Genre: Drama
Premise: Two rival graffiti artists engage in a series of street battles, culminating in an otherworldy duel after the art starts bleeding into the real world.
About: This script was optioned last year by Stampede Ventures. The writer, Brandon Constantine, recently sold a script to Lionsgate, called Cutlery. Here’s the logline for that one, which made the 2019 Hit List: “In the near future, a young woman who grew up in her father’s cutlery shop embarks on a blade-wielding rampage across LA to save her dad from a ruthless psychopath.”
Writer: Brandon Constantine
Details: 107 pages
One of the downsides of writing in the genres that I tell you to write in – thriller, horror, action, sci-fi – is that they are all well-tread genres. You’re usually writing something that somebody else has already written – just your version of it. We saw that yesterday with Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel. Half-a-dozen of you pointed out movies that had the exact same setup as Hotelx4.
So while I wouldn’t recommend anyone go out and write a graffiti love story due to the fact that there’s no proven market for them and, therefore, it’s unlikely anyone will want to buy the script, I admit that it’s refreshing to read something new. Due to the fact that I’ve read so many screenplays, I *have* come across a few graffiti scripts. But they come around like once every four years. Let’s see what today’s writer, Brandon Constantine, did with his idea…
Jalen, who I’m guessing is 21 years old, is a poor up-and-coming graffiti artist in New York City. When we meet him, he’s “tagging” a subway car *WHILE IT’S MOVING.* So, yeah, you better believe this guy is good at what he does.
A couple days later, Jalen is participating in a graffiti battle with his current rival, Sean, a really angry Asian-American guy. The battle takes place in front of New York’s elite art class, and this is where the insanely rich Sarah first notices Jalen. After Jalen wins, she says, “Let’s get out of here.” You don’t have to ask Jalen twice.
Over the next several weeks, the two become inseparable, and Jalen even teaches Sarah how to spray-paint. Sarah utilizes her newfound skills at school, impressing those in her art class with her paintings. Meanwhile, Jalen, who’s black, must combat stereotypes from his rich admirers. Success, it turns out, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
In an unrelated incident, the comic book store Jalen works at is fire-bombed leaving his boss and father-figure, Sam, burned to a crisp. While picking through the wreckage, Jalen finds a super secret box that contains two ancient Japanese cans of spray paint. Jalen tries them that night and it turns out, whatever you paint with these things comes to life! Jalen’s old rival Sean calls him up, challenging Jalen to a rematch, and off they go for their final battle, which is sure to be filled with craziness.
If I were to pitch this, I would call it a “real life Spiderman tale with a Romeo and Juliet twist.” I say ‘Spiderman’ because Jalen is, essentially, a superhero. Except he doesn’t fight crime. He creates cool art.
The Romeo and Juliet connection is interesting because it reminds us that certain themes are timeless. Two people who shouldn’t be together fall in love. It’s the setup for the two highest grossing movies of all time – Titanic and Avatar. That combined with the non-traditional subject matter (graffiti), was the primary strength of the script.
Unfortunately, Lady Krylon is too messy to celebrate. There doesn’t seem to be a cohesive structure here. It starts off strong, with the graffiti battle. But then Jalen wins. Since he wins, what’s left to prove? What’s left to gain? Imagine if Rocky Balboa had beaten Apollo Creed at the end of the first act. Where is there left to go with the movie?
The script then switches over to the love story but while the love story wasn’t bad, it also wasn’t anything we haven’t seen before. It’s a standard story of two people hanging out and falling in love with very little conflict along the way. Conflict, whether it be inside the relationship or outside, is the primary ingredient for making a love story entertaining.
Both Titanic and Avatar have it in droves. In Titanic, Jack is the poorest guy on the ship and he’s trying to get the richest woman on the ship. He’s also got 500 other rich people determined to stop him. Talk about conflict. In Avatar, you’ve got both people falling in love amidst the human side preparing to wage war on the aliens in order to get the energy source they came for.
I never once got the sense that anybody was trying to stop Jalen and Sarah from being together. Which isn’t a necessity for a script. But if you’re going to dedicate 50+ pages to a love story, you probably need some conflict to get in the way. I mean even Sarah’s dad is a fan of Jalen.
Then, on page 70, as if out of nowhere, Jalen discovers these super graffiti cans, which is kind of cool. But it’s unclear why the story needs them. He just plays with them for 15 pages, which leads us to our ending, where Sean challenges Jalen to a rematch, which is a confusing ending considering the fact that Jalen has already beaten Sean. Had he lost to Sean in that opening battle, this rematch would’ve had some meaning to it.
That’s the issue. The story never felt planned. I know some writers believe in this idea of stream-of-consciousness writing, where you allow the story to evolve as you write. That does lead to some unique ideas, yes. But the downside is you get to your ending and you’re not sure what to do. So you come up with a big finale, but there’s nothing in the finale that pays off anything that preceded it. It’s just big for big’s sake.
One of the steps of becoming a strong screenwriter is understanding that every scene has a purpose. That every scene must be an immovable force due to the fact that it’s critical to the story working. I don’t think enough screenwriters realize this. They sort of write what they feel and, as a result, the scenes are hit or miss.
There are only 50 scenes in a movie. You should be putting each one through the gauntlet. Is this an entertaining scene? Is this a necessary scene? Is this the best scene I could write in this circumstance? Does my script feel like it can’t live without this scene?
That’s one of the major differences between movie and TV writing. TV stories are fluid and evolving, which allows for some of these softer scenes. Movie stories are finite. They have a beginning and an ending. So every scene needs to be in service to that. And I feel like writers don’t respect that mantra. They get loosey-goosey and lower the bar for what constitutes a worthy scene.
I say Lady Krylon would’ve worked better if Jalen started off as a weak artist. Then, at the end of the first act, he finds these special spray-paint cans, and becomes a phenomenon with them. Then, as he rises to fame, he must face the prospect that he’s a fraud, cause what he’s doing is a gimmick. The end of the movie would then be the opposite of what it is now. He decides to put the cans down and use normal cans for the final battle. That’s what structure looks like. This script was just too messy for me.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Know your blind spots, as either a younger or older writer, and do the necessary work to fix them. Here, in Lady Krylon, where I’m assuming the writer is young, we get student live-streaming of the graffiti battles. We get people putting out Tiktok invites whenever there are meetups. When I read older writers trying to write young people, they still have their teenagers calling each other on the phone, just like they, the writer, did 30 years ago. It’s a huge tell that you don’t understand the world you’re writing about. On the flip side, older writers have a much better grasp on “real life” things like 9 to 5 jobs, mortgages, money, marriage, kids. When young writers write about these things, it’s kind of embarrassing as it’s clear they have no idea what they’re talking about. Steven Spielberg admitted as much when he looked back at his screenplay for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He had his main character just walk away from his family! “If I were to write that script today, I never ever would’ve done that. It doesn’t make sense,” Spielberg said. So just know where your “age blind spots” are and do the necessary research so you don’t sound ignorant.
