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Screenplay Review – Ezekiel Moss

Posted on May 30, 2012 | by admin

Genre: Supernatural Drama
Premise: Set during the Depression, a widow and her son are visited by a strange man who may have the ability to communicate with the dead. 
About: This is the writer’s breakthrough screenplay.  Before this, he was one of the writers on the HBO show, “In Treatment.”  He’s repped over at CAA.  Ezekiel Moss finished high on last year’s Black List. 
Writers: Keith Bunin
Details: 104 pages – Black List draft
Scriptshadow Casting Suggestion: Cillian Murphy for Ezekiel?
I’ve been meaning to read Ezekiel Moss for awhile but everybody keeps telling me, “It’s a good script but really slow.”  That “but” was the killer.  You don’t want any “buts” before you pick up a script.  You want “ands.”  You want “thens.”  But please, no “buts.”
But it turns out the slowness of Ezekiel Moss hit a reading sweet spot for me.  I was heading home from LA.  And since I find it impossible to do multiple things on travel days, I basically had one task – to read a script.  It was one of those rare times when I wasn’t rushed.  The script was slow-developing?  Fine with me.  I had hours to spare.
Add to that the melancholy feeling you get when going home after a trip and I was in the perfect mood for this story.  You’ve spent the last month of your life preparing for something, and then one day it’s just….over.  It’s like “What do I do now?”  You feel kind of empty.  Yet “empty” is the perfect mood to read Ezekiel Moss in.  The characters in this script are all empty.  They need something to fill up their lives.  And little do they know, that something is each other.
It’s 1934, the heart of the Depression.  It’s a small town, too small “for anyone to care about the name” according to the writer.  11 year old Joel Carson has a giant imagination and zero friends.  He lives with his widowed mother, Iris, an emotionally fragile woman, in the tiny Inn she runs.  Iris finds occasional moments of happiness sleeping with the salesman who stop by her Inn every week.  She hates herself for it, but if not for that, she’d be too lonely for words.
The thing with Iris’ job is that it’s predictable to the point of boredom.  The faces may change, but it’s the same travelling salesmen, the same practiced smiles, the same broken promises.  That is until the darkly intense Ezekiel Moss shows up with his witch-like partner, Hepzibah Webb. 
The two ask to stay in one of her rooms for a week and they come with two stipulations – stay out of their way and don’t ask questions.  Iris knows something is up but a girl’s gotta put food on the table so as long as it doesn’t incriminate her, they can do whatever they want. 
Joel finds the odd but vulnerable Ezekiel fascinating, and starts following him around, trying to figure out what it is he and Hepzibah do.  It turns out they travel from town to town to find people who’ve lost loved ones.  And that’s where things get interesting.  Ezekiel has a special talent – he can allow spirits to possess his body.  He can allow the dead to speak to the living.  Or, at least, that’s what he and Hepzibah claim.   
After seeing one of these possessions himself, Joel is a believer, and he runs to his mother to tell her what’s going on.  But because Joel’s imagination has always been so outrageous, Iris doesn’t believe him.  Nor does she want to believe him, as she’s begun to fall for Ezekiel. 
While all that’s going on, the town priest gets wind of Ezekiel.  He’s heard of these two. They’re wanted in towns all over the region for conning people out of money at a time when money is most in need.  It’s time to put a stop to this.
The thing is, all Ezekiel wants is to be normal, is to not live with this curse.  And if this priest tells him he can save his soul, Ezekiel’s ready to take that chance. He now has a child who looks up to him and a woman who’s falling for him.  If he can be “normal,” then maybe he can be part of a real family for once.  In a way, that’s his goal, even if deep down he knows it will never happen. 
Did I mention Ezekiel was slow?  Yeah, reading it feels like every two pages should be one.  But it still works!  Why?  Because the character development here is freaking top-notch.  I mean take a look at Iris.  Here’s a woman who was soul-mate in love with her husband before losing him.  During the accident, he shielded her to save her, ensuring his own death in the process.  She was pregnant with Joel at the time.  Which means there are moments, moments she’d never admit out loud, where she wishes he would’ve lived instead of Joel.  She seeks closeness from the company of other men, even though they’re gone before she wakes up.  The entire town calls her a whore behind her back.  She’s poor, can barely pay the bills.  She ignores the one sense of community the town has – church, alienating herself even more.  I mean that’s a f*cking complex character!  A sympathetic character.  The kind of person you want to know more about. 
But what’s great about Ezekiel is that everyone has a deep backstory – specifically about someone they lost.  And while in most stories, these tropes can become cliché and eye-roll worthy, here, they’re intricate parts of the plot.  Because Ezekiel can speak to the dead, he can bring these figures back.  The characters can resolve their issues with these ghosts.  That was my favorite part about Ezekiel.  People’s backstories actually mattered!
Another reason the slow-build works is that Bunin uses very simple but effective storytelling methods to keep you interested.  First there’s the arrival of Ezekiel Moss.  Everything about this man is interesting.  You want to know more.  You want to turn the page to see who he is and what he’s about.
Once you do find out, there’s a new mystery: “What are Ezekiel and Hepzibah doing here?  What’s their business?”  And as you gradually figure that out, a threat presents itself – the priest.  People are closing in on Ezekiel.  Their business is in danger (conflict).  So even though everything’s moving along at a deliberate pace, Bunin seems to use just the right amount of suspense or conflict or mystery to keep us involved. 
With that said, we could definitely move things along faster.  Bunin has a terrible habit of commenting after every line of dialogue. And not just commenting – but giving a really detailed comment that just sucks up page real estate.  For example, later in the script, Ezekiel is speaking to Iris and says, “Don’t you hope that someday you’ll get married?”  Immediately afterwards we get this action line:  “Ezekiel is asking this question for all kinds of reasons. Iris is deeply affected but she still keeps things light.”
I mean, just get to Iris’ response! That entire action line has already been implied.  This is done ENDLESSLY throughout the script and if Bunin could cut out 75% of these lines, the script would fly.  Right now, it’s in danger of being tossed because of Hollywood’s ADD epidemic.  And that’s too bad.  Because it’s a very powerful story.
For those interested in writing supernatural/horror movies, Ezekiel Moss is a good script to study.  The character development is top notch.  BECAUSE it’s top notch, the dialogue’s strong (a great understanding of character usually results in strong unique dialogue for each character).  And then everything just feels authentic – not easy to do when you’re setting your story 80 years ago.  I really liked this.  Speed it up a little and maybe we have something great. 
[  ] what the hell did I just read?
[  ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[  ] impressive
[  ] genius
What I learned: Beware character descriptions that contradict themselves.  I see this all the time for some reason.  “Joe is intelligent yet a bit of an imbecile.”  “Linda is one of those people who’s both happy and miserable.”  Uhhh, what does that mean?  Which one am I supposed to go with? Remember, writing a character description is not about it reading cool on the page – it’s about conveying the character as clearly as possible to the reader.  So here in Ezekiel, Iris is described as having a “winning mixture of toughness and fragility.”  I suppose you can make an argument that this makes sense but to me it’s just confusing.  All I want to know is “Who is this character?”  And that line doesn’t tell me.  Go for clear.  Readers like clear. 
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Screenplay Review – Focus

Posted on May 29, 2012 | by admin
Genre: Romantic Con-edy
Premise: A con man teams up with a con woman, but when he falls for her, he must decide which is more important, her or the con.
About: This is the directing team behind “Crazy Stupid Love.” They used to be purely writers but look to now be focusing on their directing careers.  “Focus” is their latest writing/directing project. Word on the street is that Ryan Gossling and Emma Stone will star.
Writers: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa
Details: 130 pages – First Draft (3-16-2012)

I don’t usually review first drafts anymore.  But a lot of people have written to tell me that this script is really good, so I’m going to make an exception.

As for this writing/directing team, I’m not sure what to make of them yet.  I think they wrote and directed “I Love You, Phillip Morris,” which, while not something I’d ever want to see, was at least different.  And recently, they took on directing duties for one of my favorite scripts, “Crazy, Stupid Love,” and played it a little too mainstream in my opinion.  Something was lost in that translation.  The story didn’t move as fast as it did in the script.

Still, comedies are tricky to direct and when you have another element to latch onto, like the con, it makes things a lot easier, since the entire movie doesn’t need to rest on laughs.

33 year-old Nicky Spurgeon comes from a long line of con men.  His dad was a con man.  His grandfather was a con man.  In fact, his grandfather and father used to con each other!  And that’s made Nicky about as untrustworthy of others as one can get.  Gotta love those troubled backstories.  They make your characters so damn interesting.

Anyway, Nicky’s hanging out in a bar one day where he meets a hot girl who takes him back to her room.  Just before they’re about to do the Dew, the woman’s husband barges in with a gun, threatening to kill Nicky.  But for some reason, Nicky’s not phased.  He shrugs his shoulders and tells the hubby to fire away.

The couple is shocked when Nicky then reveals he’s been onto their con for an hour now.  Pissed but intrigued, the girl, Jess, follows him out and begs him to teach her what he knows.  But since Nicky doesn’t let anybody in – doesn’t trust a soul – he tells her to get lost.

Jess is one persistent little cookie, though, and eventually convinces him to take her on.  He quickly shows her all his tricks, then brings her onto his big con, which will take place at the Super Bowl.  After a few twists and turns, he nails the rather confusing Super Bowl con with Jess’ help.

But whereas Jess thinks they’re now a team (and possibly more), Nicky’s always thought of her as a means to an end.  Now that the con is over, so is she.  Just like that, he disappears, and Jess is devastated.

But three years later, she and Nicky cross paths again before a huge car race.  Turns out Nicky is pulling a big con there, and Jess happens to be with one of the drivers, having left the con world behind.  Nicky finds himself drawn to Jess once again, but this time she’s not having it, stonewalling him at every turn.  Eventually she relents though, and Nicky is posed, once again, with that question: Does he give himself to this woman, or is it still all about the con?

I have a question about con man movies.  Why is it that our con man always randomly gets hit up by another con man (in this case, Jess)?  I mean, what are the chances?  It’s not like every third person in the world is a con man, right?  So the odds are pretty astronomical that someone would try to con a conner.  Yet it ALWAYS happens. I don’t know. That’s just never made sense to me.

Anyway, my big thing with Con scripts is that they have to be CLEVER.  Every scene, every character, every con, every double cross – has to be cleverly executed.  If we can see it coming from a mile away?  If at the end of the con, we don’t experience that internal, “Oooooohhhh?”  then you’re not doing your job.

To me, that “ooooohhh” never happened in Focus.  I wouldn’t say any of the cons here were bad. But none of them blew me away either.  The best con is one in which we’re actually unaware a con is going on – so I don’t know if it counts.

Luckily, it’s a GREAT scene that almost single-handedly saves the draft.  Nicky, who has a major gambling problem, starts to lose control while betting against a very rich Asian man at the Super Bowl.  They bet on miniscule things like who’ll make the next first down or whether the quarterback will hand off or throw.  Nicky keeps losing, but each time, betting double or nothing, until a 100 dollar bet turns into a million dollar bet.  It’s one of the more intense scenes I’ve read in awhile and has you gripping your seat, desperate to see how it will end.

Unfortunately, after that sequence, we experience an awkward three-year time jump and are introduced to an unnatural storyline involving Nicky trying to con a bunch of race car drivers.  The first draft-ness definitely affected this section (the writers feel like they’re still exploring the idea) but even considering its rawness, it doesn’t feel right.  I mean, race cars haven’t even been mentioned in the script before this.

I also hate large time jumps late in scripts because they imply nothing in the story is immediate.  If we can jump forward 3 years and nothing is affected, then the story probably isn’t focused enough (no pun intended).  I’m not saying it can’t or hasn’t been done before, of course.  Just that it’s difficult.

Focus has potential.  Nicky is an interesting character.  And the love story with Jess is pretty solid (and will only get better with more drafts).  But I’m not sure either of the script’s halves currently work.  The Super Bowl half is plagued by us not knowing what Nicky’s plan is. And the Race Car half just feels out of place.  Will be interesting to see what they end up with.

[  ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[  ] worth the read
[  ] impressive
[  ] genius

What I learned: You want your characters to be fucked up in some way.  Somewhere in that brain of theirs, wires need to be crossed.  The more wires that are crossed, the more interesting the character tends to be.  Here, Nicky comes from a family where his father played his own father in a con, accidentally killing him in the process.  How can you trust anyone when you grew up in a family that couldn’t even trust each other?  This lack of trust is what makes Nicky’s relationship with Jess so interesting.  He doesn’t know whether to give in to her or play her.  That script-long tug-of-war is the emotional meat of this piece and while it’s bogged down by too much first-draftness, I see it working well once the story’s been slimmed down.

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Screenplay Review – The Final Broadcast

Posted on May 28, 2012 | by admin

Genre: Drama
Premise: A strange cult kidnaps a girl from a small town and uses a local radio talk show to promote their twisted beliefs. 
About: This is the duo who wrote one of my favorite scripts from last year, “When The Streetlights Go On” (finished #2 on last year’s Black List). Not sure if they wrote “Broadcast” before or after “Streetlights” but if you liked that script, you’re going to be plenty satisfied with this one. 
Writers: Chris Hutton & Eddie O’Keefe
Details: 127 pages – undated
I’m still baffled by these writers.  I do not believe they’re only 23 years old.  Not because the writing is so specific or so good, but because they seem to understand things about life that you don’t understand without an older perspective.  I mean, when your generation’s most famous singer is Justin Bieber, you don’t reference The Beatles.  When you grow up during the Iraq War, you don’t know the intricate make-up of Vietnam.  Yet these two seem to know things that are way beyond what their years would imply.  I guess they’re just old souls.  But I won’t be convinced until I see them in person.  
I mean let’s start with the first page – a centered 30 line paragraph detailing the world you’re about to be transplanted into, which includes segments like: “The Final Broadcast takes place in an era neither here nor there. It could be 2012 as easily as 1952. It’s a vacuum; an America that exists only in our collective unconscious. The kind of place Edward Hopper might have painted.” 
Normally I’d slaughter writers for this.  The audience can’t see this paragraph. These aren’t titles or a voice over.  It’s never meant to be seen onscreen.  So if it’s not in the film, it shouldn’t be in the script! And yet I believe it’s indispensible to the story.  We need to understand this world.  We need to wrap our heads around its idiosyncrasies and rhythms and tone to understand how it’s going to play out on screen.  And this paragraph does that. So I’m in. Even though I’d never recommend anyone else trying it. 
But what really sets these two apart – and I probably mentioned this in their last review – is how every single scene in their screenplay feels different.  Read the first 10 pages of Broadcast for example.  We get a monologue from a “Carl Sagan Lite” character in some cheap PBS show about the origins of the Universe.  He tells us, in no uncertain terms, that our existence is pointless.  It’s jarring, unnerving, unsettling, and yet there’s a poeticness to it all that propels you forward. You need to read more.  You WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT – the only thing that truly matters in a screenplay.
So what does happen next?  Well, we meet a girl named Teresa Carnegie, who happens to be the daughter of the host of that show.  She’s watching a drive-thru movie with her friend when she’s kidnapped by some very nasty men. 
Afterwards, we run into Gary Glossup, a transplant from the big city who’s just moved in to take over the local talk radio gig.  Gary’s DJ’ing career is turned upside-down when he receives a live call from the men who took Teresa.  They call themselves “The Association” and proclaim that the end of the world is coming.
Because the local cops are morons, Gary has no choice but to get involved in the investigation and save Teresa, a task that’s personal to him as he lost his own daughter many years ago. 
So Gary buckles down and starts investigating the kidnapping, which brings him to another boy who went missing some weeks back named Billy Turman.  Rumors were that Billy was abducted by aliens.  But he was eventually found hanging from a tree during Halloween.  Everyone just assumed he was a prop, until the smell clued them in. 
Gary’s helped by a strange young reporter named Claire who happens to be in town doing a report on a rare moon eclipse.  But when Gary finds out that her credentials don’t check out, he begins to wonder if she’ telling him the truth.  As the eclipse draws near, more insanity begins to unravel, and Gary finds himself questioning everyone and everything around him.  All of this leads, of course, to a shocking conclusion. 
You know that show The Killing?  You know how you’ll be watching an episode of it and you’re wondering why the f*ck nothing is happening??  But there’s still something entrancing about the tone and the characters that keeps you going?  And since you want to find out who killed that damn girl, you stick around?  Well imagine The Final Broadcast as the best episode of The Killing ever written times a thousand – because it has that same kind of dark spooky tone, but it’s actually entertaining! 
And because there’s some actual urgency to it (the eclipse – ticking time bomb!) it moves where The Killing does not.  Speaking of urgency, I have to point out that while these guys do break their share of rules, the core dramatic storytelling pillars are in place.  You have the GOAL – find the girl.  STAKES – her life, as well as the lives of others the cult keeps kidnapping.  And URGENCY – the impending eclipse, when they promise to kill Teresa by.  So with that core there, they can go off-book in a number of other places.
Like the way they write their scenes.  I’ve been Twit-Pitch Reviewing every night and not enough people are surprising me. I’m not talking about big surprises.  I’m just saying, when you write a scene, you have to know that TYPE of scene has been written tens of millions of times before.  So it’s ESSENTIAL you add a minor twist or two to keep it fresh.   
I was just talking about this with a professional screenwriter the other day in fact.  She had a scene that had been in thousands of movies before but she still had to write it.  Just the fact that she knew she had to approach the scene differently put her ahead of 99% of the writers out there, because most writers don’t think about that stuff. We talked it through and found a few new elements which would allow her to write a unique version of the scene, and it turned out rather well.
So here, in The Final Broadcast, we have the sort of common “femme fatale” trope.  Our hero sees the drop-dead gorgeous stunner at the end of the bar and we’re assuming we’re going to get that boring predictable “one-up each other” clever dialogue laced with sexual subtext scene. Then, in the end, he’ll convince her to come home with him.  Instead, he buys her a drink from across the bar, she walks over, hands him the drink, says she doesn’t go out with men twice her age, and leaves.  The conversation is over before it even started.
“Hmmm,” I thought, “that’s a little different.”  And the thing with this script is, it’s packed with dozens of moments like this.
I can’t stress how important this is because it’s the only time I truly get excited by a screenplay these days – when I’m not sure how scenes or a story are going to unravel. That was my experience with “Streetlights” and that was my experience here. 
It’s rare that I give a writer two consecutive “impressives” in a row.  Their follow-up is almost always a let-down.  But these guys have done it.  And in many ways, this is actually a step-up from “Streetlights.”  It’s more structured.  It’s cleaner.  But it doesn’t quite reach the heights of that script and I think it’s because there’s a lack of character connection here.   We really identified with and bonded with the main character in “Streetlights.”  Here, it’s more about the story/the plot.  Luckily, the plotting and story were top-notch, which is why this still makes the “impressive” pile.  I love these writers. 
[  ] what the hell did I just read?
[  ] not for me
[  ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[  ] genius
What I learned: I always say – don’t write 5-6 line paragraphs in a screenplay.  And I’ll continue to say that until my very last script read.  However, any rule can be broken if there’s a direct correlation between the rule and the writer’s strength.  These two are so good with prose, so smooth with their writing, that I actually ENJOYED reading their long paragraphs, which is incredibly rare.  Take for instance, this description of Gary: “He was once a very handsome twenty-five year old.  However many years and many six-packs have softened his features a bit; softened everything but his old school heritage and sense of resolve. He’s a man cut from the same cloth as Newman or McQueen. The kind of guy they just don’t make anymore.”  That’s a long freaking paragraph.  But it flows so naturally and gives you such a great understanding of the character, that you allow it.  So a big part of breaking the rules is understanding your strengths. If you’re great at dialogue, you can get away with 8 page dialogue scenes.  If you’re great with prose, you can write longer paragraphs.  The trick is to never blindly assume you’re good at something.  Make sure you KNOW.  Because that’s the reason behind a lot of bad writing – writers assuming they’re good at something they’re not.  Play to your strengths people!

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Scriptshadow in LA – Packaging Material

Posted on May 22, 2012 | by admin

So because I’m in LA this week running around like a crazy person, there won’t be any reviews.  Well, maybe I’ll have an Amateur Friday review but it’ll depend on time.  I’ll try to post bite-sized chunks of content in the mean time and I’ll start with a little background detailing The Disciple Program sale.
On that crazy first day two months ago when Tyler and I first went out with the script, within about 4 hours, the script had attached an A-List producer and an A-List actor and was being brought in to one of the major studios.  Within about 5 hours, some very big numbers were being discussed.  But here’s the thing.  The A-List actor hadn’t read the script yet.  Or at least, we didn’t know if he had.  He was off shooting a movie in another part of the world.  We knew someone close to him had read the script and was confident the actor would want to do it.  But we didn’t know if he had personally read it.
And this was where I experienced first hand one of those weird confusing things about Hollywood. Sometimes actors will attach themselves to projects without reading the script.  The thing is, I guess, that an actor attaching himself to something doesn’t mean that much in the grand scheme of things.  He’s not signing any official contract.  He’s just saying he’s interested in the project enough to put his name on it.  So he’s not really risking anything if he attaches himself.  Still, as far as the studio is concerned, just his name can be enough to pull the trigger on the sale. They like the script anyway.  But now they have an actor who can open a movie.  Kaboom!
But here’s what you have to keep in mind.  If an actor hasn’t read a script before he’s attached himself to it, you’re taking a risk.  Because what if he reads it later on and doesn’t like it?  Then the package the studio bought is no longer in place and that big splashy sale you made is in danger of becoming like 90% of all script sales – another screenplay that never makes it to the big screen. 
So Tyler and his agents decided to pull back and package the project more securely. That meant getting an actor that they knew was going to make the movie, as well as a director.  The thing with directors is that it’s very hard to get a good one attached to a script.  Remember, unlike actors, who can make 3 movies a year, directors take years to make a movie.  So they’re much pickier.  Getting anyone of significance can be extremely challenging. 
So now you have a great script, an actor who’s telling the studio he definitely wants to make the movie, and a director.  It’s basically like the movie’s being handed to the studio.  They can see it.  They don’t have to do anything.  That’s appealing.  And it’s better for the writer when that happens too.  As coveted a prize as making that big spec sale is to a screenwriter, the people on the other side of the fence look at it much differently.  They see spec sales all the time, shrug their shoulders indifferently, and say, “It’ll never get made.”  And they’re usually right. 
The only thing anyone really cares about or puts any stock in is GETTING THE MOVIE MADE.   That’s the true finish line.  That’s when you get all the respect, all the accolades.  And the reason why is because it’s really f*cking hard to do.  Which is why having produced credits on your resume ups your profile so much.  So in a lot of ways, carefully stepping back and packaging The Disciple Program was important for Tyler’s career.  Because if Disciple gets made, he’s officially in the mix.  His profile shoots up and his quote shoots up as well.  A produced screenwriter is a BIG deal because that writer’s proven that his words get movies made.   Since that’s all anyone wants to do, everyone in the business is seeking THOSE screenwriters out first.
Still, I keep thinking back to that day when we sent the script out and think, “If Tyler would’ve sold it that day, it would’ve been a HUGE story that people would’ve been talking about for years.”  I mean, nothing like that had ever happened before.  There were so many weird variables to selling that script– and in that amount of time (5 hours??).  With no reps.  With a first time writer that no one had even heard of 3 hours ago?  It would’ve raised Tyler’s profile in a completely different way.  Because going through that packaging process took so much time, a lot of that had been forgotten, and the buzz wasn’t as high.  There was definitely a trade-off to going that route.
I think when I first started all this, I thought the process was a lot simpler.  You send a script out and people either buy it or they don’t.  But there’s a lot of planning – a lot of strategy that goes into it.  Do you go out to actors first?  Try to get a director?  Who do you go out to?  Who do you avoid?   Do you prep everyone?  Or do you spring it on them out of nowhere, like we did? That approach was what got the project so much buzz in the first place because everyone was trying so hard to figure out what Disciple Program was and where it came from that they were calling everyone else.
I think the route Tyler ended up taking was the better one for his career.  But I’m not going to lie and say I don’t think about what would’ve happened had it sold that day.  It would’ve been mayhem.  Not even Deadline would’ve been able to ignore the Scriptshadow factor if that had happened.  J  What do you guys think? 
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Screenplay Review – The Disciple Program (Amateur Friday)

Posted on May 19, 2012 | by admin

This is a re-post of the original Disciple Program review that I posted on February 24th because….The Disciple Program just sold! With Mark Wahlberg and Morten Tyldum attached, an awesome new director who directed a film called “Headhunters” (google for the trailer). Congrats to Tyler. I know he had higher offers out there but his goal was to get this movie made so he’s been carefully working with WME packaging the thing so that this is a movie and not just one of the 9 in 10 script sales that never gets made. I’ll be putting together an interview with Tyler soon so we can go over all of the nitty gritty details with you guys. It’s been pretty interesting watching the entire process of a script from that crazy first day to finally selling. Lots of stuff I never knew goes on behind the scenes. So for the weekend, chalk one up to SS and a fellow Scriptshadow reader. We’re on the board!

A review of the screenplay that’s turned into one of the rarer more interesting screenwriting stories in awhile.  And yours truly found himself in the middle of it. :)

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A man begins an investigation into his wife’s mysterious death, only to find that it goes much deeper than he imagined.
About: The first amateur script to ever crack The Scriptshadow Top 10. Tyler was an unsold unrepped writer out of Brooklyn when he sent this to me. After I sent the script out to half a dozen industry contacts on Wednesday, the script has found its way into every agency, management company, and studio in town. Late yesterday, Tyler finally made his decision to go with WME, who will put a package together for the project and go out with it in the near future.
Writer: Tyler Marceca
Details: 114 pages

Poster courtesy of Brian Kelsey!

As the creator of this blog, I dreamt of this moment. I wanted to find a script that nobody else knew about, that no studio or producer or agent or manager knew existed and celebrate it here in front of the world for the first time. I was hoping to do this on a regular basis. But as we’ve found out together over the past three years, good scripts are hard to come by.

Well, I finally found one. And it all happened rather unexpectedly. Tyler contacted me out of nowhere to consult on his latest screenplay. My prices have gone up a bit in recent months so I got the feeling he was reluctant. But in the end, he decided to go for it, and sent me a script called “The Disciple Program.” “Cool title,” I thought to myself, then prepared to note away.

I don’t know what time travel feels like but I’m assuming it feels something like this. I remember starting the script, then looking up and seeing that I was on page 30! *And I hadn’t written a single note down.* Just for reference, I usually have a couple pages of notes by the end of the first act.

Hmm, I thought. That’s odd. This never happens. But a small part of me was still worried. I’ve read a lot of good first acts, only to find a writer who doesn’t know how to navigate a second act. So I kept waiting for the jenga pieces to crumble. Not because I wanted them to. Good God, finding a great script is every reader’s dream. But because that’s what usually happens. I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

But ten more pages passed and it still wasn’t crumbling. Ten MORE pages passed, and it actually *started getting better.* And then the midpoint came and I realized, Holy Shit, this is the real deal.

And when you hit the real deal as a reader, it’s the most exhilarating feeling in the world. The only thing better are those divine moments of inspiration you get as a writer.

So afterwards, naturally, I called up Tyler and said, “Where the f&%* did you come from???” And he said, “Brooklyn.” After talking to him for awhile, I learned that this script had actually started from a contest – The Writer’s Store “Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest.” They do a unique thing where they give you a high concept yet slightly generic logline from a professional screenwriter (in this case it was Robert Mark Kamen – the writer of “Taken”) and then you send them ten pages at a time, for which they provide feedback, and in the end they name the winner. He informed me that he had just won that contest. (I believe their new logline for this year’s contest is out if you want to check it out!).

That didn’t surprise me at all. In fact, Disciple Program looks like a winner from the very first scene. It takes that old screenwriting axiom of “Make your first ten pages great” and crushes it with a thousand megatons of failed screenplays. Great is for amateurs. It goes for amazing.

We meet Jocelyn, a psychiatrist at a mental hospital – that’s gotta be a rewarding job – who’s been tasked with probing the mind of a convicted serial killer. He’s not quite Hannibal Lecter territory. But I’m guessing this guy’s nibbled on his share of human flesh.

At this point I’m musing, “Okay, this might be a cool scene. Scary ass lunatic in a tiny room with a vulnerable woman. Only one guard nearby. I’m digging it.” Well, a few pages later, the man regurgitates a shiv, grabs the guard, stabs him a dozen times before he can blink, then, still handcuffed to the chair, he starts reaching out, desperately trying to do the same to Jocelyn, who’s inches out of his reach.

As long as she stays in this exact spot, he can’t get to her. That is until he starts CUTTING OFF HIS OWN HAND WITH HIS SHIV, desperate to get across that table and kill Jocelyn. Who the fuck is this guy? Is he nuts?? Well, yeah, I guess he is. But this goes beyond “nuts.” It’s like he values killing this woman more than his own life. That can’t be normal, can it? Then, just when it seems like he’s going to succeed, guards race in and save her.

In the meantime, we meet Jocelyn’s husband, Roger, one of those predator drone pilots. He gets to send planes into hostile territory, take the enemy out, fly home, without ever leaving his computer. When Roger hears about the attack on his wife, he hurries over to the hospital. But when he tries to console her, she’s stand-offish, distant. We realize that even a near-death experience can’t repair the issues these two have going on. Roger clearly wants to be closer to his wife. But she’s put up a wall.

So Roger takes Jocelyn home, figuring a little rest will calm them both, and maybe he can deal with this tomorrow morning. But he never gets that opportunity. When he wakes up, he finds Jocelyn dead in their swimming pool.

The coroner calls it an accidental drowning, but Roger has a funny feeling about it. Something’s not right here. So he looks deeper, going so far as to inspect the body himself, and what he finds is shocking. On the back of her neck is a piece of carefully placed synthetic skin, meant to blend in with her real skin. He rips it off to find a small pin prick.

There’s no doubt now. Somebody killed his wife. But who? And why? She’s just a psychiatrist who works at a mental hospital.

That’s where Roger begins the investigation. He wants to talk to Cut-Off-His-Hand Dude. Not surprisingly, the guy isn’t the best conversationalist. But to his credit, it’s looking like his attack and her murder are unrelated. Yet when Roger checks the security tapes, he sees that in the hour leading up to his wife’s attack, every camera in the facility was turned off. Hmm…Strange.

It doesn’t take long for Roger to realize that if someone wanted his wife dead, they probably want anyone looking into her death dead too. As if on cue, a couple of highly trained killers move in, Nurse Kathy and The Arsonist, gas Roger in his home, and take him out to a remote cliff to put an end to his life.

Roger barely squirms out of that one, and when he does, he realizes just how bad this is. While Nurse Kathy and The Arsonist are two of the most lethal killers on the planet, they’re chicken feed compared to the people he just pissed off. These men will stop at nothing – NOTHING – to kill Roger. What they don’t account for, however, is that Roger’s just as determined as they are, and he WILL hold responsible the people who killed his wife.

Where do I start with this one? I basically loved everything about it. Surprise, huh? Seeing as I’ve been tweeting about it every 10 seconds for the last 72 hours. The only thing that sucks about The Disciple Program is figuring out where to start with its awesomeness.

I guess I’ll start with its consistency. Bad amateur scripts have one good scene followed by 10 average scenes. Then another good scene, followed by 6 bad scenes. Tyler made sure EVERY – SINGLE – SCENE was worth reading here. There were no bridge scenes. He didn’t take any scenes off. Every single scene mattered. Every single scene was *dramatized.* That’s what was so cool about The Disciple Program. It never allowed you to NOT like it.

The next thing I noticed was the intelligence. Most bad scripts feel like they were slapped together by someone who keeps “Jackass 3” saved on their Tivo and eats Fruit Loops for dinner. There’s no depth to the writing. There’s nothing about the world they create that you haven’t seen before in other films or TV shows. So it all feels generic. Here, there was a genuine intelligence, uniqueness and understanding of the world in the writing. It was so convincing, in fact, that I called Tyler afterwards and asked him how long he’d been on leave and when he had to go back. He laughed and assured me he’s never been in the military. But I don’t know. I think there’s more to that story.

What really made this stand out though were the characters. Every single character in this script is memorable. I can’t BEGIN to tell you how rare this is. From the wife to Roger to the nurse to “The Arsonist” to the big man in charge, Ambrose, to the military men Ambrose hires (Arroyo and Vickrey) to the even bigger man in charge, Beau. This is the area that really separates the top dogs from the lap dogs. Strong writers know how to make their characters unique. Newbies don’t put any effort into character creation, therefore it’s rare for any of their characters to stand out.

I’ll say it again but they – along with everything else – felt so SPECIFIC. The way Ambrose goes about recruiting a couple of dangerous U.S. soldiers with sordid pasts to help him take down Roger – I’ve never read a scene like that. It was just so convincing. I’m used to writers bullshitting their way through those scenes. I felt that Tyler had either been in that exact same situation himself (yes I REALLY thought that) or he’d researched the shit out of how these conversations typically go down (which is even scarier when you think about it – where do you find people who have been in that kind of situation before?).

And the scene construction here – it’s just SO good. Every single scene BUILDS. There was suspense, conflict, curiosity. It was like each scene had its own story. Each scene stood on its own.

One of my favorite scenes was when Nurse Kathy and The Arsonist gas Roger. He wakes up, paralyzed in a car. He can SEE The Arsonist and Nurse Kathy in front of him, but he CAN’T MOVE. They’ve drugged him. So all he can do is watch helplessly as they set up his fake suicide – a plan that includes manually inserting a liter of whisky into his stomach then pushing his car off a cliff.

It was one of the most intense scenes I’ve ever read. He’s just WATCHING them casually plan his death and there’s nothing he can do about it. All you’re thinking is, “How the hell is he going to get out of this one??”

(spoiler) Then, just as the arrogant gloating Nurse Kathy puts the finishing touches on her Rembrandt, she looks into his eyes, as if to taunt him one last time. And there’s something she sees that’s not quite right. In a brilliant payoff (that’s too complicated to get into here), Roger wasn’t paralyzed at all. He swiftly GRABS her and proceeds to take both her and The Arsonist out, forcing Kathy, in particular, to suffer just as horrible a death as she was planning for him.

And that’s the thing about this character – he was so badass! He was so capable, so clever. Usually, when I read these screenplays, the methods by which the characters get out of situations are entirely dependent on the writer helping them. Here, Tyler writes himself into corners, practically daring himself to find a way out. This forces him to come up with really clever solutions to things. Every time it happened, I would just get this big smile on my face. A smile of, “I fucking never see this in screenplays. This is nuts!”

Another thing I’m always telling you guys to do is to make sure your script builds. Make sure that each challenge in the script is bigger than the last. Most of the scripts I read go in the opposite direction. Writers throw everything into those first 45 pages then don’t know what to do next. So the rest of the script is one long balloon deflating.

We start Disciple with serial killer Edmund, move up to third tier villains The Arsonist and Nurse Kathy. Then we get to Ambrose, who’s just about the coolest most confident villain you’ll ever meet. He hires two military men and goes on a personal vendetta to end Roger’s life. But Ambrose is nothing compared to our final villain, the man above him, Beau. This guy practically runs the CIA with an iron fist. So you really get the sense that our character is going up against bigger and bigger obstacles.

I haven’t even gotten to the dialogue, which was amazing (Go read the scene where Beau and Ambrose are out on their respective building decks with Beau giving Ambrose the business – fucking awesome). This had some of the best monologues I’ve read in a script. There wasn’t a single moment in the story where I didn’t believe what was coming out of a character’s mouth. That NEVER happens when I read a script.

Let’s see…the pace was great. The structure was great. The writing was top-notch. Am I leaving anything out? I mean, when I read a script, I’m charting about 8 things that show a mastery of the craft. They include things like character, structure, dialogue, pacing, conflict, theme, that sort of stuff. Most amateur scripts I read are lucky to have 1. This may be the first script I’ve read to have all 8.

There were really only a couple of things I thought could be improved. There are times when the prose feels a bit overwritten. I discussed this with Tyler and he’s just a guy who likes words. He’s not out to prove that he knows more than you. His inspiration is writers like Brad Ingelsby (The Low Dweller) so that’s just his style. I’d like him to keep it a little simpler but then again, I’m not the one who wrote this great script. So I’ll trust him.

And next, I felt like there was a missed opportunity with the Predator Drone. It pops up late LATE in the script. But I would’ve liked to have seen it featured somewhere. I mean you have this guy who pilots predator drones. That’s got set-piece scene written all over it. I suggested a scene to Tyler of having to access the drone from some ratty old laptop when surrounded in the remote cabin (he’s stuck in a remote cabin near the midpoint) and have to use a really bad internet connection to get the drone out there to kill his assassins before they move in and kill him. Tyler’s response to that idea was about five seconds of silence, lol, so I knew where I stood with that one. I’m just going to leave the writing to him. But I would like a bigger predator drone scene.

A couple of weeks ago, finishing Disciple, I knew I had found something special. I knew that these kinds of moments don’t come around often – finding a really great script from an unknown writer. But I had no idea that it would blow up as big as it did over the past few days. I mean, I had producers calling me saying they’d been forwarded the script by four different people in the last hour. I heard over a dozen producers were flying around trying to put the project together with multiple packages. My phone blew up (I don’t know how – nobody has my number) as I quickly realized I was in a strange sort of interim manager position since Tyler didn’t have any reps. That’s what was so unique about this. Usually when this kind of thing happens, it’s a calculated thing with agents and managers carefully orchestrating the buzz. It’s never really been done like this before so nobody knew – even seasoned producers – where to go or what to do. Including myself!

And it was a little nerve-wracking and fun talking with Tyler during the process, who when I first told him I was going to send the script out to some contacts, expected to field 3 calls, maybe 4 tops. He didn’t expect to be on the phone for 8 straight hours two days in a row. He didn’t expect to have to turn down calls from producers who just days ago he would’ve sold his left arm to talk to. It was insane.

But towards the end of yesterday, when Tyler finally signed with WME, and he finally had a second to just breathe, he said something that really stuck with me. He said, “Carson. I don’t want to deal with any of this stuff. I just wanna write.” And it was a really cool moment because I remembered that all of this craziness was just that – craziness. And what matters most is the writing. To that end, I think Tyler’s set for a long time.

Screenplay Link: The Disciple Program

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (Top 10!!!)
[ ] genius

What I Learned: I have a funny little postscript to this experience. So after I finished The Disciple Program, raced to my phone, called Tyler, and asked him where the hell he came from, we had a couple of laughs and then he casually mentioned that he’d sent me a script 8 months ago for notes. What?? I said. You’ve sent me a script before?? There’s no way I would’ve forgotten a script by this writer. So after the call, I went back through my notes and indeed, found an old script that I covered for him. I quickly remembered it. It was a script with all sorts of talent. But the story itself was all over the place and muddled. And I remember giving him that note. That he needs to focus his story more because the talent is clearly there. And just 8 months later, he came up with this. And I think that should serve as a motivator to every writer out there. You’re going to learn with each script. You’re going to get better with each script. You just have to keep writing. So stay inspired. Your own breakout moment could be a script away. :)

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