Genre: Horror
Premise: A non-traditional horror tale centering around three young women at a girl’s boarding school.
About: “February” made the 2012 Blood List, but the more interesting story is who wrote it. Now I didn’t know this before I read the script (I try to research the screenplay after I read it so I don’t go in with any preconceived notions), but the script was written by Osgood Perkins. Does that name sound familiar? It should. It comes from some prime horror stock. That’s right. Osgood is the son of Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in Psycho. Now before you assume he got this far through nepotism, you might want to read the script and then my review.
Writer: Osgood Perkins
Details: 111 pages – June 2012 Draft

Halloween Madness at Scriptshadow continues!

In the casting profession, you’ll often hear casting directors talk about going through hundreds of auditions in order to get to “the one,” that one actor who makes everyone in the room sit up and pay attention. They talk about noticing that “special something” in the actor, an indescribable secret sauce that you can’t quantify.

Every once in awhile, I’m lucky enough to have the same experience with reading screenplays. You see, the reason that having a unique voice is so often touted as the key to breaking in, is because so much of what we read as readers is the same. It’s written the same, it’s structured the same, it’s imagined the same. So if you find something that doesn’t feel like the rest, you’re immediately drawn in.

I liked Perkins’ writing here so much that I’m going to implore you to find the script and read it yourself before you read my review (plenty of people should have the script in the comments). The beauty of this script is in the way that it grows and surprises you. Reading plot points beforehand is going to take away from that experience. With that warning, let us begin.

“February” is an aptly titled script as the word is meant to convey a feeling. The cold empty air of a February morning. It’s a common practice in Perkins’ writing. February is 75% atmosphere, and the best script I’ve ever read at using atmosphere to engage the reader.

The story starts out at The Bramford School For Girls, on the week the parents are taking their kids away for the weekend. 17 year old Rose, however, informs the headmaster that she miscommunicated the day to her parents, and will therefore have to stay at the school an extra night.

We quickly find out Rose is a little con girl. She orchestrated this hole in her schedule so she could spend the night with her boyfriend. But her plans are thrown into disarray when the headmaster assigns Rose to watch over 13 year old Kat, another girl whose parents didn’t show up.

Kat is a weird kid. She’s plagued with that “something’s off” look in her eyes. You can routinely expect a 1-2 second delay in every response she gives. But Rose could care less. She’s all about hanging out with her boyfriend, and leaves Kat at the empty school to fend for herself.

In the meantime, we cut to a plane flying into Providence, and meet another strange character, the 20 year old, Joan. Joan looks even more out of it than Kat. What’s going on here? Is there some sort of virus spreading through the country making women lose their shit? We’re not sure. All we know is that Joan’s surprised to find a hospital bracelet on her wrist. How did it get there? And how come she doesn’t know?

When she lands, Joan heads out of the empty airport into the beginnings of a winter storm. A seemingly sweet married couple in their 50s spot her. When they hear she’s going to the same town they are, they offer her a ride. Unsure at first, she eventually agrees.

Back at the Girl’s School, Rose comes back from her date, only to find Kat missing. She sneaks around the campus looking for her, eventually finding her in the most unlikely of places. It is a place that will set the stage for a shocking turn of events which will bring Rose, Kat, and Joan together in a way we never could’ve expected.

I’ve mentioned this before, but when I really like a script, it’s hard for me to break it down. I’m so caught up in the story, I’m not paying attention to a lot of the technical aspects. This is the ideal scenario. You want your story to be so compelling that the reader never has a chance to understand why it’s working. They’re too busy flipping through the pages, wanting to find out what happens next.

This it the most atmospheric script I’ve ever read. Atmosphere is essential to horror screenplays. You don’t have the music score doing the work for you as your characters walk into danger, so it’s what you describe and how you describe it that creates the suspense and the tension to pull your reader in. Here’s an example from “February,” a quick excerpt from a scene in the cafeteria.

Notice the sounds and images here.  The kitchen door, whining. The man’s footsteps, crunching. The focus on how the man walks, having to pull his weight along. The sound of the refrigerator fan humming. Perkins pays attention to all the little details surrounding the moment in order to bring the moment itself to life. Now you have to be careful about this. You don’t want to overwrite. But readers will give you a little more slack when you’re great with description, as Perkins obviously is.

But what really pulled me in here was the puzzle. The screenplay is set up sort of like Pulp Fiction, where you’re bouncing around from character to character, trying to figure out how it all fits together. I mean when we jumped to Joan for the first time on the plane 40 pages into the script, I threw up my hands and was like, “Where the hell is this going?” The last thing I expected was to be leaving the boarding school, and my brain had to work overtime to figure out how those two threads were going to come together. I loved it.

Perkins also has an amazing ability to make even the most minute moments mysterious. For example, this is how Joan was introduced: “She’s roughly 20 but looks older, some of the brilliance having gone from her eyes.” (line space) “If you asked for her name, she’d tell you it’s JOAN.” You see what I mean. Even a simple character introduction comes with a mystery! Her name is Joan. Or maybe it isn’t. How could something as simple as a name come with such uncertainty??

Now this script isn’t going to be for everyone. Some are going to find it slow. Perkins makes you read for a long time before he rewards you with any payoffs, and his focus on description and ambiance is so heavy at times that it might turn people off. I can already hear some of you, while reading it, saying, “Get to the point already.”

But I loved it. There’s something inherently suspenseful about his style, allowing even the most mundane scenes to come alive. For example, when the ultra-fragile Joan is having breakfast with Bill (the husband character who gave her a ride), we’re convinced that he’s angling for something here, that he has a possibly evil agenda. Which makes us worried for Joan. But at the same time, we haven’t figured Joan out either (what was up with that hospital bracelet??), and a part of us is wondering if she’s the one we have to worry about. I rarely feel so much energy underneath a scene that was, basically, two people talking over a meal.

But the kicker of why this horror script is so much better than everything else out there is the writer’s choices. As I like to say (or at least, am about to) “Voice is choice.” (major spoiler follows) Had you given 100 writers the premise of, “Write about a psychopathic 13 year old killer,” 99 of them would’ve written a straight-forward slasher type script following a 13 year old girl going from victim to victim. “February” is anything but that. It deftly weaves three giant puzzle pieces together into one of the more satisfying (and creepy) revelations I’ve ever come across.  Remember this always, guys.  When you come up with an idea, sit down and think about EVERY ANGLE you can tell that idea from.  Don’t just hop into the first approach that comes to mind because that’s probably the most boring approach.

“February” reminded me a lot of Wentworth Miller’s writing, but I think Perkins is even better. If I were a horror screenwriter, I would say that these two guys are the ones you want to be studying right now.  They’re the ones with the most interesting vision.  Even though I thought Interstate 5 was decent, the writing here really shows how big the gap is between average and great. You really see how good writing can elevate something.  What a script!

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

What I learned: If you love writing description but you’re tired of the screenwriting Gestapo telling you that there’s no place for excessive description in screenwriting, here’s a workaround for you: Hide your description INSIDE OF ACTION. That way, the description doesn’t sit out on its own and bore the reader. For example, let’s say you want to describe the kitchen during a night scene, that it has “slivers of moonlight” that “shine off of hanging pots.” Don’t start your scene with that description. Wait until there’s some action in the scene and then squeeze the description inside of the action, like Perkins does. Here he is describing Rose in the kitchen: “She steps deeper into the dark room, guiding herself by the slivers of moonlight that shine off of hanging pots and pans and along the sharp edges of metal counter tops.”

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: Crime-Thriller
Premise (from writer): Over the course of one night, a reformed father must step back into his murky past to find his criminal brother who is the only suitable donor for his dying son…
Why You Should Read (from writer): I think it was Tarantino that said he’d been staring through the window at the industry for so long prior to Reservoir Dogs’ success that it felt normal for him to be on the outside now. At times I very much feel the same. I’ve had the agents, the managers, the lawyers and done the water bottle tour too. I’ve had scripts go out to all the major studios and prod cos and placed highly or won most of the major contests worth entering. I’ve written/directed my own award winning short films that allowed me to go around the world to various festivals and meet audiences first hand, and I’ve had pilots go into networks and yet I’m still here bashing away, whilst staring through that looking glass and working as a bartender. So, I decided to take stock, go away and write something that I’d want to see at the cinema. A movie me and my buddies would find cool. It’s taken me 13 feature scripts and 4 pilots to “find my voice” and I’m keen to show it to a script writing community that’s as passionate about writing great stories as I am. This is REBEL CITY – with echoes of Michael Mann’s Thief and The Friends of Eddie Coyle – it’s a neo noir crime flick… Hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Writer: Chris Ryden
Details: 114 pages

Tom Hardy for Jonjo?

Man, I hadn’t read the “Why You Should Read” until just now. That shows how hard this business is. Chris has already made a ton of headway in his career, and yet he’s still, as he points out, “bashing away.”

After reading Rebel City, I know why he’s made it as far as he has. Chris can fucking write. Not only does he have all the technical stuff down (very sparse description, clean easy-to-read writing, characters that pop off the page as soon as they’re introduced, gets to the point quickly in scenes) but this just feels like a movie when you read it.

One of the things I love, as a reader, is when I go into something with expectations, and those expectations are immediately turned on their head. Like when I see “Crime” as the genre, 9 out of 10 times I know we’re going to start in some restaurant (or bar, or club) with a bunch of “tough guys” (cops or thugs) talking “tough guy speak.” The restaurant will always be over-described, giving the first page wall-of-text ebola. We’ll then listen in on the tough-guy speak, only to realize by the second page that there’s no point to the scene other than for the writer to be able to write this dialogue – dialogue, mind you, that is 95% clichéd.

In Rebel City, we start with a black screen and a phone call. The discussion is quick and to the point. “Where the fuck are you, Seamus?” “Your flight landed four hours ago.” “Wasn’t on it.” “I didn’t hear that.” “I’ll come get you.”

Not only do we start unexpectedly. But we start with PURPOSE. The words coming out of the characters’ mouths actually MEAN something. A story is being presented. In the very first scene! That’s how you catch a reader’s attention.

And that’s how Rebel City opens. Jonjo, a former criminal who used to live in the small dirty city of Cork, has to go back there to pick up his derelict brother, Seamus. You see, Jonjo’s 7 year old son is dying. Seamus is the only kidney match for him. But Seamus is a wreck. He’s already missed half a dozen plane flights back here with various excuses, and somehow Jonjo knows that if he doesn’t get him now, he might never get him.

So back to Cork Jonjo flies, thinking he’ll just show up at his old house and there Seamus will be. Except it’s never that easy with Seamus. Instead of his brother, Jonjo runs into three thugs who rough him up, telling him he needs to give Seamus a message. They want Florenta back, whoever the fuck that is.

Jonjo then heads to his sister’s place, who he hasn’t seen in years, and she wants nothing to do with him ON TOP of not knowing where Seamus is. Jonjo realizes that if he’s going to find Seamus, he’s going to have to go back inside the grisly underworld he worked so hard to escape. He’s going to have to be Bad Jonjo again.

So then, in the spirit of The Equalizer and John Wick (“That dog was a dying gift from my wife!”), that’s exactly where Jonjo heads. He meets some old friends and makes some new ones (if “making new friends” includes being shot at, tied up, and tortured). The longer he looks for Seamus, the more he realizes his brother’s involved in some deep shit, the kind of shit where even if he finds him, there’s no guarantee they’re going to get out of this town alive. But Jonjo’s son takes precedence over everything.  If there’s any chance of getting his brother, he’s going to take it.

It’s hard to read Rebel City and not marvel at the skill on display here, particularly the dialogue, which is something we don’t get to celebrate enough on the site. Chris keeps his dialogue short and to the point so it zings by, knows his characters well enough that each one sounds a little different, and gives each line a touch of salad dressing to elevate it above regular conversation.

And his description isn’t too shabby either. Chris never lingers, never over-describes, but adds just enough flavor to paint a picture.

You’re probably sensing from my tone that there’s a “but” coming. And there is. But there’s something that didn’t click here for me. And this is one of the most frustrating parts of my job. It’s kind of like being a music producer. You have a singer come in and they have an AMAZING voice. It fucking blows you away. Then later you pop in a song of theirs and the song is ho-hum. You still hear that amazing voice, but the song isn’t doing it for you.

I think my reservations are due, in part, to me hoping the script would go in another direction. I thought Jonjo was going to pick up the world’s shittiest brother, Seamus, and the two would have to navigate themselves out of the town. Cause to me, Seamus was the most interesting character in the screenplay. He’s this piece of shit who has the opportunity to save his own nephew, and yet he can’t fucking get on a plane with a ticket already bought and paid for. I wanted to know more about what made that guy tick. And I wanted to see that sibling relationship play out over the course of the movie.

But after 20 pages, I realized that Seamus was a plot device only. He exists only to get Jonjo there, which means Jonjo’s going to be doing this alone. And don’t get me wrong. There are still some nice moments. Hell, I think the Peg-Leg Pete Dominatrix scene (page 65 for those who want to jump straight to it) should go down in the annals of Amateur Friday history. That was some fun/hilarious/disturbing shit.

But a lot of the other conversations and scenes felt too familiar. Just like those singers who can knock a high note out of the park, Chris had a stranglehold on these characters and they all sounded wonderful. Still, the song wasn’t making me dance. If you’ve asked one low-rent punk where Seamus is, you’ve asked them all.

So if I were Chris, I’d embrace the absurdity of this world. Just like the Peg Leg Pete scene and, to a lesser extent, the Evelyn scene (I feel like we cut out of that scene before things could get good), you make this a cast of characters that are over-the-top and fucking weird. Each one moreso than the last. The further this journey goes on, the stranger it gets. Because, yeah, the Cunninghams were okay as a gang, but they were far from MEMORABLE. I want memorable.

Also, and keep in mind this is coming from a sci-fi geek, I thought the mystery government high-tech box thing should have played a much bigger part in the story. That was the first moment where I went, “Whoa, what the hell is Seamus involved in here?” There was finally some real mystery to the story. But as soon as it’s mentioned, it goes back into hibernation. I would’ve loved for that to arrive earlier and be a bigger part of the plot.

The way I see this is we’ve already seen the standard version of this movie. The thug underbelly English/Irish life. So what are you going to do to make your “thug underbelly English/Irish life movie” different? How do you make yours stand out? I say you do it by putting more crazy into these characters. I understand this changes the tone of the movie significantly, and if that’s not the movie you want to write, don’t write it just because I think you should. But that was my problem with the script. It felt too familiar.

Script link: Rebel City

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

What I learned: It’s no secret that I believe opening scenes are the most important scenes in the script. They’re the scenes where you either hook the reader or lose them. So here’s a strategy for writing them. Whatever TYPE of movie you’re writing (genre plus concept) ask yourself, what’s the most likely opening scene for that kind of movie. For example, if you’re writing a Western, the most likely opening scene might be a duel in the middle of town. Then, write something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THAT. Just write something they aren’t expecting. Because if you can defy your reader’s expectations on the VERY FIRST PAGE, they’re going to trust you as a writer. They’re going to believe you can keep doing that over and over again.

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: Crime/Drama
Premise (from writer): Having been kidnapped in South Africa, a resilient young traveller is forced into criminal activity by his captors in order to repay the ransom his family could not afford.
Why You Should Read (from writer): I got notes for this [from Carson] about a year or two back. Following some rewrites, it’s had a couple of producers on and off the project, getting closer each time. I’m looking to find out why this script hasn’t gone beyond getting interest into getting made.
Writer: Ned Kilgannon
Details: 112 pages

Alex Pettyfer for Cassius?

Today’s writer, Ned, asks a great question. A question that thousands of Hollywood insiders and outsiders ask all the time. Why hasn’t my project, which has gotten interest from a lot of people, been able to take that next step and get made?

It’s a frustrating question for people particularly because they see so many bad movies getting made. And then they have their project, which they think is pretty darn good, and for some reason it can’t cross the finish line.

Well, I have some theories about this, which I’ll be glad to share in a second. But before I do that, let’s take a look at the script at the center of our question… Devil In You.

22 year-old Cassius Ramsey is just another spoiled rich kid who’s got money to burn.  He chooses to use that money to roam the earth while he figures out what to do with his life. His travel partner, Max, may not have the same deep pockets as Cassius, but he’s got the same spirit for adventure.

Somewhat bored with the typical touristy places kids travel to, the duo decide to check out South Africa, thinking they’ll have a more “original” experience. But as soon as they land, they notice some sketchy men targeting them. Then, on the bus ride out of the airport, they’re stopped and kidnapped by a ruthless gang of criminals.

When the criminals find out Max’s family is penniless, they kill him. But the criminals’ kidnapping-for-cash job doesn’t go as planned when Cassius’s estranged father tells the kidnappers to fuck off. Facing death himself, Cassius pleads with the crew to let him join them. He promises he’ll pull his weight.

The intimidating but pragmatic leader, Jacques, gives Cassius a test to rob a local woman, and he passes with flying colors. Soon, Cassius finds himself moving up the gang’s ladder as he excels at every job and continues to impress Jacques. There’s something exciting about this life that plays to Cassius’s sense-of-adventure. But at a certain point, he starts to yearn for home again, and ultimately must decide whether he wants this life, or his old one.

Before I can answer Ned’s question, I first want to provide what, in my opinion, are the four types of ways movies get made.

The first tier are the sure-things. These are the projects that are so good, either through concept or execution, that nothing can stop them from getting made. These are the Jurassic Parks, the Hangovers, the Transformers, the American Beautys. Everyone knew these movies were going to get made as soon as they heard the concept or read the script. These projects are forces of nature.  Nothing can stop them.

The second tier are the studio mandated movies, the ones that are created solely because the studio believes they’ll make money. These are typically spearheaded by producers who don’t really care about the quality of movies so much as what they do to their bottom-line, and the results reflect that. Sometimes you get your Sex Tapes and sometimes you get your Snow White and the Huntsmans. Somteimes you get your Blendeds and sometimes you get your Lego Movies.

The third tier are the writer-directors out there who have the power to make films just on their name. This is actually where a lot of the bad movies – the ones where you wonder “How the hell did that get made?” – come from. There are no checks and balances on these scripts since the writer-director can make whatever they want. And while sometimes that can be a good thing. Other times it can be a disaster. Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere.” Jason Reitman’s “Labor Day.” These are Tier 3 films.

The fourth and final tier is where everyone else lives. The rest of the projects get made through good old fashioned passion. Because think about it. Nobody wants to make any movies outside of the first three tiers. Therefore, the only way to get a movie made is if you cheerlead your project into existence, if you send it out to everyone, if you push it through wall after wall, if you pester anyone you know to read it, no matter how uncomfortable that pestering becomes.

A movie like The King’s Speech is a perfect example. Nobody wanted to make that movie. Seidler sent it everywhere. Thinking Geoffrey Rush would be the perfect actor for the part of the teacher, he went through his agent. The agent told him to fuck off, that Rush would never have any interest in the part. So Seidler actually found out where Rush lived and sent it there. Rush read it and loved it. Seidler’s passion for his material got the movie made.

Here’s the thing with passion though. People don’t get passionate about shit. You can try using a bunch of smoke and mirrors but if your script’s bad, no amount of cheerleading’s going to get you followers. So having success in the fourth tier usually dictates a minimum amount of quality. The higher the quality your script is, then, the more likely your passion will catch on with others, and the easier it will be to get your script through the system.

Which brings us back to Devil In You. Devil in You, I believe, meets the minimum level of quality required for a Tier 4 project. It’s a solid script, in the vein of movies like Goodfellas and The Godfather, about a guy moving up inside a crime organization, with a unique spin in that it’s set in South Africa and has an unlikely hero.

So why isn’t it a sure thing yet? My feeling is that it’s not big enough. If you look at films like The Godfather and Goodfellas, you got the feeling that our characters were moving up higher and higher into a bigger and bigger world. Just the other day I was talking about how you never want the word “small” in your logline. Nobody makes a movie about “small.” And yet that’s how this feels to me. It’s a relatively small gang and it never grows. With some minor exceptions near the end, I never felt like the crimes they pulled got any bigger, any badder. Cassius definitely moves up within the gang, but I’m not sure that matters if the gang’s influence within the community itself doesn’t grow.

Also, I didn’t really know where the script was going. It didn’t seem to be driving towards that big climax. Again, it felt stagnant, like the gang was just going from one average robbery to the next. For example, your typical heist movie will have the “big last heist.” So we have something to look forward to. Or if you don’t have that, then you at least have to have the feeling that things are getting bigger and that they’re coming to a head. Like I was saying the other day, you need to feel like the balloon’s blowing up. I’m not sure I ever felt that here.

So if I were advising Ned on this particular project – helping him find a way to get this made, I’d tell him to think bigger. Have this gang grow more with each robbery. Just like all these crime movies, show Cassius move his way up the ladder until he’s a serious badass. I guess that’s another problem I had. I never saw Cassius as anything other than that traveller. I never saw him truly lose himself in this world. And I think that’s because Ned was constantly pumping the breaks.

As far as some personal opinions, I’d make Jessica Jacque’s girlfriend, and have her and Cassius have to sneak around.  I’d also ditch the Robin Hood stuff.  If we’re going to make these guys bad, let’s make them bad.  Let’s have Cassius truly have to cross over into a brutal world.  True, the Robin Hood stuff makes Jacques and his outfit more interesting, but I think it limits the gang in how far they can go.  That’s how I’d attack it if I were him.

So to summarize, the less impressive the script is, the more passion will be needed to get it made. You can either try to supply that passion yourself and be the biggest cheerleader in the world, or you can get back to work on the script and let it do the work for you. I think Ned’s a really good writer. I just think this script needs to feel bigger. It needs to build more. What do you guys think?

Script link: Devil In You

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

What I learned 1: It’s hard to cast 20-somethings (especially early 20-somethings) to carry a movie.  Studios are reluctant to do it unless it’s a high school or college film.  It’s not that it’s never done, but in genres like crime, they typically like someone older.

What I learned 2: You want to make your writing easy on the eyes. You want to make it a pleasing read. The excessive use of dashes and capitals made for a harder read than usual here. As someone who had just read two really easy-to-read scripts, this stuck out. Here’s a sample of what I mean.  This hurt my eyes.

Tip #8!

1) Start with a better opening scene – Your opening scene is everything, not just because it kick-starts your story, but because it’s when you’re being judged the harshest. The battle between writer and reader is usually won or lost early on. So don’t give us some “decent” opening scene. Whether you’re writing a blockbuster or an introspective indie film, start us out with something that catches our attention immediately.

2) Cut out excess description – Too much description slows down the read, which creates the illusion that the story itself is slowing down. The key is to always stay on point. Any line that isn’t describing an action or an important piece of information can probably go. This is especially important during the climax, when the script must move the quickest. I’ve read two scripts in the last month which were ruined by over-described climaxes.

3) Get your hero out on his/her journey by page 25 – Whatever his ultimate goal is in the movie, have him start pursuing that no later than 25. Readers have less and less patience these days and if your script is wandering during the very first act, it’s an indication it will only get worse later.

4) Cut out your three worst scenes – If those scenes have important information in them, figure out a way to move that information to other scenes.

5) Give us at least one weird memorable character – Have at least one character in your script who’s unique, different and unforgettable, the kind of character you know actors will be climbing over each other to play. The autistic hitman (The Accountant with Ben Affleck – coming soon), the goofball pirate (Pirates of the Caribbean), the polite serial killer (Silence of the Lambs), the sex-crazed obese woman (Bridesmaids), the manic-depressive romantic (Eternal Sunshine). The reality is, movies get remembered, but characters get immortalized. If you can’t give us at least one unique stand-out character, you’re not writing a complete script.

6) Make sure your characters are talking to each other, not the audience – In other words, stop making your exposition so obvious. Exposition is born mostly out of characters talking directly to the audience. If it ever sounds like you’re doing that, rewrite the scene and focus on what the character would REALLY SAY (like IN THE REAL WORLD) to the other character in the scene. See if you can slip your exposition into that conversation.

7) Eliminate all on-the-nose dialogue – Always try to have something going on underneath the scene when two characters are talking. It doesn’t have to be a giant secret. It could be that one person is simply aggravated with the other. But if your characters are constantly saying exactly what they feel, what they want, what they’re thinking, and there’s no hidden agenda or hidden thoughts behind those words, then your dialogue is likely on the nose.

8) Set up several big questions throughout your script which you don’t answer right away – These will act as suspense-threads, which, if the questions are compelling enough, will keep the reader reading until they get the answer. Questions can range from, “What happened to Amy?” (Gone Girl), “Why do I keep waking up over and over again on the same day?” (Edge of Tomorrow), and even smaller stuff, like “Whose baby is this?” (The Hangover).

9) Focus more on character – One of the biggest problems I’ve been seeing with scripts lately is that the writers always focus on plot. Plot is the mechanics of the story. They’re the things that happen to, for, and against your characters. But remember, the audience connects with the characters, not the story. So figure out what your hero is battling (flaws, vices), what the problems are between each set of people in your story (distance, lack of trust), and focus more on those. An exclusively plotty story gets very boring if you don’t put in the character work.

10) Add more conflict/tension to your scenes – Go through all your scenes. There should only be a few where everything is going swimmingly. For the rest, make sure there’s some kind of conflict or tension taking place. The scene in Gone Girl where Nick calls over the cops after Amy goes missing is a great example.  Although they’re having a perfectly cordial conversation, the tension comes in the fact that the cop is suspicious of Nick.  She’s wondering if he had something to do with this.  One of the quickest ways to bore me as a reader is to give me scene after scene where characters are happy and/or agreeable.

Genre: Drama
Premise: (from Black List) Based on a true story, Dale Julin (a low-level Fresno affiliate morning show host) stumbles upon the biggest story of his life – and though he has reached the midpoint of his career without ever being a “real journalist” – risks his safety and his marriage to uncover the truth that a small Atomic bomb exploded in Central Valley California during the Korean War – a secret that had been hidden for decades.
About: I decided to go BACK to the Black List for today’s script. “Time and Temperature” finished on the low end of the list with 7 votes. The writer, Nick Santora, is a big deal in the TV world. He’s written for The Sopranos, Law & Order, Prison Break, and most recently created the CBS show, Scorpion. Santora did something I’ve claimed on this site is impossible. He won a screenplay contest (the New York International Film Festival Screenplay Contest) with his FIRST screenplay. Off that win, he was hired to write an episode of The Sopranos. Please don’t throw your laptops against the wall. Time and Temperature will be Santora’s directing debut. Ivan Reitman is producing the film.
Writer: Nick Santora
Details: 120 pages (5/31/13 draft)

Steve Carrell for Dale?

On Monday we were talking about what makes an idea big enough to be a movie. In this day and age, unless you’re specifically aiming for the indie market and an Itunes release, you have to think big. And when I read the premise for this on the Black List, all I could think was, that doesn’t sound big enough to be a movie.

First of all, you have the word “small” in your logline. That’s not a good word to have in any logline. Movies are supposed to be big. The events that happen within them need to feel huge (unless you’re going for that indie market). Who cares about a “small atomic bomb?” It sounds insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Tack onto that the Korean War. The Korean War?? The Korean War is like the forgotten stepchild of the Vietnam War. Nobody remembers the Korean War. Already this is looking bad. I mean, if you told me this was about a Japanese-American journalist in 1945 who found out that the U.S. was going to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima 2 days ahead of time and he had to decide whether to report about it or not… now you have yourselves a story. A mini-atomic bomb that didn’t even get dropped on anyone 60 years ago? Is that really a movie? I pray it is.  Or else these are going to be a looooong 120 pages.

Time and Temperature is set in 1989 and focuses on local news show host Dale Julin. Dale’s specialty is doing those fluff-pieces like testing out the local Clown School. Which, in a way, is appropriate, since Dale’s career so far can be described as one giant pie in the face. He’s 44 years old, the age most people settle down into who they are. But Dale’s just not satisfied. He wants something more.

That opportunity presents itself when he takes his wife and two daughters to see his dad at the Travis Air Force base, where Dale grew up. His dad was a war hero, which is like adding flashing lights to Dale’s failures. While home, he learns that an old friend’s daughter just died of a rare form of cancer. But the kicker is that the man’s niece died from the same type of cancer two years ago.

His journalistic instincts kicking in, Dale starts asking around, and learns that dozens of people on the base have gotten cancer over the years. And it all came after a 1950 B-2 Bomber, which was headed to Korea to drop bombs, crashed on take-off. Dale gets the idea that this plane was carrying something with more kick than your average bomb, and he wants to prove it.

So he concocts a pretend reason to interview everyone on the base (a birthday bit for his dad) and just keeps digging. Like any good investigation story, there are some false leads, some interesting twists, and a lot of hardship, such as Dale losing touch with his family along the way. But he continues to hold onto the idea that it’s true, and that the government has been covering it up for 40 years.

It turns out there’s more to this story than just the bomb, and it’s something I wish they would’ve included in the logline (although that logline needs a meat cleaver chopping as it is). It’s not just the bomb that’s the issue. It’s that the bomb’s detonation has caused many people living on Travis Base to contract cancer.

In that sense, it’s kind of like Erin Brockovich, and it makes the story better because nobody gives a shit if a bomb blew up 60 years ago. But if people are still suffering NOW because of this? If it’s affecting the PRESENT? Now you have a story. And that’s something I wish Time and Temperature had hit on more. Because in the end, your story always has to deal with the now. Even the great The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (the book), about a 50 year old missing girl case, ended its story here, in the now, with its main characters in trouble.

All in all, Time and Temperature was a strange read. The story doesn’t get started (Dale first finds out about the cancer) until page 38. Before that, I had no idea where it was going. All we needed were a few scenes to establish that Dale was unhappy and unappreciated at his job, and we could’ve headed off to the Air Force Base. Instead, we have way too many scenes at work covering the same thing and then him going up to a Giants game where an earthquake occurs (which he reports on). And while it was a good scene, it had me scratching my head. Why are we here? Where is this script going?

This is something we’re told over and over again but we writers are so freaking stubborn, we continue to ignore it. We fall in love with our scenes so much that we will add 5 pages of prep, 8 pages for the scene, and 5 pages of transition back to the original story JUST SO WE CAN GET THAT SCENE IN. That’s 18 pages you just wrote so you could get a single scene in. No wonder this script clocks in at 120 pages. Screenwriting is about eliminating anything that doesn’t keep the story moving forward.  A trip to a Giants game moved this sideways.

But once we got to the actual investigation, the script picked up. And I started to understand Santora’s vision better. He was going for something different, a little quirkier than your average investigation story. For example, in one scene, when he’s rushing to interview a top Air Force general, Dale forgets his bag of clothes. Which is really bad because he’s still dressed in a Santa Clause suit from a just-finished news bit.  I can already imagine the shot of that interview in the trailer.

Then there’s another scenario where he rendezvous with a mysterious figure in an abandoned parking lot. It’s very film noir. Unfortunately, it was Dale’s turn with the baby that day, so he’s actually wearing a baby bjorn, with a baby in it. “Is that a… baby bjorn?” the shadowy figures asks. The scene ends on the perfect note too, when the man, Peters, warns him about what’s coming…

The Black List loves this kind of stuff, where you’re riding the line between drama and humor. If you want to end up on the list, an unpredictable balance between these two will help.

Santora also does a good job with our hero, Dale. I think it’s always important to give your characters a “thing.” It doesn’t have to be a flaw, but there should be something specific that defines them. Dale is defined as “the person everyone forgets.” That point is hit on over and over again. And it’s the reason Dale’s so driven. He wants to be remembered for something. When you don’t define your characters with that specific trait, that’s when you’ll get the note from readers: “I never got a sense of that character.”

This just happened to me in a consult script I was reading. The main character was defined, but the three other family members were not, and it was very frustrating because despite each of them having a lot of screen time, I had to profess to the writer that I didn’t really know any of them.

Anyway, Time and Temperature was an up and down experience that was more good than bad. If Santora has some directing talent, he very well could turn this into a movie to watch for. It has just enough of a unique voice to distinguish it from all the other stuff out there.

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

What I learned 1: Hurt other people with your hero’s actions, making it tougher for your hero to keep going. Dale’s Dad informs Dale that because of his snooping around the base, he’s about to be kicked out of his home. Now Dale’s decision to move forward is much tougher, as it’s not just hurting himself. It’s hurting someone he loves.

What I learned 2: Screen time does not define characters for an audience. You can’t just put a character in a movie for 70 minutes and assume that because they’re in it for so long, the audience will just “get” them. It’s up to you to clarify who your character is to the audience. Santora must’ve hit on the fact that Nick was a forgotten man a dozen times (when he walked into a library he was in the day before, the librarian couldn’t remember his face). So decide what that thing is that defines your character and then hit on it repeatedly through action and dialogue.