Search Results for: F word
Congratulations to Poe’s “The Man of A Few Words,” which won this weekend’s Dialogue Short Script Mini-Contest. He wins a First 10 Pages Consultation from me. Poe’s a longtime kick-ass commenter so make sure to congratulate him!
Genre: Black Comedy
Premise: (from Black List) When an out-of-work divorced mother stops taking the court-ordered medication that made her feel like a zombie, her brazenly immoral, fifteen-year-old imaginary friend appears to help get her life back on track.
About: You may not have heard of Turner Hay yet. He broke onto the scene a few years ago, taking 3rd place (with a different script) in the Samuel Goldwyn Writing Awards, which is a big deal. Past winners include Eric Roth and Francis Ford Coppola, and they always have great judges for the competition (Billy Wilder, James L. Brooks, and Denzel Washington). Hay then got on the bottom half of the 2016 Black List with this script.
Writer: Turner Hay
Details: 111 pages
I am done being Complainer Carson for the week!
I am not going to complain about Academy Award winning screenplays that don’t deserve Oscars. Nope. Not gonna happen anymore. I am putting Complainer Carson on the shelf next to the salt and pepper and vinegar. It’s not going to be a part of this meal.
Instead, I am only going to regale you with positive stories, affirmations if you will. For example, did you know that Best Picture winner Moonlight only had a budget of 1.5 million dollars? That’s the equivalent of showing up to McDonald’s and trying to buy an entire meal for a nickel. It’s a ridiculous accomplishment for a film with that tiny of a budget.
Just for comparison, La La Land? Which, itself, is considered to be “low-budget” by Hollywood’s standards. Their budget was 30 freaking million dollars.
Oh, and Manchester by the Sea? Okay, yes, I did not like it, true. But you know what I did like? Kenneth Lonergan’s first film, You Can Count On Me. Great film. So I know the dude can write. Which makes it even more confusing why Manchester was so ba— CARSON! NO! NO, COMPLAINER CARSON! You’re not allowed here. Back on the shelf!
Before I get into any more trouble with my evil twin, let’s check out today’s screenplay and pray that it’s good enough to keep my weekly positive buzz going…
37 year-old Ivy Lydecker suffers from schizophrenia. And it’s not good, folks. She kind of may have killed her mother 11 months ago. Who was also crazy by the way. And the courts decided there was enough wiggle room in their scuffle that Ivy is allowed to live her life, as long as she takes a little blue “make the voices go away” pill every day.
Unfortunately, that pill makes Ivy a zombie. And when you’ve got a teenage son to take care of and an ex-husband who’s trying to permanently wrestle him away from you, being dead to the world isn’t ideal.
And so Ivy stops taking her pill. Which is how we meet Chloe, her cool-as-shit 15 year old imaginary best friend. The two clearly have a storied past, and Ivy would like nothing more than for Chloe to disappear. But it’s clear that no-pill and yes-Chloe are a package deal. You don’t get one without the other.
Chloe jumps into action, helping Ivy with her goal: prove to the courts she’s capable of taking care of her son. So Ivy gets a new job at a Securities Exchange, she starts dating a hot new restauranteur who’s a decade younger than her. She’s moving, she’s shaking. Things are happening in her life.
Oh, until that guy she’s dating ends up dead. And since Ivy already has a kind-of murder in her portfolio, the police want to know just how much she and this dude hung out. As the mystery thickens, Ivy’s new perfect life starts to crumble, to the point where she has to make a permanent choice. Keep living this wild lifestyle with Chloe, or go full zombie on the blue pill forever.
Bitter Pill-like scripts are interesting case-studies.
On the one hand, they do well on the Black List. The Black List likes inventive black comedies with fucked up main characters. Even more so if they’re women. There was a similar great script a couple of years ago called, “Cake.”
On the other hand, these films never do well at the box office. Even by low-budget indie standards, they’re tough sells. Cake, for example, made all of 2 million dollars, with a well-known actress in the lead role.
But going back to the first hand, these scripts are great career starters, regardless of whether the movie does well or not, as they display a strength in the one area Hollywood needs screenwriters for – the creation of compelling memorable characters.
Remember that suits can come up with concepts. They can come up with plots. The better ones can even beat out an outline. But nobody can write great characters except for good screenwriters. So when you break into the industry with one of these scripts, you prove that you have a highly valuable skill. You are the Liam Neeson of screenwriting.
So what is it that makes Ivy a strong character? For one, she’s battling something. Just by introducing a character who is battling an inner conflict, you’ve made a character that’s more interesting than most of the characters out there.
Step two is that the character is sympathetic, but not in a forced way. This is an important one so pay attention. Ivy has a son that’s being taken away from her. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t want to root for a mom that’s losing her son.
However, that’s pretty much the only box that’s checked on Ivy’s sympathy card. Ivy is selfish. Ivy is self-serving. Ivy is malicious at times. So because we have aspects of Ivy’s personality that are both good and bad, we don’t feel like we’re being pandered to. It’s that nuance that gives the character more of a “realistic” quality.
I remember reading a review for Paul Blart: Mall Cop when it came out. The reviewer pointed out that the first half hour of the film was dedicated to giving Paul Blart over a dozen sympathetic qualities to MAKE SURE that the audience loved him. That’s what you don’t want to do. You want to balance it out.
Creating nuance with just the right amount of sympathy, combined with some inner conflict – that’s the beginnings of a great character there.
And another way to build up a character is to make their inner conflict actually matter. Or, to use a well-known screenwriting term, add HIGH STAKES to it. So in the case of Ivy’s schizophrenia, there are real stakes if it’s found that she’s not taking her pills. She could lose custody of her kid.
And the reason that matters is because when we see her around other people and Imaginary Chloe is chatting away, we know that if Ivy breaks the ruse and talks back, she’s done. Her whole world will come crumbling down. This adds tension and uncertainty to every scene Ivy’s in.
My one big criticism with Bitter Pill is that I wish Hay would’ve put as much effort into Chloe as he did with Ivy. We’re told that Chloe is the cool girl at high school you were always afraid to talk to. Yet she talked pretty much just like Ivy, except with a little more attitude.
We discussed dialogue just this Thursday and Friday and one of the things that came up was utilizing dialogue-friendly characters. Chloe could’ve been a dialogue superstar. You get to play with a 15 year-old girl with no filter in a black comedy? You had license to go nuts with her. Yet her dialogue was restrained.
Anyway, not a huge deal. The script was still good. Just needs another couple of drafts to meet its full potential.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: This is a fun little dialogue trick. As you know, sometimes the best response to a line of dialogue is nothing. But you still want to convey a reaction – a specific feeling in the air from the recepient of the previous line of dialogue. In these cases, instead of writing the full reaction in an action line, which never quite flows the way you want dialogue to, write their name off to the side, a colon, and their feeling. Hay shows you how to do it here.
A reminder that the deadline for the OFFICIAL SCRIPTSHADOW SHORT SCRIPT CONTEST, where the winner gets their script produced, is coming up soon! March 12th.
So keep working on your short scripts and get them in by then!
In the meantime, we’ll continue to practice with these mini-contests. Working off of yesterday’s dialogue article, this weekend’s Shorts Mini-Contest will tackle dialogue.
Your short script must contain three things.
1) At least one dialogue-worthy character.
2) A dialogue-worthy scene.
3) You not settling for average words, sentences, phrases.
Post your short in the comments (you can write the scene inside the comment itself or include a PDF link). Page count is open but I recommend staying under 7 pages. The winner will be determined by how many UPVOTES they get (Disqus allows you to upvote a comment – so please UPVOTE any short you really enjoy).
Contest ends Sunday at 10pm, around Oscar time.
Good luck to all. Now let’s see who’s the best dialogue writer on Scriptshadow!
I’m currently working with a writer on an understated psychological thriller. One of the issues in the script is that the dialogue is flat. Characters speak to move the plot along, offer information, reveal backstory, and occasionally tell us how they’re feeling. While this keeps the story moving, there’s a lifeless quality to the interactions that leaves too many scenes feeling empty.
I’ve poured over the script a number of times trying to figure out ways to spice up the dialogue before having an epiphany: Great dialogue cannot happen on its own. It requires great characters. Need proof? I want you to think of all the great dialogue you’ve heard in your life. Has there ever been an instance where a bland or uninspired character spouts great dialogue? Never, right?
This made me realize that the problem ran deeper than the interactions themselves. If the dialogue was going to get better, the characters would need to get better as well. But this brought up a secondary problem. Our psychological thriller was understated. Like the movie, “Room,” it wasn’t built for flash. Can you still write good dialogue within that environment? Or can good dialogue only exist inside flashier films?
DIALOGUE WORTHY CHARACTERS
A quick look through some of my favorite understated films confirmed my belief that good dialogue can exist anywhere. What I found is that, in all good understated films, the writer adds at least one “dialogue-worthy” character. “Dialogue-worthy” characters are characters who were born to spout dialogue. They’re the chatter-boxes, the brash, the “full of themselves,” the kooky, the flashy, the self-destructive, the bipolar, the hustlers, the preachy, the jokesters, the opinionated. Any personality type that lends itself to a lot of talking, or an interesting way of talking, is dialogue-worthy.
So if you look at the understated Hell or High Water, that movie has the crazy brother. He’s responsible for all the fun dialogue. If you look at the understated Room, you have the son. He’s the imaginative one who makes all the interesting observations. If you look at the understated Ex Machina, you have Nathan, the pompous opinionated CEO whose every word seems to be calculated to get a reaction.
So you can’t give yourself the excuse of, “Well, my movie is understated so I can’t have any flashy dialogue.” Not true. You can always fit a dialogue-worthy character into your setting. And that’s good news. Because while multiple dialogue-worthy characters are ideal (Rocky has five of them), all you need is one to make it work. That character’s dialogue will work as a line to fish good dialogue out of everyone else.
However, if you have no dialogue-worthy characters, if you have no one to introduce the spicy charged words that bring a scene to life, it’s like trying to make a fire without flint. You can fuck around with it as long as you want, rewrite the scene a million times over searching for that spark, but it won’t come because none of the characters were built to burn.
DIALOGUE WORTHY SCENES
Moving on, there’s another key component to good dialogue: DIALOGUE-WORTHY SCENES. A dialogue-worthy scene is a scene built to milk great dialogue out of the characters. The essential ingredient to these scenes is… say it with me now… CONFLICT.
There are two main types of dialogue-worthy conflict. There’s on-the-surface conflict and underneath-the-surface conflict. I’ll give you an example of both using a movie I just saw, The Edge of Seventeen, about a teenage girl who’s struggling to find friends and acceptance in high school.
In one scenario, Nadine’s best friend chooses to date her brother over being friends with her. Whenever Nadine confronts this friend, the conflict plays out on the surface, of the “I can’t believe you’d do that” variety.
Nadine also lost her father five years ago and her mom refuses to talk about it. So while she and her mom get into a bunch of disagreements about school and life, the real conflict is playing out under the surface, with Nadine upset that her mom never talks about her dad anymore.
So, to be clear, if you do not have both of these things working for you in a scene, it will be very hard to write good dialogue. You can try. But it will always feel like you’re forcing it. The characters won’t sound like themselves because they’re not acting like themselves. They’re desperately trying to sound like people who say interesting things because the person writing them wants to write “good dialogue.”
FLASHY DIALOGUE
Now that we’ve got that down, let’s talk about the final step. The words themselves. How to be Sorkin. How to be Tarantino, Hughes, Allen, Mamet. This, my friends, is where the rubber meets the road. Crisp flashy dialogue that pops off the page is the single most talent-dependent skill there is in screenwriting. Some writers just have a better feel for how people speak than others. Some writers are funnier than others, more clever than others, have a bigger vocabulary than others. These writers have an advantage over the rest of us. But fear not. I’ve just given you two HUGE tips in writing great dialogue that 99% of writers out there are clueless to. So you have the foundation to your dream home. Now let’s talk about furnishing it.
The first rule of writing flashier in-scene dialogue is to stop accepting average. If you accept average words, average phrases, answers, sentences, etc, you will never write exciting dialogue. It’s your job, as a writer, to dress things up a bit. To think beyond the obvious. Sure, anything a character says must remain in character. A by-the-book nun isn’t going to dish out lines like, “Shit motherfucker. And here I thought you were turnt.” But as we’ve discussed, you should’ve designed as many of your characters as possible ahead of time to deliver interesting dialogue.
Let’s try this out. Say your hero, BOB, a barista, is serving a girl he sees come in every day that he likes, JANE. Here’s their exchange…
BOB: Hey, how are you today?
JANE: I’m feeling okay. How bout you?
BOB: Just trying to make it to my next 10 minute break.
JANE: When is that?
BOB: In 30 minutes.
JANE: Well, good luck.
BOB: Thanks.
How boring is that fucking dialogue? Ugh. I want to throw up just looking at it. Let’s make a few changes here based on what we’ve learned. For starters, we’re going to make Bob dialogue-worthy. He’s a chatterbox. Doesn’t know when to shut up. Also, to add the necessary conflict, Jane doesn’t like Bob. She thinks he’s weird. On top of this, we’re not going to settle for average dialogue. Let’s see what that does to our scene.
BOB: Hey, how’s it going, you look nice today, wow, new phone? I love new phones. I got a new phone last year. I should probably get another one. The screen just cracked on mine and I can barely see anything on it. First world problems, amirite?
JANE: (stares at Bob, weirded out) Uh, can I get a coffee?
BOB: I sure hope so, (leans in and whispers, conspiring tone) Seeing as we’re in a coffee shop. By the way, just got a new roast in. Ethiopian. Supposed to be amazing. I haven’t tried it yet but Jerry says it’s killer.
JANE: I don’t know “Jerry.” Can I just get my coffee? Black.
BOB: Ooh, old school. I like that. (holds up hand for a high-five. she ignores it) I’ve been telling Jerry for months that we need to get rid of all these frappes and lappes. Keep it pure. Like the Ethiopians.
JANE: Right. So… can I pay now?
You may not be totally onboard with my weird sense of humor but I think we can all agree that the second iteration of this dialogue is a lot better than the first. And all I did was a) add a dialogue-worthy character, b) add a dialogue-worthy scene, and c) I didn’t settle for average. Following those three rules alone is going to lead to MUCH better dialogue overall.
The final final thing I want to talk about is distinction – creating the specific manner in which a character speaks. This specificity is what’s going to set him or her apart from every other person on the planet. Have you ever met somebody in real life and thought, “That guy’s a character.” That’s what we’re going for. We’re trying to create CHARACTERS. And that means doing a little prep work. Below are the six main variables that will bring out the best dialogue that character is capable of expounding.
Region – What region is your character from? If they’re from the South, they might speak in a slow friendly drawl. If they’re from New York, they might speak fast and loud. If they’re from a farm in flyover country, they might speak softly. Of course, you can flip all these on their head (a Southern man who speaks fast and loud) but use region as a starting point.
Socio-Economic Background – Someone who’s grown up in a rich suburb and had the highest form of education imaginable will speak differently from someone who grew up on the streets.
Slang – Slang is one of the key attributes to creating good dialogue. Whether it’s Rocky with his “Yose,” Vince Vaungh in Swingers with his “beautiful babys” or a teenage girl referring to everything in hashtags and acronyms. Slang can be your best dialogue friend.
Vocabulary – This is a subset of socio-economic background, but it’s important to know if your character has a huge vocabulary or a tiny one. A lot of the best dialogue comes from an extensive vocabulary or a colorful vocabulary. So vocabulary-rich characters are good. Also, know that you can go against type. Will Hunting was a street kid who had a bigger vocabulary than half the Harvard students he interacted with.
Speech pattern – Does a character speak a million miles a minute or does he take his time?
Speech frequency – Does a character carefully pick and choose when he speaks or does he burst into the conversation all the time?
Disposition – Is your character arrogant, like Steve Jobs? Is he bumbling, like Jack Sparrow? Is he cocky, like Han Solo? Charming, like Rocky? Philosophical, like Obi-Wan Kenobi? Is he cruel, like Scrooge? Is he idealistic, like Jerry Maguire? Disposition will have a big influence on what your character says and how he says it.
And there you have it. You want your dialogue-worthy character. You want your dialogue-worthy scene. You want to push yourself to write dialogue that’s more exciting than the basic words people usually say. And, finally, you want to use specific minutia to elevate the individual words, phrases, and sentences into something flashy.
I hope you enjoyed today’s article because this weekend, you’ll be writing short scripts that focus on dialogue. More on that tomorrow. See you then!
Congratulations to Dean B for the big win this weekend with his short script, ASS LOLS (rhymes with “Assholes”), about an Adam Sandler pitch gone bad. Or good! He wins a free First 10 pages Consultation with me. Stay tuned as I’m anticipating this upcoming weekend’s Miniature Short Script Contest to be the best yet!
Genre: Science Fiction
Premise: An aging American working as a United Nations worker in Bucharest learns that his building is a front to hide a porthole that leads to another world, identical to our own.
About: Today’s pilot script comes from Justin Marks (The Jungle Book), a writer who’s built his brand on big ideas, allowing him to move into those high-paying mainstream screenwriting jobs that buy houses up in hills. Marks introduces the Starz network (Power, The Girlfriend Experience, American Gods) to their first science-fiction show. The project was flashy enough to nab Oscar winning actor, JK Simmons, for the lead.
Writer: Justin Marks
Details: 53 pages (2015 draft)
Every time they do the Oscar thing here in Hollywood, they close down all the streets that are anywhere near the Oscars. Which would be fine by me… IF ONE OF THOSE STREETS WASN’T THE STREET THAT IN ’N OUT WAS ON!!! By closing down In ’N Out street, the Oscars closes down a porthole to happiness. And that isn’t acceptable. So if you see someone holding up a sign outside the red carpet this weekend that reads, “#OscarshatesInNOut, you’ll have a good idea who it is.
Meanwhile, we’re in pilot frenzy mode, with fresh pilots flying off screenwriters’s laptops every couple of minutes. As writers have accepted the reality that unless they write a biopic, Hollywood doesn’t give a shit about their stupid feature spec, they’ve come over to the side of the business that actually makes people money. Unless you’re Justin Marks of course, who, after this pilot airs, will be pulling down money from both sides.
Counterpart takes place in modern-day Romania and follows Howard Silk, a 50-something American who works at the Office of Interchange, which I believe is some sort of United Nations outlet. Doesn’t matter really. Howard’s job is as boring as it sounds. He walks into a government building every day, meets with a few people, writes a few things down, goes home, wash, rinse, repeat.
It’s gotten so fucking depressing that Howard begs his bosses for a promotion. But Howard is seen as a weakling, a nobody with zero people skills. As his boss puts it, “It’s been sixteen years, man. If it were going to happen? It would have happened.”
If that sounds bad, Howard’s personal life isn’t going much better. The love of his life, Emily, has been in a coma for six months after getting whacked by a motorcycle while crossing the street. Emily’s dickhead brother keeps flying to Bucharest to convince Howard to let the family have Emily back so they can pull the plug on her. And Howard is about to concede.
That’s when everything changes.
Howard comes to work one day to find that his normally dismissive boss needs him immediately. Howard’s placed in a room until another man enters. That man… is Howard. But this Howard seems bigger, stronger, more confident. One might say he’s everything Howard wishes he could be.
That’s when Howard’s hit with shocking news. This government faction he works for is a front to hide a porthole that connects our world with another one. This other world is similar to ours in almost every way, with tweaks here and there. For example, Howard is a lower level management nobody in our world, but a top level superstar agent in the other.
Howard 2 informs us that there’s an agent who’s crossed over to our side and is assassinating people. In order to capture this agent, Howard 2 will need to start operating in our world. As a byproduct of this, Howard 1 will need to be upgraded into a top-level agent in order to provide a believable cover for Howard 2’s involvement. This means that Howard will finally get that promotion he’s so desperately wanted.
But what does this mean for a man who’s spent his entire life being overlooked? Will he be able to convincingly portray this new persona? Or will it be a case of, be careful what you wish for?
Counterpart embraces some good old Scriptshadow principles, primarily that if you want to get actors interested, give them dual roles to play, with each role being the polar opposite of the other (JK Simmons gets to play a meek weakling and a badass boss, all in the same show!). This was smart move numero uno by Justin Marks.
Also, Marks is very aware that this is a television show and not a movie. For that reason, despite its flashy sci-fi core, Counterpart is about character. The pilot is more focused on the flaws in Howard’s character (he’s a weakling who doesn’t stick up for himself) than some expensive sci-fi plot with hover-bikes chasing aliens.
You always have to keep that in mind with television. It’s why they could make a big sci-fi idea like “V” twenty years ago. The producers knew that the “aliens” would be in human form 90% of the time, which meant no big-budget effects.
Think about it. Whenever you try and stretch science fiction or fantasy and you don’t have an HBO budget? It looks cheesy. Go watch any episode of Fox’s Minority Report or APB to see what I mean. So stuffing these high-concept sci-fi ideas inside of these low-budget delivery capsules is the secret sauce for coming up with a sci-fi show. Or, at least, one that has a chance of getting on the air and not embarrassing itself.
That’s not to say there’s no plot in Counterpart, however, or that there aren’t things happening. The things that are happening are just doable. So here, we have an assassin running around killing people. This is a best-of-both-worlds scenario because it’s a legitimate problem that provides a compelling plot. Yet, again, it costs nothing to implement.
On top of all of this, Counterpart is the rare science fiction idea that feels unique. No time travel. No robots. While the concept’s core is somewhat familiar (a parallel world), I’ve never seen it explored in this way before – a “Cold War” like conflict that occurs within a government agency. That’s what you’re always looking to do, guys. Take that familiar element and explore it in an unfamiliar way.
The only issue I had with the pilot was the third act, which was built around Howard 2 getting to see his wife again, even if just in coma form. In his world, his wife died four years ago from cancer. So this is a profound moment for him. But all I kept thinking was, “I don’t know Howard 2. Wouldn’t this work better if Howard 1’s wife had died of cancer four years ago and he got to cross over into Howard 2’s world and see her again, alive?” It would’ve been a lot more emotional since we know Howard. Who cares if Stud Howard gets some time to see his wife again? His life fucking rocks regardless.
But I suppose it’s a minor nitpick. Also, there’s a twist at the very end that changes some of that. All in all, this was both a smart idea and a smart way to circumvent the low-budget requirements of television. I still don’t know if anyone watches Starz. But maybe they will once Counterpart airs.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you’re interested in high concept material, make sure you consider your idea’s “delivery capsule” before you start writing. A delivery capsule is everything the audience will see onscreen. If you have period piece settings and monsters and swords and sandals and tons of characters and locations, a la Game of Thrones, you only have a couple of places to pitch to (HBO and Netflix). But if your delivery capsule is modern day Bucharest with zero special effects, you can pitch that to any network on television, which increases your chance for a sale.
Congrats to Mini-Shorts Contest winner, Nick Morris, for his short script, “DO NOT OPEN” It’s a fun little exercise in suspense. Nick wins a First Ten Pages consultation from me. I enjoyed doing this so much, we’re going to do another one next weekend. Stay tuned!
Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from Black List) When futuristic technology renders the Federal Witness Protection Program obsolete, the U.S. Government begins using Time Travel to hide high-profile witnesses in the past. When a security breach occurs, a U.S. Marshal and her witness struggle to find their way back to the Present Day while evading assassins.
About: Writer Mark Townend has been writing and directing shorts for over 15 years. He recently had his biggest break yet, adapting Anthony Bordain’s novel, “Bone In The Throat.” That got him some attention, which allowed this spec to get in front of a lot more eyes, which helped it make the Black List, with 8 votes.
Writer: Mark Townend
Details: 106 pages
Grrr…
An unexpectedly busy weekend has kept me from baring witness to 200 blood-splattering murders.
I’m speaking, of course, about my inability to get over to Arclight and watch me some John Wick 2! I wanted to see dogs being kidnapped, John Wick getting angry, perfectly choreographed kills, and a Keanu Reeves and Lawrence Fishburne reunion dammit!!
Instead I was stuck staring at a computer screen all weekend.
So to say that I’m angry is a goose-down-filled-pillow of an understatement, muchacho. I knew, under such circumstances, that any script I reviewed had little chance with me. So I needed to tilt the odds in the script’s favor.
That meant NO BIOPICS!
It meant NO TRUE STORIES!
You guys know by now that when I want to be entertained, I need a good old fashioned high concept science-fiction script, like the kind they used to send out five times a week in this town!
Why am I using so many exclamation points!
I don’t know!
On to the plot summary!
It’s the year 2033. Manhattan. Katherine Teller is a US Marshall and a member of one of the most cutting edge projects of the time – Operation Bygone.
You see, in the future, it’s impossible to hide. Every step you take, every whisper you make, is recorded somewhere, logged to something, GPS’d to somewhere, and anybody with half-a-brain can download a hack-pack and find you.
This means that protecting criminals waiting to testify against high-profile gangstas is impossible. Well, it was impossible. Operation Bygone allows us to time travel into the past. A U.S. Marshall escorts the testifier into the past somewhere, where they hang out until the trial, then jump back to the present when it’s time.
Nick Prentis is a medium-level white collar criminal. When he’s caught for pulling a Jordan Belforte, the government tells him they don’t want him. They want the guy he reports to, top dog Leon Vasseur.
Nick reluctantly agrees to testify against Vasseur and is sent back to the year 1972 with Katherine. While at first everything seems fine, a mysterious tough guy named Corbin finds out where Nick and Katherine are staying and attacks.
This sends Nick and Katherine on the run, where they realize there must be a mole in the system. They ditch their trackers and enact the contingency protocol, a secondary system that only Katherine knows the location of. If they can get to it, they can get back to the future. If they can’t, they’ll be stuck here. With Corbin. And Corbin doesn’t like company.
One of the reasons they don’t make these movies anymore is because we no longer live in a high-concept driven marketplace. Audiences have moved on to SPECTACLE as the driving force behind their ticket-buying choices.
We can get plenty of high-concept stuff at home. Like the show I’m watching now, Utopia, about an unreleased comic book that has the potential to dismantle society. Very high concept, but devoid of spectacle.
Does this mean that high concept is dead? Of course not. High concept is still better than low or no concept, as it will create curiosity, which in turn gets people to theaters. The difference is that these movies can’t be bad anymore. They have to have the execution that backs up the concept. And most writers either don’t know how to do that, or don’t want to put in the work to do it. They figure, “My concept’s good, so I don’t need to nail the execution.”
In other words, the market doesn’t allow movies like Face/Off to do well anymore.
Anything that isn’t spectacle-driven needs to be really good. Because word-of-mouth is the only thing that’s going to give these movies legs. A perfect example is Hidden Figures. That movie should not have done well by any box office metric standards, and yet it’s made over 100 million dollars.
So where does this leave Contingency Protocol? The script is pretty good. I don’t know if it crosses into “very good” territory though, which is where you need to be to have a successful film in this genre.
My whole question whenever I read a script like this is, “Does it exploit its concept?” Is it building its characters, its scenes, and its plot around the uniqueness of the idea?
For example, you have several chase scenes here through 1972 New York. Okay. But you could have a chase scene through New York in 2033. How are you taking advantage of your concept by writing that scene? It just being a different time period isn’t enough.
In Deja Vu, the highest selling spec script of all time, and a concept that also covers two time periods, they have a car chase where our hero, who’s in the PRESENT but wearing goggles that allow him to see into the PAST, is chasing a car from the past. There’s no car physically in front of him. He can only see it through the glasses. That’s a chase that takes advantage of its concept.
And that’s not to say that every scene needs to do that. But enough scenes need to do it so that it feels like you’re taking advantage of your concept. This is why Back to the Future is the gold standard in time travel high concept. There isn’t an element in the script that DOESN’T take advantage of its concept.
With that said, as Contingency Protocol goes on, we start to see more of a connection between the past and the present THROUGH THE CHARACTERS. There’s this whole plotline where Katherine’s future family is threatened by the fact that her husband’s grandfather is an ignorant cop who’s been assigned to stop them. If she hurts him, she completely alters her future.
There’s also the mystery of, “Who’s the mole?” I wanted to know who was selling these guys down the river. It’s funny how just one intriguing mystery can keep a reader turning the pages.
That kept me engaged enough to want to get to the end. Combined with the old school high concept premise, it placed Contingency in ‘worth the read’ territory. But I think if it’s going to be the kind of movie people recommend to others, it has to go deeper into its world and exploit its concept a lot more.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Could the scenes you’re writing take place in any other movie? If your scene feels too interchangeable, then you’re either not exploiting the uniqueness of your concept or the uniqueness of your characters. The opening of La La Land is a good example. Anybody can write a scene where the main character is stuck in his car, bumper to bumper traffic, going to be late for work or just wants to get home. I’ve seen that scene a million times before. But I haven’t seen all the characters all of a sudden step out of their cars and start singing and dancing. That’s a scene that’s specific to the concept of La La Land.