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  • #31
    The Talent Thing

    Anyone who is not creative to begin with, who thinks they can buy a book and learn how to write a script *without any creativity* in 21 days, isn't really part of the equation. I don't acknowledge them - they're the get-rich-quicks.

    I assume you want to write, and that you are creative.

    If you are just in it for the money and you buy a book and write a script in 21 days and it looks like cookie-cutter crap, it's not the book's fault. It's not a tragedy that that person wrote a bad script - their heart wasn't in it in the first place. If anything - it serves them right. Screw them.

    So let's assume that you want to write and you are creative... now you need to know how to use the tools so that you can harvest your talent and put it on the page. Now that book or whatever can be helpful. Because you are creative and have a mind of your own, you are going to find inventive and creative ways to tell your story. The book or whatever will help you do that.

    THE COMMERCIAL THING

    Go over to boxofficemojo and look at the 50 most popular films of all time. Those are the movies that people probably paid to see more than once. If you start with the top 20, you'll see a pattern - you'll know what's commercial. What people want to see. The movies are all escapism, and almost all are fantasy or sci-fi (really fantasy - STAR WARS isn't really sci-fi). They all have larger than life stories, usually with normal protags at the center. The next 20 on the list are also mostly fantasy. with a few big comedies or big action flicks or big horror flicks thrown in. Almost every one of the 50 is "high concept" and has some weird element - GHOST is a love story/thriller about a dead guy. The movies that don't have the weird usually have HUGE spectacle - TITANIC and GONE WITH THE WIND are good examples of this. They are big stories that fill the screen. So that's what's commercial - stories that provide escape into a larger than life world (where the protag is someone just like you or me - but probably much better looking and probably not 30 pounds overweight).

    Do you still need characters people care about? Sure - but it's nice if they are in a STORY that people want to see.

    THE PRO FEEDBACK THING

    I don't think it's feedback - most of the feedback I get is "This script sucks!" - I think practice is an element and so is figuring out that maybe if you really like fun movies you should be writing fun movies. I swear, that seems obvious but it often takes a long time to sink in. I was writing gritty 70s scripts well into the 80s - and I was no longer *watching* gritty 70s movies.

    I think after you get the hang of writing and can take off the training wheels you start to think about the other elements of writing. I did some acting once, long ago, and the rule was you had to memorize your lines early so that you could concentrate on the ACTING part. I think the same is true with screenwriting - you have to learn how to do the writing part so that you can concentrate on what your writing is DOING to the audience. Once you get the story/charcters/dialogue stuff down, the REAL WORK begins. You have to put those skills to use making the reader feel something.

    - Bill

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    • #32
      what doesn't work

      Things That Bug Me About Pre-Pro Scripts

      -NO RESEARCH

      Why is it that professionals seem to be the only ones that realize that my-best-guess is not good enough? You need to research EVERYTHING in a script. I physically travel to every city that I write about and I use actual streets, places etc. If I have a half page section where paramedics are talking I research paramedic lingo so that my paramedics sound like real paramedics. I swear to God if I read one more romantic comedy where the female lead works in a Corporation with a capital "C" (this corporation has lots of Suits and Cell Phones and they have meetings about The Account) - and the writer has clearly NEVER BEEN in a corporation, hasn't the faintest idea what business cultures are like, and instead is rehashing to me a bad eighties version of generic corporate life. Listen to me: if you don't research every goddam thing in your script you are a @#%$ amateur. that is cold hard reality. The one characteristic you will NEVER see in a pro script is absence of research. Pro scripts have other problems like being too slick and polished and clever, but this research thing...you get the point.

      -CONNECT THE DOTS SYNDROME

      Too many pre-pro scripts I read want to simply pat themselves on the back just for writing 120 pages and having it seem like A Movie. The problem is that good movies don't seem like movies - they seem like real life. Like Act Breaks - if i see it coming? If me or Robert Towne or Kenneth Turan or any really, really sharp viewer can predict what's going to happen? Then it ISN'T AN ACT BREAK. Even Syd Field says it's an event that "spins the story in an unexpected direction". Notice the word UNEXPECTED. that means that your audience - which has as much background watching movies as you do if not more - must be caught off guard. Like "whoa, where did that come from?". So that thing where the cop and the killer face off at the end in the spooky warehouse full of toys? And the killer says: "we're the same, you and I". We've seen it. We were there in the theater with you. So why are you torturing me by showing it to me again? In thrillers, please don't ever do a whodunit. The Algebra of Screen Time divided by Least Likely leads me to the killer in twelve seconds.

      My opinion on the prevalence of Cliche and Connect The Dots syndrome is that the writer has not chosen a provocative enough thesis for the movie. Mostly the writer has chosen NO thesis for his/her movie, except maybe: Love Wins In The End or Good Defeats Evil. Which are banal, generic, boring Theses for movies. Look at the themes of movies like "Safe" or "Pulp Fiction".

      "Safe" - the fim itself - offers an opinion on human beings in the late twentieth century. It suggests that we are caught in a paradox: we want to purify ourselves of the toxins in our bodies and our minds that are caused by modern life. but in order to do that we have to recognize what other people don't want to recognize - that modern life itself is an illness. So Physical/Emotional Health = Separating Yourself from the Group and Walking the Lonely Path. Is it better to conform to cultural norms and "accept the illness"? Or is it better to throw off those norms, fight the illness, but risk being ostracized and alone?

      Now the above is a paragraph. A complex paragraph that smart people could spend a whole night debating. It is the controlling idea of this brilliant movie. Every frame contains the dialectic of the Thesis/Antithesis contained in the above theme. As someone who has seen Safe, how am I supposed to respond when I open a pre-pro script and I can tell the author doesn't even HAVE a theme, or if he/she does, it is banal and one-sided?

      IF YOUR THEME ISN'T PROVOCATIVE AND DOESN'T INFECT AND MOTIVATE EVERY SCENE OF YOUR FILM, YOUR STORY DOESN'T WORK

      Pros tend to understand the necessity of a complex, provocative theme

      It's like chess - you don't get points for learning the rules. You get points for winning the game.

      more later

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      • #33
        another thing

        ANOTHER THING THAT DRIVES ME CRAZY

        check this thread and see how many people have said things like "pros know commercial concepts that sell" or "pros know the difference between a commercial story and just a story"

        WRONG WRONG WRONG

        NO ONE, especially professionals, has ANY @#%$ IDEA what will sell or won't sell. Pre-Pros engage too often in a kind of frantic pandering to the marketplace. The work says "Like Me! I am like other movies you have made! Could you make me too?". And the marketplace says "Another ______ movie. How boring."

        the Pre-Pro paradox: A lack of conviction in the value of one's core beliefs and opinions leads one to ignore this exact gold mine and sell generic beliefs and opinions instead.

        Generic Belief or Opinion: I will write Die Hard on an Oil Rig because Die Hard made money and movie people want to make money so they will buy my script because it will appeal to them.

        Core Belief or Opinion: i have no idea what will or won't sell; in the face of this ignorance I am going to write a movie about traveling salesmen in outer space because I am a traveling salesman and love and know well science fiction and the idea of writing it brings a chuckle to my lips. @#%$ them all. I will write this one while they aren't looking.

        Generic Script: Doesn't sell. Nobody cares.

        Core Belief Script: Everyone loves it. Traveling salesmen in outer space? How bizarre! How wonderful! How fresh! Please come talk to us about how to put your personal futuristic/ironic spin on this book we want to adapt. We are not creative but apparently you are. Come Help Us. You are not like the other scripts we read.

        I IMPLORE you - trust your deepest instincts. Write the one you'd write If No One Was Looking. Give up on outguessing the marketplace. It's like timing the stock market, it can't be done- and those few that do it occasionally lead dumb, boring lives. Be an original. Be yourself.

        more later

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        • #34
          tao lives with 70 virgins in allah land

          I know i'm going to be a pro, because i think like a pro already. I think like tao, because tao is correct.

          No one knows what a commercial idea is, besides the commercial ideas that litter the market.

          a unique script is forged through finding the identity of your characters before you finish your script.

          pushing your characters to places they don't want to be.

          finding the worst scenario that is plausible and dump your characters in it.

          And last but not least, now your characters and their world whether it be through research or life's experience.

          Dare to be troubled with the advancement of your script. Sit outside and have a beer and torture yourself about your antag. . . torture yourself about the emotions your character will feel if he real lost his wife in a car wreck, lost his son to a cult and left you with a mortage and a serious horse betting problem that leaves you one choice to pay off the jockey to hold a horse back.

          vig

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          • #35
            Re: tao lives with 70 virgins in allah land

            To refer to something Tao said, and Vig personifies, and which is the holy grail for a lot of pre-pros: Voice.

            Not to derail the thread but to make hopefully a sound point.

            Tao said:

            the Pre-Pro paradox: A lack of conviction in the value of one's core beliefs and opinions leads one to ignore this exact gold mine and sell generic beliefs and opinions instead.

            A case where you second guess your gut instincts and rely on something gone before, already done, a safe option. Having a lack of courage to follow what you belive.

            Voice is the antithesis of this. Voice is your own perculiar world-view, your take, your slant on things. That's what makes for originality. That is true voice.

            Voice has nothing to do with word choice, mini-slugs, or asides to the reader.

            When you follow through on that gut instinct your script will have heart--which all too many pre-pro scripts I've read lack--despite for all intents and purposes being a reasonable screenplay nicely written, etc.

            SIXTH SENSE is an excellent example of voice in it's truest sense (I read it yesterday so it springs to mind). It's an uncomfortable, moving, challenging script with a soul. I don't remember how the author described what Cole was wearing, I don't remember how he described Malcolm crossing the street. What stays with me is the theme and the questions it raises.

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            • #36
              Re: tao lives with 70 virgins in allah land

              Right on Tao. That's pretty much what I was trying to say about following the rules vs. reinventing them.

              The challenge is to write from your passion without it becoming a passionate mess. Mastering the craft is what will carry you through that. But if you rely on craft alone, you end in a futile search for something like "the commercial idea" that supposedly will bring the story to life and make it great. Art is what makes a story great, not craft. You've got to have both.

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              • #37
                Re: tao lives with 70 virgins in allah land

                No one knows what a commercial idea is, besides the commercial ideas that litter the market.
                True enough, but any good writer should be able to filter out the ideas that are NOT commercial.

                Comment


                • #38
                  Re: tao lives with 70 virgins in allah land

                  Tell me if these are commercial ideas and if so, why.

                  A 40-something man has a mid-life crisis and wants to have sex with his 16 year old daughter's classmate.

                  A brilliant mathematician battles mental illness

                  A musical about a women who kills her husband in 1920's Chicago.

                  A puppeteer finds a way of literally getting inside John Malkovitch's head.

                  A successful young banker is sent to prison for life in the 1940's for murdering his wife and lover. But we find that even a brutal prison cannot contain his spirit

                  The stories of two mob hit men, a boxer and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption

                  A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against the controllers of it.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    see more movies.

                    I'm not a pro yet but a fairly common dividing line I've witnessed in amateurs is a complete and utter lack of knowledge of the cinema. IMO you should see everything you can get your hands on, not merely to see what you can borrow/reference/steal from but also b/c your ultimate goal is the screen. screenwriting will always be considered a lesser art form b/c it's a means to an end, not the end itself. I'm not saying you have to be able to discuss tarkovsky and bunuel and truffaut and herzog at parties but some type of working knowledge of movies would help. so many beginner scripts have such a feeble grasp on the notion that their idea has been done before. Sadly, it usually comes paired with god-awful syntax and lifeless prose.

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                    • #40
                      Steve-

                      Many of your examples became commercial with casting. Would anyone have seen A BEAUTIFUL MIND if Carrot Top played the lead?

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                      • #41
                        Exactly my point, Otis.

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          A 40-something man has a mid-life crisis and wants to have sex with his 16 year old daughter's classmate.

                          It was written by a proven writer with strong connections and got into the hands of a man who himself was going through a midlife phase and completely identified with the character. I doubt this would sell as a spec by an unknown writer.


                          A brilliant mathematician battles mental illness

                          Based on a best selling book. I doubt it would sell as an original spec by an unknown writer.

                          A musical about a women who kills her husband in 1920's Chicago.

                          Based on a hit musical. I doubt it would sell as an original spec by an unknown writer.

                          A puppeteer finds a way of literally getting inside John Malkovitch's head.

                          The only reason this got made was because of the cast that got on board. Had this not attracted the cast it did, it would never have seen daylight. Some may say that's true for any film but if you look at the films that are made, those driven by concept are not dependant on starts and many low level or virtually unknown actors get leads in concept driven films. This story was so hopelessly dependant on the cast that it was either destined to be made or for the trash bin depending on John's decision to be involved. Not the kind of gamble I would suggest is a good example for spec writers.

                          A successful young banker is sent to prison for life in the 1940's for murdering his wife and lover. But we find that even a brutal prison cannot contain his spirit

                          Based on a story by the a best selling novelist. I doubt it would sell as an original spec by an unknown writer.


                          The stories of two mob hit men, a boxer and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption

                          This is a writer director project and hardly a spec sale. It was also primarily financed based on the cast involved which in turn were attracted because of the cult success of RD. I doubt it would sell as an original spec by an unknown writer.


                          A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against the controllers of it.

                          This one actually was a spec, but it was by two proven writer/directors and it is very high concept and spec market friendly. Of all your examples this is the closest thing to a spec sale you have listed and the concept is very commercial.

                          obviously no writer can predict with 100% accuracy what will or won't make a billion dollars at the box office, but they can discern between concepts that are more likely to be purchased and made into a film by a spec writer from those stories that are not.

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                          • #43
                            I think Steve's point was that many times the ideas of pro writers don't necessarily sound commercial either. What is or isn't commercial is often determined in hindsight.

                            Jami

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                            • #44
                              GREAT thread, guys!

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                I'm not saying a pro is 100% accurate about what will and wont sell in the market or attract an audience, I'm saying they try to be. Using popular source material is part of that equation as is using a popular cast. As spec writers, these things are far beyond our ability to influence and following examples of films made on popular material is not a good example for a spec writer. All we bring to the table is the story and that story must stand or fall on its own. The more market friendly the spec is the better its chances in the spec market.

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