The advice and rantings of a former Hollywood script reader turned TV writer (SUPERMAN AND LOIS) who is tired of seeing screenwriters make the same mistakes, saving the world from bad writing one screenplay at a time. Learn what it takes to get your script past one of these mythical Gatekeepers.
I didn't get out to the movies this weekend, but I saw a lot of reviews that basically said the same thing about it - that they basically took the first movie and moved it to Bangkok. Having seen the trailer, I wasn't too surprised by that because it revealed the set-up was the guys wake up after another night of being plastered, can't remember anything and have to retrace their steps.
Not having seen the movie, I feel like that's potentially the laziest excuse for a sequel they could have come up with. It would be like if Back to the Future part II had sent Marty again into his parents' past where he somehow put his own existence in jeopardy again. (Sidebar: I think BTTF part II's decision to "give the audience exactly what they liked about the first film" by sending Marty and Doc back to that same night in 1955, but with an entirely different complication to resolve was rather brilliant.)
But perhaps this is a case where execution trumps concept. I can't really say until I see it.
But what do you expect from a sequel? Do you want essentially the same film in a new box (like the various Friday the 13th sequels and it's ilk?) Do you want an entirely new take on the concept, such as how Aliens went in a very different direction from Alien? Do you want a continuation of the first film that elevates the series mythology to a more epic level, like Empire Strikes Back?
What do you love about sequels and what do you hate?
Originally I was going to save this one for next week, but we're already getting an interesting talk going over on the Facebook page, so as we're inching closer to the official start of summer, why not head towards the weekend with a blog inspired by a swimsuit?
What provoked this thought was a Yahoo article I stumbled across earlier this week. It was about Phoebe Cates, and for at least a generation's worth of you, I probably don't need to offer further explanation. For people - mostly men - of a certain age, that name might conjure up memories of Gremlins, but it'll probably make you think of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. As the article notes: "Perhaps the most famous scene in which the bikini plays a starring role came in the 1982 comedy classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Actress Phoebe Cates wears a red two-piece while lounging at her friend's pool after school. Though the film is nearly 30 years old, online interest in the iconic scene remains red-hot."
I'd argue that the scene is famous not because Phoebe wears the bikini, but because she takes it off. Supposedly video stores in the 80s had to regularly replace their VHS cassettes of Fast Times because of "tracking problems" during the scene in question. (For my younger readers - that means that the videocassette was being worn out at that particular spot, likely because of excessive slo-mo and freeze-framing of that portion of the tape.)
Granted, times have changed and DVDs have replaced VHS, but I'm honestly at a loss to think of what this generation's "Phoebe Cates scene" is. Can you think of any film in the last decade that was purchased or rented largely for its T&A, to the point that the actress's name is synonymous with that scene?
The Yahoo article had their own picks for best bikini scenes. It's interesting, because out of 11 scenes, I could only peg three as iconic.
Ursella Andress in Dr. No. Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi
Interestingly, the most recent scene on that list is Jedi at nearly 30 years old. Andress' scene was so iconic that they had Halle Berry rip it off in a later Bond film, Welch's cavegirl bikini was a popular pin-up, and Fisher's Slave Leia sent a generation of Star Wars fans into puberty, becoming a popular costume at Comic-Con.
The remaining eight picks in Yahoo are certainly of attractive women, but not memorable in the same way: Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life Jessica Alba in Into the Blue Cameron Diaz and Demi Moore in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle Kristen Bell in Forgetting Sarah Marshall Salma Hayak in From Dusk 'Til Dawn Kate Bosworth & Michelle Rodriguez in Blue Crush Brooklyn Decker in Just Go With It Halle Berry in Die Another Day
Can you imagine any of those scenes being homaged 30 years later? Did any of those scenes spawn popular pin-ups, or become so memorable that when you mention that actress, that scene is what springs to mind? Frankly, most of these scenes are more along the lines of what I read virutally every week, eye candy with no deeper context. Empty calories.
(Also, to give most of the actresses on this second list credit, they've largely had more successful careers than Cates and the other actresses on the first list. Actresses like Moore and Bell have a strong body of work that overshadows their bodies.)
One Facebook follower came up with the same theory I have as to why the last ten or fifteen years of film has been light on these sort of moments, saying "With internet porn, there may never be another Cates' scene, again." True - Fast Times was a popular rental because it was something that a teenage kid could get his hands on in a time when naked breasts weren't a Google search away. I'm sure that had something to do with the scene's popularity. Surely the other three on the first list benefitted from being risque images either during a more conservative time (Andress and Welch), or being in a family-friendly film (Fisher.)
So with all of this in mind, I'm going to turn it over to you guys. First, are there any more recent scenes like this you think deserve to be called iconic? And then tell me what you think makes an iconic moment like this. I've bitched about T&A done wrong - how would you guys do it right?
I got an email this week from a reader named David, in response to this earlier post:
I am by no means an expert on this topic, but I think what you've been saying in the past couple of posts is only partially correct.
The companies that own the rights to these songs license them out on a sliding scale based on the production budget. So yes, NBC or FOX would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to use a song in 30 Rock or Glee, but that's because those shows have 7-figure budgets per episode. A feature with a $100,000 budget, I'm almost positive, could license that exact same song for a fraction of the cost.
Again, I'm not an expert on this, and I imagine there are lots of caveats to this - for example, if the artist owns the rights to his own material, you will be facing a very different scenario than if you're dealing with BMG. But that is a rare occurrence. And I do know that several years ago I produced a no-budget play and got the synchronization rights to three very well-known songs for the low low price of free.
When do you think a remake is appropriate? What conditions/qualities need to be present/met in the original? In the remake?
My personal feeling is that there are few good reasons to remake a good movie. Would anything be gained by remaking Star Wars? ET? Back to the Future? If the original is already timeless, remaking it is a losing game.
In the case where the original film was based on other source material, then there might be room for reinterpretation - particularly in cases where the original adaptation took some liberties with the source material. Thus, I could see someone justifying a remake of To Kill a Mockingbird... but would it be wise to remake Gone With the Wind? I've long thought that you could get an interesting movie out of re-adapting The Wizard of Oz so that it's more faithful to the book. However, the problem there is that the original is SO iconic that the filmmakers would probably be facing an uphill battle.
I think there's more justification for remaking a film that might have had an interesting idea, but unsuccessful execution the first time around. If there's something new to be said with the material - a different tone, a reexamination of how the old themes play in a new, modern context - it also gives more justification for the remake.
Most of the time, though, the studio finds remakes attractive because they're pre-sold... so remaking a bomb would run counter to that desire. Having said that, I'd love to remake I Know What You Did Last Summer the way it was meant to be.
I got a Twitter question last week from @MichaelBrettler
"Script reader here as well. Any advice on reading for a company and writing at same time? Hard not to become disillusioned."
Believe me, I know where you're coming from. When I first went freelance and was reading for two companies, I had more scripts than I knew what to deal with. After a week of reading 12-15 scripts, the last thing I wanted to do was start working on my own. It's really hard to get the creative juices going because reading so much bad stuff can often be draining.
What I eventually decided to do was I'd shift to working 4 days a week and then I'd either try to write the other three days, or I'd take one day completely off from writing, and then just devote myself to the script for the remaining two. This meant that on those four-day weeks, I was probably putting in a lot more hours than on the 5-day work weeks.
But if you've got a 9-7 job at a company, it's a little trickier finding time to write for yourself. More than likely, you've got scripts you need to read when you get home at night and then just when you think you'll get free time on the weekend, you get hit with another three or four. And yes, very few of them are good.
I'd say the first thing you need to figure out is your time management. How many scripts are you dealing with per day? How many scripts will you have to deal with per weekend? There's also a better question: How few scripts can you get away with doing per day and per weekend?
If the President of Development drops four scripts on you at 7pm Friday, will he follow up first thing in the morning on Monday? Or is he likely to not check in until late afternoon or even Tuesday? On top of that, how soon will you get more scripts on Monday? I had a boss who had a habit of giving me three scripts on Friday afternoons, but then I'd get nothing at all on Monday. I figured out pretty quickly that I should just read the scripts over the weekend, and then do the write-ups throughout the day on Monday.
(But I ALWAYS read over the weekend... just in case this individual asked me Monday morning what I thought of a script. Often, unless it's a CONSIDER, you can get away with a brief verbal summary and review, and then tell them the write-up will be to them at the end of the day.)
So once you've got that worked out, you can start figuring out a schedule for working on your own ideas. Set a schedule and stick to it. Sometimes that might mean you spend most of a weekend staring at your screen or pacing your room thinking of ideas. Self-discipline is key here.
Ah, but I still haven't addressed "Burn-out." Let's face it, most of what you read is crap - but hopefully you're getting professional submissions that are crap in just the right way. The story ideas might be horribly derivative, the dialogue flat... but it all conforms to the basic three-act structure. If you're really lucky, the hack has studied Save the Cat and is religious about his beats.
Why is this a good thing? Because it makes this bad script VERY easy to skim or speed read.
And then there's the other technique....
Let's assume the script is 100 pages. Read the first fifteen pages. Then check in around p. 25-30. Then check in around p. 45. Then p. 60. Then p. 75. Then read p. 90-100.
Nine times out of ten, you'll be able to follow the story well enough to get decent coverage on the premise. And better still, you won't have lost quite so much time on it.
I can already imagine the angry comments I'm going to get from that lesson. Cold hard fact - I was taught that by a VP of Development with decades of experience under his belt. I should note that this technique is never applied when we can tell the writing is any good. (And if you've gotten to p. 15, you should be able to make that call. You'll probably even be able to hash out what the concept is - and with those two factors in play, you'll know if this is something your company's interested in.)
So when the writing's good and the premise is awesome, you bet your ass we read the whole thing. If it's a rom-com and the big boss has just made it clear he's not into those, it gets the skim read with a clear conscience (unless the writing is awesome, in which case it'll probably get a "CONSIDER FOR WRITER" and lead to that writer being called in for a meeting.)
So that's how I suggest keeping your sanity - don't let the bad scripts get to you. You're no good to yourself as a writer, and you're no good to your bosses if you burn out reading bad period pieces or hackneyed teen horror. Between that and time management you might find it possible to get your muse back.
Yesterday I talked about the high cost of using music in your spec. Performance rights apparently can be $40,000 or more, and using a famous recording of a song can sometimes cost as much as (cue Dr. Evil) One. Million. Dollars.
As you might expect, this can lead to some major budget issues. I don't doubt that many filmmakers have had to agonize over if their million dollar song was worth the cost. The right song can make for a memorable scene - though there are certainly times where the use of a particular song or four can feel self-indulgent. (Paging Mark Webb...)
So what movie songs were worth it in your estimation? (Note: I'm not talking about songs written especially for a film, like most Disney songs, for instance.)
"Don't Stop Me Now" in Shaun of the Dead? "In Your Eyes" in Say Anything... ? "Twist and Shout" in Ferris Bueller's Day Off? "Secret Garden" in Jerry Maguire?
I know in the past you advised against putting songs in a spec script because of licensing, and especially don't make almost the entire plot revolve around one song (The name of the girl that broke the Protagonists heart was "Mary Ann" so you used More Than a Feeling that's so original!) I'm toying with the idea of doing a movie based on a group of karaoke singers. I know that a karaoke version of a song is different, and if I remember correctly the rights to the karaoke version of a song are considerably cheaper. I would make all the songs random and have nothing tie in with the plot. Do you think it'd be worth a shot or should I just keep it in my notebook?
As always, I'm not a lawyer, so there might be something I'm missing here, but here are the issues you'll need to consider.
There are two kinds of music licensing that filmmakers need to be aware of:
Synchronization rights - this is the right to use an existing recording of a song in your film. If I want to play Boston's version of "More than a Feeling," these are the rights I need to purchase. As you might expect, with desirable songs and protective artists, obtaining this license could very easily be prohibitively expensive.
Performance rights - Essentially, this is where you purchase the rights to record or perform your own version of an existing song. (I've seen some books that refer to this as "publishing rights" as well.) In your karaoke movie, these are the rights you'd be going after. Sometimes, when it's not too expensive to get performance rights, you'll notice that some TV shows/Movies/Commercials purchase those and then hire a soundalike band to perform a cover version.
In theory, this should be cheaper - but some songs can be incredibly expensive at this level. Watch this interview with Tina Fey where she marvels at how much it must cost for Glee to get the rights to all the songs they use and tells how it cost her show, 30 Rock, $40,000 to get the rights to sing two lines of a parody version of "Night Moves."
(There's a misconception that if you do a parody, you don't have to pay. As I understand it - and again, I'm not a lawyer - it's true that you don't have to pay rights for the lyrics... but if you're using the precise melody without licensing it, I'm pretty sure the composer is owed some cash.)
$40,000... for ONE song.
This is a movie about karaoke performers, so let's assume you're going to use 10 songs, and that the $40,000 is more or less the average cost per song. (You might get a break on some, you might decide there's a song you really want and pay more.) Total music budget is suddenly $400,000.
Movies cost so much that perhaps that number seems meaningless. I'm going to try to put it in perspective. Do you know how much the minimum payment is for a screenwriter for an independent original low-budget screenplay? (Defined as $5 million or lower): $42, 930.
Yeah, it costs almost as much for ONE song as it does to pay the writer.
Any budget over $5 million nets the writer a minimum of: $87,879 for an independently-produced screenplay.
Consider the actor budget as well. SAG's indie rates for a low-budget film (which they define as less than $2.5 million) is a day rate of $504 or a weekly rate of $1752. (Info here.)
The non-indie rate appears to be $809 per day and $2,808 per week. (Per this.)
So I think you can quickly see the disparity here. Even if the film you write gets purchased by a studio, in theory, the music performance rights can still cost substantially more than the producers would need to spend on the talent. That right there should give you an idea of why such a big deal is made over a three-minute song - it's a comparative budget suck!
Obviously there have been plenty of low-budget movies made that paid above those minimums to secure talent that was a draw, and that probably shelled out some cash for songs that mattered to them. The bottom line is - it cost them. For some, it might well have been worth the headache to go through that for one or two songs.
But a karaoke script - with multiple cover songs? Unless you're lucky like Glee and can count a number of musicians among your fans, and thus, can count on getting a break on the licensing, music can cost a pretty penny.
Fey notes that using music got so expensive for their show that they've had to start writing their own songs that are reminiscent of other songs. This is a network show, presumably with a decent amount of cash to throw around per episode, and they still have to make these decisions for performance rights!
It's your call if you think your script is strong enough to take a gamble on. I'm just pointing out some things to consider.
Before I was a TV writer (Superman and Lois), I read scripts in Hollywood for over ten years. In that time I worked for Oscar-winning production companies, and one of the "Big Five" agencies, among others. I'm here to share what I've learned.... mostly because I'm sick of reading bad scripts.
I was the guy you need to get past at the agencies and production companies; the first one in the office to read the script.
Please NO requests to read your material. All such queries will be ignored and deleted unread.
I do NOT have a notes service so please don't send me an email asking about rates. And in case it wasn't clear the first time - DO NOT ASK ME TO READ YOUR SCRIPT!
