ScripT ShaDoW

An Amateur Screenplay Hits The Top 10????

My pick for who plays the lead in...The Disciple Program. Leo's people, are you listening?

In six days, everything changes. That's because for the first time in Scriptshadow's history, an amateur screenplay will make the Top 10. I've been waiting for this moment for a LOOOONG time. Now I won't be able to post the script, so if you want to take a look at the screenplay, e-mail me and I'll send it to you Thursday. I'm BURSTING to post this review! Can't wait!!!

"Which Script Should I Read For Amateur Friday" Part 2

type='html'>The more I thought about it, with the way the logline contest went a few months ago, the more I wanted to minimize the chance of reading a bad script. So I'm putting up links to the Top 3 scripts from Saturday's "Which Should I Read" post and letting you guys take a look at them. You don't have to read the whole scripts of course. Just check out the first 10 pages or so and let me know which script has the best shot at being good. If this works out, we'll do it more often!

******WINNER - "Breathwork"*******

A man undergoing past-life regression therapy must find out the identity of a nemesis who’s killed him in his past lives... before he’s murdered again in his present life.
******WINNER - "Breathwork"*******

Script link: Breathwork

****2nd Place - "Soundtrack"****

When a burgeoning composer hits his head he begins to hear his life’s soundtrack; a soundtrack that is prompting and pushing him back to his ex-fiancee. But will he follow the guidance of the music?

****2nd Place - "Soundtrack"****

Script Link: Soundtrack

**3rd Place - "Holy Alamogordo"**

Three friends reunite before a wedding and take a road trip to achieve their childhood goal - finding the millions of lost E.T. Atari cartridges buried in the sands of Alamogordo, NM.
**3rd Place - "Holy Alamogordo"**

Script Link: Holy Alamogordo

"Which Script Should I Read For Amateur Friday" Part 3

type='html'>You guys asked for it. After Saturday's "Which Script Should I Read" post and yesterday's script links to the Top 3 scripts post, I've decided to post three more runner-up links. You don't have to read the whole scripts of course. Just check out the first 10 pages and let me know if any of them make you want to read further. I'm getting a few nudges here and there that Zombie Knights is pretty good. So maybe check out that one first. Enjoy...

Zombie Knights - Action/horror
A war-battered knight returns from the Crusades to find his homeland terrorized by victims of a lethal fever who rise from the dead, hungry for human flesh. Sir Thomas shepherds survivors to the Castle Bridgenorth, where he leads a war of attrition against an army of the undead – even as he battles his own demons.

Hail Mary - Action/Revenge
A reformed hitwoman must return to the world of bullets and bloodshed she left behind to take on the organization she helped build, in order to avenge the death of her younger sister.

This Is Me Leaving – Dark Comedy
After landing an innocent woman in the hospital, a suicidal twenty-something winds up on a state-wide road trip delivering unique gifts to relative strangers in order to make amends.

Top 3 below

******WINNER - "Breathwork"*******

****2nd Place - "Soundtrack"****

Script Link: Soundtrack

**3rd Place - "Holy Alamogordo"**

Amateur Friday - Breathwork

type='html'>

The number one logline from a couple of weeks ago - Breathwork - finally gets its day in the sun with a review.

NEW Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A man undergoing past-life regression therapy must find out the identity of a nemesis who’s killed him in his past lives... before he’s murdered again in his present life.
About: This is the logline YOU picked to be reviewed two weeks ago. Let’s see if it lives up to its logline!
Writer: Gunner Pons
Details: 108 pages

When I finish a script, there are reviews I look forward to writing and reviews I don’t look forward to writing. The reviews I don’t look forward to writing are for scripts like “The Knoll” and “My Son Is The Fucking Anti-Christ.” Why? Because there’s no substance, no interesting ideas, nothing new. Even the entertainment factor is bare-bones. Without those things, what’s there left to talk about? How many brads you should use? 2 or 3?

When I finished Breathwork, I couldn’t wait to review it. It's been a long time since we've had a good "past lives" movie - I'd argue the last one was “Dead Again” - so it seems ripe for another go-around. I'm not sure this script is ready to handle the burden of a 50 million dollar production, but I'll tell you this, if somebody who understands storytelling guided this writer through targeted rewrites, there might just be a great script in here.

Breathwork begins in a radio station where our shock jock (Howard Stern reincarnated - no pun intended) is launching into his 91st dick joke of the day. Soonafter, he welcomes in Erika Saccio to talk about her new book which explores the realities of past lives.

The show’s plan is to make fun of her, of course, but when she puts everyone under hypnosis, 33 year old Jack, the sound technician, really does appear to be hypnotized.

Jack imagines himself in someone else’s body during a huge Civil War battle. Out of nowhere, a man comes racing up to him and stabs him. Jack wakes up, shaken and frightened, but, to save face, pretends that he’s joking. Erika’s not fooled though. She knows when somebody’s been under and Jack was under.

So she contacts him afterwards and asks him to come in for more sessions. Jack does so reluctantly and through further hypnosis starts going back to his past lives. In one of these lives, he's a maid who, instead of saving her owners from a raging fire, runs out of the house to save herself. In another, he stops Jack the Ripper from kidnapping a woman in the street. In another, he's a waitress at a bar in Germany and ends up serving Hitler! Turns out Jack has had some pretty eventful past lives.

Eventually though, Jack realizes there's something bigger going on here. Some rascally little bastard in each life keeps finding Jack and KILLING HIM. That’s not very nice Random Past Lives Dude. But it seems to be the bane of Jack’s existence. Sooner or later, this ying to his yang finds him and puts an end to Lifeville.

This, of course, means that somebody's going to do the same thing now, in the present! But who? That’s the question. As Jack starts taking a closer look at the people around him, he realizes that every one of them is a suspect, and that any one of them could kill him at any moment.

This script was a whale of mess-strocity. Talk about “all over the place.” But, it was also a delicious mess – like the food-fight kind. I wouldn’t want to clean it up but boy was it fun while it was happening. I don't think I've ever read a script that’s had so many cool ideas that have been undermined by so much sloppy writing. I’d read two pages, want to throw it away, read two more, and desperately need to keep reading.

So what was so screwy about it?

Look no further than the first scene. In it, we meet Erika, our author, and her agent, Lori. These are the two brought in for the interview. Except we NEVER SEE LORI AGAIN AFTER THIS. She just disappears. So why in the world would you bring her into the movie in the first place? Why not just have Erika by herself? You don't wanna introduce a character in the opening scene, hint that she’s important, then just never show her again. That’s confusing!

On top of this, Erika is introduced as our hero. But Erika isn’t our hero. Jack is our hero. One of the worst things you can do in the opening of your script is confuse the reader as to who the main character is. I’ve found that in every script where this has happened, the execution turned out to be a disaster. I mean if you can’t convey who the main character is in five pages, how can I trust you to convey a complicated intricate plot in 110 pages?

And that's not even the worst of it. If I were to give you five guesses on who the main character was after the first scene, JACK WOULDN’T EVEN BE IN YOUR TOP FIVE!!! That's how little the writer does to clue you in on Jack’s importance. This is Screenwriting 101 stuff here.

Next, why is Jack an engineer for a shock jock? Why that as his profession? I ask because it doesn't have anything to do with the story whatsoever. Your main character’s job should always be relevant to the story.

For example, if Jack worked at the History Channel putting together documentaries or he worked as a history professor at a major university, either of those jobs would've allowed overlap with the past lives stuff. Jack would be able to pull knowledge from his profession to help explain or navigate his past-life experiences.

My guess on why we open with the shock jock scene (in addition to Irrelevant Lori) is because it’s an easy way for the writer to dole out exposition. The interview allows her to talk about the book and the past life “rulse,” and the waiting room allows us to get to know Erika through her agent.

Well I got news for you. You shouldn't choose your characters’ jobs based on how it’s easiest for you to unload exposition. You should choose your characters’ jobs based on what's best for your story! Start this somewhere darker, creepier, scarier – a place that FEELS like it’s connected to the premise you promised us!

As far as the flashbacks themselves, they were always interesting, but they never felt well thought through. Why famous historic figures? What is the point of us seeing Jack The Ripper or Hitler if they have nothing to do with the story? It feels like the writer’s trading believability for historic celebrity name-dropping. There’s no relevance here.

If you're going to throw Hitler in a script about past lives, then by golly, your whole damn plot better revolve around Hitler. Hitler isn’t a sideshow. It would be like having U2 pop in to play three chords with your wedding band, then leave. There's a cool moment where Jack realizes he can manipulate the past bodies he’s in. Well there’s your movie if you want Hitler! Jack realizes he can kill Hitler, and he uses his past life to do it.

Despite all the flaws, though, I liked the idea of this Jack-killer in each time period. Especially as it becomes apparent that there’s one in this time period too. And when we start wondering who that person could be, the script really picks up. And to the script’s credit, you’ll have no idea who it is. So just the fact that I wanted to get to the end and find that out says a lot.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's enough to put it into “worth the read” territory. It’s just too darn sloppy. Too many beginner mistakes here. So I say to Gunner, keep working on it, and find somebody who can give you solid insightful notes so you can really kick ass on the rewrite.

Script link: Breathwork

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me (but close to “worth the read!”
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Make sure that your logline and the opening of your screenplay match in tone. The logline for Breathwork promises a dark and spooky thriller. The first scene though, is goofy, broad and silly. It immediately erases what you thought the script was going to be about, which means already I’m disappointed. Had I not had people tell me about the bad opening, I might have put this down before the scene was over and went on to another Amateur Friday script.

Amateur Friday - Sammy Jingles

type='html'>Genre: Family/Holiday/Musical
Premise: When a toy factory tour guide is framed for Santa's kidnapping on Christmas Eve, he sets out on a race against time across mythical Christmastown to clear his name, and save Christmas.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it's a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writer: Patrick Bonner
Details: 107 pages

Ho Ho Ho! MERRY CARSONMAS!

Oh man. That was lame. I gotta be honest with you though. It’s gonna get lamer. All I can think about is all of the presents I'm going to be opening in 48 hours! Yahooooo! Dot com. I still remember when I was so excited about Christmas that I would secretly open my presents the night before then sloppily wrap them back up and tell my parents (completely unprovoked of course) that I saw the cat hanging around the Christmas tree and he'd scratched open a lot of the presents so I found it appropriate to tape them back up. And I was convinced that I got away with this every time.

Which brings us, appropriately, to today’s gift under the tree. Yes, I’m talking about Sammy Jingles!

Sammy Jingles lives in a faraway place called Christmastown, where elves and Christmas-like creatures frolic around like college kids on shrooms. Or wait. I mean children on sugar-highs. Let’s keep this PG. But to be honest, Christmastown isn’t one giant American Idol dance routine. No no no. You see, there's a lot of pressure in this business, especially around this time of year, when Operation Chimney Assault is rapidly approaching.

It's also a stressful time for our hero, Sammy, as Christmastown’s retiring governor is about to name his successor. It’s down to Sammy, the nerdy but cute Emma, and the Brody Jenner lookalike, Arnold, who also happens to be the big maestro’s son.

Sammy, who works as a tour guide in Christmastown for visiting elves, needs this job. Not just because he's been working towards it for years, but because Sammy desires to be important. His goal in life is to be the number one celebrity in Christmastown.

Well, a few days later he gets his opportunity, though he doesn't realize it at first. Santa Claus, who spent the last 360 days working out to get rid of his Rosie O’Donnel’esque pepperoni pouch, is kidnapped by someone (or something??) and dragged into the Ice Forest, where even the bravest elves won’t follow. But when Evil Arnold places the blame on Sammy and Emma for the kidnapping, they have no other option but to go find Santa and prove their innocence.

Along the way they meet some lonely trees, a Frosty the Snowman who’s sort of gone insane, and eventually Santa Claus himself, all with the appropriate amount of jingling in between. The question is, will they get Santa back in time to save Christmas? Or will that even matter to Sammy when he sees an opportunity to grab Kardashian-like celebrity status?

The first thing you realize about Sammy Jingles is that it's written with love. And I mean a LOT of love. Believe me, readers are well aware when the writer is passionate about the material and when he isn’t, and there’s no question that Patrick is passionate about this story. I might even wager that he lived in Christmastown once. I mean how can you argue with a song called “Hangin’ Stuff” set to the Backstreet Boys’ “Hanging Tough?” Or a deliriously insane Frosty The Snowman? Or Sammy Jingles making an audition tape for MTV’s The Real World? Or a best friend named Emo who’s the most emo emo you’ve ever met?

This is Christmas and with any Christmas movie you want to have fun. You want to rack up the puns (CNN’s “Anderson Cooler”), you want to inject it with a heaping of heart, and you want to sing that heart out. Patrick does that here. The sheer level of detail that has gone into each character and each scene and each location and each song tells you that this man loves his story.

But not all is well with Christmastown. Sure the city is beautiful, but it’s also oddly constructed and over-decorated in places. I’ll start with what I believe is a critical scene mistake. The tour guide scene. This happens in the first act when Sammy is showing a group of elves the toy-making building. Patrick uses the scene to set up the rules of his world.

The problem is just how many rules there are (you will always face this problem when you have to do a lot of world-building in your screenplay) and if you try and pack too much explanation into a single scene or sequence, it becomes exhausting and grinds the story to a halt.

First we have the wish book which should have its own movie for how complicated it is. There are five different types of wishes, all color-coded, and we go through each painstaking one of them. Then the exposition shifts to how Sammy is up for a big job promotion. Then, after we’re all tired out by that, we go through a whole song. And then after that, the Mayor/Governor comes in, and we broach, once again, the job promotion issue, meeting all the major players. This kills the momentum of the story before it’s even started.

Yes, of course, you have to set up your story. But you also have to make your setup ENTERTAINING. Too many writers forget about the second part and are just happy to get all their exposition out of the way. Moving forward, I would split all of this info up into different scenes and simplify where possible (i.e. take the wish book down to 2 wishes, not 5).

My second big issue has to do with Santa Claus. And I told Patrick this. It feels odd to me that Santa Claus is completely separate from Christmastown. I think Patrick told me that that's what he was striving to do. He didn't want to tell a traditional story about Santa Claus but rather a story about the elves. Still, it's very hard to watch a Christmas movie where Santa Claus is treated as an afterthought. It's kind of like being told you're going to the ice cream shop but there’s not going to be any chocolate. It’s strange, right?

There’s also a huge structural issue with the big guy. Santa Claus gets kidnapped near the end of the first act…AND NO ONE CARES! Just the fact that Santa Claus is kidnapped from the North Pole would be a huge deal I’d assume. But the fact that it’s also a week away from Christmas!!!??? Why wouldn’t everyone be on DEF CON LEVEL 10 searching for the guy?? Instead, here, everybody goes and sings at a bar.

It isn't until 15 to 20 pages later, when Sammy is blamed for kidnapping Santa, that he decides to go after him. This needs to change immediately, particularly because of who Sammy is. Sammy is a character who desires celebrity. The second that Santa disappears, you need your celebrity-starved hero to realize that this is his ticket to stardom. Save Santa and everyone will love you.

In addition to just making more sense, making your hero more active, and having your hero act more within character, it would get rid of the worst part of the script, which is those 20 pages after Santa is kidnapped and nobody does anything.

If Patrick could fix these two problems - the early doomsday exposition scene, and getting characters out after Santa immediately - I honestly believe the script would be a thousand times better.

Finally, I should mention the songs because this is a musical. I'm not going to pretend like I understand musicals that well. I've read maybe five in my life. The tough thing about musicals is that it doesn't matter how good your lyrics are or how amazing your writing is, you will never come close to conveying the way a song feels when you hear it. And so a lot of times I was skimming through the songs because I didn’t know anything besides the chorus and therefore couldn’t match the lyrics to the melody. That said, I loved Hangin’ Stuff. “I Love Mistletoe,” was great. And “Put Some Tinsel On Me” was cute.

I think this script has a ton of potential. I love the way Patrick's mind works. I love his sense of humor. I love his dedication to exploiting every little crevice of his story. There’s no doubt he has that elusive “voice.” We just need to get some of the mechanics on par with the passion.

This script hovered somewhere between a “worth the read” and a “wasn’t for me.” So what does it get, two days before Christmas? Hmmmmmm….

Script link: Sammy Jingles

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] A Merry Carsonmas (and people call me a Grinch. Humbug!)
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Patrick’s writing suffers from a habit of staying in his scenes too long. I saw it in numerous places where the scene had already ended but Patrick kept writing. I pointed out the tour guide scene as one example. I saw it with the tree scene as well (when they first meet the trees in the forest). And I saw it scattered about in a bunch of other places. Remember guys, you not only want to get into your scene as late as possible, you want to leave your scene as early as possible. Don't be the guy hanging around the party after everybody’s left. When the party’s over, it's time to go.

Happy holidays to Scriptshadow Nation!

Amateur Friday - The Wreckage

type='html'>To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it's a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.

Genre: Action/Adventure
Premise: (original 6th place logline) A wild young woman gets seduced into a high tech, storm chasing motorcycle gang that loots and murders under the chaotic veil created by natural disasters.
About: For those of you with bad short-term memory, The Wreckage was unfortunate enough to finish one spot out of the top five of the First Ten Pages contest a few weeks back, just missing a review. Well what a sweet consolation prize. Today, we’re reviewing the entire script!
Writer: Michael McCartney (story by Laton and Michael McCartney)
Details: 102 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

When Michael McCartney, the writer of today’s script, was pitching his premise some months back, producers told him that no one was interested in purchasing a storm flick. Not too long afterwards, Hollywood purchased two big storm projects, one a heist film similar in vein to The Wreckage. Just goes to show that nobody likes anything until they like it. But I can assure you The Wreckage is nothing like those scripts. McCartney, the eldest grandson of Beatles legend Paul McCartney, does something quite different here. The question is, did he go too far with it?

I was just joking about the Paul McCartney thing by the way. Michael’s not really McCartney’s grandson. Anyway, the wily 24 year old twister known as Maddy is sick of living a lame life in Wichita Falls, Texas. She’s way too unchained for this place. I always tell you guys to introduce your characters with an action that tells us who they are. Well, Maddy’s introduced having sex with her boyfriend while he’s driving. Yup, I think we know who this character is right away.

Afterwards, Maddy heads back to her parents’ jewelry store on the eve of an approaching storm. Things look so bad, in fact, that they have to board up the windows. But apparently it’s not one of those “you only have to board up the windows and you’ll be okay” type storms. This is the type of storm that rips buildings down.

And that’s exactly what happens. While Maddy survives the destruction, her father dies and her mother is injured. As Maddy tries to figure out what to do, a crazy ass motorcycle gang pulls up, led by a creepy sonofabitch named Scarecrow. Scarecrow and his gang wait for storms to hit towns then ride in, when no police are around, and start looting. Once Scarecrow sees Maddy though, he realizes he’s found the loot of the century.

Scarecrow and crew grab Maddy and drive off into the sunrise, Easy Rider style, and at some point poor Maddy realizes she’s been kidnapped. Cut to FBI Agent Leo, whose since-deceased sister used to be friends with Maddy in high school. He’s tasked with finding and saving Maddy.

Problem is, Maddy starts to like it with this group of vagabonds. They’re as bonkers as she is. Shit, even moreso! They rob places to survive. And that’s probably the life she was heading for anyway. So she figures, “What the hell Charles Manson wannabe. I’ll join your cult!”

The rest of the script follows the motorcycle gang around as they beeline into tornadoes and rob everything in sight. Scarecrow preaches a life of freedom, of not having to live by society's rules. Of course, the impressionable Maddy loves this at first, but eventually realizes she isn’t free at all. She’s Scarecrow’s puppet, just like everybody else in this gang. And she wants out. I think it might be too late for that though, Maddy. This is The Family. Once you’re in, you’re in for life.

The Wreckage is kind of like a wild college night. You know what I’m talking about. Those nights that are filled with both the best and the worst of you? I have to give credit to McCartney. He’s not making any obvious choices here. But I think his story’s too unhinged.

I mean we have a sort of heist/robbing/looting film, a motorcycle/Easy Rider/travel film, a storm film, a cult film, a kidnapping film. I felt like ideas were competing against each other left and right, and I’m not sure that the best of those ideas was featured. In The Wreckage, the motorcycle gang theme actually takes precedence over the much cooler idea of robbing places during storms.

The robbing, in fact, felt secondary, something the group did to pass the time. Since I never got the sense that they were hard up for money, I wasn’t convinced any of the robbing was even needed. And if you’re writing a movie about a crew going into storms to steal things and the crew doesn’t have a strong purpose/reason to do so, I’m not sure you have a movie. There needs to be stakes attached to each robbery, or else they feel meaningless. In Fast Five, Paul Walker needs to steal all that money so he and his fiance can go off the grid for good and never worry about money again (or at least until Fast Six). Now there’s purpose to the heist.

Something else that worried me was Maddy liking the group. She actually began enjoying herself. So when we cut to the FBI chasing after her, we’re not really interested in whether they save her or not - because Maddy doesn’t want to be saved. If would be like if that chick in the basement in Silence Of The Lambs became BFFs with Buffalo Bill and they were chilling on the couch and smoking pot all day. Would we still be interested in Jodie Foster saving her?

But the biggest thing that needs fixing in this script, by far, is the FBI agents. These two have to be two of the most inadequate FBI agents in history. They’re never anywhere CLOSE to catching Maddy. And they spend half the time sitting in rooms talking about shit. These are your agents! They need to be out there DOING SHIT. They need to be ACTIVE. I don’t remember a single scene in The Silence Of The Lambs where Jodie Foster was sitting down.

I think Michael also needs to be aware of going *too* on-the-nose in places. At one point his partner says to Leo, “You know they're different people, don't you? Your sister and the Dylan girl.” This is followed not too long afterwards by Leo, drunk, staring at a picture of his dead sister. Talk about hitting us on the head. Yes, we know: he’s really trying to save his sister. I dig that Michael made a personal connection between Leo and Maddy, but all you needed to sell this was the picture scene, particularly because it’s *showing* us and not *telling* us.

I will say this. There’s a beautiful, almost poetic, quality to these deranged cyclists barreling into monster storms. You also have a diabolical villain in Scarecrow, who I thought was well-crafted. But the engine driving this Harley needs a major overhaul.

I think it starts with the premise. We need to streamline the direction so there aren’t so many competing elements. If we’re not going to properly utilize the “storm-heist” angle, I think it should be a kidnapper flick. After the storm, Maddy sees the bikers kill someone. They spot her, snatch her up, and bring her with them because she’s a witness. They plan to kill her, but for a number of lucky reasons, she stays alive. Now you have a girl in peril, which gives the FBI pursuers (assuming they actually pursue in this next draft) a lot more weight. She’s also no longer chumming it up with everybody – which provides the script with more conflict. I think that would work better.

If this is a “storm-heist” movie, however, I say you drop Maddy. Just focus on the gang and the FBI pursuing them.

The Wreckage was an interesting read. But the plot needs some streamline soup before I give it a “worth the read.” Still, I wish Michael the best with it. Tell your grandpa I love his music!

Script link: The Wreckage

[ ] Wait for the rewrite.
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Beware the movie concept that contains competing ideas, as those ideas will be fighting for attention the entire way through, leading to an uneven story. You can’t make a prison break movie, for example, that’s also about a boat race. Know when an idea requires its own movie. That’s what threw me here. Going into dangerous storms to rob towns is the star concept, but it takes a back seat to the cult-motorcycle-kidnapping storyline.

Amateur Friday - Charming

As I started reading through Charming, my first thoughts were, “Uh-oh. This feels a lot like Shrek.” We have fairy tales. We have self-aware humor. Charming goes one step further than the Ogre’d one and adds a healthy dose of swearing, but for the most part, they seemed quite similar, and that worried me. The second a producer goes, “They’ve already made this,” the dream is over.

But then the story begins to take shape and you realize it’s a completely different fairy tale adventure. Charming is, well, Prince Charming! He’s the greatest. He’s handsome. He’s successful. He’s awesome. The only thing wrong with him is that he loves himself a WEE bit much. If by “wee bit” you mean “is utterly obsessed with himself beyond all logic.” If Charming could date himself, he would. The only thing Charming DOESN’T have is the throne. But that’s about to change.

Yes, his father is announcing his retirement, which means it’s time for Charming to get that crown fit. Except….there’s just one problem. Charming has a twin brother, Delightful, who’s ALSO up for the throne. You see, the birth records for the twins were lost, so it’s unclear which of the brothers was born first (and therefore *which* is the official heir to the throne). It’s somewhat inconceivable that Delightful could become king. He’s fat, he’s unhygienic, and he’s annoying. But! He’s still a prince, which means he gets a shot.

The king decides to solve the problem with a contest. Whoever lands the most beautiful princess in the land will become king. After a lot of unsuccessful attempts (Charming’s women are all smoking hot. Most of Delightful’s look like men. One even is a man), Charming finally finds Snow White, who is it agreed upon is the most beautiful in the land. The wedding is set and Charming starts practicing his king pose. But on his wedding day, Snow White is a no-show!

It turns out that snowy wench has run off with his brother to a hot new vacation resort the Seven Dwarves just opened! More angry than hurt, Charming charges off to the resort to win his fiancé back. What Charming doesn’t know, however, is that his brother has been planning this for a long time. He’s always resented Charming, specifically his favored status with their father, and has therefore decided to get rid of him once and for all. He’ll have the bride, be the king, and finally land his father’s love. Muwhawhawhaw! MUWHAHAHAHAHA!

Once at the resort, Charming befriends a pretty young handmaiden who works there named Cinderella. He unexpectedly starts to fall for the woman, but realizes it’s a pointless endeavor. Charming’s goal is to become KING! That’s the only reason he’s out here – to get Snow White back so he can win the crown! If he takes this peasant home, the King will never name him as successor. So Charming will have to make a decision. Fight for a woman he barely likes in order to become king, or follow his heart, even if it means never ruling the land.

I thought Charming (both the script and the character) were pretty darn funny. I enjoyed following a main character who was just so damned into himself. These characters are tricky to write because if they’re too into themselves, we get annoyed by them, but in Charming’s case, he was so funny that it worked.

And if you’re laughing during a comedy, that’s a good sign for the comedy. Most obvious statement of the year? Not really. I read a lot of comedy scripts where I don’t laugh at all. It’s quite common actually. But this was good. My favorite was Cinderella hanging out with forest creatures the whole movie and everyone around them acting like this was totally normal. Watching Charming eagerly devour a cooked rabbit right in front of one of Cinderella’s rabbits was awesome.

Structure-wise, we have a clear goal (win back Snow White) and clear stakes (if he gets her, he becomes king!). So far, so good. But this brings us to our first problem. THERE’S NO URGENCY! There’s no ticking time bomb! And listen, I get that there are certain stories where ticking time bombs aren’t a priority. But this isn’t one of them. In fact, this is the kind of story created for ticking time bombs! I mean, fairy tales are what gave us the “carriage turns back into a pumpkin at midnight” storyline. How much more ticking time bomb can you get?

Here’s how I propose Tom and Chris solve the problem. The wedding (that Snow White ditches out on) should not be at the beginning of the story. It should be at the end. Preferably three days from now. So three days before the wedding, Charming finds out Snow White has run off with Delightful. That means Charming has three days to go find Snow White, convince her to come back to him, all in time for the wedding so that he can become king. I think that works better.

I also thought there was an opportunity to do more with the king. Say we’re using my story suggestion above. What if Charming can’t let the king know what’s happened? If his father finds out Delightful and Snow White are together, it jeopardizes his chance of becoming king. Now, you have Charming sneaking away and not telling his father where he’s going, which provides a little more drama (characters hiding BIG THINGS from other characters is always good). I could see the king finding out his sons are at the resort and heading there to find out what’s going on. Now, in addition to trying to win Snow White back, Charming must find ways to occupy his father to keep him off the scent.

Something else that’s bothering me is Charming and Cinderella’s relationship. There’s something not quite “there” about it yet. I think my problem with it is that they never DO anything together. They just sort of hang out between much bigger and more exciting plot points. There are only so many ways to make chatting and giggling in a back room entertaining.

So how to fix it? Well, go back to a Scriptshadow favorite: the goal. If something’s stagnating in your script, it’s usually because the characters aren't doing enough. So give them something to do (a goal!). What if you set this up like a traditional romantic comedy? Charming actively enlists Cinderella’s help to win Snow White back. Now she’s part of every plan. She’s tripping up Delightful at every turn. She “befriends” Snow White and starts talking up Charming. If you used the King showing up, like I mentioned above, Cinderella could be the one enlisted to distract him. Once Charming and Cinderella are DOING things together, their relationship will feel more alive. And plus, I believe it’s a more interesting situation. Imagine Cinderella telling Snow White why Charming is so great when we know that she secretly likes him. How hard that would be. There’s a teensy bit of that going on here in this draft, but not nearly enough.

Overall, I thought this was fun! It still needs work. But I think it’s worth a read.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’m hitting you with the “Hero’s Choice” tip again because it’s so important and because this is a great script to highlight it. The whole point of giving your character a fatal flaw (the defining “weakness” that’s held them back from true happiness in life) is to give them a choice in the end which allows them to either overcome that flaw or stay the same. It’s sort of like a “test” to determine if they’ve changed or not. Charming’s flaw is that he values prestige (being king) over true love (or connection with others). This is illuminated by the fact that he doesn’t really like Snow White. He just needs her in order to become king. Over the course of the story then, he starts to fall for Cinderella. BUT, if he marries her, he won’t become king. Hence, you have the “Hero’s Choice.” Pick a woman he doesn’t love so he can have prestige (his flaw remains) or pick a woman he does love even if it means no prestige (he’s overcome his flaw). The writers who execute fatal flaws and the Hero’s Choice effectively tend to be some of the better writers out there, as it’s a device that takes a while to master. It’s not QUITE there yet with Charming. It still needs a few drafts to iron out the creases. But the basis for a solid “Hero Choice” is there.

You Pick The Next Two Amateur Friday Scripts

type='html'>Everybody always complains to me about my Amateur Friday choices. (complain-y voice) "Carson, you never pick Amateur Friday scripts fairly." "Why does this guy get to go twice?" "This logline sucks. Mine's better." "How come I didn't get picked?" "You play favorites." Well NO MORE my friends! That's because YOU'RE picking the next two Amateur Friday scripts!

Below, I've listed 20 loglines along with the first ten pages of each. Now I want you to pay attention to HOW you choose the pages you read. Since you don't have time to read all 20, you'll notice that an automatic filtering system kicks in. Based on what? The logline, of course. How interesting it sounds. If it seems like a movie or not. In doing so, you're doing exactly what agents, producers and execs are doing. Take what you learn from that experience and apply it to your next script. Make sure your idea can stand up to this test.

Now I didn't hand-pick these loglines. They were all picked randomly. I wanted to give you an opportunity to see what I (and others) get sent. As you can see, if you come up with a good idea, it's pretty damn easy to stand out from the pack. The large majority of these loglines won't get anything more than an eye-roll. I know that's harsh, but this process is harsh. Nobody cares about your feelings (besides Scriptshadow of course!), which means if you want to succeed, you have to do better. There's also no official tally here. Just tell me which loglines and pages you like the most in the comments section and I'll go with whatever's getting the most attention. Now have at it!

The Last Banana Tree (Dramedy) - Tensions rise in the Foster household as their oldest daughter plans a doomed fundraiser for the world's last banana tree.

Wonderwall (Action) - A former black ops soldier now makes millions providing freelance security to criminals. But his newest client attracts every cop and criminal in the city, and she just may be innocent. Saving her forces him to be a soldier again.

Heavy Gravity (Sci-Fi) - When a spoiled celebrity athlete is framed for blowing up the floating Imperial sky palace, he escapes with a rag-tag bunch of Surfacer teens to bring to justice the Empire's most notorious terrorist -- it's ruler.

Dear Melanie (Drama/Romance) - After receiving a letter from a recently deceased co-worker professing his feelings for her, Melanie leaps at the chance to go back in time and save him.

Banshee (Horror) - A woman tormented by visions of death must learn to control her rage with the help of a vigilante vicar, in order to find her son and save a sea-side town from a soul stealing Banshee.

Kings (Thriller/Dark Comedy) - A group of teenagers congregate to play a popular drinking game, but when sex, drugs, and angst raise the debaucherous stakes, they'll have to reassess their friendships in order to survive the night.

The Big Bang (Comedy) - After a desperately inadequate man sells his soul to the Devil for "male enhancement," he discovers that his newfound stature is more of a curse than a blessing and he must confront God to find true happiness.

Dark Space (Action/Sci-Fi) - Alex Chaser, a tenacious mechanic, has gone through life ignoring humanity's perilous position in the galaxy; constantly abused and ignored by a powerful alien government. But when she learns she is the first human to acquire psionic abilities, Alex finds herself changing the trajectory of human evolution in ways she never could have imagined.

Dethroned (Romance/Drama) - A millionaire, lost his fortunes & company, has to adapt to a new life when he becomes homeless and now faces losing his wife & daughter.

Amerikanski (Crime/Drama) - An orphan is taken in by a gang of criminals in Northeast Philly and grows up to lead them in a turf war with the Russian Mafia.

Things To Do Before I Died (Dramedy) - After the funeral of his best friend a lonely estate agent with a drab existence finds her wish list and decides to complete it in her memory. But when the list leads him on a journey that uncovers her troubled past, he must question everything he ever knew about her before he can begin the healing process.

The Real Jeff Spencer (Romantic Comedy) - An average Joe - with the same name as a TV star - begins a text-messaging relationship with a Hollywood starlet who falls for him.

Headlong (Comedy) - wo Aussies roadtripping from Phoenix to Vegas pick up a recently turned zombie gang member, who carries a fortune in stolen gems. When his former gang comrades pursue, a wild chase begins...

Mad Dogs (Grindhouse/Horror) - A repressed teen werewolf tracks down her estranged father -- the sheriff of resort that caters to the hedonistic pursuits of werewolves -- but an outbreak of weaponized rabies turns their reunion into a fight for survival.

Blood and Water (Thriller) - After her lover is murdered, a disillusioned sheriff struggles to cover up the affair; but instead, discovers a conspiracy that threatens to wipe out her entire town.

Blood Star (Sci-fi/Action) -When the last Vampires on Earth realize their powers are fading, they must go in search of the source of their immortality, before they are hunted down by a vengeful Grim Reaper bent on ending their kind forever.

The Battle Of New Orleans (Historical Action) - Outnumbered by the British army as he defends New Orleans in the War of 1812, heroic but strict General ANDREW JACKSON joins forces with the charming pirate JEAN LAFITTE, but must compete against the captain for the affections of Jackson's willful wife, RACHEL.

Doxide (Sci-Fi) - A mafia hitman is hired by the government to hunt down a group of extraterrestrials on the New York City waterfront.

Battleground (Sci-Fi/Action) - During World War Two, in the merciless, freezing wilderness of southern Russia, stranded American and German soldiers put their differences aside to fight off an alien invasion from another world.

The Lumber Hack (Comedy) - When the world's greatest competitive lumberjack decides to make a come back, he must overcome his past mistakes and the reigning world champion to complete his quest.

Amateur Friday - La Mujer

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Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Drama

Premise: (from writer) A mysterious and beautiful woman with a unique gift travels through Latin America changing the lives of everyone she meets, while a reporter seeks to uncover the horrific event that prompted her journey.

About: I picked this one because it sounded different and I liked Steve's query letter. Here it is...

Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Read La Mujer:

10. I’m the only screenwriter in Costa Rica who has never been fired by Mel Gibson.
9. Just saying “La Mujer” makes you sound sophisticated.
8. I know how to thank you in multiple languages.
7. I’m smart enough to listen to the critics and I work like hell at improving my writing.
6. A good review could net you a deluxe vacation to Costa Rica (not really, but just imagine).
5. It would be good for you to know “the next big thing” in Hollywood. I take care of my friends.
4. I just reworked the third act, so it is less likely to be a steaming pile of crap than it was a few weeks ago.
3. The script has an original premise that you will enjoy.
2. I think you are a genius.
1. La Mujer is a damn good script.

Writer: Steve Lucas

Details: 110 pages

Writer's pick for La Mujer - Dayana Mendoza

A good blogger never lies. So I'm not going to lie to you today. Last night I watched the video for Gangnam Style 213 times. I just...I just couldn't stop. I memorized the lyrics. Practiced the dance moves. Wikipedia'd "Psy." And you know what? I feel like I've learned something. So much so that I almost ditched today's script review to review the Gangnam Style video instead. However, I realized that the video was so amazing that no amount of analysis could do it justice. It would get a [xx] genius rating without question. I mean the video not only makes a profound statement about horse dancing (one that puts the Chik-Fil-A debate to shame), but also the power of "sexay lady." It teaches us that when you have a "sexay laday" dancing next to you, you can act like a total lunatic and it doesn't matter. These are life lessons we're learning here, kids. Life lessons.

Where does that leave us today? With a script that has a really tough act to follow, that's where. The last 12 hours have brought me so much joy, that La Mujer would have to take me through a life's worth of emotions and back again if it was going to have a shot at "worth the read" status.

I will now channel the elevator shot from Gangnam Style to review La Mujer.

La Mujer is about...well...La Mujer! A beautiful "sexay laday" who walks around South America whispering profound statements into people's ears that change their lives for the better. We don't hear any of these profound statements - not yet anyway - we just see people's eyes light up and their world's rocked.

In the meantime, we meet Thomas Kemp, a journalist for the New York Times who seems to be going through some mid-life crisis. Despite having tons of work to do, he's obsessed with finding his birth records, to the point where he assigns an intern to take care of his work while he heads down to South America to find them.

Unfortunately for Thom, his boss, Clara, doesn't have...what are those called again? Oh yeah, FEELINGS! She could give a shit about Thom's soul-searching. It just so happens that a prominent Ecuadorian ambassador, one who was best friends with the U.S. president in college, has been slaughtered, along with his family. Clara wants Thom in Ecuador now to get the story.

Thom begrudgingly goes, and along the way hears about this La Mujer woman. She's becoming a sort of traveling celebrity, instantly changing the lives of everyone she comes in contact with. Thom thinks that sounds like a much better story than the slaughtering of a prominent family for some reason, and unofficially decides to focus on her. Maybe she can clear up this whole birth certificate thing he's been obsessing over while he's at it.

Problem is, there are some people who don't like the fact that La Mujer's alive. I'm a little unclear on the specifics, but I think she was supposed to be killed some time ago, along with her daughter. The bad guys who did this, then, are shocked to learn she's not only alive, but going around whispering in people's ears!! So they regroup to find La Mujer and kill her off for good. Which means if Thom's going to get the birth certificate thing figured out, he'll have to move fast!

You have not lived until you have tried the Gangnam Style Horsie Dance

In the immortal words of Psy, the genius behind the greatest song ever conceived: "Beautiful, lovable, yes you, hey, yes you, hey, beautiful, lovable, yes you, hey, yes you, hey. Now let's go until the end. Oppa is Gangnam Style."

That actually has nothing to do with this review. I just wanted to quote Gangnam Style. Anyway, while La Mujer gets some points for its mystery elements, such as who this La Mujer lady is and why is it that everyone freaks out when she whispers in their ear, the script as a whole suffers from two tried and true beginner mistakes which I harp on all the time here at Scriptshadow...

Clarity and Focus.

The story is unclear. The plot is unfocused. Add those two mistakes together and it's hard for a script to recover. Let's start with the clarity thing. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what Thom was looking for. Something about his birth certificate? But his birth certificate was being kept from him for some reason? Maybe because he was adopted? Did he just find out he was adopted? Does he only suspect he was adopted? Or has he always known and just now decided to look into it? I have no idea. Because the script is unclear about it.

And because it's unclear, there are no stakes attached to his success or failure. If he doesn't find out who his parents are, what happens to him? As far as I can tell, nothing.

La Mujer's storyline is also unclear. She seems to be roaming the countryside, telling people secrets about themselves that are impossible for her to know, which was a little intriguing. But where is she going? What's her goal? In the end, she ends up at the home of one of her attackers, but I can't tell if that's where she was always going or if she was just wandering around aimlessly and eventually ended up there.

This leads us to the issue of focus - if we don't know what your characters are doing - what their goals are - then the story is going to seem random to us. I never knew what La Mujer was doing. I never knew what Thom was doing.

The only time the script took on any type of focus was when Thom's boss ordered him to investigate the massacre (which happens around the midway point). FINALLY, the story seemed to have a clear objective. Unfortunately, that storyline was dealt with in the same unclear manner as everything else. There was some confusion as to whether 8 people or 6 people were murdered, but I couldn't ever figure out what that had to do with anything. In addition to that, Thom didn't even care about the investigation, so we had an unclear set of circumstances and an unmotivated protagonist. Not exactly the stuff great stories are made of.

If I were Steve, this is what I'd do. Have the massacre happen RIGHT AWAY. Maybe it's the first scene of the movie. Then, have Clara assign the story to Thom, who goes down there to investigate it. Drop the weird birth certificate stuff. It was confusing and not very interesting anyway. What this will do is tell the audience from the get-go that THIS is the story's focus - the investigation of the massacre.

From there, you can weave in the mysterious La Mujer. Maybe, on the day of the massacre, a lot of people claim to have seen her around town. So Thom wants to talk to this girl for his investigation. Now we're not playing "Guess the motivation." Every plot point is clear from the get-go. You can still keep La Mujer's goal a mystery to the audience. The reason it was a problem before was because both her AND Thom's objectives were mysteries and it just led to a whole lot of confusion. Since you've established Thom's goal right away, the audience will be more tolerant of a secondary character being a mystery.

However, make sure that YOU know where La Mujer is going and what she's doing. Her ending has to make us go "Ohhhh, of course!" instead of, "Uhhhhh, what??" which is unfortunately how I responded to her climax in this draft.

Script link: La Mujer

[ ] what the hell did I just read?

[x] wasn't for me

[ ] worth the read

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

What I Learned: When someone complains that your script is "unfocused," it usually boils down to one of two things - the goal for the main character is unclear, OR, there's no goal in the first place. Think about it. If your main character has a clear objective (or "goal") then the story automatically stays on track, since the character is focused on achieving that goal. In La Mujer, Thom does have a goal - to figure out who his parents are I think? But it's unclear as hell, so we're not really invested in it. This makes the story seem unfocused and we eventually check out.

Amateur Friday - Keeping Time

Genre: Sci-Fi/Comedy

Premise: (from writer) A for-hire time traveler who specializes in “preventing” bad relationships meets his match with a mysterious woman who claims to also be a traveler and is determined to stop him from completing his mission.
Writer: Nathan Zoebl
Details: 100 pages

Any excuse to put a picture up of BTTF!

You guys know one of my weaknesses is time-travel comedies. Back To The Future is the responsible party. I don't know why I keep thinking I'm going to find the next Marty McFly. Time travel is so difficult to get right. Comedies are so difficult to get right. So these sci-fi time travel comedies are NEVER very good, and nowhere close to the perfection that is BTTF. And yet I continue my search!

Well, I finally found something. Now I don't want to get TOO excited here. This isn't BTTF quality (What is???). But this Eternal Sunshine meets Adjustment Bureau comedy is the best time travel thing I've read in forever. It's really clever, really fun, and really well-written. And best of all, it's written by an amateur!

I knew I was in for something good right away when we see our hero, Charles, walk in front of a car, about to get plastered, then FREEZE to the title card: "48 Hours Earlier." Oh no, the dreaded "48 hours earlier" title card! The thing Carson hates more than anything! But then the "48 hours earlier" is crossed out and replaced with "48 hours later." Which is also crossed out. And finally a title card appears that tells us that in the near future, time travel is a reality, and that for the right price, you can take care of hurtful past relationships that have turned you into a walking pile of sludge.

All you have to do is sign up at "Forget-Me-Nots," the company our soon-to-be-road-kill hero, Charles, works for, and an agent will go back in time to make sure you and that guy who dumped your ass never meet in the first place. And of course if you never meet, you never break up, so you never experience heartbreak. Hey, sign me up!

When our story begins (or ends??), Charles is approached by a recently scorned woman, Julia, who wants to make it so that she and her ex, Tom, never meet. Julia tells Charles how they met, and he heads back in time to make sure it never happens. Now the rules of time travel are strict. The governing body of time only allows people to jump for 48 hours, so Charles has to be efficient in his approach. And he always is. So far, he hasn't screwed up a job yet.

But that's about to change. As Charles moves to prevent Julia from meeting Tom, a cute 22 year old spunky chick, Dora, bumps into him, unloading a cup of coffee onto his shirt. She apologizes profusely as Charles tries to get away, but she insists on cleaning him up. He fights and claws to escape, but in the end loses the battle and watches helplessly as Tom and Julia meet across the street.

No problem. He's missed first encounters before. He'll just prevent their first date from happening. But what Charles soon finds out is that something keeps preventing him from executing his plan. And there's one common factor involved: Dora! She ALWAYS seems to be around when things go south.

Charles finally confronts her and finds out that she's a time traveler as well, and that she's been sent here to make sure these two stay together. Charles is pissed, but takes it as a challenge. He's been on dozens of trips. This girl is a rookie. He'll be able to handle her no problem.

So the two start an Adjustment Bureau-like battle where they each make moves to alter fate surrounding the couple. And every time Charles seems to have a leg up, Dora outfoxes him. But as this time battle escalates, Charles starts to see the Tom-Julia job as secondary. He wants to know who this Dora girl is, and who sent her here. All of this will come to a whopper of a conclusion when we finally catch up with the opening scene that has Charles staring down death in the form of a car seconds away from crushing him.

This one was good. Really good.

Yesterday we talked about clarity and how difficult it is for some writers to write even the most basic scene. Keeping Time jumps between the present and the past and has multiple versions of characters and yet I knew what was going on 95% of the time (the ending does get confusing, which I'll talk about in a sec). For example, instead of just assuming we'd get it, Nathan will stop the script to explain the difference between "Past Charles" and "Present Charles," so we won't be confused by their interactions.

What I also liked about "Time" was that it kept evolving. Every time I thought I knew where the story was going, it took a left turn. For example, when Charles misses the first Tom-Julia encounter, he decides to use the information she gave him back in their interview to sweep her off her feet, keeping her away from Tom in the process. I thought, "Uh-oh. Now we just have another version of There's Something About Mary." Except when Tom tries to use her secrets against her, she stonewalls him, which confuses the hell out of Charles and left me wondering - "Wow, what now??"

Likewise with the Charles-Dora relationship. I thought for sure these two time-travellers would battle each other to change fate and in the process fall in love! But that doesn't happen either. At that point I'm thinking, "Man, this writer really knows how to craft an unpredictable story."

And pretty soon, I found myself obsessed with finding out who Dora was and why she was here. I had about five theories, but was never sure which one it would be.

On top of that, I felt the dialogue, for the most part, was really solid. It wasn't great. It had some clunky moments. But Charles and Dora's back-and-forth was almost always fun to listen to. The two had great chemistry and I'd find that even in scenes where they were just sitting at the table chatting for five pages (a scenario I tell writers to avoid all the time - two characters sitting at a table talking), I'd always be entertained.

But you know what really put me over the top? What really got me? This script had a theme! I can count the number of amateur comedies I've read that have a theme on one hand - that were actually trying to say something! Here, the theme was about allowing people to have the experiences in their lives, whether good or bad, because those experiences end up making them who they are. I thought it was really well executed.

And to prove it, when the ending came, and one of the final twists arrived, I actually found myself tearing up! And I realized that doesn't happen by accident. It happens because the writer was doing more than simply throwing a cool story on the page. He created likable characters we wanted to root for. He created interesting backstories (and forestories!). He used a theme to add layers and depth to the script. That's how you emotionally affect a reader.

The only reason I didn't raise the script to "impressive" status was the ending. It gets a little too confusing. I liked the ambition behind it. But either it tries to be one level more clever than it needs to be and gets too confusing in the process, or it's not described clearly enough. I'm not sure which but if Nathan can fix that and improve a bunch of smaller problems in the script, this could EASILY be an impressive and get snatched up by a production company.

How much do I believe in it? I'm going to try and convince Nathan to let me hop on as producer and push it around town. We'll see what happens! :)

p.s. I believe the draft I sent out to everybody was the wrong one and wasn't spell-checked. The one I personally read was devoid of errors.

Script link: Link taken down due to increasing interest. Will keep people updated on my Twitter feed, @Scriptshadow! E-mail me to read!

[ ] what the hell did I just read?

[ ] wasn't for me

[xx] worth the read

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

What I Learned: Getting back to theme, I find that one helpful way of expressing theme is to include a scene (sometimes two) where the main characters debate both sides of the theme. Some writers think this is too on-the-nose, but in my experience, theme does need to be announced in places for it to really catch on with the audience. Be too subtle about it and your audience might miss it completely. Charles and Dora have a scene in the middle of the script where they debate just that - whether it's okay to erase our mistakes, since those mistakes are an essential part of who we are.

Amateur Friday - Hail Mary

type='html'>Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Action/Thriller
Premise: (from writer) A reformed hitwoman must return to the world of bullets and bloodshed she left behind, to take on the organization she helped build, in order to avenge the death of her younger sister.
About: We're going to take a week off from Twit-Pitch so we can get an amateur Friday script in. Lots of you are submitting and haven't had an outlet lately, and I feel you deserve that. Why did this week's script get chosen? Because Brandon is persistent! He's been sending in queries for over a year, and my assistant, Sveta (svetshadow@gmail.com) read his first ten pages and liked them enough to recommend him to me. So here we are!
Writer: Brandon McFall
Details: A lean 96 pages.

Zoe Saldana as Mary?

I just tweeted yesterday that in all of my meetings, one piece of information that keeps popping up is Buyers are looking for action scripts! I'm not sure why. "Taken" came out like four years ago. What is this immediate need for action scripts all of a sudden? Do studios just get together and decide, "The genre we want to make now is..............ACTION." Is there any rhyme or reason? Is there any logic to it all??

I consider this a problem for me because action is not a genre I gravitate towards. It's often the thinnest genre out there. The characters lack depth. The stories are obvious. It's just a lot of action sequences, which is often the most boring stuff to read. "He jumps to the side and unloads an entire clip before he hits the ground." None of the action is ever inventive. It's all stuff I've read a million times before.

I want drama. I want twists and turns. I want characters who are trying to figure shit out about themselves. If someone can write an action movie with THOSE elements, count me in. Which is probably why everyone's STILL looking for action scripts. As someone pointed out to me the other day, "The reason they're so desperate to find good action scripts is because all the action scripts out there suck."

Guggenheim just sold action script Black Box for seven figures, which everybody is telling me is a "not as good Enemy Of The State," (although to be fair, a few of you LOVED IT). What's next? Is there someone out there sitting on a cool action spec with characters and a story and, gasp, some unexpected twists and turns we haven't seen before? If so, send it in for an Amateur Friday submission. If it's good, I'll help you sell the damn thing. Of course, you may be too late. Because Brandon McFall might've beaten you to it with his action thriller..."Hail Mary."

Hail Mary has one of those unabashedly simple plots, which can work if you nail every single dramatic element. Look no further than Taken as proof. That story was as simple as it gets - "Save daughter." But you loved Taken because of its main character. And Hail Mary will live or die on whether you love Mary.

Mary used to be the baddest hitwoman on the planet. But to be fair, the pool of hitwomen is a lot smaller than the pool of hitmen. Still, that's a pretty impressive title to hold. Mary is pissed to high hell because her little sister's been raped and murdered.

Actually, let me back up. Mary was chased out of town a long time ago for killing too many of the wrong people. What nobody knew for a long time was that she had a little sister. Well, someone finally figured that out, then killed the sister to bring Mary out of hiding so they could settle a score. Mission accomplished! Mary is back, and mad as ever!

She recruits her little sister's boyfriend, thug Tony, and her old boyfriend, weapons specialist George, to give her just enough firepower to wreak havoc. After hitting up a corrupt cop, she finds out the person who raped and killed her sister was a crime boss she has a lot of history with named Dominic. Mary has little problem busting Dominic up then shooting him between the eyes.

Unfortunately, that doesn't end the problem. The leader of The Syndicate, the crime organization that runs the city, finds out about what's happened. His name is Constantine, and he can't have little girls making his organization look weak. So he orders everybody in town to take down Mary.

Normally, when you have an entire city of people who want to kill you, you leave town. But Mary doesn't do "normally." She does Mary. And Mary says, "If you're going to try and kill me, I'm going to try and kill you first." This is Amuurica. Where if you don't like someone, you shoot'em. So she gathers all her resources together and - despite Tony and George thinking she's crazy - heads straight to Constantine's stronghold where she plans to put an end to her problems once and for all.

First thing I'll say is that this was written like an action script. An action script has to move. The paragraphs have to be nibble-sized (no more than 3 lines) and you can't get too wrapped up in miscellaneous description. You only want to tell us enough to set up the scene, to create a little bit of atmosphere, and then focus on the action at hand. To that end, Hail Mary was nearly perfect (The only writing mistake I found was the constant misuse of apostrophes like "want's" and "get's" which is a mistake I see in a lot of screenplays for some reason).

We also have a clear goal - Mary is avenging her sister. She first has to find out who did this and then kill that person. So there's a little bit of mystery then some hardcore old fashioned action. A clear and motivated storyline = good. I also liked how the midpoint changed things up. Mary kills Dominic, forcing Constantine's hand to come after her. It maybe didn't change the story ENOUGH for my taste (it was still basically - "Kill someone") but you want your midpoint to change the game so the second half isn't exactly like the first half, and Hail Mary achieved that.

Now with these revenge scripts, you really have to a) like the main character and b) want the main character to get revenge. I think that's why Taken was so popular. You loved Liam Neeson. And because you saw how much he loved his daughter and how much he wanted to repair that relationship, you wanted him to save her. By no means did I *not* want Mary to avenge her sister's death, but I didn't know her sister. Outside of a couple of quick flashbacks, she was just a name to me. So I was never THAT into Mary getting revenge for her.

This is always the tricky part about these revenge movies. Do you start the story AFTER the character's death so you can jump right into it? Or do you start out slow, get to know the character, and THEN kill her, making for a slower opening, but one in which we care about the dead character and therefore are more interested in avenging her death? I'm not going to say I know the definitive answer to this question. All I can say is that I didn't know Elizabeth (the sister) and therefore was mostly detached from Mary achieving her goal. Obviously, this affects one's opinion of the entire story. If you don't care about the main goal, how can you care about what happens? Unfortunately, that's where I found myself.

Another issue here was the character of Tony. Who the hell was Tony?? He starts the movie as our narrator, implying he's a key character, then disappears for 90 pages, occasionally offering disembodied voice overs with lines like, "But that wasn't all Mary needed to do." I just felt like Brandon didn't know what to do with this character. Either that or he used to be a bigger part of a former draft and Brandon hadn't yet phased him out. Remember, if you change direction in subsequent drafts, you gotta put things out to pasture from the previous drafts. I don't see the purpose of Tony at all, so he probably shouldn't be in the script.

Another problem: My biggest gripe when reading action scripts is that they're thin and they're always a bunch of pointless action scenes. So you have to try your hardest not to fall into that trap. When Hail Mary has an entire late sequence where Mary infiltrates Constantine's compound, then follows that with a final sequence of Mary infiltrating Constantine's casino, it was basically like watching the exact same sequence twice. That's what I'm talking about. You have to be inventive. You have to use your imagination. Action is one of the oldest genres out there. So if you're not trying to make yours unique, if you're just repeating action sequences over and over again, you're going to bore us. Each action sequence in an action movie should be DIFFERENT!

As for the characters, I had a couple of ideas while reading this. If you want to keep Tony, why not create more of an unresolved relationship between him and Mary? She detests him but needs him. She always looks down at him, thinks he's incapable, doesn't trust him. Really play into that relationship, not unlike the relationship between Ripley and Bishop in Aliens. Then, over the course of the story, the two begin to find common ground, learn to fight together. And in the end, she ends up putting her life on the line to save him, creating a legitimate arc to her character. You don't have to use that exact scenario, of course, but I think that's something that was missing. True emotion. Mary was cold. I wanted to see her change, to find that warmth, learn to feel. I didn't see that, further distancing me from her.

Also, I always feel like a parent's protection of a child is more compelling than a sibling's protection of another sibling. Might we make Mary a mother? Elizabeth her daughter? Not only would that make us more interested in seeing Mary get revenge, but I'm not sure I've seen a 40+ year old female hitwoman driving the entire story before. I suppose it makes the script less marketable, but it would create a more interesting situation, no? Instead of Mary being unstoppable, she'll have lost some of her edge. She's older, slower. Which means she's more vulnerable. I was kind of bored by the fact that Mary never had to sweat. You never had any doubt that she was going to kill everyone in the room and come out alive. I'm not sure that's very compelling.

That's all I got for today. Action has to be great to get me onboard, and this was too familiar for my taste. Still, I commend Brandon for writing a solid quick read! :)

Script link: Hail Mary

[ ] what the hell did I just read?

[x] wasn't for me

[ ] worth the read

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

What I learned: We just talked about villains yesterday. I HATED how Constantine was afraid of Mary. Your big main bad guy is AFRAID of the hero??? How scary is that? How much do we fear Constantine after that? How much do we want him to go down after that? We don't care. Cause he's a weakling! Your villains in this genre need to be arrogant. They need to be fearless. Is Hans ever scared of John McClane? No. And if he was, Hans would've sucked balls.

What I learned 2: The late-villain intro who's also the mastermind is almost impossible to pull off. (spoiler) We find out Vance is our real villain here. Who's Vance? I met him on page 80. I barely know the guy. Now I'm supposed to be excited because he's our mastermind? If you want to throw a late twist at us with the final villain, I advise that villain be fairly prominent during the entire screenplay. Dr. Charles Nichols in The Fugitive has around 5 scenes scattered throughout the script before his ending reveal. We need that here too.

Amateur Friday - Nine Twelve

Bradley Cooper for Artie?

I actually read Nine-Twelve awhile ago and always wanted to review it for Amateur Friday. So when the writer, Ed Ruggiero, sent me a new draft, I thought, "Perfect." Don't worry. That doesn't mean I'm not checking all the submissions you guys are sending me, just that I don't like them! No, I'm kidding. But I do want you to remember there are a lot of submissions. If your concept is just "okay" or "decent," it's probably not going to be picked. I mean sure, it might be amazing, but I could use that same logic for each of the hundreds of other "okay" or "decent" concepts. So why should I pick yours over theirs? You know? I'd rather pick a concept that gets my juices flowing - that has a little more POP.

Artie Grossman is in his late 30s and doesn't have much to show for it. He has some inheritance money, which he's learned to squeeze every penny out of, and when he's not taking money out of his dead parents' bank account, he's pulling charity scams on local businesses. Oh yeah, Artie's not a good person. He's pretty much a piece of shit. He's negative. He's dishonest. And as we've already established, he's a thief. Yup, a total winner.

But not everything about Artie is pathetic. He actually takes care of his dysfunctional brother, Dicky, who's so terrified of the real world that he rarey goes outside. Artie's working with Dicky a day at a time to get him back into society. So we got a pathetic asshole thief and a guy who's afraid to leave his apartment. Talk about a gene pool. I'm not sure even Axe Body Spray could make these two attractive.

That is unless they LIE. And Artie is one hell of a liar. After spotting a homely but beautiful woman on the subway, he follows her across the city into a random support group, a support group he soon realizes is for peole who lost family members in the 9/11 attacks. Spurred on by this woman's unique energy, he joins in, and quickly finds himself recounting a story about how his brother died in the attacks. It's moving and powerful and total horse shit. But the woman, Kerry, buys into it, and afterwards the two recount their 9/11 memories with one another.

Turns out Kerry lost her husband in the attacks, and hasn't been on a date since! She just can't let go. Particularly because she had a chance to answer her husband's final phone call, but carelessly sent it to voicemail, figuring she'd talk to him later. She was a different person back then. Not a very good one. And she's paid the price for it ever since.

However now, with Artie in the picture, she gets out there and starts to feel good again, which you'd think would make her frustrated mother happy. But it turns out her mother doesn't trust this new guy. She feels there's something suspicious about him. A mother's intuition is always right! But Kerry's too wrapped up in remembering what it's like to feel happy again so she ignores all the warning signs (number 1 of which is - don't date guys without jobs).

What starts out as just a meaningless little jaunt becomes serious, and before you know it, Artie is all in, which is strange. He's never been all-in before. And when you're all in, all your secrets have to come out. You can try to hide them, but your significant other's going to find out sooner or later. So what's Artie's solution to this? To run away with Kerry. Go somewhere as far away as possible. In other words, avoid the problem. But this appears to be one of those problems that's never going to go away.

Dramatic Irony.

We know something about our hero that the romantic lead does not. That he's lying to her about the worst thing imaginable. It's dispicable. It's unthinkable. And it's great writing. Because this entire relationship is built on a lie that we're aware of, a lie that we know, if told, will destroy the relationship, we want to stick around and see what happens when Kerry finds out. Dramatic irony creates suspense. It creates anticipation. It keeps our ass in the seats.

The question is, can one instance of dramatic irony carry an entire film? Reading this a second time, I found myself impatient, particularly during the second act. It felt like not enough was going on, and I realized just how much the script was leaning on that dramatic irony. It was the ONLY thing driving the story forward, and the longer I read, the more I realized it wasn't enough.

In contrast, let's look at Good Will Hunting. We have the same thing going on in that story. Will is lying to Skylar. To impress her, he tells her he's well-off and has a huge family, when he's actually poor and an orphan. There's not as much at stake with the lie as in Nine-Twelve, but you'll notice that that's only one part of the story. We also have Will's relationship with Sean (the therapist) that needs to get resolved, his inner conflict, his future as a math genius, his issues with Ben Affleck's character. There are more developments in that screenplay, more subplots, and therefore the entire movie doesn't feel like it's resting on a single wooden beam.

Another thing I want to talk about here is rewriting. Now, to be honest, I don't remember the notes I gave Ed on this script, so I'm not saying he's guilty of this. But when he said he had a new draft, I know I was expecting...I don't know, just more changes. It feels here like just a few scenes were changed and another couple added.

It's something I've noticed a lot of lately as I'm reading more and more rewrites. Not much has been rewritten! Changing a few scenes here and there isn't a rewrite. A rewrite may entail redeveloping the theme, eliminating or combining characters, adding new subplots, eliminating entire subplots. coming into the story 30 pages later, changing the setting so it better matches your concept, changing your character's fatal flaw. If all you're doing in a rewrite is adding or taking away scenes, you're probably not doing enough (unless it's one of your final drafts).

Having said that, there's something about this script that got to me. I like the way Ruggiero writes. He has a unique point of view. I love how he's not afraid to make his hero dark. I understand that that's going to turn some people off, but while I didn't like what Artie was doing, he did keep me interested. I wanted to see if he was going to change or not. If he was gong to move on from this disgusting person.

I also liked the touch of humor. There was something funny about Artie. I can imagine a young Bill Murray absolutely killing this role (who *is* the next Bill Murray by the way). So I guess my final suggestion would be to inject this script with MORE STUFF. In the meantime, the voice is unique enough and the writing good enough that it warrants a read. But I still feel like something's been left on the table in this rewrite.

Script link: Nine-Twelve

[ ] what the hell did I just read?

[ ] wasn't for me

[x] worth the read

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

What I learned: What I'm looking for in a concept breaks down to three things. The first is a high concept (i.e. Time travel, aliens, monsters - any big idea combined with a unique situation). The second is something with some clear conflict. Two warring families is more interesting to me, for example, than a generic guy trying to find love. The third and final one is irony. If there's an ironic component to the concept, I get excited. Look at the irony in this logline. A man pretending to have lost someone in 9/11 starts a realtionship with a 9/11 widow. That same concept isn't nearly as compelling if, say, a man who just lost his arm starts a relationship with a 9/11 widow. There's no irony there!

ScripT ShaDoW

An Amateur Screenplay Hits The Top 10????

"Which Script Should I Read For Amateur Friday" Part 2

"Which Script Should I Read For Amateur Friday" Part 3

Amateur Friday - Breathwork

The number one logline from a couple of weeks ago - Breathwork - finally gets its day in the sun with a review.

Amateur Friday - Sammy Jingles

Amateur Friday - The Wreckage

Amateur Friday - Charming

You Pick The Next Two Amateur Friday Scripts

Amateur Friday - La Mujer

Amateur Friday - Keeping Time

Amateur Friday - Hail Mary

Amateur Friday - Nine Twelve

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