Okay, I’m going to be honest. I have an ulterior motive for today’s “10 Tips” post. Toy Story 3 was written by Michael Arndt. And as Star Wars geeks all know, well, Arndt is writing the new Star Wars film. So I guess I’m checking up on him. Now here’s the thing with Arndt. There are folks out there who have complained he’s a little too technical in his writing approach. To them, his movies feel “constructed” and “written,” and I’m trying to figure out why that is. I suppose Arndt struggled for a long time to break into the business (which he finally did with Little Miss Sunshine) and therefore had a lot of time to study screenplays. When you study the craft for that long, you get to know the innards of a screenplay really well. That vast knowledge may explain his uber-dependence on his craft. Having said that, I don’t share that point of view. I think Arndt is a really good screenwriter and was relieved when he got the Star Wars job because I knew, at the very least, the script wouldn’t suck. We had no such guarantees with the last three Star Wars films. For those unfamiliar with Arndt’s work, he wrote Little Miss Sunshine, Brave, Oblivion, and the upcoming, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
1) What is structure? – When we talk about structure, we’re typically talking about the three major acts your story will be divided into (setup, conflict, resolution), the goals driving your characters forward (the toys must get back to Andy before he leaves for college!), stakes and urgency (They have less than a week to get back to Andy. If they don’t, they’re stuck in this prison daycare center forever!), the major story beats along the way (i.e. Lotso is revealed to be an evil dictator!), and your character arcs (Woody must learn to let go of Andy!). These things need to be appropriately paced in order to keep your story interesting for its entire running time. A lack of (or a badly executed) structure will always result in your audience getting bored early.
2) The Structure Paradox – Here’s something I recently realized after reading a bout of bad scripts. The writers who don’t know structure are the ones who need to focus on it. And the writers who obsess over structure are the ones who need to pull back from it. Beginner writers want to blaze their own trails, do it “their way,” and ignore 100 years worth of storytelling knowledge. The problem is, they don’t know enough about structure to go against it, so their scripts are usually rambling, incoherent, and unfocused. Experienced writers, on the other hand, know how important structure is and therefore make it a priority. The problem with them is that they depend on it too much, which means their scripts lose any and all unpredictability, resulting in a lot of “run-of-the-mill” stories. It’s okay to break away from a planned story beat every once in awhile or have your character do something out-of-character. So if you’re a beginner, embrace structure. If you’re a vet, resist it every once in awhile. Your writing will get better.
3) The Invisible Man – Structure is the beams, the foundation, of your script. But just like a building, you don’t leave all those beams exposed, do you? No, you cover them up with walls, paint, pictures, plants, bookcases, until it’s impossible to imagine the skeletal framework it used to be. Screenplays are no different. You add the structure (the acts, the goals, the character arcs) and then you start exploring relationships, seamlessly transitioning your scenes, adding realistic dialogue, all the things that make that structure invisible. Being able to incorporate structure is great. Being able to incorporate structure INVISBLY is what separates the pros from the nos.
4) Real writers cover – Arndt says that a big part of his improvement as a writer came from covering scripts for production companies (meaning he read and broke down a script’s strengths and weaknesses). Having a gut reaction on a screenplay or a movie (“That script sucked”) doesn’t help you as a writer. It’s only when you specifically break down WHY it didn’t work for you that you begin to understand the inner workings of a screenplay. So if you’re not already, read some spec sale scripts and cover them. Or read the Amateur Offerings scripts (which I post every Saturday) and give your analysis in the comments section. Or give detailed notes to your friends on their scripts. However you go about it, analytically breaking down screenplays is going to make you a better screenwriter.
5) CONFLICT ALERT – Remember that conflict should be present in every single scene in your movie. An example of it here is when the toys arrive at the Sunnyside Day Care Center. All the toys are excited that they’ll now have a place to be played with. Everyone EXCEPT for Woody that is. Woody thinks they need to be back with their owner, Andy. His resistance adds the necessary conflict to keep the scenes lively. If everyone agrees they should be here, how interesting is that?
6) Set up expectations, then reverse them – Setting up expectations is a neat little tool you can use to juice up any part of your script. For example, when the toys are on their way to Sunnyside, Woody warns the others that it’s going to be terrible there. That’s the expectation. But they get there and it’s wonderful! Expectation reversed! Lotso the Bear is another expectation. He’s presented as a wonderful helpful leader. All the toys love this guy! But he turns out to be a heartless dictator. Expectations are essentially story twists, and since you always need 3-6 twists in every script, they’re a good tool to have at your disposal.
7) Dialogue Tip: Tweak well-known phrases – Well-known sayings or phrases are fun (“Are you ready?” “I’ve been ready my whole life.”). But in movies, you want to tweak them and make them unique to your characters. So at one point in Toy Story 3, Mr. Potato Head retrieves his old body. The well-known phrase he uses is, “You’re a sight for sore eyes.” The line, however, is tweaked to, “You’re a sight for detachable eyes.”
8) Michael Arndt never writes a script unless he knows the ending – If you know where your script ends, it’s much easier to plot it, since you know where all your characters need to end up. So if you want to make things easier on yourself, figure out your ending before you start.
9) A character’s disposition shouldn’t always match his appearance –Toy Story has made an entire franchise out of this, but it’s a great practice to use, even if you’re not writing an animated feature. Try to give a few of your characters traits that are the opposite of their appearance. So the T-Rex is a scaredy cat. The big cuddly pink bear is an evil dictator. His main henchman is a baby. Or, since JJ’s directing Arndt’s current Star Wars script, let’s look at JJ’s Lost. Sawyer, the big bully on the island, is an avid book reader. This practice almost always makes characters more interesting.
10) A Deus-Ex-Machina ending can work IF it’s properly set up – In the end of Toy Story 3 (spoiler alert!), the toys are about to fall into an incinerator when a GIANT CLAW comes down to save them. A total deus-ex-machina moment (the characters do nothing to get out of their own predicament. They’re saved by someone else). BUT, that claw happens to be operated by the little aliens who our characters first encountered in the original Toy Story (they were in the “Claw-Machine” at the arcade). Granted it was a bit of a cheat to use something set up 2 movies ago. But the point is, it WAS a payoff and therefore the deus-ex-machina did not feel like a deus-ex-machina.
Genre: Thriller
Premise: An astronaut finds herself fighting for her life when the space shuttle is destroyed during a space walk.
About: Alfonso Cuaron is paving his way towards becoming the best director in the world. The Children of Men and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban director is known for his long takes that leave fellow industry folks shaking their heads in awe. But he’s gone to a new level with his new film, setting up dozens of never-ending shots in space, with the camera often drifting instead of cutting, leaving you wondering, “How the heck did he do that?” Gravity stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and came out this weekend. It WAY over-performed, grossing 55 million dollars.
Writers: Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron (his brother)
Details: 90 minutes
Oh Gravity.
Why do you make it so difficult for me?
You have one of the greatest directors in the world directing your film. You have cutting edge special effects. You invented new equipment to make your movie (who does that besides James Cameron??). You’re one of the only films in existence that can claim its use of 3-D actually made the movie better. From a macro sense, you’re everything movies should be. You’re new. You’re different. You’re taking chances. You’re showing the audience something they’ve never seen before. In short, you’ve made going to the movies exciting.
But mannnnn….
Why?
Why does it feel like you missed the mark?
Missed the mark??? Carson, are you crazy? This movie was a tour de force, a cinematic opus, a cumberbatch of movement, frenzy, and Clooney. It was a pan fried chocolate peanut butter cup dipped in caramel and served on top of free-range ice cream. It was freaking awesome!
Yeah, but, but, but the script! The script I say! I loved watching Gravity. But I never CONNECTED to Gravity. I was always spinning just out of its orbit, desperately trying, just like Sandra Bullock, to feel something. Yet I couldn’t. Why? Why couldn’t I love this???
In order to explain this, you have to understand what we’re dealing with. And since I pretty awesomely summarized the plot of Gravity in my script review, I’m going to re-post it here:
Ryan Stone is a young medical engineer who never planned on becoming an astronaut. In fact, she had a job as a regular engineer down on earth as little as eight months ago. But now – right now – she’s up on the space shuttle, fixing one of the many “panels” that always seem to need fixing up in space. There are a few other astronauts drifting nearby as she does this, the most important of whom is Matt Kowalski, as veteran an astronaut as Ryan is a newbie. He’s bummed out because this might be his last mission.
I got news for you Matt. Ain’t no “might be” here. It *is* your last mission.
That’s because the next most abundant thing in space besides panels are satellites, and those wascally Russians just blew up one of theirs. The aftermath creates a chain reaction of spraying debris that hits multiple satellites, which also end up exploding, and all of a sudden thousands of pieces of debris are heading straight towards the space shuttle.
(lots of spoilers follow) Before the group can react, the debris destroys the shuttle and everyone on it except for Ryan and Matt. The two must then make their way down to the International Space Station – in their space suits only – before they run out of air and before this debris field destroys the space station as well. Along the way, poor Matt has to sacrifice himself to keep Ryan alive and the next thing you know, this girl who didn’t know the first thing about space eight months ago is drifting through it with no communication and next-to-no experience, desperately trying to find a way to survive this.
Everything that can go wrong does go wrong as the movie becomes a series of near death experiences. Ryan must jump from point to point – whether it be to a vessel, a station, or an oxygen tank – and survive long enough to make the journey to the next point after that (and so on). Each destination is accompanied by dangerous debris, dropping oxygen, and the likely chance that wherever she’s trying to go might not be there. Think Apollo 13, but with the odds stacked 1 million times higher against you, if that’s possible.
Okay, I don’t mean to keep bringing up the power of GSU, I really don’t. But this script has it in spades. Goal – GET TO SAFETY. Stakes – If you don’t, you die. Urgency – Always running out of oxygen, always running out of time. This kept Gravity moving at a brisk pace. And really, when you think about it, it wouldn’t have worked any other way. This movie took place in real time. No time cuts allowed. Under those circumstnaces, if you don’t have goals, stakes, and urgency, your script is going to taste like one drawn out piece of boring meat. So kudos for the strong use of GSU.
But where I really thought Cuaron excelled was in the obstacles category. When you send your main character after a goal, your job is to place lots of obstacles in front of that goal. You gotta make it hard for them or else it’ll be boring. I mean, what if, after the space shuttle blew up, a Russian shuttle flew by, snatched up Ryan, and brought her back to earth? Would that have been an interesting movie? My guess is no. Unless Ryan and the strapping Russian cosmonaut got into a steamy BDSM affair on the way back to earth a la 50 Shades Of Grey. But I’m thinking that movie MAY have been attacked for a shift in tone.
Instead, Cuaron provides a TON of obstacles. And not just any obstacles. Really freaking difficult obstacles. Ryan and Matt have to steer themselves to the Russian space station with 5 ounces of thrust left. Ryan must get there with only 3% oxygen left. Once she gets inside of the station, there’s a fire. Once in the escape vessel, she doesn’t have any fuel. Once she gets to the Chinese vessel, she must pilot the ship with everything labeled in Chinese. (SUPER MAJOR SPOILERS) Even when she finally gets to earth and lands in the water, the module sinks and she’s going to drown. Even when she GETS OUT of the module. Her suit weighs her down so she can’t swim to the surface.
So it’s not just placing the obstacles in front of your protagonist. It’s making them REALLY DIFFICULT obstacles. That’s why Gravity is so intense. Nothing was easy for our heroine. And it’s a great thing to remember when you write your own script.
But the same problem I had with the Gravity script doomed the Gravity film. Well, I shouldn’t say “doomed.” But kept it from becoming great.
Ryan, our protagonist, wasn’t very interesting.
And they tried. They really tried. She had a kid who died. You can’t say characters with dead children don’t have depth. But man, it just felt… I don’t know, false. I never really believed that her kid died. It felt like a band-aid, one of those things we writers add because we THINK it makes our characters deep, but it actually backfires because it feels so cliché and easy.
That’s not to say Cuaron’s job was easy. I always say that every script has its own challenges, its own unique issues that no writer has had to deal with before. And Gravity had some tough things to maneuver around. It was in space the whole time and our main character is in a space suit floating around for most of the movie. Besides her conversations with Matt, there isn’t really an opportunity to develop her. You can’t cut away because we’re not dealing with other characters. You can’t time jump because we’re telling this in real time. You can’t do flashbacks because that would defeat the whole purpose of us feeling like we were stuck in space.
So the only way to develop the character is through her conversations with Matt and the choices she makes. Trying to develop a character via dialogue is really hard. Someone can talk about the pain they feel cause their kid died, but without us ever knowing that kid or seeing that kid, it’s kinda hard to care, as terrible as that sounds.
I mean imagine in Castaway (another one-man show) if we would’ve started the movie on the airplane. We never would’ve met Chuck’s girlfriend. And then, once on the island, we would’ve shown him looking at the picture of her to develop some depth to him, and it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well because we never actually MET his girlfriend. That made her a real person that we really cared about. With Gravity, you don’t get that. And so I never really believed it or cared about it.
And this affected everything! Because her entire character was built off of her finally being able to let go of the past, represented by not giving up. That’s why character development is so important. It affects your screenplay in ways you don’t even think about. You’re thinking, “Okay, this scene where she’s trying to decide if she wants to keep fighting or not is going to be so compelling!” But it isn’t, because we’re not affected by the reason she’s thinking about giving up. We never got on board with that thirty pages ago.
But an even bigger problem, for me at least, was the TONE of Ryan’s character. She was just so down. She didn’t have any personality. She was flat. And it’s hard to get excited by that kind of character, to care about that kind of character. I felt this way in the script and I felt it here. Ryan was just not a very interesting character. And I’m finally understanding why so many actresses publicly passed over this part. There’s nothing here. I mean look at her opening scene. She’s changing panels! We learn nothing about the woman other than that she really wants to change panels. And that’s about as much character development as we get for another 30 minutes.
I think Cauron would argue that that’s who she is. She probably became an astronaut to escape the pain of her real life, to be out in the middle of nowhere where she can only worry about mundane things like changing panels. And that’s fine. But I just thought it made the character boring. And the thing is, when you strip away all that craziness that happens to Ryan, what you have is a character piece. This has to be a character journey if we’re going to care about her making it through. And the overly vague backstory of a dead daughter just didn’t do it for me.
The thing is, this movie is such a f*cking amazing piece of cinema and Cuaron is such an amazing filmmaker that he’s able to overcome this issue and still make this movie worth watching. If you like movies, you have no reason not to see Gravity. But being the perfectionist I am, I wanted more. I didn’t want to just be moved technically, I wanted to be moved emotionally. And it didn’t happen.
[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the price of admission (3-D if you can afford it)
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Sometimes we pick flaws for our characters without thinking about WHAT KIND OF PERSON that flaw makes our character. We’re so excited to give our character a flaw (screenwriting books say this is good so YAY that we succeeded!) that we’re not aware it’s bullying our character into a certain personality. So say you decide, “I want to make my character unable to connect with people. That’s going to be his flaw.” Not a bad flaw to explore. But you realize, then, that your character will likely be quiet, stand-offish and introverted. Those are not qualities that make a character fun to watch. So are you really okay with that? By giving Ryan the character flaw that she can’t move past her child’s death, you’re also making her sad and depressing most of the time. Is that really the kind of character you want to write? Just make sure that when you’re coming up with your protagonist’s flaw, the resulting personality is something you like.
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: Noir of the Dead
GENRE: action horror/comedy
LOGLINE: A former gangster must once again take up the gun and unite rival Prohibition enemies in order to fight off marauding, mutant zombies.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “I wrote this script with the intention of having fun with some familiar tropes…Prohibition gangsters, zombies, a mad scientist, the lethal femme fatal. The script ended up in a digital sock drawer…until I dusted it off and entered it into the ScreenCraft Horror contest, where it made the finals. My prize was development notes from someone named Pat at LD Entertainment…and I’m actually embarrassed to repeat some of his complements, where the writing was compared to Billy Wilder and I.A.L Diamond…and now my girlfriend thinks I write like Willy Wonka and I’m sure Scriptshadow readers will think I write more like Lester Diamond. But some judges and a studio guy liked it, maybe a few others will too. You never know.
Can we have a word on zombie scripts? The other day I saw my 6 yr old niece playing some zombie game on her kid’s i-pad, and apparently it’s the most popular game. I had an apocalyptic vision of millions of kids growing up already hooked on zombies. Zombies ain’t going anywhere. Disco may be dead, but the undead…well, the undead never die.”
TITLE: Submerged
GENRE: Contained thriller
LOGLINE: Trapped in a shrinking air pocket deep beneath the ocean’s surface, the survivors of a plane crash battle to stay alive long enough for the rescue teams to locate them.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “This is my eighth screenplay, all in the action thriller genre. Submerged adheres rigidly to all of the spec script rules laid out on Scriptshadow – it is a low-budget, contained thriller with a marketable concept, set in a unique location, featuring a proactive protagonist who must conquer a potentially fatal flaw to succeed. And it all happens in a reader-friendly 94 pages!”
TITLE: Coin
GENRE: Thriller/Heist
LOGLINE: A brilliant young thief is forced to rob an auction in the heart of Manhattan, but, when the rules change, his mission becomes a life and death struggle to find his tormentor before he kills his mother.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “The script was inspired by your French Week review of the Untitled Hlavin project. To its credit, it’s an interesting departure from the normal heist story. Exhibit A. The object being sought is a coin and, although it is valuable, the protagonist stands to make zero dollars for his efforts. Not your standard 80/20 split. Already, things are different. Exhibit B. The protagonist is, for all intents and purposes, retired. Sure, he’s young. But he’s seen the flaw of his ways and changed. Exhibit C. The story is more about the journey than the goal as it explores his life and relationships as he figures out what his next moves will be. He has a good heart and it shows. Together with all of the twists and turns and backstabbing double-crosses, he’s never able to tell who’s with him and who’s not. It all adds up to thrilling adventure that pushes him to the limits of his abilities and wits, climaxing in a thrilling showdown you won’t see coming.”
TITLE: The After-Afterlife
GENRE: Comedy
LOGLINE: Terrified that there may not be life after the afterlife, a group of ghosts must convince the world that ghosts exist by revealing themselves to the crew of a cable ghost show on the night before their haunting place is bulldozed to the ground. It’s something that’s way easier said than done. It is a basic cable show, after all.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “In a word: story. This is a story first and foremost. It’s a funny story, but story always, always, always takes precedent over funny. Then, in many words: I wrote with a partner for many years, and we even scored well in a multitude of contests including Nicholl (Semifinals twice) and the Austin Film Festival (Finals). But now I’m trying a few solo scripts, and need to know if I’m good on my own, or if I should beg my partner to take me back.”
TITLE: Shifting.pdf)
GENRE: Supernatural Horror/Drama
LOGLINE: A teenage girl balances high school life with keeping her lycanthropy at bay.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “I’ve worked for the city as a 911 call taker for the last, going on seven years. You hear stuff. One minute it’s a guy who robbed the local Best Buy (make that tried) of a PS3 console, tripped and fell in the parking lot, busting his head open in the process — now he’s got a brief hospital visit to look forward to, followed by a slightly longer stint in jail — the next it’s a man playing with his pet puppy, which ended up biting clean through his penis (do. not. ask.), and EMS has to walk him through how to contain the bleeding while his girlfriend laughs uncontrollably in the background.
Not to mention, of course, random conflicts among senior citizens involving tasers.
It can put your mind in a place. Which brings me to “Shifting”. I think I wrote this as a way of staying sane in my most unsanest of professions, but also out of genuine affection for werewolf cinema. Even ‘Bad Moon.'”
Submit Your Script For A Review!: 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 it gets 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: Sci-Fi/Thriller
Premise: (from writer) When a homicide detective learns that the murderer of a Senator was the victim of a high-tech setup, he then uncovers a conspiracy that makes him question everything he believes in, even himself.
Why You Should Read: (from writer) “In 2003 I had a “concept” for a Sci-Fi movie but had never written a screenplay. My wife saw a news piece for a screenplay community on the Internet, where you could upload your work and get constructive reviews and help. I read the first ten pages of the “Terminator” to get an idea of formatting. Using Word templates and a few reference books, I knocked out the first draft of in a week. The formatting was terrible and the story was littered with mistakes. But I pushed on and learned/developed the craft though constructive feedback and hard work. — My ideas were always a little high concept (and budget) so I began to get interested in short scripts and independent film, to both learn and give me a chance at getting produced. 10 years later I’ve just started a draft of my 19th feature script and finished short script 120. So I guess it’s fair to say I’ve been bitten by the bug of screenwriting. I’ve had short films screened in Cannes, won and placed in contests (thrilled that Kenneth Branagh read and selected one of my scripts). But am I any closer to breaking into the business? Hell no! But I’m enjoying the journey and learning as I go.”
Writer: Sean Ryan
Details: 100 pages (August 7, 2013 draft)
Ryan Gosling for Mitch??
I coulda swore I reviewed this script on the site before. I know I’ve given Sean notes on it. But a search back through the archives shows that it’s never been reviewed. But even if it had, I’m interested to see how my notes and the subsequent drafts Sean’s written have improved the script. Sean’s sent me plenty of updates via e-mail so I know he’s been working on it forever. Which leads us to the “21st draft” reference on the title page. Definitely don’t want to keep that there. Readers have this weird thing where if they see you’re on some really high draft, they’re put off. Therefore, it’s always in your best interest to imply that you’re on your 2nd or 3rd draft. That way, they’re always impressed. “Wow, you pulled this off in 2 drafts?!” Lying is bad. Unless you’re a struggling screenwriter.
Moving on, my big issue with the previous draft of SWAP was that it was too generic. I liked the idea, but I thought Sean was making some very obvious choices. When you have a good idea, especially one like this, which allows for a lot of intricate story directions (literally any character in the story can be anyone else), you have to take advantage of it. Let’s see if Sean’s done his job.
39 year-old Detective Mitch Chance has been assigned to one hell of a weird case. Some dude just shot up the inside of a mall, killing a Senator in the process, but now claims that he didn’t do it. He’s on every security cam in the building, yet he says he has no memory of it happening. And a lie detector test confirms his claim. Somehow, this killer believes he didn’t kill.
While everyone else chalks it up to the dude being crazy-time, Mitch can’t get the case out of his head. And things get weirder when he’s contacted by a mystery man to meet in secret. The man tells him to look deeper into the shooter, implying that he didn’t kill those people. But how can someone who’s been video-taped mowing everyone down with an AK-47 NOT be the killer? It’s impossible! Or is it?
Mitch realizes he’s onto something big when he and his family are attacked, presumably because someone knows he’s digging. Naturally, he starts digging deeper, eventually learning that the government is running a secret program called “SWAP” where they can jump into people’s bodies and control them. This allows them to do things like jump into a terrorist’s body thousands of miles away and have him kill all his terrorists buddies, which sounds good to me. But you get the feeling that the naughty government is now using the technology for much less patriotic purposes.
What follows is a complicated game of chess where we’re never sure who’s who. Who’s in who’s body? Mitch is able to jump into bodies in the government’s secret facility, and the government is able to jump into the bodies of everybody close to Mitch (and even Mitch himself). It starts to get really complicated, as nobody can trust anybody. Will Mitch be able to navigate this puzzle and take down the SWAP program? Or will he be yet another victim?
So, what’s the verdict??
This was a tough call. First of all, I really like Sean. You’re never going to find a nicer, more dedicated writer than him. The problem with that is, since I WANT to like the script so badly, I don’t think my judgment was 100% objective.
I will say, though, without question, this draft was better. One of the things we talk about a lot on this site is “dramatic irony.” Although it’s more complicated than this, it basically means the reader is aware that one character is keeping a secret from the other. SWAP, then, has the potential to be a dramatic irony gold mine, since there are a ton of scenes where WE know a character is hiding inside another character, but the other characters in the scene do not know that. To that end, I thought Sean did a good job. Every scene had that extra layer of deception driving it, which kept things pretty entertaining.
What hurt the read for me, though, was that there was a certain thinness to everything. And I saw this being discussed in the comments the other day – this idea of a “fast read,” and how readers are always looking for “fast reads.” And SWAP was just that. The writing was really sparse (rarely was there a paragraph over two lines long) and therefore really easy to get through (I think I read the script in an hour).
But here’s the thing. There’s such a thing as being TOO fast of a read. Sometimes we need that thick description of a major character (“Tall and blond” isn’t enough). Sometimes we need that dark warehouse described in detail in order to create atmosphere. But more importantly, we need the relationships to be more complex. And I’m not saying it’s easy. This is a thriller. It’s tough to keep the story moving quickly – like all the readers want – yet still explore relationships. But it IS possible. Taken, the prototype for a lightning fast thriller, actually sets up a complicated family dynamic in its first act, with a father trying to reconnect with his daughter amidst his ex-wife re-marrying. I wanted SOME kind of emotional storyline like that to latch onto here.
Personally (and I’m not saying this is everyone), I need to be able to connect with the characters in more than a surface-level way to get involved in the story. And again, Sean doesn’t do a bad job here. Mitch’s daughter is almost killed. We see his desire to keep his family out of harm’s way. But I wanted something specific. Maybe Mitch’s daughter is older (15) and starting to pull away from her father. Or Maybe Mitch and his wife have been having problems and she’s thinking of divorcing him. I just reviewed the new Johnny Depp project, Mortdecai, in my newsletter and that’s exactly what they did. Our main character’s wife was pulling away from him, and you got the feeling that unless he succeeded in his goal, she was going to leave him.
These were the things bouncing around in the back of my head while I was reading SWAP, and when I’m reading a great script, there’s nothing bouncing around in the back of my head. I’m just enjoying the story.
I think Sean’s done a good job mastering the structural component of screenwriting. He’s got a good feel for plotting and keeping the story moving. But if screenwriting prowess is measured on a 1-10 scale, I think mastering this aspect only gets you to level 5 or 6. The next step – that leap up to 7 and 8 – requires you to master character development and character relationship development. Learning how to not only build that into your story, but do so in a way that doesn’t slow the story down, is what gets you to a place where agents and producers start noticing you. So this one flirted with a “worth the read,” but didn’t quite make it there. Still, I hope to see more stuff from Sean in the future. But only those 2nd and 3rd drafts. :)
Script link: SWAP
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I looked back at my notes for SWAP (when I did a consultation with Sean) and saw this line: “Remember, for every question that’s answered, a new one should be posed.” – I want to commend Sean for listening to that advice. This new draft did a better job of replacing answered questions with new questions. But I bring this up because I’ve read a lot of scripts lately that DIDN’T do this. If you’re going to give us the answer to one of your key mysteries, ALWAYS pose a new one. This way, you’re always dangling a carrot in front of the reader, giving him a reason to keep walking. The second there’s no carrot, is the second we turn around and head back home.
I love seeing movies break out and do a lot better than they’re supposed to. Hollywood likes to think that they have it all figured out. They’ve got formulas. They’ve got formulas FOR their formulas. They can give you opening weekend numbers for a film six months before they’ve even shot it. As the industry continues to move closer to the way the rest of American businesses are run, a specific understanding of how each product is going to do is vital to their business plan. But every once in awhile, something still surprises them. And it absolutely KILLS them. Because even if a film does ten times better than they think it will, somebody fucked up – why didn’t they know that would happen?
This is why I love trying to figure out why a movie broke out. Obviously, directing and marketing and star power are going to be huge factors in any movie’s success. But it always comes back to the screenplay. Every trailer, every poster, every marketing campaign, every great acting performance – all of those things stem from the screenplay. And when it comes to the screenplay, there are two things determining a film’s success at the box office: The first is concept. You gotta give us an idea that will make us come to see the film. And the second is execution. This will determine if people come back again and if they tell their friends to see it.
Now what surprised me as I looked back at the box office over the last couple of years was that there was no out-of-nowhere mega breakout hit. There was no Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch. No My Big Fat Greek Wedding or Slumdog Millionaire. So maybe the studios ARE getting better at knowing what works and what doesn’t (or maybe it means they’re not taking enough chances). However, there were plenty of movies that over-performed. Here are five of them, and what they can teach us about screenwriting.
The Purge
Projected box office: 20-25 mil
Actual box office: 65 mil
What The Purge teaches us is that the clever high concept idea will never die. If you can come up with a cool exciting premise, somebody will buy your screenplay, it will be turned into a movie, and that movie will do well. The Purge asks the question, “What if for one night every year, there were no laws? You could commit any crime you wanted?” That’s why people went to see this movie, because of its concept. To demonstrate the value of this, consider a near replica film that came out later in the summer, You’re Next. Both films were about a family stuck in a house being hunted by people with masks. But You’re Next didn’t even come close to doing The Purge’s box office, despite being a better movie. Why? Because it didn’t have that catchy concept. It’s why I beg and plead with you guys that before you spend the next 6 months to 2 years writing a screenplay, make sure your concept is something people will be excited to see. Not “want to see.” But BE EXCITED to see.
We’re The Millers
Projected box office: 60 mil
Actual box office: 142 mil
I reviewed this script way back in the day and wasn’t impressed. It felt flat and generic. However, I always thought the idea was good, so I’m not surprised people showed up on opening weekend. But the reason this movie went from a solid opening weekend to nearly 150 million dollars was the script, the script, the script. The script REALLY improved, becoming less about random funny jokes, and more about the relationships and the growth of the characters. When you write a comedy, you want to focus on change. You want all of the characters to grow and become better people by the end of the story. Amateur screenwriters think this is cliché and cheesy and avoid it. Professional screenwriters know it’s the trick to make the movie feel complete, feel like it was worth the ride. If the people we’re watching can change, we think we can change. Which makes us feel good, which makes us talk about the movie fondly afterwards. Which makes our friends want to see it. We’re The Millers buttered itself up in heart. It was about a non-family becoming a real family. It wasn’t just funny. It made you feel good.
The Hunger Games
Projected box office: 125-175 mil
Actual box office: 408 mil
The Hunger Games might seem an odd movie to include on this list, but not in any producer’s wildest dreams did they think this film would hit 400 million. Many people chalk this up to the YA novel phenomenon (which has only begun to hit us, for better or worse) but don’t fool yourselves. Hopeful YA books-turned-movies Beautiful Creatures and The Host couldn’t crack 30 million. So Hunger Games was by no means a sure thing. To me, there were a couple of key ingredients to the film’s success. First, IRONY. With film, the right ironic angle can be like audience crack. And here, it’s as ironic as irony gets. Kids fighting in a game to kill each other. Kids aren’t supposed to fight to the death, so we’re intrinsically drawn to that idea. But I think a lesser known ingredient to the film’s success was the simplicity of Hunger’s idea. Remember that in this day and age, you gotta be able to sell a movie to an audience within seconds, which is why so much emphasis is put on the logline. If you can’t explain your screenplay in one simple sentence, how are producers and studios going to explain it on a billboard? Or in a 30 second TV spot? All you need to know about The Hunger Games is that a game is being held where kids are trying to kill each other. You immediately understand the film. I must’ve seen that Beautiful Creatures trailer 7-8 times and I STILL can’t tell you what that’s about. It’s too confusing. The Host was a little clearer, but not really. This girl is taken over by an alien host. But why? And what happens then? It doesn’t sell itself easily. Back to the crème de la crème of YA adaptations, Twilight – a girl falls in love with a vampire. Simple and to the point. I’m not saying that every single script you write needs to be boiled down to one easy sentence. I’m saying that if you’re writing the kinds of movies you hope to sell to a mass audience, they do.
Argo
Projected box office: 60-70 million
Actual box office: 136 million
Argo is one of wackier studio movies I’ve seen do well. Its success can be broken down into two key categories. First, it’s a combination of two subject matters that aren’t supposed to go together. Making a Hollywood movie meets saving Americans in Iran. Those two worlds don’t mesh. That intrigued people enough to show up. But Argo’s box office came mainly from word-of-mouth. In other words, it succeeded because of its well-executed story. So you might be surprised to know that the film has the most traditional structure of all the films on this list, and maybe even the top 20 films of 2012. Argo is a case study in GSU. You have the goal – go save the Americans in Iran. You have the stakes – if they get caught, they’ll be held hostage or worse. You have the urgency – they only have permission to be in Iran for a few days. So they have to do this fast. I don’t mean to promote my book here or anything, but this is about as clean a setup for a story as there is. GSU, or traditional structure, may have been used by thousands of films throughout history, but THAT’S BECAUSE IT WORKS. It’s the best way to tell a story, hands down.
Silver Linings Playbook
Projected box office: 65 mil
Actual box office: 132 mil
Got to give it to David O. Russel. He took two films with indie premises (The Fighter and Silver Linings) and turned them into big box office hits. That isn’t easy to do. While there’s no doubt Silver Linings Playbook benefited from the casting of two hot actors (Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Laurence), that’s not the reason it made so much money. Cooper’s “The Place Beyond The Pines” didn’t make any money. Nor did his “The Words.” And I’m still looking for a single person who saw Jennifer Lawrence’s “House At The End Of The Street.” There’s a lot more at play here. In fact, Silver Linings does a couple of really smart things. First, it takes a genre and flips it on its head. A romantic comedy between two depressed crazy people. This is one of the easiest ways to make your spec stand out, by giving us a new take on a genre. Never forget that. Second, it gives us two really interesting characters. A bi-polar OCD semi-autistic guy with anger issues, and a clinically depressed slutty neurotic girl. We don’t ever get to see those characters on the big screen, and we definitely don’t get to see them going after each other in a romantic comedy. So that was new and exciting. But what I loved about Silver Linings was that it knew it needed boundaries. It knew that crazy doesn’t work without a focused narrative. Cooper’s character’s goal to get his ex-wife back coupled with the dance competition narrative is what allowed these characters to be so nuts without the film running off the rails.
And so there you have it. My belief on why those movies did well. With that said, it’s also important to admit when you don’t know jack shit. And there were a few movies that succeeded over the last couple of years that have straight up baffled me. Like Lincoln. That film made 180 million dollars. I didn’t think it’d break the million dollar mark. The script is all talk talk talk. Zero action. The trailer made me think of something I was forced to watch during History class. I know Spielberg directed it and Daniel Day Lewis acted in it, but the similar-in-tone (and theme) Amistad didn’t do any business, and while Day Lewis is an amazing actor, he’s hardly box office gold. So I have zero idea how that movie did well and am open to suggestions. I’m surprised “42” made 95 million. That film looked really generic (though they did market it well). Didn’t think Ted would get anywhere near 220 million. Uber-generic Safe House’s success still shocks me. So yeah, I still have questions. But that’s what makes analyzing these movies and their success so fun.
