Since I haven’t reviewed all my top 25 scripts and a bunch of you have e-mailed me asking what they’re about, I decided to give a quick blurb about each one. I’ll divide this into two parts. Oh, and because I’m lazy, I’m not including links. You’ll have to reach over to the top 25 list and get the scripts from there (I know – I’m a horrible person).

1) EVERYTHING MUST GO
Genre: Indie Drama
A guy loses his job and his wife. She’s changed the locks to the house and left all of his furniture outside. Instead of shipping it off, he sets everything out in the front yard and starts living there. The reason I love this script so much is because the main character does exactly what I would do in this situation. You want me to leave? I’ll do the opposite. I’ll stay. It’s a bit of a strange plot and weird enough so that a good portion of you won’t like it, but it’s my favorite script of 2008.

3) THE F WORD
Genre: Comedy
A very simple premise. Guy meets girl, girl has boyfriend. Guy and girl become best friends. Guy and girl try desperately not to hook up. No huge surprises or twists here. Just an amazingly executed script. Very funny.

4) JUNIOR EXECUTIVE
Genre: Indie Comedy
In an attempt to get his estranged pilot father to come back into his life, a high school kid decides to build his own airport. If you’re a Wes Anderson fan, you have to read this script. Quirky, weird, hilarious. The writing is so simple as to make it look amateur but once you get going, you can’t stop. This one’s out there, but if you buy into a few early absurdities (borrowing 500k like it’s as easy as buying ice cream for example) it’s a great read. (note: no link for this. if you want it, contact me directly)

5) BRAD CUTTER RUINED MY LIFE AGAIN
Genre: Comedy
A hilarious script about a former high school nerd finally making his way in the world, only to find out that his company is hiring the most popular kid from his old school. Before he knows it, the company turns into its own high school, and once again, he’s the nerd.

6) BRIGANDS OF RATTLEBORGE
Genre: Western
I hate Westerns. But something about this one got me. What’s interesting is that this script breaks about every screenwriting rule there is. And it ended up being the top rated script on the 2007 Blacklist.

9) GOING THE DISTANCE
Genre: Comedy
A simple comedy about the trials and tribulations of long distance relationships. Geoff, the writer, is a master of comedy dialogue. Anyone who’s been in a long distance relationship can relate to this one.

10) WINTER’S DISCONTENT
Genre: Comedy
One of the most unexpected reads of the year. A bunch of old dudes looking for nookie in a nursing home. American Pie for the Viagra generation. Hilarious.

11) THE ORNATE ANATOMY OF LIVING THINGS
Genre: Indie Dramedy
Charlie Kaufman-inspired, the story of a man who finds out there’s a museum dedicated to his life. Very weird but very cool. One of the more imaginative scripts I’ve read. Was on the 2007(?) Blacklist. These are the same guys who brought you The Adventurer’s Handbook.

13) LAST NIGHT
Genre: Drama
This one’s already been shot with Keira Knightly and Eva Mendes. A woman (Knightly) starts to suspect her husband of infidelity with an extremely attractive coworker (Mendes). Things get complicated when he goes on his next business trip.

14) THE HANGOVER
Genre: Comedy
Much funnier than the trailer showed. But it’s a great little premise. Four guys have to piece together their drunken night to find a missing groom (who’s getting married THAT day). This is one of those scripts you read and immediately say, “I could see that as a movie.” Funny funny funny.

I’ll post the second half later in the week folks. Til then…

A famous “sneaking on government base” scene.

I’m currently working with a writer who’s writing an elaborate spy/science-fiction script that involves infiltrating the US Government. The final 45 pages are the main character infiltrating a series of complex checkpoints and well-guarded areas on a giant base created by the most advanced military in the world.

When that first draft came in, the script completely fell apart in those final 45 pages. Often, what would happen, is there would be a checkpoint, and the hero would hide in the back of a car, allowing him to sneak through the checkpoint. Then he’d get to a building he’d have to breach. So he’d sneak around the back and override the passcode to open a door.

There were almost a dozen moments like this, which is why I said to the writer: The reason this ending falls apart is because every time your hero encounters a challenge, the challenge isn’t difficult. He hides in the car. The guard walks around the car. He pauses for a moment, creating a teensy bit of suspense. And then he tells the driver to go ahead.

In other words, THE WRITER IS THE HERO’S GUARDIAN ANGEL. The writer is a protector. He is on the hero’s side. Therefore, whenever a problem pops up, he’s going to make sure that the hero gets out of that problem just fine.

This is the WORST approach you can have to writing a script.

When you write a script, YOU WANT TO BE THE HERO’S WORST ENEMY.

You want to be the VILLAIN.

Even bigger than the actual villain in your story. Because the worse of a villain you are, the better your script is going to be.

Let me give you an example.

Go back to the scene where the main character is hiding in the car. We’ll say he’s hiding in a compartment in the trunk. The Guardian Angel Writer will never have anybody even open that trunk. The Guardian Angel Writer is a screenplay killer because no moments in his script have any tension at all.

The Good Buddy Writer *will* have the guard open up the trunk and look inside. But something will happen at the last second – another guard will call him away for a more ‘important’ matter – that keeps our hero protected. This Good Buddy Writer is definitely better than the Guardian Angel Writer because he’s created more suspense out of the scene. But he’s still helping our protagonist out when he needs it.

You know what the Villain Writer does? He has that guard open up the trunk. He has that guard dig around in that trunk. And you know what he has the guard do next? Think about it for a second. You’re the villain. You want to make things as bad for the hero as possible. So… YOU HAVE HIM DISCOVER YOUR HERO.

Because guess what? If he discovers the hero? You’ve got yourself a scene now! And not just an okay scene. A MEMORABLE scene. Because now we, the reader, are wondering how the heck the hero is going to get out of this. Which is the ideal place to have your reader in.

Why don’t writers do this more often?

Simple. Because they don’t have any clue how to get the hero out of that situation. So they’d rather avoid the situation than give themselves a difficult job to do. But let me make this clear. The more times you are the Villain Writer to your hero, the better the chances are that you are writing something great.

In one of the great sequels of all time, The Empire Strikes Back, a big chunk of that film’s finale is dedicated to the build-up of encasing Han Solo in carbonite. The Guardian Angel or the Good Buddy Writer would’ve found a way to save Han Solo from this fate. Luke or Leia would’ve gotten to him in time, shot or sliced up some stormtroopers, grabbed Han, and it’s off to the Millennium Falcon we go!

This needs to be you!

Not the Villain Writer. The Villain Writer encases Han in carbonite. Cause that’s the story direction that’s going to get the biggest reaction out of the audience. They’re going to be confused. This is not supposed to happen. Why couldn’t he have gotten away!?

Getting back to the spy sci-fi script, let’s look at that final obstacle where the hero has to sneak into the building. The way it was written, the hero did an override on the code panel. My first question to the writer was, “Where are the cameras?” “Aren’t there cameras outside this building so they can monitor people who are trying to break in?”

The writer began rambling, “Well, it’s not that kind of facility. They don’t usually have people in this area so it wouldn’t be expected that someone would be trying to break in here…” I said to him, “Listen to yourself. Does that sound like the real world AT ALL??” OF COURSE they’re going to have cameras! These days, they’re going to have drones combing the facility as well. They’re going to have every single inch of this base secured.

The writer looked at me with a blank stare and I knew exactly what that blank stare meant. It was the writer thinking to himself, “Well if I put all that in there, I’m going to have to figure out a way for my hero to get past it.”

EXACTLY!

And when you start writing this way, THAT’S WHEN YOU START BECOMING A GREAT WRITER.

Let me make something clear cause screenwriters seem to forget this all the time. The more CERTAIN the reader is of what’s going to happen next in your script, the more bored they are. The more UNCERTAIN the reader is of what’s going to happen next, the more engaged they are.

When you are the Villain Writer, you are constantly creating UNCERTAIN SCENARIOS. I have no idea how the hero in this spy sci-fi script is going to get past drone security. WHICH IS WHY I WANT TO KEEP READING! So I can find out. In contrast, if you’ve written an entire script holding your hero’s hand through all the obstacles, I know that once we get to this base, the hero’s going to figure it out. I’m going to be CERTAIN of the hero’s success. Which means I’m BORED.

Likewise, when we get to that back door, don’t place a number code on it. Just have it be a steel door with no apparent way to get in. Hell, if you want to be a true villain, TAKE THE DOOR AWAY COMPLETELY. Actually, let’s go one step further. In the planning stages of infiltrating this base, this door was a key part of the plan. It was, according to their reconnaissance, the least guarded door on the base. So it’s essential to their plan.

What would a true Villain Writer do? When the hero gets there, THERE IS NO DOOR. It’s no longer there. NOW WHAT???

You should love that phrase as a screenwriter: NOW WHAT??

Place your hero in a bunch of situations where the next thought is, NOW WHAT?

Because what does “Now What” imply? It implies UNCERTAINTY.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Villain Writer moments, just to show you that you can be a Villain Writer in any genre. Not just action or spy movies. It occurs in the romantic comedy, Notting Hill.

Anna, the movie star, has invited William, the nobody local dude, on a first date. Now, the Guardian Angel Writer is going to have William show up to her hotel room. She’s going to open the door. There’s going to be some cutesy romantic comedy banter. And off they go on their date!

Instead, what happens?

William shows up, and when the door opens, it’s some random guy. The guy then walks William into the middle of a press junket. The Villain Writer makes sure that NOTHING is easy for their hero. William is forced to pretend he’s part of a magazine and must ask questions to all of the stars of Anna’s latest movie before finally getting a chance to see her.

Richard Curtis, the writer of Notting Hill, is actually really good at being a Villain Writer. Later in the movie, William comes over to Anna’s hotel for another date, only to find her a-hole ex-boyfriend (played awesomely by Alec Baldwin) in the room with her. She had no idea he was going to show up.

I am so convinced of the value of today’s lesson that I challenge you to go into your current screenplay and find one of the biggest scenes in it, and rewrite the scene being as big of a Villain Writer as you can possibly be to your hero. I GUARANTEE YOU that the scene will get better.

Go try it and report back!

Genre: Thriller
Premise: When a major volcano in Hawaii is slated to erupt within a week, the scientist responsible for managing the eruption learns that the US military has been hiding a secret on the outskirts of the island that threatens to turn the eruption into a world-ending event.
About: This is an interesting one. This was Michael Crichton’s (Jurassic Park) final book he was working on before he died. The unfinished novel, which is nearly 20 years old, made its way to super-seller James Patterson, who decided to finish it for him. The package recently went to auction this year and sold for 7 figures to Sony. The directors who will helm this film? None other than Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who directed one of my favorite films from 2021, Free Solo. Keanu Reeves is loosely attached to the project but is expected to officially attach soon.
Writer: Michael Crichton and James Patterson
Details: 420 pages

Michael Crichton is responsible for the most high concept movie idea of all time: Jurassic Park.

When you hit it big in Hollywood, you have this moment. That moment becomes bigger than you. It becomes bigger than the industry. You are “THE PERSON” that everyone and everything orbits around.

That moment happened with Crichton after Jurassic Park and, for a good five years there, every one of his books was slotted to become a movie. For some writers, that’s more than they can handle. But for Crichton, he was ready for this moment. Every one of his books was a big idea that felt tailor-made to become a summer blockbuster.

But the problem with having that big breakout hit movie is that it’s hard to live up to. How many writers can write a hit movie and have two, three other stories that will do just as well? The answer is very few. But Crichton gave it his best shot.

Not many people know this but he co-wrote the novel for Twister. That’s two bona fide monster hits there. Reality then caught up with Crichton as his follow-up films, Congo, The 13th Warrior, and Timeline, fizzled.

But that takes nothing away from a master of the “big idea.” Let’s see if his final book, ironically, is the beginning of a comeback.

36 year old John “Mac” McGregor, is the director of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. He lives on the big island, in a town called Hilo, which has always been a tricky place to live since it’s right at the bottom of active volcano, Mauna Loa. There have been a couple of times in history where an eruption nearly destroyed the town.

When earthquakes start happening, it’s confirmed that Mauna Loa is going to blow, once again, in a week. Just as John starts preparing for that reality, he’s ushered away by the local military who bring him to a nearby cave.

It’s here that they reveal hundreds of containers of radioactive waste being stored. Mac is enraged that they would be this stupid but it gets oh so much worse. The containers are old enough that they’re starting to splinter. Even trying to pick them up will likely cause them to break.

Oh yeah, and this isn’t just normal radioactive waste. It’s been mixed with herbicide, which makes it insanely easy to spread. In layman’s terms, if these containers were to break, every human being on earth would be dead within four months.

Mac immediately gets to work on a plan to divert the lava as far away from those containers as possible. His plan is to build a wall along the side of the volcano to steer the lava. But then a douchey billionaire shows up with his own plan, creating all sorts of conflict regarding what to do next. They better figure it out soon because the hours are ticking away. Any time now, Mauna Loa is going to blow.

I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to read something other than one of these so-so-so-very-serious Black List scripts. Everything’s so SERRRRIOUUSSSSS on the Black List. So insanely SERRRRIOUSSSSSS.

I don’t know when movies that are made for entertainment got such a bad rap but imagine the alternative? All these SEERRRRIOUUUSSS movies. Who comes away from those feeling anything other than bummed out? We have enough bum-outy things going on in the world. Movies should be there to make us feel better!

Which is exactly what today’s movie – err… book – is about. I nearly said ‘movie’ because this novel is written like a movie. There are 108 chapters here. In other words, each chapter is insanely short. Crichton and Patterson did this so that each chapter would read like a scene.

In the spirit of the high-concept idea, Crichton makes a decision here that every high-concept writer faces the choice of making. Which is whether to add a “multiplier” or not. A “multiplier” is when you take a big idea and add a similar big idea that “multiplies” the scope of the concept.

To understand this, let’s note what this idea looks like without a multiplier. Without a multiplier, this is a BIG ERUPTION movie. You could’ve even made it a “super eruption” which I hear is something certain major volcanos are capable of which could end mankind. That would be a big idea. But there wouldn’t be a multiplier in it. The concept is told to you straight away.

Here, we get the multiplier of the nuclear waste containers. I didn’t go into it in the plot but, basically, the herbicide acts as a virus whereby if birds or insects come in contact with it, they can easily spread it to other places. Which is why the entire planet would be in danger.

But the multiplier here is those containers at the bottom of the island. That’s what elevates this idea into something that feels BIGGER. With high-concept ideas, that’s what you should be looking for. You should be looking for any elements that make your idea BIGGER.

With that said, there’s a way to use multipliers and there’s a way not to use them. If I wrote a movie about dinosaurs and then, at the end of the first act, I introduced aliens, sure, by the letter of the multiplier law, this would be a “multiplier.” But for multipliers to work, there has to be an elegant or clever connection between them, which there was here.

Hawaii is a major military base for the United States. It makes sense that they would secretly store nuclear waste out there. And, for those of you hemming and hawing about why in the world would the US place nuclear waste at the bottom of a volcano, Crichton actually spends a good portion of the story explaining it and it made perfect sense (it essentially comes down to the government trying to cover its ass by hiding this stuff away).

Another thing I liked about this book was that it created a world-ending event that had nothing to do with nuclear bombs. When you’re writing these REALLY BIG ideas, you get lazy, and you go with the lowest-hanging fruit (nuclear bombs!). Writers have been using them for decades now.

Push yourself!

Come up with something fresh and new, like Eruption did. I’ve never seen this particular combination of concepts before and it was really fun.

My only pushback on the novel is that these ideas tend to have a “worth the read” ceiling. They focus so much on the plot and the bells and whistles that the characters rarely resonate. If you’re going to write one of these, put some extra work into the characters because if you can elevate a high concept to a double-worth-the-read or even an impressive, it’s like discovering plutonium. It’s a rarity and it will make your script unstoppable.

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

What I learned: One of my favorite phrases in screenplays is, “It’s better if I show you.” When the military picks up Mac to explain to him that this impending eruption is actually much worse than he realizes, he asks, “Why?” Their response: “It’s better if I show you.” From there, we get to see the actual containers. How fragile they are. A demonstration of what happens when an insect interacts with the herbicide. We SEE all this. That SEEING is our golden example of SHOW-DON’T-TELL and it’s so much more effective than a character just doling out exposition dialogue.

In the lead-up to this month’s “Scene Showdown,” the question must be asked: ‘What, exactly, is a scene?’

Before we break down what a scene is, here are the submission details for Scene Showdown. Literally EVERYBODY who reads this site should enter. Here’s what I need from you…

Title
Genre
Logline
Up to 50 words to prep the scene (up from 30)
A PDF of your scene (no minimum length, maximum is 5 pages long)
Send submission to: carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Deadline: 10pm Pacific Time, Thursday September 26th!

It’s funny because when I came up with the idea for Scene Showdown, I assumed it was self-explanatory. I thought that everybody knew what a scene was. But after all the questions that popped up in the comment section, I realized that a scene is not clear at all. So, let’s talk about what a scene is.

I started off by asking Chat GPT and I can’t say I’m a fan of his answer:

A scene is a distinct narrative unit where characters interact within a specific time and place to advance the story.

I then asked Miriam’s Dictionary for help and this is what they told me:

A division of an act presenting continuous action in one place.

I didn’t love that definition either so I googled a few other options:

A complete unit of storytelling, usually consisting of a sequence of events and dialogue taking place in a specific location and time.

A scene is a section where a character or characters engage in action or dialogue. You can think of a scene as a story with a beginning, middle, and an end.

Change (the writer of this article defines a scene as anything where a character expects one thing but something else happens)

Color me surprised that defining a scene is so difficult because, on a macro level, it seems obvious. Similar to how we inherently know what a paragraph is because we’ve read so many books, I figured we inherently knew what a scene was because we’ve watched so many movies.

But the more we get into the micro – nailing down the specifics of what makes a scene – the harder it becomes to define.

There are common threads in these definitions, however. Continuous time is one. A single location is another. There is action, dialogue, or both. Maybe the one thing that these definitions are missing is that there’s an actual point to the scenario. I like to think of it as a little story (which may align with the writer above who defines a scene as “change”).

With that in mind, our definition of a scene might look like this…

A storytelling unit where characters engage in action or dialogue within a single location during a continuous time frame.

Now, for those of you already getting wound up about the restrictions of that definition, calm down. This is a BASELINE definition to work with. It’s not the law.

If, for example, you write a scene where a married couple is fighting and they take the fight from their kitchen to their backyard, then to their car as they drive to work, that has three location changes but it’s still considered to be one scene because it’s continuous.

I think where writers get the most confused is with the time continuation thing. Because sometimes you’ll write three “scenes” that have time breaks between them, but they’re all so intricately woven together, you could make the argument that they’re one scene.

For example, let’s look at Kinds of Kindness, which I reviewed yesterday.

One of the scenes, from the middle story in Kinds of Kindness, has Robert, who’s mentally deteriorating rapidly in his marriage, coming to his wife, Rita, and asking her to chop off her finger, cook it, and include it in his dinner. This is, I guess, technically, one scene.

Right after that, we show Rita wrestling with whether to oblige her husband. She eventually decides to do what he says so she chops off and cooks her own finger. Again, this could be considered its own scene.

Finally, we have Rita serving Robert his dinner, with her finger, and him being confused as to why she would do this (remember, he’s going insane). That’s its own scene as well, you could say. But, really, all three of these moments, when combined together, make up about 5 minutes of screen time, and could, conceivably be pitched as one scene, even though there are time breaks between them.

Now some of you may say, “No, Carson. That’s a sequence (a “sequence” being a series of scenes).” And I wouldn’t say you’re wrong. But I think this speaks to why the question of “What is a scene” has perplexed so many of us. There is a greyness to the definition.

But what I hope this does for you, in regards to the showdown, is help you relax a little. As you can see, there’s some flexibility regarding what makes a scene.

I don’t want to stifle anybody’s creativity because some of the best writing I receive is from writers who have their own creative ideas and don’t try and retroactively engineer stories to my liking.  BUT if I were you entering the showdown, I would be thinking in terms of a short story that fits within the constraints of our scene definition. Something that could, if not completely live on its own, is entertaining enough that we’d enjoy it without context. Get that clear beginning (setup), middle (conflict), and end (resolution), in there.

If you want to get more specific, use GSU. Have a character who wants something (goal), will gain much if he succeeds or lose much if he fails (stakes), and has a limited amount of time (urgency).

Some recent examples of mini-story scenes that have clear beginnings, middles, and ends, would be the scene in Furiosa when Dementus enters the Citadel and tries to convince the ruler, Immortan Joe, to hand the city over to him.

In The Killer, the Killer gets a taxi/uber ride with a specific cab driver and demands information on the person the driver gave a ride to three days ago who went to kill his wife. Simple beg, mid, end. Simple GSU.

In Parasite, the family who invades the home is surprised when the real family, who is supposed to be gone, comes back unexpectedly. They all must hide within the house and not be seen until the family goes to sleep and they can sneak away.

In Emily the Criminal, a good scene is when Emily is tasked with stealing her first car. She has to go into a dealership and buy the car with a fake credit card from the salesman. But she’s told that 8 minutes from the moment he swipes the card, she has to be out of there, or else the card company will call the salesman and tell him it’s a fake.

As you can see, all of these scenes feel important. They’re not just casual things going on between people. There are stakes involved. The moments are larger than life. That’s where you want your head when submitting for the Scene Showdown.

I hope that clears a lot of things up. But I noticed there were other questions in Tuesday’s post so let me answer the relevant ones here…

Does it have to be the first scene of your script? – No.

Can it come from a screenplay that hasn’t been written yet? – Yes

50 words to prep the scene – What I mean by this is, if the scene comes deep in your script, you can provide some context as to who the characters are and what was going on before the scene. This is not mandatory.

Logline and Title – As best you can, create a logline and title for the scene (not the script). I know it’s hard and you don’t have to be too specific (you can be mysterious if you want, i.e., “A young woman wakes up to find her dead child alive and well in her arms”).

Winner – Winner gets a deep dive review of the scene on the site and a collective kick in the behind to write the full script!

SINCE I HAVE NO IDEA IF THE NEWSLETTER IS GETTING TO PEOPLE, I’M JUST GOING TO INCLUDE IT HERE ON THE SITE. ENJOY! AND IF YOU WANT FUTURE NEWSLETTERS, E-MAIL ME AT CARSONREEVES1@GMAIL.COM. THAT’S ASSUMING I CAN GET THEM SENT OUT!

I was talking to an aspiring writer the other day and we got onto the topic of movies, specifically what we’d seen lately. He said that he’d rewatched this old movie that both of us liked and I said to him, “Have you ever read the script for that movie? It’s even better than the film.” What he said next shocked me. “I don’t read scripts.”

I gasped and replied, “What do you mean, you don’t read scripts? Like you don’t read them that often?” He said, no, he’d read maybe three scripts in his entire life and they were all classic film scripts. “You’ve never read a screenplay that hasn’t become a movie yet??” I asked. “No,” he said. “Never.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard this from a writer. In fact, I once knew a writer who didn’t just *not read* scripts, he was so uninterested in doing so, he’d go on 20-minute villain monologues about how pointless (and boring) reading scripts was. And he had proof to back it up! He actually sold a screenplay! For mid-to-six figures!

How the heck did that happen? Well, to his credit, he was really good at picking high concepts and injecting GSU (goal, stakes, urgency).

But there was always something off about his writing that I couldn’t put my finger on. The rhythm wasn’t quite there. The sentence structure was slightly odd. And just the whole experience of reading his scripts felt like you were reading a “highlights reel” of a script, ” if that makes sense. His scripts never felt like true screenplays.

Not that I wish any ill will on writers, but I wasn’t surprised to hear that the writer hung it up three years later, failing to experience any more success. You can sometimes get a lucky invite into the game. But it’s hard to stay if you don’t know what you’re doing. People figure that out sooner or later.

I have no doubt that the fact this writer had never read any screenplays before hurt his writing A LOT. Let me explain why.

I’m currently working with an actress who’s writing her first screenplay. It’s a true story about the birth of a particular tech industry. One of the issues she’s running up against is explaining the complicated world of that industry which is clear to her but foreign to us. So I sent her the Sam Bankman-Fried script I reviewed the other day, which did a lousy job of explaining its industry, in order to show her how the lack of properly conveyed exposition makes it hard for a reader to follow along.

It’s only when you experience writing weakness as a reader that it clicks for you what you have to demonstrate in your own scripts. How can you possibly understand how to keep someone interested in your story if you have never read a screenplay that’s kept your interest before? How can you ever understand how to keep someone from getting bored if you yourself have never been bored reading a screenplay before? How can you understand the rhythm of a screenplay if you’ve never been subjected to good screenplay rhythm? How can you know how much information the reader needs about your world if you’ve never read a script that effortlessly disseminates a lot of information?

You can’t just answer, “I can do that because I watch movies” because you’re not yet writing for a movie audience. You are writing for a reader. A series of readers must approve of your script before it can become a movie. So you have to be hip to THAT PERSON’S EXPERIENCE, not the audience member’s experience. And believe me, it’s a different ballgame. Movies are a passive experience. Reading is an ACTIVE experience. Or, to put it bluntly: Reading is harder than watching. So the bar for keeping the person engaged is higher.

I’m not saying you need to read as many scripts as I do. But you need to read at least a couple of scripts a month. Lucky for you, I have some reading material to pass on! I’m giving you four good scripts and two bad ones. You may be wondering why I’m including bad scripts. It’s because you need to know what types of things frustrate readers. You can’t write a good script unless you’ve been on the receiving end of a bad one. Because those are the scripts that drill into your head, “I’m going to make sure I never do that myself.”

Here are the scripts. Start your reading TODAY.

GOOD EXAMPLE #1
Title: After The Hunt
Logline: A Yale professor up for tenure must navigate a rape accusation from her most cherished student against another professor, who happens to be her best friend at the school.
Why I included it: This is considered to be the best script of the year so it’s definitely one you’ll want to check out.

GOOD EXAMPLE #2
Title: The Nowhere Game
Logline: Two young women are kidnapped, brought deep into the woods, given a head start, and then hunted down by their sadistic captor all for the pleasure of the online fans of “The Nowhere Game.”
Why I included it: This is a great example of how to write a script that reads quickly. Those tend to do well with readers because readers don’t have a lot of time.

GOOD EXAMPLE #3
Title: Dying for You
Logline: A low-level worker on a spaceship run by a dark god must steal the most powerful weapon in the universe to save his workplace crush.
Why I included it: This is one of my favorite scripts from last year. It’s really fun and effortless to read.

GOOD EXAMPLE #4
Title: Anaconda
Logline: A group of 40-something friends decide to remake their favorite film, Anaconda, in the real Amazon forest, only to learn that an actual giant Anaconda snake is out there.
Why I included it: I don’t love this script. But it’s a great example of how to come up with a fresh angle on an old property that the studios might get excited about if you pitched it to them. This film is being made with Paul Rudd and Jack Black. (More details on this project later)

BAD EXAMPLE #1
Title: Return to Sender
Logline: A woman who’s moved into a new home and is buying a lot of things from a giant delivery company learns that she is being used for a new delivery scam.
Why I included it: This script only got recognition because the writer directed a short that did okay. But the feature adaptation of that short is awful. Note how boring it is. Note how the story barely moves. Note how small the story feels. It’s an exercise in how easy it is to make it nearly impossible for the reader to turn the pages.

BAD EXAMPLE #2
Title: Star Blazers
Logline: A rag-tag group of space pirates come together to travel to a mysterious planet to retrieve a technology that will help them defeat the alien presence that has annihilated earth.
Why I included it: This is an old script that Hollywood never made. You can see that there’s not a single original idea in the script. It also takes waaaaay too long for the main plot to get started, a COMMON problem I see in screenplays, especially for newer scriptwriters.

It’s fine if you dislike any of the scripts I recommended here or like the ones I didn’t. The objective isn’t to have you mirror my taste. It’s to help you develop your own. Regardless of which side of the fence you end up on, take note of *WHY* you like something or *WHY* you don’t. That way, you can apply (or not apply) that same approach to your own material.

NOW TAKING SUBMISSIONS FOR “SEPTEMBER SCENE SHOWDOWN!”

This month’s showdown is a SCENE SHOWDOWN. I enjoyed the process of posting the first five pages of the Mega-Showdown finalists. So I thought I’d capitalize on that theme this month. Hence, we’re going to have a SCENE SHOWDOWN. Your scenes can be five full pages long and not a word more. Write the best scene possible, submit it to me, and I will post the best five entries on the site. Another reason I’m doing this is so as many of you can enter as possible. You can write a scene in a single day. So take advantage of this. Help me discover a writer who’s ready to blow up!

For the submission, it’s going to be a little tricky, cause it’s hard to write a title or a logline for a single scene. But the good news is, I’m going to read every scene that’s submitted. And I’ll be choosing on strength-of-scene rather than the title or logline. So do your best. Also, I’m going to give everyone 30 words to prep the scene if they want to. So, here are the submission details:

Title
Genre
Logline
Up to 30 words to prep the scene
PDF of scene (up to 5 pages long)
Send to: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

Deadline for entries is 10pm Pacific Time, Thursday September 26th!

AROUND TOWN

Mega-Showdown Winner, “Bedford” – The Scriptshadow Mega-Showdown winning script won me over just as it did the readers. It is a taut contained thriller in the vein of The Vast of Night. But it stirred quite a bit of controversy in the comments, with a lot of readers claiming it’s more of a stage-play than a film, since the majority of it takes place in one room and focuses on a single character. If the script were to be filmed, they argued, it would be boring because there’s nothing cinematic about it. It’s the age-old dilemma every aspiring screenwriter faces. The best way to get the most interest is to write something contained and low-budget. However, by doing so, you risk writing something static and boring. I, personally, think you could make a cool movie out of Bedford. Keep the camera moving when possible. Maybe get the hero out of the control tower a couple of times so that the location doesn’t get too stale. It was fun to see all the responses to the script. We haven’t had that spirited of a discussion about a screenplay in a long time. You can read the script for yourself here then head over and read my review!

Weird Anaconda Reimagining Somehow Going Forward at Sony – When I read this Anaconda reboot script, I thought it was a fun experiment but, by no means did I think they were going to make it. It was too weird – like something a couple of stoner college kids would write in between parties on Spring Break. But guess what? Sony’s actually going through with it! They’re signing Jack Black and Paul Rudd to play the leads, which certainly makes the project more enticing. For those who don’t know, the new Anaconda movie is going to follow a group of former aspiring filmmakers who loved the original Anaconda so much, they head to the jungle to film a low-budget version of the film in the hopes of selling it to Sony. Except they quickly learn that the giant anaconda snake is real! And it’s after them! Sony is obviously trying to do what they did with the Jumanji franchise. They took a sort-of popular movie from the past and reimagined it as a video game. So there’s some logic to the offbeat approach. But I’m just telling you – the script was really sloppy. It literally feels like the characters are making things up as they go along. If this movie is going to work, they will need to massively tighten up the story. Cause it’s a loosey-goosey premise as it is. When you add a casual narrative to a loosey-goosey premise, it has the potential to become a “What the fuck did I just watch” movie.

Worst Case Scenario – TJ Newman is back with her third big thriller book. For those who don’t know Newman’s journey, she’s the flight attendant who wrote a book in between serving passengers on transatlantic flights. She then sent her first book, Falling, to 40+ agents, all of whom rejected her. Until finally she landed one, which helped her secure a million dollar movie deal for the book. What I like about TJ is that she writes these high concept ideas as fast-moving thrillers. In that way, they mimic screenplays. This allows for quick and dirty reads that present the core concept in a digestible way. In other words, they’re easy for a producer to say ‘yes’ to. Newman said this idea – a plane crashing into a nuclear reactor – came to her because, in a search for story ideas, she asked all the pilots she knew what their biggest fear was. One of them said, that a terrorist not only hijacked their flight, but flew the plane into a nuclear reactor. Pro tip: Be ready for success like TJ Newman was. She wrote her second novel QUICKLY and, therefore, was able to take advantage of the buzz surrounding her first sale, grabbing a second flashy movie deal with “Drowning.” And she wrote this third book pretty fast as well. If you wait too long and a movie falls apart before production or the movie gets made and it sucks, you lose all that buzz, which makes it much harder to sell stuff. But if you can write more books and scripts BEFORE any of that happens, you can really cash in. That’s what Newman did.

 

Jurassic World Rebirth – Things have gotten so competitive in the content space that studios aren’t even waiting the minimum amount of time to reboot franchises anymore (that would be 5 years). They’re now trying to do it in 3 years! The last Jurassic World movie came out in 2022. This new one, starring Scarlett Johanssen, will come out in 2025 (funny enough, the setting for the new story will take place 5 years after the previous film). Here’s the premise: The three biggest dinosaurs have a genetic secret that will help save a bunch of human lives. So Scarlett must travel across the world and get DNA samples from these three rogue dinosaurs. But, in the process, she gets stuck on an island with them. Let’s be honest – it’s an uninspired, borderline clumsy, premise. You would think that if they were rushing to get this made, they’d have something sexier. But this feels like par for the course. It is interesting to note how Anaconda is rebooting itself in a risky way whereas Jurassic World is taking zero creative risks. There is a mystery as to what is on the island in this movie. It could be the long-rumored “Dino-humans” that found their way into earlier Jurassic Park sequel drafts. But I don’t think Dino-humans are going to cut it for audiences. This feels like a cash-grab and the stench of that greed is so thick, I’m anticipating nobody showing up for dinner.

Don’t Forget to Grab The Greatest Dialogue Book Ever Written!

This Labor Day, it’s time to finally improve your dialogue. I keep running into amateur scripts with weak or average dialogue. My dialogue book gives you specific instructions on how to add more flavor to your characters’ interactions. It’s just $9.99 and has over 250 dialogue tips in it. That’s 240 more than anybody else is going to give you. What are you waiting for!?

Book Review – Caught Stealing

Genre: Crime/Thriller
Premise: A baseball-loving lowlife agrees to cat-sit for his neighbor, inadvertently getting pulled into the seedy underworld of New York crime, where people will do anything to get the money they deserve.
About: This is uber-auteur Darren Aaronfsky’s (The Whale, Requiem for a Dream) latest project. It has a flashy cast list that includes “Elvis,” wannabe Oscar-winner Austin Butler, House of The Dragon’s Matt Smith, and borderline Hollywood royalty, Liev Schrieber. The writer, Charlie Huston, has written six books and tons of comics.
Writer: Charlie Huston
Details: about 250 pages

It’s always interesting to see which projects great directors, actors, and producers choose, as it’s a window into their decision-making process and, therefore, knowledge you can use if you ever get an opportunity to pitch them yourself.

But, with this one, there isn’t a lot of guesswork as to why Aronofsky chose it. His previous movie was all about a man glued to his chair (The Whale). This movie is all about a man who never stops moving. Whether Aronofsky was conscious of that radical shift or not, he obviously wanted to go in the opposite direction of “guy on chair.”

New York City. Hank is a professional drunk. He used to have a future as a major baseball prospect but nowadays, in his 30s, his only proximity to baseball is betting on it. After a particularly gnarly night of drinking, Hank is asked by his apartment neighbor, Russ, to take care of his cat while he’s gone. Hank thinks nothing of it and agrees.

The next day, after he feeds the cat, he moves the cat litter box and finds a key taped to the bottom of it. Hank shrugs and heads out to drink again. When he gets back, some Russian guys want to talk to him. They explain that they’re looking for his neighbor, Russ, and they really REALLY need to find him. Hank tells them the truth – he doesn’t know where his neighbor is or when he’ll be back – and they begrudgingly leave.

But the next day, the Russians come back, and this time they’re a lot less kind. They know Hank knows where Russ is as well as where the key is. Then they beat him up badly to let him know how much they need that key. Hank says fuck this and calls the cops. A policeman named Roman comes over. Asks him a bunch of questions. Roman says be more careful. And leaves.

The day after that, two large black men in cowboy attire show up and THEY want to know where the key is. They drive him around and rough him up in order to let him know how much they need that key. As soon as they’re gone, the Russians come back to beat Hank up some more. But this time, they bring Roman with them. Yes, Roman the Cop is working with the Russians.

Fun and games are over. If Hank doesn’t give them the key, they’re going to kill him. Okay fine, Hank says. I’ll get you the key. There’s only one problem – Hank hid the key when he was blackout drunk. So he doesn’t remember where it is. His best guess is at the bar he always hangs out at. But telling Roman that is a big mistake. They all head there and Roman’s men mow down everyone at the bar when they don’t offer up access to the key. This makes Hank the most wanted man in New York.

Just when things can’t get any weirder, Russ returns, finally providing clarity to the key’s importance. That key is for a storage unit that contains 4.5 million dollars. Hank will have to figure out how to push Russ out of this equation, get the money back to the bad guys so they’ll leave him alone, and oh yeah, get the cat back from Roman. Spoiler alert. IT’S NOT GOING TO BE EASY!

The one thing I’ll give Caught Stealing is that, once you read it, it’s impossible to get it out of your head.

It’s one of the most raw, visceral, intense, violent, things I’ve ever read. And it isn’t just the 50,000 punches thrown that you feel. It’s the limitless amount of alcohol being poured down our hero’s throat. It’s the devil-like screaming at Hank from every character he encounters. Even the anguish in this book feels like physical punishment.

But the story has a pretty glaring weakness. And while I believe that Aronofsky is the director best suited to tackle this weakness, I’m not convinced he can overcome it. That weakness is that the story is led by one of the most passive characters I’ve ever come across.

60% of this story is Henry getting his ass handed to him. He’s a punching bag. Again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

I suspect that’s the point. There’s some sado-masochist thing going on with Aronofsky where he wants to show someone get relentlessly beat up for 2 hours. I just don’t know if audiences are going to be able to handle it. Cause it’s so uncomfortably relentless!

But the passivity really bothered me. I’m trying to think of movies that have attempted this before. There was Equalizer 3. Denzel’s character sat back and waited most of the movie. But that was a unique situation in that we knew, from his two previous films, what he was capable of and that it was only a matter of time before he beat some ass.

And then there was Fury Road, where Mad Max gets thrown on the front of a truck for the first 45 minutes and doesn’t do anything. But he eventually got out and began kicking ass.

While it’s true that, once the midpoint hits, Hank starts becoming more active, I’m not sure it made up for the first half of the movie where the dude was just thrown around like a rag doll for an hour. I want you to imagine watching a friend of yours get beat up for 2 straight minutes. How painful would that be to watch? NOW MULTIPLY THAT BY 30! That’s what we see Hank go through.

I will say that we’re all looking to give audiences something fresh – something they haven’t seen already. One of the best places to do that is in your set pieces. If you can come up with three memorable set pieces, you’ve probably written a really good movie. And while there’s nothing outwardly original about the set pieces here, the sheer magnitude of violence on display acts as its own set piece. It’s very much “Resevoir Dogs ear-cut-off scene.” But imagine after that scene was over, you got another ear-cut-off scene, and another one, and another one. At what point, as a viewer, do you surrender!??

In that sense, Caught Stealing makes me think of early Quentin Tarantino with a healthy dose of Fight Club mixed in. I mean the budget for this film is going to see a quarter of it spent just on the Foley artists crafting the thirty-some variations of the sounds of skulls cracking.

Just like all of Aronofsky’s movies, when you see the trailer, it’s going to be different. You will note how you have not seen a movie like this before. Even Fight Club and Reservoir Dogs are not as violent as this film. So it’s going to stand out. But will that lead to people wanting to see the movie? I don’t know, man. It’s a tough call. I’m emotionally spent just reading it. I can only imagine the toll it will take on me watching it.

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

What I learned: We talk a lot about the midpoint shift in a story. It’s the thing you use to create a different SECOND HALF of the movie that doesn’t feel like the first half. Here, we have a very prominent midpoint shift. Russ (the neighbor), the one who’s responsible for all this, returns. So, whereas, before we had zero knowledge of what was going on, Russ’s entrance allows us to have ALL THE KNOWLEDGE. This changes everything for our hero and how he approaches the problem.