Die Hard. Some people say Jaws changed the way movies were made. Others say Star Wars. But an argument can be made that Die Hard had just as much of an influence on movies as both of those films, maybe not so much culturally, but definitely in how studios approached the tent pole film. The irony, of course, is that those same studios used Die Hard as their action template without realizing what made it great. Yeah, it has splosions. Yeah, Bruce Willis was perfect casting. Yeah, the action scenes were great. But the reason Die Hard is so awesome is because of its script.

So I decided to go back to the granddaddy of contained (action) thrillers and see if I couldn’t learn a few things from it. It didn’t take long. Die Hard is chock full of screenwriting tips if you pay attention, and I’m happy to highlight ten of them for you here.

BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR TICKING TIME BOMB
Every action movie should have a ticking time bomb. But that doesn’t mean incorporating one of those cheap digital timers with a big flashing “120 minutes” on it. Instead – just like every element in your screenplay – you should look for a fresh alternative. Here, the ticking time bomb is the seven locks to the safe the computer expert is hacking. It’s a clever countdown device we’ve never quite seen before (or since) and that’s why it works so well.

SMART INCORPORATION OF EXPOSITION
Most action writers think that the blood-soaked testosterone-fueled action genre gives them license to unload exposition onto the page like a garbage truck does garbage. “The audience won’t care,” they argue. “They just want to see explosions.” Errrr…wrong! Bad exposition eliminates suspension of disbelief, which in turn makes all those “explosion” scenes less exciting. So don’t fall into this trap. Be smooth in the way you unveil exposition. Take the scene in Die Hard where McClane is in the limo. We have to get some key exposition out about John’s on-the-rocks marriage before we get to the building. A lazy writer might’ve had an unprovoked McClane start rambling on about his broken marriage. Instead, the Die Hard writers make McClane resistant, practically “forced” into giving up details to his overly nosey limo driver. In fact, the limo driver is revealing (with his guesses) almost as much about McClane’s marriage as McClane is. “You mean you thought she wouldn’t make it out here and she’d come crawling on back, so why bother to pack?.” “Like I said Argyle, you’re fast.” It’s little details like this that elevate an action script.

ONE-LINERS
Ahhh, the snappy action one-liner. An 80s film staple. But no film has ever approached Die Hard in this category. In fact, 95% of one-liners you hear in action movies these days are groan-worthy. So how does Die Hard still hold up? Simple. McClane’s one-liners stem from his situation, NOT from a writer wanting to add a funny line. When you watch Die Hard and hear McClane say, “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker,” you genuinely get the sense that he’s trying to add levity to the situation. He’s using humor to deflect the seriousness of his predicament. In other words, he’s not a mouthpiece for a clever line thought up by a writer, which is what every single one of these one-liners has been since Die Hard came out (please see The Expendables for numerous examples).

THE BAD GUY IS A WORTHY ADVERSERY
Hans is one of the greatest bad guys of all time. How can we learn from him to make our own bad guys memorable? The key to Hans working is that he’s a worthy adversary to John McClane. He isn’t some paint-by-the-numbers thug. Die Hard is one of the few action films I can remember where they made the villain as smart as the hero. Not just on paper. But you actually SEE IT. We see the FBI cutting the last lock to the safe, the only lock Hans didn’t have access to – all part of his plan. We see Hans pretending to be a hostage when he runs into McClane. By doing this, the audience has real doubts about whether our hero can outsmart this guy, which in turn pulls us in even more.

SOMETIMES THE STORY DICTATES WE DO THINGS WE DON’T WANT TO DO
Ideally, especially in an action movie, you’d want to introduce your main character with some sort of action scene that gives us insight into who they are. Unfortunately, the direction of the story may not afford you this opportunity. In Die Hard, a lot of the key things we learn about McClane early on are through dialogue. On the plane with the other passenger, in the limo with Argyle, on his conversation with his wife when he gets there. Sure, it would have been nicer if we could’ve *shown* these things instead of been *told* about them. But the situation is what it is. You need to get your main character to the building and you need the audience to know some things before he gets there. If a similar setup is required in your movie, embrace it and do the best you can with the situation. Forced to tell something through dialogue? Make it as seamless and interesting as you possibly can and move on.

DON’T FORGET TO SHOW WHAT YOUR HERO IS FIGHTING FOR
In 110 pages of story, it’s easy to forget what your hero is fighting for. In this case, McClane is trying to save his wife. If, then, we don’t see his wife for sixty minutes, we start to forget what his ultimate motivation is. In Die Hard, around the mid-point, Holly goes to Hans and asks him if she can get a couch for her pregnant friend and bathroom breaks for the rest of the hostages. It’s a small and seemingly insignificant scene, but it reminds us and reignites our passion for why John McClane must succeed.

ONE OF THE BEST SCENES YOU CAN WRITE
One might argue that the most memorable scene in Die Hard is when Hans pretends to be a hostage. Part of the reason we love this scene so much is because it’s such a clever move by our villain. But this is actually a setup for a scene that works almost every time you use it in a screenplay: We the audience know something that our main character doesn’t – that he’s in danger – and there’s nothing we can do to help him. The tension this creates in a scene – the helplessness we feel – works on an audience almost every time, so if you have the opportunity to use it, do so. Just make sure we like your hero. Obviously, if we don’t, we won’t be too worried when he’s seconds away from getting a bullet in the chest.

CHARACTER GOALS UP THE WAZOO
There are numerous character goals in Die Hard driving the story. That’s why, even though this is just a contained action film, it feels a lot more complicated and elaborate. McClane is trying to save his wife. McClane is trying to contact the police. Hans is trying to open the safe. Hans is trying to kill McClane. Hans is trying to find the detonators. The reporter’s trying to get the story. The FBI is trying to stop the terrorists. Al is trying to help McClane get out alive. Everybody’s got something to do in this movie and whenever they achieve what they’re trying to do, the writers give them something new to do. If too many characters run out of pressing things to do in an action script, put a fork in your screenplay, cause it’s done.

THINGS GET WORSE FOR OUR HERO AS THE SCRIPT GOES ON
In every action script, you want it to get tougher on your hero the closer he gets to the finish line. McClane’s feet are heavily cut, making it difficult for him to walk. Hans figures out that Holly is John’s wife and takes her hostage, making it more difficult to save her. In the final confrontation, McClane’s only got two bullets left, making his escape unlikely. Keep stacking the odds against your hero as he gets closer to achieving his goal.

DON’T PUSH YOUR LUCK
I’ve been slurping the Die Hard kool-aid all article. In parting, I have to take one shot at the film. There’s a famous line in a Kenny Rogers song that goes, “Know when to fold’em.” At a certain point, you’ve gotten everything you’ve needed out of your screenplay. When that happens, it’s time to say “The End.” In Die Hard, there’s a really cheesy forced moment in the final scene where Terrorist #1 bursts out of the building and Sergeant Al shoots him. It was one beat too many and almost ruined an extremely satisfying ending. You always want to leave your audience wanting more. Resist that “one last unnecessary moment” and type “The End” instead.

And that’s that. Now before I leave, I want to pose a question to you guys, cause the truth is, I’m not sure what the answer is. Die Hard has one of the most cliché moments in all of action films in its finale. Bruce Willis points a gun at our villain who’s pointing a gun at our damsel in distress. Could you ask for a more obvious final scenario? And yet, I was riveted. I was terrified for Holly and I was scared that Willis wouldn’t be able to save her. Outside of the obvious, “We liked the characters,” can you explain why this moment, despite being the very definition of cliché, still worked?

And tune in next Thursday where I break down Die Hard 2 and give you 10 examples of what NOT to do in an action film.

Genre: Comedy/Sci-Fi
Premise: A pair of Beatles fans stumble upon a time machine and seize the opportunity to go back in time and prevent Yoko Ono from meeting John Lennon.
About: Chris McCoy hasn’t broken into the “produced credit” category just yet, but he’s been pretty busy since he debuted on the 2007 Black List with this screenplay, doing lots of assignment work and having a bucket of projects in development. Get Back has garnered some heat lately with Mark Waters (Mean Girls, The Spiderwick Chronicles) attaching himself as director and setting a tentative start date of June, 2011.
Writer: Chris McCoy
Details: 115 pages – the Black List 2007 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I took note of Get Back a couple of years ago when I read the premise. Could it be? Let it be? A time travel comedy that actually sounded worthy of taking on Back To The Future? My hopes were quickly dashed though when I saw the writer. McCoy had written one of my least favorite scripts of that year, Good Looking. Although an original concept, the execution made me feel like the walrus. From what I’d read of his, I just didn’t see him being able to explore this concept in an original way.

But I decided to take a chance on Get Back anyway and boy am I glad I did. It looks like this is the same situation we were discussing last week. The difference in quality between a spec script (Get Back) and assignment work (Good Looking) is night and day. You can see the passion on the page here that you just didn’t see in that script.

20-something Ted Archer works in a record store. He’s a bit of a hipster, but not in an annoying way. He just loves the way music used to be made and the way people used to listen to it. Even if he won the lottery tomorrow, he wouldn’t change a thing about his life. He’d still be in here every day, listening to the great songs of yesteryear and selling albums, itunes be damned.

Peruvian Piero Chacon, Ted’s best friend, isn’t much different, but to add insult to injury, he’s so stuck in the world of yesteryear that women won’t even look at him. They don’t understand the clothes he wears, the words he uses, the things he likes. This man belongs in a first class cabin on Pan Am airlines in 1969, smoking a cigarette and not having a care in the world – not in Snooki-dominated 2010.

To demonstrate just how weird these two are, they’ve spent the last couple of years looking for a rumored spaceship prop from some 1970’s funk band who ditched it after a concert. It’s said to be in a nearby forest, and Piero and Tim are going to cover every square foot of that forest until they find it.

Imagine their shock when they finally come upon it! And imagine their additional shock when they find a strange dashboard on the inside with destination years on it. Holy shit, Ted and Piero have just found a time machine!

The two debate the ramifications of this find, and pontificate on the most valid uses for it. After agreeing that “killing baby Hitler” would be too difficult, they both agree that the single most horrible thing that happened in history is Yoko Ono meeting John Lennon and breaking up the Beatles. So Tim’s journey is set. He’s going to go back to London in 1966 and prevent John Lennon from meeting Yoko Ono!

So back they go, but get there too late, and must watch as the most fateful meeting in history occurs right in front of their eyes. What can they possibly do now? It doesn’t take Ted long to figure it out. In order to prevent this relationship from proceeding, he will need to get Yoko Ono to fall in love with him. Ted uses every trick in the book (i.e. telling her he’s predicting something called “the internet,” which fascinates Yoko) and soon the competition is on.

Unfortunately John Lennon gets so bummed out by Yoko’s interest in Ted that he decides to quit the Beatles.  The guys, via browsing through Piero’s ipod, realize that this destroys half the Beatles’ catalogue and nearly destroys the entire future of music.

As a last ditch effort, Ted has to find a way to have Yoko fall out of love with him and back in love with John, all by the time a young James Brown plays his first funk concert, which is the only fuel that can send the spaceship back to the future. Complicating all this is that Ted actually starts to like Yoko himself!

Okay, truth?

This is a shameless copy of Back To The Future.

But dammit if it isn’t a blast.

If I could only use one word to describe “Get Back” it would be “fun.” The script is fun. It doesn’t do anything exceptional and every choice made only helps you realize just how genius Back To The Future was, but this is just different enough from that film to get you your Back To The Future fix and still feel like you’re experiencing something new.

First, I was surprised at how clever the script was. When I first considered the idea, I didn’t know if it had legs. I figured Ted and Piero would get to London and go through a bunch of pratfall-like hijinx to push John and Yoko apart and then…that would be it. So I loved that John and Yoko got together right away and that Ted’s only choice of stopping them was to win Yoko over – the one person he hated more than anyone. *And* that he had to go against John Lennon – the one person he loved more than anyone.

I actually thought McCoy could’ve done more with this. Yoko’s really weird. And Ted’s present day annoying girlfriend was really conservative. If we could’ve stressed that Ted needed to find someone as “out there” and unconventional as himself, and Yoko could’ve filled that role, and he really genuinely fell in love with her, that could’ve made things really interesting in the end, when he has to go home. The way it stands, he only sorta falls for Yoko, keeping the stakes low and making their break-up at the end way too easy on him.

Actually, the entire ending is pretty clumsy and makes you appreciate just how perfectly constructed Back To The Future is. For example, instead of the lightning bolt scene, the spaceship is fueled by “funk.” This is pretty well set up and McCoy does as much as he can with it, but it still feels awfully clunky when he has to go to this James Brown concert with a spaceship propped on the stage and wait for enough of this mythical funk to fuel the ship so he can jump back to the present day.

Piero also gets short shrift here. I loved that we had a Peruvian lead in a script (don’t think I’ve seen that before) but he’s basically relegated to giving the movie something to cut to while we set up the next beat in Ted’s storyline. His romantic storyline also develops way too late, although I did like how it ended.

Trying to walk in the shadow of one of the best constructed screenplays of all time is not easy. I’ve read a lot of really bad time travel comedies hoping to find the next BTTF. Hot Tub Time Machine, for example, was nothing short of embarrassing. This is a thousand times better than that. It just needs some tuning up on the details, particularly the ending. And Ted could use some beefing up too. What we liked about Marty was that he was a dreamer. He wanted it all. And we wanted to see him get it. Ted’s a little more subdued, his dreams more down to earth, and as a result, he lacks a lot of the energy that made Marty so fun. Then again, you don’t want to make the exact same movie so maybe it’s better this way. This is a really fun little script that has a ton of potential – potential it may have fulfilled in the three years since McCoy wrote the original draft. Let’s hope so cause this definitely needs to become a movie.

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

What I learned: Does your title only sound clever once people read your script? Or does your title stand on its own? “Get Back” is a boring title if we know nothing about the concept. I would never pick this script up off a pile. Here’s the thing though. When you read the script, you realize the title’s actually quite clever. The problem is, *you have to read the script to realize that*. I’m okay with a writer doing this as long as they’re aware of it. But if you want to give your script a better chance of getting read, make sure the title is exciting on its own, not dependent on the read.

Also, check out my breakdown for the Back To The Future 2 script that never was here.  

Genre: Drama
Premise: A young boy goes on a journey through New York City to find the truth about how his father, who disappeared in 9/11, died.
About: Based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was adapted by Eric Roth, who won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Forrest Gump in 1994. He also co-wrote the screenplays for The Insider (1999), Munich (2005), and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), all of which were nominated for Oscars. Roth was born in New York to a studio executive and a film producer. He got his masters from UCLA Film School. In a side note about Roth, he is one of the unfortunate group of investors in the Madoff Ponzi scheme, and has admitted to losing all of his retirement money in the scam. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock star in “Extremely Loud.” 12 year old Thomas Horn, who won Jeopardy Kids Week in 2010, will be playing Oskar.
Writer: Eric Roth (based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer)
Details: 137 pages – March 17, 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Eric Roth is very much an anomaly in screenwriting circles. He more or less does things his own way and doesn’t subscribe to fancy-schmancy screenwriting theory. He simply sits down and writes what comes to mind. Once asked what a writer should do if they hit writer’s block, Roth unassumingly offered, “Change the weather in the scene. That’s what I do.”

Not exactly shocking. Roth’s adaptation of Forrest Gump bucks numerous screenwriting trends, and you’d be hard pressed to find much structure in Benjamin Button. This makes him a hero to some and a hack to others. The “do it yourselfers” love that they can point to a successful screenwriter who ignores convention. The “structuralists” argue that that’s the reason why his stories are all over the place.

I’ll never forget listening to an interview with Roth where he was asked why we hadn’t seen any spec screenplays from him. Roth was genuinely confused by the term. “Spec?” The interviewer actually had to explain what a spec screenplay was to Roth. He had no idea. After being told what it was, he explained that he had been paid to write a script right out of UCLA and has been working ever since. Eric Roth has never worked on an idea of his own. Make of that what you will.

Oskar Schell is a 10 year old boy who wishes his anus could talk. In other words, Oskar’s weird. He’s the kid who gets picked on at school, the guy snorting up jello through a straw. He’s a loner through and through.

Oskar’s best friend was actually his father. “Was” because his father was one of those unfortunate souls who died in the twin towers on 9/11. Now Oskar, his mother, and his grandmother (who lives in the adjacent building and who Oskar communicates with via walkie-talkie) are taking it one day at time, trying to make sense of how and why this happened.

Oskar, in particular, is devastated by his father’s absence, to the point where he combs international websites with videos of people jumping out of the towers, hoping he can break through the blurry pixelated dots to locate his father. Oskar needs to know how his father died that day so he can stop inventing his death. He needs closure.

One day, Oskar finds an old vase in his mother’s closet and accidentally breaks it, only to find a key inside accompanied by a letter to someone named “Black.” Believing that this key will open something that sheds light on that fateful day, Oskar plans to visit all 500 Blacks in New York City, to find out which one this envelope belongs to. If he can get a couple visits in every week, it should only take a few years.

During this time, Oskar meets his grandmother’s mystery tenant, an old man who can no longer speak. Oskar’s put off by his weirdness, but it’s not like he’s breaking any Facebook friend records, so he asks him to join him on his journey, and “The Renter” (as we come to know him) accepts the invitation.

In the meantime, Oskar has to come up with clever ways to escape his house without his mom finding out that he’s running around New York. The relationship between the two is strained at best. They always got along, but the death of Oskar’s father exposed that the link between them was bridged by him, and that without that bridge, they have nothing to talk about.

Oskar meets tons of characters along the way, including a guard who works at the Statue Of Liberty and lets him come up and look out at the city. But most of his search is met with shrugged shoulders and apologetic smiles. Despite Oskar looking for some grand answer to it all, he may have to accept that the answer may never come.

It’s rare that I just get to talk about how a script affected me b/c it’s rare that a writer is so good that they can make me forget I’m reading a story. But this script did it. In a lot of ways it reminded me of when I read The Social Network, where I just forgot about form and structure and character and got transported into another universe via Roth’s wizardry.

Roth has a strange way of writing that I can’t quite put my finger on, but it’s its singular and unique and when you’re reading him, you go with it. Maybe it’s because he ignores convention. I don’t know. But there’s some really heavy stuff here that Roth has to sell and you never once question it.

Now make no mistake, there are some key things in place to make this story work. First and foremost is the character goal driving the action. Oskar is trying to find out what this key opens, and the connection he has with his father, shown through flashbacks and voice over, makes that goal extremely strong. I mean, I don’t know if I’ve felt this much love between two characters in a screenplay before.

Also, Oskar is the ultimate underdog. He’s a 10 year old kid with no friends who lost the most important person in his life. I mean who’s not going to root for this guy? (Note that Roth’s other most popular character, Forrest Gump, was also one of the biggest underdogs in cinema history).

But it’s the details and the crushing scenes in this screenplay that will leave you thinking about “Extremely Loud” long after you’ve finished it. (Spoilers) First and foremost the final answering machine message scene. I mean, I can’t remember the last time I felt so devastated reading something. The explanation of what happened on that last call? Grab your Kleenex girls AND boys, as you’re going to need it.

And rewinding his father’s “possible” jump from the towers so that he’s going back up into the building instead of falling down? I mean wow. I needed to wipe away some man-tears after that one.

On a lighter note, one of the nice touches here is being able to see what Oskar imagines. The trailer on this movie is going to be phenomenal. We’re going to have helicopters carrying the world’s biggest blanket, dropping it on the twin towers. We’re going to have thousands of coffins with rockets attached to them shooting up into the sky. We’re going to have a half-man/half-robot waiting to talk to Oskar. We’re going to have the “Sixth Borough” out on its own island next to Manhattan. The imagination in this story is incredible, and you really feel like you’re being taken into another world with every page.

This is easily the best thing about 9/11 that I’ve ever read. Probably the best decision Roth (or Foer) made was installing as much humor as there is here – and there’s a lot. Cause the truth is, people are tired of how emotionally draining 9/11 is. They see it and they just want to escape. But Oskar’s view of the world is so funny that this devastating tale is bearable – even enjoyable. And somehow – I’m still not sure how Roth does it – it never feels false. Everyone says “Don’t do voice over. Don’t do voice over.” But man, for writers who know what they’re doing, it can be the most powerful part of a screenplay – as some of Oskar’s musings in this story are.

So was it perfect? No, and I think that’s because this is an early draft. This is 137 pages long and it feels like it. I think Roth gets a little carried away with giving us the father’s backstory.  I mean, there are some great moments in there.  There’s just too much of it. I liked how we’d get a flashback scene with them every 20 pages or so to remind us what Oskar was fighting for. But right now there are like 20 scenes with the dad, and I think that can easily be cut in half. For this reason, the middle act drags until The Renter shows up.

Also, the mom storyline needs to be fleshed out and better defined. We know these two don’t get along, but we’re not exactly sure why. So their eventual reconciliation doesn’t have nearly the punch that it should have.

There were a few other things that bothered me. Roth can get a little long-winded at times. But the key here is that this script made me feel something. It’s hard to finish this screenplay and not feel affected in some way. Reading through so many average scripts, I sometimes forget how hard that is to do. Someone else told me that this script makes Extremely Loud a front-runner for an Oscar in 2012. I don’t know if I’d go that far but it certainly has the seeds to grow into something great.

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

What I learned: When comparing three of Roth’s most high-profile scripts, something sticks out. The combination of a heavy underdog and a voice over is a powerful one if you have the skills to pull it off. The underdog thing is obvious. Everyone roots for an underdog. But the additional voice over takes that connection between us to a new level. Because the main character is talking to us, we feel like we know him, and you’re always more likely to root for people you know. This approach was used to perfection in both this script and Forrest Gump. Contrast that with Benjamin Button, which was a good but not great film. It had neither. Benjamin was sort of an underdog, but not really, as he basically grew into a handsome young man. Also (if my memory serves me correctly) it was Cate Blanchett who did the voice over, not our hero. Are these the reasons Button is not as memorable as these two stories? I don’t know. But it’s certainly worth noting.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A group of 20-somethings must deal with the ever-complicated logistics of commitment.
About: Are We Officially Dating made the 2010 Black List, landing somewhere near the middle of the pack. Thomas Gormican, the writer, graduated from Brown University. He began his career at GreeneStreet Films in New York City. Afterwards, he partnered with Charles Wessler and the Farrelly Brothers to produce a short-films-compilation (Movie 43) in the vein of The Kentucky Fried Movie, to be financed and distributed by Overture Films.
Writer: Thomas Gormican
Details: 112 pages – 10-22-10 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

The male bachelor afraid of commitment sub-genre is probably the most crowded sub-genre in the spec screenplay market. Makes sense, right? There are a lot of males between the ages of 20-30 writing screenplays. It’s only natural, then, that they write about what males between the ages of 20-30 think about. For that reason, if you’re going to add your name to this list, you better make sure your script is one of two things: 1) very well written or 2) a completely new take on the genre. I always advocate for #2, since people are more likely to pass around something that’s fresh and original. If you’re going to go with #1 though, know this: Even if you execute your story to perfection, there’s still a good chance it’s never going to be seen as anything other than an average comedy, and that’s exactly what we have here with “Are We Officially Dating?”

Jason is 28 years old, charming, handsome, and deathly afraid of commitment. He’s specifically afraid of the “So…” I think we all know the “So…” The “So” is when a woman has had enough of the fun, and after a particularly enjoyable sexual encounter sneaks in, “So….where is this going?” Yeah, Jason would rather sleep in an oven than deal with the “So…” So, as soon as a relationship gets to that border between fun and serious (The Great Wall of Commitment?) he bails.

Completing the bachelorhood lifestyle are Jason’s two best friends. There’s Mikey, a doctor whose wife just started banging their lawyer. Because Mikey has little respect for himself, he still allows her to use him for medical advice. Then there’s Daniel, whose best friend Chelsea is “one of the guys.” But when he sleeps with her, he too must deal with the question of whether to commit or keep it casual.

Jason’s problems start when he takes the cute Ellie home for a night of sexual adventure, only to realize she’s a hooker, only to later realize she’s not a hooker. They start hanging out, having fun, and in between these fun escapades, the guys, a la a younger better looking Seinfeld cast, discuss their predicaments in comedic detail.

Eventually Jason starts falling for Ellie, but when she gives him the “So…” he freaks out and tells her he can’t make a commitment. Jason then learns that Ellie is seeing a hot new author (both characters work in the publishing industry) and of course realizes that he loves her. He then becomes Stalk Machine 3000, breaking down cryptic updates on Ellie’s Facebook page like archeologists would hieroglyphics, eventually getting to the point where, as one of his friends puts it, he “looks like somebody Jamie Foxx would play in a movie.”

Jason has to pull it together to win Ellie back but there’s a chance he’s gone too far and that he’ll never experience the joy of a loving committed relationship.

I don’t have anything against “Are We Officially Dating?” There aren’t any big problems here. There’s a nice work goal that keeps the story on track. There’s plenty of conflict between the three pairs of characters. The dialogue is decent. The comedy wasn’t suited to me but I definitely laughed. What plagues “Dating” in my opinion is that there’s nothing new about it. I’ve read this exact kind of script two hundred times before. Was Gormican’s version of the story better than those other 200? It was better than most. But even though well-written, you can only read the same story so many times before it stops affecting you (and hence, another argument why you should find a fresh take on the genre).

There were some smaller issues here for me. Ellie isn’t a very exciting character. One of the things I constantly see in these male-written rom-coms – especially ones which sympathize with the male hero’s fear of commitment – is that the female leads aren’t very strong. And I’d probably make that argument here. Ellie is treated more as an ideal than a character. The focus is on what the guys think of her, of their situation, and of the developments on Jason’s side of the relationship, rather than Ellie herself. This is particularly true later on, when Ellie disappears for most of the third act. We’re focused more on Jason going crazy than what’s going on with Ellie.  For this reason (spoiler!), when he gets her in the end, we don’t feel it, cause we don’t really know the girl. 

I also found it strange that Jason was pursuing Ellie early on, despite the fact that he so adamantly didn’t want a relationship. The explanation we’re given for his contradictory actions is that he “wants her on the roster,” though it’s never explained what that means. So it felt like a cheat.

A lot of you are probably wondering, “Well then how did this get on the Black List?” It’s a fair question. I think it’s because it gets all the little things right. A big problem I see in amateur scripts is that writers don’t know how to get the script to the point where it’s being judged solely on the story. They haven’t learned all the little things required to make the story stand on its own.

For example, they may not know how to set up their main character. When we meet your main character, you need to tell us exactly who that character is, what their strength is, what their flaw is, what the central problem in their life is. We need to know this so we understand what it is our character will need to overcome during the course of the story.

I don’t see that in a lot of amateur scripts. Instead I see character introductions with our protagonist doing arbitrary things that tell us very little if anything about the character. The writer erroneously assumes that since *they* know who their character is, that it will just magically leak out onto the page. But it doesn’t work that way, and as a result, the whole movie’s point is muddled. We don’t know who our main character is, why they’re existing, what they’re trying to overcome, and how it relates to the plot, because nobody’s ever told us. I see this ALL. THE. TIME.

Are We Officially Dating begins with Jason explaining exactly what’s wrong with him. He’s a commitment-phobe. He avoids relationships. There isn’t a single doubt in our mind what’s going on with this character after that scene. And I realize that Gormican chooses to TELL us and not SHOW us this information (we can debate that another day), but the point is, when that opening scene is over, you don’t have any doubt in your mind who Jason is – and that’s important.

There are a lot of little things like that in a screenplay that you have to get right JUST TO HAVE YOUR STORY MAKE SENSE TO THE READER. And that’s why a lot of amateur scripts don’t stack up to “Are We Officially Dating?” even though there’s nothing particularly new going on here.

These are always the toughest reviews for me to write, because the script didn’t make me feel anything one way or the other. It showed a good command of the craft, but that’s about it.

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

What I learned: Up above, I went on a long rant about making sure we know who your main character is in his introductory scene. Well, I wanted to make sure you knew that there are times when you DON’T want to do this. In particular, when your character has a deep mysterious background. So say you’re writing a Western and start on a drifter riding into town. The appeal of this character might be his mystery. It might be counter-productive, then, to tell us everything about him right away. Instead, you’ll want to install little pieces of his backstory and problems throughout the story.  Just make sure that the revelations about his secret past are worthy of being initially kept from us (in other words, make sure they’re damn interesting).

Hip Hip Hooray! Oscar nominations day. Maybe I’ll get to my thoughts on that later in the week. As of now, Article Thursday has been moved up to today, and Thursday will become a review day. Also, I found a new draft of Dibbuk Box, so I decided to do something unprecedented: go back and remix my review. So if you want to see my review for the newest draft of Dibbuk Box, head back to yesterday’s review now. Now, it’s time to talk about the increasingly strange behavior of Kevin Smith.

What a strange day Monday was. I woke up and every single site I went to had some blogger ranting about how Kevin Smith had become the anti-Christ. At first I thought they were part of a viral marketing campaign for Smith’s new religious-themed horror film, but no, everybody seemed to be genuinely upset, though it was hard to figure out why. After digging around (and reading through 100-something tweets on Smith’s Twitter feed) I finally put it together.

To summarize it, Smith previewed his long in development horror film, Red State, at Sundance Sunday night. Apparently, he’d told the public for weeks that he would have a live auction for the movie after the screening. So all the major indie companies sent their people there to potentially bid for the film. Except afterwards, Smith went on a 25 minute rant (or so we were told – the actual footage is only semi-ranty) telling those very people that they sucked and he was tired of them stealing his money so they could suck his dick. He then proceeded to “sell” the movie to himself, subsequently pissing off a lot of distributors who could’ve used that time to target other Sundance material.

He then announced he’d be taking Red State on tour, one city at a time, and charging $70/ticket (presumably each screening would end with one of Smith’s famous extensive Q&As – so the cost would cover more than the actual film). Smith’s argument was that this old model of marketing movies, where you spend four times the budget of your film on advertising, forcing you to make five times what your film cost just to break even, was ridiculous, and he wanted to try something new.

So instead of traditional advertising, Smith was going to utilize the power of his Podcast and Twitter feed (which has over 1 million followers) to let everyone know where the film was playing and how to buy tickets. After the tour, he’d release the film more traditionally, but with himself distributing the film instead of some big money-sucking distribution company, giving theaters more lucrative terms as an incentive to work with him.

Now I know this isn’t technically connected to screenwriting, but it kind of is. People with 1 million dedicated “can contact them at any time” followers simply weren’t around two years ago. That gives a ton of power to the individual, whereas before the individual had to depend almost exclusively on the company who financed his film. It’s a different ballgame and it might be time to start thinking about things differently. To think that the old model is going to transfer over seamlessly in this ever-changing world of social media is kind of silly.

With guys like Ed Burns foregoing traditional distribution and selling his movie directly on Itunes (where we’ll likely be watching all of our rented films in two years) so that he could retain ownership of his film, rather than hand it over to some prodco, has both its pros and cons. You’re not going to get that big marketing push, and thus your movie won’t be grossing nearly as much money, but you’ll be receiving some hefty royalties from being the sole owner of your film for quite some time.

Back in the days of video stores (I can’t believe I’m saying that – “Back in the days of video stores”), where shelf space was limited, you wouldn’t have thought of that. Not having that juicy “Miramax” or “Lionsgate” tag on your film would keep corporate-minded Blockbuster from even glancing at your film. But a virtual porthole, such as Itunes or Netflix, where the system is intelligent enough to know which movies you like and recommend them to you, makes those companies excited about a small movie owned exclusively by Ed Burns. It doesn’t cost them anything to throw it up there, and targeted recommendations means people will keep watching it.

At some point I expect this to trickle down to the development stage. If you developed your script openly, providing numerous drafts on the internet and encouraged feedback from fans, it’s an easy way to build awareness for your film (not to mention improve your script) and thus create anticipation throughout the development process. A case can be made that the leaked scripts for Inglorious Basterds and Avatar helped make those films what they were, and I would anticipate that same kind of buzz would happen with any filmmaker who has a built-in fanbase. I know some form of this is going to happen soon. I’m just not sure which major name is going to do it first.

So I’m really interested in what happens here with Smith. What sucks, and what’s turning out to be a distracting factor in this giant experiment, is that Smith may be heading off to Crazy Land. The guy is curling himself up into a cocoon of safety in order to protect himself from any sort of negative reaction whatsoever. First he takes on critics for hating a movie that was truly awful and says he’s not going to screen his movies for critics anymore. And now he’s giving a big fat middle finger to studios and production companies, which is allowing him to try this unique experiment, but creating an unhealthy amount of insulation in the process.

What he doesn’t realize, is that he’s effectively becoming the low-budget version of George Lucas. Just make movies in his own back yard and nobody’s allowed to tell him if they’re any good or not. This is the absolute worst way you can approach writing, and almost always leads to subpar work. If you have any doubt about that, go read The Phantom Menace.

It’s a weird scenario, and I don’t know if Smith’s post-modern Howard Huges-like behavior is going to get in the way of determining whether this is a viable option or not. Which sucks, because if it does work, it could be a game-changer. It could give birth to an entirely new generation of writer-directors, guys like Gareth Edwards and Neil Bloomkamp, who have a unique voice and realize that with emerging technology, they can make their movies on the cheap and distribute them outside the studio system, building followers on social media outlets through teaser scenes, short films, and word of mouth, then use those outlets to directly advertise screenings, whether they be in real theaters or online.

I think what Smith is doing is cool. I’m just worried that his questionable red state of mind may screw up the test. What do you think?