A few of you e-mailed me after yesterday’s review asking about this “Noise” thing. What the hell is noise, Carson? Well my dear reader, let me do my best to explain. Because if there’s one thing that drives me INSANE when reading actions scripts, it’s the over-abundance of noise.
In an action movie, your characters will constantly be on the move and engaged in conflict. “Noise” is when that conflict is so generic and formless, that it can be boiled down to noise. Guns shooting. Tires screeching. Men yelling. Robots clashing. There is nothing else going on onscreen other than a lot of noise.
The antithesis of noise is SITUATIONS. Situations have form, they have focus, and they set up a scenario whereby everything from the character goals to the stakes involved are clear to the audience. You may not have been aware of it, but when you’ve seen a great action scene, it was very likely a situation.
The reason why noise is so prevalent in amateur screenwriting is because it creates the illusion of entertainment to the writer. He or she believes that if the script is slowing down, they can put a gun fight in there or a car chase or some vampires attacking zombies, and that that will be entertaining because, technically, some kind of action is happening.
That’s not true, unfortunately. What action fans like are action scenes where the purpose of the scene is clearly laid out, where we understand the rules, and where we know what our characters are trying to achieve.
One of the genres that abuses this mistake the most is drug-action movies. You know how many scenes I’ve read of bad guys and good guys shooting at each other in a warehouse or on “the docks?” Countless. And all it is is shooting. There’s nothing else going on. So let’s look at how someone might craft more of a SITUATION in a drug action film.
One of my favorite scenes of the year is the border-crossing scene in Sicario. In the scene, our FBI agents are coming back out of Mexico after securing some important information. The Cartels don’t like this, and want to take the agents out before they get back to the U.S.
Now you could’ve approached this the “noisy” way. Simply write a scene with our agents on the highway and the Cartels in pursuit of them. They’re shooting at us. We’re shooting back at them. Original right? Haven’t seen that one ever. Sarcasm tag.
Or you can do what writer Tyler Sheridan did. Wait til the traffic jam at the border crossing, where our agents are in their cars, stuck in place, and start to show us, one by one, the armed Cartel members in different cars, surrounding our agents, carefully getting into position to attack. Then show our agents realize the threat and build the tension, build the suspense. Who’s going to act first?
Look at the form in this scene. Instead of aimless noise, you’re using storytelling devices like suspense to lure the reader/viewer in. When I see writers write scenes like this, I know they’re good writers. I know they’re ready. When I see yet another straight-forward car chase shootout, I know I’m dealing with amateurs.
Let’s stay within a single franchise for this next example. What is the scene in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull that best embodies how bad that film was? I’d probably say the Shia LaBeouf swinging on trees with monkeys scene. Wouldn’t you? Now besides it being a dumb moment, the reason that action sequence was so terrible was because it was the embodiment of noise. We weren’t sure what was going on. We didn’t know who wanted what. All we knew was this was a car chase in the woods and nutty wacky things were happening along the way. It was formless. It was unstructured. It was noise.
Now look at one of the most memorable action scenes ever – the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy gets the idol in the cave – AND NOW HE MUST GET OUT OF THE CAVE AS IT’S FALLING APART. Do you see how clear that situation is? Even though we only have 8 minutes of movie context to go on, we’re fully invested in this sequence. It’s because it’s a clear situation. Get out of the cave to live. And there’s only one way to go – back the way you came. This allows stuff like the rolling boulder and having to jump over the hole without the whip all the more exciting, because it’s clear to us what needs to happen.
Even if you want to more directly compare action by pitting the monkey swinging chase scene with that famous “Indy getting dragged along by the car” chase scene in the first Raiders, that first Raiders scene had a much clearer situation. The Nazi cars had taken the Ark. So Indy naturally had to get to the cars with the Ark to get it back!
I hope you’re starting to see a theme here. Great action situations are often simple. The simplicity is what makes it easy for the audience to understand what needs to happen, which is what keeps them engaged. When all we see and hear is noise, it’s like being at a fireworks event where they’re shooting off fireworks on all four sides of us. You don’t know where to look. Your job as a writer in action sequences is to show the reader where to look.
That’s not to say you can’t have big action sequences in movies. You can. But you have to make the goal clear, you have to make it big, and you have to keep coming back to it so the audience always knows what we’re doing and doesn’t get lost in the noise. A great example of this is the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan. This could’ve easily been noise. But as soon as Spielberg establishes the layout, a goal is introduced. We need to get up to that shooter in that bunker there and take him out. Once we take him out, we can take over the beach. This takes the scene from random noise to a clear situation we can understand and get behind.
In my experience, action scenes come in four flavors.
Pure Noise – These is literally the worst kind of action scene there is. No form. No focus. Just action for the sake of action. Most of the Transformers action scenes fall into this category. Robots are fighting each other but we have no idea why other than they don’t like each other.
Semi-Noise – These are scenes that have the barest amount of form to them, but are still essentially noise. A good example would be yesterday’s script, Unmanned. The characters start off in battle-torn Somalia trying to find a building. There was a goal (find the building), so we kind of understood what was going on, but it was essentially a bunch of soldiers yelling and shooting at the bad guys.
Situation – This is when the writer has sat down and mapped out a scene with clear form, clear goals, clear stakes, where we know all the rules and therefore can play along. Neo and Trinity need to go into the building where the Agents are holding Morpheus and get him back. How easy is that to understand? Go in building, get our friend.
Clever Situation – These are the situations where the writer has come up with something original, offbeat, or adds a twist to the sequence that makes it a truly unforgettable scene. I’d put that border crossing scene in Sicario in this category. I’d put the climax of Back to the Future – trying to time racing a car with a lightning bolt to send our hero back to the future – in that category as well.
The biggest point I want to get across is that when you’re about to write an action sequence, ask yourself if there’s any form to it, or if it’s just a bunch of noise. The more you can build a clear goal and rules around your action scenes, the better it’s going to be. And if you’re stuck, note that a lot of great situations start with a physically closed-in area (stuck in a cave, stuck in a trash compacter, stuck in a traffic jam). Once you have physical boundaries, it’ll be easier to locate the scene’s boundaries. Good luck. Now go write some kick ass actions scenes.
Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: In the future, there’s a new military weapon called an “APEE,” a human-like combat drone that links up with a soldier. When a soldier and his ape go missing in battle, his brother is sent in to locate the ape in order to find and save his brother.
About: You may remember me linking to a New Yorker article last week about how a studio head judges projects he’s being pitched. The article focuses on a Keanu Reeves project that sounded really cool. I did some underground e-mailing until I was able to find a draft of the script. This is an early version (the second draft) so it’s not complete yet. But it does give us an idea of where the movie will go. The script is written by Justin Rhodes, who’s been working on plenty of scripts over the last few years. He has another project lined up at Lionsgate called, “The Join,” about the clean-up after a particle accelerator disaster (sounds cool!).
Writer: Justin Rhodes (story by Andre Lascaris & Justin Rhodes)
Details: 112 pages – second draft (11-07-13)
You know me. I’m always looking for sci-fi scripts that break the mold, that give us something different. And today’s script fits the bill. Not only is it something we’ve never seen before, it’s ORIGINAL MATERIAL, which, as you know, is hard to find these days. With the magic of Keanu Reeves’ comeback and the producing prowess of Chris Morgan (18 of the Fast and Furious movies), Unmanned could be one of the few original sci-fi ideas that makes it to the big screen.
It’s the 2030s. War is everywhere. The world is unstable. This is good news for military minds, who get to build a bunch of little toys. And their newest contraption is the A.P.E.E. M94E-2 drone. Or “Ape” for short.
Apes are your best friends in battle. They get to know your instincts, your decisions, and “ape” your tactics. Every soldier is assigned an Ape, and since the Apes aren’t human, they can go in and do a bunch of nasty shit without worrying about getting killed. You, then, come in for the clean-up.
Sergeant Royce Bellam is on one of the Ape teams, and is sent into Hong Kong to find an encryption device which will allow the good guys to get a beat on what the bad guys are planning. The only problem is, he disappears.
Royce’s reject alcoholic brother, Adam, is reluctantly brought in to help find Royce. He joins an Ape-Marine team in a very “Aliens-like” setup, which is ironic, since he hates the Ape program. The group is sent into battle-weary Hong Kong, which is flooded with enemy drone soldiers, in hopes of finding his bro.
Along the way, he gets separated from his team, and sniffs out where Royce might be. But instead of finding Royce, he finds his Ape, and the two must work together to locate where Royce is. Find Royce, find the encryption, turn the tide of the war. Save the world.
Man, this sounded so much cooler being pitched in that article than what I just read. I don’t know if that’s because those guys are just better pitchers, or the script has changed a ton since this draft. There’s a chance they went into this script with no idea what they had, and only found the concept after playing with it for awhile. If that’s the case, good. But if they’re relying too much on this draft for a template, the script is in trouble.
What I liked about the pitch was the idea that these Apes were attached to you and learned all about you and basically became an extension of you. I also loved the idea of Adam hating these things, and yet being forced to work with Royce’s Ape as a means to find Royce. There was a lot of character-development potential in that (not to mention conflict!). Finally, I liked the idea of these two having to go into this dark scary battlefield alone, only being able to rely on each other.
Well, none of that happened.
We don’t get to Adam teaming up with Royce’s Ape until page 80! And while Adam doesn’t really like the Apes, he’s the drill instructor to teach marines how to work with Apes. Wait, he works with these things?? Doesn’t it work so much better if he’s forced to work with one for the first time? Finally, instead of going in alone with the Ape, he goes in Aliens-style, with a bunch of other soldiers. It isn’t until they run around a lot in Hong Kong that he finally finds Royce’s Ape.
This is actually a common problem. As writers, we’re terrified to go off the highway. It’s much easier to latch onto things that we know and that we’ve seen before. So we know the Aliens setup. Bunch of marines go into hostile territory and try to kick ass. The familiarity makes it easy to write.
It’s much harder to send just Adam and this robot into battle together because we don’t have as many references for that. It forces us to actually invent new situations. And since writers are all self-doubting whack-jobs, we assume that anything we come up with on our own must be stupid. This is why writers who take chances are so admired. Because they’re brave. And most writers aren’t brave.
Another problem with Unmanned is that it’s drowned in noise. “Noise” is a huge problem in any action script. It’s the process of burying your script inside of a bunch of action scenes. And while it seems like that’s the right move (action movies require action scenes! So that’s good!), scenes where all you’re doing is chasing or shooting or driving… they’re boring. There’s nothing cleverly constructed about them. They’re bullets, screaming, tires screeching, things falling – that’s why I call them “noise.”
Let me give you a couple of examples. In a movie like Transformers, the reason so many of those action scenes feel empty is because they’re noise. Yes, a lot is happening onscreen. But we don’t know why, or what the characters want, or who we’re supposed to be focused on. It’s just a bunch of colors flying around without any context.
Compare that to, say, the trash-compactor scene in Star Wars. There’s a reason why that’s one of the most famous scenes in movie history. Because it’s not a bunch of formless noise. It’s a clear situation. The trash compactor is closing in. They need to find a way out or they’ll die. The rules are clear on what needs to happen, which allows the writer to create suspense as well as reveal character through choices.
Reading Unmanned, it all seemed so formless. We’re out in the middle of gunfire constantly and there wasn’t any direction to it. Bam bam bam! They’re closing in! Rat-a-tat-tat-tat. Rinse Repeat. Noise.
I wish that were the only problem but everything here needs a check-up. For starters, the story beats need to be moved up. They all happen too late. The brother relationship needs to be improved (remember, nothing in an action script matters unless we care about the key relationship – see the relationship between John McClane and his wife in Die Hard for the all-star example of this).
Despite that, it’s important to remember, this is the second draft. And Chris Morgan is an awesome screenwriter in his own right. So I’m hoping he’s since guided this into a more focused film that takes advantage of its unique concept.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The “Move it Up” Principle. The Move It Up Principle states that with each draft, you want to move the important plot points up earlier in the story. In first and second drafts, we’re in exploration mode, trying to find our story, so we’ll write long sections of the script that don’t really go anywhere. Unmanned’s key plot point – Adam having to work with Royce’s APE, doesn’t happen until page 80! As more drafts are written, this will likely be moved up earlier and earlier in the script. This is the hook we’re talking about. So it definitely needs to arrive sooner in the story.
Can the darlings of Hollywood, who have turned everything they’ve touched into gold, add one more gold bar to the vault?
Genre: TV Pilot – Half-Hour Single-Camera Comedy
Premise: An unpopular computer science professor invents a time machine and goes back to 1776, where he falls in love with a girl and, in the process, changes the course of history.
About: There is no hotter team of writer-directors than Phil Lord and Chris Miller. These two have worked their way up through an impossible landscape of surefire duds (21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie) to always end up with smash hits. This led to their inevitable move to TV, where they brought us one of the freshest shows on television, The Last Man on Earth, and also to being announced as the directors of the Star Wars Han Solo spinoff. Everything these guys touch turns to gold. And their newest, In Time, looks no different. Written by Julius Sharpe, a longtime TV writer who’s worked on such shows as Family Guy and The Grinder, this is about as “sure-thing” as a pilot gets.
Writer: Julias Sharpe
Details: 32 pages – undated
Movies get you all the glory. But TV gets you all the money. Ask anybody who worked on Forest Gump. According to the studio, that film STILL hasn’t broken even. I have no doubt that despite The Force Awakens being the biggest box office movie IN HISTORY, Disney will tell you that the film is still deep in the red.
But you write a TV show that stays on the air a few seasons? Even better, if you write a half-hour COMEDY that stays on the air? You are raking in the dough, Carolina Bob. Okay, I admit I’m laying the sales pitch on thick cause some of you hate when I review TV. But you’ll have to suck it up today. Our show features time travel and comes from the guys putting together the Han Solo origin movie. I couldn’t not read this if I tried.
“In Time” follows Dan. Dan is that nerdy kid no one liked who grew up to be… that nerdy adult no one liked. And it’s not that he’s a bad guy. He’s just… not the kind of guy you want to have a beer with. Or a 10 second exchange with. Take the computer science classes he teaches at the university. Out of the 45 people in his class, he’ll be lucky if 5 show up.
But that’s okay these days. And that’s because these days, Dan can control the days, or at least the ones he travels to. That’s right, Dan’s built a time machine (out of a bag), and regularly travels back to the year 1775, where he has a girlfriend, Deborah, who thinks he’s the most wonderful man in the world.
The thing is, Dan starts noticing little differences in the world every time he travels back to the present. Like the fact that his five students are now eating fish and chips instead of hot dogs. And Starbucks features tea instead of coffee. It looks like something Dan’s done… has changed the future.
You’d think Dan would’ve known that the man responsible for initiating America’s independence, Paul Revere, wasn’t the best man’s daughter to fall in love with. And that’s why Dan needs Chris. Chris is the opposite of Dan. An African-American well-loved star professor of history at the University. Chris’s students regularly give him standing ovations at the end of his lectures.
Chris doesn’t like Dan, so he’s weary when Dan tells him he has something to show him at his house. But when Dan takes Chris back to 1775, Chris changes his tune. What the two realize is that Paul Revere has been so caught up in rumors that his daughter is cavorting with a local reject (ahem, Dan), that he doesn’t care about the thing he’s supposed to start – the Revolution.
Dan wants to know if he can keep the love of his life and still prevent the British from owning America in the future. Chris lays down the law, telling him he absolutely needs to dump this girl. And as reluctant as Dan is, he’s about to do just that. Except something happens that changes everything, and of course, changes the future along with it.
There’s a new format sneaking its way into television programming. It’s the serialized half-hour comedy. And Phil Lord and Chris Miller are leading the charge. What’s really cool about this format is that it allows you to be funny and tell a compelling story.
In times past, TV only allowed you to do one or the other. Actually, it wasn’t until recently that TV allowed you to serialize DRAMAS. But now that they realize that works, they’re open to doing it with comedy as well. And I can’t tell you how wonderful that is. Because for every Modern Family, there are five The Goldbergs. Individualized stories are great. But sometimes you need a hook to bring you back next week.
Ironically, the one thing lacking in In Time’s pilot is more time. As most writers find out, one of the hardest things about telling a time travel story is how much freaking exposition you have to go through. And half-hour comedies aren’t exactly the formats of choice for dishing out exposition.
So Smith decides to excise all exposition in favor of story. While that was probably the right decision, the story seems rushed as a result, and we’re constantly wondering why really big things (like how this whole time travel thing came about and how it works) are glazed over.
The biggest effect it has is on Chris, who’s a huge history geek, yet doesn’t freak out about the fact that, say, he’s speaking to Sam Adams. In reality, this man would pass out from excitement. Instead, we barely get a, “Ooh, there’s Sam Adams.” And it robs the story of some authenticity.
What they probably should’ve done is what Lord and Miller did with The Last Man on Earth pilot, which is tell it in 60 minutes. They still might do that so we’ll see. But if you get past that fault – and the writing’s so good, it’s easy to – this is a delightful little comedy that’s extremely refreshing.
When you’re in Analyst mode, you’re always trying to figure out why something works. And 9 times out of 10, it comes back to the characters. If you like the characters, you like the story. If you don’t, you dislike the story. And I loved these characters.
Dan is perfect as the modern day misfit everybody ignores who’s found an outlet where people actually appreciate him. And his plight is relatable. Anyone who’s struggling with acceptance wants to find someone who accepts them. So we relate to his pursuit of Deborah. As Chris puts it, “Time travel could be used for infinite good and instead you’re just trying to get laid!” Well, yeah. But there’s something revealing in that. This is a man who no one loves. For him to go to the ends of time to find that love tells us a lot about him.
Chris is the perfect contrast to Dan, as he’s the popular mega-star professor everybody loves. When you’re writing a comedy, you want to look for extremes. When you’re pairing people together, go as opposite as you can. So if you have the nerd, pair him with the stud.
But the REALLY clever thing here is that when they go back in time, those roles are reversed, mainly because African-Americans didn’t exactly have the same status in 1776. So there’s this established dynamic that flips 180 degrees midway through the script that isn’t just fun, but you can tell it’s something the writer thought about.
My problem with all these amateur scripts I read is that you can tell the writers haven’t THOUGHT about everything. They’re just proud of whatever they came up with because, by golly, they finished a script and therefore they deserve a pat on the back for it. They treat writing “The End” as if it’s something the city should announce a parade for.
Show me that you’ve thought about every angle of your story, then I’ll be impressed. And that’s what we get here. The fact that the woman Dan’s fallen in love with so happens to be Paul Revere’s daughter, and that his frustration with that has shifted his focus away from the Revolution, which is changing the future, that’s really clever.
Not just because it’s fun, but because it sets up a choice. And remember, when you’re writing a story, you’re always searching for tough choices for your characters. Dan has to figure out if his love for this woman is more important than America winning its independence. And the fact that he waffles on that choice is hilarious in itself.
This would’ve been impressive if there was more time to tell the story. But even in its rushed form, it’s really good. I expect this to be a huge hit.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The one miscalculation here was a history professor not being more excited when he was taken to the time in history he lectured about every day. He was too casual about the whole thing. Whenever you write characters – specifically when they’re placed in extraordinary situations – you need to put yourself in their shoes, and ask HOW WOULD I REACT? You should get a good feel for how to write the character simply by asking that question. This should lead to much more authentic characters overall.
Genre: Contained Thriller
Premise: When a young woman wakes up in the fortified cellar of a man’s farm house, she must figure out if the mysterious reason why he says she’s there is true or not.
About: This was just a regular spec script until JJ Abrams’ company, Bad Robot, decided to adapt it into the next chapter of the Cloverfield franchise. How “Cloverfield-y” it will be is up for debate. And since this is the original 2012 draft, before the changes were made, we won’t know for sure until the movie arrives. However, based on the recent trailer, I can confirm that a ton of it is similar. It will just somehow tie into that giant monster who destroyed New York City. Newcomers Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken wrote the script. It’s been said that Whiplash writer-director Damian Chezelle helped with the rewrite. I wonder if that means there will be a dance number?
Writers: Josh Campbell & Matt Stuecken
Details: 95 pages (April 11, 2012 draft)
For those of you bemoaning the fact that your movie choices this weekend were limited to either Ride Along 2 or Michael Bay’s attempt at being serious, rejoice in the fact that big Hollywood movies are coming sooner than you think. Deadpool comes out in the traditionally dead month of February. Batman vs. Superman is here in March. And just last week we learned we were getting a new Cloverfield movie, also debuting in March.
While JJ has shied away from the mystery box as of late, due to the internet repackaging his box into some kind of movie-killer, he did dig back into his bag of tricks with the release of this trailer, surprising everyone last week with the news they’d getting another Cloverfield. So how good is the script that inspired this semi-sequel? No mystery box on that one. It’s very good.
18 year-old Michelle Burke has just woken up in a small room in her underwear with no idea how she got there. No sooner is she putting the pieces together than a 40-something man, Howard Stammler (what a great character name!) walks in with food. She attacks him, but he’s too big for her. And what he tells her next is so shocking, it turns her world upside-down.
He’s not here to hurt Michelle. He’s here to help her. According to Howard, some huge attack just went down. All of the cities have been blown to bits, and there’s some sort of radioactive chemical in the air that’s killing everyone. As this was all going down, Howard spotted Michelle unconscious in her crashed vehicle on the side of the road. He couldn’t let her die there, so he took her with him.
Howard, it turns out, is one of these preppers, weirdoes who have a full service survival cellar in case the end of the world happens. And because of his weirdo-ness, he’s saved both himself and Michelle. That is, of course, if he’s telling the truth, which Michelle is pretty sure he isn’t.
But she’s stuck in a tough spot. On the 1% chance that he’s telling the truth, if she tries to escape, her skin might dissolve and her eyeballs turn to jelly. And everything Howard tells her has just enough of a ring of truth to it to make her think twice.
Complications arise when a third person crashes the party, Nate. Whereas Howard is old and chubby, Nate is young and, well, sizzling. So when he starts selling Michelle the same story, she’s more inclined to believe him. Making things even weirder, Howard and Nate know each other. But something happened between them that’s soured the relationship.
Is this really happening? Or could Michelle be the victim of some weird fucking game? Every time she thinks she’s figured it out, something new pops up to cast doubt again. This is what helps keep The Cellar a mystery until the very last page.
Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be the best bodybuilder in the world. And if you hear him talk about that time of his life, he keeps going back to one principle over and over again: You have to shock the muscles.
He says, “When I go to the gym and I’m about to work out, my muscles already know what I’m going to do. They’re already saying to me, ‘I know you’re going to go do 3 sets of 250 pound bench presses. Then you’re going to move over to the dumbbell rack and do 3 sets of 70 pound curls. Then you’re going to come back to the bench and do 4 sets of 200 pound incline presses.”
And Arnold’s whole philosophy was, “You think I’m going to do this? You’re wrong. I’m going to shock you. Today, I’m going to start out with THREE HUNDRED and fifty pound bench presses. Then instead of doing my usual bicep curls, I’m going to do pull-ups…” By shocking the muscles, Arnold argues, they have no option but to grow.
Readers are a lot like muscles. They know your routine already. And they’re used to it. So all the tricks you’ve learned along the way? They’ve seen them. And the only way to make a reader sit up and pay attention (grow), is to shock them. And by that I don’t mean some giant shocking plot twist. And I don’t mean a jump scare. I mean show them something unexpected. And preferably, do it right away, so that the reader immediately knows that this is a writer who’s going to go about the routine differently.
I’ve read so many of these contained cellar/bunker/basement scripts by now, I can’t keep track of them anymore. So I know what’s coming almost all the time. There are only so many ways you can spin this situation. Or at least I thought. The Cellar has me rethinking that belief.
Right away, we have this girl in a room. And she wakes up. And there’s a 40 year-old man. And he’s creepy-looking. And I’m thinking to myself, “Okay, here we go. Been down this road before.” But immediately, the man says something I wasn’t prepared for. As the woman attacks him, he doesn’t fight back. He holds up his hands in defense and tells her, “I’m here to help you.”
Those words completely threw me off. Help her??? Huh? How can a man holding a woman prisoner be helping her? And it was that moment I knew this script would be different.
I’ll give you another example. Later in the script, the third guy shows up, Nate. Again, I’ve been down this road before. It’s really one of the only things you can do in these contained movies – is add that mysterious 3rd character who shows up around the midpoint. It adds a new dimension to the story and keeps it from getting stale.
But almost all the time, the character is weak. He’s not there as a real person, but rather as a desperate plot device to keep things interesting. Writers will ride the mystery of this character as long as they can until they have to explain him. And when they do explain him, it’s always boring and obvious.
When Nate comes in though, Howard looks at him and seems upset. There was a history between these men. Something had happened between them. And that totally threw me again. In the past, these characters have always been complete unknowns. The fact that these two knew each other opened up this whole new avenue to explore in a contained thriller. How did they know each other? Why didn’t Howard like him? How is this going to affect Michelle?
Another thing these writers do well is that they use backstory to ADD to the story as opposed to just provide context.
One of the huge mistakes beginner screenwriters make is they include backstory (characters talking about their past, or worse, flashbacks) to provide context for their characters. A character will go on a rant about how when he was in high school, he was an outcast, and it’s like, “Who cares??” Backstory works best when it CHANGES THE DYNAMICS OF THE CURRENT STORY.
So here, for example, when Nate comes in, he tells Michelle in confidence that Howard’s wife was murdered. The police never solved who did it, but there was a lot of speculation that it was Howard. So you see that we have this backstory on Howard now (his wife was murdered) that changes the dynamic of the present. We’re now more suspicious of Howard. If he killed his wife, who’s to say he won’t kill them? That’s what good backstory revelations do.
The same thing happens again with Howard’s daughter. Before Nate shows up, Howard tells Michelle a story about his daughter. But later, when Nate comes, he tells her Howard doesn’t have a daughter. And so, again, backstory is being used to affect present story.
I’m not surprised at all that this caught Bad Robot’s attention. These writers took a potentially cliché setup and turned it into something really fresh and fun.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the ways to find a new way into an old story is to shift the default character dynamic. So if you look at the “Man keeps woman prisoner” scenario, ask yourself how you could change that. Maybe the man is actually helping the woman. This creates a whole new movie. The Die Hard setup. Man must shut down a group of terrorists who have taken over a building/boat/airport. What if you found a way to make the terrorist the one who had to save the day? Change the dynamic and you have an entirely new story.
So here’s the thing. I didn’t love Aaron Sorkin’s “Steve Jobs” when I first read it. But when I saw the movie, a lot of the stuff I didn’t think would work DID work, and it turned out to be one of my favorite movies of the year. The fact that it was kept out of the Oscars, then, in favor of CAROL(????) is god-damned ludicrous. Carol was one of the most average movies I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t bad. But it definitely wasn’t good. And as a screenplay, there was nothing there. There’s one moment in the entire movie that’s unexpected. And the rest is basic and bland and safe. I still don’t know who votes for these things (do only Academy screenwriters or is it all Academy members?) but they’re clearly delusional if they’re bringing this script in over Jobs. I mean at least Sorkin took some chances as a writer. Carol is completely dependent on Rooney Mara’s eyes and Cate Blanchett’s acting. And the last time I checked, neither of those things is written! Let that marinate while you’re reading some amateur brilliance this fine weekend!
Remember, you can submit your own script to challenge your peers with by sending me an e-mail (carsonreeves3@gmail.com) with your TITLE, GENRE, LOGLINE, WHY YOU THINK IT DESERVES A SHOT, and a PDF of the screenplay. A good review tends to get writers some industry contacts. So who knows, maybe you’ll be the next “The Last Alchemist.” Keep’em coming!
Title: The Space Hotel
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Logline: The year 2037. When the world’s first space hotel is hijacked by religious fundamentalists, it falls to an atheist scientist and a devout ex-soldier to lead the fight back.
Why You Should Read: The Space Hotel is a high concept idea in a marketable genre, featuring a number of Scriptshadow favourites — unique location; strong female lead; proactive protagonist with a relatable flaw; high stakes; condensed time frame; unifying theme — all tied up in a manageable 102 pages. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Title: Onna-Bugeisha
Genre: Action/Adventure (48 pgs – no dialog)
Logline: After witnessing the slaughter of her village by a rival clan, a woman warrior treks across Japan in search of revenge.
Why You Should Read: This script came out of my love for sword fighting. In every samurai film ever made, it’s always by far the highlight of the story, which is why I set out to make the plot of Onna-Bugeisha so simple. The characters have no spoken dialog. I thought it would be a great experiment to write a film in which the battles, the duels and the score were the dialog. — Uma Thurman aside, rarely do we see a woman take center stage in a samurai action film. The main protagonist in this story is not only a woman, but a mother of two. Women of the households, defending their families at sword point, is ingrained in the samurai culture, but to the best of my knowledge, I haven’t seen that story play out on film. — Please note: Although the page count is low for a feature film, I’ve timed it at around 1 hr 50 min.
Title: The Murder of Mae Crow
Genre: A historical courtroom drama, set in turn of the century Georgia.
Logline: In 1912, two black teenagers stand trial and face execution for the rape and murder of a white girl in the Jim Crow South.
Why You Should Read: I’m just a guy that at the age of 42 decided to try and become a screenwriter because I don’t have enough ridicule and failure in life. I’ve researched this case for over three years pouring over microfilm for countless hours. — This is a true story and the case that caused the largest African-American banishment in U.S. history. This helped bring about the re-birth of the KKK. The judge and lawyers were all the key ringleaders of the lynching of Leo Frank, and the original members of the new KKK started in 1915. Hollywood has largely been silent on the epidemic of black lynchings that took place from 1864-1935. An estimated 4,000 to 7,000 African-Americans were lynched during this time yet no movie accurately depicts this time, their struggle, or the injustice of a Jim Crow justice system. This is the most important script you will read this year, and a story you will not easily forget.
Title: The Transfer
Genre: Horror
Logline: A violinist’s arrival at an exclusive boarding school coincides with a series of sinister events.
Why You Should Read: I’m a screenwriter who appreciates a good scare. I think you should read the Transfer because it’s a fun horror thriller that I would describe as What Lies Beneath meets Heathers. I was inspired by psychopathic gangs of teenagers that often manifest at elite private schools. — I never attended boarding school but went to camp one summer at St. Andrews where Dead Poets Society was filmed. They always seemed like fun places to me but at the same time there’s that Lord of the Flies-style youth gone amuck threat lingering. — The story revolves around a talented violinist who transfers to a prestigious boarding school and unwittingly crosses a dangerous clique. What results is a harrowing semester of hazing that unravels a shocking secret that leads to the death of several high-profile students at the hands of that what can only be described as something supernatural. — I also drew tone/aesthetic inspiration from films like Repulsion, Black Swan, and It Follows.
Title: Entitled
Genre: Thriller
Logline: Three people wake up in a room with no doors or windows. They notice a casket at the far side of the room with three locks and a timer counting down. They must figure out why they are there and what happens when the timer reaches zero.
Why should you read it? It’s like Cube having a head on collision with Saw and Phone Booth. It reads fast and has a supernatural element to it. There are a handful of characters, each having their own voice and back story. It has rapid fire dialogue that comes of natural and you can cut the tension with a knife. This script will keep you interested until the last page.
