Let’s start out this Mish-Monday with a big fat CONGRATULATIONS to our boy, Nick Morris, whose movie, Becky, debuted this weekend on digital AND in Drive-In theaters.
I gladly contributed to that $$$ total by renting the movie myself and you better believe I had a grand old time with it. There’s something special about watching a movie written by someone you not only know but are rooting for. It was exciting and fun (the cutting Kevin James’ eyeball out with scissors scene was a highlight for me) and I recommend all Scriptshadow viewers check it out.
Speaking of Becky, someone in the comments section brought up that it’s the first Scriptshadow Amateur Showdown winner to become a movie and I thought that was interesting because we’ve had some great Amateur Showdown winners on the site. What was it about Becky that made it the first one?
That answer can be broken into two parts. First off, it’s a movie concept. Like the producers said to Nick when they reached out to him. “It’s Die Hard with a 9 year old girl.” Once you can get producers thinking in terms of visualizing the movie and seeing the marketing angle for it, you are massively increasing your chances of selling the script.
And two, IT’S DOABLE. The more expensive a movie is to make, the less people there are who have the ability to make it. I love Jingle Hell Rock to death. But I’m the first to admit it’s a 75 million dollar movie. And, at that price point for a comedy, you’re talking about a limited number of outfits in town who can pull it off.
Becky, meanwhile, is in the 3-5 million dollar range. There are a lot of people in the movie business who can scrounge up 3 million dollars to make a movie if they like the concept enough.
The longer I do this, the more I think PASSION is the most important factor in creating a script that people respond to. But it doesn’t hurt to keep marketing and budget in mind.
Looking at all this in hindsight, it makes perfect sense why Nick is breaking into the business. He writes doable horror films, all of which he’s passionate about. So one more thumbs up to Nick and can’t wait to see the next one, buddy!
Switching gears, I wanted to share with you my latest TV obsession, the FX/Hulu show, “Dave,” which is their highest-rated comedy ever. Yes, as in higher than It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Atlanta.
“Dave” is a semi-autobiographical take on rapper Lil Dicky’s life. For those of you who are skeptical about a show involving a rapper, I encourage you to check out a couple of Lil Dicky’s videos (Earth and Freaky Friday).
There’s a reason this guy has become so big. He’s talented and unique and always looks to elevate the genre of music and television with something new. If that’s not good enough for you, maybe this pitch is: Dave is “Curb Your Enthusiasm meets Entourage.”
I was skeptical myself but within five minutes, I was hooked. Whenever I’m hooked quickly, I always stop and ask why. Cause hooking a viewer is the single most important thing a writer can do. If you can figure out how to hook someone, you can own the storytelling universe.
In the case of Lil Dicky, it didn’t take me long to figure out what he did. When I say to you, “rapper,” close your eyes and tell me what comes to mind. I’m guessing some tough guy talking about how many “bitches” he has, throwing money around, a grill in his mouth, cars, planes, attitude, living the crazy life.
Okay, now open your eyes and look at Dave. He’s a scrawny insecure neurotic Jewish guy. Immediately you have irony. And when you have irony, that’s a storytelling superpower. It makes characters a lot more interesting.
But “Dave” takes it up a notch. Again, your typical rapper talks about how many girls he’s f#$%@ and how many girls he’s got hanging around him at all times. Dave, meanwhile, has a traumatizing rare condition with his penis. I’m not going to get into specifics because it actually makes me squeamish to think about. But the short of it is, his penis is the opposite of whatever you’d imagine an alpha tough guy rapper’s penis to be. And he’s super insecure about it.
What this does is it creates sympathy. It’s no different than Nemo’s tiny fin. Once you feel bad for the circumstances someone’s in, you are much more likely to root for them. So this ailment Dave has been cursed with makes us root for him more so than we’d root for the typical guy.
On a broader scale, a weakness or disability can punch up a character’s depth. Because it’s not just the fact that the character has a weakness, it’s all of the mental baggage that comes with it. It’s the insecurity. It’s the worry. It’s feeling “less than.” A character who’s having to battle that on an every day basis is going to be more interesting than the guy who has everything figured out.
As viewers, we’re not just hoping the character gets the giant pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (For Dave, that big rap contract). We’re hoping he can mentally overcome this ailment that’s defined his whole life and not worry any more. The achievement of the inner character goal is usually more satisfying to an audience than the achievement of the outer goal. And that’s a big part of what Season 1 of Dave is about.
Another thing I love about Dave is that it consistently exploits its premise.
You’ve heard me talk about this before. A premise is a promise. It’s you saying to the reader/viewer, here’s what my movie/show is about. Whether that’s about dinosaurs or time travel or getting shipwrecked on an experimental island or falling in love with a robot. Your premise is a promise to the viewer that you’re going to entertain them with this specific subject matter.
The mistake so many writers make is they set up their premise then give you a bunch of generic scenes that could be in any movie. If you’re going to give me Minority Report, about people who get convicted for murders they haven’t committed yet, you better not give me detectives showing up at houses asking questions to a suspects’s mother, stuff you could see every week in every TV procedural ever.
There are two scenes in Dave that stuck out to me in this respect. The first occurs in episode 9. Dave is doing some last second recording work on his computer. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is packing cause they’re going to a wedding. She’s trying to get him to hurry but he’s dragging his feet.
So what does Dave do? He invites her over to make her case while he’s recording his song. This results in a cute little autotune conversation that becomes its own song. What’s important to note here is that we are LEANING INTO THE FACT THAT DAVE IS A RAPPER. That is his life. By taking a conversation and repurposing it into a “song”, we are delivering on the promise of the premise.
But probably my favorite moment from Dave comes in the final episode which begins with an eight minute musical sequence of Dave doing something illegal during a concert and going to prison for it. The sequence jumps back and forth between rapping and telling the story in his normal voice, taking us through months and months of his life. Here is the **graphic** (trigger warning!) first part of the sequence…
Here’s when you know you’ve written a scene that’s delivering on the promise of your premise. It’s a scene THAT COULD ONLY EXIST IN YOUR SHOW. This scene couldn’t exist in any other show on TV. It could only exist in Dave. That’s why this show is so good.
That’s all for me, today. Don’t forget you only have twenty-seven more days left to get your Last Great Screenwriting Contest scripts in. Oh, and tomorrow should be interesting. I’ll be reviewing Fincher’s dad’s screenplay that Fincher is directing, Mank, about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz’s battles with director Orson Welles over screenplay credit for Citizen Kane.
