The Rough Draft

BOOM!

So the game is on, the previous writer is being tasked to other duties on the feature and the gig is mine. We’ve got a pretty solid concept and by the end of the week we’ll have an even more solid treatment. Time is short, we’re maybe not in the eleventh hour here but its 10:15 and the clock is ticking. Just the sort of environment I like best.

No hard feelings from the other guy I hope, he took his shot, it just wasn’t going to go down. No man is an island. You want to make it in this industry, you need people on your team and you need to be a team player. The trick now is to get out of the goat fuck with everything intact.

The real secret is, it’s always a goat fuck. The trick is to always be the blue eyed boy and pull the wreckage out of the fire.

Which is what I do.

Pull the trigger, feel the rush.

Some days…

So I have spent the better part of the last five days trying to help a producer to bring his current writer around in regards to the script he continues to dig away at (as in digging his own grave). I’ll hand it to the guy, he just keeps plugging ahead. Won’t listen to a word from anybody. And I thought I had an ego? The trouble is, it’s going to get him labelled as, “Difficult,” and once that millstone is around your neck, it’s impossible to get it off and down you will go.

I spent about three hours on the phone today alone trying to find a work around for this guy. No such luck.

And then I got one of those special emails from some fool looking to sell me his script. He sends me the one page and the fact that it’s based around a piece of classical music. Which is fine I guess, I often write to classical, I’ve certainly got my favorites and most tell a tale. However, it clearly states that Sabot Productions is not looking at queries (in big bold letters) on our front page and that we do thrillers, horror and a bit of reality TV. We clearly don’t do classical music inspired drama.

Ever.

Never ever.

Which is why, if I don’t know you or know and like somebody you know who referred you, we won’t be reading you.

Ever.

And just so we’re clear.

Never ever.

And by never, what I really mean is, “Fuck off away home.”

Because it’s obvious to me, that if you aren’t motivated enough to actually research the company you’re sending your query to, then the chances are, you are also a lazy writer. Which means, you won’t understand the conventions of genre, you won’t know to avoid cliche’ and your dialogue will read like the pancake breakfast at Denny’s, flat as fuck.

Thanks but I’m already reading enough shitty writing right now but at least I’m getting paid for that.

So a few months ago our washing machine died and nothing I did fixed it, including replacement of the timing circuit. We’d bought both units (the washer and the dryer) from Sears and while they’d served us well, we’d never been totally happy with them. They did an okay job but it really was just okay. So out shopping we went. Store after store and the prices weren’t great, the service even less so. It turned out that Maytag was having a sale, up we went and a new washer and dryer set were purchased. We decided at that time not to get the risers but we did pay to have our old units taken away and the new units leveled. I wasn’t at home when we took delivery and I can’t say that the crew who did the install actually leveled the two machines. Making something not rock is not leveling them.

A few months go by and I’m on the return leg of my Maritimes trip. My wife calls me, our fridge has died. Lucky for us we have a freezer as well. The frozen stuff goes into it and we just chuck the rest. I literally get home, get all of the travel gear off the bike and go up to Maytag. An hour later and my wallet severely depleted (one fridge = one washer + one dryer) I return home. I’d also ordered the riser units for the Washer and Dryer. The idea being that the crew of two could install them at the same time they were dropping off our fridge.

Thus began the saga.

The day of delivery, my risers were back ordered. No worries, I wasn’t going to get nailed for a separate delivery charge, those could wait. But the waiting was going to be on my head because their delivery truck was in for service and the replacement truck broke down. No worries, I’d take delivery the next day, first thing in the morning. I’d plumbed in the water connection for the new fridge and rearranged my kitchen to suit. The fridge arrived and it was this story and that story in regards to the previous day. these guys weren’t happy campers. I wrote it off, we all have rough days.

The following Wednesday my risers show up. What followed was a song and dance about how they hadn’t been told they were there to instal them as well, that it took hours per unit. how it had to be this way or that way. Blah, blah, blah, wah, wah, wah. I told the guy I’m pretty sure I could figure it out, signed the paperwork and sent him on his way. Oh, they wanted to charge me a hundred per unit to mount them.

Nice.

Trouble is I’m not your usual punter. I’ve designed automation and built equipment from scratch. So I’m not intimidated by too much mechanically and bottom line here, we were talking about four machine screws. So I started with the dryer. I moved out the unit and set the riser in place. I then leveled it using a level (it pays to use the right tools). I then removed the existing feet from the dryer, tipped the unit forward and hoisted it onto the base by myself. the rest was just a matter of aligning the four pretapped holes on the bottom of the dryer with the ones on the riser. So that took about ten minutes. One down one to go.

I repeated the same thing with the washer. However the washer has the added problem of water weight. And I had the problem that it’s a small room, there is only one of me and if I wait for my wife, she’s not strong enough to help either. I do watch a lot of discovery channel though. I grabbed some Bamboo flooring scraps and laid them up against the riser top. I then put the washer at an angle on the boards, got my shoulder behind them and pushed up. The washer slid up the planks and onto the top of the riser. I pulled the wood out, aligned the four holes and screwed her down. Both units took me just under an hour each.

And it didn’t cost me anymore money. You see, most design guys don’t want things to be too difficult. From what the guy on the truck had said, they were installing the risers incorrectly and more to the point inefficiently because they couldn’t see that the engineers wanted the units placed at step three not step six.

So my advice is unless it’s totally beyond you, have a go yourself. It won’t cost you any more.

Well a death grip really. Let me explain.

Sometimes, when we’re stuck on something. We’ll steal from a scene that works. We then call this, “Homage,” to cover our tracks. Everybody is guilty of this from time to time. Sometimes it is true homage, other times it’s because the shot is so iconic, that we’ve forgotten it’s been done before but the majority of the time it’s because of sheer laziness.

We all get tired, the trick is to not let it show in your work. If you’re going to steal, don’t get caught doing it.

So here’s some simple rules:

Time is on your side - If you want to rip off an iconic shot, it shouldn’t be from a film that’s just left the theaters or one that is just coming out on pay per view. You’ll get caught and you’ll look like a hack. You can scream Homage to the high heavens but nobody will believe you. Why should they? You’re not motivated enough to be original? True homage is woven into the fabric of the piece in subtle bits and pieces, not as whole bolts of torn fabric.

If it didn’t work then, it’s not going to work now - If you are going to cheat a scene, make sure it’s one that works. Nobody want’s to be served yesterdays dog turds. As an adjunct, what might have worked then, may not work now, so be aware.

Lock your context - Make sure you get the context of the scene you’re going to steal from. Attitudes change as does language. The 70’s may not work so well in the new millenium.

It’s got to make sense - Don’t just string a bunch of cool scenes together and expect them to form a good story. Unless you’re a true genius, it simply isn’t going to work.

Don’t combine really big things if they don’t relate - A MacGuffin is typically a small object that can do great harm or good to whoever wants it the most. Be aware of economies of scale. They have to go together. A plague and a Vampire, if they’re related sure. The same goes for Zombies and most other supernatural creatures. If they’re not linked in the storyline, why bother? They subtract from each other, they don’t add up. What you get in the end is a story that doesn’t know what it is.

Which is death at the box office.

Avoid cliche’ - Jesus wept. The number of cliche’ ridden scripts I gone through recently. It just makes me really sad. If it’s cliche’ it has no originality so why is it in your script? The only way you can do it is if it is in the vein of parody or irony. Irony is very tricky. Make sure you know what you’re doing before you commit.

Bottom line - Be original.

If not for me, for yourself and all the other poor readers out there.

Read the article here.

“That’s not the path this story should take.”

So this should be an interesting article to say the least. I’m up for a Story Editing gig. Nothing new about that. I had a chat with the producer last night about a few things, the location available, the probable budget, the lack of prep time and finally the script or script idea in question. Which is where I of course come in. Now for those of you who know me, it’s no shocker that I can come on a bit strong. It has in the past gotten me in trouble as I’m a big guy and some people (smaller guys) find this intimidating. Not that I use my size to scare you (unless you owe me money or a fucking with me or being an idiot - okay, maybe I do use my size to scare you). But by coming on strong, for the most part, I’ll beat you down with what lives between my ears and that people is a lot of stuff and what I don’t know I will research until I do know.

So the possible story in question sounds? Well let’s just say, the pitch doesn’t sell in the room. Which is par for the course with the writer in question, we can’t all be champs at everything. Meh, same old same old. Me? I’m very strong on story and I’m aware enough to be able to write to a deadline (a very short deadline) where the concern is here is my somewhat strong personality.

Yes, I can be an asshole. Why? Life is too short for me to wait for you to grow up. Why there is a problem isn’t important to me, how we’re going to fix it is. How the fix will effect the rest of the script is also foremost in my mind. Words are not precious, there’s plenty of them out there. The real skill is putting them together in a meaningful order, again and again and again.

So the bulk of the conversation last night was, “Go easy on this guy.”

“No worries,” I replied. You see the writer in question will also be the director of this project. They could hire me on to bash something out quick and dirty and that would be fine but this particular individual wants the hyphenate so my primary goal is to make sure he can fulfill his potential in that regard. It is not to force my will on the script yet to be written.

Now I don’t know if I’ve ever covered the three phrases. I could search the blog but I’m just too lazy. So I’ll go ever them and their power again. These are the words that can:

Get you laid.

Get you read.

Get you sold.

And most importantly make you not look like an asshole.

They play on the most basic premise of the human spirit. We are the heroes of our own story.

Phrase 1) Really? I hadn’t thought of it that way.

This makes you look like you have been thinking like this but you value your new friend’s opinion.

Phrase 2) How interesting, tell me more.

No, I really value your opinion, because I’m totally at a loss here.

Phrase 3) I’m not sure. What do you think.

See, you’re so smart.

All three are ego enforcing. The trick is to listen. If you do have an opinion, don’t trot it out there if its inflammatory. You piss off the mark and there’s no chance to use any of the phrases. So the trick is to get the conversation started and just keep rolling out the phrases in the order required. Switch them up so you don’t seem like a parrot and the world will be your oyster.

Now when I’m story editing, I also use phrases because really, you need the writer to solve his own problems. It ultimately has to be his idea or it won’t feel right and you’ll end up with a blocked writer, who will be crankier than a Wolverine in a sleeping bag. This is not a trick. You just need to keep asking the right questions until they figure it out.

Does that serve the story / character / budget?

How does that effect (insert Act or plot point number here).

That sort of thing. Be prepared to back up statements with facts that can be verified. It adds comfort to the Writer.

That sort of thing. It’s only when they won’t budge that you use the Jedi mind trick. How do you do that?

The answer here, you will not find.

The industry parlance for a screenplay is, “This piece of shit.” If you don’t immediately now understand where the writer fits in to film hegemony, well you’re an idiot. Not to worry, the industry is full of idiots, you’ll fit right in.

I see a lot of these Pitch Fests cropping up these days. The idea being that you come in and pay a fee and a sort of idea job market is set up, where interested parties are brought in and you get to go from pillar to post at ten minutes a shot, trying to entice them with your pitch and package to take you on as their next greatest show (or film). The average price is around $200 for the access. Which ain’t cheap but it does give the average joe a shot right?

I’m not so sure. I’ve yet to find any evidence of anybody getting something in the works from one of these venues. Even their testimonials are vague. See if there was a show picked up and developed you could bet that there’d be a lot of type expended on the promotional material about how these guys went from zero to hero but so far… nada. Now it could be that there’s no follow up to see if things are put in motion but its been my experience that any success ends up being like a, “Who is the Daddy moment,” on Jerry Springer. I could be wrong but I’m not about to spend my money to find out.

I’m still Scottish.

I’m not a super big fan of pitching. I can do it but I prefer the long form as opposed to the sound bite. Breaking a screenplay down into a single sentence is an effort in futility as far as I’m concerned. I also like props (albeit small ones). I’ve never paid to pitch, and usually (at least for me) what you are really selling is you, not the script or scripts you walked in with. Sure they might buy your script but chances are they’re more interested in what you bring to the table as a writer and then you find they’re pitching you on a script they’d like to pursue or they’re asking about you doing a rewrite on a script they’ve got that isn’t working.

The point here, is you aren’t paying anybody anything. If the money doesn’t flow in one direction (towards you), you’re being taken advantage of and your dream is just that much further out of reach.

You really want to pitch? Attend festivals, meet directors, other writers, actors. Pitch them (though never at social functions). Be entertaining, be polite, be attentive. They will read you for free and these are people who you need as allies as you steer your script through the muddy waters. Are the festivals more expensive? They can be but the contacts you make will come by honestly.

You can whore yourself out later.

So another script is finished off. I sort of had to because I had been in one of those situations where the question literally was, “What else have you got?” Because everything I have is pretty much in play right now, I had to tap into the stuff that was not quite ready yet. Which I don’t really like to do but when they’re waving money under your nose… I mean I’m human, right?

So that leaves me with one other script at about the halfway mark and one in treatment form and a couple of others ready to be outlined but still very much on the compost pile. Oh and a thirteen part reality series to budget but that’s a whole other hat to wear.

As a writer, you have to always have multiple projects on the go. You don’t know when they’re going to come off or even in what order that might be but you can be sure, “What else have you got?” Is not a question you’re only going to hear once.

Too many times, I hear from writers just starting out, “I’ve finished a script, now what?” I usually tell them to chuck it in a drawer and start another one. Then when that one’s done go back and read it again. You’ll have a fresher take for the rewrite. Well the three or four rewrites. Because that’s what you’re going to need to do before it’s ready to show anybody. And if they like it, you’ll get notes and you know what that means, more rewrites.

Which brings me to some of the posts I’ve been reading about writing as of late. Which most are in the vein of, “I want to write a screenplay, how do I start.” Which flabbergasts me a bit. I mean there’s a multi million dollar industry built around showing people how to write screenplays. There’s seminars, books, lecture tours, festivals, just Google screenwriting and stand back. I’m not even covering the huge number of legitimate (not that these other things aren’t legit (well most of them anyway)) film schools and writing programs that are world wide. That the question has to be asked tells me how monumentally lazy these people are that they can’t do a simple search and find all of this for themselves.

When I wanted to become a screenwriter, there were steps that I took. My friend Michael had been trying to get me to come to the dark side for a few years but at that time, I was convinced I was a novelist. I’d had some minor inroads into the publishing world but after a particularly bad meeting with a senior editor at Doubleday Dell, my days in the book world were pretty much at an end. Screenwriting was the new path.

Now I’d done two novels, so three act structure and all that were well ingrained what I didn’t understand was how a screenplay was developed, how it was assembled into a final product. So rather than pester people with my questions, I enrolled in the Script Development Course at the Vancouver Film School. Where Alan DiFiore (The Handler, DaVinci’s Inquest) kicked the shit out of my writing for sixteen weeks. And my eternal thanks to him for it. Because when I left, I understood, what made a script work and how to write tight. In other words, rather than ask for the general opinion of others, I took a course with a working writer showing me the ropes. Then I wrote a few shorts and had them made (while still writing features on spec) and I built a body of work. Which is what real writers do, they build a body of work. So that when the question.

“What Else do you have?” Arises.

You have something to show them.

Well not really…

I mean I could really use a good sports analogy here about fumbling footballs and stuff but the reality is that the writing life as far as film is concerned is more like a street brawl. You see an opening, you get the knife in and watch the guy drop not knowing what just happened or why he’s now leaking all over the street.

Pretty hyperbolic right?

But you get the point and so does the guy bleeding out. Or maybe he didn’t, maybe he never did.

A staple of the gun fighter movies is the younger faster kid looking to make a name for himself by taking on the old experienced killer. In the movies it played out in many ways. Some old gun fighters eager to get out of the game, staged their own death with the help of the kid. In others, the kid was better and they died where they stood. Some went for the real world approach and the kid would be blown out of their socks but the gun fighter always knew, there’d be another kid to take his place in a heartbeat or a day or a month or a year until he made the mistake.

There’s one type of film I don’t go near. The family comedy, well most comedy. I mean it’s not that I’m not a funny guy, it’s just that my humor is dry and sometimes it’s black and the House of Mouse ain’t too keen on harshing their mellow. I get the FC genre conventions but I’m more interested in a dark family drama or thriller than Saccharin pap.

Still, I read a lot of scripts, sometimes by experienced writers set in genres they have no business playing in. Some of these have real weight behind them (and by weight I mean money to get them made) but they don’t work and so they end up on my desk. And this is where the knife is drawn from its sheath. You see I get them because they need fixing and that’s what I do. I fix the broken and make them work again. Most times, it’s with all new parts, hell every time. I’ve done more page one rewrites than I can shake a stick at.

This latest one however, it just irritated me. Could I fix it? Sure. Did I want to? Not really. So I sent an email saying essentially that the investor would do better to take his money and burn it than invest in this script and then I made some other noises about putting best feet forward etc. I fired it off and promptly purged it from my brain.

A few hours later, I got a call about the script. The investor was not impressed with the script either. Did I have anything with action and minimal locations. I saw my opening in the crowd and slipped the blade in. The other writer dropped bleeding to the ground, without a sound.

“Sure do.” I said. “It’s almost finished. It’s real rough but I’ll send you what I’ve got.”

We’re signing the contract next week.

Oh sure, there’ll be more kids looking to make a name but I’ll keep blowing them out of their socks until they stop coming .