LemonOrangeBanana

Boardroom = Bored Room

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Richter) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:22:00 +0000

If you want to bore everyone in the room, you can find no better place to set a scene than a boardroom. They're deadly. There are a number of reasons why you've just created a soft-spot in your script.

No one likes meetings. Dave Barry says,“Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot masturbate.” People (your audience members) are likely to have attended a meeting or two that week and if they want to sit around and not masturbate, they can do that at work. People go to the movies for fantasy and escape. Keep your boardroom scene if it can deliver both of those two missions. You need to rethink the setting if you're not enabling some epic wish fulfillment.

Movies are about motion. Things need to be kinetic. A boardroom is a place where people go to sit and talk. Imagine Yoda trying to explain the Force to Luke by calling a meeting and sitting down to discuss it before attempting to levitate fighters out of the swamp. Throw in a Power Point presentation where slides illustrate the dynamics of the Force. How it moves through us and around us. How it's everywhere. Really try to imagine how this would go down... Now think about how it was shown in the film. They were doing stuff while they were debating stuff. Luke is upside down lifting rocks in the air while arguing why he's got to save his friends. Sit and talk = boring. Do and debate = interesting.

There have been plenty of movies that have done the meeting room. Some better than others. Office Space is one long wish fulfillment movie where the entire function of the working world is turned on its head and relies on the audience's intimate understanding of the work world. It fulfills the promise of providing escape and fantasy. Watch Working Girl. They had to get creative. The whole movie is about business, so they were stuck with this as a major motif. But they had fun with it and kept things very interesting. Each version of a meeting seems more outlandish than the last... all without having anyone freak out and run across the top of the table to leap at someone or jump out the window.

If you've got a boardroom scene, it better be set there because that's the worst possible place for your characters to be at that moment. Think about the words that are being spoken by your characters. Can they be said while careening through traffic in a car with no brakes? Or while levitating rocks while standing on their heads? Still sure you have to set it in the boardroom? Why? It better be for more than a sight gag or a joke. There better be earth shattering news delivered to your character that exposes their powerlessness.

If you're sure you need to keep this setting, you have your work cut out for you. It better be surprising, fresh, compelling, and real. Anything less is just a yawn.

The ABCs of Character Names

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Richter) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:03:00 +0000

It might seem like I'm talking about complex naming schemes that require simplification when I mention the ABCs of character names, but I'm actually being very literal here.

If Mike loves Marni but Marni love Mark and Mark and Mike are best friends from their college days at Michigan... Ugh, and there are another 98 pages to slog through? It can quickly feel like this screenplay was brought to you by the letter M and we're trapped in an episode of Sesame Street. God help you if you've got a character named Aunt Mary who shows up at the end of act one with molasses cookies and sage advice.

I can hear it now... Aunt Mary's name starts with an A. Really? You think Aunt Mary's friends, parents and co-workers all call her Aunt Mary? I have actually had writers argue with me about this. Imaging her lover, as he's about to climax, yells out with grunting passion, "Aunt Mary! I love you!" If that picture didn't creep you out just a little, you've got bigger problems than the letter M.

You also want to minimize confusion for the reader who might find it challenging to follow who is doing what to whom and why. Remember, this reader has to write up a summary of your story for his or her boss. If the synopsis looks like a primary school lesson, you're going to get ignored. Part of your job is to make it easy for the reader to be a fan of your work. Alliterative writing pulls the reader out of the story. Is this supposed to be funny? Is this for kids? Is this a clue? Then, when it fails to pay off, it reveals an inattention to detail. That tiny assessment throws you and your script on the heap with the other amateurs.

Do yourself a favor. When you start naming characters write out the alphabet twice on a piece of paper. Above one set write: First name. Above the other write, you guessed it: Last name. As you use each letter, cross it off. If you've got a story about a family, many of them will have the same last name, but the people who live next door or the principal should have different sounding names.

Make it easy for the reader to love you and your work!

Coverage is Forever

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Richter) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:10:00 +0000

How long will a company hold onto the coverage for your script? Forever. Cue the orchestra, get Shirley Bassey, set it to music - Coverage Is Forever. No kidding.

When your manager thinks it's a good idea to change the title of your screenplay and resubmit it to the agency as a clever way to get around that crappy reader who just didn't get you -- Stop. Fire your manager. He or she has not one clue as to how agencies manage the material that's sent to them.

That snot nosed reader who said your action flick put them to sleep will wind up getting your renamed script because they already have a sense of your style. Guess who looks like the asshole when the reader reports back that this script is exactly the same as the last one, save one difference - the new title? You will. Not your manager.

Imagine a scenario where your manager requests a different reader. It happens. Or the original snot nosed kid isn't available (Spring break in Cabo, y'all). Guess what happens now? When the hand over the script to the new reader, they also include copies of previous coverage.

The point I'm trying to make is, it's not good enough to have family, friends or even fellow screenwriters (especially if they're not produced) do a read through of your latest and greatest. You've got to get real insight. This will almost assuredly result in notes that urge you to do a rewrite before going forward. This will mean you have to go back to work before it gets sent off to CAA or WME... ICM should be ok once they work out their issues over there...

Paying someone a couple hundred bucks and taking an extra couple weeks to polish your script will be worth it in the end. Because the weak drafts you turn in now will haunt you for the rest of your days, because...

(cue the orchestra)
...Coverage is Forever!

You Want Craft Services? I Got Your Craft Services Right Here...

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Richter) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:52:00 +0000

My mother likes to say that an Irish army moves on its stomach. What this means is that the troops will work hard if the food is plentiful. With a little luck, it's also good. The same can be said of running a happy film set. In the movie biz this component of keeping the army of technicians and artists happy has a special name -- it's called craft services. This where folks go to get snacks to keep their blood sugar and morale up during the grueling work on some pretty strange locations. The usual fare includes stuff like pretzels, fresh fruit, odd beverages and big-ass buckets of Twizzlers. You know, the kind from Costco. Beef jerky is also bizarrely popular. Don't ask me why.

Recently, I was lucky enough to work on a small shoot with some great people from DGL Entertainment. I've worked on a number of shoots but I have to say, I think this was by far one of the most pleasant crews I've ever had the pleasure to know. Cross your fingers that the project goes through -- mama needs a new pair of shoes!

We were putting something together that didn't require an army per se, but craft services were still part of the deal. The producer, Kevin Roberts, kept things relaxed and even allowed me to interview him on the craft services that were available. Although none of us knows the fate of the show, we had a good time. It's nice to work with professionals who know how to take care of their people (and have a sense of humor.)

Thanks, K-Rob (aka Kevin Roberts), for being such a great sport! You give the term "working for peanuts" a whole new meaning.

Passive vs Active Protagonist

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Richter) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:30:00 +0000

One of the things I come across when I do coverage is the passive protagonist. I think that most of the time, we want so much for our main characters to be likeable that we give all the challenging work and decisions to the supporting characters. Soon, we'll care more about the supporting characters than the central figure. Think Han Solo vs Luke Skywalker. There's more to why we like Han so much -- he shoots first and maybe he asks questions later. Maybe.

Does your protagonist ask a lot of questions? Take Sherlock Holmes. He's a detective who investigates gruesome crime scenes. Yet take a moment to notice something... It's not Sherlock who's asking all the questions. More often than not, it's Watson. Through answering the questions, Sherlock's genius is revealed. When we're talking about Robert Downey, Jr.'s Sherlock, when in doubt - he dons a disguise and chases down the info he seeks. That's an active protagonist.

Go back and look at your script and find the places where your hero is asking questions. What is it you want your audience to know about that question and that answer? Maybe you'll decide the best choice is to go with the interrogation -- we wouldn't have "You can't handle the truth!" scene without questions but I challenge you to count how many questions Kaffee actually asks. It's far fewer than you might imagine. He makes statements and challenges his witnesses. He's not necessarily in control, but he's trying and than makes him an active protagonist.

See for yourself. How many questions Kaffee asks Jessup from the point where the Judge tells Jessup to "And the witness will address this Court as Judge or Your Honor. I'm quite certain I've earned it. Take your seat, Colonel." through to "You're goddamned right I did!" [I'm looking for the # of question marks used in Kaffee's dialogue only.] -- I'll do coverage gratis for the first person who replies with the right answer.