Day 30 - Sunflowers in the window

Sunflower by Mischa Green

So, it's the last in the series and I had anticipated going out on a big blockbuster movie or something really personal to me.  Instead, I chose this little unproduced script called Sunflower that Kristy from The Matriarchial Script Paradigm blog (http://mscriptparadigm.blogspot.com/) recommended to me last night on Facebook.

The script is ridiculously tense.  The author does a great job setting everything up and introducing us to the characters before we realize the horror of what's going on in the story.  The overwhelming sense of dread and betrayals in the script make for an amazing read and show how a script can really come to life on the page.

One of the big things I got out of it, just from a technical point, was that even when there was a lot of text on the page she broke it up well, making most paragraphs 3 lines or less and using ALL CAPS to draw us to the really important parts when your eyes glaze over.

Well, this experiment is over, thanks for following me through these 30 scripts.  I think in the future I'm going to try to do 2-3 a week and make sure to include some sort of rating system.  Let me know if there is anything else you'd like to see.

Sunflower http://www.mediafire.com/?w2ndzmtmfwm

The countdown and next project

So, I have one script to go and I will have finished my 30 scripts in closer to 40 days.  But, I was sick for a lot of it, so I'm cutting myself some slack on this first one.

I will be announcing the next project on THANKSGIVING, so keep watching the blog to see how I'm going to be filling my days next.

On, another note, the Pomodoro Technique is still going relatively strong.  I used it to clean the majority of my apartment (between yesterday and today).  I still have a lot of cleaning to go, but it's looking way better.  I'm going to start setting a goal of 8-12 Pomodoros a day (starting on Friday), I'll keep you updated on that.  (BTW: I did 9 Pomodoros yesterday and 3 today)

Day 28 - The films of Richard Guy

Rocknrolla - Guy Ritchie

Since I am writing a comedy-caper movie, I can't not read more Guy Ritchie.  Rocknrolla may be my favorite of the Guy Ritchie caper movies.  I'm not sure why?  It's probably the characters, which is what Ritchie does so well.  His scripts are alwyas thick with atmosphere, you learn everything you need to about these characters relatively quickly sometimes through their actions, but usually through dialogue.  Guy Ritchie (like Tarantino) is not one to shy away from the monologue, but the difference with Ritchie is that his monologues are shorter and the pop culture walkabouts he takes never last longer than page.  He doesn't have the Tarantino thing where girls sit around a table for pages talking about something on the radio, or the like.  Ritchie has the "cool" dialogue, without letting it slow down the pace.  And that's the key with dialogue, it can be cool, but not at the cost of pace and story.

Rocknrolla - http://warnerbros2008.warnerbros.com/hfpa/assets/images/RockNRolla_Script.pdf

Days 26-27 - The Boy who Stopped Blogging

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl who Played with Fire by Steig Larsson

So, I've been sick for the past few weeks and it finally caught up with me.  So, I didn't do this for few days.  But, I did read two novels, so I figure I can use those for 2 of the days and only have 3 to go and probably only end a week late.
I'm not going to go into the plot of the books because there is just too much going on.  The big thing I got out of it, is that if you have compelling characters that the reader cares about, you can get away with murder.  The books are very well written and you really care about the characters.  After I finished both books, I walked away thinking about how much I liked them, but also how many coincidences occur and how while I was reading I didn't care.  In both cases also it took along time to get into the stories, but you don't care because the the charcters grab from go.
Als, in both cases I ended up reading over 400 pages in one day.  One of the ways that it kept me going was either short chapters or the setting would change mid-chapter, so it would be like a new scene.  I kept thinking "well, it's just another 5 pages" or "the end of the section is only 40 pages away" or "well, I wonder what Lisbeth is doing" and so I just kept reading.  Also, if there was a section I didn't like, I knew it was only going to be another few pages, so I could just push thorugh to get to the sections I wanted to read.

So, just like all the books say: Compelling characters and keeping the story moving are the keys to good storytelling no matter the medium  

Day 19 - Do you know what time it is?

24 "Pilot" - Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran

So, my trip through TV scripts continues.  It's really amazing how fast this pilot moves.  You find out everything you need to know about Jack Bauer in this hour of TV.  It's start off at home - he's family man trying to put his family back together.  Next CTU - he may have had an affair with a woman he works with.  He turned in coworkers, even though he knew it would hurt his career.  He tranq'd a superior in order to buy time to get information to blackmail him with.
We learn that JAck Bauer is willing to bend the rules for the right reasons, but will not countenance someone breaking them for the wrong reasons.
The other thing is that they don't have the big clock at the act breaks, instead are forced shots showing clocks in a room, or phone recordings stating the time.  I think this would have felt forced, whereas the clock at the commercial breaks with the split screen works well, and reminds us that other things are going on while this is happening.
This may actually be why this series has survived so well.   When one story waxes, the other wane.  Nothing happens in a vacuum.  Jack still has to deal with family stuff, while he's trying to prevent an assassination.  In the later seasons, we even see the villains family lives, giving us a much more well rounded story then if we just saw Jack, and he didn't have a family or friends and he just was solving the mystery.

Day 18 - Mother, tell you children not hear my words; What they mean; What they say. Mother.

Alias "The Enemy Walks in" by J.J. Abrams

This is a weird episode, because it moves the story forward, but because it was the first episode of season 2 (and they were hoping for new viewers) there was A LOT of recap.  But, what they did that was smart was some of it was done by Sydney talking to her CIA therapist and mixed in with new action.  I guess the thing I learned was if you have to have a huge amount of exposition (some of it not new to the audience) mix it into the action and parse it out.  Don't try to do it all at once.

Hopefully, I'll feel better tomorrow and I'll do a better post then

Day 15 - You did what to my mom!?!?!

Man on Fire by Brian Helgeland

I love this movie.  But, it would have been ruined if they had made the mistake of the script.  In this draft Crease has sex with Pinta's mom (Lisa).  While it made sense in the story and added a scene where Lisa wanted Crease fired, the audience would have ended up not liking Crease nearly as much.  That's the whole point of the the first half of the movie is Crease's redemption.  If he sleeps with Lisa, than he isn't redeemed.  It's almost disrespectful to Pinta.
This is a mistake I made in a draft of a screenplay a while back.  I wanted the hero to get drunk and cheat on his wife to show he had hit rock bottom.  A friend told me that she wouldn't be able to like him again if he did this.  And after about 2 drafts of that sequence, I realized she was right.  So, now he comes close and then realizes what he'd be giving up.

Man on Fire - http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/manonfire.pdf

Day 14 - What a novel treatment

Brick (treatment/novella) - Rian Johnson

Since November is National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/), I thought I would take a quick look at the Brick treatment.  In a preface he talks about the reaosn he wanted to do it this way was because he was intentionally trying to get a Dashiell Hammett feel and he thought a prose pass would be the best way to do it.  I think it worked.  I wish I had read it prior to seeing the film, but the tone is there as is most of the unique dialogue traits.  The treatment is 76 pages long, so it's way longer than a traditionally treatment, but for a project like this that relies so much on tone and feel, it's was probably the way to go.
I had never really thought about using a treatment like that.  I had always thought they were tools for getting the story out.  Sorta like a fleshed out outline.  But, this is something more, this allowed Johnson to get the the feel of the story.  So, now I'm wondering if I should be using this as a way to get into the story.  Since it is National Novel Writing Month, I'm seriously considering trying to write one of my scripts as a novella, just to get the tone and feel right.  If nothing else it would be an interesting experiment.

Brick (Novella/Treatment/Screenplay): http://www.mypdfscripts.com/treatments/brick-treatmentnovella

Day 12 - My day at the Mini dealership.

About a Boy

So, I'm writing this entry on my iPhone while I wait for the brakes on my Mini to be replaced.
The thing that struck me in this script was the use of narration by multiple charcters.  Right now, in my DayQuil addled brain, I can't really think of another script in which the two main characters both narrated.

The story is Will's story, but Marcus' story definitely informs Will's.  Both stories are about the characters maturing.  The voiceovers work well in showing that, especially with Will's internal battle to keep from I think this works best when it emphasizes the fact that while they are talking about one thing they are thinking something completely different.

Now that I think about it, I think some romcoms have done it, but not like this.  If you can think of any let me know.




I'm still looking for it online

Day 9 - Sometime's it's better to leave the past in the past.

Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods - Frank Darabont (Story by George Lucas)

So, I found this script in the unproduced section of mypdfscripts.com. I figured it was another option for Indy 4. It's essientially the same story as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (credited to David Koepp ). The biggest difference is that Indy's son "Mutt" is nowhere to be found in this version. In this version Marion is married to some Baron, who of course turns out to be a spy. The Nazi's make a brief apparence. All in all, I think I would have preferred this version, but it still wouldn't have been great. The ending is too much like Raiders.

The one way in which the script does succeed is that it brings Marion in, slightly earlier and we get more of their back and forth. I think the problem with this movie is that it's not based in what we are used to. Indiana Jones movies, up to this point, have been about religion. A higher power, and this one seems to imply that there is no higher power at work in this story. This long since dead culture worshipped aliens. The other films were rooted in the spiritual and mystical. We don't know why Ark melts peoples faces; We don't know why the Sankara stones do, what ever is, they do; we don't know why if you drink from the right grail you get eternal life and the wrong grail immediate aging. We take it on faith. At the end this however, everything is explained (pretty much).

I guess the main thing I got out of this is no matter how much you rewrite something, even if you bring in two of the best screenwriters in Hollywood, sometimes you just have a bad idea. Now with enough effort and money, you can make a bad idea, passible. But, you can never make a bad idea great, and somehow we need to figure out what ideas are worth spending out time on.

Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods: http://www.sendspace.com/file/dq6oaz

Day 8 - It's the same, but different

Back to the Future -Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale

I was looking through my Google reader and found out that this concept had been done before! http://www.gointothestory.com/2009/10/14-days-of-screenplays-version-30.html . But, as we all know, all the good idea in Hollywood have already been taken. I could have been depressed about this, but instead I'm using this as an opportunity. The owner of that blog has sold screenplays and is a screenwriting professor. So, now when I am at a loss for what to read next, I need only go to his page and there is a list of 28 scripts from the 2 previous times he's done this.

So today I read the first script from the first "14 days of screenplays", Back to the Future. I read a later draft, because it was in .pdf and not .html.

The thing I was struck by when I read it (which is the exact same thing I noticed when I went to the BTTF trilogy last summer) was how fast it moves. It's a relatively long script at 147 pages, but it never drags. All of the scenes have an intensity and urgency that keep the script moving the whole time. There are no wasted character scenes or monologues. It doesn't get bogged down in science. It just tells the story and that's it.

I'm going to try and remember this as I go through the heist movie I'm working. I have tendency to get caught up in clever scenes to the detriment of pacing.

Back to the Future: http://www.sendspace.com/file/om3ilf

Day 5 - Using Conventions I Learned at the Convention to Solve Problems

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

My first post was about the use of voice over. This movie breaks most of the rules about the good use voice over.

But first I'm going to tell you a quick story. Last weekend I saw William Goldman speak. A person asked him the question: "Tell about time you were stuck writing and how solved the problem." Goldman told the story about when he started writing the book (I presume) for The Princess Bride, he had all these great ideas but he couldn't figure out how to string everything together. Then he realized that he wasn't the one writing the story Morgenstern wrote the story and his father had told him the story. When you're working with an oral story, not everything fist together perfectly. Details are forgotten. Details are embelished. It doesn't matter what the actual story is.

In the film version, the story is read by the grandfather, who skips parts at the request of the grandson and takes breaks. We accept the fact that not everything is going to be there, because we've been there. We've been the kid listening to the story begging the reader to get to the good parts, and we've been the storyteller trying to keep the kid interested.

Because of conventions we not only accept it but we expect it, and the fact that all the story isn't there makes the story more believable.

In one of my screenplays I have a problem with exposition. It needs to get out, but the way I had initally was way too obvious. then I realized, one of the conventions of the heist genre is that the cops always talk about the history of the criminals. If I have them do it, it makes sense and the audience is expecting it.

When I'm blocked the next time I'm going to remember this story and try to figure out a different way to get to where I need to be, and maybe use the conventions of the genre to solve the problem.

The Princess Bride - http://www.sendspace.com/file/91i86u

Day 4 - You're on my schedule now!

From Dusk 'Till Dawn by Quentin Tarantino

Now when I think about From Dusk 'Till Dawn I think about the vampires. If you ask the average person what From Dusk 'Till Dawn is about they'll focus on the vampires. But the vampires don't show up (in the book I have) until page 108 of 159. So essentially the story doesn't really start until 2/3 of the way through the script. Now that's not 2/3rds of the way through the movie, as that last 3rd is mostly action while the first 2/3rds are predominately dialogue.

My initial intention was to talk about mixing genres, but that's not really what happens here. It's not like Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead or something like that where you are mixing horror and comedy. There is no mixing; it's like oil and water. These are two separate stories with the same characters. The first story definitely informs the second, but the second could easily stand on it's own. If need be you could start this movie when the RV enters the parking lot for the Titty Twister and be able to figure out rather quickly who the characters were and how they related to one another.

I'm trying to figure the structure of it. It seems like it either has 2 second acts or, my personal theory, it's actually two movies. It's almost as if you have a movie and it's sequel all in one.

You could argue that the movie has two second acts. The first one beginning when they kidnap Jacob and his family and the second 2nd act beginning when they get to the Titty twister.

The problem is that the Vampire sequence fits so well into a 3 act structure. The first act is when they enter the Titty Twister up to when the vampires appear. The second act ends at the low point, when Jacob gets bit (this also just after his character makes that all important second act decision to move the story forward when he decides not be a faithless preacher but instead to be a "mean, motherfucking servant of God". The third act is when they go out and fight the vampires."

The first part would break up roughly as - Act 1: Up to when they get to the hotel; Act 2: After the kidnap Jacob and his family, up to the border (when Scott wants to turn the Gecko's in); Act 3: From when the border guards come on the RV to the point when they get to the Titty Twister.

Seth being the main character, his primary question in the first part is: How do I get me and my brother out of the country. When they get to the Titty Twister, the question is: How do I survive the night.

I don't know. I feel like I'm rambling at this point. If you have any ideas let me know.

From Dusk 'Till Dawn: http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/From-Dusk-Till-Dawn.html

Day 3 - I want action tonight!

The Dark Knight by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that The Dark Knight should have won all the major awards (Original Screenplay, Direction, Picture, Cinematography) at last years Oscars. The screenplay itself is long, but never drags like the movie. The reason I selected this script is because I was curious as to how detailed the action sequences were, specifically the prisoner transport sequence as I have a sequence in one of my scripts where a semi-truck is hijacked. The answer is incredibly detailed. It even uses separate scene headings for each location (i.e. Batmobile, Joker's truck, etc.). I had expected one big location (Lower 5th) and then maybe locations in the action, but that wasn't the case. The action lines themselves are terse, but spell out almost every significant action on the screen. It describes all of the action, but doesn't waste words on needless description. Chances are that when I get to rewriting the third act of my script I'm probably going to be using this scene as the template for how I'm going to organize the writing of sequence.

I am probably going to revisit this script later on in the month as I could have probably spent a week writing on this script alone.

The Dark Night http://www.script-o-rama.com/snazzy/dircut.html

Day 2 - That's great, but can you open?

Way of the Gun by Christoper McQuarrie

I love the opening of this movie. In the first scene you find out everything you need to know about the main characters (Parker and Longbaugh). The script opens with them leaning on a random car setting off the alarm. A hipster, his smartass girlfriend and his friends come out. Parker and Longbaugh aren't looking for a fight but they're not going to back down either. The girlfriend keeps saying things to rile Parker and Longbaugh, so when the inevitable fight happens Parker dodges the hipster's punch and punches the girlfriend breaking her nose. After this they proceed to get their asses kicked by the hipster's friends. This shows us that our heroes are really anti-heroes - morally grey and not above hitting a girl.

The opening scene as shot is similar but a little different and actually funnier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xsaMcw69D8

Another thing that's interesting about the screenplay is that after this scene it goes into a sequence that no one could ever expect to make it into the film, but it informs the tone of the story and the backstory of the characters, but isn't really necessary, but makes for a fun read.

This movie is worth it for the opening alone, and it shows the power of a strong opening. I would have long forgotten about this movie, if it wasn't for Sarah Silverman getting her nose broken in the opening. That's not to say the rest of the script isn't great, because it is, but without that opening I'm not sure I would have gone back to read it as part of the 30 days, but whenever I think of a strong opening it's this movie and Silence of the Lambs as the films I use as examples of openings that really inform character. Silence opens with Starling running through the obsticle course, when she gets the call. She gets into an elevator and she is surrounded by men who are all head and shoulders taller than her.

Oddly enough yesterday and today's script have both featured Benecio Del Toro in the opening sequence.

Way of the Gun: http://www.sendspace.com/file/bvj12b

Day 1 - Did you hear that or was it just in my head?

Snatch by Guy Ritchie

So the first script for my project was Snatch. The thing I wanted to focus on was the use voice overs. Throughout the entire script the main character Turkish, narrates portions of the action. The voice overs are used mostly to add information to scenes, not give completely new information. It's all in Turkish's character. The script starts with Turkish's voice over talking about where every thing is going to end up. The first the key to why the voice over works in this movie, is that it's Turkish narrating the events after they've already happened, so if he's giving us new information, it's not new to him so there's a good reason for him to know it. The second reason is that movie would still work.

And, I think that's why voice over is not the answer for one of my screenplays. If it's not working without it, I don't think it will ever be the answer. While it's a great way to get your characters inner feelings out, it's no substitute for things actually happening.

The other thing that I will be taking out of the reading is way Guy Ritchie gives all of his charcters, even if they're throwaway charcters in one scene, a specific voice. He knows each and every one of them and makes sure that all sound like themselves.

Guy Ritchie will always be one of the writers I'll want to emulate. His movies have dark topics (murder, theft), but the movies themselves are unbelievably fun.

Snatch by Guy Ritchie: http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/snatch.pdf

Day 0 - 30 Scripts in 30 Days

I just spent the last 3 days in downtown LA at Screenwriting Expo 2009, trying to learn about craft and pitching my scripts to agencies. I realized after a few seminars that my neither of the scripts I was pitching were ready. But, I got some good ideas as to where I am going to be taking at least one of them. The big thing that a lot of the seminars emphasized was that I should be reading more scripts. I'm not a huge reader, but I read. Mostly graphic novels, and the Bible, but I haven't been reading a lot of scripts recently. So, I've decided to read 30 scripts in 30 days and then blog about it as I go. My theory being that if I have a deadline and I make it public, it will make me finish. Theoretically, it's not going to be reviews of scripts as much as it's going to be why I picked it and sort of how it fits into to either what I'm working on or how it's going to effect my writing. Wherever possible, I'll put a link to the script so other can read and comment.

Wish me luck.