I thought I might get back into script reviews & analysis beginning with stories from the 2008 Blacklist, which can still be obtained here. I know many of my readers weren’t excited about the Blacklist scripts, and honestly, I wasn’t either. But weak scripts make for good reviews because you can always learn something new.
Ever since I read fellow Script columnist Bill Martel’s article on Scott Frank’s After Hailey, I’ve been curious. Scott Frank, the man who fixed Minority Report and gave us Out of Sight, Dead Again, and Get Shorty wrote a melodrama about a man recovering from the death of his wife. Really? The story is based on a novel by Jonathan Tropper in which a 20-something man’s older wife dies. He returns to his old home for his sister’s wedding, and he is reunited with the troubled teenage son from Hailey's previous marriage. Ho hum, right? Martel called it “Plot 53B” because we’ve seen it a million times. Hell, I’d say it’s beyond clichéd to have this kind of setup. If a couple of producers asked me to write this kind of story for them, I’d pass. I can foresee all the potential problems – the clichés, the passive protagonist moping about over the death of his wife, and the stomach-churning melodrama. You’d have to be insanely careful to avoid so many career-halting pitfalls in this kind of setup. But – Scott Frank took this on. SCOTT. FRANK. How the hell would he handle this subject? Thus, I had to read it.
I found this script to be a great platform to talk about something I’ve been thinking about for a while – Managing Your Emotions.
So let me cover Bill’s articlefirst. I agreed with every word he wrote:
Because it’s Scott Frank (or, maybe this was in the novel it’s adapted from) someone does pull out a gun and actually shoot someone - those dramatic family explosions include fist fights and shootings - and what is amazing is how even the violence pays off in interesting character-oriented ways. One character has their greatest moment due to the presence of the gun. The film has a different story, but much of the same feel of Frank’s THE LOOKOUT - a character dealing with past mistakes and past tragedies. The strength in this script is the writing, not the story... and that may be why it only got 5 votes. It’s probably the least flashy script on the Black List.
And I have to share this, too, which is about writers who take on personal stories when they’re finally given the chance to direct:
This is a trap screenwriters often fall into when they get to make their own films. One of the reasons why I am a big fan of Scott Frank is because he usually works in the crime genre - his big break was DEAD AGAIN, a mystery thriller about reincarnation starring Emma Thompson as an amnesiac who was either a victim or a killer in her past life... and Frank kept you guessing until the very end. Frank adapted two Elmore Leonard novels to the screen - and both were critical and financial successes (GET SHORTY and OUT OF SIGHT). Elmore Leonard calls him “his screenwriter”. I read the Cohen draft of MINORITY REPORT, and it was crap... then read the Frank draft and it was brilliant - all of the great things in the film are from the Frank draft. If you want a great crime-mystery-thriller type script, Scott Frank is the man.... But when he got a chance to make his own movie, he made THE LOOKOUT... which is more character study than crime drama. Look, I loved THE LOOKOUT - I wrote an article for Script about some of the swell, clever writing. I own the movie on DVD. But no matter how great that film is, it is not MINORITY REPORT or DEAD AGAIN or GET SHORTY... and the film didn’t burn up the box office.
Take Tony Gilroy, who took a Robert Ludlum potboiler and turned it into a franchise that is not only the most freakin’ exciting action films made in a decade, they are also intelligent and character oriented and haunting. When the BOURNE movies are so powerful that they change James Bond... and recharge that series with CASINO ROYALE (until QUANTUM killed it) - you have a writer who knows how to please the audience and the critics. So they give Gilroy the chance to make a movie, and does he make something that will catapult him to the top? Does he write the script that will be a huge financial success and insure that he will be able to call the shots from now on? No, he falls into the trap and makes MICHAEL [CLAYTON], a really good character study that doesn’t make much money... though, I own that one on DVD, too and really like it. Basically, the writer’s trap is to make the film that other writers will really love... but won’t do very well with the mass audience that controls what films get made and who makes them. These guys end up making small films that either result in them being able to make more small films... or them not being allowed to make anything ever again. They make that one personal film that no one would ever buy or ever let them make in the past... without asking “Why?” Why wouldn’t anyone let them make it? Why wouldn’t anyone buy it? Why do they think this is the best script to make now? Why do they even want to make this script?
I completely agree. And I can hear the complaints already: “It’s not always about the box office.” You’re right. It’s not. But you better make damned sure you don’t lose money either. And these little personal stories can very easily sink your backers, which will in turn sink your career. This is more about establishing yourself (as a new director) with solid hits before you move on to personal stories. Building a following as a screenwriter is one thing. Building a following as a director is another and you have to build trust first. There’s a lot of wisdom in waiting before you get personal. You need to know what you’re doing and hone your craft first, and I’ll tell you why: personal stories can be unbelievably deceptive as you write them.
It’s like this. You sit down and start writing your story. You know the characters inside and out. You’re in a scene and you’re feeling the feelings of all the characters. That’s a good thing. Nothing wrong with that. But some writers can get swept away and distracted by those feelings. And they assume that the feelings of the characters that they are feeling as they write the scene will also be felt by the audience. That’s deceptive. That may not be the case. The scene may not play well at all. So you have to be careful. You have to Manage Your Emotions as you write a story. You have to know the emotions of the characters certainly, but you also need the discipline to step back and understand the emotion of the scene, have a feel for the rhythms and beats of solid drama, and consider how well it will play to audiences.
So, for example (and this is common), I read a scene in which all of the characters are having a fun moment together. They’re getting along and feeling good and laughing. And the writer is feeling the happy feelings of those characters as he writes the scene. And he assumes that the readers will also feel those same happy feelings as well. But, more likely, they won’t, because a scene like that is static, has no conflict, no tension, no drama, and usually fails to advance the story in a substantive way. You may be feeling those happy feelings of the characters in that moment, but you need the discipline to know that this scene may not play well for all the reasons I just listed and cut it. This is not to say that you can’t have a scene like this, but you have to be damn careful. If your script is filled with scenes like this, you better believe your readers will be bored out of their minds. I think this is a big pitfall for timid screenwriters, because they write a bunch of happy scenes like this and want the readers to feel happy and praise the writer, but all it does is put the readers to sleep. It takes conflict and drama to hold the attention of all your readers.
How you’re feeling when you’re writing your scenes and how the reader feels when he’s reading your scenes are many times totally different perceptions and experiences. You have to Manage Your Emotions and step back, look at your story as a whole, and work hard to make the reader feel the emotions you want them to feel, which does not necessarily mean you will be feeling them as you write.
Here’s another example: a newbie writes a story from his personal life experience and wrote the script EXACTLY as it happened. And then he’s stunned and angry that he’s getting bad reviews. “This is real life! This is what happened!” That doesn’t necessarily mean that it makes for a good screenplay or an engaging drama. That doesn’t mean it’s cinematic or a story well told. Or the characters are fleshed-out. All it means is that the writer committed an act of personal indulgence because he was thinking about himself, his friends, how it all happened, re-experiencing the emotions he felt at the time, and never once thought about the craft of drama or how well this might play to audiences. But he felt all the emotions of the scenes as he wrote them! Except they didn't play well because he hasn't had enough writing experience to stand back, consider how it plays to an audience, and work hard to create effective, engaging drama. Also, because it's so personal, the newbie will inevitably lose all sense of objectivity about his story. When someone tells him, “you should cut this one character - he’s a waste,” the newbie resists because… that’s his friend. He’s not thinking about the craft of drama and screenwriting. I always tell newbies – avoid personal stories. Learn the craft first.
And so we have a setup like After Hailey. We have a man coming home for a wedding after his wife has died. This kind of setup can be deceptively appealing even to the pros. Writers can be attracted to this kind of story because they want to go on that emotional journey of the protagonist. They want to feel the feelings of that sad protag and go with him on the journey of emotional rehabilitation. (I’m not suggesting this is why Frank chose to take on this story. He may very well be doing this story for a myriad of other reasons. But this is usually why a writer would tackle a story like this.)
Now, just because you’re feeling the feelings of that sad protag and also the changing feelings of the protag over the course of the story does not necessarily mean that the audience will be feeling those feelings, too. What the character is feeling and how effectively those feelings are being conveyed to the audience are two completely different scenarios. Because what are they seeing? A boring, sad, passive protag moping about his house for two hours accompanied by a bunch of sad music. This is how writers can fall into a trap with their personal stories because they’re committing acts of emotional indulgences as opposed to writing a story for an audience. And they’re not effectively managing their own emotions as they write because they’re not stepping back from the characters to look at the scene and story as a whole and consider how well it will play to audiences.
And you think I’m setting you up for big complaints about Scott Frank, don’t you? No, just the opposite. This is where I find praise for Scott Frank. The setup is clichéd as hell, but Frank never fell into writerly indulgences and he never lost sight of the audience as he wrote his story. That is such a refreshing, admirable quality to find in a setup like this. He kept it simple and brought in a lot of humor so the movie would play well. The humor was the highlight for me.
There is, however, a fatal error in my opinion. In a setup like this, I think you have to show the death of Hailey in the beginning, because that guarantees the audience will be feeling the feelings of your sad protagonist as he mopes about. You have to do that. Here, Frank saves the revelation of how she dies for the end, which didn’t work for me. How her death took place isn’t such a big deal that it should be saved for the end. You need to show that in the beginning in order to ensure that the audience is on the same page as the protag. You can fill in the details later with the kind of flashbacks that are already in the script, but showing the death early will sink a deeper hook in the audience, make them more invested in the protag’s arc, and ensure that they are on the same emotional page as the protag.
A few other random thoughts:
- Let me just quote Bill Martell again, because I completely agree. The script is littered with “we see”s and camera direction stuff, and at 127 pages, I think it would have come out danged close to 120 without them... and you’d never miss ‘em. Those things take me out of the story and take up space. Another thing that bugged me was having everyone called MAN or WOMAN if they speak before being introduced - I have no idea whose fool idea this is, but if you’re doing breakdowns you end up with this character MAN in almost every scene, but when it comes to casting MAN it ends up not a character at all - but all of the male characters the first time they speak. I can understand if you are trying to keep the identity of a character secret, but when the same actor is going to play MAN and RICHARD, you’re just making it pointlessly confusing by referring to him by two names. The breakdown and scheduling programs go by the character name - and MAN and RICHARD are two different names and that makes them two different characters. I thought the exact same thing!
- I thought the tone was uneven. The beginning of the story was deadly serious with Doug taking photos of dead babies and their crying mothers but then the story shifted gears into comedy, which was odd to me. That’s too big a shift in the tone.
- Doug, the protag, was too passive. Of course, that’s the nature of the beast in this kind of story, because he is reacting and dealing with Hailey’s death. But things were always being done TO him instead of him doing anything to push the plot forward. Hailey approaches him in the bar. Russ is brought to Doug to deal with. Laney makes the move on Doug. Claire pushes the plot forward with her own problems, etc. Because he’s a passive photographer, because he keeps himself disconnected from the subjects he’s taking photos of, because things are always being done TO him, his personality gets lost in the process, and you never really connect with him. The best example of this kind of setup has to be Kieslowski’s Blue. When her husband and daughter were killed in the car accident, Julie (Juliette Kinoche) was still active in all the ways she was running away from life.
- For me, too much of the dialogue was on-the-nose, characters saying exactly what they are thinking and feeling. I’d like to see Frank aspire to more layered dialogue, more subtext. (BTW - I loved Claire.)
- And the ending. I thought it went on for too long and it was filled with too much dialogue. He needed a stronger emotional punch than what he gave us, one that really justifies us sitting through this terribly clichéd setup we’ve seen a million times. Frank crammed many things into that ending, and all things considered, I just wasn’t moved. I’d suspect that the ending was weak because the setup was weak.
- Having said all of these things, I do love Scott Frank, man. That man should keep writing to the end of his days.
I would've posted one of these sooner, but there hasn't been a lot in the way of screenwriting news lately. Besides, it seems we’re the ones making the news lately with little articles like The Raiders Story Conference. In fact, I compiled a list of humorous blurbs from around the media and blogosphere, which I thought were kind of funny.
I can’t believe MMoF wound up on Entertainment Weekly What may be a holy grail of Indiana Jones artifacts was posted online on Monday: a 125-page transcript of the original story-conference meetinginvolving producer George Lucas, director Steven Spielberg, and writer Lawrence Kasdan. The blog, Mystery Man on Film, somehow got its hands on the alleged transcript, which features the filmmakers talking at great length in January 1978 about what would eventually become Raiders of the Lost Ark. The thing's a pure joy to read. In it, you can find the genesis of everything from Indiana Jones' name to his fear of snakes to his (possibly risque) romantic history with Marion Ravenwood.
One of my favorite moments in the transcript occurs when Spielberg is repeatedly transfixed with making Raiders' famous opening rolling-boulder-chase sequence feel like a Disneyland ride. "What we're just doing here, really, is designing a ride at Disneyland," Spielberg says on page 15. And guess what happened 17 years later, in 1995? Disneyland opened an Indiana Jones ride, or should I say, an amusement-park ride based on a movie based on an amusement-park ride. It's postmodernism at its best!
And The New York Times Ever wonder what it was like at the meeting when a classic film was being born? If so, check out the Mystery Man on Filmblog, which has posted what is says it a link to the 125-page transcript of the story conference for Raiders of the Los Ark that included producer George Lucas, director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan.
Peter Sciretta at Slash-Film: I’m not sure if it’s just the screenwriter hidden inside of me, but I find it extremely cool to read these conversations.
John August: I’ve never worked with Lucas, but the snippets with Spielberg feel very accurate based on my interactions with him on JP3, Minority Report and Big Fish. He’s always looking for the little moments that click… The screenwriter’s role in marathon meetings like this is to listen and refocus the ideas. You’re trying to capture not just the plot points, but the enthusiasm. Fast forward a few drafts, and there will likely be torturous meetings in which every decision is micro-analyzed. But at this first step, the only goal should be mapping out the territory you want to explore.
Pop Magazine Rick is nerding out at the next desk telling me I have to link tothis 125 page transcriptof George Lucas talking to Steven Speilberg and Lawrence Kasdan about Raiders of the Lost Ark… Ummm, Enjoy?
NBC Local News in Dallas Fort-Worth The behind-the-scenes treasure trove was posted by Mystery Man on Film, a blog devoted to the art of screenwriting… The transcript, whose provenance is a mystery, is a discovery worthy of Indiana Jones himself. Check out this inside view of two masters at work before the lawyers get in on the act and hide the document in that big warehouse where the Ark got secreted away among hundreds of identical crates.
Jonathan B.:Excuse me while I clean myself up. I just peed a little.
Nick at Phantom LeapThis is the best thing the internet has given me in a good long while, and a perfect reminder of why we all owe so much of our childhoods to Lucas and Spielberg, no matter what they’ve been responsible for in recent years.
Jordon Lapp saidMystery Man gets it right when he says that one of the most important insights here is that they started not by plotting out Raiders of the Lost Ark, but by developing Indiana’s character.
The Writing LifeYou may not particularly like Kasdan’s work — or, for that matter, Lucas and Spielberg’s — but the level of detail and insider juice makes this a must-read for anyone with an interest in screenwriting. I mean, Syd Field ain’t even coming close to this.
Sweetney wrote“The transcript reveals, among other things, that George Lucas created an actual numeric, mathematical formula for storytelling on film. So awesome… Yes, I am so totally this geeky.”
Metafilter said:It also makes one wonder what happened to George Lucas, a man who once had a math formula for exciting cinema.
Some crazy film school professor loved it Prof. Metcalf asked me to post this link to a post on “The Mystery Man on Film” blog, which focuses on screenwriting. The post deals with story construction vis-a-vis Raiders of the Lost Ark and has some good insights on narrative. The rest of the blog looks pretty good too!
Good Brownie Once in a while, you come upon a post on some blog that really makes your afternoon.This onedid it today for me. A real treat, especially for Raiders fans.
And Martin Adams I always knew some day you'd come walking back through my door.
The end of Paper? Screenwriter Tom Cole Died American stage and screenwriter Tom Cole has lost his battle with cancer at the age of 75... Best known for his film and stage writing, it was Cole's 1985 film Smooth Talk that helped launch Academy Award-nominated actress Laura Dern to fame after it became a surprise hit at the Sundance Film Festival.
Screenwriter Millard Kaufman dies at 92 Screenwriter Millard Kaufman, who co-created the cartoon character Mr. Magoo, was nominated for Academy Awards for his screenplays for Take the High Ground! and Bad Day at Black Rock and won a cult following as a first-time novelist at age 90, has died, a spokeswoman said. He was 92.
Another Horton Foote article For his screen adaptation of the best-selling Harper Lee novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," he won at the Oscars in 1962. That hit movie earned eight Oscar nominations in all, including best picture. And leading man Gregory Peck finally triumphed with his fifth lead actor nod. The role of Atticus Finch would come to define the actor to generations and topped the 2003 AFI list of screen heroes.
Salman Rushdie Trashes Slumdog Rushdie wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper that the central feature of the film -- that a boy from the Mumbai slums manages to succeed on the Indian TV version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" -- "beggars belief." "This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name," the author of "The Satanic Verses" said in the article…
Sahara writer hit with bill Sahara didn't just flop at the box office, it's cost novelist Clive Cussler a chunk of change as well. The author has been ordered by a Los Angeles Super Court judge to pony up nearly $14 million in legal fees after he failed to win a lawsuit against the pic's producer, Crusader Entertainment.
Hehehe…
Watchmen writer Forms Company, Shows Scary Side of Belguim Dark Hero Studios is actually the name of Hayter's new company (co-founded with Doomsday and upcoming movie adaptation Castlevania producer Benedict Carver), which has been created as a place to produce new SF, horror and fantasy franchises in whatever medium possible (They're looking at movies, comics and video games to begin with, but Hayter feels like he's got a great cookbook in him somewhere). (Update: Warren Ellis clarifies in the comments that he's written an animated Castlevania movie, not the live-action version.)
Watchmen Screenwriter Needs Fans To Rewatch Film Watchmen dominated the box office last weekend. But if fans hope to see more like it where the source material is taken so seriously, they need to go back to the theaters again this weekend ... and bring friends. That's what screenwriter David Hayter told fans in an open letter that appeared on the Hardcore Nerdity Web site this week that while making more money would be great for the film, the scribe says it's more about creating an avenue for more films like Watchmen to be made. "You have to understand, everyone is watching to see how the film will do in its second week," Hayter said. "If you care about movies that have a brain, or balls (and this film's got both, literally), or true adaptations -- and if you're thinking of seeing it again anyway, please go back this weekend...
Q&A with Watchmen Writers David Hayter and Alex Tse "It takes a lot of setup to introduce an interdimensional space squid, it just does… You can't just say, oh there it is, and look, there's my squid… The difference between the novel and the movie, and this is the real difference, is, we don't have the appendices afterwords. And the whole thing with that storyline is all setup in the Wizard magazine, the stories about the comic book, and it's also setup in Tales of the Black Freighter, to a certain extent - there's stuff about the secret island, these artists… That's all stuff that I would have to spend screen time explaining at the end of a movie where I've already spent two hours explain a lot. Clearly the movie does not shy away from piling information on top of you. But I felt that that was going to come out of nowhere."
"For all of the infinite possibilities of film, I believe, you have to be very circumspect about the number of magical things that happen in your movie." Hayter tangents onto X-Men and the mutant gene briefly, then continues. "You have Dr. Manhattan, who was your element of magic in the story, and then you have the squid, who came out of another dimension and could cast psychic waves of destruction, and that seemed like an extra bit of magic that came in at the end, and needs a lot of setup to justify it. So, it became obvious that if you use Dr. Manhattan, well, it's already setup, and he is the force, and he is the outside threat that has been throwing the whole world into chaos anyways, the has thrown off history. So in the end, it seemed to make sense."
Finding your audience - publishing tips and resources for young writers Start small. The best way to get your work published is to be published. Look into smaller imprints or those just starting out, as they are often more likely to pick up new writers. School papers and literary magazines, community newspapers and newsletters, and even church publications are other possibilities. You never know who might be interested in your work unless you ask.
Know your audience. Every publication has its own bent. Publishers will choose pieces that are not only well written but are thematically in line with the type of work they feature. Take the time to read through a sample copy of the publication, making sure that your work will be a good fit. Most publishers will supply you with a recent copy of their journal or magazine; some charge a small fee while others require only a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE).
Become a strong writer, regardless of your major 2. A paper is not a text message. There are differences between formal and informal writing, just as there are differences between formal and informal attire. Do not confuse the two. Text message shortcuts might be acceptable to your friends, but they are not appropriate in a college level paper. Equally important: before you hand in a paper, be it a first draft or a final draft, remember to proofread, proofread, proofread.
Screenwriter Jonathan Nolan urges students to follow passions “Be a lucky person,” screenwriter Jonathan “Jonah” Nolan recalled. That was the advice he and his brother, director Christopher Nolan, received from a famous British director about how to enter show business. “When I first heard it, it sounded smug,” Jonah Nolan said. “The more I think about it, the more humility I see contained in that statement.”
Matt Damon thinks the Oscars should be on a 10-year time delay Interview with Green Lantern Screenwriter "The trick for me," he continues, "is that I like super powers that are sort of impactful. I like punches and fights and stuff like that. Giving the Green Lantern ring that sort of impactful feeling as it's being used, is a bit of a trick, but it can be done and I hope that I've done it in this. I didn't want green beams fighting green beams. I wanted as many objects formed in those beams as I could. And the idea behind the screenplay, the subtext going on in the screenplay, is that Hal Jordan is sort of a natural, with his imagation creating things that go beyond beams. Hal is focused, but he's very imaginative. At least in the script there's a scene where, when he's not doing anything, he's making little objects with his ring like someone doing doodles. We'll see if that remians. The script was a little long, so they had to do some judicious editing."
“The writer is the first star of a film.” – Kamlesh Pandey Forbidden Planet gets a Rewrite… because of the Internet Scripter J. Michael Straczysnki and the higher-ups at Warner Brothers have decided to trash the writer’s first pass at drafting a follow-up/sequel/ to the classic Forbidden Planet and start over from scratch. The do-over is not due to a question of quality in the writing, but due to the fact that details of the storyline had already started to leak, even though actual production on the project has yet to be greenlit.
DiCaprio's Atari inventor bio-pic, the screenwriter talks The title's been floated around as Pong, or Atari, and the subject of the film will be Nolan Bushnell, the scruffy 30ish "hippie" who invented Pong and Atari, the first great video game company, back in the 70s. South Florida screenwriters Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman came up with the idea of a bio-pic, got close to the family to get the rights, and are scripting it for Leonardo DiCaprio and Paramount, "since Leo is the right age...and the biggest star in the world," says Hecker, whose feature writing-directing debut, Bart got a Room opens in April.
Tupac Shakur's Screenplay Live 2 Tell Will Be Made Into A Movie Fellow Script Columnist Dave Trottier on The Paradox of Creativity The great paradox is this: Constraints cultivate creativity. It’s true that your inner artist may grow frustrated by intrusions from your inner critic, but outside parameters are just the challenge your right brain relishes. Imposed parameters can be inspiring!
One of Italy's best screenplay writers worked with Fellini The screenwriter Tullio Pinelli, who has died aged 100, worked with the director Federico Fellini, co-writing the first nine and last two of his films, including La Strada (The Road, 1954) and La Dolce Vita (1960). He also co-wrote films by Alberto Lattuada, Pietro Germi, Mario Monicelli and other Italian directors. He started screen- writing in 1943, having been considered one of the most promising post-Pirandello Italian playwrights… Born in Turin, the son of a magistrate, Pinelli, did his national service in a cavalry regiment and became a solicitor. As a boy, he and his brother created puppet plays. In adulthood he wrote plays, and opera librettos, one of which, Villon, in 1941, was for Carla Bruni's composer father. Meanwhile, Pinelli's young wife sent one of his plays to theatre critic Silvio d'Amico. He introduced Pinelli to a theatre manager, who commissioned a play a year from the dramatist.
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman reflects on his directorial debut The Oscar-winning scribe of 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind says he’s felt fulfilled as a writer, so he didn’t feel the need to use that pursuit as a steppingstone to directing; plus, he’s never seen those jobs “as a hierarchical thing the way people in the business do ... I think that they’re very different jobs, and I don’t think directing is more important than writing. I think that you could make an argument in the converse — not that I would, but you could, but no one does.”
Wouldn't it be loverly . . . . or not OK, fasten your seat belts, because this is one of those rumor-dogged projects where it's hard to sort out the fact from the fluff. But, after watching Keira Knightley sing in The Edge of Love this week (not particularly well, it must be said, though she looked smashing), I wondered what was going on with the My Fair Lady remake. This is, of course, a truly awful idea, except that Emma Thompson is writing the screenplay, and I have governed my life by the principle that anything Emma Thompson does is absolutely OK. (I mean, the woman writes her screenplays in longhand, for heaven's sake.) So I'm torn.
Screenwriter Hired for Dante’s Inferno Last December, 411 slapped you over the head with the news that Electronic Arts was working on a third-person action-adventure game based on Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy simply entitled Dante's Inferno. Well, as it turns out, Universal Pictures recently hired screenwriter Dan Harris (X2: X-Men United, Superman Returns) to pen the script for a live-action film based on the Electronic Arts video game. Patrick O'Brien, Vice President of EA Entertainment, and game creator Jonathan Knight are both involved in the development of the film.
Julian Fellowes, screenwriter of The Young Victoria Screenwriter, novelist, actor, director, and producer. Is there anything Julian Fellowes can’t do? The answer is navigate, or so he tells me as we sit in a huge multiplex cinema in Milton Keynes. I’m here thanks to an invitation to a sneak preview of his latest film The Young Victoria, a wonderfully lavish drama about the turbulent early years of Queen Victoria’s reign and her romance with Prince Albert. Julian’s here thanks to a satnav.
Aw, I love Julian Fellowes…
The Case for Writers as Game Designers Writers, by their very nature, are often a difficult species to categorize. After all, given the sheer numbers of mediums, styles, genres and formats, the term “writer” could mean anything from best-selling novelist, to greeting card scribe, to the nameless copywriter penning the instructions on the back of your shampoo bottle. Nowhere is the unquantifiable nature of writers more evident than in the countless wordsmiths currently working in the video game industry. Yes, writers have now become an integral part of the game development process, a role as equally important as programmer, animator, concept artist or producer. Yet the uncertain nature of being a writer remains, with game scribes being classified as everything from screenwriter and narrative designer, to dialogue scripter and interactive storyteller. The truth is there really isn’t any given template for what a game writer does with tasks ranging from developing branching storylines for a triple-A shooter to creating snappy dialogue for a casual match-three puzzle game.
Shahrukh gets Hollywood writer for home production Shahrukh Khan is going international with his next home production Ra.1. The star has roped in Hollywood’s famous writer and director David Benullo for writing the screenplay of his movie. Recovering fast from his shoulder surgery, Shahrukh is committed to Ra.1, a huge-budgeted SFX flick which he is making for his son, Aryan. According to sources, Ra.1 will be unlike any other sci-fi film made till now in India. And since Indian writers don’t have much experience of penning down such movies, Shahrukh got writer David Benullo from Hollywood, who has earlier written the screenplay of the movie Around the World in 80 Days, and is script writer for movies Hallowed Ground, Cupid and Shadow Man.
Not long ago, I reread Stephen King’s how-to diatribe,On Writing. In fact, I read quite a few grammar books as a refresher and to help spice up my articles for Script Magazine. With respect to King, I’m sorry. The more I read his book, the more I disagree with him. His book is more pokable than the Pillsbury Doughboy. 1) A Thesaurus is actually a wonderful thing.Rogetscan INSPIRE breathtaking sentences! And 2) don’t even get me started on adverbs. King was horrifically wrong about adverbs. But the one area upon which we can agree is that timid writers suck the big one.
As I’m sure most of my brilliant readers already know, King trashed timid writers when it came to passive verbs and sentences:
Verbs come in two types, active and passive. With an active verb, the subject of the sentence is doing something. With a passive verb, something is being done to the subject of the sentence. The subject is just letting it happen. You should avoid the passive tense. I’m not the only one who says so; you can find the same advice in The Elements of Style.
(Oh, you mean thatlittle grammar bookthat’s SO pre-digital age and revised only 4 times since 19-frickin’-18? That one? Did you know that E.B. White was an essayist and writer for The New Yorker? In 1957, he wrote, “I felt uneasy at posing as an expert on rhetoric, when the truth is I write by ear, always with difficulty and seldom with any exact notion of what is taking place under the hood.” Even Strunk, the English professor, said, “the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the readers will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation.” WHAT? You can break the rules? But back to King.)
Messrs. Strunk and White don’t speculate as to why so many writers are attracted to passive verbs, but I’m willing to; I think timid writers like them for the same reason timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe. There is no troublesome action to contend with; the subject just has to close its eyes and think of England, to paraphrase Queen Victoria. I think unsure writers also feel the passive voice somehow lends their work authority, perhaps even a quality of majesty. If you find instruction manuals and lawyers’ torts majestic, I guess so.
(But sometimes the passive sentence IS majestic. These are the times that try men’s souls. How are you going to improve upon that sentence? It’s perfect! If you wanted to make it active, you’d have to write, “We live in the kind of times that try souls.” Or maybe we should make the word “times” active since that’s what’s screwing with our souls? “These times try men’s souls.” Eh. “Times like these try men’s souls.” Ugh... We could make “souls” active. “Men’s souls must endure trying times as these.” Or how about: “Soulwise, these are trying times!” Oh puh-lease. Sorry! Back to King.)
I won’t say there’s no place for the passive tense. Suppose, for instance, a fellow dies in the kitchen but ends up somewhere else. The body was carried from the kitchen and placed on the parlor sofa is a fair way to put this, although “was carried” and “was placed” still irk the shit out of me. I accept them but I don’t embrace them.
(It’s not “was carried” and “was placed.” It’s “was carried… and placed.” Nothing wrong with that. Sorry! Back to King.)
What I would embrace is Freddy and Myra carried the body out of the kitchen and laid it on the parlor sofa. Why does the body have to be the subject of the sentence, anyway? It’s dead, for Christ’s sake! Fuhgeddaboudit!
(Funny that King writes “Fuhgeddaboudit!” as this kind of “offbeat,” rogue word was strictly prohibited by Messrs. Strunk and White. Slang and diction? Are you kidding? In fact, White decreed about thirty years ago that you can’t write slang because, “by the time this paragraph sees print, uptight, ripoff, rap, dude, vibes, copout, and funky will be the words of yesteryear.” Sorry, dudes! Back to King.)
…And remember. The writer threw the rope, not The rope was thrown by the writer. Please oh please.
May I ask a question? What if you’re writing a mystery and this is the sentence that reveals the killer? Wouldn’t you want to save that revelation for the end? “The rope was thrown by… THE WRITER!” No way! Damn writers! Or what if you’re writing a joke? “All of these outrageous, sexually depraved emails were written by… my mother.” Bwaah ha ha ha ha ha ha WOO HAAA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Or what if you used the passive voice to emphasize a passive character like the way Germaine Greer did inThe Female Eunuch: “The married woman’s significance can only be conferred by the presence of a man at her side, a man upon whom she absolutely depends. In return for renouncing, collaborating, adapting, identifying, she is caressed, desired, handled, influenced.” The structure may be passive, but there’s passion behind Germaine’s words.
In any case, I do generally agree about active verbs, although exceptions can be made, kinda like voice overs. Just because someone broke the rules, the world shouldn’t get hysterical. To King’s bigger point, I absolutely agree that timid writers suck. In novels, according to King, timid scribes tend to embrace a passive voice.
I’ve always wondered how this translates into screenwriting. Naturally, everyone knows you must keep your action lines in the present tense and use active verbs because you are in the moment with the characters as you are watching a film. But what are other qualities that would characterize the timid screenwriter?
I thought of 10 or so qualities.
THE TIMID SCREENWRITER
1) Avoids Drama, Tension, & Conflict – I believe the key to timid screenwriting is what King said, that the writer makes decisions so “There is no troublesome action to contend with.” This is what kills me about new writers. They dream and work hard to become a screenwriter, yet, they’re so reluctant to embrace drama. Hello? That’s screenwriting! And sometimes I think they deceive themselves when they’re writing happy warm scenes where all the characters are getting along because they’re feeling the happy feelings of the characters. And they assume the reader will feel those feelings as well. No, they won’t. That’s when the reader will be falling asleep because there’s no drama, tension, or conflict. That’s what a story is. FADE IN and something’s wrong. Or writers will just dip their toes into a conflict and then quickly get away from it, and I find myself telling them, “get rid of all that extraneous shit and dive right into the drama. That entire scene should be about the conflict!” Or in horror scripts, I’ll tell them to embrace the tension and fear and drag out the suspense to excruciating levels. That’s the fun of horror! There’s another aspect of avoidance. Some writers keep themselves distanced from the action, too. An important scene would take place off screen. Or we would have to watch important action scenes from a distance. Like a battle scene observed solely from a mountain or men going down into a tunnel filled with monsters or something, but we’d be watching the action only on TV screens in a newsroom. Put the reader in the middle of the action!
2) Passive Protagonists – Much has been written on this topic, and I’m sure my readers do not need this explained. Just as timid writers embrace passive sentences in novels, I think they also embrace passive protagonists in screenplays. This is where things are being done to the protag, as opposed to a protag being active and mixing things up. One of my cigar friends is in sales and he says he gets up at six a.m., works out, and then gets into his office to “make things happen.” That’s a good protagonist. There are exceptions to this rule. I have few problems with Forrest Gump or Benjamin Button. But I’d have to say that new writers should master the art of the active protag first before delving into exceptions. You need to be established before people will be willing to embrace an exception like that.
3) Weak Antagonists – Even pros make this mistake, which at times can be just poor decision-making. But sometimes, with new writers, I think they make certain decisions to weaken an antagonist because they want to be accepted SO MUCH as a writer that they water down the antagonist to make it easy on the reader. That’s crazy! Readers WANT to go on that wild ride. They WANT to feel that tension and suspense. Otherwise, what’s the point? Or maybe timid writers think that nasty antagonists will reflect poorly on their personalities because they want to be viewed as nice people. Fuhgeddaboudit! If you love stories, you must love a good strong nasty villain. Besides, the nastier the villain, the more satisfying the finale.
4) Excessively Pared-Down Dialogue and Action Lines – Some writers have read so much about “Show, Don’t Tell” that they’re almost afraid to write dialogue. Look, your characters need to be alive on the page! There’s nothing at all wrong with dialogue so long as it’s good dialogue, which for me means forgetting about realism and aiming for layers and subtext. Also, some writers pare down the action lines to keep as much white on the pages as possible. There’s nothing wrong with action paragraphs either, so long as there’s a reason for every single word you write and you avoid incidental actions. Follow Dave Trottier’s principlesof keeping the action paragraphs down to four lines or fewer. It’s all good so long as it serves an important purpose.
5) Wrong Emphasis in Action Lines – Sometimes I think that timid writers pay an extreme amount of attention to the action lines and descriptions of rooms and incidental actions as a way of avoiding conflict. This is about HOW the scene plays out. This is about WHAT happens, not so much all of the little details you’ll see on the screen. I once came across a script full of “maybes” in the action lines. “John (maybe) shoots Kate (or he stabs her or poisons her).” I said, “What the hell is going on with these actions lines?” Well, he had read an article that suggested adding “maybe” to the action lines because screenplays are a collaborative effort and this would invite collaboration. Are you kidding me? It’s your job to figure out the story! I told the writer to stand up, straighten his back, stick his chin out and write, “John shoots Kate.” There. Don’t you feel better?
6) Thin Plots – There’s nothing wrong with starting out on a simple plot. In fact, there’s wisdom in starting out simple. But that doesn’t mean you should stick with one plot and nothing else. To do this risks stretching your story too thin. Throw in a subplot or two.
7) Flashback Structures – With a few exceptions, I despise flashback structures. There was a time when I was actively writing reviews onTriggerStreetthat it seemed almost everyone had a flashback structure. I think this stems from a need to hook the reader early because they aren’t confident enough to think they can hold the attention of a reader through a normal 3-act structure. So they try to hook a reader by showing part of the ending first and then making that reader sit through 120 pages to actually see how the ending ends! Fuhgeddaboudit! Do the hard work. Master the 3-act structure.
8) Lack of Trust in the Reader – I touched upon this earlier, but it’s worth repeating. An inevitable sign of growth in a new writer (and we all go through this arc) is in the area of trusting the reader. Newbies and timid writers who haven't developed the discipline of trusting the reader tend to over-explain simple things in the action lines or they over-explain obvious reactions in characters or they indulge in on-the-nose dialogue to convey obvious emotions we all know that particular character is feeling. Over time, you'll learn that you only need to explain something once (or not even explain it at all) and then move on because you know very well that your readers are with you, will get it, and will appreciate you more for trusting them.
9) Copy Instead of Create – Creating is what makes screenwriting so much fun! And I think timid writers tend to pull from scenes and techniques and style choices in other successful films (thinking that it will make their own story successful) as opposed to taking a concept and making it your own. Just because a certain sequence or technique worked well in another film does not necessarily mean that it’ll work at all in the context of YOUR story. Sit back and ask yourself: “What’s the best way to tell THIS story?” “How can I tell this story in ways we haven’t seen before?” Brainstorm about ways you can be different.
10) I Can’t Think of Another One – What are your thoughts?
Last year, I put together a trilogy of screenplays, which is available to read under my profile on TriggerStreet. (You have to register with the site to download the scripts, but it’s free.)
We thought we’d try an experiment, a la Paris, Je Taime. We’d get about 20 writers together, take a topic (like love), and give each writer only six pages to write anything they’d like to write about love. Then I’d compile them together into one screenplay and upload it onto TriggerStreet to share. We first did a script on Love, which was extremely popular. So we followed that up with a script on Hate, and last December, we uploaded our third and final script on Fear.
I gave the writers only one week to turn in their six pages. It’s amazing what stories they came up with. I love it! And yes, you will find a short in each screenplay written by me. The other writers are some of the best on TriggerStreet. Of the three, Loveis probably the most popular and periodically frequents the site’s Top Ten list, although Hateis highly ranked in the 100’s. Fearhas some quality work inside from great writers who were hand-picked by me.
I'm famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. I'm a homebody who jetsets around the world. I'm brash and daring yet chilled with a twist. I also write for Script Magazine.
Take Tony Gilroy, who took a Robert Ludlum potboiler and turned it into a franchise that is not only the most freakin’ exciting action films made in a decade, they are also intelligent and character oriented and haunting. When the BOURNE movies are so powerful that they change James Bond... and recharge that series with CASINO ROYALE (until QUANTUM killed it) - you have a writer who knows how to please the audience and the critics. So they give Gilroy the chance to make a movie, and does he make something that will catapult him to the top? Does he write the script that will be a huge financial success and insure that he will be able to call the shots from now on? No, he falls into the trap and makes MICHAEL [CLAYTON], a really good character study that doesn’t make much money... though, I own that one on DVD, too and really like it. Basically, the writer’s trap is to make the film that other writers will really love... but won’t do very well with the mass audience that controls what films get made and who makes them. These guys end up making small films that either result in them being able to make more small films... or them not being allowed to make anything ever again. They make that one personal film that no one would ever buy or ever let them make in the past... without asking “Why?” Why wouldn’t anyone let them make it? Why wouldn’t anyone buy it? Why do they think this is the best script to make now? Why do they even want to make this script?
