Genre: Murder-Mystery
Premise: When a sex-obsessed single woman visits her estranged married twin in Italy, she’s asked to impersonate her, leading to a string of unfortunate events.
About: This script finished with 10 votes on last year’s Black List. It’s based on a book by first-time author and Londoner Chloe Esposito, who received her BA and MA in English from Oxford University. Screenwriter Jade Halley Bartlett adapted the book. This is her breakthrough screenplay.
Writer: Jade Halley Bartlett (based on the novel by Chloe Esposito)
Details: 140 pages!!!

Haley Bennet for Alvina?

I noticed a few comments about how this site used to be so upbeat! So inspiring! Yet now you come here and every single script gets a “wasn’t for me” rating. What kind of inspiration is that, Carson?!

Here’s the funny part. Whenever I like a script, everybody else trashes it. I get the feeling that if the commenters were reviewing scripts, they’d all get “what the hell did I just reads.” Therefore, it it wasn’t for me, we’d have no positive reviews at all!

All jokes aside, there’s probably something wrong with your analysis skills if all you do is hate everything or all you do is love everything. If you hate everything you watch, you probably shouldn’t be in this business. Right? What’s the point? Are you trying to depress yourself to death? And if you love everything, you don’t have the critical gene necessary to identify problems in your own screenplays.

I’m definitely closer to the former than the latter. And I have to remind myself to loosen up sometimes. Entertainment doesn’t work if you’re not open to the possibility of being entertained. So I’m glad this script came along when it did. It’s messy. It’s weird. It’s over-the-top. But you can’t deny that it’s entertaining.

27 year old Tinder-obsessed Alvina Knightly has two best friends – a poster of a shirtless Channing Tatum and a giant dildo named Mr. Dick. After getting fired for watching porn at work and kicked out of her flat because she’s a nuisance to the flat’s safety, Alvina gets a call from twin her sister, Beth. In a series of asides to the audience, Alvina explain that she hates her sister and her rich perfect life more than anything.

And usually, that feeling is mutual. But today Beth is insistent that Alvina come visit her and her husband in Italy. Alvina’s got nothing else to do, so she arrives in their beautiful countryside home, where she’s reunited with Beth’s hot husband, Ambrogio, who she, oh yeah, happened to have sex with once (Ambrogio swore to Beth he thought Alvina was her).

Anyway, once Alvina’s settled, Beth asks her to pretend to be her for a day while she goes off and takes care of some mystery business. Alvina reluctantly agrees, and then that night Beth comes home, drunk, berates her sister, leading to a tussle, and Beth falls, hits her head, and falls into a pool. Alvina decides, in that moment, not to save her. So Beth dies.

When Ambrogio appears, he assumes Alvina is Beth, and says something shocking. “You weren’t supposed to murder her here!” Realizing she was summoned here to be killed, Beth gets revenge by killing Ambrogio the next day, only to learn that he was involved in a 20 million dollar painting heist. Alvina must now make the difficult decision to nope the hell out of Italy, or embrace the life of her gangster sister and get dat money.

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first. This script is too long. This plot is too messy. And a lot of the plot points read like a Spanish soap opera.

However, the reason you’re still entertained is that the voice of the writer is bananas. Remember, guys and gals. Voice is the x-factor. Voice can take a seemingly boring premise and make it fun. Voice can take a seemingly cliche premise and make it shine. Voice is the screenplay hack that supersedes the rules.

Because if I’m enjoying myself, I don’t care if Character C didn’t have a proper arc or not.

One of the most effective ways of displaying voice is to focus on the bad as opposed to the good. There’s something real about the messiness of life. For example, when Alvie wakes up at the opening of the script, she swings her feet to the floor where they land on an open pizza box. She then lifts her foot up, which now has a pizza slice attached to it, and eats it.

You can’t write that scene in studio movies like Rampage. Every scene has to be carefully considered so that the characters are coming off the right way. This character needs to be perceived as good. This one as greedy. This one as the “funny friend.” And if you deviate from that by writing a weird scene, the studio makes sure that scene is axed. Mad Bad and Dangerous, for better or worse, is one long string of stepping on open pizza boxes.

Not to mention the main character is so savage that even if you hate her, you always want to know what she’s going to say next. Here’s a conversation with Alvie’s roommate, Gary, who’s had it with her. “Did you put that hole in the ceiling? I don’t actually care. We’d like you to move out. Tomorrow. So…good luck in your- (he gestures to Mr. Dick) -endeavors.” “Did you say tomorrow?” “It’s not personal. No, it is.” “You’re hideous and you smell like white wine vomit.” “You look like a gang-raped fox.” “Get out of my room, dickcheese. It’s mine for one more night.” “Leave your keys in the kitchen.” “I’ll leave them up your arsehole.”

So if you want to write a script that shows off your voice, the best way to do it is to create a hero who’s your evil alter-ego, the one who thinks all those awful things but never says them. Your script is an opportunity to create a character who finally says all that stuff. And while half the people reading that will absolutely hate your hero, the other half will love him.

The only downside to a script like this is that it’s hard to make movies work that are built entirely around negativity. Our main character is evil. Her sister is evil. Her husband is evil. The sexy handyman is sort of nice but still has sex with Beth behind her husband’s back so he’s evil. When everybody has an angle, there’s no one to latch onto and root for. And screenplays can be empty experiences when you go this route. You enjoy everything in the moment. But afterwards you feel empty.

With that said, this writer has talent. She definitely has strong dialogue skills. She takes chances. Every once in awhile the main character will start singing or belting out a haiku. Which is bizarre, but it works in a weird way.

Now she has to work on the basics. How to structure a screenplay. How to focus a narrative. How to edit out stuff that doesn’t matter. This script becomes twice as good with a more streamlined narrative. But hey, these things will come with practice. The voice is strong enough to hold her up in the meantime.

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

What I learned: If your script is too long, you need to cut it down. Start by cutting scenes that aren’t absolutely necessary. To do this, ask yourself, “If this scene was taken out of the movie, would the movie still make sense?” If the answer to that question is “No,” then keep the scene. If it’s “Yes,” get rid of the scene. For example, when Alvie travels to Italy, we get an entire scene where she’s at the airport and has to go through security. And there’s the old vibrator-that-goes-off-in-the-bag joke which is sort of funny, I guess. But the point is we don’t need it for this movie to make sense. You just cut to Alvie arriving in Italy. This is what movies were built for: cutting out the unimportant stuff. Make sure you’re doing that.

Genre: Drama/Supernatural (TV Pilot)
Premise: Working on a top secret project to eliminate sickness and aging, the US Defense Department inadvertently creates vampires.
About: Today’s novel, “The Passage,” was adapted into a pilot by Liz Heldens, whose paid her writing dues by working as a staff writer for over a decade. She’s also created a couple of shows that didn’t make it to a second season, “Camp,” and “Deception.” Don’t let that fool you. Creating a show that stays on the air is the chupacabra of this business. It’s so hard to do, especially when you’re writing for a network. They’ll execute a top-rated show if they think it’ll help lunch get there faster. Stephen King called The Passage books “a trilogy that will stand as one of the great achievements in American fantasy fiction.” The pilot debuts this fall on Fox.
Writer: Liz Heldens (based on The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin)
Details: 49 pages – Shooting draft

I looked at the title page of The Passage and saw a list of drafts off to the side (Production Draft, Blue Draft, Pink Pages, Green Pages, Goldenrod Pages, 2nd Blue Pages, Reshoot Pages, Revised Reshoot Pages). And let’s not forget however many drafts were written before the production draft.

Heldens probably needed a second computer just for all the notes she received on this project. I bring that up because yesterday I reviewed a movie from Netflix, How it Ends, whose notoriously hands-off approach led to zero notes.

Which begs the age old question about development: Is studio interference good or bad?

We love hearing quotes from directors of successful films such as: “We were so small they just left us alone.” The implication being that execs and producers are the real problem. If they’d just leave us artists alone, we’d all be painting the Mona Lisa.

But then how do you explain movies like How it Ends? If they had someone looking at those dreadfully boring dailies, they might’ve been able to come in actually save that film. Or at last try.

On the flip side of this you get network TV pilots like today’s, which are notes’d to death. Which is better? I don’t know. But maybe today’s pilot may get us a little closer to the answer.

Dr. Jonas Lear is with a team in the jungles of Bolivia searching for a legend – the 250 year old man. When he finds him, the man turns out to be a monster, leaping onto fellow doctor Tim Fanning and biting into his neck. Fanning survives, and after they take him to the hospital, he’s miraculously healed.

Cut to three years later and we’ve got Project Noah, a secret military operation where they take murderers on death row and experiment on them with medicine created from the blood of Fanning. Oh, Fanning’s still around, by the way. He’s being held in a cell due to the fact that he’s NOW A VAMPIRE MONSTER.

Running the lab is Major Nichole Sykes. When a Chinese outbreak of avian flu threatens to wipe out 15% of the world’s population, Sykes has to make a tough choice about Project Noah – which has the potential to save those 15%. Her scientists believe that the only way to come up with medicine that doesn’t turn its hosts into monsters, is to experiment on a child.

So Sykes finds a 10 year old orphan, Amy, and orders local agent Brad Wolgast to pick her up. Agent Wolgast, who lost his own daughter a few years ago, takes a liking to Amy. Sensing that a life in their lab will lead to years of pain, he decides to kidnap her and make a run for it. It doesn’t take long for the government to find out. And when they do, they put their entire might behind finding Wolgast and retrieving that girl.

Let me preface this by saying I haven’t read this novel. So I don’t know if this problem is addressed in it. But how is it that the story is built around retrieving a girl who has no special value whatsoever? She doesn’t have superpowers. She can’t see the future. She’s not injected with the virus. Her power is that she’s an orphan.

I think they’re implying that Amy could expose their secret and that’s why they have to find her. But she doesn’t know their secret. She doesn’t know anything about the experiments at this point. And, for that matter, neither does Wolgast. He’s making a guess that bad stuff happens in the lab but he’s never been there himself.

So half this show is about running after a girl who holds no special value at all? That’s strange.

Especially when you consider that they have a fun idea back at the lab. You have these weird variations on vampires that could escape at any second and then wreak havoc on the world. Vampires as far as the eye can see. Why not just stick with that?

I suspect this has to do with the A, B and C storyline TV formula. You have your A story, the Noah Project. The B story becomes finding the girl. And the C story is something else. I understand wanting to stick with this formula. TV is built with more characters, more plotlines, and therefore more jumping around. But you shouldn’t create storylines to meet quotas if they don’t work. No B story is better than a bad B story, right?

More concerning is how written everything feels here. Things were happening because the writer needed them to, not because they would really happen. Take, for example, the fact that Wolgast and his partner, Doyle, spot a carnival on the side of the road after picking up Amy for a military transfer. Amy points out the ferris wheel and, out of nowhere, Wolgast says, let’s stop there! So the three of them just stop at a carnival for an hour.

This makes zero sense. No professional agent on a mission for the government would do this. Especially since Wolgast hadn’t connected with Amy yet. It’s the writer making something happen so that Wolgast and Amy can become closer. I don’t know why so many writers continue to make this mistake. All you have to do to stop it is ask yourself, “Would it really happen this way?” If it wouldn’t, it means you’re cheating. Which means you need to move things around – do the hard work that most writers don’t want to do – to make the decision believable.

I would place The Passage at the other end of the development spectrum from How it Ends. It feels over-managed. Which is too bad because somewhere at the core of this show is a cool idea. If they got rid of this girl and focused on the vampires, they could have something.

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

What I learned: Sometimes you have to be on the nose in TV writing. When Wolgast calls his ex-wife during the kidnapping, they must speak covertly, as there’s an agent in the room with her. Here’s how that’s described:

“Their voices are low and there’s an intimacy to the coded conversation that’s almost sexy. Despite everything, Wolgast gives a small smile for his cool-under-pressure Lila — despite everything, he is overcome with longing for her.”

This is VERY on-the-nose. I wouldn’t recommend ever writing a line like it in a spec. If you’re doing your job, the reader should be able to pick up on this themselves. However, when you’re dealing with multiple executives, as well as directors and other creatives, I’ve learned that sometimes a writer has to go against their instincts and be VERY ON THE NOSE about certain beats to make sure the direction is understood. You don’t have to worry about this as an amateur. But when you get into the game, you’ll sometimes have to write lines like this, unfortunately.

Today I take a look at one of my Top 25! scripts and how it translated to the Netflix screen.

Genre: Action/Thriller
Premise: (from IMDB) When a mysterious disaster turns the country into a war zone, a young lawyer heads west with his future father-in-law to find his pregnant fiancée.
About: How It Ends shot into my Top 25 back in 2011. Since then, it’s gone through many “almosts” in getting made. It took the determination of the Netflix machine to change the project’s fortunes. The film debuted this weekend on the streamer. It stars Theo James (The Hunger Games) and Forest Whitaker. It was directed by David Rosenthal, whose previous credits include The Perfect Guy and A Single Shot. Brooks McLaren was an unknown writer when his script made The Black List back in 2011. He’s currently working on the “Rambo: New Blood” script.
Writer: Brooks McLaren
Details: 113 minutes

Some of you may remember this script from a looooong time ago. I read it and instantly fell in love with it, enough to clear room in my Top 25. Finally, after seven long years, the movie’s been made. And thank goodness for Netflix. I have no doubt How it Ends wouldn’t have seen the light of day without the service.

I may have issues with Netflix. But you have to love the fact that they’ve single-handedly brought back the mid-budget film. They don’t make these movies for theaters anymore. Especially if they don’t have a marketable genre component to them – like zombies. Every time I dog Netflix, I have to remind myself of that.

For those who don’t remember, How it Ends is about a lawyer, Will Younger, who’s on a business trip in Chicago, talking with his fiancé back in Seattle on Skype, when all of a sudden a loud banging noise occurs off-screen. Scared, his fiancé says she needs to check it out and then – FWIP – the feed cuts out. And it’s not just the Skype feed. All feeds from the West Coast cut out. Nobody knows what’s going on over there.

It just so happens that Will’s fiancé’s dad, Tom, lives in Chicago. Will’s been avoiding Tom because Tom doesn’t like him. But he has to see him now. As the West Coast situation worsens, Tom and Will decide to drive to California to get to the fiancé. Along the way, their car breaks down near a Native American reservation, and they’re forced to ask for help from a young Native American woman, who ends up coming with them. However, the closer they get to the coast, the more chaotic the world gets. Will they be able to overcome these odds and get to Seattle in time???

Before I get into the script stuff, I’m going to say some things that are going to make it sound like I’m making excuses for a script that some people thought was never that good in the first place. And I’m okay with that. Because I know I’m right. :)

Never has it been so apparent how much a movie suffers when it doesn’t have a good director. This film was terribly directed. For starters, the cinematography was awful. Every shot had the background blown out and the actor’s faces in darkness, making it impossible for me to see basic things like facial expressions.

But the silent killer was the sound design. The entire movie was done through ADR. ADR (additional dialogue recording) can work as a patch. The problem with doing it the whole movie is that nobody sounds real. The voices are too smooth, too calm. And the reason they’re too smooth and too calm is because the actors are in a quiet comfortable booth recording their lines. In addition to there being a disconnect between the true performance and the more relaxed audio performance, the audio quality is too slick and too clean to not draw attention to itself.

I can’t convey enough how much this pulled me out of the movie. It was like watching one long lip-sync.

There were other problems with the direction as well, such as the fact that the night-time car scenes looked like they were shot on an iphone with a 3-point Lowell lighting kit from BP Photo. And I get it. This movie doesn’t have a huge budget. But part of your job as a director is to make stuff look better than the budget you’ve been given. Can you imagine what Coralie Fargeat would’ve done with a movie like this? Her film looked amazing and it was shot for a lot less than this one.

Coralie’s movie, “Revenge.”

I read How it Ends at a time when I was in full GSU mode (Goal, stakes, urgency). It was one of the best embodiments of the formula I’d read up to that point. We’ve got a clear goal – get to the fiancé. Clear stakes – if we don’t, she dies. Clear urgency – Every passing moment society is falling more and more apart.

On top of that, we have a turbo-boost to the GSU formula: a giant mystery at the center of the film. What’s happened that’s causing all of this? Even if you’re not totally invested in the pursuit itself, you can’t help but wonder what’s going on.

On top of THIS, you’ve got a central character pairing that’s packed with conflict – the dad who doesn’t think the fiancé is good enough for his daughter. When you’re sending a character out on a long journey, you need a way to build drama into each scene. Stuffing two characters who don’t see eye-to-eye into a tight space for two hours is guaranteed drama.

All of these things were in the script yet I felt none of them onscreen.

Why?

That’s hard to figure out. I’d begin with the situation itself. In the script, the implosion of society and threat of an unseen menace was way more intense. Whereas in the script, things were ramped up to a 9. In the film, they were around a 5 or a 6. Wherever they went, things seemed calm. There weren’t a lot of crazies running around. You were convinced they could handle any problem.

For example, there were two major roadblocks early in the film. And they were able to get through simply by asking. In screenplays, you gotta make everything tough for your hero. Especially in a movie like this, where the world is falling apart. This idea is built for making things tough.

Then, later, in the one roadblock scene that wasn’t easy – a bridge they needed to cross – they turned it into this really cheesy Karate Kid scene with a couple of guys on dirt bikes who chased after our heroes. You gotta WIN each scene as a filmmaker. And in three of the biggest scenes, they lost.

Then there were little problems that added up. Such as the fact this entire icy relationship between the father and the fiancé-in-law is built on the idea that the son isn’t good enough for his daughter. Yet the son was a) strong and chiseled out of stone, an ideal protector, b) smart, c) presentable, and d) had a good job. This is the kind of man any normal father would be ecstatic his daughter was marrying. Yet we happened to have the one dad who didn’t like him.

Why is this an issue? Because when there’s a disconnect between what the audience is seeing and what the father is seeing, it feels like the only reason the father is acting that way is because the writer needs him to to act that way for his story to work. They could’ve solved this by casting someone who looked more like the kind of person a father didn’t think deserved his daughter. A Shia LaBeouf type, for example. Untamed, rough around the edges, a wild card.

And there were these tonal missteps. At one point, the group gets to an abandoned water park and the Native American girl jumps out of the car with a giant smile on her face and leaps into the pool, laughing excitedly at the chance to cool off. It was supposed to be the scene equivalent of a drink. Something to take the edge off after a long day.

Except that in every scene up to that point, Native American Girl had been the most dire, sad, miserable, human being in the world. The act disobeyed the very essence of her character make-up. You can’t just change who people are to fit a scene. You have to stay consistent. And the irony is, the movie could’ve used a sense of humor. It would’ve been smart to have more scenes where the characters were laughing so as to break up the enormously intense heaviness that permeated the movie.

I always try to remind writers that. The reader can’t appreciate the bitter unless they get the sweet. And vice versa. You can’t go crazy of course. You shouldn’t be putting Anchorman scenes in a movie like this. But you need the occasional bright spot if only to jolt the reader out of their malaise.

I’m not sure how to categorize this one. It’s on Netflix so it won’t cost you any money. So is it worth a free watch? I suppose it is if you’re doing background watching. But if you’re setting aside time just to watch a movie, you’ll probably be bored.

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth your time on Netflix
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: As much as it pains me to say this, movies like this struggle to get made because they don’t have a clear monstrous presence that can be marketed. In other words, there are no aliens. There are no zombies. There are no monsters. When audiences see trailers like this, it’s confusing for them. Because they ask, “Where’s the threat?” The threat, of course, is us (humanity). But people who just want to watch a fun movie don’t see it that way. They see a hole that hasn’t been filled. Anyone who watched this probably left saying, “That’s it?” The reason is the lack of that marketable element.

Genre: Dramedy
Premise: An old and cranky local politician goes publicly bananas in an effort to draw attention to an important social issue. This inadvertently puts the career of his son, the Governor of California, at risk.
Why You Should Read: This is a character driven dramedy with a lot of funny moments mixed in with an important social mission. Our hero knows he is in the last inning of life and is going to go out swinging even at the risk of damaging his own political legacy and ruining his son’s chance of building his own . So, yeah – he’s a a bit of an asshole. But an asshole you will root for.
Writer: David Lambertson (Eldave)
Details: 120 pages

Tommy Lee Jones for Lowell?

I want to keep it 100 with you guys. As much I love doing what I do, there are times when I get tired of reading. And when I get to Thursday, and I can see the weekend over the horizon, and how I’ll be able to relax and get out of the house and do fun things… when I have that within grasp, I occasionally look at a Friday review as an obstacle standing in the way of my fun.

It occurred to me, while I was thinking about this, that for most low-level industry people working their way up the system, many of whom are required to read screenplays in addition to their numerous other responsibilities, this is how they view screenplays as well. As obstacles to whatever else they’re trying to get done that day.

I bring this up because I want the writer to know what they’re up against. Their script isn’t being read under ideal circumstances. In fact, the majority of the time, it’s the exact opposite. And it’s for this reason that the little things – the things that writers believe are insignificant – can actually become huge deal-breakers.

For example, page count. You may think that 120 pages is fine. But to a reader who sees each page as a minute of their time, they see 120 pages as you wasting 20 minutes of their time (when you consider that most spec comedies should be in the 100-105 page range). Again, in a vacuum, 120 pages isn’t a big deal. But in reality, it can be a huge deal. An agitated reader is just waiting for you to give them an excuse to start skimming.

I’ll give a more relevant example for today’s author, Eldave. Eldave expressed his dislike for Marvel movies earlier this week, finding them nearly impossible to watch. Imagine what your mood would be, then, if you were dragged to a Marvel movie by a friend. I’m guessing it would be something like, ARMS CROSSED, “You’re going to have to prove to me that you’re worthy of my time.” That’s exactly how people are approaching your script.

Which is why you want to present yourself in the best possible light. Because if your presentation is bulletproof and you’ve written a good script, it’s completely possible to win the reader over. Some of the best reads I’ve ever had have occurred when the last thing I wanted to do was read a script. But to achieve this, the little stuff – page count, easy-to-read writing style, formatting, clarity, great first scene – has to be on point.

Okay, with that tough but necessary reminder behind us, let’s get to today’s script!

82 year old Los Angeles County Board member Lowell Bachman has just learned that he may have Alzheimer’s. Or dementia. Actually, Lowell won’t allow his doctor to test him to get a definitive answer on why he’s been sick lately. So he’s just playing the “old person” diagnosis odds.

Meanwhile, Lowell heads to his daily job at the Los Angeles County Office where he listens to local citizens complain about things that nobody cares about or ask for things that nobody’s going to give them. That’s his typical daily routine, anyway. Today, however, Lowell is taken with a Mexican woman who tells the story of her veteran son who recently died homeless on the streets.

Lowell becomes fixated on this notion that our military veterans don’t have an easy way to transition back to normal life. So he proposes a bill to add a barracks in Los Angeles. This way, veterans can recuperate inside a setting they’re familiar with, before being thrust back into society.

Nobody else on the board cares, so they shoot Lowell down. But that only makes Lowell angry. He starts showing up every day in a robe (instead of a suit) and claims a plethora of ailments as the reason for his belligerent behavior (Tourette’s, Alzheimer’s, blindness). Lowell becomes relentless about these barracks, yelling and screaming like… well… the homeless vet who lives down my street on Highland and Melrose. Lowell’s behavior grabs the attention of the local press, and soon Loco Lowell videos are going viral on Youtube.

Meanwhile, Lowell’s son, Jason, the Governor of California, is prepping for the upcoming election. But when the media runs with the “Lowell has gone crazy” narrative, Jason finds his formally sure-thing re-election in question. To make matters worse, Lowell finds out he has a brain tumor, which, in his fucked up logic, grants him permission to act even crazier. Will he get those barracks? Or will his co-workers dispose of him first?

It’s not surprising to me that this script won Amateur Offerings. I’ve read a script of Eldave’s before and I knew he had game. I actually thought, “The rest of the writers are in trouble this week.”

In addition to the fact that the script is an easy breezy read with a clear plotline and a main character who pops off the page, there are little things that clue you in to this being a skilled scribe.

For example, if Lowell is causing all of this chaos unimpeded, it’s not very interesting. What makes it interesting is the choice to add the Governor son. Because the son is running for reelection, Lowell’s crazed actions directly affect him. Characters are always more interesting when their choices have consequences, as consequences mean a more conflicted character.

There are very few amateur screenwriters who know this. So seeing that thread expertly woven into this screenplay was an instant indicator that this wasn’t your typical amateur script.

With that said, I did have problems. And most of them stemmed from the premise.

Our hero’s goal is to build a barracks to help transitioning military veterans. The problem is, the only veteran we know is the one who prompted Lowell to act in the first place, and he happens to be dead.

So the entirety of this pursuit is built around helping people who we never meet. Here’s a man who’s hell-bent on getting these barracks set up, to the point where he’s shouting down fellow board-members, destroying his son’s shot at reelection, and killing his own legacy…

But for who?

Nobody we’ve met.

So why would I care if he succeeds?

I’m sure many of you followed the Thailand Boys Soccer Team cave rescue. Everyone who heard about the situation wanted those boys to be okay. But it was the video where we SAW THOSE KIDS IN THE CAVE that made us emotionally invested in their survival. That’s what made it real. Since we didn’t have that here – any tangible people to help – Lowell’s pursuit felt empty.

In fact, Lowell’s motivation seemed to be more about embarrassing his asshole co-workers than helping people in need. For him, it was all about acting like a kookoo bird and making the evening news. If we had just a single face to represent the people who needed help, it would’ve done wonders.

A better possible setup may have been for a veteran (I’ll call him “Josh”) to come in and highlight the loss of a fellow veteran. Then, Josh could become the representative of the people who would benefit from the barracks.

Even if you added that, though, it doesn’t explain why Lowell cared so much about veterans in the first place. He’s not a veteran himself, is he? So why is he so obsessed with this issue? I never found that answer and because that answer is the core of our main character’s motivation, it was hard for me to invest in what was going on.

I like the idea of an aging politician who stops playing by the rules. Any situation where someone stops playing by the rules is going to have some entertainment value. It’s a fun setup. And I could see that elite group of aging Hollywood stars stabbing each other in the back to get this role. I just think there’s a better story idea out there to get our 80 year old hero to stop playing by the rules. One of those old people Florida communities that take their rules very seriously, for example. Or maybe a country club. I guarantee you either of those would be more salable.

Or, if you wanted to stick with this setup, we need a better connection between Lowell and his cause, as well as a physical representation of who’s going to benefit from Lowell’s goal.

Screenplay Link: The Last Statesman

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

What I learned: Whenever you have a political figure in a key role, make sure an election is coming up soon. Political figures are a thousand times more interesting when they’re trying to secure re-election. If Jason isn’t up for re-election here, there’s no reason to worry about his father’s behavior.

I’ve noticed a trend in a lot of the amateur scripts I’ve been reading in regards to scene-writing. To many writers, a scene is a way to dispense information that the reader needs in order to understand what’s happening. For example, they know that in this scene, they must explain to the reader what a flux capacitor is, so that they understand how time travel works. In the next scene, they know they must introduce Henry the Neighbor, since Henry the Neighbor will play a crucial part in the story later on. The problem with this approach is that their focus is on themselves as opposed to the reader. They don’t care if the reader is satisfied. As long as they were able to successfully dispense the relevant information, they’re happy.

Here’s the problem though. You may have achieved what you’ve needed to achieved. But you sure haven’t kept me entertained in the process.

Writing a good screenplay isn’t about getting your checklist of story points down into a cohesive narrative. It’s about telling an entertaining story. So many writers want a cookie for the mere fact that they finished a screenplay that makes sense. Sorry, but if you want to play with the big boys, you have to tell a story that’s entertaining all the way through.

That’s the focus of today’s article. Making sure every single scene in your script has entertainment value. Now before we get started, I want to make something clear. I’m not using “entertain” in the hyperbolic sense. I don’t mean it like a roller coaster ride or a giant car chase. “Entertain” simply means that there’s something about the scene that makes it compelling on its own.

The most basic way to add entertainment value is through conflict. Conflict comes in many forms, and essentially refers to an imbalance in the scene. There’s something unresolved which adds tension to the proceedings. Let’s say that your hero, Joe, is at his son’s baseball game. You could certainly write this scene to establish the basics: Joe’s son plays baseball. But why not add some entertainment value to make the scene more interesting?

Let’s say Joe’s son is batting, and the pitcher’s belligerent father is sitting a few seats in front of Joe. “C’mon Frankie! Strike this bum out!” We can see the discomfort on Joe’s face, but he doesn’t want to make a scene. “Look at this kid! He’s afraid to swing. Lay it right down the middle!” Joe’s getting more angry now. Is he going to say something? This example may be a little excessive, but you get the point. You’ve taken what could’ve been a straight-forward establishing scene that your hero’s son plays baseball and turned it into a moment that’s entertaining on its own.

Another way to conjure entertainment out of a scene is to place your character in a situation of discomfort. As soon as you introduce something that impedes on a person’s comfort, they have to react. And, in doing so, you create an entertainment seed that can grow. Let’s say your character is a prisoner who keeps to himself. And you want to show his daily routine, specifically how meal time works. The boring screenwriter will simply put the prisoner in line and sit with them as they move their way forward until finally getting their food. Again, you’ve achieved your technical goal. You’ve shown us a component of the character’s shitty day. But you didn’t entertain us in the process. How can you change that?

Well, what if there are two options on the menu that day: pizza and a casserole that looks like vomit. As our prisoner is getting closer, we’re showing those pieces of pizza fly off the pan. It’s going to be close by the time it’s his turn, but it looks like he’s going to get one. Then, when he’s almost there, you impede upon the hero’s comfort. Four thugs come up. “Yo man, you mind if we jump in front of you?” Our hero glances at the last three slices of pizza, then at these guys. We can see the torture in his eyes before he finally relents. Sure enough, the thugs take the last slices of pizza, and our hero’s stuck with the gruel. You’ve just turned a scene where nothing happens into a scene where we’re entertained by a man who wants pizza.

Another easy way to add entertainment value is to introduce a problem. If there’s a problem, the audience will want to see if it can be resolved. In Thor: Ragnarok, one of the most entertaining movies of last year, virtually every scene is prefaced with a problem. We meet Thor while he’s hanging, tied up in a net. Later he gets stuck in a waiting room that he needs to get out of. Then he gets placed in a gladiator arena where he must survive. Afterwards, him and Hulk are placed in a holding bay that they have to escape from. The simple act of needing to solve a problem, no matter how small, adds instant entertainment value to a scene.

Something as simple as a time limit can make a scene entertaining. If a character has to clean up his extremely dirty apartment because his parents are in town, you could certainly show us a typical yet boring montage of him cleaning up. Or you could have his father call and let him know that they’re coming an hour early and should be there within the next 30 minutes. Now the clean-up session is a race with an uncertain ending. Much more entertaining.

You can add entertainment value by raising the stakes. Let’s say your character is a waiter. You could certainly give us a boring scene of him doing his typical waiter duties. Or you could have a fellow waiter point out that his new table is a famous food blogger. “Don’t screw it up or none of us will have jobs next week.” All of a sudden, a normal waiting scene becomes packed with tension.

A scene can become entertaining merely by changing the order in which the information is given. For example, let’s say your hero, Beth, has a long day at work. Later, when she gets home, she finds out her husband died in a work accident. Why not show us her husband dying in that accident BEFORE we show Beth’s work day? That way, we’re filled with anxiety as we wait for Beth to find out what we already know. Even a mundane task such as driving home becomes compelling since we know it’s only a matter of minutes now before she finds out what’s happened.

The lesson here is to assess when a scene is boring and to CREATIVELY SOLVE THAT PROBLEM. You don’t even need to know any of these tips to do this. You just have to be honest with yourself about the scene and come up with a way to make it more interesting. You’d be surprised at how easy this is.

Changing locations can do wonders for a scene. If you have a typical boring scene where two characters are talking, you can move them from a coffee shop, where it’s okay to talk, to a movie theater, where it isn’t. Now, every word risks someone nearby telling them to shut up.

Adding characters to a scene can do wonders as well. If you have a typical conversation scene between a guy and his girlfriend, add the girl’s best friend, who HATES the guy. Same conversation, except now the friend is constantly looking up from her phone, giving our guy judgmental looks after everything he says.

I’m sure you’re thinking, “Come on, Carson. Not EVERY scene can be entertaining. What about quick scenes whose sole purpose is to convey information?” Yes, even those scenes. You’ll vary the intensity of the entertainment value to fit the smaller scale, but you still want to entertain. For example, let’s say Alice calls her friend Claire to set up a later dinner party scene. “Pick you up at 7 for the party?” “Could you make it 7:30? I’m running late.” “Sounds good.” They hang up. Sure, that could work. But you could also throw a joke in there to make the conversation more fun. “Pick you up at 7 for the party?” “I can’t go. I have the flu.” “You used the flu excuse last time.” “I mean influenza.” “That’s the same thing, Claire.” “Fine. But come as late as possible.” It’s a small adjustment, but it makes a difference.

We live in a world where people don’t give a shit about anything other than how they feel in the moment. Back in the 70s, you could go 15 minutes in a movie without worrying about whether the audience was bored. These days, people are used to options. Entertainment is a phone-pull-out-of-a-pocket away. More than ever before, you have to make sure you’re keeping people entertained. I’d go so far as to say if you write two boring scenes in a row, the reader is already drifting out of your story. I don’t say that to scare you. I say it to keep you honest. Go into every scene with the intention of adding entertainment value and you will be fine.

Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations. Logline consultations go for $25 a piece or 5 for $75. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. If you’re interested in any sort of consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!