Random stuff from The Guardian
The latest AFF emailer has a link to this Guardian article in which Shane Black gives a masterclass in action films, listing ten things your movie HAS TO HAVE. It’s decent advice from a guy who made millions selling spec scripts like Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, Last Action Hero, The Long Kiss Goodnight, etc. He has a–er, unique style that you either love or hate. Example description of a house from Lethal Weapon:
The kind of house that I’ll buy if this movie is a huge hit. Chrome. Glass. Carved wood. Plus an outdoor solarium: A glass structure, like a greenhouse only there’s a big swimming pool inside. This is a really great place to have sex.
(Hmm, the article implies that Black worked on the recent flop 12 Rounds, then there’s this at the bottom: “This article was amended on 26 May 2009 to correct the impression given in the original first paragraph that Shane Black worked on 12 Rounds.” Umm…no, it still implies that he worked on it.)
Funnily enough, the Guardian also has this much more interesting article which lambastes 12 Rounds for having yet another GENIUS PSYCHO KILLER. I liked this complaint a lot because I’ve been reading too many spec scripts full of super-badasses, AKA Mary Sues. I mean, we need one or two Hannibal Lecters and the occasional Liam Neeson’s-character-in-Taken, but does every damn script have to have a super-genius-super-kung-fu-killer in it? I’m looking at you, Kurt Wimmer.
Doin’ Work
My credit card just got a $30 hit from the Austin Film Festival so that must mean they received my 30 Rock script. And now the waiting.
I worked hard on this script. I probably did ten outlines and a couple of treatments, though only the final treatment came close to coherent.
Sitting frustrated at my desk at work I decided to imagine that Tina Fey– whoa, you usually don’t want to finish reading sentences that start like that– called me up and asked me to pitch my episode in as much detail as possible. So with a cramping hand I scrawled four pages. There it was, a complete episode with A, B, and C stories.
The next day I made this:
Over the next week post-its gathered like moss while I banged out a couple of pages per day. Then one afternoon, without premeditation, I sat down and didn’t get up until I had written the last 20 pages or so. My ass was numb, it was completely dark, and my dog was annoyed.
For a while I thought it was my best work yet, but now I’m not so sure. I keep thinking that it could have been funnier. Jokes keep popping up that I could have used, but oh well. My work is over now.
I sent it out to three contests: Script PIMP, Scriptapalooza, and Austin Film Festival.
It’s going to be a long summer.
05.30.09More on script length
The first draft of my Office spec came in under 20 pages. It was one storyline with a few good jokes and the ending made sense. But there was no life to it. It felt like a webisode of The Office.
Beefing it up to 30 pages was a huge chore. A friend cautioned me, “It’s usually best to cut stuff out for your second draft…not add it in.”
I ran into a similar problem with an Earl spec, but I managed to stretch it out to 30 pages, even though, like my other first draft, it was one storyline. It sucked.
The point is, if the show you’re spec’ing has multiple storylines, then write multiple storylines. At least three of them if it’s an Office script. And if you’re still having trouble making it to 30 pages then throw in a fourth.
05.29.09Script length question
Hi Beau, I’m a writer here in San Fran. My new book just came out: www.indierock101.com. I’m entering some contests with some “Office” spec scripts of my own and I was curious how long your winning SP was. Mine seem to be coming in between 23-27 pages but I keep reading 45 pages is “standard” for 1/2 comedies. That just seems really long to me on paper. Does 23-27 pages sound about right to you? Thanks for any info and congrats on your win. - Rich
I think mine came in around 30 pages, but it doesn’t matter. As long as it feels like an episode of the show you’re spec’ing then you’ve done well. No reader for a contest is going to have a chart listing the average pages of each show. They’ll probably only look at your page count once; right before they read it just so they’ll know how much of their life they’re going to waste on it. They’ll probably be relieved to see that you’re only asking them to read 25 pages. Of course that’s just my guess, I could be entirely wrong.
The figure of “45 pages” probably refers to multi-camera sitcoms which are usually double-spaced and have all kinds of annoying crap in the scene heading (see How I Met Your Mother, Two and A Half Men, etc.).
Good luck!
04.28.09Whurps.
Now for the usual blogger mea culpa:
- I haven’t been posting very often.
- I haven’t updated my short story reading/reviewing.
- I haven’t written 100pgs of scripted material for ScriptFrenzy.
And now for the excuses, well, just one excuse really, I have been learning. For real:
- I discovered two new blogs: GoIntoTheStory and ScriptShadow. I’ve been feeding on the juices from these bloggers’ mindgrapes, and it is good.
- I’ve been reading spec scripts! Lots of them.
- I’ve been developing story ideas, which is easy to do once you’re immersed in the loglines of selling scripts. You get an idea of the concepts that turn studios into vomitting ATM machines. Hint-hint: most of these concepts suck ballz (from a quasi-pretentious-over-educated perspective), i.e. “A widower becomes a poonhound at a retirement community” or “A successful, but lonely lawyer finds true love in a crazy ice cream truck driver.”
- A phone call from a friend prompted me to re-examine my cynical, gold-digging, lowest-common-denomenator story ideas and give them real emotional meatiness.
- And finally, I’ve been lost. Completely and utterly unsure of myself in every regard as a writer. But that’s okay because (refer to No. 4) I have breathed new life into my two big stories and they are starting to come together.
So what’s next:
- I’ll post more often.
- I’m going to do a bi-weekly post of everything I’ve read recently.
- I’ll just have my own ScriptFrenzy in the next couple of months.
People are getting dumber
I disagree with that statement, but I’ve been hearing it (and probably saying it) for as long as I can remember. Most recently the blogospheric screenwriting community (BSC) has lamented the demise of the adult drama, which supposedly died a few days before STATE OF PLAY opened.
I’ve seen the trailer for SoP probably twenty times and I have no idea what it’s about. All I know is that Crowe looks like Eddie Vedder. But of course, Hollywood is saying that smart movies are failing because people want dumb movies. Um, no. No one wants a dumb movie (unless it’s dumb in an ironic way).
I read a script called FUCKBUDDIES the other day. It’s about two people that try to remain friends with benefits, but– you guessed it– they fall in love. The story was formulaic: Guy meets Girl, Guy and Girl get it on, stakes are raised at the midpoint, Guy loses Girl, Girl loses Guy, Guy and Girl get back together. There’s even some cutesy Diablo-esque dialog. Lots to hate right? Wrong! FUCKBUDDIES is probably the best spec script I’ve ever read. And it’s because it gives me a tried and true formula, but with a real, believable, likeable, flawed, and complex main character.
If they make this movie right, then it will be THE romantic comedy of the 2010s. And hopefully Liz Meriwether will become the female Woody Allen.
Oh yeah, my point is, smart movies can exist in any genre, even the gimmicky romantic comedy.
And STATE OF PLAY’s incomprehensible trailer sure doesn’t make me think “smart movie,” it makes me think, “dumb marketing; the studio obviously doesn’t care about this movie enough to put out a convincing ad, so why should I care about the movie?” FAIL.
04.6.09The Ol’ Subplot Switcheroo: Role Models (SPOILER WARNING)
This movie is damn funny. There are four writers credited: David Wain, Ken Marino, Paul Rudd, and Timothy Dowling. Apparently Dowling came up with the concept and it went through a few title changes and various rewrites and even had some substantial re-shoots before it was finally released. The Creative Screenwriting Podcast interview with Wain and Marino is pretty cool too, if you get a chance.
From a storyteller’s perspective it’s a pretty interesting movie: the A story is this: two guys become mentors for two kids in order to avoid jail. The B story is that Paul Rudd wants to marry his girlfriend. And the C story is that Paul Rudd’s mentee is into live-action role playing.
The odd thing is that the third act climax is a C story beat: when the LAIRE King gets dethroned. The A story just ends with a deus ex machina when Jane Lynch (who is amazing) says she called in a favor from the judge. And the B story resolves everything just before the credits when Paul Rudd improvises a song to Elizabeth Banks; which is pretty much where it should end.
The best part is, it works. It’s a great ending. If the writers would have stuck to the screenwriting manuals they probably would not have considered this switch, and the story might have ended with a lame court appearance and a Full House speech from Rudd, quickly deflated by Sean William Scott farting on the judge.
I’ll try to think of some more examples of subplot switcheroos.
03.31.09Screenwriting Competitions: My Two Cents
There’s been a lot of chatter on the screenwriting blogs about the value of competitions. Most recently there was some scandal about the Fade In competition here, which prompted a response from them here, and then it got uglier here. Threatening lawsuits, harassment, accusations, lame rhetoric–exciting!
I’ve entered a few competitions: TVWriter.com Spec Scriptacular (Finalist), Script PIMP (Grand Prize, TV), Austin Film Festival (Winner, Sitcom), and ScriptapaloozaTV (absolute loser).
Yeah, that last one pissed me off. Here’s the story, I first entered the Spec Scriptacular, made it to the final round so I made a bunch of revisions. Then I sent that revised script to the other three competitions. I was ecstatic when I won the first two, but I didn’t even make the quarterfinals of Scriptapalooza.
I felt betrayed. Surely they had made a mistake. I emailed just about all the other writers I knew. Okay, I sounded like a big baby. And they all replied with something like, “Contests are subjective.” But to this day I believe my script was just thrown in the trash and never scored. Wah wah wah!
So am I going to enter Scriptapalooza this year? Yep. I’m a sucker.
This post will be continued with more about my good experiences with competitions.
03.30.09Screenwriting Tip #2: Toying with the Audience
(SPOILER ALERT) I Am Legend could have been great, but there was a point at which I had to leave the room and go rant to Sarah about it (and then go hug my dog).
If you’ve seen the movie then you probably know now what I’m talking about: when the dog dies. Killing a pet in a movie is just mean. I don’t like it. Like most folks my age, I was traumatized by Turner & Hooch (and I still have a hard time liking Mark Wahlberg after Fear). [EDIT: And I refuse to watch or read Marley & Me.]
But I especially dislike the way I Am Legend kills the dog. Here’s why:
First, we get a suspense-packed scene where the dog chases a deer into a dark building. We’re on the edge of our seats, praying that the dog will make it. We hear mammalian screeches, see a pool of blood, then a furry snout. Our worst fears are around the corner until– nope, that was the deer. The dog made it out alive! Who cares about the deer, right? Woohoo, what a scene! At that point I was sucked into the movie. If I didn’t before, I now cared a lot about Will Smith and his dog. The filmmakers had done their duty. Bravo!
You want to write scenes like this for this exact purpose, unfortunately such strong medicine is not without side effects, that is, these kinds of scenes set up rules and make promises that the rest of the movie has to deliver on. This scene promises me that the dog will be okay. Will Smith will be more careful next time.
Does it keep its promise? Nope, a few scenes later the dog gets killed. And the worst part is, this scene is far less suspenseful, far less interesting than the previous scene where the dog lived.
So I think this should be a screenwriting rule, if the dog narrowly lives in one scene, you shouldn’t kill him off three scenes later. I realize that horror movies may want to break this rule and apparently I Am Legend tried to be a horror film in some ways, but damn…those CGI monsters were lame. So if you want to break this rule, you better make the latter scene, the death scene, twice as good as the near death scene.
I Am Legend is a wonderful movie to learn from because it is a trainwreck. I’d really like to read about the committee that put it together because there are loose threads everywhere. I bet somewhere though, there is an amazing first draft that someone forgot to shred.
03.25.0952SS#4: The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.
A quick google search led me to this website, which appears to be a good source of crime short stories. I was really looking for detective fiction, which this website has plenty of, but I read this creepy Poe story instead.
I couldn’t help but hear Vincent Price’s voice when I read it. I had to look up a few words here and there, but there’s a universal structure to Poe’s stories that makes me think they’d be just as unsettling written in Polish (more so, maybe).