Just Effing Entertain Me

Judging Scripts the Darwinian Way

So last night we began judging the 2010 Silver Screenwriting Competition. It’s so exciting to be doing so again, and wondering who will find Willy Wonka’s golden ticket among the hundreds and hundreds of submitted scripts. We’re in our third year – each year the submission list gets longer and longer. Next year the competition will be more intense than ever.

I am not your usual screenwriting teacher/consultant. I have a specific take on screenwriting and on the way I conduct my various businesses. One based on the joy of it, and based on relationships, encouragement and learning. Based on being honest and forthright about your script and whether it can find a place in Hollywood given the current cultural and economic climate. I march to the beat of a different drummer. There is a third way, between brow-beating screenwriters that they’ll never make it, bootcamp style, and telling screenwriters beautiful lies about their script, the state of the business or what it takes to even keep on trying in the face of things.

So I feel pretty certain that the way we judge the first round scripts is not the usual. This is what I do. I make a delicious dinner and invite about 10 of my reader friends and colleagues over and we sit in the same room and do the judging together. Some have said that I should NOT have to deal with the earlier rounds of judging but this is mama’s competition and I want to make sure that the first round is as considered as any other round and I want to get a sense of the general state of the scripts that came in.

My judges have certain oaths they have to hew to: Every script gets a fair chance and its due consideration. Every script that is a “pass” has to have a number of strong reasons for that “pass” and every script advanced has to prove its worth to be so lucky. Judging together mostly means hours of quiet time punctuated by questions and observations. If a reader is unsure, the group has a look together. This goes on for several evenings and several delicious dinners at which NO alcohol is served, only good food, healthy beverages and lots of candy to keep everyone alert. No ONE person decides the fate of every script.

Unless. Unless the script is so poorly executed that it simply cannot be considered for any other level of judging.

And guys, boy did we find some unmentionables in the scripts we judged last evening. An unusually large proportion of scripts had numbered scenes – BAD. A number of scripts were written in odd fonts with strange formatting. A number of scripts were overly long and had bored the reader by the tenth page. Some scripts had crazy all-caps fever going on, some had terrible typos, some looked as if the writer had literally never seen a script before.

There were some standouts; one in particular that I read had the BEST first page ever. I stopped everyone and said listen up, guys – THIS is a first page. There were a number of scripts that were a bit heartbreaking because they were competently written but awfully dull and I felt so bad, knowing how hard each writer really does work.

But feeling bad because a writer worked hard and yet isn’t getting a script off the ground is not what a competition is about. We have to be Darwinian – may the strongest script (and writer) win.

In the early stages of judging, we look for – in this order – basic competence, engaging/interesting pages, good character and dialogue and a fresh idea. Writers are picked off rapidly in every category. And yes, because some random writer you’ve never met and never will has a tighter, more interesting, more streamlined opening to their script than you do, he or she will blow past you. Will they make it through the next round of litmus tests? Only a full read will tell. In the quarterfinal review, we’re looking for scripts that MOVE, entertain and are written with a skilled hand. Beyond that, the deeper issues of character development, original premise and great page work will out.

While it is not uncommon for the first few pages to be GREAT and then poop out in the second act, I have NEVER seen a script with a bad first few pages improve from there. That’s the way it is, kids.

If your script were compared to other scripts, side-by-side and in quick succession, how would it fare? Writers who can engage the reader immediately are going to rise in the ranks and leave others behind. Just like that. No matter how hard you tried or how much you love your script.

It’s survival of the fittest and a part of me cringes: I love every writer, I see the work that you do and I see the good bits that ARE working and how you can improve them.

But when I’m judging scripts, I’m afraid I have to put on a different hat and be a lot harder on your material. Because I have to think to myself, if this writer doesn’t have very good opening pages, and is therefore not displaying not only an aptitude but a gift for screenwriting, then how can I confidently send this writer at meetings with agents, managers or producers? If they can’t pull off tight, engaging, delightful pages on their own material, what makes me think they could handle a rewrite assignment for someone else?

Whereas if this other writer over here can pull off those pages…well…Darwin didn’t discover that it’s actually the survival of the nicest. Or the survival of the tried-hardest. Or the survival of the whoops-didn’t-realize-I-shouldn’t-have-camera-directions.

Silver Screenwriting Deadline

Just for clarity – I know we are writers, not scientists or mathematicians – the deadline for the Silver Screenwriting Competition is June 1st at midnight. Just BEFORE June 2nd. Get it? Maybe you do. I got confused.

So. There’s one more day is my point.

xoxo

Silver Screenwriting

Hello everybody! The deadline for the Silver Screenwriting Competition approacheth on little pig feet. Wait. No, that’s not right. Well, it approacheth quickly and I do encourage everyone to give it a shot.

Because you can have lunch with Shane Black? Sure, that’s a pretty neat prize. Because you can win a MacBook Air? Of course. The cash? The meetings? Having Bedford Falls (Marshall Herskovitz), Bedrock Studios (Cary Granat) and Back Lot Pictures (first look with Sam Mendes) read your script? Whatever.

No, the reason you should enter is because I will personally pick you up from the airport and be your pal and your guide the entire visit. I know. It’s just too fun. Ask Kodjo and Hilary from years past. I get a tremendous kick out of being your tourguide; I love this town and I love introducing the winner to people they should know: agents, managers, other creatives. It’s a lot of fun for me.

But if you’re entering for all that other stuff, that’s okay too.

June 1 is the deadline so hurry on up, campers. There are no exceptions.

Words Into Pictures

Hello everybody! Had fun teaching to a full room at Warner Bros today! Our topic was Words Into Pictures: Writing Cinematically for the Silver Screen. It seems obvious that script writing should be colorful, sensory and cinematic but many writers, fearing that they don’t have license to write anything more elaborate than a blueprint, err on the side of writing dull, dry pages.

We talked today about the Three S’s: sight, sound, smell. So that if we have a scene set in a forest, we engage the reader’s senses wholly by using evocative words to describe the sharp smell of pine needles on the forest floor, or the way the sun looks peeking through the branches, or the muffled footsteps of a shadowy deer.

We also talked about establishing an intention, on page one, for how you want the reader to FEEL when reading the script and in particular, when reading each scene. Know your genre and set your agenda very early. If this is a thriller, we want to set up dread on evey page. So that forest might not be so sun-dappled, right? And perhaps the pine needles are rotting and black. And wind blows the branches.

So we manipulate the world we describe in action lines, slug lines and in dialogue to literally hypnotize the reader into feeling the way we intend them to. If Muzak is playing in a deserted convenience store late at night, if it’s totally generic elevator music, that’s creepy. But if it’s “Dancing Queen” or “The Hustle,” that’s a little funny. You can indicate music if there’s a source for it in the scene. A radio, boom box, CD player or radio. Otherwise, indicating music is NOT done.

We use modifiers and adjectives in the same way a painter uses paint in a pointillist painting. Little dots flecked with color take on a complete picture when you stand back.

Don’t worry about these details so much in your first draft – this is polish work. But do bear in mind, even in the early drafts, that your job is to seduce the reader into feeling the way you want them to feel about the story.

So set your intention on page one by knowing your genre and paying homage to it on every page. Bear in the mind the Three S’s (sight, sound, smell) and dig deep into your vocabulary for descriptors that turn the red apple into a blood red apple into a scarlet apple into a blushing apple into a crimson apple and back again.

That is all. Now get back to work.