Start fast and never slow down!

A month ago, I was in the middle of reading a script and I was bored out of my mind. Whenever I’m bored, I instinctually check what page I’m on. So I looked up at the top of the screen and noted that I was on page: Four. That’s right, page four. How bad does a script have to be for the reader to already be bored by page four? Bad. And yet, this is common. Especially with amateur screenplays.

It occurred to me as this was happening that all screenwriting is is time-buying. You’re trying to buy more time with the reader. If you can promise them that that next page is going to be just as entertaining as this one, they will keep turning the pages. And nowhere is this more important than the first ten pages. Because the first ten are where you hook someone. If you can pull them in immediately and not let go, it acts as a promise – a promise to the reader that “I’m going to entertain you.” Once that trust is established, you have them.

This got me wondering: What if I threatened every writer that THE SECOND I was bored, I would stop reading their script? In other words, if I was bored at the end of the first page, I wouldn’t keep reading. If I was bored at the end of the first paragraph, I wouldn’t keep reading. If I was bored AT THE END OF THE FIRST SENTENCE, I wouldn’t keep reading. Would writers change the way they wrote their first ten pages? Of course they would. Every sentence they wrote, they would ask, “Will this keep the reader reading?” And I suspect that everybody using this strategy would become a markedly better writer in the process.

Now some of you are probably thinking, “This is unrealistic, Carson.” All it would do is result in a bunch of scripts catering to the ADD crowd. The literary equivalent of Michael Bay lining up a series of explosions. But here’s the thing – keeping someone entertained doesn’t mean dropping the reader into a firefight or an argument. It can mean that. But there’s more than one way to lead a horse to water.

Yesterday’s script is a perfect example. Promising Young Woman starts with a group of men leering at a hot drunken woman in a bar. Right away, we know something very bad has the potential of happening. So guess what? We keep reading to find out if it does. It’s a very simple dramatic storytelling device. And it’s ensured we will at least read until the end of this scene. No ADD-catering required.

Contrast this with the opening of Monday’s script. We’re in the aftermath of a giant accident and our hero’s daughter has died. The scene creates a little bit of mystery (“What caused this?”), which creates just enough momentum for me to begrudgingly read on. But as an opening scene, it’s weak. Nothing is happening. There’s no tension. There’s no suspense. There’s no conflict. All of that happened before the scene. All sorts of alarms go off when I see this. If there isn’t a single well-developed story skill in the opening scene, why would I think this writer had the skills to entertain me for the next 100 pages? And guess what? I was right. There were no storytelling skills on display for the rest of the script. The script was boring.

But let’s get back to my idea. What if you knew that the reader would stop reading your script the second they were bored? Would you become a better writer in those first ten pages? Would you focus more on entertaining the reader? I say you would. One of the best examples of this is a script that sold all the way back in 1994. It was the hottest spec of the year. Everyone was talking about it. And it went on to become a hit movie. Here’s the first page of that script…

Is there anyone here who can honestly say, “I was bored, I stopped reading?” A show of hands. That’s right. Not a single hand raised. This first page, from the script for “Scream,” is the embodiment of my philosophy. The script grabs you from the very first sentence, and there’s never a point after that where you can stop reading.

“ON A RINGING TELEPHONE.” Well duh, we have to find out who’s calling. Establish a 16 year old girl. “Innocent eyes.” Why point out she’s innocent? Might she be in danger in the coming lines? “Hello.” “Hello.” Silence. Bam, this conversation is already interesting. The person calling isn’t following normal protocol for a phone call (“Hi, is Jake home?”). They just say, “Hello.” Then silence. “Yes,” she asks. “Who is this?” he replies. Okay, now you really have me. The person who’s calling doesn’t get to say, “Who is this?” That’s the answerer’s duty. What’s going on here? I have to read more.

The conversation continues with the man asking questions he shouldn’t be asking. “What number is this?” Then answering her questions in a creepy way. “What number are you trying to reach?” “I don’t know.” “I think you have the wrong number.” “Do I?” Casey, trying to act above it, hangs up on him. “The phone RINGS again.” Casey answers the phone again. “Hello.” HOW CAN YOU NOT TURN THE PAGE after this? How can you not want to find out what happens next? This is how you write to keep the reader’s attention.

I know. I can already hear you zipping around the internet looking for examples of movies that start slowly. “Roma doesn’t start fast, Carson! Roma was nominated for an Academy Award!”

Come on, you’re smarter than this. Roma isn’t a spec script that needed to win over readers. If you are a writer-director, if your movie’s development is already paid for, if your movie is being fast-tracked, if you’re adapting a book, you do not need to worry about this problem. The irony is that all of these writers would do well to still abide by this philosophy. But they don’t, which is partially why so many of these movies are boring. Don’t forget your unique circumstance. You are a nobody whose only influence on someone is the words you write in this document. You’d be smart to use every one of those words wisely. Hook them and never let them go.

Okay, Carson, you’ve made great points as always. But how do we actually execute this plan? What’s the trick to writing an amazing first ten pages? Unfortunately, there’s no trick. But there are certain setups that work better than others. One of the best things you can do is identify all your favorite movie openings – movies that hooked you right away – Then ask, “How did they do that?”

One thing that we’ve identified that works is to place someone who’s helpless in harm’s way. That worked for us in Promising Young Woman. And it worked in Scream. It doesn’t have to be a woman. It can be a kid. Or, if you create a situation whereby a grown man is helpless in a situation, that might work as well.

Another theme of good early scenes is that we’re dropped into something important happening. We’re not dropped in afterwards (like Absence of Courage). We’re not dropped in five hours before (characters going about their everyday lives). We sense right away that something important is happening and therefore we want to find out what happens next. For example, if you opened on a woman in a boardroom sweating bullets, trying to act like she’s not sweating bullets, and we pull back to see she’s in an intense job interview, getting hammered with hard question after hard question, that could hook a reader.

Conversely, you can hook us in the build-up TO that interview. You could place that same job applicant in the waiting area, sweating bullets, going over her notes, trying to remember everything, eyeing the other applicants sitting nearby, all of whom are better looking and better dressed. If I’m dropped into that moment, I’m going to want to keep reading to see how that woman performs.

You could take that same character, however, and start with her waiting outside school to pick her daughter up, and you’ve lost us. It’s not the most boring thing you could start on. But there’s no importance attached to it. Where’s the suspense? Where’s the “reason to keep reading?”

Then again, with a little finagling, you could turn this scene into an interesting one. Focus on the woman waiting while all the other children come out and meet their parents. And with each passing kid that isn’t hers, there’s a looming sense of dread in our protagonist. She’s craning her neck. Looking at a few groups of girls chatting. Her daughter has to be around here somewhere. All of a sudden, a teacher approaches, a concerned look on her face. “Maggie?” she says to our protagonist. “What are you doing here?” “What do you mean? Where’s Tracy?” “You don’t remember? You called an hour ago. To say her uncle was picking her up.” We can see from Maggie’s eyes that she did not call an hour ago to say Tracy’s uncle was picking her up. And now we have to keep reading.

The real trick here is creating an interesting situation. Don’t plop us into some boring mundane scene. Come up with something that’s got some stakes attached to it. Someone’s in danger. Something’s gone wrong. There’s conflict involved. There’s mystery. Give us something that’s impossible to stop reading. And when you finish that first scene and you still have five pages left in your first 10, don’t rest on your laurels. Give us another scene we can’t stop reading. Hold yourself to the same standards you hold other writers to. You’re bored out of your mind reading other writers’ work. Well, then don’t do the same things they do.

So here’s how this is going to work. We’re having a First 10 Pages Contest. The one rule of this contest is that THE SECOND I’M BORED, I WILL STOP READING YOUR PAGES. If I’m bored in the first paragraph, I will stop reading. I have no problem giving up on your pages 20 seconds into them. Knowing this, will you become a better writer? That’s the experiment here.

I don’t know what the prize will be other than featuring the winners on the site. But I can tell you this. I’m not going to feature bad work. If not a single entry results in me reading the full ten pages, there will be no winner. I’m genuinely curious to see if anybody get can me to read the full ten. Because 99% of the time, I wouldn’t read past the first scene if I didn’t have to. I want you to really internalize that. Writing a screenplay isn’t this giant complicated process of navigating readers and agents and staying updated with trends and blah blah blah. It’s writing a series of words that make the person reading it want to keep reading. If you do that, you will be successful.

Submissions will be due a month from now on Sunday, February 10th, 11:59pm Pacific Time. Send a PDF of those pages to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the subject line: FIRST TEN PAGES. No logline or synopsis needed. You can include a title page if you want. Up to you. You can send them starting today.

Let’s see who can pull this off. Oh, and one last reminder…

MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO STOP READING

Genre: Drama/Thriller
Premise: When a young widow’s son mysteriously disappears in Crater Lake National Park she will have one week to find him before the snowy season begins & buries any trace.
Why You Should Read: Much of my writing has always been complex, so I took this opportunity to write something simple, short, sweet and a quick read. I call it Flightplan in the woods. Mother loses son and will do everything to get him back, but has everything in her way. Singular park location with limited characters, a mysterious level of suspense and intrigue, mixed with the paranormal. As this is my first foray into something this simple, I’d love to hear any feedback the group has and take in any suggestions.
Writer: Treaty
Details: 97 pages

Kerry Washington for Zoey?

It’s official “Kids Disappearing Weekend!” That’s right. If you’re looking for some entertainment, you can check out the computer screen missing daughter thriller, “Searching,” at your nearby multiplex. Or you can stay home, spend a lot less money, and read Crater Lake!

Today’s screenplay is as simple a movie premise as you’ll get. Son goes missing. Mom must find him. I talk about the importance of simple premises all the time. But when is a movie idea too simple? That’s the factor I’ve always struggled with. Because often I’ll read a script with a simple concept and be bored out of my mind.

I think Crater Lake answered that question for me. A movie is too simple when it’s both simple AND predictable. If we’re 40 pages ahead of the story the whole time, we’re going to be bored. So the trick is, when writing these uber-simple premises, to keep throwing in unexpected plot beats, misdirects, surprises, mysteries – anything that keeps the reader curious.

Crater Lake introduces us to 30-something therapist widow Zoey Hayes. After finishing up a weird session with a patient who believes in parallel worlds, Zoey heads home and starts getting ready for a weekend adventure with her 7 year old autistic son, Sam.

The two are going to national park, Crater Lake, where Sam will get to do his favorite thing in the world, take pictures of birds. The two have a perfect system going, with Sam dictating the majority of the operations and scheduling.

Driving along the highway on the way to the park, Zoey spots something in her rearview mirror and screeches to a stop. We never see what she saw, only Zoey jumping out and chasing after whatever it was. She comes up empty handed, chalks it up to her imagination, and the two complete the drive.

After setting up camp, Sam begins bird-watching, and Zoey walks down to check out a nearby stream. Only a few minutes pass, but when Zoey returns, Sam is gone. Zoey freaks out, running around and asking other campers if they saw her son. Nobody has. Soon she finds a park ranger, and a full-on search party is formed to look for Sam.

Strangely, there isn’t a trace of him anywhere. And when staunch female cop, Sheriff Collins, shows up, she’s not much help. In fact, she’s not even convinced Zoey is telling the truth. Nobody at the park saw her come in with her son. And there’s not a shred of evidence that he was in the spot where she supposedly last saw him.

As a result, Zoey is forced to go out into the park and find her son herself. It’s there where she meets mysterious hermit, Aaron Stevens, who it turns out lost his little girl to the park many years ago. According to Aaron, there are mysterious forces working in this park, and that Sheriff Collins has been covering up disappearances for years. Zoey doesn’t care about any of that. She just wants to find her son. Will she?

I absolutely loved the first half of Crater Lake for the reason I listed above. It was simple, but it kept you guessing. There were these great little mysteries tossed in every 10 pages. One of my favorites was them finding Sam’s camera miles away from where he’d supposedly last been seen coupled with us learning that Zoey had been secretly drinking the whole trip. Might she have been responsible for her son’s disappearance and not known it?

However, little things would pop up here and there that gave the impression the writer hadn’t put 100% into his story. The script was written to make us think they were in some remote park with no one around. However, the second Sam went missing, there were all of a sudden a million campers to talk to. Whether they’re isolated or around people is an important detail to establish in a missing kid script. We shouldn’t be finding out there were all these people around after the fact.

Or one second Zoey has an asthma inhaler and the next second it’s gone. Not just gone but completely irrelevant. She never had a single moment from that point on where she struggled to breathe. So why bring up the inhaler in the first place?

Whenever I see stuff like this, I get worried. Especially in mysteries. Because mysteries are all about intricately plotting a story to have a shocking, but more importantly, satisfying, final reveal. So if the writer is flippant about the small stuff, they’re going to be flippant about the big stuff as well.

Sure enough, the ending didn’t live up to the hype. The story introduces this notion of the park being a supernatural place where people can transfer to parallel worlds. The rules for these parallel worlds were fuzzy at best. There was a vague implication that water was how the worlds connected. And… well, that was all we got. Not to mention we’re learning these rules with, like, ten pages to go.

Naturally, when it came time to explain where Sam was, the fuzziness took over, leading to an unsatisfying ending that was a big let down. And I say that because I was so invested in Sam’s survival. That alone is so hard to do – make a reader care about a fictional person who’s an accumulation of words. So when a writer accomplishes that, yet botches the ending, you’re so mad.

With that said, the script is worth developing. I would ask Treaty to consider a draft without the supernatural stuff. OR. Or you can have the hermit believe in the parallel worlds theory, and tease that as a possibility, but in the end it turns out it’s something he’s using to cope with what he knows, deep down, to be true – that his daughter is dead.

I think the better storyline is beefing up Sheriff Collins. She’s a villain with a huge upside. I saw her as a potential rival to Nurse Ratchet for best female villain of all time. If you could build a scenario by which she’s orchestrating all this to cover her ass, and has been doing so for years, that could be a really satisfying ending.

Oh, and you also HAVE to do more with the lost camera. Lost cameras with full rolls of a film in them are gold mines as far as creating mystery. There should be several weird pictures on there that don’t make sense and only lead to more confusion.

There’s SOMETHING to this script. No doubt about it. But right now it feels like a speed-draft where the writer hasn’t done his due diligence of exploring the full potential of the story.

Script link: Crater Lake

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

What I learned: Act like you’re going to give the audience an answer, then make them wait for it. Treaty does a TREMENDOUS job of using this device. It was one of the main reasons I stayed so invested in the story. For example, Zoey informs a young ranger who’s helping her about the hermit, whose daughter also went missing mysteriously. So we watch the ranger look this up. And we see him find the story, and he’s about to read it, and we’re about to find out what really happened with this weird recluse and his daughter and right as we’re about to get our answer… we cut back to Zoey’s pursuit of her son. Noooo! Now we have to keep reading before we can find out the truth about the daughter’s disappearance.

Genre: Period
Premise: The Kennedy assassination told in real-time through the eyes of CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite.
About: Expect this project to shoot for a table at the Oscars next year. The high-ranking 2017 Black List script (Top 15) nabbed Seth Rogen to play Walter Cronkite and David Gordon-Green to direct. The rest of the cast hasn’t been rounded out yet, but there are rumors that Bryan Cranston and the Hulk, Mark Ruffallo, will sign on. The writer, Ben Jacoby, has a couple of small indies to his name, but nabbing a star like Rogen makes this his biggest career achievement yet.
Writer: Ben Jacoby
Details: 108 pages (undated)

Seth Rogen going Oscar huntin!

Let me start off by saying I love the setup for this script.

I’m a sucker for juxtaposing period pieces with high-speed narratives. There’s something thrilling about turbo-charging a genre that’s traditionally slow as molasses. Don’t ask me where I developed this script kink but dammit if I don’t have it (share your script kinks in the comments section!).

I always say that if you’re going to dip your toes into the period piece waters, you’ve got two choices. Find an unknown great story and tell it. Or find a well-known story and find a fresh angle into it. Going real-time on one of the biggest news stories in history is a boss move.

The opening title card informs us that the following story takes place between 1:15 and 3:02 pm, November 22, 1963.

We meet a 47 year old Walter Cronkite hanging out at the CBS News offices, wondering if he’s going to have a job in a month. The ratings for his nightly news show are bad and his boss, Jim Aubrey, is threatening to replace him with a new show they’re currently shooting called Gilligan’s Island.

As Walter ponders his future, a shocking piece of news comes across the switchboard: “President’s been shot.” Walter and the rest of the newsroom jump into action and begin the excruciating process of trying to figure out what’s happening in a world before cell phones, before cable news, and before, well, anything.

Cronkite awkwardly interrupts As The World Turns to give a hit-and-run announcement that the president was shot. Quickly afterwards he sends the public back to the soap opera. This is how they did it back then. You didn’t stay on the air unless you had real news to report. And since that’s all the info he had, that’s all the info he gave!

Jim Aubrey flies into studio and starts arguing with Cronkite about how to report the story. He wants Cronkite on the air non-stop whereas Cronkite believes they need to do some information-gathering first. There’s a young reporter, Dan Rather, who’s managed to get to the hospital that’s treating Kennedy. If they’re patient, they can report the truth instead of rumor.

Aubrey doesn’t care about all that. He wants Cronkite to be the first to report Kennedy’s death. The intense showdown culminates in a fierce battle that ends with Cronkite on-air, refusing to report the death until it’s officially confirmed, even as the competition around them reports the death, one by one.

I gotta hand it to Jacoby.

Genius idea this concept is.

You take a famous moment in history. You tell that story in a non-traditional way (through a news reporter as opposed to Kennedy himself). You add a real-time component to spice it up. You’ve got the director-porn location of a 60s news station. You’ve got a main character that a bankable actor is going to want to play. You’ve got a budget-friendly setup in that the locations are limited.

I could never write a script like this because I don’t gravitate to the subject matter. But this is the kind of setup that gets a script made into a movie.

So why the hell didn’t I like it??

Let’s start with this this: I couldn’t tell if this was a movie or a documentary. Cause all it does is recount what happened that day. If all you’re going to do is recount, you might as well make a documentary.

The reason you make a movie is because there’s a compelling conflict to explore at the center of the story. For example, if you were to make a movie about the Cuban-Missile crisis, you wouldn’t just report how it happened. You’d zoom in on the fact that if the U.S. doesn’t get Russia to turn around, it may lead to nuclear war.

Where’s the conflict in a guy trying to get a story?

What happens if he fails?

I’m pretty sure the world would still find out that JFK was assassinated.

It seems like the conflict they’re going with is that if Walter Cronkite doesn’t nail this story, he MAY be let go from CBS News. Not WILL be let go. But MAYBE (quick Scriptshadow screenwriting tip: never deal in maybes with movies, always absolutes). But is the consequence of Walter Cronkite losing his job really what we’re worried about in the wake of one of the worst moments in American history?

The other conflict is between Aubrey and Cronkite in regards to whether they should be reporting news before it’s confirmed. This is always a compelling argument when it comes to news and happens to be timely in the wake of today’s media. The problem is that this conflict is late-arriving. It’s almost like the writer figured out, “Oh yeah, THAT’S what my movie’s about,” halfway into the script, then built the remainder of the movie around it.

This happens sometimes. You’re writing a script and it isn’t until well into the process that you understand what your script is about. If that happens, it’s your job to go back and pepper that theme throughout the first half of the story as well. The reader shouldn’t be able to identify the moment an idea struck you.

Despite these issues, I have admiration for this idea and how the writer approached it. Not to mention, I love writers who care about the reader. Every sentence here is an economy of words. There’s a ton of dialogue, which also makes the read fast. Pop this script open and read the first five pages. I guarantee you’ll whip through it in two minutes. That stuff never goes unnoticed by me. I just wish there was some true conflict to make this script pop. Maybe they’ll figure it out in the rewrites.

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

What I learned: This is a great way to write a spec that makes the Black List and gets studio interest. Pick a famous moment in history. Something everyone knows about. Then find a slightly different angle to tell the story from. In this case, it was Kennedy’s assassination being told through the real-time exploits of a news reporter. In the number 3 script on the Black List, Keeper of the Diary, it was about Anne Frank’s experience, but told through her father trying to get her diary published. The famousness of the moment catches an audience’s interest, and the unique angle intrigues them enough to check it out.

DIALOGUE WEEK IS HERE! – All this week, I’ll be breaking down dialogue scenes from movies you love. Monday’s Dialogue Post is here. Yesterday’s post is here.

Today we’re covering a different kind of scene. Admittedly, it’s not the strongest scene of the week. But I picked it because it’s representative of the kind of “workhorse” scenes you’ll be tasked with writing throughout your career. Workhorse scenes are scenes that are saddled with backstory and plot setup. These scenes aren’t generally meant to entertain now. They pave the way so you can entertain later. With that said, you should always TRY to make these scenes entertaining. And Jordan Peele does about as good of a job as you can with this scene under the circumstances.

If you haven’t seen Get Out, it’s about a white girl, Rose, who invites her black boyfriend, Chris, to her rich parents’ (Dean and Missy) home for the first time. This scene takes place 20 minutes after they’ve arrived. Dean has given Chris a quick tour of the house and now everyone has reconvened in the backyard for a drink.

A big reason why this dialogue works has to do with what happened BEFORE THE SCENE. Before the scene, we learn that Chris is nervous to meet Rose’s parents because they don’t yet know he’s black. Also, right before they get here, they run into a deer and have to deal with a racist cop. This further destabilizes an already nervous Chris. Once they get to the house, the parents are sweet. But there’s something “off” about both them and the place.

All of this creates TENSION within the scene which builds subtext into the conversation – Isn’t this dad acting too nice? Isn’t it weird that a white family keeps all black servants? Do the parents like him? — This is the stuff you want, guys. You want conversations to be complicated by other factors. They should never be straightforward and obvious. That’s where boring dialogue thrives.

Let’s move on to the first line. “Rose tells us your parents aren’t with us.” Obviously, Peele wants to use this interaction to give us some backstory on Chris. What I like about this is that it comes about naturally. It’s not a protagonist who, unprompted, launches into the most traumatic moment of his life. He doesn’t get very quiet at the table for no reason until the parents notice. “Are you okay, Chris?” “No, it’s just… this reminds me of my parents is all. They died a few years ago in a fire.” That’s unprompted bush league dialogue.

Nor is this backstory brought up within a scene where it wouldn’t make sense. For example, it doesn’t come up in the car ride earlier. “Are you okay?” Rose asks him. “I’m just thinking about my parents is all. They would’ve liked you. I still can’t believe they died a year ago.” No, it’s brought up within a situation where someone who doesn’t know him asks him.

That’s something a parent might do. Especially a parent who wants to get to know the boyfriend of her daughter. The question is a little aggressive. But it works because of HOW the question is phrased. Notice how she doesn’t say, “What are your parents like?” “Oh, my parents aren’t alive.” “I’m sorry. What happened?” Instead, Missy references something that Rose told her. This allows her to ask the question in a more gentle and natural manner. “Rose tells us your parents aren’t with us.” It’s not even a question really. It’s a statement meant to get Chris talking.

A lot of times dialogue is finding the right combination of words so that the line doesn’t draw attention to itself.

Also notice that Chris doesn’t rattle on about it. This is another mistake writers make. They feel like they need to give this big powerful moment where Chris provides an intense recreation of the worst moment of his life. No. He gives nine lines. That’s it. And even better, those lines are split up. That always makes it more natural, when another character breaks it up. Otherwise you risk an un-asked-for monologue.

The next section is meant to shed more light on our couple’s history. And I like how this is handled. The mom starts pressuring them. Time to get married. Time to have babies. What this does is it shifts our focus more on that pressure than the fact that Peele is clearly sneaking more backstory in. Why do we need that backstory? Because the more we know about our characters, the more we care about them. Which improves any scene during which they’re in danger. You care more about people when you know more about them.

The next two sections of the scene are setup. First, we need to set up the later hypnosis scene. As a writer, this stuff can be annoying. You’re only writing it so that when we get to the hypnosis scene, it makes sense. As a result, there’s a tendency to slap these scenes on the page. Who cares if they’re clunky? They’re just setup. But if you take a little extra time, these moments can define your screenplay. Because if you care that much about the technical beats, we know you care about the big stuff.

“Now, all you have to do is quit smoking,” Rose says. I like the reaction to this line. Dean and Missy HAVE FUN with it. “Oh no! A smoker!?” “And we were just beginning to like you.” A lot of writers believe they have to make a BIG DEAL out of these moments so we remember the scene once the payoff arrives (for example, show Missy and Dean disappointed in Chris). But Peele plays against the obvious. They make fun of him for it. This keeps the scene light while also furthering the narrative that these two (the parents) are a little kooky. From there, we go into Missy’s pitch. And that prepares us for the later hypnosis.

Finally, we set up ANOTHER scenario – the “get-together.” This was a ballsy move by Peele. You usually don’t want to set up two things in one scene. The scene starts to feel like setup porn. I suggest avoiding it if possible but sometimes, in these low-budget movies, you don’t have a choice. With that said, they segue into it pretty smoothly. And that’s the trick with this stuff. As long as you can find that segue line or that invisible transition, you can pull it off.

“If you change your mind… We’re just glad you could join us for the get-together.” That’s better than: “Oh yeah! Guess what? We’re inviting a bunch of friends over tomorrow. I totally forgot to tell you!” This sounds like the writer didn’t have a plan for the scene. The character’s “Oh yeah!” mirrors the writers’ “Oh yeah!” Oh yeah, I have to set this up! Inferring that the party’s already on the schedule gives the impression that both the writer and the characters have everything taken care of.

One more thing I want to say. None of this works unless you have that creepy tension working as subtext throughout the scene. If Peele hadn’t set up a series of moments before this (the all black servants, the too-good-to-be-true-parents, the racist cop encounter, even the first scene in the movie, where the black guy gets kidnapped), then the audience isn’t going to be as patient during a scene that’s 90% backstory and setup. These scenes only work once you’ve got the suspension ball rolling in advance.

What I learned: This is a small hack. But it’s a clever way to bring up a plot point without making a big deal out of it. A lot of writers like to announce plot points like newspaper boys hawking papers in the 40s. “WE’RE GOING TO WAR! READ IT ALL ABOUT IT! DOWN WITH HITLER!” Plot points feel more natural when they’re introduced invisibly. Peele achieves this with the “I forgot” or “We told you about this, remember?” hack. “The get-together?” Chris asks. “The party tomorrow? I told you,” Rose replies. “I must have forgot.” Missy and Dean then provide six lines of info and now, without it having to be this GIANT announcement, the audience knows about the party.

You may not like it. But box office is still the main criteria for determining whether people like a movie or not. WITH TWO CAVEATS.

RELATIVITY and EXPECTATION.

Each film’s success is based on the box office receipts relative to the production and marketing budgets. Also, each movie’s success is the final box office number contrasted against what the studio was expecting. This is why Star Wars: The Last Jedi has become the single most difficult movie to pinpoint as a success or failure in film history.

Upon first glance, the film is a juggernaut, taking in $575 million dollars domestically and 1.2 billion worldwide. But is that a success IN DISNEY’S EYES? Before the movie came out, I looked at The Force Awakens 930 million dollar domestic box office and Rogue One’s 530 million dollar domestic box office and said that Disney was probably hoping to AT LEAST split the difference between the two and hit 730 million. The Last Jedi isn’t going to make it that far and will be lucky to hit 630 million. Is that a success or is it a letdown? A cynicist would say it only made 100 million more than a Star Wars movie without a single known Star Wars character in it. An optimist would say that The Force Awakens was an outlier, an impossible to reach milestone, and that The Last Jedi held its own.

Something Disney wasn’t expecting was the out-of-nowhere success of Jumanji. And the reason that Jumanji being a hit, in particular, was a problem for Disney, was that it was aiming for the exact same demo Star Wars was. The reason Jumanji took such a big bite out of The Last Jedi’s numbers was one the pompous mouse house never could’ve predicted. Whereas The Last Jedi aimed to be a crowd pleaser, Jumanji ACTUALLY WAS a crowd-pleaser. And it used a little Scriptshadow trick to get there. What have I always told you guys? Write something that allows actors to play something that they never get to play and good actors will flock to your project. Once you’ve got good actors, you’ve got a shot at making something good. And the team up of The Rock, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black, all playing characters who are NOTHING like themselves, was too irresistible.

Jumanji has another thing going for it that some are arguing has reclaimed the trophy as the the premiere weapon in the battle for box office – word-of-mouth. If you get into a conversation with any random group of people who have seen these movies, you’ll find that both generate conversation. However, The Last Jedi conversation is more volatile. The people who hate it REALLY HATE IT. And so if you’re someone who was thinking about seeing the film, you’re probably leaving those conversations thinking, “Ehh, maybe I’ll wait for digital.” But everyone I’ve talked to who’s seen Jumanji has said, “I was surprised but it’s really good. It’s really funny.” You get nothing but good vibes leaving those conversations, which is why the film’s staying power is so high for a big performer (it’s racing towards $300 million at the moment). I LOVE the fact that word-of-mouth actually means something again because that means studios HAVE TO WRITE GOOD SCRIPTS. They can’t fake it. Anything that gives more power to the screenwriters in Hollywood, I’m all about.

Another film that embodies the power of word-of-mouth is The Greatest Showman. The film had the unfortunate challenge of marketing itself against the juggernaut that is Star Wars. A 250 million dollar marketing machine vs. a puny 40 million dollar campaign. Gee, I wonder who’s going to win the awareness battle there. When the film opened up on Christmas weekend, it made a paltry 8 million dollars and was immediately branded a bomb. Except something funny happened. People liked it. And they told other people that they liked it. And the following weekend, the film saw a 76% jump in ticket sales. And then this most recent weekend, it fell a paltry 11.3%. Usually when there’s blood in the water, a film dies out quickly. This one has not only survived, but thrived, and is currently up to 80 million bucks, off an 8 million dollar opening weekend! It was so off my radar that I didn’t even watch the trailer until I saw all this good box office news. And I loved it. It’s a very strong trailer and looks to be an awesome movie. It also follows two other Scriptshadow tips. First, write about an underdog. There’s nothing like a great underdog story. P.T. Barnum was a poor tailor’s boy before turning into a name everyone around the world still recognizes today. Also, whatever the trend is, find a fresh angle. These biopics have become a dime a dozen. So The Greatest Showman turned its biopic into a musical.

As we move into this new era where audience response is tracked via specific numerical data (as opposed to asking 20 first-weekend once-a-year moviegoers right after they see a film what grade they would give it), it will become more and more important for studios to GET THE SCREENPLAY RIGHT. And that doesn’t mean what you think it means. It doesn’t mean that studios will try to further course-correct their “blockbuster movie” mathematical formula. Quite the opposite actually. What they’ll find is that risk is a key component in driving audience reaction. And you see that with all three of the movies highlighted in today’s article. I don’t know anyone who was asking for a P.T. Barnum musical. That was a huge risk. I don’t know anybody who’d seen the original Jumanji and said, “Yeah, the reboot needs to be turned into a video game.” If anything, on the surface, that sounds like a horrible idea. And for all the crap I’ve given The Last Jedi, that film embodied storytelling risk. They were risks that failed. But you need studios willing to take those chances if you’re going to get those big surprise hits that get audience word-of-mouth going. And that’s great news for screenwriters and creativity in general.