The Land of Lost Things

Posted on March 1, 2010 | by admin

Not too sure what to expect this week. On Saturday, I read “The Crazies,” thinking I’d review it for its upcoming release next weekend, only to realize yesterday that it had been released *this* weekend. Nice. I’m totally on top of things (I blame “Rotten Tomatoes,” who lazily updates their “opening next weekend” list). If anyone still cares, let me know and I’ll throw a review up. I know Roger’s going to write a cool article for us this Wednesday, so that should be fun. Otherwise, let uncertainty guide us. Here’s Roger with a review of “The Land Of Lost Things” (not to be confused with “Land Of The Lost” I hope).

Genre: Fantasy, Action Adventure
Premise: A ten-year old boy, seemingly cursed, can’t stop losing things, and not only that, but his parents are on the brink of divorce. When he finds a mysterious book, he’s transported to a magical universe where all his lost items end up. It’s there that he goes on a journey to not only retrieve the lost book, but to save his parent’s relationship.
About: Set-up at Paramount’s Nickelodeon Movies. Producers are Arnold and Anne Kopelson and Sherryl Clark of J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot. Dan Mazeau was enrolled in the MFA screenwriting program at UCLA when he began work on the script. In 2008, he was featured in Variety’s 10 Screenwriters to Watch. Mazeau has gone on to write Johnny Quest and The Flash for Warner Brothers, and an untitled moon project for DreamWorks based on an original script by Doug Liman.
Writer: Dan Mazeau

Is “The Land Of Lost Things” the next “The Neverending Story?”
Sometimes people write stories that remind you that magic is real.
Dan Mazeau, with “The Land of Lost Things”, has written one of those stories.
I. The Ordinary World
Lowell A. Leavitt is born to lose.
We meet Lowell A. Leavitt at Age 0. As storm clouds brew outside his window, we are told he is a special boy. But because “special” can mean many things, it is immediately clear that Lowell A. Leavitt is cursed.
You see, anything Lowell touches, he’s destined to lose. It begins small. His parent’s keys. His pacifier. Toys. And as he grows older, so does his problem. Not only is he losing stuff like that new bike that was given to him as a gift, but even his beloved pets.
At age ten, Lowell is informed by his teacher at Amelia Earhart Elementary that if he can’t turn in a book report, he’s not going to pass fourth grade. He’s already lost twenty-eight homework assignments and now it looks like he’s going to lose a whole year.
But how is he supposed to do a book report when the library has a mug-shot of him that says, “Do Not Lend To This Boy”?
That’s easy. His parents, extremely concerned about their son and his potential failure of fourth grade, take him to a rare book store called “Famous Lost Words”.
II. The Call to Adventure
Famous Last Words is kinda creepy, and with tell-tale rat droppings everywhere, it’s certainly dirty. When an old stitched together book falls of a shelf and tumbles into Lowell’s arms, seemingly choosing him, a Mr. Koreander-like bookseller tells him, “Ah, but that’s a very special book.”
The old man won’t let Lowell’s parents pay for the book. He tells them that Lowell can borrow it, ominously telling the boy, “Perhaps someday you’ll return the favor.”
Back at home, Lowell physically wrestles with the book as he tries to write his book report. In a moment that lets us know Lowell’s world will never be the same, he overhears his parents talking about divorce.
“We tell him we lost our love, Charles. Somewhere, somehow, we just lost it.”
Back in his room, he breaks some things. Discovers that the title of the mysterious book is called The Land of Lost Things.
But soon enough, Lowell loses hold of the book again, chases it out his window into the storm and watches it disappear into a sewer.
So what does he do?
He takes one last look at his house, then drops into the sewer after his book.
Except, you know, he ends up in a rain forest.
Where a half-ape, half-man thing called the Missing Link exchanges some very educated words (for a half ape, half-man thing) with Lowell and swings off into the trees with his book.
III. Refusal of the Call, Meeting with the Mentor & Crossing the Threshold
Lowell is soon being pursued through the jungle by evil, giant rats. From above, claws grab him and he’s lifted into the air.
He’s been saved by three giant birds. Six-feet tall knight-errant pigeons to be exact.
Parcival is their leader. In true Campbellian Parsifal (the Holy Fool in European mythology who goes on a quest for the Holy Grail to break a curse) fashion, he tells Lowell that he is the “Champion Knight of the Lost Cause!”
The pigeons are surprised to learn who the little boy is, and they quickly whisk him off to Pigeon Parliament, where the Pigeon Elders ruffle their feathers, dreadfully concerned that Lowell’s presence in their abode spells doom.
They’re terrified of a figure known as the Finder-Keeper, and they are anxious to send Lowell on his way.
But Parcival delivers a speech, saying that they are homing pigeons and that it is their duty to return lost things.
But before he can convince them, giant rats invade Pigeon Parliament (it seems there is war between the rats and pigeons) and Lowell tries to run away, caught in the middle. He wants nothing to do with either of them.
But Parcival is determined to protect Lowell, so he and his men battle the rats and we’re treated to a cool aerial battle with cannonballs, nets and rat-on-pigeon warfare.
In mid-flight, a rat sniper shoots Parcival out of the air with a harpoon gun and they crash in a mysterious desert.
IV. Tests, Allies, Enemies
They’re in a nautical graveyard, and Parcival can no longer fly because his wing was wounded by the harpoon. To make matters worse, Lowell finds his lost dog Buster, except he’s feral. And soon he’s being attacked by all his feral lost pets.
In a dark keep, on a glimmering throne made out of lost keys, we meet the Finder-Keeper. He’s a shadowy figure with yellow, spiraled fingernails, and he sends out of a team of bounty hunters, led by Ratsputin, to capture Lowell.
Out of the nautical graveyard, Parcival leads Lowell to the Samsonite Mountains, which is, you guessed it, a mountain range made out of all of Lowell’s lost luggage. Along the way, Parcival gives Lowell a history lesson about the pigeons and the land, telling him that they’re guided by a holy object known as The Beacon.
It should be noted that whenever Lowell finds something that belonged to him, he tries to carry it with him, even against Parcival’s wishes.
V. Approach to Inmost Cave, Supreme Ordeal & Seizing the Sword
In the Cave of Lost Voices, Lowell is attacked by Ratsputin and his hunters, and Parcival rescues him once again and they go on the run. Perhaps even Lowell causes a Samsonite avalanche to help with their escape to The Forgotten Fields.
The Forgotten Fields seem like they’re covered in snow, but it’s all of Lowell’s lost knowledge, including sheets of homework and his mail.
Lowell and Parcival jump on a train to escape Ratsputin, and it’s here where they get into an argument. There’s a funny, poignant outburst from Lowell, “You! You listen! You don’t know what it’s like to be a loser your whole life! Some nights I still get lost between my room and the bathroom! I have to pee in Dad’s ficus.” Lowell sees this as his chance to make up for everything he’s lost by bringing things back.
And Parcival, the wise mentor he is, tells the boy, “At some point, you’re going to have to learn to let go of this, and realize what’s really important.”
And next there’s a delightful, charming and inventive action sequence as Ratsputin and his rats board the train and pursue and fight with our heroes. Except it turns out to be quite an ordeal for everyone involved, because this is no ordinary train.
This is The Train of Lost Thought.
Everyone suffers from short-term memory loss. So as everyone battles and comes up with plans, the fight going from car to car, underneath and above, they all keep forgetting what the heck they’re doing in the first place. Action-packed and funny!
They manage to get away and find themselves in The Lost Refuge, an ancient redwood forest where they rescue a female pigeon, Gertrude. She’s enamored with Parcival and she manages to talk Parcival into taking Lowell to The Keep.
Yep, it’s where the villain is, but there lies a place within The Keep where Lowell can return back to his world. And because they’re homing pigeons, it’s their job to return lost things. And since Lowell is lost, the next step is a no-brainer.
But to get there, they have to venture through The Neverglades (“For never has a soul ventured within, and returned with his mind intact.) and make their way through the Rat Slums and infiltrate The Black Spire.
To do so, they just might have to disguise themselves as rats.
VI. The Road Back, Resurrection & Return with the Elixir
Okay, I’m not going to spoil the brilliance of the 3rd act, but it involves the nefarious Finder-Keeper, his master plan and why he needs Lowell.
And Lowell’s ordeal might just involve finding the lost love of his parents and returning it back to his world.
It’s at this point where the script goes into a dark place. Even for a children’s tale, there was a moment concerning Parcival’s fate that surprised me. I told a friend, “I can’t believe the writer took it to that point.”
To which my friend replied, “Children need to be scared in stories. It’s good for them. It’s our way of easing them into our harsh world.”
So what’s the verdict, Rog?
Man, this is my new favorite script. It’s just so inventive and charming, and it’s told with the assuredness of a talented writer (such a pleasing voice to find on the page) who knows he’s telling a tale rich with metaphor.
It moves you.
“The Land of Lost Things” is a children’s adventure story in the vein of The Neverending Story and The Princess Bride, a powerful and poignant fable that can share the same shelf with The Phantom Tollbooth and the L. Frank Baum Oz books.
But that’s not all.
If you’re an adult, this is a story that transports you back to childhood again. It reunites you with awe and wonder, it reminds you that imagination is a sacred thing. In that sense, its sensibility is very Spielbergian. And I like that. If I were a parent, “The Land of Lost Things” is the type of movie I would take my child and family to see. Simply put, it’s the type of story kids should be raised on.

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

What I learned: To reference Christopher Vogler, Jungian archetypes are masks, and the characters in “The Land of Lost Things” wear them with an assuredness that makes you think twice about the power of archetype. What are these masks? Hero. Mentor. Herald. Shapeshifter. Shadow. Trickster. They’re all here in some form (Lowell, Parcival, Old Man, Gertrude, Finder-Keeper and Missing Link, respectively) and, just as they should, the characters take turns wearing these masks. Especially for those who write fantasy or action adventure, it can help immensely to anchor your characters in archetype and to be aware of what role your characters are playing in every scene. Make the Jungian archetypes, along with the Campbellian monomyth, part of your writer’s toolbox (to use a Stephen King analogy) and see what happens.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

For Aspiring Screenwriters – The Screenwriter Consortium

Posted on February 27, 2010 | by admin

Hello all. Wanted to give you a heads up on a very cool project in the works. A friend of mine, Elsa, one of the smartest and nicest people you’ll ever meet, realized one day that the model for selling screenplays was broken, specifically when it came to the Latino market (if you’re ever in the mood to laugh for an hour, ask Elsa her opinion on the current crop of Latino-themed movies in theaters). Both a writer and a business woman herself, she decided to use her business acumen to correct that. As she reached out to the Latino community, she realized that there were all kinds of minority markets that were being overlooked, and decided to expand her original vision to include struggling writers from all walks of life. Basically, she’s approaching the spec market from a radically different angle. But because she’s the expert here, I’ll let her explain it to you.

Howdy, Scriptshadow!

Thanks for the opportunity to appear on your insightful blog—an honor, a privilege, and I promise that check will clear next week—this time for real.

The Screenwriter Consortium’s intent is to develop script inventories for a variety of target audiences. We began the process targeting the Latino market because of the billion dollars per year this group represents. Success with the Latino market should open up opportunities in other markets, e.g., women, mature, genre marketing, other ethnic, etc., with the hope of providing writers another venue in which to sell his/her scripts.

Rather than solicit script sales on a script-by-script, writer-by-writer basis, the inventory method allows the buyer to evaluate scripts on a target market basis—scripts written to appeal directly to a chosen audience.

In addition, the Latino Heart Blog speaks directly with our target audience, serves to develop awareness of the lack of English-speaking, Latino-centric feature films developed by Hollywood while entertaining our readers. After all, we are entertainers, aren’t we?

Our primary goal is not for our writer members to obtain representation, win writing contests, or receive accolades for literary prowess…our goal is TO.SELL.SCRIPTS.

Thanks for listening,
Elsa

P.S. If any of you haven’t tried Scriptshadow’s script consulting service…he’s brutal, vicious, ruthless, mean—and always right. I hate him.

Not really, I wanna impress the school yard bullies so I don’t get beat up, too.

For more questions, contact Elsa at screenwriterconsortium@gmail.com

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Weekly Rundown

Posted on February 26, 2010 | by admin

Jessica Hall back again, doing what she does best. And no, for all you e-mailers asking, Jessica is not the love child of the mega-sensation 80s pop group “Hall and Oats.” There’s enough juiciness in here to open a Robek’s. Superman being re-re-re-re-booted by Goyer. The It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia boys selling a Hangover clone. Christensen getting another million dollar payday when life has already been too kind to him (he’s a rock star). A project about politeness and manners is being put into the pipeline. David Gordon Green is staying in the mainstream by directing The Sitter. And they’re making a Zoolander 2 with Jonah Hill as the villain. And Russel hid Boston Rob’s hat. Wow, we could talk about this stuff for months. — My ass is too lazy to embed the links right now so you’ll have to wait your equally lazy asses until later.

Russel says: “Do they know who’s running the show? I’m the puppet-master. Except when Jessica Hall gives me the Scriptshadow Rundown. When Jessica gives the rundown, it’s all cool. Cause I love Jessica.”

New spec KILLER by Kenny Golde (dir. THE JOB) sold to Parkes/MacDonald and Hyde Park in a bidding war. Script uses the documentary-style footage (à la PARANORMAL ACTIVITY) to tell the story of a serial killer and the detectives trying to catch him. (http://bit.ly/cNFpJj)

Paramount and Montecito picked up Lee & Walsh’s (“It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia “) spec 21 SHOTS. It’s based on an idea by writers Hurwitz & Schlossberg (GRANDMA VS. GRANDMA) who are also producing. While they’ve sold pilots to FBC and ABC, this is Lee & Walsh’s first spec. 21 Shots centers around a guy who, on his 21st birthday, loses his I.D. and needs to track it down over the course of a day. Montecito bought the spec preemptively through their Paramount discretionary fund. (http://bit.ly/ceUnXR)

It took over a week, but Lionsgate finally won the bidding war over Shawn Christensen’s (KARMA COALITION) spec ABDUCTION, reportedly for nearly $1 million. Taylor Lautner is attached to star. Lionsgate is expected to rush to get a director on the project and begin production before they lose Lautner to his many other commitments. (http://bit.ly/aKaAho)

Warner Bros. is out to writers after picking up a pitch from Underground Films’ Nick Osborne. Untitled picture is based on Emily Post’s bestselling book “Etiquette” and is billed as “My Fair Lady” with the genders reversed. (http://bit.ly/cs0aOr)

Erin Cressida Wilson (CHLOE) is set to adapt Lisa See’s book “Peony in Love” for Fox 2000 and Scott Free. Set in 17th century China, the book revolves around a young woman who starves herself to death after falling in love with a man she fears she’ll never be allowed to wed. (http://bit.ly/9Cua2m)

It’s a good week for writing team Posamentier & Moore. In addition to writing GRANDMA’S INTERGALACTIC BED & BREAKFAST for Disney and Mandeville, they will make their directing debut with BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY. INTERGALACTIC, an adaptation of the first book in Clete Smith’s series that Disney optioned last year, is about a boy who goes to visit his hippie grandmother and discovers her inn caters to vacationing aliens. CHEMISTRY centers on a meek small-town pharmacist who begins an affair with a trophy wife who introduces him to the wonderful world of prescription drugs. But when they begin to plot her husband’s murder, everything falls apart. The duo, former execs at Double Feature and Mad Chance Prods., respectively, are also penning “Oh Happy Day” for Disney and Mandeville. (http://bit.ly/bzy8qx, http://bit.ly/b3fEjt)

Fox announced that Alex Tse (WATCHMEN) will adapt the first book in John Twelve Hawks’ Fourth Realm Trilogy. THE TRAVELER is set in a U.S. society run by a secret organization who control the population via constant observation. Seeking to rebel against these constraints are an almost extinct group of people called Travelers, who can project their spirit into other dimensions, and their protectors, called Harlequins. Project was previously set up at Universal and Kennedy/Marshall with a script by Miro & Bernard (PRINCE OF PERSIA). (http://bit.ly/d6ph07)

Gregory Allen Howard (REMEMBER THE TITANS) is back to football for his next project. He’ll write THE MAGICIAN, a biopic about Marlin “The Magician” Briscoe, the first black starting quarterback. (http://bit.ly/aZ1VCs)

Greg Berlanti will rewrite and direct comic adaptation THE FLASH for Warner Bros. Previous draft was by Dan Mazeau (JONNY QUEST). Berlanti wrote GREEN LANTERN and was attached to direct until Martin Campbell boarded that project. (http://bit.ly/dj7iXX – subscription required).

David Gordon Green (PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) will direct Gatewood & Tanaka’s 2009 spec THE SITTER. Comedy, a cross between SUPERBAD and ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING, sold to Fox in a bidding war. Jonah Hill (SUPERBAD) will star. (http://bit.ly/aSrCKM)

Ben Stiller will re-team with writer Justin Theroux (TROPIC THUNDER) for ZOOLANDER 2 at Paramount. It’s not known if Owen Wilson will return, but Jonah Hill is in negotiations to play the villain. (http://bit.ly/crcOxs)

David Goyer (THE DARK NIGHT story) will write the UNTITLED SUPERMAN REBOOT for Warner Bros. Director Christopher Nolan (THE DARK NIGHT) is also involved as an advisor. Goyer is currently working with Jonathan Nolan on a script for the next Batman installment. (http://bit.ly/94Unli)

Oscar nominated writer Sheldon Turner (UP IN THE AIR) will write and produce KISS AND TELL, a rom-com, based on a pitch by Shelby & Stevens (A FAMILY AFFAIR). The Universal pick up is about a woman who discovers she has the power to see exactly how a long-term relationship will unfold with a man after kissing him. (http://bit.ly/dej3Kb)

Antonio Banderas will produce, write, direct and act in a biopic on Boabdil (Abu Abdullah Muhammad XII), the last Muslim ruler of Granada, Spain. Antonio Soler (SUMMER RAIN) will co-write. Project is still seeking financing. (http://bit.ly/9jGpKz)

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Reader Favorites Update

Posted on February 26, 2010 | by admin

It’s been a good 4-5 months since we did our first polling of reader favorites. Since I constantly update my list, I think it’s only right that that list gets updated as well. So if there are some screenplay reads you’ve been putting off, get to them, cause in about three weeks, I’m going to ask everybody, once again, for their top 10 favorite unmade screenplays. Get that list figured out!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Titan Week – “Night Skies”

Posted on February 26, 2010 | by admin

TITAN WEEK 5 OF 5

If you’ve been following Titan Week, here are the first four titans we reviewed: 1) Shane Black 2) David Benioff 3) Kurtzman and Orci 4) Frank Darabont – Today, we’re calling in the Big Kahuna, Steven Spielberg…sort of. I don’t have an actual Spielberg script, but I do have a script he developed with John Sayles titled, “Night Skies.”

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A rural family must fight off a group of pesky aliens who invade their house.
About: Who’s a bigger titan than the man himself? Steven Spielberg! As has been the theme this week, I’m cheating a little, because Spielberg didn’t actually write Night Skies. The studio wanted him to come up with a sequel to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, but he was putting Raiders together, so he didn’t have the time. But instead of allowing the studio to screw up his franchise the way they did with Jaws, he commissioned John Sayles to write a script from an idea of his based off of a “true” story he heard. The thing was, Spielberg wasn’t into it, and the project never really had a shot. He did however read it to Harrison Ford’s future wife on the set of Raiders, and she was taken by the relationship between one of the characters and an alien. This connection inspired Spielberg to come up with the idea for E.T. In a funny twist, Universal was desperate for Spielberg not to make some schmaltzy kiddy Disney movie, and tried to get him to ditch the project. He ignored their wishes and made it anyway. And we got glowing fingers, the power of reeses pieces, and 7 year olds calling each other “penis breath” as a result. John Sayles is no slouch. He’s been nominated for two Oscars, 1996’s “Lone Star” and 1992’s “Passion Fish.” But seeing as he doesn’t have a single additional sci-fi flick on his resume, I wonder if he was the right man for the job.
Writer: John Sayles (based on an idea by Steven Spielberg)
Details: 100 pages (this is the only draft ever written)

John Sayles

Oh Priscilla. How did we end up here? Three foot tall aliens “terrorizing” a local farm family? I know this supposedly “happened” in real life (it’s since been criticized as one of the most blatant hoax attempts in history) but man, I’m not sure Spielberg ever sized this idea up. It’s such a neutered idea, in fact, that if I were a betting man, I’d guess that Spielberg put this in development with the sole intention of preventing someone else from making a Close Encounters Of The Third Kind sequel. Speaking of interesting screenplays, how bout that one for you? If you ever want to watch a film that seems to follow no sort of structure or rules whatsoever, and whose entire story depends on our desire to see the aliens at the end, go watch that. In the meantime, let me try and break down Night Skies for you.

Tess in an 18 year old hot country girl who lives with a really fucked up country family. There’s her always angry father, her bible-thumping mother, her ganja-smoking little brother, her slightly deranged grandmother, and, of course, her retarded youngest brother, Jaybird.


Although not a lot happens in Bumblefuck, Nowhere, it’s been unusually busy as of late. There have been a series of cow mutilations making their way up the state, and the latest one has happened right over on their neighbor’s plot. But this isn’t any normal mutilation. The cow’s face seems to have been seared off with geometric precision, its brain plucked out as if a surgeon himself had done it. This gets the locals up in a tizzy, cause rural folk have a lot of patience, but one thing they don’t like is when people mutilate their cows. Trust me, I know from experience.

Once the cow-killing chatter calms down, the characters spend a whole lot of time doing zippity-zilch. Tess cares after Jaybird because no one else will. The father complains a lot, especially about the fact that he has a retarded son. The mother says little unless a lesson from the bible is needed. The brother, keeping it real, protests that his parents are too strict. This is all about as exciting as you’d expect it to be. And we’re jonzeing for something – anything – to happen.

Well later that night we get our wish because when everyone’s back home, the lights cut out and the family starts seeing little heads and arms zip past the windows. Not taking any chances, they lock down the house, but it isn’t enough, cause whatever was outside finds a way inside. We come to find out that they’re being…I wouldn’t say “attacked”…but maybe “hassled” by 3 foot tall aliens. And these aliens are really good hasslers. They bang on the windows and sneak through the cat doors. They make funny faces and leap out of shadows. We’re not really sure what they’re doing, but their actions cause a lot of screaming and overall confusion. Soon everybody gets split up, and each character has an individual experience with an alien. Tess, for example, is taking a bath (why she’s taking a bath when there are aliens in the house I’m not sure) when an alien darts out from the corner and does the alien equivalent of yelling “bugga bugga bugga.” This may have been a mating tactic for the alien, I don’t know, but whatever it was, it doesn’t work, cause Tess runs out of the bathroom.

In general, the aliens act the way I’d expect drunken Wizard of Oz munchkins to act. There’s no real method to what they’re doing, outside of darting and dashing from one shadow to the next. Since they pose no danger, their presence feels a little like a traveling stage show. Jump in, do a little dance, jump back out. On to the next town! It’d be funny if it weren’t so odd.

Aliiiiiien!!!

Eventually there’s some connection between the aliens and Jaybird, and, I think, the aliens tell the humans that they’re killing themselves and that everyone on earth is really sad. After that, they leave, and Tess’s family is left to wonder the same thing we are: WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED??

Night Skies is plagued by that most troubling of script problems: It’s un-engaging. The people are boring. The relationships are boring. And the story’s boring. Now part of this is because of the 18 million alien films we’ve seen since the 80s. We demand more creativity from our sci-fi today than we did then. But that’s only part of it. The characters in particular don’t have enough going on. They all have their own angle (angry, retarded, religious), but they’re essentially townsfolk with absolutely nothing going on in their day-to-day lives. It’s as if these characters were written specifically to wait for this moment, and will cease to exist as soon as the moment is over. They don’t have any life. Even Jaybird, the most original character here, feels DOA. I was hoping to experience more of a connection with the characters. But it never happened.

But the biggest issue of all is that there are no stakes in the script. Now that’s a term we hear bandied about a lot in screenwriting . “Stakes.” But what does it really mean? I try to explain it by asking a question: What consequences does the situation driving your story have on the characters? Are the consequences big? Or are they small? In the case of Night Skies, the situation driving the story is a group of midget aliens badgering a rural family. Not trying to kill. Not trying to injure. Just badgering. What are the stakes of badgering? The worst thing that can happen is for the family to get a little spooked. Is that really so terrible? Of course not. And for that reason, we’re never truly invested in the story. Take Paranormal Activity on the other hand, where the antagonist was an invisible malevolent entity that had a connection to the devil. A horrifying death for both of our protags was a possibility at any moment. Or take Spielberg’s own “Poltergeist.” In that film, the girl is taken from the family. So the stakes are that they may never get her back, and that any one of them could be killed. In both those cases, the stakes were extremely high, and as a result, the tension was high, and the conflict between the characters was high. Now I’m not saying every movie has to have a life or death scenario, but if you’re not aware of the stakes of your story and how to increase them, you’re not going to have a lot of success in the screenwriting world.

I wouldn’t say this script was awful, but it’s pretty uninspired. And I think Spielberg and Sayles would admit as much. If this was a jumping off point, I’m sure they would’ve improved a lot of the bland choices in subsequent drafts. And there are some fun moments that give us glimpses into the origin of E.T. (an alien’s finger lighting up for example). But it’s pretty obvious why this was never made.

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

What I learned: This is proof that no screenplay is a waste. Outside of every script being a learning experience, many writers mine stories, characters, or scenes out of their old failed screenplays. Part of the progression of becoming a writer is identifying what the most interesting thing about your idea is, and then mining it for everything it’s worth. Beginner writers, for whatever reason, tend to focus on the least or only the mildly interesting aspects of their story, leaving their script feeling like a bowl of untapped potential. As writers begin to intrinsically understand conflict (outside of just making two people fight) and which concepts provide the best opportunity for conflict, this problem goes away. So head back to those old ideas with your new mindset and see if you can’t find that nugget of a concept you overlooked.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment