A friend of mine gave me a script last week with that desperate look in his eyes. You know the look I’m talking about. That tired bloodshot I’ve-been-crying-for-seven-days Shia LaBeouf “I Am Not Famous Anymore” eyes-behind-the-paper-bag look? I looked at my friend and said, “Are you okay?” All he responded with was: “Second act… (then he shook his head) second act.” That was it.

For centuries, screenwriters have stood on the precipice of that second act, looked out at its grand canyon of unknowns, and given up right then and there. I honestly believe that the second act is what sends 80% of the writers who come to Hollywood, looking to break in, back to where they came from. Because when you think about it, the first act is easy. You’re just setting up your concept and your protagonist, something you probably already knew just by coming up with the logline.

But the second act is different. That’s because the second act is where you actually have to BE A WRITER. You have to know how to, you know, craft a story n’ stuff. That takes two things. Practice and Know-how. I can’t do the practice for you. But I can give you the know-how. Now what I’m about to tell you is assuming you already know the basics of structure (and if you don’t, you should buy my book, dammit. It’s only $4.99 right now!). First act is 25% of your screenplay, second act is 50%, third act is 25% (roughly). You should know how to give your protagonist a goal (find the Ark, defeat the terrorists, get your life back on track, a la Blue Jasmine) that is driving him through the story, as well as understand how to apply stakes and urgency to that pursuit. Assuming you’re on top of that, here’s the rest of what you need to know.

Character Development
One of the reasons the first act tends to be easy is because it’s clear what you have to set up. If your movie is about finding the Ark, then you set up who your main character is, what the Ark is, and why he wants to get it. The second act isn’t as clear. I mean sure, you know your hero has to go off in pursuit of his goal, but that can get boring if that’s the ONLY thing he’s doing. Enter character development, which really boils down to one thing: your hero having a flaw and having that flaw get in the way of him achieving his goal. This is actually one of the more fun aspects of writing. Because whatever specific goal you’ve given your protag, you simply give them a flaw that makes achieving that goal really hard. In The Matrix, Neo’s goal is to find out if he’s “The One.” The problem is, he doesn’t believe in himself (his flaw). So there are numerous times throughout the script where that doubt is tested (jumping between buildings, fighting Morpheus, fighting Agent Smith in the subway). Sometimes your character will be victorious against their flaw, more often they’ll fail, but the choices they make and their actions in relation to this flaw are what begin to shape (or “develop”) that character in the reader’s eyes. You can develop your character in other ways (via backstory or everyday choices and actions), but developing them in relation to their flaw is usually the most compelling part for a reader to read.

Relationship Development
This one doesn’t get talked about as much but it’s just as important as character development. In fact, the two often go hand in hand. But it needs its own section because, really, when you get into the second act, it’s about your characters interacting with one another. You can cram all the plot you want into your second act and it won’t work unless we’re invested in your characters, and typically the only way we’re going to be invested in your characters is if there’s something unresolved between them that we want resolved. Take last year’s highest grossing film, The Hunger Games. Katniss has unresolved relationships with both Peeta (are they friends? Are they more?) and Gale (her guy back home – will she ever be able to be with him?). We keep reading/watching through that second act because we want to know what’s going to happen in those relationships. If, by contrast, a relationship has no unknowns, nothing to resolve, why would we care about it? This is why relationship development is so important. Each relationship is like an unresolved mini-story that we want to get to the end of.

Secondary Character Exploration
With your second act being so big, it allows you to spend a little extra time on characters besides your hero. Oftentimes, this is by necessity. A certain character may not even be introduced until the second act, so you have no choice but to explore them there. Take the current film that’s storming the box office right now, Frozen. In it, the love interest, Kristoff, isn’t introduced until Anna has gone off on her journey. Therefore, we need to spend some time getting to know the guy, which includes getting to know what his job is, along with who his friends and family are (the trolls). Much like you’ll explore your primary character’s flaw, you can explore your secondary characters’ flaws as well, just not as extensively, since you don’t want them to overshadow your main character.

Conflict
The second act is nicknamed the “Conflict Act” so this one’s especially important. Essentially, you’re looking to create conflict in as many scenarios as possible. If you’re writing a haunted house script and a character walks into a room, is there a strange noise coming from somewhere in that room that our character must look into? That’s conflict. If you’re writing a war film and your hero wants to go on a mission to save his buddy, but the general tells him he can’t spare any men and won’t help him, that’s conflict. If your hero is trying to win the Hunger Games, are there two-dozen people trying to stop her? That’s conflict. If your hero is trying to get her life back together (Blue Jasmine) does she have to shack up with a sister who she screwed over earlier in life? That’s conflict. Here’s the thing, one of the most boring types of scripts to read are those where everything is REALLY EASY for the protagonist. They just waltz through the second act barely encountering conflict. The second act should be the opposite of that. You should be packing in conflict every chance you get.

Can someone PLEASE write a buddy-cop movie about Shia’s bag and Pharrell’s hat?

Obstacles
Obstacles are a specific form of conflict and one of your best friends in the second act because they’re an easy way to both infuse conflict, as well as change up the story a little. The thing with the second act is that you never want your reader/audience getting too comfortable. If we go along for too long and nothing unexpected happens, we get bored. So you use obstacles to throw off your characters AND your audience. It should also be noted that you can’t create obstacles if your protagonist ISN’T PURSUING A GOAL. How do you place something in the way of your protagonist if they’re not trying to achieve something? You should mix up obstacles. Some should be big, some should be small. The best obstacles throw your protagonists’ plans into disarray and have the audience going, “Oh shit! What are they going to do now???” Star Wars is famous for one of these obstacles. Our heroes’ goal is to get the Death Star plans to Alderaan. But when they get to the planet, it’s been blown up by the Death Star! Talk about an obstacle. NOW WHAT DO THEY DO??

Push-Pull
There should always be some push-pull in your second act. What I mean by that is your characters should be both MAKING THINGS HAPPEN (push) and HAVING THINGS HAPPEN TO THEM (pull). If you only go one way or the other, your story starts to feel predictable. Which is a recipe for boredom. Readers love it when they’re unsure about what’s going to happen, so you use push-pull to keep them off-balance. Take the example I just used above. Han, Luke and Obi-Wan have gotten to Alderaan only to find that the planet’s been blown up. Now at this point in the movie, there’s been a lot of push. Our characters have been actively trying to get these Death Star plans to Alderaan. To have yet another “push” (“Hey, let’s go to this nearby moon I know of and regroup”) would continue the “push” and feel monotnous. So instead, the screenplay pulls, in this case LITERALLY, as the Death Star pulls them in. Now, instead of making their own way (“pushing”), something is happening TO them (“pull”). Another way to look at it is, sometimes your characters should be acting on the story, and sometimes your story should be acting on the characters. Use the push-pull method to keep the reader off-balance.

Escalation Nation
The second act is where you escalate the story. This should be simple if you follow the Scriptshadow method of writing (GSU). Escalation simply means “upping the stakes.” And you should be doing that every 15 pages or so. We should be getting the feeling that your main character is getting into this situation SO DEEP that it’s becoming harder and harder to get out, and that more and more is on the line if he doesn’t figure things out. If you don’t escalate, your entire second act will feel flat. Let me give you an example. In Back to the Future, Marty gets stuck in the past. That’s a good place to put a character. We’re wondering how the hell he’s going to get out of this predicament and back to the present. But if that’s ALL he needs to do for 60 pages, we’re going to get bored. The escalation comes when he finds out that he’s accidentally made his mom fall in love with him instead of his dad. Therefore, it’s not only about getting back to the present, it’s about getting his parents to fall in love again so he’ll exist! That’s escalation. Preferably, you’ll escalate the plot throughout the 2nd act, anywhere from 2-4 times.

Twist n’ Surprise
Finally, you have to use your second act to surprise your reader. 60 pages is a long time for a reader not to be shocked, caught off guard, or surprised. I personally love an unexpected plot point or character reveal. To use Frozen, again, as an example, (spoiler) we find out around the midpoint that Hans (the prince that Anna falls in love with initially) is actually a bad guy. What you must always remember is that screenwriting is a dance of expectation. The reader is constantly believing the script is going to go this way (typically the way all the scripts he reads go). Your job is to keep a barometer on that and take the script another way. Twists and surprises are your primary weapons against expectation, so you’ll definitely want to use them in your second act.

In summary, the second act is hard. But if you have a structural road-map for your story (you know where your characters are going and what they’re going after), then these tools should fill in the rest.  Hope they were helpful and good luck implementing them in your latest script.  May you be the next giant Hollywood spec sale! :)

Genre: TV Pilot – dark comedy
Premise: When a coup by a crazed military leader throws Pakistan and its nukes into disarray, the U.S. must make a difficult decision on whether to start World War 3.
About: Writer Roberto Benabib is probably best known for his writing on Showtime’s successful show, Weeds. He also wrote for the hit show Ally McBeal. Here, he teams with his brother to write the show, who’s getting his first produced credit (the show was officially picked up for series yesterday). The pilot for The Brink is being directed by comedy directing titan, Jay Roach (Meet the Parents, Austin Powers, The Campaign). It stars Tim Robbins (Shawshank!) and Jack Black (Tropic Thunder).  It will air on HBO.  Gotta admit that I’m confused why Showtime, who worked so closely with Benabib on Weeds, didn’t produce The Brink.
Writers: Roberto & Kim Benabib
Details: 34 pages – 6/12/13 draft

It feels like there’s a battle going down. That battle is between HBO and Netflix. The powerhouse DVD subscription-based service shut down one of the biggest entertainment businesses in the world (Blockbuster) in big part because the company didn’t take them seriously. So as they’ve moved into new spaces, companies have fortified their walls and drafted their soldiers. They’re not going to become the next Blockbuster.

The new thing seems to be to casting big film actors in TV rolls. Kevin Spacey with House of Cards on Netflix. HBO retaliates with Matthew McConaughey in True Detective. And now they’re bringing in Jack Black for The Brink. HBO is making it clear that if you want to play with fire, they still have the biggest matches.

None of that explains what’s going on with this show though. It’s one of those projects that makes you go, “Hmmmm.” A show about the end of the world starring Jack Black? A nuclear comedy? I guess it’s been done before, but not in TV form. I admit I was the same way when Jack Black was cast in King Kong. Funny Chubby Singing Guy starring in Peter Jackson’s epic? That didn’t turn out so well. Let’s hope this one does.

Alex Coppins (Jack Black – although he’s described in the script as “think a young Robert Downey Jr.”) is a junior foreign service officer for the CIA. If you’re wondering what that means, the rough translation is: “a low-level nobody.” Alex is a good guy trying to do good things in Pakistan, but on this particular day, everything changes. There are riots in the streets. Locals start throwing rocks at him. So he runs away to safety with his driver, all the while wondering what the hell is going on.

Cut to 60-something Walter Hollander, the Secretary of State (described as: “Think Bill Murray”). He’s a drunk prostitute-abusing politician, everything that’s wrong with Capitol Hill. The difference is, this guy’s got some real power! He’s torn away from an Asian hooker when this Pakistan business blows up, and he’s one of the first to learn that a crazy military psycho has just taken over the country and is threatening to send a bunch of nukes at Israel.

Naturally, this leads us to the president (progressively cast as Hispanic), who’s being pressured by his advisors to take out all the nuclear missile sites in Pakistan before this new army can move the arms and hide them. It’s a tight window and he has to act fast.

The final piece of the puzzle is a Top Gunner pilot named Zeke (“Think Owen Wilson”) who’s less concerned with world wars than he is with expanding his illegal prescription pill operation throughout the armed forces. But the man’s job is to push buttons when the prez needs them pushed so he goes over Pakistan waiting for the final confirmation to rain down nukes and kill a bunch of innocent people’s lives.

In a final “add-on” paragraph at the end of the pilot, we’re told that over the course of the series, all of this will take place in REAL-TIME, much like 24. Then, once the season is over, a new danger will be presented in the following season, and the same principle actors will be involved. I’m not quite sure how they’re going to do that since everybody here (particularly Alex) is so entwined in this specific Pakistan situation.

But that’s a good jumping off point to discuss the pilot. When you think about it, this is why TV is being so celebrated. It’s because they can make shows like this, which don’t fit into any traditional category. I mean you basically have a comedy here about nukes and millions of innocent lives potentially being eliminated.

On the flip side of that, there’s a reason why material like this is considered “challenging.” It’s hard to know if people are going to get the tone. And that was certainly my problem while reading it. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to laugh or not. The way this doomsday scenario plays out is all rather real and scary. If a nuclear war goes down, it’ll probably be something similar to this (a weak country with nukes gets taken over by a crazy lunatic in a military coup). To that end, I wasn’t laughing.

Problematically, the humor that was on the screen was kind of cliché. The biggest attempted laugh was Walter Hollander banging a prostitute when he’s called to the White House by a presidential female aid.

Here’s what I don’t understand about this kind of scene. It sets up the character well. We see Walter banging the prostitute while drunk and immediately know what kind of person he is. It’s ironic (person in power is such a mess) which is what every screenwriting teacher in the world teaches you to do.  But isn’t all of that marred by the fact that we’ve seen this exact same scene a billion times before? “Oh, a politician who’s drunk and bangs hookers.” What’s new about that? Yet I keep seeing it all the time. So I don’t know if my standards are too high or this is as lazy as I think it is. Thoughts?

Not that everything is lazy. I mean, I’ve never seen a comedy TV show that’s dealt with subject matter like this before, so I have to give the Benabib brothers that. But when you’re on the fence about any piece of writing, one lazy choice can result in the reader giving up on the script. I didn’t’ quite get to that point, but Walter’s cliché entrance nearly brought me there.

As for other characters, Zeke was the most original. He’s got a deal with his pharmacist ex-wife to sell oxycontin to all his fellow soldiers (that Weeds show is the gift that keeps on giving!). I’m definitely seeing more scripts covering pharmacists who are abusing their privileges for pleasure or monetary gain (the upcoming “Better Living Through Chemistry” comes to mind) so it’s maybe not as original as the writers think it is, but I the idea that Zeke is divorced from but still working with his wife in an illegal international drug operation for the sake of their kids. That was unique enough to keep me invested.

And then, of course, with any show, it’s all about “Would I want to keep watching?” What’s the hook that’s going to bring the viewer back next week? The premise here practically guarantees that’ll happen. Who’s not going to want to see how we get out of this? The stakes are sky high (the fate of the world) and presented in a way we haven’t seen before. I mean, we’ve seen the fate of the world at stake in a million movies, but rarely in a TV show that puts us right on the brink of it all. That was a really clever hook on their part.

In the end, this show is going to live or die on how the tone is handled. I don’t envy Jay Roach’s job. How you’re going to balance a comedy with a situation this terrifying – I honestly don’t know how you do it. But there’s enough on the page here to at least give it a shot.

And despite some of my criticism, I want to congratulate companies like HBO and Netflix on continuing to push the medium. Not every show’s going to work, but when just one does, it can quickly change the storytelling landscape.

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

What I learned: So I was reading a particular dialogue exchange in The Brink that I didn’t like. Alex’s Pakistani driver takes him back to his house to lay low for awhile. As they’re walking up to the house, Alex says: “This is nice. You live here?” “What were you expecting?” “A mud hut. Stray goats.” “What does it feel like to be such an asshole?” “Face it. The world is run by assholes. Bows to assholes. Show me one person in a position of power who isn’t an asshole.” “My father.” “Your mother might beg to differ.” I don’t think this dialogue is bad. But personally, I hate these little “button” jokes at the end of exchanges that seem to be there more out of necessity than because they’re funny. “Your mother might beg to differ.” That line falls dead to me, mainly because you can feel the line trying too hard. I bring this up because for a long time, I’d see stuff like this and say, “If they’re doing it, I must have to do it too.” So I’d write stupid little button jokes at the end of scenes that weren’t really funny because I thought I had to to be taken seriously. What you eventually learn, as a writer, however, is that if you don’t like something, you don’t have to do it. Because if you don’t like it, then there are people out there who aren’t going to like it either. Those are the people you’re writing for, people who respond to the way YOU like to do things. So never write something because you believe you “have to.” Write it your own way. That approach is what will set you apart from others and help define your unique voice.

Genre: Sci-fi Drama
Premise: A pair of aliens masquerading as humans take over a farm house on earth. The female alien then begins to lure men into the house, and KILL THEM.
About: Co-writer and director Jonathan Glazer doesn’t make movies often, but when he does, they usually make a lot of noise on the indie circuit. His best-known film is Sexy Beast, but in 2004, he made a movie called Birth that had one of the creepier scenes I’ve ever watched. The film is about a woman who’s convinced her dead husband has come back to her in the body of a young boy. The scene in question has them bathing together. I’ll let you figure out the rest. The point is, the man takes chances, so when he puts something together, it’s worth paying attention to. Under the Skin hits theaters this April (in the U.S.), and stars, surprisingly, Scarlett Johansson. It was developed with the assistance of FilmFour and the UK Film Council. Glazer got his start in commercials and videos, and won MTV’s prestigious “Director of the Year” award back in 1997.
Writers: Walter Campbell and Jonathan Glazer (based on the novel by Michael Faber)
Details: July 10th, 2008 draft – 121 pages

Under the Skin was pitched to me as a thinking-man’s sci-fi drama inspired by movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey. I don’t know if the person who said this had actually seen 2001, but I am here to tell you, this is definitely not 2001.

WHAT “Under The Skin” is is another question entirely. We have a writer-director here, which almost always means someone who sees the writing aspect as a means to an end. Indeed, if you watch a movie like “Birth,” it’s more about mood and tone than dialogue and story. And when you start saying things like, “directing is more important than the script,” you get people like Carson riled up. Because while a strong argument can be made that that’s true, a director can’t do anything unless something is written first. And it doesn’t matter what kind of imagery you put in that cineplex if your story sucks. So why not get the script right?

Under the Skin starts with a farmer in the Scottish highlands who swears he saw a dead man, a little black alien creature, and a bird, having a conversation the other day. His friend, of course, thinks he’s hilarious, not realizing that he’s serious. In fact, the bird comes and visits him at home some days and talks to him. Of course, in true indie form, this trio has little to nothing to do with the story.

Meanwhile, two aliens are born in outer space and turned into human beings, who then land on earth near a farm. Lucky for them, the farm was recently deserted, so they come in and start living there. The male alien is named Raymond, and his “wife” is named Laura.

Laura is shapely and beautiful and everything a man desires. Which is important, because her sole purpose seems to be pulling men in then sending them to her barn prison, which has an alien liquid floor that traps the men inside before slowly dissolving them. Why she does this is not clear, but who are we to question an alien’s motivation?

In the meantime, Raymond, the hubby, becomes obsessed with building a fence around their new property. He saw some chaps hunting foxes on his farm the other day and that just isn’t okay with him (a possible intergalactic PETA connection?). So he spends, literally, the entire movie setting up the construction of this fence.

Eventually, one of the men Laura entraps escapes, dying before he can get to the cops, and an investigation begins (with about 20 pages to go). Will the locals discover that their neighbors are really aliens? And if so, whatever are our human-impersonators going to do?

I can just tell that the way Glazer will shoot and score this, it’s going to be creepy. You can feel that eeriness on the page, which gets into lots of little details, the way these mood-dependent movies often do (“A drone slits the air and a fly lands on the female’s collarbone. She freezes, held by this intrusion. The fly moves on.”).

But it kills me because despite every little wonderfully descriptive passage, the story here is glacial. Very little happens. And what does happen is usually some variation of something that’s already happened. Like Laura luring men in for example. I get that that’s what she’s here to do. But each instance of these men being entrapped is virtually identical to a previous instance. Whether it’s on the street or in a club, she lures the guy in with her looks, chats him up, then brings him back to the barn.

Repetition is one of many mortal enemies of the screenwriter. Stories should evolve, change. If all that’s happening is the same stuff we already saw 10 pages ago, and then 10 pages before that, we’re going to get bored.

Now there are some scripts, like this one, where the very nature of the plot requires the protagonist to do repetitive things. Laura is here to lure in men, so I get that we need to see her do it again and again. But for that to work, each one of her attempts must feel new and different, with unique challenges and stakes.

That was the thing. Laura’s experiences were never difficult. Every guy she approached was so damn easy to get. There were never any obstacles. They looked in her eyes and she had them. Without obstacles, there’s no drama. There’s no, “Oh my God, how’s she going to get out of this?” The reader being unsure about what’s going to happen is what makes us want to keep reading. If what’s going to happen is never in doubt, we get bored.

The thing is, even if Glazer and Campbell were able to make this work, the script still had a couple of steep mountains to climb. First, I had no idea why Laura was trapping these men. It wasn’t like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where the goal was clear (you get more humans in order to turn them into aliens). She just seemed to want to kill them. But for what reason? Are you really going to travel billions of miles to come to earth to become a serial killer? If I don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, it’s hard for me to care.

Also, both characters, because they were emotionless aliens, had very little presence on the page, which made them boring. This is a problem you’ll run into EVERY TIME you try to write emotionless characters. It’s just hard to make those characters pop. One solution is to add another character with a big personality to balance out the lack of personality in the silent character. With The Terminator, for example, The Terminator is emotionless and doesn’t say much, but Sara Conner’s pretty prickly. She’s got some personality, which evened things out. We didn’t get anything like that here.

One of the benefits of studying screenwriting and reading so many scripts is you figure out the things that consistently work and the things that consistently don’t. It doesn’t mean you can’t use one of these “proven bad things” and figure out a way to make it work. It just means you make the job harder on yourself. And the more of these “proven bad things” you stick in your script, the more you skew the odds against yourself.

Here we had a) characters repeating themselves throughout the script b) doing things for reasons we didn’t understand c) never encountering obstacles when doing these things (it was always easy) d) who lacked personality. I’m not saying it’s impossible to make a story like this work. But I can guarantee you it’s not going to be easy.

Sometimes I feel like there’s a book out there called “Indie Screenwriting” that only indie writers and directors know about. In this book, you’re taught to take a really long time to get to your plot points. You’re told to avoid conflict because too much conflict is “cliché.” To make your main characters really introverted and therefore devoid of any emotion. And to never explain what’s happening. Just have things happen.

If more indie writers took traditional approaches to storytelling, I feel they could be telling the same stories they want to tell, but reach a much bigger audience, because there will be clear goals and stakes for the audiences to get involved in. I mean one character in Under The Skin spent 80 pages talking about building a fence. Not even building it. Just talking about building it. What are the stakes behind that? Why do we care if this fence is built?

If he needed to build a fence quickly because they had bodies piling up that Laura was accumulating which they needed to bury – then AT LEAST now the fence would have purpose. But to keep out hunters who have no influence on the story? Who cares, right?

It’s just little things like that that, if taken care of, make the script much better, whether it’s an indie or mainstream movie.

Not going to lie, this one was a little frustrating.

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

What I learned: If things are too easy for your protag, we get bored. Laura catching her prey (men) was way too easy. It’s okay if the first one is easy, but each successive man should be harder to get. The stakes should be higher. Things should go wrong. Bigger obstacles should get in the way. That’s how you infuse drama into your scene. You create doubt!

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from Black List) An epic love story set in a time where a dying scientist is able to upload his consciousness into the internet and, facing its global implications, must fight against the forces who are actively working against the existence of a singularity.
About: This was one of the hottest projects in town last year, born from a script that sold for a lot of money. It became hot when Christopher Nolan’s longtime director of photography, wanting to make his directorial debut, attached himself.  Johnny Depp signed up soon after.  Then Morgan Freeman, the girl with the dragon tattoo’s sister, Kate Mara, and Iron Man 3’s Rebecca Hall.  The film is in the can and will be hitting theaters in April, trying to grab that pre-summer sci-fi slot that’s proven so successful for a few projects. As for the writer, Jack Paglen, this is his breakthrough script! However, he didn’t start writing yesterday. He actually had a script on the 2007 Black List, with 3 votes (called “Joy”), and was teaching screenwriting at the New York Film Academy in L.A. (isn’t that an oxymoron?) while writing Transcendence.  Transcendence finished with 7 votes on 2012’s Black List.
Writer: Jack Paglen
Details: 5/01/12 – 131 pages

This is not the first time I’ve seen this idea. In fact, I’ve seen people trying to crack this story (or stories like it) for awhile. There was even a huge spec written in the 1990s by Kyle Wimmer that tackled very similar territory. But without question, Transcendence transcends the idea. Paglen cracks it. All of the pitfalls inherent in this concept (which there are many of), he found ways around them. To understand this script, you have to imagine 2001 occurring here on earth. On a global scale. Sound ambitious? Well, this is an ambitious script. And while I wouldn’t put it in the category of “great,” I’d say it’s pretty damn good.

30-something neurosurgeon Max Waters is one of a handful of scientists across the world who is making strides in artificial intelligence. Their goal is to reach the “Singularity,” a nerdy term for when computers become as smart as humans. From there, it’s assumed, computers will become twice as smart as humans, then four times, then eight, then 16, and so on very quickly, til the point where their intelligence level will literally allow them to do anything, and anything may include getting rid of us.

Which is exactly why a renegade group out there known as the “RIFT” is trying to assassinate these geeks. They believe once the singularity is reached, our planet will be in danger. They manage to kill most of these scientists, but strike out with Max. They do manage to shoot Max’s best friend, Will, however. Lucky for Will, the shot is a flesh-wound. Unlucky for him, the bullet is laced with uranium. Will (who I’m assuming will be played by Depp) will be dead in weeks from radiation poisoning.

Will’s wife, Evelyn, however, is very close to figuring out how to copy an organic brain into a digital drive. And she gets this wild idea that they should do this for Will before he dies! Max thinks this is way too weird, but Evelyn is so passionate about it that he goes along with it. We also get the feeling that Max has a bit of a crush on Evelyn, and that he’ll do anything she asks.

A week later, Will dies, but Evelyn gets him copied by the skin of her teeth. Naturally, it’s a little weird talking to your husband when he’s inside of your PowerMac, but I guess it’s not that different from Skype, right? I mean, outside of the fact that he’s eternal and lives inside the internet and controls the stock market? Besides that, it’s just like any other form of electronic communication.

It doesn’t take Will long to realize what he’s capable of. So he starts making money off the stock market, transferring that money to offshore accounts, having materials shipped to an area in the middle of the desert, and paying construction crews to come there and start building a new “super-town/base” with those materials.

Max gets creeped out by Will’s aggressive need to expand, and warns Evelyn to shut him down. But there’s no way Evelyn’s killing her husband, even if she knows he’s acting like a Digital Hitler. Oh, but it gets worse. Since Will has all the information and knowledge and intelligence in the world at his finger…err, at his keyboard-tips, he’s able to build a new breed of nanotechnology that starts building shit on its own.

He uses this technology to infiltrate his workers, essentially making them slaves, and turning them into extensions of himself. And once his mini-city starts coming together, Will is able to create a hologram of himself, so he can be right there by his wife’s side.

Back in the boondocks, Max has realized just how dangerous Will has become, so has teamed up with the group who originally tried to kill him, the RIFT. Let bygones be bygones, right? I always forgive the people who try to kill me.

The RIFT are far far FAR off the grid so that Will can’t touch them. But the stronger Will gets, the less that will be the case. Everything is controlled by computers. Which means Will can use just about anything to mount a strike. Knowing this, Max and the RIFT put together an all-or-nothing offensive to take down Will’s stronghold. They know they’re only going to get one shot. And if they fail, humanity is doomed.

We were talking about set-pieces awhile back on Scriptshadow, how they need to be big and original. Transcendence showcases what this means with one of the cooler action scenes I’ve seen on the page. In it, the RIFT attack Will’s base. They utilize old cannons that can’t be controlled by computers. When the cannons shoot, the nanotech move towards the target area, creating a blockade. When some shells do get through, blowing parts of the building up, the nanotech quickly rebuild the damaged area. At the same time, Will’s men are being controlled by nanotech, allowing them to run at lightning speed, exhibiting feats at 100x an average man’s strength. So they’re throwing cars, bashing tanks. I could see that scene playing in the theater now. It would be AWESOME!

But what surprised me the most about Transcendence was that it was driven by a really heartfelt story – this broken love between Will and Evelyn. I loved the conflict going on within Evelyn, how she knew Will was going too far, and that the right thing was to shut him down, but she loved him too much to do that. Conflict within characters is always good!!!

But on top of that, Paglen created conflict BETWEEN the characters, specifically in that Max loved Evelyn. So his choices were never easy either. Was he telling Evelyn to shut down Will because Will was getting TOO dangerous? Or was he telling her to do it because he wanted Evelyn all to himself?  These are the kind of nuanced character issues you want to be setting up in every script!  Plot only interests a reader so much.  It’s the people within that plot that truly draw us into a story.  If those people don’t have anything interesting going on between each other, then who gives a shit?

We also talked about (in that set-piece article) putting things in your blockbuster script that producers can see in the trailers. Once characters started getting rigged with nanotech and had super-human abilities, shit just got cool. I can see how that’s going to look onscreen – them knocking around tanks and cars in the middle of the desert. It’s going to sell tickets. There’s no question about it.

The script also reminded me that a good writer can take his time getting into his blockbuster. Paglen doesn’t hit us with anything huge right away. He builds slowly. We do have things happening (assassinations and assassination attempts) but much of the first 40 pages is dedicated to Will being transferred into the computer and understanding his new powers. After that though, the script really builds (remember – a blockbuster must build!) in exactly the manner any big movie is supposed to.

The only reservations I have about the script are logic-related. Why didn’t the army come over and take down Will’s base? How was this huge thing allowed to be built up over so long a period of time without any interference? I know most of the army’s equipment is run by computers but you’d think they’d still TRY. The army doesn’t even make an appearance here, which I found to be a little strange.

In the end, Transcendence contains excellent execution, good characters, a heart at its center, and some great never-before-seen action scenes. Assuming Pfister’s direction is as strong as his cinematography, this should be a can’t miss film.

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

What I learned: Every idea, whether it be a character or a relationship or an action set-piece, has a known ceiling. This ceiling is where any average person would take it. Your job, as a writer, is to go beyond that ceiling, to the places the average person never would have thought of. That’s what makes you a writer, is that you see things other people don’t. So here, most writers would’ve placed Will in the computer and had him start screwing with the banks and using public cameras to follow his enemies (something very “Eagle Eye-ish”). That’s expected. You have to go beyond that. I believe the nanotech really brought this story to the next level. I wasn’t expecting it, and was surprised when it had such a strong impact on the story (and the action!).

NOTE: No newsletter went out this week – expect it this upcoming Friday! :)

This is your chance to discuss the week’s amateur scripts, offered originally in the Scriptshadow newsletter. The primary goal for this discussion is to find out which script(s) is the best candidate for a future Amateur Friday review. The secondary goal is to keep things positive in the comments with constructive criticism.

Below are the scripts up for review, along with the download links. Want to receive the scripts early? Head over to the Contact page, e-mail us, and “Opt In” to the newsletter.

Happy reading!

TITLE: Boom Box
GENRE: Adventure
LOGLINE: When his war-hero grandfather dies, a young man returns home to collect his inheritance — an audio cassette tape of old bedtime stories — but discovers the tape also holds a dark secret that a sinister group of agents wants back at any cost.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “Because fun, genuine adventure movies for kids and teenagers — without superheroes — are a rare thing these days and I want to mount a comeback. This one’s filled with action, humor, romance and intrigue, dastardly villains and honest heroes. It’s not perfect, but I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (and re-writing it, and re-writing it), and I would love everyone’s help in making it even better.”

TITLE: The Milky Way
GENRE: Adventure / Fantasy
LOGLINE: When eight-year-old Oliver’s parents plane crashes, he becomes convinced they actually landed on the moon. With a little luck and the help of a friend he’s able to get to the moon, but can he find his parents before the Dark Side covers the whole moon and he’s stuck there forever???
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “This is a two year labour of love. And it’s a lean mean 95 page reading machine.”

TITLE: The Tragic Life of Dexter Strange
GENRE: Dark Comedy
LOGLINE: A colorful but washed-up bad boy recounts his epic rise and fall in Hollywood on an online video blog.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “Imagine walking into Dylan’s Candy Bar in NYC and receiving a grab-bag of delicious wonderment– a daze of brilliantly colored candies in odd shapes, colors, and textures. In fact, when you first open the bag a pop of glitter explodes in your face. You suddenly get slapped on the back by Christopher Walken, then an adjacent clown blows a bull-horn in your left ear. You’re not quite sure what just happened, you don’t 100% understand… but you think you like it. That’s how reading this script feels.”

TITLE: DARK
GENRE: Drama
LOGLINE: A young man navigates the perils of youth after he is enlisted as protégé to a ruthless drug smuggler in 1970s Canada. Based on a true story.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “I received my first ‘payment’ for screenwriting for this work. 600$ cash as I was being whisked out of a truck, late for my flight at the Albuquerque International Sunport. This script took me from a frigid cannery in Alaska to dusty New Mexico, to meet a man I had never met about a story I was told would leave an indelible impact. I am now home in Oregon and have spent the past three months writing that story. I don’t know what to say other than that I risked everything for this script and I hope you enjoy. The journey to Amateur Friday has been arduous.”

TITLE: LION.pdf)
GENRE: ACTION THRILLER
LOGLINE: After being kidnapped and raised by African rebels, William Hughes is a fascination, a target and a madman when he is found by the American government 14 years later.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “LION got to be No 1 on the Blacklist 3.0 where it was also selected for the Warner Bros Blind Deal (out of thousands of other screenplays). Just recently, this script helped me secure representation at an established management company.”