A fairly popular question when people find out what I do for a living is "What's the worst script you ever read?" Honestly, after a decade in L.A., the vast majority of scripts I've read have faded far from memory. There are the ridiculously awful ones that are impossible to erase, though. This is the story of perhaps the most memorably awful of those.
My mom wrote that script, you bastard.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThat screenplay was too good for your enemies.
ReplyDeleteWere you given this on an April 1st?
ReplyDeleteHow did you write you're follow-up for your bosses? Was it simple like: "no...no...no...don't go NEAR this thing." Or did you have to list every problem you came across along with full coverage?
If you had another job lined up or had won the lottery earlier in the day, would you label "recommend" then laugh your way out the door?
Just curious....
An interesting companion piece to this would be the script that just outright angered you. I imagine there are some like the script you mentioned that you can come back to later and laugh, but I also imagine there are a few where you rue the day you were handed the darn thing.
ReplyDeleteAs I watched this video, I just kept saying "Oh God" over and over.
ReplyDeleteThat's what she sa--- oh. that IS what she said.
DeleteBut you wrote a script like that when you were "first starting out" didn't you, Emily...?
DeleteEmily Emily put down that cleaver
Today there are only two kinds of scripts: Those like the ones just described, and those that strictly adhere to the Blake Snyder "rules," and are therefore completely identical and deathly dull.
ReplyDeleteIronically, this sock puppet comment is as unoriginal and hackneyed as the fictitious scripts it purports to attack.
DeleteI wonder if you've ever received a script with all the no-no's (cover letter, cast of chars, marketing strategy...) but then the actual script turned out to be pretty good.
ReplyDeleteNever with ALL the no-nos but it happens now and then that a writer does something that conventional logic says shouldn't work, yet somehow it does.
DeleteRegardless of what anyone may think, all of your points are right on. NEVER tell the director how to direct, NEVER tell the marketing team how to market, etc. If it's part of a package that's one thing, but not in this context.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to our universe. Everyone is writing a low-budget indie script now....and then they go through the production guide and wind up contacting the camera guy who lives with me....
ReplyDeleteAs awful as this script sounds....we get ones that we can't even read due to bad formatting, spelling, grammar or sometimes (Trifecta!) all three.
It's always kind of stunning to read a script where the writer never really thought to even put it through spell check....you'd think it's the least they could do....