Remember everybody, this Saturday I’m posting 5 Amateur PILOT SCRIPTS for you to vote on. If you want in, submit a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with your title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should be chosen (something interesting about yourself or your script). We still haven’t found a kickass pilot script through the site. Let’s change that!
Genre: TV Pilot – Sci-fi
Premise: A terrorist group steals a time machine, forcing the government to chase them around through time.
About: This was a huge TV Pilot sale that comes from high profile producers Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan. That team-up, from the guys who brought us the never-ending series Supernatural, and the mega-successful cop drama, The Shield, proved irresistible to buyers, who clamored to secure the high-concept pitch. NBC outbid them all, and we’ll be seeing the show later this fall. But can it survive the big-budget network curse that killed fellow big-budget wannabes Terra Nova, The Event, and Revolution? The time travel lover in me hopes so.
Writers: Eric Kripke & Shawn Ryan
Details: 63 pages – 3rd Network Draft, January 15, 2016
“Time” is one of the biggest pilot sales of the year. When you consider that AND that it’s about time travel (I love time travel!), you’d think I’d be dying to read this. But there were two things holding me back. The first is Revolution, another Kripke show. Let me first say that I respect the hell out of anyone who can get a show on the air. You’re competing against tons of talented people for those coveted slots, some of them major celebrities. To beat them out? That’s a big deal and deserves acknowledgement. But Revolution was like the dad joke of TV shows – trying to be hip but coming across oh so clumsy and awkward.
But the bigger problem here is NBC. That network is so enveloped in genericness and so clearly lacks anyone with vision, that sending a show there is like throwing cake batter in the microwave and expecting a soufflé to pop out. I’ve lost so much faith in NBC, and the big networks in general, that if this pilot sucks, I’m done reviewing network pilots for good. These guys don’t get that they’re Blockbuster if they don’t evolve. Shows don’t get 30 million viewers anymore. Catering to the middle is no longer an effective approach. You must embrace niches to survive.
30-something Lucy Preston is one of those hip professors who all the kids like but all the faculty hates (they won’t give her tenure cause she talks about how big former presidents’ penises are!).
Lucy’s minding her own business when the government shows up at her door and ubers her over to Lark Industries, a company owned by the latest screenwriting incarnation of Elon Musk. It turns own Mason Lark has created a time machine and some dangerous dude named Garcia Flynn, along with the Flynn Followers, has stolen said time machinery.
It just so happens that Lark has a backup machine, but it can only carry three people. And the government wants Lucy to be one of those people, since she knows history better than anybody, especially president penis size history. Hey, you know never know when that might come in handy. I mean shit, it would’ve been relevant in 2016.
She’ll be teamed up with Rufas Carlin, a young black genius engineer, and some mysterious dude named Wyatt, who’s so mysterious that I never even figured what he does. The government has reason to believe that Garcia is going back to the infamous 1937 Zeppelin accident to turn the event into an even larger catastrophe.
So the trio travels back to 1937 New York and starts looking for Garcia, but by the time they find him, it’s too late. He already has access to the Zeppelin. But here’s where shit gets crazy. He doesn’t create an even bigger catastrophe. He actually SAVES the Zeppelin. Huh. That throws the group for a loop. What the hell do they do now?
After a quick stint in jail, the three hypothesize that Garcia saved the Zeppelin to use it for an even more sinister plan. But what could that plan be? And will they be able to get to him in time to stop it!
One of the telltale signs of professional writing is if they can “getcha.” Yes, I’m using “getcha” as an official term today. You’ve been “gotchen” when you were sure the script was going to go this way and instead it went that way. I have to admit that when Garcia saved the Zeppelin instead of destroying it, I was “gotchened.” I didn’t see that coming.
Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing I liked here. As expected, there’s a safe network quality to the writing, right down to the robotic way in which it’s written. Sentences are very short. They’re mixed in with lots of sentence fragments (So instead of saying, “She smiles flirtatiously.” we get, “A flirtatious smile.”). There are a lot of dashes — a lot of punctuation,,,,. And what all this does is it creates too much “start-stop” reading.
I’m not saying this is the wrong way to write. You can write any way you want and there was a time when this style was quite popular. But the way you write DOES psychologically affect the reader. If you’re writing in short clips, the reader receives that information like a mathematical equation. If you write in full sentences, the reader receives the information as a single continuous thought.
Here’s a line from the book, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” I want you to pay attention to how the flow of the sentence makes you FEEL.
“Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
Now here’s the same information, but conveyed in a more clipped format.
“My bones. I feel them straining — under me. The weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
Different, right?
This morse code-like approach has led to an even bigger problem in professional writing, the need to distill everything down into packet-sized moments. The one thing professionals do a good job of is they keep the story moving. Whereas amateurs will get stuck in a scene for too long, professionals know that the goal is to get in and out quickly. But this can be taken too far. If you treat it too much like an equation, you won’t stay inside the scenes long enough to create a connection with the reader.
A perfect example is the scene where we find out Lucy’s mom has cancer. The scene reads like a checklist: “Okay, let’s establish that she’s bald. Check. See her in a hospital bed. Check. Show her too tired to respond to her daughter. Check. Got it, let’s move on.” You can’t do that with these scenes if you want the reader to be emotionally affected by them. You need more time and you need to creatively build a memorable moment. The “establish our list and get out” approach doesn’t work if you’re trying for genuine emotion.
Finally, there’s a lack of logic dictating some major plot points here. Namely, of all the people in the world to send back in time to stop terrorists, why are they choosing the local history professor who’s not even good enough to secure tenure?
There’s an argument to be made that details like this don’t matter. It’s a TV show. You’re not supposed to think too much about it. Just go with the flow. That’s fine if everything else in the pilot is perfect. But if you have the attitude where an important plot point can be overlooked, you likely have the attitude that other things can be overlooked as well. And it’s when you start amassing multiple “overlooked” moments that the viewer starts sensing something is off. They don’t even know what it is. But they FEEL that the story is taking too many shortcuts and that’s what leads to that permanent channel change.
You have to know what you’re getting into when you tackle time-travel. It’s a “can’t fuck around” genre. You get lazy for a second and people start asking questions like, “Well, if the terrorists already went back in time and destroyed the Zeppelin than why is everything still the same here in the present?” It’s a genre where you really have to be on your game. They still have time to figure it out. But going off of what I’m seeing so far, this looks like it could be a lazy exploration of the genre.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I want to reiterate that there’s no “right” style to write in. It’s even okay to use multiple styles in a screenplay. What I want to get across though is that your writing style has a psychological effect on the reader and how they’re processing information. Clipped abrasive styles feel colder and more robotic and can be harder to follow if done sloppily. Longer natural writing styles feel soft and inclusive and connect with the reader on an organic level. Keep that in mind!
What I learned 2: It’s official guys. No more incarnations of Elon Musk in your screenplays. I’ve read five versions of the character in the last two months alone.
Today’s Black List screenplay imagines Anchorman as an extremely dark comedy.
Genre: Dark Comedy
Premise: A news anchor’s life starts to unravel when he leverages a contract renewal by auditioning for a host position on a new game show.
About: This script finished just outside the top 20 on last year’s Black List. Writer Brett Conrad has written on some pretty high-profile TV shows over the last 7 years, which include Sons of Anarchy, The Killing, Marco Polo, and Wayward Pines. The project isn’t officially set up anywhere yet, but should that happen, it will become his first feature credit.
Writer: Brett Conrad
Details: 116 pages (undated)
We’re going there, folks. Hot diggity dam we’re flying business class to one of the most well travelled screenplay cities in the world. Yup, we’re talking about unlikable protagonists YET AGAIN. But there’s a new angle to this suffering sucatash of a discussion today. I call it “The unlikable Black List bias.”
It’s true. That Black List loves dastardly anti-heroes more than any subset of Hollywood. Whether it be assholes, philanderers, cranks, liars, this is the destination for dickery. I mean they voted The Libertine (a script that has the single most unlikable protagonist in screenplay history) the number 3 script of the year.
And I think I finally understand WHY. Whereas the rest of the industry is concerned with getting movies made, and hence knowing that unlikable curmmudgeons are impossible to slip past studio suits whose data suggests that even a hint of a frown could cost the film 3 million dollars at the box office, the Black List doesn’t need to worry about that shit. They’re just voting for what they like.
And I think Black List voters relate to these characters. These are people not yet at the top of the mountain and therefore frustrated, just like these protagonists. So whereas a studio suit might say, “He didn’t save the cat. Why do we like him?” A Black List voter says, “I’m in the same place, brother. I feel your pain.” It’s a possible explanation for these scripts making the Black List so frequently.
43 year old Colin Weston is a news anchor in Phoenix. Colin is losing it. Those softball interviews he used to give local figureheads have turned into him decking the assholes the second they go off the air.
Naturally, the station doesn’t like this, but Weston is their top draw, so he can deck the fucking halls for all they care. But that loyalty is about to be tested when Weston sneaks away to Los Angeles to audition for a game show host position.
Eventually, his employers find out, and Weston decides to use their discovery to his benefit, as he has a new contract coming up. If the game show gig doesn’t work out, maybe the station will give him more money. The thing is, the rest of Weston’s life is such a mess, that this calculated move adds up to a shit-show circus.
There’s his mistress, Mona, who’s just informed him that she’s pregnant. There’s his 16 year-old daughter, Daisy, who’s doing everything in her power to try and get pregnant, there’s his wife, who keeps pushing Weston for the down payment on Daisy’s private school tuition, and there’s the car dealership he co-owns which is so far in the red, his partner got an ill-advised loan from the local version of the Hell’s Angels. Oh, and let’s not forget Weston’s hanging-by-a-thread sobriety.
As all of these pressures start adding up, Weston finds himself taking it out on his nightly audience, which his bosses are becoming increasingly less tolerant of. That’s when the reality of the situation rears its head. There’s a strong chance that when this is all over, Weston could end up with nothing.
Whenever you write one of these “spiraling out of control” stories, the key ingredient is pressure. You must pressure your protagonist from all sides. And Conrad does a brilliant job of that here. We’ve got the Hell’s Angels loan, the pregnancy from his mistress, the alcohlism, a game show job that’s looking bullshitier by the second, the private school tuition, and a book he got an advance for that was supposed to be finished months ago.
This pressure creates CONFLICT, and as we all know, conflict drives drama, which is the lifeblood of a good story. If nothing’s going wrong for your hero, then your hero’s not going to find himself in any interesting situations. And it’s this good storytelling technique that helps offset the offputting main character. If you’re going to make your protagonist a jerk and then just have him be jerky for 120 minutes, we’re going to be bored. You need to put him in dramatic situations and that’s what constant pressure does.
I also want to point out a scene in Pandemonium that uses one of my favorite devices – the scene agitator. For those who’ve forgotten, a scene agitator is a third variable in a scene (typically outside of the two main characters in the scene) that agitates the situation. It just gives the scene a bit more texture so it doesn’t feel too one-note.
Here in Pandemonium, Weston goes to visit his co-owner in the car dealership business. The co-owner starts explaining to Weston how they have no money and they had to take on a bad loan. The scene agitator is a couple who recognizes Weston from the news. So the wife comes over and asks for a picture with Weston. The reason this particular scene agitator is so effective is that it CONTRASTS the situation.
Weston is pissed off at the bad news but has to smile and play nice when someone asks for his picture. This scene doesn’t work if Weston is receiving good news and is therefore happy. It works because of the contrast.
There’s a lot of good writing throughout Pandemonium. The only reason I don’t rate it higher is because it gets you down, man. There’s no way getting around that the hero is a jerk and responsible for the shit-show his life has turned into. So it kinda leaves you bummed out, and it’s always hard for me to give high marks to stuff that leaves me feeling that way. But for those of you who like your screenplays dipped in anger and frustration, this very well might be for you.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: A dual-job allows for more variety in a screenplay. That second act can be tough to find enough story for. You hit page 45 and all of a sudden it’s like, “What now?” If you’re covering two jobs, you can create two subplots, which fills up space. So here, Weston is both both a news anchor and a car dealership owner.
What I learned 2: There’s a little-talked-about skill in this business called the “conceptual pitch,” which is a quick and dirty marketing pitch that sells your screenplay. Think of it as a verbal billboard for your script. Now there are ideas out there that don’t need conceptual pitches. Jurassic Park is a cool idea that sells itself. But when your script is offbeat or low-budget or unique, you need a way to explain it that gets people excited. One of the most famous examples of this was when David Twohy pitched a Pitch Black franchise, calling it, “Star Wars’s evil twin brother.” That’s the conceptual pitch that got everyone excited and helped greenlight the film. Here, I used, “Anchorman re-imagined as a dark comedy.” You don’t have to use a known film in a conceptual pitch. As long as it’s creative and nails the feel of the story, you’re good. So I’ll pose a challenge to you guys. Let’s say that neither The Revenant or Room have been made into movies yet. What would your conceptual pitch be to a studio to get these films greenlit? Make sure to up-vote your favorite answers!
So they’re making a TV series about the Angriest Woman in The World, the same subject matter that Michael Whatling won Amateur Offerings with. If you remember, I wondered if anybody would want to make something so uncommercial. Well, somebody is. This goes to show that the entertainment world is full of opinions and a lot of those opinions turn out to be wrong. If you feel passionately about something, don’t listen to me or anybody else who tells you no. Keep pushing your script until you find the person who connects with it.
Next week is Amateur Offerings Pilot Week. Send in your pilot scripts to carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Include the title, genre, logline, and why you think it deserves to be chosen. If all goes well, we’ll find the next Ozark. Rock and roll people. You know what to do next. Read the below scripts and vote on your favorite! And no, you can’t revote for Time Shark.
Title: A Change Is Gonna Come
Genre: Sci-Fi Biography
Logline: In 1965 a white musician struggles to pursue a music career with his black friends, until he crosses paths with a singer who oddly resembles his lamented hero, Sam Cooke.
Why You Should Read: I’m a huge fan of alt-history and what-if scenarios. I’m going to be honest, this premise is very unique. It revolves around one of America’s greatest Soul singers, Sam Cooke, and sort of acts his biopic, but not to the point of boring facts and situations. The story is seen through the eyes of his biggest fan, Jeffrey, and starts on the day that Cooke was murdered in the 1960s. It creates a whole new set of rules for time travel and fuses its sci-fi characteristics with themes of race and breaking down barriers. With everything going on these days with police brutality, and even the more-frivolous “OscarsSoWhite” controversy, this story may be more relevant than ever. It’s intense at times, but also does it with an appropriate sense of levity. I guarantee you this will be a very fun read of epic proportions. Thank you for your consideration.
Title: The Devil’s Workshop
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Premise: After accepting a gig to craft a demon mask, a makeup effects artist must protect her and her daughter from her abusive husband and the sinister forces that stalk them.
Why You Should Read: I’m not a mother but I want to be (eventually). I also want to be a paid screenwriter, proficient Japanese speaker, dog owner and in another life, Cirque du Soleil performer. What most people know (especially in this industry), is it’s really hard to find balance and sometimes you must sacrifice something to get your heart’s desire.
Besides that idea, I wanted to pair movie horror with the real horror of domestic violence. I researched, googled and trolled forums to craft my story. It wasn’t until after a reading when a woman approached me that I realized I was telling her story. It hurt to hear her share her accounts of abuse that she’d mostly kept to herself. I hope if anything this story inspires people to take control of their own lives.
Title: The Playhouse
Genre: Contained horror
Logline: When seven strangers, with no memory of who they are, wake up inside an old, dark house with no way out, they become victims to a series of terrifying supernatural encounters… but if they ever want to escape this place alive, they’ll have to unlock the mystery of who they are, why they’re here, and what this place really is.
Why You Should Read: I want to do something a little different and a little special with my submission today, and take this opportunity to use Scriptshadow as the mighty marketing tool which I know it can be. Carson’s site is immensely powerful and it has already brought several writers and scripts to the attention of Hollywood producers. I want to see if we can make this happen again. — Firstly, for anyone reading, it’s important to think of The Playhouse, not as a single screenplay, but instead the beginning of a franchise. It’s true to say that the script is a self-contained story with a beginning, a middle and an end, but built into the fabric of its DNA is the potential for the continued expansion of its central concept. — The script is, essentially, a low-budget contained horror, but it has a unique hook at its heart. Without revealing any spoilers, what begins in the traditional haunted house genre quickly elevates into entirely new territory in the final act (while also keeping its hooks firmly within the conventions of horror). — Now, the interesting part: if my script gets enough votes and is chosen to be reviewed by Carson, I’ll be releasing a special pitch document attached to the script for you guys to read which will contain a synopsis for the next two sequels as well as outlining my vision for the evolution of the series as a whole, showcasing why this is the next horror franchise to step up after The Purge, Saw and Final Destination series. — I will also simultaneously be pitching the script to producers at the same time it’s featured here on scriptshadow, and I’ll be doing my best to keep you guys updated during this process. — My real hope, however, is that producers will concurrently find the script themselves through this amazing site. If you’re a fan of my project and you choose to vote for me, I hope you can help out by creating buzz, using social media to direct producers and industry professionals, that you either know personally or online, here. — You can consider this an exercise in hype, word of mouth, marketing or even a type of social experiment. Thank you for reading.
Title: Intelligent Design
Genre: Gothic Horror/Sci-fi/Crime
Logline: A grisly vampire-like murder sends an NYC Detective in way over his head when he suspects that the culprit he’s after might actually be a real vampire.
Why You Should Read: You’ve actually read this before, but a moderately longer version. It was in the “Almost Top 25” category for the Scriptshadow 250. The feedback I received from your site was that it was too long. Funny part was a management company (a very good one too) who saw the logline asked to read it, liked it, and had the exact same feedback. So, I spent the last month slowly killing my darlings a bit. I managed to shave off 8 pages from the script, 120 down to 112. Is it enough? I definitely think it reads quicker, but you never what you have until someone else reads it. I made a few narrative changes. I swapped the opening “teaser” with something that felt a little more gripping. I think the previous opening could easily be mistaken for weird pillow-talk. I tweaked the ending as well. I also did my best to get rid of over-description, which I think was one of the major hurdles when reading it. Alas, hope it makes the cut again…
Title: Wild
Genre: Crime/Thriller/Drama
Logline: In 18th century London, a con artist becomes the head of the police and uses this new power to secretly rise to the top of the organized crime world.
Why Read?: It’s the type of story that people can’t believe could be true, except it is! It’s based off of the real life story of Jonathan Wild, one of England’s most notorious criminals. This script was a Quarterfinalist in the 2015 Nicholl Fellowship, and a Finalist in the 2015 Scriptapalooza Screenplay Competition, so we’ve gotten a little bit of attention from some management companies, but haven’t been signed.
Is there such thing as the perfect concept? Today’s script poses that question. And no one makes it out alive before the answer is given! Time Shark baby! TIME SHARK!!!
Title: Time Shark!
Genre: Spoof/Action Adventure
Logline: A retired marine biologist goes back into the water when inter-dimensional time-traveling sharks invade our world. But an overzealous military-man has nefarious plans for the strange fish. Airplane! meets Jaws.
Why you should read: Hey there! So I’m a first time screenwriter, starting this a little later than most, (I’m in my early 40s) and I had a story to tell about time traveling sharks. So I did. I don’t live in California, I’m actually a tv sports producer in Florida, a cuban-american dad, and write as a hobby on the side. I think you should review my script because it’s a comedy about time traveling sharks. And time travel is awesome, and so are sharks. And spoof comedies aren’t all that common anymore, so why not? I really hope you give it a look. Thanks.
Writer: Enrique Bertran
Details: 97 pages
First off, I want to apologize to the four OTHER applicants of last week’s Amateur Offerings. Because, seriously? Did anybody REALLY stand a chance against Time Shark? We’re talking about time travel and sharks. The two greatest things that have ever existed on the planet. I once conducted a survey of the greatest pairings of all time once and you know what the number 1 pairing was? Peanut Butter and Jelly. Except there was an asterisk next to it. The asterisk stated: “Unless you’re counting time travel and sharks.”
The only bad thing about putting time travel and sharks in the same script is that the expectations are stratospheric. Anything less than genius would be a literary catastrophe. But no worries. We can be sure that today’s screenplay will be perfect. Why? Because if it isn’t, we can just send a shark back in time to rewrite it. Boom! Splash goes the shark’s fin.
Pentagon worker Sarah Lightman has just been informed of the impossible. All over the world, ancient sharks – sharks that have not existed in millions of years – are attacking and killing people. We’re talking megalodon sharks here, those giant prehistoric motherfuckers, and flying sharks, and sharks with two heads. Sarah and her co-worker, Chairman Higgins, are tasked by the government to figure out a solution to this growing problem.
It doesn’t take long for Sarah to realize they’re in over their heads. Luckily, she knows a man. Gil Baitman, the world’s number 1 shark expert. The thing is, Baitman hasn’t been seen in years. Ever since his wife was chewed up by one of these dorsel-finned gravy gobblers, he can’t so much as mouth the word “shark.” But desperate times call for desperate measures, and the curiosity factor of prehistoric sharks using our beaches as buffets is too big for even Baitman to resist.
The goal is to capture one of these sharks so the government can study what they’re up against. And somehow, Gil and Sarah pull this off. Little do they know, however, Chairman Higgins never had any intentions of studying these sharks and their time-traveling ways. He wanted to create the ultimate time shark army! So he starts cloning these sharks and strapping weapons to them (like lasers), and before you know it, he’s sending this shark army off on missions.
But wouldn’t you know it – those bastard sharks rebel. And now that they’re armed with weapons, they have one goal in mind – to settle the score with their makers. It’ll be up to Gil, the only person who knows enough about sharks to stop this kind of attack. But will he be able to put past tragedies behind to pull off this impossible feat? Only time will tell. Or should I say, only time SHARKS will tell.
I honestly considered giving this script a “worth the read” on its title alone. I’m serious. There have only been five screenplays in existence that were worth money on their title alone. Monster-In-Law, I remember, was one of them. Then there were… those other ones. And Time Shark would definitely be in that group.
But Enrique makes a critical mistake. He mixes two types of comedy that shouldn’t be mixed. “Spoof” is the kind of comedy that works when you have a generic subject matter – like an airplane. The spoofing is there to “spice up” up the otherwise bland concept. But when you have a spicy concept to begin with, you don’t need any more spice. Too much spice can turn a relaxed dinner at an Indian restaurant into an all-night date with your toilet.
I mean Russians speaking with subtitles, then looking down to read their own subtitles and then, because they’re upside-down relative to them, turning those subtitles right-side up so they can read them – that’s pretty funny and something that would work in a movie like Airplane. But it doesn’t work here when you’ve already got a wacky concept to begin with.
Every bit of comedy here needs to stem from two things – sharks and time-travel. When you’ve got scenes centered around the cloning of Kim Kardashian’s ass, you move from “buzzworthy so-bad-it’s-good” type movie, a la “Sharknado,” to “Vampires Suck,” which is the trash heap of the comedy genre. You don’t want to get anywhere near that. I mean a joke about Abe Vigoda? Really? I suppose that’s sort of time travel related. As in time traveling jokes from the 90s.
As for the plot itself, it’s a mixed bag. Having Sarah and Gil try and bag a time shark was okay, I guess. But once they deliver the shark, the movie shifts over to Chairman Higgins, who’s driving the story with his whole “weaponizing sharks” plan. In the meantime, our main characters are just hanging out on a boat for 30 pages.
There’s this misconception that when you’re writing comedy – ESPECIALLY broad comedy – that nothing matters. That you can do whatever the hell you want because ‘who cares, it’s comedy.’ But the standard pillars of storytelling still apply. And having your two main characters inactive for 30 pages is a bad idea. You want them to be driving the story at all times.
The script picks back up when the time sharks rebel and Gil and Sarah are tasked with cleaning up the mess (so they’re finally active again), but it’s too little, too late. By that point we’d gotten bored of the two.
I DEFINITELY think this is salvageable though. The idea of megalodon sharks attacking people on beaches is genius. I also like the idea of the government weaponzing them. I would try and keep Gil and Sarah closer to the action in that second act though. You never want your main characters waiting at the side of the ring to be tagged back in. They need to be fighting the fight at all times. And stop trying to mix two different types of comedy. I’d go so far as to say this will never go anywhere if you keep the spoof angle.
Out of my own curiosity, I’d like to hear other commenters pitch their Time Shark movies. This is something I’m almost sure will be turned into a film, even if it’s just on Syfy. And if we can help Enrique see a better version of this script, we could help him speed up that process. So, fire away!
Script link: Time Shark
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Guys, if secondary characters are making the decisions that are pushing your story forward, it means your main characters aren’t. That’s bad storytelling 101.
One of the misconceptions I had when I first started sending my screenplays out was that they were special. That the endless months of hard work and care I put into creating them would be celebrated by those who read them – like the way an Olympic judge would lock in to a figure skating routine, marking scores for every little spin and jump. Now that I’ve been on the other side, I realize just how many scripts are being read, and for that reason, how quickly a reader can tune out if your script isn’t grabbing them.
I was talking about this very issue today with a manager, which led to a debate on what makes a script stand out from the pack. The first answer we agreed on was “voice.” But that’s become such a watered down buzzword at this point that further examination was required. We moved on to other topics before we could come to a consensus, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the question on the way home, especially with all the scripts I’ve been reading for the Scriptshadow 250. I can tell with 99% certainty if a script isn’t going to deliver by page 5. But then, every 20 scripts or so, a script will grab me. Just like that. BAM! I’m in it. I can’t wait to find out what happens next. How did this happen? How is this script so much better than the other ones?
Today, I want to identify that secret sauce, that difference between “stand out” and “standard.” You’re probably thinking there’s no way to determine this. The process of creating art is like magic. It arrives at the crossroads between talent and inspiration. But I refuse to believe that. Even the least talented writers can be taught to identify when they’re making bad choices. And if you can identify that, there’s no reason you can’t start making original choices. And original choices are the heart of what makes a screenplay stand out. Let’s see what some of the other ingredients are.
CONCEPT
A stand-out screenplay usually has a concept that’s a little weird, a little “off.” “Bubbles,” the number 1 script on last year’s Black List comes to mind (A biopic of Michael Jackson told through the eyes of his pet monkey, Bubbles). Fight Club is another one (who makes a movie about bored people fighting??). Stand-out writers tend to stand out because they do things differently. If they were doing things the same, then by definition, they wouldn’t be standing out. So while a unique concept isn’t required for stand-out material, it’s an indication that the writer enjoys exploring the less-traveled path.
SPECIFICITY
One of the things I’ve noticed with stand-out writers is that there’s a specificity to their writing. They don’t describe things in generalities. They add detail to better bring you into their world. Here’s a line I recently read from a generic amateur script: “Joe changes into his uniform. That of a chef. The head chef.” Then here’s a professional writer describing a similar moment in his script: “Now dressed in a puffy black snow jacket, Rose steps into a pair of snow boots, pulling on a pair of mittens.” It’s so much easier to see what’s going on in the second example, because of the detail. There’s a ceiling to this, of course. You can’t write too much description or you’ll gum up the read. But specific writers also tend to abide by one of the core rules of screenwriting: Say as much as possible in as few words as possible. They just do so with more detail.
POINT-OF-VIEW
The first two elements I mentioned are icing, but point-of-view is cake. “Point-of-view” is how you see the world, and is one of the most important factors in standing out. A unique point of view takes any situation and finds a new way to look at it. So for example, if I asked you what “romance” looked like in your head, you might answer, “When a man and a woman are deeply in love with each other.” When Spike Jonez is asked that question, though, he’d answer, “When a man and a computer are in love with each other,” as explored in his movie, “Her.” Or if I asked you to write a story about a woman and her son being held hostage by a man, your first instinct would probably be to tell the story through the mother’s eyes. Emma Donahue, the author of “Room,” however, decided to explore the situation through the eyes of the small child. Point of view isn’t just about concept. It extends to any choice you make in the story. If I told you to write a story about stock traders, your instinct would probably be to make all your characters overgrown frat boys with perfectly tailored suits and a penchant for swearing. The architect in The Big Short, Christian Bale’s character, however, has one glass eye, wears jeans and a t-shirt, is anti-social, and holds meetings in his office with heavy metal music blasting. Your point-of-view must be unique if you want your script to stand out in any way.
DO THE UNEXPECTED
I want to bring up a common misconception. That “instinct” is a good thing. Instinct is the unintentional repetition of an expected outcome. For example, say you have a scene with a guy and a girl in the rain. Your “instinct” may be to have those characters kiss. But the only reason your instinct is telling you that is because you’ve seen dozens of movies where a guy and a girl in the rain kiss. The stand-out writer, however, will show our awkward male character struggling to open an umbrella. As the girl waits impatiently, getting colder and wetter by the second, the guy can’t seem to trip the click device above the handle. As the girl starts to get pissed, the umbrella pops up, hitting the girl in the face. She grabs her nose, which is now bleeding. And the guy steps forward to help her only to have the umbrella get struck by lightning. That’s a more unexpected choice, and one that only comes to you if you greet instinct with skepticism. Here’s where things get tricky though. There are two types of writers. Writers who are truly original. Charlie Kaufman is the prototype for this group. Then there are the rest of us – people who see the world at face value. For the truly original, their instincts ARE unique, and therefore should be followed as-is. For the rest of us, we must learn to challenge our instincts. Every choice must be accompanied by a question: “Is this what usually happens?” Because if it is, then you probably shouldn’t write it. This is a long-winded way of saying that the stand-out scripts always keep me guessing. The writer is always ahead of me because he’s making unexpected choices.
UNIQUE PRESENTATION
To best understand what unique presentation looks like, I’ll present you with the opposite: Taken. “Taken” follows a single guy on a single mission to get his daughter back. It’s a straight-forward first person story. A unique presentation, on the other hand, changes things up in one of two categories: character or structure. Pulp Fiction’s structure jumps back and forth in time. Gone Girl’s first half tells the story through our protagonist’s eyes, but then switches over to its antagonist for the second half. Steve Jobs tells three 40 minute contained stories. As for character, the idea is to use your characters to help the reader experience the story in a unique way. The most recent example of this was Deadpool – our fourth-wall breaking never-stops-narrating main character. That character was partially inspired by another fourth-wall breaker, Ferris Bueller. “Bubbles” uses an animal to narrate its story. The Big Short uses celebrity cutaways to convey complex exposition. You never want to use these tools just to use them. They need to make sense within the story you’re telling. But an offbeat presentation is an easy way to make your script stand out.
DIALOGUE
The dialogue in a stand-out script tends to be more inspired than in lesser scripts. There’s a pop to it. And it’s hard to quantify what that pop is made up of. But for starters, the dialogue should be clever. You get the sense the writer really thought about each response. The vocabulary is more extensive than your average screenwriter. The writer must have a unique sense of humor, whether it’s dry, morbid, over-the-top, or just plain weird. There’s a specificity to the dialogue. “You get drunk at the bar last night again?” probably reads better as, “You chuggin Mai Tais at Finnegans all night again?” There’s a naturalism to the way characters speak. They use contractions. They use slang. They use nicknames. Words come out fast and loose instead of stilted and robotic (unless the script calls for a robotic character). Mostly there’s a freedom to the dialogue that mirrors the way we speak in real life, but at the same time, the wisecracks are wiser, the comebacks are sharper, and the vocabulary is more advanced.
EMBRACE THE WEIRD
Finally, embrace the weird, the offbeat, the macabre. If you want to stand out, you have to remove yourself from group-think and explore the oddities of life. I just heard about a script where a guy sheds his skin every day and turns into a different person. Those are the kinds of scripts people remember. What are you writing that will stand out?
