Screenplay Review - Agent Ox

Today's screenplay tackles that age-old screenwriting question: How does an alien spy save planet earth?

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: Behind the scenes of a modern day earth, the leaders of the world learn that a faraway civilization is planning to wipe them out. So they send in a spy – one of the aliens who came to warn them – to extract information about the attack in order to defend against it.
About: This script sold at the end of last year in a minor bidding war that Sony won, paying $300,000. Nice! The writer, Daniel Kunka, has one produced credit to his name, the John Cena vehicle, 12 rounds, a 2009 film about a detective who must complete 12 challenges to save his kidnapped girlfriend.
Writer: Daniel Kunka
Details: 119 pages – March 3, 2011 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).

Hey, it may not be the bidding wars of the 90s, but grabbing $300,000 for a spec script is pretty darn sweet (correction - a commenter points out that this sold for much more than 300k.  300k is the amount Neal Moritz, the producer on the deal, personally paid in addition to the studio, to close the deal). And WHY did this particular spec script sell? Especially when it’s “just another alien invasion movie” (as some people have pointed out)?

Well, that’s the thing. It’s not just another alien invasion movie. We’re not talking Battle: Los Angeles here, where the only thing alien is the plot. This is an alien invasion movie about a spy who flies to another planet to save earth. Now I can’t definitively say that that’s why it sold, but I can tell you it’s THESE KIND OF UNIQUE ANGLES that set your script apart from every other spec out there. Go ahead, write your alien invasion flick. But just know that there are hundreds if not thousands of writers doing the same thing. So if you can find an angle that’s different, like Agent Ox, you may find yourself jumping up a few tax brackets.

That said, all that scribbling still has to dance. Just because the outfit’s original doesn’t mean you should wear it to the club. So does Agent Ox tear it up? Or fall on its ass?

Agent Ox is ambitious. It starts out by telling us everything we know is a lie. Remember that purported alien crash back in Roswell in the 40s? It turns out that really WAS an alien crash. Or, more specifically, an FUI’ing “Oxialitian,” who’d come to earth to warn us that in about 70 years, his people were going to come here and rape the earth of all of its energy, killing us all in the process.

As time went by, more Oxialitians (who look similar to humans in most respects) came, giving the leaders of the world secrets about their technology, enabling them to build an entire series of underground weaponry, the kind of stuff that makes nuclear missiles look like IEDs. The bulk of this technology was used for an immense super-cannon that would be placed on the far side of the moon, awaiting the arrival of the Oxialitians.

Since you don’t want to tell the entire human race that there’s a good chance they’ll be wiped out (I find that sort of thing never goes well), this development was all done on the sly. Only people in the highest positions of government knew about it.

And still, that isn’t enough. They need intel. They need someone on the inside. So a 20-something Oxialitian named Tim is asked to participate in the most ambitious mission in earth’s history. Go to the Oxialitian’s planet, secretly infiltrate their government, and keep Earth abreast of any new developments in their plan.

And that’s what the main storyline’s about. It’s the present day (on Earth at least) and Tim is living on this alien planet (which is about 100 years more advanced than ours), working for their government and quietly sending back intel to earth.

None of this is easy of course. Tim ends up falling for and living with another Oxialitian while there. And, as you would expect, the government begins to suspect that one of their own is a spy – although not necessarily Tim. This is terrible timing, as the Oxialitians decide to move on Earth sooner than expected. So Tim needs to be able to get that intel back to Earth ASAP but because everyone’s being watched so closely, it will be near impossible. As the attack nears and Tim keeps moving higher on the suspect list, he will have to pull off a miracle to save mankind.

This script was so unlike anything I’d read before that I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I mean it’s just kind of “out there,” and yet it’s all handled with just enough skill to keep you reading. Or at least keep sci-fi geeks like myself reading.

What’s funny is that I don’t like the spy genre. We just established this last week. But the second you put an alien spin on it, I’m interested. And actually, even though this takes place in a completely imaginary universe, it nailed every single structural component that previous abomination of a spy spec (Wencesles Square) did not. We have a goal (Find out when/where the attack will take place). We have stakes (if he screws up, the earth is destroyed) and we have urgency (there’s only a few days left before they attack). So from a structural standpoint, Agent Ox got everything right.

Where it starts to get a little wobbly though is in the characters and their relationships. This is EXTREMELY common in the sci-fi scripts I read, as writers interested in science fiction generally aren’t interested in the human component. So you get these murky characters, murky character flaws, and relationships that don’t have a lot going on in them.

Exhibition A – Tim. I knew nothing about him. Here this guy is, going off to this alien planet to be a spy, and I never got a sense of what he thought of this. I’m not even sure why he goes. He just seems to do it because people want him to. What’s his motivation?

And what’s his flaw? What’s holding him back in life? What is it from his past that he’s trying to resolve? What are his dreams/aspirations? His life goals? These are the things that tell us who characters are, that expand them beyond a two-dimensional piece of paper. Yet none of them were addressed save for maybe the backstory, which leaned on the cliché “father was a drunk” crutch that invariably indicates the writer either doesn’t know how to create an interesting backstory or is too lazy to come up with something original.

And if you have a murky character, it’s almost impossible to create a compelling relationship. The whole reason relationships are interesting is because they challenge who a character is, what they believe in, what they want, what their flaws are. If we don’t know any of these things, then you’re stuck doing something murky and generic with the relationship. The extent of Tim’s relationship with his girlfriend is that she’s a little concerned because he’s been distant lately. That’s not enough to carry an entire movie. Say what you will about Avatar but the relationship there was actually about something. He was ignorant. He didn’t care about anything beyond himself. She had to teach him how to appreciate and care about his surroundings.

So that was disappointing.

Still, because the structure was so solid and the stakes were so high, it kept you reading. There were also some cool inventive sci-fi things that were worth nerding out over. Watching this huge alien ring suck the cover off an alien planet was both awesome and terrifying. And I loved the idea of aliens cleaning themselves on a molecular level. A device literally turns you into trillions of molecules so it can clean your insides. I’d never read anything like that before. And I liked how Kunka worked that into a key plot point as well.

So could this be a good movie? That’s tough to say. The great thing about an original idea is that it gets industry attention. The bad thing about an original idea is that those same industry people are afraid to pull the trigger. Anything that hasn’t been done before is a gamble and an earth spy on an alien planet hasn’t been done before. So we’ll have to see what happens. I didn’t love Agent Ox, but I liked it enough to recommend to other sci-fi geeks.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: One of the most compelling situations you can create in a movie is giving your hero two WRONG CHOICES. Think about it. Give a character an easy choice and there’s no drama. But give them two “wrong” choices and now things get interesting. (Spoiler) Late in the script, Tim’s girlfriend is misidentified as the traitor, which means she’ll be killed. So Tim has a choice – tell the truth, that he’s the real traitor, saving his girlfriend, or let his girlfriend die in order to save earth. No matter which one he chooses, the consequences are staggering. (note: They would’ve been a LOT more staggering though, had the relationship and characters, particularly the girlfriend, been better established – Just having a tough choice in theory isn’t good enough. We have to care about the people involved).

Screenplay Review - Jimi (Guest Reviewer, Andrew Page)

Guest reviewer Andrew Page gets a chance to review a screenplay about one of his idols, Jimi Hendrix.

Hello all. As I work tirelessly around the clock to bring you some fun Scriptshadow changes in the coming months, I’ll be depending on longtime Scriptshadow readers to fill in with the occasional guest review. Today, I want everyone to welcome Andrew Page, who’ll be reviewing a genre I avoid like the plague, the biopic! All you biopic fans rejoice, cause you know these don’t come along often. I’ll be back tomorrow with a strange sci-fi spec.

Genre: Biopic/Drama

Premise: The Life Story of Guitar Legend Jimi Hendrix.

About: From Deadline Hollywood - This project was in development with financing from Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull. Several leads were considered for the role of Hendrix, including Outkast’s Andre 3000, Eddie Murphy, and Will Smith, but each approach was rejected by the Hendrix estate, which is currently controlled by Janie Hendrix, the adopted daughter of Hendrix’s late father. Tull went ahead anyway in 2009 and paid Max Borenstein to write a script. Tull and producer Bill Gerber figured they’d bring a package to the Hendrix estate. The script landed The Bourne Ultimatum and United 93 helmer Paul Greengrass, and they approached Anthony Mackie to play Hendrix. The Hendrix estate once again rejected the package in 2010. Without a change in heart from the estate, the project is dead in the water.

Writer: Max Borenstein

Details: 122 pages – 2009 Draft

Good morning to all the movie writers and enthusiasts out there. This is a different voice than you’re used to hearing. That’s because I made a special request to Carson to write a guest post about one of my favorite subjects, Jimi Hendrix. This Black List script was once set to film with funding from Legendary Pictures, had Anthony Mackie to star, and Paul Greengrass in the Director’s chair. Ultimately the Hendrix estate balked on the deal. No idea where it is now.

I have always loved music. In elementary school I would listen to K92’s top 10 every single night until I fell asleep. When I was twelve my parents bought me a boom box with a CD player. I can’t recall the specific details of how or why, but the first album I ever got my hands on was Hendrix’ 1968 release, Electric Ladyland. It was my first love, I listened to it over and over, memorizing every nook and cranny of the music. To this day it is still my favorite album and the body of work that has influenced me the most.

My dad got me my first guitar when I was seventeen. It was Hendrix that made me want to learn to play. But I am not a rockstar or legend. I’ve only ever been on stage once with my guitar. I’m just someone who appreciates music and likes to make his own sounds every now and then. I’d be surprised if Max Borenstein isn’t a musician himself, because he understands exactly what that feels like. One thing that impressed me most about this script was Borenstein’s ability to dial back this huge icon and focus on the human being that Jimi Hendrix was. Throughout the story we are always in-tune with our hero’s outer struggles and how they’re so strongly influenced by what’s going on inside. It makes for a story of dichotomies, constantly exploring both sides of his existence. The question is, is this story genius like its subject? Or novice like me?

JIMI opens in the biggest possible way, with Hendrix himself on stage at Woodstock amidst a rendition of Voodoo Child Slight Return. An important image for us to remember. It’s Jimi at the top of his game, singing from the top of the mountain. And yet, he’s lost. He’s sees something in the audience, something spectacular. An angel, dancing in the crowd. Other-worldly. Is he on drugs? Or is it real?

Move to one week prior at a hotel, Jimi is struggling to escape the fanatics that constantly surround him. He’s searching for a quiet space, somewhere where he can write. Alone. There’s a song desperate to come out. But there’s no quiet to be found. A couple of groupies present him with a Tarot reading. Nowhere to turn, he draws a card. A jack, bearing strong resemblance of himself, the reading speaks of pain and old wounds. Jimi is fascinated. The next four cards are queens, the women you’ve hurt in the past, the root of his pain. He examines the faces of the queens, strikingly familiar...

Back to Woodstock, Jimi is grooving. His own VO continues as he plays during a trippy scene, telling him to “Seek them out. Resolve this past to clear a path to your future.” He scans the crowd, searching for the angel, but she’s gone. A confusing, emotional moment sparks the famous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. The whole crowd is speechless.

We’re back at the hotel, drawing the final card. A graveyard. Judgment. Jimi realizes, says it himself. “I’m going to die.”

Jimi’s journey continues in present day 1970, Seattle, at home for the first time in two years. He’s there for a show, all the while searching for meaning in his fame and drug-infested existence. He constantly fights with his money-hungry producers, he runs away from his popularity, he battles his own demons. His life is a struggle, but it wasn’t always that way...

Flashback to 1966, Jimi’s in London, 23 years old, with the only woman who could ever handle him. Kathy. His spirit is much younger, he’s yet to prove himself, and he puts on a show for Clapton’s band Cream at a local bar, winning one for his team on the road. Kathy doesn’t like it, or the attention he’s getting backstage ;). But cool Jimi always finds a way back to his woman. When they’re together, he’s just Jimi. Puppy eyes from humble beginnings that likes to strum a guitar.

The story continues on in this fashion, flashing back and forth from the present to different moments in the past. As you can probably figure out, there’s not a lot of GSU going on here. Definitely goal-less. Definitely urgency-less. But Borenstein frames the story in a particularly clever way in the first ten pages. There are four queens from Jimi’s past that he must come to terms with, so every time we flash back we know we’ll be dealing with one of the queens who influenced the man he is in the present. Combine this with the fact that he’s facing his own inevitable death, and we have enough of a structure that we don’t get lost in the story and high stakes keep us invested.

Not to mention we’re examining one of the most interesting artists in history. This guy was the most talented person in the western world at the thing its culture deemed coolest: music. He was a tall, handsome, black man from Seattle sporting outrageous colors. He was divine in many eyes. Controversial. Arrogant. Inspiring. Sincere. And TALENTED! Think about writing half a dozen brilliant screenplays (screenplay = album) before your 27th birthday that people watched over and over. Borenstein handles this with grace, showing not only the most iconic moments in Hendrix’ career but also the moments of intense struggle (conflict!) that helped him get there.

Between his structural technique and the way the ‘quiet’ scenes relate to the ‘louder’ scenes, Borenstein creates a fascinating perspective on expression and the notion of muse. This is what the story is about. The duality of the artist. Pleasing the crowd while staying true to yourself. Many times during the story Hendrix gets caught up in his own act, only to be hit with a more humbling moment as a love from his life abandons him. As artists this material is very thought-provoking if not too familiar (even if on a fraction of the scale). Each scene is loaded with conflict rooted in the fact that the characters never know who’s going to show up, the wild man or the puppy dog. I really think Borenstein does a brilliant job crafting these scenes.

Aside: one thing I love about music is that theme can be demonstrated when looking at the difference between a studio/live version  of this song...

...and the acoustic version...

This is what the writer is after, expressing the difference between our hero’s outer struggle and his inner struggle.

Some thoughts on the writing itself... there are LOTS of unfilmables. For the most part they add to the moment in painting a better picture of who Jimi was, but sometimes got a little heavy-handed. Unfilmables are dangerous not only because they are things we can’t see, but they radiate with confidence, which creeps into arrogance in certain moments, and can be very off-putting. You never want to rub a reader the wrong way with your mastery of subject matter. To his credit, Borenstein does a pretty good job of balancing the arrogance of his own writing. When Jimi is getting cocky, the writing gets more confident. When Jimi shies away with fear, the writing grows more timid. It enhances the mood. There were just a few moments where I was like, okay. I get that he’s awesome.

The movie itself would be a spectacle full of excitement, spirituality, and tragedy. It takes us through the course of a cultural renaissance, following the movement’s biggest star and feeling the presence of many others. No doubt a spectacular and fulfilling experience. The only reason this doesn’t earn an impressive is because there are no moments in the storytelling that surprised me emotionally. Still, I think the writer manages to tell the man’s story in a special way.

( ) Wait for the rewrite

( ) Wasn’t for me

(xx) Worth the read

( ) Impressive

( ) Genius

What I learned: I like biopics, but they’re so tough to pull off. When you remove goals and mysteries (engines) it’s extremely difficult to keep a reader interested in your story because we’re no longer concerned with what happens. BUT when you choose to investigate the source of a particular person’s inspiration, you create a reverse-mystery. We are the detectives witnessing the person of the present, seeking the mystery of what happened in the past to yield such a result. It’s a character study, a quest to understand the complexities of a truly unique individual. JIMI is a great example of this technique done well.

Finally, if nothing more than my opportunity to publicly say thank you to Jimi Hendrix for how his music has moved and inspired me, then let this be so. Hope you’re listening.

Screenplay Review: Bad Words

Today’s screenplay probably won’t win the Nicholl anytime soon, but it might just win your death from laughing so hard.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: An angry bitter 30-something finds a loophole in the National Spelling Bee rules which allows him to join the competition.
About: Bad Words made the 2011 Black List, finishing near the middle of the pack. This is Andrew Dodge’s breakthrough screenplay.
Writer: Andrew C. Dodge
Details: 106 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 Bad Trilogy. First, there was Bad Santa. Then…there was Bad Teacher. And now, the trilogy is complete with…………BAD WORDS! The baddest of all the baddery. And boy is this one bad. You thought Billy Bob Thorton was bad. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Buster.

I have no idea what your reaction is going to be to this script. Nobody agreed with me on He’s Fucking Perfect except for the funny people. This is way more extreme than that. It’s low-brow. It’s vulgar. It’s cruel. It’s anti-human. It’s basically one man telling everyone else to fuck off for 90 minutes. Oh, while spelling words in the meantime. If you are cynical, or if you’re one of those really nice people who secretly laughs at the less fortunate, you’ll love this.

Guy Duncan is a bitter dude. He’s one of those guys who thinks the world is after him – that everybody wants to take him down. So his plan is to take everybody down first. And right now, he’s set his sights on the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee. You see Guy found this loophole in the rules that states as long as you haven’t graduated 8th grade yet, you’re eligible for the Bee. And Guy never graduated 8th grade. He’s even got the documentation to prove it (how you get documentation to prove you *didn’t* graduate from somewhere is beyond me).

Try as they may, try as they might, the Bee organizers can’t find a way to legally keep Guy out of the competition. But they figure he won’t last long anyway so what’s the harm? I mean, he didn’t even graduate 8th grade. How good can he be?

V-E-R-Y G-O-O-D. Great even. Amazing.

One of the funnier earlier moments is watching the kids go through their time tested routines when given a word (“Could you give the country of origin please?” “Could you use the word in a sentence please?”) taking hours upon hours to get to the actual spelling of the word. Then Guy marches up, and before the judge can even finish the word, Guy spells it and trudges back to his chair.

The organizers quickly realize – they might be in trouble.

And that seems to be Guy’s focus – causing trouble. Except we’re not sure why. I mean, this guy has a huge chip on his shoulder for SOME reason. But we’re never given a C-L-U-E as to what it is.

Eventually, Guy meets Chaitanya, a weird clueless 12 year old Indian boy who’s a favorite in the competition but who’s so hopelessly awkward, he has no friends. He also has no social awareness whatsoever, so when he asks Guy if he wants to hang out and Guy tells him to fuck off, it doesn’t faze him. He just shrugs his shoulders, stands there for awhile, then changes the subject, asking him what his favorite color is or something.

At a certain point Guy realizes there’s no getting rid of Chaitanya, so he just starts hanging out with him. Chaitanya plays games by himself while Guy drinks all of Chaitanya’s booze from his mini-fridge. Little by little, though, Guy realizes that Chaitanya’s not too different from him. They’re both outsiders, misfits in their own way, so Guy, although he’d never admit it, actually starts to like the kid.

As you can probably guess (and if you can’t, you’ve never seen a movie before), Guy and Chaitanya end up battling it out for the final prize. What you won’t guess is how it goes down, as their spell-off transforms into one of the weirder showdowns ever.

I’ll give Bad Words this. The Spelling Bee is the perfect subject matter for a comedy. I don’t know why it hasn’t been done before. I mean – and I say this with all the love and respect in the world – these kids are so dorky! And dorkiness is comedy gold. Chaitanya is comedy gold. Who hasn’t met a kid just like him before?

But the thing that’s going to determine your love (or hate) for this script is if you like angry humor. If you like grown men sitting down next to fat 12 year old children and saying, “Christ. Would it kill you to lose some weight? I barely have any room here,” you’re going to love this. And I admit – I hate to say it – but I laughed. At that and a lot more of these transactions.

The thing is, a couple of months back, we reviewed an amateur script titled "Mrs. Satan," where the main character, a girl, was kind of a bitch. And the argument in the comments section was that she wasn’t likable enough for us to root for. The writer pointed out that movies like Bad Santa had asshole main characters that worked. Why couldn’t he do the same?

Eventually someone made a great point. He said, the reason Bad Santa worked was because of the irony. Santa isn’t supposed to be bad. That’s what makes it so funny. Same thing with Bad Teacher. A teacher isn’t supposed to be a bitch. She’s supposed to be helpful!

The irony in Bad Words isn’t as obvious, but there is some irony in a grown man competing in a children’s competition. So even though the guy’s a big jerk, the irony of the situation has you giggling despite yourself.

What you also want to take away from Bad Words is that most beginner writers come up with funny ideas, yet by page 20, they run out of story. They’ve used up all their funny “grown man in a spelling bee” jokes. So what are you left with? The way to extend any idea out to feature length is via relationships.

So Dodge wisely brings in Chaitanya and that friendship is what moves the story through its second act. If you’re not building compelling relationships, you don’t have a second act. Exploring those and resolving those is what writing screenplays is all about.

Now was that enough to save Bad Words? Well, I’m not sure. It still felt a little thin to me. Maybe that single relationship wasn’t enough. Maybe Dodge needed another one. He tried to create one with Guy and his assistant/journalist, Jenny, but that character was so weak, I’d forget about her the second she wasn’t in a scene. I’m not sure her inclusion even makes sense.

I wouldn’t have minded a more extensive exploration of Chaitnaya and his father, as there seemed to be some real meat to that relationship there. However, maybe Dodge didn’t want to go that deep.

But you know what? As it stands, Bad Words is still pretty good. I mean, I laughed out loud at least a dozen times, which is a very good sign for a comedy. You rarely laugh if you don’t care about what’s going on. So I’m going to give this a “worth the read.” It ain’t going to change the world, but it might entertain it a little.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Be careful about shrouding your character’s main motivation in mystery. Audiences become frustrated when they don’t know why their hero is doing what he’s doing. For example here, we have no idea why Guy wants to win this contest. You can make the argument that this causes curiosity, which entices the reader to keep reading. But most of the time, it just causes frustration. We want to know: “Why the hell is he doing this???” I mean, isn’t that what movies are about? People going after things that are important to them? If we don’t know why they’re going after them in the first place, we’re missing a key component to enjoying the movie. I’m not saying this approach NEVER works. I’m sure a few of you can point out examples where it does. I’m just saying be careful if you use it because it’s really hard to pull off.

The Scriptshadow Super Bowl Tweet Party!

 
Come one, come all, and join me tomorrow for the Scriptshadow Super Bowl Tweet Party.  In it, I will be tweeting thoughtless but illuminating observations about the game and commercials.  But here's the best part.  During my unquestionably insightful but meaningless rants, I will extract TEN - count'em - TEN screenwriting lessons gleamed from the Super Bowl.  Impossible you say?  Pft. I can find a screenwriting tip in a garbage can (right next to a few of the scripts I reviewed last month).  So join me for this screenwriting super bowl bonanza.  I promise to mildly entertain you!

TV Pilot Review - Full Tilt Boogie (Amateur Friday)

What better screenwriting treat is there than a pilot...about a pilot! I ditch the normal screenplay review today to take a rare look at a teleplay.

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit 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 in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it's a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.

Genre: (TV pilot) - Crime
Premise: From the writer: Based on a true story, Full Tilt Boogie follows Danny, a middle-aged pot pilot who juggles his life as a smuggler busting the US/Mexican border with his responsibilities as a father and ex-husband.
About: This story is based on the writer’s own father! The script was a top ten finalist in the Scriptpipeline TV competition. It’s also been a finalist in several other competitions.
Writer: Amber Crawford-Idell
Details: 59 pages

How about today’s pilot? The author is the daughter of our hero! I actually didn't know that when I first read it. It definitely colors my perception in retrospect. But after thinking about it for awhile, I believe Amber’s closeness to the material is both its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. This is no doubt a fascinating situation with writing that leaves most amateurs clutching their bags in the standby line as their plane speeds down the runway. But on the storytelling end, I’m not sure this one ever gets off the ground. It’s not time to cancel this flight yet though. I think with a little help, it can still get to its destination.

48-year-old Danny is a pot smuggler. He shuttles weed back and forth across the Mexican border in a small airplane with a small crew. But on this particular evening, his plan has gone haywire and he and his buddies find themselves in the Mexican desert running from the authorities. They’re just barely able to get away, but the next day, when they head down to their plane, IT’S GONE!

Strangely, Danny doesn't seem too concerned about this. I don't know about you, but when I'm flying a couple of million dollars’ worth of weed around, I get upset when it disappears. To Danny’s credit, he does want to get to the bottom of it, but man does it not seem like a priority.

After questioning several folks, he ends up at a large private party in Mexico where he's offered the lead pilot job on a big operation. But Danny’s not interested in getting bigger and instead heads back to America to explain to his business partner that his plane vanished.

Shockingly, when he gets there, he finds out his plane – with the marijuana and everything in tow– has just SHOWN UP. Nobody knows how it got there. Nobody knows who flew the thing. It simply arrived without a trace.

It isn’t long before this intriguing mystery is answered, and not in a very satisfying way. Apparently, a Mexican child saw Danny flying through the mountains late at night many years ago. After seeing how happy Danny was, the young man decided he was going to grow up and work with Danny. So he's been researching/stalking Danny ever since. Now a man, he’s taken it upon himself to prove to Danny he’s worthy, I guess by stealing his plane?

Hmm, I’m not sure that’s the best way to get someone to hire you. Steal a couple million bucks of their property. Why not just approach him and ask for a job? I had some other problems with this section as well. How do you even see a man, at night, hundreds (thousands?) of feet above you, flying by at 200 miles per hour? Much less how happy they are? Wouldn’t that be impossible??

Anyway, the twist is that the man is the son of Danny’s drug rival, and he wants to take down his father just as much as Danny does. At the end of the episode, Danny flies back to America and it's there where we realize he actually has a normal family life with a son and a daughter, who have no idea that he's secretly running drugs across the Mexican border every day.

There’s lots of fuel for a TV show here. Combined with the high level of writing, Amber has a genuine reason to be excited about Full Tilt Boogie.

But what this pilot lacks is storytelling. There's never a clear through line to the story. Danny's in Mexico, he goes back to America, he's back in Mexico, then he's back in America, then he goes back to Mexico, then he goes back to America. I understand the nature of this show requires our character to fly around a lot but because we’re never in one place for very long, the story never gets a chance to establish anything.

I was particularly confused by a sequence where Danny flies to some random town - either in America or Mexico - and just randomly bumps into a Mexican girlfriend who he throws a roll of money at and then flies away. You can’t waste scenes in your script, ever. What did this have to do with anything?

Granted, I'm not as savvy about TV writing as I am features, but this script needs a clear goal with some high stakes. What I would do is focus the entire pilot on the disappearing plane. Instead of that being solved by the midpoint, I’d draw it out until the very end. That, then, is your hero’s goal – to find out what happened to the plane.

But where I’d really change things up is in the stakes department. Right now, Danny doesn’t care about his 2 million dollar payload and plane being stolen. And neither does anyone else to be honest. Not only does that not make sense, but it’s boring.

Obviously, this marijuana is someone's. And if there’s someone who just lost $2,000,000 worth of marijuana, they're going to be angry. And they're going to take that out on whoever lost the marijuana. Which means our buddy Danny needs to be in BIG TROUBLE. If he doesn’t find that plane and those drugs soon, he's dead. NOW you have yourself a story!

Stakes need to be raised in other places as well. For example, in another scene Danny steals an airplane from one of the biggest drug dealers in Mexico. Does the dealer get angry? No, not at all. He actually forgets about it. And when Danny brings it back, the dealer doesn’t even mention it.

I don't know about you, but the Mexican drug cartels I hear about don’t forget about stuff like that. They decapitate stuff like that. Then throw the bodies on the local highway. In other words, they’re fucking scary. All the drug people in this script are like your best friends from high school. That needs to change.

Amber’s got some major writing talent. Now she just needs to focus on the storytelling component. When in doubt, always go back to GSU!

Script link: Full Tilt Boogie

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: This is a HUGE problem I see over and over again with young writers: Lack of clarity in the writing. If a reader misinterprets one plot point, they might be confused for the rest of the script. Therefore you have to be clear about what’s going on! For example, in the opening scene, Danny and several other drug runners are being chased by Mexican agents. As they’re running, we see their plane down by an airfield with a bunch of marijuana beside it. Danny and the men hide in a hole, barely escaping the agents. The next day, Danny comes out to see that the plane and the drugs are missing. Now with what I’ve told you so far, what would *you* assume happened to the plane? The agents took it, right? That’s what I thought at least. But Danny seemed shocked that the plane was gone. Well isn’t that the whole reason the agents were chasing you? Because you were smuggling drugs? Therefore if they saw your plane full of drugs, wouldn’t they confiscate it? That lack of clarity resulted in me being confused for the next 20 pages. I just kept thinking, why doesn’t he know that the agents took it? -- There's another scene later on where Danny is at a big Mexican party. He's offered a job and a brand new plane, but it's never made clear whether he accepts the job or not. We next see him on the outskirts of the mansion, talking to his buddy. They then hop into the plane that was a part of the deal and fly off in it. But because it wasn’t adequately explained whether he turned down the job or not, I couldn't figure out if had just stolen the plane or had taken it for the job. This is a big deal! Because it's a totally different story if he’s given the plane or he’s taken it. It's your duty as a writer to make all of these things crystal clear. The murkier your writing is, the more confusing, and therefore less enjoyable, your script will be.

From Screenplay To Screen: The Grey

I take a look at the movie for one of my favorite screenplays, The Grey. But does a major script change derail the experience?

I have seen The Grey!!!

The question is, have I lived to tell about it?

Barely. I almost had heart attacks on three separate occasions. After recovering, I went back to the Tweetdeck where I went over everyone’s responses to the film and realized this movie is seriously dividing people. I think I know why.

Actually, that’s the understatement of the year. I KNOW why. This darn ENDING. Talk about a risky choice. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about the rest of this movie first, which was pretty damn awesome!

The first difference I noticed between the script and the movie was just how relentless Carnahan was. I mean he took everything on the page and amped it up tenfold. The sound in particular was just relentless. People who’ve survived plane crashes say the noise of all that metal mashing together is like no noise you’ve ever heard. I think Carnahan captured that noise – and then some. I can still hear the shrieking and the tearing of that metal a day later.

And that wind – it’s just whipping at you so loudly, you feel like you’re standing out there right next to Ottway. I’m not kidding. I found myself subconsciously closing my shoulders to stay warm.

And the howling of those wolves. Oh my God! I got chills up my spine. It was like every corner of that theater was transformed into an Alaskan forest.

I also loved the Jaws approach Carnahan took with the wolves. When we first see those glowing eyes staring us down through the darkness? Yikes! That’s the kind of stuff that’s hard to convey on the page.

And I especially loved the kills. I was caught off guard by nearly every one of them – and I knew when they were coming! It was just like it would really be - complete silence one second and then BAM! A wolf’s got you by the neck and is yanking you back into the darkness. Awesome!

Now it’s been awhile since I read the script but that “jump-tether” scene is new right? Even though the idea was completely ridiculous (those trees looked really far away), it quickly became one of the best scenes in the movie. One thing you can’t write is how Carnahan holds the camera on Dermot Mulroney’s face (who’s terrified of heights) for a full minute before it’s his turn to shimmy across the tether. Then, without cutting, we follow him as he gets on the rope and starts crawling across, a 1000 foot drop underneath him.

When you’re writing a scene like this, you want to look for any opportunity to make things even worse for your character. So I loved the choice to give him a broken hand (forcing him to use his elbow to hold on instead of his hand). And then of course when his foot buckle gets caught on the rope (what the hell do you do now??).

And I loved how Carnahan used the moment as a red herring, making us think the sequence was going to be about getting his foot unhooked. Except a second later – SNAP! – the rope breaks, and he goes swinging into the trees where we follow him crashing into each and every branch as he falls with brutal force (THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!!!). Until finally – THUMP! – he SLAMS into the ground. You could hear his bones break.

And then of course, before he dies, the wolves come shooting out of the forest and eat him. AWESOME!

Everything up to that point, I loved. From there, though, I think the film lost some steam. And I remember the script losing a little steam around this area as well. But here, Carnahan really starts to take his time, and I think it’s a dangerous choice. Remember guys, the end of the second act is where 95% of scripts lose their footing. There’s a tendency to meander in this section, to let things play out instead of keeping the script moving and building up to the finale.

Diaz’s farewell, in particular, felt a good 2-3 minutes too long (however I loved how Carnahan pushed in on him from behind afterwards, all alone, the low grumbling of wolves nearby, getting ready to feast.).

I also had some issues with the characters. And this was my one gripe with the script itself. The secondary characters didn’t make enough of an impact – they weren’t memorable enough. Outside of Ottway and Diaz (the asshole) none of the other characters really popped.

And I remember wondering if casting would fix that. I actually thought the casting was quite good. But the result proved what I suspected – you can’t fix underwritten characters with casting. It has to be on the page.

Obviously, Ottway was memorable, with everything he was going through. Diaz was memorable because he was the opposing voice – the dissident. But what about everyone else? The big dude was just “the sick guy.” I can’t remember much about Mulroney’s character except that he was scared of heights. The guy who lasts til the end with Ottway – I couldn’t figure out what he brought to the table. Flannery looked interesting but he got killed early on (I remember him lasting longer in the script).

It’s just so important to define each character with a strong memorable trait or they’ll disappear onscreen. The thing is, those “middle” characters are always tough to write. If they’re not your alpha dog hero or the boisterous asshole, how do you make them memorable? How do you make them stick out? Anybody can be memorable if they’re yelling at someone. I think all writers deal with this problem. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this. How do YOU make YOUR middle characters memorable?

I’ll tell you another place where Carnahan made a major change: the theme. The script to me was more about man vs. nature and how man wasn’t that much different from animal. There’s still a lot of that here but this film seems to be more about faith, about holding out hope and believing in something, whether it be a higher power or that you’re going to make it out of this alive.

I thought it worked in places, but it felt like one of those deals (and we’ve all been here) where you decide to make that change late in the writing process, and so SOME of the script reflects it, but the other part’s still about your original vision. The first 3/5 of The Grey still feels like man vs. nature to me, while the last 2/5 is about faith.

Had Carnahan had more time, he probably could’ve weaved that theme in there a little more effectively. But I think this is why people are having problems with this last 2/5 of the film. Thematically, it feels slightly different form the movie we were watching earlier.

I’m not saying I didn’t like it. I’m just saying it didn’t quite fit.

And that brings us to our ending. When Ottway cracks those fucking liquor bottles and tapes them to his left hand then tapes that knife to his right hand, I got goose bumps. I was ready for the battle that I had read in the screenplay. This is why I came to see this movie. Ottway vs. the Alpha Wolf.

And then…. (spoilers)

And then…the movie ended.

I’m still trying to figure this choice out. Was it artistic? Was it budgetary? Did the animatronic wolf break down? Did the fight look fake? Could they not use the footage? We know the battle was in the script so we know Carnahan wanted it (at some point at least). So why the decision not to use it?

Was it because of the change in theme? Because Carnahan decided it really wasn’t about man fighting wolves? But about faith?

I don’t know. But I felt like the audience deserved that fight. Could you imagine kids walking out of the theater after that battle? They’d be telling every friend they know how awesome it was.

And yeah, I know if you wait until after the credits (spoiler) you see Ottway lying on the wolf, seemingly victorious. But that left me with more questions than answers. It indicated that there might have been a fight that was cut out of the film. Also missing from the script was the helicopter coming down after the fight. Because that GPS device was so heavily set up during the film, that also tells me the original ending was filmed but not used.

But I guess this discussion is fruitless until Carnahan talks about it or we get an alternate ending on the DVD. I’d love to see a version of this film with that fight. Maybe even when they re-release it in October.

Still, I really enjoyed this film. I’m still thinking about it almost every second of the day, and it’s rare a movie makes me do that. I mean it was just raw in-your-face filmmaking. Definitely worth checking out.

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

What I learned: I love the use of quick flashbacks. Long flashbacks take up too much time in your script and slow the story down. But quick flashbacks are great. They convey what you need to convey but do so quickly. We needed to see that Ottway had someone back home. So Carnahan would momentarily cut to he and his wife together for maybe 5-10 seconds and then we’d cut back to the present.

Screenplay Review - Wencesles Square

The Captain America screenwriters tackle the Cold War with this 2009 Black List screenplay

Genre: Spy/Romance
Premise: (from the Black List) Two spies fall in love while participating in separate Cold War missions in Prague during the 1980s.
About: This finished in the middle of the pack of the 2009 Black List. Markus and McFeely, the writers, have a list of impressive credits on their resume which include all three Chronicles of Narnia films and, most recently, Captain America.
Writers: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (based on the short story by Arthur Phillips)
Details: 123 pages – May 14th, 2009 - 2nd 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).

 

I'm not sure even Captain America could've saved this script.

Okay, I have a lot to say about this one but before I do, I'm going to put forth a theory on what I think went down. This is just a theory. I have no inside information. But it’s the only thing that makes sense. Especially because today’s writers are no slouches. You don’t get writing credit on some of the biggest movies of the year by being a hack.

Remember, almost all the money writers make in this business is from assignment work. For that reason, writers are forced to consistently take on material that isn't very good. It's sort of the same predicament non-A-List actors are in. Sure, they’d all love to be in the latest David Fincher or Quentin Tarantino movie, but only a few actors in the world are lucky enough to get those opportunities.

For those who don’t, they need to make a living. And that usually means, at least occasionally, being in Spieces 4: The Egg Layer. Especially if they're willing to pay you a trunk full of cash to be in it.

That's the big misperception about screenwriting - that it's an all or nothing deal. You're either Joe Nobody, or Dan Fogelman, making 2.5 million dollars per spec. I got news for you. There's this whole area in between where writers are jockeying for position to get on any project that’s going to pay them money, regardless of whether the project’s any good or not.

I mean, if you were offered $200,000 to adapt some book you knew was terrible, would you do it? Of course you would.

I bring this up because this is the only way I can explain today’s screenplay. I'm guessing that the short story this script was based on was so boring that it had no hope of being turned into a good script. These writers did the best that they could, and delivered the best possible draft they could, but because the material was so devoid of story, the screenplay was doomed from the start. Let’s take a look at the plot, if that’s what you want to call it.

It's the 1980s. 20-something Tyler Vanalden is working as a low level US official in Czechoslovakia. Tyler is sly. Tyler is charming. He’s a guy you’d want to hang out with on a Friday night.

At the beginning of the story, he walks into a local bar and runs into Jarmila, a beautiful Czechoslovakian woman. He's instantly smitten by her, or so it seems, and they start chatting. As we will later find out, Tyler is targeting this woman for possible information gathering. I think. Actually I have no idea because it was never adequately explained.

Eventually we realize that Jarmila holds a similar low level position at her country’s own information gathering agency. She, in fact, is targeting Tyler just like he's targeting her. But what she doesn't know is that Tyler knows she's targeting him. I think. Maybe?

So as the two start a love affair – or “fake” love affair - Tyler starts feeding her enough low-level information to gain her trust. In the meantime, he’s also extracting information from her. Or at least, that’s what he tells his bosses. I personally never saw it. The only thing I ever heard them talking about was some boyfriend of hers that the script dedicates 50% of its time to even though we never meet the guy or understand what he has to do with anything. I wish I could wrap up this synopsis with some kind of definable climax but there really isn’t one. The two just keep talking the entire script in repetitive scene after repetitive scene until the screenplay runs out of pages.

Now it should be noted, this is a second draft. So you have to give the script some leniency. However, it’s the draft that made The Black List, which is why I’m reviewing it.

Okay, so, where to start here. This is actually a situation that *should* work for a movie. You have two spies, both hiding their identities from each other, who start falling in love. You have built-in dramatic irony, conflict, tension. So why doesn’t any of it work?

Simple. There aren’t any stakes! Not only are these two on the lowest rung of the ladder in their respective agencies, but absolutely nothing will happen to them if either of them get caught. Seriously, ask yourself, what happens if one of these two catches the other? I’m guessing they shrug their shoulders, smile, say “You got me,” and walk away.

This is a huge issue in a script like this. Stakes are everything. But what makes the script so bad is that the motivations are ALSO non-existent. We’re never sure why anybody is doing anything. What is it these two agents/agencies are trying to get from one another? We’re never told. So now you have no clear motivation and no clear stakes. That is a recipe for screenplay disaster.

The lack of these two critical components puts all of the focus squarely on the love story– on the interaction between the two leads. And that too is below average. Which means there’s nothing in this screenplay to get excited about.

The thing is, there’s potential for a story here somewhere. We find out near the end that this was all happening right before the fall of communism. But even though that information would’ve benefited the story greatly, nobody ever gives us a hint that it might happen.

Why not put the state of the entire Cold War on the shoulders of these two characters? Now you have stakes. Now their lies to one another actually mean something. Now lives are the line. Freedom is on the line. Nuclear war is on the line. Doesn’t that sound just a tad more exciting than the stakes of the current script –Jarmila’s husband being angry with her?

There were also a lot of confusing choices in the screenplay. For example, one of the Czechoslovakian agents is named Johnny 1950. No, you didn’t read that wrong. A Czech agent is named “Johnny 1950.” How does that even make sense? Wouldn't that be like a CIA agent named Yvgengy 1812? I don’t know man, I just kept shaking my head during this script, wondering if it was some sort of joke.

And then people would say things that made no sense. Here’s a character line from after the Berlin Wall is torn down: “Look, our primary job now is to sift the fallout for gold. If the Communists bail, there are going to be a lot of spooks in the wind, and not all of them want to go house hunting in Moscow.” I don’t have any idea what that means.

I will throw up this disclaimer. I’m not the biggest spy movie fan. So I may have missed a lot of nuances here. And I had a similar reaction to that German film everybody loved, “The Lives Of Others,” so who knows? Maybe I just didn’t get it. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t find anything good about this screenplay. I don’t understand how it made the Black List. Maybe spy fans can enlighten me.

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

What I learned: “Love” cannot be the only thing at stake in your movie. There must be something bigger. If you look at another love story – Titanic – Rose deciding whether or not to be with Jack isn't just about her. Her father left her family in a boatload of debt (no pun intended). For that reason, if Rose doesn't marry Cal, she's not just hurting herself, she's hurting her mother, who will likely have to become a seamstress. And then, of course, there's the whole second half of the movie, where the characters' very lives are at stake. This was my issue with Wencesles Square. The only thing at stake was the characters’ feelings for one another. That can carry a small portion of the movie. But it can’t carry the whole thing.