HOLLYWOODSCRIPT.COM NEWSLETTER Welcome to the latest edition of Movie Scribe Online Newsletter (Late Winter 2001 which is published by script consultants Craig Kellem, Judy Kellem (http://www.hollywoodscript.com) (and contributed to by Colin Chapman (http://www.chapmanfilm.com). The purpose of this newsletter is to share information, ideas etc. concerning the fascinating (and elusive) world of screenwriting. WE'RE PROUD TO FEATURE OUR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE AGENCY FOR PERFORMING ARTS Sr. VP's David Saunders and Jim Kellem. APA is America's fourth largest talent/literary agency (main offices in NYC and L.A.). As you will see, they are very much in the film biz. HOLLYWOODSCRIPT.COM (HSC): Can you tell us some movies the agency has sold? JK: Well we represent the director of The Contender which of course is out and thriving right now ... (with) Joan Allen, Sam Elliott, Jeff Bridges. HSC: And didn't you recently have one of the James Bonds pictures out? JK: All three (of the last Bond flicks) were written by our writers ... Two films you guys worked on are opening soon. The Amati Girls opens next week. "O", is opening April 19th. We also have the Howard Franklin film, Anti Trust which just opened on Friday. We have a ton of them--that's only scratching the tip of the iceberg. DS: In the coming year we have Minority Report coming out from one of our writers, Ron Shusett. Then there's The Mothman Prophecies with Richard Gere ... and Laura Linney, who's probably going to be nominated for an Academy Award for You Can Count on Me. And The Salton Sea starring Val Kilmer. HSC: How is the prospect of a strike affecting the marketplace now? DS: There are two different viewpoints ... First of all, there are certainly companies like Warner Brothers that have announced they're not going to deal with anything new ... they're just going to try to get what they have made. And then there are other brand new companies like Bill Mechanic's company, which is buying up a storm and Joe Roth's company (Revolution) that need scripts anyway so that they can then go into production as soon as the strike is over. I thought there was going to be much bigger slowdown than there is but there's not - we just sold a script to Fox for a few hundred thousand bucks the day before Christmas. HSC: So, because of this, is it a good market for spec writers or not? DS: It's passable...it's better than I would have thought. HSC: We know that deals vary, financially ... but can you tell us what an average deal would be on a spec script sale from somebody on the outside, not from within the Hollywood establishment? DS: I'd say probably one-fifty . You're always reading in the trades about six-figure deals, low six figures - in truth they're usually anywhere from like scale at eighty-thousand to a hundred-fifty thousand. HSC: Then it's true that some of the fat fees announced for scripts include money that is forthcoming ONLY IF the picture is actually made? JK: Right. HSC: What do you guys consider to be "cherry" material? How do you choose it. What elements do you look for? What's hot - is it still the high-concept idea? DS: Of course. The easiest scripts to sell are always those with useful protagonists and anything in the self-evident genres of Action, Thrillers ... JK: Romantic Comedies ... DS: Ya, anything except serious Dramas and Period Pieces. HSC: Do you deal very much with independent films? JK: Sure... HSC: Is that a big part of your business or a small part? DS: It's a big part. The Contender, which is our biggest movie now was an Indie - a seven million dollar Indie that got picked-up by DreamWorks. JK: "O", which is the Brad Kaaya script is independent and got picked up by Miramax. HSC: But is .. it still hard to push so called "soft" material? JK/DS: Oh ya - sure... DS: It takes years and years ... A lot of the good movies that you see out there that you and I might like probably took a decade to get made ... It's wonderful if you were the person and it's your vision and you were trying to get it made and it's wonderful to see it get made, but for an agent it takes years and years and years for a small amount of money. HSC: Right ... Can anyone ever just sell an idea? DS: It's rare. I do know someone ... who has a deal over at Davis Entertainment, who was known as an idea man and I didn't think there was much money in it but he was selling ... these five page treatments of his ideas - which were, they were incredible ideas like, he would research obscure bureaus of the government and ... come up with wonderful A-Team type of schemes around this and he sold one for seventy-five thousand. But now he's a screenwriter, because the money is really in the idea AND the screenplay. HSC: But it doesn't happen very often? DS: No. JK: The name of the game is the completed, viable script. HSC: Ageism - can give us some conventional wisdom on that? JK: Well, you know we're being sued on this -- every agency in town's being sued on it ... A class action suit against studios, networks and agencies ... There is no ageism on good material, alright? Most of the ageism that happens is that people stop writing and try to get by on their reputations. DS: I think there is ageism because writers -- it's a cyclical business, like being a tennis player ... writers get tired...and that there's not ageism against a script that is just really good and fresh - probably from someone who may be older but who has not written that much before ... JK: What you see also is that some older writers, when they give us scripts, go by formulas and old techniques and there's tons of exposition, which you needed like in the seventies. And you read it .. and it reads old, it's not crisp. You can predict what's going to happen and there's nothing fresh about it. DS: But that may not be the case for a perfect stranger. Maybe a perfect stranger is fresh and is basically putting their entire life's work into writing this script for free (ie: on spec). Most writers who have sold a lot are not going to be putting their heart and soul into a spec script. HSC: What makes material sell? What are studios wanting? JK: Big ideas that'll have leads. DS: Ideas that are castable! JK: You know that when you read a script you're going to be looking at how do you sell it...you sell it with stars - with the director, but most likely it's going to be with the actors. So you need some starring roles and it's got to be a big idea. HSC: Is the business getting harder? JK: Much - no question about it. And less competition ... fewer buyers. DS: Well there seem to be more of these German-based companies that are buying scripts but the trend is that they're all teaming up with the studios...New companies are always easier to sell to ... and there's always someone (new) coming along .. But the only thing that has stayed the same, except for DreamWorks, is the number of distributors green-lighting movies ... that is a continued logjam...and getting worse. HSC: How does good coverage help a screenwriter? DS: It helps a lot...basically the decision makers don't read scripts on the first go around..and even when you give it to a lower level executive like a VP or director of development...there's still a taint of their wanting to push it up the ladder for their own careers. The only person who's viewed as being completely impartial is the reader. So quite often those mid-level people need good coverage from an independent reader. And, they're hoping and praying that the coverage is good, that they can take the coverage and the script with the recommendation to their boss and get it read by their boss. JK: The other thing is, is that the beginning of the script is so important. Because if you don't get into the script really quick, nobody gets through it. (note, see article concerning this after this interview) HSC: If your own kid were dying to be in the movie-making business, to become a screenwriter, what would be your main advice to her/him? DS: After, get out of the business? (laughs) - which isn't fair, I've made a pretty good living from this and my parents totally discouraged it. It is a very difficult business but the best training for it, certainly for being a writer is perhaps to major in English. But I really do think an undergraduate degree in Film, in which you're exposed to - you should be exposed to hundreds and hundreds of movies 'cause it is sort of the language of the film business. Executives are constantly thinking in terms of other movies that have been successful, both old movies and new movies. I was not a film major, I was a studio executive years ago - and I was a little short of knowledge on films from the fifties and sixties ... and people that were really successful around me lived and breathed films. So, there's that - but I also think you certainly should try to minor in English because recognizing interesting turns of phrase, having a love of language is really, really important ... and you better be very familiar with what is fresh and clever ... and ... a good knowledge of famous novels is a pretty good idea considering that people are also always referring to, "gee we want to update Journey to the Center of the Earth and Jules Verne" - JK: Or Shakespeare... HSC: Okay, last question, William Goldman had that famous line, "No one knows anything." In your view, is it still true? DS: Totally true. Look at Save the Last Dance. Who knew that would be a hit? Copyright HSCL 2001, All Rights Reserved
Sharpening Your Hooks By Judy Kellem If first impressions are everything in relationships, nowhere is this truer than in screenwriting. It doesn't matter if you have brilliant characters, swinging third act scenes and a killer story. If your first pages read like the slow, sour yawn of a tired old mule, you may be done for. Openings are crucial. Starting off on the wrong cinematic foot is like walking into a grave. When a reader sits down to read your material, they don't know you from Adam. They are hoping it's going to be a good read, hoping the hour or two will slip by smoothly. They open your script, eye the title imagining what may lie ahead and with a singular moment of possible neutrality (the only one you'll probably ever be granted), begin to read your words. If what they find is a random handful of moments, loosely relevant to the overarching story, minor, often extraneous exposition, or a sleepy wave from idle characters, you're dead. Don't start with some sluggish stretch and cool, passive welcome to your audience or as instantly as you could have snapped your lasso, you've made your reader a potential enemy. It's like with eating. A lousy first gesture is equal to that stench seeping out from under a lid. The reader is instantly turned off and then resents what they expect will be a long, painful trudge through your piece. Yes, you can surprise them. But now it's harder. They've become fickle. You're gonna have to work your butt off, pardon my English, to get them to listen. Their perspective has become jaundiced and your work of love has begun its journey to the garbage pile. But, if you've been crafty, you've selected scenes to introduce the piece, which are instantly seductive. This provides what is called, "the hook" that seizes your reader with a wowing grip, gets their adrenaline boiling. It should capture and bind your reader immediately to the script. How? Be bold. Even when you're being subtle, be bold. Drop your reader into the sweaty bed of story, like in "Betty Blue" --you can't beat that descent into their beachy house, the lead characters naked, in the heavy throws of lovemaking. (Talk about starting with a bang!) Or think about how you can use backstory to your greatest advantage. Consider the twines of exposition used to bound the audience as they're intoxicated with mood in that long mountain car ride of the "The Shining." You can place readers heart-first into the irresistible hands of a compelling character. Recall Kevin Spacey talking to us from the shower in "American Beauty?" Or pummel our attention with defining images and dialogue like the hand held gun and voice over used in "Good Fellas." No matter what, make it strong. The opening must pull the reader straight into the urgency of your script. So, when you go to write your first act and are selecting your first few scenes (most especially the opening) DO NOT write lightly. Show conviction. Fan us your peacock plumes. Dive in with your best dialogue and be seeringly clear about the purpose, the artistic intention of beginning your entire film with that particular image and scene. Let the jury in your mind begin its interrogation: * WHY THIS SCENE? WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS MOMENT? * HOW DOES IT RESONATE OR SET-UP WHAT IS TO COME? * IS IT DRAMATIC? DOES IT FORESHADOW OR DEFINE? ARE YOU SLIPPING UNNOTICED INTO A PARTY OR THROWING THE DOORS OPEN, DEMANDING ALL TURN TO SEE YOUR ARRIVAL? Suggest you go back to your most beloved films, of all genres, and take a hard look at how they've opened their films. Look at the screenplays you most cherish. Do the same thing. Think about why the first shot of "Touch of Evil" is so historical. Indeed it's inspired direction. But you the screenwriter can invoke the same effects in your first few pages. You can immediately create moods, set tones, plop your reader into the riveting props of plot. I read many scripts where the writers have literally given their first pages away. They've filled that precious space with pedantic, arbitrary, "introductory/expositional" scenes that jiggle fatty, dull dialogue, or undramatic moments/images where nothing happens and ultimately the pages wind up in a recycling bin. I'm most sorry for the screenwriters who have in fact written a fabulous screenplay, but it didn't get fabulous until p. 27, when they finally "wrote themselves" into that hot, cherry material. As a consultant I'm with them to the bitter/sweet end. But with an agent/ producer, it could be an entirely different story. Please beware and make those handshakes firm, impressive, presidential!!! Let your opening stun whether subconsciously or overtly. It can woo, beguile, slap or topple, but it must be provocative. For as with most first gestures, this is the one that will win or lose the respect, love and attention of your reader. Bottom line: It's the one that will determine if they keep reading. Copyright Judy Kellem 2001 all rights reserved If you want to find out more about Hollywoodscript.com and the work we do with screenwriters and their scripts, please visit our site at http://www.hollywoodscript.com
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