A fairly popular question when people find out what I do for a living is "What's the worst script you ever read?" Honestly, after a decade in L.A., the vast majority of scripts I've read have faded far from memory. There are the ridiculously awful ones that are impossible to erase, though. This is the story of perhaps the most memorably awful of those.
Showing posts with label bad scripts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad scripts. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Webshow - "No one sets out to make a bad movie."
Considering the posts I've either linked to or hosted recently where professional writers like Geoff LaTulippe and Eric Heisserer have offered a peak at the development process that can cause good scripts to go bad like curdled milk, today's topic on the webshow seemed like an obvious one.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Read screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe's blog!
Earlier this week, screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe launched his new blog and one of his first entries was a reposting of something he said on the Done Deal Pro discussion boards. Entitled "Mom, Dad? Where Do Movies Come From?" It attacks a myth I've also derided on this blog - the idea that Hollywood is only interested in buying terrible scripts.
I can’t stress this enough: most of the writers working professionally in Hollywood are on a scale from very solid to fucking amazing. Sure, there are some hacks, and sure, we all wonder how they got there; you’ll have that in any profession, creative or not. Hell, I’m probably one of them.
But for the most part, when you go to see a movie that just absolutely blows, you can bet good money on the fact that it didn’t start out as a piece of shit. Is this always true? Of course not. Generally? I certainly believe so.
[...]Most terrible movies start off as really, really, really good scripts.
For more, check out the rest of the post, where Geoff gives a painstakingly detailed breakdown of the development process that most scripts face on their way to production. And while you're over there, bookmark Geoff's blog. It promises to be a repository of straight-shooting advice that Geoff has gained via his time as both a professional screenwriter and a studio reader. In fact, he's even soliciting questions, so if you've got any burning queries you'd like answered from someone who's sat on both sides of the development desk, now's your chance.
Even better for us, Geoff is incredibly blunt and he's definitely no bullshitter. I don't expect much sugar-coating in his answers. If you follow him on Twitter at @DrGMLaTulippe, you probably already know that about him, though.
I can’t stress this enough: most of the writers working professionally in Hollywood are on a scale from very solid to fucking amazing. Sure, there are some hacks, and sure, we all wonder how they got there; you’ll have that in any profession, creative or not. Hell, I’m probably one of them.
But for the most part, when you go to see a movie that just absolutely blows, you can bet good money on the fact that it didn’t start out as a piece of shit. Is this always true? Of course not. Generally? I certainly believe so.
[...]Most terrible movies start off as really, really, really good scripts.
For more, check out the rest of the post, where Geoff gives a painstakingly detailed breakdown of the development process that most scripts face on their way to production. And while you're over there, bookmark Geoff's blog. It promises to be a repository of straight-shooting advice that Geoff has gained via his time as both a professional screenwriter and a studio reader. In fact, he's even soliciting questions, so if you've got any burning queries you'd like answered from someone who's sat on both sides of the development desk, now's your chance.
Even better for us, Geoff is incredibly blunt and he's definitely no bullshitter. I don't expect much sugar-coating in his answers. If you follow him on Twitter at @DrGMLaTulippe, you probably already know that about him, though.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Stop wasting my time!
I've had it up to here with shitty writers. No, you know what? I'm not even going to dignify the "work" those morons do by equating them with real working professionals. The people I'm talking about are hacks, plain and simple. They're dilettantes who think that because they have seen a lot of Jason Statham movies and pirated a copy of Final Draft that they are entitled to churn out 125 pages of garbage and expect people to read it.
There are plenty of produced writers who are favored targets of internet critics (and let's be honest, they often end up in the crosshairs of this blog too.) I'm talking about the Ehren Krugers of the world, the Friedberg/Seltzers, the Neveldine/Taylors, and whoever is to blame for G.I. Joe. Let me just say, if you think those guys are the worst the writing world has to offer, come do my job for a week. At the end of that week, you'll beg to read every draft of Friedberg/Seltzer's latest piece of crap.
What depresses me is that for every bad script I've read lately, I've not been able to banish the thought that this hack has robbed me of at least three hours of my life, once we count the time it takes to write the coverage. Usually it's longer than that, because longer scripts take greater effort to read, to follow and to write up.
What makes most of these scripts bad? Inexperience and laziness. A new writer is bound to make mistakes because they don't know any better. That's not a problem. Making mistakes is good, it's healthy, and you can learn from making mistakes. But make those mistakes in private. Don't reveal your ineptitude to an outsider. Your early scripts aren't meant to be seen by anyone. They're the training wheels.
But how do these scripts get to me, you may ask? Agents are supposed to provide one screen against that. The problem is that there are a fair number of agents who don't seem to give a shit. They'll push anything out there and give a Development Exec a hard sell on something that wouldn't survive its first round at Amazon Studios. A bad agent isn't going to be looking out for me or my boss - they're just trying to get their clients read.
I have to assume that the worst of the worst that reach me do so through some kind of personal connection the writer has to someone at my company. Some distant cousin of an production accountant just wrote a screenplay for their college screenwriting class and suddenly it falls to me to read their "heartwarming" independent film about a mute eight year-old boy who deals with the pain of an abusive home by teaching an ostrich how to fly. Or perhaps the writer managed to schmooze the right person at a party and they said, "Sure, send it to me."
If you're the hack who has that sort of contact, let me give you a nickel's worth of free advice - don't push that script out there until you know it's ready. This is where "laziness" comes in. Read, re-read, and then rewrite that screenplay to within an inch of its life. You might not get a second chance at submitting, even with the close connection in the company. In fact, when I get a whiff of the favor scripts, I sometimes come down even harder on every aspect of the screenplay. Your script will get such a strong pass that your contact will be too embarrassed to EVER bring something with your name on it into the company again.
Getting your script read is less important than getting the RIGHT script read. Before you pass on a script, pretend there's a very angry guy like me on the other end, who will seize upon every weakness and bring it to light. I'm like those cancer-causing body scanners at the airport - I see everything. So if this script is hiding a bomb in its ass, it's not going to get past me. Don't pretend that you can sneak shitty work past me or any of my colleagues.
Every moment I waste on your writing is time I could be spending on a more deserving writer. It's time that I could be spending discovering scripts worthy of attention instead of acting like some sort of sewage filter. After all my years of doing this, I don't have the time or the luxury of being polite to the worst of the worst, and frankly my bosses don't either.
There are plenty of produced writers who are favored targets of internet critics (and let's be honest, they often end up in the crosshairs of this blog too.) I'm talking about the Ehren Krugers of the world, the Friedberg/Seltzers, the Neveldine/Taylors, and whoever is to blame for G.I. Joe. Let me just say, if you think those guys are the worst the writing world has to offer, come do my job for a week. At the end of that week, you'll beg to read every draft of Friedberg/Seltzer's latest piece of crap.
What depresses me is that for every bad script I've read lately, I've not been able to banish the thought that this hack has robbed me of at least three hours of my life, once we count the time it takes to write the coverage. Usually it's longer than that, because longer scripts take greater effort to read, to follow and to write up.
What makes most of these scripts bad? Inexperience and laziness. A new writer is bound to make mistakes because they don't know any better. That's not a problem. Making mistakes is good, it's healthy, and you can learn from making mistakes. But make those mistakes in private. Don't reveal your ineptitude to an outsider. Your early scripts aren't meant to be seen by anyone. They're the training wheels.
But how do these scripts get to me, you may ask? Agents are supposed to provide one screen against that. The problem is that there are a fair number of agents who don't seem to give a shit. They'll push anything out there and give a Development Exec a hard sell on something that wouldn't survive its first round at Amazon Studios. A bad agent isn't going to be looking out for me or my boss - they're just trying to get their clients read.
I have to assume that the worst of the worst that reach me do so through some kind of personal connection the writer has to someone at my company. Some distant cousin of an production accountant just wrote a screenplay for their college screenwriting class and suddenly it falls to me to read their "heartwarming" independent film about a mute eight year-old boy who deals with the pain of an abusive home by teaching an ostrich how to fly. Or perhaps the writer managed to schmooze the right person at a party and they said, "Sure, send it to me."
If you're the hack who has that sort of contact, let me give you a nickel's worth of free advice - don't push that script out there until you know it's ready. This is where "laziness" comes in. Read, re-read, and then rewrite that screenplay to within an inch of its life. You might not get a second chance at submitting, even with the close connection in the company. In fact, when I get a whiff of the favor scripts, I sometimes come down even harder on every aspect of the screenplay. Your script will get such a strong pass that your contact will be too embarrassed to EVER bring something with your name on it into the company again.
Getting your script read is less important than getting the RIGHT script read. Before you pass on a script, pretend there's a very angry guy like me on the other end, who will seize upon every weakness and bring it to light. I'm like those cancer-causing body scanners at the airport - I see everything. So if this script is hiding a bomb in its ass, it's not going to get past me. Don't pretend that you can sneak shitty work past me or any of my colleagues.
Every moment I waste on your writing is time I could be spending on a more deserving writer. It's time that I could be spending discovering scripts worthy of attention instead of acting like some sort of sewage filter. After all my years of doing this, I don't have the time or the luxury of being polite to the worst of the worst, and frankly my bosses don't either.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Very Special Episodes: Ham-fisted writing at its finest
If you're part of my generation, you'll likely have a certain association with the words "Jesse Spano" and "caffeine pills." Yes, I'm sure the Pointer Sisters haven't sounded the same to you since.
Anyway, I don't envy writers stuck with an assignment to impart a message or life lesson to their audience. I think that it's possible to use drama and comedy to put forth certain messages or ideas. The problem is that when the message is the raison d'etre for the entire story, writers tend not to trust an audience to get any subtlety or nuance. Thus, the result is the "Very Special Episode." Sitcoms of the 80s and early 90s were crawling with these. For one week, the escapism you got from your favorite show would be replaced with the future Chandler Bing dying in a car crash to teach us all a lesson about drunk driving, or Alex Keaton having an emotional breakdown from survivor's guilt.
But those are only scratching the tip of the iceberg. Check out this salute to the Very Special Episode.
Anyway, I don't envy writers stuck with an assignment to impart a message or life lesson to their audience. I think that it's possible to use drama and comedy to put forth certain messages or ideas. The problem is that when the message is the raison d'etre for the entire story, writers tend not to trust an audience to get any subtlety or nuance. Thus, the result is the "Very Special Episode." Sitcoms of the 80s and early 90s were crawling with these. For one week, the escapism you got from your favorite show would be replaced with the future Chandler Bing dying in a car crash to teach us all a lesson about drunk driving, or Alex Keaton having an emotional breakdown from survivor's guilt.
But those are only scratching the tip of the iceberg. Check out this salute to the Very Special Episode.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
"The Oscar Goes to...." and "Gimmie my money back!"
We're halfway through the year in movies, so let's do a little experiment.
Oscar voters are often accused of having short memories, as, let's face it, it's a lot harder to remember back 12 months than it is six months. True, many studios play to this by putting their mostly likely contenders at the end of the year. Still, there are always a few worthy contenders that somehow sneak in among the blockbusters, rom-coms and Kevin James movies destined for a long run on your local Southwest Airlines jets.
So what films from the first six months of 2011 deserve not to be forgotten when Harvey Weinstein starts purchasing Oscar buzz as if it were frozen orange futures in Trading Places?
Related to that... let's be honest, there's a lot of crap that gets shoveled into the local multiplexes in the first half of the year. I've heard there are some stars who have refunded money to disgruntled viewers. George Clooney has supposed given several fans their money back for Batman & Robin. George, I'll let you be on that one. Batman & Robin was a gift from the comedy gods. But you're not off the hook for Ocean's Twelve.
So what 2011 movie do you want your money back for, and what star do you fantasize about accosting on the street or in a restaurant in order to get back your $12?
Oscar voters are often accused of having short memories, as, let's face it, it's a lot harder to remember back 12 months than it is six months. True, many studios play to this by putting their mostly likely contenders at the end of the year. Still, there are always a few worthy contenders that somehow sneak in among the blockbusters, rom-coms and Kevin James movies destined for a long run on your local Southwest Airlines jets.
So what films from the first six months of 2011 deserve not to be forgotten when Harvey Weinstein starts purchasing Oscar buzz as if it were frozen orange futures in Trading Places?
Related to that... let's be honest, there's a lot of crap that gets shoveled into the local multiplexes in the first half of the year. I've heard there are some stars who have refunded money to disgruntled viewers. George Clooney has supposed given several fans their money back for Batman & Robin. George, I'll let you be on that one. Batman & Robin was a gift from the comedy gods. But you're not off the hook for Ocean's Twelve.
So what 2011 movie do you want your money back for, and what star do you fantasize about accosting on the street or in a restaurant in order to get back your $12?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Interview with Joe Ollinger - winner of the "I WILL Read Your F***ing Screenplay" Contest
It's a blog crossover today! A few weeks back I invited everyone to submit their worst screenplay for a contest that involved me critiquing their script as part of an upcoming column. After several great pitches, I picked Joe Ollinger as the winner. Today you can find the resulting article, 140, as a guest-blogger post on The Story Spot. Go check out my live-Tweet review of Joe's script "Blooming Season" there today, but first, read this interview with Joe.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I grew up in a small swamp town in Florida and moved to Los Angeles to go to USC in 2002. I graduated in 2006 with a B.F.A. in Writing for Screen and Television and a B.A. in Psychology. After that I worked for the University and also worked from home as a reader for a production company. I'm still working as a reader, but I quit my other job and I'm now attending Southwestern Law School. I hope to one day either coach the Miami Dolphins or eat a 100-ounce steak.
What led you to write BLOOMING SEASON? Any inspirations in particular?
At the time I was really into those 1970's sci-fi movies like Soylent Green and Planet of the Apes. I've been an avid sci-fi fan my whole life, and it was the genre I felt the most comfortable with at the time.
You called BLOOMING SEASON the second-worst thing you've written. There's no delicate way to ask this... How much worse was #1?
I wrote an untitled schlocky action script about involving a bounty hunter and a snuff porn cult. It was fun and quick to write, but after I finished the first draft I looked at it and basically said, "Yep, that's not worth rewriting." Actually, in truth, that screenplay is executed significantly better than Blooming Season, but the premise isn't really specific enough or interesting enough to spend time making it better. It was good practice, though, and every page of bad or mediocre writing gets you closer to being a good writer.
At the time you wrote BLOOMING SEASON, were you convinced all you needed to do was get it to an agent and you'd be the next hot thing? How long was it before you looked at objectively?
I was convinced I had written a good screenplay, I'll say that. I had no idea how the business worked at the time. I was a freshman in college, so I basically put the thing aside to focus on writing new material for a while. I never did a big rewrite on it for a couple of reasons: (1) when 28 Days Later Came Out, I thought there was too much similarity between the "rage" virus in that movie and the insanity plague in mine; and (2) after learning more about the industry and doing some research on script sale statistics, I realized that it's basically impossible to break in as a screenwriter with sci-fi material. Sci-fi movies aren't that common, and sci-fi specs don't sell very often. So I basically let the script die and chalked it up as a loss. Fortunately I also love writing comedy, so I started doing more of that, and less sci-fi.
Did you, like me with my first spec, waste some potentially good contacts by giving them BLOOMING SEASON when you might have been better served by waiting until you had a really strong spec?
I did waste at least one potential contact, but in retrospect I didn't make the mistake a lot of writers make by alienating a bunch of people they don't even really know yet, harassing them to read a passion project. I was probably fortunate that, for whatever reason, I didn't feel the urgency a lot of people feel to get material "out there."
You're making a really good point, though -- I would recommend that writers finish at least three feature scripts and go through at least a couple of rewrites on each, before they show anything to anyone. Unless it's just for notes or something, obviously.
What did you learn from the experience of writing BLOOMING SEASON?
I would say the chief thing I took away from it was a lesson in confidence. I learned that I could write a screenplay in a couple of months. I hear too many writers say they've "been working on a screenplay for the last couple years," and that type of thing. I think that's ridiculous. If you want to be an actual writer, and not just another guy with "a" screenplay, you need to complete projects. Massaging your passion project for two years isn't going to help you. If you get too close to a story, it's almost definitely not as great as you think it is, and odds are it never will be.
Other than that, I would again say that every page you write gets you closer to where you want to be. So by that math, Blooming Season got me about a hundred pages closer.
What do you credit for your growth as a writer over all?
That's a tough question. I can't give a complete answer, but the obvious factors are (1) the great education in storytelling I got at USC Film and (2) reading lots and lots of material.
I think a lot of aspiring writers overlook the necessity of studying storytelling analytically. If you don't put a lot of thought and examination into what works and what doesn't, you're writing blindly. If I had just gone ahead and written another script after Blooming Season, without putting some study into structure and dialogue and character development and premise, I doubt I would have shown any improvement.
You say you're a script reader. Would you mind telling me for whom? (If not, that's cool.) How does reading a lot of scripts translate to being better at writing scripts?
I won't say for whom, but I'll say that I work for a director/writer/producer with more than one Oscar. The company is relatively small, but it's had a pretty busy, relatively high-profile slate since I started working for it in 2006.
Reading scripts might be the best way of improving one's writing. Actually, let me qualify that: reading scripts and analyzing them might be the best way. If you just read screenplays and don't put thought into what works and what doesn't, it's probably not going to do much for you.
At this point I've probably written around 2,000 pages of coverage in my life. I've seen terrible screenplays, bad screenplays, good screenplays, and even great screenplays (though thankfully I've never had a job where I had to read a lot of un-repped amateur stuff, so I can't claim to have really seen the worst of the worst).
You don't need to read nearly that much to reap the benefits. It doesn't take long before you start thinking of your own material in the same way you evaluate the material of others. If you know your stuff, you can spot mistakes quickly and easily.
And finally, plug away. Tell me all about the specs you're trying to get people to look at now. List as many as you like.
I don't know if I've been "trying to get people to look at" stuff. As you know, the spec market isn't a friendly place right now; statistically, fewer screenplays are selling than ever before. So I've been working in other genres for the past couple years. But here are some loglines of projects I'd still like to get out there, in the odd event that anyone would ever care to read stuff by the winner of a "Worst Script" contest...
Moose Chunks and Me -- a teen/sports/romantic comedy
In order to impress the girl of his dreams, a high school nerd must befriend his chief competition: a popular though moronic meathead named Moose Chunks.
I co-wrote this one with a guy named Frank Howell. It finished in the semi-finals of the Bluecat Competition, for whatever that's worth.
Wanderlost -- an adventure/comedy
An aimless young man from a family of great explorers finally gets his chance at greatness when he inherits his grandfather's memoirs. With the help of his quirky family and his foreign sidekick, he embarks on a bizarre journey across the world in a race against a jetsetting playboy for the last undiscovered treasure.
Tool: The Movie -- a college/"bro-mance" comedy
Two frat boys, a nerd and a player, join the staff of a feminist retreat in order to pursue their dream girls. To succeed, the nerd will have to learn how to be a tool, and the player will have to learn how not to.
The Crush -- a comedic superhero series
The adventures of The Crush, a young superhero with the ability to smash things with his mind, and a frustrating inability to use this power around women he feels attracted to. Faced with the every day struggles of a college freshman, The Crush must also deal with various strange and powerful villains, including his arch-nemesis, an alluring former-stripper-turned-billionairess.
I've been working with an awesome animator named Arvin Bautista (www.greasypigstudios.com) on this project, developing it both as a comic book and an animated TV series.
... and a couple of novels...
The Apex Predator -- a thriller with some sci-fi elements
A detective must kill alternate versions of himself in several parallel realities, in order to return to his own universe and save the woman he loves from being murdered by her fiance.
Loopback -- don't know what genre I'd stick this under
A former NASA engineer teams up with a clairvoyant twelve year-old kid to exploit the Las Vegas casinos. Set against the backdrop of the late 1960's, the story deals with the possibility that the Apollo 11 moon landing may have been faked.
I also have a screenplay of this story, but I think the book is better.
I lied. One more thing - if people want to read BLOOMING SEASON (or contact you about any of your other specs), may they reach you at your e-mail address?
They can contact me at jojofromsoflo@yahoo.com.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I grew up in a small swamp town in Florida and moved to Los Angeles to go to USC in 2002. I graduated in 2006 with a B.F.A. in Writing for Screen and Television and a B.A. in Psychology. After that I worked for the University and also worked from home as a reader for a production company. I'm still working as a reader, but I quit my other job and I'm now attending Southwestern Law School. I hope to one day either coach the Miami Dolphins or eat a 100-ounce steak.
What led you to write BLOOMING SEASON? Any inspirations in particular?
At the time I was really into those 1970's sci-fi movies like Soylent Green and Planet of the Apes. I've been an avid sci-fi fan my whole life, and it was the genre I felt the most comfortable with at the time.
You called BLOOMING SEASON the second-worst thing you've written. There's no delicate way to ask this... How much worse was #1?
I wrote an untitled schlocky action script about involving a bounty hunter and a snuff porn cult. It was fun and quick to write, but after I finished the first draft I looked at it and basically said, "Yep, that's not worth rewriting." Actually, in truth, that screenplay is executed significantly better than Blooming Season, but the premise isn't really specific enough or interesting enough to spend time making it better. It was good practice, though, and every page of bad or mediocre writing gets you closer to being a good writer.
At the time you wrote BLOOMING SEASON, were you convinced all you needed to do was get it to an agent and you'd be the next hot thing? How long was it before you looked at objectively?
I was convinced I had written a good screenplay, I'll say that. I had no idea how the business worked at the time. I was a freshman in college, so I basically put the thing aside to focus on writing new material for a while. I never did a big rewrite on it for a couple of reasons: (1) when 28 Days Later Came Out, I thought there was too much similarity between the "rage" virus in that movie and the insanity plague in mine; and (2) after learning more about the industry and doing some research on script sale statistics, I realized that it's basically impossible to break in as a screenwriter with sci-fi material. Sci-fi movies aren't that common, and sci-fi specs don't sell very often. So I basically let the script die and chalked it up as a loss. Fortunately I also love writing comedy, so I started doing more of that, and less sci-fi.
Did you, like me with my first spec, waste some potentially good contacts by giving them BLOOMING SEASON when you might have been better served by waiting until you had a really strong spec?
I did waste at least one potential contact, but in retrospect I didn't make the mistake a lot of writers make by alienating a bunch of people they don't even really know yet, harassing them to read a passion project. I was probably fortunate that, for whatever reason, I didn't feel the urgency a lot of people feel to get material "out there."
You're making a really good point, though -- I would recommend that writers finish at least three feature scripts and go through at least a couple of rewrites on each, before they show anything to anyone. Unless it's just for notes or something, obviously.
What did you learn from the experience of writing BLOOMING SEASON?
I would say the chief thing I took away from it was a lesson in confidence. I learned that I could write a screenplay in a couple of months. I hear too many writers say they've "been working on a screenplay for the last couple years," and that type of thing. I think that's ridiculous. If you want to be an actual writer, and not just another guy with "a" screenplay, you need to complete projects. Massaging your passion project for two years isn't going to help you. If you get too close to a story, it's almost definitely not as great as you think it is, and odds are it never will be.
Other than that, I would again say that every page you write gets you closer to where you want to be. So by that math, Blooming Season got me about a hundred pages closer.
What do you credit for your growth as a writer over all?
That's a tough question. I can't give a complete answer, but the obvious factors are (1) the great education in storytelling I got at USC Film and (2) reading lots and lots of material.
I think a lot of aspiring writers overlook the necessity of studying storytelling analytically. If you don't put a lot of thought and examination into what works and what doesn't, you're writing blindly. If I had just gone ahead and written another script after Blooming Season, without putting some study into structure and dialogue and character development and premise, I doubt I would have shown any improvement.
You say you're a script reader. Would you mind telling me for whom? (If not, that's cool.) How does reading a lot of scripts translate to being better at writing scripts?
I won't say for whom, but I'll say that I work for a director/writer/producer with more than one Oscar. The company is relatively small, but it's had a pretty busy, relatively high-profile slate since I started working for it in 2006.
Reading scripts might be the best way of improving one's writing. Actually, let me qualify that: reading scripts and analyzing them might be the best way. If you just read screenplays and don't put thought into what works and what doesn't, it's probably not going to do much for you.
At this point I've probably written around 2,000 pages of coverage in my life. I've seen terrible screenplays, bad screenplays, good screenplays, and even great screenplays (though thankfully I've never had a job where I had to read a lot of un-repped amateur stuff, so I can't claim to have really seen the worst of the worst).
You don't need to read nearly that much to reap the benefits. It doesn't take long before you start thinking of your own material in the same way you evaluate the material of others. If you know your stuff, you can spot mistakes quickly and easily.
And finally, plug away. Tell me all about the specs you're trying to get people to look at now. List as many as you like.
I don't know if I've been "trying to get people to look at" stuff. As you know, the spec market isn't a friendly place right now; statistically, fewer screenplays are selling than ever before. So I've been working in other genres for the past couple years. But here are some loglines of projects I'd still like to get out there, in the odd event that anyone would ever care to read stuff by the winner of a "Worst Script" contest...
Moose Chunks and Me -- a teen/sports/romantic comedy
In order to impress the girl of his dreams, a high school nerd must befriend his chief competition: a popular though moronic meathead named Moose Chunks.
I co-wrote this one with a guy named Frank Howell. It finished in the semi-finals of the Bluecat Competition, for whatever that's worth.
Wanderlost -- an adventure/comedy
An aimless young man from a family of great explorers finally gets his chance at greatness when he inherits his grandfather's memoirs. With the help of his quirky family and his foreign sidekick, he embarks on a bizarre journey across the world in a race against a jetsetting playboy for the last undiscovered treasure.
Tool: The Movie -- a college/"bro-mance" comedy
Two frat boys, a nerd and a player, join the staff of a feminist retreat in order to pursue their dream girls. To succeed, the nerd will have to learn how to be a tool, and the player will have to learn how not to.
The Crush -- a comedic superhero series
The adventures of The Crush, a young superhero with the ability to smash things with his mind, and a frustrating inability to use this power around women he feels attracted to. Faced with the every day struggles of a college freshman, The Crush must also deal with various strange and powerful villains, including his arch-nemesis, an alluring former-stripper-turned-billionairess.
I've been working with an awesome animator named Arvin Bautista (www.greasypigstudios.com) on this project, developing it both as a comic book and an animated TV series.
... and a couple of novels...
The Apex Predator -- a thriller with some sci-fi elements
A detective must kill alternate versions of himself in several parallel realities, in order to return to his own universe and save the woman he loves from being murdered by her fiance.
Loopback -- don't know what genre I'd stick this under
A former NASA engineer teams up with a clairvoyant twelve year-old kid to exploit the Las Vegas casinos. Set against the backdrop of the late 1960's, the story deals with the possibility that the Apollo 11 moon landing may have been faked.
I also have a screenplay of this story, but I think the book is better.
I lied. One more thing - if people want to read BLOOMING SEASON (or contact you about any of your other specs), may they reach you at your e-mail address?
They can contact me at jojofromsoflo@yahoo.com.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Winner of the "I WILL Read Your F***ing Screenplay Contest"
Can I just say that I'm shocked by the response to my "I WILL read your f***ing Screenplay post earlier this week? All told, between the comments and direct e-mails, I got pitched 19 scripts! And in truth, just about every last one of them sounded mouth-wateringly awesomely bad, perfect for my purposes.
I know I said I was going to give it a week, but that was when I figured I'd get one at most, after several days. To be honest, I was even prepared to beg some of my friends for their worst writing or, failing that, haul out one of my own old specs and tear that apart. (The reason I didn't use mine in the first place is that I knew I could never be objective enough to be as savage as I wanted.)
A few submitters stood out. I was attracted to writers who had written many scripts since this first one. I knew that having at least three or four subsequent specs to their name would make them less attached to the spec script they submitted, and thus, they wouldn't take any shots at the script or the writing personally. I know that when I look back on my writing from ten years ago, I have no problem admitting when it's total shit. So if you came to me with just this spec to your name, or if you implied that you were looking forward to the chance to defend your writing after my review, I decided not to pick you.
Basically, if I got a sense that some part of you still thought the script was good, I didn't want to beat up on you. This will make sense when you see the review, but in some ways I might be going out of my way to be unfair to the script. I'd feel like a real dick doing that to writing that the author still had an emotional attachment to.
However, there were many, many scripts that sounded fully qualified for this contest, and so if we end up doing this again I invite all of you to resubmit. This makes me wish we had some sort of discussion board or archive of bad scripts because if so many of you guys are eager to share your work, it's a shame we can't all laugh together.
But without any further introduction, let's get to the winner. May I have the envelope please?
And the winner of the first-ever Bitter Script Reader "I WILL Read Your F***ing Screenplay Contest" is...
Joe Ollinger, for his 2003 spec "Blooming Season." Joe pitched this sci-fi film as "Space colonists flee their colony planet after an insanity plague breaks out, and then return to earth to find it super overpopulated and everyone's eating each other and shit."
Joe has kept writing since then, and has many other specs under his belt. We'll cover that in the eventual interview, which right now is scheduled to post the week of the 22nd. I haven't read the script yet, but I'm very much looking forward to it.
I know I said I was going to give it a week, but that was when I figured I'd get one at most, after several days. To be honest, I was even prepared to beg some of my friends for their worst writing or, failing that, haul out one of my own old specs and tear that apart. (The reason I didn't use mine in the first place is that I knew I could never be objective enough to be as savage as I wanted.)
A few submitters stood out. I was attracted to writers who had written many scripts since this first one. I knew that having at least three or four subsequent specs to their name would make them less attached to the spec script they submitted, and thus, they wouldn't take any shots at the script or the writing personally. I know that when I look back on my writing from ten years ago, I have no problem admitting when it's total shit. So if you came to me with just this spec to your name, or if you implied that you were looking forward to the chance to defend your writing after my review, I decided not to pick you.
Basically, if I got a sense that some part of you still thought the script was good, I didn't want to beat up on you. This will make sense when you see the review, but in some ways I might be going out of my way to be unfair to the script. I'd feel like a real dick doing that to writing that the author still had an emotional attachment to.
However, there were many, many scripts that sounded fully qualified for this contest, and so if we end up doing this again I invite all of you to resubmit. This makes me wish we had some sort of discussion board or archive of bad scripts because if so many of you guys are eager to share your work, it's a shame we can't all laugh together.
But without any further introduction, let's get to the winner. May I have the envelope please?
And the winner of the first-ever Bitter Script Reader "I WILL Read Your F***ing Screenplay Contest" is...
Joe Ollinger, for his 2003 spec "Blooming Season." Joe pitched this sci-fi film as "Space colonists flee their colony planet after an insanity plague breaks out, and then return to earth to find it super overpopulated and everyone's eating each other and shit."
Joe has kept writing since then, and has many other specs under his belt. We'll cover that in the eventual interview, which right now is scheduled to post the week of the 22nd. I haven't read the script yet, but I'm very much looking forward to it.
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