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And don’t forget you can subscribe to our posts so you don’t miss any of this, ever.

• Bill Martell celebrates 50 years of NORTH BY NORTH WEST
• Take some time out at film school with Mystery Man
• Download American Beauty and Chinatown screenplays.
• How to make a Charlie Kaufman movie (if you really wanted)
• A movie is ultimately made in the edit. Why not write for the edit
• How to sell? Here’s the answer. Or rather: 101 answers.
• Pitch to yourself! After all, you are your worst critic.
• Did you ever stop to think the villian thinks he’s the good guy?
• Dropping product names, okay?
• Your first draft always sucks. Finish what you started.
• Where Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer went wrong, so wrong
• Pixar writer/director Pete Docter: “A completely messy hodgepodge”
• How to write for editors: the last rewriters of the show.

With thanks to Sol.

Enjoy!

Karel

In 2006, I hooked up with producer Michael Robertson when he was in pre-production on the croc-thriller movie Black Water. After more than a decade of writing for TV and short films in the UK, but never managing to get a feature going, I was about to have the best meeting of my life.

Michael told me three things. They were making Black Water for around $1.3m. If it was successful (it ended up selling to 71 territories), then the financiers would want to do another film. “And this,” said Michael, “is where you come in…” If I came up with a genre film that could be shot for $2m or less, then he would make it.

Two and a half years later, Michael was true to his word. On May 11th 2009, the cameras rolled on the production of my supernatural thriller Road Train.

Michael’s list of must-haves for a successful low budget genre movie was simple – high concept, small cast, limited locations, few or no special effects, and (ideally) no night shooting. The first four I had no problem with, but as I knew I wanted to do a supernatural thriller, the idea of no night shooting had me scratching my head. Typically, in these kinds of films, the nighttime is where all the scary stuff happens.

And so, in the true spirit of low budget filmmaking, I made a stylistic plus out of a necessity, and made all the scary stuff happen in the blazing desert sunshine. Indeed, the entire story takes place within a twelve-hour period, and it makes for a very compressed, dramatic storyline.

After I came up with a basic outline for Road Train, Michael made up postcards featuring a mock up poster, a strap line (‘Never, Ever Leave Your Vehicle’), and a 200-word blurb for what we were planning. (Check out the Prodigy Movies website to see what I’m talking about.)

Michael took the postcards to Cannes in 2007 and flashed them around … and the financiers said yes! Michael then put his hand in his own pocket (bless him) and paid me to write the script.

Researching the script, as usual, came down to three areas – experts, characters, and what I like to call ‘walking the ground’. ‘Walking the ground’ involved a trip to Dubbo NSW, to hang out with truckies, and included a six-hour trip in a road train. My experts – people whose brains I could pick about what they do – included a truckie (obviously), a serious camper for the camping-in-the-outback stuff, and a doctor for the effects of dehydration on the characters. Character research involved pulling together aspects of different people I knew, in order to create written character backstories.

I did about three drafts for Michael over eight months, before director Dean Francis came on board. Dean was the catalyst for turning an already good script into a great one, by being very clear about what needed to be left alone, and what still needed more work. Michael approached Screen Australia with the new version of the script and the private money attached, and Screen Australia agreed to put up the other half of the budget.

While the original private money eventually fell victim to the credit crunch, other private money and the South Australia Film Commission came in to make up the shortfall.

So, two years from (literally) an idea on the back of a postcard to the cameras turning – a mere blink of an eye in the world of film financing. Hopefully, at the end of it all we’ll have a small-but-perfectly formed Aussie genre film that, like Black Water, punches well above its weight – one that finds an audience both here and internationally.

I’m looking forward to visiting the production later this month, and will keep you posted on developments.

-Clive Hopkins

Prior to ROAD TRAIN, Clive Hopkins’ main claim to fame was as the writer of Oscar nominated short film, HOLIDAY ROMANCE.

Last year she worked with Michael Hauge as part of Inscription.

Last month Tracy traveled South to attend the NSC in Adelaide.
As a guest blogger on The Story Department, she gives us a de-brief.

“As an unproduced writer it was a huge outlay to attend the National Screenwriter’s Conference in Adelaide in February. Did I get my $1,000 worth? You bet.

I didn’t know a single person before I arrived. I departed clutching handfuls of business cards and felt like I’d found a new family.

The main thing that impressed me was how generous everyone was with their time. You could walk up to anyone, introduce yourself and have a chat. Tell me where else in the world you would find such diverse and interesting characters as Rolf de Heer (Ten Canoes) and Darren Star (Sex in the City). Clayton Jacobson (Kenny) and David Weiss (Shrek). Mike Bullen (Cold Feet) and Jan Sardi (Shine).

The Micro-Mentorships (30 mins) were also useful if feverishly short. Tim Ferguson gave me some great advice about Romantic Comedies and followed it up with some interesting articles.

Here are some tips I picked up from the speakers that will stay with me.

• Detail drives a character (Clayton Jacobson, Kenny).

Remember the scene when Kenny visits his Dad with the boy and has napkins placed on the floor, under his feet? The shot is very brief, and Clayton knew some people would miss it, but this tiny moment reveals so much of the Dad’s character.

• A script is a document in seduction.

So says Rolf de Heer. He doesn’t write a word until his plot and story are fully thought through. And he does this by using cards that he sticks up on a wall. The cards give him the flexibility to play around with structure and content, and to feel happy with the story before he commits a single word to paper.

• If you’re stuck, make a Vomit Pass. David Weiss (Shrek).

If you’re having trouble writing a scene, just get some thoughts down. Don’t worry if they’re bad. When you come back to it later, it’s much easier to evaluate something and make it work better than having a blank space in front of you.

• Choose crispy dialogue. David Weiss.

Avoid letting a character say exactly what she is feeling. For example, don’t say in dialogue ‘I’m afraid.’ Say it differently. What about ‘Would you mind if I slept with the light on?’

• Network or attach yourself to someone who can.

I found a friend in Helen who is a network demon. Watching enviously as she deftly worked the room, I started to try by myself. All it takes for the more shy amongst us is a deep breath, a smile and an outstretched hand.

Gripes? Not many. I wish it could have gone on for another morning. I wish that I had spoken to Jan Sardi. I wish I could have done an Hermione Granger and used the Time Turner to attend all the sessions. But most of all, I wish everyone the very best with their projects and can’t wait to see how far they’ve progressed when the conference happens again in 2011.”

-Tracy Richardson

(names and titles have been changed to protect the innocent)

Perhaps after all you are not doing such a bad job selling your script.

Still you will need to get through the hurdle of the paperwork. Before getting access to tax payer’s money, a rather large amount of boxes needs to be ticked. Still, these application forms are usually not as daunting as they look.

If you have studied the questions in the application and there are still questions left, it often pays to pick up the phone and ask the people in the development department directly.

However, the most important elements of any application package for a new screenplay are the following:

- the screenplay
- the logline and/or one-paragraph synopsis
- the synopsis
- the three-page outline
- the development notes

If you are confident that you have a good story, it is paramount to make sure each of these four is in prime shape. Let’s look at them in further detail.

SCREENPLAY

ALL scripts are read. To my knowledge, this is where the first selection occurs.
This means you the screenplay’s presentation is extremely important. To improve a reader’s experience and keep the focus on the story, your script needs to be as perfect as you can get it. Proper format, no typos, ‘lots of white’ etc.

It is true that if you have a formally deficient screenplay but a rock solid story, you will ultimately find the money. If you have a dead-boring story written in a perfect, super polished screenplay, no-one will care. Still, your script may be eliminated from a funding round just because it looks un-professional.

The external reader in charge of making the first selection may decide that if you are not disciplined to even get something as simple as the format right, you are not serious about screenwriting in the first place.

LOGLINE

It tells in only a few words what your story is about. Twenty-five-words-or-less, ideally. If you can’t do this, most likely any future sales people will have trouble pitching your story.

The logline is a one sentence or one paragraph summary of your story, sometimes called the elevator pitch. Clever writers have used this tool during development and now is the time for the world to admire the brilliant gem.

The logline is so powerful, it doesn’t just tell us what the story is about, it also demonstrates your clarity in terms of vision and plot.

Think of it like this: if you give the people deciding on development or production investment the most powerful, exciting line summarising your story, you can almost be sure your story will pop in their minds before any others. You have already half won the money.

SYNOPSIS

Even if the synopsis is not used for the first elimination, a badly written synopsis will most likely throw you out of the race at some point. Once a first selection is made, readers will need to refresh their minds and in stead of re-reading the entire script, they may look at the synopsis in stead. If yours is sloppy and uninspiring, this may reflect on the discussions about the script in the shortlisting stage.

I am of the opinion that significant tax money could be saved if funding agencies would behave like the rest of the film industry and make a selection based on the synopsis first. It is a time-efficient and highly reliable tool to assess the story in a reasonable level of detail without the need to read for hours. A badly constructed story can be a good read but ultimately it may waste everyone’s time.

Finally, one page is one page. Don’t cheat. If necessary, cut out all subplots and focus purely on the protagonist’s journey.

THREE PAGE OUTLINE

Here you can go into more detail about any side-characters and their journeys. If the synopsis suffered in terms of its style because of the struggle to get the essential plot points in, here you can be more evocative. Give us a flavour of the genre of the film by using expressive language. However, this is still not a treatment: no dialogue or detailed description.

DEVELOPMENT NOTES

Honesty first. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Don’t over-sell. Be clear about what you want to achieve in the next draft. The development notes are hugely important and in all fairness, it is not really an area where you can be on your own. It always pays to hire a professional to look over the application materials as the competition is fierce and many of your competitors will have worked through their submission with the help of a script consultant.

These notes should provide the SWOT Analysis of your work. Why do you believe it will attract millions of viewers? Why is it worth spending money on further development? And most importantly: what are you intending to do next? For a writer, it is hard to judge the merits of your own work. Here you will need help from an experienced reader, another writer or a script editor.

One more piece of advice: start writing these documents EARLY. Don’t wait until the last days before the deadline. Not only will you save yourself the stress and the danger of having documents riddled with typos. When you have the time to let your application materials rest for a week, two, three, you will have time to write another seriously improved draft. You will pick up on weaknesses you didn’t see in the first place. The final result will be 200% better.

Back to work. Good luck!

Screenplay Checklist (Premium) >>

Learn From Other People’s Mistakes >>

Toula’s family has exactly three traditional values – “Marry a Greek boy, have Greek babies, and feed everyone.” When she falls in love with a sweet, but WASPy guy, Toula struggles to get her family to accept her fiance, while she comes to terms with her own heritage. (4/5: outer + inner)

A young man and woman from different social classes fall in love aboard an ill-fated voyage at sea. (4/5)

When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by a corrupt prince, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek his revenge. (3/5: no inner, opposite of what it really is “‘ restore justice)

An older man is forced to deal with an ambiguous future after he enters retirement and his wife passes away. Ultimately, he finds hope as he comes to terms with his daughter’s marriage and his own life. (3/5)

A comedic portrayal of a young and broke Shakespeare who falls in love with a woman, inspiring him to write “Romeo and Juliet.” (2/5: no antagonism, only real life hook)

A journey of self-discovery by a brilliant mathematician once he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He eventually triumphs over tragedy and receives the Nobel Prize.

An Epic tale of a 1940s New York Mafia family and their struggle to protect their empire, as the leadership switches from the father to his youngest son.

A meek and alienated little boy finds a stranded extraterrestrial and has find the courage to defy authorities to help the alien return to its home planet.

A boxer (hero) with a loser mentality (flaw) is offered a chance by the world champ (opponent) to fight for the title (lifechanging event) but, with the help of his lover (ally) must learn to see himself as a winner before he can step into the ring (battle). “Rocky.”

A jaded (flaw) WWII casino owner (hero) in Nazi-occupied Morocco sees his former lover (opponent) arrive (lifechanging event), accompanied by her husband (ally) whose heroism forces the hero to choose between his cynicism, his feeling for his ex-lover, and his once-strong feelings of patriotism (battle). “Casablanca.”

When a pathologically deceitful attorney gets zapped by his son’s birthday wish, he learns that he can no longer tell a lie even when he tries, so he must now win the biggest case of his career by being honest.

back to start >>

To appease your conscience you will make scene level tweaks. Lots of them. You will call it draft two, three, thirteen. The reality: this is still draft one. You will finally get sick of the script and move on to the next Great Idea. Years go by and many scripts may come from your hand but none will ever get made, let alone reach an audience.

Did you just recognise someone you know in the above description? Perhaps yourself? Do you really believe, off all the readers of all the blogs in all the world I’m trying to convert you? No. The above was taken from a promotional blurb I wrote for a two-day story workshop at Metroscreen.

The course will be partially about the foundations of screen story and partially about practical ways to apply them to your work. You may not need those foundations for draft one. The first draft is all about “Don’t get it right, get it written.” But then comes draft two and reality kicks in. If you haven’t written your first draft yet, you still need to be aware of the elements that will come into play further down the road.

Successful feature screenwriters don’t cherish that first draft. They know it is crap so they won’t show it to anyone let alone shop it around, except for advise on how to move to the next draft ASAP. Successful screenwriters listen to the honest constructive criticism from industry professionals and follow a process on the way to a wonderful, radically different Draft Two.

For these writers the second draft is an easier and more important leap forward than any next draft of the script. This has to do with the ‘law of diminishing returns’, but more about that in a later post on this blog.

Apart from making sure you will not unknowingly fall in that Draft One Trap ever again, the Metroscreen course will focus on most of those issues I have come across in unsuccessful scripts during my six years as a producer. The second day of the two-day course will show how to implement a writing process that may significantly speed up the development and create a genuine opportunity when pitching your projects to producers, directors or funding agencies.

If you are interested in this course or would like to know more, send me an email or contact Metroscreen. Or just download the enrolment form and send it in! If you’re not a Metroscreen member, you can sort that out using this form.

But enough about me and my course.

TRIBE OR TRITE? STONEKING’S MANTRA

At a recent AWG NSW event poet and AFTRS teacher Billy Stoneking performed a short version of his ‘tribe act’. Many in the audience were confused. And yes, over the years some have questioned the contribution of the national film school to Australian screenwriting culture. But rather than fueling the controversy, I would like to give Stoneking credit where credit is due.

Stoneking’s ‘tribe’ theory focuses primarily on the writer’s connection with both the material and the audience. If you think Stoneking has a purely artistic, individualistic approach to screenwriting, think again. He pays ample attention to the importance and the meaning of ‘drama’ and he acknowledges that a good movie is made for an audience. And not just ‘an’ audience: it must be the audience you have – in some way or other – a connection with. Do read the article here. Being a poet, the man masters his language in a way I can only envy.

If on the other hand you would like to see the entertainer Stoneking, you might be lucky enough to still find his Sony Tropfest videocast of the ‘tribe act’. Have fun!

HOLLYWOOD VS. OZZYWOOD

As you may have noticed from earlier posts on this blog, Creative Screenwriting Magazine is a personal favourite. It was recently named “the best magazine about screenwriting” by the Los Angeles Times.

Their ‘Story Department’ (photo above) web forum opened in April 2006 and since then they have received 42 posts from writers all over the world.

Closer to home, four months ago some passionate story consultant opened a little forum on the bulletin board of the Australian Writers’ Guild (photo left) to answer questions from writers.

The writers dropped by … and they keep coming back! If you’re an AWG member you should be able to check it out here. If you’re not, perhaps you should become an associate? The benefits are surely worth it.

WRITING FOR ACTORS
(Or: why writers should win the Best Acting awards)

Until recently I was only a producer and story consultant. I can now add ‘writer’ to my credits. Well, in spirit that is. The credit will never be on the screen. It was a rewrite-for-hire job and although in my humble opinion the story is now 200% better, the original writers will get the praise, if any. In any case, it is exciting to know after my rewrite the script was deemed ready for consideration by a Hollywood Studio (Fox) where it is at the time of writing.

But all that is beside the point. The project in question is supposed to launch the career of a particular actor, which I could hardly believe after reading the draft I received. The actor’s character was NOT the story’s protagonist, he had limited screentime and worst of all: he was given the most unspeakable dialogue.

Which set me thinking. How do you write dialogue for a beginning actor? You don’t. You write emotion. And emotion the actor will not need to perform. I have had this conversation a dozen times over the past month so I apologise in advance for those who have heard me preach about this before.

Let’s go back about eighty years (or ten blogs) to the work of Lev Kuleshov (Photo: The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, 1924).

Kuleshov took unedited footage of a completely expressionless face [...] and intercut it with shots of three highly motivated objects: a bowl of hot soup, a dead woman lying in a coffin, and a little girl playing with a teddy bear.

When the film strips were shown to randomly selected audiences, they invariably responded as though the actor’s face had accurately portrayed the emotion appropriate to the intercut object.

As Pudovkin recalled:

“The public raved about the acting of the artist. They pointed out the heavy pensiveness of his mood over the forgotten soup, were touched and moved by the deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead woman, and admired the light, happy smile with which he surveyed the girl at play.

But we knew that in all three cases the face was exactly the same.”

(from David Cook’s splendid A HISTORY OF NARRATIVE FILM.)

These results are known today as the ‘Kuleshov effect’ and it explains why often actors win awards for performances they didn’t give. When Russell Crowe broke onto the Hollywood scene with his nomination for THE INSIDER, it had IMHO nothing to do with his acting skills but everything with Eric Roth and Michael Mann’s terrific writing, which effectively projected the feelings we share with the Jeffrey Wigand character onto Crowe’s blank face.

A more recent example is the late Ulrich Mühe’s performance in THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Das Leben der Anderen), which won him numerous best actor awards including at the European Film Awards. The second half of the movie is an emotional powerhouse, yet the actor’s face is near blank.

Conversely, great actors have been blamed of bad performances where the only culprit really was the screenwriter. The actor could have avoid the blame by politely passing on a screenplay that was not worthy of his attachment.

Bottom line: if you want to write great drama for any actor, irrespective of the experience level, don’t describe the emotion you want to see on the actor’s face. Make the audience feel the emotion before the character has to respond to it. Great drama does not have visible emotion; it makes you, the audience feel it. If you must, write a tear on an expressionless face.

Hitchcock would say: “I need actors who can do nothing well.” He understood perfectly that it was the writer’s job to convey the emotion, not the actor’s. He also perfectly understood the power of the Kuleshov effect and consequently: the power of editing.

Great actors are not those who can be express sadness, anger or desperation better than others. Great actors are those who can pick great scripts.

AUSTRALIAN FILM: FRANK COX AND ERIC BANA

Frank Cox of Hopscotch can help greenlight a feature film. He is one of the ‘good guys’: he looks at films that don’t necessarily fill the multiplexes. Better even: he reads those screenplays. But that doesn’t mean he will be betting the house.

“I ask ‘Who do you think the film is for?’ Some of them say ‘Frank, I make movies for myself, because I’m an artist and the audiences will follow it if I do something fantastic. I’ve got a vision.” “And I’m going ‘Good on you, if you’ve got the stuff to do this and you find a market, fantastic. But if you’re not going to talk to me while you’ve got these ideas, then don’t come to me at the end and get disappointed if I tell you I don’t know what to do with it.’”

I had to think of these words tonight while I was watching a freshly shot Australian film (I’m bound by secrecy as it’s not out yet). Multi-protagonist, not done badly but just not good enough. Another case of “I’ve got a vision”… In today’s market, anybody with a brain would steer away from multi-protagonist for a first feature. But what I found completely baffling was the fact that a government agency had put money in the project, both for development AND production. What are we doing? Anyhow, where does Frank Cox see the current Australian cinema?

“Australian films are a bit of a question mark.” The talent is certainly there, proved by the success of Australian industry people overseas, but “It seems to me that most projects in Australia are hurried. In other words, the development process lacks, the stories are not fully developed, and they don’t reach their optimum because everyone seems to be in a hurry to put their film in development and then production.” It’s a familiar story; the problem is understood throughout the industry.”

Thank you to ScreenHub for the kind permission to re-publish. You can read the full interview here. here.

Recently a good friend and fellow Belgian interviewed Eric Bana in Rome for his latest LUCKY YOU (another Eric Roth screenplay). My friend asked his opinion about Australian film and I have a funny feeling he would not have given this answer to a reporter on Australian soil:

“It may sound weird but working in Australia is not that important to me. It can even be dangerous to a career.”
[...]
“I know an ‘international name’ can help, for instance if you want to get a high budget film financed or if you want to launch a difficult project. But as I said, there is a real danger. You receive a lot of scripts that aren’t ready. The producers then believe a big name will solve the problem. So I am very careful”

THE STORY DEPT.: FROM IDEA TO PRINT

My preparations for the Metroscreen course explain why it’s been a bit quiet in The Story Dept.; for the other reason behind the temporary silence I have to profoundly thank many of you, the readers of this blog! Over the past months I have been increasingly busy as a story consultant, both on projects in development as some films in post-production.

Indeed the principles of story don’t stop with the shooting script. From a story perspective the assembled footage is a work that hardly ever reflects the story beats exactly as they were intended in the script. Or if they are, sometimes a better option becomes apparent in the editing suite.

For a team that has laboured over the same movie for months or years, it is hard to make far-reaching decisions without being consumed by feelings of insecurity and doubt. Fortunately there may be a guiding light as the principles of story still apply! If areas of the story don’t work for the outsider, sometimes the reasons can be found in a breach of (one or some of) those principles. Enter the story analyst!

Next to the consultancy work I have been happily producing the short animation ACID SUN (photo) by writer/director/animator Rodney March. The third OZZYWOOD short film is also the first one rigorously co-developed in terms of story and I am hopeful this will bear fruit at the film festivals once it will hit the screens later this year.

As a matter of fact the validity of my mission as a story consultant (see ‘about us‘) has been proven repeatedly over the past year. It’s been a wonderful ride and I hope my clients agree even if it has been rough at times. I have seen filmmakers look at their works with professional and passionate scrutiny, think outside the box and at the same time question the reasons and motivations behind their stories. In most if not all of the cases we have improved their works, sometimes immensely, resulting in a marketable draft, a re-energised development process or at worst: an improved insight in the mechanics of story structure and the dynamics of our film industry.

THE QUIZ

If you have taken the quiz before and failed miserably, try again. Most likely it was not because you can’t see the difference between a main plot and a subplot but … you only had 3.7 secs to type in your answer. That has been fixed, so you can now improve your score!

To pass you need to answer 14 out of 20 questions correctly. The quiz is definitely not for beginners but most of the answers can be found somewhere in the articles of this blog. Click through to see your score and the right answers. Finally you’ll be guided back to the OZZYWOOD web site. Good luck!

http://ozzywood.com/quiz