Screenwriting

So it’s 2015 and it’s starting with a bang and a boom. Already had my first 2015 trip to LA, a two day whirlwind of meetings that saw me come home today with a GREAT job that I can’t talk about yet. But I am happy. Like really really really happy. And maybe, just maybe, an adaptation job on top of that one. It’s looking, knock wood, thank You God, like it may be a good year.

Plus... I got to hang with a really fun, genuinely nice, intelligent group of writers. Drinks and a little pizza and talking and networking and learning. I always come away from talking to writers with a little more knowledge than I had before we talked. I enjoyed it more than I can say.

On to the subject at hand. I read a LOT of scripts. I trade with some people to get and give notes. Writers ask me to read their stuff. My manager sends me scripts he’s been sent for me to read. Sometimes production execs or development execs send them directly to me to read. I love my Ipad. I can download and read most of them there, only printing out the ones I have to take serious notes on. Even then, my wife asked me to do something about the stacks of scripts in my office. I’m not looking like a hoarder yet, but the opportunity awaits.

Lately (thank you Mac & T.A.) some scripts I have read are really good. Scripts that show imagination, skill, and care.

But:

Most of the scripts I read are, to be polite and we should always try to be polite, are... lacking. Some in big ways. Some in huge ways. It’s hard to tell someone their subject matter won’t sell tickets or cause someone to hit the button on their remote to watch ever. To tell someone their script has enough plot holes in it to fill the Albert Hall. (A Beatles reference for you to look up if you don’t know) But damn... even if your story sucks, you shouldn’t be making glaring technical errors. Some of these errors are so bad I think the writer never really read what they wrote. Some of these errors are pet peeves of mine and because it’s my Blog and no one but Enzo the Dog is here with me, and he agrees with everything I think and say, I WILL talk about one of them now.

At or near the top of my peeve list is the subject of REAL TIME. Movies, TV, take place in real time. Unless you use some story device to suspend real time, what you write that happens in a scene is supposed to happen in the time you describe... Ok. Let me give you an example:

EXT. OLDER OFFICE BUILDING -- DAY

Chester and Harry emerge from the building. Chester holds Harry by the ear and pulls him.

HARRY

Owww. Okay, okay. I said I'd go.

(Hey. My Blog isn't letting me format this right and I'm pissed, but what's new about that?)

That’s the whole scene. 1/8 of a page. Let’s break it down. Chester and Harry emerge from an office building door. Chester firmly gripping Harry by the ear, pulls him along. Harry says one line of dialogue.

If you saw this in real life on the street it would take, what, maybe 15 - 20 seconds at the longest to watch it. You saw it in real time. That 15 – 20 seconds it could/should really happen in is real time. Just like it’s described.

Now, an example of something I just read with major changes to protect the writer, but the gist of the scene is THE SAME:

INT. RESTAURANT - DINING AREA -- DAY

Bob and Bobette take their seats at the table. Bob reaches out his hand and takes hers in it.

 BOB

Wanna do the salad bar? I know you're on a diet and I'm trying to be more sensitive.

Bobette pulls her hand away.

BOBETTE

You trying to tell me I'm fat? I wore my skinny jeans.

BOB

No. Of course not. C'mon. Let's get a salad.

They stand and walk to the salad bar and make their salads, returning to their table, sitting down and eating.

BOBETTE

You know, this really is a good salad. Thank you for suggesting it.

Bob smiles triumphantly.

Let’s break this scene down. An unfeeling jerk tells his girlfriend she’s fat. She reacts, he brushes it off. I just timed it on the clock in my office. 10 seconds. Real time.

Then they get up, walk to the salad bar, and MAKE THEIR SALADS. I don’t know about you, but I don't want to take 4 or 5 minutes of my time to watch these clowns make a salad and take it back to their table and then EAT IT. That’s exactly what's described in the action line. It looks like the writer wants the audience to sit in silence watching these characters build a salad then take it back to the table and stuff their faces. Oh... the suspense of what dressing they choose. Will they like it or not? Is that arugula in her teeth?

Ok, we know that’s not what the writer wants, unless he’s insane or Andy Warhol, but that’s exactly what's described in the scene. Exactly. In real time.

Another example. I once got a script where an action line read something like this:

Billy stands by the side of the road and hitchhikes for an hour, watching cars pass him by, before a white Limousine pulls up.

I laughed. I called my friend Jeff Willis and read it to him and he laughed and said, “Man, that’s one long scene.” Yeah, as described even though it’s not what the writer meant, that scene as written uses an hour of screen time. With NOTHING going on. Action lines are literal. They happen in real time.

Good readers, pro readers, notice this stuff. They KNOW that’s not what the writer meant. They recognize the technical errors. But it IS what the writer wrote. It’s right there on the page. They know if you’re not on the ball enough to see these things, it’s gonna be a long read. It colors the way they look at your script from that point on. You need to pay attention to every word you write. They mean things.

Look back at your old scripts. I hope you don’t find these things. You might though. And from this day forward, think in real time. How long is exactly what I am describing going to take?

It’s such a simple thing.

 

Yes, it was an interesting year. Filled with lots of work, a long stretch without work and that awful writer’s fear that they found you out and you’ll never work again. (Every writer knows this fear, get used to it.)

But overall it was a great year for rewrite assignments. Between January and July I had non-stop work. Assignments and Rewriting other people’s work is the bread and butter of most screenwriter’s lives. It pays the bills. Do I feel guilty sometimes taking another writer’s hard work and removing and replacing most of it? Yeah. I do sometimes. I know how it feels. It’s been done to me. But it’s also an everyday practice in this industry and as a screenwriter you need to understand it and live with it. Sad, but true.

Between July and December was the LONG Fall and Winter. Nothing. Nada. No paid work at all. My yard looked great though. My original feature was to have gone during this time, but circumstance and fate and… etc…etc…etc… stepped in. And voila, it was postponed. Another lesson for the anxious screenwriter out there. Nothing happens fast or on schedule, and steps backward are the norm. And... it often happens suddenly and without warning. I'm still hopeful about it though.

Lots of close calls for paid jobs this year, but I either lost them to other writers or the project stalled or dropped off the face of the earth. This is also normal. As a working writer you will read a LOT of scripts your manager sends you and you’ll take your notes on how to fix them and sometimes you’ll actually get to pitch your notes, sometimes not.  Sometimes you get hired.  OR they’ll ask your manager if you’d mind rewriting them on spec (FOR FREE) with money on the backside. (haha) And I will tell you, with total commitment, that writing for free is your choice of course, but something I do not recommend (or ever do) as it sets your price and worth to whoever is asking you. And it doesn’t pay bills. I’d rather write an original spec that I have an emotional connection with, than write for someone for free because 99% of the time it’s a colossal waste of time.

Ok. Enough of that.

2014 also brought the filming of Jeff Willis’ and my script, The Right Girl. An original non-romantic comedy we wrote that the production company turned into a romantic comedy after having us do 6 (six) paid rewrites.

I had some other films premiere on cable this year with my name on them as a writer, most that actually had words I wrote in them, one not so much. Screenwriters! Attention!! When you watch a film you worked your ass off on and NOTHING you wrote is in it at all but your name is still on it, just take the money, put it on your resume, and don’t tell anyone when it plays.

This year, I also sold a pitch ten months after I pitched it, forgetting completely what I said in the meeting and scrambling to figure out what I had specifically said, learning the BIG lesson that as a writer you need to take notes about anything you say in one of those meetings. Learn this, too. Don’t get that feeling in the pit of your stomach like I did when they were offering to BUY a script from an idea I couldn’t remember. It's turned out ok, because the script I ended up writing for them  has been completely thrown out and they’re paying me to write a new one because I have a new development exec.

On a personal note, I lost my writing partner Bonnie the dog, a Golden who spent the better part of her 13 years on earth in my office with me while I wrote. There for love when I needed it and a dog smile whenever I looked. She was as close to the perfect dog as there ever was. I will miss her forever. This month also saw the arrival, six months after losing Bonnie, of Enzo the wonder dog. He’s small, fast, funny, and a bundle of love who, happily enough, lays at my feet while I write, just like the amazing Bonnie. He knows. Been here a week and he knows. He’s there now. You have no idea how comforting it is.

This year also saw my friends Gary Graham, Mike Maples, Eliza Lee, and Mike Le move forward on their passion projects. I couldn’t be happier for them. Getting a film made is as an impossible thing as there is, especially an original spec, but you see, some people are doing it giving all writers hope. Teaches you not to give up. It can happen.

And this year has given me so many new friends in the business I can’t count them all. Friends who I’ve had the pleasure to drink and eat with and get to know. Writers and actors who share the same goals and dreams. People who I wish nothing but success for. You know who you are.

Now on to 2015. Wow... 15 years since Y2K. So much has happened and not happened. Only God knows what’s in store in 2015. My feature, long delayed, is maybe going to go. I have at least two cable films scheduled to go, including the pitch I forgot. I’m up for at least a half a dozen paid jobs I haven’t heard from yet. I’ve been offered the opportunity to write the pilot of a limited cable series based on a film with development starting in January.  And I still have a couple of optioned scripts out there that might become something, but maybe not. It's the film business. Many more die than live.

And I’ll continue to blog as long as I keep getting the great feedback and the great numbers of readers. Many thanks to everyone for the blog support. I’ve already got a topic for the first one of 2015 about one of my pet peeves (one of many) I see in spec scripts. May not be a rant, but it will be close.

So I bid adieu to 2014 with my best wishes to all. Keep writing. Don’t despair. If you write a great script, it will find a way. And I wish everyone a happy, healthy, lovely 2015 filled with all you hope for.

It is. And film and TV is a business. It’s not some fantasy world. It’s not streets lined with gold. It’s all about doing the work and working well with other people. The key word being WORK. And Research is part of that work. And just like good writers research their topics before writing something, a good writer who is on the outside looking in should also research what it takes to try and get into this incredibly competitive business.

I’ve talked about the business of the actual screenwriting before. About marketing yourself. And how any screenwriter needs to understand it. But would be screenwriters also need to understand what they need to do before jumping head first into the very deep LA screenwriting pool. They need to do as much research about the hardship of screenwriting in LA as they do their screenplay subjects.

Now... a commercial break:

This blog is brought to you by a young man who I think jumped in head first with cement attached to his feet.

He’s stuck in LA with no money, no prospects, nowhere to live soon, and no completed screenplays to his name. To his credit he's sold some short screenplays in the past. Now I cannot say to whom, but as someone who’s sold short screenplays, my educated guess is they sold for very little money to unknown local directors looking to show themselves off. That’s what short films are ALL about. Directing. No one ever really notices the writing in short films because there isn’t enough of it to make an impression. Again, short films are all about the director. You want notice as a writer you write full length scripts. Film or TV.

But our young man who traveled from some distant place to Los Angeles for fame and fortune with his short film sales, went there with just an outline for a feature and his what I think are unrealistic dreams.

He’s been in LA a whole month now and is disheartened that it isn’t working out and that he’s already out of money. He still has yet to start writing his full length script and was wondering how to get a writing assistants job maybe. He should have researched how writing assistant jobs happen before he thought about leaving home. They’re as hard to get as any job in LA. But... not impossible if you do your homework, WRITE A FEW GOOD SCRIPTS, and methodically work toward it. Even if you live in the middle of Kansas someplace.

As for money,  he’s discovered LA is the Dyson Vacuum of money sucking places and probably could have planned for it better. LA makes money disappear from your pocket with each step you take. Yes, you can live in LA on the cheap IF YOU DO YOUR RESEARCH and work a couple of jobs.

I feel for him. I do. I understand where he is and why he's there. I was there once. I sold the first script I ever wrote to a studio. I was sure riches, fame, awards, and red carpets were my certain future. Surprise. The film didn’t get made. And right after that no one in the industry knew who I was and didn’t much care.

I regrouped and learned from it. Deep and hard lessons. I also worked other jobs.  Jobs that paid. And I put my nose down and worked on my writing and my marketing and didn’t give up. Had some options that went nowhere and a few small writing jobs in the years after and a mere TWENTY YEARS later I had my first produced film. Now I have seven and it's my only job. There are a lot of reasons for this. One... this time I was prepared for it and I saved money. I also never stopped writing and learning and improving. Listening to any expert or near expert and took what I heard to heart. Then I wrote more.

Moving to LA is huge step for any writer who doesn’t live there already. It shouldn’t be done without a realistic view of what’s in store. You’ll need plenty of money and the understanding that you’ll need to find gainful employment to support yourself as you try and make it. And as for success, well... it’s obviously not guaranteed, but please also understand that one or two options are not a career worth quitting a job or moving to LA for. 99% of options never get made. And of the ones that do, more than not, the films aren’t successful. Either not finding a legitimate distributor or an audience.

Set yourself a goal of money made on a consistent level before you decide to do this full time. And have some money saved. Because the time between jobs can be staggeringly long sometimes. And writing on spec doesn’t cut it.

Most film writers making a living in LA make that living with writing assignments, not their specs. But you knew that, right? And the competition for those writing jobs is staggering. Seasoned experienced writers are out there pitching themselves for those precious jobs every day. It is a LONG HAUL business. All (as in ALL) of the writers I know who are successful took YEARS to get there. YEARS. Not days or months. YEARS. Sorry if I’m overdoing it, but some people just don’t want to or can’t hear and understand this. You cannot count on being an exception either. So don’t.

You want to come to LA? I’m all for it. LA can be a pretty heady cool place. I’ve met some amazing people that will be lifelong friends. I’ve gotten to do what I dreamed for years of doing. Write films that people see. Does that overcome the years of setbacks and rejection? Hell yes.

But be smart about it. Be realistic about it. Do the research about what it takes to move to LA. Monetarily. And what you need in your portfolio. Finished, polished scripts that will make people notice you. Query from where you are first. Gauge the worth of your scripts. Get a manager from where you are if you can. That’s also not easy, but I know people out of state who have done it successfully. And when you move to LA have a plan. You can’t wing it. You do the work and research and you’re ahead of the thousands who try this without preparation and go home defeated when if they’d just done the work it takes, they might not have had to.

Thanksgiving. One of my personal favorite holidays. Being thankful for our family and friends and work and eating. Love the eating part. And as I use the treadmill in my office and actually try to shed some of this poundage in advance of next year’s grueling schedule, (Thank You God), I am mindful that I have to eat and drink less. But not on Thanksgiving.

So, in that spirit, I present my let’s be thankful, writing edition.

I am thankful for:

My wife and family for their support over all the years I made zero money doing this. Enough said. I’ll tell them the rest in person.

This year. It has been amazing for the friends and colleagues who have supported and believed in what I do on the page. The Development Execs who trust me with their assignments and rewrites. To take their notes and implement them, still keeping the integrity of the story. The directors who were open to my thoughts about story.

The producers who actually like my stories enough to pay me for them whether in an option or a sale, you have no idea how wonderful you are. Now make the films, ok? :)

Jay Lowi. You are a frickin’ saint. And I loves you man.

My manager, John McGalliard. In and out of the hospital this year and taking calls and making deals in the recovery room. The man is a monster. Now get me some more jobs. :)

Jeff Willis. Production Company Exec and my sometime writing partner. And good friend. We sold a script and the film got made this year. A miracle we got to see and get paid for. Plus it turned out to be a good film. It’ll be out next year.

The BSides – Ok... not writing but the rock band I play in. My great friend Dave. Tom, Gary, & Stew. May not be writing, but playing music keeps me sane. Plus, it gives me an excuse to buy new guitars.

Andre. My friend. Brother. Uncle. Weirdness. Enough said.

The writers I commiserate with. Old friends. New friends. You know who you are. You are indispensable to me. Don’t change. Don’t go anywhere, except up. I wish all my writer friends nothing but success. And for the ones already successful, continued upward success.

I’m thankful I was talked by friends into writing this blog. They thought I had something to say about writing. And people have responded with nothing but positive messages back. Thank you for that.

To the people who have reposted and supported the Blog this year. Scott Myers, thank you. Paul Zeidman. Jeanne Bowerman. Ben Kay. To name but a few.... thanks.

I’m thankful for work. Right now I’m rewriting an original script I sold from a pitch. And this part of the blog should be instructive. I gave the pitch in a meeting, promptly forgot about it when I heard nothing back for months. Heard even later from the Production Company that they loved it and wanted to buy it. I had no notes, no story, no nothing. And I had four weeks to write the first draft.

Note: I NOW KEEP COPIOUS NOTES ON ANYTHING I PITCH OR SAY IN PRODUCTION COMPANY MEETINGS. Learn from this.

Ten months later the company had me in for a notes meeting with my Development Exec, who is GREAT by the way. Yes, it took ten months from my four week deadline to get back to me. And... She was very positive that my script needed some tweaking. Like throw it out, keep the premise, and rewrite the whole damn thing tweaking. From a whole other angle. It was a spirited meeting and she, of course, was correct. And by the time we were done with the meeting I was thinking that all the notes were my ideas anyway.

This leads me to my point, which as I think about oyster dressing and pumpkin pie, has taken me a while to get to. Not all notes are bad. Many of them are good. Some of them are excellent. These kinds of notes can make you look like a better writer if you’re open enough to realize it. Being an open minded collaborative writer will win you a career in this business. They’ll want you back because you understand the process. This is important.

You will also get crazy, insane, what the hell did you just say, notes too. But as I’m sure you heard before, it’s important even with these kinds of notes to try and find the note behind those notes. What they’re really saying. So you, as an incredibly creative writer, can implement the spirit of those notes rather than the exact story killing note. (or implement the other notes so well, they’ll forget they gave you the crazy one you ignored).

Plus, if you are perceived as a cooperative writer, you can argue your side of any note. You can’t be afraid of doing this. And knowing your story inside and out and all your characters so well that you can say what they’d do in any situation, even one not in your story, goes a long way to you being able to argue against a suggested sex scene that would ruin the film.

However, if they are paying you, they always have the last word. So make it a good sex scene if you have to. If you don’t they’ll just hire me to. And remember, I want you to succeed.

So... I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving. Eat, drink lots of wine, hug your family and friends. Then on Friday, instead of fighting the thousands of crazies out shopping, go write. And be thankful that you’ve got that desire.

Let’s start this rant with a truth. There are no shortcuts to screenwriting success. There are no shortcuts to getting a film you wrote or a movie idea you have sold and made. There’s an old saying that any film that actually gets made is a miracle. Well, that’s true, too. In fact, it’s a damn miracle.

I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve heard, “I have these movie ideas that are better than anything out there. How do I get them to a studio so I can collect my millions?”

Movie ideas. When I was working on the set of Nash Bridges for those six seasons, everybody had an idea or script. The guy who watered the plants, the dolly grip, the extras (especially the extras), the boom operator, the set decorator (I read his script, it wasn’t bad)... you name it, they had a script or worse, an idea to sell.

Now, to be truthful again, I also had ideas and scripts then, too. And I was also trying to get them to anyone who would pay attention, like everyone else. So, I’m not denigrating the people who want to see their films made, ok? That I understand.

What I don’t understand is the non-willingness to work for it. I was just exposed to a person who had “the best ideas for films Hollywood’s ever seen, but I just want to sell the ideas, because writing a script would be too much work.”

I was happy to tell this person how they could do that. “First”, I told him, “you have to go to Fantasyland.”

What he was looking for was a shortcut to success. He’d think of an idea, one or two sentences of a story idea, then the studios, who have bags of money just lying around, would dip into those bags and give him untold millions and send him on his way while they hired a writer to write his fabulous idea and a director to direct it. And then he’d come back and have approval over all of it, to make sure they did “his” story justice. See what I mean about Fantasyland?

Everybody everywhere has a movie idea. I run into people with movie ideas all the time when they find out what I do for a living. I tell them what I will tell you: NOBODY BUYS IDEAS. NOBODY. They buy the execution of those ideas. They buy YOUR hard work turning that idea into a wham bang script.

Yes, writers sell pitches. (This is always the first thing I hear after I say NOBODY BUYS IDEAS.) But the people who buy those pitches are buying the writer who pitched it as much as the idea. They KNOW this writer can take that idea and make it something special because he/she has a track record of doing just that. Hell, I’ve sold a pitch. But I sold it to a Production Company I had already sold a script to and had done multiple writing assignments for. They knew what I could do with the idea. I earned that right with years and years of hard work.

If you want to sell an idea, write the script. Do the work. Do the research. Do the outlining, if that’s the way you do it. Write it. Then rewrite it. Then rewrite it again. And when you’ve done the work to get it ready to read, do the work it takes to get it out there. Get it vetted. Have people you trust to be honest with you read it. Listen to their notes. Then rewrite it again. Then query/network it. And if you get reads... know that patience is what you’ll need. Lots of patience.

The average time it takes from finishing a script to having that script made (again, a miracle) is eight (8) years. Eight years. Average time. Jeff Willis and I wrote (finished) The Right Girl in 2007. It got produced this year. Only seven years. Not bad. Better than average. Not much better, but better. The script I sold from the pitch that I’m rewriting now gets made middle of next year. I looked it up. I pitched it in 2012 and wrote the first draft last year. So, that’s three years. Again, not bad.

My big theatrical that gets made middle of next year? I looked it up and got a little sick. Wrote it in 1999. Sixteen years from when I wrote it originally to production. Sixteen years. Oh My God... sixteen years?

Ok... I’m fine now. Martini helped.

Ok, so it’s taken sixteen years. In between time, I did nothing but work my ass off, writing, writing, and marketing myself and my work. And learning hard truths.

THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS.

There is no coming up with ideas and waiting for the cash to flow in. Doesn't happen. You want success? Do the hard work, execute those ideas brilliantly, and make miracles happen.

And above all, be patient.

(follow me on Twitter @bobsnz)

A while back I wrote a Blog about Expectation vs Reality when it came to what your script would look like after it’s been through the Production Company/Network development process versus what it looked like when you wrote it. I wrote about how much it would change and used as an example the film (The Right Girl) I wrote with my cherished friend and colleague Jeff Willis.

I also talked about how Jeff and I did six paid rewrites with multiple Production Company notes and made huge changes (monstrous changes) with even more notes from the Network with even more changes and even more notes from Production Execs as it got closer to production, and then finally, the director notes. To say the script was extremely different from the original script we wrote is way way too mild. It still has our stamp on it, but the movie we wanted to see originally from our idea and the movie they wanted to see were night and day. And we had to please more than a dozen people we ended up getting notes from before the film was made. All who wanted to put their stamp on it somewhere, too. And YOU, as a writer, better be ready for this and OK with it because that’s reality. Because if you’re NOT ok with it, they’ll hire someone like me to rewrite the way they want it anyway. Cold and brutal truth.

Ok... semi-old territory. Now... new territory. The Production Company sent us copies of the director’s cut of The Right Girl this week. So now we get to talk about the difference between YOUR final production script and what ends up on the screen.

Here, I make a confession. I was able to go to the set for a full day early in the shoot to watch, so I had an idea of what was coming. I had worked with the director many times before (he’d directed two of my other Cable Movies). I met him originally when he directed two episodes of Nash Bridges a lifetime ago. So I know how he works and like it and like him. I also got to meet some of the actors who were playing the characters Jeff and I had created.

Attention writers: Here is where I tell you what you don’t want to hear - - - YOU DO NOT GET TO CAST THE FILMS YOU WRITE. They may ask you who you had in mind, but when it comes to actually casting, you have ZERO SAY. None, Nada, Nyet. That’s Producer and Director Territory and YOU AREN’T ALLOWED. I know it hurts to hear, but it’s fact.

You can be happy when you hear who’s been cast, or sad, or confused, or angry, or you can say, “Who?”. But you have NO SAY. Beside the one film I wrote I’d like to disavow because of the final cut and the, in my opinion, questionable casting, I’ve been super fortunate to get wonderful actors cast in my films. This time was maybe the best.

There on set, I immediately fell in love with Anna Hutchison (Cabin in the Woods, Spartacus), who was playing our main character. Not only is she a sweet, just jaw droppingly wonderful person, she was stunning in character. She WAS our Kimberly. It was amazing and kind of an out of body experience to watch. I would use her again as an actor in a second. Add in Costas Mandylor (Who I also knew from Nash Bridges. He pointed at me and said, “Hey, I know you.”) and Gail O’Grady, who was also there that day, and I was a happy camper at what I witnessed.

I wish Jeff could have come with me, but he was in Brazil doing humanitarian work while I was hanging around the Craft Service table, showing me up once again. I’m not kidding. He was in Brazil building houses for the poor or something. An amazing man who puts his money and time where his mouth is.

So I got the film and I popped it in my computer to watch...  And once again it was a HUGE LESSON. A lesson to writers everywhere. It’s never what you expect, even when you watch it being shot.

When you as a writer have your finished written script, you see it in your head, or should. You see the scenes play out. You hear the line interpretations the way you want to hear them. But you’re not the director (unless you are, then ignore me) nor are you the actors, who bring their own skills with them. Skills, if they are good actors, you cannot fathom until you see what they do with your dialogue and action. Things you never even THOUGHT of. There were times in the film I was stunned at how wonderfully the lines were interpreted and how differently than I had heard them in my head. Better differently.

The direction was solid, but then I expected that. Some great camera use that really moved the story well. Zero problems with the way it was shot. Great sets, costumes, and production design. And the edit was good too. A little long, but it’s a director’s cut.

But since these are YOUR characters and you know them inside and out, you sit and pray for them to be what you envisioned. Good actors bring their own life to your characters you can’t anticipate. Again, Anna was a revelation in the cut. Just astonishing. The character of Kimberly, as we wrote her, is a very vain and arrogant (and funny, we hoped) person at the start of the film. We knew the actor playing her would have to be able to skate a thin line to not make her so unlikeable that the audience didn’t care about her journey. Anna did it with a classy ease that brought layers of dimension and humor we couldn’t have dreamed about. She was what I had pictured Kimberly to be and much more.

But then, a lot of the time, what you picture doesn’t happen. Costas’ interpretation of his character was nothing like we had pictured. Where our written character was lighter and more comic relief, Costas brought a serious twinge to him, too. Gravitas that we didn’t expect in the character. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. A lot. It was terrific. I never saw it in the character. He did. And Gail O’Grady was more sophisticated and urbane that we wrote her character and it worked too. Well. Dorian Harewood brought his considerable skills to his character, too, playing him exactly the way we imagined him. Overall,  all the acting in it was first class. And I thank these pros from the bottom of my heart.

A lot of the scenes were word for word what we wrote (AND THEY WORK) and I can’t tell you how exciting that is. You’d have to experience it to understand.

Sometimes you get really lucky... And sometimes you scratch your head... at the same film.

There's a whole big scene neither one of us wrote in the middle of the film. Smack in the middle. A scene that wasn’t in our final draft. It wasn’t bad. It just doesn’t add anything to the story. It’s there and I have no idea where it came from or why it’s there... one of those surprises you have to expect as a writer. And the choice of the producers and/or the director, because in the end it IS their choice and not yours.

And the last scene is completely different from what we wrote, too. Not a bad ending scene at all, I like it, just not close to what we wrote. A different direction yet again. A new ending that they rewrote while making the film. Something that happens every day, by the way. And as a writer you have to shrug and understand because, again, it’s not your decision to make.

Jeff called me after he saw it and we talked for quite a while. Are we happy with the film? You bet. Very happy. And our names are in the titles in BIG letters, right before the Director’s. You can’t beat that.

Is it our script the way we pictured it? Well, no. IT NEVER IS. In this case, I’m happy to say I think it is just as good and in some places better. That’s not always the case. You need to understand that, too.

I’ve watched The Right Girl three times now and get happier each time. I’m also starting an Anna Hutchison Fan Club.

 

Been an interesting week. No word from either pitch. But no one has passed yet either. Doesn’t mean they won’t, just means more patience is needed. Something all writers have to get used to.

My wife had a serious health scare this week, too. A condition she had previously that she was assured was something that didn’t reoccur did. And she ended up in the hospital for 5 days. She’s home now and doing well, but damn. She’s one tough cookie and healing and doing exactly what the doctors told her to, so that the non-reoccurring disease doesn’t reoccur again. Thank God it’s over and she’s ok.

Then...  I found out that my opinions and knowledge about writing don’t count because I write “crappy TV movies”. Now, I’m going to say that the person who wrote this on a public board wasn’t commenting on my personal films (I don't think) as much as much he (yes, it was a he) was commenting on TV films as a whole, saying that anyone who scrapes the bottom of the barrel (like me) and writes for Hallmark or Pixl or ABC Family or Lifetime or any number of Cable outlets are hacks who don’t deserve the time of day. Real writers write for lofty arenas like Movie Studios and Major Production Companies. (Major production companies produce TV movies too, but why mess up this guy’s thesis with facts.) But he pointed the answer at me. I laughed.

Don’t misunderstand. At first I got a little steamed, but then I calmed. I’ve seen this before. An unproduced writer who will only let who he deems the best touch his vaunted work. I wish him success. He’s got a much tougher road because of that attitude though.

I posted my OPINION on a public board in answer to a question about the viability of Big Budget scripts. I answered that I thought Big Budget scripts can be a good sample, but if you want to sell something, the future of original scripts is in Cable, VOD, Online with Netflix types, and whatever pops up in that arena in the future. These are the only people who are buying and producing original work in any significant way. Studios are too scared to take a chance on it. For the kinds of money they risk, they need audience pre-approved goods. Marvel, DC, sequels, best selling book adaptations, remakes of old films and TV shows....etc... You know the drill. You see what’s in the theaters every week. I said, and I do believe it, that if you write an amazing script with a reasonable budget you will generate all kinds of heat. Look at the people who wrote and made SAW.

He took exception to my answer. He said, in so many words, you only make it to the top if you aim for the top. Big Budget Studio Films. You can’t listen to people like me who write cheap crap. I guess aiming for the top can only happen from the outside. I thought you could start anywhere and use that experience to aim for the top. My bad.

Not really. Not settling for anything but the top is a recipe for keeping your day job 99% of the time.

Yes, every year there are maybe a couple of writers that write some big budget epic that wins universal praise and lands them a deal to write a Marvel film. Their film doesn’t get made, but they're in the game. So yes, if you’re burning with the desire to unleash your Big Budget Epic, by all means, write it. I never said don’t write one. I think the guy who dissed me would be surprised that I have two of them ready to go and one in the middle of being written. And as I work my way up from “crappy” cable films, which by the way have actually paid all my bills and more the last two+ years, I have three theatrical films moving forward. Now, they all may end up on VOD, but hey, they’re moving toward production with a writing credit for me and actual money paid. Why limit yourself by looking down your nose at any kind of screenwriting?

Both of my pitches the last couple of weeks came DIRECTLY from my TV experience. Both production companies asked to see me because of my TV resume. One for a limited series and the other is another crappy TV movie, that’s not crappy (it’s a great idea). And out of that pitch meeting may come another unrelated write for hire job on top of it. For another TV movie. That pays. Well.

You, as a writer, need to be open to any number of avenues for experience. I started in this business writing corporate videos and radio commercials. I wrote for anyone who would pay me. Local directors who needed a polish on their tiny indy film that had no chance of going anywhere. I wrote short films for hire, rewrote short films for directors. I wrote and directed cheap cable commercials for local businesses. Anywhere to get my foot in any door, to get my work out there and seen. I’m not too proud. It’s experience. It’s education.

You owe it to yourself as a writer to explore every path you can to getting out there. Look at any writing job as an opportunity.  Explore the good writing contests. The Blacklist. The Query. Networking. And look seriously at writing a great small budget film.

I wrote one called “Extracurricular Activities”. It has been responsible in some way for every door that has opened for me and every option on another script or write for hire job I've ever gotten. Every opportunity. Even got me my manager. It is way too dark and twisted to be a cable film for Hallmark, but the writing ability on a budget got me my first meeting with them. If it had been a big budget extravaganza they wouldn’t have given me the time of day, because they want people who know how to write well, small.

Everyone has to start someplace. It’s easier to start on a bottom rung of a ladder and work your way up than it is to wait and wait to be dropped at the top.

I get asked to critique screenplays all the time. I get them from production companies to read for my notes for possible rewrite jobs, from my manager for the same reasons (got one from him just five minutes ago), from friends who want me to read their latest and greatest, from strangers who think I’m going to read their script and give it to my good friend Steven Spielberg. (He’s not my friend, by the way. When I worked on Jurassic Park 2 he wasn’t even there, just the ILM effects guys who were fun as hell. We laughed the entire two days they shot me running and getting smashed by a T-Rex.)

Sometimes it’s fun, reading those scripts. When I read a bad one with a great premise and I can instantly see what needs to be done to fix it and know the notes will resonate and will probably get me a good crack the job. Sometimes it’s not fun. I’ve had to ask a producer (who I knew well enough to ask) after reading a script, “What would have possessed you to buy this piece of crap?” It can be fun when one of my friends writes a great one. And horrible when I get one from somebody that's irredeemable.

People who have asked me to read their scripts will tell you I do not pull punches. That doesn’t mean I’m nasty or make fun of the writing or subject matter, I just tell the truth as I see it, good or bad.

But you know who I am hardest on? Me. You should be too. No, not hard on me, on yourself.

Great writers I know are the ones who can say to themselves, after reading their own scripts, “This doesn’t work.”

Self-editing is essential to being a good writer. I’m not talking about fixing a typo or polishing dialogue. I’m talking about looking at whole scenes, whole sections, whole acts, and blowing them up if you have to.

Too often I meet and talk to writers who are convinced that their scripts are perfect as they are. If they were filmed as they wrote them, they’d win any award they can dream about. This is NOT TRUE, of course, but they believe it. I know I did when I first started writing, but then I was lucky enough to work around some pros who set me straight pretty quickly.

There is nothing in a script that can’t be improved or changed. I’m not talking about notes you get from others on occasion that make you throw up in your mouth a little, I’m talking about notes you get from YOU. You, as a writer, need to believe that there is nothing in your own scripts you can’t change to make your story improve. You need to view your own work with the same eyes you read other people's scripts. You need to be that critical. It will improve what you’re working on. It will improve your old work.

Got some time? Go back and read your old unsold scripts. Read them like you didn’t write them. You’ll be amazed at how much you’ll find you need to rewrite. How much you hate.

I have an old script that all of a sudden is gaining a lot of interest. Wrote it at least 8 years ago. Because of this renewed interest, I read it again and was appalled at what I saw. So I immediately embarked on a rewrite to fix the glaring weaknesses, overwritten dialogue, and a clichéd last page to beat all clichéd last pages. A 1980’s bad TV series episode last page. And this was after it had started gaining interest again. I’ve sent the new version out to the interested parties saying, “This is the version I want you to have, please.” So far, everyone agrees it’s a LOT better.

Now it has me looking back at everything I’ve written and making the changes I once thought none of my old scripts would ever need.

You, as a writer, have to be able to do the same thing. Be the hardest critic of your own work. Your stories need to be living, growing, ever changing things. Take them out and do a test drive every once in a while. Change the technology in them to reflect today. Fix the stupid dialogue. Blow up your bad second act if you have to. Get rid of characters that don’t work. Kill subplots that don’t move the story forward or fix them so they do. Be bold. Use your improved ability as a writer to bring all your work up to your standards today. You’ll discover all kinds of things and maybe resurrect an old script, making it new and exciting.

The difference? Expectations can be anything you can imagine. Reality mostly bites you in the ass.

This Blog is courtesy of a few new writers I’ve dealt with in the past couple of weeks. I got a lot of response to my last Blog, mostly about the writing to budget part of it. I talked about writing low budget films because I said, and I do believe it, that a new writer has a much much better chance of getting traction with a low budget script than with a high budget one. And this is purely based on numbers.

I can count on my hands the number of entities who can produce a high budget script. And the truth is, they don’t buy spec scripts anymore. Look at what the big budget films of the last five years consist of if you think I’m wrong.

Maybe a couple of exceptions a year. But out of the thousands and thousands of high budget specs floating around out there, two or so exceptions a year does not offer a new writer very good odds. You have a better chance of being killed by a rhino.

The problem is most every new writer I heard from about this subject assured me that they were the exception. Their big budget epic is going to knock the studio execs off their feet and most likely a bidding war will ensue. All they have to do is get it to “fill in the blank”.

1. Spielberg

2. Jonah Hill

3. David Fincher

4. Denzel (they never say his last name)

5. You get the drift.

Expectations. Sky high. No semblance of reality.

There was a time when people did research and/or worked to find out how to do something. I’m not sure if it’s cultural or just the sheer numbers now of people writing screenplays, but those days seem to be gone for most new writers. They storm onto Internet Boards of all kinds demanding satisfaction for their monumental efforts. And when they find out the truth, they whine. “Why won’t the agents at CAA read my script? Why won’t George Clooney read my script? It’s not fair.”

That’s right. Life isn’t fair. Get used to it. You’re not living in an insular world where they don’t keep score and everyone gets to play regardless of skill anymore. Everybody is NOT a winner.

There are ways to get your scripts read by agents, managers, actors, directors, and producers. You network. You query. You use websites like the Blacklist. You enter screenwriting contests if you want (although personally I think 98% of these are worthless). You go to pitchfests. You don’t know what these things are? Go look them up. Learn to do the nose grinding work that most successful writers have done.

Now, you also have to write great scripts to get noticed and I can count the great scripts I’ve read this year on three fingers. And I’ve read quite a few. So it’s not easy.

And I’m not innocent in all of this either. I was filled with unreasonable expectations from the moment I started writing. Luckily, I learned some valuable lessons early on. Painful lessons. Extremely painful lessons. So I listened and I took those lessons and I studied the industry and I found out how to get my scripts read the way the industry expects me to.

Did it temper my expectations? Yes absolutely, except one. I lost that one a couple of weeks ago.

My last remaining expectation was that I was going to write features. Movies I could walk red carpets to see. In the theaters. It still may happen, maybe. I have some scripts optioned that if they get made might not go to VOD first.

My first credited film was for a big Cable Network. They were the only people offering me the chance to write films. It was where opportunity came first. Luckily for me, it was a huge success for the network. Sky high ratings and good reviews. And then… the next five credited films came. Also for Cable Networks. Also rating successes. The one film I thought might go and get theatrical release was postponed yet again not long ago. It still has a very good chance of being made next year, but again… expectations.

My CV says loudly… this guy writes for TV. Very successfully, thank you God, but for TV. Not what I had planned.

Then reality a couple of weeks ago. In form of a very very good friend.

Jeff Perry is an amazing actor. You all might know him as Cyrus, the President’s Chief of Staff, on the show Scandal. Jeff, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney founded The Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago right out of High School. It’s still one of the premiere theater companies in the world. If you don’t know Scandal, look Jeff up. You know his face and you know that he is uniformly excellent at anything he does on TV, film, and on stage. He is also my good friend.

We had breakfast a couple of weeks back and were talking about my career. (His is set) I was bemoaning the lack of theatrical films on my CV. He told me, and correctly I might add, that if I was getting a reputation for being a TV guy that was great, because the future of this business was right where I am. TV, VOD, Netflicks type outlets, Cable Networks. Look at the kind of risks all these entities are taking. Look at the originality across the board. I know all these things are true, but expectations…

The more we talked seriously about it and the more I thought about it afterward, the more I came to realize that I am positioned as a writer in a pretty good spot for where the future of original writing in this business is going.

Right after that I had a general meeting with a big production company that does both theatrical and TV producing. We talked about my theatrical film scripts and they asked to see a couple of them, but they brought me in because of my TV resume. So they asked what I had there. I told them. They asked for my hour drama pilot. But… They really got jazzed when I talked about a mini-series idea I’m working on with actor/director Elise Robertson. TV mini-series. Jazzed enough to ask that Elise and I come back in for a formal pitch.

Not bad. Expectations and Reality. Sometimes, just sometimes, reality doesn’t bite you in the ass. You accept it and embrace it.

Made it through about 8 pages of a script I was sent a couple of days ago. I had to stop reading. It wasn’t the story, I don’t think. I have no idea because I couldn’t wade through the misspellings and atrocious grammar to get to it.

Maybe some of them were typos. There’s not a writer alive that can find every single typo in a script. But most of them were sheer laziness and probably based on the attitude of “If they buy it, they’ll fix it. It’s the story that counts.” I’ve actually heard more than one writer say this or something similar to me in the past.

They are wrong. Spelling and grammar matter in a script. It reflects on how serious you are taken as a writer. Making the read as smooth and mistake free as you can is essential to getting your story told. Every misspelling or massive grammatical error takes the reader out of your story and focuses them on how poor the writer is for leaving them there.

Your writing reflects you. And getting anyone, besides your family and close friends, to read your script is an accomplishment. What you want is for them to want to read more, to love what you do and your style, to get them on board with you as a writer. Bad grammar and spelling does the opposite.

Yes, scriptwriting is different. We can all acknowledge that. You can write in fragmented sentences. You can break any and all grammar rules in dialogue if you have to. You can even break some spelling rules in dialogue to get a character’s syntax across. That works. But systemic spelling problems on every page will get your script tossed, in my opinion. Ur is not a substitute for Your. Twitter speak in your action lines is not the best way to get your story across.

Every program has spellcheck, so I’m kind of amazed that the spelling errors are still so prevalent. But they are and mostly all in bad scripts.

The excellent scripts I’ve read in the past and three for sure in the past couple of months were, not surprisingly, about 99% mistake free. (Thumbs up to Mike Maples, Emily Blake, & Eliza Lee)

I’m not reading the rest of that script I got 8 pages into. I’m calling the writer and telling her why, too. If she fixes it, I will happily give it another try.

Ok. Spelling and grammar rant over. Now... let’s talk about budget.

This is one subject that really gets some people in a lather. Should you pay attention to the budget of the script you’re writing? Or... should you just write the story you want to write and to hell with how much it will cost to make?

There are compelling arguments on both sides, but I come down on the side of paying attention to it, with a BIG unless...

If you are writing your big budget script as a writing sample, using it to try to get a big budget writing job somewhere down the line, I get it. That makes sense. I have a couple of those.

To expect to sell big budget scripts is a whole different matter. The truth is that there are very few producers or production companies that can make big budget scripts anymore that are pure specs. Maybe 5 or 6, tops. Maybe. And even those will make a script based on a sequel or a well known novel or a comic book or a cancelled TV show or a video game or an iconic cartoon or an amusement park ride or a board game before they’ll make a big budget spec. Hell… they’ll remake a previously failed film before they’ll make a big budget spec.

Now, before you fill my inbox with all the exceptions, I am aware of them and also know I can count those on my fingers in the last 5 years. You don’t even have to be paying much attention at all to see this trend. And add in unproduced writer to your resume and the odds go down a lot further.

But, as a writer trying to break in, if you write your scripts, or most of your scripts, with a budget of a million dollars or so, some maybe even less, there are tons of producers and production companies that want to read what you have and they can actually buy them and make them.

I am convinced that as a new writer trying to get noticed and optioned, right now, at this time in the industry, writing a great low budget film is the way. That may change, although I doubt it, with all the studios making safe tentpole Spiderman 14’s rather than something they have to take a chance on.

A great big budget script can help you if it’s for a writing sample, so you have to weigh it. But getting a big budget script read is also harder to do, in my opinion.

Write what moves you, but think about writing something lower budget that moves you, too. There are a lot more people out there who can read and option those.