A good script vs. a sellable script

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  • #16
    Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

    Originally posted by FoxHound View Post
    A dying mother in a hospital isn't a fast start. And the tomb scene wasn't exactly spectacular. Contrast this opening with Avengers 2 -- now THAT is a fast start.
    I disagree.

    Avengers 2 had an action-oriented start, but just because stuff is blowing up doesn't mean the story is moving forward at speed.

    And I think this is the real problem. People complain about the need to start fast and they think it means "blow stuff up." But it doesn't. It just means that the story is moving forward. Dramatic things are happening.

    I'm not ragging on A2, although I did think that CGI oner that opened it was the worst moment in the entire film.

    When we talk about movie starting at speed, we're talking about choices being made that drive the story forward and reveal character. Are we at a different place 30 seconds, two minutes, five minutes in than we where when we started?

    e.g., dramatically speaking, Ocean's 11 has a very fast start, but nothing happens other than conversations. Ocean obfuscates his way out of jail, contacts an old partner, locates another old partner, and bluffs his parole officer. The story is moving!

    And it doesn't take a ton of reading experience to realize that you can tell, very quickly, when a writer is pushing you forward or when a writer is standing around explaining stuff.

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    • #17
      Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

      I've been reading for an organization, and the opening with a dead body/fight/guy staring at a gun, who then gets up and leaves the room, followed by a flashback "X days/weeks/hours earlier" has induced reader fatigue in me. It's a fast opener, but I find myself waiting out the next 60 or more pages to catch up with the opening scene more often than not. It seems a lot of writers think that's all the tension they need for the first half of the script.

      It's this years Russian gangsters. (It's even worse if a Russian gangster is in that first scene.)

      Just, folks, if that's your opening, know there's a lot of that out there right now. I attribute it to Stuart (Stewart?) Friedel's expressed preference for it on Scriptnotes. It's a bandwagon thing.

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      • #18
        Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

        Originally posted by carcar View Post
        I've been reading for an organization, and the opening with a dead body/fight/guy staring at a gun followed by a flashback "X days/weeks/hours earlier" has induced reader fatigue in me. It's a fast opener, but I find myself waiting out the next 60 or more pages to catch up with the opening scene more often than not. It seems a lot of writers think that's all the tension they need for the first half of the script.

        It's this years Russian gangsters. (It's even worse if a Russian gangster is in that first scene.)
        Like anything else, it depends on how it's done. Michael Clayton starts that way, and it takes the entire movie to get back to that point but it still has tension and stakes all the way.

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        • #19
          Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

          Originally posted by juunit View Post
          Oh, I certainly have a strongly negative opinion of Hollywood, the people in it and how it operates. Boy do I have some stories.
          But you don't hate writers or you wouldn't be posting a heads-up, calm, and non-rage filled OP -- despite having to read crappy scripts.

          ---

          The opening scene followed by, "X days/weeks/hours earlier" feels like a leftover of the Hangover movies. Michael Clayton wasn't a actiony shoot 'em up thing, so that had a different vibe, to me anyway.

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          • #20
            Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

            Great writing, dam even good writing would not get ignored no matter what structure it was set in, what the concept was. I think young writers saying 'nobody likes my script because it is not classically structured' is just b.s. It's just a band aid for the pain of rejection. Your script was passed over because the writing did not stand out. Structure is an audience thing, not an exec thing. An exec could read a non-linear, multi protag script that zig zags in a million directions and think he could never make money with it, but he can see if the writing is good. If the writing is good, good chance that writer might get a call regardless if the script was sellable or not.

            The OP is right, I've read a ton of amateur scripts myself, and they all have the same exact problems. Slow starts, over handed set-ups, stale-pointless dialogue. The material is severely under developed and the writer usually doesn't even know it.

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            • #21
              Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

              Originally posted by Klazart View Post
              Like anything else, it depends on how it's done. Michael Clayton starts that way, and it takes the entire movie to get back to that point but it still has tension and stakes all the way.

              Absolutely. Just saying I'm noticing the trope this year, so it's got to be exceptionally well done to stand out. And suggesting writers may want to explore another way...

              (I'm obligated to continue reading, btw. Otherwise...)

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              • #22
                Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

                juunit, not meaning to hijack your thread. Very good thoughts there.

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                • #23
                  Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

                  Great post OP -- keep 'em coming!

                  Pitch Black is (for me) a good example of a fast starting movie. Where as the rather brilliant Alien built up its tension over the first 30, I dug that PB went straight into the **** storm and set up its rules pronto.

                  Ps talking of interns my reps once had one do a typo pass on a script of mine just before we took it out. The intern circled everything they believed to be a grammatical error or typo and I'm not talking about the prose here. Nope as in the dialogue... So the likes of 'em was flagged up as 'them' and s'pose to suppose etc -- man were my reps embarrassed

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                  • #24
                    Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

                    Originally posted by carcar View Post
                    juunit, not meaning to hijack your thread. Very good thoughts there.
                    Please, continue to hijack it. The whole point was to create a discussion.

                    It seems like some people are pushing back a bit, and that's fine. This is just advice, so you can either take it or leave it.

                    I will say though, that the idea that great writing will stand out just because it's good is flat out wrong. I've heard many people say some form of this line, that great material will find a way. But it doesn't always. Nobody wanted Harry Potter when JK Rowling was trying to sell the manuscript. Nobody wanted MAD MEN or BREAKING BAD. LINCOLN almost didn't get a theatrical release. The list goes on and on, and that's only of projects that did eventually see the light. The number of projects that would do well that are sitting on shelves somewhere is likely immense. Was Jimi Hendrix really the best guitarist to ever live, or was he just the best guitarist to get a record deal?

                    Most people don't even know what good writing is (this goes for cinematography too, but that's a different story). Most people hate reading good writing, because it's boring. And really, good writing doesn't necessarily translate to a good movie or show. Just look at ARMAGEDDON. The concept was flawed at its most basic, foundational level. Why teach oil drillers to be astronauts instead of astronauts to be oil drillers? And yet, that movie made over half a billion dollars at the box office... in 1998. And with home video sales still rampant at that point in time probably pushed its final tally closer to three quarters of a billion.

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                    • #25
                      Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

                      Originally posted by FoxHound View Post
                      I really don't like the "start fast" rule because so many good scripts don't do it. Guardians of the Galaxy started slow, but it was still interesting. Die Hard was super-slow..
                      GoG opens with the protagonist's mother dying... not exactly slow.

                      Said it a million times: DIE HARD, page 1, gun on a plane.

                      "If the writer's initial sentence isn't effective, then he has failed in his first step." - Edgar Allan Poe.

                      Bill
                      Free Script Tips:
                      http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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                      • #26
                        Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

                        Originally posted by juunit View Post
                        I will say though, that the idea that great writing will stand out just because it's good is flat out wrong. I've heard many people say some form of this line, that great material will find a way. But it doesn't always. Nobody wanted Harry Potter when JK Rowling was trying to sell the manuscript. Nobody wanted MAD MEN or BREAKING BAD. LINCOLN almost didn't get a theatrical release.
                        I can neither affirm nor deny the idea that "great writing will stand out", defined here as getting noticed and getting made.

                        But as a matter of logic, why did you choose to support your argument with four examples that stood out, in the sense that they got noticed and got made?

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                        • #27
                          Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

                          Out of the 25% that were not automatic snoozers, what percent of those would you pass up to your superiors?

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                          • #28
                            Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

                            Originally posted by Staircaseghost View Post
                            But as a matter of logic, why did you choose to support your argument with four examples that stood out, in the sense that they got noticed and got made?
                            Because they did not at first. They crossed many peoples' desks and garnered zero interest. If they were so great (and the benefit of hindsight tells us they clearly were), and great material always sells itself, what happened? They only eventually sold because the creators continued to push and were able to keep getting new people to take a look.

                            What we're talking about here - the genesis of this thread - is brand new writers who do not have these already built connections and cannot get the creator of THE SOPRANOS to read their scripts, hire them to their staff and help things along. A baby writer is lucky to get just a few reads from the lowliest of low (the unpaid intern).

                            The whole premise of the great material sells itself idea is predicated on the concept that the people reading these scripts are actually capable of identifying valuable properties with accuracy. And it's faulty logic, as proven by the entire industry passing on shows like MAD MEN and BREAKING BAD and the fact that the majority of movies are failures. I suppose it's fair to say the majority of pilots are also failures.

                            So really, we're talking about people who greenlight MULANEY and pass on BREAKING BAD. Do you really believe those people aren't missing a single quality script?

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                            • #29
                              Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

                              Originally posted by Cyfress View Post
                              Out of the 25% that were not automatic snoozers, what percent of those would you pass up to your superiors?
                              Depends where you work. At a production company, whoever is in charge of development is likely reading all the scripts themselves. So passing up isn't really an accurate way to describe it, because they actually give it to you and await your notes.

                              On the representation side I'd say that's more accurate, because there are a lot more scripts coming in and the manager/agent has clients to deal with, so less time on their hands than a producer with nothing in production. Realistically, a literary manager isn't even aware of the submissions his company has in the "to read" stack as all that will be handled by whoever manages the office. I'd also say that a bad script at a management company or agency is unlikely to get more than a single read while a production company will probably get two or three sets of notes, even on a poor quality script. At least in my experience.

                              But, I've recommended two scripts since getting out here. Neither of those were enthusiastic recommends either. And I'm not sure how many I've read in total, so I can't really put it into an exact percentage. But, it's a very low number. And it should be. Most aren't good, and it really has to be great to justify someone putting millions of dollars into it. If I wouldn't put my own money into it (as if I had any) then it's a pass from me.

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                              • #30
                                Re: A good script vs. a sellable script

                                Originally posted by juunit View Post
                                The whole premise of the great material sells itself idea is predicated on the concept that the people reading these scripts are actually capable of identifying valuable properties with accuracy. And it's faulty logic, as proven by the entire industry passing on shows like MAD MEN and BREAKING BAD and the fact that the majority of movies are failures. I suppose it's fair to say the majority of pilots are also failures.

                                So really, we're talking about people who greenlight MULANEY and pass on BREAKING BAD. Do you really believe those people aren't missing a single quality script?
                                I think this is missing the point.

                                Breaking Bad would not have been Breaking Bad on CBS. It wasn't a mistake for CBS to pass on it (if, in fact, they did).

                                Nor does the majority of material being failures mean that, somehow, good writing is getting passed on and bad writing getting accepted. The path from a good script to a good show is a long and difficult one.

                                Which is to say "good" to a buyer means something very specific - not just "compelling, original, etc" but also "fits in with our brand, marketing strategy, and distribution strengths."

                                There is certainly some good material that is easier to find a home for than others, but I think the notion that there are these piles of great material which is getting passed on is bull. The vast majority which fails to find a home does so because it is not good enough.

                                Anything with encourages writers to think that the problem is anything but the quality of their own work. Yes, that will occasionally be false, but it will be false so rarely (and you can't do anything about it anyway) that it's largely a waste of time to worry about.

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