Can the latest James Bond script win over a skeptical reviewer? Or will it be a spectretacular disaster?
Genre: Action
Premise: Bond goes off on a personal mission to find an elusive character known as The Pale King, only to stumble upon a secret organization known as “Spectre.”
About: What a strange place the Bond franchise finds itself in. It is healthier than Uber’s stock price, making billions of dollars every time it hits the streets, yet the debate over whether its current star, Daniel Craig, is a worthy James Bond or not seems as heated as ever. And let’s not forget that Craig regularly takes pot-shots at the franchise, the only films, mind you, that anyone seems to care about him in. Despite this, less than a month ago, he stated he’d rather kill himself than do another Bond film (although some people have implied this is a negotiating tactic). Then there’s this strange underground movement to make the next James Bond black. If he’s black, great, if he’s not, great too. I don’t know why we HAVE to have a black James Bond though. Why can’t he be Native American? Point being, there’s always so much drama over this character. It’s bizarre. Spectre is written by John Logan, who burst onto the scene in 1999 with his spec script, Any Given Sunday. It’s been rewritten by longtime Bond collaborators Neal Purvis & Robert Wade. And when I say “longtime,” I mean “longtime.” These guys go all the way back to Tomorrow Never Dies, which I’m pretty sure starred Roger Moore. Spectre comes out in early Novemeber!
Writers: John Logan (revised by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade)
Details: October 17, 2014 – 129 pages – shooting script
I usually start a Bond review with my typical Bond spiel, about how I don’t quite get the franchise, about how I loved the opening sequences as a kid, about how I always got a kick out of the villains, but other than that, the movies always seemed like an excuse for set pieces, extravagant locations, and giant spectacle to me. And while I suppose you can make that argument for any Hollywood movie, the reason Bond bothers me so much is because it’s always had the potential to be so much more. And yet it seems content with being just enough.
It appears they’ve tried to repair this in the Daniel Craig years, yet I’m not sure they have. The character is more debonair. The mood is weightier. The cinematography is slicker. But the scripts still feel like a patchwork of transitions to get us from one extravagant locale to the next. I wish they would approach Bond from a “story-first” perspective so we could get something that we’d enjoy in multiple viewings, and not just on the buzz-heavy opening weekend. I’m not holding my breath, seeing as they’re going with the same old writers again. But a man can dream, can’t he?
Spectre starts out in Mexico during the “Day of the Dead,” which as you’ve likely seen in the promotional material is that thing where everybody dresses up like a spooky skeleton, including, in this case, James Bond himself.
Bond is going after some guy that “M” (killed in the last film) told Bond he must kill via a post-mortem video message. Even in death, M’s still giving orders. So after knocking down a few martinis, as well as a few buildings (no seriously, Bond knocks down a few buildings), Bond kills this guy, and subsequently learns about an elusive figure known as, “The Pale King.”
Back at home base, Bond’s agency, MI-6, is combining with agency, MI-5, and the new dual-agency director, “C,” wants to make MI-11 surveillance-postiive. He’s got cameras in every nook and cranny of the building. His mantra is, “What does anybody have to hide?” Uhh, it’s an agency of SPIES! So I’m thinking, a lot.
Bond doesn’t like C, C doesn’t like D, and EFGHILMNOP. Bond’s got his own alphabet to worry about anyway. He heads to Rome to find out more about this Pale King fellow, and runs into the Mexico Guy’s wife that he killed. He quickly beds her (no seriously, he uses the line, “I killed your husband,” and three minutes later they’re making out. I wish I was James Bond. Sigh.), and learns that the key to finding The Pale King is talking to Bond’s old nemesis, Mr. White. Mr. White. Pale King. No wonder they don’t want a black James Bond!
In classic Bond fashion, it starts to become unclear what’s going on after page 70. Bond, for whatever reason, ditches his pursuit of The Pale King and instead heads off to find Mr. White’s hot daughter, Madeline (hanging out in the beautiful snow-tipped alps of Austria, of course). Madeline, who has a really bad daddy complex, starts taking out (and making out) her frustrations on Bond.
The two go on a quest to find something Mr. White was hiding. I don’t know why everybody in this world feels the need to give Bond a mysterious adventure to go on instead of just, you know, TELLING HIM WHAT TO GET. So instead of saying, “Here’s what you need,” they say, “Locate L’American. It is there where you will find your answers.”
Uhhh, okay. But wouldn’t it just be easier if you told me the answer in the first place?
Meanwhile, back at MI-11, C has used his new surveillance technology to snoop on Bond’s rogue mission. He wants to stop him, but instead gets distracted by his current obsession, a super-agency that links up the 9 biggest agencies in the world. If these then join MI-11, we’d have MI-20. And that’s an equation I don’t even think Will Hunting could solve. How do you like them apples? There’s something about using this new cross-agency-surveillance to defeat terrorism, but as you might guess, it’s the agency itself that becomes the terrorist. Or maybe not. Or maybe.
Okay so now that we’ve established how I think all James Bond movies are the same, let’s talk about the one thing that makes them different. Because the truth is, the makers of this franchise know they’re giving you the same meal over and over again. So they need one fresh ingredient, one unique attribute that allows them to say, “Something here is not like the others.”
Any ideas on what that might be?
It’s theme. Each James Bond film comes with a new theme to explore. And the trick they use to find their theme is simple. It’s one you can use yourself for your own screenplays. Identify a current issue in the world. That’s right. The Bond writers find the most pressing issue we’re dealing with every three years and build their movie around that.
So what’s this movie’s theme? It’s surveillance. We are all being watched. Everyone. And we know we’re being watched. James Bond is trying to appeal to as big of an audience as possible, so they choose as big and current of a theme as possible.
Now you may be saying, “Hey, that doesn’t sound so hard. I can do that.” But before you head over to Final Draft, I want to teach you a lesson about integrating theme, and it’s a lesson I’ve learned only recently. Ready? Grand generalizations about whatever theme you’re pushing are worthless. If James Bond drives past a random protest where people are saying, “We don’t like being watched!” it doesn’t push the theme of surveillance in a way that affects the audience.
The only way a theme resonates is if you incorporate it into the plot in a way that directly affects the main character. Then, and only then, do we feel your theme. Spectre does this numerous times but the most obvious example is that MI-6 (Bond’s agency) is combining with MI-5, and the new combined agency director, “C,” incorporates surveillance into the fabric of the agency. Bond can barely walk anywhere in the agency, do anything, talk to anyone, without a camera staring at him. So he is being DIRECTLY AFFECTED by the theme. That’s how you pull theme off, folks.
As for the rest of the script, I can’t say I loved it. The Bond scripts always seem to have this dry rhythm to them that follows the same pattern. Bond is told of a person or thing, so he must go to another country to find said person or thing. He goes there and finds the person or thing, only to be told that he actually needs to find something else in another country. So he goes to this other country where he finds his “something else” only to be told that there is someone who can answer his questions in another country. So he goes to this other country to find this person…etc…etc.
There isn’t a whole lot of skill in that other than coming up with cool-sounding names for what Bond must find (The Pale King, Mr. White, L’American, Spectre). You may as well call these things “A, B, C, and D” though. That’s how basic this practice is. It’s this very transparency that keeps me from warming up to these films.
I suppose it can be argued that the typical audience member is too caught up in the fun locations and set pieces to notice or care about this. Joe Moviegoer has a much higher tolerance for artificiality than Jack Hollywood. I get that. But after seeing the awesome “Martian,” and watching how they mixed that story up and kept you guessing, it reminded me of what’s possible. This mechanically written script reminded me of what happens when you follow the most basic boring plotting practice available to screenwriters:
Hero finds A, is told he must find B
Hero finds B, is told he must find C
Hero finds C, is told he must find D
Hero finds D, is told he must find E.
I really struggle with why people love these films so much. They seem so boring and obvious to me. Is it the wish-fulfillment factor? That Bond is like a God and we all want to be like him? I can’t even get on board with that, as I find him kind of cheesy. In an industry where we have multiple action-franchises doing the global fox-trot (Fast and Furious, Mission Impossible, Bourne), are even the locales that much of a drawing point anymore? What separates this franchise? What makes it unique anymore? Help me out here!
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: There are two ways to introduce theme into your story – direct and indirect. Indirect would be something that occurs in the background and doesn’t affect your hero. So if my theme was about how one-percenters ruled the world and the rest of the 99 percent were fucked, an indirect treatment of that theme may be to show a line of random poor people around the block at the local unemployment office. This conveys my theme, but it does so indirectly, as I the audience member don’t know any of these people. A direct treatment of that same theme would be to have my main character be one of the people in line. You are now expressing your theme DIRECTLY through your main character, who we can see is poor and needs assistance. Put a premium on direct theme. That’s where it will resonate the most.
I know you guys were just DYING for another molly mish-mash mix of masochistic screenplay mayo. Well let me spoon some out for’ya, Martha. Open wide!!!
For those wondering about the short post today, it’s pretty simple. I’m tapped the F out. I’m a Rhonda Rousey opponent 12 seconds into the fight. I’ve got nothing left. My weekend became the classic, “Do all the work you didn’t get done during the week,” scenario. I had grand ambitions of reviewing the Spectre screenplay but instead double-o-sevened myself into a work coma (yeah, that’s a thing now).
I didn’t get a chance to see any movies over the weekend but I have watched a few digital flicks so maybe I’ll tell you about those. Let’s start with Knock-Knock. They should’ve KNOCKED this one to the 99 cent bin because that’s where it belongs.
Knock-Knock is about a married man home alone for the weekend who lets two lost young women in his house, and then shit gets crazy. As in, they fuck. And then he has to get rid of them before his wife and kids come back. The premise for this one is pretty good. You see the conflict right at the top of the logline.
But whereas I used to get excited about these movies, I’ve become hip to their achilles heel. You have three characters. You have one location. You have a conflict that occurs early. You still need to fill up 60 pages of script real estate. And nobody who writes these movies realizes that until they’ve already started. So they get to that page-30 “oh shit” point, realize they have nothing left to write, and then, basically, bullshit their way to the end, hoping nobody notices.
Oh, I notices!
You could see the writers scrambling for plot scenarios like rats scrambling for a fallen piece of New York pizza. The story doesn’t even take place in one continuous timeline. The girls actually leave the next day and then come back a day later. Is it Knock-Knock? Or is Knock-Knock-Knock-Knock? Make up your mind.
The lesson here is to make sure your idea has legs. If a premise only takes you to page 30 (or even 45) before you realize you don’t have anything left to say, you probably shouldn’t write that movie. And, oh yeah, this is another ringing endorsement for writing an outline. Had they written an outline here, they would’ve known they were fucked past page 45.
Next up we have Dope. And I’m sorry, but this movie sucked. I know it’s gotten good reviews but Dope is the epitome of the Sundance flick. It’s got some retro element that makes it “hip,” and the filmmaking is competent enough that it doesn’t embarrass itself. This, it appears, is all it takes to become a “breakout film” at Sundance.
I know there are a lot of first timers coming through Sundance, but I don’t know why we’re celebrating “just good enough to not be embarrassing” as the bar. Don’t even get me started on the lead actor. Had that guy ever acted before??
Let’s move to this week’s crop of box office films. Here’s the top 10:
1) Goosebumps – 23.5 mil (Jumanthura 3)
2) The Martian – 21.5 mil (I love potatoes)
3) Bridge of Spies – 15 mil (sad that Tom Hanks movies don’t open #1 anymore)
4) Crimson Peak – 12.8 mil (Del Torro overrated?)
5) Hotel Transylvania 2 – 12.2 mil (Adam Sandler needs to stay in the animated space where we don’t have to see his face)
6) Pan – 5.9 mil (studio now optimistic the film will only lose 140 million instead of 150)
7) The Intern – 5.4 mil (anybody else think Robert DeNiro looked confused in this?)
8) Sicario – 4.5 mil (neck and neck with Martian for best script of the top 10)
9) Woodlawn – 4.1 mil (I have no idea what this movie even is, which usually means it’s a Christian movie)
10) Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials – 2.7 mil (but, there’s no maze)
Here’s my take on this weekend’s crop of films. Goosebumps was lucky a real movie wasn’t debuting this weekend. It’s fine for family fare but man did this look safe. I love Jack Black but these days, when a studio wants to play it safe, he’s the actor they hire.
I love that The Martian is still going strong. Such a great movie on every level, from script to direction to acting to effects. This one is going to get some Oscar nominations – no easy task when you’re a sci-fi flick.
I have a very strong opinion about this but movies that have to do directly with the Cold War never do well. And it’s pretty easy to figure out why. Uh, because it’s not a real war! It’s a “cold war.” Which is code for “nobody’s warring.” People nostalgic about the 80s continue to try and make this a thing though, typically with the spy genre, and yet there’s something inherently unexciting about it all, as if nothing anybody does really matters since all the Cold War was was a bunch of people who were too big of wussies to actually get in a real war. Yeah, I said it! I said it! What are you gonna do!!??
And that brings us to Crimson Peak. This failure was the most fascinating for me for a couple of reasons. First, the marketing for this movie was absolutely horrrrrrrrible. Whoever’s decision it was to make billboards that were basically black backgrounds with blue and orange rorschach tests on them easily lost the film 5 million bucks, at least. That was even worse than a Josh Trank tweet. Not good.
But actually, there’s a bigger lesson here, and one that, as screenwriters, we all must hold near and dear every time we come up with an idea. Whenever you write outside of a clear genre, you run the risk of people not “getting it.” When I watched the trailers for Crimson Peak, I wasn’t sure what it was about. If it was a horror film, there wasn’t enough horror! The second an audience isn’t clear on what kind of movie you’re selling them, you’re dead. They’re not showing up. And Crimson Peak showed us on a grand scale just how damning that mistake can be. Universal’s first major misfire of the year!
Okay, time to wait another 10 hours for the new Star Wars trailer. Which reminds me of a joke. What do you get when you cross peanut butter with a Gungan? A peanut butter jar-jar. Heh heh. I actually made that up myself. Like, you can check the internet if you don’t believe me.
p.s. Question for the Scriptshadow faithful. Why do you think Pan failed? There’s something about it that always looked “off” to me, but I’ve never been able to articulate what it was. This was a family film based on one of the most popular and beloved childrens’ characters in history. Why didn’t anyone show up?
Halloween is fast approaching which means this week’s batch includes some spooooooky horror scripts. Oh, who are we kidding. We get four zombie scripts a week. Speaking of horror, has anyone seen Crimson Peak? Any good? Should I review that, Goosebumps or Bridge of Lies for Monday? Okay, I have no idea if any of this weekend’s scripts will be good. But I liked a lot of the “Why You Should Reads.” Everyone here seems serious about the craft. Vote for your favorite script in the comments section!
Title: Made in China
Genre: Dramedy
Logline: Two estranged sisters from New York travel to rural China to receive an inheritance from the father they never knew. Once there, they find themselves on a wild journey of self discovery as they race the clock to pass physical and psychological tests set forth in their father’s will that will earn them his mysterious legacy.
Why You Should Read: I’ve been an avid reader of SS since its inception, and in fact had two of my first [very shitty] scripts privately reviewed by Carson around the same time he moved to LA. The good news is I managed to get both those scripts to a point where they received 7s on the Blacklist and made finalist in a handful of competitions, the bad news is that the concepts were inherently flawed and would never move beyond this, or get me any read requests. — 4 years and 6 scripts later, I finally feel like the new scripts I’m currently tackling could be ‘the ones’. — Made in China is not one of those scripts. ;) But it is the only script I’ve ever pitched to prodcos and actually got read requests from (no callbacks). So, as ready as I am to throw this script in a draw and move on, I feel like I owe it one last chance to find out why the logline appeals (over 2:1 pitch-/request ratio) and where I’m failing to deliver what I promise in the premise. I’m hoping the generous SS community could tear this apart. I like brutal honesty, it’s the only way to grow. :) Thanks!
Writer: Billie Bates
Details: 95 pages
Title: Wet and Wild
Genre: Comedy
Logline: The lives of several young people intersect during the course of one blistering afternoon in July 1991 at a Wet ‘N Wild water park. (Stand by Me meets Dazed and Confused meets Hot Moves)
Why You Should Read: Hi. I’m Derek Williams. Amateur Friday alum. My script Goodbye Gene was reviewed a couple of years ago. Well…here I am again. — My goal with this script was to make an epic Summer movie. I love trashy teen sex comedies from the 80’s. USA UP All Night type of stuff. Yeah they’re bad films, but they have this undeniable spirit. 80’s filmmakers high on the cocaine making T&A flicks. Lol. I also love what Tarantino is doing lately. Playing with genre. — So I thought, “what the hell?” I’ll try and apply that 80’s teen sex genre feel to my next script. — I didn’t enter the Scriptshadow 250 because I was out of the country and off the grid all Summer. By the time I heard about it, the (extended) deadline was two days away. Nope. This script was only at 95% at that point. Had to miss it.
Title: Team Halloween
Genre: Adventure/Sci-Fi/Comedy
Logline: A group of Halloween-obsessed friends stumble across an otherworldly device and turn everyone in town into their Halloween costumes! They team up with a wacky scientist to fight through the chaos, get the device back, and make sure the world doesn’t turn into Halloween for real–forever!
Why You Should Read: Because it’s the perfect time of year for it! And because, in no uncertain terms, I wanted to create a go-to, all-ages Halloween ‘staple’ movie (the kind of movie that you have to watch whenever the season rolls around, like ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ is for Christmas, ‘Jaws’ is for the Fourth of July and ‘Groundhog Day’ is for Arbor Day), and I wanted to see what the world’s biggest group of smart script-readers think about it! Hardly anyone agrees on what movie they HAVE to watch every Halloween, and almost none of them are appropriate for parents to watch with their kids. I genuinely want a movie that groups of people will get together to watch for decades to come. I want parties dedicated to it. I want the title to become a verb. I want a movie that kids, teenagers, adults–literally everyone–will want to see because it’s funny, smart, thrilling, and touching. It’s a heartfelt return to the glory days of blockbuster movies that know how to have fun. It’s Back To The Future meets The Monster Squad (which was, of course, The Goonies meets Halloween); it’s big, it’s exciting, it’s all-ages (read: FOUR QUADRANT, baby) and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Plus the title is catchy as hell, isn’t it?
Title: Caina
Genre: Crime Drama (with a splash of comedy)
Logline: In order to escape a debt owed to Irish gangsters, a man disguises himself as his dead twin brother, only to suddenly find himself involved with the Italian mob and DEA.
Why You Should Read: Oh how I long to be a professional screenwriter. To be at a post-Oscars party with a martini in one hand and an actress in the other, slow dancing while the band plays “Midnight Serenade.” Yes, I’m delusional. Anyway, most people who have read this have told me they like it. It recently advanced to the 2nd round (15%) at Austin and I got very nice compliments on it from them. But I have exhausted all rewrites from my brain and compliments don’t help me any. So it’d be nice if you and the Scriptshadow community could tear me to shreds which will be more helpful. At worst, your readers will know what a 2nd round script looks like and compare theirs accordingly.
Title: LRKRZ
Genre: Horror/Slasher
Logline: Deep in the twisted and lawless labyrinth of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, a hip sociologist named Vega and her dirty gutterpunk friends are viciously hunted by the Lurkers, a pack of deranged, homicidal hobos — or maybe something even worse.
Why You Should Read: It’s always a lucky day when an idea picks you. Here, I had no desire to draft a horror screenplay, but frequent walks through San Francisco’s parks got me obsessed with what goes on there after dark. I mean, if the City streets are this sketchy during the day, then the nighttime park must be a fucking murder zone. And so the Lurkers were born, and now I’m half convinced they’re real. Definitely dirty business. — I’m more than a little over the current state of horror movies, so this is my effort to take it old school, with a focus on characters and a slow build. But for the shots of San Francisco it would cost little to make, so I hope I can convince an edgy director to take a chance. — Thanks again for all your hard work, Carson, it’s a real inspiration.
Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.
Genre: Horror-Thriller
Premise (from writer): A career con-man with a terminal illness gets a last chance at survival and redemption when the CIA tap him to help locate an old associate thought to be the source of a zombie pandemic.
Why You Should Read (from writer): As for me, I’m a Chicago-based amateur screenwriter focused on features and pilots and like everybody, looking for representation. I’m also looking to learn and improve as much as I can with each script. “Born to Die,” is a horror crime-thriller in the vein of “28 Days Later” meets “Zero Dark Thirty.” (i.e. Zero Dark Zombie) The zombie genre is well-trodden territory but what my story aims to do is focus on character, spine-tingling thrills, and thoughtful twists to create a unique take on why audiences find these films terrifying and compelling. It blends the horror and crime-thriller genre with the goal of creating an intelligent, thrilling, and terrifying script with a unique voice.
Writer: Kyle Piereth
Details: 98 pages
On a day when we find out we have Dyson Sphere building galactic neighbors, it’s hard to concentrate on screenwriting.
And no, I’m not being cheeky. People are more distracted than ever these days. They’re one Twitter link away from reading the next hot story, the next “liked” selfie. So what are you bringing to the table to make sure they stay focused on your script?
Surely, if you’ve chosen to answer that question with “A zombie flick,” you’ve come up with a mind-blowing twist on the genre, right? Or a premise so clever and ironic that people can’t ignore it?
You remember a few years back when that amazing Dead Island trailer went viral? Do you know why it went viral? Sure, the backwards gimmick was cool. But a big part of its success was the irony in the premise. The story took place in paradise. That the most disgusting vile creatures imaginable would invade the safest most beautiful place on earth is deliciously ironic. That trailer doesn’t play the same if it takes place in an industrial shipping yard.
Or World War Z. It offered us an angle into the zombie quandary that we hadn’t seen before. They turned the zombie genre into a globe-trotting action film, almost like if James Bond did a zombie movie.
I think that Born to Die WANTS to be different. And that was Kyle’s intention. But I’m not sure his take is as different as he thinks it is. What did you think?
Frank Nyland is weeks, maybe even days, away from dying of cancer. And what sucks is it’s going to happen in a prison cell. Poor Frank is a thief, a con-man, and they finally caught him with his hands in the cookie jar.
What’s interesting is what turned up in that cookie jar. I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t cookies. Apparently, Frank was brokering a hundred million dollar deal with the biggest doctor on the planet, an underground legend named Henrik Salonen, who is the only man capable of performing the surgery that can save Frank’s life.
But Frank had to get some blood on his hands to make this happen, and that’s how the CIA caught him. Speaking of the CIA, a spunky young CIA case officer named Taylor Pike comes to Frank’s cell to get the 4-1-1 on his failed operation, in part because the CIA is after Salonen as well, albeit for different reasons entirely.
Salonen has just released a contagion into a bunch of cities and it’s turning everyone into freaking zombies! And, oh yeah, as fate would have it, the contagion has reached Frank’s prison, turning guards and inmates alike into arm-waving zombified psychopaths. As if normal zombies weren’t bad enough. Now we have to deal with the psychopath version!
Taylor and Frank are able to escape, only for Taylor to realize she’s been bitten. It now becomes a race to find the elusive Salonen so he can save both of them before time runs out. But when they do reach Salonen, they realize he works for a man who’s much worse than he is, a man that has terrifying plans for the world.
First off, I want to give props to Kyle for some of the most enjoyable character names I’ve read all year. Henrik Salonen. Corsan Pious. Emil Gorya. If screenplays had budgets, 75% of Kyle’s budget would’ve gone to his character names.
I wish I could say I was as excited about the story. There’s clearly SOMETHING here. However, it’s one of those scripts that reads like it’s driving through a haze. I sort of knew what was going on. But I also had a bunch of questions while I was reading. And I couldn’t tell if these questions were by design, or if they existed due to sloppy writing.
For example, I watched inmates get bitten and turn into zombies within three seconds. Yet a key storyline is Taylor getting bitten and us spending the next 48 hours trying to get to Salonen so he could save her. How is it other people turn in three seconds but she turns in two days?
I hate when writers fudge the rules, especially in the zombie genre, where the rules have been clearly established over time. It’s fine if you want to change things up, like they do in, say, 28 Days Later, but you have to make those changes CLEAR. If you try to slip one by us and hope we don’t notice, we’re going to get pissed. And the issue with this violation is that it didn’t just affect one scene. It affected the ENTIRE MOVIE. It didn’t matter if it was page 30 or page 80, I was still asking, “Wait, why hasn’t she turned into a zombie yet?”
Then there was Frank’s criminal background. Not only was I reluctant to accept that a con-man was the best choice for a zombie film protagonist (where’s the irony? The cleverness? It seemed so random, like the profession was picked out of a hat), but I also had trouble understanding what led to Frank being arrested.
In my best estimation, he’d stolen from/conned some people out of 100 million dollars and was in the process of brokering a deal (through intermediaries?) to use that 100 million to have this amazing doctor, Henrik Salonen, save his life. That deal went south after he decided to kill one of his own (a character confusingly named “Wednesday”), possibly because that contact was screwing him over.
But how or why this led Henrik to release a zombie virus onto the world is beyond me. Was that a coincidence? Was it bad timing that Frank was trying to get his terminal cancer fixed on the day his doctor decided to release the very first zombie virus onto the planet? Or were these things connected somehow? The fact that I could never determine that was frustrating.
I’m going to go back to something I talked about in my review of The Martian. You want to use CLEAN LINES when you’re plotting your story. Matt Damon needed to survive until he could be rescued. I understood that. It was CLEAN. Here, Frank is trying to reach Henrik Salonen so he’ll save him, which was a clean line. But then the questions came. How is this man, a reclusive weirdo, the only one who can cure his cancer? And why is he trying to destroy the world? And who’s Wednesday? And who are these mercenaries? And whose boat are we trying to steal? It seemed like with every scene, the answers to these questions became less clear, not more.
I can’t enjoy a story if I’m only clear on what’s going on 60-70% of the time. That other 30% is the haze I was referring to earlier. I SORT OF understood what was happening, but not enough to appreciate the nuanced mystery Kyle had promised in his WYSR.
All of these things are why the script didn’t work for me. We weren’t approaching the zombie genre from a fresh enough angle. We were placed in zombie locations that were far too familiar (a prison). The main character’s profession felt too random. And the plot lines got murkier as the script went on.
If Kyle wants to write a zombie film, especially in this ultra-competitive, everyone-and-their-sister-has-a-zombie-script market, he needs to come up with something truly different and then go from there. And be clearer about plot points. I understand that there are some mystery components to the story, but the irony is, the mysteries need to be clear. If I don’t know why we need to kill Wednesday, then I can’t participate in the suspense and excitement involved when Frank tries to kill him. Ditto the mercenaries. Ditto half-a-dozen things that had to do with Salonen.
Screenplay link: Born to Die
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Plot point clarity. Your plot points are the “clarity checkpoints” of your screenplay – they are the plot developments that scream out at your audience: “THIS IS WHAT’S HAPPENING!” Remember when Luke, Obi-Wan, and Han showed up to Alderran only to find it blown to pieces and a giant space station in its place? The three of them speak very clearly on what they believe has happened. It’s a “CLEAN LINE” plot point. If the writer isn’t able to convey his plot points in a clear manner, the reader will start to enter a haze. And while one mistake still allows us to see through the haze, two or three could turn that haze into a fog. And that’s when the reader stops caring about your story. The stuff with Wednesday (give him another name!) and the mercenaries and the reasons behind the terrorist attacks weren’t laid out clearly enough for me, which is ultimately why I tuned out.
I stumbled onto a similar article for actors and thought the subject matter would be perfect to port over to screenwriting. I see a lot of writers come into this craft with misguided expectations and beliefs. Today I’m dishing out 10 observations I’ve witnessed over the years that dispel the myths. Some of it will be hard to hear. But all of it will help. Let us begin!
5 KEYS TO SCREENWRITING SUCCESS
TIP 1 – BE IN IT FOR THE LONG RUN
This is one of the most overly ignored pieces of advice out there. I can’t tell you how many aspiring writers come to Hollywood, write 4-5 scripts, and when those scripts don’t rock the town, go home claiming they gave it their all. You’re talking about mastering one of the most difficult professional skills in the world: WRITING MOVIES. If you realistically want to make it in this business, you have to give it 7 years. And you have to give it an OBSESSIVE 7 years (every day you either write, read, or study). I don’t know any Top 1000 doctor in the world who hasn’t had at least 7 years of education. So why would you assume it’d be any easier for screenwriters? Because it’s writing? I’ll tell you this. Show me a doctor who can fix a wandering second act and I’ll get you (and him) a 3-picture deal at Paramount. This shit is hard. Embrace the long-term approach and your chances for success will rise dramatically.
STEP 2 – ONLY WRITE SCRIPTS THAT CONTAIN SPECTACLE, A CLEVER IDEA, HEAVY CONFLICT, IRONY, OR BIG CHARACTERS
In my experience, these are the only scripts that make enough noise to get noticed in the overly saturated spec market. So spectacle: Jurassic Park. A clever idea: Three groomsman wake up the day after their bachelor party with no memory of what happened and no idea where the groom is. They must find him and get him to his wedding within 48 hours. Heavy Conflict: Taken – A man’s daughter is taken by criminals and will likely disappear forever within 72 hours if he doesn’t rescue her. Irony: A king with a crippling stutter must give a perfect speech to save the world. Big Characters: The recent spec, The Virginian, about George Washington. As for what scripts you don’t want to write – well, anything that’s the opposite of these five. A good reference point is anything that could be considered “writer-director” material. For example, a Woody Allen film. Or There Will Be Blood. Or Garden State. Or Lost in Translation. Or The Royal Tenebaums. These types of scripts die a horrible death when they’re not coupled with geniuses to direct them. You need a script that works on the page, not an esoteric tone-poem that only works when a magnificent director can interpret it for the screen.
STEP 3 – CRAVE FEEDBACK, NO MATTER HOW CRITICAL IT MAY BE
There are two kinds of screenwriters. The kind who avoid critical feedback, allowing them to live in the Matrix and never have to accept the truth, and the ones who crave feedback, allowing them to pinpoint their weaknesses and work towards improving them. Feedback-cravers improve 10x, 20x, even 100x faster than feedback deniers because they’re actually learning what they’re doing wrong. I get it. Screenwriting is an isolating fear-inducing craft that can have you go a year at a time without hearing one positive response to something you’ve written. And under those circumstances, a critical reaction has the potential to send you spiraling into depression. But here’s the twist. Negative feedback is actually a positive thing. There’s nothing that helps you get better faster than feedback. The sooner you shift into that mindset, the sooner your writing will thrive. Any feedback you can get is great, but the more knowledgeable (people who understand screenwriting) the feedback is, the faster you’ll improve.
STEP 4 – LEARN CHARACTER
You must know how to plot, how to structure a story. But if you really want to make it as a screenwriter, learn character. Learn how to make a character likable. Learn how to make a character interesting. Learn how to make a character “big” (like we were talking about yesterday). Learn how to arc a character. Learn how to create unresolved backstories for characters. Learn how to create unresolved relationships between characters. Read bad scripts and learn how to “fix” characters that aren’t working (like yesterday – if a producer said to you, “Kyle is boring. We want to make him pop more.” Know how to do that). Because the truth is, anybody can learn how to plot a script with enough practice. So the pool of competition in that arena is endless. But the number of writers who understand (and I mean TRULY understand) character is far fewer. So if you can master that skill, you will be in very high demand in this town.
STEP 5 – TAKE CHANCES
There’s an old saying in photography. “You should never know how tall a photographer is.” The idea being: Bad photographers always take their pictures from eye level (allowing you to know exactly how tall they are). Good photographers will get down on their knees, or on their stomach, or climb up to the tallest building in town, all to get the most dramatic shot possible. Keep this in mind as a writer. If you’re going to stand out, you’re going to need to take chances. You’ll have to explore different types of storytelling techniques, different types of characters, come at your stories from different angles. I realize that my advice here can seem contradictory at times. I tell you what you can and can’t do with damning certainty. And while most of the time, I’m right, nothing memorable ever gets written without the writer taking risks. The Graduate isn’t a hit if Mike Nichols follows the rule that your main character must be active. Pulp Fiction isn’t a phenomenon if Quentin Tarantino followed the studio mantra of centering your story around a single hero. American Sniper doesn’t become a monster hit if Jason Hall followed the wisdom that contemporary war movies don’t make money. You MUST take a risk (or two, or three) in every screenplay you write if you want them to stand out. Your risks will define you.
FIVE FATEFUL STEPS THAT ENSURE SCREENWRITING FAILURE ☹
MISTAKE 1 – YOU ONLY WRITE ONE SCRIPT
It’s probably the saddest situation I see. The writer who’s pushing that same first screenplay every time you talk to him. While it’s not impossible to break in with your first script (I’ve seen it happen three times – however in two of those instances, the screenwriters had come from other writing backgrounds and therefore knew how to tell a good story), it’s extremely unlikely for a number of reasons. First scripts are usually autobiographical and therefore unsalable (I’m sorry but your life isn’t that interesting). The writer doesn’t know the craft well yet, leaving the majority of the script sloppy. Because of the lack of objectivity due to you going through your script 5000 times, rewrites tend to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic rather than remove any icebergs. It’s often a black hole of “Not-getting-better-itis.” If you’re still hanging onto that first script, you’re hanging onto endless failure. Abort. Abort.
MISTAKE 2 – YOU BELIEVE THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED
Producers don’t only hire their cousins to direct movies. Directors don’t only audition their wife’s inner circle for the female lead. Actors don’t only work with their best friends. Your chances of making it in Hollywood are still high if you’re not Jewish. Or gay. Some writers want to convince themselves that this entire industry operates on nepotism. These defeatists can pull up 50 articles highlighting people who only made it because they knew Steven Spielberg’s nanny. Look, those stories are out there if you want to find them. But so are the articles about people who came from nowhere, who knew nobody. Here’s a story for you. You know who Larry Miller is? He’s an actor. Larry Miller was Jerry Seinfeld’s best friend when Jerry was casting his show. Everyone was sure, then, that he’d be getting the role of George. The audition was merely a formality. But you know who got the role instead? Jason Alexander. A guy Jerry didn’t know. Making it in this business is hard enough. Don’t let your mind get in the way. If you believe that only extended family get writing jobs, then that will become your reality. But if you actually want to make it, focus on the truth. That hard work and dedication to the craft can lead to a career in screenwriting. Because it can. I see it happen all the time.
MISTAKE 3 – YOU BELIEVE YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT BETTER
A lot of people who get into screenwriting believe the system is broken. So their initial entries into the craft aren’t so much about writing good stories as proving to the industry that they know better. I dread the “I know better” screenwriter more than any other screenwriter out there because I know his script will be inspired by a genius whose work is impossible to replicate (i.e. Tarantino), I know it will be at least 150 pages, and I know that despite it being written for the sole purpose of defying the Hollywood system, it will actually be the most cliche-laden script I read that month. Most writers grow out of this phase when they realize how vehemently Hollywood rejects these scripts. But others never do, continuing to use every one of their screenplays to make a 160 page point. If you’re going to be a screenwriter, write, read, and study screenwriting as much as possible. Learn to respect the craft as well as the business side of things. That way, when you do take risks, you’re doing so from a place of knowledge and strategy, and not to say “fuck you” to the very system you’re trying to break into.
MISTAKE 4 – YOU NEVER REWRITE
There are two types of screenwriters who don’t rewrite. The fresh-out-the-womb newbie who just got into the craft. They don’t rewrite because nobody’s told them to. Then there’s the screenwriter who’s so arrogant, he believes his stuff too good to be rewritten. I’m going to tell you something right now. No script you’ve written less than three drafts of is going to be any good. There’s too much your script is missing out on if you don’t rewrite it. Setups and payoffs. Clear characters. Clean plotting. Good Will Hunting was rewritten 100 times. That’s why it won the Oscar. Cause they rewrote all the shit out of the screenplay. For even the talented screenwriters out there, I wouldn’t write any less than six drafts and would aim for ten to be safe. It’s hard to get a script in any kind of readable shape before that, much less in “rocks the reader’s life” form.
MISTAKE 5 – YOU DON’T PUT YOUR STUFF OUT THERE
I was watching this comedian documentary a couple of months ago called Misery Loves Comedy. As I’m watching it, a bunch of professional comedians are being interviewed. Some who I loved, some who I liked, and some who I thought were embarrassingly unfunny. Like their jokes were cringe-worthy. And yet these were people who were making money at this profession. They’d actually made a career out of this. That got me thinking. How did these people who clearly lacked talent in their chosen field make it so far? The thing I realized – the sole difference between them and the much funnier 9-to-5er sitting at home on his couch? Was that they went out there and did it. Instead of hiding behind snarky internet comments or waiting for the next Christopher Nolan trailer to come out so they could bitch about it on Twitter, they wrote jokes, practiced them, found open-mic nights and stood in front of hundreds of audiences and practiced their sets. When a joke hit, they pocketed it and tried to land a second joke. And when they got that laugh, they went for a third. Until they eventually carved out a routine that didn’t embarrass them. Again, the only reason this marginal comedian makes money at his profession over the way funnier 9-to-5er is that he PUT HIMSELF OUT THERE. There’ve been hundreds of thousands of screenwriters who have come through this town and never made it simply because they didn’t put their work out there to be judged, to be read. People. You can’t hit a home run if you don’t swing the bat. The first step towards success is to stop complaining about shit, go write something, and put it out there for the world to judge.
