Genre: Drama (True Story)
Premise: (from Black List) The unfolding of the single largest public school embezzlement scandal in United States history – an incredible true story that pits corrupt educators against dogged student journalists against the back-group of a cutthroat Long Island suburb.
About: This one finished low on last year’s Black List. To be honest, it sounded a little dry and I originally had no plans to read it. But then I saw it was written by Mike Makowsky, who wrote the script, I Think We’re Alone Now, a spec sale from a couple of years ago about a man who attempts to keep order in a small suburb after the apocalypse. I liked that script a lot so decided to give this one a chance. Holy moses I’m glad I did!
Writer: Mike Makowsky
Details: 122 pages
I wish I had more time to go into all the ways this script is amazing. But it’s a long day so, unfortunately, I’ll only be able to focus on the highlights.
Bad Education introduces us to 50-something Frank Tassone, the Long Island school chief for the 4th best public high school in the country, Roslyn. Frank is the single nicest and most caring man you’ll ever meet. From the outset, we see that he genuinely cares about the students and the school, going so far as to keep his doors open all day to any student, teacher, or parent who wants to talk.
Frank’s right-hand woman is district business manager Pam Gluckin. Pam is trying to help Frank fulfill his ultimate dream – make Roslyn the number 1 public school in the country. And to do that, you need money. You have to make the school great so that families want to move to the community and raise their kids here. So Frank and Pam aren’t afraid to, say, build a bridge walkway between two wings if it cuts a minute off the time for students to get from one class to another – even if it cost 12 million dollars.
Rachel Kellog is a curious nerdy student who works for the school paper and who seems miffed by the school’s excessive spending and wants to write an article about it. She interviews Pam about some of the odd budget items, and finds a string of charges the school has made which don’t make sense.
But it’s the parents in the community who notice that Pam recently bought a prime piece of real estate in one of the most expensive getaway spots in the nation – The Hamptons. Something isn’t adding up. When the board confronts Pam about this, they find that she’s basically using the school credit card to buy… everything.
The board wants to call the police but Frank talks them through what that means. If Roslyn is seen as a school that’s allowed this to happen, what happens when the annual budget renewal comes up and they’re penalized? The school loses its prestigious national ranking, kids from Roslyn no longer get priority looks from the best colleges, families start moving out of the district to better schools, property values in the city go down – everything could fall apart.
So the board agrees to fire Pam and keep the matter quiet.
But what they don’t know is that there’s someone way way worse than Pam. And it’s the man who’s guiding them through this mess. Frank has many secrets, and when it’s all said and done, he very well may have stolen 10 million dollars from the town’s taxpayers. It’s going to take a curious nerdy student who won’t take no for an answer, however, to expose that scam to both the board, and the community.
Let’s deal with the elephant in the room. This isn’t exactly sexy subject matter. This is why I tell you guys to be wary of pursuing dry concepts. Even when you achieve the impossible and write one of the best scripts of the year, it’s STILL going to struggle to get noticed and made.
I have no doubt that the only reason this script didn’t finish in the top 3 of last year’s Black List is because people saw the subject matter and said, “That sounds boring as shit,” then didn’t read it.
However, Bad Education is anything but boring. This is screenwriting at its best. Outside of the concept, it did everything right, taking chances, giving us a fascinating main character, keeping things unpredictable, and pulling off some of the best setups and payoffs I’ve seen in years.
Let’s start with the main character, Frank Tassone. This is how you write a great character, folks. This man is our villain. He is a terrible human being. Yet through the first half of the script? We love him. He lives to help students become the best they can be. He helps friends get their kids into the best schools. He runs book clubs to enrich the minds of people in the community. He was so convincing as a great person, I started to think that the real villain would be introduced later in the script. Cause it couldn’t possibly be him.
This is how you construct a great villains, guys. You make them complex. If they’re on-the-nose and obvious, they’re boring. But if the guy who’s eventually going to steal 10 million dollars from people is sweet and helpful, you’re confused, and you have to keep reading to find out how this man could possibly end up being a bad guy.
But Makowsky doesn’t stop there. Frank is widowed for 30 years. Frank is living in the closet. He’s a gay man who has a secret partner, Steve, who he’s afraid to tell others about less they judge him. On top of THAT (spoiler) he has an affair with another man, one of his former students.
There’s just so much going on with this guy. Every 40 to 50 something actor in town should be breaking down doors to get this part. It’s the kind of role every actor dreams of.
The next thing Makowsky did was one of the harder things to do in screenwriting – introduce a lot of characters and give those characters an equal amount of screen time so we get to know and care about their storylines, and do all this without spreading himself too thin. Because that’s the danger when you write in a lot of characters. You spread yourself thin and the reader gets bored cause there’s no one to focus on. I’ve seen many a script die out because of this problem.
We get to know Frank, we get to know Rachel, we get to know Pam, we get to know Big Bill, Frank’s friend on the board. We get to know faculty at the school, board members, students, parents, the children of some of the key parents. You have to remember that you only get 55 scenes in a script. So do the math. If you give, say, six characters 5 of their own scenes each, that’s 30 scenes right there. Which means you now only have 25 scenes left for your main character. So it’s really hard to manage that many characters and, at the same time, get to know all of them.
But where this script really shines is in its setups and payoffs, which Makowsky could teach a course in. For example, Frank is friends with Big Bill, a guy on the board. Early on, we learn that Frank got Big Bill’s less-than-academically-inclined son into Penn State. Bill’s got another bad student who’s about to graduate high school, and Frank assures Big Bill he’ll help him get into the best school possible.
So later, when the Pam thing is caught by the board and Big Bill is the primary member who wants to call the cops, Frank explains what that means. If they’re outed for corruption, Roslyn High now wears a scarlet letter as far as the colleges are concerned. When that happens, they’ll stay away from accepting Roslyn kids. This realization pays off that earlier discussion that if Bill calls the cops, his son will go to a shitty college. Since Bill is the ringleader of the board, this is a major turning point in the story, since he now rallies the group to cover up Pam’s activity and move on.
But my favorite payoff was one of the final scenes. And, actually, this was probably my favorite scene of the year. Earlier in the script, there’s a delusional parent who is convinced her dumb son should be in the advanced classes, and she keeps coming to the school and pestering Frank about it. Frank politely engages the woman, and politically massages the explanation for why the boy “isn’t quite there yet.”
Towards the end of the script, Frank’s secrets are rapidly being exposed. The Feds are moving in. The board members, his closest allies, are turning on him. He begins to realize that he might be going to prison. And right as that’s happening, the same mother and her boy come into his office and she asks if her son can read a letter he’d written to Frank. Frank, his life imploding exponentially with each additional minute, begrudgingly accepts and the educationally-challenged kid can’t even properly read his own letter, mispronouncing a key word in the middle (he keeps pronouncing “accepting” “assepting”) and going back over to try it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
I want to see an actor’s interpretation of this reaction so badly, that that alone is reason enough to make this film.
On top of all this, when you read the final title of the movie, it will infuriate you, as it represents everything that’s wrong with our government these days.
Man, I wish I could say this was a slam dunk green light but the lack of a hook severely limits it. I mean, yeah, you have scandal. But it’s not like it’s Bernie Madoff scandal. It’s some obscure school principal guy in Long Island. I just don’t know if people would care. Or, more importantly, I don’t think producers would think people would care.
Maybe this needs a Netflix to take a shot at it. The good news is, if they get this into the right actor’s hands, a big actor WILL want to play this part. And if there’s any takeaway lesson from this script, that’d be it. If you’re going to write something that doesn’t have an easy hook, make sure it has a great role for an actor. Cause once you get one of those guys on your film, you get financed and you get made.
God, was this good. An awesome early week surprise.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 15 SCRIPT!!)
[ ] genius
What I learned: Wanna make your script look smart? Look clever? Create a physical symbol that represents the crux of the story’s conflict. Then, keep repeating that symbol throughout the script. When Rachel first shows up to ask Frank questions, she wants to know why they’re spending 12 million dollars on a pointless elevated bridge walkway when the school can’t even fix its rampant water leakage problem. This water leakage is then repeatedly referenced in scenes. And in a great payoff, when Frank finally squares off with Rachel in the school hallways, guess what’s happening? The ceiling is leaking.
Genre: Superhero
Premise: An Amazonian goddess living on a remote island has her world turned upside-down when a World War 1 Allied spy shows up on her island, with the German army in tow.
About: The Wonder Woman project has had quite an exciting history. First it was asked if audiences would pay for a female-led superhero film. Next came the outrage of it taking so long to put a female director behind one of these films (Patty Jenkins), then came early reports that the movie was terrible. Tack onto that DC’s struggles with finding their identity as a franchise, and you had one big giant question mark. Well, Wonder Woman answered that question mark with a resounding 100 million dollars, 30 million more than most analysts were predicting just a few weeks ago. The movie is a hit, and is, in fact, the best film of the new DC universe by far. The writing situation on Wonder Woman is an interesting one. Credit goes to Allan Heinberg, who some would frustratedly point out is not female. However, Heinberg is a successful TV presence who’s written almost primarily on shows that are popular with the female demographic (Gray’s Anatomy, The Catch, Scandal, Sex and The City). This is his first feature credit.
Writers: Allan Heinburg (story by Heinberg, Zack Snyder, Jason Fuchs)
Details: Coming in at a Zack Snyder friendly 2 hours and 20 minutes.
Since we’re talking about Wonder Woman here, I’m going to throw her lasso around myself and be honest: I was not expecting much from this movie. I was on the fence on whether I would even see it and then I saw this Gal Gadot Conan skit and was taken by Gadot’s innocent charm. She didn’t seem to be in hyper-sell mode or “I would rather be anywhere but here” mode like most actors promoting their films. Displaying her cute dorky side, she genuinely seemed like she was enjoying herself.
So that got me to the theater. But then what happened?
I always say that you know if a movie is going to work immediately. In that first scene, you can tell that everything’s clicking. It was the right script choice to open with that scene. The directing is confident. The lead actor is dialed in. The score hits just the right chords.
Wonder Woman didn’t have any of that.
If I’m being honest (I have to since I’m still wearing Wonder Woman’s lasso), the whole all-women’s warrior island thing bordered on goofy. Women running around, battling each other, spinning off horses and shooting arrows at each other upside-down. Everything looked too clean, too staged. I was thinking, “Man, I don’t know about this.”
However, I got used to it surprisingly quickly, mainly when my new slightly more than platonic crush Gal Gadot showed up. And once I was in, I was in for good.
The story really picks up, however, when Steve Trevor arrives. Steve is an American (I think?) spy who’s infiltrated the German army, which is in the thick of World War 1. This is the first man Wonder Woman has ever seen, so some time is required to get used to him. But once she learns that there is a war going on and that people are dying, she becomes convinced that Ares, the God of War, is behind it. She wants Steve to take her to the front so she can kill Ares and stop the war (this is “G” in the “GSU” for those taking notes).
Steve is all, like, “I’m sorry but say that one more time?” But he quickly realizes that his only shot off this island is feeding into this woman’s delusions, so he agrees to take her to the front.
Once in Europe, the two recruit a rag-tag team of idiots, former colleagues of Steve’s, to get into the heart of Germany, where Wonder Woman believes Ares is hiding. However, the journey proves more challenging than she originally anticipated, seeing as she doesn’t know which human form Ares has taken. There’s also some chick named Dr. Poison or something who’s creating the ultimate gas weapon that will win the war for Germany. Can Wonder Woman, and shifty Steve, stop her in time? If there are going to be Wonder Woman sequels, they better.
What was once old is now new again.
Wonder Woman takes a gamble by going full origin-story on us, a former staple of the superhero industry that’s been abandoned after numerous geek-boys proclaimed the predictable format boring-sauce.
But Wonder Woman teaches us a lesson on this front. After a trend has been banished for long enough, a window will open up for you to use it again. It’s simple math. The reason people wanted the trend gone in the first place was because it had become predictable. Therefore it would only stand to make sense that if it were gone for long enough, bringing it back would be unpredictable.
But you have to be there right when the window opens. Arrive too early and people are like, “Really? Another origin story?” Arrive at just the right time and can slip into the home of genius choices. “Oh, it was such a fresh choice to go back to the origin story!”
But there’s something bigger going on here. There was a time, long ago, when large-scale movies only had to do one thing to be successful – take you to a place you’d never been to before. Back when the internet was called an encyclopedia, just taking us to a new country or a new time was reason enough to plop down money at the theater.
But these days, we’re so inundated with visual information, both real and imagined, that that art has been lost. How do you take someone somewhere new when they can go anywhere they want with the click of a button? When I was in Prague last month, I went to a museum. I wasn’t enjoying myself and I wondered why. I realized it was because I had seen all of this stuff (in some form or another) already.
Wonder Woman came in with this island we’d never been to (I may have been jarred by it, by I admit it was unique) then joined a war that we rarely get to experience in cinema (World War 1), since almost all war stories choose World War 2 as their center point.
These choices are what made Wonder Woman fresh. I truly felt like I was somewhere I didn’t know anything about. And this goes back to a constant Scriptshadow theme, what some may say is the key to writing something great. You must look for ways to make your story fresh. Whether it be location, time, point of view, cleverness of concept, a radical character. Wonder Woman used time and place to give us a different experience. What have you done to achieve the same in your screenplay?
However, this is only part of the reason Wonder Woman succeeds. The other reason? Take a guess.
Wonder Woman herself?
Nope.
The other reason Wonder Woman succeeds is the crackling relationship between Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. This was a deft and daring move by the writers, who were probably tempted to move away from a love story, less the fake outrage crowd blast them for daring to imply a powerful woman could be interested in a man.
But what a great choice, and the best example of smart screenwriting in the script. Take note aspiring screenwriters, as this is a lesson you’ll want to learn. What you want to do in most stories is establish a main character with a belief system. For Wonder Woman, it’s to be truthful and always do what’s right.
That way, when you build in the other half of the relationship, you can create a character WHO HOLDS OPPOSING BELIEFS. So who is Steve Trevor? He’s a spy. He… say it with me… LIES FOR A LIVING. Placing someone who tells the truth opposite someone who lies is the kind of choice that studios pay big bucks for.
And it’s not just to win the “correct screenwriting decision” award that gets you points with bloggers like myself. When you do this correctly and establish opposing belief-systems with your main characters, you ensure a stream of conflict between those characters that lasts – ORGANICALLY – the entire movie. Why “organically?” Because the differences are built into the core of the characters. They can never agree because their beliefs are fundamentally the opposite of each other. Even the most basic conversation will lead to an impasse.
Even when these views don’t come up, and the characters are, say, enjoying a dance together (like they do in the film), there is still an underlying tension since the characters know they can never be together because they lead diametrically opposing lives.
If you want to know why these guys get paid the big bucks, it’s because they know how to do things like this. And you can learn it to! Now that you know about it, study it. Watch for it in films. It’s at the core of a lot of great movie relationships.
Now whenever I write a positive review and only give the script a “worth the read,” commenters think there’s some conspiracy involved. So I’m going to tell you why Wonder Woman only gets a “worth the watch” from me despite my, so far, glowing review.
It’s because the villain is so effing bad. Like embarrassingly bad. When you don’t have a threatening villain, your hero’s journey feels too easy. We must always doubt that our hero will succeed. We never once doubted that Wonder Woman would win here, and it’s specifically because the villain never felt like a threat. One of these days I’m going to have to write an article on villains since everyone’s obviously forgotten how to write them. But it was a major mark against an otherwise good movie.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I would be careful about making your villain a late surprise reveal. It’s not impossible to make it work. But by keeping the villain a secret from the audience the whole movie, you’ve lost the opportunity to develop that character as a villain. This forces you to develop their villain-ness within the last 20 minutes of the movie, which is not easy to do. Again, it can be done (The Fugitive comes to mind) but I would think long and hard about this choice, as it usually ends up like it does here in Wonder Woman – dumb.
I saw myself some Wonder Woman yesterday. The theater was packed. The truth lassoes were out. Pineheads were oiling themselves up in Chris Pine oil. I may or may not have joined them. But you’ll have to wait until Monday to find out.
Right now, it’s time for some Amateur Offerings, with a TWIST! I’m adding some CARSON NOTES to the end of each entry. That’s right. You get a little extra insight into what I’m thinking when I look at these pitches. Speaking of, if you’re interested in getting a FULL SET OF NOTES from me, e-mail (carsonreeves1@gmail.com) me with the subject line, “50” and I’ll give you $50 off your purchase.
If you’re new to these weekends posts, the rule is: read as much of each script as possible then VOTE for your favorite in the comments section. Winner gets a review next Friday where, hopefully, I can help bring attention to the writer. This is also a wonderful opportunity to give writers feedback so they can get better. Let the writers know, constructively, where you had troubles with their scripts and why.
Title: Deathfest
Genre: Revenge Fantasy / Buddy Movie
Logline: At a raucous Death Valley music festival, a timid detective must embrace her inner beast to solve the festival’s first murder: that of a heartless billionaire.
Why You Should Read: Utopian festivals such as Burning Man preach love, peace and acceptance. They have also become a microcosm for inequality. Every year elaborate tents show the have-nots just how little they have and tensions run sky high. What if, in this perfect world, someone was murdered? What if they really, really deserved it? Deathfest is the catharsis we all need right now. I hope you agree.
Carson notes: Genres should be – Comedy, Sci-Fi, Horror, Thriller, Fantasy, Western, Drama, Action and that’s it. Sometimes you will combine two of these. And there are a few sub-genres (Contained Horror). But I’d avoid making genres up. It screams “amateur.”
Title: Fighting Irish
Genre: Crime/Drama
Logline: Two gypsy fighters from Dublin have lived lives of violence since they were young. When one decides he wants out, what will he do when his father is released from prison and gets entangled in the criminal world of the other?
Why You Should Read: I’m a recently-graduated student from Northern Ireland who’s been studying screenwriting for the past five or so years, starting in my spare time and then at university. This script has had a couple of Black List reads between rewrites and has garnered a 7 out of 10 each time. I’m hoping to find out whether this latest draft could potentially crack that elusive 8 or above. I also hope to join our Irish contingent out in LA as I’ve heard Liam Neeson and Jamie Dornan are great craic on a night out!
Carson notes: This idea feels like it needs something extra. All I see is boxers, prison, and crime, which they’ve made lots of movies about already. Remember guys. Find your STRANGE ATTRACTOR – the unique thing that sets your idea apart from all the others out there.
Title: LIFE RIGHTS
Genre: Drama
Logline: After purchasing the life rights of a recently deceased man from his grieving daughter, a writer struggles to form a bestselling novel out of the man’s boring life.
Why You Should Read: I noticed a lot of people like books and movies that are biographical, and writing in that area might be a good way for a writer to climb to the top. But what if you painted yourself into writing about a subject who has nothing worth reading about? Is it wrong to make one up? Is the truth more important than an entertaining or meaningful story? I’d love any and all feedback on if I even came close to nailing these questions, let alone telling a good story. Enjoy :)
Carson notes: Not sure you need to include the grieving daughter in the logline. This sounds like it would work a lot better as a comedy but hopefully I’m wrong.
Title: Blowback
Genre: Action
Logline: A disillusioned CIA agent is brought out of retirement to hunt a vengeful billionaire, who seeks to annihilate the United States using a Soviet Cold War doomsday weapon.
Why You Should Read: Inspired by true events dating back to the Cold War, Blowback is a big budget action spec that takes a hard look at how the fallout from America’s foreign policy shapes the world today. Also, since I’m a big Tom Cruise fan, I wrote the main character with him in mind, incorporating the type of death-defying stunt work for which he’s renowned. I’d be beyond grateful if the Scriptshadow community could somehow get the script into his hands.
Carson notes: Reading this logline, my first thought is, “Where’s the fresh idea?” All of this feels like stuff we’ve seen before. Pitching Tom Cruise also dates the subject matter. Also, “disillusioned CIA agent” makes it sound like it could be a comedy.
Title: SLIFKO RULES!
Genre: Contained Comedy
Logline: An ex-serial prankster trapped at a Catholic High School is forced to repeat his senior year for a senior prank he was framed for, so he decides to pull off the biggest prank of all time.
Why You Should Read: Freddie Slifko is the 21st Century “Ferris Bueller.” It’s an 80’s style contained comedy with fantastic characters that push the edge of PG-13 with scatological humor, and high brow humor. It’s not your typical 85 page comedy spec that has three laughs in it. It’s got a strong backbone for the plot, and one of the best endings of a comedy EVER.
Carson Notes: This wins “Best Why You Should Read” Pitch for the year of 2017. This is how you sell your screenplay! Now let’s hope it delivers.
Title: Car God
Genre: Drama (Pilot)
Logline: A young ex-con, desperate for an honest life, takes a job at a local dealership, unknowingly entering the mob-run underworld of the car business. Based on actual events.
Why You Should Read: This story takes place behind all the headlines the came out a few years back involving Chrysler reporting thousands of ‘fake sales’ in order to inflate sales reports for investors. As an ex con, recently released from federal prison for marijuana trafficking, I took a job at the only place that would hire a felon and still be able to make a decent living. As I soon learned, being a criminal didn’t hurt my chances starting a new life with a career, it actually opened the doors to even bigger money-making opportunities, unfortunately still on the wrong side of the law. This pilot was also given an 8/10 on The BLACKLIST for CHARACTERS, and we all know how important that is on Scriptshadow… Thank you for any consideration!
Carson Notes: This is a great follow-up to the earlier entry of boxers and the criminal world. Notice how this idea has a strange attractor – the mob run underworld of the car business. That makes the idea unique, which gives it a better chance of standing out amongst busy readers. It being a true story from the writer’s point of view is also a great pitch.
Genre: Thriller
Premise: In the midst of a deadly bushfire season, a petty criminal with a fascination for fire becomes entangled in a game of cat and mouse with a desperate arson squad detective while attempting to save his one, true friend.
Why You Should Read: The Black Saturday bushfires occurred in my home state of Victoria, Australia in 2009 and killed 173 people. It was Australia’s deadliest natural disaster and I still distinctly remember the atmosphere on that day – you could actually feel the death in the air. I’ve often been drawn to thinking about the people involved that day – both those fighting and investigating the blazes and the pyromaniacs who helped exacerbate them. While this story is set a little while later, the memories of that day remain an inspiration.
Writer: Daniel O’Sullivan
Details: 97 pages
We’ve got a WONDER-ful weekend ahead of us.
Get it?
Wonder Woman comes out today?
My jokes are so on point.
Here’s my script review of the old Joss Whedon draft of Wonder Woman, which it looks like they drew inspiration from.
“Inspiration.” There’s a funny word. I hope some people drew inspiration from yesterday’s article. However, I do want to make something clear. I wasn’t saying to write and direct a horror film if you hate horror.
In fact, I’ll be the first to admit that the element that trumps everything when it comes to picking an idea is passion. If you’re passionate about something – whatever that something may be (horror, drama, western musicals) – that’s what you want to write. Readers know when you love what you’re writing about as it bleeds into the pores of every word on the page.
Now you have to be smart about it. Find a hook. Find an angle into your passion that can be marketed. But yeah, passion is often the difference maker between an inspired script and an uninspired one.
Today’s Amateur Offerings winner feels like a passion-play, a fire-infused mix between Hell or High Water and Manchester By The Sea. Since we know I loved one of those scripts and hated the other, you’ll have to read on to figure out what I thought of Pyro.
Pyro takes place in Australia and follows a young man named Chris Dumont. Chris is a pyromaniac. His opening page voice over is a love letter to the act of watching things burn. Chris loves fire like I love In and Out.
And he’s even found a way to make money off of it. Folks looking for cash pay a local criminal to burn their cars so they can collect the insurance. And Chris is Bickie’s (the head honcho) main burner. Everyone else is an amateur compared to Chris. For Chris, burning things is an art.
Meanwhile, senior Detective Neil McKenna is trying to find out who started the city’s most recent bush fire. These Australian bush fires are dangerous as hell and spread like… well… wildfire. Since we’re smack dab in the middle of the burning season, McKenna figures if they don’t find their man soon, it’s a matter of time before Señor Burno wipes out an entire town.
It just so happens that Chris has been on McKenna’s radar for awhile. And even though Chris has alibis for all the recent bush fires, McKenna’s convinced that Chris is his man. Now if he can only prove it – an act that’s losing him support back at the station. Even McKenna’s own partner, an ambitious young detective named Lisa Mason, believes McKenna’s losing his mind.
Despite his itch to burn, Chris decides to get out of the pyro business so he can start a normal life. But Bickie’s not letting the LeBron James of pyromaniacing go that easily. Bickie threatens Chris unless Chris pulls off one more job – an entire luxury car showroom – to net him one last payday.
Chris reluctantly accepts the job but must figure out how to pull it off with an increasingly obsessive McKenna following his every move.
First impressions? I like the unique subject matter. This is a clever way to add a fresh twist to the garden variety procedural genre. The Australian setting was also a strong choice. I love when we’re in unfamiliar territory for a story. Everything feels new and exciting.
Here’s where Pryo ran into trouble for me though.
It didn’t feel like there was enough plot to fill the script. Which is funny since just yesterday we were talking about how plot is the enemy. But you can only minimize plot when your character development is awesome.
And while Pyro was largely focused on character, it never rose above lukewarm in that department. There were lots of “talking heads” scenes where the plot wasn’t pushed forward. There was little conflict to these scenes. Just theories about what was going on, discussions revealing backstory, talks between friends and old lovers. There wasn’t enough drama to keep me invested.
Part of the problem, I think, is that the stakes are so low. So the story’s already working from a point of weakness. This puts excess stress on the character development so if that doesn’t pay off, now the reader’s got nothing to satiate their appetite.
What was wrong with the stakes? Well, there was no impending danger that I could put my finger on. What happened if McKenna didn’t catch his man? Nothing, really. The possibility of more fires. But it wasn’t until the end that we learned how dangerous those fires might be. Through the first two acts, the danger was vague. And vague stakes are the equivalent of no stakes at all.
Plot-wise, it needed a few more “Ins” (remember my In and Out article?). Everybody was pushing out on the story. But the story wasn’t pushing back in on the characters. I wanted something to happen like Bickie forces Chris to move up to houses for insurances burns. And Chris burns a house which was supposed to be empty, only to learn afterwards that someone was inside and died. In other words, I wanted something unexpected to be thrown at Chris. For the most part, Chris was allowed to operate freely in this story. As was McKenna. They needed more and BIGGER obstacles.
With that said, the third act comes together well. All that plot and action that was missing in the first two acts fires up in the final one. I liked how we weren’t sure if McKenna was going crazy. I liked that a ticking time bomb was introduced (even though I would’ve preferred one earlier). I liked that not everything is what we thought it was.
But when I look at the script as a whole, it feels thin to me. More needs to be going on. Or, if this is going to be a straight-up character piece, there needs to be more conflict between the characters, more drama, flaws being tested, characters besides Chris and McKenna having deep backstories.
I guess one way to put it is that you’ve only got the stove burner on 60% here. You need to pump it up to 100%.
I do think Daniel is a screenwriter to watch, though. This is one of the best “not for me’s” I’ve reviewed on Amateur Friday. :)
Script link: Pyro
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Knowledge helps sell your story. If your script is about a unique subject matter, take some time to TEACH US about that subject matter. Not only do we learn something, which is fun. But now we trust the writer. We know that they understand this world. I read so many scripts – I can’t even tell you – where I know more about the subject matter than the writer does. If they didn’t even do enough research to know more than I do, how much effort could they have possibly put into the writing process itself? It’s an instant indication of an amateur writer and a script that’s not worthy of your time. Daniel clearly knows this world. McKenna gives a speech early on explaining how these fires spread, going into minute detail about the main culprits, eucalyptus trees, which carry an oil inside of them, that make them susceptible to explosions. Once I read that, I had instant confidence that the writer was going to be able to tell a solid story.
This has been a strange year at the box office. Did you know that the number 1 comedy of the year so far is the geriatric knee-slapper, Going in Style? Which has made 43 million dollars?
Surefire hits like Pirates of the Caribbean have imploded. Dusty superheroes like Wolverine have come back to life. And mega-franchises like Fast and Furious are doing two-thirds of the local business they used to, with studios not giving a shit since all they care about now is global.
Now, if we’re being honest, none of these movies I’ve mentioned affect you, the screenwriter reading this website. The writers who write these films have fought their way up a Game of Thrones like ladder that, hopefully, one day, you’ll find yourself climbing as well.
But right now, all you want to do is get your foot in the door, preferably in as little time as possible. And there are three ways to do that. The first is to write a great script that features either a great concept, an exceptional understanding of character development, or a unique voice, and parlay that into a high Black List showing. This will get you an agent and get your script out to a bunch of people so that everyone knows your name.
The second is to write a spec in one of the big genres (action, adventure, sci-fi), which might get you a starter writing gig on one of the franchises your script is written in. You probably won’t get a credit but you will be working. This is what happened, for example, with Nicole Perlman. She wrote a spec about the Challenger shuttle crash, and that allowed her to get first shot at another “space” gig, Guardians of the Galaxy (Perlman did manage to get that credit and is now scripting Captain Marvel).
Finally, there’s the third – and fastest – way to break in. Write a horror spec and direct it yourself. This is, by far, the quickest way for a screenwriter to get into the industry. I’ve seen it time and time again. The Duffer Brothers, the guys who did Stranger Things? Their breakout spec was a horror flick called “Hidden” that they directed right before the now famous Netflix show.
Even if directing doesn’t interest you, consider making it interest you. It’s so freaking cheap to make a movie these days. It’s still relatively expensive, I guess. But if the wannabe writer-directors of the 90s who had to scrape together a million bucks to shoot a film on 16mm time-traveled to today and saw how cheaply we could make a good-looking feature film? They would scold us for the excuses we make not to.
All of this is somewhat roundabout to today’s article focus. But I promise it will come together at the end. In regards to writing horror films, there were two horror films this year that took big risks, each coming at the genre in a unique way. One of those went on to become one of the most profitable films in history. The other didn’t even make it to its second weekend. And I want to discuss why one sailed and the other failed, despite the fact that both scripts were good.
The surprise hit was Get Out (script review), which has currently grossed 175 million dollars.
The unfortunate dud was A Cure For Wellness (script review), which made 8 million dollars.
Here’s another shocker. A Cure For Wellness was directed by a 20 year veteran director who had helmed some of the biggest movies in Hollywood. And Get Out was directed by someone who had never directed in his life. Not even a short movie.
Both of these projects did what I tell you guys to do: Find a fresh angle into a genre. The horror genre has ghosts, zombies, vampires, torture porn, contained horror, and they play those cards over and over again. What are you going to do that makes the genre feel fresh?
A Cure For Wellness is about a businessman who goes to a faraway bizarre treatment center to retrieve a co-worker for the company and gets stuck there. Get Out is about a black man who goes to meet his white girlfriend’s parents for the first time. As you can see, the stories share some DNA. Hell, they even both have a scene where a car hits a deer (seriously, screenwriters, please stop writing this scene).
So why is it that 20 times as many people chose to see Get Out as did A Cure For Wellness? Don’t give me the cheat answer. “A Cure For Wellness looked dumb, Carson. Get Out looked good.” One of your jobs as a screenwriter is to understand SPECIFICALLY why movies do well and why they fail, so that you can use that knowledge to make a more informed decision when coming up with your next concept.
The number 1 screenwriting mistake I see, by far, is misconceived concepts. Concepts that aren’t movies but that screenwriters, for some reason, think are movies. You guys see a few of them every Saturday on Amateur Offerings. So the large majority of you reading this have made far worse miscalculations on your concepts than A Cure For Wellness. Why is Get Out the better concept? Why is it that when people saw the Get Out trailer, they wanted to see the movie whereas when they saw the A Cure For Wellness trailer, they didn’t?
I’ll give you a hint. There’s one other film this year that defied expectations in a big way. Logan. The Wolverine franchise was dead. The movies sucked. No one was showing up anymore. Then Logan comes out and does 100 million more than the last film off a much smaller budget. How did it accomplish this? What did it do differently? Think…
The answer, if you guys haven’t figured it out yet, is that Get Out focused on character. A Cure For Wellness focused on plot. When you watch the Get Out trailer, you see a human situation, a loving but difficult relationship, then later that relationship in danger. When you watch A Cure For Wellness’s trailer, there’s a wall between you and the characters. Hell, you don’t even know the main character after you’ve finished the trailer. You see his face. You know he has to get somebody. But you don’t know anything about him. Therefore you don’t care about him. Therefore you have no interest putting up your hard-earned money to find out if he succeeds or not.
I said I’d get to the point eventually so I will. If you want to break in as a screenwriter – the fastest way to do it is to write a horror spec EXPLORING THE HUMAN CONDITION IN SOME WAY and then direct it yourself. Plot is important. But audiences don’t connect with plot. They connect with people who experience the same life problems that they do. Which brings us right back to yesterday. Vivien is such a dark script. It has its own challenges in drawing an audience but that is exactly the kind of chance you should be taking. Not writing some silly horror movie. Write a horror movie where you’re deeply exploring people and the human condition. This is how you connect with audiences.
Now there’s a caveat to this. You have to understand how to do good character work. You can’t just show two people in a relationship have a fight and think you’ve done your job. You have to find a theme, you have to create conflict within the characters (Am I good enough for this girl?), conflict within the key relationship (race), characters have to arc. That stuff takes practice. But once you understand this stuff, you become a screenwriting superhero. You can now do things that 99.999999% of the population cannot. So that’s my advice to you guys today.
But ONLY if you want to get into this business quickly.
Write a horror spec EXPLORING THE HUMAN CONDITION IN SOME WAY and then direct it yourself.
Good luck!
