Book to Screen
Page 2
Because of this, there is always an indelible pressure on the major studios (production) to make films that exhibitors want to show and an audience wants to see. In many cases that means shorter films and shorter movie trailers with less spoilers. It has nothing to do with our (audience) expectation as much as it has to do with the profit motives of exhibitors. Exhibitors want to fill as many seats as possible (within a given time frame). So, if they have “Theatre A” and it has 300 seats, they want to be able to have the maximum number of showing in that space in a given day. If you have a longer run time, longer trailers, it is going to prevent that from happening. Long running films like Titanic (1997) The Ring (2002) or Dances with Wolves(1990) will cut down on the number of times a given space can provide showings in a given day. Of course, movie exhibitors can counter this by offering the same film in a number of spaces within their theatre at one time.
(Audience member calls out: “Pearl Harbor.”)
Pearl Harbor. That’s right. Run time over three hours.
(Audience member: “Also, they are running more ad time.”)
I’m not even counting that in the run time
(Audience laughter)
I’m just talking about what we write. You bring up an interesting point because one of the other considerations is product placement within the creative work. This off topic but is defined as the seamless integration of advertising and products into content. I’ve was at a meeting once it was actually discussed that the script itself was not the best but that it should be considered because of its product placement and merchandising potential. They felt they could figure out a way to make it better and that’s another story. But product placement can work within a certain degree. I’m thinking of the film Tom Hank’s did when he was stranded on the island after the plane crash.
(Audience member: “Cast Away.”)
Right-- the motion picture – Castaway (2000). Does anyone remember the role that FEDEX played in that film? The whole story was framed around a FedEx plane crashing and at the end Tom Hanks delivers a FedEx package that had been with him on the island. Don’t know if you remember, the girl looked single and was very pretty. How can you beat that for feel good advertising – FedEx always comes through (no matter what) and maybe a loving relationship there as well. Can’t beat that.
I think a film where product placement is not so seamless would be Iron Man (2008) where the cars, pizzas, hamburgers were all too present in the way they were placed within the film.
(Audience laughter)
So there is an indelible pressure in cinema for the final product to be … I’m not going to say fixed, but rather a general understanding of runtime for a particular film. This is not present in literature.
So let me ask… are most of your books 300 pages? 250 pages? About 60,000 to 70, 000 words. Anyone over that? Okay, that’s right, you already told me that. Anyone over 400 pages… 100,000 words?
(Audience member raises hand)
I’m not saying that is bad. I love those books painted upon a broad canvass. I mean when you read a good book like that, you can settle in and go with it. You know you are going to be with it for a while… which is great. So all of you, the “plus 300 crowd,” I’m speaking to you.
Now you’ve taken this beautifully written manuscript with character development and everything we are talking about and now you have to squeeze all of it into a little square hole that runs on the average 120 pages of dialogue, description and action. So, there is a challenge there. You have to make choices about how to convert what is contained in the longer literary medium where the spoken word and language are used into a visual medium and context for film. You have to consider different methods to make this happen. Earlier this week we discussed starting your screenplay at the most heightened moment of your novel or as it was titled BEGINNING YOUR SCREENPLAY AT THE END. How would you do this? Short answer. You can accomplish this by showing your story through visual exposition. But that’s a different seminar. Let’s get back to our subject… Writing great characters (we are back on the title). We all want to write great characters. We all want to write great stories.
Now for the second part of our seminar title “IN THE FIRST TEN PAGES.” What’s that’s mean? It’s something you put in the title. But there’s a little bit of truth to it. Okay, and here it is. We live in a society and I’m not saying anything you don’t already know. It’s an “immediate gratification” society where we have come to expect everything “now” through, televisions, portable hand held devices and the cloud. We don’t want to go through anything that might take too much time. We want it now. We don’t want a “slow roll” or too much process in getting to what we came for. It’s the same in story telling. You have to get to it as soon as possible or risk losing your audience.
Although you could probably this afternoon list a multitude of very successful movies that have what I am calling a “slow roll.” You know you just kind of pull into them nice and easy through a process of character development and exposition. I’m thinking of films like Forrest Gump (1994) or 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) where you’re sitting in the theatre wondering where the story is going. But for our purposes here today, I want you to think about creating the most important elements (including characters) of your script right away… and if you can, in the first ten pages.
3
YOUR PITCH
Writing Great Characters in the First Ten Pages
NOW LET’S GO a step further if we could. I’m sure some of you went to some of the pitch
workshops here. And now take your wonderful book and try to pitch your entire idea and manuscript in three or four sentences. They listen and then they tell you “We are interested in your book – we would like to develop it into a screenplay. Do you have a screenplay?” And you answer: “Yes, I have a screenplay.” They set up a pitch meeting. Next you find yourself sitting at Warner Brothers or Paramount and someone sitting across a desk or on a couch says “Alright, give me your story.” And they are talking about that they want your story in a format of no longer than a minute. Now we are going from one mode of presentation to another. We are going from the “full meal” which is your manuscript/book in its entirety, into the shorter version of the screenplay and then even the more abbreviated form of the pitch. This screenplay is not even in consideration. We are simply talking about and idea. I’ve heard writers say that they have written a really phenomenal screenplay but they never get the actual script in front of anyone because it missed the pitch. What I mean by that is, the have forgotten the idea and got pulled into mechanical process of writing. Don’t forget the idea. It sounds very Zen but it’s true. Don’t get kidnapped by the screenplay or the novel. Always go back to the idea and the pitch. Let everything emanate from that and be ready to have something in your back pocket at a moments notice. That is “if” they don’t like your idea, be ready to pitch them something else.
I will tell you a funny story about a pitch. Well, it’s not that funny.
(Audience laughter)
There was this one writer, kind of a nerdy guy, but very smart and very nice. He underwent a process of research and study of the Apollo moon landings. He researched NASA transcripts of all of the Apollo missions to the moon. Project Apollo was America’s effort to land a man on the moon and bring him back before the end of the nineteen sixties. This was a challenge set forth by former President John Kennedy and began what was known in the 1960’s as the moon race. It was a competition between the United States and the former Soviet Union to land a man on the moon first. The decade was filled with an array of space missions by both countries focusing on getting there first. In the Cold War era, whomever could land a man on the moon first, would have the upper hand in the propaganda war between the two countries and their respective political ideologies. So, it was very important for each country to get there first, no matter what. In July of 1969, the question was answered when America’s Neal Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon
on national television. It was a great achievement for mankind and an even greater propaganda victory for the United States over the Soviet Union.
Now, getting back to the writer and his pitch. He developed a theory that history had got it all wrong and that the Russians had actually landed on the moon first and nobody knew about it because it was covered up. And it was not just idle speculation. This writer had specific transcripts of astronauts communicating with mission control.
(Garbled sound effect)
“Houston we’ve got a problem.” I don’t think they actually said that but I’m just trying to act it out for you.
(Audience laughter)
His pitch was to tell a story that would radically change history, as we knew it. His story would be told on a larger than life canvass - - outer space and would be filled with intrigue and mystery. In the late, 1960’s a spacecraft is launched from Russia on a journey to the moon and then is never heard of or mentioned again. It was a failed mission and no one not even the Russians knew what happened to the spacecraft. What they could not have known was that the spacecraft landed a man on the moon (a Russian cosmonaut) first – before the United States. A single cosmonaut had crash- landed but had lost the ability to communicate with the Soviet space agency on earth. The Soviet space agency assumed the spacecraft trajectory had missed the moon and was lost in space. They had no way of knowing that the cosmonaut successfully landed on the moon and (after his supplies and oxygen ran out) died there. America went on to take the trophy in the moon race. The fate of the cosmonaut was never known until several years later when NASA astronauts discovered the Soviet craft as they were exploring the lunar surface. The U.S. policy was to keep the discovery a secret to avoid the embarrassment of erasing such an American achievement. Besides the Russians didn’t even know it occurred, so why rock the boat?
A Pretty compelling concept and there was also a backstory that spanned to the end of World War II. So, (this writer) he’s ready with his story and has facts to back it up -- all lined up. I mean this guy is pumped.
(Pump sounds – Audience laughter.)
He arrives at the meeting and he has what I thought was an okay script. It was a good script but not a great script. It didn’t have any heat. It had intellect but no heat. You know when somebody tells you an idea about such a conspiracy, that they say they can prove, creates interest. I’m interested and wondered if it really happened. The script needed some work but that was not the problem because the script never got read. At the meeting, the producer (no name) asked, “Okay, what’ya got for me?” It wasn’t a guy with a cigar in his mouth but it felt that way.
(Audience laughter)
“All right, kid…what’ya got?”
Remember, the entire storyline and concept had to be boiled down into one simple idea. The writer looked the producer and said: “All right, here it is. The Russians landed on the moon first… and nobody knows about it.”
The producer responded after a moment: “Who gives a crap. Nobody cares about that. What else you got?”
(Audience sighs)
It was that fast. That was it. Nobody cares about that. Period. And so I said to myself. That pitch, what was lacking in the pitch? Let’s blame the writer not the producer because the presentation didn’t have the spirit of the original idea. It didn’t have it. The writer had cut it down so much, that there was no soul left in it. He was no longer offering him a representation of the full idea – instead a small component of it with no connection to the whole and because of that, it ceased to be interesting. I don’t know? I have endeavored to think about what he could have said that would have been more interesting. It’s easy for me to stand here today and criticize. But the writer never got the chance to have the script read. Not at that studio anyway and point of it was that what failed there was not the idea. It was the mode of presentation. With respect to mode of presentation, always ask yourself these questions:
What environment/situation am I presenting this idea in?
How can I make my idea fit that environment /situation?
Is it a Burger King hamburger or is it Wolfgang Puck? In the instance of this moon story pitch, the environment and the presentation were not in sync. The producer was expecting something else. How can you make the idea fit the mode? This is an art into itself. If the producer is looking for the writer to give him a one-line concept presentation – perhaps the writer should make his line a question?
A larger question. Something like this.
Writer: What if I told you something that nobody knows about?
Producer: There’s very little I don’t know about.
Writer: Okay, who landed on the moon?
Producer: The moon, we landed on the moon? I’m only kidding… the Americans did… everybody knows that. Tell me something I don’t know.
Writer: You’re wrong… the Russians did and the American’s lied about it.
Producer: Really…
Writer: …and if they lied about that, what else don’t you know?
Maybe that would be enough to peek the interest of the producer to get coverage on the script. Then again, maybe not. At least, the writer in my scenario tried to pull the producer in and then at least get a read. When you pitch you have got to create the mode of presentation that best fits the situation. You select the mode of presentation. Take control of the room. It’s your moment and you decide how it’s going to be played out – good or bad. That’s the pitch.
Now, on to the next mode of presentation – getting your adapted script read.
4
GETTING YOUR ADAPTED SCREENPLAY READ
Writing Great Characters in the First Ten Pages
THE NEXT MODE of presentation would be the reading of your script. You now are getting an initial “read.” Producer A, B or C says that they would love to read your script. That’s what they will tell you but do you actually believe they will read it? No, the script will be given to a reader for coverage and you hope they see what you see in the story. So now your life and your creation is now being entrusted to someone you haven’t even met. You might not even know the producer. But now it’s being entrusted to someone else – a third party. And they analyze it on a level that may not have anything to do with your creative idea. It (your idea) will be considered for budget. How many of you are doing period pieces?
(Audience – several hands are raised)
Okay, you can imagine the problem with period, is that it costs more money. You may write a brilliant script but it may get shot down simply because the company where you have submitted it may no want to do period pieces or high budgets. So you look at it and you say “Okay, I’m now presenting my work in a third person mode – in which that third person, I don’t know, is going to read and evaluate it.” That’s where the ten pages come in!
You have got to present the most compelling elements of your characters and story up front. Because they may only read part of it and then turn to the end of your script to see how many pages it is. Now, what does that mean? It means nothing or it means everything. If you write a script (in the proper format) for a feature length film and it’s 120 – 130 pages, you’re okay. If it’s 190, you’ve got a problem… Houston.
(Audience laughter)
Because they are judging you already and they know all the tricks a writer can use to make a longer script appear to be shorter. Smaller fonts, they know all that. You use standard font and hand them a 150-180 page script, it’s already got one strike against it. It communicates to the reader/producer that you are not familiar with the intended medium. That’s all it means. Then next thing they do is they look at your script and in those first ten pages they are making assumptions about the entire work. If the characters and story contained within the first ten pages are compelling then reason would dictate that the rest of the script is that way as well. It’s like when two people meet in a bar or restaurant, one asks, “Hey what do you do?” and the other says, “I dig ditches.” Then the first makes the
assumption “Not interesting... I’ll move on to someone else.”
(Audience laughter)
Reading a script is similar to when two people meet for the first time -- they are investing in the first ten minutes (pages)… and within those ten minutes they make a decision about the other person – whether they want to know more about them or not. In the case of your script, they do the same thing—they make assumptions right from the start and decide whether or not to go further. And that’s the way people are. It has nothing to do about being good or bad – they are all in hurry to have an answer. That’s what they are paid to do. Have an answer. It doesn’t mean, that they won’t absolutely read the rest of your script if they don’t like the beginning. They probably will and do. But you want to be at least at “zero” in the beginning. Zero is that absolute place where it all begins with no prejudice at all upon what you have written. But you don’t want to be a t below zero – that’s having someone reading your script feeling that it is a chore and that they would rather be doing something else. You want to be at least at zero or better when they start off believing your work has possibilities. This is good. This is good. You want them to keep reading and stead of saying to themselves (this sucks) and then skimming the rest to the end. If your best material is on page fifty-five –they may never truly get there. When that happens, you have lost.
I’m into simplicity. But I want the best (most compelling) parts first. Yesterday, we did an entire hour about starting your screenplay at the end. That was about starting your story at the most intense moment and then filling in the details through exposition. It’s a heightened sense of reality. Isn’t that what Alfred Hitchcock once said: “Drama is life… with the dull parts cut out.” The same applies to the development of your characters. Get to their high point right away – put a mongoose and a cobra face to face right at the start and then show us what can happen. Then give them the rest of the story as you go. Then at least the audience is with you; they are at the party, on the bus, on the train. Whatever analogy you want to use. And they will take the journey with you. Now remember, just because you have written compelling characters doesn’t mean it’s a sure thing.