When you decide to jump into this unpredictable chaotic world of screenwriting, the first thing you’ll want to do is write some scripts. Bust out that copy of Final Draft and write whatever story pops into that dysfunctional little noggin of yours. Doesn’t matter if it’s not commercial. Doesn’t matter if the idea gives your Grandma gas. Doesn’t matter if it’s a 90 minute action film about parking your car. New writers are blessed with a wonderful gift. They’re not going to show their scripts to anybody. Not yet anyway. That comes after a few test laps around the track.

However, once you’re ready for the race, it’s time to start thinking about which avenue gives you the best chance of breaking in. Everybody has their own path. Everybody “makes it” their own way. But what I’ve found is that there are a lot of talented writers out there who aren’t making it because they keep banging their heads up against the wrong door. When you’re jonesing for some ice cream, you don’t head over to the nearest Pizza Hut, do you?

The most common way into the business is still a good writing sample that gets you heat from low level agents, managers and producers, which gets you into meetings, which allows you to pitch other projects and interview for assignments, which allows you to start working, which – voila – makes you a working writer. However, let’s face it, that path is the least fun to walk. And it takes so damn long. So let’s discuss four quicker ways into the business and see if your style matches up with that avenue. If it doesn’t, you may need to reevaluate if the direction you’re taking is the right direction for you.

I’ve read a lot of Black List scripts and there are two common traits that permeate through the ones that end up on the coveted list: quirkiness and cleverness. The people voting on these scripts are used to reading the poor man’s versions of all those stinkers you see in the cineplex. That’s like trying to find refreshment in those generic supermarket colas (“Premium Cola!”) as opposed to drinking real coke. And you wonder why readers have a reputation for being bitter. Because of this, Black List readers like to be caught off guard. They like to be surprised with something as far away from the Hollywood groupthink as possible. A small-town butter-carving competition? They’re in. A depressed man who speaks through a British-accented Beaver puppet he’s found in the garbage? Touchdown. A serial killer flick about a guy who talks to his pets…and they talk back? Oh yeah. This is the place for all the future Charlie Kaufmans, the disciples of Michael Gondry, the guys who build “best of” Spike Jonez Youtube compilations. There are other ways to make this list for sure, but if you’re quirky and clever, if those are the kind of scripts that emerge from your hard drive, then the Black List is your destination.

There’s a little crossover between the Nicholl and The Black List, but the Nicholl, more than any other screenwriting avenue, gravitates towards depth. They want their scripts cerebral. Period pieces about the human condition, a recent politically charged event, a dark exploration of characters facing death…this is what these readers like. Theme is also a huge component of a Nicholl-winning script. If you aren’t trying to say something with your story, if there isn’t a moral or a statement about humanity, then chances are your script isn’t going to do well here. And that’s great for writers of slower character-driven screenplays. Because if it wasn’t for the Nicholl, there’d be no place where these writers could find acceptance. So stop sending that script about an 1875 Scottish wake to Michael Bay. Save yourself the trouble and enter it into Nicholl.

Selling a script for a million bucks is getting harder and harder to do these days, and usually only happens via high-profile agents who can use past sale prices from their top-level clients to negotiate that elusive seven figure sum. But does that mean we’re just going to give up? Hell no! Big price tags have notoriously come from four genres: Thrillers, Comedies, Sci-Fi and Action (and sometimes Horror). Why? Because these genres are the most receptive to the high-concept, and high-concept is still the most important component to making that big sale. If you don’t have a big idea, drop your dreaming ways and enter the Nicholl instead. High concept has been debated to death but basically, you know you have a high concept if you can put it on a billboard and people everywhere will get excited to see your movie. A bachelor party where they lose the groom told as a mystery the day after? High concept. A CIA spy who doesn’t know that they’re a double-agent (Salt). High concept! Someone keeps reliving the same time loop over and over again (Groundhog Day, All You Need Is Kill, Source Code)? High concept. If you’re hoping to sell your script for a lot of money and you’re not working with a big idea, you’re proverbially banging your head up against the wall, keeping your career in check!

What if I told you you could write a script that was guaranteed not to net you a single penny? Do I have your attention? Probably not. But trust me, you’ll wanna keep reading anyway. There’s a secret way into this screenwriting business and it’s through the back door. I’m talking about the “viral” script. Viral scripts have been around a lot longer than “viral” became a media buzz word. You might remember Blockhead about the Peanuts gang all grown up in New York, smoking pot and fucking each other like nobody’s business. Or Passengers, where the writer decides to tell the story in the first person. Or Van Damme Vs. Seagal, about the two once-famous action stars warring with each other in modern day L.A. The common thread here is that none of these scripts can be made into movies, one because of copyright issues, one because the actors would never agree to it, and one because the main reason it’s such a good read (that it’s in the first person) doesn’t translate to the screen. But each of these scripts received a ton of buzz, and really what it comes down to is getting your name out there so you can start getting into rooms and pitch your backlog of projects. This avenue is for the craziest of the crazy, the weirdest of the weird. If you’re a little bit nuts or notoriously think outside of the box, this is definitely a direction you’ll want to consider. A word of advice though. Make sure you have a couple of “real” scripts already written and ready to go when you write your viral script (they should preferably be in the same genre). There’s no use going through all that effort to get some meetings if you don’t have any product to sell.

I run into a lot of writers who don’t have a plan – who fall in love with their well-written but ultimately unmarketable script and haven’t yet figured out which avenue is their way in. As a result, they cling to scripts that don’t have a lot going on in them. I call these: “nothing happens” scripts. The most common “nothing happens” genre is the “coming-of-age” story. We all write them, particularly early on, but this genre is notorious for creating scenarios that are completely devoid of drama and conflict. Characters sit around and philosophize about life (“Death is like so…complicated”). 25 year olds are bitching about how difficult their life is (They’re 25!). There are no character goals, no point to the story, no forward momentum, no interesting situations. It’s just talking heads. Talking head talking heads talking heads talking about…whatever the writer thinks is interesting. And yet we write them. Why? Because that’s generally how our 20s go. If you want to write a character piece, that’s fine, but make sure there’s a hook to it. Everything Must Go is essentially a coming-of-age story, but it’s one with a clever hook – a guy is kicked out of his house so he starts living on his front lawn. I think the lesson here is, try to be exploring some unique angle in your screenplay – whether it’s the style, the hook, a character, a subject matter, the point of view, how you treat time – some aspect, no matter how tiny, that gives your script a uniqueness that sets it apart. Nobody wants to linger in obscurity but if you’re clinging to that idea where a bunch of people in their 20s are just trying to “make it in life,” there’s a reason no one’s responding to those query letters.

And that’s it folks. Now that you know which kind of scripts do best in which scenarios, you can start targeting that specific avenue. For example, if you’ve decided you’re a Black List writer, go back through all the old Black Lists and write down every agent and manger in the Top 30 and send them a query. And one more thing, which should be obvious but it’s worth mentioning. The caveat for all these scripts achieving their goal is that they’re well-written. They have to have structure, conflict, character development, sharp dialogue, story density. And they have to be good from page 1 to 100, not just in spots. So there you are. I’ve given you the blueprint for your success. What are you waiting for?

Genre: Drama
Premise: (actual logline from author) At the height of the 1970’s Bigfoot craze, an obsessed, lonely 9 year old boy living in the heart of Sasquatch country becomes entangled in a hoax which threatens to shatter his family, new friendships, and his innocent belief in the mythic creature.
About: Well if there’s any good to come out of this huge snafu, it’s that Amateur Friday may start living up to its name and become a weekly feature. So, if you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur review, send it in PDF form along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted on the site.
Writer: Robert Ducey
Details: 104 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

A few reasons why I went with this today. The first is that this is a logline that actually made it into my top 100 loglines from the Logline/Script Contest a year ago. I also liked the drama angle. Most Bigfoot-related stories are comedies so I knew I’d be reading something different. But what put me over the edge was the writer’s attitude. He just missed the Quarterfinals at Nicholl and wanted to know why his script didn’t stack up. What was it he was missing? He genuinely wanted to improve. On a personal level, I also wanted to find out if my instincts were right for not advancing this after reading the first ten pages (in the contest, after qualifying for the top 100 loglines, I read the first 10 pages of all 100 of those scripts, of which 25 advanced – Bigfoot did not). In other words, can a script recover if it doesn’t blow you out of the water with the first 10 pages?

Ben Whitcomb is a pale skinny 9 year old boy who lives in the heavily forested region of Portland. The only thing that gets Ben through the day is his obsession with Bigfoot. He religiously studies the famous creature, and has all the stories and books and articles ever recorded about the beast.

None of this is probably healthy, as Ben’s Blazers-obsessed alcoholic father points out, but his mom is a bit of an enabler, constantly encouraging Ben to do the impossible – find the mythical beast and become world famous – which propels Ben into his daily search for Bigfoot.

On one of these forays into the woods, Ben runs into Alex, an older boy with an attitude, and Tuan, who’s Ben’s age and from Vietnam. The two invite Ben into their game and soon Ben is telling them all about Bigfoot. The boys like what they hear enough to join the search, and soon Ben has himself a Bigfoot Team.

Eventually the three run into a scruffy smooth-talker named Reggie. Turns out Reggie’s father is the man who shot that famous Bigfoot tape, and Reggie believes with all the recent activity in the area, that he can find Bigfoot once again. Picking up on Ben’s excessive knowledge of the creature, Reggie asks the boys if they want to help him.

However Reggie has some weird tactics he employs to lure in Bigfoot, including creating huge footprints in the forest via large fake feet as sort of a mating call to the monster. Right away Ben’s suspicious of this activity, but he goes along with it anyway. Reggie’s later able to secure a camera from a local news station and shows the boys how to use it. Almost magically, the next day, when left alone with the camera, Bigfoot appears, and the boys hurry up to tape the creature.

But when Ben goes chasing after the creature, he’s shocked and horrified to see it jump into Reggie’s van and drive away.

 
Reggie submits the footage to the news and quickly he and the boys become local sensations and national stars. But Ben is plagued with the knowledge that it’s all a lie, that this isn’t the real Bigfoot. And for Ben, that’s what matters the most. He doesn’t want money or fame. He just wants to know – needs to know – that Bigfoot is really out there, that he’s real.

So when the story starts falling apart and the backlash threatens to ruin the reputation of everyone involved, including Ben’s family, Ben makes a last ditch dash to find the creature, and prove once and for all that Bigfoot lives.

All right. This is a tough one. It’s actually the toughest kind of script to analyze because the writing is really good. The characters are all interesting (especially Ben). There’s a strong goal. There’s ticking time bombs, real stakes, villains, twists, turns, a theme – everything that a good movie is supposed to have. And yet I still understand why this didn’t make the Quarterfinals. There’s something missing here.

And I’m going to be honest. I don’t know exactly what it is. But here’s where I think the problem lies. Sometimes you finish a script and you say, “That was pretty good.” But that’s all you say. You don’t have any intention of telling other people about it. It didn’t hit you hard enough to inspire you to do so. It’s like a comfort food. You wouldn’t travel into the city to get it. But if it’s there, you eat it and it makes you feel good.

We’ll start with the first ten pages. The goal with any first ten pages is to hook your reader. When your script makes it up the ladder and finally into the hands of the big players (big producers, directors, stars), the guys who can really make a movie happen, their time is short, so they’re likely only giving you a little rope at a time. They say, “I’ll read 5-10 pages. If I like it, I’ll keep reading.” And they’ll continue to do that throughout the script, extending another 5 pages here or 10 pages there, like those old arcade racing games where you received extended time every time you hit a checkpoint.

So you have to rope them in over and over. You have to keep things moving. And right away with We Found Bigfoot, I sensed that Ducey was unnecessarily drawing moments out. In the opening pages, Ben is watching a Bigfoot special. He and his mom talk. Then his drunk father comes home and wants to watch the Blazers, kicking Ben off the TV. This whole sequence takes 6 pages when it shouldn’t have taken more than two.

Here’s all you have to do.

Show Ben watching the Bigfoot show (establishing his love of Bigfoot). Show Dad come home and change the channel without saying anything (establishing he’s an asshole and doesn’t care about his son’s interests). Have Mom point out that Ben was watching something (establishing his mom’s support) and show Dad ignore her (establishing that he doesn’t respect his wife either). That can all be done in a single page and we know everything we need to know about this family.

Now that’s not to say you can’t get into a little more detail, but you have to be careful not to get into TOO much detail this early on because like I point out, you’re on someone’s leash. If you want more leeway, you gotta prove you deserve it.

Another thing that slows down this opening is the friendship situation. Before we can start the Bigfoot story (what we came here for) Ben has to first meet his new friends, get to know their situation, ask them to join his cause, and that takes a good 10-15 pages to establish.

Here’s what I always say. Establish relationships before the story starts if you can afford to so you don’t have to waste precious screenplay real estate doing so. In other words, why can’t Ben, Alex, and Taun already be friends? I understand that Ben is a loner, but you can establish a character as kooky/weird/an outcast and still have him have friends. That way we can jump right into them looking for Bigfoot together and not have 3-4 scenes where they have to build up that trust before doing so (and the reality is, even with all those pages, we still don’t have a good feel for Alex and the mysterious Taun).

Imagine Goonies if all those boys had to become friends first before they went on their adventure. Or imagine how much longer Avatar would’ve been if there hadn’t been previous diplomacy attempts between the humans and the Na’Vi before Jake Sulley got there (You’d have to create a whole additional sequence, for example, where Jake Sulley taught the Na’Vi English).

If the story is ABOUT the relationship (When Harry Met Sally), then yes, you want to wait until your story to explore it. But if it’s just one piece of the story, consider establishing it before the movie starts.

A couple other things that bothered me were first, forgetting to tell us what year it was. I only knew the time period (the 70s) because it was mentioned in the logline, but there’s no guarantee a reader will read your logline before they read your script. And this script reads WAY differently if you think it’s happening in the modern day than in the 70s. This is one of those beginner mistakes you never want to make because if a reader realizes you forgot something this obvious, they’ll know you’re an amateur, lose all confidence in you, and start skimming through the rest of the script to get through their coverage.

I also thought the dad was way over the top here. I liked that he had a clear specific identity (in his basketball obsession) but he’s so relentlessly cruel that he almost becomes a cartoon.

On the plus side, I really loved Ben as a character and I thought the theme of losing one’s innocence was well handled. This script is strongest when it’s focusing on Ben’s struggle, specifically when he knows his footage is fake and can’t decide what to do about it. Unfortunately this comes into the story too late. I would’ve liked that conflict introduced earlier and to have seen Ben struggle with it longer. Again, this is the strength of the script, so let’s milk it.

Developed with the right producer, We Found Bigfoot could become one of those PG family films with a moral that does well in the family demo. I just wish I had a better idea of why this was an “almost” screenplay and not a “have to recommend it” screenplay. So I guess I’ll turn it over to you guys. Maybe you can help Robert. What’s missing here? Ideas?

Script link: We Found Bigfoot

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read (very torn on this one so I’ll cheat)
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I find that when you’re creating asshole characters – particularly fathers – that throwing in a positive trait to balance things out, or giving us some insight into why they’ve become the way they are – goes a long way towards the character feeling realistic. “All asshole all the time” never works.

Ugh, yesterday was not a fun day at all. As a lot of you already know, the mediafire library that PJ had posted has been taken down. The reason it’s been taken down is because Fox has sued PJ for 15 million dollars. It’s just a sad day, not because scripts will no longer be available or nobody can come to a consensus on whether what PJ was doing was right or wrong. It’s sad because I know PJ is a good person and gained nothing personally from having the library up. She just wanted amateur writers to learn the craft of screenwriting through professional writing. She wanted to help others. I think what a lot of you are wondering is, will this affect Scriptshadow? The answer is a definitive yes. I’m not sure how yet but it’s a safe bet that the format of the site will change significantly. While reviewing scripts isn’t illegal, when billion dollar companies put their foot down, you have no choice but to ask how they’d like their shoe tied. If you want to help PJ with her legal fees, I know they’ve started a collection fund over here on this site. If you feel that you’ve in any way become a better writer because of what she provided, please please help her out.

Genre: Drama/Heist
Premise: A group of thieves invade a small southern town during a weekend festival in order to rob the town’s lucrative mill.
About: If you know anything about the history of film, you know James Dickey. He wrote one of the great movies of all time, Deliverance, which he adapted from his own novel. Dickey actually came to prominence as a poet in the 60s, writing several compilations that became very popular. This led to him reading one of his poems at President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. Despite the popularity of Deliverance, it is Dickey’s only produced screenwriting credit. Gene Bullard was his follow-up screenplay, which was never made.
Writer: James Dickey
Details: 121 pages – 1975 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

Deliverance is one of my favorite movies. I dare you to go home tonight and watch that movie and not fall under its spell. That film wraps its finger around you and pulls you in until you don’t even know which way is up. It’s that spellbinding. And yet, it’s a really strange screenplay. When you go back and watch a lot of movies from the 70s, you get frustrated with the drawn out deliberate pacing of anything but the classics. But even in its slowest moments, Deliverance still dazzles, and it’s not easy to figure out why. I mean, who would’ve thought that stopping the story for five full minutes while two characters have a banjo showdown would not only work, but become one of the most famous movie scenes of all time?

Needless to say, when I heard that Dickey had written another screenplay, I got excited. Why wasn’t it ever made? Was it bad? Was it too genius for others to wrap their heads around? What’s the story behind Gene Bullard? I wanted to find out.

Gene Bullard starts with four criminals driving into a small town. There’s Makens, the dangerous leader, Jimbo and Leon, his loyal sidekicks, and Joby, the young handsome outsider. Through their conversation we learn that Joby’s just gotten out of jail and is leading Makens and his crew to his old town, where he plans to help them rob the lucrative mill that employs most of the town’s residents.

The town itself is gearing up for a festival and the star of this festival (and the star of the town) is Sheriff Gene Bullard. Bullard is a jovial type who grew up in this town as a virtual pariah. He was a high school sports star and the person everyone wanted to be friends with. He also was a surrogate father to Joby, who he’s ecstatic to see back from jail. Joby introduces Bullard to Makens and the others and Bullard has no idea that this man is going to rob his town blind within the next 48 hours.

This is where Gene Bullard gets a little strange. Instead of getting to business right away, Makens and his buddies decide to enjoy the festival for awhile. They head over to the main bar and get drunk. They head over to the town hall and dance. They stalk out any woman who will have them. They figure, if we’re going to rob this town, we might as well have some fun in it first.

Concurrently with Makens mini-ratpack adventures, we’re cutting back to Gene Bullard, who seems to have involved himself in multiple female endeavors, some of which he keeps under wraps and some of which he’s quite open about. There is one woman he can’t seem to get a handle on however. That would be Joby’s twin sister, Lila – easily the best thing about this screenplay. Lila is a master loomer (loomstress?) whose movements and demeanor feel almost ethereal in nature, like she’s floating above the rest of the world. She’s weird, mysterious, and dangerous. Gene has no idea what to do with her.

If this is all sounding a bit random, that’s because Gene Bullard is very random. Between the moment we get into town and the moment when Makens attempts the robbery, we’re basically just watching a lot of characters enjoy a crazy festival. After all the festival stuff finally ends, Makens makes his way over to the mill to rob it, and in a very Coen Brothers like finale, a lot of things start going wrong, which results in a final showdown between Bullard and Makens.

This was a strange one. I think the most frustrating thing about Gene Bullard is the character Gene Bullard. This is a man who the screenplay is named after, and yet he has no goals, no real point – he’s just this passive character who stumbles around from situation to situation. I still don’t know how Dickey wanted him to be perceived, as he’s in some places popular, other places moronic, other places a clown, and other places a ladies’ man. If this script should’ve been named after any character, it would be Makens. He’s the one driving the story. He’s the one with the active goal (rob the mill). He’s the one who really sticks out as a character.

Dickey is almost able to overcome this deficiency with the inclusion of some Dickeyisms. I call them Dickeyisms since they’re strange Deliverance-like moments that only Dickey would write. For example, there’s a scene where Lila plays the harp that feels very similar in tone and mood to the famous dueling banjo scene in Deliverance. There’s also one scene in particular where, if this movie would’ve been made, would’ve been a classic that fans would still be talking about today. In it, Bullard is seduced by Lila, who, just before they’re about to have sex, pulls out a rattlesnake. It’s a bizarre scene where we don’t know if she’s going to kill him or have sex with the thing, but it was a great sequence that was impossible to forget.

I think where this script struggles to attain the greatness of Deliverance is in its point-of-view. Deliverance was awesome because our point-of-view was with the friends the whole time. We saw the hillbillies only through their eyes, allowing us to imagine for ourselves how dangerous they were. In Gene Bullard, we’re jumping back and forth between the good guys and the bad guys freely, to the point where we know Makens well, and therefore we’re not really afraid of him. I know this can work (it worked in No Country For Old Men) but it didn’t work here. Deliverance just had this overwhelming feeling of dread that Gene Bullard never attained. And I think knowing the bad guys too well is what caused it.

Obviously, this script is a product of its era. We have long wandering scenes that remind you of the wedding scenes in The Godfather or Deerhunter – scenes that just don’t work nowadays with people’s attention spans the way they are. There still might be a movie here (I’d love to see the character of Lila onscreen) but it would have to be rewritten considerably. Either way, it’s a fascinating look back at what could’ve been.

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

What I learned: Splitting screenplay time equally between two main characters is hard to pull off. It’s advised that you focus on one main character and give the majority of time in your screenplay to him/her. However, if you want to split time between characters, make sure that each one is active, that each one has something going on. I think this script faltered because one of its main characters didn’t have anything to do. Gene Bullard just stumbles around from location to location until he’s called into action in the final act.

Genre: War
Premise: A private bent on saving his own ass in the forgotten Battle of Hurtgen Forest in World War 2, finds himself repeatedly promoted as those around him continue to die.
About: When Trumpets Fade was actually already made into a film back in 1998 (I believe it only played on HBO). But it has an inspiring screenwriting story behind it so it’s definitely worth a look. The script was passed to a development exec at Dreamworks named Nina Jacobson as a writing sample for a “new” writer (Vought had actually been writing screenplays for ten years – living out in Middle America, he hadn’t even met his agent, who had signed him based on this script). Already having read two terrible scripts that day, she almost gave up before giving this one a shot. She read it and loved it, so much so that she wanted to give it to Steven Spielberg, a bit of a gamble as he was already in pre-production on another World War 2 flick called “Saving Private Ryan.” Despite that, Spielberg read the script the next morning and loved it as well. He wanted to meet the writer. Nina, imbued by this confidence, wanted to buy the script and give the writer a blind script commitment. This is her account of her call to Vought: “When we speak, Bill (Vought) seems dazed and midwestern, delighted but unsure. It’s as though he thinks this whole thing is a big snafu, an error in the lottery that will end up being noticed and rectified at any moment, so best not to celebrate and draw attention to the mistake.” A few days later Vought is on a plane to L.A. and a few hours after he lands, he’s in a room with Steven Spielberg, discussing his script. The ultimate screenwriting dream.  There’s a wonderfully detailed account of the whole story on WordPlayer. When Trumpets Fade was made in 1998 and directed by John Irvin. It’s based on a true story of the Battle of Hurtgen Forest in Autumn of 1944 during World War II. A few days later, the Battle of the Bulge began, leaving the battle of Hurtgen Forest largely forgotten.
Writer: W. W. Vought
Details: 116 pages – original 1996 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

One of the cool things about Steven Spielberg and what’s allowed him to be on top of the movie business for so long, while so many others have faded into obscurity, is how much emphasis he puts on finding new writing talent. Spielberg realized a long time ago that writers are the lifeblood of the industry. Without their ideas, without their unique voices, without their stories, you have nothing.

And to you or I, who know what it’s like to stare at a screen for 10 hours a day, that may seem obvious. But there are so many other producers in this business who believe in shortcuts, who believe that all you need is an idea, the latest writer gun-for-hire, and a really good D.P., and you can slap together a 200 million dollar hit in six months. If you want to know why none of these guys have Spielberg staying power, look no further than that mentality.

I’m not sure how Spielberg’s operation works, but from what I can tell, he puts the same amount of effort into finding new writers as Apple puts into R&D. In other words, a whole lot. I can only imagine how much rough they have to trudge through to find those diamonds, but they eventually find them. And as long as they keep finding them, Spielberg will continue to stay on top.

So what was this script that got Spielberg and Nina so excited? Was it really that good?

Let’s find out.

Private Manning cares about one guy and one guy only. Numero Uno. Even in the heartpounding opening scene, as he carries a dying soldier to safety, the implication is that the only reason he’s alive and everyone else in his platoon except for this guy is dead is because he stayed back, hid out, stayed out of the fray in order to keep his own heart pounding. When he gets back, his superiors tell him as much. They call him a coward. A survivor only through fear.

Not that he doesn’t deserve to be scared. The Americans are located in an area known as the “Death Factory,” a forest so thick with Germans they might as well grow there. And they are massacring the Americans group by bloody group. With all the leaders dying, drastic measures must be taken. So Manning, who was hoping to go home, is instead promoted. The king of the chickens is now in charge of his own batch of chickens.

His platoon shows up a day later, a group of fresh-faced scared kids who have no idea what’s in store for them. The noobs are thrown into battle right away by Manning. And within minutes they’re getting shot at with real bullets, they’re being hunted by real Germans, they realize they could really die. And there’s nothing they can do about it.

After a few minor missions, Manning gets the news he’s been waiting for. If they can take out a few huge artillery guns that the Germans have perched up on the hills, Manning will get his wish to be sent home. So the normally passive Manning puts his game face on, and sets out to do what thousands of other men have been slaughtered trying to do.

When Trumpets Fade has some genius in it. Right off the bat you’re pulled in by Manning’s desperate attempt to keep this other soldier alive. We know the man’s going to die. He knows he’s going to die. But Manning tries his best to keep him calm, to keep him going. It’s not only an exciting way to open a script (make those first ten pages great!), but it makes us immediately like our hero – whose selfishness would otherwise make him hard to warm up to. I mean this is a really intense scene and even though we’ve seen it a hundred times before, there’s something real and authentic about their exchange. We don’t even know these people and yet we’re hoping against all hope that this guy makes it. After this scene, I was willing to go anywhere Manning took me.

Also, just like any good movie setup, you want there to be some irony in your story. In this case we have a guy who doesn’t want to lead who’s forced to lead. That right there is a compelling character whose very existence for the rest of the film is steeped in conflict. Conflict = drama.  And drama is what keeps your audience’s interest.  

The strange thing about When Trumpets Fade is that no real story emerges until after the midpoint (when Manning is given orders to take out the artillery guns). Up until that point, our characters are repeatedly sent out on minor missions that don’t really have anything at stake. This would normally result in a bunch of boring scenes. But there’s something honest and authentic about these missions that keeps us reading.

Even though we get all the cliché war moments where you look to your right and the guy you bunked with last night now has half his face blown off, the dialogue feels real, the missions intense, and our desire to see how Manning reacts to it all, if he’ll learn, keeps us engaged. To simplify it, even though I’ve seen dozens of war movies, this script made me feel like I was in the war.

But there are still a lot of mistakes that are made , and raw ones at that. I guess we’ll start with Manning, whose flaw, while interesting, was at times unclear. Manning is selfish AND a coward. Last time I checked those are two completely different things, and while that may work fine in real life, it’s confusing when a main character has two separate fatal flaws he’s battling. We’re not sure which one to identify him with, which alters our interpretation of the story. In other words, the script reads much differently if we’re assuming Manning is a coward as opposed to if we’re assuming Manning is selfish.

I thought the supporting characters could’ve been better constructed as well. Warren, who plays the second lead in the movie, is someone I know absolutely nothing about other than that he’s fresh-faced and wears glasses. There were 5-6 other guys whose backstories were even thinner.  This was a big deal since whenever the group faced a dangerous encounter, the only character I cared about surviving was Manning. I cared more about that opening dying character than I did any of these guys.

The ending also needed work. Not only is there a manufactured plot twist where the other soldiers want to murder Manning (which doesn’t work at all) but the main story goal comes in so late, it’s hard to get into (I’m referring to the mission to take out the guns on the hill). Late-arriving story goals never have the same stakes attached to them as something that’s been set up throughout the story. I had the same problem with Saving Private Ryan. Once they found Private Ryan, they tried to tack on this supposedly big bridge finale. But the goal of securing the bridge came so late that we never really bought into its importance, and therefore didn’t care if they succeeded or not.

Despite these problems, the Manning character and the feeling of really being in this war won me over. I know that just a couple of weeks ago I harped on the staleness of World War 2 movies, but I have to remind myself that when something is written well, it doesn’t matter what the subject matter is. It’s going to work.

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

What I learned: Stakes stakes stakes people. I know we can’t shut up about them here but writers are still making the same mi-stakes so we’re going to keep bringing them up. The success of your climax is directly related to how big the stakes are. The later you set those stakes up, the smaller they’re going to seem. Imagine Rocky if we followed Rocky around Philadelphia for 90 minutes. He falls in love with Adrian, helps Paulie battle alcoholism, collects money for thugs. Then, on page 90, Apollo Creed comes to Rocky and says, “I want to fight you for the Heavyweight Championship of the world.” Do you think that fight would have half the impact it has now? Of course not. What makes it so big is that every scene leading up to it addresses how important that fight is.

Genre: Action-Adventure/Romance/Comedy
Premise: When the infamous womanizer Don Juan starts to fall for a woman for the first time in his life, he must decide if that love is worth giving up his woman-chasing ways.
About: Don Juan won the Scriptapalooza contest back in 2004. Not the actual Don Juan, but the writer who wrote Don Juan, Patrick Andrew O’Connor.  Believe it or not, this is the second script O’Connor ever wrote, which is a rare feat, winning a major screenwriting competition off your second script. O’Connor got his first produced credit last year with the indie flick “The Break-Up Artist” which he sold at the Cannes Film Festival. O’Connor recently optioned another script (whose title I can’t find) which is why people are going back and giving this script another look.
Writer: Patrick Andrew O’Connor
Details: 105 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

I’m not the swashbuckling type.

I always thought The Three Musketeers were lame and that Zorro was a wussy for always wearing that mask. So to plop me down in the middle of the 19th century and force me to watch some primpy man trade clever barbs with another primpy man, slashing and dicing at each other in the 19th Century equivalent to Dancing With The Stars, it was akin to sending me through TSA at LAX for an extended pat-down.

But you guys have demanded more contest winners and since I work for you, the people, then dammit if I wasn’t going to review more contest winners.

Don Juan starts with, well, Don Juan standing at the foot of his dying mother’s bed. Before she kicks it, she tells Don Juan to make sure he finds love. Being only 12 at the time, Don Juan interpreted this to mean “find as much love as humanly possible.” And when we flash forward 15 years, that’s exactly what Don Juan’s doing, finding love, sometimes with three or four women a day.

In fact, Don Juan has a bet going with his biggest Lothario competition, Don Luis, on who can bed the most women in a single year. Since Don Juan is the ultimate lover, he wins handily, but not without some questionable record-keeping (he was supposedly with two women on the same day in two different countries – not an easy feat in 1830).

In order to clear his name, he proposes another bet. This bedding competition has left Don Luis yearning for the true love of a woman. As such he has asked the beautiful Ana for her hand in marriage. Don Juan proposes that he can bed Ana before Don Luis marries her in a couple of days. Under the tight scrutiny of an eager crowd, Don Luis accepts the challenge in order to secure his dignity (why this is considered “dignified” is something I can only assume people 180 years ago understood).

As soon as the challenge is accepted, Don Luis races home to his fiance to prepare her for the ensuing onslaught of Don Juan.

In the meantime, Don Juan runs into Ana’s best friend, the heartbreakingly beautiful Ines, who is a few days away from taking her oath as a nun. Don Juan is struck by the unbridled beauty of this woman and experiences something he’s never felt before while around a woman – feelings. The only problem is that Ana is the one woman on the planet not affected by Don Juan’s charms. Even his most time-tested methods fall flat with her.

And thus begins a most impossible conquest. Sleep with Ana before Luis marries her and get Ines to fall in love with him before she takes her vows as a nun. This isn’t going to be easy!

Along the way Don Juan is chased by Ines’ father, who happens to be the captain of the Sevilla Royal Guard, gets thrown into jail, helps his affable and hilarious servant hook up with Ines’ servant, breaks out of jail, and struggles to achieve these two impossible goals before the sun rises.

As you can probably tell from my exuberant review, I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. One thing I worried about right away was that this was yet another standard treatment of a character we’ve seen dozens of times before. In fact, Heath Ledger just played the kindred spirit to this character, Casanova, a few years ago. The forgettable generic treatment of that character is exactly what I was expecting with Don Juan.

Usually, the writers who rise up out of that giant amateur screenwriting stew are writers who take characters like this and find a fresh take on them. That’s why Baz Luhrman’s Romeo & Juliet worked, as he transported it to modern day Los Angeles. That’s why Steve Martin’s “Roxanne” worked, as they took Cyrano de Bergerac and found a present-day angle.  Here, we stay with the same character in the same setting in the same time period as we’ve always seen Don Juan. So how interesting could it be?

Very.

And there’s a reason for that. O’Connor nails the execution. It’s the hardest thing to do – take a story that we’ve seen before, tell it the same old fashioned way that everyone else has told it, and still make it exciting. The reason it’s so hard is because you have to do everything perfectly. And this is made even more amazing by the fact that this is only O’Connor’s second screenplay. I would like to know the rewrite situation on this script (is this the draft that won the contest or a newer draft?) because there are so many things he does right here.

First, the goals are very strong. And I love how Don Juan bucks the traditional single-goal protagonist structure and instead gives Don Juan TWO goals, making his job twice as difficult. I love the dual ticking time bombs, ensuring that our story moves at a breakneck pace. I love that Don Juan’s being chased by Ines’ father, which adds even more momentum (and ups the stakes – if he gets caught, he could end up in jail for the rest of his life…or worse!). And I love the exploration of Don Juan’s character flaw, his confusion and rejection of the emotion he’s so terrified of feeling – love. These are all very basic story-telling devices, but O’Connor puts them to use with amazing results.

I also loved Ciutti, Don Juan’s noble servant, who’s stuck doing everything Don Juan does, even though he’s one-fourth as capable. I thought the dialogue was witty and funny, not an easy feat when this genre practically expects it. And I really grew to love and understand the advantage of writing a story around this character. Don Juan is that impossible to resist rogue lead – he’s a liar and a cheater, which gives him a dark side, but he’s eternally optimistic and funny, making it hard to dislike the guy.

All in all I’d say this was a rousing success. And yes, I’m using “rousing” because it’s a word they’d use in the 19th Century. I’m that inspired by this script. I kind of stumbled onto it after attempting to read two Brit List scripts (both of which were littered with misspellings and sloppy writing – what the hell man??), and boy am I glad I did. The only reason this doesn’t get an “impressive” is because the subject matter isn’t my cup of tea, so there were parts I couldn’t get into no matter how well-written they were. But for a script that started at a “Wasn’t For Me” before I opened the first page, I’d say a double “worth the read” is impressive in itself.

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

What I learned: It’s important to always make it hard for your hero to achieve his goal. Anything that comes easy for him will feel like a cheat. However, I realized that sometimes, in a comedy, if you set it up properly, you can make a key plot point easy for your hero as long as it gets a big laugh. In Don Juan, there’s a guard guarding Ana’s house who’s both deaf and blind. We get some early exchanges with a worried Don Luis that the guard won’t be able to keep Don Juan out. The guard assures him that he can handle the job, and later when Don Juan sneaks past him easily in a funny scene, we accept it. Since it was properly set up and funny, we don’t feel cheated. Contrast this with a comedy script I reviewed the other week, We’re the Millers. I was really upset that in a movie about smuggling drugs into America, that our criminals don’t encounter any problems at the U.S./Mexico border. It’s not funny and the reason it’s easy was never set up, so we feel cheated.