A Call for Questions - Robert Levine interview

I'm very pleased and excited to announce that this evening I will be interviewing Robert Levine, currently on staff at The Human Target as a writer/executive story editor. Levine was also a staff writer on Jericho and Harper's Island and he's writing the current Jericho comic book, which picks up from the end of the second season of the canceled show. His other credits include episodes of Judging Amy and Close to Home.

I've been prepping for this interview for a while and have reviewed all of Jericho and Harper's Island via DVD marathons over the last several weeks, but I figured it would be nice to put out a call for questions from you guys. I plan in interviewing Rob not only about his time on the shows, but also about how he got started in the world of TV writing and exactly what being a staff writer entails.

I can't promise there'll be time to cover every question submitted, but if there's anything you want to ask Rob about the shows he's working, the writing process for TV, or just writing in general leave it in the comments below.

Tuesday Talkback: InkTip

I've never had much direct experience with InkTip. For those of you who don't know, InkTip is a site where writers can pay $60 to have their script's logline and synopsis posted in an index accessed by industry professionals looking for scripts. In this way, if you have a low-budget cop-thriller script, a producer who's in the market for material like that can search the database for that genre. Then, presumably, they'll come across your logline and if it sounds like an intriguing concept, they'll request the script.

A friend of mine posted a few of his loglines on there some years back and despite a few nibbles from producers, it didn't really result in any positive movement for his career. Since then, I've gone over to the site a few times, but never really got up the nerve to post anything.

Some of my hesitation comes from an internet post I saw a while back, from a guy who purported to have once worked in development at one of the basic cable networks that often produces genre TV-Movies and miniseries. He claimed that when his bosses needed ideas, they'd tell him to comb InkTip for interesting premises that they could then steal and have one of their own writers use. Now, that claim might have carried more weight had the poster used his actual name, or been able to point to a specific example of a produced project being ripped off from the site. After all, that could just be a lie from someone looking to discredit InkTip.

But a few weeks ago I realized that there were probably more than a few of my readers who have used the service, and decided to put out the call for any success stories. Unfortunately, I received no true responses to that. In fact, the only user response I got from an aspiring writer was this one from Rob:

Inktip blows man marbles. I paid $60 and in 5 weeks I’ve had 4 small-time production companies glance at my logline. Nobody has read my synopsis or script. I advise avoiding it like a one-legged, thirteen year old, syphilis infested Thai hooker...on her period.

Colorful language aside, I felt bad about putting up a post denouncing InkTip when I had only the testimony of one reader. A producer who reads this site also responded that:

Re: InkTip - I've found them very proactive about pursuing producers. I get polite, informed, follow-up phone calls every time my assistant logs on and searches (once a blue moon) - it's a great idea - unfortunately there's no quality control so you get log lines like my favourite below!

"A growth on an arthritic old woman's elbow develops an appetite for her pets"

So consider this an open call for all experiences with InkTip, postive, negative or neutral. If you've used the site, sound-off in the comments and let us know if you felt it was a worthwhile purchase.

Rerun: Playing with Someone Else's Toys

I'll level with you guys, it's a holiday weekend and I've got so much other work to do that I didn't want to take the time to write up a new post. The next few weeks are going to be crammed with cool content - assuming all my planned interviews and projects go as they should this week. Thus, I don't feel too bad subjecting you to another rerun today. This post first appeared on Friday, Feb 20, 2009 and is called "Playing with Someone Else's Toys."

-------

When I was 10, my parents bought a video camera and, knowing my interest in film, they encouraged me to play with it and perhaps make a movie or two. Naturally, I did what any aspiring filmmaker my age would have done – I shot a fan-film for a movie series I loved, casting my friends in the iconic parts of that franchise. The plot was thin, and basically an assembly of some of my favorite moments and lines of dialogue from that series and there were maybe about two ounces of originality to it – my own mistakes.

So it’s not that I don’t understand the compulsion to remake a favorite movie, or to make a sequel to a favorite film. And I’m hardly alone in my urges. When he was 14, Len Wiseman apparently shot a backyard version of Die Hard. The thing is, that kind of fan fiction has a time and a place. When you’re ten, it’s no big deal to invest your time in writing and/or shooting your own James Bond or Star Wars sequel. But if you’re trying to break into the business, writing a sequel or a remake really isn’t the way to go about it.

When you’re writing a screenplay, presumably you want to sell it, and logically that means that you want to have as many potential buyers as possible. Just by way of example, an action-comedy with original characters is the sort of script you can take to any producer and any studio in town. But what if you decide you want to write the next Star Trek movie. Do you know how many potential buyers do you have in that case? One – the studio that owns the rights to the series, which in this case would be Paramount. And do you know what you are if Paramount reads and feels they’d like to “go in a different direction?” Screwed.

If you don’t hold the rights to what you’re writing about, don’t bother. Amazingly, I’ve seen several scripts over the years where wannabe writers have ignored that advice. Possibly the most ridiculous violation of this rule I saw was a script that was a misguided attempt to continue a 30 year-old action franchise by crossing it over with another 40 year old film! One of those films featured an actor long dead, and the other featured an actor who likely would never return to this signature role. Out of respect for the writer, I won’t post the specifics, but it was sort of like crossing over The French Connection with the original Gone in 60 Seconds. It would have been difficult enough to do a sequel to just one of those films, but with a crossover, this writer was putting himself in a situation where he couldn’t make a sale unless two completely different sets of producers and rights-holders signed off on the concept. This would have been a legal nightmare even if someone like Steven Spielberg or J.J. Abrams was determined to make it.

And let’s be realistic here – in the case of franchise films like those, the studio never is going to buy the latest sequel as a spec. Those kinds of tentpoles already have specific producers attached, and they’ll have considerable say in the hiring of a writer. Even if you manage to query the producers, it’s extremely unlikely that they’d be receptive to a script from an unproven outsider, and again, there’s still only one guy you can take that script to. As a writer, the franchise film isn’t something you can really go after until you’re inside the club. Then, either your agent will lobby to get you onto, say, the next Superman. Or the producers or studio behind said movie will come to you and say, “How’d you like a crack at Superman?”

If you don’t have any script sales to your name, you’re essentially an unproven writer and no one hands a franchise movie to those guys. It’s like writing for the school paper and then expecting to get hired as the main political writer at The New York Times. It just doesn’t happen.

So consider all that before you invest six months of your life writing a live-action adaptation of the 80s cartoon Jem and the Holograms or GoBots. In the end, you’re going to need your own idea and your own characters in order to break into this business.

Winner of the "I WILL Read Your F***ing Screenplay Contest"

Can I just say that I'm shocked by the response to my "I WILL read your f***ing Screenplay post earlier this week? All told, between the comments and direct e-mails, I got pitched 19 scripts! And in truth, just about every last one of them sounded mouth-wateringly awesomely bad, perfect for my purposes.

I know I said I was going to give it a week, but that was when I figured I'd get one at most, after several days. To be honest, I was even prepared to beg some of my friends for their worst writing or, failing that, haul out one of my own old specs and tear that apart. (The reason I didn't use mine in the first place is that I knew I could never be objective enough to be as savage as I wanted.)

A few submitters stood out. I was attracted to writers who had written many scripts since this first one. I knew that having at least three or four subsequent specs to their name would make them less attached to the spec script they submitted, and thus, they wouldn't take any shots at the script or the writing personally. I know that when I look back on my writing from ten years ago, I have no problem admitting when it's total shit. So if you came to me with just this spec to your name, or if you implied that you were looking forward to the chance to defend your writing after my review, I decided not to pick you.

Basically, if I got a sense that some part of you still thought the script was good, I didn't want to beat up on you. This will make sense when you see the review, but in some ways I might be going out of my way to be unfair to the script. I'd feel like a real dick doing that to writing that the author still had an emotional attachment to.

However, there were many, many scripts that sounded fully qualified for this contest, and so if we end up doing this again I invite all of you to resubmit. This makes me wish we had some sort of discussion board or archive of bad scripts because if so many of you guys are eager to share your work, it's a shame we can't all laugh together.

But without any further introduction, let's get to the winner. May I have the envelope please?

And the winner of the first-ever Bitter Script Reader "I WILL Read Your F***ing Screenplay Contest" is...

Joe Ollinger, for his 2003 spec "Blooming Season." Joe pitched this sci-fi film as "Space colonists flee their colony planet after an insanity plague breaks out, and then return to earth to find it super overpopulated and everyone's eating each other and shit."

Joe has kept writing since then, and has many other specs under his belt. We'll cover that in the eventual interview, which right now is scheduled to post the week of the 22nd. I haven't read the script yet, but I'm very much looking forward to it.

Friday Free-for-All: For the gents on Valentine's Day

[UPDATE 11:07 AM PST - Embedded video fixed]

I'm posting this as a public service to all men for Valentine's Day. This is a short film/commercial produced by Agent Provocateur, starring lingerie model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. It didn't air here in the States, but it's the sort of short-film/ad that I often find cool and wish was more in vogue. It's rare that commercials actually try to tell a story these days.

Those men with a girlfriend will probably appreciate the reminder not to forget Valentine's Day, and those men without a girlfriend will probably appreciate this ad for other reasons.



Probably not all that safe for work, so exercise caution. Ladies, if you demand equal time, feel free to post links in the comments.

Sex comedy week - Day 3: Bodily fluids aren't funny

Tuesday I invited everyone to comment on gross-out gags in sex comedies, and mentioned that two specific gags still gross me out to this day. I challenged the readers to guess which two gags they were. No one really took a stab at it, but they are:

1) Stifler drinking a semen-laced beer in American Pie

and

2) Austin Powers drinking Fat Bastard's shit in The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Humor is subjective, and I freely admit that there were probably viewers who found the whole thing hilarious. Both gags are based on similar premises - namely, that the victim's drink is laced with something disgusting that he's unaware of and the audience really hopes he doesn't drink. After several false starts, it seems like the character might not drink the disgusting concoction, only for them to gulp it down as the audience roars.

I will give the writers this, some thought went into the construction of the respective gags. It also seems that the writer's built up to these gags well enough that there was decent motivation for the payoff. It didn't feel like the writing session began with the mandate, "Let's have Austin drink shit!" However, I'd wager that 90% of the gross-out gags I read don't.

By the way, just assume I'm gagging as I type each paragraph. Like I said yesterday, just thinking about some of these gags makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

I wonder if bodily fluids gags are ever as funny as the writer thinks they are. Too often they feel just like that - gags. They serve no larger purpose in the script, they don't advance the characters and they don't have anything to do with the story thematically. The gag only flows from the writer saying "Hey, I figured out a great way to cover someone in semen!"

(And by the way, if I had ever made a list of "Things I never thought I'd type - especially in a forum I know my mother reads" the quoted portion of the sentence above would probably be near the top of it.)

A while back I read a script where some guys decide to have some fun with a sleeping friend. While he snores, they turn on a vacuum cleaner and set the tube so that it sucks his penis. That's only half the joke, as he suddenly starts to wake up. Panicking, his friends pull back the tube and try to shut off the the vacuum - but succeed only in going from suck to blow. Yep, that means that our poor guy who was just trying to take a nap ends up with a face full of semen.

Normally I'd feel bad about ruining such a seminal gag, but the fact is that even if such a joke were so unique that its mention here would force the writer to remove it, said removal would have absolutely NO impact on anything else in the story.

And why is semen the go-to fluid of choice lately? Is it just that American Pie seemingly broke that taboo and every urine joke has seemingly been told by now. I recall that one of the first slush pile scripts I ever read at my first internship dealt with a single woman who buys frozen sperm samples. Naturally, she kept these in the freezer and guess what happened when she threw a party and the guests realized they were running low on ice. Inspired isn't it? Then about two months later, I read virtually the exact same gag, except the set-up was that a guy was worried he'd be impotent after surgery so before he goes in, he freezes his semen in an ice cube tray.

Face it folks, you're not going to come up with an original way to deliver bodily fluids for laughs. I guess my point is that it isn't inherently funny to use semen or diarrhea in ways outside their normal context. Nor is just being gross justification enough in itself.

In the two produced examples I discussed above, the humor really comes from the close calls that the victim has with ingesting the fluid. That's where the comic tension lies. If Stifler immediately took a swig of his beer and gaged, it wouldn't be damn funny. Ideally, I'd ask you not to include such gags at all, but if you must I beg you to really ask yourself "Is this funny? Why is this funny?"

Words every comedy writer should hear - "Just because something makes you laugh doesn't mean it's funny."

I WILL read your f***ing screenplay!

Nary a week goes by when I don't get at least one request from someone to read their script. I always decline, for the reasons expressed in this earlier entry. I feel bad disappointing you guys, but that's pretty much the way it has to be.

Until now. One lucky reader will have the opportunity to get me to read their script - but there's a catch. I'm writing a piece for later this month, focused on the review of a flawed script. Yes, you read that right - "flawed."

I don't want to read the best and the brightest. I want to read someone's first script. I want to read one that includes many of the things I've railed against in my blog for the last year and a half. I don't want to give the whole ghost away, but trust me, there's a reason I need one that needs work.

So here's the deal, gang. For the next week, I will be accepting your queries for these flawed scripts. Send me a logline or a paragraph about your script and I'll weed through the premises and decide which script looks like the most fun for my project. Once I make my decision, I'll send you a release form and you'll have to email that back to me with your script.

The catch - you have to be cool with your writing being criticized in my article. I'm going to be brutal, possibly even biting in my criticism. If you know Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and how they used to mock the bad movies the characters were forced to watch, you'll probably have a read on the tone I'm going for

Why would anyone sign up for this brutality? Well, for one thing, after I post the article on everything wrong with the script, I'll also post an interview with the writer. They'll get a chance to talk about why the script came out the way it did, discuss how they've grown as a writer since then - and most of all, they get to pitch as many specs as they want.

Yep, if you want to promote your projects on a site with a readership that includes at least a few agents managers and producers, you can do that. The writer gets a free plug for their writing - or their blog, website or anything else of theirs they want to hype.

And all you have to do is turn me loose on your worst spec script. Don't worry, I'll make it clear in the article that this script isn't something the writer considers their best writing.

So who's game? Any takers?