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Want a feel-good story? A story to give you some hope? A concrete example that it CAN happen if the stars align…
I was first made aware of Munger Road a few weeks ago. Several ex-Columbia students were involved in shooting this movie in the Chicago suburbs. They scraped together 30K+ and shot this digi-feature, editing it themselves, then setting out into the ridiculously crowded micro-budget marketplace trying to find a niche.
This is not a novel concept. In an era where Studios buy The Three Musketeers with Leonardo Da Vinci as the antagonist building a death-carrying zeppelin, it seems that nailing a Studio deal straight out of school would be as likely as winning the 14-state Powerball. The mini-major Independent scene isn’t much more appealing, distributors going under in the crap economy, pursuing a name star for months and years to get backing for that 1-5 million dollar budget. The answer–and the only realistic option–is the third road. Going micro-budget with a genre that could gain traction, find a niche, and stick around in this tough marketplace. Enter Munger Road…
They four-walled it at a dinky suburban theater (meaning they either paid for the screen for a week or worked out a percentage deal with the theater-owner). The movie made its budget back IN A WEEK! This, the beauty of the 30K movie. A lot easier to see that cash back than, say, the million-dollar independent release. Then came a 3-star Ebert review and a second week expansion from one screen to nine. I open up the Chicago Sun-Times in Week 3, Munger Road is playing a screen two blocks from the school, three in Chicago, total screens…32! The box office chart, courtesy of IMDB.pro, looks like this:
You don’t have to be a CPA from Princeton to know these kids stand to make some very nice money. Not to mention find agents, launching their careers into higher-budget projects, or finance about 10 more micro-budget ones. Low-budget horror works, and it doesn’t even have to be the two-run home-run like Blair Witch Project, or the grand slam that is Paranormal Activity. None of this is news to the boatloads of low-budget horror movie screenwriters rolling up on LA shores daily. Everyone wants their piece and it doesn’t always work out. The stars must align–quality of work, timing, connections, and straight up luck–all come into play.
But the point is: It can happen. This movie might not be around 100 years from now but it doesn’t have to be. In actuality, it doesn’t even have to be good. To have made it this far into theatrical release is the victory. Making some coin, paying for your next movie, getting on the board as movie-makers…that’s the victory. It can happen…
Tidings of great joy.
I’m a drag.
If you ever go to the movies with me, I apologize in advance. Why?
Plausibility.
Obviously, standards shift depending on genre– if its Michael Clayton or Zombieland, Erin Brockovich or Airplane! More is expected from, say, a drama than a spoof comedy.
For dramas, real-world rules should be in place. If you write something that would never happen, it raises a red flag. If your audience can’t “buy” X Y or Z, you might lose them. Movies by their nature are a fantasy, yes, but if we’re not grounded in some sense of reality, then that’s all it is– the fantastical. Which is fine if you’re writing Donnie Darko, but not so fine if it’s Donnie Brasco.
If a bowling ball drops on the foot of a character in your drama, will it hurt? Real world laws have to count for something. Gravity applies.
Problem is, I get bothered even when not talking about 007 movies, Tarantino flicks, or graphic novel adaptations…
Am I the only one to wonder: A bucket of water? In that exact corner of the castle? Let’s see if I’ve got this right: Water is death for the Wicked Witch of the West. Being all powerful, you’d think she’d have left a general order for NO WATER ALLOWED in the castle. It also means she’s never taken a drink of water or a drink of anything in her entire life, or SHOWERED…but let that one go for now…
Did one of her Winged monkeys bring the water in, not comprehending her weakness? Maybe an ambitious Tower Guard plotting an overthrow? How all-powerful is she if she gets doused by a swish of water and her “beautiful wickedness” goes pure liquid?
See what I mean? I have a plausibility problem.
I revere this movie. One of the greatest noirs of all-time. Screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler. Book by James M. Cain. These are names that will be around a hundred years from now.
But…
Doesn’t it bug you that Walter Neff (Fred McMurry) agrees to commit a murder with Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck)…after three scenes?
Scene 1: Phyllis’ House. Walter tries to sell her insurance, likes what he sees, makes a pass, she rebuffs his advance, they make a date for him to return when the husband is home.
Scene 2: Phyllis’ House. Husband absent, more sexual innuendo, Phyllis inquires about a 50K accidental death policy, Walter gets the intention, calls her on it, gets kicked out.
Scene 3: Walter’s apartment. Phyllis arrives late night, more sparring, more sexuality innuendo, Phyllis is miserable, teary, telling of her awful life. Walter, being the iconic film noir male, can’t lay off. He agrees to kill the husband.
One of the great movies of all time and I’ve got a problem with it? Sad indeed.
Kubrick is god. I’m only a flea at his heel, but even a flea has will…
You’re telling me there’s a secret society composed of dozens, if not hundreds of people. They wear cool masks and robes, have somber rules and rituals followed by outrageous orgies that end in torture or death for any who dare to reveal them and…
It’s all been kept a secret until Tom Cruise shows up?
Notice I’m not asking how–if we’re portraying a modern day world–it hasn’t been made public in some fashion, on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube–I’m just saying…hundreds of people at these events? Going on for years? And it takes Tom Cruise for it to leak out?
“It vexes me. It vexes me very much.”
Question: If he vexes you, why not just kill him? You’re CAESAR! Why would you care what the mob says?
Answer: Because there’s no movie if Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) rams a sword through Russel Crowe, reborn as Gladiator, when he discovers him. That discover happens at about the story’s mid-point. It if happened as it probably would in real life, there’s no movie.
Idiot, it’s NOT real life! It’s escape, it’s entertainment. It’s the magic of movies, that silver light. Suspension of disbelief. I get it. That’s why people pay $11 or more to sit in the dark for 90 minutes.
And yet, I can’t shut it off. Always questioning– motivation, logistics– such and such would never happen. My moviegoing friends ignore me, feed me popcorn and Snickers bars, anything to shut me up. It doesn’t work.
I have a plausibility problem.
Five pages.
That’s what you get. You spend six months on that spec screenplay and the reader at the agency-manager-prodco-contest is giving five lousy pages before he makes a judgement.
It’s an outrage! Blame it on Attention-Deficit-Disorder, the Twitterverse, the 24/7 news cycle…but guess what?
A good reader can recognize a poorly written script within five pages or less. Sometimes it can be seen on Page 1.
Here are a couple of traps to avoid:
“The Chow Chow sadly waddles up the plush scarlet-carpeted, serpentine-twisting rug, woefully stopping under the plumb Ming Dynasty vase, dumbly lifting his hind leg…”
You’re writing a screenplay, not the Great American novel. That means not killing the reader with purple prose. Just because you can write effective adjectives and adverbs doesn’t mean you should. When it comes to pumping up screen direction, ask yourself: Do I need it?
How do you know if you need it? Ask: How does it advance character or plot?
It’s Page 1 and you’ve got that Chow doing his business on the purple plush carpet. I know you’re going to be able to tell me how this advances the protagonist’s character, right?
This is not to say you can never use an adverb or adjective. You just have to pick your spots. If it’s a scene where a character grabs a coffee at Starbucks, as a reader, I really, really don’t care about the faux fireplace flame warming the caramel brulee latte drinkers. If, however, my protagonist has been estranged from his father for a decade, some extra detail about the scene where they reunite would be welcome.
See the difference? Be an adjective and adverb hater.
You want your screenplay to be a visual experience. You want the reader to see the movie in your mind. Using parenthetical beats and pauses looks clunky, mechanical. It takes me out of the read, out of the visualizing of your movie. Use ellipses instead. Those three dots are a time tested method to indicate pause.
“Abe Lincoln, I had no idea you were so obsessed with vampires…”
“Petey, bro, how many times can one dude see The Hangover 2?”
“Sheldon, I thought I told you to take the garbage out. Oh, and Sheldon, don’t forget, recycle!”
Are you using character names in dialogue too often? If so, you’ve got the name disease. This is a lazy writing habit. Did you use Petey’s name in dialogue three times on a single page? Cut some, or all of them. When you’re talking to someone in real life who you know, how often do you use their name?
Hayley is playing on the monkey bars.
Billy is swinging on the swing set.
Active verbs are more direct, more assertive, and ultimately easier on the reader’s eye.
Hayley plays on the monkey bars.
Billy swings on the swing set.
Ditch the passive writing. And while we’re talking verbs…
Jimmy slowly walks down the stairs.
Anyone can write that! Want your script to stand out? Do a full spell check and proofread, yes. While you’re at it, pink highlight EVERY VERB in your script. Are they strong, action verbs? Can you make them stronger? Challenge yourself. Pick better verbs.
Jimmy ambles-rambles-limps-saunters-wanders-stumbles-hobbles down the stairs.
Anything but walks slowly!
Lastly, and perhaps most important:
Please don’t make the reader guess on who they’re supposed to be following. Find your protagonist as soon as possible. Does that mean we have to see the protagonist in Page 1 Scene 1? Of course not. There are no absolutes, no always or never in screenwriting.
In general though, as a reader, I’ll take clarity over confusion. When you introduce seven named characters in the first five pages and make me guess who the story is about, it leaves me wondering. And if by page 10 I’m still wondering who the story is about, well, it’s not ideal.
Find your protagonist quickly.
This post is dedicated to the 80 degree weather here in Chicago that has me still in shorts into October. Read this, then get out into it!
Examine your process– how you write the script . Let’s say you’ve outlined your script. You’ve blocked out time and are coming at it with good energy. You barricade yourself in with a copy of Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil, 18 bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon or whatever it takes to get you rolling. The pages come out, but look like crap. What the $#@*! Why?! Remember this scene in Amadeus?
God speaking to you lately? It doesn’t happen. There are going to be so many rewrites, polishes, trims, tucks, cuts…the script in constant revision mode.
Don’t be a perfectionist. Don’t keep rewriting the same 30 pages.
I’ve seen good writers lose confidence this way. They can’t get the scene down, but they won’t let it go. You have to push forward. That’s the purpose of the rough “discovery” draft. Push forward, say everything you want to say in rough form. If, at the end, you’re looking at 140 pages, so what? You’ll know what needs to be done by the time you reach the end. Don’t censor yourself. Push out. Get the rough draft done, then refine.
Trust yourself!
I made a vow: “If I hear that voice over again, I’m walking.” There’s Kate Winslet approaching a playground: “Many times Mary would take her child to the playground.” Kate swings her kid in the swing. “She loved to swing her kid on the swing.” Kate looks to a gaggle of women chatting at the merry-go-round. “There would often be other mothers there gossiping.” Voice over, if used at all, should not describe what we’re seeing directly. Good voice over is indirect. It delves into the mind of a character for insights that are essential to the scene, insights we can’t see.
If you’re using voice over, please, examine the necessity of it. What’s your voice over adding that we can’t discover visually? This is not to say it can’t be done well. Road To Perdition, Goodfellas, American Pyscho, Forrest Gump all had voice over essential to the narrative.
This is low-hanging fruit.
Still found—for whatever reason– in Final Draft software under the “Transition” tab, CUT TO is a useless and redundant device. Why would I need CUT TO to indicate a new scene? A slugline, by definition, indicates a new scene.
I’ve heard the argument that they help visualize the movie, a hard cut looks different from a dissolve. That is a director/editor’s call, not the Spec Screenwriter. You want you script visual? Don’t slow the reader’s eye with 100+ pointless CUT TO’s. Dump ‘em.
Bouncing from FLASHBACK to PRESENT is not ideal. Like voice over, use FLASHBACKS if there’s no other way to tell the story.
Use FLASH TO’s for shorter time frames, to go into a character’s mind for a recollection or moment. FLASH TO’s appear in movies as five or ten second bursts of memory, as visions of the past, but are not flashbacks. You never leave the present moment; only go back in time inside the character’s mind, then return just as quickly to the present. Do not force the reader into reading the visual equivalent of ping-pong. If you can tell the story without any flashbacks, do it. Here’s a previous post with examples from The Incredible Hulk, The Fugitive and Lethal Weapon.
Three Oscar wins, dozens of awards and nominations around the globe. Great blood lines with the F. Scott Fitzgerald source material. Incredible effects, beautiful look to the film. Brave performances by Pitt and Cate Blanchett. What’s your problem with this one, genius? Why walk on it?
Because it booooored me!
2 ½ hours? Of what? Felt like I was trapped watching a slide show of Benjamin Button’s life. “In the 20’s I was…” “In the 40’s I was…” Structurally perfect sequences, but dull. I always feel a bit guilty telling folks I walked on Benjamin Button for…Paul Blart, Mall Cop! Truth be told, I’d do it again!
