Genre: Action/Superhero
Premise: (from IMDB) Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) struggles to embrace his role in the modern world and battles a new threat from a nemesis shrouded in mystery, the one known only as the “Winter Soldier.”
About: Captain America smashed April records, bringing in 96 million dollars this weekend. It was written by mainstream writing titans Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who have written a Thor movie, the Chronicles of Narnia movies, and three (yes, the next one too) Captain America films. If you need to find these guys, look north of Sunset. One of the main choices the team was faced with, since most of Captain America’s life existed in the 1940s, was whether to include a lot of flashbacks. In an early draft, they did just that, before the flashback structure became “unwieldy.” Eventually, they came to the conclusion most writers do when dealing with flashbacks: “You [include flashbacks] when you don’t have enough interesting stuff [happening] in the present.” I agree wholeheartedly!
Writers: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (story by Ed Brubaker) created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
Details: 136 minutes

Captain America is a strange beast and one of the more surprising successes of the Marvel Universe. At his core, the Captain is a cheesy on-the-nose supster, the kind of hero made for another era. “Captain” “America.” How ridiculous does that sound when you say it out loud?

The unusually stiff Chris Evans embodies that on-the-nose idealism perfectly. Captain America is a big fat square, the kind of guy who’s going to remind you you didn’t put your turn signal on before changing lanes. To that end, you’d think people would be annoyed by him. But for some reason, they’re not. And I went to “The Winter Soldier” to find out why.

“The Winter Soldier” focuses on the aforementioned Steve Rogers (Captain America), a pint-sized nobody who enlisted during World War 2, only to be genetically modified into a giant hulking super-soldier. With a shield! Due to some tricky timeline logistics that required Captain America to be in The Avengers movie, a silly storyline was thought up where he was frozen for 70 years and unthawed in the present.

Steve now works for the U.S. Government as well as the secret super-hero agency, S.H.I.E.L.D., and is finding himself routinely disillusioned with his role. Whereas it used to be clear who the good guys and bad guys were, now it seems like half the guys on his teams have ulterior motives, including the sexy Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johanssen), who’s always disappearing to snatch up a USB drive or two that Steve had no idea about.

Eventually, Steve’s boss, Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson) is attacked by a mysterious baddie, known to the few who have seen him as the “Winter Soldier.” Steve eventually realizes that S.H.I.E.L.D. is actually corrupt from the inside, and that those ulterior motives everyone had were a precursor to a much bigger plan to use S.H.I.E.L.D. to take over the U.S. government, and eventually the world!

The most obvious question one comes up with after they watch Captain America is: What the heck is “super-hero” about this guy??? He has a SHIELD. That’s it. A shield! That he uses to block stuff and occasionally throw at people. If that’s all it takes to become a super hero, give me half an hour and a trip to Target and I can be a super-hero, too.

That question can be extended to our bad guy as well, the Winter Soldier. The man has one really strong metal arm. That’s his “super power.” Here’s a question. Why didn’t they add a second super arm? Wouldn’t that have made him twice as formidable? I mean, what’s the logic in stopping at one?

And let’s talk about Black Widow. What is her super power? Being able to squeeze into a very tight latex outfit? Or Falcon? He has mechanical wings that allow him to fly around and distract people? These are super powers??? What ever happened to real super powers? Like Superman???

That’s what annoys me about the superhero universe. Things can be so arbitrary and we’re just asked to go with it because… well, because! The truth is many of these characters were designed in an era and in a medium that wasn’t subjected to the same kind of scrutiny we subject our movie characters to today.

And it leads to an interesting dilemma for the writers, one that some of you will have to deal with one day when you’re writing a superhero movie. Do you stick with the origins of the character to make the original fans happy? Or do you improve upon them to make the character more logical and realistic?

I guess, in the end, you’re either going to go with this flimsy-ruled world or you’re not. If you go with it, Captain America’s a pretty good movie. One of the main reasons for this is they built the story from the inside out. What I mean is that Markus and McFeely first asked who Captain America was, and then what the best situation would be to challenge that person (instead of coming up with a plot first and trying to wedge Captain America into it).

They realized that Captain America was very black and white.  He grew up in a time where it was clear who the good guys and the bad guys were. You got your orders and you followed them without question. That was Captain America’s “comfort zone.”

Your job as a writer is to take your character out of their comfort zone. So this movie is about how grey the world has become. How, when a mission goes down these days, you’re not sure if you’re on the right side or not, if the guy next to you is on your team or someone else’s. That stuff starts to eat at Captain America. And it’s what gives this movie an extra layer or two.

It’s a great thing to remember when you’re writing one of these big “summer-type” films. You can make your script deeper simply by challenging your main character with some kind of inner conflict.  Add a theme as well (in this case, the theme deals with “trust”) and you have a more sophisticated blockbuster than 80% of the writers out there.

But let’s be honest, when you’re talking about a popcorn flick, the average moviegoer is judging you by your action scenes. Are they unique? Are they fun? Do they get you off your seat? For the most part, the action in Captain America was above average. But there were two scenes in particular that stood out. The Nick Fury car scene and the Captain America gets accosted by 20 men in the elevator scene.

The reason these scenes were cool was because a) we cared about the characters in danger. b) the stakes were high. c) the scenarios were impossible to get out of, and d) it was easy to understand what was going on. See, that last one is the biggie. You can get carried away with an action script, believing your set pieces have to have a million things going on at once. But actually, some of the simplest scenarios are the ones that work best. Nick Fury trapped in this car surrounded by 40 men with AK-47s unloading a non-stop barrage of bullets at him – we’re engaged because we’re wondering how the hell he’s going to get out of this, but also because it’s so easy to understand what’s going on.

Contrast that with the finale of Captain America. I didn’t know what the hell was going on in the climax. There were 18 different things happening at once and I’d forgotten what the ultimate goal was other than to “stop the bad guys.” It was a classic case of “throw everything and the kitchen sink” at the viewer, with them not realizing that we can’t see anything through a kitchen sink. The contrast between those simple and complex action scenes working (or not working) really opened my eyes.

All in all, I’d place The Winter Soldier as the third best Marvel film made so far, behind Iron Man and The Avengers. I still think Steve Rogers is kind of boring when you compare him to other super heroes, but the writers did a really good job creating that inner conflict inside of him, getting as much out of the character as humanly possible. The film did leave me with some questions (why didn’t Iron Man, Bruce Banner, or Thor stop by to help if the world was in danger?) but I guess with these comic book films, a certain amount of logic must be thrown out the window to enjoy them.

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

What I learned: The power of the contained action scene. Like I said above, the instinct is to go big and crazy. But the bigger and crazier you go, the harder it is for the audience to keep up with what’s happening. Sometimes the best scene is a simple one. Put your character in an elevator with two dozen bad guys and see how they get out of it.

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: Harmony
GENRE: Thriller
LOGLINE: When Harmony, an American woman’s adopted Mexican child, is mysteriously kidnapped by the cartel, she must go to Mexico to confront a dangerous drug lord, and find out the truth behind his disappearance.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Harmony is the most perfected script I have ever written. Before that, I thought that the stories I had imagined wasn’t worth the extra effort, the notes orders, and the 3-o’clock-in-the-goddamm-morning rewrites.
I believe this story does worth all the pain, due to its emotional, easy to relate drama, simple GSU, marketability. Had Scriptshadow’s Rich and Lauren analyze and nitpick my script and recently got a “consider” from another scriptwriting service.
Thanks to them, I think the story is where it needs to be. Anyway I’m now broke and out of ideas, so it would be helpful to have free feedback from you and the script shadow world.
ps: I’m a writer from Paris, maybe it would be an opportunity to do your first french writer’s review? And hopefully I can prove that we don’t all suck miserably :)

TITLE: Marlowe
GENRE: Noir/Historical
LOGLINE: P.I. Sam Marlowe shows novice writer Raymond Chandler the realities of detective work, juggling gangsters, corrupt politicians and movie star Jean Harlow to find out who’s burning farms on the Arroyo Seco Canyon.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: This is the real life story from the files of Detective Samuel B. Marlowe.

TITLE: IGNOBLE
GENRE: Dramatic Thriller
LOGLINE: Watch from a struggling father’s perspective – listen to his troubled thoughts, experience his beloved memories and vivid imagination – as he faces two daunting challenges: repaying a debt to his ruthless drug dealer and regaining his estranged family’s trust… in one afternoon.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Although my script is not written in first-person, it is written from a first-person perspective throughout and the above sentence basically describes what I am going for. I believe this approach provides a novel and more personal opportunity for the audience to empathize with the protagonist. I also believe this is a totally original story that is almost certainly unlike anything else you’ve ever read and that you would enjoy reading it.

TITLE: Perpetual
GENRE: Sci-fi
LOGLINE: In a future, where it’s impossible for people to die, a police officer needs to team up with a former serial killer when he investigates the disappearance of a scientist.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Being a silent reader of the site, Perpetual has influences coming from the ScriptShadow University. There’s irony alert (a serial killer in a world where no-one can die), conflict (a police officer needs to work with this killer) and a GSU that comes from the ‘what I learned’ of The Giver; the story builds with changing goals and stakes getting higher. After months of crafting and re-writing, my project is ready for the eyes (and feedback) of my fellow writers.

TITLE: Cubicle Farm
GENRE: Comedy/Horror
LOGLINE: Two office screw-ups clash with their boss, after discovering that their soul-sucking job is run by blood-sucking vampires.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: For years, years I tell you, I have sat at this desk. Forced to toil on meaningless projects. Projects that add nothing of value to this world.

Dante was wrong. Advertising is hell.

Daily, I have dreamed of a life that meant more. Nay. I have longed for one. I have longed for a life of purpose and excitement with every fiber of my being.

To no avail.

My coworkers? Sycophants. My clients? Mongoloids. My bosses? Evil.

Which is where I got the idea for this script.

It’s not autobiographical because I’ve never had a close friend at work. Possibly because I keep telling them about my screenplay about two guys who work in an office and find out that it’s run by vampires so they get a group of people together and–

But, I digress.

It’s more of an account of my dreams. Which is sad because no one gets laid. And almost everyone dies.

So, with all of that said, why should you read this script? Because it’s a lot of fun? No. Because it offers catharsis, for those people stuck in offices they hate, surrounded by people who make them miserable, in a way that no other film has, or could? No. You should read this script because writing it has been the equivalent of masturbating at my desk in lieu of actually earning my paycheck. And that is a damn fine way to make a living.

Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Adventure
Premise (from writer): When his mother is kidnapped and sold into slavery, the legendary fableist must overcome being a short, ugly mute and outmatch Greek philosophers and bloodthirsty kings to rescue her and save the kingdom.
Why You Should Read (from writer): If I have to sit through another movie starring a chisel chinned, barrel chested, cooler-than-christ anti-hero, I’m gonna start drinking. And when I drink, I get all existential. And when I get all existential, I go searching for myself. And when I go searching for myself, I take trips to exotic countries. And when I take trips to exotic countries, my planes mysteriously disappear. And when my planes mysteriously disappear, I end up on Lost island. As cool as that would be for about a week, please don’t let me end up on Lost island, Carson! For a change, let’s give the short and uglies of the world a chance at being heroic. And you can start right here with this inspired, true-ish tale. — I’ve always been intrigued by ancient Greek culture and stumbled upon this story in college. It is tailor-made for the big screen, but very few people know about the man behind the fables. A cute, straight forward fantasy adventure this is not. Think more along the lines of the dark and dirty original versions of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales. The Zemeckis’, Burtons, and Depps of the world would have a field day with this.
Writer: J.D. Dorsey
Details: 104 pages

Josh Gad for Aesop?

Adventure is one of those genres that I surprisingly don’t see a lot of. And it’s a great genre to write in because there aren’t many demographics out there that don’t like a good adventure. I think because Adventure is often seen as the “grown up” version of the family film, writers stay away from it. And most of the adventure stories have been folded into the animation world anyway (Up, Tintin, Shrek). It’s much cooler to write an edgy thriller or a dark comedy. Who wants to write a wussy adventure?

I think the “cooler” adventure film is ready for a comeback, though. With the exception of the Hobbit films, there hasn’t been something people over 12 can really stand by and say, “Yo, you see that latest adventure film? That was good shit.” We need our new Romancing the Stone, our new Raiders, our new Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Is Aesop that script? Only one way to know…

It’s the year 602 BC. We start the movie where anything in 602 BC should start. Greece. It’s here where we meet Aesop.

I’ll allow today’s author to describe our title character for you, since he does it better than I ever could. Aesop is “a loathsome, potbellied, misshapen-of-head, snub-nosed, swarthy, dwarfish, bandy-legged, short-armed, squint-eyed, liver-lipped, portentous monstrosity.” In other words, the guy’s not modeling toga underwear to pay the rent.

Aesop is also a mute and a coward who spends his days with his head in the clouds, dreaming about turtles and crickets and ants who can speak. He seems uninterested in reality, for reality is often so cruel. Until he meets a magically beautiful young lady named Rhodope. Something about this girl powers up Aesop’s vocal chords and just like that, he can talk!

Unfortunately, before he can head home and share his newfound powers with this family, he finds his village burning, and everyone in it taken away as slaves. Determined to get his mother back, Aesop uses his new power of speech to talk his way onto a slave boat heading for the Island of Samos.

Once there, Aesop offers up himself as a slave (for reasons that weren’t entirely clear) to a local philosopher named Xanthus. Xanthus quickly realizes how smart Aesop is, and uses him to win several town riddle-challenges, the local Samos currency for the upper class. Word of his intelligence spreads, until he comes to the attention of the King.

Turns out the kings of this land also duel each other in battles of wits and riddles, often times betting fortunes in the process. Lose a few riddle bets in a row, and you could be out a kingdom. With Aesop by his side, however, the Samos King does nothing but win. Aesop is the smartest in the land. Until he’s given an impossible riddle by the Samos King’s chief rival. Will he be able to solve it? Or will an unforeseen betrayal lead to Aesop’s undoing?

Folks, I want to make something clear right away. We got ourselves a writer here.  This is a script that relishes its time and place, and makes you feel like you’re there all the way through.

The wooden slave boat docks at a relatively sophisticated harbor.
Replete with horse-drawn carriages, men and women in gowns
and tunics. A far cry from the rustic village.

From the bustle of workers unloading cages, horses, and equipment,
Aesop steps off the boat in awe.

He quickly gathers himself and notices that a similar boat rests next
to theirs, having already been unloaded.

Aesop starts for the city, but the Slave Trader quickly grips his collar.

SLAVE TRADER
You have duties, swine. Tend to those cages
there. Be useful in action if not in appearance!

The young man lumbers towards his duty, startled to see Mastor
dragging the beaten and bloodied body of Enops down a wooden plank.

If you want to read really good writing, download this script at the end of my review. You won’t be disappointed. Now as you know from reading Scriptshadow, if it were all about the writing, there’d be a lot more spec sales. Screenwriting is more about the storytelling though, and it’s here where Aesop needs some work. The script changes tone, changes story, changes focus, leaving you unsure what it is or what it’s trying to say.

The most jarring change for me, was in Aesop himself. He starts off as this meek bullied little mute, someone we immediately love and root for. Then, 30 pages in, he learns how to speak and all of a sudden he’s a nasty little smartass for the remainder of the script.

Completely changing your hero during your story is a risky proposition to say the least. I’ve seen it done before, like in American Beauty. Much like Aesop, Lester Burnham is a pushover who stops giving a shit. But his change is clearly motivated. We watch as he gets tired of being pushed around. So we understand why he transforms into someone who refuses to take it anymore. In contrast, I’m not sure why the ability to talk all of a sudden turns Aesop into a wiseass.

The tone wavered as well. We start off with this cute little story about a mute young man trying to make it in an unaccepting world by creating imaginary animal friends he can communicate with. Everything’s very G-rated. Then later, Aesop is getting raped (albeit comically) by his owner’s wife. We’re talking about a man famous for children’s fables here. I don’t think you want any sex scenes in this script (or “urinating while walking” scenes).

Another problem is that it took me half the script to figure out what the actual story was, which is never a good sign. At first I thought this was about the struggles of a young mute. Then I thought it was about a man trying to save his mother. Eventually I realized it was about an extremely smart individual, captured by a king, who uses his wits to stay alive. You never want it to take that long for the main story in your screenplay to emerge. It leaves the reader extremely frustrated.

There were also too many unexplained things. You can get away with not explaining maybe one major element, but any more than that and the reader’s going to turn on you. I couldn’t figure out, for example, if the animals were just talking in Aesop’s mind or they were really talking. I was 80% sure it was in his head, but with something as crazy as animals talking, there can’t be any misunderstanding there. It needs to be 100%.

I also didn’t understand what led to Aesop being able to talk. He met this girl, but why would a random girl give him the ability to speak? That was unclear. And why is it that the bad guys took everyone in Aesop’s village as slaves, however when he comes to their boat and demands to go with them, they don’t take him as a slave as well? Is there some 600 B.C. rule that states you’re allowed to catch people in the wild, but once they’re in the city they’re off-limits? And why did Aesop offer himself up as a slave? I think it was to find his mom. But how would becoming a slave help him find his mom? Wouldn’t the freedom of being able to go anywhere you wanted give you a better shot at finding her?

I’ve also read enough of these “fictional writer biopics” now to know that the better you can integrate the writer’s influences (which led to their famous works), the more powerful the story will be. The tortoise and the grasshopper and the ant seemed to pop in and out of the story with no rhyme or reason. Much like the rest of the script, there were no rules governing their arrival. They needed to have a more direct influence on Aesop, to be more crucial to the story itself. I saw them more as announcers or distant observers of his life.

Despite all that, there were good things going on here. I maintain that one of the hardest things to do in screenwriting is give us a protagonist we won’t forget. You read this script, I guarantee you, you won’t forget Aesop. He’s that memorable.

Dorsey really puts us back in Ancient Greece too. From the descriptions to the sounds to the characters, I felt like I was there. A lot of that was due to the dialogue, which was great. Pick out any page here, read the dialogue, and you’ll see what I mean. “So you see, that is why the people of Samos care so much for reputation. It informs us. It puts us in position to leverage outcomes. When I heard that my guards found not one but two slaves with particular familiarity with Aesop the monstrosity, well I couldn’t help but inquire—“ I don’t know. You just get the feeling this guy knows what he’s doing.

But I’m very frustrated by “Aesop.” We obviously have an amazing talent here in Dorsey. But he needs to spend some time in the Structure Garden. This script needs focus. Aesop isn’t really trying to find his mom after awhile, which means he’s an inactive character imprisoned by a king. I’m not sure that and a handful of riddles is enough of an engine to drive an entire second act. We need a more dominant goal and we need Aesop to be a little more active in pursuing it. Or we need a succession of goals, each clear and strong, with high stakes attached to each of them, not unlike the way Star Wars is structured.

The script also needs consistency. It starts out one way and turns out another. The tone is messy. The imaginary world and the real world need to be better explained and intertwined. These are all doable things for someone this talented, but they take time.

Regardless of what happens with this script, I want to know what Dorsey is working on from this point forward. I really like him as a writer.

Script link: Aesop The Courageous

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

What I learned: We need someone to bring the true adventure spec back. I’m predicting whoever does is going to make a lot of money. Who’s going to do it? Pitches in the comments? Or submit your adventure to Amateur Friday.

“If you think, for just one second, that you’re getting a smile out of me, you are LOCO, ESE!”

Today I’d like to do something different. I talk a lot about concept on this site, coming up with an exciting idea that’s easy to market, but concept is nothing unless it’s paired with a memorable main character. In fact, one can argue that people come to the theater more to see the characters than they do the movies. An idea is merely a construct, a vessel to tell your story. But a character, a character is a “real person,” someone who can be our best friend, a role model, or somebody we see ourselves in. In that sense, you want to give both the concept and character equal weight. They must both be great.

Unfortunately, whereas a concept often comes to us out of the blue, creating a memorable character takes time. You need to figure out their history, their fears, their flaws, their views, their secrets, their relationships, and anything else you can about them. You also need to make them relatable, identifiable, interesting, and most of the time, likable. Most writers don’t spend enough time doing this. They think if their hero’s dishing out cool one-liners, they’ve done their job. But creating a truly memorable character that resonates with readers (and hopefully, audiences) takes a ton of work. So what I’d like to do is look at the top 10 movies from last year and their main characters. I’m going to highlight those characters’ key qualities and see if there aren’t some commonalities we can identify which we can then apply to our own characters. I recommend you pay attention. These are the movies audiences spent the most money on last year. Obviously, they’re relating to these characters for a reason.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Main Character: Katniss Everdeen
Character Breakdown: Just like the first movie, Katniss is painted as the underdog, which is one of the easiest ways to get an audience to root for a character. She’s also great at what she does (the whole bow and arrow thing) which audiences love (someone who’s mastered their skill). She’s smart, craftily getting herself out of tough situations. And she’s selfless, constantly worried about others over herself, another quality of likable heroes. The only thing that trips me up about Katniss, something I’m surprised audiences didn’t care about, was that she was devoid of any personality. Not to mention a bit grumpy. Maybe the reason it still works is because those qualities are motivated. People are dying. She can’t save them all. You’re not exactly trying out your latest stand-up routine when faced with everyone you know being killed. But yeah, it is strange to see the hero with the least personality at the top of this list.

Iron Man 3
Main Character: Tony Stark
Character Breakdown: The charming rogue is a proven audience favorite that’s been around forever. Just like in real life, we like people who are charming. So if you’re good at writing charming characters, you probably want to incorporate one into your script. Another big thing about Tony Stark is the wish fulfillment factor. I’m not referring to the superhero element, but rather Tony’s attitude. Tony Stark is confident as hell and doesn’t give a shit about what anybody says. We all wish we could be that person. So when we’re watching Stark, it’s like we’re watching who we want to be. That’s exciting. Note, however, that this doesn’t work if the character isn’t also charming. If they’re an asshole, then this “confident and doesn’t give a shit,” attitude can actually backfire on them. You always need good traits to balance out the bad ones.

Frozen
Main Character: Anna
Character Breakdown: With these traditional animation films, it’s imperative that the hero be likable. Anna is sweet, kind, adorkable, and just like Katniss, an underdog. So they definitely covered all their bases. She’s also fearless. She’s too young and inexperienced to pull off the job she’s been given, yet she goes after it anyway (audiences love characters who aren’t afraid to take on tough tasks). And remember that it’s not just what’s on the outside that makes a character. It’s what’s going on inside. And with Anna, she’s dealing with a ton of conflicting feelings stemming from the trauma of losing her sister. What’s going on in your character’s life that’s affecting them?

Despicable Me 2
Main Character: Gru
Character Breakdown: Out of all the protagonists in the Top 10, Gru was the riskiest to write. He’s actually a villain (or started as one in the first film), but like any “bad” character, if you make them funny enough, we forgive them (balance out the bad with the good!), and Gru’s “perpetually annoyed” sense of humor keeps us laughing throughout. He also loves children. And it’s pretty hard to hate a character who loves children. The writers also do a good job of highlighting what’s missing in Gru’s life (a woman). If you put a huge emphasis on what it is your hero’s missing, we, as an audience, inherently want to stick around to see if they get it.

Man of Steel
Main Character: Clark Kent
Character Breakdown: Superman is the ultimate wish-fulfillment character. It’s why he’s the most popular superhero of all time. We all wish we could be Superman. On a deeper level, this version of Superman explores themes of having to hide who you really are. That’s a battle that speaks to a lot of people, and therefore very relatable. Remember that if you can make your hero relatable in some way, readers are going to latch onto him.

Gravity
Main Character: Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock)
Character Breakdown: If we don’t like Ryan, not a single aspect of this movie works. The whole thing depends on us wanting her to survive. How did the writers tackle this? They had Ryan recently lose a child. Not only do we feel sympathy for someone who experiences loss, but notice how that event informs every choice Ryan makes. Yes, this movie is about a woman trying to survive. But it’s also about a woman deciding if she wants to live. Each choice tells us that she wants to keep going, that life is still worth living. And it’s not always easy. There are times, like in the Chinese space capsule, where she doesn’t think it’s worth it anymore. Gravity reminds us that the external battle is fun, but it’s the internal battle that really draws us in to a character.

Monsters University
Main Character: Mike
Character Breakdown: Well lookie what we have here. Another animated film, another underdog playing the protag. Mike’s character also embodies a lot of struggles people are going through in their daily lives. He wants to fit in. He wants to be accepted. These are things we all want, so we feel close to Mike. One final thing to note is that Mike isn’t a sad sack whiner about his underdog position in life. The underdog character usually works best if he’s a fighter. What we love about Mike is that despite all his limitations, he still tries his hardest.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Main Character: Bilbo
Character Breakdown: Even J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote this book back in 1937, understood the value of an underdog. Both Bilbo and Frodo are the ultimate underdogs. They’re the smallest people in the land, tasked with going on the biggest journeys. The most memorable moments in the Hobbit films to me, are when Bilbo is outmatched, yet still figures out a way to prevail. Whether it be from giant spiders or a game of wits. Tolkien also uses Bilbo as a way to explore themes of temptation (the ring!), which is obviously something we all relate to. I will say, however, that out of these 10 entries, Bilbo is the least interesting protagonist of the bunch. The Hobbit films have always been about their immense cast of characters. They’re not as “hero-driven,” which is probably why they work despite the lack of a truly memorable hero.

Fast & Furious 6
Main Character: Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel)
Character Breakdown: A character that tends to work a lot is the “dangerous charmer.” Think of them as the “bad boy” girls are always attracted to. They’re fun at first, but ultimately screw you over. That kind of danger is exciting to the ladies, and exciting to us moviegoers as well, which is why we love Dominic Toretto.

Oz The Great and Powerful
Main Characters: Oz
Character Breakdown: Oz isn’t exactly the most likable character. He’s a liar and a cheat. But the great thing about writing a fallible character with major flaws, is that you get someone a lot more complex than your garden variety hero. Not everything’s on the surface, like, say, Anna, from Frozen. Which means you have more places to go with the character. Just remember, this kind of character still needs a sliver of likability somewhere, so we don’t write him off as an asshole. With Oz, it’s his charm. If you can pull that combination off (a hero with issues who still has a sliver of likability), you’ll probably have a hero that wins readers over.

IN SUMMARY
So what did we learn here? Obviously, underdogs play well with mainstream audiences. Who doesn’t like to see the little guy succeed? We got hooked on this device all the way back when our mothers read us “The Little Engine That Could” as a child. So if you can work an underdog into your script, do it. I also realized that there were a lot more “non-traditional” heroes in the top 10 than I’d thought there’d be. We have Oz, Dominic, Tony Stark, and Gru. Goes to show you don’t need to write an angel hero to appeal to the masses. AND, if you’re going with the not-so-likable main character, it’s a great idea to make them charming. Charm helps mask a lot of a character’s more damning traits. Finally, I learned that there’s a bunch of ways to skin a cat. You can’t plop down a universal hero that works in every story. Each story has its own set of requirements and therefore its own unique set of characters. Once you figure out what kind of story you’re writing, ask which kind of hero best fits inside (the rogue, the goodie-two-shoes, the trickster) and that’ll be the character you go with.

Genre: Period
Premise: In 1929, the owner of a logging business marries an ambitious young woman named Serena who becomes obsessed with the bastard child he had from a previous woman.
About: Based on the book by the same name, Serena stars mega-celebs and frequent collaborators Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. The film was actually shot back in 2012, and is yet to be released due to (according to the production company) a very deliberate editing process. Christopher Kyle adapted the book, whose last credit before Serena was Oliver Stone’s Alexander. Don’t be worried for Kyle though. Since there were 17 cuts of Alexander made, he got paid for each one. Word is Stone will come out with another version later this summer titled, “Alexander: The Rethought but Carefully Considered Semi-Violent Cut” and Kyle will get paid again. Ron Rash, who wrote the novel, has written several books and lots of poetry. His most recent book was 2012’s The Cove, about a family who experiences a set of grave misfortunes.
Writer: Christopher Kyle (based on the book by Ron Rash)
Details: 124 pages – August 9, 2009 draft

Some longtime Scriptshadow advice: Don’t write a period piece on spec unless a) you are SURE you can get an A-list actor (they’re the only way these get made) and b) you know it’s going to win an Oscar. It’s the only way these movies have any sort of success.

Editing rumors aside, I’m guessing the real reason Serena hasn’t been released yet is because they’re trying to figure out how to market it. You have two of the biggest movie stars in the world. But they’re in completely unfamiliar roles. And you’re selling a movie about logging in the 1920s. Doesn’t matter if you’re the biggest marketing genius in the world. You’re going to have trouble with that one.

This is why I tell you to look into the future BEFORE you write your script. Ask the hard question: Are marketers going to have an easy time marketing my movie? Or a hard time? Cause if it’s a hard time, you probably shouldn’t write it. Not unless you’re Christopher Kyle and you’re getting paid on assignment for it.

But even if you get past the obvious obstacles – like trying to market this kind of film – it’s just really tough to WRITE period pieces. The further back you go in time, the slower life was, and movies work best when the story’s moving quickly. So the elements are always working against each other when you’re trying to write one of these.  The period is trying to slow you down, but you want to speed up. It can be a very frustrating.

Don’t get me wrong. It can be done. But you have to be on your A-game. Let’s see which game Serena brought to the table.

It’s 1929 and George Pemberton is plowing down trees along the North Carolina coast, looking to build a logging empire (I guess from the timber he just cut?). But apparently, chopping down timber could use a little Tinder (app that is). There aren’t a lot of females around. So George starts boinking a 16 year old girl named Rachel and accidentally knocks her up! (Is there an app for that?)

His father dies soon after so he heads home to sell the house, and when he comes back, he’s married to a psycho woman obsessed with hawks named Serena. No really! Serena spends the bulk of her time training a hawk. Serena also wants to rule this timber business with an iron fist, and therefore it doesn’t take her long to start bossing everyone around. Naturally, everyone just loves her for it.

Serena becomes aware of Rachel carrying Pemberton’s bastard child, but doesn’t think much of it. That is until her own pregnancy goes awry and she’s told she’ll never get pregnant again. This inspires a rage inside Serena, and she freaking orders a hit on Rachel and her little boy!

This is where the screenplay makes an interesting choice. Rachel and the boy actually get away at the end of the second act. Because Serena couldn’t kill them, she turns her rage towards Pemberton. As such, she meticulously sets up a hunting “accident” that will happen the next time her husband goes hunting. Will he figure it out though before it’s too late? Or will he perish under the psychopathic rage of…. SERENA!

I’ll say this about Serena. I’ve never read anything like it.

Here’s the question I always ask with period pieces though: Why do we need to tell this story in this time? What is it about 1929, specifically, that necessitates the story be told then? Because if there’s nothing that happens in the story that’s specific to that time, why not just save a ton of cash and tell the story in the present?

I’m looking at “woman gets jealous of husband’s bastard child and wants to kill it” and thinking, “Why not just tell that story today?” There doesn’t need to be any logging to tell it. Look at a movie like Titanic. Why does that movie need to be told then? Because that’s the only time it could’ve been told!

I guess an argument can be made that, if we tell this story today, it’ll feel like all the other “psycho wife/gf” movies. By setting it in 1929 at a logging facility, that’s what makes it unique. I suppose that makes sense. But I still think if you’re going to go that far back, why not intertwine the setting into the story in a way where this only could’ve happened then?

Another problem was the extreme emotional detachment all the characters showed. We never see Pemberton court Serena so we don’t know why they fell for each other. This was the biggest surprise in the script to me. Why wouldn’t you show these two meet (we sort of do in a brief flashback late in the story, but it’s too late)? Their relationship is the engine that drives the story and because we don’t see how they meet, they feel like two strangers working together. They’re so cold to one another, more interested in the business than the relationship. When they have sex, it’s raging angry sex, not tender love-making.

This makes Serena’s jealousy later on all the more puzzling. We don’t really see her love Pemberton outside of the words she says to him (words alone never work – you must SHOW NOT TELL), so it’s confusing why she’d get so worked up about the whole bastard child ordeal.

Then there’s Rachel, who Pemberton has no feelings for either! Their sex is “mechanical” when we see it. And when she has his son, he’s intrigued, but by no means interested. Wouldn’t this have worked better if he had some feelings for Rachel? A part of him regrets leaving her? Serena could’ve felt that, and then her desire to kill them would’ve actually felt motivated. Here, she’s just doing it because she’s a psychopath with a lot of issues.

The more I think about it, the more I believe the lack of emotion was the script’s undoing. How come nobody actually cares about anybody in this script??? Everyone is a zombie, a stiff. Nobody emotes. Nobody lets loose. Nobody cares. Characters without life aren’t characters.

I do give credit to Kyle for keeping things lean. Despite it being a period piece script, the action lines were nice and tight (most were 2 lines or less). His descriptions were strong. I didn’t know what a logging office looked like until I read: They’re like “boxcars on stilts.” And you’d get these winner lines, such as when they were losing all these lives due to heinous body-severing logging accidents. One official tells him, “If only I could stitch together all the severed limbs, I could make you a new man every week or two.”

And really, some of the early drama, with (spoiler) Pemberton murdering his boss before he could underhand him, was exciting. But after awhile, it became unclear what the script was about, until Serena came up with her murder plot, and I never thought that was big enough to carry an entire movie. I hope they figure it out in editing, but this draft wasn’t for me.

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

What I learned: Do not hide “YEARS LATER” or “MONTHS LATER” in a slugline. Big time jumps must be made CLEAR to the reader, since there’s nothing more confusing than reading and then, all of a sudden, nothing makes sense, then five minutes pass and you realize it’s because a time jump occurred that you were unaware of. For the most part, readers skim over sluglines, so they’ll miss any time jumps at the end of them. Instead, add them after the slugline, and BOLD THEM. It’s crucial enough information that you have to draw attention to it.

INT. BOBBY’S BATHROOM – DAY

Title: 307 years later