Genre: Horror
Premise: A young woman inherits a curse where she’s followed by an entity that cannot be killed. The only way to get rid of it is to pass the curse on to someone else.
About: “It Follows” has been playing the festival circuit for a year, gaining momentum via ecstatic reviews from both critics and festival-goers alike. The film opened this weekend in four theaters across the U.S., grossing an average of 41,000 per theater. That’s the highest per-theater average of the year. It’s set to expand next weekend, and if it continues doing well, will continue to expand. Writer-director David Robert Mitchell is an unconventional choice for the most buzz-worthy horror director of the year. His only previous film was an indie comedy coming-of-age film titled “The Myth of the American Sleepover” and he claims that he’d like to keep jumping from genre to genre instead of being pigeonholed into horror.
Writer: David Robert Mitchell
Details: 100 minutes

A few people planning on submitting horror screenplays to The Scriptshadow 250 Contest have asked me, “What makes a screenplay scary?” And I reply, “Bad dialogue.” Haha, Carson. But seriously. You mean what makes a scary screenplay? Well, that’s a little harder to quantify. But I’ll tell you where it starts. It starts with making the reader believe in the characters and the world. The more realistic you can make the people inhabiting your story, the more we’ll believe they’re “real” like us. And thus, whenever they encounter dangerous situations, we won’t just be scared, we’ll FEAR for them. And I think that’s an important distinction to make. Being “scared” is fleeting and cheap. Genuine fear strikes deeper.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that that paragraph is somewhat gibberish without context. Anyone can say, “You have to make it more real n stuff!” So let me put it another way – If you’re trying to write a scary movie, you’ll fail. If you’re trying to write a movie about people in a scary situation, you’ll succeed. Do you see the difference? One is about cheap scares. The other is about a person experiencing fear.

And that brings us to It Follows, one of the more fascinating horror films I’ve ever seen. Now I’m not here to proclaim this film perfect. Actually, the screenplay is somewhat lacking, which I’ll get to later. However, the writer-director, Mitchell, seems to be aware of his limitations as a writer, and camouflages them in a way  where they’re practically invisible. It’s borderline miraculous how he pulls it off. And it goes to show the advantage the writer-director has. He can hide weaknesses in a script inside the filmmaking, a luxury the spec writer doesn’t have.

The plot here follows 19 year-old Jay (a female – I’m ready to give up trying to stop writers from giving their female characters male names), who’s trying to navigate the uncertain world of post high school. She meets a hot dude, Hugh, goes out with him, has sex with him, only to then be strangled by him until she passes out.

She wakes up strapped to a chair in an abandoned building where Hugh promptly apologizes, and informs her that he had sex with her to transfer this “curse” to her. The curse, he explains, means you will be followed by something, an entity of sorts, who will try to kill you. The only way to get rid of the curse is to have sex with someone else, passing it on to them. But if “it” gets to you, it will start going right down the line of the curse. In other words, if it kills her, it will come back and kill him, and so on and so forth. So please find someone else and transfer it quickly.  “It should be easy,” he encourages her.  “You’re a girl.”

That Hugh, what a charmer.

So Jay starts seeing people follow her that nobody else can see. And these people seem to be taking the form of past curse kills, people down the sexual line. This is where It Follows gets interesting. As we see the people following her (an old man, a mother, her father) we get these glimpses into the underbelly of this town and who’s had sex with who. It’s clear, in some cases, that rape was involved. And in others, it’s pure speculation – such as where did Jay’s father, who’s already dead at the beginning of the film, fall into this line? Who did he have sex with? It’s all rather mind-trippy, and the secret sauce that makes this horror story unlike any other – and that’s the thing we’re all trying to achieve – creating something unlike anything else.

Okay, let’s start with the screenplay here. This screenplay is suuuuuuuper-minimal. Which wouldn’t have worked on the page as a spec. Everyone would’ve said, “We need to explain this curse better. We need a scene where we explain the backstory of the dad,” and to be honest, I probably would’ve been one of them. On the page, it would’ve seemed like barely anything was going on.

But here are the things that directing can bring that screenwriting cannot. Cinematography, score, and overall vision. And in these areas, Mitchell knocks it out of the park. This is the first “real” horror film I’ve seen in forever where it doesn’t look like a Hollywood costume designer dressed all the characters. The characters are all wearing what real people wear and that went a long way towards making the characters feel authentic (see the importance of that back in the opening paragraph). Ditto the locations. We were never on a set or a perfectly chosen house in the perfect neighborhood. It looked like REAL America. That went a long way towards suspending my disbelief. That’s what I mean by vision.

Then there was the score. Which was really eeire. There were just these long drawn-out horns that never seemed to end and they added an unease that’s pretty much impossible to add on the page. Coupled with the amazing cinematography, these shots set a mood for the film that was like no other, which is one of the reasons the film is playing so well. It doesn’t feel like anything else you’ve seen. I mean, at one point, there’s an 870 degree shot. That’s right. Mitchell places the camera down, and slowly spins it around as we catch one conversation going on in one room, while one of the entities keeps getting closer and closer every time we pass the window. It’s super-freaky.

Because you’re so pulled in by these atmospheric touches, you’re not thinking about the fact that the story is far from perfect, or even logical for that matter. Jay’s mother lives in the house where Jay’s loudly attacked a couple of times, but seems to sleep through all of it. She’s also never around to offer support after Jay is essentially raped. The focus is squarely on the kids, which I think it should be, but this oversight was borderline ridiculous.

The minimalistic writing approach does help in some cases though. Paul, the geeky best friend who’s in love with Jay, engages in a satisfying emotional arc with her that’s spared from the overwriting that plagues most Hollywood scripts. We don’t exaggerate the big plot turn where she finally falls for him or anything like that. It’s all a lot more subtle, and helps the relationship achieve exactly what the rest of the script has achieved – a sense of realism.

So does this mean you should all go start writing minimalistic screenplays with barely any plot beats and parents who don’t know that their children exist? Assuming you’re not writing the next Peanuts movie, I wouldn’t recommend it. Actually, It Follows has an ace up its sleeve that allows it to pull this risky move off. It’s something I’ve brought up a lot recently: Come up with a concept that does the work for you.

The concept here – this notion of someone following you, trying to kill you, that in turn can’t be killed – is what keeps the story moving without Mitchell having to do much. The scenarios write themselves. Girl in a house, friends don’t believe her, then one of these things walks in, even though the friends can’t see it, and she must run for her life. This is the basis for most of the scenes in the screenplay, which are just set in different locations. But they work because the situation is freaking scary! Imagine being in a public place and anyone you see could be there to kill you. You’d go nuts!

On the flip side, I’ll read a script where there’s a ghost in a house and it runs out of juice quickly because the concept isn’t providing enough for the writer to work with. So you always want to make sure you have a concept that creates scenes for you. That way you won’t be sitting there on page 50 going, “Uhhhhh, what do I write next?” A good concept will fuel the majority of your scenes for you.

I’d recommend everyone go see this movie. It’s definitely “indie,” but it’s way more accessible than, say, “The Babadook,” which resulted in me losing recommendation privileges with a couple of my casual moviegoing friends (“That was borrrr-ing” said one. “I don’t get it.  There’s a children’s book that attacks people?” said another). What’s cool about It Follows is it still has a little camp left in it, a little bit of John Carpenter’s Halloween, so it feels more mainstream in that sense. Oh, and one last thing. If you come out of this film wondering where you can find a clam-shell reader, I’m sad to say I checked and there is no such thing. You’ll have to see the movie to understand this. Let me know what you think when you do!

[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: “Concept” is the alcohol at the party. It does the hard work for you. If you’ve ever been to a party without alcohol and you feel the strain in the room as everyone tries really hard to talk to each other and look interested, you know what I mean. Give everyone drinks, however, and they loosen up, stop worrying, and start having fun. In other words, alcohol takes the strain out of the party. A good concept does the same. It lubricates the story so that everything just flows naturally. Of course, you can also bypass this analogy and just get drunk.  Which should help your writing as well.

You know the deal. In between writing scenes for your Scriptshadow 250 entry, sample today’s amateur offerings and help the writers with some constructive feedback. Also, vote for the winner at the top of your comment.  If you only have time to read and help one writer this week, check out I Shall Be Released.  I don’t think I’ve ever known someone to be so passionate about a screenplay.  Greg really cares about making this script the best it can be and he’s a dedicated Scriptshadow reader and fellow commenter.  Good luck to him and everyone else!

Title: I Shall Be Released
Genre: Drama / Biopic
Logline: Losing his voice to cancer, Levon Helm reflects on his life with The Band, and how their meteoric rise to fame comes with a heavy cost.
Why you should read: I grew up listening to The Band. Not from the dull playback of a stereo, but from backstage at the concerts my parents would bring me to, and from the comfort of Levon’s living room when we went to visit. My family shared a close relationship with Levon, Rick, and Richard for over thirty years. When I left college, Levon told my father that he would do anything for me, and suggested I consider pursuing a book or film with him. Now that our friend has passed, I want nothing more than to secure his legacy, and bring the personal insights I have into the man to the silver screen, so that he, his music, and the impact he had on a generation of rock and rollers can live on.

Title: The Beard
Genre: Sex Comedy
Logline: After landing a reality TV show on Bravo — the gayest network on television — a straight YouTube star, whose popularity hinges on the world’s belief that he’s gay, hires a “beard” to keep up the front. Suffice it to say, things don’t go as planned.
Why you should read: In the wake of R-rated comedies like Neighbors, 21/22 Jump Street and This Is The End — films that absolutely cracked me up — I set out to flip the bromantic comedy on its head while sending up reality TV shows for good measure. Thus the concept behind THE BEARD was born, and I gotta admit, it was a shitload of fun bringing it to life. I wrote the first draft pretty quickly and submitted it to Carson for a consultation. He thought there were some issues with the execution, but overall, he thought the script was “very funny” (which he says is rare). The biggest problem he had was that he didn’t care for any of the characters. So I’ve revamped the structure and streamlined the execution, and tried my best to make unlovable characters lovable. Now I need a second opinion! :) Basically, I need to know if the humor and execution of the story makes up for its unsympathetic characters. Please give it a read and let me know what you think. But be forewarned: This script is VULGAR with a capital V.

Title: Thy Enemy
Genre: Action/Thriller
Logline: After learning his estranged brother is a spy, a disgraced FBI cadet goes rogue to stop his sibling from detonating an experimental nuke in New York City.
Why you should read: In 2011, I met Shane Black. We were both waiting at a crosswalk after a lecture he gave. I dared to ask him a question: “What’s your biggest fear when you open up a script?” He thoughtfully replied: “Interchangeable action scenes that don’t affect the story or characters. I see it all the time and it saddens me. Set pieces must have consequences or what’s the fucking point.” The light changed. Shane was gone. I never forgot his words while I wrote this beast of a script. Thanks, Shane. — And thank you to all of Scriptshadow’s contributors. Readers here deserve a lot more back and forth from candidate writers. Don’t see enough of it. So, if picked for AOW, I 100% guarantee that I’ll be available to interact with readers. No excuses. It’s the least I can do for a community I’ve benefited so much from.

Title: Blind Curves (AKA “The Shot”)
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Logline: After accidently killing a female hostage during a botched robbery, LAPD Officer Michael Egan is exiled to a small desert town, where he’s forced to deal with his estranged daughter and face his greatest fear come true.
Why you should read: This script has tortured me for the past four years. Just when I thought it was “finished”, I’d get feedback that would prompt another rewrite. Last year, this script made it to the quarter-finals in the Bluecat competition (Top 5% of over 4,000 submissions). I was elated but knew deep down why the script didn’t place higher. It became my poster child for the adage “learn to cut your darlings” and I shelved the script for nearly a year. The script continued to plague me, I knew what needed to be fixed but resisted making the change. Finally, I broke down and dismantled the whole thing and did what needed to be done. This script is the result of letting go, listening to your gut and not being content with just getting to “Fade Out”.

Title: Be a Hero
Genre: Action-Comedy
Logline: After accidentally killing a beloved vigilante superhero, a smartass slacker takes over as defender of the city to cover his tracks, but soon finds himself being hunted by a psychotic crime lord.
Why you should read: Well, I’m a young, fairly inexperienced screenwriter looking to kickstart my career. I believe you should give my script a shot because have you ever met someone from Ireland who wasn’t talented or awesome? No, of course you haven’t. We’re a wonderful people. But while we have a talented, artistic and creative population of ginger alcoholics, we’re also a country that often gets overlooked on a global level. This is especially true in the film industry. We have so much to offer, with so little opportunity. So, this struggling ginger alcoholic would kindly ask that you do his career a major favour by checking out his little screenplay. I would be ever so appreciative, and I think you’ll enjoy the script if you give it a chance.

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: Thriller/Drama
Premise (from writer): A salt-of-the-earth father, trying to leave a checkered past behind him, is put through the ultimate test when his estranged son gets in deep with a human devil in the Appalachian woods.
Why You Should Read (from writer): My 6th spec, feeling like it’s all coming together now. Taking an honest look at my writing prior, it would be easy to say I was trying to write “the next great American story” (large, sweeping political storylines, obtuse, lush descriptions, “profound” dialogue) and this time, I’m just trying to write a movie. I hit a lot of things this site discusses: race against the clock, continually mounting problems, clear stakes and goals, a memorable villain and short action descriptions which I think makes for a fun and quick read. Recent films like BLUE RUIN, THE ROVER, and A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES have rejuvenated my passion for writing gritty thrillers.
Writer: Sean McIntyre
Details: 106 pages

Bryan Cranston for Marty?

So Cinderella comes out this weekend. Which was written by Chris Weitz. Who is also writing one of the new Star Wars movies. To the average avocado, this may seem like insignificant data. But to me, it’s like saying that the guy who invented spring rolls is going to cook me a pizza. Sure, writers are capable of writing many different things. But Chris Weitz’s sensibilities fall way more in line with Cinderella than Star Wars to me. I don’t want Obi-Wan Kenobi turning into a pumpkin after doing the Kessel Run in over five parcecs. I want a lightsaber decapitating a bantha. And I don’t know if I’m going to get that. Which may sound random but I feel compelled to bring it up.

Speaking of films opening this weekend, we’ve got a rare SPEC SCRIPT making a box office appearance in Run All Night. The script was written by spec specialist Brad Inglesby, and will be his second script to make it to the big screen (the first was “Out of the Furnace,” which was originally titled “The Low Dweller.”). Run All Night is way more movie-friendly than Furnace, so it should do better. “Monsters Under The Bed” seems to hail from that same gritty universe. Might it, too, one day make it to the theatrical finish line? Let’s find out.

48 year-old Marty Davies has lived a tough life. He got guilted into taking the rap for a crime he didn’t commit, joined the Aryan Nation in prison in order not to get raped every night, and has only recently gotten back into the real world, where he’s trying to put his taxi business together and reconnect with his son, Terry, a gambling addict.

After Terry makes a bet he can’t pay, he finds himself indebted to the town’s local psychopath, Rey-Rey, who, yes, is every bit as crazy as his name implies. Whenever you feel the need to repeat your name as part of your name, you’re probably a few fish shy of an aquarium. Go ahead and try it out. The next time someone asks you your name, say it’s “Scott-Scott.” Observe the fear.

Rey-Rey calls papa Marty and tells him that if he doesn’t come up with 50 grand in a week, Terry’s nostrils are going to be entry points for his next bullet experiment. Marty leaps into action… kind of. He calls his buddies and his new girlfriend to ask for money. But this Kickstarter Project barely gets off the ground before he realizes it’s not getting funded.

After some other plans fail, Marty decides to rob a bank – a plan that results in some major collateral damage. But nothing will compare to what happens when he crosses Rey-Rey. From that point on, his son isn’t even the issue anymore. This is between Marty and Rey-Rey. And only one of them is coming out alive.

I have to commend all the writers who have made it to Amateur Friday recently. They beat out these other scripts for a reason. I mean, Sean’s got a lot to be proud of here. He does a great job setting up Marty. He does an awesome job creating a larger-than-life villain in Rey-Rey. There are a lot of fun – albeit disturbing – scenes between Rey-Rey and Terry which showed a lot of imagination. I’m not surprised at all that “Monsters” emerged as last week’s winner.

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to be a bit of a monster myself. A monster under the script pile that is. My big issue with “Monsters” was the A.D.D. nature of the second act. I was particularly frustrated with the fact that instead of having one plan, Marty had a thousand of them. First he went off to ask for money from a friend, then went to ask another friend, then he tried to get the money through a loan. At one point he even went off to play high-stakes poker.

Rey-Rey’s deal kept changing as well. First he wanted 50,000. Then he was okay with 25,000. Then something would happen and he wanted 100,000. Then 250. Then 500. In the meantime, Terry’s doing pornos to earn his money back, then working the drug line, and then he’s got to be a drug mule and drive a car somewhere.

It seemed like there was a new plan from both sides every five pages.

I think what Sean was trying to do here was keep the story fresh. Which is noble. But it ended up feeling like stalling. It was like he didn’t know what do until the bank robbery, so he just kept trying to distract us with new plans every couple of scenes. In reality, however, all the plans were basically the same. And after 30 pages of false starts, I wanted the car to actually go somewhere.

Another issue the script ran into is that grown men aren’t the most sympathetic kidnap victims. Women are good kidnap victims. Children are good kidnap victims. But it’s really hard to make an audience care about a big strong man getting rescued.

Can you make it work? Sure. But you can also get through a marathon carrying a 25 pound barbell. That doesn’t mean you want to.

I actually tried to think of any movie that has done this successfully (made the kidnapping victim a man) and I couldn’t think of one. Maybe you guys will have more success (challenge to Poe!). And I hope you find one. I’m curious to know how they did it.

The final mistake “Monsters” made was in its third act. Marty actually gets Terry back from Rey-Rey, and then the script goes into this strange “everything is happy father and son montage” where father and son hide out and play catch every day. It isn’t until after that’s over that we get the Marty-Rey-Rey showdown.

There’s always going to be a calm before the third act storm. But if that calm lasts too long, you can kill the momentum of your entire movie. Everything about your script has been building up to this third act. If you then say, “Let’s go take a vacation before the big battle,” your audience is going to scream “What????” Once Marty got his son back, a lot of air got released from the balloon. I’m not sure you want to structure the screenplay this way. The climax should probably be Marty either saving or failing to save his son.

This was another solid entry into the Amateur Friday lion’s den. But these issues definitely need to be shored up before this script reaches its potential.

Screenplay link: Monsters Under the Bed

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: There’s something about this revenge/kidnapping set-up, where characters are confined to one area the entire movie, that’s really hard to make work. You have a hero that has to do something, yet you can’t allow him to do it yet! Because if he does, the movie will be over by page 50. Hence why Sean’s forced to create all these false-starts with Marty. This is why scripts like “Run All Night” are easier to write. If the characters are always on the move (either the chasers or the chasees) you don’t have to come up with any stall tactics. You keep going until the capture or the escape is made. The one exception to this seems to be what they did in John Wick and The Equalizer. Which is to create a hierarchy of characters that the hero must defeat before they confront the big dog. Even though the story is confined to one area, like “Monsters,” there are a clear series of goals that must be achieved before the hero can take on the villain, giving the script a natural progression until the climax.

Driver waiting for his opening scene!

I cannot WAIT to read your Scriptshadow 250 submission. But if you’re going to have any shot at winning this thing, you’re going to need to bring it. I don’t think that’s a surprise. To help you, I went back down memory lane to try and identify the simplest way to tab a script good or bad. It didn’t take long to find my answer. In about 95% of the screenplays I read, I can tell if the writer has the goods in the VERY FIRST SCENE. And I’m guessing it’s the same for most readers.

You see, the opening scene is the reader’s introduction to both YOU and YOUR SCREENPLAY. Much like a real-life introduction, the other person is sizing every detail of you up to decide whether they like you or not. Are you dressed well? Do you have good hygiene? Do you have good posture? Do you look them in the eye? Are you arrogant or humble? Do you speak clearly or mumble? Do you smile or have resting bitch face? All these clues help this person determine whether you’re someone they want to get to know better.

The exact same thing is happening during your opening scene. That’s because you’re giving off tons of hints about if you know what you’re doing or not. The first thing I typically look for in a scene is: Is anything HAPPENING? Then, is the writing crisp and to the point? And finally, is it clear what’s going on? If the writer’s passed this test, congratulations. He’s done exactly what’s expected of him. But all this gets him is an extended evaluation period.

Guess what? I don’t want you to write “extended evaluation period” first scenes. I want you to write GREAT first scenes that IMMEDIATELY GRAB THE READER and announce that you’re a writer who knows how to entertain. A lot of writers never get past this point. They don’t realize there’s a difference between showing that you know what you’re doing, and actually PULLING A READER INTO A STORY. You need to master the latter.

So what do you do to pull the reader in with your opening scene? YOU TELL A STORY WITH THE SCENE. Repeat that back to me.

What does that mean? It means using storytelling devices that make the reader want to continue reading. Most writers do the opposite of this. They think they’ve earned some divine right which states that you, the reader, must afford them your full concentration for the entire script no matter how boring it is because of how much work they’ve put into the script. They can take their time, dammit.  Because wait til you get to that whopper of an ending!

No. Nada. A reader OWES YOU NOTHING. It’s you who owes them. You owe them entertainment from the very first page and if you don’t give it to them, they have every right to check out, even if it’s on page 3.

What are these mythical storytelling devices I’m referring to? They include but are not limited to: Conflict, tension, suspense, dramatic irony, a sense of foreboding, mystery, surprise, a difficult choice, a twist, dropping us into the middle of some action, and so on.  Do one or a combination of these things in your opening scene and, as long as the scene is somewhat original (or at least a fresh spin on a common scene) you should pull the reader in.

Let’s look at two examples – the wrong way and the right way. The scene we’ll use is one I’ve read a million times before. It’s the scene where the main character, often a 30-something man-child, wakes up in his bedroom, which we notice is a complete shit-hole, with dirty clothes and empty beer bottles piled everywhere. The extent of the writer adding a “story component” often entails the hero checking his clock, realizing he’s late for work, and running out of the room.

That’s what I call a terrible opening scene. Nothing is happening. There’s no story to the scene. It’s unoriginal. It announces to the reader that you are putting the least amount of effort into your opening as possible. And that conveys to the reader that you will continue to do so throughout the screenplay. I mean if you couldn’t even get excited enough to write a fun original FIRST SCENE??? Of course you’re not going to try for the other 59 scenes.

Let’s look at the second example. This is a scene that was in a screenplay I read a long time ago, but I’m forgetting the title. In it, we have the same 30-something man-child character waking up, hung over. But this character wakes up in a child’s bedroom. He’s actually in a little girl’s bed, naked under the covers. The shelves are packed with dolls. Next to him is a crib. We can tell he has no memory of how he ended up here.  The scene then follows how he figures out where he is and how he gets out of the house.

The big difference in this second example is that the writer has added MYSTERY to the scene. He’s shown the ability to think forward – to dangle a question in front of the reader so that he’ll want to keep reading – namely “How did this character get here?” This is an oversimplification of the difference between a good and bad opening scene, but the point is, the second example tells a story while the first version is just character set up – and boring character set up at that.

Let’s look at another example. Say you’re writing a cop drama (or even a cop comedy). I want you to imagine who your main character might be, and then try to come up with an opening scene for him. It’s not easy. You literally have an unlimited number of choices. The funny thing is, the beginner writer will always take the path of least resistance. So they’ll often go with whatever comes to mind. Maybe the cop shows up at a murder scene where he’s briefed by the Captain on what they know about the victim.

Hmm. Haven’t seen that scene before, have we?

So ask yourself – how can I turn this same scene into a story? Well, instead of your cop showing up last, after everyone else has already done the work, what if he shows up first? Then, as he’s observing the crime scene, he encounters a clue that implies the killer is still on the premises. Now we have danger, suspense, mystery. You can even add some dramatic irony if we cut to the hiding killer, who isn’t yet aware that our hero is onto him.

Yeah yeah, we’ve seen this scene before, too. But it’s still a much more entertaining scene than the first one, and way more likely to pull a reader in.

Now all of this sounds great in a vacuum. But over time, I’ve come to learn that every script is unique. Each story has its own requirements, and those requirements sometimes work against you doing the things you want to do. One of the hardest things to balance is setting up your main character AND writing an entertaining opening scene at the same time.

Take The Equalizer. In that screenplay, Richard Wenk needs to establish that Robert McCall lives a very simple reserved lifestyle. As you can imagine, there aren’t many exciting ways to convey “simple” and “reserved.” So the opening scene is McCall tidying up his sparse spotless apartment. It sets up the character perfectly, but makes for a weak opening scene.

Contrast this with Drive, in which Driver (Ryan Gosling) is an ice-cold brave-as-shit getaway driver. That more naturally lends itself to a strong opening scene – which is exactly what we get. Driver expertly evades a group of cops while driving his two accomplices to safety.

So yeah, we have to work with what we have. But I want to go back to that Equalizer scene for a second. It is a boring opening scene. But Wenk clearly knows that. So he uses sparse description and only highlights a few brief things in order to get McCall out of the apartment and into the world as quickly as possible. As a reader, I may not be wowed, but the writing is so minimal and the actions so clear that I’m willing to reserve judgment until after a few more scenes. Had the writer kept McCall in his apartment for three more pages and described a bunch of needless things, I would’ve known immediately that the script was doomed.

So does that mean sometimes we HAVE to open with a boring scene and just do the best we can?  This is the way I look at it. You’re a spec writer. You’re not writing on assignment (like Wenk on The Equalizer). You’re not writing for some producer who already knows all the story beats because he pitched the idea to you. The moment your script hits someone’s eyes will be the first time they’ve seen it. For that reason, you should always go for the gold. Find a way to give us a great opening scene that TELLS A STORY – limitations be damned. If you do that, you not only start your script off right, but you instill trust in the reader that you’re here to entertain them.

Genre: Contained Thriller/Sci-fi
Premise: (from The Black List) A corporate risk management consultant is summoned to a remote research lab to determine whether or not to terminate an at-risk artificial being.
About: Today’s script finished on the lower half of the 2014 Black List. Seth W. Owen is a writer and director whose debut film was 2010’s Peepers, about a rag-tag group of guys who try to spy on naked women. Ummm, not the most sympathetic setup for a group of lead characters. Luckily, this script is nothing like that. “Morgan” just landed Kate Mara and will be the directing debut of Ridley Scott’s son, Luke Scott. Presumably, the father pitched Mara to his son, since Ridley’s working with Mara on his new sci-fi project, The Martian.
Writer: Seth W. Owen
Details: 113 pages

There’s something about a script that starts with a character heading to some isolated unknown potentially dangerous location that gets me every time.

The anticipation of what lies ahead just tickles my insides. It never fails.

Add on top of that a contained thriller element that I HAVEN’T SEEN BEFORE, and you can officially color me hooked. Most contained thrillers involve a haunted house or characters stuck inside a place they’d rather not be. Pretty standard stuff.  Today’s script injects a new twist into the scenario by giving the main character the power of God.  She can, with the flick of her pen, destroy everything this group has worked so hard for.  This setup adds some funky fresh wrinkles to the contained thriller genre, one of which dramatizes the hell out of the story. More on that in a minute.  But first, let’s recap the plot.

When artificially intelligent “Morgan” – a sort of robot-bio hybrid – attacks one of the members of the team who created her, the company funding the project sends the strict and professional Lee Weathers (a woman – noooo! not another female protagonist with a male name!) out to Grant Farms, the home of the experiment, to assess whether Morgan should be put down.

As you might expect, the resident members of the project are not excited by Lee’s arrival. They’ve been working on Morgan for 5 years. This woman has the power to not only destroy everything they’ve built, but end their jobs. To them, she’s far more dangerous than anything Morgan might become.

Leading the team is the short and jittery Ted Brenner, an insect of a man who hovers around Lee, constantly assuring her that everything is “fine.” There’s Dr. Simon Ziegler, the unkempt lead designer who is the de facto “father” of Morgan. There’s the free-spirited Amy, the lead behaviorist. There’s the elusive Dr. Nagata, who never seems to be around when she’s needed. And then a half dozen other folks working on the project, which is all taking place inside a retrofitted mansion in the middle of nowhere.

While Lee’s job is to assess Morgan, it’s when she interviews the team members that she discovers something amiss. Namely that everyone has a verrrrry close connection to Morgan – some creepily so. As the truth begins to surface – that these people will do anything to prevent Lee from terminating Morgan – Lee must decide what’s more important. The company? Or her life?

Newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy will play Morgan

Today’s lesson is all about TENSION. Why is it called “tension?” Because it’s TEN time more effective than “nosion.” “Nosion” is when you don’t have anything working under the scenes. Everything plays at face value – people’s intentions, their interactions, their motives. A “How are you doing?” literally means, 100%, “How are you doing?” Since it’s all at face value, it’s all BORING.

The brilliance of “Morgan’s” setup is that it BUILDS TENSION INTO THE STORY AUTOMATICALLY. Not a single person in this house wants Lee here. Therefore, every single scene has tension working underneath it. In these cases, “How are you doing?” could easily mean, “I don’t fucking want you here but I’ll play the game until we get rid of you.”

This is something all of you should take heed of – using your setup to do the work for you. I brought this up yesterday in the Breaking Bad article. Walt and Jesse have some great conflict-heavy dialogue throughout the series. That dialogue doesn’t happen because at the beginning of each episode, Vince Gilligan says, “Okay, how can we create conflict between these two?” Their conflict is already there. It’s built into the setup. Therefore, going at it is a natural byproduct of their interactions. Good dialogue just happens.

Same thing with “Morgan.” Owen doesn’t have to sit there and wonder how to create tension inside the house. He’s built the tension INTO THE SETUP by sending a woman in to determine the fates of a dozen people. How could that NOT produce tension?

This script is chock full of tips actually. Take the moment when Lee first meets Morgan. We haven’t yet established Mogan’s reason for being here, and Owen decides to do so in this scene. The mistake the amateur writer makes here is having the protagonist narrate her own backstory (“I’m here from blah blah on orders from blah blah corporation…”). Instead, it ALWAYS SOUNDS BETTER when you have the OTHER character say it. So in the script, Morgan says, “Hello Lee.” Lee replies, slightly surprised, “You know who I am.” Morgan says, “Yes. Of course. You’re Lee Weathers. Risk Management Consultant at Omnicron.” “And why I’m here?” “To assess my viability as…” and so on and so forth.

There are more juicy dialogue tips if you pay attention. In a later scene, the house chef and Lee are talking, and Lee is giving noticeably short answers to all his questions. The less experienced screenwriter always writes the on-the-nose reaction to behavior. They’d have the chef say something like: “You don’t talk much do you?” The experienced screenwriter writes the sarcastic less obvious reply, which is what Owen does here: “You’re kind of an over-sharer, huh?” It’s just a way more fun response.  Like I’ve said before – If your characters are constantly giving the obvious response, there’s a good chance your dialogue is boring.

The script stays exciting despite the contained location, mainly due to that tension I referred to earlier and also because Morgan is a ticking time bomb. You know she’s going to explode at some point. And you want to be around when it happens.

The only issue I see in the script is that the story kind of gets taken away from Lee for a portion of the second act. It feels like everyone else is starring in the movie except Lee for awhile. A new character even comes in and has a 12 page one-on-one scene with Morgan. It’s a good scene with a great payoff but it’s always risky to demote your main character to passive observer for a long period of time. More than once I found myself asking, “Where’s Lee right now?”  In the rewrite, you probably want Lee at least trying to interject and stop this interview when it starts going downhill.

It’s no secret I love these types of scripts (The Story of Us, Ex Machina) so I’m probably not surprising anyone here. But this script took a different approach to a genre that could potentially feel played out and that’s a big part of what kept me entertained. Really good stuff here!

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: A good setup should do the work for you. If the tension or the suspense or the conflict or whatever device you’re using to entertain a reader, isn’t built into the concept, it’s going to be hard to incorporate it into your scenes. So if in the original conception of Breaking Bad, Walt and Jesse were best friends with similar interests, then trying to write a bunch of arguments between them would feel false. You’re forcing conflict that isn’t there. But if your setup includes two opposites, two people who don’t see eye-to-eye, then arguments are inevitable. This may seem obvious, but a lot of times I see writers working hard to create tension or suspense in a scene and it’s not working because there’s no tension or suspense inherent in the concept.