For the month of May, Scriptshadow will be foregoing its traditional reviewing to instead review scripts from you, the readers of the site. To find out more about how the month lines up, go back and read the original post here. Last week, we allowed any writers to send in their script for review. This week, we’re raising the bar and reviewing repped writers only. The caveat is that they cannot have a sale to their name. The idea here is to give aspiring writers an idea of the quality of writing it takes to have a professional manager or agent take an interest in your work. Monday, Roger reviewed the Western, “Quicker Than The Eye.” Yesterday, I reviewed the 80s’esque comedy “Duty,” and today, I’m reviewing the JFK thriller “The Shadow Before.”

Genre: Thiller/Drama/Love Story
Premise: John F. Kennedy made a speech in Cork City, Ireland five months before he was assassinated. This is the story of the two weeks leading up to that speech.
About: This is the third script of Repped Week. Martin McSweeney is represented by Conrad Williams at Blake Friedman UK. This script is an adaptation of his own book, “Two Weeks In June,” which you can find here.
Writer: Martin McSweeney
Details: 113 pages

I’m by no means a Kennedy conspiracy freak. I watched Oliver Stone’s “JFK” when I was a kid but I was more consumed with the strange directing style of this off-his-rocker director than I was the actual movie. But it is a shady slice of American history and it’s clear the entire truth has never been revealed. So when the subject pops up in a concept, I usually take notice.

I was particularly intrigued by this premise, which wasn’t focusing on the actual assassination, but rather something that happened a full 5 months ahead of it. Could an event that took place in a small Irish city 8000 miles away from Dallas have had something to do with what happened on November 22nd, 1963? I didn’t know, but I wanted to find out. Strangely, any expectations of what I thought I was about to read were dashed within the first act. This Irish tale is a curious cross between a drama, a love story, and a thriller.

It’s June, 1963 in Cork City, Ireland. In two weeks, John F. Kennedy will be arriving to deliver a speech. It’s a turbulent period in Ireland, with a large portion of the population upset that the British keep sticking their noses in Ireland’s affairs. Since Kennedy’s speech is rumored to address some of these issues, and since the word is that it will be Pro-British, there’s a lot of fidgety Irish folk preparing for the worst. The IRA, in particular, is worried about the fallout if America publicly sides with Britain.

The Brady Bunch-sized Horgan family has lived in Cork City their whole lives. And the gem of the family is 19 year old Mary, a beautiful shop worker who, like most women of that era, is on the hunt for a husband. Unfortunately, her pursuits have led her into a disastrous date with Willy, a wrong-side-of-the-tracks type who, even though Mary has moved on, believes that the two are still together. A day in the life of Mary involves being on the lookout at all times, as she’s never sure where Willy is or what he’s capable of.

Luckily for Mary, she meets a dashing 30 year old American named Dean Reynolds. Although nobody knows what Dean does, a thick layer of charm and the non-invention of google keep the suspicions at bay. He seems nice enough. And he’s from America. So who cares what he does?

In the meantime, Mary is unaware that her two older brothers have joined the IRA. The Kennedy speech fears are reaching a fever pitch, and Cork’s IRA chief wants the brothers to deliver a letter to the local paper. The letter subtly warns Kennedy that if his speech is pro-British, there will be repercussions.

Cork City

Back to Mary, who’s quickly falling in love with Dean. So blind is this love that she doesn’t much notice when her pervert boss is severely beaten. And that old Willy character? Yeah well, he hasn’t bothered her much recently because he’s DEAD. Doesn’t take Einstein to figure out Dean may be connected somehow. The suspicious-o-meter hits car alarm levels when Mary’s brothers spot Brendan out in a secluded field with a souped up sniper rifle, taking down targets hundreds of meters away. Could Dean have been sent to Ireland to assassinate Kennedy?

When the IRA gets wind of this, they start sweating the same bullets Dean’s shooting. They just put a public letter out vowing that if Kennedy showed support for Britain, they would retaliate. But they didn’t plan on actually *doing* anything to Kennedy. Now, if things shake out the way they’re looking to, and Kennedy is harmed or killed, the IRA could be in some hot water.

So what’s the deal? Is Dean really trying to kill the president? If so, will he be able to before the IRA get to him? And how does this affect Mary? Dean’s expressed interest in marrying her after Kennedy’s speech is over. Is she in trouble too ? Hmmm. I guess you’ll have to read the script to find out.

The first thing I noticed about The Shadow Before was that it was an odd way to approach a thriller. I think that worked both for it and against it. “For it” because I love reading scripts where I have no idea what the next page will bring, and because the love story and the mystery are so heavily intertwined here, I was always wondering which aspect would dictate the next plot point. I mean, I knew we were going to end up at Kennedy, but I had no idea how we were going to get there. “Against it” because I had no genre to ground me. “Thriller” and “love story” are such odd genres to mix that I always felt off-balance. It’s kind of like taking your girlfriend to the gun range on Valentine’s Day. Something doesn’t feel right about it. I think the bigger issue here though is that the concept hints at a JFK thriller, so that’s what I was anticipating. Disappointment crept in when that anticipation was only partially met.

(non-specific spoilers from here on) Another issue The Shadow Before runs up against is that we already know no one’s going to kill Kennedy, because, well, it’s history! And that takes away a good amount of suspense. This is why I dislike the idea of prequels in general, and why I don’t like films such as 2008’s Valkyrie. The entire movie is geared towards a climax that we already know the outcome of. That takes away one of your most powerful tools, the element of surprise. But there are ways to make this foreknowledge work for you, and it’s all in how you handle the characters. In American Beauty, for example, Lester tells us he’s going to die at the beginning of the film. Yet we’re still riveted because we see each of these characters develop motives to kill him. There’s still a big mystery involved. WHO is going to kill Lester? The Shadow Before uses a bit of that magic itself, as it takes the focus off of Kennedy, and puts it on Dean. The central question becomes, “Is Dean good or bad?” Is he here to kill the president or save him? And what happens then, if the IRA prevents him from doing either of these things?

But I think whenever you base your concept around JFK, and specifically his assassination, you’re tapping into an audience that’s eager for tidbits about the conspiracy, especially when you imply that the conspiracy is dealt with in your logline. For that reason, it was a little disappointing that this was such a self-contained story.And what I mean by “self-contained” is there’s nothing here that makes you look at the real assassination, which happened five months later, in a new light. And the hook kinda hints that there will be.

Still, this is a very well-written script and an engaging character story. I enjoyed never quite knowing where it was going, and for that reason, I think it’s worth the read.

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

What I learned: Whenever you tell the audience your ending ahead of time, especially at the beginning of the film, you’re putting the primary load of your screenplay on your characters. Since we know where the story’s going, the only uncertainty left is the characters who take us there. For this reason, you need to be extremely strong with character development if you use this device. If you don’t know what a central character flaw is or how a character arcs or how to set up original and compelling relationships between your characters, I would stay away from this device.

For the month of May, Scriptshadow will be foregoing its traditional reviewing to instead review scripts from you, the readers of the site. To find out more about how the month lines up, go back and read the original post here. Last week, we allowed any writers to send in their script for review. This week, we’re raising the bar and reviewing repped writers only. The caveat is that they cannot have a sale to their name. The idea here is to give aspiring writers an idea of the quality of writing it takes to have a professional manager or agent take an interest in your work. Yesterday, Roger reviewed the Western, “Quicker Than The Eye.” Today, I’m reviewing the first comedy of May, a story about lifeguards!

Genre: Comedy
Premise: When the Chanute, Kansas public swimming pool is going to be shut down by the uppity assholes at the country club, it’s up to lifeguards Austin and Lawrence to save the day. Welcome to the shallow end of the pool.
About: Kevin Brennan and Doug Manley are managed by Chatrone. This is the second script of Repped Week.
Writers: Kevin M. Brennan and Doug Manley
Details: 104 pages

I mean, it’s like, so obvious. They NEED to make a movie about lifeguards. Public pools are bizarre never-ending parties where every demographic comes together to celebrate the gift of water. It’s 99% chaos 100% of the time. And there those life guards are, perched on top of their tall chairs like Greek Gods, seeing everything, coming to the rescue of those of us stupid enough to try the one-and-a-half flip belly flop 30 seconds after a full lunch (tried it – loved it). They’re H2O supermen. A movie about these guys seems like a foregone conclusion. So why hasn’t it been done? Well, if Kevin and Doug have their way, it WILL be done.

25 year old Austin Travis doesn’t have the commitment gene, nor is he interested in acquiring one. The guy just likes to get drunk, get laid, and do a little work in the meantime. Austin is a life guard at a local public pool. It may be the easy life, but he takes a surprising amount of pride in his job. This is in stark contrast to Austin’s best friend however, the eternally moronic Lawrence. Lawrence is your garden variety fuck-up. There was a time, long ago, when the man was the fastest swimmer in the state. Now, the only thing he’s fast at is the pre-party beer choice – you know what I’m talking about. Standing there at the convenience store, looking at all the beer choices, wondering how the HELL you’re going to decide which one to buy. In short, Lawrence is the breast stroke to Austin’s butterfly (6 years of swim classes here baby. Hellz yeah).

The carefully constructed universe these two live in is about to be thrown for a 300 pound cannonball though because the owner of the pool, Leon, DIES! In his will, Leon leaves the pool to Austin, and tells him to never let go. This pool is the one thing that keeps this community together. If it dies, the community dies… Problem is, the economy’s a bitch and Leon’s left something else with Austin – 20,000 dollars worth of debt! Since the pool’s value is 50,000, it’s all of a sudden a tempting proposition for Austin to just sell the thing and live the high life.

In fact, there’s even a ready buyer. The high rolling James Merkin and his “young preppy asshat” of a son Tyler, want to purchase the pool and make it a part of their country club. This would, of course, prevent the public from having access to the pool, and that would be bad. But if Austin doesn’t come up with the 20 grand soon, they’ll have to go into default anyway, and the Merkins will be able to steal the pool away by way of the back door. The only solution, of course, is to have the pool party of the CENT-UR-RAY!!! And raise enough money to save the pool!

Okay, first thing’s first. Cause I know you’re probably wondering this yourself. How can there be an owner of a public pool? Aren’t public pools owned by the city? Good question. And I was wondering that myself. The writers can correct me here, but I think that Leon bought the pool for himself and then made it open to the public. But that’s neither here nor there. Let’s get to the main event.

First, the good. The structure here is solid. The motivations are clear. The story is properly laid out. They’re going to lose the pool in “X” amount of days unless they come up with the money. This may seem obvious to some, but I still encounter tons of comedies where I have no idea why any of the characters are doing what they’re doing. Or, in worst case scenarios, I don’t even know what they’re trying to do. If we don’t know what your characters are doing or why they’re doing it, you’re not telling a story. This goes back to the “what I learned” section in my review of “Bad Teacher.” One of the simplest but most effective plots available to you, is to give your character a clear and important goal and have them try to achieve it by the end of the movie. And that’s exactly what Kevin and Doug do here. So far, so good.

Also, these guys bring the funny. The dialogue, in particular, is really snappy in places. And that’s probably the script’s biggest strength. Most of the scenes are geared towards the dialogue between Austin and Lawrence, and while it gets repetitive in places, it’s usually pretty good. Speaking of Austin and Lawrence, I liked most of the characters here. My favorite is probably the moronic Tyler. In one of his more classic moments, when they’re trying to figure out how to thwart Austin’s pool party, he suggests to his father that they “burn down the pool.” His father just looks at him. Did he say “burn down the pool?” Just in general, there’s a lot of funny lines like that.

My big issue with Duty is that it’s too safe and too predictable. In the very first scene, Austin wakes up in a girl’s bedroom after a night he doesn’t remember. The scene does a great job of setting up the main character (I knew exactly who Austin was after that scene), but I’ve seen that scene in movies close to 300 times before. This predictability bleeds into the character of Lawrence as well. I’d seen the goofy fuck-up who’s always striking out with the girls more times than I can count. The character didn’t have anything new to him. One of the things I loved about The Hangover was the character Zach Galifianakis’ played. I remember reading that character before the movie came out and thinking, wow, I’ve never seen the goofy sidekick portrayed quite like this before. It was different. We also get a scene with boys peeking in on the girl’s locker room. But there was nothing new to it. There were too many times, like this, where I felt “Duty” was playing it safe.

Take the aforementioned “Bad Teacher” as another example. Look at how daring that plotline was. It’s about a pissed off teacher trying to steal money from children to buy herself a new pair of boobs so she can land a sugar-daddy. I’ve never seen that movie before. That’s why it was such a fun read. And I’m not saying that “Duty” can’t get there. I just think these guys need to take a few more chances, get crazier, and do something different. They do it with the dialogue in places, but not with the plot and characters.

I also would’ve liked a little more complexity out of Austin. The thing that makes characters in these kinds of comedies interesting is their inner conflict. What are they wrestling with inside their heads? Austin is a tad too content with his life here. There’s no OPPOSING CHOICE. You want to TEMPT your character with something else to draw out the drama within him. What if Austin had a true passion, something he’d always wanted to do, but couldn’t because he never had the money to do it? Well now the sale of this pool has some serious consequences. With that 30 grand, he could finally pursue his dream. All of a sudden, your main character has something substantial going on. Help himself or help the community? And I know this is only a comedy, but I think you need complex characters no matter what genre it is. So I was hoping for a little more of that.

These guys have comedy chops. Check out some of the videos on their site for proof (see links below). What I’d like to see is more of that offbeat humor brought into this script. Throw some more twists and turns into the plot. Give us that demented version of Duty you were afraid to try. Like Trent says in Swingers: “I don’t want you to be the guy in the PG-13 movie everyone’s realllllyy hoping makes it happen. I want you to be like the guy in the rated R movie, you know, the guy you’re not sure whether or not you like yet. You’re not sure where he’s coming from. Okay? You’re a bad man.”

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

What I learned: The 70% screenplay isn’t enough. And what I mean by that is, you can’t execute your script to 70% of its potential and expect it to sell. Remember, comedy is the most competitive spec market out there because it’s one of the last genres you can still sell original material in. So you have a lot of fucking competition. For that reason, make sure to always ask yourself: Have I really made sure every scene is unique? Is my premise beyond awesome? Did I take any scenes off? Does every character in my story arc? Am I pushing the limits of comedy? Does my story feel predictable? Am I trying new things? Are there enough surprises to satisfy the reader? If you honestly feel like you’ve pushed yourself to the limit in all these categories, then get your script out there. But if you’re not, clean up the gaps until you get it right. Because I promise you, there’s someone else out there right now writing a similar script who WILL get all those things right.

Wanted to give these guys a shout out cause they have some really great videos on their website. Here’s one of my favorites.

For the month of May, Scriptshadow will be foregoing its traditional reviewing to instead review scripts from you, the readers of the site. To find out more about how the month lines up, go back and read the original post here. Last week, we allowed any writers to send in their script for review. This week, we’re raising the bar and reviewing repped writers only. The caveat is that they cannot have a sale to their name. The idea here is to give aspiring writers an idea of the quality of writing it takes to have a professional manager or agent take an interest in your work. The number of submissions was about 1/10 that of the Amateur week, so only around 90 repped writers submitted. Surprisingly, there weren’t a lot of high concepts to choose from. Maybe you Reppeders were too afraid to send me your pole position titles. I dont’ know, lol. Still, I’ve read my four scripts for the week and there’s a couple of good ones. But it’s Monday, so let’s let Roger will kick us off with his review. Take it away Mr. Balfour…

Genre: Western Adventure
Premise: An Old West magician is forced to break an outlaw from a Mexican prison.
About: Chosen out of the Repped Week Pile because I was hooked by the logline. All I know about this script is that the writer, Jamie Nash, is repped by Chad Marting of Elements Entertainment. To my understanding, although Nash has representation, he hasn’t made a big spec sale yet, which qualifies him for Repped Week.
Writer: Jamie Nash

Magicians, man.

Read Scriptshadow on Sundays for book reviews by contributors Michael Stark and Matt Bird. We won’t be able to get one up every Sunday, but hopefully most Sundays. Here’s Matt Bird with the graphic novel DMZ!

It started with Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Sandman established a certain model for adult-aimed comics epics (especially those published by DC Comics): The creators put out a monthly series, broken up in to 5-7 issues storylines, which get collected into trade paperbacks along the way, and the whole thing builds to a big conclusion around issue 70, meaning that you end up with ten graphic novels on your shelf, comprising the whole saga. And then Hollywood starts trying to adapt it, though they can never decide whether to make it into an HBO miniseries or a movie. And then they enter development hell, never to emerge again.

It happened with Sandman, then James Robinson’s Starman, then Garth Ennis’s Preacher, then Brian K. Vaughn’s Y, The Last Man, and so on and so on. The one example that actually seems to be crossing the finish line is a similarly epic series that wasn’t made by DC (coincidence?), Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, which Frank Darabont has set up as a series at AMC. Will this finally provide a repeatable model for how to port a creator-owned comics epic over to another medium?

Most of the above books were published by DC’s creator-owned imprint Vertigo. My favorite ongoing Vertigo book is one that I’ve never heard any rumbling at all about adapting: Brian Wood’s DMZ. Neither the book nor the creator get any mention at IMDB Pro. I did find this quote, from a recent interview with Wired Magazine: “I don’t write comics to see them turned into films since the odds of yours being one of the very, very few that get turned into movies is so small you might as well just play Lotto. But there’s always something going on: options, meetings and treatments being written for some of my books. I’ve learned with bitter tears not to feel like it’s something that’s supposed to happen. I think of it as free money.” So it sounds like he’s up for it if he someone can make it work. So what are you waiting for?

The monthlies started coming out in November 2005. Issue 51 comes out this month. The ninth book collection, Hearts and Minds, comes out next month.

Carson has pointed out that there are a dozen variations floating out there of the ultimate “war comes to a big American city” story, and one of them has to get made eventually. I’m convinced that Americans of all political stripes are secretly wracked with guilt about our predilection for turning cities all over the world into war zones. We get angry when the occupied become insurgents, but we also can’t help but wonder: “what would I do if the war came to my town?” That big, fat question needs to be vented onscreen. Various attempts to answer it have come in the form of spec scripts about alien takeovers or invasions by foreign governments. Wood goes for option number three: civil war.

Ironically, when the series started I thought that the set-up was too dated: a militia that starts in Montana quickly wins over all of Middle America, causing the federal government to concentrate in the northeast. When full-scale war breaks out, Manhattan is caught in the middle and becomes the official De-Militarized Zone. When the series started in 2005, America’s actual militia-types had fallen back in love with the federal government and this seemed to me like a very ‘90s idea. Now the militias have come roaring back to life and it all seems downright prescient. Wood mixes up the politics by making the militia into anti-military libertarians and the federal government into pro-corporate sleazebags. Niether side is sympathetic. Instead, our sympathies are with the victims of the war: the hard-scrabble skells left behind on Manhattan, who are dedicated to rebuilding their city every time power shifts and new bombs fall.

The series begins as a New England journalism school graduate named Matty Roth gets the internship assignment of a lifetime: accompany the country’s most famous war reporter on a daytrip into the DMZ. Of course, as soon as they arrive, thing go horribly wrong. Soon, only the intern is left, and he’s horrified to see the under-reported suffering of the civilian population. He cuts a deal with the Fox-News-type organization that sent him in: I’m all you’ve got left, so I’ll be your eyes and ears on the ground from now on if you agree to let me report the truth. Over the course of the fifty issues, he’s had to re-negotiate his power-position many times, as his relationship to the local insurgencies and the two governments keeps shifting, but that’s still the basic set-up.

It’s hard to write about journalists without messing it up. You have the same problems that you have with cop or lawyer movies, but greatly magnified: We all know that a protagonist should be good at their job. We also know that, at some point, as the stakes raise, it has to all become personal. (I talked about this tendency on my blog here and here) But there’s a big problem: for cops, for lawyers, and especially for journalists, this is an inherent contradiction. If you lose your objectivity, you become bad at your job. Journalist movies always build up to that moment where the hero says “Damn your ethics! I’m going to take a side!” That’s terrible journalism.

But DMZ is an ongoing series, and though Matty faces several moral dilemmas and crosses the occasional line, Wood does an amazing job of letting the drama come from Matty’s overall dedication to objectivity. Even when he becomes committed to saving the city, he knows that all of his power derives from his credibility, and that credibility comes from not drinking anybody’s kool-aid. This is a huge real world concern that has been little-dramatized. It’s why DMZ works so well as a comic and it should be the heart of any attempt to turn it into a movie or TV series.

Matt Bird bloviates about movies (and occasionally comics) everyday over at Cockeyed Caravan.

Remember guys, you have one week left to get the early discounted fee for the Champion Screenwriting Contest. If you missed the original post, check out my interview with Jim here. And if you’re ready to sign up now, just head straight over to his site!