Genre: TV Pilot – 1 Hour Drama
Premise: (from IMDB) A young guy from Long Beach joins a local fraternal group, Lodge 49.
About: Today’s pilot comes from brand spanking newcomer Jim Gavin, a 38 year old who grew up in Long Beach and used to work in plumbing, which plays a prominent role in one of the characters lives of Lodge 49. The series is premiering on AMC’s new streaming service. It’s executive produced by Paul Giamatti and stars Kurt Russell’s son, Wyatt Russell.
Writer: Jim Gavin
Details: 60 pages
One of the most common criticisms I give screenwriters goes something like this:
“Where the F is the concept??!”
You can’t write about nothing, or next to nothing, and expect people to get excited about it.
But writers keep doing it. Why? Because there are always a couple of successful “zero concept” projects they can point to. “But Boring Show 1 is still on the air, Carson.” “Oh but Carson, Nothing Happens Movie 2 made a lot of money.”
To this I say… you’re right. There are examples of shows and movies out there that don’t have a concept to hang their hat on.
HOWEVER!
How tiny your concept is, is indirectly proportional to how lucky you have to get. So go ahead and write something that doesn’t have a selling point. It’s just characters or it’s just people in a small town trying to live life. You can write that. But the further you are away from a genuine hook, the more your success will depend on luck.
Which brings us to today.
Lodge 49 isn’t about anything.
Well, it’s about something. Sort of. A former surfer living in Long Beach joins an adult club of people who occasionally get together for drinks.
Exactly.
As soon as it became clear to me that that’s all this script was about, I had to find out how it got made. Because this is the secret sauce, guys. You must take stock of how people break in to see if it’s something that could work for you. All it takes is one success story that you think you can replicate to motivate you.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how this writer got anyone to pay attention to his pilot. This is his first known project. He’s got no IMDB credits. What happened here? I have a theory. Looking back, it turns out Jim Gavin wrote a short story book called Middle Men in 2013. It was not a best seller and virtually nobody knows about it (it has 62 reviews on Amazon).
But here’s what agents love to do. Agents love to send out books. It’s one of their favorite things. They send them to out out to writers, to directors, to actors. Everyone’s mass sending these things out, hoping to spark the interest of someone with an actual name, someone who can get a project going.
I suspect that Middle Men landed in Paul Giamatti’s hand as a potential movie project. He didn’t think there was a movie there. However, he liked the writing. So he met with Jim and asked him if he had any other ideas. A TV show perhaps. Jim pitched him Lodge 49, and Giamatti decided to shepherd it.
For all of you wondering, this is one possibility for how a show without a concept gets made.
Now a lot of this is admittedly speculation. But this is how a ton of deals go down. Someone likes something you wrote. They want to meet with you. They tell you they didn’t flip for the script/book, but they like your writing. If you’re prepared for these meetings with several pitches, you can cash out. Which I suspect was the case here.
That’s a lot of chit-chat for a show I haven’t even broken down yet. So maybe now’s the time to tell you that I actually liked this pilot!
Sean “Dud” Dudley lives in the bastard of Los Angles beach communities, Long Beach. Dud isn’t living day to day. He’s living hour to hour. The Lebowski-adjacent 30 year old recently got kicked out of his apartment cause he couldn’t pay the rent. And he’s sold nearly everything he owns to the local pawn shop in order to eat. If Dud doesn’t turn his life around soon, he’s in some major shit.
Meanwhile, 60 year old degenerate gambler Ernie Fontaine is in almost as bad of a shape as Dud is. I guess he’s in worse shape cause he’s got 30 years on him. The lifelong plumber bets away every dime he has and is about to get a visit from some bad men to remind him of just how much money he owes.
Dud, a former surfer, is so desperate for cash, he’s searching for lost jewelry on the beach with a metal detector. And that’s when he finds a gold ring with a strange symbol on it. He shows it to the pawn shop owner, who tells Dud it belongs to a club called “The Lynx.” They’ve been around since the 50s and are sort of a… I guess adult fraternity is the best way to put it.
Curious, Dud heads to the Lynx, where he meets Ernie. Yes, it turns out Ernie is a member! Dud feels a deep connection with the Lynx, that it could be the key to getting his life back on track. So he begs Ernie to let him become a member. “Sure,” Ernie says. “You’re a member.” Apparently, it’s very easy to become a Lynx.
And that’s pretty much the pilot.
I know, right?
That’s all.
So why did I like it?
Okay, so here’s the thing. If you’re going to write a show about a loser, we have to love that loser. Especially if there isn’t a whole lot going on plot-wise. Gavin nails the formula for making us love Dud.
1) The system has to have screwed the hero over some way. Dud was kicked out of his family home, the place he loves more than anything.
2) He has to be funny. Dud is hilarious in that understated stoner way. For example, when he walks into the gas station after scrounging through his car for every available coin to pay for gas, he dumps $4.23 on the attendant’s counter. Then, just as he turns to leave, he sees a penny on the floor. “Nice!” he says, picking it up and placing it on the pile. “I’d like to add this to my purchase.”
3) He has to keep fighting. If you turn this character into a woe-is-me? We’ll hate him. We only root for heroes that fight, even when the chips are down. Dud is determined to get his life back on track.
When you nail the lead character in a TV show, it gives you a lot of leniency. Because even though the plot was mostly boring, I enjoyed every scene Dud was in. I was curious what he was going to say or do next.
With that said, Gavin could’ve done himself a huge favor and added a Scriptshadow Staple. What do you do if you’re writing a character piece that doesn’t have a lot of plot?
Drop in a dead body.
Give us a murder.
A local murder could’ve juiced this pilot up so much.
As it stands, I suspect Gavin will run into trouble stretching this out to 10 episodes. When you’re struggling to get enough story into a pilot, that’s telling me you’re going to run into major problems come the 3rd and 4th episodes. We need things that the characters are moving towards. Mysteries that need to be solved.
The Lynx wasn’t that mysterious. It was presented as a bunch of loser-ish people in their 50s who drink a lot. How are you going to build storylines out of that?
I don’t know. But what I do know is that I love this character, and this setup was quirky enough to keep me invested. I don’t know how in the world to get to AMC’s streaming service, so I guess I’ll have to wait for it to hit Itunes.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: It’s so important these days to have multiple projects in multiple mediums. You need more than one egg in the basket. But more importantly, you need to be able to point to things THAT YOU’VE DONE. Gavin couldn’t will a TV show into existence. But he can get a book online. You’d be surprised at the way people look at you when you casually drop tidbits like, “I just finished a novel.” When you say stuff like that, people believe you’re serious about writing. And you never know who might spark to that book or other project. Who you could meet.
