Today’s script has marketable written all over it, and it was highly touted, even by non-vampire fans. But does its second half live up to its first?

Genre: Vampire/Thriller
Premise: (from writer) After their medical rescue aircraft crash lands above the Arctic Circle, a terminally ill flight navigator must lead the crew to survival in the face of plunging temperatures, the impending arrival of 6 months of permanent darkness – and a horde of vampires taking refuge in a nearby shipwreck.
About: This is…. Amateur Week SMACKDOWN – 5 scripts, all of which have been pre-vetted by the SRF (Scriptshadow Reader Faithful), vie for the Top Prize, an official endorsement from whoever the guy is who runs this site. Good luck to all!
Writer: Eye Gore (at least that’s what it says on the title page)
Details: 95 pages

Well, if there’s a script this week that had the best chance of being purchased based on the logline alone, this would be it. We have the eternally marketable vampires in the mix. We have a contained situation. We have a spooky Arctic backdrop. I’d say you’d be a rotten producer not to at least consider this screenplay.

As for me, I’m torn. I love set-ups like this. I love planes crash-landing in cold desolate places, crews stranded in the middle of nowhere (as evidenced by my love of The Grey). I’m just not sure how I feel about vampires sinking their fangs into this mix. There’s a certain lack of irony or any sort of logical connection at all when you think about it. Vampires in the middle of the Arctic? I mean, I could imagine werewolves. Some sort of deep-north wolf-were-hybrid you can only find in snowy places. That could be cool. But that ain’t the case. The only real logical way to connect vampires to a ship in the Arctic is if it would have been the Ship of the Demeter, which carried Dracula. Then again, what the hell do I know about all this? And in the end, it all comes down to compelling characters and a compelling story anyway, so let’s see if Mr. Eye Gore achieved that.

Ship of the Dead starts off a long time ago with a ship that picked up a couple of sick folks floating around in a raft. One of those sick folks turned out to be VERY sick, as in “Vampire” sick. That’s, like, the worst kind of sick. Since you’re DEAD.

So this Robert Pattinson wannabe starts biting everybody in sight, turning them all into vampires before the ship is compromised and drifts off up towards the Arctic. Vampires are really good at sucking blood, but apparently terrible navigators.

Cut to present day, where a U.S. military plane flying near the Atlantic can’t handle the extreme cold and goes crashing into the ice. Luckily, these guys are a lot better flyers than those vampires were navigators, as they’re able to save everyone during the ditch. But this ain’t no Flight of The Phoenix. There’s no fixing this plane up. It’s dunzos. And since their S.O.S. signal apparently didn’t go out, nobody knows they’re stranded here. Well, that sucks.

Lucky for them, a mile down the snowy road is an old ship stuck in the ice. If you look closely, you’d notice this is the SAME ship our Twilight fans were sailing in. Uh-oh. Thing is, it’s really cold out here, and our guys need wood for fire. So they have no choice but to go say hi to Captain Vampire and his crew. They don’t know there are vampires yet, of course, since there are no such things as vampires. But they’re about to find out that fairytales do come true sometimes.

There are a ton of characters here, but Lieutenant navigator Reno turns out to be, well, our navigator. Reno’s had a tough life. His kid and his wife died, he didn’t graduate flight school, and he’s also got this really rare blood disease that’s probably going to kill him within the year. As a result, he’s not exactly organizing karaoke nights for the crew. He’s the human equivalent of a mumblecore movie.

One person who no likey Reno is the always agitated co-pilot, Hawke. After pulling in a surprise 35 million at the box office this weekend, you’d think Hawke would be a cheery dude (wait– this isn’t Ethan Hawke, we’re talking about?). But plane crashes tend to bring out the worst in people, and he doesn’t like that Mr. Don’t Talk To No One is in charge of getting them out of this situation alive.

Eventually, after a couple of wood runs, the long-gestating vampires attack our flight crew and start turning THEM into vampires, a situation that is so sucky it bums pretty much everyone out. And to make matters worse, the Polar Night is coming, which is like a 6 straight months of night deal wherein the only benefit is a non-stop Late Night talk show marathon. Unfortunately, before the debate can begin on who’s better, Jimmy Fallon or Craig Ferguson, the vampires leave the safety of their ship and attack the plane, hellbent on not leaving until they can officially call this place Vampire Land.

Ship of the Dead was a bit like reading a political article. At first you’re just trying to figure out what’s going on. Then it becomes surprisingly interesting. Then as you get to the end, you’re a little let down, wondering why the heck you clicked on a political article in the first place.

The first thing that threw me was I didn’t know Reno was our main character until about 20 pages in. So many characters are introduced during the plane crash that he got lost in the mix. There’s no rule that says you can’t do this, of course. In a chaotic plane crash, people will be introduced chaotically. But I just don’t like to be a fifth of the way through the script and still unsure who I’m supposed to be relating to and rooting for.

The good news is, once I was able to discern who all the characters were, “Ship” got a big burst of wind. I thought the setup was clever, with this Vampire ship being their only lifeline (needing it for fire), and the conflict that emerged from that (vampires attack!), while derivative, was still compelling. When you think about it, if you can set up a compelling conflict in your story, you’ve taken care of most of the story. Scenes will emerge naturally from that conflict and all you have to do is write them.

With that being said, once we hit the third act, I was feeling a bit exhausted. The vampire attacks were getting repetitive, and there seemed to be very little character development to keep us invested on an emotional level. Reno’s special blood disease that killed the vampires was a nice twist, but it was so forced that it never sat right. Reno has a dead son and wife. He’s a flight school drop-out. He’s supposedly responsible for this crash. And on top of all that, he’s dying with a rare blood disease. I’d wipe out all the other backstory and focus exclusively on this character who – coming into this crash – knows he’s dying because of this rare blood disease. That way it’ll seem more natural when his disease actually ends up saving him.

I’m going to be honest. I’m not entirely sure why the second half of the script didn’t work for me. At first, I thought it might’ve been because it was sloppy. I see this a lot. Writers spend so much time working from the top down, that the second half of their scripts inadvertently get 1/5 (to as much as 1/10) as much attention. So a script that feels deftly crafted in the first half, all of a sudden feels sloppy and rushed in the second.

Then again, this structure is built to descend into madness. At first, everyone’s organized and focused, but as we get to the end, since everyone’s dying, it’s more of a mad scramble for life. There’s less talking, and more trying to stave off vampires. So you could argue it’s messy by design. Then again, I remember Aliens, which is constructed in a similar fashion, and Ripley always has a plan. No matter how crazy shit gets, she’s always got goals (get the remote ship down here, find and save Newt), so amongst the chaos, there’s still some order. I’m not sure I ever felt order in this third act, and for that reason, I mentally checked out.

With that said, there is something here. Without question, if I had to pick a script as a producer to go with this week, it would be this one. It just hits all those necessary market-ready sweet spots. So maybe there’s someone out there who wants to do the work and guide this one to a script sale. But as it stands, despite its potential, it was a little too messy for me.

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

What I learned: Beware too much clipped sentence writing (“CAPTAIN’S there. Waiting. Directing. Wishing he had a wife instead of a brigantine.” “The door CREAKING closed. Turly at the table, holding on. For balance. Then grabbing a FACE, yanking it. SLAPPING it.”) It shortens your sentences which keeps the page count lower, but too much of it and your prose loses its natural flow. The first act of this script has way too much clipped sentence writing.

What I learned 2: Don’t over-backstory your character. Too much backstory, though you may THINK adds more depth to your character, actually confuses or detracts from him. You don’t need multiple tragedies or sicknesses or issues. You only need the backstory that’s relevant to your present-day story. So in this case, with our antagonists being blood-sucking vampires, all you need to bring up is your protagonist dying from a rare blood disorder.

Why this script isn’t ready for a script sale: The second half needs to have the same commitment as the first half did. Too many writers spend all their time making their first half (or first act) amazing, then get sloppy. Readers can spot a drop in quality immediately, so don’t think for a second you can get away with this.

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: Murderer’s Creek
GENRE: Western Psychological Thriller
LOGLINE: When brutalized bodies begin to turn up in their homes, an unassuming sheriff must work with his brilliant-but-outspoken daughter to find and bring the serial killer to justice before the town they mean to protect tears itself apart in fear.

TITLE: Where Angels Die
GENRE: Crime Drama
LOGLINE: A suspended inner city social worker tries to protect a young girl and her mother from the girl’s father, a psychotic killer who’s just been released from prison.

TITLE: The Easy Way Out
GENRE: Film Noir Thriller
LOGLINE: To a young couple facing foreclosure, a bag stuffed with money sitting in an empty office is just too tempting to resist. But when the plan goes awry and they are forced to run for their lives, their relationship and survival skills are put to the supreme test.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “The Easy Way Out” was a second rounder at the 2011 Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition (top 10% of 5800 entries). The writer has also had multiple scripts optioned, with one currently being pitched.

TITLE: World Peace Can Go Suck A Dick.pdf)
GENRE: Sci-fi Comedy
LOGLINE: After wishing for “all humankind to be peaceful people,” the only three people who know how to break the spell have to fight and destroy a group of wizards who have started trying to destroy Earth.

TITLE: The Jaguar’s Fang
LOGLINE: When contact with an expedition on the trail of a mythical treasure is mysteriously lost, a paratrooper, a gentleman thief, and an archeologist must join forces, or risk losing them forever to sinister forces bent on the same prize.
GENRE: Action/Adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): It received a 8/10 paid review on the Black List, but more importantly it was your post promoting the Tracking Board Launch Pad screenwriting competition that got me to enter that competition. I ended up making the Top 25 semis, but I didn’t make the cut to the Top 10. I was hoping you might give my script a go and share some insight into how to make it into a script that would’ve cracked the Top 10.

Today’s script is going to piss some people off because of its controversial writing style. But I liked it!

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from writer) Three different graduating classes return to their small New Jersey town for a night of awkward reunions and drunken debauchery on the biggest bar night of the year – Thanksgiving Eve.
About: Black Wednesday barely beat out “Ship of the Dead” in last week’s Amateur Offerings showdown. There appeared to be a strong divide in the reactions. Lots of people were up in arms about the “voice,” particularly all the asides. And when there’s controversy, there’s Scriptshadow getting on his Controversy Scooter to solve it.
Writer: Thomas Grant
Details: 111 pages

Okay, Dazed and Confused is one of my favorite movies ever. But it’s also a really tricky movie from a screenplay perspective because there’s no real story. It’s just a bunch of people living their life on the last day of school. For that reason, writing a “Dazed and Confused”-like script is typically a losing endeavor. And believe me, I’ve watched a lot of people try over the years.

You see, when you don’t have a traditional story, you have to be awesome at other things in order to distract the audience from the fact that there’s no story. One of those things is dialogue. The dialogue has to be really good. Now most of the people who write these types of scripts THINK they’re good at dialogue, but they aren’t. You have to remember that the best dialogue comes from dramatic situations. And dramatic situations come from a well-told story, since good stories are built to create dramatic situations. Since you don’t have that in a movie like this, the dialogue is sort of off on its own, asked to be flashy and fun without any underlying help. That’s a skill not a lot of writers have.

This was just one of the things I was worried about going into Black Wednesday. Let’s see if the writer was able to overcome it.

Black Wednesday is about that night before Thanksgiving – the one where everyone comes back to their small home town from all over the country and reconnects with all their friends at the bars before being asked “What the hell are you doing with your life” by their parents the next day. It’s potentially a really depressing time in that you’re forced to face where you are in life.

“Wednesday” follows a hell of a lot of people in that situation. There’s 32 year old Brandon, who’s reluctantly become an assistant football coach at his former high school. There’s Randy “Tag” Taglianetti, who’s now selling alcohol to minors at a local liquor shop. There’s 32 year old Nikki, who’s hot and bitchy and who still hasn’t found a husband. There’s 26 year old Sophia, who doesn’t realize how pretty she is. There’s 26 year old Dan, who’s trying to make it as a comedian in LA but failing miserably. There’s even 17 year old quarterback Vince, who’s hellbent on enjoying the night before the big game tomorrow, despite his coach’s warning not to do so.

There are a LOT more characters than this, most of whom are trying to survive the night in some way. Brandon’s trying to figure out how so many of his former classmates became successful while he’s still stuck in Nowheresville coaching football. Dan’s out of money and debating if he should give up on his comedy dream and move back home. Nikki is trying to use this night to find a suitable man, maybe not to marry, but at least to have as a boyfriend. Sophia’s trying to break out of her quiet shell. And that’s pretty much what we got here. There’s no real overarching story to get into. It’s just a lot of jumping back and forth between these characters.

One of the reasons these scripts are so hard to write is because of the character count. There are always a ton of characters to keep track of and how the writer presents these characters in order to make them memorable can either make or break the script. I mean, I’m finished with the script and I’m STILL kind of mixing Dan and Brandon up. I’m still getting Nikki and Paige mixed up. You have to be a master in character creation if you write a script like this. You have to be very particular about how you name everyone, so their name instantly invokes a unique face. You have to give them memorable opening scenes. You have to know when to eliminate characters that aren’t necessary, since they crowd the name pool. Even something as simple as the LENGTH of a name can make a difference in how (or if) that character is remembered. Thomas did a pretty good job of that here, but he walked into a minefield. It’s tough for us to keep track of everyone, and I definitely struggled at times throughout the first half of the script (when everyone was introduced) as a result.

Also, because there’s no story in a script like this, everything rests on the characters. You have to be an amazing character-creator, and the trick to that is, every character must be going through something that this night is going to challenge. If you look at Dazed and Confused, every memorable character there is going through something. The football player must decide if he’s going to sign the drug form, the main character, 13 year old Mitch, is trying to rise above his sister’s shadow, Adam Goldberg’s famous character must learn to stand up for himself, his buddy has to break out of his shell and talk to a girl for once. If there isn’t something for your characters to overcome, then we’ll quickly get bored with them because there’s no story to look forward to to take our mind off that lack of character development.

Black Wednesday has mixed results in this area. Characters like Brandon, Dan, and Nikki were all memorable because they were going through something. But Kevin Africa and Colleen just seemed to want to have a good time. For that reason, while their storylines were occasionally amusing (ending up at a high school party when Colleen was a high school teacher) they didn’t resonate. Even if it’s the smallest thing, it’s still important to have your character going through SOMETHING that the situation in the movie challenges.

Another thing with these movies is that they must be driven by a theme. You need something to reign the randomness in. There were flashes of themes here and there in Black Wednesday, but I’m not sure if we ever really settled on one. There was this moment on page 50, actually, where one of the older (sort of degenerate) characters was talking about how he watched MILF porn earlier in the day, and realized that those MILFS were now their peers. Yeah it wasn’t exactly Socrates, but it was the first moment I felt a potential theme shining through. You grow up fast so you have to enjoy your life. Remember, the best themes are usually the simplest, and I felt like that theme was perfect for this kind of movie. It just needs to be explored in more of the storylines.

Now I’m guessing one of the big problems some people had with the script was the voice. Thomas, here, LOVES to write asides. Like more than actually write the script sometimes. And this always divides readers. I mean, we get things like “This isn’t the Hollywood your friends and family are thinking of,” and “one of those shitty apartments off Hollywood boulevard you live your first year in LA in because you don’t know any better” and “The American Dream this is not.”

Okay, so, note to writers. THIS TYPE OF WRITING MAKES CERTAIN READERS ANGRY. Not all readers. Probably only half of them. But half is enough to be careful about this writing style. If you’re automatically alienating half your readers right away, you’re severely limiting your opportunities in a business that’s already short on opportunities.

Now there are some caveats here. First, if the writer is really good, then these asides aren’t as annoying, cause they’ll be funny and entertaining. Also, if you don’t go overboard and you pick and choose WHEN you use asides, readers are generally more tolerant of them. Thomas DROWNS his script in asides, which you just can’t do. It starts to feel like you’re trying too hard, and once that happens, the reader doesn’t like you anymore, and they don’t like your script either. So it’s a dangerous game to play.

I think Thomas is a good writer so while there were definitely times where I was like, “C’mon already! Enough asides!” it never got so bad that I gave up on him. Which brings me back to the dialogue statement I mentioned at the beginning of the script. Conversational (as opposed to story-relevant) dialogue, is super-dependent on writing ability. I’m not sure Thomas is as good as he thinks he is, but a lot of these conversations felt natural, like the way people coming back together on Thanksgiving Eve for a night of craziness would actually sound. So to that end, I commend him.

Which leads us to the end of OUR night of craziness – aka, this review. One thing Black Wednesday reminded me of is that these types of scripts are so “gotta make it” scripts. The writer has to go make the film himself (Richard Linklater with Dazed and Confused, George Lucas with American Graffitti, Paul Haggis with Crash) because the stories are so specific to the writer’s voice. I just don’t see these do very well in the spec world because, again, the spec world celebrates stories with high concepts and clear narratives. That’s not this kind of film.

So if I were Thomas, I’d go out and make this. Once you make the theme more prevalent and make sure all the characters have something going on, this is pretty much ready to go. It wouldn’t be an expensive film to shoot by any means. And the only other real major problem I had – not being able to remember who’s who – would be solved, since once we see actors on a screen, we don’t forget them.

Black Friday was tough to get into with all the asides and the memory game we had to play with the characters, but once it got going, it was a fun ride.

Script Link: Black Wednesday

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

What I learned: Aside or not to aside – that is the question. Only use asides in a comedy script (or a script with comedic elements). It’s the only real time they work. And even then, use them sparingly. Too many asides and readers will throw you over the side…of their boat…into the Sea of Forgotten Scripts. Can’t risk that!

I’m happy with the way the summer box office has played out so far. We’ve had a few nice surprises – like a non-sequel, non pre-existing franchise, non YA novel doing great amongst a sea of more traditional summer blockbuster flicks (The Great Gatsby). We have a spec script that’s not about super heroes or car races or blowing shit up outperforming a heavy favorite with the world’s biggest movie star in it (Now You See Me beating After Earth). We have ANOTHER spec script, The Purge, occupying a prime-time slot on the summer slate this weekend. Whether it does well or not, getting a spec script turned into a movie that’s released during the most competitive time of the year – that’s a huge accomplishment. This is all good news for screenwriters. It gives producers and executives and studios the confidence that they CAN take chances on spec material.

However, it’s important to remember that there’s a step that needs to happen BEFORE your spec competes for one of those coveted summer slots. You have to sell the damn thing. And in order to sell it, you have to get your script out there for people to read. And typically (unless you bypass the system and get a kick-ass reception on a site like Scriptshadow), that means getting an agent to go out wide with your script. And that’s what led me to today’s article.

You see, I don’t think there are enough amateur writers out there who track the spec market. Sure, many are aware of what sells. But are they actually tracking WHAT GOES OUT WIDE? Are they tracking the scripts agents and mangers are sending out to all the producers in hopes of getting a sale?  Agents are typically looking for two things when they’re repping a script from a new writer.  a) it’s well-written.  And b) it’s a marketable enough concept that studios will actually be interested in buying it.  “a” is, of course, important. But it doesn’t matter without “b.”   This information is invaluable because if you know what agents like to push, you’ll have a much better shot at landing one.

So today I’m going to give you the last 15 scripts that went out wide, along with their genres and loglines. I want you to see with your own eyes what reps are sending out there. I didn’t cherry pick these loglines. I went to the Tracking Board (which you can get a 25% discount on if you sign up through Scriptshadow btw) and simply filtered by specs that have gone wide. If something didn’t have a logline, I didn’t include it. These are the scripts that were listed.

There is a caveat here. Agents have relationships and often know what places are best for a project, and therefore will send certain projects out to a much smaller list of folks. So these are by no means the ONLY scripts being sent around town. But they are the ones agents are sending out wide in hopes of the script either selling, or everyone liking the script enough to want to work with their client. Let’s take a look.

Lewis & Clark: Trial By Fire
Genre: Action/Adventure/Supernatural
Logline: Pitched as “Pirates of the Caribbean” meets “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. Story is a re-imagining of the historic expedition. After the United States acquires the Louisiana Territory, President Thomas Jefferson sends Lewis & Clark on a journey to the American West that is believed to be inhabited by fearsome beasts that threaten the entire country.

Bullet Run
Genre: Action
Logline: Kept under wraps but pitched as “Speed” meets “Thief”.

Autograph
Genre: Drama
Logline: Based on a novel, a boy secretly watches his actor/father run a con so the family can survive WWII Shanghai, but the father’s arrested, so the boy applies what he’s learned to survive.

Criminal
Genre: Action/Thriller
Logline: The right man in the wrong body. A dead CIA operative’s memories, secrets and skills are implanted into an unpredictable and dangerous prison inmate in hopes that he will complete the operative’s mission.

Visions
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Logline: A woman begins experiencing terrifying visions when she moves to her husband’s vineyard.

The Uncontacted
Genre: Horror
Logline: Pitched as “Attack The Block” meets “The Descent”. A group of grad students find themselves stranded on an island in the South Pacific. When they attempt to make a contact with an ancient cannibalistic civilization rumored to live there, they accidentally uncover something deadlier, lurking underground.

Pirate Hunter
Genre: Action/Adventure
Logline: In the year 1700 a Naval Lieutenant embarked on a search for the most bloodthirsty ship on the seas, as he sought his revenge. It found him.

Hottest Ass Contest
Genre: Comedy
Logline: With the coastal Florida city they work for on the verge of bankruptcy and their jobs on the line, the hard-partying great-grandson of the city’s founder, along with his coworkers, take matters into their own hands. Setting out to attract thousands of revenue-generating revelers, they transform their city into an epic spring break destination by staging a Hottest Ass Contest that will feature only the finest female derrieres from all over the world.

Beauty and The Beasts
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Logline: Two years after the events of the classic tale, Belle’s Prince Edgar mysteriously goes missing after she discovers the truth about his past, that he is actually a prince from a land of beasts. Belle is now thrown into an adventure where she travels to a magical land of fantastic creatures, and must restore order to the ancient kingdom if she is ever to see her love again.

The Asterisk
Genre: Action
Logline: Logline: Kept under wraps but pitched in the vein of “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Lethal Weapon”.

Keeping Time (yay!)
Genre: Sci-fi/Romance/Comedy
Logline: Logline: A for-hire time traveler, who specializes in “preventing” bad relationships, meets a mysterious woman who also claims to be a traveler and is determined to stop him from completing his mission.

Sinbad and the 7 Curses
Genre: Action Adventure
Logline: Sinbad’s crew must battle seven curses hurled at them by an old adversary when a princess gets in the way.

The Do Over
Genre: Comedy/Sci-fi
Logline: Pitched as “Back To The Future” meets “Peggy Sue Got Married”. When a divorced couple is inadvertently transported back in time, they set out to break up their younger selves and change the course of their unhappy lives…only to discover that they are still meant for each other.

Freefall
Genre: Action
Logline: Pitched in the vein of “Fast & The Furious” in the air. An undercover agent, posing as the infamous parachuting hustler D.B. Cooper, infiltrates a group of thieves who are staging elaborate robberies of casino “money planes”; mid-air, mid-flight, jumping from plane-to-plane at 10,000 feet! Next stop, China’s Macau Venetian Casino.

The Remplacement
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When his long-lost identical twin brother shows up, an unhappily married father of two seizes the occasion to swap himself out of his own life.

It’s pretty self-explanatory. Every one of these ideas, save the drama, is marketable. I’m not saying they’re all good ideas (Hottest Ass Contest??). But the writers have made an attempt at creating something for the marketplace. We got four comedies, seven action scripts, a few adventure, a couple of horror, and a couple of thrillers. It’s not a coincidence that these are the genres being pushed by the agents. These are what studios want because these are the genres that have proven to create the best box-office return in the spec market.

This doesn’t mean you can’t write your semi-autobiographical tale about how you learned how to swim in Mexico. What it DOES mean is that you make your chances for selling a script exponentially harder by doing so. When I talk to agents and managers about scripts, I already know what they’re going to say when I tell them I found a feel good piece about a leper colony in the 1930s. They’re gong to ask, “Is it based on a book?” And when I tell them no, they’re going to say, “What else do you have?” Because action and comedy and horror and adventure and thrillers are the only thing they’re confident going out with unless you have the next American Beauty. And unless you’ve been writing for 20 years like Alan Ball had, you probably don’t have the next American Beauty.

I wrote this article as sort of a wake up call to writers because I have been reading a lot of material privately lately where the writers aren’t considering this part of the equation. They’re not asking, “Is this something that an agent is actually going to want to send out?”

Look, I’m not telling you you need to sell your soul. I believe that you should write what moves you. But you have to be smart about it. You can’t write some really low-concept drama with no commercial appeal and say, “Ohh, because it’s coming from that deep unique special place that only I can offer the world,” that everyone will want it. At some point, you have to look at the thing from an investment perspective, from the person’s POV who’s ultimately going to put their reputation and their money on the line. Are they going to buy something that’s going to keep their company in business? Or are they going to gamble on a slow introspective drama? Don’t walk around with your heads in the sand, guys. Be aware not only what’s selling, but what kind of material people are passing around.

And hey, I’m not saying those loglines above are amazing. The loglines themselves are not the point. It’s the TYPES OF SCRIPTS that agents are sending out there: thrillers, horror, adventure, action, comedy. You guys are smart. You can play in this space and come up with much better loglines than those above. Hollywood’s still a place where if you come up with an amazing concept and you’re a competent writer, you can go directly to the front of the line.

Also remember that just because you’re writing a marketable concept, doesn’t mean you can’t explore characters and themes on a deeper level. It doesn’t mean you can’t make your reader think. The concept and genre are meant to get you through the door. Once inside, that’s when you show off your skills. So write something with deep characters who are battling their flaws and fears, but do it inside of a horror movie, or an adventure movie.

And if this article sickens you? If you can’t believe this is what you need to do to get in the game? Don’t complain about it. Grab your camera and make your movie independently. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and it’s actually one of the fastest ways to make a career, since you’re bypassing the “wait for someone else to like it” spec stage. In the meantime, if you want to play in the spec world, this is how the game is played. If you want an agent to take you on, give them something they can sell, dammit. Good luck!

Genre: Drama
Premise: A socially deprived teen, unable to feel pain, lives vicariously through a dominatrix named Agony on the night of his 18th birthday.
About: Today’s script is an amateur script that was highly recommended to me by a trusted source. Hoping to find that great unknown script, I cleared my Wednesday slot and made it today’s script review.
Writer: Michael Kospiah
Details: 93 pages

Freddie Highmore for Early?

It’s rare that I get an e-mail from someone saying “You have to read this right away,” when that person is not…

a) the writer
b) the writer’s mother

…so when it does happen, I always take it seriously. I sent the script out in my newsletter this week and I’ve already been getting a lot of responses from it. Some have been good, some have been bad. But the most important thing is that all of them have been passionate. That tells me the writer is striking a chord with readers. So I knew there was something here. However, I don’t think I was properly prepared for what I was about to read.

4 year old Early has not had an easy life. In fact, in one of the most intense opening scenes I’ve ever read, the boy is tossed into the lake to drown by his father, who raises a gun to his own head and blows his brains out. Uhhhhh… I think you now have my full attention, Morphine script.

We later find out that his father did this because Early’s mother died during childbirth. So he blames Early for that. This means Early has no parents, which leads to him getting adopted. As Early grows up, he encounters another curve ball to his unique life: he can’t feel pain. So he’ll often just bang his head as hard as he can on doors and tables just to try and feel something. Understandably, people around him are a little freaked out.

Eventually, after Early grows up, he meets Agony, a dominatrix whose full-time job is distributing pain. While at first he wants to hire her, he instead becomes friends with her and follows her to a few of her jobs. He’s quickly fascinated by both Agony and her unique career.

Meanwhile, we meet a guy named Winston, who saved Early the day his father tried to drown him. Winston has since hit on some hard times, and he seems to think it’s all because he saved Early that day – that he tempted fate. So he’s got himself a gun and is now out there searching for Early, supposedly to kill him and even fate’s score.

Someone else might beat him to it, though. Agony’s exponentially fucked-up brother comes out of nowhere and starts attacking her, forcing Agony and Early on the run. It appears that Agony has had a childhood that makes Early’s look like he grew up with the Cleavers. To put it simply, she has a kid, and the father of her kid is either her own father or brother.

They eventually get caught, ending up in a motel with Agony’s dad furiously demanding to know where his daughter (and granddaughter) is. If she doesn’t bleed out, Early will need to find a way to get her out of this mess, a path that’s looking less and less likely as the night goes on.

Morphine.

Man, this script was a mixed bag for me. I think the writing is really strong at times, but really raw at others. It feels to me like a young writer with a big voice who hasn’t quite mastered the craft yet. The first clue is that there are a lot of emotional moments that are way over-the-top, bordering on cliché. I mean we even have Early stumbling into the night, looking up to the sky, and screaming as loud as he possibly can. That particular situation and shot have been done so many times in movies that they parody it more than they shoot it these days.

And then there was just a lot of crying, a lot of screaming, a lot of overly intense moments. At a certain point, we were parked squarely in the middle of Melodrama Lane, and we hadn’t even hit the 30 page mark yet. So I was worried.

However, the script sort of reinvents itself when Early meets Agony. It latches onto some kind of direction, and it really saved the story in my opinion. A few people who e-mailed me about their Morphine read noted that their big problem with it was that no story emerged, forcing them to give up before the halfway point. I agree with that, thus I wouldn’t mind if we got to the love story a lot sooner.

Another issue Morphine runs into is that it depends a little too heavily on shock-value. The father shooting himself while his son is drowning, a little boy banging his head repeatedly against the table until it bleeds, a dominatrix screaming at her client to “shit on the newspaper!”, a father who fucks his daughter, tazers to people’s genitals. I learned a few years into my own writing that shock value works like a drug. The audience gets really high off of it, but also comes down really fast. To satisfy them then, you then need to give them another hit. But they come down off that next hit even faster, so they need another one. And on and on, with each hit offering diminishing returns. At a certain point, you don’t have any shocks left to offer.

Now, Morphine wasn’t purely shock-driven. We do find out WHY, for instance, Early’s father tries to drown him then blows his brains out (Early was born premature – that’s why he’s named “Early” – and his mother died during childbirth. Early’s father blames Early for that). So there’s some depth and reasoning behind some of these shocks. But I still got the feeling that Michael was more concerned with shocking me than telling me a story.

On the character front, I’m not sure I ever felt that the Winston character was necessary. This idea that he interrupted fate and now he’s gotta reverse it (by killing Early) didn’t quite work for me. I was way more interested in Early’s relationship with Agony. I think that’s the selling point of this script and if Winston isn’t involved, we could’ve spent more time with that (and got to that storyline sooner – which is what a lot of people complained about).

Now I don’t want to make a blanket statement here, but I’ve found that, on the whole, over-emphasis on fate as a theme tends to indicate a younger less-experienced writer. It’s an easy theme to play with and allows for a lot of wiggle-room. You just have a lot of characters pontificating “Is fate real? Is it not real?” and it gives the illusion that the script is really deep, when in fact it’s only pretending to be.

I say this not from a place of judgment but from experience. I remember being obsessed with that theme myself when I first started writing. But looking back on those scripts, they all feel thin and “wanna-be-taken-seriously.” And it’s not that fate can’t be explored on a more serious level, but I don’t know if that should be the focus here. You have an interesting ironic setup between a man who can’t feel pain and a woman who administers it. You then have her fucked-up family coming after her. I think there’s enough meat there for a story. I don’t think you need to worry about if fate intervened on that day Early was drowning. Maybe he simply dog-paddled to the pier and was able to survive. But I was never able to connect that moment with his “inability to feel” problem.  Maybe if his inability to feel was the result of that moment?  Like the lack of oxygen from drowning is what destroyed the part of his brain that registers pain?  Then the connection is there.  Otherwise, it feels like two different subject matters.

Now despite it seeming like I’m not a fan of Morphine, I’m glad I read the script. I think what we have here is a script that we’re going to look back on and say, “Hey, that’s the first script Michael Kospiah wrote. You can see the potential dripping off the page.” But the potential isn’t fully realized yet. I think a little more emphasis needs to be put on story as opposed to shock-value. I think the story itself needs to start sooner. I think certain subplots could be sacrificed in order to spend more time with our main characters. And I would’ve liked to have seen more scenes where Early used his unique “power” to get out of situations. If your main character can’t feel pain, you need to exploit that to its fullest, and I don’t think Michael’s done that yet. But I do think big things are ahead for Michael. He has a unique voice and that’s one of the most important skills a writer can possess. This is probably the highest “wasn’t for me” I can give, but the story itself didn’t quite get there for me.

Script link: Morphine

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

What I learned: Be careful about depending too much on shock scenarios! Ultimately, they’re fool’s gold unless you can naturally embed them into the story.