A thousand Twit-Pitches have been narrowed down to one winner.  Was your favorite chosen??

Months back, I decided to try an experiment (at the worst possible time, mind you – I was creating a new site and writing a book).  The experiment was to allow people to tweet me the loglines for their screenplays.  The catch was that they only had one tweet to do it in.  So they had to boil down an already boiled down logline to even LESS words.

I took the Top 75 of those loglines and I read the first 10 pages of each, tweeting live reviews on Twitter.  It was a pretty cool experiment.  I wanted writers to be able to get into the head of a reader AS HE WAS READING their script.  You could see exactly what they were thinking as they were thinking it.  And I didn’t hold back.  If something was dumb, I’d say it was dumb.

The top 20 of those first 10 pages moved on to the final round, where I read the entire script and reviewed each of them here on Scriptshadow.  So how did the experiment end?  What did I learn from all this?  Well, I’m not sure I learned anything definitively.  But I will say this.  The winner and runners-up of Twit-Pitch stood out for two different reasons.  The first because it took chances, pushed the envelope, and didn’t go where you expected it to.  The second and third because they had smart contained concepts and were well written.  None of these scripts were home runs.  They all had their problems.  But I do think there’s a good lesson here.  You CAN stand out by pushing the envelope or just with good old fashioned solid writing on a strong idea.

And with that, let’s get to the winners.  Here they are…

***FIRST PLACE***

Proving Ground by James Topham – (Original Twit-Pitch Logline) 9 strangers wake in a deserted Mexican town besieged by killing machines: they must discover why they’ve been brought there to survive.

**RUNNER-UP**

Fatties by Matthew Ballen – (Original Twit-Pitch Logline) When a lonely masochistic chubby chaser is abducted by two fat lesbian serial killers, it’s the best thing that ever happened to him.

*THIRD PLACE*

Guest by Matthew Cruz – (Original Twit-Pitch Logline) After checking into a hotel to escape her abusive husband, a woman realizes guests in the next room are holding a young girl hostage.

Hello everybody.  Like a lot of you preparing for Thanksgiving, today is a travel day for me.  I’m heading back to Chicago.  Do not fear, however.  One of Scriptshadow’s new consultants, Alexander, will be taking over review duties.  I’d link you to his bio so you could learn more about him but I’m still at a point where WordPress won’t allow me to link anything! Very frustrating.  But anyway, just click “Script Notes” up above and look for “Alexander.”  — I want to apologize about comments disappearing or taking a long time to show up.  Still sorting that out.  Also, when I get to Chicago tonight, I’ll put up a post where you guys can give me your feedback and note any issues you’ve had with the site.  I know “mobile” is a big one.  I’m going to try and get to everything as soon as I can.  In the meantime, enjoy Alexander’s review.  I thought it was great!  

Genre: Period Drama
Premise: Based on the true story of a New York City architect involved in the race to build the world’s tallest building in the year 1930.
About: Writer’s most recent spec, POMPEII, was taken into studios this summer by big time producers but he’s still looking for his first sale as far as I know.
Writer: Eric Kirsten
Details: 115 pages

The spec market is tough. Looking to sell a period spec? Strike one. Looking to sell a period spec that’s a small historical drama/biopic? You’re probably staring down at least two strikes unless your subject is iconic or eccentric enough to attract a big piece of talent.

THE LIGHTHOUSE doesn’t quite fall into either of those categories, but Kirsten manages to take a pretty straight-forward story that doesn’t sound all that sexy and crafts an engaging and entertaining script. That’s only done with good writing. And having a good writing sample is often better in the long run than managing to somehow sell a commercial idea that’s a bad piece of writing.

We open on two workers sitting on top of the metal frame of an in-construction skyscraper in the middle of New York City. It’s 1930, and these guys are wrapping up an 11-hour shift….which was preceded by a 12-hour shift. Needless to say, they’re having a hard time concentrating. As a crane sends a huge metal beam their way, Worker #1 starts to clip his buddy onto the support frame – except with all the Sandman’s dust in his eyes he doesn’t do it right and the hook comes loose, causing Worker #2 to lose his balance and plummet hundreds of feet to his death as his bloodshot friend can only watch and wake up real fast.

Good idea to grab our attention with an unexpected death scene instead of opening up on a guy using a protractor or something. If it worked for CLIFFHANGER… And we learned an important lesson: Building a skyscraper was dangerous shit back in those days.

Flashback seven years to Paris, where recent architecture grad Will Van Alen and his socialite best friend Harry Tanning decide to partner up and start a design firm of their own back in the States. With Will’s design talent and Harry’s contacts, they’re confident they’ll make a name for themselves. And when businessman Alan Reynolds approaches Will in an attempt to hire him to be part of a team designing a swanky new hotel in NYC, Will successfully uses his confidence and determination to convince Alan to give Will and Harry’s new firm the gig.

Unfortunately, with success comes responsibility and Harry’s just not pulling his weight bringing in new clients, so Will gives in to pressure from Alan to hire the slick, ego-driven Craig Severence as his new business partner, relegating Harry to mere “employee” status. Needless to say, Harry is pissed and his friendship with Will is deeply fractured.

Flash forward six years later: Will and Harry are still estranged, though Harry is now a model employee. Will meets spunky photographer Meg Bagley and they hit it off. Plus, Alan loves the new, innovative design that Will secretly sent him and greenlights construction! Will is thrilled. Craig, however, is less than pleased, making it known to Will that he is never to present a set of designs without consulting him first. It’s the first time that Will’s seen this darker side of Craig and it’s unsettling.

Meanwhile, Will makes a trip to see his older brother, Terry, who’s rotting away in Sing Sing for an unknown crime but one that Will implies helped him survive their tough childhood. Clearly wanting to make Terry proud, Will excitedly tells Terry about the imminent construction of his building and vows to find a way to get Terry out of prison.

But just as construction is about to start on Will’s awesome hotel design, Will gets called to see Alan. Seems the stock market crashed and Alan’s fortune disappeared along with it, which means Will’s building is dead and so is his company. As Craig and Will say their acrimonious goodbyes, Craig breaks the news that Alan has killed himself. The beginning of The Great Depression, both literally and figuratively for Will.

Everyone goes their separate ways and soon, Will finds himself standing in a food line, unable to find a job. Luckily, Harry shows up and wants to get their two-man band back together, tipping him off that Alan sold his land to William Chrysler (the car guy), who’s looking to build his new headquarters. So Will applies…and is promptly sent a standard rejection letter.

After a nice bender to try and drink his misery away, Meg and Terry convince Will to try and get his designs directly to Chrylser himself. Will manages to sneak his plans into Chrysler’s office but isn’t hopeful about his prospects until Chrysler makes a surprise appearance at Will’s modest apartment and requests to pay a visit to his company the next day…the company that doesn’t exist anymore. So Will rounds up a bunch of unemployed construction workers and breaks into his old office, succeeding in convincing Chrysler that he runs a reputable firm and getting the greenlight to start construction on what will be the world’s tallest building.

Except that at the groundbreaking, the press informs Will that his old partner/new nemesis Craig is working on an even taller skyscraper for the Bank of Manhattan. Chrysler tells Will that if he beats Craig, he’ll use his connections to get Terry out of prison. Will assures Chrysler that he has a plan…which he doesn’t. The race is on!

Which brings us back to the sleepy head at the start and his dead friend, who, it turns out, dies as a consequence of this race, having worked those multiple double shifts so that Craig’s building could come out on top. Wanting to make sure no one else dies because of their egotistical battle, Will agrees to not add anymore floors to his building plan, assuring that Craig will have the tallest building in the world, which Craig soon unveils to great fanfare.

So how does Will keep his word to Craig while simultaneously keeping his promise to Chrysler? In a dramatic unveiling of Will’s building, which Craig attends, a crane pulls out a HUGE GLEAMING SPIRE from the base of the building, placing it on the very top, making it taller than Craig’s and the tallest in the world. Our guys win!

Sadly, this being the real world, and the business world at that, we get a dose of “not so fast” when Chrysler reneges on his deal to help Terry get out of prison and it’s announced that the Chrysler Building will only remain the tallest for a few more months…until a little thing known as the Empire State Building is completed.

Historical/biopic scripts can often be generic and/or boring, following the same, simplistic dramatic clichés (“I’m gonna be somebody!”) or bogging themselves down by relying on a dense rundown of “the facts” to tell a story without giving much thought to the characters, dialogue and actual storytelling. And I guess that’s why THE LIGHTHOUSE kept me engaged throughout – because Kirsten focuses on, and does a good job with, crafting believable and well-written characters that we care about in a world that felt authentic.

Rather than focus on the big names behind the race to build the world’s tallest building, or the race itself on a superficial level, Kirsten finds a more personal way to tell the story by introducing us to Will Van Alen, a man with very relatable hopes, dreams, relationships, failures and triumphs. We come to know Will so well through the first two-thirds of the script that by the time the “race” enters the equation, we’re invested in Will’s goals and thereby invested in the skyscraper race – not the other way around – which wouldn’t have worked. If Chrysler himself had been made our protagonist, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have cared whether or not a rich guy managed to satisfy his ego and gain a little more notoriety. In fact, I probably would’ve rooted against him. Similarly, a multi-character take on the race would’ve likely come across as impersonal and cold. But in this version, we’re rooting for the likeable Will – not to win anything per se, but to realize his dream of building a towering monument and to get Terry out of prison. Okay, maybe we want him to smack Craig a little in the process, which doesn’t hurt. In the script, Kirsten reveals that Chrysler and the Bank of Manhattan honcho hated each other and desperately wanted to top the other and, sure, Kirsten could’ve told the story through this specific rivalry, but focusing on the rivalry between Will and his former partner Craig offers the same relationship dynamic albeit with characters and situations we could probably all relate to in some way, shape or form.

I will say that I wish Will wasn’t portrayed as such a good guy throughout the whole script (his dis of Harry notwithstanding). I think it would’ve made him a more interesting, complex character if we would’ve seen his darker side at some point. He admits to Meg that all architects are driven by ego, but he willing offers up that insight, and in a cheerful way. I would’ve rather seen Meg drag an angry confession out of him, her concern for Will’s obsession the ultimate reason why he calls the race off. What can I say? I wouldn’t have minded some shades of a version that could’ve been called THERE WILL BE BUILDING.

All in all, one of the more enjoyable historical biopics I’ve read in recent years.

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

What I learned: Often when people write historical scripts, it’s difficult for them to resist the urge to focus on the “big” elements in the tale, rather than find ways to create a more character-driven entrance into a particular story. The former version can end up reading like the kind of generic “highlights” biography I’d find in the Kids section of the book store, or, conversely, like I’m reading an encyclopedia. It’s generally more interesting to read a script that’s a personal story touched by an historical event rather than the other way around.

Welcome.  Come one, come all.  Take a look around.  Click on the toolbar up above.  Play.  Dance.  Be merry.

The truth is this site was supposed to be up weeks ago but I’m starting to realize that WordPress is a feisty little bugger.  Whatever you tell it to do, it doesn’t want to do, and when it does do, it usually does it wrong.  Unfortunately, that means bigger problems have needed to take precedence, and some of the smaller things aren’t in place yet.  The links don’t all work yet.  The “About” section doesn’t have my…”Abouty” stuff.  But we’ll get there in time.  So hang with me.

Also, I’ve noticed that the commenting situation is not clean yet.  If your comments don’t post, don’t freak out.  I’m going to try and get the comments moving as fast as I can.  But in the meantime, enjoy the new site!  Special thanks to my assistant, Sveta, my web designers, Dustin and Zoe, and my graphic design guy, Brian, who developed the neat look of the new site (you can also get him to make a poster for you on the CONCEPT ARTISTS page – he’s worth it!).  And, of course, thanks to ALL OF YOU for being fans and contributors of the site and inspiring me to go to these lengths of creating a new site.  You guys are what keep me going. :)

Hang with me while I try to figure this damn WordPress thing out (I’ve literally spent the last hour trying to post a picture in my latest post.  A PICTURE.  Yet WordPress doesn’t like when you say, “Add Picture”).  Argh!!!

Welcome to Amateur Week!  All week we’re reviewing scripts from amateur writers that got the best response from this post.  We’ve already had one script perform REALLY WELL in “Fascination 127.”  And today we review the highest concept of all the entries, “USS Nikola Tesla.”  Is it only a cool concept?  Or is the execution just as good?  Let’s find out… 

Genre: Sci-Fi/Supernatural
Premise: (from writer) The American Navy’s latest destroyer, the USS Nikola Tesla, disappears without  a trace. Two years later she reappears with no sign of her crew. But no one realises this ship holds a dark secret that dates back to World War Two and a horrifying experiment.
About: The big worry when you open up a high concept script from an amateur writer is that that’s all it’s going to be.  The writer will set up the high concept in the first 20 pages, we’ll be riveted, and then once they don’t have that crutch to lean on and actually have to tell a story, the whole thing falls apart.  I PRAY whenever I read one of these scripts that that’s not the case.  Because if a reader finds a high concept script that’s also a great story?  It’s like finding gold.  You can start printing the money.
Writer: Anonymous (more on this in a second)
Details: 99 pages
Status: AVAILABLE

When I recieved the e-mail query for this script, it was accompanied by a very cryptic note from the writer, who explained that he couldn’t include his name on the screenplay.  It was something about…I don’t know…how he had top secret clearance at Area 51 or something and if his name was associated with the script, men in black would visit his home and terminate him, along with all other members of the Resistance, except for the ones who were sent back in time to save humanity.  I’m not sure what any of that means but it has me curious as to what happens if this script sells.  Who do they write a check to?  The writer obviously can’t accept the money.  Maybe I’ll take it.  Seems like a logical compromise.

Of course, I’ve gone down the anonymous writer path before.  You’d be surprised at the lengths writers will go to get their scripts read, and the “anonymous” route is a popular one.  Oftentimes the writer will imply a bunch of vague allusions to “big name actors” circling their script and how they’ll get in trouble if they send it.  But they’re going to risk it all and send it anyway!  They just can’t reveal their name.

There was even one guy who told me he had come across an old screenplay during a yard sale.  He bought it for kicks and it turned out to be the most amazing thing he’d ever read.  If I was interested, he noted, he could send it to me.  I said, “Sure” just to see how far he’d take the story, and he magically sent me a PDF document of the script that was converted from a word processing program.  If this was an old script he found at a yard sale, wouldn’t it have had to be scanned?  Anyway, I opened the script up out of pure curiosity, and the first scene was a 10 pager focusing on urinal humor.  Look, I respect playing the game a little.  Just know that when a reader feels like they’re being taken for a ride, they’re going to be hard on your script.   So, will that approach doom USS NIKOLA TELSA?  Let’s find out.

“Tesla” begins with an ode to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.  A bunch of American soldiers in Afghanistan walk up a hill in the desert to see, below them, a giant half of a submarine.  No, not a submarine sandwich (I should be so lucky).  But an actual submarine.

Meanwhile, in Glasgow, two teenagers are making out on a foggy dock when a huge naval destroyer comes bearing down on them.  They run for their lives, barely able to make it to safety, but soon afterwards, there’s a loud groaning noise from inside the ship and then a shockwave of energy shoots out, vaporizing the couple.  And before the dude could even make it to second base!

Cut to army officials in rooms making hushed phone calls.  “It’s back,” they tell one another.  The USS Nikola Tesla.  Apparently it had gone off on some training mission two years ago and disappeared!  Naturally, they need to figure out what caused its return, so they e-mail the experts.

Two of those experts are Lieutenant Robert Montrose and Lieutenant Claire Allen.  Montrose is a notorious Navy playboy who’s constantly looking to get his turret waxed.  And Claire is a no-nonsense engineer who’s next sexual encounter will probably be her first.  Obviously, when these two get paired together, conflict is going to fly!

And they do get paired together, along with a group of other officials who have been brought in to check out the mysterious return of this boat.  It isn’t long before they realize something’s up.  The boat likes to groan a lot, and it seems like everywhere you look, something is dashing behind a corner.  Add a little magnetism to the mix – a pen will be yanked out of your hand and stick to the wall – and boarding this boat becomes its own little house of horrors.

But the biggest question of them all comes in the form of Charlie, a young man dressed in a World War 2 naval uniform who tells Montrose and Claire he’ll give them a tour of the boat if they’re interested.  Once he touches them, a flash of light occurs, taking our characters to Nowheresville, and the story along with them!

Montrose and Claire end up in a 1950s military hospital and Charlie informs them that he was part of the original Philadelphia Experiment and when his boat was destroyed, he decided to use this new boat to show the world just how stupid they were for messing with science.  How he plans to get his point across?  By blowing some cities up mothafuckuh!  And he has the powers to do it!  While poor little Montrose and Claire only have the power of persuasion to stop him.  Dammit these paranormal Navy ghost World War 2 Philadelphia Experiment castoffs.  They always seem to screw up a perfectly good day.

Okay.

To put it bluntly?  My biggest fear was realized.  Strong setup.  But with every page afterwards, the story fell more and more apart.  And it’s not Anonymous’ fault.  Well, not entirely.  This is why there’s such a steep learning curve with screenwriting.  You have to learn how to tell a story, not just set up a story.  It’s a mistake I see made all the time.  Writers think that all they need is a cool idea and they’re finished.  No, you need a cool idea AND the knowledge of how to write a second act.  The second act is where the concept takes a back seat to the characters.  If the characters aren’t interesting in some way, if they aren’t tackling something substantial within themeselves and between each other, then the second act will rest too heavily on a series of forced plot points that we won’t care about because we don’t care about the people inhabiting them.

And that’s what happened here.  Once Charlie shows up, the script just becomes one goofy nonsensical sequence after another.  Look at Aliens.  That was a hardcore action sci-fi thriller, right?  But in that second act, you have Ripley battling her trust issues (she doesn’t trust Burke or Bishop or the entire operation) and trying to protect this surrogate daughter, Newt.  In “Tesla,” we have Montrose and Claire bickering with each other via cheesy dialogue and Charlie being super-dramatic and often confusing with his scientific explanations.  I’m still not sure how Charlie became a part of this ship in the first place.

I suspect that this stems from another common amateur mistake – the refusal to outline.  You can almost always tell an un-outlined script because the further the script goes on, the less it makes sense.  It feels like the writer is making stuff up as he goes along because that’s exactly what he’s doing.  When you write this way, you feel this pressure to “keep things interesting,” and so you try and top whatever outrageous scene or sequence you just wrote with an even MORE outrageous scene or sequence.  It’s kind of like that desperate boy pining for a girl’s attention.  Sucking up jellow through a straw into your nose didn’t work, so why not rip your shirt off and start dancing on the table?

That’s not how screenplays work.  You need to carefully plot out what’s going to happen 20 pages down the line so you can build up to that moment, whether it be through suspense, set-ups, or character development.  “Tesla” certainly had a lot of stuff going on, but none of it felt cohesive.  It felt more like a distraction to make sure you didn’t realize that there wasn’t a story.

If I were Anonymous, I’d focus on three things moving forward.  First, learn the value of outlining. Once you know where your script is going, you can create a more logical and plausible plot.  Second, learn how to tackle your second act.  A second act isn’t just a bunch of crazy shit happening.  It’s a slow build, where you tackle most of your characters’ issues.  Which leads me to the third focus – character development.  Give your lead characters something inside of themselves that they’re trying to overcome.  With Ripley it was trust.  But it might be the recent death of a family member, an inability to love, or the desire to prove that you belong.  The possibilities are endless. But if a main character isn’t tackling SOMETHING inside themselves, chances are they’re boring.

What I learned: A screenplay isn’t just a high concept you parlay into a cool first 15 pages.  The other 95 pages are going to be read as well, and those are the ones that are going to be more tightly scrutinized. Cause every reader worth his salt knows that that’s where you find out if you’re dealing with a writer or just an idea guy.  Consider your high concept to be your “good looks.”  It’s what gets you in the door.  But you still have to be charming, you still have to be intelligent, you still have to be interesting.  Your second and third acts are what’s going to prove your value as a writer, so make sure they kick ass.