Best Screenplay Contenders – part one

6 Jan

A lot of notices are zipping around about various ‘best screenplay’ nominations for 2011.  And a few of them have a love/hate relationship with general audiences, so I thought I’d offer a mashup of some of the more out of the norm stories that generated buzz last year — TREE OF LIFE, THE ARTIST, THE DESCENDANTS and some related successes. For the most part I’ll leave it up to you to decide if any of these are best screenplay contenders, or more importantly if they grab you in the 1st 10 pages.

When reading THE TREE OF LIFE‘s  1st 10 pages I couldn’t help but thing about Koyaanisqatsi; breathtaking important and powerful — yes — but you have to be in the mood for it.

But happily the script does progress, albeit a tough read, certainly Malick’s directing really brought the film to life, as it should. And given that he also wrote it, he didn’t really have to worry too much about alienating readers or studio development executives it was his baby and he delivered it well.

If you’re interested in learning more about the unique structure of Tree of Life, (there is a name and standard for it) the very talented Jacob Krueger is hosting an online (and in person if you’re in NYC) seminar on January 11th.

THE TREE OF LIFE Seminar

And Hegelian Dialectical Structure Wednesday, January 11th, 7pm-9pm
Dialectic structure is not just for epic art house films. Learn how to use this unique type of structure to breathe life into your characters move your film forward.

It’s a very reasonable price for an extremely valuable look at character work, here’s the link again:

http://www.writeyourscreenplay.com/the-tree-of-life-seminar/

And, here’s the link to the 1st 10 pages of TREE OF LIFE.

If want to take the seminar let me know and I’ll send you the whole script.

Now, what is truly remarkable about THE ARTIST is that even with its ancient format and structure that lends to a truncated page length; on page 10 we have Peppy and George ‘in love’. The mid-point is equally clear as is the 2nd act turning point into the 3rd.

Though it is prose-like in places, it is a good representation of ‘show not tell’, and that is what silent films do best.  That and the dialogue cards, sparse as they are, are nearly all laden with subtext and zingers. Yes, it’s all about pushing the drama, but that’s why it’s worth a look to see how you can push the drama in your story.

The fact of the matter is, old is new again, what goes around comes around, everything is cyclical, blah blah insert mantra here… And what I mean is, lets look at some of the biggest successes of last year(s) in film, online and on shelves: THE ARTIST, THE MUPPETS, HUGO (based on the novel THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET), the amazing app/online book/film all around transmedia project, THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MORRIS LESMORE (great character name btw) and by the same author of THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET, Brian Selznick, and his new book WONDERSTRUCK. All of these huge successes, and beautiful stories, play homage to a simpler time somewhere on the border of silent film and talkies. Except for the Muppets they only go back as far as the 80’s but still incredible to see how far we’ve come, to go back. The point is, not to write to a trend, but clearly all of these projects were a result of a creative approach ‘in the air’ at a certain time, to be tapped into and released in almost at the same time. Think about that, don’t be afraid to ‘toon’ into, or play homage to nostalgia and make it relevant, chances are you could be part of a trend and not know it until you read about it in the trades. For your consideration here is a link to the entire 44 page script:

http://twcguilds.com/assets/screenplay/the-artist.pdf

And the Weinstein’s are generously providing all of their considerations for download here:  twcguilds.com

 

THE DESCENDANTS.

I can’t help but wonder if George Clooney weren’t Matt King, (and to some extent, if this wasn’t a Black List script), would this have generated so much heat. Don’t get me wrong I love George and his ability to uh, generate heat. And the script is good but I’ve read better. See for yourself, Fox Searchlight has also stepped up and officially posted it for download HERE.

Aside from the excessive voice-over, (again it works because it’s George), I just felt cheated at the end which I guess in a way supports a main plot point. I did however love the character work in the girls and of course, George.

Enjoy and stay tooned.

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1st 10 pages special edition: A little ELF for the season

23 Dec

Last year I posted the 1st 10 breakdown of the holiday classic IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, this year I decided to go with a cult classic ELF.

I’ll keep the breakdown brief as a gift to you all, and to all a good night!

The script is long for a comedy (120 pages!), but the pacing never drags and the production tightened up the shots so that the runtime comes in a 97 minutes. Most of those cuts were in dialogue because the action is very economic in words and aided by Will Farrel’s terrific schtick.

Pg one:

Notice how simply the world is set up. The tone is immediately set, with sound effects such as the music SCRATCHES off and the FREEZE frame is a nice punctuation to emphasize the catalyst that is the arrival of our hero crawls onto the scene.

I don’t recommend the practice of not titling a character’s dialogue and adding (cont’d) when it continues after an action line.

Pgs. 2-5 are tremendously efficient in pacing, tone and backstory. These are a true Christmas miracle, much like Buddy is to the Elfiwitzes.

Pgs. 6-10 were changed a lot during production, to be even more efficient in establishing the hero as not belonging in his world. A simple change is on page 8, Buddy doesn’t have a desk that fits him in the film. Not only did the tiny desk, save some set production issues, (and money) it is funnier seeing him crammed into the tiny elf desk.

ELF

(and for your Christmas bonus – no jelly of the month club here, you get the whole 1st act).

Enjoy! Have a joyous and productive New Year, and may at least one of your stories find a home.

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NOTES FROM THE NET – Transmedia, what it means for writers and how it’s affecting the slush pile

21 Nov

There have been previous Notes from the Net about how writers (of any form) can and should use multiple forms of media to gain traction for their stories.

Ebooks, Webseries, games, QR codes, streaming, piracy, business models, Pottermore and much more will continue to evolve for years to come – but where I once preached that writers and artists needed a website and maybe a blog to get noticed, what I’ve learned recently makes those mandates small in comparison. The past couple of months my projects have really put me on the front lines of online media for film, publishing, screenwriting and documentary efforts. And at first, I thought it was one of those cases of just being in-tune with my current state, but the links and recollections that follow will have you thinking long and hard about how to best present your work no matter what chapter your storytelling career is in.

First up is the lovely and talented Julie Grey from JUST EFFING ENTERTAIN ME. Not only does Julie run some well known screenwriting competitions, she is co-founder of Stories Without Borders, a non-profit organization committed to fostering the creative voices of students and women through the medium of film and as well as a blogger for her own site, she is also a blogger for Huffingtion Post, a published author and is based on the Warner Brothers lot. So, bottom line – she has her finger on the pulse.

In a recent conversation with her, that was supposed to be about screenwriting development we got sidetracked about novel writing. And what do you know? The two have more in common than you can imagine.  It seems at Warners in particular, all of the development executives are soaking in as many eBooks as they can for source material and she has opened up her services to include not only consultation on those manuscripts but also promoting the books on her highly trafficked site. http://www.justeffing.com/consultation/.

Similarly, I was chatting with one of screenwriting’s hottest managers around last week, (he’s sold 13 specs this year alone) and the thing he is most excited about is ‘transmedia’. If you haven’t heard the term, transmedia is essentially various forms of viral and Internet items that tease people on the film or book and give them a reason to investigate further.

Here’s some of what he had to say:

I’m so excited about this. I just signed the creators, producers and co-director of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Essentially, the first people to ever do transmedia in terms of a film. Right now, not only am I bringing them scripts and opportunities to direct, but I’m also bringing them transmedia opportunities for other people’s movies because they’re the go-to guys.

I think transmedia is a major component of selling and marketing a project.

If you don’t have an online presence that drives people to your movie, and especially when you don’t have a big studio marketing budget, you’ve gotta think outside the box and you’ve gotta create a viral way of introducing your story to the audience. Some transmedia campaigns are really on the nose, and you’ll see the title of the film associated with the campaign. And some are completely anonymous, and it’s up to the audience to discover what this is - What movie or TV show it pertains to. Transmedia can also include comic books and Videogames, which admittedly can get expensive. So the cheaper alternative can be viral videos, short films, YouTube clips, interactive websites… anything.

Now onto book publishing:

First up is Patrick Carmen, a very successful ink on paper book author that has now continued his success in transmedia. And not only has it brought new audiences to his material, it has also expanded his world of story. The next two links explain how and perhaps for you diehards, why…

His reasoning.

His DARK EDEN.

And before you write it off to just one author with money already in the bank, here’s two more:

GOBZRK

And an ipad media project about books winning film awards – it’s so transcendental it actually defies one specific media outlet

http://morrislessmore.com/

And finally, how one author got her publishing deal via a social media slush pile, much like those being absorbed by Warner’s Execs.

http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/11/social-media-sites-new-slush-pile/

Coming Soon: A film development Exec’s story development process.

Stay tooned.

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An extra hour to write

6 Nov

I hope all of you in the US used the extra hour to get out all of those words that make our world of story…

Enjoy.

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John Green’s ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ Exclusive – 1st 10 pages

4 Nov

Award winning author John Green (LOOKING FOR ALASKA, OUR TOWN) gives us a sneak peek at his upcoming book, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS.

These 1st 10 pages speak for themselves.

Exclusive excerpt of ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ by John Green – USATODAY.com.

Enjoy.

POETRY ON THE PAGE

31 Oct

I was going to write a post on ghostwriting a sort of ‘ghost story’ being you know 10.31, but I had to get this one off before its nuggets began to fade.

Last week I had the pleasure and honor to be a part of the Austin Film Festival. It is extraordinarily special from those film festivals, not only in every city, but also the ones that boast major star power – because this film festival focuses on the writer more than any other.

This year there was a definite theme amongst panelists, award ceremonies, pitch evaluations, and even casual roundtable conversations, and that was the poetry on the page. Mind you, this was not a promoted theme, nor did all the speakers get together and agree to refer to it, it just came about organically.

So what does it mean?

It is what sets apart good writing from bad. If the poetry isn’t there it’s why your story isn’t being accepted. It’s not about rhyming or sonnets per se, but it is how EVERY SYLLABLE of your story is absorbed effortlessly when read.

So how does one achieve that?  The long and short answer is, with practice.

Terry Rosio gave a fantastic example in his talk, where he graciously went through participant’s scenes and rewrote them ON THE SPOT.  Here’s the moment the light bulb switched on for him:

As he told it, he handed this line to his writing partner:

Stuart got up out of his chair, went over to the door, and shut it closed.

His partner instantly revised it to:

Stuart rose up from his chair. Shuffled across the room to shut the door. Leaned against it, to make sure it was closed.

Tight.

Terry’s response was F*@k you, but in a good way, because his craft was instantly elevated and he saw how.

Now, one could argue (and they often do) that the revision is two lines longer… what about the coveted white space and page count?

And these are genuine concerns and considerations he puts into EVERY SYLLABLE, but more important he explained ‘is the ratio of value to the reader’. In his partner’s rewrite, there is so much more personality, physicality and tension it is worth every character. — literally. To put it another way, the rewrite, immerses the reader in the scene, the original just lays out the facts.

Pen Dansham, writer of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, the new book RIDING THE ALLIGATOR and producer of so many other great stories, calls writing ‘casting a spell’… because 1st scripts are a reading experience before anything else. The script (and any writing really) needs to be crafted to seduce the reader… make it incredibly readable… This means no screen direction, no laundry lists of what’s going on, no pictures chasing dialogue. He also believes that it is impossible to pitch badly, if you are truly passionate about your story.

Even writers of action and horror, (Rhett Reese, ZOMBIELAND and much more, Scott Rosenburg, THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU’RE DEAD and much more, Jon Turman, HULK and more), spoke of dedicating their time to perfecting the flow of EVERY PAGE and infusing the most gratuitous chases and fights with personality and purpose, and breaking it up so the reader doesn’t skim over. Granted executives often butchered the hell out of their works, but that didn’t stop them from making it a good read to start with.

The amazing Caroline Thompson won this year’s distinguished screenwriting award, and to hear her story, about her stories and craft, you instantly knew why. She begged us not to write what the business seems to want, and stated that if she were trying to break into screenwriting today she’d never be able to — with all of the screenplay formatting and structure courses and rules – she firmly believes it is unproductive to think so much about the story. She writes 5 pages a day, no more, no less. She always writes forward, not reviewing the previous day’s work. This gives her a 1st draft in a month! And she rewrites it 5x before showing ANYONE.

BTW – Rossio and his partner (Ted Elliott) write 40-80 drafts of every script! Firmly believing they can always make it better.  (I’ll get into their sequencing method another time).

The bottom line is, you need to agonize over every syllable, line break and cadence of words – that’s how the pros got to be that way.

I strongly recommend going to Austin’s festival next year. Regardless of what you think of Texas as a whole — or its government – Austin is unique enough to get amazing talent and decision makers to open up in accessible ways you will not find anywhere else. Plus, any place that celebrates every dusk with a million tiny bats soaring over the city is simply put; poetry in motion.

Austin Film Festival boasted both star power and quality films.

Happy Halloween!

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Why your screenplay didn’t advance or get optioned – revisited

18 Sep

I’ve addressed this before, but this time of year as the major screenwriting competitions are sending out notifications, I get bombarded with question of ‘Why didn’t my script get chosen?’ more than I get ‘Will you read my script and help me?’ Trust me that’s saying a lot — I have not been without coverage/consultation/reading/ghost-writing work for one single day in over a year. (Which is why, posts on 1st 10 pages have been few and far between — btw, I was on the verge of remedying that a few weeks ago, when my stack was down from over a hundred scripts to just a few, and then I got a massive assignment out of the blue — it’s under control now, so the post frequency is on the mend).

Back to your regularly scheduled programming:

In this edition of WHY I’m going to get right to the point and point you to someone who sums it up with data.

The trends I’ve been seeing lately that drive me crazy:

1) an opening scene or sequence, (good or bad) that goes on for a few pages and then a new story starts with different characters that will eventually meet up with those in the opening scene. (Unfortunately so much time is spent on the opening pages that by the time the two meet, we are past page 30). More often than not, I love the opening only to be disappointed by the rest.

2) CUT TO: This makes me nuts on specs (it’s expected on production or shooting scripts) — Why it makes me nuts is multi-fold; it distracts from the flow of story, it eats up valuable page real estate, and frankly it screams ignorance, EVERY NEW SCENE BREAK / SLUGLINE is a cut!

3) Bad character development. It is never important to describe someone’s clothes to color and make UNLESS it is a plot point. And even then say your character is a fashion designer that goes through profound change and lives out her days not caring about clothes. Then that person is set up as someone dressed to perfection in couture pieces that would make Heidi Klum jealous and in the end, they’re in cut-offs and a stained wife beater. Character development allows actors to own the role while painting an image for them to do so.

Before you get too offended by constructive criticism of your words or wonder why so many notes come back with the terms ‘overwritten’ or ‘too much direction’ consider this video of 25 of the best ‘unscripted scenes in movies’.

I’m the first to defend a writer when some pop star brat says writers are not needed for a good movie, but the fact of the matter is a writer (and later director) gave these actors and their respective characters room to breathe. (Except in the case of Dustin Hoffman in MIDNIGHT COWBOY – but come on, it’s Dustin Hoffman.)

The difficulty in screenwriting is the finer-than-a-hair line balance between setting the stage for a story to be properly executed and imagined, to beating your reader/audience over the head with words. It starts in evaluating a movie premise – is there a singular problem the story focuses on which is big, important, time-sensitive, complicated, and hard enough to make anyone other than you the writer care?

And that my dear writers, is why it’s so hard to win that competition or FADE IN.

Now for the data:

I link you to BOSI’s newsletter this week, the bulk is good advice but I want you to scroll down to the Danny Manus article where he tells it like it is.

The Business of Show Institute – The Screenwriter’s Success Newsletter, September 16 2011 | The Business of Show Institute.

Stay tooned…

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