Genre: Dark Comedy
Premise: When her step-brother, whom she’s never met before, gets back from rehab, a 16 year-old girl with all sorts of issues engages in a bizarre, sexually dysfunctional friendship with him.
About: Alexander McAulay has found a small level of success selling novels, but this appears to be his first real screenplay (or at least the first one he broke in with). It finished fairly high on last year’s Black List, though it is so messed up I don’t know if anyone’s going to have the balls to buy it.
Writer: Alexander McAulay
Details: 99 pages

AnnaSophia Robb as Erica?

Sometimes you read something and you go, “Did I just read that?” Because you can’t believe that you actually did. Like Fatties. I still have nightmares about the amputation fisting scene. But Flower, with its appropriately coy title, may go beyond even that script. I mean, this thing is so messed up I don’t even know where to begin.

I guess you should imagine Flower as “Fatties meets Heathers.” That would give you a small inkling of how delirious it is. The question is, would anyone actually purchase it? Getting on the Black List is great. But it doesn’t always mean a sale. It just gives you the kind of exposure that may lead to a sale.

Personally, I think this was a brilliant move by McAulay. He knew the chances of Flower getting made were slim, but he also knew that if he pushed the envelope and made the reader uncomfortable, that you’d remember his script. And call him in for a meeting. And that’s all you’re really trying to accomplish as a screenwriter. Get as many people as familiar with your work as possible. Because the more people who know you, the more rooms you get into, the more jobs you get.

Oh, so what do I mean when I say this script is crazy? Well it starts with this girl, 16 year-old Erica Vandros, blowing a really creepy old dude in a van. After he finishes, Erica’s best friends, Claudine and Kala, come out of the bushes, informing the man they’ve been taping the whole thing. If he doesn’t give them every cent he’s got, he’s going to jail for a long time. Oh yeah, and this isn’t an isolated incident. They do this ALL THE TIME.

Erica’s saving up money to bail her deadbeat dad out of jail. But her blowjob streak is interrupted when Luke moves in. Luke is her stepdad’s son, the result of a new enough relationship with her mom that she and Luke have never met. Luke is really fat.  Like Southwest Airlines “buy two seats” fat. I think Erica describes him as if “Jabba The Hut sat around all day eating lard.”

So how does this relationship begin?  Well, what better way to introduce yourself to your new step-brother than asking him if he wants a blowjob! Yes, Erica’s so into blowing guys (preferably guys she doesn’t know) that she actually has a sketch book where she’s drawn all the penises she’s encountered. What a classy lady. Luke is so freaked out by girls in general that he declines, and a baffled Erica eventually learns that the reason for this (and his craziness in general) has something to do with a guy who lives in the house across the street molesting him as a boy.

This angers Erica, who puts Operation Stepbrother Blowjob on hold so she can take Paul (the neighbor in question) down. She and her friends will drug him, take a bunch of sleazy pictures with him, then use those pictures to blackmail him out of everything he owns.

Things don’t go exactly according to plan though. (Spoiler) Molester Dude sort of… dies accidentally during the drugging, which means Erica’s a murderer. So she goes on the run with Luke, deciding to kill two birds with one stone and bail her father out of jail along the way. But what happens instead are a lot of confessions that amount to these two being big fat liars their whole lives. Including that little molestation accusation that led to Paul’s death.  Oops.

Like I said, this is a great script to get you noticed. It’s risky. It’s daring. It makes you feel weird reading it. I wrote an article awhile back about not writing “soft” scripts. This is anything but soft. It’s got pointy, stabby edges that are continually jabbing at your insides. I mean, I’m not going to pretend like it’s God’s gift to screenwriting or anything. But I’ve been pretty bored with my reading the last few weeks and this was the first time a script really made me sit up and pay attention. So it had SOMETHING going for it.

And it wasn’t just a string of shocks either. McAulay knows how to construct a story with goals and obstacles and conflict all the way through.  I liked that Erica wasn’t just sitting around on her ass being a boring independent movie character all the time.  She’s out there actively making money so she can bail out her father.  And when Luke enters the equation, Erica’s goal slides over to taking down the molester.  That’s what you need in a script – you need to feel like the characters are moving towards something at all times, even if it’s something odd or nontraditional that would only make sense in their particular universe.

Also, if you’re going to get on the Black List like Flower, you need interesting characters – characters readers haven’t seen before.  Both Luke and Erica definitely fit this bill. Luke is half-crazy, suicidal, an oxycontin addict and a food addict. And Erica’s an enigma. She’s a blowjob addict. She’s funny. She’s over-the-top. But I think, most importantly, you DON’T FORGET HER. I read so many forgettable female characters in screenplays. I PROMISE you, with this girl’s attitude and the shit that comes out of her mouth, you will NOT forget her.

The only thing that hurt the script was that every now and then, it felt “written.”  In other words, when you read something, you could actually see the writer typing it down.  It’s typically a bad thing as it means you’re not immersed in the story.   I mean, when Erica’s mom kisses her and she yells back, “more tongue, ma! Or I feel gypped!” or when she spots Luke, “Look! Shamu’s found dry land!” or later to Luke, “Don’t you want revenge? Or did he rape all the manhood out of you?” you can smell McAulay grinning deliciously at his little insults.

And then you have things like Luke getting back from rehab, then a scene later, his molester from ten years ago moving into the house across the street – I mean, come on, what are the chances?  A plot should be invisible.  It must not draw attention to itself.  When you cram big plot points together like that, they expose the gears of your story.  The reader shouldn’t see the gears of the story.  It’s like seeing behind the curtain in Oz.

The funny thing is, it almost worked. I mean, the story and characters were so out there, so weird, and people were always doing and saying things that were so bizarre, why not make it a giant translucent chicken drumstick of crazy?  If you’re laughing, you might not care that you can tell the writer’s there in the room with you, typing away.

I don’t know if the masses are ready for Flower though. This thing is offensive at every turn. Who’s going to pony up five million bucks to have a high school girl parade around town offering blow jobs to old men? I guess it could happen. You have to find that really fucked up filmmaker, like a young version of whoever that guy was who directed “KIDS” back in the day. But I’m not holding my breath.

Still, despite its weirdness, I wanted to see what happened. I wanted to get to the end. And the writing was infinitely readable. Enviably sparse and to the point. It was one of the faster 99 pages I’ve ever read recently. I’m going to recommend this only to the weirdos though (like me!). If you’re not the kind of person who waits til you and your friend are alone so you can start cracking the most inappropriate, insensitive jokes in history, you’re probably not going to like this.

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

What I learned: Beware the perfectly-timed coincidence. Coincidences are your enemy in screenplays. If things that you need for your story to work just show up out of nowhere at just the right time, the audience will groan and roll their eyes and call you on it. The perfect example is Luke coming back from rehab and, what do you know, the guy who molested him at some faraway camp a decade ago has just moved in directly across the street.  It may be EASIER to write that plot point, since you don’t have to put any effort into it, but it’s always better to go the extra mile and make your major plot points coincidence-free.

What I learned 2: While it certainly isn’t a prerequisite, if you can write two really quirky weird characters into your script, your chances of getting on the Black List go up 100 fold.  The Black List loves the unique weird offbeat strange characters.

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!

Today’s Civil-War script has some good old fashioned amputation in it. The question is, will I want to amputate the screenplay after I read it??

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: Horror/Suspense
Premise (from writer): A group of graduate history students on vacation touring Civil War battlefields are terrorized by a motley crew of Confederate re-enactors who harbor a 150 year-old secret.
About: This script won the Amateur Offerings post from a few weeks ago.
Writers: Darren & Evan Brooks
Details: 108 pages

When I sent The Still out in the newsletter, I received a harried e-mail from one of our OTHER readers who’d written a “Civil War Reenactment” script of his own. He was terrified that the similar subject matters would render his script useless. The truth is, I see a couple “Civil War Reenactment” screenplays a year. The bad news about this is that there’s competition, and since everyone hopes to have that original one-of-a-kind idea, it can be heartbreaking when you realize you’re not the only kid on the block. The good news is, I’m yet to find a writer who’s figured it out yet. There are a lot of story possibilities to explore with this unique subject matter, but no one’s really nailed it. In fact, no one’s really come close. So when people started responding to The Still in Amateur Offerings, I hoped we’d finally found “the one.”

Graduate student Anna, a history buff, is taking a group of friends along for what she hopes will be the experience of their lives – a real live Civil War reenactment! But not the kind that a group of backwoods rednecks puts together after a night full of moonshine. This is one of the biggest reenactments in the country. Thousands will be involved.

The problem is, no one really wants to come with Anna to do this. Fellow graduate student and boyfriend Thomas is just trying to keep Anna happy. Thomas’s brother Spencer is more interested in keeping a continuous alcohol buzz for 72 hours. The only one who’s remotely intrigued is the snobby Ebay-obsessed Dustin, who thinks they’re going to find a bunch of authentic Civil War memorabilia in the battlefields and sell it to Pawn Stars or something.

For some strange reason, the only one participating in the actual battle is Thomas. Anna suits him up, sends him to the battlefield, and promptly watches him “die” on the third wave of shooting. However, maybe “die” shouldn’t be put in quotes. Thomas is mysteriously dragged away while a dark liquid trickles out of a hole in his uniform. I knew these guys strived for realism, but this seems a bit excessive, no?

Later that night, Anna gets worried when Thomas doesn’t come back to the hotel. After voicing her concern to the local cops, Spencer and Dustin head into the night to start looking for Tom, who they think may have gotten lost in the woods. Why they believe they can find him in the dead of night inside of 1000 square miles of forest is beyond me, but hey, I’ll go with it.

They don’t find Tom, but they do stumble upon some authentic Civil War canteens Dustin believes he can sell. They then ALSO run into some Civil War reenactors who don’t embody the ‘re’ very well. These guys look like the real deal – decrepit, gaunt, dirty. And they play dirty too, grabbing our poor friends and taking them back to dark rooms where legs will be amputated!

Back at the hotel, Anna twiddles her thumbs and wonders where the hell everyone is. A little later we learn these baddies are from the ORIGINAL Civil War, and have built some sort of “fountain of youth” machine so that they never die. What remains of our grad student group will have to escape these freaks before they wreak their havoc on not just them, but on all the rest of the rest of the reenactors as well!

Okay, The Still started off great. The writing was very descriptive. It set the time, the place, the mood. I felt like I was there. For those who just picked this up and read the first ten pages, I can see why they’d vote for The Still above the other scripts on the list. But the further down the rabbit hole The Still goes, the less traction it maintains, losing a grip on its story, and making you wonder if there was ever a story to tell in the first place.

Take Anna. She’s presented as our main character. This whole thing was her idea. Yet Anna is the least active character in the story! She sits back at the hotel the whole time waiting for information to come in. That made me wonder who the main character was. Dustin and Spencer are probably the most active, but neither of them screamed “main character.” If a reader leaves your story not knowing who the main character was, you have a lot of screenwriting explaining to do.

Then there’s Thomas, the boyfriend. Thomas gets shot during the battle and taken. This is the inciting incident for our story. Our characters must solve the mystery of “Where is Thomas?” Except after a couple of scenes of searching, Thomas becomes an afterthought. And while on the one hand I understand this, because our characters have been attacked by psychos and thrown off-course, the lack of any defining goal pushing the narrative forward left the story spinning out of control. After awhile it was just a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off.

Once that happened, I wasn’t sure what this movie was about anymore. Was this a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” or “Deliverance” type film? If so, we needed that super memorable freaky moment that moviegoers will never forget for the rest of their lives. The “squeal like a pig!” scene. Because that’s what those movies do. They terrorize you with the unimaginable. I didn’t see that here. I didn’t see any clear genre. Which is what led me to believe that these were two really good writers who didn’t outline their script.

And we were JUST TALKING about this the other day with “Gone Girl.” If the purpose of your writing is to figure out what you’re writing as you go along, your story will start to wander. It just will. We, as readers, will sense that you don’t know where you’re going. And losing confidence in a storyteller is no different than losing confidence in a guide in the woods. At a certain point, we’re going to stop listening to you.

Moving forward, I would try to figure out what this movie is. Is it a horror movie? Is it torture porn? Is it a mystery? “Monster in-a-box?” Because I don’t think it can be all those things. That’s a big part of what’s contributing to the confused narrative. Once you have that figured out, decide who your main character is and make sure they’re driving the narrative. This is Anna’s boyfriend who’s missing. She should be going out after him. Not these other guys. Or at least they should all be going out together. Come to think of it, you may want to switch roles and have Anna be the one who’s kidnapped and have Thomas go after her. There’s something very non-threatening about a strong grown man being taken. A helpless young woman though? We’re going to want our hero to save her.

Finally, make sure the goal always stays in the forefront. Your characters will get derailed. They will get accosted, beaten, lost, etc. But their focus should still be on the prize – finding Thomas (or finding Anna!).

I’m a little disappointed in this entry because it started off strong and then completely lost its way. Writers continue to believe that if they write pretty, it will solve all their problems. Readers don’t care about prose. They care about a good story. I mean, look at Charles Ramsey, the man who saved those girls in Cleveland. I wouldn’t place him in an “Eloquent Speech” contest anytime soon, but man did he tell a great story.

Once again my friends – outline. It helps you discover all your problems before you run into them.

Script link: The Still

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

What I learned: Use your story’s theme and setting to figure out your protagonist’s fatal flaw. Remember what a character flaw is. It’s that “thing” that’s been holding your character back his/her whole life. Your story, then, should challenge that flaw, and in the end your hero should either overcome it or succumb to it. In this case, we’re exploring the Civil War. So the writers of “The Still” wisely make Anna a history buff whose flaw is that she’s obsessed with and stuck in the past. She doesn’t focus on the present or the future, and it’s hurting her relationship with Thomas. I’m not going to say they executed this flaw to perfection (like a lot of things, I think it got lost as the story went on), but it was the right idea.

Amateurs don’t get much love in the screenwriting business. UNTIL TODAY! Here are 15 amateur screenplays that caught my attention in 2012. Let’s find a home for some of them!

Gangnam Style Top 15 Breakdown!

One of the cool things about The Black List when it first came out was that you truly felt like it was celebrating the underdog – the guy who couldn’t catch a break – who couldn’t get his script read by the right people. Over time, as the list grew in popularity, so did the profiles of the writers who landed on it. There were still some little guys, but they were now overshadowed by much more accomplished writers. I think The Hit List has filled that gap to an extent, celebrating only spec scripts (as opposed to assignments, which is where all the high rollers play), but a lot of those writers still have agents. Which means there isn’t any list that celebrates TRUE amateur writers. We’re getting closer to that point, with amateur screenplays being tracked at a pace unheard of five years ago. There are just so many places online to get your script read and noticed. Still, how you siphon all of that into one bottle remains a tricky proposition. While we wait for that process to improve, I can at least give you MY favorite amateur scripts of the year. Keep in mind I’m including scripts that have since garnered representation. To be on this list, all you need is to have been a true amateur (no reps or managers) when your script was discovered this year.  Oh, and all of these scripts are available except for The Disciple Program. Here we go…

#15
Title: The Wall (not reviewed)
Premise: A cheating husband’s desperate attempt to keep his son from dating his mistress goes horribly wrong when his son turns up dead. As he clambers to cover his tracks, his life spirals out of control, while his wife searches for revenge.
Writers: Jon Bachmann & Katherine Griffin
How I found it: Consult service
About: This script made the list because of its meticulous plotting. Jon and Katherine really know how to weave characters in an out of each other’s lives in interesting ways. The only reason it didn’t rank higher was because it didn’t have a hook or a juicy role for an actor to play. If you write a character piece, you need at least one of those things, and preferably both.

#14
Title: Guest
Premise: After checking into a hotel to escape her abusive husband, a woman realizes guests in the next room are holding a young girl hostage.
Writer: Matthew Cruz
How I found it: Twit-Pitch Contest
About: Whereas “The Wall” had no hook, this has a great hook. And the idea is catnip to the spec buying world. Producers love contained situations with lots of conflict because they’re cheap to make and easy to market. I don’t think the current draft had enough meat to it, but I hear Matthew’s hard at work improving the script. I’m interested to see what he’s done since the review.

#13
Title: Eden’s Folly
Premise: A left-for-dead rancher wakes up in the middle of the desert with no memory of who he is. He goes off in a search to find out what happened.
Writer: Ryan Binaco
How I found it: Consult service
About: There’s something about Ryan Binaco’s writing that I find intriguing.  I’m not a drug-addict, but I imagine this is what it must feel like to be high on peyote.  You just get sucked up into another plane when you read Ryan’s work.  Sometimes that’s a weird thing.  But usually it’s good.  There are so many less interesting ways this story could’ve gone. I’ve seen those versions hundreds of times from lesser writers. But you’d be hard-pressed to guess where this one’s going. I wouldn’t say that all the choices are satisfying, but they’re certainly unique.

#12
Title: Fatties
Premise: When a lonely masochistic chubby chaser is abducted by two fat lesbian serial killers, it’s the best thing that ever happened to him.
Writer: Matthew Ballen
How I found it: Twit-Pitch Contest
About: Fatties may be my most controversial script endorsement of the year. Say what you will about the disturbing subject matter, but I dare you to stop reading Fatties once you’ve opened it!  There’s a scene in here you will never forget no matter how hard you try. And somehow, at the end of the rainbow, is a love story you’re kinda rooting for. This script made me feel slimy, but in an ooey-gooey way.  Yummy.  More Fatties!

#11
Title: Nine Twelve
Premise: A man embarks on a relationship with a 9/11 widow after claiming to have lost his brother in the attacks.
Writer: Edward Ruggiero
How I found it: Consult Service
About: Dramatic irony, dramatic irony, dramatic irony. Nine Twelve shows us how powerful the tool can be. It’s why I highlighted D.I. so extensively in my book. Here, we can’t look away from this relationship because we know something this poor woman doesn’t – that our hero is lying to her about everything their relationship is based on. The script is an incredibly difficult sell because the main character is so unlikable. But it manages to keep our attention all the way through. Can’t wait to see what Ed comes up with next!

#10
Title: 3022 (not reviewed)
Premise: The crew members on a space shuttle 600,000 miles from Earth must question their individual fates and fight for their lives after their home – Earth itself – is destroyed.
Writer: Ryan Binaco
How I found it: Consult Service
About: Ryan is back with a second script in the Top 15! This one is a cross between Solaris, 2001 and The Fountain, with just enough “mainstream” to keep it marketable. I’ve actually read a couple versions of the script, and I hear the latest version (which I haven’t read yet) is doing really well over at the Black List site. I’ve hinted to Ryan that he’s gotta make the story accessible if he wants someone to snatch it up. But at the same time, I don’t want to stifle the craziness that goes on in his head too much. That’s what makes his scripts so different!

#9
Title: Proving Ground
Premise: 9 strangers wake in a deserted Mexican town besieged by killing machines: they must discover why they’ve been brought there to survive.
Writer: James Topham
How I found it: Twit-Pitch Contest
About: Proving Ground was the winner of my Twit-Pitch contest. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a really cool idea with a sound execution. The reason this one makes the Top 10 is because I want to see this movie! I want to see these people being attacked by these giant machines. I want to see them trying to figure out how they got here and how they’re going to get away. There are too many spec scripts in Hollywoodland that are well-written but not “big” enough to be made into movies (I liked Nine-Twelve, but its too small to get a producer excited about it). Proving Ground is not one of those screenplays!

#8
Title: Saving Lexie Lee (not reviewed)
Premise: When a popular high school girl looks into some mysterious murders happening around town, she’s shocked to find out that she may know the killer.
Writer: Michael Morra
How I found it: Consult Service
About: I really liked this one, so much so that I asked Michael if I could come on as producer. We’ve since played around with the script and while we’re getting close, there’s something that isn’t quite there yet with the ending. The thing I liked about the script was that it had this really weird structure that you never see in these types of films. That’s proven to be a roadblock for some, since it requires a complete rethinking of how these movies work. But I still have faith in its unorthodox approach.  “Lexie Lee” is basically “Scream” but with a really fucked up second act. We’ll figure it out eventually. And when we do, I have a feeling this could sell.

#7
Title: Lovin’ Brooklyn (not reviewed)
Premise: When her rich step-dad cheats on her mother, a young girl is forced to move into her aunt’s home in Brooklyn, where she’s introduced to a “player” pizza boy who needs her to help him win a dance competition.
Writer: Guy Guido
How I found it: Consult Service
About: The thing that kills me is finding a really good writer who’s written a script that’s tough to sell. Guy is a kick-ass writer. He’s the kind of guy you’d want to write your next romantic comedy or “Save The Last Dance.” But Lovin’ Brooklyn is so specific, you’d have to find JUST THE RIGHT buyer for it, and it’s never easy finding that buyer. With that said, the success of Silver Linings Playbook gives me hope for Lovin’ Brooklyn, as there are some definite similarities between the two.  This could be the next cool dance flick that breaks that “on the bubble” young female TV star.

#6
Title: Keeping Time
Premise: A for-hire time traveler who specializes in “preventing” bad relationships meets his match with a mysterious woman who claims to also be a traveler and is determined to stop him from completing his mission.
Writer: Nathan Zoebl
How I found it: Amateur Friday
About: After my review of this script, Nathan snatched an agent at WME (Mike Esola) and went through a couple of close calls getting talent attached. I couldn’t resist being a producer on this one either as I’m always looking for the next great time travel comedy. Now it’s a matter of stepping back, possibly doing another rewrite or two, and getting this script back in the game. I really want to make this one happen so if you’re interested, e-mail me!

#5
Title: Fascination 127
Premise: A group of men are hired by a mysterious client to remove Jim Morrison’s casket, give it to him for 24 hours and then return the casket into the ground before it is publicly exhumed to be moved to the United States.
Writer: Alex Carl
How I found it: Amateur Friday
About: This script totally took me by surprise. I thought it was going to be a half-assed weed-driven series of college conspiracy theories on what happened to Jim Morrison. Instead, it was a taut highly-engrossing heist film. But even better, Alex and I took everyone’s feedback from the review and incorporated the best notes into the script. Alex is almost done with his latest draft and I can confirm that it has gotten a LOT better. Once it’s finished, we’ll go out there and, at the very least, land Alex an agent.

#4
Title: Reunion
Premise: At their ten-year reunion, a formerly bullied outcast decides to enact revenge on the cool kids who made his life miserable.
Writer: Adam Zopf
How I found it: Amateur Friday
About: I know, I know. This is kind of a cheat. I originally aired this review in 2011. But since I didn’t have an official “Best Amateur Scripts” list for 2011, I decided to move Reunion to 2012. So what’s going on with the script? Some good stuff, depending on how you look at it. The production company that optioned Reunion wasn’t able to get it going in time, so the script’s reverted back to Adam! That means it’s back on the market. I’m going to meet with Adam some time this month and we’ll discuss Reunion. Who knows? Maybe we’ll end up working on it together.

#3
Title: Rose In the Darkness
Premise: A secluded boy’s way of life is threatened when he befriends Rose – the girl whom his parents have imprisoned in the family attic.
Writer: Joe Marino
How I found it: Amateur Friday
About: To think that Joe wrote this and he isn’t even finished with college yet! The review led to Brooklyn Weaver at Energy Entertainment reading and loving Rose. We’re pairing together to produce and Brooklyn is also managing Joe now. Some folks have been put off by the ultra-dark subject matter in the script but I think it’s only a matter of time before we find a home for this one. If you’re a production company who’s not afraid to take chances – if you want something on your slate riskier than the typical garden variety horror fare we’ve seen as of late, let me know. I’ll get you Rose and we can take it from there.

#2
Title: 300 Years (not reviewed)
Premise: After waking up 300 years in the future, a San Francisco bike messenger learns that the world has been taken over by aliens, and that these aliens now keep humans as pets.
Writer: Peter Hirschmann
How I found it: Consult Service
About: What I love about Peter is that he’s gone all in after getting an agent (at Verve) and manager (at Kaplan/Perrone) since 300 Years broke. This man is furiously working on his new spec, as well as flying in and out of LA to take meetings for potential assignments. The assignment market is very competitive, but Peter’s gotten super close on a few big ones. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before he scores one. In the meantime, I wait with baited breath for his new spec. Peter keeps his ideas close to the chest, but from the bits and pieces I hear, they sound awesome. And yes, I’m still a producer on 300 Years, along with Jill Messick. We’re going to push this script hard again once we get a director attached. :)

#1
Title: The Disciple Program
Premise: A man wakes up to find his wife dead and no memory of the night before. His investigation into her death will lead him to a top secret government-sponsored program.
Writer: Tyler Marceca
How I found it: Consult Service (later reviewed on Amateur Friday)
About: Lots of people ask for updates on Disciple. This is all I can tell you. Morten Tyldum, the director attached to Disciple, recently signed on to direct The Imitation Game. So it looks like that’s his priority now. I think they were shooting for a tiny opening in Whalberg’s (also attached) schedule early this year, but they weren’t able to make it. What does this mean? Well, Whalberg has 10 billion projects lined up, so I’m not sure. But hopefully they figure out a way to make it work, or if they don’t, another package comes on board and gets it rolling, sort of like what happened with Prisoners. You’re always hoping for that dream scenario where you get the spec sale and then six months later, you’re shooting. But usually, you have to endure a few speed bumps along the way to the promised land, so I’ll keep hoping and wishing Tyler luck!

Again, all of these scripts except for Disciple are available. Feel free to e-mail me if you’re a producer/agent/manager and I’ll send you copies of the scripts you’re looking for. Sorry there are still no comments in the reviews I sent you back to. I still have to transfer Disqus comments over from the old site! Oh, and if you’ve read any really good amateur scripts yourselves, don’t hesitate to mention them in the comments section!

My favorite writer is back!  John Jarrell.  You may remember him from the awesome interview I did with him a few months ago.  The guy has a ton of screenwriting knowledge and unlike us hack bloggers, the man’s actually been in the thick of it for 20 years, fighting the good screenwriting fight, landing those six figure jobs we all dream of.  Which is why I’m more than happy to promote his new screenwriting class – Tweak Class — starting this January. Who better to learn from than the guy who’s seen it all?  Goddamit, he’s even taken his pants off for a publicity shot (that’s really him above!).  This man is dedicated.  And today, he’s going to share with us a couple screenwriting stories from Hollywood Hell.  I enjoyed this piece so much I told John he needs to write a whole book of this stuff.  Let him know if you feel the same in the comments!

“Will You Please Buy My Script Now, Please?” — One Writer’s Journey Into the Troubling Bowels of Development.

By John Jarrell

Back in 1995, I wrote a Horror spec called The Willies.  It was essentially Carrie with Evil Twins.  People are constantly abusing and shitting on these orphans, until at last, after making a pact with the devil, they take their bloody revenge.

My agent went out with it and immediately got a sadistically low-ball pre-emptive bid from a smaller studio in town.  By that point in my life, my dream of becoming a legitimate screenwriter was nearing extinction.  I’d been struggling in L.A. for four years, was stone-cold broke, about to lose my apartment, and my girlfriend and I were subsisting solely on the 49-cent value menu at Taco Bell.  Facing even more of that ugliness, I did what struggling young writers have to do sometimes — I sucked it up and took the shit money, simply glad to survive and hopeful I would live to fight another day.

First day working, I go into a story meeting with the company’s “Creative” VP and Head of Development.  We dug in and spent several hours doing notes starting Page One — discussing what they thought worked, what didn’t, and what I’d need to address in my rewrite.

At one point, the VP looks up at me and says, “Wow, John.  This description on page fifty-two is really good writing.  Would you mind reading it out loud?”

Flattery will get you everywhere with a screenwriter, and I’m sure I flushed with pride as I found the page and paused to clear my throat.

The set up was simple — a grieving daughter (our protagonist) looking through her deceased Mother’s belongings, which have been boxed up and stored in the attic.  The beat offered a brief respite from all the genre action, gave us a further glimpse into our lead’s character, and prompted her discovery of an important clue at the end.

This was the description I wrote, verbatim —

“She rifles several of the boxes, finding little more than old letters and checkbook stubs, key chains and their forgotten keys.  The meaningless remnants of our too brief lives.”

There was a long pause after I finished.  The VP and Head of Development were nodding their heads in synchronized approval.  Then the VP says —

“Yeah, it’s really great.  Great stuff.”

(HARD BEAT)

“Lose the poetry, John, cut it all out.  It’s slowing down the script.”

I’d never been quite so close to crapping my pants.  Did he just say LOSE… THE… POETRY?  a.k.a. LOSE THE GOOD WRITING?  Wantonly kill off two short sentences — two sentences he actually likes — which perfectly sell the moment?  And replace them with what, Mr. Hemingway?  “She opens her dead mom’s shit and finds a mysterious clue!”

Like every other indignant scribe in Hollywood history, I sat hooded in a queasy half-smile, cerebral cortex locking up.  Surely “development” couldn’t be like this everywhere?  Surely this exec must be a nutter, a lone gunman of sorts, some soulless script assassin who didn’t value lightweight artistry over the groan-inducing stock lines which had been stupefying readers for decades?

But I was wrong.  He wasn’t the slightest bit insane.  In fact, Mr. Company VP was the Gold Standard — an Industry veteran and Number Two guy at the whole company!  And if I didn’t “lose the poetry” voluntarily, believe me, he would have no qualms hiring another low-ball writer to lose it for me.

Way back at NYU, an older studio vet had once shared a bit of sage wisdom with me — “It’s better for you to fuck up your script the way they want then have ’em hire somebody else to fuck it up for you.”

As baffling and counterintuitive as his advice had seemed, now I grabbed onto it like a life vest.   I labored at “losing the poetry”, beat after tight beat, good scene after good scene.  For nine agonizing months, they “developed” the script this way.  Any nugget of goodness was ruthlessly ferreted out, any clever turn of phrase or interesting character tick was quickly sandblasted into beige.  My reward, such as it was, was being kept onboard on as sole writer.

Finally, they were ready to go out with it.  And they did.  And in a matter of three short weeks, the company blew a sure-thing co-financing deal, flatlined similar offers via absurd distribution demands, then shelved the project out of self-loathing and/or shame, never to see daylight again.  Their epic fail also left The Big Question still looming — Had sacrificing all my poetry to the Commercial Film Gods made my script better… or worse?  Now, tragically, there was no way I’d know for sure.

Instead of my project — and I’m totally NOT kidding here — the company produced the urban side-splitter “Don’t Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood” in its place.  It survived three demoralizing weekends before being euthanized and laid to rest in the VHS market.

During what I thought a poignant last ditch appeal, before all the lights had been turned out, I’d made the case to the company that horror was an American genre mainstay, essentially a license to print money when well-executed.  This is what that same VP told me —

“Horror’s dead, John.  Nobody wants horror anymore.  It’s all about the urban audience.”

Scream opened that same December and made $173,046,663 worldwide.  In its wake, an uninterrupted avalanche of extremely profitable low-budget horror pics overran the coming decade.

And me?  Exactly one year after the sale, my girlfriend and I found ourselves back at Taco Bell.

* * * * *

Those first professional cuts for any young writer are excruciating.  Everything about your script — every flat character, every lousy throwaway line, every unnecessary parenthetical — feels personal and inviolate, gifted from the heavens and written in stone, like some multimedia take on Moses’ holy tablets.

“Change something?  Why?  It was plenty good enough for you to buy it in the first place, wasn’t it, douchebag?”

Some version of this is what the working writer yearns to bark in his benefactors’ (read: torturers’) faces.  If you loved it enough to put real money behind it, why in the fuck do you want to change every last thing about it now?  Why date a tall, skinny brunette if you really wanted a short, squat redhead?  Where’s the logic in that?

This mentality is, of course, completely understandable.  The script is quite literally your baby, your winning Powerball ticket, the lone vehicle by which you hope and pray to escape the nagging self-doubt and just-getting-by poverty of a middle class kid with a mountain of student loans.   This is your shot — perhaps the one and only shot you’re gonna get — and if it’s mishandled somehow, if somebody shits the bed and drops the ball, you and you alone will pay the ultimate price for that.

On the other hand… there’s a couple big problems with sticking by your guns every damned time.  One, without question, you’ll be replaced as soon as your steps are up, and most likely won’t work for that company or any of those people again.  Producers hate writers as it is, see them as largely unnecessary evils.  Certainly nobody wants to work with a “difficult” one sitting in meetings with his or her fingers jammed in their ears.

Two, and this can be a tough one for us writers to swallow, what if all these developmental numbskulls are actually right???  What if a few of those “shitty notes” you keep bad-mouthing to friends turn out to be gems, pure gold, BIG IDEAS that help take your script to that hallowed “next level”?   Some writers are so busy being defensive that they’re throwing away the very ideas which can dramatically increase their odds of success… and survival.

So John, you ask, how in the hell do I know when to do what?   How do I discern between the gold and the gravel, the shit and the pony?  How can I insure I do the right thing creatively while traversing such treacherous industry tundra?

And that, my friends, is the eternal question every writer faces, every time they book a gig.  Because there aren’t any right answers one-hundred percent of the time.  The whole endeavor is entirely subjective, a complete crapshoot, with the looming possibility of some ravenous tiger waiting to bite your head off behind every corner.

Your creative action — or inaction — affects not only this project, but the possibility of the many unseen projects yet to come.  Of prominent producers and execs putting in a good word, greasing the skids for a full-freight first draft at 100% of your quote… or not.  Of you being able to pay off those loans, buy your hard-working parents a house of their own, live the creative lifestyle you’ve always dreamt of and suffered so damned much trying to actualize…

Best advice I’ve heard?  “You’ve got to choose your hills to die on.”

But hey, no pressure, right?  Best of luck on those pages.

* * * * *

Spring of 1999, I was coming off saving a film for a big studio.  My stock was high and I was starting to make my first legitimate splash.

After years of obscure, unpaid laboring, I was really feeling it, finally discovering my groove.  All that “woodshedding” had vastly improved my writing.  It was becoming much better crafted and far more intuitive.  Better still, proof of this breakthrough was now coming across on the page, for anyone and everyone to see.

A hungry young agency saw it and took me on, and they had enough juice to start getting me into the right rooms.  As every artisan in Hollywood knows, if you can’t get into the room, you sure as hell can’t get the job.  My new agents totally had my back in that department and very quickly it became plug and play — they’d send me out, after that, everything else was on me.  As you might imagine, this was a really good time for a young writer.

So… as a last ditch effort, the big studio had hired me, and against all rational odds, I’d saved their movie.  Not only that, but to everybody’s further surprise, it became a big hit.

In this town, you always strike while the iron’s hot.  My agents quickly set me up with a very famous director, one of the old school legends, in fact.  There was a new company in town spending real money, and he’d set up a project there.  All they needed now was a writer.

We met on his studio lot, the Director and I immediately hitting it off.  This guy was a blast, regaling me with wild tales of ’70’s Hollywood, each more x-rated hilarious than the last.  These were the classic movies I’d grown up with and deeply loved, back to front I knew them all.  Now here I was talking to the guy who’d actually made some of them!  For a good hour we jawed warp-speed, then spent maybe ten minutes talking broad strokes about his project.  It was to be a modern-day Robin Hood — the big twist was casting a famous Brazilian MMA fighter as the lead and setting it in the violent ghettos of inner city L.A.

Now remember, this is ’99, way before the whole MMA/UFC thing fully turned the corner.  But within two years, Dana White and Co. would radically reinvent the marketing of that world and find themselves sitting on a multi-billion dollar business.

So in a way — even though it wasn’t on purpose — the Director’s idea of casting an MMA superstar with international appeal in a kick-ass action film was perfectly timed.  By the time it was ready to roll out, the U.S. would be beginning its new love affair with the UFC.  And we’d be standing there waiting with lightning in a bottle, boffo box office certain to ensue.

I drove back home.  Two hours later (just two hours!) my agent calls.   Business affairs from this new company had called and made an offer — $100K against $275, or 100/275 in film biz parlance.  The Director was crazy about me and knew immediately I was the perfect guy for the job.  Just like that it became a spontaneous four-way love fest; Company, Famous Director, Agents, Me.  My cup runneth over with this highly-addictive first burst of adulation.

It was pretty hard to wrap my head around.  A guaranteed ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS for drinking a free bottle of Evian and listening to one of Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers tell epic war stories?   For just being (GASP!) me???

Abruptly, the lightbulb went on.  So THIS is what everybody was chasing.  Everyone knew there were heaps of money to be made — Monopoly money, from where I was standing.  But what about having all the heavyweight ego-stroking a film-addled shut-in like myself could desire?  Wasn’t that shit awesome, too?

Next came a company meet-and-greet to discuss our collective vision for the project.  My honeymoon continued unabated.  We were all on the same page! We all agreed EXACTLY what this film should aspire to!  From the top down, everybody on-board was euphoric with developmental glee!

Our homage to Robin Hood would be set in the impoverished jungles of East L.A. Our Lead, forced to flee Brazil because of his heroic actions against homicidal police, would join his Uncle in L.A. to start building a new life for himself.  But after witnessing dehumanizing oppression in the sweatshops, and running afoul of local gangsters who violently extorted and terrorized the good-hearted (but powerless) immigrants who had befriended him, our Lead is compelled to take the law into his own hands, seeing justice done, whatever the cost.  I was urged to think of the story as gritty, raw and realistic — “Robin Hood ’99” if you will, with someone like Jay-Z playing Friar Tuck.

Robin Hood is one of the oldest legends in all of Western Civilization, and for good reason.  The timeless themes of rich vs. poor, the corrupt haves vs. the honest have-nots, still speak as loudly to audiences today as they did in Medieval times.  So our ripped-from-the-headlines take involving sweatshops and immigrant labor, oppression and cultural inequality, would fit perfectly alongside the honorable intent of the original.

After a few frenzied white-guy high-fives (“I love this guy!” from one goofy exec), and another complementary bottle of Evian, I was sent off to knock out a treatment so we could quickly proceed to first draft.

* * * * *

Ensconced back in my bungalow, I set about creating my masterpiece.  Like I said, I was totally in my wheelhouse at this point, doing the very best writing of my young career.  I buckled down and poured my heart and soul into the idea.  I skipped concerts, cancelled dates, ate nothing but bad Chinese and Mexican delivery.  Day and night, I labored to make the story not just a kick-ass MMA thrill ride — the essential dynamic of the entire project in the first place — but a film which would actually have something to say as well.

I saw it as a classic have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too opportunity — killer action and ultra-cool, franchisable genre characters, with a timely message to the contemporary audience nestled behind all the head-butting and hard talk.

Listen, end of the day, if all you wanted was to see somebody’s trachea stomped into tomato soup, or some asshole’s nutsack blown off, yeah, you would get that in spades.  I mean, this was a MOVIE afterall, mass escapist entertainment.  But for the more discerning genre lover (like myself) there would also be a legitimate subtext they could hang their hats on.  A little something… more.

One month later I submitted my twelve-page, single-spaced treatment.  I was anxious, but extremely confident.  Never had I felt better about the work and what I was trying to accomplish.  I believed it awesome that Hollywood execs were willing to push for a meaningful story, even within the confines of a tiny little genre pic like this.  Maybe the self-serving, head-up-ass development stereotypes I’d been brutalized by before would be proven wrong this time around.

A week passed.  Then a second.  Neither my agent nor myself heard so much as a whisper.

Believe me, if there’s anything a writer learns in Hollywood, it’s this — the silence is deafening.

Silence is never good.  Silence says disinterest, displeasure or — scariest of all — disappointment.  When you put finished pages someone paid for in their impatient little palms and they don’t get back to you a.s.a.p. something is terribly and irrevocably wrong.  In my experience, there are no exceptions to this rule.

Sure enough, start of week three we finally got word.  It wasn’t good.  Let’s just say nobody loved it.  The company didn’t hate it initially, per se, but the Director’s people did.  They loathed it with a passion.  Which meant the company had to start hating it as well.

Judgment Day came in the company’s flagship conference room.  Picture a Hudsucker Proxy-sized oak conference table, all five of my company inquisitors massed at the far end, and me — best of intentions, isolated, confused — docked in a half-mast Aeron chair at the other.

The Head of Development led the prosecution.  He was a real trip, an IMAX D-Guy Cartoon, 3D cells brightly penciled in by Pixar.  We’re talking Aliens level development exec here, with him playing the egg-laying Queen, not one of the day-player xenomorphs.   For the safety of all involved, let’s call him Producer X.

“This treatment is too preachy, too grim, too goddamn G-L-O-O-M-Y,” his first salvo whistled across my bow. “Where’s the fun in this world, John?  The Lethal Weapon III of it all?  The wink-wink, the hijinx, the Wow Factor?”

Where’s the fun in… illegal immigration?  In the callous rich taking advantage of the struggling poor?   Is that what he was asking?

“Look, John, trust me — it’s not THAT BAD down there.  There are plenty of happy stories to tell.  Happy stories which give those people plenty of hope.”

Whoops.  My Spidey Sense began an ugly twitch.  “Down there.” “Those people.” This couldn’t be going anywhere good.

“To some, you know, this might sound controversial.  But I’m going to go ahead and say it anyway, ’cause frankly I’m not a P.C. person and I don’t give a damn,” Producer X leaned forward now, Sunday smile, as if confiding in me.  “You know what?  I have a maid, and she’s an illegal.  That’s right.  An illegal.  And guess what, John?   She LOVES working for me.  Loves it!  She couldn’t be happier!”

“Me too.” The famous director’s D-Girl piped up. “My husband and I have an illegal nanny.  Always smiling, that woman.  Very Zen.”

“In fact,” Producer X blazed on, “Recently I had a bit of a funny conundrum.  My maid’s daughter was having her quinceañera, and she told me they didn’t have enough decorations for it.  So guess what I did?  This is great — I let her go around the house and gather up all the old flowers that had been there a few days and take those to the party!  Isn’t that terrific?  She was soooooo happy.”

There was one exec in the room I’d met before, a good guy, coming from the right place.  I watched the same horrified shockwave blitzkrieg across his face that I already wore on mine.  So they weren’t all Replicants, I thought.  Thank Christ.

Oversharing kills.  No doubt, I’m every inch as white boy as the next white motherfucker out there.  But there was one huge problem.

I wasn’t that kind of white.

Both my mother and father had Ph.D.’s from Teachers College at Columbia.  Their specialties?  Education for Gifted Minority Students.  My girlfriend was Hispanic, a social worker born literally — true shit — in a dirt-floored shack in Pacoima. So yeah, this probably wasn’t going to work out too well.

All this time, Scriptshadow Reader, I’d been racking my brain, trying to figure out why they hated my treatment so much, why everyone was acting like I’d totally butt-fucked the pooch on this one.  Now it hit me full-force — my pages were too, well, Robin Hood.  I’d done exactly what we’d agreed upon, gotten it pitch perfect… which was criminally out of tune for these folks.

Class struggle?  Rich vs. Poor?  What was I thinking?  They envisioned our heroic Brazilian as a grubby street urchin, crashing Beverly Hills parties, stuffing his shirt with hors d’oeuvre and stealing thick wads of cash from mink coat pockets.  Which is precisely the take they pitched me.

Everything quickly became a vague blur, Charlie Brown’s teacher shot-gunning syllabic nonsense.  The only part I remember was Producer X’s take on our protagonist — “It’s like Ché Guevara.  He was sexy, he was hot, did a couple of cool killings.  Cinematic stuff, right?”

Talk about mind-fucks.  Their collective brainstorm now was to take the Robin Hood out of Robin Hood.   Regrettably, it was kind of, well, getting in the way.

Meeting over, we shook hands with the nauseous smiles of strangers who’d eaten the same rotten shellfish.  I grabbed my ’66 Bug — the same car I’d driven out to L.A. eight years earlier — and puttered straight up Wilshire to my agent Marty’s office.

When I walked in, I just unloaded.  Play by play, line by line, vomiting up details of the nuclear winter I’d just lived through.  From Marty’s expression, I could see he was having trouble making sense of it all.  He knew my background, knew the guy I was, but still.  After I’d slaked my desperate need to rant, I punctuated things with this cute little gem —

“They can keep the money,” I said.  “I don’t want it.”

In Marty’s entire life, I don’t think a single client had ever told him that.   And why would they?  Idealism and moral outrage are the privilege of a rarified few in this Biz.  At the grunt level, the level I was at, those concepts played worse than kiddie porn.  Besides, who the fuck was I?  Claude Rains in Casablanca?  “I’m shocked, shocked to find that half-baked racism is going on here!”  It’s not like I’d signed up for the Peace Corps or anything.

Still, I had my principles, and I was willing to put all that Monopoly money where my naive pie-hole was.  Marty’s advice was to go home, cool my tool and let him do some reconnaissance.  Once he’d sussed things out, he’d get back to me.

Two things bailed me out.  First, the exec I knew called Marty and totally vouched for my eyewitness testimony (told you he was a good guy).  Second, Producer X himself knew how badly he’d fucked up and called trying to smooth things over.  “Listen, Marty,” he told my agent, “This is a big misunderstanding.  Nobody over here wants to make an… irresponsible movie.”

They scheduled a second meeting trying to salvage things, but in many ways it was worse than the first.  My time was spent daydreaming about putting Producer X in a chokehold and pulling a Sharky’s Machine — pile-driving us through the plate glass and then plummeting 200 feet straight down to the pavement below.

So that’s it.  The deal died.  They paid for the treatment, and I — insisting on principle — left the other $65,000 sitting on the table.   SIXTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.  Just walked away from it.  And yeah, it kinda stings to write this, even now.

You may have wondered — what about the Famous Director, the one guy who surely would’ve had your back?  Predictably, after that first, glorious filmic dry-humping, I neither saw nor heard from him again.  No phone call.  No nothing.  To this day, I don’t know if he actually hated it, or his D-Girl with the illegal nanny had cut my throat without giving him the real scoop on any of what went down.

And Producer X?   Was there any Bad Karma due a producer like that?   Would the bold heavens take a stand and angrily smite down what the film industry itself would not?

You’re fuckin’ kidding, right?  This is the Film Biz.

A few years later, I was over at some friends’ place watching the Oscars on auto-pilot.  About ten hours in, after two dozen absurd dance numbers, they finally got around to Best Picture.

And who should win but Producer X.

This go ’round I did crap my pants.  Openly and without restraint.   But this wasn’t even rock bottom.  Because up next was his acceptance speech —

“I’m soooooo happy you’ve taken my movie into your hearts, this wonderful little film about compassion, racial harmony, the end of prejudice of all kinds, and, of course, hope.  Always hope, for all those people less fortunate than ourselves.”

Producer X had just won an Oscar.  That’s right.  A fucking Academy Award.  By playing the “Can’t we all just get along?” card.

Before he even left the stage, I was stumbling into the backyard, begging the hostess for a frenzied bong hit.  A writer can only take so much, you see, and my mind was dangerously close to snapping.  My only real hope of retaining any sanity now lay in a bright, protective sheen of cannabis.

As I slipped into oblivion, a single thought ran roughshod through my mind —

“I wonder if Producer X’s illegal maid is back at his house watching this, too.”

Carson again.  Naturally, I’m asking the same question you are.  Who the hell was the producer??  John refuses to name names, but I will find out.  Mark my words!  In the meantime, head over to John’s Tweak Class Page and sign up for his screenwriting class that starts this January.  It truly is a unique opportunity to study with a produced, working writer.  You won’t be disappointed!