Genre: Article/True Story
Premise: After having a stroke, a prominent Los Angeles doctor begins rapping, eventually taking his talents to the heart of the Los Angeles street rap scene.
About: This Atlantic article was discovered and picked up by producer Michael Sugar (Spotlight). Sugar will produce the film for Netflix. John Hamburg (I Love You, Man and Why Him), will adapt and direct the film. Jeff Maysh, who likes to write articles that have the potential to become movies, wrote the article. Here’s another of his articles about a unique catfishing story. And another about a wedding used as a drug dealer sting. Neither have been optioned yet. Maybe someone here will change that.
Writer: Jeff Maysh
Details: Article appeared in The Atlantic on January 16th.

Since they’ve worked together before, I expect Cranston to be named Dr. Rapp soon.

We’re doing something different today. As I’ve talked about freely over the last year, spec sales are down, which means you have to be more strategic in the way you approach breaking in. If you’re not writing a contained horror, contained thriller, or guy/girl with a gun spec, you need to be open to new avenues besides the straight spec script.

One of those avenues is to write articles or short stories and post them on the internet, or look for popular articles and stories and try to get the rights to them. This brings up a larger question about what makes a good movie idea. When you read a short story, news article, or Twitter rant, how do you know if it has the weight to be adapted into a feature film? I have the answer for you. But before I go there, let me break down this article.

Dr. Sherman Hershfield was a neurologist in the 1980s and 90s. Then, during the 90s, he started having blackouts. Later, those blackouts would turn into a stroke. And when Hershfield came out of the stroke, something was different. Without trying, everything he said came out in rhyme. Unable to practice medicine anymore, Hershfeld began obsessing over poetry, and, eventually, rap.

One day, when someone heard him rapping on a bus, they told him he should check out Leinhart Park. They had an open mic for rappers there. Anybody could get up and spit rhymes. The only catch was that Hershfield was a 50-something Jewish man. And Leinhart Park was the area where Rodney King got beaten up. To say the area was skeptical of rich white men would be an understatement.

Hershfield went anyway. But when he got onstage, he was far from an immediate sensation. He was more a poet than a rapper. The only reason he didn’t get kicked off that first night was because the crowd felt sorry for him. But Hershfield wasn’t fazed. He began studying the history of rap and practiced every day. Even as his Beverly Hills family became embarrassed of him, he didn’t stop.

One day after performing, Hershfield met rap legend and now mentor KRS-One. KRS-One saw a passion, but more importantly, a unique point of view, in Hershfield. He was bringing a different kind of battle to his music. KRS-One schooled Hershfield on the technicalities of rap, and now when Hershfield went to Leinhart, crowds were looking forward to his performances. He would eventually adopt the moniker, “Dr. Rapp.” Unfortunately, Hershfield’s health began to deteriorate, and after a series of seizures, he would pass away. Still, everyone who knew Hershfield admitted that he was never happier than in those final years where he found and honed his passion of rapping.

So what are you looking for when you option an article?

Two things.

A great story.

Or a fascinating character.

Every once in a blue moon, you’ll find the HG (the Holy Grail). That’s when you find a great story AND a great character. But one is good enough.

Dr. Rapp has the great character. I mean look at all the things that are going on with Hershfield.

You have irony. A rich white doctor who goes to the poorest areas of the city to rap.

You have a fall from grace. A man whose career was derailed by a stroke.

You have a fish out of water story. A white man inside a world he’s totally unfamiliar with (or as someone else put it: “It was like Larry David had wandered into a Snoop Dogg music video.”).

You have an underdog. An older white man trying to make it in a profession dominated by young African American men.

And on top of all of that, you have a role an actor would die for. Why? Because it’s not a role actors of this ethnicity and age ever get to play. When you have a role that actors have never gotten to play before, they swarm to it.

With that said, I knew this had a good character based on the press report alone. An older white man rapping is a unique role. My question going in was, “Is there a story here?” It doesn’t have to be a great story. But there has to be a place to go with the narrative. What’s the destination?

I’m not convinced Dr. Rapp has that yet. But it has some pieces to work with. For starters, I like Leinhart Park itself. It feels like the area is its own character, an entire community of unique personalities. I also like this mentorship between KRS-One and Dr. Hershfeld. I’m immediately thinking of Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston in The Upside. You’d do something like that.

Where the adaptation has me worried is the stakes. It doesn’t sound like Hershfield did anything outside of become a mini-celebrity within a sub-community. Is that enough? He didn’t make an album. He didn’t break out into the mainstream. What will the culmination of this journey be? That’s the problem with these people you’ve never heard about before. There’s usually a reason you haven’t heard of them.

I suppose you can take the feel-good life-lesson route. Hershfield is dying but he still wants to rap because it soothes the soul. But that still doesn’t tell me where the story’s going to end. What’s the big rap-related event going to be? That question becomes more important when you take into account who’s adapting the material. This is the writer who made one of the worst comedies of the last few years, Why Him. How is he going to nail a character-driven comedy-drama without a clear plot? Even Why Him had a clear end point (the end of the weekend, when the parents were leaving).

But there’s potential here. This might be a case where the right actor comes along, creates a classic character, and that’s all that matters. We’ll see!

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

What I learned: Audiences like watching cultures collide. Remember that the best stories contain conflict at their core. So it’s not surprising that someone would be interested in making a movie where a rich white man attempts to become part of the inner city culture. The conflict is ready to go before you’ve written a word.

Next Monday: Captain Marvel Review! I have a feeling it’s going to get bloody!

Reading through the entries of the First Ten Pages Challenge has been trying, to say the least. I’ve encountered a lot of bad dialogue. I can’t say I’m surprised. Bad dialogue and amateur screenwriting go together like almond butter and marmalade. But I was not expecting to be this underwhelmed. There are a lot of things that go into bad dialogue, the biggest of which is that screenplay conversation utilizes a different set of rules than real life conversation, and new writers have trouble understanding that. For example, if you and I were to grab coffee together, we might chat for 45 minutes. But if we were to grab coffee in a movie, that same conversation would only be 3 minutes.

A huge part of what makes conversation “realistic” is the randomness of it. We discuss one topic, segue to another, go off on a tangent, come back to the original topic. Our thoughts are unrehearsed, rough, messy. In a screenplay, scenes serve a purpose. They need to move the plot forward. Which means the characters must be goal-driven. They might need to convince someone to help them with a task, for example. This means the conversations are artificially focused. Yet they must still feel like real life – they must feel like that 45 minute conversation. Learning to do this takes time and practice. Even when I tell writers what to do they still have trouble implementing it. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying. Here are six dialogue pitfalls I keep running into and how to avoid them.

1) ON-THE-NOSE DIALOGUE – On-the-nose dialogue is when characters say exactly what’s on their mind. “How are you today?” “I feel really bad.” That’s an on-the-nose conversation. Changing the answer to something like “I feel wonderful” with a sarcasm parenthetical fixes the problem. “I was over at Sarah’s. She’s so cool.” “I don’t like her. She’s not a nice girl. Do you have to hang out with her?” “Why are you so mean, mom!” These words could’ve been plucked straight out of the characters’ minds they’re so on-the-nose. To avoid this, look for ways around obvious responses. “Oh my god. You should’ve seen Sarah go off on Mrs. Jensen today. She owned her.” Notice how she says the same thing, that she likes Sarah, without literally saying that she likes Sarah. “Sarah whose mother destroyed the Thompson’s marriage?” Same thing. The mother is saying she disapproves of Sarah without literally saying she disapproves of Sarah. “Love you, mom. I’ll be in my room.” The daughter is showing she doesn’t approve of her mother’s opinion without literally saying she disapproves of her opinion.

2) TRY-HARD DIALOGUE – Try-hard dialogue is dialogue where the writer is trying to make every line epic. It’s writing like Diablo Cody or Aaron Sorkin when your skills are more in line with Freddy First Draft or High Concept Harry. “The world’s a Smith and Wesson and the trigger-happy troglodytes are waiting for the right meat puppet to pump full of common sense, ya hear?” No. I don’t hear. Ever. If you’re one of the .00001% of writers who can pull this type of dialogue off, go for it. For the rest of us, know your limitations. There’s nothing more cringeworthy than a sixth grader trying to convince people he’s a CEO.

3) EXPOSITION-HEAVY DIALOGUE – Exposition is any dialogue that explains mythology, backstory, character, or plot. “Did you hear the Southern California zombies have all been confined to 3B Island?” Mythology exposition. “I still can’t believe dad got turned. It seems so surreal.” This is backstory exposition. “At least he left you his alcohol addiction to help cope with it.” Not a terrible line, but this is conveying that the character is an alcoholic, which makes it character exposition. “We just have to keep it together until the wedding’s over.” “72 hours of misery and we’re free.” This is setting up our plot – the wedding – making it plot exposition. Here are a few things to remember with exposition. One, you sign your own death warrant. If you write something that requires a ton of explaining, like, say, Lord of the Rings, you will be spending the majority of your script writing exposition. If your concept is simple, like Taken, exposition won’t be a problem. Two, cut all exposition by 30% AT LEAST. This will make the reader’s job easier. I’ve found that you can always cut more than you think you can. And three, SHOW exposition. Don’t TELL it. So if a character is an alcoholic, you should never have them say they’re an alcoholic. You should show them drinking.

4) BORING DIALOGUE – Boring dialogue is an epidemic. It can best be described as conversation without life. It is plain, unimaginative, and functional. “Did anyone tamper with the evidence?” “No, it’s clean.” “Get it down to Owens by this afternoon.” “Will do boss.” “And good job.” “Thanks, that means a lot.” That has to be the most boring dialogue I’ve ever written. The best way to combat boring dialogue is to infuse each character with a defining trait. “Sarcastic.” “Juvenile.” “Passive-aggressive.” “Snarky.” “Suave.” “Overly-optimistic.” “Sensitive.” You’d then write their dialogue with that trait in mind. That doesn’t mean EVERY line will exhibit a sarcastic or suave tone. But it will generally be how the character reacts. For example, the “sensitive” character might answer, “Did anyone tamper with the evidence?” with “Why would you ask that?” Which is a way more interesting answer. Go ahead, rewrite this dialogue (extend it if you want to) in the comments using defining traits. Make sure to let us know which traits you used afterwards.

5) WEAK CHARACTERS – The most overlooked reason for weak dialogue? WEAK CHARACTERS! Lame average people don’t have anything interesting to say in real life. So why would that change for fictional people? Show me a movie with great dialogue and I will show you key characters in the movie who were either funny or unique or offbeat or polarizing. That doesn’t mean every character in your script has to be a Tower of Crazy. But a few of them need to stand out. One great character (Hannibal Lecter or Captain Jack Sparrow or Queen Anne in The Favourite) can be the difference between a movie with average dialogue and a movie with great dialogue.

6) DIALOGUE WITHOUT CONFLICT – The great thing about conflict is that it can generate kick-ass dialogue all on its own. You don’t even need great characters if you do it right. As I’ve told you before, a scene that always works is having one character who wants to talk and another character who doesn’t. That dynamic always generates an interesting conversation. Or look at the movie Swingers. The characters disagree with each other in EVERY SCENE. Mikey thinks they should be nice to the girl. Trent thinks they should be assholes. Or elephant-in-the-room conflict. There’s an elephant in the room that your characters aren’t discussing. That bleeds into the conversation, as each line is like taking a step through a minefield. If your dialogue is weak, chances are you’re not adding enough conflict.

Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations. Logline consultations go for $25 a piece or 5 for $75. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. If you’re interested in any sort of consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!

Genre: Period
Premise: A look at the regiment led by Colonel Custer in the days leading up to the disastrous fight at Little Bighorn against Sitting Bull.
About: This script finished high on last year’s Black List, snagging 18 votes. Reiss Clauson-Wolf and Julian Silver went to school together at Wesleyan University. Julian originally came out to LA to be an actor, and has appeared in numerous TV shows. The two would eventually team up to write on CBS’s Seal Team. This is their first big break in the feature script world.
Writers: Reiss Clauson-Wolf and Julian Silver
Details: 115 pages

I mean, of course McConaughey has to play Custer.

I’m often taken to task here for my lack of history knowledge (no idea what Dunkirk was before Nolan’s movie) and geography (where’s Tonga again?). So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that while I’ve heard of Custer’s Last Stand, I don’t know what actually happened during it. Lucky for me, the script starts with a title card that answers all my questions. Here’s what it said….

In 1876, the government of the recently reunified United States sends word to the Lakota Sioux Nation, demanding the Sioux retreat to the agreed-upon reservation boundaries.

The Sioux never respond.

The Seventh Cavalry regiment of the United States Army is discharged to the Dakota territories to ensure the Sioux comply with the order.

The Seventh is led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, a brilliant officer with 215 elite soldiers under his direct command. These men had never lost a battle.

On the banks of the Little Bighorn River, every single one of these men will die, in a battle that will be remembered as “Custer’s Last Stand.” Their final months on the plains are shrouded in mystery.

All we are left with is the evidence — that one of the most renowned battlefield commanders of his time led his men into one of the worst military defeats in history.

…So what happened?

That’s a good question. What did happen? And if the whole battle was lost to history, how do these writers know what happened? That’s the real mystery.

While The Seventh teases a mini-biopic about Colonel Custer, it turns out he’s barely in the script. The Seventh instead focuses on all the men in his regiment, the most prominent of whom is William Harrow, a company man determined to do Custer’s bidding, even though Custer’s bending his orders in the most uncool of ways (he’s supposed to make sure the Sioux have retreated to the agreed upon land. Instead he’s slaughtering them).

Things get interesting when Captain Michael Vincent Sheridan shows up with orders from his famous brother, General Phillip Sheridan. Everyone is to get on their horses and come home. But Custer tosses the orders in the fire. He’s determined to take down the legendary Sitting Bull. That isn’t going to be easy, with every one of the men in the Seventh Regiment reluctant to be here. Will Custer’s ego get them all killed? Uh, yeah. It says so in the opening title card. But how will Custer himself die? The answer, according to the writers, will shock you.

Let me start this analysis by saying there is no wrong way to tell a story. None of the issues I’m about to mention are script-killers in their own right. For every problem I’m about to highlight, cinephiles can point to another movie that worked in spite of that problem. HOWEVER. Each of these issues are handicaps that saddle your screenplay, making it harder for the story to work. Again, it doesn’t mean it won’t work. Only that you’re making things harder on yourself.

Problem number one is that this is a “sitting around” narrative. The characters spend the entirety of the script sitting around waiting. And that’s the true bad word here. “Waiting.” The majority of our cinematic heroes GO AFTER things. Whether it’s John Cho’s character going after his daughter in Searching or the Avengers going after Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War (or Alex Honnold climbing El Cap in Free Solo!!!). We like people who are active and on the move. The second you sit your characters down and make them wait, you are writing a passive movie. And it’s hard to make passive movies entertaining.

Problem number two is that none of the characters want to be here. Well, Custer does. But he’s barely in the script. Nobody else wants to be here. And while there’s something to be said for conflict within your character (these characters don’t want to fight but they have to), movies don’t work well when the characters aren’t interested in accomplishing the goal. One of the reasons Searching and Avengers were so strong was because the characters wanted to achieve their goal more than anything. Everyone in Custer’s Last Stand wants to leave.

The final big problem is that there isn’t a main character in the script. I was hoping Custer would be our main character. He seems the most interesting. But instead we’re given a protagonist-by-committee situation. It’s up to us to figure out who’s driving the narrative. Harrow has enough scenes that we figure he’s as close to a hero as we’re going to get. But then Sheridan comes in and he gets a lot of time too. So take your pick on which one is the hero. Again, there’s no rule that says you need a lone protagonist. It just makes writing the script easier. The advantage to having a lone hero is that their objective can drive the story. That makes it easy to understand what’s going on. An unclear hero means an unclear objective means it’s harder to keep up with what’s going on.

So does that mean The Seventh sucks?

No.

The writers are good at one of the most important tools in the writer’s arsenal – conflict. There’s conflict in virtually every scene here. Either Harrow doesn’t agree with Sheridan. Or Custer doesn’t believe in Harrow. Or Lord must defend secretly nursing a Sioux woman back to health. Or several men desert the regiment to sneak home (and later get caught). There’s so much consternation about being here that every scene contains tons of conflict.

The question then becomes, is that enough for the reader? Can they overlook the “waiting around” narrative, the unmotivated characters, and the lack of a true hero, as long as they get a healthy dose of conflict in each scene? For me, it wasn’t enough. For you, it might be.

The one other thing the script has going for it is its famous ending. I could see the readers who voted for this making the argument that the story doesn’t need a big goal. It doesn’t matter if characters are waiting around. When you have a third act as famous as Custer’s last stand, the reader’s going to keep reading no matter what. And that’s true. I did want to get to the end to see what happened.

I’ll finish up by reminding everyone that your script takes on the personality of your setup. If it’s a sitting around script, the story will feel lazy, stuck in neutral. You have to decide if the rest of your script has enough going on to offset this issue, or whatever big issue is hampering your narrative. No script is perfect. So you’ll always have to make sacrifices. But, personally, I wouldn’t write a movie with characters waiting around this much.

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

What I learned: Character reminders. Custer’s Last Stand gave us another tip for bulk introductions. If you bulk intro characters, consider REMINDING us who they are later on. Here’s what Reiss Clauson-Wolf and Julian Silver do when four characters we haven’t seen for awhile are reintroduced: “We come onto a game of poker being played between Porter (”injured” leg), Patton (trumpeter), Schmidt (thirsty horse), Dorman (translator).” I immediately remembered who these characters were because of those reminders.

Genre: Contained Thriller
Premise: A dedicated social worker enters the home of an adoptive father of six children to check on their well-being, only to learn that the family is keeping a deadly secret. Based on actual events.
About: This script made last year’s Hit List and Blood List. Skylar James has been writing for quite some time, penning the 2010 script for Mortal Kombat.
Writer: Skylar James
Details: 117 pages

This has Jake’s sis, Maggie, written all over it.

If God said he was ending your life in six months unless you sold a screenplay, your best bet would be to write a contained thriller. Or, better yet, a contained horror. You probably won’t get a huge paycheck. But you’d sell your script and still be alive. Skylar James knows this formula. So much so that she’s turbo-boosted it with the old “based on actual events,” tag. If you can’t sell a contained horror that’s based on actual events, well then my friend, you are not a real screenwriter (I’m only joking, of course. Well, half-joking anyway).

Anthony Minchin, an obituary writer, is a weird middle-aged man who lives up on 29 Mole Street with his six adopted children, Christopher, Tallulah, William, Irena, Gideon, and Juniper. Anthony loves his kids more than anything and they love him back. Every day Anthony comes home with a new toy and plays games with them. Outside of not having a mother, the children are happy beyond their wildest dreams.

One day there’s an unexpected knock at the door. Hannah, from social services, is here to check on the adopted children to make sure they’re okay. A victim of abuse, Hannah is immediately concerned when she notices bruises on the children. She investigates each of them, but they only speak glowingly of their father. Still, something doesn’t add up.

Hannah’s spidey-sense spikes when she speaks with William. There’s something about him that’s familiar. Was he previously at another adopted home she was assigned to? Hannah shifts her focus from the children to the house, which she investigates with growing curiosity. Anthony has all these rules about what rooms you’re allowed to go in. And nobody, not even the children, is allowed in the basement.

As soon as Anthony is busy, that’s where Hannah goes. After snooping around, she finds a hollow floorboard, which contains an old laptop. She boots it up and finds obituaries for hundreds of children. But more concerning is the police file she finds on her abusive old boyfriend. Why would that be in here? When Hannah goes upstairs to confront Anthony, she realizes that neither this house nor these children are what they seem, and that she could be stuck here forever.

The problem with 29 Mole Street is that I predicted the twist a quarter of the way in (spoilers follow). There were too many red flags pointing to it. He writes obituaries. The kids are never allowed to go outside. The curtains must always stay closed so the neighbors can’t see in. It was pretty obvious they were dead. And if they were dead, she probably was too. So I spent the rest of the script waiting for the writer to catch up to me.

With that said, I had previous movies like The Others and The Orphanage to guide me towards that conclusion. If you haven’t seen those films, maybe the ending to 29 Mole Street is a surprise to you. But that’s not what I want to talk about today. I want to discuss bulk character descriptions, since this is something that keeps coming up.

Mole Street is a good example of why you don’t want to introduce a bunch of characters at the same time. When you introduce characters in bulk, it is HIGHLY LIKELY the reader will forget most of them. This problem usually comes up with writers who don’t read a lot of scripts. Because they don’t read, they’re unaware of how difficult it is to memorize a group of people.

Mole Street introduces us to six children in the worst way possible: “The children (CHRISTOPHER (4), TALLULAH (5), WILLIAM (5), IRENA (7), GIDEON (8), and JUNIPER (10)) sit side by side in a line on the sofa watching cartoons when Minchin walks in.”

How long do you think it will take before the reader forgets who’s who here? I can tell you how long it took me. A page. From that point on, I was guessing who was who. The good news is, there’s a simple set of rules you can follow to make sure that if you’re introducing a group of characters, the reader will remember them.

1) Don’t do it – It’s virtually impossible to introduce characters in bulk and not have the reader forget some of them. So only do it if you have no other option. If you must bulk intro, try to move some of the intros – hell, even if it’s just one intro – to another scene. The fewer characters you’re introducing in bulk, the better the chance we’ll remember them.

2) Introduce the most important characters first – Generally speaking, readers assume that whoever’s important will be introduced first. So if you’re introducing a group of characters, create a hierarchy of importance and introduce them in top-down order.

3) Write a killer description – Character descriptions become infinitely more important when introducing in bulk. Therefore, you should dedicate lots of time to writing highly memorable character descriptions for everyone. Here’s how Soderbergh described Erin Brokovich: “ERIN BROCKOVICH. How to describe her? A beauty queen would come to mind – which, in fact, she was. Tall in a mini skirt, legs crossed, tight top, beautiful – but clearly from a social class and geographic orientation whose standards for displaying beauty are not based on subtlety.” That’s a tad long, but you get the point.

4) Immediately have them do or say something that tells us more about them – When introducing in bulk, action becomes even more important than normal. The right action can be the difference between us remembering and not remembering someone. So if they’re a dummy, have them do something dumb. If they’re funny, have them say something funny.

5) Intersperse some nicknames – Anything you can do to help us remember who’s who should be used. A little trick is to give at least one character an on-the-nose nickname. I read a war script not long ago with a bulk character intro and one of the characters was named “Sideburns” cause of his insanely long sideburns. I never forgot that character. In general, names that sound like their characters can be helpful in these situations (if you have a character known for her virginity, naming her “Mary” might help).

6) Don’t dine and dash – Whatever you do, don’t abandon bulk intro’d characters right after introducing them. In other words, don’t introduce the characters then cut to some other scene or sequence that lasts ten pages, before coming back to them. I guarantee you we will forget almost all of them if you do this. Stay with the characters as long as you can so we can get to know them and define who’s who.

You follow these six rules, you should be fine.

As for the rest of the script, I don’t know if the reason I picked up on the twist early was because I read so many scripts or if it’s genuinely too obvious. Nor do I know how to judge the overall script in spite of this. It’s not a bad story. But just like anything that depends so heavily on the twist, it’s screwed once you figure that twist out. For that reason, I can’t recommend this.

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

What I learned: When writing scripts that have a big final twist, err on the side of LESS setup for the twist rather than MORE. Audiences are always smarter than you think so you don’t want to make it too obvious. If readers later tell you that your twist “came out of nowhere,” you can add more setup. But I’d always start with less.

Genre: Dramedy
Logline: A blackballed entertainment lawyer puts her negotiation skills to the test when her beloved oldest daughter announces that she’s putting off college to become a feminist porn star.
Writer’s Pitch: This script examines just how messy and complicated modern feminism can be when ideals get translated to real life. The story is personal and timely and incredibly important to me. I think it will elicit strong reactions — both positive and negative — and it would be invaluable as I continue to develop this story to hear a variety of takes from readers male and female, young and old — not just Carson. (I’m saving my cash for a private consultation on my next script :) ) Bonus: At 89 pages with a lot of white space and humor, it’s a very fast read.
Writer: Angela Bourassa
Details: 89 pages

Rashida Jones for Jenny?

Last week’s Amateur Showdown comments section got a little messy, as it does whenever a writer attempts something different. Bourassa wrote her script in first-person, a huge no-no when it comes to screenwriting. Why is it a no-no? Because screenplays are supposed to act as instructional manuals for another group of people to go off and make the movie you’ve written. You’re writing to them. Under that logic, it doesn’t make sense to write in first person.

But as screenwriting has evolved into a more personal relationship between writer and reader, there’s been some flexibility in that rule. Screenplays have arguably become pseudo-noevellas, and, in the process, lost a lot of their strictness. While a first person screenplay is the most extreme version of this, it’s not the first time I’ve encountered it. However, if you’re going to use it, two things must be in order. One, you should have a good reason for doing it. And two, since the device will lead to more scrutinization, your script will have to be better than most.

Jenny, a proud 40-something black entertainment lawyer, is being handed a couple of pills in the doctor’s office when we meet her. We don’t know what those pills are for yet, only that Jenny looks stressed out about what the doctor’s just told her. From there, Jenny heads to middle school to pick up her 14 year old mixed-race daughter, Priya, who she spots making out with a 16 year old white boy.

Immediately, we sense that Jenny is fighting a daily battle – a battle to be progressive and supportive of her family, despite the permissive narrative in her head to be traditional and protective. So Jenny tries to smile about her daughter’s new boyfriend who, no doubt, will be pushing to have sex soon. Even if she’d do anything in this moment to make him disappear forever.

It turns out Priya is the least of her worries, though. When she gets home, her 19 year old super-cool beautiful perfect daughter, Indiga, informs her and Jenny’s husband, Amit, that she has something to tell them. She’s a) queer (they’re thrilled), b) wants to take a year off of college (sounds reasonable) and c) wants to make porn.

I’m sorry say what?

Indiga assures her mother that this isn’t “porn” porn, but rather porn for women. It will be feminine centric, body positive, instructional, and fill a market need. What Jenny isn’t yet aware of, is that she’s just been given the BAR exam for feminism. She should support her daughter if she wants to get into the sex industry. It’s what an empowering feminist would do. But she’s still this girl’s mother. And it’s porn!

Jenny huddles with Amit and the two discuss a plan to talk their daughter out of this. This problem is compounded by the fact that whatever Jenny was at the doctor for is eating at her, her professional career is floundering, her other daughter, Priya, wants to get an IUD, her husband’s artistic pursuits don’t bring in enough money, and her other child, Zack, is having trouble attracting girls. It will be up to Jenny to sort all this out in a way that makes both herself and Indiga happy, a task that will put her feminist ideals to the test.

Let’s begin with this first-person thing since I know it will be a hotly debated issue in the comments. While the first-person angle grabs our attention right away and makes the script different, I don’t see it as necessary for this story. Angela mentions the Pruss Passengers script, which also had a first-person perspective, but if I remember correctly, the first person there was relevant to the story. Aliens were “riding” human beings, and that allowed us, the first person narrator, to occasionally become an alien, which was crucial to the experience.

With The Dirty Work, I could see this being written in 3rd person and nothing changing. Maybe we don’t know Jenny as well, but there are tell-tale actions you can use to make up for us not being in her head. With that said, it does help the script stand out. So I’ll leave it up to Angela on whether she wants to keep it or not.

As for the script itself, it feels a bit thin to me. I liked the hook a lot. You set up the most progressive feminist mother ever and then give her the ultimate test – her daughter wants to become a porn actress – and see if she’ll stay true to her feminist ideals. But the script doesn’t really know where to go after the hook. There’s no narrative drive.

I know that yesterday’s film was as different from today’s as could be. But the narrative drive was always clear – climb the mountain. Here, the goal is to, I guess, stop her daughter from being in porn. But it’s dealt with in too casual a manner. One of the issues I had with the script was that I knew what the end result would be. I knew Jenny would support her daughter. So the goal is more symbolic than actual. She’s not REALLY trying to stop her. And we feel that in their scenes together. Jenny will make a point, but then immediately feel wrong about that point. This created an overall lack of suspense and the rest of the plot suffered as a result.

A good script problem has to have an uncertain answer in order to keep the reader engaged. Since this is Oscars weekend, we’ll use a famous Oscar winning script as an example. In Good Will Hunting, the question dictating the story is whether Will Hunting will remain a “nobody” working blue-collar jobs the rest of his life, or go off and use his talent to do something special with his life. The movie does an excellent job making you wonder which way he’ll go. The best stories ride that line the whole way through.

Part of the reason The Dirty Work is predictable is because of the type of porn Indiga is doing. She’s doing the nicest most pleasant most neutral form of porn possible. If your daughter did porn, this is literally the form of porn you’d choose for them. That was a major factor in me being able to predict what Jenny would do. This got me wondering, if you changed this to a more severe form of porn (regular male-female porn) would we be less certain what Jenny would do. I think we would. Then again, that alters the tone somewhat, so you’d have to weigh the advantages against the disadvantages.

As for the rest of the script, I felt the male characters were underwritten. Indiga and Priya have legitimate problems whereas Zack’s biggest issue is relegated to will he ask a girl out or not. And I definitely think we could do more with Amit. From my understanding, Indians have a very complex relationship with porn. The traditional culture out there looks down on it. That seems like the perfect opportunity to create more conflict between both Amit and Indiga and Amit and Jenny.

Finally, the script had a weak climax, no pun intended. The big final scene has Jenny negotiating Indiga’s porn contract. The idea behind this isn’t bad. Jenny’s entertainment law business has struggled. This is her “opportunity” to show that she’s still got it. But there are too many things hurting the scene, the biggest of which is that if she loses, she wins. If she loses this negotiation, it means her daughter doesn’t do porn. So why wouldn’t she lose on purpose? To be honest, it feels like this ending was rushed and that there’s a better ending out there.

Moving forward, I would dial everything up in this script. There’s not enough conflict. We never truly feel there are any problems between Jenny and Indiga. Even when they get mad at each other, it’s a polite mad. The more conflict you create in this relationship, the more doubt we’ll have that things are going to end well. And that’s what you want every story to feel like right up til the end – that things aren’t going to end well.

But I think this idea has potential. It has something to say in this day and age, and the hook is a strong one. A few more drafts and this feels like something that could make the Black List. It’s just not there yet.

Script link: The Dirty Work

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

What I learned: Scene Agitator Deluxe – A scene agitator is an outside force that repeatedly bumps against your characters while they’re trying to do something else in a scene. Say your characters are having a fight. Well what if, during the fight, the fire alarm keeps going off, forcing them to pause the fight while one of the characters deals with it. They fix it, go back to the fight, then a few moments later, it goes off again. That’s a scene agitator. Today taught me that there’s a deluxe version of this. This is when you add a scene agitator during a pivotal scene, allowing that scene to level up even higher. During the pivotal moment when Indiga tells her parents that she wants to do porn, Priya has just come home and the car pool parent who drove her is outside waiting for gas money he’s owed. So Priya keeps asking her mom for the money (the agitation) while Indiga is dropping this bomb on her. Clever move! You can read more about scene agitators in my book.