Genre: Comedy/Drama/Thriller?
Premise: (from Black List) Ready for a night of partying, a group of Black and Latino college students must weigh the pros and cons of calling the police when faced with an emergency
About: This script finished in the top 15 of last year’s Black List. It started off as a short film, which helped the writer, K.D. Davila, sell it to Netflix.
Writer: K.D. Davila
Details: 120 pages
Being so busy this week, I find myself even more focused on a script’s page length than usual. If I see 120 pages when I open a script, I am taking a deep breath, then spending the next 120 seconds trying not to yell at my screen.
But let’s say your script is going to be long and there’s nothing you can do about that. Are you screwed? No, you are not. You can still save yourself by making the script EASY TO READ. That means paragraphs that are 3 lines or less. That means sharp concise sentences. It means a commitment to making the eyes move down the page as fast as possible.
But if you violate BOTH of these principles? If your script is 120+ pages AND it’s written in a big slow chunky manner? Prepare for a reader’s wrath. The other day I was going to review Ghost Army, the Ben Affleck project about deception tactics in World War 2. The page count was 120. And the first page? Well, I’ll let you see it for yourselves:
Is there any other script in history that wants to be hated more by readers than this one?
I bring this up because Emergency is 120 pages but when I opened it, I saw that the writing was sparse and clean. So I knew it wasn’t going to be a slog. Well, I knew it wouldn’t be a slog on the *writing* end. As for the *story* side of the equation, let’s find out together.
Our story is set at the fictional Buchanan University, a woke white college with only a few minority students. Two of those minorities are Kunle, a black 21 year old who comes from a family of doctors, and Sean, a black 21 year old who comes from a low-income neighborhood. The two are best friends and roommates.
On their way to an epic night out, Sean and Kunle come home to find an unconscious white girl in their room. Naturally, the two freak out, not only because there’s a potentially dead person in their place but because it does not look good if there’s an incapacitated white girl in two black men’s apartment.
Luckily, the girl wakes up. But she can barely speak. After an argument about whether to call the police or not, the two decide instead to bring the girl to the hospital. They recruit their buddy, Carlos, throw the girl in the car, and off they go.
Halfway there, they come across a frat party and figure the girl’s night must have originated there. Sean has the idea to leave the girl at the party, which Kunle things is the dumbest idea ever. After another argument, they decide to stick to their original plan of getting her to the hospital.
Meanwhile, we cut to drunk girl’s sister, Maddy, who’s looking for Drunky. It’s here where we learn that Maddy’s sister is still in high school! Meaning Sean and Kunle are going to look even worse if they’re caught with this girl.
We follow the two groups around town as Maddy gets closer and closer to locating her sister. When they finally collide, Maddy takes the reins to get her sister to the hospital, with Kunle in tow. Halfway there, the drunk sister goes into cardiac arrest, forcing Kunle to perform CPR. Also, right at that moment, a cop car chirps behind them, forcing the car to a stop. The cops then move in, and we get a big climactic confrontation that may result in someone losing their life. But who will it be???
“Emergency” is a hard to describe script. It’s Weekend at Bernie’s meets Harold and Kumar meets Crash meets… The Hangover, maybe? If that sounds like an impossible combo, that is my thought as well. The tone here is very hard to get a handle on.
The final scene is a good example of this. Here we have this girl dying and this guy giving her CPR, and in order to keep the CPR rhythm, he’s singing to himself, “Staying Alive” (a commonly suggested tune to hum when you’re giving CPR, as it mirrors the compression rhythm). I suppose there’s a way to shoot this where it sounds more tragic than humorous. But to me it just felt goofy.
The script very much has a “Weekend at Bernie’s” vibe to it. They’re dragging this mumbling girl around just like Bernie was dragged around. And yet it intermittently takes on serious subject matter. There will be intense discussions about racism, for example. So the thought in the back of my head the whole time I was reading this was, “What is this movie?” I could never wrap my brain around it.
But the script does have some high points. There’s a nice conflict at the heart of Sean and Kunle’s friendship. Kunle is privileged. Sam is not. That creates tension in their relationship. A good screenplay will do exactly this. The writer will figure out, via backstory, where the problems are in a relationship so that when the shit hits the fan and those characters are stressed, you have conflict ready to go between the two. It doesn’t need to be manufactured on the spot.
And despite my critique of the “Staying Alive” moment, the last scene of the movie is intense. I know that because I was on the edge of my seat saying, “Is somebody about to get killed here??” My guess is that this scene was the focus of the short film that inspired this script. Because it’s clearly the most thought-out scene in the screenplay.
I wouldn’t say everything else in the script was filler. But little else was necessary. The stakes were never high enough for us to care what happened over the first two acts. I kept thinking to myself, “What’s the worst that can happen here? The girl’s sister finds them, Sean and Kunle give the drunk girl back, the end.”
Instead, the sister finds them, keeps her distance, calls the cops, the cops think she’s racist for assuming that her sister hanging out with black guys means they’re kidnapping her. So then it’s back to the sister following them around some more.
A story has to evolve. It can’t keep hitting the same beats the whole way through. Last year’s Oscar winner, Parasite, keeps evolving its story. Every 15 pages something new happens that changes the story (a new family member enters the house, a secret basement is discovered). Driving around in circles is not evolving the story.
“Emergency” is one great scene and a script in search of justifying everything that comes before it. With higher stakes and a tighter grip on its tone, I probably would’ve recommended this one.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the ways I can spot a weak script is if there’s a character who’s getting a lot of screen time that I know nothing about. And the reason I know nothing about them is because the writer hasn’t done the work to figure the character out and understand why they’re in the story. Carlos is one of the main characters here. He gets pulled into this with his roommates, Sean and Kunle. But he barely says anything and he barely does anything of note. If you’re going to give a character more than six scenes, they need to have some depth, some arc. Or else, you probably want to drop the character.
What does a producer do anyway? Maybe today’s post will give you an idea.
Today’s post is an informal continuation of yesterday’s contest winner announcement. So if you haven’t read that post, check it out.
Today, I thought I’d share a little of my producing journey with you in the hopes that you gain some perspective on what happens with a screenplay once it’s hurled into the system.
When you’re a producer with a script and you’re trying to make a movie, your end goal is basically one thing: find financing. Cause you can’t make a movie without money. So the question becomes, how do you get that money? And this is where things get tricky because there are a lot of paths you can take to get to that point.
Unfortunately, you cannot get financing based on your script alone. I’m sure it’s happened before. But there’s not enough meat there for people to invest in. That doesn’t mean a script is worthless. Quite the opposite. A good script with a bankable premise is what ATTRACTS the other elements that help get a film financed.
Probably the most common way to do this is to get a bankable actor attached. Once you do that, it’s easier to the get the money because the bank can justify giving money to a project with an actor who has a successful financial performance record.
Another way is to go after a director. The great thing about directors is they’re closer to the “make a movie” finish line than actors. These are the guys who physically make the film. So if David Fincher wants to make your movie, all he has to do is snap his fingers and off you go (unless it’s something with an enormous budget, like World War Z 2).
But both of these angles have limitations. Let’s say you want to get the script to Bradley Cooper (or Bradley Cooper’s people). Sounds like a good plan, right? Get Bradley Cooper involved in your project and it’s a ‘go’ movie. Well, guess what? EVERYONE wants Bradley Cooper to be the star of their movie. So they’re all calling Bradley and pitching their projects. And some of those people pitching are named Todd Phillips. Some of them are named the Russo Brothers. Where do you think you rank on that priority list?
Then you have directors, who bring their own unique challenges to the table. When an actor makes a movie, it may be three months of their life. When a director makes a movie, it’s closer to three years of their life. For that reason, directors tend to be very choosy with their projects. Unlike actors, who can say, “It’s a small time commitment. I can shoot this in less than a month,” directors tend not to attach themselves to something unless they really really love the project.
Why is this relevant? Well, you could spend three months of your life trying to get an A-List director to read your script only for a highly likely (we’re talking 98%) “no.” And, in the meantime, you just lost a ton of momentum.
Now, of course, if an actor or a director needs money, they tend to be a little more lenient in their decision-making process. But those tend to be people who aren’t in demand as much and who wouldn’t move the needle on your project much anyway. So do you really want to go that route?
All of this leads us to the worst thing about making movies: WAITING. The bigger the fish you’re trying to hook, the longer you’re going to wait. Could I get Kinetic in front of Bradley Cooper’s eyes? Probably. Everybody knows everybody in Hollywood so you usually know someone who knows someone close enough that they could get your script to that person. But because it’s not some giant Warner Brothers priority project they’re being sent, who knows when Bradley Cooper (or even his people) are going to read it.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, you have actors who are not of Bradley Cooper’s caliber, but who can still get movies made. It’s way easier to get scripts to these people. And since these people aren’t getting the cream-of-the-crop material, when they come across a script that’s actually good, they’re more likely to want to make it.
But therein lies the dilemma. When you go this route, the project you’re making isn’t as sexy. And because it isn’t as sexy, the budget isn’t as high. And because the budget isn’t as high, the production value isn’t going to be as good. Which means the movie’s not going to look as good. Which means you’re probably not going to get that wide release everybody producer dreams of.
BUT! And this is a huge BUT. You got a movie made. Getting a smaller version of your movie made is always better than never making your movie at all.
These are not the only paths either. You could try and sell the script to a studio, in which case the studio would take control over the project and do all this stuff for you. Of course, their version of actor and director are probably going to be different from what you imagined and most likely be based on who the studio has good relationships with. Didn’t imagine Logan Paul as your salt-of-the-earth blue collar trucker lead? Too bad. Someone over at the studio just made a movie with him and wants to keep him in the fold.
Yet another option is to go the agency route. Packaging is what turned agencies into mega-businesses. You set your writer up with an agent at CAA or WME and that agent looks at their full client list and they say, “This movie would be good with Johnny Walters starring and Hans Friedberg directing.” Because those two are under the company umbrella, the lit agent walks over to the talent agent, suggests the idea, which the talent agent loves, and calls can be made to the talent immediately. You could put one of these packages together in the time it takes to fly to London. Well, maybe not London. But Bombay.
But that direction has its drawbacks as well. These big agencies have so much inner-company politics going on that they’re not always doing what’s best for the project. For example, if you’re Relatively New Agent and your writer has a script you think would be great for Christian Bale, your boss may tell you that Senior Agent’s project is getting Christian Bale’s attention right now so you’re not allowed to talk to Christian Bale. But, you know, Paul Bettany is available. You can send the script to him. The agent will then call the writer and, for reasons the writer is totally ignorant about, go on a 20 minute monologue about how great of an actor Paul Bettany is and, oh yeah, maybe you should think about him for the lead.
It may sound like I’m complaining about this but I’m actually not. I just find all the little nooks and crannies of trying to make a movie fascinating. You really have to sit down and strategize to figure out what the best route is. Cause each route has its own unique maze you have to manage your way through.
I also think it’s good for you, the screenwriter, to know this. Once you understand the challenges of getting a project to the finish line, you realize how important it is to come up with a script that a) has a great concept and b) people can’t put down. Cause the best defense for tired people with too much Hollywood bullshit on their mind is a great script. That’s the script that’s most likely to become a movie.
I know this post was a little off-brand but I hope you enjoyed it. :)
KINETIC by Chris Dennis!!!!!
Here’s the logline for Kinetic: “Following a harrowing phone call while out on the road, a long haul trucker with a tormented past must deliver a tank of liquid crystal meth before sundown in order to save his pregnant wife.”
If you missed it, you can see all five finalist loglines here.
To be honest, today’s winner was a difficult call. Crescent City, Mother Redeemer, and Kinetic were neck and neck all weekend as I tried to decide who the winner was. The argument for Crescent City was its deep interesting mythology, its modern lead character, its enormous potential as a franchise, and it being the highest concept of the bunch. The argument for Mother Redeemer was that it had the best character development, the lowest budget, and has an amazing third act. Mark my words, when this movie gets made, the line “I’m the Mother Redeemer, motherf#cker,” will be one of the most quoted lines of the year.
In the end, the reason Kinetic edged out the others is that it knew exactly what it wanted to be and gives the audience exactly what they want. This is a good old fashioned action movie. It’s about a dude in a truck who some bad people decide to f*ck with and in the process they unleash the kraken. There’s no other script in the top 5 that has a clearer poster or trailer than Kinetic.
It’s The Equalizer. It’s John Wick. It’s Taken. But wrapped in this dirty messy rural universe. Clay, the main character, feels like a descendent of the cowboys from those old Clint Eastwood movies. And the trucker angle is just unique enough to set this movie apart from its influences. This is the blue collar version of Taken. And I have no doubt there’s a huge audience for that.
On top of all that, I see franchise potential. This main character is such a badass that he could carry three or four more Kinetic movies if we want. That factored into the win as well. Because like I told you guys from the very beginning of this contest. I wanted to find MOVIES. Not scripts. MOVIES. And this is the most movie script of all 2000 entries I received.
There’s one more thing that pushed Kinetic over the edge. The main character, Clay, is surprisingly deep for an action movie hero. Chris Dennis, the writer, explains what he was thinking when he conceived of the character:
“Clay isn’t your typical one-dimensional hero seen in this sort of script. He’s broken. He’s unsure of himself. He’s planned out this life with his wife but he’s not sold on it. Only when he realizes that he’s about to lose it all does he steel himself to recover it at all costs. There’s been mention of the cocaine scene in the truck, the one where Clay is forced by his captor to snort it off the steering wheel. The cocaine isn’t his ‘Popeye spinach’… no. It’s symbolic of this life he’s worked desperately to put behind him. The hurt, the loss, the pain of everything he’s experienced encapsulated in that thin white line. And when that asshole puts a gun to his head and forces him to partake, Clay sees that life he’s built starting to crumble, and realizes that the only way out is if he takes matters into his own hands. It’s devastating for him in the moment, but if he doesn’t act, what follows will be even more heartbreaking!”
If you’re wondering how Chris wrote such a great script, his story should be inspiring to all of you. It’s basically what I’ve been telling you guys all along. Keep writing, keep reading, and keep learning. You do that long enough, you’re going to write something great. Here’s Chris on how he got to this point:
“For a brief time I thought I wanted to direct films, even went to school for it, but as I became more aware of the movie making process, I was instinctively drawn to how films looked on the page, which led me to buying Syd Fields’ classic, “Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting.” From there, I started to track down the screenplays of my favorite movies to read and compare them with how they looked on the screen, which helped me understand how the written word is translated visually (I also read a certain spectacular blog! – Carson note: I added the word “spectacular”). I played around with writing screenplays for a bit, wrote some absolutely utter crap, but it was around ’08/’09 that I fully committed to taking writing more seriously, to really try to hone my craft and find my voice. I scheduled time to write; tried to never miss a day unless I absolutely had to. Ever since then I’ve made it a goal to write 2-3 feature length screenplays a year – some years it’s easy, others it feels like a monumental task (and that was in pre-pandemic times!).
“A lot of people pause when I tell them I’ve been at this for over a decade now without ‘breaking in.’ Sure, it’s a loooooooong time, I know, but I keep going because deep down I love screenwriting. It satisfies some strange desire in me, and I figure if I love it enough to do it for free, it’ll be that much more fulfilling the moment someone wants to write a check for me to do it. Plus I’m an optimist… I just know my next script is going to be my best. I won’t say the journey’s been easy… not at all. The entire time I’ve been writing I’ve had to juggle a ton of obligations, ranging from full-time jobs to being a husband and a father to 3 kids under the age of ten. But I still find time to write. I wake up at 3 am before the rest of my day starts to write. I stay up late on the weekends to write. And much to the chagrin of my wife, I often skip out on non-essential family functions to write. Why? Because I love it, and because deep down I know that I still need to hone my craft.
“Though I’ve yet to ‘break in,’ I have some modest success in contests along the way, which keeps signaling to me that I’m on the right path. I’m a 3-time Page Awards winner (Grand Prize shy of the Grand Slam), a 3-time Launch Pad Feature Finalist, WeScreenplay Feature winner, along with high placements in several other contests. Now I can add another to this list — THE LAST GREAT SCREENPLAY CONTEST!!!!!!!!!!”
I also asked Chris what inspired him to write Kinetic specifically:
“The seed of the idea came to me while driving and listening to the song “Thinking On A Woman,” by Colter Wall. The song is kind of a lamentation on the tragic side of long-haul trucking… about missed time, lost love, and the vices a man turns to in order to ease his troubled mind. I had been on the search for an idea that was somewhat contained, so I took the character of this song and flipped his situation. What if he’s overcome his demons? They’re there, sure, but he’s managing to keep them at bay. And what if he’s on his last haul, heading home to a pregnant wife to leave this lonely life on the road for good? But what if that happy life he’s heading home to is suddenly put into jeopardy? What lengths would this man go to in order to preserve that little slice of heaven that he’s built?
So with that as my jumping off point, I molded this truck driving character, Clay Cutler, as a disgraced Special Forces veteran and a recovering addict, who’s nearly got his life back in order when the shit hits the fan and he has to overcome obstacle after obstacle to get that life back. I set out to write an old school action flick with no filler, semi-contained (pun intended), with one hero and one goal: to get his wife and unborn child back, no matter what it takes. And once Clay makes that decision, there’s nothing that’s going to stop him.”
As I’m reading back Chris’s answers, I’m reminded of something else I loved about the script – the recklessness of both the story and its hero. I’ve been reading a lot of screenplays lately where the writers let up on the gas, which leaves the script feeling neutered. Kinetic, true to its title, barrels forward in a way that other writers are scared to do. It’s almost like they’re afraid they’ll be unable to keep it up til the last page. Kinetic is this don’t-stop-til-the-last-credit-rolls force of nature. It really wants to deliver on its promise for a great fun action movie. And it does that.
So what’s next for Kinetic, Chris, and myself?
GETTING THIS MOVIE MADE, BABY!
I’ve just started talking to close contacts about Kinetic. I’m trying to find out which production houses want to make a movie like this. I’m going to be coming after Original Film (Fast and Furious guys). I’m going to be coming after 87Eleven (Stahelski and Leitch’s company). G-Base (Gerard Butler’s company) is going to get a call. Atlas Entertainment. Village Roadshow. Thunder Road. Millenium.
And hey, if you’re a production house that makes movies like Kinetic and you’re reading this post right now, E-MAIL ME (carsonreeves1@gmail.com). I’ll jump on Zoom with you tomorrow and if we click, we’ll set this up somewhere by the end of the week! I see this as a slam dunk. It’s not a matter of if it will get made. It’s a matter of who makes it with us.
Congratulations to Chris Dennis one more time. By this time next year I hope we’ll be sharing with you all the crazy stories from the set. :)
WANT YOUR OWN SCRIPTSHADOW GLORY? – This is a reminder that the next Amateur Showdown (High Concept Showdown – where only high concept scripts can compete) is coming in March! So get those scripts ready! If you don’t know what a high concept is, check out this post here…
Amateur Showdown Genre: HIGH CONCEPT
Where: Entries should be sent to carsonreeves3@gmail.com
What: Include title, genre, logline, why you think your script deserves a shot, and a PDF of your script!
Entries Due: Thursday, March 4, 6:00pm Pacific Time
Genre: Dramedy/Musical
Premise: A terminally ill, improvident father spends the last day of his life touring NYC with his estranged daughter, and has only a few hours to right a lifetime of wrongs…and make 1.2 million dollars.
About: This is the 6TH BEST SCRIPT from my contest, which had over 2000 entries. The Misery Index also finished Top 50 in last year’s Nichol contest.
Writer: David Burton
Details: 97 pages
If my contest were awarding scripts for how interesting they were, Osculum Inflame would be number one on the list. The Misery Index would be number two. It’s sort of like Big Fish meets Little Miss Sunshine. It’s one of those scripts that you’re not sure what to do with. And I mean that in a good way. You feel the power of something special being presented. Yet you’re not sure what to do with that power. Maybe you guys can help.
40-something New Yorker, Harvey Winters, has been informed by his doctor that he’s got inoperable cancer and he’s going to die. So on the one day of the week he gets to see his daughter, 11 year-old Chloe, he decides to apply for a 20 thousand dollar loan in the hopes that he and Chloe can turn it into 1.2 million dollars. Why 1.2 million dollars? We’re not told yet.
Harvey is a talker. He’s got a lot of things to say. Whereas your average dad will check his phone and point when you ask him where you’re headed, this is a typical Harvey response: “This way. Definitely this way. Two blocks until we get to the cafe where Crazy Joey Gallo was gunned down by Albert Anastacio in front of his children. Then we turn right and carry on until we see the apartment building where Kitty Genovese was repeatedly stabbed while 38 onlookers did nothing. From there, it’s a breeze.”
Harvey appears to have two goals here – have fun with his daughter and look for opportunities to make money. The first stop is a boxing match in Little Italy. Harvey plans to bet on himself to win. But when his opponent turns out to be a really good female kangaroo, he gets knocked out in the first round. This sends Harvey back to the hospital, where they inform him that the head-hit has given him a unique condition where he imagines everyone breaking into song. Which means the rest of our script is part-musical.
The next stop is an old genius stock broker friend of Harvey’s, a guy who was so smart, he invented “The Misery Index,” which can basically predict catastrophe with 75% accuracy. But it turns out his buddy’s gone a little cuckoo, a fact that is confirmed when he randomly hops out of their moving cab to avoid the government.
Harvey and Chloe attempt to get back some of those losses by participating in the 110th Annual Saddest Song In New York Contest. Harvey recruits a lookalike for the once famous artist, Christopher Cross, to help him win. But Fake Cross is on a different career path these days, and instead of singing one of his classic saddies, he sings a new song about killing his new girlfriend for cheating on him. They don’t win.
To add insult to injury, Fake Christopher Cross steals Harvey’s suitcase of money when he’s not looking, and disappears. This leaves Harvey, who’s terminally ill, penniless and prone to breaking into song, with nothing. Well, except for Chloe. And he figures that’s how it should be. Who cares about money and things and forced song singing when you have the most beautiful perfect daughter in the world with you for a day? Yeah, Harvey’s just fine with how this day ended up.
Take a look at these first ten pages if you get a chance. They’re REALLY good. Harvey, through voice over, tells us this complex backstory about how he ended up with cancer. It’s so unique and specific and fun that if this were a First 10 Pages Contest, this script would’ve won.
David is also really good with dialogue. Here’s Harvey describing to Chloe the day he proposed to her mother:
That fun back and forth banter between the two lasts the entire script and it’s one of many things that helped the script stand out. Another thing David did well was take us through a city we’ve seen tens of thousands of times before and made it feel different. This is important so pay attention. Especially if you’re a new writer. Most writers give us the version of something we already expect.
So if the movie is set in New York, the newbie writer is going to give us Time’s Square. We’re going to get the Empire State Building. We’ll of course have a major scene in Central Park. This script is not that. We do go to some well-known places, such as Little Italy, but the next thing you know we’re in an underground boxing match. I never knew where they were going next. It felt like an adventure in a far off land. Not New York City.
Another thing I liked was the choice to make the movie one day. Whenever you’re experimenting – writing something unique – consider condensing the time frame. It artificially gives a story structure it normally wouldn’t have. Without the one-day thing, you’ve got a dying man wandering around New York for weeks or months on end. It’s much harder to structure a story around that. This kept things tight.
However, even with that constraint, we still run into one of Misery Index’s biggest problems. It’s not clear what we’re doing here. We’ve got a suitcase full of money which we’re trying to turn into a lot more money but we’re not sure why. The reason this is problematic is that audiences struggle to root for characters when the consequences of their journey are unclear. Let’s say Harvey fails to turn the money into 1.2 million, what’s changed? Nothing. He didn’t succeed. But we didn’t know what he was trying to do anyway. So we don’t even know what he’s failed at.
I suppose the argument would be that the desire to make 1.2 million is a mystery and audiences will want to see that mystery solved. And we do eventually find out what the money is for. But I know, for me, I was more frustrated than curious about the plan. I wanted to know what the reason was we were doing all this.
I think if this script is going to reach its full potential, it needs a clearer destination. Sure, Little Miss Sunshine’s beauty pageant had zero stakes attached to it. But it still gave the movie a laser-like focus. Wherever we were in that movie, we always knew that they needed to get to that beauty pageant.
The question is, does David’s insane level of talent overshadow this weak story goal? And I think the answer to that question will change depending on who’s reading this. Because my mind kept changing throughout the script. One scene I’m like, “Yes!” Next scene I’m like, “No!” Next say I’m back to “Yes!” again. I mean what other writer on the planet casually drops a Mexican Independent Baseball Association backstory subplot into a screenplay? As far as I know, David is the only one.
I’m curious if that talent is enough to win you guys over. The good news is, we can all find out together. Download the script here!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: HARVEY: “No. Christopher Cross has bushy hair and a big beard. He looks cool.” CHRIS: “Ah. Well, see, that’s Christopher Cross from 1980. I’m a Christopher Cross 2019 lookalike.” —- Don’t date your script by adding dates! Present dates and years are bad for your script. Why? Because let’s say you’re reading a script that references the year 2017. What are you going to think? Obviously, that the script was written in 2017. Which means the script is now FOUR YEARS OLD. Seasoned readers will immediately wonder why hasn’t it been able to attract any serious attention in those four years? It’s evil but this is how the reader’s mind works. So stay away from years if possible. But if you must use a year, stay on top of it. Always change it when the new year comes!
Genre: Horror
Premise: When an airborne chemical attack causes widespread madness, a woman drives cross-country in an airtight van to rescue her son after his father becomes violently insane.
About: This script finished number 7 in my contest, which had over 2000 entries! Jeff loves feedback and was adamant I post his script. So you can download it at the end of this review and give Jeff any notes you want. He’s got thick skin!
Writer: Jeff Debing
Details: 112 pages
Almost Airtight NEARLY made it into the Top 5!
It’s a nifty little concept we haven’t seen before. The air is contaminated and the only place of refuge is this specially designed truck that’s airtight. It gives the story a contained setting, but not contained in a way that we’re used to. This contained location is always on the move, giving us both contained and un-contained at the same time, which I thought was neat.
So why didn’t this cool ass concept make it into the Top 5? You’ll have to keep reading to find out.
When we meet 30 year old Quinn, she’s sweating and barely alive. Her car has crashed and she’s passed out. Since it’s 90+ degrees outside, she’s nearly suffocated. To make matters worse, her seven year old son, Jackson, is dead in the back seat. Or nearly dead. It’s not clear yet. Onlookers who’ve found the van break the windows and pull the two out.
Cut to a year later and Quinn is in the nuthouse. Everyone thinks she deliberately tried to kill her son. Took a bunch of bye-bye pills then drove them into a barricade. Quinn has a different recollection of events. Her prescription was changed. And her husband forgot to tell her that her son was sleeping in the back seat of the car. She didn’t even know he was there. Which version is true? We may never know.
When Quinn goes out for her daily walk, she notices an unusual number of fireworks being ignited, popping off in the sky. She gets a call from her son, now 8. It turns out the group saved him that day. “Dad’s killing the animals on the farm” Jackson tells his mom. As in, violently killing them. She asks for more details. Her husband is acting like a rabid animal. Quinn quickly realizes how dire the situation is and tells her son to hide. Hide right now.
Moments later, a van pulls up and two people in big scary containment-type suits grab Quinn and pull her in. Once inside, they take off their suits. It’s her scientist father, Kingston, and his co-worker, Nancy. Those fireworks everyone is hearing? They ain’t fireworks. They’re some sort of weapon that’s driving people insane. Quinn is skeptical until she sees people attacking each other on the side of the road. WTF is going on??
Kingston explains that these “airbursts” were exploding weeks ago. Their government-funded lab was able to study them, which is why Kingston created this van – it’s airtight. The psychosis-inducing contamination from the airbursts can’t get in. Quinn says that’s all great and everything but she needs to get to her son and save him. No, Jackson says. We need to get to the airport and fly to a secure location or we’re all dead.
Unfortunately, at the airport, they’re attacked by the infected pilot, who decapitates Kingston’s co-worker and shoots Kingston. Quinn is able to get her father back in the van and hightail it out of there, but her dad is seriously injured and isn’t going to live long.
Cut to a “hello” in the back of the van. A fourth member, Ashwood, a therapist at Kingston’s facility, chimes in and asks Quinn to please release him. Kingston kidnapped him and chained him to the truck. It’s one more annoying thing Quinn has to worry about.
Despite Ashwood’s pleas to drive to the secure bunker where they can wait out the end of the world, Quinn heads cross-country to save her son. But along the way she meets crazed hitchhikers, insane gas station customers, evil car-crash victims – all of whom are determined to do one thing: Kill and maim anybody who comes their way.
A good high-concept movie has a simple set of powerful rules. Once you establish those rules, you can play around inside of them. And the playing is the fun part. You establish Neo’s abilities and limitations in The Matrix then square him off against Agent Smith in the subway station.
I liked the rules here. Airbursts are contaminating every area they explode over. People who inhale the contaminated air go insane. The only refuge is this airtight van, which has been constructed specifically to deal with this problem.
If you go outside of the van, you must wear a contamination suit. You can’t run around willy-nilly. Restrictions are good in a screenplay. They make things harder on your characters. And that’s what you want. The fact that things are hard mean your characters must work harder to overcome all the challenges.
The script has a clean GSU setup as well. We have the clear goal – get to and save the son. Stakes – if she doesn’t, the father will kill him. Urgency – the son may literally be found by his father at any time. So time is of the highest importance in this script.
From there, the idea is to add enough obstacles, both small and large, that make the journey dramatically entertaining. With every obstacle or setback, we must wonder if they, our heroes, are going to make it.
Contributing to the fun was the mystery behind the contaminated air. Who was doing this? Was it local? Foreign? Extraterrestrial? We get clues but we’re never quite sure. A powerful mystery added to a powerful goal is the starting point for a lot of great movies. So structurally this script was… well… airtight!
The reason Almost Airtight (which probably needs a title change to, just, “Airtight”) didn’t make the Top 5 is that it incorporated a trope that I’ve never been fond of – the “Is the main character crazy and imagining this or not?” trope.
Some people like that question. It’s resulted in movies like Shutter Island and Black Swan. For me, however, it can too easily be used as a crutch. It all goes back to the “It was just a dream” explanation. You can include a dozen outlandish scenarios throughout your movie if all that’s needed to explain them is “Surprise, the hero is crazy!” I prefer the steady hand of a screenwriting surgeon who expertly carves out a series of intricate setups that organically come together in a surprising payoff.
I don’t dislike all of these movies. The ones I gravitate to are the ones where the writer exhibits a steady hand. His choices are tight and deliberate and can be explained rationally. “Joker” is a good example of this. Most of the movie was grounded in reality. It was only in retrospect that we realized we weren’t always being shown the truth.
Another risk you run when you go that route is: what if the reader liked the real-life version of the story? If you then tell them that none of it was real, they’re going to be disappointed. The further we got into this story, the more evidence there was that this might be an alien attack. I WAS INTO THAT because I’m a big alien guy. I like aliens. So when I’m told, “Nope, it was probably in her head,” I felt let down.
In the end, though, my decision came down to whether I could produce it or not. Road trip movies are deceptively difficult to make because you’re in the car a lot, which is never easy to shoot. You have a lot of different “on location” set-ups, which get expensive. So, in the end, I had to weigh how much I liked the script against how much it was going to cost and how difficult it would be to shoot. And my dislike of the ‘Is she crazy or not’ trope was the tiebreaker. If that wasn’t there and I loved everything else about the script, the scales might’ve tipped the other way.
Still, this was an entertaining script and could even get up to impressive territory if there was a tighter point-of-view. Vacillating so much between “it’s real” and “it’s fake” is preventing the script from finding its lane, in my opinion.
Download the script here! – Almost Airtight
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Urgency doesn’t have to be a set number. Not every “U” in “GSU” needs to be, “If you don’t pay the ransom, we kill your daughter in 24 hours.” As long as it’s clear that time is short and there are stakes attached, you have urgency. Notice that here, in Almost Airtight, there is no set number regarding Quinn’s son’s danger. But we know he doesn’t have long. That his father might find him at any moment. That will work just fine for the urgency in your story.
What I learned 2: One of the interesting things about moving from script analysis to producing is the way in which I judge a script. I’m not nearly as caught up in small or medium mistakes. For example, if the fourth-biggest character in the script is annoying, I don’t scream, “Screw this script!” and throw it away. Instead I think, “That’s easy to fix in a rewrite.” The end game for me now is: “Is there a movie here?” If I like the concept and I think a profitable movie can be made then every small to medium “problem” in the script can be overcome. But if there’s something at the heart of the script that doesn’t work for me? I know that kind of thing is going to take multiple rewrites. It always does. And because the script will be changing so much, there’s no guarantee that the rewrites will even make the script better. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. And what sucks is it usually takes six months to find out.
