Shorts Week Continues: Welcome to Day 4 of Shorts Week, where I cover 5 short scripts from you guys, the readers. Shorts Week was a newsletter-only opportunity. To sign up and make sure you don’t miss out on future Scriptshadow opportunities, e-mail me at the contact page and opt in for the newsletter (if you’re not signed up already). This week’s newsletter went out LAST NIGHT. Check your spam folder if you didn’t receive it. If nothing’s there, e-mail me with subject line “NO NEWSLETTER.” You may need to send a second e-mail address.

Genre: Drama/Thriller
Premise: A sinister man on a bus receives a powerful valentine from a little girl.
About: Today’s short has already been turned into a short film.  It was submitted by longtime commenter, Jaco.
Writer: Rob Burke
Details: 2 pages

So far we’ve read a strong animated short, a strong CGI-heavy short, and a live-action script which I used as an example of what not to do in the shorts medium. What we haven’t read yet is a short that we can actually COMPARE to the finished project. Well that’s going to change today. We’re not only going to read a short, but we’re going to see what it looks like on the big screen (or your small screen).

I actually saw this short before I read it. Rob tweeted it to me a few months ago. I thought it was good. Nothing earth-shattering. But something you remember. And in a world filled with mostly forgettable stuff, that’s saying something.

It was interesting, then, going back and reading the script, because there were some key differences between the two. Those differences are worth discussing as they had more of an effect on the final product than I think Rob knew.

“Love” begins with a man, 38, wearing a backpack, waiting for the bus. This isn’t a friendly fellow. He isn’t the kind of guy you’re going to invite to your son’s Bar mitzvah. He’s a mean looking dude. Nervous, too. He’s clearly up to something.

He wasn’t always this way though, as a quick flashback shows. He once had a wife, a baby boy. He was once happy.

The bus arrives. It’s full. This seems to bring satisfaction to the man. Once on the bus, he sits down, takes a look around. Lots of people, going about their daily lives. Another flashback. More time with his family. A little girl across from him breaks him out of his trance with three simple words: “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

She offers the man a valentine, a little red heart with the word “love” on it. The man takes it reluctantly, bringing a smile to the girl’s lips. But he’s still got a job to do. He stuffs his backpack under the seat and slips out the door at the next stop.

Another flashback – the aftermath of some sort of explosion. His family has been killed. Devastation. Fear. Anger. As he watches the bus drive away, he pulls out a phone – HIS DETONATOR. The valentine slips out of his pocket, floats in front of him. One more look at the phone. Should he press it? Just as he’s about to, he changes his mind, throwing the phone away instead.

Now let’s take a look at how the movie turned out…

As you can see, there were some key differences. First, the bus was changed to a subway. I’m guessing this was done because it was easier to shoot, but it ended up being a better decision. There’s something scarier about this happening underground in a subway setting.

The flashbacks have also been eliminated. I’m guessing this was also a budgetary decision, but this really hurt the short in my opinion. Those flashbacks are the only way into our main character’s head. And in this case, they told us a ton. They told us he used to be happy, that somebody was responsible for the death of his family, and therefore this is probably payback. It’s not that we WANT this guy to succeed, but we at least understand why he’s doing what he’s doing.

The next change was a creative one, and I think it really hurt the film. In the script, the girl gives a Valentine only to him. In the film, he looks around to see that she’s given a Valentine to everyone. I don’t know what this choice was supposed to achieve but the way I saw it was that he wasn’t special. Her desire to give him a Valentine basically meant nothing since everyone else got one as well. In the script, this moment was much more special. It meant something because she targeted only him. Combined with the flashbacks to his family, it shows a man who’s able to feel again, which is likely why he didn’t pull the trigger in the end.

The final big change is the ending. In the script, he doesn’t pull the trigger. In the movie, it’s open. We see him hovering over the detonator and cut to black before a decision is made. To be honest, I don’t have an opinion either way on this. I don’t know if that’s good or bad but as long as he didn’t blow that cute little girl to bits, I’m okay with it.

So how does “Love” hold up overall? Well, here’s what I took away from it. First, it’s possible to tell a big story in a very short period of time. This script was just 2 pages long. TWO PAGES! And in that time, a LOT happened. We had a guy waiting for the bus. We saw moments from that character’s past. We had him get on a bus. We had him making a connection with a little girl. We had him leaving a bomb on the bus. We had him getting off the bus and trying to decide whether to detonate the bomb. That’s over 4 locations in 2 minutes!

Compare that to a lot of these shorts I’ve been reading that just seem to go on forever in the exact same location with very little (to no) progress in the plot. “Love” teaches you how much you can do in a very short amount of time.

Having said that, there’s something missing for me. I’d probably still give it a passing grade because Rob fit such a big story into such a small package, but ultimately the stuff that happened on the bus was too muddled. In the script, I’m not entirely sure what happened to the protagonist’s family. I think that’s important to know. And in the movie, I’m not sure why you’d give everybody in the bus a Valentine instead of just our protag. While watching that moment, I thought for sure there was some bigger meaning to what was happening. But then I realized it was just…he’s one of many people who got a Valentine. Because I couldn’t figure out what the intention was of that decision (it looks like it’s supposed to make him happy seeing all these valentines, yet logic would tell us that the opposite should happen), I had to dock it a few points.

So a solid effort, but I feel that Love had the potential to be something much bigger.

Script link: Love

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

What I learned: Just showing a character’s reaction to things isn’t enough, especially in a short, where we don’t have any time to get to know the character. We need a way into their head. We saw this Tuesday with “Tigers.” Emma had Hobbes to talk to, which allowed us into her thoughts. And we actually saw it here in the script, with the flashbacks. However, once those flashbacks were erased for the final film, you saw how difficult it was to know anything about the protag or what he was thinking.

Today’s screenwriters take on MIT’s obsession with pranking. Is the script the next Real Genius or just a giant prank gone wrong?

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” 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 writers) An MIT reject crashes the school and discovers his greatest challenge isn’t getting caught by the administration — it’s surviving the high-tech hazing of a brilliant and jealous rival.
About: According to the authors, this script is inspired by true events. Every week I include 5 amateur screenplays in my newsletter and let the readers determine which one to review (sign up for newsletter here to participate). While the feedback for Crash Course was all over the place, it easily got the most interest of the bunch.
Writers: Steve Altes & Diana Jellinek
Details: 107 pages

I was actually discussing college comedies with a friend the other day and we agreed that if all you do is focus on the basic everyday drunken madness that is college, you’re going to bore your reader to tears. Just like any idea, you need an angle. Drunken madness at MIT? THAT sounds different. Even better when you focus on the unique world of genius pranksters. These guys don’t simply draw a penis on the university president’s picture. They download the picture, animate it complimenting Osama Bin Laden’s thoughts on his jihad, and play it on the basketball jumbotron in the middle of the homecoming game. No doubt, there’s lots of potential for comedy here.

18 year-old Jim Walden is making his way to MIT for his freshman year of college. Well, sort of his freshman year of college. You see, Jim’s not really a student at MIT. He’s a freeloader. Jim plans to get a degree at MIT without paying for it. He’ll go to all the classes. He’ll take all the tests. He just won’t be officially enrolled!

Jim quickly finds out that MIT is a campus full of pranksters. As in, when he makes his way past the main building, he sees that a car has been taken apart and reassembled on top of it (packed full of ping pong balls to boot). It appears that MIT students are so uninterested in doing real work (or so smart that they have tons of extra time on their hands) that they spend all their free time coming up with pranks. Whereas at the University of Texas, the receiver with the most catches might be the most heralded man on campus, here, it’s the guy who’s pulled off the biggest most complicated prank (or “hack” as they like to call it around these parts).

Jim soon finds his way into a local fraternity where he makes a bunch of new friends, plus reconnects with an old one, Luke. The group starts doing a bunch of “hacks” around school (that don’t really have much significance) and Jim is pretty good at them, which starts to make his old pal Luke jealous. At a certain point, word gets out that Jim isn’t really enrolled at the school, which puts all of the fraternity in danger, and gets everyone really mad at him. This delights Luke to no end, who doesn’t like playing second fiddle to anyone.

In the meantime, Nick meets a Shakespeare-obsessed young woman who works at a sperm bank. She helps him overcome all this newfound adversity, but soon she too learns of his lies and wants nothing to do with him. Eventually the story culminates in Luke having to pull off the ULTIMATE HACK at school, which I believe will make all his troubles go away.

Crash Course is a screenplay that FEELS fun. It has all the makings of a hit comedy. You got a bunch of goofy characters thrown into a bunch of goofy situations. Clearly, you’re updating some of those 80s classics like Revenge Of The Nerds and Real Genius. Which I think is a good idea. 80s comedies had an effortlessness to them that we haven’t seen for awhile.

But a few things crashed this course before it could get started, the biggest of which were the dueling concepts. You essentially have two ideas here. The first idea is about a guy illegally sneaking into college. Then you have the concept of a fraternity attempting to create the biggest “hack” of the year at MIT.  Once you try to combine those two, the movie becomes confused. And that’s how I saw it. I was constantly trying to figure out what Jim sneaking into this school had to do with creating a giant school prank. Those two things didn’t organically fit together.

Not only that, but I couldn’t figure out how the “fake degree” thing made sense. Was Jim just coming to MIT to get educated or to get a degree? Because those are two different things. Just illegally taking a bunch of classes so you can learn I guess SORTA makes sense. But isn’t an MIT degree without an ACTUAL MIT DEGREE kind of worthless? You wouldn’t have any official documents to say you that you went to MIT which would severely limit your job options (in this case, becoming an astronaut). Which begs the question, what’s the point of going through this whole sham in the first place? And granted I didn’t go to a big university so I don’t know what it’s like, but I’m assuming it’s difficult to just sneak into a bunch of classes? And even harder to take tests? How does one take a test if they’re not even listed as a student?

A lot of people think this kind of stuff isn’t important since it’s a “comedy.” But it is. The details have to be solid. You can’t skim over the rules. If the rules aren’t clear, the stakes aren’t clear. Most of the best comedies come from stories with high stakes. We have to know what can be gained or lost in order to laugh. If I’m sitting there going, “Uhhh, so wait. He’s taking classes but he’s not really taking classes?” the whole time, I’m not going to be laughing.

The kind of fix you’re looking for here is one that simplifies the plot. First off, decide which is the more important idea to you. Is it a guy who fakes a college career or the MIT HACK plotline? I feel the MIT HACK plotline has a lot more potential so let’s go in that direction. Now create a plot that exploits that idea. This is admittedly hack-y since it’s off the top of my head but maybe Jim gets to MIT only to find out that his scholarship has fallen through. The school gives him a month to come up with this semester’s tuition, and if he doesn’t, he’s gone. His fraternity puts so much importance on winning the annual hack, that they say if he helps them win it, they’ll take care of his tuition.

That would be DRAFT 1 of the idea. You’d need to smooth it out and not make it so “screenwriting 101,” but that’s pretty much how most comedies work. Give your main character an important goal with high stakes attached within the context of a funny setting (in this case, sophisticated college pranking). Reading this draft of Crash Course, I kept forgetting what the point to everything was. He was trying to get an education. He was trying to help people create a great prank. But why? Why was it so important that he did these? So he could become an astronaut? I don’t know. I just didn’t care if this guy became an astronaut or not. It was so far away. A million things could go wrong between now and then that could derail his astronaut career (in other words, there’s no IMMEDIATE need for him to achieve his goal).

Most importantly, when the reader is focusing on all this unnecessary stuff or asking all these questions, or is confused about the purpose of the script – THEY’RE NOT LAUGHING. And that’s what you gotta remember as a comedy writer. If you set up an easy-to-understand plot with a clear protagonist goal, then you can have fun. Then you can throw all the jokes in there. Then your reader is going to be ready to laugh because they don’t have to think. They can just sit back and enjoy.

Look at the Hangover. They set up the situation – Friends needing to find the groom by x o’clock – and then just had fun.

Since too much of the plot and purpose and stakes were muddled here, I didn’t laugh that much, and obviously, you gotta laugh a LOT in a comedy – I’d say a reader should be laughing between 30-40 times out loud during a comedy-spec for it to be sale worthy. I do think this idea still has potential. A Real Genius update would be nice. But the plot needs to be simplified, as do the stakes and the protagonist goal. I wish Steve and Diana the best of luck!

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

What I learned: Comedy scripts should be the easiest scripts to read OF ALL THE GENRES. They need to be fun. I mean, of course they do – they’re comedies! So keep the prose sparse. Move things along quickly. Keep the reading style relaxed. And just have fun with it. Beware of overly technical writing or too much detail. Those things trip up and slow down a script, which you cannot afford when writing a comedy.

What I learned 2: Always beware of dueling concepts. Movies aren’t good at balancing two strong concepts. They tend to be best when focused on one thing. For example, The Hangover isn’t about guys looking for their missing friend in Vegas AND trying to win the World Series Of Poker tournament. Knocked Up isn’t about a couple trying to deal with an unplanned pregnancy stemming from a one-night stand AND the effects of their sex tape that accidentally got released to the public. In my opinion, you gotta pick one or the other.

Adam Zopf, the man who figured out a way to make every high school graduate in the world fear coming back to their ten year reunion, is back with a darker more personal tale.

Genre: Indie Dark Comedy
Premise: A young man who sees his dead girlfriend wherever he goes tries to start dating again.
About: Many of you remember writer Adam Zopf from his screenplay, Reunion, which I reviewed in 2011. I met with Adam recently and he passed me his latest screenplay, which I was surprised to learn wasn’t a horror film but a dark indie comedy. Dark indie comedies are tricky. You gotta have a unique voice and you gotta be careful not to get too depressing. Sideways is a good example of striking that perfect tone of darkness and hope. I was interested to see what I would get with Adam’s foray into the genre.
Writer: Adam Zopf
Details: 94 pages

Summer Glau as Lily?

After meeting with Adam, I was talking to my assistant and mentioned one of the scripts he had pitched me.  She loved the idea and asked if I could send it to her.  What do you like about the idea, I asked.  It reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Lars And The Real Girl. This is, of course, exactly why I was scared to read it myself. I severely disliked Lars And The Real Girl. I just don’t spark to stuff that’s super depressing and ultra heavy-handed. I like to think of myself as a hopeful optimistic person, and you usually see that in the scripts that I like.

So my assistant got back to me less than a day later and told me she really liked Lily and that I needed to read it. Since she had basically hated the last 20 scripts I’d sent her, this meant something. And I was going to read the script at some point anyway. I know Adam’s a good writer. But it’s scary reading something from someone you like that you have a feeling you’re not going to like.  As much as I dug Reunion, a script about a dead girl staring at our main character for 90 minutes sounded kind of…morbid. So as I flipped open the first page, I heard myself mumbling, “Please don’t be depressing please don’t be depressing please don’t be depressing…”

29 year-old writer Michael Dorsey is going about his daily routine. He’s grabbing breakfast. He’s working out. He’s writing. There’s one difference between Michael’s routine and everybody else’s though. Everywhere Michael goes, he sees his dead girlfriend, Lily, in the corner. Which sucks. Because it’s been nine entire months since she’s died. And that’s not fair. It’s so bad that he’s been ordered to get therapy about it (for what reason, I’m not sure).

Even outside of the Lily thing, Michael’s not a very happy dude. He hates his job as a telemarketer and is annoyed by just about everyone he runs into. Well, almost everyone. When Michael moves into a new place, he meets the handyman, the pint-sized Randy White Washington, who will tell anyone within shouting distance that he’s the main drug dealer in town.  Big drug dealer or not, Randy’s a pretty cool dude.

As Randy and Michael become friends, Randy encourages Michael to get back out there. Start dating! Michael takes his advice and after a couple of false starts meets Anita, an aspiring British actress. The two hit it off and all of a sudden, Michael’s life is starting to find purpose again. Kick ass!

Well, that is until Dead Lily begins to realize that Michael likes this girl. This seems to launch her out of her cryogenic staring state and actually start COMMUNICATING with Michael. This fucks poor Michael up to no end, who’s now unsure whether to keep pushing for Anita or “go back” to Lily. As you can imagine, the situation becomes so intense that everything in Michael’s life starts crumbling apart again. Michael realizes that unless he does SOMETHING to get Lily out of his life for good, he’ll never live a normal life again.

One of the things I like about Adam is that he writes with this simple easy-to-read compact prose. Never is there a word in one of his scripts that shouldn’t be there. I could see a lot writers taking a script like this to 105 or 110 page territory. Adam knew exactly how much space he needed and didn’t write a single word more than that.

What I also liked was the IDEA behind closure here. I’m not going to spoil anything but the revealed backstory that explained why Michael hadn’t gotten over Lily, and the subsequent extremes he had to go to to find closure, while utterly ridiculous, made sense within the context of the script. I liked what Michael had to do to move on. That part was really cool.

However, my biggest fears going into the read were realized. And again, I believe this is more me than Adam. I’m just not into these really downer stories. I need hope. I need laughs. I need life. I always say the “woe-is-me’ character is the most dangerous character to write because nobody likes someone who feels sorry for themselves. Michael doesn’t quite seem sorry for himself, but he is a pretty miserable guy. He’s a downer. And I understand why. It’s motivated.  Who’s not going to be down after losing their girlfriend?  But I just personally have trouble latching onto and rooting for those characters.

I actually think Adam might’ve sensed this, might’ve known this could be a problem, and so he brought in the character of Randy. He’d be our comic relief. He’d be our “fun.” And he almost achieved that but, I don’t know – he wasn’t humorous enough in my opinion. He wasn’t Thomas Hayden Church in Sideways. He was more a ball of misguided energy. I would’ve liked to have seen more humor pulled from this character.

Another issue for me was the plot. These super light plots always leave me wanting more. There aren’t enough characters, enough twists, enough subplots. You gotta look somewhere to spice up the pages and i didn’t see that. I think I knew pretty early on what this was about, and most of the script just reinforced that. For example, I knew Lily was always going to be there. That aspect of the story didn’t change until page 80. PAGE 80! A lot more mystery could’ve been culled from that subplot. Or maybe you do a series of flashbacks throughout the script to their relationship so we can get to know Lily, so we can better understand why Michael was so obsessed with her. The only thing we know about Lily now is that she’s a creepy chick who stares at our hero. Ultimately, everything was played very straight forward with the story, so you always knew where the script was going before it did. And I’m a guy who likes to be kept off-balance.

This is why I get nervous whenever I’m sent a more personal piece from someone. I always get scared that it will be too “indie,” if that makes sense. And Lily In The Corner felt too indie to me. What does that mean for Adam’s script? Well, as I pointed out, I don’t think I’m the audience for this. My assistant was and she loved it. I think the real audience you’re trying to win over here are the people who loved Lars and The Real Girl. If they tell you that Lily kicked ass, you’re in good shape. So I guess I’ll turn it over to you guys. What’d you think?

Script link: Lily In The Corner

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

What I learned: I’m usually wary of any script centered around a writer. I just feel that writers and their lives are boring. So it always feels to me like a lazy choice. If the writing is tightly integrated into the plot (i.e. Stranger Than Fiction) then it’s okay. But I didn’t see how Michael’s writing played into the plot at all. If the story focused more on how he hasn’t been able to write since Lily died, then it would make more sense. But I really didn’t see any particular reason why Michael needed to be a writer. Am I off base on that assertion? Adam? I’m sure you’ll have an opinion on this. ☺

Quick note: I’m moving today’s Amateur Friday script review to next Friday. So if you haven’t read it already, then get to it. Also, let me know which movie release you want me to review for Monday.

For those who may have forgotten, I did an interview with Jim a little over a year ago and found the attention to detail he puts into his analysis to be quite awe-inspiring. I mean this guy will dig into a scene at the molecular level to figure out what’s wrong with it. I think of myself as more of a macro guy, looking at the big picture, which is why we tend to have some fun conversations whenever we chat. I’m kinda like, “Do you really need to look at it that closely?” And he’s like, “Yeah, you do!” Having said that, my most recent obsession has been scene writing, which is more of a micro thing. Jim is actually working on a scene writing book and he told me he spends 2-3 hours on just scene writing in his new DVD set (Complete Screenwriting: From A to Z to A-List) that comes out next month. Since I want to learn more about what makes a scene great, I thought I’d bring him in and have a discussion/debate.

For those who don’t know Jim well, he worked in development for Allison Anders’ producers, produced Hard Scrambled, which includes Black List writer Eyal Podell. He works as a story analyst for A-List filmmakers and recently directed a feature film The Last Girl, which he discovered in a contest he ran. Next month he’s coming out with the most comprehensive DVD screenwriting teaching set on the market. I’ve been bothering him for a copy as soon as it’s ready and am currently getting an express shipment from New Yawk as we speak!

 

SS: Okay Jim, good to talk to you again.

JM: Good to talk to you Carson. I thought our last interview rocked. We were able to introduce two terms into the screenwriting lexicon. Story density and…

SS: …faux masterpiece, of course. I even give you credit for those sometimes.

JM. You’re a giver. So I see you’ve shaken things up a bit at Scriptshadow.

SS: Maybe more they’ve been shaken for me. Now let’s cut to the chase. Here’s why I brought you in today. I need to better understand scene writing.

JM: As you know, I am currently finishing up the first screenwriting book that focuses solely on scene-writing for Linden Publishing and I can tell you that two years of being immersed in just scenes has been a great learning experience for me.

SS: Oh, I know all about living inside a book. I have a million questions about scene writing but let’s start with this one. Lots of screenwriters will tell you that each scene is like a movie. They’ll have a setup, a conflict, and a resolution. Which sounds nice and pretty but when I watch movies, I definitely don’t see that all the time.

JM: At the beginning of movies, scenes are more likely to be structured like this but later, after setups are in place, scenes tend to get shorter. Think about the two lobster scenes in Annie Hall. In the later one, Alvie runs around as the completely non-neurotic woman has no reaction. The scene has a middle and an end and, on its own, gets by. However, the earlier scene where he and Annie are having fun doing the same thing is actually essential setup for that later scene to work. With the earlier scene as setup, the later scene is funnier, contains more thematic ideas about how we carry baggage from old relationships into new ones and reveals insight into Alvie’s unconscious desire.

SS: Okay, maybe I’m jumping into this too quickly. I didn’t know you were going to bring up lobsters and I’m afraid of lobsters.  So let’s start with a more straightforward question – What makes a great scene?

JM: Ironically, structure. There needs to be an organic build up to a great reversal or surprise. For me, all surprise comes from setup, which means a lot of effort and craft goes into making a reversal or surprise work. Instead of using the word “goal,” which I know you like, let me borrow a phrase that actors use: “What am I fighting for?” It’s essential to have a character who is fighting for something, and then you have to find obstacles to place in front of that fight that are meaningful and fun for the audience, if not for the character.

SS: Interesting.  Okay.  So here’s a bigger question then – because it’s the thing that really separates the pros from the amateurs in my eyes. How do you do this for 60 scenes in a row? How do you make sure all of your scenes are good and not just have two or three good scenes scattered about?

JM: Without buying my 300-page book or ten-hour DVD set?

SS: Come on. Give us some love.

JM: There is a simple answer and a complex answer and they are the same.

SS: Is there ever a straightforward answer with you, Jim?

JM: No, and I will come back to that. The challenge is to always use the information in the scene in the most effective way. Here’s a simple example…

A girlfriend walks into a room and sees her boyfriend with incriminating, I don’t know, photos. What happens next?

SS: Well if it were me I would run.

JM: I’m talking more from the girl’s perspective.

SS: God, I feel like I’m back in school. I don’t know. There’d be an argument?

JM: Exactly. It’s a dead end. But let’s take a step back and ask what else could happen. Here’s how we can use the same information differently to create a way more dynamic scene…

She walks in and sees that he’s hiding or concealing these potentially incriminating photos. Now she has a goal, something to fight for. She wants to learn what he’s hiding or verify that they are what she worries they are. You have mystery, intrigue, blocking (as she tries to get past him to the items), secrets and conflict that can get at the nature of the relationship (blame, suspicion, mistrust, etc.). Let’s say he’s hiding invitations to her surprise birthday party instead. Depending on what the audience knows, you have either dramatic irony or a surprise twist that acts as a comeuppance to the girlfriend for being mistrustful.

SS: Okay, I’m digging that. Dare I ask what the complex answer is?

JM: Again, the challenge is to use the information in the most effective way. But now we expand the definition of information to include character orchestration, character flaws, backstories, personalities, thematic motifs, meaning built-in to locations and everything else. We’ve sort of backed into a definition of drama: Arrange any and all creative resources you have – character, story, the world – for the maximum emotional impact. If you can’t do it at the scene level, you can’t do it at the structural level.

SS: So every screenwriting book ever written has been wrong for focusing on the big picture? Including the genius Scriptshadow Secrets?

JM: That book was sooo too macro for me.

SS: Nice.

JM: I never bash other books or story paradigms. My attitude is that my detailed focus can complement everything else. How does learning forty new scene-level craft elements hurt you as a screenwriter? For instance, on the DVD set, I talk about avoiding exposition and a list of 12 ways to do it.

SS: There are exactly 12 ways to avoid exposition?

JM: No, of course not. But, remember your joke above about me not giving straightforward answers. I rarely do because I am blessed or cursed with an ability to see all things from multiple perspectives. Here’s how it manifests itself in teaching. Twelve is an arbitrary number but each one is a different take on how to avoid exposition. My hope is that viewers grasp on to one of the angles and it resonates… leading them to their own solution and understanding. But, essentially, every item on that list is a variation of the overriding principle in action: Look for a way to organize the elements for maximum emotional impact. Approaching scenes with this in mind will essentially take care of the supposed “exposition scenes”.

SS: Whoa, that’s deep.  I’m gonna need an example here, compadre.

JM: Sure. This example will show how ordering “the information” can eliminate boring exposition and how scenes won’t always need a self-contained setup, conflict, and resolution.

In My Best Friend’s Wedding, Julianne (Julia Roberts) wants to break up Michael (Dermott Mulroney) and Kimmy (Cameron Diaz). Julianne’s best friend George (Rupert Everett) gives her solid advice by simply saying, “Tell Michael the truth, that you love him.”

In the next scene, Julianne talks to Michael but here is an example of a scene where the set up comes from the previous scene. We expect her to tell him the truth, and she gets close to it, a contrast that creates a nice reversal when she tells Michael the lie that she and George are engaged! However, instead of us hearing this, an ellipsis (intentional omission) and shift in point-of-view make us watch it from afar from George’s perspective as he tries to decipher Michael and Julianne’s confusing body language (mystery, suspense).

Now (surprise) Michael darts straight toward George to congratulate him. The “telling” is less interesting than the consequences. The filmmakers decided that the way to get maximum impact from this “information” would be to watch George squirm as he processes and adjusts to the lie.

We have a reversal that comes from setup: TRUTH to LIE.

SS: Okay, I like that. A reversal. We set up a scene to make it seem like we’re going in one direction, then reverse it so it goes in a different direction. Kind of keeps the audience on their toes since it didn’t happen the way they thought it would.

JM: Yeah, this sort of “change” is at the root all of my discussion about story. However, there is one more thing we have to do before the sequence is over. And it involves a burrito with a lot of carbs.

SS: Please tell me this means your DVD set comes with a gift card to Taco Bell.

JM: Come on, Carson. You know I like the finer things in life. It’s called the Chipotle Method. And it describes how sequences work.

SS: Yes! Chipotle. I love Chipotle. Are you going to buy me Chipotle?

JM: I’m going to do you one better and show you how Chipotle can be applied to screenwriting. Just like when you’re ordering from the Chipotle menu, you never go backwards. When you’re done with the rice section, you advance to the meat section.  When you’re done with the meat section,  you advance to the salsa section.

It’s the same with sequences. In a moment, My Best Friend’s Wedding will advance to a new sequence that will be driven by the assumption and the consequences of the lie. Once we make that crisp (y nachos) turn, we can’t go back. However, the filmmakers decided that Michael and the audience wasn’t convinced yet, so we weren’t ready for the twist.

In the cab on the way to meet everyone, he challenges Julianne and George to get clarity. This isn’t just a Q&A. Michael’s confusion has dramatic resonance and importance. He is fighting for something. He’s thinking, why didn’t I know about this? He may even be suppressing a tinge of jealousy. Once Michael accepts the reality of the lie, so does the audience and we move on to the next sequence.

The next scene is at a church where Kimmy and her family are prepping for the wedding. Julianne, George, and Michael enter. Same question: What’s the best way through this moment? Where is the heart of the drama? Who is the most agitated right now? George. Because he has to live the stupid lie. There is a nice little craft touch (surprise and joke). Julianne whispers “underplay” to George who, of course, does the opposite and acts completely-over-the-top as a way to punish her.

Michael darts out of the frame. We know that the others must learn this information to complicate the story. However, I hope everyone knows the exposition rule about never having a character explain in full something the audience already knows.

SS: Ah yes, kill me now when I see that.

JM: Exactly. So can we believe that Michael “downloaded” the facts to her? Yes. Do we have to see it? No? Another craft choice: let it happen offscreen and play it out in the reactions, which are way more fun. A SCREAM interrupts George abusing Julianne and prepares us for a surprise: Kimmy excitedly runs toward them, with her justifiably extreme perspective (Julianne is eliminated as a threat) to congratulate them.

Whew.

SS: Sheesh.  Remind me to never get married when my best friend is secretly in love with me.  

JM: Yeah, and we’re talking about five minutes of screen time and there are dozens of micro-craft elements that service the principle: ellipses, off-screen action, a discovery or epiphany instead of preplanning, turning exposition into conflict, exploring the not-so-obvious heart of a moment, allowing setups in previous scenes to affect the pacing of subsequent scenes and shifting the point-of-view in a scene. And I haven’t even mentioned a dozen or so dialogue elements worth looking at.

SS: So by your reasoning, there’s no such thing as an “Exposition” scene. There’s just information and the challenge to make it dramatic?

JM: Sort of. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy to admit there is such a thing as an “exposition scene.”

SS: Okay, what about another type of scene I see a lot of writers struggle with. The set-piece scene. Everyone thinks you just make all this big craziness happen and we’ll be wowed.

JM: I do think that set-pieces are important.

SS: Can you explain what they are?

JM: You’re referring to the classical definition of it being a big spectacle-oriented moment, with a wide scope, challenging logistics from a production standpoint and includes as many of the resource of the story as possible. A big dance number in a musical or the train chase at the end of Mission Impossible. And those are set-pieces. I define them a bit differently to help writers figure out the set-piece for their story.

A set-piece scene is where you go for it. Ask yourself, given your premise, concept and genre, what is the best scene I can write? For instance, in The Nutty Professor, part of the concept is that one actor plays several roles. The famous “I’ll show you healthy” dinner scene where Eddie Murphy plays all but one of the characters is an organic set-piece.

This is one of the reasons the DVD spends almost an hour on exploitation of concept. Writing a set piece is like distilling your concept into its essence or finding the perfect manifestation for it. By thoroughly understanding and assessing their concept, writers can nail their scripts’ unique set-pieces,

SS: And what about the opposite? The quieter scenes. For example, Good Will Hunting has a bunch of what I’d call ‘anti-set-piece’ scenes.

JM: Actually, that’s where I disagree 100%. In fact, almost as much as a Tarantino film, Good Will Hunting relies on set pieces. For its concept, there are several set piece scenes: the first therapy scene with Will and Sean, the Harvard bar scene, maybe even the long joke/storytelling moments and the session when Sean and Will bond over both having been beaten as kids. Without those great scenes, Good Will Hunting is an after-school special: a damaged kid goes to therapy and learns to love himself.

SS: I guess what I mean is, what about the not-so-set-piece-y scenes – where you basically just have characters talking?

JM: Earlier, I mentioned that I co-opted the phrase “what am I fighting for?” from the language of actors. The reason is because sometimes the idea of “goal” doesn’t help us tell the entire story.

SS: I love goals.

JM: I know you do but let’s take a look at the Good Will Hunting scene where Chuckie tells Will that he wants to see him get out of town. If Chuckie were his career counselor and just giving him some solid advice, the scene would suck. And a goal like “to convince him to leave” is nowhere near as strong as what I sense Chuckie’s fighting for. For his friend’s soul.

Think about it like an actor and director. If the actor said, “I am having a hard time finding the importance here. What’s the big deal about me telling him this stuff?” If you have a good answer for yourself or the character, then the scene probably works. Here, you could say this to the actor: “You and he are best friends and have been doing the exact same things together for the last ten years. But you realize now that you are keeping him back. These things that have brought you comfort and have felt good are killing your best friend, making him throw his life away. He’s not going to change anything, so you have to even if it means you will never see him again.”

SS: “What is the character fighting for in the scene?” That’s an interesting way to think about it. And speaking of these “talky scenes,” how does dialogue factor into your scene building?

JM: Typically, I’ll talk about dialogue last. Writers need to be reminded about the visuals first. I start with structure of a scene (beats and reversals) and then blocking, locations, props, motifs and strategies to help externalize the internal. Then, finally, dialogue.

On the DVD set, I discuss several advanced topics in dialogue that help writers break the rules: long scenes, talky scenes, monologues, rhetoric (storytelling within the scene itself), subconscious and extended beats. I use examples from Frost/Nixon, The Edge, Good Will Hunting, Inglorious Basterds and, of course, True Romance.

SS: I typically tell amateur writers to avoid long dialogue scenes because the longer they are, the more unfocused and wandering they tend to be. But there are writers, like Tarantino and Sorkin, who do it well. How do those guys make their endless dialogue scenes work?

JM: A lot of it is the same principles that are used in short scenes. A longer scene might need a bigger twist. It comes down to the offspring of our last interview… story density. If you have a long, talky scene, you gotta make sure there’s enough to keep it going. Is the dialogue actually action like in the opening scene of The Social Network? Are the characters casually shooting the crap or are they verbally sparring? Whether you deal with structure before or after the first draft of a scene, you can look at the finished product and determine if there is enough going on. Let’s say you think you only have half as much “stuff”. Then it’s simple. Double the amount of stuff or cut out half the fluff.

That said, there is no denying that making a long and talky scene work is easier for a great writer. Tarantino, Mamet and Tony Gilroy have all of the skills that a burgeoning professional writer has but they also have more. I discuss dozens of craft elements from the True Romance interrogation scene. Part of the reason that scene works is because Walken and Hopper are such good storytellers. Some of it comes from the writing and directing, but the actors add to the dozens of subtle touches.

Hopper will say something intriguing that raises a question and then take a long pause to puff a cigarette before he finishes the thought. He is milking the moment for suspense but it comes from character. The beat is that he is trying to lure the Walken character in to listening to the story so that he might save himself from a lot of pain and his son from death. I could talk about that scene forever.

And you got me thinking, Carson… there isnt’ room to do it here, especially with a beast like the opening of the Social Network, but I will cover the topic of long scenes and spend some time on that scene in one of my upcoming Craft & Career newsletters. It’s free and people can sign up at the site.

SS: By the way, you need to tell me which newsletter service you use later.  I’m lucky if mine gets to half the people on my list.  But we need to start wrapping things up. Is there anything else about scene-writing you think we should know?

You know the attention we put on the reversal twist in the sequence from My Best Friend’s Wedding? Dirty little secret, that skill… to turn a dramatic situation sharply so the audience and characters (when applicable), FEEL 100% that there is a new and opposite situation, is the underlying craft to all of screenwriting. Most books look at it only at a story structure level – acts and sequences – but my book and DVD take a micro approach and look at it at the level of scenes (beats), dialogue and even action description. If you can absorb and embrace the craft in making a line of dialogue or piece of action description turn, you will see the growth ripple through all of your screenwriting.

SS: Whoa. That’s a pretty powerful statement. Okay, I just want to know a little more about your DVD set before we go. What sets this apart from all of the other screenwriting teaching materials out there?

Remember, I directed the first 40 DVDS in the old Screenwriting Expo Series. I know what’s out there. I cover topics in theme, exploitation of concept and scene writing that no one else is doing.

And, from a production values standpoint, we weren’t trying to do anything but a talking-heads presentation on those Expo DVDs. My new set contains more than an hour of motion graphics. They add a ton of clarity to the viewing experience. There are some cool animated script excerpts that accompany scene analysis as well. And there are graphs and images that illustrate difficult concepts like character orchestration in ways that have never been done before.

And the great thing is that if your readers want to order it on my site, they can get 40 dollars off! Just use the code “SHADOW” when you order. It’ll be good through the end of the month.

SS: It sounds like you’re pretty passionate about it.

JM: This has been a two-year project and, yes, the DVD set is measurably exhaustive: I have poured everything I know about screenwriting into it. But on a personal note, I am risk-taker at heart. I always look to Go Big or Go Home. I feel that this is my legacy as a teacher. I am really proud of it and I believe it will positively impact and inspire writers of all skill levels.

SS: All right, Jim. Thanks as always for stopping by.

JM: Carson, I live for stopping by Scriptshadow.

SS: That is such a lie but I don’t care because it makes me feel all gooey inside.

JM: I know. The gooeyiness was set up in the first act.

SS: Take care and good luck with the DVD set!

JM: Thanks. This was fun.

To learn more about Jim Mercurio, you can head to his site. If you want to take advantage of the DVD set discount, head over to this page and use the code “SHADOW” when you purchase. If you have any questions, you can send Jim an email.  Also if you enjoyed this scene writing discussion, check out a sample of his $19.99 online scene writing class which includes excerpts from the first two lessons and an outtake from our interview.

A re-posted old review of the screenplay that recently played at 2013 Sundance with Natalie Portman and Shia LeBoeuf in the leads.

Genre: Comedy/Crime
Premise: After his mother dies of cancer, Charlie takes a trip to Budapest. On the flight, he meets a man and promises to deliver a gift to his daughter, who, when he meets her, he promptly falls in love with.
About: Matt Drake has been writing a long time for someone who’s just now breaking through. He wrote the 2000 independent film, “Tully,” as well as an episode of “Spin City” in 2002. But for the next five years, Drake disappeared off the radar. Then, in 2007, all that persistence paid off when he landed on the Black List with this script, which received 14 votes (Top 15). Another 3 years went by where Drake presumably did a lot of assignment work, then a week ago made noise by writing Todd Phillips’ mysterious new super-comedy known only as “Project X.” I’m reviewing today’s script in hopes of getting someone to send me that script. So if you’ve got it, dammit, send it!
Writer: Matt Drake
Details: 119 pages – June 2007 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

It isn’t often you open up a script and meet your main character dangling upside down off a bridge in Eastern Europe to the sounds of a Zsa Zsa Gabor voice over, who’s pontificating about love, specifically the woman this man has fallen in love with, who’s standing in between two gangsters, pointing a gun at our hero’s heart, which she then proceeds to pull the trigger on in order to kill said hero. Then again, there’s nothing quite like reading “The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman,” a script as unique and unpredictable as a 3 a.m. visit to Jack In The Box. Whether you’re into this kind of thing or not, “Necessary Death” is a script you’ll be compelled to finish, and that’s, at the very least, a big achievement in this distraction-plagued world.

Charlie Countryman is a confused young man to begin with. But when he and his stepfather are forced to pull the plug on his brain dead mother, his grip on reality slips into the ether. And if that soap opera hasn’t fried enough circuits, Charlie’s better half hightails it out of Relationshipville, citing Not-interested-itus (I hate when girls come down with this btw). And so, lost, the last traces of normalcy and home sucked away by that cruel darling called Life, Charlie makes the perfectly valid decision to fly off to Bucharest, a country he knows nothing about, in hopes that the foreign-ness of it all will make his memories disappear.

However, on the plane to Budapest (the first leg of the trip to Bucharest), Charlie meets a jolly old man whose combination of broken English and unbridled enthusiasm make him adorable on eight levels. The man just spent a week in Chicago courtesy of his daughter – a gift which allowed him to fulfill a lifelong dream, to see the Cubs play at Wrigley field. Despite Charlie’s attempts to ignore him, the man continues to tell Charlie about his beautiful daughter, and shows him the gift he’s purchased in return, one of those silly batting helmets with beer cup holders attached. Finally the man shuts up, clearly petered out by his nonstop chattering, and falls asleep on Charlie’s shoulder. And doesn’t wake up. Ever. Yes, the old man dies napping on Charlie. When Charlie informs a stewardess about this little snafu, he’s told they’re in the middle of the Atlantic and there’s not much they can do. And since the flight is full, Charlie will have to remain this dead man’s pillow for the next five hours.

As if the trip weren’t weird already, just before they land, the old man turns to Charlie and asks him if he can deliver that wacky beer hat to his daughter. Oh, I didn’t mention? Charlie can occasionally speak to the dead.

Now in Budapest (he didn’t make it to Bucharest), Charlie goes searching for this young lady. And when he meets her, well, she’s so gorgeous he can barely form words into coherent sentences. The two are drawn together by their recent tragedies, and somewhere within the first ten minutes of the conversation, Charlie falls in love.

Unfortunately, Gabi turns out to be a little more than Charlie bargained for. When she was 17, she fell in love with a man named Nigel who operated a business which, although unspecified, seems to involve killing people. The relationship didn’t last, but Nigel never technically accepted the resignation papers. Besides all the killing he engages in, he also makes it a priority to ensure that no men get to enjoy the company of his quasi-wife. So obviously, when Nigel sees Charlie following her all over the city with his tongue lapping up street debris, he pops in to warn Charlie to go find some other avenue of entertainment. But what Nigel doesn’t realize is that it’s already too late. Charlie is in love, and he’ll go to the ends of the world – or, in this case, Budapest – to be with her. And that includes enduring the ongoing Zsa Zsa Gabor voice over chronicling his misfit adventures. But wait, how the hell did this love affair end up in Gabi killing Charlie? That is the reason, my friends, to read the screenplay for yourselves.

“Necessary Death” was tailor made for the Black List. It’s odd. It has a strong voice. You’re never sure what’s around the corner. And it’s well-written. But at a certain point the script struggles to decide if it wants to embrace its oddness, or salvage some kind of traditional storyline. I love scripts that are different. I love scripts that are weird. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The weirder your script is, the harder it is to finish. Because the whole point of structure, is that it sets the story up for a proper climax. Without said structure, it’s all just a lot of crazy wacky sequences. This almost always results in the writer trying to be even crazier and wackier in the final 30 pages, and the third act subsequently comes off as desperate as a result. “Necessary Death’s” saving grace is that it eventually commits to the love story, which gives the screenplay a purpose, but it still feels like it has one foot squarely in each of the two worlds (traditional and crazy) and that lack of commitment had a neutering effect.

I really went back and forth on this, trying to decide how much this bothered me. Then I remembered – I’m a story guy, first and foremost. I like a good well-crafted tale. And only having that single thread – Why does Gabi kill Charlie – to look forward to, wasn’t enough meat for me. I wanted the two tacos, the chili fries, IN ADDITION to the Jumbo Jack, you know? But for those writers out there who want to see how to stand out, how someone emerges with a unique voice, they may want to check “Necessary Death” out. It’s definitely interesting. It just wasn’t for me.

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

What I learned: One of the more heavily debated mechanical details in the screenwriting world is the use of the word “We” in your description paragraphs. Such as “We turn around to see…” or “We slide forward where it’s revealed…” There are writers out there whose heads will explode at the mere mention of another writer using this style. Some will want to murder you. They will argue with you in screenwriting messageboards until you hit triple-digit thread replies. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen. And the thing is, I don’t have the slightest idea what the big stink is. I suppose it’s because it puts the reader in the position of the camera (“we” implies the “camera”) and that’s technically a no-no. But I’m here to tell you, I see this style in professional screenplays ALL THE TIME, including in this one. So rest assured, if you like to do it, keep doing it, and ignore anyone who tells you your script has no chance of selling if it’s included.