So, I’d like to introduce you all to Matt Bird, a screenwriter and book lover who will be occasionally contributing to the site. I’ve toyed with the idea of creating a Sunday “Book Review” segment for awhile and while Matt’s schedule won’t permit him to commit a review every Sunday, he will pop in from time to time, and give us advance word on some newer properties, or chime in on an un-optioned property that’s just dying to be made into a movie. If the segment works out, I may bring in another reviewer or two to fill in the gaps, so the Sunday review can be a weekly thing. But for Matt’s introductory post, he’s going to be filling you in on six books you should be adding to your Ipad book queue. Enjoy and don’t forget to say hi to Matt.

Hello Scriptshadow readers: You don’t know about me, less you have read a blog called Cockeyed Caravan, but that ain’t no matter. I’m a big Scriptshadow fan and a working screenwriter. When Carson ran pieces by Roger and Michael, recommending books that they’d like to see turned into movies, I knew I’d found my calling, and got in touch with him right away. Carson asked if I could focus more on books that are upcoming and not yet sold. I thought that was great idea, so here goes–

My wife reviews books for a bunch of places, including her blog on School Library Journal, so I had plenty of youth-oriented Advanced Reader Copies at hand. I decided to start off spotlighting some Young Adult books that might have cross-over potential for those elusive four-quadrant movies. You’ve seen how the “Twilight” movies have intensified Hollywood’s youth obsession… well, imagine how much bigger that youth-quake has been on publishing side, where the books are an even bigger phenomenon. As a result, there are a lot of talented writers sticking a toe into this material. The hottest properties sell the movie rights long in advance, but a lot of good stuff has slipped through that net and is now approaching publication without a sale. According to IMDB Pro, there are no movies in development based on these promising properties:

The Boneshaker, by Kate Milford, comes out next month. In his piece, Roger recommended a recent alternate history adult novel with an almost identical name. This one is The Boneshaker. (The author blogs about her panic when she found out about her doppelganger here). That book used the term to describe a drill, but the term was originally a nickname for early bicycles, and that’s what it means here.

Natalie is a 13-year old girl in 1913 Arcane, Missouri whose father tinkers with bicycles and automatons, but nothing as intricate as the terrifiying perpetual motion machines built by Dr. Limberleg, who has brought his sinister medicine show to the edge of town. Limberleg is accompanied by four inhuman assistants who each specialize in a different nostrum: nightmarish versions of phrenology, animal magnetism, hyrdrotherapy, and amber therapy that show off the author’s flair for creepy visuals. Con-men used the phrase “burn the town” back then, but Dr. Limberleg means it in more ways than one. What he doesn’t suspect, however, that he’s stepped into the middle of a battle that has already been brewing in Arcane for years, between Satan himself and a Robert-Johnson-esque guitar player.

I picked this one because it reminded me of some other properties that have attracted attention: Like Scorsese’s next big adaptation, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”, it includes some steampunk elements introduced into a real-world setting. Like “Holes”, one of the most successful adaptations of a kids book in the last ten years, it ties together many American myths into one neat little package, using real-life tragedies to spice up the mythology and add weight to the story (such as the “jake leg” scandal)

In fiction, steampunk has been an idea that has proven very popular with authors (if only somewhat popular with readers) but it’s barely crossed over into film. I think that that’s because most steampunk books (like the other Boneshaker) have been alternate histories, and movie audiences just don’t have the time or the patience to figure those out (see also: the Golden Compass movie) Give material like to this to a director like Guillermo Del Toro and I think the visual appeal of clockwork creatures and steam-powered junk science could finally make for a great movie.

Fat Vampire by Adam Rex comes out in July. Rex is a very funny writer and this book is one of many hoping to be recognized as “the anti-Twilight”. It’s got a neat central metaphor: Doug was a fat 16-year-old loser when he was bitten, and now he realizes that he’s never going to lose any more weight or become any cooler—a nice reversal of the usual “strong and beautiful forever” conception of teen vampires.

Rex’s great talent is for hilarious dialogue and fully-rounded characters (no pun intended) We cut back and forth between the worlds of Doug, his dry-witted Indian exchange student crush Sejal, and the reality TV host of “Vampire Hunters”, who is on the hunt for his first real vampire (Everyone they’ve caught on the show so far has turned to be merely non-superhuman Eurotrash). Doug, inspired by a viewing a “Lost Boys” type teen-movie, thinks that he can cure himself by killing the head vampire, a dubious quest that brings together all the players for the final confrontation. Unfortunately, the metaphor doesn’t pay off as well as it could in the end, but a good screenwriter could use this material to craft a more linear and cinematic narrative than the book provides.

By far the best book I found was actually a British book that came out over a year ago, but it’s remained merely a cult hit so far, so it still fits the “new and undiscovered” category. The sequel is about to be published here and I suspect that it’ll give this series the break it needs. The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd is a far more realistic version of “The Day After Tomorrow” crossed with “Scott Pilgrim”. It follows a snarky16-year old trying to launch her punk band as she suffers through London’s first year of carbon rationing, brought on by the increasingly extreme weather that is destroying many cities. This has a very cinematic escalating structure and a real epic scope, nicely telescoped in this one girl’s dawning awareness of the problem. It all culminates in a harrowing flood that snaps all the elements together, including a surprisingly effective low-key romance.

I hear that the sequel, “The Carbon Diaries 2017”, which I want to get my hands on, will show the punk band getting more revolutionary, putting them in opposition to the reactionary anti-rationing forces that are turning to violence across the country. Any producer who feared that Laura was too much of an observer of the problem in the first book could synthesize the two and get enough active-protagonist material for a thrilling movie.

I think the main thing holding back the first book from crossing over so far is how British it is. For one thing, it’s about a 16-year old going through her first year of college, which just seem totally wrong to Americans. Would a movie need to be Americanized to give it a broader audience? I don’t see why not, but the trend now is definitely towards super-faithful adaptations, and I think it could work in the original setting too, though you’d probably want a smaller budget, just to be safe. This could work as a smaller film, too, because it’s a disaster story driven more by strong characters than spectacle.

Don’t you want to see Carey Mulligan in punk get-up, smashing the windows of high-polluting cars? I know I do.

So that’s the state of upcoming teen books. Of course any production company that chases after hot ARCs quickly learns that it’s a tough way to make money—the most cinematic books have the most bidders, and many producers who pre-buy a book based on hype find themselves stuck with a dud after it comes out and fizzles. It always surprises me that prodcos don’t spend more time tracking down forgotten literary properties. As Roger and Michael did before me, I’ll spotlight a few of my favorites. Of course, as you can probably guess, I’ve been unable to interest my own managers in adaptations of these books, but I still think that they’d make great movies:

Michael covered “High Rise”, but here’s the J. G. Ballard book that I’ve always thought would make for a great cheap indie thriller: Concrete Island. It’s such a beautifully simple premise and a great metaphor for modern malaise: “Robinson Crusoe on a traffic island.” It’s that simple.

Robert Maitland is an asshole architect is driving back and forth between his mistress and his wife, both of whom have gotten used to his absences, when his car flips over a highway divider, stranding him on a large traffic island in the middle of a massive suburban highway interchange. He thinks that he’ll get up the steep embankments surrounding the several-acre ditch easily, but he’s injured and nobody zipping along the highway can see him down there. Days pass and each plan for getting out fizzles. Then, just like his literary predecessor, he finds another set of footprints. Eventually, Maitland comes to see that the highway makers bulldozed over an older neighborhood and the basements of various businesses are still there under the surface. He identifies his own his own nightmare-version of “Friday”, a brain-damaged homeless man, but he also finds a young woman living there who doesn’t want anyone to ever leave the “island”.

Obviously, the first half would be plagued by the same problem that any survival-drama has: the lack of anyone to talk to. This would probably have to be solved through narration, but there are other solutions too, such as the personified volleyball in “Cast Away”. Or you could just compress that half of the novel and get to the interpersonal conflict sooner. The movie needs to get made simply because it’s the ultimate high-concept: everyone who hears the one-line pitch gets an instant smile from picturing this situation and the metaphor it implies. Someone can take that seed and grow a great movie out of it.

“Concrete Island” shouldn’t cost that much to option, but you can get off even cheaper if you can find something in the public domain that’s ready for adaptation. Of course, since it takes almost a hundred years these days for copyright to expire, those savings usually disappear because properties that old demand super-expensive 19th-century-set adaptations, right? Well don’t tell Spielberg, who made some nice money on “War of the Worlds”. So what else could get the same treatment?

I’ve always been shocked that they’ve never made a movie of G. K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday”. It’s over a hundred years old, but its premise could not be more edgy: in a terrified city rocked by anarchist bombings, a young cop is assigned by his secretive boss to infiltrate a terrorist cell, whose members are named after the seven days of the week. He follows a nightmarish path into the catacombs of the city to find the leaders. He eventually becomes the new Thursday, but as he confronts his fellow terrorist one by one, he finds that each one is also an undercover cop, or at least thinks they are.

The book’s resolution is probably too surreal for an updated movie adaptation, but, just as they’ve done with all those Phillip K. Dick adaptations, a screenwriter could convert this concept into a more traditional, but still head-trippy thriller— something like “The Adjustment Bureau”.

Another upcoming adaptation that has passed through Scorsese’s hands is “High and Low”, which has the cachet of being based on Kurosawa film, but guess what? Kurasawa’s film was based on an American crime paperback that nobody over here had spotted the value of. This still goes on, with the French selling “Tell No One” back to us after we couldn’t get the movie made ourselves. The novel that “High and Low” was based on was “King’s Ransom” by Ed McBain, one of 56 books he produced about the detectives of the 87thprecinct, a series that only recently ended with McBain’s death in 2005. Instead of watching different A-list directors fight over who gets to direct the remake of the one art film that was already made from this material, why not pick one of the other lean, mean novels in this series and find the value in it, just like Kurasawa did?

In the final ten years of the series, McBain introduced a new detective that quickly became a fan favorite: Fat Ollie Weeks was a crude racist slob who drove the more conscientious detectives crazy simply by being too good to fire. In two of the best books from this period, “Money, Money, Money” and “Fat Ollie’s Book”, McBain started the painfully awkward process of turning Ollie into a better person. After uncovering a CIA front-company run amok in the first book, Ollie decides to fictionalize that story into his own debut crime novel, in which he’s replaced himself with a sexy-young female supercop. After his terrible manuscript is stolen from his car, Ollie realizes that the only way he can get it back is to find the criminals who are now trying to recreate the impossible crimes he’s described. Meanwhile, he’s shocked to find himself falling in love with a young Latina street cop who sees past his surface vulgarity. McBain is widely acknowledged as one of the all-time great dialogue-writers. With the introduction of Fat Ollie, he was able to invest his neat little police procedural plots with a bigger emotion payoff.

These books could become two movies or one. The best American adaptation of an 87thPrecinct book was the good-but-not-great Burt Reynolds movies “Fuzz”. That movie made the smart move of drawing on multiple books in the series. After all, if Orson Welles could pull together all of Shakespeare’s Falstaff scenes into one movie for “Chimes at Midnight”, there’s no reason that a few novels couldn’t be stitched together to make the ultimate Fat Ollie movie.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from IMDB) A comedy centered around a foul-mouthed, junior high teacher who, after being dumped by her sugar daddy, begins to woo a colleague — a move that pits her against a well-loved teacher.
About: “Bad Teacher” sold as a spec back in 2008, the same year it made the Black List. It was written by the same writers who penned “Year One,” and “Ghostbusters 3” (or at least some draft of Ghostbusters 3). Jake Kasdan (Zero Effect, Orange County) is set to direct, with “I am now an actor” Justin Timberlake playing the male lead alongside his former girlfriend, Cameron Diaz. The movie is filming right now. Eisenberg and Stupnitsky, the writers, also wrote for “The Office.”
Writers: Lee Eisenberg & Gene Stupnitsky
Details: June 6, 2008, spec sale draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

You’ve been very bad Cameron!

I’ll be honest with you, the thought of Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake pairing up for a movie together doesn’t exactly get my old N’Sync juices flowing, but I read Bad Teacher long before these two were attached, and remember it being a lot spicier than your average sweet-potato comedy spec. This new word I keep hearing myself bat around these days is “teeth.” So many scripts I read don’t have teeth. They don’t bite into you. They’re more likely to politely rub against you or nudge you lovingly. But every story needs a little teeth, a little edge to set it apart from the pack. And that’s what I remembered about Bad Teacher. It had teeth.

Elizabeth Halsey is not a good person. In fact, she makes Melvin Udall, from As Good As It Gets, look like the milkman. Elizabeth has one desire and one desire only – to marry a man with money – the American dream for hot lazy women with no skillset everywhere. And Elizabeth has finally achieved that dream, finding a short bald troll-like man with lots of moola and an astute inability to know when he’s being taken advantage of. Or maybe not. Yes, Elizabeth’s dreams come crashing down when she walks in on her future Bilbo Baggins pulling a Jesse James with some gigantically breasted whore. It is such a devastating moment for Elizabeth that she’s barely able to spit out: “You are buying me the biggest pair of yellow diamond earrings they make!” Yeah, Elizabeth is a teensy bit materialistic. And vain. And a bitch. And cruel. But all of those adjectives pale in comparison to what Elizabeth is now: Single. Cue hard rock music!

Back Elizabeth goes into her own personal hell, that goddamned middle school, and boy is she pissed about it. So pissed, in fact, that she takes it out directly on her kids. A class with Elizabeth is like a day when the substitute shows up. If that substitute were a drunk reckless asshole who hated you. But Elizabeth has a plan. In her universe of fucked-up logic, she postulates that the woman who stole her troll fiancé had huge fake breasts. This means, in order to make sure this debacle doesn’t happen again, SHE must get huge fake breasts. The problem is, huge fake breasts cost $9300, and Elizabeth barely makes enough money to pay the rent (those damn teacher salaries). So, somehow, Elizabeth will have to cheat, lie, steal, scam, and deceive her way into getting that money. And nothing is off limits. Not school funds. Not other teachers. If there is money that can be gotten, she will find a way to get it.

Of course, you need to throw your protagonists some curveballs, and a big one arrives in the form of new teacher: Scott. Scott is as honest as Elizabeth is deceitful, and when she finds out that his father owns one of the biggest watch companies in the world…well, it’s game on. Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s rival, the sweet-as-caramel Amy Squirrel, is also vying for Scott’s attention. And since the two were practically chiseled out of the same loving stone, Elizabeth’s chances aren’t good. To make matters worse, Amy has huge natural breasts. The only way for Elizabeth to have a shot (in, once again, her warped little universe) is to transform into the exact opposite of who she is around Scott, and keep him interested just long enough to get those damn D-Cups!

Let’s not beat around the bush here. Bad Teacher is Bad Santa. I mean, it’s the exact same movie, but with a female lead and set in a middle school. I’m not saying that accusingly. I think it’s brilliant. It’s a perfect twist on a movie that worked. And if you thought Billy Bob’s character was funny, there’s something even more hilarious about a woman who will stoop lower than hell itself, who will take out the very kids she’s supposed to be protecting and nurturing, to get what she wants. I mean, the way she despises these children…you feel bad that you’re laughing and yet you can’t help yourself. Elizabeth doesn’t even know any of the kids names. NONE. And while this may seem like an obvious joke, Elizabeth is so authentic and believable that when she says “Hey you,” to a kid she’s known for 3 months, you laugh every time.

The cool thing about “Bad Teacher” is that there’s nothing spectacular about the way it’s constructed. It’s simply about a woman trying to save up enough money to get breast implants. But I realized there was a little more thought that went into this than it first seems. Here you have this appallingly selfish protagonist leaving a path of destruction in pursuit of her goal, and yet you’re still engaged. Conventional wisdom says we shouldn’t be rooting for Elizabeth because she’s “unlikable.” But what I realized was this: Because this character wanted something so badly – and I mean really really wanted it– it didn’t matter that we didn’t like her. What we’re drawn to is whether she’ll achieve this goal. So we’re not necessarily rooting for Elizabeth here, but we do want to find out if she gets what she wants because she cares so much. I know I’ve come across this before, but for whatever reason, it really stuck out in this instance. It was a good lesson to learn. But it’s important to note that it wasn’t the only reason we tolerated this character. This device is aided by Elizabeth being so funny. Had she not been funny, I don’t know if this approach, all by itself, would’ve worked. So I think that’s important to remember. If you are going to use an unlikable protagonist, try adding a couple of devices/traits to soften the blow. Because if someone is so repulsive that you can’t even stand them, I’m not sure there’s anything you can do to make us care about their journey.

So I obviously liked this script a lot. Why did it only get a “worth the read?” Simple. The ending is a complete mess. I don’t know if it’s a holdover from a previous draft or something they put together with the intent of expanding on later on. But it’s like they tried this big climactic ending, and in the process went away from everything they’d been doing up to that point. I’m sure they’ve fixed it by now, cause it’s really glaring, but since I’m critiquing this draft and not the future one, I can’t give this that “impressive” label.

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

What I learned: If you’re writing your first or second screenplay, I’m going to give you the best chance at success. Use Bad Teacher as a template for simple dramatic structure. Here’s how you do it: Give your main character a big goal, then give them a bunch of smaller goals they have to achieve in order to reach that big goal. So here the big goal is to get fake breasts. The smaller goals are all the little things Elizabeth has to do to get the money to buy those breasts. This may seem obvious to some of you, but I read so many scripts where the protagonists don’t want anything. They’re just hanging around and talking to different people in different locations with no pursuits or desires whatsoever. If you’re just starting out as a writer, and especially if you write comedies, this simple goal-oriented approach is going to give you the best chance at writing a screenplay that’s good.

One thing I never forget is that this site is for you guys. I created it to help you and I will continue to use it to help you whenever you can. That’s why I held the free logline contest. And that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing today. May is going to be Amateur Month. And the idea is to give a few of you a chance to get your scripts reviewed on the site. Now I know that this is going to suck for those who visit the site more as spectators than screenwriters, but I don’t care. I’ve wanted to do this for awhile.

The month will be divided into three sections. The first week is going to be Amateur Week. Anybody can send me a script to be reviewed. Anyone. The week will start off with Roger and I reviewing two completely random scripts from the sampling. We’re going to close our eyes, reach in, and review whatever we pluck out. These will definitely be the most interesting days of the month, as I’m expecting to review scripts in major need of realignment. I don’t want to jinx anybody, but a double “What the Hell did I just read” is not out of the question.

The rest of the week, I’ll pick three scripts based on loglines. So, at the very least, the concepts should be good.

Now let me warn you here. Neither Roger or I will be cruel in our reviews, but we will be HONEST. This goes for all of the reviews throughout the month. If you’ve only written a couple of screenplays, I’m warning you right now, there’s a very good chance your script will receive a low rating. If you’re not prepared for that criticism, don’t send your script in. So why am I doing this? Why subject someone to such a harsh critique? A couple of reasons. We’re doing this to learn. We feature PROFESSIONAL scripts on the site all the time, and a lot of times those scripts get bashed to pieces and called “amateur.” Which makes me laugh. Because if you think those scripts are amateur, you haven’t read any amateur scripts. We are going to review and post REAL amateur scripts, and you’re going see just how difficult crafting a story really is. But more importantly, it will give you the writer of these scripts, a chance to see where your screenplay is, where it needs to be improved, and how.

Now does that mean I’m not hoping to be proven wrong? Of course not. I am praying that somehow you, the guy or girl sitting on your couch right now reading these words, the one who has more talent in your middle toe than Aaron Sorkin has in his whole body, gets your script to me, I give it a genius rating, it sells for a million bucks, and it’s the happiest day in Scriptshadow history. So if you’re out there, please send your script in and make sure I pick it somehow. :)

WEEK 2 is going to be the return of Repped Week. If you remember, last year, I featured a week of writers who had representation from agencies and/or managers, but who hadn’t yet made the big spec sale. The idea was for you to see what it took to get an agent, which is obviously not as difficult as getting your script sold. So Repped Week is back baby. Send your scripts in (details below), and just like Amateur Week, only send your scripts in if it’s okay for me to post them.

But the big reason I’m doing this is for WEEK 3 and some of WEEK 4. Over the past couple of years, I’ve read a lot of amateur scripts, some through my notes service, some through contests, and some through referrals, and I’ve found a handful of unpurchased scripts that are really good. None of the scripts are perfect, but all of them are “worth the reads” or higher, and there are a couple I just know will be made into movies. If you’re a producer, a director, a financier, an agent, or a manager, you will want to be paying attention on that 3rd week of May. Because these scripts are going to be up for grabs.

Interested? Okay, here are the instructions. Follow them EXACTLY!

IMPORTANT: CHECK THE E-MAIL ADDRESSES BELOW – do not submit to Carsonreeves1@gmail.com

WEEK ONE – AMATEUR WEEK – ANYONE CAN SUBMIT
e-mail address: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Instructions: First off, write your logline INTO THE SUBJECT LINE. If it doesn’t fit, write as much as you can. The full logline will also be posted in the body of the message. Attach a PDF of your script with the e-mail. Here is a sample of how the body of the e-mail should look:

Name: Joe Screenwriter
Title: Blanket Man
Genre: Horror
Logline: When the people of Sleepville begin losing their blankets one by one, they realize that a horrifying entity known as “Blanket Man” has been stealing them, in hopes of making everyone really chilly at night.

WEEK TWO – REPPED WEEK – ONLY SUBMIT IF YOU’RE REPPED BY AN AGENT OR MANAGER
e-mail address: Carsonreeves2@gmail.com
Instructions: In order to qualify for Repped week, you must have an agent or a manager, and not yet have sold a screenplay. In regards to your e-mail, please write your logline INTO THE SUBJECT LINE. If it doesn’t fit, write as much as you can. The full logline will also be posted in the body of the message. Attach a PDF of your script with the e-mail. This is exactly how the body of the e-mail should look:

Name: Jane Screenwriter
Agency/Management: IDK
Agent/Manager: Temper Sent
Title: Tickle Dome
Genre: Drama/Sci-Fi
Logline: 700 years in the future, man has only one weakness: tickling. In a remote town off the Atlanta Wastelands, the best ticklers in the world battle each other til they’re really tired and can’t laugh anymore. It is known…as The Tickle Dome.

You can start submitting right now! GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

LAST YEAR’S REPPED WEEK REVIEWS
http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/08/void-repped-week-5-of-5.html
http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/08/emergency-contact-repped-week-4-of-5.html
http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/08/fixer.html
http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/08/malcom-mccree-and-money-tree.html
http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/08/conquered-repped-week-1-of-5.html

Hmm, this week is going to be a little crazy. I’ll be contrasting today’s huge fanboy review with something tomorrow that’s so independent, I’m not even sure I know about it. And I read it! The good news is, the script was great. As for the rest of the week’s reviews, it’s still up in the air, so anything goes. But to ease the pressure of Uncle Sam’s ridiculous monetary demands this Thursday, I’ll be making a big announcement that should get all of you amateur screenwriters in a frenzy. So stay tuned because that opportunity will be coming before the end of the week. Right now, buckle yourselves up for another Roger review…

Genre: Crime, Prophetic Horror, Action
Premise: A former Pinkerton detective is resurrected as a Sifter, a bounty hunter tasked with going after people who have skipped out on destined meetings in Hades. When he’s ordered to hunt down a young artist, his past literally comes back to haunt him. He’s forced to team up with his deceased wife, now one of heaven’s operatives, to stop an impending apocalyptic event known as The Awakening.
About: “I Died a Thousand Times” is Aaron Drane’s sophomore screenplay. Drane went to film school at UCLA, where this script won the UCLA Samuel Goldwyn Award. In 1997, the script yielded a million dollar payday when it sold to Arnold Kopelson. He sold a couple more scripts to 20^th Century Fox and most recently wrote and produced the FEARnet web series, “Fear Clinic”, which stars iconic horror movie actors, Robert Englund and Kane Hodder.
Writer: Aaron Drane

Ironically, I never heard of this script until my friend let me wander around in his mystical script vault, which turned out to be kind of like the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark, except the relics on these shelves were unproduced and forgotten screenplays. I got lost among the shelves of scripts, overwhelmed and paralyzed by the paradox of choice. Four hours later, I finally escaped the labyrinth with brass brads in my hair and paper cuts on my fingers, armed with a copy of Aaron Drane’s “I Died a Thousand Times” (not to be confused with the 1955 remake of High Sierra), a spec that purportedly sold for a million bucks back in 1997.

Josh Baizer and Marshall Johnson made big waves last year with their script, “Dead Loss,” about a crew of crab fisherman who pick up a drifting castaway with a mysterious cargo. It was one of my favorite scripts of the year, as well as one of Hollywood’s. Dead Loss landed on the Black List with 7 votes. It also became one of your favorites when you voted it your 24th favorite unproduced script. I wanted to thank Josh and Marshall again for doing this interview because they’ve been working extremely long hours on an assignment and were nice enough to take some time and answer my questions. There’s a ton of good advice in here so I hope you enjoy the interview.

SS: I know a lot of people want to know where to meet writing partners. How did you two get started writing together?

J: It’s definitely tough to find someone who’s willing to put up with you over the course of many long/stressful workdays. We actually met as assistants in development at Paramount (long hours/stressful conditions). We worked right next door to each other. When I realized I wasn’t going the exec route, I started writing on the sly, between phone calls. Marshall would give me notes…and it all kind of went from there.

SS: What were you doing before Dead Loss? Where were you in your writing careers?

J: We were doing whatever job we could find. Small rewrites. Even a little bit of TV. We’d actually gotten some traction after doing a rewrite on a script for a studio – but then the strike hit and it kind of put us back to square one.

MJ: Before DEAD LOSS, we had written a couple feature rewrites. One was within the studio system, and the other was for an independent producer. But we also had worked on a short-lived TV show and wrote some webisodes for ESPN.

SS: What inspired you to write Dead Loss?

J: Contrary to popular belief, it actually wasn’t a spec. It was a pitch on an open writing assignment. We’d had a general meeting with Jesse Johnston at Thousand Words right before the strike and he’d been a fan of the first script we’d written. During the meeting we discussed our mutual love for a certain cable television show. Months later, he called and asked if we’d be interested in coming up with a take for a movie set in the world of Alaskan crab fishing. It was pretty wide open – they were open to see anything from sci-fi, to horror, etc etc. At the end of the day, our take won out and they hired us to write it.

MJ: A year before we started working on DEAD LOSS, we had met with Jesse Johnston, an executive at Thousand Words, so we already had a good relationship with him, and he was a fan of our writing. Like us, Jesse, Jonah (Smith), and Palmer (West) were all big fans of THE DEADLIEST CATCH and they wanted to do something in that world. We came up with our DEAD LOSS story, pitched them, and they bought it.

SS: I liked how you built in conflict and mystery between your characters (particularly between the brothers). What is your approach to writing characters? What’s the key to writing a good one?

MJ: Good characterization can vary based on a lot of factors – genre, tone, story, etc. Obviously, the ultimate goal is for the characters to resonate with the audience, whether that’s a larger than life buffoon in an absurd comedy, or capturing the nuances and mannerism of a real life person in a biopic.

For DEAD LOSS, it was important for us to ground the crew in realism, so we did a lot of research on crab fishermen and their lives on and off the boat. A lot of the inspiration for the characters followed organically from that research. For instance, a lot of these boats are family owned and operated, and the the business is passed down from generation to generation. So it made sense to have the brother dynamic at the center of things. And even apart from the brothers’ blood relation, the entire crew on these boats becomes like a surrogate family. It’s a very difficult and dangerous job, so they have to trust each other when they’re out on the water or someone is going to get hurt or killed. Understanding those dynamics, it became much easier to look at what kinds of circumstances and conflicts would push these tough guys who live life on the edge to their breaking point.

SS: What’s your writing method in general? How much do you outline? What do you emphasize? Do you write a lot of drafts? How long do you write each day?

J: We’ve always treated it like a job, even when we were just starting out. We meet everyday for at least eight or nine hours. When there’s a deadline, the days definitely get longer – but even when we’re not actively writing on anything, it’s good for the sanity to have a strict structure. Though, when actively writing, we don’t necessarily emphasize time, but page count. Outlines are probably the most important part of our process. We try to get as detailed as possible before starting the draft, otherwise, we could find ourselves in trouble if the plot is particularly complex.

We definitely try to emphasize the tone and the world. Tone can be tough on some projects, but that oftentimes takes many drafts of tweaks in dialogue and character choices…so we tend to tinker with that for as long as we can. The world comes out of the research phase. It’s probably the stuff we love most. Our second script took place on an aircraft carrier and the navy allowed us to fly onto the USS Reagan and explore everything we needed for two days. That research helped a lot and allowed us to make the world believable.

MJ: Most of our projects generally start with a lot of research. We really enjoy exploring new subcultures and environments. In fact, I think in many ways screenwriting can be like journalism. From there you find your characters and storylines, etc, and things usually start to crystallize in an organic way – like I was saying before about DEAD LOSS.

And yeah, when we’re getting ready to write or pitch, we usually do a lot of outlining. Josh and I both are very logic-oriented, so we try hard to make sure everyone’s motivations make sense and that there aren’t any plot holes ahead of time. It’s time-consuming to be so thorough up front, but it usually pays off in the long run. As far as schedule goes, we’re pretty diligent about writing and treat it like a day job, working regular hours together most every day.

SS: I’m assuming you guys are fielding offers in the assignment market now. Could you tell us a little bit about that world? How does a writer get into a room to pitch his/her take on, say, “Clash of the Titans?” Would you guys be able to get into a room for that? Or is that a whole nother level?

J: For those who don’t know how it works, most times your last good script becomes your resume for open writing assignments available in that genre. Your reps will know what assignments are around and put you up for those jobs. Of course, the timing isn’t always so perfect – jobs may not be in abundance. So you’ll end up going on a lot of ‘general’ meetings with production company execs around town who have read your work and hopefully liked it. A lot of jobs come out of these generals, directly and indirectly. Good relationships help so much. We got DEAD LOSS from a general meeting the year before. We were able to get another rewrite job when a pitch on another project didn’t sell…but the studio exec liked us and liked our writing (and we were the right price at the time). With something like CLASH, I’ve seen how it works from the studio side as well as from the writers’ – execs will try and go with big name writers, but there’s always room for a young up and comer with an amazing sample to blow them out of the water and get the job. Again, relationships are huge. You never know what big producer will read your sample and champion you. A big job like CLASH is in the realm of possibility for guys like us, but we’d still be up against heavy hitters…so we’d need plenty of luck.

MJ: The assignment market is pretty tough right now. It seems like there are fewer jobs each year at all levels. But there are still opportunities, from high-profile gigs like CLASH to smaller budgeted projects at companies who are independently financed. Still, in every case it starts with someone liking your writing.

From there, it’s hard to generalize. Studios obviously have conservative reputations, so unless you’ve sold something or had a movie go into production, it’s more difficult to get a job there but still not impossible. Starting as an unknown quantity, it generally just takes time to build your fan base and for everyone in town to get to know you and your writing. So hopefully, when a big project like CLASH comes along, you already have a relationship with either the producer or the studio exec supervising the project, and they will remember how much they liked your script, or maybe they had already met with you and recall how you had mentioned being obsessed with Greek mythology or whatever. Then they’ll consider you for the project and give you a shot at coming up with a take for the movie. That scenario has happened to us many times, even with DEAD LOSS. But once you’re in consideration, it’s up to you to make the most of the opportunity and come up with a fantastic take that is in line with their vision of the movie.

SS: Do you have any particular screenwriting books or scriptwriters who inspired/helped you? Who do you suggest Scriptshadow readers read to learn about the craft?

J: I’ve never read a screenwriting book. But I’ve read many, many scripts. We’ve actually got a loose writers’ circle made up of a bunch of friends at various stages in their writing careers and it’s very helpful.

MJ: I took screenwriting in college, so that’s where I learned the basics, like formatting and act structure. But there are lots of books that can teach you that stuff too (Syd Field, Robert McKee, etc). And ultimately it is very important you have that understanding – not only for writing and crafting a script, but also for pitching and discussing projects. It’s the jargon of the industry, so you have to be able to talk about act breaks, structure, etc. But honestly I found that the absolute best education came from reading scripts. While working at Paramount, I must’ve read thousands of scripts – and there’s just as much to learn from the bad ones as the good. And of course now there are so many online resources, so you can go watch a movie, then download the script and see how it read on the page. It can be very helpful to see how certain things are communicated and get a taste of different writing styles.

SS: Writers deal with a lot of rejection, and are oftentimes unsure of where they are in the journey. Are they close to that magical sale? Do they have a ways to go? When did you guys know you were legitimately able to compete with professional writers in one of the hardest markets in the world? Is there a way for a writer to know when he/she’s made that step?

J: Probably getting our first paycheck. It made it seem real for the first time.

MJ: I think there are probably certain milestones that are important to people for different reasons. Getting a key producer or talent to read your material, or landing an agent or manager is obviously important. But for me, it was getting my first paycheck. It wasn’t a big one, but that was the when I felt legitimized as a professional writer. And the idea of the “magical sale” is tantalizing, but honestly the odds of a first spec selling are very low. Obviously it happens, and when it does, it’s great and those Cinderella stories often make news, but speaking practically, it truly is a marathon and not a race. So I think as long as you’re continuing to progress in your career, enjoying it, and paying your bills (however that may be), then persistence is key. Just try to keep perspective on the bigger picture and ask yourself some basic questions about the big picture. Are your scripts getting better each time? Does your feeback get more positive? Are you getting more access with each script? And once you start getting paid, are your quotes getting higher? etc.

SS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received in regards to screenwriting? If you could speak directly to that writer out there who’s just about to start his new spec – what would you tell him to give him the best chance to sell his/her screenplay?

J: Just finish it. You can always fix things in the next draft. Or the one after that. As for selling a spec, I have yet to do so, so I can’t speak from experience. But I would say to take a look at what’s recently sold to get a feel of the market. Passion projects rarely match what the town is buying. (I know from experience)

MJ: In regards to advice, there’s no single useful pearl of wisdom that comes to mind (omitting a few cynical ones, that is). Instead most of the wisdom I found useful came from working in the industry for several years before I started writing full time. It’s proven invaluable to have an overall understand of the process and how screenwriters fit into the bigger picture.

So maybe working in the industry is something to consider for yourself. But obviously, not everyone is able to do that. So let’s assume that you’re already writing something you like, and writing about settings, characters, and stories you feel competent portraying, then I would advise taking a step back and think about the commercial side of things.

Of course there’s artistry and craft involved with writing, but having worked in the studio system and seen that side of things, one thing becomes crystal clear: screenwriting is storytelling, but ultimately it really is just a for-profit business.

So keep in mind that the agent reading your script will be wondering how they can sell it, and the producer reading it will be thinking who will buy it. And if you’ve already got the access, then if a buyer reads and likes it, then they will also be thinking about the economics of saying yes, risk and recouping, etc.

So take some time and ask yourself some key questions like… is your movie meant for all audiences, just guys, just kids? There’s not a right and wrong answer here, but don’t forget that narrow demographics means lower box office which means lower budget, etc.

How much does your movie cost? It might be hard to estimate if you haven’t worked in Hollywood, but do some online research and find budgets of comparable movies.

Even if you write with an actor in mind, are there lots of other actors who could play the part? Because if your space epic costs $300M, there are only so many stars like Will Smith who will ultimately guarantee financing.

What does the marketing look like? Thinking about the poster and taglines is not only something that companies will have to do down the road anyway if your script gets produced, but it can also help you during the writing process to focus your story.

Obviously, in the end you still have to write a script that is going to resonate on the page and that people will like, just don’t lose sight of the business side of things so you aren’t wasting your time, or at least so that you have reasonable expectations about the response.

SS: Where is Dead Loss in the process, and what are you guys writing next?

J: Thousand Words has Chris Gorak attached to direct, and beyond that we don’t really know what their plans are. Right now, we’re in the middle of adapting a novel, LONG LOST by Harlan Coben for Gaumont, a French studio. Nick Wechsler and David Gerson are producing. Massy Tadjedin will direct and Hugh Jackman is attached to star.