£38

Did you see this story in The Sun a few weeks back?

If you didn’t, and don’t feel like giving The Sun any web-traffic, then the essence is:

Strippers vs. Werewolves only took £38 at the box office on its opening weekend!

Gasp!

Some tweeters went on to compare that £38 with The Avengers‘ £15,778,074 which, on the surface makes it even more laughable.

Unless, of course, you take the view that since Avengers cost £200,000,000 to make and SvW cost … um … considerably less, then technically SvW was less in the red after the first weekend than The Avengers.

This is, of course, a silly way of looking at things. Let’s be honest and upfront here – The Avengers is a far, far superior film. If you only go and see one film this year, make it that. If you have a choice between The Avengers and SvW – Avengers for the win every time. It’s made a lot because it’s awesome. Easily 415,212.474 times more awesome than SvW.

Easily.

But .. £38 – that’s awful … isn’t it?

Surprisingly, no.

Surprisingly, that’s actually good.

Surprisingly, that’s actually quite surprising.

Why?

Well, because there’s an open industry secret surrounding a ‘limited theatrical release’ which everybody knows. Seriously, everyone knows it. Whoever wrote that Sun article knows it. Most of you reading this blog already know it. If you don’t, well I’m not going to spill the beans here – it’s a secret.

And don’t go spoiling it for everyone in the comments neither.

Shh.

But the upshot of that secret is SvW wasn’t supposed to make any money in the cinema.

Really.

Think about it. The film was shown on six screens in the middle of weekdays without any advertising in either the papers, radio, TV or even outside the cinemas themselves. I’ll hazard a guess and say none of the six screens actually put up posters for the film or even had any posters to put up.

In other words, the film’s presence at those specific cinemas wasn’t advertised at all.

Or to put it in slightly different words no money was spent on promoting the theatrical release because the promotion often costs more than the film does.

Why would you put a film in the cinema and not tell anyone which cinemas it’s in or how to go and see it?

Aha! That’s the secret!

Think of it this way: have you heard of Strippers vs. Werewolves? Did you know it was in the cinema?

No? You do now.

Yes? You missed it! How did that happen?

Now … assuming you’re not a thieving pirate scumbag, are sufficiently intrigued by the title and don’t want The Sun to make your mind up for you … how are you going to watch the film?

You might, for example, go to one of these places:

HMV 

LOVE FILM 

AMAZON 

VIRGIN ON DEMAND 

ASDA 

And pay to watch the film.

Pay to watch a film you’ve seen no paid advertising for, but have heard of because almost every paper and movie magazine in the land reviewed the film and then several of them went on to run stories about how little money it made in its opening weekend.

That’s not the secret, by the way – that’s just an intended consequence. Not intended by me, I’m not manipulating the media and have no input on any of this – this is just how things get done.

So the fact around four people spent £38 to go and see the film is cause for celebration – that really is £38 no one expected to make! Thank you, random four strangers!

The fact The Sun runs a story telling everyone about the film again is another win! More free publicity!

The fact the story was gleefully retweeted multiple times on Twitter by people who feel smug and superior because they think they’re being nasty in public is another win! Thank you random nasty people, you’ve just helped spread word of the film further and wider!

Things aren’t always what they seem and while it would be great to have Avengers-style money … that was never going to happen. It was so obviously never going to happen, it was never the plan or the point.

The point is a secret, but Strippers vs. Werewolves is available in shops right now … although, you knew that, right?

 

Script trajectory

Ever watched a film and wondered what the hell happened? How did they decide to film that script? Why did anyone think that was a good idea?

You know the chant:

“Who wrote this shit?”

What a lot of people don’t understand is it’s possible what you’re watching bears little resemblance to the final script. Things happen on set and during post production which completely change what was written down.

 

If the film is awful, it’s highly probable what you’re watching bears little resemblance to the original script or idea.

Check out this report of Terminator Salvation as an example.

To my mind the script goes through three distinct phases of rewriting, each with its own impact on the finished product: DEVELOPMENT, PRE-PRODUCTION and PRODUCTION.

Each phase is like a mini-rocket booster designed to take the shuttle of your script into the orbit s a finished film. And like mini-rocket boosters, bits get jettisoned along the way. Although, unlike mini-rocket boosters, there’s very little chance of bits of idea falling on someone’s head and killing them.

But the problem is, not every phase has an upward trajectory. If the space shuttle launched on the three script-rewrite boosters of development, pre-production and production it would end up lodged in someone’s front room in Idaho.

Why Idaho? Because it’s easy to spell.

 

DEVELOPMENT

This can be either you on your own re-writing a spec script or it can be with a producer or director or several of each. It’s the stage when everyone’s just working on the idea.

There seem to be two ways it can go during development – either you get a bunch of very smart people who are focussed on making the script the best it can be and they all work together to lift it to new heights … or you get a lot of stupid and contradictory ideas which chip away at the core idea and effectively whittle the skeleton out of the body.

Frequently, both of these happen at the same time.

Essentially, if development destroys the script, then you’ve got a flat or downward trajectory which plants the film nose-first in a barn somewhere. There’s nothing you can do to fix that beyond hope they get bored and give up on the project.

Hopefully what you’re doing here is constantly (or generally, with a few dips and detours) elevating the script towards perfection. Changes made during this phase should only be about what makes the story better. You may have to tweak locations or budget or cast … but hopefully it’s not really about that.

Development, done right, should have an upward trajectory.

 

PRE-PRODUCTION

This is when the film’s been given a green light and all the heads of department descend on the script with red pencils. You get lists of things which need to change or be cut out in order to make the film affordable and possible.

Although these changes can sometimes result in far better ideas than the fuck-the-budget version, in my experience the scriptwriter’s job here is one of maintaining a flat trajectory. People are grabbing whole chunks of the script and throwing them away – you need to stitch the edges of the holes back together or come up with something new (and cheap) to plug the gap.

Pre-production is the gremlin on the wing of your script. You need to run around after it soldering the wires back together and getting the claw marks out of the ailerons.

 

PRODUCTION

God help you.

Nothing good comes out of changes made to the script during production.

Okay, so that’s a bit melodramatic; but it’s FUCKING TRUE!

Mostly.

Naively, I used to assume once you’ve written a script, you just hand it over and someone films it. I genuinely believed actors would just say the words whilst affixing the appropriate expression to their faces or directors would point the camera at everything in the script which needed to be on film, which is everything or it wouldn’t be in the fucking script in the last place.

But no.

Actors make up their own words or decide to be confused rather than happy. Directors, inexplicably, sometimes choose to film bits of wall instead of the actors because they think it reflects the brick-like nature of the tearful reunion scene.

Hurricanes spring up and wreck locations. Actors fall ill or pregnant or both or get sacked or all three. Directors who’ve bought themselves a career turn out not to have ANY FUCKING MONEY WHATSOEVER and certainly not the 70% of the budget they’d promised to stump up.

Basically, things go wrong and the writer is left to deal with it. If you’re lucky.

Or unlucky.

Frequently, whole chunks of script are omitted by incompetence or design without consulting the writer at all. This is akin to a hospital director wandering into an operating theatre and pulling out bits of someone’s brain because it’s his hospital and why the fuck not?

As I’ve said elsewhere the writer is the story expert, changing the story without consulting the expert is no different to moving the crash mat without consulting the stuntman – DON’T FUCKING DO IT!

Okay, it’s a lot different; but go with me, I’m on a roll.

Script changes during production is just fire fighting – you aren’t maintaining an even trajectory any more, you’re trying to control the descent and stop some fucknut from removing the bolts which hold the wings on.

No good ever comes out of changes made during production.

Okay, so that isn’t true. We can all site that bit in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy shoots the big sword-guy instead of fighting him because Harrison Ford had the shits.

You know why we can all site that exception?

BECAUSE IT’S THE ONLY TIME IT’S EVER FUCKING HAPPENED.

Or rather, it happens now and then; but the times it makes the film better as a percentage of the total number of bad changes is as close to zero as makes no odds.

By the way, if you stay in hotels a lot, you should always carry an empty chocolate wrapper with you. If you ever accidentally shit the bed, simply lay the empty wrapper next to the offending mess and the maid will assume you’ve merely been eating chocolate in bed and go merrily on his or her way.*

Script changes during production are bad; but they happen. A lot.

So the high point of a script’s trajectory is often right at the end of development before the real world gets in the way. There are dozens of factors which can elevate a good script into a great film, such as great performances, great direction, great music, great editing, even great set design … but they can’t help a film which is being attacked at it’s  heart – the script.

Which is why I frequently offer development drafts of my scripts as writing samples – that was the high watermark, the apogee of the script’s trajectory. That’s the version I want people to read … once I’ve incorporated any cool bits of improvised dialogue or beneficial scene changes from the finished film.

So next time you see a film and wonder “Who wrote this shit?”, just remember – probably no-one did. Not intentionally at least. What you’re watching is possibly the flailing, last gasps of a script burning up on re-entry, knocked out of orbit by a combination of incompetence, misfortune and idiocy.

——————————————————————————————————————————

*This doesn’t work. For God’s sake, never do this. In fact, don’t shit the bed in hotels if at all possible.

 

Happy Me-day!

It’s Me-day!

Happy Me-day, everyone!

Take the day off! Have a public holiday all you hard working banks, for today is all about me.

ME, I TELLS YOU!

Don’t believe me?

You fools! Why, take a look at this incontrovertible truth:

 

EXHIBIT A: STRIPPERS VS. WEREWOLVES ON DVD AND BLURAY

It’s kind of what it says really: out on DVD and BluRay today, a film loosely based on a script I re-wrote some bits of.

Okay, so technically there were other people involved in this, like Pat Higgins who had all the ideas and Jonathan Glendening who directed it and the cast who either sprouted hair or took their clothes off accordingly … but fuck them! This is Me-day, celebrate me!

Here, have trailer:

 

EXHIBIT B: PERSONA SEASON 4

PERSONA is the world’s first daily drama-app made entirely for smartphones … and if you don’t already know that then you’re either missing out on three seasons worth of top-notch entertainment delivered directly to the palm of your hand for NOTHING … or you don’t have a smartphone.

Or you don’t care.

Either way, you’re missing out.

Season 4! Starts today, on Me-day!

Again, there were some other people involved. Rosie Claverton:

 

Martyn Deakin:

 

But more importantly, me!

And … um … there should be another trailer here. Not sure where that one is.

But never mind!

Watch PERSONA for free:

iPhone

Android

Watch Strippers vs. Werewolves for not-free:

Amazon

Play

HMV

ASDA

Or better yet, do both and celebrate Me-day in style.

So go on, have a drink, be entertained (probably) and revel in the awesomeness (maybe) which is me (doubtful)!

 

 

Script format: how and WHY (title page)

Following on from the last insanely long post I thought I’d go through the hows and whys of script format in more detail, starting with the title page.

By the way, if you already know all of this then congratulations! You’ve done the absolute minimum research necessary to write your first script. Now all you’ve got to do is learn how to write, simple.

If, on the other hand, you’re learning this for the first time — congratulations! You’re doing the absolute minimum research necessary to … and so on.

So, the title page. What goes on a title page? What doesn’t? Why? And who cares?

Let’s start with:

WHO CARES AND WHY?

Well, hopefully, you. This is your fucking career, show some interest in it. Let your script show you’re interested in your career before the first page.

So here’s the thing – your title page has no bearing on the rest of the script, it will never be seen by an audience and will barely be glanced at by anyone reading the script. A lot of people don’t even care what’s on there – they know it’s irrelevant, so why bother about formatting it?

Because there are a lot of formatting books out there and they all say it has to be done a certain way.

Worse than that, lots of readers and producers/agents/directors have read the same books and they believe it too. When you send a script out, you have no idea which camp the person reading it belongs to – do they care or don’t they?

The don’t cares will read your script anyway.

The do cares will probably still read your script, but they’ve already decided your script is rubbish and will be looking for the earliest opportunity to give up. So play it safe, do it properly and keep everyone happy.

Don’t believe real people care about this? Read this post by Doug Richardson: http://dougrichardson.com/2012/dead-on-arrival

So …

THE TITLE PAGE

You need one. Please put a title page on, don’t shove all this information on page one. The title goes on the title page – that’s why it’s called the title page. Page one is where the script starts.

If it’s a spec script, all that goes on a title page is:

• THE TITLE
• by (or written by if you really feel the need)
• Your Name
• Contact details

And that’s it.

Specifically:

THE TITLE should be just that: the title. In a twelve-point courier font, centred. You can underline it, if you want. You can bold it if you really feel the need (although I do neither of these things – who knows what people get pissed off about?), but for fuck’s sake don’t use a fancy font or some custom artwork.

Why?

Because … were you in a band at school? Or did you know anyone in a band at school? Did you (or they) spend more time designing album covers, or logos, or planning funny stage performances than actually learning to play your/their fucking instruments?

I auditioned for a band which showed me all this artwork, down to the matching tattoos they were all going to get … but the lead guitarist didn’t actually have a fucking guitar! He couldn’t play! But he’d spent days and days designing his fifth album cover.

That’s what a logo, custom artwork or fancy font says about your script – you’re a teenager designing album covers instead of learning how to write. Is that the first impression you want to make?

The other thing is, designing the font/logo isn’t your job. It’s not going to end up on the poster or the publicity because people cleverer than you (or stupider – could go either way) are paid to do that in the event the script is good enough to make into a film. Whether the (spec) script is good or bad – a custom font/logo smacks of a desperate someone with too much time on their hands who doesn’t know where their job ends.

Some readers even get bent out of shape about any font bigger than 12 … so just don’t do it. It’s not worth pissing someone off over your need to draw attention to something everyone’s looking for anyway.

BY or WRITTEN BY? I prefer ‘by’ (in lower case) because ‘written by’ sometimes ends up longer than the title and just doesn’t separate it enough. Plus, the art of scriptwriting is saying the most with the least amount of words – using two instead of one on the front cover feels like you’re missing the point already.

YOUR NAME – no nicknames, no bold, no italics, no ‘THE GREAT’ in front of it. Just write your fucking name in Title Case – not UPPER CASE. Try not to look wacky (or fucking mental) or massively egotistic – the title goes in upper case, because that’s what they want to read at a glance. After they’ve read it, and hopefully enjoyed it, they’ll go back and look for your name.

Simple, clean, elegant.

SCRIPT TITLE

by

Your Name

Although you’re centring all this, the margins should be an inch from the right and an inch and a half from the left. Why larger on the left? Because if the company stick a cover on, it tends to hide the first character on anything written on the left hand side. Not so important on the title page, but why alter the margins for one page?

At the bottom of the script, an inch from the bottom, to be exact, go your contact details. I’ve no idea whether these are supposed to go on the left or the right. I’ve seen both done and I’ve read formatting books which insist both are correct. Left seems more prevalent. Right looks nicer. Do whatever the hell you like.

Just make sure it’s in courier, twelve-point with no bold or italics or fancy curly bits.

I used to put my postal address on scripts … but now I don’t bother. I mean, why? Who’s going to write me a letter? Plus, some people are biased against working with anyone they can’t meet with face to face. A lot of people in London don’t really believe there’s a world beyond the M25, at least one not inhabited by freaks and monsters – so just leave your address off. Phone number, email address – that’s enough. If they’re desperate to write you a cheque, they’ll ask for your address.

Actually, a quick aside about email addresses: for fuck’s sake use one which makes you look professional. Buy a domain in your proper name and use that. If you can’t afford that few pounds a year, get one which is your.name@gmail.com or hotmail.com or something recognisable.

For fuck’s sake don’t use an email address which is furrycockring@something.com or imatwat@shitthebed.co.uk. Apart from looking stupid, they’re hard to find.

“I’ll just email Dave Dibble about a script I want him to write. What was his address again? I’ll just start typing his name and auto-complete will find it … D.A.V.E. … no, nothing. Okay, I’ll try D.A.V.I.D. … no, nothing there. Fuck it, I’ll give the job to someone else.”

Make life easy for everyone, get a sensible email address with your name in it. John August had similar things to say about this here: http://johnaugust.com/2010/why-email-addresses-matter

SOME DON’TS

Copyright symbols. Don’t put them on. Ever. You know why? Do you know what the copyright symbol means?

It means “I’M FUCKING MENTAL”.

It suggests you’re the kind of writer who’s going to sue anyone who reads your zombie script and makes a different zombie film in the future. Seriously, don’t do it, you look crazy.

And that’s just the symbol. If you write anything like:

This script is copyrighted by me and registered with lots of lawyers and if you use even one word of this in any other production then I’ll sue you. And it’s confidential! Don’t go telling anyone or you’re in breach of the agreement you agreed to merely by looking at this page.

You might as well just write:

Please put this in the bin, I’m a litigious fucking loon.

Don’t include a list of people who read the script. Or liked the script. Or ‘helped out’ with the script. What the fuck does ‘helped out’ mean?  Is there a law suit in that future?

If it’s a spec script, don’t put a draft number or a date on the front. The spec script is draft one. Even if it’s draft fifty. Label your own versions however you like, but the draft you send out – no draft numbers.

If it says (Draft 1) you’re saying you haven’t put enough effort in to writing it.

If it says (Draft 50) then you’re saying you’ve spent waaaay too much time fiddling with this and are probably incapable of making changes quickly and to order.

No draft numbers.

Dates tell people how old a script is. They want to think it’s brand new, they’re the first person you thought of and  they’re about to discover something/someone wonderful.

If the date says 12/4/2008 then it tells them the script is out of date, not good enough to be snapped up straight away and has probably already been rejected by everyone in the industry … before being sent to them, the last resort.

If the date is today’s date, it looks like you’ve finished the script and sent it without polishing it.

Leave them off, leave the title page looking clean, crisp and inviting.

In fact, put nothing on the title page beyond:

SCRIPT TITLE

by

Your Name

your.name@domainname.com

07xxx xxxxxx

It’s really not that difficult.

Okay, so you can put on ‘based on’ credits if you’ve based it on something real; but not ‘based on an idea by my mate’ because … who fucking cares?  You’re better off crediting that person as ‘Story by …’; but in general try to keep it all as empty as you can.

This is all for film specs, by the way. If it’s a commission or a TV script then the rules are all different. Not that they’re really rules, just reasons why title pages can cause a bad impression and make people assume the script is shit. Personally, I’d rather people found that out by reading the script, not pre-judging it on the title page alone … but hey, that’s probably just me.

Next time (if there is a next time, because my initial righteous rage is running on fumes and I’m already boring myself) SLUG LINES.

Probably.

 

My wife’s breasts …

This has nothing to do with screenwriting, but is quite important nevertheless. I now had you over to the delicious Mrs. Mandy Glen-Barron:

After turning 40 last August, I set myself a goal for the forthcoming year. I decided that every month I would challenge myself to do/try something I’ve never done before. It started with learning to surf and ranged from getting a tattoo to wine tasting and beyond …

For May I wanted to do something for someone else, and since I did a 20km walk in 2010 for Cystic fibrosis, I looked around and decided on the Moonwalk for breast cancer research.

“Why this charity?” you may ask.

Well my family and friends throughout the years have been touched with breast and other cancers, there have been more recoveries than not, so I feel a cure must be getting closer and closer every year. The more money that can be pumped into this the better, everyone should have the chance to get well.

The Moonwalk seemed doable, seeing as I’d walked a fair way before, however doing it at midnight in your bra around London may be a bigger challenge than I first thought! My training has been plagued by jet lag, illness and some time constraints, but even though I’m a little behind schedule, I feel confident I can achieve 26.2 miles in a reasonable amount of time..

DID I MENTION IT’S 26.2 MILES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT IN MY BRA?!?!

Please, please help me by giving a little cash to this very worthy cause.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

And there you have it, the person I love most in the world (excluding myself) has just shown you her breasts as a prelude to showing most of pissed-up, post-pub London. It would be lovely of you if you could help her raise money for charity by going here http://www.justgiving.com/Mandy-Glen-Barron and donating a teeny-tiny little bit of cash.

Thank you so much.

And please stop staring now.

No breasts were hurt in the writing of this blog.

 

Strippers vs. Werewolves – in cinemas now!

Written by Pat Higgins (and, to a lesser extent, me), directed by Jonathan Glendening and produced by Jonathan Sothcott and Simon Phillips – one or all of us is to thank/blame for Strippers vs. Werewolves hitting the big screen near you right now.

Unless you’re reading this at three in the morning, in which case it probably isn’t on right now. But later on, maybe?

Unless you’re reading this in the future, in which case – you missed it. Sorry.

Strippers vs. Werewolves!

Starring Adele Silva, Ali Bastian, Sarah Douglas, Billy Murray, Robert Englund, Coralie Rose, Lysette Anthony, Steven Berkoff, Alan Ford, Barbara Nedeljakova, Lucy Pinder, Martin Compston and Martin Kemp and some other people!

The trailer looks almost exactly like this:

What’s it about?

Don’t ask stupid fucking questions.

Strippers vs. Werewolves – out now!

 

Strippers vs Werewolves – the première

I got some new glasses yesterday. Thing is, statistically, I don’t wear glasses.

I mean, obviously I do wear glasses, but so infrequently I might as well not bother.

In fact, I only wear them for driving in the dark or going to the cinema; so when I picked my new pair up yesterday I needed to find an activity which involved doing both.

Thing is, what involves going to the cinema and driving in the dark?

Hmm …

Oh, yeah!

Something like this would be perfect:

And so, with no further ado beyond some lunch, some shopping, a cup of tea and a bit of a sit down, Mandy and I got dolled up in our finest:

… and set off for London Town.

I, um, didn’t take a photo of us. Suffice it to say, Mandy looked awesome and hot and awesome. I was considerably less so, being ginger; but did my best.

Ooh, one of her shoes looked like this!

The other one looked kind of the same, but opposite.

And lo, on the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month of the last year according to wacko conspiracy-theorists, we did arrive at the Apollo Piccadilly Circus:

I, um, forgot to take a picture of that too. Hang on, I’ll see if there’s one on the internet …

It’s kind of almost exactly like that, only with lots of photographers outside and boards and posters all over the place saying it was the Strippers vs. Werewolves première. It was really exciting, I wish I’d taken a photo of it now.

As we walked in, the press took these photos of Mandy and I:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh. Looks like they forgot to take photos too. Which is weird because I did do the production re-writes of Pat Higgins‘, frankly, awesome script and am therefore of no consequence whatsoever.

Bloody press, eh? No wonder they’re in so much trouble over phone-hacking if they can’t even take a few photos of celebrities such as myself. I feel sorry for them when they have to tell their editor later on (who is doubtlessly a very angry, cigar smoking man with a flat top) that they completely failed to get photos of any–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh.

I see, that’s how it is, is it?

Well, I bet these so called ‘photographers’ didn’t get this shot:

Because if they did it would probably be better framed and not on an odd angle and maybe more in focus.

By the way, The Daily Mail described Lucy Pinder’s outfit as “drab”; which I can only assume is idiot-journo-speak for “didn’t have her tits out” or “dressed completely appropriately for the occasion” because I think she looked stunning.

And then the movie started! The moment I’d been waiting for! The moment when I could wear my new specs!

To preserve the sense of occasion, I recorded the whole film on my phone for you to watch here:

Oh, don’t know what happened there.

Never mind, you can watch it on Friday in the cinema or catch it on BluRay or DVD from May 7th.

The showing was a complete success – my specs worked perfectly; and after tucking them away and being gleefully hugged by one of these ladies:

… Mandy and I slipped off to the after party which was here:

Yeah, I forgot to take a photo of that too.

To be fair, the Zoo ladies were blocking the entrance and drawing a massive amount of attention, so we had to wait until they’d finished and we could slip in quietly. I didn’t want to upstage them:

The Penthouse is a pretty spunky place (if you’d seen the website I just got the above image from, you’d feel sick typing that sentence). I completely failed to take photos of either the view or the interior; but luckily @louisabradshaw took this one of the view:

Which I stole, sorry! And the interior looked like this:

Only, without the tables and the girl and … well, it’s the same room; but it didn’t really look anything like that.

We got some free sausages though! Did I mention the sausages? They were free and they were sausages.

I ate lots.

Because they were free.

Then we chatted to some people, had some free drinks and some more free sausages.

Free! They were free!

There were other canapé things there too, but the sausages really stuck in my mind. And my teeth.

At the end of the night, just as the clock struck midnight, my dress turned back into rags and I fled the scene leaving behind one glass … no wait, that wasn’t me.

At the end of the night, we went home on the train (which took forever) and then I got to wear my glasses again driving home:

You can choose to believe that’s a missing photo of the train, my glasses, me driving home or my house. Knock yourself out, I didn’t take photos of none of them.

In fact, the only worthwhile photo I took all night was this one:

And that, to me, is worth all the free sausages you can eat.

Just not all I can eat, because I’m a greedy bastard.

 

Script format: how and WHY (introduction)

There are millions of websites, books, seminars and gobshites telling you how to format a script.

Millions.

Or possibly just thousands.

In this modern age (which will be old fashioned by tomorrow morning) there is no excuse for not knowing how a script is formatted. Even if you don’t know, there are programs which will do it for you.Turning in a badly formatted script is almost harder than turning in a well formatted one … and yet it still happens.

Recently, during my duties on Persona, I’ve received some very odd scripts. To be fair, most of them are perfectly fine; a couple differ from the norm in subtle, but unimportant ways (because a lot of it doesn’t really matter); but there are a few which are so badly formatted as to be unusable.

I was wondering why anyone would turn in a script like that, when I had a thought:

Maybe these people don’t know why scripts are formatted in a specific way.

Perhaps they don’t know why dialogue is left aligned and not centred or why action blocks shouldn’t be longer than four lines at a time or why mini-slugs are great in a spec script but not so wonderful in a shooting script?

Maybe that information isn’t out there?

It is, I’ve fucking seen it; but I thought I’d collate as much as I can into one place so when I get really, really fucking angry after spending four fucking hours retyping and reformatting someone’s jumbled pile of nonsensical words into a script we can actually shoot and schedule from and that person turns in the next draft with ALL THE SAME FUCKING MISTAKES, instead of writing an email full of swear words and threatening to eat his stupid fucking fingers, I can just send them this link.

But before I get into all the specific nuts and bolts, I thought I’d have a general ramble:

WHY IS SCRIPT FORMAT IMPORTANT?

I was at a friend’s house the other day, a director who’d been given a script to read … but had left it sitting on a shelf for nearly a year.

Why?

Rudeness? Laziness? Absentmindedness?

No. Because he knew it was going to be shit, just by looking at it.

How?

Well, because it was 170 pages long, unbound, had the title and ‘written by’ on page one, was covered in copyright symbols, credited other people who’d read it but not written it and had an action block which took up nearly half of the page.

In other words, it was badly formatted.

The script failed the first impressions test and didn’t get read for nearly a year. Eventually, of course, he did get round to reading it (when he’d run out of paint to watch dry) and discovered it was exactly as bad as he suspected it would be,

Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a format Nazi.

He wasn’t measuring margins or complaining because the writer used the wrong separator on the slugline; but at a glance he (and I) could tell the script would be awful because it was obvious the writer didn’t understand format. And when someone doesn’t understand format, there’s a very strong possibility they don’t know how to write.

Some of you now will be screaming something along the lines of DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER.

And you can fuck right off.

You absolutely should judge a book by its cover because there are millions of books and if you don’t whittle them down to a manageable pile, you will have to read an awful lot of shit to find one you like. There are some very clever people paid good money to design book covers which will appeal to the kind of people who will enjoy that kind of book.

True, they sometimes get it wrong. They sometimes lie and clad a book in inappropriate cover to fool people into thinking it’s  as good a book as the last bestseller in the same genre. I get it, it’s a bad analogy; but what is true is this:

FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT

Script format is the suit your script wears to its job interview. If the script isn’t wearing its suit, if it’s not formatted properly then it immediately screams one of two things:

1. The writer doesn’t know how a script is formatted.
2. The writer doesn’t care how a script is formatted.

Neither of those things is good. Let’s examine them:

1. The writer doesn’t know how a script is formatted.

I’ve heard people say things in defence of this like: “Maybe it’s the writer’s first script?”

Possibly. But does that make it acceptable?

What you’re actually saying there is the writer, completely new to the game, hasn’t bothered to do the bare minimum of research needed to determine how a script is formatted. They haven’t read any scripts, they haven’t read up on what they’re supposed to be doing or how they’re supposed to be doing it – they’ve just slapped some words down on paper.

Is that a good thing?

Yes, they might be a genius. It’s possible they can write an amazing story right out of the gate.

But it’s unlikely.

Writing is a craft.

Scriptwriting is a very technical craft. You need to understand all the tricks of the normal storytelling trade, plus be able to write a technical document which can be passed around several different departments. Every single person who reads a script is looking for different information to help them do their job … if that information isn’t there, they can’t do their jobs.

Yes, their story could be an amazing piece of genius which can be retrofitted with format by someone with less talent … it could be.

But, statistically, it probably isn’t.

You’ve got to understand the odds here. As close to all as makes no difference of badly formatted scripts are badly written as well. How many times do you think someone has to make the same mistake before they realise it’s just not worth the effort?

Yes, most well formatted scripts  are awful as well; but at least they’re easy to read.

Put it this way – I’m going to give you a hundred books to read. In that pile there may or may not be one good book. There probably won’t be, but there might be. Not great, not amazing, but good.

Some of those books are recognisably books with writing and covers and words in a language you can understand. Some of them have one letter to a page and are nine-hundred thousand words long.

Which ones are more likely to contain the good, but probably not great, story?

And would you actually make the effort to read the one-letter-to-a-page books?

If you said yes, you’re  a liar. Or have too much time on your hands. Or both.

Not knowing how a script should be formatted shows a lack of interest in your own career. You haven’t bothered to do any research for the job so probably aren’t that serious. If it’s your first script, it’s probably shit. Mine was. So was the first of nearly every other working writer I’ve spoken to.

Saying you shouldn’t judge a script on its format because it might be the writer’s first script is like saying you’re wrong to not buy a car with square wheels because it’s the first car the designer drew. Not experienced to format a script = (probably) not experienced enough to write a decent script.

Probably.

2.  The writer doesn’t care how a script is formatted.

The writer’s a renegade! He breaks rules! He knows what you expect of him, he knows what will make your life easier … and he doesn’t give a shit! He’s deliberately throwing out the rule book to make you work harder! Not for him the easily understandable format which has evolved slowly over time to ensure a consistent read. He’s throwing out the old and doing it his own damn way!

In other words, he’s a cunt.

Think about it. This is a writer who’s learnt the rules and decided they’re not for him. He doesn’t want to wear a suit to the interview because FUCK YOU, THAT’S WHY!

Is this a writer you want to work with? Is this someone you want to spend years working alongside to hammer the script into shape? Someone who doesn’t even want to make the script easy for you to read? Is that person likely to take criticism well?

Given everyone you want to read your script also reads a lot of other scripts, surely if you apply the minimum amount of thought you’ll realise you work on the format so they don’t have to. Because when a script’s format is all over the place, when things aren’t on the page in exactly the same places as they were in the past thousand scripts … it’s really fucking difficult to read.

That’s before the reader gets to the actual content – you’re making them struggle with the actual reading.

Fucking knock it off.

Right, I’m going to stop now because this has gone on long enough. Next time I’ll ramble on about the specific elements of a script and why they are like they are.

The key point to remember though, is scripts are not just stories, they are technical documents. Blueprints, if you like, and conform to certain conventions to make it not just easier for everyone to read, but actually possible for a wide range of people to make a film from it.

A writer who doesn’t know, or refuses to stick to, the conventions is like a composer who writes concertos in their own shorthand as opposed to the standard musical notation – how the fuck is anyone supposed to understand it?

 

Likeability

The protagonist isn’t likeable enough – one of the worst notes in history.

Not because it isn’t true; but rather, frequently, the note-giver doesn’t know what it means. They certainly aren’t saying what they mean.

It’s a phrase which gets bandied around a lot and it’s just not true. I don’t think you need to like the protagonist, I think you just need to understand them.

Understanding comes from either empathy or sympathy or perhaps from a third word I’ve not come across in my sheltered upbringing. In retrospect, I wish I’d read more literature and watched less Knightrider.

No, fuck that, Knightrider’s ace.

A protagonist can be rude, abusive and downright unpleasant to the people around him … but if you’ve ever even remotely felt like shouting at someone’s disabled granny for being a moron (because, surprisingly, people with disabilities are people too and can be just as stupid as people without disabilities), then you understand them.

A protagonist who wants to kill the world because the world killed his dog – I understand that (sort of, okay so it makes no fucking sense; but you know what I mean). I may not agree with it, I may not like it; but I get it. So long as he’s funny or clever or good at what he does – I’ll keep watching.

When no one has any idea what a protagonist wants, he doesn’t display any skills anyone values and he’s unpleasant along with it … that’s when you get the note: make him more likeable.

I’m pretty certain the note-giver doesn’t want to see him giving money to charity or rescuing a kitten from an alligator, they just want to understand him a bit better.

I think they just want to know why he’s behaving like this and how they can relate that to one of their own experiences.

Having said that … sometimes they do mean they want to see pet fondling and goofy smiles. Not because that’s what they think, but because that’s what they think they’re supposed to think. Problem is, a lot of the people giving notes have read the same misinformation (or bullshit, if you prefer) that you and I have. Only they’ve believed it. Which is the problem with bullshit and why it should be stamped out wherever possible.

Unless I’m spouting it, in which case you should nod and smile politely … because it will make you more likeable.

 

Once in a lifetime

If you’re an unproduced writer, or a writer somewhere on the fringes, chances are you’re looking at an opportunity right now and have named it your BIG BREAK. This is it! This is the one which is going to catapult you into the big time, if this one goes wrong you’ve missed out, lost the ‘game of write’ and will never, ever be allowed into ‘the club’.

You know ‘the club’, the one everyone’s trying to break into? The one where you no longer have to write stuff no one appreciates, no longer have to network or pitch or claw, fight and maim to get a commission?

That’s right, the one which doesn’t exist.

Your BIG BREAK is probably a competition, or a trial script for a show, or a well-known director or producer who’s agreed to read your script, maybe it’s an open script call on a production company’s website? The point is, this is THE ONE! You’ve got a limited amount of time to get your script in order or the opportunity will be gone forever.

Fuck the family, fuck the day job, fuck sleep – if this script isn’t finished in time, your fledgling career is over!

Except, it’s not. Not really.

Just look at that list again:

1. a competition
2. a trial script for a show
3. a well-known director or producer who’s agreed to read your script
4. an open script call on a production company’s website

That’s four once-in-a-lifetime opportunities off the top of my head. You see, thing about once-in-a-lifetime opportunities is there’s tons of the buggers. They happen pretty much every day. Competitions are frequently annual … and there’s thousands of them, some shows will always take trial scripts and directors/producers/companies will always need new material.

If your script isn’t finished in time for this competition – don’t enter. If your script isn’t good enough yet, don’t give it to Mr Famous Director because you happened to sit next to him on the train.

Yes, there are tens of success stories from people who got their work produced on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; but there are thousands more who sent in a script they’d rushed to finish and didn’t get any further.

The successes may have failed a dozen once-in-a-lifetime opportunities before they found the one which made them.

Similarly, the failures will have many, many more opportunities in the future. Opportunity is always there – always. The worst thing you can do (barring breaking into someone’s house armed with electrodes and bad thoughts) is to send anyone a script you’ve completed in a sloppy rush.

“But Mr Famous Director wants to read it now! He’s leaving town in two days!”

Yeah? So what?

He’ll either come back or he won’t. Giving him a shitty, unfinished script isn’t going to help, is it? If he doesn’t come back, there are lots of famous directors – if the script’s good enough, one of them will take it.

Quality will out, shoving shit in an envelope in a blind panic won’t.

If you’re stressed and panicked, chances are you’re not doing your best work anyway – relax. Let this competition go, you can enter next year.

Prodco taking open submissions? They’re doing it once, they’ll do it again. If they don’t and your idea is good enough, email them in a year’s time (when it’s actually finished) and ask them nicely if they’ll read it. They probably will and you’ll have the added bonus of not being one more script in the massive open-submission slush pile.

There is no such thing as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you won’t know your BIG BREAK until after the fact. This is a race with no defined finish line and is purely against yourself – run it at your own pace, one you can sustain for years if need be. Singling one opportunity out as your ONLY CHANCE FOR SUCCESS is just silly – you’re putting too much pressure on yourself, relax.

I’m not saying don’t take every opportunity you can find, I’m just saying you need to get the egg/basket ratio right.

Don’t send anything out until it’s ready. Not ever. Your big break is out there somewhere, but it’ll choose you, not the other way around.