THE HIT LIST!

What?  You can't stand waiting for the 2010 Black List?  Me neither.  Which is why I present to you The Hit List!  What is this "hit" list you ask?  I'll let the guys over at The Tracking Board give you the in-depth breakdown.  But basically they realized that one of the biggest weaknesses of The Black List was how much studio generated content was on it.  What if you created a list...that only ranked the best SPEC SCREENPLAYS of the year?  Ahhhh?  Now we're talking.

There were over 400 spec scripts that went out this year and over 250 Development Executives, Producers, Writers, Agents, Managers, Directors, and Assistants who voted on which of those they liked the best.  So the voting pool is pretty comprehensive.  I voted myself (although I'd only read 40 of the 400 scripts on the list).  Anyway, it's pretty interesting to see which ones did well.  No doubt some finished high because of the sheer volume of people who read them, but there were definitely some surprises that I was happy to see do well.

Since it's impossible to publish a "best of" script list these days without a few jokes being made, I WILL approve your jokes, but only if they're funny and don't personally offend me.

To download the list, head on over to The Tracking Board. I'll address my feelings about some of the rankings in the comments section below.  Meet me there!

So You Wanna... (Article)

When you decide to jump into this unpredictable chaotic world of screenwriting, the first thing you’ll want to do is write some scripts. Bust out that copy of Final Draft and write whatever story pops into that dysfunctional little noggin of yours. Doesn’t matter if it’s not commercial. Doesn’t matter if the idea gives your Grandma gas. Doesn’t matter if it’s a 90 minute action film about parking your car. New writers are blessed with a wonderful gift. They’re not going to show their scripts to anybody. Not yet anyway. That comes after a few test laps around the track.

However, once you’re ready for the race, it’s time to start thinking about which avenue gives you the best chance of breaking in. Everybody has their own path. Everybody “makes it” their own way. But what I’ve found is that there are a lot of talented writers out there who aren’t making it because they keep banging their heads up against the wrong door. When you’re jonesing for some ice cream, you don’t head over to the nearest Pizza Hut, do you?

The most common way into the business is still a good writing sample that gets you heat from low level agents, managers and producers, which gets you into meetings, which allows you to pitch other projects and interview for assignments, which allows you to start working, which – voila – makes you a working writer. However, let’s face it, that path is the least fun to walk. And it takes so damn long. So let’s discuss four quicker ways into the business and see if your style matches up with that avenue. If it doesn’t, you may need to reevaluate if the direction you’re taking is the right direction for you.

SO YOU WANNA…FINISH IN THE BLACK LIST TOP 10

I’ve read a lot of Black List scripts and there are two common traits that permeate through the ones that end up on the coveted list: quirkiness and cleverness. The people voting on these scripts are used to reading the poor man’s versions of all those stinkers you see in the cineplex. That’s like trying to find refreshment in those generic supermarket colas (“Premium Cola!”) as opposed to drinking real coke. And you wonder why readers have a reputation for being bitter. Because of this, Black List readers like to be caught off guard. They like to be surprised with something as far away from the Hollywood groupthink as possible. A small-town butter-carving competition? They’re in. A depressed man who speaks through a British-accented Beaver puppet he’s found in the garbage? Touchdown. A serial killer flick about a guy who talks to his pets…and they talk back? Oh yeah. This is the place for all the future Charlie Kaufmans, the disciples of Michael Gondry, the guys who build “best of” Spike Jonez Youtube compilations. There are other ways to make this list for sure, but if you’re quirky and clever, if those are the kind of scripts that emerge from your hard drive, then the Black List is your destination.

SO YOU WANNA…WIN A NICHOLL FELLOWSHIP

There’s a little crossover between the Nicholl and The Black List, but the Nicholl, more than any other screenwriting avenue, gravitates towards depth. They want their scripts cerebral. Period pieces about the human condition, a recent politically charged event, a dark exploration of characters facing death…this is what these readers like. Theme is also a huge component of a Nicholl-winning script. If you aren’t trying to say something with your story, if there isn’t a moral or a statement about humanity, then chances are your script isn’t going to do well here. And that’s great for writers of slower character-driven screenplays. Because if it wasn’t for the Nicholl, there’d be no place where these writers could find acceptance. So stop sending that script about an 1875 Scottish wake to Michael Bay. Save yourself the trouble and enter it into Nicholl.

SO YOU WANNA…SELL A SCRIPT FOR A MILLION BUCKS

Selling a script for a million bucks is getting harder and harder to do these days, and usually only happens via high-profile agents who can use past sale prices from their top-level clients to negotiate that elusive seven figure sum. But does that mean we’re just going to give up? Hell no! Big price tags have notoriously come from four genres: Thrillers, Comedies, Sci-Fi and Action (and sometimes Horror). Why? Because these genres are the most receptive to the high-concept, and high-concept is still the most important component to making that big sale. If you don’t have a big idea, drop your dreaming ways and enter the Nicholl instead. High concept has been debated to death but basically, you know you have a high concept if you can put it on a billboard and people everywhere will get excited to see your movie. A bachelor party where they lose the groom told as a mystery the day after? High concept. A CIA spy who doesn’t know that they’re a double-agent (Salt). High concept! Someone keeps reliving the same time loop over and over again (Groundhog Day, All You Need Is Kill, Source Code)? High concept. If you’re hoping to sell your script for a lot of money and you’re not working with a big idea, you’re proverbially banging your head up against the wall, keeping your career in check!

SO YOU WANNA…SNEAK IN THROUGH THE BACK DOOR

What if I told you you could write a script that was guaranteed not to net you a single penny? Do I have your attention? Probably not. But trust me, you’ll wanna keep reading anyway. There’s a secret way into this screenwriting business and it’s through the back door. I’m talking about the “viral” script. Viral scripts have been around a lot longer than “viral” became a media buzz word. You might remember Blockhead about the Peanuts gang all grown up in New York, smoking pot and fucking each other like nobody’s business. Or Passengers, where the writer decides to tell the story in the first person. Or Van Damme Vs. Seagal, about the two once-famous action stars warring with each other in modern day L.A. The common thread here is that none of these scripts can be made into movies, one because of copyright issues, one because the actors would never agree to it, and one because the main reason it’s such a good read (that it’s in the first person) doesn’t translate to the screen. But each of these scripts received a ton of buzz, and really what it comes down to is getting your name out there so you can start getting into rooms and pitch your backlog of projects. This avenue is for the craziest of the crazy, the weirdest of the weird. If you’re a little bit nuts or notoriously think outside of the box, this is definitely a direction you’ll want to consider. A word of advice though. Make sure you have a couple of “real” scripts already written and ready to go when you write your viral script (they should preferably be in the same genre). There’s no use going through all that effort to get some meetings if you don’t have any product to sell.

SO YOU WANNA…WALLOW IN OBSCURITY FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS

I run into a lot of writers who don’t have a plan – who fall in love with their well-written but ultimately unmarketable script and haven’t yet figured out which avenue is their way in. As a result, they cling to scripts that don’t have a lot going on in them. I call these: “nothing happens” scripts. The most common “nothing happens” genre is the “coming-of-age” story. We all write them, particularly early on, but this genre is notorious for creating scenarios that are completely devoid of drama and conflict. Characters sit around and philosophize about life (“Death is like so…complicated”). 25 year olds are bitching about how difficult their life is (They’re 25!). There are no character goals, no point to the story, no forward momentum, no interesting situations. It’s just talking heads. Talking head talking heads talking heads talking about…whatever the writer thinks is interesting. And yet we write them. Why? Because that’s generally how our 20s go. If you want to write a character piece, that’s fine, but make sure there’s a hook to it. Everything Must Go is essentially a coming-of-age story, but it’s one with a clever hook – a guy is kicked out of his house so he starts living on his front lawn. I think the lesson here is, try to be exploring some unique angle in your screenplay – whether it’s the style, the hook, a character, a subject matter, the point of view, how you treat time – some aspect, no matter how tiny, that gives your script a uniqueness that sets it apart. Nobody wants to linger in obscurity but if you’re clinging to that idea where a bunch of people in their 20s are just trying to “make it in life,” there’s a reason no one’s responding to those query letters.

And that’s it folks. Now that you know which kind of scripts do best in which scenarios, you can start targeting that specific avenue. For example, if you’ve decided you’re a Black List writer, go back through all the old Black Lists and write down every agent and manger in the Top 30 and send them a query. And one more thing, which should be obvious but it’s worth mentioning. The caveat for all these scripts achieving their goal is that they’re well-written. They have to have structure, conflict, character development, sharp dialogue, story density. And they have to be good from page 1 to 100, not just in spots. So there you are. I’ve given you the blueprint for your success. What are you waiting for?

Home

Genre: Horror
Premise: A paranoid delusional man is left on house arrest out in the middle of the woods.
About: Adam Alleca first started writing feature scripts at the age of 13. His father was in the Air Force so he lived all over the world growing up. He got an internship with Eli Roth’s company right after college and realized that would be his best shot to get into the business and had seven scripts ready to go when he arrived (talk about a writer with a plan!). He optioned this script to Wes Craven’s production company back in 2005, when he was 22 years old, and soon had six other options set up around town. As a testament to how bright this guy is, go ahead and read this interview and tell me you don’t think you’re reading the interview of a 42 year old and not a 22 year old. I’m a little shocked that his only produced credit up to this point is 2009’s “Last House On The Left” but I guess he has a lot of projects set up around town.
Writer: Adam Alleca
Details: 115 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

I don’t want to alarm any of you young writers out there. But it’s rare when I see a young writer churn out a great script. Young writers tend to be full of ideas, but don’t yet know how to form those ideas into a compelling narrative (it takes time!). I think they’re capable of doing this, of course, but when you’re a young writer, you’re not really interested in narrative. You care about the eye candy, the great scenes, the flashy dialogue, the big concepts, the shit people will be talking about when they leave the theater. This is why you’ll read a great scene in a young writer’s script, then the next five scenes are complete disasters.

So color me shocked when I came across this script from a 22 year old that showed more command than any script I’d read all year. I was so skeptical of his age after reading this, in fact, that I was convinced he’d either pulled a fast one or the script I had read had gone through 5 years of development. It wasn’t until I learned about his backstory that it made sense. Alleca had been writing features since he was 13! This meant Home was written 9 years into his screenwriting career. For whatever reason, that settled an oncoming bout of anxiety. Cause if any 22 year old can bang out a script this good, I might as well give up now.

Home has a simple compelling “contained” horror setup. 30 year old Ellis has just been released from jail to start a 30-day stint on house arrest. The house he’ll be staying at is his eccentric uncle’s, who died last month. The souped up cabin (with an entertainment system to die for) is in the middle of the forest, sheltered from the outside world.

Ellis is under the watchful eye of Brode, his parole officer. Brode is thick, brash, and enjoys the power her job brings her. She lays out the rules for Ellis in straightforward fashion. She’ll be coming by once a day. He better be here. He’ll be getting three calls a day from an automated machine to confirm he’s in the house. He better answer them. He’s got an electric ankle bracelet. He better not try to leave the house.

And just to show that this will be a little different from the usual horror fare you read, Brode has one more rule. Ellis has to fuck her whenever she wants. He says no, she reports him to her boss and back to jail he goes.

Ellis himself is a bit of a mystery. He’s pale, gaunt, has long stringy hair, and he’s afraid. Not of being out here in the middle of nowhere, but being out here in the middle of nowhere with himself. Ellis suffers from paranoid delusions, which means as soon as Brode walks out that door, he doesn’t know if what he’s seeing is real or imagined.

So how did Ellis get stuck here in the first place? His best friend Alex, as evil as they come, used to kill people and make Ellis watch. Alex was thrown away lock and key, while Ellis served some minor jail time for not turning him in.

So it’s no surprise that Ellis soon starts seeing Alex around the house. Alex is convincing, telling him he escaped from jail and needs to stay here for a few weeks while he figures out what to do. As proof, he mentions that he rode his motorcycle here and stashed it out back. Since Ellis can’t go outside however (because of the ankle bracelet) he keeps checking out the back window to see if the motorcycle’s there (thus confirming that Alex is real), but can never get the right angle to see it.

The lodging of Alex becomes an issue because a young woman, the gothy/alternative Lynn, comes by every day to deliver groceries. This girl clearly likes to walk on the wild side, and is curious about Ellis, always quizzing him on why he’s on house arrest. Ellis is terrified that if Alex was ever around her, he might do something to her. He might start the killing again. That is, of course, if Alex is real.

If all this isn’t enough to worry about, Ellis discovers that his “cool” uncle has a much more complicated life than he knew about. He finds a hidden sex dungeon in the house, as well as a huge covered up hole in the basement, that the mailman informs him probably connects to the old town mines. Ellis swears he can hear something down there, but the black bottomless pit makes it impossible to tell what, if anything, the sound is.

I *really* liked this. I mean really really liked this. Here’s the thing. When I read any of these contained horror scripts, I’m mentally counting down the pages until the writer runs out of ideas. I know that’s not the most positive way to read a script but it’s happened the last 30 times I’ve read contained horror scripts. You get a bunch of gimmicky scares and spooky situations that play well as individual scenes, but 20 pages later you’re bored out of your mind because there’s no story holding it together. The recently reviewed “Open Grave” is a perfect example.

Alleca – surprisingly (and I say that only because I’m not used to it – especially from such a young writer) – is more interested in telling a horror *story* here, instead of just a collection of horror *moments.*

It starts with the multitude of threads he weaves around Ellis’ predicament, all of which are interesting. I love the reversal in the Brode character. How many millions of times have we seen a male character using their power for sex in a movie? It was so refreshing to see that flipped around. The female was using *her* power to get what *she* wanted. That may seem like a small thing, but it told me that this writer was aware of what had come before him, and was interested in pushing himself to come up with something different, something other writers never push themselves to consider.

The mystery behind Alex is also well crafted. I loved how we had no idea if Alex was real or not. We’re set up to believe that he’s an appartition, and yet there are little clues here and there which indicate he might be telling the truth and is really here.

Then you have Lynn, who’s really the female love interest in the script. There’s something off about her but we’re not quite sure what it is. And we’re on the edge of our seats whenever she comes by because we know Alex is jonesing to kill again. Will Lynn be his next victim? Will his actions force Ellis back into that prison?

Then you have the Uncle, who’s revealed to have this sick sexual fetish. But you don’t know how deep his fetish goes. And when some of the people who visit his house reveal themselves to possibly know the answer to that secret, maybe even be involved in it, the storyline really becomes compelling.

And I haven’t mentioned what’s going on with that hole downstairs. Or who the person is who keeps calling and threatening Ellis.  Each one of these threads provides so much mystery, you're forced to flip through the pages faster than you can read them.

And I’d be remiss not to mention the dialogue, which I thought was great. Brode in particular has her own speech patterns and slang and idiosyncrasies that really made her character pop off the page. This was the case with all the characters, who each had speech patterns that fit their particular character.

Another reason why the writing surprised me so much was that I’d never seen someone this young use so much restraint and be this disciplined. Each scene is only there to move the story forward. Each scare is layered into the movie via a setup and payoff. And on top of that, he’s an incredibly lean writer. I dare you to find a 4 line paragraph in this script. Every action paragraph only tells us exactly what we need to know and nothing more.

I see so many bad horror films that I can’t fathom why they’re not putting this into production. It’s so good. I don’t know if Craven still has this or if it’s back in Alleca’s possession, but someone please make this now. An extremely cheap movie to shoot that will be better than 99% of the shit out there. Alleca is easily the best screenwriter at age 22 that I’ve ever seen.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (Top 25!)
[ ] genius

What I learned: Here’s some advice from Alleca himself: “I guess that would be my one piece of advice to Emerson students if anyone's interested: Your internship is GOLD. Your entire college career has been leading up to it. You need to be ready to blow people's socks off. You (or your parents, if you're lucky) aren't spending 35k a year so you can learn to use a 16mm Bolex and analyze film clips. What you're buying is access to free equipment to shoot your own films (not to mention hundreds of willing actors) and an easy way to score a tasty internship in LA. If you graduate from college with nothing but straight As on your report card and a framed degree, then you got fleeced, my friend. Especially if you're a writer or director, it's a fantastic opportunity to show as many important people your material as possible and get a leg-up. Be ready for it with as many quality samples of your work as you can (either short films or a few completed, polished feature scripts) and choose it carefully. Don't go for high profile places just for the sake of name value. Go somewhere that it seems like people would be open to looking at your stuff and treating you like an equal rather than purely as an underling.”

Napoleon (Kubrick)

Genre: Biopic/Historical
Premise: A look at the life of the great Napoleon Bonaparte.
About: Kubrick believed nobody had ever made a great historical film and he planned to be the first. But his expensive dream project kept falling apart, even at the height of his popularity. The point of contention seemed to be the budget, which was obviously enormous due to all the battle scenes and extras needed. Had Kubrick lived into this new digital era where the 17 year old who works at the local 7-11 counter can create a 20,000 person digital army on his Dell Laptop in minutes, he surely would’ve made this – probably after Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick’s research on Napoleon is legendary. He believed that Napoleon was the most fascinating person to ever live and wanted to get him right. Therefore he sent an assistant around the world to literally follow in Napoleon’s footsteps (”Wherever Napoleon went, I want you to go,” he told him), even getting him to bring back samples of earth from Waterloo so he could match them for the screen. He read hundreds of books on the man and broke the information down into categories “on everything from his food tastes to the weather on the day of a specific battle”. He gathered together 15,000 location scouting photos and 17,000 slides of Napoleonic imagery. A book has even been written of the efforts called Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made (only a hundred have been printed however - so they're kind of expensive).  You can read more about Kubrick's obsession over at Viceland.
Writer: Stanley Kubrick
Details: 154 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

Carson + Biopic = thputthhhh (spitting noise)

That’s usually how it goes at least. And on top of that, I appear to be the one non-Stanley Kubrick fan in the universe. I mean, I respect the guy’s talent and all. But his worldview is way too bleak for me. So when I looked at this 154 page tyrannosaurus, I nearly spontaneously combusted. It was as if someone decided to dump all the elements that I hated into a screenplay cup and forced me to drink it.

Napoleon did have one thing going for it, however, and that’s that I knew very little about the man (no pun intended). I knew he was a great war tactician. I vaguely knew something about his ego leading to his demise. But that was about it. At the very least, I’d be surprised by the story.

Napoleon is a pretty traditional treatment of the biopic genre. We meet Napolean at age 6, and follow his life until his death. His childhood and early adult years are nothing to write home about. He goes to military school at age 16. He’s a good soldier – a good leader. When one of his captains shows an ineptness at handling an approaching mob, Napoleon casually steps in and writes up a tactical maneuver to defeat them. It works without a hitch, and the higher ups note that they may have someone special on their hands.

This begins a series of scenes where Napoleon rapidly rises up the ranks, winning pretty much every battle he’s a part of. And there were a lot of battles. Back in the late 1700s, everybody was at war with each other. The British hated the French. The French hated the British. Russia hated everybody. We may bitch about war now but back then there was so much war that someone may have lived an entire life without ever experiencing peace.

Eventually Napoleon met and fell in love with a beautiful young woman named Josephine. It was a match made in heaven. If heaven were hell! Maybe it was a part of his Napoleon-complex but Napoleon had, like, zero game. He wrote Josephine hundreds of letters smothering her in his love, to the point where she was disgusted by him.

This led to an infamous affair with another French military official of which everyone on the planet seemed to know about except Napoleon, mostly out of denial. When he found out, he became set on divorcing Josephine, but she begged him to stay with her and because Napoleon was secretly a softie, he called off the divorce.

In the meantime, Napoleon was making Genghis Khan look like a pussy. His appetite for war was insatiable. And he was revolutionizing it with every battle. Napoleon stressed mobility over everything else, allowing his armies to move in ways no other armies had moved before. He won so many battles that he basically became a God which eventually allowed him to anoint himself Emperor of France. His success was such that nobody tried to stop him, despite the absurdity of the act.

He soon turned his sites on defeating his arch-nemesis Britain, who France had been warring with for something like 200 years. His plan was to cut them off economically. Napoleon became best buddies with Alexander I, the emperor of Russia, after France defeated them. And his terms for victory were very simple. Don’t trade with Britain anymore. The idea was to weaken the island so that when the time was right, he’d be able to strike. But after awhile, the unpredictable Alexander felt he was losing out from the trade just as much as the Britons, and simply stopped following the terms.

Napoleon realized he had no choice but to take down his old buddy, and marched a huge army into Russia, planning to take over Moscow. Surprisingly, the Russians decided not to fight back and when Napoleon got there, the city was deserted. Napoleon had won without even raising a finger. But there was a problem. Alexander refused to sign the treaty.

I’ve never heard of this tactic before but it turned out to be a good one. You can’t march an army into another country, spending millions of dollars on the campaign, and then just walk back home without a signed treaty. So Napoleon marched on to St. Petersburg to take that city instead. This turned out to be his undoing, of course, as most of his army died during the trek in a relentless Russian winter. Napoleon’s legacy never recovered after that.

First thing I noticed about this – and something I didn’t expect at all (I had never read a Kubrick script) – was just how silky smooth the writing was. Having come off that monstrosity that was “The Cradle Will Rock,” where Orson Welles assaulted me with his minefield style of writing, I just assumed that this is how the old-timers did it. But Kubrick was apparently ahead of his time, keeping everything lean, to the point, and very easy on the eyes. I’m telling you, go read ten pages from each of these screenplays and you’ll see the difference between an easy to read script and an impossible to read one.

But really, the reason why Napoleon works is because Kubrick stresses the micro over the macro. Whenever you tackle a huge subject, it’s really easy to get lost in the bigness of it all, stressing the famous battles or big races or memorable performances or whatever that subject was famous for. But what the audience is going to connect with – the thing that’s going to pull them in – is what happens on the personal front. What happens behind closed doors.

Napoleon’s complicated relationship with a wife who doesn’t love him creates a sympathetic figure out of a man who basically lived for bloodshed. That’s not easy to do. And instead of the focus being on huge battles between France and Russia, Kubrick instead focuses on what happens afterwards, when Napoleon and Alexander became great friends, a likewise complicated relationship that Napoleon similarly misjudged.

And I think that’s a theme Kubrick was going for here and another reason the script worked so well. Napoleon was a master at understanding thousands of people at a time, but incompetent at understanding those same people individually.

Kubrick also made the choice of adding a narrator for the story and really, if you’re writing a period biopic, I don’t know how you can do it any other way. There’s just so much shit that the audience needs to know, and you’re jumping through time so often, that you need that all-knowing booming voice to orient you. So if you’re writing that big period piece, you’re probably going to need a narrator.

I think where Napoleon falters is in the one spot that every biopic falters. You are a slave to history. Despite my celebration of the micro here, when you’re making a movie about a great war figure, you want to end your movie with a major battle. But even though that would’ve been ideal from a story sense, it’s not how history was written. Instead, Napoleon chases an army that refuses to fight him for 20 pages, waits another 10 pages as their leader refuses to sign a treaty, heads off to another city for 10 pages, watches his men die, goes back to Paris which has been taken over, tries to take it back himself, and eventually gets exiled to an island. Instead of getting that big climactic third act, everything just fizzles away. And it’s a real shame. Because it’s built up as these two old friends about to throw all their might at each other in what will be one of the great wars of all time. Then one of them runs away? Try throwing that into your next fictional final battle climax.

So I was a little disappointed in how this script ended. But man, Kubrick is a really good writer, and his love for his subject matter is unparalleled. This isn’t some dyslexic confused romp like Oliver Stone’s 8 versions of Alexander, but a real story about a real man. And one that needs to be made.  You don’t even need to rewrite this thing. You could film it as is. What is Hollywood waiting for?

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

What I learned: I gleaned this piece of knowledge from How To Write a Movie In 21 Days. When you write a story, there's a knack to start that story from far away. But for a story to work, you have to tell the story from up close. Napoleon is a great example of this. When you think of Napoleon, you think of his fame, the huge battles he was a part of, his adoring country. But these aren’t what give us an emotional connection to the story. It’s the man inside those battles. Who he is. His passions, his flaws, his relationships, his idiosyncrasies. Tell your story from “up close” and the “far away” will emerge with more meaning.

Amateur Friday - We Found Bigfoot

Genre: Drama
Premise: (actual logline from author) At the height of the 1970's Bigfoot craze, an obsessed, lonely 9 year old boy living in the heart of Sasquatch country becomes entangled in a hoax which threatens to shatter his family, new friendships, and his innocent belief in the mythic creature.
About: Well if there’s any good to come out of this huge snafu, it’s that Amateur Friday may start living up to its name and become a weekly feature. So, if you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur review, send it in PDF form along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted on the site.
Writer: Robert Ducey
Details: 104 pages - undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

A few reasons why I went with this today. The first is that this is a logline that actually made it into my top 100 loglines from the Logline/Script Contest a year ago. I also liked the drama angle. Most Bigfoot-related stories are comedies so I knew I’d be reading something different. But what put me over the edge was the writer’s attitude. He just missed the Quarterfinals at Nicholl and wanted to know why his script didn’t stack up. What was it he was missing? He genuinely wanted to improve. On a personal level, I also wanted to find out if my instincts were right for not advancing this after reading the first ten pages (in the contest, after qualifying for the top 100 loglines, I read the first 10 pages of all 100 of those scripts, of which 25 advanced – Bigfoot did not). In other words, can a script recover if it doesn’t blow you out of the water with the first 10 pages?

Ben Whitcomb is a pale skinny 9 year old boy who lives in the heavily forested region of Portland. The only thing that gets Ben through the day is his obsession with Bigfoot. He religiously studies the famous creature, and has all the stories and books and articles ever recorded about the beast.

None of this is probably healthy, as Ben’s Blazers-obsessed alcoholic father points out, but his mom is a bit of an enabler, constantly encouraging Ben to do the impossible – find the mythical beast and become world famous – which propels Ben into his daily search for Bigfoot.

On one of these forays into the woods, Ben runs into Alex, an older boy with an attitude, and Tuan, who’s Ben’s age and from Vietnam. The two invite Ben into their game and soon Ben is telling them all about Bigfoot. The boys like what they hear enough to join the search, and soon Ben has himself a Bigfoot Team.

Eventually the three run into a scruffy smooth-talker named Reggie. Turns out Reggie’s father is the man who shot that famous Bigfoot tape, and Reggie believes with all the recent activity in the area, that he can find Bigfoot once again. Picking up on Ben’s excessive knowledge of the creature, Reggie asks the boys if they want to help him.

However Reggie has some weird tactics he employs to lure in Bigfoot, including creating huge footprints in the forest via large fake feet as sort of a mating call to the monster. Right away Ben’s suspicious of this activity, but he goes along with it anyway. Reggie’s later able to secure a camera from a local news station and shows the boys how to use it. Almost magically, the next day, when left alone with the camera, Bigfoot appears, and the boys hurry up to tape the creature.

But when Ben goes chasing after the creature, he’s shocked and horrified to see it jump into Reggie’s van and drive away.

 
Reggie submits the footage to the news and quickly he and the boys become local sensations and national stars. But Ben is plagued with the knowledge that it’s all a lie, that this isn’t the real Bigfoot. And for Ben, that’s what matters the most. He doesn’t want money or fame. He just wants to know – needs to know – that Bigfoot is really out there, that he’s real.

So when the story starts falling apart and the backlash threatens to ruin the reputation of everyone involved, including Ben’s family, Ben makes a last ditch dash to find the creature, and prove once and for all that Bigfoot lives.

All right. This is a tough one. It’s actually the toughest kind of script to analyze because the writing is really good. The characters are all interesting (especially Ben). There’s a strong goal. There’s ticking time bombs, real stakes, villains, twists, turns, a theme – everything that a good movie is supposed to have. And yet I still understand why this didn’t make the Quarterfinals. There’s something missing here.

And I’m going to be honest. I don’t know exactly what it is. But here’s where I think the problem lies. Sometimes you finish a script and you say, “That was pretty good.” But that’s all you say. You don’t have any intention of telling other people about it. It didn’t hit you hard enough to inspire you to do so. It’s like a comfort food. You wouldn’t travel into the city to get it. But if it’s there, you eat it and it makes you feel good.

We’ll start with the first ten pages. The goal with any first ten pages is to hook your reader. When your script makes it up the ladder and finally into the hands of the big players (big producers, directors, stars), the guys who can really make a movie happen, their time is short, so they’re likely only giving you a little rope at a time. They say, “I’ll read 5-10 pages. If I like it, I’ll keep reading.” And they’ll continue to do that throughout the script, extending another 5 pages here or 10 pages there, like those old arcade racing games where you received extended time every time you hit a checkpoint.

So you have to rope them in over and over. You have to keep things moving. And right away with We Found Bigfoot, I sensed that Ducey was unnecessarily drawing moments out. In the opening pages, Ben is watching a Bigfoot special. He and his mom talk. Then his drunk father comes home and wants to watch the Blazers, kicking Ben off the TV. This whole sequence takes 6 pages when it shouldn’t have taken more than two.

Here’s all you have to do.

Show Ben watching the Bigfoot show (establishing his love of Bigfoot). Show Dad come home and change the channel without saying anything (establishing he’s an asshole and doesn’t care about his son’s interests). Have Mom point out that Ben was watching something (establishing his mom’s support) and show Dad ignore her (establishing that he doesn’t respect his wife either). That can all be done in a single page and we know everything we need to know about this family.

Now that’s not to say you can’t get into a little more detail, but you have to be careful not to get into TOO much detail this early on because like I point out, you’re on someone’s leash. If you want more leeway, you gotta prove you deserve it.

Another thing that slows down this opening is the friendship situation. Before we can start the Bigfoot story (what we came here for) Ben has to first meet his new friends, get to know their situation, ask them to join his cause, and that takes a good 10-15 pages to establish.

Here’s what I always say. Establish relationships before the story starts if you can afford to so you don’t have to waste precious screenplay real estate doing so. In other words, why can’t Ben, Alex, and Taun already be friends? I understand that Ben is a loner, but you can establish a character as kooky/weird/an outcast and still have him have friends. That way we can jump right into them looking for Bigfoot together and not have 3-4 scenes where they have to build up that trust before doing so (and the reality is, even with all those pages, we still don't have a good feel for Alex and the mysterious Taun).

Imagine Goonies if all those boys had to become friends first before they went on their adventure. Or imagine how much longer Avatar would’ve been if there hadn’t been previous diplomacy attempts between the humans and the Na’Vi before Jake Sulley got there (You’d have to create a whole additional sequence, for example, where Jake Sulley taught the Na’Vi English).

If the story is ABOUT the relationship (When Harry Met Sally), then yes, you want to wait until your story to explore it. But if it’s just one piece of the story, consider establishing it before the movie starts.

A couple other things that bothered me were first, forgetting to tell us what year it was. I only knew the time period (the 70s) because it was mentioned in the logline, but there’s no guarantee a reader will read your logline before they read your script. And this script reads WAY differently if you think it’s happening in the modern day than in the 70s. This is one of those beginner mistakes you never want to make because if a reader realizes you forgot something this obvious, they’ll know you’re an amateur, lose all confidence in you, and start skimming through the rest of the script to get through their coverage.

I also thought the dad was way over the top here. I liked that he had a clear specific identity (in his basketball obsession) but he’s so relentlessly cruel that he almost becomes a cartoon.

On the plus side, I really loved Ben as a character and I thought the theme of losing one's innocence was well handled. This script is strongest when it’s focusing on Ben’s struggle, specifically when he knows his footage is fake and can’t decide what to do about it. Unfortunately this comes into the story too late. I would’ve liked that conflict introduced earlier and to have seen Ben struggle with it longer. Again, this is the strength of the script, so let’s milk it.

Developed with the right producer, We Found Bigfoot could become one of those PG family films with a moral that does well in the family demo. I just wish I had a better idea of why this was an “almost” screenplay and not a “have to recommend it” screenplay. So I guess I’ll turn it over to you guys. Maybe you can help Robert. What’s missing here? Ideas?

Script link: We Found Bigfoot

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read (very torn on this one so I’ll cheat)
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I find that when you’re creating asshole characters – particularly fathers – that throwing in a positive trait to balance things out, or giving us some insight into why they’ve become the way they are – goes a long way towards the character feeling realistic. “All asshole all the time” never works.

Identity Crisis

Genre: Crime/Thriller
Premise: A small town roller skating rink manager prepares for marriage when a secret from his past comes back to haunt him.
About: This script was purchased by Cruise-Wagner about 15 years ago, presumably for Cruise to star in. The writer, Philip Jayson Lasker, has a roundabout connection – believe it or not – to yesterday’s script. Although he wrote on the hit show The Golden Girls for a few years (that’s not the connection), he found his way into the movie world with his one produced credit, “The Man From Elysian Fields” in 2001. The director of that film, George Hickenlooper (who directed the great “Hearts of Darkness” documentary and the short “Some Folks Call It A Sling Blade, that inspired Billy Bob Thorton’s feature length film) also directed the indie “The Big Brass Ring,” which, believe it or not, was another unfilmed screenplay by Orson Welles. Talk about a small world!
Writer: Philip Jayson Lasker
Details: 116 pages - undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

The sale of Identity Crisis can be looked at in a couple of ways. There was a time when Tom Cruise owned the world. Not just movies. But the entire world. This allowed he and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, to buy up a ton of material and develop it, wait for the best stuff to emerge, throw in a dash of whatever Cruise was jonseing to do at the moment, and voila, movies would get made. In that sense, Identity Crisis could’ve been a chance Cruise took – one of those risky clothes purchases you’re not sure if you’re ever going to wear or not. But hey, why not? You can afford it. Then again, if you’re a more optimistic person, you might say, “Holy shit. This script sold to Tom Fucking Cruise at the height of his movie stardom!” Selling your script to *the* movie star of the moment is basically the screenwriting equivalent of the Super Bowl.

That alone is reason to study this script. Purchases like these get you into the mind of an A-List star.

Arthur is just your below-average roller skating rink manager in a small town in the middle of nowhere. He has a beautiful fiance, Ellen, who’s 3 months pregnant, and who he plans to marry in a few weeks. Despite his life looking up, it isn’t all roses for Arthur. He used to be someone important back in New York, someone who made a lot more money than what you make Tuesday afternoons at the bowling alley, that’s for sure. And it doesn’t help that his fiance’s mom thinks he’s a worthless loser who’s not good enough for her daughter.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the country, we meet Raincoat Man. Raincoat Man (not to be confused with “Rain Man”) is not a nice man. Raincoat Man specializes in one thing - killing people. And he’s awful good at it. If you have any doubts, he shoots a man right between the eyes while he's at the top of a ferris wheel.  I hear that shot's pretty easy at the bottom of the ferris wheel.  But at the top?  That's a hardcore killer there. 

After a few “hidden in the shadows” discussions with another shady character, we become aware that Raincoat Man’s next victim is none other than Arthur. This instantly leads to the question: Why? Arthur seems like a normal stand-up guy. Why would someone want to kill him? Hmm, he did have that mysterious job back in New York. Just how mysterious was it?

In a scene that was surely designed to bring teenagers everywhere into a hormone-inspired frenzy, Arthur is allowing a private late-night “naked roller-skating” party at the rink. Raincoat Man is not prepared for all the naked flesh when he strolls in to kill Arthur, and the distraction allows Arthur to escape, get back to his house and save Ellen before she’s a victim too. That’s when the truth comes out. Our boy Arthur is in the witness relocation program.

In a seriously weak logic oversight, Arthur storms back to New York to see how he was found, and actually leaves his wife back at the town. This allows Raincoat Man to kidnap her and drive her back to New York with him, where he’ll use her, if necessary, to complete the hit on Arthur.

This culminates in a couple of rather gigantic double-crosses, leading to the biggest double-cross of all, the answer to who put the hit out on Arthur.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “This sounds a lot like ‘History Of Violence,” you’re not alone. That film kept popping up in my head as I was reading this. The big difference, however, is how gritty and real that script was. This script has a little more fun – sensibly flavored to cater to the Tom Cruise “everything’s going to be all right in the end” mentality.

Figuring out why Cruise bought the script isn’t hard if you read my “How To Write For An A-List Actor” article. Once again, we hit on another actor staple – Actors like to play roles where they’re projecting one person to the outside world but are secretly someone else on the inside. That’s why they like to play CIA agents. That’s why they like to play superheroes. There’s an inherent complexity in playing someone who’s hiding something from everyone else that satisfies their acting needs.

As for the script itself, I don’t think there’s enough going on here in the first 2 acts to keep an audience interested. The third act gets kind of good when we make our way up the ladder and find out who’s behind all this, but up til that point we spend way too much time focusing on insignificant scenes that feel like they’re stalling. For example, we get a scene where Ellen is picking a wedding dress with her mom that doesn’t push the story forward at all (always push the story forward with every scene!).

I think Raincoat Man (who’s actually referred to as “Man in Raincoat” in the script - the reverse moniker was my own) had a lot of potential. He’s cold and calculated, yet chatty and practical. When he kidnaps Ellen and she tries to run away, instead of immediately going after her he yells out that they’re in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere to run, so it would be wiser for her to just get back in the car. We’re never quite sure what’s going to come out of this guy’s mouth, and that unpredictability goes a long way, making him the stand-out star of the script.

But despite him and the nice twists at the end, too much of this script went according to plan. I was way too far ahead of it most of the time, especially in the middle act, where everything was too "standard witness relocation genre" stuff. When you’re writing a script that depends on its twists and turns, those twists and turns must be frequent and inventive. If they’re just like every other twist and turn in the book, you’re not going to excite the reader.

I can see why this sold but I would’ve liked a more inventive treatment of the story and in particular a more exciting middle act.

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

What I learned: How far ahead of you is the person reading your screenplay? This is one of those things I don’t think writers think about enough – especially in “twist-centered” screenplays. Sometimes you *think* you’re ahead of your reader, but you don’t really know unless you put yourself in your reader’s shoes. A good rule of thumb in these types of scripts is to have something unexpected happen every 15 pages or so. I’m not talking about a world-shattering Sixth Sense like twist every 15 minutes, just something unexpected (big or small) to keep your reader on his toes. If you sail along for too long where nothing surprises the reader, he's going to get bored fast.

The Cradle Will Rock (Orson Welles)

Genre: Period/Drama/Comedy
Premise: Orson Welles produced a musical titled “The Cradle Will Rock” back in 1937 that was shut down on opening day, forcing the production to make a last second change that some would later say inspired the best stage experience they’d ever had.
About: Cradle Will Rock was meant to be Orson Welles' last film as director. It went into pre-production in 1983 with Rupert Everett on board to play Welles before the backers pulled out and the production collapsed. Spielberg was interested in producing it around 1985, but ended up dropping out and nobody would touch it afterwards. The same subject matter was later written into a completely different movie, which Tim Robbins directed, also titled “The Cradle Will Rock.” However Robbins’ film is said to be a more fictional account of the events, while this version, because it was written by Orson Welles himself, supposedly stays very close to the real story.
Writer: Orson Welles
Details: 109 pages – Revised November 9, 1984 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

 Orson Welles in 1937, the year he produced "Cradle."

Welles complained near the end of his life how frustrating it was trying to make movies. He said that to make just one movie you had to scrape and claw your way through ten years of torture. Now I’m no Einstein, but Welles may have been having this trouble because he was trying to get movies like “The Cradle Will Rock” made. This is just not the kind of movie you hitch your trailer to if you want to get films made. It’s a movie that may get made if you find a bunch of actors who want to play 1930s dress-up like Tim Robbins was able to do, but at a certain point you have to be honest with yourself. Why try to make movies that no one wants to see but yourself? It’s a losing proposition all around.

Anyway, on to the actual script, and I’m going to say this right off the bat. This is one of the most reader-unfriendly scripts I’ve ever read in my life. I don’t know if Welles has ever read any scripts or he just wrote them but man, this is like staring at one of those 1990s Japanese video games that gave you epilepsy for two hours. The slugs are underlined. Huge parenthetical passages are placed under every character name before they speak, the margin pushed awkwardly far to the right, forcing your eyes back and forth across the page like you’re watching a tennis match. Over-description to the tenth degree. I know Welles is writing for himself here but pointless details litter the script, making 109 pages feel like 209. Each character gets a novel-like introduction. Little asides assault your patience at every turn (like this one: “It should be noted that Moishe (like Carter) is a man of many accents. Just here, for instance, he should have said “thoid” for third. He didn’t.”). Each page was such a chore that finishing them felt like running a marathon on no sleep.

Because I needed a Da Vinci Code cryptex to translate what was on the page, it was nearly impossible to get into the story. So if the below plot summary seems confusing, it’s probably because I didn’t understand exactly what was going on.

The Cradle Will Rock introduces us to the world of The Great Depression. Everybody’s poor. Nobody has a job. It’s a bummed out country. Hey, kind of like today, right?

Anyway, Orson Welles (who refers to himself as acronym “OW” in his voice over) is putting together a stage production/musical/opera called “The Cradle Will Rock” (remember, the entertainment industry is depression proof!). The music is being written by newcomer Marc Blitzstein, who, despite garnering nearly 20 adjectives of description, I still know next to nothing about.

I don’t know if Aaron Sorkin was writing back in 1982, or if Welles did some time-travelling and watched the West Wing, but the next 60 pages are basically Welles walking around with Marc and other people, Sorkin-style, showing them the city, showing them his home, showing them his favorite restaurants, and prepping “The Cradle Will Rock.”

The Tim Robbins version.

I wish I could tell you that something interesting happened during this time but honestly, it was 60 minutes worth of set-up for the final act. I guess the one semi-interesting thread was Orson’s wife, Virginia, whom he had married at a young age, and who he had since grown apart from. Their relationship is very business-like, and when Marc meets her, there’s a little bit of flirting there that we think is going to turn into something else. But Welles (the writer – and maybe, err, the real person) never allows it to, which means the one semi-interesting thread is never explored.

Somewhere around page 75, the government comes in to close the production down. Because Welles has such a difficult time translating the story to the reader, it was never clear why this was happening. After doing some research online, however, I determined that because everyone was so poor in The Great Depression, people were starting to sympathize with socialist/communist ideologies. “The Cradle Will Rock” supported these ideologies, and therefore the government felt the need to shut it down.

The problem with this is that this was the first time we were hearing about it. The script never sets up or mentions that this is a serious problem. As a result we’re more confused than captivated by the development.

The Cradle Will Rock’s only successful sequence is its final act, because it’s clearly the only time Welles knew what he wanted to do. Alas, I was just thrilled that I was reading scenes where I could actually understand what the point was and what was going on.

What happens is that Welles has 500 people show up for opening night only to find soldiers guarding the playhouse so that none of them can get in. His team makes some last second frantic phone calls and realizes that if they can say this is a “concert” and not a “musical,” the government can’t stop them. So they rent a concert hall 20 blocks away from their current location, and ask the crowd to actually walk there with them.

 Because at a concert, only the musician can be onstage, the actors are forced to sit with the crowd and act out the musical from their spots. A famous New York critic would later write that it was the most inspiring and magical production he’d even seen.

I have to admit that, despite all the other problems here, the ending was solid. The problem is, Welles had no idea what to do before it. We are literally watching our characters walk around and do NOTHING for 80 pages. Even though our main character, Welles, has a clear story goal (to put the production together in time), it’s never a struggle. It’s never in doubt. There isn’t a single moment where we wonder if he’ll be able to do it. Which leaves us a whole lot of pages where zippo is happening.

Also, the quickest way to get a reader to tune out is to throw them into an unfamiliar setting right away (in this case the 1930s – which we understand the broad strokes of, but that’s about it) and then rapidly introduce a dozen-plus characters. Keeping track of a bunch of written names is hard enough in a familiar setting. In a period piece? It’s like being told to memorize the fifteen ingredients in an obscure Mediterranean dish that you’ll later be asked to cook. And you’ve never cooked before! So right off the bat, I had trouble keeping up with “Cradle.”

Ironically, despite their huge introductory paragraphs, very few of these characters have any actual depth. A lot of them are steeped in the characteristics reminiscent of a sitcom, plowing into rooms like Kramer from Seinfeld, but with no backstory, no context.

Overall, this was a bizarre reading experience. And I love Orson Welles. He has one of the most interesting stories in Hollywood history. But I think he believed his final act was enough. He didn’t realize that he needed a story before it. At the very least, this has me intrigued to go watch Tim Robbins' version of the story, which I never in a million years would’ve been interested in watching if I hadn’t read this.

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

What I learned: If there’s ever been an argument for why concise streamlined writing is important in a screenplay, this would be it. Overindulgence, pointless asides, too much description, clumsy formatting – all of these things murdered my interest in this story before I could get into it. There may be a much better movie in this screenplay, but because I was so beat up in the process of reading it, I didn’t have the energy to find out.