Title: ”Based on a True Story”
Genre: Comedy Feature
Logline: A struggling screenwriter recruits his writer friends to help him turn his fictional heist script into a True Story in the hopes it’ll make it more marketable.
Scene Setup: Our protagonist, Andrew, is trying to convince his writer friends to help him act out the events of his screenplay so he can claim it’s a true story, thereby making it much more marketable. He wants to use the money to save the bar he works at (and lives in).
For starters, let’s give it up to Dan Martin. Not just for winning. But for winning with a COMEDY ENTRY. How often does that happen here on the site? This guy’s breaking all the rules! So, let’s take a look at the scene in full then I can tell you why I chose it for the competition and why, I believe, it won.
This is a more clever setup than I originally gave it credit for. The main reason I picked it was the combination of the funny dialogue and the relevant-to-screenwriting subject matter. But the concept’s fun too. You have a movie idea. But you know selling it will be much easier if it’s based on a true story. So you then create the true story to base the screenplay on. That’s funny!
As for the scene itself, there are several things to celebrate. Let’s start with the structure because it isn’t apparent at first glance. When you first read this scene, you’re focused on the funny interaction. But, actually, the interaction has a purpose. Andrew’s GOAL is to convince his friends to help him steal this art. Once you have a goal, you have structure, due to the pursuit of an objective that requires a resolution. Either he’s going to convince them or not convince them. We keep reading to find out which one.
A goal also gives us our three-act structure within the scene. The setup – Introduce his plan. The conflict – pushback from the others about the plan, forcing Andrew to work harder to convince them. The resolution – They agree to help.
Contrast this against a scene where friends at a bar are just debating whether true story movies are real or not. We would’ve gotten some funny lines, just like this scene. But after a few pages, the reader would’ve started to get frustrated due to the lack of purpose in the scene.
This is a big difference between real life and storytelling. In real life, it’s fine to go to a bar and debate crap for 2 hours. Heck, I recently had an hour-long debate with a friend about whether Da Bears were any good this year. That’s great FOR REAL LIFE. But if you were to put that debate in a script, the reader would literally hate you for the rest of your life and beyond. There’s no structure to that. Which is where scene-writing comes in. You need to have that PURPOSE within the scene.
Moving on to the characters.
Often, when I read a script, I forget who’s who because the writer hasn’t done a good enough job differentiating the characters. A great place where you can differentiate characters is in their dialogue, which Dan does a nice job of here.
For starters, Dan establishes Andrew as the big talker. So whenever I see a lot of talking, I immediately know it’s Andrew. On the flip side of that, Bob barely says anything. Most of his responses are one line. Then you have Doug, who’s established as the guy who pushes back the most (“Don’t you f&cking dare!” “You’re going to hell.”). And I always remembered Julie because she’s the lone female in the group.
One of the more valuable skills a screenwriter can possess is the ability to write dialogue so specific to a character that we don’t need to look at the character’s name to know it’s them who’s talking. So, if you can pull that off, you are well ahead of the competition.
Another thing this scene does well is highlight something that people think but don’t often say. Larry David built his entire brand on this comedy concept. ‘Based on a true story’ is a bullsh%t notion. People will change dozens of things about the real story if it means improving the script. So to have a scene where characters humorously poke fun at this is a fun idea all by itself.
Of course, you still have to execute it. Aka you actually have to be a funny writer, which Dan is. My favorite part, by far, was when Andrew started bringing up Braveheart and Doug started having a meltdown. It’s funny because Braveheart is a sacred film to many. And, in comedy, you want to exaggerate these humorous anecdotes to get the biggest laughs out of them.
In other words, Doug doesn’t respond to Andrew’s first Braveheart dig with a casual, “Come on, Andrew, you know that’s not true.” You’re not going to get a laugh out of that. You have to go with something more extreme, such as, “Don’t you f*cking dare.” And when Andrew keeps going, Doug delivers my favorite line of the scene: “Blasphemous! That script is canon!”
It’s funny because, a) there was no talk of “canon” in the 90s. And b) there’s no such thing as real-life canon. The second that line was delivered, I knew the scene was going into the showdown.
Another thing I liked about the dialogue was the balance between structure and playfulness. You need both when you’re writing a comedy. But too much of either can kill the scene. For example, if you add too much structure, it can restrain the scene. Let’s say Andrew started with, “Okay, we only have 60 seconds before [our boss] comes back. We have to figure this out now.” Sure, you’re adding more structure to the scene via a time constraint. But you’re also not letting the dialogue breathe.
One of the fun things about this scene is that the dialogue has that element of real life where people talk a little too much. Did Andrew really need to add the point about how Mel Gibson tried to get a “true story” label for Passion of the Christ? That could be cut and the scene wouldn’t miss anything. But it comes out of the flow of the conversation so it works.
With that said, if the group decided to run down Mel Gibson’s best movies and Dan tries to get a bunch of jokes out of that, the reader likely would’ve said, “That’s too much.” In other words, there is a limit to “dialogue flow,” just like there’s a limit to structure. Good screenwriters understand that balance well.
I talk about this stuff and a lot of other dialogue intricacies in my dialogue book, “The Best Dialogue Book Ever Written.” Make sure to grab a copy if you haven’t already.
I can’t leave without pointing out the value of “writer comfort.” Dan feels very comfortable in this setting. Whereas maybe another writer doesn’t feel as comfortable writing ensemble dialogue. They feel more comfortable writing an action set piece on a pirate ship. Find your comfort zone and write the best possible thing you can in that space. I’m all for challenging yourself and trying new things. But your best writing is usually going to take place in the genres you feel comfortable in.
Good job Dan! And if you have the entire script, I’m more than happy to review it on the site. In fact, I’m willing to review any script from the top three vote earners since all three of those entries finished so close together. Just send the script my way! :)
