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: Comedy/Mockumentary
Premise (from writer): A tightly-wound retail store manager on the brink of being fired struggles to prove his worth against a crew who hates him, a competing retailer (who happens to be his ex-girlfriend) out to sabotage him and a mall full of crazed Black Friday shoppers.
Why You Should Read (from writer): Because it is a story about working in retail which means that while it’s written as a comedy, it could easily pass for a horror, a drama, a thriller, an action-adventure or any of the wild aspects that make working retail soul-crushingly awful and occasionally (oh so occasionally) great. Also, this script is very much a product of Scriptshadow. I studied screenwriting in college, but spent many years caught up in absurdly grand fantasy-adventure screenplays that were really novels written in Final Draft. And then I stumbled upon Scriptshadow, learned some new lessons, refocused my writing, and set out to create screenplays that were actually screenplays. “Black Friday” is one proud example.
Writer: Jason Tropiano
Details: 104 pages

Man, you guys make it hard on me. There hasn’t been a clear winner on Amateur Offerings for awhile. And when that happens, it means I have to decide. I hate deciding!

I ended up going with Black Friday for a couple of reasons. I think a comedy surrounding Black Friday is a movie. I can see the poster. I can see the trailer. Also, it’s that time of year.  So shouldn’t we be featuring a holiday script?  True, Inhuman had more votes, but I was only going to give it a second coveted Amateur Friday slot if it blew away the competition. There are only 55 Amateur Friday slots a year so I like to use that day to see as many new voices as possible.

It’s a month before Black Friday, and Jonathan, the manager at American Outfitter’s Roosevelt Mall location, isn’t wasting any time getting ready for the biggest day of the year. You see, Jonathan has a baby on the way and he hasn’t exactly been knocking it out of the overpriced hipster clothing park. All signs point to him being fired unless he makes this the best Black Friday in store history.

That won’t be easy though with a young disinterested sales team that has bigger plans in life than working in retail. Jonathan also has to contend with former flame Kennedy, who manages the Abercrombie & Fitch clone, Charley & Waves, across the way. Kennedy divides her time between finding anorexic looking sales-models to stand outside of her store, and plotting her revenge for Jonathan dumping her.

When the big day finally comes, the shenanigans are on. Kennedy fights way below the belt, printing up 50% off flyers for American Outfitters that the clueless sales team at AO start honoring, and having one of her employees defecate in one of AO’s fitting rooms. If Jonathan is going to last another day at this job, he’ll have to rally the disinterested troops, fend off all the sabotage, and clear things up with Kennedy. All before the closing bell rings at 10 pm.

The other day, someone said in the comments section that you shouldn’t send a comedy to Scriptshadow because the people who frequent this site don’t celebrate comedy – or, put more bluntly, they wouldn’t know what comedy was if it shat on them in a changing room.

I would rebut this. Comedy struggles to gain acceptance in every venue. It doesn’t get celebrated in screenplay contests. It doesn’t get celebrated during Awards shows. There aren’t that many comedies on the Black List.

The problem is that it’s really hard to be funny. Especially on paper. You don’t have the benefit of a comedian delivering your lines or a physical actor who can just contort his face in a way that makes you laugh. All you have is your words.

So it’s not that we here at Scriptshadow hate comedy. It’s that rarely do writers meet the bar the genre requires.

So how does Black Friday rank in regards to this bar? Well, from a story perspective, there are some good things here. I like how Jason created some really high stakes for our hero, Jonathan. Jonathan is on the outs at the company. He’s got a kid on the way. Black Friday is his only opportunity to save his job. We have a proper villain, Kennedy, who had a personal relationship with Jonathan (the personal relationship adds another layer to the story) and who creates plenty of obstacles to prevent Jonathan from reaching his goal. So structurally, I thought Jason did a good job.

But in regards to the funny factor, I don’t think we’re there yet. To start, utilizing the mockumentary style feels dated. That was all the rage five years ago, but I think people are looking for something new now. Ironically, telling comedy in a “straight” fashion feels fresh again.

I point this out because there were maybe 20 mockumentary-interview-specific jokes I didn’t laugh at because I’ve seen them all before. For example, when the clueless customer digs through their purse with 80 people in line behind them – then we cut to an interview shot of the salesperson giving a “Really?” look into the camera. That joke is too familiar at this point. It’s safe. So that’s 20 jokes right there that didn’t hit for me. I saw them coming a mile away.

So where do you find the funny? You find it in situations and in characters. That’s really your main job when it comes to comedy writing. You have to create funny characters and seek out funny situations. The only character I genuinely laughed at was Woo, the stock-boy with a penchant for extremely inappropriate rap music. He really stood out.

And the only situation that resonated was the fake 50% coupon debacle. But I don’t think enough was done with it. I like the idea of everybody coming to their store, seemingly exactly what they want, but then it getting completely out of control once they all start demanding half-off. The thing is, this problem was solved within a few minutes.  There needed to be that moment where Jonathan secretly honored it for one problematic shopper to get him out of the store, then tried to cut the discount off.  But by that point, everyone’s found out that the customer got the discount, and they’re not leaving until they get it too.  Old customers also need to come back and retroactively demand the discount.  It needs to get to riot levels.  This is Black Friday.  Excessive situations are expected.

Situational comedy can be fun to figure out. But it’s something you really have to spend time on. I would go so far as to say that if you’re writing a comedy, sit down for an entire two days and come up with 50 concept-specific situations, then cherry pick the best. Cause if you’re only picking from a nest of 4-5 ideas that popped into your head, you’re not going to be able to compete with the truly hilarious guys.

Finally, I’ll say this – the more I read of Black Friday, the more I wondered if this was the right approach. I mean, the script’s called Black Friday, but we start a month before Black Friday. We should be starting ON THE DAY. And I wondered if a Breakfast Club type approach might have been better. One day. Seven shoppers. Each with their own specific goals (maybe not all of them to get gifts) and, of course, everything under the Christmas tree goes wrong. Also, when I think of Black Friday, I don’t think of clothing stores. I think of big box retailers like Best Buy and Walmart. That seems to be where the real craziness is. And yet those businesses were left out. But even if you’re interested in mall-like stores, I’d go for more of a variety. A clothing store, a sports store, a candle store, a Radio Shack type store. We should be getting the entire scope of the mall, not just these two locations. That’s probably how I would’ve tackled it, at least.

There’s a lot of love here though. I can feel Jason’s own experience in retail shining through. But something’s missing and I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is. What did you guys think?

Script link: Black Friday

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

What I learned: Worst case scenario situations. One way to find laughs is to think of the worst case scenario for a character, and then put them in it. So for example, let’s say one of the employees at American Outfitters is OCD OBSESSED with his displays. That’s literally all he cares about –everything being folded perfectly and placed perfectly and the area being exceptionally clean. What’s that character’s worst case scenario? Each of you are probably thinking of something different. But chances are, it’s funny. Maybe, for example, a mother comes up and starts changing her baby’s diaper on the most important display in the store – the one OCD EMPLOYEE was working on all night!  She’s just carelessly placing the dirty diaper on the most expensive shirt as if it’s nobody’s business. This approach is an easy way to generate 3 or 4 big laughs in a movie.

The first person who can tell me the screenwriting significance of this picture gets a free upvote!

A lot of times I’ll get e-mails asking me why I don’t pick your scripts for an Amateur Offerings slot. The short answer is that the loglines or the queries aren’t good enough. But there’s obviously more to it than that and if I had the time, I’d e-mail you and let you know specifically why they weren’t chosen.  Well, consider today my e-mail back.   I’ve decided to highlight seven queries I’ve received over the past month and explain why I didn’t choose them. This is not meant to embarrass the writers in any way, but rather to help them understand what the person on the other end is thinking.  Each query contains the ENTIRE text from the e-mail (minus the subject line). So if something is missing, it’s not me.  Hopefully this is helpful to the original queriers as well as the rest of you.  Let us begin!

QUERY 1

Please post it for AOW! Because you’re awesome… I’m awesome… we’re all awesome! LOL. Thanks!

Title: MIDNIGHT LEATHER
Genre: Psychological Thriller / Horror
Logline: A troubled actress moves into an old-fashioned mansion to recover from a mental breakdown, but her husband suspects that she’s lost her sanity when she begins claiming that the mansion is haunted.

WYSR: Haunted house movies have two cliches that annoy me. First, matches and candles have open flames that are often used as sources of light without any regard for their safety. Second, cell phones either have dead batteries or are out of range. These cliches inspired me to write Midnight Leather, in which fire is dangerous and cell phones are ubiquitous. I hope you enjoy the script and I appreciate your feedback!

Why it wasn’t chosen: Let’s start with this one because it’s not a terrible query by any means. But there are a few things that worried me. First, the term “old-fashioned mansion.” “Old-fashioned” is such a generic word. With so few words to use in a logline, each one has to be really well thought out. That one isn’t. But the real killer was the Why You Should Read. Of all the immensely important things that are required for a good screenplay – character development, excellent plotting, strong dialogue, goals, stakes, urgency – the focus on open flames tells me that the writer isn’t concerned about the right thing.

QUERY 2

-Cory Austin Edwards

Title: There Where The Judges Gather

Genre: Drama

Log line: Dylan is as straight edge as they come, a hard working young man dedicated to finding a purpose, Dylan strives for meaning. With his father dead and his mother in a mental hospital Dylan looses his job and must find a better way of payment. In response he begins taking up work with his friend Warren robbing his former Employers. The jobs are set up by a heroine crazed dope peddling minister(his actions are a metaphor for religious hypocrisy) and a two bit independent gangster type individual known as Lenny. As the crimes continue Dylan is brought too his knees as simple theft leads to murder. The darkness of the script is completely throughout as the reader will see the slow but steady build of the main character’s psychotic thinking. Again Dylan begins frustrated by his job loss for no reason and his family, Dylan is carrying individual He does not drink or smoke he always scene drinking from a glass of milk which displays his child like character, but his vice is soon turned to violence as a theft goes wrong and out of anger he begins to kill. There are many compelling stories involved such as the friendship between Dylan and Warren and the connection between his mothers nurse and Dylan. The entire story is told from Dylan who is talking too a priest before he is executed in the prison.

Why it wasn’t chosen: To most this will be obvious but a logline isn’t 300 words. It’s typically one sentence (sometimes two). What we have above is a summary. Also, it’s strange to start an e-mail off with a dash and then your name. Also, I see a lot of people capitalizing words in their pitches that aren’t supposed to be capitalized (Employers). I know tablets and phones sometimes randomly capitalize a word if it starts a new line. You shouldn’t be submitting something as important as a query from a tablet though. – Look, we’re all eager to jump into the game. But it’s best to do your research and understand how the protocol works first. You want to arrive to the interview looking professional.

QUERY 3

TITLE                                     Model Citizen

GENRE                                  Teen / Fantasy / Comedy

LOGLINE                              A teen is granted special access to a hi-tech department store that can change people’s skills and identities.

BIO

(bolding here is writer’s) Jeff has completed three short films and five feature-length screenplays. His debut short “Don’t Slam (Don’t
Erase)” was an Official Selection of the New York Short Film Festival and played online in the Amazon/Tribeca Film Festival
Short Film Competition.

Jeff’s second short film “Attendance,” which he wrote and executive produced, was an Official Selection of the Show Off Your Short Film Festival in Los Angeles.
The film also received a Quarterfinalist distinction in the Fade In Magazine Awards.

His latest short film “Against the Wall,” which he wrote and produced, was featured on Amazon Studios, Ain’t it Cool News, G4TV, iTunes, and
VUDU. It played 12 festivals and received a 4 1/2 star review in Film Threat Magazine.

Other projects include a TV sitcom “Monster Suit Blues” (Semi-Finalist, Page Screenwriting Awards).

He is married with children and lives in NYC.

First 10 pages and the entire script are attached

Why it wasn’t chosen: It’s hard to convey this e-mail properly because formatting doesn’t transfer well to HTML. I tried to retain what I could. Outside of the janky formatting, this is the most impersonal query ever. There’s no actual greeting. The logline itself is too vague. Change people’s skills and identities how? It’s half a logline. And you don’t want to include a third-person bio of yourself. We know you’re talking about yourself so it’s strange. Just highlight your relevant achievements in an informal first-person paragraph.

QUERY 4

Title: Executioner’s Torment
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Logline: An esteemed judge and adviser to California’s leading candidate for Senator is locked in a passionate struggle between revenge and the family life he desperately covets.
Why You Should Read: Here’s to hoping that a trade of originality for a story well told is in play. This is a character-based drama about a family man with deep political influence who chooses to defend his own law within a world shrouded in lawlessness. It’s written more in the spirit of a Western than an action film about a genuinely decent man who’s taken a detour, putting all that he holds sacred in peril, as he struggles to contain a desperate need for revenge while navigating within a government deeply steeped in political corruption and media scandal.

Why it wasn’t chosen: This one doesn’t have a greeting either, but I’m more inclined to pay attention since the writer’s followed the submission rules and the actual writing is good. But here’s the funny thing. We always sit here and wonder what loglines the agents and executives are going to like. But we see the answer play out EVERY WEEK in Amateur Offerings, where you guys ARE essentially the agents and executives. And whenever I post loglines like this (non-high concept dramatic faire), you rarely read them. Since I know they’ll be ignored, I usually look for something else. With that said, the writer makes a crucial error in the logline. He chooses the general over the specific (“…struggle between revenge…”). Tell us SPECIFICALLY what the revenge is about. Because there’s revenge in a ton of stories. Remember that your job with a logline is to be as specific as possible so that your idea stands out from the rest. When you use generic words like “revenge” you imply that your script is also generic. It would be like if I wrote the logline for Indiana Jones as, “A professor goes on a quest for a famous artifact while battling one of the most terrible regimes in history.” Be specific and tell us the artifact is the Ark of the Covenant! Tell us that the regime is the Nazis!

QUERY 5

Thanks for all the emails, blog posts and tweets kicking my ass into gear to keep writing.
-J. Pias

Here goes:
TITLE – Harrison Quest
Genre – Comedy
Logline: Discovering that Harrison Ford plans on cryogenically freezing himself, three childhood friends embark on a heroic journey to find their idol and win him his long overdue Oscar — before it’s too late.
Why You Should Read –
What do you want to be when you grow up? An Astronaut? A scientist? CIA agent, doctor, cop, pilot? The President of the United States? These aren’t just the dreams of children. These are the faces of Harrison Ford.

Love him or hate him, his resume is ripe for a backdrop to an adventure story. I set out to harness that energy, while humanizing it through the story of 3 average guys. I think people rely on different passions to help inspire them through the sadder parts of life. I’m hoping that inspiration story will resonate on its own, while still being a chin-scarring, plane-offing, fugitive-chasing adventure homage to the most amazing leading man alive (that is alive, for now…dun dun dun etc).

PS – I wrote part of this at Indy’s boyhood home from Last Crusade, which is now a B&B. One example of how it’s a bit of a passion project, and could use some objective feedback.

Why it wasn’t chosen: This is a good query. Starts out with a short but sweet greeting. The “Why You Should Read” is well-written and conveys a lot of passion for the project. I almost chose it for that alone. But the logline prevented me from pulling the trigger. There are too many questions here. Why is Harrison Ford going to freeze himself before he dies? Don’t you wait until you die before you’re cryogenically frozen? How do you win somebody an Oscar? Are they going to make a movie with him? That sounds like a complicated process to document in a movie. Also, where are the stakes? Sure, it’d be nice if Harrison Ford won an Oscar. But I’m sure he’ll be just fine with his millions if he doesn’t. I really really wanted to like this one because I like the writer’s query. But I think either the logline or the story itself needs to be reworked to fix these issues.

QUERY 6

Hi, my name is Drew Howard and I just recently finished this script I’ve been working on over the past few months. I put a lot of effort into it, and I think you’ll definitely be surprised by what you read. This script wasn’t made with the intention I would ever sell it. I didn’t hold myself back with the thought, “Could this actually be put onto the screen?” I just did my thing and ran wild with it. The script is imaginative, darkly funny, sad and cinematic. While on the surface, the plot could be seen as “high concept,” I think the story is actually deceptively simple. The characters grapple with real issues within the context of much weirder scenarios. Think if Woody Allen was placed in Blade Runner, and all he could think about was who he was going to fuck that week. I know you don’t read all the scripts, and I understand you’re probably very busy with many other things. If you could give my script a chance, I know you wouldn’t regret reading it afterwards.

Title: Murder Girl
Genre: Drama
Logline: Donna Summers, 19, and Kap Harrington, 22, are known around the world as the two human beings who can never die. Instead of saving the world or lending their bodies to science, they are instead pressured to date, or rather fuck, the other. The story follows the relationship between these two after a female android named P enters their lives on a whim.

Why it wasn’t chosen: Drew has a lot of passion. That’s clear. But this query is all over the place. There’s no focus to either the query or the logline, which indicates there will be no focus to the script either. I’d avoid giving too much information on the writing process. We don’t need to know you worked on the script for the last few months. Keep the time spent on the script to yourself. Also, get someone to read your query ahead of time for grammatical errors. “This script wasn’t made with the intention I would ever sell it,” should be, “This script wasn’t written with the intention to sell.” Even so, that’s not a detail you want to include in a query anyway. My advice to Drew would be: Keep it short and simple. And focus your story. No androids named P!

QUERY 7

Title: Minus
Genre: Action
Logline: On the coldest night of the year, a Minneapolis drug runner and a conflicted cop cross paths after a deal gone wrong. But while they’ll need each other make it through the night, one of them won’t survive to see daybreak.
Why You Should Read: This time of year, everyone talks about writing the “anti” Christmas movie. However, the genre continues to thrive because such films readily embrace the basic tenet Carson harps on week after week – relationship-driven conflict.

On the surface, Minus isn’t a traditional holiday movie, and would seem to fit into the cadre of screenplays that are desperately trying not to fit in. However, that simply isn’t the case; the holidays are a time of familial bonds driven to the brink, and Minus is full of those; hell, there’s even a senior-citizen-double-suicide.

Whether your preferences are carols or corrupt cops, there’s a story here that will keep readers guessing while driving home the same values found at the core of any Christmas special. I just want to get you there in a more entertaining – and hopefully thought-provoking – fashion.

Why it wasn’t chosen: A couple of things stood out here. First, there’s no hook in the concept (it being cold out isn’t a hook). There’s nothing that stands out, that gets people excited. And I’ve seen a million drug deals go wrong in movies and TV shows. If you can’t make your logline stand out in a group of five other scripts on an informal Saturday website competition, how do you expect it to stand out against the thousands of scripts a year that Hollywood sees? I like that the cop and the criminal have to team up, but that needs to become a bigger focus of the logline in the next draft. What also worried me was the focus on Christmas in the “Why You Should Read,” and yet Christmas is never mentioned (or implied) in the genre or the logline. When I see things like that, it tells me the writer hasn’t thought everything through, so I’m less inclined to choose the script.

I hope this helps.  What’d you guys think?  Would you read any of these based on the query?

Genre: Drama
Premise: An irresponsible man attempts to raise his dead sister’s daughter, a child genius, until his mother comes to town and starts fighting for custody of the child.
About: This just landed on the 2014 Black List with 7 votes. Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man 1&2) is going back to his 500 Days of Summer roots to direct the small character piece.
Writer: Tom Flynn
Details: 121 pages (undated)

Marc Webb with a big camera.

I just read a quote by Tim Burton saying that the world will soon tire of comic book movies. I used to agree but I’m not so sure anymore. The only reason comic book movies weren’t around in abundance earlier was because Hollywood didn’t have the special effects to back up the vision the films required.

Now that that’s not a problem, comic book movies are actually perfectly suited for film. They carry with them action, spectacle, wish-fullfillment, and a lot of flashy characters. I don’t see them leaving the local Cineplex anytime soon.

But I’ll tell you one person who wants to leave them behind, and that’s Marc Webb. Webb’s initiation into the world of big-budget comic book movies hasn’t been a good one. The two Spider-Man movies he’s made have been pretty bad – jumbled messes with nary a clear plot. Of course, you could say the same about the earlier incarnations of Spider-Man. But the big difference there was that Sony wasn’t competing with the juggernaut known as Marvel. Say what you will about Marvel but they take their superhero films VERY seriously, and as such, they consistently deliver a quality product. Peter Parker’s one-liners all of a sudden aren’t enough to keep an audience interested.

Webb is clearly tired of this world, so he’s going back to his indie roots. And I must say, I commend him for doing so. Rarely do directors who make it to the big leagues with those big league paychecks go backwards, especially in an industry where movies like Gifted are lucky to get 100 screen releases and featured rollouts on Itunes.

But the very notion that Webb is willing to take that chance tells me this script has something going for it. And truth be told, I love these ‘gifted children’ movies. Call it the Searching for Bobby Fischer Syndrome. Exceptional intelligence at a young age is always a burden, and so there’s conflict built right into the character. Let’s see if Flynn nails this latest attempt at the genre.

30-something Frank Adler is an irresponsible bachelor if there ever was one. Seven years ago, Frank’s sister, Diane, a brilliant but troubled mind, walked in on Frank, dropped off her baby, then killed herself. And just like that, the eternal bachelor found himself father to a child.

And an awful father he was. Not knowing the first thing about parenting, Frank treated Mary more like a roommate than a daughter. Got a boo-boo?  Go, like, find a band-aid or something.  Luckily, Mary could handle it. Just like her mother, she was extremely smart. But at 7 years old, Frank’s realized that he can no longer keep this girl locked up in his place. He has to send her off to school.

Problem is, Mary’s like 100 times smarter than all the other kids at school, combined. Actually, she’s smarter than all the teachers, combined, including Bonnie, her primary teacher, who takes an interest in Mary’s unique talents, as well as her emotionally damaged but hot father.

Just as it becomes clear that Mary needs to be placed in higher education, Evelyn, her grandmother and Frank’s mother, shows up, demanding custody of the child. On the one hand, Frank doesn’t want Evelyn anywhere near Mary. She ran his sister (Mary’s mom) into the ground, and she’d do the same to Mary.

But there’s a little voice in the back of Frank’s head saying: “Freedom.” Finally, he can go back to living life his way, instead of being responsible for a child he’s no good at taking care of anyway. At least that’s what he tells himself. When the courts get involved and decide that NEITHER brother or mother is capable of taking care of Mary, they bring in a third party, a foster couple. But this couple harbors a secret that will throw everything off its axis, and force Frank to decide what he really wants out of life.

Gifted is a good screenplay, and further proof that if you can identify the key line of conflict within a logline, you probably know how to write a screenplay. You may wonder what I mean by that. Let me explain.

Your first order of business in a logline is to convey the plot, which essentially means the hero’s main goal, or the journey he’s going on. Indiana Jones goes after the Ark of the Covenant. But that’s only half the battle. You then have to identify the key line of conflict that’s going to impede upon that goal. In other words: What the fuck is going to get in the way and hamper Indiana from getting the Ark?

To see this in action, let me give you the NON conflict-laden logline version of Gifted: “An irresponsible man attempts to raise his dead sister’s daughter, a child genius.” There’s some semblance of a plot there. BUT THERE’S NO LINE OF CONFLICT.  The idea is open-ended and therefore directionless.  There’s no story yet! “…until his mother comes to town and starts fighting for custody of the child,” is the key line of conflict that all of a sudden gives the story a reason to exist. Without that conflict, the story has nowhere to go.

Now as much as I liked Gifted, it had some issues that kept it shy of “impressive” territory. One thing that drives me nuts is when a writer skirts reality in order to move the plot forward, particularly with a major plot point. I’ll have to get into spoilers to explain this.

Late in the story, Frank loses custody of Mary to the foster parents. But come on. There’s no way this would happen in real life. Frank loves Mary. He’s a family member. She loves him. He doesn’t do drugs. He’s not an alcoholic. He provides a roof over her head.  He doesn’t neglect her in any way.  And the courts give the child to a random foster couple instead?

Come on.

The only reason this development occurs is because the writer wanted to advance the story. But audiences are savvy to this. They may not know the technical reason things feel off. But deep down they feel something isn’t right. And that something is cheating. The writer is pushing along false plot points when, in the real world, we all know this would never happen.

I think it’s one of the most disingenuous things you can do as a writer, is to falsely move your story along. It’s your job to follow an honest path. That’s not to say you can’t have the courts give Mary to a foster family. But you need to build in a legitimate REASON for it. If Frank were an alcoholic (or whatever kind of addict), for example, and was therefore truly unable to care for his daughter, I’d buy into the court giving Mary away.

And lastly, they need to do more with Frank’s character. If you’re going to write a drama, you have to recognize that the ONLY way to market the movie (since you don’t have explosions) is through an A-list actor. And A-list actors don’t sign on to play characters like Frank in his current incarnation. Frank’s a level-headed guy. He doesn’t have any huge issues. He’s a bit of a loser, but otherwise average. If an A-lister is going to be in a small movie and get paid a tiny amount of money, they want to either play a really challenging role, win an Oscar, or both.

My guess is that, as this script works its way through development, Frank will become more fucked up. He’ll become an addict in some capacity. And I don’t think that’s a bad approach. It actually makes sense because now, like I mentioned, there will be a reason for the courts to separate him from Mary.

And all this isn’t to say I didn’t like the script. I thought it was good. But these are the realities of the ways these movies are made nowadays. Big actor or go home. Making the main male character interesting/unique is the difference between getting Matt Damon or Josh Brolin. I hope they figure it out because this can not survive with Josh Brolin.

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

What I learned: From now on, I want you to always include the key line of conflict in your logline.  I can dismiss half the screenplay queries I get due to the lack of a key line of conflict in the logline.  And if you can’t come up with a key line of conflict for your logline, chances are, you don’t have one for your script, which means you’ll have to rethink the story and add a key line of conflict.

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: Comedy
Premise (from writer): A closeted superhero wrestles with both of his secret identities, as the world embraces his superhero alter ego but his friends and family can’t accept the man behind the mask.
Why You Should Read (from writer): I saw that The Almighty Stud got really negative reviews based on the fact that it conveys a misogynistic message and displays a gay character that perpetuates the flawed association between homosexual men and predatory inclinations. So, why not offer a superhero screenplay that does the opposite of all that? My protagonist is a gay superhero that challenges the stereotypes, it has a cool feminist superheroine and the villain, although in a first moment seems to be just like The Almighty Stud villain, actually hides a secret that mocks through subtext the current trend among certain men of demonizing feminism and feminists.
Writer: Illimani Ferreira
Details: 103 pages

Zac Efron for Eric?

The competition for this weekend of Amateur Offerings was CLOSE. I don’t know if it’s because all the scripts were too weak or all of them were too strong, but going through the comments gave me a headache as the second I’d think I’d found a winner, the next three votes would be for something else.

The leaders seemed to be Midas and Super Epic, with Intelligent Design clipping at their heels. I had to make a decision though and when it’s decision time, I typically go with the premise that has the most potential. I do this because it’s what a producer would do as well. Unfortunately, I could make the case for all three of these premises turning into money-makers. But the one with the most innovative premise was clearly “Super Epic.” So that’s the one I went with.

Moving forward, when you vote for Amateur Offerings, please state your winner up front and clearly. I don’t always have time to read through every comment, so if your answer is to be discerned through your general reaction, I may not catch it. And with that, let’s grab our capes and swoop in on Super Epic!

Eric has a secret. He’s a superhero with super-human strength. He spends his afternoons hanging out with his dude friends, the psychotic Corey, the short in stature Butch, and the overweight Stockwell. And then at night, he battles the city’s evil villainess, Feminazi, who doesn’t so much push a feminist agenda as use it as an excuse to wreak havoc.

Eric occasionally teams up with a superhero named Butterfly, a skinny cat-lady who can fly and has a crush on Eric. Butterfly has good intentions, but always seems to take too long coming up with a solution to Femanazi’s evil plots, forcing Eric to save the day.

Unfortunately, Eric has another secret. He’s gay. And he’s so damn tired of being in the closet that he’s decided to tell his parents the truth when they bring their daughter to town for a beauty pageant.

And that’s pretty much the whole movie. Feminazi keeps threatening the peace and Eric keeps having to stop her. I guess there’s also a thread where Eric and Butch stop being friends when Butch finds out that Eric is Super Epic. But yeah, there isn’t really a plot here. Just a series of things happening.

Tilda Swinton for Feminazi?

Okay… this was not what I expected.

I really loved this idea but the execution… how do I put this… wasn’t very elegant.

There were a lot of first-timer mistakes that prevented “Super Epic” from becoming the awesome movie I think it could be.  So let’s dive right into them.

First, the screenplay should only be focused on two threads, just like the logline lays out – Eric should either be dealing with protecting his superhero identity, or he should be dealing with protecting his sexual preference. That’s what we came to see. So if there are large chunks of the story that aren’t dealing with one of these two issues – which there are – then the story will feel unfocused – which it does.

I think we go 24 pages in the script before we reveal that Eric’s gay. There are just too many wasted scenes that aren’t dealing with the script’s key issues.

It would be like if you read the logline for The Hangover – Three groomsmen try to find the groom the day after his drunken bachelor party when none of them remember anything – and then you had scenes where the characters went and took golf lessons. We’d be going, “What does this have to do with the premise?” That’s how I felt a lot during Super Epic.

On top of that, there were no STAKES attached to either of these secrets. The power in a character hiding something comes from our fear of what will happen if the secret is discovered. I didn’t get the feeling that much would change in Eric’s life if he revealed he was Super Epic, or gay, and since keeping these secrets was the point of the entire movie, I’m not sure how it can work without those things in place.

Take Eric’s family for example. These are the people we’re supposed to be afraid of Eric coming out to. But they’re a cartoon. They’re the Honey Boo Boo family. They hold no real weight as characters because they’re caricatures. Who cares if a caricature doesn’t accept your sexuality? If you want the closeted angle to work, you have to make the family real people. They can still be funny, but they have to be grounded. And we have to fear their reaction if Eric were to tell them the truth, which we don’t.

On top of this, there’s no real structure to the story. There’s no clean plot. Nobody’s trying to take over the city or has some big master plan. Feminazi just keeps occasionally wreaking havoc, and since there’s no escalation or focus to these attacks, we don’t feel like we’re gearing up towards anything. These characters need more of a plan and this plot needs more focus.

Then there are some obvious oversights. I mean, this is a movie about a guy trying to hide his homosexuality, but there’s no love interest! There’s no guy he likes or is going out with. How can we adequately explore a gay man’s hidden life if we don’t explore his relationship with men?

Let me give you an idea of how to solve some of these problems.  I’m not saying this is the only way to fix this screenplay, but it should give you an idea of which direction to turn the boat.

First, create some real stakes in Eric needing to hide his sexuality from his family. Make them real people, not a silly joke. Make them conservatives, probably religious, and unaccepting of homosexuality.

Next, I don’t think you get the most drama if Eric plans to tell his family that he’s gay. I think it works better if he’s planning NOT to tell them. He wants to hide it because he knows his family couldn’t handle it.

Next, have it so the family’s coming in for the weekend for some event, and they’re staying with Eric. This is important. We need them AROUND HIM so it’s hard for him to HIDE his secrets. The time limitation also gives your plot focus (you’re only covering three days, which gives us a clear ticking time bomb for the end of the story).

And make the family REAL. What’s the point of exploring the difficulty of hiding your sexuality from an unaccepting family if you don’t take it seriously? If it’s one big joke, then we won’t care if they find out or not. That’s not to say you can’t make jokes AROUND this issue, but the issue itself must be dealt with honestly so that we FEEL the weight of it.

Then, give Eric a boyfriend, someone who he kicks out for the three days while his family is there. Maybe this is someone he’s seeing secretly so even his friends don’t know. I’m not sure how you’d deal with that. My gut tells me there are too many friends anyway. Maybe drop the other two and just keep Butch.

Finally, make this the weekend that Feminazi (although I personally think you could come up with a better villain) drops her ultra plan to destroy the city.

Now you’ve got a scenario that really takes advantage of your premise. For three days, Eric must entertain his family, all the while keeping from them that he’s gay and a superhero, all while trying to maintain his relationship and battle the world’s biggest super-villain on the weekend she decides to take down the city. You see how much more focused that is?

Even then, there are still some things to shore up. For example, how did Eric get his super powers? We just see him as a kid pretending to be a superhero and then cut to him as an adult where he is a superhero. What happened to give him his super strength?

You may think that because this is a comedy, you can skimp on these things. You can’t. The details are what make the audience suspend their disbelief. If you graze over things and just figure the audience will “get it,” you’ll watch helplessly as they turn on you. A lot more thought needed to go into this world and how these people have powers. It didn’t seem well thought out at all. And when you combined that with a slip-and-slide narrative, it’s no surprise the script felt messy.

Illimani is really nice and really eager to get better at screenwriting. So while these words may seem harsh, they’re written with love and the hope that he uses them to improve. I hope your comments will do the same for him.

Script link: Super Epic

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

What I learned: One thing a reader will dismiss your script immediately for is if you haven’t thought through one of the key variables of your story. They know if you’re not going to do the work required to get the important stuff right, then you’re definitely not going to work hard on the rest of the script. There was so little thought put into how Eric became a superhero that I immediately knew the script was in for a rough run.

What I learned 2: Comedies tend to work best under tight time frames. A big reason why this script didn’t work was that it wandered. If you put in a tight time frame, you immediately focus the story.

Today we have a very special interview! On Monday, I was talking about the proliferation of video games and how they’re stealing more and more butts in seats from the box office, particularly the under 25 crowd. But fear not. Someone has to write these video games. And that means there are more jobs open for writers. In order to prepare you for that potential job, I brought in the head writer of one of (if not THE) biggest video game around, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. John MacInnes broke onto the scene by winning a Nicholl Fellowship in 2012. I actually reviewed his winning script on the site, which you can check out here.  Let’s find out how that led to this job, and then ask John what it takes to write a video game.

SS: First thing’s first. You won a Nicholl Fellowship in 2012 for your script “Outside The Wire.” Can you tell us what your writing career was like up to that point?

JM: I always wanted to make movies. My first job was as a film projectionist in my local flee pit in rural England. I studied film making at university (in the same year as Steve McQueen, 12 Years A Slave, etc). Initially I was more interested in directing and spent a lot of time making short films and trying to get a feature off the ground but I eventually ended up in LA completing a Masters Degree in screenwriting at UCLA.

So I’d written a number of scripts before winning the Nicholl – maybe about eight? – I had some interest in my work but it wasn’t until I won the Nicholl that things started to take off. Writing a decent script is one thing, getting that script read and getting interest in that script is a whole other battle. I entered the Nicholl on a whim just hours before the deadline and didn’t think too much about it until I got the call telling me I was a finalist. So, you just never know what’s going to stick. The only thing I have some kind of control over are the words on the screen in front of me, so I focus on that and hopefully the rest will take care of itself.

SS: You say you never know what’s going to stick, but can you identify anything in “Outside the Wire” that made it stand out from your other scripts?

JM: It’s hard to say. The script I wrote before Outside The Wire was a family comedy which was only optioned after winning the Nicholl. Certainly, Outside The Wire is a more immediately compelling script but then again it is a high stakes action thriller. I think Outside The Wire does create a specific world that feels authentic. When I show up to meetings people are sometimes surprised that I’ve never served in the army or gone to Iraq. I like detail. I like specificity and I love to be immersed in a world. Those are all qualities that work well in video games.

Glen Schofield, the creative mind behind Advanced Warfare, is a very detail oriented guy and if you think about it you have to be. Every single element in a video is designed and created – in 3D! You can walk around in a game and just look at stuff, and if you do it’s going to look and feel like an authentic functioning thing. Having said all of that, a world you create is totally meaningless unless you have compelling characters who inhabit that world. I just finished a movie adaption of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, an action adventure set in India at the end of the 19th century. It’s a fascinating world but what makes it compelling is Kim, the 16 year old boy at the heart of the story

SS: So I’m assuming Outside the Wire is how you got your agent.

JM: Yeah. When you win the Nicholl you get to have that day all writers dream of when everybody in town wants to read your script. It’s all a little overwhelming. I wasn’t repped at the time but a friend was managed by Brillstein so I met with Margaret Riley and Naren Desai at Brillstein and pretty much agreed to go with them on the spot. I didn’t have anyone to compare them to but we hit it off and I haven’t looked back. Margaret then introduced me to my agent, Lars Theriot, at ICM. I’ve heard tales of writers cycling through managers and agents to find the right one but I’ve been very happy with Margaret and Lars, they’ve set me up with great meetings and most importantly they’ve kept me employed.

SS: You’re right. Most writers cycle through a lot of managers and agents before they find the ones who are right for them. For future writers lucky enough to be in that position of choosing a manager/agent, what advice can you give them on picking the right one?

JM: There’s a practical matter of can your team get your work read by the people that are going to employ you. If you just look at their other clients it’ll give you an idea. I think it also depends on what sort of relationship works for you. Some managers are more like producers and are very involved in your creative process, others are more about guiding your career and connecting the dots. I like people who see the big picture and who are invested in your career for the long term. It’s also not just about what you see in them. It’s a two-way street. I’m on the lower rungs of success. If they’re going to go into bat for me, I have to make sure I’m going to make a good impression on whoever I’m meeting.

SS: Okay, so let’s get to it. How does a writer get a job writing for a video game? Where do you go?

JM: Call Of Duty came through my manager. Suzanne Todd is a consulting producer to Activision. She read Outside The Wire and thought I’d be perfect for the new title. My script is an action thriller about a private military company working in Iraq so if you’ve played the campaign in Advanced Warfare you’ll know it covers similar themes and issues. Bizarrely – because I don’t think of myself as a military nut – I’ve acquired a lot of knowledge about special forces. One of my first jobs out of college was as a researcher/story consultant for the BBC who were developing a drama series about the SAS (for Paul Greengrass when he just ‘just’ a tv director). It was my job to read every ‘kill and tell’ book ever written about the SAS and go and meet with a bunch of those guys.

So Activision loved my script and I had a pretty good knowledge of subject, but I wasn’t much of a gamer at the time. I’d played CoD a few times but it turned out they wanted someone specifically from the movie world to bring greater depth to their characters and give their campaign a more cinematic feel, rather than someone who was going to improve their game play – those guys have that covered! I’m sure they interviewed a lot of other writers – but you never know what you never know – I had, I think, three meetings so I knew I was getting close, and then I got the call saying I had the job.

SS: That’s awesome.  So how much emphasis is put on the writing in one of these big games compared to areas like gameplay, graphics, etc.?

JM: It’s hard to answer that because the games industry is evolving all the time and every game is different. Yes, first and foremost, it’s a game, so traditionally writing has been more of an afterthought, but the guys at Sledgehammer were really keen to break new ground. Advanced Warfare is the first next gen CoD title, which means the level of resolution is approaching that of a movie (if you can even compare a 2D passive experience with a 3D immersive experience). With that level of photorealism comes the opportunity to create emotionally engaging character performances on par with anything you’d see in a movie or on tv. So they had to take all the performance aspects up a notch and that’s why I think one of their smartest decisions was hiring Kevin Spacey to play our bad guy.

The Last Of Us came out last year and was a critical and commercial success. It represents a paradigm shift in the way the games industry thinks about narrative and story and really showed that a video game can have a story as complex and developed as a movie and I think that trend is just going to continue. CoD is mostly known for it’s multiplayer but it’s the campaign (the story) that give the game its identity and it gives you the world. I think Eric Hirschberg (Activision CEO) made a smart move to sell Advanced Warfare with Kevin Spacey’s character, Jonathan Irons the CEO of the Atlas Corporation. You can’t really sell the game play in a commercial but you can sell an idea, a theme, through a character. It’s funny because I was so busy when Advanced Warfare came out that I actually forgot until someone sent me a link to Kevin Spacey on Jimmy Fallon talking about the game and showing a scene. Has that ever happened before? A Hollywood actor promoting a video game? Got to say it was pretty cool.

SS: That’s spec-tacular.  Can you detail the writing process? When do you come in and what is it your job to do?

JM: Let me just say that the way games and movies are made is very different. I was brought on at the early stages to work on the story but the game was already being built, so I think there are aspects of game production that are more like a large animated movie – it takes so much time and work to build the thing that you have to start building right away. It’s a little like building the sets before you’ve written the scene, but that’s just the nature of the beast. Over the three years it takes to make every element, either game play or story is subject to change. These changes could be because of all sorts of reason that have nothing to do with the story, so the sands are constantly shifting.

It’s also a very collaborative process. As well as the creative heads, there are the level designers who have a big input, so it’s important for me as the lead writer to understand their creative process and work together as a team. But I’ve never seen game play and narrative as mutually exclusive and I think we all learned a lot from each other.

Another difference between writing a movie and writing a big AAA game is the absence of a complete script. The campaign is made up of 15-20 levels. Each of these levels has a cut-scene or load movie. Traditionally, the cut scenes were full of exposition – basically cramming the story in there – but on Advance Warfare we really wanted to integrate the storytelling into the game as a whole and the cut scenes play like a scene in a movie rather than endless graphic information. So, there was time spent on developing the characters and story as we go. Each of the levels is like a set piece in itself but must function for the narrative as a whole (even though they might get written out of sequence). It’s a very interesting creative process, quite different from a movie.

SS: Okay so, just to get into a little more detail – What is the terminology for every component you’re responsible for writing? For example, do you break it down into a) overall narrative, b) episode c) level d) cut scene, e) in-scene. It there a hierarchy like that?

JM: All of the above. But each game has its own requirements. There’s not a set way of doing anything and the terminology for everything is still up in the air. Every game developer has found their own groove for what works for them. So what I’m really doing is bringing my story skills to each and everyone of these situations. It’s challenging and rewarding. Screenwriters and developers speak a different language. Level designers come at the problem from a different angle than screenwriters. The skill is understanding how each elements works in relation to the whole. Understanding the form is absolutely crucial and, as I said, each game is different and presents unique creative problems. I love it when I can solve a gaming problem with a story/narrative solution. That’s what makes it interesting.

SS: With screenplays, obviously, you have a very structured narrative (first act, second act, third act). Is it similar with a video game? A game lasts so much longer so I’m assuming a traditional structure doesn’t enter into the equation. Are you essentially inventing a new narrative approach when writing a video game?

JM: The three act structure is very much part of the equation for the campaign, but it’s more akin to a mini series in its size and scope. There’s about 10 hours worth of story in there! But a lot of it – obviously – is game play. In any level you can only really hit a couple of narrative points without losing the player.

SS: What about character in video games? Is there a difference in approach when writing characters? Or is it similar to writing features?

JM: I approach it in the same way I do a movie. Game developers and screenwriters tend to approach character from opposite ends. I always start from inside – motivations, flaws etc – and the way a character looks and moves emanates from that. Gamers tend to see character only from the outside. But that’s exactly what screenwriters can bring to the game.

SS: What’s the biggest difference between writing a script and writing a video game?

JM: Point of view. It’s interesting because this is an evolving on-going discussion. CoD is a first person shooter so pretty much everything you see and experience is through a character who is also the player… but you never speak. We got around this in a number of interesting ways. One, we employed a VO from the protagonist in some of the cut scenes (you also get to see the protagonist in the cut scenes). Two, your supporting characters, foils and antagonists become really important as proxies for your protagonist.

It’s an interesting philosophical debate that cuts right to the heart of narrative and how we create meaning through human interaction and it’s being played out in every new innovative game that comes out. I’m currently writing a really cool game that is all about the writing with branching story lines and is from a third-person POV. I’m also working on a virtual reality project that just blows my mind. I can’t talk about either of those projects because they haven’t been announced but I could wax on for days about these things.

SS: Is it more work writing a video game as opposed to a script or less?

JM: It depends on the game. The game I’m writing is like writing a six hour mini series for tv.

SS: Finally, the question I’m sure every writer is interested in.  How is the payment in video games compared to the payment in writing traditional screenplays? Comparable? Less? More?

JM: It’s a good question. The games business does not have the precedents that have been established in the movie business over a hundred years or so. Traditionally, the writer in video games is less valued than in the movie business but I think that could change as the value of the writing becomes established. I came to games from the movie business so I get paid movie rates and thankfully I have a great team to fight for that!

It’s also hard to work out a deal because the amount of labor involved varies so much. I’ve been paid for the amount of hours and for the amount of pages, it just depends (must drive my lawyer crazy!). But rates are declining across the board. If it’s just about the money, don’t become a screenwriter. It’s too crazy. I’m just happy to be doing what I love. I’ve done my fair share of crappy jobs in my life and this ain’t one of them. I’m grateful for any opportunity to break new ground and create really cool stuff. It feels to me like video games are where movies were at with the advent of sound. In 1927 the Jazz Singer changed the business over night simply by talking. A little over a decade later you have Citizen Kane. These are exciting times. Who knows what games business will look like in ten years time, but I know I want to be part of it.

I know John’s busy but I think he’s going to try to answer some questions in the comments.  I can’t promise anything, but if you’re wondering something, ask away.