Scriptshadow's logline contest

So as many of you guys already know, Carson picked his top ten loglines.

In case you haven't heard about this yet, Scriptshadow, the guy who reviews a screenplay a day and who's blog you should be reading if you are serious about the craft, put up a contest to select a good screenplay from among his readers. First, you submit your logline and he picks 10 he'd like to read. Then, you submit your first ten pages or a one-page synopsis and he picks 25 of those he'd like to read. Then you submit your whole screenplay and he picks his top three.

Guess whose logline he picked in his top 100? Memememe!

Here is my logline:

Twenty years after the zombie apocalypse wipes out life as they know it, a pair of survivors learns they are not alone, and must fix their issues to protect their warrior children on a dangerous journey by boat to save a woman who may be the key to reviving humanity.

Now here's the thing. I know I don't have the world's most original idea. It's not a high concept script by any means, and up next to all those other loglines it looks really boring.

Take this logline for a script by Josh Eanes called Humans!:

In a world populated by sentient zombies, an outbreak of humans threatens the lives of two ordinary zombie youths, as does an increasingly chaotic military response.

Or this one, by Mike Rinaldi titled In the Heat of the Dead of Night:

A Southern town divided by racism, intolerance, and William Faulkner must come together to survive an invasion of the walking dead and the only man who can unite them is a compulsive necrophiliac.

My heart kind of sunk when I saw those because let's face it, they're more clever than mine. I want to read them. I want to see them on screen.

So that brings up the old discussion about concept vs execution. These two scripts are terrific concepts that announce their potential up front. Mine is a story not unlike some we've seen. So when Carson reads our scripts, I'm curious to see how strongly the idea figures into his decision. It could very well be that all three zombie scripts are strong, but let's say one is not - will the idea save it? I don't know. I'm interested to find out.

I'm not sure I stand much of a chance anyway, since I just discovered that the screenplay I consider the best I ever read, Tonight, He Comes, is one Carson thinks is stupid.

Still, it's a cool exercise and I'm sort of amazed that Carson has taken all this work on himself. I'm also pleased to see not only a pro you probably know already - William Martell - in the list, but also a 19-year-old writer. It doesn't matter who you are, an idea's an idea, and all ideas are welcome. It's going to be pretty neat to see the development of where the clever ideas leave off and the great scripts take over.

How to love your asshole protag

Remember the last season of The Shield? I recorded the whole thing on my DVR and never watched it. It's been sitting there for about a year. Well next week I'll be mailing my DVR back to Dishnetwork so I can move to North Hollywood, so I decided that now was the time to plough through the last season. I think the reason I didn't before is that I knew I was gonna need to concentrate, and it was gonna be depressing.

But watching the show again after all this time has made me think about the deeply flawed protagonist - when he works, and when he doesn't. I don't want to say unlikeable protagonist because Vic is likeable as hell. He's also hateable as hell. That's what makes him so great.

As Vic descends further and further into the chaos he created, you know he won't climb out. There's only one end to this man, but somehow you still hope he'll get away with it. Unless you think about Terry Crowly, the cop Vic shot in the first episode. The minute he did that, you knew this was all headed in one direction.

So it's not like you think Vic is a good man, but you still understand his motivation. You see how the first few bad decisions were made with the right intentions, and everything just spiraled out of control. You want him desperately to stop before it's too late. And then the Armenian money train thing happened, and, well, too late. Now we just watch the fallout.

It reminds me of Sweeny Todd. You spend the whole film knowing he's not going to stop killing people, but you kind of wish he would. You feel his pain and somehow that makes him sympathetic instead of hated.

Then you get House. I've started to dislike House lately because he ever since he got off his meds he seems even meaner than before. I think the problem has become that before, you could see every time he popped a pill that he was trying to avoid the pain of being him, but ever since he stopped the medication he has no excuse. Or maybe I don't like him because this last episode (SPOILER WARNING) Cameron gave up on him. Cameron is so nice she has always believed in him, so if she doesn't, I don't. Maybe it's a combination of events, but really I think it just boils down to the fact that House has stopped having any redeeming qualities. He seems to be less concerned with the medicine and more concerned with fucking with people.

See, I think as long as Vic Mackie is nice to somebody - his wife, his fellow strike team members, his hooker contacts - you see that he is still not a horrible person, but the second you make him hateful to every single person, which is what House seems to be doing, you lose the love of the audience.

I almost don't want to watch House anymore because I can't stand watching how mean he is to everyone, but I'm glad I went back to those Shield episodes because Vic stays intriguing all the way through. You love him then you hate him then you love him again. But you definitely want to keep watching.

Thoughts on the film: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Saturday night at a gathering a friend of mine said, "Hey let's all go see Fantastic Mr Fox tomorrow!"

Of course I was down. I still have my well worn copy of the old book I used to read obsessively when I was a child, I read and loved the screenplay, and there is pretty much nothing Wes Anderson can do that I won't love him for. The man makes perfect little films that I just adore. A. Dore.

So of course I went to see Fantastic Mr. Fox. And this review is most likely biased because I was sort of predisposed to enjoying it.

So friend texts me that we'll all see it at the Arclight at 4:50. As many of you know, the Arclight is assigned seating, so normal protocol calls for the group to meet there a little before the movie, buy your tickets together, then go right in. This time, however, my friend texted that they had already bought their tickets online. So I had to go online, become a member of the Arclight, and order my $15.50 ticket with one unknown person sitting between me and the other five people in the group.

Then about half an hour before the start of the film I get a text: "Oops! Mike had to change his flight so the movie is canceled!"

On the upside, I got five seats to myself.

If you like Wes Anderson you'll like this film. If you don't, you probably won't. It's pretty much that simple. He and Noah Baumbach took a short story about a snide, clever fox and turned it into a tale about family and courage and rabid dogs who like blueberries. It's cute as hell.

To me, it gets off to a bit of an awkward start because the animation they used is unusual. I've never really seen anything quite like it, but once you get used to the visuals the story really moves along. It's fast paced, clever, and filled with delightful little jokes that make you chuckle. That's Wes Anderson's style. He doesn't make you laugh hysterically, he makes you chuckle. I probably had a smile on my face the whole movie.

Just like the book was well aware that many of its readers are adults, the film makes that same acknowledgment. The studio didn't make them take out the description of how perfect and alcoholic the cider is that they steal from the apple farmer, and they replaced the word "fuck" with the word "cuss" so frequently they may as well be tossing around F bombs left and right. And you know, using the word "cuss" is actually better because it makes the moment more comedic.

There's also all these unexpected little moments where in the middle of a dignified speech or action where everyone's wearing three-piece suits and speaking eloquently, we are reminded of their status as wild animals because they'll suddenly get comedically violent.

Pretty much everything that jumped out at me as a problem in the screenplay has been fixed. This is a delightful, fun film that will no doubt rake in the dollars at the old B.O. Thanksgiving weekend. As well it should.

A new site for your perusal

A friend of mine started a new website of articles contributed by various interesting writers. I've been watching it for a week or so, and I've decided it's worth checking out. Might be worth reading when you're bored and looking for something to think about.

Wagist.

I've already contributed my own piece: Cyrano is sick.

Thoughts on the film: The Road

Last night I sat in on the Creative Screenwriting screening of The Road.

For the record, if there are three film screenings going on at the same time at your theater, you should probably warn people so they don't spend two hours looking for parking.

Also, if half your theater is reserved for VIPs, you have too many VIPs.

So anyway, there was a movie. I've never read the book; it was one of those I've had on my list for years but never got around to, but I brought Best Friend, who adores the book and has frequently recommended it to me.

Best Friend was concerned going in and almost didn't want to watch the movie because she was afraid of what they would do to it. The joy of reading Cormac McCarthy, she said, is in his style. In a film you'll either lose his beautiful prose or you'll end up with two hours of voice over.

The writer, Joe Penhall, and the director, John Hillcoat who also directed The Proposition, went in completely aware of that problem. They said in the Q&A that they decided to ignore the beauty of his prose because otherwise it could become a crutch. So instead of a film full of voice overs, they only kept a few short and significant moments when The Man, played by Viggo Mortensen, expressed his feelings directly. This way, those moments meant something. And it worked.

It made me think about the horrible piece of carrion that is Lions for Lambs. That film was 88 boring minutes of talking heads. In the Q&A for that film the writer, Matthew Michael Carnahan, admitted he originally started it as a play, and when he went to turn it into a screenplay he decided he didn't want to change anything. But it's not a play. It's a film. The rules are different, and by ignoring them, he created the most boring movie I've ever seen.

Yes, it's even more boring than 2001.

But The Road, on the other hand, deftly navigated that pitfall. They took the core of the novel and put it on screen perfectly, leaving out the redundancies and speeding up the pace, which is exactly what you do in a novel adaptation. Best Friend was pleased.

This is a story about a father and son surviving the end of the world. It's not about the end of the world, it's about the unbreakable bond between two men who only have each other. Small story, big world. It would be easy to lose focus and focus on explosions and spectacle, but this story is so much better than that. 2012 can have its explosions, this film is about people and what we become when law disappears and we have to choose. Are we good guys or bad guys?

It's absolutely beautiful. Normally on the way out of the theater I deconstruct what I just saw and try to figure out where the weaknesses were in the film. This time, I got nothin. I think The Road is an example of a film crafted by men who love and understand the story as if they had lived it. Every beat is an emotional journey.

Plus the casting is awesome. Is there anything Garret Dillahunt is not currently in?

It's not a laugh riot, to be sure, which is why the Thanksgiving release date might hurt its performance, but The Road is well worth seeing, if for no other reason than to demonstrate how a story should be told.

Gurus

Mystery Man recently link this article on why McKee is not worth the ridiculous price he charges. I've been thinking about it since I read it.

I like sitting in on seminars with good teachers. The times I went to Expo I got some great ideas from some of the classes I took, and of course I believe a good teacher can make a huge difference in your education on any subject.

That said, I've never trusted gurus. I think the big problem here is the same problem you always have with teaching art - it's completely subjective. One of the first things I say on the first day of a new class is "I am not here to teach you to write like me. I'm here to teach you to figure out how you write." There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all writing method.

Sure, I read Syd Field just like everybody else. I think all new writers need some kind of format to start with, just like a kid who's never written an essay needs to be introduced to the five-paragraph format. But at some point in every kid's education they need to upgrade from five paragraph to something more fluid, just like all writers need to learn to adapt their screenplays to their personal style. The problem in both cases is that teachers often get so caught up in the rules for beginners that they forget to allow for growth and creativity. And this is a creative business.

I've never read McKee. By the time I began writing screenplays I already had a masters degree in creative writing, so I'd read just about all the storytelling textbooks I can handle. And lord knows I'd never tell anyone to avoid using one of those guys - there are certainly people who swear by McKee, Field and Snyder. I was about to say you shouldn't pay $600 for a weekend seminar, but then I thought about how much my year-and-a-half in grad school cost me and, well I can't really talk, can I? I don't regret going for the second degree. However, I do believe that any teacher who refuses to take questions is not a teacher I want to learn from.

But I do admit I've learned more about storytelling as a teacher and from blog posts and articles and just writing screenplays than I did in school.

So I suppose I think new writers should listen to McKee if they feel they're getting something out of it, but none of these guys are all-knowing. In the end you have to be able to trust your own instinct and listen to your own voice.

Bitter Script Reader on how not to write a screenplay

I am drowning in paperwork and red tape and bullshit, so I will turn over today's post to The Bitter Script Reader, whose post, "The Worst Query Submission I Have Ever Had to Read" is a must-read for all new screenwriters. Don't be that guy.

Why, Wolverine?

Curious to see why Wolverine: X Men Origins was so horrible, I jumped it ahead in my queue - Ahead of Wasabi even. I knew what would happen, but I did it anyway.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Okay maybe you don't, but I do. I keep watching these movies I know are going to suck ass. Hell my finger lingered over adding Tranformers 2 to my queue yesterday. Am I on crack? Maybe.

Wolverine really is about the WHYs.

Why can't Wolverine's brother Victor, who appears to have the same power as he does, be the one who gets the adamantium skeleton?

Why are they trying to kill Wolverine if he's their big new weapon?

Why didn't Stryker lock Logan up the same way he locked up everybody else?

Why did Victor kill those other mutants instead of capturing them like he did some of the mutants?

Why does Gambit sound like a midwestern frat boy?

Why is Gambit even in this movie?

How does Victor always know where Logan is?

Why was the blob not a blob until late in life?

Why does Victor wait six years before coming after his former team mates?

Why did a studio hand over its tent pole film to a director with a history of making shitty B movies and Stargate SG1 episodes?

Why? WHY?????

Supernatural lampoons your show

For the past couple of seasons, Supernatural - the only show that makes the CW worth not obliterating - has been super serious. When they started, the show had this serious plot but with lots of comedic elements thrown in, mostly due to the comedy stylings of the perfect specimen of a man that is Jensen Ackles.

But a couple of seasons ago they sent his Dean to Hell and he's been kind of pissy ever since, and then there was Sam turning into some kind of demon vampire and then the end of the world came and nobody was really laughing.

The past few episodes, however, the writers have gone back to funner times. This week's episode in particular made me giddy.

The premise, if you didn't see it, was that Sam and Dean were trapped in one television show after the next, starting with Dr Sexy, MD.

It was Gray's Anatomy. It was so much Gray's Anatomy that I'm not even sure it counts as a parody because it was so dead on. Everybody was fucking everybody else, a ridiculously sentimental soundtrack swelled, and people described these absurd surgeries for even more absurd conditions. I only wish they could have found a way to reference the fact that the guy playing the ghost character on Gray's Anatomy was also their dad.

They ended by poking fun at CSI: Miami, which of course meant they both did the David Caruso like five times. It was some excellent David Carusoing.

So if you love TV and parodies of TV like I do, go over to Hulu or Itunes or maybe the CW if it's there and watch last night's Supernatural. It was just so damned delightful I could have pinched myself.

Kudos, everyone involved, on a job well done.

The curiosity of spoilers

Warning: No real spoilers ahead unless you never finished season 2 of Alias.

Today I was reading stuff online and clicked on a link for a discussion about Ultimate Fighter. It should come as no surprise that I LOVE Ultimate Fighter, but I can't usually watch it until Thursday or Friday because I refuse to watch it without The Beefcake. Then today I forgot I hadn't watched the most recent episode and the very first sentence of the link I clicked gave me the winner. I cried out and closed the window, but it was too late.

Then again, maybe I can look really smart when we watch the show by pretending to guess what's about to happen.

Anyhow, it's just so interesting to me the sense of dismay you get when you get spoiled on the ending of any story. Today I started All Quiet on the Western Front with my 10th graders and one kid flipped to the end of the book and found out the fate of our narrator. I immediately fretted that he would reveal the ending to the rest of the class. Hell I probably would have tackled him to the ground to shut him up. Fortunately he kept his mouth shut, and the rest of the students resisted the urge to look at the ending first.

And yet when I was a kid, I always read the last page before I finished the book because I was too impatient to find out what was going to happen.

That's funny, right? It's such an interesting element of the human personality that we hate knowing the ending. We want that journey in a linear fashion, we want to earn the reveal at the end. A book almost isn't worth reading if you already know what happens.

But then you look at the latest trend in TV storytelling, one popularized by Alias, where we see a scene from the end before we see how we got there. That works too, sometimes, although often I've wished they just allowed the story to flow in chronological order so I didn't know what was coming.

Except I did love that shit when they did it on Alias, I guess because the scene they spoiled made me more curious instead of disappointed, especially the best episode that show ever had besides the pilot - the one where they brought down SD-6.

I was so into that shit and so excited about finding out what was going to happen, and yet I have that season on DVD and sometimes rewatch that episode even though I know how it's going to end. But then you have a show like Lost, which I also own on DVD and yet never watch because I already know how each episode ends. I don't know why even though I love both shows, I'll rewatch Alias but not Lost.

I just love that about people. We will go to many lengths to avoid spoilers and we get downright pissed if someone doesn't respect that voluntary secrecy, but we also like to rewatch stories we love, even to the point where we have them memorized. It's bizarre.

I don't really have a point, just an observation.

Thoughts on the film: Fantastic 4 Rise of the Mediocrity

Because I hate myself, I watched Fantastic 4, Rise of the Silver Surfer last night.

There's much wrong with that film and its many flaws have been brought out for all to see, but if I had to pin down the one thing that bothered me the most about the film is that it felt so contrived.

Johnny Storm somehow and for no logical reason whatsoever gains the ability to switch powers with his cohorts. Why? Because somebody thought it would be funny to watch Jessica Alba fly around on fire panicking. And then at the end Johnny uses all their powers at once, which he assumes is possible even though nothing up to that point has suggested that he can have more than one power at once, and in fact he has been losing his power every time he switched.

But okay, let's say this silly thing has to stay. Johnny gets to have everybody's power, not just his own. Know what? Johnny's a cocky asshole. Johnny would not just hand back all the powers when he's done. He'd get so excited he'd struggle at least a little before sacrificing all this power. And I'd much rather watch a hero struggle with desire for power than watch Dr. Doom sneer ineffectively while creating a nuisance.

Instead of having a real conflict within one of your major characters, it seems like somebody decided it would be cool to have a few seconds of Johnny with everybody's powers at once and contrived a story to make it happen.

But the truth is, it IS a cool idea. There are things you can do to make it an awesome story, none of which was done here.

For example, while Johnny's fucking around with this new thing he can do, The Thing - Ben - grabs Johnny and switches with him for a few seconds, during which time he jokes and giggles.

Granted, they played with this in the first film, but they didn't go far enough. Here's a guy who can't live a normal life. He can't go anywhere without being stared at, can't fit in normal sized airplane seats, can't wear normal sized clothes, will never ever fit in again. You know he has to dream about being normal; anybody would.

And for a few seconds he sees his human hands again, then has to give it back to Johnny.

Now I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about that. I'd wait until Johnny was asleep, then smack him and fly away on my new flamey rocket feet. He wouldn't mean to do it for long, maybe one night of hot steamy human love with his girlfriend where he can feel her hands on his skin, or a chance to walk among regular people without being stared at. Then he'd have every intention of going back to his life, except maybe by then he didn't want to....

Instead, Ben laughs it off and that's that. Then we get some silly plot about a character with few non-expository lines and his magical surfboard.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: CONFLICT. You have to push your characters to do things you don't want them to do - things THEY don't want them to do. Your characters have to have flaws and you have to exploit them.

If not, you're nothing but brainless entertainment.

My office

I've got some ideas on how to edit my script, but I won't be touching it for a few weeks. I usually take a break because sometimes distance can give you excellent perspective. Once you've been away from a script for a while you can look at it and say "Jesus what was I thinking?" as you read what you once thought were brilliant exchanges of dialogue.

I'm not going back to my screenplay until I'm doing it in my office. It's a tiny room - a complete square that barely qualifies as more than a closet right between the master bedroom and the guest bedroom and with a lovely view of my neighbor's driveway. But it's my room.

For the past three years I have written screenplays on my laptop in my lap on my couch. I have a desk in my bedroom, but the bed is so close that I can't put a chair in front of the desk so I have to work hunched over and leaning from the bed or standing up. So I worked on the couch. It's not exactly the most ergonomic way to work.

So I'm excited. I get a room where I can put my desk and a chair and my bulletin board of ideas and my inspiration movie posters. Well, poster. I plan to buy another one now that I have a place to put it. I'm thinking Zombieland. It will be easy to get inspired when the poster next to your head tells you to "nut up or shut up."

And I have to paint. I'm thinking a dark blue gray because I like to be at ease when I work and I already have two shirts that color so I can match my walls, and who doesn't want to match their walls?

Know what the best part is? I can shut the door.

What would you do with The Canterbury Tales?

I have a sort of challenge to issue anyone who cares to join in.

This month I'm working on The Canterbury Tales with my senior English class. I plan to do the same thing my teacher did with my class - pairs of students choose one tale to perform for the class and analyze. That got me thinking.

Aside from a French version many years ago, IMDB says every version of The Canterbury Tales has been a TV mini-series, the latest in 2003 starring Johnny Lee Miller, Bill Nighy, and Chiwetel Ejiofor among others. Netflix doesn't have this particular one available, which I think is kind of a shame because I like a lot of these actors and would love to see this version myself.

However, the truth remains that there is no real contemporary film interpretation of The Canterbury Tales. I can imagine why. It's split into short pieces with tenuous thematic connections, it has a barely-there plot, and it's unfinished.

Which is why I thought it was a cool challenge. I started thinking of ways I'd approach it, and although I never plan to actually attempt such a feat, I thought it would be interesting to see the different ways you could interpret Chaucer's unfinished masterpiece on film. It's rife with creative possibility.

So here you go. If you had a $90 Million budget and complete creative control along with studio backing and a guaranteed wide release with any cast and director you want, how would you do it? How would you structure this film so that it made sense?

Why I am not afraid of Freddy Krueger

Look at this guy.

Look at his fucking sweater. It's like he picked it up in a dumpster outside a Goodwill.

Look at his fucking face. Did he put his head in a pot of boiling water and then sit in the sun for five hours? He looks like a dried peach.

Look at that hat. Why a hat? I mean, he clearly doesn't have much style because look at his fucking sweater. Is he still trying to cover that bald spot he got when he got his fucked up burned face? Is he still trying to pick up hot ladies in their dreams? Because honey, that hat is not going to do it. You should invest in a toupe or some rogaine or something.

Look at his claw hand. What the fuck is that about? Was he rooting through his mom's basement full of old ass boxes and found a collection of old thimbles he could stick hypodermic needles through? With all that sewing equipment on his hand, you'd think he'd take some of his downtime during daylight hours to fix his fucked up sweater.

Look at that pose. Is he about to break into song? Nightmare on Elm Street, the musical? Freddy Krueger does "I Dreamed a Dream"?

But mostly, look at that fucking sweater. Even my grandpa didn't wear clothes that lame.

Happy endings

I am sick as a dog today. Actually I was sick yesterday, but didn't realize how bad it was until I was already out the door. So today I'm staying in bed while some stranger gives my students a state-mandated test. That'll make 'em appreciate me.

I got a note on my script the other day that I thought was worthy of its own post: the need for a Happy Ending.

Personally, I'm a fan of the bittersweet ending. Some character we all love sacrifices himself so the others can get away, two people get what they want in life but can't have each other, the good guys win but at a huge cost.

Pitch Black, Once, The Magnificent Seven, Last of the Mohicans, basically any story where you achieve your goal, but at an almost unbearable price.

Although Beefcake says by this definition Predator is bittersweet. I suppose that could be debated.

One of my very favorite genres of film is the artsy Chinese martial arts film. Your Crouching Tiger, your House of Flying Daggers, your Hero. I started thinking one day about these films and what they have in common and how a person could create an American version of these stories. I deconstructed them and recreated all their key elements into a story I could write.

One of the common threads of these films is the death of the lover. Each film is at its core a love story, and in each film one of the lovers dies, usually in some great sacrificial or symbolic gesture. If I'm going to adapt that genre, I need to keep that consistent trait. So I killed one of my lovers.

The friend of mine who read my script gave great notes and I definitely appreciate his reading my script because it's helping me spot some problems, but his final comment was that he thought I should give the story a happy ending. American audiences want a happy ending, and it feels like a cheat to take that away.

I get that the ending needs work for sure. I don't want anybody to feel cheated - I want them to feel like this is what had to happen. When I watch House of Flying Daggers I desperately want everybody to live, but when they don't I don't feel cheated, I feel moved to tears at the tragedy of it all. That's the reaction I want to elicit. So clearly I need to develop my ending to give that feeling.

However, a happy ending? Do you think that's true? Pitch Black is one of my favorite examples of a bittersweet ending, but it was an independent film. In fact, when I think about movies that had these kind of endings, they're almost always indies. And the Chinese martial arts films I'm inspired by - well, they're Chinese.

But I just can't see my characters with a happy ending. I even give them a dialogue exchange where they talk about ridiculous scenarios where they'll live happily ever after while they're both pretending not to know how ridiculous that is.

After all, we would never have heard of Romeo and Juliet if they didn't die in the end. But we Americans, we do love our happy endings. Can I sell a story where my protagonist dies?

What do you think about the American need for a happy ending?

What I learned from my notes

I sent my script to a friend the other day and last night he gave me great notes. I hope he doesn't mind, but I'd like to deconstruct his notes because they taught me some things I thought were interesting.

We did the notes in real time, which I've never done before but liked very much. As he read the screenplay he emailed me questions and comments, and I responded, so every time he had an observation he sent it to me so I could see how his thoughts flowed. I really liked doing it this way because it allowed me to ask clarifying questions and see exactly what his instant reactions were without a filter of editing. That's how I like to write notes myself. If you give me a screenplay to read, I tend to just write my notes in order and not edit much before I send them so you can see my journey through your work.

I learned that when you're working with historical fiction, you have to have an exposition dump at some point, or your reader, who is most likely not an expert in your period of choice, will be terribly confused.

I learned that I write better on the fly. All the stuff I sat down and carefully planned with the index cards was not nearly as good as the stuff I just cranked out while I was in front of the screen. All the things my friend said he liked were things I was inspired to write by the characters themselves. So I should definitely trust my instincts.

I learned that it's funnier than I thought it was. I thought when I was writing this thing that it was so goddamn serious I needed to intentionally insert funny moments for comic relief. I went back through the script and looked specifically for moments when I could lighten shit up because I'm not actually trying to be the world's most depressing action screenwriter. Apparently it worked. There were laughs to be had.

I learned that "Eyeball fucking" means different things to different people.

I learned that yes, just as I suspected, I suck at writing death scenes.

I learned that when you call a character NAME and change it to Simon, you might want to go back through your script and make sure you didn't use the word "name" anywhere else or you'll end up with several references to "What's his Simon".

Tomorrow I'll talk about the most interesting comment to come out of last night's notes, whether or not you must have a happy ending. This one's going to need its own post.

Halloween costumes I have worn

Halloween is again upon us. This time next year I'll be preparing for Trick or Treaters, which I am all kinds of excited about, but for now my only mission is to find a cheap outfit for the party.

I usually go as some kind of fictional badass woman. For three years I was Buffy. I had a shop teacher at the school where I worked make a stake, and when he handed me the finished product it filled me with fear and also power. I could seriously kill people with this thing.

What I thought was funny was how I got past the cops on the street with my deadly stake, but my then boyfriend's plastic light saber was confiscated and later stolen.

The light saber was actually mine, because years before I had gone as a Jedi. I decided Jedis wear black under their robes - this was before the new movies - so when I took off the robe in the club everybody thought I was Trinity. So I guess I was two badass women that year.

One year I tried to go as the cheerleader from Heroes but couldn't find the right costume in time, so I ended up getting a costume at Frederick's and going as a Poodle Skirt girl. Eh. I don't feel proud of that year, especially since I ended up a Hollywood cliche when someone offered me one too many Jello shots. That night is the reason I no longer accept Jello shots. I blame the lack of superhero outfit.

Two years ago I was totally entrenched in my boxing, so I went as a boxer. Dudes tried to fight me on the street. I accidentally punched a drunk guy in the face when he fake attacked me.

Then last year I had the Beefcake with me so I thought we could go as a team. I was Sarah Connor from T2 - she is one of my all time favorite characters - and he was supposed to be Arnold, but his black jacket was like a Members Only or something so instead of looking cool he just looked like a big guy in a jacket with a girlfriend in all black.

This year I have no money. We spent it all on a house. Plus I packed everything already.

So I decided to try Sarah Connor again, but this time throw on the hat and try to find a belt. I've got a righteous pair of black BDUs and I can borrow a knife holster from the Beefcake.

If the Beefcake joins me as The Terminator for real this time, cool. If he doesn't, well, he's broke too after buying the other half of the house so I can hardly blame him.

Is it new and original? No. Is it awesome? Yes. Will I eat Jello shots? Never again.

Shit. I should probably do some pushups. That bitch has some big old arms.

What are you wearing Saturday night?

Michael Jackson's still got it

The Michael Jackson movie comes out tomorrow. I'm not really into concert films so this is not normally something I'd be into, and true to form, those first few commercials didn't make me want to rush to the theater. The early commercials featured images of Michael onstage, fiddling with his hat and swishing around in his moonwalking shoes, looking creepy in his White Person skin. Honestly that means very little to me.

Then last night I saw an ad that totally changed my mind. It still had Michael fiddling with his hat and swishing around in his moonwalking shoes, and he still looks creepy. But this time over all that footage they played "The Way You Make Me Feel."

Instantly the song brought back feelings of joyous nostalgia. I mean, in two seconds I went from not interested to OMG I think I have to see this.

They say that your sense of smell is closely connected with memory. The smell of moth balls makes you think of grandma, the smell of booze makes you think of your dad. But one song, one little three-minute tune can bring back your entire childhood. Remember dancing around to that song and not giving a fuck who saw you because you were having so much fun? I sure as hell do.

Why on Earth they weren't using the song in that preview before last night I have no idea. Honestly I think you could sell the film better with a black screen as long as you play the song against some cheering in the background.

I haven't been to a concert in ages. I'm starting to remember why I used to go all the time.

Paul Gross will not always be there to save you

Normally I don't enjoy the giggly gossippy women's group shows like Sex and the City or Desperate Housewives or Lipstick Thingees. I find them entirely unrelatable. I don't know if it's that no women act like that or just that no women I know act like that, but the whole lonely domestic goddess who likes to dish to her perfectly coiffed girlfriends about her wacky antics seems a little silly.

But somehow when you throw Paul Gross into the mix I'm game.

I admit it. I've been watching Eastwick on ABC. I blame that hot little Canadian man I fell in love with when he played a righteous mounty on Due South. Good guy, bad guy, doesn't matter. I'd do him. And if the show he's on also has dark magic and sinister intentions I'm willing to sit through giggling women to get to him.

It's not really what I'd call a good show, but it is entertaining. I'm hoping Paul Gross takes his shirt off soon, though because I'm finding a few things somewhat grating.

When your character says something insane, the other characters in the room should probably act accordingly. In the most recent episode one of the lead chicks sang on a piano in a restaurant and accidentally set the place on fire with the power of her... libido? I'm not sure. At any rate, the place burned down and everyone ran screaming.

Okay so I don't know about you guys, but if I was in a restaurant that burned down while I was in it and maybe because I was in it, that is all I'd be fucking thinking about for the next month. And if someone told me the restaurant burned down while they were in it, I'd be like OMG WTF BBQ.

On this episode, however, the singer girl says to her friend something like "Oh yes I wore that last night while I sang in a restaurant right before it burned down."

And her friend says "Oh my god! You sang?"

OMG WTF BBQ.

I know the plot point they want the chick to react to is the singing, but for fuck's sake, the characters are supposed real people. YOU know what happened. THEY do not. So if someone talks about a building burning down while she's in it, in a real world conversation that would be more important than whether or not she met a hot guy while she was singing on a piano.

And also, dear god I hope they get Paul Gross' shirt off soon.

Back to work

Today was a pupil free day at work, which basically means I spend the morning in a meeting and the afternoon in my empty classroom thinking about working.

I have to transition now out of screenwriter mode and into teacher mode. I have my script out to a friend for suggestions at the moment so there's no pressure, but hopefully once said friend trashes my script I'll be able to jump on a rewrite. I just need my friend to point me in the right direction.

Over the vacation I got so busy writing my new script and looking for houses and going to Montana that I never finished the last touches on Game Night. I can't screen it until we get the house ready for visitors, but I still wish I'd been able to find some time to work on it. I have to do it at home because all the material will only fit on my external hard drive. But by the time our house is ready the film should be too.

But my two main goals for the break were to finish the first draft of the script and find a house. So I call this one a win.

Now it's time to educate some childrens.

Home inspection day haiku

Every time they screw up
your local Bank of America
will need 30 more dollars.

That beautiful tree,
so shady in your new yard
grew roots in your sewer line.

Every inch of kitchen
reveals a fancy surprise
how do I use this faucet?

Sitting on the floor
hands on the hardwood.
The bed will go here.

Almost home

Sooo we got a house. An awesome house. A worth the wait house with 1630 square feet and a brilliant open kitchen and a separate office space where I can hide away and write. I'm glad we didn't get all those other houses we thought we wanted because this one is so much better than all the others. I'll have no regrets.

It's all very exciting and there's thirty thousand pounds of paperwork.

I just spent 45 minutes dealing with what can only be termed as a clusterfuck of banking, where nobody would let me cash a $9,000 check so I could wire transfer our money into escrow. Protip: if you work in a job where you can't use your cell phone, please give the bank your work number so that your girlfriend can cash your escrow check.

I have nothing to say about screenwriting today because I am drowning in paperwork and I have now spoken to every home owners insurance agent in Los Angeles who somehow sniffed that I was looking for a policy.

I have one day left of vacation and I will spend it following around home inspectors, and that's just fine with me.

Never again, Promenade

Friday The Beefcake and I rolled down to Venice and had lunch, then drove up to Santa Monica to have dinner and Where the Wild Things Are on the Promenade. Big mistake.

The movie was perfectly awesome. There were tears, and The Beefcake and I spent a good deal of our post-movie time discussing the allegorical elements.

No, it was not a mistake to see this brilliant film. It was a mistake to go to the Promenade.

Over the past few years, I have only seen theater releases in two places: The Arclight and The Grove. For those of you who don't know LA, The Arclight is a theater where you have assigned seating and no commercials and generally there are very few kids in the audience. The Grove is part of an upscale outdoor shopping mall where you get the occasional kid in the theater, but usually they're accompanied by an adult, usually an LA resident, and generally the kids are few at night. These are also theaters frequented by Industry people, so there's a lot of respect for the art of film and people generally stay through the credits.

The Promenade is a major tourist attraction in Santa Monica. Lots of shops and restaurants, and it's within walking distance of several beach front hotels and the pier you see in every movie ever about LA. You know, the one with the ferris wheel.

The Promenade is a place where Daddy drops his kids off with a credit card and a pick-up time. We forgot all this before we went to see the movie. The kids movie. With oversize puppets.

There were children everywhere. Loud, unaccompanied children. After the previews started, a group of about 8 or 9 teenagers stomped in waving their bags and giggling and playing musical chairs across two rows for like ten minutes. Then they talked. They talked to each other for the entire first act.

I turned around and Teacher Glared. I shushed. They barely acknowledged my existence. Then about halfway through the film the kids in the back row decided it would be fun to push and tickle the kids in the row in front of them. The tickled and pushed kids giggled and pushed back.

This is what I wanted to say: "Hey, you see this big guy here next to me? In a minute I'm going to rip your trachea out of your neck and beat you to death with it, and he won't lift a finger to stop me."

This is what I said: "Shut the fuck up."

I combined it with Teacher Glare. Not a peep out of those kids after that. I can be very intimidating even without beaten-to-death-with-your-own-trachea fear.

Meanwhile, as I am becoming increasingly aggravated by the giggly children behind me, the cell phones pop out all over the theater.

Hey, people who like to look at their cell phones during the movie, stop it. It's not only annoying to the people directly around and behind you, it's also extremely aggravating to the people all the way at the back of the fucking theater who can see it but aren't close enough to say something to you about it.

So if the person in front of you is annoying you with their cell phone, they're probably annoying everyone behind you. Don't be afraid to say something. You have the support of the entire theater.

At one point a woman had some kind of exciting and funny text, so she passed her giant phone with the huge blue screen to her friend, who also read this hilarious text and then passed the giant blue screen to the person in front of them, who read it and passed it back, at which point the original lady read it some more then responded, then left her phone open while she waited for the next message. Altogether her phone was probably open and glowing for ten minutes. I was easily 15 rows behind her and 8 rows to her left but I saw all of this very clearly.

As she was doing this, some guy on our side of the theater kept opening his phone and texting every few seconds.

THIS IS ANNOYING. If it's that important to you, leave the theater. If you want to text and watch the movie, wait until it comes out on DVD and do it at home.

I will never, ever go to the Promenade for a movie again. Or if I do, I'm leaving with blood on my hands.

Updates and whatnot

I have to go back to work Friday, but I did manage to meet my goals for vacation. My first goal was to finish my first draft of the new screenplay, which I did. So yaaaay me.

My second goal was to find a house. We found several, but we'll know about the latest one on Tuesday. If this one falls through I'm just going to start smashing things. Looking for houses sounds awesome when you first get started, but after you've seen every house in Los Angeles and gotten beaten out on five houses you liked it's not so fun anymore.

I was totally gonna post Friday, by the way. I had the whole thing written - it was a list of suggestions for things to do at the Expo - but the power went out on the block about one minute before I was ready to publish so I had no Internet. Then Beefcake and I went to Venice and Santa Monica and saw Where the Wild Things Are and by the time I got home I decided since Expo was a day old already my post was a little pointless. It was mostly about business cards anyway, so I may rewrite it and post it later.

I'll post about my experience with Where the Wild Things Are tomorrow.

But back to Expo, I didn't go. I always went for free before and I just couldn't bring myself to pay for classes that most of the time repeat stuff I already know. The panels and guest speakers are great, but I think Expo is more useful for new writers than anyone else, although it is a great place to catch up with old friends and make new ones. But it's so disorganized and so expensive I just decided to skip it this time.

But to those of you who went, I hope you had a good time and learned things.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go reward myself for finishing my first draft. Today I go buy shoes. Tomorrow I go lay on the beach and read. Ooooh my life is exciting. Sometimes I think I'd be a lot less tired if I didn't have to spend my vacation write screenplays, but then if I didn't write them I'd never get a job writing them. So you gotta do what you gotta do.

Buffy the Vampire Supernatural Diaries

Last night I had this dream where I was watching The Vampire Diaries. In my dream I was like, Why the fuck am I watching this piece of shit show? Except I was half watching it and half in it.

And then all the sudden I saw Rupert Giles from Buffy except he was The Ripper and Ethan Rayne was his partner in committing evil deeds. Then I was like Awesome! They finally greenlit The Ripper! Then Sam and Dean from Supernatural showed up and started killing the vampires and then they teamed up with The Ripper and together they destroyed Ian Somerhalder. It was like a WB bonanza.

And I thought, man this show just got a whole lot better.

Then I woke up and told The Beefcake about my dream except I was still asleep. So then I woke up and forgot to tell The Beefcake about my dream so I'm telling you guys.

I have only one more week of vacation before I have to go back to my day job. That might be a good thing.

Fifteen things to know about LA

If you are one of the billionty people who have plans to move to LA in the near future, here are some things you should know:*

1) "It's raining" is a perfectly legitimate reason for canceling all plans for the day.
3) Nobody uses their garage as a garage.
4) However long Mapquest tells you it will take you to get somewhere, the real answer is twice that amount.
5) If you need to visit someone in the middle of the day, they're probably home.
6) On Hollywood Boulevard, the tourists are the ones looking at their feet. They are annoying to everyone not looking at their feet.
7) You can buy flowers, oranges, balloons or pretty much anything else in the median of a popular intersection.
8) Be alert for schizophrenics in the middle of the street. Often you can spot them pushing shopping carts full of stuff they found in a dumpster and giving the finger to your honking horn.
9) Don't worry about recycling your soda bottle. A homeless guy will dig it out of the trash can shortly.
10) Stare at the famous person. Tell all your friends to stare at the famous person. Giggle and talk about the famous person. But under no circumstances do you actually talk to the famous person.
11) At 3am on a Sunday, the 405 is still a string of break lights.
12) If you don't drink coffee or eat sushi, either get started or get out.
13) Dress up to go to the mall. If you wear a faded T-shirt and discounted Gap jeans you will feel like a schmuck when you see what everybody else wears.
14) There are only three protected lefts in all of Los Angeles, so you'd better turn left as soon as the light turns red because you will not get an opportunity before or after. Don't sit there and think about it. Do it or I will ram your fucking car through the intersection.
15) Never go to a party without business cards.



*Nobody told me I skipped number 2. So 2) We don't do math without our cell phone calculators.

Budget screenwriting

Here's a lesson I've learned this year. Write low budget.

I used to write low budget features, but none of them were any good. An acquaintance once sent me coverage notes from one of the readers at his management firm that said the only redeeming quality in my screenplay is that it could be shot for cheap.

Super.

I was tired of sucking, so when I wrote Not Dead Yet I let it go be what it wanted to be, a massive budget flick that probably wouldn't be made but would serve as a great writing sample. See I thought I could get meetings off it and then people would hire me to write other stuff.

Then the economy tanked. Sony and Universal ran through their year's budget already. Specs that go wide dissipate into the ether. Studios are tightening their belts. Their slates are full.

Know who has money? Oddly enough, the little guys. They don't have much, but they're open to anything good. I've been approached by half a dozen people already asking if I had anything cheap to shoot. And I keep having to say no because my only good script would cost a bazillion dollars.

I have a great writing sample, but unfortunately something I'm unlikely to sell. You never know, with Zombieland's success someone may want what I have, but so far my only opportunities have been for low budget work.

My current project is a low-budget film in a genre that usually takes high budget dollars, so I feel like that one is incredibly sellable in the long run, and as an added bonus, will not suck like my old low-budget stuff. I think it will pair nicely with Not Dead Yet as a good example of what I can do, so I'm trying to get it done as soon as possible. That way the next time someone asks if I've got something their director friend would like, I will be able to say yes.

Rewriting is easy

I love rewriting. LOVE. I know, it's weird. I'm weird. But I love rewriting.

I tried really hard to be one of those people who planned the shit out of my story. I do the whole index card thing, I do thorough character bios, I spend weeks or even months plotting out the details of every story.

But somehow no matter how much I plan, my characters still change over the course of the story. I just plat it all out onto the screen and don't edit much most of the time. Sometimes if a scene really bothers me I will go back a day later and rewrite it, but most of the time I just ignore the suck and continue.

Last night I told the Beefcake I'd finished my vomit draft and he asked how many pages ti came to. 79. "Seventy nine!" he said with amazement. "That's madness!" Trust me, by the time I'm done editing, I'll have a full script. My vomit draft is usually in the 70s or 80s.

I basically consider the vomit draft a really detailed outline with dialogue. But now I know where my characters are going. I understand them better. I think I just needed to watch them in action before I knew exactly what they were up to.

That's why I love rewriting. Now I take my 79 pages and fix them. The scaffolding is there and I have some scenes that are just fine the way they are, but the fun part of rewriting is seeing what doesn't work and fixing it piece by piece. I find it goes much faster to rewrite existing scenes than it does to write them the first time, especially since I know see exactly what everybody's up to.

For instance, I had a character I introduced on a whim as I was writing the vomit draft - a kid named Patrick. Patrick was supposed to have one scene and then go away. But twenty pages later I realized that I needed a character to step in and shoot at one of my leads and the guy I'd originally thought of just didn't work, so I thought of Patrick. But having Patrick shoot my lead means I have to alter his personality, and it means I have to bring him back a couple more times between the first scene he's in and the time when he shoots at my lead. So on a rewrite I just change the dialogue I already wrote to accommodate his new personality. Then as I go, here and there I can inject him into a scene I already have in order to add foreshadowing an to remind us that he's around and has some residual anger toward my lead.

Easy peasy.

Shady Dealings

Yesterday I was reading the latest Ink Tip newsletter when I came across a company seeking a zombie script. They had all these criteria for what they wanted, and ended with the information that it would be written "on spec" and "only non-WGA writers need apply" and the budget had yet to be determined. That means they have no money, no way of obtaining money, and if by some miracle they do ever have enough money to pay you, it will add up to tuppence.

It occurred to me as I read this that a lot of new writers may not see the warning signs on that job. I don't know how many of my readers are new writers, but it can't hurt to go over some of the more popular scams out there meant to take advantage of the enthusiasm and eagerness of a beginner.

So here are a few of the more popular scams you will run across:

1) Agents who charge fees. Any agent who wants to represent you gets paid only when you get paid. If they are asking for ANY money up front, it's a scam. Walk away. It sucks because for a few minutes of your life you thought you'd found an agent and now your hopes are dashed. Nonetheless, walk away and find a real agent. The WGA has a list, Done Deal has a list that's constantly updated, and you can always consult the Hollywood Creative or Representation Directories for lists of legitimate agents. This scam is VERY common, so watch out.

2) Agents who require coverage. A variation on the first scheme, some agents will require you to have your script read by a company they recommend before they will consider representing you. Those readers they recommend so enthusiastically are their own people. They will take your fee for the coverage, give you bullshit feedback, and if you hear from them again at all it will be a series of stalling techniques. A legitimate agent will read your script himself or send your script to their own readers for coverage and won't expect you to pay for it.

3) "We'll pay you in profits" or any other form of this statement. Now sometimes you'll have a director in film school or just starting out who needs a script and they can't pay you for your script. That's okay. You get a copy of the movie and a credit and they get experience and a credit of their own. But sometimes you'll see an ad on Craigslist asking for a writer who will write a feature and be paid only if the film makes money. It's bullshit. Most films don't make money. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a lie; you just have to ask a lot of questions and research the company. If they sound even slightly shady, run.

4) An American agency with an address outside LA or NY. They're not a scam, necessarily, but their chances of being able to further your career are pretty slim. Deals are done here, and if you don't live here you need to make damn sure your agent does.

Help me out, guys. What else is scammy or misleading to new screenwriters?

An open letter to all spelling Nazis

Dear Internet Grammar and Spelling Nazis,

Thank goodness you came along. If it hadn't been for your observation that the word "report" was supposed to be "rapport" it may have had no effect whatsoever on our lives. But you, ah, you have found meaning in the minutiae. This is the Internet, after all, and someone needs to police it. You, sir or madam, are a hero for your willingness to sacrifice valuable hours of your day to something nobody else cares about just so that we know you can spell better than we can.

You spend countless hours combing posts and responses to posts just so you can point out when the rest of us make mistakes, because of course you never do. You don't have anything more important to do with your life because this is the most important thing in the world. In fact, if someone makes a spelling error online, it's a far more important representation of their ability to perform their duties as a human being than anything they actually say. Because if we don't proofread our 18th post today on an Internet message board about which actress has the best rack, then we probably don't proofread our resumes either. It's the only logical conclusion to make.

So I applaud you today, Guy Who Points Out Typos, for making sure we all know you found our mistake. You're right, it IS unprofessional to make spelling errors on an online forum about homosexual monkey sex photos. Your life is truly validated each time you point that out to the rest of us. So even though the others fail to appreciate your solid work ethic, know that I see your heroic efforts and I am eternally grateful that you made sure I know I accidentally left the "u" out of "restaurant" in my post about where to eat fried crickets in Los Angeles. Had you not pointed that out, nobody would have cared. But now we all know that you do.

Sincerely,
Someone Who Occasionally Makes Mistakes

I suck

At first when I went on vacation I planned to write 5-10 pages a say and crank the first draft of this script out in a few weeks, but as usual that didn't happen. I had a week in Montana where I didn't want to write even though I should have, then I had some days where I had to go on emergency house visits which I really hope are finished. I should know by the end of the week.

So instead of my mad, 5-10 page-a-day intention, I ended up writing 2-3 pages most days. There's still forward momentum, but not as much as I'd hoped.

The problem is, the script is not as good as I would like it to be. I just read The Many Deaths of Barnaby James and it made me feel like a hack. But then I had to remind myself that it's a first draft and first drafts always suck.

It's really hard not to listen to that voice in your head telling you how much you suck. I wrote a death scene today - my protagonist, you guys. That's right, I went there. I killed her ass. I offed the old biddy and it just felt so cheesy. I write a lot of death scenes and I always hate them, which is one reason I generally prefer short, sudden deaths.

I've had some complaints about that in the past - my deaths feel too sudden. But to be honest, some of my least favorite death scenes are the ones where characters linger just long enough to confess a secret or a message to their loved one or whatever. My favorite death scene of all time was Anya's death in the Buffy finale. "What death scene?" you may ask. Exactly.

But I couldn't do that with this script. I had to have a cradle-my-dying-lover-in-my-arms thing going on, much to my chagrin. The whole time I wrote it I kept thinking Blech. This blows. But I have to finish it.

So I had to give myself permission to suck or I'd never finish it. I hope that when I go through on my first full pass where I fill in blanks I'll change the things that suck. In the meantime, I embrace my suckiness. It's the only way to get to the good stuff.

How much can we lie?

Ever since I heard a cool story at Alcatraz I've been working on researching a screenplay I want to write that takes place there. I bought a book on the island about Robert Stroud, the Birdman, the subject of the film Birdman of Alcatraz. I read the book, which was largely a scholarly examination of his life in as accurate detail as possible. Then I watched Birdman of Alcatraz.

In a college French class, I decided for my project I would research the Three Musketeers and see how close the novel came to depicting true events. Eh. Kind of close. Then I watched the Disney movie. That film couldn't have had more contempt for historical accuracy if it made the Musketeers Portuguese aliens living on Orion's belt. I'm not sure anyone involved with that film actually read the book.

The Three Musketeers was a much bigger violation, but Birdman of Alcatraz takes a lot of liberties with the truth in order to make the guy look like a hero. Did you know he was not only gay, but wrote kiddie and incest porn and passed it around to all the prisoners? Of course you can't have a gay would-be pedophile as your star in 1962 so you have to give the man a love story, created from a real relationship he had with a woman he manipulated to his own ends. In the film he seems quietly heroic, but in real life he was an asshole who felt like everybody on earth owed him because his daddy didn't love him.

And because this film made Stroud look like such a great guy unjustly treated by the evil inhuman prison system, people made a big hullaballoo about getting him out of prison. Because of this film, people wrote angry letters and he was very nearly released into our midst - a man who murdered two people and didn't feel the least bit bad about it.

We take liberties with history. Hell, I'm doing it right now in my current script. We have to be able to do it because nobody wants to watch a movie about a murderous pedophile who uses everyone who cares about him and stinks up his cell with bird poop. It's hard to root for that guy. So we change things. They didn't change the story too much in the film; the events are fairly accurate. But they changed the man's entire personality.

So I guess the question is, how much should we change things? Should we be able to change a man's entire character? Should we be able to make the impossible possible? What do you think?

Thoughts on the awesomest film of 2009: Zombieland

So Zombieland was as awesome as I always dreamed it would be. My one complaint is that the voice over needed to be drawn back a bit. Some of it was telling us what we could already see, almost as if the filmmakers didn't trust us to get the point.

But if you can look past it, that film was the awesomest thing to come out since Hot Fuzz.

This is good for me because I have a zombie action script. Mine's not comedy, but it is big budget and it is badass. If Zombieland had tanked, my shit would have been dead (ooh look! A pun!) but if I'm lucky, the film will continue to make lots of money and maybe somebody will want something like it but different enough to be original. At any rate, it can't hurt.

There are just so many brilliant touches in this film. I loved the screenplay already and they kept most of it intact, but the changes they made were for the better. The screenplay ends with the group headed off to Disneyland, but that seems a waste of an opportunity, doesn't it? Zombies in a theme park? So they shifted some things around and instead included the theme park. Smart decision.

And even though I knew the celebrity cameo was coming because I read it in the script and I saw the cast list on IMDB, they changed the way the scene played out so I was still pleasantly surprised.

This is just a fun movie. Fun fun fun. It's always nice when you can take cannibals and a post-apocalyptic world and laugh about it.

If you have not seen Zombieland and you enjoyed Shaun of the Dead even a little, this is the movie for you. And as an added bonus, if you pay to see it you can help me sell my screenplay.

ZOMBIELAND HOLY SHIT OMG

Right now, unless something has gone horribly, horribly wrong, I am about to watch Zombieland at the Arclight in Sherman Oaks with my friends after a lovely meal at some place I've never heard of.

If I don't return, it's most likely because my heart simply could not handle the excitement and I died of joy.

Remember me as a lover of zombies. And pandas. Know what nobody's ever made a movie about? Zombie pandas.

I am so goddamn excited right now I'm like a five year old with a laser gun.

CS Open - what have we learned?

Ugh. This week blows. Someone I love almost died - actually did die for a couple of seconds, we lost ANOTHER house - the third one and our favorite yet, and the CS Open was a hot mess.

It was a great idea. It really was. And I'm sure those people who received their scores got some useful feedback. I've read several posts by such people who have no idea why everyone else is in a huff.

It seems that many people followed directions and submitted their scenes, got the "Congratulations!" page that told you it was submitted correctly, and then received no feedback whatsoever.

At least I know why my shit was rejected. It bullshit, but it's a reason. There are a loooot of people who got no explanation at all. As an added bonus, the response from the contest runners was downright insulting to everyone who entered. No apologies, just a bunch of reasons why it's all our fault and they ran out of time, which is also somehow all our fault.

So if you paid, entered and submitted properly and received nothing in return, you're not alone. The only credit I can give them right now is that they did indeed refund my $12 pretty quickly, almost instantaneously. But that makes me wonder. How is it that they had enough people around to refund my money in ten minutes but didn't have enough readers to get the job done in the first place?

THIS JUST IN: Apparently a lot of people who submitted correctly received their scores this morning, a day after round two began. None of these people received the 93 or above necessary to move to round 2. Coincidence? I dunno. Vanilla Chunk has a different perspective.

I love how their primary excuse was "There was just not enough time."

Whose fault was that? Hey, CS, you guys created the deadlines and hired the readers. You knew how many entries you'd have two days before the prompt went out. You also set the second round deadline, a date you could have pushed back when you realized how poorly you had planned.

And then, of course, the team was nice enough to send us all the round 2 prompt and get indignant when people were confused as to whether or not they were supposed to submit an entry. Well, gee, the instructions were so fucking clear this whole time, how on earth could anyone be confused? They've yet to issue one word of apology to all the people they fucked over. Nothing but attitude.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a Clusterfuck. For me this is definitely the nail in the coffin on Creative Screenwriting. I heard there's some other magazine with better articles and not so much bullshit and disorganization. I think I'll try that one for a while.

How the CS Open wasted my time

Well I just wasted a ridiculous amount of my time.

If you went to the long list of instructions for the Cyberspace Open, one of the things it says on the page is to include a cover page. Then weeks after the contest was announced, if you had signed up you got an email with instructions that did not mention a cover page. Then after they realize their system was fucked up you got a second email with completely different instructions that did not mention a cover page. Did they mention a cover page at some point? Yes. Was it in their final submission instructions, either in email form or on the actual submission page? No.

So I forgot the cover page. They wanted your name and your order number on the file name so I did that, thinking that must be how they identified the entries. I followed carefully all the instructions on the actual submission page. I submitted early at 5pm on Sunday.

Then I reread the instructions on the website and realized I was supposed to have a cover page, so I emailed the contact address and asked if this was a problem and was there anything I could do about it - the deadline had still not passed at this point. I should have gone back and read the instructions on the website before I entered, I know that. It's just so confusing when you receive three different sets of instructions. Anyway, I received no response.

Then I never got my feedback. I waited and waited and waited and thought I was just somehow at the bottom of the pile.

This morning, they sent out the list of people who would advance to the next round followed by about a thousand reasons entries were disqualified. I guess they ran out of time and decided disqualifying mass amounts of people was the best way to fix the problem. And guess what one reason for disqualification is? No cover page.

My entry number is not on the list they posted, but they also said it was a partial list. They also say that plenty of people managed to resubmit their scenes, implying that you should have done the same if you screwed up. Yet on the last email and on the submission page, they specifically state not to resubmit or you will be disqualified.

I'm just so super excited about how much time and effort I wasted on this bullshit. I put aside working on my screenplay to make sure I wrote a good contest entry.

You know, every fucking year I sing the praises of the Expo. And every fucking year they pull the same shit - disorganized as hell. Last year's Expo screenplay contest was a mess. They announced the grand prize winner early so everybody left before they announced the other winners and they never did announce two contests winners at all. I've heard even if you do win, the prize pack never goes out. You get your money, but none of the famous exposure they brag so much about.

Then there's the actual Expo, where in years past speakers haven't had the right technical supplies or even white boards to work with, or the rules keep changing to make it harder for you to see the right speakers, but the price keeps going up. Or the fact that the volunteers are treated like shit so they don't show up, which means there is nobody to take tickets, so the people who paid extra for the Gold pass get into the same sessions as the people who didn't pay for a ticket. Every year a different set of problems caused by a lack of proper planning.

Supposedly disqualified entries will get a refund. Sure. I'm sure an organization that has this much trouble getting its shit together will be all over giving me back my $12.

Over at Done Deal some people are saying they followed all instructions to the letter and still didn't receive a score, and received no explanation as to why.

Hey Creative Screenwriting, get your shit together.

Fuck this. I'm done.