Genre: TV Pilot – Drama
Premise: A Maine-based lobster fishing family who has fallen from grace, finds a chance at redemption when their old fishing boat comes back up for sale.
About: Every year, AMC takes its six best potential scripts and allows their writers/creators to pitch them and the entire show in a more extensive format, via visual aids, or whatever else they can think of. Whoever still looks good after that gets a show on the air. This sounds like a good approach, but doesn’t always work. One of the shows to come out of this format was Low Winter Sun, the depressing took-itself-too-seriously bore fest. The strangely titled “F/V Mean Tide” (I don’t know why you’d put a forward slash in a title. – Unless “F/V” stands for “final version” maybe??) is another one of those scripts. You’re probably wondering, why did you pick this to review, Carson? Well first of all, I trust AMC. They have their misses (as documented above) but as far as alternative TV series, they’re right up there with HBO and Netflix. With that said, their line-up is getting old, with the exception of maybe The Walking Dead, which could conceivably go on forever. So they need some new juice in the fridge. Writer Jason Cahill has written for Fringe, The Sopranos and ER.
Writer: Jason Cahill
Details: 58 pages – 3rd draft

George Clooney to play the father?  Hey, more and more film guys are moving to TV and it’s a great role.  Why not??

One of the frustrating things about reading so much material is getting bored with so much material. Everybody’s pretty much writing the same stuff with the same characters with the same plots. It starts to depress you actually! But after awhile, you start to realize that you’re part of the problem. If all you’re going to read are sci-fi scripts and thrillers and rom-coms, you’re not going to find much variety in the writing. If you want to experience something unique, you have to take chances, read some offbeat things that don’t necessarily sound like slam dunks. Personally, I’ve never heard of a script based on lobster fishing, so I said, “Hell,” why not.

“Mean Tide” follows 29 year-old Matt Aegis, a lobster fisherman with a complicated past. When we meet Matt, he’s relegated to pulling up traps for an asshole captain whose alcoholism is so bad, he still tries to navigate his boat when it’s tied up to the dock.

For this reason, Matt wants his own boat to captain, but boats cost money, and he doesn’t have much. It just so happens, however, that one of the oldest fisherman in town is retiring and selling his boat. The boat is ancient and doesn’t come close to the technology on these new boats (that find their fish via fancy satellites), but Matt has a secret plan for finding lobster that the most cutting edge technology in the world can’t compete with. We’ll get into that later.

The irony is, the boat Matt wants to buy actually belonged to his father, who lost it because of some fucked up criminal thing that happened in the past (the thing that no one shall talk about!). Before that, Matt’s family was looked at as Gods. Their great great grandfather practically built the town. But nowadays, those looks of awe have turned sideways, to the point where the only people the owner of the boat refuses to sell to are, you guessed it, Matt and his family!

Now it wouldn’t be a show without a few pretty ladies to look at and we got ourselves some doozeys. Even though Matt’s taken with the local tomboy hottie, he gets swept up in the arrival of a mysterious new siren of a female who oozes sex.  It’s like if Kate Upton and Kim Kardashian decided to have a baby.  All the other fisherman warn him, however, that this wannabe mermaid is well known for banging men and making them disappear. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll keep his pincers in his pants. Matt lives life on the edge of the bow though, so the pincers come out.

So what’s Matt’s ultimate plan if he does get that boat? Ghost Trees. It’s a spot out in the ocean that’s a shoal forest. Lobsters are hanging out there in the thousands. But everyone’s too scared to go near it, less the shoals rip their boats to shreds. Not Matt though. He’s the only man willing to take the risk. First Matt’s got to get the actual boat though, and not be chomped up by this femme fatale. If he can do that, he and his family just might rise to prominence again.

So did the big risk pay off? Did reading a script/pilot that I would normally never read result in reading euphoria?

Not exactly.  But that doesn’t mean I regret reading Mean Tide.

Here’s the thing I continue to be reminded of with scriptwriting. In the end, it’s all about the characters. It doesn’t matter what you’re writing about. As long as the characters are interesting, you’ll pull the reader in. There are some catches to that, of course. You have to create an idea that continually puts those characters in interesting situations so that the characters will stay interesting. But for the most part – it doesn’t matter what the setting or idea is. If you write great characters, people will enjoy your script (or movie, or TV show).

Here’s the caveat though. Nobody’s going to find out about your great characters unless people want to read your script (or watch your movie, or see your TV show) in the first place. This is where concepts come into play. You have to have somewhat of an interesting concept to trick people into checking out your show (or movie, or script) in the first place so that they can fall in love with those characters and keep watching.

This wasn’t always the case. TV didn’t used to be like film, where concept is king. You could focus a show on something simple, like the ER section of a hospital, and you’d have a hit. But I think that’s changing. Mainly because TV is getting so big and all this new material is flooding into the medium. With all that material, the only way to stand out is similar to the way writers stand out in the feature world – a cool concept. It’s why shows like Extant and The Blacklist and The Walking Dead are getting picked up. Even Breaking Bad has a nice little ironic hook (a dying chemistry teacher is forced to cook meth to provide for his family).

To that end, you’re going to get a lot of gun-shy executives when they’re faced with shows like “Mean Tide.” It is fairly interesting subject matter. And the characters are deep and multi-faceted. But it basically comes down to that age-old screenwriting truism: The smaller the hook, the better the writing has to be. If you’re going to write about families in suburban America (zero hook) the writing has to be perfect for the movie to be made (American Beauty). The hook here is kind of small – lobster fishing – and I’m not sure the story is good enough to make up for that.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of good here. I love how the pilot is structured like a feature (Matt’s got 3 days to come up with the money to buy the boat — goal! stakes! urgency!). I love how the family is presented as an underdog, so we immediately like them. I liked how nobody was perfect (Matt’s dad has a wayward eye and is unloving towards his son). I liked the conflict (every single relationship was steeped in some kind of history, making for plenty of conflict and subtext). And I loved this looming dangerous gold mine that was the Ghost Trees. I loved that everybody else was afraid of it except for our main character. Made him heroic and kept up the suspense, as we wanted to see if he’d be able to navigate it and reap its rewards at the end (the dangling carrot that kept us reading til the end).

But the story never really built enough. It kind of stayed at an even keel. And there was this annoying voice over from Matt that ran throughout the entire script that was totally unnecessary. It was one of those voice overs where the main character is trying to sound thoughtful and philosophical as he describes the events and people and history of the town. But it comes off as pretentious. I hate voice over that, if you cut it out, wouldn’t have any bearing whatsoever on the story. And that’s the kind of voice over this was.  If you got rid of it, nothing changed.  That’s the very definition of unnecessary.

There’s no question Cahill is a good writer but this pilot is missing something and I’m having a tough time figuring out what that is. Is it that the concept’s too small? Are we missing a twist or a big plot point to give the middle section a jolt? That may be it because I was never really surprised by where the script went. I felt like I was ahead of it. As a writer, it’s your job to be ahead of the reader, not the other way around. But anyway, while this was a strong pilot, until that something extra is found, it probably won’t be ready for television.

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

What I learned: To find a goal that results in the story for your pilot, create a problem for your main character. From problems emerge goals. So here, Matt is frustrated as shit with his current job as a 3rd Fisherman on some trawler boat. That’s his problem: he doesn’t want to be doing this anymore. So when a new boat comes up for sale, he sees an opportunity to fix that problem. His goal (which emerges from the problem) is to get the money needed to buy the boat within 3 days. The problem leads to the goal which leads to the framework (or structure, or blueprint) of your story.

What I learned 2: AMC’s “Top 6 scripts” approach reminded me that every production house or studio or network is basically a writing contest. You’re entering their contest and the winner gets to be on the air (or in a movie theater). The difference between this contest and contests like the Nicholl or Page, is that instead of competing against amateurs, you’re competing against pros, writers who understand story and characterization and dialogue and structure. The competition is a LOT LOT better, so you really have to knock it out of the park if you want to “win” that contest.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A sheep herder in the old west falls for a woman who’s married to the biggest gang leader in the region.
About: This is Family Guy (and Ted) creator Seth MacFarlane’s new movie. Last year’s Oscar host is taking his new film one step further from Ted and adding “lead actor” to his ever evolving resume. The film will co-star Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, and Neil Patrick Harris. For those of you frustrated by all the recent successes I cover being of Ivy League pedigree (it seems like every other pro writer I review these days graduated from Harvard), you’ll be happy to hear that MacFarlane (whose fortune is measured at 150 million dollars over at Celebrity Net Worth) slummed it up at the Rhode Island School of Design before moving to Hollywood. Hey, if someone from Rhode Island can make it here, anybody can.
Writers: Seth MacFarlane and Alec Sulkin & Wellesley Wild
Details: 125 pages (1st draft)

I’ll be the first to admit, I did not think Ted was going to be a hit. Only afterwards did I realize the power of Seth MacFaralane, the multi-talented cartoonist, host, comedian, and now actor. It appears MacFarlane is now going the Trey Parker/Matt Stone route, evolving his cartoonist career into an acting one. Of course, that didn’t work out too well for the South Park duo (Baseketball was a jumbled mess of a concept that become too goofy for its own good, resulting in us never seeing Matt and Trey onscreen again), but MacFaralane has a 250 million dollar hit on his resume, which gives him a little more cache going into “West.”

That’s not to say all is swell in the land of this decision. MacFarlane looks really odd in the trailers, sort of like a wax museum character (the man never seems to have a hair out of place) set against a gaggle of much more authentic looking chess pieces. But I do have to give it to him as a writer-director. He’s come in to the movie space taking big risks (a talking teddy bear movie and a western comedy??), something no other comedy folks in Hollywood are really doing. You have to respect that. Let’s see what his latest script is all about.

It’s the olllllld West. 30-something Albert Stark is the world’s worst sheep herder. How bad? Occasionally his sheep will end up on the roof of his house. How that’s even possible, no one knows. Lucky for him, he’s got a hot girlfriend in Louise, even if she does treat him the way Kate treated Jon in Jon & Kate Plus 8. But after Albert backs down from a duel, Louise has had enough of his pussy ways and dumps him.

Bummed out, Albert tries to get back on the horse (apropos, since I think this is the era where that phrase was actually born!), but dating back in the Old West isn’t like dating today. Eager parents are pushing their 12 year-old daughters on you (which results in one of the most awkward dates you’ll ever see onscreen). Lucky for Albert, a sharp-tongued energetic woman named Anna arrives in town and the two immediately become friends. They decide to pretend to go out to make Louise jealous so Albert can get her back.

Unfortunately, Louise has moved on and is now dating the extremely arrogant town mustachier, a well-groomed fellow named Foy. As much as Albert would like to challenge old Foy, the reality is that he’s a coward. It’s why he lost Louise in the first place and it’s why he’ll never have a woman like her again. Not so, says Anna! She’ll teach him how to shoot, and that way he can duel against Foy and win back the girl of his dreams.

Oh, but there’s one last problem. Anna isn’t telling the whole truth. She’s married to the most ruthless gangster in all the land, and he’s on his way to town RIGHT NOW. The cowardly Albert will not only have to take down his nemesis, Foy, but also the Billy The Kid of his era. Will he be able to do it? And even if he does, can he still avoid one of the million other ways to die in the West? We shall see!

“Million Ways To Die” was surprisingly good, especially for a first draft (although “labeled” first drafts are always tricky to measure. It might mean it was the first draft given to the studio. But it could’ve been the 10th draft they worked on before that point). But here’s what I liked about this script, and it’s a lesson screenwriters everywhere should jot down.

“Million Ways to Die” allowed us to take comedy tropes we’ve seen a million times before, and make them fresh. Think about it. How many comedies have the main character getting dumped by his girlfriend within the first 15 pages? 8 billion? 20 trillion? A lot, right? Which is why they all feel so cliché and lame.

But how many WESTERNS have been made where the main character gets dumped by his girlfriend in the first 15 pages? Not many, right? Welcome to the beauty of changing up the time and setting of your story. You can use all those typical tropes we’ve seen a million times before, and they all come off as fresh and new.

When Anna enters the picture, we even get the, “Pretend to be together to get the ex-girlfriend back but actually fall in love with each other along the way” trope. God, am I sick of seeing that in garden-variety comedies. But here it feels unique and fun. Change the time and setting of your story and thousands of cliché jokes become available to you, because in this new setting, they don’t feel cliché anymore!

MacFarlane (and his co-writers) seem to understand character better this time around, too. Albert has a clear flaw – he’s a coward. And that flaw is constantly being challenged, allowing the writers to explore character. What I mean by that is, when you have a character flaw, you want to constantly give your character opportunities to overcome that flaw and fail (until the very end, of course). So MacFarlane will have a big bar fight break out – allowing Albert a chance to be brave, to fight. Instead he ducks out, still stuck in his cowardice ways.

We even have some dramatic irony working to strong effect here. We know Anna is a gangster’s wife. That he’s coming sooner or later. So we know this relationship, and Albert, are doomed! We’re just waiting for the shit to finally hit the fan. What’s great about this is how seamlessly it ties into Albert’s flaw. If he wants Anna at the end, he’s going to have to overcome his biggest weakness – his cowardice. He’ll have to defeat the most fearless villain to do it.

I think what surprised me most about “Million” is how much I cared. I will contend to the end that comedy stops being funny once you stop caring about the characters. You can write the most genius funny scene ever, but if we stopped giving a shit about your characters 30 minutes ago, you’ll be lucky if you get a chuckle out of us.

But let’s not be foolish. You still gotta bring the funny for a comedy to work, and MacFarlane does. Probably the best running gag was Edward, Albert’s best friend, who’s dating a whore at the local whorehouse. He’s in love with her despite her coming home every day regaling in her day’s work, some of the most raunchy, horrifying sexual experiences you can possibly imagine. I’m talking worse than anything you can find on the internet. And yet, because she and Edward are Christian, she doesn’t want to sleep together until they get married. When Edward suggests lying together one night (not doing anything, just lying in the same bed), she is beyond appalled. “We’re Christian!” she reminds him. And then also reminds him she has an anal appointment at 5:30.

I honestly have no idea how this movie is going to do. That’s the problem when someone takes a chance. You don’t have as much comparative data to work with to predict box office. Plus, Seth MacFarlane in a lead role is a total wildcard. Who knows how audiences are going to respond to that. What I can tell you is that this was a fun and surprisingly well-written screenplay.

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

What I learned: The flaw you give your main character doesn’t have to be inventive. Flaws are often simple universal traits we’re all familiar with. One of the best ways to come up with a flaw is to identify your setting and look for a flaw that seems logical to explore within that setting. The West was big on machismo. So it makes sense to explore a cowardly hero. If I were to write a movie about the financial world, my main character’s flaw would probably be associated with greed. If I were to write a movie about racism, my main character’s flaw might have something to do with ignorance. It’s almost too simple, but that’s how flaws work.

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 war-hero grandfather dies, a young man returns home to collect his inheritance — an audio cassette tape of old bedtime stories — but discovers the tape also holds a dark secret that a sinister group of agents wants back at any cost.
Why you should read: (from writer) Because fun, genuine adventure movies for kids and teenagers — without superheroes — are a rare thing these days and I want to mount a comeback. This one’s filled with action, humor, romance and intrigue, dastardly villains and honest heroes. It’s not perfect, but I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (and re-writing it, and re-writing it), and I would love everyone’s help in making it even better.
Writer: Matthew Merenda
Details: 115 pages

Harrison for Jack Walsh!

Is Matthew Merenda right? Are we suffering from a lack of big non-super-hero movies? I’d say, moist sointenly. That may be the most obviously obvious statement of the new millennium. Therefore, after Boom Box blew away the competition a couple of weeks ago in Amateur Offerings, I wondered, “Has this writer finally found the answer to this problem?”

But before we tackle that, Merenda’s question inspired one of my own. How come we haven’t had more movies like Indiana Jones? Big films with unique cool characters not based on intellectual property. Cause when you look at Raiders, it was such a simple idea! Professor dude is secretly a tomb raider in his spare time. Hollywood would have you believe that every single character we see in the movies has already been thought up in book form, comic book form, or video game form. They make it seem as if it is IMPOSSIBLE to write one of these characters on spec.

That begs the question. Is it impossible? Or is it just that spec screenplay writers don’t put in the same effort in creating these characters and these stories as a video game team, or a novelist, or a comic book company? Personally, I’m torn on the issue.

Not that today’s script is a Raiders clone or anything. But it’s an original adventure idea. So what’s it about? Jack Walsh was this big international agent spy dude back in the 50s. He used to save the world on a daily basis, in particular from an evil nasty bastard named “Von Krom.” Jack and Von Krom would regularly get into those situations you saw on the old Batman TV show where they entered a big room with some sort of dangerous giant weapon being prepped and Batman would have to stop the villain from using said weapon before it killed him and everyone else in the world.

Or at least… that’s what Jack Walsh tells his grandchildren, when he regales them with bedtime stories every evening. And according to Jack, he came out victorious, eventually killing Von Krom so that the world would never have to fear him again.

Until the world had to fear him again. That’s right, 60 years later, Von Krom returns! Older but wiser, he introduces a couple of bullets to Jack’s head, making it look like a suicide, and starts his plan to take over the world.

Off in the big city, the now grown-up older of Jack’s two grandchildren, 24 year old failed musician Mike, heads back to attend the funeral, only to be approached by his teenage brother, Max, who believes that Jack did not commit suicide, but was rather murdered!

The two find an old audio cassette tape from Gramps, which, while masquerading as one of his stories, actually has some pulsing sounds in the background that may or may not contain a secret message! As the two begin seeking clues, Max excited, Mike unwilling, they find that all their Grandpa’s stories were true, Von Krom is still alive, and he’s planning on vaporizing everyone in the state with a secret weapon by the end of the evening. Can they stop him in time? Or will this AARP Villain inspire other octogenarian baddies everywhere with his Giantus Killus Opus?

So was Boom Box worth turning up the volume for? Or should this box of metal and plastic head back to its 80s glory days?

Here’s the weird thing about the Amateur Offerings experiment. The script that wins every week almost always LOOKS and FEELS like a script. It’s someone who knows how to do things like keep text sparse, introduce their hero in a compelling way, structure a script. Typically, that takes about 2-3 years to master. So if you’re entering Amateur Friday with 3 years of experience, you’ll often finish in the top 1 or 2, just off your experience and knowledge alone.

But just being proficient in screenwriting isn’t enough. I know I hammer this over your heads all the time, but screenwriting is about telling a story. It’s not about how well you can write. Or how well you understand the technical merits of the craft. That stuff is expected in this profession.

Boom Box is off in its storytelling for a few reasons. Let’s start with the main character, Mike. The guy is a total bummer! He’s so down on himself, so down on everyone else, always negative, never wants to do anything. It’s strange, because Jack Walsh (the grandfather) was awesome! I actually loved the guy, and when I first started reading the script, I thought Merenda was going to try something new and write a senior citizen action-comedy adventure. Admittedly, I don’t know if that movie could get made, but it certainly would’ve made the script stand out more and get more attention, particularly because Jack was such a great character.

As soon as Mike entered the picture though, the entire energy of the script dropped. This is one of the hard parts about screenwriting. I understand WHY Merenda did what he did. By creating a negative hero, he creates resistance, conflict, as well as making for a more complex person. Mike doesn’t believe in his grandfather’s stories like his brother, which allows him to arc over the course of the story and finally believe. That looks good on the stat sheet, but if we’re annoyed by your hero, none of it matters. We’ll check out before we get to experience any of that change. So the first thing I’d do here is make Mike more interesting, give him more personality, not make him such a downer.

Also, I thought the story moved too slowly. It’s crazy. I can take two pieces of information (“Adventure film” and “116 pages”) and before I’ve even read the first page, know something is wrong. Adventure films must move! 105 is a much more comfortable page length for a script like this. So I already knew the script probably meandered in places.

I know what you’re saying. “Carson! You can’t tell that without reading the script!” I admit that this isn’t the case ALL the time. But it usually is. And there it was. We didn’t get to our heroes (the brothers) listening to this tape and going on their adventure until page 35. You don’t need 35 pages to set up the first act. And that’s exactly how it felt while I was reading it (“Man, this is developing really slowly”). If Merenda had had his first act turn where it should’ve been in an action script, page 25, well, that’s your extra ten pages right there! Fix that and you’re down to 105.

The rest of the script was competent but still had problems. I don’t want to downplay what Merenda did here. This looks and feels like a script. But again, I think the storytelling could’ve been more creative and moved quicker. I mean when I see “adventure” as the genre, and then we set up the story with an international super-agent fighting crime all over the world, I guess I expected this adventure to be more than two kids running around a tiny town. It felt too small.

Boom Box is kind of like an 80s mix-tape. It’s got some good songs on it. But then you’ll hit a few tracks that you wish weren’t on there. I think the tape, err, script, has potential though. Start with Mike. Give the guy some life. Then get to the story a little quicker. And, if you can find a way to do so, expand the scope of the story. This last point is the one I’m least sure about. I get the feeling Merenda was going for a sort of “Goonies” vibe. So maybe the readers will argue with me on that one. But to me, it feels too small. If you can tackle those three problems, Boom Box is going to sound a lot better.

Script link: Boom Box

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

What I learned: Don’t describe your female lead as: “classically beautiful.” I see this description in every other script that I read. Come on guys. You’re writers. Your job is to give us your own unique take on everything. If you’re writing exactly what everyone else is, how are you going to distinguish yourself?

Gone Girl had a disappointing final act.  So Fincher had author Flynn rewrite it for the movie.  Will it save the film?

In the five years since this site began, it’s hard to believe that I STILL haven’t written an article about the third act. I think it’s because the third act is kinda scary. It’s easy to set up a story. The middle act is tough, however I’ve written a couple of articles demystifying the process. But with final acts, it feels like every one is a little different. They’re sort of like their own little organisms, evolving and changing in indefinably unique ways, packed with previously established variables that are constantly fighting against one another, and it’s hard to bring all of that together in a streamlined package.

Blake Snyder does a really good job breaking down the third act, and his methods are a good place to start, but what I’ve found is that his approach mostly applies to comedies and romantic comedies, where the audience is aware of the exaggerated structure of the moment (hero loses the girl, is at his lowest point) but doesn’t mind. They come to see these movies because they like laughing and seeing the guy get the girl, so they don’t need some genius plot point to keep them invested.

With that said, I think it’s a good idea to have a baseline approach to your third act. It’s the same thing as if you’re building a house.  You want to get the blueprints in order. But you still need to keep the option open of adding a breakfast nook over here, or moving the kitchen over to the other side of the main room. So here’s how a prototypical third act should be structured. It doesn’t mean that your act should be structured the same way. It just means it’s a starting point.

THE GOAL
Without question, your third act is going to be a billion times easier to write if your main character is pursuing a goal, preferably since the beginning of the film. “John McClane must save his wife from terrorists” makes for a much easier-to-write ending than “John McClane tries to figure out his life” because we, the writer, know exactly how to construct the finale. John McClane is either going to save his wife or he’s going to fail to save his wife. Either way, we have an ending. What’s the ending for “John McClane tries to figure out his life?” It’s hard to know because that scenario is so open-ended. The less clear your main character’s objective (goal) is in the story, the harder it will be to write a third act. Because how do you resolve something if it’s unclear what your hero is trying to resolve?

THE LOWEST POINT
To write a third act, you have to know where your main character is when he goes into the act. While this isn’t a hard and fast rule, typically, putting your hero at his lowest point at the end of act two is a great place to segue into the third act. In other words, it should appear at this point in the story that your main character has FAILED AT HIS/HER GOAL (Once Sandra Bullock gets to the Chinese module in GRAVITY, that’s it. Air is running out. She doesn’t understand the system. There are no other options). Either that, or something really devastating should shake your hero (i.e. his best friend and mentor dies – Obi-Wan in Star Wars). The point is, it should feel like things are really really down. When you do this, the audience responds with, “Oh no! But this can’t be. I don’t want our hero to give up. They have to keep trying. Keep trying, hero!” Which is exactly where you want them!

REGROUP
The beginning of the third act (anywhere from 1-4 scenes) becomes the “Regroup” phase. This phase often has to deal with your hero’s flaw, which is why it works so well in comedies or romantic comedies, where flaws are so dominant . If your hero is selfish, he might reflect on all the people he was selfish to, apologize, and move forward. But if this is an action film, it might simply mean talking through the terrible “lowest point” thing that just happened (Luke discussing the death of Obi-Wan with Han) and then getting back to it. Your hero was just at the lowest point in his/her life. Obviously, he needs a couple of scenes to regroup.

THE PLAN
Assuming we’re still talking about a hero with a goal, now that they’ve regrouped, they tend to have that “realization” where they’re going to give this goal one last shot. This, of course, necessitates a plan. We see this in romantic comedies all the time, where the main character plans some elaborate surprise for the girl, or figures out a way to crash the big party or big wedding. In action films, it’s a little more technical. The character has to come up with a plan to save the girl, or take down the villain, or both. In The Matrix, Neo needs to save Morpheus. He tells Trinity the plan, they go outfit themselves with guns from the Matrix White-Verse, and they go in there to get Morpheus.

THE CLIMAX SCENE
This should be the most important scene in your entire script. It’s where the hero takes on the bad guy or tries to get the girl back. You should try and make this scene big and original. Give us a take on it that we’ve never seen in movies before. Will that be hard? Of course. But if you’re rehashing your CLIMAX SCENE of all scenes?? The biggest and most important scene in the entire screenplay? You might as well give up screenwriting right now. If there is any scene you need to challenge yourself on, that you need to ask, “Is this the best I can possibly do for this scene?” and honestly answer yes? This is that scene!

THE LOWER THAN LOWEST POINT
During the climax scene, there should be one last moment where it looks like your hero has failed, that the villain has defeated him (or the girl says no to him). Let’s be real. What you’re really doing here is you’re fucking with your audience. You’re making them go, “Nooooooo! But I thought they were going to get together!” This is a GOOD THING. You want to fuck with your audience in the final act. Make them think their hero has failed. I mean, Neo actually DIES in the final battle in The Matrix. He dies! So yeah, you can go really low with this “true lowest point.” If the final battle or confrontational or “get-the-girl” moment is too easy for our hero, we’ll be bored. We want to see him have to work for it. That’s what makes it so rewarding when he finally succeeds!

FLAWS
Remember that in addition to all this external stuff that’s going on in the third act (getting the girl, killing the bad guy, stopping the asteroid from hitting earth), your protagonist should be dealing with something on an internal level as well. A character battling their biggest flaw on the biggest stage is usually what pulls audiences and readers in on an emotional level, so it’s highly advisable that you do this. Of course, this means establishing the flaw all the way back in Act 1. If you’ve done that, then try to tie the big external goal into your character’s internal flaw. So Neo’s flaw is that he doesn’t believe in himself. The only way he’ll be able to defeat the villain, then, is to achieve this belief. Sandra Bullock’s flaw in Gravity is that she doesn’t have the true will to live ever since her daughter died. She must find that will in the Chinese shuttle module if she’s going to survive. If you do this really well, you can have your main character overcome his flaw, but fail at his objective, and still leave the audience happy (Rocky).

PAYOFFS
Remember that the third act should be Payoff Haven. You should set up a half a dozen things ahead of time that should all get some payin’ off here in the finale. The best payoffs are wrapped into that final climactic scene. I mean who doesn’t sh*t their pants when Warden Norton (Shawshank spoiler) takes down that poster from the wall in Andy Dufresne’s cell? But really, the entire third act should be about payoffs, since almost by definition, your first two acts are setups.

OBSTACLES AND CONFLICT
A mistake a lot of beginner writers make is they make the third act too easy for their heroes. The third act should be LOADED with obstacles and conflict, things getting in the way of your hero achieving his/her goal. Maybe they get caught (Raiders), maybe they die (The Matrix), maybe the shuttle module sinks when it finally gets back to earth and your heroine is in danger of drowning (Gravity). The closer you get to the climax, the thicker you should lay on the obstacles, and then when the climactic scene comes, make it REALLY REALLY hard on them. Make them have to earn it!

NON-TRADITIONAL THIRD ACTS (CHARACTER PIECES)
So what happens if you don’t have that clear goal for your third act? Chances are, you’re writing a character piece. While this could probably benefit from an entire article of its own, basically, character pieces still have goals that must be met, they’re just either unknown to the hero or relationship-related. Character pieces are first and foremost about characters overcoming their flaws. So if your hero is selfish, your final act should be built around a high-stakes scenario where that flaw will be challenged. Also, character piece third acts are about resolving relationship issues. If two characters have a complicated past stemming from some problem they both haven’t been able to get over, the final act should have them face this issue once and for all. Often times, these two areas will overlap. In other words, maybe the issue these two characters have always had is that he’s always put his own needs over the needs of the family. The final climactic scene then, has him deciding whether to go off to some huge opportunity or stay here and takes care of the family. The scenario then resolves the character flaw and the relationship problem in one fell swoop! (note: Preferably, you are doing this in goal-oriented movies as well)

While that’s certainly not everything, it’s most of what you need to know. But I admit, while all of this stuff is fun to talk about in a vacuum, it becomes a lot trickier when you’re trying to apply it to your own screenplay. That’s because, as I stated at the beginning, each script is unique. Indiana Jones is tied up for the big climax of Raiders. That’s such a weird third act choice. In Back To The Future, George McFly’s flaw is way more important than our hero, Marty McFly’s, flaw. When is the “lowest point before the third act” in Star Wars? Is it when they’re in the Trash Compactor about to be turned into Star Wars peanut butter? Or is at after they escape the Death Star? I think that’s debatable. John McClane never formulates a plan to take on Hanz in the climax.  He just ends up there.  The point is, when you get into your third act, you have to be flexible. Use the above as a guide, but don’t follow it exactly. A lot of times, what makes a third act memorable is its imperfections, because it’s its imperfections that make it unpredictable. If you have any third act tips of your own, please leave them in the comments section. Wouldn’t mind learning a few more things about this challenging act myself!

Genre: Dark Comedy/Period
Premise: An advertising executive shooting a commercial based on the famous literary character, Don Quixote, soon finds himself transported to the 17th century, becoming the sidekick of the real Don Quixote.
About: For those unfamiliar with this project, it’s one of the most famous in film history mainly because it embodied the reality of just how hard it is to make movies. The almost-film, originally starring Johnny Depp, was famously chronicled in the 2002 documentary “Lost in La Mancha.” It’s one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen and an absolute must for anybody in the entertainment industry. The film ran into every kind of obstacle possible (aging actors unable to do key scenes, floods, a complicated financing situation with dozens of separate investors, delays upon delays, a star with a quickly depleting scheduling window) until it was clear that there was no way it could continue. All this was made worse by the fact that it was director Terry Gilliam’s passion project. There is no one on earth who wanted to make a single movie as much as Gilliam wanted to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Well, good news, folks. While it was assumed the movie would be lost forever, Gilliam is hopping back onboard, and making the film his next project! Hooray for the power of perseverance! The original Don Quixote novel, published in 1605, is considered by some to be the greatest literary work ever written.
Writer: Terry Gilliam & Tony Grisoni (based on the character created by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
Details: 113 pages (May 15th, 2000 draft)

Do I feel guilty that I’ve read Angels and Demons but not Don Quixote? Of course I do. But with so much stuff to read, I try to keep my historic cut-off at 300 years (correct, I haven’t read the Bible, either). But hey, if this isn’t more proof of yesterday’s “what I learned” section (adapt old books) I don’t know what is!

Despite that, this would be one of my most anticipated films of the decade, only because I know the history behind it. I want to see Gilliam realize his dream. I don’t think I’ve watched anything as gut-wrenching as aging actor Jean Rochefort (as Quixote) trying to ride that horse in “La Mancha.” It was clear he wanted so badly to do it, but was in so much pain, that even the slightest movement was unbearable. You could see Gilliam wanting to keep going, his manic determination fogging his perception. If not for the first assistant director calling a stop to it, he might have gone on. The reason that moment was so powerful was because it embodies moviemaking as a whole. The pressure and stakes are so high, you push beyond all reason, knowing that if you don’t, it could all fall apart. Which is exactly what happened in this case.

Toby Grosini is your typical douchebag advertising exec. He’s shooting a commercial in Spain for a dying power company based on the famous character Don Quixote. Normally, all Toby has to worry about is how many zeroes are in his bank account. But with the commercial’s shoot becoming more and more hectic, he’s starting to worry if he can keep it together.

One day, a local gypsy convinces him to visit a nearby castle, where he meets an old man claiming to be the real Don Quixote. That is correct – the man believes himself to be 400 years old. He certainly looks it, but Toby obviously thinks he’s a crackpot. That is until he wakes up the next day in the year 1605!

That same man is now calling him Sancho Panza (Quixote’s famous peasant sidekick from the book). Toby, in turn, keeps calling Fake Quixote crazy. But if that’s the case, why the hell does everything look so 1600s?? No sooner does this “reality” start to hit him than the duo is marauded by the local police. Some nearby prisoners get wrapped up in the fight and a straight-up brawl ensues.

Quixote is injured, so Toby takes him to a local Inn. Quixote then gives him a list of ingredients to get so he can put together a healing medicine. Only afterwards does Toby learn this “medicine” is some sort of immortal elixir, and as long as you take it, you never die.

Eventually, Toby gets fed up playing this game with Quixote and wants to go home. Of course, it’s unclear where home is. At times he believes this whole thing is a ruse.  Not only do some of the commercial crew he worked with appear as 17th century characters (not unlike The Wizard of Oz), but he inconsistently transports back to the modern day with no rhyme or reason.  Are they drugging him?  What’s going on??

Toby finally betrays Quixote to escape the madness and makes it back to the modern world for good (where he learns that he was hit by a car – hence why this all might have been happening). But as he feels worse and worse about screwing his elder imaginary buddy over, he vows to find a way back to the fake and/or real world and save him before it’s too late.

Uhhhh, okaaaaa-y.

Not really sure how to address this one. They say that honesty is the best policy so let’s start with that. This looks to be an excuse for two totally deranged creative minds (Gilliam and Depp) to dick around. Granted, if there were two minds I would pay to see dick around for two hours, these two would be at the top of the list. Still, this one felt like it was conceived in the mind of an Alzheimer’s patient. It was so scattershot and all over the place, you never knew which way was ‘sane.’

Here’s the thing. Terry Gilliam loves to explore the theme of reality. What’s real? What’s in our heads? Is there a difference? Do we live in the matrix? All that good stuff. We saw it with Twelve Monkeys. We saw it with Tideland. We saw it with The Fisher King. Really, there are elements of it in every single movie he’s done. So it’s no surprise he’s taking on that theme again.

But I’d argue this script doesn’t need it. Quixote and Sancho appear to be two rich, wacky interesting characters all on their own. Why not just set this in the 1600s and tell one of their adventures? Trying to figure out if Quixote was real, how he was over 400 years old, if this was all a dream, how we were seamlessly drifting from 2000 to 1600 – it was so much work that I didn’t have time to enjoy the story.

I think Gilliam likes it this way – that you’re not sure which way is up – but I’m of the belief that before you start tripping up your audience, you have to set up a status quo. We need the constants before we can get to the variables. I can honestly say I never knew what the fuck was going on because I didn’t know what was going on with these two. I mean, think about it. Our main character, Toby, believes that our secondary character isn’t who he says he is. And our secondary character, Don Quixote, believes that our main character, Toby, isn’t who he says he is. I’m terrible at math, but doesn’t this mean that neither of them exists??

I’m not going to go off and tell Terry Gilliam how to write or direct. The man is a genius. I want to make that clear. But I think this speaks to the notion that if you go too far off the reservation, your story can fall apart, no matter who you are. I mean, if it’s happening to Gilliam, it will definitely happen to you.

And I bring this point up because I recently read an amateur script where I was having a discussion with the writer about this very issue. He’d basically created these characters that were three times removed from themselves. The sci-fi script had a body being invaded by a body being invaded by a body. Conceptually, that might certainly be interesting to explore. But in reality, it was really confusing to read.

I want to talk about this more in a coming article, specifically in regards to the movie Cloud Atlas, but for better or worse, we live in a cinematic universe where you don’t want to overcomplicate things. Movies aren’t books (8 hours to finish) or video games (20 hours to finish) where you have time to lead audiences in and out of a number of concepts, philosophies, characters and storylines. They’re only 2 hours long. Which is why you hear so often: “Cut out all the fat.” Movies just can’t hold too many concepts. You have to keep it simple, stupid, with small exceptions here and there. I just think this script didn’t need to be as complicated as it ended up being.

With all that said, I watch every Terry Gilliam movie (Twelve Monkeys made me a fan for life) and I’ll watch this one. I just hope he makes things a little easier to follow in the new draft.

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

What I learned: A dirty little Hollywood secret is that a lot of actors determine their roles exclusively by director, in many cases never even looking at the script (Depp does this a lot. Matt Damon signs on almost exclusively because of directors these days. I just heard Bill Murray talking about this). For that reason, you want to write a script that’s going to attract a great director first, since they’re the ones who are going to attract the star, which is how the movie’s going to get made. While it didn’t work for me in today’s instance, generally speaking, playing with reality in your story is director catnip. Distorted reality allows directors to do all these cool exciting visual things that directors like to do. From all of Gilliam’s movies to The Matrix to Inception to Vanilla Sky to The Truman Show. You want to attract a director, these kinds of screenplays are a good place to start.