The Thing is probably one of the scariest movies ever made. People haven’t always seen it that way since it’s not set strictly in the horror genre. But man, I remember watching this film as a kid and being freaked the hell out. When the spider-legs grew out of that man’s decapitated head and began walking around? That image is still burned into my brain. The screenwriting situation behind “The Thing” is kinda interesting. Bill Lancaster, the writer, is Burt Lancaster’s son. His credits include only 2 other movies, “The Bad News Bears” (the original), and “The Bad News Bears Go To Japan.” He also wrote the Bad News Bears TV series. That was back in 1979. He didn’t write anything after that and died of a heart attack at the age of 49 in 1997. I’m baffled as to why Bill didn’t write anything else when he showed a clear mastery in two completely different genres. Was this his choice? Hollywood’s choice? Did the pressures of having a famous Hollywood father play into it? I’d love to know more. But since I don’t want to depress the hell out of all of you, I’m going to break down The Thing.

1) Use Clip-Writing to spice up action sequences – Clip-Writing is when you write in clips, highlighting primary visual queues. Clip-Writing can be very effective in action scenes as it helps the reader focus on the centerpieces of the battle, fight, or chase. We see it in The Thing when a Scandinavian crew has followed an infected dog into an American base.

CLOSE ON A .357 MAGNUM

As it efficiently breaks through a windowpane and into the cold. A steady hand grips it firmly.

THE SCANDINAVIAN

Getting closer. Kablam! Suddenly, his head jerks back. He falls to his knees and then face down into the snow.

NORRIS AND BENNINGS

Stare blankly, but relievedly at the fallen man. The dog whimpers in pain.

2) If Dialogue isn’t your strong suit, look to show more than tell – There’s actually some good news if you’re not a great dialogue writer. It means you’ll be forced to SHOW rather than TELL us things, which is really what you should be doing anyway. I noticed from reading and watching “The Thing” that a lot of the dialogue from the script was cut. Carpenter chose instead to focus on the visuals and the actions. For example, there was a scene early in the script where they’re walking to the helicopter and there’s a lot of explanation going on of what they’re doing. Carpenter cut a lot of that out, focusing instead on them simply getting in the helicopter and leaving. We know what’s going on. We don’t need a big long talky scene to explain it.

3) Only have your characters speak if they have something to say – This is an extension of the previous tip, and an important one. Your characters should be talking because they have something to say, not because you (the writer) have something to say. You might want to write a big monologue about how your character lost his sister or your opinion on the earth’s eroding ecosystem. That’s great. But would YOUR CHARACTER say that? I don’t think enough writers really ask that question. There’s nothing worse than reading a bunch of words coming out of a character’s mouth that you know are only there because the writer wanted to include them.

4) ALWAYS WORKS “There’s something else you should see” – I don’t care how bad of a movie or script it is, variations of this line ALWAYS work: “There’s something I need to show you.” You will have the audience in the palm of your hand until you show them what that character is referring to.  With The Thing, that line brings us to a giant mutated gnarled mass of a body. If you can milk the time after the statement until the actual reveal, even better, as our anticipation will grow.

5) MID-POINT SHIFT ALERT – The Thing has a great midpoint shift. The first half of the script is about the discovery of this alien organism invading the base. Remember, a good midpoint shift ups the stakes. So the shift here is when they learn that any one of them could be the alien entity. It’s no coincidence that this is when The Thing really gets good. A great mid-point shift will do that.

6) Carefully plot how you reveal information – Always be aware of what order you reveal your information in and how that affects the reader. One omission or one addition can completely change the way the next 30 pages reads. For example, here, the movie starts with an alien ship crashing. This gives us, the audience, superior knowledge over the characters. We know they’re dealing with an alien. This means we’re waiting for them to catch up. Now imagine had Lancaster NOT included this opening shot. Then, everything that happens is just as much a mystery to us as it is the characters. I don’t want to rewrite a classic, but the opening act may have been a little more exciting had we not received the spaceship information. We’d be equal amounts as baffled and curious as the characters.

7) SHOW DON’T TELL ARLERT – In the script, the characters have about a page and a half dialogue scene talking about how if the alien makes it to civilization, it could destroy the entire world. It’s not a bad scene. But they replaced it in the movie with a simple shot – Blair staring grimly at a computer chart that states: If the organism reaches one of the other continents, the entire world population will be contaminated within 27,000 hours.

8) Foreplays not Climaxes (Aka Don’t reveal all your fun stuff right away) – I see this all the time with amateur writers. They’re so excited about the cool parts of their script that they can’t wait to write them! So when it’s time, they drop all their reveals on you simultaneously, like a giddy kid who’s been waiting to tell you about his trip to Six Flags all day. For example, the Americans find the Norwegian crew’s video tapes from their destroyed camp and start watching them to figure out what happened. An amateur writer might have slammed us with all the crazy reveals immediately (alien ship, alien body). But Lancaster takes his time with it, showing the Norwegians having fun on the tapes, basically being boring. It isn’t until a handful of scenes pass that we see the Norwegians blow up the ice and discover the alien ship. If you throw all your climaxes at us at once, we get bored. Give us some foreplays beforehand.

9) Lack of Trust = Great Drama! – Once characters stop trusting each other, the drama in your story is upped ten-fold. You now have characters who are guarded, suspicious, not saying what they mean, probing. This ESPECIALLY helps dialogue, since it’ll create a lot of subtext. Whether it’s because they think another person is secretly a shape-shifting alien or because they think their husband cheated on them with their best friend, it’s always good to look for situations where characters don’t trust one another.

10) Use Cost/Value Ratio to determine whether a scene is necessary – There was an entire cut sequence in The Thing where the dogs escaped the compound and MacReady went after them with a snowmobile. It was a nice scene but it wasn’t exactly necessary. Producers HATE cutting these sequences after they’ve been shot because it’s cost them millions of dollars. Which is why they try to cut them at the script stage. This is where you can benefit from pretending you’re a producer. Simply ask yourself, “Is the VALUE of this sequence worth the COST of what it would take to shoot?” But Carson, you say, why should I care about the budget? I’m not the director or producer. That’s not the point. The point is, you’ll start to see what is and isn’t necessary for your script. If you say, “Hmm, would I really pay 5 million bucks to shoot this chase scene that doesn’t even need to happen?” you’ll probably get rid of it, and your script will be tighter for it.

These are 10 tips from the movie “The Thing.” To get 500 more tips from movies as varied as “Aliens,” “When Harry Met Sally,” and “The Hangover,” check out my book, Scriptshadow Secrets, on Amazon!

Warning: This is a rare “flu-written” Scriptshadow entry. There are only a few of these in existence. Which means they’ll be worth a lot of money someday. Save yours in expensive laminated paper please. Thank you.

Genre: Cop/Found Footage
Premise: Two cops (and best friends) begin taping their daily exploits, which include numerous busts and adventures.
About: David Ayers (Training Day, The Fast And The Furious) wrote and directed this. It starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena. 
I did a script review over a year ago and kind of hated it, expecting it to be a huge box office dud. But the movie ended up doing okay (41 mil) and getting a lot of love from critics (85% on Rotten Tomatoes). Hmm, I thought, now I have to watch the movie and figure out how he saved that dreadful script. It was time for some Scriptsahdow script-to-screen analysis!
Writer: David Ayers
Details: Script was 97 pages

I had this grand idea of how I was going to tackle my End Of Watch script-to-screen review. There were going to be charts. There were going to be witnesses. There was going to be a celebrity guest and possibly a spin-off reality show. Something like Storage Wars.

But the thing with the flu is that it doesn’t allow you to think until you restrain it with a large bottle of Nyquil. I call this practice, “Quilling,” and it brings whatever you’re working on into Hubble-like focus. Behold. Beware. Be afraid. What I write below may not be used against me in a court of law.

When Larry David was pitching his “show about nothing” (Seinfeld) to a group of studio execs, the execs focused excessively on the dynamics of the friendships. “Well we need them to not like each other,” they said. “Why?” an annoyed Larry David asked. “Because you need conflict,” the execs said. “You need drama, and drama comes from conflict. If there’s no conflict within the group, then the conversations between everyone are going to be boring.” Furious that the execs were all hung up on this detail, Larry stared them down and said, “Why the hell would you be friends with someone you didn’t like?” The execs stammered about, looked at one another for an answer, but nobody had one. So Larry got his way. There’d be no “conflict” between his core group of characters.

I bring this up because conflict IS a necessary component of drama. We do need it in some capacity in order to make our stories interesting. However, there’s an antithesis to conflict that can actually be worse than having no conflict at all. MANUFACTURED CONFLICT. This is when the writer goes into a movie  proclaiming “I’M GOING TO ADD CONFLICT!” Two cops who hate each other for no reason. Two romantic leads who hate each other for no reason. A mother and daughter who hate each other for no reason. No reason, that is, other than that the writer wants to ADD CONFLICT!

Is having no conflict better than that?  Probably.  But you’re picking between two worst-case-scenarios. Which leaves you severely limited in the storytelling department – the department of “actually keeping people entertained.” These two cops looooooved each other. They’d take a bullet for each other. They pat each other on the back whenever the other makes progress in his love life. They give each other man-hugs and nose-to-nose Whale Rider kisses.

True, you’ve stripped down all the artificial bullshit. There’s nobility in that. I mean in real life, a lot of partners probably love each other. So it’s real. Raw. True. I admire Ayers trying to get to the core of this. But when your Subway fresh take puts you at a dramatic disadvantage in the storytelling department, you better be able to pay up at the end of the line. Those five-dollar footlongs don’t include the meatball sub.

Which is a nice way of saying, “What else ya got here?” And End of Watch didn’t really have anything. I mean, the whole reason I wanted to do a script-to-screen breakdown of the project was that I hated the script and heard the movie was great. I was hoping to see a great movie so I could see what changes they made to save the film or just see how a strong directing vision can save a bad screenplay. I got neither.

In fact, I found the movie to be even more boring than the script. Let’s start with the plot. Oh yeah, there isn’t one. I think I understand the motivation behind this. We’re going for “real.” We’re staying away from common cop-movie tropes. If you add a plot, it all starts feeling manufactured, manipulative. There’s no story in real life because real life is random! Therefore we can add no plot!

Again, I applaud the fresh take. But you’ve already given me two cops who spend three-quarters of the movie telling each other they love each other. So there’s no conflict – and now – NO PLOT! I mean what’s next? Are you going to shoot this as a silent film? Are you going to shoot the whole thing in one take? I mean how many handicaps do you want to give yourself?

Lots of talking and laughing in this one.  Lots.  

I’m DYING to figure out what people saw in this movie. Cause I missed the cruise ship. Is it cool because it felt “real?” I might be able to buy this argument but the acting was so fake-y. There wasn’t a moment in this movie where the actors weren’t doing the “faux-reality” thing. Those wacky off-screen moments we never see in cop films? Like the noogies cops give each other? We get those here! And they feel like they’re trying soooo hard to be spontaneous home video captured moments. It may be that found footage and famous actors aren’t meant for each other. I mean a big reason the found footage format works – and this dates back to Cloverfield – is that you’ve never seen the actors in it before. They were all new faces. So it really did feel like real people.

Speaking of found footage, I’m not sure Ayers ever decided if this was a found footage movie or not. It was found footage in the script (we’re told at the beginning of the script the footage was “found”), but in the movie, it was vague, something like, “These are the lives of two LA PD cops caught on camera.” It still starts, however (like the script), with Jake Gylenhall carrying a camera around the station, claiming he’s taking filmmaking as an elective at night school (one of the lamest motivations for found footage I’ve ever read – there was NOTHING about Jake’s character that made you think he’d be interested in filmmaking). The partners then add pin-cameras to their uniforms and now we have our basis for why this footage was captured.

Except a quarter of the way through the film, we start getting random third-party shots of the character. For example – Jake doing a work-out on the roof, shot from about 100 feet away. Was this another “real person” who just happened to be taping Jake working out and the police later happened upon this footage (Guy comes into police station: “Hey guys. You know that cop here who was in the papers? I taped him working out on the roof the other day! Wanna see the footage?” Errr, noo-oooo.

Look, it’s not a huge deal. I don’t want to present myself as (super nerdy voice) “Every shot must be motivated and make sense” Guy. But it speaks to a larger suspicion, which is that Ayers didn’t really know what he was doing here. He didn’t know what movie he wanted to make. By the third act, we’re seeing almost as many “third-party” shots as we are “found footage” shots. And it just seemed lazy. Like he stopped trying to figure out how to make it found footage, because he realized it would take too much effort.

(MAJOR SPOILER) There was also a major change from the script to the film. In the script, both characters die at the end. In the script, only Jake’s partner dies. Jake holds on and lives. This was about the only positive change I could find about the script to screen transformation. By leaving Jake alive, we have someone to grieve, someone to feel the loss. If they’re both dead, it’s kinda pointless. Neither of them know the other’s dead. Who cares? You needed one of them to grieve so we could grieve with them.

But that wasn’t enough to save this. I was rubbing my eyes 15 minutes in knowing that everything I’d read was pretty much kept intact. And it kept going and going and going. And not in that fun Energizer Hominid way. I need fans of this film to explain it to me. Why did you like this? What in the world was good about it? I was bored to tears!

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

What I learned: Manufactured conflict is your evil enemy. Avoid it at all costs! Say you want to add conflict between two characters. There’s Joe, a Central Park birdwatcher, and Frank, his bird-watching pal of 30 years. Manufactured conflict would manifest itself like this for our hack writer: “These two hate each other just because.” You figure that will lead to all sorts of awesome dialogue because they hate each other!  And hate is conflict and conflict is good say screenwriting teacher!  No, it will feel false and we’ll see through it. Instead, dig into Joe and Frank’s relationship more. Maybe they’ve been friends for 30 years, but just recently Joe spotted a rare never-before-seen Flying Spotted Nested Canary at the park and he’s become a bit of a celebrity because of it. He’s had a few articles written about his discovery. He was given the “New York Bird Watcher Of The Month” award by the city as well. And guess what? It’s gone to his head a little. So now he speaks from a place of superiority (as opposed to equals) around Frank, inadvertently giving him tips on how to spot rare birds, and overall just becoming  annoying. This has gotten to Frank, who’s holding  his tongue every time the two get into a conversation, as he just wants to scream out at Joe to SHUT THE HELL UP! You see how this conflict emerged from a natural backstory between the two characters?  Therefore it makes sense!  As opposed to just being slapped on there. Big difference!

Quick note: I’m moving today’s Amateur Friday script review to next Friday. So if you haven’t read it already, then get to it. Also, let me know which movie release you want me to review for Monday.

For those who may have forgotten, I did an interview with Jim a little over a year ago and found the attention to detail he puts into his analysis to be quite awe-inspiring. I mean this guy will dig into a scene at the molecular level to figure out what’s wrong with it. I think of myself as more of a macro guy, looking at the big picture, which is why we tend to have some fun conversations whenever we chat. I’m kinda like, “Do you really need to look at it that closely?” And he’s like, “Yeah, you do!” Having said that, my most recent obsession has been scene writing, which is more of a micro thing. Jim is actually working on a scene writing book and he told me he spends 2-3 hours on just scene writing in his new DVD set (Complete Screenwriting: From A to Z to A-List) that comes out next month. Since I want to learn more about what makes a scene great, I thought I’d bring him in and have a discussion/debate.

For those who don’t know Jim well, he worked in development for Allison Anders’ producers, produced Hard Scrambled, which includes Black List writer Eyal Podell. He works as a story analyst for A-List filmmakers and recently directed a feature film The Last Girl, which he discovered in a contest he ran. Next month he’s coming out with the most comprehensive DVD screenwriting teaching set on the market. I’ve been bothering him for a copy as soon as it’s ready and am currently getting an express shipment from New Yawk as we speak!

 

SS: Okay Jim, good to talk to you again.

JM: Good to talk to you Carson. I thought our last interview rocked. We were able to introduce two terms into the screenwriting lexicon. Story density and…

SS: …faux masterpiece, of course. I even give you credit for those sometimes.

JM. You’re a giver. So I see you’ve shaken things up a bit at Scriptshadow.

SS: Maybe more they’ve been shaken for me. Now let’s cut to the chase. Here’s why I brought you in today. I need to better understand scene writing.

JM: As you know, I am currently finishing up the first screenwriting book that focuses solely on scene-writing for Linden Publishing and I can tell you that two years of being immersed in just scenes has been a great learning experience for me.

SS: Oh, I know all about living inside a book. I have a million questions about scene writing but let’s start with this one. Lots of screenwriters will tell you that each scene is like a movie. They’ll have a setup, a conflict, and a resolution. Which sounds nice and pretty but when I watch movies, I definitely don’t see that all the time.

JM: At the beginning of movies, scenes are more likely to be structured like this but later, after setups are in place, scenes tend to get shorter. Think about the two lobster scenes in Annie Hall. In the later one, Alvie runs around as the completely non-neurotic woman has no reaction. The scene has a middle and an end and, on its own, gets by. However, the earlier scene where he and Annie are having fun doing the same thing is actually essential setup for that later scene to work. With the earlier scene as setup, the later scene is funnier, contains more thematic ideas about how we carry baggage from old relationships into new ones and reveals insight into Alvie’s unconscious desire.

SS: Okay, maybe I’m jumping into this too quickly. I didn’t know you were going to bring up lobsters and I’m afraid of lobsters.  So let’s start with a more straightforward question – What makes a great scene?

JM: Ironically, structure. There needs to be an organic build up to a great reversal or surprise. For me, all surprise comes from setup, which means a lot of effort and craft goes into making a reversal or surprise work. Instead of using the word “goal,” which I know you like, let me borrow a phrase that actors use: “What am I fighting for?” It’s essential to have a character who is fighting for something, and then you have to find obstacles to place in front of that fight that are meaningful and fun for the audience, if not for the character.

SS: Interesting.  Okay.  So here’s a bigger question then – because it’s the thing that really separates the pros from the amateurs in my eyes. How do you do this for 60 scenes in a row? How do you make sure all of your scenes are good and not just have two or three good scenes scattered about?

JM: Without buying my 300-page book or ten-hour DVD set?

SS: Come on. Give us some love.

JM: There is a simple answer and a complex answer and they are the same.

SS: Is there ever a straightforward answer with you, Jim?

JM: No, and I will come back to that. The challenge is to always use the information in the scene in the most effective way. Here’s a simple example…

A girlfriend walks into a room and sees her boyfriend with incriminating, I don’t know, photos. What happens next?

SS: Well if it were me I would run.

JM: I’m talking more from the girl’s perspective.

SS: God, I feel like I’m back in school. I don’t know. There’d be an argument?

JM: Exactly. It’s a dead end. But let’s take a step back and ask what else could happen. Here’s how we can use the same information differently to create a way more dynamic scene…

She walks in and sees that he’s hiding or concealing these potentially incriminating photos. Now she has a goal, something to fight for. She wants to learn what he’s hiding or verify that they are what she worries they are. You have mystery, intrigue, blocking (as she tries to get past him to the items), secrets and conflict that can get at the nature of the relationship (blame, suspicion, mistrust, etc.). Let’s say he’s hiding invitations to her surprise birthday party instead. Depending on what the audience knows, you have either dramatic irony or a surprise twist that acts as a comeuppance to the girlfriend for being mistrustful.

SS: Okay, I’m digging that. Dare I ask what the complex answer is?

JM: Again, the challenge is to use the information in the most effective way. But now we expand the definition of information to include character orchestration, character flaws, backstories, personalities, thematic motifs, meaning built-in to locations and everything else. We’ve sort of backed into a definition of drama: Arrange any and all creative resources you have – character, story, the world – for the maximum emotional impact. If you can’t do it at the scene level, you can’t do it at the structural level.

SS: So every screenwriting book ever written has been wrong for focusing on the big picture? Including the genius Scriptshadow Secrets?

JM: That book was sooo too macro for me.

SS: Nice.

JM: I never bash other books or story paradigms. My attitude is that my detailed focus can complement everything else. How does learning forty new scene-level craft elements hurt you as a screenwriter? For instance, on the DVD set, I talk about avoiding exposition and a list of 12 ways to do it.

SS: There are exactly 12 ways to avoid exposition?

JM: No, of course not. But, remember your joke above about me not giving straightforward answers. I rarely do because I am blessed or cursed with an ability to see all things from multiple perspectives. Here’s how it manifests itself in teaching. Twelve is an arbitrary number but each one is a different take on how to avoid exposition. My hope is that viewers grasp on to one of the angles and it resonates… leading them to their own solution and understanding. But, essentially, every item on that list is a variation of the overriding principle in action: Look for a way to organize the elements for maximum emotional impact. Approaching scenes with this in mind will essentially take care of the supposed “exposition scenes”.

SS: Whoa, that’s deep.  I’m gonna need an example here, compadre.

JM: Sure. This example will show how ordering “the information” can eliminate boring exposition and how scenes won’t always need a self-contained setup, conflict, and resolution.

In My Best Friend’s Wedding, Julianne (Julia Roberts) wants to break up Michael (Dermott Mulroney) and Kimmy (Cameron Diaz). Julianne’s best friend George (Rupert Everett) gives her solid advice by simply saying, “Tell Michael the truth, that you love him.”

In the next scene, Julianne talks to Michael but here is an example of a scene where the set up comes from the previous scene. We expect her to tell him the truth, and she gets close to it, a contrast that creates a nice reversal when she tells Michael the lie that she and George are engaged! However, instead of us hearing this, an ellipsis (intentional omission) and shift in point-of-view make us watch it from afar from George’s perspective as he tries to decipher Michael and Julianne’s confusing body language (mystery, suspense).

Now (surprise) Michael darts straight toward George to congratulate him. The “telling” is less interesting than the consequences. The filmmakers decided that the way to get maximum impact from this “information” would be to watch George squirm as he processes and adjusts to the lie.

We have a reversal that comes from setup: TRUTH to LIE.

SS: Okay, I like that. A reversal. We set up a scene to make it seem like we’re going in one direction, then reverse it so it goes in a different direction. Kind of keeps the audience on their toes since it didn’t happen the way they thought it would.

JM: Yeah, this sort of “change” is at the root all of my discussion about story. However, there is one more thing we have to do before the sequence is over. And it involves a burrito with a lot of carbs.

SS: Please tell me this means your DVD set comes with a gift card to Taco Bell.

JM: Come on, Carson. You know I like the finer things in life. It’s called the Chipotle Method. And it describes how sequences work.

SS: Yes! Chipotle. I love Chipotle. Are you going to buy me Chipotle?

JM: I’m going to do you one better and show you how Chipotle can be applied to screenwriting. Just like when you’re ordering from the Chipotle menu, you never go backwards. When you’re done with the rice section, you advance to the meat section.  When you’re done with the meat section,  you advance to the salsa section.

It’s the same with sequences. In a moment, My Best Friend’s Wedding will advance to a new sequence that will be driven by the assumption and the consequences of the lie. Once we make that crisp (y nachos) turn, we can’t go back. However, the filmmakers decided that Michael and the audience wasn’t convinced yet, so we weren’t ready for the twist.

In the cab on the way to meet everyone, he challenges Julianne and George to get clarity. This isn’t just a Q&A. Michael’s confusion has dramatic resonance and importance. He is fighting for something. He’s thinking, why didn’t I know about this? He may even be suppressing a tinge of jealousy. Once Michael accepts the reality of the lie, so does the audience and we move on to the next sequence.

The next scene is at a church where Kimmy and her family are prepping for the wedding. Julianne, George, and Michael enter. Same question: What’s the best way through this moment? Where is the heart of the drama? Who is the most agitated right now? George. Because he has to live the stupid lie. There is a nice little craft touch (surprise and joke). Julianne whispers “underplay” to George who, of course, does the opposite and acts completely-over-the-top as a way to punish her.

Michael darts out of the frame. We know that the others must learn this information to complicate the story. However, I hope everyone knows the exposition rule about never having a character explain in full something the audience already knows.

SS: Ah yes, kill me now when I see that.

JM: Exactly. So can we believe that Michael “downloaded” the facts to her? Yes. Do we have to see it? No? Another craft choice: let it happen offscreen and play it out in the reactions, which are way more fun. A SCREAM interrupts George abusing Julianne and prepares us for a surprise: Kimmy excitedly runs toward them, with her justifiably extreme perspective (Julianne is eliminated as a threat) to congratulate them.

Whew.

SS: Sheesh.  Remind me to never get married when my best friend is secretly in love with me.  

JM: Yeah, and we’re talking about five minutes of screen time and there are dozens of micro-craft elements that service the principle: ellipses, off-screen action, a discovery or epiphany instead of preplanning, turning exposition into conflict, exploring the not-so-obvious heart of a moment, allowing setups in previous scenes to affect the pacing of subsequent scenes and shifting the point-of-view in a scene. And I haven’t even mentioned a dozen or so dialogue elements worth looking at.

SS: So by your reasoning, there’s no such thing as an “Exposition” scene. There’s just information and the challenge to make it dramatic?

JM: Sort of. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy to admit there is such a thing as an “exposition scene.”

SS: Okay, what about another type of scene I see a lot of writers struggle with. The set-piece scene. Everyone thinks you just make all this big craziness happen and we’ll be wowed.

JM: I do think that set-pieces are important.

SS: Can you explain what they are?

JM: You’re referring to the classical definition of it being a big spectacle-oriented moment, with a wide scope, challenging logistics from a production standpoint and includes as many of the resource of the story as possible. A big dance number in a musical or the train chase at the end of Mission Impossible. And those are set-pieces. I define them a bit differently to help writers figure out the set-piece for their story.

A set-piece scene is where you go for it. Ask yourself, given your premise, concept and genre, what is the best scene I can write? For instance, in The Nutty Professor, part of the concept is that one actor plays several roles. The famous “I’ll show you healthy” dinner scene where Eddie Murphy plays all but one of the characters is an organic set-piece.

This is one of the reasons the DVD spends almost an hour on exploitation of concept. Writing a set piece is like distilling your concept into its essence or finding the perfect manifestation for it. By thoroughly understanding and assessing their concept, writers can nail their scripts’ unique set-pieces,

SS: And what about the opposite? The quieter scenes. For example, Good Will Hunting has a bunch of what I’d call ‘anti-set-piece’ scenes.

JM: Actually, that’s where I disagree 100%. In fact, almost as much as a Tarantino film, Good Will Hunting relies on set pieces. For its concept, there are several set piece scenes: the first therapy scene with Will and Sean, the Harvard bar scene, maybe even the long joke/storytelling moments and the session when Sean and Will bond over both having been beaten as kids. Without those great scenes, Good Will Hunting is an after-school special: a damaged kid goes to therapy and learns to love himself.

SS: I guess what I mean is, what about the not-so-set-piece-y scenes – where you basically just have characters talking?

JM: Earlier, I mentioned that I co-opted the phrase “what am I fighting for?” from the language of actors. The reason is because sometimes the idea of “goal” doesn’t help us tell the entire story.

SS: I love goals.

JM: I know you do but let’s take a look at the Good Will Hunting scene where Chuckie tells Will that he wants to see him get out of town. If Chuckie were his career counselor and just giving him some solid advice, the scene would suck. And a goal like “to convince him to leave” is nowhere near as strong as what I sense Chuckie’s fighting for. For his friend’s soul.

Think about it like an actor and director. If the actor said, “I am having a hard time finding the importance here. What’s the big deal about me telling him this stuff?” If you have a good answer for yourself or the character, then the scene probably works. Here, you could say this to the actor: “You and he are best friends and have been doing the exact same things together for the last ten years. But you realize now that you are keeping him back. These things that have brought you comfort and have felt good are killing your best friend, making him throw his life away. He’s not going to change anything, so you have to even if it means you will never see him again.”

SS: “What is the character fighting for in the scene?” That’s an interesting way to think about it. And speaking of these “talky scenes,” how does dialogue factor into your scene building?

JM: Typically, I’ll talk about dialogue last. Writers need to be reminded about the visuals first. I start with structure of a scene (beats and reversals) and then blocking, locations, props, motifs and strategies to help externalize the internal. Then, finally, dialogue.

On the DVD set, I discuss several advanced topics in dialogue that help writers break the rules: long scenes, talky scenes, monologues, rhetoric (storytelling within the scene itself), subconscious and extended beats. I use examples from Frost/Nixon, The Edge, Good Will Hunting, Inglorious Basterds and, of course, True Romance.

SS: I typically tell amateur writers to avoid long dialogue scenes because the longer they are, the more unfocused and wandering they tend to be. But there are writers, like Tarantino and Sorkin, who do it well. How do those guys make their endless dialogue scenes work?

JM: A lot of it is the same principles that are used in short scenes. A longer scene might need a bigger twist. It comes down to the offspring of our last interview… story density. If you have a long, talky scene, you gotta make sure there’s enough to keep it going. Is the dialogue actually action like in the opening scene of The Social Network? Are the characters casually shooting the crap or are they verbally sparring? Whether you deal with structure before or after the first draft of a scene, you can look at the finished product and determine if there is enough going on. Let’s say you think you only have half as much “stuff”. Then it’s simple. Double the amount of stuff or cut out half the fluff.

That said, there is no denying that making a long and talky scene work is easier for a great writer. Tarantino, Mamet and Tony Gilroy have all of the skills that a burgeoning professional writer has but they also have more. I discuss dozens of craft elements from the True Romance interrogation scene. Part of the reason that scene works is because Walken and Hopper are such good storytellers. Some of it comes from the writing and directing, but the actors add to the dozens of subtle touches.

Hopper will say something intriguing that raises a question and then take a long pause to puff a cigarette before he finishes the thought. He is milking the moment for suspense but it comes from character. The beat is that he is trying to lure the Walken character in to listening to the story so that he might save himself from a lot of pain and his son from death. I could talk about that scene forever.

And you got me thinking, Carson… there isnt’ room to do it here, especially with a beast like the opening of the Social Network, but I will cover the topic of long scenes and spend some time on that scene in one of my upcoming Craft & Career newsletters. It’s free and people can sign up at the site.

SS: By the way, you need to tell me which newsletter service you use later.  I’m lucky if mine gets to half the people on my list.  But we need to start wrapping things up. Is there anything else about scene-writing you think we should know?

You know the attention we put on the reversal twist in the sequence from My Best Friend’s Wedding? Dirty little secret, that skill… to turn a dramatic situation sharply so the audience and characters (when applicable), FEEL 100% that there is a new and opposite situation, is the underlying craft to all of screenwriting. Most books look at it only at a story structure level – acts and sequences – but my book and DVD take a micro approach and look at it at the level of scenes (beats), dialogue and even action description. If you can absorb and embrace the craft in making a line of dialogue or piece of action description turn, you will see the growth ripple through all of your screenwriting.

SS: Whoa. That’s a pretty powerful statement. Okay, I just want to know a little more about your DVD set before we go. What sets this apart from all of the other screenwriting teaching materials out there?

Remember, I directed the first 40 DVDS in the old Screenwriting Expo Series. I know what’s out there. I cover topics in theme, exploitation of concept and scene writing that no one else is doing.

And, from a production values standpoint, we weren’t trying to do anything but a talking-heads presentation on those Expo DVDs. My new set contains more than an hour of motion graphics. They add a ton of clarity to the viewing experience. There are some cool animated script excerpts that accompany scene analysis as well. And there are graphs and images that illustrate difficult concepts like character orchestration in ways that have never been done before.

And the great thing is that if your readers want to order it on my site, they can get 40 dollars off! Just use the code “SHADOW” when you order. It’ll be good through the end of the month.

SS: It sounds like you’re pretty passionate about it.

JM: This has been a two-year project and, yes, the DVD set is measurably exhaustive: I have poured everything I know about screenwriting into it. But on a personal note, I am risk-taker at heart. I always look to Go Big or Go Home. I feel that this is my legacy as a teacher. I am really proud of it and I believe it will positively impact and inspire writers of all skill levels.

SS: All right, Jim. Thanks as always for stopping by.

JM: Carson, I live for stopping by Scriptshadow.

SS: That is such a lie but I don’t care because it makes me feel all gooey inside.

JM: I know. The gooeyiness was set up in the first act.

SS: Take care and good luck with the DVD set!

JM: Thanks. This was fun.

To learn more about Jim Mercurio, you can head to his site. If you want to take advantage of the DVD set discount, head over to this page and use the code “SHADOW” when you purchase. If you have any questions, you can send Jim an email.  Also if you enjoyed this scene writing discussion, check out a sample of his $19.99 online scene writing class which includes excerpts from the first two lessons and an outtake from our interview.

I normally don’t talk about directors on this site.  Or post news for that matter.  But this is just too juicy to ignore.  The franchise I love more than anything, which was ruined by 3 of the worst-written scripts in the history of large scale filmmaking, is back on track.  It has Michael Arndt writing Episode 7 (or at least I think it does.  The way that news was released always confused me) and now JJ Abrams at the helm.  What’s interesting about this is that Abrams vehemently denied that he was going to direct Star Wars.  Which, in retrospect, was kind of strange, because he LOVES Star Wars.  He made Star Trek only because he loved Star Wars and it was his only chance to direct a “Star Wars-like” movie.  So you’d think that, when asked, he’d be like, “Oh my God!  I’d DIE to direct that movie.  Tell Disney to call me.”  The fact that he pushed it off like he’d never touch it in a million years was suspicious.

Anyway, after all this news that none of the big directors who were being approached wanted a piece of Star Wars, I started to get worried.  Kind of like how an aging superstar basketball player hits the free market and one-by-one, teams say they’re not interested in him.  It’s that horrifying reality that your time is up, that nobody thinks you’re good enough anymore.  Did people think Star Wars wasn’t good enough anymore?  Well, that’s a question for another time.  But when you think about it, what other franchise out there could’ve survived 3 horrible movies?  There’s Star Wars and….and well I guess Transformers and Twilight.  Maybe it’s not that uncommon.  But what I’m excited about is that JJ Abrams is going to inject some life back into these films.  That’s his thing.  That’s what he does best.  He finds new ways into old ideas.  I, for one, am ecstatic about this choice.  What about you?

A re-posted old review of the screenplay that recently played at 2013 Sundance with Natalie Portman and Shia LeBoeuf in the leads.

Genre: Comedy/Crime
Premise: After his mother dies of cancer, Charlie takes a trip to Budapest. On the flight, he meets a man and promises to deliver a gift to his daughter, who, when he meets her, he promptly falls in love with.
About: Matt Drake has been writing a long time for someone who’s just now breaking through. He wrote the 2000 independent film, “Tully,” as well as an episode of “Spin City” in 2002. But for the next five years, Drake disappeared off the radar. Then, in 2007, all that persistence paid off when he landed on the Black List with this script, which received 14 votes (Top 15). Another 3 years went by where Drake presumably did a lot of assignment work, then a week ago made noise by writing Todd Phillips’ mysterious new super-comedy known only as “Project X.” I’m reviewing today’s script in hopes of getting someone to send me that script. So if you’ve got it, dammit, send it!
Writer: Matt Drake
Details: 119 pages – June 2007 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

It isn’t often you open up a script and meet your main character dangling upside down off a bridge in Eastern Europe to the sounds of a Zsa Zsa Gabor voice over, who’s pontificating about love, specifically the woman this man has fallen in love with, who’s standing in between two gangsters, pointing a gun at our hero’s heart, which she then proceeds to pull the trigger on in order to kill said hero. Then again, there’s nothing quite like reading “The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman,” a script as unique and unpredictable as a 3 a.m. visit to Jack In The Box. Whether you’re into this kind of thing or not, “Necessary Death” is a script you’ll be compelled to finish, and that’s, at the very least, a big achievement in this distraction-plagued world.

Charlie Countryman is a confused young man to begin with. But when he and his stepfather are forced to pull the plug on his brain dead mother, his grip on reality slips into the ether. And if that soap opera hasn’t fried enough circuits, Charlie’s better half hightails it out of Relationshipville, citing Not-interested-itus (I hate when girls come down with this btw). And so, lost, the last traces of normalcy and home sucked away by that cruel darling called Life, Charlie makes the perfectly valid decision to fly off to Bucharest, a country he knows nothing about, in hopes that the foreign-ness of it all will make his memories disappear.

However, on the plane to Budapest (the first leg of the trip to Bucharest), Charlie meets a jolly old man whose combination of broken English and unbridled enthusiasm make him adorable on eight levels. The man just spent a week in Chicago courtesy of his daughter – a gift which allowed him to fulfill a lifelong dream, to see the Cubs play at Wrigley field. Despite Charlie’s attempts to ignore him, the man continues to tell Charlie about his beautiful daughter, and shows him the gift he’s purchased in return, one of those silly batting helmets with beer cup holders attached. Finally the man shuts up, clearly petered out by his nonstop chattering, and falls asleep on Charlie’s shoulder. And doesn’t wake up. Ever. Yes, the old man dies napping on Charlie. When Charlie informs a stewardess about this little snafu, he’s told they’re in the middle of the Atlantic and there’s not much they can do. And since the flight is full, Charlie will have to remain this dead man’s pillow for the next five hours.

As if the trip weren’t weird already, just before they land, the old man turns to Charlie and asks him if he can deliver that wacky beer hat to his daughter. Oh, I didn’t mention? Charlie can occasionally speak to the dead.

Now in Budapest (he didn’t make it to Bucharest), Charlie goes searching for this young lady. And when he meets her, well, she’s so gorgeous he can barely form words into coherent sentences. The two are drawn together by their recent tragedies, and somewhere within the first ten minutes of the conversation, Charlie falls in love.

Unfortunately, Gabi turns out to be a little more than Charlie bargained for. When she was 17, she fell in love with a man named Nigel who operated a business which, although unspecified, seems to involve killing people. The relationship didn’t last, but Nigel never technically accepted the resignation papers. Besides all the killing he engages in, he also makes it a priority to ensure that no men get to enjoy the company of his quasi-wife. So obviously, when Nigel sees Charlie following her all over the city with his tongue lapping up street debris, he pops in to warn Charlie to go find some other avenue of entertainment. But what Nigel doesn’t realize is that it’s already too late. Charlie is in love, and he’ll go to the ends of the world – or, in this case, Budapest – to be with her. And that includes enduring the ongoing Zsa Zsa Gabor voice over chronicling his misfit adventures. But wait, how the hell did this love affair end up in Gabi killing Charlie? That is the reason, my friends, to read the screenplay for yourselves.

“Necessary Death” was tailor made for the Black List. It’s odd. It has a strong voice. You’re never sure what’s around the corner. And it’s well-written. But at a certain point the script struggles to decide if it wants to embrace its oddness, or salvage some kind of traditional storyline. I love scripts that are different. I love scripts that are weird. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The weirder your script is, the harder it is to finish. Because the whole point of structure, is that it sets the story up for a proper climax. Without said structure, it’s all just a lot of crazy wacky sequences. This almost always results in the writer trying to be even crazier and wackier in the final 30 pages, and the third act subsequently comes off as desperate as a result. “Necessary Death’s” saving grace is that it eventually commits to the love story, which gives the screenplay a purpose, but it still feels like it has one foot squarely in each of the two worlds (traditional and crazy) and that lack of commitment had a neutering effect.

I really went back and forth on this, trying to decide how much this bothered me. Then I remembered – I’m a story guy, first and foremost. I like a good well-crafted tale. And only having that single thread – Why does Gabi kill Charlie – to look forward to, wasn’t enough meat for me. I wanted the two tacos, the chili fries, IN ADDITION to the Jumbo Jack, you know? But for those writers out there who want to see how to stand out, how someone emerges with a unique voice, they may want to check “Necessary Death” out. It’s definitely interesting. It just wasn’t for me.

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

What I learned: One of the more heavily debated mechanical details in the screenwriting world is the use of the word “We” in your description paragraphs. Such as “We turn around to see…” or “We slide forward where it’s revealed…” There are writers out there whose heads will explode at the mere mention of another writer using this style. Some will want to murder you. They will argue with you in screenwriting messageboards until you hit triple-digit thread replies. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen. And the thing is, I don’t have the slightest idea what the big stink is. I suppose it’s because it puts the reader in the position of the camera (“we” implies the “camera”) and that’s technically a no-no. But I’m here to tell you, I see this style in professional screenplays ALL THE TIME, including in this one. So rest assured, if you like to do it, keep doing it, and ignore anyone who tells you your script has no chance of selling if it’s included.