Genre: Wes Anderson
Premise: Adapted from a French film, “My Best Friend” is about an unlikable middle-aged art dealer who’s come to the realization that he has no friends, and so goes about trying to find one.
About: Wes Anderson wrote this script for Imagine Entertainment over at Universal. It’s one of the few scripts (it may even be the only script) Anderson’s written without the intent to direct. However, in subsequent interviews, he’s professed how much he loved writing it, leaving a tiny door open that maybe one day he’ll direct it. As for why it hasn’t been made into a film yet, it may be that they’re banking on that slim chance. But my money’s on the fact that it was written in 2009, and in 2010, the French-adapted comedy Dinner For Schmucks bombed big time, pretty much putting the kibosh on any French comedy imports. The trend seems to have shifted towards the “lots of lesbian sex” import genre. So if they can bring someone in to change the characters into female nymphomaniacs, they may have something on their hands! Anderson’s newest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, comes out next month. But if you’re jonzeing for some immediate Wes, check out the trailer for his new horror film!
Writer: Wes Anderson (based on the French Film written by Patrice Leconte)
Details: 95 pages, First Draft (Aug 3, 2009)

Fiennes would be the perfect lead in this Anderson movie as well!

So I was going through my script pile last night and I came across this old forgotten Wes Anderson script. It occurred to me, as I picked it up (“digitally” picked it up mind you) that I’d never actually read a Wes Anderson script. Or if I had, I didn’t remember doing so. I found this reality to be problematic, since Anderson is such a force on the Indie film scene. But what could I possibly learn from some reject Wes Anderson script anyway? If it’s this forgotten, it couldn’t be any good, could it? Let’s find out!

Nicholas is an art dealer with zero honor. He is oblivious to the way he fucks people over, which is fine when you’re 25 and have time to mature and change your selfish ways. But Nicholas is 46, and a life of fucking people over has led to a lonely existence, an existence he hasn’t become aware of until recently.

Currently, Nicholas is buying up all the paintings in town from a particular artist, Moses Rosenthaler, who he has it on good authority is going to die soon. After he dies, Nicholas will host a showing of all the Rosenthalers and make a killing. Yup, like I said, this isn’t the kind of guy you want to bring home to your parents.

Nicholas is also a bit of a scammer (surprise surprise) and doesn’t have any money. This forces him to team up with a fellow art dealer, Lucinda, an older woman he doesn’t like but who has money. He lets her in on his Rosenthaler secret and she agrees to put up half the loot.

That night, Nicholas invites Lucinda to his birthday party. She comes and is amused to find that nobody’s actually shown up. She points out the obvious to Nicholas, that he has no friends, which he vehemently denies. They get in an argument, and Lucinda makes a bet that if he can prove he has a friend within a week, she’ll give him all the Rosenthalers for himself. If he loses, she gets all of them. He agrees.

Nicholas enlists taxi driver and aspiring artist, Zbigniew, to drive him around town to find one of these friends. In every way Nicholas is socially moronic, Zbigniew is a social superstar. He can charm an entire room with an anecdote or joke, whereas whenever Nicholas speaks, people get scared and run away. Upon seeing Zbigniew’s talents, Nicholas hires him to teach him “how to make friends.”

It’s a ridiculous request and Zbigniew tries to say no, but Nicholas is so darn insistent that Zbigniew has no choice. Nicholas looks for friends first on his payroll, from his lawyer to his psychiatrist, but comes back empty-handed. He even goes back to someone from 6th grade who he thought was his best friend, only to find out that he’s actually his mortal enemy (because Nicholas doesn’t even understand the basic definition of  the word “friend,” he doesn’t realize that terrorizing someone over the course of their childhood would actually make that person hate him).

Eventually, of course, Nicholas begins to realize that he’s enjoying his time with Zbigniew, and that he may be the friend he’s been looking for. Unfortunately, as soon as Nicholas realizes he can use Zbigniew to win the bet, he screws it all up, potentially losing everything in the process.

Wes Anderson

One thing I’ve found with these French comedies is that they often operate under 1980s American Comedy rules, where the setup doesn’t have to be logical. You get silly stuff like Brewster’s Millions. That’s the biggest hurdle “My Best Friend” faces. Nicholas and Janice make this bet that he can’t find a friend, yet never define exactly what that means. Is a “friend” someone he hangs out with every Saturday night? Someone who calls him back within a day of his voice mail? The script never defines this, and it’s a huge problem.

The flimsy setup also begs questions like, why can’t Nicholas just pay some random dude 5 grand to pretend he’s his friend? And I hate that. I hate when the rules of the story aren’t defined, because then there’s too much wiggle room for the writer to bullshit. And that’s exactly what you saw here. Once Nicholas tells Lucinda that Zbigniew’s the friend, she starts rambling off all this stuff about how he has to prove it. (“Um, then he must steal something for you!”) Okay, so the final act is Zbigniew having to steal something to prove that Nicholas is his friend?? What???

There’s an old saying in screenwriting. If there are problems in the third act, it’s because of problems in your first act. This is the prototypical example of that. We have a weird misconceived “Zbigniew tries to steal a painting” climax because the rules of what “a friend” are are never stated. This forces the characters (and by extension the writer) to make those rules up in the last act, which feels lazy and results in a sloppy finale.

But here’s why I still liked this script. The characters were great. And I think Wes Anderson gets shortchanged on characters because everything takes a backseat to his unique production design and quirky sense of humor. But he’s so damn good at creating comedic characters. Nicholas, as this clueless asshole, never fails to amuse, because he’s so damn dull when it comes to understanding friendship. Zbigniew needs to teach him how to actually talk to people. Just talk! And Nicholas still figures out a way to screw it up.

What I found clever about this was that we have one of these potential script-killing problems in “My Best Friend” (the main character is a total asshole), yet Anderson brilliantly offsets it by pairing him up with the most likable person on the planet – Zbigniew. He’s kind, earnest, passionate, active. The guy loves art but he can’t create it for the life of him. Yet he still tries.  How could you not root for that guy?

And I think what this script does that a lot of good scripts do, is you’re so into the characters, you don’t really think about the plot. You’re just in the moment with these two people. Laughing and enjoying their company. So even though the plot here is flawed, it doesn’t matter as much because you just want to see these two guys “get together” at the end.

And you know, that’s kind of the genius of this story. It’s essentially a romantic comedy. It takes your typical rom-com premise (guy and girl team up to find a guy the love of his life, but the two end up falling in love with each other in the process!) and hides it within a bro-mance. Brilliant!

I don’t know if they can ever make this without Wes Anderson directing. It has his fingerprints all over it. Trying to get someone else to interpret it is going to send the film into “Community Season 4” territory (when creator Dan Harmon left) – a badly plagiarized imitation. The thing is, I believe this would be one of Wes Anderson’s best movies if he made it. It’s a little more mainstream than his typical fare, yet still has that unmistakable quirky bent his films are known for. If I were him, I’d consider it. It’s a really good script. (The script is out in the ether. People have it. So if you want to read it, ask around in the comments).

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

What I learned: If you’re having trouble with your third act, go back to your first act and make sure you’ve clearly set up your protagonist’s goal, as well as the rules for achieving that goal. If you know that Indiana is going after the Ark, you probably know your climax is going to involve him and the Ark. But if you’re vague about it (i.e. Indiana is going after miscellaneous “treasure”) figuring out your final act is going to be a lot tougher. Here, we never defined the rules behind what “friendship” means, so the ending was sloppy in defining how the bet was won.

Genre: Drama/Sci-fi
Premise: After a small plane crashes, three survivors start to experience weird sensations along with heightened awareness. When the government comes in to investigate what happened, the survivors get the feeling that there’s more to their crash than they’ve been told.
About: This is one of the new pilots (no pun intended) over at AMC. It was written by Blake Masters, who created the show “Brotherhood” on Showtime, about the Irish mob. Masters was actually one of those blessed/cursed writers who spent a long time in Hollywood selling scripts and TV projects, yet getting none of them made. “Brotherhood” started out as a movie before his agents asked if he could turn it into a TV show. He did, and Showtime loved it so much they snatched it up immediately. His career has since taken off (he also wrote last year’s “2 Guns” starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg) and is only getting better. If that doesn’t get you excited, Jonathan Demme, who directed Silence of the Lambs, is directing the pilot episode!
Writer: Blake Masters
Details: 62 pages – 3/15/13 draft

David Morrissey, who played The Governor on “The Walking Dead” will play the series lead, Lewis.

Uhh, if you’re writing about plane crashes and science fiction, COUNT ME IN! Why am I 30% convinced every time I step on a plane that it’s going to go down? Besides of the fact that it’s a TUBE OF STEEL and that TUBES OF STEEL shouldn’t be able to fly! There are too many physics variables working against it. Too many things that have to go right in Newton’s Laws of gravity.  Seriously, airplanes can’t even land in the right airport anymore!  How are they supposed to stay in the sky?

For that reason, I LOVE reading scripts ABOUT plane crashes because – and yes, I’m aware of how warped this sounds – I enjoy watching others suffer in a plane crash. Because it gives me joy that I’m not one of those people. That in some strange way, despite it being fiction, I survived!

Now when you combine these plane crashes with sci-fi, I mean, come on. You’re talking about a mix of ingredients so powerful that they can do no wrong. Do I need to mention a certain couple of star-crossed lovers? Two island-soaked friends torn by their inability to give to one another but who were secretly and always in love except that that PESKY SAWYER had to keep messing it all up by being so darn charming and rogueish? Yes, I’m talking about Jack and Kate! I’m talking about Lost. Plane Crash + Sci-Fi = greatest show ever. Every time. Always. That equation ALWAYS works. Except for The Event. And Fringe. Otherwise, history proves that this combination is failsafe.

Line of Sight follows Lewis Bernt, who’s all bernt out when he realizes his wife’s been cheating on him – doing the whole sleazy hotel meet up thing to really hammer home the sliminess. But Lewis, a NTSB plane accident investigator, is going on a hunting trip with his friends this weekend and the last thing he wants is to get in some big fight with his wife before he leaves.

Oh, but get this. Juicy gossip warning. The guy she’s cheating on him with? His friend Walker? He’s PILOTING the plane that’s taking them on the hunting trip! Scandalous right? Yeah, them and four other friends are taking a small plane out into the wilderness. And when Lewis arrives, he lets Walker know that he now knows the secret.

Along for the ride are Lewis’s good friends Tony, unambitious to a fault, David, a “cerebral goofball,” and two other hunting dude types. Well, the plane gets ready to leave but before it does we cut to black, and the next thing Lewis knows, he’s woken up in a plane crash. He’s alive, as are Dave and Tony, but everyone else is dead. Except for Walker, who’s missing. Nobody remembers what happened.  Especially the dead guys.

A rescue team helicopters in to, literally, pick them up, and as Lewis is being pulled up, he sees the wreckage. It’s all wrong. It’s presented as a horizontal crash, but there are no skid marks consistent with a horizontal crash. This simply can’t be. It’s impossible. But before he can take anything else in, he’s flown to the hospital.

While in his hospital bed, Lewis starts seeing a lot of suspicious people milling about. Mostly government types. Lewis’s job is crash inspection, and he knows that these people shouldn’t be here. When they do get around to him for questioning, it’s clear that they’re intrigued by he and Walker’s issues, and that that may be where they’re starting their investigation.

Oh, but that’s not even close to the real issue. The real issue is that the three survivors start experiencing messed up shit. Tony just stares off into nothingness for hours at a time. Dave has become a super-genius with the ability to do “how do you like them apples” type math equations. And Lewis is feeling all this heightened shit happening around him. He can hear things in the wind, see patterns in mundane things. Life’s gettin’ all trippy for these three.

Eventually, Lewis starts looking into his crash, and finds odd facts associated with it, like that there are 4 times as many plane crashes on the date of his crash than any other day. And that there’s a pattern in the frequencies of those crashes. The reality is, these three survivors are changing. Into what? It’s not clear. Nor is it clear why the government is so intrigued by the accident. I suppose the real question is, what is the government keeping from Lewis about the crash? What are they keeping from all of them?

Writer Blake Masters

Here we have a show clearly inspired by the likes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the plane crash film, Fearless. Which I say as a compliment. You have three men, divinely affected by this experience, who are trying to find meaning after it happens. I think that’s a good setup for a TV show. So does it work?

For awhile.

I loved the setup here. I loved the spooky mystery behind Lewis waking up in a crashed plane with three days of his life vanished. I love that we don’t know what happened that caused the crash, whether it was supernatural or logical (did he get in a fight with Walker and that caused the plane to go down?). I was really into all the questions for about 30 pages.

But I’m going to be honest, as we entered that second half, I began to get frustrated. Tons of things were happening, questions were being brought up, seemingly by the second, and nothing was being answered. I know people say Lost did this every episode, but Lost was more deliberate about each question. The questions in Line of Sight seemed to be thrown out at us willy-nilly, almost off-the cuff.

Dave leaves a screwdriver at the table while screwing something. It continues to stand up. Lewis stares at and obsesses over strawberries for no reason. We have crazy dudes going on and on about “frequencies.” They then get hit by a car. Everyone hears music in the wind. A crossword that was completed with letters mysteriously turns to all numbers. People are able to walk across highways without looking or stopping and not get hit. People get stopped for doing 135 miles per hour and the officer lets them go for no reason. Everyone has itchy hands. People are writing down random equations on paper. People are building machines worth half a billion dollars. The FBI and other government agencies are watching our survivors.

It just felt like TOO MUCH. I think laying out mysteries is great. But if you start throwing one down every other page, sooner or later you’ve spread yourself too thin and we’ve lost interest. How is Mystery 13 compelling if I know in 5 pages it will be usurped by Mystery 19? I think this script just needed to SLOW DOWN. If you try to cram too much crazy shit into your story, it starts to feel desperate, like the kid with the skateboard doing trick after trick in front of the new girl at school saying “Look at this! Look at this!” Desperation is never attractive.

With that said, there were some good things to talk about here. I loved that we started right away with a problem, and not necessarily the kind of problem you’d associate with this kind of show. I believe writers feel pressure to go big with their teaser, especially if they’re writing in the supernatural or sci-fi genre. But sometimes the best open is just to create a good old-fashioned (but intriguing) character problem.

In “Line of Sight,” we start with Lewis going to grab his wife’s phone out of her purse and finding a hotel card instead, a hotel card that clearly implies she’s been cheating on him. Lewis doesn’t confront his wife right away (why do that? You’d destroy all the suspense!) and instead gets ready for his hunting trip. When he gets on the plane, he heads up front where his friend Walker is, and promptly tells him that he knows he’s fucking his wife. End of teaser!

Not a single sci-fi element to be found, and yet you can bet your ass we’re staying around until after the commercial. So never underestimate using the HUMAN COMPONENT with your opening. You can create something just as intriguing by exploring two people as you can exploring a bank heist or a plane crash or a car chase.

I also loved some of Masters’ descriptions. He’d come out with one every few pages that I’d never seen before that perfectly encapsulated that character. For example, here’s a character named Edgar’s entrance: “Jensen spots a THICK SET MAN (let’s call him EDGAR) standing beside a town car. His tie flaps in the wind but the rest of him is rooted deep in the earth, solid and unmovable.”

I mean how awesome is that? I love how Masters doesn’t necessary tell you about the man himself to describe him. He talks about the stuff surrounding him (his tie, the earth). I thought that was really clever.

But you wanna know the moment I turned on the script? It’s when the crazy character came up to Lewis babbling about “the frequencies,” then he steps backwards and gets RAMMED INTO and killed by a car. I’ve seen that type of scene so many times in these movies/shows, that I lost confidence in the script right there. When I see moments that have been used so many times before in a genre, it’s almost always an indication that the writer didn’t work hard enough to differentiate his script from the pack. If we get that scene we’ve already seen before, we’re bound to see plenty of other scenes we’ve already seen before as well.

Line of Sight had the feeling of a dying campfire, with everyone desperately rushing around to throw twigs and newspaper onto it in the hopes of keeping it going. But everyone knows it’s a only a matter of time before it dies out. It’s not badly written. It has some nice moments. But it packs way too many questions into its 62 page flickering flame. Space out those questions in future episodes, and maybe we can keep this fire going.

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

What I learned: Start a scene out on something other than your characters. This is more of a directing move, but you can use it in your script as well. Remember, just cause you have 2 (or 3, or 4) characters in a scene, it doesn’t mean you have to start on them. Find something else in the room, something relevant to the scene or interesting, and start on that instead. Masters does this early on, in the previously mentioned “Lewis looks in his wife’s purse” scene. Instead of starting on Lewis and his wife, Masters starts on the purse, and we only HEAR Lewis and his wife talk in voice over.  Eventually, Lewis’s hands enter the screen and start looking through the purse.  It’s a slightly more interesting way to write the scene that gives it a visual edge over the straightforward “master shot” we usually envision when we come into a room.

Genre: Drama/Love Story/French
Premise: A high school girl becomes involved with an older artist and the two soon find themselves falling in love.
About: Okay, so this movie has received a lot more publicity than your typical French import for a couple of reasons. First, there’s a lot of graphic lesbian sex in it (have I got your attention, guys?). And second, the actresses who played the leads are now saying that they were forced to do a lot of things sexually that they weren’t comfortable with. The film won the prestigious Palme D’or at the Cannes film festival, and that’s when the heavy scrutiny began. Director Abdellatif Kenhiche, who was at first defiant against his actresses and their accusations of him, has done an about-face, pretty much shutting down when asked about the controversy. His most recent interviews imply that he realizes he may have gone too far and it may have even affected his desire to direct again.
Writers: Abdellatif Kechiche & Ghalia Lacroix (based on the comic book, “Le Bleu est une couleur chaude” by Julie Maroh)
Details: 186 minutes long

Hey, a French film about a young woman’s sexual awakening. Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, that’s EVERY SINGLE FRENCH MOVIE EVER. Didn’t we see it as far back as Seinfeld? When the Seinfeld crew tried to go see Rochelle, Rochelle?

Okay, so maybe it’s not EVERY French movie. I’m guessing there are only a handful of French genres they can market over here in the States, and “sex between young women” is one of them. There are probably tons of more diverse French films we’ll never see because distributors know there’s no way they can do well in the ultra-competitive American marketplace.

As far as this film, I’ll be the first to admit that the only reason I went to see it was because of the controversy behind the sex scenes. I had to see myself just how far they supposedly went, and also if I could detect any clear discomfort on the actresses’ part or see if they was forced into something they didn’t want to do. I wanted to make the call myself.

Here’s the funny thing about what happened though. There was so much damn sex in this movie, that after awhile, the shock value wore off.  What you realize is that, along the way, you’ve been pulled into this relationship, a relationship authentically constructed and universal enough to make you see yourself in it, and in that sense, care about the fate of these two girls, even if that fate took 186 minutes to get to!

17 year old Adele is in high school. She’s a pleasant enough girl, but you get the feeling she’s uncomfortable in her surroundings (and, in many ways, her own skin).

As is the case in most high schools, Adele’s friends are peer-pressuring her into doing things she doesn’t want to do, particularly have sex with a hot guy who’s into her. Adele eventually does go out with the guy and DOES have sex with him, but there’s clearly something missing from the experience. She needs more.

After an unexpected kiss with a female friend, Adele becomes obsessed with women, and finds herself at a lesbian bar one night, where she meets the mysterious older Emma, a blue-haired maven who’s as confident as Adele is timid.

The two immediately hit it off, spend all their time together, and start falling in love, as is on display every night with their extremely passionate love-making.

A year passes and Adele is now out of school (teaching pre-school) getting her shit together. Her relationship seems to be going well also, as she’s helping Emma (who’s an artist) get ready for a big art showing. The problem with Adele is that she can’t shake the feeling that she’s doing something wrong by being with a woman. It’s a subtle feeling, but intense enough that she ends up cheating on Emma with a man (partly brought on by a suspicion that Emma may be cheating on her).

Emma finds out and the entire relationship unravels. Emma kicks Adele out and Adele is completely lost. A couple of years go by and, still, Adele misses Emma. She tries her best to reconcile but Emma’s moved on. Poor Adele is left with an uncertain future, which she now knows will never include the love of her life. Fin.

So why is it that this movie, despite ignoring most of the screenwriting principles I promote on this site, still worked? That’s a great question. To start, you have to understand that this is a relationship movie. With relationship movies (which includes romantic comedies), there isn’t always a goal. The story’s intrigue rests more on “What’s going to happen between these two people?” The movie only works if you care about the answer to that question. And you only care about the answer to that question if you a) like the lead, b) like the romantic interest, and c) want to see them end up together.

So the rules are a little different (from the typical GSU model). And I think “Blue” succeeded on all three of these fronts. I mean, the acting in the movie was amazing, but if the story was written with the same specificity as it was acted, I think it would’ve worked just as well on the page.

But there were a few other reasons why it worked. Conflict conflict conflict conflict and conflict. If you’re going to write a slow story (whatever the genre is), it must be infused with conflict. Because you have to remember – we don’t have anything STORY-RELATED to look forward to. We don’t have Indiana Jones trying to get that Ark. We don’t have the Pacific Rim robots trying to stop those monsters. We don’t have little miss sunshine trying to get to that beauty pageant in time.

For that reason, you have to use OTHER tools to keep the reader/viewer interested. And conflict is the most effective of these tools. And in this case, it starts with INNER CONFLICT. Adele is unsure if she wants men or women. We see her battling with this dilemma throughout the first 40 minutes of the movie. When she finally gets a woman, there’s a part of her that’s still nervous about whether she should be with her. We see that in scenes like when she brings Emma over for a family dinner. She can’t tell her parents the truth about Emma. She’s too ashamed. And then when Emma breaks up with her, all Adele can think about is that she’s not happy without her.  In all of these instances, Adele is battling some sort of inner conflict.

But there’s plenty of external conflict as well. From getting into fights with her schoolmates about her sexuality to trying to start a relationship with the friend who kissed her (who then rejects her) to hiding from her parents that she’s dating Emma to being underage and dating Emma to being pulled by this man at work to eventually cheating on Emma to trying to get Emma back.

Despite some of the early scenes where Emma and Adele were in the honeymoon period, there was conflict in every scene. You never felt 100% comfortable during “Blue.” You always felt like something was unresolved, and that’s why you needed to keep watching. You had to see that resolution.

And, you know, I was surprised by just how many plot developments they packed in here also. Usually, in these relationship or coming of age movies, whether they be American indies or foreign films, it takes FOREVER for anything to happen. But stuff kept happening here all the way through. Adele is pushed to go out with a guy. She does. It doesn’t work out. She kisses a girl.  She’s excited and pursues her.  She’s rejected.  She hangs out at a gay club. She meets a girl. She starts dating her. She meets Emma’s parents. Emma meets her parents. She helps Emma prep her art showing. A new woman is introduced into Emma’s work life who Adele is jealous of. Adele cheats on Emma. I always felt like things were HAPPENING, that stuff was DEVELOPING here. And that’s why it never got boring.

And you know, the thing that this script is getting hammered for, the over-the-top sex – was actually necessary. Because it showed how attached these two were. The passion in their sex showed how much they loved each other. And I’m not sure I would’ve known how much they were in love had that not been shown. I mean I wouldn’t have felt Adele’s desperation to get Emma back in the final third of the film had I not seen that passion.

After I walked out of “Blue,” I had to ask myself a tough question. I’d enjoyed the film. Yet I constantly tell writers not to write a film like this. Would I have to reevaluate that stance? Should I do a 180 and start preaching, “Go forth and write 180 page relationship movies if that’s what you want to write!”

After giving it some consideration, the answer is still no. I have to remember that I’m teaching people how to break into Hollywood, not Pariswood. And in Hollywood, creating marketable material with complex characters and a story that moves is still the easiest way to break through. If you want to write the next “Blue is the Warmest Color,” because it’s a story you NEED to tell and you won’t be able to live your life unless you write it, by all means, don’t let me or anyone else stop you. Sometimes passion is the best storyteller, so there’s a possibility it comes out great. Just know that, at the end of the day, you’re trying to sell a product to someone who will be trying to sell that product all the way up the Hollywood ladder. As long as you know that this process becomes infinitely harder when you try to sell the entertainment business the kind of movies it doesn’t like to make, go for it. I’m not going to hold it against you if you take a chance. Just make sure what you write is great because it will need to be!

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

What I learned: The Honeymoon Period. Relationship movies (including romantic comedies) are all about conflict. They’re about your protagonist being unable to find someone (conflict), to experiencing everyday life obstacles (conflict) and then when they find someone, it’s about things affecting that relationship, like cheating (conflict), everyday relationship problems (conflict), work (conflict), other people (conflict). Your relationship films should be PACKED with conflict. The one time in the script, however, where it’s okay to be conflict-free, is the “Honeymoon Period.” When your characters first get together and start hanging out, it’s okay for them to have fun (this can last anywhere from 3-8 scenes). But sooner or later, conflict should start creeping into that relationship, or we’ll get bored.

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: Reception
GENRE: Found Footage Horror
LOGLINE:  A videographer tries to track down his missing girlfriend after a mysterious outbreak turns wedding reception guests into primal killers.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ:  I paid close attention to your post about “How to Write a Found Footage Film” (1/5/2014) and believe I’ve hit most if not all of the points addressed.  Camera holding motivations, emotional anchors, short run time… I also use a Glidecam for a different look to found footage than shaky cam (some really cool videos on youtube). Characters change through the circumstances surrounding them vs. a traditional story arc and hell, maybe you’ll find a character funny.  One reader in the very early drafts thought it was a zombie comedy (it’s not).

TITLE: What The Hell Happened?
GENRE: Comedy
LOGLINE: A drunkard, an anxious CEO of a tv station, and a timid security guard’s lives are all affected after a little league baseball game goes awry and a man ends up storming the field naked and throwing up on a child.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: My name is Etai Shuchatowitz and I’m a high school senior who has been reading you for the better part of four years. I’ve been trying to write for a long time, and after many disastrous results, I think this might be one that I got right. At least, I hope. It’s a comedy, so it’s not supposed to make you cry hard like Terms of Endearment or Armageddon (yeah, I’ll admit it. I cried at the end of Armageddon). But, it is a comedy that deals with a some hopefully mature themes and characters. I really like it and hope that you would too.

TITLE: Brother Cody
GENRE: Comedy
LOGLINE: The party boy heir to a bankrupt Milwaukee brewing empire infiltrates a monastery to steal the recipe of their legendary beer.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: I moved to LA a few years ago to try my hand at screenwriting.  I’ve had some success in contests, and one of the scripts I co-wrote last year actually made the AOW listings, but alas didn’t make the final cut.  Hopefully Brother Cody can do better.  I took my time, got feedback from both friends and pro script readers, and this newest version has received some good responses.

TITLE: The Procurist
GENRE: Sci-fi Thriller
LOGLINE: A callous identity-thief-for-hire, who specializes in genetically altering his clients so they can assume another person’s identity, falls for his latest victim and must risk his own life to protect her from his ruthless employers.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: I set out to write a fast-paced, action thriller with a hint of real-world sci-fi, grounded by an intriguing protagonist and a tangible setting that is a character itself. A movie with a marketable concept and a strong theme that would appeal to producers, directors, and actors. A movie inspired by gritty ‘70s thrillers that takes the audience on a breakneck ride. I’d very much appreciate the opinions of Carson and the Scriptshadow community to tell me if I’ve succeeded.

TITLE: Culture Crash
GENRE: Dark Action Comedy
LOGLINE: Stuck with only each other, five kids from four very different worlds, end up on the run after their lives intertwine through the death of a greedy drug dealer. “Breakfast Club” meets “Pulp Fiction.”
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: Without going into my entire bio – I’m in my twenties and have been committed to writing for a very long time. I’m honestly not being lazy, but feel like a script should speak for itself. Chances are, if you’re not interested in the material/characters after the first couple pages, you’re not going to be interested in it at all. However, that being said, there’s no way in hell I would have sent you this material if I did not think you would enjoy it. Please give the first ten pages a read.

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: Comedy
Premise (from writer): Based on a true story, a group of college kids in the 60s pose as royalty from a made-up country (Marchentia). What starts out as innocent fun, spins out of control when the media turns their arrival into the most important visit in the city’s history.
About: Well, we didn’t have an Amateur Offerings two weeks ago due to Holiday madness, so I had to pick an amateur script on my own to review today. Long-time reader of the site, Matt Hirschhorn, recently won a comedy contest with this script, and since we haven’t reviewed a comedy for Amateur Friday in awhile, I thought it was time the Scriptshadow community stopped screaming at each other (ahem – Grendl), and started having some fun again.
Writer: Matt Hirschhorn
Details: 110 pages

The sure to be classic, Fishbein!

The second I read Matt’s premise, I loved it. The best comedy ideas are the ones where you can immediately start imagining the funny scenes. But the reason you don’t see me reviewing much comedy on the site anymore is because despite all these fun premises, THE SCRIPTS ARE NEVER FUNNY! Not to mention that the execution is always terrible, often sliding between lazy and cheap. What makes a lot of funny people funny, it seems, is what also makes them lazy. They just don’t put in the effort required for a polished “take me seriously” screenplay.

But Thallus isn’t like that. It’s actually quite intricate. There are a lot of storylines going on here, and they’re all rather well balanced, building and interweaving cleverly as the script goes on. There’s a strong sense of purpose for both the story and everyone in it, and, most importantly, there are a lot of laughs. Imagine that, a comedy with laughs. I guess it’s still possible!

The story is set in 1968 and centers around a Buffalo college kid named Marty Goodman. Marty’s your average frustrated chump. He’s in love with a girl, Eve Ryan, the daughter of a senator, who’s way out of his league (she dates guys like O.J. Simpson, not short Jewish boys with questionable haircuts). Marty complains about Eve all the time to his best friend, Herbie, an overweight James Bond wannabe who’s in denial about his lackluster fitness regimen.

So one day, while spitballing ideas for a social experiment Marty must do for class (he must show how people go along with the herd rather than question the masses), he and Herbie stumble across a couple of plants Herbie’s studying for a test (the “Thallus” and the “Marchentia”). They joke that, when thrown together, they sound like the title of some prince from a tiny country. One thing leads to another, and Marty gets the idea to become the “Thallus of Marchentia” for his experiment. He’ll fool the campus and get an ‘A’ on his paper. Added benefit? He’ll finally have a shot with Eve!

The two enlist their annoying acquaintance, school reporter Fishbein, to write about the Thallus’ arrival in the school paper. Fishbein reluctantly agrees, and sure enough, when the article is printed, everyone is talking about the Thallus’s arrival. Which then spreads to the local newspapers. Which then spreads to the local television outlets. And within 24 hours, everybody in Buffallo, including the Mayor himself, can’t wait to meet the Thallus of Marchentia!

As things get bigger, the group finds themselves expanding their story. They’re now a Uranium-rich country who’s in the middle of a war with the Communists, a war only slightly smaller than Vietnam. They’re coming to Buffallo to hopefully open a Uranium plant and expand their relationship with the United States. Things get even more complicated when Senator Ryan (Eve’s mom) wants to get some of that Thallus money to fund her campaign.

Then, of course, there’s local college activists Zen, Cloud, and Wolf, who want to make a difference but are sick of their current SDS group’s lack of action. So they decide to take matters into their own hands by kidnapping the Thallus and getting him to remove all American troops from Marchentia. All of this while Marty desperately tries to take advantage of this one and only chance to bed Eve Ryan, an opportunity that’s quickly slipping away with each passing hour.

What The Thallus did well that I don’t see with a lot of amateur comedies is it was really soundly structured. And what I mean by that is that it always had thrust. Every section had characters going after important things, and each of those pursuits had some level of immediacy behind them. For example, Marty, when he first becomes the Thallus, only has that day to try to hook up with Eve. Fishbein only has one shot to secretly record Senator Ryan offering political favors for money. Senator Ryan only has one shot to get money from the Thallus.  Zen and Cloud are running out of time to record the Thallus to get American troops out of Marchentia.

Screenplays work best when characters are all going after something, and the characters need that something immediately. That’s why Back to the Future is one of my favorite screenplays of all time. It’s all about characters constantly needing something RIGHT NOW. And while I’m not saying the Thallus is up to the level of that masterpiece, I loved that it latched on to the same storytelling principle.

I think the big thing with comedy though is that the characters have to stand out on the page. And not just the protagonist, but everyone. Because everyone has to be memorable and everyone has to be funny in their own unique way. Matt did a great job of that here. I dare you to read this and not remember these characters two weeks from now. Herbie, Fishbein, Zen, Cloud, Wolf. These were all hilarious characters with their own unique shit going on. Herbie, especially, with his obsession of dieting and exercise, despite never going through with anything or ever actually putting any work into his regimen. His White Castle breakdown binge was classic.

I also thought Zen and Cloud’s bickering was hilarious. I thought Herbie’s really bad version of James Bond was funny. Loser Fishbein and his dream to one day go on a “Canadian Adventure” with friends.  I even loved the out-of-left-field Russian agents who were there to assassinate the Thallus because Russia’s president “hated Marchentia” (despite the fact that it didn’t exist). I loved watching them dance awkwardly in the club and argue whether you can only do “The Twist” dance to the song “The Twist” or if it was allowed during other songs as well.

And I think what elevated this beyond your typical comedy was that Matt was actually trying to say something with the story. We do follow the masses at the expense of our own opinion. I was just talking about this the other week in regards to what movies we feel we’re allowed to “like” and “dislike.” There was a theme building here that we’d rather pretend we know what everyone’s talking about and go along with it rather than do a little research, form our own opinion, and rock the boat.

There were a couple things that didn’t work for me though. Every once in a while, the scenes felt a little stilted, particularly early on, and I think that’s because Matt was setting up so much story. That’s one of the hardest things about writing an intricate plot like this one, is that almost everything in your first act – all your scenes – double as set-ups. You’re setting up how we come up with the Thallus idea. You’re setting up who Eve is and that Marty wants her. You’re setting up Zen and Cloud’s problems with the system, so we understand why they kidnap the Thallus later. No matter how good of a writer you are, if you have to pack a lot of exposition into your story, it’s going to bleed through at times and make scenes feel a little artificial.

The only thing you can do to combat this is keep working on the scenes and keep simplifying the setups for all these later events. The less information you have to give the audience, the more you can focus on the making the scenes themselves entertaining, which is doubly important in a comedy, since it’s hard to make people laugh when you have to cram a lot of information into the scene as well. Matt did a pretty good job of this in places, but in other spots it felt like the exposition overwhelmed the scene and gave it that “stilted” feel.

The only other big problem I had with the script was the final act. This is where all the storylines intersected. While it was easy to identify who was who in their own separate worlds, once everyone came together, since there were so many of them, I had to read everything twice to remember who the characters in the scenes were, how they knew each other, and what all the subtle but important story points were between those characters so I could fully enjoy their interactions. We have a three-way car chase for example, and I was trying to remember who everyone in each car was and how they were related to one another, as well as those subtle intricacies between all of them. Because of that I had to read everything twice. The end of the script is so important. It’s when the reader should be flying through the pages because things are building and moving quickly towards the climax. If you’re stopping to read everything twice, it’s the exact opposite experience of what you want the reader to go through.

Despite those problems, I really liked this. You don’t often see an amateur comedy (or a comedy in general) that has this much story going on, yet always stays so focused and entertaining. If you’re a comedy fan, you’ll definitely want to take the Thallus for a spin.

Script link: The Thallus of Marchentia

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

What I learned: Once you’ve set up everything in your first act, go back through those scenes and try to smooth them out as much as possible. Do everything in your power to hide the setups, or else your opening act will feel like a bunch of exposition as opposed to a bunch of entertainment.