Essential Screenwriting Craft

You've been thinking about a film script forever, it seems. You've even written some scenes, but, darn it, you keep getting stuck. Life takes over and leads you away from that dream. It seemed so easy in your head to see a full movie, but now that you want to put it on paper...argh! What a mess!

EVERY SCREENWRITER GOES THROUGH THIS AT SOME POINT.

Screenwriting is a craft first and an art form second. It is a business venture. When you are in business, you learn skills that will support your business. This means you can learn the bits and pieces that you need to know, and you can practice the craft until you become its master. You want to become a master crafts person so that you can succeed. Once you are a master crafts person, then your work is so indelible and unique, it becomes art.

I have been teaching screenwriting for more than half a decade. I have seen it all. The big resistance I get almost every single class is the idea that "formula" is a bad thing. "Damned rules! I became a writer so I don't have to follow rules!" Ehscoose mi? sense win deed righting stup folouching roools? The "formula" behind a screenplay is so ancient that it precedes celluloid. The fact is that we start training in it beginning with the first fairy tale we see performed by puppets. It is ingrained in our expectations of every genre that certain milestones happen when we watch a story unfold. The rules allow us to participate as an audience, and to experience catharsis. As a writer, you want to move people, right?  All, I am doing is cluing you into the hidden structure beneath every successful story you have ever seen.

My class is chock full of insight and technique, and will make your brain explode with helpful lessons. I am not just saying that. I've seen the light bulbs turn on in front of me in the bright-eyed and renewed enthusiasm of my students. I love teaching this information, and I want nothing more than for my students to be wildly successful screenwriters.
I mark that success in many ways:

• You get out of your head and onto the page
• You understand the hidden structure of film writing
• You are more excited to share your story
• You have a holistic, beginning-middle-end plan for writing your script
• You are ready for the next step

There are a few spaces left in my screenwriting class that starts Monday. Go to the Events for Screenwriters tab and click on it to sign up! See you there.

Beginning again....at the end

Writing movies is a sometimes harsh and mystifying process, and why would you do that to yourself if you didn't want to see your script actually become a film? Yet, it seems as IMPOSSIBLE to get from here to there, as it does to write the story down. As with the story itself, there's a beginning, middle and end to breaking into an industry that thrives on nepotism, and insider information.

The problem is that writers are often so daunted by learning how to write a screenplay that they cannot see the forest for the trees. Just like any hero, the vague feeling that they've gotten themselves into a pickle only happens when they've actually committed themselves to the process. It comes as a total surprise, for instance, that making movies is a BUSINESS proposition. It's not only about making a beautiful, entertaining story into a charming film that is highfalutin' and award-winning. In fact, the real reason for wanting to win awards has nothing to do with art at all. It has to do with distribution, sales propositions, and ROI.

Argh! What's a creative writer to do? Think about it to begin with! Take a moment to consider your personal end-game before you start. Who will your audience be? Is your audience actually going to the movies regularly??? Maybe your audience is more likely to watch a TV movie? Maybe your audience is more likely to watch free YouTube clips? Don't be afraid to look at films in similar genres that have been successful. Take what's been done as nourishment rather than as competition. Take what's been done and twist it into something new.

Here's an example: If you know your story is about a 45-year old woman and it is not riddled with sex and violence, then it is unlikely to be able to stand alone as a film business proposition. That doesn't mean you don't write it. That means that you work the story and build an audience as you go. Write your outline and look at what you've got. If you like the story, and you feel it could be award-winning, then write a novel first and ePublish it. Send that novel out to everyone you know who will like it and ask them to read it and recommend it. Get it reviewed on Goodreads and Amazon. Build the audience whilst you are developing that screenplay. Or write it as a play, and get it produced and reviewed, and take it to Broadway. When you've got the attention of an audience, then send that screenplay query letter to an agent and include your numbers. That will get you some attention.

It's not that Hollywood doesn't want to make movies about 45-year old women in crisis. It is that they want to make movies that have a likely return on investment. It's that simple. If you're going to be a screenwriter, you have to think of the business end of things right from the beginning.

Writing is not merely about "art," it's about a willingness to work really hard. So, what's your end-game and how are you going to make that happen?

Give up the Obvious

I have spent the last several months exploring all kinds of interesting options for screenwriters and filmmakers.

Starting with a broad idea that SOMETHING has to give in the world of movie making and movie distribution to bring the audience back, I have been interviewing people in different disciplines in the industry and related industries to get a handle on what the thinking is today, and what the possiblissities are tomorrow. My beef is that spending $100 on a mediocre experience is not something I want to repeat over and over again just because I think I love the movies. The number of times I have left a cinema thinking, "Wow, that was just not worth that much money," are countless and embarrassing. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice or maybe 30x and shame on me. You know?

In a world where technology drips from the rooftops like a rainy day, going to old-time, linear, flat screen experiences with no interaction are just...boring. I am a huge HUGE believer in story. But, the STORIES ARE BORING and redundant to the point of having always two movies out that seem to have the same story (i.e. "No Strings Attached" and "Friends with Benefits"). The presentation is BORING. The theaters are BORING. Yeah. 3-D worked for about a minute.

People in Hollywood! What are you thinking?

Well, I suspect the economy has been used as an excuse for lack of vision by more executives than just President Obama. It's like we've been playing a game of "freeze tag" and they didn't get the message that they can move. So, I'm saying they're out of the game for a while.

But, I have observed some movement on television that I find intriguing. They have those silly scan squares now popping up here and there, Jon Stewart, CBS shows, and I've followed a few of them with some curiosity. So far, nothing to write home about, but it gives me hope that there may be a shift happening. What Hollywood is missing is this very simple thing: the AUDIENCE can be as entertaining as the show.

I interviewed a lovely guy who has worked with a large cable network as a strategic development Senior VP person with visionary ideas. It seems that Hollywood wasn't quite ready to jump on board, and that is a shame because he had some very cool projects in the tube of development. In the end he ended up deciding to pursue the more avante guard world of film festivals where new experiences can be tested with less risk, and a more devoted audience. He told me that in the UK there is a preview show at some theaters where the audience in three different theaters "drive" race cars via motion control cameras in the theater. The three theatres each have their own vehicle, and one of them "wins" the race because the audience caught on to how to move to manipulate their assigned car. Then the winning theatre gets a concession coupon texted to their smart phones. Cool, huh? Ah the possiblissities!

I've interviewed web designers, app designers and programmers of all sorts to see how this magnificent idea engine of the internet and smartphones can be integrated into a cinematic experience. It turns out that it isn't really that hard to imagine accomplishing it in a short time. OMG.  All I have to do is raise about $35- $55,000 to develop some kind of interactive app that we could be enjoying in a year or so with some brave Hollywood and Cinema Distribution people on board.  Somebody give me the money!

To this end...and to other ends...I am experimenting and hoping to raise funds for another creative project that has been near and dear to my heart for a long time. It may seem to have nothing to do with film, however, give up the obvious on this one folks. I love Tarot. I'm not the only screenwriter and screenwriting instructor who does -- John Truby has a whole development program using Tarot on his website. I could wax poetic about how they're linked in story, in character, in the way symbolism and allegory communicates, but that would miss the real point. The point is I am raising funds for a creative project to write and illustrate about Tarot on Kickstarter called The Kosmic Egg Tarot Project and the thing is that I really want to finish this piece of work as much as I want to do all of the other creative projects I have up my sleeve. I need financial support to start getting my ideas out into the world where you all can experience them! This is my first foray into the world of Kickstarter, but if it works, I promise you that I will be bringing an experimental cinema experience project before you within the next  6-12 months. Ah the possiblissities!

Kosmic Egg: Ah, the Possiblissities™!

Kosmic Egg: Ah, the Possiblissities™!: "It's my perfect word of the moment: possiblissity, and it conjugates, too, possiblissible, possibliss. It's possibliss. You may not have kno..."

Bringing the Audience: Why Hollywood is Addicted to Adaptation

Heavy sigh. Another book or two bites the dust at the movies, and still Hollywood insists on adapting books, GREAT BOOKS into movies. You know what I think. I think that they are simply terrified to make original movies anymore because it rarely pays off. Why is that? Because original movies don’t have audience. Well, original movies by new artists don’t have audience. Original movies by the old guard, Spielberg, Nichols, Brooks, Scorsese and Copola still have audience, but even that is not a sure thing. Tarantino sort of kind of has audience. Rodriguez kind of sort of has audience. Uhmmm. Spike Lee anywhere to be found?

Who are the original new artists getting funding for their films anymore? If you go to the influential group “New Directors/New Films” http://newdirectors.org/ for their top 40 film presentations, you’ll see lots of familiar names at the beginning of the list starting about 1980, but as the list becomes more recent the last filmmaker who has continued making films that have audience is Christopher Nolan, 1998. Uhmmmm. So the ones that follow, besides the brilliant filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, who made “Pi,” I have never heard of since. Since 1998.  The films post 1998 are sparse. Why is that? No audience.

What happened in 1998 to take the audience away from the movie theater? Hmmmm. Well, I for one have a perfectly good excuse: I had two babies. Surely though there must have been something else going on besides all the moviegoers my age staying home from the movie theater to watch videos at home on their big television screens. Home video burst onto the scene in the 1980s in a big way with VHS surging ahead of Beta in this country. When I worked on The STAR TREK Fact Files I had an entire room with wall-to-wall shelving to accommodate every single STAR TREK episode and movie on video for quick replay. I was actually dreading the advent of shows after the third season of ST: VOYAGER because I didn’t know where I’d put the dang video tapes. Video tapes meant for me that I could work at home with my baby in her swing, but that was work. What it meant for the audience was that a person could be reasonably entertained without going out.

A friend gently pointed out to me that losing movie theaters is not like losing the banks on Wall Street. They are not too big to fail. They can be shown the door from the entertainment industry, but I will tell you that until the dust settles from their demolition, Hollywood is not funding new, untried, high-risk ventures often, if at all, because the business model does not yet exist.  The audience is shrinking from first run releases. The first run release success is how second run success is predicted. Straight-to-video films have generally not done well at finding their audience. Therefore, what we will see is films that come from someone or some creation that already has audience.

That means we’re going to see adaptations of popular, well-loved books, even when they NEVER really work.  We’ll see films based on other franchises like SNL, or any given science fiction show, ahem, and don’t be surprised if they try to figure out how to make movies about Real Life Housewives, American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance. It is not to insult the audience’s intelligence. Really it isn’t. It is trying to guarantee an audience will fill the theater. I mean they make successful first run weekend movie releases on movies based on theme park rides, and board games for shitsake just because we want to see how they try to pull it off. We are into gimmicks like 3D and IMAX. The age of the sequel is so deeply ingrained that there are now Academy Awards going for THIRD sequel releases. Thank goodness, for comic books because with their audience and from their very conception as essentially storyboards, they make pretty good movies. All of this is simply to guarantee an audience (YOU) will come into the theater, and buy licensed products like apps and games. It comes down to this fact: Audience = Money. Money equals a return on investment.

Collaboration: It’s Not All about Me

Here’s a real screenwriting bloggety-blog for those of you still committed to seeing your work played out by the great actors of our time on the big screen….

Writers have to be somewhat egotistical to pull off anything. We have to believe that our story has some importance, some meaning, in order to slog through the work it takes to produce it as a script, a poem or a story of any sort. Honestly, the merit of writing a tale that is meaningful to others is our craving. Defending our point of view becomes a major part of the work of writing, of each story, and yet it is only when we become as confident of our point of view, as a ballerina is confident of her pirouette, that the writing begins to shine on its own and attract an audience.

In screenwriting, and perhaps playwriting, the moment we are confident of our point of view, we begin to understand that our writing is part of a collaboration of points of view. Wait. What? Yes, I am saying that just when you think you’re done, the real work of a screenwriter begins. We’ve developed our writing skills necessarily, up to this point, to work independently, but that’s not all. There is more. Upon reaching a success plateau, say having your script optioned, or getting ready to make a short video with a group of like-minded souls, you are now volunteering to let others into your work circle and actually welcome their additional points of view, and if you're lucky you've been paid to let go of the reigns.  They’ve chosen your script because it struck them as “true” at some level, but now they have opinions about it as well. You go from being confident that your screenplay is perfect as it is, to being asked to consider the necessity of change (locations, for instance) or improvements (i.e.; stronger villains).  Screenwriters do sometimes whine about being left out of the process, once their work is in the development process.  Everyone wants to make a mark on the writer’s former territory, and it can be heart-wrenching to the unprepared.

Most of the working world works in collaboration with others, but writers often believe that they have sole ownership of their efforts. Most likely, they became writers because they have a tolerance for working alone that many do not share. I know that was true for me, but I also know from experience that screenwriting is different. Whether you start alone and then join a team of producers, actors and crew, or you start with a writing partner or even a team, when you type the words, “the end” on your script, a new level of work begins.

You may see this as an argument to be loosey-goosey with your point of view, to be a panderer to anyone who will give you money for your work, but let me be clear: NO! No that is not what I’m arguing for in the least. If anything, I will argue that you must carefully build up a confidence in your point of view before you will be ready to open up to other people’s perspectives with any grace at all. Additionally, only when you have begun writing your own take on a story will it have the cohesiveness it must have to attract others to want to collaborate and bring it to the screen. Why? Because a director or producer or agent will sense the weakness of a premise without a point of view, and will know that a writer submitting such mumbo-jumbo is not ready for the rough and tumble world of collaboration.

Collaboration is THE process of filmmaking. Imagine an architect with the hubris to believe that the grand temple he has designed will be built with his own hands. Um, it has to be a very little building, or maybe the ONLY building he will build in a lifetime then. If you are a writer who wants sole ownership, then consider that screenwriting may not be where you want to focus your storytelling gifts. If you can imagine how the dynamic of teamwork will enhance your work, then you are in the right place.

There are tried and true methods for building strong teams, and, unless you also want to become a director, you don’t really have to pay attention to all of them. In fact, a production team is most often an organic expansion of talented people who more or less share a point of view. Famous writer/directors like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese have worked with a tight knit group of talent for decades. That said; there are things you can work on as a writer to ready yourself for the collaborative process:

• Story confidence building. Being confident of your story, knowing it inside and out is the first step towards being ready to work collaboratively. You must be ready to answer any question and defend any story point throughout your script. This is not about bullshitting. This is about knowing your material inside and out.
• Prepare yourself to compromise. I have a screenwriting friend, who had set a scene in a grocery store, but the production company couldn’t get a grocery store to agree to be the location, and so she had to rewrite the scene for a hardware store. These kinds of things have happened everyday in filmmaking since the golden age. Flexibility is a great asset any screenwriter can bring to the table.
• Don’t take it personally. When you’ve worked on a script for a year or sometimes more, remembering that it isn’t just yours is difficult to say the least. Is it possible that you’ll be working with insensitive, egotistical people in Hollywood? Are you kidding? Make like a duck in a rainstorm and let it roll off your back, as my wise grandmother would say.
• Keep your eye on the prize of a whole career of writing screenplays rather than investing all of your creative self-belief in one project. At the beginning of your career, accept you are on a learning curve. As your films find an audience, you’ll know more and more how to handle “the development process.”
• Use your skills! You’re a writer! Keep notes of why those changes were made and when. Write out reasons for defending your preferences before exploding on the scene with demands and defenses, shooting from the hip of emotion. Use your skills to work out the best choices, and when you can’t find a meeting place realize that sometimes compromises are not win-win, but you can live and write another day if you can work with others and do your best.
• Combine survival and celebration. Enjoy each step of the experience of seeing your idea come to life with others help. Enjoy the additions that enhance your idea and the scramble to get it all done. Enjoy the changes you disagree with for what they are: a learning experience.

I will say that the learning experience is sometimes hard and not apparently enjoyable for many writers. I have seen some writers spin themselves into addictions and worse because they were asked to give up something they didn’t want to give up. Unfortunately, I have not seen these writers’ work back up on the silver screen since. That’s the truth. Collaboration is not about one person, and making movies is all about collaboration.

Empower yourself

The truth is that working in Hollywood is hard! There are endless meetings, and long hours, and lots of reading, not to mention the driving. Endless drama marks the day and it isn't all entertaining. So what are those who have found their fate lies behind a desk in Hollywood to do with the submission of some 50K ideas in any given year? How in the world does the cream rise to the top? How can they bring to order the mass chaos that lands in their in-box every single day?

Agents, the gatekeepers of Hollywood, run the first line of defense against the onslaught. They say, "No, thanks," a lot. Why? Writers want to understand why this elite group of arbiters hasn’t chosen them. I'll tell you the bottom line reason: it is because the writers make it easy to say, "No, thanks." How can that be? They've written the script of their lives, how can this make it easy for an agent to say...? How? I could take the easy way out, lie to you, and say it is all just numbers. They reach their limit. However, that isn't really the how. The how of "it's easy," is that the script is not the only thing that you need to bring to an agent to make it with them or anyone else in Hollywood. The amazing truth is that the script is barely a business card in magnitude as an introduction to Hollywood. It may be the biggest effort of a writer's life, but its impact on the future of a screenwriter is initially negligible. What? Yes, there is a "what" that the writer should be bringing to an agent, producer, manager or anyone else who has the power to say, "Yes!" to them besides a single script. The most important thing you bring to a person in power in Hollywood was never just a story in script format.

It took me years to understand this folks, and the "what" is directly related to "point of view" that I've brought up before on this blog, but it isn't just your point of view. No. There's even more besides a story and a point of view. To get there you really have to invest in your own point of view and I want you to understand why it is so important to have that point of view. Many schools will tell you that you must find a "niche" while at the same time being broad in your strokes and enlisting the lowest common denominator to support your work. This is mumbo-jumbo, folks. It means NOTHING. What you have to do is find your point of view and develop it so that it is indelible, so that it is Teflon. Your point of view is what the people who eventually come to see your screenplay made into film want to know about. Your point of view challenges a film goer, television viewer. Your point of view makes the story that has been told a million and a half times unique in its detail and expression. Because your point of view will find the "what" that you must bring to the table in Hollywood, and that "what" is AUDIENCE.

Why it is so hard to find someone to read and represent our scripts is that we make it easy for agents and producers to say, “No, thanks.”  How we writers make it easy for agents and producers to say, “No, thanks,” is by expecting our stories to be the only thing they are looking for in a client. What is lacking is a clear audience for our point of view. Where do we get that audience? The “where” is known as “credits” in Hollywood, but it is really “credentials” as well.  Our credentials prove that we have followers already and that there is a foundation of work to build upon.

Palm hits forehead. We’re supposed to come to Hollywood with an audience already loyal to our work? Yes. It doesn’t have to be a huge audience (though that is certainly helpful), but we have to show that we have been committed to using our talents out in the world for a good period of time. Whether we just left film graduate school with a school award and a film under our belt, or we have made a hobby of entering our spec scripts into screenplay contests and finally winning one or two of them, these accomplishments show that we are committed to sharing our point of view with an audience.  Right now, there are amazing opportunities to build audience with tools that have never been available before. There are websites dedicated to opening up awareness of your work. There are video sites where you can upload your short films. There are workshops and classes you can take. You can blog about film…grin. In short, there is no excuse left to wait until you are “discovered.” Empower yourself today and tomorrow Hollywood might just come knocking on your door.

Introduction To Screenwriting Class

Next week I teach Introduction To Screenwriting. It used to be that I kept it simply to the subject of learning how to write a screenplay, but frankly, I believe that is an unfair scenario to launch any writer into with the starry-eyed gaze of hope.  If you want to be a writer, you have to start somewhere. This much is true. However, of all writing venues screenwriting is perhaps the most unforgiving.

I’ve talked about the odds here: 55,000 story ideas, 400 chosen. Pretty sad. Then take it even further. There are 400 film schools in the world just about. Therefore, if just one student who has practiced this craft for 3-4 years makes it, that cuts out all the hobby screenwriters who are just learning the craft. Screenwriting is a professional choice, and not a good hobby. It takes a year to develop a good feature-length screenplay for the most professional writers, working about 10 hours a week. They generally work on several projects at once. There are methods. There is a structure to learn. There are those scenes that need truer vision, and dialogue that must be trim and support the action.

Learning how to write a screenplay could very well be helpful for writing any other kind of story because at its best it is dynamic, structured, active and tidy. A novel, poetry, and even proposals for business would be helped by understanding screenwriting. There is no doubt to me about that. Screenwriting is specific in its demands, and yet the best screenplays are unique and revealing. The heart of a great screenplay is a point of view that stays truthful. This is what makes a screenplay transcend the “formulaic” trap screenplays can fall into, and sometimes this means honing a story down to the simplest of themes.

The way a ballerina makes dance look easy, a screenwriter makes writing look easy. It doesn’t mean that there haven’t been years of practice behind the work. The rule of thumb is that most screenwriters don’t get this on their first, second or even third try. It can take up to ten speculative screenplays before a writer finds the screenwriting groove. When you taste it, you’ll realize that all the crap you were writing before was just crap. I don’t know any other way of putting it kindly. The iconic literary agent I once worked for put it this way to me, “Don’t worry about it, Amanda, the cream always rises to the top.”

So, if you’re going to take my class, realize that Hollywood is fat because it only takes cream. If you’re going for that dream, it will take hard work, and lots and lots of planning, and practice runs. That’s just the way it is and will continue to be for the near future. However, that said, I do believe that we are entering a new era. At the beginning of new eras there are opportunities available for upstarts, improvisers and smart asses, like there never is once it becomes established.

In this Introductory Class, we’re going to touch on those new possibilities because I believe it is important to teach what, from my point of view, is becoming an obvious opening in the entertainment industry. I’ll introduce the different pathways that are meeting at this crossroads…there’s no longer one straight highway to the promised gig. If you pay attention to what is happening in Social Media and practice a little bit of extrapolation, you’re going to begin perceiving opportunities that never existed before. I’ll give you some clues as to where to start.

I hope to see you next week!

Passing the Tip Jar on the way to the Promised Gig

There are a number of things making a confluence in the streamed distribution of media these days that really matter to the future of artistic expression through filmed stories. What a mouthful.

My Word®  program did not like that sentence and it told me so with green underlining.  What happens when a computer program recognizes something that doesn’t fit its expectations? In the surprising wisdom of Microsoft® land, green underlining, in the world of Social Media, well, it just doesn’t show up.  

If we let information pass through our Facebook Newsfeed without comment it simply stops appearing. By this process of elimination, eventually, all the users see are what the users find agreeable or worthy of comment. What could the benefit be for corralling our tastes this way? Simple answer: Advertising. However, this frankly undoes the benefits of social interaction. What we get is groups of people who indentify with similar notions that never face much disagreement.

Suddenly what we have is a flat drama, and isolation. Rather than encouraging a marketplace of ideas, it creates a narrow aggregate of purpose. For instance, if I “Like” enough dance discussions on Facebook, all I’ll see in short order are dance discussions.  I might even be fooled into believing that everyone I know loves dance as much as I do, and that we all agree about its importance. This method can narrow and narrow our worldview without us even realizing that we have capitulated by our very choices. Even if our friends share a post about something other than dance on their page, if we haven’t commented on their posts lately, it simply doesn’t show up.

YouTube makes suggestions, Google Ads advertises and Facebook sorts us. Aggregate schmaggregate. Do I really want to see only rom-coms, or action flicks? Do they think I’m stupid? Hmmmm. Apparently. Apparently, they’ve guessed that this is the business model that will work – force-feeding us a diet we didn’t even realize we chose. If they keep presenting us with films in the genre we like then, surely, we’ll click on them and prove their method, and then they’ll form a personal channel for us that we’ll pay for. There I go extrapolating again. Yes, of course, computers are getting quickly to the point where they can extrapolate our subtle choices into a personally aimed set of interactive programming and advertising that will somehow sell products, guarantee viewership and that can be withheld, post-addiction, until ransom is paid. This is, perhaps, the Promised Gig of the near future for most writers and artists.

It may seem crazy, but I make every effort to comment on the broadest passing of postings and websites that I can because I don’t want to be so narrowed that I forget the rest of the world exists. I enjoy having new opportunities all the time to see the world in a way that surprises me. In fact, I would be far more likely to pay for variety than I would be to pay for sameness. Without a moment to spare, in comes the amazing world of micropayments.

“For individual content creators, meanwhile, Flattr could create a “tip jar” that actually produces more than a trickle of virtual coins.” – Matthew Ingram, Gigaom.com

I revel in this fact: Independent Artists can make money again! Remember earlier in the week I said that we internet creators are as Mariachi bands at the “Town Share” and that we’d accept pesos on the way to that promised gig? Well, this is what I was hinting at.  User Folks, you have entered the square and for a while now have had your fill of free music, films and funnies, but now it is time to show your appreciation for the work you really appreciate so that the artists, writers, singers, and filmmakers can get from day to day sharing their eclectic mix. Put a dollar in the virtual tip jar, please.

NOTICE TO ARTISTS: This “tip jar” is not a ticket!  It is inspiration-based flow. Your job is to inspire, entertain, and be truthful. Isn't that why you wanted to be a filmmaker, screenwriter in the first place? We are returning to the time of the Bard. This time it is easier because we artists don’t have to sleep on the ground and carry around a harp, but it is harder because we are faceless entities that come out of a piece of technology that rests, in full ownership, in a person’s hand or on their lap. The recipients of our art cannot relate, necessarily, to the realness of us and our needs, the way a Bard’s audience could see his gaunt face. The person holding the technology has already paid a hefty lump sum just to own the stage we play on, and now we pass a virtual hat. Ouch, but really, we're artists and we have to do that in one way or another.

Oh, that may distress the shortsighted among us who were counting on our big Hollywood break, the million-dollar script sale and the single-card credit rolling down the silver screen.  However, once again I ask you to look to ePublishing to recognize that this is not the end of the world. A book selling a million copies for $.99 with a 30-95% royalty rate is going to make a good living for its author.  A short film that is tipped by a 100,000 users on YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook, anywhere from a penny to $20, is going to make a living. Being prolific helps, being the best of the best helps more, and so what are you waiting for? The longer you wait for someone else to have faith in your work without passing the tip jar, the longer you'll be temping, bar-tending, or working at a job you hate. Let's blow the user's mind and encourage them to participate by tipping us personally for our work!

Mariachi Square & the Arbiters of Content

When I was a little girl, I spent many summers in southern Texas on the border with Mexico. Often we would travel across the border for lunch and an afternoon in the Mercado in small towns like Reynosa, and Progresso, and cities like Matamoras, Mexico.  One of my favorite experiences was walking through the town squares where the Mariachi bands gathered in their big sombreros, and sharp suits of black with gold piping, white with blue piping, or fuchsia with silver piping. The colors were magnificent, but the music was even better. Dozens of guitars of all shapes and sizes, trumpets blaring and the perfect harmony of brothers and sisters singing and that cry, “Aye, yie-yie-yie~!” filled my ears and my heart with joy.

What I didn’t understand then was that these Mariachis trained all their lives, and they made their living by being the best of the best. Mariachi Square was a grand audition stage, not there just for my entertainment, but to hawk the Mariachi wares, to win the prize of playing at a wedding or Fiesta Quinceañera. Throwing a band together, shooting from the hip (because aim was impossible) or assuming their grand idea was good enough would have been unthinkable. These men and women were professionales in every sense of the word, and the bigger the band the higher the price and the grander the occasion. The duets and trios were better suited for wandering the restaurants or intimate affairs. Each band, quartet, trio and duet knew all the songs that it could know, and could play those songs on the spot in any circumstance.

This brings me to the movies and television and the new explosion of “filmmakers” on Youtube.com, Vimeo.com and any number of smaller aggregate and the question of skill and talent. Right now, during the birth of this new entertainment, anything seems to go, but I’m here to tell you that this will not last very much longer. Imagine if Mariachi Square had been filled with a bunch of amateurs. Would anyone in their right mind spend even a dollar to hear their songs? Is it any wonder that YouTube has no business model, yet? I am not saying that the potential is not there, of course.

It used to be that the arbiters of content in the entertainment industry resided behind the wrought iron gates of grand studios, in the air-conditioned high rises of New York City and the Sunset Strip, and precious Spanish Colonial bungalows from Malibu to the Hollywood Hills. These people had an eye for talent and potential. They had worked their way up through the industry from mailrooms to cubicles and right into the corner office. They spent their lives looking for the perfect combination of fresh and edgy work that could be “developed,” for the road to final cut is a collaborative affair.

Now the arbiters of content still reside in those faraway places, but they also now live in small apartments in Tokyo, mud huts in Africa and trains in Europe. They live in trailer parks in Florida, and mansions in the Rocky Mountains. They live at the end of a satellite signal, and when they like what they see, they share it. A well-loved piece of filmed entertainment goes viral in a day, and for the first time ever we can have an exact number for just how many people “hit” the program. There is no more bull shitting a project to success. Its success is in numbers, and no one knows whether that work was a struggle, developed into something we love, or whether it was shoot-from-the-hip aimless, and just happened to tickle us.

Right now, the more seemingly spontaneous a short video on YouTube is, the more popular. How many flash mobs and baby moments captured by accident can we absorb? I think probably many more, but eventually, the surprise grows thin. When that happens, I ask you dear screenwriters to be ready with projects that make sense for the format. When we turn that corner, then business models will emerge.  

My extrapolating mind says that these business models will look very different from the big-money projects done in Hollywood, but there will be big money to make nevertheless. The difference is that the future of multi-level storytelling will depend on a balance between giveaway and micropayment. Suddenly, we will be Mariachi Bands in the “Town Share” vying for bigger prizes, and still accepting the pesos for individual songs.  These auditions will begin the moment we share our first concept on-line, because like a website, we will only have a moment to capture the audience’s imagination. We will have to be perfectly tuned, and choose the right offering for the audience we hope to win over. Some of us will be better suited to wander through the square alone or with a few fellow collaborators, collecting micropayments and surviving. Some of us will join bigger collaborations and become more event-focused. Both styles are valid, and there are a myriad of in-betweens.

That leaves to Hollywood the slickest packages, aimed at the very broadest audiences. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for that, but now there are opportunities to work at many different levels. We must understand that the arbiters of content no longer live only in the ivory towers of Hollywood, but are walking amongst us, and this should not be a relaxing acknowledgment. There is some room for slackers at this stage of the game. However, in the end, they will be relegated to this small slice of time when anything goes. Those of us who are serious about the craft will determine, by virtue of elimination from the on-going game, that our mission is to be the best of the best in our expression.

Of Brainstorming, Bootstrapping and Incubation

While it looks like the entertainment industry is flying apart at the seams, in fact, what we are witnessing is a confluence of media venues becoming available and accessible to focus the audience on a given story, group of characters, or fictional universe. A Convergent Entertainment field means that writers will necessarily take control of their own careers in a way only a few media moguls have done in the past. You will be the Aaron Spelling, the Lorne Michaels, and the Gene Roddenberry of your own future. You thought it was unique to deliver your unsolicited script to an agent as a free pizza? Now you must simply think better than that. Today you should be thinking about creating an app to promote your screen stories. You should be thinking of how to make trailers to entice investment in your projects. You should be planning your viral campaign.

In another era, this was known as “bootstrapping” and this is what you’re going to be doing a lot of in the coming years. As always, the entertainment industry easily weans the weak-hearted, the lazy and the fearful away from production, but it may be the industry itself that goes through the most upheaval. Here is the thing about bootstrapping: it doesn’t favor giants at first. They move too slowly, and by the time the little person has his boots on and is running madly towards the finish line the giant has just located the boot that was sitting at his feet. True. Charlie Chaplin was a bootstrapper. He would have been fine to jump into this race. So use his gumption and simplicity as a talisman. We are back in Nickelodeon times, and I don’t mean the kids’ show network owned by Viacom.

I hate to say it but film and television is late to this party in a way. It is because the technology for it is just coming together, but if you really want to see examples of how this new convergent entertainment, confluence of media has worked you need only look at the post-Napster music industry.  Make note of Justin Bieber’s rise to fame. Look at the monetary worth of some obscure-seeming Heavy Metal band. Notice how images, samples and loops are being repurposed everyday.

Right here in Colorado, there are stock footage film and video companies like Thought Equity who are here FOR YOU. All you have to do is imagine how to tell your story with images that may have been filmed decades ago. You can make a film. I’m telling you that it is within your capabilities to create in new ways. Still, you have to write a decent story. That’s the thing. There are so many media choices out there, and if your story is boring, no matter the whiz-bang effects or celebrity attachments, no one will share it with their Facebook friends. It has to be sharp. It would be best to be funny (look to Chaplin), and having a good soundtrack is going to help.

Here’s the other thing about giants. Once they figure out their shoelaces and set out for the future, they can do it fast. One step for a giant is lots of legwork for a regular human being. If you think of the resources a studio has, once it is reconfigured into a leg, that giant can catch up pretty quick. So, this is an imperative moment. There is no time to waste on perfection. However, what can you do if you’re a writer that has been, well, writing, and not thinking about all of this?

Incubate. Find a group of friends and colleagues, who are so inclined, interested and even committed to getting in the convergent media race. Brainstorm and bootstrap and do the work to make your idea happen on many media platforms until they converge, creating a concentrated focus on your creation. That’s it. That’s what you have to do.

Alternatively, you can wait until the giant has all the rules and regulations in place, and his toe on the finish line. What’s it going to be?

Trans-Fran-Convergent Entertainment…eh, wha’?

Trying to come up with a quick and easy way to name what’s happening in the field of entertainment for writers is kind of funny, but also dead serious. I’ve seen combinations that made me think that, finally, the only people to write for are Drag Queens, because they are going to be the most popular entertainers -- a well-deserved honor, I admit, but hard to believe. The point is that the field is in chaos and there are many opportunities for writers who are paying attention and who are willing. Willing? Yes, willing for what?

In order to cross the bridge from what was to what is, writers have to be willing to take charge of their careers in ways they, perhaps, never planned on doing. Many writers are going to be pushed away from wallflower status to front and center stage in the unfolding events they will create themselves. The product is changing. The process is changing.  For goodness sakes, the format is going to have to change.

What’s a shy writer who lives in her head supposed to do? What’s a guy who just wants to write supposed to do? Well, let it go, people. The writer’s life is no longer confined to “A Room of One’s Own,” or anything resembling quiet, unless one builds some strong boundaries, high fences, or perhaps a psuedo-persona. A writer can no longer afford to cut herself off from the world around her to write the deepest stories of her soul…wait! Stop the bus, I want to get off now, thank you very much.

Let’s go back to the title of this blog post and break it down. The “Trans” part stands for “Transmedian Writing,” which is a new word that is not in your spell check. Writers Boot Camp® told its alums yesterday,  "'Transmedia' is one of those buzz words that may evolve into another term soon, but it definitely means a lot today.“ Bottom line is that you had better not write a feature film without a plan to work it on many different levels and directions – such as the internet short features, television, and apps. Apps? Yes, apps. OMG. It is hard enough to write a friggin’ feature film, right? Am I right? But, I have to say only this, “So what?” Get out of your back alley and come into the light. This is the beginning of your thrilling career!

“Fran” stands for what I know a lot about – The Franchise. I worked on the jewel in the crown of franchises for many years on a “transmedian” level. As a publishing consultant for the STAR TREK franchise, I really get that the future has finally arrived. For writers, this means when you’re thinking of writing a story think about how it could be built into a franchise. A franchise is the “braided money tree” of the entertainment industry. It exists on multiple levels going in multiple directions and unfolding in seemingly endless possibility. Think about it this way…the Original, classic STAR TREK series with Kirk, Spock and McCoy became popular in a flash, and then died or so the studio and network thought. The fans loved it though. So the studio, Paramount Pictures, made it into a movie, when it turned out there was an audience for Sci-Fi after all. That movie bred five more, and also gave birth to STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION; six more movies; STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE; STAR TREK: VOYAGER and STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE, and further movies and shows, I promise you. Not only that, STAR TREK became the king pin of licensed products from games to cereals, magazines to action figures, bars to ring-tones, DVD box sets and more, so much more. Did Gene Roddenberry, STAR TREK’s creator, know when he went to the network and pitched “A Wagon Train to the Stars” show idea that this is what would become of it? I doubt it. It was an organic process then, but it led the way for all of us. We must pay attention. Study it. Know that it is possible.

I like the term “Convergent,” though it has been used by probably the MOST boring of outlets: the business website. The idea is to bring video into websites to convey information in a way that clients, trainees, and employees themselves will relate to and understand. However, the word itself, convergent, means so much more. It is an adjective used by biologists to describe the adaptive evolution of superficially similar structures. The word also suggests a confluence, such as the convergence of two rivers. It also means the coming together of focus, such as two eyes converging on a hawk flying above. To me this is what is happening in the field of writing entertainment: We are having a convergence of superficially similar products (i.e., television, film, on-line streaming, publishing and all stories franchised) focused on a singular entertainment continuum. How’s that for high-faluting?

Very exciting times. Get to work!

Sticking My Neck Out

I've been teasing you to think about screenwriting differently than most teachers. Instead of focusing solely on your story, your structure, your product, I've been asking you to think about the fortune of film itself in the digital age. A few weeks ago, I pointed out that while we may love film, we screenwriters are as guilty as anyone else is of killing the movies because we, too, partake in the wonderful world of digital entertainment. It would be like a photographer going on and on about the importance of 35 millimeter film and using a smart phone to take pictures of her kids. And, yet, that happens all the time, I bet. So, let's admit that we're joining the attrition crowd to read blogs, to join in Facebook discussions, to watch YouTube.com videos, and to play games in a million different ways. Let's wonder about the loss of books, and films that tell stories classic to our understanding of humanity itself, and let's not think of gimmicks to save them but of re-purposing those big stories for the audience.

For a few thousand years we have depended on books to help us interpret the meaning of life. Now, we are looking at the end of paper publishing. Really and truly. In a decade libraries will be on-line more than they'll be places for pimply-faced kids to make too much noise in while they're supposed to be researching their report for history. What took 10 hours for us to research 10 years ago, takes kids today 10 minutes, and pretty soon it will be 10 seconds, and there is nothing, short of blowing up satellites, that we can do to change that. The same things are happening in films. My daughter, aged 14 made a 10- minute documentary that would have been a monumental task for me to do in junior high school. When filmmakers can so easily make films, and it is sure to get even more accessible, and easier to do more amazing things than simply editing a home video (for instance, on-line greenscreens, special effects and stock-footage dramas) how is the industry going to stay in business? Who are the future arbiters of content if any script can be made by a teenager on their PC or iPad or Smartphone? When will the industry's efforts to stay technologically one or more steps ahead of the home filmmaker finally be fruitless?

This experience, I say to you, screenwriters, in all seriousness, isn't that far away from today, and so I want you to begin removing from the equation that there is only one way to be a successful screenwriter and that is the Hollywood way. The future is in the hands of the storytellers who can honestly reach the audience and touch their hearts in such a way that the audience shares your story with their friends. Success for filmmakers and screenwriters will look much the same as it does for book authors in a few years. As we have print on-demand, and uploaded eBooks from a myriad of sources, as we get our music from YouTube and iTunes and Amazon Cloud, so will we get films virally. I'm not talking about 5 minute YouTube Videos, I'm talking about full-fledged feature films and episodic programs. The more Hollywood worries about the stuff I was trained to worry about - intellectual property rights - the more they will take themselves out of the equation. When you write and make a movie, expect it to be pulled apart by a Digital Jockey somewhere in the world and re-purposed into another story you never dreamed of and how in the world do you make a living that way?

One way for certain is to be recognizable and unique. For instance, Tim Burton is going to be fine, as is Christopher Nolan, because when we see their work, even cut up, we'll know they made it. So that, even pirated, their film work will be in demand and that demand will create protection. There's going to be tons of up front work for actors and writers, but royalties...I don't know if they'll survive. Royalties are the backbone of the industry as it exists now. They make it possible for the artists who create film to be compensated for the repeated use of their work, and for the use of their work in other products (i.e.; games, toys, t-shirts). If everyone is just freely "borrowing" filmed content, then royalties can't be calculated and paid. Are there enough lawyers in the world to chase after everyone who downloads a video and uses some bit of it for something else? Did the dissolution of Napster return the music industry to the way it used to be? Without royalties, how will the studios, networks, agents and guilds survive? I don't know how they can survive. Although, yes, there are travel agents still, there certainly are not as many. There are not as many realtors. Bookstores who resisted eBooks in favor of the tried and true way, are now declaring bankruptcy.  There are not as many music execs who can sit in a glass building and arbitrate a deal that will make money for years to come. So, people will still make a living, but who and how is the question at hand.  I think also distribution channels and theater releases are in big trouble. The filmmaking world has got to come up with something better than 3D to keep people paying exorbitant prices to leave their flatscreens and iPads (where they can now even purchase 3D). I rarely use a DVD, much less a Blu-Ray, even if I have the capability because I don't want to go out and get it during my already overbooked time. Theaters?

Gimmicks are not going to save the movie theater. What is going to save the movie theater? That's our problem as screenwriters as much as it is a problem for distributors. Let me use another metaphor: I suppose we could stick our heads in the sand, like Ford and their engineers did with Lincoln Continental and Buick and hope that the big swishy car is going to be popular again because of some gimmick, or we could invent the electric SUV and mini-van. Do you get what I'm saying? Our limitation is not the audience. It is ourselves. A new interior design is not the gimmick that is going to save a big, swishy sofa of a car. A re-purposing might save it. It is not the story itself. The world still needs big cars for some purposes, but for what, but for why? The world still needs big stories but for what and for why?

Check out my "Videos" tab for other ideas....

Sticking My Neck Out

I've been teasing you to think about screenwriting differently than most teachers. Instead of focusing solely on your story, your structure, your product, I've been asking you to think about the fortune of film itself in the digital age. A few weeks ago, I pointed out that while we may love film, we screenwriters are as guilty as anyone else is of killing the movies because we, too, partake in the wonderful world of digital entertainment. It would be like a photographer going on and on about the importance of 35 millimeter film and using a smart phone to take pictures of her kids. And, yet, that happens all the time, I bet. So, let's admit that we're joining the attrition crowd to read blogs, to join in Facebook discussions, to watch YouTube.com videos, and to play games in a million different ways. Let's wonder about the loss of books, and films that tell stories classic to our understanding of humanity itself, and let's not think of gimmicks to save them but of re-purposing those big stories for the audience.

For a few thousand years we have depended on books to help us interpret the meaning of life. Now, we are looking at the end of paper publishing. Really and truly. In a decade libraries will be on-line more than they'll be places for pimply-faced kids to make too much noise in while they're supposed to be researching their report for history. What took 10 hours for us to research 10 years ago, takes kids today 10 minutes, and pretty soon it will be 10 seconds, and there is nothing, short of blowing up satellites, that we can do to change that. The same things are happening in films. My daughter, aged 14 made a 10- minute documentary that would have been a monumental task for me to do in junior high school. When filmmakers can so easily make films, and it is sure to get even more accessible, and easier to do more amazing things than simply editing a home video (for instance, on-line greenscreens, special effects and stock-footage dramas) how is the industry going to stay in business? Who are the future arbiters of content if any script can be made by a teenager on their PC or iPad or Smartphone? When will the industry's efforts to stay technologically one or more steps ahead of the home filmmaker finally be fruitless?

This experience, I say to you, screenwriters, in all seriousness, isn't that far away from today, and so I want you to begin removing from the equation that there is only one way to be a successful screenwriter and that is the Hollywood way. The future is in the hands of the storytellers who can honestly reach the audience and touch their hearts in such a way that the audience shares your story with their friends. Success for filmmakers and screenwriters will look much the same as it does for book authors in a few years. As we have print on-demand, and uploaded eBooks from a myriad of sources, as we get our music from YouTube and iTunes and Amazon Cloud, so will we get films virally. I'm not talking about 5 minute YouTube Videos, I'm talking about full-fledged feature films and episodic programs. The more Hollywood worries about the stuff I was trained to worry about - intellectual property rights - the more they will take themselves out of the equation. When you write and make a movie, expect it to be pulled apart by a Digital Jockey somewhere in the world and re-purposed into another story you never dreamed of and how in the world do you make a living that way?

One way for certain is to be recognizable and unique. For instance, Tim Burton is going to be fine, as is Christopher Nolan, because when we see their work, even cut up, we'll know they made it. So that, even pirated, their film work will be in demand and that demand will create protection. There's going to be tons of up front work for actors and writers, but royalties...I don't know if they'll survive. Royalties are the backbone of the industry as it exists now. They make it possible for the artists who create film to be compensated for the repeated use of their work, and for the use of their work in other products (i.e.; games, toys, t-shirts). If everyone is just freely "borrowing" filmed content, then royalties can't be calculated and paid. Are there enough lawyers in the world to chase after everyone who downloads a video and uses some bit of it for something else? Did the dissolution of Napster return the music industry to the way it used to be? Without royalties, how will the studios, networks, agents and guilds survive? I don't know how they can survive. Although, yes, there are travel agents still, there certainly are not as many. There are not as many realtors. Bookstores who resisted eBooks in favor of the tried and true way, are now declaring bankruptcy.  There are not as many music execs who can sit in a glass building and arbitrate a deal that will make money for years to come. So, people will still make a living, but who and how is the question at hand.  I think also distribution channels and theater releases are in big trouble. The filmmaking world has got to come up with something better than 3D to keep people paying exorbitant prices to leave their flatscreens and iPads (where they can now even purchase 3D). I rarely use a DVD, much less a Blu-Ray, even though I have the capability because I don't want to go out and get it during my already overbooked time. Theaters?

Gimmicks are not going to save the movie theater or possibly television. What is going to save the movie theater? That's our problem as screenwriters as much as it is a problem for distributors. Let me use another metaphor: I suppose we could stick our heads in the sand, like Ford and their engineers did with Lincoln Continental and Buick and hope that the big swishy car is going to be popular again because of some gimmick, or we could invent the electric SUV and mini-van. Do you get what I'm saying? Our limitation is not the audience. It is ourselves. A new interior design is not the gimmick that is going to save a big, swishy sofa of a car. A re-purposing might save it. It is not the story itself. The world still needs big cars for some purposes, but for what, but for why? The world still needs big stories but for what and why?

Willing to be Wrong

Often when writing a screenplay, I have reached a moment in the script where I really want my hero to be right, but if I follow that path then I'm sure to have a gazillion rewrites to work on down the line trying to figure out where I went wrong. Attachment to being right is a human frailty and kills a screenplay faster than anything else kills. This human frailty of righteousness does more to undo progress in the world than, I'd venture to say, anything else does. Think about it for a moment. If we are right, then there is no reason to change. If there is no reason to change, then we've reached that "happily ever after" moment. We might as well implode on the spot.

In order to grow an industry, then the industry has to assume it is wrong about something and start trying new things. Uhm. That is not happening very often these days in the movies I've seen. Case in point, just in the past few days I heard radio arts commentator, Bob Mandello (NPR) noting that in just the last eight months Hollywood put out four movies that are about the same theme - messing with our perception of reality. Okay, this is one of my favorite topics, but looking underneath the appeal, it makes me wonder why so many of the same stories are made year after year. Like remember when all the baseball films were made? Alternatively, how about the bunch of films about ants in a single year? Really? Ants? Not to mention the requisite kids at a haunted house or abducted by aliens stories. Hollywood has started making satirical films about these genres in a desperate attempt to find something new to say.

Now, I am going to go out on a limb and tell you my point of view, and I may be very wrong, but I think Hollywood is stuck in a righteous rut. There are reasons I think this is true. One of them is that some of the more interesting films I've seen over the past decade were not made in Hollywood. Another reason is that I know it is hard for Hollywood to make its way through the 50,000 plus ideas that land in its lap every year in any way that is objective. People in Hollywood want to have lives, really they do, and so like it or not, they go the easiest possible route to making a living -- tried and true. That means writers who have credits get looked at much more seriously than newcomers, and that the better revenue a writer's film makes for the producers and studios, the more likely it is that they'll get opportunities to do it again. Now, then when writers get the opportunity to repeat their own glory, what are they going to do but return to what they know and have done before? It would be crazy not to. There are very few successful screenwriters who push beyond their earliest successes in a substantial way, even if their first films did push the envelop of righteousness a bit. They tend to fall into "niche" writing, and we pretty much get what we expect. This works when a filmmaker is totally committed to their vision, and it doesn't work when a filmmaker or screenwriter is not sure why one script made it and another didn't. For a film to work, the filmmaker must know himself finally. See the movie "Nine" if this confuses you. In fact, see both movies called "Nine". They were released the same year, and they're actually very different. Grin. 

Who are the ones I think push at the envelope still...? I'm willing to be wrong on this but I do believe the people willing to flop, and to tell the story of their hearts have it. They are the ones who make the films from which I can't be distracted. Sometimes these are documentary filmmakers who have a passion about a subject. Sometimes these are comedians, who, loving the human condition of wrongness, make truly funny films. Sometimes the writers, who found something to grab onto in a comic book series when they were young, fight the urge to lighten it up and strive to tell the dark vigilante tales they remember and loved. Sometimes it comes down to a writer's willingness to state a point of view about touchy subjects like dying, or power, or sex, and going against the grain of the majority opinion they grab onto an evolved truth. Keep in mind that Hollywood doesn't generally feel comfortable going beyond where its audience is currently, and so the argument made in a script must be super compelling. Sometimes the distraction factor is destroyed by a filmmaker who creates indelible worlds that are unique and complete that the audience wants to discover. In all cases, all cases, the stories are about characters that do the wrong thing, who haven't figured everything out by the time the credits have rolled and who are in for a hell of a bumpy ride. These are films about discovery, about falling flat and getting back up. These are stories about failing before succeeding because this is the human story. 

It comes down to story always. Moreover, it doesn't have to cost $200 million to tell a great story. Furthermore, it requires your full investment.

The advice I got upon arrival in Hollywood was to write the biggest, epic film I could imagine. Then within a few years’ movies like "Sex, Lies & Videotape," and "Reservoir Dogs," both painfully intimate, small movies, came out. So, then it was write small personal films. Then it was write Sci-Fi, and then it was write family films. Whatever it was, it was already too late. Writers! We cannot write film scripts to match the trends of today. It is already too late for that. We must be the visionary writers who write film scripts that address tomorrow's audience even when Hollywood is afraid.

There are only a few ways to do this.

·        First is to write films that express your very personal vision and truth. Whether it is a small person-oriented drama, or an animation of fishes going through a human-like emotional adventure. It is the point of view that must be steady. If you write these kinds of films then you had better be prepared to find a way to get the film made yourself because these are the ones that sit in years of "development hell". ("Black Swan," "The Kids Are All Right," "Toy Story")

·        Second is to extrapolate and understand where we may be heading in the future. Seek what may be important in three, five or ten years and what stories will be ahead of that. If this is what makes your heart beat, as it did for the four or more writers who worked on the films Bob Mandello made notable last week, then you'll really need to understand what's changing in the world and extrapolate as any futurist does when predicting future trends. ("Inception," "The Adjustment Bureau," "Tron: Legacy")

·        Third is to adapt classic and historic stories that are relevant and truthful to today's audience. This requires either acquiring rights to adapt, or assuring yourself that the work you're adapting is in the public domain. Then you must be meticulous to the truth of that story while also connecting it to the audience's perception. ("Jane Eyre," "The King's Speech," "The Social Network")

In all cases, it requires good, hard work to make a good, hard screenplay. No gimmicks will help you at all without accepting that the hero is super wrong about something that is essential.

There is one last way to look at the rut, and I've touched upon it a little bit in previous posts. This is the hardest work, but the most rewarding path potentially. That is to reach beyond film itself, as we know it now. Look at the entertainment that folks have available to them on their smart phones and iPods. It's kind of thin and amateurish still. There is room, more room than I can say, for evolution there. Think about how you could use that medium to entertain and engage an audience. Think about whether you believe your story will pull millions out of the world in the palm of their hands or whether it would better fit there instead. Is it possible that new forms of entertainment, not just games, are just as rich and valid as film? Are you willing to be wrong about that? This is how we evolve people. 

Why is the Wrong Choice the Right Choice?

I may be one of the only writers who ever worked on a "live-action" CD-Rom game. Yeah...way back in the day. I wrote scenes for the CD-Rom upgrade game of "Sim-City" which had live actors playing the first person and secondary characters. It turned out not to work so well. For years I wondered why computer gaming necessarily had to go away from live-action, away from movies themselves. Certainly, there was plenty of talent to go around. Big studios bent over backwards to forge relationships with gaming companies, to license their intellectual properties to gaming companies, and even to merge with gaming companies. So, why didn't it follow that movies merged with games?

The assumption that somehow there will be games on the big screen is flawed for a very good reason it turns out, and it is so very simple. In games, we are rewarded for making good choices. We get to new levels of challenge and opportunity by making good choices. Bad choices lead to one conclusion: Game Over. In drama, comedy or tragedy, action or romance, the audience is rewarded with entertaining moments because the hero makes the wrong choice over and over and over again. Only when the hero makes the right choice, which is even sometimes really a wrong choice in the right moment, do we experience "the end," and have that elusive experience we go to the movies for: catharsis.

Nearly twenty years ago I went to an experimental game environment film with high hopes. The audience chairs were outfitted with clickers to choose the actions and outcome of the movie en mass. Oh boy, was that ever boring! The majority of the audience was so smart they always made the "right" choices which led to the reward of getting to the next bit of story. I learned nothing from the experience except that film and games were a bad marriage.

You see games and films are diametrically opposed. In film the tension created by the hero making one stupid mistake after another is what makes a film exciting and moving. We identify with the hero making mistakes. We identify with him or her landing in pile of proportionate doo-doo and scrambling for redemption, because that is what life is all about.

This is the reason studios will never reach their dream of a first person shooter game-like experience on the big screen, because gamers expect to be rewarded for the right decision, and that is boring for everyone to watch. When a hero makes all the right choices a drama ends up being flat, lacking conflict and fails to hook us into emotionally identifying with that hero. Villains in that scenario are completely over-blown and have no nuance of empathy or even superiority. We know that the hero will overcome infinite scenarios with them because they can be so one-dimensional at each level, and because it is set up that he or she can figure them out somehow. While that's fun for the person figuring it out we know it is possible, probable even that it will be figured out, and how many of you have enjoyed an afternoon of watching someone else play? In a movie we don't really know that the character we love is going to finally figure out what we've known all along, and that is where the poignant beauty comes into any film.

Does this mean that there is not a hope in the world of bringing interactivity into the cinema? Hardly. Yet it must be done with the knowledge that screenwriters really do know what they're doing. Grin. I can hardly wait.

Join Me Next Monday at Colorado Free University

Let's talk about what you need to know before you start writing that screenplay idea of yours.

I'll pose the questions you need to consider, if you aspire to a career in Hollywood, and give you some grounding in the realities of a difficult business. There is hope because the landscape of the entertainment industry is shifting as fast as the coast of Japan right now. Opportunities that could have only been considered with a private fortune in the past are opening up now. The walls of exclusivity around the heart of Hollywood may not yet be tumbling, but the territory around the margins is quickly becoming populated with new neighborhoods of entertainment that can benefit from the craft of screenwriting.

In this introductory class, we'll explore:

• reasons why screenwriting is a unique craft in creative writing,
• how knowing this craft can support any writing or filmmaking career
• how long & why it takes so long to perfect 
• how knowing the ins and outs of the craft itself will support your efforts to tell emotional, visual and entertaining stories for a large audience. 
• gaining an appreciation for the writers of our favorite movies

I look forward to answering your questions about writing movies in 2011.

Write about the truth...puh-lease

Another Sidney Lumet Film:

This is how you deal with prejudice...

"12 Angry Men"

Good Screenwriting Example

RIP Sidney Lumet, who died overnight. He directed extraordinary films that had the gumption to tell it like it was and ELECTRIFY US. Here's a scene that I love: "Network". That's what I'm talking about!

Dealing with the Hollywood Hippo

Now that we’re sitting between the way the entertainment industry looked before the advent of every last distraction known to man, and the way the entertainment industry is already beginning to become, a side-lined art form of yesteryear, what can we do as writers to increase our chances of success? There are folks who have thirty-year resumes in this business who are regularly ignored, so how is someone new going to break through the very thick walls of this exclusive club? Do we want to get into that club if it already shows maintenance issues? Any honest job hunt advisor will tell you, you’ve got to look directly at the pain of a company or an industry and come up with palatable, potential solutions to offer them…just Ask Liz Ryan.

How would you solve Hollywood’s Hippopotamus problem? How would you solve the dilemma of shrinking market share in spite of their best efforts to attract audiences with wiz bang special effects, exciting stories and celebrity devotion? Especially think of the fact that all Hollywood studios are now completely invested in gaming, web presence, and social networking themselves. They are burdened by out-moded copyright and intellectual property investments that prevent them from jumping into the steady stream of open-source creative material, and thus none of those protected properties will see the light of day in new media loops. Case in point “Thirty-Something,” a great show, but have you seen clips of it on YouTube.com lately? This is about it. Their business model is as challenged now as the music industry’s business model of a decade ago was challenged by Napster. Dare I say, “Piracy?” And, Hollywood loves the idea of pirates but hates the effect of piracy.

As a writer, can you possibly find a way to tell a story on film that is different, unique, and particularly tasty, than what has been told before and over and over again? Why does an audience need to spend two hours of their time and a hundred bucks of date money on your story? I, personally, have found myself more offended by the expense than entertained by the story lately and I have had a very long marriage with movies! These are the questions that every agent and producer has floating around in their head when they get your script in the mail. How does your take, your point of view change everything? You've got to up your ante, understand what is at stake, if you're going to enter the Hollywood dilemma. You've got to hit the hippo right in the heart to hook the audience's attention, garner loyalty and begin to put a salve on that pain. "Bigger than life" has always been Hollywood's motto, but now that the world is in the palm of our hands that dream may have to be even bigger, or it may need to be ever smaller. Think about that for a while before you write, "FADE IN:".

Does this mean there is no hope for screenwriter/filmmakers? Ask yourself if there is more opportunity or less opportunity for writers today than there was twenty years ago. If you really think that the demise of paper books, covered with cardboard, or newsprint that leaves your hands filthy is the end of writing this must be the first blog you've ever read. Grin. In fact with the advent of blogs, self-published eBooks, publish-on-demand and the many social media forums there are more opportunities for writers to reach an audience than ever before. If you really think the demise of the album is the end of music then you've possibly never heard of Justin Bieber or any given Metal Band, or the Vitamin String Quartet. Bigger Grin. What lies ahead for screenwriters and filmmakers is in your hands...how will you shape that future?

The Hippopotamus at the Table

In the past two decades our choices for entertainment have exponentially increased along with our population. That has caused, however, a reduced market share for the traditional venues of television and movies. The days when network TV was the only choice for an evening of entertainment have long past. Now, there is cable. Not only is there cable, though, there is TIVO, On-Demand, and Internet Streaming entertainment. There are games. There are hand-held games, on-line games, on-demand games, Nintendo, X-box, Wii games and Kinnect Games. There are games on your smart phone. 

Then there is social networking. The fifteen hours the average Facebook user spends on Facebook are fifteen hours away from television and film viewing. It’s isn’t going away. It’s getting bigger. When Facebook announced they would stream Warner Brother’s “The Dark Knight” and it looked pretty much like nothing happened, it made me wonder what the future of film and television really can be? I rarely am so enraptured by filmed entertainment that I willingly shut off my Facebook checking.

There are about 40,000 people getting film degrees in the world, and yet the market for film and television is suffering from attrition. So, as a screenwriting teacher, it is a daunting task to find some modicum of hope that I can share with my students. Sure Hollywood has successfully promoted the idea of the “overnight success” but in truth, it is a slog to get there no matter how you slice it. Moreover, getting “there” is perhaps a questionable goal. Blasphemy! I am supposed to be cheering you on to “make it big” in Hollywood, right? Wrong.

Hollywood has now entered the phase of its life in the Universal Marketplace where it is becoming “niche” entertainment. (shhhh! The Hippopotamus is eating!) It is not all of entertainment anymore, and it never will be again. There are just too many options for the consumer to ignore. Therefore, if you want to get into that niche, you’re really going to have to figure out how to write what they produce – The Hollywood Movie. It is what they do best, and they are not looking to break out of that mold, at least for now.  Rather it seems clear they intend to hang on for dear life against the winds of change.

If you bristle against that status quo, then I suggest you stop looking towards Hollywood as your answer to the age-old questions of the artist – How do I get seen? How do I make a living? How do I get discovered? Stop assuming that the only way to get your film made is the traditional way. You don’t have to do it their way anymore. That said, it is time to notice the Hippopotamus sitting at the table with us.

“The Hippopotamus” is always an assumption that everyone makes at certain times of our lives that we strive to avoid noticing. We would like to pretend that the Hippopotamus is a figment of our imagination. We are ripe for blissful ignorance, and hope that it is having no influence on the dinner at hand. Of course, a hippo at the table is a messy thing to pretend about. Have you ever smelled a pachyderm’s house? So, that’s the kind of stinky assumption we’re dealing with, and it needs to be acknowledged and put in its proper place.

The Hippopotamus we have at the entertainment industry dinner table is an assumption about what the future of entertainment looks like. It’s a multi-tiered assumption that, in my opinion, is dangerously avoided or ignored. Let me introduce you to the unspoken thoughts that fuel fear in my industry:

• We assume that movies are going to exist as marginalized entertainment, much as theater has over the last one hundred years. There I said it.
• We assume that games and social networking will dominate the entertainment industry eventually, and that barring a few break out, technologically inventive film events, like “Avatar”, most people will eventually view all movies on their iPads, or internet televisions. There, I said it.
• We assume that an “interactive movie” is more like a game than a point of view story created by a master storyteller. In fact, the story is so hackneyed by now, it hardly matters as long as you have a celebrity that has box-office attached. Yeppers.
• We assume that people will stop wanting to leave their homes to gather for entertainment’s sake except at astronomically high prices for “important” Academy-sanctioned films. We assume that film, like theater, is going to exist still but be less important to our collective conscience and more elitist in the future. So there.
• Like libraries and books, like big box stores, like heirloom seeds, the world of big movie theaters and even multi-plexes take up too much room, require too much electricity, and will become unnecessary. There, I said it.
• Even DVDs and BlueRay disks take up too much room in our lives to exist for very long in a world of apps the audience can download for free.
• Even Television will be a hand-held app on Facebook, Amazon or Google before the end of the decade and living rooms will look more like office cubicles. There, I said it.

This Hippopotamus belies our hope that somehow people will continue to want to go to the movies, and watch television when they have so many other options in life to live adventures. Because the truth is this: we’re married to our hope, and we’re having a wild and lustful affair with the Hippopotamus.