Archive for the 'Script Tips' Category

My friend Brad came up with the idea for a space movie a few years ago.  A story so childish and ridiculous, there was only one way he could pitch it to me, and that was using arm gestures and “blasting off” sound effects he made with his mouth.

It’s so profoundly stupid, it’s brilliant, (at least to me), but no one in their right might would want to make it.   Yet that’s exactly the kind of story I’m interested in making into a movie, and it wouldn’t even be a blip on my radar today if my writing was exclusive of the silly, the inane, and the childish.

Kids aren’t constantly weighed down with all that chubby baggage of adulthood, and don’t worry about thinking of themselves as “artistes.”  Nor do they worry about what a movie should look like and sound like and feel like.  They just have fun and let their imaginations run rampant.

Try thinking like a kid if you need your imagination fired up.   If you can’t let your own imagination go wild, what makes you think someone reading your screenplay, or even watching the movie made from that screenplay will let their imagination go wild?

Lose yourself for a half hour and pick up a toy car or a some action figures.  Have them talk to each other.  Remember playing “cars” in the dirt with Matchbox cars?  Or with your Barbies or your Star Wars figures?  The movies you made in your head were awesome, and they didn’t need anything but you and imagination.

Put on a skit with your stuffed animals, talk to your pets with cartoon voices, play hopscotch, light some firecrackers.   The idea is to loosen up your stiff adult head and start thinking again like anything is possible.

Yes, playing with toys will make it appear to others that you’ve gone batshit, so do it in private, or at least let your loved ones know what you’re up to so they don’t call the cops.  However you do it, the point is to liberate your imagination from the constraints your adult life and your adult education, and especially your filmic education, has placed on you.

It’s really less about acting like a kid and more about getting outside your normal patterns of behavior and stimulus.

Many experts on brain function say the only time your brain ever grows new synapses (links between brain cells, which lead to new thoughts and new modes of thinking), is when you’re placed in new situations and are forced to adapt, change, and learn.

Putting yourself in new situations can be as easy as eating at a new restaurant,  jumping in at a party and meeting new people, or finally giving a dime to that bum on your corner you’ve been ignoring, you cheap bastard.

–Excerpt from The Screenwriter’s Cheat Book

If you’re like me, you can’t stand mindless, self-replicating action films with the same Matrix-type speed-ramping shots, and the same Serpentine font in the key-art, and the same heavy-sounding  metal-rock soundtrack.

But my advice to you is: go ahead and write a script like that.

Because odds are, if you hate the genre, your writing will naturally gravitate away from the expected, or the already-been-done, and you just might end up with a super-unique take on the genre.

But after all this, you still can’t come up with a mind-blowing hook, don’t freak out.  Because here’s the cool part.  Due to the sheer volume of shit sandwiches passing as scripts in floor piles of agencies all across Los Angeles; due to the massive, overwhelming number of terrible, terrible scripts there are out there, your job of coming up with a hook that’s actually mind-blowing is actually, counter-intuitively, easier.  Because all it has to do, really, is just stand out from all that pabulum.

Right off the bat, make your villain at least twice as more powerful than your hero.  If your story doesn’t have a tough villain, it’s no big deal when your hero defeats him.  Stack the deck.  Increase the odds against your hero and she’ll automatically be more dynamic, more interesting, and someone whom it’s easier to root for.

There are several specific things that a Lackey (see previous article THE LACKEY, THE ASSISTANT, and THE BOSS) will do before they ever decide to actually pick up and read your script.  I call this THE SNIFF TEST, which I’ve described below as 5 basic filters or “sniffs” they perform either consciously or unconsciously.

SNIFF #1: She’ll look how thick the script is.  If it’s too thick, she’ll throw it away.  If it’s too thin, and the Lackey knows they’re not looking for shorts or sitcoms or pilots, she’ll throw it away.  (Take out the brads and recycle; whatever.)

SNIFF #2: If the thickness feels “just right,” The Lackey will then open up the last page to see how many pages long the script is.  In general, the longer the script, the higher the chance The Lackey will not read it.

SNIFF #3: If she’s made it this far, she’ll open up the first page and see how big the font is.  If it’s tiny, she’ll throw it away.  Why?  Too many words.  She didn’t apply to work at a talent and/or literary agency just so she could fuck up her eyesight on your sorry ass.   Conversely, if the words are too big, she’ll assume you’re a grandma, or a third-grader, or that you live in a cabin in the woods, and send explosives through the mail.  Proper-sized words and lots of white space between the lines boost your chances of getting read.  More about White Space later.

SNIFF #4: If your script has passed successful through all the previous filters, The Lackey will then settle in and actually read the first page, assuming she’s not getting buried by phone calls or more interested in updating her Facebook, or faxing sides to actors.  It’s at this point where your skill as a writer, or lack thereof, is finally able to communicate itself, for better or worse.

Congratulations, writerbuns!  You’ve made it past The Sniff Test.  But now the fun part’s just beginning!

Now you just have to make sure The Lackey gets past page 1 and turns the page to page 2.  And they have to do it willingly; eagerly; with zest and curiosity.

And then once you get them to page 2, you’ve got to get them onto page 3, again, of their own free will.

And then once you get them to turn eagerly to page 3, you only need to get them to turn the page to page 4.  And so on.  And so on.  And so on, until the end of your script at around 100-120 pages.

If at any point between page 1 and page 120 you fail to maintain this Lackey’s interest; this lowly secretary’s interest;  this bottom-of-the-barrel, minimum wage slave agent’s intern’s interest, they’ll put your script down.

And that means YOU FAIL.   Say it with me: “I AM A FAILURE.”

And that’s why The Lackeys hold the key to your script ever seeing the light of day.

Did you read that too fast?  Let me say it again:

The Lackeys hold the key to your script ever seeing the light of day.

Fair enough, writerboy or writergal.  So you’ve spent the last five years working on your spec screenplay.  After work, during class, on the job, on the bus, fending off screaming children at home, or pissing off your wife on vacation.  You’ve made it an obsession.  You’ve charted out the entire thing on index cards, pinned them to the wall, rearranged them, threw some away, added some new ones, threw those away, racked your brain for the right line of dialogue, spun in your chair until the perfect finish to your scene popped into your head, stared out the window at birds fucking each other as your writer’s block left you drooling and useless in front of Final Draft and your $400 e-Machine from Best Buy.

Kudos to you!  You’re special!  Because there’s probably only a trillion more like you across the country, around the world -  screenwriters who’ve finished a script.

Of course, I’m being sarcastic.  Because you’re not special, just because you’ve finished your script.   Having a stack of paper isn’t the hallmark of a great screenwriter.  Having a stack of paper is simply the hallmark of a person who can type.  Or a professional paperstacker.  Or a copy machine.

Anyone  can type a script.  And I mean anyone.   And that includes invalids, grandmas, cheerleaders, grocery clerks, stockbrokers… and you.  I see the proof every day, with every new script that comes across my desk.

“Not true!”  you say. ” It takes years to learn the craft of screenwriting! “  “It takes sweat, blood, and tears to write a script!” you say.   To which I say “Nay!”   The following is a scientific statistic, as immutable as Newton’s third law; as constant as the laws of physics, time, space, and thermodynamics, so brace yourself:

99.9% of all scripts are total, complete, insufferable, irredeemable garbage.  And my point is, as it only stands to reason, that since anyone can make garbage, then anyone must also be able to write screenplays.

But let’s say, for argument’s sake, you’re different.   You’ve actually written a good script.  And it’s honestly and objectively, by all measures possible, a good, solid script.  Categorically.  Great characters, great dialogue, great story, a fun read, etc.

All that doesn’t matter.  Whenever you send your script out to an agent, producer, or otherwise, that script sets out on a long, complicated and perilous journey, fraught with human emotions such as jealousy, insecurity, and apathy.  It may get read.  It may get liked.  It may get liked by people with famous names.

But it will never.  Never.  Never.

Never.

NEVER see the light of day, or get made into a film, or get you paid…

… unless it has a mindblowing hook.  What’s a mindblowing hook?  Tune in later and I’ll tell you.