Come one, come all, and vote for your favorite scene!

It’s HERRRRRREEEEEEEE!!!

Scene Showdown you wiley little fashionistas!

I had a lot of fun reading through all the entries. It taught me a lot. It’s clear now that some people know what a scene is and some don’t. It’s clear to me that some people understand the importance of entertaining during a scene and some don’t. We’ll talk about that more next week because I definitely think there are lessons to learn here.

A lot of people had solid scenes that didn’t quite make the cut. Brett Martin’s unique take on Jack The Ripper was fun. Finn Morgan’s mid-air attack on Air Force One was exciting. Nick Maiorano’s wife-strangling scene minutes before the family comes over for Christmas dinner almost made the cut. Colin O’Brien’s time-traveling kids scene flirted with the top 5. Ioannis Kementsetsidis wrote a fun scene about a reporter investigating an old lady in possession of a mysterious gemstone. Andréas Edelman wrote an inventive scene about what life is like in a world where the government has cracked down on laughter. And there were a few other good scenes as well!

But these were the top 5 scenes in my opinion. I’m going to post the first page of each. But you can read the entire scene by clicking on the links for each entry. After you’re finished, vote on your favorite scene in the comments section. Voting ends on Sunday, September 29th, at 11:59pm Pacific Time.

Good luck!

Title: The Factory
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A paranoid factory inspector touring the headquarters of a successful razor company on the verge of a sale is offered an exclusive glimpse of their newest – and most shocking – product yet.
Scene Setup: We open our feature on an exhausted father. Taking his daughter home on a nighttime train. What could go wrong?
Full Scene Link: The Factory

Title: Sign of the Times
Genre: Comedy, Coming-of-Age
Logline: An offbeat high school senior’s directionless life gets a bit more interesting when she grants an elusive first date with a boy who didn’t even ask her out.
Full Scene Link: Sign of the Times

Title: Caught in the Open
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Logline: A cross-country road trip runs straight into some big trouble.
Scene Setup: Fleeing from an abusive relationship, BILLIE-MAY and her nine-year-old daughter, ELLIE, have just set out across country in a beat-up old Corolla. But their escape route takes them through an area that’s recently seen a number of murderous attacks by a pack of mysterious killer dogs…
Full Scene Link: Caught in the Open

Title: ”Based on a True Story”
Genre: Comedy Feature
Logline: A struggling screenwriter recruits his writer friends to help him turn his fictional heist script into a True Story in the hopes it’ll make it more marketable.
Scene Setup: Our protagonist, Andrew, is trying to convince his writer friends to help him act out the events of his screenplay so he can claim it’s a true story, thereby making it much more marketable. He wants to use the money to save the bar he works at (and lives in).
Full Scene Link: Based on a True Story

Title: American Sunshine
Genre: Drama, Crime, Period
Logline: In 1959 Palm Springs, a sleazy private eye teams up with a local Mexican teenager to find out who’s behind the murders happening in section 14, a square mile where all of the poor help live.
Scene Setup: Opening scene
Full Scene Link: American Sunshine

Today (Thursday) is the final day to send in a scene for Scene Showdown. Details are here!

You want to make it as a screenwriter.

You want to sell a script.

You want your script to be turned into a movie.

You want that movie to play in front of millions of people.

But you haven’t been able to fulfill that dream.

Why?

I don’t know.

But I guarantee you: You do.

Yes. The reason you haven’t gotten over the hump yet – you haven’t catapulted yourself into the arena of moviemaking – is 100% because of YOU.

It’s not because of nepotism. It’s not because of the color of your skin or your gender. It’s not because no one will read your script. It’s definitely not because they don’t understand your genius.

It’s you. You’re the problem.

But guess what?

That’s empowering. Because if you’re the problem, that means you possess the solution. You have control over fixing it.

Yet very few writers ever do fix it.

Because of that, they never achieve their dream. They never make it over the hump.

Why?

Because too many writers refuse to self-analyze and identify the REAL problem that’s holding them back. Only once you know what the problem is can you begin the process of fixing it.

Luckily, I’m here to tell you what your problem is. Or, at least, I’m here to provide you with the likely problem.

The sinister thing about “making it” is that we almost always self-sabotage. We get in our own way and prevent ourselves from achieving that which we so badly desire.

So, let’s go over the most common problems standing in the way of your success.

You’re Not Writing Enough

You say you’re a screenwriter. Yet you’re not writing enough. A screenwriter who’s really serious about success should be writing two screenplays a year with at least three drafts of each of those scripts. Or, writing one new script a year while putting the finishing touches on a screenplay from the previous year.

If you’re not doing that, the first question I’d ask you is, how serious are you!? Often, what screenwriters will do is keep fiddling away with one script without having any true destination for it.

This is a “Spinning Your Wheels” problem. You are often so afraid of being judged on the finished screenplay that you keep writing new drafts with no honest intention of ever completing the script. That way, you get to tell yourself you’re working AND you never have to get judged for that work. Perfect combination, right?

This is probably the hardest rock to climb out from under but the way out is clear. Start by setting times for yourself to write. I won’t force you into any time of day. You know what your schedule is like. But PICK. A. TIME. And, every day, write during that time.

From there, pick 2 screenplay contests you’re going to enter. Then, you must enter two scripts into those contests regardless of whether they’re “finished” or not. The idea for you is to get used to writing and get used to deadlines. Because if you can’t find consistency with those two basic things, you’ll never finish any scripts and you’ll never get anywhere.

You’re Not a Salesman

You’re quite good at keeping to a writing schedule. You DO finish your scripts. But then, once you finish, you have one or two people you send them to and if those people don’t flip out for how great your script is and tell you they’re sending it to Megan Ellison or Jason Blum, you tuck the script into a corner of your hard drive and never think about it again.

Your problem is that you do not understand the threshold that must be met in the selling phase of your screenplay. It’s not “Send the script to two people.” It’s not “Send the script to five people.” If you really want to have a chance at selling your script – I mean REALLY – you’ve got to send it to a ton of people.

10 at least. 20 is better. 30 would be awesome. 40 is a writer who’s serious. And 50 is someone who’s tried every avenue.

People say no in this town A LOT. They say no to writers with 20 credits. They’ll say no a lot more to writers with 0 credits. I just told you how Hollywood’s newest screenwriting crush, TJ Newman, was ignored by her first 40 inquiries until she got signed.

And if you’re wondering who to get your script to. ANYONE! Obviously, the closer they are to the business, the better. But contests count. People in the comments section count (well, maybe not Hep Athlete). Managers you cold e-mail count. I count. Every person who reads your script counts because that’s one more person who, if they like it, could push it up the ladder to someone else.

Be proud of your work. If you’ve put your heart and soul into a script, you deserve to have lots of people read it.

You Haven’t Done The Work

This issue pops up with two types of writers. The overeager writer writing his first, second, or third script, and the longtime writer who either never gets feedback or is unable to process feedback and improve the weak parts of his writing.

Each writer is dealing with opposing issues. The new writer doesn’t know what he doesn’t know yet. Every time they’re writing a page, they’re learning new things about the craft. So they can’t be blamed for not knowing why their scripts aren’t resonating.

The way to solve this problem is to assume there is a lot you do not know and to consider yourself an ongoing student of the craft. You are a work in progress and are okay with that. It does not mean you can’t get the attention of a major player with your third script or that you shouldn’t try. But you probably won’t and you shouldn’t get butt hurt if that’s the case. Thank them for their time and assume it’s because there is still more to learn. Get as much feedback as you can and keep getting better. Generally speaking, it isn’t until the 5th or 6th script that a screenwriter starts cooking with gas.

The longtime writer who is not getting better is a tougher fix. This issue often stems from stubbornness but can also be related to the fear that, if you admit to yourself that your writing approach is wrong, it means you have to “start over.” The idea of that is so terrifying that you’d rather stick to the path you’re on and keep charging forward with it.  It’s the sunk cost fallacy.

These writers need to ask for more feedback and, when they get it, they need to process it. Particularly the specific feedback they hear multiple times. Once you know where your weakness is, you can create a little Google Search inspired lesson plan on how to fix it.

Common problems I see are boring characters, writing that lacks clarity, uninspired creative choices, plots that move too slowly, second acts that meander. Probably the biggest one is untested concepts that weren’t strong enough to build a screenplay around in the first place.

I remember a writer who kept getting the note that his scripts lacked conflict so what did he do? He came up with a concept that would automatically inject conflict into every single scene. It ended up being his best script!

There are tons of articles about all of these things on the internet. Just remember: Because there is no screenwriting college (for most of us), it’s up to you to create your own lesson plans.

Finally, be aware of how time stifles enthusiasm. That can be the biggest enemy of all. Of course you don’t have the same drive as you did when you first started and thought this was easy.

But guess what? You are a MUCH BETTER WRITER than when you first started. You’re probably better than the bottom 25% of working writers out there. Possibly even better than that.

Don’t let your diminished enthusiasm prevent that skillset from being seen by the world. Internalize that you’re better than you think you are. Cause I can promise 95% of writers on here that that’s the case. And then call on that younger version of yourself to provide any enthusiasm reserves they can offer to get your stuff out there.

Because, in the end, it all comes down to being seen.

A script cannot become a movie unless it is seen.

Your job then is, simply, to make sure people see it.

All that means is putting some effort into getting it in front of people.

You do that?

Your life may change.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: In the year 2035, companies can help you control your dreams so you can have amazing dream experiences. But one of the dream “writers” learns that her company may be using the dreams to control the clients after they leave.
About: This script finished with 9 votes on last year’s Black List. From what I understand, co-writer Tricia Lee is a director. So she and her co-writer may be writing this for her to direct.
Writers: Tricia Lee and Corey Brown
Details: 104 pages

Constance Wu for Jayden?

Dreayuhyuhyuh dreams… dream dream dreeeeeeams.

Dreayuhyuhyuh dreams… dream dream dreeeeeeams.

For as long as there has been time, there have been screenplays about dreams.

And why not?

Dreams are mysterious.  Dreams are elusive.  Dreams are weeirrrrrd.

But dream movies rarely work. (What Dreams May Come, Vanilla Sky, The Cell, The Science of Sleep, Dreamgirls)

The reason dream stuff doesn’t work is because screenplay is STRUCTURE and dreams are ANTI-STRUCTURE. Often to the point of frustration. Case in point: Has anybody ever shared a dream with you that you actually enjoyed hearing about? Of course not. I don’t care if you were naked in high school and got eaten to death by a band of tiny land whales while your teeth fell out.

So, I go into this script skeptical.

But I am encouraged that the script has two writers. When you’re a lone writer, going into a loosely structured subject matter, you’re more likely to justify randomness and weak choices. In concepts like this that have the potential to go off the rails, it helps when you have a second voice to keep you in check.

Let’s see how that plays out…

30-something Jayden Chan works for a company called Dream Dynamics. She’s one of the dream writers there. Basically, you sign up, you come in, you give Dream Dynamics an idea of the dream you want to have, and the dream writer comes up with it in real time. They’re sort of like your Dream Operator, painting the dream as it happens.

But it’s imperative that the writer always retain 80/20% control of the dream. If the ratio ever dips below that (70/30, 60/40), then that’s REALLY BAD. Bad in what way, you ask? I wasn’t sure. That could’ve been made clearer. I just know that when Jayden’s dream control ratio went down to 70/30, everybody at Dream Dynamics freaked out.

A guy named Kato comes in for a session – KATO (37, Black) watches the intake video. Long braids, handsome as hell, a strong chest you just want to touch under his inauspicious gray sweater – whose dream ratio gets all the way down to 60/40, which nearly gets Jayden fired.

Later that night, Jayden is approached by her brother, Bing, who is a big protestor of Dream Dynamics. He thinks they’re evil. He lets Jayden in on something she didn’t know. That a handful of recent clients, all of them minorities, have died soon after their sessions!

After Kato nearly kills himself, Jayden realizes that something is not right. She suspects that the evil head of the corporation, Richard Fox, is using the dream technology to control the clients after they leave. This allows him to kill them off if need be.

Through a series of character interactions, we learn that this specific dream system is designed to “keep people of color down.” Richard Fox doesn’t want minorities to leave their dreams thinking they can also achieve those dreams in real life. So if they leave optimistic, he must kill them. Jayden teams up with her ragtag crew – basically Kato and Bing – to take down the evil corporation she works for and the nasty man who runs it.

Whenever you’re exploring a big topic like dreams, you need to find a *specific* way into the idea. Because the more you approach an idea from a 10,000 foot point-of-view, the blander the script is going to be. Ideas become more interesting the closer to them you get.

To expand on that, let’s take one of my favorite topics, aliens. Think about all the angles that have been explored through this topic. A kid finds an alien in his backyard and befriends him (E.T.). A family holes up in their farmhouse when aliens arrive on earth (Signs). A group of soldiers try and take out an alien that’s landed in the jungle (Predator). A linguistics professor attempts to communicate with aliens before the U.S.’s adversaries do (Arrival). A city resigns a bunch of aliens to a walled-off ghetto where they’re barely able to survive (District 9).

All of these are very specific ways to explore the topic. We’re not covering the grandiosity of Aliens with a capital A. We are looking at them from a highly specific point of view.

Getting back to dreams, the most successful dream movie is probably Inception and a big reason that worked was because of the specific genre Nolan told the story through.  All dreams were explored as heists.

American Dreams is told through too broad of a lens in my opinion.

You’ve got this giant company. They’re helping people control their dreams. But really they’re using the dream control to control them after their dreams. I don’t know. It just feels too big to be interesting.

Granted, execution plays a big part in this. In a seasoned screenwriter’s hands, the execution of this story’s going to look a lot better. But, as constructed, it doesn’t feel like the idea has been explored with any sort of curiosity.  Every first idea they came up with, they went with.

There’s some basic understanding of screenwriting structure. But the creative choices all feel cliched and predictable. It’s been a while since I’ve read a villain this one-dimensional. He’s mean because….. he’s mean! That’s the extent of his depth.

It’s kind of like watching my rookie quarterback on the Bears through three games. I’m hoping for him to dial up complex 70-yard passing plays for touchdowns. In the meantime, he’s barely able to successfully hand it off to his running back.

I want complex exciting storytelling here but the reality is, these writers are only barely able to execute character descriptions. I get it. We all start somewhere. But for this script to be on the Black List, I’ve got to think Franklin Leonard has transformed into Howard Hughes, randomly throwing darts at titles on the wall.

I would be interested to see what Chat GPT would come up with when given this same idea.  Cause I suspect the script might be better than this. What Chat GPT does well is cliches and soft story choices. That describes American Dreams to a T.  Cliches and soft story choices. It’s the polar opposite of yesterday’s film, The Substance, which had its own problems but a lack of bold choices was not one of them.

I mean, a good 30 pages of this script were dedicated to cutting to the good guys in a room saying, ‘We have to take down the meanie bad guys,’ then cutting to the bad guys in their room saying, ‘We must take down those good guys!’ It was like being transported back to 1984 watching an episode of The Smurfs. Just change the names “Papa Smurf” and “Gargamel” to “Jayden” and “Richard Fox.”

If you want to see a better version of what this script is trying to achieve with its social commentary, check out They Cloned Tyrone.  While I didn’t love that script, it takes a lot more creative risks with both its storytelling and the way it explores this subject matter (white people exploiting people of color).  Everything here felt rushed, first choice, with, I’m assuming, little to no critical pushback between drafts.  Someone needed to challege this writing team with some hard-hitting notes for it to reach its potential.

[x] Gargamel
[ ] Azrael
[ ] Brainy Smurf
[ ] Papa Smurf
[ ] Smurfette

What I learned: I feel so confident the readers of Scriptshadow could’ve done better than this that I challenge everyone here to come up with a better way into this concept: A company that writes your dreams. I bet we get 4-5 ideas that are notably better than whatever this was. Share your ideas in the comments section.

The Substance will become, to everyone who sees it, the most talked about film of the year.

Genre: Body Horror
Premise: A former Hollywood star signs up for a secret service that allows her to split in two, birthing a younger hotter version of herself.
About: I’ve waited five long years to see Fargeat’s follow-up to “Revenge.” Bringing Demi Moore back for a major role? Count me in. Inject some Margaret Qualley into that equation? DOUBLE count me in. The Substance didn’t have the marketing money to get the same awareness as a lot of these other Hollywood movies. But it did win Best Screenplay at Cannes.
Writer: Coralie Fargeat
Details: 2 hours and 20 minutes

Some context is necessary before I get into today’s review.

I knew NOTHING about this movie going into it.

I went because the director directed Revenge and I loved that movie. I couldn’t wait to see what she came up with in her first American film.

That information is key because had I known what I was getting into, I would’ve prepared myself better. It’s the funny thing about expectations. I prefer to know as little as possible about a script or a movie going in. And yet, there are certain types of movies that you need to be in a certain headspace for going in. This was one of those movies.

50 year old former Hollywood star, Elizabeth Sparkle, who’s barely scraping by doing a fitness show for women of a certain age, is mortified when she overhears her evil boss mention that he’s going to fire her and find a younger hotter replacement.

Distracted by that information on her drive home, she gets in a car accident. Luckily, she’s fine. At the doctor’s office, a young attractive man slips her something called “The Substance.” It’s a service that allows you to split into two, basically. This other version of yourself will be young and hot.

Elizabeth injects the substance and births Sue, who immediately auditions for the replacement position, which she gets easily. Good times, right? Ah, but there are rules with the substance. You can only be young for seven days at a time. Your old version then must be reactivated for 7 days to replenish the cells needed to stay young, while you are deactivated. You must keep this schedule or certain body modifications will start happening.

Sue begins loving young life so much that she gradually starts stretching out her seven days. A few hours at first. Then a few days. Elizabeth will wake up with an old finger. Or an old leg. She complains to customer support but they tell her, “You guys are the same. You have to figure it out yourselves.”

Sue then gets on such a hot streak at work that she simply stops switching altogether. When she’s finally out of animation juice, she has no choice but to reactivate Elizabeth, and ohhhhhh boy does Elizabeth look different. She is a beast. And she’s mad as hell at Sue for doing this to her. This can only lead to one thing – a battle to the death.

Let me start with the concept.

I was in.

I’m always telling screenwriters: Start with a big concept. If you start with a big concept, every stage of selling the script becomes a thousand times easier. Getting people to read your script is easier. Getting people to greenlight your movie is easier. And getting people to see your movie is easier.

This idea of being able to trade off with a younger version of yourself half the year via an injectable serum is about as high concept as it gets. Which surprised me. Fargeat’s first film had such a basic premise (a girl is left for dead by her evil boyfriend in the desert and she comes back and kills him and his friends) that I wasn’t expecting something this concept-y.

And I absolutely LOVE Fargeat’s direction. To the point where I’m obsessed with it. That opening sequence where we hold on a top down shot of a sidewalk as Elizabeth Sparkle’s Hollywood star is put in. We see her, top down still, accepting the honor. Then, top down still, we watch the years pass by, overhearing chatter from the people passing over the star. “Who is this?” “I don’t know. She used to be famous a long time ago.” Over more time still, the star starts to crack. Until finally we’re seeing people casually drop food on it. Homeless people wheeling their carts over it. It was such a brilliant way to tell her backstory.

Since Thursday is Scene Showdown (enter here!), I want to highlight the scene-writing as well. My favorite scene occurred in the middle of the movie. Elizabeth decides she wants to go on a date with an old classmate. They set the date for that night. We then show Elizabeth getting ready in the bathroom. She looks at herself in the mirror. But she’s clearly not satisfied. She’s not satisfied because she’s now experienced life as Sue – being younger, tighter, more effortlessly beautiful. So she applies more makeup, trying to hide more of her wrinkles. Mask her imperfections.

But then she’s not happy with her cleavage. It doesn’t look as good as Sue’s. So she grabs a scarf and awkwardly covers herself. We see the clock ticking, getting closer and closer to the date time, but she’s less and less happy with herself, making more and more changes, desperately trying to look as young and pretty as possible, until finally she has a breakdown where she messes up her entire look, climaxing in her sitting, like a lump, on her living room floor, a series of text messages from her date coming in on her nearby phone: “Hello? Are you still coming?” “Are you here yet?” “Are you okay?”

What I liked about the scene is it had that beginning, middle, and end that I’m always advocating for in your scene-writing. And it did it WITHOUT A WORD OF DIALOGUE. That’s not easy to do! So I always rate writers who are able to pull that off.

Now, if the movie would’ve focused on scenes like that the whole time, I would’ve loved it.

But as I slowly began to realize, this was a body-horror movie. Maybe THE body-horror movie. The best of all time, I may proclaim? The problem is, I am NOT a body-horror fan. I don’t enjoy it. It creeps me out. I find it weird. And that was what doomed this movie for me in the final 45 minutes because the final 45 minutes are all body-horror.

Ironically, the things I loved about Coraline’s direction – the extreme close-ups, the unique angles, the unexpected ways she’d shoot a scene – became the things I hated. Cause she wouldn’t just show an eyeball growing on Elizabeth’s shoulder. She would get an extreme close-up of that eyeball, play the various squishy sounds that eyeballs make when they move around, show you pus coming out of the lip of the eye socket. She might keep you there with that eyeball for an entire 60 seconds. It was unsettling.

But for me, the thing that killed The Substance was the absurd amount of blood during the final scene. Have you ever watched a movie where a character gets their arm chopped off and for about 3 seconds, we see them holding their arm, screaming, with blood shooting out everywhere?

Well, I want you to imagine that happening for ten straight minutes. With deafening high-octane metal blasting. And a million close-ups of 200 different people getting sprayed with blood. And we don’t leave the 10,000 square foot room until every wall, every floor, every ceiling, is entirely covered with blood.

It was so bizarrely unnecessary to get the point across. We literally got the point 9 minutes and 30 seconds ago.

And while, at times, Deformed Elizabeth was fun, seeing every crevice of her pulsating decaying body in extreme close-up again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again… oh wait, there’s more… and again and again and again and again and again and again… nope, the movie’s not over yet… and again and again and again, became unbearable.

Unless you’re a body horror junkie, I can’t, in good conscience, recommend this movie. It’s so hard to look at at times, that I don’t know what the entertainment value is supposed to be. And to be honest, I didn’t think the script was very good either. Sue rarely talks. So I never felt like I understood her. The movie is supposed to be taking place in modern day but the New Year’s Finale production seemed to be set in 1950. Coraline played fast and loose with the rules of her story.

I’m bummed out. Cause I expected to love this movie. I thought for sure I’d have another entry for Top Movies of 2024. Twas not to be.

You can read the script here: The Substance

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

What I learned: Learn to tell a scene with a beginning, middle, and end, with no dialogue. If you can write a good scene with that limitation, you should have no problem writing good scenes that contain dialogue.

Scene Showdown is THIS WEEK. Details on how to enter are inside today’s post!

I know the suspense is killing you.

You’re all wondering who won the weekend box office.

Was it 80s nostalgia film #1 or 80s nostalgia film #2?

Are you ready for it?

Sing it with me!

Transformers…

More than meets the eye…

Autobots raise the battle for control of the evil… Decepticons!

Those are the words, right?

Oh wait… this just in.

Transformers did NOT win the weekend. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice did. My fault.

Shucks.

That throws me for a loop. I had this stellar 5000 word dissertation all primed up about Bumblebee’s origin story.

Hmmm…

What do we talk about now!?

How bout SCENE SHOWDOWN! Yes, in case you forgot, Scene Showdown is this week. Your entries need to be in by Thursday night. Everyone here should be entering because, guess what? It takes no time at all to write a scene. Here’s what I need from you for Scene Showdown.

Title
Genre
Logline
Up to 50 words to prep the scene (up from 30)
A PDF of your scene (no minimum length, maximum is 5 pages long)
Send submission to carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Deadline 10pm Pacific Time, Thursday September 26th!

To get you primed for Scene Showdown, I’ll share with you a movie I just saw. It was a French movie called, “Last Summer.” It was about a woman who starts having an affair with her step-son (who happens to be a Timothee Chalamet clone). I know. Spicy!

Anyway, the movie starts on the aforementioned mother, who’s a lawyer, priming a 16 year old girl for her defense in court tomorrow. She asks the girl how many boyfriends she’s had in the last year. How many boys she’s slept with in the last year. Clearly uncomfortable, the girl fights through the answers. The lawyer is merciless. She says to her, “They are going to try to make you look like a slut. It is imperative you do not crack.” She then continues to test her until she’s satisfied.

This is a solid example of how to write a good scene.

Note how, right from the start, you’re placing us in an uncomfortable situation, a situation that has TENSION. Even if that’s all you did, you’re ahead of most of the people writing scenes because sustained tension keeps readers turning the page.

But, also – and this is something so few writers are doing these days – there’s a beginning, middle, and end to the scene. The beginning is setting up what she needs her to say. The middle is the conflict, the girl struggling with being able to do this, and the end is the resolution, the lawyer convinces her to man-up and get ready for battle.

To understand why this is a good scene, look at what the alternative could’ve been, an alternative I read just about every day in mediocre scripts. Start with a typical day, our lawyer at her work doing lawyerly things. We cut to the step-son suntanning in the back yard when she gets home. We cut to them all having dinner together later. We’re getting snippets of scenes, sure.  And we’re moving things forward, yes.  But we’re not being entertained by full-on scenarios along the way.

That’s my ultimate goal with Scene Showdown. I want to remind you writers that it isn’t just about stitching together pieces of a story. It’s about utilizing your scenes as stories in and unto themselves – creating them as a means to entertain all on their own.

Okay, now let’s get back to Transformers One because I can’t help myself.

This movie looked… awful.

Hey, kudos to whatever Paramount promotional team convinced everyone that this was the next Citizen Kane three months ago when the buzz for this film began. But those trailers were major buzz-kills. It honestly looked like something that wouldn’t make the grade if it were a free Saturday morning cartoon. Cheesy animation. Cheesier jokes. None of which were organic to the original spirit of the cartoon. I’m not sure what they were thinking to be honest. And no, I’m not bagging on sci-fi animation. I can’t wait to see The Wild Robot this weekend. I expect it to be nothing short of spectacular. But Transformers One? More like Transformers One-And-Done.

As for what’s coming next at the box office, I want every screenwriter here to pay attention to one film that’s being released. It’s a film I guarantee you’ve never heard of before. And yet knowing about this film may be the most important screenwriting lesson of your life.

The film is titled, “Lee.” It stars Kate Winslet and is about the real life story of a fashion model, Lee Miller, who would go on to become a war correspondent in World War 2. Why am I bringing this movie up? Partly because nobody’s going to see it. But mainly because Kate Winslet has been trying to make this movie for years. She’s been told ‘no’ again and again and again. Yet, finally, she’s done it.

Look, Kate Winslet will likely be in the Oscar race for her performance in the film. She’s a great actress. I love me some Titanic. But too many screenwriters write scripts like “Lee” – these boring-sounding biopics – that have zero chance of ever getting made. There’s a reason everyone in Hollywood told her no. Because they know what I know, and what all of you know. Which is that nobody is going to see this movie.

The only reason it got made was that Winslet begged, borrowed, and stole until finally convincing a studio to allow her to make the movie. But they said only if you star in a more marketable movie of ours. Which was the deal she made.

You are not Kate Winslet. You do not have billions of dollars worth of proven box office in your browser cache. You are a faceless entity. And faceless entity screenwriters need to write scripts that have big ideas that sell themselves. You want to think big. You want to think flashy. Unless you have ten years to pitch how your movie is going to be good despite its boring premise, let your logline do the work for you!

That’s all I ask.

That, and write some grade-A scenes.

I’m being totally honest when I say if you possess these two skills, you are un-freaking-stoppable as a screenwriter. :)