A-List Screenwriting

WHY THE HURT LOCKER ISN'T A MASTERPIECE

2010-06-10T04:56:00.000-07:00

My recent analysis of The Hurt Locker sequence by sequence shows that it holds up as a decently structured non-goal-oriented movie.

I was going to write a big essay about why it's not a masterpiece but not many people seemed to want to read it. ;-) And I am in the middle of preproduction myself, so I am going to pick my battles. And, after my ScripShadow interview, people accused me of being too analytical. So I will be breezier and leave you with some homework. Excuse the first-draft nature of some of this...

My recent off-the-cuff post on Done Deal inspired me to quickly throw up this blog. Pun intended. Here is part of the post:

In brief.....around the tenth or eleventh sequence when the film should have shown a surprising and new revelation about what it all means, they regress (in the scene where his friend gets hurt) to "he's risk-taking and that's dangerous," which is like a page-30 revelation, not a page-100 revelation. Part of the problem is bad character orchestration. The other characters weren't defined strongly enough to challenge him. If they could have made a stronger and more specific argument to him not to chase down the bad guys on his own, they could have called him on his behavior and helped us see it for what it really was.

Some unfinished thoughts from my original THL piece:

I actually have a bigger issue with sequence 10 that culminates with Eldridge being shot. It feel it’s actually a bit of a non-sequitur in the scope of carefully linked sequences. His argument for going is generic and unclear as to the deeper meaning. He says that there are bad guys out there and they are “laughing at us.” Sanborn’s strongest rebuttal is “It’s not our job.” And Eldridge conflicts with him after-the –fact: with “fuck you… adrenaline junkie.”

I feel like the clash of ideas is a regression. This conflict was the sort that was playing out on page 40. He likes ACTION. Been there done that. Is it risky? Sure. If their response showed that they picked up some other motive, it would allow for deeper insight. Now whether or not you agree with me on this, stick with me for a second for two reasons.

First of all, if you write a nongoal-oriented movie, this is exactly the scrutiny under which you must put your scene and sequences. You are not going to evaluate it by the linear cause-and-effect of a Hollywood Blockbuster. You have to be finely attuned to the inner life of the characters in the scene. A major turning point in a nongoal-oriented story I have is that a character realizes a relationship has reached the love stage because her lover reads the newspaper in the other room. The next scene she is drunk at a party. No story software is going to tell you that the next scene must be at a party. But in these sorts of stories require you to track something else: Being open to "love scares her" so now she "must anesthetize."

That’s why this form of storytelling is hard. In an action movie, you might have a concrete task at hand. My character has to get across that guarded bridge. But in these sorts of stories, you have to create a scene that mirrors your characters’ inner life from absolute thin air. And the scene might be a really good scene but it’s trickier to measure its effectiveness. (And it’s trickier for execs to “get” it.)

REGARDING THE MOMENT before they go into the night and chase after the bad guys on their own:Let's look at the subtle craft that might allow us to dig deeper here and find out what is really driving James. As I mentioned Eldridge and Sanborn’s responses are a bit generic. I do believe that James line or tack could be tweaked. However, ironically, the actual clarification of his intent would come from the follow up line that conflicts with his argument. A character in the scene would have to be orchestrated in such a way that he is able to sense or understand the unconscious motivation and then shed light on it for us in his response. Consider the possible subtle motivations driving him here and a reaction that might pinpoint it for us.

• Like an addict, James is lying/rationalizing to get his “action fix – “You’re making shit up” or “That makes no sense”

• James can’t stand losing to the “bad guys” -- “It’s not a fucking game” or “There is no winning.”

• If he wants to compensate for the suffering of the people at the site -- “You can’t save them.” or “You can’t be a hero.”

The lesson here is that if you really want to mine the complexity of a main character, you have to orchestrate the other characters in a way that allows them to be strong enought, smart enough and opposed to their POV diamaterically enough so that their conflict can add insight. Think of the specificity of the priest's insight into the main character in Million Dollar Baby.

For instance, by making the Psychiatrist a buffoon whose purpose was limited to showing a slightly cliched perspective: someone who doesn't understand the "reality" of the situation, they lost an opportunity to explore the main character. Seriously, it's possible that 12.5 mf of Adderall twice a day solves 95% of this character's problems. I know it's a much less sexy title: The ADHD Locker, but if you want to write a masterpiece you have to go deeper than that.

My first draft of ideas to spur thought:

I think this film fulfills its promise as an action film and I am surprised that word-of-mouth didn’t generate more box office. There are several stunning action sequences of 10+ minute. But the truth is if a film spends a lot of time blowing things up, it has less time to explore characters and relationships.

With more time, could the film narrowed down who this character might be? What he is, what he’s not? I love the technique and the visuals in the “at home” scenes in the final sequence, but it is a little bit too dismissive about the possibilities of really understanding him. He hates shopping with his wife. Does he hate sleeping with her? He gets bored playing with his kid? Would 7.5 grams of Adderall twice a day cure that? Is he addicted to defusing bombs or does he have an acute case of undiagnosed ADHD? Would a less-caricatured version of Cambridge have been able to shed any legitimate insight into James?

As a 125-minute movie with, give or take, 12 longish sequences, it has the same amount of twists and turns as an 88-minute romantic comedy or 90-minute indie drama. Can it explore all of the necessary permutations of an idea or of a character in that many steps? If so, it has to be done with perfect efficiency? When I dig deeper into a few key moments (I gave this up, moviemaking trumps movie analysis) into the film, if there is a wasted sequence, a redundant beat or even a missed opportunity to escalate further an idea, then that’s a big deal.

Also, I am not sure I like the triumphant marching music at the end as he marches down the street and we are supposed to celebrate this as his fate. On the commentary, Bigelow argued that the last few images were from his POV...that's how he felt about it. But I am not sure that ending on that irony or POV was earned. You tell your child that you can't love it and then the final statement is: Woo Hoo, I am back to defusing bombs. The movie could have been stronger than the character.

I am being hard on this film because my expectations are high and so are the expectations of these filmmakers. The Hurt Locker is a very good film and possibly a great one. I hope that my illustration of some of this film’s inner works helps your writing. Remember, to write a script that’s very good, you have to aim for great.

Although the direction was less flashy (appropriately so) and perhaps with less overall craft, Frozen River was a masterpiece at the script level: it explored its ideas more fully... took them all of the way with more coherency.
Will have a film for you to enjoy or rip apart soon!

TOP 50 US BOX OFFICE

2010-04-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

In my Avatar article in the recent issue of Craft & Career, I promised a blog about why mimicking blockbusters isn't really a solid screenwriting strategy. I touched on the idea that there are things you can learn about storytelling from the filmmakers of the top grossing films of all time. Of the top 50 or so of the top US Box Office films, the only spec scripts were The Sixth Sense and The Hangover. If anything, those two movies are something to model a spec after: modest budget, clever concept (The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Twist, and using the mystery/detective genre).

Well, I let Kathryn Cottam --my right hand researcher -- do some investigating to see if I am right.....

... and here they are in all their glory. So let’s look at the top 50 film U.S. Box Office films to see how many of them are either original concepts or written by first time screenwriters.

From Kathryn:

• The first Star Wars film was definitely original, but five positions in the top 50 are held by the subsequent films of the franchise.

• The Spiderman Trilogy holds three positions. It is also a pre-existing intellectual property that debuted in 1962 and has a built in following.

• The Pirates of Caribbean Franchise holds two positions and is based on a theme park ride that opened in 1967 and is owned by Disney.

• The Shrek Franchise sits in two spots and is based upon an existing property that first appeared in 1990.

• The Transformers Franchise occupies two positions and is based on a line of toys.

• Lord of the Rings holds three positions. These are adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels which have sold over 150,000,000 copies worldwide since publication.

• Harry Potter holds four positions and the series by J.K. Rowling has sold over 400,000,000 copies since publication.

So barring the first Star Wars film, all of these 22 films are based on preexisting properties -- books, toys or a ride. So 7 entities or concepts account for over half of the list (22 of the 40 positions).

Of the remaining 18 properties on the top 50 U.S. Box Office:

• Five are based on bestsellers or literary properties:
- Forrest Gump (Bestseller)
- Chronicles of Narnia (Bestseller)
- Jurassic Park (Bestseller)
- Dark Night (Graphic Novel)
- Iron Man (Graphic Novel)
- ... and if we throw in the Lion King - based on Hamlet and Passion of the Christ - the Bible -- then that number increases to 7.

• Three of these places are occupied by sequels of pre-vious movies:
- Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
- Meet the Fockers (Meet the Parents)
- The Matrix Reloaded (The Matrix)

• Two of these positions are occupied by films from the the incredible Pixar Machine which develops its own properties:
- Up
- Finding Nemo

Which leaves us with the following: Titanic, E.T., Independence Day, Sixth Sense, Home Alone and the Hangover.

In other words of the 40 ... only 6 are ideas NOT based on a pre-existing property. But let’s look at these closer.

The Titanic certainly wasn’t Cameron’s first film; he has a most impressive resume, working in Hollywood since the early eighties, writing and directing several franchise properties (Terminator, Rambo, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies).

E.T. was created by the powerhouse, Steven Spielberg. Home Alone was by John Hughes (what didn’t he write in the 80s?) and Independence Day -- Dean Devlin had previously had a hit with the blockbuster, Stargate.

Each and every one of these writers, directors or producers is certainly no Hollywood novice.

So it appears that only the Sixth Sense and the Hangover are Spec Scripts ... 2 of 40.

BUT the Hangover is the only ORIGINAL property to make the top 40 in the past 10 years ... since 1999 when the Sixth Sense emerged. And The Hangover was sold as a Spec Script with the Director and BenderSpink already in place. And M. Night Shyamalan had written Wide Awake, Praying with Anger and Stuart Little.

So who are the screenwriters that appear on the top 50?

Well we have:

• Steve Kloves in 3 positions
• David Koepp in 3 positions
• Fran Walk, Peter Jackson & Phillipa Boyens in 3 posi-tions
• Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot in 3 positions
• Andrew Adamson in 3 positions and ...
• George Lucas in a whopping 6 positions.

Which means that 6 screenwriters or their screenwriting partnerships occupy a whopping 21 positions on the U.S Top 50 Box Office -- again over half the list.

Who are some first time screenwriters who made it NOT on the top 50 list, but the top 500 list?

Well, My Big Fat Greek Wedding written by Nia Vardalos comes in at #52 (which is pretty damn good - although it IS based on a pre-existing property, a one woman play). There is also Blair Witch at spot #212 written by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez and Se7en written by Andrew Kevin Walker at #433.

Like Jim mentioned with The Hangover and Sixth Sense, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Blair Witch and Se7en were clever concepts with modest budgets, strong hooks that captured attention and became audience favorites.

SCENE AND DIALOGUE ANALYSIS FOR A READER OF CRAFT & CAREER

2010-02-28T13:58:00.000-08:00

Jim Evert, a reader of A-List's newsletter's Craft & Career responded to an offer I made a few issues back to submit scenes to be critiqued on the blog. These comments will serve two purposes.

In purple text, I have made some general notes on the scene. (Normally, I would deliver these notes verbally and a dialogue between myself and the writer would ensue. But nonetheless I hope they are helpful as monologue.) And near the end of the short sequence, I make notes in red that focus only on the dialogue and are a follow up to the craft article found in the most recent Craft & Career Newsletter.

Jim is new to screenwriting, so many of these issues are expected. So I applaud him for having the courage to let me nitpick these first draft pages. Jim and I are going to discuss the scene afterwards privately and hopefully in a few weeks he will submit a rewrite based on our discussions, something we can all use as a learning tool.

Forgive the janky format. If anyone knows how to format script pages in Blogger, please contact me.

THE RED WIRE

Jim Evert

THE OPENING

FADE IN:

EXT. PENDRIUS BUILDING - PRESENT DAY, MORNING

The old PENDRIUS BUILDING is an aging hulk in the midst of modern architectural marvels. Three NYPD cars with FLASHING LIGHTS are carelessly parked outside the building.

I don't love the idea of opening on a building. It’s a static image and doesn’t seem to have any meaning in the story. Is "Present day" necessary? Would this not be evident in the visuals? Does "carelessly" imply that the cops sped to the scene, parked and rushed into the building? If so, that might be a different word. Also, what city are we in? I know you have NYPD on the cars but if I miss that, will I know where we are? If this were the Empire State Building or the Guggenheim, I might give you credit for setting up the location efficiently but you are missing opportunity to show us this world.

INT. PENDRIUS BUILDING

Various Pendrius employees are being interviewed by NYPD. DETECTIVE MIKAEL STRONG, 43, is a ruggedly handsome, middle-aged, greying, ex-marathon runner. A veteran cop with 23 years on the force, he's wearing the same suit he bought when he promoted to detective, 12 years ago.

I don't want this to be about language and proofreading, but there are some definite issues where the language is hurting the craft. A first page has to draw you in. I have to see something interesting and I have to know what I am seeing. The icky passive voice...employees are being interviewed.... has to go. What does that look like? I don't even know what I am seeing. It also reads like a laundry list: there are employees and one detective and another detective (with long and unknowable description (a cheat); how do you plan to show that he is an ex-marathon runner visually?)

Now, no more nitpicking language. Let's talk big picture creative stuff. We want an introduction to this world. And we want an intro to these characters. Think of Se7en --a character in his order montage. Lethal Weapon -- Riggs is doing his crazy thing on the job. Chinatown--an angry husband is getting bad news and pictures of his cheating wife. Get to the essence of your characters. Ruggedly handsome is cliche and doesn't reveal anything. Ex-Marathon runner - we can't know that now. And don't really need to. He's a veteran... okay... how is that going to play out? Are we going to see him act like a veteran? Same suit as when promoted....I guess that means I am seeing a guy in ratty clothes.

Later on, I am going to come back to what I know about him.

CHIEF OF POLICE FRANK MCDONALD, 54, is older and slightly taller than STRONG. His rugged complexion reflects a hard life in the Bronkx, but his uniform looks like it just came off a Macy's mannequin. Strong stands talking with Chief McDonald in the entrance foyer of the Pendrius Building.

I like the contrast in the two characters. Honestly, right now the fact that one of them wears an old suit and one of them wears a meticulous (and starched?) uniform is the most vivid description I have seen and maybe all I need at this point.

This why sometimes I have five pages of notes on the screenwriter's first two pages. ;-) I am not invoking some arcane law about character introduction but there are some bad habits here that I want the writer to shed. This principle is true for all aspects of "beginnings" in storytelling: When you open a movie, when you introduce a new location, when you introduce a character and when that character meets new character(s). You have to think 'filmically' and introduce us to the moment in linear way: one piece of information at a time. I see so many scripts where there are four characters introduced in a row--each with two sentences of description. How can a reader take all of that in? A viewer might be able to but they are still going to be confused and short-changed on some aspect of one of the characters.

Look at how Peter Weir deals with a simple situation like this in Dead Poet's Society. Knox is going to the Danbury's house. Surprise, the young pretty daughter opens the door (hey, you're not Mrs. Danbury.) Then the mother comes and literally replaces her in the doorway... (oh, look, the nice proper but friendly mother). Then when he comes in, the DAD walks in the room… Except for the daughter, these are all minor characters, but for the audience to process it, they have to be led into the moment step by step. The same principle applies to your opening shot (NYC, Tone of Film, building that belongs to who, cops, investigating what....) and the introduction to your characters. You don't put Murtaugh and Riggs in the same frame on page 1. There is too much cool stuff you want to learn about them and it's too difficult to absorb it when they are simultaneously competing for the viewer or reader’s attention.

MCDONALD

The ME think it's a simple case of old-age catching up, but something's rotten about it.

STRONG

What's that, boss?

MCDONALD

He didn't seem that close to death when I played golf with him last Saturday.

STRONG

You've already talked to his family?

MCDONALD

Yeah. I convinced them to do an autopsy.

STRONG

Alright, boss. I'll keep you posted.

See Strong's three lines. You have a character named Strong. He's a main character and you have decided to introduce him in a scene where he is only acting in his by-rote function as a cop and subordinate. He listens to his boss and asks flat/exposititory questions. No actor in the world would get past this page. Why would they even want to think about playing that character?

I sound like I am being tough. But here's the good news. This page TELLS us and the writer about these characters. Now scrap it and think of a scene that SHOWS their essence and allows them to be themselves quicker. The bad news (not so bad) is that you have to spend 5-10 minutes to rethink this and then an hour writing. But you will have a much more dynamic scene and a setup that will get you much further. And best of all? You will have characters that are more intriguing.

Let's read ahead a few paragraphs and see what we learn about them and then I will use that to brainstorm some solutions. Unless Strong's character arc is to go from wet noodle subordinate to something else, then we gotta get him more active and present.

The Chief's cell phone rings - he pulls it out of his jacket pocket, looks at the caller ID, rolls his eyes, holds his left index finger up in a "wait a minute" gesture to Strong, then answers it.

MCDONALD

Yes, Margaret...can it wait a few min...yes dear, I will, goodbye.

He closes his cell phone but keeps it in his hand. He takes a step closer to Strong, then points it at him like an extra appendage.

MCDONALD

(quietly)

And no visits to O'Callahans's in between, right?

STRONG

I told you before, Chief, I've been sober for fourth months.

A much more naturalistic response would be to flip him the bird, to say FU or to ask him what he wants from the bar. Unless Strong is supposed to be a weak by-the-book character who stays in line and overly respects authority, a straight informative answer like this is not drama. It's not even necessary. If anything have him ignore it. That would be the stronger choice.

Okay, big picture. First, I am not even sure I like McDonald bringing up the drinking unless there is something in the scene that makes him worry about it. And Strong here has no presence at all. Essentially, both men have a generic conversation about the crime – although I'm not even sure what the crime is, let alone how it's related to these employees or this building.. I want a scene where these guys do what they do. Who are these cops – besides cops? If Strong wears a ratty suit does that mean Strong is irreverent? And I guess McDonald is by the book? Perhaps, but they certainly aren't acting that way.

One try: Maybe it's middle of the night... a much better setting for a crime/mystery film. McDonald starts the scene wandering around asking for Strong, and has anyone seen him? As he does this, he walks by all of the boring aspects of the interview/investigation that we don't really care about. But it's a funny bit and it's on point. He is the boss and he wants to make sure his underling is here. Then maybe Strong comes in at the last minute in sweat pants/running pants...... MCD goes and tries to smell his breath. Strong give him a "give me an f-n break look" and MCD says he looks like shit. Strong says he couldn't sleep and went for a run. Later, he can gripe about his knee. (He looks haphazard and disrespectful (characterization) but he came here when it wasn't his shift (character)).

It's hard to settle into a movie when people I don't even know yet are talking about other people I don't even know yet. So it might be worth dragging the audience in through Strong's POV. Maybe he doesn't know what's going on or SURPRISE -- he recognizes the dead body as his friend. His disorientation would cause him to DIG for answers and McDonald dismisses his curiosity because he knows Strong would have known the answers if he had arrived on time. (Even crime scene scenes aren’t about the scene. They are about the characters.) This is a first draft idea but get some conflict in there. Get some character in there. Let these people be who they are going to be. If you can't find a way for them to be more than just their role/job here, then don't start the movie here.

None of my specific suggestions are brilliant or even inspired but they are pointing you in the direction you should be moving. When I talk to Jim, I am going to ask him about the essence of these guys and once we nail that, I will push him to find a scene or situation that allows them to be – and reveal -- more of THEMSELVES.

MCDONALD

Yeah, like THAT'S gonna last!

The Chief turns and walks away. Strong mutters to himself

STRONG

Asshole!

PENDRIUS' INNER OFFICE - A FEW MINUTES LATER

I am not going to nitpick this scene. But this scene has a similar problem. The main characters are acting like "any old" cops. Their personality, style and essence aren't on display. Strong asks generic questions that only represent the mundane goal of getting information. This is clunky exposition.

But here's the trick to improving it. . This problem is not really a scene-writing issue. It's a character and structure issue. The writer needs to think about what's urgent here. How do these characters conflict? What is at stake that is bigger than the investigation? If you answer those questions, THEN and ONLY THEN do you arrive at a place where you can start thinking about how this scene might play out.

DETECTIVE BOBBY GONZALEZ, 38, although not new to police work, was promoted to detective only two years ago. His dark complexion and athletic figure immediately makes one think of an Aztec warrior. When Strong walks in, Gonzalez is standing to one side of the crime scene, taking notes on a WORN NOTE PAD.

STRONG

What do you have, Bobby?

GONZALEZ

Raphael Pendrius, owner of the firm. Secretary found him this morning collapsed at his desk.

STRONG

Anything unusual?

GONZALEZ

Nah, just the phone off the hook.

Strong walks around to the back of the desk. Massive oak, old, sparsely adorned. A rather worn MANILA FILE FOLDER is centered on the large ink blotter; the name "BELLE" neatly printed at the top. Strong picks it up and opens it. Starts reading, pauses and looks at his partner.

STRONG

What do you think, Bobby?

Strong continues thumbing through the file.

GONZALEZ

Gut feeling? Pendrius died of old age.

STRONG

You check out the secretary?

Strong looks up from the file. Gonzalez reads from his NOTE PAD.

GONZALEZ

Mary Zowkowicz. Been with the firm since day-one.

Never missed a day of work.

STRONG

What about her colleagues?

GONZALEZ

Only two other secretaries worked on this floor, but never had

any dealings with Pendrius directly.

STRONG

So, Ms. Z had tight control of the office reigns, did she?

GONZALEZ

What it looks like.

Something else, though...

STRONG

What?

GONZALEZ

The other two secretaries thought the two had a more private relationship...

Gonzalez turns slightly and looks in her direction.

GONZALEZ

From the way she's carrying on, they probably were.

Strong walks to the window, still looking at the file. After a few moments, he jerks back around to look at Gonzalez, pointing at the folder.

STRONG

Hey, I remember this case! This was the nut with the phones.

GONZALEZ

You lost me, Mikael.

Strong holds up the folder and points to the name.

STRONG

Belle.

He was accused of murder 12 years ago. Unusual circumstances.

They ended up throwing it out on a technicality.

GONZALEZ

So what does that have to do with us?

STRONG

Don't know...nothing, probably.

GONZALEZ

Well, I'm going to interview the night guy. Later, Mikey.

Gonzalez turns and starts to leave the room. Strong turns towards him.

STRONG

It's Mikael, Bobby, not Mikey! Damn, you know how I hate that!

GONZALEZ

(still walking, grinning)

Got it, Mikey!

PENDRIUS'S OUTER OFFICE

Strong shakes his head as he walks from the inner to the outer office. His cell phone rings...

STRONG

Strong...yeah, just got here a few minutes ago. So what's up?...Uh huh...Uh huh...TOD was between 11 p.m. and midnight?...

He pulls out a NOTE PAD and starts writing.

MAYORS OFFICE - AT THE SAME TIME

The office is furnished with a massive OAK DESK, a dark, leather-covered DESK CHAIR, and a pair of matched, OVERSTUFFED LOUNGERS in front of the desk. MAYOR TERRY ACADIAN, 58, almost as wide as he is tall, with a badly aging cutesy-pie face, and Police Chief McDonald, are sitting opposite each other in a deep in discussion. Each has an identical-looking folder in front of them.

Why the same time? This is confusing. McD was at the crime scene a few minutes ago.

In a second, I am going to just focus on the dialogue for this rest of the scene. But first I want to finish up with my notes. Ironically, some of the problems with these scenes are more about the structure. If the Prendrius case is what the movie is really about, then I feel like we should know the characters BEFORE the inciting incident takes place (if that’s what the death is?). The same issue with the mayor. Instead of seeing Strong’s actions and how they impact people, we are being told about it. MAYBE this opening needs to back up 10-20 pages to where Strong actually messed up. It’s not dramatic to see the mayor talk about something that happened a long time ago. Drama is conflict in the present. Now, I know that this next scene has some conflict for McD and the Mayor. But the question is why now? I feel like we would want to see the status quo before we start seeing relationships conflict. Some of my assumptions may be wrong about this opening and I will share my mistakes in a follow-up blog after Jim and I talk.

I might argue that the next scene doesn’t even belong at this point in the script, but I am going to assume it does and focus on the dialogue (mostly) as a complement to the article in Craft & Career.

In order to illustrate some points, I have to make some assumptions, try a few what-ifs and follow a few tangents. Maybe the original is better in some ways and maybe sometimes I am imposing something inappropriate on it. I think one of my greatest gifts as a teacher is to help a writer improve upon WHAT HE IS TRYING TO SAY by listening to his or her responses to my suggestions. But, sometimes, in a one-way monologue like this, I will inadvertently go too far in the wrong direction. Nonetheless I think this exploration can be a learning tool.

Here is the scene without any notes or comments.

The office is furnished with a massive OAK DESK, a dark, leather-covered DESK CHAIR, and a pair of matched, OVERSTUFFED LOUNGERS in front of the desk. MAYOR TERRY ACADIAN, 58, almost as wide as he is tall, with a badly aging cutesy-pie face, and Police Chief McDonald, are sitting opposite each other in a deep in discussion. Each has an identical-looking folder in front of them.

MCDONALD

Mayor, we've already talked about this...

ACADIAN

You've gotta cut Strong loose, Chief.

MCDONALD

NOT a good idea. He's one of my best detectives...

ACADIAN

...with a drinking problem.

MCDONALD

Not anymore. He's been clean for four months.

The Mayor squirms in his chair.

ACADIAN

It's not entirely my idea, Frank. The Board of Supervisors had a meeting...

MCDONALD

And...

McDonald leans forward - the Mayor pulls back, a little intimidated.

ACADIAN

He's run out of second chances, Frank.

MCDONALD

He's had a few bumps in the road, but nothing THAT serious...let's not do this, Terry.

The Mayor sits back as if contemplating the situation, then

ACADIAN

Alright, Frank. You've got two weeks. He screws up, he's done, got it?

The Chief sits back in his chair.

Now, let’s break it down.

The office is furnished with a massive OAK DESK, a dark, leather-covered DESK CHAIR, and a pair of matched, OVERSTUFFED LOUNGERS in front of the desk. MAYOR TERRY ACADIAN, 58, almost as wide as he is tall, with a badly aging cutesy-pie face, and Police Chief McDonald, are sitting opposite each other in a deep in discussion. Each has an identical-looking folder in front of them.

The first thing I would say is, “Forget his cutesy-pie face (what does that mean?), give me one adjective – preferably one that sums him up the best — about the mayor to work with. Maybe the adjective is in the action description, but more importantly, we need to get a handle on him.

Line by line:

MCDONALD

Mayor, we've already talked about this...

I like that the scene is starting in media res. Good efficiency. I get of McD. He is a tough cop who picked on his subordinate for being a drinker but has enough loyalty or honor to defend him here. But brevity challenge: could you cut the first line and start with the mayor’s line:

ACADIAN

You've gotta cut Strong loose, Chief.

But like the cops earlier, the Mayor is just fulfilling his role as politician: trying to get rid of a troubled employee. This isn’t special. This isn’t specific. Maybe it's passable to start here, but it's not okay to stay.

I guess the beat is: pushing, persuading. Don’t know why it’s important yet. McDonald’s reply is to refute, to argue. But notice that his second line implies the first. So cut the on-the-nose part and only keep the line that captures it.

MCDONALD

~~NOT a good idea.~~ He's one of my best detectives --

ACADIAN

-- with a drinking problem.

I like the fact that he interrupts him. Nice flow. Problem is that it’s information the audience and both of these characters already know. So really there is no need to say this and you should be able to cut it. Instead, maybe just have Acadian do a disapproving gesture like shaking his head and let McDonald know he has to escalate his argument:

MCDONALD

~~Not anymore.~~ He's been clean for four months.

Notice once again, this phenomenon of a double line. A line that expresses the subtext explicitly. And then ALSO a line that captures the subtext implicitly. You don’t need both. A more extreme example from some imaginary script would be: “What the fuck were you thinking? That was sort of stupid.” Do you need both sentences? No. And which is better? More emotional? More fun? ;-)

The Mayor squirms in his chair.

ACADIAN

It's not entirely my idea, Frank. The Board of Supervisors had a meeting...

It’s sort of strange to try to do this nonlinear creative process in a linear fashion, so cross your fingers…

This is the EUREKA moment for me where the mayor finally REVEALS himself. This first draft of the scene has led us to gold, albeit half-way in. The mayor to appeals to what other people (board of directors) want. Although he is the boss, he permits the peer pressure from some nameless board to get in his way. (It’s also possible that this reveals something slightly different: he is weak and, whether the board really agrees with him or not, he wants to use it to avoid responsibility.)

(Note on ADVANCED CRAFT. If you preceded the line with a small indication that McD was relenting and was sort of stuck with the mayor’s decision, then the mayor’s saying of this line is actually an even more telling ACTION. Because he offers it up without solicitation. It’s like a tell in a poker game. If he says the line at a point where McD had stopped fighting, then it’s overcompensating. It becomes evidence that he is not comfortable using his sole authority. He either wants to shed responsibility or make McD make the choice to fire him. Some of this is here as is, but the mayor’s actions would be stronger and more specific if we tweak the set up and have another character smart enough to call him on the subtle action. If McDonald were Sherlock Holmes (or his double Greg House) or Hannibal Lecter, he might say something like this: “You brought up the Board without needing to which means that you aren’t comfortable making this decision or you’re just the messenger of the bad news and don’t have the courage (or authority?) to make me fire him. You want me to do it.” But this is not really his character or voice.)

Without having had a conversation with the writer (and maybe I should do this as an interactive podcast sometime) I have to make some assumptions. I am assuming that the nature of this mayor is that he worries about what other people think of him (his image, reelection) and that he is sort of a wimp and doesn’t have the strength to make a decision. This piece of information will inform the entire rewrite. Now, that you know the character, you can rewrite the scene from the top. Now, the Mayor has a magazine on his desk (or wall) with his picture on the cover. Or maybe he has a chart of his approval ratings. Maybe he makes reference the upcoming reelection. And instead of the generic “The Mayor Squirms”, you might see him walk over to the wall with the picture of him on the front of a magazine and straighten the frame. Suddenly the subtext of the scene is illuminated: I am covering my ass and image by pushing for you to fire him. (A stronger and more political character might not be afraid to be upfront about his motivations here.)

Without finding the subtext of the characters, the scene won't rise above mediocrity – and it’s not supposed to in a first draft, btw. But if the writer and McDonald can recognize the subtext of the mayor’s line (I am unsure of my power here and want to shift responsibility to the Board to cover my ass) for what it is, then the scene escalates into drama.

Does one of these lines better capture a personal beat as well as McDonald’s voice?

MCDONALD

If you weren’t so worried about being popular (kicks over public

approval chart) you might get some work done.

(BEAT: Calling him on his bullshit intentions)

MCDONALD

While you’re posing for photo shoots (counting poll reports), Strong is

putting his life on the line.

(BEAT: Putting him down, challenging his courage)

MCDONALD

Terry, do those pencil pushers really got you by the balls?

Terry, those pencil pushers really got you by the balls?

Terry, those pencil pushers really got that tight a grip on your balls?

(BEAT: Attacking him by cutting him down, castrating him)

MCDONALD

What do those pencil pushers have on you, Terry?

(BEAT: Calls him a FRAUD, attacks his intentions (if done sarcastically) or fighting to figure out the truth (if he is seriously concerned that he is being blackmailed or pressured))

Here is McDonald’s original response:

MCDONALD

And...

McDonald leans forward - the Mayor pulls back, a little intimidated.

I like the fact that McDonald was using a bit of intimidation here. It’s a character-specific choice. However, I am not sure it’s true to his character. Strong seems more likely to be the guy who might intimidate while McDonald is rather proper.

Moreover, McDonald wasn't really being intimidating. All he did was lean forward and say “and”. The sub-text between the two men hasn't yet escalated to a level where intimidation is warranted. And if intimidation is necessary … a line such as “What do those pencil pushers have on you, Terry?” is a strong choice because it lets the Mayor know that McDonald sees through his image, and the bullshit. And nothing is more intimidating than a person who can expose your vulnerabilities.

And notice how the new “what if” lines I brainstormed dig deeper. They allow McDonald to reveal his intelligence and intuition in picking up the mayor’s weakness. And his stronger bresponse forces the mayor into a tougher situation.

ACADIAN

He's run out of second chances, Frank.

If we escalate things like I suggested, this line might change to something more personal. However, I don’t think on a structural level I want to hear on page five about a character’s second chances before we have even seen ANY OF THEM. But instead of writing a new line for the mayor, I will just show you how using the what-if lines that I wrote for McDonald actually creates a chance for a stronger beat for the mayor. Depending on the McDonald line from above, the Mayor now has to respond with this beat: Defend his honor, crush McDonald by showing him he’s wrong, call him on an even bigger flaw, castrate him back, threaten him with a believable but disproportionate use of his political power. This might cause a back-and-forth or it might just be one nasty line thrown back at McD.

If you gave the mayor even one heated and more personal line, then maybe you could then return to the next line as is. In fact McD’s following line would be stronger because it would be a big surprise/change from the tumult back to a reasonable and calm friendship/bond/emotional appeal:

MCDONALD

He's had a few bumps in the road, ~~but nothing THAT serious~~...let's not do this, Terry.

It is possible that you could make the emotional appeal a little more specific and/or tighter:

MCDONALD

He’s not the only one who's had a few bumps in the road...let's not do this, Terry.

MCDONALD

Let's not do this, Terry.

Or accentuate the shifting of gears back to civility:

McDonald steps back, sits down and smiles.

MCDONALD

(softens)

Let's not do this, Terry.

Now, the beat becomes one of settling down and relying on trust or friendship or compassion. But it’s stronger and clearer if preceded by the opposite. Which would also create a context for the Mayor’s feeling the need to offer an Olive Branch:

The Mayor sits back as if contemplating the situation, then

ACADIAN

Alright, Frank. You've got two weeks. He screws up, he's done, got it?

The Chief sits back in his chair.

You might argue that the resolution should not be a friendly reconciliation, but one way or another you have to make the scene about more than winning an argument. These beats don’t make a dramatic scene:

-I want him off the force.
-Here is good reason to keep him.
-I really want him off the force.
-Here is a better reason to keep him.
-Other people and I want him off the force.
-I will punch you if you fire him.
-Okay, I relent.

At the very elemental level, there is the goal of “making sure that Strong keeps his job,” but it always has to become more personal. Watch a Jack Ryan movie with Harrison Ford or Erin Brokovich. The characters might just need some boring piece of information but the scene will always involve stakes of higher importance.

Obviously these are not the ONLY way to make the above scene work on a dramatic level, but here are some beats that could make this scene more dramatic, more castable and more human:

-Mayor pressures McD to fire Strong.
-McD ridicules request.
-Mayor tries to pull rank, use his power.
-McD silence means he ignores him.
-Mayor slides out from responsibility and blames the city council or desperately grasps for straws.
-McD sees this weakness and calls him on his hypocrisy and cuts him down harshly, castrating him with words.
-Mayor ATTACKS BACK by getting personal or defends himself like a cornered animal.
-McD chooses to calm down and appeal to empathy or friendship.
-Mayor offers an Olive Branch.

TWO LITTLE ACTION DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note that the last two action description lines have the mayor “sitting back” twice. Lose one. Probably the second. If sitting back in the chair hints that he is softening, then the line of dialogue PROVES it. But then this moment is over. Don't repeat your beats. What you need is how it has affected the McD. Or end on the line of dialogue. The worst choice is to end on the Mayor (who may not be a central character), especially if it’s a redundant action.

Also, by the end of the scene, we would know the Mayor much better. So whether its my assumption of his character or whatever Jim, the writer, decides, the description of his desk and office can be less generic. Under my assumption, there would be awards, pictures of famous people, approval polls, and magazine covers that feature his portrait. And then, of course, you must exploit the setting, so dialogue or blocking might interact with the props.

WHICH SCRIPT IS YOURS?

2010-01-15T15:26:00.000-08:00

I feel like a cheater. I decided to cut this (first draft) from my book proposal on scene writing. But if you live an intertwined multi-media life, a column becomes a book proposal whose "killed darling" becomes a blog. Welcome to my world....

FLATTERY WILL GET YOU EVERYWHERE

2009-12-11T23:19:00.000-08:00

Okay, so one of the winners of the Champion Competition told me that the reason he came 2,000 miles to my weekend class was because of my article on The Edge. And it's because of my classes: 8 straight days of A-List: The Immersion that I haven't been able to post. So I thought I would post a link to the article that he liked.

Logical? No.

Good article? Yes.

Tonight or tomorrow I wil post the winners at the Champion Blog.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MOTIF AND A PROP

2009-11-23T14:08:00.000-08:00

I have been hesitating to write this blog because I can’t study the scene from Inglourious Basterds because it isn’t out on DVD yet. I may do things illegally on the downlow but I don’t do illegal downloads. But since this is just a blog, I can be sloppy, vague and maybe even wrong, right? Well, if I am, I promise you will still learn something.

IB is actually an example of a movie that succeeds (or fails) mostly on the scene level. This movie isn’t about the “structure”. If you are engaged by the several long mini-story scenes, then the movie works for you. If not, it probably doesn’t. So I want to look at one of the most fascinating scenes in the movie. It’s the one where Hans (the “Jew Hunter”) talks to Shosanna at the restaurant to vet her for the movie premiere to be held at her theater.

This scene has a lot of really high-end craft stuff that excites the film school geek and art-film lover in me. The way Tarantino plays with point-of-view is amazing.

FROM THE SCRIPT:

The empty chair next to the young Jewish girl is suddenly filled with the bottom half of a grey ss officer uniform

In the script, Tarantino has him sit down almost immediately, but by allowing him to stay standing up, we get a cool allusion to the opening scene. In the film Tarantino chooses to hold on the isolated CU of Shosanna while only Landa’s uniform can be seen behind her.

CU SHOSANNA

A bomb is dropped and detonated behind her eyes. But if she gives any indication of this, her war story ends here.

Although it’s a bit of a cheat, the moment is done so well that I forgive it. It’s not a gimmick or a stretch that she would recognize the voice of the man who executed her family. It echoes the opening scene but this time we get to see “it” from Shosanna’s POV. Earlier, she was offscreen and had to quietly and helplessly listen to Landa.

There is another little cheat.

FROM THE SCRIPT (his typos):

The fluency and poetic proficiency of the S.S. Jew hunters French, revels to the audience, that his feigning clumsiness at French with Monsieur Lapadite in the films first scene, was simply a interrogation technique.

Sadly, my four years of French in high school weren't enough for me to “get” this on my first viewing. It shows Tarantino’s considerable craft. It’s a clever demonstration of Landa’s character. Tarantino seemed to intend it to be for the audience and not for the characters themselves. But it’s possible that Landa's fluency could actually play in the scene. It would be an additional source of surprise and, possibly, fear for Shosanna in the scene.

Imagine this. She comments on his fluent French. He asks her to clarify why she would suspect that he speaks proficiently. And then she would have to cover by diverting attention from the fact that she has heard him speak before. Tarantino could have easily used this not just for the audience, for the characters.

INFORMAL DEFINITION ALERT

Actually, this question of whether his fluent French is recognized by her or just the audience, is a way to look at the definition and differences of motifs and props.

A motif is an image or idea something that has cumulative power from rhyming with a collection of other images or ideas like it. It may be the way that “eyes” and “seeing” are used in Silence of the Lambs or flawed eyes in Chinatown. It might even be the way oranges or the color orange shows up in The Godfather before most of the deaths. Motifs are there for the viewer or maybe even the reader. They aren’t there for the characters in the story. No character in The Godfather should be able to say “Orange! Boss, duck!” although maybe a henchman ordering Chinese takeout could ask, “Orange Duck, Boss?” (What? It could happen.)

A “prop” in the metaphysical sense of anything physically in the world of the story differs from a motif in that the characters are very much aware of it. It might be the expensive dress the wife has just bought with the husband’s credit card. It might be the murder weapon. It might be the bill at the restaurant over which two people argue. That item is part of the scene, story and the characters react to it.

Sometimes a motif and prop can overlap. Two characters with a chain link fence between them have to deal with the fence as a physical obstacle (reaching fingers through, being frustrated by inability to achieve physical contact) but the fence might also represent something bigger in the story: separation, being trapped, the nature of the relationship. And it might rhyme with other images of consriction. If I were watching a movie where three consecutive murders all happened in a red room, the appearance of another red room would have some effect on me. But if I were the character of the detective in that red room and I knew the pattern, I might also be suspicious or anxious. Why didn’t Brad Pitt in Se7en say, “If I don’t get to anger management class and FAST, I could be in big trouble”?

In the scene from IB, Tarantino has another really clever touch that walks this prop/motif line. While Landa is interrogating/talking to Shosanna, he orders milk and cream. I immediately got off on this in a film school geek sort of way. I get the irony that she was a dairy farmer and it is someone like her family that made or provided the milk for this cream. And the glass of milk harks back to the opening scene.

FROM THE SCRIPT:

COL LANDA: Yes, two strudels, one for myself and one for the Mademoiselle. A cup of Expresso, with a container of steamed milk, on the side. For the Mademoiselle, a glass of milk.

Considering Shosanna grew up on a dairy farm an the last time she was on a dairy farm, her strudel companion murdered her entire famiy, his ordering her milk is, to say the least….disconcerting.

We probably get it without the 4-line (in the script) cheat, but Tarantino is so effective in making all of these ideas and images resonate, I don’t mind it. It seems that the usage of the cream here is definitely as a motif, i.e., as a Christmas tree ornament for the audience only. There are several cuts to close-ups of the dairy in the scene, but (I believe on my 2 viewings) the characters don’t react to it at all. It’s only there as an extra layer of meaning, irony and stakes for us, the viewer and reader.

Just like his proficiency in French wasn’t recognized by Shosanna, but could have been, we can ask a similar question here. Could the cream be used as prop and not just a motif? I was careful not to ask the question with should. I am not judging (Myers-Briggs: I am at least 99% P, I swear); I don’t judge. I am about the process. And here the process is “what if?” What if Tarantino used this fact in the scene for the characters, not just the audience?

Could Shosanna look at the milk or cream and get flustered? Or would it distract her at a key point in the scene? Could she have to determine whether or not it’s a ploy by him? I am not saying that it takes over the scene but notice that it would be an organic reaction very much within the character, her background, her familiarity with dairy and its association with the milk-drinking nazi who gunned her family down.

I think because we have already seen Landa have the upper hand in an interrogation in the opening scene (where he asked for milk), then it might be redundant to do it again here. But at least be aware of what a powerful tool it would be to have him use her reaction to the cream as way to put pressure on her or call her bluff might seem a bit redundant.

There is a cool moment in Ronin when a guy knocks over a thermos to force another guy to catch it. This seemingly physically unassuming guy betrays lightning quick reflexes in grabbing it and we AND THE CHARACTER realize that this was a calculated trap to out him. The cream could be a way to Landa out Shosanna.

This sort of paradigmatically powerful moments is one of the most densely packed moments in recent film. It’s one of those moments where so much is going on that it’s almost mind boggling. It reminds me of two of my favorite moments in cinema: when Noah Cross asks "Mr. Gitts" in Chinatown if he is sleeping with his daughter and the opening of Midnight Cowboy. (Hey, I just got ideas for more blogs!)

I am surprised that some more of the elements of the scene didn’t rise up from the unconscious world of motifs to the conscious world of props, but IB is done and over. You now have to ask questions about your scenes to help them dig deeper AND be more cinematic? Are there images or items I can add to the scene to make it resonate more? Do these elements have thematic meaning? Do the characters respond to them? If not, could they? Do the characters’ responses help to define them? Is the characters’ interaction with the element/prop/motif the only way for the audience to understand this subtle point?

There is so many cool and advanced stuff – points of views, motifs, allusions - going on in the IB scene that make it exciting. Make sure you aim as high. How high? Check out the name of the blog.

CHAMPION SCREENWRITING SHORTS WINNERS ANNOUNCED

2009-11-16T17:56:00.000-08:00

GO HERE!

I decided to start a blog exclusively for Champion Updates.

DAMN IT, JIM, I AM A CONTEST ENTRANT NOT A CONTEST ADDICT

2009-11-05T17:21:00.000-08:00

A long time (okay, yesterday), I suggested a way to evaluate screenwriting competitions from a more mathematical and logical perspective. If that was a little too Mr. Spock for you, there is another way to look at the equation. From Bones’ perspective. Take logic out of it.

It wasn’t just an arbitrary comparison or Freudian slip when I likened a contest to a poker hand. There is definitely an element of chance and excitement in contests. When I wrote the unused foreword to Erik Joseph’s book on screenwriting contests years ago (Curse thee, unknown writer of said foreword!), I talked about gamblng addiction. It’s never about winning or losing the coin toss; it’s about the moment when the coin is in the air and the butterflies in the stomach and the anticipation and excitement just knowing that you COULD win.

Contests are the same way. If they can help you enjoy this sometimes lonely and always rejection-filled process of writing screenplays by giving you something to look forward to, then figure out your, as they call it in poker, bankroll: What you are willing to risk on contests. Even losing poker players can have an appropriate bankroll: The amount of money they are willing to lose in spending X hours of their life doing something they enjoy.

But Yikes, Jim, how do I know whether I should be signing up for WAB or GA? Hmm, well, if you’re an aspiring writer and spent $2000 on contest entry fees last year and advanced in none of them, listen to me. It’s intervention time:

Step away from the Internet Explorer Window that is open to Withoutabox, put down the mouse. I repeat, put down the mouse.

If you are having less than a 10% advance rate in contests, put your money and time into books, classes, consultants, coverage or notes. Here are some free resources from me: howtowriteascreenplay.net, my newsletter. You can find all other sorts of help on the web. And if you are going to take a big step into an expensive class or program or a high-end consultant, make sure you do some due diligence. Get a sample, look for testimonials, talk to former students/clients/graduates, read articles or watch their DVDS. (What? I didn't plug anything.)

But if you are having some moderate success even without winning, embrace the fact that it should be fun. Check out boards like Moviebytes (ignore some of the crazies) and the Done Deal forums and use them as a way to connect with other writers who have advanced or entered the same contests as you. As an extrovert who writes, I know it’s sometimes HARD to block out the impulse to be talking and hanging out with other people when you’re supposed to be, ah, interacting with your keyboard. Use the social aspects of contests as a reward for your time spent immersed in the interior fantasyland of your story and the writing thereof.

And if a deadline, a $50 entry fee and the hope of praise, promotion and money that you will get from a decent placement or win motivates you to write (or rewrite) a script, then we’re back to no-brainer territory: enter some contests. Of course, there might be a diminishing marginal utility in entering several, but the intangible (or arguably tangible) value in motivating you to write is worth much more than a few entry fees. If you find yourself in this scenario, you (cue: new age music) have already won.

As a storyteller, I am supposed to pay off the Kirk/Bones/Spock thing, right? Well, try to be like Captain Kirk. Use a little logic and a little emotion to come up with a sensible strategy. Remember the coin flip thing. Until the coin lands and the contest decides, there is excitement. So when you are a quarterfinalist, use that energy to query people and create momentum. Or if you meet some cool people who are also quarterfinalists for scripts of similar tone or genre, swap notes. Or use the deadlines to force yourself to finish a rewrite.

Contests are a game where there is a lot of luck involved. Unlike chess, it’s a game of imperfect information and chance. I could teach a 7 year old kid how to beat the best Monopoly player in the world 20 percent of the time. But I can't teach an Oscar winner how to advance in every contest. You will always have to deal with some readers who don’t “get” your script. So don’t get down when a contest doesn’t go your way. Try to think of it like any other game. The goal is to have fun. Everything else is a bonus.

CONTESTS: LEFT BRAIN, RIGHT BRAIN, NO-BRAINER

2009-11-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

Heather Hale did a cool article about screenwriting contests in the last issue of Craft & Career, so I just wanted to add my 2 cents and give you a certain way to look at contests. Full disclosure: I have won a couple of contests, been in contention a handful of times and I started or helped to start 3 contests and I wrote a foreword to Erik Joseph’s book on contests, but alas the publisher used a different one.

In this blog I will look at a way to look at contests from a mathematical and logical perspective and then in couple of days, I will follow up with a way to look at contests in a more emotional way. Is either way correct? Nah. It’s like who’s the coolest character? Spock or Bones? Neither, it’s Kirk, the guy who is an integration of the logic and emotion. (reminder: blog about character orchestration sometime) Like Kirk, you must use your left and right brain to protect the 400 people on the ship, uh, I mean, your screenplay contest budget.

On a cold and calculating level, you can look at contests like a poker hand, a calculated risk. It’s a pure mathematical equation of EV (Expected Value). “If I spend $50 to enter and so do 999 other people and the only prize is $50,001 for first place and my odds of winning are 1 in a 1000, then it’s a good risk for me.” If the grand prize is only $25,000, the question to ask is simply, “Do I have a better than 500:1 shot to win this contest?” If so, then it’s a good deal from a pure mathematical point of view.

You can modify this equation in several ways. The Nicholl Fellowship gives away $150,000 but since it gets more than 5000 entries, the math doesn’t work out to give it a positive expected value for every entrant. But if you are sure you are better than half the writers that enter (or are sure that your material is the sort that fits their taste(check out Scriptshadow’s review of recent Nicholl winner Victoria Falls)) and are willing to ride out the element of luck and chance, then it’s a great deal. (You only have to be a little bit better than the average entrant to make it +EV.)

But you may even factor in the fact that, say, 5 percent of the people are going to be a semifinalist and for your ability to promote that fact if you win is worth $2,000. Even if you are only a 5% chance to make the semifinals, your expected value just from making the semifinals is .05 X $2000 which is $100. So from a mathematical standpoint, entering this contest is a no-brainer. (Do the math with the real numbers and your own estimation of the value.) The priceless (IMHO) nature of getting into the Sundance Lab is why I keep banging my head up against that wall of "almost." Curse you, John Leguizamo!

You can also use this principle for contests that offer other prizes. In your calculations, consider the cash at 100% of its value obviously and then assign a subjective percentage to the other prizes. Maybe the $5000 in notes, classes and promotion is really worth only about 50% of the retail value to you in your subjective opinion. So add the cash value plus the adjusted prize value to determine your overall potential gain versus the number of entrants and your predicted chance to win.

An obvious corollary to this approach is that if you are a very good amateur writer and your script is a professional read (tight and polished) and fits the scope of the contest’s tastes, then many contests are worth entering from the perspective of expected gains. I know a few writers who made a living off of contests for a couple of years because their stuff was really good and they entered a lot of contests. Have faith that quality will eventually get noticed. (However, if your script fails to advance in 4-5 contests in a row, think about putting some of your contest resources into verifying your script is ready to go.)

The Nicholl isn’t a profit making endeavor; their money comes from a trust, so that’s why they can be so generous. But contests run by companies that can use their promotional power to generate a bunch of additional prizes can also be really worth it. If a company is giving away $20,000 in seats to a class or event you really want to attend, then that can be really valuable too.

Not every contest by this method will be wonderful, but you can use this approach to sort of determine the ones to stay away from. If a contest gets 4000 scripts at $50 a pop and gives away only $15,000 in cash, you gotta break it down and ask yourself where is the money going? $200,000 in revenue, $40,000 to readers, $15,000 to prizes, $10,000 to administration, maybe $10,000 in advertising? That leaves $115,000 unaccounted for. Do you want to enter this contest? I don’t. I want them to give away another $25k in cash or do some work and find another $50,000 in decent prizes.

As I mentioned, I have been involved with several contests and have entered several contests, so I am not going to make any judgments or point out what contests score well or poorly in this paradigm. Just giving you some ways to think about it.

I am currently reading the last 25 feature quarterfinalists for the Champion Competition (retail value of prizes =net revenue (entry fees minus Withoutabox fees)), so expect some news in a few days. I will take a break from reading in a day or two to discuss an alternate way to look at contests: from an emotional perspective.

BLOCKBUSTERS: TAKE THE BEST, LEAVE THE REST

2009-10-31T11:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I was away for a while. I had a Film Analysis and Scene Workshop on the East Coast and then had to catch up with a few clients and am finishing up the last 30 features for the Champion Contest.

I was giving a talk about blockbuster films at an Apple Store the night before my class and I asked people what they loved about the HUGEly successul films - Star Wars, Titanic, Spider Man, Finding Nemo, etc. - and suprisingly I got one person who said "the action" and then the other responded with these facets: character, theme, good conquering evil, clever set ups, dialogue, likeability of characters. And it was like I expected: the huge spectacle aspect is not the first thing people remember about these films.

And taking that as a cue... I think it's important to remember that what some teachers teach about the blockbusters is sort of irrelevant. Why? I will answer it in much greater detail and with supporting data in an upcoming blog but you, the aspiring writer with no major credits, aren't going to be the one to write them. (Two specs in top 40 US all-time box office: Hangover (pre-packaged with successful director) and Sixth Sense) And you aren't going to sell a script that could only be made for $200,000,000. So from a practical career perspective, it doesn't make sense to write an unmakeable and unsellable script other than as a writing sample or maybe to win contests. Or because you just want to.

However, there is a boat- (or butt-) load of talented filmmakers and great storytelling in that top 40. So I think writers would be alot better off learning some of the principles behind this storytelling without trying to emulate all aspects of it. Here is an exanple. Check out one of the coolest action scenes in a long time and a set-piece of a movie that cost 2 jillion dollars to make. Here is the scene in LOTR:ROTK where Legolas single-handedly takes down the elephant-like beastie...

THE SCENE STARTS AT AROUND 2:27

The real beauty of this moment is not the scope and the huge landscape on which this plays out but the cleverness of the beats. If you're a beginning writer, don't worry so much if your story has 6 new races, 4 new species of animals, 4 warring factions, magic users of different levels, 14 doubles, dragons, mammoths, magical swords, etc... What you can REALLY take from Mr. Jackson and his writing partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens is a respect for how much damn cleverness and cool and surprising beats there are in about a minute of film time.

Here are most of the beats, escalations and surprises:

Counting their kills. A bit of humor
Someone calls upon Legolas, raising suspense...why is he the one to deal with this beast?
Mario Bros, way of getting on the beast
Swinging to back legs.
Using arrows as ladder
Swinging from rope
Cutting rope
Riding up as the thing falls
Watching the people discover that they are going overboard and then watching them go
Deftly avoids attackers and arrows while perched on beast's back and even shoots some enemies
Since we already saw him use arrows....he reaches into quiver and SURPRISE his bow has THREE arrows in it....kills the beast
Skateboards down the trunk as it collapses
Dwarf says that only counts as one. Downplaying the awesomness of what we just witnessed.
Did I miss any?

Great sitcoms have this rule of having at least 3 jokes per page. Imagine this scene on its page or page-and-a-half (it's only about a minute long). Circle the "jokes" - the really cool and clever and inspired moments. You have a circle every inch. There are no generic beats. Everything is linked to the character and the physical environment. The arrows for ladders, riding the rope up. There is no repetition. He uses his bow AGAIN to kill it but there is a twist, something new: THREE ARROWS (and don't you dare give this away in the moment when he reaches to his quiver...snoring!)

You argue that this scene was created with a team of special effects people and three writers and probably wasn't even written and the writer was the director and blah blah blah? So what? You have a page or so for your action scene. You know what great is. Are you going to settle for less? If your action scene is filled with generic and unsurprising stuff -- the car careens around the corner, he speeds up, he bumps in to the car, he jumps the fence, he shoots, a bullet ricochets by his head -- and it doesn't escalate and surprise us and integrate the setting and find a clever beat every few lines, well, then make it short, rewrite it or don't write action.

If you need help reminding yourself what great is. Check out the opening of Casino Royale....several locations, people who are chasing each other like ONLY they can chase each other. Legolas uses his bow, his dexterity, his cleverness, the physical reality in front of him. See how James Bond's clumsy and brute approach contrasts with his chasee's dexterity and surprisingly deft moves. If you only have 4 cool beats in your action scene, fine. Make it 1/4 of a page, but if you need to make it a page, make sure that just like a dramatic scene in Oscar-winning film, make sure you have characters, uniqueness, surprises, stakes, escalation, integration of setting, cleverness.

You want a shot at being a working writer on Hollywood's B-list (or better), here's a hint: you gotta aim higher. Raise your expectations for every beat and every word on your page and you are already ahead of the herd and on your way.

WHEN IS SEIZE THE DAY NOT SEIZE THE DAY?

2009-10-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

Here is the answer to the A-List Quiz of the Week which I posted on our Facebook page.

In case, you don't want to look at the clips, here is the lowdown.

In Dead Poets Society, Knox goes to a party where his love interest Chris will be. He ends up kissing her which sort of sounds like Seize the Day, right?

Wrong?

If you want the long explanation and some more discussion about this sort of thematic beat in general, checkout my article on The F-d Up Permutation in the last issue of Craft & Career.

Or if you want to play along, watch the videos and try to see the dozen or so clues that the writer and filmmaker are giving us that this is not seize the day.

Otherwise, scroll down to the quick and dirty answer.

Watch from about 2:20ish to 4:00ish here...

And then watch the first bit here, the continuation of the party...

This movie is about having the courage to stand up and defy everyone else's expectactions and find your own passion. Well, there are like a dozen hints that his need to kiss her is more akin to peer pressure and insecurity than passion

A couple making out is our first image of him in the party and we see that he enviously watches them and eventually Chris dancing with her boyfriend. He gets drunk which takes him further away from his true self. And there is even an ironic twist: he gets drunk faster because two guys mistake who he is. That's funny.

Then he stumbles into the party and the framing is such that he is surrounded by two or three kissing couples in every shot. In the CU he actually gets smushed by the kissing couple. Hmm, what's on his mind?

Then he discovers he is sitting next to a sleeping (passed out?) Chris. She is not interacting or being part of this choice. She is just an object to him. And then Knox still takes a swig of alcohol to get the (liquid) courage to kiss her.

Okay, do you get it?

The lesson is that when you tell your story, you have to hit this thematically icky moment where the hero gets close to what looks like the victory/achievement but will actually turn out to be the exact opposite: the worst thing he or she could have done.

I heard a rumor of a thing called a short blog post, so that's all for now. If you want more, check out the newsletter.

I am off to see a really bad Hollywood movie. Parameters: matinee, less than 95 minutes and can fit in before the next important thing I have to do.

DANCES WITH COSTNER

2009-10-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

The South Dakota Film Festival invited me to come and attend and be a judge as well as give a talk on screenwriting. As the date got closer, I found out I was going to be following Kevin Costner on stage in a little Aberdeen theater. Yikes. I remember what happened to Anne Murray when she let Bruce Springsteen open for her in 1974.

I came up with, what I thought was, a bulletproof topic: “All I Ever Needed to Know about Screenwriting I Learned from Watching A-List Actors.” But I was still relieved when I found out later that Costner was going to go after me. Whew! As an amateur comedian in college, I opened for Tim Allen once. And now I can say I opened for Kevin Costner.

THE OPENING ACT: ME(RCURIO)

Ed Norton and Sean Penn were in two of my clips. I realized it wasn’t a coincidence that they also happened to be directors. They are picky as hell about their material. Watch their films. Whether it’s the material they pick, the way they develop it or the way they rewrite it, you can watch their scenes and just see there are certain things they aren’t willing to do.

They just won’t give a generic answer or speak a line because of its exposition or thematic value. They will pick a prop or activity that’s meaningful in the scene and cling to it before they get stuck in a static talky-head scene. They won’t give the standard reaction to common situations.

I also had clips involving Heath Ledger, Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep. Amazing actors can give us huge insight into screenwriting. We can steal from them and use it in our screenwriting. In fact, today, we are going to take a look at this from a playful perspective.

THE HEADLINER: COSTNER

I will address the topic more seriously in a later blog or in Craft & Career , but for now…

Consider all of the mean-spirited clichés about A-list prima donnas. Imagine the most hyperbolic examples of the awful attributes that movie stars have or supposedly have. Now let’s look at them one by one and see if we can actually learn something positive and productive about screenwriting from these clichés. Is there a way to reverse engineer our process so that it meets the needs of these supposedly entitled set of demands?

MY CHARACTER WOULD NEVER SAY THAT

You know what? Maybe they have a point. Why would you want your protagonist to have to explain exposition? Why would Tom Hanks or Jack Nicholson or Meryl Streep want to play a scene where they have to answer a yes/no question with, well, “yes” or “no.” When consoling a grieving person, don’t let your protagonist say, “I know how you feel.” If you can imagine Harrison Ford taking a red pen to it and saying, “How about if I just give him a look and walk out of the room?” consider writing it that way to begin with.

MY CHARACTER IS SMARTER (AND MORE ACTIVE) THAN THAT

Your protagonist is usually the smartest or most proficient character in the story’s world. Could he or she be the one who intuits the solution? Do you want the audience to sit around and watch supporting characters explain things to him? Which character and dialogue do you want in your sci-fi space opera?

SCENE 1
COOL PROTAGONIST walks into the Hypermylithium chamber and immediately
approaches the SCIENCE TECH.

SCIENCE TECH: Thank god, you’re here, I was just about to fuse the migration-fissure process to the weldian plug-in to achieve hyper-overdrive in the main cylinder.

COOL PROTAGONIST: Really, you can do that? And I suppose you are going to take the data flow from the neutron laser and...

SCIENCE TECH: ...warp it into a hyper accelerated arching process that uses mustard seeds in a ripple-effect sort of shamanistic genre-confused androgynous way to upstart the missile chamber reaction.

COOL PROTAGONIST: Tell me more…
OR

SCENE 2
COOL PROTAGONIST walks into the Hypermylithium chamber and immediately
approaches the SCIENCE TECH.

SCIENCE TECH: Thank god, you’re here, I was just about to fuse the migration-fissure process to the weldi--

COOL PROTAGONIST: --weldian plug-in, hyperdrive. Did you warp the neutron laser?

A FLUNKIE nods, surprised and impressed at CP’s knowledge.

SCIENCE TECH: Of course. And the shamanistic genre-confused…
Cool Protagonist nods.
COOL PROTAGONIST: The chamber reaction. Nice job. Now let's try the Mercurion Brilgamakjig?
Flunkie’s eyes light up.
SCIENCE TECH: Good call.
Science Tech runs off …
Or a simpler scene with a little more personal conflict.
SCENE 3
COOL PROTAGONIST walks into the Hypermylithium chamber and immediately approaches the SCIENCE TECH.

SCIENCE TECH: Thank god, you’re here, I was just about to fuse the migration-fissure process to the weldian –

COOL PROTAGONIST: Jesus, Christ, Jerry, you more so than anyone should have known about using hyper-accelerated arching…. Guards, get him out of here. (To all) We are taking over the lab. Everyone will report to me, effective immediately.
And then even work some more on this last line of dialogue.
PARTIAL REWRITE OF SCENE 3
COOL PROTAGONIST: Jesus, Christ, Jerry, you more so than anyone should have known about using hyper-accelerated arching…. (motions to the sentries) Guards!
The guards haul ST away.
CP looks to his RIGHTHAND MAN who steps to the top of the steps.
RIGHTHAND MAN: We are taking over the lab. Everyone will report to us, effective immediately.

Although it’s a huge improvement from the original, I know even my rewrites here are comically bad. But you see how they are moving in the direction of acceptable by just selfishly thinking of how to make the protagonist have to listen to and spout fewer inanities. 2-3 more revisions and this scene would be presentable. If you were going to give him a line that implies that the lab belongs to him, you wouldn't make it so on the nose. The star would get a line something like "There's a new sheriff in town. And his name is Reggie Hammond."

GIVE ME THE GOOD LINES

Well, ah, duh. And really, like, make sure you write some good lines. Then give most of them to the protagonist.

WHAT’S MY MOTIVATION? WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOR

We’ve all heard the cliché of an actor asking this question, but seriously what is your scene about? Imagine you’re on a set of a 120 million dollar movie and you have an actor who is getting paid $50,000 per hour to be there. Your production costs for the day are $500,000 and you have to call that actor out of the trailer to spend 8 hours doing a 2-page scene? Is that scene worth a million bucks?

Let’s say you are the writer-director and you tell your actors, “In this scene, your character wants to know if this woman knows the address of the killer?” He or she will start asking questions like “Really, is that it?”, “Am I attracted to this person?”, “Do I suspect that they are hiding something?”, “Why should I believe her?”, “Does this situation remind me of something from my past? Does he or she push my buttons?” If the scene is REALLY about only what you said it is, then are you sure it needs to be in the film? Are you sure it needs to be 2 pages?

Consider the scene that opens Inglourious Basterds. In the middle of the scene, the farmer grabs his pipe to smoke it. Do you realize the stakes? As part of this elaborate poker game where he has to conceal his bluff/lie from the Jew hunter. From his perspective, several of his friends will be killed if he doesn't smoke this pipe naturally, like he does every day.

Look at it from the character's or actor's perspective and find some surprising level of stakes and importance in every scene.

I NEED THREE ASSISTANTS, WEIGHT ROOM, CHEF, PENTHOUSE, PRIVATE FLIGHT

What is the upside to this? Well, we do want our actors to have to worry about nothing else but acting. Hopefully, this will allow them to be relaxed and in the moment. When great actors work together, a lot of their performance comes from reacting, not acting. They are in the moment and paying attention to what’s going on in the scene and the person opposite him.

How does this help you as a writer? Make sure your characters are listening to and reacting to each other. If you identify with one more than the other, you might tend to honor that POV more and make dialogue more of a monologue. Even if one character has most of the lines, there will be an implicit dialogue in the reactions, body movement and in the eyes of the characters. This will help you cut excessive words because if your characters are really in tune with each other, they will understand the situation before all of the words are even said. And if you get in the zone and listen to your characters, they will do alot of the heavy lifting (writing) for you.

Check out my first blog below about Heath Ledger. Maybe even check it out in better quality on YouTube. You will see what an actor can come up with if he is paying attention.

YOUR TURN

Sometimes I watch the best actors in the world elevate mediocre material. They do it by destroying clichés, coming up with surprising responses, saying less, not saying the obvious, letting body language or eyes express the beat or using the space around them as part of their blocking and performance.

Look at a character like House on the medical drama House. He makes almost magically prophetic “reads” of people and situations and we go with it. Look at how Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan figures things out, proposes solutions and is always a step ahead. Remember Nicholson in Batman after Jerry Hall looks at him in the mirror and tells him he looks great…remember what he said? I do. “I didn’t ask.” I don’t know if that’s his adlib or if it’s in the screenplay, but how’s that for a cliché-busting surprise of an answer?

Make your main characters smart and active. Let them understand something before anyone else could. Let them make the huge leaps of logic that only they can make but that will save the audience a few minutes of boring details. Let your character enter a moment with an understanding of as much of the boring details as possible, so he or she can get on with the cool stuff that only he or she can deal with.

If you can think of more clichés (whether or not they can be twisted into a writing lesson), leave them in a comment below.

The Business of Adaptation

2009-10-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

If you have been following my monthly e-newsletter Craft & Career*, you will notice that I interviewed two friends (Michael Lent, Laura Harkcom) about their recent comic book projects as well as Michael's non-fiction homerun with Disney/Hyperion. Does this mean that I am secretly trying to brainwash screenwriters to become comic book writers or graphic novel artists? Am I closet Fanboy? Do I have a third rhetorical question to make this flow smoothly? No, no and no.

The reason I have been discussing screenwriting tangents like comic books and even songwriting is that I believe that writers have to adapt. If I were a 22 year old kid right now....or let me put it another way...it really hurts me to think about the pain and frustration for kids trying to break into screenwriting now. Outside of the big 4-5 agencies, there were like a dozenish spec sales in August. The industry is a completely different beast than it was a few years ago. Completely diferent from the Biz literature from a few years ago. If you want to make it now, you have to be on the top of your game (COUGH**week long class with me in December don't hurt**COUGH! Excuse me.) and you have to be smart about understanding the business side and what's selling and how you can find your niche.

Apparently Bill Mechanic, former head of Fox Studios, has the same advice in a slightly different way. I am telling you to adapt. He is saying that it's about survival. Here is his recent keynote speech that has been making its rounds among the boards.

I can't tell you what your niche is or what you should write. But a few excerpts from an article I wrote in my last newsletter might help you start thinking in terms of the current spec market:

I tread carefully when I have to make a subjective call about a project's marketability and/or premise. On their first or second script, I think writers should be left alone with whatever concept they want to write. The process of finishing those scripts is so important to the writers' growth that trying to point them in a different direction (however slight) could be hazardous to the passion and drive needed for them to finish their daunting and, for them, seemingly uncharted task. Also, once in a while, a writer is well aware of a concept's limitations but the story just has to be told.

Buyers are looking for stories with strong "hooks." If you understand the concept of hook and have or are willing to develop the craft of writing within a strong concept, I encourage it. And if you can do it on a reasonable budget so that you open yourself up to more potential buyers, that's a huge plus.

Here are some examples of good movies with clever hooks and reasonable budgets: District 9, (500) Days of Summer, Memento, The Hangover. I haven't read or seen the new Youth in Revolt, but the trailer made me think "Fight Club as a teen comedy," which is a pretty cool idea. Blair Witch Project made a jillion times its budget and the same premise applied to Cloverfield made it much less expensive than the standard take on Godzilla.

I am going to keep it short and sweet today until I actually know people are reading this stuff. If you are and you use the discount code: ALISTBLOG, you can get 25% discount on my DVDs and free shipping.

More soon!

* And why wouldn't you be following it? It's free and it's got intensive articles on WRITING....sort of like the old school Creative Screenwriting. Remember back when it was a little blue journal sort of like Cahiers Du Screenwriting. Sign up for C & C and the next issue will link to all of the back issues.

THE JOKER IS IN THE DETAILS

2009-10-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

My premiere blog will kill a few birds with one stone. This will answer the A-List Quiz of the week I posted on Facebook. Check out the clip below from The Dark Knight. Nolans are great at just packing in character, theme and details into all of their films. I want to show you how their specificity and attention to detail allowed Heath Ledger to stumble upon a brilliant character moment.

Whether you credit the Nolan boys or Ledger for this genius, it’s clear that we can all learn something from looking at their craft. A-List Screenwriting and I are all about the details. Every single screenwriting book out there about structure is pretty much all true. Stories have to twist, turn. Every 15 pages? Sure? Every 8 pages? Sure, too. Ever 8 seconds? Probably. Characters have to have arcs and subplots have to echo the main plot. True. Characters have to hit low-points, rock-bottoms, dark (k)nights of the soul. Of course.

But what do these moments look like? How does writing a great scene help define the meaning of a character’s worst mistake/regression? How can a line of dialogue make clarify a protagonist’s dilemma? And then how does that line of dialogue help to define a subplot, a mentor and the antagonist even better? Well, keep coming back here and you will find out.

If you want to take your screenwriting all the way, aim to be the best screenwriter in the world, aim for the A-list. The principles I discuss here can be applied to masterpieces and blockbusters. There is no reason, genre and Hollywood films can’t be fun, captivating AND smart. I hope this blog gives you a chance to take your screenwriting from A to Z to A-List.

So what’s so special about this moment?

Okay, first of all, notice the Joker’s speech about killing the cops. On the page, it’s only a few lines but because Ledger savors every moment, it actually seems like a bit of a showy monologue. Kind of like when Mamet or Tarantino have characters use rhetoric or storytelling as dialogue. So are the Nolans being lazy here? Are they just showing off?

Let’s put it through the most basic of tests. Is what the Joker saying interesting in and of itself? Sure. Is it true? True enough or plausible. Does the dialogue at least have a purpose on the very basic level? Yes, he is trying to antagonize the cop. Not just to be a jerk or to cause chaos but to get him so mad that he hits him or gets close enough to hit him, which is part of the Joker’s plan. He needs the cop to hit him like Dennis Hopper NEEDS the Christopher Walken character to KILL him FAST in True Romance.

For what little we and the Joker know of the cop, picking the legacy of his dead friends, seems like a pretty good initial stab to get under his skin. When I ask students what the cop’s dilemma is, their first guess is that it’s whether or not he should lose his cool and beat up the Joker. Well, that is, for him, A DILEMMA. But it’s not THE DILEMMA for that character. Back to that in a second.

Another great thing the Nolans do is that they cut away before the beating? Joker getting beaten up by minor character is not interesting (and it would be repetitive because of the ass-whooping Batman gave him). The point of the scene was to get him to try to rough him up, so the actual beating is pretty irrelevant.

Then in the next scene, the Joker now has the cop as a hostage and is holding him at knifepoint. Come on. How many times have we seen THIS scene? A guy has a gun or a knife to his head or throat and he encourages cops to take the shot anyway. (It all comes back to my not so guilty pleasure 48 Hours.) Well, the Nolans quickly end the scene with the surprise revelation that the Joker only wants a phone call. It’s a nice way to surprise us. This sort of surprise or twist would be the bare minimum required to even touch a been-there-done that scene like this.

But that’s not the magic. The really cool moment that’s not even in the script happens because Heath Ledger is paying attention. During the ruckus the cop is telling his buddies to shoot him but then when the noise fades, he is suddenly quiet. And Ledger notices, looks at him and (the sound mix keeps it subtle) says, “What? Sorry?” He implies, “Now that it’s quiet are you really going to put your life on the line and encourage them to shoot?” The Joker is giving him a chance, now that the knife is to HIS throat to be a coward or not a coward.

This is THE DILEMMA for him. And he chooses, in this context, to be a coward. The Ledger adlibs are so small and seemingly inconsequential but they come organically from his character, they are a pay off to the set up, they are in conflict with the cop character and they make the cop’s choice clear. These adlibs are huge. They are magic. The way to destroy clichés and to elevate your stuff is through attention to details. And the details in this case happen to be the attention to character.

In a matter of a minute or so half a dozen really cool things are going on: sassy dialogue, set up, character conflict, pay off to the dialogue and the culmination of the character in his final dilemma. So many scripts are weak on what I playfully call: Story Density, which is the amount of cool stuff in any given section compared to its length. Make sure you jam pack your story full of, well, story.

This cop is in the movie for only a couple of minutes yet he has a BIG CHOICE, one whose meaning is foreshadowed with dialogue and given to him by the Joker. The Nolans put all of their characters--even the minor ones--in major dilemmas: Uncredited Shooter (who aims for Coleman Reese), the Ferry Boat Passengers (mother, captain, tattooed prisoner, etc.) as well as the rhyming dilemmas of Detective Anna Ramirez and Officer Berg. Give your characters and their character that much attention.