Just Effing Entertain Me

No, Seriously, Just F*ng Entertain Me

Good afternoon, everybody! And now…bite those fingernails…the quarterfinalists have been narrowed down significantly to the contenders for the top spots. I just had the scripts printed and labeled and took them to my office. So now I gaze upon the pile of scripts in which I will find my winner.

The title, writer’s name and genre are written on each. Who will it be? This is the fun part, this is the part I love. I know of the hundreds of scripts received that these are the cream of the crop. Is the grand prize winner the script with the hilarious title that I can’t wait to read? Or is it the script with a very unassuming title? Which genre will it be? I’m like a kid in the candy store; I love the anticipation. I wonder what the writer’s like? I wonder if this will kick off a career?

Amidst all of this, life continues to roll on. As I mentioned a couple of weeks back, I went on vacation in Key West and Miami for a few days. While on that trip, I met a young, aspiring writer who took my business card. A few days ago, he emailed me a few pages of his novel, wondering why he cannot get any interest in a read from editors or agents. I’m too busy for this, I thought! Gah! I have a competition to run! But – I’m in a good mood so I read the few pages he sent.* And because I don’t want to leave you Wavers hanging for entertaining distractions to read today, the slightly modified (for privacy and entertainment) email I sent the writer is below. I figured there’s a kernel in here for everyone, screenwriter, novelist or short fiction writer though you may be:

*What is the lesson there? If your email is polite, not too ass-kissy but with just the right amount of flattery, the recipient might just be in a good mood, have a free five minutes and read what you sent. You never know, right? I get emails like this all the time -requests that are rude, blunt or demanding go straight to the deleted folder. If you’ve ever sent me a question or some pages and you never heard back it’s because I’m busy up to my eyeballs and your email did not move my spirit to stop what I was doing and read your unsolicited question, script or manuscript. Hint: I like flattery and cupcakes.

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Hey Young Writer X – wish I could look at this material much more in depth, alas, I am way too swamped with the competition right now. I did read over it very quickly though and my very surface comments would be that the premise – where this is all going – is unclear as heck and the main character is not very likable or relatable. That’s all fine; many fine main characters in fiction have been less than charismatic but that said, a reader needs something they can hang onto – something they can relate to, and some reason they would want to read on.

Now, you know that I primarily work in entertainment, i.e, film scripts, but in my travels I was also frequently hired to read novels for possible adaptation. I have a book coming out this spring called Just F*ng Entertain Me and the main tenet is that material needs to be fundamentally engaging and entertaining. While literature has a lot more room for wheelie-popping, character development and reflective musings, at the end of the day, as attention spans are growing shorter and shorter and the demands on our time have become crowded with things like Twitter, You Tube, gaming, television and movies, you have to be particularly adept at grabbing your reader immediately and keeping them reading your pages. And for that, your premise must unfold and present itself fairly quickly and the main character, even a dissolute anti-hero as yours, must be relatable in some way.

Now, a story about an anti-hero who gets sick to death of it all and hatches some plan or other is not a new premise. What do you bring to the table that is fresh? The beginning pages (including prologue) do not yet highlight or showcase why I should read on. Read the first 10pages of The Lovely Bones and tell me you’re not completely hooked. Hell, the first two sentences of the book hooked me: My name was Salmon; like the fish, first name, Susie. I was 14 when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. This is brilliance, just FYI. She was murdered at age 14?? Then – who’s narrating the book?! Hooked solid.

Put yourself in the shoes of an editor who receives piles of manuscripts each week. Read the first few pages of several authors whom you admire. Reread your first few pages. Why should I read on? What am I going to learn from a bitter, dissolute character that I haven’t already read before? Your job as a writer is to ENTERTAIN your audience – writing a novel is not an exercise in gazing at your navel and picking the literary lint out of it while showing me what pretty words you know – your job is to entertain me. It’s bread and circus. Thumbs up or thumbs down.

Nurses on the Battlefield of Life

So over the weekend I had to review the notes and files for every single entrant for the Silver Screenwriting Competition – I’m talking about hundreds and hundreds of loglines, Wavers. As the loglines and scripts flew by, I found myself smiling. It was like a scene from A BEAUTIFUL MIND: the loglines flying by with a soundtrack of clicking and clacking keyboards and murmured voices…Look at all these writers. Look at all these ideas. Some were crazy and ridiculous, some were profound and serious and some were everything in-between. The collective energy that led so many writers to work so hard for weeks and months to write a script swept over me and I really got a bit choked up.

How wonderful it is that we write. How beautiful and awesome the energy that compels us to make stuff up and in doing so entertain others and provide catharsis for ourselves. Thank you, writers everywhere, for writing. You sit alone, in cafes, at home, in the car in your driveway (as Raymond Carver did) and you bravely face the blank page. You put your heart and soul onto paper knowing the odds are terrible, knowing there may be no payback or payoff or even any encouragement. But you do it anyway.

You make me laugh, you scare me, you make me cry, you make me think and your sheer creative energy renews my faith in the human spirit. I don’t care if you advanced to the next round or didn’t – you’re all rock stars in my world. Thank you. You make my life richer just because you are out there, you crazy writers. Never stop. Do it for me. No, do it for every person who needs a laugh, a scare, a new point of view or just a distraction on a Friday night when their own lives are too overwhelming. Like nurses on the battlefield, you writers administer hope, candy and distraction from the toils and troubles of life.

The Special Project

Script readers tend to use other films as examples to illustrate a point. Makes sense, right? I can only speak for myself when I say that I found that I was using the same examples over and over again. So I asked one of my readers, Gideon Cross, to do a special project for me. I asked him to list out the inciting incident, first plot point, midpoint, second plot point and battle scene of 10 movies. I wanted him to draw from the classics as well as much more current films. When Gideon was done, I distributed his list to all of our readers as a refresher and a reference point so we can be sure to be using current examples and/or examples that change up the tried and true. It took Gideon a few weeks and a whole lot of video rentals but he did it. I asked him to write about the experience and he has done so here today:

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In my experience as a screenplay analyst, I’ve found that structure is by far the most common “trouble” area in screenplays. Luckily, these mistakes are generally fixable, and structure is quite learnable. Sometimes a screenplay just isn’t very well written, or there’s no heart in it, or the dialogue doesn’t sound real – problems that are difficult to correct. I won’t say these aspects of writing are not learnable, but they can be very difficult to learn. Structure’s not like that. It’s pretty straightforward…yet, more writers mess it up than any other category.

I recently re-watched a number of classic and successful modern movies to create a reference sheet of key structural points for The Script Department. The experience reaffirmed for me how much of a formula structure really is. I know creative people generally don’t like the word “formula,” but think of it this way: The formula creates a framework that will support all of the exceptional, original, creative content that is going to fit inside. In CRASH, which seems on the surface as if it has a sort-of unorthodox free-flowing multi-story structure, I was a bit surprised to find all of the standard structural points not only arriving on cue, but arriving en masse.

You see, CRASH follows about 67 storylines (a rough estimate), and when these plot points hit, they hit in story after story. For example at the midpoint, there’s a reversal for every character: John (Matt Dillon’s racist cop) apologizes to Shaniqua, Graham and Ria (Don Cheadle and Jennifer Esposito) discover a break in their case that leads them in a new direction, Tom (Ryan Phillippe) gets reassigned, etc. Woody Allen’s WHATEVER WORKS, which I saw in the theater recently, also hits all of the standard plot points, sometimes with real in-your-face oomph. In that movie, lead character Boris (Larry David) is fervently against marriage and commitment, often ranting about what a horrible idea it would be for him to marry female lead Melody (Evan Rachel Wood). Guess what Boris does at the midpoint? If you guessed something other than “He marries Melody,” stop, take a deep breath, and re-read up to this point.

I’ve heard writers say, “I know all those big Hollywood movies hit the same structural points, but I want to do something independent and more personal and meaningful…more like (fill in the blank with Jarmusch, Allen, Altman, Stillman, Soderbergh, etc.).” Well, Woody Allen hits those same structural points! My guess is that Allen has no idea that there’s technically “supposed” to be a midpoint reversal, or what “plot point two” is, or that the “inciting incident” should occur within the first 10 pages (maybe 12-15 if you really need that extra set-up time). However, WHATEVER WORKS and VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA – which I also mapped out for this project – hit all of those points.

That’s because these are organic storytelling elements:

A significant event or occurrence changes the hero’s world (inciting incident); the hero sets out on his or her mission (end of first act/point of attack/plot point one); the hero reaches a point of no turning back (midpoint/reversal/point of no return); all seems lost (end of second act/low point/plot point two); the hero recommits to his or her goal; the hero fights his/her climactic battle; and finally, the hero achieves resolution.

Doesn’t that seem completely natural? It does to me. Just start telling stories. Any stories you can think of – from a novel, a movie, a fairy tale…you’re going to find that formula. I think most writers know that if they want to write the next THE HANGOVER or TRANSFORMERS they should follow standard structural guidelines. What many fail to understand is that if they want to write the next MANHATTAN or TRAFFIC, they should still follow standard structural guidelines. Now, if you want to write the next LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, that might be a whole ‘nother article.

Announcing Quarterfinalists

…so we’re fixin to announce who did and did not advance in the Silver Screenwriting Competition this weekend. Some entrants have actually already received word. Notifications will continue through tomorrow.

This year we did something different – we gave a little bit (and I emphasize a little bit) of feedback so that entrants would have some sense of why they did (or didn’t) advance in the competition. We have already received our first I HATE YOU email response from someone who didn’t advance. Ahhhhh. I love being on the receiving end of bitter disappointment.

It has been a very long past couple of months, with judging quietly going on in the background of everything else. I did not judge this round; we had about four judges working day and night to weed out the first round, which was massive. I wanted the quarterfinalists to represent about 10% of the total entrants. The finalists will be the top 12 – 15% of the quarterfinalists and then we’ll have the grand prize winner, 2nd and 3rd places.

Starting now, I am judging, along with Margaux Froley and Andrew Zinnes. We will be finding the finalists within the quarterfinalists and then finding the winner in that pile. It’s fun for me to scan the lists of those moving up in the competition, looking for clients and scripts I am familiar with. I haven’t seen any that I know personally yet, to be honest. What we did last year when we were in final judging rounds is if we knew a writer, we’d pass the script to someone else so we could judge as objectively as possible. Believe me, you do NOT want to know the writer when you’re judging. You so badly want a friend to do well but…you have to judge honestly as well. So you get out of the situation fast and swap scripts.

How did the judges decide who was moving onward and upward and who was not? The usual list of criteria: formatting issues (Wavers, there were entrants who’d literally never before seen a script) originality, voice, character and primarily, the title of my upcoming book: JUST F*NG ENTERTAIN ME. You know how I feel about that. If we’re not entertained and fast, you’re not advancing. Because this is not about that time you lost your first pet, this is a movie script that is, in theory, a piece of entertainment. So the very first round of judging, which is the most massive, time-consuming one, is one in which we find out who can fundamentally write a fairly good script and who needs to go back to the drawing board.*

*before that pisses you off, go to the section below, about subjectivity

The next round of judging will tighten the noose quite a bit as we look for writers who are not just in the general realm of pretty good execution or a pretty original idea but writers who nailed the execution, theme, originality, premise, character and dialogue. The qualities we are looking for in the very top spots are writers who have a legitimate shot at breaking in, getting repped and maybe even making a sale. Now, I know the spec market is tough right now, so whoever the winner is probably can’t plan on defying those odds, but we want our winner to be on par with other repped writers whose work is going out on the marketplace.

I haven’t said much about the judging and administrative activities that have been going on with the Silver Screenwriting Competition this year because I know that among the I HATE YOU people, my every word will be cross-examined. I had a conversation with one of my judges the other day about a script he was unsure of. He laughed and remarked how ironic it is that he can see how hard I work to make sure every entrant gets his or her due but it won’t matter because there will be the sour grape-types anyway, who handle rejection by FLIPPING OUT and complaining that there was a grammatical error in their notes therefore how on earth can we judge their script??

I had a writer – long story – absolutely flip out and lose her mind because when her script was pitched on her behalf, she got no read requests. She went into full on stalking, raving, threatening mode that lasted for more than two weeks. After I recovered from being absolutely dumbfounded, I gave her some unsolicited advice: You better chill or you’ll never work in this town. Ever.

Rejection is part of life, Wavers. And it is a huge part of the life of a writer. Judges strive to be objective but of course subjectivity is always present. What do I always say? Until they invent the Reader 9000, humans are reading your scripts. Of course, maybe one day they’ll invent the Audience 9000 and it won’t matter who watches your movie or who cares about it. For now, we have humans reading and judging your scripts, we have human executives making decisions about it and we have subjective human beings either slapping down $14 to watch your movie or walking away. Rejection hurts. Get used to it or go make home movies and show them to your friends in the basement. If you want to work in this business, you have to please the majority of people the majority of the time. And that’s not possible. And it’s crazy-making.

If you did not advance in the SSC this year, don’t take it personally and don’t let it get you down. Keep believing in your writing and in your script. In fact, I once read a line of a dialogue in a script that really stayed with me: The mettle of a cowboy is not how many times he gets knocked off the horse, but how fast he gets back up again. If you find that you didn’t advance and your sentiment is RAGE and a surety that you were CHEATED, you may want to take a look at the man in the mirror and ask if writing is really the path for you. If you feel disappointed and really let down for awhile – well, that is pretty damn normal. God knows I’ve been there. But here’s the mettle of a true writer…you shrug it off, you decide that you are a good writer who can do better next time, you pack up your laptop and go to a cafe and you sit your ass down and you get back to work on some writing.

That is all. Now get back to work.

Put Your Best Foot Forward

Hello, Wavers! Today I received my third phone message for The Script Department that was mumbly and incoherent with no name or phone number left. I dialed the callers back using the caller ID function in my voice mail but didn’t know who to ask for. When the callers did pick up, they were as mumbly as their messages, didn’t introduce themselves, didn’t greet me warmly or thank me for calling back. Can you imagine how quickly I got off those calls? Do you know how much free information, advice and cheerfulness I dole out to callers who do the opposite?

While I’m on a roll, I have another beef as well – email addresses that are long, incomprehensible, hard to remember or spell and silly on top of all of that. I emailed a writer earlier this week whose email address was an approximation of this: fundaddy@whatever.com. Fundaddy? This is a writer who wishes to have a career in Hollywood? And that’s his email address?

Wavers. When you communicate with someone in the industry, even if it’s just to ask a question or get some advice, please, please, please be a professional. If you leave a message and have any hope of being called back, state your name and the date and time clearly. Leave your phone number behind too. Say it clearly and say it twice. Say thank you. Be polite. And if you have an email address that you use for your friends and family that is cute and funny (to you) like NorcalDanceFiend@whatever.com – DO NOT use that email address. Get a new one somewhere else. Ideally, it should be LASTNAME@whatever.com.

Don’t waste my time with mumbled messages. Don’t irritate me when I can’t find your information on your title page, your pages aren’t numbered and your email address isn’t cute it’s stupid. In Hollywood, everybody is in a hurry. We want upshot, we want information, we want a name, a number and a great logline. Anything you can do to streamline that for us is not only appreciated, to do less than that is apt to make me hurry on to the next person because you’re not putting your best foot forward.

I know this doesn’t apply to 99% of you but to the 1% it does apply to, please do better. The silly email address topic does apply to many of you and I know for a fact. So take a look at your email address today. Is it simple, clear, easy to say and to spell? Or does it contain some kind of inside joke or allusion to your marital or parenting status or a hobby of yours? Because I like people and getting to know them – but not when I’m giving your email address to a producer and trying to act like a pro when doing it.

Okay, today’s hand slap is over. Don’t make mama cranky.

What’s Your Story, Morning Glory?

I had been on the cusp of posting something on TRW yesterday about the story most central to your life when I received the news of Blake Snyder’s death. Of course, like so many, I have been feeling sad and stunned ever since hearing such awful news. But then, I thought back to a conversation Blake and I once had about his philosophy of living and today I feel better. I often say to writers that if you’re not having fun in the process of writing, something is wrong. Now, I know writing is not always fun, sometimes it’s downright painful. But in the big picture you should be experiencing the joy of creation when you write.

Harkening back to the conversation with Blake: You should be experiencing the joy of creation in your life. Every day. When you feel down, worried, discontent or anxious, you’re simply blocking the good stuff from your view because it’s always there in pleasures large and small. We don’t have to try hard to be happy – we GET to be happy. It’s your birthright and it’s the preset of your life. Imagine that. You can be happy just because you decide to be. That’s what Blake did. That’s the biggest example he left behind for me. Be happy. Enjoy the ride. I’ll tell you for a fact, if you never met Blake in person, he enjoyed the hell out of this ride. He left early but he went out happy. I can’t think of anyone who’d prefer the opposite.

So let’s move on in appreciation for Blake, for life and for this gift we have for writing. Somebody said to me recently – hey, gee, how come you haven’t been writing anything lately? My initial reaction was one of defensiveness; HEY I run a BUSINESS every day, YOU try writing on top of that! I really felt bad about the comment. It messed with my mind. Until, a few days later, I had a story idea that I glommed on top of another story idea I had had a few weeks back and then I realized something, Wavers…I realized that for the past few months, I haven’t had anything to say in my writing. Let me back up. Every script and every short story I have written in the past 10 years shared a common theme – that of the search for identity and the desire to change one’s life. And it was toward the end of that time that I got divorced, moved to LA, started reading for production companies, started my own business, got a writing partner and – totally changed my life. I explored the desire to change my life totally through various characters in various mediums and then I did it. Now I’m in a completely different phase of my life. And it is now that I am gestating a totally new truth about me which will give birth to a new theme or story I want to tell.

Now, some writers are literally like popcorn machines, life pours in kernels and they pop pop pop new stories and ideas at a rapid pace. I’ll be honest, I’m quite jealous of those writers. But give ‘em time; everybody runs out of juice at one point or another. Yet other writers need to gestate their story ideas at length. That’s me. And either way is fine, by the way. Now, I’m not talking about writer’s block, by the way, which I have never experienced and I’m not sure is even a real phenomenon, I’m talking about feeling the urgency to put your truth, your questions, your story down on paper. I used to be absolutely engrossed by the idea of being trapped in one life and finding a way to change that. Now I’m more interested in reinvention and rebirth into new possibilities in middle age. And the great news is, once I realized that my central truth, my central story is a new one now, an idea came flooding in to me and I’m outlining a new script that I’m really excited about because it really speaks to me. What a great feeling. But I needed to have that terrified feeling first – oh my god, I haven’t been writing lately, what does it mean? Am I all out of stories? Have I given up? What’s wrong?? No. It was just that I needed to acknowledge that I’m done telling the story I had been telling for a long time. Been there done that.

So – I’m curious, Wavers. What’s your story? If you look at everything you’ve written in a period of time, what theme keeps coming up again and again for you? And also, are you a gestational writer or a popcorn machine writer? Where are you in your story as a writer?

Cupcakes in Heaven

My friend and my mentor Blake Snyder, author of the seminal screenwriting book Save the Cat passed away suddenly today of a cardiac arrest. Blake was 57 years old. As I write this, tears come to my eyes because Blake was one of my earliest and most powerful mentors. We were simpatico; we shared the same philosophy. I learned a lot from Blake about the importance of being passionate and loving what you do. He was such a tall, elegant, peaceful soul. I’ll miss his kindness and his advice and his presence in this community.

This is how I first met Blake. I was at the premiere party in Beverly Hills for the newly launched Script Magazine. I saw this very tall man sort of standing there awkwardly. Being the social gal that I am, I figured I’d go say hi and alleviate his apparent solitude. I sashayed over with my drink. Hi, I’m Julie, what’s your name? Blake smiled a secret smile. Blake Snyder. I turned beet red. What an idiot to not know him. I don’t remember what I said by way of trying to regain my dignity but I do remember that he laughed graciously, never made me feel stupid for my blunder, and went on to ask me all about myself in such a way that I soon forgot my earlier embarrassment. That typified Blake. He was a true gentleman.

Last year, he met Hilary Graham, our Silver Screenwriting winner, and me at the Chateau Marmont for a drink. He was so dapper in his black turtleneck and black slacks. He ordered nothing but water, I remember. He was so kind to Hilary, asking her about her writing and offering her anecdotes and advice and delighting in her ideas and her success. He stayed as long as he was needed and then some. He never asked anything in return.

The last time I saw Blake was a few weeks ago at the Great American Pitch Fest. I introduced him to my daughter, the Mini-W (who had taken his class earlier that day). Though he was surrounded by people wanting to say hello, he took a moment, shifted all the things he was holding in his arms, shook my daughter’s hand and gave her that winning smile of his. Hope you liked my class, he said.

I’ll miss you Blake. You set the example that I follow every day. You were passionate about story, you loved writers and you did it all with joy in every step and a smile on your face that I will never forget. Thank you for being my mentor. Thank you for being my friend.

Key Largo, Montego…

The tune. It’s stuck in your head now, right? Ha! Ha, ha, I say! (bonus points: What Tennessee Williams-penned movie starring Marlon Brando features that dialogue?) Just letting all you loyal Wavers know that I am not abandoning you, I am going to Key West for a week for a much needed, long-awaited, well-deserved vacation with the Mini-W. I shall return the first week of August with all sorts of fun plans for The Rouge Wave including an interview with a writers’ assistant on “Scrubs.” LEARN how he got the job, SEE what it’s like and FIND OUT how he plans to use the position to leverage himself up using the experience!

Have a lovely week upcoming, Wavers – I won’t be around to approve/publish comments until I return, but don’t let that stop or discourage you. Meanwhile you can picture me sitting on the beach sipping a pina colada and planning tours of Ernest Hemingway’s house. Ahhhhh…!

Aruba, Jamaica ooh I wanna take ya
To Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego baby why don’t we go
Jamaica
off the Florida Keys
There’s a place called Kokomo
That’s where you wanna go to get away from it all

Are You a "Creative?"

Today I am proud to announce what I hope will be a regular column here on The Rouge Wave. (You guys know the blog is shortly to be moved and renamed, right? Don’t freak out; there will be breadcrumbs. I drink your milkshake!) But before I introduce Libby Barnes, life coach to those who work in the entertainment industry – or aspire to – I must remind you all that you are weird. Well – so am I.

“Creatives,” as those poor souls like us are known, who write, act, direct, sculpt, photograph and otherwise sing a song back to life, are gifted with abilities that the masses could only dream of having. But with those creative gifts comes a lot of doubt and yes, I’ll say it – neuroses. I try to address that here on The Rouge Wave but I am not a qualified professional. I just get it because I am you. When I heard about Libby Barnes, who does life coaching and workshops specifically for creatives, I thought wow! I must get her to write for The Rouge Wave! And she was kind enough to do so.

In addition, Libby will be on an upcoming teleclass (details TBA) taking your questions about the peaks, valleys and swollen rivers you encounter as you carry the gift and the burden of dreams of being “a creative” like some crazy scene from FITZCARRALDO. Without further ramblings, here is Libby’s inaugural post:

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As a life and career coach for the entertainment industry, I often work with writers on ways to increase their self motivation and productivity. For many of them, there are no 9 a.m. meetings, no bosses to please and no deadlines to meet. Bottom line: There’s no structure. And most writers thrive on structure, so they have to create it themselves. One of the most effective strategies I like to suggest is what John F. Kennedy once referred to as “throwing your hat over the fence.” If you throw your hat over the fence, you will HAVE to climb over the fence to get it. You’re committed. To metaphorically “throw your hat” means you announce what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it, preferably to people who matter to your career. This, in turn, propels you into action because there’s no going back and you don’t want to fail in front of them.

As a writer myself, I’m always looking for ways to create that accountability and commitment. Recently, I was working on the fourth draft of a screenplay that I felt had great marketability. But I kept putting it down and losing motivation. So, I decided to set a date to do a staged reading of it. I booked the theater, made the announcement and prayed that my creative juices would flow. And they did. Knowing that my work – good or bad – was going to be read out loud to an audience was productive pressure at its best. I completed the final draft and had a fantastic reading that opened a lot of doors for me.

How can you throw the proverbial hat? It may be as simple as signing up for a class or joining a writers’ group where you have to share your pages. Better yet, start a group yourself. Being a leader and needing to set an example for others will inspire you to rise to the occasion. Or you could schedule a table reading in your home, book a meeting with your agent or tell an industry contact the date you’ll be sending him your script. The possibilities are endless.

Whatever you choose to do, you want it to be realistic so that you’re setting yourself up for success, but also challenging, so you’re compelled to get to work. And it can’t be easy to take back, like promising your mom you’ll finish your first draft by next month when you know that, even if you don’t, she’ll love you anyway. You want to announce your intentions to people who may NOT love you anyway if you don’t get it done. By making this commitment before your work is ready (and especially because your work isn’t ready), you’ll be creating that structure and accountability that can often be the key to a writer’s success.

One great outcome from my staged reading was that a producer liked my comedic style and wanted to collaborate on my next project. I emailed him a couple days ago asking if he’d like to meet on Thursday to go over the completed outline of my new script. Guess what? Right now, I don’t have a completed outline of my new script, but I can promise you that by Thursday I will. I have thrown my hat and now I must follow.

Libby Barnes is originally from Virginia, where she received a Master’s degree in Counseling. She moved to L.A. in 1998 to pursue acting and writing. She is now a life and career coach for the entertainment industry and is working on her fourth script. To schedule a complimentary life coaching session with her or to find out about the next Passion Into Action workshop, visit her website or call 310-721-7028.

The Mini-W Reviews: HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

There have been few fantasy phenomena as big as the Harry Potter series. As wildly popular books, drawing a big box office profit out of a film adaptation is easy. But do the films live up to their literary twins? HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE, the sixth of the Harry Potter film adaptations, does not. However, it possesses (because of budget) many great components to create a good looking and entertaining film.

Directed by David Yates (who also directed the previous film, HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX), the film may not be the best from an Academy point of view, but as a blockbuster, it sure as heck keeps your attention. And let’s face it – what do the audiences want? They want to be entertained. Yates accomplishes this mission, and more with an action packed, romance charged flick that gives your average American exactly what they paid for: two-and-a-half hours of a good time.

As a movie lover, however, we must look past what the average Joe wants. What’s interesting about the Harry Potter films is that, at first, with original director Chris Columbus, the films took an intriguing yet light tone. They worked for not only adults but children, too. But as the films progressed, director Alfonso Cuaron (THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN), set a new, darker tone. Suddenly the films became weirder, more disturbing, the images more cryptic, and they began to frighten children, who, mind you, are half the audience. THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE is definitely an attempt (at some producer’s request because his daughter got scared) to draw the films back into a family range. Yates, however, was not too successful with this task. In fact, my nine-year-old cousin, with whom I saw the film, was terrified of the movie’s images. He clung to my arm during much of the film.

Now another huge drawback to this newest installment is how incredibly hard to follow it is. I have seen all the Harry Potter films at least once, yet the twisted plot providing no guidance as to what was happening baffled me. And then I thought, what if I had seen none of the films? I’d be so completely lost I probably wouldn’t even know which characters were which. And so another fault of Yates’ prevails. Confusion.

Overall, HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE is worth the ticket if you, like me, are at all interested in the cinematography, or eye candy. However, a more intense Potter fan (perhaps one who has read the books), may be disappointed. Do not watch this film expecting greatness, and you’ll love it.

I give it 3 out of 5 jellybeans.

*A lifelong fan of the cinema (her favorite film at age five was SUNSET BOULEVARD), the Mini-W is soon to turn 16. She just completed a digital filmmaking summer camp at UCLA and is the proud cinematographer of a four-minute short. When not tending to her pet tortoise or her numerous studies, the Mini-W is an avid fan of The Rouge Wave and all things effing entertaining.