Note: No review today.

For those playing catch-up, Twit-Pitch was a contest I held where anyone could pitch me their screenplay as long as it was contained within a single tweet.  These are the Top 100 from a list that included nearly1000. These 100 will send me the first ten pages of their scripts, from which I’ll pick 20-25 full scripts to read.  To read a discussion of the loglines and contest, head over to the 1300-comment post that occurred afterwards.  You should also follow me on Twitter for updates, as I’ll occasionally be tweeting my responses to pages. 

There’s been a lot of discussion about what I picked and what I didn’t pick and I wanted to give you guys some insight into why I chose what I chose. I’ve run a few logline contests now and I’ve learned a few things in the process. The first is, wacky comedies tend to be the worst written scripts I read. The more broad something is, the less the writer seems to care about character and story (instead focusing solely on the jokes). And as you know from reading the site, character and story are the most important things to me. So that might explain why I didn’t pick that many comedies despite the fact that there were some pretty funny ideas out there. I was tired of getting burned.

The other thing I learned is that loglines that end with a vague mystery usually result in vague unsatisfying screenplays. So if you wrote something like, “A man discovers a secret room in his house that leads to a horror that he could’ve never imagined.” There’s just not enough information there. If I’m going to take two hours to read a script, I want to know what the script is about. So many of these loglines didn’t get chosen.

Now let me get into why I chose some of the ideas I did. You’ll notice that a lot of the ideas I picked contained irony. A writer who understands the value of irony in storytelling is usually ahead of the writer who doesn’t. In other words, if I was to come across this logline…


A lawyer wakes up on the day of his biggest trial only to learn that he cannot tell a lie.

I’d pick it over this one…

A lawyer wakes up on the day of his biggest trial only to learn that he can hear people’s thoughts.

Both of those ideas are high concept but the second one doesn’t contain any irony. The lawyer can really be anybody. So it’s not nearly as exciting of an idea.

Also, since everything that happened with The Disciple Program, I’ve been fortunate enough to talk to a lot of producers in the industry. And the thing I continue to hear is, “Bring me a movie I can sell.” Not “Bring me a movie that can win a BAFTA.” Not “Bring me a movie that will fill me with emotion.” But, “bring me a movie I can sell.” That’s not to say that emotion and character development and plotting aren’t important. You guys know now how much I value all of these things. But if those things aren’t inside a package a producer can put on a poster, or sell to the next guy above him, then they’re not interested. Remember, Good Will Hunting sold as a thriller. It wouldn’t have sold as a character piece.

So when I looked through these loglines, there was that little voice in the back of my head reminding me: Is this something you can give Producer A or Producer B and they’ll be interested? The only real producer in town who can get significant character development movies made without having to jump through a million hoops is Scott Rudin. And it’s hard to get to that guy.

Finally, my taste factored into this. You guys all know that I like time travel stuff. I’m also a bit of a sci-fi geek. So you saw a lot of those ideas here. I’m not really into witches and covenants, so loglines like those were at a disadvantage. And you know, sometimes I just took chances. I know the loglines weren’t traditionally ‘sound,’ but something said to me, “This sounds like a unique writer.” The Detroit salt mines one. It felt different. The dwarf opening a pizza shop. It felt different. The dead whale one. It felt different. And those were simply chosen on gut. Unfortunately, that’s not something you can predict when you’re constructing your idea. You never know which gut is going to be looking at your logline.

Now, on to the Twit-Pitch 100. The first 76 were my original picks, and the last 24 were new picks. I chose these by going back through the comments section in the massive Twit-Pitch post and seeing what people liked. I also browsed back through the pitches myself and added a few that didn’t hit me the first time.

I decided to bypass the direct-messaging I promised earlier because it takes a ridiculous amount of time to direct tweet on Twitter for some reason. Therefore, anybody who was favorited and anybody who shows up in the 23 alternates here, you have until Sunday midnight (pacific time) to send me your first 10 pages (to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with subject line: TWIT-PITCH). I’ll let you know next week what the due date is for the entire script, which will be roughly 2 months. Enjoy the pitches!

1) A pill-pushing psychiatrist must connect with his patients when a dissatisfied customer curses him with all of their disorders.

2) Early 1980s New Jersey: a 12-year-old decides to profile the local mob boss for his seventh grade English project.

3) North Atlantic, 1825. A whaling Captain and his mutinous crew are trapped on the body of a dead whale and must fight for survival.

4) A “This American Life” type documentary covering a monster attack on NYC, using found footage, like the 1st anniversary of 9/11

5) Werewolves on The Moon: It’s always a full moon on the moon.

6) After winning a nationwide lottery a man must decide what to do with his prize, fifteen minutes of advice to give to his younger self

7) Genesis Y2K: A Christian broadcasting network hires two failed filmmakers to create a TV series of the Bible before the apocalypse

8) After being framed for his father’s murder, an ex-Army medic goes on the run and uncovers a vast secret buried in Detroit’s salt mines

9) West Side story but hip-hop. Rival barber shops: Hella Cutty vs. Get Faded. Step it up 3 meets Leprechaun in the hood

10) On a dare, a young woman shaves her head… only to discover a pirate’s treasure map tattooed onto her scalp

11) When his fiancee gets promoted, a man must plan their wedding on his own. But he risks losing his bride when he becomes a groomzilla.

12) A troubled teen suspects his father may be trying to kill him for a life insurance payout when he’s involved in several “accidents”

13) A man trying to solve the mystery of his con artist grandfather must overcome his own beliefs and the resistance of his broken family.

14) An uptight half-white half-Latin man confronts his repressed heritage when he’s mistaken for a druglord while on business in Guatemala

15) An orphan grows up in a projection booth. He must use all he learned from movies to survive outdoors or lose his true love

16) A group of friends returns from a time-travel fieldtrip to find a nerdy student has altered his past turning him into a living legend.

17) A hoarder finds the girl of his dreams only to lose her in his apartment.

18) A TV executive is held hostage by the characters from a show he recently cancelled, who demand they be put back on the air.

19) An astrophysicist Jesuit priest suffers a crisis of faith triggered by the discovery of a destroyed civilization lightyears from home.

20) One man unaffected by a world inexplicably frozen in time, seeks a way to end the stasis, and finds to his peril that he’s not alone.

21) Firstclass: Mailmen vs. meter maids, battle in the secret civil servant war for control of the streets while trying to get disability.

22) A down on his luck Ice Cream Man agrees to transport stolen stem cells to Mexico only to find these cells are not from this planet.

23) A team of animals organize to fight the omnipotent Taxidermist after he inflicts their community with a deadly parasite

24) A 30 year old woman who dated twins in college believes that one of them was “The One”, if only she could remember which.

25) Two guys have one weekend to battle for the coveted ‘Godfather’ title to their best friend’s new daughter.

26) A terrorist with a $10 mill bounty, a callous soldier of fortune and a mysterious man with no name walk into a bar in Afghanistan

27) Secrets revealed, lives evaluated and relationships SLAUGHTERED after a small town reality cast deals with the murder of their lead.

28) A paranormal debunker is unknowingly invited to investigate a home by a ghost who is terrified by another evil entity lurking upstairs

29) Ex-CIA assassin unionizes an eclectic group of freelance hitmen to “negotiate” with their mob employers. Norma Rae meets RED

30) When the world’s biggest superhero agreed to grant a dying boy’s last wish, he didn’t count on the boy wishing for all his powers

31) When a suicide cult oddly resurrects in a small town, an ex-cop must uncover the truth, and find his own dead son has also risen

32) 9 strangers wake in a deserted Mexican town besieged by killing machines: they must discover why they’ve been brought there to survive

33) In 1903 North Carolina, the Wright bros attempt the first flight, but shenanigans arise when they fall in love with the same woman

34) The ghost of a legendary star gets tangled up in his own biopic when he needs the help of the heartthrob cast as him

35) Small town funeral home begrudgingly inherited is failing so the owner starts killing for business. Soon, his model goes national.

36) Can it get any worse than living next door to a serial killer? It can if you live on CRIMSON ROAD… the whole street is full of them.

37) Driven into exile by a goblin invasion, a mythological dwarf struggles to adapt to life as a pizzeria owner in upstate New York

38) When a lonely masochistic chubby chaser is abducted by two fat lesbian serial killers, it’s the best thing that ever happened to him.

39) Determined to find a date for his high school reunion, a loser hires a lifecoach who turns out to be his old school bully

40) An imprisoned Japanese-American doctor and a Caucasian nurse fall in love amid mounting tension inside a WWII internment camp

41) ORBIT – A team of astronauts orbiting the Earth find they may be the world’s only hope during a devastating alien attack.

42) When a billionaire sociopath is sent to death row, he offers $100 million cash to anyone that can successfully break him out

43) SPECIMEN – An amnesiac surgeon who wakes up chained to a steel slab must uncover why doctors are performing grisly operations on him.

44) While investigating a popular student’s unexplained disappearance, a high school psychologist realizes her stepson is a prime suspect.

45) After a series of murders, three survivors must help police piece together the previous night’s events. Rashomon meets Reunion

46) RE-ENACTMENT: A civil war expert and his son must fight to survive a reenactment organized by a dangerous southern cult

47) Douche Patrol: Two partners in the newly created Douche Patrol try to expose a plot to douchify the masses through a reality TV show

48) An ex-cop awakes in an alternative reality where normal people are locked up in mental institutions and society is runned by lunatics

49) After checking into a hotel to escape her abusive husband, a woman realizes guests in the next room are holding a young girl hostage.

50) 3 days after his wife and child die, a man discovers he can travel into the past, one day at a time, as long as he never falls asleep.

51) ActingCoach:a hi-school drama teacher becomes coach of the varsity basketball team, forcing his theater philosophies on the jocks

52) With his favorite fast-food sandwich facing its final week before it’s phased out forever, an obsessed man leads a protest to save it.

53) 3 men kill a friend for suspiciously losing their winning lotto ticket, only to later discover the missing ticket was in fact a loser

54) Head of time travel program learns world’ll be destroyed in 25 years and must stop the terrorist responsible: his 25-year-older self.

55) Desperate to divorce but cash-strapped, ornery newlyweds must put their feuding aside to sell their house, much less agree on a price.

56) AIRBORNE An outbreak of a lethal, unknown virus threatens the passengers and crew of a commercial airliner, forcing it to stay aloft

57) Futuristic re-imagining of SLEEPING BEAUTY. A young woman, cryogenically frozen for 100 years, is discovered in deep space.

58) A warrior sets out to track and kill the last giant – a lonely, anguished creature… and last link to an ancient, beautiful world.

59) The little known true story of how Matisse & Picasso went from being fierce rivals to BFFs.

60) To save his Mom’s home, an obnoxious 40 year old is given one chance: enter the teen TV quiz he had a meltdown on 25 years ago.

61) A group of last-minute shoppers trapped in a mall on Christmas Eve are stalked by a demon-possessed Santa. Horror/Comedy

62) A lowly museum curator races to find Pandora’s box before the resurrected Greek gods destroy the modern world.

63) A famous chef has a nervous breakdown and recovers while working at McDonald’s, where he rediscovers his love for food.

64) RomCom-Man loves woman whose dreams predict future, but future she sees isn’t with him. Can he convince her to choose love over fate?

65) A car thief finds a drug mule tied up in the trunk of his latest grab, then finds himself in the sights of the man who wants her back

66) Emilie can control time at will. When she’s hired to change a key event in a mathematical genius’s life, time begins to collapse

67) A lifelong bachelor accidentally proposes to his clingy girlfriend then tries to trick her into dumping him, but the tables soon turn

68) After forced to choose between her two children during a fire, Sarah fears she is now being haunted by the dead son she left behind.

69) A divorced dad adopts a puppy to fix his family but troubles arise when his ex’s new boyfriend joins his Puppy Kindergarten class

70) DEVIL’S DUE: A cave rescue team fights to escape a collapsing abandoned mine stalked by inhuman ghouls who can mimic victims.

71) After running away from home, an eight foot tall teenager stumbles upon a retirement town for sideshow performers.

72) When a U-Boat vanishes in the 1940s, it leads a team of American GIs to a terrifying secret trapped beneath the ice of Antarctica

73) A dwarf on the run from the mob impersonates the 7-year-old host of an irreverent children’s TV show.

74) After thwarting a terrorist hijacking, passengers debate what to do with the surviving bomber, who’s still set on finishing the job

75) ‘The Tradition’ 1867 After losing her father, a woman unwittingly takes a job as a maid at a countryhouse of aristocratic cannibals

76) After perfecting the ability to send data backwards in time, a brilliant quantum physicist must avert his future murder.

AND NOW – FOR THE ALTERNATES (YOUR PICKS!)

77) The Lipschitz Affair: When an art heist interrupts a wedding at the Guggenheim, everyone’s a suspect — even the bride and groom

78) The Shit List: With the help of his best friend, an underachiever seeks revenge on the people he blames for ruining his life #tp12

79) When a solar storm strands a lonesome geologist in the Canadian wild, she must journey through the dark to survive. “Borealis”

80) When fired by God, a hardworking guy decides to change path and ends up appointed CEO of Hell (, Inc).

81) A bridge appears over the Miss. river. A city official forms a blockade, but news that it travels you back in time starts a hysteria.

82) A chicken farmer watches in horror as his simple life is manipulated by a documentary filmmaker into a feature film.

83) Documentarian interviews Environmentalist Leader only to discover he’s a pawn of the Mob, disposing of bodies in newly created parks.

84) 22yrs old and tired of the pain and suffering of being a real boy,Pinocchio embarks on a journey to get turned back into a puppet.

85) A team of scientists lands on Mars to begin the terraformation process, but Mars fights back in RED MENACE.

86) A mundane father returns to his childhood imaginary world, only to find it has been corrupted by his life as an adult.

87) After a chance encounter, a young couple reunites a few months later only to find their love threatened by a dark secret.

88) It’s 1901. Terrorists have just taken over the White House. And only Theodore Roosevelt can stop them.

89) A high school senior discovers there is a conspiracy to stop him from having sex before graduation.

90) 3 girls spend their last summer before high school rebuilding a old fort and their crumbling friendship.

91) A bounty hunter has 30 days to catch his nemesis before the last spaceship departs, leaving him stranded and alone on a dying earth.

92) BLACKHATS: A hacker for hire finds himself in a deadly web of corporate espionage after being hired to steal the 1st sentient A.I.

93) Haunted by his daughter’s death, a reclusive CIA interrogator saves a suspect he’s ordered to torture; a young girl of alien origin.

94) Ecotourists stranded in a radioactive ghost town at Chernobyl face the threat of wolves, disfigured locals & their own social meltdown

95) 1022 BC. Family corruption and fierce enemy tribes plague the young warrior David as he plots his own rise and ascension to Israel’s throne.

96) Chris Kartje ‏ @chriskartje
When, on Xmas Eve, Santa lands on a frat house & eats all the pot cookies, itʼs up to the last sober Jew to be his designated driver.

97) A failed Elvis impersonator travels back in time to steal the life & career of the real Elvis.

98) New York 2029. The whole city is a walled in maximum security town for the wealthy. The world most dangerous criminal just dropped in.

99) Trapped in an increasingly nightmarish limbo, a dead boxer keeps returning to the ring, desperate for the win that’ll change his fate.

100) A rising young actress struggles to keep her sexuality a secret while falling for her female castmate & trying to succeed in Hollywood

While you may not be able to go back in time and Twit-Pitch a better logline, you can head back in time with today’s screenplay, Safety Not Guaranteed.

Genre: Indie-Comedy
Premise: Based on a real ad, SNG is about a small-time group of journalists investigating an ad in the classifieds that states – “WANTED: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322 Oakview, CA 93022. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.”
About: Yes, this story is based on a real ad. However, if I’m to understand it correctly, the rest of the script is completely made up. While the writer, Connolly, has a distant TV movie credit back in 2005, this seems to be his first “real” produced credit. Rising star Jake Johnson, along with the weird chick from Parks and Recreation, star. The film debuted at Sundance, where it was received well.
Writer: Derek Connolly
Details: 93 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 like these scripts with pseudo-magical premises. I like that there’s the possibility of stuff we haven’t figured out yet or can’t understand. Shit, I even liked K-Pax with Kevin Spacey! Actually that’s not true. I liked it for 45 minutes and then it got stupid (“You’re an alien. No, you’re an abused child!” Uhh, what??). I guess what I’m saying is, I like the idea that there’s more out there and I enjoy movies that explore that possibility in a grounded way.

Which leads us to Safety Not Guaranteed, a whimsical little drama/comedy that feels like it was born inside Sundance’s womb, with the intention of playing there once then disappearing forever, kind of like that old Apple commercial that only played once during the Super Bowl.

The script starts out in disastrous territory, introducing us to our lead character, Darius. Now when I say “Darius,” tell me what the first image that comes to mind is. Is it a 13 year old Caucasian girl? Ding ding ding! If you guessed yes, you’d be correct! Except I know you didn’t. Because no intelligent person would. So I will make this plea for the 842,000th time. Do not give your female characters male names. And if you’re going to give them a name that’s usually popular in another ethnicity, you better have a darn good reason for why. It’s not clever. It’s confusing to the reader.

So yeah, right away, I was ready to kick this script’s ass. However, as I was putting on my ass-kicking boots, the story slowly started to rebound (how could it not? It started at such a low point). We learn that the now 22 year old Darius is an assistant at a weird but assumingly popular magazine where she’s desperate to move up. I like characters who want to move up. Makes them active. I stopped tying my boots.

As the employees gather to pitch their latest story ideas to the editor, one of the lead writers, 29-year-old Jeff, pitches his idea on a classified ad about a guy asking for a partner to go back in time with. The guy lives up the coast in a beach town called Ocean View, and he figures he could take a couple of assistants up there and interview the guy. The editor agrees so Jeff chooses Darius and the overtly shy Arnau.

On their way up, Darius pleas with Jeff to get her name on the article while Arnau sits in the back doing his best to look confused (something he’s very good at). Once we get there, we find out Jeff wasn’t interested in the story at all. He actually came here to reconnect with a girlfriend he hasn’t seen since childhood.

Darius is pissed that her boss is a fraud but it actually opens up a great opportunity, since she can now write the article herself. So she goes off to meet the mysterious adster, Kenneth, and finds him as weird as advertised. He’s a terribly awkward combination of autistic and paranoid, convinced that some Men in Black are on to him, trying to prevent him from his mission (just out of curiosity – Why do crazy people always think the government is after them? Is there a Crazy Handbook out there that requires this?).

Kenneth takes to Darius immediately and she goes along with it to get the story. But the more she gets to know him, the more she starts to understand him. He wants to go back in time to prevent a girl’s death. That hits close to home because Darius’s mother died a decade ago and she, too, wishes she could go back and save her.

The closer we get to the big jump, the closer the Men in Black dudes close in. Jeff and pointless Arnau start to question whether Darius has lost her mind because she’s actually starting to believe him. Oh, and then there’s Kenneth, racing around, stealing materials from local corporations, trying to finish up his time machine, which puts the community on high alert. This means they have to speed up the time table. And as the big launch approaches, everybody – the characters and us – are wondering, is this real? Or is Kenneth crazy?

Safety Not Guaranteed started out as one of those “trying too hard to be a hip indie comedy” films that make you laugh and groan in equal measure. Everybody wears a vintage sweater. Everybody’s ironic. And everybody has a perfect little quip in response to a line of dialogue. In other words, if films had necks, you’d want to strangle this one.

But then the screenplay stops trying to impress us and starts focusing on the characters. And when that happens, it actually gets pretty good. I really liked our heroine, Darius. I liked how she hid behind this wall, afraid to feel, afraid to show emotion. I like how she masked it by making fun of others. And I loved how that wall eventually began to drop as the story went on. A little Screenwriting 101 here. Walls are good! Characters who have walls give you a natural place to go with them (breaking those walls down). So add walls to your characters!

I also liked a lot of the choices the writer made, specifically how he wanted the story to remain ambiguous. For example, Kenneth is going back in time to save this girl. (Spoiler) Yet later, Jeff tells Darius he did some investigating and found out the girl Kenneth is going back to save is still alive. When Darius confronts Kenneth about this, he’s confused, but then starts to wonder, does that mean they already went back in time and succeeded? And it was at that moment that I really started to appreciate the script. It genuinely had you wondering – is this real or isn’t it?

I also liked Jeff’s journey. Jeff is clearly a ladies man whose flaw is that he only sees people from the outside. So when he finds the girl from his childhood who’s now… a lot bigger, he has to decide if he’s willing to make a commitment to someone he’s not attracted to. Watching him battle this and come to terms with his flaw was surprisingly touching.

But you can’t win them all, and the game of Anau was definitely lost. I mean could there be a more pointless character in screenplay history? I don’t know if they just wanted a funny Indian guy in the trailer or what but this character was a disaster. His goal was to get laid? Or something? Huh?

Really, that’s the only thing I didn’t like, well besides the Darius name thing of course. The only reason this doesn’t rank higher is because it carries that Sundance Indie tag that seems to limit a story’s ceiling. I can’t really explain it other than to say those movies only tend to be so enjoyable. And while I did enjoy this, I wouldn’t go out telling everybody they have to read it. Still, if you like this kind of story, you should definitely check it out. It’s pretty solid.

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

What I learned: Beware the “show off” first act. Some writers feel it’s necessary in the first act to prove how good of a writer they are and therefore push too hard. It’s the equivalent of a first date where you’re trying realllllly hard to be funny or cool. It never comes off natural because you’re pressing. The best dates are when you just relax and be yourself. Your first act should be similar. Don’t try to impress anybody or prove that you’re a great writer (overly quirky dialogue, overly cute names, false “movie” moments). Just tell your story!

Hey guys.  I’m going to do a little shifting around this week.  I’m moving my Tuesday review to Wednesday so I can do a full post about Twit-Pitch on Tuesday.  I want to answer some questions, explain why I chose the loglines I did, and just shed a little more light on the process.  I’ll also be revealing the 25 alternates that made the list.  In the meantime, I’ve been closely monitoring the comments section.  I’ve picked 13 of the 25 based on your collective enthusiasm so far.  So keep the discussion alive.  Oh, and thanks!  That post will be the first ever 1000 comment post in Scriptshadow history!!!

Welcome everyone.  Come one.  Come all.  To the first annual Scriptshadow Twit-Pitch Contest Experiment Extravaganza.  Where you, the hardworking unknown writer, tweet me your logline in 134 characters or less!  Now I know a lot of you Twitter newbies have been freaking out over this process. You’re scared your tweet won’t show or you won’t know how to see it.  Bad news. I’m scared too. However, I came up with an idea.  You can test your tweets all day long if you want, just to make sure they work.  I’ll only look at the ones from 2-4pm though.  Those are the only ones I’ll count.  This way, everyone can make sure they’re prepared.

Now how DO you see your tweet to make sure it’s shown up?  Simple.  Well, not simple.  But it’s doable if you have an IQ approaching 140.  Tweet your pitch, i.e., “When a pizza man is late for his delivery, he turns into a pizza.”  Then, AFTER your pitch, you want to leave a SPACE and then this unique hashtag identifier: “#tp12” which stands for “Twit-Pitch 2012.”  All in all, your tweet will look like this:

Then, all you have to do, is CLICK on the #tp12 (which will be a link) in your tweet and Twitter will take you to all of the other twit-pitches, as well as your own, so you can check to see that it’s there.  This is where I’ll be monitoring everyone’s Twit-Pitches.

Now, here’s how it’s going to work.  If I like a pitch, I will FAVORITE YOUR TWEET and DIRECT MESSAGE YOU, just to double-confirm I’ve picked you. You will then send your first ten pages, or your entire script (doesn’t matter as I’ll just read the first 10 pages regardless) to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the subject line: “TWIT-PITCH.”  You’ll have a week to do this.  Now I have no idea how many people are going to be participating.  It could be 400.  It could be 4000.  If it’s over a thousand, it will probably take me awhile to read through all the tweets.  So just because you don’t get picked right away, don’t worry.  It might be because I haven’t read yours yet.  I should be done by the end of the day though.

Once those are chosen, I’ll take two months to go over them.  You’ll definitely want to follow me on Twitter as I’ll be tweeting updates about the contest throughout those two months.  I’ll let you know when I’ve found something good.  I’ll let you know when I’ve found something…errrr…not good.  I plan for this to be totally open.  At the end of the two months, I’ll announce 20-25 finalists and read the entire scripts, from which I’ll pick a winner.  I will then read the winning script live on a web feed.  That’s not true.  I won’t do that. 

BUT THERE’S MORE!  What I love about Scriptshadow is how bright our commenters are.  Easily the brightest on any screenwriting site.  So, if you guys get all jazzed up about a particular Twit-Pitch logline that I didn’t pick, I’ll add up to FIVE of those pitches to the first round pool. So even when it’s over, it’s not really over!  Feel free to leave your opinions on Twit-pitches in these comments or the official Top 100 twit-pitch thread, which should be up tomorrow or Monday, depending on how many there are.  Also, guys, don’t recruit your friends or sign in with different accounts and tout your own twit-pitch.  I know the commenting rhythm of this site like the back of my hand.  I’ll know what you’re doing and I’ll get really really angry! (or just slightly annoyed).

Well, that’s it!  Feel free to ask any tech questions in the comments section.  There’s a lot of smart people here who can help you.  Also, if this is the first time hearing about the Twit-Pitch Contest, please head to this post to look over the rules.  Good luck everyone!  And remember, you’re writers.  Be creative.  Be fun.  The whole idea behind this is to have a good time. :)

The number one logline from a couple of weeks ago – Breathwork – finally gets its day in the sun with a review.

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: Thriller
Premise: 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.
About: This is the logline YOU picked to be reviewed two weeks ago. Let’s see if it lives up to its logline!
Writer: Gunner Pons
Details: 108 pages

When I finish a script, there are reviews I look forward to writing and reviews I don’t look forward to writing. The reviews I don’t look forward to writing are for scripts like “The Knoll” and “My Son Is The Fucking Anti-Christ.” Why? Because there’s no substance, no interesting ideas, nothing new. Even the entertainment factor is bare-bones. Without those things, what’s there left to talk about? How many brads you should use? 2 or 3?

When I finished Breathwork, I couldn’t wait to review it. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good “past lives” movie – I’d argue the last one was “Dead Again” – so it seems ripe for another go-around. I’m not sure this script is ready to handle the burden of a 50 million dollar production, but I’ll tell you this, if somebody who understands storytelling guided this writer through targeted rewrites, there might just be a great script in here.

Breathwork begins in a radio station where our shock jock (Howard Stern reincarnated – no pun intended) is launching into his 91st dick joke of the day. Soonafter, he welcomes in Erika Saccio to talk about her new book which explores the realities of past lives.

The show’s plan is to make fun of her, of course, but when she puts everyone under hypnosis, 33 year old Jack, the sound technician, really does appear to be hypnotized.

Jack imagines himself in someone else’s body during a huge Civil War battle. Out of nowhere, a man comes racing up to him and stabs him. Jack wakes up, shaken and frightened, but, to save face, pretends that he’s joking. Erika’s not fooled though. She knows when somebody’s been under and Jack was under.

So she contacts him afterwards and asks him to come in for more sessions. Jack does so reluctantly and through further hypnosis starts going back to his past lives. In one of these lives, he’s a maid who, instead of saving her owners from a raging fire, runs out of the house to save herself. In another, he stops Jack the Ripper from kidnapping a woman in the street. In another, he’s a waitress at a bar in Germany and ends up serving Hitler! Turns out Jack has had some pretty eventful past lives.

Eventually though, Jack realizes there’s something bigger going on here. Some rascally little bastard in each life keeps finding Jack and KILLING HIM. That’s not very nice Random Past Lives Dude. But it seems to be the bane of Jack’s existence. Sooner or later, this ying to his yang finds him and puts an end to Lifeville.

This, of course, means that somebody’s going to do the same thing now, in the present! But who? That’s the question. As Jack starts taking a closer look at the people around him, he realizes that every one of them is a suspect, and that any one of them could kill him at any moment.

This script was a whale of mess-strocity. Talk about “all over the place.” But, it was also a delicious mess – like the food-fight kind. I wouldn’t want to clean it up but boy was it fun while it was happening. I don’t think I’ve ever read a script that’s had so many cool ideas that have been undermined by so much sloppy writing. I’d read two pages, want to throw it away, read two more, and desperately need to keep reading.

So what was so screwy about it?

Look no further than the first scene. In it, we meet Erika, our author, and her agent, Lori. These are the two brought in for the interview. Except we NEVER SEE LORI AGAIN AFTER THIS. She just disappears. So why in the world would you bring her into the movie in the first place? Why not just have Erika by herself? You don’t wanna introduce a character in the opening scene, hint that she’s important, then just never show her again. That’s confusing!

On top of this, Erika is introduced as our hero. But Erika isn’t our hero. Jack is our hero. One of the worst things you can do in the opening of your script is confuse the reader as to who the main character is. I’ve found that in every script where this has happened, the execution turned out to be a disaster. I mean if you can’t convey who the main character is in five pages, how can I trust you to convey a complicated intricate plot in 110 pages?

And that’s not even the worst of it. If I were to give you five guesses on who the main character was after the first scene, JACK WOULDN’T EVEN BE IN YOUR TOP FIVE!!! That’s how little the writer does to clue you in on Jack’s importance. This is Screenwriting 101 stuff here.

Next, why is Jack an engineer for a shock jock? Why that as his profession? I ask because it doesn’t have anything to do with the story whatsoever. Your main character’s job should always be relevant to the story.

For example, if Jack worked at the History Channel putting together documentaries or he worked as a history professor at a major university, either of those jobs would’ve allowed overlap with the past lives stuff. Jack would be able to pull knowledge from his profession to help explain or navigate his past-life experiences.

My guess on why we open with the shock jock scene (in addition to Irrelevant Lori) is because it’s an easy way for the writer to dole out exposition. The interview allows her to talk about the book and the past life “rulse,” and the waiting room allows us to get to know Erika through her agent.

Well I got news for you. You shouldn’t choose your characters’ jobs based on how it’s easiest for you to unload exposition. You should choose your characters’ jobs based on what’s best for your story! Start this somewhere darker, creepier, scarier – a place that FEELS like it’s connected to the premise you promised us!

As far as the flashbacks themselves, they were always interesting, but they never felt well thought through. Why famous historic figures? What is the point of us seeing Jack The Ripper or Hitler if they have nothing to do with the story? It feels like the writer’s trading believability for historic celebrity name-dropping. There’s no relevance here.

If you’re going to throw Hitler in a script about past lives, then by golly, your whole damn plot better revolve around Hitler. Hitler isn’t a sideshow. It would be like having U2 pop in to play three chords with your wedding band, then leave. There’s a cool moment where Jack realizes he can manipulate the past bodies he’s in. Well there’s your movie if you want Hitler! Jack realizes he can kill Hitler, and he uses his past life to do it.

Despite all the flaws, though, I liked the idea of this Jack-killer in each time period. Especially as it becomes apparent that there’s one in this time period too. And when we start wondering who that person could be, the script really picks up. And to the script’s credit, you’ll have no idea who it is. So just the fact that I wanted to get to the end and find that out says a lot.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s enough to put it into “worth the read” territory. It’s just too darn sloppy. Too many beginner mistakes here. So I say to Gunner, keep working on it, and find somebody who can give you solid insightful notes so you can really kick ass on the rewrite.

Script link: Breathwork

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me (but close to “worth the read!”
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Make sure that your logline and the opening of your screenplay match in tone. The logline for Breathwork promises a dark and spooky thriller. The first scene though, is goofy, broad and silly. It immediately erases what you thought the script was going to be about, which means already I’m disappointed. Had I not had people tell me about the bad opening, I might have put this down before the scene was over and went on to another Amateur Friday script.