A scene from class about Anne d'Autriche

Every month I go to this workshop and we write stuff. Plus they give us breakfast.

Today the assignment was to become a character from history or literature who you know a lot about and do a bunch of assignments with that character. There were some pretty cool assignments, but the culminating task was to write either a eulogy or a scene from your character's life. Most people in the group write in prose, but since I do scripts I wrote mine as a script.

You may remember last month's bizarre scene. This one is taken from the life of one Anne of Austria, queen of France, on the night she and her husband finally knocked boots after years of awkwardly staring at each other from a distance.

Yes, my hero is Anne of Austria. Bet you didn't see that coming.

Anyway, here's the scene I wrote today:

INT. THE ~LOUVRE - NIGHT

In its most elegant hey day, filled with busy servants and elegant tapestries.

INT. ANNE'S BEDCHAMBER - NIGHT

ANNE OF AUSTRIA, teenage queen of France, all blonde curls and smiles, laughs with her chief lady in waiting, MARIE DE ROHAN, in their bed clothes. Anne speaks her French with a thick Spanish accent, often forgetting words. Marie supplies those that are missing.

INT. LOUIS' BEDCHAMBER - NIGHT

LOUIS XIII, teenage King of France, timid and pale, tries to read while his best friend and chief advisor, DUC DE LUYNES, paces back and forth through the room.

DUC DE LUYNES

For God's sake, man, if she could climb into your lap and still maintain her considerable dignity she would. Her only job in this world is to make you a baby. Would you please go to the woman?

Louis throws down his book.

LOUIS

What do you have against literacy?

DUC DE LUYNES

The woman is your wife. She beautiful, demure-

LOUIS

Spanish.

DUC DE LUYNES

You don't need words to fuck the woman.

LOUIS

I don't... I can't...

DUC DE LUYNES

Oh for God's sake.

He grabs Louis by the arm, yanks him out of his chair.

Duc De Luynes throws open the door, pulling Louis into the

HALLWAY

Where servants start, not sure what they ought to offer the king in his bed clothes.

Luynes drags Louis down the hall.

LOUIS

I beg your pardon, sir! I am the king and I shan't-

DUC DE LUYNES

Hush!

A bodyguard moves to intervene. Duc De Luynes puts up a hand to stop him.

DUC DE LUYNES

The king of France is off to make a baby! Do not stand in his way!

The guard backs off, amused.

INT. ANNE'S BEDCHAMBER - NIGHT

Anne stares at herself in the mirror, pushing her breasts together.

ANNE

Better?

MARIE

Have you considered getting him drunk?

ANNE

Is it my nose? Perhaps my nose is too round.

MARIE

Your nose is beautiful. The man is an imbecile. My husband says-

The door flies open. Duc De Luynes SHOVES Louis into his wife's room.

DUC DE LUYNES

Your Majesty, your husband the king would like to fuck you now. Ah, my dear wife, shall we?

ANNE

What is "fuck"?

MARIE

You'll find out, my lady.

She touches Anne on the cheek, then grabs Duc De Luyne's hand, bows and they exit together. He grabs her ass on the way out.

Louis and Anne stare at one another. Or rather, Louis stares at her breasts.

ANNE

I am glad you have come.

LOUIS

I didn't... Luyne made me....

ANNE

Oh.

LOUIS

No, I mean... I find you very pretty, I just, I don't know if...

Anne stands up, glides toward him. A soft kiss on the cheek. He stands, frozen.

ANNE

Come.

She pulls him to the bed. She puts her hand around his neck and pulls him in. A gentle kiss.

He backs up, stares at her. Eyes meeting for the first time since, maybe ever.

He grabs her, pulls her into him. He possesses her. Finally.

FADE OUT.

The opening scene to Nice Girls

Yesterday Jabberwocky, who is apparently not named for my favorite poem, requested that I post the opening pages to Nice Girls Don't Kill. Never one to deny such a request, I have posted them.

I DO NOT WANT NOTES. Like AT ALL. At this point the script is completed and being read around town, and I've already worked this scene a number of times. In fact, if you're on Done Deal you can find the thread where I workshopped this scene. Anyway, here's the final product:

FADE IN:

EXT. PUBLIC LIBRARY - RAINY DAY

It might as well be night, as evil as that sky is. The rain is POURING hard on the pavement in front of the library. Only one car in the parking lot.

A Jeep Cherokee pulls up.

INT. PUBLIC LIBRARY - RAINY DAY

Budget cuts have hit this place hard, but there's still a bank of five-year-old computers near the entrance.

YANCY, fifties, graying, well-worn bifocals, hums as he fiddles with a few cables at the back of one of the machines. Only one light is on in the empty room.

A fist BANGS on the door.

Yancy pops up. He can barely make out a small figure in the rain.

He motions to the sign posting the hours of operation.

The fist bangs again.

He stands up and walks to the door. He points to the sign.

The figure, now clearly identifiable as a GIRL wearing a backpack, makes a motion of pleading. She's drenched.

Yancy opens the door a crack.

YANCY

I'm sorry, the library is closed on Mondays.

GIRL

(Southern accent)

Please! Honey, can I just use the phone? Mine died, and my car...

He nods, waves her inside.

She shuffles inside where we get a good look at her.

LANA. A young 30 something, wet hair clinging to her face. Absurdly hot. You want to ask her out, but you're afraid she'll eat your head after she fucks you.

Yancy hands her his cell phone.

YANCY

Here. If you-

Her phone rings. Warrant's "Cherry Pie." She ignores it.

She shoves his phone in her pocket.

LANA

This place is so quiet. I like it. Y'all still got that Dewey system?

YANCY

Listen, miss, I don't have time to-

LANA

Oh I apologize, Yancy. How rude of me. I'm Lana.

She waves, bright smile.

He begins to hyperventillate.

LANA

You got that Child Called It? I heard that's a good book.

YANCY

I didn't do it. Whatever it is, I swear. I'm not the one.

LANA

Joe thinks you got his money.

YANCY

I don't! Oh God, that's not me! I told Carl!

He falls on the floor, grabs her leg and pleads. Lana tries to shake him off. This is uncomfortable.

YANCY

Call Carl! Why would I tell him about missing money if I'm the one who stole it?

LANA

Please get off me, honey.

He clings even tighter.

YANCY

Call Carl! Please!

She tries to shake him loose, to no avail.

LANA

GET OFF!

YANCY

PLEASE!

She sighs, pulls a gun out and shoots him in the foot. He screams and lets go to nurse his injury.

LANA

Listen, honey. I'm a nice girl. I don't do that whole bamboo under the fingernail shit, but if you paw at me again I will shoot off your shriveled old Willy, put a knife in your gut and leave you to bleed to death. Are we clear?

He nods, weeping over his foot.

YANCY

Ask Carl. I told Carl.

LANA

You tell anybody else?

YANCY

I don't know... um.... I don't know!

Lana shoots him in the shin. He shouts. Her phone starts to ring again. "Cherry Pie."

YANCY

NO! Only Carl! I don't have the money I swear!

LANA

I know, honey.

She shoots him in the head. Picks up the still ringing phone.

LANA

(into the phone)

Elliot how many fucking times have I told you not to call until the job's done?

She wipes Yancy's phone of fingerprints, tosses it on his body.

LANA

No, I didn't find the money. Idiot died first.

She searches his wallet. Pulls out a twenty.

LANA

I know. You think you know somebody, then they steal your shit. You gonna have my payday in the right box this time?

(beat)

Don't get all huffy, honey, it's not my fault you're such a goddamn fuck-up.

She hangs up.

She dials a saved number.

LANA

(into the phone)

He's dead. You're in the clear.

She throws the phone down.

She looks at the body.

LANA

Let's rock and roll, honey.

She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a bottle of bleach.

She starts pouring it over the body.

LANA

(to the tune of "Cherry Pie")

She's my Cherry Pie. Motherfucker's dying and he don't know why.

What happened to my rep?

So some time ago I got repped. It was a glorious day. A day of Validation.

I don't suck! Somebody in an influential position thinks I can write! Yaaaay! And then I waited for success to roll in.

Manager was successful. If you've seen the Black List, you've heard of her clients. She read my zombie action script, liked me, started listing people she could get me in a room with. I was so excited I thought I'd pee my pants.

When we finally met in person, she said "What I like about you is that you write commercial scripts." I write things she can sell! They like it when you write things they can sell.

At the time I had a lot of garbage on my computer and this one good script. But Zombieland was coming down the pike so my script wasn't really as original as it was when I started working on it. It's also got a huge budget, so it's great for showing what I can do but not likely to sell outright.

Now, at the time, I had this good script, but not the most original idea, and now it seems like everybody and their mom has a zombie script in their collection. So I decided to write something truly original. I wrote a martial arts script that takes place during the Civil War and features a female Confederate sympathizer as the lead and includes an interracial sex scene. I was working on this script when I hooked up with Manager. I raced to get it done so I'd have something to show her.

So basically, the same day she told me how much she liked that I wrote commercial projects, I handed her the most impossible to sell project she's ever seen. NOBODY will buy this. And on top of that, it had weaknesses. In my rush to get the script to her, I didn't take the time I needed to perfect what was a VERY difficult script to pull off. Maybe if it had been genius it wouldn't have mattered that it was so risky, but it wasn't genius.

She got me a meeting that went well and landed me an unpaid project. At the time I was just glad to be in with a legitimate production company, so I didn't mind not getting paid. But the project fizzled and died over time.

I wrote another script, this time trying to make up for the unsellable scripts I had given her. I wrote a chase movie that never really worked. I sent it to her even though it wasn't ready. I was just in such a hurry to get some attention before my opportunity passed.

Mind you, Manager is at this point working for one of the major management firms in the city, managing careers of writers who make her money. And here I am, floundering, trying to impress her with subpar work. Because no matter how low I am on the totem pole, had I given her a brilliant script, she would have dropped everything and thrown me in front of every producer in town.

I realized at this point that I had jumped into the fray before I was ready. I realized that I'd kind of blown it, because now she had no motivation for reading my next script. I decided it was best to back off and start over with one brilliant project.

So I did. I told Manager that I appreciated everything, which I did, but I needed to work on my scripts for a while and seek out new representation when I'm ready.

That's why I've spent the last six months writing and rewriting and rewriting the project I've almost finished. I will not quit working on it until it's absolutely perfect. In the meantime, I made new friends and found myself in a position to hand my script to plenty of successful agents and managers. So in a few weeks when I have a perfect draft of Nice Girls Don't Kill, I will proudly pass it around, knowing that I now have the patience and skill to do what it takes to build a career.

So this is what I learned from that experience:
1) Do not do projects for free. Ever.
2) Do not send out a script you know isn't as good as it could possibly be.
3) Just having a manager is not enough. You have to make sure the projects you hand them are projects they can sell.
4) If you have a manager who doesn't call you, you do not have a manager.

I finished my scene finally

I have written and rewritten this current project so many times I'm starting to question every decision I make. I am now rewriting individual scenes dozens of times, trying to make everything absolutely perfect. I've never been a perfectionist before.

I should probably put the script away for a week or so and remember that I have a life, but I can't. I just can't. I am tinkering obsessively.

I moved up a scene where my male and female lead meet, so now they're not meeting at a post office where they can move around and interact with things around them; they're essentially meeting in a car. So I have to figure out a way to reveal necessary exposition while doing that whole - I kind of hate you but am also kind of attracted to you - thing, while also having my characters react appropriately to some serious shit that just went down, while also being funny in an absurd kind of way. It's a lot to ask out what is almost all dialogue.

In the end I spent about three days one what turned out to be a three page scene. I tried every permutation. At one point I had a gun go off, which made the driver swerve and crash the car.  I did this just to inject something interesting into what was becoming a really boring conversation and I hated it. In the end, I had to ramp up their reactions. They were way too calm about the whole thing, when one of my strengths in comedy is giving characters absurd situations and letting them react. Once again, I needed to stop thinking so much and let my brain do its thing.

In working that thought, I also realized that this guy would be afraid of her and would have his gun on her, and she'd be afraid of him and would have her gun on him. Before, he had his gun out but she was oddly calm because somehow she knew he wouldn't shoot her. She knew because I knew. Didn't work.

I had a scene where two people explained their exposition to each other. Now I have two people in a car who try to get information while each thinks the other one is trying to kill him/her.

That took three days but it was worth it.

Here I go again on this draft

Annnnnnd it looks like I have to rethink the whole thing again.

Got new notes. Notes said the script isn't working. Characters are interesting, voice is ever present, motivation is off. Why do these characters do these things?

I keep getting this same note and I keep sitting down, addressing the note, handing it back in and getting that note again. So clearly I need more than just a simple fix. Something at the core of the script is not working.

In years past I would have abandoned the script and tried again, and there are still scripts - one as recent as last year - that I abandoned for that reason. But I love these characters and think this story has tons of potential, so I'm going to do another round of massive changes to the first half of the script. I think the second half is working for the most part, but because my first half isn't strong enough people aren't buying how things turn out.

Michael Arndt said he wrote Little Miss Sunshine in three days, and spent a year rewriting it. I remember when I first heard that thinking that sounded ridiculous. I couldn't imagine spending that much time reworking one script.

I can now. It's annoying.

Get busy rewriting or get busy dying

I haven't abandoned this blog, I've just been so insanely busy with my day job I haven't had time to post every day.

There's also not that much going on with my writing other than writing. I've been spending my time working this script and working it and working it and working it. I'm waiting for notes on draft five at the moment. Then I'll do another draft, get another set of notes from a group of brutal note givers, do one more draft and be done. So altogether that's 7 drafts before I even hand it to anyone who can do anything with it.

This may seem excessive, but I've learned over the years that I may only get one chance to impress somebody, so I'm going to write the best damn script I possibly can.

I keep imagining Jennifer Garner reading my script to see if she wants to play my villain, so I'm also writing to impress her.

Of course I'd love it to be done and out and getting passed around town, and I'm tired of rewriting, but I'm more tired of not having a screenwriting career. This script is miles above anything I've done and the difficulty level is high. I know a few people who've come up with an idea like mine and abandoned it because they couldn't make it work. If I can pull this off I'll be in like Flynn.

So here we go. Draft 6.

Please vote for kids when the time comes

I don't talk politics often, but I can't let this one go without a word.

This is for California residents, but anybody else is free to read as they desire.

In a few months you will be asked to vote on our tax rate. This vote is a simple choice. If we vote to keep up our taxes, our school system will only be half as in the red as we will be if we decide to lower our taxes we will cripple our school system. It is that simple.

We have had an outbreak lately of kids getting high and dealing drugs on campus because we had to layoff half our security guards. If a computer breaks, we don't have anyone to fix it. I paid $100 a couple of weeks ago to repair a school computer. Some of my friends are sending me boxes of Post-its because I ran out and the school has no more to give me.

Don't get me wrong, I like my job. I love these kids and I will teach them what they need to know if I have to paint on the white board in ink made from my own blood. But every year since these layoffs started it's gotten more and more difficult to get by.

This time our losses will come mostly from elementary schools. Thirty-one kids per teacher, is what we will have. In ELEMENTARY school. Imagine how much less education they're getting. I cringe to think of how far behind those kids will be by the time they get to us.

We're not allowed to order new textbooks. Summer school has been canceled for anyone but seniors and juniors. We may have to close down our school library for most of the week. I have no idea what will happen to our arts programs, because thus far we've been lucky enough to still have music and art and drama, but electives are no doubt on the chopping block. We already lost all of our health classes.

I'm going to post this again when the time comes to vote, but I just want to give you guys a heads up. I know we all want more money these days. We don't want to pay any more taxes. But the truth is, if we don't agree to this tax increase our kids WILL suffer.

This isn't about my salary or my job. I'm not going to be laid off and I'm not losing money no matter what happens. This isn't about unions or politicians or NCLB or whatever red herring people want to throw out there. This is about our kids. Please do not let them down for a few extra bucks.

GITS Interviews John Swetnam

GITS has a great interview with John Swetnam, writer of Evidence, today. It's good stuff. John is not lying about feedback - I have never known anybody who loved notes more than that dude, both giving and receiving. He works his ass off.

The part of the interview I think is most significant:

We think we're ready before we are. If you think you're ready to send out your script, you're not. If you think it's good enough, it's not. YOU ARE NOT READY. Spend less time worrying about agents, and gatekeepers, and all the other BS and just focus on the writing.

Check it out. It's good stuff.

The problem with the A Team

Remember the show The A-Team? Remember what it was about? It was about a unit of men who helped people even though every time they helped someone it put them at risk of being discovered by the government that wants to put them back in prison.

So what was the movie about? Some dudes who coincidentally met in the desert and blow a lot of shit up while trying to find some plates that will prove... what, exactly? That they didn't steal them? How does finding them prove they didn't steal them?

So let's look at that difference. The show was about helping people at great risk to themselves. In this movie they help ONLY themselves. The show was about life after the prison break. In the movie the prison break - if you can call it a prison break - happens almost halfway through the film.

This is, I think, where the problems with this film started. The A-Team's mission statement is completely wrong.

It feels like someone made a list of cool sounding explosions and ways to defy physics and strung them together loosely with some poorly-thought out plot.

Piloting a tank through the sky? Really? And here's the thing. While they're piloting this tank they're having the time of their lives. Whoa, cool! We're piloting a tank! Except only Murdoch should be acting like that because he's crazy. Everyone else should be having a fucking panic attack. They should be arguing about what to do. B.A grumbles, but he's tied up so it's not really an issue.

Or Face. He's a womanizer, never wants to settle down. It's what he's known for. But when he finally comes into contact with the woman who changed all that, he's already long since fallen for her. We don't even get to watch him change or struggle against that change. It's like every single opportunity for genuine conflict was sucked right out of the story and replaced with a goddamn flying tank.

This movie is never about being a unit, because there's never any question about whether or not they are one. It takes conflict to bring out theme.

So, Emily, put your money where your mouth is. How would you have done it?

Here's how. Start with the prison break. They're trying to run from the law, but they end up running into some people who need their help. One member of the group wants to help, but everybody else thinks it's not their problem. After coming to blows, they end up helping these people. They almost get caught, but get away at the last minute, whatever means they had to clear their names destroyed forever. That would have been my take. And I would not have flown anyone through the sky in a fucking tank.

I had the best cat ever

RIP Cyrano aka "Butters"

1999-2011

I miss you already.

.

Talent vs hard work

Seems like every other day somebody dredges up the old argument about talent vs hard work. Here's my take.

My mom always said "Being gifted and fifty cents buys you a cup of coffee." Obviously you can no longer buy a cup of coffee for fifty cents, but the point remains. No matter how talented or smart you are, if you are unwilling to do any work it's all for naught. We all like to think we're talented, but it doesn't matter how much natural ability you have if you're a lazy ass.

I've seen students with third grade reading levels learn to tell great stories because they try and listen and learn. I've seen brilliant kids drop out of high school and end up in prison because they thought their brains would do all the heavy lifting without any effort from their bodies.

Did you know Kurosawa's teachers thought he was slow? They never thought he'd amount to anything, and of course he amounted to Kurosawa. Know how? He studied, listened, learned. He worked every job available on set and paid attention to the rules of the trade. He wasn't a prodigy, but he did turn out to be one of the best directors ever to work in the business.

Talent can grow if you're not lazy, but you'll never get anywhere if you don't make the effort.

Dead Island

In case you haven't already seen what many have deemed the best game trailer ever, check out the trailer for Dead Island. The movie rights to the game have already sold,. Doesn't take a genius to figure out why.

Just when you think you know all there is about zombies and zombie fighting games, somebody does something beautiful. I've watched this trailer three times already and am still completely moved. Everybody I've shown it to is blown away.

If only we could all make our screenplays have this kind of emotional impact.

A weird scene

Today in a workshop the instructor gave us an assignment to make a dialogue where an inanimate object testified before a Congressional hearing about slavery. Weird, you say? Very weird.

I misunderstood the instructions - I was not the only one - so while most people just had the "character" give a testimony, I made up an entire scene. I had no idea where the fuck I was going with this thing, and by the time I was done I'm pretty sure I had what Ianesco would have written if he worked on Law and Order.

I finally appear to have scrippets working. I'm going to throw a party.

Anyway, here is possibly the weirdest thing I have ever written:

FADE IN:

EXT. COTTON FIELD - DAY

Yep. It's a field of cotton. Dirty, off-white, scratchy cotton. It's a hot day, like batwings hot. A couple of white GENTLEMEN in black suits they really should consider removing in light of the heat, stand like stone statues among the plants.

A black man, FURNEY, 30s, torn pants and no shirt, points to the nearest COTTON plant.

FURNEY

You tell him, Cotton. You tell him what you told me. Don't you lie, now.

COTTON

Well now, I don't know if I feel like talking anymore.

FURNEY

Come on, man. You know what you saw.

GENTLEMAN #1

Tell us or die.

Gentleman holds up a blowtorch and turns it on. Cotton screams. All the other cotton plants around him take up the wail. It echoes across the field until it drowns out the sound of the crickets and whooperwhils.

GENTLEMAN #1

SHUT UP, COTTON!

Gentleman #2 reaches over and turns off the blow torch.

COTTON

Okay, I'll talk! Just don't burn me, man!

FURNEY

You behave. You tell the nice man what the old slave driver did to me.

COTTON

Well, now you should know this was last season, so my memory's a little shady.

Gentleman #1 goes for the blowtorch. The other cotton plants commence wailing.

COTTON

I'm talking, okay! Put that thing down. Look Furney here was just bending over to pick me up - now it was a really hot day, mind you, hotter than this one here - and he falls right on over on top of me - 'bout crushed me beyond recognition - and here comes Brody the slave driver. "Get yer ass up," he yells. But Furney dun passed right out.

FURNEY

Heat stroke it was.

COTTON

Mm hm. Heat stroke. I seen it before. So Brody takes out his whip and starts cracking it - WHAM! - and Furney starts screaming-

FURNEY

I wasn't screaming.

COTTON

Yes you were.

FURNEY

I'm a man. Man don't scream. Man shouts.

COTTON

Fine. You were shouting. Furney was shouting-

The other Cotton plants all start shouting.

GENTLEMAN #1

Shut up!

He turns on the blow torch. The screams get louder.

FURNEY

I don't think that's working.

Gentleman #2 turns off the blow torch.

GENTLEMAN #1

Look by the end of the day I'm setting something on fire.

COTTON

Not me please.

FURNEY

He won't burn you if you finish the story. Finish the damn story.

COTTON

So Furney starts shouting and Brody - he just keeps whipping and whipping. I got blood on me now, you see? You see the blood? Well, maybe you can't see it no more.

Cotton turns and twists to show the stain. Gentleman #2 makes a note of it on a clipboard.

COTTON

Anyways, it's a miracle Furney is alive. His folks had to drag him out of here, left a trail of blood behind.

FURNEY

Blood on the cotton.

COTTON

Yes sir.

GENTLEMAN #1

Thank you, gentlemen. This will help tremendously in our procedings.

Gentleman #1 sets the field on fire.

FADE OUT.

Trimming

I'm about to branch out with Nice Girls. I've workshopped it in writers group through three drafts now, so it's time for me to see how it plays with a friend of mine who helped me create the original treatment.

But first, I have to knock this puppy down from its current 119 page length.

This is my pattern. I write the first draft, coming in somewhere around 85 pages. Then I get notes and rewrite like crazy, bringing my draft to maybe 95. Then I get more notes, and eventually it creeps its way up to 120 pages.

Of course, we can reasonably turn in scripts of 120 pages, but I don't want to be the longest script in the pile when I can tell the same story with fewer trees.

On the first draft I write whatever I feel like. My mission is to crank through the script in torpedo-like fashion, writing the story with no concern for verbosity. So by the time I get to 120 pages I have long clever passages that sound pretty cool but take up way too much space. Now I have to go through and kick it back to 117, maybe 116.

So it's a word here, a sentence there. If I take two sentences to describe a person, can I cut it to one? Does my character REALLY need to make a big speech here, or can a determined look do the trick? And as I look for these little bits and pieces to trim down, I can also check for typos.

Lessons Armored could learn from Tropic Thunder

Saturday night The Beefcake and I made big plans to stay in and watch movies. We started with Armored, then moved on to Tropic Thunder, and finished things up with a little Die Hard.

And that is how I realized why Tropic Thunder is a much better movie than Armored.

But Emily, you may say, Tropic Thunder is an action movie parody film filled with silliness and Robert Downey Jr in blackface, while Armored is a serious contained thriller. How can you possibly compare two films that have nothing in common besides their complete lack of female characters? Well I shall tell you.

Tropic Thunder is supposed to be a silly movie while Armored is supposed to be this serious character piece, but that ridiculous parody film has way more heart.
I have not read the screenplay; this is based only on seeing the film.

Spoilers for both films to follow.

I now present to you Two Reasons why Tropic Thunder is a Better Film than Armored, by Emily Blake

1) All the actors have something to do.

In Armored, almost every line worth having went to Matt Dillon. A few of them went to Columbus Short who played the guard trapped in the truck, and every now and then they threw a bone to Milo Ventimiglia as he lay on the floor bleeding to death. Laurence Fishburne sneered, Skeet Urich whimpered, Amaury Nolasco tried to look Muslim, and Jean Reno did.... um.... stood around..... made faces? Is that what he did? You honestly could have removed his entire character from the story and it would have made no difference at all to the film. With the exception of Jean Reno, every character got a five minute scene to do some acting, I guess to make up for the fact that they spent the rest of the movie watching Matt Dillon talk. Why bother getting good actors if you're going to make them stand around and say nothing the whole movie?

Now let's look at Tropic Thunder. What's Jack Black's story? He's a heroin addict, and by the end of the film he has faced his addiction and attempted to conquer it. Brandon Jackson has to admit that under all that bravado was a gay man who likes to sew. Robert Downey Jr has to acknowledge that he's a white Australian man who may have to drop character in order to find himself. Ben Stiller has to stop worrying about whether or not he is an "actor" and do the job at hand. Each of these characters needs to admit the truth about the world they live in, and they all get an opportunity to explore that theme. Heck, even Danny McBryde's character gets to deal with the fact that his hero let him down. Everybody has something cool to do.

2) A character struggles with betrayal

Matt Dillon's character in Armored practically helped raise Columbus Short's character. He got him into the armored car business and considers himself a mentor to the kid because Short's dad mentored him back in the day. The film spends a lot of time making sure we know this through on-the-nose dialogue. But when the new guy locks himself in the armored car and refuses to go along with the con now that it's gone off the rails, it takes Dillon's character about three seconds to decide they should force him out and shoot him. There's absolutely no conflict there. Don't you think he would have tried to find another solution? Let's imagine it's Fishburne's character who wants to kill the kid. Dillon would be opposed to that, and they'd argue, so not only do we get more conflict but we give Fishburne something to do, which addresses problem number 1. And Skeet. Poor Skeet Ulrich. We've never even seen these two characters talk before, and all the sudden we're expected to believe that Skeet is going to go against Dillon the bully to save this new guy. It's conflict slapped onto a scene, not drawn out of the natural reactions of the characters.

And somehow in that final confrontation we get this meaningful look between two guys who used to be friends. Why? They stopped being friends a long time ago as soon as Matt Dillon decided he wasn't conflicted about murder. That deep look between men moment means nothing now.

So now let's look at Tropic Thunder. Matthew McConaughey's character, Peck, LOVES Ben Stiller's Tugg Speedman. Like, LOVE loves. We know this because he has a Scorcher VI poster HUGE on the wall behind him, and because when Tugg calls, his phone plays "Sometimes When We Touch." Now that ring tone is played for a laugh, but it's also very telling about the way Peck feels about his client. So when Tom Cruise offers him the opportunity to forget about Tugg in exchange for a jet. And for a second you don't know what he's going to do. The look on his face says he's considering betraying his friend. Then, when he decides to fight for Tugg, he does everything within his power to convince the studio mogul to change his mind. It creates great conflict, and again - it gives the character something cool to do other than watch one guy make decisions.

I've heard the screenplay for Armored was amazing, so I assume this is a result of an unfortunate trip through the production machine, but whatever the cause, it failed to engage me as much as Ben Stiller's comic masterpiece.

How to take notes

In the past few months I've gotten a lot more requests than usual to give notes. In the beginning I was so glad to be asked that I did notes for anybody, but as time has gone by I can't keep up with the requests, and I've gotten some really negative responses to my notes so I just don't want to do it anymore. The people who can't take notes properly have turned me off from giving them. Why should I waste my time if you're going to be a dick about it?

I know that when I first started getting notes from people I wanted to defend my choices just like everybody else, but as time has gone by I've realized that you can either listen and address the note or ignore it if you don't like it. No need for an argument.

With that in mind, Derek Haas wrote up this set of etiquette rules for receiving notes, and I felt like it bears reposting:

1. If the person says "no," we don't get mad.

2. If the person says "yes," and then never gets back to us, we don't get mad. In fact, we should swallow our pride and expectations, and never bring up the script again.

3. If the person agrees to read it, we shouldn't say, "don't forget that it is registered with the guild."

4. If the person finally gives us notes, we shouldn't argue on why his or her notes are wrong.

5. If the person tells us to work on something, we shouldn't keep on defending the choice that we made. We should try to understand the thinking behind the note and try to come at what we wrote from a different angle.

6. If we disagree with the note, instead of arguing, we can always just choose to ignore the note.

7. If the person gives us a few non-specific critiques, we can probably guess that he or she didn't like the script and just didn't want to get into specifics. So we shouldn't ask them to be more specific unless we are willing to get the hell beat out of us. And REALLY willing not just partially willing.

8. If the script is more than 120 pages, we shouldn't expect the reader to read them all unless he or she really wants to... because at 120+ pages, there is definitely some fat that we should have trimmed.

9. If the person is not a professional screenwriter, reader, producer, agent, agent's assistent, studio exec, or someone in the business, we should know that the notes we are receiving may not be any better than if we had gotten them from our friends or loved ones. And yet, if we hear the same notes over and over and over, even from the biggest beginner, we should probably realize that there is a major problem in that part of the script.

10. If the person says "yes," actually reads the script, and gives us thoughtful, carefully considered notes... we should thank that person profusely.

Talk to me. I will recommend you something.

One of the great joys of my job is introducing kids to new stories. The major assignment for my juniors this semester was to read a novel of their choosing by an American author and write an essay then do a presentation about a book by that author.

One of my kids really really wanted I Am Legend but another kid got to it first. He was all pouty about it, so I had to quickly come up with another book he would love even more. I thought and decided to recommend Ender's Game.

At first he was all "I don't like sci-fi. This book looks stupid." Then he read the first chapter. He was still kind of grumpy. Then a day later he started telling me how much he enjoyed reading about Ender beating the crap out of his bully. We talked about how Ender's experience has some similarities to the way Einstein's theory of relativity led to the atomic bomb and he jumped on that. He was fascinated by the idea of that, as if he'd never realized books could be compared to real life issues.

But when he was done with Ender's Game he read I Am Legend for fun. Then he got so used to reading every day that he went back to the library and checked out something else. He's a total book worm now, always asking me if I've read whatever book he's into now. The other day he got all mad because there is not yet a sequel to the last book he enjoyed.

Every now and then I'll talk about a book or a movie and kids will ask me to write the title down. I look around and there are kids copying it so they can go get it somewhere. These kids NEVER take notes, so I'm just glad they heard something I said and cared enough to copy it. That's how I introduced these kids to films with subtitles.

I consider that whole recommendation thing a key part of my job. It's up to me to convince some of these kids they like to read when they think they don't. "You need a book, eh? Well let's see. What do you like?" Then I have to figure out how to give them a book they love so much they'll want to try reading something else when they're done.

It's pretty cool.

I know what the problem is

A few weeks ago while I worked on the third draft of my current script I thought about how I didn't really have a solid goal for my protagonist. Sure enough, big note at the writers group meeting - what's the goal?
So I did a rewrite this weekend, an all day writing marathon on Saturday where I blocked out everything else and just went from beginning to end, adding in my protag's goal. And I hated my pages.

I kept thinking all night last night that now I've given my protag a goal, but it comes on page 50. I know that's too late in the story. Part of me thought maybe I can just send this to the group and....

Yeah but I know that won't work.  The thing is, I have a good group. If I see it, they'll see it. If I don't know my character they notice. If I have a vague idea of the events in this story they'll notice. And if my protag doesn't know what her objective is for half the screenplay, they'll notice. I know what I need to do. If I want to stop getting macro notes I need to do it.

So I said to myself, Self, this event that gives your protag an objective needs to be moved up.

But it's hard. Moving this event up means I'll have to change things I thought were set in stone. It's a domino that isn't so easily fixed. So I can either ignore the problem and get a new set of notes telling me to fix it and have to do it anyway, or I can sit down with this damn thing, put aside all distractions AGAIN, and fix it now.

Time to get to work.

Minor characters and Die Hard

Die Hard is indeed one of the finest action films ever made.

Script Shadow wrote an excellent post this week about what made it so fantastic and the lessons we can learn from it about how to write action films. I encourage everyone to read it.

One of the other reasons I love Die Hard that he didn't really bring up is how each individual character gets his own backstory. The terrorists argue with each other about petty shit. That Asian dude wants a candy bar in the middle of a gun fight. The black dude is one cocky son of a bitch - probably made enemies of everyone he went to high school with. And that one Johnson really annoys the shit out of the other Johnson.

Each of these people gets a small amount of screen time but I know something about them besides that they are terrorists or FBI agents. It's usually the part they cut out of the movie when they show it on FX, but it's the very thing I love most about the film. Everybody gets their moment.

Thanks to that film, I always remember to have my "I was in junior high, dickhead!" moment. You know, the scene where the Johnsons are in the helicopter and the older Johnson is all excited and shouts about how it's just like Saigon and the younger Johnsons says "I was in junior high, dickhead!" and right then, right before the unfortunate explosion that pounded them both into bits of dust, you know these guys.

So as I'm working a screenplay, I always try to keep that scene in the back of my head. How can I give this minor character his moment in the helicopter? He's got five seconds; what can he do in that time that will demonstrate his true personality?

I don't know if anybody really cares whether my henchman is a coffee nut or not, but it makes me happy when I give him that little bit of extra love.

What's next

I think one of the most important things I've learned over the years - and I didn't realize I'd learn it until just now - is knowing when to let an idea go.

When I first started writing screenplays I'd get an idea and immediately set about putting it together. I'd do my little outline and when I came to a scene I was unsure about, I'd just assume I'd figure it out when I got there because I knew the beginning and I knew the end, so how hard could the middle be?

And that's why most of my early scripts just didn't work.

But these days I come up with an idea and toss it around and then often put it away, maybe for later. As I wind down work on Nice Girls Don't Kill, I keep flipping through ideas I could work on next. I started working on a period piece that I still plan to write some day, but realized it's not a good career move at the moment so I put it on the back burner.

I came up with a script about a lovesick guy searching for his guitar and - just like in the old days - I knew the beginning and end, but not a huge chunk of the middle. I still love the idea, but I think I need time to figure out more story.

I came up with a super hero piece, big budget and kind of nifty, but it involves some serious world creation and I can't decide where I want to go with it yet. Besides, comic book like hero movies are a tough sell for a new writer so it's best if I set it aside.

Each of these ideas goes on an index card on the bulletin board for future pitch meetings. And the search for my next idea continued.

I had an idea today that I like. The best part is that it's a modern take on a Shakespeare play so I don't have to struggle to fill act 2, but the down side is that I'm not the first to attempt reimagining this particular play so it's not the most original idea. It does seem like a lot of fun though. Still, you never truly know if something will work until you start writing.

Who knows, maybe by tomorrow I'll have written it down on an index card and let it go, onto something else. If I can't do a full treatment for the idea that makes the most out of its possibilities, I should keep looking for the next big concept.

The point is, as time goes by, I find myself thinking more carefully about how I spend my writing time. I'm past the point where I need any learning experiences. I want only material I can market.

Consolidated characters

A couple of weeks ago my chief note was to give my protagonist a more task-oriented storyline. My first instinct was to create some extra bad guy to come in and give my girl a new job, but the better thing to do is to find a existing character who can fill that role.

I looked at the people I already had in the story and figured out a way to turn one of them into my extra bad guy. He was such a perfect fit that the huge overhaul I expected to do on my script became a simple revision. In fact, I solved a lot of problem with that one simple switch.

A lot of times script get convoluted as characters start building on top of each other when the best thing to do is to combine elements. It's cheaper to shoot and easier to follow a story where one character does the job of two. So you need a love interest and also a doctor. Love interest can be the doctor. It seems so simple, but I see scripts all the time where we spread our time between too many characters when we could combine several of them into fewer people and get to know those characters better.

So the first thing I do in a revision when I'm about to invent a new person is to figure out how I can use the people I already have. I find it always makes the story better.

Kids say the most nonsensical things

There is a student in my tenth grade class who speaks a different language. He knows how to speak English, but in the interests of keeping up his street rep he chooses to speak in some kind of bizarre slang I've never before heard.

For example, to "murk" is to kill. "Getting swole up" means to put on weight and get buff. These are new to me. So like the suburban white child of two suburban white people that I am, I have started a list of interesting things this boy says next to their definitions. Every time he says something I don't understand I ask him to define it, then add it to my list. The whole class loves this and he is proud of his unique contribution to my creative endeavors.

I figure I have a choice: pretend to understand and seem cool and probably fail, or admit to my extreme white suburbanness and treat it like a foreign language that I find fascinating.

One day I'll be in dire need of a really interesting character, and there he will be, a whole list of slang terms I can use to make him feel as real as the real kid he's based on.

Youth of America - comme ci comme ca

One of my classes just loves to talk about movies, and they have discovered that if they ask the right questions about movies I will keep talking, thus avoiding them having to do any work.

Today they wanted to explain why Last House on the Left is a great movie. Basically it boils down to a guy's head exploding in a microwave.

"What makes an action movie good or bad, miss?" one of my brighter boys asked.

I told them that in a good action movie, the story doesn't stop for the action scenes. We discussed District 9, and how as the fight scenes progress the character ALSO progresses, so that we don't see two stories - the special effects story and the plot story.

One of my kids said "Like Transformers! There's plot and then there's action scenes and they don't really go together."

I agreed emphatically, then ranted a second about how much Transformers sucks, thinking they'd all yell protests at me.

Instead, most of the kids in the room admitted they think Transformers sucks too. One kid said he only saw half of it then turned it off because he didn't care.

There is hope for these little buggers yet.

Fourth draft, here we go

Damn macro notes.

I've been thinking for the past week or so about how my protagonist doesn't have a clear goal. I wrote what is essentially a character-driven plot, an exploration of what it means to release the demon inside you and rope it back before it goes too far.

The problem is, this is an action script. Action scripts aren't delightful character pieces. They are strongly structured plot-driven films. I know this, but I sort of hoped the awesome bits in my script would hide all that.

And last night, surprise surprise, the writers group noticed. That's why I love these guys - they do not let you get away with shit. I wailed, I threw things, I called them all assholes.

I was partly joking. At one point last night I shoved my notebook across the table and swore I would set the script on fire.

Then I went home and started thinking of how to fix this situation, and lo and behold, I saw a way to fix it thanks to a suggestion made by one of the guys.

This means a lot of work, but I didn't start on this journey to give up. As we say in group, "The difficulty level of this script is high." This is the kind of script that takes a lot of work to put together, but if I do it will be a perfect showcase of my abilities.

That's what this spec business is, I think. Taking the bits and pieces that don't work and finding a way to twist and turn and slide around the puzzle pieces until you have something great.

And I won't settle for less than great - not on this one. This script is my calling card, and by God I will make it so incredible that anyone who reads it will be dying to pass it on.

So today starts the next round of rewrites. And at the next meeting, if I get another macro note, I'll wail and cuss and throw things. And then I'll get back to work.

Be excellent to each other

John Swetnam, an occasional commenter on Done Deal, just sold his script Evidence to Bold Films for a good bit of change. He even gets first crack at directing.

This is excellent news for all of us. Huge spec sales, especially from unknown writers, are good omens for the market.

I've read Evidence. It's a fast-paced, twisty-turney script with great surprises and scares, and it can be shot for a low budget. The characters feel real, which is one thing that sets this apart from other horror scripts of its ilk. It was a finalist in the Tracking B contest, the event that catapulted the script through town through the efforts of great reps. This all went well because a great script got into the right hands and the writer rocked in the room.

Yet if you read the comments on the Deadline Hollywood Daily post, you'd think this was the greatest tragedy ever to hit town. So much nastiness. It's pretty obvious why - jealousy. Even if the script wasn't for you, there's no need to be an ass to someone you've never met because they've seen success.

We see it all the time - people being assholes because they wish their script was getting them the same places as someone else.

Let's all try to be positive about each others' success, shall we? Spend your hatred on your characters. Ruin their lives. Make them emote. Write a script so great that some day someone will be talking all this shit about you.

Macro Notes

My writers group includes people who have way more industry connections than I do, which is pretty awesome for me. I try to give back by giving great notes. Also, I brought a lamp.

One of the members of our group constantly keeps us focused on "Macro Notes" and we have all sort of adapted that phrase on our own, and it's such a useful strategy I want to share it here.

When you first finish a script, you want notes that will tell you how to fix it. You want clear, easy to follow instructions. Fix this, then this, then this and bang! You have a brilliant new script.

Only most of the time, that doesn't fix the script.

Know what's way harder? Page one rewrites. Guess which one you probably need?

When we go into meetings with a new script, the first thing we do is look at the big picture. Macro notes. Tone, characters, plot. If we start to head into scene breakdowns one of us will whip the conversation back on track. Tone, characters, plot. If those three things don't gel then it doesn't matter how many permutations of a scene you try, they won't work. So you start with Macro notes, because any specific notes will be irrelevant until you've fixed the big stuff.

This group is made up of people who know what they're doing. Most of us have been writing for ages, but even the one member of our group who hasn't written so many screenplays has still been in the industry for a long time and knows her business. Yet every single one of us has had to do a page one rewrite on our script after the first meeting. One member of our group ended up scrapping everything but the concept. The title, the tone, the characters - all of it changed.

When I start writing something I have a clear idea of what I want the opening scene to be and it's tough to let it go. You get used to thinking of a scene a certain way. But when you get macro notes, you can't hang on to that shit. You have to take a look at the plot, tone, and characters and let the rest go to serve those three elements.

That's why often when I do notes for a new writer I don't finish the script. Right away I see Macro problems, and once you see those nothing else matters. The truth is, once you've taken care of that, notes are easy. In our group that seems to be happening around draft 3. That's when you get those specific notes - things you can actually do right away, little fixes that make your work stronger, rewrites that take hours instead of weeks.

But first, you have got to let yourself go Macro.

The winner of the cookies

I'd like to say the fact that I disappeared since Thursday was due to some huge important writing project or a big event in my personal life, or even that I was deeply embroiled in a stack of essays. In fact, I became obsessed with The Tudors thanks to BBCA's season one marathon, and I made time for little else over the weekend.

I did managed to sneak in a rewrite of my script in between episodes.

As a result, my plan to announce the winner of the Cookie Contest got delayed. I do that often: get all excited about an idea and immediately spring into action, then forget to follow up in a timely fashion because I get distracted by something else shiny. It's kind of a miracle I didn't quit my move to LA somewhere in New Mexico.

I LOVED the scenes you guys did. I especially love the way each person took the same idea and ran with their own interpretations. It's a cool way to look at your identity as a writer. And I am THRILLED that Unk showed up.

In the end, although I think all of these scenes are great, as well as the two that were sent to me via email, I had to choose one cookie recipient. And although I enjoyed Unk's brevity and Hamboogul's stylistic drama, and Vanilla Chunk's quiet indie and Atlanta's brilliant Panda transformation, I chose the scene that made me snort out loud.

So congratulations, Jeff! You tapped into my love of absurdist humor and you will be richly rewarded with cookies from the Bitter Baking Company as soon as you email me your address.

Here is Jeff's scene. Still not sure why scrippets is being a dirty whore and I apologize for its stupidity:

EXT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY

Arm in arm, Julie and Stan exit, exchanging snickers
and glances. It's love.

Just then, wheeling in like a comet crashing to Earth,
ARNOLD... muscular, thick-necked, all man. He collides with Julie,
sending her to the ground, her coffee airborne, Stan recoiling in shock.

STAN

Good Christ!

Julie's coffee descends finally and, predictably, uses
her as its landing pad.

JULIE

(to Stan) Do
something!

Stan stares at his right hand and awkwardly curls it
into a fist like it's the first fist he's ever curled.

Eyes scrunched tight, he lets his right fly and
delivers a pathetic punch to Arnold's cheek.

ARNOLD

That was cute Stan.
Let me show you how it's done.

With that, Arnold hauls back and absolutely levels
Stan. He won't be getting up off the sidewalk for some time. Julie
rises, dripping with coffee, tries to get to the fallen Stan.

Arnold stops her, holding her tightly by the wrist.

ARNOLD

Wait Julie....

JULIE

Get off me you
psychotic... you know me?

ARNOLD

I go by Arnold now.
But in the PAST, I was known as...

JULIE

(total reconition)
Stan? How the.... I mean...

ARNOLD

Please listen. You
were going to dump me right after this date right?

JULIE

Well... I... how did
you...

ARNOLD

It's all right. I
don't blame you. That guy on the pavement deserved to be dumped. I'm a
different man now. Believe me.

JULIE

How is any of this
possible?

ARNOLD

A few months at the
gym, a little space/time thingy... these things happen all the time.
Will you give me a second chance?

JULIE

You went through all
that for me?

Arnold nods.

JULIE

Wanna' go get a coffee
with me, we can talk about it?

Smiling, they take each other's hand and enter the
coffee shop.

On the sidewalk, Stan begins to stir...

Cookie Contest judging begins

Yay! I was so happy to see so many participants in my first contest. I got two more scenes submitted by email and Unk even showed up!

I think the neatest thing about something like this, and the reason I wanted to do it in the first place, is that you can see how everybody takes this one simple idea and twists it into whatever their style dictates.

It was all awesome work and I really enjoyed reading your scenes.

Friday I will announce who gets the cookies. It's a tough decision and I can't make it yet. I want to read them all again.

Bamboo Killers Cookie Contest

I decided to have a cookie contest. Twenty Somethings recently sent me some cookies when I won her contest after she won a contest and got some cookies, and I like this whole pay-the-cookie-forward thing.

Here's the deal. I'm going to write a raw, first-draft kind of scene and you are going to rewrite it your way. Those are the only rules.

Either post your version in the comments or email it to me. The person with the coolest scene gets it reposted on the blog and a pack of cookies from The Bitter Baking Company. They are excellent cookies.

You have until Thursday at 5pm.

Here is the original scene. Please forgive the format troubles. I've been having Scrippet troubles. If anyone knows how to solve this scrippet trouble, feel free to email me your solution. This is clearly an ongoing problem.

Anyway, the scene:

Julie and Stan exit the coffee shop, drinks in hand.

ARNOLD, big muscley guy, late teens, CRASHES into Julie.

Hot coffee splashes all over her clothes.

STAN
Yo what the fuck, man!

ARNOLD
Oh you got something to say?

Stan hands Julie his coffee.

He takes a deep breath.

He punches Arnold in the face.

ARNOLD
Bitch!

Arnold grabs Stan's collar and yanks him to the ground.

They roll around, exchanging blows.

JULIE
Stop it!

They ignore her, landing blows left and right.

Julie shrugs.

She throws Stan's coffee on them both.

Both men stop.

ARNOLD
What the hell was that for?

JULIE
Stan, let's go.  NOW.

Stan stands up and follows her down the street.

Arnold grabs a napkin, wipes himself down.



Have fun!

Ben Affleck

Thursday night I attended a sold-out double feature of The Town and Gone Baby Gone with a Q&A from Ben Affleck between films.

I've always liked him ever since he made fun of himself on Saturday Night Live, but my respect for him grew tremendously at this event.

While looking to see if anyone has posted the Q&A I found video footage of him going in and out of the theater. He was absolutely mobbed by people shoving things in his face to sign and cameras to get a picture. It must be so fucking annoying to have thirty thousand people shouting questions and demanding photographs with them and yelling at you about how they're from Boston and they love the Celtics. Yet he patiently signed stuff, made a comment about the Celtics, and posed for several pictures before he got in his car to go.

When he entered the theater after The Town screened, people stood up. I did not stand up because I apparently am one of the few Americans who does not stand up for every fucking thing ever, but Ben motioned shyly for everybody to sit down. He look at the floor and waved his hand. He was uncomfortable.

During the Q&A the interviewer mentioned how tremendous Ben was in The Town and lavished praise on him. Ben waved him off and shook his head, looking down at the floor. He said that 90% of what he saw in the editing room he absolutely hated. He loved everyone else's performance, but he didn't like his own.

In pretty much every interview he's done since Gone Baby Gone somebody asks him what it was like to direct his brother. First question at this Q&A: yep. "Ben, what was it like directing your brother?"

Not only did he act like he had never heard this question before, but he gave a new answer - at least one I haven't heard yet, anyway. He said he learned about speaking up as an actor, because his brother wasn't afraid of him so he said what was on his mind, and Ben usually keeps his issues to himself when filming.

When asked what advice he would give to new filmmakers he said "Don't do a movie with your girlfriend."

He talked about how much he has learned about cinematography, how his mom called to tell him Gone Baby Gone is high on Netflix and does he get any money from that? He asked us to stay in our seats until he left the theater so he didn't have to see us walk out before Gone Baby Gone (I stayed) and admitted he was relieved as hell that he had a packed crowd. He was afraid the place would be empty.

For a guy who won an academy award at 25 and has been an A-lister at the center of the Paparazzi's world, I'd say he's pretty damn well adjusted. I'd work with him in a heartbeat.

I'll miss you, vacation

I've had three weeks of holiday vacation and it's been fantastic. During vacations I always turn into a professional screenwriter as much as I can. I read scripts, write pages, watch movies with a critical eye, catch up on all my industry contacts, try to attend a function or two. I sort of pretend my day job doesn't exist.

During this vacation I managed to do almost the entire rewrite of Nice Girls and I'm much, much happier with this version than I was with the first. I finished yesterday after two days of marathon writing sessions, just in time to send it to the group for notes on Sunday. That leaves me four days to get my shit together to go back to work.

That's all great, but it makes it really really hard to actually go back to work.

I like my job. I like the kids, I like the control I have over how I spend my time, I like the fact that I get to talk all day about my favorite subject. I like having full health benefits and a livable wage. I hate the homework and getting up early and the time it takes away from writing.

It's that getting up early thing that's the real bitch. Everything that happens in this town seems to happen on a Thursday. Parties, screenings, panels. It's like everybody in town sleeps late on Friday so they consider Thursday part of the weekend. I can't do these things because I get up at 6am and have to talk on my feet all day to a bunch of volatile teenagers.

So since I have one more Thursday before I return to early rising, I'm taking advantage of it tonight. I'm going to a double feature of The Town and Gone Baby Gone at the Aero with a Q&A by the director between films.

You know who the director is, right? Right. I honestly cannot wait to see what he has to say because I love most of his work. People can say what they want about Ben Affleck, but the man knows his business.

It's stuff like this that makes me wish even more that this was my job. Every day that I sit and write and send emails and sign up for screenings makes me sigh and say "Why can't someone pay me to do this?"

You and me both, right?

I keep reminding myself that I'm at a point where all I have to do is make this script great. It's commercial, original, interesting, and in a genre that sells pretty well. I have people ready to read it who can get it where it needs to go. So if I just make this the best script I can, this may be the way to making my vacation life become my real life.

How I overcome story problems

Just like every other writer on the planet, sometimes I come to a story impasse. Sometimes they last hours, sometimes days, sometimes even weeks. But I always end up solving them the same way: going through each character's natural reactions one at a time.

So here's the latest example. I had two major options for the final setpiece of my story.

1) Have my bad guy kidnap my protag's love interest and call her to a final showdown.

2) Have my protagonist go on a mission involving her friend, at which point the bad guy would track her down and they'd fight.

My story wouldn't allow me to do both, so if I use option 1 I lose the friend angle that I like, but if I go with option 2 I lose the love interest angle that I like. I like option 1's location better, but fell like option 2 gives me a more cohesive story.

I've also been having difficulty giving my character a true lowpoint in her story where her love interest hates her and her career is in the toilet and she doesn't know what to do.  Neither options really allows for this either.

(Disclaimer - I am not a fan of formulaic writing and don't subscribe to a particular guru, but I do like the lowpoint thing from Snyder so I use that. I take what I want from the gurus and leave the rest - kind of like the Bible.)

I went around and around on this one for a couple of days, unable to make up my mind. Then in the morning I started thinking, okay, let's start earlier.

My characters are in the bad guy's apartment, then leave to run an errand. That's when bad guy comes back. What would she do? She would find her key and unlock the door.

Well wait, if they just went to run a quick errand - didn't even leave the building - wouldn't they leave the door unlocked? And if they did, she would certainly notice and realize that someone had been in her apartment and that they were coming back. All she has to do is wait. Then she shoots at them, then they run, then she chases....

And that opened me up for option 3, the winning idea that solved all my problems.

So whenever I'm stumped, I always know the answer is in logic. Well, what would they do next? And then? And then? And what would the other guy do? And then?  And then?

And eventually you can let their natural actions figure the story out for you.

Don't stop moving for Exposition

If you've never seen them, you simply must watch Red Letter Media's analysis of the Star Wars prequels. The guy finally finished part 3. I fast forward through the weird personal dead hooker shit, but the breakdown of what works and doesn't in those films is spot on. He puts into words the feelings most of us have been struggling to identify.

One of the big points he makes in his Episode 3 analysis is one of my biggest screenwriting pet peeves: static exposition scenes.

In a great movie you don't realize you're learning exposition because the movie doesn't stop going.

Everybody's got to give out exposition, and one of the biggest challenges we face as writers is how to make it interesting. So let's look at some examples.

In The Island, an action movie, our leads sit in a living room with Steve Buscemi while he explains the situation.

In The Matrix, an action movie, Neo moves around in the computer program, looking at a hot blond lady and learning Kung Fu.

Part 3 of that Red Letter review points out all the times in the Star Wars prequels when people discuss their situation while sitting on a couch or calmly walking down a hallway. Then it juxtaposed that to a scene in Star Trek, where Kirk and Bones race down a hall shouting about what's going on as they urgently try to solve problems both personal and story related.

In fact, in the commentary for Star Trek - I think it was Alex Kurtzman who talked about doing exposition on the fly. He called it "Exposition through the context of conflict." Perfectly put.

I have a motto when it comes to exposition: Never talk about exposition in a calm, orderly setting when you can do it on the run.

Of course, if you're not a writer of action films you probably won't be doing it on the run, but that doesn't mean it has to be boring.

In Ghostbusters we learn a lot during that scene where we're rushing through a library trying to capture a ghost librarian.

I wrote a script with a partner once and one of our scenes was a woman revealing her insecurities in a therapist's office. I hate most scenes in a therapist's office because they're not only boring, but they're way too on the nose. There are exceptions, of course - Grosse Pointe Blank is first to come to mind - but normally I find therapy sessions a cheap and easy way to reveal exposition.

So we came up with the idea (okay, I came up with the idea because he was more of an actor than a writer) to have her reveal her feelings while shopping for lingerie with her best friend. That way, instead of just discussing how she felt, she could eek out personal information while we watched her confront insecurities about her body. It was a terrible script, but that scene got a billion times better when we got creative with the delivery of the exposition. That's probably the best lesson I learned from cranking out that piece of crap screenplay.

At this point, every time I write an exposition scene I think to myself, how could I have characters do something other than talk right now? Where else can I put this scene so nobody's sitting down at a table/sofa/in a car? Can someone be chasing them? Can the characters be dancing/repairing a broken pipe/doing laundry? ANYTHING other than sitting in a chair.

RIP, Pete Postlethwaite

When we were kids we used to hear the newscaster say some so-and-so had died and our parents would all be like "no way" and we'd sort of wonder why anyone cared so much about some old wrinkly dude.

Now, of course, as we age, those deaths become more meaningful. Every now and then some well known somebody will still die and I'll have no idea who they are, but not today.

Pete Postlethwaite is dead.

For a while he was "that guy" when I saw him. He was Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects. He was Captain Beams in Last of the Mohicans. He was Gilbert of Glockenwhatever in Dragonheart. He's easy to recognize with that big old face full of character.

Lately, of course, he played a small but memorable turn as the dying old man in Inception and the evil crime boss in The Town. Hell, even in Aeon Flux he managed to be the most interesting thing in a terrible film. He was just great. Every time I saw him pop up I'd get a little jolt of joy.

But the role that I'll always remember him first for is as Father Lawrence in Romeo + Juliet.  I've taught Romeo and Juliet more times than I can count and Friar Lawrence always seemed kind of dull and stupid compared to everybody else in that play. He wants her to fake her death because it will make the families come together? Is he retarded? There are like a million ways this can go wrong. And let's not get started about the fact that he secretly marries two teenage kids whose parents hate each other without seriously exploring other options. He was supposed to be the adult in this situation. The Nurse just does what Juliet tells her, but Friar Lawrence should know better.

But Pete Postlethwaite's Father Lawrence seemed passionately devoted to this crazy idea that he could use these two kids to make peace.  That was always in the play, but it seemed more like a flawed theory from some dimwitted idiot than a mission from a man who wanted to save a community. Pete Postlethwhaite was like a rock star priest, a guy who realized he got in over his head too late to stop the disaster that unfolded in front of him. Granted, some of that is Baz Lurhman's great direction and bold choices, but one of the best choices for that film was the casting. You can never go wrong casting Pete Postlethwaite..

I'll miss seeing that big mug pop up on screen. He was great.