First off, congratulations to everyone who got their script in before the deadline. You’re probably wondering how many screenplays I’ve received and the answer is I’m not sure because I haven’t counted them all yet. But it’s somewhere between 800-1200.
I’ve read the first 10 pages of 50 of those scripts. It’s been a fun exercise so far. You never know what you’re going to get. Literally, someone sent me a script with the message, “Fun Fact: I wrote this entire script on my cell phone.” And then, in the very next entry I got a Nicholl winner. So the level of competition is all over the place.
Let’s start by detailing my filtering system. I’ve created four folders. They are, “YES,” “MAYBE HIGH,” “MAYBE LOW,” and “NO.” A “Yes” means the first ten pages were really good! When I go back for my second round of reading, I will read the entire script for any “Yes.”
“Maybe High,” means that the pages held some promise but they weren’t good enough to get me jumping up and down like I did with the yeses. When I go back for my second round of reads, I will at least read these scripts to the midpoint. If I’m bored at the midpoint, sayonara.
“Maybe Low,” is a script that hasn’t kept my interest through the first ten pages but there’s something tugging at me to give it a second chance. It may be that I like the writing. It may be that while the plotting is weak, there’s a character I’m curious about. During the second round of reads, I’ll read at least another ten pages of these scripts and, if they manage to reel me back in, I’ll keep reading.
A “No” script is pretty clear. I’m done with that script. A “no” script can basically be broken down into two categories. There are writers that can’t even write properly, like the “I wrote my script on a cell phone” guy, and then boring scripts. These are writers who obviously know the basic principles of screenwriting but their first ten pages were boring.
And if there’s one big tip to give off these first 50 reads, it’s one we discuss all the time here on Scriptshadow, which makes it all the more frustrating that it continues to be a problem.
That tip is, start off with something interesting happening. Now “interesting” is a subjective term, obviously. Some people found Hamilton interesting. I did not. But here’s a new definition for your screenwriting dictionary. Whatever you think is interesting enough to capture a reader in the first ten pages, TRIPLE that and now your scene actually has a chance at being interesting.
Cause there were a lot of opening scenes where the writer could make the technical argument that something interesting was happening. But the scene was still lame.
For example, a common start to a script is a dead body. Or a murder that just happened. Now you may say to yourself, “That’s INTERESTING!” Except that you’re competing against hundreds of other scripts that start with a dead body or a murder. So what are you going to bring to the table that’s going to make your opening murder scene more interesting than everybody else’s?
And then we have the writers who start with their characters going through their day. They wake up. They make breakfast. They do chores. I mean, come on. Even if you’re attempting a “quiet before the storm” scenario, I’m already bored on page 4 of your script. That’s the last place you a want a reader to be.
The best script I’ve read so far DOES start with a “quiet before the storm” moment but the ‘quiet’ part lasts HALF A PAGE. Not four pages. Or eight pages. Screenplays are like New York real estate. You can’t buy the land and put up some lazy generic building. You’re competing with 50,000 other buildings. You have to stand out somehow.
Anyway, back to my process.
I start off by reading the first ten pages. I do not read the logline. I avoid this because I want to see if the writing and the story pulls me in without a logline. However, if I’m struggling through the first ten, I will go back to the e-mail and check if it’s a good logline. I do this to hopefully give the read a boost, as, assuming it’s a good logline, I’ll go back into the script with more optimism.
I also check the logline after every ten page read regardless.
Now to the results so far. I have 42 “No’s” so far. I have 5 “Maybe Lows.” I have 2 “Maybe Highs.” And I have exactly 1 “Yes.”
What did the yes do that got me to say yes? Hmm, let’s see. It was a very graphic opening scene that grabbed me right away. The writer used some irony in that we start the script with a little girl walking and then she stumbles upon something that is basically the most horrible thing you can imagine. Actually, you can’t imagine it. And that’s actually a good point to note. What the girl saw was literally something I’ve never seen before. 98% of these other scripts are giving me the same stuff I’ve seen already. The same images. The same characters. The same tricks. So it really matters when someone shows me something I haven’t seen before.
But it wasn’t just that. The writing was colorful. It did a great job pulling me into the writer’s world. This is something that a lot of “NO” writers struggled with. Their writing was generic. Bland. The words and phrasing they used were basic and common. So it was hard to get pulled into their worlds. And, to be honest, when someone wrote like that, it was accompanied by similar problems in other areas. The dialogue would be very basic and bland. The scenes themselves would be unimaginative and bland.
With that said, I’ve read a couple of entries that had the opposite problem. They were vastly overwritten. So even though they were painting a more visual movie on the page than the bland writers, the paragraphs went on for too long, the words became too numerous, and it got to the point where it was gumming up the read.
Lol, so I understand your frustrations. This craft is tough. You have to strike that perfect balance.
Another common scenario I ran into was the abbreviated “exciting” opening that was then followed by 9 boring pages. It’s almost as if these writers said, “FINE, I’ll give you your exciting opening. But then I’m going to set up all my characters and my plot gosh darnit!” So they get the teaser out of the way as quickly as possible so they can say they did their job of hooking the reader right away, then follow that with nine pages of setup sauce.
It doesn’t work that way. You’re not supposed to begrudgingly give the reader their “entertainment” so that you can get on with the “more important stuff.” Regardless of whether you’re writing “fun” or “serious” scenes, they should always ALWAYS be entertaining.
As for how this is going to go moving forward. I’m going to read through this first round of 10 pages. Then I will do my second round where I start reading the good scripts in more depth, which I’ll share with you when that starts. And then I’ll probably have a group of scripts where I have to figure out who wins. Whether that be one person, two people. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried that no script was good to enough to win. That’s happened to me before in a contest. But we’ll just hope that doesn’t happen here, lol.
I think I originally said I’ll announce the winner (along with the close-call scripts) somewhere around mid-September. But that’s going to be pushed back with the extended deadline and all the Covid stuff. So I’m expecting I’ll announce the winner somewhere between mid-September and mid-October. But don’t worry, I’ll be keeping you updated. I’m probably going to use these Thursday entries to talk about the contest. So you can always check back every Thursday to get the latest.
And one last thing. If you ever happen to write a screenplay on your cell phone, don’t use that as your marketing pitch for why people should read your script. :)
Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A woman wakes up on a spaceship that has landed on a distant planet but has no memory of how she got there or why her uniform is covered in blood.
About: This came from the 2018 Hit List. I’ll paste the info from there about the writer: “Jonni is a German-Brazilian screenwriter who has seen every inch of the globe. Born in Switzerland and raised in Spain, he moved to London to get his degree in Film & Television Production. Since then, he’s worked in advertising and the broadcast department for the London Olympics. He’s recently found himself in New York where he received his MFA in writing from Tisch School of Arts. Since finishing ASH, Jonni is working on several projects for both film and TV.”
Writer: Jonni Remmler
Details: 108 pages
It’s been a rough few days. I suffered through ten hours of people singing and dancing about the Constitution. After that, I battled through a script that had more description in it than the Bible if it were translated by Leo Tolstoy. And while my gym has finally reopened, they’ve mandated that I wear the equivalent of a hazmat suit to work out. As if I didn’t have enough excuses not to go the gym already!
It was clear what was needed. The ultimate Scriptshadow picker-upper. The thing that got me juiced to start this website in the first place. The SCI-FI SPEC! To me, sci-fi and spec screenplays are the screenwriting world’s equivalent of peanut butter and jelly, the special sauce in an In and Out burger, the blinking “Hot Now” sign on the Krispy Kreme marquee.
I needed a shot of all those things directly into my bloodstream. So take a trip with me into outer space, Adam Driver Inside Llewyn Davis style. Link hands script friends and pour yourself a milky way sarsaparilla. Actually, pour the drink first, then link hands. We’re about to be blasted off into spec script nirvana. At least I hope we are…
28 year-old Riya has just woken up in a strange futuristic room. Her uniform is covered in blood, seemingly from a large gash in her forehead. The large metallic room has all its furniture pushed up against the only door. Riya stumbles over and looks through the window in the door. There’s a hallway with a large blood stain in it. Uh-oh, don’t want to go in there.
Luckily, there’s an automatic food processor in the room so Riya can easily stay fed. In the meantime, she tries to figure out how she got here, and we experience that with her via flashbacks. She remembers earth, something about the planet dying, and possibly being part of a crew that may have fled the planet.
Eventually, Riya gets out of the room and starts seeing dead members of her crew, who all seem to have been beaten to death. She also finds a window to the outside, and that’s when she realizes she’s on some distant volcanic planet. Riya continues to remember bits and pieces of her past and zeroes in on how one member of her team, Jones, is missing. She must be the one who’s killing everybody.
Before Riya can test this hypothesis, a man named Brion shows up. He says he came down from an orbiting ship that’s part of the same team she’s on. And that he’s here because SHE sent a distress call. Since a sand storm is moving in, they’ll have to wait two days to walk back to his shuttle.
In the meantime, they try to find Jones. But, of course, there is no Jones. (spoilers!) Brion ultimately reveals himself to be the killer. And to make things worse, he’s not even human. He’s an alien entity from this planet who has slipped inside Riya’s own brain! Which means that Brion isn’t even real. Brion, aka the alien, is Riya herself. Unable to process that she’s the killer, Riya asks what happens next. Brion explains that he will slowly consume all her brain functions and she’ll cease to exist. The End.
There’s nothing bad about this script. In fact, it would’ve easily passed the Last Screenplay Contest First 10 Pages Challenge. Waking up into a strange situation with no memory of how you got there is an easy way to quickly pull readers in.
But this is the definition of what all screenwriters should be wary of: the standard execution screenplay. Standard Execution is when you have a concept and you execute it the same way 99% of other screenwriters would’ve executed it.
A girl wakes up on a spaceship with amnesia.
There’s a mystery about someone killing crew members.
A mysterious man shows up outside. Wants to be let in. He appears to be friendly. But is he?
I’ve read this exact scenario in screenplays, maybe 250 times. Not long ago, we reviewed a script about how earth lost all its oxygen and a family in a bunker lets in a couple of strangers. So it’s a common setup. And to be clear, it’s used a lot because it works. But it only works when you play with the formula in unexpected ways.
And while I wouldn’t say this feels exactly like other films. It’s familiar enough that you’re always ahead of it. That’s where you don’t want to be as a writer. ESPECIALLY if it’s a mystery script like this one. Because the whole point of adding a mystery is to give the reader an unknown experience, something where they’re constantly trying to figure out what’s going on and then you keep pulling the rug out from under them.
I’m not sure anybody reads this and doesn’t know that Riya is the one who killed everyone long before the third act reveal occurs.
Another thing I wanted to point out was there’s this prevailing belief that budgetary constraints lead to more creative choices. When 90s vagabond director Robert Rodriquez was the hottest thing in Hollywood for making an $8000 movie, he would talk about this all the time.
But I’m not so sure this is true. Because while I read this, it felt like a lot of uninspired choices were made due to wanting to keep the movie cheap. Like the fact that there’s an alien involved, but he’s always strategically in human form. Humans are cheaper to shoot than aliens. But aliens are so much cooler than humans. So did budgetary constraints in this instance really make the movie better?
And now that we’ve had some distance from Robert Rodriquez’s filmmaking heyday, can we really say that the choices in his movies made them any better? He’s certainly good at making a lot of goofy nonsense. But maybe we shouldn’t be taking advice from a guy who’s basically become the D-level version of James Cameron.
All of this is to say that special effects are getting cheaper by the year. The Stagecraft technology that they use on The Mandalorian shows just how far a dollar can go these days. So yes, you want to be aware of budget as a screenwriter. I’m not telling you to write World War 7 set on Mars in 2744. But don’t let it handcuff you if you have a really cool idea in an otherwise low-budget film.
Again, I didn’t dislike this script. I always get excited when I read a sci-fi spec and I’m always looking for the writer who’s come up with the next Source Code. I’ll continue to champion everyone writing in this genre. But this script played out too predictably for me. It needed to take more chances in its plotting.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the things you should be trying to do in a script is make your characters sound different from one another. But never do this at the expense of logic. So here, Brion comes in and he says things like, “You don’t remember none of that.” He likes to use the word “ain’t” occasionally. Astronauts are some of the most highly educated people in the world and, therefore, would never talk like this. So yes on talking differently. No on talking nonsensically. (note: this is *sort of* explained at the end but not convincingly enough to void this lesson).
Genre: Slasher/Dark Comedy
Premise: (from Black List) Swept up in the excitement of her wedding day, Dr. Julie Wheeler is oblivious to the killer on her guest list, who is methodically stalking her nearest and dearest, until its too late.
About: This is going to be a little weird because I’m writing this “About” section AFTER I’ve written the review. I do this occasionally because when I look somebody up ahead of a review, I find that their success (or lack of) influences what I write. It’s better when I read the script knowing nothing. That’s when I’m the most honest. So count me both surprised and not surprised when I found out that Jessica Knoll was a successful novelist (her novel, “Luckiest Girl Alive” has almost 4000 ratings on Amazon, which is super hard to achieve). You’ll notice in the things I talk about in the review why her being a novelist makes sense. Anyway, this looks to be Knoll’s first screenplay. Or, at least, the first one she’s sent out to people.
Writer: Jessica Knoll
Details: 108 pages
It’s really hard to find fun premises like today’s on the 2019 Black List. Check out a couple of the loglines I had to wade through to get to this one… “An absent mother attempts to reconnect with her daughter by relaying to her how she helped her own parent through battles with cancer and addiction.” Sounds like a page-turner. “A brother and sister navigate the perils of both man and nature through Central America in their quest to find safety in the United States.” Sometimes I think these loglines are used as cheap alternatives to euthanizing people.
But just like Hamilton, I’m not giving up! I’m not going to miss my shot (to read a great script). And today’s concept sounds fun. So hold my hand (in an appropriate socially-distanced way) and let’s check it out together as script friends…
SCRIPT FRIENDS UNITE!
An upper-class New York wedding is going on for 34-year-old biotech doctor Julie Wheeler and 37-year-old Tom Cunningham. They’ve brought everyone up to the Cunningham Ranch, which, in addition to being Instagram friendly, has been in the Cunningham family for generations.
But we got problems from the start. Such as bridesmaid Becca, who just slept with Tom’s twin brother, womanizer Dylan, is killed by a mysterious axe-murderer in the wine room!
Later, Jason (Becca’s husband), heads out into the woods looking for Becca, since nobody else seems to care that she’s missing. He’s met by the caretaker, Edith. Edith has been on these grounds since the beginning and has known Tom and Dylan since they were kids. Could she be the killer? We’re not sure. But she does warn Jason that Tom and Dylan are known to pull “switcheroos.”
Meanwhile, Julie and Tom get married. Everything seems great, although they find it strange that Jason, a groomsman, decided not to show up. Every couple of scenes, we’re reminded that there’s a dispute at the heart of the Cunningham Ranch deed. It’s supposed to be split between Tom and Dylan. But their mother, who divorced their father, is also getting half of the property.
Amongst all this, Julie is having to deal with her impossible-to-please mother, who thinks Tom isn’t anywhere close to the status of man she deserves. All this leads to the obvious question: Can Julie get out of this weekend alive? As in, literally?
Here’s something I always forget then I see it in a script and I’m reminded of it again. One of the Ten Commandments of screenwriting is don’t have your characters babble on in a scene. Make sure the scene is focused. Establish the point of the scene (what each character wants) then come into the scene as late as possible and get out as soon as possible. This is proper screenwriting etiquette so that your characters don’t talk forever and bore us to death.
However, if you’re good with dialogue, this rule doesn’t apply to you. You want to keep it in the back of your mind, of course. But if you can write lively, clever, fun, NATURAL interactions between characters, the reader doesn’t notice that the scene is long. We don’t care about that rule because we’re wrapped up in the interaction.
You can see this on page 6 in a scene where Julie is getting ready for the wedding. There’s a lot of chit-chat, backstory mentioning, even significant exposition – things that typically kill dialogue. But Knoll writes dialogue so effortlessly, we’re too busy enjoying ourselves to notice it.
So how do you know if you write good dialogue and can ignore this rule? You have to be told by at least three people who have read your work, unprompted, that your dialogue is really good. If no one brings that up on their own, stick to the basics. Clear scene goal. Get in late. Leave early. And yes, you’re cheating if you corner them with a, “So did you like my dialogue?? It was good, right!?”
If Til Death only had a bunch of these dialogue scenes, it would be in good shape. But after that scene, the plotting takes center stage. It’s all about herding characters to certain areas (it’s time for pictures!), getting a character alone so he’s exposed the potential killer. And lots of setup about the twins, the ranch deed, and complicated high society money problems.
Once the script got bogged down in that, it wasn’t nearly as entertaining. I liked it better when it was funny. The opening was funny. Julie talking to her friends in that scene was funny. But most of that goes out the window when it’s time to set plot points up.
And this is something a lot of new writers struggle to figure out. If you have a plot-heavy story, you don’t want to let the plot become a burden on the script. It can’t be this never-ending wall of information because then you lose the fun. And, literally, that’s what we get here. We get walls of text everywhere. 14-line paragraphs aren’t uncommon. This in a medium where you should be nervous writing a 4-line paragraph.
It seems to me like Knoll is a talented writer who’s new to screenwriting. Some of these mistakes are Screenwriting 101 stuff. And now that I’m thinking about it, that 10-page dialogue scene I praised may not have been a deliberate choice, but rather the writer not knowing that 10-page dialogue scenes aren’t common in screenwriting.
I’m going to talk about another ‘what I learned’ in a second but my preemptive ‘what I learned’ is to not overburden your script with direction. If there’s a lot of describing what’s going on and where we are and you’re mixing that in with lots of exposition-focused dialogue, that’s like forcing a soccer player to go out on the field holding a 30-pound dumbbell. It’s slowing everything down to a crawl and it’s hard to make a story work under those circumstances.
This got close to a ‘worth the read’ because I liked the premise and I liked the way the script started. But it lost its way under a heavy dose of too much plotting.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: A lot of good jokes come from establishing a sad or intense situation, the kind of situation that could only warrant serious reactions, and then you throw in a line that’s the opposite of serious. Early in the script, there’s a murder next to a wine rack and a couple of wine bottles fall and break, causing the wine to mix with the blood of the murdered body. It’s a gruesome scene. The caterer and his assistant are horrified by the victim’s death and worried about how to replace the wine (a couple of bottles of ’97 Piedmont) since the wedding is today. He decides on a cheap red wine replacement then says to the assistant, “And find a mop for this. (sniffs the air) And Febreeze or something. (sniffs again) Maybe we dodged a bullet. Smells like the ’97 turned.” You can use this type of humor successfully in any comedy. The more serious the situation, the better the surprise joke will play.
And now for something completely different…
Genre: Movie/Stage Musical
Premise: The story of Alexander Hamilton… rapped.
About: Hamilton was a Broadway sensation beyond anything this decade has seen. Unfortunately, the only way to see it was to a) pony up 2 grand for a seat and b) locate a time machine, since Hamilton’s original cast no longer does the show. But since movies have been indefinitely canceled, Disney saw a unique opportunity to bring a hidden gem to the masses. They paid $75 million dollars(!) for the rights to broadcast a previously taped version of the Hamilton play on their Disney+ service.
Writer: Lin-Manuel Miranda (inspired by Ron Chernow’s book)
Details: 160 minutes!!!
How does a blogger
former screenwriter
GSU whore
and an irishman,
dropped in
the middle of a pandemic,
egocentric
slightly menace-
-ing guy, watch a play,
that they say
was supposed to be better than okay,
but it turns out it wasn’t even the best thing he saw that day…
Okay, that’s the first verse of my upcoming play titled, “Shadow.”
Let’s be straight up real with each other here. Is there any way something that has been THIS HYPED can live up to that hype? Everybody who’s seen this thing talks about it like it’s the stage equivalent of surfing on a rainbow while making love to a mermaid. Shakespeare himself would’ve quit had he seen Hamilton.
So I had high expectations.
To say those expectations weren’t met would be a Shakespearean understatement.
The plot here is basically Alexander Hamilton is an orphan who comes to this country with nothing and he wants to be a military general (I think) so he becomes George Washington’s assistant. From there, he marries a woman from a rich family to up his own status, even though he’s secretly in love with the woman’s sister.
The initial goal is to secede from England which Hamilton is determined to do. They achieve this, to which England’s king says, “You’ll miss me.” From there, it’s about trying to form the country’s first government. Hamilton works closely with Washington, who becomes the first president.
Eventually, Hamilton’s best friend, Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.) switches to a competing political party and the grudge is on. The two finally decide to have a good old fashioned duel. During the duel, Hamilton intentionally misses his shot (harkening back to the earlier song where he sings, “I’m not going to miss my shot,” in his pursuit of greatness) and, as a result, Hamilton is shot and dies. The end.
If you are a Hamilton fan, I strongly recommend you stop reading here. Almost everything written below will trigger you. Okay, are you gone? No? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
There are some things to praise here. The production value is amazing. From the costumes to the set to the lighting to the choreography to the line memorization to the dancing – all of that was a marvel to watch. We give so much praise to a movie director when he does an undisturbed eight-minute shot. Imagine doing that times 20. That’s what Hamilton did. It’s one continuous shot for 160 minutes. I can’t imagine how difficult that is to pull off.
Also, props to Lin-Manuel Miranda for coming up with this idea. This is one of those ideas when you’re a nobody pitching it to people, they look at you sideways. “Yeah, so I’m working on this play, right? And it’s about Alexander Hamilton. Do you know him?” “Isn’t he one of the guys who founded the Constitution or something?” “Yeah, so anyway, he raps. And it’s going to be a rap musical about his story. Cool right?” “Uhhhhh… yeah. Sure, buddy. Good luck with that one.”
To come up with something that original and to make it work – hats off to Miranda.
But while we’re in Miranda’s corner, let’s start with him. When Miranda first hit the Hollywood scene off his Hamilton success, I was confused. He just seemed like a normal guy. He didn’t have any star power that I could see. He didn’t seem to be that good of an actor. As far as I could tell, the only thing he was exceptional at was rap freestyle. So I guess it’s no surprise why he hasn’t succeeded in Hollywood. He doesn’t have any exceptional abilities.
But I was eager to see what all these Hollywood bigwigs saw in him when they watched Hamilton. I mean, this is the role that made him famous. There was no way this performance wouldn’t blow me away. And then I watched it and no blowing away occurred. At all. I was so underwhelmed by his performance. Again, he has average stage presence. He’s not a good singer. Most of the time, he looks out of place.
I was much more impressed by Leslie Odom Jr., who was stellar, and the guy who played the king. Every time they took the stage, I noticed I paid attention more. But the second Miranda came back, I found myself bored and my mind drifting. That may be sacrilegious to say but I’m calling it like I see it. To be honest, it felt to me like Miranda snuck into this show because he created it. If any one else had written this musical, there’s no way in a million years they would’ve cast Miranda.
Also, what you guys know about me at this point is that I need a good story. I need to understand what the hero wants and where we’re going. I want obstacles to overcome. I want drama. I want the major story beats to be a little unexpected to keep me on edge. Instead I got a rapped Wikipedia entry.
He did this. Then he did that. Then he married this. Then he went to war for that.
I mean I thought Christopher Nolan had an exposition problem. Hamilton is, like, 97% exposition. Sheesh.
And since everything was sung, a lot of the nuance of the story (if there was any) was lost. It was hard to keep up since rapping moves the speaking clip along faster. So if you miss even a verse, you could find yourself confused about what the scene was about. That happened often.
I kept checking where I was in the play and was routinely shocked. “I’m only 20 minutes in????” “It’s only been 25 minutes???” “It’s only been 27 minutes???” But it was how much time was left that was so daunting. If you’re 30 minutes in, you still have 130 minutes to go!!!! I was bored out of my mind by minute 20. Dancing, singing, more dancing, more singing, more dancing and singing, what comes next, oh, more singing and dancing! Good lord, somebody stab me in the face with a bayonet.
In fairness, I want to recognize that music is a very divisive thing. It’s right up there with comedy in that two people can listen to the exact same thing, and while one person can hear Bach, the other person can hear Gwar.
Cause when people talk about these songs being so great, I didn’t have that experience AT ALL. The songs all sounded pretty much the same to me. And I actually like rap. And while I’m far from a musical nerd, it’s not like I don’t appreciate musical music. When Rent came out, I would hum those tunes all the time. That, to me, was catchy song-writing. This just felt like a string of slightly varied upbeat tunes that allowed the characters to keep the rap coming.
Gosh, Carson, tell us how you really feel.
Okay.
I kinda hated this.
There’s literally NOTHING here I can relate to. The secret sauce with any story is to create characters who people identify with. They see something in the characters that they see in themselves. And because of that, they feel connected to the character. They want the character to succeed. That’s what drives their interest in the story. I don’t identify with going off to war. With dumping tea out of a boat. With trying to marry a high status woman to up my own status so I can rise in the political ranks. None of that resonates with me on any level.
I suppose you could make the argument that someone coming from nothing to make something of themselves is a powerful character journey. Yeah, but the problem is, like I said, Miranda is so underwhelming I didn’t care. Theoretically, that should’ve worked. But his barely average performance kept me from buying in.
You’re probably thinking I’m going to rate this a “What the hell did I just watch?” But Hamilton is too much of a spectacle for that rating. And I think that, somewhere deep inside, there’s some jealousy coming out in my review. I think all artists are jealous when someone comes up with something that so many people love and they, themselves, don’t understand. Cause it makes you doubt what you think you know about what people want. There’s a little of that “I DON’T GET IT” going on here. But all I can do is give my honest opinion about what I saw. And that’s that I was bored.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I was talking to a writer the other day about Rian Johnson’s “Brick,” his first movie. I specifically remember that film because it debuted at Sundance and, at the time, the prevailing thought was that you hyped the sh*t out of your film before you got to Sundance. That way buzz would build and, theoretically, it’d give you the best chance at selling your movie. Johnson, however, took the opposite route. His strategy was, “Let’s not hype our movie up at all and, that way, when people see it, it’ll feel more like they’ve found something special that nobody else knows about.” The strategy worked. Brick came out of that festival as one of the big purchased movies. I bring this up because over-hype probably influenced my review today. I was expecting so much that Hamilton couldn’t possibly give me what I wanted. So when you’re out there trying to promote your script, be strategic about how you talk about it. You always want to be confident. But if you hype your script up too much, it’s likely to have a negative effect. In fact, every time a writer has told me they’ve written the greatest script ever, the scripts have been bad.
Just TWO DAYS LEFT to get your scripts in for The Last Great Screenplay Contest. July 4th. 11:59pm Pacific Time. carsonreeves3@gmail.com. I cannot wait to see what you’ve got in store! But first…
Story time!
When I was a wee little tyke screenwriter, long before the days of Scriptshadow, I made a lot of mistakes. In fact, if there was a mistake to be made, I probably made it. But one of the biggest mistakes still haunts me to this day. Not because, if I hadn’t made that mistake, I would’ve sold the screenplay. But because it was embarrassing. I still cringe whenever I think about it.
When I used to teach tennis, I had a tennis student who was high up on the food chain at a certain prestige cable channel. I had been carefully mentioning my writing aspirations to her every few lessons and, over time, she started asking me what I was working on. It just so happened that the genre of the script I was working on was exactly what the channel was looking for at the moment.
So this lesson of mine put her reputation on the line with the head of the company, saying that she had a script from someone that was just what he was looking for. Long story short, there was this very specific time frame where he could read it. She came to me one day and said, “He can read it this Saturday on his flight. This might be your only chance to get it to him.”
Now, for the most part, my script was finished. But, of course, the excitement of this opportunity got to me and I was determined to make the script as good as it could possibly be in the next five days. I came up with an exciting new opening scene, which I wrote. I realized a chunk in the middle of the script would’ve been better served if I moved it up 20 pages. A secondary character I never quite liked was ditched in favor of a brand new character I came up with on the spot. And then, of course, I went through every single scene, rewriting lines of dialogue and lines of description to make them as good as they could possibly be.
I literally finished 20 minutes before I had to deliver the script. I printed it out (yes, this is when we had to print scripts) and raced to my lesson’s place, proudly handing her the script. For the next three days, I dreamed of my ascension into Hollywood and being the hot new screenwriter in town. It wasn’t even a dream. It was manifest destiny.
But then the next week something funny happened. My lesson canceled. And then, the week after that, she showed up, but she avoided any talk of screenwriting with me, hastily scurrying away the second the lesson ended. “Hey,” I yelled, “We still have to clean up the balls!” Next lesson, same thing. Operation Scurry Off. Finally, I just came out and asked her, “What happened with the script?” And I saw her body crumple as if her entire insides had deflated.
She explained to me that her boss “tried” to read the script. “Tried” being the operative word here. But it was so incomprehensible that he gave up after the first 20 pages. Although she didn’t say it out loud, the vibe I got from her is that this lowered her a peg in the company. This man’s time was extremely valuable and she wasted it on a script that wasn’t even ‘not good.’ But a script that was so bad you didn’t even understand what was going on.
Now being a young defensive screenwriter who believed that everything he wrote was genius, I blamed this on “Hollywood bullshit.” He probably wasn’t paying attention. He never gave the script a chance. Because I didn’t have a big agent, he didn’t give me the same amount of respect as he would an “established” screenwriter.
But let me tell you, a year down the road, I opened that script back up. And it wasn’t just bad. It was unreadable. In the moment, all those last-second changes that I’d come up with made perfect sense. But because I never allowed them to sit and never came back to the script with an adequate amount of time passed and fresh eyes, I couldn’t see just how messy the script was.
All of this is to remind you not to make the same mistake I did. When you have a script deadline – whether it be The Last Great Screenplay Contest, the Nicholl, an important contact who wants to read it this Saturday – you have to understand what you can and cannot do when there’s only a few days left. And I’m going to help you with that right now.
First – your script should be finished. If you’re still writing the last act right now, don’t bother sending your script to me. I’m serious. I will hate it. I can guarantee that. The ending is everything. It ties the story together. It’s the payoff to everything you’ve set up. If you don’t even have that written yet, that means there’s so many things you haven’t figured out about your story.
Second – and this should be obvious – don’t you DARE mess with the structure. This is the fastest way to destroy a screenplay with so little time left. Structure always takes the most time. So, if you’re two days away and you see a structural mistake (“The bank robbery scene should probably be moved to the midpoint”), I’m sorry but you can’t change that. It’s going to have massive ripple effects which you won’t realize for a couple of months.
Third, it’s too late to get rid of, change, or add any characters. Even characters with a limited number of scenes. You’re not going to create any character of substance in two days. Don’t mess with that. Trust me.
Next, don’t f$%# with the first five pages. The first five pages will be the most tempting to play with. But more often than not, a change you make in those first few pages is going to hurt you. A new first scene can change the way the whole script reads. We just talked about this with The King of Staten Island. Originally, the first scene of the movie, Pete driving his car with his eyes closed, was in the middle of the film. They decided to put it at the beginning and it gave you a much better feel for who the character was. But they tested that change. They had people watch both the old and new version before they committed to it. You’d be throwing in a new scene at the last second and hoping it works. That’s not a good strategy when sending a script to anyone.
Next, stop rewriting any lines in the first ten pages – any description, any dialogue – don’t rewrite lines. The chances of you misspelling a word go up 500%. I know this because every time I change a sentence right before I post an article on Scriptshadow, those are ALWAYS the sentences with the misspellings in them.
So what can you do? Proofread. That’s all you should be doing with two days left. Make sure the sentences read cleanly and don’t have any mistakes in them. All your creative work should’ve been done by now. It actually should’ve been done two weeks ago. If you see a truly glaring error that requires you to rewrite a page or a scene… I mean… I guess you can change it. But those changes have a much better shot at hurting you than helping you.
Art is a weird thing. Any change needs time before you can see it objectively. So if you’re rewriting anything of substance this late in the game, do so at your own risk.
A screenplay is not a school assignment where there’s this romanticization of barely finishing the paper on time and getting it to your professor with just minutes to go. A screenplay is your lifeblood. It’s your story. It’s your emotion. It’s what’s inside of you. It’s supposed to be the most beautiful representation of your self-expression that you can achieve through this medium. Therefore, it should be the best you can possibly make it. If you’re having to change scenes with two days to go, your script probably isn’t ready for consumption yet. I want to see your best. Not your rushed best.
Good luck to everyone. I can’t wait to see what you’ve written!
