Surprise

(Spoilers: Halloween, Aliens, Star Wars, Children of Men, The Hangover)

Last post I talked about suspense. This post I want to discuss what is in some ways the opposite side of the same coin: surprise.

Suspense builds tension through anticipation. The audience knows what could be coming and watches to see if the character can avoid it. With surprise the audience is caught completely off guard by the event. Surprise gives you a big bang in one moment of a scene where suspense gives you impact throughout the scene. Good movies tend to use both techniques to great effect.

The most obvious examples of surprise are when things jump out at the audience unexpectedly in a horror movie. It’s the old cliché…we think the killer’s dead, the character relaxes, and then BAM – Michael Myers jumps up from behind the couch in Halloween (screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill).

There’s a similar example in the opening scene from Children of Men (screenplay by Alfonso Cuaron & Timothy J. Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus & Hawk Otsby). A terrorist bomb goes off at a completely unexpected moment, causing the audience to jump out of their seat – and immediately engaging us with the story in a very visceral way.

Surprise isn't just used to startle or scare the audience. Remember the scene in The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore) where Alan walks into the bathroom, starts to urinate, then hears a growl? He looks over to see a tiger lounging on the bathroom floor. Surprising and hilarious.

Effective surprise often requires balancing two competing needs. Naturally, the audience must not see the event coming or it won’t be a surprise. However, the event must be believable or the audience won’t buy it – you’ll lose them instead of drawing them deeper into the story. So often you have to plant the surprise but distract the audience from both the plant and the surprise itself.

For example, there’s a great surprise moment at the end of Star Wars (written by George Lucas): Han Solo sweeps in from out of nowhere to blast some pesky tie fighters just before they can shoot down Luke’s X-wing in the Death Star trench. It’s surprising because we’ve been told Han Solo has left to pay off the price on his head. But we believe it because throughout the movie Han has been impulsive, and we’ve seen the growing bond of friendship and duty that has grown inside of him. We believe he’s the kind of guy who might change his mind and race back to help.

Another example I like is at the ending of Aliens (story by James Cameron and David Giler & Walter Hill, screenplay by James Cameron). We think Ripley and Bishop have made it safely back to their ship. Bishop apologizes for appearing to abandon Ripley and she assures him he did well. Then there’s a drip of acid…and suddenly an alien tail spikes through Bishop’s chest, tearing him in half. Mama Alien climbs out of the landing gear of the drop ship.

This is a more elegant version of “the killer’s not really dead.” It’s set up in an earlier scene when we see the drop ship’s landing gear get tangled in a bunch of debris on a platform near where we know the Mama Alien is lurking. At the time, we don’t think much of it, but it gives us a logical explanation for how the alien got where it was.

This moment also demonstrates another good surprise technique: preparation in opposition. The Mama Alien attack comes in the midst of a calm scene where two characters who have been fighting are making peace. The audience is lulled into relaxing, thinking the action is over. If Mama Alien had attacked when they were in the middle of an alien nest it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise.

Preparation in Opposition can also be used to heighten emotional impact. If a character is going to get bad news, deliver it in a scene where they’re exceptionally happy, and vice versa. This is why the cliché developed that whenever a cop is going to die he’s always two weeks from retirement.

Not every surprise requires preparation in opposition or a disguised plant, but they do need to be unexpected yet believable. There’s a screenwriting axiom: coincidence that works against your main character is okay, but coincidence that works in his favor is unacceptable.

Surprise is especially important in mystery, farce and horror. Those genres rely on unexpected twists and turns that keep the audience off balance. Good surprises puncture any sense the audience may have that they know what’s coming.

As long as you play by the rules surprise can make your scripts seem unpredictable in a good way.

Suspense

(Spoilers: The Hangover, Children of Men)

I have a secret screenwriting weapon. It’s called suspense. You’ve probably heard the old saying that drama is conflict. True, but I think it's equally true that drama is suspense.

Suspense draws the audience into the movie and builds tension, putting them on the edge of their seat. It creates an intense response that when done well will make people passionate about a script or movie. A good suspense scene will drive readers nuts – and they won’t even know why.

Let's start with defining what suspense is. Suspense is the anticipation of a potential impending disaster for a character we care about. Tension builds as the disaster approaches and the audience wonders whether the character will be able to avoid it or not. There’s a will-it-or-won’t-it-happen aspect to suspense scenes that distinguishes them from action scenes.

For some reason nobody outside of thriller writers really talks about suspense much. But all genres need suspense.

Can the hero make it to the wedding to stop his true love from marrying someone else? That’s suspense. And it’s a common scene in both romantic comedies and romantic dramas.

Remember the scene in The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore) when the guys have to get the tiger back to Mike Tyson’s mansion? That’s suspense. Good broad comedies are full of suspense scenes.

How about in The Matrix (written by Andy and Larry Wachowski) when Neo and company find they are trapped in a walled off building due to Cypher’s betrayal with agents closing in? They have to climb down inside the walls without being heard in order to escape. Suspense.

So how do we craft a good suspense scene?

As I mentioned, the key element of suspense is a potential impending disaster. This disaster must be clear to the audience and it must affect a character we care about. In the tiger scenes in The Hangover, the impending disaster is Mike Tyson beating the crap out of our loveable goofballs if they don’t get the tiger back to his place.

Now our characters set about attempting to avoid the disaster. We increase the suspense by throwing ever-greater obstacles in the characters’ path. As they overcome each one, a bigger one appears. We want a roller coaster effect – highs as well as lows. So the characters seem to get closer to their goal only to suddenly find themselves farther away.

In the scene in The Matrix our heroes cleverly climb into the wet wall to avoid detection. It appears they might make it out of the trap. But it's dusty in the wall. One character's foot slips, sending a cascade of dust into another's face. Which leads to a sneeze and the jig is up.

It’s important to take your time in a suspense scene. Usually in screenwriting we want to keep the pace up, keep the story rocketing forward. But you can’t get the audience to go from comfortably munching their popcorn to sitting on the edge of their seat, fingers dug into the armrests, in a few seconds. Tension needs time to build. However, tension doesn’t increase if the character is just kind of hanging out. The idea is to continually ratchet up the tension by gradual degrees as the scene progresses.

Another useful tool to build suspense is the “ticking clock” which I covered in my last post. The impending disaster doesn’t seem threatening unless it’s actually imminent. Put a time limit on your character to solve their problem. In The Hangover Mike Tyson doesn’t tell the buddies to bring the tiger back whenever they feel like it. He gives them a deadline. As that deadline approaches tension increases.

Let’s look at a good suspense scene in Children of Men (screenplay by Alfonso Cuaron & Timothy J. Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus & Hawk Otsby). Theo, Kee and Miriam are at a supposed safe house when in the middle of the night Theo overhears the resistance leaders planning to kill him in the morning and hold Kee for their own purposes. Theo finds Kee and Miriam and they try to sneak out of the house.

First, there is a ticking clock – it’s near dawn. They don’t have much time to escape unnoticed. Theo’s in such a hurry he doesn’t even stop to get shoes.

They sneak outside and look for a car with keys in it. They are almost discovered by guards (an obstacle). Theo disables one car and they get in another. But it won’t start (another obstacle). So he pushes it until it’s rolling down the hill. But this alerts the guards and the chase is on.

They reach the bottom of the hill and the car comes to a stop in a big mud puddle. Shoeless Theo has to get out and push so they can jump-start it. The first attempt fails as the bad guys are closing in. Finally they get the car started and escape just in the nick of time.

Notice how the tension in the scene builds to the final escape. There are ups and downs, but as the trio makes their way to freedom, the obstacles and the risk of capture increase. And that causes the tension in the audience to increase. When they finally escape we breathe a big sigh of relief.

(For another example of great suspense, read my post on a submarine scene form The Abyss.)

Note that it’s important to suspense that the audience know what’s going on. They have to see the disaster coming in order to be anxious about it. The opposite of that is surprise. Both are useful tools and particularly powerful when combined in a scene. I’ll talk more about surprise in my next post.

Ticking Clocks

(Very minor spoilers: Alien, Aliens, High Noon, Almost Famous, Notorious, Little Miss Sunshine, Silence of the Lambs.)

“Ticking Clock” is a screenwriting term that refers to some kind of time limit on a story arc. It can be used for a scene, a sequence or the whole movie. The most obvious (and fairly cliché) example is a bomb with a countdown timer on it. The hero has to defuse the bomb before that timer gets to zero!

We can see plenty of similar examples in a wide variety of movies:

In High Noon (screenplay by Carl Foreman) the ticking clock is in the title. The bad guys are coming to town at noon. As the sheriff tries to gather allies to help him face down the villains, we constantly cut to shots of the clock getting closer and closer to noon.

Throughout the third act in both Alien (story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, screenplay by Dan O’Bannon) and Aliens (story by James Cameron and David Giler & Walter Hill, screenplay by James Cameron) we hear a computerized voice reading a countdown to imminent destruction – in the first movie the self-destruct sequence of the ship, and in the second movie that nuclear detonation of the facility’s failing power plant.

In The Silence of the Lambs (screenplay by Ted Tally) we know that the serial killer keeps his victims alive for several days – thus when a new victim is kidnapped, Clarice suddenly has a time limit to solve the case.

In Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt) the family must get Olive to the beauty pageant before registration closes. As they get closer to that deadline, they get more and more desperate.

And that is the purpose of a ticking clock: to inject urgency and tension into the story or an individual scene. The ticking clock is related to the stakes. We know something good will happen if the character succeeds and something bad will happen if the character fails. A ticking clock gives the character a deadline to achieve success or failure.

Consider Almost Famous (written by Cameron Crowe). It is a coming of age story about young William going on tour with a rock band to write an article for Rolling Stone. Like many road movies it’s a bit episodic. But as the deadline for delivering the article approaches and William repeatedly fails to convince the lead guitarist to give him a crucial interview, the tension ratchets up. William can’t just go along enjoying the adventure – he has to get his article done!

A ticking clock needn’t be a literal clock, of course. The deadline doesn’t even have to be at a specific time. We just need to know that at some point the opportunity for the hero to succeed will come to an end, and we need some way to measure how close we are to that point. For example in Speed (written by Graham Yost) the ticking clock is the gas gauge on the bus running down toward empty.

There’s a very clever ticking clock in one scene in Notorious (written by Ben Hecht). The spy characters played by Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman have to get down to the wine cellar to look for a clue during a big party at the Nazi mansion. They’ve stolen a key to get access. But the champagne is running out. They have to do the job before the butler needs to go to the wine cellar for more champagne.

As Grant and Bergman make their way down to the cellar we keep cutting back to the ice bin filled with champagne bottles. Each time the number of bottles is getting smaller and smaller. The popping of champagne corks are like nails in our heroes’ coffins.

At first it seems like there is plenty of time. But then one obstacle after another interferes – a jealous husband, chatty guests, a broken bottle – and next thing we know the last champagne bottles are coming out of that bin and our heroes are still in harms way.

In this case we don’t have a specific time on the clock – like high noon – when the jig is up. Hitchcock is using intercutting to show us the window of opportunity slowly closing. This technique goes back to the days of silent film – the woman on the ice floe heading for the waterfall or the woman tied to the train tracks as the train approaches.

And imagine how much less exciting the scene would be if there was enough champagne in that bin to last the whole party.

Perhaps you've already realized that what we're talking about here is suspense. Ticking clocks are critical to building suspense. And I'll talk in more detail about suspense in my next post.

Does your story suffer from a lack of urgency? Try adding a ticking clock. Got a scene that lacks intensity? Ticking clock. It’s a powerful screenwriting tool.

Review of "Save the Cat" by Blake Snyder

One of the hottest screenwriting books of the last few years is Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. It came out in 2005 so I’m a little late getting around to reading it. (And unfortunately Mr. Snyder passed away recently.)

Snyder was a successful screenwriter (always a good sign when you’re looking for a how-to book). His genre was studio family comedy. And the book pretty much assumes, whether Snyder intended it or not, that you want to write something similar.

The book is billed as “The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need” which I think is a bit of an exaggeration. The biggest problem is that, like many “gurus,” Snyder thinks that his way is the only way. For example, he insists that you break your story out on index cards. That’s a common approach and I’ve done it for several scripts, but many professional screenwriters turn out perfectly good scripts without using index cards. However if you consider Snyder’s rules to be suggestions then I think you’ll find a lot of pretty useful ideas in there.

The book is an easy, thought provoking read. And I really like that it gives exercises at the end of each chapter. For a beginner you could do worse than working through the book.

The first three chapters are on honing your film’s concept and researching the genre. These chapters are excellent and too many books and classes breeze past these critical topics.

I’m less a fan of the sections on structure. Snyder introduces his own beat sheet that is pretty much a variation on the three-act theory (and he acknowledges Syd Field, the father of three act). I do like Snyder's addition of a few thematic beats.

The most significant difference I see is that he puts his “All is Lost” moment a sequence ahead of the “Break into Three.” Typically the end of Act II is the moment of the character’s biggest failing. But Snyder has that be the moment the character figures out how to overcome the obstacle. Act III is about putting the plan into action.

I’m always open to new ideas on structure but I don’t think this one really holds up. Once the character knows how to defeat the bad guy it seems like Act III will get pretty perfunctory. You can do a lot of spectacular showdown stuff but we’re talking about a quarter of the movie here. How do you keep it interesting once the main character has found his solution? Moreover in all my years of analyzing movies I’ve rarely seen actual films play out this way.

One spot that annoyed me was Snyder using Miss Congeniality (a film in his chosen genre, I noted) as proof that his system is superior…and using Memento as an example of where varying from it fails. I think this argument is worth a little digression.

The first problem with Snyder’s claim is that he’s comparing apples and oranges. He uses boxoffice gross to assert that Miss Congeniality is more successful. While it’s true that Miss Congeniality grossed $106 million to Memento’s $25 million, it also cost $45 million versus $9 million. And I’m sure the advertising budget on Miss Congeniality was a lot higher, too. Any businessman knows gross does not equal success. “Return on Investment” is the far better metric. And Memento’s Return on Investment crushes Miss Congeniality’s.

I'd also take exception to the idea that financial success means the audience liked the movie better. Miss Congeniality was a big studio movie with a major star while Memento was a small indie film with a lesser known - though respected - actor in the lead. I bet a lot of the people who went to Miss Congeniality hadn't even heard of Memento. For a little indie film to do $25 million means that word of mouth had to be fantastic.

The second big issue is that Memento actually follows Snyder’s fifteen beat structure! Some of the beats come a few pages later, but the script is also 119 pages long and Snyder’s page numbers are based on 110 page script. (And the "All is Lost" comes even later, but I’ve already pointed out my quibble with his page count on that one.) Check it out:

1) Opening Image – The slowly fading Polaroid image of the dead body.

2) Theme Stated – (On p.3 instead of Snyder’s preferred p. 5) “You don’t know me. You don’t even know who you are.” The theme of Memento is about how we know anything for certain and how memory is unreliable yet all we have.

3) Set-Up (pp. 1-10) – We learn about Leonard’s condition and that he’s seeking revenge for his wife’s murder.

4) Catalyst – (on p. 15 compared to Snyder’s preferred p. 12) Leonard discovers Teddy is John G., the man who raped and murdered his wife. Writes “Kill Him” on the back of the photo.

5) Debate (p. 12-25) – Leonard discusses with Natalie why he’s doing what he’s doing and why he’s sure he’s right.

6) Break into Two – (p. 29 instead of 25) Teddy suggests someone is trying to get Leonard to kill the wrong guy.

7) B-Story – (p. 32 instead of p. 30) we get Leonard waking up next to Natalie. Hello B-story!

8) Fun and Games (p. 30-55) Playing with the implications of Leonard’s condition – he finds Dodd in the closet; he realizes he’s running but doesn’t know why.

9) Midpoint – (p. 56 instead of 55) Leonard burns his wife’s stuff.

10) Bad Guys Close In (p. 55-75) – Teddy and Natalie are clearly not being straight with him, each trying to get him to do what they want.

11) All is Lost – On p. 79 Natalie tricks Leonard, saying “I’m gonna use you.”

12) Dark Night of the Soul – (pp. 79 - 95 instead of 75-85) – We see how Natalie sets Leonard up, shows how easy it is to exploit him in his condition, that he can’t rely on his “facts” after all.

13) Break into Three – (p. 96 instead of 85 using Snyder’s definition of Act Three) Leonard Tattoos license number on his leg – the clue that will lead him to Teddy.

14) Finale – We learn that Teddy had been using Leonard and Leonard sets things up so he will end up killing Teddy.

15) Final Image – Leonard arriving at Tattoo parlor to tattoo false fact on himself.

Sorry Blake, I think your argument against Memento is specious. However, this does show the validity of Blake’s beat sheet (with the Act III exception)…if you keep a bit of an open mind about how you can use them.

It’s in chapter six that the book really shines – and Snyder even admits it’s this chapter that motivated him to write the book. It’s also where the title comes from. “Save the Cat” is one of several screenwriting tricks Snyder describes. I’ve heard of most of them (often by different names) but rarely seen them written down. Kudos to Snyder for spelling them out in a book!

Chapter seven is a fair guide to rewriting. Chapter eight is about breaking into the business and is a little dated considering the major changes that have happened in the last couple years.

Overall I’d say Save the Cat is a great addition to your screenwriting book collection for the sections on prepping your script and chapter six. But I wouldn’t say it’s either the first or last screenwriting book you’ll ever need.

What Have I Got to Lose?

(Spoilers: Almost Famous)

We often talk about “raising the stakes” in a movie. By which we mean increasing what’s at stake for the character in the story. There can and should be both positive and negative stakes. I phrase this as “hope and fear.” What is the audience hoping will happen? What do they fear might happen?

Sometimes I’ll see a story where there’s only positive stakes. The character wants to win the race or get the pretty girl to go out with him. The reasons are fairly obvious. But what happens if they fail? If failure simply means they move on to the next race or the next girl then there really isn’t that much at stake is there?

It’s important to create a significant penalty for failure in your story. Paint the picture for the audience – if this doesn’t work out for the character what will their life be like? It should be a pretty bleak future.

Sometimes that’s easy. In Die Hard (screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza) if John McClane fails to stop the terrorists people die (and the stakes are raised because one of those people is his wife). No problem there. But not every premise has such clear-cut dangers built in.

One of my favorite movies is Almost Famous (written by Cameron Crowe). The hero, William, wants to be a rock and roll journalist. As a high school student he gets a fantastic opportunity to write a piece for Rolling Stone – the biggest rock magazine there is. And those stakes are raised when he’s told they’re considering the story for the cover.

Great, those are high positive stakes: if William can get the story he will achieve his dream.

But what if he doesn’t get the story? If he simply feels bad for a few hours and then starts right in on the next big magazine assignment then the movie wouldn’t feel urgent or important.

So in Almost Famous we’re led to believe that failure to get the story means William will never become a rock journalist. The world of rock journalism is pretty small, after all, and this is portrayed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. One way or another this story will give him a reputation. Moreover, his mother does not really support his dream. She’s giving him this chance but when it’s over she expects him to go off to college and pursue a normal career.

In short, this is a test. Does William have what it takes to be a real journalist? The answer will determine the direction of his life. A negative answer may mean abandoning his dreams forever.

That’s quite a lot to lose!

Usually the place to look to create negative stakes is in your character conception. If William were a grizzled, long time rock journalist pursuing his fifteenth Rolling Stone cover story then the movie wouldn’t be that interesting. It’s crucial that he’s a young high school kid desperate for a break. That what makes the story a life changing opportunity instead of just another gig.

(There’s a saying in the film business: your story should be about the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to the character. Because you’re probably only going to get to tell one story about this character so why would you tell the second most interesting story? And since Almost Famous is loosely auto-biographical, I would bet it was based on the most interesting thing that had happened to Cameron Crowe up to that point.)

Related to negative stakes is the need to trap your character in the story. If the character can just walk away when things get tough then the story doesn’t seem all that important.

In Almost Famous William is going on tour with a band and is expected to deliver a feature article to Rolling Stone by a certain deadline. If he walks away you can bet there won’t be any more offers to write for Rolling Stone. When he accepts the assignment he’s locked into the journey. Success or failure will come one way or another.

Sometimes people refer to the end of Act I as the “point of no return.” That act break is when the character commits fully to the story. And often this also means accepting negative consequences to failure.

In Almost Famous William gets a small assignment to write a concert review for Cream in the middle of Act I. But it’s an entry-level gig. The kind of opportunity that will come around again. When he accepts the assignment for Rolling Stone at the end of Act I he’s putting himself in a make-it or break-it situation for his career.

And we fear what will happen if William can’t deliver.

Hope and fear are what make the audience engage with the story. So yes, raise the stakes. Just make sure the consequences of failure are as significant as those of success.

Scenes of Preparation and Aftermath

(SPOILERS: Silence of the Lambs, Aliens, The Godfather)

The big set piece* scenes in a movie are the ones we remember. But those scenes don’t always stand up on their own. Two critical types of less noticed scenes are scenes of preparation and aftermath. These are the scenes that surround those set pieces and give them context.

One of the most important purposes of scenes of preparation and aftermath is to allow us to check in with the characters’ emotional states. During the big scenes we’re often caught up in the major plot developments. It’s before and after those scenes that we see how those developments affect our characters.

Consider the movie Aliens (story by James Cameron and David Giler & Walter Hill, screenplay by James Cameron).

We get a scene of preparation on the space ship before Ripley and the marines land on the planet. Ripley is briefing the marines on what she knows about the alien life forms. Ripley is clearly anxious and scared of the aliens. The marines are unconcerned, however. One of them says she only needs to know one thing: “where they are” and them makes a shooting motion with her finger. At that point Ripley tries without success to convince the marines of the impending danger.

About halfway through the movie we get a scene of aftermath following the marines’ first, mostly unsuccessful encounter with the aliens. The characters’ attitudes are reversed. The surviving marines are freaked out, not sure what to do next. But Ripley’s been in this situation before. She begins to take charge.

These scenes set up the characters’ expectations leading into the action and then show us the impact the action had on their lives. That in turn helps the audience stay emotionally involved in the story.

Another example of this can be found in Silence of the Lambs (screenplay by Ted Tally) after Clarice first visits Hannibal Lechter in jail. During the visit she’s careful to keep her emotions hidden. But when she comes out she weeps as she heads to her car. In this aftermath scene we see that despite her careful control, Lechter has indeed gotten to her.

Another important use of scenes of preparation is to provide the audience with the information we need to appreciate the bigger set piece. Scenes of preparation allow us to plant things that can be paid off in the later scene. They show us the characters’ plans so we understand when those plans go awry. (This last is particularly important for capers such as robberies, escapes, spy infiltrations, etc.)

Often scenes of aftermath become scenes of preparation for the next event. This happens in the scene from Aliens after the marines are decimated. Once they come to terms with their failure they start to make new plans: to take off and bomb the site from orbit. Of course if you’ve seen the movie you know those plans don’t work out so well either.

Let’s look at another example from The Godfather (screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola). There are a couple scenes of preparation before the big set piece where Michael kills the rival Mafioso in retaliation for the attempt on his father’s life. First, we see one of the Corleone hit men giving Michael a gun and explaining how the hit will go down. He makes a particular point of describing how to drop the gun after the killing.

That’s followed by a second scene of preparation where the family waits for a call that will give them the location of the meeting between Michael and the rival Mafioso. After they get it, they decide where the gun will be planted for Michael – behind a toilet. Again, Michael is given careful instructions on how to behave to avoid suspicion until he can retrieve the gun.

These two scenes serve several purposes. First, they tell us that Michael is not an expert hit man. This is going to be a dangerous mission and he is inexperienced. Second, they tell us the plan so we can judge how well Michael’s doing as it unfolds. The point about dropping the gun is paid off when Michael forgets to do it until he’s halfway out of the restaurant. Finally, the scenes of preparation give us basic information we need to understand the set piece such as the fact the gun will be hidden behind the toilet. Then when we get to the tense set piece there is no need to try to wedge in exposition on the fly.

It isn’t always obvious in a script when you need scenes of preparation and aftermath. As I’m outlining I identify the major set pieces in my story and ask myself if I’m going to need to set up any information and if I’m giving the audience an opportunity to adequately track the character’s emotions. That helps me find the places I need scenes of preparation or aftermath.

*A “set piece” is a big scene that pays of the genre of the movie – the scary scenes in a horror movie, the big action scenes in an action movie, the funniest comedic pieces in a comedy.

Staying Abreast of the Business

Wouldn’t it be nice if being a professional screenwriter was just about writing the best scripts you possibly can? Unfortunately, being a professional means you have a job within an industry. To be successful it’s important to understand the business elements of screenwriting. It’s also somewhat important to be aware of what’s going on in the industry at large. That’s the topic of today’s post.

How much do you need to be aware of the industry? It would be easy to spend several hours a day reading the trades and various blogs and websites devoted to the business. That’s obviously overkill. But being a screenwriter in this day and age means operating an entrepreneurial company that provides writing services to various conglomerates. As the person in charge of your company you should have a general idea of what’s going on in your industry.

The trade papers – Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter – are the news services the industry looks to. Like many daily papers, they are struggling. As I write this, The Hollywood Reporter is considering becoming a weekly in print. Both papers are also available on the web. Variety, rumor has it, will soon be charging for their previously free web content.

If you're serious about being a pro it’s probably worth getting one of the trades. Online or in print doesn’t really matter, though it sounds like the age of print is coming to an end so soon we may not have the choice. (I’ll miss it – I like to read the trades while using the cross-trainer). A word of warning - subscribing in print is pretty expensive.

You don’t need to read both, but regularly skimming one of the trades will keep you apprised of all the trends in the business. You only need to actually read the articles that have some relevance to you – such as those about script sales or lit agency mergers or which TV shows’ ratings are hot and which are not (if you want to write for TV).

Be aware, though, that the trades are largely supported by ad dollars from the studios. They’re notoriously biased in that regard. They tend not to say anything overtly negative about the hands that feed them. So sometimes you have to read between the lines.

There are a couple other good sources of Hollywood information. Nikki Fink’s blog (http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/) has become probably the top industry blog since the writer’s strike and focuses on what’s happening in the business. I also like Patrick Goldstein’s blog/column “The Big Picture” in the L.A. Times (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/)

There are two useful pay websites for writers. The first is the Hollywood Creative Directory Online (http://www.hcdonline.com/), which is a little expensive. It lists contact information and staff for every Hollywood production company, studio and agency. It’s also available in print, but with the speed at which people change jobs in this business, the info gets out of date fast.

The second is Done Deal (http://www.donedealpro.com/), which is not very expensive. It lists all script sales and writer deals. That’s probably the most important info for a writer to track. You don’t want to embark on a spec with the same story as one that just sold.

It’s also pretty useful to subscribe to imdb pro. The free site provides a lot of info, but when you need to know what an executive’s credits are or who to contact at a certain company you’ll want the paid pro version.

How many of these sources you want to follow, along with blogs like this one on the more creative aspects of the industry, are somewhat dependent on your interests and where you are in your career. But it’s important that you are at least aware of major events and trends in the business. Just make sure you don’t spend so much time reading that you forget to write!