Genre: Drama
Premise: When a reclusive 600 pound online English teacher learns he’s going to die soon, he tries to reconnect with his rage-filled teenaged daughter, who hates him for destroying their family.
About: This is the next big Darren Aronofsky project. It will star Brendan Frasier, who you could say we’re going to be seeing a lot more of in more ways than one. Also starring will be Stranger Thing’s Sadie Sink. The script was written by Samuel D. Hunter, who has a thin Hollywood resume (heh heh, how could I resist?). He’s best known for writing 9 episodes of the eclectic FX show, Baskets. That made me think he originally wrote the script for Louie Anderson (who plays the breakout character from that show) before Aronofsky turned it into something bigger, but I guess The Whale is an adaptation of his own play.
Writer: Samuel D. Hunter
Details: 109 pages
You may not think of Aronofsky as a marketable director. You don’t go to the guy to direct your latest blockbuster IP. But I’d argue there’s no director who understands how to make money off dark material better than Aronofsky. Anyone can make half a billion dollars directing a Star Wars movie. But try to make 300 million dollars off a ballet thriller about a woman’s descent into madness.
That’s a special kind of skill, to be able to find dark subject matter that makes money for a studio. And I think Aronofsky has done it again with The Whale. Many people have a morbid obsession with hoarders and people who eat themselves to death, which is why you see entire reality TV shows dedicated to this stuff. Let’s see what Hunter and Aronofsky have come up with in this space and if it’s going to bring Frasier back into prominence.
Charlie is a 40-something 600 pound online English teacher who never leaves his apartment. Actually, the best way to describe Charlie is to show you the writer’s own introduction: “CHARLIE, a man in his 40s weighing around 600 pounds, is on the couch in front of his laptop, masturbating to gay porn.” I’ve never in all the scripts I’ve read read an introduction quite like that one. Bravo, lol.
Oh, but it gets worse. Charlie starts having heart palpitations while he’s watching the porn. When there’s a knock on his door from Thomas, a representative of the New Life Church, Charlie has no choice but to let him in. He shoves an essay about Moby Dick at Thomas and tells him to read it out loud. Confused, Thomas does, and for reasons we’ll find out later, the heart palpitations go away.
Soon after, Charlie’s only friend in the world, Liz, stops by and takes his blood pressure. It’s 238 over 134. Liz begs Charlie to go to the hospital but Charlie won’t. What’s the point? So they can extend his life a few months and charge him 200 grand for it? Liz says if Charlie doesn’t go to the hospital, he’ll be dead by the end of the week. Then I’ll be dead by the end of the week, Charlie says.
Because of that impeding death, Charlie calls his daughter, 17 year old Ellie, who he hasn’t spoken to since she was 4, and asks her to come by. Ellie is a rage-filled mess who hates everyone, especially her father. Through their conversations, we learn that Charlie left his wife and Ellie when she was 4 to be with a man. That man died a decade ago, and Charlie’s been eating ever since.
Since Ellie is flunking out of English, Charlie makes her a deal. He’s got all this money saved up. He’ll leave it all to her if she comes over every day and they work on her writing together. Ellie hates her father so much that she would rather jump in a pizza oven. But because there’s money involved, she begrudgingly agrees. Charlie endures his horribly abusive daughter in the hopes of changing her before he dies. But when his ex-wife learns of their relationship, she charges in in a blaze of glory, determined to shut it down for good.
This is a really sad script.
But it’s also a really good script.
Aronofsky has hit on a certain type of character that does well with audiences. That would be the character who is both sympathetic and broken. I think this is a lesson a lot of drama writers never learn. They get the ‘broken’ part right. But they forget the sympathy.
Let’s go over why both are important.
In The Whale, sympathy is built into the character. There’s no need to write any artificial ‘save the cat’ moments here. We’re going to feel sympathy for someone who is 600 pounds and has zero quality of life. So right off the bat, we’re rooting for this guy.
I think a lot of writers believe that, with drama, you want to be brazen and move away from “root for-a-ble” characters. They want anti-heroes. They want darkness. They want Melvin Udall. But the upside of making your protagonist sympathetic it that we’re more likely to care what happens to them. And that’s important for a drama.
But wait a minute, Carson. The big reason you write a drama instead of all of that soulless Hollywood garbage is so you can go dark with the characters, take chances with them, make them unique.
Where you explore darkness in dramas is in the hero’s brokenness. Dramas are rarely about plot. Instead, what you call “plot” is transferred over to the protagonist’s inner journey. The idea is that they’re broken and we want to see if they can be fixed. That arc of going from broken to fixed becomes the narrative.
Sometimes, they’re able to overcome this brokenness, like Joy Newsome in 2015’s “Room.” But other times, they are not, like Jack Maine in A Star is Born.
Which is an adequate way to describe The Whale. There really isn’t a plot here other than Charlie’s rapidly deteriorating health and this quasi-deal he makes with his daughter. That creates some form to the story. But if I’m being honest, this is the Charlie Show. We’re so fascinated by this guy that we just want to see if he’s going to make it. Or at least change.
Some of the hardest stuff to watch is Charlie eating endless piles of junk food despite the fact that he nearly has a heart attack every hour. One moment has him stumbling to the door to pick up his two large pizzas that have been left outside the doorway. Charlie can’t bend down so he has to use one of those extender-claws to pick the pizzas up. Because he’s so intent on getting those pizzas inside so he can start chowing down, he doesn’t notice that the delivery guy is still off to the side, so horrified by what he’s witnessing he can’t help but take a picture with his phone.
The Whale is the second movie review in a row where a writer has come up with a marketable idea that could be shot in one location cheaply. Yesterday we had Boiling Point. And today we have an even more contained premise. But what I love about The Whale is that the contained premise IS ORGANIC. What I mean by that is, the setup to keep it contained makes sense. A 600 pound man doesn’t leave his apartment. So obviously the movie is going to take place in one location.
Those are golden concepts, when you come up with that stuff. Because most contained concepts are artificially manufactured. Like that one that takes place up on a broken ski lift chair? Or Don’t Breathe? Come on.
There’s no point in holding the Best Actor race in 2022. This movie has already won Brendan Frasier the Oscar. But The Whale is going to be like a lot of Aronofsky’s movies. You’re going to watch it. It’s going to move you. It’s going to stay with you for the rest of your life. But you’re never going to watch it again. It’s too intense. It’s too sad. But, wow, it’s one hell of a character study.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: To find a character, zoom in on a primary personality trait and then keep hitting that trait over and over again. Ellie’s primary personality trait is that she likes to make people uncomfortable. Almost all of her dialogue pushes people, challenges people, agitates people. It leads to both an interesting and consistent character. Here’s a conversation she has in the middle of the movie with Thomas, the religious solicitor, after she’s taken a picture of him.
THOMAS: I really wish you wouldn’t do that.
ELLIE: Do you find me attractive?
THOMAS: (looks at her, caught off-guard) I–
ELLIE: Because I’m not attracted to you at all, just to let you know.
Pause. ELLIE looks at THOMAS, who is a little hurt. She rolls her eyes, gets up, goes into the kitchen, looking for food.
ELLIE: Oh my God grow up, maybe someone else finds you attractive, just not me. Maybe my dad finds you attractive.
A lot of writers write confusing or contradictory characters that the reader can never quite figure out. By zooming in on a single dominant personality trait and going back to that trait over and over again, you’re going to write a consistent memorable character.
We are gearing up for the big Christmas movie season. We’re about to get West Side Story. We’re about to get Don’t Look Up. We’re about to get Spider-Man. We’re about to get Matrix. Then, of course, we cap it off with the movie everyone wants the most, Mistletoe in Montana. I’m going to start waiting in line for that one tomorrow.
In the meantime, if you’re not up to date on the town’s entertainment output, you probably don’t know about the movie and TV show I’m about to bring to your attention. But you should be. Especially if you’re a screenwriter. Let me explain why.
Over the weekend, I had a script consultation and the script had one glaring weakness. See if you can guess what it was. The main character was a very enthusiastic person. He was part of a community that was very supportive of his endeavors. Every conversation he had with other characters went well. He almost always got what he wanted.
Anybody see the problem here?
That’s right. There wasn’t any CONFLICT in the story. And because there wasn’t any conflict, there was very little drama. If you don’t have drama, your scenes become a transfer of information. There’s very little entertainment value in information transfer. So infusing your script with conflict isn’t just a good idea. It’s vital to writing a great story.
This weekend, I watched two things that were PACKED with conflict. So if this is an area of your writing that needs improvement, drop everything you’re doing and watch these two things now.
Your first piece of entertainment is a movie called Boiling Point. It’s about a chef, Andy, who must make it through the busiest night of the year at his restaurant. At the very least, I want all of you to watch the first 20 minutes of this movie because it is a cornucopia of conflict.
Before we even get into the restaurant, Andy is on the phone, in the street, angrily talking to his ex-wife. He’s trying to manage their split, the child they have together, the logistics of moving into a new place. So before Andy enters an intense night, he’s already experiencing both conflict with his ex and conflict within himself, since all of this is making him furious.
Once Andy gets into the restaurant, he’s met with a health code inspector who’s annoyingly docking points from every member of the staff for the way they’re doing their jobs. The health code inspector then sits Andy down to explain to him all the things that are wrong with the restaurant.
It’s one of the better scenes I’ve watched in a while. The health code inspector meticulously goes through each issue that needs to be fixed and Andy doesn’t say a word. He just sits there, stewing, as each problem is conveyed. By the way, this is a fun little trick to write a good dialogue scene. Have one character do all the talking and the other character only speak through their expressions. These scenes tend to always work. More importantly, this scene is an example of how to do conflict without having two characters butting heads with each other. There’s still tons of conflict without Andy saying a thing. He hates this man more than anything in the universe and that’s what gives the scene life.
After the health inspector leaves, Andy lays into his staff for all the mistakes they made. Again, since he’s upset, every one of these interactions is packed with conflict. And, in some cases, the staff is just as angry at him. They point out that some of this stuff is his fault. So both sides are going at each other.
What’s so great about this movie is that the conflict never stops. Every single scene has a ton of it. I would even go so far as to say that there’s too much conflict. Sometimes you need a scene or two where the audience can decompress and Boiling Point doesn’t give you that. But for the purposes of teaching writers how to infuse scenes with conflict, this movie is amazing. And a little bonus feature is that the film is shot in a single take. So definitely check it out!
The second conflict-filled thing you should check out this December is the girl’s soccer team plane crash show, Yellowjackets. You might remember I reviewed this pilot back in the day and loved it. But you never know how these things are going to turn out so I kind of forgot about it. Well, somehow, they’ve taken a great pilot script and made it even better! The opening images you see in this show are beyond disturbing.
BUT! Sticking with the theme of today’s post, the main reason this show is so good is because it’s PACKED with CONFLICT. Every single freaking scene has conflict. Let’s look at one of the early sequences – the girl’s soccer team playing one of their rivals. I’ve read more sports games scenes than probably anyone in the world so I know how these scenes are usually written. It’s typically boring last second score-a-goal stuff and the team happily celebrating.
Instead, here, we get several of the girls conspiring to take out one of their own teammates because they don’t think she’s good enough to play at Nationals. So, right away, we’re prioritizing conflict over last-second cliche goaals. That’s how I want you guys to start thinking. Don’t think about how previous movies handled your scene. Because then you’re likely to copy them. Think about how you can infuse the most conflict into the scene.
By the way, this scene comes after the initial teaser where we see, many months after the crash, the girls participating in a ritualistic killing where they chase one of their teammates and try to kill her. If they succeed, they’ll eat her tonight. I mean, how much more conflict-filled can a scene get?
But the conflict in this show goes beyond that. When we meet the team, they’re not one big happy family. There are cliques inside the team. There are secret romances. There’s bullying. There are girls who flat out don’t like each other. The reason this is important is because when you infuse conflict into the characters and their relationships, you don’t have to come up with a new conflict idea for every scene because the conflict is already baked in. The characters are already carrying that conflict into the scene.
This is why you don’t write a bunch of characters who love each other and never have any issues with each other because every time you write scenes with them, there’s zero conflict baked into the scene.
But one of the things that’s so good about this show is that they not only bake conflict into the relationships, they still look to create conflict-filled scenarios ON TOP OF that. For those who aren’t good at math, that’s double the conflict.
For example, in the second episode, one of the girls finds a lake five miles away. So the team has to decide if they should stay here at the crash sight or move to the water. Just by introducing a decision, you have conflict. Because, obviously, some girls are going to want to leave and some are going to want to stay.
You then get the added “conflict within conflict” from the individual relationships. For example, two of the girls, Jackie and Shauna, are in a secret relationship. Jackie is the more popular of the two and Shauna feels lucky to have her. Jackie is adamant about staying at the crash site. But Shauna thinks they have a better chance of survival near the water. Does Shauna vote to help the team survive or vote to keep her girlfriend happy? That’s what double-conflict gives you.
This show is becoming popular fast for a lot of reasons. It’s just a cool idea and has great execution. But with TV, especially, you need to be great at conflict because you’re writing sooooo mannnnnyyy scenes over the course of a season. And if the large majority of those scenes aren’t conflict-filled, your show isn’t going to last. So if this something you’re not good at or a part of your writing you think you can improve, watch this show now. You won’t regret it!
So a funny thing happened recently.
A writer by the name of Ron Brawler ordered my logline service (it’s just $25 for the basic service and $40 for the deluxe – carsonreeves1@gmail.com) and this was the logline he sent me…
Title: Guitar Lessons
Logline: When an aging guitar god is reduced to giving guitar lessons to snarky teenagers and snippety baby-boomers, he feels his life is over. But maybe it’s only begun.
I liked the first half of the logline but anybody who knows me knows I detest the vague logline ending “…but maybe it’s only just begun.” So after requesting more information about his story, specifically what Ron meant by “but maybe it’s only begun,” I was able to help him come up with something more specific.
Title: Guitar Lessons
Logline: An aging guitar god, whose life has been reduced to giving snarky teenagers and snippety baby-boomers guitar lessons, is shocked when his old bandmate shows up proposing they audition for an American Idol-type reality show.
Here’s where the fun began. After we finished, Ron asked me, “Okay, so, wanna read the script now?”
He wasn’t trying to trap me or anything but, in a sense, that’s what he had done. Here he’d paid for my logline service to make the logline great. He’d gotten my guarantee that this was the best possible version of the logline. Shouldn’t I, then, want to read his script? I literally put my stamp of approval on it!
I was momentary flummoxed by the request. He’s right, I thought. I *should* want to read his script. The very nature of me not wanting to read his script would be confirmation that I didn’t do my job well enough.
The dilemma resolved itself a few moments later as I realized the answer: A logline and a concept are two different things. A concept is the movie idea you come up with. It’s dinosaurs on an island. It’s a young white woman who takes her black boyfriend home to meet her parents. It’s a girl’s soccer team whose plane crashes in the remote wilderness and they become cannibals. That’s concept.
The logline’s job, meanwhile, is to be the best possible representation of that concept. One way to think of it is, you’ve written an amazing song. Now you need the best singer to sing it. Because if William Hung sings your beautiful song, it’s not going to sound beautiful, is it?
In the case of this specific logline, I thought the concept was fun. But did I think it was amazing enough to carve two hours out of an extremely busy week to read it? No. It wasn’t at that level conceptually.
This brought me to another realization, which was that all this business is, is finding people who like the same things you do. This particular movie idea took place in the music industry. I’m not a big music industry guy. Hence, I wasn’t burning to read it.
Conversely, had this been some cool sci-fi time travel idea like Source Code, one of my favorite scripts ever, I would’ve been interested. I’m also looking for a great plane crash idea. If that pops up in my e-mail, you will have my attention.
I bring this up to remind everyone that it’s not just a numbers game in the concept department, but in regards to subject matter as well. You need to find people who like the same topics, the same ideas, the same subject matter, the same genres that you do.
I remember how frustrating it was trying to get my own scripts read back in the day. The hustle was real. I still remember one instance where this tech guy I knew was looking to make movies and he’d recently hired a head of production. He told me that if he was going to finance my road trip movie, I would need to win the production head over. So I set up a lunch with this guy and, after some small talk, started to pitch him. I distinctly remember his eyes glazing over as I went over my story. He wasn’t just disinterested in my idea. He actively hated it, as well as the fact that he was stuck with me for the next hour.
I used to get so down about these encounters. But now that I’m on the other side, I laugh at them. So the guy hated road trip movies. So what!? Does that mean everyone hates road trip movies? Of course not. However, too many writers, including myself at the time, think a rejection like that is the end of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. All it means is that you and this other guy don’t see eye to eye. That’s it. Move on.
Now can you improve the percentages so that more people like your stuff? Of course. Write a concept that has broader appeal! The broader the appeal, the more it cuts through pre-established preferences. I don’t actively go to the theater to watch shark movies. But shark movies always do well. So if you send me a good shark concept, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll check it out.
All of this speaks to the nature of concept generation. It’s something you want to be thinking about obsessively. If you want a script you won’t have to query the snot out of Hollywood with, come up with a broad appeal concept. The Sixth Sense, Yesterday, A Quiet Place, Free Guy. You’ll bump up the bite rate to 40, 50, even 60%.
If you want to write a script that’s more about what you, personally, are interested in – The Mule, First Man, Ladybird, Bridge of Spies, my road trip movie – be aware that you will have to query a lot more people and endure a lot more no’s.
Will a great logline on a personal story improve the number of read requests you get? Of course. A great logline will get you more reads than a lousy logline. But your logline has a ceiling. And that ceiling is your concept. The best a logline can do is clearly and succinctly capture your concept.
Now, let’s say Ron had sent me a Back to the Future type concept (my favorite movie ever) that I helped him create the perfect logline for. He then asked me the same question: “Okay, so you want to read my script now?”
I still would’ve hesitated. Why? Because 97 out of 100 amateur scripts I read aren’t good. This is not the writer’s fault. It’s all the writers before him’s fault. They’ve put this number in my head, whereby I know there’s only a 3% chance the script is going to be worth my time. So my first thought is always, “I have so many things I have to do today. Do I really have time to gamble on a script from an unknown writer?” I hate that the answer to that is ‘no’ but I’ll ask you guys, when’s the last time you carved out two hours to read a script from a writer you don’t know?
Which goes back to the best advice I can give any writer: go into battle with the best possible concept you can come up with. Only write scripts that have a really good idea that’s easy to pitch. It solves SOOOO many problems. It makes your life SOOOOO much easier. A great idea makes me forget the percentages.
And there’s a light at the end of this tunnel. Once you’re in the system and people know your name, they’ll read your scripts just because it’s you. Which means you can write personal stories again. But when you’re an unknown, the only way to become known is to go big. Which is why it’s best to write a concept that’s ‘talk about worthy.’ What’s ‘talk about worthy?’ It’s when the person you send your query to can’t wait to tell someone else about your idea. “Oh my God. You’ll never believe the idea this guy just sent me…”. That’s when you know you have a great idea.
To summarize, you first need to come up with a great idea (your concept). Once you’ve done that, write a logline that best conveys that idea. You then query producers, managers, executives, agents, and prodcos. The broader your concept’s appeal, the more requests to read the script you’ll get. More reads equals a better chance that someone of importance will find your script and want to do something with it.
Simple right?
So, what concepts do Scriptshadow readers have cooking up this week?
We take a look at the Black List script that got the writer the job for the now infamous upcoming movie, Cocaine Bear
Genre: Home Invasion
Premise: A pop star, a basketball player, and a bodyguard will need to defend against a crazed fan and his cronies who invade her home.
About: This script received 11 votes on last year’s Black List. It is written by Jimmy Warden, who wrote the sequel to Brian Duffield’s “The Babysitter” and, more recently, the script to the much buzzed about “Cocaine Bear.” I’m assuming this script got Warden the writing job for Cocaine Bear.
Writer: Jimmy Warden
Details: 97 pages
There is a group of people out there who are OBSESSED with the 1992 movie The Bodyguard starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. That movie may be only second to Goonies in number of scripts I get that are trying to remake past films.
I kind of understand it. Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner were such an untraditional pairing and those untraditional pairs are often what audiences become mesmerized by. Still, I’m not sure I understand the obsession people have with this film, an obsession that has clearly influenced today’s screenplay.
It’s 1994 and 40-something William Bell is a bodyguard for 20-something Sofia, a Grammy-winning pop star who’s part Lady Gaga, part Carmen Electra, and part Ariana Grande. One night, a crazed fan named Duerson shows up to Sofia’s mansion and when Bell answers the door, Duerson stabs him.
Cut to six months later and we meet Sofia for the first time. She saw pictures of a Dennis Rodman like basketball player named Devante Rhodes and did the 1994 version of slipping into his DMs (she got her people to contact him) and now he’s over at her place for some hanky-panky.
It’s clear that Sofia does this all the time. In fact, she’s got a drawer where she keeps newspaper clippings of all the celebrities she’s banged. Which is too bad because Rhodes likes her and wants something more. While the two chat, Bell shows up for the first time in six months. He’s back on the job finally and, this time, he’s not going to take crazed fans for granted.
That new approach will be tested because it turns out Duerson has just broken out of the crazy ward! He’s teamed up with a giant scary man named J.H. and a psychotic French woman named Penny to go right back to Sofia’s mansion and take what he wants!
Bell then gets a call from his new girlfriend, who’s babysitting his daughter. There’s a strange man outside their apartment (it’s J.H.) and she thinks he’s going to harm them. Bell has to leave Sofia and, as soon as he does, Duerson and Penny charge into the house and take Sofia hostage. If you’re wondering why a 6 foot 8 monster of a basketball player is unable to protect Sofia from these two little scrawny gnats, join the club!
J.H. is somehow able to kidnap Bell, his girlfriend, and his daughter (does this guy have like 12 arms?), drive them back to Sofia’s house, all in time for Duerson to reveal his plan: He’s going to marry Sofia! He’s even kidnapped a minister to officiate the wedding. Will Duerson succeed? Or will crazy win once again??
Today I want to make a distinction between the three ingredients that make up a screenplay: Writing, Craftsmanship, and Storytelling. You need to be good in at least two of the three to write a good script. But your goal should be to become good at all of them. Let’s take a look at what each consists of.
Writing – Writing is the way in which you construct your words, your sentences, your paragraphs. It’s the prose you bring to the script to make it pretty, clear, and visual. When you read the description of a room, that’s writing. When you read the description of a character, that’s writing. This is usually what you see in the novel world. Since words are the final form of the medium, most published authors are good at it.
Craftsmanship – Craftsmanship is the ability to incorporate screenwriting-specific tools in an effortless invisible way. For example, understanding that you have to make your main character likable then writing a scene that conveys that likability – that’s craftsmanship. Understanding that a good scene needs to start late and end early – that’s craftsmanship. Coming up with a flaw for your main character, incorporating a theme, knowing where to put the inciting incident – all of that is craftsmanship.
Storytelling – Storytelling is the creative side of the equation. It’s not about being a wordsmith. It’s not about technique. It’s about how imaginative you are. Are you coming up with exciting plot points and story developments? Are you building a unique world that feels fresh and new? Introducing a surprising twist, like the Mary Jane father twist in Spiderman: Homecoming, that’s storytelling. Constructing a really cool spaceship chase, like we got in the beginning of Star Wars, that’s storytelling. The slow and careful infiltration of a poor family taking over a rich family’s home in Parasite, that’s storytelling. Any time you come up with a great scene idea or a great moment for your latest script, that falls under storytelling.
The reason I bring this up is because a lot of writers look at a screenplay as one big blob of writing and therefore don’t know how to pinpoint their weaknesses and improve them. But if you apply this separation, you can better understand where your weaknesses lie.
When I started reading Borderline, I was impressed by the writing.
The interplay between detailed visuals and playful commentary made the pages enjoyable to read.
But the craftsmanship in this script is sorely lacking. For example, there is zero attempt to make Sofia likable on any level. Why would we like a cold hearted bitch who uses people for sex, is disgusted by them when they show vulnerability, then disposes of them after a single night?
The reason this particular component of craftsmanship is so important is because the whole movie is about protecting this woman. If we don’t like her, why would we care if she’s harmed or not? You know what I mean? That’s not a minor craftsmanship screwup. That’s a MAJOR craftsmanship screwup.
Don’t get me wrong, you can get away with making characters a$$holes. But not if the entire movie depends on us liking them.
Another part of craftsmanship is character consistency. Duerson is introduced as an off-the-rails lunatic who can’t tell up from down. He seems to have stumbled upon Sofia’s house at the beginning of the story, almost by accident. Then, after he escapes from the mental institution, he’s all of a sudden Tom Cruise, putting together a Mission Impossible style attack team, complete with kidnappings, misdirects, and time-sensitive coordination. Which is it? Can the guy barely tie his shoes or is he a mastermind?
The storytelling side isn’t great either. Warden makes one interesting choice later in the screenplay (spoiler) when he kills off the main character. But every other creative choice feels rushed, like it was conceived during a feverish 24 hour writing session. Good storytelling has meticulous setups and payoffs. We can tell the writer has a plan that he’s carefully building towards. We don’t get any of that here. It’s mass chaos, a bunch of sloppy story beats carelessly cobbled together.
If you like home invasion movies, you might want to give this a shot. And I suppose if you’re making an argument for Warden, he’s got a chaotic off-the-rails style that some people dig, which is probably how he got Cocaine Bear. But I just found the script to be messy. There was no sophistication to the storytelling at all. I couldn’t get into it.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: CHARACTER INTRO DELAYS. One pet peeve I have is when a screenplay mentions a character before they’ve been introduced. For example, sometimes I’ll read a script where we get a voice over from a character – let’s call him “Jason” – who I’ve never heard of until that moment. JASON V.O.: “I grew up in a small town outside Dallas.” Or maybe we’ll meet a character who hasn’t been introduced yet on the other side of a phone call. Or as one of the characters in a family picture we’re looking at. In screenplays, it’s important that when a character comes into a screenplay YOU INTRODUCE THEM PROPERLY. You give them a capitalized name, an age, and some description. This is a cue to the reader that: This is a new character in the script! If you do it any other way, you risk the reader being confused. Of them thinking, “Wait, who is this person? Were they already introduced? Why don’t I remember them?” However, if you absolutely must delay the official character introduction, Warden shows you how to do it. Here’s the proper protocol for a character intro delay.
Genre: Family/Kids
Premise: A 10 year old boy deals with his family’s extreme poverty by reconnecting with his old imaginary friend, a giant purple cat.
About: This is the first movie James Mangold signed onto after the success of Logan. It comes from unknown screenwriter Frederick Seton. The story is based on a popular children’s book by Katherine Applegate, who won the 2013 Newbery Medal for her children’s novel, The One and Only Ivan.
Writer: Frederick Seton (based on the book by Katherine Applegate)
Details: 118 pages
I always find it interesting when directors known for dark material make kids films. Cause you know it isn’t going to be your typical kid’s film. Not to mention, dark kids films are the ones that stick with you for life. From Willy Wonka to Coraline to The Dark Crystal to Time Bandits to Where The Wild Things Are. That’s what I’m expecting when I see James Mangold (Logan) directing a family film.
By the way, I always tell screenwriters that if you want to learn how to write a screenplay, write a kid’s film. Kids movies teach you all the things you need to learn in order to write a good story. They require you to build sympathy for your main character, establish a character so that we instantly understand them (think John Connor hacking an ATM machine in T2), how to set up a goal that drives the story, how to establish high stakes, how to write in three acts, how to apply a theme, how to arc a character.
The great thing about kids films is that they’re a lot more forgiving because the audience isn’t as discerning. Let’s say you go over the top in establishing that your hero’s main flaw is that he’s selfish. You won’t get dinged on that compared to if you did so in an adult drama. Which makes this genre a great training ground.
“Crenshaw” follows a 10 year old boy named Jackson whose parents, Thomas and Sarah, are reallllllly poor. Jackson loves facts, which he spits out randomly to anyone who will listen: “Did you know that most adult moths don’t eat? Some don’t even have mouths. They’re just alive to make more moths and then they die.”
He, his parents, and his younger sister, live in a tiny house with tinier rooms and the tiniest of comforts. Both parents are unemployed, Thomas because he has MS and Sarah because she lost her job recently. What that means is they’re weeks away from losing the house, in which case they’ll have to, once again, live out of their old VW van.
One day, while Jackson is at the beach, he spots a giant purple cat surfing. This is Crenshaw, an imaginary friend from when Jackson was 5 years old. Crenshaw speaks with a British accent and cares mainly about having fun and helping Jackson. Jackson’s number one priority at the moment is getting a present for a friend’s birthday party. Because Jackson doesn’t have any money, he doesn’t know how he’s going to buy the present.
Meanwhile, Jackson’s parents are prepping for a garage sale, in which they hope to make enough money to keep their house. Sarah clearly doesn’t think the garage sale is going to work. She believes that the only reason they’re in this predicament is because of Thomas’s pride. He refuses to ask others for help. Which means, barring some miracle, they’ll be homeless again soon.
Oddly, Jackson and Crenshaw never discuss this problem, focusing instead on the way less important birthday present they need to find. Crenshaw seems to randomly show up every 20 pages or so asking for an update. And he isn’t very helpful in getting this present. In fact, Crenshaw isn’t very helpful at all. In fact, I have no idea why Crenshaw is even in this movie. Suffice it to say, this was a mess of a story that didn’t seem to have a plan or a point.
The industry parlance for figuring out the story in your movie is called “cracking” it. Well, they definitely did not crack Crenshaw. There are more problems with this screenplay than I can count. Luckily, there’s a lot to learn about what not to do in a family movie… or any movie for that matter. Let’s go down that list, shall we?
Jackson has zero influence on the story. He doesn’t do anything. He waits around, complains some. But he’s not contributing to the main problem facing him – which is that his family is going to be homeless soon. A main character who doesn’t act, who doesn’t have any control over where the story goes, is a weak character.
If I stopped there, that’s still enough to sink a screenplay. You need your main character to be active and to be doing things that solve the central problems he’s faced with.
There isn’t really a plot here. There are two things driving the story (technically speaking). One is the birthday present he has to buy. The other is them potentially losing their home. Let’s start with the present. The kid who invites Jackson to his party clearly likes him. For that reason, the gift doesn’t matter. You never get the sense that the friend will treat him differently if he comes without a gift.
This is why I say family scripts are great training grounds because this is where you learn this stuff. The stakes are low. So how do we make them higher? Well, what if this kid never wanted to invite Jackson? What if he only invites him because his parents make him? Under that scenario, Jackson’s present now matters. He wants this kid to like him. He feels like if he can get him the perfect gift, he’ll win over his friendship. That choice alone would improve this script by 20%.
As far as the homelessness, it’s dealt with in a really weird way, where it sort of pops up for ten pages then disappears for fifteen. It pops up again. Then it’s gone. Due to this inconsistency, it doesn’t feel important, which leaves very little gas in the plot tank.
You want to think of your screenplay as a car. But, unlike a car, which runs on regular gas, a script needs “plot point gas.” It needs a series of plot points to propel it along. Without those plot points, the car/screenplay isn’t going anywhere.
For example, in the recent movie, 8-Bit Christmas, which follows a kid who’s trying to get his dream Christmas present, a Nintendo Entertainment System, one of the plot points in the second act is the Boy Scouts are giving away a first place prize of a Nintendo to the scout who can sell the most Christmas wreaths. That plot point propels the characters to do something (sell wreaths) which pushes the plot along.
There don’t seem to be any plot points that develop along the way in regards to losing the house. It’s spoken of generally, leaving it up to the reader to figure out when they’re losing the house and what they’ll do afterwards.
I guess this isn’t surprising considering “Crenshaw” doesn’t even pass a basic storytelling smell test. Why have a titular imaginary cat that doesn’t affect the story? Doesn’t try to fix the problem? Doesn’t help the main character do anything? It’s bizarre how little both he and Jackson have to do in this movie.
Although there are all sorts of problems with this script, the main one boils down to a weak plot. The writer sets two goals – a present for a birthday party and a family about to lose their house – and doesn’t seem interested in resolving either one. For a story to work, the main character must be desperate to solve the problem. That will make them active. And their activity will ensure that there’s always something going on in the plot. If they’re only kind of invested, as is the case here, you’re going to put your audience to sleep.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: This is a trick I’ve learned through reading a lot of family scripts. When you have an animated character, such as Garfield or Clifford or Sonic – mention a well-known actor/personality to convey what the character sounds like. To see how effective this is, let’s say I wrote a movie about a talking mouse named Lenny. “Lenny sounds like Will Ferrell.” “Lenny sounds like Morgan Freeman.” “Lenny sounds like Morpheus from The Matrix.” “Lenny sounds like Ryan Reynolds.” “Lenny sounds like Matthew McConaughey.” Note how each person mentioned gives the character a distinct identity that helps you immediately understand them. I wish Crenshaw would’ve done this because I never quite knew what he sounded like.
