HOLLYWOODSCRIPT.COM NEWSLETTER
Welcome to the latest edition of the Hollywoodscript.com Newsletter, which is published by script consultants Craig Kellem, Judy Kellem
(http://www.hollywoodscript.com)
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The purpose of this newsletter is to share information, ideas etc. concerning the fascinating (and elusive) world of screenwriting.
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PASSION IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN HOLLYWOOD
By Craig kellem
In the seemingly cold-hearted and increasingly monopolistic corridors of Hollywood, it’s sometimes hard to find signs of the soft side of show business, the one that was always ready to discover tomorrow’s unlikely next star or hot property. And it can often appear that most, if not all artistic decisions are increasingly based on power player prerogatives and corporate indulgences.
Easy to believe that it’s becoming harder to get in!
I chatted with a senior agent recently (actually a partner in a major agency) who was lamenting about missing the “old days” when agents made decisions from their instincts and would nurse nascent projects along side of the blue chip priorities. He noted that many of the newer agents of today are too busy “stealing clients,” and otherwise, seeking name-brand product.
But even as he groaned, he was falling over himself in support of a project we had brought him because he believed in it. In fact he felt passionate about it and so did we.
The inadvertent reminder of this show biz tradition cheered me up and reminded me of all the times I had witnessed and personally experienced miracles, namely when good things happened for long shot projects and people. I remembered that these good tidings ALWAYS came as a result of someone's pure and infectious belief. And how winning a combination it could be; the supportive individual paired with projects which with a little TLC, seemed to take on lives of their own. Observing otherwise “tough as nails” movers and shakers softening and supporting when their hearts were touched, was always a sight to behold.
Passion, the magical ingredient in all of these cases, is surely the decisive factor. And it’s nice to know that it’s still alive and well and making things happen.
Stars-to-be, scripts that will find a home, and other worthy product can find warmth in the prospect that after all is said and done, it still can be about deserving talent and material getting caught in the throat and the heart of folks, finding ways to break through.
My own personal experience has borne out this truth. Perhaps it has something to do with deep energy which transforms into something tangible. If you believe, like many do, that all things are ultimately created from one’s most passionate beliefs and desires, then maybe “being on fire” has inevitable physical consequences, even in a seemingly impenetrable world.
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In case you haven’t noticed, this is to report that since Jim Janowsky’s win of our SCREENWRITING CONTEST, posted 6/21, we haven’t had a winner. Lots of good material has come in and may be ready soon, but nothing’s been strong enough to make the cut. Please remember that this is a very viable, happening contest-- our winners get lots of industry attention but this is because producers and agents know that when we send the coverage out, we mean business. This is an easy contest to win but the material has to be ready! We’re hungrily looking for the script that’s ready or that will be very soon!!
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CONTINUATION OF CRAIG AND JUDY’S INTERVIEW
As you already know, Judy and I were interviewed recently on radio/internet hookup by Voice America.com. The show is basically designed for up-and-coming filmmakers to provide insight into aspects of the filmmaking process, all in an effort to aid them on their journey. Here’s the SECOND half of the interview. If you didn’t receive the first half please let us know and it will be forwarded as we haven’t yet posted it on our site. ONCE AGAIN THANX MUCHO TO OUR ABLE INTERVIEWER DEON VAN ROOYEN.
D: So do you actively shop the winning script around?
CK: We do a lot of things with the script. The first thing is we put together coverage. We ask the winner to write a synopsis – it’s a very “directed” synopsis…a selling tool/ trailer rather than just the facts of the story. Then we go back and forth with the writer honing it until it’s truly ready. Of course we add our opinion and evaluation, which is very positive since they won the contest. And then, with the writer’s permission, we send the coverage out to lots of contacts. It should be noted that we do not mess with these contacts. We don’t send them material all the time and we don’t send “filler.” When we send material we mean business and they know it and our writers get both respect and responses. The responses go directly to them. On top of that, we have relationships with Scriptblaster, which is a fine outfit that sends this coverage out to a zillion of their contacts via their database..and also Inktip.com does their thing which is similar in scope and purpose and quite effective. And the combination of elements is very powerful. It’s very gratifying to have some person who’s sitting in Montana, who’s written a terrific screenplay but with no recognition, and all of a sudden s/he’s having conferences with producers in Hollywood. It makes us very happy when that happens.
D: Generally there’s a list of dos and don’ts – you know, don’t write directions, etc. I once saw where using a “cut to” was considered the sign of an amateur writer. Would you like to debunk any of the don'ts and emphasize the dos?
CK: It’s an interesting thing: If you take five professional screenplays, I’m talking “The Godfather,” “Cold Mountain,” “Sixth Sense,”– whatever, contemporary or not, and you line up the scripts you’ll find the formatting of each script is slightly but discernibly different from the others. Moreover, I work writers who use “cut to’s” and writers who would never think of putting one in the script. There are writers that think it’s real macho NOT to use stage directions (just let the reader imagine what the physical action is--such as “they locked eyes” or “she begins to sweat”) and others who put in whatever it takes to communicate the creative vision. So regarding the do’s and the don’ts – the real do is that your script should basically LOOK like everybody else’s even with it’s invariable formatting differences. The title page is standard, you don’t use any fancy binders or anything – it should just look like everyone else’s script. That’s the big DO. But the other big DO is make sure it’s really good.
JK: I agree and just want to throw in one extra thing, because it might help listeners, which is that people do need to be very hyper-vigilante about keeping their time and location cues crystal clear, because when you are reading a script, from scene change to scene change, if people get sloppy and it’s not clear to you the reader, where you are located, or what time zone you’re in, or if you’re in the middle of a flashback and the flashback ended five pages ago but no one marked that, it’s maddening. And also, when people get sloppy about identifying which characters are in one scene after another, it gets confusing and the filmic flow is broken. So they'll have, for example, "INTERIOR- LIVING ROOM" and there's a whole heated exchange between Martha, Sue and Jen, and then "CUT TO: EXTERIOR IN FRONT OF CAR" and the stage directions read, "she goes to car door, opens it, pulls out a gun..." but they don't tell you WHICH "SHE" character it is, so you're completely lost as to what's transpired and who is in
the scene. Those kinds of technical elements are really important because when they fall apart, it destroys the fiction.
CK: There’s a time and a place for formatting, but before you get hung up on formatting, get hung up on the art.
D: What are some of the pitfalls in adapting a book to a film? What should people be cognizant of?
JK: First is the obvious thing that they’re very different mediums. A screenplay is built on trickery because you’re using words to enact a visual medium, whereas a book is all about the language. Both have scenes and books can be very “cinematic” but they ultimately come down to words.
So when you’re doing an adaptation you must be very clear with yourself on what point of view you want to take. Do you want to follow the book, strictly replicate the perspective from which it is told? Or do you want to give it a different narrative spin. Also, get clear on how you’re going to write -in dialogue and description- the very complex and (often) overly involved stories that novelists get into, where it just sprawls on and on.
One must know how to be restrained and give stuff up. You’re not going to be able to have ALL those characters and all those subplots and all ALL those dramas. You’re going to have to distill what the book is about to its main core: The central drama and a couple of subplots to contain it.
And then you need to be very imaginative about translating. A prose writer will spend twenty pages conveying to -and evoking in- the reader the feeling of eating a cookie. The screenwriter needs to translate, like a poet, those twenty pages into a glance. Or, a moment that’s been framed. Or a small montage that is going to somehow elicit the same emotional response from a viewer.
It’s like being out on a major diet, because you can’t take up all that space and you have to really cut down.
D: Writing is usually a solitary process, but there comes a time when you have to pitch your story. Is learning to pitch a necessary evil and what’s the best to approach it?
CK: First of all, most pitching comes with a screenplay that hasn’t been written. If you have a screenplay that’s been written, you don’t have to pitch it, you just have to get somebody to read it since it speaks for itself. In the professional world, writers pitch their IDEAS hoping that it will result in a job to write the script. Producers often know a writers work (thanx to industrious agents)) and will invite him/her to come in and pitch so writers spend time around town pitching their unwritten projects. Or they can receive someone else’s script that needs work. They read the script and then meet with the producer and pitch how they would change/fix it. And they may win a job or not depending upon their ideas.
On the other hand, you may find that for whatever reason you have to enchant somebody verbally with what your screenplay is all about. This will take some special “doing,”
I know a lot about pitching because I’ve done it myself plus I used to head a creative department at Universal and had to pitch television shows all the time. I learned this--you’d better be good or they’ll throw you out of the office.
Basically the secret to pitching is there’s no secret at all.
You go in and you simply talk about what it is--you tell the truth. You tell them honestly why you are enthused about the project --(remind yourself before you go in why you’re enthused about it). And you try to accurately describe what it’s about in a reasonably succinct and entertaining way. There is no magic way of doing it. There are people who are terrific salespeople, who can give a dazzling, traditional type of sales pitch and there are others who are very low key and just as effective. The thing that you don’t want to do is go in there and try to contrive something. That goes for writing to. What works for pitching, works for writing. If you’re lying and you’re trying too hard, it doesn’t feel good and it doesn’t feel good to read it either.
D: Talk about writer’s block, what it is and how it can be overcome.
JK: Writer’s block is a misery for all writers, but it can also be an enormous gift. When you get blocked, a lot of times it’s your mind, your imagination, your heart telling you that you are getting into some very spooky material - material that will have power and resonance if you can move through that block and access it.
The block is trying to block you from going there and I don’t mean to be so psychoanalytic, but I think that it’s true. The reader can feel it in material when the writer is writing with passion and conviction and then all of a sudden does a one-eighty and writes away from the story. For the reader it’s absolutely jarring, a total disruption in the fiction.
Somebody who is experiencing writers block must sit inside of it. They must go back to the original idea that brought them to their desk, go to what it was that they wanted to write about and see what comes out, start writing about THAT. When in the free writing they get in touch with where the original passion is coming from, if they start hitting (again the idea of essential truths) those truths about themselves or stuff that they want to express that they are terrified to express, characters that they would never admit to themselves that they want to write about, they have to just GO WITH IT. Even if they put those pages under lock and key, don’t revisit them for years, at least they are going to get one boulder out of the way.
Writing is such an intimate and solitary practice. You are inviting yourself to go to the scariest but most potent parts of who you are. So it is in the writer’s block that those parts of you will jump out.
D: Right, much of your personal stuff comes out even if you don’t intend it.
JK: Yes. I’ve worked with writers who would swear they were writing about one thing, but as a reader it’s nakedly clear they are writing about something else. I get on the phone with them and give feedback and we start to talk about the fact that they thought they were writing about the annoying neighbor, but are really writing about their mother…it’s screaming out of the pages.
Writing is a very confrontational art.
D: One rule is less is more. Would you like to comment on that?
CK: Well, because a screenplay can be ninety-nine pages or a hundred and nineteen, it’s an illusion that it’s a free form and you can do whatever you want to do. We live in a very fast paced society and you have to spit it out as succinctly and judiciously as you can make it. There are writers who don’t trust brevity. They trust doling it out the long way because they are admirably obsessed in making sure that you understand it all. They don’t understand that what they’re writing is not a thesis or a dissertation. It’s a screenplay which has its own weight and “requirements.” After all watching a film is not something you can go back and study. You’re only going to hear it once so it’s best to figure out how to say things in a concise way. Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t render a terrific speech in a movie, like a mea culpa or an impassioned speech--there’s room for this. But you need to know how to be balanced and judicious in this area. For example, if you go to a Jim Brooks movie, I defy you to sit through the entire movie and find three extraneous lines in the film. There aren’t any. It’s all meat on the bone. There’s a purpose for everything and it all works. You feel it when you are watching something that’s tight and lean and that’s vital, rather than something that goes on and on.
I often deal with writers who overwrite. I try to sell them the beauty of economy, and occasionally I get a subsequent phone call – which gives me tremendous satisfaction. An excited little voice on the phone telling me that they spent the night making careful trims in their script. And that it finally feels right. I always suggest that go page by page and merely look for FAT-- is there a way of getting into a scene later?--is there a way of getting out of a scene sooner?-- is there something redundant?-- is there one sentence that can be removed? Basically, what happens is you get a writer who goes through this process then prints out their script and finds they’ve lost eight pages… they now feel like they went on a diet and achieved their fighting weight. And that inevitably inspires them to go back and take an even closer look and do a little trimming, and get the script down to the right size. It can make a huge difference.
D: We have Caller.
CALLER: What kinds of stories would you like to see more of?
JK: I love all of them. I’m not partial to comedies, or horror, or drama. But I think a lot of people feel enslaved by the cookie cutter, archetypal, recycled characters and story lines that get fed to them in the media. When they write their scripts, instead of allowing themselves to have a distinct and original voice, they think they have to narrow themselves, be derivative. So instead of some great quirky guy they knew growing up it’s “the jock”. Instead of some woman they find truly interesting, it’s “the Barbie blonde” or “the sporty smart one”. Their characters become stock.
I’ll then sit with the writer and say, “but did you really want to have a generic type landscape or are you really wanting to write something that comes straight from the original experience that you’ve had?”
That freedom to be more original is what I wish for.
CK: For me, I remember things that I feel. So what I want to read is material that I feel and that comes from the heart.
What comes from the heart, reaches the heart. People go to the movies to experience emotion, to be scared, to be elated, to be mad, to enjoy a quiet tear. And that’s the kind of material that turns me on.
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SCRIPTBLASTER has an incredibly vast data base of producers, agents, managers and the like. They can zap your coverage or query directly into the hands of many viable Hollywood producers, agents, managers etc. A unique feature is that the emails will be generated from your own personal email so industry professionals will respond directly to you. (http://www.scriptblaster.com)
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