Genre: Comedy/Drama
Premise: A man in his 50s is laid off from his long-time job, forcing him to enroll in college for the first time.
About: You know Tom Hanks the actor. But do you know Tom Hanks…THE WRITER!? Yes, Tom Hanks scripted today’s screenplay, Larry Crowne, and used that credit to somehow finagle a lead role in the film. Dammit that nepotism. He also got his golfing buddy Julia Roberts to join him (they’re not really golfing buddies. I made that up). Sensing that maybe his script wasn’t up to snuff, he recruited his producing partner on My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos, to come in and give the script a polish. Larry Crowne hits theaters July 1st.
Writer: Tom Hanks (with help from Nia Vardalos)
Details: 117 pages – November 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).

I’m an official card-carrying member of the “Tom Hanks Can Do No Wrong” Club. Part of the reason I think Hanks has been so successful in his career is that, unlike most actors, he not only understands character, he understands STORY. He knows how to pick material better than just about everyone out there. Because of this, you’d think Hanks would be a good candidate to write a screenplay. If he understands the two most important factors that go into writing a script (character and story), why shouldn’t he be able to write one?

Well, the more I study and appreciate this craft, the more I come to the conclusion that you need to DEDICATE yourself to screenwriting to be good at it. Yeah sure, every once in awhile a neophyte writer gets lucky. But most of the time, you gotta know this world inside out to write something great. As valid as Tom Hanks attempts with Larry Crowne are, he’s not a full-time writer. And that shows up in almost every facet of the script.

Larry Crowne works at a Costco-like store called Unimart. He’s one of their best employees. One of their happiest employees. And one of their most well-liked employees. So far, sounds like a Tom Hanks film. But with the economy slumping, Unimart has to downsize. And when management is figuring out who to fire, they realize that Larry’s never been to college, and therefore can never be eligible for a promotion. Larry is given the old “Clean Up on Aisle 27” order, and just like that, he’s out on the street.

After freaking out about house payments and interviewing for every job in the city, Larry realizes that his only real shot at getting a job again is going back to college. So he enlists at a local community college where he takes a handful of courses, highlighted by a public speaking class headed up by the Queen Bitch of the school, Mercedes Tainot.

Mercedes is angry. Scary. Pissy. Bitter. She’s not a nice gal. And she has good reason. She graduated from prestigious Vasser, yet she’s teaching at a dried up third rate community college. Not only that, but her husband sits at home all day, running his “blog” and surfing porn. Please, somebody kill her now.

While this would seem to indicate the beginning of a Larry/Mercedes courtship, Mercedes actually disappears from the script for awhile, while Larry befriends one of his fellow-students, the rebellious Talia, who surrounds herself with admirers and runs a local scooter gang. She recruits Larry into the gang and pretty soon they’re hanging out non-stop, despite Talia’s surprisingly chill boyfriend reminding Larry that he’s the man of the family.

Eventually, Larry starts chipping away at Mercedes’ rough exterior. He begins excelling in her class. He gets a part-time job. And he realizes that everything’s going to be okay. And that – my friends – is Larry Crowne in a nutshell.

This is actually a good idea for a movie – and a topical one at that. A laid-off 50-something is forced to go back to college. There’s potential for both comedy and drama in that premise. But Larry Crowne never really explores that potential, instead preferring to zip in and out of several disconnected storylines, unfortunately getting lost in the process.

Let’s start with the details. This is something I’m becoming more and more aware of that separates pros from beginners. Beginners don’t think the details of their screenplay have to make all that much sense. As long as there’s a vague understanding of what’s going on, they feel they’re doing their job. Nothing could be further from the truth. When details are mushy, when the peripherals are unclear, it’s like putting a foggy window between your story and your reader. Yeah, they can see everything, but ultimately they’re squinting the whole time, trying to figure out what the hell is what.

What is Larry Crowne really doing here? Is he trying to get a college degree to get back in the job market? If so, why is he only taking three classes at a low-level community college? Is that really going to impress an employer more than a 20 year job at Unimart? And why, of these three classes that he’s taking, would one of them be a public speaking class? I think someone points out that this class is necessary because it will help him in interviews or something.

Um, what?

If you’re going to build your entire premise around your 50-something hero going back to school, then you have to make it real. You have to commit to it. We as an audience have to believe that this is going to improve his life. Taking three classes at a lame community college is about as convincing a career move as sitting at home and watching Maury Povich reruns.

Further muddying the waters is the lack of a cohesive time-frame. This is why ticking time bombs are so important. They frame your story for you. I’m not sure if Larry is taking only these three courses. If he’s planning on a full 2 year course load. If he’s using this to eventually transfer to a major university. What’s the overall plan here? None of this is ever explained! Which makes everything in the movie feel unconvincing.

The script also had a strange approach to its main romantic plot. It starts off focusing on Talia, the scooter-scurrying Queenpin. And then about 60% of the way in, it anoints Mercedes as the female lead, which forces us to completely re-evaluate the story.

In fact, we’re never quite sure what Mercedes is doing here. She makes this grand entrance as a supremely bitter bitch, and then she’s gone for like 30 pages. Every once in awhile we’ll get a quick scene or two with her and her husband, but then she’s stashed away in a box for another 20 pages.

And that’s a shame, because Mercedes is by far the most interesting thing about this story. In fact, if this movie was about her, it would be much better. She’s the one arcing. She’s the one learning the most about life. I would’ve had more Mercedes in this movie and I would’ve had more scenes between Mercedes and Larry. That’s when the script is at its best.

My biggest problem with Larry Crowne though is that there are no stakes to the story. We never truly believe that Larry Crowne is in any trouble. Yeah he’s lost his job and he’s about to lose his house. But there’s this pervasive feeling throughout the script that everything’s going to be okay. Even his friendship/relationship with Taken Talia is easy-breezy. The boyfriend actually comes to Larry early on and says (paraphrasing), “I know you’re going to fall for her. But please respect that she’s mine.” If the boyfriend is already on to Larry, how are we supposed to fear that Larry will be caught? I was never worried for Larry. Not once.

And because I’m piling on, here’s one more question I’d like to pose. How does a man who has made 20-30 million dollars a year for fifteen years have any inkling of what it’s like to struggle? What it’s really like for the average Joe out there to lose his job? I don’t say this in a ‘how dare you’ way. I’m genuinely interested in how someone in that position could ever understand real ‘holy shit I’m one month away from being homeless’ struggle. And I think that ultimately shows through in Larry Crowne. Larry Crowne is never in any danger because Tom Hanks has never been in any danger.

There was some cute stuff here and there in Crowne. Talia was a fun character. The scooter gang had some giggle-worthy moments. And the late-script stuff with Mercedes bordered on great. But it was too little, too late. Larry Crowne didn’t have the depth or the focus or the ambition required to pull this idea off.

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

What I learned: Get into all of your main story threads as quickly as possible. Remember, you don’t have a lot of time in a screenplay. You can’t afford to drag any of your main threads along. Get them started early so you can explore them to their fullest. Larry Crowne took its time with the Mercedes Tainot plot and, as a result, was forced to cram the bulk of it into the third act. It feels rushed because it is rushed. And this is due specifically to the writer taking way too casual of an approach to the thread early on.

Genre: Horror/Zombie
Premise: After a Zombie outbreak erupts, a devout Street Preacher must struggle to make it home and save his pregnant wife and young son while determined to keep to God’s commandments—especially, thou shalt not kill.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting 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, however, to use an alias and fake title).
Writer: Adrian Damian Ceranowicz
Details: 92 pages

I picked Day of Reckoning because it was one of the better structured loglines I’d received. It was not, however, a great idea in and of itself. As I’ve stated before, the zombie genre is one of the toughest to infiltrate because every single zombie idea has been done before. You have to do something different to stand out. That’s why the late-incubation zombie spec Maggie made so much noise. That’s why Oren’s script, “The Kitchen Sink” made so much noise. If you’re just trying to write a good ole fashioned homage to your favorite zombie films, you’re throwing yourself to the zombies. Because a producer knows he can’t sell that. Does this mean The Day Of Reckoning is DOA. No. You still have one last ace up your sleeve. Execute your idea perfectly. Not 80%. Not 90%. Not six championships, not seven, not eight, not nine. We’re talking about a 100% perfect execution of your premise. If you do that, you can get away with an average idea. So, did Reckoning do that?

30-something priest Burt is still coming to grips with the death of his 8 year old son a year earlier. Times are tough, but his pregnant wife Betty and his other son, Isaac (the son’s twin) are slowly starting to get back to normal. The thing that keeps Burt going is his faith in God. He assures his family that everything’s going to be okay as long as they keep the faith.

Dedicated priest that he is, Burt, his brother, and his father, head over to the local university and start blasting bible passages out of a bullhorn. Cause, you know, college kids love that. Pretty soon they’ve drawn a small crowd of hecklers, and Burt’s getting into it with them.

One of these kids asks him if you automatically go to hell if you kill someone. Burt says, yes, every time. “Even if it’s in self-defense?” the coed asks, worrying about his soldier brother. “Every time,” Burt assures him. A few hours into this God and pony show, some strange looking dudes with stumble-itis start eating the crowd. Oh shit! ZOMBIES!

People are bitten. People start running. And within minutes, it’s clear that the town is under attack. While the college kids seem to be aware that these are zombies, our hero, Burt, does not. He just thinks they’re a bunch of seriously sick individuals.

Well, after his dad gets bitten, Burt realizes there may be more to this than he thought, and he and his brother find a car to drive him to the hospital. But man, there are like, zombies, EVERYWHERE. They don’t get very far, and soon Burt’s brother is bitten as well.

Back at the house, Betty and Isaac are fending off their own set of zombies, and when Betty finally gets a hold of Burt, she tells him that they won’t be able to hold them off forever. So Burt changes gears and heads back to save his family, all while not being able to kill the monsters in his way, lest he get sent to hell.

The Day Of Reckoning is a noble effort in that it wants to explore the emotional component of a zombie attack. It’s trying to make a bigger statement than just, “Zombies eat people.” But in making everything so over-the-top serious and so over-the-top dramatic, combined with the fact that it doesn’t bring anything new to the table, it comes off as unintentionally clichéd, a simplified version of many zombie films we’ve already seen before.

I had a bunch of issues here actually, and it started at the top, with the story itself. The scale here is too small. We follow a gang of priests who we know nothing about to a college to yell at people, and then one of them has to travel 15 blocks (I’m assuming? Give or take?) to save his family. For a movie, that’s a tiny concept. It’s almost something you’d expect a group of film school students with no money to come up with to shoot themselves (which might be the case, I don’t know). When I originally read this logline, I imagined something closer to The Road, with a husband travelling cross-country with his pregnant wife and son, fending off zombies without being able to kill them. I was disappointed when the idea was more “Zombies in Suburbia,” which I don’t think is as interesting.

My next problem was Burt. Remember guys, how you introduce your main character has a HUGE impact on how we perceive them for the next 100 minutes. A character telling a funny joke vs. a character saving someone’s life vs. a character kicking a girl out of bed after sex vs. a character standing up to authority…all of those actions have very different effects on the audience. So you have to be judicious in what you show your hero doing in those early scenes.

While having Burt head to the local university to tell a bunch of college kids they’re going to hell MAY fit in with his character, it does not endear us to him, and so we pretty much hate Burt from the start. I don’t believe in God so I’m going to Hell? Yeah, that’s the guy I want to catch a movie with on a Saturday night. I mean obviously this is subjective. A devout Catholic may LOVE Burt because of this opinion. But since this is written for the masses and not Sunday Mass, you have to be more mindful of what your hero says and does.

Next we have the second act. And while this problem is more a consequence of a previous problem (the idea being too small), it still needs to be fixed. The fact that Burt gets to his house and then CAN’T FIND IT FOR 30 PAGES is a really bad story choice. He stumbles to the left. Can’t find his house. Stumbles to the right. Can’t find his house. Passes it again. Can’t find it. Passes it again. Can’t find it. I know this is explained later (spoiler: we find out he was bitten) but it doesn’t excuse the 70s style injured damsel in distress pulling herself away from the killer at .7 miles per hour. Plus it just felt like the story was stalling in order to get to the 90 page mark. When nothing new is happening in your script for 30 pages, that’s not a good thing.

But the biggest issue of them all is the lack of punch behind the “Thou Shall Not Kill” device. This is the hook of your movie. A guy must survive a zombie attack without being able to “kill” the zombies. That’s the thing I was looking forward to the most. “Oh man,” I wondered, “How is he going to pull this off??” But Burt’s belief in this principle is sold to us via a sloppy conversation with an annoying college kid. That’s not how you sell the most important device of your movie. If you want to sell something important, you have to SHOW US. Not TELL US.

For example (and I’m not saying Adrian should do this cause it might cause more problems than it’s worth), if you started the movie a year ago with a bad guy holding Burt’s son at knife point and Burt has a choice to either KILL him or NOT KIL him, and he chooses not to kill him, which results in his son being murdered, that action (or lack of action) sells Burt’s belief in “Thou shall not kill” a billion times better than a half-hearted conversation on a college campus. Remember guys. These are movies we’re talking about. SHOW us things. Don’t tell us things.

Now there were some good things in “Reckoning.” I thought the last 15 pages were pretty powerful. From the flashbacks to the twist reveal to the gaping womb of Betty to Burt finally having to make that decision (kill or don’t kill). Maybe the script did a better job than I’m giving it credit for because I was into it. But it was too little too late. Burt stumbling around outside his house for 30 minutes was the death knell for this script. It killed every bit of momentum it had.

So “Reckoning” needs a big rewrite. The storyline needs to be bigger. Burt’s character needs to be redesigned (so we’ll root for him). Not everything can be so melodramatic. A whole new second act needs to be written without the “I’ve fallen and I can’t find my house” segment. And most importantly, the “Thou shall not kill” commandment has to be sold more convincingly. If that isn’t convincing, this movie doesn’t work.

I probably sound too harsh but I think writers forget how much effort needs to be put into a script. Just getting from point A to point B isn’t enough. You gotta push yourself. Especially with these zombie flicks since there’s so much competition. Always be asking yourself, “Have I seen this in a zombie movie before?” If the answer is yes, consider changing it. Good luck!

Script link: The Day Of Reckoning

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

What I learned: Something to consider when writing preacher characters – To non-religious people, all bible passages sound the same. So when you’ve got your preacher spouting this psalm and then that psalm and then that psalm, a large portion of your readers are hearing gibberish. Instead, try and individualize the message. For example, on page 13 Burt says, “All right. Young people, answer me this. Would you sell your eyes for a million dollars?” “Yes. No! What kind of question is that?” “How about five million?” “No! Never! Not for any amount!” “Then why are you all so eager to sell your soul for a little bit of sin?” That was the only religious thing Burt said in 100 pages that I actually thought about, because it wasn’t “random passage from Bible 8324.” It was a thoughtful point that the character himself came up with.

Yesterday, Joshua James hit us with The Jones Party, which sparked some pretty intense reactions (you can download the script here)!  Although it was his first script, it’s been optioned twice and gotten him a ton of assignment work.  I thought it was a really solid piece of writing,  Some of you thought it was way too “20s-ish.”  Whatever happened to letting people in their 20s hate??  That’s what our 20s are for!  But in all seriousness, I was happy when Josh agreed to do an interview for the site.  Amateur writers need to be aware that there aren’t just 2 types of screenwriters, madly successful ones and starving artists, but that the majority of writers fall somewhere in the middle, fighting for assignments while they belt out the spec they hope will put them on the A-list.  Josh has a blog where he gets into a lot of this in detail, but I thought I’d pick his brain for some finer points here on Scriptshadow. 

JJ: The following is only what I’ve experienced, it makes me no better or worse than anyone else. We are all flawed and imperfect creatures, which is oftentimes the source of great fun and / or embarrassment, oftentimes both at once.

SS: Now my understanding is that The Jones Party got you both your manager and your agent. Can you talk about that in more detail? How did you get the script into their hands? Did you know someone or was it a cold query?

JJ: It wasn’t quite like that. I was a playwright in NYC and had plays going on in the indie theatre scene, so I met people through that, some development people, etc.

I wrote Jones and gave it to a theatre producer / actor who’d produced some of my plays, he loved it and optioned it, tried to get it made with himself as the lead, but didn’t … he ended up making another film instead … happily, we’re still friends.

The option expired and then someone else optioned it, and that expired and then I hung onto it for awhile, turning down offers on it in hopes of finding a way to direct it myself. All the while, I wrote other scripts.

Through another friend, I was introduced to a director-producer named Ken Bowser, who had done some cool documentaries (he’s got a really great one out now about Phil Ochs) and he loved Jones and optioned it. Ken worked with me on developing Jones and I cannot understate how much I learned from him during this time.

Ken also had the rights to a book I’d read and loved, Peter Biskind’s Down & Dirty Pictures, that he was also developing as a feature rather than a documentary (Ken had also done Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls as a doc as well, which I had seen).

Now, I’d read Down & Dirty Pictures at least fifty times, I mean, I was a huge fan of the book and that era (the indie boom), and every time we met to work on Jones, I’d asked him how the book project was coming, heheheh … you know, just asking …

Turns out, the project was stalled, they’d had a writer on it but it wasn’t working out, the guy didn’t really get the material … I got a chance to pitch for it, offered a fresh take that Ken loved and I got the job. That was my first real job.

All of the above happened because I had Jones Party to show around, it opened a lot of doors for me, and got me quite a few meetings and other gigs, too (besides Down & Dirty Pictures).

At the time that I was hired on Down & Dirty Pictures, I had no representation, I’d left the agent and the manager I’d had back then (more on that later) and used an entertainment lawyer to handle the deal.

In terms of representation, initially Jones did get me repped, but not by the people I’m represented by now. When I first wrote it, a friend introduced me to an agent at a NY office who offered to rep me immediately and I agreed without hesitation.

This was a mistake.

I made the same mistake with a couple NY managers later on. They were the wrong fit, let’s say. One manager was a nightmare, you have no idea. He’s not even in the biz anymore. Shit happens, though.

I’d been given the following advice early on, and I should have heeded it but didn’t, said advice being: It’s better to have no representation than it is to have bad representation or the wrong representation.

I scoffed at this at the time, but now I can see that’s indeed true. I should have stopped worrying about agents and focused harder on my work. If you write enough scripts that people love, you’ll find the right people to represent you.

The Jones Party led to me getting hired to adapt Down & Dirty Pictures, and a good friend of mine (name redacted so he’s not swamped with requests) passed that script onto Dan, my current manager, and he loved it. We met a few times to talk and see if we were simpatico and it turns out, we are.

Dan’s awesome, and while working with him I wrote the original thriller A Black Heart, which led my current agent, who is also awesome.

Write a great script, and, if possible, write more than one and then the right representative will find you. Everyone wants to read a great script.

Everyone.

SS: The Jones Party was your first script. That’s mighty impressive, since it’s universally known that 99.9999% of all first scripts are terrible. What advice would you give to writers so that their first script comes out as good as The Jones Party?

JJ: Hmm … I guess I’d offer the following advice when it came to first screenplays.

1) With regard to Jones Party, I had something really specific to say about the subject matter, something unique and personal, personal to me, anyway.

I think having something to say is what got the interest of the people who saw potential in the script even in its earliest form, it’s why it was optioned right away (and multiple times after) and it’s a reason why different folks, especially Ken, spent a lot of time working with me on it, because the story spoke to them.

And it spoke to them because the story was saying something.

2) It’s fair to say that the early versions Jones Party were rough, no doubt, and not as polished as the version you read, and though the actions and characters and their journey were essentially the same then as they are now, but it was probably a harder read then, much rougher.

I’m lucky in that some people who knew more than I gave me great feedback on it and I listened to them. I listened to Ken. I think that’s the second piece of advice I’d give.

I chose to listen to people in the know (which isn’t everyone, but it is usually more than one someone) and take their feedback to heart.

You can’t (and shouldn’t) listen to everyone, but you should listen to someone and it should be someone smarter and more experienced, if at all possible, and at the very least someone who can tell you hard truths.

A writer needs at least one person in their life like that. You have to trust someone, even Stephen King has at least one trusted reader (his wife, Tabitha) who will tell it like it is and he’ll listen … I’m lucky in that I have more than one.

If you don’t know anyone to ask for feedback, I would recommend taking a class or joining a free online group, like Trigger Street, for example.

My good friend Scott teaches an online class, http://screenwritingmasterclass.com/ … Scott’s one of the smartest guys out there. Yeah, that’s a plug, but seriously, Scott’s a great guy and really knows his stuff.

3) The last thing is that I kept writing scripts, I worked on other screenplays, and each script taught me something new and I brought that back with me when it came time to polish Jones again.

They say you won’t really get it until you write at least ten of them. Jones was my first, but I wrote a bunch more after that and applied what I learned in subsequent rewrites and improved it and my craft. I definitely learned more about myself as a writer after script ten, no doubt about it.

To sum up:

1) Have something to say, something real and unique.

2) Listen to how trusted folks in the know respond to what you have to say.

3) Write more scripts.

SS: The thing that most impressed me about The Jones Party was the dialogue. What’s the secret to writing good dialogue would you say?

JJ: I’m gonna be a dick and link to a thing I wrote about dialogue on my blog.

I really just try to listen, that’s the thing, I try to imagine real people who care about real things and listen to what they want and what they have to say … and then cut out the boring parts. That last thing is the most challenging.

SS: A huge issue I have with amateur screenplays is that I only remember 1 or 2 characters after they’re over. Here, there a bunch of characters who pop off the page. What’s your approach to character? Do you write up character bios? Do you try and make sure your characters arc? Can you tell us a little about your process?

I don’t know if I have a process or if I just have a lot of voices in my head – LOL!

I just strive to make my characters real if I can, real to me, and if that’s not working, then I put real people from real life into my story … there is a real life Danno, after all. There was a Hope in my life, at one point. I have actor friends, and I will subconsciously plug them into a story.

I come from an acting background, I did a lot of it (oh me or my, the Meisner Training. The Meisner Training? The Meisner Training. The Meisner Training? That’s an inside joke … hardly anyone will get that) and so a lot of what I do with regards to character work is rooted in that. I put myself into a character whenever I can.

Also, I love what the FBI profilers say when figuring out who the killer is …

What plus Why equals Who.

I always found that very useful.

SS: The script also has an offbeat structure, in that it’s jumping back and forth and covering many different characters. How much emphasis do you put on structure as opposed to, say, writing by the seat of your pants?

You can write by the seat of your pants and still worry about great structure, structure isn’t story, per se (I’m possibly gonna get roasted in the comments for that) but rather it’s how the story is put together.

How I view structure regarding scripts and stories, is:

1) Story is what happens.

2) Character is who it happens to.

3) Structure is how it happens.

So whether you’re writing by the seat of your pants or plotting everything out beforehand by the page, via scriptments, you still want it be be as cool and efficient as possible.

Jones is structured in the way it is to get maximum impact in as short of time as possible … you could start at the chronological beginning (two years before the party, when Derwin and Hope first meet) and follow the story until we get to the party, but I don’t think the story would deliver the same emotional punch as it does now.

How it happens now, structure-wise, it maximizes the impact, I think. Folks are free to disagree. But the point is to tell the story as fast and efficiently as possibly.

The story is about these people participating in a Jim Jones Party and why.

Writing by the seat of the pants is fun, and that’s how I wrote Jones, I mean, I had no fucking idea how I was gonna end it when I started.

But I did know, in a way, when and where I wanted it to happen in the story, so I guess you could say I had an inner structure clock in my head. I had the where and when, just not the what. The what is the story, not the structure.

But writing without knowing the end is not always practical, either … if you’re working on a spec, it can be cool to write yourself into a corner and take weeks or months to get out of it. But if you’re on an assignment, that’s not so cool. And there’s something to be said for writing a bad ending so you’ll have something to fix later.

These days I usually do a treatment or an outline, just to work faster. But not always, it depends. Different genres, different types of movies have different demands in order to realize their impact, or potential … I don’t think that there’s ONE structure to rule them all, it has to be the right structure for right story …

I think Dirk Nowitzki has the perfect structure for a basketball player, but a terrible one if he wanted to be a horse jockey. He’s seven feet tall. He’d need a vastly bigger horse.

Speaking of big horses, the real action in the Godfather doesn’t start until Vito is gunned down, some forty minutes into it. That’s perfect for that movie. It wouldn’t be perfect for, let’s say, Meet The Parents (actually, I haven’t seen that movie, but I’m presuming Ben met DeNiro earlier than forty minutes into the movie) as an example.

Everything has a structure, everything … even bad scripts. The problem is that the structure is either an incomplete or not efficient or serving the story’s needs. Good ideas told badly are usually one or the other.

Or the story isn’t compelling or just bad … you can write a perfectly structured story that doesn’t work … I remember something a friend wrote about Goethe about criticism:

Goethe asked three questions:

1) What was the author’s intent?

2) How well was it done?

3) Was it worth doing?

And I try to keep that in mind when going back over my own work. I try. Maybe ten years from now I’ll think differently … I accept evolution as an established scientific theory.

SS: The Jones Party feels like a very personal story. Which leads me to the age old question. Do you think writers should try to break in with a high concept screenplay that they don’t necessarily have a personal connection with, or something more low-concept (like The Jones Party) that’s extremely personal to them? Obviously, The Jones Party falls into the latter category, but I’m interested to hear if you think that’s right for everyone.

JJ: It’s not high concept? A feel-good movie about suicide isn’t high concept? LOL!

I believe you have to write what you’re passionate about.

If you’re passionate about big movies, write about those stories, if you’re passionate about smaller, more intimate stories, write those. I happen to be passionate about both.

I was, and still am, very passionate about this particular story (Jones), as others have been, it’s a unique story, one not about people dying but about people finding a reason to live, an idea which really moves me … it is indeed very personal.

I’m also very passionate about Down & Dirty Pictures (I am an ex-video store clerk-geek, after all) to a rather ridiculous degree, I love-love-love movies and what they’ve done for my life … so it was a pleasure to write about guys who loved movies as much (if not more) as I did, which is what Down & Dirty Pictures is about, at its essence. It’s about guys who love film and movies so much it hurts.

Who among us here can’t identify with that? LOL!

But I’m passionate about a lot of things … I love thrillers, for example.

Action thrillers, I love stuff like that, and it’s no accident that I’ve written more and more stories like that, not just screenplays, but short fiction, novels (I have a couple crime novels I tinker with in my spare time) … anyone who knows me can attest, I love films like that. Always have. I don’t write those only because they’re high concept, I write them because those types of stories turn me on.

When my manager and I first met and had a series of meetings, we found we both shared a love of the classic suspense and action thrillers from the sixties and seventies, and spoke about what we’d like to see that hasn’t yet been done, and my script A Black Heart is a direct result of those conversations … I’m very drawn to those types of stories.

I love those kind of movies (I grew up on Lethal Weapon, in fact, and don’t get me started on Bruce Lee movies) and I’m passionate about them to a ridiculous degree. And kung fu flicks! Oh man. I can go on and on (I LOVED Taken, and again I’ll probably get roasted for that in the comments, but I loved it, man) until my wife tells me to shut up already …

I’m also passionate about people, certain characters, both living and dead and also ideas, there are many, many ideas I’m passionate about.

And there are probably things that I’ve not yet discovered that I may be passionate about, you know? I just recently discovered something new and cool and dove right into it. That’s part of evolving, after all … everyone does it. You find new things to love.

How long ago was it that almost no one knew the difference between standard poker and Texas Hold ’em? Now most folks do.

We live and we grow and the only thing constant is the change.

I think it’s important to write what moves you, what excites you. Whatever that is.

For me, there are many things that move me, I get excited about a lot of different things, a lot of characters and ideas, love, life, living, dying … and while it’s good to think about concept, it’s also good to make sure the idea is something that really moves you.

SS: I know you read a lot of scripts to keep yourself sharp. What would you say is the biggest difference between a pro script and an amateur script?

JJ: The biggest difference is that when you’re reading a well written script, you often forget you’re actually reading it … you may not even see the words, you just see the people in the story and you’re dying to know what happens next.

A professional usually has no unnecessary space, words … nothing unnecessary on the page and as a result the story moves like a freight train.

I read the Fight Club screenplay, because I wanted to see how the adaptation was done … it’s like 144 pages and I blinked and was at the end before I knew it (and hell, I’ve seen the movie and read the book, so I knew what happened, but still it drew me in). It moves.

No fat.

I read Taken, which has long blocks of action, and it flew by. No fat on that, whatsoever. Good writing, regardless of format, just flies by.

SS:  Kyle Killen, the writer of The Beaver, likes to tell the story about how his wife got pregnant and he had nine months to make it as a screenwriter or forever be miserable in a “real” job. He sold The Beaver with a few days to spare. Let’s play make believe. If you had to start over, what would your plan be to make it as a screenwriter if you only had 9 months?

Wow, I so had the opposite reaction when my wife got pregnant!

Seriously, I was working part time and busting my ass as a writer, making a couple grand here and there writing scripts for others, and when she told me she was pregnant I stopped and got a full time job as an office manager right away.

This was right around the time I left a bad agent, too. I thought, well, I had a good run but now I’m gonna make sure I can feed my kid. I’m gonna be a responsible dad.

I let Jones get optioned, to Ken, which in turn led to the Down & Dirty Pictures job a few months later, I left the office job as a result and have been fortunate enough to be able to work as a writer since then.

But in answer to your question, you realize that it’s not make-believe, right? It actually is that way, in a fashion, for everyone … we all have a limited amount of time.

You may only have nine months, you may have a week, you may have to do it early in the morning before your day job, late at night and on the weekends … you may be broke and unemployed … I was unemployed when I wrote the very first draft of Jones, I gave myself two weeks to write it, sat in a cafe and pounded it out, not sure where I was gonna get money for food (this was, happily, before I was married and a father) …

I wrote that draft, then got a crappy part-time job … kept going, kept writing and working and living and breathing.

You may have to completely start over, more than once.

You have until the money runs out, and even then, you can still keep going, you only have until your will and urge to do so runs out.

You have until the end of your life, but when is that? Fifty years. Ten? A week? Tomorrow? No one knows, right?

My friend Scott Myers has said, “Writing doesn’t owe anyone a living” and that’s so very true, so if you’re doing it, do it because you love it, and try (this is hard) to write like there’s no tomorrow.

Kyle’s a brilliant writer, if he hadn’t sold The Beaver by the time his wife gave birth, he would have eventually written something else that sold, even while at a crappy day job, had he wanted to. And I think he would have, some people, they have to write, they can’t help it, they absolutely have to.

Sounds to me like Kyle wrote like it was his last shot.

The trick is to write everything like that, every day.

I believe that.

Tomorrow is promised to no one, therefore the plan is the same as it always is … work hard, work smart, be grateful for good fortune and especially to those people in my life who enrich it and be certain to repay them by making the most of every moment.

If everything ends tomorrow, what note would you want it to go out on?

SS:  Being a paid writer, you experience a part of the business that there’s very little information on – trying to land writing jobs.  Can you put us in the room of an assignment meeting? What do you think the key is to landing a job?

As that I live in NYC, a lot of stuff is over the phone …

I sold a pitch once, over the phone, and I had a list of ideas I was going down and I couldn’t see the guys I was talking to, obviously, they didn’t say much (other than, nah, not that one) and so I had no real idea how I was doing until I got to the one they liked, and that was, yeah, we like that, we’ll take it … what an experience that was, man! Can’t see them, can’t really hear them well (on a conference call, that happens a lot). You’re talking into a phone, it’s hard … but hey, I’m talking to someone who’s interested in my ideas, so I’m not complaining!

You just have to talk ideas, paint the movie out verbally and be positive, I think.

They want to see the movie, I’ve been hired a few times to write something for someone, they had an idea for a movie but didn’t know how to make it breathe as a film, make it work, that’s the key to landing jobs like that … how do you make it work?

You meet a lot of people, listen to what excites them, tap see the movie they want to make but haven’t yet and, if you can, solve that problem for them …

I was hired to help polish Cat Run (more here: http://writerjoshuajames.com/dailydojo/?p=2104) and it was about two weeks before they started shooting, yikes… we’d had a couple conference calls and the rest by email … now, that close to shooting, there’s very little time for messing around, the director doesn’t want to debate you about story or character, what you’re really there for is to solve his problems.

The director has this script section he’s not happy with and needs it to work … how to solve it? You throw ideas out there, he throws them back and so on until we find the one he likes and says, write that, get it to me by tonight. He’s in Europe (or wherever they were shooting) and I was in NYC, just busting out pages. My job was to solve his problems. He doesn’t have time for anything else other than that, and nor should I.

That’s what I did, in a sense, was help solve the third act and the finale, how do they get into the castle, how do they do this, how do they do that, all in a way that was cool … you really have to lose the ego, then, and just focus on doing the work. It’s not about words, at that point, it’s about making the story work in a way that makes them happy. And having fun, too. I had fun on that project, even though I know a lot of what I was writing was going to be changed once they got on set. I had fun.

The thing to remember is, everyone in the movie business loves movies as much as you do … they all want to make cool movies, but everyone gets jammed up (yeah, everyone gets jammed up, everyone, some of us just lie about it much better than others) on a project they love and if you can solve the problem and clear the log-jam for them, you’re gold, Pony-Boy, gold.

SS: Over the years, you’ve probably heard hundreds of screenwriting tips and pieces of advice. What advice would you say has influenced you the most? What tips would you say still guide you today?

JJ: Man, I can’t write everything that’s influenced or guided me the most, I’ve already yammered on past the point of maximum density as is.

Tell you what, I’ll share two simple things that directly impacted my life and career and still do … they’re simple yet I’m amazed at how often I have to remind myself about them.

1) Don’t waste a moment.

I had that insight one day, that every word, every character and every moment in the story should count … I was dumbfounded when I looked at what I was working on then, lots of time I had filler scenes, filler conversations, filler characters, stuff that killed time until we got to the good part.

I realized that every moment had to matter, every character, every line had to be something. It all had to be the good part. Once that hit me, much changed. It’s hard to follow through, though, real hard. But a good hard.

2) One day I realized that all I want from a movie, a book, a song or a story is to be moved. And as that I’m no different than anyone else, ergo, that’s all anyone else wants.

 Affleck’s decided on another project and it looks like it’s going to be “Tell No One,” one of my Top 10 scripts.  Except he’s NOT using the Orci Kurtzman draft.  Why?  No idea.  It’s ready to shoot this instant.  There’s nothing you can really do to make it better, except maybe take out all the underlining and capitalization.  Are Hollywood politics involved somehow? Read about Affleck attaching himself to the project at Deadline Hollywood then go read my review of the Orci-Kurtzman draft here.

Genre: Dark Comedy
Premise: Two royally screwed up roommates secretly in love with each other throw a massive Jim Jones party on the eve of their suicide.
About: This was Joshua James’ first screenplay, which has been optioned on two occasions and has gotten him numerous writing jobs around town, including an adaptation of the book, DOWN & DIRTY PICTURES. Although he’s moved mainly into thrillers (He’s working on “A Black Heart” with Captivate Ent. and “Block Island” with Adler-Grey), The Jones Party is a favorite of his which he’d like to see made one day. James has his own blog where he ruminates on screenwriting whenever he gets a chance.
Writer: Joshua James
Details: 106 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).

One of the things I tell new writers is to just write that first script and get it out of the way. Cause it’s going to be bad. Actually, I’m being generous. It’s going to be terrible. That’s not something to get discouraged by though. It should be freeing. It means you get to go crazy, experiment, have fun, and enjoy the high of writing without consequences. Well not so fast, Carson. While the club is limited, there are writers out there who have thrived on their first script, and Joshua James is one of them. True, he’s rewritten it to death over the years, but The Jones Party is his first foray into the craft.

33 year old Derwin is one of those people who just oozes cool, who oozes nonchalance. Volleyball-sized meteor chunks could be raining down around him and he’d still find time to smoke a cigarette and ask you how your day went.

Hope is the polar opposite. Young and pretty, she’s got Woody Allen’s neuroses and Russell Crowe’s temperament. She’s strange and fleeting and bi-polar and moody. It’d take her a couple of minutes just to find and light the cigarette, much less smoke it.

I guess that’s what makes them perfect roommates. Their weaknesses are the other’s…non-weaknesses. I wouldn’t say strengths because I don’t know that they have any strengths. Sure, Derwin is cool, but he’s so emotionless and detached. And Hope? Well, a good day to her is just making it to the finish line.

Which might explain why they’ve decided to kill themselves. But being that they’re Derwin and Hope, they’re doing it in style. Instead of just hopping in the car and letting the exhaust take them to happy land, they’re executing a Jim Jones style “End Of The World” party. You know Jim Jones. That crazy religious dude who convinced 900 people to kill themselves with him so they could get into heaven through the back door or something?

Yeah, so Derwin and Hope invite anybody and everyone who wants to terminate their policy early to come over for one rockin party where there are no rules, no consequences, nothing to do but drink, get high, and have sex. Then, at 5 a.m., they drink some specially spiked Kool-Aid, and call it a life. With a lot of people out there sick of the way the big blue marble has treated them, let’s just say the party is a lively ticket.

While we bounce around from partygoer to partygoer (which includes a really clever device by James of having a “confessional” room where people just randomly rail on life), we keep coming back to Hope and Derwin. Though their relationship seemed to be so cut and dry at first, flashbacks (yes, dreaded flashbacks!) paint a more complicated picture, and we soon realize that these two are in love with each other but so afraid of emotion, of closeness, of committing to life, that they’ve been unable to admit it. So will they be able to admit it before it’s too late?

The Jones Party was a fun script and the neat thing about it is that it feels very much like a first screenplay, yet one that’s been reworked through the eyes of a wily vet. What I mean by “it feels like a first screenplay” is that there’s all this emotion, all this frustration, all this dialogue, all these flashbacks, all these fun little asides. When you first start out, you want to try a lot of things and you want to scream out to everyone and let them know how YOU feel, what YOUR position on the world is. A first screenplay tends to be the bullhorn that allows you to do that.

The problem is that, normally, that’s all it is – a big bottle of opinions and emotion. There’s no structure. There’s no form. And I don’t know what the very first draft of The Jones Party looked like, but I’m willing to bet it was a lot more ranting and a lot less direction than this.

Clearly, over the years, James has learned to give his stories purpose, and the mystery of what’s going to happen to Derwin and Hope helps guide this story to a perfect climax. To be honest, I was a little worried that this was going to be Dialogue Fest 3000, just a bunch of characters telling you how they felt about the world. But the flashbacks of Derwin and Hope not only brought direction back to the screenplay, they moved the story forward.

Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute.  How did flashbacks move the story forward? Isn’t that a paradox? Here’s how. Each flashback revealed a key piece of information about Derwin and Hope’s relationship that we didn’t know before. We thought they were just roommates. Oh wait, we find out Hope has feelings for Derwin. We think Derwin is impervious to feeling, but oh wait, we learn that he does indeed feel. These increased our appetite for an answer to the question – will Derwin and Hope realize they love each other in time to call off the suicide? It’s a powerful question. And one we desperately want answered.

And to me, that’s what really separated this script from all the wannabes – the ending. (Spoilers!) The script’s tone dictates that anything other than suicide will be a cheat. So the story is kind of handcuffed in that sense. It has only one option. Kill off its characters. Somehow, and I’m still marveling at how he did it, James managed to accomplish this but still keep his characters alive in a believable satisfying way. You’ll have to read it yourself to find out how. But I thought it was the perfect ending.

Longtime Scriptshadow readers will be quick to point out that there is no character goal (other than to kill themselves – although that’s not really a goal since it’s already pre-determined). But remember, if you don’t have a character goal driving your story, you need a compelling question in its place, and The Jones Party has one: Will Hope and Derwin get together before it’s too late? As long as we care about the answer to that question, we will stay interested the entire time. Not to mention, the time frame is so tight here (less than 8 hours) that the structure becomes focused almost by necessity.

I liked the dialogue a lot. I liked that the script got me thinking what I would do with 8 hours to go and no consequences. Always good when a script breaks that fourth wall and makes you an active participant. My complaints are few. I didn’t like the opening. It was confusing. Something happens in the closet and then Hope breaks out in a clown suit with a gun. It felt like a very “writerly” moment. In other words, I could feel the writer’s hand from above. And it led to more confusion than intrigue, at least for me.

And the only reason I don’t give this an impressive is because it’s not the kind of film that I’m personally into. Yes, it wisely peppers its story with humor. But we’re still talking about suicide here, not the kind of subject matter I typically block out my Friday nights for. In a strange way, this is a script you battle with just as much as you enjoy, and it’ll be interesting to see how people react to that.

Still, this was really solid writing, and I can totally see why it’s helped James carve out a career.

Edit: Josh has ok’d me posting the script.  Link: The Jones Party

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

What I learned: Again, if you’re going to write about something really depressing, it’s a good idea to do so from a humorous angle. If The Jones Party would’ve been a straight drama, it would have been dead (no pun intended) by page 10. It would have been a Depressing Fest, the worst kind of scripts there are. Humor is to depressing subject matter what the Iron Man suit is to Tony Stark.