How to choose ideas that producers want to buy, next amateur showdown announcement, important end-of-contest dates, and the single worst screenwriting trope ever.

Hint Hint.

I remember being a young inexperienced screenwriter desperate to understand what it was Hollywood wanted. My thinking was, if I know what they want, I can give it to them. Which should be obvious. If your dream is to make food for McDonald’s and you’re determined to get poached salmon on the menu, chances are you’re not going to succeed. You gotta be the guy who comes up with the McGriddle.

Yet coming up with a script they’d be interested in still seemed difficult. Sure, you could write the next Tenet, but then everybody tells you it’s too expensive to make. You could write the next The Conjuring, but then everybody tells you they read ten Conjurings a month. We need something original. So then you write something original, like First Cow, and everybody tells you that nobody is going to make a movie about something that obscure.

So, what do you do???

I wish, back then, I could’ve engaged in the practice of what I’m doing with this contest – reading scripts with the explicit purpose of making movies from them. Because I’ll be honest with you. There are a LOT of good scripts in the finals. It’s an embarrassment of riches, really. Script after script, I’m impressed with what I’m reading. However, it’s so easy for me to decipher which scripts advance and which don’t. I simply ask the question: “Is this something I want to produce?” The second I ask that question, the answer of whether that script advances or not becomes clear.

So, as a writer, that’s where your head should be at when picking scripts to write. You want to ask the question, “Is this something someone would want to produce?” I understand that the answer to that question varies depending on who’s producing. But you can still get a sense of how difficult the path to victory is. If you’re writing a movie like David Lowery’s, “A Ghost Story,” for example, and getting butt-hurt that nobody wants anything to do with it, then you have to get real with yourself. Nobody ever makes that kind of movie unless the director wrote it.

I’ll give you an example. One of the best writers in the finals is David Burton. Here’s the logline for his script, “The Misery Index:” 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.

David is an extremely talented writer (his script made the Top 50 of the Nicholl competition). But as I’m reading the script, I’m imagining trying to sell this movie every step of the way – to production houses, to financiers, to distributors, and, ultimately, to you, the people who pay for it, and I’m thinking, “That’s going to be one long difficult journey. Even if I do everything perfect, it’s still going to be a hard sell.”

Let me make something clear: I’m not saying it couldn’t happen. I told David himself that it’s a juicy part for an actor. If you can get someone big to play the main role, the film could get financed. But when I compare it to, say, one of the scripts I read which I think could be the next Die Hard, the decision is easy. Every step of the way, it’s going to be people jumping over each other trying to get involved in that movie.

Look, I have my passion projects as well. Every director or producer has that idea they know isn’t designed to make money unless it’s perfect. But that’s kind of the point. People would rather play their own passion project lottery ticket than someone else’s. Which is why very few passion projects get through the system unless they’re directed by the directors who wrote them.

So while I know it isn’t the perfect way to decide what to write, it should be one of the tools you use to decide. Ask yourself, “Is this a concept that a producer – someone looking for something that has a good chance of moving through the system and getting made – would be interested in?” Because a common mistake screenwriters make is only looking at their screenplays as a writer. You should at least attempt to see what your project looks like through the eyes of those responsible for selling it.

Which segues perfectly into our next Amateur Showdown. Yes, that is right, we’ve got another Amateur Showdown on the horizon. Amateur Showdown has led to script sales, agents, managers, even movies getting made! So you bet your bottom dollar you’ll want to enter your latest script. What’s the genre going to be? Drumroll please……………………

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

I already know what you’re thinking. What does high concept mean, Carson??? High concept is an admittedly vague term so I’ll keep that in mind when I go through the entries. The basic idea is that it’s a movie concept, as Michael Bolton once famously stated, “with a big sexy hook.” A family that can’t make any noise or else they’ll be killed by monsters (A Quiet Place). A future where murderers are convicted before they’ve committed the act (Minority Report). A dinosaur island (Jurassic World). A man whose memory only goes back 8 minutes tries to solve his wife’s murder (Memento). A failed singer wakes up one day to learn the Beatles never existed and he’s the only person who remembers their songs (Yesterday). A high school girl and a serial killer switch bodies (Freaky). A woman is hunted down by her supposedly dead husband, who has figured out how to become invisible (The Invisible Man).

Not on any ‘high concept’ list would be movies like Ladybird, The Way Back, The Assistant, Moonlight, A Star is Born. I wouldn’t even consider Extraction high concept. A guy saving a kidnapped kid is far from a sexy hook. Ditto, John Wick. A hitman who comes out of retirement to kill a bunch of Russian mobsters is a very basic premise.

Character-driven ideas tend not to be high-concept. It’s sort of built into the term. A high-concept idea is going to be “concept” driven. Yes, there are a few examples of high-concept character-driven ideas. “Her” is one. A guy falls in love with his AI computer. That’s a character-driven hook. But this is kinda the business. Understanding big ideas that audiences would pay for is what separates the wheat from the chaff. So “getting it” is kinda the point.

Finally, an update on the contest. Here’s the plan. I’m going to announce the finalists on Friday. And because there were so many good scripts that didn’t make the finals for a variety of reasons, I’m going to review four ‘almost-made-it’ scripts next Monday-Thursday. And then, on that Friday, I will announce the winner of the contest.

If you’re someone in the industry looking for good material and good writers, you’re definitely going to want to mark these dates down. The level of writing in this contest is better than any contest I’ve ever done and it’s not even close. There was so much strong material. And I’m excited to introduce some of those writers to the world. So tune in Friday and all next week.

I can’t wait!!!

“Must…get…asthma…inhaler…before…Carson…sees it.”

What I learned: I couldn’t leave this post without mentioning one more thing because it had such a huge effect on me this weekend. I single-handedly quit watching Your Honor due to the ASTHMA INHALER TROPE. The asthma inhaler trope is one of the single worst inventions in the history of storytelling. It has made its way all the way up to the “TOP 5 ANNOYING MOVIE CLICHES.” For those who haven’t seen the show, Brian Cranston’s character’s son has asthma. And an asthma inhaler. The actor who plays the son so overacts the asthma attacks that I turned the show off. I couldn’t do it anymore. They were that insanely annoying. I’m going to finish this off by making a plea to the screenwriting community to retire this trope. It is cliche. It is overdone. It is evil. And, worst of all, it’s unoriginal. Let 2021 be the death of asthma inhalers in screenwriting. Thank you.

Man, we had some Disney BOMBS dropped yesterday. I guess that’s what happens when you wait nine months to give us any movie news. I honestly believed the rest of my movie news life was going to be daily updates up of the latest actor to join Bullet Train. Last I checked, Steve McQueen was joining the film. I have a feeling they’re going to have to recast that part.

I’m thinking of a Mish-Mash Monday dedicated solely to talking about those announcements. If that sounds like something you’d like, let me know in the comments.

In the meantime, we’ve got another Last Great Screenplay Contest Showdown. We have three winners already. We need a fourth. Those four winners will duke it out next week in our “Super Showdown,” where the winner will become an official finalist in my contest. So there’s a lot on the line.

The rules are the same as any Amateur Showdown. Read as much of each entry as you can then vote for your favorite in the Comments Section. It’s VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU VOTE. You could be changing someone’s life. Votes are due in the Comments Section by Sunday evening at 11:59pm Pacific Time.

Good luck everyone!

Title: IN A FIX
Genre: Thriller
Logline: Amid growing tensions with a rival gang, a fixer must quit her job before her controlling crime boss discovers she is pregnant.

Title: Violet Sun
Genre: Horror
Logline: Born with a severe allergy to sunlight, a maladjusted teenager struggles to cure his disease by consuming the healthy blood of unsuspecting victims so he can win back the girl of his dreams before she leaves his life forever.

Title: POSSESSIONS
Genre: Horror
Logline: An estranged daughter returns to her childhood home to help with her mother’s extreme hoarding only to discover her mother’s cursed by one of her many, many possessions.

Title: Orbit
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Logline: When estranged father and daughter astronauts are trapped alone on a sabotaged space station, they must overcome their differences and injuries to stop the wreckage from causing an extinction level event on Earth.

Title: Step Seven
Genre: Psychological Horror
Logline: A woman in an addiction recovery center must decide if the ghost that haunts her each night is a delusion or a spiritual warning of the fate that she is about to suffer.

22 screenplays on The Last Great Screenplay Contest bubble are duking it for a slot in the finals. Congratulations to Colin O’Brien, whose script, “Our Hero,” won the first Contest Showdown. And then last week, Kevin Revie won his showdown with the ultra-buzzy “Bad Influence.” That makes this showdown our third week, and it is once again up to you to read as much as you can of each screenplay and vote for your favorite in the comments!

It’s IMPORTANT THAT YOU VOTE. A screenwriter’s career may be on the line. As well as my producing career. Votes are due in the Comments Section by Sunday evening at 11:59pm Pacific Time. The script with the most votes moves on to the Super Showdown.

Title: Get Woke
Genre: Buddy-comedy
Logline: An old-school police officer joins forces with his tech-savvy teenage daughter to crack the case of a social media influencer’s cyber stalker.

Title: The Living Conditions
Genre: Horror/Romance
Logline:With her boyfriend’s help, a young woman going through a monstrous transformation searches for the one responsible in hopes of reversing the effects, all while evading capture and resisting her newly acquired “urges”.

Title: Unchained
Genre: Action
Logline: Two fallen out sister-soldiers must reunite and reconcile as they fight their way through a train of mercenaries to reclaim a mysterious WMD-classified object that drove them apart — before the ride reaches its destination.

Title: Shalloween
Genre: Comedic Slasher
Logline: When all the hottest girls in a small town get slaughtered by a masked serial killer, a social media influencer obsesses over why she’s not hot enough to murder, and starts looking for an alternate explanation for the killings.

Title: Archer
Genre: War
Logline: 1415 — As the English army marches towards doom in the greatest battle of the medieval age, a young archer seeks redemption for his past under the cruel tutelage of his ruthless and invincible sergeant. A medieval FURY meets PLATOON.

The Scriptshadow Thanksgiving Newsletter has been sent! Check your Inbox, Spam, and Promotions folders! Review of a 7 figure spec sale. Some incredible advice about how to upgrade from amateur to professional. Black Friday consult deals. Go read it now!!!

Wait, what’s going on, Carson??? We just had an Amateur Showdown. Are you saying we’re having ANOTHER Amateur Showdown? Is that even legal?? You bet your tiny little tushy it is. Thanksgiving Weekend means we’re having an EXTRA LARGE Showdown with not FIVE, not SIX, but SEVEN ENTRIES. I’m doing that because we’ve got extra days which means more time for reading.

By the way, congrats to “Our Hero” writer, Colin O’Brien, who won the first Contest Showdown. For those who liked second place script, Inverted, Lee still has a chance at advancing, albeit behind the scenes if I like it enough to keep reading.

For those of you who don’t know what’s going on, I hosted a contest called The Last Great Screenplay Contest. After reading the first ten pages, I divided all the scripts into four piles. Yes, High Maybe, Low Maybe, and No. I then came up with the idea to take the top 20 (actually 22) Low Maybes and pit them against each other in four Amateur Showdowns.

The winning script in each Showdown will compete in a final Super Showdown, and that winner will advance to the Finals of the contest.

Confused?

Don’t worry. The rules are the same as any Amateur Showdown. Read as much of each entry as you can then vote for your favorite in the Comments Section. It’s VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU VOTE. A screenwriter’s career may be on the line here. Votes are due in the Comments Section by Sunday evening at 11:59pm Pacific Time. The script with the most votes moves on to the Super Showdown.

Happy Thanksgiving and GOOD LUCK to all the contestants!

Title: Big Stick
Genre: 1 Hr. TV Drama
Logline: After a crushing fall from grace, a Boston cop/mom with an anxiety disorder retreats to her California surf community where her rogue investigation into a young girl’s murder teases a career do-over requiring the takedown of a powerful judge and her surf-hero son.

Title: Lucía’s Date for the Apocalypse
Genre: Apocalyptic Rom-Com.
Logline: After giving up on dating, a 25-year-old woman finds out the world is about to end and is offered two spots in a secret bunker that will save her from dying – the only thing she has to do is find the perfect man to repopulate the Earth with.

Title: The Fifth Return
Genre: Sci-fi
Logline: A US operative travels back in time to assassinate a Russian spy, but upon his return he discovers he failed his mission and has no recollection of his time spent in the past. Repeatedly sent back to finish the job while remembering none of it, he begins to suspect his handlers aren’t telling him the truth about his target. Think Memento as a time travel story.

Title: The Article
Genre: Contained Drama/Thriller
Logline: – When the CEO of a large media news company invites a troubled Male escort to her apartment……things are not as they seem.

Title: Club House
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A grieving mother invades the drug den her daughter was staying in and holds the residents hostage, determined to detox the group in the ultimate retribution for her daughter’s death by overdose.

Title: Bad Influence
Genre: Horror Comedy
Logline: After a popular child influencer gets possessed by the devil, her family, who rely on her income, struggle to keep her brand alive.

Title: The Island
Genre: Horror / Action
Logline: An NYPD emergency management specialist races against time to quarantine Manhattan after a zombie outbreak, only to discover that her teenage daughter is trapped somewhere on the island.

It’s an all-new all-different but-still-kinda-the-same Amateur Showdown! If you haven’t been to the site in a while, this showdown might be confusing, so let me give you the Cliff’s Notes version of what’s going on.

I hosted a screenplay contest called, The Last Great Screenplay Contest. I read the first ten pages of every entry and divided the scripts into four categories. Yes, High Maybe, Low Maybe, and No. Originally, I was only going to guarantee 10 more pages of reading to the Low Maybes. Then I came up with the idea that we would take the top 20 (actually 22) Low Maybes and pit them against each other in four Amateur Showdowns.

The winning script in each of the next four Showdowns will compete with each other in a final fifth-weekend Super Showdown, and that winner will advance to the Finals of the contest.

Confused?

Don’t worry. All you need to know is that this is like any other Amateur Showdown, except the stakes are much higher. So I need everyone here to read as much of each script as you can and vote for your favorite in the Comments Section by Sunday evening at 11:59pm Pacific Time. The script with the most votes moves on to the fifth and final Super Showdown.

I think you’re going to like this. A lot of the scripts that went into the Low Maybe pile had strong concepts, in a lot of instances stronger than the High Maybes. But for whatever reason, their first ten pages didn’t blow me away. By getting a second look from you, the readers of the site, I’m sure a script or two will emerge as a true contender.

Quick note. We’re doing a Plus-Sized Showdown next week starting on Wednesday that will have 7 scripts, since it’ll take place over the long Thanksgiving Weekend. So that Showdown should be extra fun.

Let’s get started with today’s entries. Good luck, everyone!

Title: Our Hero
Genre: Family Comedy
Logline: When 3 nerdy middle school kids discover the secret lair of a burned-out superhero; the world’s most powerful man agrees to be their friend in exchange for keeping his secret.

Title: Night of the Living
Genre: Horror
Logline: Years after humanity’s extinction, the idyllic life of suburban zombies is shattered when an outbreak of humans threatens their existence.

Title: Inverted
Genre: Horror
Logline: It’s 1997 and Jada just wants to have fun. But when the shadowy State of Burma opens its doors to outsiders for the first time, her new boyfriend’s idea of an adventure holiday turns into a horrifying fight for survival as they are stranded on a remote forbidden island harbouring a secret so diabolical, it’s been hidden from the world for centuries.

Title: Kelsey’s Crossing
Genre: Drama
Logline: When the helicopter she’s riding in over the Sonoran desert crashes in Mexico, the racist host of an anti-immigrant youtube channel has to rely on a group of migrants to survive the dangers and brutality of the desert and help her travel 40 miles to get back to American soil.

Title: Ambrosia
Genre: Time Travel/Heist
Logline: Three anxiety-ridden young adults discover an experimental drug that allows them to time travel back 36 hours after each overdose. As the side effects intensify and their tolerance builds, each time travel back becomes reduced (16 hours, 8 hours, etc), but they keep going back anyways to perfect a bank robbery. Meanwhile, the town’s leading detective chases them down.