Today's amateur screenplay offers us the rare combination of Nazis and children's books. Can these two elements coexist? Read on to find out.

Amateur Friday Submission Process: 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: Biopic/Action/Drama
Premise: (from writer) With only the clothes on their backs, and a Manuscript in-hand, a Jewish-German couple narrowly escape the 1940 Nazi March on Paris, thus beginning an odyssey to save themselves and one of the most beloved children's book characters for generations to come. http://www.sendspace.com/file/jo6f6n
Writer: Brantley Edwards
Details: 110 pages

Uh oh. What’s wrong. Why am I reviewing a biopic? Have I been held at gunpoint? Maybe I’ve gone insane. It wouldn’t be the first time. Everybody remembers my Super Bowl Tweet Party. Maybe this time I’ve gone LIN-sane!

For those of you visiting this review for the first time, I posted today’s AF script WITHOUT A REVIEW earlier in the day, allowing you, the readers, to weigh in on it first. Sometimes I feel like I influence your opinions and, for once, I wanted to get your thoughts before I gave mine. Well, now that the opinions are in, it’s time to give you my take…

It’s January, 1940. Paris, France. 38 year old illustrator Hans Reyersbach has everything going for him. He’s got a new wife (the beautiful Margaret), a baby on the way, and he’s about to release a successful children’s book. He’s like the 1940s version of Lady GaGa! Actually, disregard that analogy. He’s not like that at all.  That was dumb.

Anyway, what’s putting a dampener on all this happy-time is this pesky European war going on. You know, the whole World War 2 thing? Those meanie Germans just can’t keep their paws out of anything and rumors are they’re snatching up Jews in the night. As Hans is Jewish, he’s not a fan of these rumors. But at least he’s in Paris. The Germans would never invade Paris. Would they?

Actually, it turns out that’s the least of Hans’ worries. A Nazi special agent named Wilhelm Schultz has been sent to Paris to retrieve Hans at all costs. Apparently, the infamous Joseph Goebbels read Hans’ book to a group of children at a publicity event, only to find out later that – gasp - it was written by a Jew! Embarrassed beyond belief, and in trouble with the Furher, Goebbels decides to get a hold of this author and make him dead.

Ironically, Hans and Wilhelm actually knew each other as children, even used to play together. This allows Wilhelm the opportunity to befriend Hans – then lure him into his trap. The problem is, just before he executes his plan, word of Germany’s arrival sends Jews fleeing south. Hans decides it’s a good idea to go with them. So he and Margret flee.

But not before Wilhelm, posing as a fleeing Jew himself, gains Hans’ trust. The trio travel by foot, bicycle, and train in hopes of catching a boat to America, where Hans has a once-in-a-lifetime chance to publish his new book in the biggest book market in the world. But will his childhood friend prevent that dream from coming true? Will he snatch Hans and Margaret away in the night? Oh, and who is this Fifi fellow? Is he related to Jeremy Lin? All these questions will be answered in, “Fifi, A Monkey’s Tale.”

Fifi has a lot going for it. We have a clear goal (escape!). The stakes are high (getting caught by Nazis is typically a bad thing!). There’s tons of urgency with them always being on the run.

There was some nice use of dramatic irony as well. Wilhelm joining the fray, pretending to be “one of them,” but secretly planning to capture and ship Hans and Margaret back to Germany. That led to some suspenseful scenes early on.

(spoiler) And the twist at the end – that this is in fact E.E. Henry, the famous author of the Curious George franchise, was also a highlight, and something I wasn’t expecting at all. So all those elements made for a fun read…at times.

“At times” is the key phrase here. Because there were other times where it became clear that Brantley was still a young screenwriter finding his way, starting with the relationship between Hans and Margaret.

There just didn’t seem to be anything to this relationship. Which is a strange thing to say because the two experience a miscarriage, several near-captures by the Nazis, and Margaret almost dying. So how can I possibly say that?

Well the main issue was their dialogue. It was too on-the-nose, too generic, too bland. They were either talking about how they felt towards each other (“I love you.” “But I love you more.”) the logistics of getting to the next destination (“We have three days to get to the Brazil port..”) or the occasional exchange about how hungry they were. But that was it. Honestly, those were the only three topics of conversation for about 80% of the film. There was no drama in any of these conversations, no internal relationship issues that needed to be resolved. Just two people talking about matter-of-fact things for 100 minutes.

And since this relationship took up the majority of the script, it was impossible for the script to recover. If the central relationship isn’t interesting, there’s no way your movie is going to be interesting, no matter how cool the plot is. And I’m not saying that the characters needed to be arguing or fighting, but there needed to be SOMETHING there.

For example, Margaret has had a couple of miscarriages. So what if she’s told by the doctor that if she tries to carry a baby to full term, there’s a high probability that she’ll die (which, so far, is in the script)? Then, early on, have Margaret get pregnant, and she still wants to have the baby. Hans, on the other hand, does not, because of the danger it poses to his wife.

Now, instead of a gaggle of “I love yous” and “No, I love you mores,” the two have something to disagree about (conflict!). You could complicate this by the pregnant Margaret starting to bleed as the journey goes on (I think some of this is in here - but it's not given the right focus). The stress has increased the chances of another miscarriage, and now there’s a very real chance Hans is going to lose both his unborn baby and his wife.

Still – even if you nailed that – there was still something missing in this relationship. I didn’t know these two *at all*. They spoke to each other so generically, in such basic terms, that I never got a true sense of the pair and therefore never cared for them. And obviously, if I’m not caring for the characters being chased in a movie, there’s no movie.

So I believe a couple of big long character biographies need to be written before the next draft. Hans and Margaret’s entire lives need to be documented by Brantley. They need to have issues which need to be worked out. They need to have character flaws, which I don’t believe they have now (character flaws are basically a prerequisite for biopics – the genre was designed to explore character – so if we’re not sure what’s going on internally with the character, there’s no movie).

Another problem for me was the logistics. Despite there being a lot of chatter about where people were heading, and which boats they were getting on, I constantly found myself confused as to where we were, where we needed to go, and by how much time. I think there were a couple of boats they needed to get on but then they missed one, so now they were going to catch another one? Maybe? It was confusing and because I was never quite sure where they needed to get, it was hard to care.

There were some other things I had issues with as well. In a thrilling ride like this, it’s hard for me to imagine the characters on bikes. There’s something so…I don’t know…I kept visualizing the “Singing In The Rain” sequence in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Like they’re just biking away, backs erect, smiles on their faces. I couldn’t match that image with Nazis chasing them.

Commenters have mentioned the characters changing back and forth between languages. I agree that it’s too confusing. Any time you have to read something twice to get it means the writer hasn’t done their job. And every time someone would speak in a different language, I would have to read it twice. If this served some purpose, I could let it go. But the read would’ve been so much easier had we stayed with one language the whole time.

And then there are the clarity and dialogue issues commenters have brought up. The dialogue does feel stilted and on the nose here – most of the time repeating things we already know. This goes back to learning how to dramatize a scene. If there’s no drama in a scene, there’s nothing for your characters to say. So if you put words into the mouths of characters who have nothing to say, you’re going to get bad dialogue.

But if you *dramatize* the scene, it’s a different ballgame. Now the characters HAVE to talk because they need to deal with the situation. For example, let’s say Hans and Margaret are on a train. However, that’s *all* the scene is about – them on a train. Go try and write that scene. I’ll wait.

Let me guess. Not a very good scene right? I mean you might add some exposition there (“We have to get to Spain by Monday”), and to fill up the rest of the scene, your characters may talk about each other (“Are you doing okay? How is your wound?”). But this is just logistical stuff. You can’t build an entire scene around logistical stuff.

However, let’s change the scene around and say that, earlier, Margaret snuck on the train because they didn’t have enough money. So she doesn’t have a ticket. Her and Hans are sitting there when they notice the conductor coming down the aisle checking for tickets. Uh-oh. Oh, and did I mention that a minute ago, two Nazi officers just sat down next to them?

Go write that scene. I’ll wait.

A million times better right??!! These are the things you learn as a writer making those first steps. I know it sucks because you want to convince yourself you’ve figured it out already. But it takes time to learn these things. It takes trial and error to realize, “Oh, if I just have two people talk to each other about stuff that’s going on, it’s boring.” But when you do learn this stuff, your writing really takes off. So like Matt pointed out yesterday, keep writing!

I think Brantley is where a lot of writers are who come to Amateur Friday. They’ve got some good things going on in their writing. They’ve learned to write a cool character or a cool scene here and there. But there’s still a lot to learn before their scripts can truly shine. So I’m just going to say: Stay at it Brantley! Jump to that next script, write something new, learn more, do it again. Come back to this script afterwards and apply what you’ve learned. Right now, Fifi is a fun ambitious little script. But it’s not there yet.

Script link:  Fifi, A Monkey's Tale

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

What I learned: I’m going to dish out some really important advice here: The opening scene of your screenplay is CRUCIAL. Why? BECAUSE IT’S THE OPENING OF YOUR SCREENPLAY! It’s the very first scene the reader will read. They’re going to form an opinion on you as a writer and this story as a story before the scene is over. So why would you open with a scene that lacks drama, conflict, suspense, action, or anything that would draw an audience in? Fifi opens with two people sitting at a zoo watching animals. You do *not* want to open your screenplay with a scene that uneventful. You have to give us more! Give us a reason to want to read the next scene!

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!!!

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One of the most successful Nicholl Fellowship winners in history hits Hollywood with his brand new Yeti spec.

Genre: Horror
Premise: Sent to a remote arctic outpost during World War 2, a disgraced soldier learns of a giant flesh-eating beast killing the locals, and decides that defeating the monster is his one shot at redemption.
About: This script has not yet been purchased, but was written by Bragi Schut, who penned 2011’s Season Of The Witch, a former (2003) Nicholl winner. As you can see by my review of the script, I really liked it. Unfortunately, the filmmakers misjudged the tone of the script and what I saw on film was not what I read on paper. BUT, it officially put Bragi on the map, and now he has another big film lined up, The Voyage Of The Demeter, about the ill-fated ship that transported Dracula’s coffin. The film stars “Dragon Tattoo” star Noomi Rapace, Jude Law, and Ben Kingsley. Abomination is his latest spec script, which he hopes will continue his hot streak.
Writer: Bragi Schut (story by Bragi Schut and Chato Hill)
Details: 112 pages - undated (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).

This week is about as delicious as it gets. Not only is one of the top living authors in the world getting reviewed tomorrow with his first script, and not only is that script being reviewed by a long-time-in-hiding Scriptshadow Reviewer from the past, but we also have our first amateur script going into the Top 10 this week! And I’m talking AMATEUR amateur. No agent. No manager. This guy’s a total unknown. I can’t WAIT to tell you guys about it. Friday can’t come soon enough!

So how does our friend Bragi hold up on one of the biggest weeks in Scriptshadow history? Read on to find out.

Sergeant Harry Wilkins arrives in the Arctic Tundra a disgraced man. He hasn’t been sent to this remote outpost to fight any battles. You don’t get to fight battles when your cowardice led to eight of your fellow soldiers dying. Nope, you’re sent to Bumblefuck, Antarctica. All alone. Where you can’t hurt anyone. All you can do is think. Think about how bad you screwed up.

And think he does. Outside of the snow, the whistling wind, and the whines and barks of the snow dogs, there isn't much to do here. It’s 1944 remember. There’s no playstation.

But then one day Wilkins receives a surprise visit from some Eskimos. They look worried. They look afraid. And through their broken English, tell Wilkins he has to come with them. He has to help them stop a beast that’s been killing their people. Wilkins is intrigued by the offer but going AWOL after, you know, killing eight people, isn’t exactly the best route to a promotion.

Still, there's something telling Wilkins that he needs to do this. So he treks the 20 mile trail to the Eskimos’ isolated village and meets up with the men who visited him. Time is short so almost immediately they begin planning for the beast’s arrival.

Their first plan is to trap it. So they set out some bait and wait for Mr. Snowshoes to fall for it. Unfortunately, when the beast shows up, it's unlike anything Wilkins imagined. It's part polar bear, part human, part beast. And it's all angry. You could shoot this thing til you ran out of bullets. It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t go down.

So after the trap fails, they realize the only way they're going to kill this thing is if they find its lair and take it on there. Not surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of Eskimos eager for Operation Lair Battle. Might have something to do with a beast who treats humans like Pringles chips. But Wilkins will go even if he has to do it alone. He needs to kill this thing. He needs to find redemption.

If you've been paying attention for the last two years, you already know I've been looking for the preeminent Abominable Snowman screenplay. We reviewed one a long time ago on Amateur Friday.  But that one never quite made it out of the snow.

Here, we’re obviously being guided by much more skilled writer. And you feel it. I loved the set-up of Abomination. I loved that this took place in the 1940s. I loved the World War 2 connection. Something would’ve been lost had this been happening in the present day. Making it a 70 year old tale gave it real texture and weight.

But I think the biggest difference you'll see in this script (compared to Ascent: Day 3) is the character development. This isn't so much about a scary beast killing people as it is about a man's redemption. It's about accepting responsibility for your failures and trying to atone for them. There’s some real meat to the character of Wilkins here.

Not only is redemption a great character trait to explore, but it’s perfect for a screenplay, since if your character’s seeking redemption, he has no choice but to be active. He has to go out there and make things happen, which in turn propels your story along.

Where I think the screenplay stumbles a bit, however, is in the Eskimo storyline and the second act in general. We’ll start with the Eskimos, who I thought were fine. But “fine” was as intense a feeling as I felt for them. Looking back, they were all pretty much the same. I don’t feel like I got to know any of them well.

I thought Avatar did a good job of this actually. We really *spent time* with the Na’Vi and got to know their culture and their way of life. The scene where they climb the floating island and Jake Sulley tries to connect with his first dragon - I really got a sense of what these people valued – what their world was like. I never got that sense with the Eskimos. There was nothing unique or interesting or new or exciting about their lives that made them stand out. I had a very general understanding of Eskimos going into this script. And I have just as general an understanding of Eskimos leaving it. I don’t think that can be the case in this movie.

This affected the story because the story is about saving these people. And if I don’t really know the people being saved – I hate to be crass but – I don’t care if they’re saved or not.

So if I were Bragi, I'd look to get Wilkins to the village sooner. I’d look to create more of a bond between him and the Eskimos. I’d look at create a couple of original/unique experiences with the Eskimos so that they really stick out. It feels like there needs to be more here. I mean there’s even a hint of a love story with one of the women, but as soon as it arrives, it’s gone, erasing yet another opportunity for us to connect with and care about these people.

It's funny because a part of me was bored by the Eskimos, so my initial reaction was: we have to get to the monster sooner. But when I stepped back and looked at it, I realized it wasn't that I wanted to get to the monster quicker. It was that I didn't know or care about these people enough to be around them. So if that can be fixed, I think the whole script improves.

I also would've liked a scarier buildup to the beast. I wasn't afraid in this draft. There's a moment early on where Wilkins is scouting the footsteps of the beast, and he puts his hand down onto the beast’s footprint. I don't remember exactly how the wording went, but it was something like "the footprint is a little bigger than his hand.” Now I don’t know about you, but footprints that are barely bigger than my own hand aren’t scary. If the footprint were FIVE TIMES bigger than my hand, THAT would be scary! (like the picture I posted above!) And that was par for the course with this thing. The beast had me worried. But it never had me TERRIFIED.

I’ll tell you what though, this script really picks up in the final act. When our hero decides to take on the beast through hell or freezing water, I was into it. And when he finally battles that thing in its lair, it’s pretty freaking awesome! That whole final act almost made up for the problems above. It’s a good reminder that if you can write a great ending, it can cover up a lot of faults. So, indeed, the ending was just enough to pull this into “worth the read” territory. I just feel like the script can be so much bigger/better. I hope Bragi takes advantage of that potential and kicks some Yeti ass in the next draft.

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

What I learned: The thing I take from this script is that if you create a movie where you place your hero inside a unique culture, like Avatar, like Dances with Wolves, like Abomination - you need a few scenes that show the characters experiencing the unique aspects of that culture together. Knock Avatar all you want but it had a TON of these scenes. From the dragon scene to learning how to run through the trees to learning how to ride horses to shooting arrows to killing animals the right way to learning about the Tree of Souls to learning about “the bond.” I truly felt that Jake Sulley was embedded into this culture after those scenes. That wasn’t the case in Abomination. I sort of remember a hunting scene but overall, I never got a sense of the Eskimos’ culture, never got a sense of them as a people, and as a result, I didn’t care if they were saved or not. And I know this script is more about Wilkins’ redemption than it is about a man learning the Eskimo culture. But if you’re going to design a movie where a man saves people, we have to care about those people.

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Another Black List sci-fi thriller makes it way to Scriptshadow. But how does the screenplay hold up to other recent sci-fi thrillers on the site?

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: (from Black List) An extremely wealthy elderly man dying from cancer undergoes a radical medical procedure that transfers his consciousness to the body of a healthy young man but everything may not be as good as it seems when he starts to uncover the mystery of the body’s origins and the secret organization that will kill to keep its secrets.
About: Writer-director brothers Alex and David Pastor are best known for writing and directing the 2009 film, Carriers, about a group of friends fleeing a pandemic. The film starred Chris Pine and Emily VanCamp. Before that, the brothers made tons of shorts (the new way to break into Hollywood – Go make some shorts people!). This most recent script, which I'm assuming they're on board to direct as well, finished in the bottom quarter of 2011’s Black List, with six votes.
Writers: Alex and David Pastor
Details: 118 pages – June 27th 2011 draft (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).

Selfless looks like a job for Shia!

Selfless is eerily reminiscent of another 2011 Black List script I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, Flashback. Not in plot. But in tone, the way it’s written and overall feel. These scripts could easily be considered kissing cousins. But while it’s always fun to kiss your cousin, the reality is, that’s as far as it can go. There’s no way you can be in a relationship with your cousin. Which leaves you with a sorta nice, if ultimately confused, memory, and nothing more. That pretty much sums up my experience with Selfless.

Selfless follows Damian Hayes, a rich old codger who owns a huge company worth Facebook money. But Damien’s currently learning one of life’s harshest lessons. That there’s one thing money can’t buy. And no, I’m not talking about love. Damien is dying of cancer. He only has a few months left to live.

At least, that's what he believes at first. It turns out there's a super secretive – albeit shady – company that snatches up healthy young individuals, wipes them of their memory, then maps the brain scan of their ready-to-die clients onto their brain, turning our senior citizens back into the junior variety.

Not wanting to kick it just yet, Damien gives Shady Incorporated every penny in his Swiss bank account, and to his surprise, it goes well. He’s got this young hot bod to run around in. He can exercise as long as he wants to (I’d debate whether this is a good thing or not). Ladies look at him again. He doesn’t have to expense adult diapers anymore. The only downside seems to be not getting the senior discount at the local AMC anymore.

However, every once in awhile, Damien gets these little memory glitches. It’s like for a brief moment he’s…..well he’s in someone else’s body, experiencing someone else’s life.

It takes Damien a lot longer than us to realize that the person who used to own this body is still a part of him. But things really get turned around when a woman named Madeleine bumps into him and starts freaking out. He eventually comes to realize that this is his “wife,” and she thinks Damien is her husband.

After some eat-pray-love-like soul-searching, Damien starts to wonder if what he did was kosher. So he goes back to Madeleine, pretending to be her husband, and starts investigating who the man in his body used to be. The more he investigates, the more guilty he feels. And to make matters worse, “The Company” learns what he’s up to and comes after him. They expect their Switcheroo App to be quite popular in the coming years and don’t want Damien screwing up their star rating. So Damien must figure out a way to…well, I'm not sure to be honest. I think expose the company? Or just find out more about his body? It’s not 100% clear. But what I do know is that in the end, Damien’s probably going to learn to be a lot more SELFLESS.

Much like Flashback (aka Source Code 2), Selfless was an easy breezy little sci-fi thriller that practically read itself. I exerted so little effort in ingesting this that it almost felt like cheating. And yet, that’s sort of my problem with it. I’m not sure there’s enough story here. I’m not sure there’s enough going on.

You know what it feels like? It feels like the logline is a beat sheet for the entire movie. I mean if you read the logline I wrote above, you read every major plot point in the script. There were no surprises here, no big twists or turns. You got EXACTLY what you paid for. I’m reminded of my friend Jim Mercurio’s term, “story density.” There was no story density here. Then again, I felt the exact same way about The Adjustment Bureau, one of the thinnest scripts I read in 2010, yet people seemed to like that movie. So maybe I’m asking for too much?

The way I see it, there are two phases when you write a script. The first phase is getting the story down on paper. You’ll go with a lot of “first choices” in this phase, even if they’re generic, just so you can get the script out.

After you’re done with that, you move to the second – and way more important – phase. Populating that story. You start to add detail, you explore the relationships between characters, you add unexpected twists and surprises. This is really the phase where your script becomes a movie.

And I feel like Selfless never got to that phase. At least not with this draft. I always go back to what Ben Ripley told me about Source Code - how the movie started off as a Blake Snyder beat sheet. There's a train wreck. Some mysterious guys show up. They bring in a new technology that allows them to go back in time. Our hero’s then zapped back onto the train before it crashes. And his job is to find out what happened. That version, he said, was fine. But it just didn't have any punch.

Once he got to Phase 2, he really started challenging the direction of the script, and that’s when he came up with the idea to place the character on the train from the very first frame. The script felt fresher, denser, more populated, more detailed. And that came directly from the Phase 2 process. Selfless could benefit a lot from the same approach.

Outside of that, I don't have much to say about Selfless. It's a solid treatment of a neat idea. I just feel it has the potential to be so much more.

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

What I learned: I want you to take a look at the opening scene to Selfless, which on the surface seems like just another “Table Scene.” In it, a young man approaches two older men (one of them Damien, our protagonist) about a deal he just closed. I always tell you: Don't write Table Scenes (lunch/dinner scenes heavy on dialogue). And definitely don’t start your movie with one! But the difference here is that the writers immediately inject conflict and suspense into the scene. A young man walks up to two older men, flush with excitement over beating them out on a 200 million dollar contract. But as the other men begin to congratulate him, we sense that they know something he doesn’t. Suspense and mystery slip their way into the scene. We’re wondering: “What do they know?” Over the course of the next few minutes, they drop a few more clues and we learn our character did not, in fact, close the deal, like he believes. Not only that, but there’s a good chance his entire career is about to be flushed down the toilet. It’s a slow-building scene with lots of conflict and plenty of suspense, and it’s quite good! So the lesson here is that while you SHOULD avoid Table Scenes, if you can inject enough conflict, mystery, and suspense into them, you should be okay.

Moratorium: From this point forward, I’m retiring all protagonist peanut allergies in screenplays. We've had too many of them. You can no longer give your hero a peanut allergy, Skippy.

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Hollywood Reader reading a non-dramatized script.

I can’t take it any longer. I can’t take reading all these scenes that are so…….BAD! Scenes that just sit there. Scenes where nothing happens. Scenes where characters babble. Scenes that only dole out exposition. Scenes without conflict. Scenes without DRAMA!

Ah-ha! There’s the root of our problem! No drama. No baby mama drama. And what do scenes without drama result in?…Does anybody remember? That’s right! Scenes of death. The worst possible scene you can write in a screenplay. These are scenes with no dramatic or entertainment value whatsoever. I don’t care if your characters are talking about the origins of the universe. If it isn’t dramatized, we’re bored.

Confused? Do you still not know what “dramatizing a scene” means? Don’t worry. Actually, DO WORRY. Because if you don’t figure this out, you will never learn how to write an entertaining screenplay. You’ll be able to write people talking to each other. You’ll be able to write exposition. You’ll be able to move the plot from point A to point B to point C. But you won’t write anything that entertains an audience. So let’s make sure that’s never the case.

“Dramatizing a scene” means finding a dramatic component – usually fueled by conflict - to center a scene around. For example. 2 people talking about their day is a boring scene. 2 people talking about their day when one of them has a secret lover hiding in the closet is a dramatized scene.

An easy way to assess whether a scene is dramatized or not is to imagine the rest of your movie stripped away. All you have is this one scene. Would that scene entertain a reader? Context, of course, is essential to any good scene. So that always needs to be factored in. But in general, is your scene entertaining in its own right? If not, chances are you haven’t dramatized it. Because that’s what dramatizing a scene does – it makes the scene work on its own.

In order to help you understand the practice better, I’ve decided to lay out three screenplays I’ve been working on in my free time. In each of them, I will show you what a non-dramatized scene looks like, and then the thought process and approach that goes into dramatizing it. Now I’m trusting you guys to not steal my ideas here. These are three of the best ideas I’ve ever had so please keep them to yourselves. Let’s start with the first one, my martial arts fighting epic…The Weigh-In.


TITLE: THE WAY(EIGH)-IN

PREMISE: A martial arts fighter named RIGBY BONAPARTE is near the end of his career when he gets a surprise shot at the mixed-martial arts championship of the world.

SETUP: Rigby is getting by on ramen noodles and Wonder Bread, fighting a bunch of nobodies on Friday night undercards. At this point in the movie, he hasn’t yet been offered the title shot.

THE SCENE: Rigby heads over to his gym to get some of his angst out. As he battles away on the punching bag, he watches a couple of hot young fighters spar in the ring. The entire gym watches them in awe. It’s clear that Rigby feels old, left out, forgotten. He gives the bag one last PUNCH and stomps out, pissed about life.

VERDICT: This may SEEM like a decent scene. We’re showing instead of telling. That’s good, right? It does get across some information about the character (that he’s over the hill and frustrated) but we kind of already knew that. I mean, where’s the drama here? The guy is punching a punching bag, watching people. That’s not a scene.

Time to take The Way(eigh)-In through the Scriptshadow Dramatizer!!!

DRAMATIZED SCENE: Clearly, this scene needs more conflict. I have an idea. What if Rigby went into the locker room to change, only to find out that…his locker’s been given to someone else! Now we have some conflict (our hero is confused/angry) – somewhere to start our scene. Already, the scene’s looking better.

The situation also forces our character to be ACTIVE. He has to find out what happened. Why did someone change his locker? So let’s send him to the owner’s office and have him go off on the guy. That’s drama, right? Well, sort of. But I feel like we can do better. I mean, how dramatic is a private argument in a back office? Let’s put the argument right in the middle of the gym! Yeahhhh! Now the whole gym can stop and watch them go at it! Ooh, I’m liking this.

We’ll even have the owner, some crotchety old trainer named MACK, ignore Rigby when he approaches, focusing instead on these young buck fighters we had in our previous pointless scene. And to really maximize the drama, let’s make Mack hate Rigby. Let’s make him think Rigby is the biggest bum in the world, a real waste of space. Now, when Rigby finally reaches Mack and demands to know what happened to his locker, we have ourselves a bona fide dramatized scene.

SUMMARY: (Real movie – Rocky) I don’t know about you but I like this scene waaaaay better than the one where he’s banging on a speed ball looking upset. And all it took was a little dramatizing!

TITLE: THE BOAT HAZARD

PREMISE: A young strapping lad named Carribou Willoughby has managed to stow away on a passenger boat headed to America. It is on this boat that he falls for a beautiful out-of-his-league young lady named Jezzebel Gonzalez.

SETUP: So far, Carribou has only been able to marvel at Jezzebel from afar. She’s always flanked by a first-class entourage. He wonders if he’ll ever get a chance to speak with her before they reach America.

THE SCENE: One night out on the back of the boat, Carribou is laying down, chewing on some hey, when he notices – gasp – Jezzebel! She’s at the railing, staring at the stars, all by herself! This may be his only chance to talk to her. So he approaches, sidling up to her. “A wonderful night, isn’t it?” She turns, startled. But when she sees the handsome young man in front of her, she smiles. “It is.” Silence passes. The two look up at the stars. “You know what my father used to stay about the stars,” Carribou offers. “No. Tell me,” she replies. “He used to say that every star was one of the sun’s children. And that one day, they would all come back to rejoin him and when they did, there would never be darkness again.” She turns to him, offers her hand. “I’m Jezzebel.” He takes her hand up to his mouth, kisses it. “They call me Carribou.”

VERDICT: WORRRRRRRRRST SCEEEEEEEEEENE EVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVER!!! No conflict. On the nose dialogue. Cheesy lines. Ugh. Awful.

Let’s push this puppy into the SCRIPTSHADOW DRAMATIZER shall we?

DRAMATIZED SCENE: Okay, first of all, a person standing at the back of a boat looking up at the stars is the equivalent of placing your reader in a 4x4 foot concrete coffin. That’s how boring it is. So, how can we spice this up? First of all, let’s change Jezzebel’s situation. Let’s say she’s engaged to a man she despises. Yes! That’s good. And he makes her feel trapped. To the point where she’s considering suicide. Ooooh. Okay, now we’re on to something.

Jezzebel isn’t going to the back of the boat to look at stars. No. She’s going to the back of the boat to jump off! Now, instead of Carribou simply having to start a conversation with Jezzebel, he has to save her life!

But let’s amp up the conflict even more. She’s dead set on jumping. Nothing’s going to change her mind. So Carribou has to come up with a clever way to stop her. “The freezing water!” he thinks. That’ll be his angle. He can use that to scare her. And you know what? It’s working, to the point where she lets him approach, even take her hand to help her back over.

But that’s too easy. This is called the “Scriptshadow Dramatizer,” not the “Scriptshadow Sort-of-make-things-more-interestinger.” So what if she slipped! Yes, an obstacle (DRAMA!)! Now he LITERALLY has to save her. Using all his strength, he yanks Jezzebel up over the railing and to safety. Phew, she’s okay!

SUMMARY: Obviously, this is a scene from Titanic. You’re aware of the finished product. But what you didn’t know is that the “the sun and the stars” scene I mentioned earlier could’ve made the final cut had Titanic been in the hands of an amateur. Believe me. I’ve read tons of “Sun and The Stars” scenes in my life! Too many!

TITLE: CHUBBS HENRY

PREMISE: Chubbs Henry is an idealistic middle-aged literary agent at WMA who wants to change the business. He’s tired of the agency selling these crappy POS screenplays to the studios and wants them to make a stand. So he sends an e-mail out to everyone saying they need to get behind good material and good material only, even if it means selling less product.

THE SETUP: While Chubbs’ idealistic approach goes over well at first, a week later his boss calls him in and fires him. Sorry Chubbs. That’s not how this industry works. We sell crap because we make a lot of money off crap.

THE SCENE: Okay, so Chubbs just lost his job. What is he going to do? Well obviously he’s miserable, depressed. But he’s got to think of the future! So on the way to his car, he starts calling all of his writers, seeing if they’ll stay with him. The first eight say no but his big moneymaker, his top writer, says yes! Hooray. Chubbs is still in the game.

VERDICT: BORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRING!

Let’s take this puppy through the Scriptshadow Dramatizer…

DRAMATIZED SCENE: First of all, the method of firing (boss calling him in) is too standard. Let’s try something different. Why not make it so his rival (Ted Sweets) gets to fire him? YEAH. Now this firing has some meat behind it, some angst. This should piss our hero off (pissing off heroes is good – creates conflict).

Next, him calling his clients on the way to his car is boring. Let’s make him have to do it at the office. Now he has to walk through an entire company that knows he just got fired. How embarrassing. But talk about conflict! Already this scene is way better.

And you know what? Why take Sweets out of the picture? When you have a great nemesis/villain, you want to use him as much as possible. Hey, I know! What if Sweets immediately starts calling all of Chubbs’ clients, trying to poach them before Chubbs can call them himself?? Okay, now we have some URGENCY to the scene. Chubbs has to move fast or risk losing his writers to Sweets. We could turn it into a sort of “phone-battle,” with both of them speed-dialing numbers as fast as they can.

That’s a good scene but you know what? We could dramatize it EVEN MORE. What if, in a previous scene, Chubbs’ promised one of his lower-level writers more personal attention? Like SWORE TO HIM that he’d give him more personal time? Yeah, and let’s say that that writer (we’ll call him Joe Estzeras Jr.) calls him RIGHT IN THE MIDST of this phone battle, demanding that personal time come RIGHT NOW. Okay, now we have a real obstacle. He can’t call people if he’s stuck talking to Estzeras Jr. Friends? We have ourselves a real scene!

SUMMARY: Obviously, this is the famous scene from Jerry Maguire. But did you see how it looked before it got dramatized? Talk about boring. And yet I read DOZENS of those scenes every single day. Which goes to show just how important dramatizing a scene is!


Hopefully these examples have given you an idea of how to dramatize a scene. And while it may seem daunting at first, figuring out how to dramatize a scene actually becomes really fun! It’s like a puzzle where you’re constantly asking yourself, “What elements can I add to this scene to make it more dramatic?” Just remember, not all scenes have to be over the top dramatized. Just like any aspect of screenwriting, the level of dramatization will depend on the genre, the scene, the tone, the situation and dozens of other smaller factors. Sometimes you need to throw a big heavy dose of dramatization onto a scene (like the Jerry Maguire example) but other times it might be something simple – like a wife who’s upset with her husband but won’t tell him why. What you don’t want to is a write a scene without a single dramatic element to it. I cannot stress how often I read that type of scene though. So I’m telling you guys. START DRAMATIZING YOUR SCENES. Recognize how to dramatize.

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A fellow screenwriter who burst out of nowhere with a 750k sale returns with his newest spec, which sold last month.

Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Premise: A washed up hitman is pulled back into the game when his estranged son accidentally gets tangled up in a bad situation with his former employer.
About: Brad Ingelsby jumped onto the scene when he sold The Low Dweller a few years ago. The 750,000 dollar spec sale was spearheaded by getting Leonardo DiCpario attached. This is his new spec, which he just sold last month.
Writer: Brad Ingelsby
Details: 107 pages – 1/3/12 draft (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).

Collin Farrell for Mike?

What better word-lover to follow Tyler than ANOTHER word aficionado, Brad Ingelsby! With these two on the Hollywood Scrabble board, it’s like a word-topia. It’s like a word-a-palooza. I have a feeling if it was just me, Tyler, and Brad at a bar, I would quickly be nudged out of the conversation. They’d be like, “Carson, could you parsimoniously pass me my drink?” And I’d counter with one of six four-syllable words I know – something like “affirmative” – and that would be it. I’d be out.

Anyway, this is Ingelsby’s second big script. I may not have been The Low Dweller’s biggest cheerleader, but hey, you know me. It’s hard for a slow-paced script to pull me in. Maybe that same thought nudged into Ingelsby’s noggin, because he did title this one, “Run All Night.” Promises of something faster paced? Read on to find out.

Jimmy Conlon is a hitman in Philadelphia. To give you an idea of what Philadelphia's like – they boo Santa Clause there. No, I’m not kidding. Santa Clause showed up to an Eagles game once and they booed him. So the kind of people who live in this city? Not the huggable types. Important to know for later.

Anyway, Jimmy’s finally hung up the gun (do you hang up a gun) and spends his days in cushion land getting wasted all day. While I understand this is the de facto writing method for 30% of the screenwriters out there and can be really fun when combined with the internet, it definitely doesn’t suit our friend Jimmy. Clearly, he’s wasting away.

So Jimmy’s got a son, Mike, who he hasn’t stayed in touch with. Mike drives a limo. Has a family. Lives a clean life. He’s basically the opposite of his father.

That’s about to change, however. Mike is unknowingly tasked with bringing a couple of low-lives to a guy named Colin McGuire’s place, who’s also a low-life, but with lots more money and guns. And when these guys ask for their payment, Colin gives them a bullet sandwich instead (yes, I just used “bullet sandwich” in a sentence. Roll with me here. I’m still upset about being kicked out of Tyler and Brad’s conversation).

Once Colin realizes these guys came in a limo, well naturally he has to kill the limo driver too. Which is exactly what he tries to do. But Mike narrowly escapes. This leaves Colin with a problem. A virtual eye-witness to his murders. Now here’s where things get interesting. Jimmy, Mike’s father, used to work for Shawn McGuire – as in COLIN’S FATHER. That’s who he used to kill people for.

So now Mike has no choice but to go to his father and ask him what the hell he should do. Jimmy, back in business mode, says he’s going to try and take care of this diplomatically. So he calls his old boss, explaining that it’s all good – that his son isn’t going to say anything. But while this is happening, the loose-cannon Colin sneaks in to kill Mike. When Jimmy realizes what’s going on, he runs into the room, just as Colin is about to pull the trigger, and shoots him dead.

Jimmy then tells Shawn what happened – that he just killed his son. Shawn agrees that he did the right thing. If he were in his position, he would’ve pulled the trigger too. But he follows this with a really chilling sentence: You know how this has to end, right? Jimmy knows. So he grabs his son, and the two have to “run all night,” and not just from Shawn, but from everyone in the town that Shawn owns, which is everyone, including the cops. Will they make it out alive?

Run All Night starts with a very un-reader friendly gaggle of Irish names. Everybody’s named Shawn or Frank or Collin or Conlon or Maguire or Dorsey. My guess is Brad doesn’t read a lot of scripts or else he’d know how difficult it is for a reader to keep track of that kind of character spread. If I’m looking at a large character count, I’m using everything in my arsenal to make those names individual and memorable. I’ll use nicknames, unusual names, monikers (Fat Bill). I’ll push unimportant character intros to later so they don’t get lost in the slog. But it really gets hard if all the names are one nationality like this. I was checking my notes every 30 seconds to keep track of who was who.

But after that…Run All Night gets good. Really good in fact. I got goosebumps after Jimmy kills Colin, makes the call to Shawn to tell him he just killed his kid, and Shawn, somewhat understanding, replies, “You know how this has to end.” That was my official "sit up" moment (Whenever I sit up, it means a script's got me).

Brad also makes the wise decision – WHICH I ALWAYS TELL YOU GUYS TO DO – to create an unresolved relationship between Mike and Jimmy. Once you have an unresolved relationship, the audience emotionally invests themselves in the journey until it’s resolved. So it’s one more way to pull the audience in besides the cool plot of running from the bad guys. Was the relationship here a little too familiar at times? Yeah, probably. But Inglesby added just enough of his own spin to make me believe these two were real people with real issues.

And, you know, I always like when a writer throws in the wild card character. I remember how this very device SAVED a script that I would have otherwise forgotten. We also saw it work for Everly. Here, it’s Andrew Price, a trained killer who looks like he never outgrew his high school mathlete days. Shawn hires him to dispose of his son’s killers and boy does he pull out every trick in the book to do so. I don’t know what it is but there’s something about the wild card character that just shakes shit up. You don’t feel like you have as good of a beat on what’s going on. They create uncertainty and unpredictability and I love that.

Scriptshadow vets (not to exclude the Disciple newbies) may have also noted a key Scriptshadow truism– our character’s goal. Remember, if you just have the characters on the run the whole time, it’s probably going to get boring. Your characters need a purpose! They need somewhere to go! So Ingelsby uses the kid who witnessed the murder as the character goal. They need to find that kid so they can prove that Colin, did indeed, kill those men.

Did I love this goal? No, I didn’t “love” it. I kept flashing forward to the court room with Shawn using one of the best lawyers money can buy to discredit the shit out of this boy. So I think something stronger could be used. But the point is that there’s a goal in the first place. Beginner writers wouldn’t even use a goal in this scenario so the characters would just be running around aimlessly with the audience asking, “What’s the point of all this again? Where are they going?”

But I was definitely entertained bythis one. It feels like Ingelsby is growing as a writer. Let’s hope that continues cause he’s frighteningly talented.

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

What I learned: You never want your characters wandering around aimlessly for too long in these “on the run” movies. They can be running from someone. But within 2-3 scenes, you want to give them a plan, something to do – because wandering around aimlessly gets repetitive. For that reason, always be asking yourself, “What can my characters be *after*? What can they *need to do* right now?” The sooner they have a plan in place, the sooner your script gains that essential focus that all good screenplays have.