Shorts Week Continues: Welcome to the third day of Shorts Week, where I cover 5 short scripts from you guys, the readers. Shorts Week was a newsletter-only opportunity. To sign up and make sure you don’t miss out on future Scriptshadow opportunities, e-mail me at the contact page and opt in for the newsletter (if you’re not signed up already). No, this week’s newsletter still hasn’t gone out yet. But for SURE it will go out tonight. If you don’t get it, make sure to check your SPAM FOLDER. If it’s still not there, let me know tomorrow morning.

Genre: Drama
Premise: A young man struggles with having to face his best friend for the first time since his failed suicide.
Writer: Dan Sanek
Details: 9 pages

So far, I’ve been talking about what works in a short script. However, we can’t learn everything if we’re only covering the good. In order to get the most out of Shorts Week, we must also take a look at what DOESN’T work. Now I didn’t want to put anybody on the spot here, but in order to do this properly, I have to put someone on the spot.

As I said, the shorts that are real killers are the ones where two people are in a room talking. I’ve read a lot of these. Here’s the surprising thing though: A lot of these shorts (including this one) AREN’T badly written. You don’t, at any point, say, “Oh my god. This is terrible writing!” It’s simply that the SITUATION isn’t interesting. Our writer may think it holds weight because death is being discussed, and death is a weighty subject, but here’s the easiest way to judge whether you’ve written something worth writing: Is anyone going to recommend your short movie to anyone else? Is anyone going to see this and say, “Oh man, you gotta see this short about two guys talking about suicide!” The answer is no. Nobody is. Even if you write the PERFECT VERSION of this screenplay. So no matter how deep you think it is, it doesn’t matter because nobody’s going to want to see it.

A short HAS to have something hook-y about it. It has to have SOME aspect to it that’s going to get people to tell others, to trade it around. Otherwise you’re just practicing how to work a camera and direct actors.

Art Imitates Life begins with a young man, Art, trying to slit his wrists in the bathtub. He succeeds with the slitting part. But apparently doesn’t slit hard enough to achieve the ultimate goal – to commit suicide.

A few days later, after recovering, Art visits his best friend, Max, who works at an art gallery. This is the first time they’ve spoken since the big attempt. Max is a very non-suicidal type, so he’s not sure how to approach this. He makes a couple of awkward jokes, attempting to lighten the mood, and Art seems to enjoy the casual atmosphere. They even make light of the fact that Art’s mom follows him around everywhere because she’s afraid he’s going to try again. She’s even waiting outside for them to finish so she can drive Art home!

But after awhile, Max wants answers. Why’d he do it? Or why’d he TRY to do it? I mean could things really be that bad? Art explains that he just didn’t see the point in anything anymore. Not exactly the most profound reason for killing one’s self, but hey, there’s no rule that says you have to be profound when committing suicide.

In the end, Max is just happy that his friend is okay. The two say their goodbyes. They’ll see each other soon. Art jumps in his car with his mother and she asks him what he wants for dinner. Art says anything is fine. He just wants to take a quick bath before he eats. Pan down to see Art has stolen……..A BOX CUTTER from Max. Looks like Art isn’t done with his little side project after all.

Okay, a couple of things here. I’m not saying that suicide isn’t something worth discussing. I’m not saying there aren’t people out there dealing with the same problems as Art and therefore people who won’t relate to this subject matter. But by and large, people are going to see this as, “The short where two guys sit in a room and talk about suicide.” It’s depressing. It’s boring. There’s nothing unique or special about it.

If you really want to explore suicide in a short film, find a bigger canvas to do so. Not only will you get to tackle your serious subject matter, but you’ll get to do so in a way that excites others. Irony is one way to do this. What if, for example, your story centers around a zombie who wants to commit suicide? A zombie’s already dead. Zombies aren’t supposed to think about suicide. Which all of a sudden makes your short unique, different. Or maybe a robot wants to commit suicide. It could even be a humanoid robot to keep the budget down. Again, robots aren’t supposed to want to commit suicide. They’re not human enough to deal with it. This allows you to play with serious subject matter but on the kind of canvas that’s going to get a lot more people interested.

It’s no different than what a movie like, say, District 9 did. Sure, they could have made a straightforward film about apartheid, about segregation and discrimination. But that ultra-serious uber-pretentious film would’ve made about 10 bucks at the box office. You had all these deep things to say and yet none of them mattered because no one came to see it. By using alien segregation as a metaphor for real-world discrimination, however, you now get to explore the complicated subject matter of discrimination in a much more audience-friendly format.

Another way to play with irony is to have your characters discuss the deep troubling subject matter of suicide in an environment that’s COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE of suicide. For example, why not write a comedy short where Art, Max and their dates are at a football game? The environment is exciting and full of life. It just so happens this date was set up before the whole suicide attempt and Art and Max haven’t had a chance to discuss the attempt yet. So in between plays, while the girls are talking amongst themselves, Max is discreetly asking Art what the hell happened. Why did he try and off himself? The midpoint twist could be the girls overhearing them and Art having to come clean. Art is being depressing and a total downer amongst thousands of people cheering and having the time of their lives. Again, irony makes this situation a lot more interesting than two people in a room talking about how life sucks all by themselves.

But even if you strip away all that and just look at this as a simple short about suicide, I still don’t think it works. Whenever you’re tackling something as ubiquitous as the subject of suicide, you NEED TO GIVE US SOMETHING NEW TO THINK ABOUT. If all you’re going to do is rehash a common argument, then there’s nothing for us to sink our teeth into. We’re basically told that Art wants to commit suicide because, “life sucks man.” Well yeah, we’ve already heard that reason a billion times before. Instead, try finding new angles to old subject matters. Make us see the subject in way we haven’t before. For example, instead of Art being depressed, maybe he’s the happiest person on the planet. He loves his life. He lives every day to the fullest. He sees suicide as an adventure – he wants to see what’s on the other side. I’m not saying this is the best idea. The point is – IT’S DIFFERENT. You’re attempting to see the subject matter in a way that hasn’t been explored before. Think about it. If all you’re doing is writing/shooting something that’s already been said thousands of times, what’s the point?

Two people in a room talking about “serious” subject matter is almost always a recipe for disaster in the short world. Even if it’s well written. My advice is to think bigger. You have to stand out with your short somehow.

Script link: Art Imitates Life

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

What I learned: It doesn’t matter how good of a writer you are if you’ve picked boring subject matter. Never forget that, whether it be in creating a short or in creating a feature.

Shorts Week Continues: Today is the second day of Shorts Week, where I cover 5 short scripts from you guys, the readers. Shorts Week was a newsletter-only opportunity. To sign up and make sure you don’t miss out on future Scriptshadow opportunities, e-mail me at the contact page and opt in for the newsletter (if you’re not signed up already). No, this week’s newsletter still hasn’t gone out yet. Hopefully by tonight!

Genre: Horror/Zombie
Premise: (from writers) A lone survivor in a world besieged by the undead struggles to protect her home: A big cat farm in the middle of Iowa.
About: These two won the very first Scriptshadow Screenplay Contest with their script, “Oh Never, Spectre Leaf!”
Writers: C. Ryan Kirkpatrick and Chad Musick
Details: 23 pages

I remember there was a time when shorts were pointless. The only way a short could actually help your career was if it somehow got picked as an Oscar nominee. And who the hell knows how that happens? Win a couple of major festivals? I mean talk about a system that didn’t give you a lot of bang for your buck.

Youtube has changed all that. Shorts are one of the most promising ways to start a career in filmmaking nowadays. I mean, Scriptshadow fave “Mama” started off as a short. Had Guillermo Del Toro not seen that thing and loved it, we would’ve never met that floaty-haired little freakshow in feature form.

And even without the super-success stories of visual-effects whizzes launching their careers via jaw-dropping short films (Neil Blomkamp), shorts on the internet are still a must for any young filmmaker. I mean, when someone tells me he’s a director these days, the first thing I do is look him up on Youtube so I can watch one of his shorts, see what he’s about. If he doesn’t have anything up, I don’t take him seriously. It’s practically a requirement.

So it’s an intriguing transition. Shorts have gone from completely insignificant to the number one calling card for young directors in all of 7 years. Oh, how fast the business changes. However, shorts are still being produced via the wrong approach. They’re typically generated by directors trying to show off their stuff. This is NOT the way you should approach a movie. First and foremost should be the script. The script has to be a story worth telling.

If we could develop a shorts system that marries writers with directors somehow, my guess is that shorts would be a lot better. But the importance of the system has grown faster than the system has been put in place. Of course, writers aren’t really prepared for this either. If the shorts I’ve been reading are any indication, screenwriters aren’t really sure how to tackle this new blossoming medium. There’s still too much boring subject matter and boring storytelling. A short film has to be both emotionally satisfying AND memorable/different in some way. It has to STAND OUT. Which is a perfect segue into today’s offering.

30 year-old Emma Gray hasn’t been having the best week. She’s had to kill her husband after he turned into a zombie, and upon doing so, upset her little boy so much that he ran away. The only thing left in her life is her son’s childhood stuffed animal, Hobbes, who she’s taken to talking to (a la Wilson from Castaway) in order to prevent insanity.

After dusting a few zombies of the 28 Days Later variety (frantic runners), Emma decides to go back to her childhood home, where her family (I believe) owned a veterinary clinic. But not just any veterinary clinic. This clinic took care of big cats – tigers, leopards, cheetahs, that sort of thing. When Emma goes to check on how the animals are doing, she learns they’re not so good. Apparently the zombie virus has crossed into the cat world. And that’s not good news for anybody planning to take a stroll into the cage room.

Once the zombie tigers spot Emma, they go nuts, bursting out of their cages. Emma has to put them down Old Yeller style (by the way, why did they make us read that shit when we were kids? Who wants to read a story where a dog is deliberately killed?). Pretty soon, a few bullets aren’t going to do the trick. There are zombie tigers everywhere, and she’s gotta exit the premises, pronto.

So she grabs Hobbes and away they go, following the directions of a radio transmission that promises safety for survivors. Unfortunately, her car isn’t going to make it on a dwindling tank of gas, so she has to stop at a gas station. After she grabs some supplies, she’s shocked to find the door to her jeep open and Hobbes gone! Hobbes being the only thing keeping her sane, she hops in the car and goes after the thief, a zombie trucking through the forest. She leaps out, shoots him dead, and walks over to grab her stuffed tiger. But when she sees who she’s killed, her entire world falls apart…

As Keanu Reeves would say – whoa. This was one hell of a trip. First thing I wanna mention, though, is the length. Despite the quality of this and Friday’s script (which is also 20+ pages), I don’t think these feel like traditional shorts. They feel like shorts-plus. 20+ pages is more than a casual commitment and therefore Shorts-Plus scripts are going to be harder sells for people. I’m guessing not as many of you are going to read this based on length alone. I don’t want to make some definitive statement or anything. But length clearly matters. It will affect your reads. Lots more people are going to read a 7 page short instead of a 20 pager, regardless of how good it is. You’ve been warned.

As for the story itself, it had some good things going for it and some not-so-good things. Zombie tigers. Wow. That’s a crazy choice. It’s unique, but I’m not sure how many people will suspend their disbelief to buy into a story about zombie-tigers. I suspect some readers are just going to say, “That’s too weird.”

However, it’s also what sets this apart from all the other shorts. I think one of the key things you have to ask yourself when writing a short is, “Is this the kind of thing that people would tell other people about?” Is it the kind of video where people will say, “You gotta see this?” Would they put it in their e-mail? Would they tweet about it? Otherwise, what’s the point? You’ve made a short for you and your buddies. Who cares? Zombie tigers and cheetahs trying to rip humans to pieces? If done well, that’s something I’d wanna see. So “Here There Be Tigers,” passes that crucial test.

Another key element that this short has going for it is the ending. That’s one thing I’ve noticed about shorts. The ones with surprise endings leave more of an impact and are therefore more likely to be shared. (Spoiler) Here, the person who stole Hobbes and is shot dead turns out to be (in case you hadn’t guessed), Emma’s son. Ouch. That’s a killer. It’s a nice twist if a little confusing. I understand it’s dark out, but if it’s bright enough to properly aim at someone’s head, wouldn’t you notice the difference between a 5 year old boy and a full grown adult? I wish that would’ve been more believably handled.

The Castaway effect was also a smart move. By providing this inanimate object (Hobbes), it allowed us to get inside our character’s head via her talking out loud to someone. Yesterday we talked about the power of a silent short (showing and not telling) which is basically what this is except for that little cheat – Hobbes. It was kind of the best of both worlds in that we still got to hear our hero, but only when we absolutely needed to. Overall, we still got that “silent film” feel.

There were a couple of things that threw me about “Tigers” though – the biggest of which was why the hell Emma would deliberately walk into a place with hundreds of wild tigers. Even if they weren’t zombified, that’d still be really dangerous. I got the feeling she went there (where home was) for some reason, but I couldn’t figure out what. Since the entire short is based on this premise, it can’t be an unknown. Her motivation has to be strong. So I’d like to see that strengthened in the next draft.

Also, there seemed to be some connection between her family and the cats, but that was also unclear. Were her family members all veterinarians? That would be my guess but it was still too vague. I wanted to know definitively why she knew the names of all the cats. And also, of course, why the hell she willingly walked into a veterinary clinic full of hungry animals.

In the end, there was definitely enough stuff to recommend Tigers. I just think some things needed to be cleared and tightened up. What did you guys think?

Script link: Here There Be Tigers

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

What I learned: If you’re telling a story with a single character, consider creating an object that the character can talk to. Going completely silent for a film can be a real challenge. As we learned yesterday, there are certain things that are difficult to convey solely through images. Getting inside our hero’s head is one of them. If your protagonist has someone to talk to (like a stuffed animal), it’s a cheat that gives us that power.

Note: No, I have not sent out the newsletter this week. It’s been a busy weekend but I’m going to try and send it out tonight!

Genre: Animated (Pixar-ish)
Premise: (from writer) A lonely inventor builds a time machine, but finds it only works three minutes at a time.
About: Shorts Week was a newsletter-only opportunity. To sign up and make sure you don’t miss out on future Scriptshadow opportunities, e-mail me at the contact page and opt in for the newsletter (if you’re not signed up for the newsletter already).
Writer: Christy McGee
Details: 9 pages

So what makes a good short? It’s a question man has been asking since the dawn of time. “What is the meaning of life?” and then “What makes a good short script?” Unfortunately, there haven’t been a whole lot of venues to write short scripts, so the focus of them has been limited almost exclusively to directors who want to make short movies. They write short scripts pretty much by necessity. Oftentimes these short scripts are terrible, piece-mailed together to set a particular tone, get a particular shot or land a particular joke they love. Little to no focus has been put on the script itself.

Which is why you’re looking to me this week to give you the answer. You’ve spent your entire lives wondering how to write one of these things. If there’s anyone who should know how, it’s Scriptshadow. Errr, not so fast. I did Shorts Week for two reasons. One, there was an outburst of demand. People NEEDED this week for some reason. And two, I myself wanted to learn how to write a good short. I mean, there just haven’t been any situations for which I’d need to read shorts. So this was just as much an opportunity for me to learn as you guys.

Now I’m ASSUMING a good short, like a good script, has a setup (Act 1) a conflict (Act 2) and a resolution (Act 3). So that’s what I’m looking for. But honestly, I’m just looking for anything that stands out in some way. And that’s proven harder to find than you’d think. I’ve read a ton of bad shorts. The biggest issue I ran into was writers choosing ideas where not much happened. Lots of scripts had people sitting in rooms talking, almost like something you’d shoot as a student film to practice basic blocking techniques with actors. Nothing actually exciting, interesting, or different. The way I see it, you only have a very short time to tell your story in a short so it’s gotta stand out in some way. Normal and cliché are adjectives you want to stay as far away from as possible. With that established, let’s check out today’s short.

Luigi lives in the kind of small Steampunk town that I sure as hell wish existed in reality. He makes his living as an inventor and his latest invention is a backpack that allows him to travel through time. So excited is Luigi about his device that he’s called a town meeting to show it off.

Once everyone is at the town square, Luigi shows them an old newspaper with a picture of the square. He’ll go back in time and make sure to appear IN that picture to prove his contraption works. Luigi presses his magic time-traveling backpack button but…nothing. He presses it again. Nothing. People start to leave. He presses it a third time. Almost everyone has left. Luigi is devastated. Until he checks his watch. Wait, he actually HAS time traveled, but only 9 minutes backwards. People weren’t leaving. He’d just gone back to before they showed up! This means that his backpack is merely broken and only goes back 3 minutes at a time.

While not ideal, Luigi realizes he can still do a lot of good with his backpack. So he starts saving some cats, exposes some bank robbers, and offers instant replay to football games. Everything seems to be going swell until Luigi meets a little orphan girl who lost her mother to an accident while crossing the road.

Devastated, Luigi HAS to help this girl. So he does some research and finds the road where the woman was killed, but realizes it was an entire year ago. Since his backpack will only go back 3 minutes at a time, that means he’ll have to press it 178,776 times. Ouch. But if that’s the only way he can save this woman, then that’s what he has to do.

(spoiler) So Luigi heads back in time, saves the woman, and in the process falls in love with her. Cut to a year later and Luigi is part of the family: Mom, Luigi, and the little girl. He’s even created time-traveling backpacks for all of them and included them into his act. And this time when he gathers the entire town around, he’s ready. Or at least he thinks he is. When all three family members press their buttons, they, um…don’t exactly end up where they planned. To be continued.

The reason I liked this short was because it reminded me a lot of a Pixar short where the focus was on the storytelling and not on some boring dialogue exchange or some cool but ultimately thin sci-fi idea. “Time Well Traveled” was not only a rich storytelling experience, it was told without a single line of dialogue.

I realized that a ton of these shorts go on forever, like 20-25 pages, and yet they feel like nothing’s happened. We’re still in the same place on page 12 as we were on page 2. Yet “Time Well Traveled” feels like dozens of things have happened within that span. Clearly, this is the result of not including dialogue. Dialogue eats up pages because it takes up so much space. You wouldn’t notice that in a regular script at 110 pages long, but you certainly notice it with shorts.

I’m not saying that shorts should never include dialogue. But if you’re looking at this and my favorite short of the week (which I’ll review Friday), you’d be persuaded into thinking that the best way to tell a short is via images and not dialogue.

The thing is, when you’re not using dialogue, it becomes quite challenging to convey key plot points and really anything in the story that’s nuanced. Indeed there were some things that didn’t make sense to me on the first go-around that I had to read the script twice to understand. For example, I didn’t totally get, at first, that each press of the button only went back 3 minutes. Therefore when he’s trying to figure out how to save the mother and he comes up with the number “178,776,” I was scratching my head trying to figure out what that number stood for (Oh! I realized. That’s how many times he has to press the button).

Also, I didn’t read the logline. And it wasn’t until I did that I realized Luigi was “lonely.” That made the story more powerful since he finds this family at the end. But for that to work, we need some images or actions at the beginning that clearly depict how lonely Luigi was. I don’t remember that so it’s something I’d really focus on in the next draft.

There were a couple of other things, like when tries to save the falling cat and when he sits at the bus stop, that had me a little unsure of what exactly was going on. These are things that are easy to take care of in a dialogue-centered piece but quite challenging without, so it really takes some skill (and effort) to pull them off. In the end, however, these moments were few and far between and this short script easily stood out from the rest. It probably needs a clarity rewrite. And I wouldn’t have minded one little extra twist at the end (I always feel like time travel stories need a final twist). But other than that, good stuff!

Script link: Time Well Traveled

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

What I learned: This script exemplifies the power of showing over telling. It also reminded me how much space can be saved if you show something rather than have characters tell us through dialogue.

What I learned 2: Make sure to be CLEAR when you are showing and not telling. It’s easy to assume that you’ve been super clever and conveyed what you’ve needed to convey through an image. But as this script showed, certain images or moments need extra clarity.

Today’s screenwriters take on MIT’s obsession with pranking. Is the script the next Real Genius or just a giant prank gone wrong?

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 writers) An MIT reject crashes the school and discovers his greatest challenge isn’t getting caught by the administration — it’s surviving the high-tech hazing of a brilliant and jealous rival.
About: According to the authors, this script is inspired by true events. Every week I include 5 amateur screenplays in my newsletter and let the readers determine which one to review (sign up for newsletter here to participate). While the feedback for Crash Course was all over the place, it easily got the most interest of the bunch.
Writers: Steve Altes & Diana Jellinek
Details: 107 pages

I was actually discussing college comedies with a friend the other day and we agreed that if all you do is focus on the basic everyday drunken madness that is college, you’re going to bore your reader to tears. Just like any idea, you need an angle. Drunken madness at MIT? THAT sounds different. Even better when you focus on the unique world of genius pranksters. These guys don’t simply draw a penis on the university president’s picture. They download the picture, animate it complimenting Osama Bin Laden’s thoughts on his jihad, and play it on the basketball jumbotron in the middle of the homecoming game. No doubt, there’s lots of potential for comedy here.

18 year-old Jim Walden is making his way to MIT for his freshman year of college. Well, sort of his freshman year of college. You see, Jim’s not really a student at MIT. He’s a freeloader. Jim plans to get a degree at MIT without paying for it. He’ll go to all the classes. He’ll take all the tests. He just won’t be officially enrolled!

Jim quickly finds out that MIT is a campus full of pranksters. As in, when he makes his way past the main building, he sees that a car has been taken apart and reassembled on top of it (packed full of ping pong balls to boot). It appears that MIT students are so uninterested in doing real work (or so smart that they have tons of extra time on their hands) that they spend all their free time coming up with pranks. Whereas at the University of Texas, the receiver with the most catches might be the most heralded man on campus, here, it’s the guy who’s pulled off the biggest most complicated prank (or “hack” as they like to call it around these parts).

Jim soon finds his way into a local fraternity where he makes a bunch of new friends, plus reconnects with an old one, Luke. The group starts doing a bunch of “hacks” around school (that don’t really have much significance) and Jim is pretty good at them, which starts to make his old pal Luke jealous. At a certain point, word gets out that Jim isn’t really enrolled at the school, which puts all of the fraternity in danger, and gets everyone really mad at him. This delights Luke to no end, who doesn’t like playing second fiddle to anyone.

In the meantime, Nick meets a Shakespeare-obsessed young woman who works at a sperm bank. She helps him overcome all this newfound adversity, but soon she too learns of his lies and wants nothing to do with him. Eventually the story culminates in Luke having to pull off the ULTIMATE HACK at school, which I believe will make all his troubles go away.

Crash Course is a screenplay that FEELS fun. It has all the makings of a hit comedy. You got a bunch of goofy characters thrown into a bunch of goofy situations. Clearly, you’re updating some of those 80s classics like Revenge Of The Nerds and Real Genius. Which I think is a good idea. 80s comedies had an effortlessness to them that we haven’t seen for awhile.

But a few things crashed this course before it could get started, the biggest of which were the dueling concepts. You essentially have two ideas here. The first idea is about a guy illegally sneaking into college. Then you have the concept of a fraternity attempting to create the biggest “hack” of the year at MIT.  Once you try to combine those two, the movie becomes confused. And that’s how I saw it. I was constantly trying to figure out what Jim sneaking into this school had to do with creating a giant school prank. Those two things didn’t organically fit together.

Not only that, but I couldn’t figure out how the “fake degree” thing made sense. Was Jim just coming to MIT to get educated or to get a degree? Because those are two different things. Just illegally taking a bunch of classes so you can learn I guess SORTA makes sense. But isn’t an MIT degree without an ACTUAL MIT DEGREE kind of worthless? You wouldn’t have any official documents to say you that you went to MIT which would severely limit your job options (in this case, becoming an astronaut). Which begs the question, what’s the point of going through this whole sham in the first place? And granted I didn’t go to a big university so I don’t know what it’s like, but I’m assuming it’s difficult to just sneak into a bunch of classes? And even harder to take tests? How does one take a test if they’re not even listed as a student?

A lot of people think this kind of stuff isn’t important since it’s a “comedy.” But it is. The details have to be solid. You can’t skim over the rules. If the rules aren’t clear, the stakes aren’t clear. Most of the best comedies come from stories with high stakes. We have to know what can be gained or lost in order to laugh. If I’m sitting there going, “Uhhh, so wait. He’s taking classes but he’s not really taking classes?” the whole time, I’m not going to be laughing.

The kind of fix you’re looking for here is one that simplifies the plot. First off, decide which is the more important idea to you. Is it a guy who fakes a college career or the MIT HACK plotline? I feel the MIT HACK plotline has a lot more potential so let’s go in that direction. Now create a plot that exploits that idea. This is admittedly hack-y since it’s off the top of my head but maybe Jim gets to MIT only to find out that his scholarship has fallen through. The school gives him a month to come up with this semester’s tuition, and if he doesn’t, he’s gone. His fraternity puts so much importance on winning the annual hack, that they say if he helps them win it, they’ll take care of his tuition.

That would be DRAFT 1 of the idea. You’d need to smooth it out and not make it so “screenwriting 101,” but that’s pretty much how most comedies work. Give your main character an important goal with high stakes attached within the context of a funny setting (in this case, sophisticated college pranking). Reading this draft of Crash Course, I kept forgetting what the point to everything was. He was trying to get an education. He was trying to help people create a great prank. But why? Why was it so important that he did these? So he could become an astronaut? I don’t know. I just didn’t care if this guy became an astronaut or not. It was so far away. A million things could go wrong between now and then that could derail his astronaut career (in other words, there’s no IMMEDIATE need for him to achieve his goal).

Most importantly, when the reader is focusing on all this unnecessary stuff or asking all these questions, or is confused about the purpose of the script – THEY’RE NOT LAUGHING. And that’s what you gotta remember as a comedy writer. If you set up an easy-to-understand plot with a clear protagonist goal, then you can have fun. Then you can throw all the jokes in there. Then your reader is going to be ready to laugh because they don’t have to think. They can just sit back and enjoy.

Look at the Hangover. They set up the situation – Friends needing to find the groom by x o’clock – and then just had fun.

Since too much of the plot and purpose and stakes were muddled here, I didn’t laugh that much, and obviously, you gotta laugh a LOT in a comedy – I’d say a reader should be laughing between 30-40 times out loud during a comedy-spec for it to be sale worthy. I do think this idea still has potential. A Real Genius update would be nice. But the plot needs to be simplified, as do the stakes and the protagonist goal. I wish Steve and Diana the best of luck!

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

What I learned: Comedy scripts should be the easiest scripts to read OF ALL THE GENRES. They need to be fun. I mean, of course they do – they’re comedies! So keep the prose sparse. Move things along quickly. Keep the reading style relaxed. And just have fun with it. Beware of overly technical writing or too much detail. Those things trip up and slow down a script, which you cannot afford when writing a comedy.

What I learned 2: Always beware of dueling concepts. Movies aren’t good at balancing two strong concepts. They tend to be best when focused on one thing. For example, The Hangover isn’t about guys looking for their missing friend in Vegas AND trying to win the World Series Of Poker tournament. Knocked Up isn’t about a couple trying to deal with an unplanned pregnancy stemming from a one-night stand AND the effects of their sex tape that accidentally got released to the public. In my opinion, you gotta pick one or the other.

Adam Zopf, the man who figured out a way to make every high school graduate in the world fear coming back to their ten year reunion, is back with a darker more personal tale.

Genre: Indie Dark Comedy
Premise: A young man who sees his dead girlfriend wherever he goes tries to start dating again.
About: Many of you remember writer Adam Zopf from his screenplay, Reunion, which I reviewed in 2011. I met with Adam recently and he passed me his latest screenplay, which I was surprised to learn wasn’t a horror film but a dark indie comedy. Dark indie comedies are tricky. You gotta have a unique voice and you gotta be careful not to get too depressing. Sideways is a good example of striking that perfect tone of darkness and hope. I was interested to see what I would get with Adam’s foray into the genre.
Writer: Adam Zopf
Details: 94 pages

Summer Glau as Lily?

After meeting with Adam, I was talking to my assistant and mentioned one of the scripts he had pitched me.  She loved the idea and asked if I could send it to her.  What do you like about the idea, I asked.  It reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Lars And The Real Girl. This is, of course, exactly why I was scared to read it myself. I severely disliked Lars And The Real Girl. I just don’t spark to stuff that’s super depressing and ultra heavy-handed. I like to think of myself as a hopeful optimistic person, and you usually see that in the scripts that I like.

So my assistant got back to me less than a day later and told me she really liked Lily and that I needed to read it. Since she had basically hated the last 20 scripts I’d sent her, this meant something. And I was going to read the script at some point anyway. I know Adam’s a good writer. But it’s scary reading something from someone you like that you have a feeling you’re not going to like.  As much as I dug Reunion, a script about a dead girl staring at our main character for 90 minutes sounded kind of…morbid. So as I flipped open the first page, I heard myself mumbling, “Please don’t be depressing please don’t be depressing please don’t be depressing…”

29 year-old writer Michael Dorsey is going about his daily routine. He’s grabbing breakfast. He’s working out. He’s writing. There’s one difference between Michael’s routine and everybody else’s though. Everywhere Michael goes, he sees his dead girlfriend, Lily, in the corner. Which sucks. Because it’s been nine entire months since she’s died. And that’s not fair. It’s so bad that he’s been ordered to get therapy about it (for what reason, I’m not sure).

Even outside of the Lily thing, Michael’s not a very happy dude. He hates his job as a telemarketer and is annoyed by just about everyone he runs into. Well, almost everyone. When Michael moves into a new place, he meets the handyman, the pint-sized Randy White Washington, who will tell anyone within shouting distance that he’s the main drug dealer in town.  Big drug dealer or not, Randy’s a pretty cool dude.

As Randy and Michael become friends, Randy encourages Michael to get back out there. Start dating! Michael takes his advice and after a couple of false starts meets Anita, an aspiring British actress. The two hit it off and all of a sudden, Michael’s life is starting to find purpose again. Kick ass!

Well, that is until Dead Lily begins to realize that Michael likes this girl. This seems to launch her out of her cryogenic staring state and actually start COMMUNICATING with Michael. This fucks poor Michael up to no end, who’s now unsure whether to keep pushing for Anita or “go back” to Lily. As you can imagine, the situation becomes so intense that everything in Michael’s life starts crumbling apart again. Michael realizes that unless he does SOMETHING to get Lily out of his life for good, he’ll never live a normal life again.

One of the things I like about Adam is that he writes with this simple easy-to-read compact prose. Never is there a word in one of his scripts that shouldn’t be there. I could see a lot writers taking a script like this to 105 or 110 page territory. Adam knew exactly how much space he needed and didn’t write a single word more than that.

What I also liked was the IDEA behind closure here. I’m not going to spoil anything but the revealed backstory that explained why Michael hadn’t gotten over Lily, and the subsequent extremes he had to go to to find closure, while utterly ridiculous, made sense within the context of the script. I liked what Michael had to do to move on. That part was really cool.

However, my biggest fears going into the read were realized. And again, I believe this is more me than Adam. I’m just not into these really downer stories. I need hope. I need laughs. I need life. I always say the “woe-is-me’ character is the most dangerous character to write because nobody likes someone who feels sorry for themselves. Michael doesn’t quite seem sorry for himself, but he is a pretty miserable guy. He’s a downer. And I understand why. It’s motivated.  Who’s not going to be down after losing their girlfriend?  But I just personally have trouble latching onto and rooting for those characters.

I actually think Adam might’ve sensed this, might’ve known this could be a problem, and so he brought in the character of Randy. He’d be our comic relief. He’d be our “fun.” And he almost achieved that but, I don’t know – he wasn’t humorous enough in my opinion. He wasn’t Thomas Hayden Church in Sideways. He was more a ball of misguided energy. I would’ve liked to have seen more humor pulled from this character.

Another issue for me was the plot. These super light plots always leave me wanting more. There aren’t enough characters, enough twists, enough subplots. You gotta look somewhere to spice up the pages and i didn’t see that. I think I knew pretty early on what this was about, and most of the script just reinforced that. For example, I knew Lily was always going to be there. That aspect of the story didn’t change until page 80. PAGE 80! A lot more mystery could’ve been culled from that subplot. Or maybe you do a series of flashbacks throughout the script to their relationship so we can get to know Lily, so we can better understand why Michael was so obsessed with her. The only thing we know about Lily now is that she’s a creepy chick who stares at our hero. Ultimately, everything was played very straight forward with the story, so you always knew where the script was going before it did. And I’m a guy who likes to be kept off-balance.

This is why I get nervous whenever I’m sent a more personal piece from someone. I always get scared that it will be too “indie,” if that makes sense. And Lily In The Corner felt too indie to me. What does that mean for Adam’s script? Well, as I pointed out, I don’t think I’m the audience for this. My assistant was and she loved it. I think the real audience you’re trying to win over here are the people who loved Lars and The Real Girl. If they tell you that Lily kicked ass, you’re in good shape. So I guess I’ll turn it over to you guys. What’d you think?

Script link: Lily In The Corner

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

What I learned: I’m usually wary of any script centered around a writer. I just feel that writers and their lives are boring. So it always feels to me like a lazy choice. If the writing is tightly integrated into the plot (i.e. Stranger Than Fiction) then it’s okay. But I didn’t see how Michael’s writing played into the plot at all. If the story focused more on how he hasn’t been able to write since Lily died, then it would make more sense. But I really didn’t see any particular reason why Michael needed to be a writer. Am I off base on that assertion? Adam? I’m sure you’ll have an opinion on this. ☺