Screenwriting Quote #181 (John Jarrell)

“Twenty years ago screenwriter Larry Marcus (“The Stuntman”) told me that if you have a great script it may take a week, a year, or even ten years, but if you’ve written something undeniably fantastic, someone will find it. Why? Because there simply aren’t that many great scripts out there. It’s straight-up supply and demand….This is the real key for any aspiring writer — ‘It only takes one buyer’. That’s what my first agent told me, and it’s just as true today. You can hear 1000 ‘No’s’, have a million doors slammed in your face, but just one simple ‘Yes’ validates everything. As a writer, I’ve always found strength and inspiration in that. You don’t have to conquer Hollywood, you just need to find that one buyer out there who gets it.”
Screenwriter John Jarrell (Romeo Must Die)
ScriptShadow Interview

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Killing Minor Characters (Tip #70)

“One director I worked with was a particular influence, although I unfortunately can’t name him, as the re-write job I did for him was a non-public thing. He had a really interesting policy about minor characters – he believed that whatever function they are serving, you can usually do away with them entirely and find other ways of making the same thing happen without them, and it’s a lot cleaner. I thought that was very interesting advice and have found on numerous occasions since that he’s absolutely right.”
Screenwriter Jane Goldman (X-Men:First Class, Stardust, The Woman in Black)
Scriptshadow interview January 26, 2012

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“Goal. Stakes. Urgency.” (Tip #60)

“Every single one of your screenplays should have goals, stakes, and urgency.”
Carson Reeves
ScriptShadow

If there was an official tattoo for screenwriters I think it should somehow incorporate three simple words: Goal. Stakes. Urgency. Maybe just GSU would be enough of a reminder once you understand the basic concept.  I’ll credit Carson Reeves over at ScriptShadow for this simple yet powerful tip since I first read about it in his post Article – GSU!!! — here’s a taste of how he unpacks it:

Goal – “The character goal is the heart of your story. A character must be going after something or else that character is doing nothing. And a character who does nothing is inactive and inactive people are borrrrrrrrrrrr-ing.”

Stakes – “Once you have a character goal, you can establish your stakes. You do this by asking two very simple questions: ‘What does my character gain if he achieves his goal?’ And ‘What does my character lose if he fails to achieve his goal?’ The bigger the gains and losses, the higher the stakes.”

Urgency—”The most common way to do this is via a ticking time bomb, that point of no return by when your character needs to achieve his goal. You can throw ticking time bombs all over your screenplay so that the pace is always quick.”

I started writing these screenwriting tips back in ’08, but if I were starting them today I’d put Goal. Stakes. Urgency. in the top five tips, maybe right after Everything I Learned in Film School (Tip#1) and How to Become a Successful Screenwriter (Tip #41).

Related post:
What’s at Stake? (Tip #9)
Screenwriting & Time (tip #17)

And if your goal is to be a succesful screenwriter check out this post:
The Secret to Being a Successful Screenwriter (Seriously)

P.S. And goal, stakes, and urgency don’t just apply to big Hollywood films, check out that great little indie film Winter’s Bone and see how long it takes for the filmmakers to get to GSU. (Hint: it’s within the first ten minutes.) Pieces of April and Buried also have GSU.

Scott W. Smith

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Is 110 the New 120?

Since in the past few days I’ve written about two Hollywood screenplays that not only featured mathematical geniuses (A Beautiful Mind, Good Will Hunting) but both happened to win Oscars for their screenwriters.

So I thought it appropriate to crunch some numbers and look at the going script length of screenplays in the marketplace today.

This week I’m on the third rewrite of a script I’ve co-written. Some scenes were recently cut, some scenes were added. The script at the end of the second rewrite was at 110 pages, but like a diet gone bad on the third pass it actually started ballooning up to 118-119. Which would be okay if this was 1983. So radical steps were taken and the script got down to 109, then 105. Is it really necessary to obsess about page numbers like a John Nash nightmare? If you’re Aaron Sorkin, no, just keep writing. But if you’re not  Mr. Sorkin you may what to reconsider sending out that 120 page screenplay.

“Is 110 the new 120? – Up In The Air may clock in at 124 pages but that’s because Jason Reitman only has to impress himself. I have been seeing so many 100-110 page spec scripts lately. It’s so rare that one of the chunkier ones sneaks through that you begin to wonder if 120 is becoming the screenplay equivalent of standard definition. Of course, thrillers and comedies are naturally shorter. If you’re writing a drama, you can eek into 110+ territory. But I’d still look to keep it under 110. Readers are just used to it. And after being yelled at and ridiculed for 9 hours, these poor souls have to go home and read 3 professional scripts before they reach yours – the unknown writer – the one script they’ve been dreading and the one they know if they don’t like by page 20, they’re getting some shuteye. So don’t give them a reason to tune out before they’ve tuned in.”
SCRIPTSHADOW July 13. 2009

An interesting editing concept I picked up from Sam Mendes on the DVD commentary of American Beauty is looking at cutting the first line or two of the opening of the scene and doing the same at the end of the scene. American Beauty was Mendes’ first film and he discovered in editing that often times those lines weren’t needed. It’s an interesting exercise to read your script again from page one asking yourself— “If the opening and closing lines were edited out, would it make any difference?”

Obviously that simple concept didn’t hurt American Beauty as Mendes won the Oscar for Best Directing, screenwriter Alan Ball walked away with an Oscar for his script, and the movie won the Oscar for Best Picture.

P.S. If you’re planning on making your own film and are on a limited budget then the best reason to aim for a 9o pages is 90 pages is a legitimate length for a feature and the less pages you have to shoot, the less the film cost to make.

Screenwriting by Numbers (Tip #4)

Meet Your First Audience

Scott W. Smith

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Show, Don’t Tell (Tip #46)

“Ultimately, it all comes down to one of the grand old rules of screenwriting: whenever possible – show, don’t tell.”
Ray Morton
Script magazine

The Verdict

An early version of The Verdict screenplay by David Mamet:
INT.  COFFEE SHOP - DAY

          Galvin sitting in the deserted coffee shop in his raincoat.
          Reading a section of the paper.  He picks up his teacup, drinks.
          Lowers it to the table.

          ANGLE - INSERT

          Galvin twists tea bag around a spoon to extract last drops of
          tea.  His hand moves to his felt pen lying on the table.  He
          moves his hand to the paper, open at the obituary section.  We
          SEE several names crossed out.  He circles one funeral listing.

          ANGLE

          Galvin sitting, raises cup of tea to his lips.  Looks around
          deserted coffee shop.  Sighs.

Now look again at the above still frame from that movie. Notice anything different? No tea cup, right? Either Mamet, or director Sidney Lumet, or  actor Paul Newman, or somebody else said, "This guy's an alcoholic—what better way of showing that than to have him knocking back a stiff one with his morning donut?" Newman's performance in that scene shows you the desperate state this man is in without a word being spoken. In fact, the whole opening minutes of the film wonderfully shows you a man in need of redemption. 
 
"IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA. IF YOU DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF THE CRUTCH OF NARRATION, EXPOSITION, INDEED, OF SPEECH. YOU WILL BE FORGED TO WORK IN ANEW MEDIUM - TELLING THE STORY IN PICTURES (ALSO KNOWN AS SCREENWRITING).

David Mamet

Memo to The Unit writers

“This is age-old screenwriting advice but it’s so true. SHOW don’t TELL. I can’t tell you how much more impactful it is on a reader to SEE a character take on an issue as opposed to being told of an issue. It would be like Han Solo saying ‘I’m a badass,’ instead of SHOWING him kill Greedo. This is a mistake I see a TON of beginner writers make. They have their characters offhandedly say something like ‘I took a year of karate lessons’ and then later in a key scene kick someone’s ass. It feels false because we never SAW them perform karate.”
Carson Reeves

“Remember, the first rule of film is Show Don’t Tell.” 
William C. Martell
Does Your Script Smell?

“In the eternal struggle to “show” and not “tell” in your screenplays, pictures can be your best friend. Instead of building a whole scene where your characters argue about how good things ‘used to be,’ just show your hero catch a glance of a picture on the fridge showing the family in happier times. In fact, look to use photographs in every aspect of your script to convey quick easy backstory about your characters (i.e. need to convey that one character is adventurous? Show a picture of them rock climbing.”
Carson Reeves
ScriptShadow

 

Show, Don’t Tell (Part 2)

Scott W. Smith

 

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