Since I think about screenwriting 24/7, I’m often juggling 2-3 big picture screenwriting questions in my head at a time. I mentally lay out the problem, work through potential solutions, and eventually come up with a few tiny insights, failing to crack the elusive equation, which bugs the heck out of me. My latest obsession: “How do you write a script that blows people away?”
I figure that’s what we’re all trying to do here. Write that story that gets the reader to place their laptop down, sit back, lose track of time before what they just read comes slamming back into them. They whisper to themselves, “Wow,” and then think about who they can e-mail to tell them about it.
But here’s the thing. When’s the last time anyone was blown away by a screenplay? I’m talking anybody! And I’m asking you because outside of Hollywood, the people on this site read more screenplays than anyone. I’d venture to guess a good portion of you have read more screenplays than the average agent. So if anyone’s an authority on getting blown away by a screenplay, it would be you. And yet, how many people here can say they’ve been blown away by something they’ve read in the past year? Hell, in the past three years?
On the surface this speaks to how hard it is to write a good screenplay. But I have a more optimistic view of things. This means that if you can learn how to blow someone away, you’re in a league all your own. So how do we access this elusive cheat code? By back-engineering, of course. I’ll go back to the scripts/movies that blew me away (Meat, Eighth Grade, Brigands of Rattleborge, Jojo Rabbit, Vivian Hasn’t Been Herself Lately) and ask what ingredients those scripts had that made them so special. In doing so, I was able to find five key “blow them away” ingredients. And the good news is, you only need one of them per script. I’m going to go through each, from least to most influential. Let’s get started!
5) Earth-shattering plotting – Truth be told, plotting (the act of constructing a storyline that zigs and zags and engages throughout) is the least influential element to blowing people away. Most readers will tell you plotting should be a given and I agree with that. I can count the number of times I was blown away by the technical proficiency of someone’s well-plotted screenplay on one hand. However, it you can construct a plot that keeps doing amazing unexpected things, you can blow readers away. The crown jewel example of this is Source Code (original script, not the movie). Source Code is all plot. It doesn’t have a ton of character development because it doesn’t have time for it. But it takes you on this wild ride that you can’t not be blown away by. So even though this is the option that’s the least likely to blow a reader away, if you’ve got a concept that allows for lots of great twists and turns, earth-shattering plotting can get you that elusive “Wow.”
4) Imagination for days – There’s definitely currency in imagination. Look at The Matrix. It’s such an inventive mythology, it’s hard not to be blown away by what’s going on. But like “earth-shattering plotting,” it’s hard to impress on imagination alone. That’s because the line between inspired and messy is thin. A cyborg race on the sixth moon of Kipsis run by Lord Soothsayer might sound great at 3am when you’re on your tenth red bull. But it doesn’t read that way. I would recommend staying away from this option. But if you’re a naturally creative person who has 5+ years to world build a killer concept, you’ve got a small chance (I’m not joking about the 5+ years. The Matrix’s mythology was built over 10 years. And if I’m correct, J.R. Tolkien spent 3 years coming up with the geography of his world alone).
3) A fascinating character – Now we’re approaching the true game-changers. A fascinating character can blow the top off a screenplay. That’s because human beings are fascinated by other human beings. So if you construct someone we can’t look away from, the rest of your script can be average and we’ll still be blown away. Recent examples are Liam Neeson’s character in The Grey. After he read that letter to his wife, I was all in on him. Abraham in The Brigands of Rattleborge. Holy S&#%. Silver Lining Playbook had two of these characters. Any character who’s a force of nature, a story in their own right, can captivate a reader. What does that mean, “a story in their own right?” It means even if your movie didn’t have a plot, we’d still want to keep reading because the character has so much going on. Coming up with an iconic character is easier said than done. But if you start off TRYING, you’re a step ahead of the guy hoping it will happen organically.
2) Voice – You taste that? It’s the taste of blowing away the reader! Voice, or a writer’s unique point of view conveyed through their writing, is what most industry types will tell you is the key to blowing them away. Voice is where you find that dialogue with an edge. It pops because of the writer’s talent to listen to the world and transcribe it back through their unique lens. Christy Hall’s Daddio and Get Home Safe are the current prized hams in this category. But voice can refer to a weird plot and weird characters as well, anything that feels like we’re somewhere we haven’t been before. Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit comes to mind. Unfortunately, most of your voice is already wired into you. But you can definitely hone it by paying attention to what parts of your writing are unique and how your view of the world is solidifying as you get older, then tap into that as your career matures. I believe Rodney Dangerfield spent 30 years in obscurity before he found his “I don’t get no respect” voice. He had to not get a lot of respect to realize that’s the lens he saw the world through. But beware of “unhinged voice” or “fool’s gold voice.” This is someone who writes with a unique voice but has no sense of structure or focus. They spit the world out onto the page and let the reader figure it out. That’s not the kind of voice that blows people away. It’s the kind that annoys them.
1) Emotion – Finally, we arrive at the top of the mountain. The most effective way to blow someone out of the water is to make them feel something, and make them feel it deeply. Unfortunately, this ain’t easy. It relies on you developing characters we both like and care for, a skill that takes time. But if you can pull it off, you can give the reader a cathartic emotional experience they’ll never forget. One of the most common emotional tools is “negative becomes positive.” You tease the audience that a negative result is coming, then rock them with a positive one. Will Hunting has lost the girl. Will Hunting gets in a car and goes after the girl! The more permanent the negative, the more effective the positive. This is probably why “death and rebirth” climaxes have led to some of the most emotionally explosive endings ever. E.T. is dead. No, E.T. is still alive! Andy Dufresne has hung himself. No, Andy has escaped! The act of taking us from the bottom to the top is so powerful that there’s no way the reader can’t be rocked when it’s executed well. But again, you have to know how to build compelling characters in the first place or we won’t care what happens to them, even if you execute what I just taught you perfectly. Nor is this the only way to pull off an emotional ending. Characters can die for good and it still blow us away (Braveheart). Also, an internal emotional switch can rock us to our core. A character who’s written off humanity learning to open himself up and love again can bring a grown reader to tears. Again, stock versions of this won’t work. You have to create compelling characters based in truth (so that we believe they’re real people) for the reader to feel anything. But watch out if you do. Your endings will be unforgettable.
Everything I’ve said assumes you know the basics. You know how to structure a screenplay. You know how to write compelling scenes. You know what ‘show don’t tell’ means. What ‘get in late and leave early’ means. What conflict is and how to use it to create tension. What a character goal is. What stakes and urgency are. If you know all that, then using one of these five options on your next script will work for you. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to read it and be blown away. :)
Hey guys. I’m still offering the Nicholl discount! That’s $100 off 4 pages of notes. If you send me your script this weekend, I can get you your notes back by the end of the month, which gives you a full month before the deadline. E-mail me (carsonreeves1@gmail.com) with the subject line: “NICHOLL.” Also, $25 for 1 logline consultation and $40 for 2! This is great if you want a logline rewrite or if you just want to know if your idea is any good. That’s the deal of the century. And it ends Sunday!
Today I teach you how to avoid the thing that did me in as a screenwriter.
Genre: Crime/Murder
Premise: A jaded detective teams up with a young cocky LA county detective to solve a string of murders in Los Angeles.
About: This project just got announced the other day. John Lee Hancock has convinced Denzel Washington to sign on to his long gestating project, which he originally wrote in 1997, back when these murder detective stories were all the rage (“Seven” came out in 1995). Can the duo revitalize the sub-genre?
Writer: John Lee Hancock
Details: 145 pages!!! (1997 draft)
This week is “Hollywood Reality Week,” as it’s a reminder of just how long it takes to get movies made. Monday, we had a big budget movie that took 10 years to see the light of day and needed the help of distributor who wasn’t even around when the script was written. Yesterday, we saw how a small budget project took 10 years and an industry about-face regarding equal opportunity to get made. And for today, you have to add both those projects together to equal the number of years it’s taken for The Little Things to land a green light. Maybe the most under-appreciated quality in a writer isn’t talent, or voice, or skill. But patience. Which is ironic, because you’re gonna need a lot of patience to get through this script.
Joe Deacon, or “Deke,” as he’s known to friends, is a veteran LA cop who’s been assigned to solve a recent string of murders. He’s paired up with the active detective on the case, Baxter, a movie-star looks hotshot who doesn’t like the fact that he’s been assigned a professional looker-over-shoulderer.
Of the four girls who have been murdered, there are a few similarities. The girls all have bite marks on their faces. And, strangely, while all the food in their apartment has long since rotted, there are a few items – like milk – that are fresh. How could that be? Or maybe the bigger question should be, why would any writer think that was interesting?
Things heat up when a fifth woman, Ronda Rathman, disappears, forcing Deke to go rogue, following his gut on a scumbag named Sparma. He starts following Sparma around town, waiting for him to slip up, but it turns out Sparma is a crime nerd, and makes Deke easily. He even volunteers to come in and answer any questions the cops have, cockily pointing out there’s no way he can be the murderer.
This bravado throws Deke, who thought he could take this case to the bank. He must re-collaborate with Baxter, who’s increasingly annoyed by Deke’s low-key investigation methods (Deke’s convinced that every murder is about the little things, never the big ones). But the two are going to have to learn to work together to stop this guy because, otherwise, more women are going to get bitten. And then murdered.
Today I want to tackle a screenwriting question I think about all the time. Because, if I’m being honest, it’s the reason I believe I failed as a screenwriter myself. And that’s this practice of vanilla screenwriting. John Lee Hancock is one of, if not the most, vanilla working screenwriter in the business. The Blind Side doesn’t have a single risky beat in it. The Founder is almost painful in its plainness. He even took a great screenplay in Saving Mr. Banks and watered it down so much, that what was once prime rib, became a Happy Meal.
What is “vanilla screenwriting?” How do you avoid it? Should you even avoid it?
Vanilla screenwriting is a combination of cliches, safe choices, familiar plot beats, and characters without extremes. The vanilla screenwriter knows what works. So his scripts are never bad. But the vanilla screenwriter can never rise above average. Vanilla screenwriting is the equivalent of the “nice guy.” The nice guy is always going to listen to your problems. He’s going to cheer you up with a dad joke. He’s going to be there if your car breaks down on the side of the road. But the nice guy never excites you.
That slot is reserved for the dangerous guy. The dangerous guy is not going to listen to you. He’s going to cancel your coffee date at the last second without explaining why. He prefers offensive jokes over dad jokes. And he doesn’t care if you think they’re funny or not. In fact, he seems only mildly interested in your reaction to anything he does. You should hate this guy. And yet all you can do is think about him.
Maybe the best way to explain vanilla screenwriting is to compare this script to the movie it was inspired by, Seven, a film that had come out 2 years before Hancock wrote The Little Things. “Seven” has victims who have been forced to eat until their insides exploded. “The Little Things” has victims with bite marks on their faces. Which of these two choices is vanilla?
So why are there people like John Hancock who have careers? Or Ron Howard? Or Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman? The answer is simple. It’s because some people like vanilla. What a lot of industry folks forget is that the average person only goes to the movies a few times a year. So they don’t need big sexy plots. A less assuming – yet still well told – story will do the job.
But the problem with vanilla screenwriting is that it’s an impossible style to break in with. I don’t know how John Lee Hancock got into this business. But I would bet my left hand that if he were an unknown screenwriter trying to break in today he wouldn’t be able to. His scripts are soooooooo bland. Soooooo middle-of-the-road. You forget them almost seconds after you read them. You have no idea how hard writing that plot summary was. Even fifteen minutes after finishing the script, I was trying to remember what happened.
I mean you can see it in two of the most important elements of the screenplay – the title and the main character. The title is “The Little Things.” It’s actually telling you that it’s going to be a “little” story with “little” going on. And the main character’s name, “Joe Deacon,” sounds like an amalgam of every single protagonist name ever. I don’t know how you get more vanilla than that.
Unfortunately, all of this plays out in the script. The investigation in The Little Things is so standard I will guarantee that nobody who reads it will be able to locate a plot element or a character they haven’t seen in a prime time network procedural. It’s that dull. The one thing you have to do when writing in familiar waters is bring something new to the table. There’s nothing new here, guys. Not even a single line of dialogue I haven’t read before.
So why did Denzel sign onto this? I don’t know. It probably has something to do with the fact that once a director gets an actor an Oscar (Sandra Bullock won for The Blind Side), he’ll always be able to get movies made because actors will think he can do the same for them. That’s the only reason that makes sense to me because otherwise, I don’t see a single original component to this script. It’s so vanilla, you’re afraid it’s going to melt. Actually, “afraid” is the wrong word. Cause if it had melted, I wouldn’t have had to read it.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: To avoid vanilla writing, get messy. I wasn’t the biggest fan of True Detective, but the last thing that script was was vanilla. It had a brutal imaginative first murder scene. It jumped around in time. And it had a main character who was a f%$#ing mess. That’s how you stay away from vanilla.
Genre: High School Comedy
Premise: When two nerdy seniors realize they’re the only girls in class without boyfriends, they try and use the same skills that made them straight A students to ace the ultimate test: find dates for the prom.
About: Booksmart is the directorial debut of Olivia Wilde. It just premiered at SXSW to good reviews. What’s interesting about this project is that the script was written all the way back in 2008 and chronicled the three months leading up to prom for its two heroines. However, the SXSW program summarizes the updated story this way – “A high school comedy about two best friends who decide to spend the evening before graduation cramming four years of partying into one wild night.” This tells us two things. One, that scripts evolve. The story you start with is almost never the story you finish with. And two, Wilde (or whichever producer helped develop this script) wisely incorporated some good old fashioned Scriptshadow advice – CONDENSE. YOUR. TIMEFRAME. The more condensed your timeframe, the faster your story will move.
Writers: Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins
Details: 121 pages (11/24/08 draft)
Let me make something clear.
When I see a comedy screenplay that’s 120 pages long, I know immediately I’m dealing with a beginner. There is no reason whatsoever for a comedy spec to be 120 pages. Professional writers know this. So as soon as I see that horrifying number, I’m expecting problems. And it wasn’t long before I found them in Booksmart.
This script wanders through its first act like an old woman with Alzheimer’s. Your first act turn occurs when your characters begin the pursuit of their goal. The goal in this movie is to find prom dates. The characters don’t announce that until page 37!!! That would be 12 full pages after it should’ve been announced (page 25).
Some of you may say, “12 pages isn’t that long, Carson.” And you’d be wrong. A reader can get bored with a script within half a page. I don’t need to tell you guys this. You experienced it yourselves reading some of the 10-Page Finalists this weekend. Readers reading your scripts are no different than you reading those scripts. They’ll lose interest in a heartbeat if you’re not keeping things engaging. So if you’re plopping down an extra 12 pages before you even tell us what your script is about? Expect us to get bored.
And yet, this script got made. How is that possible? Read on to find out.
Molly and Amy are seniors at a high school in a small Michigan town. They’re also huge nerds. Sure, they both got into great universities. But they’ve never known the touch of an adolescent boy who’s just gone through puberty. And make no mistake, both Amy and Molly want to know what that touch feels like.
They try going to parties even though they don’t see the point of them (you don’t get graded so…?). And it’s during one of these parties that they realize every senior girl they know has a boyfriend. That night they have a eureka moment. What if they spent just as much time and energy on getting dates for prom as they do studying for school? It’s time to put those booksmarts to the test.
After this initial plan goes nowhere, the two recruit their old friend Julie, who’s somehow landed a hot college boyfriend and therefore knows what she’s talking about. Julie says the most important thing they need to do is be around guys more, specifically the guys they like. So she assigns Amy to join the softball team, since her crush plays baseball and both teams travel together. And Molly must join the high school play, since her crush is one of the actors.
The plan sputters from the start. Neither girl makes any headway. And on top of that, their friendship starts to fracture! They will need to pull it together if they want to go to prom with actual boys, a task that that’s looking increasingly outside of their particular set of smarty-pants skills.
Booksmart is a dangerous script to read if you’re an aspiring screenwriter because after finishing it your first thought will be, “That’s it? This script got recognition and mine didn’t??” Booksmart feels more like a writing team learning how to write a screenplay than it does a finished product. So here’s something to keep in mind. This script took 10 years to get made. It’s likely that someone liked the idea and decided to develop it with the writers. Through those rewrites, the script became more polished before it was finally ready to be placed in front of someone like Olivia Wilde’s eyes.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s that as long as there’s a kernel of a hook at the center of your screenplay, there’s a chance – even if the rest of the script is weak – that somebody will want to explore it. This hook of nerds applying their particular set of nerdy skills to get boyfriends is a fun one. I’m going through this myself. There’s a script I read last year that has a great hook but the writer is a total newbie. He’s not ready yet. So I have to decide do I want to work with him on the script and try to guide him towards a salable screenplay. I like the idea enough that I’m considering suffering through endless rewrites where I’m basically teaching the writer how to write. This kind of dilemma happens to producers every day in Hollywood.
As for the story I read today, it’s a classic example of writers feeling out a medium they don’t yet understand. For example, there are a lot of these quick goofy flashbacks. Like when Amy and Molly realize they’ll have to go to parties to get boyfriends. “Remember the last time we went to a party?” Flash back to Molly and Amy showing up to a party at 6:30pm. — I’m not saying this isn’t funny. But it’s the low hanging fruit of the comedy screenwriting world and I see it with beginner screenwriters a lot. I guess the best way to put it is – any writer could come up with this idea. To stand out as a screenwriter, you got to give us stuff we’re not used to seeing.
Another mistake beginners make is they think they have to set up a lot more than they actually do. I could tell the writers wanted to write about these smart girls who drop everything to learn how to get boys. And yet two nerds obsessed with academia would never just “drop everything.” So Halpern and Haskins write several early scenes to establish that Molly and Amy are “second semester seniors” who’ve already gotten into college and therefore don’t have any commitments. They literally write a scene where a teacher says, “You’re second semester seniors. You can go have fun now. It doesn’t matter.” There are some story points that the audience doesn’t need spelled out for them. If you choose to include these story points anyway, your script takes forever to get where it’s going.
The pacing problems continue into the second act, as we’re occasionally given updates on the prom countdown. Unfortunately, this works against the script. We’ll get a title card that says: 63 days before prom. Then we’ll spend 15 more pages watching the girls get ready and a new title card appears: 52 days before prom. STILL??? Countdowns work well when there’s, say, 5 days left. They don’t work well when there’s 50 days left, lol.
That’s not to say the script was all bad. It felt, at times, like the high school version of Broad City, which I love. There’s a lighthearted vibe to the proceedings. Both our characters are underdogs and likable. While the dialogue doesn’t pop off the page like, say, Juno, listening to Molly and Amy is a bit like listening to a couple of friends who are having a good time. But the simple truth is that this is the “before” thumbnail in a weight loss video. I’ll tell you what the “after” photo looks like when I see the movie.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: “As Molly and Amy pass the cashier, we cut to the standard wide shot of a high school cafeteria.” It was action lines like this that screamed “newbie” throughout Booksmart. This line of description does two things wrong. One, it’s breaking the reader’s suspension of disbelief by mentioning a “shot.” Don’t mention shots in screenplays. And two, nothing should ever be “standard” in your script. When you write that, you’re basically saying, “Here’s a boring shot you’re bored of cause you’ve seen it in all those other boring movies that show similar boring shots.” How does it make your script look when you’re admitting that you’re giving the audience the exact same shot they’ve always seen? Come on. Sell the moment! Even if it’s a standard shot, commit to describing it.
Genre: Thriller/Drama
Premise: (from IMDB) Five former Special Forces operatives reunite to plan a heist in a sparsely populated multi-border zone of South America.
About: Frequent collaborators Mark Boal and Katheryn Bigelow were set to make this film back in 2010 with Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp. As happens all the time in Hollywood, development lagged long enough to see both Hanks and Depp leave, and soon even Bigelow dropped out so she could make Detroit (bet she stands behind that decision). The movie rose from the ashes when JC Chandor (Margin Call, A Most Violent Year) came on. He was joined by Depp again, Will Smith, Tom Hardy, and Channing Tatum. But the film wasn’t out of the clear yet. With just weeks before shooting, everything fell apart and the producers had to start all over again. That led us to the current cast, which includes basically plays himself Ben Affleck, constantly slips into a British accent Charlie Hunnam, and Chandor’s Violent Year star, Oscar Isaac.
Writer: J.C. Chandor & Mark Boal
Details: 125 minutes
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think this is the first time in history that the major movie release of the weekend came out on Netflix. What does that mean? I don’t know. I know Steven Spielberg has an opinion or two about it. But what’s unique about Triple Frontier is that it’s clearly an experience that works better on the big screen. This isn’t some goofball comedy. The helicopter sequence through the South American jungle alone is stunning enough that it would’ve shined at the Arclight. And yeah, I know, they put it out in theaters for a week. But it wasn’t a real release. It was in case the movie was nomination worthy.
As a lot of you know, I loved the Triple Frontier script. But I’ve been tepid about how it would translate, specifically because of Mark Boal. Boal gives you a specific kind of movie and doesn’t seem to know how to work outside of that. I remember watching Boal’s Zero Dark 30, being underwhelmed, and wondering why. On the surface, it should’ve worked. We’ve got a real life story about the hunt for the most notorious terrorist in American history. And yet it was boring. Why?
Then it hit me. The script only hit one beat: Serious. Every scene was about the serious nature of what they were doing and the serious problems they ran into and the serious characters who had serious opinions and serious discussions about those serious opinions. A movie should be a roller coaster. It should not be a train ride. We have to go up and down, sometimes even in a loop, to keep the story interesting. Boal doesn’t know how to do that and his screenplays suffer as a result. They’re never bad. But it’s impossible not to become a numb viewer when every scene is the same.
JC Chandor is a better screenwriter than Boal. But he operates in the same world. His stories tend to take themselves seriously. So I wondered if a collaboration between the two would do what you want collaborations to do – elevate the material. You want your co-writer to be strong where you’re weak, and vice versa. Not sure that was the case here. And yet the old draft I read was strong. Let’s see how the movie turned out.
Pope (Oscar Isaac) is an ex special forces soldier who’s doing bad guy clean-up work in South America. When Pope learns that one of the biggest drug dealers in the world has tens of millions of dollars stashed at his home in the jungle, he recruits his old special forces buddies, Redfly (Affleck), Ironhead (Charlie Hunnam), Ben (Garrett Hedlund) and Catfish (Pedro Pascal), to steal it. The “hook” here is that these guys have always abided by the law. This is the first time they’re going to break it.
The group flies to the Triple Frontier, the tri-border area along Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, and start prepping for the heist. Redfly is the taskmaster. He makes it clear they’ve got a small window to get this done and if any red flags pop up, they bail. The group is shocked when they finally execute the heist and there’s 10 times as much money as they planned for. Now they have a new challenge – get all this money back to the US somehow. They’ve got a helicopter but it wasn’t ready for this kind of load. They’ll have to get creative and take some chances if they’re going to succeed. Of course, in the end, greed gets the best of them.
I liked Triple Frontier.
But it’s a frustrating movie in a lot of ways.
Somewhere along the 10 years of development, Boal and Chandor forgot to hit the beats that really matter, starting with the title itself.
In the script, it’s made clear why the Triple Frontier is such a badass place. They explain it’s the earth’s equivalent of Mos Eisley, one of the most crime-ridden dangerous places in the world. However, in the movie, you don’t even know what Triple Frontier is. You just know it’s the title. The reason this is frustrating is because the history behind the triple frontier sets up why this one guy has so much money stashed at his house. He’s the top dog in one of the most lawless places on earth.
This problem of forgetting to highlight the big moments when they happen continues throughout the screenplay. When the team gets to South America, we spend 25 minutes preparing for the heist. Then, out of nowhere, we’re in the house executing the heist. The moment came so stealthily, I assumed they were doing a test run. About midway through I realized this was the real thing. The heist is the most important moment in the movie! Why wouldn’t you make it clear it’s happening!
One of my favorite moments from the script was when they learn they’re not stealing 25 million dollars. They’re stealing 250 million dollars. Everyone’s excited but they also realize this changes everything. They weren’t prepared for this kind of load so now they have to rethink the plan. But in the movie, this moment occurs passively. They’re at the helicopter and Catfish and Pope have this conversation that amounts to, “Oh, by the way, we have 250 million dollars now so it’s going to be a little trickier.”
This was the irony that made the script so cool! In every one of these movies, the thing that goes wrong is that they end up with LESS money than they hoped. Triple Frontier flipped that and said, ‘No, we’re going to give you more. Lots more!’ But what seems like a good thing is actually what does them in, cause they didn’t plan to handle this much money but their greed tries to make it work anyway.
As for the changes in the script, I noticed a couple of things. The first is how the money is found. In the script, they go to the room where the money is supposed to be but it’s not there and they freak out. Then someone notices that the ceiling is leaking cause it’s raining outside. Which means they probably moved the money. The group keeps on looking and, indeed, it’s in another room. I liked the scene because you always want to throw curveballs at your heroes. It can never be easy for them. They show up, they think the money’s gone, but then they realize it’s somewhere else.
Boal and Chandor improve on this, however. Instead, the group shows up, the money isn’t there, they’re momentarily defeated, then someone realizes it’s in the walls. So they start breaking through the walls and ripping the money out. This achieves two things. First, it’s way more cinematic. The previous scene had them taking money off a pile of money. This version has them breaking walls to get the money. It just looks better. It also adds a component of urgency – do they have enough time to break down all the walls and get all the money? It turns out they don’t, which throws the operation off.
The other change they made is jumping into the heist sooner. In the script, the prep section was the longest section of the script. And, to be honest, not a lot was happening there. Prepping is tough in screenwriting because there’s something inherently repetitive about it. And I think Chandor realized that at some point and sped it up. I would even venture to guess that they shot the extra prepping and only realized in editing that they didn’t need it. Which probably has something to do with the neutered announcement of the heist itself.
I loved the helicopter stuff in the script and I love it here in the movie. The best you can ask for in screenwriting is a story that shines by showing and not telling. So if you’re writing a movie about greed, having a bunch of characters talking to each other about how much they love money and how they play the stock market and what car they just bought – that’s the worst possible exploration of greed. The best is in this movie. A helicopter is carrying a bunch of money through mountains that it’s not light enough to get through. So the characters literally have to decide how much money is worth their safety. We see their greed in that they can only push out so much money, even if it means risking their lives.
Another great example of this is Redfly (Ben Affleck). He’s the most practical of the group. He’s the one saying, “We’ve got this many minutes, we’ve got to hit this checkpoint by this time, that checkpoint by that time, if there’s any fluctuation, we ditch.” And then, when they find the money in the walls and they’re desperately trying to bash out as much as possible, it’s Redfly who’s the first one yelling out, “Don’t worry! I gave us a buffer!”
I can’t get past how much I love this idea. You’ve stolen all this money but to get from Point A to Point Z, you have to keep making decisions about how much you can leave behind. It’s the ultimate exploration of greed. And while I would’ve liked for Chandor to treat this more like a Hollywood movie with big beats as opposed to a “true story” like Zero Dark 30, I was still entertained the whole way through.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: HIT. YOUR. MAJOR. BEATS. HARD. Hitting your beats means when a major moment comes up in your story, you give it its proper due. For example, if a character has a baby, there’s an excitement that should permeate everyone associated with that character. The new mother doesn’t text her mom, “Had the kid. Still on for dinner, Sunday?” You must be true to the level of intensity that moment would provide. Triple Frontier doesn’t hit its big beats hard enough, from the triple frontier to the heist to the amount of extra money they stole. Those moments needed extra attention.
This was a fun experiment. It took me back to the days when I read 8 scripts a day. When you’re looking at that much material within that short of an amount of time, it’s easier to identify what doesn’t work. And the biggest thing I discovered by reading so much material back to back is how generic most screenplays are. For example, I read 30+ opening scenes that dealt with cops arriving on a murder scene. 20+ opening scenes that dealt with a bank robbery. 15+ opening scene with characters starting their day. But it wasn’t just the generic nature of the setup. It was the generic nature of the execution. A bank robbery can be a compelling scene. But not if you follow the obvious beats (Get down on the floor. Give me your money. Run out and drive away). If anything, this exercise taught me that writers aren’t aware of just how much content they’re competing with and, therefore, how important it is to differentiate your work.
The next big issue I ran into was that a ton of these scripts started slow. Let me reiterate what this challenge was about. It was about hooking me from the VERY FIRST WORD and never letting go. I don’t know why anyone would think that a slow pan across a desert horizon was a good idea. Or the 40+ script openings that focused on how light was hitting something. Or plopping me down in a room with two characters chatting away. No doubt a sizable portion of these entries were writers sending their latest script in regardless of the exercise. But for those who understood the exercise and still started slow? Or even medium? Shame on you. You knew the rules. Hook me immediately. Not hook me on page 2 and a half.
Every once in awhile I felt bad because I wanted to give writers a fair shot. So I would read past the point where I got bored. But in every one of those cases, I was proven right. The script didn’t get better. It almost always got worse. And it’s frustrating because I feel like this is my fault. We talked about this for an entire month, with me going into detail about what works and what doesn’t and, still, writers are making basic mistakes. There were so many times where I would read the first half page, stop, stare at my computer, and wonder why anyone would think this would hook a reader.
To give you some stats. 80% of the scripts, I didn’t get past the first half-page. I’d say, of the 20% where I kept reading, 70% of those I didn’t get past the second page. The most common problems were…
1) The writer couldn’t construct a sentence.
2) The writing or the scenario was confusing.
3) The writer was more concerned with setting up characters than entertaining the reader.
4) The writer was more concerned with setting up their world (exposition) than entertaining the reader.
5) There was nothing original or unique about the writing or the situation.
6) The scene was straight up boring. Nothing was happening.
That last one bothered me the most because you’d think “Don’t be boring” would be obvious. And yet time after time we’d get these scenes that didn’t contain a single entertaining element within them. No drama, no conflict, no mystery, no comedy, no dramatic irony, no dialogue that popped off the page. I thought about this a lot and wondered why were writers violating something that was so obvious to me. I think the problem boils down to too many writers assuming you “owe them.” You owe them your focus. And when you’re writing with that mindset, you don’t care about keeping the reader’s attention. I can tell you right now, that’s a deadly mindset to have. If you want the reader to like your script, you HAVE TO GRAB THEM. And the only way to do that is to assume they’ll get bored unless you’re giving them your best.
If you could construct a sentence, if you could convey action clearly, if you started with a scene that could conceivably grab the reader, you made it past page 1. But now it’s a matter of, “Are you giving me anything new?” Anything new at all. It could be a reversal (that Silence of the Lambs example I used in a previous post where we’re led to believe the person being restrained is the victim, when in actuality, they turn out to be the bad guy). It could be a strong sense of detail that pulls me into the world. It could be pure talent, like Diablo Cody’s Juno dialogue. ANYTHING. If you did that, you got past page 2. But from here, you had to prove that you could construct a compelling scenario. For example, a writer might’ve opened on a shocking murder scene. Okay, you have my interest. But if the scene doesn’t build and contain conflict and move towards a satisfying conclusion, then I immediately lost interest.
If you could set up a compelling scenario, you got me to read the whole thing. And there were about 15 entries that got me to read all 10 pages. Four of those didn’t leave me with a good enough taste in my mouth to celebrate them here. The remaining eleven were all good. So here’s what I thought we’d do. I’m going to post the eleven winners here today and we’re going to do an impromptu 10 Page Amateur Offerings (which will last through the weekend). You guys will read the eleven entries and vote on your favorite. The winner will get a review next Friday. If the writer has a full script, I’ll review that. If they only have the ten pages, I’ll do an in-depth review on the pages, focusing on things we don’t get to normally explore when covering an entire screenplay. The winner will also get a feature consultation package from me! So really think about who you’re giving your vote to.
And I want to say one more thing to those of you who don’t find your pages here. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. It doesn’t mean you failed. But you do need to redefine what grabbing a reader means. Because I know a lot of you are talented. And in almost every case with you talented writers, you wrote something better than average. But you didn’t write something that grabbed me. You didn’t write like your life depended on it, I guess you could say. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this, it’s that busy people whose lives revolve around reading and hearing ideas all day don’t have any patience. And you have to write with that in mind. Like I said when all of this started, write 10 pages that are impossible to put down.
Okay, here are our 11 finalists! Good luck to everyone! Oh, and these are my titles for the scripts, not the writers.
Entry 1: Late For A Flight
Reaction: Biggest “Oh s&*%” moment.
Entry 2: The Leper Cave
Reaction: Creepiest entry?
Entry 3: The Woman Who Disturbed the Rat
Reaction: Most talented writer in the bunch?
Entry 4: Cop Stop
Reaction: First entry that I read all ten pages of!
Entry 5: Waking Up in a Pool
Reaction: Top amnesia entry.
Entry 6: Confused Soldiers
Reaction: You knew time travel had to make it into a Carson contest somehow!
Entry 7: The Art of Pick-Pocketing
Reaction: Script I was most surprised I liked.
Entry 8: Pterodactyl Bliss
Reaction: Writer best suited for the current Godzilla franchise.
Entry 9: Roman Plagues
Reaction: Script that best took me back to a different time and place.
Entry 10: Don’t Take the Phone
Reaction: Fastest pages in the whole challenge.
Entry 11: Cocaine Problems
Reaction: Darkest entry of the bunch.
