Genre: Comedy
Premise: When a failing TV writer sees his friend, Charlie Kaufman, become a screenwriting mega-star after his indie hit, “Being John Malkovich,” he decides to kill him.
About: While there have been rumors that Charlie Kaufman wrote Killing Charlie Kaufman under the pseudonym “Wrick Cunningham,” those rumors have been confirmed to be false, as Charlie Kaufman’s people themselves wrote to tell me that that’s not the case.  As for what that means on who did write “Killing,” who knows?  It could be anyone who’s a Charlie Kaufman fan.
Writer: Wrick Cunningham
Details: 112 pages – March 5, 2002 draft (1st draft)

Rick Cunningham is on suicide patrol – for himself. He’s got a wife he doesn’t really like. Kids he can’t support. He’s a writer but his agent barely talks to him. Therefore he’s decided life isn’t worth living anymore. That is before he gets a surprise phone call that he’s been invited to work on the Donny Most show, a sitcom centered around a comedian named Donny Most.

The staff is a little surprised to find out Rick’s never actually worked on a TV show before. In fact, Rick doesn’t even WATCH TV. But gosh golly gee they sure do like making fun of his name (Richie Cunningham?). People like to ask him how the Fonz his doing. If he’s talked to Ralph Malph lately. It drives Rick nuts. But at least he’s getting paid to write.

That is until an unfortunate accident. While pulling out from a parking space after work, Rick accidentally RUNS OVER Donny Most, the star of the show! The injuries are enough to put Donny in the hospital for months, which means the show is cancelled! Which means all those writers are out of jobs. Which means they all HATE Rick.

Well, all except for one. Another writer on the show named Charlie Kaufman can’t thank Rick enough. He HATED working on Donny Most and the cancellation has given him new life. In fact, it means he can finish this passion project of his, a feature script called, “Being John Malkovich.” Rick thinks the idea is way too bizarre but encourages Charlie to stick with it. Who knows, it might make a great writing sample someday.

Meanwhile, Rick’s career starts tanking even more spectacularly than before. Everyone in town thinks that he killed Donny Most (even though he’s fine – just injured) and therefore won’t hire him for anything. On top of that, Rick gets word that his old friend Charlie sold that crazy John Malkovich script. And even more surprisingly, Malkovich, the actor, is doing it! Hmm, he figures, that’s nice. Too bad it will only make 10 bucks at the box office.

Malkovich ends up making more than 10 bucks at the box office. In fact, the success of the film launches Kaufman into the screenwriting stratosphere. Everyone wants to be in the Charlie Kaufman business. For some reason this devastates Rick, who ends up joining a “We Hate Charlie Kaufman” support group, made up of people who have known Kaufman at one point or another and now want to kill him. In fact, the focus of the group is offering up dream scenarios in which they kill Charlie is bizarre and violent ways.

Pretty soon, Rick wants to kill Charlie too. He’s convinced that Charlie’s responsible for his dying career. So he goes and buys a gun and starts prepping for the murder. In the meantime, a new pill comes out that allows you to feel exactly like a Charlie Kaufman movie – both happy but also a little bittersweet. People in the group start taking the pill and find happiness in being able to feel like Charlie.

Rick gets distracted when an updated “Happy Days” show gets ordered and they want him to work on it. They think it’s hilarious that a writer named Rick Cunningham would be on the writing team. Rick finds his way back to a good place and decides to re-distribute his anger into writing a script about how he wants to kill Charlie Kaufman. Once finished, he sends it to Charlie, who loves it! He wants to make it. Which would be great except Rick falls into a coma (after getting shot by Donny Most, who was pissed off that Rick ruined his career)!

Then (of course) after he awakes, he falls into ANOTHER coma! And when he awakes, he finds out he’s been taking the Charlie Kaufman pill, which has made him believe he’s Charlie Kaufman. Which means that it wasn’t Rick who wrote “Killing Charlie Kaufman.” It was Kaufman himself! Kaufman tries to explain all this to Rick (or is he explaining it to himself?) as Killing Charlie Kaufman becomes a giant hit starring Tom Cruise as Charlie Kaufman. Uhhh, confused yet? Yeah, me too. Then again, would it be a Charlie Kaufman script if you weren’t?

Okay, lots to say about this one.  Let’s start with the first act. Rick Cunningham starts off miserable. He’s already in a bad place. He already wants to kill himself. Therefore, when Charlie starts doing well and Rick becomes miserable, I had a hard time accepting that he’d pin all this on Charlie. He was no worse than he was a few months ago. I thought the script would’ve worked better if it had started out with Rick at the top of his career. He was kicking ass in the TV world. He was on his way to becoming one of the top writers in the business. Maybe the Donny Most Show was actually his first show-runner job. Things were looking up.

Then Charlie Kaufman ruined this somehow and went on to become famous. Actually, that was another beef I had. I couldn’t figure out why Rick was so upset with Charlie. The two were friends. Rick encouraged Charlie to pursue the Being John Malkovich script. Why would he want to kill him after he became successful with it? It wasn’t like Charlie screwed him over or was a dick to him. He simply became successful.

The script probably needed Charlie to be more of an asshole or screw Rick over in some way. There needed to be a moment where Rick could’ve submitted his weird quirky script to one of the producers of the show, but decided against it cause he felt it would go nowhere. Charlie then did instead, which led to his career skyrocketing. In other words, Rick could’ve had this life himself, and he feels Charlie stole it from him. Then it would sort of make sense why he’d become obsessed with killing him. As it stands, I didn’t understand the hate.

Then, when we get into the Charlie Kaufman drug and the producing of Killing Charlie Kaufman, things start to get weird. Like, really weird. It’s always tricky when you have a screenplay mostly grounded in reality then try to throw in a dose of fantasy – such as the Charlie Kaufman pill. If there’s anyone who can pull it off, it’s Kaufman, but I had trouble wrapping my brain around the pill and what was going on with it. It felt a bit too “out there.”

And of course I hate wrapping major plot points around murky story elements. At first the pill appears to be a joke, something to talk about during the group therapy sessions. But then it becomes an essential part of the story, with Rick starting to believe he’s Charlie (or something) and writing a script under Charlie’s name, which is actually under Rick’s name, which is actually a pseudonym for Charlie, which is actually written in real life by “Wrick Cunningham,” who is of course Charlie Kaufman.

When you’re trying to pull shit like that off, you have to make sure the edges are as sharp as can be. And they weren’t, often leaving me wondering what the heck was going on. You could read me the section where Kaufman explains to Rick how Rick thought he was Charlie when he wrote the script a million times over and I still wouldn’t get it.

You know, I originally wrote this review thinking it was written by Charlie Kaufman.  I don’t know what to make of it now being written by some other completely random person.  I mean, it would’ve been pretty cool if Kaufman orchestrated the whole facade and a totally Kaufman like thing to do.  But I guess we’re just left with a really big fan of Kaufman who sorta kinda sounds like him and has too much time on his hands.  Regardless of who wrote it, it didn’t really click.  This one wasn’t for me.

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

What I learned: Avoid wrapping major plot points around confusing or murky story elements. We’re not really sure what these “Charlie Kaufman pills” are or how they work. So when the final act consists of our protag “becoming” Charlie Kaufman and “sorta” writing this script as Kaufman since he was on the pills, we’re just confused.

Swingers is a fascinating pastiche of a movie. Its well-chronicled history includes the actors doing years of table reads to drum up interest and funding for the movie. It was eventually shot on the tip of a shoestring with Doug Liman (The Bourne Identify) directing the film. It was a box-office dud, but word-of-mouth made it a DVD sensation. It started Vince Vaughn’s career and eventually led to John Favreau becoming one of the top directors in Hollywood. Script-wise, it’s basically a laundry list of things I tell you NOT to do. You know I hate scripts with “guys talking in rooms.” Well, this script is basically one revolving room with characters talking in it. Goal-wise, there isn’t much there. I guess you could say the goal is for Mike (Favreau) to get over his ex-girlfriend. The script sends its characters off to Vegas, where we assume the remainder of the story will take place, only to send them back to LA twenty minutes later – leaving us confused and disoriented. You know how I hate Woe-Is-Me characters? Well Mikey is the quintessential woe-is-me protag. On top of this, the script is one long string of dialogue. It’s a non-stop talkfest. So why does it all work? Well, that’s hard to say. I have a saying: “Funny trumps everything.” Even if you break every rule in the book, if the audience is laughing, they’ll stick with you. And the dialogue in Swingers is realllllyyyyy funny. Still, this is one of the trickiest scripts I’ve ever broken down. It shouldn’t work. It has no business working. And yet it does. Let’s see if we can’t find out why.

1) The Sympathy Card – One of the reasons we love Mike despite how pathetic and depressed he is (Woe-is-me!), is because he’s earned his “sympathy card.” Give your protag a sympathy card by having something bad happen to him. Two of the most popular ways to do this are through the death of a loved one or getting dumped by your significant other. If you show how devastated your protag is, we’ll have sympathy for him and follow him through anything. Mike’s obsessive yet honest depression resulting from his girlfriend leaving him ensures we’ll be Team Mikey all the way.

2) For good dialogue, give each character a directive in the scene – When bad writers try to ape a movie like Swingers, they focus their scenes on “humorous” observations about life with no real focus or structure (i.e. they’ll have their characters discuss for seven minutes why they believe Dr. Seuss was gay). For dialogue to work, the scene needs to have direction. You achieve this by giving each character a directive they’re trying to achieve. You then look for humor within the evolution of that discussion, as opposed to trying to find the comedy first and building a scene on top of that. Look no further than the very first scene in Swingers to see this in action. Mike is talking to his friend Rob. His directive is to figure out if it’s okay to call his ex. Rob’s directive is get Mike to stop thinking about his ex. It’s a simple and humorous discussion, anchored by both characters having clear directives in the conversation.

3) CONFLICT ALERT – Remember guys, movies rarely work unless there’s some element of conflict between the two leads. If the characters are always on the same page, we’re going to be bored! Mike is all about respecting girls and being honest. Trent is about telling girls whatever he needs to to get them in bed. He has no respect for them. This is the basis for 75% of their conversations. They always butt heads on this issue. That push and pull is what makes their dialogue so fun.

4) Disagreement Is A Comedy’s Best Friend – There isn’t a single scene in Swingers where characters agree. Every scene is two people disagreeing about something. It’s that simple. The intensity of these disagreements varies. But it’s always there. The first scene has Mike and Rob disagreeing about whether he should call his ex. The second scene has Trent and Mike disagreeing on whether to go to Vegas. The blackjack scene has Trent and Mike disagreeing on whether to double down. Then Mike and Trent disagree on how to treat a waitress. In the girls’ trailer, Trent wants to hook up with a girl while Mike wants to check his voicemail to see if his ex called. It’s one of the simplest ways to create comedy people. Just have people disagree.

5) If your plot is all over the place, make sure your protag’s throughline is strong – Like I mentioned in the setup, this plot (when there is one) is all over the place. We start in LA, then Trent convinces Mike to come to Vegas, then we come back to LA, then we start randomly going to clubs and parties, then there’s a weird showdown with a group of gangbangers, then we go back to the bar scene. There’s virtually no plot here! However, the reason the movie’s able to stay together is because Mikey’s throughline is so strong. He is OBSESSED with his ex. He’s obsessed with if she called. He’s obsessed with whether he should call her. The first two scenes (the first with Rob and the second checking his answering machine) barrel home the issue that Mike is not over his girlfriend. This issue is a part of every single scene, which saves this script from wandering aimlessly into the Nevada desert.

6) STAKES ALERT – Remember guys, heighten scenes by setting up the stakes AHEAD OF TIME. One of the reasons the classic blackjack scene works so well is because we establish beforehand (in the car ride) that Mike only has $300 bucks to his name. Therefore, when he accidentally gets stuck at the high roller table (100 dollar minimum), and has to double down (so the bet is $200), we know this is 2/3 of all the money he has. The stakes for winning this hand are now HUGE. Had we not established this beforehand, this scene wouldn’t have played nearly as well.

7) SMASH CUT TO – The “Smash Cut To” has sort of been forgotten but is still a viable alternative to “Cut To” that can be used for comedic effect. Use it any time you’re cutting to another scene that’s the payoff of a joke. For example, when Mike and Trent are arguing on the phone about going to Vegas and Mike keeps saying, “I’m not going to Vegas.” “We’re going to Vegas.” “I’m not going to Vegas.” “We’re going to Vegas.” “I’m not going to Vegas.” “SMASH CUT TO: Mike and Trent in car going to Vegas.” Or after Mike’s been wiped out at the high stakes blackjack table. “SMASH CUT TO: Mike and Trent are wedged between the BLUEHAIR and the BIKER at the FIVE DOLLAR TABLE.”

8) Use friendship to make an asshole character likable – Trent is a huge asshole. He’s selfish. He’s a dick. He has zero respect for women. He makes jokes at others’ expense. So why do we like him? Because Trent would take a bullet for Mike, our protag. You have no doubt, in any scene, how much Trent loves Mike. It’s that love, that friendship, that helps us overlook all those negative traits. If Trent was as much of a jerk to Mikey as he was to everyone else? We’d hate him.

9) Milk your characters’ dominant traits for better dialogue – Whoever your characters are, particularly in comedy, look for any way to milk their dominant traits within the dialogue. Mike’s dominant traits are his lack of confidence, his nervousness, his indecisiveness. So whenever Mike talks, he’s always stuttering, repeating things, overcompensating (He bumbles to the dealer at the high stakes table. He bumbles to the girls they meet at the Vegas bar). Trent, on the other hand, loves himself. So a lot of his dialogue is in the third person (“Daddy’s going to get the Rainman suite.” “Now listen to Tee. We’ll stop at a gas station right away.”). So many writers write friends who sound the same. This is one of the easiest ways to make them sound different.

10) The Choice – Remember, the most emotionally gripping scripts have “The Choice” at the end. That’s when your main character has a choice he must make near the end which is directly related to his flaw. Swingers does a great job of this. Mike’s flaw is that he can’t move on from his girlfriend. So in the end, his ex-girlfriend calls, and then on the other line, the girl he met the previous night calls. He literally has the choice of a) talking to the new girl (and therefore overcoming his flaw), or b) talking to his ex (failing to overcome his flaw). He of course chooses A and we’re happy because Mike has finally changed!

These are 10 tips from the movie “Swingers.” To get 500 more tips from movies as varied as “Aliens,” “When Harry Met Sally,” and “The Hangover,” check out my book, Scriptshadow Secrets, on Amazon!

Shorts Week: Welcome to the final day of Shorts Week, where I’m covering 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 WEDNESDAY NIGHT. Check your spam folder if you didn’t receive it. If nothing’s there, e-mail me with subject line “NO NEWSLETTER.” The next newsletter will go out this Saturday night.

Genre: Family/Fantasy
Premise: Set in the 1950s, a young boy builds a jerry-rigged spaceship to rescue the Sputnik dog he believes the girl of his dreams has lost.
About: We have an Aussie writer here. But don’t call him by his real name, Dean. He only answers to Mr. Spleen!
Writer: Mr. Spleen (Dean Friske)
Details: 25 pages

Okay, so Shorts Week is coming to a close. What have we learned from this week? Hmmm, shorts are good for showing and not telling. Don’t write a short dealing with mundane everyday activities or everyday conversations. Shorts need to stick out and get people’s attention and that means thinking big. There are two types of shorts. TRUE shorts (10 pages or under) and SHORTS PLUS (10-30 pages). I wish I could’ve made the distinction ahead of time. A nice twist or “button” at the end of a short is encouraged, as it leaves the script with a pop.

I would add not to let low/no budget issues deter you from writing an exciting short. There’s this belief that if you don’t have a lot of money, you can only shoot a quick dialogue scene between two actors. And that’s the problem. No matter how you spin it, now matter how many times you hand out your link with the warning, “Now remember, we didn’t have a lot of money,” your short will always be considered just another “couple guys in a room talking short” and those bore the shit out of their audiences. Use time travel (cheap to shoot – i.e. Primer), cloning (cheap to shoot), teleportation (cheap), zombies (inexpensive make-up), use amnesia or danger or intense situations – anything you can think of that carries with it a “must-see” quality that can still be shot on the cheap. Above all, try to be original. Just like a feature script, readers respond to material that beats uniquely, whether that uniqueness comes from the concept, the execution, the writer’s voice, or all of the above. If you achieve a combination of any of these things, your script is going to feel fresh. Which is the perfect segue to Lost Dog!

It’s 1950s suburban America. It’s a time of optimism, the Golden Age of the American dream. About the only thing America doesn’t have going for it are those pesky commies, who they’re going head to head with on all things technology, the most important battle of which is space travel. It seems the Russians have beaten the Americans into space, launching the world’s first orbiting satellite, Sputnik, “manned” by the planet’s first astronaut, a dog!

Back on earth, we meet Davis, 10 years old going on 40. Davis is an inventor-in-training, and just now getting the fever for the opposite sex. And there’s one particular object of his affection – Carol. She may be 10, but you can tell this girl is going to be breaking hearts well into the second half of the century. And she’s getting started today.

UNLESS!

Unless Davis can somehow impress her. And what do you know, the perfect opportunity arises when Carol loses her dog. She’s got fliers up all over the neighborhood and when Davis sees one, he notices the dog bares a striking resemblance to the one they’ve shown on TV, the dog in Sputnik!

So Davis enlists the help of his neighbor and best friend, Emily, who he’s unaware is secretly in love with him, to help him get to Sputnik and rescue the dog. She’s reluctant at first, seeing as the whol point of this is to snag homewrecker Carol, but she likes Davis so darn much, she agrees.

The two – who are the most kick-ass team ever – create a shuttle via an elevator and a bunch of covertly rigged rubber-bands. They’re shot up into space without a hitch and once there, Davis has only a tiny window to space-walk over to the Sputnik satellite, grab “Carol’s Dog,” get back to their shuttle, and return to earth.

This process does not go smoothly, but Davis does get the dog and the two go shooting back down to earth, crash-landing in their town’s main park, the exact park where Carol happens to be playing.

With. Her DOG.

Yup, Carol’s found her dog. Which means that dog Davis spent so much time saving is, uh, not Carol’s dog. Devastated, Davis realizes he might not ever get the girl of his dreams. That is unless he sees that the girl of his dreams has been right under his nose this whole time.

Let me count the ways in which I love this script. I love how it’s set in the 1950s, giving it a classic vintage charm. I love how our two main characters are kids. I love how one of them is secretly in love with the other. Conflict. Dramatic irony! Dialogue that’s always charged. I love the whimsy of it all. I love how two kids develop a device to travel into space in a way that only kids can. I love the ingenuity and cleverness of all the details – using thousands of rubberbands to launch the elevator, using hair spray to steer in space. I love the immediacy behind everything (they only have 3 minutes once they’re up there to do the job). I love that it’s all built around a personal core (this is really about two friends). I love that you can’t help but wonder what Michael Gondry or Spike Jonez would do with this.

Having said that, there are parts of the script that were too loosey-goosey for me. And I’ve already spoken with Mr. Spleen about them. The set-up and payoff of the bullies is weak. Their storyline is too separate from the main plot (their big scene is attacking Davis in the school bathroom). With how irrelevant their actions are, you wonder if they should be in the script in the first place. That’s something you never want to forget. Only create subplots if they’re an intricate part of the main plot as well. For example, if these bullies found out about Davis and Emily’s plans and tried to sabotage them, now they’re an actual part of the story. Their actions have an effect on the plot. We’d also, then, want their storyline to be paid off. We’d want to see them go down. As it stands, with them bugging Davis in the bathroom for reasons that have nothing to do with anything else, we just don’t care.

Then there’s the guy they buy their parts from. There’s something not quite right about the sequence, although I’m not sure what it is. The character doesn’t feel fully formed or something.

On top of that, some of the dialogue could be worked on. At times it’s good but other times a little confusing. For example, early on Davis invites Emily to the park via his preferred communication method, a paper airplane note. When she gets there, he’s hiding out, staring at Carol from a distance. Emily’s first words are, “Carol?” Now after you’ve read the script, this line sort of makes sense. Emily’s saying, “You want to invite Carol to the dance?” But at this moment, we don’t even know there’s a dance yet. And we don’t know that Emily knows Davis is looking for someone to ask to the dance. So it’s odd for her to say something in relation to information she doesn’t have yet. Something like, “That’s why I’m here? You want to ask Carol to the dance??” would’ve been clearer.

Despite this, the combination of the idea, the cleverness, and the charm made Lost Dog a real treat to read. My favorite short of the week!

Script link: Lost Dog

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

What I learned: Show-Don’t-Tell Alert – Instead of Mr. Spleen using character dialogue to tell us Davis and Emily have been friends forever, he has Davis toss a paper-airplane message to Emily’s house, where, after she’s done reading it, she throws in a box filled with a bunch of other paper airplanes from Davis. That’s one of the things I really loved about this script. Mr. Spleen always tried to show rather than tell. And if that wasn’t good enough, the image ALSO told us that Emily had a crush on Davis. Killing two birds with one stone on a “show-don’t-tell.” That’s good writing!

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.