Just Effing Entertain Me

Top Three Parakeet Entries!

Okay everybody – here are the top three short scenes for the Parakeet, Waltz, Sumatra short scene competition!

I will post a poll on the sidebar for your votes. Make sure that you read each one carefully and vote according to how cleverly the keywords were used and what the effing entertainment factor is.

(If you are seeing this on the home page of Just Effing, make sure to click through to the blog page in order to vote.)

I’m changing things up around here a little bit vis a vis these competitions, since they have become overwhelmingly popular as has this blog (yay us but wow is there an avalanche of newcomers and traffic) so this time and going forward, voting ends tomorrow, end of day (12am PST). Read, enjoy and VOTE!

Remember, the winner gets a free 15-minute phone call with me, Julie Gray.

So without further ado, here are the top three:

El Zorro’s Secret by Gina Surles

Courting by Desiree Nordlund

The Parakeet Translator by Ron Silva

From Idea to the Page to the Statistic

The thing with me is that I am pretty straightforward. I like to get to the heart of the matter. I really do. I have grown impatient with effluvia and excess verbiage. The more I travel the more I appreciate being an American and the way we like to cowboy our way straight into conversations.

I may have mentioned briefly and lightly that along with a couple of partners, I am looking at setting up a production company. It’s early days – this is why I haven’t made a formal announcement – but resultingly, as I speak with investors and colleagues, I get asked about the flow of scripts I see at The Script Department and the Silver Screenwriting Competition. And as I have had to really look at that flow of creativity and what comprises it, I have come to grips with some startling and hilarious stats:

If I see 1,000 scripts, there are, within that pile, maybe three to five that are worth discussing. And of that three to five, maybe two that look like viable projects. Wow, right?!

So what’s going on with the other 995 scripts culled from the general screenwriting public? Well, those would fall under categories about like this:

1) written in crayon
2) car wrecks
3) benign sleeping aid

Written in Crayon:
These are scripts that contain egregious errors. Language, grammar, spelling plus the story is totally weird and confusing. These are scripts written ostensibly in a basement in-between violent video games OR from the subway or Burger King after a particularly bad breakup or firing. This category generally includes Grand Guignol, screeds, rants and whining at length. This would comprise about 20% of 1000 submitted scripts.

Car Wrecks
These are flights of fancy, caffeine-fueled journeys into the psychedelic cobwebs of every movie you’ve ever seen because you love movies, maaaaan! No, you don’t use Final Draft, no, you haven’t read a book or taken a class but shit, you love Quentin Tarantino, and movies put you in in this like, reverie, and you had this THING happen when you were in the OUTBACK last year (okay it was a dream) that would make an AWESOME movie! This would account for a whopping 60% of submitted scripts.

Benign Sleeping Aid
This is a pretty good script. You know. It’s nice. Stuff happens. And. The characters were – you know what – good try! You know what – I think it’s a GREAT idea you’ve tried to write a script and I tell you what, it’s better than MOST other scripts and that is a mathematical FACT! I liked the montage where the happy couple has their honeymoon and……ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz. Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I fell asleep. This makes up about 15% of submitted scripts.

Then there are the rest. That top 5% or so. Which are original, transcendent, memorable, elegant and which actually could be a movie. But of that 5%, we do bump into the writers who insist that they and only they direct the movie. Or who make otherwise bad business moves about the script. Which leaves us with two or three with which to work.

You think you’ve never been in these categories but you have – most likely in the benign sleeping aid category. And look – I have too. It’s the normal, natural path of writers to traverse this landscape. And as I say in my classes, you can’t go over it, you can’t go around it – ya gots to go through it. But leave the land of the Lotus Eaters (read: denial) behind you and develop an awareness of what your script is really bringing to the table.

In my workshops, I hear some of the BEST ideas – I mean – every SINGLE class I teach I hear at least four or five ideas that get me REALLY excited to see the movie. At least. In my last class in San Francisco there were two great ideas and one in particular that I would kick down the door to see at the theater. WOW.

Now the question is, can the writers then execute the idea in a way that presents that story in an exciting, riveting, compelling, unique and original way? And I mean – I’m saying that format and execution are a GIVEN. I won’t even speak to the absence of those nuts and bolts because unless I’m distinctly on the topic, I waste your time or patronize you. You know you know what I mean.

Which category are you in? Do you have a great idea? Do you have a script worth a discussion among partners at a nascent production company looking to get investors and produce a movie? If the answer is no, you’re not at that point, that is A-okay with me. But you need an awareness of where you are, where you’re going and what it takes to come out on top.

It’s more than LOVING your story. It’s more than the cool music you listened to while writing. It’s not about you, at all, it’s about the story. And it’s hard to create enough distance to really stand back and make that assessment.

In every workshop I teach, at least one person comes away with the sad realization that what they’re writing or working on is not in fact a good story but about some breakup or firing. At least one. At least a couple of people realize that with some work, some new ideas and about 18 cups of coffee their pretty good idea is actually FANtastic. And of course, there are always a few people who, even with gentle hints and glazed over eyes, continue on their merry way and god love ‘em. You can bring a horse to water. Dance monkey, dance. And all of those other weird mixed metaphors that I like to use. It’s the cake, not the frosting. Eat your vegetables.

And here’s a cupcake with a flower on it since mama may have said things today you didn’t want to hear. That should make it aalll better.

From the Mailbag: Origins of Hollywood Structure

How long do you think the 12-sequence/hero’s journey type screenplay structure has been around — and how much of it would you say is embedded within the ancient Greek universals of storytelling, versus simply being our own cultural expectations after seeing so many movies? How did the Hollywood story structure evolve, basically?

-Daniel in Delaware

That is such an interesting question, Daniel! We know that the three act structure is Greek in genesis and has borne out to be the standard ever since. One could also say (as Joseph Campbell and later, Christopher Vogler did) that the heroe’s journey is even older still, dating back to the earliest epic poems and stories of the beginning of recorded history. The oldest recorded of these is the epic poem Gilgamesh.

We also know that opera, in its original incarnation, was a wildly interactive form of entertainment in which audiences often threw fruit and other items when pleased or displeased. Talk about feedback! Traveling shows with puppets and magicians had to change up the entertainment at a rapid pace in order to keep audiences from walking off to another part of the village or the faire – entertainment was, for the entertainers, no laughing matter!

The breakdown of the three acts in films into smaller units or sequences dates back to the very first silent films, which were on small reels and had to be changed every 10 minutes or so. Theaters wanted audiences to stick around to watch the whole film, so each reel would end with a tiny little cliffhanger. Over time, audiences became accustomed to that rhythm of entertainment consumption, which dovetailed perfectly with the advent of television, when advertisers needed the small breaks to sell their wares.

Over time, as our collective ADD has mushroomed, and with so many things competing for our attention, writers have to keep the entertainment coming more than ever. Breaking your script down into sequences is a way of ensuring that you are creating set-ups, complications, reversals and resolutions that keep and hold attention.

The Opening Image

The first image your reader experiences can set the thematic and symbolic tone for the rest of your script.

If you don’t have access to the Flash player click the play button below.

The First Five Pages

It’s a fallacy that the first 10 pages are the most important. Let’s face it, Hollywood has ADD!

Or if you don’t have access to the Flash player click the play button below.

Deadlines Looming!

The Paramount, agent, jelly fish deadline looms! It’s tomorrow, March 11th at midnight, GMT. That’s LONDON time to you, bub. Or in LA, that would be this Friday the 11th at 4pm. I’ve received a number of entertaining scenes so you’ll have to up your game – these Brits have rapier sharp wit!

Turn your submission in HERE please. NOW please. HURRY UP please.

Speaking of which, saw the changing of the guard yesterday with my friend Daniel, and went on the London Eye and survived to tell the tale. London is a beautiful international city with a New York vibe but a very different look. Daniel and I did feel the changing of the guard could use more cowbell or, minimally, a Bollywood dance number to really pep it up. It mostly consists of soldiers marching along in the cold with a brass band, standing stock still, yelling at each other for awhile then switching places. So. You know. I just think Michael Bay could do something with that.

Daniel and I then went to the Sherlock Holmes pub, drank pints of Guinness, ordered just about every dessert they had just to try them all and came up with 10 fun, dramatic ways I could meet my end in London before it struck us we were being morbid. This is the short list, mind you.

“Julie Gray tragically failed to MIND THE GAP. Body found in Thames.”

“Julie Gray mistakenly rushed the gates of Buckingham. Bullet riddled body found in Thames.”

“Julie Gray PLUNGES 5,000 meters to a tragic death from the London Eye while leaning too far to the left. Body found in Thames.”

“Julie Gray horrified by wannabe Jack the Ripper copycat killer in White Chapel. Body found in Thames.”

So. Just some ideas for you there. Write your own ridiculous obit.

Readying to teach another class at Bristol University tomorrow, which is a train ride that shall whisk me past Stonehenge. God I hope I see a crop circle. Please, please, please god.

Hey, and what of the Silver Screenwriting Competition?! Are you guys getting your drafts in on time to make the early bird deadline of March 15th?! Save money – send early!!

Chris Sparling Interview

Interview with Chris Sparling, author of Sundance sensation, BURIED.

Or if you don’t have access to the Flash player click the play button below.

Washingwood, by Steve Faber

Hello everybody! Just spent some time with one of my favorite people in the world – Steve Faber. It’s not just that he’s a fan of my cooking or that he keeps my teenager in line, no, Steve is also one of the smartest people I have ever had the privilege to befriend. Plus he of course wrote “Married With Children” and WEDDING CRASHERS. And he smells nice.

Steve’s just started to write a regular column for the Huffington Post entitled Washingwood, which features Steve’s thoughts (and experience) in DC and the crossover between Hollywood and politics.

Do yourself a favor and check out his column and add it to your feeds. I promise you’ll be highly effing entertained and will probably learn a thing or two.

You can find Steve’s column here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-faber

Or by simply clicking HERE.

That is all. Now get back to work.