Guess what everyone – YOU get to choose the Amateur Friday script I review on March 30th. Take a look at the ten loglines below and vote in the comments section. I’ll be watching IP addresses and if anyone tries to secretly vote for their own logline multiple times, they’ll be disqualified. So no cheating! As for the science behind choosing these ten? There was none. I pretty much picked them randomly. I think it’s important for everyone to see the full breadth of loglines I’m sent, both good and bad. Enjoy!

A man undergoing past-life regression therapy must find out the identity of a nemesis who’s killed him in his past lives… before he’s murdered again in his present life.
******WINNER – “Breathwork”*******

A Moment In Fire – (Action/Crime)
Ambivalent of his wife’s fidelity and drowning in debt, a man is offered a new chance at life by an exuberant gentleman claiming to be the devil.

Conditioned – Psychological Thriller
Chasen Artist, suffering from retrograde amnesia, is visited by a stranger who offers to help. As Chasen moves towards to uncover the past, he learns about the stranger’s motive and the cynical truth behind his condition.

Three friends reunite before a wedding and take a road trip to achieve their childhood goal – finding the millions of lost E.T. Atari cartridges buried in the sands of Alamogordo, NM.
**3rd Place – “Holy Alamogordo”**

Zombie Knights – Action/horror
A war-battered knight returns from the Crusades to find his homeland terrorized by victims of a lethal fever who rise from the dead, hungry for human flesh. Sir Thomas shepherds survivors to the Castle Bridgenorth, where he leads a war of attrition against an army of the undead – even as he battles his own demons.

Hail Mary – Action/Revenge
A reformed hitwoman must return to the world of bullets and bloodshed she left behind to take on the organization she helped build, in order to avenge the death of her younger sister.

When a burgeoning composer hits his head he begins to hear his life’s soundtrack; a soundtrack that is prompting and pushing him back to his ex-fiancee. But will he follow the guidance of the music?

On The Edge Of A Cliff’ – Thriller
Having been kidnapped by a psychotic South African arms dealer, a resilient young traveller integrates himself with the gang’s hierarchy in order to escape, but finds himself seduced by the criminal world.

This Is Me Leaving – Dark Comedy
After landing an innocent woman in the hospital, a suicidal twenty-something winds up on a state-wide road trip delivering unique gifts to relative strangers in order to make amends.

Sunshine – Comedy/Drama
A devoutly religious sixteen-year-old psychopath must hunt down and kill her biological mother… Who is even more dangerous than her.

Today’s amateur screenplay teaches us that Grandma may not be as cute and cuddly as you think she is.

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias name and/or title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: Before he can break up a well-connected ring of terminally ill senior citizen suicide bomber killers for hire, an FBI agent must confront the sweet little old lady sent to kill him.
Writer: Patrick J. Power
Details: 100 pages

I have a soft spot for people who’ve been trying to get their scripts read on the site forever. Especially people who have been so supportive of Scriptshadow. I feel like they deserve to be rewarded. Which is why I chose today’s script. Patrick has been very persistent (yet polite) in his attempts to get his script read so I felt like he deserved a shot.

But before we get to that, I want to point out why I never would’ve read it otherwise. The premise feels goofy to me – one of those premises where you’re not sure if it’s a thriller or a comedy. And while that’s fine if it turns out to be a comedy, it’s not fine if it turns out to be a thriller. Old people suicide bombers? I don’t know. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Am I off base with that?

But hey, once I pop open a script, I’m MORE than ready to be proven wrong. Every script deserves a fair shot and believe me, I wanted nothing more than to love this.

Paul Lucas is a San Diego FBI agent hanging out at the federal building, preparing to watch a Colombian drug lord walk free. Then, while the lawyer makes an official statement for his client, a large blast blows both of them to pieces. When the FBI takes a later look at the security footage, they see a little old lady named Juliet Ivy standing next to the duo. Hmmmm. I knew old people were gassy but this is too much.

After 15 more characters are introduced inside roughly 7 pages, Paul decides to take a closer look at the little old lady. He heads over to her son’s home and learns that Juliet had cancer and belonged to an upscale hospice known as “The Healthful Healing Medical Center.” Paul speeds over there and meets the suspicious manager, who confirms that Juliet had a one million dollar life insurance policy. Paul rightly wonders how an 85-year-old woman secures a one million dollar life insurance policy.

Off in another part of the city, someone on a gondola blows up another few people and when they look into it, they find that that too was done by a senior citizen. As if allowing these people behind the wheel wasn’t enough! So now Paul realizes they’re dealing with organized attacks. But where are these attacks being ordered from and why??

Eventually, Paul finds out that it all goes back to that Healthful Healing place. So he finds an old retired FBI agent, Norman, who has cancer (I think – he might’ve been faking – I’m still not sure) and sends him in undercover to find out exactly what’s going on.

The focus of the story then shifts over to Norman, who realizes that one of the women at the center, Mary Margaret, has been there for a long time. In a place where people go to die, this stands out as a red flag. Indeed, Mary Margaret turns out to be the leader of this crime syndicate, sending old people out there to blow pre-determined targets up. I have to admit that I never figured out what her scheme was, but it seemed very important to Mary Margaret. And I suppose that’s all that matters.

Patrick and I have an interesting relationship. He used to write me all the time with these nice e-mails pointing out plot synopsis mistakes I’d made in my reviews. If I said that the aunt slept with Larry, he would send me an e-mail explaining that, no, it was actually the ex-wife that slept with Larry. Over time, however, he became less cordial, and just started sending messages like: “Not Don. Joe!”

I bring this up because I’m sure I screwed up at least some of the synopsis here. But in my defense, there were like 35 characters in this script. Which is actually a great place to start. I’m kind of shocked. For someone I know reads the site all the time, why would they make the one mistake I rail against the most – insane character counts. ESPECIALLY on Amateur Friday! Instead of going on a thousand word rant about this issue like I usually do, I’ll just say that the insane character count made it impossible for me to keep track of everyone and everything that was going on.

But that issue pales in comparison to my main critique of the screenplay. And this is the part of my job I hate the most because it’s the most painful critique you can give a writer: The concept here simply doesn’t work.

It’s too goofy. You’re talking about old people suicide bombers. There isn’t a story you can wrap around that idea that doesn’t feel silly. I could never get past that while reading the script.

But even if the concept were squared away, there were still too many wonky choices in this screenplay. For example, you have Norman, who jumps into the script at the midpoint. We’ve barely met the guy, yet all of a sudden he’s thrust into, basically, the protagonist role of the story. That’s just a strange thing to ask the reader to roll with. You’re following one hero. Then midway through the story, you say, “Let’s go follow this other guy instead.”

And then you have the strange choice of giving Paul terminal cancer. That was the official point where I realized the train had gone off the tracks. You have a story based on a bunch of old people who have terminal cancer, then you also give your main younger character terminal cancer as well?? It’s just such a bizarre coincidental choice that calls into question the entire story.

Finally, I’m not sure what that climax had to do with anything. There were a few mentions of this boat called “Code Blue” over the course of the script. Since that was also the title of the movie, I tabbed it as important. But it didn’t play into the story until this final scene when, for some reason, everybody went out on the Code Blue for a big showdown. I just didn’t understand what was going on. And I’m still not sure what Mary and her group were ultimately trying to achieve.

I know how obsessed Patrick is with attention to detail so I’m sure he could lay out for me, in a specific line by line breakdown, all of the places in the script where this stuff was explained. But when you’re reading a script, it doesn’t work like that. Once you start losing confidence in the story, it becomes harder and harder to stay invested in it. I didn’t believe in the concept. The never-ending character count had me forgetting who was who. And the switch to a different story and different main character halfway in had me scrambling to muster up the energy just to finish the script, much less make sense of it.

I know how long Patrick’s been trying to get me to read this, so it sucks I didn’t fall in love with it. But I do think a good lesson can come of it. This script needs to be retired and Patrick needs to move on to a snazzier concept, something more believable, less silly, and that readers can really sink their teeth into. All of the problems in this screenplay come back to a writer trying to make a concept work that can’t work. I would love to see Patrick tackle something that has a chance from the beginning. And I’d also love to hear your thoughts about this premise. Am I right? Does it feel like a bad joke? Or am I way off base and this concept actually has potential? Believe me, I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong because I HATE telling writers to scrap an idea they’ve labored months over and start something else.

Script link: Code Blue

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. The number one way to kill your chances of getting a script read is a bad premise. I hear writers say it all the time: “Nobody will read my script.” Trust me, if you have a great premise, PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ YOUR SCRIPT!!! I GUARANTEE IT! I WILL BE ONE OF THEM! If you’re not getting that excited response when you send your idea out, take a second look at the idea itself. It’s probably the reason.

I love all the people who come on Scriptshadow to do interviews. But today is different. I think Lorene is just really gifted. She sees people/characters in a way no other writer does. That talent is the one that truly separates screenwriters in my eyes – the ability to craft interesting, unique and realistic characters. My fawning over Lorene’s talent probably isn’t a surprise. She’s got two scripts in my Top 25 (The Mighty Flynn and Seeking A Friend). So I’m just happy she answered my 528th e-mail request for an interview. Kidding. Lorene is actually a fan of the site!  So she was actually – gasp – EXCITED to do an interview.  Hey, you can’t make this stuff up. Anyway, she’s now making a huge career leap into directing, having directed Steve Carrell and Keira Knightley in Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World. Let’s dive into her writing process and see what makes this screenwriter tick.

SS: Okay, so first thing’s first. How are we going to get The Mighty Flynn made? From what you know, what’s keeping it from being produced?

LS: Thanks for keeping it alive for me, Carson! I think I’m ready to cast it out again and see if it gets any actor interest. When “Up In The Air” was made, it felt like I had to put the story of an efficiency expert to bed, but now that some time has passed, and honestly thanks to your vote of confidence, I’ve come up with a few potential ways to make it new and interesting. One possibility is changing the time period, which could work thematically while also allowing me to keep devices like the phone book and resumes at Kinko’s without feeling dated. Also, the relationship between Flynn and Boaty is one I’ve been trying to tell for a long time, so I found myself naturally drawing from it for Dodge and Penny in “Seeking a Friend”. I like a male character who’s anything but a man-child and then prying him open with the help of a free spirit who’s anything but type-A. It’s basic storytelling, I guess, but it’s actually personal for me. As long as it feels different, I’ll pursue it. You’ll have to help me fix the ending!

SS: Do you need me to call anyone?

LS: Please call Jason Reitman in 2008 and ask him to make Juno 2 instead.

SS: Could you tell us a little about your emergence as a screenwriter? How many scripts had you written before you got your first job?

LS: I was always in love with plays and movies, so I started writing psuedo-screenplays when I was a kid. I still have many of them, including “Ripple”, a romantic dramedy about dying dolphins, “starring Lorene Scafaria and Ethan Hawke”. With those delusions of grandeur, anything was possible. I wrote a few plays, put up my first in the greater New Jersey area, and eventually put up a relationship play in New York called “That Guy And Others Like Him”. I was answering phones at a film company, doing an embarrassing amount of extra work, and decided to adapt the play into my first true screenplay. I wrote two other scripts, then started looking for an agent and moved to LA. Five scripts deep, I teamed up with my then-roommate on a children’s adventure called “Legend Has It”. It wound up being optioned by Revolution Studios so that was technically my first job. Two years later, I wrote “The Mighty Flynn”, which was number eight, and got it set up at Warner Independent. I was basically hired off of that to adapt “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” and that was the beginning.


SS: Was that first job how you got your agent?

LS: When I first moved to LA, I was talking to a smattering of agents who never called me back. My very very first agent came from sending a query letter, so I still believe that a well-written, well-intentioned letter is a good way to reach out, especially in this era of accessibility. I looked up which agents sold scripts from first-time writers. She said she liked my letter and the title of my script and asked to read it. She later sent me a rejection letter and then called a few days after that to say forget it and could she read anything else. I sent her my other two scripts and she suggested I move to LA. She almost immediately switched agencies and I got lost in the shuffle. My old writing partner and I were working with an agent-in-training who helped set up “Legend Has It”, so he became our first official agent and we became his first clients. I changed agencies a few years later and have been at the same place since.


SS: Looking back at those first (paid) experiences in the business, what did you learn from them? What kind of mistakes were you making as a screenwriter then that you’d never make today?

LS: I’m sure I’ll continue to make the same mistakes. I’m lucky in that I’ve had a variety of different experiences, from writing on spec and pitching original ideas, to adapting a novel or real life story or an all-too familiar musical. I’ve also failed at selling pitches and been fired and rewritten. I’ve spread myself too thin. I’ve quit. So hopefully I’ve learned from those larger mistakes. I try to work with people I like and I try not to get involved in anything unless I think I’m the right person for the job.

SS: What would you say is the hardest thing about screenwriting for you now? Why do you struggle with it and what do you do to conquer it?

LS: I struggle with feeling burnt out and uninspired. Even though I only have a few produced scripts, I feel like I’ve been writing a long time. Sometimes it’s hard to live in LA. The same things that make it great can also make it feel overwhelming. Thinking as a director now, it’s harder to write a first draft freely, beginning to end, warts and all, and then give myself the space to fix stuff in later drafts. I find myself rewriting as I go, which can be helpful, but slower. Now I struggle with “what’s next”. I feel like I threw the kitchen sink at “Seeking A Friend”. It explores so many of the themes that swim in my head, and the high concept made it easier to write character-driven scenes within set-pieces. Point is, I’m in my head too much and should probably get some fresh air.

SS: I really love your characters. Especially the ones in Mighty Flynn. Everybody’s so unique. How do you build your characters?

LS: Thanks for saying so! I went through a phase of thinking in terms of a character’s job, like in “Mighty Flynn”. I like exploring someone’s psychology and thinking of what kind of person would do this for a living… what could be in that person’s history and how that could reflect the themes I was interested in expressing. That script sparked “Man and Wife”, again exploring an immigration officer and what a job does to a man when he is “the man”. For both of the male characters, as well as Dodge in “Seeking A Friend”, I was exploring a specific archetype; men who are in need of an awakening. For Flynn, he was a fairly heartless bastard who only moved an inch, but all that he needed to go through to get that far. I’ve always been interested in people and relationships, psychology and sociology, how people react to different scenarios. In the case of “Seeking A Friend”, I thought about everyone facing their own mortality differently, and then came up with the various characters to best articulate that. I think it helps that I look at myself with a critical eye and I look at the people around me with a sympathetic one, so I try to love every character but also know what they’re doing wrong.


SS: What about dialogue? What would you say are the 2 or 3 things you focus on most when writing dialogue? What’s most important in getting it right?

LS: Write how people talk.

Not everyone talks the same.

Keep it specific.

SS: I notice you have a lot of setups and payoffs in your script. My guess is that this means you outline a lot. Do you think outlining is important and what’s your process?

LS: I don’t like to outline that much. I usually prefer to write a first act without outlining so that the characters feel and sound a little more authentic before making major plot decisions. I think then if you write something specific in your first act, it becomes a natural setup, and something you can follow through the script. If those specific things can relate to the theme or the journey that the character goes on, it becomes easier to set it up and pay it off, without feeling like a forced characteristic. In “Man and Wife” I remember the traveling orange was something that became a set up and pay off. In “Seeking A Friend”, the harmonica took on meaning as I went along.

SS: One of the most difficult sections of a screenplay for young writers is the second act. Can you give us any secrets about how to dominate the second act?

LS: I still battle with the second act and I suppose it varies for different genres. I think it’s easier if you break it up as much as possible. I like to think of the page numbers like the minutes on a clock and at every ten to fifteen minute mark, something should change, so the second act has three major shifts to go through… 30-45, 45-60, 60-75… I think those are the points to present conflict and tension so that something changes in your characters. It has to constantly build and unbuild and build again. It should have a big page 60 high and a page 75 drop. I think it has the shape of an EKG or a really good roller coaster or even a song. If a song goes verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus… or something like that… you can sort of see the shape of a screenplay.

If on page 30, your main character has a mission, like Dodge going in search of his ex, then your second act has direction. Then he’s tested, facing various highs and lows, obstacles along the way. Even though I tried to mix it up in terms of genre-bending and surprising moments, it’s actually a very straight forward structure. I remember hearing a complaint that “Nick and Norah’s” didn’t have enough of a ticking clock, so I was sure to give it a huge ticking clock.

SS: Lots of beginning screenwriters focus on getting a script purchased. Lots of purchased screenwriters focus on getting a script made. In your experience, what’s the difference between a script that’s good enough to get bought and a script that’s good enough to get produced?

LS: That’s an amazing question. I really couldn’t tell the difference for a long time, but when I look back at old scripts, I can see how things got ignored. I still think it’s important to write what’s in your head, because even if it doesn’t get produced, it could end up being your best sample of your voice. Even though I liked exploring characters, it took a long time for me to figure out structure. I still grapple with it. A book called “The Writer’s Journey” and a very patient Dana Fox taught me some phrases and tricks. I still resist convention between the second and third act, which accounts for the change in pace in “Nick and Norah’s” as well as “Seeking A Friend.” I think it’s most important to concentrate on theme and tone. Those will make your story distinct and reveal the “trailer moments” of your script. After that, I think pacing is key. Hearing a script out loud is a good indicator of its possibilities.

SS: Can you give us a couple of “aha” moments in your career– those classic moments where you’re writing and some unforeseen force shoots into you and you realize what you were doing wrong all this time and understand screenwriting so much better now?

LS: The biggest “aha” I can think of was when I was working on the third draft of “Seeking A Friend”. Even though I was thinking of it as an end-of-the-world romantic comedy, I still wasn’t taking the two genres and colliding them within the scenes themselves. That’s when I realized that the riot scene needed to be a break-up scene, and that the scene at Friendsy’s is a date / is an orgy. I realized that at all times, the genres needed to be working for each other, and against each other, and it definitely outlined the larger set pieces and propelled the second act.

SS: A lot of writers say their perspective on writing totally changes once they direct a movie. Now that you’ve directed a film, are you joining the chorus? How did your perspective change, if at all? What did you learn?

LS: My perspective definitely changed. But it doesn’t make it any easier. I always knew that editing was another form of rewriting, but I never realized how much so. There definitely was the script I wrote, the movie we shot, and the story we edited. I wish I had had the foresight to know which scenes we would later cut but we needed to see it all together, with an audience, to know what was affecting the tone in the wrong way. I ended up cutting a few scenes in the first act to make it a more streamlined story about relationships. A few amazing actors were cut out of the film, but it was for the benefit of the larger story. A couple scenes in the third act also were lifted to give it a stronger final push for Dodge and Penny. I definitely learned that sometimes less is more, that something can be done with a look. Not everything needs to be said. I’m going to try to apply this lesson to life.

SS: Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently as a young screenwriter in order to break in faster?

LS: I think I was lucky in breaking in fairly quickly as a screenwriter, but because I wanted to be a filmmaker, I wish I had the nerve and capacity and overall wunderkind-ness someone like Lena Dunham had to make a film like “Tiny Furniture” at such a young age. I had a real breaking point six months before “Seeking A Friend” got going. I remember threatening my agent that I was going to start auditioning for indies and pilots, as if this would prove more successful, because I was tired of being a hired hand, or seeing a project through many years and various iterations and only have it fall apart. I was tired of everything being on paper, so I guess I wish I wrote and directed a feature, no matter how small, a long time ago. But I think sometimes you have to reach a breaking point in order to figure out what you really want. Such is life.

SS: And finally, do you have any future romantic comedies planned about a female screenwriter who meets and falls for a really awesome screenwriting blogger?

LS: Boy reads girl. Girl reads boy. Girl does interview for boy and only hopes she didn’t blow it.

Today’s screenplay asks that eternal pestering question that never seems to go away no matter how hard you try. No, not “What is the meaning of life?” But “Are you a DUFF (a designated ugly fat friend)?”

I’m sure all of you are just as devastated as I am that Ben picked Courtney, but I figure we’ll get over it at some point.  In the meantime, I’m calling on my British buddy Anthony Jackson to write us today’s review.  He’s madly in love with teen high school movies so he’s the perfect reviewer for this material. Editing the Scriptshadow Book continues to occupy all of my free time but hopefully it will pay off soon!  Also, Twit-Pitch (pitch me your script on Twitter) IS coming, so be ready.  It’s still probably 2-3 weeks away and will happen on a Saturday, so you better be finishing those scripts of yours!  I’ll have plenty of announcements on the site as it gets closer.  But for now, I’ll let Anthony take over…

A 10 Year American Pie reunion? How bout a 50 year American Pie Reunion! Winter’s Discontent is American Pie spiked with Viagra.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from Black List) When Herb Winter’s wife of fifty years dies, the faithful but sexually frustrated widower moves into a retirement community to start living the swinging single life.
About: For a script that was so well received and for a writer this good, I find it strange that we haven’t heard more from Paul Fruchbom since 2008, when Winter’s Discontent finished #7 on the Black List. He does seem to be developing another property with Columbia, the same studio that bought Winter’s, called “Career Counselors,” but very little is known about it.Winter’s Discontent occasionally pops its head up into my Top 25.  I originally read it 3 years ago but this is the first time it’s being reviewed.
Writer: Paul Fruchbom
Details: 105 pages – 2009 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

 

There are so many professional comedy writers who don’t know how to write that when one comes along who actually does, I’m not sure the industry knows what to do with him. When I say “don’t know how to write,” what I mean is, they can obviously construct a joke, but they lack the skills to create a compelling structured story with three dimensional characters.

Winter’s Discontent is one of the few outrageous comedies I’ve read that still has heart and an actual structure to it. I mean just the fact that the writer starts out with an ironic premise should tell you he’s ahead of most of his peers. Senior citizens in an old folks home who only care about getting laid. It’s the exact opposite of what we expect an old folks home to be like (Never forget! The best comedy premises tend to be ironic!).

Anyway, Herb Winters, a 75-year-old retiree, has just lost his wife of 50 years. I think this is the moment where I officially fell in love with Winter’s Discontent. I was expecting some sappy on-the-nose funeral scene. Instead, the service is interrupted by Herb’s voice over as he explains how psyched he is that his wife’s dead. I sat up and took notice. Hmm, I thought, that’s not what I was expecting.

For example, at the wake, we get this gem: “God, I hate this fucking house. Look at that wallpaper. Ellen loved that wallpaper. She must’ve been retarded.” This is followed by someone offering their condolences: “I’m sorry for your loss.” Herb replies, via voice over, “Loss? If you want to talk about loss, let’s talk about that piano. It hasn’t been touched in 30 years. It has a lot in common with my balls.”

And that’s the real issue here. Herb’s wife stopped having sex with him a long time ago. The man has simply forgotten what it’s like to be a sexually active male. And now that his wife is finally dead, he can find out what that feels like again.

So Herb grabs his best friend, Jules (a “Jewish Mr. Rogers.” Talk about a great description!), and the two head off to Spruce Gardens, a popular old folks home. The plan is to have sex with as many women as possible there. And when they arrive, it looks like that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The women outnumber the men 2 to 1 in this place and they’re all raring to go!

But just when things look like heaven, hell shows up. In the form of Mike Miller. He’s tan. He’s good-looking. But worst of all, HE’S IN HIS 60s! That’s like cheating in this place. And boy does Mike take advantage of it. Every single woman here wants the young meat and poor Herb and his buddies become wallflowers as a result.

As if getting laid wasn’t tough enough, Herb starts falling for one of his 50 year old nurses, Kate. Nabbing that kind of prime filet is going to take a lot more than funny jokes. It’s going to take a time machine.

In the meantime, Herb’s friendship with Jules starts to fray over Herb getting over Ellen so quickly. There seems to be something deeper going on here, to the point where the lifelong friends break up. Kate puts the kybosh on him as well once she realizes what he’s up to. And Mike somehow makes every single woman at Spruce Gardens unavailable. Herb’s dream trip to Spruce Gardens has officially become a nightmare!

I think one of the reasons this script brings a smile to our faces is that it faces a scary situation, one nobody likes to talk about, and has fun with it. We’re not used to laughing about death, yet this script makes it easy to do. There’s something refreshing about that. It’s almost like the script itself becomes a sympathetic character.

From a technical perspective, the script is both traditional and non-traditional. The goal is clear – to get laid. But the stakes are dependent on our character’s conviction. Herb doesn’t really lose anything if he fails, but he so intensely wants his goal (your character should always desperately want his goal!!!) that we do feel like he loses something if he doesn’t get it.

However, there really isn’t any urgency here. There’s no time limit on this goal. But here’s why I don’t think it matters. Fruchbom did a great job always keeping his characters focused on an immediate goal. Either they were trying to have sex with one of the women. They were getting sex lesson to update their moves. Herb was teaching Kate piano so he could get closer to her. If you can keep those smaller goals coming one after another, the reader doesn’t have time to notice that there isn’t a ticking time bomb in the story. It’s when there are large gaps between those goals that the reader starts checking the page count.

Also, when you’re writing a comedy, you want the humor to be PREMISE-SPECIFIC. That means all the humor should stem from your premise. This is a movie about old people desperate to have sex. So you have these nice little gems like Mike Miller being able to drive at night (which means he has the advantage of going on night dates with all the women – something unheard of to the rest of the seniors).

Fruchbom also creates a scenario where if a woman dies during sex, the man involved is blacklisted by the rest of the women. So Herb and crew set up this plan to get Mike to have sex with the most frail likely-to-die woman at Spruce Gardens. If he kills her, he’ll get blacklisted, and they’re all back in the game again. The key here is that the humor is *based on the premise*. It wouldn’t be as funny, for example, if they tried to murder Mike to get him out of the picture. Murder is boring. You can find murder in any movie. You can’t find men sacrificing an 80 year old woman so they can get laid again.  That’s premise-specific.

I know why, despite how well-written it is, “Winter’s” has had trouble getting laid (oops, I mean “made”). Studios only put out these senior citizen flicks once every blue moon. But of all of the geriatric projects floating out there, this script is clearly the best of the bunch. Personally I think it would be a huge hit, but then again I’m not the one who has to put up the money. I hope this finds its way to production at some point though because I believe Paul Fruchbom needs to be in charge of more comedies in Hollywood.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: The success of this script reminded me how important it is to think outside the box with your comedy idea. So many writers focus on that comedy sweet spot of a 30 year old male caught up in some crazy situation. And I understand it. That’s where all the bankable comics are. But if you want to stand out, think outside the box a little. Look for ideas outside the sweet spot. We saw it with the success of this script and we saw it recently on the big screen with the success of Bridesmaids.