We're Alike, You and I

We're all one, man. We writers. So what's everybody doing this Labor Day weekend? Must be the price of gas or the alignment of the stars but literally everybody I know is working this weekend, myself included. But that's cool - a couple of quiet days to really catch up is a good thing. Weekdays for me are overflowing with phone calls, lunches and emails and it's actually hard to find a couple of quiet hours to do what I primarily do - work with writers.

Today I am judging the semi-final round of the Silver Screenwriting Competition. This is really fun but so hard to choose - we got some GREAT scripts. Something was definitely in the water.

Here's a weird writerly question - recognizing that it's profoundly narcissistic, have you ever pictured your own funeral? Like what kind of food would be served? Who would be there? Have you got it all planned out? I wonder if funerals for people in our age bracket (shut up, you in the back) will consistently become celebrations rather than sad events, as in the past. Would you have an open casket? No FREAKING WAY for me. Then as a writer, you do weird things like have this conversation with yourself:

That's weird and narcissistic! Get help, man. How long since your last therapy appointment, for real?

But what if nobody knows what I want my funeral to be and I wind up with a boring one? It's important, man! I have to have it all planned!

Your funeral is not for you, ding dong, it's for the ones you left behind.

Nuh uh! It's about who I am!

Yeah okay good look getting the permits on this "funeral" you have in mind, and by the way you might want to focus on living for now.

I want a Viking funeral; put me on a boat, set it on fire and shove it off the shore and into the ocean. Permits aside, that's one cool funeral. And while I was floating out into the ocean, And She Was by the Talking Heads would be playing and the guests would have a clam bake on the beach and drink punchbowls of my famous Pineapple Rum Surprise. That's a party, man.

Who's in? And who's watching FITZCARRALDO this weekend, hm?

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Reading Correspondence Course

Have you ever thought of becoming a professional script reader? Or perhaps as an aspiring screenwriter, you’d like to have the inside track on just how scripts are analyzed in Hollywood. Either way, this self-paced Reader Correspondence course may be just the thing for you.

Week one:
Overview of the Job Description
Job Expectations
11 Things You Better Know Right Now
Understanding the Grid Categories
Off grid Categories
The Language and Tone of Coverage Reports

Includes: three sample coverages

Homework: watch 3:10 to YUMA, LEGALLY BLONDE and HOT FUZZ.

Write a logline for each.
Write a brief description of the theme of each, the character arc for the main character, who the antagonist is and what the first act break, second act break and midpoint were within the story.

Week two:
The Reader's Oath: No Harm, No Foul, No Lies
Tenets of Being a Good reader
Rating the Writer
Rating the Project
The Shape and Structure of a Coverage

Homework:
Read two scripts; provide recommendations for the project and the writer, one page of comments.

Week three:
Writing the Synopsis
Sample Synopses

Homework: provide loglines and synopses for two sample scripts.

Week four:
Writing the Full Coverage
Speed and Efficiency; Tricks of the Trade
Finding Reading Work; Accumulating Samples

Homework: Timed reading of two scripts.

FINAL EXAM

Provide full coverage for three scripts including a 2 page synopsis and 1 1⁄2 pages of comments. Rate the writer and the project.

Passing the final exam with flying colors will earn you a letter of recommendation from The Script Department as an entrée to potential reading jobs.

The cost of the class is $575 and includes feedback and notes on your progress throughout.

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Are You Ready for Success?

So many things have to be in alignment for a screenwriter to step into the ring with reputable rep and really get the work out there in a competitive way.

We've talked about the controversial and provocative subject of talent here on the Rouge Wave. And other elements that are important as well: networking, determination and perseverance, education, practice, timing... But something that is often overlooked is emotional readiness. Are you inviting success into your life as a writer, or are you unwittingly slamming the door?

How you feel about the process and where you are is a great indicator of your readiness to really be in this rarefied and sometimes very frustrating world. It is as common as the day is long for writers to wax and wane in terms of confidence. Some days you're up - other days you come crashing back down. It happens to most everybody - even established writers. I think it was one of the writers of WANTED who said recently that every working screenwriter secretly fears they are about six months away from teaching screenwriting at a community college somewhere. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But the wolves are always at the door - there are no guarantees in this business.

I think it a truism, however, in any walk of life, that when you feel a sense of desperation about whatever your goal is: getting the job, the guy, the loan, the approval of your boss, mom or whomever - the goal recedes from your grasp. If you want something and are coming from a place of a deep-seated, subconscious belief that you really can't get it, you doom the outcome. For some writers this desperation takes the form of victimhood or paranoia. For others, it's hubris and arrogance. But it's the same fear, basically - I can't make it. I deserve to make it but those bastards are against me. The system is set up to exclude me.

And so everything is seen through this filter. The reason I didn't place at X competition is that it wasn't FAIR. The reason I am not getting my calls returned is that those jerks in Hollywood are rude bastards! That consultant or script service ripped me off!

Not everybody who gets older gets wiser. But many do. I have been quite open about the dumb mistakes I have made - one of many examples: send a tv spec script straight to the show runner of that show simply because I could - my cousin by marriage was a powerful ex at Fox. Spec got shut down faster than a gin joint and I burned the connection. Plus it was quite awkward running into my cousin at family events. Dumb. Not the way those things are done.

But you do get wiser, eventually. And you learn. And over time, a sense of peacefulness descends upon you. Nobody is out to get you in Hollywood. Or demean and rob you of your ideas and happiness. If another writer has a success, that does not mean that he/she is a fabulously lucky jerk who doesn't deserve it.

I had lunch the other day with Marc Zicree, a fabulous, genteel, gracious and optimistic man who has made a living in Hollywood for decades now. Marc is one of those people around whom you suddenly feel a great sense of peace. He's been at it for many years, he has reinvented himself, he has continued to do what he loves. He is the ideal of success, in my view. We talked about the predominant belief that Hollywood is a bad, mean, cheating, awful place and how holding a different view of that is controversial. I have actually received, over time, several what I would categorize as "hate" emails whenever I talk about holding a different view of Hollywood. I have never said it is something out of a Barney episode. It's not. It's show BUSINESS. But not everybody is literally out to get you.

No, not everybody is nice in Hollywood. But that is true in every walk of life. But where do you choose to put your focus? On the positive or the negative? And,it doesn't have to be binary; you can recognize that not everything is sunshine and roses while not choosing to dwell on that.

I find that negative attitudes and beliefs usually accompany writers who just aren't ready to be here. If bad notes or an unreturned phone call inflame you and feel terrible, something is out of whack for you. You will always get bad reviews. There are always people who will not act in the way you would prefer. If anything you do in life embitters you - something is wrong. Your emotions are like a GPS system - a warning light is flashing if you feel cheated, unappreciated, shunned, scared or angry.

So are you really ready to be the success you would like to be? Do you have the grace, wisdom and peacefulness necessary to not take things personally? Do you know that subjectivity is nothing more than that? If you choose to instead continue to pursue your cabinetry business, does that feel like a great choice and not a failure?

Check in with yourself, Wavers. Is writing providing you with joy? Do you take your Hollywood interactions and rejections in stride? Are you happy for others when they find success? Do you know, for sure, that choosing a different path is perfection itself and not a failure?

As the great Joseph Campbell said - follow your bliss. That is the only true indicator you have. Positive thinking isn't something cute your mom or 3rd grade teacher encouraged you to do. It is much more powerful than that. Life is all about letting go and letting life take you where it will. You have to let go of the "how" and the "what" and only follow how you feel. Maybe you do have a bright future as a paid entertainment writer. Maybe you really should be a carpenter or IT specialist. There are no guarantees. But if you feel primarily misunderstood, cheated, shunned or overlooked when it comes to your writing - something is out of alignment.

A delightful and brilliant movie, if you haven't seen it, is Ratatouille. The movie is loaded with "follow your bliss", positive thinking:

"In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere."

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The Assistant Files

And continuing Good In the Room Week here at the Assistant Files…

Truth be told, I guess I forget how daunting it must be to writers -- especially new, trying-to-break-in writers -- to walk into a strange room and try to prove unequivocally to people you've never met that you are a genius and they should give you large sums of money.

At least, that's probably what it feels like on your end. "Look at me! Watch me dance! Faster? I can go faster! Watch these tricks!"

But you know, from the point of view of the exec or producer, he's really just hoping that you won't be boring, and might even be someone that'll make him look good, what with your killer project and your undeniable awesomeness which everyone else in town will soon be clamoring to get a piece of.

A while ago I stumbled on this video of Michael Wiese teaching some folks how to act in a meeting. It's short, and it makes some good points, so you should watch it.

Here's what I think you can take from this video:

1) Listen to what he says about assistants. That Michael Wiese is a wise, wise man.

2) I've said it before and I'll say it again: be confident. No, not a cocky know-it-all. But do show the folks you're meeting with that they are in capable hands and that you are confident in the material. Outward calm and confidence makes them think you know what you're doing, even if inwardly you know you're just fumbling around in the dark. Again, confident and calm, not needy and desperate.

3) Know your audience. What is it that they're looking for? What brought you into the room to begin with? There must be something that they liked about your idea if they agreed to meet with you; try to highlight that. If you know your audience, you can show them how you're really on the same team. That's the whole point, right? Not so much to sell them something, but to get in business together. You each have something to offer the other. If you look at it that way, you're really on equal footing. Just two people in a room, working together toward a common goal.

Everyone likes a winner, and Basking In Reflected Glory is an important and valuable skill set in Hollywood. Everyone wants to be associated with a hit property, however tenuously, because hustling for that next gig isn't an activity exclusive to writers. Being associated with a winner adds to their worth, helps them get the next meeting, the next project, or maybe just the next M/A/W to come talk to them instead of the guy over there who worked on MEET DAVE.

So be the winner that they want to know. Be the likable hero of your own real-life adventure.

Does that help? I hope so, because I really do want you to succeed. That way when I'm making the rounds, trying to get my next gig, people will be really impressed when I drop your name.

xo,
Andy Sachs

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The Winner!

Would Meg, writer of the Money Side Up premise line please contact the front desk to collect your prize? Congratulations!

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Should You Write a Short Script?

So yesterday, The Wave-inatrix got together with my friend T, a DGA program graduate, gifted short film maker and soon-to-be CSI AD (assistant director). I'm leaving his name confidential so as not to jinx anything. Not that I believe in jinxing - how juvenile! - but still. Anyway, so T, as we already know here on the Rouge Wave, is in search of his next short film to direct. His last short film starred Sandra Oh of SIDEWAYS and Grey's Anatomy, just by way of wow, that's impressive.

T and I talked about Billy Friedkin and Werner Hertzog (VERNER for you non-teutonic types), then ordered mint lemonade and went over the scripts I had obtained for T through clients and a few submissions here on the Rouge Wave. I know, you're wondering why the pic of the fancy wine, above. It's coming. Read on.

Now I do want to note that yours truly has stupidly never bothered to write a short script. Why, I thought, would I do that when I should write a feature script - that's where the money and the careers are, right? Ah. But through this experience I have learned that in actuality, a well written short script is not only a trillion times more likely to get made, it can open doors FOR your feature script. I admit, I have secretly thought that short scripts were hobbyistic ways for nascent writers to spend time rather than facing the REAL work - a feature. Sure, I've seen plenty of short films and gone to short film festivals - wow, you barely have to feed the meter! But this experience with T has really been eye-opening for me. Had I bothered, in the past, to write some short scripts, my work would have been the first thing I would have given to T, and due to our friendship, my experience and sunny personality, I would probably be the one getting my short script produced. But no. I have never bothered. In fact, I pitched T a short story I had written awhile back. He LOVED it. Was it in short script form? Had I adapted it? Because he'd make it baby! Ahhhhh guess what the lame answer was? No. Hadn't bothered. I missed the boat. That crazy Willie Wonka boat. You know the one. Through the tunnel?

So - exactly what is a short script? How short is short? Well, there doesn't seem to be an exact measure. A short script can be anywhere from 10 to 30 pages long. Most often, short films submitted to festivals, etc., run about 10 to 12 minutes. So that's approximately a 10 to 14 page script. Price Waterhouse fired me for trying to use my abacus at work, just FYI. But you get the drift.

So there we were, T and I, drinking our mint lemonades and going over what DIDN'T appeal to T about the short scripts I'd given him, as he worked up to the one that did appeal to him very much. What, I asked T, is the short list, in your view, of qualities you look for in a short script?

And this is what he said:

Voice.
Absolute and irreversible change.
Emotional payoff.
Gettable locations.

We've talked so much here on the Rouge Wave about sequencing, structure and character arc over some 100+ pages of script. How on earth do you squeeze that all down to say 12 pages? It's like trying to shove a camel through the eye of a needle, right?

As T and I reviewed the short scripts that did not work for him, two qualities came up over and over again: 1) Very expensive shoot; too many cars, extras and locations. 2) What was the point of the story and he could see the end coming a mile away.

Many of the short scripts that were submitted to me after I made the request here on the Rouge Wave fell into the "what was the point" category. They were clever and ironic but sort of ended with a thud. Wow - so the good guy was the bad guy. As if that revelation and irony was super powerful. But it isn't. Not really. Many of the submissions were dramatic dead-ends. Well written, from page to page but ultimately, what I saw again and again was the writer getting through nine pages and then essentially saying - PSYCH! Wait - did I spell that right? You know what I mean, like what your brother did to you all growing up until it left a painful scar. Here's money - PSYCH! You can borrow my car - PSYCH! My best friend has a crush on you - PSYCH! Ha ha ha ha. Ha. Yeah it's pretty funny now, dude. Who's pushing fifty? I'm just saying.

Many of us are familiar with the famed American short story writer, O. Henry. Famous because he wrote extraordinarily clever short stories that almost always had a major twist. Most famously, The Gift of the Magi. Ambrose Bierce, of course wrote the amazing An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

Those two writers - and I'm only stating the obvious and of course leaving off many, many modern writers who were inspired by them - knew how to tell an extraordinarily emotionally complex story in a simple way in a short space of time. Simple plot, complex characters. We've all heard that before, right? If that formula is true of a feature script, it is a thousand times as true for a short script. Because you do not have 90 minutes to tell your story. You have ten minutes. So writing a short script is not a free pass in which a writer doesn't need to bother with complexity and payoff. A short script doesn't ask less of you as a writer - it asks quite a lot more.

A short script has to be extraordinarily powerful because of the delivery system - 10 pages. It's not good enough that everything we just saw didn't happen or was ironic or awful or cute. Ten pages about two sisters who find a kitty and save their parent's marriage simply isn't compelling enough to warrant a short film. A short film really has to cover significant emotional terrain. As T put it, "absolute and irreversible change".

T said, on the one hand, he hates writers to censor themselves by worrying about expense and "gettable locations" but at the same time, the reality is - could this scene in the car be shot in a car that is moving or parked? Because the moving car is way more expensive and difficult. Can the scene set in a crowded bar be set on the sidewalk OUTSIDE the crowded bar? Because if we show the crowded bar interior, the film maker just got himself dealing with hiring dozens of actors to play extras. See what I'm getting at?

If a feature script is a field of grapes harvested and turned into a barrel of wine, a short script is that barrel of wine turned into one jeweled glass of exotic, apricot-scented dessert wine.

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Quotable

Will the Rouge Waver who submitted a short script entitled QUOTABLE please contact the front office immediately? I know we emailed and I asked you to marry me because I loved the script so much, but, and this is a lesson for all Wavers - please always include a title page with your name and contact information, for their are leagues of people just like The Wave-inatrix, with a tenuous hold on short and medium-term memory. My friend, the director looking for short scripts loved QUOTABLE and would like to talk to you.

End transmission.

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Rabbit Hole or Brain Candy?

All right, Wavers, I plead guilty to leading several of you straight down the rabbit hole by introducing you to the crack that is Arts & Letters Daily. I think by now you all know how I feel about feeding your mind no matter what walk of life you are in but especially if you are a writer. Expand your mind and the rest will follow, right?!

Here's a few more sites that I trust you are trolling each day for nuggets:

Narrative
Because this literary site features an impressive array of writers and thinkers and fiction is good for the soul.

The Utne Reader
Because you may not agree with everything you read there but being in touch with other points of view in this compendium of the best of the alternative press is illuminating and provocative.

Salon
Because this is one of the smartest newsy/literary websites ever.

Slate
Because as print news publications like the New York Times, the LA Times and others struggle to be relevant, Slate is ascendant.

The Onion
Because it's the perfect antidote to the seriousness of it all.

Scriptalicious
Because the only German I know is what I learned in high school but this is funny: Gesehen: The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger spielt auf eine Weise, dass man sich fürchtet. Und zwar wirklich fürchtet. Und Christian Bale ist sexy. Yes, I would agree with the observation about Bale. The other stuff - uh, yes?

...and there are so many other great sites as well. Feed your mind, read lots of points of view, read fiction, fatten your brain up some. Just be disciplined; your writing time should be quiet, uninterrupted time - set a timer if you have to. But don't feel guilty about reading great stuff online - you need to be doing it. It's part of not only being an informed, entertained citizen, it's where you may stumble upon ideas, inspiration and motivation.

No need for guilt if you set aside the time daily and return to your writing when your web surfing time is up. While The Rouge Wave is not in the same league, by far, with any of the sites above, I hope that it is one such brain candy site for writers. I do strive to entertain. Bread and circus and all that.

Now get back to work everybody!

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The Assistant Files

When writers come in to pitch my boss, he usually closes the door. I bring them Diet Cokes and room-temperature waters, ask if they need anything else, and go back to my desk.

Where I then eavesdrop on their conversation.

(The entire point of being an assistant, after all, is that you get to learn by example. You stay on your boss' calls, you have access to his emails, you listen to him in meetings. It's not much, but it's basically the entire perks package on offer, so you gotta take advantage of it when you can.)

It's interesting how easy it is to tell if a writer is good in a room. Even with the door closed. Even if I can only hear the rise and fall of their conversation over the hum of the A/C.

Good in the room: the writer talks for a while. My boss starts to interject questions. His questions and comments come faster and faster. There are bursts of laughter or exclamations of surprise and approval. The meeting runs long, and I have to bump the next thing on his calendar.

Bad in the room: the writer won't let him get a word in edgewise, because he has a memorized pitch he's rattling off. There are long, confused pauses. My boss opens the door again after twenty minutes. "Thanks for coming in," my boss says to the writer. "Great on paper," my boss might say, after the writer leaves. "But did you see how sweaty he was? Poor guy."

You need to be both a good writer and good in a room to have a career here, which probably seems awfully unfair to a lot of writers: not only do you have to be a great writer, you have to shave and put on pants and go be charming to some studio guy!

Hollywood as an industry likes to think of itself as "Cool". You can still work if you're writer-quirky (and in fact it might do you some good) but if you have a hard time making eye contact, screenwriting as a career is going to be tough. You spend a LOT of time in meetings, especially as a new writer whose spec just went out. Welcome to the meeting machine. Can we get you a beverage?

From where I'm sitting, "good in a room" has a lot to do with confidence. A writer who's calm and happy to talk about his story because he knows it and knows that it's good is pleasant to listen to. A writer who's tense and sweaty and thinks his story might be pretty bad, not so much. Which is not to say that his story actually IS bad, just that the executive listening to his fumbling pitch has probably already stopped listening and is thinking about Pinkberry.

People who are decent at pitching usually do it a lot. This is how the progression seems to go:

First, you have to get over the embarrassment that you're even talking about your idea.

Second, you have to stop apologizing for it. If you're going to write it, it must be pretty good, right? Nobody likes a braggart, but everybody likes calm and confident.

Third, you need to just tell the story. It's amazing how bad people are at this. I have a lot of sympathy, because it's hard to boil down 120 pages of your blood and sweat to a quick chat. But think of how you describe a spec you just read and loved, and then try to do that for your own work. Nix your insistence on talking about themes and subplots and character arcs. Tell us what the story is, and what's so great about it.

Fourth, you pitch so often that you get comfortable doing it. It makes you tense to listen to a pitch by someone who's nervous. It's very relaxing to listen to one by someone who knows his stuff and is calm.

Fifth, I eavesdrop on your conversation with my boss. Later, my boss comes out and says "That guy was awesome. Call his agent and set something up for next week. Let's get this going."

Congratulations, you're officially good in a room.

xxo,
Andy Sachs

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Down the Rabbit Hole

I have friends who often tell me that they can just start clicking around online and get absolutely lost, following one story and then another. That never happens to me. I'm too busy and guilt-ridden or something. But there is ONE website that I have to avoid because I will get really immersed in it. A website that has been listed here on the Rouge Wave under "things I love" for sometime. A website at which I often print out article after article to read later. So if you're looking for a new addiction that is not necessarily entertainment, gossip or fashion related, if you're tired of reading message boards with rants posted by dullards and fiends, check out Arts & Letters Daily, an aggregate or compendium, if you will, of newsworthy articles gathered from some of the most prestigious news and opinion outlets internationally.

I apologize in advance for the fact that you are about to get sucked down the rabbit hole for many hours. Tell your boss that I'm really sorry. But just think - next time you go to a party, you're gonna knock 'em dead with your fascinating repertoire of conversational topics. Guys - chicks love a smart guy. Just FYI.

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Ripped From the Headlines Competition

All right, Wavers, so here we go. This was a slightly confusing competition since it was a new exercise for everyone. My original intent had been that writers would in some way combine elements from all three news stories into one premise line. Many, many Wavers did not quite grasp that but I don't think I was perfectly clear. However, in addition, I found that while there are tons of enthusiastic Wavers who send in one-page scenes in our other, more traditional competitions here on the Rouge Wave, many of you need a major brush up on how to write a compelling, pithy, clever premise line. For now, let's just vote on the finalists but expect some premise line lessons here on the Rouge Wave in the near future.

Next R from the H premise line competition will be much more clearly explained, preceded by some brush-up talk and much more strictly judged. Given the wobbly nature of this very first Ripped From the Headlines premise line contest, I went with what I wanted to go with. Because I'm the boss, applesauce.

Here are three loglines that most intrigued or cracked me up:

Money Side Up
by Meg Pezzella

Gina must choose between Nick, her new boyfriend/co-owner of her cutting-edge L.A. breakfast eatery, and her brother Scott, owner of a celebrity boutique hospital accused of negligent homicide. Gina jeopardizes her business when she discovers Scott trains his mentally ill patients to steal for him, using the money to fund his hospital and her restaurant. What price breakfast?

Wave-inatrix: I chose this premise line because the title was clever, Meg used all three news stories in her premise line, she kept it short and her last sentence is funny and clever.

Sunnyside Down
by Jason Hennessy

After 7 robberies in a fiscal year, a breakfast restauranteur gets fed up and decides to egg on justice himself when he discovers his most regular patrons are the ones that keep taking home his bacon.

Wave-inatrix: I chose this premise line because the title made me laugh aloud, the premise line is nice and short and while Jason did not include the mental hospital story, his premise is clever as heck (newsflash: I prize cleverness highly) and his playful use of breakfast words was - clever.

FEED THE ANIMALS (with apologies to Girl Talk)
by Seth Fortin

Scott Benedict's strange, succulent breakfasts, served only to LA's most exclusive elite, promote youth and vitality -- better than botox and surgery put together! If his customers knew that he had to murder mental patients to harvest his, um, "ingredients".... well, they probably wouldn't care. But when a paranoid Scott kills the Venice Beach witch doctor who knows about the necronomicookbook he's using to whip up canapes of eternal youth, it's bad for business: ghastly figures begin harassing, intimidating, and robbing Scott's employees and customers outside his Melrose bistro. When the last of his staff quits on the night of the full moon, Scott rushes to complete preparations for the Dr. Drew Pinsky celebrity fundraiser breakfast alone, but it looks like he's got some guests who don't have reservations -- and they're not here for the wild-mushroom coquette....

Wave-inatrix: While Seth's premise line is too long, I chose this premise line because Seth used all three news stories, he has a little DEATH BECOMES HER thing going on and he wrote the premise line in a playful and compelling way.

Voting Guidelines:
Vote for the premise line and title that most entertained you and vote like an executive - which writer would you hire to polish up the premise line, develop it some and make it into a short film of the film festival kind? No ballot stuffing please.

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Movie of the Week Club

Over lo the past 100 years or so, the production of moving pictures has gone from a trickle to an avalanche. A quick visit to any video store will reveal miles of shelves of movies. More movies than a normal person would ever want or need to see. But writers, especially screenwriters aren't normal people.

For those of us lucky enough to take film classes, many great and obscure movies were mandatory viewing and thank god. I really can't see myself having voluntarily moseyed out to see Jules et Jim at age 18 one Thursday night. Until I saw it and a world was opened up to me. The Battleship Potemkin! Metropolis! Fanny & Alexander! Breathless! The Seven Samurai! There were movies out there that were different than THE CANNONBALL RUN and FLUBBER. It was revelatory.

Academic studies, cultural access or parental influence nonwithstanding, even today as we get older, the world spins faster, there's so much going on in our lives - we barely have time to go out to the theater to watch current releases. When we go to the video store, we often pass right over anything not on the "new release" wall. Who has time? Well, I'm here to say we must make time because there are movies down there on the lower left of a bottom shelf that are absolute jewels. No self-respecting screenwriter should be guilty of not perusing the shelves for those jewels we may have missed or long forgotten.

Let's try something interesting. If enough Wavers participate, we could have what amounts to a book club for movies. Here's the idea - we'll have a movie of the week that participating Wavers will watch and then when the week is up, we'll have some feedback and discussion from all you movie-nuts and screenwriters. You know, comparing, contrasting, weeping, arguing, laughing, admiring, complimenting and wondering about what we just saw.

So The Wave-inatrix actually has two movies for the movie club this week:

Fitzcarraldo and Burden of Dreams - the documentary about the making of Fitzcarraldo.

Here's why I have chosen these two movies:

Because Werner Herzog is a fascinating director. Because he is as driven as his main character, Fitzcarraldo. Because this is a famed movie with a famously troubled shoot. Because the steamboat going up the Amazon is an iconic moment and you just can't beat the tension. Because Klaus Kinski is an actor you should be familiar with, god rest his crazy soul. Because if you love movies, you really should have seen this movie by now.

If you have a Movie of the Week Club to suggest, email me HERE and I'll compile a list. If we get a lot of suggestions, we can vote on what comes up next. Please provide a few bullet points about why you nominate your suggestion and think it worthy of viewing and discussion.

For now: Fitzcarraldo and Burden of Dreams. Discussion on Tuesday, September 2nd right here on the Rouge Wave.

One - two....

flex those Netflix fingers....

THREE

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Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

I love the Mini-W. Such a smart kid. She's put me through horror film boot camp this summer, making me watch all her faves with her. And she said she'd seen this odd little film that she received on her NetFlix: Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Uh, okay, weird title but I'm open. I'm cool, man.

One word, Wavers: Wow. What an odd, funny, fascinating, brilliant little film. It's a virtual slasher film primer. Don't worry - it's not graphic except for one boob-n-nipple shot. It's not a mockumentary but a mockumentary/reality/slasher hybrid, if I had to define it and I feel compelled to try.

I was absolutely riveted by Behind the Mask and if you are writing horror, slasher, thrillers or just interested in taking an enjoyable dvd film class - I encourage you to check this movie out. I am so enamored that I'm in the process of contacting the writer and director, Scott Glosserman. I'm hoping he's a cool dude and that he might be open to an interview for the Rouge Wave. We'll see where some good old fashioned adulation gets me. Co-written by David Stieve, Behind the Mask is a tongue-in-cheek look at a serial killer who takes his business quite seriously, preparing with cardio workouts, meticulous planning and jovial dinners with a serial killer mentor as they compare notes and stories.

This is a MUST see dvd.

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Silver Screenwriting Quarterfinalists

Well Wavers, this is the list of quarterfinalists in the Silver Screenwriting Competition. I know that more than a few Rouge Wavers are on this list but I want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to everyone alike. Cupcakes for all of these fine writers! And just think, someone on this list is going to be the Grand Prize winner - it's very exciting!

For your Wavertainment, please notice the interesting titles on this list. Notice the way that one interesting title piques your interest moreso than another. If you had to choose a script out of this list to read, which would it be if all you knew about it was the title? Fun stuff, no?

But again, the main thing is - CONGRATULATIONS to those who made it to the quarterfinals, good luck on advancing to the next couple of rounds!

A Soldier's Honor, Mike Scherer
All The King's Horses, Richard Huber
Another Time, Another Place, Skip Berry
Apricot Harmony, John Killeen
Aurelious Rising, Paul Cooper
AWAY GAMES, Michael Cheung
Bad Rap, Mark Grisar
Bananafish Sandwich, Kevin O'Malley
Battle Mountain, Kristine Hurst
Blood Money, Michael Eging
Blood Snow, Adam Hong
Blowback, Jeff Travers
Body Work, Haik Hakobian
Bridie Molloy, Daniel Donnelly
Bull's Eye, Tamara Farsadi
Business or Pleasure, Sara Zofko
Chapman, Justin Owensby
Christmas 1914, Robert Milius
CROSS MY HEART... Rich Sheehy
Cul-De-Sac, Galen Young
Devil Of Sorrow, Robert Lewis
Devil's Due, Neil Cumbria
FAMILY FIRST, Patrick Barb
Feed the Monster, Rob Rex
Felix the Flyer, Christopher Canole
FORT MISERABLES, Leonard Lawson
FREE SKATE, Caitlin McCarthy
Garbo's Last Stand, Jonathan Miller
Ghoul, Kelly Parks
HANGING ON, Matthew Kaplan
Hate Day, David Kempski
Head Games, Scott Marengo
Hunger, Michael Hogan
In God's Name, John Killeen
In Trust, Justin Owensby
Influence, Dov Engelberg
Jam the Flow, Galen Young
Lights on the Lake, Jason Tucker
Loss of Innocence, Eric Gaunaurd
Marry Me, Daniel Korb
Mr. Unlucky , Tony Nichols
PHANTOM NOISE, Yvette Bou
POWDER BROWN, Philip Dorr
Qumran, Mike Scherer
Red Car, P Montgomery
Relative Terms, Deborah Stenard
Revived, Jennie Von Eggers
RUNNING GUN, Mike Bencivenga
Salt and Light, Natalie Zimmerman
Scavengers, Diana Kemp-Jones
Scent of Jasmine, Israela Margalit
Scents of Justice, James Albert
Searching for Ernie, Ron Vigil
She's Got A Way, Elise Stempky
Shooting Bambi, William Goins
Sisters in Arms, Barry Leach
Sleeping With the Lutefisk, Wenonah Wilms
SLIDING INTO HOME, Rich Sheehy
SNILDERHOLDEN'S JUNGLE, Jennifer Thomas
Something For Me, Juan Sebastian Jacome
Sonny Takes to Peru, Mark Hammer
Soulmating, Christopher Bosley
Stakeholder, Stephanie Branco
Stolen Sky, Dan Fabrizio
Stuck on Love , R.J. Berens
Stupid Love, Steven Zelman
Swing, Christie Havey-Smith
The 6, Brandon Vega
The ABCs of Mr.D, Alex Darrow
The Adventures of Zara Zancan in Cactus Canyon, Amy Quick Parrish
The Bermuda Prawn, Patricia Semler
The Bottomless Puzzle, Patrick Daly
THE DE-HAUNTERS, Bryan Bagby
The Devil in Saint Nick, Christopher Burns
The Doll, Rich Figel
The Fire Store, Allen Colombo
The Friendliest Evil Clown Around, Michael Pauly
The Goddess, Rafael De Leon Jr.
The Hinge, Vining Wolff
THE KNUCKLEBALLER, Michael Murphy
The LAM of GOD, Drew Langer
The Magic of Merin: Inside the Lamp, David Kiez
The Nazi Method, Matthew Grant
The Nutcracker, Connie Tonsgard
The Orchard, Diane Stredicke
The Placeholder, Amy Neswald
THE PRICE OF VENGEANCE, Patrick Hoeft
The Prisonaires, Mike Freeman
THE SAXON, Nigel Grant
The Spinning Wheel, Natashia Saunders
The Terminals, Matt Umbarger
The Tooth Fairy, Michael Hogan
Through The Grapevine, Shequeta Smith
Through the Night, Edward Martin III
TO THE SEA, Elizabeth Robinson
TOOL, G.T. Field
Tooth Lake, Richard Topping
Truthies, Carlo DeCarlo
Turnabout, Mike Scherer
Turning Annie, Bruce Stirling
Twilight, Sebastian Moretto
Unity, Eugene Langlais
Unsigned: The Feature, Christopher Wasmer
UTOPIA, Kevin Norman
Wait For Me, Brantley Black
white niggers in the woodpile, paul van zyl
World Wide Web, Jason Arnopp
Wrocklage, Stephen Daniels
Yard Sale, Irin Evers

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The "T" Word

Recently, as all good Wavers know, The Wave-inatrix started an interesting conversation about talent. Or - it - as it is sometimes colloquially referred to in the biz. The post sparked a healthy debate and dialogue. Is talent necessary to succeed? Who decides if you have "it"? Can talent be cultivated, taught or habituated? Most importantly, is talent some kind of mysterious word bandied about to keep the competition out? Don't bother - you don't have "it". Talent is a mysteriously arrived at, exclusive quality that only writers of the highest caste have.

My opinion - and it is only an opinion - is that yes, having that mysterious facility with words and story herein referred to as "talent" is crucial to having a paid writing career. And I define paid writing career to encompass novels, short fiction, essays, journalism, screenwriting and no doubt a couple of other mediums that are at the moment escaping me. Writers who lack talent are not, in general, published for public consumption. Because editors, agents and managers of all stripes receive too much for the slush pile to pay someone who ain't got that thang.

Does determination and perseverance matter - oh god yes. But if you don't have talent, perseverance is meaningless. If you got it, you got it and you always had it. If you don't, you don't.

I think that thought is absolutely terrifying to aspiring writers.

And it is complicated by the fact that while I do believe talent is inborn from day one, it does need to be identified and groomed. If Michael Phelps had grown up in a Bedouin family with no access to a swimmable body of water, perhaps his talent would never have blossomed into more than a great eye for a distant oasis. Or perhaps like a character in a sweeping novel, he would have traveled great distances seeking open bodies of water, mysteriously drawn ever forward by a desire and dream he couldn't articulate only to later write a clumsy novel about the experience that is picked up by a publisher with an eye toward a clearly unique story, who then hires a ghost-writer to tell the Wandering Erstwhile Swimming Bedouin memoir in an entertaining way. And that, Wavers, was what they call in school a run-on sentence. But I digress.

Here's the reality - everybody has talent. For something. Music, cooking, teaching, ping pong, diplomacy, animal husbandry, organizing, motivating, salesmanship, growing stuff, making stuff, swimming - something. Everybody has a talent. But not everybody has writing talent.

And it is a matter of great curiosity for me and some indignation, that consistently, the general public seems to feel that writing is somehow easy. Maybe it's because of the way we look, or the way we often work at home in our socks, or maybe we're just so cool we make it look easy. But the perception that what we do is somehow easy and can be learned by purchasing a few books on the topic is maddening and when I'm in a bad mood - demeaning. So many writers were outsiders growing up; the freaks, the geeks, the homebodies and we were misunderstood and abused for it. And now we're cool? And now our talents are instantly accessible by dilettantes and pretenders?? That the occasional indignation that arises like hot lava. And dilettante, by the way is the word we writers use when it's gettin' ugly and we're pissed. Oh yeah, we fight with words. Gol darn it.

The thing with talent that makes it a fun and provocative topic is that it is as elusive as hell and almost impossible to define. Which is why, ironically enough, "it" is a fairly accurate word for talent. Although of course, "it" is generally used when referring to actors and entertainers meaning they have a certain indefinable charisma and magnetism.

Do you have writing talent? Maybe. Maybe you do but you don't know it because you never tried. There are plenty of stories of successful writers who started writing much later in life. The fact is that there is just no end-all, be-all definition of writing talent, who has it, where you get it and whether it can be cultivated, taught or picked up at Walgreens on sale.

Well - Walgreens is always selling out. Try Target.

Do you have talent? Yes of course you do. At something. It might be writing. It might be wood carving. You can't really find out until you try. The only thing I can note, from my experience, is that writers who claim to have it boldly and flatly and with pride, consistently give me scripts that don't reflect that. The hallmark of a talented writer seems to be - again, from my experience - a great neurotic fear that they do not have talent at all. I cannot explain why this happens. Do I have talent? I think so. But I also think writing talent - like all talent - is on a spectrum. In the blogging world, Nikki Finke is quite talented, in my opinion. There are a lot of bloggers who just blow my mind. I love this new, Wild West of blogging, a path that was laid long ago by great journalists, critics, essayists and thinkers like Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Kenneth Turan and more recently, Christopher Hitchens, James Wolcott and Anthony Lane. To leave out about a thousand others that are eluding me at the moment.

The thing with blogging is that while it is an exciting Wild West, with saloon doors flung wide open by the notable absence (in many cases) of the gatekeepers - editors - the doors flung wide open thing is a double-edged sword. Resulting in numerous belly-button gazing blogs with little literary, entertainment or educational value. Anyone can blog. Writing has become a populist notion now more than ever before. No longer is it the exclusive purview of tweed-clad, pipe-smoking editors and writers imbibing at the Algonquin Round Table.

Movies are by definition populist entertainment and it is the proliferation of movies as popular entertainment which has, in my opinion, created a sense that anyone can write one and that it's fun and easy - liking taking up golf or knitting. Is Tiger Woods talented? Incredibly. But that doesn't mean that you can't go enjoy a game of golf for the sake of the game. It just means that you probably won't receive the accolades and earn the accomplishments that Woods has. If that's okay with you - go play golf. Maybe - just maybe - you are that Wandering Erstwhile Swimming Bedouin who just hasn't had a chance to try writing but in fact, that talent was nascent within you all the time. You can't know until you try. And if you want to try - then you should.

Here is my short list, in no order, of the necessary supplies to have in your travel bag if you want to be a successful (read, paid, produced, appreciated) writer:

Determination
Perseverance
Talent
Social Skills on a spectrum from charismatic to an ability to speak to people at all
Intelligence
Curiosity
Heart
Individualism aka "voice"
Luck

It is a provocative subject, this talent thing. I have no doubt that everyone possesses it. In one form or another. Anyone - and I include myself in this - can be taught to do math. But not everyone can be a super string theorist or Albert Einstein. Anyone can be taught to swim, but not everyone can be Michael Phelps. God I'm tired of the Phelps-worship running rampant right now but he is a great example. I'm a swimmer. I love to swim. I more than love to swim, I lurve to swim. (Woody Allen reference, people, keep up with me!) but I will never, ever be an Olympian swimmer. I don't care because for me, it's just the love of the water itself. If you love to write - you should WRITE. And write and write and write. Of course there are examples of successful screenwriters who are less talented than other successful screenwriters who got lucky, who knew the right people, who were in the right place at the right time. But they have talent. Every single one of them. This I believe to be true.

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UCLA Writer's Faire - September 7th

Wavers, if you live in the LA area - this is a really, really fun event. I go every year and I just LOVE it. I am so in love with the UCLA Extension Writer's Program that I am thinking of asking it to marry me.

11 am-3 pm
UCLA Campus: Young Hall Courtyard
Admission is free. Parking on campus in Lot 2 is $9.

Be our guest at the ninth annual Writers Faire featuring 24 free mini-panels and lectures in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, writing for the youth market, playwriting, publishing, feature film writing, and television writing. Writers of all levels are welcome!

There’s so much to do at the Writers Faire:

* Listen to 70 instructors/writers as they participate in lively discussions about the art, craft, business, and life of writing.

* Enroll in most fall courses at a ten percent discount (advanced courses not included).

* Get one-on-one advisement on courses and certificate programs.

* Learn more about Los Angeles-area MFA programs and speak to representatives from five top schools.

* Become familiar with Blackboard, the platform used in all Writers’ Program online courses.

* Watch Final Draft representatives demonstrate their software (discounts are available).

* Visit with more than a dozen professional and community organizations and writing-allied businesses, all of whom share a common goal of promoting writing in Los Angeles.

“For me, the highlight of the Writers Faire was listening to the instructors discuss issues of craft. The advice they gave was drawn from experience, delivered with humor, applicable, and free.” – Andrea Kremer, Creative Writing student

Click HERE to access a PDF of the 2008 Writers Faire schedule and videos of panels from last year’s Writers Faire. Or contact the Writers' Program office at (310) 825-9415 or email HERE for more information.

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The Assistant Files

Hi Wavers, I'm back again to impart a little bit of Assistant Wisdom.

You've heard of the concept Six Degrees of Separation, right? Obviously you have; you're with-it screenwriter types. Well, forget Six Degrees; in Hollywood, it's more like two. The entertainment industry is basically high school. Maybe college, if the one you went to was relatively small and privately funded, with a conspicuously lax moral code.

But seriously, it's small. Just how small? Let me tell you a little story…

One night I ended up at a bar in my neighborhood with several assistants from a management company. The bar was about two blocks from the townhouse I lived in with a couple other girls. I had been living in this townhouse with one of the girls for several months, the third roommate had just moved in, someone I didn't know much about other than she was an aspiring costume designer and she looked for apartments on Craigslist. Maybe that situation sounds strange; it would to me too, before I moved to L.A.. But here it's not uncommon to end up living with people you don't really know. A product of lots of expensive housing plus lots of underpaid young people, I guess.

Anyway, I had gone with my management-assistant friends to their company holiday party, and this was our impromptu after-party, a.k.a. the after-we-ditch-our-bosses-party. We were loud, we were rowdy, we were squeezed in and around a booth too small for our group. The two guys in the booth next to ours seemed to be enjoying a quiet evening before we arrived, so I felt compelled to apologize to them. We got to talking, as people in bars are wont to do. One of the guys mentioned he was just visiting, I asked what brought him to town. Turned out he was a screenwriter. Turned out he was THE SCREENWRITER OF ONE OF OUR PROJECTS.

Wait, what? Are you kidding me? I happen to be in a bar and RANDOMLY start talking to a guy who is the writer of a script on our development slate? Bizarre coincidence, right? What a small world, right? But wait, there's more.

"Holy cow!" I said. "What a coincidence! Of all the bars in all of Los Angeles, HOW WEIRD that you would happen to be here, at my neighborhood watering hole!"

"Oh you live around here?" He said. "My sister lives a couple blocks away."

You already know where this is going, Wavers, don't you? After comparing notes further we discovered that his sister was MY NEW ROOMMATE.

Now THAT is a small world.

My point here is that everyone knows everyone else -- this random stranger in a bar happened to have connections to me both personally AND professionally. You never know when you meet someone what connection they have to your life, or what effect they might potentially have on your career.
If you take anything away from my experience, take this: 1) always talk to strangers in bars, and 2) don't get drunk and make a fool of yourself. Hey, I'm not judging. Just, you know, maybe stop before you throw up on some barfly's shoes. Who knows, he could be your future agent.

******
The Wave-inatrix here:

What Andy says is so true - I have a next door neighbor with windows flung open about 8 feet from where I am sitting right now. It's summer in LA; a REAR WINDOW thing happens in my neighborhood. So this neighbor, he enjoys his (very good and eclectic) music (loved the Bowie yesterday) and I can hear wisps of laughter, dishes clattering and even loud sneezes. He can probably hear pretty much dead silence; I only turn on the music when I'm cleaning or doing my capoeira practice. Anyway, so we finally met, this new neighbor and I, outside on our tree-lined street one evening earlier this week. Turns out this is Steve Faber. Co-writer of WEDDING CRASHERS. He didn't point it out, but when it came up organically Steve blushed some and shuffled his feet. I don't think it would have come up. I tried to keep my cool, Wavers, I really did. But moments later I found myself compulsively pointing out what I thought were the funniest parts of the movie. Among them - Isla Fisher's line of dialogue delivered in a sing-song: I would find you!

I told Steve about The Rouge Wave and hopefully one day, Wavers, Steve might make a guest appearance in the form of an interview. We'll see if I can talk him into it. I'm feeling a lot of blueberry pie deliveries to his doorstep and the mysterious muzzling of a certain yapping chihuahua who lives upstairs.

Steve, if you're reading this, that is totally not MY yapping dog, that is the chihuahua upstairs, really excited about his movie debut - another staggering six degree coincidence - no, I'm lying about that one. But it's not my yapping dog! I have a shih-tzu who might bark once a week or so, questioningly, toward the door when take-out arrives. Then she looks at me and goes back to sleep. So - I have quite the guard dog situation going on. Don't EVEN mess with my house, criminals. That twelve-pound ball of fur will take you down. After she opens one eye and notices you with the TV in your arms.

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Ripped From the Headlines Competition

Okay Wavers, let's try something new and different. I have pulled three local stories from the LA Times and here's what you're gonna do. Using the three stories as a jumping off point, write a compelling premise line for a feature script.

Here are the three stories:

Restaurant breakfasts make come back in LA

Deaths at Pasadena hospital scrutinized

Melrose residents on guard after 7 armed robberies

And here is what I suggest:

Restaurant breakfasts: Your character might be a patron or a restaurant owner or a chef. This might be a new restaurant or an old one trying to reinvent itself. The recipes and food noted in the actual article are unimportant unless you can find a way to make that compelling and necessary to your story. The restaurant could be a halfway house employment hub, it could be minority or celebrity owned - the sky is the limit. That's the point of this exercise.

Pasadena hospital: You might focus on the a particular (fictional) patient, the celebrity doctor, the location, medication, etc. Ditto sky's the limit.

Melrose crime wave: Point of view of the robber - a victim - both. Violet crime. Funny crime. Crime wave. Crime syndicate. Sky. Limit.

Remember, this is all as a jumping off point. Is this a comedy about a restaurant owner who can't keep up with the new trend of breakfast dining who then robs people on Melrose and is hospitalized only to become the hospital's new cafeteria pancake whiz - UNTIL one of his robbery victims checks in to the hospital for revenge?

Guidelines:
Premise line must be no more than four sentences (we're cutting a lot of leeway for this one). Genre does not matter. Premise line must be accompanied by a great title. Make sure your premise line includes a set up, a complication and a cliff hanger. Make sure the genre is crystal clear (the title will help with that as well). Make us get excited about reading this non-existent script. Can you find a hook somewhere in these headlines?

Deadline:
Monday, August 25th, 12 midnight, Pacific Daylight Time.

Prizes:
The usual - a $25 gift certificate to Amazon, Starbucks, AMC Theaters - a business you enjoy patronizing but not in a mean way, close to where you live or online.

Submission and Fees:
Free as the day you were born. Submit HERE.

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From the Mailbag

Dear Mistress of Coolness -

- Okay you guys were never going to buy that, were you? Fine.-

Dear Wave-inatrix:

I just started reading your web site a few weeks ago and really appreciate it. I'm still working through the coolestfilmsites. I really enjoyed your essay on rhythm (Music in Writing) with your example from David Mamet. While you are on this topic, I'm wondering about the difference between dialogue on the page versus actually being spoken. When I read what I've written, it always sounds great in my head, and also when I read it aloud, but I have a feeling that's like having your mother tell you how talented you are. I'm hoping you can write a few words on this topic. Thanks for your great web site.
-Wondering in Williamsburg

Dear Wondering -

You need a table read, my friend! If you don't have access to my free SAG all volunteer table read, do this - get some of your friends together and have an impromptu table read to see how your dialogue sounds. Choose a pivotal scene and give your friends the upshot of the scene and the script itself. Give each person a quick bio of the character he or she will be reading. Young, old, bitter, excited, upset - whatever. One person needs to be the narrator (the one reading the action lines). That can be you but it might be harder to focus on hearing the how the dialogue sounds and also, hearing how the action lines sound can be illuminating too.

Make sure the friends you ask are hep cats - hep to movies and screenwriting - somewhat. Sometimes even well meaning friends can sound pretty wooden because they are self-conscious. You don't want that. You want people to take it seriously and to go for it. Don't feel bad if your dialogue is not the greatest right now - good dialogue takes time to get a feel for. Bribe some good friends with beer and hotwings and host yourself a table read party. It does wonders.

Oh and thank you for the compliment on the Rouge Wave. The Wave-inatrix, she tries real darn hard to make it a fun place to be. Rock on, Wondering!

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Slow, Slow, Quick Quick Slow: Music in Writing

Today I met a favorite client of mine (hi Mike!) who just so happens to a funny and very gifted writer. As we went over his script pages we discovered that in a few set pieces, his rhythm was off. Just, you know, the scenes weren't working. Too little information was happening at too slow a pace. So we worked on the rhythm of his opening pages and the rhythm of subsequent set pieces and talked about rhythm in writing overall.

Firstly, rhythm is a word I always stumble on when I write it - what word has two h's!? I vote for: rithum. I wonder if in the year 2050 all words will be spelled in the shorthand of text messages. That would be super annoying. I also stumble over "dialogue" because according to my computer, that is a spelling error. Some people spell it simply "dialog". That looks both way wrong and way right to me. Must research.

Again with the digressage.

Just about everything in life has a rhythm or a pattern. The seasons, the day, your life. And so does writing. First act, second act, third act. Set up, complication, resolution. Feel, do, complicate, resolve. And all of this while other stuff is going on like walking, eating and picking up the phone. Your scenes should have an almost balletic feeling to them.

As every comedian knows - ya gots to land the joke. And in this case, ya gots to land the scene. Keep things moving - whether that means physically or the dialogue, or as is often the case, both. Look at the HOW on your page. Yes, you've got the beat, yes your character work is good, but does the scene flow? Imagine that you are a camera; how does this scene look when you watch it? Is the dialogue flowing back and forth between your characters fluidly? What is happening in the background? Is a waitress efficiently balancing an order in her arms? Is the front door opening and closing - what is the choreographed scene happening here and how are your main characters part of it?

In real life, a phone ringing can interrupt a conversation. In reel life it can too - but you made it happen just when it did for dramatic or comedic effect. Feel the rhythm on your page. Is it there or is it stepping on some toes at this point? That's okay if it's a little clumsy right now, but eventually you want to choreograph your scenes in such a way that the scene has a genre-appropriate flow to it. Do you need long pauses? How about short bursts of dialogue and action? Is your romantic comedy couple doing the mental tango while they eat dinner? Is your script a fox trot, a quick-step or a dramatic paso doble? If you were to set your script to music, what would the music be?

This scene from David Mamet's STATE AND MAIN could be set to music. Check it out:

ANGLE interior Walt's office.

WALT
I have to tell you, I can not express
to you how happy...

MAYOR
And we're glad to have you here...

WALT
My golly, you know? All my life I grew up in the city, but every
summer...would you like a cigar?

MAYOR
(of cigars)
Aren't these illegal?

WALT
Why would they be illegal?

BILL
...there's a trade embargo against Cuba.

Pause.

MAYOR
Well, you know, Walt, I just wanted to say that anything I could do...

WALT
That's very kind of...as a matter-of fact, one I hate to bother you with...

MAYOR
...not at all...

WALT
...we need the shooting permit for Main Street...

MAYOR
Whatever you need. The City Council, of course, has to pass on your...

WALT
...the city council...

MAYOR
On your "permit," but that is less than a formality.

WALT
...it is?

MAYOR
I am the City Council. We meet Friday, and I...

WALT
George, that is so kind of you.

MAYOR
And, my wife wanted to, wanted me to ask you, we'd like to welcome you,
we'd, she'd like to have you to dinner at our house.
(beat) I don't mean to be...

He hands an invitation to Walt.

WALT
Are you kidding me? We would be
de...

Phone rings.

Walt motions to an aide, who writes in green on a production board...Tuesday 12th, dinner, Mayor.

MAYOR
Well, I won't take more of your time...

BILL
Walt, it's Marty on the Coast...

MAYOR
We'll see you Tuesday, then...

Walt starts for the phone.

WALT
It's one of the great, great pleasures meeting you...

Mayor leaves the office.

BILL
It's Marty on the Coast -

WALT
On the coast? Of course he's on the coast, where's he gonna be, the
Hague...

Walt goes to the phone.

WALT
(into phone)
What? Marty! Hi. We're...
(pause)
The new town is cheaper than the other town. We're going to save a...for...because..because we don't have to rebuild the Old Mill, they've got
an Old Mill...they've got a firehouse...they...

A production assistant comes in, installing a piece of equipment. She brushes past the drywipe board, where we see she wipes out "Dinner with the Mayor."

WALT
Baby, baby, I want to save the money just as much as you do..no, no it's not coming out of my pocket, it's going into my pock...my...my and your pock...yeah? Okay. A product placement - tell me ab...he's going through a tunnel. (to Production Assistant) Whoa, whoa, whoa...you wiped out the board. DINNER WITH THE MAYOR, TUESDAY NIGHT, write it in red. That's all we need, to miss Dinner with...

First A.D. sticks his head into the room.

FIRST A.D.
We can't shoot in the Old Mill.

WALT
(to phone)
Wait a sec, Marty.

Mamet uses ellipses to create breathing room around his dialogue. It makes it feel as if it overlaps more. Overlapping, slightly stilted dialogue is his trademark. It creates a rhythm in the scene.

And here's a scenelet from a comedy I wrote a million years ago. Quick primer: A newly empowered Ella spirits her Granny away, leaving Lena, the bad-gal-extraordinaire pinned to a tree.

Confused, Lena stares after Granny.

LENA
Hey! What about me?

Suddenly - THWANG!

- An arrow slices through Lena’s coat at her shoulder millimeters from her flesh. And pins her to the tree.

Lena looks at the pinned arm incredulously when -

THWOCK

- Another arrow pins her other arm.

Ella lowers the bow calmly.

ELLA
Get in the car, Granny.

LENA (o.s.)
Hey!

Lena struggles in vain.

LENA
You can’t just leave me here!

WHACK! A pine cone hits Lena’s head. She stares after Ella and Granny miserably.

A moment in a scene of mine has no business being next to a great Mamet scene - but my point is this. Do you see how, in that scenelet of mine, the movement is almost storyboarded? I draw attention to certain parts of the moment purely by where and how I used the words. Notice the creative choice I made:

- An arrow slices through Lena’s coat at her shoulder millimeters from her flesh. And pins her to the tree.

I didn't write:

- An arrow slices through Lena’s coat at her shoulder millimeters from her flesh and pins her to the tree.

I chopped the sentence up because it "lands" better. It's a little funnier to note that the arrow pins Lena to the tree after the brief pause that the punctuation mark created.

Does your scene have a rhythm? Or is it clumsy? Is it as pithy as possible? If you took away the dialogue could you still understand what was going on based on body language, etc.?

Well, as Gene Kelly sang in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS - I got rhythm. I got music. I got my gal, who could ask for anything more? Who could ask for anything more?

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Instant Mood Medication

Put away your anti-depressants today, Wavers, I have the perfect medicine for you.
You can't watch it without grinning.

Laughing Baby Video

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The Doctor is IN:

Dear Doctor Jeff:

I am writing a script about grief – a mother lost her daughter in a car crash. I have read a lot of scripts by aspiring writers like me and whenever I see grief depicted, people show the grief-stricken one staring out windows a lot or going to the dead person’s room and looking at their stuff. But that seems so boring. I know there are several stages of grief that people go through, but without being able to show every stage, do you have any pointers on some of the different ways people handle grief, especially a mother?
-Wondering in Wisconsin

Dear Wondering,
The initial stance in the face of grief and loss is often a self-protective, ‘shut down’ as a way to keep unwanted feelings at bay. We may say things like, “They’ll pull through, they always do” or, “Oh, it was expected. I’m fine.” Recently, a dear friend whose husband died (after a devastating battle with alcohol and painkillers) was chased for two weeks by a series of recurring nightmares after his death.

In the nightmares, she and her husband were at home, completely disconnected from one another; either in separate parts of the house or unable to communicate. My friend would wake up so sad, so bleak and depressed… hating her nightmares.

We explored the possibility that the nightmares were, in fact, friends and teachers. When her husband was alive, she had to emotionally armor herself each time she walked in the home having no idea if he’d be passed out on the floor, called the police again because of people climbing around on the second story roof, or driving drunk. These nightmares were metaphors of their complete disconnect to one another. In separate parts of the house, unable to communicate. These visceral, cellular nightmarish truths needed to be felt, to be allowed. The nightmares served as release valves for the psyche.

Last part of your question, you might consider having someone deal with death or loss in two contrasting ways or worlds; 1) By day, where she speaks one truth. The “Oh, I’m okay. We all go through it.”. And 2) the one experienced through symbols in dreams or chased in nightmares.

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What's the Deal With Movie Trailers?

When I met with our fair Wave-inatrix a few weeks ago, she asked about my day job.

I told her that I worked at a theatrical marketing company, i.e., a trailer house. I was a little shocked but definitely excited when she asked me to write this little blurb for the blog.

First, the name: why “trailer” if they come BEFORE the movie? Well, in the early days of film’s misspent youth, they did come after the feature film. The problem was, the audience usually had things to do. Y’know, like churn butter or get to their 18-hour shift in the factory. They couldn’t hang around.

Once the big money people realized there was bigger money in whetting people’s appetites for upcoming films, they started showing the previews at the start of the feature and the “trailer” business was born.

Today, when a studio is ready to start their campaign for a film, they send us the daily film footage or a roughly edited version of the whole film. Our producers will grab the editor that works best with that genre, and the work begins. Sound familiar? Yep, that genre thing is all over the place in this industry.

Since the average trailer shown before the feature is about 1 and ½ to 2 minutes long, the producers have to get down to the most basic elements of the film. Are there some moments that make you jump from the horror flick? Is there a great kiss scene in the romantic comedy? Are there great dialogue lines? Is there a hot star or director attached to this movie?

At this point, the editor creates or “cuts” a series of possible trailers. Now, copywriters, enter stage left. These are the writers whose sole job is to create the word-sketch of the project. The producer wants their take on the project with lines for the narrator and dialog/shots from the film. Talk about boot camp for log lines! The writer that gets in, gets out and gets the message across…you guessed it….gets the gig.

Once the studio executives, the producer, and the editor pick the copywriter’s scripts, they complete the campaign. Thus begins the approval process with the studio. Once the campaign makes everyone involved happy, it goes to finish. That means that music; narration, graphics and dialog are all put together. Now, the trailers are fresh from the oven and ready to separate us from our hard-earned cash.

Now, you’re thinking, “Nice article. What’s it got to do with me?” Let me quote the immortal Inigo Montoya from “The Princess Bride:”

“Let me explain. NO! There is too much. Let me sum up.”

If you could make a trailer of your movie now, what scenes would it use? What lines of dialogue serve as your film’s amuse bouche, giving audiences just enough of a taste to want the whole thing? What genre conventions have you used? Can those be turned on their heads to really grab an audience? Maybe a look at your script from a marketing producer’s point of view can help you. I know it’s helped me.

That brings me to some of the questions I usually get from people about my day job. Julie, like many, wanted to know why the trailers are sometimes so much better than the movie?

Well, it’s because the film didn’t give our people much with which to work. Our job is to get butts in seats for our clients. We’re going to put all the best stuff in the trailers. Maybe the script didn’t really give us anything to chew on. It could also be a great script but the film derails in the production process. I’ve seen both.

And yes, that guy from those insurance company commercials is one of the main voice-over artists for film. I’ll save you the midnight-memory jog---his name is Don LaFontaine. He’s one of only a handful of men that voice feature trailers and television ads or “spots.” You read correctly, it’s just men at the moment. However, there are some awesome ladies poised to change that. So, aspiring female and male V-O artists, keep it up!!!

On that note, I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled Wave-inatrix. Thanks, Julie! Oh, by the way, I’d now like to put in my request for a cupcake. Red velvet, if you please.

Breck Murray aka The Wave-inatrix's favorite Writing Buddy

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The Assistant Files

Assistants are obsessed with lists. We spend at least 40% of our working day
talking to each other about them.*

"Does anyone have a list of mid-range sushi restaurants in Chicago? My boss
is going on set next week. Thanks."

"I'm looking for a list of French novels that were adapted in the 70s."

"Looking for a list of 29-year-old mixed-race lepers for upcoming feature. Musical theater experience preferred. Will compile. Thx."

One of the most popular categories is lists of writers in a particular genre.

How this works is, your boss has a project she's looking to develop, and it's based on an obscure graphic novel about Jesuits with magical powers who can transform themselves (but only into a flock of killer turkeys). So she tells you to find you a list of people she might want to check out.

You are then supposed to magically conjure up a list of one or two dozen writers in this genre. You do this by asking your assistant pals if anyone has a list of sci-fi/action/comics writers. Sometimes they do, sometimes you're forced to collect names and make the list yourself.

The list usually looks something like this:**

NAME(S): Joe Genrewriter

AGENCY: CAA (Antonio Borracho Cohen)

NOTES: THE LAST TURKEY AIRBENDER, JESUIT NINJAS II

Then you give the list to your boss, and you start collecting writing samples, setting meetings with likely writers, etc.

Why is this important to you, the aspiring screenwriter?

Because you need to decide which list you want to be on***. Are you going to be on the ROMANTIC DRAMA list? The ACTION ADVENTURE list? The FAMILY COMEDY list? The LOW-BUDGET HORROR list? The ROMCOM list, the R-RATED COMEDY list,the SCI-FI list?

There's some overlap. People who are on the ACTION list might also show up on the SCI-FI list. People who are on a ROMCOM list might be on a RAUNCHY COMEDY list, too. But if you have many different interests as a writer, give some thought to which list you want to be on before you start to market yourself. Because if you have three samples, a romcom, a horror, and a sci-fi epic, people are not going to be impressed by your range. People are going to be confused. People will not know how to sell you, how to pigeonhole you, which list to put you on.

(I know, you're convinced that you're the exception.)

The thing is, when your agent calls around about how great your spec is and how my boss should meet with you about any open assignments she has, he needs to be able to pinpoint what kind of stuff you write. Which list you're on. You know how it's confusing and slightly weird when Adam Sandler does serious dramatic roles? It's exactly like that. People want to know before you walk in for your meeting that you're the go-to guy or gal for historical epics. They are, after all, willing to pay you quite a bit of money for your skills, and they want to be sure that they're dealing with an expert, not a generalist dilettante.

*Figure possibly made up.

**Pretend this is in Excel or a table in Word.

***Once in a while people will ask for something really specific, like lists of writers from New Orleans, or people who used to be Navy SEALs or something like that. But you can't really do much about that unless you have a time machine.

****
The Assistant Files are contributed by one of three anonymous studio assistants. They may or may not answer your comments; they're really busy. But you can try.

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Network, Studio, Production Company - oh my!

Today I discovered a really great new blog - The LA Grind - and here (re)present a post from about a week ago that I found quite informational. I mean, at first you read it and you think SUPER DUH but then you realize - or, okay, I realized, that my grasp of exactly who does what was not as strong as I thought it was. Thank you, Russell - cupcake for you!

*****

I was at a seminar last night for tv writers and a question was introduced which made me realize many people don't understand the difference between a Network, Studio, and Production Company. So,

Network: A network distributes programming. They are the STATION that puts a show on the air, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, USA, TNT, ESPN, etc. there are six major companies that own networks for SCRIPTED TELEVISION: FoxCORPS, CBSCORP, GE, Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, Sony.

FOX-Owned by FoxCorps
CBS-Owned by CBSCorps
NBC-Owned by GE
CW-Co-owned by CBS and Time-Warner
ABC-Owned by Disney

These channels DO NOT produce programs. They BUY programs and sell ad space to recoup their cost. You may ask, but Russell, I who produces these shows, I thought... Well they are produced by...

Studios: Each show is produced by a STUDIO. Studios are designed to FINANCE and PRODUCE television. These studios DO NOT distribute television, the finance shows and SELL THEM TO NETWORKS. If you are asking HOW Fox doesn't have a studio, the simple answer is THEY DO. Each network ALSO has a STUDIO that produces shows that air on their network.

FOX- 20th Century Fox
CBS-CBS Paramount
NBC-Universal Media Studios
CW-Warner Brothers
ABC-Disney Studios

So, you're pretty confident now, that whatever is on FOX is produced by 20th Century, CBS Paramount is producing everything on CBS, etc etc. Right? WRONG. While 20th Century does produce many fox shows, like 24, they also sell shows to other networks. My favorite current example is SCRUBS. Scrubs is produced by DISNEY, but was DISTRIBUTED by NBC. However, when NBC cancelled Scrubs, it was PICKED-UP by ABC for another season.

Why does this happen? A bevy of reasons; A show a studio is developing doesn't fit on the network they are producing for, a network thought they would like a show but then decided after seeing it they aren't wild about it, the studio specifically produces a show for another network, etc. etc.

When I lived in DC, I met a guy who worked at History Channel's studio, just like the model I've been talking about, but smaller. He explained their system like this. History Channel is only obligated to buy X amount of the content they produce. If history channel passes on a show, they are free to shop that show to other networks.

The point is, it's reciprocal. Sometimes the studio produces the show for another network, sometimes the network doesn't want the show. However, this shows why you'll be watching a show on CBS, and see a 20th Century Fox logo. Or when you're driving past the Warner lot and see banners from other network's shows.

Production Company: Most people think a production company is the company that actually PRODUCES the show. However, this is a misnomer. In actuality, a production company has EXACTLY the same role as a studio, but they are not owned by a network. Most production companies that work with television are successful producers, showrunners, directors, etc. That have OVERALL DEALS with a studio because of their success.

An OVERALL DEAL means this...A Studio will pay a production company X dollars, and in return they will own EVERYTHING the production company produces, whether it's ideas, scripts, etc, for the length of the deal. People like David E. Kelley, Joss Wheadon, J. J. Abrams have overall deals with studios.

So, there is a general overview of WHAT each type of entity does. Next time you're watching a show and you see a production company, a studio, and a network, you'll understand why it is the way it is.

Next time...I'll try to explain what syndication is...maybe...unless I forget.

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Stuff I Love and A Clarification

Imagine my delight when I saw that The Assistant Files had been picked up and reprinted by several websites! Imagine my consternation when I saw that the post(s) were attributed to me, Julie Gray. To clarify: I do not have the time, moxy and character to be an assistant. The Assistant Files are written by three anonymous studio assistants out of the kindness of their hearts.

Here's why you should be really careful and keep your trap shut until you know better: You go to a major screenwriting event. You pull aside some lady who looks like a helper-volunteer. You complain about something in an unedited way. You later realize she is the editor-in-chief of the major magazine sponsoring the event. You feel stupid. You can't figure out how to redact or reframe a conversation. You worry about it but eventually decide you're human and shit happens.

For my fellow word freaks, Wordspy is a super fun website that I discovered over the weekend. Wordspy "...is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases."

I am newly obsessed with Fade In magazine. Yeah, okay, that editor. Please forgive me, Audrey! In all honesty - this is a GREAT publication! I get free screenwriting publications in the mail all the time and I try to read them - I do. But Fade In is really top drawer; I am quite impressed. Although don't you hate it when magazines identify themselves by volume and issue rather than date? It leaves one saying - the one with Robert Downey, Jr. on the cover!

Other magazines I lurve: Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker, The Utne Reader, Vanity Fair, People Magazine. Yeah - that's right - People. I admit it. But I only read it for the human interest stories, honest.

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Do You Have "it"?

What is "it"? Where does "it" come from? Can you learn "it"? Can you buy "it"? Does everybody have "it"? If you do have "it" when do you know you have "it"?

It is talent. And no, you cannot buy it. And you cannot be taught it. And of course not just everybody has it. It is a treasured, ephemeral, wild thing. If you think you have it, you probably don't. If you know you have it but find that a very uncomfortable thing to admit even to yourself - you probably do.

Way less people have it than think they do.

People who really have it know it down deep but would never, ever boast about or even admit it. It's like being a magician during the dark ages - people both fear and envy it. You don't know how you got it. You feel slightly odd about it. Your mom recognized it right away and that was both thrilling and embarrassing.

It lives inside of you and may not make itself apparent in scripts or stories one through four. But it's there. And when you finally relax into your voice and your rhythm, it will emerge, unbidden. You will learn how to coax it out to play when you trust it. Sometimes it doesn't want to come out and play. You wait patiently.

If you don't have it, you cannot get it - anywhere. It's not like sea monkeys or chia pets - just add water. You either have it or you don't. If you do have it, it was within you all the time.

I can tell if you have it on the first page of your script, or in the first paragraph of your essay or story.

What if you don't have it and you know it? Should you stop writing? Well - no. But you should definitely re-frame your expectations. A lot of people like to swim but not every swimmer has it like Michael Phelps. Doesn't mean you should stay out of the pool but it does mean you need to downscale your Olympic hopes and repurpose them toward a local championship.

To be a successful, paid writer - you have to have it.

Would anybody be honest with you and tell you that you don't have it? No.

So how do you know whether you have writing talent?

Here are some hints that you might have talent:

*You have been writing from a very early age and have always delighted parents, teachers, friends and relatives with what you wrote. You started to believe them and kept writing. It was a thrill.

*In emails, letters and birthday cards, your words delight people. Not people you put on the spot and ask, but people who tell you that for no reason whatsoever.

*You love to read and you consume books voraciously. You mark pages that have beautiful passages and read and reread them. You think about the green light at the end of the dock.

*You obsess over words - you love to define and understand them. You will stop writing something for 20 minutes until you find just the perfect word for that sentence. Then you'll change it six more times before you're satisfied.

*You really don't care where you write or what you write with. You get strangely lost in your writing and don't hear the call to dinner or the train coming.

*Words have colors and sounds to you. You love to say "willow" and "ululate" and "melancholy" and "hot, humid gardenia-scented summer".

*You freak out when other people use or spell words incorrectly.

*You are never satisfied with your writing.

*You read writers who have it and get a sort of plummeting thrill. You wonder if you'll ever be as good as them.

*Sometimes you feel like a freak.

Here are some hints that you may not have talent:

*You compare writing to needing to breathe. You make much of this, wear a beret and have a poster of Ernest Hemingway in your bedroom.

*You ask other people if they liked your writing. This does not embarrass you.

*You are really, really sure you have talent and tell people that frequently.

*You are convinced that you will rush to the top of the heap once your talent is recognized and think bitterly about the fact that it hasn't yet. This fundamental unfairness bothers you a great deal.

*You love what you write immediately. You move on and you don't look back. You pride yourself on this. Any word will do. You are after speed and efficiency.

*You are so sure you're talented that you feel you don't have to read the classics, take a class or otherwise do any work. Your talent is natural, inborn and incorruptible.

* You think that writing is easy and fun.

*You don't think anybody else has it. Writers who are said to have it do not impress you. You think they got a lucky break that should have been yours.

*You feel like such a lucky rock star that you have talent and feel sorry for all the other poor saps who don't yet realize how untalented they are and how very talented you are.

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From the Mailbag

For this question, I turned to my mentor, colleague and business partner Dave Sparling for the answer because Dave always tells me how it is with total honesty (good idea on skipping the panda mascot, Dave. Note to self: zoos sensitive about surprise animal relocations).

Dear Rouge Wave:

Can I truly prevent my idea (or script, or treatment, etc.) from being stolen?
-Paranoid in Poughkeepsie

Dear Paranoid:

Sure: lock up the only copy of it in a fireproof safe, then never show or speak of it to another soul as long as you live.

Short of that, there's really not much you as a writer can do to ensure your brilliance won't be ripped off. If you want to make it as a writer, ideas (in script form, pitches, treatments, takes you generate for potential assignments) are your stock in trade. It's the exchange of these ideas that propels your career forward. So it's actually counter-productive to let fear of being ripped off impact the way you go about trying to advance your own cause. So instead of expending energy worrying about getting robbed, and going to excessive lengths to try to prevent something like that from happening, the odds of which, by the way, are extremely low to begin with, why not focus that energy on making your scripts even better?

This isn't to say that there aren't measures you can take to give yourself a leg up should someone unscrupulous actually rip you off. From copyrighting to registering your idea with the WGA, either in person or electronically through its online registry. Similar services like www.protectrite.com let you accomplish the same thing--prove that you can claim on such-and-such date that you authored said material. Should a dispute about authorship ever arise, you may be able to prevail in a legal battle, if you have taken these rudimentary steps. While there certainly is a deterrent factor involved here, the reality is that no measure of this type can prevent people from attempting to steal your work. They're there primarily to help you in the recovery and reclamation process, should the worst-case happen.

Another basic, commonsensical step to take is to keep accurate and detailed records on the submission/activity history of your projects.

If you want to make a bad impression, ask people you'd like to read the script if they'll sign something like a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), or a prepared-by-you release form. That's sending a signal that you're either A) paranoid or B) arrogant enough to think your material is so much better than everyone else's out there (the implication being that you're so much more special than everyone else) that you need to take additional steps above and beyond the conventional ones to safeguard your work. Not exactly the way you want producers, development execs, and agents to perceive you.

Although this all might sound kind of gloomy, there is a true silver lining here: while intellectual property theft does take place from time to time in the entertainment industry, it's quite rare. Why? Well, because the reality is that trying to rip off a writer could potentially cost the crook significantly more than dealing with him or her in an honest, straightforward manner. So get busy writing the best scripts you can write, then be smart in the way you get them out there.

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From the Mailbag

Dear Wave-inatrix:

Do you find being a writer yourself difficult when being a reader? I know it would seem to make it easier, but it's always worried me even applying to jobs with "coverage" as one of your duties because I always think I would sit there reading scripts and if I came across one similar to mine not be fair to the script, because I'm writing one similar....and that's not fair to the writer. I wouldn't purposely try to do this, but it seems really hard to not become biased. So I guess my question is how do you separate you the writer from you the reader to give people fair coverage?
-Curious in Culver City

Dear Curious. Dear, dear Curious. Interesting question. In the years I have been a reader, at competitions, production companies, script service providers and my own company, I have never, ever run across a script anything like what I am personally writing at the moment. Same genre? Sure. But nothing close enough where I thought oh damn, I'm going to PASS this script because it's too much like what I'm working on. Is that what you're asking? I can't imagine that happening, personally. In my business, in fact, I am actively looking for a GREAT script and a GREAT writer because of my previously noted unicorn philosophy but also because a great writer is someone I can try to help break into the industry and that is only good for my business. But. Again. There are different types of situations in which you might be reading and providing coverage.

Let's just take your average reader working for me. Someone not invested in much more than doing a good job and receiving a paycheck to support his or her own writing.

Providing coverage is something that is a bit mathematical at the end of the day. The script is analyzed by certain standards. And because in this instance, I am the boss, my readers are held to certain standards as well. I read and review every coverage that comes through my company before sending it to the writer. I have never, ever, ever had to call a reader on the carpet for anything other than perhaps being too nice, ironically. See my post the other day about being honest in coverage - even if it stings some. It's about ethics for me. Readers are intrinsically fair and unbiased when doing coverage because of the mathematical nature of the evaluation. When you put your reader hat on you slip into a different mode, sort of like putting a stethoscope around your neck. It's not about you, it's about this script, right now. If I were to find a reader working for me who had clear bias in a coverage, that reader would be fired. But I employ only experienced readers, so for me, it's never been a problem. Worst case, once or twice, I have had a reader be slightly too nice to the script. That can be a problem because the writer gets an over-inflated sense of where the script really is, they return it for another coverage with another reader and get worse notes after a rewrite and then all hell breaks loose. What?? The OTHER reader loved it! So I try to maintain a rather neutral standard. Just tell it like it is. But be nice doing it. No slamming. No bullshit.

I have been reading for years and I have never, ever read something and thought, oh, I'm going to rip that off! Or oh, that's too much like my script, I'm going to slam this person! That would be foolish in the extreme.

A reader working at a production company has his or her job to take into consideration. Bias will show up in the work and reader jobs are coveted. It would be a stupid thing to do. But again - having worked for many production companies, I've never known a reader as unprofessional as to let personal bias into the notes. A side benefit of being a reader is that when you have a great script you'd like considered at that company, your reputation as a reliable, professional reader will pave the way for a read that goes something like this:

Reader: Mr. Big Executive that I've worked for two years for? Would you be interested in reading my script?

Big Executive: You know, Sally, you're a great reader. I can count on you. You have good instincts. Sure. I'll take it home this weekend.

Reader: I know this is not a guarantee but it's pretty cool.

Big Executive: It sure is and don't you forget it. But yeah, I'll take a few minutes with this. You've done good work for me.

Then there are intern readers and super under-paid, over-worked assistants. I don't think you'll find professional jealousy bias there either. Maybe a little more cranky in the coverage by dint of the over-worked, under-paid thing but that's about it.

I think bias can show up when the reader is reading something that they personally find really, really offensive - I personally do not read wannabe SAW or HOSTEL type scripts because I not only don't have the stomach for the genre, I really don't have the stomach for the genre written poorly. I pass those on to readers that I know do not care one way or the other. I don't read scripts that contain over-the-top, shocking violence and especially violence toward women. I get very, very few scripts like that but when the SAW/HOSTEL genre was big, we did see an influx. My bias is simply revulsion and so I won't go there. Ironically, I love reading a good horror script Love, love, love, love. It's a matter of degree. When someone scrapes out the inside of a child's skull and fills it with sorbet and eats it - I can't read that without feeling personally violated.

Wow, that took a turn for the yuck. Anywho. Do readers have bias toward your scripts? Not a professional reader, they aren't that invested. They just do their job quickly and efficiently. I think this is a fear that writers have, or some kind of rationale to make up for getting bad coverage - the reader wasn't fair!!

Actually, being a reader, Curious, will do nothing but improve your own writing skills. Because you see it all and you see the patterns. Exercising the evaluative part of your brain over and over is like working out at the gym daily. You're gonna get some big guns. And it will help your own writing. One thing you learn to identify very quickly is what is original and what is not. Original compared to what, right? To all the other 9,000 scripts you read that year. So when you work on a new idea yourself, you have seen all the other stuff that's come in and you can be honest with yourself as to whether your idea and your writing is different from that of the hordes.

Reader bias is an urban myth, in my view. Yes, readers get tired, they might dislike the genre, they might really, really need a break or a coffee or a cocktail and don't want to be reading your script. Does that make them cranky? Yeah. But if your script is good - you just absolutely made their day. The mood is lifted. Why, just yesterday, the Wave-inatrix was feeling quite low about something in my personal life and I got a rush script. On a Saturday night. Great. I had been planning a nice, extended self-pity party. But no. Hadda read this script. Except - it ROCKED. It lifted my mood, it entertained me thoroughly and it reaffirmed my love of the movies.

Had the script been awful would my mood have descended while I was reading it? No. Because even at worst, it's a distraction. Sitting down to read is like doing a Sudoku or crossword puzzle. You became totally focused and immersed for that hour and a half. A good script might leave you feeling energized and cheered up afterward. A bad script leaves you drained and more cranky than you were before. But while you read, you slip into the Zen of reading and you just do your job.

The bottom line for writers is this: You cannot control who reads your script, their mood or their biases. You just have to trust the system and move on. No, not all readers are created equal. There are variances. But you can't drive yourself crazy worrying about it. Good or bad, cranky or too nice, huge production company or small script service, readers do have one thing in common - we love good scripts.

The bottom line for readers is this: Do no harm. Look for good stuff. Do your job and do it well if you want to reap the benefits personally or professionally.

If you have the opportunity to learn how to provide coverage, it will be nothing but a good thing for you and your writing.

I hope I answered your question.

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Looking for Mr. Good Script

The other day the Wave-inatrix had lunch with a gifted up-and-coming director - so up-and-coming he's been offered an AD position on the upcoming season of 24 - okay so wow, right? And he's looking for a ten page-ish short script to produce next. He has preternatural access to top talent (Sandra Oh was in his last short film) and is looking for something with few locations, low budget and a compelling, character driven drama. I would really love to help him out here and help an up-and-coming Waver out too. Here's the thing, don't send me a short script unless it definitely hews to the requirements above and unless it's definitely completely EXCELLENT.

Send your script to me HERE.

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A Spoonful of Vinegar

Here is the Terry Rossio column from Wordplay about throwing in the towel that Luzid mentioned in a comment. It is spot-on but a very painful read. It highlights the stark difference, in my view, between how it feels to receive information in a harsh or stern way versus a softer, more playful way. It goes down hard but it's the Awful Truth. Cupcake for the first Waver to correctly identify the two actors in that delightful romcom without looking it up first. Like I could tell the difference, but you'll know, won't you? Down deep?

Back to the topic at hand. Here's a little dose of alpha male piss and vinegar for you Wavers who'd appreciate a shot of something more bracing than cupcakes. Personally, I felt a bit awful after I read this. But the man speaks the truth. He doesn't remember this but I met him at a screenwriting class at UCLA once.* It was just before Pirates hit the big screen and his life changed forever. Wonder if he'd have written this differently had the movie not hit. Like it wasn't going to. Shuh.

*correction no, no, it was TED I met. Ted. Terry. Terry. Ted. Scratch that last observation. Damn my cupcake memory!

Throwing in the Towel by Terry Rossio

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Reality Bites

One Rouge Waver took some exception to what mostly likely felt to him or her like the unicorn-and-waving-fields-of-wheat post the other day. You know, the post about positive thinking. Why, this Waver asked, give people false hope? Hollywood IS a zero-sum game. Only a tiny percentage of aspiring screenwriters will ever make it and by make it I think we collectively mean making a sale. Money. Cath on the barrel head as Daffy Duck would say.

Airy fairy, positive-thinking will not change this fact, the Waver intimated. And you know what, Wavers? He/she is right in pointing this out. The odds of selling a script are abysmal. They just are. But - not impossible. And when I say that I don't believe Hollywood is a zero-sum game what I mean by that is that if someone else makes a sale that does not mean that nobody else will or can. Hollywood needs fresh material shoveled into its maw regularly. The demand for entertainment is never ending.

I am not one of those The Secret adherents who believes that simply by thinking a whole lot about how much you want a red truck, you're gonna suddenly get a red truck. The things I was talking about the other day go much, much deeper than that kind of surface thinking and really, what I meant is that life is what you make it and the cool part is - you get to make it what you want. But in the immortal words of the Rolling Stones - you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometime...yeah yeah we know the rest. You get what you need.

The cold, hard truth is that the odds are terrible that you will actually sell a script. Ever. Also terrible, the odds of publishing a novel. Becoming a famous - or even regularly working - actor. Becoming a famous artist. Or the president of the United States when you're a black man.

My point is the fact that the odds are terrible for anything is no reason not to try. If nobody tried anything difficult, the world would be rife with - with stuff not tried. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Blah, blah, blah.

I find it nothing short of AWFUL to tell a writer working on a novel that the chances of getting that novel published are practically nil. So don't bother, man. It ain't gonna work. That's awful. Don't bother creating/writing/painting/dreaming because you'll never succeed.

Now. That said, screenwriting is particularly awful in terms of odds. You really are better off going to Vegas and feeding quarters into a slot machine for like five years straight. Seriously. Even if you try really hard, take every class, read every book, watch tons of movies, have a modicum of talent, network your ass off, have good connections, have written ten scripts and are super nice - the odds are still terrible. And I just basically described myself, by the way. And I haven't made a sale.

So wow, right? Why bother?

Because it's fun and you can't resist. And you might - you really just MIGHT break in. If everybody quit trying, all scripts in Hollywood, after today's current batch of working writers died out from nerve-related illnesses, would be written by Hal. You know, from 2001. That polite but cunning computer. You know exactly who I mean.

But more important, in my view, than the fact that you might break in is that you also likely will learn a whole lot about yourself and in doing so potentially find that you're not really a screenwriter - you're a novelist. Or short fiction writer. Or kick-ass essay writer. Or poet. Or super good scrapbook maker with clever captions. Writing in all forms is joyful and important. We need the written word.

The thing that gives professionals in Hollywood an eye twitch and a puckered forehead is that there is a huge number of aspiring screenwriters who figure they are immensely talented (read: entitled) and who figure that breaking in on their first script that they wrote high after watching The Matrix - again - is going to be an easy, great, super cool get rich quick scheme.

Nobody who thinks this would ever admit it, even to themselves. Message boards are full to overflowing with untalented "writers" who figure they are just bad ass enough to make it big in Hollywood. Daily, all over the world, some jackass comes up with a movie idea and tries to write a script. But here's the thing - some of those jackasses ARE talented and DO have a good idea and for god's sake if the only new ideas and scripts come from INSIDE Hollywood, Houston, we have an awful, incestuous problem. Oh - we already have that problem.

Remember, the oak tree was once a nut who thought it was an acorn. And nothing comes easy. And you have to do the work. And you might never ever make it anyway. The point of my post the other day was not that if you be happy and think good thoughts, that you can necessarily overturn certain statistical realities but rather that if you have been bitten by the bug and writing is what you want to do - stay grounded in other things but dream big and go for it. Because without people who go for it - you know, proving the earth is not flat, that the sun does not revolve around the earth, that we could actually vaccinate against diseases - then who are we, collectively? Humans are dreamers. And dreams can come true.

But - and here's my big caveat - how do you know? How do you know whether 18 classes later, a groaning shelf of how-to screenwriting books, hours online and six scripts later - it's time to throw in the towel?

Here's my measure: if you've had some validation from a competition placement or a professional who's read your script and been honestly impressed and encouraging, you shouldn't throw in the towel. If you enjoy the process - don't throw in the towel. If you love writing, movies, literature and creating - don't throw in the towel. If you get ideas and are always staring into the middle distance imagining great characters and great scenes - don't throw in the towel. If there's anything about the five-year-slot-machine metaphor that scares you - throw in the towel. Do it now. Spare yourself the heartbreak and the disappointment. But we who won't quite trying - we know that little thrill of pulling the lever - again.

How do you know if a professional has been HONEST in his or her encouragement of your writing? Well, it's a leap of faith for you, the client, and a head in the noose for the consultant. If I am dishonest and tell you that your script and your writing is better than it honestly is, I am being, in my view, unethical. I don't want to give you false hope and a distorted sense of yourself and your script. But there are writers who take a negative review extraordinarily personally and will then release a hail of threats and insults upon me. It happens. So there are consultants who take the safe middle road and are somewhere between soothingly lying and tentatively honest.

Let me make a comparison - I like to do needlepoint. I find it calming and weirdly satisfying. But I don't really like needlepoint pillows and knick-knacks. So I do my needlepoint projects and put the finished products in a drawer. I don't want to look at them later, really, I just like the process. There is a fair number of writers like that. Not hungry like the wolf, but hobbyists. They enjoy the process but really have no intention of being a real, working Hollywood writer. And there are those who really, seriously are trying to break in. A good consultant knows the difference and encourages both - but in different ways. I am way, way harder on a script when I perceive the writer to be gifted and serious about this. So if you're reading this and I've been hard on you, it's actually quite a compliment.

I had a client once, Richard, who was in his 80s. And he really wasn't bad, either. Richard, I said one day, I gotta tell ya, I'm really not sure if your chances of breaking in are that good. He laughed. I'm 80 years old, he said. I'm doing this because it keeps me active and on the ball. I'm having fun. And he really was.

If trying feels bad - and here, I am sounding like The Secret - then throw in the towel. If you are discouraged, bitter, resentful, pissed off and alienated because you have not made that million dollar spec sale - definitely throw it in. The adventure is in the process. Thinking about terrible odds sucks joy out of the process. But at the same time, I very much agree with the Waver who inspired this post - it would be irresponsible for me to intimate that Hollywood is a touchy-feely, unicorn place where everybody who is nice and tries hard will be rewarded with a sale. That definitely is not so.

But - and now I quote Sheryl Crow - all I wanna do is have some fun - no, that's not right, dammit...Reaching for dreams and expressing yourself on the page is its own reward. Writers who know that will never be disappointed they never made a sale and they will never take a huge blow to the ego if they die without having left a celluloid or digital legacy behind them. Because overt success was never the point. Thomas Edison once said: I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun.

The joy is in the process. And here I do unapologetically go back to my unicorn belief system - when the rewards for doing anything as well as you can are internal for you, you are a thousand and ten times more likely to see external rewards as well. If you're all about external rewards, just watch them recede from your grasp as fast as you pedal toward them.

The cool thing about life is that what you want and what you get almost never look the same. I never dreamt I would own a business or write a blog like this. But here I am. And I'm having a blast. Have I given up on screenwriting? No. But I am working on a YA novel, another piece of short fiction and a short script. I love to write. Who knows what the future holds for me. It's a mystery that keeps unfolding, much to my delight.

That is all. Now get back to work, irrational dream-chasers. I count myself among you.

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The Assistant Files

There seem to be a few different schools of thought about Hollywood Assistants:

1) We're glorified secretaries who don't actually know anything (if
you're in this camp, you're an idiot and YOU don't know anything. I'm just saying.)

2) We're eager go-getters just looking for the chance to move up to the grown-up table (this is basically true), and

3) We're evil gatekeepers who will do anything in our power to keep you off the hallowed turf of the studio (this is basically untrue).

Allow me to put this debate to rest.

My job is to make my boss's life easier. That's it. Hopefully I learn a lot in the process, enough to move on to what I really want to do and maybe – someday – have my very own assistant. But in the meantime, I know that I was hired for that one purpose, however it may manifest. (In the Hollywood Venn Diagram, there's an enormous intersection of the Business and Personal sets.) In general this consists of keeping him on time, in the good graces of people he needs to be in the good graces of, and, on occasion, out of jail. Just kidding. Ahem.

The primary way my boss does his job is via telephone, which means I take and make a huge number of calls every day. What does this mean to you? It means when you call, because I won't know you from Adam, I may be short with you. Please don't be offended. And please don't see me as the enemy and try to fool me into letting you talk to him. Because I'm not TRYING to keep you from your imminent screenwriterly success, really I'm not. I'm just trying to do my thankless, underpaid job. Which I love, don't get me wrong. But still. So as long as you don't make my job MORE difficult, I will do what I can, within the normal purview of my job, to help you. If you catch me on a good day, I may listen to your pitch. I may even offer to read your script. We may develop a relationship. Because it's true that it may help me, too. You see?

But before we get to that point, if my boss doesn't call you back, just know that it's not because I didn't pass on the message. You don't need to call every day until he talks to you. In fact, that
makes it even less likely that he'll call you. And if you wear out your welcome, eventually I will stop passing on your messages. Sorry. It's not you, it's me. I simply don't want to hear my boss say, "Who is that? Again? I thought I told you to take him off my call sheet!"

If you've called a bunch of times and you're starting to get annoyed with me, I can tell. And if I tell you, yet again, "He's on the set with his phone off," or, "He's been stuck in a production meeting all morning and hasn't been returning my emails," well, he either is or he isn't. Either way, you're don't get to talk to him right now. If it's the latter, I'm not lying to you because it's fun for me. I'm only doing it because my boss specifically asked me to, or because I know if I put you through to him without vetting you, he will a) yell at me, b) fire me, or c) all of the above.

The best thing you can do is to treat this like dating: you call once, twice, maybe three times, and if you don't get a response, move on. When you make it big, we'll totally be sorry.

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There's No Business Like Soul Business

I grew up in far Northern California (up north, we capitalize Northern!) at the foot of a 14,162 foot volcano. Otherwise known as Mount Shasta. It was the 70s and man was New Age a big deal up there. My best friend lived on a purple bus that reeked of patchouli and my 4th grade teacher, Mr. White, wore birkenstocks and lived in a teepee. Literally. I was raised by hippies at the foot of a volcano considered a sacred place by Native Americans and New Agers alike and a town populated by red necks, ski bums and an easy mixture of all of the above. Crystals and gun racks. Deer hunters and truth seekers. It was tah-rippy. Between that strange local mix and my brother's Boston albums throbbing through the wall between our bedrooms - well - I'm dating myself. Let's just say I didn't grow up with Studio 54 anywhere in my reality.

But what I did soak up over time is a sense of awe and imagination. And a deep respect for belief systems of all stripes. Are you way down with auras and meditation and crystals? Are you part of the I Am organization? Sell Amway? Mormon? Okey dokums. It's all good, man.

I'll go ahead and out myself: I am a spiritual person. Meaning that I see and experience patterns, wisdom, beauty and magic in the Universe. I don't follow any particular organization or faith. I'm a bit of a libertarian although New Thought really speaks to me.

Predictably enough, I'm into quantum physics, The Field, The Elegant Universe and What the Bleep Do We Know. I'm crazy like that. I think all things are possible. So other than revealing what you may have suspected about The Wave-inatrix, where is this all leading?

I like to think of the Rouge Wave as a holistic blog. One in which we talk about not only the brass tacks of show business and screenwriting but also a blog on which we encourage writers to really live, be joyful and be complete. Not in a weird, "you complete me, Rouge Wave" way, but in a being rounded and grounded way.

We've all heard the expression, it's not show friends, it's show business. Yes, yes, true enough. But you must remember to stay grounded in what is true for you, personally. With You Tube, Paris Hilton, Twitter, US Weekly and so much more, it's very easy to get in a bit of a lather when it comes to entertainment and specifically to your writing. Again and again, I see writers on message boards who are absolutely absolute in their half-informed beliefs and convictions that, among other things, you should never use "We see" and that Hollywood, competitions, agents, consultants - fill in the blank - are out to get them. More than get them. Screw them over. Steal their ideas, take their money and generally run roughshod over them. You create your reality. Life must be awful for those writers.

There's No Business Like Soul Business, by Derek Rydall, has chapter headings like: Be a Light Not a Star. Derek's book is what I turn to when I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the negativity that creeps into Hollywood. Creeps into? Well - that can dominate at times. Because many in Hollywood and heck, in life in general are very fear-based. There's not enough - jobs, money, rewrites, agents, money, fame, validation, money - etc. In anything you do in life, when you come from a place of "not enoughness" you set yourself up to fail. The truth is that life is not a zero-sum game. There is more than enough for everybody. Enough money, enough jobs, enough validation, love and joy. One of the things I love about Blake Snyder is that he is very much rooted in a value system of more than enoughness.

Being a writer is tough. Bad attitudes flourish and can be persuasive. But you don't have to fall prey to negativity. You don't have to react to it and you don't have to make it your own. Remember that your gift is just that - a gift. And gifts are for giving. Whether or not you are a spiritual person, make sure to round out your evolution as a writer with your personal evolution as well. The two are intimately connected.

When you feel negativity pressing down on you from within or without the industry or in other areas of your life, make sure to tend the garden of your attitude. Remember: there is enough for everybody and the negativity of other people does not belong to you. Do something that keeps you grounded - whether that's meditation, bowling or playing with your kids. A good writer is a grounded writer. Are you in it for the sprint or the marathon? If you're in it for the marathon then stay hydrated with good stuff. Surround yourself with inspiration, motivation and positive people. You create your own reality.

Some other books I recommend:

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain

By the way, the beautiful picture of Mount Shasta, above is by the incredible photographer Kevin Lahey.

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Short Scene WINNER

Will Richard Porter please contact the front desk to collect his much deserved $25 gift certificate? Great job on Foxhole, Richard. Clever, witty and fun. Cupcake for you!

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In The First Person

Only a Motion Away
by Donna Matias

During my early years, up until I was 7 or 8, it seemed like I didn't see my dad very much. He was in the Navy, which meant he was always on a ship somewhere and we were always moving to the port city where his ship was stationed. The only saving grace was that we always lived in coastal towns, which probably explains why I can't stand to be inland for any significant period of time without feeling boxed in.

As I recall things, I would attend school for a year, then the movers would come and pack our things and carry them away in a big van. We'd leave a day or so later, taking a long road trip to our next destination. It never made sense to me that although we took our time and stopped at all those Rest Areas and famous sights, by the time we'd arrive in our new home we would still have to wait weeks for the movers to bring our stuff. In the meantime, my dad would hang around a bit and help us get settled, but eventually we'd say goodbye to him and not expect to see him for a very long time. He always remembered our birthdays and he wrote lots of letters, all of which I've kept.

Once, when we had been living in the great state of Washington for about nine months, my sister and I rode our bikes down the hill to a local Esso convenience store/gas station. We were looking over the candy aisle, trying to decide on a purchase when I saw a dark-skinned man with thick black hair enter the store. I stared at him for a moment, not believing my own eyes. Then I pulled on my sister's sleeve, drawing her out of the aisle where the man couldn't see us. When I found a place of safety, one where we could see the man but he couldn't see us crouching near the Q-Tips, I pointed to him and said to my sister, "I think that's our dad."

She looked, and eventually agreed. We watched him for about a minute, perhaps less. Time always seems to distort itself during surreal moments. Our spying had grown too risky as he made his way around the aisles, so I said, "Let's get outta here!" We remained crouched and, when we saw our chance, made our way to the door. Then we ran out to our bikes and rode home like bats outta hell.

My dad came home shortly thereafter. We hugged and kissed him and told him we were happy to see him. But for some reason, we never mentioned that we already knew he was home.

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The Asylum

Sometimes timing is just wildly weird. The other evening, a dear friend, the Mini-W and I watched a movie called 100 Million B.C. - yeah we knew that it was in some way a rip-off or homage (?) to 10,000 B.C. but that was the point. We knew it would be super funny/bad. And it was. Oh - it was. It actually raised movie-viewing pleasure to a whole new level of good-badness. For awhile. Then it was just sad. But it did lead us to wonder - who is this production company, The Asylum? How are they getting away with this? And then my friend found this:

From the IMDB Message Board:

I like a good low-budget, cheesy movie as much as the next person but when you consistently steal from and profit from other people's projects, you've sunk to a new low.

This company looks at what Hollywood genre films are coming out, then they rush to make their version of it to be released straight to DVD around the same time the Hollywood version is hitting theaters.

This is because many people will go into the video store and rent these things thinking that they are getting the one that they keep seeing advertising for.

The company saves money by doing minimal art decoration, using amateur CG, and only paying their actors enough for 2 meals (seriously).

There are surely more but here is a sampling of their films and the films they are ripping off. Wonder how long until they get sued?

Death Racers = Death Race
100 Million BC = 10,000 BC
Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls = Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
War of the Worlds = War of the Worlds (Spielberg)
2012 Doomsday = Doomsday
Monster = Cloverfield
I Am Omega = I Am Legend
666 The Beast = The Omen
Transmorphers = Transformers
The Hitchhiker = The Hitcher
Snakes on a Train = Snakes on a Plane
Night of the Dead = Dawn of the Dead
Pirates of Treasure Island = Pirates of the Carribean
Da Vinci Treasure = Da Vinci Code
Hillside Cannibals = Hills Have Eyes
When a Killer Calls = When A Stranger Calls

Anywho. Interesting. How is it that The Asylum is getting away with this? Are they ripping off original movies (well - yeah) or are they providing hundreds of jobs for cast and crew? Have they brought back the B-Movie? I gotta tell ya, Wavers, there is simply NO hoot as fulfilling as watching a bad B-movie once in awhile. Does the Asylum have a great sense of humor? Are they filling a niche? Or are they ripping off original entertainment? What's your opinion?

Check out their website HERE.

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The Mini-W Reviews: The Pineapple Express

...and the Wave-inatrix is going broke. But hey, the kid, she wants to earn money and have fun doing it. Man, I had to wash the car when I was growing up. But anyway:

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

You know when you go to see a movie that looks really great and you walk out of the theater fully disappointed? Pineapple Express leaves you with the opposite feeling.

Starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, this hilarious stoner comedy is a must see. It’s packed with action, friendship, and stoner fun. It will leave you with so many jokes afterwards that you should probably try to avoid non-Pineapple Express viewers for at least an hour. The story stars out with Dale (Rogen), a stoner who delivers legal documents, and has a mundane existence, until he witnesses a murder and leaves some rare weed at the scene. He promptly flees to his dealer Saul (Franco) a lovable loser who Dale doesn’t really want to be friends with.

The two embark on a crazy journey and eventually become best friends. The highlight of the film is definitely James Franco. His character is lovable, funny, and all around great. I am a big Seth Rogen fan, but when I saw Franco in this it gave me a new appreciation for him. Out of all the movies I watched this summer, Pineapple Express was definitely my favorite. It’s one of those movies where you just can’t stop laughing the whole time. I recommend this movie to all people over like… 13. Overall, I give this film a five out of five jelly beans, and I’d say that it’s worth the ticket, no questions asked.

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Staffed!

In Hollywoodland, that means you were hired as a television staff writer. It's the brass ring, it's exciting, it's uncertain and it's what every aspiring tv writer is working toward. A few weeks ago, it happened for our own Margaux Froley Outhred. I just had to ask her what it was like:

So. You got staffed on the new CW show Privileged this year. How much did you freak out when you found out?

Margaux: The whole "getting staffed" process is such a whirlwind, I don't know if I had time to get excited. I was coming out of the Warner Brothers Fellowship, and six out of the 13 of us had been staffed, and there was enough funding to get 8 of us hired, so the jobs were going quick. I knew that the WB shows were getting filled quickly, so I was in scramble mode, trying to get my manager and Warners to put me up for anything I could possibly be considered for. I had actually been passed on for PRIVILEGED by one Warner Exec, but I was determined not to let just one person decide my future, especially since I felt I was a great fit for PRIVILEGED because I had just finished a GOSSIP GIRL spec. I pushed another Warner Exec, who got my GOSSIP GIRL to the PRIVILEGED showrunner on a Wednesday. She read me a day later, Thursday morning. Requested a meeting with me that afternoon, and hired me in the meeting. I started work on Monday. That Monday. It was quick, but that's how it was for some of my other friends too. Just being ready was a huge thing. The best part of it was quitting my assistant job that Friday. Not that I liked giving my old boss so little notice, but it felt like I had officially made it past the assistant rank. And the funny thing was, I asked my manager, my Warner exec friend, and the Fellowship people like three times that morning if, really, it was OK to quit my job? I just couldn't believe I wouldn't need to be an assistant anymore, let alone, could hardly process that I was going to be an actual paid writer, in a writer's room.

What got you to this point? What were the breadcrumbs? What did you do right?

Margaux: Aside from everything above, the Warner Fellowship was really the huge factor. From assisting a showrunner, I decided to try my hand at writing a TV spec script. I wrote a 30 ROCK, and that first TV script is what got me into the Fellowship. Once I was in the Fellowship, the best decision I made was to write a GOSSIP GIRL spec. It was still early in their season, there was no indication it would be a worthwhile spec, but I knew I could write it well, and I knew that if it was a hit, there would be another version of it in the coming season. So, staying determined to write the best spec possible made a big difference. Also, just really finessing my connections along the way. A close friend within the Fellowship was able to give my new showrunner boss a solid personal recommendation. I even sent flowers at the BEGINNING of staffing season to my WB exec friend and the WB Fellowship people, knowing that they were about to do a lot of work on my behalf. When it came down to pushing for me, these people were really in my camp when I needed it most.

Where are you repped? How do you like it so far?

Margaux: I was lucky enough to find a brilliant manager, Jamie Wager. Or rather, he found me from the WB Fellowship and my GOSSIP GIRL spec. He's a former TV exec, so he gets how to work with writers. Thus far Jamie has been instrumental in helping me focus on what I need to write next, and helping me through development of a new pilot script. He also helped do the Agent Dance with me. I ended up getting repped by CAA. I currently have a job, so they haven't had much chance to flex that muscle of theirs, but thus far, they've been incredibly supportive and I feel like I've got a really kick ass team to back me up. I had the horrible realization the other week that I am in freelance land, and very quickly that fear was squashed when I remembered what a really on-the-ball team I have to help me get the next job. I believe that feeling is called security.

What is the process on Privileged? How many staff writers are there?

Margaux: We start every day meditating on keeping the CW afloat. Nah, just kidding. (insert uncomfortable laugh here). There are three of us "staff writers", that's the low level writers. Then there are four other higher level writers, plus our lovely and talented showrunner. So, that makes 8 of us total, but generally at least one writer will be off writing his/her script, the showrunner has a million other places to be, and one writer off on maternity leave. We all work together to "break" each episode, from discussing general scenes we'd like to see, to coming up with a fully fleshed out outline. Then that episode's assigned writer will go off and write the outline. Then they'll have to get that outline approved by both our studio (Warner Bros. TV) and then the network (CW) and address those notes. Then they'll be allowed to go off onto script, and again, have that script approved by the showrunner, the studio, and then the network. So each story has gone through many sets of eyes and opinions on it's way to being written and finally shot.

Then we'll do a table read with the cast, followed by a slew of production meetings, and then we can get that episode into production, during which the writer will be on set most of the time to help out/supervise his/her vision. The rest of us stay in the room and keep working on the next episodes. Whew......

What is the ratio of male to female writers on the show?

Margaux: Out of the full 8 of us, 4 of us are ladies. Given that this is a really female-driven cast, that makes sense.

Do you guys use the fabled White Board to sketch out episodes and the season?

Margaux: Yes, gotta have the white board. We have three in fact. One holds the arcs and storylines for all 12 episodes we've been approved for. (Holding out for that back 9!!!) Then, we have one board we really use to brainstorm scenes for an episode, which might then get transfered to the smaller board. The big board then gets used to write out the whole six acts of the episode and how each scene will fit into that structure. Lately I've become the board bitch, but I love it. Having good handwriting paid off.

How much time do you spend on set? Why are sets so cold?

Margaux: Our stages are just downstairs, nearby on the Paramount lot. We spend a little bit of each day there, but generally we stay in our offices. When it's our script being shot, we will live on set the majority of each day. I don't know why they're so cold, but my guess is it has something to do with the hot lights and trying to keep the make-up from melting off our actors.

How many hours a week do you work? Is this typical?

Margaux: We have amazing hours. Apparently this isn't that common, compared to some horror stories I've been told, but again, this is my first room, so I don't have much to compare it to. We work about 10-6 M-Friday. Pretty easy. But, luckily we're doing well breaking our episodes and our shoots are pretty manageable, so we haven't had to have any insanely late nights thus far.

Do you have a nice office? Tell the truth – how’s the food?

Margaux: I love my office. Three of us staff writers (again, we're the bottom of the food chain) had to split 2 offices. I was just so thrilled to actually have an office, I didn't mind sharing. In hindsight, I'm still happy having an office roommate because I'd rather have someone to talk to, or someone to secretly discuss where I'm confused than sitting alone in my own office. The food? Too good. I have a hard time staying away from the kitchen, which is stocked with everything we ask for. Scary habit to get used to.

Single piece of advice for aspiring television writers?

Margaux: It seems to be all about original material these days in terms of getting a writer staffed and/or repped. My manager almost didn't sign me because I didn't have origianl material to back up my specs. Once I wrote a One Act play that he really liked, we were off and running. And I know with getting repped at CAA and having agencies pursue me, a lot of that came from the One Act. But, really, once you've got the job, the day to day most important thing is just to be nice and to be relevant. I haven't written my episode's script yet, but I work hard to try to find side projects or research that can help the showrunner or the current writer on their script. Just being nice goes a really long way.

(See above note how buying someone flowers BEFORE they help you can be a very wise move. Don't wait for them to do all the work and then thank them. Advance thank yous can keep a relationship flowing for years to come.)

Conversely, what would you caution against?

Margaux: Stalking. It is really easy to push someone who is doing you a favor into the territory where they start avoiding your calls. If you push too hard, you will kill your contact. Seriously. I just heard about a producer who has a "Do Not Staff" list, filled with people who just bugged them and because of that, they never want to hire those writers. Don't bug the people you want favors from. There are only so many jobs out there, pushing harder doesn't change that.

Whoa! I heard about the Do Not Staff list a few years ago. I thought it was an urban myth, honestly. It really happens?

Margaux: Apparently so.

Thank you, Margaux, for taking your time to do this.

Margaux: Yeah. Where's my cupcake? :)

You earned it, babe.

Margaux: Privileged premiers on the CW on September 9th at 9pm.

I'm supposed to be the bold font.

Margaux: Now you're just talking to yourself.

****

Staffing season comes every spring, sure as the geese migrate from - wait - uh - arrive in wherever. Make the most of your time this fall. Study the new shows like crazy. And look into writing original material like a one-act play.

Margaux is available on a limited basis to review your television scripts at The Script Department. We will shortly be announcing a new tv script analyst we have hired who is much more available. Treat yourself to either one but know that due to her work demands, Margaux should be booked in advance. We're lucky to have her.

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The Assistant Files

Assistants have different coping strategies to get through the day. Some people trawl Facebook. Some people gossip on tracking boards. I do those things too, but mostly, I read blogs. And messageboards. Often about screenwriting. There's something fascinating about eavesdropping on public conversations, I find. Here are some recurring themes I see over and over, to my amazement:

*Person on the internet: Writers should wear suits to meetings.
Reality: What?!? Have you ever seen a writer? Writers just barely change out of their pajamas. Recently a bigshot writer and his manager came in to pitch to my boss. The writer was wearing ratty old jeans, a t-shirt that had a big brown stain on it, and designer glasses that probably cost 700 dollars. If you wore a suit to a meeting, people would be upset and confused.


*Person on the internet: You don't have to live in LA to be a screenwriter.
Reality: What kind of screenwriter are we talking about? The kind of screenwriter who actually sells projects and works consistently?


*Person on the internet: But I'm special! The industry will come to me.
Reality: Don't you think it's more like how people who want to be in national politics have to move to DC?


*Person on the internet: How dare you claim that I'm not the exception to the rule.
Reality: I can see this isn't making a dent. Let's move on.


*Person on the internet: I demand that you acknowledge that I am the exception!
Reality: I wonder if this bagel I found in the conference room is too old to eat safely.


*Person the internet: Hollywood makes moves that are too liberal! Or conservative!
Reality: Hollywood makes movies because it hopes that they will make a lot of money, or because they might win an Oscar. Those are the only two reasons. I always feel kind of embarrassed that instead of being deeply evil, Hollywood is just disorganized and haphazard.


*Person on the internet: I have a production company. You can tell, because my email address is joesawesomeprodco@aol.com. It will really impress people to know this.
Reality: This is so uncomfortable. People who work in the industry know pretty much everyone. Nobody is ever going to think "Wow, I guess there's a hot new player in town I hadn't heard of yet! I should definitely check out the script."


*Person on the internet: My script is the first in a planned trilogy about vampires.
Reality: Oh no.

xxo,

Andy Sachs

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Mediocrity - the Insidious Enemy

By PJ McIlvaine

ME-DI-O-CRE
1. of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate.
2. rather poor or inferior.

Thus does the dictionary define “mediocre”. I hate this word. Just saying it aloud, it even sounds...”mediocre.” It’s not a word you hear a lot, usually, but sad to say, recently I’ve been hearing it a lot at one of the message boards I frequent concerning a long running TV show that I happen to have a very strong affection for.

The new season has just begun, four shows in, and as much as it pains me to admit it, I’m just not feeling the love. The episodes aired thus far have been, well, to put it kindly, in my humble opinion…mediocre. The plots have been paper thin, the mystery as transparent as John Edwards on Nightline, the core characters have become caricatures and the humor has bordered on the infantile. In other words…mediocre. Yes, that’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it.

Unfortunately, on this message board, when I (or others, because I’m not alone), express this belief, we’re derided and castigated and branded as “nit-pickers” and told to go away. Apparently, you can’t be a loyal fan and point out the flubs, gaffes and logic inconsistencies without being tarred and feathered.

Hey, don’t cry for me. I’m a big girl, I know how to take care of myself…and then in the midst of one these “discussions”, the comment came up to the effect that even if the show was, ahem, mediocre, it was still better than most of what was airing. While this might be true, (I mean Charlie Sheen has a hit show, apparently, I’ve read that he’s the highest paid comedy actor on TV, but I don’t know anyone who watches his show, and Dean and Tori are still going strong with the un-reality show), it still made me sad. And it got me to thinking.

Since when did mediocrity (or being imperfect, deficient, no great shakes, not much to boast of, fall short, barely pass muster, incomplete, indifferent, ordinary, average, so-so, not very good, inferior, bearable, passable, second rate, one horse, one trick pony) become acceptable? Or dare I say, the norm? The new standard to achieve?

I want to be many things as a writer. Mediocre isn’t one of them, and this is why. Many moons ago, I fancied myself the next Stephen King. So inspired, I wrote a horror novel about a woman carrying some kind of demonic killer spawn. I knew, just knew, that it was the best thing since CARRIE.

My husband’s boss at the time was good friends with a highly respected horror-sci-fi publisher/editor/writer. As a favor to me, he asked his friend to read it. In short order, my novel was returned to me. I don’t remember much about the rejection letter (time and memory has a way of being kind) except for this: while he thought I was a talented writer, the subject matter, and the execution thereof, was “mediocre”. I cried and cried and cried. When I stopped crying, I put the novel away and started writing again, with one thought burning in my mind: to never be mediocre again. Now, years later, I may be many things, but mediocre isn’t one of them.

So when I hear someone say that being mediocre, being ordinary, just skimming along, hell, that it’s okay, hell, even something to be applauded…I shake my head in disbelief. Why would any writer want to be just ordinary? Why on earth would you waste time on something that just makes it? Barely.

Because if mediocrity is the new standard, why should we aspire to be anything more? Because it pays more? Because our mug gets plastered on TMZ and Perez Hilton even though we have discernible talent? Paris Hilton may be a very nice girl, but she’ll never get an Academy Award. Yes, mediocre scripts get bought and made all the time. Blockbuster and Netflix are full of them. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would rather have my name and reputation associated with a good movie that made little or no money than be associated with a mediocre one that made lots of moolah.

You know what else? I’d rather be flat out awful, just suck eggs and pickles, be so bad that you burn my script after reading it…rather than have someone tell me politely that it was just, you know...blech. Like how you feel after you’ve had a bout of the flu.

I don’t want be blech. Neither should you. Take a risk. Rise to the challenge. Flex your muscles. Don’t crawl when you can run. Repeat after me: down with mediocrity!

And as for my TV show…hope springs eternal every Friday night.

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The Doctor is IN:

Dear Doctor Jeff - When Heath Ledger died, I am embarrassed to say that I actually cried. Seeing him in The Dark Knight makes me sad all over again. I read the tabloids and watch E! and I think I'm like a lot of people who are little obsessed with the rich and famous. What is that all about?
-Sad in San Diego

Dear Sad -

A couple years ago I read that Princess Diana’s son, Prince William, told an interviewee that he liked apple cider. Within two weeks, apple cider sales in England rose 26% ! Which leads us to celebrity worship/celebrity scorn. Flip sides of the same coin. Where does this come from?

Most of us, early on, were taught to look outside of ourselves for our inner value or worth. Thus, instead of cultivating self-esteem, we cultivated something we were told was more important… others’ esteem. How others thought of us became more important than what we thought of ourselves.

Looking outside ourselves puts an unnatural amount of attention on others and how to act. This explains the craziness of a celebrity’s endorsement of products. By association, if apple cider’s good enough for a prince, and he’s wealthy and royalty well then by association, so am I. Apple cider’s what I drink, too. Lastly, this also leads to a brutal scorn heaped onto celebrities involved in scandals. How the mighty have fallen. Either celebrities are better than us, and we look up to them… or they’re worse than us, and we look down. Both up and down are out of balance.

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Short Scene Voting

Remember to vote for the best Pineapple Express short scene!

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From The Comments Section

Regarding my post How to Succeed at Failing the Quik n Easy Way, a Rouge Waver wrote this:

Hi Julie,

I have read for major contests. Yes it takes 1 to 3 pages to eliminate a script. But most of these scripts are from first timers.

They are learning how to write a script. Give them a break.

So maybe you should judge them on whether they have the potential to become good writer one day.
Some writers should quit right now while others should continue and they will make it.

It's like "amateur sports", some will make it into the big league while others will pack up and go home.

Do I have a point?

Forget about finding the next Tarantino or August or Steven Zaillian for now.

If that writer shows some strong potential, he or she should advance.

Bluecat advanced scripts that were flawed by brimming with potential.

Anonymous, I concur that many entries are written by first-timers or those who would appear to be quite inexperienced. I have read for other competitions as well. I am bound and determined to make winning The Silver Screenwriting competition a meaningful accomplishment. I have heard from others who run or have run screenwriting competitions in the past that I have to lower the bar somewhat; that it's just too hard to find a really great writer in what amounts to a haystack of submissions. There are many who think that they are way better than they are, way earlier in the game and that winning a competition is a quick and easy way to kick the door down in Hollywood.

I may be old-fashioned, stubborn or deluded, but I refuse to lower the bar to include brimming with potential and a pat on the head. I have seen too many great writers in my time to do that. I know they are out there.

Of course I am looking for potential, but more than that, I am looking for an undiscovered writer, a diamond that's not all that rough. I am looking for a grand prize winner whom I can send out to 3 meetings with 3 managers with pride. It's my reputation on the line when I award the top winners of this competition. I want those who place in the Silver Screenwriting Competition to know that it is a meaningful accomplishment. You weren't the best of the worst, you were the best of the best. The worst get weeded out right away. And so do the lazy and the mediocre.

Because we do not yet have the manpower to return notes for every script, something I'd like to shoot for next year, the writers who did not advance in the first round really have no idea why. So my post, tongue-in-cheek though it may be, contains some hints as to why you may not have advanced. I can't email every entrant who didn't use sluglines and say hey, dude, use sluglines.

I am looking for the next Steve Zaillian or John August - I'm looking for a writer who did the work to deserve winning this competition. I'm looking for voice, originality, talent and discipline. And therein lies my point: if you cannot use sluglines, if you cannot write a decent action line, if you have a lot of typos or formatting issues - you are not yet ready to come off the porch and play with the big dogs. Period. Making these kinds of silly mistakes in my list of examples is inexcusable in a world where books and blogs on screenwriting are everywhere you look. A complete and total beginner should not, in my opinion, enter a competition so early on. Give it a minute. Read other scripts. Do the work. Your super neato idea may not be as neato as you think and your experience level, potential or not, will get in the way of really rocking a script.

At The Script Department, we take writers from all walks of life and from all ability levels and without personal judgment, help them improve. That you tried is good enough. What you do with your notes is your prerogative. We reward effort with honesty and encouragement.

But at The Silver Screenwriting Competition, I want the best of the best. I will not reward mediocrity. It's not fair to the good writers who also entered the competition. If I reward potential rather than someone who has nailed it, then what does winning or even placing mean?

What I have not mentioned, and it's clear I should have, are the scripts entered in the competition that I am loving. LOVING some of these entries. It's been tough to weed the great out from the truly great. I am impressed by the level of some of these submissions. Bad writing can be entertainingly funny and easy to poke fun at. Good writing blows my socks off. It's just that in this context, I can't yet speak of this or that writer or script. It ain't over til the fat lady sings.

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Paramount at 4:30 am

Today the mini-W is having a smashing experience - except for the 4:30am part. She is apprenticing with the makeup department on a CW show shooting today on the Paramount lot. You'd think a big, sprawling studio lot would be dead quiet at that time of day. Well, it was pretty quiet, yes, but not dead. That's when crew starts to arrive on shows with an early call time. Nobody said this business was easy, above or below the line. Side benefit: that time of day, with negligible traffic? 10 minutes door to door.

Remember to vote for the best Pineapple Express short scene!

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Bad Action Line, Bad!

In response to a comment sent in from my dear friend Luzid about what I mean by bad action lines, I have for your viewing hilarity, created an amalgam of every bad, dense action line that I have read just today. On the couch. Wishing I was doing something else but for that one super cool horror script.

***

The heaving SEE tosses the boat closer to the glacer while the crab pots slide toward TONY, ruddy, a drinker (mid-30s but looks like he's 50) who glares at TRACEE (17, wishes she was 21) and RAIN pounds the deck while in the background, TOWERING OIL RIGS mone and sway in the wind. On the HORIZON a fleet of ships head toward a danger cliff and obscured by the storm, nobody can see the danger they will soon be in. Tony gropes for a rope, winds it around his left wrist, trying to help get the last crab pot in but a WAVE crashes over him and Tracee gets hit by the jib, which throws her overboard in an explosion of fome. She struggles but nobody sees her and the storm gets worse and the person reading the script starts having some kind of seizure and the WAVES of pain crash over there brain and they get a papercut and a migraine and close the script with SMASH CUT.

Too many lines, everything is run together, typos and misspells, saying not showing, bad character descriptions - a virtual bounty, an overflowing net of writhing, sardine-like action lines. Even if a person had no typos and wasn't a totally horrible writer, remember that feeling you got in the pit of your stomach when you first scrolled down and saw my example? How you kind of went oh GOD - not now. I like short, pithy Rouge Wave paragraphs - yeah. That feeling. Don't give a reader that feeling.

A too short action line might look like:

The boat rocks. Thunder overhead. Bad storm. Cliff approaches. Lightning.

It's like if Joe Friday and The Hulk had a baby. Hulk, smash!

I'm not going to be one of those people who says you have to use 3 or 4 action lines, no more. I don't think one can really pronounce that there's some limit, over or under which you will suddenly turn the reader off. Really, just make your action lines easy on the eye, make them evocative and colorful and fun. And if you find that you have blocks with more than say 5 lines of action - just ask yourself - what words can I lose or substitute to shorten this? Or is it fine the way it is? Just keep your eye on that.

There is a lot more information on the Rouge Wave if you click on "action lines" under Browse Topics.

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Succeed at Failing the Quik n Easy Way!

So at The Script Department, we're still judging scripts for the Silver Screenwriting Competition. Also for the Nevada Film Commission - betcha didn't they had one of those, didja? Well, we are. Several of us are reading. For a few weeks now. And it will continue. It has been an interesting experience; I want every writer to advance in this competition. But alas, not all can. With one keystroke, I can put the writer one step closer to success - or one step backward toward frustration. Heavy weighs the crown. I am the decider.

But to be perfectly frank, as I lie on my couch with my laptop on my lap judging scripts on this lazy Sunday afternoon, I'm thinking two things: 1) I'd rather be doing something else and 2) I'm getting sleepy. But some writers, bless their hearts, are making it really easy and fast to judge their scripts. It's as if they know I'd rather be doing something else. It's as if they are literally greasing the tracks for me.

Here are some track-greasing tips for a DO NOT ADVANCE checked box:

1. Have a really weird, elliptical title that makes no sense
2. Write really dense, detailed action lines and include some typos.
3. Describe your characters in way too much detail, including personality traits.
4. Do not use sluglines
5. Make sure your script has no point in the first ten pages.
6. Make sure the tone and genre are impossible to key in on in the first ten pages.
7. Include a lot of typos and malaprops.
8. Use a weird font and format that make your pages hard to read.
9. Take your sweet time with set up; say it don't show it!
10. Describe your characters in like one or two words. Tell me what they are thinking,
don't show me through their actions.

It's so easy to hit "do not advance". It only takes a page or three before I do it. And when you do that a lot, you whiz through scripts. It's the good scripts that give me pause. I want to just go, go, go but I can't - these pages - they are fascinating! What voice! What imagery! What a delightful, playful, engaging read! What an interesting concept! Man, you guys are slowing me WAY down. Didn't you read the list, above? Harumph.

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Pineapple Express FINALISTS

That was really difficult, Wavers. Probably the most difficult time I have ever had trying to find the top three short scene submissions. They were ALL so good!

Voting Guidelines:
NO ballot-stuffing, please. I think we all remember what happened a few months back. Look at each submission and ask - did it entertain you? Was it clever? Were the three words (pineapple, express and August) incorporated in a witty, contextual way? This is not a popularity contest, this is a recognition of which short scene was the most clever, surprising and effective.

FOXHOLE by Richard Porter

EXT. FOXHOLE - DAY

SGT. FRANCO and PFC ROGEN huddle under exposed roots. Mud cakes their units. Rogen scribbles in a small notebook.

FRANCO
What are ya writin’, Rogen?

ROGEN
Journal. Figure I ever make it out of this damn war alive, there’s a novel in all this.

FRANCO
Shoulda known you was a writer. You express yourself real good. You write a lot back home?

ROGEN
A bit. Wrote some stories in college. Even had one published.

An F1 GRENADE sails over the grunts’ heads. The pineapple bounces once and bursts in a spray of shrapnel and dirt.

ROGEN
Sarge! Sarge, you alright?

Rogen crawls to Franco. His face bleeds. Franco is worse.

FRANCO
Rogen. You okay?

ROGEN
I’m not worried about me, sarge. Let me take a look.

Rogen unbuttons Franco’s blood-soaked shirt.

FRANCO
Don’t. It’s...

Franco grabs Rogen’s hand and stares at him.

FRANCO
It’s too late. I ain’t makin’ it. Promise me something.

ROGEN
Anything, sarge.

FRANCO
Tell my boy I love him. Tell August Jr. his pop loves him.

Chunks by Ian Urquhart

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

HERB (50), eating irons raised, scowls as BARB (50) serves
up a pizza. He lifts a pineapple ring off with his fork.

HERB
What THE HELL is this?

Barb sits down opposite, rolling pin grim.

BARB
Pizza Hawaii. Special delivery.
All your cussing, I got it express.

HERB
This pizza's got rings. Rings
don't agree with me. Rings make
me ill. Chunks, I can eat. I won't
touch rings with gloves on.

BARB
You had rings back in August.

HERB
I threw my guts up! I coulda DIED!
I'm allergic to rings.

Barb leans over, just ZORROS a ring with her knife.

BARB
Chunks.

HERB
PHONIES!

BARB
What's the DIFFERENCE?

HERB
You oughta know. I told you enough.
Bogus, there ain't two the same.
Bona fide, they ain't no more
different than eggs. That there
is BOGUS. That there is a RING!

She sighs. When a man knows his chunks ...

BARB
You want something else?

He bats his freaking ring-poisoned pizza aside. Barb smirks.

BARB
Doughnuts or bagels?

ARGENTINE TANGO by Millar Prescott

EXT. CUBAN COUNTRYSIDE - 1937

Young entrepreneurs, CHE(9) and FIDEL(11), sit at a roadside
table from which they sell pineapple slices. Music plays from a small radio on the ground beside them. Across the road, in a grassy field, a couple dances the Argentine Tango.

Down the road, in the distance, RUBÉN ZALDÍVAR(36) approaches carrying a suitcase in each hand. He wears a suit and tie. Upon his arrival, he unburdens himself and pulls a handkerchief from his jacket pocket to wipe his face, neck, and brow.

RUBÉN ZALDÍVAR
The August sun is hot.

CHE
Where did you come from?

RUBÉN ZALDÍVAR
Banes. Three hundred miles behind.

CHE
Where you going?

RUBÉN ZALDÍVAR
Havana. Four hundred miles beyond.

CHE
Why are you walking?

RUBÉN ZALDÍVAR
The destination is much sweeter if
a man suffers his journey.

CHE
But the aftertaste is bitter. No?

A pig riding a motorcycle speeds past on a wave of dust. Rubén Zaldívar pulls his wallet from an inside breast pocket. A photograph of eight year old Shirley Temple falls to the ground as he presents a credit card to the boys.

FIDEL
We don’t take American Express.

The motorcycle returns to stop in front of the trio. Rubén Zaldívar, suitcases in hand, climbs on the back. The photograph flutters as the pig and man speed off.

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Aging Gracefully

You know those horrible pop-up ads that show a beautiful young woman and then the cursor moves over her face and suddenly she's a hag? I hate that ad. Talk about a scare tactic. The truth is, no matter how much you spend on products, some people just don't age well. Now, Robert Downey, Jr. - he has aged well. Has anybody seen him on the cover of Rolling Stone this month? Sweet mother of god. Why is it that some men just get more and more handsome like that? Totally unfair.

Someone commented on the Rouge Wave the other day that HIGHLANDER (1986) is very dated. Man was he right. But STAR WARS (1977) doesn't feel dated to me. Either does ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980). Or CHINATOWN (1974). But BEVERLY HILLS COP (1984), with its awful synth, 80s incidental music gives me hives. Not THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) or BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985). To me, those movies still stand up.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) - has got that gritty, fast-paced 70s thing going on but I don't find it distancing. The movie is still powerful, even if it is definitely marked by the era during which it was made. Like NETWORK (1976) or TAXI DRIVER (1976). Time and place movies don't make a movie feel "dated" in my experience. I love PILLOW TALK (1959), REAR WINDOW (1954) and GILDA (1946).

BLADE RUNNER (1982) feels a bit dated to me but I still enjoy it. HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971) and THE GRADUATE (1967) also fall into the category of kind of dated but I don't really mind. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) is hopelessly dated although still a classic. THE STING (1973) holds up like nobody's business. Or does it? How much subjectivity is going on here?

What do you think, Wavers? What makes a movie feel dated to you and why?

REMINDER

The deadline for the Pineapple Express Short Scene Competition is 12am, Pacific Daylight Time - that's only 8 hours from the time of this posting. Quite a number of Wavers have submitted but there's still time!

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The Mini-W Reviews: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

As a big fan of Ann Brashare’s very popular book series “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”, when the first movie adaptation of the series came out, I was thoroughly excited. After being mildly disappointed with the first movie, (its adaptation for the screen was unsatisfying to me as a reader), I was reluctant to go see the sequel which, unlike the first movie, combines all the rest of the books (2nd, 3rd, 4th).

Two and a half hours later, my mind had been completely changed. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, starring Amber Tamblyn, “Gossip Girl’s” Blake Lively, “Ugly Betty’s” America Ferrera, and “Gilmore Girl’s” Alexis Bledel, is just the right summer chick flick to see with your best girlfriends. Although it’s not what you would call a high quality movie, (sorry, no oscar buzz for you Sisterhood), it’s definitely a fun film to go see.

In case you haven’t seen the previous movie or read the books, there are four main characters. Tibby, the rebellious film maker, Lena, the shy but sweet Greek artist, Bridget, the bold soccer player who lost her mother, and Carmen, the Puerto Rican beauty, who writes and is the most passionate one of the group. The girls had grown up together and the series is basically about their experiences as teenagers, and as friends. The movies are more interesting to readers of the series, but they are fun to watch nonetheless.

The film starts out with the girls in college. Bridget is going to Turkey for archeology camp, but ends up going to Alabama to see her grandmother, Lena takes a drawing class and rediscovers her love for a former boyfriend, Carmen gets cast in a major play, and Tibby learns the consequences of being sexually active. These emotional issues that are dealt with are handled well, and I think that this movie could be seen as a bonding movie. It shows the kind of friendship that you hope you will always have with your friends.

Overall, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 is a good movie to watch if you’re in the mood for a chick flick. It’ll make you laugh, cry, and rediscover why you pay so friggin much to get into movies. I would recommend this movie to younger girls mostly, and especially fans of the book. I know I enjoyed it.

I give Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 three and a half out of five jelly beans.

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In the First Person

Made in China
by Adam Hong




Big.
How big?
If every man, woman, and child in China spit southward simultaneously the entire Southeast Asia will be wiped out.

I was too young to understand my uncle’s metaphor, but that was some image. Gross! But powerful nevertheless. Only recently that I’ve connected his joke with China’s power, its population represents more than 1/5 of the world’s – one out of every five people in the world lives in China, not to mention millions more scattering around the world. Like my uncle.

Like most Asian Americas he has a love-hate relationship with his ancestry. He loves Chinese food, authentic, homemade Chinese food, not Panda Express. He was an amazing cook – “was” because I think he’s losing his piquancy to aging – give him an egg and he would whip up beautiful golden delicious egg drop soup in a flash. He hates everything else from China, anything made in China that is. Truth is made-in-China means less in my family’s dictionary. Anything easily broken, faded, stretched, synthetic, odorous, contaminated, and most recently poisonous. Let’s put it this way, if my families said my writing is made in China, I would be devastated, especially the odorous attribute. Ironically, my uncle is not exactly a big spender. He’s thrilled to get a bargain and ecstatic when things are free. The opposite would drive him mad. He once disputed over his water bill for a year, only giving in when the utility company turned off the water and charged him with a penalty and required a security deposit to reinstate the service. Since then he turned off all the water in the house, except for the kitchen and the master bathroom. He sank three red bricks in the water tank of a Canadian-made toilet, which the manufacturer assures a disposal of one gallon of water for each flush. Who needs a whole gallon of water to flush if half gallon could do the job? He often jokes that his invention is truly made in China, not for the cheapness context, but the practicality. So he has a dilemma. He doesn’t want to deplete his bank accounts for quality products, and he doesn’t want anything made in China either. That’s my uncle. Wait. It’s my neighbor. My teacher. The mailman. My dentist. It seems that everyone faces the same dilemma. Eventually economy wins. Just take a trip to your nearest super Wal-Mart and you’ll see all solutions provided by the Chinese in one stop. There you can shop, eat, be entertained, fill prescription, and, as your heart desires, wed your beloved in a white and pink decorated wedding chapel while waiting for your car to be serviced. The Chinese clearly see our demands for quantity not quality. They are eager to please the world. In preparation for the Olympics, China has a long list of etiquette that the Chinese must comply with. One of them is to stop spitting publicly.

They will get even bigger.

How big?
Let’s hope that they don’t start spitting again. Toward us.

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SUPERBAD: Worst Movie Ever

I have been on a weird, elliptical mission for many years now. If there is a movie I haven't seen, I make a point to see it. It's frustrating because the more movies I watch, the more movies I realize that I haven't seen. So it's like some kind of exercise in a weirdly fun frustration. Sometimes it's an exercise in self-flagellation - I see a movie, realize how very great it is and beat myself up for having missed something so good when it first came out and other times it's punishing - really? REALLY? This is what everybody has been talking about?

That doesn't happen with older movies as much but sometimes you watch something like, say, Grand Hotel, with Greta Garbo and it kind of bursts a bubble - she actually says "I want to be alone" so many times in that movie that it becomes slightly funny. Or you watch, say, Gilda and you think DAMN Rita Hayworth was a beautiful woman, even in black and white! The thing with older movies is that I truly have pretty much seen almost every good one so now I'm down to the ones I haven't seen because they pretty much sucked. So that's never fun. People think that older movies are always classics but know this - for every HARVEY or TWELVE ANGRY MEN there are like a thousand SHE ATE HER PARENTS RAW!

Wait - major digression - in screenwriting-land, we all-cap movie titles so I should have written GRAND HOTEL - and, as you have noticed, I usually do. In coverage reports, the movie title is not all-capped. I suspect because it there is a slight caste-system judgment going on - this is not a MOVIE yet, it's just a script. I don't know man, I don't make these rules up, I just follow the conventions. But in magazines such as EW, movie titles are generally italicized. So what's a Wave-inatrix to do? Fine. I'll keep all-capping since we're all used to that.

So anyway, here is a short list of movies I've been catching up on lately:

BEOWULF - The story took massive liberties and it looked like a video game but loved it!

AUDREY ROSE - 70s reincarnation movie has not aged well. Not scary and not even campy.

THE DESCENT - Wow, I loved this movie! Girl power! Clever! Simple! Scary as hell!

THE INVASION - Great build up, Kidman is beautiful, but not as good at the 70s remake with Donald Sutherland.

IN BRUGES - I absolutely freaked out with joy. What a great movie. Plus I met Colin Farrell once, on the set of S.W.A.T. I'll always have that sweet five minutes on the set of S.W.A.T.

RAT RACE - Okay I'm lying, I've seen that one before. What an underrated, high-larious movie.

HIGHLANDER - this falls under the category of REALLY?

10,000 B.C. - yeah you read that right. The Mini-W and I thought it would be a hoot. Not even.

SUPERBAD - Ah. And now we come to the subject of this post. Woops, I kind of gave away the store already, in the blog post title. Damn it!

Here's the the thing, I loved 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. I liked KNOCKED UP. I can't wait to see THE PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (where are the short scene submissions, by the way, are we holding out?) and TROPIC THUNDER. FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL is on my list of hall-of-shame-I-should-have-seen-that-by-now. (See how annoying the all-caps get?) I secretly have a crush on Seth Rogen. Michael Cera is the best - loved him in Arrested Development and in JUNO. I've loved Paul Rudd for years but particularly after CLUELESS not to mention ANCHORMAN. I want to be as cool as the Apatow guys, I really do.

But SUPERBAD was an awful movie. I'm not going to go all Betty Friedan, Susan Faludi, Naomi Wolf, Camille Paglia on you here but - yes I am. Misogyny, anyone? How about a little side of contempt for women to go with that? And a nice dollop of dehumanizing objectification right on top. How about some nice, deep fried, completely unfunny, uncharming little-boy whining and freakish obsession with getting laid? Yeah, yeah, I know that all men, regardless of age are obsessed about getting laid. I'm from Planet Earth too.

I have a good friend who is - no nice-ing this up - a prude. She walked out of SUPERBAD. When I sat down to watch it the other evening, I did so thinking I was ever so much cooler than she is. Walked out? Hello? Welcome to the 21st century, babe! We can talk about sex at the movies! It's life, man! I'm a woman of today, I can laugh right along with the boys. Damn straight.

My laughter died in my throat. Quickly. Yeah, yeah the McLovin thing is funny. Ba-dump dump. Tish. But the rest - the rest was offensive beyond the pale to anyone with a vagina. I'm sure there were women who laughed along, I am not making a sweeping generalization (well, kind of) but what bothers me about this movie is the Emperor's New Clothes thing. Apatow reigns supreme (though I suspect, like anything and anyone in Hollywood, his time is limited) and nobody can just speak the truth about this awful, unfunny movie. All things Apatow are not funny. I know that my secret rush, Rogen, wrote Superbad, not Apatow. In fact, in IMDB I don't see Apatow directly related to SUPERBAD at all. But you know he was - somehow. So let's not finger (aha! ha.) Apatow but I do blame him for opening this can of unfunny, juvenile man-boy worms currently enjoying box office take at the theater.

Did I take offense x1000 because I have a teenaged daughter, who is, in theory, the generalized object of this kind of tripe? Of course. Because it's the same shit, generations later. Women are for screwing. And it's funny, right? Adolescent boys are funny. Right? Look, you have to give teen sex movies their due - they scratch an itch and they always have. But this is one woman who is going to just say it - Apatow and his crew need to grow the hell up. It's not funny anymore. I think Apatow has a daughter. Can't remember. But he does have kids and if one is a girl, I give him about 8 or 10 more years before he looks back in abject shame.

The Hathor Legacy
Women and Hollywood

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In the First Person

Here is a lovely first person essay by a Waver I'll call "M" about the power and the healing writing has provided in his life:

****

Stories are the salve that soothes the wounds of the world.

As the child of lost-in-the-bottle alcoholics, my sole escape from a home of heartbreak was through breathless reverence of my favorite characters as they overcame both inner pain and outer obstacles.

I drew strength from their courage and hope from a hero's ability to rise above and discovered real empowerment by expressing my own story as wild adventures through times of darkness to triumph.

But as I grew older and more overwhelmed by life's tricky path, I began to lose sight of the light that had guided my way - my love of stories, and how creating them made my life better.

Nicholson was right; sometimes you can't handle the truth, at least not without help. A kind writer named Terry (thank you, Mr. Rossio) turned my eyes toward the starry-eyed trap opening far below me.

I stopped writing for five years to prevent my fall.

When I came back, I came back strong for one reason; I rediscovered my love of story. How it shapes us. Binds us. Heals us, through joy and laughter and tears. If we do it right, through all of these!

Story flows through my blood again, and I could no more stop its course than I could give up breathing. Every day I can fashion a world from words is another day I can create in a world of decay.
Sharing the wonder of well-told tales by mastering the process of crafting them is my keen interest, because the healing we receive from stories that uplift and sustain hope even as the world's weight cracks the rafters above us proves that great stories mean something.

My goal is simple - to write stories that help others feel as I do.

****
Thank you, M, that was a beautiful piece of writing. If you would like to submit a short first person essay to the Rouge Wave - about anything, really - contact me HERE.

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Network Me. Don't Stalk Me.

Networking is one of the most important skills that a budding screenwriter needs to acquire. Network at writing or screenwriting functions. Network with other writers. Network with professionals you have the opportunity to meet. Watch the movie, NETWORK - it has nothing to do with networking but man, if you haven't seen that movie...prepare to be blown away.

Here is what networking is:

meeting, greeting, exchanging of information, sharing of laughter, stories and phone numbers.

Here is what networking is not:

creeping people out, following them, not reading social signals.

If you meet other writers at an event - take a moment to get to know them. Maybe you can gain a feedback partner. Surely you can glean useful information - maybe they queried a manager who was receptive. They might have tried some screenwriting software you've been curious about. Maybe they found a way to understand structure that totally makes sense to you.

It's just like every other walk of life. It takes a damn village. If a person has gone before you and discovered a pitfall or a hand hold on a ledge, learn from that. Most ideally - maybe, just maybe through six degrees of separation, someone has a friend who has a friend who has a friend in the position to do something to help you out when the time comes.

But networking does not equal entitlement. If you meet someone with that friend of a friend of a friend, in all likelihood, they won't announce that straight away and if there's one thing people can smell a mile away, it's someone who is trying to use them. And it makes you squeeze tight like a mussel at low tide. Nobody likes the feeling of being exploited and used.

You have to develop relationships over time. Be there for the person you're networking with. Ask not what they can do for you - ask what you can do for them. Be generous and authentic. Do not over inflate who you are and what you have to offer. Just be real. Among all other human qualities, we are drawn to authenticity. It feels like a million bucks when someone is real with you. Networking is about an exchange of information but more than that it's about relationship building.

So what do you do if someone seems to glom onto you and you get the distinct sense they will do you no good at any point in time? Gently, politely be too busy and hard to reach.

Wait - isn't that counter to everything the Wave-inatrix just said above - about being authentic and generous?! Isn't the idea of weighing how advantageous knowing someone is completely awful? Well kids - they don't call it show friends, do they? Here's a little tip: network with writers who are at least your peers. Networking with someone who is more of a beginner than you are will do you no good. Unless you want to mentor someone which is a perfectly nice thing to do. But it won't get you anywhere. You may have a lot to offer that person but you need to be networking with people who have something you can learn or benefit from. But all of this is relatively self-explanatory, even if it does seem to have an awful self-centeredness at its core. Be authentic but be realistic.

You do not need 12 new friends who do not know what a slugline is. You do need one or two new network-friends who can turn you on to a great screenwriting message board, a new software, or a production company currently looking for material. You are looking for someone who might be able to make an introduction and get you connected to someone who won a competition you've never heard of and that is perfect for your genre.

When you go to a screenwriting event, bring business cards. I know many, many of you have gotten "Sylvia Silversteen - Screenwriter" printed on your cards. I wouldn't necessarily burn all those cards but I'll be honest - it's kinda goofy. I'm sorry, it just is. Obviously you're a screenwriter, you're at the damn event. Professional screenwriters don't usually announce that in cursive font on a business card. If you have that on your business card, I'll be honest, if you give that card to a professional such as myself, later, we will giggle at it a little bit. I know. It's mean. But we do. Because it's silly and it makes you look somewhere between an over-eager goofmeister and a rank amateur. I know. It stings. But I'm being honest.

Also, please do not make up some production company that you "own" and have that on your card. Also goofy. If I work in Hollywood, I'll either immediately recognize it's a fake company or I'll look it up and find out it's fake. And you look - goofy.

If you have some other day job and you also write, come up with some nice looking business cards that simply say your name, phone number and email address. Less is more. All I want is to be able to contact you but if it's me you're giving the card to, in all honesty, I won't be contacting you - you'll be contacting me. You can give me your card if you feel compelled to but really, you should take MY card because I don't have twelve-thousand hours in a day to email people I just met, don't know and who probably want something from me.

Get nice, professional, slightly clever cards made with your name and contact information only. They don't have to be dull - my personal cards have a great D.H. Lawrence quote on them, toward the bottom, in italics. My business cards obviously feature my business information. URL, services offered, all of that stuff. I carry both with me. You can order business cards in a number of places but a good friend of mine had extraordinarily clever and effective cards made at for a very affordable price at Etsy. Check it out.

If you meet a professional such as myself at an event, be cool, man. Just be cool. Everybody wants to meet a professional at an event. Don't hog my time and loiter at my booth or in my class so long that I can't talk to other people too. Don't follow me into the bathroom (yup; more than once) or the parking lot (twice, recently). Don't ask for my home number. Don't ask me to read your script for free. Don't get into my personal space, don't start emailing me six times a day with little favors and questions (happens all. the. time.) I am friendly but I am not your friend. I am a professional and I'm at this event to do business. Don't ask me to meet you for coffee sometime if I've just met you. I'm busy and I don't know who you are, even if you seem nice. If you follow me around - into the parking lot, bathroom, restaurant during break, you actually scare me a little, the same way that would scare you a little. It's not cool.

In my case, many of my clients have become my friends and associates. Because we had a strong chemistry and because those clients add value to my business and to my life. Don't assume you can do that too without courting me politely for awhile first. Ask what you can do to help me. Not the other way around - not right away. And not til I can see that you are a great writer and a real mover and shaker.

A writer who was working as an assistant on Grey's Anatomy once hit me up, out of the blue, to review a short script of his. He was a co-worker of one of my best friends. For that reason, I did it. The film was made, I was thanked in the credits and now we are about to meet to discuss making one of my short stories into a short film. I scratched his back, now he's scratching mine. More importantly, in our initial interaction, he had some creds that made me prone to help him: he was on a big show (in any capacity) and he worked with one of my oldest friends. That gave him a free pass. I had faith in where he was coming from, in other words.

So when you network - have an ungoofy business card. Be authentic and friendly while sussing out whether who you are chatting with is about on your level or not. If you get a creepy feeling that the person you're chatting with has a slight form of Aspergers, gently extricate yourself. If you have a feeling the person is super nice but a total novice, gently extricate. If you feel the person is about on your level - fine, get to know them a bit. Proceed with caution. There are a lot - and I mean A LOT of strange writers out there. Be careful. Get a copy of Malcolm Gladwell's Blink - it is true that you can usually tell in about two nanoseconds, whether a person is weird or genuine. Trust your instincts.

When meeting a professional, be aware that for every one of them you are meeting, they are meeting a thousand of you. If you bump into them in the bathroom or eating lunch - say hello and let them have some privacy. I know it seems really elementary, Wavers, but I have seen the opposite happen all too many times. If you do bump into me at lunch, let me eat lunch. If you bump into me at the cocktail reception afterwards, maybe ask me how I am, rather than launching into your pitch or your story again. If you really want to make me happy, send me a thank you note or a thank you email. Check in with me once every few weeks and ask how I am and wish me well. Don't ask me favors until I offer you the favor. Which I may not, so don't be offended. And don't be offended if I don't answer your email. I saw it, but I'm busy.

As you build your network, you build some legitimacy. If you email me and you know someone I know - ah - whole different story. Then you'll get my attention much more quickly. But don't lie about that or exaggerate it. I'll find out. I had someone do that to me just a few months ago - use someone else as a gateway to me. I fell for it, the writer, as it turns out, was a complete nut job and when I went back to check that association in question - it was only in passing. I had been had. So now I check. You're a pal of Blake Snyder's? Really?! So am I! And now I'm gonna email Blake and ask.

So let's rinse and repeat -

What networking is:

meeting, greeting, exchanging of information, sharing of laughter, stories and phone numbers.

Here is what networking is not:

creeping people out, following them, not reading social signals.

That is all. Now get back to work.

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The Assistant Files

Oh man are we lucky, Wavers. We have a new columnist on the Rouge Wave. She's a long time assistant at one of the biggest and most illustrious studios in Hollywood. She's funny, she's sharp and she's got the gossip. Welcome to The Assistant Files:

Hello, Wavers. Welcome to my life. This won't be pretty.

On Monday, rumblings of a new project started to float around town. I don't want to gossip, so here's a word jumble: SHANE BLACK DID A NEW LETHAL WEAPON ON SPEC WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE AND THEN TURNED IT IN TO JOEL SILVER AND NOW EVERYBODY IS EXCITED AND MEL AND DANNY ARE TOTALLY ON BOARD.

Oh wait. That wasn't really a jumble.

All day Monday, I kept thinking "That's ridiculous! I can't believe people are falling for this. I am totally not passing on that info. Man, are they ever gonna feel like fools when this turns out to be fake."

On Tuesday, this news was confirmed. I was so embarrassed I had to go to the bathroom and hide out for ten minutes. This is why I'm still an assistant, people. I lack the cut-throat mentality necessary to succeed in the shark-infested waters. Also, I use too many hyphens.

Last night, brushing my teeth, I started to think up fake scenes from LETHAL WEAPON 5: RETIREMENT SHUFFLE. You know, like that awesome fake Michael Bay-penned BATMAN script that was going around a while ago.

The script in my head went pretty much like this:

INT. GOLDEN GLEN HOME FOR THE MIDDLE-AGED – DAY

Riggs rushes into Murtaugh's retirement condo. The kind of retirement condo I, Shane Black, am going to buy if LETHAL WEAPON 5 is a big fat hit.

RIGGS
You've gotta come out of retirement!

MURTAUGH
Screw you! I'm gonna spend the next thirty years writing romance novels and counting down the day until Social Security goes to shit, at which point I'm gonna be doing a lot of pointing and laughing at you suckers who didn't max out your retirement plans.

RIGGS
Pointing and laughing be damned, there's a nebulous conspiracy plot involving drugs and corrupt cops to solve, also there's a bomb on a bus/plane/toilet!

MURTAUGH
Which one?

RIGGS
Does it really matter? I think Robert Downey Jr. is somehow involved.

MURTAUGH
Hey, I like that guy.

RIGGS
He's very likeable.

Murtaugh stands up. Grabs a container of Metamucil.

MURTAUGH
I'm too old for this shit.

RIGGS
Was that a bowel joke?

MURTAUGH
No.

Behind Riggs, the front door opens. Riggs and Murtaugh pull their guns like maniacs! They've still got it.

SHIA LABEOUF
Hey guys! I'm here and ready to invigorate your fucking franchise!


So are you excited for this one? People around town sure are. Maybe I just don't get it. I wasn't clamoring for Indy 4, either. I do really like Shane Black, and I do really like action comedies. As soon as the script leaks into the assistant underground, I will report back on my findings.

Uncool true story: I once had to go to Shane Black's house to pick someone up. Honestly, I was kind of disappointed. I was hoping it was going to be weird or have some kind of action-movie theme going on, but really it was just a giant expensive house set back from the road with a giant lawn acting like a kind of verdant moat to keep out the lower classes. The lawn looked like it should have some ponies on it. Or a small herd of Highland cattle. I asked my friend if the house had any awesome gags like exploding toilets or anything, but no dice. I hope that the income from LETHAL WEAPON 5 will allow Mr. Black to retrofit his toilets for pyrotechnics. Because that is what is required.

xxo,

Andy Sachs

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Pineapple Express Competition

Because there have been so many new posts lately - The Wave-inatrix is enfuego - I repeat the most important news of the week - another short scene competition. If you are a new Waver, just FYI, there is never an entry fee.*


All righty, Wavers. It's time, don't you think? Let's get August off to a bang with another short scene competition. And here are the three words you must incorporate into your scene:

Pineapple
Express
August

If you are an Old Waver, you already know the rules but let me spell it out again:

Submission Guidelines:

Write a one page scene incorporating the words pineapple, express and August. Genre doesn't matter but the words must be in context. Make your scene clever, evocative and what the Wave-inatrix holds most dear - effing entertaining.

Send your one page scene to me as a pdf or fd document.

This competition, as is every competition here on the RW, is FREE.

Deadline:

Saturday, August 9th. The top three finalists will be posted on the Rouge Wave on Monday, August 11th.

Prize:

A $25 gift certificate to Amazon, Starbucks, AMC Theaters, a charity of your choice or The Script Department.

Submit HERE

*thank you to the Old Waver who reminded me to point out that there is no entry fee. Down the line, we may do something like ask Wavers to donate $5 to enter so that we can, as a group, send donations in to the World Literacy Fund but so far that's just an idea. The Rouge Wave is an egalitarian, free-wheelin', happy place. It's all good. It's all fun. We're all evolving.

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Women in Film - Houston, Do We Have a Problem?

This from the Hathor Legacy blog. Agree? Disagree?

***

The “Dykes to Watch Out For” test, formerly coined as the “Mo Movie Measure” test and Bechdel Test, was named for the comic strip it came from, penned by Alison Bechdel - but Bechdel credits a friend named Liz Wallace, so maybe it really should be called the Liz Wallace Test…? Anyway, the test is much simpler than the name. To pass it your movie must have the following:

1) there are at least two named female characters, who

2) talk to each other about

3) something other than a man.

So simple, and yet as you go through all your favorite movies (and most of your favorite TV shows, though there’s a little more variety in TV), you find very few movies pass this test.

Read the rest HERE and let me know - do you agree?

p.s. what in the heck does Hathor mean? I had to look it up too.

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The Evolution of a Writer

I expected to get a hailstorm of outraged, indignant comments yesterday and did not. In fact, I did hear that my list of patterns made the rounds among a large group of studio readers who, bless their hearts, cheered those observations on as they have noticed the same thing themselves. Studio readers and assistants are dear to my heart; I consider them the funniest, hardest working, most plugged in group of young people in Hollywood. They are where I get the skinny; the latest scripts being shopped, the insider gossip, the black list and spec sales. They are a direct pipeline to what is going on. They keep me in the loop.

If you found yourself described anywhere (or all over) on that list of patterns, do not be ashamed, outraged or hopeless. It is the way it has to be - for now. As with anything in life, you will evolve. How do Wavers think the Wave-inatrix is able to pass on so much information on what NOT to do? Because I have done it. My first script was a thinly veiled, biographical, wish-fulfillment piece of crap that I thought was utter brilliance. I thought I could break into the business with that script, make a sale and move to Barbados. I have made every mistake humanly possible to mistake. And I'm still standing and I'm still writing. As a wise friend once said to me - you can't go around it, you can't go over it, you have to go through it.

If it's true, for instance, that your first, second and most likely third scripts will suck, why write them? Why not just start with script four? You can't go around it, you can't go over it, you have to go through it. You have to enter 29 contests with that bad script and not place in a one and wonder why. You have to get a "manager" in Georgia with a yapping dog in the background and wonder why you don't get meetings or work. You have to buy every book and dvd and go to every conference or event before you realize you're out five grand and now you need to just write a good script. You have to get over your sense of entitlement and just write. It's unglamorous, it's slow and it's often painful. The only way to become a good writer is to be a bad writer first. But awareness is your friend. Be one with your own evolution. As you buy every single book every published you will find that only one or two really speak to you. As you take class after class and go to screenwriting events, you will stumble upon that one teacher or workshop that is pivotal for you, that gives you that aha moment.

There are variations on what your experience might be, but the experience is necessary. Nobody just magically breaks in to this business. There is no overnight success. Period. So be kind to yourself. Are you a fan boy writing imitative comic strip scripts? Are you an over-40 woman writing sappy romantic wish-fulfillment scripts that wish they were THE NOTEBOOK? That's okay. Write a few of those. Get it out of your system. You have to do it.

Would you be who you are today were it not for the mistakes and humiliations you suffered in high school? If it weren't for the messed up job interviews? If it weren't for getting married too young to the wrong guy for the wrong reasons? If it weren't for that jackass guy with serious mental problems that you thought you were in love with even though he was so much younger and what was going to happen was written all over the wall in ten foot high letters??!!

But I digress.

For me, personally, as some of you may have wondered from time to time, I have written ten scripts, some solo, some with a (brilliant) partner. I have had three managers. I have had two options. I have read every book, taken every class and graduated from The Writer's Boot Camp. I have placed in competitions, I have had a script in development at Fox. And I still haven't made a sale. But time is my friend. I'm a good writer, I have great connections and I love to write. I got nuthin' but time, joy and enthusiasm. Will I ever make a sale? Maybe. Would that make you respect or enjoy the Rouge Wave more? Would that make me happier? I don't know. I love my life and I think that's evident. I love the mini-W, I love writing, I love the Rouge Wave, I love The Script Department, I love writers and I'm really damn good at what I do. So if I make a sale, I won't be any more validated. Only a little richer. And I stress a little.

But back to you, Wavers. One day, a light bulb will come on over your head and you'll see BLEEP it and you'll write something straight from your heart. And it will be the best thing you've ever written. And it still might not get anywhere. That's okay. Do it again. Go to conferences, meet other people. Take classes. Read books, blogs and for heaven's sake - screenplays. Lots of them. And see movies. All the time. After some time, you will find your voice, your genre and your particular methodology when it comes to outlining and writing. Your super powers will grow. Every journey starts with a single step. You don't have to know how or when or even if you're going to break into this business, you just have to know that you have to write more than you have to breathe. You just have to know that you believe. Cupcakes for every single Waver today. Breathe, believe, receive.

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The Elegant Universe: Patterns in Writers

In my experience reading and analyzing scripts on a daily basis for the past several years, I have become very aware of patterns. I work with hundreds of writers. I attend screenwriting events. I am right in the thick of it. And like an ER doctor who has seen everything, I have pretty much seen it all. Things delight me - but nothing really surprises me anymore. Nobody likes to think that rather than being an individual, they are a statistic. But we are all statistics. Married, divorced, college-educated, not college-educated, white, black, Latino, Asian, middle child, youngest, employed, unemployed - there are patterns in society and they serve a purpose. They tell us who we are collectively - and individually. There are exceptions to every pattern and to every rule. But here are some patterns I have noticed, over and over again:

• Boastful, cock-sure writers usually don't have very good scripts

• Shy, unsure writers anxious to get notes are more likely to have a good script
  

• Writers who can't write good action lines have no "voice" yet

• Most beginning writers have no second act

• Most beginning writers think their idea is more original than it is

• Many writers, regardless of age, have not seen the classics

• Because a writer is a cinefile does not mean he or she is a good writer

• Fanboys do not necessarily make good writers; they are inspired but imitative

• Most writers with 133 page scripts do not have a handle on their story

• Many writers read too many how-to books and get totally confused

• Newer writers hate to kill their darlings and their pages are crowded with them

• Experienced writers hate to kill their darlings but do it before asked

• Clumsy, over-written action lines are the most accurate predictor of a bad script

• First time writers usually tell biographical stories

• Gory, ultra-violent horror is most often written by young men under the age of 25

• Dull romantic dramas are most often written by women over the age of 45

• Unfunny romcoms are most often written by young men under the age of 25

• Action scripts are almost always written by men of any age

• First time writers think their first script is brilliant

• Experienced writers will never show you their first script - ever

• Writers who use camera directions secretly want to direct

• Experienced female writers write well in any genre

• Inexperienced female writers often write about love

• Good characters never have bad dialogue

• Bad dialogue is never accompanied by good characters

• Structure is confusing for the first three scripts - then something clicks

• Writers who can't articulate a quick logline have sprawling, confusing scripts

• Whether a writers is shy or charismatic has no bearing on the quality of writing

• Good writers never include pictures, maps or music with their script

• No new writer is realistic about breaking in to the business

• The location or gender of the writer has no bearing on the quality of the writing

• Age does not define an ability to come up with fresh ideas

• Most fresh ideas are in fact not fresh at all

• It takes a long time to understand "the same but different"

• Older writers most often write true or historical scripts

• Young male writers often imitate their favorite movies

• Female writers do not write American Pie or Harold and Kumar knock-offs

• Female writers are quite capable of writing great action but rarely do

• Divorcees often write about romance or revenge

• Most writers have not built up a good arsenal of scripts; all eggs are in one basket

• New writers think getting a rep is easy and will happen within a year or so

• Newly repped writers think their career will automatically take off in a huge way

• Experienced writers know they will go through many reps over time

• Younger writers often do not think send thank you notes when they get a read

• Older writers think Hollywood is more polite than it is

• Newer writers do not test their premises or write outlines properly

• Writers who regard themselves as writer-savants refuse to write what's commercial - and may very well succeed after years of failure
  

• Writers who regard themselves as auteurs refuse to embrace that this is a sales job - and melt into a pool of bitter disillusionment and hate Hollywood thereafter
  

• Wealthy writers try to buy their way into the business using the most expensive software and consultants and melt into a bitter pool of outrage

• Writers with disposable incomes obsessively attend conferences and pitch fests more than they actually write

• Writers who cannot execute a script mechanically generally don't have a good story
  

• Writers who have been disappointed over and over hate consultants or anything designed to help them succeed and nurse outraged, red-hot victim complexes

• First scripts suck

• Second scripts suck

• Third script suck a little less

• Writers with successful other careers feel entitled to success in Hollywood

• A writer's determination to keep trying is in direct proportion to their talent

• Entitlement is in inverse proportion to talent

• Young writers think that Hollywood is only for the young

• Older writers think that Hollywood is only for the young

• Experienced writers know that Hollywood needs good stories and that a good story and being good in a room trumps age any day
  

• Talent is delightful and easy to spot on page one

• A bad script is a bad script from page one

There are exceptions to every single example I have given above, but in my experience and that of my colleagues, many of these observations are borne out again and again. Are you the exception to one of these patterns? Or do you see yourself in some of them? Seeing oneself in a pattern which may not be so positive is tough to do for anyone.

The truth about writing and breaking into this business lies somewhere in the grey space between all of these observations. For every single rule or pattern, there is an exception. But patterns are patterns for a reason; there is a learning curve when one becomes a screenwriter. And being a screenwriter, all on your own, in your basement or attic, leaves you with zero perspective. Those in the business know you very well though. We see the patterns of scripts and of writers. We see the patterns of success, failure, entitlement and determination.

You can potentially read this list and think - hey WAIT, I'm a 25 year old female whose first script is about stabbing that frat boy who cheated on me 28 times and my action lines suck and until this moment, I thought I'd have an agent by year end and sell this thing! Well - not so fast, right? Sometimes it's good to look at yourself under a microscope. There's so much to learn and so much that goes into this crazy pursuit - forgive yourself if you've fallen into a pattern. Awareness is the first step to recovery and an invaluable leg up to the next level of your evolution as a human being and a screenwriter. It's okay to be part of a pattern - but is it the pattern you want to be part of?

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The Pineapple Express Short Scene Competition

All righty, Wavers. It's time, don't you think? Let's get August off to a bang with another short scene competition. And here are the three words you must incorporate into your scene:

Pineapple
Express
August

If you are an Old Waver, you already know the rules but let me spell it out again:

Submission Guidelines:

Write a one page scene incorporating the words pineapple, express and August. Genre doesn't matter but the words must be in context. Make your scene clever, evocative and what the Wave-inatrix holds most dear - effing entertaining.

Send your one page scene to me as a pdf or fd document.

Deadline:

Saturday, August 9th. The top three finalists will be posted on the Rouge Wave on Monday, August 11th.

Prize:

A $25 gift certificate to Amazon, Starbucks, AMC Theaters, a charity of your choice or The Script Department.

Submit HERE

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What Not to Pitch

After having spent two days with writers lined up to pitch their stories to executives at the Fade In Pitch Fest and hearing dozens and dozens of pitches as I helped writers practice, I realized that for many writers, the distance between their knowledge of their story and the way they present that story can be pretty tremendous. It reminded me of an episode of What Not To Wear - again and I again I pointed out to writers what the strengths of their story were and showed them how to show those strengths off. I heard great, cool, smart writers with great stories pitch that story in a terribly boring and slam-dunk PASS way. With some simple discussion and rearranging of the pitch, suddenly what sounded convoluted and dull really sparked and sounded fascinating.

I had to ask writers practicing with me to please not apologize for 1) the fact that the (true, tragic) story made them a little emotional 2) messing up on the pitch 3) not really knowing how to pitch 4) the fact that the script was not as violent or explicit as other movies like it 5) the fact that there are probably better ideas than this one.

Would you go on a date with someone and immediately apologize for the stain that your date hasn't noticed yet and probably won't, on the lower left inside corner of your sleeve? Would you apologize for stumbling over a word in a sentence? NO. You want to exude confidence and authenticity.

There is a dynamic in Hollywood which is unfortunately borne out by a very few egotistical and unkind types, that writers are essentially schlubs who barely deserve the oxygen we breathe and it leaves writers with some serious self-esteem issues. And the Wave-inatrix is here to say BLEEP that BLEEP.

Do not apologize in advance and point out weaknesses in your story or your pitch. Do not apologize if you get momentarily confused or emotional about your pitch. Do not point out, in advance, that your idea probably isn't that great. If you don't believe in your story or your idea, how can you possibly translate that to the person hearing your pitch?

For many writers, pitching is akin to having open heart surgery with no anesthesia. We do spend so many quiet hours alone with our ideas and our stories and being in a situation like a pitch fest, where you are putting yourself and your story on the line over and over again can be very stressful. I did hear one pitch fest participant tell me that a jr. exec from a HUGE talent firm here in LA literally rolled his eyes at her, during her pitch, and said "You people really need to learn how to pitch." It was rude, it sucked the wind out of her - and it was probably true.

The pitch might not have been so great - not because the writer isn't a good writer or the story isn't a good story (although to be honest, there is a high percentage of that going on) but because the writer's frame of mind in that setting was that of supplicant not salesperson.

Are you a supplicant when you pitch? No. You are not. Sure, the person hearing the pitch is the person with the power and the money in the situation. Sure, it could change your life if your script gets read and liked. But Wavers, writers are not second class citizens. I cannot emphasize that enough. Of course you need to understand the dynamic going on at pitch fests: the people hearing your pitch have heard dozens of others that day, they'd rather be at a Dodgers game or home in their socks waiting for the Chinese food to come but this is their job and what they would really like, since they have to be there anyway, is to hear a GREAT pitch that will make their careers. Of course they'd like to bring in the new writer and the new script that makes them look like geniuses for having found you. They may seem cranky, tired or disinterested - or politely tired and disinterested - but they would LOVE to hear a great pitch. Just effing entertain them. And don't apologize - it puts you in a second class position immediately. It broadcasts - I don't really deserve to be here.

If you were on a date and that was the vibe you got from the guy or gal who showed up, how unsexy is that? You don't REALLY want to date me. But hi. How are you. What a huge turn off. Confidence is sexy, Wavers. In every walk of life. Charisma is sexy. Enthusiasm is catching. And we'd all love to hear a good story.

If you are clinically shy and pitching is an awful, awful experience and you don't feel you can overcome that - either get coaching or just don't do it. Query scripts the old fashioned way and if you get a meeting on the script, well, you're already halfway there. But for god's sake - a little more confidence, people! I know it's hard. The Wave-inatrix is clearly an upbeat, warm, friendly and outgoing person. So for me pitching is not difficult. I enjoy it. For others - it's not so easy. I understand that and I am empathetic.

Someone hearing your pitch is not necessarily someone who expects perfection from the pitch itself - authenticity is endearing. If you mess up, smile, back up and say it properly the second time. Be natural. Introduce yourself first. They know why you're there - no need for apologies or pretense. A pitch fest is like a sales convention. Sure, some of the people hearing your pitch would rather be somewhere else. It's a weekend for god's sake. But their companies have one directive: Find Good Scripts. Maybe your script is the script they're waiting for.

Know your genre. Tell me your title. Throw me a descriptive, brief logline. Make me enjoy your company. Make me FEEL the story you are telling. Make me laugh, give me the goosebumps. Hook me emotionally in SOME way. Make me remember your smile and your sincerity. Send me a thank you note.

One pitcher who practiced with me said, in a long, monotone monologue with an utterly expressionless face: sothebadguysbreakinthehouserapeandkillhisfamilysohewantstomakesurenobodyeverdoesthatagainsohe....

UH - somebody rapes and kills his family?!? And you just babbled right over that? Isn't that everyone's absolute worst nightmare?! The person listening has a family. They saw IN COLD BLOOD. They watch the news. It's a visceral fear. So why didn't I feel that fear when you said it? Holy BLEEP! That's HUGE! But it felt quite dull, actually. If you can't make me feel the emotion (laughter, passion, fear, whatever) in your script when you talk to me about it, I have zero confidence that I'll feel it on the page, either. Even though it might be on the page. Even though this is just maybe because you suck at pitching. But based on that pitch and I have about twelve others before I get to go home today, I'm thinking - would I want to work with this terribly shy, neurotic, unfun writer? Could I take this guy into meetings and feel great about that? Do I have one iota of confidence that his or her pages are good? Um....no. Goodbye.

Pitching does NOT come naturally to a lot of writers. But the ones who are absolutely clinically shy are in the minority, in my experience. Mostly, writers feel cowed and intimidated by who they are pitching to. Because of the name of the company they work for, their clearly expensive clothes, their fabulous haircut, their youthful sneer or academic scowl. NO NO NO NO NO. You are every bit as worthy as the person you are pitching to.

What are your strengths? Great smile? Great hair, nice clothes? A good handshake? Work it, Wavers - work it. And learn to recognize the sexiest, most interesting parts of your story and trot that out first. Because if you don't seem excited about your script, then I can't possibly get excited about it either. It's a fundamental truth. What's cool about your story? Why do people need to see this movie? Tell me about the set pieces, tell me what the upshot of the plot is, make me feel your story.

I was told that the very nice gentleman who gave the "how to pitch" talk at the beginning of the pitch fest sounded bored and was pretty negative in pointing out that most pitches will go nowhere. Maybe he's right - okay he's right - the chances are not huge. Writers do need to be aware that truckloads and trainloads of scripts arrive in Hollywood every day and that lots of writers are fighting for attention. Everybody wants to be Miss America. Sure, you should be aware of that. But that attitude of defeatism is no way to get revved up for a pitch fest. Believe in yourself and believe in your story - BE that person that makes the day worth it for the person listening. Yeah, that's right - make their day. Because if you don't believe that's possible, you have just wasted everybody's time, most importantly - your own.

I rarely rant but I'm ranting a little. Because I love writers and I believe in them. And I don't like this cultural acceptance that we are second class citizens. I don't buy it and either should you.

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The Impact Character

Wonderful Chris Huntley of The Write Brothers, the man behind Dramatica Software and MovieMagic was my booth neighbor at the Fade In Pitch Fest this weekend. We wound up spending some time together and Chris shared with me a series of video clips he put together in which the "impact character" identifies with the main character. This series of clips illustrates Chris' point beautifully.

So - what is this "impact character"? At The Writers Boot Camp, this was called the "dynamic character" - a character who can variously be an antagonist, mentor or co-protagonist. This is a character who shares, in a sense, a parallel journey with your main character - a character who is in many ways opposite from your main character and yet ultimately more like the main character than the main character would like to admit. Enjoy these great movie moments which illustrate the way in which a secondary character influences the main character:

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@ Home Pitch Fest

So the Wave-inatrix is at the Fade In Pitch Fest all this weekend and getting to know some wonderful, motivated and interesting writers. Hundreds are there, pitching their scripts to some pretty big companies. I have been offering pitch practice sessions and I am surprised at the number of writers who really have trouble encapsulating their script within a five minute time limit. So as an exercise, I think it would be wonderful if any motivated Wavers reading this today - regardless of where you are in your script - would politely but firmly corral a friend or significant other and pitch that script.

Practice, in other words. Not the part where you feel nervous and you're tired and you've stood in line forever, but the part where you tell the story of your script in a pithy, articulate, exciting way. A pitch is not a monologue where you simply read from a cue card or take a deep breath, look into the middle distance and drone on like a kid who memorized the Gettysburg Address. Your pitch should be alive, it should be like a conversation with the person listening. It is organic and it is entertaining. If your story is scary, make your pitch scary. If it's funny, be funny. Start by introducing yourself and naming the genre and title of your script. Then go straight to the one or two sentence logline. Then go into a little bit more detail but always leave room for the pitchee to ask questions or make comments so they don't get overwhelmed or lost.

Here's the thing, if you can't articulate the main thrust of your script in five minutes, Houston, you have a problem. So many writers at the Fade In event have said to me - but I can't do that! There's SO MUCH more going on in the story! Yes, you can do it. Those details do not belong in the pitch. The pitch should encapsulate the genre, the tone, the hook and the main PLOT of your script. Look, if you're inexperienced, it isn't easy. Even experienced types get nervous in the moment and can stumble all over the place. But practice makes perfect, no?

So today take a few minutes, stare at your script and write down a logline. Then lure someone in your family to the dining table, prime them with a beer or some Ritz crackers, look at the clock and BAM - go - give yourself five minutes to pitch your script. Even if your loved one is in a gravy stained tee shirt and has no pants on, even if your loved one is your cat, just GO. Do this thing. Pitch your script in five minutes. Then do it again. Start over. Do it again. Switch family members. Lure a friend over with the promise of chicken kabobs. Try it, Wavers.

Can you pitch your script in five minutes? Practice until you can. Then watch your pages respond to this newfound sureness about what your script is about. Check page 13 against your pitch. Does page 13 carry the DNA of the pitch? How about page 27? Still there? Page 48. Is the tone, the genre, the meaning of the title and the logline in some way evident on every page?

Pitch fests are opportunities to get your script read. But pitch practice is an opportunity to compress and condense the main idea of your script in a way that is easy to grasp. That's okay if your pitch sucks right now. Practice. This exercise is very powerful and if your family thought you were weird before, this will cement that feeling forever. But pay no mind - they don't get it. But at the Rouge Wave, we do get it.

I will be booking five free phone appointments this week for any Rouge Waver living in the continental US (or where it doesn't cost me money to call you, unless you want to call me and we can work out the time zone) to hear timed five minute pitches. Email me and let's set something up. Don't expect the conversation to last much more than ten minutes. But give me a try. I'll listen.

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Be Excellent!

So the other evening, my dear friend and Silver Screenwriting Competition reader - we'll call her "E" - and I were sitting on my front porch comparing notes from the scripts we have read for the first round of the SSC. Certain scripts really stuck out in our memory, enough such that we shared and swapped excellent loglines and moments of dialogue that really struck us as great. As we talked, we tried to boil down what it is about scripts that we chose to advance. What is that ineffable something that makes one script stand out from another? And the word we came up with was "delightful". Some scripts are just delightful reads. Regardless of genre. I have read two horror scripts that were deliciously, scarily delightful to read. We thought - gosh, this is something to share with writers but how do we come up with something more specific and articulate than "delightful"? What do we mean when we use that word?

Scripts that read cinematically, for one. That is to say, scripts with strong imagery and tone. Scripts that move along at a clip. No long action lines, no meandering narrative, no dull moments. Scripts that have a strong voice. In other words, the writer's point of view and personality are distinct. The script has a flavor, if you will. Scripts with personality.

By comparison, a script that is pedantic, plodding, colorless and ultimately dull is just no fun to read. It comes back to that effing entertain me expression that I am fond of using. A script should take the reader on a journey of discovery, with the delights of laughter, scares, surprises, tears, poignancy and suspense. Just like - wait for it - a movie. You know that feeling, when you start a new book and you get through several pages and your anticipation slowly morphs into boredom and disappointment? And you think - well, maybe in another 20 pages it will pick up? Or maybe next chapter? But it doesn't and your enthusiasm wanes until you close the book with a thud and move on to something else? I never want to feel that way when I read your script. I want to delight in each page. I want to love your writing. I want to be entertained.

But that's self-evident. You'd want the same thing. But how do you know if your darling baby, your beautiful script, which entertains YOU greatly will have the same effect on someone else? Get feedback from friends, colleagues, peers or The Script Department. Sometimes you can spend so much time with your script that you lose all sense of perspective. You can't see the forest for the trees. If you aren't sure anymore - get another opinion. Ideally, a relatively educated opinion. Not your mom, not your best friend or spouse. Get constructive feedback from someone who is familiar with reading scripts and someone who will be honest with you. If nobody is as entertained by your script as you are - you might just have a problem. Don't write in a vacuum; enlist the help of trusted peers or professionals.

I hope Wavers are trying to read a lot more scripts, as Scott Myers suggested in his wonderful blog. Many Wavers did indeed take me up on my offer to send some scripts their way. The offer still stands.

Be excellent, Wavers. Be unafraid to be you on your script pages. Have fun with it and the reader will have fun too.

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Rouge Wave News Items

I would like to congratulate Script Department clients David Gillis, Jason Thornton, Scott Cramer, Diane Stredicke, Zac Greenbaum and Steve Zawacki for placing as semi-finalists in the Page International Screenwriting Competition! Mama is bursting, just bursting with pride! Cupcakes for all my friends!

The Wave-inatrix will be at the Fade In Pitch Fest tomorrow, in downtown Los Angeles. If you are planning to come and pitch, please drop by my booth and say hello!

For those who will not be there - get some writing done this weekend, right?! Right.

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Rouge Wave First Person Essay

Talented writer and Script Department client Patrick Hoeft sent in this lovely first person essay that you sports fans might enjoy:

AT LEAST I GOT THE POSTER

It's January, 2006 and I beam as I watch the seconds fall off the clock and my beloved Seattle Seahawks advance to the Super bowl for the first time in franchise history, "Oh yes, I will be there."

I arrived in Toledo, OH Saturday, February 4th. This is where I should have started believing in foreshadowing. I took my bags up to my room and was going to have an early dinner. I entered the lobby to find 30 Pittsburgh Steelers fans waiting to check into the hotel. One of them noticed me in my favorite Seahawks hat and screamed, "Seahawks fan!" Like sharks smelling blood in the water 30 people I had never met before in my life “booed” me. The noise was so loud that it was echoing off of the ceiling. These aren't 20-year-old kids these are men and women in their 40s and even 50s.

I decided to start my Sunday early by traveling the 60 miles and arriving in Detroit about 10:00 AM. I headed for the stadium to see if anyone might be trying to get rid of tickets early as I still needed one. Since there were no tickets to be had I decided to do some shopping and get out of the cold. I went into a small shop selling Super bowl memorabilia and bought a Seahawks Super bowl poster.

The thing that amazed me, and that I hadn't accounted for, was the amount of Steelers fans that made the 300 mile trip from Pittsburgh. They were equally as brutal as their counterparts in the hotel lobby. I gave as good as I got.

Throughout the day I was the little engine that couldn't, as I realized that there was a lot more demand for tickets than supply with all the friggin' Steelers fans around.

I'm sure I was a pitiful sight as I heard the roar of the crowd at kickoff from outside the stadium. I was exhausted, cold, dejected, angry, disappointed, and generally having an extreme dislike for Steelers fans.

I tucked my head between my legs and drove the 60 miles back to my hotel. I closed out the dismal day as the lone patron of the hotel bar, drowning my sorrows as the Seahawks lost the Super bowl.

The next day I climbed on a plane and headed home a beaten man. The only redeeming value of the weekend was my stinking little Seahawks Super bowl poster. I pulled the poster out of the package and unrolled it.

My wife rounded the corner and said it looked like fire was going to shoot out of my eyes as I stared at the Pittsburgh Steelers poster. I thought fire was a good idea and just as I was about to go outside and set that thing ablaze my 3-year-old son saw the poster and said, "Wow, cool poster daddy!" I put it up in his room where it hangs to this day.

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Jessica Biel! Naked!

That's what a very, very successful blog-ebrity who is my mentor told me to do. Use celebrity names and the word "nude" or "naked" in my posts. Of course, here at the Rouge Wave, that's hard for me to do since we don't really talk about particularly gossipy or provocative topics here. Just boring stuff like how to write great stories. So I thought I'd just get that out of the way. No naked Jessica Biel here today guys, sorry. Really, today's post is a first person essay by none other than moi, the Wave-inatrix. It's long for the Rouge Wave- just over 1,200 words. But that is the usual length of a first person essay in the publishing world and that's what I'm used to. I don't talk too much, in specifics, about me or my past but today's entry does just that and of course, because I'm me, daughter of two teachers, I wrap up with some reflections for writers. This is me - on writing:

****

When I was but a mini, mini-W in swaddling clothing, my grandmother moved to Mexico and bought a beach front hotel on the west coast, a few miles down from Puerto Vallarta. Because my parents were school teachers and my grandmother was wealthy, we spent three months of each year during the summer, in Mexico at her hotel. Rather, at the fancy "big house" across the dusty street. She had remarried before I was born and my Abuelo was a Zapotec Indian, dark skinned and smiling. He never spoke English, only Spanish and Zapotec. Somehow, I understood him just fine. What's not to understand when you're playing Old Maid and building sand castles on the beach? I can still smell his fragrant pipe and taste the dark, waxy Mexican chocolate he snuck to us kids after dinner. Needless to say, I understand Spanish very well and can sing all the little Mexican folk songs sung to children. He used to walk us to the mercado after dinner when the evening was cool and buy us sugar cane. Gently, he peeled back the skin with is pocket knife and gave us our after dinner treats. The only English I recall him ever saying was this, after having handed us that sugar cane: Don't. Tell. Lita!

Being a child, it never seemed odd to me that my grandfather did not speak English and was about 50 shades darker than his freckly, redheaded grandchildren. I was about 7 when some kid cruelly pointed out that my Abuelo could not be my REAL grandfather. In disbelief, I took great umbrage and do to this day. Mom informed that yes, my granddad, that tall rancher originally from Illinois, now living in the Sacramento Valley, was my biological grandfather but that Abuelo was my grandfather too. Eventually, Abuelo died of cancer and he's buried with his family in Oaxaca. My grandmother lives on - she's 98 - and will be buried next to him someday.

During the long, hot, muggy summers in Mexico, we kids got our lunches packed each day by Antonio, the cook, and went about our business catching iguanas, ogling the hammer head sharks pulled up onto the sandy beach by the fishermen, terrorizing our nanny, Michi, and telling my younger sister terrifying stories of the Creature of the Black Lagoon, who would surely, one of these nights, arise from the nearby lagoon and strangle her in her sleep. Being a reader, I often spent time in the hotel library. It was one of those libraries where tourists would borrow and leave behind their summer paperbacks. My grandmother's hotel was a long term hotel; guests came from all over the world and stayed for weeks and months. So the library became very well stocked. I remember the books had a faint, musty, salty smell from having sat in the library only yards from the beach for years. There was the requisite bad stuff of course (which is why I have read all that crappy, airport fiction from the 70s) and a few leather-bound classics.

When we weren't in Mexico, we lived in a very rural town in Northern California where my dad, a Berkeley grad and book freak also had quite a library. He was into the classics. Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, everything Steinbeck, everything Melville, everything Eugene O'Neill and so on. With one TV channel, an 8 acre ranch, no texting and no video games (unless you count Pong, and really, even then, not so fascinating) what was a kid to do? I read almost every book in my dad's library.

While in Mexico for yet another humid, mosquito-y summer, I pulled out a thick, leather bound volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales. My childish mind was blown away by the dark imagery and themes in that musty volume. And I LOVED IT. For me, having come of age when Disney was fully up and running and cranking out stuff like Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Brothers Grimm were subversive and forbidden. Eager to keep reading, I found a volume of Hans Christian Andersen as well - Lita must have had a fairytale lovin' guest at some point. The stories that really stand out in my memory are The Little Match Girl and The Red Shoes - man! That's some dark stuff! Of course, my grubby little hands eventually got ahold of geniuses like Harold Robbins - man he was a hack, a delicious, awful hack. Mom found those books out and promptly removed them from my purview. Didn't stop me from reading Forever Amber under the bedsheets.

What's this all got to do with screenwriting? Nothing. And everything. Having consumed the number of books and later, movies that I have in my life, I am well armed to do my job - analyze stories. It has also been a huge boon for my own writing. Not that any of my own scripts have vestiges of Hans Christian Andersen, but the movable feast (yeah, read that too) of literature that I was exposed to as a kid inform my understanding and knowledge of archetypes and story to this day. I suppose my childhood was a bit unique, what with the Mexican childhood and all.

What I do find fascinating is that many writers I come across have not been exposed to the breadth of literature that I have and yet - the same archetypes can be found in their writing. They just don't realize it. Color me crazy but Jung's archetypal unconscious does seem to be alive and well.

You're either thinking, right now - Oh shit! Or - Me too! Is a screenwriter who was immersed in and exposed to the great parade of literature, good and bad, a better equipt screenwriter? Yes and no. There are plenty of screenwriters who have come from much less literary childhoods and yet tell incredible stories and do so brilliantly. In my line of business, however, it is a huge boon for me. Sometimes I point out to writers that they've got some kind of Moby Dick thing going on and they hadn't realized it. But once it's pointed out, they find a great source of inspiration and in some ways, confirmation - aha! My main character is Captain Ahab! Obsessed! Or sometimes I might point out that we have a Lord of the Flies situation brewing - aha! Anarchy! Chaos! Maybe the writer has unwittingly tapped into a little Steinbeck - social injustice! The common man! Ambiguous morality and gritty humanity set in the great hurly burly of early California!

Today's Rouge Wave is not about tut-tutting those of you who may not have been as Literarily Indoctrinated by this former rural dweller and life long book worm. It is actually more reflective in nature; it's an insight into who I am and how I got this way. But perhaps in reading today's post you will be inspired to go to the library and spend some time with classic books you may have overlooked. Literature, like humanity, is on a continuum. It doesn't mean that you can't jump in and enjoy Jeffrey Eugenides or Alice Sebold or anyone else. In some ways it's reassuring to see that we writers have always talked about the same stuff and we always will. If you write, you are part of this continuum. That's pretty cool.

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