: 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 effects 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.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from writer) Pink-slipped, a mailman and his eccentric allies embark on a quixotic quest to prove how much he and the mail still matter.
About: This script won the Amateur Offerings Weekend a couple of weeks ago.
Writer: Patrick Connelly
Details: 100 pages

Ed Helms for Rollo?

You know, I always wondered why nobody made a comedy about the postal service. It seems tailor made for laughs. One of the greatest TV characters of all time, Newman, was a mailman. So clearly the job has plenty of funny going for it. Maybe producers are afraid of the cliché factor? They fear the only real joke here is a postman running from a dog? Hmm, how ’bout a movie where a dog and a mailman switch places! The irony of a dog needing to run from…a dog! Holy Schnikees, that is so not a good idea. Maybe it’s best to leave the storytelling up to Patrick – see if he can do what no one else has done yet with the postal industry. I wish him luck. Comedy is one of the hardest genres to get right!

Rollo is a mailman. Part of a dying breed. Yup. All those e-mails are finally adding up, making “real” mail an official thing of the past. And not even the seemingly unending stockpile of junk mail can save this 300 year-old staple of American society. Rollo, the bestest, most excited mailman you’re ever going to find, figures he’s immune from the biggest downsizing project in the history of the world though. I mean, this man LOVES being a mailman. And he’s never had a screw-up on the job. There’s no way they can fire him!

A couple of scenes later, Rollo’s boss gives him the heave-ho, slapping him with the dreaded 2-week pink slip. Rollo is so devastated that he teams up with another mailman (the one-armed army vet, Steve) and a homeless man (who goes by the name “Peachfuzz”) to remind the post office just what they’re missing. He figures he’ll simply read his customers’ mail, solve their problems, and fulfill their dreams.

Their first order of business is locating one of the women on Rollo’s route, the sweet old Mrs. Applebaum. The plan is to kidnap her and deliver her to her daughter and son-in-law on their vacation. Why? Because her daughter sent her a postcard that said, “wish you were here!” I’m not entirely sure how Rollo believes this is going to get him his job back, but he figures if he can pull off a few more of these, then back in the saddle he’ll be.

Eventually, however, the postal inspectors get wind of the shady activity going on near Rollo’s route and send one of their weakest agents to the rescue, the stamp-collecting-obsessed Wally. It doesn’t take Wally long to figure out that Rollo is behind all this. But instead of busting him, he tells him he actually has a way to get Rollo his job back. All he has to do is sign for and deliver a very important package, making sure it doesn’t get tripped up by the post office’s many security measures. Desperate, Rollo takes the job. But he’ll soon have to decide if the package’s nefarious content is worth getting his job back.

Going Postal was a light breezy read. It had a lot of funny moments and unlike a lot of amateur scripts I read, there was nothing to gum up the plot. It was simple and easy to follow. However, that strength also ended up being the script’s big weakness. It was all a little too simple. But more importantly, I’m not sure Going Postal ever figured out what story it was trying to tell.

The goal stated was for Rollo to read mail and solve people’s problems. This, he hoped, would get him his job back. I know this is a comedy and therefore the motivations don’t have to be airtight. But they have to at least have air in them. I didn’t understand how Rollo could think that solving people’s problems that really had nothing to do with mail (outside of maybe being mentioned in a letter) would make anyone want to give him his job back.

Since this is the impetus for the movie, that means you’re placing the weight of your story on an extremely shaky foundation. Once you do that, you’re fighting an uphill battle. Because in the back of your audience’s mind, they’re constantly asking, “Wait, how does this help him get his job back again?” Every time they finish laughing at a joke, they ask, “Wait a minute, what’s the objective here again?” You don’t want your audience ever asking logic or motivation questions about your screenplay. That stuff’s gotta be the “given” part. Once you have the “given” in place, you can go out there and have fun.

I talk a lot about goals on this site – making sure your hero is always going after them – but maybe I’m not being specific enough about what a good “goal” entails. You want your story goal to be BIG and you want it to be LOGICAL. It’s gotta make sense. And I think we saw the result not having that when Rollo moves to the second person he’s helping, and it basically boils down to him yelling at one of his clients for cheating on his wife. I think that’s great. But I’m not sure what it has to do with the mail and why anyone would give Rollo his job back for doing it.

Actually, the goal that DOES carry weight and logic comes much later. It’s when Wally pops in, informs Rollo he knows what he’s doing, and tells him if he can deliver this very dangerous package, he can have his job back. This actually feels like a logical and strong goal. It’s mail-relevant and you believe that if Rollo achieves it, he’ll get his job back. If I were Partick, then, I would consider moving this up earlier in the story and making it the central goal. I’m talking right there at the end of the first act. The antics and the comedy, then, could come from Rollo and his buddies trying to get the package to the right place, with everything under the sun going wrong along the way. Yes, we have seen this type of plot before, but we could explore some new angles since we’d be telling it through the eyes of the people who are supposed to be the experts at delivering packages.

I think that’s the best way to go for Patrick. It will also help focus the story. Right now we feel like we’re going out on too many tangents, and many of the scenes go on for too long. This tends to happen when clear goals aren’t established. If the writer’s unsure what the immediate objective is, he stays in a scene for way too long, hoping he’ll figure out where to take his character next in the process. Get those goals in place and your scenes will be short and sweet, the way they’re meant to be.

Even if this script was a little messy, I have confidence in Patrick. He’s funny (the repeated cabana boy deaths were hilarious) and he knows how to keep the reader’s eyes moving down the page. The script really was an effortless read, and that will come in handy when he figures out the structural stuff. Good job to Patrick and hopefully this advice will help him take the next step as a writer.

Script link: Going Postal

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Comedies are typically the genre that require the most structure. They’re also the genre that would seem to require the least. Which is why we see so many sloppy comedies. The easiest way to nail your structure is to make sure you always have character goals in place (your hero is always going after something – and it’s clear to the reader how big and how relevant those goals are). Whether it’s The 40 Year Old Virgin trying to get laid or three drunken imbeciles trying to find their friend Doug after a crazy night out in Vegas. Structure is a comedy’s writer’s b.f.f.

So the other day I was sent a link to Melissa Joan Hart’s Kickstarter project page. Melissa was high on the recent successes of fellow Hollywood middle-folk Kristin Bell and Zach Braff after getting their movies funded on Kickstarter. And hey, so were the rest of us! Movie-making was finally being decided by the consumer and not some dopey producer who didn’t know the difference between Dog Day Afternoon and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Yeah! Power to the people!

For those of you who think the internet is stupid and therefore haven’t used it this year, Kickstarter allows you to set up an online pitch, via text, video, pictures, valentine’s day cards, or whatever else you can think of, and then assign a target amount of money you’re trying to raise for your venture (in this case, a movie budget) and then let people send you money so you can try and reach that goal. Zach Braff, for example, who wrote and directed the indie mega-hit “Garden State,” has been frustratingly trying to raise the money for his new movie without giving creative freedom over to Generic Producer A-D, who would sell their left kidneys if it meant Zack casting actors like Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez in key roles. In order to avoid those casting catastrophes, he decided to raise the money himself so he could have total creative emancipation. And he succeeded!

But here’s the thing. Zach Braff had all his cool funny friends appear on his video and for the most part, he was funny and cool, too. Melissa Joan Hart on the other hand…..? Not cool. Not funny. I mean she has her MOTHER in the pitch video with her. Rule number 1. When you’re doing a Kickstarter campaign, DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR MOTHER IN THE PITCH. You’d think that’d be obvious but I suppose the tool is new enough that people haven’t figured out all the nuances yet. For that reason, watching the Melissa video go down was sort of like watching a bad, slow-motion Gangnam Style impression. I mean here’s the logline she listed for the project, titled “Darci’s Walk Of Shame”: “An impulsive act has Darci face enormous hurdles to get back to her sister’s wedding & avoid her family witness her first walk of shame.” Umm, what does that even mean?

But it gets really bad in the “prizes” section, something Hart even promotes in her pitch video as being better than the wack prizes former successful campaigners Veronica Mars and Zach Braff promised. For $100, you get two of the cast members of Darci’s Walk Of Shame (people whose identities we don’t know yet) to follow you for ONE YEAR on Twitter. That’s right. You get two unknown struggling actors to follow you for one (AND ONLY ONE!) year on Twitter! The description of said prize makes it very clear, however, that one of those people will NOT be Melissa Joan Hart. Nope, she can’t be bothered to click a button on her Twitter feed that says “Follow.” Far too stressful. It’s no surprise that of the 2 million dollars Hart was trying to raise to make her movie, she only made 50,000.

Okay, you’re probably wondering why I’ve turned today into “Make Fun Of Melissa Joan Hart” day. Truth is, Melissa seems like a really nice girl who was a little misinformed about what kind of people and projects Kickstarter rewards, as well as how to put together a snazzy pitch. The reason I bring Melissa’s struggles up is because it got me thinking about screenwriting. Specifically how Kickstarter can help screenwriters. Now you’re probably thinking I’m going to go into this whole spiel about putting your script up on Kickstarter and trying to raise money for your movie yourself. No, I’m actually telling you to do the opposite.

You see, one of the most common complaints I hear from screenwriters is how frustrating it is to be on the outside. How producers keep rewarding these crappy screenwriters with produced credits, buying up project after project of theirs, while they’re sitting here with a much better new spec that (in their opinion) is worth a six-figure sale. Why won’t more people give them a chance? Read their stuff? Give them that money!? Why does Hollywood only play ball with their own players?

Well, let me ask you a question. Why haven’t you gone over to Kickstarter, my dear screenwriting brethren, and invested in any of these upstart movies people are putting together? I’m not talking about giving them a thousand dollars. Or even a hundred dollars. Why haven’t you given them, say, 10 bucks? I don’t read minds but I’m pretty sure your answer is something like: “Because I don’t know those people.” And for that reason, you don’t care about them or what they’re doing. I mean, who knows if they even know what they’re doing? Why would you shell out ten bucks for something so uncertain?

Ah-ha! Let that obvious stance sink in for a moment.

Now ask yourself the same question about your script, but from a producer’s point of view. Why should they read or buy your screenplay? They don’t have any inkling of whether you know what you’re doing or not. Why would they give you 2 hours of their time or 300,000 dollars of their money? You may say, “Well 2 hours is not a lot of time!” It isn’t? How long does it take before you’ve ditched one of those Kickstarter pages? 30 seconds? 20? I bet you’re not meticulously reading every little detail, going through every single prize, watching the pitch video from start to finish. Heck, chances are you made a ten second glance and you were out.

You see, with Kickstarter, we the people visiting these pages are the (potential) producers. We decide if something is worthy or isn’t. When someone like Zach Braff comes along, someone who’s proven himself by making a good movie, we’re way more likely to give him money because he’s proven he can do it. But when somebody we’ve never heard of before pitches us something, there’s no way we’re giving away our hard-earned money. We simply don’t know if this guy can pull it off.

That, my friends, is how producers are looking at you. Each individual script you write and send out there is like its own little Kickstarter campaign. And just like the Kickstarter campaigns you don’t give a shit about because you don’t know those guys, they’re doing the same. You can’t blame them because all they’re doing is what all of us do every day. We filter out the junk. We choose movies based on our familiarity with the people involved. Even if you’re one of the lucky ones and you get a producer to actually read your script and actually LIKE it, you still have no established record. So instead of going with you, the random guy, they bet on the sure thing – the previously successful book or graphic novel or video game.

Now you may think I’m trying to depress the shit out of you. As I read back through this post, it certainly sounds that way. But the truth is, the Kickstarter approach can actually help you write and market your next script. Ask yourself, what kind of Kickstarter pages (that DON’T have proven people at the helm) might get you to invest money? Probably people with a really put-together professional Kickstarter page for one, right? A clean synopsis. A well stated business plan. Someone with a really great movie idea. Someone who probably posts one of their previous short movies and it looks amazing, or they post some pre-viz work for this project that looks stunning – stuff that gives you confidence these guys are capable of making something great, right?

Well, why not take that exact same approach and apply it to the writing and selling of your current screenplay? 1) Choose an original marketable concept 2) Execute that concept 3) Write a query letter that excitedly teases your script and demonstrates your professionalism. If you fail on any of these fronts, it’s very likely you won’t sell your screenplay. So the next time you complain that Hollywood doesn’t care, hop over to Kickstarter and ask, “Why don’t I care about them?” Put yourself in those producer shoes and ask why you’re not contributing your hard-earned money to these people (i.e. the idea’s stupid, they can’t spell, they look unprofessional) and make sure you’re not making the same mistakes when you’re writing your script, pitching your script, or sending out query letters. I can’t promise this approach will end up in a sale. But I CAN promise it will give you your best possible shot at one. Good luck!

Amateur Submission Process: 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 effects 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.

Genre: Sci-fi/Noir
Premise: (from writer) In the year 2068, a rough and tumble Detective who moonlights for organized crime is forced to solve a series of crimes wherein android prostitutes have been killing their clients, before a zealous US Attorney succeeds in his mission to destroy him.
About: Rarely do I review an amateur script if it’s not Amateur Friday, but I have an unwritten rule that if you send me a kick-ass query letter or have the most amazing unbelievably awesome premise ever, I will review your script right away. Such was the case with James Thoo, who sent me this hilarious query letter, which I’ve included below.
Writer: James Thoo
Details: 101 pages

Henry Cavill for Patterson?

Hi Carson,

So this is the first time that I’ve had to come up with two stories to sell one screenplay. One for the screenplay itself, and one for me and the process behind the writing of the screenplay, to get you to read it. I think I have both though, so here goes.

I’ve actually sold work before. Bear with me though, because I’m still pretty sure I qualify for Amateur Friday. Mostly because I am a total amateur now with zero residual ties to the film industry remaining. I started out in film (ish) as a News Editor for JoBlo.com, which is a pretty major movie news website. I got that job when I was 18. People seemed to really dig my voice before I was fired two years later for taking a few too many jabs at Eli Roth – whom I loath and whose films I avoid like I would avoid fraternity rape – who in turn emailed my boss to tell him that he was tired of me “being a persistent asshole to him.”

After that I was approached to write a screenplay by a small studio in LA, who optioned it, but never made it. I was sad about this for a while. That was kind of parlayed into being hired to write a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello for a Malaysian film studio (where I went to school; my dad moved around a lot). I had some meetings set up in LA but I declined them because I really wanted to do something in Malaysia. I had gross delusions of grandeur wherein I changed the face of the infant film industry over there and local government declared a James Thoo day and elderly women and small children alike high-fived each other amid tears of pure joy. Virgins were offered up and I chose which ones I was interested in with the flick of a cane fashioned for me from pure gold and unicorn bones. I’m sure you can imagine.

So I signed to make the Othello movie. Which would end up being perhaps not the, but certainly one of the biggest crimes perpetrated internationally, ever, and not just in film: in general. Good lord was this film an abomination.

As I mentioned, the film industry in Malaysia isn’t very developed and so there are a lot of restrictions. One of which is on run time, which shouldn’t really be a problem, but quickly becomes one when your director (who has final cut) has been subsisting for the past month on a steady diet of marijuana, self-praise and Terrence Malick films. As such the film was an unmitigated disaster. Back story and some pretty substantial plot points were extradited for inconsequential, self masturbatory lingering shots of snakes and foliage and shit. The producer also pulled a Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li and added in some voice-over that he had written himself, which was also added to all promotional materials, because, you know, why not?

Beyond all reason the film actually won a couple of awards and got an extended cinematic run but I was so disillusioned with the whole thing that I tried to take a page out of Tony Kaye’s book and change the writing credit to Humpty Dumpty. When I couldn’t make that happen I never wrote again. There was a funny instance of me picking up a film magazine one day and flicking to the review section where I went straight to the verdict and saw four out of five stars. I was pretty proud. And then I glanced over at the next page and saw Alvin and the Chipmunks. Five stars. There’s probably some similar stories to mine floating around, but I should point out that all of this happened when I was 22 years old. I don’t think that there are many people you meet who effectively, completely burnt out as writers by the age of 22. That was over 5 years ago now.

So yeah, I’ve been working since, as Editor in Chief of an online news portal in Malaysia, which consists largely of curating news aggregation and editing for a team of mongoloids who wield the english language with the kind of accuracy a drunk shows a urinal. These guys are like the anti-grammar. It is mind numbing. Up out of nowhere, 6 months ago I started writing again. I had a sudden bout of genuine inspiration. And I found my passion again. Maybe it is totally misplaced and whatever minor talent I once had is long gone, and whatever I came up with this time around is total garbage, but here it is nonetheless. I’d truly appreciate it if you would take the time to read my screenplay and then decimate it publicly on your blog.

In all honesty, I’m not an every day reader of Script Shadow, but I do check in a couple of times a week. I really think you’re doing a wonderful job, and I hope my relative lack of dedication to your lessons does not preclude me from writing a script that you appreciate. Or don’t hate. Let’s see…

You can’t read a query letter like that and not think, “This guy’s gotta be good.” I mean he obviously has a natural ability to tell stories and be funny, and if you have that, you’ve got a shot. But then I opened the first page of “Keep Us Safe.” My heart sank. James’ intro page suffered from “Wall of Text” syndrome. It’s a disease that’s commonly found in young writers who are still learning the craft. Their main source of reading entertainment up to this point has been books, so they start off writing their scripts like books, packed with way too much description.

And readers HATE this. They hate it. I hate it. Because it’s going to tack 45 more minutes onto my reading time. Which would be fine if those minutes were spent word-smithing together an enhanced story. But 80 out of 81 times, the opposite is true. The excessively long passages gum up the story, making the script the literary equivalent of the 405 at 6pm on a Friday. However, I still had some confidence in James. I knew he could write. Yeah, the first page was wordy, but it wasn’t “I can’t string a sentence together” wordy. The descriptions painted a strong picture. So I figured – Let’s still give this James guy a shot, Carson.

The year is 2068. The location is Los Angeles, CA. Shades of Blade Runner abound. Also some shades of A.I. In fact, if I were to describe “Keep Us Safe,” I’d say “It’s Blade Runner meets A.I meets I-Robot.” Tommy Patterson is a crooked cop for hire. The man can be bought for a 5 dollar footlong (or a 50 dollar footlong in the year 2068). However, despite being described as such, he seems to be very un-crooked in his policing – as we meet him chasing down a nasty drug dealer. Which was confusing. If you’re introducing a character who’s dirty, you probably want to show him doing something dirty. And if Patterson IS doing something dirty here, it isn’t clear.

Afterwards, Patterson’s told by his boss, Police Chief Martin Deinard, that the newspapers know he’s dirty and are going to destroy his reputation. Which means Deinard has to demote him (I was a little unclear on why he didn’t just fire him), giving him, in his words, the worst jobs in the precinct. Strangely then, Patterson’s placed on homicide for a string of cop murders perpetrated by a rogue android prostitute. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like the coolest assignment ever!

Patterson’s case takes him to the maker of these prostitute-bots, Lux Kubotu Robotics, where he learns that a high-profile employee recently quit. It’s the CEO’s belief that the employee may have implanted some code that made the robots killers. So he bounces around from bars to nightclubs, talking to a lot of seedy folks, trying to trace down this dude, eventually learning that someone HE knew actually sent this robot into the red light district to take down Patterson himself, who was known to frequent the area. Patterson will have to go back into his own ranks, then, to take this asshole down.

I’ll be the first to admit this summary may not be 100% correct but that’s only because I couldn’t always tell what was going on. And this takes us back to all that text I was complaining about earlier. You see, many writers believe that writing a ton of description gives the reader MORE information. However it often works the opposite way. The reader’s focus starts drifting. Or meaningless things (like the smell of the air) are highlighted, imposing on the reader that he doesn’t need to read all the text as it doesn’t contain relevant information, resulting in him starting to skim. Or the plethora of words start to get jumbled around, confusing the essence of what the writer is trying to say. Let me give you an example. Here’s the beginning of an early scene in the police chief’s office…

Patterson slumps into a leather couch that occupies the far corner of the office. He rests his head in his open palm and leans into the shadows.

On an extravagant mahogany chair in front of the main bureau sits a man, broad, rough around the edges but trying to make clean: D.A. HENRY CAHILL. He turns his seat to face Patterson, who nods familiarly in his direction.

POLICE CHIEF MARTIN DEINARD is all business. He wears a flawless pinstripe suit with a transparent brace around his neck the catches hair as his PERSONAL BARBER trims at the grey, close around his head.

He stands by the window of his office and looks down at the city. He sighs and turns to Patterson with a TABLET PC in his hand. The Barber follows his every move. He tosses it into his lap and Patterson caches it instinctively, twisting it to read what is being shown.

The image rotates to fit the screen and he sees a middle-aged man, thin, strong, definite jawed, no-nonsense, like he was carved from granite. If anything, maybe like a younger more idealistic Deinard himself.

Holy Word Explosion Batman! Here we have five huge paragraphs (note that the paragraphs have been thinned out due to the format change: they are 3, 4, 4, 5, and 4 lines respectively in the script) to set up a scene. We never need this many paragraphs to set up a scene unless extremely complicated and/or relevant things are going on. Honestly, this is how I would rewrite it…

Patterson slumps in a leather couch. He’s surrounded on either side by D.A. HENRY CAHILL, a slimy crooked type, and POLICE CHIEF MARTIN DEINARD, who’s being tended to by his personal barber.

The chief stares out at the city, cutting off the barber momentarily to hand Patterson a tablet PC. On it is a middle-aged man, a no-nonsense type, who looks like Deinard may have looked like 20 years ago.

Now I understand that you want to convey SOME atmosphere and description in your writing, but you want to do so in moderation because this is screenwriting, not novel writing. Check out The Equalizer or When The Streetlights Go On to see writers convey atmosphere yet still keep their prose sparse.

Because “Wall Of Text” Syndrome has a trickle down effect. It leads to what’s known as “Reader Mind Slip.” This is when a reader’s mind gets overloaded with unimportant information, so they stop paying attention. When this happens, they can’t keep up, as they’re constantly having to re-read paragraphs that they only sorta grasped the first time, which leads to frustration, which leads to them eventually saying “Fuck it” and charging through, even when they don’t entirely understand a scene. From that point on, they’re operating in “Murkyville” territory. They sort of understand what’s going on, but don’t get all of those finer points you’ve meticulously plotted in there. Which is why it’s so important to keep your prose sparse and only tell us what we need to know. You want to avoid “Reader Mind Slip” at all costs.

There are other problems here as well. The story played out too predictably. I felt like I’ve seen it before. The love story comes in too late, making it feel like an afterthought.  But if I were James, I would just focus on thinning out his prose for now. Learn how to say a lot more in a lot less. Because obviously, James can write. I mean he can string a sentence together. Even though the writing was thick, it was never bad. And a lot of the dialogue was right up there with professional-level dialogue. But none of that stuff matters unless the story is easy to grasp, and right now all this text is getting in the way.

Also, I have a personal plea for James. Write a comedy script! From your e-mail, you obviously have the chops for it. It seems like it suits your sensibilities better anyway. In fact, write about that experience you had going to Malaysia. It sounds hilarious. I’ll be the first in line to read any comedy you write. And don’t let this review get you down. You seem a bit sensitive. You obviously have talent, I just think you need to tweak your writing approach a little. I wish you luck my friend.

Script link: Keep Us Safe

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Your query letter is a key part of your marketing. The tone should reflect you, but more importantly, your script. So if you have a heavy drama, be professional and serious in your query. If you have a comedy, be funny! By the same token, try not to act one way in your query then give a script that’s completely the opposite. After James’ hilarious query, I was hoping for a comedy. So it was a little confusing getting a dark sci-fi script.

What I learned 2: Beware pages that look like walls of text. Beware multiple pages in a row that look like walls of text. But most importantly, beware of a FIRST PAGE that looks like a wall of text. It will put your reader off right away.