Writer Joseph Gangemi is debuting his new show “Red Oaks,” on Amazon today.  Red Oaks is produced by Steven Soderbergh and the pilot was directed by Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green.  It’s about a tennis pro’s crazy adventures back in the summer of 1985.  As some of you know, I used to support myself by teaching tennis, so I couldn’t resist getting Joe in for an interview.  What transpired was a full on course study in how to get into television writing.   So any screenwriter looking to break into TV is going to want to take notes.  Also, you can check out Joseph’s show on Amazon right now!  For free!

Rising star Craig Roberts (Submarine, Neighbors) plays the lead in “Red Oaks.”

SS: Hey Joe.  Why don’t we start off with you letting us know a little about who you are and how your writing career came about.  

JG: Sure!  I’ve been a member of the WGA since ’97 when I sold my first spec to New Line. That same year as luck would have it I also sold my first novel, which I’d written with a friend back in college and that had been sitting in a drawer for years. (It was eventually published under a pseudonym, so don’t bother Googling!) The serendipitous sales of novel and spec enabled me to quit my day job in corporate America and turn to full-time writing. It’s helped that I’ve done it from Philadelphia, where the cost of living is lower than LA, and where there are fewer distractions. (Though my agents and manager are constantly after me to relocate.)

Since then I’ve worked for most of the studios on open writing assignments, published another novel—this time under my actual name—and had two of my specs reach the screen, WIND CHILL, which starred Emily Blunt and came out in 2007, and STONEHEARST ASYLUM, staring Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, and Ben Kingsley, which will be released this October 24th (Shameless plug!) In that time I also began writing for TV, and to date have sold three projects, including “Red Oaks.”

Television is a really appealing medium for a writer, and especially a novelist. Whenever my writer friends bemoan the shortening of attention spans and the death of the novel I point out that audiences still seem just as addicted to long, sprawling, episodic storytelling as they did in the Victorian era when the novel was born—they’ve just embraced a new delivery system. Not that novels and episodic TV offer identical experiences; but I do think they offer audiences some overlapping pleasures, like immersion in richly populated worlds thick with subplots and digression, a greater sense of the passage of time, etc.

So I didn’t need much arm-twisting to try my hand at TV. Also, TV is enjoying a golden era akin to that of indie movies in the ’90s—it’s the place where offbeat storytelling is still welcome, where niche audiences are cultivated and anti-heroes celebrated. Whereas the economics of filmmaking and especially marketing have forced the studios to narrow their offerings to a specific bandwidth, namely tent poles and those few high concept comedies that can withstand translation into other languages.

I sold my first TV pitch to Lionsgate and ABC seven years ago. It was called “The Lodge” and was a haunted hotel show. Unfortunately like a lot of pitches it didn’t survive the development process—an all too common case of seller and buyer not realizing until too late what kind of show we were making. (I thought it should be “Twin Peaks,” they wanted “Fantasy Island.”)

Eager not to repeat the experience, I decided with my next TV idea—another hour-long drama called “Strega,” which is a kind of male “Rosemary’s Baby”—to once more write it on spec. “Strega” had a lot of heat in the marketplace and eventually sold to ABC-Signature, where it’s now in the process of being packaged before being shopped further. (TV can be confusing because the studios are free to develop shows for other places besides their parent networks, hence the reason an end card on an NBC show might read “CBS Studios.” Studios produce TV shows, which are then licensed to networks for broadcast; it’s akin to how movies are made by studios and then licensed to theaters. The big difference being that in TV the networks weigh in creatively during development.)

When I was approached about “Red Oaks”—a show I sometimes half-jokingly describe as “‘Caddyshack’ with tennis”—I decided again to write the pilot on spec, in part because I was co-writing with a friend I’d never collaborated with before (Greg Jacobs, whose life story loosely inspired the show). But also because I was switching genres and needed to prove to myself I could write funny.

SS: As is always the case when I bring writers in, I’d love to know how you got your agent.  

JG: I came by my agent in an unusual way. (Though the more breaking-in stories I hear the more I think there is no “usual” way.) Around ’96 a novelist pal of mine, Jon Cohen, invited me to tag along on a trip to LA, where he was meeting about a spec screenplay he’d just sold. (Jon would go on to write “Minority Report.”) Over dinner one night I met his agent Howie Sanders, who, upon learning I was a published short-story writer and aspiring screenwriter, graciously offered to read anything I might submit. When I got home I promptly FED EX’d him a romantic comedy spec. He called to say “I can’t break a new writer in with a romantic comedy—” Things were very different in ’96!—”but you have talent and you should write a horror movie or a thriller.” Since I liked horror (my first, pseudonymous novel was horror and eventually won a Bram Stoker Award for best first novel) I pitched him a few ideas. He responded to one, which I proceeded to outline and write and sent back to him for notes. We went back and forth for about six months, fine tuning to get it ready for the marketplace. Howie went out with it in October of 1997 and sold it to New Line. Which is what earned me my WGAE card— and Howie a place in my heart!

SS: Amazon has a unique way of creating pilots.  Can you tell us how their system works?

JG: At the networks, cable channels, HBO, etc., pilots are only ever seen by executives and the occasional focus group, and all decisions about series orders are made behind closed doors, in corporate boardrooms. Amazon makes its pilots public, basing its series orders on the number of customer views, reviews, and five-star ratings, as well as chatter on social media. And just to clear up a common misconception, you don’t need to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to stream these pilots—anyone can go to the Amazon site now and screen “Red Oaks.”

What’s appealing about this model for a writer is that if you make an Amazon pilot you at least know your friends and family will get to see it. Which with networks is only the case if your show gets ordered to series and put on the schedule. There are many pilots that have been made but shelved, regardless of cast and pedigree. For instance HBO’s pilot of Jonathan Franzen’s bestseller “The Corrections,” starring Ewan McGregor. Also with the Amazon process at least you can sleep at night knowing you got your story “out there” where it can live or die based on its own merits and not whether it fits some corporate mandate at one particular moment in time. (“We need more shows that appeal to high earning males age 24-42.”) So there’s a meritocratic element that’s unique.

SS: And what was the process of you selling your script to Amazon?  How did that happen?

JG: Greg Jacobs and I first met when he directed my spec “Wind Chill” (a spec co-written with my pal Steven Katz.) In addition to being a director Greg is Soderbergh’s longtime producer—in fact he won an Emmy last year for producing “Behind the Candelabra.” For years Greg has been regaling us with funny stories about his summer job as an assistant tennis pro in suburban New Jersey. When Soderbergh started getting involved in TV, he encouraged Greg to develop a show based on his misadventures, and Greg suggested bringing me in to help write it—because I’m a buddy, but also because I could bring some outsider perspective to the material and help transform autobiography into good  drama. We outlined, which is where all the heavy lifting is really done, and then began passing a first draft back and forth until all parties felt it was ready to package with a director. David Gordon Green responded very quickly, and with him attached, we began shopping it.

SS: For the newbies here, can you talk about how the traditional pilot system works, so we can get some context?

JG: Summer is “pitch season.” In June you partner with a like-minded producer to pitch your project to studios, in hopes that one will take a shine to it and take it off the market with some sort of financial deal. At which point your new studio backer takes the lead in shopping the project in order to “set it up” at a network. As with spec scripts, the more competitive the interest in a project, the more likely you can get a more lucrative or desirable outcome. For instance you’ll often read in the trades that a hot project got a “put pilot” commitment from a network, which means that the deal struck carries a hefty penalty that the network must pay if they decide not to order the pilot. And every year there are a handful of direct-to-series orders, where a show’s creator is guaranteed his or her full writing/producing fee for X number of episodes (usually 12, or half of a network season) regardless of whether they are made and aired. Often this occurs when the creatives behind a show are household names, like David Fincher (“House of Cards”) or Soderbergh (“The Knick.”) But occasionally it happens with an unknown, as it did recently with Mickey Fisher and “Extant.”

If you sell a pitch in the summer, you spend the autumn going back and forth with the network, studio, and producers getting notes on the outline. Then around November 1 you finally get the go-ahead to start “writing pages,” with a goal of delivering the best draft you are capable of producing no later than the Christmas holidays when all the network execs jet off to Aspen. You sweat bullets throughout January, and then around February everyone holds their breath and hopes theirs is among the projects ordered to pilot. If you are among the lucky ones you make your pilot in the spring and deliver it in time for the “up fronts” in New York, when the networks begin touting their new shows to advertisers. Then around June you either get a series order, or go back to square one and start over.

The above is only for network development. AMC, HBO, Netflix, Amazon, etc., aren’t tied to the calendar and therefore have no official pitch season. Theirs is more like the “rolling admissions” policy of some universities.

SS: What do you think is the key to not just selling a pilot, but getting it on the air?  Is there a formula for that?

JG: That’s the problem with a lot of network programming. It’s formulaic. (e.g. Legal Thriller; Forensic Procedural, etc.) Which is why so many of the cable shows are eating the Nets’ lunches and stealing their Emmy’s. Not to mention their viewers. And network execs—who are not dumb—realize this, and are trying to develop material that feels more “cable-like.” Darker themes. Anti-heroes. Period pieces.

SS: I’m curious about the financials for television.  How much does a writer a) get paid for selling a pilot, b) get paid for being staffed on a high-rated show (Scandal) and c) get paid for a smaller show (like, say, Teen Wolf).

JG: There are guild minimums for every format and length of show—that’s the baseline. How much more you make for writing a pilot depends on (a) your quote (if you’ve sold pitches or been hired to write teleplays in the past), and/or (b) how much competition there is among interested buyers. A ballpark number I’ll throw out there for, say, an hour long network drama (because Guild rates differ depending on whether a show is network or cable) that isn’t subject to a bidding war could be around $90,000, give or take. This is called the “guarantee,” meaning the studio guarantees to pay you this much for your writing services provided the project is “set up” at a network, and regardless of whether the script is ever ordered to pilot. Once you get a pilot order, additional fees kick in—perhaps a production bonus, definitely some sort of producing fee. Remember in TV the writer-creator is also typically a producer. Often an Executive Producer (the highest position in TV credits.)

I’ve never been on a writing staff so it’s more difficult for me to give sample numbers. But back in the 90s I was invited to audition for the writing staff of one of the later seasons of “The X-Files,” and I recall being offered a contract that guaranteed me a certain amount per week for six weeks, after which the producers had the option of extending my employment for the rest of the season. And I think at the time I did the math and figured out I would have made about $125,000 if they kept me around for a full season. Which isn’t chump change by any stretch—especially if you are single, with no dependents, as I was at the time. But since I was only guaranteed six weeks of employment I concluded that it wasn’t worth uprooting and relocating to Los Angeles. So I politely declined. And heard that the producers—who were riding pretty high in the ratings then—were flabbergasted and outraged.

SS: If you’re a young writer who wants to get into TV, in your opinion, what’s the best route to take?

JG: As with features writing, there’s really no one best route—many roads lead to Rome. Take my friend Ben Cavell. He went to Hollywood with one spec script in hand (a cop show set in 19th century Boston, and this was back before period pieces were in vogue) and a single well-reviewed short story collection, and managed to land an entry level staff job writing on “Justified.”

My point is, talent and perseverance will pave just about any path you choose into this industry.

That said, writing a spec pilot of an original idea—as opposed to a spec episode of a show already on the air—seems like the best way to get noticed. Even if the show itself isn’t commercial or viable, the fact that you chose the tougher challenge of world-building shows people that you have moxy.

SS: And how do you get on to a writing staff?  I have a talented writer friend who wants to get on a staff and learn but he has no idea where to even start.

JG: There’s a good piece on this subject in Mike Sack’s recently published book “Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations With Today’s Top Comedy Writers.” It happens to be by my TV agent Joel Begleiter, who talks about the pros and cons of writing an original versus a spec episode. He also gives some good advice on how to get the attention of guys like him, at big agencies like UTA.

I’ve heard that there are junior positions on writing staffs where you are called something like “story editor” or “writer’s assistant” or somesuch, where you can learn the business and eventually graduate to full-fledged Writer. But I’m not sure what qualifications you’d need to get those jobs. But a snappy spec pilot couldn’t hurt!

SS: What is the TV world looking for right now?  Does it vary because there are so many outlets?  Or is there a particular type of show that’s hot (aka – a show like Breaking Bad)?

JG: At present I’m hearing that the market is oversaturated with procedurals, that “light hour longs dramas” (think “Desperate Housewives”) are out of vogue, and that “noisy” dramas—the higher concept the better—are what execs are hungry for.

Also, genre is white hot. Nine out of ten genre shows are performing well, and in the case of  “Game of Thrones” and “Walking Dead”—spectacularly so. (“‘Walking Dead’ is doing ‘ER’-in-the-’90s numbers internationally,” an exec gushed to me recently). Of course writers have to be smart—it makes no sense to pitch a vampire show when there are so many already on the air. And I would think it would be hard to do a high fantasy in the long shadow of the juggernaut “GoT” unless it’s based on a piece of fancy IP (Intellectual Property in Hollywood-speak) like Terry Brooks’ Shannara series or Anne McCaffery’s Dragonriders of Pern sequence.

SS: You’ve written features as well.  Is that a world you’re still interested in?  Or are the opportunities so good in TV right now that it’s not even worth it?

JG: I remain very interested in features and in fact Greg Jacobs and I have a film adaptation of Castle Freeman’s novel “Go With Me” that starts shooting in November. The screenplay form is so difficult to crack, and so satisfying when done well, that it presents an irresistible challenge I don’t think I’ll ever entirely master or get tired of tackling.

Writing for TV scratches a different creative itch and presents a different set of challenges—plotting out season-long story arcs, stage-managing a large cast of characters, evoking the passage of time, etc. Also, as you might guess, the sheer volume of writing a typical network requires to fill its schedule means there are that many more job opportunities for the working writer trying to maintain his WGA health coverage! And besides the networks there are countless cable channels, premium channels, subscription services like Netflix and Amazon and Hulu, websites like Funny or Die and emerging platforms like Xbox TV—all of which are hungry for content.

From an economic standpoint also TV is a sector of “showbusiness” that far outstrips boxoffice earnings. In my friend Lynda Obst’s book “Sleepless in Hollywood” (an essential state-of-the-industry book that should come shrink-wrapped with every newly issued WGA card) she points out that TV contributes nearly ten times more revenue to a studio’s bottom line than do feature films.

It reminds me of a time I was on the Fox lot to see a film exec friend. En route from the parking structure I noticed a huge new building being built across from the historic old Hollywood (and somewhat shabby) film building where I was headed. I asked my film exec friend about the new building and he gave a weary sigh and said, “That’s the new Fox TV building… that ‘The Simpsons’ built.”

SS: Wait, so you’re saying that a movie like The Avengers doesn’t make nearly as much money as, say, Gray’s Anatomy? 

JG: Yeah, it kind of blew my mind too to learn that TV revenue so far outpaces film. Now I’m not sure if that includes ancillary income from things like Avengers lunch boxes and back packs. It might just be box office and DVD / download revenue (on the film side) versus licensing and syndication fees (on the TV side). But according to the numbers Lynda quotes in her book, TV generates ten times the revenue. Crazy. But maybe not when you consider that a hit show like “Walking Dead” is being viewed by something like 50 million people a week, worldwide. Can you imagine how valuable a show like that is in syndication? Not to mention the money that studios make spinning off international versions of hit American shows. “CSI: Moscow.”  “The Office: Brazil.” Keep in mind also that American audiences only go to the movies on average a few times a month. (If that.) Now think about how many hours of TV the average viewer watches per week.

I don’t want to send your aspiring screenwriters scrambling for the exits, or turn them into TV converts. But I think there’s no reason they shouldn’t open themselves to alternate forms of storytelling. That’s a good career move in general. Not to mention a good way to keep yourself creatively engaged over the course of a career. I’d recommend writing novels as well. And graphic novels if you are so inclined. Hell, even videogames if you have the opportunity. It’s all storytelling, and makes you a better rounded storyteller.

Rafael Nadal

SS: And finally, since Red Oaks is about tennis, which do you think is harder?  Winning a point against Rafael Nadal or selling a pilot script?

JG: That’s a tough one! Though I can say facing off against Soderbergh in a notes meeting is equally intimidating.

Busier than normal here at the household. One of the Dragon Gods of Screenplay Heaven got sick and I had to take him to the vet. So I’m reposting my newsletter review of BIRDMAN, which is from a long time ago. Now since that time, they’ve come out with a trailer. And I’ll be the first to admit, the trailer looks awesome. It’s unique in all the right ways. It takes chances. It’s fun. But I’m not backing off my review. The script was borderline unreadable. And I know my review was a little mean-spirited, but as I know all of you can attest to, there’s nothing that gets you more riled up as a reader than a comedy where nothing is funny. Now whether this is another case of a “what the hell did I just read” turning into True Detective, we’ll have to see. But it’s pretty easy to come up with a cool looking trailer that then becomes a terrible movie. Heck, we see it every month. I’m hoping I’m wrong though. I’m hoping Inarritu had some vision that went beyond the script, which can sometimes happen with writer-director projects. So here’s my original newsletter review of Birdman. Also, I WILL be sending out a newsletter later this week. If you’re not on the list, you can join here.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A famous director turns away from his successful blockbuster movie franchise to try and make it on Broadway.
About: “Birdman” is Alejandro Inarritu’s first foray into comedy. He’s best known for his dark gritty dramas like 21 Grams, Amores Perros, Biutiful, and Babel. Birdman is finished filming and stars Edward Norton, Michael Keaton, and Naomi Watts. Now, Inarritu actually has a little bit of history with the screenwriting world. He used to work closely with writer Guillermo Arriaga on all his films. Then Arriaga, a screenwriter through-and-through, began a personal campaign pushing the agenda that writers and directors should share an “auteur” credit in every movie, as they are just as responsible for the movie as the director. That pissed Inarritu off, who strongly disagreed, and the two’s friendship and working relationship fell apart as a result. This happened during the writing of Babel, and the two haven’t worked together since. It’s an interesting development in that one could argue that Biutiful was Inarritu’s worst film, and it was his first full movie without Arriaga. Coincidence? Maybe the script for Birdman, which Inarritu is the head writer on, will help us find out.
Writers: Alejandro G. Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo
Details: 121 pages (Sept 10, 2012 draft)

I’m always interested when someone who’s successful in one arena tries to break out of the hole they’ve been pigeoned in (get it! “Birdman!”) into another arena. Not only is there the curiosity factor of if they can do it, but there’s a lot on the line. Everyone’s doubtful that you can pull it off, and they’re kind of ready to rip you apart if you fail. And there’s no genre harder to pull off than comedy.

So to hear that Inarritu was making a comedy – he being responsible for some of the most depressing films of the last decade – well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised. Did Inarritu have a secret life? Did he stay home late at night watching Chris Farley movies and making farting noises with his armpit at the dinner table? Or was he just sick of being tabbed the super serious guy? Or better yet, did he just want to prove he could do it? These were questions I was curious to have answered.

Our oddly named hero, Riggan, is a 55 year old director whose successful film franchise “Birdman,” has made him a household name. But when given the chance to make a fourth Birdman film and add even more money to his coffers, Riggan decides, instead, to try out Broadway – to make a serious dramatic play which will bring him the respect he’s always longed for.

The problem is, he hates his lead. Which is a huge issue when your play debuts in a couple of weeks. Luckily, that lead gets injured, and Riggan is able to replace him with a hot Broadway actor named Matt Skinner. The Brando-like Skinner may be a better actor, but he’s also nuts. He lives and breathes his characters, and isn’t afraid to fuck with the production in order to get what he wants. For example, one day he sets fire to the set. Why? Cause he’s Matt Skinner!

If Riggan only had to worry about Matt, he MIGHT be able to get through this. But he’s also going a little nuts (he constantly talks with a manifestation of his Birdman character throughout the movie). He’s got a daughter who hates him, seemingly because he doesn’t know what Twitter is. And there are numerous cast and crew members who are banging (or wanting to bang) each other, inadvertently destroying this delicate production Riggan’s worked so hard to create. Will Riggan figure out a way to save his play and finally earn the respect he feels he deserves? You’ll be able to find out this fall.

Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it. This was terrible. I mean, it’s pretty much a failure on every level. This is a comedy without any laughs. The tone is all over the place (dead serious one moment, overly goofy the next). And I’m wondering if the script’s shortcomings are an ESL issue. Because very little made sense. I know I couldn’t write a comedy in another language. So there’s no shame in it. The shame is in trying to do something you shouldn’t have done in the first place.

Birdman’s problems go deep. Within the first 5 pages, I was confused. First of all, the main character starts in his dressing room, then walks out onto a stage, where the other characters are having a discussion about a psycho ex-boyfriend, which we believe to be a scene rehearsal. But then they turn to Riggan and ask him, mid-rehearsal, what he thinks about the matter. He says something to the effect of, “I don’t know the guy so I don’t know,” and we begin to think that maybe this isn’t a rehearsel. That it is, in fact, actors talking before rehearsal.

But then later in the conversation, Riggan gives one of the actors an acting note preceded by the parenthetical (as the director). Oh! I guess Riggan is the director now. Nobody told me that. Guess we were supposed to figure it out on our own. Except then we realize that Riggan is both the director AND the lead actor. So now I’m going back to the beginning and trying to figure out what this means. Was this a rehearsel or actors chatting? If it was rehearsel, why is the director AND lead actor not out there rehearsing with them? If it wasn’t a rehearsal, why is Riggan giving directing cues mid-coversation?

I see amateurs make this mistake a lot but rarely pros. Whenever you’re setting up a complicated situation (a writer-director you haven’t set up yet walking into an ambiguous scene), it’s your job to identify that it might be difficult for the reader to interpret and call upon your clarity wand to clear things up. Tell us Riggan is both the director and the lead actor in a description paragraph if you have to. Confusing a reader right off the bat in a screenplay is one of the worst things you can do. They lose trust in you and the script IMMEDIATELY and from that point on, you’re playing catch-up with their trust.

On top of this, it’s never clear if Riggan was the director of his famous franchise, Birdman, or the lead actor. He’s portrayed as a director in our story, so we naturally assume he was the director of Birdman. But then it’s indicated he ACTED in those movies too. This is so unnecessarily confusing. Why not just go with one or the other?

I loved Amores Perros. It made me an instant Inarritu fan. Babel had some really great moments in it as well. So I’ve always had a soft spot for Inarritu as a director. But comedy is not his forte. I respect stepping out of your comfort zone. But I mean… yikes. This is not funny or good or clear or anything that a screenplay needs to be. It wants to be five different movies instead of one. I mean, not even the basics are in place. There are no stakes! What happens if our main character, who has hundreds of millions in the bank, fails with this play? He goes back to making Birdman 4. Nothing is lost. Nor are we ever told what this play is about. This is a movie about a play and I don’t know what it’s about!

The only cool thing about this script is that Michael Keaton is playing Riggan – Keaton, of course, of Batman fame. There’ll be some nice irony here in that he’s basically playing a version of himself. And I see that Inarritu is doing a little auto-biographicalizing of his own. He’s trying to get some demons about the business out – how does one be a successful artist and balance family at the same time?

I like when writers bring their own problems into their characters as that’s usually when we see the deepest most meaningful exploration of character. Unfortunately, there was nothing authentic about the Riggan-daughter relationship. I don’t know. It was just… off. Her big monologue in the movie – the one that breaks down their relationship with one another – amounts to “You need to use Twitter more!” Does any of this script make sense? Or more importantly, has nobody told Inarritu that his script isn’t any good?

I think there needs to be a system in place where production companies and studios send their scripts out to a neutral party – someone who has zero skin in the game. Because a lot of money is about to be spent. Don’t you want someone telling you if your script is terrible? Don’t you want that chance to avoid a colossal mistake? Or to fix what’s broken? I get the feeling this script was written in a vacuum and these guys didn’t have anyone telling them how off it was.

Then again, it’s a comedy. And comedies are easy to hate if you’re not “getting” the sense of humor. So maybe I’m just not getting it. Also, the movie starts out with Michael Keaton floating in mid-air and never goes on to explain why. With a universe that untamed, maybe this isn’t the kind of script meant to be judged. Maybe you’re supposed to throw logic to the wind and just go with it. But there’s a fine line between that kind of movie and one that throws a bunch of nonsensical crazy shit at the screen and hopes it hits. Let’s hope Birdman isn’t the latter.

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

What I learned: If you want to go “off the reservation” with your script, like Birdman, go ahead and do it. But please take the time to be clear about what’s happening on the page. The wilder your story is, the less reference we have to draw on, which means we need more hand-holding along the way. If we’re confused about something as simple as what your hero does, that can kill the entire reading experience.

What I learned 2: When you write a dialogue scene, try not to think of it in terms of what you (the writer) need to do with the plot. Think of it in terms of what the characters need. This is a common mistake all writers make. We’re so focused on moving the plot forward or getting in those important lines of exposition, that we forget that in real life, there’s no all-knowing entity sitting above people forcing them to do anything. In real life, people just talk. So you kind of have to take yourself out of the equation and approach the scene from inside the two characters. They’re not thinking about what you, Aaron Sorkin, need them to say so he can properly pay off that first Act setup. They may just want the girl across from them to know that they like them. If you do this properly, your scenes will stop feeling stagey and plot-driven and start to feel more like two people actually talking.

A quick thought on the Emmys.  Breaking Bad dominated with 5 wins in important categories, taking out True Detective, which only received one (for directing).  Mad Men shut out again.  Has that show lost its juice?  Also, why is Game of Thrones ignored at the Emmys?  Is that just a show for geeks?  Is it because 75% of the writing is exposition?  Do voters not take it seriously?  Share your thoughts on the Emmys in the comment section…

Genre: TV Pilot – Drama
Premise: When three high school girls do a porn video for some quick cash, the repercussions of their actions take a toll on the small town where they reside.
About: Sea of Fire was originally a Dutch show, ported over here for an American treatment. The show is being described as a modern-day Twin Peaks (I will confirm after reading it, that it is nothing like that show). This draft of Sea of Fire was written by long time TV writer, Steve Maeda, who’s written on such shows as The X-Files, CSI: Miami, and Lost. – It should be noted that this is not the final draft. They would later bring in one of Shonda Rhimes’s writers (on Grey’s and Scandal), Jenna Bans, to do a rewrite, where she changed all the character names. Whether that means they just wanted different names or they totally scrapped this draft by Maeda, is yet to be known.
Writer: Steve Maeda (original show written by Frank Ketelaar & Robert Kievit)
Details: 60 pages (1/19/13 draft)

“Whoa whoa whoa. Say that again. My daughter’s in what??”

When someone throws these ingredients at you, you’re thinking, at the very least, you’re going to read something interesting:

1) 3 high school girls secretly create a porn tape.
2) The town they live in finds out about it and the tape’s repercussions slowly destroy said town.
3) Adapted from a Dutch television show.
4) Said to be David Lynchian.

This is the kind of scandalous subject matter that if you take chances and push boundaries, you can create something epic. Unfortunately, that’s not what we get here. Instead, “Sea of Fire” is like a cross between the recent 90210 update and that show “Revenge.” Now I’ve never seen Revenge, but I’m going off their over-the-top promos, where someone’s always dying, coming back to life, cheating, or getting pregnant. Sea of Fire is very much in that mould.

It follows three 17 year-old girls in the town of Santa Cruz, California. There’s bad girl leader, Megan, gorgeous second-in-charge Polly, and third wheel, Elena. When we come into the story, Elena is pissed at Megan for reasons that will be revealed later. But Megan couldn’t care less. Being the bad girl that she is, she’s already off stealing a dress for tonight’s party.

Which is ironic because her father, Mark, is a cop. When we meet Mark getting ready for work, he checks his e-mail to find that someone’s sent him a preview link to a new porn site. Mark is shocked when he sees that the girls in the video are Megan, Polly, and Elena.

Now this is sensitive stuff. Mark can’t just put the site on blast. He doesn’t want anyone to find out his daughter was in a porno. So he approaches Polly’s dad, Peter, to get his take. The two agree that they should keep it quiet for now, and they definitely can’t tell Elena’s dad, who would go insane if he found out.

It just so happens Elena’s dad is having his 50th birthday party tonight, which all the adults and all the children will be attending. It’s here where Mark finds his daughter and questions her about the site. Megan is defiant. “So?” she says in that carefree way only teenagers can pull off. She wanted the money.

In the meantime, Elena storms out of the party for what is believed to be porno PTSD, and is chased by her drunk boyfriend, Slater (yes, her boyfriend’s name is Slater), towards a cliff. The two get in a fight, she scratches his face, Slater passes out, and when he wakes up, Elena is gone.

Slater stumbles back to the party, where he’s immediately questioned as to the whereabouts of Elena. When he says he lost her, an impromptu search begins. But when questions start getting asked, everybody’s individual secrets prevent would-be clues from being revealed. And for that reason, it doesn’t look like poor Elena will ever be found alive.

I want to start off by talking about false hooks. A false hook is when you hook us with one element, but then the show or the movie really isn’t about that element at all. So here, we’re hooked by this idea of a scandalous porn video. That’s the unique factor that pulls us in. But Sea of Fire really isn’t about a porn tape. It’s about a girl who’s gone missing. And isn’t that the premise for every other show on television?

So I felt a little duped. On top of this, it drives me crazy when writers fudge the catalyst moment. The catalyst moment is the moment that propels your story into motion. So here, it would be the disappearance of Elena. If you cheat as a writer – if you artificially hide what happened when there’s no reason that the moment should be hidden other than that you want to create a mystery – that’s cheating.

Here’s how the disappearance plays out. Drunk Slater is near a cliff with Elena. He’s yelling at her, asking her what’s wrong. He grabs her. She scratches him to get away, he falls on the ground and…COMMERCIAL BREAK! When we come back, waddaya know! Slater is conveniently passed out. When he wakes up, Elena is gone. This conveniently sets up a multitude of possibilities of what could’ve happened (Elena fell off the cliff, she ran away, Slater did something to her and forgot, she was taken). But the moment is so manufactured (why would someone pass out after getting scratched, drunk or not??) that we don’t buy it.

And now, the entirety of the show – the next 100 episodes – is built off a catalyst that was a cheat. I can’t stand that. Why not just have Elena walk into the night to get some air then never come back? That would’ve been so much more honest and terrifying (our imaginations would’ve gone crazy trying to conceive of what happened). I guess because with the scratches, that makes Slater a suspect, a plot point they can play with early on. But if you’re sacrificing a believable catalyst to get that plot point, is it worth it?

Sea of Fire also had a bad case of “old people trying to write what they think young people sound like and are 7 years behind” syndrome. So the teenage characters were using ill-fitting words like, “A’ight” and “True dat,” – real cringe-worthy stuff. If you’re older and you want to write teenage dialogue, go over to Youtube and search videos of teens talking. Don’t go off your memory, as your memory is typically way behind. Teenage-speak is constantly evolving. If you’re behind on it, the story loses credibility.

I’m not saying Sea of Fire is all bad. It’s soapy (REALLY soapy – like you won’t need to bathe for weeks after watching it). But it niftily gives all its characters secrets that prevent an easy case. For example, Polly’s mom, Kristen, is cheating on Polly’s dad. When Kristen and her lover leave the party for a make-out session, they see troublemaker Freddy break into a construction site. When Freddy is later tabbed as a suspect in Elena’s disappearance, Kristen can easily provide an alibi for him, but of course won’t, since she would then have to admit to her affair.

There was a lot of stuff like that in Sea of Fire, and for the most part, it worked. But there’s a big difference when you see all these soapy elements in a show like Sea of Fire, which is taking itself seriously, and a show like How to Get Away With Murder, which is just having fun. You know “Murder” is silly entertainment so you go with it. With Sea of Fire, you get the feeling it’s aspiring to be more, so the over-the-top soapy stuff sometimes undercuts the drama.

But it’s weird. One of the things I’ve noticed since focusing more on TV is that it draws a lot more on its soapy elements that I’d previously thought. Even some of the most esteemed shows, like Game of Thrones, are essentially about who’s sleeping with who, who just got pregnant, who murdered who, and so on and so forth. But I’m not sure how a show like Game of Thrones gets away with it while Sea of Fire comes off looking cheesy. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

It’s important to note that when I don’t like one of these pro scripts or pilots, they’re still pretty solid. I mean, this is definitely better than all the amateur scripts submitted to the site. But I couldn’t shake the feeling the whole time that I was reading “90210: The Edgy Version.” Maybe the creators felt the same way, which is why they brought in Bans? Either way, I hope they figure it out. It’s definitely an intriguing premise that I don’t feel was utilized to its full potential.

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

What I learned: Tell us your story through action and dialogue. Do not tell it through description. If I see the bartender discreetly place his hand between married Kristen’s legs and she seems to like it, and this is then followed by some flirty banter between the two, I don’t need the writer to tell me in the description: “And that’s when we realize it. KRISTEN IS HAVING AN AFFAIR.” I think it’s pretty clearly implied that Kristen’s having an affair already. (note: I’ve heard professional writers complain that when they try and be subtle about this stuff, dumb execs don’t get it, which requires them to be more on-the-nose in subsequent drafts. So that may be the case here. But it’s still a practice I’d avoid as a spec writer, as it can easily ruin a shocking moment).

Genre: Horror
Premise: When a father-son team performs an autopsy on an unidentified female found under mysterious circumstances, strange things start to happen inside the morgue.
About: The Autopsy of Jane Doe finished near the middle of last year’s Black List (it should be noted, however, that this draft is from a year earlier). The script was written by Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing. This will be Naing’s first produced credit, although he had an associate producer credit on Better Living Through Chemistry, which starred Olivia Wilde. Goldberg, on the other hand, has been around for awhile. He wrote on The Sarah Conner Chronicles, Criminal Minds, and Once Upon a Time. Probably the most interesting thing about this project is that it’s being directed by Andre Ovredal, who directed the amazing TrollHunter. Going from full-on wilderness, where you can shoot anywhere and include anything, to a tight underground room, is going to be a tough challenge. But if there’s anyone who can do it, it’s the guy who found and documented real live trolls.
Writer: Ian Goldberg & Richard Naing
Details: 91 pages – June 2012 draft

Something that will always be true through the end of screenwriting time: If you can come up with a fresh way to place a high-concept inside a contained location, and you can execute it adequately, someone will buy your script. It may not be for a ton of money, but it’ll sell.

The problem with the contained horror/thriller is that everyone did it to death three years ago and ran out of ideas. We were stuck in coffins, stuck in cars, stuck in ATM booths, stuck in ski chairs. There are only so many places one can get stuck in (Open Me – A man accidentally gets stuck inside a gift-wrapped box on Christmas.  The problem is, nobody wants to open him.).

But here’s where The Autopsy of Jane Doe was smart. While all these other writers explored their concepts through “what contained scenario haven’t we done yet?”, Goldberg & Naing approached it from the idea side. Come up with an interesting situation, regardless of place, then see if there’s a way to contain it.

When you look at The Autopsy of Jane Doe, it could’ve easily been a procedural thriller. A mysterious woman dies in the basement of a home – we have to find out who she is and how she died. The autopsy turns up some strange conflicting clues, and we follow a couple of cops who hit the pavement and try to find out what happened – a Silence of the Lambs or Seven type thing. In other words, this could’ve worked as a normal movie.

But once we get to the morgue, that’s where we stay for the entire running time. The script follows 50-something Tommy and his son, 25 year old Austin. Tommy has been in the autopsy business his whole life and loves working with his son. But Austin wants bigger and better things in life than… death.

That night, the two are delivered a strange “Jane Doe” discovered at a murder scene and get to work. But everything about the body feels off. The tongue is severed. There’s a synthetic strand of string in her mouth. Her lungs are blackened as if she’s been smoking for 50 years. And then it gets creepy. Here insides were slashed, yet her body has no indication of surgery. How could someone have gotten inside of her to cut her?

Complications arise when a bad storm moves in and starts knocking out the electricity. It gets so bad that one of the trees outside the morgue crashes up against the doorway, locking them in. Oh, and that’s when the shit really hits the fan.

After going back downstairs, they find that all the body drawers have been opened… with ALL THE BODIES GONE. They start hearing noises all around them. At first they go looking for the source of the noises, but once it becomes apparent that said noises may be … paranormal… they head in the opposite direction.

The problem is, there are only so many places to hide down here. And whatever spirit this Jane Doe brought into the morgue is, it doesn’t want to let them off easy. Flap…flap…flap. Those are the sounds of footsteps coming from bodies that shouldn’t be walking. One of the many bodies who follow the bidding of… Jane Doe.

This script does a lot of things right. Like I mentioned before, the writers created a high concept that could be shot cheaply. They set up a mystery immediately (grab that reader IMMEDIATELY!) when, in the very first scene, the cops find Jane Doe in the basement of a triple-homicide.

Then, once we meet our morticians, we see them doing their job, in detail. This is a very important but underrated part of screenwriting. Whatever the main trade or subject matter in your movie is, you have to convince the reader that you know more about it than they do. That’s because the moment you achieve this, the reader trusts you. Goldberg and Naing get into the itty-bitty details of an autopsy (order of procedure, tools, etc.), so that you trust them to tell this story.

I continue to see amateurs make this mistake and it’s a surefire way to know if a script is bad. If I know more than you do about the main subject matter you’re covering, then how much effort did you really put into this script?

But let’s be honest. When it comes to a horror script, one thing matters above all others. IS IT SCARY? Jane Doe is scary. There’s a moment in the morgue hallway where one of our previously dead bodies is walking towards us, a bell on his toe (put there earlier just in case he was still alive – ring-a-ling-a-ling), and with each cut-out of the lights, he emerges 10 feet closer. I needed a steady stream of “turn on all the lights in the house” after that one.

And I like stuff like this because it emerges directly from the concept. We’ve seen dead bodies walking around in a million horror movies before, most of the time with no explanation. But here, in a morgue, it wouldn’t make sense UNLESS the bodies were used. Why set your story in a morgue if you’re not going to utilize all the dead bodies?

I did have a few issues with this draft though. It rests a little too heavily on common horror movie tropes, such as the oldies song that keeps popping up on the radio. A lot of jump scares. Looking through keyholes and seeing scary eyes looking back. And there are only so many times you can run back and forth in a hallway before things start to feel repetitive.

Of course, this is the classic challenge of a contained horror film. You’re ALWAYS going to run into this problem and it’s never an easy solution. All you can do is run through as many options as you can think of to make sure you’re using the best ones.

I also thought the relationship between dad and son could’ve been better executed. The way it stands, Austin doesn’t want to be here, and the dad kind of knows this and accepts it. It felt to me like there needed to be a lot more conflict between these two – that the dad should’ve been more adamant about Austin sticking with the family business. You need that kind of thing because there’s a lot of downtime between scares in a horror script (always more than you think when you start writing it), and if your characters don’t have something interesting to hash out, the reader gets bored quickly. Always remember that a horror movie needs to be ABOUT PEOPLE FIRST. We won’t be engaged in the horror unless we’re pulled into the relationships.

I hope Naing and Goldberg have figured out solutions to some of these issues in subsequent drafts. With Ovredal at the helm, this could be really fun. From my understanding, this is in pre-production.  So with horror movies shooting and editing quickly, we’ll probably be seeing it soon.

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

What I learned: This is something I honestly have no answer for. How do you come up with new scares in the horror genre? Literally EVERYTHING has been done. As I was reading this, I’d read a scare that I’d seen before, but then I thought, “I’d have probably done the same thing.” I mean aren’t there only so many ways to scare people? I’m going to challenge you horror aficionados (Poe! Are you listening??). How do you come up with fresh scares? And I’ll go one step further. Give me some fresh scares you would’ve put into this specific script.