How to Write Screenplays. Badly.

Last one out, turn off the lights.

2007-06-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

New blog, for those who care.

The site may be dead...

2007-02-21T08:12:00.000-08:00

...but Rapebear lives on.

Thanks, Death Piglet.

Since people are asking...

2007-01-05T16:07:00.000-08:00

...How to Write Screenplays Badly is kind of dead.

Much like my penis, our book proposal was deemed "too niche" by all the important people in New York, forcing us to divert our questionable talents toward more dependable sources of fame and power, such as murdering hobos on YouTube.

As you can obviously see, the site itself is still around, mainly because, hey, it's free. It might die a protracted and painful death thanks to neglect--again, the penis analogy comes to mind--or I might try a few ideas I've been kicking around, such as a serialized comedy novel, a few short stories, or all the hot, hot hobo-shanking you can stomach.

In any case, thanks for stopping by, folks. I wuv all of you.

...except for the people who don't sign up for the HOT FUZZ Street Team. It's Pegg and Wright, for chrissakes.

Hi, 8 Us

2006-11-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

You've probably noticed that the site has been pretty dead for the last few weeks. Unfortunately, that's not going to change anytime soon. Dan and I are both swamped with personal and professional obligations, and the stuff that pays the bills has to come first. And to be honest, there's a bit of burnout as well. There's only so long you can run with the same joke--over 250 pages of material and counting so far--before you start to repeat yourself.

I have no idea when the site will be up and kicking again, but if you don't want to bother checking back in, feel free to drop me an email with the subject line "NOTIFY ME," and I'll let y'all know when things are chugging along again.

Thanks, guys.

On Stereotypes

2006-10-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

In the professional screenwriter's arsenal of...word-type-thingies, few tools are as useful as the racial stereotype.

In screenwriting, blank space is more valuable than, say, the life of an unborn child. This is because each and every screenplay is a desperate race to finish your story before the studio executive loses interest and abandons your script in search of greener intellectual pastures, such as the scriptment for Deal or No Deal: The Movie. This means you must make every paragraph, every line, every cocksucking comma COUNT.

So go ahead...try to create nuanced, believable characters with richly-developed backstories and motivations, all set against a backdrop of intergalactic moonshiners in a chilling future where parties have been outlawed and only outlaws party. You can't do it, can you?

Enter the stereotype.

Stereotypes are invaluable because audiences have been conditioned to expect certain behaviors from certain types of characters. The black sidekick? A hilarious motormouth. The gay best friend? A mincing, catty rogue with a heart of gold. The Italian guy? A dirty, dirty rapist. The point is that audiences will happily accept established archetypes in place of genuine character development, thus freeing up the remaining pages for more important matters, like that scene where Buck Cracker throws a knife right at the camera while we go swirling around in bullet time. Holy shit, that's going to be so great.

Even better is the fact that packing your script with insulting stereotypes can often baffle your critics into a sort of stunned, drooling silence as they try to figure out what message you're trying to convey. There's no way the writer would have intentionally made his villain a bling-sporting thug rapper named Shooty McCrack, they'll reason. I must be missing something. What they're missing, of course, is the fact that you don't give a rat's ass and you just want to get paid...but hey, the polite, nonconfrontational reviews don't hurt!

Here's an example from a script we're currently speccing in an attempt to cash in on the Crash craze of dewy-eyed, racially-charged pablum. It's called We're All So Different, and it's the touching story of nine stereotypes--including a black NBA player, an Asian sushi chef, a Mexican dishwasher, and a heroic white firefighter--who are trapped in an elevator for ninety long minutes, where they're forced to confront their own prejudices and insecurities. And also the NBA player, who tries to mug them all.

Here's a sample:

INT. ELEVATOR

PADDY O'SHAMROCK weaves drunkenly across the enclosed space. His face as red as a Blarney Stone covered in red paint.

PADDY
(vomiting)
Erin go blaaaaaaugh!

The contents of his stomach (Irish breakfast stuff) splatter across the white shoes of old MRS. WEALTHYWHITE. She sniffs snootily.

MRS. WEALTHYWHITE
In my day, we used the bodies of Irish children to stoke the furnaces of progress. Things have certainly changed.

HECTOR
Ai-yai-yai, you are right, seenorita!

MRS. WEALTHYWHITE
Clean my shoes, you.

HECTOR
Oh, si, si.

Hector eagerly wipes her shoes clean using his own hair. He waits, trembling, for a tip. Mrs. Wealthywhite sighs and tosses a shiny new nickel on the elevator floor.

In an instant, Hector is slammed aside by LEVI SCHNOZZSTEIN, who goes scrambling for the coin, his eyes all ablaze.

LEVI
MONEY! MONEY! OH SWEET YAHWEH, IT'S MONEY!

Insulting? Perhaps. But remember: you can justify any uncreative stereotype simply by wrapping up your script with a trite, simplistic moral about our shared humanity. See, your viewers will think, that writer wasn't just taking the lazy way out. He was trying to ENRICH OUR LIVES.

If you can send the audience reeling out of the theater, drunk on the noble power of the human spirit, they may not even remember your failings as a writer, such as the fact that you never got around to naming half of your characters.

For example:

EXT. CITY STREET - DAY

The doors open and the refugees from the elevator come stumbling out. Blinking in the harsh light of day. Changed forevermore.

Across the street, a bloom of fire suddenly erupts from a neighboring building. The firefighter starts forward...then pauses.

JOHN McAPPLE
Oh...it's just a Korean dry-cleaning service.

Yet as John watches the burning Koreans flop and flounder across the street, something changes deep down in his little white heart. (Note to SOUND GUY: This is the part where the music goes BA-DUM-BAAAAA.)

John starts forward. Again.

JOHN McAPPLE
Stand back, folks. I've got a job to do.

And his new friends all cheer.

PADDY
Yer a bonny fine lad, laddie-boy!

MRS. WEATHERWHITE
Three cheers for our men and women in uniform!

G-DAWG "DUNK" JORDAN
I've decided to go back to college!

And the sunlight...oh, it is beautiful.

FADE OUT.

On Answering Your Dumb Little Questions #1

2006-10-13T17:01:00.000-07:00

Dear Jeremy and Dan,
I’ve heard that if you want to break into the film industry, you need to live in Los Angeles. Or, failing that, have talent. What’s your take on this? Do I need to move to California to be taken seriously as a screenwriter?
Sincerely, P. Haggis

“Taken seriously as a screenwriter?”

First of all, Paul, the only professions that are taken less seriously than screenwriters are Hungarian dignitaries, ice cream truck drivers and unlicensed elk masturbators. Nowhere is this more true than California, where studio executives, security guards and titty-club bouncers will welcome the arrival of another goddamn screenwriter the way Ted Nugent greets a raccoon rooting through his dumpster.

Remember, we’re talking about creative professionals who will spend decades of their lives honing and polishing their craft, ignoring their health, hygiene and child support payments, writing their fingers down to bloody, shriveled nubs, just on the off-chance that someone will someday bestow upon them the industry’s highest compliment: “So Tim Allen likes your script, but he wants a bit more crotch-punching.”

And when you hear those magical words, oh, how you’ll cavort.

Still, on those rare days when the smog parts and that big honking HOLLYWOOD sign peeks through, it’s easy to see why so many headstrong fools heed the industry’s siren call and move to Los Angeles. Let’s break down the dream, shall we?

You step off the cross-country bus and drink in your first taste of the place where the magic happens. The sights, sounds and mysterious fluids splattering against your calves are overwhelming. Gridlocked cars blat out mournful little honks of pure despair. The air itself has the cocaine sweats. Across the street, delighted Japanese tourists are taking pictures of a vicious knife-fight between a pair of harelipped Romanian whores. Just beyond that, a hobo who looks suspiciously like Kate Bosworth is vomiting into a Krispy Kreme bag. You feel a tug on your leg and glance down to find Kuato gurgling happily while he pries off and eats your left shoe.

Cut to one year later.

Your first screenplay has been optioned, greenlighted, fast-tracked for production, rewritten, cancelled, re-optioned, wrestled from your control, assigned to some guy who used to be Adam Sandler’s stupid fucking roommate, hopelessly gutted, greenlighted again, filmed, radically altered in the editing room, and finally finished. Tonight is opening night, and your precious little labor of love is about to hit cinema screens nationwide with all the grace and dignity of a fat woman rolling down an escalator.

But ignore those scathing reviews. Forget about the fact that it took two SWAT teams and a hail of angry bullets to convince your agent to stop shooting everyone who walked past his office. Try not to concentrate on the fact that your film only exists in the first place thanks to a dodgy Nigerian tax loophole. Tonight is your night, and that beautiful red carpet is stretched out before you.

The flashbulbs explode. The fans scream. Autograph books and bare breasts are proffered in equal measure. Not even the sight of Kate Bosworth vomiting uncontrollably in the bushes can distract you from the glory that is your new life. The heavens part above you in a starburst of holy light, and God Himself flashes you a double thumbs-up.

It’s GREAT to be a screenwriter.

Wait, what were we talking about again? Should you move to Los Angeles? What? How the fuck should we know?

Leave us alone, Haggis.

On a Writer's Life

2006-09-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

MONDAY

11:15 AM
Wake up bright and early to get started writing. But first...breakfast. Ham and eggs with cinnamon powder sprinkled all over everything = yummy.

12:30 PM
With breakfast safely out of the way, realize that it’s already lunchtime. My, how time flies. Help myself to some more ham and cinna-eggs. God, so good. Now, on to the writing...

3:45 PM
Interrupted right in the middle of a very tense Halo game by bossy agent wanting to talk about the direction my career is taking. Explain that this is a really bad time and hang up, but it’s too late...the other team has already scored. They are cheaters and I HATE THEM. Depression sets in.

6:19 PM
Finally get around to calling agent back. He reminds me that the romantic comedy script I promised Paramount is due Friday morning, and wants to know whether he can read it yet. I haughtily explain that I haven't felt the need to write anything yet. Agent acts like a dick about the whole situation, to be honest. His negative energy is distracting me from more important tasks, such as smuggling this bomb inside Zanzibar’s base. Agent asks, goddamn it, are you still playing Halo? I hang up quickly. He’s a wily one, that agent.

9:30 PM
Two and a Half Men? More like Two and a Half Million Laughs!

11:00 PM
On the whole, a productive day, even if I didn’t get any writing done. I celebrate with a few beers.

TUESDAY

2:43 PM
Wake up caked in vomit with a splitting headache. Looks like it’s going to be another one of those Tuesdays. Wash down some Tylenol with a few bourbon shots and sit naked in the shower until I feel better.

5:15 PM
Get out of the shower. Wife and kids are already home, getting dinner ready. Wife asks if I got any writing done today. The lie comes to my lips easily. Maybe a little too easily, I will later muse. But by that point, I will already be drunk again.

9:34 PM
Made some real progress this evening...the script now has a title! Decided to call it LOVE. Short. Simple. To the point. Why has nobody ever thought of this before? I celebrate my greatness with bourbon.

11: 58 PM
Room spinning. Oh well. Pledge to wake up bright and early tomorrow to get some real work done.

WEDNESDAY

9:45 AM
Too bright. Too early.

11:30 AM
Finally roll out of bed. Could really go for some ham ‘n cinna-eggs right about now.

12:40 PM
Polish off third plate of cinna-eggs. Leave the dishes in the sink for the wife to worry about. I’m a WRITER, not some Puerto-Rican dishwasher, and I’ve got writerly things to do.

2:55 PM
Stare at blank computer screen for two hours. Much like my bowels, my imagination appears totally blocked. I need a turkey-baster filled with piping hot inspiration to loosen the blockage and send my brilliance gushing forth in a brilliant stream of gushing words. No better place to find inspiration than the pages of my favorite magazine...Variety!

4:21 PM
SCRIP DOC HAM HOCKS SOCK HOP? What the fuck does that even mean? I don’t understand a single goddamned article here. I think RAYROM is supposed to be Ray Romano, maybe? He’s either playing a vampire in a movie or he turned into a real-life vampire, I’m not sure which.

9:02 PM
You know, that Lost show just plain confuses me. Why don’t they use their cell phones to call for help? That’s the first thing I’d do. Just goes to show why those guys are stuck writing for TV instead of working in the Major Leagues.

9:03 PM
Inspiration strikes: I shall watch Major League.

11:10 PM
Wild Thang! Da-da-daaa-da! You make my heart sang! Da-da-daaa-da! Oh man, what a classic. They just don’t make ‘em that good anymore.

11:48 PM
Drinking interrupted by phone call from annoying agent. Yes, yes, 24 hours until deadline, got it. I inform agent that script is already finished and is in excellent shape, since that’s obviously what he wants to hear. Agent is so relieved he starts crying, right there on the telephone. Seems like a situation rife with comedic potential, so I go ahead and tell him I was lying and haven’t written a single word. Agent starts crying again, but in a different, sadder way. I hang up to avoid embarrassing him any further. Plus, Halo match about to start.

THURSDAY (DAY OF DOOM)

9:55 AM
Wake up unreasonably early with a bad feeling in the pit of stomach. There’s something I’m supposed to do today. Something important. Was it eating breakfast? Perhaps. Just to be safe, I eat four whole plates of cinna-eggs.

10:56 AM
Tuckered out from all that eating. Settle down for a nice, long nap.

2:19 PM
Oh no.

3:00 PM
Writing feverishly. What should I name the characters? Decide on Bob and Roberta. As if it matters. Can’t think of names for their wisecracking best friends, so I call them Mr. T and Sassy Lesbian. I’ll find/replace better names later if I have time.

3:29 PM
Okay, concentrate. What should this stupid story be about? What was the title again? LOVE? Yeah, fine, whatever. He can be a quirky architect, and she’s a champion dog breeder or something. Whoops, the building he designed fell over and squashed one of her dogs! Now we’ve got some goddamn character-derived drama to bring them together! I’m a genius.

3:45 PM
Supposed to pick up son from soccer practice. Fuck him. Can't afford to break this writing streak. Must remember to call wife to pick up son instead.

6:19 PM
Wife asks where son is. Forced to explain that he's probably sitting on a park bench at the soccer field, staring off sadly into the distance. Wife got upset. Fuck her. Nobody understands an artist.

8:28 PM
This thing needs some tragedy. Hey, Mr. T, watch out for that bus! Ha ha! See you in Hell, Mr. T! What page am I on…oh God, only 52? Need at least 30 more. Maybe just 20 if they’re triple-spaced and really good. Don’t want to wear out my welcome, after all.

10:43 PM
Bourbon makes my writing sing. I’m David Fucking Mamet right now. I don’t even remember killing off Sassy Lesbian, but the other characters seem sad, so I guess she’s gone now. Sorry, Molly Shannon, no happy ending for your character, ha ha. 72 pages now. That’s enough, right? I think so. Time to wrap this bastard up.

11:58 PM
Surprise, surprise: Bob and Roberta are in love. Smooch, smooch, let’s have a baby and live together forever, we’re so happy, who gives a shit. FADE OUT. SAVE AND QUIT. No time to spell-check. Email script to agent, along with a severely-worded note expressing my dissatisfaction with his conduct over the last week. Debate ending the email with “you cocksucker,” which seems needlessly antagonistic. Then again, a chastised agent is a productive agent…isn’t that the old saying? Positive I heard that saying somewhere. Decide to leave “cocksucker” in and send the email on its merry way.

FRIDAY

12:01 AM
Time for bed, and for a well-deserved rest. I’ve got a good feeling about this one.

On Remakes

2006-09-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

"So we liked your spec script," the studio executive announces. "Not enough to actually make it, of course, but you showed real potential. Have you figured out what you'd like to write next?"

"Actually, I've got an idea for an original movie," you tell him excitedly. "It's something fresh that's never been done before."

And then you both collapse into fits of hysterical laughter as tears of mirth go streaming down your cheeks. Oh, how you'll laugh and laugh and laugh!

And at last the executive will dry his eyes and say, "No, seriously, what movie are you going to remake next?"

It's no secret that Hollywood fears originality the way monkeys fear wolves, or the way bats fear vampire bats, or some other fear-based analogy that we can't be bothered to come up with at the moment.

You have to understand that most studio executives operate in a state of perpetual terror and panic, and any day that doesn't involve getting fired is viewed in retrospect as a thundering success that merits a celebratory jaunt down to the old Spearmint Rhino. So perhaps their timid nature can be forgiven. After all, you'd be jittery too if you knew that Bob Iger was one poorly-mixed cappuccino away from firing every motherfucker on the Disney lot.

What this means is that if you want to get your club-shaped foot in the door, you'd better be prepared to tell the executives exactly what they want...nay, what they need to hear. For example...

BAD PITCH: "My story is a heartbreaking and hilarious Charlie Kaufman-esque mindbender that examines love, loss, and everything in between."

GOOD PITCH: "The world is ready for a new Major Payne."

Assuming the executives are desperate enough to swallow your hot, throbbing pitch, now comes the tricky part...sitting down and actually writing the godforsaken thing. Fortunately, creating a remake is much easier than other types of writing, such as original screenplays or your weekend grocery list.

Let's say you're planning to remake an old movie that nobody remembers anymore, such as The Exorcist. The trick is to retain the most famous and recognizable elements from the original (head spinning around, puking), while jettisoning all the forgettable parts (the mother, the priests, Catholicism, etc.).

And what does that leave you with? A bone-chilling trailer where Dakota Fanning's misshapen little head whirls around like the Tasmanian Devil, and one hell of a killer tagline. ("So scary you'll PUKE! Bleeearggh!") Trust us...horror movies have been sold on far less.

It's also important to make your remake as contemporary as possible. Let's face it, if people wanted eloquent dialogue, nuanced characterization and a tit-free climax, they'd just rent the original When Harry Met Sally. Keep things modern, snappy and, if at all possible, try to write Ludacris in there somewhere. The kids, they love their Ludacris!

Here's an example from a remake we've been speccing around town recently. (And by town, we mean the Universal Studios Tram Tour.) Notice how it retains all the elements that made the original film a classic, while adding a sparkly coat of modern, marketable, delicious paint.

EXT. OCEAN - DAY

The boat plows through the waves, in search of their elusive prey. CAPTAIN QUINT stands at the helm. As usual, he's listening to P. Diddy on his iPod.

On the deck below, CHIEF MARTIN BRODY is busy shoveling chum over the prow. With his rugged Samoan features and rippling biceps, he is a paragon of glistening, heaving manliness. His brow furrows as he stares out across the great blue expanse.

BRODY
Where are you, Jaws? Where are you hiding?

Sixteen-year-old KASSIE HOOPER pops her head out of the forecastle hatch. She quickly consults her experimental Palm Pilot prototype thingie (pending product placement agreement, of course).

KASSIE
According to these sat-linked hypernodal geothermal current readings, the shark should be right below us, Uncle Marty!

BRODY
Yo, Q-Man! Stop the boat!

QUINT
Fo' sho', nigga!

Quint brings the Orca to a shuddering halt. Chief Brody cautiously dumps a fistful of pigparts into the water. He waits.

WHOOOSHA! JAWS rears up out of the water! Holy shit! He's huge, scary, totally computer-generated. The shark's cybernetic eye flashes bright red as it triangulates their coordinates.

Brody dives over the railing without hesitation, delivering a punishing elbow-drop to the creature's sensitive snout.

BRODY
Smile, you son of a Jabroni!

The shark streaks away, mewling like a wounded kitten. Brody resurfaces, his expression triumphant.

BRODY
Can you smell what Chief Brody is cooking?

It's just that easy, folks.

On Generating Ideas

2006-09-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

Ideas. Where do they come from?

If you ask a quantum physicist, they’ll tell you that ideas are actually sub-atomic particles that can only travel sideways. If you ask a philosopher, they’ll tell you that ideas are the by product of your brain and soul rubbing against each other. If you ask a scary drunk hobo, he’ll tell you to leave his hooch alone or he’ll cut your nuts off with his rusty knife.

If you ask us (which, simply by reading these words, you already are) we’ll tell you that ideas are a pain in the ass. Why? Because, as a writer, you’re expected to have them. Like, all the time.

There may even be times when you’ll have to produce ideas under pressure, perhaps when attending a pitch meeting and realising you’ve left all your notes in the toilet of Taco Bell, or when you have to tell your grandparents what you do for a living.

You’re on the freeway to Shitting Yourself In Panic City, and there are no rest stops for the next 200 miles. Right?

WRONG.

Once you know the secret, coming up with ideas is as easy as making Kirk Douglas fall off a log.

As we all know, the only thing Hollywood hates more than originality is sub-standard valet parking, so if you can spontaneously spew forth ideas that come couched in the snug fleece of familiarity, you’re already one step ahead of the game.

“But how do I give the impression of spontaneously spewing forth ideas?” I hear you mewl, like a rain-soaked cat trapped on a window ledge.

How? Here’s how.

1. Think of a movie that’s already been made.
2. Change one letter in the title.
3. The movie then writes itself. Pretty much.

You want examples? Fine, here are some examples...

Dull Metal Jacket
Romantic comedy starring Mark Wahlberg as a greasy rock-gimp trying in vain to impress Jenifer Aniston with his favourite denim jacket, decorated with no less than 54 sew-on Helloween patches and a badly drawn marker-pen rendition of Iron Maiden's "Eddie" mascot.

The Bum Of All Fears
Nick Nolte, drunk and hopped-up on goofballs, rants and screams about the things that terrify him by constantly hovering just out of view, whispering morally-repugnant suggestions in his ear.

Jews
Politically suicidal remake, as Spielberg combines his two greatest themes in this gripping thriller about a Great White Rabbi terrorising the beaches of Amity.

The Natty Professor
Sherman Klump invents a potion that gives him exquisite taste in clothes - with hilarious results!

From Desk Til Dawn
Post-modern ironic criminal bad boys, the Gecko brothers, have only one thing between them and freedom - the Titty Twister schoolhouse...

Honey, I Shrunk The Kiss
Brain-mangled nerd-troll Rick Moranis accidentally reduces rock supergroup Kiss to minute size. Can he return them to normal before, in an ironic twist of fate, Gene Simmons is eaten by a pussy?

The Day The Garth Stood Still
Feature length David Blaine-style stunt with bland hillbilly music legend Garth Brooks boasting he can remain completely motionless, in the middle of the main concourse at Grand Central Station, for a full 24-hour period.

Meep Meep Blue Sea
Gory creature feature sequel in which killer sharks are replaced by the Road Runner.

Udder Siege
Steven Seagal hits rock bottom as he fights Eric Bogosian's ineffectual terrorist while balancing on the back of a cow.

Terry Maguire
Deliberately misleading romantic drama about a conveniently-named man who is actually quite content in his work, and happily married to boot.

The Blair Watch Project
Confrontational documentary in which a group of film students sit in a circle and stare menacingly at an increasingly uncomfortable Blair Underwood, who believes he's auditioning for a role in LA Law 2030.

My Big Fat Greek Bedding
Puzzling slapstick starring Nicolas Cage as a hapless Greek sailor struggling to fit an oversized winter double duvet into a pillow case.

Any Piven Sunday
Voyeuristic black comedy in which John Cusack secretly films Jeremy Piven's regular weekend routine. Warning: may contains traces of Dan Ackroyd.

Charlie’s Angles
Testicle-faced vigilante Charles Bronson painstakingly explains the difference between acute and obtuse angles, using the broken legs of a drug-dealing rapist as a visual aid.

Kremlins
When Zach Galligan accidentally spills water on his cute pet Stalin, the quaint American town of Kingston Falls is soon overrun by tiny, vindictive communists.

The Cull Monty
Shockingly brutal Japanese horror-thriller about a group of unemployed male strippers forced to hunt each other down on a remote island.

Tangs of New York
Sweeping historical study of the rise of soft drinks and their effect on the formation of American society in turn-of-the-century New York.

Resident Evel
Milla Jovovich is trapped in the house of 70s stunt king Evel Knievel, and must battle her way to freedom before leaping over 30 zombie-filled buses and a lake of fire on a scooter.

Mission To Lars
Gary Sinise drags a reluctant Don Cheadle and Tim Robbins through space to a planet inhabited solely by clones of the download-hating pinch-faced Metallica drummer.

Do The Right Thong
Spike Lee finally sells out with a grotesquely sexist ghetto comedy starring Sisquo, Nelly and Usher. Warning: features repeated use of the word "dawg".

Sleepy Hellow
Close-up footage of Tim Burton being rudely awoken by violent prodding and powerful torches shone directly into his eyes. The film is then slowed down to make his confused mumblings last a full 90 minutes, with side-splitting consequences.

The Whale Nine Yards
Genuine bootleg of Greenpeace's ill-fated and hurriedly-banned remake of the Bruce Willis/Chandler Bing hitman romp, performed entirely by Shamu, Orca and that whale from Free Willy. Some scenes of whale asphyxiation may cause distress.

Luke Placid
Family comedy. Luke Wilson remains completely unmoved by Owen's constant jibes about his more successful career, until we later see him crying himself to sleep while punching himself in the back of the head.

Bog Daddy
Adam Sandler meets his match when he accidentally adopts Swamp Thing. Together they learn about responsibility, bodily functions and the inter-connectedness of all things through the Earth Elementals.

Moonwanker
Career-destroying, narratively bankrupt musical following face-fucked superstar Michael Jackson as he travels the world, masturbating furiously through the letterboxes of anyone who didn’t buy his last album.

Messing In Action
Chuck Norris returns to the jungles of Vietnam and soils himself. Repeatedly.

Death Rack 2000
Softcore satire from Russ Meyer in which a parade of outlandishly named, improbably bosomed actresses race across America, smothering people to death with their terrifyingly huge breasts. Starring Titty Mountains, Chesty Cushions and Bertha Bigtits.

King King
Doubly sacriligeous remake in which the exhumed corpse of Elvis Presley is dressed in a monkey suit and hurled from the top of the Empire State Building for the slack-jawed amusement of redneck tourists.

Minority Retort
A procession of under-represented social groups line up for the chance to argue against midget superstar Tom Cruise. Contains scenes of mass debating.

Bone In 60 Seconds
Nicolas Cage, Giovanni Ribisi and Robert Duvall race to see who can achieve full erection the quickest while peeping into Angelina Jolie’s trailer, rubbing themselves like randy chimps.

Jailhouse Rick
Controversial Rick James biopic starring Colin Farrell as the troubled funk maestro. Includes graphic scenes of jheri curl wearing which may be unsuitable for stylish viewers.

The Spy Who Loved Mo
Revealing biography of the slap-happy Three Stooges ringleader, and his secret life of homosexual espionage.

Munsters Ball
Halle Berry in an Oscar-winning turn as the widowed single mother who finds awkward and unlikely emotional strength by frantically screwing a giant, grinning Frankenstein Monster.

The Mammy Returns
Racially provocative horror in which archaeologists excavating the set of Gone With The Wind unleash a dangerous stereotype, once thought to be buried for good, on the world once more.

Rash Hour
Excruciating documentary feature with Jackie Chan asking open and frank questions about Chris Tucker’s long history of groin-based skin complaints, while Tucker hilariously pretends to not understand a word Chan is saying. Because he’s Chinese, see?

The Kong Kiss Goodnight
Geena Davis stars as an amnesiac woman who honestly can’t recall how she ended up in bed with a big disgusting hairy ape. Co-starring Renny Harlin.

You’ve Got Maul
When Meg Ryan discovers that the Dark Lords of the Sith have opened a rival bookstore close to her quaint and insignificant local shop, she enters into a war of words with the enigmatic black-robed proprietor. But little does she know he’s the same guy she’s joining for sordid cybersex each and every night, driving each other into a wrist-straining frenzy of long-distance masturbation until they both sit, panting and sweating, in front of their laptops covered in their own juices. Warning: contains double-ended lightsaber penetration.

Black Hawn Down
Violently offensive war movie in which Goldie Hawn is thrown from a helicopter into a Mogadishu warzone while wearing provocative “black face” make-up. Josh Hartnett cameos as a quivering pile of meat, guts and bone.

A Nightmare on ILM Street
Technically adventurous slasher movie, in which absolutely everything is created by CGI with the exception of one chair. The first viewer to correctly identify the rogue piece of solid matter will win a hair from the chinny-chin-chin of George Lucas.

Panic Boom
Jodie Foster is repeatedly startled by a mysterious loud booming noise, causing her mental state to slowly deteriorate from mildly curious to frantically terrified. Only the audience is allowed in on the secret - the noise is simply Warwick Davis, following her around with a fucking big drum.

Citizen Kang
Pretentious Secret Wars spin-off charting the rise and fall of the time-travelling conqueror. Co-stars Tony Stark as “Rosebud”.

Raging Bill
The earth itself trembles like a virgin on prom night when Bill Paxton’s tolerance finally reaches its limit, and he explodes in a tsunami of blistering fury, taking Billy Bob Thornton and most of the Midwest with him.

Boing John Malkovich
Disappointing sequel in which John Cusack discovers a replica of the actor John Malkovich made entirely from flubber, and charges people $10 to jump up and down on his gelatine testicles.

Without wanting to blow our own trumpet too hard (although we can - we're very limber) the near-instantaneous production of this impressive pitch list was almost enough to prevent us from being forcibly ejected from the Fox lot last November.

Almost.

On Your First Set Visit

2006-09-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

PRODUCER
Hey, thanks for coming in…

WRITER
You’re gonna validate my parking, right?

PRODUCER
Um, we can’t really validate parking meters. Sorry.

WRITER

(leaving)
Oh, fuck this!

PRODUCER
Wait, come here. I wanna talk to you. About yesterday, I mean.

WRITER
(slumps into chair with a weary sigh)
Fine. Make it quick.

PRODUCER
Pretty exciting stuff, right? The Sony lot? Your first set visit? Seeing your creative vision spring to life before your very eyes?

WRITER
They validated my parking, by the way. I didn’t have to pay a dime.

PRODUCER
Anyway, Brett asked me to speak with you about your behavior. I guess there were some problems, huh?
(He gets a blank stare.)
No? Nothing? No problems at all?

WRITER
Parkingwise?

PRODUCER
No, just in general.

WRITER
Hmm...nnnnnnooooo, I don’t remember anything.

PRODUCER
Really? Because I’m reading the security report about the incident, and it says you--well, I guess there’s no nice way to put this--it says that on your way to the set, you dove out of the golf cart and went scurrying into the bushes.

WRITER
Oh. That.

PRODUCER
Yes, that, goddamn it! I mean, I’m trying to be understanding here, but what the hell? This says you karate-chopped your driver in the neck!

WRITER
That’s the element of surprise right there.

PRODUCER
No, that’s fucking assault and battery right there!
(deep breath)
Not gonna lose it. Not gonna lose it.
(even deeper breath)
Okay. So you attack this poor kid, Christ knows why, this poor unpaid intern, and you go running off. Waving your arms above your head and “hooting,” according to the report. What does that even mean...hooting?

WRITER
It was more like a general shriek of victory. Kind of an EE-YA, EE-YA thing.

PRODUCER
Jesus Almighty. Okay. Okay. So you wanna explain to me what happened next?

WRITER
I immersed myself in nature, subsisting only on my wits and whatever meager food I could forage.

PRODUCER
Yeah, well, that’s one way to put it. Another way is that you ran into the Sony cafeteria and began shoveling fudge bars into your mouth as fast as you could.

WRITER
Ah...fudge. Nature’s sweetest berry.

PRODUCER
I guess we should be grateful you ate the fudge so quickly that you started vomiting, otherwise you probably would’ve racked up an even higher tab. Which, I should point out, they’re still waiting for you to pay.

WRITER
And I should point out that, technically, I gave all that fudge back. I shall pay for nothing.

PRODUCER
Yeah, there’s a goddamn shocker...
(shuffles papers)
This next part...God, I don’t even know what to say. You wanna explain to me why you snuck into the Transformers soundstage?

WRITER
To become one with Starscream.

PRODUCER
I don’t even wanna know what that means. Says here you somehow infiltrated a crowd of extras--

WRITER
I wanted to be part of the movie.

PRODUCER
--and then proceeded to loudly shout advice to the Autobots while the cameras were running.

WRITER
I wanted to be a more important part of the movie.

PRODUCER
You should know, Bay’s people are threatening legal action.

WRITER
Bastards. You tell them we have the Dinobots on our side, and all Hell’s a-coming with us! That’s the only language those mothers of fuck will understand.

PRODUCER
I hope you realize how much trouble you’re in here.

WRITER
I did nothing wrong.

PRODUCER
You tipped over Bumblebee.

WRITER
I regret nothing.

PRODUCER
He fell on the script supervisor.
(pause)
The pregnant script supervisor.

WRITER
I regret that a little.

PRODUCER
I just...I don’t even know what to say here. Help me understand this. Tell me you were drunk or whacked out on angel dust or something.

WRITER
I was high...

PRODUCER
Okay, that’s a start.

WRITER
...on the magic of cinema.

PRODUCER
(rubbing temples)
Get out of my office.

WRITER
I’d like another chance, sir. A chance to apologize.

PRODUCER
Well, you could start by visiting that poor woman you put in the hospital...

WRITER
No, to apologize to Bumblebee, I mean.

PRODUCER
(losing it)
GET OUT! NOW! GET! THE! FUCK! OUT!

WRITER
...

PRODUCER
(visibly shaking)
You’re still here.

WRITER
Did I already ask if you validate parking?

On Indy Movies

2006-09-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

On Indie Movies

2006-09-01T01:10:00.000-07:00

Here’s a cute little crouton of Hollywood history for you: did you know that “indie movie” used to mean “independently financed movie”? I know! It’s hilarious! Thankfully those days are long gone, and with them the pitiful salaries and non-existent royalties of working for people who are “in it for the art, man”.

Nowadays the indie movie is a much cleaner, less stinky affair – produced by a vaguely disguised arm of a major studio and distributed with the sort of faux-artistic sheen that cries “Just give us the Oscar now, and clear a space on the mantle for some of those Sundance trinkets while you’re at it”.

You still won’t get rich from writing a modern indie movie, but if you get it right then you’re guaranteed to be given a swift hoist up the studio ladder for your next gig – probably a more lucrative (and utterly generic) romantic comedy that needs the illusion of offbeat whimsy in order to fool Jennifer Aniston into signing on.

As with every other movie genre, crafting an indie movie is simply a matter of gathering the basic ingredients, mashing them crudely together in the basin of your mind and then vomiting the result into Final Draft.

1. The Story

The most stupendous part of indie movies is that the story totally doesn’t matter. Nobody even cares if its been done a million times before! Boy meets girl, girl loses father, father misses Crazy Like A Fox – it’s all irrelevant. This is awesome news for the screenwriter in a hurry, since you can just dust off some old unused TV Movie Of The Week script that nobody wanted and use that as your starting point. You can literally save a whole hour, maybe even two, by not having to write a new script.

2. The Characters

OK, here’s where you need to decide which direction you want to take your screenplay. Luckily, there are only two types of indie movie – quirky comedy or downbeat drama – and both are hilariously simple to write.

a. Quirky Comedy: Take your stock characters from your TV movie and give them a completely incongruous character beat. Maybe the lovestruck hero of your tale collects left shoes. Maybe the life-affirming girl of his dreams constantly doodles butterflies with human faces on napkins. It really doesn’t matter – just keep it goofy and adorable. A man who makes finger puppets from the skulls of puppies is probably just going to freak people out.

b. Downbeat Drama: Take your stock characters from your TV movie and pour buckets of sweaty misery and damp, awful misfortune into their lives. Give your main character a collapsed lung that makes every second syllable a painful, rib-wracking wheeze. Make your female lead permanently pregnant with a calcified goat foetus. Hell, amputate a few limbs at the start of the second act. Give all the characters Super Contagious AIDS Cancer ten pages from the end. The further you take it, the more people will howl at the transcendent humanity of the story. Remember: Halle Berry won an Oscar for Monster’s Ball.

3. Soundtrack

Traditionally, writers who include specific music cues in their screenplay are flayed alive, disembowelled by wolves and have their mangled corpses hung in metal gibbets along the 405 as a warning to others who are thinking of overstepping their boundaries. Amazingly, you can not only get away with this in the fragrant playground of the indie movie, but it can actually help to sell the script.

See, this is a labor of love. A story that you were compelled to tell. As far as the studio is concerned, if they don’t pick it up you’d make the movie anyway, piecing it together from still photographs taken with your cellphone if need be. The music is the pulse of the whole frickin’ movie!

It’s also a handy way of baiting the trap for the studios, because all the major studios have record labels, and all these record labels have dozens of shitty emo bands that no fucker is buying. Do a little digging. Find out which whiny bunch of middle-class white boys is in need of a PR boost, and drop their name into your script.

INT. FOUCAULT’S COCOA DINER. EVENING.

Mike and Barbara sit facing each other. Coffee cools between them. On the jukebox we can hear MAKE ME HURT by LOVE’S HATRED BULLET.

They listen to the whole song. Twice.

MIKE
We carry so much pain with us. But we don't have to.
(beat)
Nobody has to.

They kiss.

4. Injecting Meaning

Of course, the one thing that distinguishes indie movies from sappy TV flicks made for menopausal slobs is the twin demons of Subtext and Depth. These two slobbering monsters have frightened away many a hardy screenwriter with their threats of hard work, research and creative effort. Feh!

The wonderful, magical, wonderful thing about indie movies is that you don’t have to inject meaning. It’s an indie movie, for the love of Braff! Obviously there must be meaning in it, and you’ll never find an executive, actor or critic who’ll admit they don’t know what it is. So screw it. Let them do the work.

If you’ve followed the formula, you’ll find that people rave about the achingly poignant way that Mike’s shoe fetish acts as a metaphor for his inability to take the first steps towards a better life. They’ll sob into their lace handkerchiefs at the subtle way you’ve used a really bad case of shingles to represent Barbara’s forgotten childhood trauma. They’ll jump up and cheer at your audacious use of a rapping android dream sequence, and how it perfectly mirrors Akemi’s ethnic confusion.

5. Packaging the Myth

Here’s the downside: no studio will touch an indie script unless there’s a marketable story attached. Some Dude Writes Miserable Movie isn’t going to get them coverage. Luckily, you make shit up for a living.

Percolate the rumor that you sold your hair to Russian mobsters for ten years in order to finance the movie. Grab some film student off the USC campus, and blackmail him into shooting a really lousy version of your movie on his DV camera by threatening to email his mother photos of him jerking off to World of Warcraft characters. Boast about how you made your own movie for just $735.37. Gloss over the fact that the studio will have to spend $5m to essentially reshoot the entire thing.

There’s nothing the system likes more than the easy-sell story of someone who bucked the system.

And there’s nothing you like more than the sweet, sweet nectar of the system.

On Writing Female Characters

2006-08-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

It's hardly surprising that the vast majority of working screenwriters are men...or, as some call them, "the unwomen." The operative word in that sentence is working, by the way, since the blogosphere (literally: a sphere of blogs) is crammed to its pink little rafters with female screenwriters. Most of them are talented. All of them are unemployed.

If you've ever read a woman's screenplay, you know how provocative, intelligent and humanistic they can be, rich with nuance and complex character arcs. Many of these feemplays, as we like to call them when no women are around, are so beautifully written and heartfelt they can leave even the strongest reader quivering and shattered in the grip of that foul beast we call emotion.

Of course, shit like this is never going to sell, but still, honey, we're just proud of you for trying. And look...you ran the spell-checker and everything! Just like a real screenwriter!

Now is the time for all men to breathe a sigh of relief and offer up a flagon of steaming ram's blood to the Mighty Norse Gods of Screenwriting, because even with a century's worth of evidence at their disposal, studio executives still haven't realized that women can write circles around us.

See, most studio executives are men, which makes them naturally receptive to the type of movies that men like to pitch, such as movies that are awesome, and also movies that are really cool. And this same genetic predisposition is the reason that, during many pitch meetings with female screenwriters, executives will act as though piping hot ferret urine is being forcibly inserted into their ear canals. It's psychosomatic, really.

Don't believe us? Take a look at these two coverage samples we recently obtained through a trusted source (Ebay), both written by the same male studio reader. (For those who don't know what coverage is, here's a helpful analogy: "coverage is to studio executives as Cliff Notes are to lazy college students.") One of these samples refers to a script written by a woman, the other by a man. See if you can figure out which is which based on the reader's reaction.

COVERAGE SAMPLE #1:

TITLE: Yours Truly, Gregory

SUMMARY: A disobedient young woman is sent to live with her aunt on some island somewhere. Rome, maybe? I don't remember. Anyway, Gregory is this dude, and they fall in love, but then she gets mad at him, but then he dies, but then she realizes he never loved the Dutchess after all, it was her all along, it was always her.

ANALYSIS: The script is astonishingly well-written. The characters are likeable and realistic, and the audience can easily relate to the whole "falling in love" shit. The ending was unexpected yet somehow fitting, and the raw emotion on display felt like a punch to the sternum, only in a good way. This is the kind of script that can really make you reevaluate your entire life. The way Kate and Gregory can never be together, even though they were so perfect together...it's enough to rip your heart out. Because if they can't make it work, what chance do the rest of us have? Sigh.

RECOMMEND / PASS? Pass. Too gay.

COVERAGE SAMPLE #2

TITLE: S.U.D.Z.

SUMMARY: See, there's like this futuristic prison on top of this mountain, right? And this stripper named Raven St. Darkeyes gets sent there for, like, being a stripper and stuff, and all the guards are big-titted Swedish girls who have guns that shoot soap suds instead of bullets, so whenever the girls misbehave they have to roll around in the suds, just pulling each other's hair and having orgasms. Oh, and there's this part where Michael Biehn is watching the girls on the security monitor, but they don't know he's watching so they start trying on each other's panties and comparing nipple sizes, just like girls do in real life.

ANALYSIS: Holy shit, how cool was that part with the evil octopus? I know, right? He was so evil!

RECOMMEND / PASS? Highest Possible Recommendation.

Ladies, are you starting to see just how badly the deck is stacked against you? We wish we could offer you some words of encouragement or a few helpful techniques for breaking into the industry, but frankly, we don't want the competition. Hollywood's innate sexist bias is the only thing keeping writers like us employed--hypothetically, of course--and we're not about to jeopardize this precarious foothold for nonsense like fairness or equality. Sorry, but you're on your own.

What this means, gentlemen, is that the burden of writing female characters falls squarely on our burly, hair-spackled shoulders. The glass ceiling may be keeping the ladies out of Hollywood, but there's nothing keeping them out of the movie theater. And if you try to pigeonhole the women in your audience with pandering, sexist stereotypes, you very well may find yourself at the mercy of their rolling pins and vacuum cleaners.

This doesn't mean the women in your screenplay have to be realistic or believable, thank God. (We're good teachers, but not that good.) Fortunately, decades worth of lazy movies have conditioned audiences and executives alike to expect female characters to fall into one of three easily classified categories. Deviate from these standards at your own risk.

TYPE #1: THE PANDERING-TO-OUR-WIVES WOMAN

She is as wise as she is beautiful. For every boneheaded comment that her fat slob of a husband spews forth, she's ready with a brilliantly snappy comeback. She exists to solve the family's financial problems, teach everyone valuable life lessons, and to save our mortal souls from an eternity of suffering and darkness. Despite the fact that she has already had seven demographically-satisfying children, her belly is still flat and her ass is as firm as a child's skull. In her free time, she enjoys giving money to homeless people, having sex on her own terms, and looking pretty.

Sample dialogue: "You think that was fast? You should've seen Chuck on our wedding night! Am I right, ladies? Am I right? Wooo!"

TYPE #2: THE MYSTIFYING, DESPERATE GUESS OF A WOMAN

Believe it or not, many screenwriters find interaction with the opposite sex as upsetting or frightening as, say, a run-in with Dracula. This can make it difficult for writers to create realistic, genuine women, considering how they've never actually met any. This is why you'll find screenplays that are peppered with bizarre, often contradictory characteristics of womanhood, as the writer throws everything he knows (or thinks he knows) about women against the page in the hopes that something, anything will stick.

Sample dialogue: "Feel that? My Fallopian Tubes are stirring. That means danger is nearby."

TYPE #3: THE IDEAL WOMAN

When the screenwriter doesn't have a nosy wife looking over his shoulder or some vague female demographic to appease, this is generally what you wind up with. Perhaps she is a cantaloupe-breasted molecular biologist who still needs a man's help to solve the mysterious mystery of the Sphinx. Maybe she's a mute circus acrobat with an insatiable need to watch Charles Bronson movies after sex. Either way, she looks like Jessica Alba, swears like a sailor, enjoys playing Halo, and is thinking about making you some tasty hamburgers right now. And after that? It's shower time.

Sample dialogue: "Damn, my vagina's cold. Brrrr. Hey, you got anything I could stuff up in there?"

"Jeremy Slater's Blog"

2006-08-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the September issue of WIRED Magazine for naming our little site "the Web's funniest fix for film geeks." And special thanks as well for not mentioning my co-writer Dan Whitehead, thereby making it look like I'm coming up with all the funnies by myself. If anyone needs me, I'll be celebrating my greatness by clubbing Rodeo Drive paparazzi into orbit using only my coke-engorged member.

Anyway...welcome, new people. If you're just here for Rapebear, you can find him in the June 19th post. Otherwise, please stick around. And if you keep a pocket of delicious scones handy, you may even catch a glimpse of the elusive Ruby-Breasted Whitehead. They mostly come out at night. Mostly.

On Writer's Block

2006-08-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

It can happen to anyone. It can happen to the best of us but it doesn't make you any less of a precious snowflake in God's Great Plan.

It can't be helped. There's no secret panacea to prevent it. Sometimes it just won't flow. That empty white space just stares back at you, a blank tundra goading you, mocking your pitiful inability to let go of the conscious world and empty yourself, filling the opaque void with your own special brand of magic. But the more you try to force it, the harder it is to start. It's agony. It's soul-destroying. It's a hellish purgatory of emotional self-hate.

Then the guy at the next urinal leaves and - ooooohhhh, blessed relief - out it comes, a powerful masculine torrent of bliss, filling the air with the rapturous gurgle of the drain and the faintest hint of your trouser musk.

By thunder, it's good to be alive.

Speaking of which, getting started on a new screenplay can be a lot like taking a long piss. The hardest part is always getting things moving. Writer's block has struck most people slaving away in the business - why else do you think there was a four year gap between Weekend at Bernies and Weekend at Bernies II? - but rather than letting your complete lack of imagination or original thought stymie you at the first hurdle, here are some of the tried and trusted methods of kickstarting the ol' mental idea machine that have served us well in the past, along with some of the results obtained.

INTROSPECTION
This method requires preparation, and no small amount of mental resilience and physical fortitude, but can often be the key to unlocking the script ideas that cut through to the exposed bone of human frailty. First of all, forget about writing. You've not sold anything, and even that guy from Craigslist isn't going to pay you for rewriting his college paper. Go to the store. Buy a six-pack. Come home. Consume. Sleep. Next morning, skip breakfast and go back to the store. Buy two six-packs and a 40oz bottle of the cheapest malt liquor they sell. Come home. Consume. Sleep in your clothes. Next morning, stagger back to the store. Stop outside. Cry for no reason for ten minutes. Purchase as many bottles of the malt liquor as you can carry. Come home. Consume. Keep consuming. Realise that your life is empty and pointless and shallow, and there's no way you'll ever amount to anything. Vomit. Consume some more. Fall asleep with your arms wrapped around the toilet, bitter tears stinging your cheeks. Wake up. Now WRITE.

SCRIPTS COMPLETED USING THIS METHOD: Why Susan Why?; So Very Very Cold; Who Will Miss Me?; Fifty Messages Left For Susan; It's Crap, All Crap; Restraining Order Blues.

STIMULATION
This method is a long-standing Hollywood tradition, and has been used to get the ball rolling on at least 75% of all the movies you have ever seen. It can be expensive, but the results are spectacular. You will need: a room, a door that locks, a stack of lined notebooks, fifty ballpoint pens, at least a week of spare time and, most importantly, at least 5 kilos of cocaine. Simply lock the door, flip open the first notebook and start snorting. When the week is up, the cops will either discover your gnarled corpse, your teeth ground down to stubs and your spine bent in two by the ferocity of your spastic thrashing or you'll emerge soiled and stinking into the morning smog with at least twenty awesome blockbuster screenplays.

SCRIPTS COMPLETED USING THIS METHOD: Who's Laughing Now? I'll Show You Who's A Fucking Big Man!; Explode This, Bruckheimer!; I'm Splitting The Planet In Two With My Cock And It Feels FANTASTIC; GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRAAAAAAGHHHHHH.

VISUALISATION
Quite simple really. Close your eyes. Empty your mind. Let go of all awareness, picture a mountain stream and let your inhibitions be carried away on its babbling current. Now, when you're ready, picture your embryonic screenplay as a block of cool marble waiting expectantly for your chisel, just as a prison wife trembles at the thought of parole day. Take your time. Study the block. Feel it. Know it. See your screenplay hidden within the firm, proud facets of its surface, needing only your steady hand to reveal it to the world. Only then, when you can see it clearly in your mind's eye, should you get to work.

Slowly at first. Chip, chip, chip. Let the work reveal itself. Maybe a hand is formed first, or the broad muscular butterfly of a young man's back. Chip, chip, chip. Now his strong jaw, high cheekbones and piercing eyes, always striving toward some far-flung horizon, begging to be tamed, but impossible to cage. Thighs. Oh, the thighs. Like the trunks of two flourishing young oaks, thick cords of sinew, coiled, poised, so strong, so tender. And there, where the line of his abdomen inexorably leads your gaze, a forbidden valley, the small hard acorn of Man, nestling, ready, awaiting your touch...

When you emerge from your alpha-wave state, you should find that you've completed your screenplay without even thinking about it.

SCRIPTS COMPLETED USING THIS METHOD: Troy.

On Horror Films

2006-08-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

Horror is the one genre where the audience will heartily recommend your terrible, boring, braindead movie to all of their friends just as long as there's a scene where the cheerleader gets her uterus ripped out through her mouth.

This doesn't mean that character development, storytelling and originality don't matter. (Although they don't.) It just means that for every five minutes you spend figuring out your characters' motivations--partying, looking cool, not getting stabbed, etc.--you should spend at least twice that amount figuring out cool, disgusting, or downright pornographic ways for them to die.

Some critics will attempt to break the horror genre down into smaller subgenres, such as Zombie Horror, Supernatural Horror, Mutated Porcupine Horror (that one is ours; don't you steal it), etc. While this is a logical approach, it also seems like a lot of work, and we don't think we're getting paid by the page here. So in the interest of laziness, we'd like to propose a different way to categorize horror films: PG-13 versus R-rated. Let's take a look at the way these two categories break down.

PG-13 HORROR:
Our heroine is a sexy young (Librarian / Virgin / One Tree Hill Actress) who discovers a (terrifying plot / horrifying plot / mildly upsetting plot) to destroy her hometown, which happens to be populated strictly by (eccentric stereotypes / offensive stereotypes / Veronica Mars actors). The threat is finally revealed to be (A Haunted Dorm Room / Dripping Wet Japanese Kids / A Hairbrush That Makes You Kill Shit), and everybody dies (Offscreen, Quietly / With the Camera Rushing Toward Their Screaming Mouths / On the Inside, Just a Little), except for our heroine and her studly new boyfriend, who defeat the malevolent presence using (Their Blossoming Love / The Old Voodoo Lady's Necklace / Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start). The end.

R-RATED HORROR:
Our heroine is a sexy young (Stripper / Rocker / Nun, With Whorish Qualities) whose idyllic weekend of (Screwing, Drinking / Drinking, Screwing) is cruelly interrupted by a murderous (Hillbilly / Satan / Mutated Gopher), who quickly dispatches her friends using his (Power Tools / Demonic Abilities / Gophery Rage). As soon as our heroine finishes (Taking a Shower / Taking a Shower / Taking a Shower), she manages to defeat her foe using only a simple (Machine Gun / Bible That Shoots Lightning / Clump of Lettuce, Poisoned). The end.

There are many variations to these formulas, of course, so feel free to mix things up. Maybe you don't find the Wolfman frightening, but you're terrified of the mentally-handicapped . Maybe you're bored seeing hot teenagers get killed at summer camp, but the idea of seeing hot teenagers get killed on the blazing magma shores of the Earth's core still turns you on. Whatever, really.

Here are a few helpful horror guidelines to get you started:

Horror audiences like knowing what to expect, so be sure to stereotype your characters early on. Go ahead and name your nerd character Cubby Dorklington, and don't be shy about giving your abusive jock character a name like Punch McFacey.
Remember: when they're being chased by a vicious, remorseless killing machine, many teenagers enjoy cracking jokes and making light of the situation. Especially if they're sassy and/or black.
If you're writing a horror movie about a shark, calling the shark "Dr. Jaws" is not enough to protect you from a lawsuit, which seems totally unfair to us, but whatever.
Here's a cool idea for a scary scene: so your character is brushing her teeth, right? And then she closes the bathroom mirror, and in the reflection we see...another bathroom mirror! And in the reflection of the other bathroom mirror we see...the killer! Holy shit, he was standing right beside her this entire time!
Need a surefire horror concept? Take a warm childhood memory and twist it into something horrible and disturbing. A word of warning: be sure to pick well-known, shared childhood memories--such as the Easter Bunny ("Sunday, Bloody Sunday") or the boogeyman ("The Creature Under the Bed")--and not individual memories, such as your beloved old Uncle Joe ("Uncle Rape").

Still confused? Here's an especially good scene from one of our latest horror scripts, Slaughter at Camp Tit. Study our mastery of language and the evocative way that our language evokes stuff.

EXT. HAUNTED WOODS - DARKEST NIGHT

STACY comes stumbling out of the woods. She looks just like Connie Miller--the girl who broke my heart in High School and is now married to a plumber, a PLUMBER for Chrissakes, way to pick yourself a winner there, honey--and much like Connie, Stacy is also a total gutterdiving whore.

We watch as Stacy shotguns a beer, pops three tabs of LSD, and tears her panties away in a single practiced tear. She bellows like a runaway locomotive:

STACY
I'm a tornado of Fuck!

Suddenly, A BLACK CAT jumps out of a nearby tree! AAAAAAAA! Stacy runs around for a while, very frightened, until she finally grows tired and stops to rest beside a mailbox.

WHAMMO! The mailbox flies open and ANOTHER BLACK CAT leaps forth! AAAAAAAAAA! What a scary scene!

STACY
Whew! I'm glad you're not the killer!

She turns to find herself face to face with...

...the Killer. And he's holding A BLACK CAT! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!

ATTENTION STUDIO READER: DEATH SCENE STARTS HERE

First the Killer twists her head around. Then he shoves a turnip in her ass. Then he forces her to take a morning-after contraceptive pill, which is an Abomination in the Eyes of Our Lord. Then he beats her with a bag of hooves. Then he shoves her inside a giant blender that doesn't need electricity to run because we're in the woods right now. Then he puts on golf cleats and kicks her face off.

STACY
Ow!

She DIES.

How'd that make you feel, Connie? Are you proud of the way you treated me? Sure would be a shame if something happened to that plumber of yours, huh? I'm just saying.

ATTENTION STUDIO READER: NEXT DEATH IS ON PAGE 24

On Twist Endings

2006-08-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

A good twist ending can make your audience forget just how thoroughly mediocre the preceding ninety minutes have been. We all remember that electric thrill of discovery when we first realized that Darth Vader was Luke's father, or that Bruce Willis was a ghost, or that Jaws was actually a shark.

As a writer, your ultimate goal should be to send your audience reeling and stumbling from the theater, so thunderstruck by your brilliance that they don't even realize they've wandered into the path of an oncoming semi. This means that whether you're writing a sleazy crime story about duplicitous bank robbers or a cheery animated fable about Unicorns doing Unicorny shit, your script must have a twist ending.

Coming up with a corker of an ending is the easy part. The problem is that audiences have become savvy to many of Hollywood's most reliable twists and turns. They know the villain isn't really dead, the boyfriend is actually the serial killer, and Vin Diesel isn't really allergic to shellfish. (Remember in the beginning of the movie, that part where Vin talked about going to acting school? Remember that part? He's actually an actor! C'mon, weren't you paying attention? Christ.)

So if you want to stay in the game, you'll need to invent some new twists for your script, and they must be so explosively explosive that their sheer kinetic force ruptures the scrotums of every adult male in the audience.

Here's a surefire way to come up with an unbeatable twist:

Write the first 89 pages of your script
Think of a twist

Many writers get tripped up at this second step by obsessing over trivial details, such as narrative consistency or internal logic. Don't become one of those sad, stupid souls. With enough lubrication, any nonsensical plot contrivance can be thrust deeply and repeatedly into your script's most delicate areas. If you believe in your twist, your audience will too. And even if they don't, you already have their nine bucks. So, really, who cares?

Here's a fun exercise (fun for us, not you). Below is a plot synopsis for a typical crime caper that we were almost hired to rewrite until the studio hated all of our ideas. Read the synopsis, then see if you can come up with three different twist endings for this story. Then compare your twists to the ones we came up with.

Ours are better, right? And that's why you'll never be a screenwriter.

SYNOPSIS: Rance MacGuffin is a down-on-his luck private dick who is hired by the mysterious and seductive Lola Danger to discover who killed her husband, Gregory Richwell III, a venture capitalist who parlayed his banana-importing operation into a lucrative line of banana-scented women's handbags.

Richwell disappeared on his private yacht without a trace, except for all the blood he left behind. Lola, the only other passenger on the yacht at the time, was occupied with a particularly nasty bout of the Caribbean squirts, and except for Richwell's frantic screams for help, she saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary.

As MacGuffin sinks deeper into the seedy cocktails-and-brie world of the Hamptons, his attraction to the dangerous Lola Danger grows. But MacGuffin is about to learn that the deadliest mystery of all is...love.

Now it's your turn, dear reader.

WHAT'S THE TWIST ENDING?

ENDING #1. The case is finally cracked when a case worker from Big Brothers, Big Sisters shows up to take Gregory Richwell III to the park to play on the swingset. The case worker explains the shocking truth: Richwell was actually developmentally-disabled! The fact that Lola Danger never realized that she was married to a retard can be easily explained away by the fact that she's a woman, and women don't notice stuff. With this new information in hand, MacGuffin easily deduces the sequence of events: first Richwell sliced his finger while trying to open a particularly stubborn can of Pringles--hence the blood they found--then tried to wash the blood away by jumping into the ocean. Because, see, he was retarded. In the final scene, MacGuffin and his new flame share a laugh over this improbable turn of events. Then MacGuffin and Lola do the nasty in the Jacuzzi.

ENDING #2. The case is finally cracked when Lola rips away her biomechanical faceplate. Then she explains the shocking truth: she's actually a pulsating, gelatinous lifeform encased in a cybernetic human shell! It turns out the creature is an interstellar anthropologist sent to observe and document life on earth. But the alien's cover was blown when a bottle of Mexican water caused its simulated bowels to temporarily shut down, and she was forced to kill her husband to protect her secret. In the final scene, MacGuffin sheds a tear over this improbable turn of events as he grinds the alien into paste under the heel of his boot. Then MacGuffin does the nasty with Lola's cybernetic shell in the Jacuzzi.

ENDING #3. The case is finally cracked when a cadre of trained chimps disrupt the climactic cocktails-and-brie party on page 82. Using a rudimentary form of sign language, the Chimp Leader explains the shocking truth: Richwell's line of fashionable women's handbags derive their distinctive odor not from bananas, but from squeezed monkey essence! It seems Richwell was killed in a desperate attempt to stop the cycle of ape-slavery. With this information out of the way, the noble chimp leads the humans to a factory filled with monkeys attached to horrible milking devices. Using the power of his newfound love--and a gun, which turns out to be more useful--MacGuffin rescues the captive simians. In the final scene, MacGuffin and his new friends share a banana over this improbable turn of events. Then MacGuffin does the nasty with Lola in the Jacuzzi while the monkeys watch.

On Establishing Mood

2006-08-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

Inexperienced screenwriters often assume that directors and cinematographers are responsible for establishing a film's mood. Hogwash, we say. If years of movies-about-making-movies have taught us anything, it's the fact that your typical director is too busy yelling vague threats into a bullhorn, while the cinematographer...well, we don't know what he does. Nobody does, really.

So if the finished film is going to retain even a shitty little shred of atmosphere, it's up to the screenwriter. And in case you haven't been following along, that's YOU.

The easiest way to establish mood is what the pros call the Referential Approach. This should never be confused with the Deferential Approach, which involves allowing a bitter, alcohol-numbed Bruce Willis to wave a loaded handgun in your face while rambling about the Great Emptiness That Lies Beyond The Pale, or whatever the fuck he’s going on about this week.

The Referential Approach is remarkably simple. Have you seen movies before? Well, so have your readers! Draw upon this common bond and let your shared knowledge do the heavy lifting. Here’s an example from Prepare to be Boarded, Matey!, a spec script we’re currently putting together.

INT. THE RED OPAL'S POOP DECK - NIGHT

Pirates scurry about, brandishing their scimitars and bellowing swarthy songs. Remember that one scene in Pirates of the Caribbean? No, the part with the boat. Remember? Yeah, this is just like that. Only cheaper.

CAPTAIN JIM SWALLOW prances around, saying comical things and wiggling his fingers. Remember Johnny Depp's hat? HE’S GOT THE SAME HAT.

CAPTAIN JIM SWALLOW
Rum, rum, blabbersnickt grbl blerr, rum!

He gives up and slumps against the railing, too exhausted to cavort another inch.

JUST SOME PIRATE
Look! A skeleton-zombie thing! Holy shit!

The Skeleton Zombie Pirate Thing comes slithering over the railing. It looks just like the Skeleton Zombie Pirate Things from the first Pirates movie, only cheaper.

CAPTAIN JAMES SWALLOW
(so weary)
Yarr.

Unfortunately, sometimes simply referencing other movies isn’t enough to earn a paycheck, at which point you’ll be forced to actually write a movie of your own. And while this is certainly a depressing turn of events, don’t give up! One last spring-loaded Dagger of Insight remains hidden within the pleathery folds of your Trenchcoat of Artistic Purity, and that is your ability to digress.

Screenwriting is, by its very nature, an artform that prides itself on being concise and to-the-point and not beating around the bush with a bunch of unnecessary descriptions and rambling descriptive sentences when just a few simple and short and straightforward words will do the trick and get the job done, with the job in question being, of course, conciseness. Words are a precious commodity for screenwriters, more precious than gold or silver or even the life of a newborn child, and we should always strive to keep things brief, even if it means we mst strt omttng vwls.

When the screenwriter is attempting to establish mood, however, he is given free reign to indulge his wildest writing fetishes, such as using adjectives. This is your one chance to break free from convention and seize your artistic muse by her glistening, gummy lips, so you’d damn well better take it.

Relate a charming anecdote about the doubting fool who dared you to eat an entire glazed ham, and the look of abject horror on his face when your task was completed. Rant about politics and insult organized religion with reckless abandon. Toss in a few limericks, the filthier the better. Just make sure your digressions are complimenting the mood of the script and manipulating your idiot readers into experiencing the right emotions at the right places.

For example:

EXT. GRAVEYARD – DAY

DETECTIVE MARTIN BLOTCH stands over his wife's grave.

BLONCH
Oh, Cheri...my life is a puddle of warm shit without you, baby...

The tears fall from his eyes like rain, which is also falling right now, although we forgot to mention that earlier. He kneels beside the grave.

Moose was the best old hound any boy could ask for. His brown eyes were warm and wise, and his tail was always quick to wag when he saw you approaching. We would run through the fields together, Moose and I, the corn whipping past in a shimmering blur, Moose's joyous barks echoing across the plains, until at last we would collapse together, rolling in the dirt while Moose covered my laughing face with an eager coat of slobber. When night came, he would stand watch beside my bed, protecting me from those who would do me harm. "Go to bed, Moose," I would tell him, but he would simply stare at me, and the message in his brown eyes was clear: I love you far too much to ever sleep, human child. Journey now to the Land of Dreams. I shall watch over you until you wake.

But there came a day when Moose never answered my calls, never showed up for breakfast nor supper, and that night I slept alone. I set off to find him early the next morn and spent many a fitful hour searching. In desperation I finally turned to the dry riverbed that wound its way around our farm.

It was there that I found Moose, his breathing shallow, his body mangled beyond all hope of reprieve. Beside him lay the corpse of the rascally mountain lion that had been trying to eat me all summer long, and it was then that I realized Moose had fallen in battle while protecting me.

I knelt beside Moose and took his shaggy head in my arms. The light was already fading from his brown eyes, and it was plain that he had spent the last twenty-four hours in immeasurable agony. Yet he had fought to hold on for just this moment...for a chance to say goodbye to his human boy.

"Whuff," he said softly.

"Don't go, Moose!" I screamed. "Oh, Jesus, please save him! Save my dog's life!"

But Jesus was not in that dry riverbed that day.

Moose snuffled his cold wet nose against my neck, then gave me a feeble lick for the very last time. His body shuddered, and his internal organs were then expelled from his anus, as is the custom of all dogs. And Moose was gone, forevermore.

Detective Martin Blotch is still crying.

BLOTCH
Cheriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!