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.
Two writers break out of their pigeon-holed careers to give us a prestige flick.
Genre: Drama-thriller
Premise: A Jim Kramer-like TV personality is held up on live television by a man who lost his life savings investing in one of the show’s stock tips.
About: This one stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts and will be directed by the underrated Jodie Foster, who unfortunately got screwed over in her last directing effort, The Beaver (with the whole Mel Gibson meltdown and all). The writing brain-trust behind this one is interesting in that they’re not the typical guys who land high-caliber talent. Jim Kouf hit it big with Rush Hour, but would later hit rock bottom with the Jimmy Fallon/Queen Latifah comedy, Taxi. Alan DiFiore is known mostly for TV movies, although he’s found some recent success with the TV show, Grimm. Sony looks to have been as nervous as I was going into this, so they brought in hot writer Jamie Linden, who wrote one of my favorite scripts, Dogs of Babel, to hammer out a production-ready draft.
Writers: Alan DiFiore & Jim Kouf (most recent draft by Jamie Linden)
Details: 120 pages – July 15th, 2014 draft
Check it out. Yet ANOTHER original property. We’ve reviewing more and more of these these days. I don’t know about you, but that tickles me in places I’m not supposed to talk about.
What’s great about today’s script is that it proves writers can change the industry’s perception of them. A writer’s IMDB page can be like Jacob Marley’s ball and chain, a visual rolodex of all the failures he’s had. If someone doesn’t know you and sees the “Taxi” link on that chain, you’re probably not pitching them American Sniper. The blessing of making it in this business can also be a curse.
However, we’ve learned with today’s script, and the recently reviewed “Elvis and Nixon,” that there’s a secret formula to getting out of “Hack Time Out.” Know what it is? Anybody want to guess?
WRITE A BIG CHARACTER.
For Kevin Spacey, he got to play one of the biggest caricatures of all time – Richard Nixon. Clooney gets to play JIM KRAMER, one of the wildest TV personalities on air. Actors can’t resist big characters because they allow them to have fun AND show their acting chops to boot.
So if you’re stuck in a rut or feel like you’re being pigeonholed, I’ve given you your flashlight to freedom. Write a big fun character that an actor would want to play.
After getting our obligatory George Clooney opening voice over, we meet his character, Lee Gates, the “Money Monster.” Lee Gates has a popular over-the-top stock-tip show where his sole job is to hyperbolize about MONEY. There is no such thing as a “good” or a “bad” stock. It must be “A stock I would make love to every second of every day for the rest of my life if I could,” or “the single most toxic stock in America.” Lee looooovvvves the entertainment side of his job.
The money advice side? Ehh. Not so much.
And that’s what gets him in trouble.
During the daily taping of his show, while Lee prattles on about some stock tip in India, a guy named Kyle sneaks onto the live set and puts a gun to Lee’s head. He explains that last week, Lee trumpeted a stock called “Eden Capital.” Told everyone to throw their entire life savings into it. And that’s exactly what Kyle did.
Problem is, Eden Capital tanked yesterday. Lost 400 million dollars. The company’s excuse? It was a “glitch” in their trading algorithm. But see, simple-minded Kyle doesn’t understand that explanation. He wants something that these billion dollar companies never seem to give out: THE TRUTH.
As it so happens, Lee was scheduled to interview the CEO of Eden this morning to get an explanation about what happened. But the company’s globe-trotting CEO can’t be found. Speaking for him in his stead is the buttoned up Diane Lester, the head of PR for Eden. But that isn’t enough for Kyle. He wants answers. And he’s only going to accept them from the company’s founder. So what happens if the founder doesn’t show up? Lee’s going to get a stock-tipped bullet to the skull.
It took me awhile to figure out what kind of movie this was. In the end, I settled on a cross between Network, Dog Day Afternoon, Man on a Ledge, and Tower Heist. Yes, I can hear what you’re thinking. You hope it’s a lot more like the first two than the last two. And it is. Just maybe not as much as you’d like it to be.
But there are some nice things to celebrate here, starting with how cozily the concept fits into the spec-script mold. It’s a contained setup: man gets held up live on the air. That keeps the majority of the script focused on one event, in one location, with a contained time frame. Those are elements that screenplays love.
What do I mean by that? When you build a storyline that has clear boundaries, both geographically and time-wise, it’s like coloring. You’ve given yourself the lines already, now all you have to do is color them in.
When you don’t set up clear boundaries, you’re coloring on a giant canvas with no lines at all. Now this can be a good thing. You might come up with the next Being John Malkovich. But more often than not, your script turns into a sprawling mess.
How do you color an object that isn’t there? How do you know which objects to introduce in the first place? A perfect example of this was Jupiter Ascending. That movie had some beautiful colors. But we never saw what they added up to because they were all the hell over the place.
So how does Money Monster separate itself from the aforementioned movies? Well, unlike Dog Day Afternoon, which focused on two sides – the cops and the robbers – Money Monster adds a third element – a mystery. This B-story, which is Diane’s story, takes us outside the studio to hunt down why this supposed “algorithm glitch” occurred.
This infused the script with an added layer of suspense. This is a tool available to all of you in every screenplay you write. You can always add a mystery. Money Monster could’ve easily kept everything in-studio and focused on Lee and Kyle. And maybe we would’ve gotten a good script out of that. I don’t know. But there was something intriguing about this mysterious “glitch,” to the point where it became the main reason I was turning the pages.
My only problem with the script was that I thought they could’ve done more in the studio. I thought Lee Gates was going to be a lot crazier. Maybe I’d been pre-conditioned by the “Attica!” and “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” bombs dropped by Lee’s predecessors, and that expectation got in the way. Still, the Gates character seemed to be playing on an acoustic guitar when he should’ve been thrashing an electric.
And Kyle, the man who takes Lee hostage, was really boring. He didn’t have anything going on. And maybe that’s why Lee didn’t shine as brightly as he could’ve. He didn’t have anything to work against. Whatever the case, because these two were the focus of the script, and they didn’t bring the house down with their battle, the script never reached the heights it aspired to.
Despite this criticism, there’s plenty to celebrate here. I like Linden a lot and have a feeling he probably addressed some of these issues in further rewrites. Obviously, a lot will depend on Clooney’s performance. Does he elevate what’s on the page? If so, who knows? This could be a sleeper hit.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If one of your characters is coming off as too plain or too reserved, it may not be the character himself that’s the problem. It may be the character playing opposite him for the majority of the movie. If that character is reserved or boring or uninteresting, he may not be giving your main character enough to work with. One of the reasons the dialogue between Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction is so good is because BOTH characters are interesting and vibrant and pushing each other. Neither is some boring lug. Kyle here was a boring lug. And that indirectly hurt the character of Lee.
Today I get a momentary respite from the Scriptshadow 250 to review a real-live spec sale. How does a 500 thousand dollar script hold up against your contest entries?
Genre: Fantasy
Premise: A cancer-stricken teenager gains cartoon powers when he finds a magical doorway that leads to a cartoon universe inside his missing father’s old office.
About: This script just sold a couple of weeks ago to Warner Brothers for half a million bucks! The writer, Mike Van Waes, used to be an assistant at the Jim Henson Co. and, not surprisingly, has his own web comic (called Vexed Wisecracker – write what you know!). The script sold without an attachment. Nice!
Writer: Mike Van Waes
Details: 118 pages – July 2015 draft
It’s happening quietly. But it is happening.
Specs are selling, my friend.
A sci-fi spec called Ascension just sold yesterday and Matthew Vaughn(!) is going to direct it. Matthew Vaughn tends to direct IP property that he finds himself. So him attaching himself to an original spec is a big deal. With the recent sale of The Virginian, and now Hammerspace, the spec market has quietly come alive.
I want to ask why but I also don’t want to ask why. This is one of those waves you just ride.
Mason Mulligan is 16 years old and doesn’t have a lot of time to live. He’s been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, and sometimes simply getting out of the house is difficult for him. Not that Mason is feeling sorry for himself. He hates that his mom babies him. And that his younger brother, Wyatt, has been tasked by said mom to follow him around and make sure he’s okay.
One day, in a fit of rebellious angst, Mason heads over to the decrepit roller rink his father used to use as an office. Mason’s father, Henry, is the creator of Hammerspace, a popular “Spongebob Squarepants” like character who a comic book company bought off him early and turned into a smash hit on every platform imaginable. Unfortunately, because of a bad deal, Henry never saw any of that money. That might have contributed to Henry disappearing. That’s right, nobody’s seen Mason’s father in two years.
Anyway, while reminiscing at the old rink, Mason finds a magical key that allows him to open up a magical locker that takes him into a Narnia-esque animated universe where he meets Punchy, the 3 foot-tall squattish overly-happy main character his father created. Punchy is so excited to meet another human being besides Henry that he follows an annoyed Mason back into the real world.
Meanwhile, Mason starts to gain animated powers, like the ability to walk on air, get slammed by a frying pan with no repercussions, and defy human physics. As fun as that is, Mason learns through Punchy that his father might still be alive in the animated universe, which means he must find and confront him about why he left the family.
As most of you know, I’m reading through 250 amateur screenplays for the Scriptshadow 250 contest. It’s nice to mix in a professional script that just sold, as I can ask myself, What is it that this guy’s doing that the contest entrants aren’t doing? Why did his script sell?
Well, for starters, you gotta be professional. I know that’s a vague term so let me elaborate. I was reading a contest script yesterday. I was five pages in and I liked what I’d read so far. Then I saw a misspelled word. It was a minor mistake, but it was a mistake nonetheless. To the outside observer, this might seem like an overreaction. Who cares, right! But to someone who’s read thousands of amateur screenplays, this was a red flag. I’d seen it so many times. A red flag in the first five pages ALWAYS leads to more red flags.
Sure enough, on the very next page, the paragraphs started to get longer. They went from 3-4 lines to 5-6 lines. A writer who isn’t putting in the effort to keep his paragraphs short and to the point? Who’d rather be sloppy and redundant, making the read more of a chore? Red flag.
In the coming pages, more spelling mistakes. And now misused words were showing up. And the dialogue, which was crackling before, was becoming sloppy, as if the writer was no longer proofreading what he read. He was just flying by the seat of his pants and refusing to do any rewrites.
Naturally, the story continued to get sloppier, to the point where I didn’t even know what was going on. And it was only page 25. That’s why when I see that early red flag, I always cringe. It’s like seeing an ant in your apartment. THERE’S NEVER JUST ONE ANT. There are more lurking. It’s only a matter of time before you find them.
Hammerspace was tight and professional. No red flags. You could tell this script had been combed over, outlined, rewritten, double-checked, triple-checked, quadruple-checked. Doesn’t matter if you hated the script. You could tell that the writer made a professional effort. And while I shouldn’t be praising a script for that (professionalism should be a given), I see it so rarely on the amateur level, that I do appreciate it whenever I encounter it.
Now, what about the story? That I’m less sure of. Hammerspace takes a familiar concept and explores it through a new medium. We’ve seen the normal guy who gets super powers, of course. Hammerspace asks, “What would happen if you got cartoon powers?” My question is: Is that a compelling question?
Because while I liked the idea of a kid whose cartoonist father disappears and he goes looking for him only to end up in the cartoon space he created, this is less about that storyline than it is about Mason being able to walk on air and survive zany moments like being hit with a frying pan. The gimmick gets old quickly and never really gets used in an interesting way.
I actually thought Hammerspace was going to be darker. It starts off with this terminally ill kid dealing with the end of his life and his father who went missing two year ago. But as the script went on and it focused more on the aforementioned powers and the silly character of Punchy, it felt more like the cousin of the Goosebumps movie opening this weekend.
And that may be exactly why franchise-starved Warner Brothers bought it. But I guess with the script teasing something darker, I felt let down.
I also don’t think the script had a strong enough narrative engine. Once Punchy E.T.’s himself into Mason’s life, it isn’t clear where the script wants to go. The dad stuff is still always looming, but never quite thrust into the spotlight, leaving for a lot of characters wandering around and getting into random hijinx (here comes the bully!).
Contrast this with the similarly-conceived Ready Player One, about a kid going on a quest inside a popular video game universe, where the goal is clear. Solve the riddles that the creator placed in his game. If you solve them all, you get the creator’s entire trillion dollar fortune, as well as the game itself. Talk about clarity and high stakes. We never had that here. Or, to put it in Scriptshadow terms, the GSU was muddled at best.
I don’t want to sound like a bummer. I’m just not sure where they’re going with this. They could either Charlie Kaufman this motherfucker or turn it into the next Zathura. Right now it’s riding somewhere in between, and that’s probably why I didn’t respond to it as much as I wanted to.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Sophistication of Presentation. Sophistication of Presentation is the minimum level of skill you’re required to display on the page in order for the reader to judge you solely on your story (and not on your writing ability). Sophistication of Presentation isn’t just about avoiding spelling and grammar mistakes (although that’s part of it). It’s about having a strong understanding of sentence structure, of vocabulary, of how people speak to one another. Here’s an early line of dialogue from an uptight female friend of Mason’s in Hammerspace: “But maturity is more a state of mind. Don’t you think? Like, a search for greater meaning. Intellectual curiosity. Finding the poetry within what others find trivial.” This is a writer who clearly paid attention in their English and writing classes, someone who passes the “Sophistication of Presentation” bar. What I usually encounter is something more like this: “You’re not a mature person, Joe. You should stop being an a-hole and learn more to be a person of intelligence.” Do you see what I mean? There’s a lack of sophistication to that sentence. When I see that lack of sophistication displayed throughout the script, it’s a quick sign that the writer isn’t ready for the big leagues yet.
How could I have been so wrong about a screenplay?
Genre: Biopic
Premise: We follow Apple co-founder Steve Jobs through three of the most important presentations of his life.
About: This film’s history is almost as storied as Steve Jobs himself. The infamous Sony hack revealed that David Fincher never really connected to the script. When he declined, so did leading Steve Jobs candidate Christian Bale. Sony head Amy Pascal didn’t really like the script either, waffling every time she was encouraged by producer Scott Rudin to put it into production. Eventually, the project had to move to Universal, where B-team Danny Boyle and Michael Fassbender came to the rescue (give me that B-team any day of the week!). But would it be enough to make the film a must-see? It’s looking promising. The film opened in only four theaters this weekend, but grossed a staggering 500k per screen. For comparison, American Sniper, released via the same strategy, grossed 600k per screen.
Writer: Aaron Sorkin
Details: 2 hours and 2 minutes long (off of a 177 page screenplay)
I gave the Steve Jobs screenplay a “wasn’t for me.”
Can I have a redo?
Hello. (Again).
Steve Jobs: The Film, knocked me on my ass, held me down, and tickle-tortured me until I couldn’t breathe anymore. And yet I couldn’t shake that “love-hate” relationship a proper tickle-torture leaves you with.
This movie works. And it shouldn’t have. It’s too different. Too repetitive. Led by too big of an asshole.
But somehow, “Steve Jobs” avoids the spinning pinwheel of death and replaces it with a Spotlight engine that always finds the exact PDF script you’re looking for. And that’s thanks to two people. Danny Boyle and Michael Fassbender.
I’m always the first to say that no director or actor can overcome a bad script. But every once in awhile, this proclamation bites me in the ass. If you find a chunk of ass on Sunset Boulevard, please return it to me.
“Steve Jobs” follows Apple co-founder, Jobs, through three of the most important Apple announcements in history – when Jobs announces the original Mac, when he announces the NEXT system, and when he announces the original iMac. Each mini-story centers on the half-an-hour leading up to his presentation, leaving Jobs to spar with all his nemeses in the meantime. These include: his boss John Sculley, his programmer, Steve Wozniak, his marketing director, Joanna, his other head programmer, Andy Hertzfeld, and his daughter, Lisa.
If you remember, my problem with the script was two-fold. First, the 3-act structure was too repetitive, with every act taking place right before a big presentation.
This got tiring when it was just words on a page (in a 177 page tome, mind you), but Danny Boyle did an EXCELLENT job translating those pages to images. He constantly moved us through the buildings so that most conversations took place in new environments. And most of the time, he’d make sure those environments added something extra to the scene.
For example, in the script, it felt like every Jobs-Wozniak conversation was the same. But in, for example, Jobs and Wozniak’s third act confrontation, Boyle has the two barking at each other in the auditorium with Jobs on stage and Wozniak 20 seats deep. By forcing the two to hash things out in front of numerous Apple employees, it gave the conversation an energy you just couldn’t feel on the page.
The second problem with the script was our unlikable main character, Steve Jobs himself. The man was a total prick on the page. But Michael Fassbender gave the character life. And you know what? He didn’t exaggerate Steve’s positive traits in some desperate bid to make him likable. He played him like a real guy who understood his flaws and did his best to manage them.
His scenes with Joanna (Kate Winslet) were particularly persuasive for a couple of reasons. First, he respected her. And second, he had a LOT of scenes with her. So a lot of the movie is Steve talking to a woman that he respects the hell out of. This evened things out when Steve belittled other characters. We knew there was a good side to this man. He merely had a hard time finding him.
Also, he was so sweet to his daughter. In the script, it felt like he was merely tolerant of her. But here, he clearly connected with and loved this girl. That one-two punch (his connection with Joanna and also with his daughter) made me see that Steve Jobs could be good, and even wanted to be good.
Now let’s get to what the script did REALLY right. When you read an Aaron Sorkin script, the first thing you want to talk about is DIALOGUE. It’s what he’s known for. It’s what he does best. So you’re always seeing what you can learn from the master. I learned a lot.
First, almost every single conversation was laced with a ton of conflict. Jobs battling with Lisa’s mom over whether she deserves his money. Jobs battling with John Sculley about the reason he was fired from Apple. Jobs battling Andy Hertzfeld about making sure the Mac said “Hello” during the inagural presentation. Jobs battling with Joanna about whether he should pay for his daughter’s Harvard tuition. Jobs battling with Woz over acknowledging Woz’s Apple II team.
Remember, heavy conflict dialogue is some of the easiest dialogue to write because it’s clear what needs to happen in the scene (each character must try and “win” the argument). When your dialogue is conflict-less — when there’s nothing to “win” – that’s when you’ll find characters struggling to say interesting or meaningful things.
I’d say 75% of the scenes here involved heavy-conflict. That’s not by accident. Sorkin knows that’s where dialogue thrives.
Sorkin is also known for his obsession with the walk-and-talk. He uses it so frequently that it’s become a walking joke. And we see a lot of it here, where Jobs is moving throughout the buildings, taking on character battles every time he’s on the move.
Well, the walk and talk is not just a way to keep the scene moving. It’s also great for dialogue. When you have characters walking, you create a journey, and a journey isn’t over until the characters reach their destination. Until that happens, you have your audience on a line, which means you have their attention. Simply put, your audience is more focused on dialogue when your characters are moving since their attention will be heightened until the destination is reached.
That’s not to say you can’t make a conversation interesting when characters stand in one place. There’s plenty of that going on here as well. But the next time you watch a film, all else being equal, keep tabs on how attentive you are when characters are walking and talking as opposed to when they’re stationary. You’ll find that you’re a little more tuned in when they’re on the move.
It’s similar to putting time-constraints on dialogue, which, not surprisingly, Sorkin does as well. This whole movie is a time constraint. There isn’t a single conversation that takes place where Jobs isn’t in a hurry – where his presentation isn’t a few minutes away. And Sorkin always saves the most important conversations for right before the presentation.
THIS IS NOT BY ACCIDENT.
We naturally feel more anxious the closer we get to a deadline (in this case, Jobs’s presentation). So if you place a big conversation right before a deadline, we’re LOCKED IN. We’re worried about our character making the impending time constraint, so we’re secretly pushing for him to hurry his conversation up. The problem is, the conversation is important, so we’re tuned into that as well. This means we’re tuned in on all frequencies, creating a sense of extreme focus.
It’s no coincidence then that the biggest conversation of all (between Jobs and his daughter before the final presentation) occurs AFTER Jobs’s presentation is supposed to start. That’s right, for the first time in the film, Sorkin pushes us PAST his start deadline, heightening our awareness beyond any and all previous levels so we’re super-tuned in. The dialogue sizzles in part because there is so much weight placed on every word. I mean, Jesus, the whole world is impatiently waiting for our hero downstairs! Does it get any more intense than that?
For contrast, imagine Jobs trying to have the same conversation with his daughter on a lazy Sunday afternoon, at his house, with all the time in the world, each character perfectly relaxed. Sound like a conversation that’s going to knock your socks off? My guess is probably not.
These are all things I’ve talked about before, though. You’re probably looking for more in-depth tips this Sorkin go-around. What does Sorkin do that makes his dialogue crackle where so many others fizzle? I noticed a few things. Once Sorkin sets up the basics (heavy conflict, a time constraint, characters on the move), he weaves in a variety of conversational variables. Here are some of the big ones I noticed.
1) Asides – A character will all of a sudden take us on a tangent. They’ll say something like, “When I was eight, do you know what the most important thing in the world to me was?’
2) Jokes – Characters crack jokes, sometimes self-deprecating, sometimes at the other character’s expense. A good joke relieves tension, preventing the dialogue from getting too melodramatic.
3) Zingers – Sorkin loves Zingers. Have a character say something derogatory to another character, then have the other character come back with a clever burn.
4) Teachable moments – This is one of Sorkin’s favorite things to do. Have your characters teach the audience something. So a character will say something to the effect of, “Did you know the Romans refused to feed their soldiers after a battle?” The character will go on to explain why this is, before eventually bringing it back to how this relates to their problem.
5) Analogies – Characters will constantly say things like, “It’s like putting together a stereo. You want to choose the parts on your own.” Lots of analogies in a Sorkin script.
6) Set-ups and payoffs – Whereas a lot of writers like to set plot points up and pay them off later (Marty McFly plays guitar in high school. This pays off later when he’s asked to play guitar at his parents’ Fish Under the Sea Dance), Sorkin likes to set up DIALOGUE and pay it off later. So Jobs might call Woz a dickwad. Then 15 minutes later, Jobs will need Woz’s help for an unexpected problem, and Woz will say something like, “I didn’t know dickwads were capable of that.”
On their own, each of these things might seem obvious. But from a person who reads a lot of screenplays with a lot of bad dialogue, I can assure you that the biggest problem with amateur dialogue is how plain and uninspired it is. Characters say exactly what they’re thinking in a monotone matter. By mixing in all of these tools, Sorkin’s able to write a lot of vibrant dialogue. Of course, on top of these tools, you still need imagination, creativity, and talent. Just because you know to use analogies doesn’t mean you can think up an analogy as clever as Aaron Sorkin. But just knowing that you should bring that into the mix in the first place puts you well ahead of the majority of your competition.
Steve Jobs shocked me. I thought this was going to be just like the script. But Danny Boyle elevated it to something more. And he NAILED the Jobs-daughter relationship, which was the heart of the screenplay. Jesus, man. The ending? On that rooftop? These eyes don’t lie. I was tearing up. I want to go find my old iMac and give it a big fat iHug.
[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: What I learned had nothing to do with the actual screenwriting side of this movie. What struck me is how much Steve Jobs failed in his career. The Mac was a failure, the Lisa (the computer before) was a failure, the NEXT was a failure, Jobs was fired from Apple. It wasn’t until the iMac hit that Jobs truly succeeded. The next time you’re worried about a bad writing day or a script that didn’t get received as well as you’d hoped, remember that a man who many consider to be a genius failed repeatedly in his first 12 years in the business. Failures didn’t stop Jobs. So they shouldn’t stop you.
A Mars Western in the vein of Chinatown? Watch out!
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Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise (from writer): When recent, inter-global events threaten to disrupt the idyllic life on the first Mars Colony, a woman with a secret to hide must do all that she can to prevent neighbors in her small town from taking up arms against each other.
Why You Should Read (from writer): I believe that audiences want to be challenged. Why? Because I go to the movies a lot and I like to be challenged. So, it stands to reason that when writing I choose topics that are challenging with characters who are flawed but relatable. This is what led me to write “The Only Lemon Tree on Mars.” Like all good sci-fi there’s an allegory about today buried in there; specifically the modern political process. And although there are a few action beats, it’s really a drama about a woman struggling to make the world better despite the machinations of men. Most importantly, she does this by being a woman, and not acting like a man. In this day and age, that’s an important distinction.
Writer: Chad Rouch
Details: 108 pages
I’m really glad this one got in. Despite some readers believing I’m only in it for the straightforward “follow the rules” type screenplay (someone told me in my Steve Jobs review that I didn’t like the script because it didn’t adhere to traditional structure), I’m here to tell you that I embrace originality! I’m always looking for stuff that’s different. Different is where the genius lies.
What I’m NOT looking for, though, is BAD DIFFERENT. Or confused different. Or “film school experimental” different. In other words, I don’t like “different” that has to do with the writer’s lack of knowledge about storytelling. I like carefully cultivated different – the kind of different with a clear plan behind it. Unfortunately, I don’t see that much.
Hopefully we can get some “carefully cultivated different” today.
9 year-old James trudges down an old country road before meandering into a small town. For those who haven’t read the logline, you might assume you’re at the beginning of a Western. And in some ways, you are. But this Western doesn’t take place on Earth. It turns out James lives on Mars.
James’s mom, Ellie, is a NASA scientist who’s responsible for finding the best place on Mars to farm. And that’s where this American colony, the colony of Elzee, has settled. And it’s hard up here for a chimp. Crop-growth isn’t exactly breaking records. And Earth stopped communicating with Mars months ago.
We get the sense that Elzee is slowly dying. And if Earth doesn’t come to their rescue, everyone’s going to be in a lot of trouble. Luckily, Earth does call. Apparently, the reason they weren’t instagramming was because America was in a Civil War. Now that the war is over, American’s sending a ship up to say hi.
The Mars farmers (or, as I like to call them, the “Marmers”) aren’t so sure Earth’s visit is kosher. It’s quite the coincidence that a ship is showing up just days before the rare Mars rain season. Could Earth be coming to steal Mars’s crops? Might they grab the food, slaughter the colony, then hop on their ship all before The Voice starts?
Rabble-rousing farmer, Tom Dubray, doesn’t want any Earthlings threatening his livelihood. So he grabs a bunch of farmers and readies an army. It’ll be up to Ellie to keep the peace. But with her marriage falling apart and everybody seemingly strapped into their crazy cribs, the Martians very well might kill each other before the Earthlings ever show up.
The Only Lemon Tree on Mars is the best Amateur Friday script I’ve read in awhile. Not only does Chad engage us with one of the simplest easy-to-read writing styles you’ve read all year, he gives us a story unlike any we’ve seen before. As we’ve discussed – if you can offer the reader an experience they haven’t had before? You’re a hundred Mars miles ahead of your competition.
My big problem with Wednesday’s “Boy Scouts vs. Zombies” was that I didn’t know the characters. Even worse, I didn’t feel like the writers wanted to know their characters. Chad proves he’s not playing that game with Lemon Tree.
At the heart of his story is a complex love triangle between Ellie, her husband Reiner, and her lover Ansel. Reiner, a brilliant scientist, works for weeks at a time hundreds of miles away on Mars’s atmosphere machine. This has left Ellie to raise her family on her own. And quite frankly, she’s lonely! It’s only natural that she would fall in love with Ansel, who lives in town.
One of the most compelling character-storylines that plays out is Ellie trying to decide whether to divorce Reiner for Ansel, Reiner eventually realizing Ansel is his wife’s lover, and then later, when Reiner is forced to protect the very man who’s stolen his wife from him (from the militarized Martians).
With both those things said, there’s something missing from this script and I’m not sure what it is. As good as the writing is, the story feels a bit dry in places. And when Chad does try to inject drama, there’s something vague and misguided about it that leaves you wanting more.
How you infuse drama (the major plot points in your story) is the key to keeping your reader’s interest. Give them something small when they want something big, and that might be the moment when they decide to mentally check out.
Take Teddy for instance. Teddy is a Martian farmer who kills another farmer in a bar fight. But it was accident. Yet the event is turned into a major plot point where Reiner is asked to represent Teddy in a trial regarding the murder. Why a scientist is playing lawyer doesn’t make any immediate sense. And since this accidental murder’s not the main point of the story, we’re left to ask why we’d want to watch a trial about it.
The rain stuff is also confusing. The impending rain season is discussed dozens of times throughout the script. Yet it’s not clear why it’s so important. While farming seems to be slow on Mars, we’re never told HOW slow.
Farmers are also suspicious that the Earthlings are coming to steal their crops. But it’s not clear if Earth needs crops. It’s not clear if they’re short on food at all. Nor is it clear why Earth would send a ship to Mars to steal a bunch of subpar Mars vegetables. I mean what’s the crop yield in this small town? 30 acres? Is it really cost effective to fly 34 million miles for 30 acres of food?
Chad needed a scene to make clear what these rains meant. Tell us, for instance, that if this rain doesn’t happen, all of their crops will die before the next rain season comes. Which means everyone here on Mars will starve to death. Just because you’re writing an indie movie doesn’t mean you can’t add some good old fashioned STAKES. High stakes work in any story.
And you have a classic case of confused-protagonist here. Who’s your protagonist? Is it Ellie? If so, why are so many other people driving the story?
Remember, your main character should make the majority of the choices that drive the story. I hated that Ellie just did whatever the Mayor told her to do. I hated how when Reiner showed up (a guy we didn’t even like) he became the temporary protag.
Let’s stay with Ellie and MAKE HER MORE ACTIVE. That alone should infuse this script with some energy. Have her making a lot more decisions. Have her running around trying to get things right. The love triangle story is fine but Ellie trying to snag Ansel shouldn’t be the only thing that gets her out of bed.
Finally, I think you’re a draft or two away from your final plot.
You should simplify the story. In the first act, Mars learns Earth is coming and assumes it’s for good reasons. At the midpoint, they discover secret information (plot twist) that implies Earth is coming to steal their crops. From the midpoint (page 50-55) to the end of Act 2 (page 80-85) then, they prepare for war. And then Earth lands with a small marine-based crew of 200 soldiers, and the third act is the battle for the colony.
And I don’t mean trenches are dug and a traditional shoot-out occurs. You could stay true to the story’s low-budget roots and focus on skirmishes that occur in nooks and crannies of the town. Maybe a group of Marines comes to take down Ellie’s home. She and Reiner must defend themselves and that defense of their home sequence is the climax.
As for the inter-town conflict, I still think you can have that. I like the idea of nobody agreeing how to handle the approaching Earthlings. That’s perfect 2nd act stuff there. But instead of falling apart when the Earthlings arrive, what if they learn to come together? That might provide you with a nicer arc. That we are capable as a species of communicating and compromising and coming together for a common cause.
Or hell, if you wanted to make this super-indie, you could have the Earthlings land and the marines slaughter the entire town. The End. It wouldn’t be my choice but you’d get mad indie cred, that’s for sure.
The Only Lemon Tree on Mars is a messy script that’s not quite there yet. But boy does it show potential for both its screenplay and its writer. Chad Rouch can write. And if he hasn’t gotten attention from the industry yet, it’s about time that changes.
Script link: The Only Lemon Tree On Mars
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Important characters, even if they’re not who they appear to be at first, need to be introduced WITH PRESENCE so we know that they’re going to be important later on. The reason for this is, if someone isn’t introduced with PRESENCE, we forget about them. So when you try to bring them back, we’re like, “Who’s that?”
There’s this character in “Lemon Tree” named Tom Dubray who becomes a really important part of the farmer’s resistance. But the guy is given the most forgettable entrance ever. Here’s his intro line, which occurs during a town meeting: “Once inside, Ellie spots TOM and ANGIE DUBRAY, both 40s with a worn look of people who have spent their lives on a farm, who wave her over to sit near them.”
The guy doesn’t even get his own introduction line! He’s doubled up with his wife. That right there tells the reader: UNIMPORTANT. Then, as the meeting goes on, Tom offers a couple of forgettable lines and that’s it. His scene is over. With this character becoming so important later on, give us an intro line to remember. “TOM DUBRAY doesn’t look like much at first glance. But there’s something deadly about this man’s stare. He doesn’t see you. He sees through you.” That’s kinda cheesy but you get the point. You want to point out that there’s something important about this guy.
