Genre: Thriller
Premise: When a woman’s autistic son uncovers a half-century old UFO conspiracy, her life spirals out of control.
About: Writer-director David Mamet’s latest will star Cate Blanchett in the lead role. Mamet has been a writing powerhouse for 30 years. He started in plays, then came to Hollywood as a screenwriter, and eventually moved into writing-directing. He has two screenwriting Oscar nominations, with 1982’s The Verdict and 1997’s Wag The Dog. He also has two Tony nominations with 1984’s Glengarry Glen Ross and 1988’s Speed-the-Plow. At one time, he was the highest paid script doctor in town. In other words, this man is a writing badass. Mamet flaunts the fact that he was self-taught. “My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library. I got what little educational foundation I got in the third-floor reading room.” Mamet even has a type of dialogue named after him (“Mamet-speak”) where characters viciously and cynically talk over each other.
Writer: David Mamet
Details: 124 pages (October 2013 draft)

The Mamster. Mammogram. Manjambo.

I don’t know if I’d call myself a Mamet fan. But I love reading scripts from anyone who’s been a powerhouse in the industry. In the 90s, if you needed a script polish before production, this was the guy at the top of your list. You threw 2 million at him without blinking. And that wasn’t by accident. He brought the goods.

That doesn’t mean he’s infallible. The 90s were all about dialogue. Tarantino, Rodriquez, and Shane Black made sure of that. And Mamet’s dialogue could hang with any of those guys. So it made sense that they’d bring in a writer who specialized in that world.

These days, movies are more about story and character. Drama and action take precedence over a snappy comeback. Which is possibly why we haven’t seen much of Mamet lately. But this is the snazziest and most mainstream concept he’s come up with in awhile, so if there’s going to be something that puts him back on the map, this would be it. Let’s check it out.

40 year-old Janet Mitchell has just lost her grandfather, photographer Edward Mitchell. Edward was a big deal. His most famous contribution to history was manipulating a World War 2 newsreel film to make it look to the Nazis like thousands of Allied ships were heading to Boulogne instead of Normandy. Many people think that fake-out won the Allies the war.

Janet’s flown to California with her young autistic son, John, to clear out her grandfather’s home, but gets more than she bargained for when her checks stop clearing. You see, Edward’s been sending her money for the past 20 years, and under the Trust agreement, she’s supposed to keep receiving those checks. But now that he’s dead, the checks have stopped.

As she tries to figure that out, John digs around Edward’s house where he finds that his great-grandfather had an unhealthy obsession with UFOs. At first it seems like Edward helped manipulate photos to create the illusion of UFOs, but the deeper John looks, the more evidence he finds that UFOs are real, and that Edward has proof. Somewhere.

John isn’t the only one interested in Edward’s records. The army is as well. And when they get the sense that Janet and John might know something, Janet’s life starts getting weird. First, she’s framed for arson. Then that’s used against her to take away her son.

She realizes that the only way to get her son back is to locate the UFO proof that John found. But where could it be?

Soon Janet is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, going to UFO conventions and trade shows. She eventually learns of a top-secret project called “Blackbird” that her grandfather was involved in. But the project is not what we think. It deals with, of all things, the JFK assassination. Or does it? Janet’s become so entrenched in this world of conspiracies and lies that she’s not even sure if she’s sane anymore.

David Mamet

Blackbird was a unique reading experience, I’ll say that. It’s hard to summarize my feelings about it because it’s so unlike any other script in the genre. Which is a good thing. The last thing I wanted was a remake of that awful Mel Gibson mess, Conspiracy Theory.

But Blackbird plays its cards so close to the vest that we’re never exactly sure what’s going on, and that can get tiring in a 124 page screenplay.

What Blackbird does have going for it is the Mystery Box. You get the feeling JJ Abrams would be going nuts at this premiere, the box is so prominent. We have the mystery of why the checks stopped coming, the mystery of Edward’s obsession with UFOs, the mystery of the Blackbird Project, the mystery of the JFK assassination. And all this is tied up in the mystery of, is Janet going crazy??

At the very least, that compelled me to keep reading. I wanted to know the answers.

The problem is, there weren’t any answers for too long a period of time. This script is what I call “backloaded,” as pretty much all the good stuff doesn’t show up until the last 30 pages. That still leaves 105 pages. If 90% of the good stuff is in the last 25% of the script, you can do the math about how entertaining the rest is.

For example, we don’t get to the reading of Edward’s will until page 45. PAGE 45! The script starts with Janet already in California for Edward’s funeral. Why, then, are 45 pages needed to get us to that plot point?

Part of the problem is repetition. We’re given the same information over and over again. I think I counted six times where we’re told John thinks UFOs are real. He keeps finding new stuff inside Edward’s house to bolster this theory. But we got it already. I don’t know why Mamet felt the need to keep telling us.

Another problem is that the majority of those first 45 pages take place inside Edward’s house. I’m all for single locations in movies WHEN THEY’RE WARRANTED. Like if our characters are stuck inside a nuclear fallout shelter because their city just got nuked, being in that shelter for a long time makes sense.

But when our characters can willingly go wherever they want yet stay in a house for 30-40 pages, something starts feeling off. Especially these days, when impatient audiences need their visuals constantly changing.

But even if you took that argument out of the equation, by keeping your characters in one location for a long time, you’re creating a static storyline. The location is still so the story stops moving.

That’s not to say you can’t keep a single location interesting. There are lots of tools you can play with like conflict and mystery. And Mamet does use these. But this leads to my one big critique of Mamet’s work, which is that his roots as a playwright hamper his efforts as a cinematic storyteller.

Being in one house for so long in a play makes sense. In a movie, it doesn’t. I remember with The King’s Speech, which was originally written as a play, Tom Hooper’s number one goal was to have David Seidler rewrite it until it felt like a movie. In a now famous exchange, Hooper first came to Seidler and said, “I love this script. It’s perfect. I want to do it.” They then proceeded to do another thirty drafts. But it was warranted. It takes time to expand three locations into thirty.

Plus, thrillers are supposed to MOVE FAST. I would never write a thriller over 100 pages, especially one with so few characters. This doesn’t hamper you as a storyteller. It helps you. Knowing you have so little space to tell your story in, you’re forced to constantly get to the point. That would’ve helped a lot here, especially in that 40 page first act. Mamet would’ve been forced to ask, “Do I really need another scene where John says he thinks UFOs are real?” And all of a sudden the script is cooking along.

Then again, it should be noted that Mamet is also directing this. Since he’s essentially writing for himself (and not the reader), he’s likely taking some liberties and overwriting stuff he knows he’s going to cut later. At least I hope that’s the case. Cause this script needs to go through the chop shop. But hey, I hope he pulls it off. I’d love to see a great Mamet movie.

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

What I learned: Beware backloading your script. Readers are not going to wait around for 100 pages for the good stuff to start. Mystery boxes are great, but you need to give us at least some big answers before the final act or we’ll get impatient and give up.

Well, the debate’s been raging for the past couple of years, and with big names like Halle Berry jumping into the TV world, one enormous question keeps coming up: Is TV surpassing film as the ‘better’ entertainment medium? In order to find out, we’ve included a knock-down drag-out battle between the two. This week’s Amateur Offerings gives us BOTH pilots and features. May the best type of entertainment win!

TITLE: No Guts No Glory
GENRE: Zom-Com
LOGLINE: When an experimental steroid turns a team of supreme athletes into super-zombies, mankind’s only hope of avoiding a zombie apocalypse is a ragtag group of fat campers.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Not another zombie script, right? Actually, this one subverts the genre in an interesting and fun way. If you give it a chance I think you’ll like it. I’d love to develop this script with a manager/producer/director and turn what I believe is a great concept into a great script.

TITLE (TV PILOT): NOT SAFE FOR WORK
GENRE: Strip-com
LOGLINE: Dodd and Ollie think they’ve hit the jackpot when they inherit a strip club, but they soon find out it just might be the worst place on Earth.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: I notice you’ve been doing more TV stuff lately. Tina Fey’s sitcom and then the AOW of TV dramas. Maybe it’s time for an Sitcom amateur Friday? How can you resist? It’s one fourth the work of reading a screenplay!

Now that you’re completely sold on the idea, here’s why you should select my sitcom pilot. It’s an R-rated workplace comedy designed for pay-cable or the internet. My idea was to take the typical big, dumb network sitcom and give it a cable edge. Imagine something like “Cheers” with drugs and nudity. It’s in the vein of some of my influences: Peep Show, Eastbound and Down, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

TITLE: WILDFIRE 3D
GENRE: Action/Adventure
LOGLINE: A search and rescue ranger leads a mission to rescue his daughter when the group of archaeologists she’s working with are trapped by a dangerous wildfire.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Given that we’re in the season of big budget blockbuster releases, I thought this would be a great time to try my luck with Amateur Friday. Wildfire 3D is a script I’ve been working on for a few years now. I was able recently to send it in to WME and Zero Gravity. I love writing movies. I feel bad for people who don’t write movies. It’s an amazingly challenging process, so anyone who tries it is someone I admire. And Scriptshadow? What can I say, I wish I had discovered this blog years ago. Reading Carson’s work here is just fun.

TITLE (TV PILOT): Marble Falls
GENRE: Mystery/Thriller
LOGLINE: Two young boys are brought together and controlled, one through fear and the other through deceit, to assist in the wicked biddings of a mysterious entity that manipulates the citizens of a small Texas town during the early 1950s.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Pick up any pilot right now and I’ll bet the lead character is an adult, usually male, occasionally female. Not Marble Falls. Here it’s the kids who take center stage, something that is rarely the case (minus the laugh track shit on Disney and Nickolodean.) Think Goonies, but with a Twin Peaks vibe.

Marble Falls delves into the sins of a small Texas community and a mysterious entity, the “invisible hand”, who uses the weakness of kids to help him manipulate and wreak havoc. It’s homage to who I consider the master of storytelling, Stephen King.

But the best reason for reading Marble Falls is: you have two boys who you sympathize with, who you care for, who you fall in love with, who will murder people.

TITLE: Momo
GENRE: Drama/Foreign
LOGLINE: After a mysterious foreigner appears in her life, a dedicated Japanese housewife finds her world changing as her means turn to goals and vice versa.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: So you’re big in Hollywood. But then again, so is your neighbour, and your neighbour’s neighbour. Now, if you’re wondering where you could possibly go from here, ask yourself: are you BIG IN JAPAN?

Delicately crafted to both appeal to Japanese traditions and sensibilities and to accomodate for western themes and values, “Momo” is an opportunity to rise to ocean-spanning acclaim as well as distinguish yourself amongst peers and neighbours alike.

The elevator pitch: “The Piano” meets “Brasil”…IN JAPAN

(Anyone got a caption for this photo?)

Hot dogs on the grill.  Fireworks.  Michael Bay.  Scriptshadow Newsletter (it’s in your mailbox. Did you check your spam?).  It’s the Fourth of July.  Which means there’s no Scriptshadow post.  But in true Scriptshadow fashion, I’m still leaving you a screenwriting tip.  Try to write “crossover characters.”  These are secondary characters who are part of more than one storyline.  So instead of giving your hero a friend he pals around with at the bar and another friend he jokes around with at work, make the friend at the bar ALSO the friend at work.  Make him cross over.  I can’t begin to emphasize how much cleaner your scripts will be once you master this practice.  Want 500 more screenwriting tips?  Grab the Scriptshadow Screenwriting Book, which is only $4.99 at Amazon.  That’s less than the cost of a pack of cherry bombs.  Plus 3% of each sale goes towards defending America.  That’s not true, actually.  But I want it to be.

The typical Hollywood reader.

As I read through Cuba Libre yesterday, all I could think was, “This is way too complicated.” As I read through The Strain the previous day, all I could think was, “This is way too simple.” Whereas with Cuba Libre, I never quite knew what was going on or why, with The Strain, I not only knew what was going on, but I was always 30 pages ahead of the writer.

This led to an obvious question – how do you find the sweet spot between these two extremes? How do you keep a script simple enough so that it’s not confusing, but complex enough so that it still intrigues? Unfortunately, there’s no uniform answer to this. Every audience member is different, and by association, so are their demands. Some people like simpler stories. Some demand more meat on their plate.

I used to face this problem all the time when I taught tennis. I’d have a group of eight people to teach, all of whom ran the gamut on skill. This used to frustrate me to no end. If I kept the class really easy, the advanced players would get frustrated. If I made the class hard, the beginner players couldn’t keep up. What the hell was I supposed to do??

It’s a challenge that every teacher faces. What I found, and what most teachers find, is that it’s always better to challenge than to make things overly simple. Force the less experienced students to keep up. What you’ll find is that, more often than not, they’ll rise to the occasion. Whereas if you keep things too easy, you’ll bore the more advanced students, which leads to frustration, which kills the energy, and leads to the rest of the lesson imploding.

Here’s the problem though. Most writers don’t know how to challenge their readers correctly. They think “challenge” means disseminating copious amounts of information (which they erroneously believe is synonymous with “depth”) on their readers, forcing them to take in loads of data, whether it be backstory, exposition, or mythology. Their approach is, “I’m writing for smart patient people. So they’ll be okay if, every 15 pages or so, I set up a bunch of boring plot and character points, as long as I entertain them with the fun stuff afterwards.”

No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

No no no no no no no no no.

No no no no.

No.

No no no no no no no.

No.

And no again.

This is exactly what I think the writers of Cuba Libre would’ve argued (whoever that may be, since we don’t know who had the most influence on the draft). They gave you tons of characters, tons of sides, tons of story threads, tons of motivations, in the argument that they were pleasing the more sophisticated reader and/or audience member.

I got news for you. Smart patient people still get bored. If all you’re doing is throwing information at them, they’re not happily keeping a mental journal of it all, eagerly anticipating when you’re going to start using it. They’re saying, “Why are you throwing all this boring information at me? Why isn’t anything happening?”

Ah-ha!  Therein lies the trick – and it is a trick.  Stuff needs to happen.  “Happen” means “entertainment.”  You can throw all the information in the world at your reader… AS LONG AS YOU’RE ENTERTAINING THEM WHILE YOU DO IT. Read that sentence 50 TIMES as there is no sentence you’ll read this year that will help your writing more.

You can set up your extremely complicated multi-layered main character. AS LONG AS YOU ENTERTAIN ME WHILE YOU DO IT. You can dish out 15 pages of exposition. AS LONG AS YOU ENTERTAIN ME WHILE YOU DO IT. You can inspect every little blade of grass in your Lord of the Rings-like fantasy world. AS LONG AS YOU ENTERTAIN ME WHILE YOU DO IT.

This has to be one of the biggest mistakes I encounter. Whether it be an amateur or professional script. Writers don’t understand that EVERY SCENE MUST ENTERTAIN. They make excuses. They believe they’ve earned a “scene off.” They think certain scenes are meant to be boring. WRONG!  It can always be done! That doesn’t mean that every scene must have Evelyn Mulwray telling Jake Gittes that her daughter is also her sister. But each scene should entertain the reader on some level.

That’s why the scene from Cuba Libre yesterday where Boudreaux changes up the deal on Ben stuck out to me so much. It was the first time in the script where the writers were actually trying to entertain me!

I want to show you how this works. I’m going to use the example of setting up a protagonist in a script. This is usually done in the first act and encompasses everything from showing us their flaw, their work life, their family life, their social life, and how they fit into the larger world you’ve constructed. But remember, you can do this with ANY scene in your script.

Say we need to set up that our protagonist, Doug, has given up on life. That’s our goal in these scenes, is to show that he’s become an uninspired lonely human being who’s no longer contributing to society.

We might start with a scene that shows Doug sitting in his apartment staring at the television, looking lifeless. We then might show him at the convenience store, late at night, stumbling through the aisles, loading up on junk food. We then might show him walking home, spotting a group of trendy partygoers laughing their butts off across the street. Their presence only makes Doug feel lonelier.

Do these scenes set up our character? Sure. We definitely know Doug better after we read them. But nothing’s actually HAPPENED in any of these scenes. Not a single one has entertained the reader. In order to entertain, you must create situations that engage the character, that force him/her to act. Each scene must do this on some level.

So let’s rewrite all these scenes with that in mind. Say in the first scene, our character is watching TV (via a digital antennae), stuffing his sad face with donuts. The feed keeps cutting out as he watches. He stares at this, annoyed. We get the sense that he does NOT want to get up and deal with this. It takes a long inner struggle but we finally CUT to him at the antennae, making minute adjustments to fix the reception. He gets it to work, steps back, it goes bad again, another minor adjustment, it’s good, steps back, it goes bad again. He keeps doing this until FINALLY he gets a clear picture. He very carefully tiptoes back to his chair, desperate not to disturb a single molecule in the room. Sits down. And the feed goes bad again.

Now what about that convenience store scene? Well, while the new TV scene was okay, there weren’t any stakes (who cares if he fixes the reception on a show he’s not really into anyway – I’d probably change that in the next draft). Let’s not make that mistake again. Before Doug goes to the store, we see him struggling with dry mouth after eating all those donuts. He needs to wash them down. So he goes to the fridge, grabs the milk carton… but it’s empty. Fuck! He stares at this as if’s literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to him in his life (now we have stakes – he NEEDS that milk).

Cut to him at the convenience store. He walks straight to the cold drinks, gets to the milk section. Looks inside. ALL EMPTY. There’s no milk. At all. He takes a deep breath, beyond frustrated. Then, on the top shelf, way way way back, he sees one last milk carton. He opens the cooler, reaches as far back as he can, can’t reach it. He has to stand awkwardly on the bottom drink shelf, which feels shaky. He reaches again. He’s almost got it. He finally REACHES it, but just as he grabs it, his weight COLLAPSES the bottom shelf, causing a domino effect where all the drinks SPILL OUT onto the floor, splashing up all over him. During the chaos, he drops the milk, which opens up, spilling everywhere.

Now what about the last scene? The one where he has to walk home afterwards and spots the partygoers? This one’s easy. By keeping the partygoers safely on the other side of the street, there’s zero entertainment value (because there’s no conflict). The scene’s way more interesting if they’re on his side of the street and he has to WALK THROUGH THEM. This is the last thing he wants to do at 11:30pm on a Saturday, drenched in soda.

So he looks for a way out. But there’s no other route to take without being obvious, so he accepts his fate, walking towards the fun-going group with his head down. Just as he’s about past them, he hears, “Doug?” He looks up. One of them is an old girl he knows. “Oh my God,” she says, “I haven’t seen you since high school. What are you…” she just now notices he’s drenched, “…doing?” It’s a nightmare scenario for Doug. There’s no easy way out of this. You’d play up the awkwardness of the conversation for as long as you wanted to until he’s finally able to slip away.

Do you see how we took three lifeless scenes and added an actual story to all of them? All we had to do was add a problem to each scenario. First the antennae wasn’t working. Then the milk was impossible to get. Then he had to get through a group of partygoers.

I know, I know. These scenes weren’t life-changing or anything. But this is the first draft of all of them. I’m playing with the ideas to see what works and what doesn’t. I’d then make adjustments accordingly. The important thing is that I’m trying to add drama to each scene as opposed to only using the scenes to set up my character.

Now some of you might point out that, since the changes, each scene has too much going on. By dramatizing each scene, I’ve made all of them a lot longer. Also, I’m driving the same point home over and over again (this guy’s a loser). Ah ha! You’re exactly right. But this is the beauty about dramatizing scenes. Once you dramatize a scene, it hits the reader harder. They get more out of it because there’s a story involved, something they’re engaged in. Therefore, whatever point you’re trying to make is made more intensely.

Because of this, you might not even need all three scenes anymore. With the way these scenes now sell your character, you could probably get by with just one. So I might drop the store scene and the walk home afterwards. Besides, if I needed one more “sell my character” moment, I could always squeeze one in to a later scene. Like if he’s on the bus on his way to work tomorrow. I could come up with a small problem on the bus he has to deal with.

Some of you might also say that these scenes are too exaggerated. What if you’re writing a more dramatic script, like, say, The Sixth Sense. The scenes are way too over the top for a script like that. Of course they are. My examples were from a dark comedy, but I’d alter the tone, the intensity, the duration and the situation of each problem to fit with whatever genre I’m writing.

If I was writing the TV scene in The Sixth Sense, for example, the problem would be darker and maybe a little scarier. I’d have the protagonist watching TV, and then have the channel change inexplicably. He looks down at his remote, which is free and clear of anything. He changes the channel back. After a few seconds, the channel changes again. You get the idea.

Here’s the point I’m making. I don’t care if you’re setting a character up, setting your story up, explaining the rules of your world, having your characters convey plot points, getting your characters from point A to point B, you should always be doing it in an entertaining way. And you do that by looking at each scene and asking yourself, regardless of everything else the scene is trying to do, does it entertain? If not, change it. Or else we won’t care.

Genre: Western
Premise: In 1898, on the brink of the Spanish-American War, a bank robber shuttles a herd of horses into Cuba for a big payday.
About: Cuba Libre is based on one of Elmore Leonard’s lesser-known novels. The Coen Brothers then adapted the book in 1997. It was later revised by Jay Cantor, a Harvard educated novelist whose novel about Che Guevara was described by one amazon reviewer as “Weird, disjointed writing and story. Nonsensical at times.” This will come into play later in the review.
Writers: Joel and Ethan Coen (based on the novel by Elmore Leonard) Revision by Jay Cantor
Details: 137 pages (September 16, 1998 draft)

The Coens are an up and down entity. They are capable of genius, but they’re also capable of buying into their own hype, resulting in movies that are too eccentric or personal for anyone but the most artsy moviegoer. For every Fargo, there’s a Ladykillers. For every No Country for Old Men, there’s a Burn After Reading. It can be frustrating, since the two are so talented. But you have to take risks if you want to blow audiences away, and they’ve certainly afforded themselves as many risks as they want.

Cuba Libre was written between the Coens’ two best movies – Fargo and The Big Lebowski. This is when these two were at the top of their game. So you’re figuring it’s gotta be good, right? A couple of problems though. The source material is far from beloved. And the script is revised by someone who had never touched a screenplay before. Might it all still come together? Let us hope.  Cause it’s 137 freaking pages and I don’t want to read a bad 137 page script.

Cowboy Ben Tyler has just stolen 150 horses, which he plans to ship to Cuba, where the going price for a horse is 150 dollars, a ton of money back in 1898, and twice as much as he’ll get anywhere in America.

Thing is, when Ben gets to Cuba, the businessman he struck a deal with, an American sugar magnate named Boudreaux, switches up the terms on him. Says he’s only going to pay 100 a horse. Boudreaux is used to men crumbling in his wake. But Ben isn’t that kind of cowboy. He tells Boudreaux to fuck off and considers selling the horses to the local Cubans instead.

Just to show that there’s lots of hard feelings, he charms Boudreaux’s girlfriend, Amelia, into joining him. Meanwhile, Ben has also smuggled some guns over that he plans to sell to the Cubans in their battle against the Spanish, news that finds its way over to the Spanish camp, making Ben a hot commodity in their eyes as well.

Soon, Ben’s got the Cubans after him (for the horses), the Spanish after him (for the guns), and Boudreaux after him (for Amelia).

This might’ve worked if Leonard, the Coens, and Cantor had stopped there. But they also try to cover the beginning of the Spanish-American War, as well as insert a Fargo-esque fake kidnapping scheme (of Amelia) to get Boudreaux to pay Ben 80 thousand dollars. All of these things come to a head in a final giant train chase for the money, the guns, and the girl.

Cuba Libre is a classic example of trying to do too damn much. Screenwriters – you have to understand the limitations of your medium. You can’t pack a story that needs 480 pages to tell into 120 pages (or, in this case, 137). You have to step back, cut storylines, cut characters, and keep things focused.

We have so much shit going on here. A bank robber smuggling horses into a foreign country. A secret plot of smuggling guns into the country. A sugar empire. Cubans fighting the Spanish. The Spanish preparing to fight the Americans. A kidnapping plot. An assassination plot.

Screenplay-loving Pixar has a saying – Simple story, complex characters. Cuba Libre sure could’ve taken heed of their slogan.

My guess? Jay Cantor went all “novel” on this. He tried to jam a 5 inch brad story into a 2 inch brad script. Amidst everything I mentioned above, our heroes are also travelling hundreds of miles inside of Cuba, walking around aimlessly and talking about nothing. At one point, so little had happened for so long that I leaned back, squinted my brain, and said, “What the hell is this about anymore!!??”

If I could give screenwriters one piece of advice it would be “Get to the point!” Too often writers get lost in meaningless tangents. The audience isn’t interested in tangents. They want to know what the characters are trying to do, they want meaning behind that pursuit (stakes) and they want there to be some urgency behind it.

It wasn’t until the final act that this actually happened. In a signature Coen Sequence, a late train chase has all the characters going after a bag of money. FINALLY, we understood the goal (money). We understood the stakes (Ben and Amelia needed the money to escape the country together). And we understood the urgency (they only have until the next train stop). Before that, if you quizzed me on what everyone wanted at any particular time, I wouldn’t have had any idea (Yeah, I summarized the plot above, but 50% of that was guesswork based on what I thought the writers were trying to do).

Our scribes didn’t help their cause by creating four character factions (good guys, bad guys, Cubans, Spaniards). It’s not that you can’t do this, but the more groups you add, the more difficult it becomes for the reader to remember who’s who and who wants what, especially in a case like this, where some groups had both good and bad sub-groups. For example, one of the Cuban generals was mean. The other was helpful.

In the cases where I’ve seen multiple-factions work, the writers work tirelessly to keep everything clear. Take Empire Strikes Back, for instance. The bounty hunters (which included Boba Fett) were their own faction, but we met them with the Empire. We see Darth Vader assign them to find Han Solo. So we understand that they’re part of the bad guy alliance. Had we not met them with the villains, but rather flying around looking for Han on their own, we probably would’ve been wondering who the hell they were. Since Cuba Libre was so sloppily executed, every faction oozed ambiguity. Who worked for who? Who wanted what? Who the hell knows!

That’s not to say Cuba Libre was a total bust. The Coens writing would occasionally shine through. Actually, there was a great scene early on that made me remember yesterday’s script, The Strain, specifically what it needed to do more of.

In the scene, Ben finally makes it to Boudreaux, the man who’s agreed to buy his horses, and prepares to collect his money. In The Strain, this scene would’ve gone exactly according to plan. Ben would’ve said here are your horses. Boudreaux would’ve paid him exactly what he was asking for, and Ben would’ve gone on his merry way.

Instead, in this version, Boudreaux looks at the situation – that this man has travelled a thousand miles to his island and has no other options – and says, “You know what. I don’t want to pay 150 dollars a horse anymore. I want to pay 100.” This is how to approach screenwriting. Things should never go according to plan.

Think of movies as the opposite of life. We LOVE for life to go according to plan. It means breezy days and relaxed evenings. But in the movies, if things go according to plan, the audience is bored. Who wants to see a bunch of shit go right? So when you approach an act or a scene or a beat, you need to ask yourself, “How can I screw this up for them?”

And the bonus with this approach? You know how yesterday I was talking about the importance of creating choices for your characters? Giving them difficult decisions that force them to act? When you screw up the hero’s plan, you force them to make a choice. Once Boudreaux changes the terms, Ben now has to make a choice. Does he accept the reduced rate or does he play hardball and leave? Each option has consequences and neither is very good. Whatever Ben chooses, it’s going to tell us a lot about him, right?

Anyway, Cuba Libre was a sprawling mess that had infrequent moments of genius. Swinging for the fences is great. But Holy Chesapeake Bay, don’t fill your script with more than you have to. You can still write something complex without including EVERY. SINGLE. IDEA. YOU HAVE. Screenwriting, in many ways, is about showing restraint.

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

What I learned: If you’re going to include a lot of character factions in your script (not just the good guys and bad guys), make it easier on yourself by having everyone chasing the same thing – or, as George Lucas likes to call it, a MacGuffin. In Star Wars, everyone’s chasing that damn robot with the Death Star plans (R2-D2). So even though there are a lot of different people, we’re always clear on what they want. Cuba Libre’s problem is it had four different factions who each wanted four different things. It was too much information to keep track of. Only storytelling masters with a deft command over clarity can pull that off.