Category: Script Reading

February 11th, 2010

Happy Endings Not Just For Massage Parlors Anymore

Well, Bob, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Office Space, mostly because I’ve lost count. And another thing, Bob, I can’t recall a week since I bought the DVD where I didn’t watch it. It is to me as TPS reports were to Peter’s 8 bosses my only reason to live.

Not really, but I do really like the film. I like it because it’s simple and comforting, not necessarily because it’s outstanding. It’s mashed potatoes, it’s mac and cheese, it’s mind meatloaf. It’s plated up with a nice vegetable side. Everything works out for Peter as we hoped. He gets the girl, he gets a job where he’s finally happy, Lumbergh is presumably jobless and the evil Initech empire is reduced to so much a pile of soot. And Milton may not have received a piece of cake or been able to keep his stapler, but he had three hundred thousand of Initech’s dollars and a sunny Mexican beach on which to drink. It was a satisfactory resolution for all of those characters; a “happy ending.”

There are many choices when ending your script, and picking the right one is of paramount importance. In a comedy for example, you need to let the audience know that it’s all going to be okay for the main characters. At the end of a drama, the conflict has most likely been resolved, the emotions are still raw, and you want to capture that intense anguish without beating your audience over the head with a leg of lamb. You want just enough subtlety to tug at your heart, but enough nuance to remain sophisticated.

While, of course, some movies do still employ the classic happy ending, most films now go out of their way to choose simple, clean, quirky endings as a way to shine. It’s a writer’s last chance to send their audience out into the lobby, with a bigger and better smile on their face.

A happy ending, to me, is one in which the protagonist satisfactorily completes his journey and has demonstrated growth as a result. He participates in a conclusion that marks the character’s growth with a hint that his future is going to be okay; that we need not worry because this person whom we’ve become so invested in, will thrive in the next phase of his life.

Recently, I saw 500 Days of Summer. I generally hate romantic comedies. But in this case, I was charmed. I liked the notion of telling the story of “the girl before the girl.” Every man has had their heart broken and it is through that pain that they become the men we marry or couple with. I find the story of the woman that helped make my man the man he is, fascinating. To me, this was a wonderfully quirky ending. Tom moved on. He chose to live and thrive. And then, he meets the girl we’re lead to believe is “the girl.” Tom has a happy ending. A classically happy one? No. But a happy one nonetheless.

Before I saw Tootsie, I felt every movie should end with the hero and the heroine driving off together, into the sky, in a cherry red convertible like Grease.

Instead, the ending is this: Michael and Julie stand on a Manhattan sidewalk on a beautiful spring day. His female persona no longer. Julie asks to borrow Michael’s yellow Halston dress. Being cheeky, he refuses to lend it to her. And so he starts to walk down the street away from the camera and Julie follows protesting, and that’s it. They just keep on walking until they vanish into New York, the end credit music lulling us to the final fade out.

Oh what a revelation! You mean to tell me, endings didn’t have to be a magical, Disney-wedding, extravaganza, in 3-D, on ice in order to sell the simple idea of love? It seemed preposterous, yet also plausible.  It doesn’t have to be wrapped up in a nice neat  bow.

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Posted in Filmmaking, Revisions, Screenwriting, Script Reading, Writing | 2 Comments »

February 2nd, 2010

So Long Genoa City, I’ll Miss You

I’ve been watching The Young and the Restless since before I was born. How is that possible, you ask? My mother watched it while pregnant with me. I know that’s a cheap one, but it counts. I’ve been actively watching it since my birth. How many shows, other than the news, can you say that about?

I watched it my entire childhood. I tuned in throughout my teen years, on those rare occasions when I could convince my parents I was indeed bleeding from my eyes, so I could stay home from school.

When I went to college, I started watching every day. I hadn’t missed a single episode until this past November 2009. On November 30th, Y&R went dark in my house for the first time in my life. It’s been hard on me. Y&R has moved on, but I have not.

I should’ve seen it coming, and even though it was my idea to end our relationship, that doesn’t mean that I’m not grieving. In fact, being apart is almost harder than it was when we were together. I find myself wondering, in the middle of the day, around 11:30am, what Y&R is doing. I wonder if my Genoa City friends are okay, left in the hands of a revolving door writing staff who don’t know the characters past a couple of seasons.

It reminds me of something that happened to me at a WGA function last week. I met a writer staffed on a reboot animation franchise (I can’t say which one, but it was a big one with a flop live action movie.) The offending thing was, while lovely and presumably talented, he didn’t know the history of the show he was working on. He wasn’t a fan. He had never seen or connected to the original incarnation. But like a competent journeyman writer, he cranked out satisfactory scripts regardless of his project knowledge; they had to be good to impress their difficult and demanding Executive Producer.

The thing is this happens. I’m no civilian. I should know better. I know that the turnover a writing staff is. To expect every new staffer to know everything about every character ever in a 35 year history, is fairly ridiculous of me. But in the same way I was so appalled by the TV writer who had never seen the show he was remaking, I was furious with the Y&R staff.

I know who Sharon Newman is, and she is not how the writers have been crafting her. She’s done a total 180 degree turn as a character, and not in a positive, growing sort of way. The writers have lost the real essence of Sharon, what really makes her a character you love, and instead, they’re presenting us a Sharon imposter… which might not have been a bad plotline, but turns out to be the death knell for me as a viewer.

Then about 5 years ago, the show took a strange turn. Concerned that the audience was getting bored with the tried and true Y&R, they decided to make it glamorous, more daring, more like a nighttime soap. That’s the beginning of the end for me.

Y&R has been suffering a snowball effect of bad writing since then. The nighttime soap idea was a disaster. Y&R had their lowest ratings ever. Then there was the writer’s strike. More viewers lost. Then there was the interim staff who just kept things humming, but Y&R was clearly out of tune.

Then, two years ago, like a shining beacon of hope, a Bell was back in charge of Y&R. Maria Arena Bell, the series creators’ granddaughter, was now helming and she was going to reestablish the show and restore it to her grandparents’ legacy. At least that was the hope. CBS was behind her and seeing the Bell name at the top of the show, post credit sequence, was oddly comforting. While we had a bad, mean babysitter looking after us for a while, it almost felt like Mommy had come home from dinner.

And then, things went weird in the writers’ room. The 35 year history of Genoa City was rewritten, character backstory was thrown to the wind. It was like they were bizzaro world clones of their former selves. They did the old plot standards: a murder, a court case, mistaken identity, baby switching, but all the plotlines were ruthlessly dark, bizarre, and seemingly angry without any payoff. There was no pleasure in watching these characters.

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Posted in Events, Filmmaking, Production, Screenwriting, Script Reading, Television, Writing | 1 Comment »

December 15th, 2009

Getting Started in Screenwriting with Xandy Sussan

Recently, I was interviewed on getting started screenwriting in Hollywood at All Freelance Writing.com. Here is a link to the article where I candidly share how I got my start and helpful tips on how to get started yourself. I sincerely hope you enjoy and find this interview resourceful and a fun read.

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Posted in Animation, Events, Filmmaking, Post-production, Production, Revisions, Screenwriting, Script Reading, Television, Writing | No Comments »

October 31st, 2009

Avoiding The Six Deadly Script Sins

Written for “Hollywood Scriptwriter Magazine” May 2005

brassfasteners

Your mother always said to wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident and that you only get one chance to make a good first impression. Well, your mother has found her champion, because I’m here to say, that she’s 100% right.

I can’t stress enough how important first impressions are in the film business. This is an industry where the superficial is king, where creative execs hate to read and their main job function is to say “no”. Getting your script into their hands is your biggest challenge. However, what you might not know is that there’s someone else you need to woo before Mr. or Mrs. Producer will ever see your script.

It doesn’t matter that the executive is your mother’s brother’s uncle’s sister or that he’s your doorman’s brother’s live-
in partner, your script will most certainly be covered by a reader before your executive ever sees page one. A reader is someone who went to film school, is a frustrated writer, either gets paid less than the janitor or is (shudder) an unpaid intern, most likely loathes you because your script is being submitted and tragically has the most say in what the producer sees. If the reader hates something, even the most mundane thing about your script, your opus is sure to be filed under “g” for garbage.

From deciding on font type, to two brads verses three, every choice you make, no matter how big or how small, reflects on you as a writer. It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s “Chinatown , Jake”.

Of course there are the superheroes you read about, the writer who landed a deal in his underwear from a script written on napkins. But that’s an extraordinary case and is most likely not you. If you’re trying to get your foot in the door and you weren’t born into Aaron Spelling’s clan, try not to aggravate the same people you want to win over.

The first rule in making a good impression is to do things the right way. Even though it seems like ridiculous minutia, straying from the industry standard incurs an immediate pass.

That means:

Always use three-hole punch paper, bound with two, 1½” brass fasteners. Not three, always two. I don’t care that the pages turn better with three. If you use brads that are longer than 1½”, they can stab the reader while the analyst evaluates your script and nothing makes them hate you more than a work related injury.

Do not use colored or specialty covers for your script. It shows that it didn’t come from a proper representative. Your rep will have the right cover to adorn your script. No bad script was ever sold because it had a flashy cover. Focus on the writing.

Courier 12. There should be no clever fonts ever! Not on the cover page, not in the body of the script and not on the back. No one ever got ahead using a clever font. All it does is make people think that you spent more time on the font than you did on the story.

Proofread. There is no reason to have a typo on page one. It’s just inexcusable. Readers always, without exception, pass on scripts that have typos on page one. If the writer was too lazy to proofread the first page then readers assume that that person is also too lazy to turn in a quality product. If you feel that you’re incapable of proofreading because you’re too close to the project, hire someone who can or ask a friend. It’s better to annoy your buddy than to face premature rejection.

Don’t dedicate your script to anyone. If you wrote it for your dead dog, leave a copy on his grave, but don’t advertise it. When and if it’s produced and you have the lofty position of power to dedicate the movie to someone, do it then. Otherwise it will make you seem like a besotted newbie.

Never call for music. That means when your plucky girl lead finally leans in for that meaningful kiss on page 101, and you say in the action, “Brown Eyed Girl plays softly in the background” it better mean that something plot related is about to happen. The only acceptable time to call for music is when it’s integral to your story. For example in “ Sea of Love ” the song was part of the plot, it indicated the killer was approaching. If you want to match songs to script plot points, be a music supervisor. If you want to be a writer, focus on your story.

This is really a checklist of why most new writers get a pass. In future columns we’ll get into the deeper and more serious issues like character development and story arcs that are also reasons for a pass. The key is understanding a simple idea: this is a superficial business. And as such, if you make stupid, superficial errors you’ll never get sold.

If your script is clean, when it’s handed to a ruthless reader or an exhausted executive, then the special story that you slaved over will shine through and your work will be seen as it was intended. And look at it this way — if they do wind up passing, then at least you know they took you and your work seriously. And in most cases, those same professionals who did pass will be willing to look at other scripts in the future. You then have the limitless opportunity to cultivate relationships, ultimately creating the exact thing every new writer needs, contacts.

So, if you feel passionate about a story, write it. But be painstaking with your work prior to sending it out for review. Don’t make avoidable and grievous errors and your luck just might improve with those no-sayers. They just might utter a yes.

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Posted in Screenwriting, Script Reading, Writing | 4 Comments »

October 28th, 2009

Cover My Script Halloween Script Coverage Special

Halloween is my favorite time of year. It’s a celebration of never-ending candy bowls of bite-sized chocolatey goodness, the smell of smoke rising from chimneys as you carve pumpkins, and the very best part of all, a non-stop horror-fest of the very best and very worst of scary film on television.

In the spirit of chilling cinema, CoverMyScript.com is offering special rates for all those writers out there who feel about horror, sci-fi and fantasy film as I do. From now until November 1st, CoverMyScript.com will provide professional story analysis for your horror / chiller / sci-fi genre / fantasy feature film (up to 120 pages) for $100. That’s 33% savings!

Contact Xandy@CoverMyScript.com

Cover_My_Script_Special

Some say, the world is full of horror. I say, the world isn’t filled with enough… horror films that is. So, send me your gore, send me your axe murderers, send me your serial killers (or cereal killers if your characters are against Pirate Captains and Leprechauns) and let me help you ready your super scary script for sale.

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Posted in Script Reading | 2 Comments »

October 25th, 2009

The Three-Act Structure and You, Perfect Together

Printed in “Hollywood Scriptwriter Magazine” July 2005

If you listen to any great raconteur entertain a group of people at a party, he tells his anecdote in a certain way to elicit the greatest emotional response from his audience. Well that, in its simplest essence, is the Three-Act Structure.

By following the Three-Act Structure’s formula, the story teller knows how to introduce the characters, when to create the drama of the circumstances and more importantly, how to get the audience to feel what he wants, exactly when he wants.

Act One is for getting to know your hero, understanding his world, his struggles, and learning what his problem is. Based on a 90 page script, Act One is broken up into a couple of sections. Pages 1-10 contain character introduction, location set up, general opening details. Let’s make up an example for illustration purposes. So, you’ve got a family man, let’s say, a taxi driver from Brooklyn . His ex-wife is a pain and she’s demanding he fetch his daughter’s cake from a Queens bakery before 2pm . By page 10 in Act One you must have the Inciting Event, which is some action that either the protagonist does or something that is done to the protagonist to set his story in motion. In our example, the family man taxi driver picks up a mob guy who dies in his cab and the taxi driver’s now got a kilo of mob coke in his back seat.

Act Two usually begins at page 30 and lasts for the majority of the 90 page script until approximately page 70. Act Two is the hardest section of the script and the place where most, if not all, writers have difficulty because it’s the longest section. This is where all the dramatic pathos is, where the emotionality resides, where the plot complications flourish. So now our taxi driver is on the run, the mob guys are after him, thinking he jacked their coke and they want him dead. Plus he still has to go to his daughter’s ballet recital and stop at the bakery.

So our taxi driver does a creative u-turn and evades his pursuers. It looks like he’ll get the cake after all. However, that forward moving story progress comes to a crashing halt, at the Dark Moment. In a 90 page script, the Dark Moment usually comes in between pages 65-70, and it’s the point in the script where everything is against the protagonist and it looks like the character won’t achieve his goal. So, right before the recital, the taxi driver is carted off by henchmen and is about to get boiled in oil for the coke and it looks like nothing will save him.

However, here comes Act Three to the rescue between pages 75-80. The Act Three act break is a direct result of the dark moment and it gives the character a new chance to rebound from seeming failure. So, maybe our taxi driver hero sees that he can save himself by swinging out harm’s way and in a Herculean feat of strength sending his captor instead into the oil to be French fried. It is this chance that leads the protagonist to the successful resolution of his problems. He makes it to the recital, with the cake, and eventually gives the coke back to the Don. He and the Don make up and our hero’s life is spared. And that is the Three-Act Structure.

Another is example is 1988’s Working Girl, which has perfect Three-Act Structure. This film knows structure and if you’re having trouble figuring it out, check out this movie again and watch for the transition between acts.

Tess is a struggling secretary with dreams of success in the corporate world. However, she’s tacky and no one takes her seriously. So when she gets fired, i.e. the Inciting Event, she has to start a new job, working for narcissistic Katherine. Tess pitches an idea to Katherine, whom she views as a mentor, which Katherine rebuffs.

In Act Two, Tess has to take over for Katherine, who is injured. Tess discovers that Katherine passed off Tess’ idea as her own, and so Tess decides to pose as Katherine’s colleague to get her ideas heard. Tess contacts Jack, a colleague who coincidentally is Katherine’s beau, to put the deal together. Both Jack and Tess are unaware of the Katherine element in their relationship, adding more plot twists and heightened tension for the audience as Jack and Tess fall in love. These are all perfect Act Two details.

The Dark Moment comes just as Jack and Tess are about to succeed and finalize the big Trask deal. Katherine, recently returned from her injury, and having discovered Tess’ scheme, goes and humiliates her in front of Trask himself proclaiming “That woman is my secretary!” Tess, shamed, leaves the boardroom knowing that she’s spoiled her one chance at happiness both for work and love. As part of the audience we shout, “Tess, speak up, don’t let Katherine get away with it!” but you see, if she did, then it would prematurely end the story, providing a less than satisfying climax. But this is not the end of the story. There’s still Act Three to bring us our promised happy ending.

As Act Three begins, Tess is unemployed. But we discover that Jack loves her not Katherine, and he intercedes with Trask on Tess’ behalf. Tess finally has the courage to speak up and vindicate herself. Katherine is fired for her unscrupulous behavior. Tess winds up with a job at Trask as an executive and gets Jack too! This is how Act Three ties up all the loose ends and satisfactorily concludes the story.

The Three-Act Structure is the best story telling tool around. Understanding it, implementing it and using it to your advantage will make screenwriting all the easier because since it’s a formula, you will know exactly where to place the highs, lows and inbetweens. The Three-Act Structure and you are perfect together.

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Posted in Screenwriting, Script Reading | 2 Comments »

September 23rd, 2009

Relationship Porn: Your Jenna Jameson is my Don Draper

Everyone has their porn. For some, the word “porn” may evoke girls in cherry red pumps and little else; not a bad way to spend an afternoon. But there are other kinds of porn out there, porn often more satisfying than sex and better yet, it’s taboo free! For me there has always been “Relationship Porn” and god does it feel good! Oh, yes it does!

don_draper

For “Foodies,” there is “Food Porn.” Think Top Chef, Hell’s Kitchen, Iron Chef, all that quick paced, rat-a-tat-tat chopping, steel against wood, parsley minced to beatific perfection resulting in a fluffy cloud of green. How could you not get a little turned on by such a cunning culinary display?

For “Gearheads” there is “Car Porn.” Think Top Gear and American Chopper, all that gleaming chrome, endless road, open terrain whizzing by at dizzying speeds, making you long to drive like The Dark Knight in a tunnel with the dazzling flair of 007. How could you not want to fondle that gear shift, firmly in your grasp, as you punch the clutch?

Then there is my favorite kind of pornography, the very best smut around that satisfies me, and countless other like-minded women, on every level: “Relationship Porn,” the delicate balance of romantic minutiae and overly complicated details woven into a tapestry of magnificent, belabored satisfaction. What a remarkable invention! Shows like 90210, Melrose Place and certainly all daytime soaps like The Young & The Restless create, for me, the sort of feeling you get after taking an hour to eat a single frozen Milky Way; sheer, unadulterated, prolonged ecstasy.

Any television series that revolves around regular characters in love and in peril, progressing in the tiniest of baby steps, while hyper-examining lint sized emotional triviality, falls under the category of “Relationship Porn.” I, like most women television viewers, love the details. I always want to know everything that happened to everybody, ever. and also because the details are what make a story interesting and engaging. It is these details that reveal the character and what invests us in their outcomes.

Felicitylogo1998’s Felicity taught us that a single word could mean so much, to so many. Every time Ben, the hunky Northern Californian barista, said “Hey,” to Felicity it was never clear if it was going to be a good “Hey,” like when they were in love, or a bad “Hey,” like when they weren’t. Either way, the “Hey” signified that they needed to discuss their feelings over lattes and ringlet curls.  And lest we forget a perfect example of contemporary “Relationship Porn:” Mad Men.


MadmenlogoIn Mad Men, not only does the show have the romantic, nostalgic costumes and sets, but it has Don Draper, the king of “Relationship Porn.” He is a cheater, a lover, a genius and the smoothest man on Madison Avenue. It is his devastating good looks that draw in the ladies, but the minutia is with his desperately sad, yet tragically beautiful wife Betty. Then, there’s star-crossed lovers Peggy and Pete, their story so subtle yet so intangible. We only get just enough to tease ourselves, but never quite enough to feel like we’ve eaten a full meal. There is always room for Peggy and Pete, definitely seconds and sometimes thirds

Just as there will never be enough Don Draper, I will always want more “Relationship Porn.” Give me interesting characters, romantic complications and a sincere desire to tickle me slowly with feathery details, and I’m there every time.

In Shaun of the Dead: How do you Pegg it, when you Wright, I discussed how changing details can reinvent a standard plot. Well, in “Relationship Porn,” change even the most insignificant details, and you’ve got season two. With each new detail revealed, a rippling complication can further separate desperate lovers. Yes! More time to savor that sweet character drama melting like chocolate slowly on my tongue. It is the willingness to see heroes vanquish evil, overcome every romantic obstacle and saboteur, and finally be united in a brief yet emotionally satisfying manner that keeps the audience tuning in week after week. The key to keeping the audience around? Our lovers can only be happy momentarily before, once again, they are ripped apart by evil forces determined to ruin the lovers’ chance at a happily ever after. It gets me every time.Real_Wives_NYC

When women talk life with their friends, it’s the details that we focus on.  The salacious details, all dramatic pathos, plots rife with potential conflict and drama in the most delicious possible way, and it will take the long slow road to solve each dilemma. The Real Housewives of NYC is a great example of Reality Show “Relationship Porn” that isn’t sexual or romantic in nature. Since it is about straight women’s relationships and the in-fighting with each other, it is nothing but “Relationship Porn.” There’s Simon, the husband who crashed a “Girl’s Night” dinner party and started a war with Ramona, another party guest, in season one, setting off a series of disastrous and drunken confrontations that are always a train wreck and a delight to behold. Season two found Bethany at odds with Kelly, the newest housewife and resident snotty bitch. As they fought about who was cooler and who was “stupider” and whose face belonged under whose Jimmy Choo, we hated Kelly and her embarrassing display of childish brattiness as we rallied behind Bethany for rising above. Godbless, Bravo!

“Relationship Porn” isn’t about the outcome, it’s about the journey. The satisfaction doesn’t come from the big climax at the end. Because once the secret’s out, then it’s time for the next big reveal and then next, into infinity (or until the show is canceled). It’s pervasive, it’s ubiquitous, and it’s just like life, only better. Revel in those details, soak up all that minutiae. You’re deep in the throws of “Relationship Porn” and, oh god, is that a sexy place to be!

With contributions from Merrel Davis (www.merreldavis.com)

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Posted in Production, Revisions, Screenwriting, Script Reading | 2 Comments »

September 18th, 2009

Shaun of the Dead: How do you Pegg it, when you Wright?

HEAD TO HEAD

As part of a new collaborative series of articles with Xandy Sussan of Covermyscript.com and Merrel Davis of MerrelDavis.com, we will deconstruct and evaluate modern and classic films from the screenwriting, directing and story perspectives. Our first movie is Shaun of the Dead. Articles will be cross-posted on both sites.

Shaun of the Dead: How do you Pegg it, when you Wright?

The zombie movie is as pervasive in our cinematic culture as popcorn at the concession stand, but what Shaun of the Dead brings us is a new take on a staid and challenging genre by seamlessly incorporating fresh comedic and romantic details into the traditional George A. Romero style zombie film. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg figured out how to take a genre and twist it around, all the while, never sacrificing the key elements that make it what it is: a true zombie flick.

Zombies

How do you tell a standard story in a way that is so fresh, so new, that while the pacing and character arcs are familiar, the offering is unique and special? How do you avoid being cliché, when there are only so many stories to tell and so many ways in which to tell them? The answer: Change the details. Could it really be that simple? Indeed, the Devil is in the details and the details are what makes a standard, typical, pat plot, fresh and inventive. That is exactly what Wright and Pegg did with Shaun of the Dead.

Shaun of the Dead changed the details in several key ways. In most zombie films, we open with a mysterious outbreak of a virus or some government experiment gone awry. The citizens get infected and then finally, a reluctant hero emerges, with a sawed-off shot gun to save the day… of the dead. But he winds up tragically only saving himself. Wright and Pegg take those elements and redefined them when they created Shaun.

CHARACTER

Xandy Sussan: Shaun, as a character, is archetypal, relatable, and understandable. He has a girlfriend he loves but he can’t get his act together. He works a dead end job, because he can’t get his act together. He has a Hamlet-esque relationship with his sainted mother, and childishly hates his step-father, because he can’t get his act together. Shaun is your basic everyman. The twist? Shaun is, while healthy, a zombie merely plodding through his own life. It takes the confrontation with the real zombies to knock him out of his stupor , to seize life, and to regain his love.

Shaun-Zombie-walk

Both as a character and a visual metaphor, Shaun is what makes this movie such a gem and it is the literalness of the metaphor that makes it so clever. While the concept of the man sleep-walking through life is a well established premise, showing a man literally walking through life like a zombie, until such time as he has to fight actual zombies is a fresh and inventive take on that basic idea. The script wove pedestrian character dilemmas in to the fabric of the story so seamlessly. It used action counterpoint so masterfully, to articulate the problems that it felt there were two films (a romantic comedy and a zombie flick) running side by side, in harmonious, parallel perfection.

Merrel Davis: It is Shaun’s day-to-day minutiae, which establishes his character as someone we know, but that is only half of the character equation. Every Lone Ranger needs his Tonto, and for Shaun, it is the daft and selfish, best friend Ed. Ed appears only as comic relief in the first act, a bumbling fool who is so self-involved that while everyone is running from zombies, it is he who pauses for a silly photo-op or takes a call from a mate looking to score some weed. Others, including Shaun, feel that it is exactly this behavior that is holding Shaun back. Ed’s actions, serve to highlight the duality of Shaun: the man-child and the emerging hero. It is these two discordant characteristics, which illuminate Shaun’s inability to marry his old life with his new.

Shaun-Yelling

When Shaun finally decides that he must grow up, that he must be responsible for more than just himself, it is Ed’s ridiculous and selfish behavior that forces Shaun into a moment of clarity and responsibility. At the height of being surrounded by hundreds of zombies in front of the locked pub, “The Winchester,” Shaun can no longer ignore what he hates about his friend, what he hates about himself.

Like a good “Tonto” always did, when backed in a corner, Ed displays a triumphant act of heroism and sacrifice. When the zombies are closing in on the cellar and it seems as though all is lost, Ed redeems himself and shows Shaun that while you can still be a child at heart, you can also be a man.

Visual Style

Turning an eye to the visual look of Shaun of the Dead, we discover frenetic and fast paced cuts ala Requiem for a Dream for the most mundane of tasks such as brushing teeth. It is this visual reinvention of pedestrian activities which creates a feverish yet controlled environment that enhances the pacing of the plot. It is this filmmaking style, married with intuitive use of tracking shots and visual call backs that makes this movie.

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MD: The first scene is a brilliant piece of filmmaking and editing that immediately pulls the audience in, while exposing several layers of backstory through a series of cut-aways and reveals. The scene begins tight on Shaun. It appears as if he is alone at the bar. Then, as we pull back, Liz is revealed. It now seems as though they are alone having a relationship chat. But then, we go wide again to reveal Ed, as he plays a fruit machine, mere steps away from the quarreling lovers. Then we ratchet back in tight to Shaun and Liz, until the line “It’s not like I don’t like David and Di” where we reveal yet again, there are more players in the room. We cut to a medium wide of David and Dianne as they sit right next to Liz; a hilarious reveal.

This style of editing and shot construction opens up the scene to five players, in a clever way that later echoes the interpersonal relationships and struggles the characters must confront. It also allows for us to go back in tight between two characters and then go wide again, without feeling too jostled.

redonyou

XS: I love the entire “You’ve got red on you” sequence and multiple call backs. From the moment it begins, we find a foreboding, yet hilarious rake joke foreshadowing what’s to come. A simple pen stain on a white shirt really means so much more. It establishes character: a schnook of a man whose pen breaks open, ruining his work shirt. We suddenly know all we need to about that guy, and it’s all conveyed through one tiny detail: a small red stain on a white work shirt.

The red ink establishing the bloodshed to come is both a simple and elegant. It is a perfect visual clue to let us know what is just around the corner. When both Ed and Shaun’s Mother subsequently deliver the line “You’ve got red on you,” the meaning and intention is overtly clear. It is a quite clever touch, really.

STORY

The story is as basic as they come. Boy gets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl back by slaying zombies. What Wright and Pegg did was take a standard by-the-numbers plot and make it dazzling, simply by adjusting the details and changing up the visual way in which they were presented. They did so without sacrificing originality and staying true to their genre.

XS: The story, on the whole, is satisfying on a number of levels. There’s the romance between Shaun and Liz: their easily relatable problems, their commonplace if not charming arguments, their friends who can’t help but interfere with their own agendas. It’s your standard three act romantic comedy but it delivers with clever, fresh dialogue and a breezy pace.

Shotgun_Shaun_Of_the_dead

MD: Then there is the zombie element, the action, and the adventure. All of which takes us down a path of thrilling edge-of-your-seat entertainment.

As the zombies spill to the streets there are moments that evoke Resident Evil 2, a survival horror video game. These are moments of intense desperation and fear, not only just of the known (zombies) but the overarching fear of the unknown (government conspiracy?)

Shaun embarks on a treasure hunt of sorts, he must go from location to location, saving person by person, until he leads them to relative safety. And, as though the filmmakers knew the audience was getting a little antsy for some gunplay, they deliver in the form of a pump-action shot gun!

XS: And of course there is the comedy to give us a much needed respite from all of the harrowing gore. There’s always room for a joke and Wright and Penn know the proper moment to deliver one, especially in the most dire of circumstances. Whether is be an off-color fart joke (“Shaun, I’m sorry. No, I’m really sorry”) or the more subtle joke (“No, what does ‘exacerbate’ mean?”) there is always an instance, which enhances the story or gives us a momentary break from the non-stop action.

MD: I especially liked the choreographed attack of the elderly zombie backed by the soundtrack of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. It was new, different and gave the audience a catchy tune to bounce around to, while violence was erupting all around us.

A zombie flick is several things: it is a visual story, it is an emotional, and oft times painful journey, it is a bloody catharsis, which by the end, leads us to be reborn, satisfied movie goers. Shaun of the Dead is a perfect example of a film whose details made all the difference between lazing down the path of least resistance and charging down the avenue of newly conceived, exciting peril.

It is with Shaun of the Dead that we rediscover our love of romance, adventure and are thrilled by an equal amount of gory, yet hilarious, zombie slaying. The audience leaves with two lessons: Pay attention to your life, because it’s over before you know it. And that any story is new again when you simply change the details. The details are what will make your script and subsequent film stand out from the lackluster trite projects that consistently glut the marketplace. Shaun of the Dead should inspire you, as it did us, to employ standard structure and stay true to our chosen genre, but be intrepid when crafting original and creative, stand-out details.

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September 1st, 2009

Avoiding Mental Spackle: How Not To Fill Holes In Your Script

This is a guest article from Merrel Davis

Recently I worked with a friend, Emery, on the seventh draft of his romantic comedy. He had been toiling away for the better part of a year and he was positive that his opus was now finally ready to send out. When he asked me to give it a once over, before he sent out his queries, I was excited to see where he had landed with his script.

What I encountered, unfortunately, is a very common pitfall. There were gaps in his character development that could only be explained through backstory; they never made it onto the page. He had a handful of obvious typos, and worse still, in a pivotal scene between three main characters, he misused one of the character’s names for all the dialogue, a character that no longer existed. Emery was usually so fastidious about his work, so how could he have missed so many crucial details? The answer was simple: Emery had applied a thick coat of Mental Spackle and he could no longer see even the most minor of infractions.

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Image Creative Commons Licensed / CC BY-NC 2.0

Mental Spackle is a term I’ve coined to describe what the mind of a writer does when revising. As you go through each change, shift scenes, consolidate characters, details inevitably fall through the cracks. With each minor adjustment, with each new scene, even the most dedicated and observant writers will miss minutiae that could ultimately cause their excellent, thoughtful script to be a pass. While a story may exist fully in the writer’s mind, it almost never exists entirely on the page – certainly not in the first couple of revisions. It is very easy for a writer to gloss over holes or problems in story as they revise because as the old saying goes “you can’t see the forest for the trees.” Writers, like Emery, unwittingly become blind nature walkers and every additional revision seems to solidify a layer of spackle somewhere.

Am I Spackling?

It is so easy to get lost “too inside your own head” during the writing process and forget there is a difference between subtext and nothing there at all. You won’t know you are spackling until after you have put away the putty knife. As you write, you’ll gain a sense of depth and breadth of your character. After all, you are living with them every revision. But is it on the page? If you write like I do, then you have likely created detailed backgrounds for all your characters. 98% of this detail will never make it into the script outright. If when you receive notes and you find yourself explaining how your protagonist needed that chocolate ice cream as a child in order to set up his current job loss as a engineering contractor at the end of Act Two, but the ice cream scene isn’t in there, nor mentioned, it is likely you are Mental Spackling.

An example from one of my scripts: My protagonist must make a pointed decision at the age of eight, one which will forever change the direction of his life. In the first two revisions – this decision took place off screen. I knew the decisions, based on the backstory I had developed so, in retrospect, I believed that the different lives he would lead as a result of those decisions would contrast enough. It didn’t. In the next revision, the decision took place on screen, but it still didn’t pronounce in a truly effective manner. Even though I knew what was going on, there was a disconnect between what I knew in my head about the character and what was actually on the page. Mental Spackle struck at the most important incident of the first act! It happens to the best of us, but if you follow a few simple steps, this won’t happen to you.

How do I combat Mental Spackle?

As you are the closest person to your own work, it will always be hard to ferret out things that may seem obvious to others. That’s why it’s always important to have a group of readers whom you trust. I have a friend that is excellent with grammar and typos. I have another who can critically deconstruct even the most challenging plot arcs with ease. I have actor friends who help me make dialogue more authentic.

  • Don’t fly solo. Discuss your work with your trusted peers. The simplest of spackle jobs can be addressed with a read through by someone other than you. Send it out for a round of informal notes. This will catch the top level stuff; grammar, wording, formatting and spelling problems.
  • Have professional coverage written on your script. Getting coverage on your script can really help you make your story a concise, precise and marketable piece of work. A good analyst will deconstruct your story, find your mistakes and missteps and tell you what may be holding your script back. It is through this analysis that you’ll know what works, if your highs are where they belong, and if your characters’ arcs read correctly. Learn a bit more about script reading and how it can help greatly in my other post Script Reading and Analysis: Why?
  • Organize a table read with real actors. There is nothing more helpful than hearing the words you’ve written coming form the mouths of actors. A table read is not for performance sake, it is to hear your dialogue and action text spoken aloud. Does it seem natural? Does it make sense? Does the pacing work? I personally like to have the actors read the script cold. If my characters and their voices are strong, the actors will be able to find their groove easily, and spot embarrassing mistakes, such as Emery’s.
  • Revise, Revise, Revise! Each pass through of your script you’ll find something new to adjust, sweeten and tweak. I know writing is an eager process and instant gratification is the solution for excited writers. And while it may feel like it’s done at the end of revision two or three, it probably isn’t. Space out your revisions. Editing back to back will increase the likelihood that you will accidentally spackle right over major problems because you’re too close to your project to notice.
  • Workshop your script. Workshops provide an immediate, collaborative environment to vet your work. If you are able to get into a workshop with a strong workshop leader and committed participants you’ll find it a worthwhile endeavor. Plus, you never know what comment will spark that “Eureka!” moment that will help you fix your script.
  • Most importantly, Step away for a bit. If you have the luxury, let the work breathe. You can’t eat a pie straight from the oven, and you can’t finish a script and shoot it out to the world before really making sure that every detail, every character, every scene is perfect. For every writer there is a want, a need to finish a revision and share it with the world. That urgency is healthy. But being hasty can be your downfall.

Avoiding Mental Spackle altogether is impossible. Your mind will always fill in your character’s gaps, confuse removed scenes from five drafts ago with your current version and think like they are still a part of the script.

So, after Emery and I finished our consultation, he was astonished he had overlooked such obvious items. I explained to him that Mental Spackle afflicts even the best of us. But the only real way to make sure that doesn’t happen is diligence, patience and a solid core group of trusted friends, readers and peers to help keep you on track. While writing a script is a solitary business, taking your script to the next level is only possible when you get good, thorough and thoughtful feedback.

Instead of succumbing to mind-numbing Mental Spackle, plan ahead and be methodical. Lest you end up like Emery. While his script used to take place in Kansas, it was moved to outer space. Apparently, Emery didn’t catch that when he changed the meet-cute from the Wichita Wal-Mart to his new location planet Merrilia, he left the stage directions the same. But who knows, maybe Emery knows something about inter-stellar retail that we don’t.

(Merrel Davis is a NYC based screenwriter, story analyst and director. Article written with contributions from Xandy Sussan at CoverMyScript.com)

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