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I don’t think there are five directors in history who have had as unusual of a career as M. Night Shyamalan. He came out of the gate with two hit movies and everyone was anointing him the next Steven Spielberg. He’s since directed six films that the majority of people consider to be really bad (with the exception of maybe Signs). That’s resulted in a huge backlash against him. But I think the real reason there are so many M. Night haters is that he’s so defiant about his script’s problems. While he never comes out and says it, his m.o. after a flop is to insinuate that critics and audiences don’t “get it.” Maybe if M. Night had some humility and took himself a little less seriously, he’d endear a lot of those fans to come back to his side (or at least not spend half their day pounding him on message boards). I picked “Lady In The Water” to analyze because I believe it’s the moment audiences first began to realize that M. Night may be a one-trick pony. Sure, his next film (The Happening), was worse. But I think this one represents a lot of what’s wrong with Night as a writer. I remember watching it and just thinking, “What WAS that??” For those who didn’t see the film, it’s about a middle-aged sclumpy apartment building manager (“Cleveland,” played by Paul Giamatti) who’s visited by a strange girl (named “Story” – no, I’m not kidding) who seems to have arrived via the pool in the middle of the complex. In order to get her back to her world (the “Blue World”), Cleveland will need to learn about her strange universe and enlist the help of all the tenants in the building. It’s really bad! Let’s dig in.

1) Never place symbolism or theme above story – This is Night’s Achilles heal. He’s said in the past that a story must meet something like 7 criteria for him to make it, and most of that criteria involves theme and symbolism. Let me make something clear to you: If you ever write something where theme or symbolism is more important than story, you will never sell your script. You may impress your old English professor. But you will not sell the spec. With specs, story ALWAYS comes first. Write a good story, and then have theme and symbolism SUPPLEMENT that.

2) Listen to criticism – For some odd reason, Night continues to make the same mistakes over and over again (prioritizing theme and symbolism being one of those mistakes), despite nobody going to see his films anymore. As a writer, it’s your job to LISTEN to what somebody is saying when they critique your screenplay. Too many young writers blow this off, believing the reader “didn’t get it.” It may not be that they didn’t get it. It may be that you didn’t present the information in a way that allowed them to get it. So always listen to criticism and even if you don’t agree with the critic, try to understand why they’re saying what they’re saying.

3) Criticism Example – Let me give you an example. A long time ago, I wrote a script about a guy who was dying of brain cancer who had to jump into the future to get it fixed. Things don’t go cleanly when he gets there. There’s a lot of chasing around – double-crossing – that kind of thing. Almost everyone who read the script felt that the hero was too selfish. A producer eventually suggested, “Instead of him trying to save himself, why not have him try to save someone else?” I immediately dismissed his suggestion. I couldn’t imagine it. I just couldn’t. I’d built this character from the ground up and there was no way in my mind I could see him as someone other than what I created. So I stubbornly wrote a few more drafts MY WAY, but that same criticism kept coming back. I eventually put the script down, picked it back up a year later, and saw exactly what everyone was talking about. The hero was definitely too selfish. So I changed it from him going to the future to save himself to him going to the future to save his wife. The script instantly got better. I’m not saying that every critique will be right. But if you’re hearing the same thing over and over again, get away from the script (maybe not for a whole year, but for a little bit) come back, and try to see that critique through fresh eyes.

4) Don’t drown your story in mythology – Mythology is the world and rules behind that story you’ve created. If you try and make your mythology too extensive, it will become bigger than the story, and begin to drown it. This was the downfall of Lady In The Water. There were narfs and scrats and water people and tree people and eagles and madame narfs and rules upon rules upon rules of how this universe was supposed to work. It was too much. Too confusing. And eventually the audience checked out because they couldn’t keep up with it all. I’m not saying extensive mythology can’t be done. That Harry Potter franchise did okay. But, it’s very hard to do well. Focus on keeping only the relevant aspects of the mythology in the script. And if it’s still too much, consider simplifying it.

5) Quirky for quirk’s sake is a recipe for disaster – In Lady in the Water, we’ve got a guy who only works out with one arm!!! So he’s got a tiny left arm but a really big muscular right arm. There is no story reason for this to happen other than it makes him WACKY and QUIRKY. When you do this, the reader feels the writing. He notices you, the writer, typing away. If you’re doing your job right, the reader will never think of you. He will be so wrapped up in your story that he isn’t aware its even been written.

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6) Beware coincidences when writing screenplays – A woman from another world shows up in an apartment complex pool, and it just so happens that a couple of Korean residents in that complex know an obscure Korean fairytale that contains all the details of this woman’s past and what she needs to do to get back home. Coincidental? Of course. And again, it makes us think of the writer. Stay away from coincidences. They are bad and do terrible things to your story.

7) The “fate” excuse isn’t good enough – “But no,” the writer says, “The Korean residents knew the fairy tale because fate brought the lady in the water in touch with them!” Whenever you’re using the “fate” reason to explain story holes or fill in story gaps, the script begins to feel LAZY. Think about it. It’s such an easy solution. It gives you carte blanche to have a million coincidences happen, which kills any suspense your story may have.  The “fate” angle can work if it’s used selectively and cleverly, but when it’s used lazily, it kills your story.

8) Beware the close cousin of coincidence: convenience – When the story needs to move quickly, our water nymph girl knows the exact answers to all the tough questions about her world (“Oh yeah, a scrat? This is how you defeat it.”). Other times, when we need to give Cleveland something to do, she all of a sudden has no clue of what’s going on (“Which person am I supposed to meet here?  Beats me!”). How convenient, right? Convenience is yet another sign of lazy writing.

9) Use gas on your emotional beats, not nuclear power – Night has a real problem with this. His moments can’t just be sweet emotional connections between people. They have to have an added element that REALLY. HITS. YOU. OVER. THE HEAD. So there’s this potentially nice scene where Cleveland must heal Story. He’s on the ground with her in his arms. She’s dying. And as he’s about to talk her back, the seven women behind him all place their hands on his back! Give. Me. A break! Your emotional beats should be powered by gasoline. Not a nuclear reactor.

10) Silly/goofy choices – I don’t really know how to convey this tip in a way that will help people. Because we all live in our own reality. What’s amazing to us may be boring to Joe in Kansas. What’s cool to us may be lame to our best friend. Having said that, I read so many amateur scripts where writers make the goofiest silliest choices, and they don’t seem to realize it for whatever reason. M. Night suffers from a really bad case of this. He had a scene in The Happening where characters ran from the wind! He had a scene here where a ten year old boy extracts key story information from a cabinet full of cereal boxes! He’s got a character here who has one huge muscled arm and one regular one! Obviously, in Night’s universe these choices aren’t goofy. But the rest of the world disagrees. So to avoid this mistake, you have to step out of your shoes, read through your plot, and ask, “Would people perceive this choice as silly?” And be honest with yourself. Even better, ask your friends (only the ones who tell you the truth). Because I see things like this ALL THE TIME and I ask, “What were they THINKING?” Not enough writers scrutinize their choices. Don’t be one of those writers.

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: In the far off future, humans live in a “utopia” where there is no hate, no fear, no sadness, and most prominently, no knowledge of human kind’s history. When a young boy discovers the shocking truth about that history, he knows he must escape the community.
About: The Giver was a book published back in 1993 and quickly broke out as one of the most popular dystopian novels ever written. It eventually made its way onto school reading lists. The adaptation I’m reviewing was written back in 2004 by Todd Alcott, who wrote the animated movie, Antz. However, since then, the script has obviously been rewritten a few times, and is now credited to Michael Mitnick (who looks freakishly like Ferris Bueller. Look him up!). I believe the film is almost done shooting, and has a fancy cast that includes Alexander Skarsgard, Meryl Streep, Taylor Swift, Jeff Bridges, and Katie Holmes. The film comes out in August of next year. “Salt” director Phillip Noyce directed.
Writer: Todd Alcott (based on the book by Lois Lowry)
Details: 118 pages – 12-14-04 (listed as “final” draft)

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So after hearing 3 separate people over the past year tell me that The Giver was a great script (and 2 OTHER people tell me it was one of their favorite books growing up), I finally decided to take a whack at it (get it? “take?” Cause like, it’s called “The Giver?” Mm-hmm, good right?)

Truth be told, it’s the old “bad title bug” that keep me from chomping on this piece of script celery. The Giver?? It sounds like a depressing Western where a Silas Marner like character, homeless and half-clothed, offers kind favors to passerbys. Ugh, shrug, no thanks Doug. I want to read something called GOOD scripts. GOOOOO-OOOOO-OOOO-DDDD. Good scripts.

Shows you how important a title is. The wrong one makes readers run like Panama Canal workers from mosquitos. Of course, this WAS a novel adaptation, so they were kind of stuck with what they were given (get it? Because “The Giver” and then I just said… oh forget it). But if you’re writing a sci-fi spec, make sure you title it something a little more sci-fi sounding.

So is The Giver as good as the praise it’s been given? Or am I going to GIVE it a failing grade? Only one way to find out. Join me in my Scriptshadow time machine so we can travel faaaar off into the future, into the world of… The Giver.

Jonas is a 12 year old boy who’s a little brighter than the rest of the kids. More astute, I’d say. Jonas lives in a future town of 3500 people, and boy is this town rad. First of all, no cars! That’s because there are no streets. Everyone rides around on bicycles and wears trendy clothes and enjoys each other’s company and seems genuinely happy with life.

There are some negatives. Nobody ever questions anything. Nobody’s allowed to go outside the town. Nobody’s allowed to lie. And there’s hardly any color in this world. It’s like everything is muted. Oh, and your job is chosen for you.

That’s right. In fact, as the story begins, a ceremony is coming up where all the 12 year olds (12 is the last year of childhood in this community) will be told what they’re doing for the rest of their lives. So they all go, and out of the 50 twelve year-olds, Jonas watches patiently as his friends go one by one and get jobs like “fisherman” and “helping the elderly” and “director of recreation.” But when it’s Jonas’s turn… he’s PASSED OVER.

This draws a concerned muttering from the crowd and naturally, Jonas is freaked out. Finally, after all the twelves have been designated, Jonas is called up. His job will be “The Receiver Of Memory,” a job that is only given once in a blue moon. And it appears to be bad. Because Jonas’s family is FREAKING OUT.

Jonas heads home, but now everybody treats him like he has West Nile Virus (I don’t know what my obsession with mosquito-transmitted diseases is in this review – honest). Nobody’s too fond of this Receiver of Memory crap. Even his parents look at him weird. So the next day, Jonas meets with the current Receiver of Memory, an old man whose job it is to pass on all the memories of the world’s history before he dies (he’s our “Giver”). You see, the Receiver of Memory is the only one who knows what human kind’s past really was.

And so he begins telling Jonas about cars and sleds and Paris, as well as violence and murder and wars. Jonas learns it all. He’s both horrified and fascinated. But it’s when he learns about death – specifically the way in which death is secretly administered in the community – that he really changes. This is not a place Jonas wants to grow up. Which is why he decides to get out. But will he make it before they find out his plan? And what will happen if they stop him? What will be Jonas’s fate?

You know, I’m starting to understand the appeal of adapting these young adult novels to film. They’re relatively breezy in terms of plot and concept, making them ideal for the limited space that is a movie script. The more “adult” novels tend to be complex and heavy, and when you have a lot of layers (a lot of complexity), that’s hard to fit into 120 pages.

I will say I’m getting a teensy bit worried about all these dystopian movies hitting the circuit, though. When you read enough of them, they all start to blend together. But The Giver is good. What I liked about it was how it established its world. From the number of people (3500) to the geography (the town’s boundaries are laid out nicely) to the way people dress, to the way people learn, to the way people work – I got a great sense of this community right away. And that’s something I rarely see in amateur sci-fi scripts, where the worlds and boundaries all feel like they were conceived during an early morning Denny’s breakfast after a night of drinking (“Yo dude, check it out.  What if everyone, like, has a third ear??”  “Yeah man!  But then, ironically, they’re all deaf.”  “Yeah!!!  Brilliant dude!  Hey stewardess!  Another round of pancakes!  Future millionaires in the house!”)

I loved the way the opening act built. This is something I don’t talk about much, but you want your story to always build. You want to feel like everything’s getting bigger, heavier, more complex and harder. I read too many scripts where we just stay at that flat level the whole way through, and when you do that, the read gets boring.

It started with this mysterious community, continued with Jonas seeing strange things the other kids couldn’t see, and moved on to a mysterious old man who would watch Jonas at school. We then get the shock of him not being picked at the ceremony. The reveal of his unique job. How that job changes the way the town perceives him. The mystery of earth’s history. The mystery of what happened to the previous Receiver of Memories. And it just kept going from there. It never slowed down.

All this reminded me of the importance of the mystery box. I know some of you guys hate JJ and his mystery box. But it really works when it’s done well. And here, it’s used perfectly. This thread of “What happened to the last Receiver?” is powerful enough (we wonder, if it happened to the one before, will it happen to our hero? And a script is always more exciting when you think your main character may be in danger) to keep the pages turning. It’s a prime story engine.

Having said that, I moist sointantly have some questions. Let me ask you guys something? Would you want to live in blissful ignorance in The Matrix? Or would you like to be released and live in the “real world?” Because when I saw what the “real world” was like in those Matrix sequels, I wanted to stay in the damn Matrix! I am perfectly fine living in a pretend world if I don’t know it’s pretend. Sign me up.

And with The Giver, I kept asking the same question. Is this community that bad? I mean, everyone seems to get along. Everyone’s happy. People don’t ask questions about things but that’s because everyone knows they’ve got it good. I mean there’s no war. No hate. No fighting.

So what is it, exactly, that we’re running away from in The Giver? Free will? Choice? I mean, yeah, those things are important, obviously. But The Giver makes too good of an argument for its utopian community. Everybody is really freaking happy. I can count the people in my life who are happy on one hand! So I ask it again: What’s so bad about this society here?

Now yes, (spoiler) there is a baby killing scene. I am not for killing babies. But can’t Jonas focus on maybe amending that little policy rather than run away? He’d do a lot more good. And you know what The Giver was missing? A villain. It needed a big fat villain because we needed someone to represent the corruption of the system, someone who used it for his own gain. We needed EVIL. Like I said, beside baby-killing moment, there really wasn’t anything that bad about this place.

Of course, just the fact that The Giver is making me think about all this stuff is great. It’s breaking that elusive “5th Wall” (the 5th Wall is the wall that makes the reader actually place themselves in your story and ask what they’d do). And once you have your reader doing that, you’re golden, baby. You’re screenplay golden.

So yeah, this script is good. It just has a few anomalies here and there. I’m eager to find out what they changed in the shooting draft. Id’ be shocked if they didn’t add a bigger villain. I’ll definitely see this when it comes out.

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

What I learned: You want your story to build. That includes, but is not limited to a) throwing bigger and bigger obstacles at your hero over the course of the script, b) a number of revelations/surprises that also increase in importance as the script goes on, and c) upping the stakes as the script goes on. The stakes for your hero on page 90 should be much higher than they were on page 45, which should be much higher than they were on page 10.

Submit a script for a Scriptshadow Review!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if it gets reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script 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: Film Noir/Horror
Premise: (from writer) Heaven and Hell converge on New York when an ancient book disappears. But the only man that can save the city is a non-believer with a grudge against the Church.
Why you should read: (from writer) My script is a 2013 ShriekFest Finalist. This is my fourth time being a finalist in that competition. My story meshes classic film noir elements with the supernatural. Think “The Maltese Falcon” with demons. But I’ve swapped out the old school cops with Vatican goons and the mob with demons to put a fresh spin on those tropes. Please consider The Devil’s Jokebook for review. It’s a DEMON NOIR with one hell of a punch line.”
Writer: Phil Clarke Jr.
Details: 101 pages

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It’s Halloween (technically, since I’m writing this review on the 31st). And that can only mean one thing. That’s right, THE BLOOD LIST! Kailey Marsh’s list of the top horror scripts of the year has begun List Season (the script world equivalent of Awards Season). The top script is a script called “Ink & Bone” about a female book editor who visits the home of a horror writer so he can complete his novel, only to find that all his creations are holding him hostage.

It was also nice to see Mike Le’s Patient Z on the list as well, which I heard just sold for a boatload of money. If you remember, I did an interview with Mike a while back about pitching. Always fun to see people you know succeed and do well.  I received a mystery e-mail with all these scripts attached this morning, so I can tell you right now, the scripts are out there. Be nice to your fellow writers in the comments and pass the scripts along. No matter what anybody tells you, you guys deserve to be able to get your hands on and read those scripts. Reading sold specs is the second most important educational tool outside of writing for screenwriters.

Which leads us to today’s horror script, The Devil’s Jokebook. Can’t say I’m too thrilled about the title (I don’t like serious movies with titles that could be misconstrued as comedic). But you can call your script “Meanie Persons Who Eat Bananas” for all I care.  If the script’s good, I’m good. So, yeah, here’s to hoping this is as good as Meanie Persons.

Michael Delacroix is like a cross between Indiana Jones and Robert Langdon … if Indy and Robert could talk to demons! The former member of the church has long since resigned due to his brother’s death. Now he goes out and looks for ancient religious relics for high-end clients. And he’s recently been hired for a big one – something called The Devil’s Jokebook, which may or may not contain proof that everything about Christianity is a lie. His client? A 15 foot tall demon rock creature named Ildeth.

Michael would live a pretty lonely existence if it wasn’t for his on-again off-again girlfriend, 16 year old Hannah.  Before you get up in arms about her age, consider the fact that Hannah is actually an 800 year old demon.  If you want to witness the definition of a love-hate relationship, watch these two. One second Hannah’s ready to make out with Michael, the next she’s ready to tear his insides out, literally!

Michael finally locates the book, which has actually been stolen by a couple of high-ranking church officials. These guys want to bury this thing and make sure it never sees the light of day, lest it destroy all faith and turn the planet into a madhouse. But Michael doesn’t care about the greater good. He just wants to make money.

Then a wrench is thrown into Michael’s plan when it’s unclear whether the book is real. He must head off to a testing facility to find out when the book was actually written in order to prove or disprove its contents. The church, the police, Ildeth, and Hannah are all in hot pursuit, as none of them can wait that long. All of this, as you’d expect, ends up in an explosive climax, with the fate of the world at stake.

The Devil’s Jokebook starts out with a bizarre dream sequence that has our main character floating in the void of space, holding onto his brother. That scene was apropos because I felt like this entire script was a dream sequence. I’m not sure how to quantify this problem, but it’s something I see a lot in the amateur ranks, where the writer consistently forgets to give us key information, making the entire story feel floaty and disconnected. It’s the same thing I saw in The Counselor, which I reviewed earlier this week.

The thing is, I still think there’s something here. And I still think Phil has talent. But you can’t be floaty! You have to fill in the gaps and make things clear or else it’s hard for the reader to ever really know what’s going on.  For example, I know that Ildeath wants this book, but I’m not sure why she needs it RIGHT NOW. Despite the book’s delivery being presented as “needing to happen immediately,” I was never sure why.

Then there were these moments where Michael would go on his computer and cause these orbs of people’s heads to float around. These appeared to be replays of people’s actions that happened earlier, like a VCR rewinding and playing back an event. But I had no idea how any of that was supposed to look, and how heads in orbs were going to represent rewinded actions.  Or the fact that Michael also mixed spells. Was Michael now a witch?  I thought he was a relic hunter.

Finally, there was the ending (spoiler alert). After the main storyline is over, we flash back to ten years ago when Michael first met Hannah in a bar (I’m not sure why we’re doing this, since we’ve already been told about this meeting) and then Michael wakes up in a plane with his dad??? Indicating that this whole thing was a dream???? What?????

Sometimes it seems to me like writers don’t really look at their stuff. I mean REALLY read back through it and ask how it’s going to be interpreted by the reader. Because I don’t know how you’d think flashing back to a random scene we’ve already been told about, then waking up in a plane (why a plane??) where we find out the whole thing [may have been] a dream, would make sense in someone’s head. More on this in the “What I learned.”

Here’s where I thought this script made the biggest mis-step though. It’s a cinematic premise that’s not being executed cinematically. The majority of the script (or at least that’s how it seems) takes place in a boring lab room with our main character mixing chemicals to try and test a book. Here’s a concept where you have ancient stolen religious texts and demons and giant rock people of all things! And you’re focusing on a character mixing chemicals for 20 pages at a time?? That can’t happen.

Cinematic premises must be dealt with cinematically. There needs to be a lot more action here, a lot less talking in rooms, a lot more moving around. That means getting rid of the “figure out if this book’s real” plot point. Just make the book a classic McGuffin. Everyone is after it. It switches hands a few times. There can still be something they’re trying to find out (maybe what a specific part of the book, which is in another language, means), but waiting around to test a book is not cinematic enough for this kind of concept.

With all that said, there’s something to The Devil’s Jokebook. If someone could help develop this script, Phil might be able to make it work. I thought Hannah was an interesting character. And I liked Michael too. His wandering moral compass made him a lot more interesting than, say, Brendan Frasier’s character in The Mummy, which is the kind of character I usually see in this kind of script – safe. And these concepts where a lost part of the bible could be exposed are inherently compelling. If we could only tighten the screws and amp up the action here, we’d have something. I hope Phil does figure it out because he’s got some talent.

Script link: The Devil’s Jokebook

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

What I learned: Here’s a tip. Imagine your BFWCYB (best friend who calls your bullshit) reading your script. This is the guy who tells you when you’re being a douchebag or when your jokes are lame. Put yourself in their head as you read back through every scene. Imagine what they’d say to you. “Carson! It was all a dream?? You know that’s the biggest cop out cliché ending you can write, right?” The point here is to try and see your script through somebody’s eyes besides your own. Because your own eyes often lie. This won’t solve all your problems, but it should help you catch a lot of the spots where you’re fuzzy on logic, lazy, or trying to pull one over on the reader.

If you’ve been pursuing screenwriting these past few years, chances are you’ve heard of Dan Fogelman. WHY should you have heard of Dan Fogelman? Only because for one stretch there in 2010, he sold two scripts and one pitch for a total of 7 million dollars. In other words, he is the embodiment of the screenwriting dream. It started with his 2.5 million dollar sale for Crazy, Stupid, Love, was followed by a 3 million dollar sale for Imagine (a movie he’ll make his directing debut on) and ended with a “Political Jerry Maguire” pitch that sold for 2 million. I’ve read almost all of Dan’s scripts, and as he says later in the interview, he has an amazing ability to write readable scripts. This weekend yet ANOTHER one of Dan’s scripts is being released, Last Vegas. He was cool enough to hop on the phone and answer a few questions I’ve had about that amazing stretch he had.

SS: Hi Dan, how are you?

DF: I’m doing well, thanks.

SS: Now I know you’re busy working on your first directorial effort, Imagine, so I thought I’d jump into the questions right away and maximize our time. There’s a lot I’d like to ask.

DF: That’s great. Works for me.

SS: Back in 2010, you had that amazing streak of spec sales. But before we go there, I was interested in how you got started. What was the first script you sold?

DF: My first script didn’t sell, but it did get me my agents. I was 26, maybe twelve years ago, decided I’d take a crack at screenwriting and had a buddy who actually now runs my company… I wrote a script, like a Wonder Years style script about my bar mitzvah, figured a Jewish agent would read it and identify with it and yeah, that was basically the plot. So I bought myself Final Draft. I had never studied screenwriting or anything and wrote it and handed it to my buddy and had no idea if it was any good. I thought I’d pass it on to a few people and it all happened very quickly. He had a manager at his company who’s now a gigantic manager and my manager to this day and she read it and all of a sudden I had agents and everything just started from there. The script never sold. But it got me my first job, which was at Pixar.

SS: You were able to get into the industry off your FIRST written screenplay??

DF: Yeah, I was very lucky. I got very lucky.

SS: Wow, that’s amazing. Now when you look back at the script now, how do you feel about it? Do you feel it was up to snuff?

DF: I haven’t looked at it in a long time – I really loved it and I’ve taken elements from it and it was very VO heavy, very “Daniel Stern,” looking back on his childhood. I’ve taken a lot of characters and used them for a lot of TV shows or elements for funny scenes. I think it probably holds up. I once had a meeting with Hans Zimmerman about it, to produce it, and I remember he had a very heavy German accent and he said, “It’s very funny script, I’ve always thought the Jews were so funny.”

SS: That sounds like Hans.  Now regarding getting that job at Pixar. That was writing the Cars movie, right? That must’ve been a HUGE deal. I mean, the bigger production companies rarely hand out assignment work to anyone who isn’t super-proven. What did you say in that room to get that job? What was your pitch?

DF: I believe a bunch of up-and-coming writers were up to do it. It was more Pixar’s model at the time – and they may still do this – they bring in writers who can shape and reshape the story over a long period of time, as opposed to paying a ton of money for a big writer. That might’ve been why I got the job. You go up there and you don’t know anything about the film so it’s not like I was going in there to pitch a take – They just said it needed to be a movie about cars and that’s kind of all I knew – cars that ‘come to life.’ So they put you in a room where John Lasseter and others were and I benefited from not knowing anything about the business, I was relaxed, so I kinda bullshit it for half an hour. And I got home and they called and said ‘We want to offer you a job where, for 2 weeks, you move up to San Francisco.” 2 weeks eventually became 2 months and, in the end, I stayed there for a year and a half. I got along with everyone. It was a real starting point for my career. John Lasseter, he’s an amazing guy. He was a real mentor to me – having never studied screenwriting or film, it was like going to college for a year.

SS: Flash-forward a bit, and you start selling all these spec scripts. All for a lot of money. I remember it was a really big moment in the screenwriting community because it allowed writers to dream about that huge sale again. What do you think was the reason for those scripts selling for so much? Did you learn anything from that or know why it happened?

DF: What I learned was that, I work best as a spec writer. I’m not gonna do a book adaptation or if someone comes to you with an idea or an actor – taking that risk of writing something someone might not want after spending all that time on it. Crazy Stupid Love was kind of a game changer for me. At the time I’d written these scripts that were taking so much time to get through the system (The Guilt Trip and Last Vegas), and they just weren’t coming together- the scripts were there, people liked them, but they weren’t moving. And so I decided to go out and write something without any obligations, something where I didn’t have to please anyone, and that was Crazy Stupid Love. I wrote it very quickly. I have a little cabin up in Joshua Tree and I wrote it very quickly and I sent it to my agent and manager and said, “Here, I wrote this on spec and I think it’s good” and here I was, half-picturing Steve Carell in the lead and within a week my agent had gotten it to Steve Carell, who, as fate had it, wanted to do this exact kind of movie next. So he wanted to come onto it and help produce it and so they bought it and we were literally shooting the movie months after. It never happens like that. It had the right people – that was an anomaly how it happened, all of it. But Steve’s attachment was obviously the main reason why the script sold for so much.  And then when that happened, my other projects started moving through the system a lot faster.

SS: Okay, so when you move into a script like Last Vegas, obviously The Hangover did well and this puts a new spin on the Vegas trip – do you ever think about marketing when you write a script or do you just write what you love?

DF: The thing is, I wrote Last Vegas before The Hangover, and while I was writing it, The Hangover came out and I actually thought, ‘Oh this’ll never get made now.’ It takes movies so long to get made that it’s the nature of the beast that you’ll write a movie, it doesn’t get made right away, something similar gets made in the meantime, then your movie comes out, and it looks like you wrote it because of this other movie. That’s one of the crazy things about the business.

SS: Okay, last question. And I’m asking this one for the readers of the site. Pretend you’re 15 years younger and were still an amateur screenwriter. You have what you consider to be a good script. How would you go about trying to sell it?

DF: Ooh, that’s a good question. I mean, on my iPad right now are 17,000 emails from friends, family friends, all of who have screenplays they’d like me to read. My advice is – and this is going to sound bad – but my advice is, “I wouldn’t want to do this.” I tell them if you’ve got something else in your life, something that you like just as much as screenwriting, I would choose that over screenwriting. It’s a brutal existence, and it’s so rare that it pays off. But, if people come back after that and say, “No, screenwriting is the only thing I wanna do,” and they have a script, I usually say, “You just gotta bombard people.” I mean the truth is, there are SO many scripts out there. You know this as well as anyone.  And anyone can get a computer and buy Final Draft. More people think they can be a screenwriter or a writer than think they can be a professional baseball player. And you can tell by 5 pages whether it’s going to work or not – and you get emails about the premise and how it’s nothing that’s ever been seen before, but 9 times out of 10, your first script isn’t going to sell. But if you can work at it and get good and write something that really connects with people, you can start a career. I mean I don’t know if I’m good, or great, but I have a weird ability to write readable scripts. I don’t know if that makes me a genius, but it’s a skill. You gotta work hard and develop that skill and then, when you have something worthy, you have to bombard the world with it.

Having said that, it’s important to know that everyone’s story of how they made it is different. I haven’t met anyone who’s come into this the exact same way. So as long as you continue to get better at this skill and look for opportunities to break in, the hope is that sooner or later, you’ll be successful.

SS: Alright, Dan. Thank you for taking some time to help out Scriptshadow Nation. Good luck this weekend with Last Vegas and good luck with finishing Imagine.

DF: Thank you, Carson. I enjoyed it.

Post-interview thoughts: Wow! Dan broke through on his VERY FIRST SCRIPT. And here I’m always telling you that that can’t be done. I suppose we can add one more member to the exception list. Also fascinating to hear that Pixar likes to bring in inexperienced writers (who have potential) to write their movies. For a studio known as having the best-written movies in the business, there’s gotta be a lesson there. I know one thing I keep hearing a lot is that producers love young hungry writers because they’ll work like crazy for them. They’ll write a hundred drafts if they need to. Whereas older established writers come with big quotes and a lot more attitude. So maybe that plays into it. Anyway, it was a blast to talk to Dan and get at least a little bit of insight into how those big sales come together. I wish I had more time to really get into the details of all that but I hear directing a film takes a lot of time so I guess I’ll let Dan off the hook.  And of course, go see Last Vegas!!!☺

Genre: Thriller/Horror/Supernatural
Premise: An American doctor in the Congo must join a United Nations military unit to investigate a series of strange killings in the jungle.
About: Well, it’s Halloween, so what better script to review than the number 1 script on the 2010 Blood List! The Blood List is an offshoot of the Black List (unaffiliated) that ranks the best Horror scripts of the year. The pickings can be a bit spotty at times so even the top-ranked scripts can be suspect. The author of the script, David Portlock, has been at this for a long time (he wrote a produced short all the way back in 1996) but is yet to break through and get that coveted feature credit we all dream about.
Writer: David Portlock
Details: 109 pages – “August Draft” – 2010

halloween

If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent at least 10 hours this weekend looking for the perfect candy bag for trick-or-treat Thursday. I’ve settled on a 10 gallon white kitchen bag but that may change between today and tomorrow. That 20 gallon black Hefty is looking awfully tempting. Now when it comes to trick-or-treating, I’m a traditionalist. I believe that if someone doesn’t give you a treat, you HAVE to trick. So I’m currently amassing a list of tricks I’m going to play on people. Let’s just say Halloween’s going to be egggg-celent (get it? Eggs? Cause I’m going to use them on houses!).

You’re probably curious what I’m going to be for Halloween. Well, due to the line of work I’m in, it’s down to either a title page or a parenthetical. So if you’re in Hollywood Thursday and see two giant parentheses walking around with the word “sarcastic” in between them, chances are it’s probably me. Come say hi, but only if you’re a parenthetical yourself.

Oh yeah, Dark Continent. So let me tell you why I picked this script. I’m tired of seeing the saaaame horror scripts over and over again. Haunted houses. Zombies infest a town. A masked killer takes over a community. Found footage. When you read, you’re always looking for something different. Because if someone can give you a new concept or a new spin on an old concept, chances are the choices WITHIN the script will be different as well. Weird creatures (possibly zombies?) in Darfur? I’ve never seen that before. When coupled with the script already being endorsed in another arena, I was in.

Dark Continent reels you in right away. We’re in the Congo. Sudanese soldiers have snagged a poor, unsuspecting girl and are about to rape her when someone (something?) comes out of nowhere and obliterates the would-be rapist, killing him and his soldier buddies as well. We don’t get a good look at the guy but it’s safe to say he’s a freak of nature.

Across the way, an American doctor named Anne Langly is trying her best to keep a local village healthy on a steady diet of band-aids and cough drops. And you thought Obamacare was bad. In between angry phone calls to the United Nations for more medical supplies, Langly hangs out with the senior doctor in the region, an old, wise French woman named Mama Piquot.

That is until Mama Piquot disappears. Coupled with a rash of killings in the area, the UN sends in some soldiers to check out what’s going on. Anne cons her way into the group so she can find her friend and they all head into the jungle. There they encounter even more killings (sometimes entire villages!) and get glimpses of who’s doing the killings: Super-human Africans.

These men can leap up to 30 feet in the air, have the strength of 100 men, and are smart enough to beat any pop quiz you throw at them. But how is this happening? What’s (or who’s) creating these super-humans? They’ll have to figure it out fast because if they don’t find a weakness or a way to take these mega-humans down, they’re probably not making it out of this jungle alive.

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Okay, so one thing’s clear. Portlock really likes his 80s movies! “Dark Continent” is essentially a cross between Predator and Aliens, with a Congo’ian twist! We even have the strong female protagonist leading the charge. Ah, but Dark Continent failed to do exactly what I was assured it would – make unique choices. Everything here goes exactly the way these stories always do, and that made me script-sad. It made me change my parenthetical costume to “(disappointed)”.

What killed it for me was the “super humans who are being tested on” plot reveal. The reason I hate this plot choice is because it’s the plot choice of 70% of the video games on the market. Secret testing creates super-human monsters or people, and our characters have to kill them all. With video games being the bottom of the barrel in terms of writing, it’s wise not to get inspired by their writing. There will always be exceptions, but this is a rule I’m pretty confident you should stick by.

Another thing I couldn’t get on board with was the “villain by number” approach. There wasn’t a specific villain here. No Jason Voorhes, no Jaws shark, no Predator, no Queen Alien. Just a bunch of vague, scary warriors. Without specificity, we never have anyone to root against. I mean, that’s why Predator was so cool. He was a single badass alien hunter. We knew who he was, formed an opinion on him, and wanted to see him go down. It’s hard to form an opinion on a group of vague superhuman baddies. It’s too general. And like I always say, “general” is bad in screenwriting. You always want to be specific.

Also, the more of these “kidnapping” scripts I read, the more I’m realizing that unless the person kidnapped is a child or a young woman, we don’t care whether our hero saves them. A man? We don’t care. An old person? We don’t care. And in this case, it’s Mama Piquot’s kidnapping that inspires Anne to join the chase. I know it’s harsh. I know what I’m saying is cruel. But I don’t care if an old person gets taken. I just don’t. They lived a full life. They’ve contributed to the world what they’re going to contribute.  In movies, it’s just hard to root for kidnapped seniors.  I’d love to be proven wrong here. Can you guys think of any “kidnapping” movie where the person taken is either a man or an older person and the story still works? Cause I can’t.

In the end, though, the reason Dark Continent doesn’t pop is because the execution was too bland. I’ve said this so many times on the site but if I’m 30 pages ahead of the story (in other words, I have a general idea of where the story is going up to 30 pages in advance), I’m bored. As a writer, it’s your job to play with expectations. It’s your job to lure readers into your trap. Make them think they know where the story’s going, then pull the rug out from under them. I didn’t get that here, not even once. And even worse, when the mysteries were solved, the answers were too cliché (super-humans who were being tested on – I kid you not, I read a script last night with this same plot point – that’s never good, when you use a plot point that could be in the very next script your reader reads).

Dark Continent has some near-perfect spec WRITING. Every line here feels and sounds like a pro script. So I can see why it was considered better than many of its competitors that year. It was the storytelling that was too bland. Bland storytelling is every writer’s worst enemy, which is why we should all strive to take chances when we write. I think Portlock has the ability to turn this into something cool. It’s just a matter of challenging himself more.  Not going with the easy “been-there, done-that” choices.

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

What I learned: If you’re not trying to surprise your reader when you write, you’re not doing your job.