ELEPHANT BUCKS

More on Spec Movie Script Sales

2012-01-12T18:43:50Z

Here's an article on spec movie script sales from today's issue of The Wrap:

With Harry Potter casting his last spell, Batman ready to hang up the cape and "The Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise looking ready for dry dock, Hollywood has apparently rediscovered its appetite for original ideas.

More than double the amount of spec scripts -- screenplays written without a contract -- sold this year compared to 2010, according to an exclusive survey by TheWrap’s sister site, ItsontheGrid.com.

In all, 130 specs were snapped up in 2011 -- the highest level since before the Writer's Strike, when studios stockpiled scripts in anticipation of a work stoppage. By October, the year's spec sales had already passed 2010 levels.

“We haven’t seen numbers like this in at least five years,” said Jason Scoggins, author of the Scoggins Report and founder of ItsontheGrid.com. “The amount of new material on the market last year was consistent with 2010, but twice as many pieces of material got set up. The market started strong in January and just stayed consistent throughout the year.”

Of the 368 scripts that hit the market, 31.8 percent were sold. That’s compared with 17.2 percent in 2010 and 16.7 percent in 2009.

The industry-wide buying spree is linked to the graying of many major Hollywood franchises and the declining domestic movie attendance, agents and literary managers say. Potter is over, the final “Dark Knight” and “Twilight” films hit theaters this year, and 2011 came and went without a new franchise on the level of a “Transformers” or “Avatar” being launched.

“People keep telling me, ‘we need more material,’” Mike Goldberg, a literary manager with New Wave Entertainment, told TheWrap. “Sequels, prequels and all the branded material is not doing as well as studios thought and hoped, so there’s a real swing back toward original intellectual property.”

That’s good news for the frequently under-appreciated, under-paid screenwriters in town.

The projects that had the studios reaching for their checkbooks covered a broad range and included a biopic about code-cracking mathematician Alan Turing, a social media-laced rom-com with Emma Stone attached and a semi-fictionalized tale of the first moon landing.

Among the most active buyers was Warner Bros., which, not coincidentally, is winding down its Potter and Batman series. The studio led the field by acquiring 16 scripts, up from nine the previous year. Also showing a lot of activity was Fox, which bought eight scripts compared to two the previous year. Sony and Universal bought seven scripts apiece, up from one and two respectively.

It wasn’t just a quest for the next big thing that set cash registers ringing. Studios had stockpiled scripts in anticipation of the 2007 to 2008 writer’s strike, but the cupboards are apparently looking bare after several years of lean sales.

The global financial crisis and a move by most of the major studios to trim their production slates contributed to the sales slowdown. Some of the economic tensions appear to have eased now.

“The recession drum isn’t being beaten as loudly as it was a year ago,” Goldberg said. “We’re not being drilled every day about cutting cost, so people are feeling freer with their money and studios are freer about making decisions.”

The money has not returned to the level it was a decade ago. But agents and managers say that, if a studio buys a script, there is a much greater chance the movie will be greenlit than in past years.

“There is more development money, but everyone is being much smarter on a bottom line level,” Chris Fenton, partner at management company H2F Entertainment, told TheWrap. “Because so little is being bought compared to the heyday of the mid-'90s, the upside for writers and guys like me, is that whereas it used to be that one out of every 40 scripts bought would get made, today people won’t buy a script unless they’re serious about it.”

“The key thing is that you have to see what kind of production bonus you can get for writers,” he added. “It becomes how can you make more money for writers in success, now that a spec is five times more likely to get made.”

That also may mean being smarter about how specs are marketed. In addition to attaching hot producers or directors, some writers have even taken the unusual step of making trailers to go along with their loglines.

It’s also important that writers have scripts that could conceivably be made at almost any budget.

“The sweet spot is to target studios and financiers at the same time,” Fenton said. “So if you have something like a contained action film that can be shot for $20 million or $30 million, or can be a big studio film with franchise potential, that’s going to be extremely special no matter how tight the market is.”

The Relationship Business

2011-12-28T22:15:36Z

“In Hollywood, everyone is in the relationship business.” This is the opening sentence of an excellent article by Patrick Goldstein in the Calendar section of today’s Los Angeles Times, entitled, “How Did These Films Get Made?”

Mr. Goldstein’s article discusses several movies from 2011 that featured big stars or big directors, but which bombed at the box office. Goldstein mentions the Jack Black/Steve Martin disaster, The Big Year, the Johnny Depp dud, The Rum Diary, and Clint Eastwood’s, J. Edgar as big movies that earned small returns. The article poses the question, How did these movies that no one wanted to see get made? What were the studios thinking when they said yes to these turkeys?

I wanted to include a link to Goldstein’s article. Unfortunately, The Los Angeles Times website is poorly constructed and difficult to navigate and doesn’t even include this front-page piece by its lead Hollywood columnist from the entertainment section of its own paper. The omission of this article from latimes.com begs the question, “How did this website get made?”

Back to Goldstein… “In Hollywood, everyone is in the relationship business.”

What does that statement mean, exactly? It means that in a business where, as William Goldman famously observed thirty years ago, “Nobody knows anything,” nervous executives at networks and studios would much rather foray into the unknown territory of “what’s going to sell and what isn’t” with people they already know, and especially with people who are already famous. If a Clint Eastwood or a Johnny Depp movie bombs, no one is going to fire the executive who said yes to Clint Eastwood or Johnny Depp.

Conversely, network and studio executives are almost universally unwilling to do business with people that they don’t already know or who aren’t already successful or famous.

I have mentioned over and over again on this blog that you, an unknown and untested writer who has never worked on a TV series before and has never sold a script, are not going to sell your spec sitcom pilot to a TV network or production company. Your excellent, fresh, and original spec sitcom pilot may get you a meeting with a producer or a shot at a staff job on an existing TV series, but, if you have never worked as a writer in Hollywood before, you are not going to leap frog over dozens of successful and famous people who are already lined up to sell their scripts and their ideas to the networks and studios.

Despite all of the times that I have made this same point on this very same blog, I still get an e-mail every couple of weeks from somebody out there in Hinterland asking me how they can sell their spec sitcom pilot to Hollywood. I assume that the people who send these e-mails do not read this blog, or maybe just don’t believe me.

I’ll say it again for the zillioneth time: If you are not already a successful writer in Hollywood, you are not going to sell your spec pilot.

Executives in Hollywood may take their chances on a spec script written by David Milch or Aaron Sorkin, because those two writers are already hugely successful. Executives are not going to even bother to read a script written by someone they have never heard of. A producer might read your script, or another writer might read your script, or, on rare occasions, an agent might read your script, and, if they love it, they may call you and set up a meeting to discuss your future. Your spec script may help you to get a writing job in Hollywood. That is the only reason for writing a spec script. You don’t write a spec script with the naive hope of selling it, because no one is ever going to pay you money for your spec pilot or episode. The money for pilots goes to people who are already successful. “In Hollywood, everyone is in the relationship business.”

You need to be in the relationship business, too. How do you get into the relationship business? First, you spend many months writing some excellent spec scripts. Then, if you don’t already live in Los Angeles, you move here. Then you work your tail off tirelessly, every day, without complaint, trying to meet people who can help you. You have to figure out how to meet the people who can help you. I can’t tell you how to meet the people who will help you because the “how” and the “people” are different for every writer.

The unknown writers who are going to succeed in Hollywood have already written their excellent spec scripts and have already figured out to meet the people who are going to help them. They are already in the relationship business. If you want to be in the relationship business, I suggest you get real and get going.

Free Ebook from MWP

2011-11-22T17:46:39Z

This offer from my publisher:

"For A FREE COPY of a new 124 page Ebook called Top Ten Reasons Why It's A Great Time to be

A Filmmaker, click on www.mwp.com. This is the only place in the world where you will be able to obtain

this new Ebook, written by over 50 best selling MWP authors, for FREE"

I wrote a piece for this book.

...

Stories of Success

2011-11-18T23:12:21Z

Want to make it as a writer in television or the movies? The opportunities are right in front of you.

Last night I attended a screening at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills of the new George Clooney movie, The Descendants. A short Q&A followed the screening with director Alexander Payne and screen writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Faxon and Rash told the WGA audience that they got their start as writers in the Los Angeles improv group, The Groundlings. I mentioned The Groundlings in my book, Elephant Bucks, and on this blog as a vehicle for aspiring writer/performers to break into show business.

The Groundlings’ famous alumni include regular cast members from Saturday Night Live: Phil Hartman, Will Ferrell, Kristin Wiig, Will Forte, Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, and a dozen others. Melissa McCarthy, star of the hit CBS sitcom, Mike and Molly, is a former Groundling, as are Lisa Kudrow and comedian Kathy Griffin.

Jim Rash and Nat Faxon met at The Groundlings. They started writing sketches together. From there they wrote a spec screenplay that was sold but not made. From that unproduced screenplay they got a shot at adapting Kaui Hemmings’ novel, The Descendants. Now they are Hollywood big-shots.

(The movie, by the way, is wonderful: smart, funny, and heartbreaking.)

How do you get into The Groundlings? You go there and sign up for a class. Six-session basic improv classes cost $280. There are advanced improv classes, classes for writing sketch comedy, and the opportunity to audition for the Main Company of performers in The Groundlings at their theater on Melrose.

There is no secret formula for becoming a success in Hollywood. I have written over and over again that the way to break into show business is to put yourself into the TV and movie universe here in Los Angeles, or in New York, and then participate in events that can help you to meet people, show your talent, and land your Lucky Break. I can’t imagine why anyone who is interested in writing comedy for TV or movies wouldn’t at least sign up for a class at The Groundlings, given their amazing record of launching successful careers. Last night I heard from two Groundlings alumni, the writers of what will likely be an Oscar-nominated screenplay. Faxon and Rash have major Hollywood agents. They are booked to write more movie scripts, and it all started for them at The Groundlings.

On Tuesday night, I tuned in to watch New Girl on Fox. I was delighted to see that the “Written By” credit for New Girl’s Thanksgiving episode was given to Berkley Johnson. I have known Berkley since 1999 when he was a student at UCLA. That summer of ’99, while I was producing Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, I spent a week with my wife and daughter at UCLA’s family camp, called Bruin Woods, in the mountains east of Los Angeles. Berkley Johnson was one of my daughter’s counselors at the camp. Berkley also wrote the welcoming and closing shows that were performed by the camp staff. The camp shows were very funny. I asked Berkley at the end of the week if he had plans to become a professional writer. That conversation began a friendship between us. I read some of his stuff, gave some notes, offered encouragement, and wrote a letter of recommendation for him when he applied to grad school at Columbia University in New York. Berkley wanted to be a sketch writer. New York was the place to go to follow that dream. Berkley bravely put himself into the world that he wanted to be part of. He made some important connections while at Columbia, and was later hired as a writer on The Conan O’Brien Show. Now he has transitioned to being a sitcom writer and is on staff at New Girl.

Here are three writers who made it. Here are stories about how you can create your own Lucky Break by working hard and by putting yourself into the world that you want to be part of. Faxon and Nash found their Lucky Break in LA through The Groundlings. Johnson made his Lucky Break in New York writing sketches.

The secret to becoming a success is to figure out what you want to do, grab the opportunities that are right in front of you, and then have the courage to just go for it.

By the way, Elephant Bucks is now available on Kindle from Amazon.

Enlightened by Good Writing

2011-11-05T19:42:36Z

Good writing always cheers me up. 2011 may turn out to be an exceptional year for scripted half-hour TV comedy series. Two and a Half Men seems to have successfully replaced Charlie Sheen with Ashton Kutcher. Two Broke Girls is the most successful new series on TV. The Big Bang Theory continues to hold Thursday night for CBS. Whoever thought CBS would wrest Thursday away from NBC? New Girl is drawing viewers on Fox. 30 Rock will be back later in the season along with the premier of Chelsea Handler’s new situation comedy. Modern Family, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Community, The Middle, How I Met Your Mother, Raising Hope, and Rules of Engagement are all alive and well.

There’s a lot to like right now on the half-hour comedy front.

There’s also one new half-hour comedy series that simply takes my breath away; that is as smart and different and funny and deep and surprising and thought-provoking and just plain brilliant as anything I have ever seen on television. It is as good as anything you will see at the movies, too. That astounding new series is Enlightened on HBO.

One of the most impressive things about The Office when it first came on the air was how the comedy cut so close to the bone. The characters weren’t just real, they were uncomfortably real. The series was as unsettling as it was funny. Enlightened starts at the highest point ever achieved by The Office and then leaps ten stories higher.

Enlightened achieves a level of sophistication and emotional honesty seldom seen on television – and even more rarely seen in the movies. The scripts accomplish a dramatic complexity to which few of us can even hope to aspire.

The acting lives up to the writing. Laura Dern is sure to win an Emmy for her performance as Amy Jellicoe, a tortured, neurotic, self-absorbed former executive for a Riverside, California corporation that seems as vapid as the building it occupies and the city it calls home. The rest of the cast, including Dern’s real-life mother, Diane Ladd, and Luke Wilson, is as good as Dern. Wilson has not been this well-used since The Royal Tannenbaums.

The look of the series is also impressive, as good as a feature film. Scenes are washed in specific colors - often very soft pastels - that add to the mood of the moment.

I send an astonished level of respect to co-creators Laura Dern and Mike White (Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl, School of Rock). White also appears in the series as Amy Jellicoe’s co-worker, Tyler.

Usually only playwrights and novelists are allowed to reach down so deeply inside of themselves. Those of us who are lucky enough to write for the screen are seldom offered this degree of creative freedom. Most of us aren't up to it, anyway. HBO has handed such an opportunity to Mike White and Laura Dern, and they have made the most of it. I’m in awe of Mike White. This is near genius.

Thank you, Mike White, Laura Dern, and HBO for Enlightened. I pray the audience appreciates what you have given them, and I sorely hope that this will be the beginning of a long run.

One last note: I saw Clint Eastwood’s new film, J. Edgar, on Tuesday night at the DGA. It is also pretty remarkable. I’m sure an Oscar nomination will be forthcoming for Leonardo DeCaprio. The movie is a little slow, but it is also more complex than you’d expect. Clint Eastwood is a Republican, so I didn’t expect an Oliver Stone-type hatchet job on Hoover – even if Hoover deserved it. Written by Dustin Lance Black, who also wrote the screenplay for Milk, J. Edgar is a tragedy, a tortured love story, and it humanizes a man who has been almost entirely misrepresented, either as a hero he never was or as a monster. Turns out he was a complex and deeply flawed human being, very much like Amy Jellicoe on Enlightened, and not that different from the rest of us.

Spec Scripts Are Selling!

2011-11-01T21:40:33Z

Here's a link to today's issue of The Wrap about spec sales. This is a must read for all spec screenplay writers!

www.thewrap.com/movies/article/hollywood-catches-original-idea-fever-market-spec-scripts-sizzles-32357 ...

Opportunity... then disappointment

2011-10-22T17:51:30Z

In my most recent post I wrote about how I seized an opportunity, got paid to write a script, and now that script was going to be shot. A director and producer had been hired. Casting was about to begin. I’ve been in show business for many years. I thought by now I had a good sense of when something was going to go and when it was not. I wrote that post certain that I would write more posts about how the filming went and when the project was going to be released.

But my instincts are not flawless. The project that I had been working on for the last ten months was shelved earlier this week. The production company decided not to go forward. The director who had already scouted locations and the producer who was in the process of hiring a crew were let go. It’s all over.

What happened?

The explanation that I and the producer and the director got from the production company was that it was a business decision. In simplest terms, the company no longer felt confident that they could make money off of the finished product, so they declined to spend the money necessary to bring it to fruition. This is a common occurrence in Hollywood. My project was not a feature film, but this kind of thing happens in the feature film world all the time. A studio develops an idea for a movie. Perhaps a producer brings the project to the studio or perhaps it’s the studio’s idea and the producer is hired later. A director is brought on board. Actors are cast. During the development process, many drafts of a script are written, usually by a number of writers. A budget is created. After months, perhaps even years of preparation, everything is ready to go. Sometimes the trucks have actually been loaded with the lighting and sound equipment and are ready to drive off the studio lot to the first location. And then suddenly, at the last possible moment, the studio pulls the plug.

I can tell you from first-hand experience that it is very disappointing when this happens. As the writer, you wonder if it was the script. Even when everyone tells you that the decision had nothing to do with your script, you worry that it did. You feel as if you have failed. You’re upset and confused. How come they loved the script last week, but this week they don’t want to make it? You have phone conversations with the director and the producer. Everyone feels defeated and discouraged. Everyone feel that the production company has made a poor decision. Perhaps a few of you vow to take the project somewhere else.

My late father worked in the aerospace industry. I remember that the company my father worked for would spend years developing a new air or space craft for the military, for NASA, or for the commercial airlines. My dad would bring home artist’s sketches of the futuristic new vehicle that the company was going to build. I might even see a mock-up of the new craft at the factory. Everyone was excited and filled with anticipation. And then, suddenly, unbelievably, the project would be cancelled. Perhaps the reason would be government cutbacks, or a downturn in the economy. It was always terribly disappointing.

What does one do when opportunity knocks, but then doesn’t turn into satisfaction and success?

I let myself be upset for a few days. Then, as the song goes, I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.

Opportunity knocked... and I was ready

2011-10-08T18:28:04Z

Opportunity found me last October. It found me in an unexpected place, but right on the map of where I’ve told you that opportunity is looking. Because I was ready with a portfolio of good material, I got a job as a writer in Hollywood. Hey, isn’t that what I’ve been telling you all along in my book and on this blog? I sold an idea to a Hollywood production company purely by accident, but entirely because I was ready with what they wanted at exactly the right moment.

To tell you the truth, my wife sold the idea. It all started last fall when she was at a baby shower. She happened to be seated next to a woman she had never met. This woman was an executive at a production company. My wife and the executive got to chatting. My wife said that I was a writer. Fortunately, the executive had heard of me. The executive asked if I had any ideas that might appeal to women. My wife said that, as a matter of fact, I did. My wife could make that statement because I am always developing ideas on spec just in case such an opportunity presents itself.

My wife then pitched my story idea to this executive. The pitch took maybe ten seconds. The executive liked the idea, gave my wife her business card, and told my wife to have me call her. I called the executive a couple of days later. We chatted. I pitched the idea to her again over the phone. She asked me a few questions about the concept. Because I’d worked carefully on this idea for a long time I was able to answer her questions satisfactorily. She said she’d get back to me. A few weeks later I had another phone conversation with this same executive which then led to a meeting with the creative head of the company. That meeting led to a sale.

On this blog, and in my book, Elephant Bucks, I advise you to have a large and diverse portfolio of material ready for when opportunity comes knocking. I also advise you to put yourself inside the Hollywood universe so that you are close to the action. You never know when or how you might meet somebody who can hire you.

Look what happened to me. First of all, I had already developed an idea on spec. I had written outlines and a script on my own time. I had material ready. The baby shower that my wife was invited to was not given by some Hollywood big-shot. The baby shower was for a woman that my wife befriended in a class at UCLA Extension. My wife’s pregnant friend lived inside the Hollywood universe. She happened to have another friend who was an executive at a production company. It was serendipitous that the executive and my wife ended up sitting next to each other at the shower. But you never know how or when opportunity is going to knock. When opportunity knocked this time, I was ready. Or, to be more specific, my wife was ready. I had something to offer that this company was looking to buy, and opportunity found a surprising way to bring us all together - through an interior design class at UCLA.

I’ve been working on this project since January. I spent most of my time developing the two-hour story. I wrote draft after draft of the outline. After each draft I’d get notes from the executives at the company. If you’ve read my book, you know how much I believe in outlines. We spent months working on the story before I wrote a page of script. It was all worth it. I have written numerous drafts of the script in the last few months, but the story has held up nicely because we got it right during the outline stage.

In September, the company hired a producer. A director came on board a couple of weeks ago. I’m going to turn in a final production draft of the script next week. Casting will begin soon. The project is scheduled to go before cameras in December.

“Does your husband have any ideas that might appeal to women?” the executive asked my wife a year ago. My wife said, “Yes. He does.” Because my idea was simple and had a strong hook, and because my idea could be explained in a single sentence, the executive could instantly see its potential. Because my idea was contemporary and because the story could be told on a small budget, it sold.

Opportunity knocked. I was ready. A similar stroke of luck can happen to you if you build a large and diverse portfolio of strong material on your own time, and then place yourself where opportunity can find you.

George and Gracie

2011-08-24T19:19:12Z

Some of the old sitcoms from the 1950’s and ‘60’s can seem dated now and even a little corny. But to me, the best ones are like classic movies, timeless, and full of examples of the right way to create characters and tell a compelling story. (I was watching Casablanca last night on TCM, for the five thousandth time, and sobbing as if it were the first time I had ever seen it. When my wife and I go out for dinner, she likes one of us to make toast when the drinks arrive. My favorite toast will always be, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”)

If you can watch old movies and classic TV series with a sense of the era, and put aside some of the outdated conventions of the time, you can learn a lot. You can see where many of today’s successful series have their roots. You will discover how similar the sitcoms of today are to their earlier ancestors. You can learn about story structure, how to write jokes, and how to develop characters. Many of the sitcoms from the ‘50’s were brilliantly original, and none more so than The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.

The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show aired on the CBS television network from 1950 until 1958. That’s a run of nine seasons – as long as Seinfeld or Friends or any other mega-hit sitcom of recent years. According to IMDB, there are 275 original episodes of the Burns and Allen TV series. Other sources have the number of episodes as high as 291. Either way, that’s a lot of shows. Just to compare, there are 174 episodes of Seinfeld. The Burns and Allen series received 11 Emmy nominations, including two for best comedy series, and several for Gracie Allen as best female performer.

Over the last few days I’ve been reminiscing via e-mail with my long-time friend and fellow TV comedy writer, Shelley Zellman, about George Burns and Gracie Allen. Shelley is friends with George Burns’ and Gracie Allen’s former manager, Irving Fein, who is still alive at the age of 100. Though I never met George Burns, who died in 1996, or Gracie Allen, who died in 1964, they were a big influence on me. I learned as much about comedy from George and Gracie as I did from any of my other show biz heroes.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from George and Gracie is that for a series to be successful, the audience has to love the characters. The audience should feel as if the characters on the series are their friends. The characters should be people that you would want to spend time with in real life. It’s always good to have one or two characters on a series who are difficult people, but the most successful series are the ones that create characters that viewers grow to love, respect, and admire.

I think we forget that today. Characters on a sitcom can be eccentric, but they should also be honorable people. I loved George and Gracie. I wanted to know them. I also loved the supporting characters. Blanche Morton, Gracie’s next-door neighbor, endured as much stress from Gracie’s hare-brained schemes as Ethel Mertz put up with from Lucy. Harry Morton, Blanche’s husband, was as irascible at Fred Mertz. Harry Von Zell was another hapless patsy for Gracie’s plots, the poor fall guy who seemed to get fired by George in every episode.

But no matter what happened on the show, the characters loved each other and remained friends through thick and thin. To me, the idea of relationships that endure, the idea of love, is the most important ingredient in a successful series.

Gracie Allen was one of the most original characters ever on television. Pegged as a “Dumb Dora,” a stereotypical ditzy housewife, which, in today’s world, seems outdated and even insulting to women, Gracie was, in fact, simply a human being with her own unique logic. (There were plenty of ditzy male characters on TV and in movies, too.) The most wonderful thing about Gracie was that she was always trying to help others. She may have been a little scatter-brained, but she had a genius for achieving her goals. She was kind, generous to a fault, and someone who generated loyalty, enthusiasm, and deep affection in the people around her. Gracie was, in fact, a leader. How refreshing is that? I think Gracie’s kindness and warmth were what people loved most about the character.

The thing we loved most about George was that he loved Gracie. George was mad about Gracie. No matter how big a mess Gracie created, George was always on her side. Exasperated characters would invariably turn to George in frustration and begin to ask him, “How can you be married to this nut?” Before they could even finish their question, George would take a puff on his cigar, smile, and calmly tell them, “I love her. That’s why.”

When I remember George and Gracie, the word that comes instantly to my mind is “Love.” I loved George and Gracie. I loved their show. I love the memories I have of watching them as a child.

Say Goodnight, Gracie.

Say "Whoa" to being a bull-head

2011-08-12T19:37:10Z

Blake Snyder wrote that screenwriters are bull-heads. It’s on Page 11 of Save the Cat, if you’re interested. “We’re going to bull-head our way through this script no matter what anyone says,” was how Blake described the attitude many writers have toward their latest idea.

Being a bull-head can be helpful. It can give you the will to start a script – or even more importantly, to finish one – in spite of the nattering voices of doubt inside of your head, and in spite of the dozens of story problems and unmanageable scenes you will likely confront before you type FADE OUT.

Most of us secretly worry that we’re wasting our time by writing; that we’re never going to sell anything or ever get a paying job as a writer. Even when you sell something, you worry that you’ll never sell anything else. Being a bull-head can help you to keep going.

But being a bull-head about your ideas can create more problems than it solves. If you don’t believe me, look at the Republicans.

Blake went on to write: “I am suggesting that you say “whoa” to all of that. (The bull-headedness.) I’m proposing that before you head off into your FADE IN: you think long and hard…”

What did Blake want you to think long and hard about? He spends a huge portion of Save the Cat trying to convince aspiring screenwriters to write spec screenplays that someone might actually want to buy. I do the same thing when I’m teaching a screenwriting class. Your screenplay set in sixteenth-century Venice or your 130-page tome about a depressed girl in Alabama may be written from your heart, but no one is ever going to buy it. Maybe you should take your story about hypnotism in France in 1820 and turn that into a novel or a play. But no one in Hollywood is going to buy your brooding script about a slacker in Oklahoma who can’t get up the courage to fight for his girlfriend.

Bull-heading your way through a movie or TV script that is never going to sell is a waste of your time. Blake wrote three books trying to convince writers of that.

I got a short movie outline the other day from a former student. The student felt there were some big story problems. I read the outline and wrote back. The concerns were correct. The biggest problem, however, was that the writer was working from a premise that was unlikely to sell. The writer who asked for my feedback wrote back to say, “I definitely think Sellability is my last concern.” My thought when I read that was, ”Bull-head.”

What is the point of writing a screenplay that has no chance of selling? Do you really think there’s some producer out there with thirty million dollars who wants to make a movie that no one will go to see? Are you kidding me?

“Well, this is the kind of story that I care about," I hear some bull-headed writer saying in rebuttal. “I don’t want to write the typical Hollywood fluff. I want to write a movie that I want to see.” Really? Even if a successful professional with years of experience working in Hollywood tells you that no one is going to buy the script? You still want to go forward with your unsellable idea?

This is the kind of bull-headedness that Blake asked writers to say “whoa” to.

There are thousands of unsold screenplays and TV scripts, and thousands more unpublished novels and unproduced plays. Why? Most of them are badly written. But a lot of unsold work is about a subject that wasn’t very interesting, or isn’t contemporary enough, or isn’t exciting enough or accessible enough to compel a publisher or a theater company or a movie studio to spend thousands or millions of dollars to buy and produce it.

Listen to Blake. Before you start writing a movie or TV script on spec, say “whoa.” Think long and hard about whether what you’re about to write is really something that might sell. Reread Save the Cat. See if you’re following the good advice that Blake put into his book.

Be bull-headed in your determination, but not with your ideas.

Forgetting the Rules

2011-07-30T21:19:30Z

It’s easy to forget the rules of writing, even for a professional.

We get excited about a new idea. We hastily start writing a TV script or a play or a screenplay. Often we don’t finish the work that we start. We get about thirty or forty pages in, and suddenly the whole thing starts to bog down. We get frustrated and stop. Perhaps we abandon the project completely. Occasionally, we do finish. We think we’ve written something wonderful. Then we give it to someone else to read. They come back with criticism. Maybe they didn’t exactly love what we’ve written. Even the gentlest criticism hurts. We get discouraged and perhaps even annoyed. We lose confidence in what we wrote. We lose confidence in our ability. The whole process of writing suddenly seems to be more trouble than it's worth.

Welcome to the writer’s life.

I received two scripts this week. One was written by an aspiring young writer that I already knew, and who is trying to learn how to write half-hour comedy. (I only read scripts from people I know.)

The other was a full length play written by a professional colleague and longtime friend.

Both scripts were filled with problems. Both of these people have sent me work to read before, so both of them knew that I am not gentle with criticism. I never say, “I hate what you’ve written,” but I candidly point out the flaws that I see in the work.

The aspiring writer’s script was riddled with amateur mistakes. The story was poorly constructed and the characters didn’t sound like real people. Even though this person has read my book, they forgot most of the sitcom writing rules that are in my book. I’d expect that from someone who is still learning.

My professional colleague has written a number of produced screenplays over the years. This person has also written several plays and had a couple of them produced. One play was even produced in New York a number of years ago. This writer’s latest play had two significant problems: it lacks a strong protagonist and it lacks a discernable theme. Those are two pretty gigantic elements to leave out of a play.

Did I lose respect for either of these writers because the work they sent me to critique wasn’t perfect? Of course not. I’ve been at this long enough to know that the writing process is always difficult and that all writers, even seasoned professionals, make enormous mistakes. All writers, including myself, forget some of the basic rules of writing – or, more likely, ignore the rules - in their excitement over a new idea.

What do you do when you forget some of the basic rules of writing while you work? You find a way to get reminded of those rules by giving your work to someone else to read. Once the flaws in your work have been discovered, you start again.

It’s easy to offer criticism. It is much more difficult to receive it. Criticism is always painful. We all would like to write a perfect script the first time, every time. No one does.

What drives us as writers is our excitement to put our thoughts into words. We never want to lose that excitement. Criticism can be discouraging. It can dampen our excitement. But without criticism the inevitable problems in our work can’t be discovered and corrected.

We make the same mistakes in our work that we make in our relationships with other people. We get excited about someone new. We think we’ve found the perfect match. We forget all the rules and plunge headlong into an invigorating new romance. Then the inevitable problems crop up. Sometimes the relationship ends as quickly as it started. Sometimes we stick it out, dealing with problems all the time, wondering if it’s worth it to keep going. We hate losing the initial excitement that we felt, and the endless compromise that follows seems to take the joy out of what we thought we had discovered. Writing. Loving. It’s all a lot of work.

I hate receiving criticism. It’s embarrassing. I feel exposed and vulnerable. I often feel stupid and incompetent. I want everyone to love everything that I write, and I’m crushed when they don’t.

The discomfort of strong negative emotions can keep us from pursuing love and from pursuing our dreams. We can weather those uncomfortable emotions by remembering that everyone makes mistakes. I think that weathering criticism is one of the hardest parts of life, whether in work, love, or even friendship. No one likes criticism about their behavior, their words, or their work. We all want to be loved all the time.

We can weather criticism if we can remember that everyone forgets the rules. If you are truly committed to your goal, you will accept the criticism, accept that your forgot the rules, and then go back and try again.

Sheldon on Script Magazine podcast

2011-07-25T21:53:49Z

I did a half-hour phone interview for Script Magazine that can be found by clicking on the link below:

http://blip.tv/tvwriterpodcast/029-sheldon-bull-author-elephant-bucks-5399861
...

Scripted Content for the Internet and Other Platforms

2011-07-15T20:35:28Z

Is scripted content for the internet and other platforms - such as I-pads and cell phones - the next big thing or just the thing that is next?

Last evening, I attended a screening at a private theater in Beverly Hills for a new, scripted video series that launched earlier this week on Hulu. The new series is called The Booth at the End. The series is constructed so that it can be viewed at different lengths on different devices. For instance, a viewer can watch a 30-minute episode, or chapter, on a computer or video tablet. A viewer will also be able to watch a shorter 5-minute episode on their phone. Some viewers in Europe may see the series on their television sets. The series consists of about two hours of scripted content. Actors play recurring characters. Storylines are started and resolved. It’s like a TV series, but the episodes, or chapters, are broken up into different lengths depending on the viewing platform. It makes more sense to present a short chapter for a cell phone, and a longer chapter for a computer or tablet.

Will this series succeed? No one knows yet. This type of content has been tried before without success. What is different now from, say, five years ago, is the availability of video tablets like the I-pad and the Galaxy, and the ubiquity of 3G and 4G phones, which barely existed in the USA even a few years ago.

One of the companies producing The Booth at the End is Vuguru, an internet content provider, or digital studio, launched a few years ago by Michael Eisner. Vuguru has production agreements with, and funding from, major media companies such as AOL and Rogers Media in Canada.

A lengthy newspaper article about Vuguru ran in the print and on-line editions of The Los Angeles Times earlier this week.

In January, I sold an idea to Vuguru. Since then, I’ve been writing a two-hour movie script for them. I’ll turn in a second draft in a few days. If my script is shot, it will likely be edited into several different forms. There may be a two-hour version that could screen on TV or even in movie theaters. There will also be shorter chapters, similar to chapters of The Booth at the End, which could be uploaded to computers, tablets, and to phones.

I received no special instructions from the executives at Vuguru on how to write my script, other than to keep the budget low. That part has been easy. My idea lends itself to a modest budget. Other than that, the experience has been similar to writing any other screenplay for a studio. I constructed the story just as I would for any feature-length screenplay. I was told not to worry about “act breaks” or “cliffhangers” every few minutes. I was told to structure the story as I would any other movie script. I wrote several drafts of the story outline and got notes on the drafts from the studio executives. I wrote a first draft script and got notes on that, too. I’m just now completing a second draft.

The fee is much less than one would get for even a TV movie, but new media pays less. That’s no surprise.

The experience of working with the executives at the studio has been very pleasant. They are smart people. They have treated me with respect. Their notes make sense. It’s been a lot of fun, and few writers can make that statement when working on a screenplay. It’s usually hell. This has been a very positive experience for me.

Back in the middle of the last decade, I spent almost a year and a half developing an internet series. This series was designed to offer 2 or 3-minute webisodes that could be viewed either on a computer or on a phone. I wrote about seventeen webisodes for this series. The series was never produced. A European telecom company which was supposed to provide the financing for the series developed cold feet. The project died. Looking back five or six years, we were out ahead of the curve.

I’ve been skeptical about scripted internet content ever since, and so has almost everyone else. Nobody has found a way to make money from this form yet.

Sitting in the screening room last night with about fifty other people watching The Booth at the End, I was still a little skeptical, but much less so. Maybe it’s because I may be attending a screening for my own project in about six or eight months. I’m rooting more now for this form of entertainment to succeed. But watching the series last night, it seemed that the time may have come.

I don’t expect The Booth at the End to sweep the world like American Idol or Twitter. I expect soft numbers for them. But the difference between the screening last night and the project I worked on five years ago was hard to ignore. The technology is here. I watch TV on my computer all the time now. I never watched TV on my computer a few years ago. I-pads and similar devices are inexpensive and easy to use. Everyone is switching to 3G and 4G phones.

As they used to say in the old days of broadcast TV, stay tuned. We may be witnessing the next big thing, or maybe just the thing that is next. It will be interesting to watch and find out. I’ll keep you posted on what happens with my project.

Bridesmaids vs. The Hangover

2011-05-31T23:15:36Z

With both The Hangover, Part 2 and Bridesmaids playing right now to full houses, one can see two very different ways to draw attention to your comedy writing.

One way is to have a great premise, and then use that premise to be clever, broad, and as outrageous as the times will allow. That is The Hangover model. The Hangover is a premise piece, meaning that the whole movie is just about the premise. You don’t really get to know the characters nor do you need to. The story does not hinge on the characters’ feelings, personalities, or relationships. There is little at stake emotionally in the story’s outcome. The plot is simply a frenzied dash to the finish line, along the lines of the 1960’s comedy classic,It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The Hangover has a great premise for an R-rated comedy: The morning after a bachelor party in Las Vegas, three men discover that the groom is missing and must retrace their steps from the night before – a night that none of them can remember - in order to retrieve the groom and get him to the church on time. You have a ticking clock. For a good chunk of the movie we believe that the groom’s life may be at stake. It’s a golden premise well executed by the filmmakers. It’s no surprise to me that the first movie turned into a franchise and that the franchise is on track to eventually make a billion dollars. It’s the kind of idea that makes screenwriters slap themselves in the head and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” The answer to that question, by the way, is, “Because you’re not as clever as the guys who wrote this movie.” The answer is also, “Even though this premise sounds simple, if it were that easy to come up with this stuff then someone else would have come up with it up sooner.” When writing a spec screenplay or a spec pilot, having a strong premise like The Hangover really helps get your work noticed.

The other way to get your work noticed is to create at least one, and hopefully several, fresh and engaging characters. This is what Kristin Wiig and her collaborator, Annie Murnolo, have done with their script for Bridesmaids. I saw Bridesmaids over the weekend. The movie is flawed. Every movie is flawed. There are some very broad and silly parts that are reminiscent of other movies. Kristin Wiig getting drugged and drunk on an airplane, for instance, felt familiar. During the “Let’s get out our aggression by playing tennis” sequence, I thought, “Didn’t they lift this straight out of Two Weeks Notice?” Bridesmaids also boasts a poop emergency sequence reminiscent of the same Sandra Bullock movie. There are some dull parts in Bridesmaids, as well. But overall, I understood the glowing reviews, especially from female critics. The movie has a fresh point of view, and, for all of its silliness, it has heart. A fresh point of view and heart are two ingredients you will not find in The Hangover franchise.

The premise of Bridesmaids does not promise as much fun as the premise for The Hangover. A single woman in her thirties is asked by her best friend to be maid of honor at the best friend’s wedding. (Didn’t we see this already in a movie called My Best Friend’s Wedding?) Wiig’s character, Annie, grows increasingly threatened by another bridesmaid, Helen. Annie, who is broke, awkwardly tries to suggest an inexpensive restaurant for the rehearsal dinner, a modest theme for the bridal shower, and reasonably priced bridesmaid dresses, but she is repeatedly upstaged by Helen, who is wealthy. The core of the story is about basic human emotions that we can all understand: envy, competition, self-doubt, and self-pity. If the strength of The Hangover is in the non-stop stream of gags, the strength of Bridesmaids is in the characters, particularly Wiig’s Annie and Melissa McCarthy’s Megan. Annie is not necessarily a likable character. She is negative and selfish, but her flaws are relatable and forgivable. She grows increasingly unhinged as the story progresses, but we end up rooting for her. Megan might be described as a female Zack Galifianakis, a wacko from the moon, but she ends up being the voice of reason. Jill Clayburgh, in her final screen performance, is wonderfully zany as Wiig’s mother. When writers create great characters then actors can have a ball playing those characters. And this is what makes Bridesmaids memorable. I found myself still thinking about Bridesmaids the day after seeing it. I haven’t seen The Hangover, Part 2. I have only the vaguest memories of the first one.

The upside of just going for the jokes is that’s what the studios are looking for. Though all spec scripts are nearly impossible to sell, a strong premise – a poster movie, as Blake Snyder used to call them – is a less challenging sale to Hollywood. Just keep the jokes coming and keep upping the ante for 110 pages. The downside of only going for the jokes is that it all gets old very quickly, so you better have a lot of jokes ready.

The downside of going more for character and relationships is that your script is even harder to sell. I’m sure the only reason that Bridesmaids sold was because of Kristin Wiig’s star power from SNL. The upside of going for character over gags is that the movie stays with people longer. I expect The Hangover, Part 2 to continue to make a huge pile of money. I also expect it to fade quickly as other blockbusters are released. Bridesmaids has, thus far, been the summer season’s surprise hit, and with favorable word of mouth it may continue to pull in audiences for weeks to come.