Genre: TV PILOT – one hour procedural drama/thriller
Premise: One of the FBI’s most wanted men mysteriously turns himself in to help the bureau take down a secret list of international criminals that he’s been compiling over the last four years. He calls this list “The Blacklist.”
About: The Blacklist was one of the early pilot scripts that was getting a lot of buzz. The writer, Jon Bokencamp, has done most of his work in the feature world. I’m not sure what area of the business he originally hails from, but he has a few story credits (The Call, Perfect Stranger) which implies he may have worked in a producer or manager capacity? Coming up with ideas and bringing in writers to write them? Or maybe he just got rewritten to death and retained the story credit. His most recent credit is a “story by” credit on The Call, that Halle Berry movie that they made look ridiculous in the trailers but is actually one of the better thrillers of the past year. Definitely worth checking out if you like a good thriller. The Blacklist stars James Spader and debuts this fall on NBC.
Writer: Jon Bokenkamp
Details: 57 pages

Okay okay, I give up. NBC has been promoting this Blacklist show so heavily that I’ve finally broken down and read it. Now I’ll be honest – while I can tell you with 98% certainty which movies are going to bomb and which will do well, TV is more of a crapshoot for me. And a big reason for that is the unique model. TV doesn’t have movie stars to bring in a built-in audience. They also aren’t as dependent on concepts as films are. TV is more about the characters, which ironically works against the very thing they don’t have access to – BIG STARS.

In my little pretend world of TV knowledge, I believe a hit show comes down to four things. One: is the show written well? You have a lot of guys faking their way through this business. But when a good writer writes a show, you know it.  Next, the casting.  Since you don’t have star power, you have to find faces that excite potential viewers when they see the promo for the show. Three, how the show is promoted. This is huge. A bad promotion means nobody watches the first week and then, even if your show is good, it doesn’t matter because no one’s around to tell anybody about it.

Finally, I think every show has to have something a little sexy going for it. Not “sexy” in the literal sense, but just something that makes it stick out from the pack. Lost had that. Once Upon A Time, House, Person of Interest, Heroes, they all had some “sexiness” factor going for them, some fun thing that stood out.

Like I pointed out the other day – the people who buy TV pilots seem to be really into the “teaser” of your show – the opening scene that sucks the audience in. And The Blacklist doesn’t skimp in that area. 55 year old Raymond “Red” Reddington walks into FBI Headquarters and proceeds to tell the guard that he’s there to see Agent Harold Cooper. The annoyed guard makes the call, and the reaction he hears on the other end when he mentions Red’s name turns his expression into the Scream mask.

Red casually gets on his hands and knees EVEN BEFORE the FBI swarms in and grabs him. Red happens to be the FBI’s fourth most wanted man. Once they’ve secured him, they inundate him with questions. You see, Red used to be an agent himself. Until he disappeared under mysterious circumstances and was found selling United States info to every country with an “I hate America” complex.

Now the FBI wants answers. Unfortunately, Red won’t talk to them. In fact, he states he’ll only talk to one person – Elizabeth Keen. Keen is, ironically, starting her first day as a profiler, and she’s never crossed paths with this Red guy before. So she’s as baffled as anyone that he’ll only talk to her. But if you’re expecting Red to tell us why he’s chosen our heroine, both of you are gonna be disappointed. Red is keeping that secret close to the vest, and he enjoys toying with her about that mystery, which only enrages her (Keen’s got a little bit of a anger issue).

But Keen’s gotta play ball because Red happens to know of a terrorist, Ranko Zamani, who just entered the U.S. and is planning to kidnap the daughter of U.S. General David Ryker. Red doesn’t know all the details behind Zamani’s plan, but enough that the FBI has to let Keen take point on the job, since she’s the only one Red will speak with.

Keen ends up thwarting the kidnapping, only to be attacked by Zamani in transit. The girl is kidnapped as planned, and now Keen will have to figure out what he plans to do with her. All signs point to a big terrorist statement attack, but what that plan is eludes her. Her only chance is to turn to Red, who’s been bunking with criminals for four years now and understands their unique non-American motivations. He will teach her how to take down not only Zamani, but every other terrorist on his secret blacklist.

Hmmm…

This pilot was pretty good I suppose. It was very “feature-like” in its execution. We have a classic movie set-up. Terrorist. Going to detonate a bomb. Our heroes have to stop it.

Pardon the pun, but it was EXPLODING with GSU.

My problem may have been the rather excessive borrowing from one of our favorite FBI movies of all time, Silence Of The Lambs. I mean, at one point, Red, probing for details about Keen’s life even offers the line, “You tell me, I tell you.” The relationship was so reminiscent of Clarice and Hannibal that it became overbearing at times.

And this is where we, once again, run into that oft-used phrase, “Same but different,” which seems to drive every producer’s magic formula for material they buy. For those who have crossed into the sea where we actually understand this phrase, you know that there’s still a giant question mark within it. That is, “How different or same does it need to be?” If you go too far, you risk coming up with something bizarre. If you don’t go far enough, your story feels derivative. I’m still not sure where The Blacklist lies but it feels kissing-cousins close to Lambs. You’ve replaced a serial killer with terrorists. That’s the big change. But the central relationship IS, basically, Hannibal and Clarice.

Another thing that bothered me was the safeness of it all. I was asked after I finished it, “What did you think?” That’s usually when you’re the most honest. When someone asks you point-blank what you thought. And I answered, “It was good but it all felt so…safe, like the exact kind of been-there-done-that show you always see on network television.”

And I don’t know if that’s an insult or a compliment. Because network TV is only going to go so far. They’re not going to have Walter White in primetime. Knowing how far they’re willing to go, and writing a show that fits that criteria is a talent in itself. The fact that this made it to air and is NBC’s biggest bet this season is proof of that. Whereas with features I know how safe or risky you can be in every genre, I still don’t have a feel for that in the TV world. My gut feeling is that if I would have sent this out as an agent, I would’ve gotten the response, “Too derivative.”

Moving on, I may have actually learned something today about pilots!  We had one, and only one, giant set-piece. Is this the standard allotment, due to time and money constraints, whenever you write a pilot? You only get that one big set-piece (I’m asking you, commenters). Because if that is the case, I learned that since you’ve only got one, you gotta make it count. And The Blacklist did.

The scene in question is when the bad guys kidnap the girl from Keen in transit. It happens on a car bridge that’s lifting and splitting as our bad guys are rappelling up from below to get to the top where Keen and the girl are. As the grade gets steeper, cars are falling down one by one, all with people inside of them. A very cool and well-written scene (the best set-piece scenes I can always picture in my imagination as I’m reading them. This scene had that).

I guess this was a helpful read in order to figure out what kind of stuff networks are looking for with their one-hour dramas. It’s clean. It’s fast-paced. It’s packed with stakes and urgency. There are twists and turns and reveals and questions. The writing’s very crisp.

It’s just not very original. I guess you gotta go to the cable channels if you want that.

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

What I learned: Don’t over-telegraph your twists. Over and over again, we get these blatant hints that Red is Keen’s dad. He calls her Lizzie. He knows everything about her past. We never get the answer to this question in this episode, but it looks like that’s going to be a huge reveal somewhere in the future. If that’s the case, I beg the producers to change it. It would be the single most over-telegraphed twist in the history of TV.

In general, overly-telegraphed twists are rookie stuff. You never want the reader to be ahead of you.

Un-LESS! Unless you’re over-telegraphing cause you’re tricking the reader/audience. If The Blacklist keeps selling this obvious “He’s your dad” subtext and then turns the tables on us only to reveal a completely different twist we had no idea was coming, then the writer has successfully outwitted us.

So don’t over-telegraph your twists. Unless you’re going to use the audience’s expectations of that twist to pull one on them!

Genre: Horror/Slasher
Premise: (from imdb) When the Davison family comes under attack during their wedding anniversary getaway, the gang of mysterious killers soon learns that one of victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back.
About: This film has taken a strange journey. It actually debuted at a film festival over TWO YEARS AGO. Everyone at the festival loved it, getting the indie horror scene all goosed up to see the film. But then it just sat, and sat, and sat. Why? I have no idea. Maybe the producers believed they had something better than what they were being offered. It more recently played at SXSW, repeated the hype there, and Lionsgate finally picked it up. The studio that brought us “Saw” saw another bloody horror opportunity, and released the film this weekend. It didn’t really light up the scene (it had no stars to sell it) bringing in about 7 million bucks, but neither did any of the other opening films (which all made less than 10 mil). And this modestly budgeted (2 million budget I’m guessing?) film will definitely make a nice profit. Director Adam Wingard is best known for directing the “wraparound” storyline for VHS. In an unrelated story, director-actor Joe Swanberg, who starred in the film as “guy who gets arrow stuck in his back,” also released his directing effort, “Drinking Buddies,” this weekend, meaning he had the unfortunate job of competing against himself!
Writer: Simon Barrett
Details: 94 minutes

Let’s have a discussion, shall we?

So a couple of weeks ago, I downloaded this movie on iTunes called “Would You Rather.” It was a contained horror film that (as far as I know) was never released in theaters. It starred Brittany Snow in a story about a young woman, who, in order to save her dying brother, agrees to participate in a contest at a mysterious rich gentleman’s home. That “contest” ends up being a life-or-death game of “Would You Rather.”

How was it? Pretty silly. Not terrible but not good either.

Flash-forward to this weekend, where I went out to see You’re Next, another contained horror film with no stars that takes place in a wealthy person’s home. And here’s where I begin the discussion. How is it, that of these two movies, one gets a wide release on 2000 screens, and the other goes straight to digital? Because to me, you have two very similar films, both with “Fresh” Rotten Tomato scores. So I don’t understand what makes one theater-worthy and the other not.

I ask this question because a movie that plays in theaters will always make more than a movie played digitally. So producers are, obviously, going to look for scripts that they can put up on the big screen. And with horror being such a popular genre, I want to know the answer to that so that you, the writers, can exploit it and get your script on the big screen.

You’re Next follows a family getting together for dinner at their well-off parents’ house located in the middle of nowhere. All three brothers and one sister bring along their significant others. The main couple is Crispian and Erin. Crispian is sort of an uptight young professor type. And Erin is more of a relaxed “go with the flow” kind of gal. Besides them we have Felix (Black Sheep Brother), Drake (Funny Brother) and Aimee (People Pleaser Sister).

The family isn’t any more dysfunctional than any other family of this make-up would be, but there appears to be some animosity between Drake and Crispian, as Drake believes Crispian’s more interested in banging his students (as Erin used to be) than actually doing something with his life. Whatever the case, everyone lives under the shadow of the mother and father, who are wildly successful. This adds a layer of tension to most of the interactions in the script.

So anyway, dinner begins, and after an argument breaks out, an arrow comes flying through the window, hitting and killing poor Aimee’s date. A group freak-out begins, until the family realizes that the arrows are still coming. As others get hit (like Drake, who hilariously walks around with an arrow in his back for half the movie), they’re eventually able to escape to the safety of the master hallway.

What follows is equal parts “what the fuck is going on” and “we’re all gonna die,” but there’s one person who seems impossibly calm during the ordeal – Erin. As we’ll find out later, Erin grew up on a survivalist compound, so she knows a few things about protecting herself. After wrapping Drake’s wound, she gives instructions to everyone on what their best chance for survival is. Pretty soon the family is blocking doors, locking windows and setting traps.

But the hopeful vibes don’t last long. Not only does the killer get in the house, but it turns out another of the killers has been in the house ALREADY. Like, for days. This thing apparently had been planned out extensively. The question is, what is the plan? Why are they doing this? And who’s involved? As the family members die one-by-one, Erin’s killer instincts allow her to put together the pieces, until she realizes the unfathomable truth.

(Would You Rather)

This movie is about as well made as a movie of this type can be. Sure it was cheesy at times. Sure there was some bad on-the-nose dialogue in places (since when does a conversation start: “So your parents are, like, really rich right?”). But it got right what it needed to get right, starting with the main character. Erin was ACTIVE! And I bring this up because it’s the biggest difference between this film and Would You Rather. Brittany Snow, in that film, does just enough to get us into the house (and therefore, the meat of the movie) and then simply disappears on-screen. She doesn’t do a thing except for watch everyone die for the rest of the film! And this is our main character!

You’re Next’s Erin takes charge, gives everyone shit to do, puts together traps, outsmarts the villains, kills the villains – SHE’S A HERO. And I know we’ve discussed this plenty of times before, but the extreme contrast between Erin’s “go-get-em” attitude and Britney’s “sit and stay quiet” approach made a HUGE difference in how much we a) rooted for the hero and b) by association CARED about what happened.

And, in general, You’re Next spent a lot more time setting up its characters before they started getting killed. We see everyone come in, get to know a little about them, about their significant other, about the relationship dynamics between them and the rest of the family members, then the dinner scene comes, AND ONLY THEN does the killing start.

In Would You Rather, we start out getting to know Brittany Snow and her dying brother – so there IS some character setup – but we don’t know ANY of the other characters at the house. Britney shows up, receives a couple of expositional setup lines about each person, then the game starts. Since we didn’t know any of these people, why should we care? That was another huge difference between the two movies. And the craziest thing was that the one person we DID know becomes a virtual mute. So not only do we not know anyone else, but we’re bored by the one person we do know!

Now what does this mean for our original question? What is it that makes one movie a theatrical release and another a homeatrical release? I might be a little biased here being Scriptshadow and all but I’m going to say THE SCRIPT. The script (nice character set up, strong active fun main character, clever twists and turns) is what allowed them to make something more than a typical slasher movie. People loved it at the festivals, which gave a studio the confidence that they could release it theatrically. Would You Rather’s script didn’t have nearly the energy or character development that You’re Next had.

Are there other things involved? Sure, probably. The ease in which one can market masks in a horror film probably helped. And this movie had a lot more MOVEMENT than Would You Rather. We’re jumping around from room to room, experiencing a lot of intense kills. That’s way more theatrical than the static deaths that happened in Would You Rather (most of the film takes place in a single room). But those are script decisions as well.

So in my opinion, as I’ve always contended: write a good script, good things will happen!

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

What I learned: This so so SO reminded me of the importance of an active main character. You don’t realize how important they are until you watch two movies back to back, one without an active character, the other with one. We love people who take charge, who do things, who fight back, who come up with ideas, who cleverly outwit their opponents. These active people always feel like heroes to us. That was Erin here.

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: Soulless
GENRE: Action/Thriller
LOGLINE: A young mercenary on a mission to exact revenge on his mother’s murderers, must partner with his clone – a black ops agent working for the secret intelligence organization responsible.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “Where I’m from, nobody gives a damn about the art of screenwriting. I never used to either, until I stumbled upon a Pulp Fiction script online about seven years ago. Being the artistically inclined person I am, I thought it’d be a cakewalk and ended up with a buncha shitty scripts. On my journey to mastering this bch, I discovered Scriptshadow. Since then, everything’s been better defined in my mind and Soulless is my second screenplay written with the sole purpose of applying all that I’ve learnt from you.

TITLE: The Ineligibles
LOGLINE: In a utopian future where all communication is telepathic, a stranded Ancient Studies student must venture the wilderness to save her society from a telepathy-inadequate genius who has caused a worldwide communication blackout.
GENRE:Sci-fi, Action/Adventure
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “I’m submitting my script to you Mr. Reeves because I’m a nobody. To clarify, I’m an unknown screenwriter swirling with the thousands of fellow unknowns in the murky tidal pool of LA. I’ve written several features, placed in the semifinals of the Nicholl, sent out countless queries (with zero responses of course), but I’m still stuck on the outside. So what’s in it for you to read a nobody’s script? I completely believe in the originality of my story and feel you’ll find enjoyment in it if nothing else. And if the stars align, maybe it could lead to more exposure for ScriptShadow and a break-in for me. Oh, and I’ll also send you some bomb-ass cupcakes if you do.”
(Psst… Miss SS is liking the sound of that)

TITLE: Second Place Hero
GENRE: Action Comedy
LOGLINE: A biploar theater geek heads to school and gets cast in a role he never expected to play: a real-life hero who must battle a band of goons to stop them from kidnapping a fellow classmate.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “The script is a 2013 Nicholl Quarterfinalist, and it’s got a tone all its own. (Big talk, I know, but how else can I get you to read it?) if I were to pitch this is in one second, it would be: “Imagine if John Hughes wrote Die Hard.'”

TITLE: The Killing of Apollo
GENRE: Action-Thriller
LOGLINE: When a godlike superhero begins serving vicious, indiscriminate justice, a PTSD-suffering tactical operative must join a special ops mission to bring him down before the entire world becomes collateral damage.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “Here’s something interesting about myself: when I was just out of high school I saw an HBO promo with Matt Damon (in his Talented Mr. Ripley afterglow period) and Ben Affleck (in his post-Armageddon apology tour) asking aspiring filmmakers to submit a screenplay to their new show, Project Greenlight. Since I wasn’t looking forward to college, I decided I was going to become a filmmaker instead. Obviously, I did not think this through.

Three months later I had a 57-page screenplay about a group of teens that were the youngest people on earth due to an inexplicable infertility pandemic. Other than beating Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men to the punch by 6 years, the result was horrible; I remember writing a description that started with, “She oozes cool from every pore.” Yeah, I know.

I was so disappointed with my screenplay that I did not even bother submitting it. But I caught the bug, and I kept writing. Thirteen years later I am finally submitting a work that I am proud of. I would love to get some feedback from you and the Scriptshadow community.”

TITLE: The Tiger And The Fig Tree
GENRE: Comedy
LOGLINE: In a last ditch effort to save his crumbling life, Peter travels to the Amazon to plead with the native tribe who cursed his family, and is sent home with the village’s witch doctor, in training, to help defeat the curse.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): Why? Because I want my characters to live, I want to find an audience, I want some feedback, and I want a chance.

Amateur Friday Submission Process: 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: Crime-Thriller
Premise: (from writer) After looting one of two priceless statuettes known as the Twins in Iraq, a couple of down-on-their-luck veterans must traverse the U.S. criminal underworld on a quest to sell it — not realizing that the owner of the other Twin is a high-ranking intelligence official who will stop at nothing to get his hands on their statue.
About: (from writer) Ever since uploading my short “J-W-G” at the tail end of Shorts Week, I’ve been fielding a surprising number of requests from ScriptShadow readers for a feature-length script of mine. So here it is — a classic crime road movie in the vein of “True Romance” or the original “Getaway.” I don’t think there was a single decent example of the subgenre written in the 2000s, let alone in the 2010s.”
Writer: Ellen Starkweather
Details: 116 pages

So last week around 12am Friday morning, I started getting e-mails, like lots of e-mails, all thanking me for an opportunity to finally read one of Ellen Starkweather’s scripts. I was confused. Who was Ellen Starkweather? I’d never heard of her before. Was she some sort of internet celebrity? I started doing some investigating. And what I found was that during shorts week, Ellen had posted her short in the comments section and a lot of writers had really liked it. They wanted to know if she’d written any features. Hence the excitement over her script.

Having said that, The Twin came out on what some people have called the best Amateur Offerings Week ever. The quality on display was impressive. So I’m setting the bar pretty high today. If this is taking a spot that could have gone to several others, then it has to prove its worth. I wasn’t thrilled when I noticed a six-line paragraph on the first page (more on that later), but I was excited to be a part of the Ellen Starkweather story!

The Twin starts out with a really nifty 8 page montage starting in the year 1349 (during the bubonic plague) and ending in the present. In it, we see a Sculptor construct two little mini-statues of a girl. The only difference is that one is nicked. We then watch, through the years, as the statues change hands many times, usually through war and bloodshed. At some point they’re split up, and hundreds of years later is when our main character, Ann, becomes a part of their lore.

Ann is a marine who happened to be on the patrol that invaded Saddam Hussein’s palace during the Iraq War. While strolling down the halls, she comes upon a room full of art. And there it is. The twin! Ann, for reasons that aren’t clear to us yet, knows exactly what the twin sculpture is and discreetly slides it in her backpack.

The plan is obviously to sell it once back home, but on her way back to base, her and her patrol get hit by an IED! Half of Ann’s face is blown off, making her look like the female version of Two-Face! Lucky for Ann though, she survives, and she’s able to take the statue back to America. But when she gets there, someone else has found out about the twin, and is holding her OWN twin sister, Carol, for trade (yes Ann has a twin sister)! She must give them the statue or her sister dies.

Ann, however, has no interest in saving her sister. Her sister stole her boyfriend three years ago and she’s still bitter. She just wants to kill all these men except for one so she can get the name of the secret collector who’s willing to pay 17 million for the twin. Why would anyone pay 17 million for a sculpture? Because this collector has the OTHER TWIN. If he gets Ann’s twin, he’ll have the set!

So Ann finds one of her old platoon members, Travis, to help her infiltrate the place where Carol’s being held. The infiltration goes bad, however, and they accidentally kill all the bad guys, leaving them with no one to give them the Collector’s name. This forces Ann to go back to her ex-boyfriend, Paul, the one who banged her sister, and cut him in on the deal if he can give them the name of the person who knows the Collector (never really understood how he’d know this person).

In the meantime, a federal agent, Brian, finds out about this madness and wants in! So he kidnaps Carol and forces her to tell her where her sister’s going. Also, independent of all of this, there are some ex-marines who were screwed over by Travis in some deal-gone-wrong who now want revenge! So THEY come after Ann and Travis as well.

Ann and Travis go to Indianopolis to meet someone named Spider, and eventually to Miami, where they finally meet “the Collector.” But it turns out the Collector is the CIA DIRECTOR! And to be honest, I still don’t know what that means. Either the director DID own the other twin piece, or this was all a big trap, or both. Naturally, then, Ann and Travis are going to have to take him down if they want to survive!

You may have noticed that I went into a little more detail today with the summary than I normally do, and I did that for a reason. The Twin’s big problem is it’s over-plotted. There are too many disparate things going on. Now I’ve seen this practice work before, but only when a writer is meticulous in his plotting and in his attention to detail, when he/she makes every single story thread clear as day so we always know who’s who and what’s going on.

I didn’t get that here. Everything felt rushed and sloppy. You can’t rush a story when there are this many things going on. For example, Tex? The guy after Travis? We don’t care about him. Why? Because we don’t even know what Travis did to anger him. The stuff about the black market bullet trade was never explained well. And to be honest, I didn’t really know Travis either. I just saw him as some guy Ann bumped into on the street (literally) who decided to join the mission. But that’s what I mean. Nothing is really clear (Travis, Travis’ pursuers) so it all felt sloppily thrown together.

Or take Carol. Why is Carol a twin? I can’t think of any reason for it. The fact that we have twins never plays into this at all. They could’ve just as easily been regular sisters. Or friends. When you include twins in an intricately plotted thriller, there’s gotta be a plot reason for it. There has to be some switching places (which, I know, would mean removing the whole damaged face thing). There’s gotta be some cool reason for why you do it. Or else what’s the point?

Or the fact that Ann wanted this statue in the first place. I’m not opposed to someone’s sole motivation being money. But it’s better to have a compelling motivation for why they want that money. Maybe it’s to save a family member, save a home, leave and live on the pristine beaches of Mexico forever. Why did Ann want this money so bad? The motivation is sold to us in the middle of the script that she wants the best reconstructive surgeon in the world to redo her face. But she didn’t lose her face until AFTER she snagged the sculpture. So what was her original motivation?

And then you’d just get strange scenes, like in the middle of the script, Travis tries to sneak out of their motel with the sculpture. Ann catches him, tries to slit his throat, fails, he tries to shoot her, fails, then they both just look at each other, go back inside, and act like it never happened. Like they didn’t just try to kill each other. What??? Nothing here felt thought-through at all.

And that’s the big problem. I think Ellen’s got a lot of talent. In fact, I’d even say, please send me any future scripts you have, Ellen. You can write! But you can’t send subpar stuff out there that you whipped up on a tight time frame and expect to compete with people with the same amount of talent who’ve done 20 drafts. Because believe me, those people are out there. No matter how many terribly written movies hit the theaters, I can promise you, the competition in the trenches of the screenwriting business is FIERCE. You got a lot of smart good writers all competing for those big checks.

This script started out great and has potential. If I were Ellen, I’d strip out all the unnecessary stuff (like Tex), spend more time building up your characters (I want to know why Ann wants this money so bad. I want to know who Travis is period), and slow down. Take your time explaining the plotlines so we actually understand what’s going on. I never understood the black market ammo business backstory. I wasn’t clear on who the Collector was in the end or what his motivation was. In the act of trying to outsmart the audience, you outsmarted the story. Keep it simpler and stupider!

Script link: The Twin

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

What I learned: I often rail against large paragraphs in scripts (anything over 4 lines). They just aren’t necessary. HOWEVER, there is an exception. It’s okay to use a big paragraph when you’re actually describing something interesting. Not a person, or a home, or a club. All of those things can typically be relayed in 2 or 3 lines. But something that conveys a powerful image. The reason I ended up being okay with that 6 line paragraph on page 1 of The Twin was that it conveyed a powerful image.  It was striking. And in those cases, a big chunky paragraph is fine. Here it is: “The dead in the cart are men, women and children, piled together haphazardly. Commoners’ rags, soldiers’ tunics, the bright green spill of a noblewoman’s gown… Their extremities are either blackened by gangrene or covered with pale, golf ball-sized swellings. These swellings are buboes, the tell-tale signs of bubonic plague.”

Carson, here– I’m currently stuck in someone’s basement.  Say no to strangers, kids.  Especially if they don’t know the secret word.  But not to worry.  Last week some of you were asking to hear from a genuine script reader.  Today I’m making those dreams come true.  Here’s Matt, who read for a couple of production companies.  He’ll tell you what kind of people you’re trying to get past, and has even offered to answer questions in the comments.  So shoot them out there after you read his article, which is damn good!   

{Note: These are my experiences having worked as a reader for two production companies. As I learned by working with two different companies, every process is slightly different. But I also learned that for the most part, they’re incredibly similar. Also note, I will not, for what should be obvious reason, be publicly naming any names.}

Okay, so what I’m going to do is a bit of a faux-interview in that nobody is actually interviewing me, but I’ll present some questions and answer them, and go into the details of my experience as a script reader, advice, etc. Some of this is probably blatantly obvious to many of you, some of it may not be. I’m just putting it all out there.

My Background

In short, I started writing when I was 17 after I watched (for the first time), Pulp Fiction, Taxi Driver, and The Departed (the latter had just come out the year prior). Before that I had maybe seen fifty films in my entire life, and none of them were like those movies. Long story short, I found this amazing website called TriggerStreet, became a member (which was against the rules since I wasn’t 18 yet), and read and reviewed at least four hundred scripts on that site over the years, and wrote many myself. I met some incredible people, and eventually moved to Los Angeles and remain good friends with many of them. I mention this because it is a wonderful site to get feedback on your scripts, as well as read others’ work (which is an invaluable learning experience unto itself). I encourage you to check it out.

How’d I get a job as a reader?

I don’t know how most people do it. I never asked them. Mine was sheer blind luck. I was 19, living in Ohio, and I ended up working on a documentary for some people that flew in from Los Angeles. The director happened to have worked for this company in the past, and he said he’d set me up with an interview. I did a phone interview and sample coverage and there you go. I was getting paid to read scripts.

The Process – What did I do?

I would get a script emailed to me. I knew nothing about the script other than the title. No logline. (this applies to both companies) They’d give me a deadline, though usually I’d do it much faster so I could get another script to read. I’d read the script, and fill out a coverage sheet. The coverage sheets vary from company to company, but all of them are essentially: a one page synopsis and then rating (scale one to ten usually) and describing the concept, story, dialogue, character, and marketability. I would also assess (obviously a guesstimate) the budget (low, medium, high). Then I’d tell them whether I recommended the script or whether it was a pass. If I recommended it, it would be kicked further up the ladder for someone else to read. If I passed, that was the end of it. And that last part is why lowly readers like myself (well, okay, there is someone even lower – the unpaid intern) are so important. If you submit an unsolicited script, you can bet that it’s going to be read by someone like me. Or, as I mentioned, an unpaid intern.

About Unpaid Interns

Unpaid interns are people who pimp themselves and their knowledge out for free in the hopes of one day securing a job. Go to Los Angeles Craigslist TV/Film jobs, and you’ll see how many unpaid internships are floating around out there. I’m generally against this type of work, for a variety of reasons. One of which is that unpaid interns write HORRIBLE coverage (no this is not universally true, but almost). When I say horrible, I mean that their coverage often lacks attention to detail and at least fifty percent of them I read indicated a significant lack in ability to form a coherent sentence. And I largely think this is because they’re unpaid! As The Joker said, “If you’re good at something, never do it for free.” But like I said, this isn’t universally true. I’ve read plenty of coverage from unpaid interns who took it very seriously and were incredibly diligent.

 Know Who You’re Sending Your Script To

One company I worked for would get all types of scripts, all different genres. The other company worked primarily in comedy. Don’t send your sci-fi adventure script to a company who only makes low budget dramas! Do some research about who you’re sending it to first. This will maximize your potential, waste less time, and if you’re querying a company (yes it does work sometimes), you can personalize the query.

What Kind of Scripts Did I Read?

Everything. And I mean everything. Like I said, one company dealt specifically in comedy, so I didn’t read everything there. The other company… I read low budget dramas, I read comedy, I read high-octane action scripts. The longest script I ever read was 138 pages, and the shortest was 57 pages. Yes, 57 pages, and no it was not a TV pilot. I’m not sure how or why that script was selected, but I suspect it was as a favor.

Did I Ever Recommend a Script?

Yes. For every hundred scripts, I probably recommended five of them to go up the chain. Does this mean I’m a hard-ass? Maybe, but probably not. It simply means that a majority of scripts aren’t ready for the big time. And there were times when I did not recommend a script, but I’d recommend the writer. Maybe the script would be too expensive. Maybe it wasn’t quite right for them. But the writing was excellent. So I’d recommend the writer, but not the script.

What Happened if I Recommended a Script?

Well, I’m not 100% in the know on this in terms of every single step that would happen. I never followed up on scripts, I just did my job and read them and provided feedback. But what I can say is that if I recommended it, it would get kicked up to my boss, who wasn’t the top of the ladder, but certainly had some strings they could pull and stuff might happen. From what I understood, it would get kicked up to this person, and they would read it, and if they liked it, then they would have other people read it for more feedback. This was the case not only where I worked, but many other agencies, production companies, etc. One person who has a lot of sway may like a script, but they will almost always have other people that they work with read it to get their opinions too. So once you get past the lowly reader, you (usually) have to not only impress whoever they kick it up to, but probably two or three other people as well before you’ll even hear back from them.

Essentially, you have to make quite a few people fall in love with your script before anything will happen. On the bright side, it’s incredibly rare that every single person who reads it loves it. But if six people at the company read it, and only one doesn’t like it, you have some good odds.

I do believe that I once recommended a script, and while the script was not purchased or made into a film, the company hired the writer to do some other work for them. That kind of ties into the “recommending the writer” thing, except I also recommended the script in this case.

What Did I Look for in a Script?

Great writing, of course! But more so than that, I wanted originality. I wanted scenes and characters I hadn’t seen before. And I wanted to be MOVED in some way. It doesn’t have to be to tears. A horror script might creep me out. A thriller might… thrill me. If you can make the reader feel something, you have just improved your odds of a recommendation ten fold.

What to Avoid in Your Script

None of this stuff is guaranteed to screw you if you have it in your script. It’s simply a matter of increasing your odds, and these types of things will most likely lower them.

Big budgets
If you’re writing the next Pacific Rim, it may not matter how amazingly well written it is, if the company can’t make that kind of film, they can’t make it. The chips are a bit stacked there. Sure, these films tend to be more marketable and make more money, but bang for your buck? Horror and comedy. Thrillers are also a much easier sell.  But, if your heart is set on that big-budget action film, go for it. You have to write what you love, or your script will suffer. And there ARE companies looking for that stuff. Same goes for sci-fi.

Being Too Subtle
This is incredibly tricky. All good films have their subtleties. Their subtext. All good scripts have them. But when it comes to readers, some of whom don’t put much effort in at all, there is such as a thing as being too subtle. Problem is, of course, there’s such a thing as hitting the reader over the head. It’s such a tricky, fine line to balance that I can’t possibly explain how to walk it. But simply keep in mind, you can be too on-the-nose, but you can also be too subtle, and it will completely go over the inattentive reader’s head.

Directing from the Page
Sometimes this is perfectly fine. But a lot of amateur writers completely overdo it, and it’s ANNOYING. Not only does it make for a tedious read, but if it ended up being produced, the director will do whatever the hell he wants. Use these only when ABSOLUTELY necessary, and I would say no more than three times in a script.

Music Cues
Unless the music is playing in the scene itself, don’t include it. You’re not writing a friggin’ soundtrack. Not only will they totally ignore your ideas if it was produced, but it’s really damn annoying to read. It pulls the reader out of the script, and that’s the last thing you want.

There are of course many other things to avoid, but those four in particular are important when it comes to the lowly script reader. The rest (like less black more white on the page, too many characters, etc.) are just universally good to avoid.

Myths About Readers

In my time spent on Triggerstreet and in the screenwriting world in general, I heard a lot of these (and probably more). After working as a reader, I realized how many of them were just utter bullshit. Note: this applies to readers only, not to people like development executives. It applies to the lowest people on the totem pole (which are the first people who will read your script in most cases, unless you know someone higher up and can bypass these people).

If you don’t hook them in the first ten, they’ll throw your script in the trash
No, they won’t. Not only is this the age of the Internet, where it would be the recycle bin instead, but none of that will happen. Why? These people are PAID (or sometimes not paid, but it’s still their job) to read the ENTIRE script. As I mentioned above regarding the coverage sheets I would fill out, I had to write a synopsis! You can’t do that unless you read the entire script.

Now, this is one reason I specified this applies to readers only. A development executive, for example, who isn’t paid per script and has no obligation to read an entire script, will most certainly toss your script if he doesn’t like it after ten, fifteen, twenty pages. I’ll never forget one script I got into the hands of someone who could make shit happen and their response: “gave it twenty pages, good writing, liked it, didn’t love it, thanks for sending.” But the little guy that works for someone like him who’s paid to read scripts and send the good ones up the ladder? THEY READ THE ENTIRE THING.

Grammar/Spelling/Formatting
Your script will not be discarded if you make a few grammatical, spelling, or formatting guffaws. This goes back to the “they are paid to read the entire thing.” However, if your script is rife with errors, it will give the (potentially incorrect) feeling of amateurism. So it’s not entirely a myth that this stuff can sink a script, but it is a myth that it’s guaranteed to screw you over if you have a few mistakes here and there. Nobody. Cares.

Directing From the Page
Yes, I said to avoid this. And you should. But like the grammar/spelling thing, if you do this a few times in your script, no one will care. I promise.

Dramas Won’t Get Read
Wrong. They just might not get sold. But as a reader, if I got a script and I liked it, I would recommend it. I didn’t care about the genre (and I wasn’t supposed to). But there’s a bright side: there are niche markets for low budget indie dramas. There are companies who specifically cater to this and WANT these kinds of scripts. This goes back to my “know who you’re sending your script to.” IMDb Pro is a great place to get information like this. Also, you can do as Carson suggested, and throw in a hook.

Query Letters are Pointless
Nope. They may be pointless if you’re trying to get The Weinstein Company to read your script. But there are plenty of companies out there who accept unsolicited submissions (one I worked for had a link on their page to submit to). Once again, IMDb Pro can be very helpful here. (note: don’t ever pay for those mass query services)

Only Scripts that Are 90-120 Pages Long Will Get Read
Wrong! As I mentioned above, the longest script I read was over 135 pages. The shortest was 57! Now, there is a bit of truth in this, though I would adjust it to 80-120 pages. That’s the range in which 98% of the scripts I read fell. How that 57-pager got in is beyond me. And too long can definitely be a turn off, but by and large, it’s all about your pitch and the concept. The company doesn’t care if their reader has to read an extra long script. They get paid the same amount. But like I said, it’s definitely extremely preferable to stay between 80 and 120 pages.

They Want True Originality!
Kind of. Here’s the thing, and this isn’t coming from the way I would personally assess scripts, it’s coming from the bajillions of other coverages I read. Sometimes true originality can baffle readers. They don’t know what to make of it. This is where the old adage “same but different” comes into play. And it’s a fine line. Not too much the same that they say “we’ve seen this before”, but not too different that they don’t know what to make of it. Though I also firmly believe that a great script, with a solid grasp on storytelling principles, original characters, and an original story WILL find a home.

Okay, Carson said to write about 2000 words and I’ve already exceeded that, so I’m going to wrap this up with some closing thoughts.

The single best piece of advice I can give is to love what you’re writing. Don’t write something because you think it’s more likely to sell or whatever. I’ve tried it, and I didn’t even finish the script. If you’re not 100% devoted and excited about your story, it WILL show. Believe me.

And, in true ScriptShadow fashion….

What I Learned (by being a reader): Obviously, all of the above. But beyond that, know what you’re writing about. I could tell when someone was writing about a subject that they had never researched or experienced. To write a war film, you don’t have to have been in a war, but you damn well better research that shit. Otherwise you’re just gleaning information from other films and TV and it comes off as derivative. Also, I highly suggest, unless there’s some sort of deadline, to wait two weeks after you finish your draft before sending it to anyone. Why? That kind of time gives you distance and allows you to be a bit more objective about your work. I would read some scripts that had a draft date that was a week before I received the script (which means they probably submitted it to the company the day they finished it). Don’t do this.

I hope you guys found at least something in here a bit helpful. I am more than happy to answer any further questions in the comments section (I post as “Matty” with the little George Clooney head). Those two thousand words went quickly!

Have an A-1 day!