So for those of you on my newsletter, you know I posed the question last week of, which article did you want me to write?: Why Breaking Bad is so good, or why The Fast and the Furious franchise is so successful. Now a lot of you may think this is a no-brainer. Breaking Bad is one of the best written shows in television history. The Fast and The Furious is eye-candy, fast cars and hot women. But here’s why it was a close vote. Readers pointed out that they knew why Breaking Bad was so good. It wore its great writing on its sleeve. What they couldn’t figure out was how this seemingly vapid car franchise was one of the biggest franchises in history with no hints of slowing down. That needed explaining. And what intrigued ME about it was The Fast and the Furious franchise started as a spec! That means it’s the only spec-driven franchise in decades that was able to hang with the likes of IP properties Batman, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc. To think that one of you guys could learn from that and start your own franchise based on a spec – I thought that was worth exploring.

So then why am I going with Breaking Bad instead of Furious? For the simple reason that I haven’t figured out what makes The Fast and The Furious so successful from a screenwriting point of view. From a concept point of view and from a casting point of view, I know. But I’m going to have to delve back into the franchise’s scripts to see why it stands out from other similar movies (like Driven and Gone in Sixty Seconds). Breaking Bad, on the other hand, oozes good writing in just about every episode, which is really hard to do (to give you some perspective, I’ve been going back over Lost and found some real dud eps – there’s an episode where Sawyer chases a boar. That’s the whole episode!). So I thought, why not show everyone how to do it right?

For those of you who don’t know anything about Breaking Bad, it’s about a high school teacher, Walter White, who finds out he’s dying of cancer. Walter has a special needs son and a pregnant wife and if he were to die today, they’d have zip to live off of. So Walter needs to make a lot of money really fast before he dies. Being a chemistry professor, he realizes that making meth offers the biggest buck for its bang. All he needs is someone to sell it. Enter his former flunky student and current small-time dope dealer, Jesse. The two are the most unlikely pair, but when Jesse realizes how much money Walter (or “Mr. White” as he knows him) can make him, he jumps on board. Of course, since the two have no idea how the upper-level drug trade works, their world gets really crazy really fast.

Breaking Bad works for a ton reasons. First, Walter is leading a double life. He must be the upstanding family man in one world, and the relentless drug producer in another. Remember that double-lives lead to one of the most powerful storytelling devices there is: dramatic irony. We know Walter is secretly a drug dealer, but his wife and family and friends do not. This means in most of the scenes, he’s hiding something, and when one character is hiding something from another, the scene is always watchable. Will he get caught? Is someone on to him? What happens if they catch him? We have to know! It’s the same reason why characters like Superman and Batman and Spider-Man have lasted for so long. The double-life thing leads to a lot of easy-to-write scenarios.

Then there are all the little things. Vince Gilligan (the creator) makes Walter’s brother-in-law a D.E.A. agent. Now we don’t just have dramatic irony, we have sky-high stakes. If his brother-in-law finds out he’s making meth? He’s in jail for life! And his brother is always around! We also have the “climbing the drug ladder” aspect of the series. We love watching characters climb up organizations, especially through the drug trade. The baddies keep getting badder and the stakes keep getting higher. It’s why we love Scarface. It’s why we love Goodfellas.

And then the show is funny! When I first heard about Breaking Bad, I mentally tuned it out. A guy dying of cancer? No thanks Depression Channel. But Gilligan makes sure this isn’t a downbeat show. Breaking Bad is packed with humor! In this episode I’m highlighting today, there’s a great scene where Walter and Jesse have a little “teacher-to-student” moment that plays up the silliness of their dynamic (Walter’s trying to teach Jesse about all those things he missed in high school via the battery they’re building. The clueless Jesse proves he hasn’t learned a thing). It’s hilarious. That balance evens out the intensity of the cancer storyline.

And then, of course, there’s the strained Walter-Jesse dynamic, which is the heart of the show. Conflict people. CONFLICT! Not only is this pairing exceptionally ironic (a goody-two-shoes chemistry teacher must go to one of his worst former students for help in the drug trade), but because this is the most unlikely pair in existence, and because they come from two totally different worlds, they’re always at odds with one another, always arguing or debating, and it’s always entertaining. They’re one of the best pairings in TV history.

Which leads us to the episode I’m highlighting today. I knew I couldn’t breaking down ALL of Breaking Bad. It’d be a 20,000 word post. So I looked for an episode that encapsulated what I loved about the show. That episode is “4 Days Out.” It’s the ninth episode of the second season, and Walter’s just learned that he isn’t anywhere near his target money number (the final amount of money he needs so his family can live comfortably after he dies – what I call: The Overall Series Goal).

He’s just received a terrible diagnosis, meaning he may die a lot sooner than he thought. So he calls Jesse and tells him they need to go make a ton of meth RIGHT NOW. The two drive their mobile meth lab (a dying Winnebago) out into the middle of the New Mexico desert, where they won’t be found, and make 1.3 million dollars worth of meth. Time to party right? Yeah. Except Jesse, who’s always doing something moronic, left the keys in the ignition. The battery is dead. The two begin to realize that no one knows where they are (and even if they did, it’s not like Walter can call his wife to pick them up). They’re too far away from anywhere to walk. And there’s no water left. If they don’t figure out a solution soon, they will die out here.

To me, the best television episodes establish a problem or a goal right away. This makes the episode feel self-contained and relevant. Whenever an episode deals with a series of threads and don’t have any form, it tends to feel unfocused and pointless. Every TV show has to do these episodes at some point, and if the threads are interesting enough (or the show is paying off some earlier season mystery), the episode can sometimes overcome this problem. But usually the episodes that stick are the ones that not only work for the show, but work on their own.

“4 Days Out” is not only a master class in how to write a good television episode, it’s a master class in how to write a good movie. Just like in any story, you want to propose a problem. That problem will then lead to a goal. That goal will drive your characters, which will, in turn, drive your episode. In this case, the problem is they’re stuck out in the desert with a dead Winnebago. The goal, then, is to find a way out of the desert to safety.

From there, you provide the stakes. The stakes in this case start off as annoyance, but quickly escalate to death. It’s clear that if they don’t figure out something soon, they’re going to be a permanent part of the horizon. Finally, you have the urgency. With water gone, they’ve got maybe 3 days before they’re dead. This is the basic structure for the episode and it’s practically full-proof. Everything is in place to write something compelling.

That leads us to our next essential ingredient – CONFLICT. If your characters are getting along during this predicament, we’re bored. You, then, need to create friction, create problems and issues between the characters, which will usually revolve around the characters having different points of views on how to solve the problem. Luckily Gilligan establishes at the beginning of the Breaking Bad series that Jesse and Walter really dislike each other. Therefore, it’s only natural that they start bickering like schoolgirls when the battery dies. Goals stakes and urgency set up the party. Conflict IS the party.

Next comes obstacles. Things have to keep getting worse over the course of the story. If the problem stays at the same level, our emotions remain at the same level. You want to play with the audience’s emotions. Obstacles help you do this. So first the generator blows up. Then Jesse puts it out with their remaining water (leaving them with no water to drink). Then the guy who’s supposed to pick them up – Jessie’s druggie friend – gets lost (it’s hard to give directions to the middle of nowhere), Then Walt’s phone goes dead. And their last ditch effort to manually rig the generator fails too. The obstacles have left them with no options left.

This puts the characters at their “lowest point.” We think these two are dead. They think they’re dead. There’s obviously no way out of this. But then our characters (NOT SOME RANDOM DEUS-EX-MACHINA LUCKY BREAK) conceive of a plan (born out of chemistry – so an established part of one of our character’s backgrounds) to build a battery from spare parts. They put away their differences for a moment to work together, and against all odds, somehow make it work! They’ve saved themselves!

Now that’s how to tell a story!

There were a couple of other things I noticed here as well. I love how when Gilligan brings us to a high (they count up all the meth they just made and realize it’s worth 1.3 million dollars) he immediately slams us back down to a low (they find out the battery’s dead). That’s what you want to do with your audience. You should always be bringing them up, then bringing them back down again. I also liked how Gilligan didn’t do the obvious. Writers are inherently lazy people. If we can take the easy way out, we will. It would’ve been really easy here to have it so neither characters’ phone worked. But Gilligan makes it so that Walter’s does, which is more realistic, and forces the writers to work a little harder to keep their characters in harm’s way. It leads to the thread where Jesse calls his stoner friend to come get them. And then of course, later, we find out his friend is lost (once again, bring them up high, then bring them down low). If you take the easy ways out as a writer, your script will read that way. Which is why I loved this choice.

It’s pretty rare that you encounter this level of writing on a consistent basis. I just reviewed the Dracula pilot the other day (the new show on NBC) and it was fine. The goal was a little muddled. The stakes were kind of there. You’re not sure you noticed any urgency. You realize how much better writing can be when you watch Breaking Bad. And revisiting this episode only reinforced that opinion. I had so much fun with, “Four Days Out,” maybe I’ll do another Breaking Bad episode some time. What about you guys? What aspect of Breaking Bad’s writing do YOU enjoy the most. Share. I want to learn too! ☺

Genre: Indie Rom-Com
Premise: A recent Ivy League grad is forced to work at a Trophy Store, where she runs into the guy who stole her virginity then never called again.
About: Diablo Cody is baaaack. IN TIME! There isn’t a whole lot known about this script. The title page indicates this was before Cody had an agent and therefore hadn’t made the LA jump yet. But as it’s a first draft, she may have gone back to the script at some point over the years. I can tell you this isn’t her directing debut (that’s Lamb of God – or whatever it’s been re-titled) but rather a film that last had Ol Parker directing (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and star Julianne Hough (Safe Haven). Then again, that was in 2012 and there’s been no movement since, so I’m not even sure these two are attached anymore. For more on Diablo, she just offered her 7 tips for future successful screenwriters article over on Vulture. Check it out!
Writer: Diablo Cody
Details: 1st draft – 112 pages

Diablo Cody has gotten a lot of unwarranted heat over her writing since her debut back in 2007. I think a lot of that came from everyone proclaiming she was a great writer when in actuality she was probably only a good one. She hadn’t really mastered the craft yet, and her Juno draft that won her an Oscar had just as much to do with those guiding her as her own writing (at least that’s what I heard). There was some blog nakedness and some light stripping that added fuel to the fire, and when you throw in a healthy dose of jealousy – well, that’s going to create a controversial figure.

But I think Cody’s a good writer. She understands female characters better than almost anyone. She’s good with dialogue when she doesn’t push too hard. And she’s got a great sense of humor. Take Young Adult, for example. That was a nice little movie. And I don’t think there’s a writer on this earth other than Cody who could’ve made it work. But here’s why I’m really curious about “Time and a Half.” It looks to be written before she had her big break. The reason that’s significant is because Cody’s writing has gotten a lot tamer since Juno, a result of, I’m guessing, the blowback she got for all the cutesy-ness of that film. She took those critiques so hard, it’s like she went too far in the opposite direction. But when you’re good at something (like quick witty dialogue) you should probably write quick witty dialogue. I’m curious to see if this (supposed) pre-Oscar script gives us the original Cody and not the post-Juno Cody. Let’s find out.

Krista Mattson (23 or 25, depending on the spot of the script) was the artsy chick in high school, the one who aggressively wondered why all the hot guys went for the pretty popular girls instead of the artsy cool ones, like herself. 5 years later and she still hasn’t gotten over it. Every aspect of her life seems to revolve around the fact that the people in high school sucked. Starting with her older sister, Shawnee.

You see, Shawnee WAS one of the popular chicks. She had it all. And Krista resents her for that. The only thing that kept the relationship tolerable was the fact that Krista knew, once they reached adulthood, their rolls would switch. Because adulthood is where all the pretty high school boys and girls become nobodies, and all the quiet geniuses become somebodies. Operation Fail on that front. Shawnee just got a big promotion at her real estate job, and Krista just got fired from her ad agency. What the hell is going on??? This is not how it’s supposed to happen!

So with Krista desperate to simply pay the bills, she ends up at the only place that’s hiring, a trophy store. There, she’s teamed up with the handsome Noah, one of the very popular kids she hated in high school, her sister’s former boyfriend, and, oh yeah, the guy she lost her virginity to (and who never called her again)! Krista wants out. But the rumor goes, if you don’t pay your rent, they make you leave the apartment n stuff. So she’s gotta stay at Loser Trophy Shops R Us.

But! But it turns out grown-up Noah is kinda sweet. And when he asks Krista on a “fake date” where there’s no pressure to do anything but have fun, she obliges, and the two have the time of their lives. Until Shawnee and her friends show up, turning the clock right back to high school and putting Krista square in the middle of her ultimate nightmare. Will she bail? Will she endure? Will this kill her only shot at happiness? Is the eternally bitter Krista even capable of happiness? Time for this girl to test her mettle and find out.

Time and a Half is a good script but I don’t think it’s ever going to get made. It’s too thin. It’s about a girl who runs into a guy she once knew and they hang out with each other. That’s not just thin. That’s catastrophically thin. This is a MOVIE. Millions of dollars will be spent. And for that reason, there has to be a concept with some meat, with something other than a premise that could easily be the setup for a sitcom episode. This is why I tell you guys not to write scripts with no hook. If Diablo Cody, one of the best known screenwriters in the business, can’t get this kind of movie made, how are you going to?

But if you ARE going to write one of these simple “boy meets girl” screenplays, you have to push the envelope in places. You have to add some edge to your material – anything that GETS the reader’s emotions revved up. This script was too sweet, too nice. Everyone got along with only a few minor hiccups here and there. And when everything’s too easy, the script doesn’t STAY WITH the reader. There’s gotta be conflict. There’s gotta be major obstacles!

Personally, I would’ve encouraged a more relentless “boy loses girl” section. Here, Krista loses Noah in a fight that would’ve rated 2.5 on the Richter scale, then her sister gives her some great advice and a few scenes later, they’re together and happy again. I probably would’ve had the sister (who was Noah’s girlfriend in high school) sleep with Noah again. I know it’s sorta cliché, but the characters would’ve had to work a LOT HARDER to get back to a happy place. And the betrayal would’ve stung a lot worse. We never got that low here. This would’ve brought us low.

However, Cody does a nice job, again, building an interesting believable female lead. She does a great job adding a flaw (Krista thinks she’s better than everyone else) and the character DEVELOPS into someone much less snobby by the end of the ride. It reminded me that the best character flaws are usually the simplest, and they’re usually made very clear to the audience. I’ve read too many scripts lately where writers have been incorporating really complicated character flaws (i.e. a character who believes people are too obsessed with the future and who wants to prove that we should focus on the present by communicating more) and their characters just get lost as the writer attempts to explain that. How can you have a character change when you’re not even sure what’s wrong with them?

And I know whenever you bring up Cody’s dialogue, the screenwriting world ignites, but she really is better than most. I mean say what you will, but her dialogue’s always so ALIVE. She’s always choosing unique ways to say things and dropping in zingers and giving each character a unique way of talking. Here’s a little snippet from page 97, where Krista’s old boss is presumably trying to get her to come work for him again. The two have just sat down for lunch and Clive (the boss) is nursing a “totally absurd looking breakfast drink.”

CLIDE
You made it.

Krista eases self-consciously into her chair.

KRISTA
What is that thing you’re drinking?

CLIVE
It’s a Bloody Margeaux. It’s made with truffle oil and tomato juice. You have to drink it fast before it separates.

KRISTA
Like science in your mouth.

CLIVE
Do you have a spoon?

KRISTA
(checking)
Mmm, no.

CLIVE
I need a spoon.

An awkward moment of silence.

CLIVE
I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you to come here…

Let me tell you why I like this dialogue. Because it brings the characters ALIVE. They’re not just two pawns on the writer’s chessboard being manipulated through the scene. It’s just enough talk BEFORE we get to the plot stuff, that it makes the moment feel real. I’ve seen so many scenes like this where the writer doesn’t inject ANY life into the moment and only focuses on the mechanics of the scene. Something like this:

Krista sits down.

CLIVE
Glad you could make it.

KRISTA
What am I doing here, Clive?

CLIVE
You’re not still mad are you?

KRISTA
Yeah, in fact, I am. You fired me two weeks ago and then, out of nowhere, you call and say you need me back. Wouldn’t you be mad?

CLIVE
Look—

KRISTA
No! No “look” Clive. I’m finally starting to figure out my life and then you throw this curve ball at me. Not cool.

Boring, right? We miss the “real-ness” of the opening. We miss the laughs. And the exchange is a lot more mechanical and on-the-nose. Dialogue is something you very much have to have an ear for, but if you recognize the difference between good and bad exchanges like these, you’re one level up on the competition. Then again, it’s important to note when to have fun and when to stay serious. This script is mostly a comedy. You’re not writing the first version of the scene if this is a serial killer mystery, a la “Seven.” So always make sure the dialogue is appropriate for the situation.

I liked this script for all the reasons I just mentioned. But the more scripts I read, the more I’m realizing that these “okay” scripts that don’t really have anything to market rarely get made. You need something a little more eye-catching in your concept or execution. Or a fresh angle. I just felt this was too soft.

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

What I learned: The simplest solutions are usually the best. When I talked about making character flaws simple, you can really apply that approach to everything in scripts. Keep the theme simple. Keep character motivations simple. Keep the goals simple. Keep the backstories simple. It’s when writers overthink everything and create these really elaborate solutions to problems that aren’t really there, that the script loses focus and falls apart. There are situations that require complexity, don’t get me wrong. But if you’re having trouble with something in your script, start with the simplest solution.

Genre: TV Pilot – Supernatural
Premise: In the late 19th century, a mysterious American businessman moves into London, one whose revolutionary technology threatens to destabilize a hidden world order. That man is Dracula.
About: This is a HUGE coup for writer Cole Haddon. He had gained some notoriety for his 2010 script, “Hyde” (about a rehabilitated Dr. Jekyll who’s pulled out of prison to help hunt a new monster created through the Hyde serum) but I haven’t heard much about that project since. To get a project actually ON NBC as an un-credited screenwriter – I mean wow. Talk about the dream baby. “Dracula” premieres on NBC October 28th and stars that hunky actor from Bend It Like Beckham, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, as the biggest vampire of them all.
Writer: Cole Haddon
Details: 6-13-12 draft – 60 pages

I started reading The Sixth Gun (another TV pilot) for review, got a few pages in, and just knew it wasn’t for me. Monks wielding machine guns. Cowboys shooting into the ground with special bullets that raised the dead. My buddy Roger would’ve loved this. But to me it was a bunch of nonsensical mayhem.

And the reality of this business is that if it’s not a reader’s cup of tea (genre, type of show, type of movie), it’s impossible to win that reader over. I mean imagine, my male readers, someone asking you to read 50 Shades of Grey. Is there any circumstance under which you’d like it? Probably not, right? Now you know how readers feel when they get a “not their cup of tea” script.

And that’s a killer. Because when you get rejected, you assume it’s because of some fault in your script. But what if it’s being read by someone who had zero chance of liking the script in the first place? Since getting people to read your script is rare, that reaction may be all you have to go on. And you’re now erroneously thinking your script is terrible because the guy hated it.  As if our jobs aren’t hard enough!

So since I didn’t dig “The Sixth Gun,” I got to pull out NBC’s sexy new re-interpretation of Dracula. Normally I’d say, “NBC? Ehhhh, the Peacock’s not exactly flashing its feathers.” But you know what? They made that Hannibal show look pretty cool. And Dracula oozes that same level of production design. Maybe NBC is finally realizing that in order to stay relevant, they need to take chances. Let’s find out if that’s the case here.

London. 1896. The world is in flux. There are whispers that war is inevitable, a war that will position the English for world domination. How do they plan to fund this war? Fossil fuels – the future of energy for the next 100 years. Everyone in the country has banked their livelihoods on it.

Which is why nobody likes the new rich guy in town, American Allan Grayson. The ageless sunglass-sporting heartthrob has announced his arrival in a big way, throwing a gargantuan party at his mansion. There, he reveals, his company will start selling WIRELESS ELECTRICITY, a form of free energy that will make fossil fuels, well, fossils. Naturally, England’s upper crust does not think highly of this.

Oh, there’s one more thing about Allan I forgot to tell you. He’s like a thousand year old vampire. Who happens to go by the name “Dracula.” Yeah, Allan’s Dracula. And upon throwing his party, he becomes taken with a young woman named Mina. Mina is one of the few women at the time who believed in women’s rights and that women should get an education, which makes her a freak of nature in society. But not to Allan. To Allan, this girl is dee-licious, mainly due to the fact that his wife, who died 500 years ago, looks EXACTLY like her. Kind of like how Robert Pattison’s new girlfriend looks exactly like Kristin Stewart? (Wanted to include a vampire reference)

So while Allan’s off trying to persuade Mina to hitch a ride on the Blood Train, a secret organization known as “The Order” (who may or may not be vampires themselves) is meeting to discuss that a new vampire has entered the region. They don’t know this vampire is Allan, but you get the sense that when they do, someone’s going to become really friendly with a wooden stake.

Is the world ready for another vampire product? Well, here’s the cool thing about the vampire business. They can keep trading off between vampires and Dracula. When vampires get hot (Twilight), Dracula takes a back seat. When vampires get cold (Twilight), Dracula can re-emerge. This ensures that there’s ALWAYS a pale well-manicured rogue sleeping around. Cool, huh!

But what about THIS Dracula? Any good? On a scale of one blood sucking second to ten? I’d give it a seven. The more of these TV pilots (that make it to air) I read, the more I realize they’re all pretty good. There are so many pilots purchased, and then so many developed, that only the best of the best of those – the ones that get to TV – are any good. And therefore it’s rare to find a truly awful script.

But I just want someone to UPDATE this guy. I’m tired of seeing Dracula in dainty period clothes. I want to see them do to Dracula what The Devil’s Advocate did with the devil. Al Pacino that mother*&$%r. Or, do something unique with the show, flashing back and forth between 200 years ago and present day. I wanted to experience something fresh here, to be knocked off my feet. But it was more of the same (for the most part). I understand how scary it can be for a network or studio to take a chance, which is why it’s rarely done, but man: TAKE A CHANCE!  Or AMC and FX and NETFLIX are going to make you a dinosaur. Don’t become the Blockbuster of the TV network business.

To Haddon’s credit, there are SOME new things. Dracula as an energy entrepreneur, for example. That was fresh. And then our good friend Van Helsing is a local professor who also happens to be Dracula’s right hand man. That was neat. But it wasn’t enough to really get me on board. And when I say, “On board,” I mean the kind of thing I’m going to tell my friends about. “Holy shit? Did you see Dracula last night!!?? All that weird shit that happened!?” I would say that for shows like Lost (giant monster and a polar bear on the island??) and Breaking Bad (“You have got to see this crazy dude, Tuco!”). I didn’t get that here. It was dipping its toes in risk, but never jumped all the way into the pool.

But the structure and writing were good. Remember that for every episode, you want one of your characters driving the story. They must be after something, as that something will be the “engine” that makes the episode go. Most of the time, that goal will be assigned to your protagonist (in this case, I THINK that’s Mina, although I’m not positive). If your protagonist isn’t driving, then consider having your antagonist drive. The main goal driving this episode, for example, is Allan’s pursuit of Mina. She is his goal. And we watch to see if he’ll get her.

In addition to this, you need a SERIES GOAL that’s going to drive the entirety of the series. If we don’t see that, we know the series isn’t going to have any legs. For example, with Lost, it’s “Will they get off the island?” That was the beauty of that show. It was so simple and powerful, the two things you want your series goal to be.

Here, it’s more complicated. Allan’s goal is to move into and destroy this energy monopoly. With The Order opposed to that, we know there’s going to be plenty of episodes driven by that conflict. My question is, is that a big enough engine? Cause the series engine needs to be as big as you can make it. It’s one thing to dangle a fun little nugget at the end of the pilot so that they’ll tune in next week. It’s much more important to give them something huge so they’ll mentally make that commitment to watch the whole season. Again, that’s what Lost did. I’m not sure the plot here achieved that. The series goal is just too small.

Of course, another way to get people to keep watching is great characters. If we like the characters, we’ll want to see them every week. To that end, there are some hits and misses. Dracula’s intriguing. Mina’s intriguing, as she’s a female trying to make it in a man’s world. Professor Helsing is a cool shadowy figure. But none of these characters are so memorable that I must see them again. Casting might help that a little (and I really like Rhys-Meyers), but I’ve always found that you can only improve a character so much with casting. It has to be in the script.

And that script was solid, just not great. I may check this out out of curiosity. But they’re going to have to hit on all cylinders to get me to keep tuning in every week.

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

What I learned: Bad script dates – I see a lot of writers give their scripts out to that ONE industry contact they have, get bad feedback, then go into a six month depression. Here’s the thing. That read might’ve been the result of a bad script date, a reader who just isn’t into your kind of material. Regardless of what you did, they weren’t going to like it. This was the case with The Sixth Gun, the script I chose to ditch today, and it happens with readers ALL THE TIME. In order to get a true gauge on how good your script is, get it to at least 5 people (doesn’t have to be industry people – just anyone who will read it and give you feedback). If you’re not getting any, “Wow, this is REALLY goods,” or “Can I give this to my friend who works at Bad Robot?” then it’s time to knock your friends up for their REAL opinions (not their “being nice” opinions) so you can clean up the issues in your script and get the best version possible out there.

Genre: Sneak-Into-Disney-World-And-Don’t-Tell-Anyone Genre
Premise: While on a family trip to Disney World, a man finds out that he’s lost his job. As the reality of this situation starts to hit him, he begins to see the famous park in a dark, twisted way.
About: Escape From Tomorrow debuted at Sundance where it quickly became a hot ticket for its unique backstory: the writer-director shot the film in Disney World and Disney Land without Disney’s knowledge. The buzz grew because everyone assumed that this would be the only chance to ever see the movie. How would Disney ever allow it to be released to the public? But after four months of lawyers combing through the film, they decided that even though many of Disney’s famous characters and landmarks were used, Disney wouldn’t be able to win a lawsuit (due to complicated legal terms like “fair use” that I can’t even begin to explain). As the film industry waited for Disney to roar, they never did, deciding instead to remain silent. The assumption was that any legal threat would bring more attention to the little indie film. Their position was that it would be ancient history within a few weeks if they just ignored it. They may have been right. The film made $66,000 in 30 theaters this weekend, for a $2000 average per theater. That’s low for a limited release. By comparison, Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine had a $102,000 average per theater on its opening weekend. For all the pub this film is getting, that’s surprising. Then again, it was also released on VOD (something I only learned AFTER I laid down $28 for two people), so that will probably determine if the film was a sound investment or not.
Writer: Randy Moore
Details: 90 minutes

I’m always telling you guys to limit your scripts to 110 pages. And if you have a comedy or a thriller, you should probably be closer to 100. You would think then, that I’d be happy to see a movie with a 90 page script. That means the story’s going to move even faster, right!? Not exactly. You see, 90 minutes is the minimum running time a movie must be to play in theaters (I think the actual number is 88 minutes). So when I see that, I subconsciously think that the filmmakers/writers didn’t have enough story for a feature film, and just padded their script with a bunch of filler to meet that minimum requirement.

There are exceptions. If you have something really contained with a low character count (“Buried,” for example) 90 minutes/pages might be just right. But Escape From Tomorrow had a family in Disney World. That story should’ve been longer. This was a prime candidate, then, for Padding Nation. But I was still hoping the film would prove me wrong.

Escape From Tomorrow introduces us to Jim, a father of two who’s on the last day of his trip to Disney World. Jim doesn’t seem to be the happiest guy to begin with, so when he gets a call from his company to inform him that he’s fired, it only adds fuel to his depression fire.

Naturally then, you’d expect to see this depression played against the happiest place on earth. And you’d be right. After the family goes on a few rides, Jim’s focus quickly becomes these two really young French girls (we’re talking 14-15 years old) who are frolicking around with barely any clothes on. Jim’s able to split from his wife by taking one of his kids, and follows the girls around to all the rides. The girls appear to notice him, and maybe even like the attention, but Jim can only get so close before his nagging wife keeps reappearing to nag some more.

What follows is a whole lot of nothing. We’ll go on a ride. Jim will watch the girls. Then his son will throw up. Jim will meet another mom, go to her room and have sex with her, even though it isn’t clear whether it really happened or not. Jim finds himself in the center of Disney World being held hostage by a crazy German scientist who turns out to be a robot. He’s shown images of a flight simulation and a naked woman. Jim loses his daughter, who he later finds out has been sorta kidnapped (I say “sorta” because she’s given back without any trouble).

Oh, and then there’s the ending (spoiler alert)! Jim succumbs to the anemically set-up “cat flu” and dies in the bathroom of his room! Only to show up again, alive and well, with that naked woman we’d intermittently seen jump cuts of throughout the movie (for no discernable reason of course). My friends, if you thought Upstream Color was too mainstream, then boy have I found the movie for you.

Okay, before I get pissed off about the storytelling here (and I am going to get pissed off), I have to give Randy Moore a TON of credit. He did the impossible. He broke into Hollywood. If you’re a reader of this site, you’re hopefully racking your brain every night to try and find a way into this exclusive club (at least I hope you are). In order to do it, you gotta write/make something great, inspired, clever, controversial or all of the above.

If you can find a way to break the rules in an interesting way, to create an excited discussion around your film or script, then the doors to Hollywood will open right up. Moore figured out a way to do that. Illegally filming a movie on the hallowed grounds of Disney World, a movie that smashes the very image the company likes to portray, was genius. It really was. One of the easiest ways to get people to discuss your film/script is to find an ironic slant. And what’s more ironic than an evil, twisted Disney World trip? And then to shoot the film in black and white? Stripping the Mouse House of the color they so desperately use to lure everyone in? Genius!

And when I did some research on Moore, I found out other good things. He worked his BUTT off to make this movie over the last three years. The first thing he did was come up with the idea. But here’s why Moore is where he is and you’re still sucking up black mold from your 400 square foot bachelor pad in Burbank – HE ACTUALLY WENT OUT AND MADE HIS IDEA. He didn’t stop at the concept point. He went to Mandy.com and found his crew. He planned meticulously for how he was going to pull off the shoot without Disney knowing. I mean, the guy went out and did it. And as crazy as it sounds, that’s the only thing that separates the successful and the non-successful people in this business. Some just talk about it and dream about it. The others GO OUT AND DO IT. And for that reason, I shall respect Randy Moore and others like him regardless of if I like or dislike their films.

But (oh, come on, you knew it was coming) I was SHOCKED to find out what I found out about Moore. You see, I had assumed this whole time that we were dealing with a filmmaker only who had a vision for a film but no money to hire a screenwriter. So he just did the best he could and scribbled out a bunch of scenes in order to get his movie made.

Then I learned that Randy Moore was a longtime [albeit unsuccessful] screenwriter?? That he was a reader and did coverage for people? That he consulted on scripts??? That blew me away because there isn’t a shred of ANYTHING good in this script whatsoever. If you stripped away the movie and read this script on its own, without a question it’s a “what the hell did I just read?” It’s that bad.

Let me try and break down some of the problems here. NOTHING LOGICAL HAPPENS. There is no cause and effect. In other words, one thing does not lead to the next. Random things just happen and you’re expected to go with it. Oh, our main character has sex with some woman he meets while his son waits in the next room. Oh, there’s a naked woman who keeps appearing on the screen and then in the end, the re-birthed Jim goes to Disney World with her. Oh, there’s a break-out of “cat flu” on the grounds (what the hell is cat flu????). Oh, a robot scientist locks Jim up (???????). Oh, Jim gets into a spat with a large, wigged man in a wheelchair.  This film was built on set-ups that NEVER got a payoff (how can you screw that up?  Setups and payoffs are some of the easiest things to do in screenwriting!).

The only narrative focus used here are these 14 year-old French chicks. That’s the only thing pulling the story forward – Jim’s pursuit of them. But their inclusion is so thin (we don’t know anything about them – they might as well have been carrots and Jim a mule) that we don’t care if he gets them or not. So they only seem to be there so we can see more places in the park and pad the story with more scenes (remember what I said about those 90 pages?).

There was a scene, when Jim’s daughter is “kidnapped” by a witch, where I thought, “Okay, this kind of makes sense.” We’re in Disney World. There are witches in this world. He’s going insane so maybe this is or isn’t happening. I can make some sort of connection there. If there was more of that, maybe the story might have actually been interesting. But instead we have cat flus and huge men with bad wigs on wheelchairs and the Epcot Center ball blowing up because it’s a fun special effects shot, things that don’t seem to have anything to do with Disney World.

I mean, coming up with a more cohesive story that still allowed Moore to play around with Jim’s insanity wouldn’t have been that difficult. Have him lose his family early. They go off one way, him the other, and the narrative engine is him trying to find them again. If you want to get trippy, maybe he starts to question if he ever had a family – if they weren’t a part of his imagination.  Or his wife’s back at the room and he loses his kid and is so terrified of his wife’s reaction, that he decides to look for him himself. Or, if you really want to get wild, start by having Jim wake up in a strange room with a dead girl (the French girl?). No idea how he got there. He goes back to his family, sneaks in before they wake up, and must pretend like nothing’s wrong on their last day at Disney World, all while Disney guards become more and more suspicious of him and seem to be following his family everywhere. Things get really bizarre when he sees the impossible – the French girl, out and about, still alive.

Yeah, I’m not asking for awards for these ideas, but give us SOME sort of narrative thrust so we’re not randomly stumbling through a world with no rhyme or reason. That kind of thing is interesting for about 7 minutes before the audience gets impatient and wants a reason to stick around.

I suppose this kind of thing might work for David Lynch fans who are into trippy unconventional plots, but from what I’m hearing, even Lynch fans are calling this movie random and pointless. And that’s not a good sign because that’s the only audience that’s going to go for this. Again, I commend Moore for coming up with this idea and generating so much buzz. But the screenplay for this was so disappointing, I can’t possibly endorse it. I just can’t. It was so very bad. ☹

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

What I learned: You are not as good as you think you are. I don’t care if you’re a script reader, a script consultant, or if you’ve sold a script – ALWAYS GET FEEDBACK! Always! Because the world doesn’t see your story the same way you see it in your head (ESPECIALLY stories like this, where you’re playing with reality). You need that outside perspective so you can identify the faults in your script and fix them. “Escape” could’ve become a classic if it was actually good. But it appears Moore never got any feedback on the script.

What I learned 2: Even “trippy” scripts need structure. You can’t use the excuse, “Well, it’s supposed to be weird” to explain away a wandering plot and wall-to-wall strangeness. Create the boundaries of your world first, then you can play within them.

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: Far End of the Black
GENRE: Horror
LOGLINE: Their compound under attack, a soldier finds his faith put to the test when his scientist wife saves years of progress toward a zombie pandemic cure by infecting herself with an incomplete vaccination – sending their family of survivors in a race against time to find the missing antigen as the only thing to prevent her from turning is the sacrifice of their own blood.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “If you recall some time ago, you posted this article featuring the trailer for Dead Island video game (http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2011/02/island-of-originality.html). During the course of discussions there, I came up with the concept and posted about it (since removed) and had comments telling me to stop talking about it and go write the thing and that several other writers were probably already firing Final Draft while another said they’d see that movie tomorrow.

So, had I not read that particular article, I never would have come up with the idea which I finally wrote late this past summer. While some may lament that it’s a zombie script (or even a quintessential zombie script), I do believe it really does have its own bit of a unique take on it as the zombies here are merely the context for which the theme, I think, really resonates within. It’s dark, but there’s a reason for that which becomes all the more evident when you reach the end.

And… it’s got a wicked GSU. I could elaborate, but don’t want to ruin the experience.”

TITLE: Dirty Tricks
GENRE: R-rated Buddy Action/Comedy
LOGLINE: A compulsive detective must protect the footloose gangster involved in his partner’s death from dysfunctional thugs, crooked cops… and filthy germs.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “It’s an action-packed, irreverent and fun-filled script with very colorful characters and a number of scenes I guarantee you haven’t read or seen anywhere before. I have tried really hard to deviate from the usual action/comedy staples and write something that’s familiar, yet new and exciting at the same time.”

TITLE: The Liger Atlas
GENRE: Action/Fantasy
LOGLINE: To reverse a disease affecting one of their partners, hiding Alchemists must retrieve the powerful artifact of a hidden valley before their rivals uncover it first.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “I’ve written several scripts in college and after, as screenwriting continues to be my passion. I think it was my uncle, a raging novelist and playwright, who first inspired me to write seriously when I was convinced dreaming images was a hobby at best. I majored in film and television, and though I’ve only made several, short student films from my scripts, a feature is something I remain adamant about. Liger has been the most meaningful to me. Having spent so much time with the characters and lived in the world for so long, I’ve cared about the integrity of the story through countless rewrites and review. More than anything, it’s been a labor of love.”

TITLE: LEGENDARY
GENRE: Comedy/Action/Fantasy
LOGLINE: The Sock Gnome aspires to be promoted withing Legendary Inc to respected positions, like Santa or the Tooth Fairy, but compromises this when he accidentally steals money from a bellicose Drug Dealer and must bring him down to save his life.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “I’m Freddy and I’ve been doing stand-up for years… mostly in Minneapolis, but really all around. If I can find an open mic, I’ll grab it and talk and hope people giggle. It started as a way to hook up with girls (obviously) but then I really fell in love with it.

One of my buddies suggested I take my humor and give screenplays a shot. He told me they were a hundred pages and things needed to be spelled write so I of course said no. But he insisted I try and I’m glad he did. Since then I’ve written two. This is the second and I find it delightful (so does this bum I paid $15 dollars to say so). I’d be thrilled if you gave it a shot.”

TITLE: Memories of a Distant Utopia.pdf)
GENRE: Sci-fi, Mystery
LOGLINE: In the faraway future, a young astronaut — the sole human survivor on an experimental ship — searches space in a desperate effort to find life. As he battles loneliness and isolation, he finally receives a signal from an unknown source, helping him unlock a terrifying secret about the origins of his supposed ship.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “For years, I had always wanted to write a story about humanity, and how far one would go in search for the truth, even when everything is stacked against them. And eventually, that morphed into a question, what would you do, if for all you knew, you were the last surviving human in the nearby Universe? Would you try and find Earth? Would you… Just send messages across the galaxy in search of something – anything really. Just one man against the whole Universe.

So when I finished writing it, I thought it was amazing, pure genius but obviously, it wasn’t – and I got a good internet slap across face for thinking it was. I worked on a few other drafts, spent months trying to perfect it, and again, comments from readers told me to keep working on it. After all the time I put into the script, I was ready to quit screenwriting, but I give it one last shot and receive some very helpful notes. Finally, after all this work, I finish a draft I’m happy with, but I still know it needs work. And rather than keep annoying my writer’s circle, I decided I’ll annoy SS.”