Red: ”I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain… I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams…I hope.”
—Frank Darabont
The Shawshank Redemption
During my time as the head of the story department at Cinemobile Systems and Cine Artists, our film production company, I read more than two thousand screenplays and at least one hundred novels in my search for material. Since that time, some twenty-five years ago, I have read and evaluated thousands and thousands of screenplays. And in all that time, I have found only a few that were worthy of film production. And yet, in spite of my newly acquired cynicism, I pick up every new screenplay with the hope that this is going to be the one that will knock me on my ass. Believe it or not, I want that to happen—badly. Talk to any reader in Hollywood and he or she will probably tell you the same thing.
I am always looking for the “good read.”
What is a “good read”? I don't know how to define it exactly, I can only say that it is a dynamic reading experience that hits me with a visual style that unfolds in pictures. It “looks” a certain way, it “reads” a certain way, and it “feels” a certain way. A good screenplay works from page one, word one. Chinatown is a good read; so are The Shawshank Redemption, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Lord of the Rings.
What attracts me immediately is the way the words are put down on paper: crisp, sparse, and visual. I can tell whether the story is set up in the first few paragraphs. Does it open with a dynamic inciting incident? Does it grab my attention? Are the characters appealing, well-rounded, and three-dimensional? Is the premise and situation set up with insight and clarity in the first ten pages? Is there enough information presented to captivate me so I want to continue reading? Or is the story cluttered with too many characters, dense plots, and subplots?
When I find a “good read,” I know it; there's a certain excitement and energy that grabs me immediately, from page one, word one. What I'm looking for is a writing style that moves the action across the page like lightning. Where I can't help but keep turning pages, which, of course, is the screenwriter's function—to keep the reader turning pages.
And this, believe it or not, is the contradiction: nobody likes to read in Hollywood, yet everybody loves to read a good screenplay.
That's just the way it is. Things never change in that respect.
Why? Because there are so many poorly written screenplays; perhaps one out of a thousand is worthy of moving up to the next level of the executive chain. And when you find a “good read” everyone wants to read it, so it is faxed and emailed to development executives all over Hollywood.
So, what does the reader look for when he or she is evaluating the material? Several things. I thought it would be interesting to illustrate the reader's process when he or she is given a script to read. Every screenplay submitted goes through this same journey. If you are submitting a script to a studio or production company, this is what most likely will happen.
When the material is submitted, either by an authorized literary agent, or attorney, or producer, or director, it's given to a reader to read. (Unsolicited material is usually returned unread due to various legal issues.) The reader reads the script, then he or she writes up a short, detailed synopsis and offers his or her personal opinion of the material in a couple of pages. This is referred to as coverage. Coverage is a tool for the film executive who doesn't read the material but has to respond to the person who submitted it, either agents or producers or directors. Coverage includes the name of the writer, the particular genre, a logline (a brief, one-sentence description of the story), and various checkpoints on a chart which indicate the reader's judgment regarding the quality of material in terms of structure, character, story, dialogue, and overall writing ability. It is broken down in terms of: excellent, good, fair, and poor. I've taken the liberty of summarizing a reader's evaluation from a major film company and it's a pretty good reflection of what the reader looks for when assessing the material.
In this example, I've avoided using any names and titles. First, in the upper left-hand corner, there is the title, the author, and the genre, a one-word description of the type of story: action-adventure, love story, western, comedy, romantic comedy, farce, romance, drama, science fiction, animated, or futuristic. In this particular example, the genre is a romance with sad ending.
Second, there is a brief summary of the story, a logline, a four- or five-line description of what the story is about; in this instance the synopsis reads: “A beautiful, ambitious young attorney schemes to get ahead in a Chicago-based law firm. Her boss, married with three kids, falls in love with her. She subtly demands to be made a full partner, which ruins him politically. His marriage on the rocks, he leaves to start his own firm, making her a partner. Within weeks, he's begging his wife to take him back. Our girl steams ahead.”
That's what the story is about; it is the subject of the screenplay. (If you want to read good loglines, read the movie synopses in TV Guide. It's a good example of the way you need to “pitch” your story line.)
Third, after the logline, there is a one-and-a-half page detailed synopsis of the story, in depth and detail, which I have omitted.
Fourth, there is the reader's analysis, with structure and character emphasized. In this particular evaluation, the analysis is broken down into specific categories:
| I—Character | |
| a) Design: | A ruthless young career woman takes advantage of a middle-aged husband and father, and he abandons his family for her. |
| b) Development: | Almost good. The author must have it in for women. This is one of the bitchiest portrayals since Fatal Attraction, All About Eve, or Body Heat. The characters just don't ring true. They're not full enough. |
| II—Dialogue | |
| Fair. This may be Chicago but it's very small time. The dialogue here makes the cardinal sin of making everything obvious. The story is all told in dialogue. | |
| III—Structure | |
| a) Design: | A Lolita with brains works her way up the ladder in the legal world by manipulating her boss, a family man, and then dumping him once she's accomplished her primary goals. |
| b) Development: | Fair. Because it's all so obvious and soap-opera–oriented. The main character has no depth, and she's an unsympathetic character. |
| c) Pacing: | Good. Though there's no doubt about what's going to happen next, and very little dramatic tension. But it doesn't drag either. |
| d) Resolution: | Poor. The script suddenly ends. We are left up in the air. The poor husband goes crawling home and we never see the main character again. |
That's a brief summary of the analysis and evaluation of the reader's coverage of this particular screenplay. Then there is a Reader's recommendation, where the reader adds his or her impressions in a few sentences. In this case, the screenplay is: “Not recommended. A mediocre romantic drama in every respect. It's the unsympathetic portrait of a pushy, midwestern career woman. The ultimate point of the whole thing remains a mystery. It's downbeat, and totally without the black comedy textures one associates with others of the type. It's a cornbelt soap opera, not a feature film.”
As short and curt as this coverage is, it is what every studio executive, agent, and movie producer reads to form their opinion.
You might ask yourself what the reader is going to say about your screenplay. If you look at it from the reader's point of view, there's always another script to read; usually the pile on the desk is about two feet high.
Today, more people are writing screenplays than ever before and the popularity of screenwriting and filmmaking has become an integral part of our society and culture. Last year some seventy-five thousand screenplays and teleplays were registered at the Writers Guild of America, West and East. Out of all these, some four hundred and fifty films were produced, either in Hollywood as major studio productions, or by various independent film companies. You do the math.
Within the next few years, the number of people writing for the visual media will probably double and triple in size. And it's only going to expand exponentially as the evolution/revolution of technology impacts the world and the way we see things. It seems this is the only time in human history where we have created a technology which our children are teaching us how to use.
Today, we are entering a new phase of visual storytelling. The two most popular majors on college campuses are business and film. And the dramatic rise of computer technology and computer-graphic imagery, along with the expanded influence of MTV, reality TV, iPods, Xbox, PlayStation, new wireless LAN technology, and more, are shaping an international cinematic revolution. Already, we are making short films on our cell phones, so we can email them to friends and family, then project them on plasma TV monitors. Clearly, we have evolved in the way we see things.
My two nephews, aged ten and eight respectively, made a surprise birthday video on their computers for their father that displayed an incredible understanding of storytelling with pictures. Needless to say, I was knocked out. They were thinking visually in new ways, fusing an understanding of their source material into a little six-minute film that utilized photographs, video, computer graphics (self-made), live interviews, music cues, and old family footage, and integrated them all into a remarkable visual experience.
The marketplace for the screenwriter is changing drastically and the need for new directions in terms of visual storytelling is in its infancy. Right now, television programming is being made and distributed specifically for our cell phones and iPods. Already, companies are looking to produce specialized material for the vast number of markets that will be available.
The vast constellation of Hollywood production companies is also changing to fit the needs of these new technologies. It won't be too long before the entire motion picture and television market will be something other than what it is today. No one knows exactly what this market will be, domestic or international, but one thing is certain: the opportunities for the screenwriter and visual storytelling will be enormous.
If you're serious about writing a screenplay, now is the time to sharpen your skills and perfect your craft.
The future is now.
A lot of people tell me they want to write screenplays. They call me, write me, badger me, finally join a workshop, then two or three weeks later drop out without a word. Their commitment, to themselves and their writing, is zero. Action is character; who a person is is what he does, not what he says.
If you're going to do it, do it.
That's what this book is about. It is both a guide and a tool. You may read this book a hundred times, but until you put it down and do the exercises and deal with the blank sheet of paper, you're only going to be thinking about writing a screenplay and not actually writing it.
It takes time, patience, effort, and commitment to write a screenplay. Are you willing to make that commitment to yourself ? Are you willing to learn and make mistakes? To do some terrible writing? Are you willing to do the best job you can even if it doesn't work? The things you try that don't work will always show you what does work.
What's really important about writing a screenplay is doing it. First, set yourself a goal, then create an intention about what kind of writing experience you intend to create for yourself. Then do the exercises at the end of each chapter, one at a time, and soon you'll achieve what you set out to do. That's what this is all about.
In my workshops, after people complete their first-draft screenplay, everybody applauds. It is our acknowledgment of the time, dedication, and commitment to the work they have done, along with the toil, effort, pain, and joy that goes into the writing experience.
The Screenwriter's Workbook is a guide that leads you through the screenwriting process. The more you put in, the more you're going to get out. That's a natural law.
“True art,” Jean Renoir once told me, “is in the doing of it.”
Writing is a personal responsibility; either you do it, or you don't.
It's your choice.