A spoon full of sugar wasn’t needed to make today’s screenplay go down. It looks like we have a new entry into the Top 25!

Genre: Drama
Premise: The story of how Walt Disney got the rights to Mary Poppins.
About: This script finished on last year’s Black List with 13 votes, so somewhere in the middle of the pack. It’s been getting a lot of heat lately because Tom Hanks has been circling the role of Walt Disney. And who couldn’t see that working? Kelly Marcel created the series Terra Nova. And she was also the script editor on the film “Bronson.” I have to admit, though, that I have no idea what a script editor is.
Writer: Kelly Marcel
Details: 109 pages (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).

I’m about to drop a barrel of honesty on you guys. I wasn’t looking forward to this script. It had all the makings of a biopic. Dull play-by-play of successful folks facing “adversity” in their journey towards immortality. Awww, times were tough for you before you became a billionaire and achieved international fame and success? I’m sorry. However did you cope?

I only opened it because I thought Tom Hanks was perfect casting for Walt Disney. Wanted to see what he’d gotten all excited about.

P.L Travers, who has about six names in this script (besides P.L., she’s also Ginty, Pamela, Pam and I’m pretty sure a few others. What is this, a preview of Friday’s amateur entry, “We, Myself and I?”), is the creator of the Mary Poppins books back in the U.K. The books have been popular enough to give her a financially stable career, but the reality is, it’s been 20 years since they came out, and the money is running out. If Pamela doesn’t do something soon, she’s gonna be camping outside of Big Ben with a big cup of change.

So you’d think that the most popular movie maker in the world desperately wanting to turn her books into a movie would be “a spoonful of sugar” to her ears. Alas it is not. In fact, Walt Disney has been trying to secure the rights to Mary Poppins for 20 years now. And Pamela has never thought twice about it. The answer’s always been “no thank you.” Without the “thank you.” But times they are a changin’. Pamela needs a spoonful of money in her bank account. So she decides to go to America to hear Walt out.

Now Pamela is not a happy person. To give you an example, when she’s having trouble stuffing her baggage into the overhead bin on the plane, a woman with a baby kindly offers to move her own bag so Pamela can get situated. Once Pamela sits down, she turns to the helpful woman and says, “Is your baby going to be loud during the flight?” What a charmer.

Once Pamela gets to Disneyland, she’s greeted by her writing team, who’ve already written the script she must now approve. But Pamela isn’t interested in them. She came here to meet Walt Disney and that’s the only person she’s going to give any respect to.

When the two do meet, Walt Disney is as advertised. He’s a big kid, full of ideas and energy, optimistic to the core. In other words, the exact opposite of Pamela. Pamela quickly reminds him that she has script approval and if any of her demands are not met, she will cancel the movie immediately. Walt isn’t used to people making demands, but since this is the last leg of a race he’s been running for 20 years, he assures her that they’ll do everything they can to accommodate her.

One of my favorite moments in the script is when Pamela sits down to go over the script with the writers. She starts at the top of the first page: “Scene one. Exterior. 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London. Day.” She pauses. “Yes, that’s good. That can stay.” The writer looks at her incredulously, “That’s just the scene heading!” lol. Boy do I love screenplay humor!

As the script goes on, Pamela makes things as difficult as humanly possible for everybody involved in the project. For example, at one point she decides she doesn’t like the color red. So she makes a demand that there can be no red in the movie. Everybody is rightfully flabbergasted by this demand, but Walt Disney knows that he has no choice but to give her what she wants. So no red in Mary Poppins!

Probably the most daring decision Marcel made was to include flashbacks to Pamela’s life as a child. You guys know how I feel about flashbacks. They’re script killers. But if that wasn’t daring enough, Marcel decided to explore an alcoholic father in these flashbacks. The drunk father trope?? Uh-oh. A double dose of script killer!

And yet it’s handled beautifully! The best I’ve ever seen of anyone handling an alcoholic father. I’ll get into this more later but we learn that her issues with her father are the main reason she’s held onto Mary Poppins for so long.

So what did I think of Saving Mr. Banks? I loved it! Almost every single choice was perfect. I don’t even know where to begin and will probably start rambling but I’m very passionate about this screenplay so I’m just gonna wing it.

It all starts with an interesting protagonist. Pamela isn’t the most likable person in the world, but she’s intriguing. She has a huge flaw – that she’s untrusting of others. I’m still not sure why we’re occasionally attracted to characters like this (big meanies) but I think the fact that we all know people like Pamela helps us find her relatable. And in a way, we feel that if Pamela can overcome her flaw, that those friends of ours can overcome their flaws too! Or maybe we even see a bit of Pamela in ourselves. So we think WE can change.

The script also does a bang-up supercalfragilistamakespeealadocious job with conflict (come on, you knew I had to bust it out). Whenever you write a screenplay, you want to establish some sort of central conflict between two main characters. If you do that, it’s hard to make your story boring.

In this case, it’s Pamela and Walt. He’s on one side, desperately wanting to make this movie, and she’s on the other, intent on sabotaging any chance of the film being made. Even though she’s here to work with Walt, it’s clear that she has no intention of doing so. She will keep pushing and pushing and pushing until Walt gives up. Because the divide between the two wants is so great, the conflict is supercharged. And that’s what you want in a screenplay – supercharged conflict! Weak conflict rarely gets you anywhere.

But here’s the real thing that surprised me about Banks – the flashbacks. I thought for sure Marcel was digging her own grave when she did this, particularly when she wanted to focus on the alcoholic father. But I’ll tell you why this worked where so many other alcoholic father storylines die a quick cliché death. Are you ready?

Because she got specific.

We didn’t get the standard scenes of daddy coming home and beating mommy up then yelling at the daughter. Instead, we took a serious look at alcoholism. Her father, who’s the most loving man in the world, simply can’t stop drinking. No matter how hard he tries, he has no power against the disease. So even though he loves his daughter and his family and knows they’re falling apart around him, he keeps drinking. And it gets so bad that he’s eventually put on bed rest. Every day, then, Pamela has to wake up and see her father in this bed, weak, crippled, and still pining for his next drink. It was so detailed, so specific, so UNLIKE what we’ve seen before in these kinds of stories, that it resonated immensely.

And what’s great about this backstory is that it’s the reason Pamela created Mary Poppins. She needed a “Mary Poppins” to come in and save her when her father couldn’t. That’s why she didn’t want to give this book away. She was afraid of Walt Disney tainting and ruining this person who allowed her to make it through childhood.

I cannot stress how difficult it is to pull something like this off. I see so many writers try it and so many of them fail because you have to walk this thin line of not being too cliché and not being too melodramatic, yet still building those moments that have real emotion and connection. You have to take those chances of putting a little girl by her dying father’s bedside and write it in such a way that it doesn’t feel melodramatic or dishonest. Not easy!!!

But the script didn’t stop there. Another one of my favorite parts was Ralph the driver – who’s been hired to drive Pamela around while she’s in town. He couldn’t be more different from Pamela. He wakes up, excited for every day. He always sees the positive in everything. And he’s absolutely infatuated with the weather, particularly when it’s a sunny day outside. Of course Pamela hates him for it but he’s so damn earnest that she has no choice but to warm up to him. There’s a great moment near the end where we learn why Ralph is so obsessed with the weather, and if it doesn’t have you in tears, then I’m afraid you don’t have tear-ducts my friend.

And then there’s the monologue. When I say “the monologue,” I mean the best ending monologue I’ve maybe ever read in a screenplay. I’m going to get into a little bit of a spoiler here so you might want to turn around. But basically, Pamela leaves Disney World at the last second, deciding not to give Mary Poppins to Walt. When she gets home, she’s quickly disturbed by a knock on the door and when she answers it, there’s Walt Disney.

Walt then gives the most heartfelt convincing thoughtful meaningful plea as to why Pamela should give him the rights to the book. It’s so moving and so TRUE, that it grips your heart and won’t let go. I’ve seen so many of these ending monologues and they’re usually just a bunch of words that don’t matter. But this monologue/plea is so authentic and true and honest that *I* wanted to give the rights to *my* book up to Walt Disney. It was just such a great final moment for this character and without question, this reason Tom Hanks signed on.

I loved this script!

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (Top 25!)
[ ] genius

What I learned: Whenever you have to write a big moment in your screenplay where one character has to convince another character of something, such as the ending monologue in Saving Mr. Banks, you want to step out of the fictional world, and bring the argument into the real world. Write the argument as if you’re trying to convince A REAL PERSON. And not just any real person – a person who has already made up their mind to say no to you. Because if you try to write your argument to a fictional person, it will be fictionally convincing. You know you don’t have to be that persuasive cause all you have to do is write “Sounds good to me” from the other character after it’s over. Push harder. Make that argument REAL WORLD convincing.

Carson here.  I’m taking the day off but Roger’s here to pick up the slack, reviewing one of last year’s Nicholl finalists.  Just to give you an update, I’ve been reading 2 Twit-Pitches every night and tweeting about them live on my Twitter account. Writers complain that contests are too closed off and they never know why their script was passed over or not.  Well this is about as open as it gets!  I give you REAL TIME reasons for why I like or dislike a script.  Of course, it’s pretty late at night but still, you can always go back into my feed history if you missed it. Okay, now to Roger.  Take it away, Rog!

Rumors of found footage films being dead are greatly exaggerated. The Line of Sight screenplay proves that they’re alive and well!

Genre: Action/Found Footage
Premise: The best soldiers in the world, Delta Force Three-One, are called in to save the highest ranking U.S. official left after all of the major U.S. cities are destroyed by a mysterious attack.
About: This script was purchased last year by WB and finished on the Black List. F. Scott Frazier hit a dream hot streak when he sold three specs last year, Line Of Sight, Autobahn, and a big alien Children of Men type script. Frazier first came to my attention with his breakthrough screenplay, The Numbers Station, which I reviewed a couple of years ago, and is now in production. As for Line of Sight, Ben Affleck is rumored to be playing one of the leads.
Writer: F. Scott Frazier
Details: 116 pages (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).

I got one word for you: PICTURES!

Yaaaaay!

That’s right. One of the first things you see when you open Line Of Sight is pictures. They’re there to help you imagine all the chaos that’s going on in the script. And believe me, there’s a lot of chaos!!! So what do I think of pictures in scripts? Well, considering I predicted 5 years ago that art would become a much bigger part of screenplays in the future, I’m performing my “I told you so” dance as we speak.

And I’m all over this trend. When the new site launches (I swear – it IS coming), we’ll have artists for you to hire to create concept art for you own scripts. It’s going to be rad!

Back to Line Of Sight. Okay, so here’s the truth. I didn’t really know which characters were which here. A big reason for that was that we got a “bulk introduce.” A bunch of Delta-Force Three-One soldiers were thrown at us all at once – a death-knell for readers remembering characters, as I’ve discussed before.  However, surprisingly, this wasn’t as big of a deal to me as you might expect.

Why?

Because I saw the group as one singular character. Think about it. That’s what Delta Force Three-One is – a group of men who move and think like one. So in that sense, the entire group was a protagonist, and that was good enough to get me emotionally involved. I wouldn’t advise this approach to other screenwriters out there. But it worked in this specific case.

Part of the reason for that was that the event was so huge. America’s just been attacked. It looks like all the major cities have been hit. And here’s this Delta force team in Washington DC, finding out that almost the entire top level of government, including the president, have been killed.

There’s one biggie left though, the speaker of the house, who’s still alive somewhere inside Washington D.C. An obliterated communications network, however, leaves only one operator able to guide our team to the speaker’s location. So they arrive in the city, which they are shocked to see has been blown to bits. It’s a war zone.

We’re seeing all of this found-footage style through the helmet cams of the soldiers. So we’re hopping back and forth between each feed, which is an ingenious way to go about it because one of the issues with found footage is that you’re often limited to one camera. Being able to jump around to each soldier frees things up a bit.

Anyway, they locate the speaker and begin the arduous process of escorting him across town. But they quickly learn that something’s up with the remaining factions of government and not everybody is who they say they are. So oftentimes they’ll run into an official who claims he’s there to help, when really, he’s working for the other side – whatever mysterious side that may be.

So Three-One makes a bold move, deciding to ignore all orders and complete their original mission – get the speaker to the other side of the city. Naturally, the movie wouldn’t be any fun if they didn’t encounter some opposition along the way, and there’s plenty of that. On top of this, they’re trying to figure out what happened here. Who is it that attacked the U.S.? How did they do it? And what’s their ultimate plan? Delta Force Three-One is used to getting orders and following them. They’re not trained to care about the big picture. But in this situation, they’re going to have to figure out the big picture if they plan on surviving.

Line of Sight is probably the most no-brainer purchase of the past year. A found footage angle to a multi-city large-scale military attack. I can see the trailer already. If you put pre-District 9 Neil Blomkamp on this, after he made all those cool Halo mini-movies? He might’ve made one of the greatest summer flicks ever.

Since The Disciple Program, I’ve been talking to more and more people around town, the people who either facilitate deals or purchase scripts. And the more I talk to them, the more I hear the same thing. They want movies. They want something that audiences are going to show up to.

What F. Scott Frazier unabashedly does is he writes movies that people would show up to. And as simple of a concept as that is – 80% of aspiring screenwriters out there DO NOT do this. They write completely unmarketable plain bland ideas.

As a writer, you gotta put your producer hat on every once in awhile. You gotta ask, “Is someone really going to put millions of dollars into this idea to bring it to life?” That simple question can erase years of misguided writing.

I don’t want to scare anybody away or get anyone angry. But this seems to be a reality of the business a lot of writers ignore. They want to stay “true” to their vision. They don’t want to “sell out.” That’s where I disagree with them. Good writers pick high concepts and then build characters and themes inside those concepts that they’re able to explore on a deeper level. Look at District 9. It was a big idea. There were spaceships and aliens and robots. But guess what – the writer was able to use the idea to say something bigger. He used his characters to explore issues of greed and power and fear and hypocrisy. He was able to kill two birds with one stone. Why can’t you?

And I’m not saying Line of Sight did that, because I’m not sure it did.  What I’m saying is, if character development floats your boat, there’s no rule that says you can’t develop characters inside of big ideas.

As for the script itself, one of the cool things about found footage is it allows you to see a really big situation through the eyes of a few people. So instead of jumping to Paris to see it get blown up like you would a Roland Emmerich movie, you’re stuck with the person or people who have the camera. You’re experiencing the event through a singular point of view. And in many ways, that’s scarier than seeing the big picture.

As for the script’s faults, I would’ve liked to have seen more moments that showed off what Delta Force Three-One could do. It seemed like the majority of their impressiveness came from pre-established maneuvers that were somewhat boring. And I suppose that’s what it’s really like (It’s not Die Hard where you’re blindly jumping down elevator shafts), but it would’ve been fun to see a little more inventiveness from these guys. Let’s see them improvise a little.

The other thing that bothered me was that it wasn’t clear how this attack was being executed. From my understanding, every major city in the US was hit. And as we find out later (spoiler!), this isn’t another country invading us. It’s an army put together on the fly. So even in the best case scenario of say them having 20,000 soldiers, how the hell are you going to contain 10 of the biggest US cities with 20,000 people? I suppose you could make the argument that the bombs blew up enough of the cities to allow for easy containment. But still, you’re asking to contain maybe 3 million survivors alone in Los Angeles. Are 2000 soldiers really going to be able to do that?

But like I said, this is an exciting idea. It’s totally a movie. It’s something that hasn’t been done before (found footage with a military attack). Screenwriters everywhere can learn a lot about the business by understanding why a script like this sells.

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

What I learned: Roadblock scenes always work! They have built in tension, anticipation and suspense. But the key to making them shine is to add one element that makes things as difficult as possible on your heroes. Line of Sight does this perfectly. Earlier, Delta Three-One killed some soldiers and stole their uniforms in order to impersonate the attacking army. But they did it so quickly, they didn’t realize that their youngest member was putting on the highest ranking uniform. They only realize this AS THEY’RE APPROACHING a roadblock. All of a sudden, the youngest and least capable member of their team will have to convince the invading soldiers to let them pass. This is exactly how to create a great roadblock scene – add an element that makes passing the roadblock look unlikely.

Knights. Zombies. Guaranteed awesomeness or guaranteed awfulness? Read a script from a very UNIQUE screenwriting team and come to your own conclusion.

NEW 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 effect 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: Zombie/Period
Premise: (from writers) 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.
About: Zombie Knights was sort of the sleeper logline hit of our mini-logline contest a few weeks ago that produced “Breathwork” and “Soundtrack.” Here was their “why you should read our script” argument in their query letter: “Hollywood, they say, is looking for the same — but different. Our screenplay is an effort put a fresh spin on the tried-and-true zombie flick by setting it in the Middle Ages. We also try to use the format to address greater themes of faith and humanity. And, oh yeah, with lots of killing zombies with axes and swords and maces and stuff.”
Writer: Clint & Taylor Williams
Details: 103 pages

Well this is a first. I can safely say that I’ve never read a script by a father-son writing team before. In fact, this may be the first father-son writing team in the HISTORY OF SCREENWRITING. That’s pretty cool but, man, I’m assuming it would cause some unique challenges. I mean what happens when the son gets grounded and the Nicholl deadline is days away? “No, you can’t go see your friends tonight! But could you clean up the dialogue in the dungeon scene?” Awk-warrrrrd.

As for the age-old complaint that we have YET ANOTHER ZOMBIE SCRIPT, I’ll give it to the Williams’s…es that a middle ages setting does feel different. But I don’t care if it’s set in the Paleolithic ages – bottom line is the script has to deliver. So is Zombie Knights one of those freaking crazy ass sprinting zombies from 28 Days Later or is that half-bodied pathetic one-armed dragging zombie from the pilot of The Walking Dead?

It’s the 11th Century when things like polio and leprosy were commonplace. Catch a couple of those miscues and you could actually BECOME a zombie without being a zombie. Add on to that that you had to hunt your own food and we are talking major suckage.

But what sucks even more is that a terrible plague is spreading through the land. It makes the dead rise up and want to eat your brains. Of course, since it’s a thousand years before George Romero and Wikipedia, nobody knows what this disease is. They do know that if they shoot the diseased through the head with an arrow, though, they die. And that’s good enough for now.

After coming back from a work trip (also known as the Crusades) a group of knights led by rough and tumble Thomas and the clean-cut Clinton, realize that the place they left no longer exists. Everybody’s dying and after they die, they get up and try to eat you. While these strange undead creatures are harmless by themselves, they’re quite dangerous in bulk.

And when the bulks get too bulky, our Crusaders realize they have to flee the city and find safety somewhere else. So they take all the remaining townspeople and take a field trip across the land until they find an abandoned castle. Hey, zombies may be dangerous but they ain’t too good at scaling walls, so it seems like a good place to set up camp.

Things are nice and safe for awhile, but the zombie hordes outside the castle keep getting bigger, making a trip to the grocery store that much more difficult. Naturally, supplies get low and they realize that if they don’t find a way out of this undead mess, they’re going to starve to death. So the group comes up with the idea to dig a tunnel underneath the castle, Great Escape style. But will they be able to pull Operation Dirty Fingernails off in time? Click the script link below and find out for yourself.

Okay, Zombie Knights. A neat idea. Some solid writing. But a lot of beginner problems. Beginning with the very first scene.

Why are we opening a movie with knights being welcomed back from battle? I understand that it introduces the characters. I understand that it sets up how important these characters are. But it’s not a SCENE. A scene has decisions to be made. It has choices for your heroes. It has a PROBLEM that needs to be solved. That’s when a scene is exciting/interesting. And if there’s any scene that needs to be exciting and/or interesting, it’s your first one. Cause that’s the scene that’s either going to draw your reader in or not.

I would start this movie off with the crusaders in battle, beating ass and taking Old English names, and then at the end of the battle, after everyone’s been slaughtered, one by one, the dead bodies start getting up. What the f*ck is going on??? They have to defeat each of them a second time! This is off the top of my head and you’d probably need another 10 drafts to come up with a cool original version of it, but THAT’S a scene. THAT’S something happening. People galloping in on horses isn’t a scene. And it definitely isn’t an opening scene.

This opening is then clouded by the death-knell – a dozen characters being introduced all at the same time. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Why God why?? The bulk-introduce is a well-known script-killer. You’re practically begging the reader to forget every character in your script by doing this.

Anyway, this is followed by a strange montage sequence of our knights fighting a bunch of battles over the years. However it wasn’t clear that time was actually passing (there was no mention of any “MONTAGE” anywhere, which was the source of the confusion) so we had this sort of comical scenario where our heroes would fight a HUGE battle, go have lunch in the forest, go fight another HUGE battle, go have dinner in the forest, go fight another HUGE battle, go have breakfast in the forest. It was funny. It was like they defeated 8 huge armies in two days. A simple “MONTAGE” slug would’ve helped this.

Then, when they get to the castle, we run into a problem I’m always warning you guys about. The “sit still and wait” problem that occurs when you place your characters in a static location. It’s just not interesting to watch people hang out and wait. Waiting is boring. Audiences want characters who are ACTIVE. That’s why the “stuck in places” movies that work are the ones where the characters are desperately trying to get out (i.e. Aliens).

The next problem is that there’s no urgency at all. I think the characters actually have months to hang out in this castle. That’s not a movie. And it’s definitely not a zombie movie, where we have to feel the urgency of the zombie threat getting closer. If I were the Williams’s…es, I would make this a 1 week deal. They get to the castle, the zombies start scratching at those rocks, and bit by bit they’re able to dig pieces of that wall off. They’re getting closer and closer to getting in. So our guys build the tunnel and you play those two angles against each other. Our guys have to finish the tunnel before the zombies break through that wall.

Because if you don’t have urgency in a movie like this, you don’t have a movie.

Also in this kind of movie, you need conflict. You need people disagreeing with each other about how shit needs to be done. That way the characters aren’t just fighting zombies, they’re fighting each other. Drogo, a character who joins the group before they get to the castle, should be this character. He needs to be the dissenter. He needs to be the one who wants to do things differently. And it can’t be polite either. It needs to be some heavy ass conflict where you’re wondering if these guys are going to kill each other before the zombies kill them.

Like I said, this was well-written, but it needs some stronger storytelling. Goals, urgency, conflict, that sort of stuff, before this zombie script can play with the big boys.

Script link: Zombie Knights

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

What I learned: Tell a story with your scene! That opening scene really bothered me because there was no story being told. It was just introducing characters. You have to entertain the audience, remember. Look at the opening scene in Aliens. We’re in some frozen ship. We’re not really clear what’s going on. Some sort of lazer thing starts cutting through the door. There’s mystery here. There’s anticipation. Something INTERESTING is happening. And this approach shouldn’t just be used for your opening scene. ALWAYS try to tell a story in your scene.

What I learned 2: The bulk-introduce. Guys, stay away from the bulk-introduce if at all possible. Because if we start mixing up your characters right away because they’re lost amongst a dozen introductions? We’ll be confused during every aspect of your story because we’re going to keep saying, “Who’s this character again? What’s their relationship to the story?” And that’s a script-killer.

This is a very exciting moment for me because I’m interviewing my first OSCAR WINNER. Simon Beaufoy wrote 2008’s Academy Award winning Slumdog Millionaire. He also wrote The Full Monty and 127 Hours. But the reason I wanted to interview Simon was because of his new film, “Salmon Fishing In The Yemen,” which is a script I read a long time ago and loved! It’s one of those movies all screenwriters should seek out because it’s just really well written. – My relationship with Simon is funny. I think he both loves me and hates me. Loves me for my review of “Salmon Fishing” and hates me for my review of “127 Hours.” But even after that unflattering review, he still agreed to an interview! I love me some Simon Beaufoy!

SS: Simon, thank you for stopping by our community here on Scriptshadow. Now I chatted with you once a long time back and you mentioned you’d visited the site. Have you since recovered from this visit? Don’t tell me you actually came back in the meantime.

SB: I remember there was an outbreak of brickbats (what ARE brickbats, really?) on your site round the time 127 Hours was about to be released. I love the passion of the contributors to the site even if I am sometimes dumbfounded by the certainty of opinion of people who haven’t even seen a film or read the script, but still feel they have a valid point of view….A forum for screenwriters can only be a dangerous thing for a species who live in the dark and eat only bananas and chocolate. But dangerous is usually good.

SS: Let’s jump right into your newest film, Salmon Fishing. As you already know, I loved this script. So let me ask you this. Was it a difficult script to write? And if so, what was the most difficult thing about it?

SB: Thanks for loving the script. You’re a generous soul. People assume that because the entire novel was made up of emails, interviews, diary entries and news reports (an epistolary novel) that finding a structure was the most difficult part of adapting it. But actually, the most difficult part of this particular adaptation was cracking the problem that this was essentially a love triangle with one of the three people in the triangle absent. Film doesn’t like absence much- whereas in novels, that’s fine. I had to do some radical things to the original novel to address this complication.

SS: When you sat down to write it – or really when you sit down to write any script – what is the single most important thing that you need to get right? What story element gets all of your focus and why?

SB: The single most difficult element to get right when I sit down to write is the strength of the coffee. Everything else is secondary. I rarely get it right and it puzzles me endlessly. Same coffee, same amount of water, different taste each day. Why? It definitely tastes better in a white cup, but still, something is going on that I can’t get to the bottom of.

Tone is most hard to keep uniform throughout a script. Especially when adapting a novel. The tone is one of the few things I promise to keep the same as the original material- character being the other, though the two tend to be interwoven anyway. Everything else is up for grabs, usually. There’s no intrinsic merit in a ‘faithful adaptation’ as far as I can see. The very reasons why a novel might be incredibly successful as a novel are often the very opposite of what might make it a good film. There’s no intrinsic merit in a ‘faithful adaptation’ as far as I can see. There is merit in turning a wonderful idea with wonderful characters into a wonderful film.

SS: Let me ask you this because it’s a problem I’ve personally dealt with and I know other screenwriters who love these kinds of movies deal with. When you write something like Raiders or Pirates, movies with big concepts where the characters are always on the move trying to achieve things, it’s fairly easy to keep the story moving (as the concept practically moves it along for you). But it’s different when you write a character piece with a lot more talking and a lot more character development. What’s the key, in your opinion, to making these movies move along quickly? How do you prevent them from becoming slow and boring?

SB: I’ve never written one of those huge movies, so I’m not even sure I understand the problem you are suggesting. I am self-taught, mostly by the Landmine School of Education. I’ve never read a How To book on screenwriting. I work instinctively, from the first principle of my process (and life) that plot comes from character, not the other way round. So interesting people do interesting things. If the story is boring, you’re at the wrong party. Sometimes I’ve found my narrative slowing up and I usually find the answer is that the main character has become passive, has stopped doing and is being done to. With some notable exceptions (can’t actually think of any right now….help!) passive main characters don’t work in films. It’s like driving with the parking brake on.

SS: For me, the thing that always sticks out the most in your movies are your characters. Can you give us your process for character-building? What is the key to writing a great character in your opinion? 

SB: Authenticity. Is the story of a man spending his life tracking down a beautiful woman in a city of twenty million indians- via a gameshow- true? No. Do you believe it? Weirdly, yes. That’s authenticity.

SS: Now it’s been over a year since I read the script, but if I remember correctly, Fred, the main character, is a rather prickly sort. When you write characters that are in danger of coming off as unsympathetic to the audience, are you conscious of that? And if so, what do you do to endear them to the audience more so that they root for them? 

SB: Fred is not at all likeable for a good deal of the script. That’s the point, really. But we see the possibility of a kind, funny person trapped inside a dull shell, too scared to be the person he could be. And we want him to succeed. Many years ago, Alfred Uhry read a treatment of mine for another film and had only one question: “do we like him?” I answered with all sorts of clever stuff about how he was a complicated, layered person at a crossroads in his life, blah blah and he just repeated the question: “do we like him?” It took a long time to really understand the simple and perfect beauty of that question. It really is that simple and that complicated. Do we like Fred? He’s spectrum autistic, rude, humourless, apparently passionless. But in a moment of weakness (as far as he’s concerned) he reveals his care and love for Harriet by making her a duck sandwich. And in that moment, ridiculously, we like him. After that, anything’s possible.

SS: Another thing I’ve noticed about your work is that your movies tend to have strong themes. Since theme is such an elusive term in the craft of screenwriting (it seems like everyone I talk to has a different take on it), could you give us your personal definition of it and how you use it to craft your stories?

SB: Theme….what a strange question.

SS: I’m a very strange person.

SB: Of course the work has themes. Every film that is more than an anecdote has themes: it’s what underpins everything that aspires to being more than the newspaper that wraps up the takeaway fish and chips. How can you inspire, worry, uplift, depress, piss off people without themes? It is part of the architecture that keeps the building up.

SS: As long as I’m picking your brain about all these tough screenwriting issues, I’d be dumb not to bring up the Second Act Black Hole – This is, of course, the last 30 or so pages of the second act where most screenplays go to die. How do you tackle the Black Hole? What do you focus on to keep the script moving until you get to that 3rd act?

SB: Thanks for flagging up a previously unknown ailment. I’m sure I’ll forever after have Second Act Black Hole syndrome now. I’d no idea they existed. Until now. There are slow bits. I end up cutting them. Or actually, I usually amalgamate them into another scene. It’s a good game to see if you can squeeze two scenes into one. It usually works and usually makes the remaining scene much juicier.

SS: You’ve been in the business for almost 20 years now. Can you give us a couple of the most important lessons you’ve learned about screenwriting in that time? Your big “Ah-Ha!” moments?

SB: There’s only one that I really stick to now that I feel I’ve discovered it (the hard way). Your main character needs to be active, not passive, needs to be driving the story. Film is a kinetic medium- it’s not called the movies for nothing. Keep your central character moving, discovering, learning.

SS: You’ve obviously worked closely with Danny Boyle on a number of projects. What are some of the things you’ve learned from him that have made you a better writer? 

SB: I learned 9) from Danny. I’d suspected as much for a long time. But there’s no way you can have a passive character with Danny. He doesn’t understand the word. His film making embodies the potential of the camera to move around subjects, time, characteristics, places.

SS: What would you tell all the screenwriters out there who are trying to break in? What’s the one piece of advice you’d want them to know? 

SB: See 9. And add the need for authenticity. It’s only my opinion, but without authenticity, I switch off. I know I’m at a movie. I want to be IN the movie.

SS: Okay so you gotta tell me. What’s it like winning an Oscar and walking up on that stage? Was it the coolest thing ever? Can you please give me a play by play of what was going on in your head as it happened?!

SB: I can’t remember a thing about it. Only the bar backstage afterwards. Utterly silent and empty and stocked with everything in the world- as far as my blasted brain could process- including a barman who calmly said, “congratulations, sir, what can I get you?” I had a Martini and sat there entirely on my own for five minutes, thinking, “what the hell just happened?”