Thursday, November 8, 2012
Amateur Friday - Zombie Reserection
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10 Screenwriting Candidates for Star Wars 7
UPDATE - Vulture is reporting that Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3, Little Miss Sunshine) is the lead candidate for the Star Wars 7 job. Disney refused to comment so who knows if it's true, but it's a name I bandied about for this article since he's a Disney guy. I just didn't see any sci-fi in his background. If true, I really like the choice. There are very few writers in Hollywood who know structure and character like Arndt, so he's going to give us a strong draft. Also, if true, you gotta think Brad Bird would then be the lead candidate for director, since it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to bring in a writer without already knowing the director this close to release, and Bird is Disney's other big Pixar treasure.
Yes, I'm a dork. I'm a geek. When Star Wars appears anywhere in the news, I read it. And over the past seven or so years, there hasn't been whole a lot of good Star Wars news for me. The only news that people seem even remotely interested in is whether Lucas will ever release the original trilogy on DVD? Or is it Blu-Ray? I still don't know because I could care less. And I can never figure out if they mean the original trilogy as in without the added scenes or like the original original trilogy, as in without any of the effects he added later to get rid of the 1977 mistakes. If it's the latter, I'm not sure I even want that. Do I want to see a land speeder with a mirror on the bottom just so I can say I own the "original trilogy?" Hmmm...
But this recent news of Disney buying LucasFilm and making three more movies (or is it an unlimited amount of movies? I'm still confused. Their press release says they're making another trilogy, and then later in the press release, they say they're going to release a new Star Wars movie every couple of years. Does that 'every couple of years' refer to the new trilogy, or do they mean forever? This needs to be clarified Disney! Jesus Christ!) has totally changed my life. I mean, all you have to do is follow my Twitter feed to know that. Scriptshadow has become StarWarsShadow. I even find myself stopping at the toy isle at Target and staring wondrously at the Lego kits for Tie and X-Wing fighters, kits that were too expensive for my parents to get me when I was a kid. I find myself obsessively trying to convince my lady friend to buy this dress and wear it, like, once a week at least (I'll keep you updated on what she says). My intermittent checking of Variety, ESPN and Deadline has changed to intermittent checking of Theforce.net. My days are now measured by how many Star Wars rumors I have accumulated.
Which leads us to today's article. The director rumors are flying. Matthew Vaughn is getting a lot of pub to direct Ep 7, although this recent article at Slash-Film says he won't. There are also rumors that Colin Trevorrow, the director of "Safety Not Gauranteed" might be on the short list to direct the film. Hmm, I question the authenticity of that one. But it's funny what these rumors can do. Even a false rumor can give an up-and-coming writer or director a career boost. I'd never thought of Trevorrow as anyone other than a young indie director. Just the idea that someone would consider him for Star Wars, though, makes me think he's got more going on than I originally gave him credit for.
But as you know, this site isn't called DirectorShadow (hmmmm?). It's called "Scriptshadow." I'm more interested in the writer side of things. If you want to point to the big fault of the prequel films, it was the abysmal writing. And I mean it was really really bad. I know I'm not stating anything new here. Any Joe with 10 bucks to his name could offer that observation. But it went deeper than that. It was the laziness of it all that got to me. It's one thing to try your hardest and fail. It's another to give an audience a second draft that's not even close to ready and film it.
Which is why I'm so excited for the future! Star Wars will once again be written by real writers, not directors putting haphazard unfinished blueprints together that they'll fix while filming. The possibilities are endless, especially because this isn't just any job. Whoever takes this job is going to treat it like gold. This is the franchise of all franchises. Nobody's going to be filming lazy second drafts this time around. Which leads us to the candidates. I've culled a list of ten potential Star Wars 7 screenwriters from rumors, fan speculation, and good old fashioned assumption. It's time to look at each of them and see what they bring to the table and what they don't. This will be the most difficult writing job in the last few decades of Hollywood. Which is why I'm dying to see who they'll pick. So here are the leading contenders, and what we should expect from each.
Name: Damon Lindelof
Relevant Credits: "Lost" pilot parts 1 & 2, "Lost" episode "Walkabout," "Lost" episode "The Variable," Prometheus, Star Trek Into Darkness, World War Z
Like it or not, Lindelof is at the top of everyone's Star Wars 7 list. Why? Simple. For every genre, the studios have a list of the top writer in that genre. Right now, Lindelof is at the top of the sci-fi genre. Think about it. Who would you put above him? Not only is he involved in all the biggest sci-fi assignments, but he just sold a huge sci-fi spec to Disney last year (which I'm looking for if you have it - ahem). It doesn't mean he's the right fit, but he definitely needs to be in the conversation. Now much has been made of Lindelof tweeting dismissively about Star Wars 7, and therefore how he shouldn't be considered a real candidate. I'm not sure about that. If a Lindelof deal were gestating, complete Twitter silence on his end would look really suspicious, and hence we'd be getting the complete opposite.
Pros: Lindelof is a great storyteller. Not writer, but storyteller. And we need good storytelling back in Star Wars. Go watch the pilot episode of Lost, or the episode, "Walkabout," which is one of my favorite episodes of TV ever. In addition to this, Star Wars needs imagination, and Lindelof's got it. Lost was the most imaginative series ever put on television. And the extensiveness of that mythology is about as close as you'll get to the extensiveness of the Star Wars mythology today. Being born in 1973, Lindelof also grew up right in that sweet spot of Star Wars taking over the world. There are lots of good things Lindelof brings to the table.
Cons: If there's a big weakness people will point to with Lindelof, it's plot holes, using Prometheus as their key example. Here's my take on that. Plot holes are typically a result of time. With enough time, any plot hole can be fixed. Any writer who gets to that level in Hollywood isn't dumb. They know when there's a plot hole. But unlike us, who have years and years to hone our scripts, these guys have months. I don't know when Lindelof came onto Prometheus and how much time he had. But for all we know, he could've spent the entire time fixing hundreds of plot holes the previous writer left and he simply didn't have time to hash out the final few. What I'm more concerned about is Lindelof's propensity to raise questions that don't get answered. He was responsible for a lot of that in Lost, and I saw it in places in Prometheus as well (I still don't know what the opening scene was with the super-white alien dude drinking black liquid or whatever). The last thing we need is a bunch of open ends in a Star Wars movie. I want this thing to be tight.
Name: Jane Goldman
Relevant Credits: Stardust, Kick-Ass, X-Men First Class
I actually did an interview with Goldman awhile back and was impressed by her screenwriting knowledge. I must admit a part of me thought she may have been riding on Matthew Vaughn's coat tails, but this woman clearly understands and cares about screenwriting. Now obviously, Goldman's name jumps into the mix because Vaughn is being mentioned as director, and he'll almost certainly use longtime collaborator Goldman to write it. So let's take a look at what she brings to the table.
Pros: I really liked "X-Men: First Class," specifically the emphasis on character development and character relationships (I found the relationship between Charles Xavier and Magneto to be flawlessly executed). You could easily call that film a character piece as much as you could a popcorn flick. The prequels were absent of ANY interesting characters or relationships whatsoever, so to have someone who cares about character as much as Jane would be great. I also think Goldman's got the imagination required for a Star Wars flick. Don't believe me? Watch Stardust. It's not a perfect film, but you'd be hard-pressed to call it unimaginative.
Cons: These two can get a little screwy at times and go off the reservation. In Stardust, the whole seven ghost kings thing was too much. And I remember an excised scene in an early Kick-Ass draft that had giant spiders crawling on walls that was just...odd. If too many of these choices start stacking up, the story starts to feel floaty - not desirable for a Star Wars film. Also, and this is just a feeling I get from interviewing her, but I don't think Goldman's heart is in sci-fi. Goldman's love skews more towards comic books and horror, specifically zombies (as she told me she's obsessed with them). If you're going to write a Star Wars film, you have to be absolutely in love with it for it to work. In many ways, I believe Lucas fell out of love with Star Wars, which is one of many reasons why the prequels felt so empty. This is a great lesson for any screenwriter actually: Always try to write something you love. If you don't, that lack of passion will show up on the page.
Name: Jon Spaihts
Relevant Credits: The Darkest Hour, Prometheus
Spaihts is the biggest sci-fi writer you don't know yet. He busted onto the scene with the high-ranking Black List script, Passengers, about two people who fall in love after falling out of hyper-sleep on a giant empty spaceship. I din't like the script at first, but over time began to realize that it's kinda genius. Spaihts used the buzz from that script to get numerous sci-fi jobs around town. But probably the bigger reason he should be up for Star Wars 7 is Shadow 19. This is the script that got Ridley Scott's attention and which parts of were used to build the story of Prometheus. The thing is, all the stuff they didn't use in Prometheus was really big and ambitious and fun, and that's the kind of stuff I'm sure he would throw into a Star Wars film.
Pros: Scope. Star Wars's scope is as big as it gets. And you gotta be able to handle that scope if you want to make it work, which isn't as easy as it sounds. When new writers try to do too much, they get lost, specifically losing site of the little things that make audiences care, like characters. Shadow 19 makes me believe Spaihts can handle the scope and Passengers makes me think he can handle the characters. I also like the "unexpected factor" Sapihts brings. Star Wars has been too predictable lately. We need a voice who's willing to take chances and go in less-traveled directions. Passengers, with its strange plot of two lovers having to live out the rest of their lives on an empty spaceship, gets me thinking that Spaihts will do some new things with the franchise.
Cons: Is he ready? It takes a certain kind of writer to be able to handle the rigors of writing giant studio material. Lots of needs need to be met. Lots of cooks are in the kitchen. Younger writers want to make everyone happy so they try to incorporate every note given and the script ends up a mess as a result. More experienced writers know who the true shot-callers are, whose notes they need to apply and whose to ignore, and their veteran status affords them the respect they need to put their foot down when they need to. I wonder if Spaihts would be pushed around too much.
Name: Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci
Relevant Credits: Star Trek, Transformers, Cowboys & Aliens, All You Need Is Kill
Before Lindelof was the hot hand in every major sci-fi project in town, it was these guys, and since they've not only worked on a lot of the biggest sci-fi scripts out there, but those films went on to become extremely successful (save for Cowboys & Aliens), there's no doubt Disney is eyeing this pair as a possibility.
Pros: These two will get the job done. They're not going to knock it out of the park but they're not going to give you something mediocre either. You'll get a decent Star Wars movie, and "decent" will probably look "exceptional" next to the recent Star Wars offerings. These two also know how to keep a story moving. They've written one of my favorite scripts, "Tell No One," a story that just flies by, and I bring that up because the best two Star Wars movies, Star Wars and Empire, are both "chase movies," which is why they moved so much faster than the others. We need a writer(s) who can bring back some of that pace to the Star Wars universe.
Cons: I feel these guys are workmanlike. They get the job done but that's pretty much all they do. They're not going to take many chances, which means we'll get a fun story, but one that's ultimately empty. When Lucas still cared about Star Wars, he gave us Yoda - a jedi master who was essentially an old frog. Talk about chance-taking! Yeah, we won't get any Yodas with these two. Also, I feel like their voice is a little too "old hat" now. We already know what it sounds like. It's kind of like listening to a new Dave Matthews album. You kinda enjoy it, but it's just not fresh anymore.
Name: Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio
Relevant credits: Pirates Of The Carribean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl, Deja Vu
These two are strong contenders. And by strong, I mean really strong. They've made tons of money for Disney, and when studios have a formula that works, they don't like to stray from it. Which means that even though their body of work may not scream out "Star Wars," I could see Disney trusting them to set up the franchise.
Pros: These two are amazing storytellers and amazing at working within the classic 3-Act structure, which Star Wars movies are basically designed to exist in (until Lucas started creating 30-act structures with the prequels - oh sheesh, is there an end to the terrible choices he made in those scripts?). Look no further than their excellent, if a little dated, website, "Wordplayer," where they constantly stress the importance of structure. They've also proven with Captain Jack Sparrow that they can create a memorable funny roguish character, something the prequels were missing. I just feel like we'd get a good old fashioned story with these two. The script would move where it needed to and take its time when it needed to.
Cons: Due to their ambitiousness, their plots can get a little confusing at times. After a few viewings, I knew what was happening in "Pirates," but that first time, I had a hell of a time trying to keep up. That's what was so great about Star Wars. Even though there was all this elaborate backstory and world building, the story itself was pretty easy to follow: bad guys chase good guys. I also don't feel that their sensibilites quite fit the Star Wars universe. They're kind of like Orci and Kurtzman in that sense. You know what you're going to get with them, but the feeling is it won't quite gel with what you want out of a Star Wars movie.
Name: Lawrence Kasdan
Relevant credits: The Empire Strikes Back, Return Of The Jedi, Raiders Of The Lost Ark
The old man is still in the mix. I mean, he's gotta be, right? He wrote Empire! I heard a long time ago in an interview far far away that he'd never write another Star Wars movie, but things change. I mean, maybe he didn't want to deal with George's weird story requests at the time. That issue ain't an issue anymore as he'd be working with an entirely new painter.
Pros: You're bringing back the man responsible for writing hardcore Star Wars' fans favorite film of the franchise. You'd be getting a darker Star Wars, which is what the core fans want. But I think the big thing with Kasdan is he really knew how to have fun with his relationships. From Han and Leia to Han and C-3PO to Luke and Yoda to C-3PO and R2-D2, the dynamic between all those characters was never as good as it was there in Empire. A lot of that has to do with Kasdan's dialogue, which is easily the strongest in the series. And it's been awhile since we've heard "good dialogue" and "Star Wars" in the same sentence, hasn't it?
Cons: Is his heart still in it? Kasdan would have nothing to prove with a new Star Wars script because he's already written a great one. Contrast this with a young writer who's been dreaming his whole life of getting a crack at Star Wars, and I'm just worried that Kasdan couldn't compete with that kind of energy. Also, it's been almost 20 years since he's written anything good. They'd be taking a huge risk on Lawrence, but if he came to them with an amazing pitch and the promise that he'd give it his all, I'd listen.
Name: Travis Beacham
Relevant Credits: Clash Of The Titans, Pacific Rim
If you're a reader of this site, you know this name well. If not, you probably haven't heard of Beacham. Basically, he steamrolled onto the scene with his screenplay, Killing On Carnival Row, which has since become one of the most beloved scripts in Hollywood, even though its R rating practically ensured it would never be made. But now that Beacham has started to earn some street cred working on bigger material, the idea of someone plunking down 120 million to make "Carnival" doesn't seem so far-fetched. One of the big reasons why Beacham's name is in the mix is because Guillermo Del Toro is in the directing fold, and Beacham just worked with Del Toro on Pacific Rim, another big sci-fi project. If these two combine to do a Star Wars movie, I wouldn't complain.
Pros: World-building. This guy can build a world like nobody's business. Go read "Carnival Row" if you don't believe me. And as we've already established, this new Star Wars saga is going to need a lot of world-building, so we need a writer capable of that. What I also like about Beachem is his attention to detail. In "Carnival Row," he seems to care about every little character, every little crevice in this city. I love when writers know their world that well. It beefs up the authenticity of the piece, and I'd love to seem him bring that to Star Wars.
Cons: I think his version of Star Wars might be a little slow. There's such a thing as too much character development and too much focus on the world you're building, to the point where your story sort of falls asleep. Not to beat a dead horse, but this is a huge mistake Lucas made in the prequels. He just kept building and building (Naboo, Coruscant, the Senate, underwater villages) to the point where the stories never had a chance to get going. I'd like to get back to the simple clean storytelling of Star Wars and Empire. Let's have some fun!
Writer/Directors
Name: Wachowski Starship
Relevant Credits: The Matrix Trilogy, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas
These two are kind of a long shot and would be in it for both writing AND directing, but I wouldn't bet against them being courted. Cloud Atlas hasn't exactly lit the box office on fire, but the extended trailer alone reminds you what these guys are capable of when they're on their game. In many ways, The Matrix was the next big special effects leap forward from what Star Wars did originally. I'd love to see what these guys could do with Disney money.
Pros: These are the writers of The Matrix! Isn't that enough? What I like about the Wachowskis is they really hash out their characters, putting a ton of effort into each and every one. They're good at creating distinct memorable people, something that the prequels were sorely missing. Outside of Jar Jar, everyone was so plain and forgettable in those films (of course, we only wish Jar Jar could've been forgettable). They're also great at creating villains. Agent Smith and those freaking Albino twins were badass. Star Wars is desperate for a new memorable villain.
Cons: Here's the thing with the Wachowskis - they need time to make their scripts work. The Matrix script was honed over ten years. The Matrix sequels were written over a couple of years. The disparity in quality is evident to anyone with a set of eyes. I also think the Wachowskis lose sight of keeping the story moving in favor of long monologues detailing philosophical rants that really make little sense and that the audience doesn't care about. Even moreso than Beacham, I'd be worried that these two would slow their Star Wars movie down too much.
Name: Christopher Nolan
Relevant credits: The Dark Knight, Inception
Nolan is a longshot but he's still the most in-demand director in the world. So if he wanted to do Star Wars, I'm pretty sure Disney would say "name your price." I just have no idea how Nolan feels about Star Wars. I know he's a huge James Bond fan, and I'm not sure the James Bond and Star Wars fan bases cross over that much, which makes me think Star Wars isn't his thing. But what the hell do I know? Someone from Disney will definitely put a call in to him, which means he's worth discussing.
Pros: He'd rein the world back in a lot. We wouldn't have two-headed blathering announcers calling Pod-races in a Nolan-scripted Star Wars film. I get the feeling that Nolan would center his Star Wars around the Boba Fetts and the bounty hunters of the universe. It'd be grittier. It'd be nastier. It'd be the kind of film Lucas kept threatening to make with Episode 3 but never did.
Cons: Let's be honest, Nolan can be long-winded. He stays around for a lot longer than he probably should, and the good Star Wars films aren't constructed that way. They're always moving. I'm sorry, but the whole "take over the city" thing and the six month wait in The Dark Night Rises was akin to watching paint dry. That kind of pace just won't cut it in Star Wars. I also think Nolan's gotten lazier in his storytelling over the years. Watch how he deftly hides exposition in Memento compared to how he sloppily slaps it in there in Inception. Star Wars movies are exposition-heavy because of all the worlds and cities and characters. For that reason, badly-handled exposition could kill a Star Wars film. I'm also afraid he might ground the universe too much. Nolan seems afraid to let his imagination go wild, and obviously you can't have that limitation when doing a Star Wars movie.
Name: JJ Abrams
Relevant credits: Super 8, Lost, Armageddon
JJ is a huuuuuge Star Wars fan. In fact, he's so much of a Star Wars fan that he constructed Star Trek to be like a Star Wars movie, figuring that would be his only shot to direct something remotely close to Star Wars. Well guess what, JJ? The Mouse House may have answered your prayers. A Star Wars film is up for grabs and as long as James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Peter Jackson, or Guillermo Del Toro don't want it, it's yours.
Pros: Concept. I feel that JJ would come up with the best concept for a Star Wars movie of anyone on this list by far. He'd also be able to handle the huge task of mapping out the new mythology. He also knows how to incorporate mystery into a script like no other, and with him scripting the film(s), we'd likely get a couple of new "I am your father" shockers. JJ also brings charm to the table, as was evidenced in Super 8, and would do some stellar character work, as we saw him do in that movie as well (with the kids). With a JJ-scripted Star Wars, I think we'd get a lot of the "wonder" of the series back.
Cons: I'm not sure JJ cares as much about the details as some of these other guys. The genius with Lucas was that he cared about Monster #8 sitting in the furthest reaches of the bar. He knew where that guy had been. I think JJ's more of a "big picture" guy, and might miss some cool story threads or subplots that could emerge from a background character like Boba Fett. I also feel like we might get "Star Wars Light" with JJ, sort of like we got "ET Light" with "Super 8." We'll see though. JJ is a very strong candidate.
Here's the x-factor in all of this. The person who writes Star Wars 7 has to be a huge Star Wars fan. It won't work otherwise. And I don't personally know how all of these people feel about Star Wars. So I think passion should definitely factor in. George Lucas lost that passion and we paid for it on the script end. The crazy thing about this whole decision is that there are so many directors you can point to and say, "They would make a GREAT Star Wars movie," but there isn't a single writer you can point to with any confidence and say the same thing. Does that mean screenwriting is harder than directing? I don't know. But there's definitely no clear cut choice. Which is why I turn the question to you guys. Who would you pick? One of the writers/teams above, or someone completely different?
edit: Some people have brought up Brad Bird and Joss Whedon as possibilities, but the indication I get is that Bird would come on as director, with someone else writing it, and Whedon is focused on Avengers under the Disney blanket, taking him out of the running for Star Wars (even though he'd do anything to change that situation).
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Guest Review - My Dark Places
Between keeping track of Star Wars 7 rumors and this whole voting for a new leader of our country thing, I had to take a day off this week But fear not. I'm leaving you in good hands. Ralphy is one of the sharpest screenwriting minds I know. If I have a question, this is the man I go to - when he's around at least. He can be more elusive than even I. But I found him long enough to get a great review of an older script out of him. Enjoy...
Screenplay Review – My Dark Places
Genre: Crime-Drama
Premise: As a publicity stunt, a successful crime novelist tries to solve the thirty-seven-year-old murder of his mother, from whom he was estranged.
About: Apparently, this script has been around for quite a while. The last time I checked IMDB, the project was listed as “in development.”
Writer: Jan Oxenberg. Based on the autobiography by James Ellroy.
Details: 125 pages. Draft date: June 18, 1999.
James Ellroy, author of such notable dark crime novels as L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia —both turned into films, one critically acclaimed, the other not so much—published his autobiography, My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir, in 1996. In it, he chronicled his attempts to unravel the mystery of his mother’s thirty-seven-year-old murder by hiring a retired Los Angeles detective noted for his ability to solve old, unsolved cases. The crime itself had a profound effect on Ellroy’s life—it inspired his desire to write crime novels.
The script, penned by TV writer/producer Jan Oxenberg, takes that basic premise and creates a character study out of it, an exploration of an outwardly callous, fast-talking joker whose constant barbs at his mother’s expense never really hide his confusion about his relationship with her. The story opens in 1958, when James Ellroy is just ten years old, and his father, Armand, is actively trying to get dirt on his promiscuous ex-wife, Geneva “Jean” Ellroy, so that he can prove she’s an unfit mother and therefore win custody of James. Right away, we see that the relationship between Armand and James is much more reminiscent of that of best friends than of father and son. We get the sense that they survive by propping each other up—that they’re in life together till the end. Nothing is taboo between them; they’re just two guys hanging out, cooking frozen hot dogs and talking about the shaved pubic region of a woman in one of Armand’s girlie mags. They also discuss James’s mother, for whom Armand has little respect and isn’t shy about dissing in front of James. At one point, James refers to his mother as a “hairy bitch whore,” and Armand just laughs. It becomes obvious in just a couple of quick scenes that they’re a team trying their damnedest to take her down.
As juxtaposition, Jean is presented as a beautiful woman prone to serial dating—looking for attention but not commitment, thanks to having been in a loveless marriage with a man who could offer her neither. When we meet her, she’s dancing with a Swarthy Man in a tacky desert inn. She’s talkative, flirty, coming onto him in every way she knows how. But he seems bored with her, unwilling to give in to her advances. They drive out to a diner, then to a secluded wooded area near Arroyo high school. And there he strangles her to death.
One of the things that immediately stands out in this script is its deft ability to shift between tones. Irreverent humor, hard hitting crime fiction and pathos take turns vying for our attention, letting us know that there’s always something deeper going on here. After a while, however, the tones blend together, and we realize that the division between them was always arbitrary at best—a product of our own minds. For instance, an early moment of irreverence turns into something much deeper in the long run: when James finds out about his mother’s murder, his reaction is not one of shock and sadness—he smiles as a photographer takes a picture of him. Moments later, he again refers to his mother as the “hairy bitch whore,” right in front of photographers, detectives, and his mother’s neighbors. It’s a simple reaction from a child whose first impulse is to feel relief because he can now be with his dad, unconditionally. And it hits hard for us because it’s a jarring moment. The kid doesn’t understand what just happened… or does he? We’re not quite sure. Do we have a sociopath in the making? Or will James grow out of it? It is in these initial scenes that the script establishes its voice and signals to us that it’s going to keep us on our toes for the duration. And it is here that the script becomes impossible to put down.
From the murder, we transition to 1995, where the adult James Ellroy, now a successful crime novelist, is at a book reading and signing with his girlfriend Helen, also an author. Ellroy is now a smart-alecky, verbal wordsmith dazzling his audience with colorful, improvised turns of phrase, which are very “crime noir detective” in their temperament. While this bit of bookstore theater is taking place, Henry Stans from Unsolved Mysteries bursts into the room and confronts Ellroy about participating in a period piece episode about Southern California unsolved murders, in which an entire segment will be devoted to his mother. Not surprisingly, Ellroy wants nothing to do with this at first, telling Stans that “the only person who exploits my mother’s death is me.” Apparently, Ellroy hasn’t grown out of his disdain for the woman his father turned him against. At the very least, he’s developed a frosty self-defense mechanism designed to keep that part of his early life firmly in its place.
But Helen, Ellroy’s confidante and conscience, convinces Ellroy to learn more about his mother. Believing he can get some publicity out of this, Ellroy acquiesces. So they fly out to Los Angeles to take part in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, and there Ellroy hires retired homicide detective Bill Stoner, who is known for solving cold case murders. Stoner’s first impression of Ellroy is that he doesn’t give two shits about his mother, especially when he watches Ellroy interacting with the actors portraying young James and his mother in the dramatic reenactment for the show’s segment. At one point Henry Stans asks Ellroy what he thinks of the actress playing his mother, and Ellroy replies, “She doesn’t look cheap enough.” Stoner is immediately put off—to him, this is all just a publicity stunt. To make matters worse, he and Ellroy clash, Ellroy making it quite apparent that he doesn’t want Stoner’s pity—just his help.
From there, the script flips back and forth between Ellroy and Stoner’s 1995 investigation and sequences dealing with young Ellroy and the original investigation. It’s not a revolutionary structural device—some might even consider it trite—but it works well for this story. Young Ellroy’s relationship with his mother is obviously strained due to her sleeping around and his father’s constant criticism of her, but what is also obvious is how much she always cares for Ellroy, no matter how he treats her. And on some level he knows this. Always has. There’s a scene early in the 1995 investigation where Stoner and Ellroy are in an interview room looking over the old file on her murder, disorganized and overflowing with notes and crime scene photos, and Ellroy, prone to bouts of OCD, straightens out the papers, creating neat stacks. Stoner pitches in and helps him, and it’s a surprisingly touching moment because it’s the first time we and Stoner really see Ellroy’s human side. From there, the beat where Ellroy sees the crime scene photo of his mother’s corpse hits hard. Ellroy tries to play it off and remain professional and detached, but Stoner notices that something more is going on. Throughout the script, Stoner tries to figure out which Ellroy is the real one: the human being with genuine emotions or the smartass who seems not to care about his mother. And as the story progresses, and Ellroy’s obsession with this investigation grows, we and Stoner understand that Ellroy is far too complex to be pigeonholed into either category.
There’s a wonderful motif: a collage of Jean’s death Ellroy has plastered over the walls of his hotel room, consisting of crime scene photos, newspaper clippings, a police sketch of the Swarthy Man based on interviews with two witnesses, and other evidence. As Ellroy’s obsession grows and the case becomes more personal to him, the collage becomes denser, more and more obsessively ordered. Toward the end of the script, the nature of the collage changes as Ellroy picks up old photos of his mother from her relatives. It transforms from a detective’s wall to a tribute to her, no longer about publicity for his book or his attempts to play detective and solve a crime. It’s now about his love for his mother.
The investigation itself is wonderfully played as Stoner and Ellroy plow into old leads and question old witnesses, each bringing his own unique personality to the proceedings. Also, there are some great little details in scenes that in less capable hands might play out in a boring, same-old-same-old way but are made livelier by unique and creative touches, like one in which Ellroy and Stoner interview a 14-year-old girl whose grandmother was a carhop at a diner where the Swarthy Man took Jean. The girl tells them that her grandmother passed away a couple of years ago; that she had brain cancer and died in a beauty salon. And the kicker is that she apparently hemorrhaged while she was getting her hair done. Such a seemingly small detail adds a great deal of richness to the story. Ellroy and Oxenberg have created a vibrant world here—a crime story infused with voice.
A lot of the dialogue is incredibly sharp and entertaining, but not in a way that draws attention to itself—in a way that breathes life into the characters. At one point, Stoner reveals to Ellroy that “Freeways are the Southern California victim drop zone of choice.” He then goes on to say, “I hate ‘em. One thing I swore was, once I retired, I’d never drive these freeways again.” Yet here he is, doing just that, and it’s a sign that he’s unable to retire… that he may never be. There’s another great line when Ellroy interviews his mother’s old neighbor/landlord that lands perfectly thanks to what we’ve learned about his past. When Ellroy was a kid, he used to compulsively stab the banana tree in front of his mother’s place with a knife, to the point where his mother’s landlord had to call in a tree surgeon. As such, the landlord couldn’t give Armand the full deposit back after Jean’s death; she had to take fifty dollars out to pay to have the tree revived. Thirty-seven years later, adult Ellroy introduces himself to the landlord as “James Ellroy. The kid who ruined your tree.” And these types of exchanges pepper the script, giving us insight into the people who populate its world. Not one line of dialogue is a throwaway.
The investigation comes to a climax in a scene where Stoner and Ellroy confront the man their investigation has finally led them to, almost by accident. He’s their prime suspect—a man who used to work with Jean. Now 75, he’s still muscled but skinny. In the face of Ellroy’s accusations, he’s scared to the point where he pisses himself. (SPOILER) But it turns out he’s not the perpetrator. (END SPOILER) And here we discover the script’s true purpose. It’s not really about Ellroy solving his mother’s murder as much as it is about his coming to grips with the fact that she truly loved him. In the process, he also makes peace with his own feelings about her, including some confusing childhood sexual fixations. There’s a great moment at the end when he and Helen are in his hotel room, facing his wall of photos, and he addresses his mother directly, telling her, “Swarthy Man took you away from me. I want you to meet the woman who brought you back.”
Irreverent yet moving, straightforward yet complex, My Dark Places is a subtly wrenching glimpse into an obsession that transforms over the course of its narrative as Ellroy allows the layers of emotional armor, secured into place over thirty-seven years, to drop off piece by piece until all that’s left is a vulnerable human being, abandoned early on by the world (including his father, who passed away when Ellroy was 17) and forced to fend for himself. The script is infused with a voice that strengthens the story rather than distracts from it, and characters actors would no doubt want to sink their teeth into. I hope that after floating around for over a decade, most likely stuck in every circle of development hell at one point or another, it finds its way to movie theaters someday soon. Unfortunately, I fear that its dark approach and constantly shifting tone might make this impossible, especially in the current climate. With that in mind, I strongly recommend that anyone who likes crime dramas, specifically those penned by Ellroy, give the script a read.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn't for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Character, character, character. My Dark Places works so well because every scene not only reveals something about Ellroy but revolves around why Ellroy is the way he is. There are no faux-clever, throwaway lines of dialogue; no meaningless actions. The script is strictly about this human being, and even at 125 pages, it is tight.
Screenplay Review – My Dark Places
Genre: Crime-Drama
Premise: As a publicity stunt, a successful crime novelist tries to solve the thirty-seven-year-old murder of his mother, from whom he was estranged.
About: Apparently, this script has been around for quite a while. The last time I checked IMDB, the project was listed as “in development.”
Writer: Jan Oxenberg. Based on the autobiography by James Ellroy.
Details: 125 pages. Draft date: June 18, 1999.
The script, penned by TV writer/producer Jan Oxenberg, takes that basic premise and creates a character study out of it, an exploration of an outwardly callous, fast-talking joker whose constant barbs at his mother’s expense never really hide his confusion about his relationship with her. The story opens in 1958, when James Ellroy is just ten years old, and his father, Armand, is actively trying to get dirt on his promiscuous ex-wife, Geneva “Jean” Ellroy, so that he can prove she’s an unfit mother and therefore win custody of James. Right away, we see that the relationship between Armand and James is much more reminiscent of that of best friends than of father and son. We get the sense that they survive by propping each other up—that they’re in life together till the end. Nothing is taboo between them; they’re just two guys hanging out, cooking frozen hot dogs and talking about the shaved pubic region of a woman in one of Armand’s girlie mags. They also discuss James’s mother, for whom Armand has little respect and isn’t shy about dissing in front of James. At one point, James refers to his mother as a “hairy bitch whore,” and Armand just laughs. It becomes obvious in just a couple of quick scenes that they’re a team trying their damnedest to take her down.
As juxtaposition, Jean is presented as a beautiful woman prone to serial dating—looking for attention but not commitment, thanks to having been in a loveless marriage with a man who could offer her neither. When we meet her, she’s dancing with a Swarthy Man in a tacky desert inn. She’s talkative, flirty, coming onto him in every way she knows how. But he seems bored with her, unwilling to give in to her advances. They drive out to a diner, then to a secluded wooded area near Arroyo high school. And there he strangles her to death.
One of the things that immediately stands out in this script is its deft ability to shift between tones. Irreverent humor, hard hitting crime fiction and pathos take turns vying for our attention, letting us know that there’s always something deeper going on here. After a while, however, the tones blend together, and we realize that the division between them was always arbitrary at best—a product of our own minds. For instance, an early moment of irreverence turns into something much deeper in the long run: when James finds out about his mother’s murder, his reaction is not one of shock and sadness—he smiles as a photographer takes a picture of him. Moments later, he again refers to his mother as the “hairy bitch whore,” right in front of photographers, detectives, and his mother’s neighbors. It’s a simple reaction from a child whose first impulse is to feel relief because he can now be with his dad, unconditionally. And it hits hard for us because it’s a jarring moment. The kid doesn’t understand what just happened… or does he? We’re not quite sure. Do we have a sociopath in the making? Or will James grow out of it? It is in these initial scenes that the script establishes its voice and signals to us that it’s going to keep us on our toes for the duration. And it is here that the script becomes impossible to put down.
From the murder, we transition to 1995, where the adult James Ellroy, now a successful crime novelist, is at a book reading and signing with his girlfriend Helen, also an author. Ellroy is now a smart-alecky, verbal wordsmith dazzling his audience with colorful, improvised turns of phrase, which are very “crime noir detective” in their temperament. While this bit of bookstore theater is taking place, Henry Stans from Unsolved Mysteries bursts into the room and confronts Ellroy about participating in a period piece episode about Southern California unsolved murders, in which an entire segment will be devoted to his mother. Not surprisingly, Ellroy wants nothing to do with this at first, telling Stans that “the only person who exploits my mother’s death is me.” Apparently, Ellroy hasn’t grown out of his disdain for the woman his father turned him against. At the very least, he’s developed a frosty self-defense mechanism designed to keep that part of his early life firmly in its place.
But Helen, Ellroy’s confidante and conscience, convinces Ellroy to learn more about his mother. Believing he can get some publicity out of this, Ellroy acquiesces. So they fly out to Los Angeles to take part in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, and there Ellroy hires retired homicide detective Bill Stoner, who is known for solving cold case murders. Stoner’s first impression of Ellroy is that he doesn’t give two shits about his mother, especially when he watches Ellroy interacting with the actors portraying young James and his mother in the dramatic reenactment for the show’s segment. At one point Henry Stans asks Ellroy what he thinks of the actress playing his mother, and Ellroy replies, “She doesn’t look cheap enough.” Stoner is immediately put off—to him, this is all just a publicity stunt. To make matters worse, he and Ellroy clash, Ellroy making it quite apparent that he doesn’t want Stoner’s pity—just his help.
From there, the script flips back and forth between Ellroy and Stoner’s 1995 investigation and sequences dealing with young Ellroy and the original investigation. It’s not a revolutionary structural device—some might even consider it trite—but it works well for this story. Young Ellroy’s relationship with his mother is obviously strained due to her sleeping around and his father’s constant criticism of her, but what is also obvious is how much she always cares for Ellroy, no matter how he treats her. And on some level he knows this. Always has. There’s a scene early in the 1995 investigation where Stoner and Ellroy are in an interview room looking over the old file on her murder, disorganized and overflowing with notes and crime scene photos, and Ellroy, prone to bouts of OCD, straightens out the papers, creating neat stacks. Stoner pitches in and helps him, and it’s a surprisingly touching moment because it’s the first time we and Stoner really see Ellroy’s human side. From there, the beat where Ellroy sees the crime scene photo of his mother’s corpse hits hard. Ellroy tries to play it off and remain professional and detached, but Stoner notices that something more is going on. Throughout the script, Stoner tries to figure out which Ellroy is the real one: the human being with genuine emotions or the smartass who seems not to care about his mother. And as the story progresses, and Ellroy’s obsession with this investigation grows, we and Stoner understand that Ellroy is far too complex to be pigeonholed into either category.
There’s a wonderful motif: a collage of Jean’s death Ellroy has plastered over the walls of his hotel room, consisting of crime scene photos, newspaper clippings, a police sketch of the Swarthy Man based on interviews with two witnesses, and other evidence. As Ellroy’s obsession grows and the case becomes more personal to him, the collage becomes denser, more and more obsessively ordered. Toward the end of the script, the nature of the collage changes as Ellroy picks up old photos of his mother from her relatives. It transforms from a detective’s wall to a tribute to her, no longer about publicity for his book or his attempts to play detective and solve a crime. It’s now about his love for his mother.
The investigation itself is wonderfully played as Stoner and Ellroy plow into old leads and question old witnesses, each bringing his own unique personality to the proceedings. Also, there are some great little details in scenes that in less capable hands might play out in a boring, same-old-same-old way but are made livelier by unique and creative touches, like one in which Ellroy and Stoner interview a 14-year-old girl whose grandmother was a carhop at a diner where the Swarthy Man took Jean. The girl tells them that her grandmother passed away a couple of years ago; that she had brain cancer and died in a beauty salon. And the kicker is that she apparently hemorrhaged while she was getting her hair done. Such a seemingly small detail adds a great deal of richness to the story. Ellroy and Oxenberg have created a vibrant world here—a crime story infused with voice.
A lot of the dialogue is incredibly sharp and entertaining, but not in a way that draws attention to itself—in a way that breathes life into the characters. At one point, Stoner reveals to Ellroy that “Freeways are the Southern California victim drop zone of choice.” He then goes on to say, “I hate ‘em. One thing I swore was, once I retired, I’d never drive these freeways again.” Yet here he is, doing just that, and it’s a sign that he’s unable to retire… that he may never be. There’s another great line when Ellroy interviews his mother’s old neighbor/landlord that lands perfectly thanks to what we’ve learned about his past. When Ellroy was a kid, he used to compulsively stab the banana tree in front of his mother’s place with a knife, to the point where his mother’s landlord had to call in a tree surgeon. As such, the landlord couldn’t give Armand the full deposit back after Jean’s death; she had to take fifty dollars out to pay to have the tree revived. Thirty-seven years later, adult Ellroy introduces himself to the landlord as “James Ellroy. The kid who ruined your tree.” And these types of exchanges pepper the script, giving us insight into the people who populate its world. Not one line of dialogue is a throwaway.
The investigation comes to a climax in a scene where Stoner and Ellroy confront the man their investigation has finally led them to, almost by accident. He’s their prime suspect—a man who used to work with Jean. Now 75, he’s still muscled but skinny. In the face of Ellroy’s accusations, he’s scared to the point where he pisses himself. (SPOILER) But it turns out he’s not the perpetrator. (END SPOILER) And here we discover the script’s true purpose. It’s not really about Ellroy solving his mother’s murder as much as it is about his coming to grips with the fact that she truly loved him. In the process, he also makes peace with his own feelings about her, including some confusing childhood sexual fixations. There’s a great moment at the end when he and Helen are in his hotel room, facing his wall of photos, and he addresses his mother directly, telling her, “Swarthy Man took you away from me. I want you to meet the woman who brought you back.”
Irreverent yet moving, straightforward yet complex, My Dark Places is a subtly wrenching glimpse into an obsession that transforms over the course of its narrative as Ellroy allows the layers of emotional armor, secured into place over thirty-seven years, to drop off piece by piece until all that’s left is a vulnerable human being, abandoned early on by the world (including his father, who passed away when Ellroy was 17) and forced to fend for himself. The script is infused with a voice that strengthens the story rather than distracts from it, and characters actors would no doubt want to sink their teeth into. I hope that after floating around for over a decade, most likely stuck in every circle of development hell at one point or another, it finds its way to movie theaters someday soon. Unfortunately, I fear that its dark approach and constantly shifting tone might make this impossible, especially in the current climate. With that in mind, I strongly recommend that anyone who likes crime dramas, specifically those penned by Ellroy, give the script a read.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn't for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Character, character, character. My Dark Places works so well because every scene not only reveals something about Ellroy but revolves around why Ellroy is the way he is. There are no faux-clever, throwaway lines of dialogue; no meaningless actions. The script is strictly about this human being, and even at 125 pages, it is tight.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Screenplay Review - Stephanie
Genre: Horror
Premise: A young girl who lives alone in a house is shocked when her long-absent parents return and settle back into their day-to-day lives. However, it appears that they may have a hidden agenda.
About: This script finished high on the recently released 2012 Blood List, run by Kailey Marsh.
Writers: Ben Collins & Luke Piotrowski
Details: A very lean 94 pages
Well that's a bit of a tease, isn't it? I talk up this whole Equalizer script and all of a sudden don't review it?? Oh, the perils of script reviewing. Don't worry, I'll review it at some point down the line. Stay tuned. I will say this though: That script was one of the best I've ever read at executing the 3 act formula. It didn't exactly bring anything new to the table, but it was so good at what it did bring, you hardly noticed. From the sparse but information packed writing style to the designs behind how McCall killed people to the depth behind the secondary characters to the careful escalation of the plot to the several expertly crafted twists. It was like an entire screenwriting course packed into a single screenplay. That movie's going to be badass!
Speaking of badass, let's talk about Stephanie. Not so much the script, but the title character. This girl's only seven years old and she's been able to live on her own in this giant house for weeks (months?). She goes about her daily routine, snacking on leftover peanut butter and Little Debbie packages, while every once in awhile, the house rocks back and forth, moaning like a broken foghorn. It's in these moments that Stephanie heads into her dead baby brother's bedroom.
Oh, one thing about her dead brother. HE'S STILL THERE. Yes, the poor little baby died weeks (months?) ago, yet continues to lay peacefully in his crib, where hundreds of flies buzz around him. Stephanie's pretty sure that whatever's making these noises in the house is connected to her dead brother's soul - that he's a ghost of sorts - so she tries to comfort him to keep the horror to a minimum.
Writers Collins and Piotrwoski are pretty damn brave in their first act plotting as very little "happens" throughout the first 30 pages except for Stephanie trying to keep some semblance of her daily routine going. But little mysteries do pop up here and there. Why does the house groan? Why is her dead brother lying in his crib like he's still alive? Why are there x-ray negatives scattered about showing a tumor growing in someone's brain?
The story finally ramps up when Stephanie's parents return to the house, or at least two adults who we assume are her parents. Whoever these people are, they appear to be cautious of Stephanie. They're always speaking in whispers when she's not around. A decision is being weighed. And it's a big one, evidenced by the gun the man always seems to be carrying.
But before that decision is made, the man and woman try their best to put life back together in the home. Everything is cleaned up, the fence in the backyard is rebuilt, and most importantly, Stephanie's little brother is properly buried. You wouldn't exactly call things "normal," but they're definitely better than a 7 year old girl living alone eating hostess cupcakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Where are child services when you need them??
However, the semblance of normality quickly disintegrates when Stephanie's dead brother appears back in his room and the man and woman decide to play operation on this little girl who may or may not be their daughter. Stephanie doesn't like the game Operation, and that means Stephanie is going to make these people who have invaded her home pay.
Stephanie has its share of strengths and weaknesses. Its biggest strength is probably the creepiness factor. Watching this little girl wander around this house alone, looking at and talking to her dead baby brother with flies buzzing all around him, is the kind of stuff that makes you lose your appetite.
And it uses that tone, combined with a series of intriguing mysteries, to pull you in. It's not easy to write 30 pages of a character wandering around a house by herself and keep it interesting, but stuff like the dead brother and the mysterious x-rays achieved just that. You were definitely frustrated that things were moving along slowly, but at the same time, you couldn't stop turning the pages. You needed to find out where this was going.
And I really admired Collins and Piotrowski for using so little dialogue in the story. This was not about long conversations between daughters and parents. It was about visuals, images, sounds, moments - the kinds of things that make a horror script a horror script.
However, there were a couple of things that bothered me. The first was that the writers were always waaaaaaaay ahead of the reader. I mean you didn't have ANY IDEA what was going on at all. And after awhile, that started to get frustrating. You wanted answers, and the script wasn't going to give you a single one until the very end.
It's important to reward the audience every once in awhile with an answer to one of the mysteries, so that we feel like we're making progress. Take "The Others," for instance, a movie about a mother and her children living in a giant house alone during the war. They start hearing noises around the house and at first believe it may be a Nazi trying to take refuge in the home. We have an "answer." But when that doesn't prove to be right, it's implied that it might just be the kids playing tricks on their mother. Okay, we have another "answer." Then, when that's proven wrong, we genuinely believe it's ghosts. Another "answer." In other words, we keep feeling like we have a beat on things - only to have a new development prove us wrong, forcing us to start over again.
There's nothing like that here. Outside of maybe an implication that the dead brother is causing all this, we're given very few if any answers, only more questions. The parents, in particular, act so damn weird that I don't know what's going on. I don't even know if they *are* the parents, which is kind of cool in a "what the f*ck is going on right now?" way, but since we've been asking "What the f*ck is going on?" for an hour now and still don't have any leads, we're antsy.
And without getting into spoilers, I'm not sure the ending provided those answers. Visually, it was really cool to see Stephanie lose it, but I still wasn't sure what happened to her brother. I still wasn't sure what prompted the parents to leave and why they came back. I didn't know how long they were gone. I didn't know why Stephanie wasn't sure if they were her parents or not. And I wasn't sure how Stephanie became...super-power Stephanie (unless the arrival of this tumor caused it - which felt like it needed way more of a detailed explanation).
On the one hand, I can see why this has received attention. It's really spooky. It's a story I haven't quite scene before. The mysteries keep you turning the pages. I just wish we were rewarded more often and got more answers in the finale. This wasn't quite for me. But, if you liked the second half of Looper, you're probably going to like Stephanie a lot. Let me know what you think.
What I learned: I think it's a huge gamble to be too far ahead of the reader for too long. You can do it for a little while, but sooner or later the reader wants answers. If you ignore this advice, your ending has to be, like, the best ending ever. We *really* have to feel rewarded for reading that long without any sort of payoff.
Premise: A young girl who lives alone in a house is shocked when her long-absent parents return and settle back into their day-to-day lives. However, it appears that they may have a hidden agenda.
About: This script finished high on the recently released 2012 Blood List, run by Kailey Marsh.
Writers: Ben Collins & Luke Piotrowski
Details: A very lean 94 pages
Well that's a bit of a tease, isn't it? I talk up this whole Equalizer script and all of a sudden don't review it?? Oh, the perils of script reviewing. Don't worry, I'll review it at some point down the line. Stay tuned. I will say this though: That script was one of the best I've ever read at executing the 3 act formula. It didn't exactly bring anything new to the table, but it was so good at what it did bring, you hardly noticed. From the sparse but information packed writing style to the designs behind how McCall killed people to the depth behind the secondary characters to the careful escalation of the plot to the several expertly crafted twists. It was like an entire screenwriting course packed into a single screenplay. That movie's going to be badass!
Speaking of badass, let's talk about Stephanie. Not so much the script, but the title character. This girl's only seven years old and she's been able to live on her own in this giant house for weeks (months?). She goes about her daily routine, snacking on leftover peanut butter and Little Debbie packages, while every once in awhile, the house rocks back and forth, moaning like a broken foghorn. It's in these moments that Stephanie heads into her dead baby brother's bedroom.
Oh, one thing about her dead brother. HE'S STILL THERE. Yes, the poor little baby died weeks (months?) ago, yet continues to lay peacefully in his crib, where hundreds of flies buzz around him. Stephanie's pretty sure that whatever's making these noises in the house is connected to her dead brother's soul - that he's a ghost of sorts - so she tries to comfort him to keep the horror to a minimum.
Writers Collins and Piotrwoski are pretty damn brave in their first act plotting as very little "happens" throughout the first 30 pages except for Stephanie trying to keep some semblance of her daily routine going. But little mysteries do pop up here and there. Why does the house groan? Why is her dead brother lying in his crib like he's still alive? Why are there x-ray negatives scattered about showing a tumor growing in someone's brain?
The story finally ramps up when Stephanie's parents return to the house, or at least two adults who we assume are her parents. Whoever these people are, they appear to be cautious of Stephanie. They're always speaking in whispers when she's not around. A decision is being weighed. And it's a big one, evidenced by the gun the man always seems to be carrying.
But before that decision is made, the man and woman try their best to put life back together in the home. Everything is cleaned up, the fence in the backyard is rebuilt, and most importantly, Stephanie's little brother is properly buried. You wouldn't exactly call things "normal," but they're definitely better than a 7 year old girl living alone eating hostess cupcakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Where are child services when you need them??
However, the semblance of normality quickly disintegrates when Stephanie's dead brother appears back in his room and the man and woman decide to play operation on this little girl who may or may not be their daughter. Stephanie doesn't like the game Operation, and that means Stephanie is going to make these people who have invaded her home pay.
Stephanie has its share of strengths and weaknesses. Its biggest strength is probably the creepiness factor. Watching this little girl wander around this house alone, looking at and talking to her dead baby brother with flies buzzing all around him, is the kind of stuff that makes you lose your appetite.
And it uses that tone, combined with a series of intriguing mysteries, to pull you in. It's not easy to write 30 pages of a character wandering around a house by herself and keep it interesting, but stuff like the dead brother and the mysterious x-rays achieved just that. You were definitely frustrated that things were moving along slowly, but at the same time, you couldn't stop turning the pages. You needed to find out where this was going.
And I really admired Collins and Piotrowski for using so little dialogue in the story. This was not about long conversations between daughters and parents. It was about visuals, images, sounds, moments - the kinds of things that make a horror script a horror script.
However, there were a couple of things that bothered me. The first was that the writers were always waaaaaaaay ahead of the reader. I mean you didn't have ANY IDEA what was going on at all. And after awhile, that started to get frustrating. You wanted answers, and the script wasn't going to give you a single one until the very end.
It's important to reward the audience every once in awhile with an answer to one of the mysteries, so that we feel like we're making progress. Take "The Others," for instance, a movie about a mother and her children living in a giant house alone during the war. They start hearing noises around the house and at first believe it may be a Nazi trying to take refuge in the home. We have an "answer." But when that doesn't prove to be right, it's implied that it might just be the kids playing tricks on their mother. Okay, we have another "answer." Then, when that's proven wrong, we genuinely believe it's ghosts. Another "answer." In other words, we keep feeling like we have a beat on things - only to have a new development prove us wrong, forcing us to start over again.
There's nothing like that here. Outside of maybe an implication that the dead brother is causing all this, we're given very few if any answers, only more questions. The parents, in particular, act so damn weird that I don't know what's going on. I don't even know if they *are* the parents, which is kind of cool in a "what the f*ck is going on right now?" way, but since we've been asking "What the f*ck is going on?" for an hour now and still don't have any leads, we're antsy.
And without getting into spoilers, I'm not sure the ending provided those answers. Visually, it was really cool to see Stephanie lose it, but I still wasn't sure what happened to her brother. I still wasn't sure what prompted the parents to leave and why they came back. I didn't know how long they were gone. I didn't know why Stephanie wasn't sure if they were her parents or not. And I wasn't sure how Stephanie became...super-power Stephanie (unless the arrival of this tumor caused it - which felt like it needed way more of a detailed explanation).
On the one hand, I can see why this has received attention. It's really spooky. It's a story I haven't quite scene before. The mysteries keep you turning the pages. I just wish we were rewarded more often and got more answers in the finale. This wasn't quite for me. But, if you liked the second half of Looper, you're probably going to like Stephanie a lot. Let me know what you think.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn't for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I think it's a huge gamble to be too far ahead of the reader for too long. You can do it for a little while, but sooner or later the reader wants answers. If you ignore this advice, your ending has to be, like, the best ending ever. We *really* have to feel rewarded for reading that long without any sort of payoff.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Screenplay Review - The Equalizer
Genre: Thriller
Premise: A former Black Ops soldier, Robert McCall, is trying to make a quiet life for himself, when he's inadvertently pulled into a battle with the world's most notorious Russian criminal, a man with endless resources who always gets what he wants. And all he wants is to kill McCall.
About: Based on an 80's TV show (which I've never heard of), The Equalizer will star Denzel Washington. Writer Richard Wenk has written a half dozen produced films, including 16 Blocks, The Mechanic, and The Expendables 2. Don't let that fool you though. This script is his best work to date by a million.
Writer: Richard Wenk (based on the television show by Michael Sloan).
Details: 106 pages - 1st draft (June 25th, 2012)
Status: In development
WOW!!! This is the script/franchise Jack Reacher wishes it could've been. One of the best scripts I've read all year. Top notch writing in virtually every category. But all night working on other Scriptshadow stuff (which will be revealed soon) means the review won't be up until 1:30 pm Pacific Time. :(
Update: Due to a combination of my laziness and some polite e-mails asking me not to review this yet, I'm going to hold off and review it another time. But there is a new script review up today. Go check out Stephanie here!
Sorry for all the foreplay and no climax! In short, though, this script was awesome!!!
What I learned: Just a wonderful way to add backstory and depth to a character by showing and not telling. McCall is always reading books. Eventually, we find out why. His wife was trying to read the "100 Books You Need To Read Before You Die" before she passed away. So now McCall's doing it, as sort of an ode to his wife. We have physical images (the book) to SHOW us key McCall backstory (that his wife died). Great writing!
Premise: A former Black Ops soldier, Robert McCall, is trying to make a quiet life for himself, when he's inadvertently pulled into a battle with the world's most notorious Russian criminal, a man with endless resources who always gets what he wants. And all he wants is to kill McCall.
About: Based on an 80's TV show (which I've never heard of), The Equalizer will star Denzel Washington. Writer Richard Wenk has written a half dozen produced films, including 16 Blocks, The Mechanic, and The Expendables 2. Don't let that fool you though. This script is his best work to date by a million.
Writer: Richard Wenk (based on the television show by Michael Sloan).
Details: 106 pages - 1st draft (June 25th, 2012)
Status: In development
WOW!!! This is the script/franchise Jack Reacher wishes it could've been. One of the best scripts I've read all year. Top notch writing in virtually every category. But all night working on other Scriptshadow stuff (which will be revealed soon) means the review won't be up until 1:30 pm Pacific Time. :(
Update: Due to a combination of my laziness and some polite e-mails asking me not to review this yet, I'm going to hold off and review it another time. But there is a new script review up today. Go check out Stephanie here!
Sorry for all the foreplay and no climax! In short, though, this script was awesome!!!
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn't for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 25!)
[ ] genius
What I learned: Just a wonderful way to add backstory and depth to a character by showing and not telling. McCall is always reading books. Eventually, we find out why. His wife was trying to read the "100 Books You Need To Read Before You Die" before she passed away. So now McCall's doing it, as sort of an ode to his wife. We have physical images (the book) to SHOW us key McCall backstory (that his wife died). Great writing!
Friday, November 2, 2012
Cool New Script Out On The Town - Sanctuary!
Awhile back I read a script called Sanctuary under strict confidentiality from writer Todd Warner. I thought the potential was so freaking high (it felt like that "Next Matrix" everyone had been looking for since 1999) that I tried to get on the project myself, but Todd was already working with people so it was impossible. However, I believe in the project so much that I'm unabashedly letting everyone know that this IS the next Matrix. It's basically about this tiny percentage of people who are possessed by demons. However, with the right training, you can learn to control your demon and actually use them to unleash powers within yourself that the average human doesn't have, such as shooting fire or moving faster than the average person, etc. etc. It's just really cool stuff. I also thought it was cool that Todd made his main character a woman, a way to differentiate itself from The Matrix, yet still make it familiar. Anyway, the script went out today. If you have it, read it! Really hoping something good comes of it. And if not, well, that's not so bad either. Maybe then I'll be able to convince Todd to let me jump on board. This is the kind of franchise potential project producers dream of. I want to be involved! :) :) :)
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Amateur Week - USS Nikola Tesla
Welcome to Amateur Week! All week we're reviewing scripts from amateur writers that got the best response from this post. We've already had one script perform REALLY WELL in "Fascination 127." And today we review the highest concept of all the entries, "USS Nikola Tesla." Is it only a cool concept? Or is the execution just as good? Let's find out...
Genre: Sci-Fi/Supernatural
Premise: (from writer) The American Navy's latest destroyer, the USS Nikola Tesla, disappears without a trace. Two years later she reappears with no sign of her crew. But no one realises this ship holds a dark secret that dates back to World War Two and a horrifying experiment.
About: The big worry when you open up a high concept script from an amateur writer is that that's all it's going to be. The writer will set up the high concept in the first 20 pages, we'll be riveted, and then once they don't have that crutch to lean on and actually have to tell a story, the whole thing falls apart. I PRAY whenever I read one of these scripts that that's not the case. Because if a reader finds a high concept script that's also a great story? It's like finding gold. You can start printing the money.
Writer: Anonymous (more on this in a second)
Details: 99 pages
Status: AVAILABLE
When I recieved the e-mail query for this script, it was accompanied by a very cryptic note from the writer, who explained that he couldn't include his name on the screenplay. It was something about...I don't know...how he had top secret clearance at Area 51 or something and if his name was associated with the script, men in black would visit his home and terminate him, along with all other members of the Resistance, except for the ones who were sent back in time to save humanity. I'm not sure what any of that means but it has me curious as to what happens if this script sells. Who do they write a check to? The writer obviously can't accept the money. Maybe I'll take it. Seems like a logical compromise.
Of course, I've gone down the anonymous writer path before. You'd be surprised at the lengths writers will go to get their scripts read, and the "anonymous" route is a popular one. Oftentimes the writer will imply a bunch of vague allusions to "big name actors" circling their script and how they'll get in trouble if they send it. But they're going to risk it all and send it anyway! They just can't reveal their name.
There was even one guy who told me he had come across an old screenplay during a yard sale. He bought it for kicks and it turned out to be the most amazing thing he'd ever read. If I was interested, he noted, he could send it to me. I said, "Sure" just to see how far he'd take the story, and he magically sent me a PDF document of the script that was converted from a word processing program. If this was an old script he found at a yard sale, wouldn't it have had to be scanned? Anyway, I opened the script up out of pure curiosity, and the first scene was a 10 pager focusing on urinal humor. Look, I respect playing the game a little. Just know that when a reader feels like they're being taken for a ride, they're going to be hard on your script. So, will that approach doom USS NIKOLA TELSA? Let's find out.
"Tesla" begins with an ode to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. A bunch of American soldiers in Afghanistan walk up a hill in the desert to see, below them, a giant half of a submarine. No, not a submarine sandwich (I should be so lucky). But an actual submarine.
Meanwhile, in Glasgow, two teenagers are making out on a foggy dock when a huge naval destroyer comes bearing down on them. They run for their lives, barely able to make it to safety, but soon afterwards, there's a loud groaning noise from inside the ship and then a shockwave of energy shoots out, vaporizing the couple. And before the dude could even make it to second base!
Cut to army officials in rooms making hushed phone calls. "It's back," they tell one another. The USS Nikola Tesla. Apparently it had gone off on some training mission two years ago and disappeared! Naturally, they need to figure out what caused its return, so they e-mail the experts.
Two of those experts are Lieutenant Robert Montrose and Lieutenant Claire Allen. Montrose is a notorious Navy playboy who's constantly looking to get his turret waxed. And Claire is a no-nonsense engineer who's next sexual encounter will probably be her first. Obviously, when these two get paired together, conflict is going to fly!
And they do get paired together, along with a group of other officials who have been brought in to check out the mysterious return of this boat. It isn't long before they realize something's up. The boat likes to groan a lot, and it seems like everywhere you look, something is dashing behind a corner. Add a little magnetism to the mix - a pen will be yanked out of your hand and stick to the wall - and boarding this boat becomes its own little house of horrors.
But the biggest question of them all comes in the form of Charlie, a young man dressed in a World War 2 naval uniform who tells Montrose and Claire he'll give them a tour of the boat if they're interested. Once he touches them, a flash of light occurs, taking our characters to Nowheresville, and the story along with them!
Montrose and Claire end up in a 1950s military hospital and Charlie informs them that he was part of the original Philadelphia Experiment and when his boat was destroyed, he decided to use this new boat to show the world just how stupid they were for messing with science. How he plans to get his point across? By blowing some cities up mothafuckuh! And he has the powers to do it! While poor little Montrose and Claire only have the power of persuasion to stop him. Dammit these paranormal Navy ghost World War 2 Philadelphia Experiment castoffs. They always seem to screw up a perfectly good day.
Okay.
To put it bluntly? My biggest fear was realized. Strong setup. But with every page afterwards, the story fell more and more apart. And it's not Anonymous' fault. Well, not entirely. This is why there's such a steep learning curve with screenwriting. You have to learn how to tell a story, not just set up a story. It's a mistake I see made all the time. Writers think that all they need is a cool idea and they're finished. No, you need a cool idea AND the knowledge of how to write a second act. The second act is where the concept takes a back seat to the characters. If the characters aren't interesting in some way, if they aren't tackling something substantial within themeselves and between each other, then the second act will rest too heavily on a series of forced plot points that we won't care about because we don't care about the people inhabiting them.
And that's what happened here. Once Charlie shows up, the script just becomes one goofy nonsensical sequence after another. Look at Aliens. That was a hardcore action sci-fi thriller, right? But in that second act, you have Ripley battling her trust issues (she doesn't trust Burke or Bishop or the entire operation) and trying to protect this surrogate daughter, Newt. In "Tesla," we have Montrose and Claire bickering with each other via cheesy dialogue and Charlie being super-dramatic and often confusing with his scientific explanations. I'm still not sure how Charlie became a part of this ship in the first place.
I suspect that this stems from another common amateur mistake - the refusal to outline. You can almost always tell an un-outlined script because the further the script goes on, the less it makes sense. It feels like the writer is making stuff up as he goes along because that's exactly what he's doing. When you write this way, you feel this pressure to "keep things interesting," and so you try and top whatever outrageous scene or sequence you just wrote with an even MORE outrageous scene or sequence. It's kind of like that desperate boy pining for a girl's attention. Sucking up jellow through a straw into your nose didn't work, so why not rip your shirt off and start dancing on the table?
That's not how screenplays work. You need to carefully plot out what's going to happen 20 pages down the line so you can build up to that moment, whether it be through suspense, set-ups, or character development. "Tesla" certainly had a lot of stuff going on, but none of it felt cohesive. It felt more like a distraction to make sure you didn't realize that there wasn't a story.
If I were Anonymous, I'd focus on three things moving forward. First, learn the value of outlining. Once you know where your script is going, you can create a more logical and plausible plot. Second, learn how to tackle your second act. A second act isn't just a bunch of crazy shit happening. It's a slow build, where you tackle most of your characters' issues. Which leads me to the third focus - character development. Give your lead characters something inside of themselves that they're trying to overcome. With Ripley it was trust. But it might be the recent death of a family member, an inability to love, or the desire to prove that you belong. The possibilities are endless. But if a main character isn't tackling SOMETHING inside themselves, chances are they're boring.
What I learned: A screenplay isn't just a high concept you parlay into a cool first 15 pages. The other 95 pages are going to be read as well, and those are the ones that are going to be more tightly scrutinized. Cause every reader worth his salt knows that that's where you find out if you're dealing with a writer or just an idea guy. Consider your high concept to be your "good looks." It's what gets you in the door. But you still have to be charming, you still have to be intelligent, you still have to be interesting. Your second and third acts are what's going to prove your value as a writer, so make sure they kick ass.
Genre: Sci-Fi/Supernatural
Premise: (from writer) The American Navy's latest destroyer, the USS Nikola Tesla, disappears without a trace. Two years later she reappears with no sign of her crew. But no one realises this ship holds a dark secret that dates back to World War Two and a horrifying experiment.
About: The big worry when you open up a high concept script from an amateur writer is that that's all it's going to be. The writer will set up the high concept in the first 20 pages, we'll be riveted, and then once they don't have that crutch to lean on and actually have to tell a story, the whole thing falls apart. I PRAY whenever I read one of these scripts that that's not the case. Because if a reader finds a high concept script that's also a great story? It's like finding gold. You can start printing the money.
Writer: Anonymous (more on this in a second)
Details: 99 pages
Status: AVAILABLE
When I recieved the e-mail query for this script, it was accompanied by a very cryptic note from the writer, who explained that he couldn't include his name on the screenplay. It was something about...I don't know...how he had top secret clearance at Area 51 or something and if his name was associated with the script, men in black would visit his home and terminate him, along with all other members of the Resistance, except for the ones who were sent back in time to save humanity. I'm not sure what any of that means but it has me curious as to what happens if this script sells. Who do they write a check to? The writer obviously can't accept the money. Maybe I'll take it. Seems like a logical compromise.
Of course, I've gone down the anonymous writer path before. You'd be surprised at the lengths writers will go to get their scripts read, and the "anonymous" route is a popular one. Oftentimes the writer will imply a bunch of vague allusions to "big name actors" circling their script and how they'll get in trouble if they send it. But they're going to risk it all and send it anyway! They just can't reveal their name.
There was even one guy who told me he had come across an old screenplay during a yard sale. He bought it for kicks and it turned out to be the most amazing thing he'd ever read. If I was interested, he noted, he could send it to me. I said, "Sure" just to see how far he'd take the story, and he magically sent me a PDF document of the script that was converted from a word processing program. If this was an old script he found at a yard sale, wouldn't it have had to be scanned? Anyway, I opened the script up out of pure curiosity, and the first scene was a 10 pager focusing on urinal humor. Look, I respect playing the game a little. Just know that when a reader feels like they're being taken for a ride, they're going to be hard on your script. So, will that approach doom USS NIKOLA TELSA? Let's find out.
"Tesla" begins with an ode to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. A bunch of American soldiers in Afghanistan walk up a hill in the desert to see, below them, a giant half of a submarine. No, not a submarine sandwich (I should be so lucky). But an actual submarine.
Meanwhile, in Glasgow, two teenagers are making out on a foggy dock when a huge naval destroyer comes bearing down on them. They run for their lives, barely able to make it to safety, but soon afterwards, there's a loud groaning noise from inside the ship and then a shockwave of energy shoots out, vaporizing the couple. And before the dude could even make it to second base!
Cut to army officials in rooms making hushed phone calls. "It's back," they tell one another. The USS Nikola Tesla. Apparently it had gone off on some training mission two years ago and disappeared! Naturally, they need to figure out what caused its return, so they e-mail the experts.
Two of those experts are Lieutenant Robert Montrose and Lieutenant Claire Allen. Montrose is a notorious Navy playboy who's constantly looking to get his turret waxed. And Claire is a no-nonsense engineer who's next sexual encounter will probably be her first. Obviously, when these two get paired together, conflict is going to fly!
And they do get paired together, along with a group of other officials who have been brought in to check out the mysterious return of this boat. It isn't long before they realize something's up. The boat likes to groan a lot, and it seems like everywhere you look, something is dashing behind a corner. Add a little magnetism to the mix - a pen will be yanked out of your hand and stick to the wall - and boarding this boat becomes its own little house of horrors.
But the biggest question of them all comes in the form of Charlie, a young man dressed in a World War 2 naval uniform who tells Montrose and Claire he'll give them a tour of the boat if they're interested. Once he touches them, a flash of light occurs, taking our characters to Nowheresville, and the story along with them!
Montrose and Claire end up in a 1950s military hospital and Charlie informs them that he was part of the original Philadelphia Experiment and when his boat was destroyed, he decided to use this new boat to show the world just how stupid they were for messing with science. How he plans to get his point across? By blowing some cities up mothafuckuh! And he has the powers to do it! While poor little Montrose and Claire only have the power of persuasion to stop him. Dammit these paranormal Navy ghost World War 2 Philadelphia Experiment castoffs. They always seem to screw up a perfectly good day.
Okay.
To put it bluntly? My biggest fear was realized. Strong setup. But with every page afterwards, the story fell more and more apart. And it's not Anonymous' fault. Well, not entirely. This is why there's such a steep learning curve with screenwriting. You have to learn how to tell a story, not just set up a story. It's a mistake I see made all the time. Writers think that all they need is a cool idea and they're finished. No, you need a cool idea AND the knowledge of how to write a second act. The second act is where the concept takes a back seat to the characters. If the characters aren't interesting in some way, if they aren't tackling something substantial within themeselves and between each other, then the second act will rest too heavily on a series of forced plot points that we won't care about because we don't care about the people inhabiting them.
And that's what happened here. Once Charlie shows up, the script just becomes one goofy nonsensical sequence after another. Look at Aliens. That was a hardcore action sci-fi thriller, right? But in that second act, you have Ripley battling her trust issues (she doesn't trust Burke or Bishop or the entire operation) and trying to protect this surrogate daughter, Newt. In "Tesla," we have Montrose and Claire bickering with each other via cheesy dialogue and Charlie being super-dramatic and often confusing with his scientific explanations. I'm still not sure how Charlie became a part of this ship in the first place.
I suspect that this stems from another common amateur mistake - the refusal to outline. You can almost always tell an un-outlined script because the further the script goes on, the less it makes sense. It feels like the writer is making stuff up as he goes along because that's exactly what he's doing. When you write this way, you feel this pressure to "keep things interesting," and so you try and top whatever outrageous scene or sequence you just wrote with an even MORE outrageous scene or sequence. It's kind of like that desperate boy pining for a girl's attention. Sucking up jellow through a straw into your nose didn't work, so why not rip your shirt off and start dancing on the table?
That's not how screenplays work. You need to carefully plot out what's going to happen 20 pages down the line so you can build up to that moment, whether it be through suspense, set-ups, or character development. "Tesla" certainly had a lot of stuff going on, but none of it felt cohesive. It felt more like a distraction to make sure you didn't realize that there wasn't a story.
If I were Anonymous, I'd focus on three things moving forward. First, learn the value of outlining. Once you know where your script is going, you can create a more logical and plausible plot. Second, learn how to tackle your second act. A second act isn't just a bunch of crazy shit happening. It's a slow build, where you tackle most of your characters' issues. Which leads me to the third focus - character development. Give your lead characters something inside of themselves that they're trying to overcome. With Ripley it was trust. But it might be the recent death of a family member, an inability to love, or the desire to prove that you belong. The possibilities are endless. But if a main character isn't tackling SOMETHING inside themselves, chances are they're boring.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn't for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: A screenplay isn't just a high concept you parlay into a cool first 15 pages. The other 95 pages are going to be read as well, and those are the ones that are going to be more tightly scrutinized. Cause every reader worth his salt knows that that's where you find out if you're dealing with a writer or just an idea guy. Consider your high concept to be your "good looks." It's what gets you in the door. But you still have to be charming, you still have to be intelligent, you still have to be interesting. Your second and third acts are what's going to prove your value as a writer, so make sure they kick ass.
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