Genre: True Story/Sports
Premise: The true story of Brad Lewis, a blue-collar rower rejected numerous times by the Olympic team, who eventually wins America’s first gold medal in the sport in 50 years.
About: This script finished with a monstrous 32 votes on the 2016 Black List. Screenwriter Tony Tost is one of the writers on the Logan-Marshall Green led series, Damnation. More recently, Tost was hired to adapt “Bare Knuckle,” about underground bare-knuckle boxer Bobby Gunn, who some say is the toughest guy you’ve never heard of.
Writer: Tony Tost (based on the book, “Assault on Lake Casitas” by Brad Alan Lewis)
Details: 119 pages

Row Channning, Row!

I’m going to come straight out and say it. The Olympian is Sports Story Light.

It’s a good script but it’s written in the way those late 90s early 2000s sports scripts were written – the films that Disney became good at producing (“Miracle”). I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Only that if you’re looking for a gritty dirty truthful production, you’re not going to get it here.

I bring this up because biopics are at this stage where there’re so many of them, it’s getting harder for any to stand out. To do so, you need to find an off-the-wall character, an outrageous story, or discover a unique point of view. I wasn’t a fan of I, Tonya by any means. But I’ll be the first to admit it was unlike any recent true sports story I’ve seen. I’m not sure The Olympian provides us with anything new.

The story introduces us to 29 year old Brad Lewis, a row-a-holic who’s aiming to make the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics rowing team. The blue-collar California native lives with his alcoholic father and, during the few hours of the day he’s not rowing, shacks up with local bartender Pam Cruz.

While Brad would tell you the biggest obstacle to making the team is the elitist Ivy League coach, Harry Parker, the reality is, his biggest obstacle is himself. All Brad cares about is rowing. He illegally cuts down fences to get to private lakes so he can practice. He slaps himself in the face repeatedly to get psyched up before every race. And he alienates anyone who gets in his way.

As the Olympics approach, Brad flies to the east coast to try and make the team. But he loses the final race by a hair and is forced to quit. Until Harry gives him a second chance. Row tandem. Brad is so destructive that teaming up has never been an option. But with it being his lone chance to make the team, he has no choice.

Back home, Pam learns that she has breast cancer. Terrified that she may become a distraction, she doesn’t tell Brad. Meanwhile Brad and his new teammate, Paul, take on a series of way-better-trained Ivy Leaguers to get that final tandem slot on the team. In the end, Brad learns to control his emotions and become one with someone else, which ends in the two pulling off one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history.

Me rowing.

Today I want to talk about the heartbeat of your script, your characters. You have two jobs when you create your hero. The first job is to find the conflict within. In the case of Brad, you have someone who’s self-destructive and self-centered. His entire arc revolves around trying to control himself. He’s a powder keg ready to explode. That’s what’s kept him from making the Olympics all these years.

Your second job is to find the conflict between your hero and each of the secondary characters. This is where a lot of beginner to intermediate writers falter. They feel like as long as they get the inner stuff with their hero figured out, they’re good. But a fully-rounded screenplay examines the relationships as well.

One of the difficult things about creating conflict between characters is that most writers only understand one form of conflict. Head-butting. Therefore, after they’ve assigned that conflict to one of the pairs, they’ve got nothing left for anyone else. We do have that form of conflict here in The Olympian. It occurs between Brad and the coach. They don’t like each other at all.

But you still have numerous other characters Brad is in contact with. What do we do with them? Well, let’s find out. We’ll start with the father. The father doesn’t think Brad should waste his time with rowing anymore. Brad is 29 years old. His dad thinks it’s time to start a family. This plays out mostly in a passive-aggressive manner. The father isn’t impressed by anything Brad accomplishes, which only forces Brad to work harder to get his father’s acceptance. It’s not the most original relationship. But for the sake of today’s lesson, it’s a solid choice if only because it’s different from head-butting.

Next we have Pam. This is the most interesting conflict in the script because it doesn’t contain any interaction between the characters. Pam is choosing to hide her cancer from Brad so that she doesn’t disturb his training. I like this because it’s outside the box. A conflict between two characters doesn’t always mean the characters have to be in contact. As long as the reader is aware of the conflict – as is the case here, since we’re aware of Pam’s cancer – that’s enough to create interest from the reader.

Finally, we have the relationship with Brad’s teammate, Paul. Their conflict is more of a difference in approach. And this is something you can use for the lesser relationships in the script – a difference in philosophy or a difference in approach. Brad always wants to GO GO GO at a thousand miles an hour, whereas Paul wants them to pace themselves.

And there you have it. If you can build compelling conflicts into each of your primary relationships, you can write just about anything and it will be interesting. At the end of the day, we’re not rooting for the plot. We’re rooting for the characters. So as long as the situations your characters are placed in are interesting, we’ll stay invested.

As for the rest of the script, I found myself pulled in, taken out, pulled back in, taken out again. I never gave up on the screenplay. But there always seemed to be something preventing me from loving it. Such as the fact that everyone in this script was reading classic books. Look, having one character be a book nerd is fine. But once you have two or three characters that are book nerds, it’s clear that the characters aren’t the book nerds. You are. And that takes the reader out of the story.

This issue extended to the dialogue as well. These were supposedly blue collar characters, yet they’d be routinely spouting out lines like, “Well, darling, I am trained to discern the underlying substrata to all human behavior and cognition,” as Pamela says early on. As a writer, your dialogue should only be as smart as the character saying it. And I didn’t always feel that way.

In the end, though, it didn’t matter because this was such a strong depiction of one of the “always works” character types – the underdog. Brad is the ultimate underdog. And seeing him go up against these Ivy School pricks for a spot on the team – it’d be weird if I didn’t root for him. I guess my only criticism is that this felt like it had the potential to be better. The execution was too straight-forward. Which is why I place it in the like-it-didn’t-love it category.

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

What I learned: THE RULE OF TWO – I’ve found that in sports movies, two is usually better than one, because two gives you more opportunity to explore conflict. If you’re writing a tennis movie, write about a doubles team instead of a singles player. If you’re writing a rowing movie, write about a team as opposed to a single rower. If you’re writing a golf movie, make it about the golfer AND the caddy. If you’re writing a boxing movie, make it about the boxer AND his coach. Rule of Two, baby!

Here’s the winning race…

Genre: Superhero
Premise: (IMDB’s awful logline) When Eddie Brock acquires the powers of a symbiote, he will have to release his alter-ego “Venom” to save his life.
About: If you’d have told me that Venom made 28 million at the box office this weekend, I would’ve nodded and said, “Sounds about right.” I didn’t know anyone who wanted to see the movie. It didn’t seem particularly buzz-worthy on the internet. And the bad reviews coming down after the premiere seemed to solidify its DOA status. Then I look up and see “80 MILLION.” What in the…! The most important people in the moviegoing process – the audience – have spoken. So get ready for Venom and the Spidey-Universe to expand like a Sahara Desert tan.
Writers: Jeff Pinkner & Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel (based on the character created by Todd McFarlane and David MIchelinie)
Details: 112 minutes

Critics vs. Audiences!

Pick a side.

For those of you who lead normal lives and don’t check movie trade sites every 4 minutes, I’m referring to the disparity between what critics thought of Venom (32%) and what audiences thought of Venom (89%). Since we’re seeing more and more instances of audiences and critics disagreeing, there’s been a rising tide of conspiracy theories as to why this is happening. Some folks are even going back to the old “critics are getting paid under the table” theory.

I’m going to put an end to this nonsense and explain what’s going on. And, wouldn’t you know it, it all comes back to the screenplay.

Here’s how it works. Critics have seen way too many movies. Therefore, they get bored easier. And what they get bored most by is formula. The easiest way to get critics on your side is to subvert expectations. This is why The Last Jedi, which many audience members disliked, did so well with critics. It was the ultimate expectation-subverting film. At every point where we would normally get a formulaic choice (Snoke’s Throne Room, Rey learning who her parents are), we got something unexpected. And critics LOOOOOOOVE that shit. Hence their overwhelmingly positive reviews.

Venom, on the other hand, is your straight-forward formulaic super-hero origin movie. It’s got the reporter hero. It’s got the evil scientist who’s only evil because the story requires him to be. It’s got the “getting used to being a superhero” sequence. It’s got the scientist later turning into a super-villain. They have to stop some big thing from happening at the end of the movie or the earth will be invaded. Critics have seen this movie a million times. They’re not going to give it a positive review.

What these same critics don’t understand is that there’s power in having fun with the material. If there’s a genuine love from the people making a film, and they’re able to infuse that fun into the script and onto the screen, audiences are going to feel that. They don’t need to be surprised like critics do. A solid loving film that fulfills their expectations is enough. And this is why there’s such a large gap between critics and regular people with this film.

If you haven’t seen Venom, it’s about new-school reporter, Eddie Brock, who secretly peeps info from his lawyer girlfriend about the Life Corporation, a giant tech company that’s covering up several suspicious deaths. Eddie confronts the head of the company, Carlton Drake, about the deaths, and promptly gets fired because of it.

When Drake’s assistant later sneaks Eddie into the company, Eddie is infected with Drake’s newest experiment, an alien parasite he found while sniffing around on other planets. The parasite, “Venom,” becomes an alter-ego to Eddie, using him to wreak havoc and eat people (one of his favorite things to do). But Venom ultimately starts to like Eddie, and, in the end, decides to help him stop Infected Drake, whose own parasite is attempting to destroy earth.

Okay, so this was a really bad movie.

I’m sorry, guys, but it was.

In theory, it should’ve worked. The best superheroes are the ones where the hero’s powers come at a cost. That way, they’re always at war with themselves, and people fighting an inner battle are always more interesting than people at peace with themselves. There’s no steeper cost than the one Eddie Brock is paying with Venom. The symbiotic monster does whatever he wants whenever he wants, and all Eddie can do is hang on for the ride.

But something wasn’t working in this relationship and it’s hard to pinpoint what that was. I don’t think Hardy’s performance helped. I wouldn’t call his interpretation of Eddie Brock bad. But he seemed to be in a different movie than Venom. I know this because we just had a movie with this exact same premise – Upgrade – and the relationship between the hero and the infection was spot on. Logan Marshall-Green (the actor who played the hero) seemed to be way more in-tune with the humor the director (and the inner voice) was going for. I don’t know how to characterize Hardy’s performance other than to say he always appeared to be babbling to himself, a slave to the darker film he’d created in his mind.

Then there was Venom. I couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be scary or funny. The inability to pick a lane left too many scenes open to interpretation. If you thought the scene would be played seriously, but was instead played comedically, you’d be frustrated. And if you went in with a comedic mindset and the scene was played seriously, you’d be confused. No scene better represented this tonal bamboozling than the restaurant scene.

In it, Eddie Brock storms into a restaurant to ask his ex-fiance, who’s on a date, for help. Eddie is sweating and babbling incoherently before grabbing a passing waiter’s lobster and violently biting its head off. It’s a scene that could’ve fit into some dark Sundance indie drama about a man who’s losing his mind. Yet seconds later, Eddie hops into the lobster tank to “cool down,” in a comedic twist you would imagine happening in a deleted scene from Pretty Woman.

Or, in short, WTF???

Then there was the plotting. Let me put it like this. You know when your laptop’s CPU and fan are SCREAMING LOUD because of how overworked the computer is? That’s what this plot felt like. The writers were trying SO HARD to meld the plotlines that the script was constantly screaming like the mad-hatter. Take Eddie turning into Venom. We all know it’s going to happen. That’s what the movie is about! But first we had to establish the symbiotes getting to earth, then we had to establish Drake, then we had to establish Eddie’s job, then we had to create a reason for Eddie and Drake to meet, and then we had to have him get fired and then we had to have him get dumped and then we had to have him walking around town miserable — AND WE’RE STILL NOWHERE NEAR VENOM! – and then we had to show Drake do failed experiments with symbiotes to establish that they didn’t mesh with just anybody, and then we had to show one of the test subjects die so Drake’s assistant could be upset so we could have her approach Eddie about exposing Life Corporation, so that we could have her sneak Eddie into the building so that finally – FINNNNNNALLLLLLLY!!!!!!!! – Eddie could encounter the symbiote and get infected. I mean, there had to be an easier way!

Then there was the sloppiness. The assistant’s plan for helping Eddie expose Drake was to sneak him into the heavily guarded Life Corporation building and then LEAVE HIM THERE. What was she thinking Eddie would do after he took the pictures? Head to the front desk and ask the security guard to call him an Uber?

Finally, the special effects. **shudders** They were bad. I’m talking 2003 bad. I get that you’re not working with an Avengers budget. But I can only imagine what the director of Upgrade, who shot that film for 5 million bucks, could’ve done with this kind of money.

Halfway through Venom, I realized that the entire front of my face was pinched. It was the physical manifestation of my feelings about the film – an awkward uncomfortable tonally discombobulated story that was a result of producer Amy Pascal wanting to make Deadpool, director Ruben Fleischer wanting to make Zombieland, and actor Tom Hardy wanting to make, I don’t know, Midnight Cowboy? Despite nobody being on the same page, the film somehow managed to strike a chord with the public. And like I said at the outset, that’s all that matters.

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: A lot of people wondered why Tom Hardy signed onto this movie. It’s because he gets to play two people! A reporter and the alien infecting him. Never underestimate how alluring a “dual-role” is to actors. It’s catnip, baby. Catnip!

Genre: True Crime/Thriller
Premise (from writer): After the arrest of David Parker Ray, one of the most sadistic men in US history, the consequences of his heinous crimes unfold through the eyes of different characters in search of countless missing victims.
Why You Should Read: I’ve been obsessed with this little-known true story ever since I read about it a year ago. Although it’s filled with shocking turns and twisted details, I wanted to focus on a theme more relevant to today: the search for truth in a world where there are as many versions of it as there are individuals. For those faint of heart, I can assure you, I didn’t want to write a cheap and gruesome horror movie, instead, this is something more human. I could’ve written this like a real-life version of Saw, but why bother turning it into a torture-porn movie when the investigation after his arrest became greater than anyone could have imagined. For anyone willing to give it a try, I would be eternally grateful and will obviously try my best to be part of any discussion.
Writer: Kit Anderson
Details: 114 pages

Claire Danes for Sally?

Mucho movie news has been hitting the internnoying this week, starting with reviews for Venom, a film that has a wild amount of support despite its sub-30% Rotten Tomato Score. And Jon Favreau, who’s building the new Star Wars TV show, announces a director line-up so diverse, Twitter usage has decreased 26% due to the SJW Mob’s inability to criticize his choices.

While it’s tempting to dedicate an entire post to that, I’m happy to announce that today’s script is so captivating, you won’t be thinking about symbiotes or mandalorians by the end of the review. Truth or Consequences is definitely going to end up on my Top 10 Amateur Scripts of the Year List. But how high will it rise? Follow me and we can find out together.

It’s 1999. We’re looking at a window on the outside of a mobile home in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, when CRASH, a hand shoots out. Soon-after, a woman, Cynthia, completely naked, beat up and bloody, metal collar strapped around her neck, breaks out and starts running for freedom. She makes it to a nearby home where an older couple take her in and quickly call the police.

Cynthia is taken to the hospital, and we slide over to a fresh-out-of-school cop, Costa, who joins a gaggle of policemen inspecting the trailer Cynthia was held captive in. They find that virtually the entire home was built to capture women and make them sex slaves. The home’s owner, David, would mostly lure prostitutes in, then he and his girlfriend would torture them.

But here’s where things get weird. The evidence points to David not killing these women, but rather brainwashing them and sending them back into society, with no memory of what happened. The cops aren’t sure if they buy this, but it’s a key detail, since it’s the difference between this guy being a serial killer or a serial torturer.

The script makes the ballsy decision to follow a new protagonist every 15 pages. First it’s Cynthia. Then it’s Costa. Then it’s an FBI agent. Then it’s a female cop. Then it’s David himself. Then it’s Costa’s girlfriend, Sally. That’s who we’re left with 13 years after the original crime. Now a reporter, Sally is attempting to learn the whereabouts of a woman whose ID was found in David’s home. Sally hopes to not only provide closure for the girl’s mother, but to prove once and for all that David didn’t simply release these girls back into society, but killed each and every one of them.

Let me start by saying I’ve never read anything like this. It’s quite the mesmerizing script. In fact, the first thing I want every writer here to do is download and read the first 15 pages of this script. I tell you so many times you have to GRAB THE READER RIGHT AWAY. Yet there’s all this debate about what that means and what kind of scenes qualify as “grabbing the reader.” This. THIS is how you grab the reader. Go ahead, open this script. I DARE YOU to stop reading through the first 15 pages.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about why this script kicks butt. For starters, I never knew what was coming next. The protagonist-swapping mechanism ensured that even if I did know where the plot was going, I was never sure whose eyes I’d be experiencing it through. Not only that, but the character journeys themselves were unpredictable. (Spoiler) One of the most shocking moments in the script is when we follow a cop for 10 pages only to see her blow her brains out afterwards. Once you do something that shocking to the reader, you’ve got them, because now it’s impossible for them to know what’s coming next.

On top of this, the script introduces a non-traditional take on the serial killer genre. What does an investigation look like when you’ve captured the killer within the first 20 pages? That added a whole new twist to everything because as David is being interrogated, denying everything, I’m wondering, “Are they going to let this guy go? Are they going to screw this up?”

Then there was just all this weird stuff. David made these audio tapes which were instruction-based rules for every woman he captured. The tapes explained, in detail, what would happen to the women and what they should prepare for. In addition to this, he had a separate mobile home known as “The Toy Box” where he brought the torture up another level.

When you combined these things with the constantly changing protagonists, you can understand why this was unlike anything I’ve read before.

But did it all come together in the end?

Unfortunately, that’s where I had some issues with the script. I’ve always told you guys to watch out for big time jumps. Every time you jump forward in time, you pop the tension balloon you’ve been building. Once you jump to 2000, then 2011, you’ve taken so much air out of your story, it’s nearly impossible to blow it back up. And that’s what happened here. You hooked me with intensity. But as the script went on, the story became more drawn out. It felt like I’d been sold a bill of goods.

On top of this, the latter part of the story focuses on a random news reporter we barely met in the first act, looking for the body of a random girl who we never met so that we can bring peace to a random mom who we knew for 2 scenes. You were introducing crazy cool characters one after another throughout the first 50 pages. Why, then, are we spending the climax with, arguably, three of the least interesting people in the script?

This script reminds me a lot of Zodiac. To some of you, that will be good news. But my issue with Zodiac was that the longer it went on, the more pointless it got. We began to realize that we were never getting the truth. So what was the point of sticking around? The point that Fincher would argue is that it mirrored the real case and how that would’ve felt to the detective. I suspect Kit would make the same argument here. And it’s a valid argument. Lots of people loved Zodiac. So who am I to say it’s the wrong choice?

Despite that issue, this script has too many positives not to be celebrated. The writer takes some huge chances. He makes unconventional choices. He weaves a story that’s impossible to predict. This script and the writer have so much potential that this will definitely end up in my Top 5 Amateur Scripts of 2018. Worth a weekend read for sure!

Script link: Truth or Consequences, New Mexico (updated draft)

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

What I learned: Time = connection in a script. The more time we spend with a character, the more connected we’ll be to them, the more invested we’ll be in them succeeding. We don’t spend enough time with Sally early on, which is why it’s hard to stay invested in her pursuit later. If I were Kit, I would add a large “Sally” section to the first half of the script. Make her one of the more memorable protagonists. That way, when she comes back later, we’ll care a lot more about her pursuit of this girl.

I was so frustrated by yesterday’s script – specifically how lame the main character was – that I needed to write an article reminding everyone how to write a main character. As I said yesterday, your story *is* your main character. So if you get that part right, everything else in the script is likely to work. You’d be amazed at how easy it is for readers to overlook plot holes when they fall in love with your hero. Now it used to be thought that as long as your hero “saved a cat” within the first few scenes, you were good. While saving the cat is never a bad idea, the kind of stuff I’m suggesting has more to do with who your character is overall. We want the hero’s characteristics playing out in every scene, not just one scene. With that in mind, here are five character types that audiences love.

THE RELENTLESSLY ACTIVE CHARACTER
It’s really hard to dislike a character who’s relentlessly active. We like people who take action in life and therefore we like people who take action on the big screen. There are two versions of this character type. There’s the character who’s relentlessly active because they HAVE TO BE. And there’s the character who’s relentlessly active because they WANT TO BE. Both characters work. But the latter works better. An example of a relentlessly active character who has to be that way is Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity. Bourne must charge forward because if he doesn’t, bad guys will catch up to him and kill him. An example of the relentlessly active character who wants to be is Madonna in the #1 ranked Black List script, Blonde Ambition. Madonna is active because she wants to be successful more than anything. A testament to how well this character works is that Madonna ends up being a real sketch-show by the end of the script, betraying her boyfriend in order to secure a record deal. But we’re so taken by her relentless drive that we don’t care. We’ve been all-in with this character from the moment that quality was introduced.

THE SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
Another way to make an audience love a character is to build a sympathetic scenario into their life. They just got fired. They’ve just been dumped (Crazy Stupid Love). They’ve been taken advantage of. They’ve lost a child (A Quiet Place). Their physicality’s been taken away (Deadpool, Upgrade). It’s a natural tendency when we see someone who’s down to root for their success. We can’t help it. But there’s a caveat to this. The person who’s down can’t be negative about it. Sure, if the hero’s son dies, they should be upset for a few scenes. But, eventually, they need to get back on the horse and continue the journey. It should be noted that The Sympathetic Character isn’t as powerful as The Relentlessly Active character, because there’s more manipulation involved in The Sympathetic Character. The writer is literally killing a child (or getting the hero fired, or having his wife leave him) to make the audience foot for the hero. A certain percentage of the audience will see through this and check out. Whereas the relentlessly active character always works.

THE UNDERDOG
I shouldn’t have to explain to you why this character works. Rey is an underdog. All the characters in It were underdogs. Spider-Man is an underdog. The boy in Wonder is an underdog (or a “wunderdog”). The underdog trope is so potent, writers have devised ways to make badasses underdogs. John Wick is the best assassin in the world. Yet he’s an underdog going up against an overbearing Russian mafia. Ditto The Equalizer! I don’t know anyone who doesn’t root for the overmatched little guy. Seeing him win is one of the most satisfying experiences in storytelling.

THE STRUGGLER
Every single person on this earth is struggling with something. It may be alcohol. It may be drugs. It may be depression. It may be anxiety. It may be porn, anger, money, health, or a good old fashioned unfixable problem. A well-executed inner struggle can define a character. The other day I was watching Jersey Shore (hold on, stay with me). In it, Ronnie, who, even by conservative estimates, is a total douchebag, is losing his mind because his ex-girlfriend refuses to let him see his infant daughter. The reason I picked this example is because we have this terrible show. We have a bunch of terrible people in it. Then we have Ronnie, who’s the worst of the lot. Yet seeing him struggle with this problem made him an extremely sympathetic character. I wanted him to see his kid again. And that’s all you’re doing with STRUGGLER characters. You’re creating an inner struggle that doesn’t have an easy solution. We will root for the character because we want to see him overcome his struggle. It’s basic yet very effective.

THE IDGAF (“I DON’T GIVE A F*%$”) CHARACTER
The IDGAF character is harder to pull off than these other characters. He’s usually an anti-hero as opposed to a traditional hero. The reason he works is because he represents the ultimate wish-fulfillment in all of us. WE ALL WISH WE DIDN’T GIVE A F%$*! We wish we could say whatever we wanted. We wish we could walk into any situation and not care how we acted. We wish we had the courage to walk up to that guy or girl and say to them “How you doin’,” and if they blew us off, walk away unaffected. Han Solo, Cool Hand Luke, Connor McGregor, Lou Bloom, Ferris Bueller, Tyler Durden. These are true IDGAF characters. Why do we love Tony Stark so much more than Steve Rogers? Cause Tony Stark doesn’t give a f%&$, that’s why. These characters are the ultimate representation of wish-fullfilment which is why if you have a good idea for one, don’t hesitate to write them into your next script.

There you have it. Five characters audiences love. But before I leave, let’s address a question I know at least a few of you have. Why don’t these characters always work? Well, you have to remember that everything I’ve suggested today is a starting point. You still have to execute the character. You can’t just kill off a father’s child and we’ll automatically love your movie because “sympathy.” If your movie looks like Hold the Dark, we won’t care if you wrote in one of the above characters.

You must also build your character beyond the scaffolding. You still have to come up with a compelling backstory for the character. You still have to come up with a convincing flaw. You still have to create compelling unresolved relationships between your hero and other characters. You still have to create a personality we’re drawn to. You still have to write non-crappy dialogue when your character speaks. And you still have to give us a story that’s interesting. It should go without saying that this only works if your execution is invisible. The second we sense you’re trying to make us fall in love with your hero, we do the opposite.

And finally, a brief reminder of characters to avoid. Avoid passive heroes at all costs. There is no way to make these characters work over the course of an entire movie. Avoid characters who don’t talk much. Yes, there are ways to make these characters work but it’s hard – especially on the page. Avoid victim heroes – characters who have tough circumstances and don’t do anything about them other than complain. You can create secondary characters who are victims. But never the hero. And try to avoid downer/hopeless/nihilistic heroes in general. Movies are supposed to be an escape and therefore we want our heroes to represent hope. You may say, “But Carson, what if my movie requires that my hero be a downer and hopeless?” I would say, “You may want to consider writing another movie.”

Genre: Crime/Drama
Premise: A rapper who built his gangster image off an old friend learns that the friend has been released from prison early and is looking for revenge.
About: Making a movie is hard. You can be *this* close and, all of a sudden, BAM, everything falls apart. That’s what happened with Harmony Korine’s “Trap.” The film was slated to go in 2016 with Idris Elba, Benicio Del Toro, Robert Pattinson, Al Pacino, and James Franco. But just two weeks before production, it all fell apart when Korine got into a major disagreement with one of the cast members (who he won’t name). Today we learn if it was a good thing or a bad thing that this film got squashed.
Writer: Harmony Korine
Details: 123 pages

Idris Elba was set to play Rico

Dis track.

I listened to the Machine Gun Kelly dis track of Eminem yesterday.

You might be saying, “Carson, you know what a dis track is?” The answer is no. I do not. But I’m a quick learner and from what I now understand, it is when one rapper, or internet celebrity, takes down another rapper, or internet celebrity, in a song. I feel very “hip with it” talking about this. And it got me in a gangster mood. Naturally I then had to read Harmony Korine’s take on gangster rap superstardom, Trap, which refers to how we all get “trapped” in the lives that we create for ourselves.

Damn, that’s deep!

Rico is a worldwide gangster rap superstar. How successful is this man? He’s got five houses in Miami alone, yo. He’s got LeBron on speed dial (no, I’m serious, he leaves a voicemail for LeBron). He’s also got a wife and a kid. And, oh yeah, sometimes he bangs Miley Cyrus on the side. You know, when he’s bored.

Rico’s preparing to perform at the Grammy’s in a few days when he gets bad news. The childhood friend he used to run with, Slim, is getting out of prison. Normally, your friend being released from prison would be cause for celebration. But, you see, that wife of Rico’s? That used to be Slim’s girlfriend. That child of Rico’s? That’s actually Slim’s son. That personality of Rico’s? Yeah, he kinda based it entirely on Slim.

Once Slim’s out, he hooks up with some local surfers-slash-thieves (who I guess stole their own personas from Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze) and starts texting videos to Rico taunting him that he’s coming. As we learn from a local Rastafarian drug lord who’s trying to play peacekeeper between the two sides, it isn’t enough for Slim to kill Rico. He has to terrorize him first.

Rico beefs up his security but it’s clear that won’t deter Slim-Jim. Then, on the night of the Grammy’s, Slim and the Surfers barge into his house, kill all his security, and hold Rico’s son hostage (well, actually, it’s Slim’s son, which doesn’t make sense but whatever). Slim texts Rico to come home alone so they can square away their beef once and for all, son!

Franco was coming back to work with Korine again.

I’m betting from that description, you’re thinking this script is pretty good, amirite? You’ve got gangster rappers. Stolen personas. Killer surfers. Miley Cyrus. A Miami backdrop. This sounds like it could be an insane movie, a modern day Scarface.

It isn’t.

It isn’t because it’s one of the most inefficiently written screenplays I’ve ever read.

Okay, so, here’s a task. I want you to convey to me, in as many scenes as you think are necessary, that Rico and Slim stole money from a yacht when they were teenagers, the act got Slim thrown in prison, Rico has an upcoming Grammy show, and Slim is now out of prison. Off the top of your head, how many pages do you think that should take? 10 maybe? I suppose, if you really want to draw the scenes out and sell this world, 20? Hell, let’s be generous. Add another 5 pages.

How many pages did it take Korine to get this info across?

FIFTY!

It takes the script 50 freaking pages to set those four things up.

And the worst part is that none of those 50 pages were interesting. It’s just a bunch of flashbacks to the two characters when they were younger doing stupid shit.

And here’s the bizarre part. It’s all silent. Or, at least, most of it is. Nobody talks in this movie. Nobody has a conversation. It’s all images. And when I say images, I don’t mean a string of images pieced together in a dramatically compelling way. I mean seeing Rico sit in his bedroom thinking about life kind of images.

I kept waiting for someone to TALK to someone. IT BARELY HAPPENS. Oddly enough, the people who do talk are never the people we want to talk! Rastafarian Drug Dealer probably gets more lines in this movie than Rico – the protagonist!

And look, I understand that there are instances where you can pull this sort of thing off. Hitchcock could perform miracles without having his characters say anything. But this kind of storytelling requires skill. And this is not one of Korine’s skills. The guy can shoot. His trailers look amazing. But 124 pages steeped in redundant flashbacks and characters never speaking to each other is not entertaining storytelling. And that’s what was so frustrating. This has the potential to be a kick ass story. On paper the characters sound crazy and fun. But in practice, they’re quiet and boring.

The biggest problem is that I never knew who Rico was. He never spoke. He never acted in a way that gave me insight into him. That’s one of the easiest things to do, guys. If you want to tell us who your protagonist is, have them perform an action that represents them. If you’re writing an asshole character, have him cut everybody at Starbucks. If you’re writing a cowardly character, make him back down from the guy who cuts everyone in Starbucks. If you’re writing an irresponsible character, have him run out of gas on the drive to Starbucks because he always waits til the last minute to do anything.

Your protagonist is your movie. If he’s not working, your movie isn’t going to work. So you need to get him right above all else. Rico is so passive in this movie, he disappears off the page whenever his name isn’t mentioned. You don’t even remember the guy. This is why I tell writers to avoid passive heroes. There have been a few of them who have worked throughout history, but 99% of the time, they don’t. Make your hero active. Because if he’s sitting around reacting to things, as is the case here, audiences aren’t going to care about him. I know I didn’t. Korine may be bummed out this movie didn’t get made. But I see it as a blessing in disguise.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] Larry the Lyft Driver would’ve liked it
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Flashbacks are the devil. They really are. They rarely, if ever, push the plot forward. They kill story momentum. They’re the laziest form of backstory. They should include this script in screenwriting classes for why flashbacks should never be used.