Genre: TV Pilot – Action/Apocalypse/Martial-Arts
Premise: A century after the fall of society, a large swath of land known as The Badlands is being fought over by bands of gangsters. Gangsters who know kung-fu.
About: AMC has only ordered three shows straight to series. Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead, and this one. The show comes from the unlikely duo of Al Gough and Miles Millar, who created Smallville, a very successful show, but not traditionally one that gets the ultra picky execs at AMC to go green-light crazy. It must have been the pitch of the season. The show is slated to come out this fall.
Writers: Al Gough & Miles Millar
Details: 59 pages

It’s Tuesday which means it’s Carson TV recap day. I finished House of Cards Season 3 this weekend and… wow. Can somebody tell me what in the Declaration of Independence happened to that show? What had previously been a masterfully crafted political expose about Machevellian manipulation covering a half-dozen captivating storylines devolved into a plodding mist of unfocused yuckiness.

You turn your ruthless main character – the whole reason we watched the show! – into a sniveling cajones-less whiner? You focus on macro plot elements devoid of drama (Will Russia be our friends??)? You change your minds throughout the season (Frank’s not running for president. Oh wait, yes he is!)? And you destroy the one relationship we love above all else – Frank and Claire? I think I speak for the people of America when I say: What the hell were you thinking???

The thing is, I’m actually a little relieved. The previous two seasons were so well written they made writing look near-impossible. If this was the standard amateur writers were being held to, they had no shot at breaking in. The way the show would deftly pay off in episode nine something it had set up in episode two showed just how much thought and effort went into the construction of this saga. Every single storyline and character had bite, had a point, had a say in the bigger picture. Shakespeare himself would’ve had a tough time making this writing staff. To see all that come crumbling down like – sorry, but I have to say it – a “house of cards,” proves just how difficult this craft is. There is no secret pill. Nothing comes easy. If you want to write something great, you must continue to work your butt off and push yourself.

Looking at the situation a little closer gives us more insight into what may have happened here. House of Cards was originally picked up for two seasons. It’s no surprise, then, that they wrote two seasons worth of great material. The third season was the first season they had to write on the fly. And that may be why they couldn’t even write their own John Hancock. I have more respect than ever for TV writers now, as House of Cards proves how difficult it is to keep the campaign afloat. The writers of Breaking Bad, Lost, The Good Wife – keeping the story compelling for that long and with that kind of consistency is a huge coup. Let’s hope House of Cards learns from its mistakes and rebounds for Round 4.

Speaking of good writing, there’s no other network that cares more about writing than AMC. They’ve been chastised for their gladiator style “bake-off” contest where in-development scripts battle for a shot on the channel’s roster. But what’s wrong with a little healthy competition, no? The channel has been aching for another apocalypse show (they wrote another one which I liked quite a bit – but it ultimately ended up being too weird for them), and this genre-friendly horse looks to be who they’re putting their money on. Let’s see if it’s worth the bet.

Who knows how long ago society crumbled? It doesn’t matter to these men. All that matters is the area known as the Badlands, a large expanse of dirt disputed by a handful of feudal-like lords known as Barons. The one we follow, a man named Quinn, is getting ready to transfer his town over to a new leader, either his temperamental biological son, Ryder, or his adopted son, Sunny.

It is Sunny who is out in the Badlands one day, checking on a slave transport Quinn sent out earlier, when he finds that everyone in the transport has been slaughtered. Sunny tracks down the rival gang who did it, and learns that, for some reason, they saved a single teenage boy (M.K.). In an epic martial arts battle, Sunny takes down the gang all by himself.

He then takes M.K. back to town and places him in the Clipper program, a training ground for the town’s soldiers. Meanwhile, the town prepares for Quinn’s third marriage (polygamy in the future baby!) but Quinn’s given bad news that night. He’s got cancer. This means he’ll have to transfer his kingdom over sooner than he wants.

When Ryder gets this information, he knows he has a job to do. The only way he’s taking over the town is if he takes down Sunny. But he’ll have to do so in the shadows. He can’t risk being seen killing the chosen one. Public Relations 101.

The increasingly mysterious M.K. escapes town and is captured by Quinn’s rival, a ruthless woman named “The Widow,” bequeathed her position by killing her husband and all her children. Sunny and Ryder will need to work together to take The Widow down, but they’re surprised when it’s actually M.K. who saves the day. This is just the beginning of what will surely be an epic battle to control… the Badlands.

Let me start off by mentioning the action-writing style here, which was very unique. Typically, fight scenes are written in short staccato-like clips to keep the eyes moving down the page quickly – mirroring the pace of the fight.  But these guys write in much bigger 5-6 line chunks, breaking them up with a single word, usually the name of a character (that the camera is focused on) before moving on to the next chunk.

 It’s not something I’m used to but it was strangely pleasing. The blocks of writing were all so uniform, they created a balance to the page that grew on me. I’m not sure I would recommend anyone else trying this, but it worked in this case.

On the story side, Badlands uses a formula that’s been growing in popularity. We have the leader of an empire who’s getting ready to pass his empire down to someone new. This is the perfect plot point for a TV show because it packs a one-two-punch into the story’s longevity. The first season is about the young guys jockeying for position to take over the job (in this case, Ryder and Sunny) and the second season is the aftermath of the takeover.

Both situations can fill a season’s worth of material (of course, if you’re smart, you can extend it to three seasons by having the cancer go into remission for the current leader, allowing him to keep his spot for season 2) which is great. You’ve seen what happens when you don’t have a clear plan for a season (ahem, House of Cards). They’re doing this exact same thing on Empire and, if I remember correctly, they’re doing something similar with the FX show, Tyrant, as well.

Another teachable moment is how the writers handle the martial arts. Many amateur writers coming into this situation would have focused solely on writing great martial arts action scenes. Gough and Millar know that the martial arts scenes, just like the zombies in The Walking Dead, are secondary. They mean nothing unless you set up a compelling world first.

So this pilot sets up the mythology (the rules for the Badlands), it sets up Quinn’s town and how it operates, and it sets up the key relationships, such as the conflict between Sunny and Ryder and the bitter head-butting between Quinn’s multiple wives. These are the things you want to focus on when you’re writing a pilot. Not the action. Sure, you’ll write action scenes, but they’ll emerge naturally from the storyline.

Badlands is a pretty solid script. My only fear is that it may be too simplistic. JJ Abrams would not be a fan, as the number of mystery boxes here is limited. When I finish a pilot, I like to have 4 or 5 unanswered questions to look forward to. This script really only has one – the mystery of M.K. It feels like they could’ve gone a little further than that. Nonetheless, it’s a good pilot.

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

What I learned: I don’t know if this lesson is specific to AMC or not. But it’s worth noting if you’re writing a pilot. I asked myself, why is it that AMC passed its beloved bake-off competition with Badlands and gave it only the second straight-to-series order for an original show in the channel’s history? The answer is the same reason that they greenlit The Walking Dead straight-to-series. Gough and Millar took a genre that’s been popular in the feature world but is yet to be translated into a television series – the martial arts flick. That was really smart. So if there’s a movie genre out there that’s never been turned into a TV show before, you might want to scout it out and see if it’s ready for a transition.

Hey everyone, Carson here.  I’m out of the office today (found an amazing script and helping the writer get representation!) so I’m putting up a guest article from my friend, Phil Taffs.  Phil is someone who has tried and been frustrated with the screenwriting game.  After seeing all these book authors become superstars, both in the literary and film world, he decided to give novel writing a shot, and has finished his first book, The Evil Inside.  I asked him to share his experience so here it is.  Don’t worry.  I’m not telling you to stop writing screenplays (case in point, finding that screenwriter above).  I do think, however, that writers should keep all avenues open.  Especially since I just read a GREAT novel which I’ll be reviewing Wednesday.  In the meantime, here’s Phil!

Why not turn your screenplay into a novel?

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know: There’s a certain inevitable cookie cutter-dom that comes with writing – then trying to sell – your precious screenplay.

Cue Nazi Commandant accent: “IT MUST HAVE: 120 pages; present tense; snappy (and now often ho-hum wise-ass) dialogue; 3 distinct Acts; clear character arcs; broad brushstrokes scene-setting…”

As you know – from all those hundreds of screenwriting books you’ve read and dozens of seminars you’ve attended – it’s a “formula”. And with all those baking instructions, it’s very hard to make your screenplay turn out any different, better or tastier than any other screenplay in your genre.

And unless you have a high-powered agent or a ton of studio contacts, getting past first base is far from a sure thing. 

So here’s a wild thought: could your hot new (but indistinguishable) screenplay become a hot new novel instead?

For a start, with a novel, length can be as long or as short as a piece of string: from 1400 battle-scarred pages of War & Peace to the short and savage In the Cut or Less than Zero. From the doorstop Dystopia of The Passage to the lightweight but still heavy-hitting 1984 or Bright Lights, Big City.

Then within those highly flexible pages, you can write whatever you goddamn want! If you’ve already developed a good story for your screenplay, why not let it out of its 120-page cage and encourage it to roam free and frolic?

Because if you’re writing a novel, you can now extend and embellish those descriptions; deepen and refine your characterizations; play more games with your plot; (like introducing some more nifty sub-plots); key in more surprises and/or suspense; indulge in a little more lyricism; and in general just feel a whole lot more liberated and open-minded about your story.

Tired of living in the eternal present tense of your screenplay? In a novel, you can play around with the present, the past, the future, the pluperfect, future perfect, the imperfect…. The novel is a time machine and it’s heaps of fun to pull the levers up and down.

As long as you have a great story – this is the key – then with some extra effort and ingenuity – it’s possible to skin it either way: as a script or a novel.

(Or maybe even something else again: Baz Luhrman’s Strictly Ballroom was a hit play in 1984, a great film in 1992 and now it’s a super-successful 2015 musical.)

As the brilliant novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter John Irving said: writing is rewriting. The more you’re thinking about and refining your story, the better it will get.

No matter what form it ends up in.

What’s to lose?

You already have your screenplay – it’s not going anywhere.

So you can still try to sell that while turning it into a novel. And while you’re working on the novel, you’ll probably think of ways of improving your story that you can then also retrofit back into your screenplay as you go along… It’s a win-win.

Two years ago, Australian writer, Graeme Simsion, wrote a comic screenplay called ‘The Rosie Project’ – about an eccentric university professor who takes a left-field approach to finding love.

He decided to refashion it into a novel. The publisher sold world rights for $1.8 million dollars, Bill Gates gave it a blurb and Sony Pictures have just optioned it.

Like his character, Simsion’s left-field approach has paid off big-time.

A novel will become your calling card.

If you do manage to write and get a novel published then that’s going to help you sell your next screenplay.

Because hey, unlike all the other wannabe hacks out there, this guy/girl has actually written a book! So they must know about story. So it’s probably worth reading their new script as well…

With a novel under your belt, you immediately sound more impressive and credible than the thousands of other screenwriters you’re competing against.

So your next script is far more likely to get read and noticed.

Change horses for the hell of it.

You’ve already written one or a number of scripts – you know what that feels like.

Got a great new story idea? This time, why not try writing it as a novel instead?

Just for the experience. Just for the hell of it.

Even if the novel doesn’t pan out, you can always refashion it into a screenplay. Think of it as a longish first draft!

Writing a novel is great practice for scene-setting – always important for your future screenplays.

You might write a scene or sub-plot that becomes a whole other script.

It’s all good practice.

Grist for your artistic and commercial mill.

How I did it 

Now I’m not for one second suggesting that writing a novel is any easier than writing a screenplay. And it’s definitely not any quicker.

The average length of a script is 95-125 pages whereas the average length of a novel is 80,000 – 95,000 words – or 300 to 400 pages.

That’s a whole lot of extra words, scenes, characters, themes, issues, challenges, and complexities to deal with.

Not to worry: the more you write, the better you’ll get – whether you’re working on a novel or your next script… again – what’s to lose?

The road to getting my novel published is a story in itself: I began writing my psych-horror ‘The Evil Inside’ in 2003. After writing more than ten separate drafts, I was rejected by more than 70 publishers across three continents.

In desperation, I decided (kicking and screaming) to self-publish. After selling all of 30 copies to family and friends, I invested USD $425 in getting an independent Kirkus Review. (Even though you pay for the review, they are very well-respected because the reviews are more often critical than praiseworthy.)

The gods must have been smiling: I got a great review and used that as ammunition to approach a new batch of British publishers. One of whom – Quercus, publishers of the famous ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ series – took the bait and signed me up.

Now of course your road to publication will undoubtedly be different to mine. But there are a few handy hints you can draw from my experience:

1 Think laterally: you’re very unlikely to get picked up by the first, tenth or even hundredth publisher you submit to.

2 Follow up any lead you get from anyone: determination is the bedfellow of luck.

3 Never, ever give up.

4 Never, ever give up. (That’s really worth repeating.)

No less a luminary than Cate Blanchett suggested I turn ‘The Evil Inside’ into a screenplay instead as I was still writing it…

But I have to tell you: the Elf Queen was wrong. As an unknown quantity as a writer, that screenplay would never have got up…whereas my novel is now selling solidly across a number of continents.

And now US producers are considering it.

Sorry I gotta go: I hear the phone ringing…

Philip Taffs has worked as an advertising copywriter in his native Australia for over twenty years. — He is a PEN prize-winning short story writer, and lives in Melbourne with his wife and his two sons. — The Evil Inside published by Quercus Books UK is his first novel.

Genre: Drama-Thriller
Premise: A wife and mother finds herself forced to rob banks to save her family.
About: Matt Reeves has been writing for longer than you probably know. Most moviegoers place the start of the Reeves era at the arrival of Cloverfield, one of the most famous “out of nowhere” movies the geek world has ever seen. But did you know that Reeves wrote Under Siege 2: Dark Territory in 1995, a full 13 years before Cloverfield? He also wrote on Felicity, which, of course, was a JJ Abrams show, and how the two would eventually team up for Cloverfield. Reeves would later go on to write and direct the remake of Let the Right One In, and most recently directed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The Invisible Woman is supposed to be a passion project of his, and something he wrote all the way back in 2007. He claims to still want to make it, but when you’re being paid millions to direct some of the biggest movies in Hollywood, it’s hard to stop the money train to make an intimate character piece. So we shall see.
Writer: Matt Reeves
Details: 116 pages (April 14, 2007 draft)

Halle Berry for Carol?

I meant to go see “Kumiko: The Treasure Hunter” this weekend, about the woman who thinks “Fargo” was real and that there really is a hidden bag of money somewhere in Minnesota, so she goes searching for it. But when push came to shove, my in-between-work obsession with House of Cards took precedence. Outside of Breaking Bad and The Good Wife, I can’t think of a show where the writing is more consistent. Every single episode is good – not easy to do when you’re essentially covering a bunch of stuffy men talking in rooms.

Perhaps it’s apropos, then, that today’s script deals with another woman obsessed with money, albeit for different reasons entirely. Carol Elmer is a regular housewife living in the suburbs with a husband and a teenage son. Unfortunately, her life is far from perfect. It turns out her husband, Gerry, hasn’t had a job in six months. And while he seems to think this is fine, Carol, who’s in charge of the finances, goes to the bank to see how they’re doing, only to find out they’re about to lose their home.

So what does she do to solve this problem? Sit down and talk with Gerry to come up with a plan of action? Pft, no way! She starts robbing banks, of course! Carol develops a cliché little system where she throws on a cheap platinum wig, then goes into banks, pretending to have a gun, and telling tellers to fill up a trash bag. The problem is, Carol isn’t very good at it. And the tellers keep tricking her – stuffing one dollar bills inside of stacks of one-hundreds, giving her a fraction of the money she needs. So Carol has to keep robbing more banks.

In the meantime, Carol’s awkward teenage son, Christian, is failing music class. It’s gotten bad enough that the music teacher, Mr. Shaw, believes Christian needs a tutor. Carol is somewhat creeped out by the guy, but she can’t have her son failing school, so she agrees to the tutelage.

The problem is, Mr. Shaw stumbles upon Carol’s secret. But instead of turning her in, he offers to help, and becomes a sort of impromptu getaway driver. This leads to Mr. Shaw falling in love with Carol, and the two begin an illicit affair. The thing is, when Carol gets the money she needs to pay off the house, she plans to go back to her family life. But it doesn’t look like Mr. Shaw has the same plan in mind. Needless to say, this is all heading towards disaster.

I’ll start out by saying this was one of the more unpleasantly written screenplays I’ve read in awhile. Besides the extreme overuse of ellipses, Reeves has a strange tendency to underline the most random words in dialogue. I think underlining is fine if you do it two or three times a script and you underline relevant words. But it honestly felt like Reeves was using a random underlining generator. There was no rhyme or reason to anything he underlined.

Here’s a real line from the script: “Mrs. Elmer…! I’m sorry! I really do think it’s important we talk! I mean, I know you’re probably thinking, oh, it’s only band — !” I suppose you may be able to make an argument for underlining “sorry.” But “do?” And “oh?” And this was the case with almost EVERY line of dialogue. It was nuts!

This practice forced me stop at every underlined word to deem its significance, which gave the script a start-stop quality that destroyed any semblance of rhythm the script might have had.

That kind of stuff is easily taken care of though. Not underlining words literally takes 1 second to fix. The bigger issue I battled with was the concept. I kept asking myself, “Is this a movie?” The whole time, I kept waiting for some big twist to occur to give the story gravitas. But it really was just about a woman who robs banks because she needs money.

I guess the stakes are high (she’s trying to save her family). And there are adequate complications thrown in (she starts having an affair with another man). But I feel like in this day and age, you need more for a movie. The competition is fierce so you need to come to the table with a bigger idea.

The exception to this rule is if you’re telling the story with a unique voice. Your voice, then, becomes the “hook” that makes your screenplay different. Silver Linings Playbook is essentially a romantic comedy. But David O. Russell brings such a unique voice to the story that it doesn’t feel like any romantic comedy you’ve ever seen before.

I kept waiting for a daring choice to happen in The Invisible Woman, but everything pretty much happened how you’d expect it to. Take Mr. Shaw, for instance. The guy is presented as a creeper who’s infatuated with Carol. I thought, then, when he found out that Carol was robbing banks, that he was going to blackmail her into sex to keep quiet. That’s what I mean by a daring choice. Instead, they just became lovers, which didn’t even make sense since she didn’t like him.

If you want a movie, you need a concept. You have to come up with some cool hot hook that feels larger than life. I’m reminded of the book (and movie) A Simple Plan, where two brothers from a small town find a bag of 4 million dollars in a crashed plane, take it, and kill a man who finds out about their secret.  They spend the rest of the movie trying to keep authorities from finding out the truth, and the whole “simple” plan goes spiraling out of control.  That feels like a larger than life idea to me.

If all you have is character, you’re probably better off turning your idea into a TV show. That’s what this feels like to me. In fact, it has a sort of “Breaking Bad” quality to it – a woman constantly breaking the law to feed her family. I don’t know how you extend it past the first season but this certainly feels more comfortable in that space than as a film. In short, my entire Invisible Woman reading experience amounted to me wanting more. I never got it, unfortunately.

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

What I learned: Movies are becoming more and more of a concept-driven business. Everything is big and flashy so you have to come up with a big flashy concept of your own to stand out. If you’re writing character driven stuff, ask yourself if it can be turned into a TV show. Obviously, there are still smaller channels like straight-to-digital that will support character-driven films. If that’s where you want your finished film to end up, that’s fine. But chances are, a character-focused project is better off in the TV space.

Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Action
Premise (from writer): After learning his estranged brother is a spy, a disgraced FBI cadet becomes a fugitive to stop his sibling from detonating an experimental nuke in New York City.
Why You Should Read (from writer): In 2011, I met Shane Black. We were both waiting at a crosswalk after a lecture he gave. I dared to ask him a question:”What’s your biggest fear when you open up a script?” He thoughtfully replied: “Interchangeable action scenes that don’t affect the story or characters. I see it all the time and it saddens me. Set pieces must have consequences or what’s the fucking point.” The light changed. Shane was gone. I never forgot his words while I wrote this beast of a script. Thanks, Shane. — And thank you to all the Scriptshadow readers from last week’s Amateur Offerings. I wasn’t a regular around here, but you gave me great feedback and always treated me with respect. I’m very grateful for that. Readers here deserve a lot more back and forth from AF winners. If picked for Amateur Friday, I 100% guarantee that I’ll be here for comments. No excuses. It’s the least I can do for a community I’ve benefited so much from. I can’t wait to learn what you think of the small but key revisions I was able to make to the opening pages this week!
Writer: ThyEnemyWriter
Details: 124 pages

Poster from writer.

I gotta give Thy props for asking Shane Black a question in the middle of the street. Most writers would not have had the guts to do that. Props to Shane for, on the spot, coming back with a great answer too! The real question, of course, is did Thy execute the advice? Let’s find out.

Wyatt Crane is trying to make it as an FBI agent but fails the big field test and is sent packing. Bummed out, he heads to the bar, only to get a call from his estranged brother, Nathan, who asks Wyatt to hop on a plane and come meet him in New York. The two clearly have a strained relationship and Wyatt isn’t too sure, but what else does he have to do? It’s not like he has to show up to work tomorrow.

Once in New York, Wyatt is grabbed by TSA and questioned about his bro. It turns out Nathan’s working for the CIA, or some other clandestine agency, and is involved in a nasty plot to hurt a lot of people. Wyatt tells them the truth, that he got a call from a brother and that’s all he knows, but they’re not buying it.

Eventually, a mysterious alcoholic named Ridley rescues him, and Wyatt trusts him for awhile. But it turns out Ridley’s not who he seems. He’s working for this crazy Ukranian chick named Dietrich who’s trying to buy up the newest fad in terrorism – clean nukes – to blow up… well, something. We don’t know yet. And who is she getting these nukes from? You guessed it. WYATT’S BROTHER NATHAN!

Meanwhile, Wyatt runs into someone else who’s looking for his brother, Karen. Karen wants to find out what Nathan had to do with her father’s death, as he gave clearance to a plane he piloted that was attacked by terrorists. In order to get Karen to stick around, Wyatt pretends he’s someone else entirely. And the two race to stop Dietrich – or is it Nathan! – from destroying the world.

Thy Enemy has two things going for it. It reads quickly and it’s fun. Extremely important for an action spec. It had some fun characters too. I thought Dietrich and Mila were a hilarious duo. The running joke of Mila wanting American hot dogs had me laughing. But something big was holding this script back here, and we have to get into it. Thy, I love you, but I also want you to become the best writer you can possibly be. So I hope you take this as constructive criticism and not an attack. Let’s get into it!

The big thing holding Thy Enemy back?

Authenticity.

Instead of reading like a script where the writer intimately knew how the FBI worked, or the CIA worked, or how physics worked. It read like fan-fiction.

It’s kind of like the difference between how James Cameron treats special effects and Uwe Boll treats special effects. James Cameron goes in there and learns how all the things he’s going to write about work, even down to the plants in the jungle. Uwe Boll figures people don’t care about that stuff, and only passively pays attention to those details.

The difference in the resulting films, however, is striking. There’s an authenticity to Cameron’s worlds. Whereas you always feel like Uwe Boll is cutting corners. And that’s how Thy Enemy felt to me. There were a lot of fun sequences, but too many of them felt cartoon-like and unrealistic. And therefore it was hard for me to engage in and believe in the story.

I’ve talked about this before but writers always think they can take the shortcut and “fool” the reader. If you’re going to write about the FBI, you need to learn how the FBI works. If the CIA is going to be a central component to your story, you need to learn how the CIA works. Having only a cursory understanding of these bureaus based upon other movies and TV shows you’ve seen isn’t enough.

I try to explain it this way. Take your job that you have now. Do you think that a writer who’s never done your job before would be able to write as convincingly about it as you could? Of course not. They wouldn’t even come close. Because you know all the little details that make that job REAL. The only way to even the playing field, then, is research.

If you looked into the Sony e-mail leaks, you might’ve seen an exchange between Amy Pascal, head of Sony, and Aaron Sorkin, the writer of The Social Network. Pascal was trying to get Sorkin to write Flash Boys, based on the book about computer trading. Sorkin denied the request specifically because he knew how much insane research he would have to do to get the story right.

This is what the big million-dollar-an-assignment writers do. This is what separates them from amateur writers. They know that if they commit to something, they’re going to have to do the work.  Just being an appreciator of film isn’t enough. Throwing big scientific words out without any real context isn’t enough. You have to give us details that the average person doesn’t know. Not details that the average person just saw in Captain America: Winter Soldier.

It comes down to suspension of disbelief. If all the action set pieces feel cartoonish, born solely inside the writer’s imagination, there’s no way I can believe in the story. I need to feel that authenticity, those real world details that make me think that I’m seeing something that’s really happening.

Unfortunately, the story itself was in line with this approach. It felt too simplistic and too cliché. Things happened because they needed to happen to fit the action-thriller paradigm, not because they’d happen in real life. Take Karen, for example. Why is she in this story other than the need for a female lead? I didn’t see why Wyatt needed her at all. She had way less information on where his brother was than he did. Yet he tries to keep her around. Also, her reason for finding Nathan amounted to a curiosity – why did you exchange some paperwork to put my dad on a plane that was attacked? I’m not sure I’m willing to get shot at and risk my life to find the answer to that question. You need to be more convincing on why these characters are involved in the story.

The script is also 125 pages when it shouldn’t have been a page over 110. The section where Wyatt first gets to New York and looks for his brother takes FOREVER before it gets to the next story beat. We just keep talking to people and asking people where he is. At one point, Wyatt calls his parents asking for Nathan. They say they don’t know where he is. Then he goes looking again. Then, a couple of pages later, he calls them and asks them again! It just seemed like there wasn’t enough thought put into it.

Finally, I didn’t understand the significance of the big weapon of the story – the clean nuke. From what I understood, clean nukes leave no radiation. Doesn’t that make them LESS scary? Less effective? Lingering radiation is what kills all the people who weren’t killed in the blast. To eliminate that seemed to make the weapon less dangerous. Therefore, I was never that wowed by the attention the clean nuke was getting.

What Thy has here is a desire to write a kick-ass fun action movie. And I admire that. The problem is, writing a fun movie is often never fun. I hate to be the one to say it. But it almost always takes a level of deep commitment to do the work – as far as research, as far as character development, as far as everything making sense – to create a fun finished product. That commitment wasn’t made here, which is why Thy Enemy didn’t resonate with me. I wish Thy the best though. I hope he benefits from these notes and from any other notes he receives in the comments. Good luck, man.

Screenplay link: Thy Enemy

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

What I learned: When writers come to me with a movie idea centered around the FBI or CIA, I tell them, don’t you dare write a word until you’ve read three books on the FBI (or CIA). I can tell within one scene whether a writer truly understands how the FBI works or if they’ve just watched a lot of movies before. And the second I determine they don’t really know that world, I give up on the script. Right there. Which may sound harsh but I’ve read enough scripts where I know the entire rest of the story is going to feel fake.

Genre: TV Pilot – Drama
Premise: When their thought-to-be-murdered son arrives back in town 12 years after he went missing, a family who’s moved on from him must learn to rebuild.
About: This one comes from Shonda Rhimes disciple Jenna Bans, who’s written on Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. These Rhimes writers really know how to weave a good tale. Rhimes must hold some class about how to add the perfect amount of twists and turns to an episode, because whenever I read anything she’s involved in, I never get bored. There’s always some surprise coming that throws everything off its axis. The pilot for Flesh & Blood is being shot for, not surprisingly, ABC, and will star superstar character actor Joan Allen. No word yet on if it’s been picked up. The market is starting to get saturated with these “characters who return after a long time” shows and that might scare ABC.
Writer: Jenna Bans
Details: 62 pages – Revised Network Draft (January 18, 2015)

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!  It’s magically delicious!

So I’ve FINALLY started watching House of Cards. I didn’t think I’d be interested in a show about politics but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. The show is really well written, driven by clear goals and high stakes that keep all storylines on track and interesting. It just goes to show, if you write a show with compelling characters who have clear objectives and those objectives actually mean something to the characters, you can write about anything and make it good.

Speaking of “Cards,” it’s crazy how a career can blossom in this industry while others stagnate or never go anywhere. Beau Willimon was a nobody until he wrote Farragut North, which finished number 2 on the 2007 Black List. He had to wait 4 years for the film to get made (it was later retitled “Ides of March”) but the next thing you know, he gets in on the ground floor of Netflix’s original programming boom and is the creator of one of the biggest shows in television (House of Cards).

It’s why I keep telling you guys – it’s fine to break in with a feature, but have that TV pilot ready. That very well may be how you become a superstar.  It’s why I write these Tuesday TV articles.

As far as today’s pilot, I wasn’t expecting much. I just went down a list of pilot scripts in search of something that sounded good. This had a nice hook to it so I decided to give it a shot (another reason that a good hook helps – many people are just like me, scrolling down a list of loglines for something that sounds “interesting.”  Don’t be the idea that doesn’t sound interesting).

Claire Warren had the perfect family. Her husband, Peter, was tall, handsome, and smart. Her teenage son Danny was a high school football star. His younger sister, Willa, 14, was a mini-version of Claire, smart and ready to take over the world. And then there was Adam, the baby at only 8 years old. The apple of Claire’s eye.

Until she takes her eyes off the kids at the park, and Adam wanders off, never to be seen again. A manhunt is led by an ace young cop named Nina, who quickly pinpoints the neighbor, Hank, a registered sex offender, as the chief suspect. Although Adam’s body was never found, Hank was convicted, and sent to prison. That was that. Life moved on.

Until 12 years later, when a young man shows up at the police station, claiming he’s Adam. Things have changed a lot since 12 years ago. Claire is now the mayor, Peter a motivational speaker who lectures about loss, Willa a religious nut, and Danny a drunk. Each of them are notified of the miracle, which has since been confirmed by DNA, and the unthinkable happens – Adam moves back in with the family.

Claire loves her son more than anything, but is already thinking about how it might help her campaign for Governor. Hank, who is now an innocent man, is released from prison immediately, a chip on his shoulder bigger than the state penitentiary. And Nina, who put Hank away, has to revaluate everything she thought she knew. But the first order of business is to find out who was holding Adam captive for twelve years and arrest him. So a new manhunt begins. But are they going to find anyone? Or is Adam even telling the truth?

One of the things I’m starting to notice about TV is that if your hook is either non-existent or short-lived (today’s hook, while cool, is essentially limited to the first episode), then the characters themselves have to be “bigger” in some way.  Adam isn’t coming back to a normal boring everyday family.  Instead, his mother is  the Mayor.  Because of that, everything that happens with Adam feels “bigger” because it’s happening on a bigger stage.  If this were some poor family nobody cared about living in a trailer, the pilot’s going to feel pretty tiny and meaningless.

Another thing that’s becoming apparent to me the more TV I watch is the importance of exploring multiple characters in-depth. In features, you’re so focused on “Main Character” “Main Character” “Main Character” – and rightfully so. The main character in a feature has to be powerful and active enough to propel the story  through a limited run time.

But in TV, and even in the pilot, you have to show that you’re ready to explore multiple characters on an intense level. So we don’t just get scenes following Claire. We get scenes following Nina, who stands outside the courthouse when Hank’s released, wondering what the hell she’s done. We get scenes with Hank, who walks down the noisy glow of an American mall for the first time in 12 years.

One of the questions most producers will ask with a pilot is “Does it have legs?” Is this a story that can take place past a few episodes? One of the ways you achieve this is through multiple character exploration in your pilot. Give these characters their own scenes (not just scenes when they’re around your main character). Show us what they’re struggling with so we can anticipate what will happen in later episodes. For example, when I see Hank walking through that mall, looking at the small children, I know he’s a grenade waiting to explode. I can see that happening in episode 5, or 10, or 15.

Then there’s Nina. Her whole career has been built on being perfect. This screw-up now puts all of that in doubt. And you sense that that’s going to eat at her. So again, I’m anticipating I’m going to see this girl fall apart, or at the very least struggle through some tough shit before she gets her perp.

Finally there’s the family. Claire and Peter have built an industry on the loss of their child. How do you now keep those careers going when the child has returned? Add on top of that the mystery box that is Adam himself. Is he really their kid? If he is, why does he seem to be hiding something?  These are the things that tell me there’s more to this show than a pilot.

All in all this feels like a cross between Gone Girl and Little Children. The big glossy national coverage angle of a missing person case mixed with that dark eerie look at a rich suburb’s underbelly.  That sounds like a cool show.  I hope it lives up to the script.

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

What I learned: Flesh and Blood jumps back and forth in time a lot (we keep going from the present to the past, when Adam was taken). If you’re doing constant flashbacks in your script, consider italicizing the past stuff. It’s visually VERY HELPFUL to the reader. When the writer doesn’t do this, I occasionally find myself confused about if I’m in the past or present, which can totally screw up my interpretation of the story.  It is a risk though.  Some readers don’t like the eye-strain italics cause.  So proceed with caution!