Hey guys. Doing a lot of running around today so, sadly, no time for a review. Feel free to use this post to discuss your Scriptshadow 13-Week Scripts. Questions about the second act should probably be the focus, but feel free to bring up anything. Just remember that you want your characters pursuing a goal, lots of obstacles in their way, and for every scene to contain some kind of conflict, whether it be surface level or under the surface. If you’re in hardcore procrastination mode, check out this Brett Ratner speech at the New York Film Academy. No, I’m not a big Ratner fan. But the guy is charismatic as hell and routinely points out that if someone as talentless as him can make it in Hollywood, anyone can. Week 6 Post tomorrow!
Genre: Horror
Premise: When a young black man visits the rich parents of his white girlfriend, he begins to suspect that he was brought here for another reason entirely.
About: Key and Peele are two of the more active actors in Hollywood at the moment. After their hit Comedy Central show ended, they hit the town hard. Their most recent film, Keanu, didn’t turn the box office upside-down, but for a comedy about a kitten, it did all right. Key is now starring in the much-buzzed-about dramedy about improv actors, How to be Better. And Peele took a left turn with today’s script, a horror flick he wrote and will direct. Can the comedy-centric actor break out of that pigeon-hole? We shall see.
Writer: Jordan Peele
Details: 98 pages – undated
If you’re anything like me, and you probably aren’t (but let’s pretend you are), you heard that “Peele” from the hit comedy series “Key and Peele” was doing a horror movie called “Get Out” and you thought, “Like comedy horror?” Cause he couldn’t possibly be writing a straight horror movie.
And hence we venture into the pervasive universe of pigeonholing. This town wants you to be ONE WAY, and anybody who tries to be two-way gets a one-way ticket out on a Greyhound.
It’s one of the reasons I encourage writers to write in the genres they like most. Because if they try out another genre for the hell of it, and that happens to be the genre they break in with? There’s a very real chance that that’s the genre they will be writing for the rest of their career.
So I’ve got to give it to Jordan Peele. To convince someone to give him money for anything other than comedy is a huge win. This script must be great.
26 year-old photographer Chris Washington is in love. His girlfriend, Rose Armitage, is everything you’d ever want in a woman. She’s beautiful, sweet, cool, funny. Oh, and white. Chris, on the other hand, is black.
Now we live in 2016, so this kind of thing shouldn’t matter. But Chris is nervous because they’re visiting Rose’s parents for the first time and Rose hasn’t told her parents that she’s dating her first black guy. Maybe you want to give them a heads up, Chris suggests. But Rose says they’re totally cool and it won’t be a problem.
So off to the affluent suburb of Richville they go, and indeed Rose’s parents are great. They don’t even blink when they see Chris, and are busting jokes left and right as if he’s already their son-in-law. However, Chris can’t help but notice that the “help” around the house is all black.
The father picks up on Chris’s concern and explains that they cared for his ailing mother and father before they died, became family, and they couldn’t part with them. But Chris isn’t so sure. There’s something distant and weird about them, almost as if they’re… trapped.
The next day Chris learns that the Armitages are holding a party and a few hours later tons of rich white folk start rolling in. All of them seem fascinated by Chris, and have all sorts of questions for him. Needless to say, Chris catches on that something seriously fucked up is going on here and tries to leave. Only the Armitages were prepared for this, and have put in some safeguards that it doesn’t happen… EVER.
The first thing I noticed about Get Out was that it wasn’t written by a white male.
I bring this up because 9 out of every 10 screenplays in Hollywood are written by white males. There’s nothing wrong with this. I think a lot of white men just enjoy writing and therefore pursue it.
But when you read a good script told outside of that point-of-view, it becomes evident just how narrow the white male point of view is. Most white males enjoy the same things. Therefore we get the same genres, the same stories, the same characters. No one’s thinking outside the white box.
Get Out starts with a great scene following a black man jogging in an upscale white neighborhood and the sudden fear he endures because of the situation. This is followed by a scene of Chris voicing his fear to Rose that her parents should know her boyfriend is black before he shows up at their door.
These things aren’t thought about by the average white person because it’s not something they have to think about. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that either. You see the world through your own eyes so if you don’t experience conflict in an area, you aren’t as likely to explore it.
With that said, one of your jobs as a writer is to place yourself inside of different people’s points of view. And unless you do that, your entire story will be limited to the same generic shit that every other middle-class white dude is writing about.
Every story’s already been told. We’ve established that. It’s why all these sequels have been tanking. Uh, we saw that already. IN THE FIRST FILM! Therefore the only way to make something new is to find a new angle into it. I’m not saying race is the only way to do this but it’s one of the ways. So if you want to push your writing to the next level, exploring different points of view is a good way to do so.
Get Out is a really good script. And a big part of that is because of how fresh it feels. As this story goes on, we become acutely aware that Chris is being surrounded and that something bad is going to happen when that surrounding climaxes. To that end, it’s a pretty basic horror setup.
But the mystery about what’s happening to these black people who have found themselves inside the Armitage Home is what makes it different. And what’s great about this script is that you think you know what’s happening but when the explanation finally rolls around, you realize you had it all wrong.
I love when horror movies do that. When you think you’ve picked out the rug and then the rug is pulled out from under you.
I also love horror that takes place in non-obvious places. Anybody can throw a bunch of people into a dark old house and try out for the jump-scare olympics. But to place horror in broad daylight and still make it scary? That’s when you know you’ve written something good.
In fact, one of the script’s scariest moments – the opening scene – takes place in the middle of the day. A black man is jogging in the middle of a white neighborhood and a car slowly follows him along. Fed up, the jogger yells at the driver, only to be shot and dragged into the car in the middle of a beautiful suburban neighborhood on a perfect day. Nobody comes to help. Now that’s freaking scary.
Now there is a bit of “hold on, wait a minute” going on at the end. Writers over the age of 33 still believe that it’s possible for people to disappear and nobody will notice because they grew up in the pre-internet era when people really could disappear and that would be it. But these days, with cell phones and social media, if someone doesn’t post an update for 3 hours, a search party is put together to find them. So the idea that all of these black people disappeared and no one could find them… uhhh, I’m not so sure about that.
Still, the mark of any good script for me is, would I read to the end if I didn’t have to review it? I definitely would’ve read this whether I was reviewing it on Scriptshadow or not. I had to find out how it was going to end. This was good stuff!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you’re not a white male, EMBRACE that in your writing. I’m not saying you can only write about your culture. But if you’re from Ghana, at the very least, write a Ghanian character into your script. Your specific point of view is what’s going to make your story unique. I recently gave notes on a script from a Chinese screenwriter who was writing about a group of bar-hopping Chinese men living in the U.S. You could’ve swapped in white American men and nothing would’ve changed. I explained to the writer that he needed to embrace the cultural perspective he was writing from. Otherwise, he was rewriting Swingers with Chinese guys. And we’d already seen that movie.
Genre: Crime Drama/Thriller
Premise: When a pair of criminal brothers kill four cops during a robbery, the city orders all 17 bridges in Manhattan shut down until the men are caught.
About: This spec just sold last week to new studio STX, becoming well known for their good relationship with China. It’s being produced by Marvel’s new golden boys, the Russo Brothers (Captain America: Civil War). The writer, Adam Mervis, started as a playwright and, in addition to this sale, is currently developing a TV show for USA.
Writer: Adam Mervis
Details: 112 pages (4/21/16 draft)
The summer of shitty sequels continues. Turtles 2 made half of what the first movie made opening weekend. It joins X-Men, Divergent, Neighbors, Huntsmen, and Alice in Wonderland as movies whose sequels are dying at the box office (with potential catastrophes Star Trek and Ghostbusters still on the way). Could consumers finally be sending Hollywood a message? Will Tinsletown be forced to do the one thing it’s most afraid of? Come up with original ideas? And is Seventeen Bridges, the town’s most recently acquired spec, the answer to this problem? Let’s find out!
34 year-old Ray Fernandez is in deep to the type of folks who you don’t want to be “in deep” to. And when I say, “in deep,” I mean 200,000 dollars deep. So Ray visits his older brother Felix in Manhattan to ask for his help. Felix used to be a thug but is now on the straight and narrow, and normally he’d tell someone offering him a job to schlep off. But this is his bro, yo.
Ray’s got an idea. He knows of a cocaine delivery center nearby that fronts as a pizza joint. If they could rob that place after a shipment, they could clear 2 million bucks easy and go live on a Mexican beach somewhere for the rest of their lives. Felix finally says ‘fuck it,’ and we cut to the robbery going all sorts of wrong. Not only do they get stuck with a bunch of coke as opposed to hard cash, but they end up killing four New York cops.
Cut to Detective Spevack, a former top-level detective who lost it all after a bad decision. Well, lucky for Spevack, he’s being given a second chance and is named point on this case. The catch? He’s got to find these guys before morning.
So what is Spevack’s first order of business? He shuts down every single bridge in Manhattan. He makes sure these guys aren’t going ANYWHERE. And the manhunt begins.
Meanwhile, the Fernandez’s need to offload that coke they grabbed before they leave the island, since… well, I don’t know why, they just do. So the race begins. Bad guys try to sell coke and run before good guys are forced to open the bridges back up to an increasingly annoyed city. Who will win??
Look, we can’t all be the Golden Gate Bridge.
Some of us have to be that rickety old wood-and-rope bridge that a couple of sherpas threw together five decades ago to connect two mountain peaks.
Which bridge is 17 Bridges? Somewhere in between. But closer to the mountain bridge than the Golden Gate.
My first hesitation with 17 Bridges came via its first monologue. Spevack is telling some entitled dick that he needs to play by his rules if he wants to survive. The monologue is two pages long and covers a lot of shit. How Spevack lost his badge, how his father died of cancer, how he doesn’t drink anymore, how he met the guy who now holds the key to his life, what this dude can expect if he doesn’t cooperate.
And it’s not that you can’t make a monologue like that work. But monologues, like scripts, need a theme. If you’re going to talk forever, there needs to be a point, a feeling that it all connects. And this didn’t feel that way at all. Rather, it felt like a not-so-well-disguised attempt to pump out as much backstory about our hero as possible. In laymen’s terms? The monologue was all the hell over the place.
A good monologue, just like good dialogue, feels effortless. It definitely doesn’t feel like the writer is trying to stuff a bunch of information inside of it. That’s something you need to be aware of. If it ever feels like you’re trying to stuff a lot of shit into any part of your script, whether it be a sequence, a scene, a monologue… STOP. Cut out the 50% you know you don’t need, and then cut more.
One of the basic tenets of screenwriting is: Say as much as possible in as few words as possible. That applies across the board. The only people who can get away with more are geniuses. The Aaron Sorkins, the Woody Allens, the Quentin Tarantinos. And until you’ve come out with a film where everyone praises you as a genius? Assume you aren’t. And write the way that’s proven to work: Less is more.
What about the plot?
Unfortunately, I had problems with this too.
Why is New York being shut down to the tune of several hundred million dollars worth of inconvenience for two hack criminals? These guys are nobodies. And they’re worthy of shutting a city down? I know they killed four cops but within an hour, Spevack has the Fernandez’s names and faces. So if they make it out of Manhattan, is it really going to be that hard to find them?
This is a case of liking one’s concept so much (and it is a cool concept!) that the writer isn’t able to see the logic through the trees. The logic here being: Would New York City really do this? For a terrorist who blew up a bank? Maybe. For a man who shot up 30 people at a school? Maybe. But for a couple of losers? I don’t know, man. That doesn’t sound very realistic to me. And if there’s a lack of realism in the logline, there’s a good chance that the writer won’t establish a suspension of disbelief. If that’s never established, THE MOVIE DOESN’T WORK.
What did the script do right? Well, for starters this is a contained easy to understand high-pressure high-conflict situation, which is an ideal setup for a movie. Everybody’s goals are clear. Our cop-in-charge has to catch the baddies. The baddies have to escape the island. The writer even added a goal for the Fernandez’s – to sell the drugs they found before they leave the island. I tend to like choices like this because if all your characters do is run away, they’re passive. By giving them a goal to achieve, it makes them active.
The problem was, that choice brought up all sorts of questions. Like would they really be trying to sell drugs during the first time in history that Manhattan has closed down all their bridges to catch someone!? And that was my big problem with 17 Bridges. You could never just enjoy the story because you were constantly questioning it.
You’re probably wondering, then, why did it sell?
Easy answer. It’s a cool concept!
Cool concepts are the rose-colored glasses of the screenwriting world. They make all those mistakes look so much prettier!
I believe this project can be saved, much like the abysmal early draft of The Town turned into a solid heist flick when Ben Affleck rewrote it. But in its current form, it doesn’t live up to the promise of its premise.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Like I always say, a cool concept is the one area of screenwriting where you have a chance of selling something that’s not well-written. If someone loves your concept enough that they can imagine the poster, imagine the trailer, and imagine people paying to see it? They can forgive the writing, since all it means is hiring a new screenwriter for $200k-700k to fix the execution. And in the grand scheme of a 50 million dollar movie, that’s not that much.
This is why it kills me to see writers writing about characters traveling across the Sahara Desert on a journey of self-discovery. The execution for that kind of market-less concept has to be Oscar-worthy to even get looked at, much less purchased. It’s much smarter to start with a buzzy concept.
The announcement in The Hollywood Reporter!
I know I’ve stated this already, but thank you to everyone who participated in the contest, thank you to everyone who followed the contest, and thank you to everyone for their patience, especially my contest sponsor, Grey Matter (whose film “Lights Out” comes out in late July – go see it!), COO Ben Everard, and president Lawrence Grey. I’m sure these guys had a more accelerated schedule in mind when I first pitched them the idea behind the Scriptshadow 250. Mainly because I told them the schedule would be more accelerated.
Regardless, we finally made it here, and it feels like the hard work paid off. We found some great scripts, one of which has already been packaged and sold at Cannes, and that one didn’t even win! The battle between the top two scripts, in particular, was heated. I had some great debates with Grey Matter about who the winner should be, and it went down to the wire. So who won? Well, for all of you who say it’s impossible to make it unless you live in Los Angeles, you may be surprised…
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Disorder
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Logline: A recluse who suffers from random episodes – in which he commits violent acts without remembering them – is forced to babysit a neighbor’s 8 year-old daughter for an afternoon. After suffering an episode, he wakes to find the girl has disappeared – a violent wreck in her wake. With himself as the only possible suspect, he must retrace his footsteps to find the girl.
Writer: Zed Warren
Location: UK
Thoughts: More than any other script in the competition, this one nailed three things the industry looks for: A fresh concept, a marketable genre, it can be made cheaply. Of course, a lot of writers achieve these things, then don’t execute the actual script. Zed executes the hell out of his concept and from the discussions we had, the thing we kept saying to each other was, “This feels the most like a movie of all the scripts.” It just felt special. And good things are already happening for Zed. He’s currently about to sign with UTA. So congrats, my friend!
THE FINALISTS
Bait
Genre: Dark Comedy
Logline: When Leonardo DiCaprio believes he’s finally found the script that will win him an Oscar, he travels in secret to visit the unknown writer. What he finds instead is a serial killer, who keeps him captive with a group of other A-list victims, all tempted by the same script. Will Leo escape and, more importantly, will he get to make the movie?
Writer: Sam Boyer
Location: Los Angeles
Thoughts: All of us really really loved Bait. And then Leo had to go off, win the Oscar, and screw everything up… Or maybe not! Grey Matter is still really high on this script and are working with Sam to target a new famous actor for the lead role. Sam has a bright future ahead of him. He’s a 23 year-old USC grad and has been placing high in numerous competitions and writer’s programs (Universal is one) all while this contest was going on. If we didn’t discover him, someone else was about to. He’s the youngest writer on the list by far and you get the feeling he’s one of those guys who’s just extremely talented, to the point where normal rules don’t apply to him. I’ve also met Sam and he’s a really nice down-to-earth collaborative “let’s buckle down and crack this story” kind of guy. The sky is the limit for Sam.
Wheelman
Genre: Thriller
Logline: An ex-con reconnecting with his fourteen-year-old daughter is forced to take a job as a getaway-driver to pay off prison debts when he gets hijacked mid bank-robbery by a mysterious caller who threatens his family.
Writer: Jeremy Rush
Location: Los Angeles
Thoughts: The little twist with this one is that it’s like Drive, but if Ryan Gosling never left the car. When I first read this script, my immediate reaction was, “Holy shit, this is a movie.” I knew it was Top 5 then and there. So I wasn’t surprised when, a few months later, I heard that Rush had sold Wheelman at Cannes, attaching Frank Grillo, Brandon Routh, and Nicholas Hoult to play the main characters. Rush (what a perfect name for this script, huh?) will be directing as well.
Miss Universe
Genre: Comedy
Logline: A vapid beauty queen is abducted by aliens who think her title means she’s Earth’s ambassador to the universe.
Writer: Colin O’Brien
Location: New Jersey
Thoughts: Those who have been reading the site for awhile are familiar with this one. It’s one of the most popular Amateur Friday scripts we’ve hosted on the site. What’s cool about Miss Universe is that Grey Matter wasn’t sure they’d respond to any of the comedies, as the genre isn’t typically in their wheelhouse. But they flipped for this and we had some really excited conversations about it. We all think Colin is a comedy voice that’s going to break out soon.
A Quickening
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Logline: A woman working as a surrogate for a powerful New York couple gets treated like dirty laundry, until the couple’s marriage falls apart and they ask her to abort the pregnancy, leading her to turn the tables on them and blackmail her way to the American dream.
Writer: Jacob Albert
Location: Austin, Texas
Thoughts: A Quickening ropes you in immediately. The writing is sharp and dark! But what really grabbed me about the script was how charged the subject matter was. It’s rare that you read something where the characters’ actions physically affect you, where you feel anger building up inside. And that’s the dynamic that pulls you in here. A Quickening is delightfully edgy and has the feeling of something David Fincher could do wonders with. Some of the best pure writing in the contest.
SPECIAL MENTION
The Pyre
Genre: Horror
Logline: A fragile young mother has three days to get the body of the immigrant she killed from the bottom of a deep dangerous lake and cremate it on a pyre, before its spirit destroys her.
Writer: Caroline Carver
Thoughts: This one came close but just missed the cut. I wish we’d had more female entries but either my style of blogging doesn’t appeal to the female screenwriting demographic or most women are focusing their efforts on TV. Still, it was nice to see one of the ladies crack the top 6. Hopefully, we’ll have more female writers in future contests.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A couple of other scripts that I liked were “Lies, Blackmail, and other Egregious Behavior,” by Aaron Brooks, for its standout voice. And “The Watcher” by Michael J. Klassen, for bringing a Hitchcockian story into the present day. You can reacquaint yourself with all the scripts that made the Top 25 here. I will, of course, keep you updated on any developments with these scripts, whether they come through Grey Matter or someone else. Congratulations to Jacob, Jeremy, Colin, Sam, Zed, and Caroline. I see bright futures for all of you.
Also, for those of you frustrated that you didn’t make the top 5, the top 25, or the top 250, I can say with total conviction: KEEP AT IT. It takes awhile to master this quirky craft. You really have to study your butt off, write a bunch of scripts, and stick with it. I promise you, you will get better. And sooner or later, the quality of your screenplays will catch up with your ambition. I’m sure we’ll find this to be true for a few more of you at the end of our 3-Month Write-a-Screenplay Challenge. Now get to writing!
Scriptshadow 250 Announcement News: I’m still waiting for the okay to post the winners. I’ve been told it will be later today but at this point I’ve stopped assuming. As soon as I get the go-ahead, though, I’m posting. So stay tuned!
Take a deep breath.
You did it.
You completed the first half of your screenplay. No small feat. So the first thing I want you to do is take a moment and tell yourself you’re awesome. I’m serious. One of the hardest things about writing is the lack of positive feedback you get during the process. You are your lone champion. So if you don’t tell yourself “Good job” every once in awhile, you might lose your motivation.
Now, if you’re just coming into this challenge, you can find the previous entries here:
WEEK 0
WEEK 1
WEEK 2
WEEK 3
WEEK 4
Today we’re going to talk about the 15-20 pages after the midpoint. As I write this, I’m realizing that I don’t remember ANYBODY – as in the entire history of screenwriting books and analysis – talking about this specific section of the script.
The main reason for this is that we’re so deep inside our own unique jungle, it’s impossible for there to be any similarities between us and the next guy. Or so the reasoning goes.
I call bullshit.
Teachers, authors and analysts use this as an excuse not to break this section down. If you go back to classic story structure, there are definitely commonalities in the post-midpoint narrative. And as long as you treat them as a guide – and not gospel – they can be very helpful.
The main thing you want to know about this section is that it’s a…
RESETTING
Assuming you did your job last week and added your big midpoint twist, your characters and story are now in a state of flux. They’ve been knocked over the heads with a bag of bricks and they’re not sure which way is up. Your job, then, is to reorient them.
Take The Force Awakens. In that film, the midpoint twist is two-fold. First, the First Order has just blown up an entire solar system, and second, Kylo Ren has kidnapped Rey.
Your job is to now rally the troops (your characters) and put everyone on the same page. “Okay, where are we at right now?” “What is it we’re supposed to do next?” And, finally, “What’s our overall goal again?”
The reason this resetting and reorienting is important is because it’s easier than you think for the reader to forget what the goal is. Have you ever been in the middle of a film and thought to yourself, “How did we get here?? What’s going on??” This is usually the reason. Writers assume too much from the reader and don’t remind them what the character wants. Post-midpoint is the perfect reminder time.
So in The Force Awakens, Finn and Han and others get together to establish that Rey’s been kidnapped, that they need to rescue her, that they still need to find Luke, and that they have to destroy Starkiller Base. We can now go into that second act powerfully since we all (us and the characters) know what must be done.
Another thing about the post-midpoint section is that…
SHIT NEEDS TO LOOK BLEAK
One of the most effective storytelling devices you can use is to make the goal look impossible. The further you can place your characters from the goal and the more unlikely you can make their success look, the better. This little section is all about establishing how bad things are for your heroes.
One of the ways you can do this is create multiple problems that need to be solved. So you’ll notice above with The Force Awakens that it isn’t just one goal that they need to achieve, it’s three (find Luke, destroy base, rescue Rey). Basically, you want the audience thinking to themselves, “Shit, how are they going to achieve all of THAT??”
Imagine how different this script would feel if the big midpoint reveal was our heroes discovering a key clue to where Luke was. We’d be thinking, “That sounds easy. Looks like they’ve got this one in the bag.” And if your audience feels like the characters have it figured out, there’s no reason to keep reading.
This is an important notion to keep in mind not just for this section, but for your storytelling in general. In real life, the thing that keeps human beings going is hope. The hope for a girlfriend, a house, a promotion, for your dreams to come true. So a lot of writers will write screenplays that way, where they keep making things look HOPEFUL.
That’s not fiction though. That’s not drama. Drama is about creating DOUBT. That worried feeling in the pit of your stomach that the characters won’t get the job done, that it’s too difficult for them. You want to create as much of that as possible.
Now as I’ve mentioned already, each story is different. So this blueprint may not apply to your script. In “Room,” for example, the midpoint is Ma and Jack escaping. This places the two, along with the audience, on a high and erases any clear goal for the characters (their previous goal was to escape, which they’ve achieved, so now what??).
But Emma Donoghue was very clever in the way she adjusted to this challenge, almost reverting back to classical story structure to do so. The escape turned out to be a false victory, since we realize how difficult it will be for these two to adjust back to normality.
The goal then becomes to survive – to figure out a way to make this new life work. And she does a wonderful job infusing doubt into the narrative. At one point, Ma is institutionalized, severely putting into question whether our mother and son can survive this new challenge.
Okay, to summarize then: This section will have your characters reeling from the big midpoint twist. Something should’ve just happened that’s made their journey a hell of a lot tougher. Have them pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and remind themselves what the story goal is. Also, the fallout from the midpoint may have added new more immediate goals. Establish those for the reader. This section is all about resetting, reminding, and reorienting.
This will set you up perfectly for the next section, since your characters will now have clear goals thrusting them into the remainder of the story.
Page number to meet: 75!
