Hello my fellow Scriptshadowians. So I’ve wanted to write an article about theme for the longest time now but the truth is, it’s not one of my strengths. I understand the broad strokes but there are times when theme flat out confuses me. For that reason, I’ve brought in a tag-team partner, Tawnya Bhattacharya from Script Anatomy, to help me out. She’s a theme guru and I figured if I had her, I could at least hide some of my ignorance. The way I thought we’d do it is this – Tawnya will give you her breakdown on theme and then afterwards, I’ll give you mine. For the most part, we’re on the same page, but I feel like my approach is a little less strict. Afterwards, I’d love to hear your own thoughts on theme. I often learn just as much from you guys as you do from me. :) With that said, let’s bring in Tawnya!
I’m feeling punchy and maybe slightly ornery. It’s hot as hell even with the AC on. I don’t feel like I’m dropping enough L-B-S’s with my latest fad work out. And my writing partner and I have been waiting all summer to hear if “Fairly Legal” is getting the pick up (Magic 8 Ball says, “Outlook not so good”) and lately, we’ve been on pins and needles waiting to find out if we’re going to land a new gig after a series of meetings. I even offered to do a cartwheel during the last meeting to seal the deal. I’m not talking any old cartwheel but an aerial in honor of the recent Olympics. A private closing ceremony, if you will, starring me. This is no small feat as I haven’t done one since 1989, but I’m willing to take one for the team, people! Anyway… The. Wait. Is. Brutal. It’s been 72 hours and counting… One of the fun things you have to try to get used to, because it should happen over and over again in your career if things are going well. If it’s not then something’s wrong.
What’s my point? I almost forgot. Theme! Carson asked me to write an article on theme and I was giving you a little preface (I’m feeling punchy) on why I’ve decided to basically interview myself. So, here goes.
WHAT IS THEME?
1) Theme is Structure. It is the foundation on which your story is built. In fact, it’s like the gravity of your script holding everything together and in place. Without it, nothing’s anchored and scenes, moments, characters, setpieces will just drift off into space.
2) Theme is not only the spine and core of your movie but the Heart and Soul of your story. It’s the moral and lesson of your story that gives your screen or teleplay universal meaning. Ultimately, it’s what unifies your story and makes it emotionally significant. It’s your “voice” – it’s what you want to say. Stories teach us how to be human through symbolic experiences.
3) Theme is your “Voice” because it is your reflection of humanity – what you have to say with regard to your core beliefs and values. Someone said there are only 7 stories. And we know writers use the same themes over and over again. But it doesn’t matter. It’s all about how YOU tell that story from your unique point of view.
HOW DO YOU APPROACH THEME IN YOUR WORK?
When thinking about theme, I think it’s important to start with yourself. What do you feel strongly about? What are your core beliefs and values? What stories are you drawn to – are there common themes in those stories? Write down a list of all of your story ideas and see if common thematic patterns emerge. Think about your life experiences – maybe start with the major moments of your life – the good and the bad – and see what comes up there. Your passion and voice are stronger when you are writing what is personal to you – what’s “close to the bone.”
HOW DO YOU ILLUSTRATE THEME IN A SCRIPT?
Theme is kind of like the subtext of the overall story. You are expressing it through character, relationships, conflict, dialogue, symbolism and visual imagery… but hopefully you’re being subtle about it so you aren’t hitting people over the head. Samuel Goldwyn said: “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” I think that’s why it’s important to explore different facets of theme. If you are proving the opposite thematic point of view through a secondary character or storyline as well as your main thematic point with primary characters, then you are giving us perspective and will hopefully steer clear of becoming preachy.
I think the most important and effective way to illustrate theme is through your main character. Theme is expressed through your main character’s transformational arc during the journey. How do you show this transformation? To express transformation, the need for transformation has to be established – hence the Character FLAW. Remember this: Theme is the opposite of the character’s flaw.
Theme is the lesson the character learns from going on the journey. Theme, therefore, must be illustrated through the character’s experience: The character is one way in the beginning of your movie (fully living in their flaw), but the relationships and conflict during the journey of the movie will lead the character to change/grow and end up a different way at the end (cure flaw to a degree) to get to the theme.
Many people have asked me over the years: Can my character be his own opponent? No. They are, in a sense, their own worst enemy because ultimately it is the Character’s flaw that is stopping them from getting what they want. And they will have to cure that flaw to some degree to get the goal in the end. This is why we are on the journey in the first place. This makes sense in life too. We all have certain flaws and misbehaviors that have a way of recurring and creating obstacles on our path, preventing us from getting what we want. In order for us to stop coming up against the same blocks – the same bad relationships, the same job issues, the same insecurities – WE HAVE TO GROW AND CHANGE! If you don’t have an external antagonist (someone or something) you lose the opportunity for your character to grow and change because conflict and obstacles and relationships are what force the character to confront their flaw and either remain the same or grow and change (arc) to get to the goal and the thematic lesson. Conflict and obstacles give your story stakes and momentum. Conflict comes from the fact that there is a FLAW. So…
Theme is directly related to FLAW, BECAUSE FLAW IS OPPOSITE OF THEME. Again, flaw is what the MC (main character) has to confront along the way to get to the breakthrough place, which is the THEMATIC LESSON. Here’s an easy way to approach character flaw, theme and the transformational arc. Think of it in terms of a logline.
A MAIN CHARACTER with a FLAW embarks on SECOND ACT with a CATALYST CHARACTER (S) and because of CONFLICT AND RELATIONSHIPS, CHANGES and GROWS ALONG THE JOURNEY, thus LEARNING LESSON “X” by the end.
If you know the character flaw, you know the theme. If you know the theme, you know the character flaw.
CARSON’S TAKE
In that sense, one of the best things you can do is pick themes that resonate with people. They call these universal themes and there’s a reason they’ve been around forever. Because they affect us. Because they come up in our lives again and again. Because they make us think. With Ferris, I believe the Carpe Diem theme was just as important to the movie’s success as its characters. All of us wish we spent less time worrying about the past and future and enjoyed the now. So it’s those UNIVERSAL THEMES that are going to give you the most bang for your buck.
Even though I prefer a statement, some writers like to tackle their theme in the form of a question. So for example, your thematic question might be, “Is it ever really possible for someone to change?” Most people get to a point in their lives where they are who they are, for better or worse, and won’t change. Our story might follow a protagonist, then, who’s been selfish and deceitful for the first three decades of his life. We want to see if it’s possible for him to become kind and trustworthy. But the great thing about theme is you don’t stop at the main character. You also explore this question with your other characters, just in different situations and variations.
For some characters, the answer to the question might be positive. They can change. For others, it will be negative. They always go back to what they’re comfortable with. The up and down nature of the way these characters and scenes explore the question is – you got it – the exploration of your theme. Then, like Tawnya said, the definitive answer to the question will come via your main character in the third act. Is he able to change? This will be your personal opinion, as the author, of the “correct” answer to your thematic question. You control whether the audience leaves feeling hope or feeling hopeless. You’re telling them whether it’s possible to change in this world.
Now how do you find a great theme for your specific script? It’s easier than you think. Take a second and mentally scroll through all the things that are going on in your life right now. What gets you riled up? Passionate? What recent argument did you have with someone that still resonates? You should be able to find themes you feel passionately about in those experiences.
For example, the “change” theme I used above. That came from a friend and I discussing whether it’s really possible for people to change. He stood by as his biggest fault destroyed his relationship. Now he wanted to change it. But he acknowledged that he’d had this problem for 15 years and didn’t think he could change it.
The tricky part is matching up the right theme with the right story. So let’s say I’m writing a movie about aliens trying to hijack a super train. Hmm…my whole “change” theme might be great for a character-driven drama, but not so much for Aliens On A Train. Which just means I have to go back and explore more themes in my everyday life and find the right fit. I know of a friend, for example, who recently moved to LA to escape a rocky past. That’s an interesting theme. “Is it truly possible to leave your past behind or will it always catch up to you?” So maybe I make the protagonist a guy who’s taking this train to escape his past. And hey, maybe that’s what these aliens are doing too! That’s why they left their planet. You see how the theme is now weaving itself into the story? That may not be the perfect theme for this screenplay but you can start to see the genesis for finding a theme that fits.
As far as the application of theme, I always encourage writers to go into their first draft with AT LEAST a vague understanding of their theme. It doesn’t have to be rock solid. But you should have a general feel for what you’re trying to say. The reason it’s okay to be vague at first is because your story’s going to be changing a lot in those first few drafts, and you have to have the flexibility to let your theme change with it. Once you get to your fourth and fifth drafts, your theme should be solidifying, and your characters and scenes (and dialogue) should start to reflect that.
I think theme is fascinating because it’s one of the more formless aspects of screenwriting. You can’t boil it down to an outline or apply it as a rule. There’s a lot more “feel” involved in it than the average screenwriting component. You have to “weave” it in as opposed to “place” it in, which may be why there’s so many opinions on how theme should be applied. I know when I hear about writers trying to prove or disprove their theme in every single scene, that I feel that’s going too far. I look at theme as something that should have a dominant background presence but never get too close to the front of the stage. It should guide your story but never control it. That’s what the plot and the characters are for. But that’s just my opinion. What about you guys? What are you thoughts on theme?
Genre: Period/Epic/Sci-Fi
Premise: (from IMDB) An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
About: Wachowskis again! This script was adapted by the Wachowskis as well as Tom Tykwer of Run Lola Run fame. The three also directed the film together. Cloud Atlas is a 2004 novel written by British author David Mitchell, who had written two books previous to Atlas. The film stars Tom Hanks and Halle Berry.
Writers: The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer (from the novel by David Mitchell)
Details: 230 pages
A PDF script is usually compressed in two different ways. There’s the “smart” way, where the program compresses it down to a computer friendly 200 kilobytes. And then there’s the “dumb” way, where the program creates a big lumbering 4-6 MB file. I hate the big 4-6 MB files. They take longer to download. They take longer to send. And they just obliterate your hard drive space. So whenever I see the 5 megabyter, I roll my eyes angrily at whoever originally compressed the thing.
Naturally then, I was pissed off when I saw the 6.7 MB file size of this one. Another dumb compression. That is until I opened it and realized Cloud Atlas was 2 million pages long! This wasn’t a dumb conversion, just a really long freaking screenplay!
The question that comes to mind when analyzing Cloud Atlas is, “What do you get when you try and tackle every question humanity has ever had since the beginning of time?” Yes, Cloud Atlas is ambitious. Maybe the most ambitious movie ever attempted. There are six storylines spanning four different centuries. And two of those centuries haven’t even happened yet.
Many of you have probably assumed I’ll give this one a thrashing. I complain about the length on 120 page scripts. Surely it would be impossible for me to like a 230 page one. Well, a couple of things about that. First, this was written by the Wachowskis. Not Joe Beginner from Proudfoot, Wyoming. Is it unfair that I give a pro more leeway than a newbie? I don’t think so. If someone has an established track record, you’re going to give them more rope than someone you’ve never heard of before. Also, it was adapted from an extremely ambitious novel. So I’d been prepped going in for what I was up against. I knew I was going to have to reallllly focus. Joe Beginner doesn’t have that luxury. Nobody knows anything about his spec until they start reading it.
With that being said, the Wachowskis…I mean they just…they’re really going for something spectacular here. And when you see the trailer, it makes you a believer. I mean how often do we get thoughtful sci-fi, something that’s well done and actually makes us think? Every 7 years maybe? Still, it’s gotta work on the page. Those images are beyond beautiful, but the black pixels must be formulated on the white screen in a way that makes sense and that moves us. Does Cloud Atlas succeed?
Like I said, there are six storylines. Some of them are clear, others not so much. The first is set in 1846 with a lawyer named Adam Ewing. He’s on a boat crossing the Atlantic and finds an African-American stowaway. The captain wants to kill him, but Ewing fights for his life, and the stowaway proves his worth. Ewing is also keeping a diary that I believe is being read in one of the other time periods, which is how it’s (very loosely) connected to the other storylines.
The next story occurs in 1931. A young closeted homosexual composer named Foshbinder leaves his lover, a man named Sixsmith, to train with the greatest composer in the world, a genius named Ayrs. Ayrs is old and sick and therefore needs an assistant to help him. Foshbinder secretly falls in love with him, and must decide whether to tell him the truth or keep it a secret.
In 1974, a reporter named Luisa Ray is investigating a nuclear power plant when she runs into Sixsmith – yes Foshbinder’s lover from the 1931 storyline. Sixsmith seems to be holding a big secret, a secret he’s being chased for, and after meeting Luisa, wants to offload it on her. Unfortunately he’s shot and killed before he can tell her, but he does leave behind the letters between him and Foshbinder, which she begins obsessively reading.
In 2009, an older gentleman named Cavendish, who used to be one of the biggest publishers in the world, checks into a hotel only to wake up the next morning and realize it’s an “elderly care” center. It isn’t clear whether Cavendish is suffering from dementia or he was really wrongfully placed here. Either way, he gets a group of fellow seniors together to try and escape the prison-like building.
In the year 2144, a clone named Sonmi-451 is being interrogated about being the first clone to break away from what she was programmed to do, which is be a slave to man. We go back in time (as if jumping around to six different storylines wasn’t enough!) to see her story, which amounts to a human named Chang bringing her to a resistance movement in the 22nd century where she will become a key piece in the plan to free all the clones.
In the year 2346, your guess is as good as mine as to what’s going on. The original author really went crazy here, imagining a world where people talk like insects might if they gained intelligence. People are spitting out gibberish in copious amounts, but basically, a guy named Zachary who sees an imaginary Golum-like creature wherever he goes (I’m assuming Leprechaun up above?) is coupled up with, I think, an alien, who’s taking him to a place that can save his dying daughter??? Beats me. This storyline, by far, is the most wacky.
So how did it all fit together? Well, if you ever saw that movie Red Violin, you’ll love this, because Cloud Atlas is Red Violin on crack. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitchell was inspired by that Canadian film. But just like Red Violin, it suffers from a lot of the same problems, namely that you’re trying to find out why these six different stories really need to be told together and you come to the conclusion that they probably don’t – or at least most of them don’t.
There’s two ways to connect the stories in a movie like this. One is with plot and the other with theme. Plot tends to be the more audience friendly because everything ends up making sense. With plotlines from one story intersecting plotlines from another, it’s sort of neat to see how it all comes together. Cloud Atlas is NOT that kind of screenplay. I mean, there’s a little plot overlap, but it’s vague and doens’t really go anywhere.
That leaves us with theme, and unfortunately, that doesn’t really work either. Why? Because it felt like Cloud Atlas was exploring every theme in the book. Just watch the trailer. At the end when the titles proudly claim, “Time, love, death, birth, hope, courage, everything is connected.” This script REALLY IS trying to tackle every single one of these themes. And as a result, it just never finds its footing.
But here’s the strange thing. I still liked it. While I’m against epics in principle because they’re so hard to get right (all but the best writers fail at them), I have a place in my heart for when they’re done well. They’re the most emotionally rewarding of all the genres. And if there’s one thing Cloud Atlas has, it’s a sweeping epic scale. We’re just taken to so many different places and are following so many interesting disparate characters that you have to read on if only to experience the grand scale. And to look at the trailer and see that they actually had the money to pull off what they were going for – I mean it’s pretty damn inspiring.
I will take this time to point out, however, why writing these kinds of movies is so challenging. The reason this is 230 pages is not because the story wanders. It’s 230 pages because they covered six different stories. And when you do that, you NEED MORE SPACE. I mean think about it, following one normal movie storyline takes 110 pages. So had you told Cloud Atlas’ six tales in any less than the 40 pages each section received, it probably wouldn’t have been enough. For the epicness and scale of this movie to work, those storylines needed to breath. So attempt these multi-storyline scripts at your own risk! Your scripts WILL get fat.
I would not encourage anybody other than experienced screenwriters (10 years of writing or more) to try something like this. It’s just way too challenging, so I don’t want you to interpret my “worth the read” as some kind of endorsement to go write your own epic. I just thought this script was so unique and so weird and so ambitious, that I enjoyed reading it. So say it is and it shall be.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I was JUST dealing with this in an amateur script. If you jump around in time a lot in your screenplay, it’s INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT that you KEEP US ORIENTED TIMEWISE. The amateur script I read didn’t, and I was constantly unclear about where we were in the story, what year it was, if this was a flashback or flashforward. At the end of every slugline in Cloud Atlas, they put the year (aka “YEAR – 1931”) – so we ALWAYS know exactly where we are. Again, this is a huge mistake beginners make. They think you’re in their head with them so if they decide to randomly jump back to 1912, they don’t need to tell you. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Genre: Dark Comedy?
Premise: When her more popular twin dies in a horrific car accident, a young woman unwittingly takes on her sister’s identity.
About: This 2011 Black List script is currently in post-production. Jenee LaMarque is both the writer and director. Zoe Kazan will star as both twins. Before this, LaMarque had only made a couple of shorts. So this is his feature debut.
Writer: Jenee LaMarque
Details: “Draft A-2” 98 pages
In a lot of ways, this felt like a Mike White script. It had that sort of weird dark sense of humor coupled with that Mike White uncomfortableness. But at the same time, it felt kind of…off. And not in the right way. I’m going to make a huge generalization here and I apologize to my French peeps in advance, but when I saw the name of the writer afterwards and realized he was French, I immediately thought…”Hmmm, so maybe all those weird moments weren’t on purpose. Maybe they’re played straight but because of the cultural differences, they simply come off as unique.” Because that’s the thing. This script feels like it’s coming from a unique voice. But it may simply be a language/cultural barrier thing.
Anyway, Laurel is 30 years old and still lives at home where she takes care of her father, who’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but has gotten lazy over the years since his wife died.
Laurel also has a boyfriend who’s 17 years old, who she loses her virginity to in the first scene. It’s totally awkward and weird, especially afterwards when Laurel asks the guy if he’s her boyfriend now. His non-commital answer makes you squirm in your seat.
That’s when we meet Audrey, Laurel’s beautiful twin sister. I’m not sure how one identical twin sister can look ugly and the other stunning, but that’s the case with these two. Laurel’s sick of Audrey living at home and taking care of a father who doesn’t need taking care of. So she invites her to move out and live with her back at her place.
The two hop in the car to talk about it but a few minutes later – BAM! – a huge car crash. Audrey is obliterated and burnt to a crisp. Laurel wakes up in the hospital and learns that her sister is dead. That her sister *LAUREL* is dead. That’s right. Everyone thinks Laurel died and not Audrey.
At first, Laurel tries to tell everyone she’s not Audrey, but nobody listens. That’s when she realizes that if she’s Audrey, she has an excuse to get out from under her father and start living her life. So she gets an Audrey makeover, transforming her into a super-hottie, and starts living the glamorous life.
Which, predictably, isn’t very glamorous. She finds out she (as in ‘Audrey’) has been sleeping with a married man. And that she treats most of the people around her like shit, particularly the tenants in the building she manages, which includes a young man named Basel. While Basel was a hideous annoying loser in Audrey’s book, he’s a dreamboat in Laurel’s, and the two start hanging out together, quickly falling in love.
Eventually, though, trying to be Audrey becomes too much for Laurel, and she tells everyone the truth. Everyone’s a mix between confused and pissed off, and Laurel soon finds herself in a strange purgatory where she’s neither Laurel or Audrey, but somewhere in between. In the end, she’s going to have to go one way or the other, as well as grow up a little, a leap we’re not sure she can make.
The first thing I’ll say about this script is that it’s different. I’ll give it that (and I’m guessing that’s why it made the Black List). Now I admit I’m still not sure whether it’s different on purpose or by accident, but different is different. For example, the opening scene where we have this 30 year old woman losing her virginity to a 17 year old high school kid — I’d never seen that. So immediately I sat up and was like…whoa, this ain’t going to be your typical Sunday afternoon script read.
In fact, the big thing The Pretty One has going for it is its main character, as she’s someone you’ve never quite seen before. One of the things that impresses me while reading is when I’m consistently unsure of what the main character is going to do next, since 99 times out of a 100, protagonists do exactly what I assume they’re going to do. I didn’t know what the hell Laurel was going to do, what the hell she was going to say. And that made her, at the very least, interesting.
But sometimes you can go too far – make things too unpredictable and weird – and I felt that was the case with Laurel and Basel, who just had this really kooky relationship. For some odd reason out of nowhere they start referring to each other as “Mr. and Mrs. Brown” and pretend that they’re married and have two kids. Apparently this makes it easier for the two to talk to each other. Ummm, huh??
These indie films usually fall into one of two categories for me. They go that route where they’re truly original, a unique independent experience all their own – something like Rushmore or Chuck and Buck or Whale Rider. Or they go that route of “I Want To Be A Sundance Film,” and they basically become the prototypical Sundance experience, with the quirky characters and the quirky story, hitting all the beats they *believe* the Sundance audience will love. This includes movies like Running With Scissors, The Wackness, and even Little Miss Sunshine to a degree. I’m not saying that these movies are bad – just that they’re desperate for that particular audience, and it can be annoying.
The Pretty One, ironically, falls somewhere in between those two worlds. It’s just a hard screenplay to define. It has its moments, for sure. And it’s unique. But after you’ve finished it, you don’t feel like you’ve witnessed a real experience in a person’s life. You feel like you’ve experienced a writer writing a really quirky screenplay, which is why I can’t recommend it.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Show and Don’t Tell Alert. – As we all know, you’d like to convey things about your characters by showing and not telling. When characters tell us things about other characters or themselves, it’s not nearly as impactful as the right image. So in the opening scene, in order to convey the differences between the two sisters, Hunter (the 17 year old Laurel sleeps with) glances around Laurel’s (and Audrey’s former) room. He sees one bulletin board inundated with dozens of ribbons. “That’s Audrey’s,” Laurel says. And then he looks over to the board above Laurel’s dresser, which has a single pathetic “participant” ribbon on it. “That’s mine.” Within a span of 1/8 of a page, we understand the difference between these two sisters.
What I learned 2: One of the ways to visually show emotionally stunted characters (or characters who haven’t grown up) is to put them in a relationship with someone much younger than them. So here, the reason 30 year old Laurel is with a 17 year old, is to show that she basically still lives life as a child, that she hasn’t grown up yet.
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My friends…it’s been awhile.
We haven’t had a bona-fide good script to read since forever ago. In fact, here are some quick factoids about how long it’s actually been…
1) Gangnam Style still hadn’t hit the internet.
2) K-Stew and R-Patz were still living together.
3) I hadn’t moved out to LA.
4) Kennedy was still alive.
So imagine my surprise when I started reading Gold and…it was actually good! It was such a foreign experience to ENJOY a screenplay that I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. I actually stopped several times just to savor the moment in case it all fell apart. But it never did. In fact, it had one of the best endings I’ve read all year, securing an “impressive” rating. So how did this script strike gold? Read on to find out.
40-something David Walsh enjoys the finer things in life. Like food. And booze. And…well mainly food and booze, if his body is any indication His gut could be mistaken for one of the Hollywood hills and his dress code could be mistaken for “homeless chic.” When we meet Mr. Sloppy, he’s being interviewed about his involvement with a man named Mike Guzman. This Guzman fellow is apparently pretty important because the guy asking about him is very keen to find out how the two met. And indeed that’s where our story gets juicy, but before we go there, we learn a little more about Walsh first.
Walsh is a prospector – someone who looks for mineral deposits below the earth. He then buys the land and tries to sell it to companies who have the money to mine those deposits. Now at the top of this game are big-name dudes who sell land with millions of dollars of potential deposits, shit like gold and diamonds.
Not the case with the guys at Walsh’s level. Walsh has the occasional property in the middle of Utah that may or may not have some nickel 100 feet underneath them. Basically, he’s the Jerry Lundergarten of prospecting – a desperate salesman trying to offload land that nobody gives a shit about.
That’s until he has “the dream.” Seven years ago, Walsh was in Indonesia watching a man named Mike Guzman work. Guzman is a famous explorer/scientist who specializes in geological surveying. If a volcano collapsed somewhere 5 million years ago and has left tons of nickel deposits 500 feet under the earth, he’s the guy who can probably find it.
Problem is, Guzman’s hit a rough patch, just like Walsh, and needs a big strike. So when Walsh shows up and says he had a dream that he and Guzman would find gold in Indonesia, Guzman can’t help but get excited. But looking for gold costs money. You need equipment, permits, workers. This isn’t panhandling in the local river. This is trudging through miles of dangerous jungle terrain then digging hundreds of feet into the ground.
But not long after they start looking, they find something. Gold deposits. Lots of them. And from that moment on, everything changes. Some of the biggest banks in the world want a piece of this zero turned hero. And soon, Walsh and Cruz have themselves a full-scale multi-million dollar mining operation housing potentially 30 billion dollars worth of gold.
But naturally, as all the rappers seem to agree, mo money equals mo problems, and Walsh finds himself swimming inside a whole new kind of shark tank. These sharks are genetically modified to extract all of your money and spit you out. One moment, Walsh is on top of the world. The next, he’s further under it than the very gold he’s digging up.
But none of that will compare to the utter shock that all men involved will experience when the “Holy shit” final act comes around. This one leaves you with eyes the size of hubcaps going, “No fucking wayyyyyy!” And to think that it’s all true?? Wow.
Gold has an interesting but strong structure. It’s divided into four equal quarters, each of which has its own gameplan. The first quarter is about the struggle. It’s when we meet our hero and see that he’s on the bottom of the barrel. It’s an important part of the script because it establishes the character type that audiences always root for no matter what: THE UNDERDOG. Walsh is as underdog-y as they get and because we see him kicked around by other characters, we immediately sympathize with him and want him to succeed. This is a huge reason why this script works so well.
The second quarter is about hope. It’s about our two underdogs digging for gold – literally. Because this whole section is based on suspense (will or won’t they find the gold?) we’re entranced. The combination of desperately wanting our underdogs to take over the world along with the curiosity of if they’ll find the gold or not has this section moving at a million miles an hour.
The third quarter is the aftermath of success. In my opinion, this was the worst section of the script. “Aftermath of success” is always hard to do in screenplays because it almost always goes the same way. The hero doesn’t have time for his girlfriend anymore. He starts to believe in his own hype. He enjoys his success too much. He loses perspective. Been there, done that. However, the stuff with the other companies trying to screw him over keeps this section alive. All of that stuff was entertaining.
The fourth quarter is the fallout – what happens after it all unravels. This section works for a couple of reasons. First, we knew it was coming. And we want to see how bad it’s going to get. As gruesome as car crashes are, it’s impossible for us humans to look away from them. And second, there’s a great twist. I’m not going to spoil it here. It’s one of those twists that defines the entire movie. So seek out the real world story yourself or wait til the movie comes out. But it packs a wallop.
The big take from Gold might be the use of this 4-Act structure. For those who don’t know, most movies are broken up into 3 acts – the first act is 25-30 pages, the second act is 55-75 pages, and the third act is 20-25 pages. But over time, because that second act is so big, some writers have decided to break it up into two parts. This creates 4 acts then, instead of 3.
It can be simpler to write a movie this way because you basically write 4 equal sections of 30 pages each. That’s a little easier to grasp than a short act, a really long act, and another short act. In fact, it’s almost like you’re writing 4 little half-hour stories. Now remember, the story you’re telling has to fit into that structure, like Gold does, but it’s a great little option to bust out if you’re one of the many writers who get lost in the second act.
Another thing I noticed about this script is how compelling it is to watch the “desperate salesman” character. We saw it with Jerry Lundergarten in Fargo. We saw it with Jack Lemmon’s character in Glengary Glen Ross. And we see it here with Walsh. I don’t know what it is but the desperation that reeks from these characters makes them impossible to look away from. I’m sure there are examples of these characters not working, but I can’t think of one. Writers need to remember this for future screenplays!
Overall, this script just worked. Great characters. Moved well. Fascinating story with lots of twists and turns, particularly that whopper of an ending. It was incredibly well researched. Dialogue was authentic and strong all the way through. Hard to find many faults with this one outside of the 3rd act I mentioned above. Definitely check out Gold if you can find it!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The delayed character description. In almost all cases, when a new character hits the page, you want to describe him immediately. The reason for this is that it’s standard practice, which means readers expect it. Therefore, when you tell us “JOE” just walked into the room and there’s no description of Joe, or “JOE” starts talking yet we haven’t met the guy, it’s annoying and confusing to the reader. However, there are a few situations where adding a description to a character intro interrupts the flow of the read. If Joe charges onto a battlefield and you have to stop to tell us he’s tall and gangly and has a spider-web collection, it kind of kills the moment. So the delayed description is motivated. In Gold, Walsh is introduced pouring a drink, exchanging a few words with an investigator, and THEN getting his description. To me, this falls under the category of a delayed description for no reason. So it’s one I would’ve avoided. The ultimate lesson here is, describe your character right away unless there’s NO OTHER WAY to do it. You’ll keep the reader happy.
What I learned 2: Always pick a more interesting verb! Describing a car on page 4, Massett and Zinman don’t say, “It pulls into a spot,” they say “it lumbers into a spot.”
Genre: Comedy
I open the script.
I see “117 pages.”
For a comedy.
My heart sinks.
“No,” I think.
After all the effort I’ve put into this? After saying time and time again never to write a comedy spec over 110 pages. Comedies HAVE TO MOVE because there’s no such thing as a good slow comedy. If you bloat your script up to 117 pages, I guarantee you it’s going to be slow. We’re going to have a bunch of long scenes, pointless scenes, repetitive scenes, and probably a story that loses itself several times. That’s how scripts become 117 pages – the writers haven’t figured out how to focus the story yet. And we become the unwitting lab rats who suffer through that unfocusedness.
Sigh…
BUT! There are always exceptions to the rule right? Every once in awhile a long comedy comes along that’s good! Judd Apatow’s scripts are like 140 pages, right?
Yeah but his scripts usually suck. He doesn’t start figuring things out until the shooting process. Hmmm…there’s gotta be SOME examples of long comedy screenplays that are good. When Harry Met Sally was a long screenplay! Then again, I’m not sure they formatted it correctly.
What the hell am I babbling about? Well, it’s Friday, so cut me some slack. I’m about to go to something called a “Hollywood Breakfast” and I’m not sure how those work. Are they different from a Hollywood lunch? Do you talk about different things? Is it too early in the day to pitch an idea? Sometimes I wish I was one of those homeless people on Sunset and Vine. They don’t have to worry about anything but acting crazy. Now that’s a life I could get used to.
The year is 1903, and bike-makers Wilbur and Orville Wright are struggling to keep their business above land (get it? ABOVE…LAND??). You’d think bike-making would be pretty lucrative back then, seeing as there weren’t many cars around. But our poor brothers can barely make the monthly payments on their lease.
Of the two, Orville is the business-minded one and Wilbur the creative one. And Wilbur’s got a creative solution for their failing business: start up again on that “flying machine,” they’ve been dilly-dallying with in their spare time, then make a million bucks when they get it to work! Orville not-so-secretly thinks the flying machine’s a bust, so he’s not down, but when some local thugs come around asking for money on a failed invention the brothers sold them, they have no choice but to run off to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and throw all of their eggs into this flying basket.
Once there, they meet the beautiful but slightly bitchy Hannah Clifford, who’s the daughter of the local mayor. She agrees to find them free housing if they’ll vote for her father in the upcoming election. Jesus, I wish someone would’ve offered me that kind of deal on my apartment.
They begin work on the flying machine but distractions soon arise. The first is Hannah herself, who takes a liking to Wilbur, which threatens to disrupt their building schedule. And the second is the president of the Smithsonian Institute, who wants to stop the Wright Brothers from getting their flying machine airborne before he and his much more prestigious institution are able to do so.
When Orville finds out that Wilbur is shacking up with Hannah, he becomes furious, and begins a blueberry pie-inspired sabotage campaign to keep them apart. In the process, however, Orville takes a liking to Hannah, and she decides two brothers are better than one and sleeps with him K-Stew style! Which, like, is so slutty for back then.
In the end, just about everything that can blow up does, and one of the most heralded achievements in US history is in danger of never happening.
Kitty Hawk has some nice things going for it. It has a clear goal (create a working flying machine), some urgency (the Smithsonian dude and the thugs from back home chasing them), conflict between the two main characters, a love triangle. For all intents and purposes, it should work. And it kind of does at times.
But there’s something missing here that keeps it from ever rising above average. And I’m not sure what it is. I run into these scripts every once in awhile – scripts that are “fine,” but are missing those key ingredients that push them into memorable territory. Maybe more could’ve gone wrong. And, more specifically, could’ve gone wrong sooner. Things are a little too breezy through the first half of Kitty Hawk. The bad guy doesn’t get there until page 70 or something. The second romance (between Hannah and Orville) doesn’t get started until page 75. So there’s a huge portion of the script where there isn’t any tension, suspense, or conflict.
Another issue I had was that Dillon didn’t differentiate the brothers when we first met them. This is CRITICAL since these are our two main characters and will make up 90% of the screenplay. All we’re told is that one of them, Wilbur, is bald, and that he’s more the “inventor” of the two. That’s something but it isn’t nearly enough. It wasn’t until the midpoint that I truly knew who was who when they were talking. And this can be traced back to that first introduction. Always try and give your characters a unique introduction that shows exactly who they are and why they’re different from EVERYONE ELSE. So if Wilbur’s the inventor, show him inventing something. This is a movie about the Wright Brothers so I see no reason why you wouldn’t start with him working on a plane anyway.
The character of Glenn Curtis (Smithsonian Dude) was also unclear. I had no idea who he was, what his institution did, why he was trying to find the brothers, what his ultimate plans with them were. It was all very vague. So when we get this giant climax of him showing up at the Kitty Hawk church to announce his own plans to build a plane, I was sitting there going….uhhhhh, huh??? This is another case of a writer not being clear enough. You have to be clear to your audience about who your characters are, what they’re there for, who they work for, what their motivation is, etc. If any of that stuff is murky, then the character is shot. We never get a good feel for them.
The area where I really checked out though was when Orville put together a children’s work force to build the plane. At that point the script just became too silly, and when that happens, it’s hard for me to take anything seriously. It’s hard for me to care about the characters and their situations. So I politely read through the rest of the script but knew it had no chance of reeling me back in.
While one of the better Twit-Pitch entries so far, this is another script that showed plenty of writing skill, but didn’t entertain enough in the story department. :(
What I learned: You don’t want to wait too long to institute the plot points that are the main salable components of your script. This is a script that touts itself as two Wright Brothers going after the same girl. Yet that isn’t fully realized until page 75. PAGE 75!!! I mean come on. This speaks to a larger issue though, which is that too many writers wait too long to get to the good stuff. What are you waiting for? That’s why we came here. The good stuff! So get to those plot lines sooner and you’ll see your script come to life.
