Genre: Thriller
Premise: The 12 hours leading up to a corporate investment firm’s downfall.
About: Shooting in New York City right now, this film stars Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Demi Moore, and Stanley Tucci (talk about a cast!). Not much is known about the writer-director, JC Chandor, who, along with his producers, were able to secure funding for the film during the Cannes Film Festival. Before this, Chandor completed one short film and worked in the sound department on another. Welcome to what happens when you write a great script!
Writer: JC Chandor
Details: 92 pages – July 13, 2009 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Quinto plays Peter

Now this.

Is how.

You write.

A script.

Hit us hard at the opening bell and keep on punching.

Margin Call is a script that takes the financial crisis and actually DOES something with it. We’ve seen other writers take a crack at this subject matter, like Allan Loeb with Money Never Sleeps (Wall Street 2) and John Wells with The Company Men. But while both those scripts had nice moments, this proves that with a little ingenuity and good storytelling, David can top Goliath.

This is a movie about money. About what happens when you’re in charge of all the money in the world. About being dependent on that money. It’s about greed. It’s about realizing that no matter how smart you are, sooner or later someone smarter is going to come along and break up your party.

When that happens, what are you left with? Who are you without your money? Who are you without your “things?” We never see ANY of this in Margin Call. But we can see it in every one of the characters’ eyes as they assess the way their world’s going to change tomorrow.

Peter Sullivan is a 27 year old risk assessment analyst, which is gobbledy gook for “good with numbers.” Peter works at one of those giant investment firms you see Jim Cramer screaming about on that weird Seasame Street-inspired show of his on MSNBC. I don’t know a lot about trading but I know that when you trade billions of dollars a day, the decisions you make affect every person in America.

The script starts out with a brilliant bang as human resources systematically weaves through the trading floor like stormtroopers, tapping traders on the shoulder and letting them know that their services are no longer needed. Stinking rich one second. Checking pizza delivery jobs the next. When the slaughter is over, only 30% of the company remains. Sam Rogers, the elder statesman of the company, gives what will soon be compared to the Alec Baldwin speech in Glengarry Glen Ross. He tells them that they are survivors, and that he’ll need every one of them to save this company.

Unfortunately Peter’s boss, the eternally stressed-out Eric, didn’t make the cut. And when he’s leaving, he hands Eric a jump drive. Something he’s been working on. “Check it,” he says, with eyes that imply a hell of a lot more.

Peter does. And what he finds horrifies him.

The drive contains an analysis of the firm’s financial model – the equation they use to buy and trade everything in the company. I’ll spare you the details because I don’t know what I’m talking about but basically, the model is faulty, and if the company doesn’t sell everything they have by the end of tomorrow, there’s a good chance they’ll lose 1 trillion dollars. Not billion. Trill-eee-yan. If that happens, every single person who works in this firm will never work anywhere again.

There are lots of cool threads in Margin Call but the story comes down to a bunch of guys trying to figure out what to do. They have a doozy of a problem here. If they sell everything in a day, knowing it’s all bad, no firm will ever trade with them again. But if they try to sneak their way out of it over time, there’s a good chance the model will fail and both the government and the American people will no longer trust them. Damned if they do. Fucked if they don’t.

This is what makes good drama. You put your characters in a high stakes dilemma and you make them choose. Choice reveals character, just like real life. Think about it. When do you really find out about people? You find out about them during times of adversity. You find out about them when shit goes wrong and decisions need to be made. Some wilt, others rise. But those are always the moments that reveal who a person really is. And movies are no different. Put your character in a difficult situation where they have to make a choice and the audience will watch with baited breath. I promise you.

I liked so much about this script. I liked how we went up the chain of command to deal with the problem. We start with the Nemo-sized fish and work our way, one boss at a time, to the whale.

I loved that it was a simple story, but how much bigger it felt despite that. I mean this is basically a bunch of people in suits talking. That’s it. You or I could shoot this tomorrow. But the context – with all the money and the firm – gave it the illusion of being much bigger. Very clever.

I loved the detail put into all the characters (making Peter a former rocket scientist was a nice touch). I loved the way the script built up to the final decision. I loved the disappearance of Eric (the guy found the glitch) and the escalating dilemma about what to do with him if they find him (there’s a great ambiguous ending to this that has you wondering what indeed happened to Eric). And yes, I loved the ticking time bomb of having to figure everything out by morning.

But like all good scripts, it comes back to the characters, and all the characters here rock. Each one is fully invested in the problem, so there’s never any of those wasted scenes where we’re sitting with two characters going, “Who the hell cares? Get to the people that matter!” Everybody here matters.

Chandor could’ve pushed the envelope in a few places and really shocked us, but his restraint is what ends up making this such an authentic ride. I don’t know how long Chandor’s been writing but this was good page. Good page.

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

What I learned: Each character has a lot at stake here (mainly their job, but also their future and their standing inside the company). This is why Chandor was able to nab such a great cast. When characters have something at stake, they’re alive. We CARE about what they want to do because what they want to do MATTERS. When they have nothing at stake, they just sit there. You can dress up a character in crazy antics, hilarious dialogue, and as much weirdness as you want, but unless they have a stake in the story, in the ultimate goal, they’re not going to be interesting, and they won’t be appealing to actors. Do all the characters in your script have something at stake?

Watch Scriptshadow on Sundays for book reviews by contributors Michael Stark and Matt Bird. We try to find books that haven’t been purchased or developed yet that producers might find interesting. It’s been a few Sundays since we’ve had our last one, and that’s mainly my fault, but Stark is back, and he’s doing something a little different – a look at the best characters in crime fiction. Check it out!

Welcome back to another edition of Scriptshadow’s Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy Book Club. While we hardly wield an ounce of Oprah’s mighty literary clout, we do hope a few trolling producers and story editors listen to our glowing endorsements. May there be little rest for their reading department as they write massive tons of coverage over this holiday weekend.

Today, we’re gonna talk about some of our favorite crime fiction characters and wonder aloud (Insert dirigible-sized thought balloon here) why the hell they haven’t been brought to the big screen yet. Now, all but one of ‘em are from best-selling novelists. All have had their rights quickly snapped up. And, mysteriously, all seem to be languishing in some dreaded level of development hell.

But, at Scriptshadow, we don’t fear the reaper. Let’s pay the damned boatman, throw Cerberus off our scent with some strategically placed Omaha steaks and try to free a few of the damned good reads held captive here.

1. Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly

“Everybody counts or nobody counts.” – Harry Bosch

I am indebted to Michael Connelly not only for nearly 20 years of excellent reading pleasure, but for introducing me to the classic, Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section, one of his character’s favorite albums and now one of mine. The recording session of that historic slab of wax is pretty damned worthy of a movie in itself — Pepper, a smack-addict, played through all of it with a broken reed and it’s still bloody brilliant — But, as usual, I digress…

Connolly went from cub crime beat reporter to one of America’s most respected novelists with over 23 bestsellers to his name. So far, there’s only been one film adaptation of his work, Clint Eastwood’s Blood Work. We have yet to see his most famous and beloved character, Harry Bosch, hit either the big or small screens.

And, that’s a crying shame!

Hieronymous “Harry” Bosch was named after the 15th Century Dutch painter known for his surreal landscapes of sin, punishment and hellfire. This pretty much mirrors this LA cop’s beat — and life. His mother was a prostitute who got murdered (shades of the Black Dahlia) when he was 11. He bounced around various orphanages and foster families till he finally ran away and joined the army, serving a still-soul-scarring-stint in Vietnam as a sewer rat, navigating the enemy’s deadly mazes of underground tunnels.

Even above ground, and in the light, Bosch still works the same way through LA’s toughest cases, meticulously and stubbornly, with little regard that it all might suddenly blow up in his face.

Bosch’s mission is to speak for the dead. He is a relentless case closer, even if it means defying authority. Following his career and character arc for the past 14 books, we’ve watched him age, find and lose love, become a father, make new enemies and rise through the ranks to Homicide Detective.

He’s even been thrown off the force, working unsolved cases as a P.I.
In The Last Coyote, he’ll solve the 30-year-old murder of his mother, the motivation for his profession and his dogged persistence. He’s worked many of the city’s politically sensitive cases, still hounded by the schmucks from internal Affairs and still getting in the face of his higher ups.

Much of his life is a something of a mess. His romances with both cops and civilians are strained and complicated. Even the house he bought working as a cop show’s technical advisor is condemned after the Northride quake. Confrontational to the end, he ignores the yellow tape and keeps sneaking back inside.

Where to start? From the beginning. His first book, The Black Echo, won Connolly an Edgar award. Follow Bosch through to the most recent, Nine Dragons, where he’s way out of his element, rescuing his daughter from Triad leaders in Hong Kong. To watch the author segue from journalist to novelist, I recommend Crime Beat, a collection of his articles from the Sun Sentinel and The LA Times.

Connelly is case and point that Hollywood purchasing your novel can be a mixed blessing. He is currently suing Paramount, trying to get the rights back to his first three Bosch books. After 15 years of non-action, he should be able to buy his babies back. But, beware of studio accountants and their evil abacuses. His bill got padded by years of “Out of pocket” development costs and pricey producer fees.

2. Jack Reacher by Lee Child

“Lee Child’s tough but humane Jack Reacher is the coolest continuing series character now on offer.” – Stephen King

Highly prolific, Lee Child has written 14 bestsellers in 13 years. So, why is his vastly popular creation, Jack Reacher, taking so much damned time getting to the silver screen?

We’re talking international best sellers here!!! Published in 51 countries and 36 languages!!! Uh, I thought foreign markets were supposed to be a good thing?!! Where are those studio accountants with the evil abacuses when you actually need them?

Instead, Hollywood fast tracks a comic book which sold a grand total of half a baker’s dozen copies, a board game that no one has played in over thirty years and a 3-D animated feature based on a breakfast cereal no sane parent would ever feed to their kids.

Do we really need Cookie Crunch – The Movie? Probably not. Do we really need a Jack Reacher series? Yeah, you’re darn tooting we do!

Lee Childs a British television director. has created the ultimate, iconic, American action hero. Reacher is James Bond with just a toothbrush and the shirt on his back. He’s Jason Bourne but with memory (of stuff he’d rather forget). He’s Bill Bixby’s Incredible Hulk, a knight-errant, wandering the countryside helping out fair damsels and regular joes who coincidentally just happen to be in distress. Guess Reacher has some serious when-shit-is-gonna-come-down radar going on.

He doesn’t look for bad luck and trouble. It just kinda finds him.

Reacher is a former Army MP Major who grew disenchanted with all the bureaucratic military bullshit and retires to an uncomplicated life of aimless drifting.
Raised as a military brat, the dude comes with some major assets – premium fighting skills, lighting fast reflexes and near bionic powers of observation. He relies every now again on some of the brass he knew back in the day for a little intel.

He also doesn’t come with much baggage. Worrying that actually washing his clothes might lead to needing more possessions like a suitcase or a house, he keeps his life zen-monk simple. The guy travels the country either by bus or by thumb, buys new clothes when the ones on him get too ripe and resorts to manual labor (or ripping off a bad guy’s stash) when his wallet gets empty.

Many of the Reacher books have the same MO. He ambles into a small town, smells trouble, takes care of trouble, leaves a lonely, local beauty quite satisfied and unceremoniously drifts away. Nothing wrong with a little familiarity. It’s a damned good MO.

According to Child’s website, all of the Reacher books have been optioned. Yet, there’s only one currently in any form of pre-production — One Shot, with Josh Oslon (A History of Violence) as the hired scribe.

Note to Paramount. Listen to the fans on this one. Hell, I think if you’d give Josh Holloway a shave and a haircut, you’ll have yourself a nice franchise. With MGM’s James Bond on hold, we need Jack Reacher more than ever.

3. Gabriel Allon by Daniel Silva

“He is the prince of fire and the guardian of Israel. And, perhaps most important, Gabriel is the angel of revenge. “ Daniel Silva on naming his protagonist.

We asked for a thriller. We asked for political intrigue. We asked for an awesome Mossad agent that comes out of the cold.

What we got was You Don’t Mess With The Zohan.

Oy!

There are nine books in this series Silva launched back in 2000. Universal acquired the rights to the entire catalogue in 2007. But, again, there’s only one in any stage of pre-production, The Messenger with Pierre Morel (Taken) tapped to direct.

Daniel Silva was the Middle East correspondent for United Press International – the perfect background for one about to embark on a career of writing spy thrillers.

His creation, Gabriel Allon, comes with much of the same skill sets as Reacher, but with a truckload of more baggage. His cover is also damned fascinating. The spy happens to be one of the world’s most renowned art restorers. Thus, we know the man is patient, deft and has a keen eye for detail. Guess it takes some of the same talents to kill a well-hid terrorist as it does to touch up an aging Caravaggio.

He’s the son of two Holocaust survivors and grew up in the Jezreel Valley of Israel. German was his first language. Languages would be one of his many giftings. The other is art. It’s in his blood — his mother being one the country’s most famous painters. Recruited back in art school, Allon becomes an assassin for the Israeli Secret Service, killing six of the twelve Black September members responsible for the 72 Munich Olympic murders.

But, payback can be a bitch. Exacting a few eyes for an eye, the PLO retaliates years later in Venice, killing Allon’s son and disabling his wife with a car bomb meant for him.

Allon is a spy that would rather stay out in the cold. He is an able killer but conflicted with a conscious and the ghosts of his past. His wife has been confined to a mental hospital all these years. He’s rather concentrate on saving the great works of art decaying in the old, damp cathedrals of Venice. Yet, current events keep bringing him out of retirement. The world keeps needing saving as well.

One of my favorite recurring characters is the spymaster who recruited him, Ari “the Old Man” Shamron, a legendary operative himself who captured Adolf Eichmann back in the day. He basically created Allon and pretty much won’t allow the unhappy spy to ever retire and live in peace.

Allon’s missions have dealt both with both “unfinished” Nazi business (looted art, the Vatican’s involvement and war criminals) and terrorism (the PLO, Saudi Arabia’s role in al-Qaeda and the rise of militant Islam in Europe). These thrillers are timely, taunt, globe trotting and nearly impossible to put down. They’re everything you want for a good summer read and — ahem — a summer blockbuster.

With a new book, The Rembrandt Affair, coming out later this month, Allon will be – luckily for us — laying down his brushes and picking up a Beretta one more time.

4. Angela Gennaro by Dennis Lehane

“Now, would you like to eat first, or would you like a drink before the war?” – John Cleese in Faulty Towers

Okay, technically, the low rent, south Boston PI team of Kenzie and Gennaro have already made it to the big screen in Ben Affleck’s Gone, Baby, Gone. And, although the movie had some awesome, Oscar-worthy performances, Gennaro’s character was pretty much sidelined for almost all of it. And, how did this spunky, Italian fireball become so damned Monaghan cute, quiet and Irish all of a sudden?

Gone, baby, were their sexual tension, their wisecracking, her mobbed up family members and all the psychic damage from her abusive marriage.

I’d love to see these guys a bit truer to the books in an HBO series. Think of it as Southie Moonlighting with the infamous, gritty Lehane edge.

Growing up together on the blue-collar streets of Dorchester, Patrick and Angie have always been friends, sometimes been lovers and seem to work pretty well together in cracking a case. They run their agency out of the belfry of a church where “all manners of unholiness cross their threshold”.

At times, they rely on a little help from their old friend, Bubba Rugowski, an arms-dealing ultra-violent psycho — A dude even Spenser and Hawk wouldn’t tangle with.

Lehane seems to experiment a bit with each of the books in the series. Darkness, Take My Hand is a search for a serial killer. Sacred is a bit of a surreal, screwball updating of Chandler’s The Big Sleep. Gone, Baby, Gone, as you know, gets pretty dark and grim. Not all of their cases end up with Dave and Maddie popping open champagne bottles and speaking in iambic pentameter.

Fans of the six Kenzie-Gennaro novels will be relieved to hear that after an 11 year hiatus, they’ll be back sleuthing this November in Lehane’s latest, Moonlight Mile.

5. Allen Choice by Leonard Chang

“The key is character. Chang works like a painter, carefully brushing strokes of truth and depth on all of his characters.” – Michael Connelly

So, our past four have all sprouted from the Underwoods of best selling authors. Here’s the one character you probably don’t know about, but should. So, buy the books now and thank me later.

Choice is a Korean-American, Kierkegaard-reading executive protection expert, who by the third installment of the series, becomes a full fledged, hard-boiled, private investigator.

Unlike most PIs, he doesn’t crack wise too often. Unlike Spencer (My gumshoe standard), who passes the time during stakeouts making mental lists of his favorite baseball players and ranking the gals he’s seen naked, Choice seems to worry a lot, brood and doubt almost every decision. I like that. I identify with that. It sets him apart from most of crime fiction’s overconfident detectives, making him and thus the stakes that much more real.

He also deftly dispels the stereotypical baggage of the inscrutable Asian sleuths of yore like Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto. Choice doesn’t know any karate and he can’t fix your fucking computer. He also doesn’t speak a word of Korean and knows very little about his heritage, which is a huge stumbling block when meeting his girlfriend’s extremely traditional parents.

At one point he calls himself “an ethnic dunce”.

He’s both assimilated and alienated at the same time. Everything about Choice seems in conflict. Orphaned at a young age, he doesn’t have much of a compass when it comes to family or relationships. He tries to compensate by reading the great philosophers. I think it just mixes him up more. Imagine the soul of 60s stand-up era Woody Allen sucked out and transferred into the body of a former linebacker.

The third book of the series, Fade To Clear, would make a pretty neat, little flick. The plot, in some ways a distant relative to Gone, Baby, Gone, involves a bitter custody battle with the abusive father abducting his daughter. Choice is hired to find the girl. The case is far more complicated than it appears.

First off, the mother is something of a bitch. Her ex-husband is involved with some rather shady shit. The ex-husband’s brother is a professional psychopath. And, the worried mother’s sister happens to be Choice’s old (but not completely burned out) flame.

Treating it like a routine skip tracing case turns out to be a big mistake when we learn that he wasn’t the first PI they’ve hired. Seems the sisters neglected to tell him that his predecessor ended up quite dead.

Like Lehane, these streets (These Streets of San Francisco this time) get dark and gritty and noir to the bone. It’s good work. I hope Chang returns to this character real soon.

Daniel Dae Kim (Lost) has optioned the first two Allen Choice novels. But, like all the books we’ve mentioned here, this project needs a Get Out of Limbo card stat!

So, my case is finally drawing to a close. I’m optimistic though. Warner Brothers has just recently resurrected one of my favorite books, Carter Beats the Devil. Hopefully, other studios will follow suit and go back to their libraries, refocusing on some of the books that they’ve already paid damn good money for.

More of Stark’s naughty kvetchings can be found on his blog — http://www.michaelbstark.blogspot.com

It’s Unconventional Week here at Scriptshadow, and here’s a reminder of what that’s about. 

Degree of Difficulty – 5 (out of 5)

Yes! I love talking about Forrest Gump. It’s one of those divisive movies that always gets the opinions flowing. People either love it or hate it. I think it’s a great movie, but I understand where the non-likers are coming from. Let’s face it. It’s a smarmy feel good star vehicle that wants you to love it a little too much. But here’s the difference between Forrest Gump and all the other also-rans jockeying for that blatant heartstring tug-a-thon (like “The Blind Side” for instance). Forrest Gump is DIFFERENT. It’s unlike any movie you’ve ever seen and unlike any movie you’re ever going to see. This isn’t some by-the-numbers bullshit. It’s genuinely original. For that reason alone, it’s worthy of discussion.

Let’s start off with the span of time the movie takes place in. Movies are really good at dealing with contained time periods. Why? Because contained time periods provide immediacy to the story. Characters are forced to face their issues and achieve their goals right away and that makes the story move. This is why a lot of films take place within a few days or a few weeks. Once you start spanning months and years and decades, you lose that inherent momentum, and you’re forced to figure out ways to replace it (which isn’t easy!). Forrest Gump takes place over something like 40 years. Not looking good.

But that isn’t the biggest problem for Gump by a long shot. What truly makes the success of this movie baffling is that its main character is the single most passive mainstream protagonist in the history of film. Forrest Gump doesn’t initiate ANY-thing in this movie. He literally stumbles around from amazing situation to amazing situation like a member of the Jersey Shore cast. All of Forrest Gump’s decisions are orchestrated by someone else. People tell Forrest to jump and he says “how high?”. A main character who doesn’t drive the story? You’ve written yourself into Trouble Town. Next train leads to Screwedville in five minutes.

Another issue is, just like The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump has as much plot as an episode of Dora The Explorer (note: I’ve never actually seen Dora The Explorer but I’m guessing there’s not a lot of plot in it). There’s no overarching goal for the protagonist. There’s no drive. No first act, second act, or third act (although I’ve seen people try to break this into acts – it’s never been convincing). Instead, the film plays out like a series of vignettes – or better yet, a sitcom episode. Tom Hanks is thrown into a crazy situation. Something funny happens. Repeat. It’s a very compartmentalized approach to the story. Why these disconnected misadventures worked was a mystery to me for a long time. But I think I finally figured it out.

Why it works:

It came to me like a flash of light. I hadn’t seen Forrest Gump in forever but there the answer to my question was. Forrest Gump wasn’t a movie. It was a documentary. Documentaries don’t have first act breaks and mid-points and character arcs. They simply follow a person’s life and whatever happens to that person happens. All the documentary has to do is capture it. Now as all documentarians know, documentaries are made or broken by their subject. Without a compelling subject, you don’t have a documentary. And that’s why this film worked. Forrest Gump is one of the most fascinating characters we’ve ever seen. He’s “retarded,” yet doesn’t wallow in it. He does extraordinary things, yet is humble about it. His childlike enthusiasm appeals to the kid in all of us. His situation is ironic (he’s extremely successful yet has the intelligence of a 6th grader). This man has a ton going on underneath the hood.

But the characteristic that most ensures the character’s success is that Forrest Gump is the ultimate UNDERDOG. I cannot make this clear enough. EVERYBODY LOVES AN UNDERDOG. When someone is picked on, looked down upon, is a longshot, we love to root for them. And Forrest Gump is the biggest underdog of them all. He’s physically handicapped (as a child). He’s mentally handicapped (as a child and an adult). Yet he achieves things the rest of us could only dream of. It’s entertaining as hell to watch, and it’s impossible not to feel good for the guy when it happens.

Another key component here is the detail given to the supporting characters, particularly Lieutenant Dan. Remember, some protagonists don’t arc. The story just isn’t conducive to them transforming. That happens here in Gump. But if that’s the case, you should probably have one of your supporting characters fill that role, because the audience wants to see somebody learn something by the end of the film (or become a better person in some capacity). Roth recognized that, which is why he has the eternally cynical character of Lieutenant Dan learn the gift of life over the course of the story.

Speaking of supporting characters, Roth also needed some kind of thread to hold the story together. The plot was so wacky, so disconnected, that had he not added a connective thread, it would’ve come off as a series of comedy skits. He needed a constant. And that’s where Jenny came in.

What’s so cool about the Jenny relationship is that everything goes so well for Forrest…except his relationship with her. I said up above that there’s no goal for Forrest and that’s technically correct (Forrest doesn’t actively pursue anything). But he does keep bumping into Jenny. And he does want her. So because there’s an element of pursuit going on, we become engaged. We want to know, will he get her or not?

Remember, movies are essentially characters trying to overcome obstacles. That’s it. And the greater the obstacle, the more involved we get, the more rewarding it is when our character overcomes said obstacle. What’s a greater obstacle than being in love with someone who will never love you back? It’s the ultimate underdog scenario. And our desire to see if he Forrest can pull off the impossible is what gives this movie purpose. Quite simply, we want to see if Forrest gets the girl. And that’s enough to keep us satisfied for 150 minutes.

I’d be interested to hear why you guys believed this movie worked (or didn’t). When I’m in a bad mood, I hate how cute it can be. But otherwise, I get a kick out of how weird and different it is. It fascinates me every time I watch it.

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

What I learned: If a character has a weakness, don’t allow him to wallow in it. Nobody likes the “woe is me” guy/girl in real life, so why the hell would we like them onscreen? Forrest has a serious disability but he doesn’t let it affect him. He pushes on with a positive attitude. It’s hard not to like someone like that.

This may sound like a shocking statement, but I believe anybody can be a screenwriter. Everybody in the world has at least one interesting story in them. Life is too crazy not to have an awesome story in the vault. But the reality is, it takes a shitload of time to learn how to *tell* that story in the bastardized format that is a “screenplay.” How long it takes generally depends on how talented you are. For some people it only takes a couple of years. For others, it may take two decades to figure out. So a lot of screenwriting comes down to perseverance and a willingness to learn.

I bring this up because every screenplay is kinda like a final exam. It’s a test of everything you’ve learned *up to that point.* So while you may ace that particular exam, it doesn’t mean you know everything about the subject. I guess an analogy would be, passing the bar proves you know a hell of a lot about the law, but it doesn’t mean you’re ready to try your case in the Supreme Court.

So what I thought I’d do is help you avoid some of the more common misguided screenplay attempts I see amateurs make. I wouldn’t say these scripts are easily avoidable because if they were, I’d see a lot less of them. But at least this way you can ask the question. “Am I about to write this script?” Or “Did I just write this script?” As long as you’re asking the question, you have a chance at salvaging the material. So below are five and a half types of bad amateur screenplays I keep running into. And I consider myself an expert. I’ve written each one of these at least once!

THE TECHNICALLY PERFECT BUT ULTIMATELY BORING SCRIPT
This is a toughie. Even professional writers make this mistake and that’s because the line between technical and natural isn’t always easy to identify. However, these scripts usually come from writers who take the screenwriting books a little too literally and who outline every single beat of their story down to the commas. The main character has a clear goal. The act breaks come at the right time. The character motivations are strong. Twists and turns happen at just the right moments. And yet…and yet there’s something extremely boring about it all. Even if we don’t know what’s going to happen, nothing that happens is ever surprising to us. There’s no heart, no soul, no life in the screenplay. “A+” from Robert McKee and Blake Snyder. “F” from the reader.

How to avoid it: There are two main reasons these kinds of scripts happen. First, like I mentioned above, it happens when writers follow the rulebook too literally. If the reader can feel the beats of the story, if they can see the first act turn coming a mile away, if the midpoint is accompanied by a billboard, you’re not doing your job. Great writers learn that in addition to following the rules, it’s their job to MASK the rules, to cover them up so it all flows naturally. This is usually achieved by rewriting – going back into your story and smoothing out all those obvious technical beats. Second, you still have to make interesting choices. Giving your protagonist a goal is one of the most basic elements of storytelling there is. But that doesn’t mean any goal will work. In fact, 100 writers might come up with 100 different character goals. Your job is to beat out the other 99 writers and come up with the most interesting one. Take a movie like Back To The Future for instance. Imagine if once Marty got back to 1955, he didn’t have to get his mom and dad back together, but instead had to win a rock and roll contest at the high school. That choice would’ve made the movie way worse, right? So don’t just make choices, make bold and interesting choices.

THE FAUX MASTERPIECE
I’m going to give credit for this one to Jim Mercurio. When he spoke of the “faux masterpiece,” he described it like this: “That’s when you try to tackle something huge like a critical piece of history – the Holocaust, slavery, World War II – or try to set an expensive politically-charged love story against that sort of backdrop. You might be a deep thinker and have an unparalleled understanding of the subject, but as a beginning writer, your craft is not going to be able to do the story justice.” I’d expand this definition to include huge Lord of The Rings like fantasy epics, or overlong sci-fi epics like Avatar. These “masterpieces” require so much skill it’s terrifying. They need to be historically accurate on everything from the dialect to the activities people do. It’s hard enough to build a couple of interesting characters into a script. These scripts require dozens of characters, all of whom are usually thin and boring. With these extra characters come extra subplots. Weaving these subplots in and out of the central plot requires a tremendous amount of know-how for even a 100 page screenplay. There may be 10 screenwriters on the planet who know how to do it for a script that’s 150 pages. These scripts also tend to require an inordinately massive goal to keep the story interesting for such a long period of time (i.e. William Wallace’s pursuit of freedom for an entire country in Braveheart; The Marines trying to destroy the Na’vi homeland in Avatar) which amateur writers almost never include. It’s basically everything that’s hard about screenwriting times a thousand. That’s why taking on an epic masterpiece is…well…an epic mistake.

How to avoid it: I honestly wouldn’t touch an epic unless you’ve written at least seven scripts or a few novels.

THE ACCIDENTAL HOMAGE SCRIPT
Oh man, every writer is guilty of this one. The Accidental Homage script is a script where a writer goes out and sees a movie they love, then writes a script on a similar subject matter which ends up being THE EXACT SAME MOVIE. Young writers are the most susceptible to this because they haven’t yet trained themselves to recognize when they’re inadvertently copying material. The ideas flow through their fingertips as naturally as the breeze and they bang out 50 pages in 3 days, citing divine inspiration. They don’t realize that the reason it was so easy was because they were essentially writing a movie they’d already seen. This can happen with your favorite movies as well, although writers tend to be a little more aware when they’re copying those. Here’s the thing: Inspiration – true inspiration – is the best thing a writer can experience. It’s writer crack. But you have to keep an eye on it. You have to be aware of when the inspiration is coming from inside of you, or coming from the euphoric influence of that great movie you just saw.

How to avoid it: My suggestion would be to not write anything that sounds similar to a recent movie you loved. So if you saw District 9, don’t go home and write an alien invasion movie. It’s just too hard to be objective about the subject matter and you’ll inevitably use too much from the film, destroying any chance of your story being original.

THE COMEDY WITHOUT A STORY SCRIPT
Okay, I talk about this one a lot so pardon me if you’re tired of hearing it. This is the script I probably see the most of because the majority of people coming into the spec world start with comedies. It makes sense. Everyone thinks they’re funny. Everyone outside of Hollywood thinks they can write a better movie than the one they saw in the theater. You put those two together and you have a lot of writers crashing Hollywood with comedy specs. Roughly all of these attempts make the same mistake. There’s no story. OR, if there is a story, it’s so neutered as to be nonexistent. Instead, the writers come up with an idea that’s just use an excuse to string a bunch of funny scenes together. Little do they know that the second they decided to do that, any chance of writing a good script died. Why? Well, let’s say you have 10 good-to-great laughs in your script, which is a lot. That means we have to slog through 9 and a half minutes of pointless nothingness to get to that one laugh. Does that sound fun? That’s why I always say: Story first, comedy second. If you have a story, something where we’re actually interested, then those other 9 and a half pages are actually entertaining. They’re something to look forward to.

How to avoid it: When you’re writing your comedy, always put your story (and your characters) before the laughs. The irony is that the script will be funnier for it.

THE NEVER STUDIED STORYTELLING ON ANY LEVEL SCRIPT
Okay, this makes the “Comedy without a story” script look like Shakespeare. It invariably comes from a first timer and someone bold enough to believe they can write a good screenplay without any previous storytelling experience whatsoever. Signs of a NSSOALS? There is no overarching plot/character goal to speak of. The script reads as if the writer is making everything up as he/she goes along (because they are). The script often jumps back and forth between genres. Because the writer hasn’t learned how to build characters yet, the characters contradict themselves constantly (i.e. An introvert will try and get his friends to go out to a party). The writer often makes the mistake of infusing “real life” into the script, and is surprised when the randomness and lengthy dialogue scenes reminiscent of real life are categorized as boring by the reader. Instead of using screenplay real estate to develop already introduced characters, new characters are brought in as if they’re coming out of a clown car, even though they have no real connection to the story and we’ll never see them again. Seemingly important subplots will end lazily or disappear altogether. Characters tend to spend most of the story talking about their situations as opposed to being actively involved in situations. Since there’s no central goal for the main character, the writer rarely knows what to do with the ending (if there’s nothing being pursued, then there’s nothing to conclude). In short, the setup is confusing, the middle has no conflict, and the resolution is unsatisfying.

How to avoid it: Here’s the good news. These scripts are actually okay to write, as long as you don’t show them to anyone else! Your first few scripts should be for you and you only (or maybe a couple of close friends). I’m warning you, you don’t want to burn a potential great contact on one of your first three scripts. Make sure you know what you’re doing first. And hey, before you write anything, there’s nothing wrong with studying the basics of storytelling. There is an art to it that’s been around for hundreds of years. It wouldn’t hurt to study that art. Also read a ton of screenplays, both good and bad. The more you read, the more you’ll be able to spot all those negatives I listed above.

THE SURREALIST TRIBUTE SCRIPT
Finally, here’s a writer friend of mine who’s read twice as many scripts as I have. I told him what I was doing and asked if he wanted to submit any “script types to avoid.” His e-mail was cryptic and I’m still not entirely sure if he was sober, but this was his submission: The “oh-so-clever quasi-surrealist tribute to Bunuel and Fellini with a little Greenaway and a lot of Lynch thrown in amidst reams of dialogue that is nothing more than misquoted monologues taken from whatever novels the author happened to have on his bookshelf in order to impress female guests on Friday nights… and heaven forbid he should take the time to correct typos, grammatical blunders and unclear/incomplete visuals since all three are, of course, part of the ‘art’ of writing one of these brilliant opuses” script.

How to avoid it: I think I know what he’s talking about. These are those purposefully random scripts that are supposed to, like, have higher meaning ‘n stuff. Basically, the scripts are more about the writer proving how smart he is than they are about the story. These scripts invariably bring about a lot of eye-rolling. As always, ask yourself if you’re putting the story first. If not, stop writing.

Watch Scriptshadow on Sundays for book reviews by contributors Michael Stark and Matt Bird. We won’t be able to get one up every Sunday, but hopefully most Sundays. Here’s Stark with his review of The Man Who Ate The 747!

Welcome once again to Scriptshadow’s Sunday Review of Books where we make the jobs of sexy studio story editor’s even easier by picking some primo books that they need to be turning into flicks. Plus, for our faithful readers learning the craft, we suggest some light beach reading cause who really wants to get sand up in their laptops?

Today, watch me pull something out of my hat that I know our site’s creator will really like. It’s perhaps the magic hybrid producers have been in search of for decades now – A chick flick that guys will actually want to go see!

Don’t judge me cause I like the occasional chick flick. Maybe I’m just a little Estrogen dominant from all the bottled water and hormone injected happy meals I’ve had. Hell, those great screwball comedies of yesteryear were all romcoms – just with snappier dialogue, double beds and way better actors.

Ben Sherwood’s The Man Who Ate the 747 is a wonderful, old fashioned screwball comedy about an obsessed man who ingests a bunch of screws, bolts and metal shavings for the gorgeous gal he loves. This is something that would definitely appeal to old movie buffs, date night audiences and the whole Focus on the Family Crowd. The curb appeal is wide!

Why do I think this is a flick that guys would line up to see? The dude is eating a fucking plane!!! Ze Plane, Boss!!! He’s eating a Snakes on a fucking Plane plane!!! He’s eating a Joey, do-you-like-movies-about-gladiators Airplane!!! What real man wouldn’t want to see such extreme competitive eating?

Sherwood, a former producer for Good Morning America already has his second book, The Death and Life Of Charlie St. Cloud, heading towards the silver screen with Zach Effron in the lead. Old posts indicate that 747 was optioned by Bel Aire Entertainment and even at one point destined for Broadway as a musical. My research may be off, but nothing seems to have yet taken flight.

C’mon, Hollywood, let’s correct that error with a gentle nudge.

For the record, the book chronicles the story of the greatest love ever.
And, that chronicler should know. J.J. Smith has traveled the globe a few thousand times over for the World Book of Records. He has measured the world’s largest, unbroken apple peel; calculated the furthest flight of a champagne cork from an untampered bottle and documented the longest ever attack of the hiccups.

He is best friends with pole sitters, corn palace builders and the guy with the world’s longest and dirtiest fingernails. J.J. has a really cool, freaky job!!! Another excellent man-draw for the film. Groovy gig aside, the man is stuck with a head full of statistics and a heart hopelessly set on autopilot.

Luckily, hearts, like world records, are about to get broken!

We start out in Paris, where we find a couple pulling a tres romantic Robert Doisneau, trying to break the record for the longest kiss. Merde, they miss it by a mere four minutes and J.J. high tails it out of there. Second place means nada in his book.

Although J.J. specializes in the superlative, he is actually rather ordinary – an average man with average looks and an average height and weight. His parents didn’t exactly set him apart, saddling him with the truly unremarkable name of John Smith.

Written in 2000, we’re thankfully free of American Idol, Jackass and You Think You Can Dance. But, the World Book of Records still has some serious competition with Cops, When Animals Attack and America’s Most Awesome Videos. To save his job, J.J. now needs a story his readers can really sink their teeth into.

He finds that story from the santa-sack-sized-stack of letters that arrive daily to their office.

A story that takes him to America’s heartland – the small, small town of Superior, Nebraska. Now, I’ve spent a few years in a small town. It wasn’t anywheres as romantic. It was pretty much a rural prison sentence in one of the few places that Starbucks and Barnes & Nobles forgot.

Superior is a folksy, charming place chock-full of eccentric characters that would rival Twin Peaks, Stars Hollow and whatever fanciful town the Runaway Bride just couldn’t run away from.

Seems, a few years back, a 747 crashed landed in Wally Chubb’s field and he started eating it as a testimony of his pure (but unrequited) love for Willa Wyatt, the only person in town who dutifully showed up to his 10th Birthday party.

Note to producers, I see Karen Black safely landing that fucking plane in the flashback.

Willa (Can you say O Pioneers!) has grown up into a real firecracker, sticking around Superior to take over her dad’s newspaper. Now, what kind of screwball comedy would it be without a sharp shooting, crack reporter in the mix?

She has good reason to be suspicious of strangers. Traveling salesmen and hucksters have passed through here before, pursuing the beauty and breaking her heart. She’s pretty guarded when J.J. comes to town, trying to find the jet-eating curiosity. He may not be the slickest city slicker, but she vows to protect her quirky town from him and the media circus that soon follows.

And, of course, J.J. quickly falls head over heels in love with her.

Wally has no interest in breaking any records or getting an endorsement deal with Pepto Bismol, so J.J. has to connive and convince the farmer to continue his fancy feast. He needs the story so he can stay close to Willa – even if his great scoop may have some fatal colon-colliding-consequences!

I’m not gonna spoil any more of the nuts and bolts of the tale. Go read it. The Man Who Ate the 747 could be your next Nothing Sacred. Your next what??? For you whippersnappers without subscriptions to Turner Movie Classics, I recommend you start delving deeper into the history of cinema. There were some rather great romantic comedies made before Lopez and Anniston hijacked the genre.

Now, cause I want this filmed soooo badly, I might as well cast the whole project for you. I see the serious-sided Jim Carrey as J.J., Jenna Fischer as Willa and Patton Oswalt as Wally (cause the man is a damned underused genius). Get the writing team of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who wrote the freak fantasy dejour, Ripleys Believe It or Not, to adapt this to screen (Hell, I’d pimp myself for the gig, but there’s that pesky non-self-promotion clause in my Scriptshadow contract). And, to direct – Duh – Gary Marshall. For you newbies who just moaned, you best pick up a copy of his amazing bio. “Wake me Up When It’s Funny.” If you don’t soil yourself laughing while reading it, you are either an uber snob or in a vegetative state

What I learned: Whimsical is sometimes pretty hard to pull off. Especially in these United States. Set something far off in the Caribbeans and you can go all Gabriel Garcia Marquez on it. Place it in modern day America and you’ll have to tread more carefully. The TV show Pushing Daisies nailed it perfectly. Cougar Town, on the other side of the slug, better start watching its whimsy factor, Stat! Ugh, it’s like getting force-fed 18 bags of Mint Milanos every episode. Who knows? Maybe they’re willfully turning their audience into Foie Gras.

So, for discussion: How does one balance their magic and romance with their realism?

Stark’s further rantings and rave-ups about both trash and culture can be viewed here: http://www.michaelbstark.blogspot.com/