Gratuitous?

Finally put my concerns about Mel Gibson's racism aside and went to see Apocalypto.

It's an extremely well made movie. It's also the most painful movie I think I've ever seen. It made Schindler's List feel like Singin' in the Rain. Scenes of suffering that went on and on long past where the filmmaker had made his story point.

At the point where the kids in the village got left behind at the river ford, I took off. I didn't figure the village had been enslaved to become kick-line dancers on Broadway. And I really needed to hug my family.

This kind of movie makes me feel old. The older I get, the harder I find it is to watch murders on screen. I think the big change came when Jesse Anne was born. It becomes much harder to watch three year olds left in the forest to starve when you have put so much of your heart in your own three year old. It also becomes harder to watch James Bond shoot people when you're a parent. At least it is for me. I find myself flashing on the parents of whoever 007 just dispatched, and how much trouble they must have gone to in order to raise GOON #3; how easy it is to end a life and how hard it is to raise a child.

I wonder if part of the reason for the alleged prejudice against old writers comes from this. Does one tend to get out of touch with the 18-29 audience because they are single and immortal, while you belong to a family and fear for their safety? Do you find it gets harder to kill people on the page as you get older?

I remember on Warriors, a movie I worked on a dozen years ago, we hired an old friend of my boss, a devout man in his 60s. The movie was about a special ops killer on the run, and it opened with a particularly horrific special op where our guy killed most everybody at a wedding. The writer dithered and delayed, and finally we had to fire him off the project. He simply could not write the script we were looking for.

I think I will eventually watch the rest of Apocalypto, when it's out on DVD and I can pause and skip. Almost everything about the movie is impressive: the acting, the camerawork, the makeup. (There a few things I find silly in the script. Who hides his pregnant wife in a hole in the ground when there's a rain forest to hide in? I felt the whole purpose of that was get his wife stuck in a hole in the ground, as if there wasn't already enough jeopardy.) Mel Gibson is a masterly director. But I did feel that there was far more sheer suffering on screen than was necessary to tell the story. I felt Gibson was wallowing in it. It felt like pain porn -- as, I gather, did The Passion of the Christ.

Bear in mind that's not my judgment as a professional. That's my feeling as an audience member.

Mel Gibson's mind must be one of the outskirts of Hell.

I read various comments on the IMDB afterwards. (I wish I'd done that before seeing the movie; I might have spared myself.) A lot of people posting felt that the "violence wasn't nearly as bad as the critics said." It wasn't???

(There was also an interesting re-backlash: some of those posting felt that Gibson was being martyred as an artist because of his racist meltdown. These days, anyone can be a victim.)

Have you seen the movie? What did you think?

Dubious Morality Meets Dubious Morality

And while we're at it, what do you think of this strategy? Apparently some audience members have been buying tickets for other movies and then going to see Apocalypto, thus seeing the movie while not contributing to the gross.

Do You Need Storyboards?

Q. I've finished my script, but I'm wondering, is it better to start out with a storyboard? Just what the heck is a storyboard anyway?

Storyboards have nothing to do with writing a script. Storyboards are essentially comic strips created to show what the action on the screen is meant to look like. A storyboard artists works with the director and the script and tries to put on paper the angles and compositions the director intends to use. Or if the director can draw, he can make his own storyboards. Either way the crew can get a clearer sense of what the director's going to be doing with the camera than they might based only on conversations with the director.

They can range from extremely simple stick figure sketches to ornate. Stick figure storyboards don't look impressive, but they do much the same job that the fancy kind do.

Imagine Donald Rumsfeld Writing a Deadwood Spec

Q. My writing partner and I have just finished working on a spec pilot about teenagers in turmoil and they cuss a lot. I mean, A LOT. Right now we have the cuss words in there, but the kids are Latino so some of the words are Spanglish and some of them are English. Of course we want to use this as a writing sample, but we'd really love to maybe try to pitch it one day if we can squeeze it into somebody's hands. So should we leave the cuss words in? Should we switch them all to Spanish words? Should we try to take them out, which I really don't want to do for both realism and the giant pain in the ass it would be?

Oh, gosh. Golly. It sounds like you're worried that you might offend someone in showbiz with your bad language.

Would I worry about that? Nope.

Do people in showbiz swear a lot? You bet they do.

Did it take me several years to stop saying the F word around my kids after 15 years in LA? You bet it did.

So as far as offending agents and publishers, well gosh darn it girl, cuss away.

I am assuming, of course, that your spec pilot is for HBO. You can't curse on broadcast TV, thanks to the FCC. (You can curse a bit on Canadian TV. That must be because of the First Amendment. Oh, wait, that doesn't make sense...) Saturday Night Live had to bleep Justin Timberlake's latest, er, hit -- the one about the special present he was wrapping for his girlfriend -- though I suspect the word that people filled in the bleep with was naughtier than the word actually sung.

And "frak" just sounds silly.

You can't curse on most cable networks, either, because they don't want to offend their audience. Jon Stewart is bleeped. But on HBO and Showtime, it's de rigueur to curse as much as possible, so they can justify their subscription fees.

I doubt you can get away with Spanish curses on broadcast, either. Too many Latinos watching in the States. Ironically you can say "bugger" and "bint" all you like (pace Buffy), thanks to the French fleet showing up at Yorktown.

So you may want to consider writing two versions of your spec pilot, one for pay cable, one for broadcast. The pay cable version can be as filthy as you like. (Throw in some gratuitous lesbianism and you're set.) The broadcast version, sorry to say, will have to use innuendo and inventive language to get around Standards and Practices.

Montage

Q. How do you write a montage scene and how can you incorporate dialog during the scene?

Any way you like. There's no canonical way.

You could describe every moment:

THE CAR races down the twisting road.

PIGEONS flutter into the sky.

THE KNIFE comes down.

THE BAR PATRONS laugh.

Or you could describe what you want the editor to come up with:

SERIES OF QUICK STOCK SHOTS of shells bursting, men screaming, tank wheels rolling, etc.

I generally prefer the first way if I'm writing a selling script; sometimes I use the second if I'm writing a production script. Ultimately a montage is a creation of the editor, so in a production script you can cop out a bit. But for a selling script you want to give the reader something as close as possible to the experience of watching a film, so you write out the montage even though you know the editor will probably do something different (and better).

Personally I don't tend to flag anything as a montage in my screenwriting. I feel it's a bit alienating to the reader to say "hey, lookie, it's a montage!" Just be specific about what exactly you're proposing to put on the screen (even if the director editor will almost certainly do something else), and "montage" and don't call it a montage.

On the other hand, when intercutting between two scenes, I usually don't break the scenes up because it starts it get irritating to read. I'll just put INTERCUT: and hope the reader pays attention to the transitional:

INT. FASHION SHOW MAIN HALL - X COLLECTION - NIGHT

--as Prana struts out on the catwalk in an elaborate evening gown -- 
the finale of the show. The crowd applauds wildly, and Prana, in the 
brilliant lights of the catwalk, smiles like a girl  who has everything
in the world she ever wanted, as--

                                                        INTERCUT:

INT.  AMBER'S HOSPITAL ROOM - NIGHT

... Amber's watching the fashion show on TV, in her darkened hospital room, her eyes rooted to 
the screen.

                      AMBER 
        That's going to be me. Soon as I get out of here. 
        It's going to be me.

It's The Odd Couple Meets Dick. In Classical Rome.

I'm about through episode nine of Rome (and yes, Denis, when the time comes I'll probably sign on to TMN for Season Two), and it is occurring to me that at some level the show is The Odd Couple. Here's Lucius Vorenus, trying so hard to do the right things by his duty and his gods. And what's his reward for it? He's stuck with Titus Pullus, who pretty much follows his instincts and his dick, and everything comes out fine for him. Titus gets the gold; Titus gets to sleep with the queen; Vorenus gets the slow burn and the ulcer.

The other story this reminds me of is Dick, the utterly charming and silly movie in which Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams stumble their way through the Watergate Crisis, bringing down the Nixon Presidency more or less because he's mean to his dogs. In Episode 2, Titus Pullus is the spark that ignites the crisis that brings down the Republic, basically because he decided to go gambling in the wrong bar the night before.

When you're adapting historical material, and even sometimes when you're adapting a novel of great scope and many characters, it's often useful to figure out what familiar story is the kernel of the story you want to tell. It's a rare movie that manages to show historical events in a compelling way without rendering them down into basic human stories of much smaller scope. (Gettysburg does a pretty good job of making a big sweeping story compelling without rendering it down; it really is about the battle.) You're trying to tell the story of the rise of Julius Caesar? It's so big, how do you figure out how to put it on the screen? Tell it through the point of view of two soldiers -- one an educated, devout republican, the other a common rogue -- and it becomes small enough to fit.

Suppose you were doing the fall of Julius Caesar. You could make it a father and son story -- a family drama about how Brutus came to murder the man who saw him as a son. You could make it a coming of age story -- how Octavian had to grow up fast once his uncle was murdered on the Senate floor. You could make it a love story -- as Rome does for a few episodes, when it seems like Caesar is not pursuing Pompey because he's in love with Servilia.

But pick a story and stick with it. The brain can absorb the vast sweep of armies best when it's filtered through one or two human stories before it is refiltered through the camera's lens. And if we understand the small stories, we can use them as a back door into the larger stories.

Catch Up on FNL

NBC is really pushing Friday Night Lights. Yesterday they aired three reruns back to back to back. They have made every single episode available for download to American viewers. (Not Canadian ones. Damn them.) If you think networks never have the courage to support a great show that opened to low numbers, this is your counterexample. And if you haven't seen the show yet, here's your chance to catch up!

New episodes start on Wednesday, January 3 at 8 pm (7 Central).

Support Your Right to Arm Bears

Making a movie in which evil teddy bears attack a teacher got two budding filmmakers expelled from their high school, but a federal judge says it was the school that was wrong...

The boys worked on the movie "The Teddy Bear Master" from fall 2005 through summer 2006. It depicts a "teddy bear master" ordering stuffed animals to kill a teacher who had embarrassed him, but students battle the toy beasts, according to documents filed in court...

School officials had argued that the film was disruptive and that a teacher whose name was used in the movie found it threatening. Prosecutors reviewed the movie but declined to press charges.

From the CBC

You can tell this was Indiana. In New York, the principal would have complained about the characters needing more development and sentenced those boys to a Jane Campion retrospective.

Darkness, Tragedy, Violence

Yeah, Rome is oh so violent. Lisa watched it with me for about five minutes and then decided it was not for her. There's that awesome battle scene, then whippings, stabbings, etc.

For me, that's not darkness, though. I don't find Rome to be at all dark.

To me darkness is about the bleakness of the world. People are stuck in situations where they have to choose between horrible and miserable, and sometimes they don't get to choose. In Deadwood, the innocents are slaughtered; everyone else is up for sale. (At least when I quit watching, they were.)

In Rome, people get killed all the time. But they get killed because of the consequences of their actions, not because the world is li'dat. It would be possible in the world of Rome to make sensible choices and live a good life. Even poor Glabius dies, not because he still loves his wife, but because he's stupid about it.

Darkness is also not the same as tragedy. I enjoy watching tragedies. But Hamlet doesn't die because he lives in a world of darkness. Hamlet dies because he passes up multiple opportunities to do his duty and kill Claudius, and also chooses to stick around instead of heading back to university. Macbeth creates his own destruction. In the end he is trapped, but in a cage of his own creation. Lear faces the consequences of his wilful blindness and foolishness.

On the other hand, there's a whole vein of well-crafted dark narrative where innocence is defiled and good intentions are punished because that's how the world works. Maybe there is a school of belief that people are too stupid or too wicked to save themselves. There are stories that end badly just because.

Tragedy is all about people bringing themselves down; the consequences are inevitable only because the hero insists on being who he is. When it could go either way, you're in the land of melodrama. (With the exception of perhaps Richards II and III, the history plays are melodrama, not tragedy.)

Personally I like happy endings. Partly because I've experienced any number of them; partly because I've seen enough pointless pain that I don't need to go to the movies to see more of it.

Take The Commitments. In the end, the band breaks up on the night of their big success. Why? Because they're Irish? I don't know. Because the screenwriter chose for them to break up. The movie would have been as emotionally truthful and as insightful and as dramatic with a happy ending. Perhaps the happy ending felt too "American," too Hollywood. But wanting to be cool and different isn't, I feel, a valid reason to pick a downer ending. Pick a downer ending if it is the logical outcome of the story, or if it goes with the territory. The Days of Wine and Roses or A Star is Born wouldn't work if everyone came out in good shape. But did the "up" ending of the theatrical cut of Bladerunner ruin the movie? I don't feel it did.

Darkness to me is about the absence of hope. To me, it's a perfectly good choice if that's where your head is at. Lots of people like their coffee black. But make sure despair isn't an emotional cop-out. Hope is much scarier than despair, if you think about it.

Everyone in Rome has hope; even Glabius goes down fighting.

So I'll keep watching.

Semper Ubi Sububi

I've been rocketing through Season One of Rome. It's Shakespearean in its combination of personal drama and historical moment. As someone who's fond of reading history (and wishes there were more historical screenplays to write), I'm loving how modern the characters feel. It's a mistake to conceive of ancient people as archaic. At the time of Julius Caesar, the Romans were the most modern people in the West. They had discipline, and running water, and sewage systems. They had forceps. They were literate. They were religiously tolerant. They had social mobility, and no color line. They had a more coherent and effective society than anything after them in the region for a thousand years. An educated Roman of the republic could show up at an Upper West Side dinner party and fit in. A medieval couldn't.

And yet, they were different. They worshipped multiple gods. They weren't that uptight about sex. They cared what class you were born into. They considered suicide better than dishonor. The father had absolute ownership of his family and had the right to kill his wife and/or children if they disobeyed him. They ate dormice.

The history geek in me adores that the cavalry have no stirrups, so far as I could tell. Stirrups came later. (Without stirrups the cavalry functioned as fast moving infantry; they could not use lances effectively, and so were not the shock weapon they became later.) It's pretty hard core to get your actors up on horses without stirrups for the sake of historical accuracy.

And yet, they were people. The Romans loved their spouses and children and fought with their parents, cheated and lied and schemed just like people now.

I'm loving how the writers and producers have integrated good historical research into eternal human stories of ambition and lust and love and given us a portrait of another time that feels up to the moment.

This is just superb writing and directing. Excelsior!

Yow

I finally got my hands on Rome, Season One.

No unresolved diminished minor notes here. It's in C major, and it is magnificent.

Broken Flowers

Lisa and I watched Broken Flowers last night, Jim Jarmusch's latest movie-of-awkward-pauses.

What I found remarkable was the extreme variation in the acting. The women were strong, vibrant characters with a definite point of view. Sharon Stone, in particular, was awesome. My lord, that girl can act. Meanwhile Bill Murray was doing a more listless version of his detached character in Lost in Translation. He's not mailing his performance in: he's working hard to give us as little as possible to go on.

I get that this is part of what certain audiences loved about the movie. You can make anything you like of Bill Murray's character. You can decide he's feeling deeply but expressing nothing. You can make him out to be clinically depressed. You can decide he doesn't feel anything. Impossible to say, really. What dreams may come when you sleepwalk through life.

There's a whole esthetic of unresolved melodies. There's Swing that wanders through the minor keys but winds up on a major chord, and Bop that might easily end up on a diminished minor seventh. (Side question: did Bop kill jazz as a popular music form, or did jazz people get excited about Bop because the mainstream audience had already moved on?)

Personally I find it more courageous to tell us what the character is feeling. I think that's a pretty important part of the story. To me, the reason I'd watch a movie like Broken Flowers is to understand a character who sleepwalks through life, so when I meet someone who's sleepwalking through real life, I feel I have some perspective on their experience. I think telling the story without a revelatory ending is a form of emotional cowardice.

I find it ironic that narrative artists are so often drawn to portraying characters with no ambition, or no ability to realize their ambition. Ironic, because if you're watching the movie, they've realized their ambition. Jim Jarmusch gets a movie made every two or three years, which is pretty good for an indie director who writes his own stuff. Obviously he is completely capable of getting off his couch; obviously he's passionate about his own life and work. What fascinates him about a guy who can't get off his couch without being prodded?

(Maybe it's that he has to fight to get off the couch, and to express his own emotion, and so he makes a cautionary tale for himself about someone who can't?)

You don't see the unresolved diminished minor chord endings on TV so much as you do in indie films. Maybe a bit on Showtime and HBO, in shows like Huff?

Anyway, it's an interesting film to watch. Sometimes the movies you like tell you less than the movies you don't like. And there's certainly enough in Broken Flowers to reward the watching.

Happy Boxing Day!

How to Spec a House

Emily Blake has a smart post on how to spec a House ep. In brief:

Step 1: figure out what the character stuff is about

Step 2: do your medical research on WebMD.

Notice the order! Character first. Every Buffy was about what was going on in Buffy's life, then what monster she faced. That's why the stories stayed fresh even when the monsters looked like giant sock puppets. Very few people can really follow the medicine on House anyway, so it better be about the character drama!

It's Christmas, Tell Your Stories

These days you're probably going to a bunch of holiday gatherings. (If you're not, I sympathize. Time to submerge yourself in a spec!) And if you're like me, you're a bit shy about talking about your projects.

Most writers I know are shy observers, not outgoing salespeople -- that's why we're not agents and producers. Me, you'd never know I'm shy. Most people probably think of me as outgoing. I'm not really. I find it exhausting to go to large gatherings, even parties I throw myself where everyone's a friend. I find parties full of strangers almost painfully difficult, until I can find some people to talk to.

So if you're like me, you have a tendency to hide a bit. And if you're not making a living with your writing, it's particularly hard to talk about what you're writing. It's a little embarrassing to say you're writing your sixth spec feature, or a "House" spec that you hope will get you an agent.

But you'd be missing a huge opportunity to bounce your ideas off new ears.

I hope I never get tired of saying it: there is no single more useful technique for developing a good movie or TV story than to tell it to people out loud, off the cuff.

Many things happen when you tell a movie story or the plot of your new spec script out loud. You get to test how much it draws in an audience. You see how excited you actually are by the story -- does it keep your interest? Your listener may ask you questions and you can see where the story is too complicated or not well motivated enough. But most importantly, you get your story up off the page and alive. Every time you tell your story off the top of your head, you have a chance to tell it better -- or tell it worse -- to try it different ways. When it sits on the page, you may not notice the dead spots; your eyes will just blip over them. You won't be inclined to fix things that already work. But when you tell it to an actual human being at a party, you'll probably come up with new stuff every time.

A story told out loud is a living, growing thing. A script on the page is just a blueprint.

Also, this time of year, your listeners will be drunk. So will you, maybe. So you don't have to be embarrassed.

Next time you're at a party, tell people you're writing a script. Don't apologize -- everyone loves a good story. Don't ask them to judge it. Just tell them the story. You'll know if they dig it. You'll figure out how to make them dig it more.

And if no one digs it -- and you don't -- or you can't even figure out how to tell it -- maybe you should be working on something simpler, clearer and stronger.

Do this a lot. I guarantee your stories will get better.

Merry Chrismukkah!

Daybreak's Demise

I'm wondering what the effect of Daybreak's demise -- and the demise of other serial dramas -- will have on the trend towards serial drama. Lost, Desperate, Prison Break and 24 were all big hits and got renewed, so any audience member who got hooked in was rewarded. But this season came out with a whole slew of serial dramas that were all about slowly building to revelations. I'm not keeping track, so I don't know where Six Degrees or The Nine or that kidnapping drama went. But it's tough to get emotionally involved in a serial drama when you know you might get off from your fix -- forever. While an episodic drama like Medium doesn't require you to trust so much. You're getting satisfaction at the end of every episode; you tune back because you like the heroine and the premise. Rogers has blogged about how Jericho is very good at resolving something at the end of each episode, even if you're still dying to know what Robert Hawkins is up to and so forth.

Is the audience going to start feeling burned if a whole bunch of these brand new serials dies off? Will episodics go back into vogue? Or is it all about random reinforcement: we hope this one will be the one that gets renewed, so we let ourselves fall in love, and never mind the heartbreak?

Good Adaptations

Matt asks: what about William Goldman's adaptation of his book The Princess Bride? Pretty good, no?

I certainly wouldn't diss Goldman adapting his own work. And I'd add Michael Crichton's many adaptations of his own novels, e.g. Jurassic Park, which did OK at the box office as I recall. [He shared credit with David Koepp. Also created E.R.]

Of course a novelist can adapt his own book if he understands what a screenplay is. If the writer is familiar with both forms, it can work brilliantly. What's needed is for the writer to re-imagine his story in the new medium, which means giving up some of the beauties of the old medium.

It's usually pretty easy to spot an adaptation, even by a fresh screenwriter. There are scenes that play on their own without forwarding the plot. There are characters who seem important but don't justify their importance. I still go with Hitchcock's technique. Read the book once, or even a couple of times. Then put it down and write the script. Whatever you remember is probably important. Whatever you forget, probably isn't.

Diss Approval, continued

Several people think Clive Cussler is right for sticking up for his vision of his novel Sahara as it was being adapted into a movie -- see the comments in my previous post. Here's why I don't agree.

a. It's clear from the article that Cussler has no clue what a screen adaptation entails. He's insisting that one character have black hair and green eyes, like in the novel. That may be important to Cussler, but it speaks worlds to me. Is Brad Pitt going to dye his hair black? Maybe not. Maybe he looks dumb in black hair. Should the producers have to ditch Brad Pitt over hair color? This kind of literal-minded attachment to specific details suggests to me that when Cussler is insisting that certain scenes stay in the movie, he's probably wrong about those, too.

b. I don't think selling ten million copies of your novel makes you an expert on screenwriting. Anne Rice has sold ten million copies. She was wrong to say Tom Cruise would make a lousy Lestat, and she had the grace to take out a full page ad saying so. Picasso was a great painter, but he would not necessarily have made a great motion picture production designer. (Yes, I know he did some nice sets for Diaghilev.) A novel is an entirely different beast than a screenplay, as anyone who's tried to adapt one into the other knows.

c. Features are not a writer's medium. They're just not. They're a director's medium. You want creative control as a writer, run a TV show. Or direct the feature yourself. (See Crichton, Michael.) And even then, it's not really creative control -- it's creative responsibility. The studio or network has creative control. It's their money. Should screenwriters have creative control of their movies? Sure, as soon as they start paying the tab for the production.

Personally, I think there are somewhere between very few to no people who ought to have total creative control of their movies. Woody Allen is a good argument for creative control. He writes and directs and edits, and he brings his films in on budget, so he can pretty much do what he likes. But I don't think he's made a movie as good as Annie Hall, which is about when he stopped working with co-writer Marshall Brickman. Creative collaboration is good. Does anyone thing George Lucas has made a movie as brilliant as Star Wars since then? I think he'd be a better producer/director if he had to satisfy at least one creative collaborator. And there are any number of disasters one can point to that resulted from someone attaining creative control who badly needs not to have it. Think Heaven's Gate. Think One From the Heart.

I think by and large, novelists write very bad adaptations of their own novels. They're bound to be attached to the novel's perspective. They're likely to be attached to scenes that work on their own but get in the way of the flow of the story. The process of adapting a novel is more akin to pillaging it for ideas, characters, and details than to a gentle pruning. The perspective often has to change. The ending often has to change. Characters merge. Subplots vanish.

I'm up for an adaptation right now. I believe I can make a good movie out of it. But the movie will be its own critter. It won't be the novelist's version of his story. It will be my -- and the director's and the producer's -- version of that story. If I had to run my pages past the novelist for approval, I'd be nuts to take the job.

Now, I agree the producers behaved atrociously. They're probably getting what they deserve for lying to absolutely everybody. And it's nice if once in a while, producers get held to the letter of their contracts. And it is completely their fault for giving Cussler creative approvals. And who's to say that Cussler's draft would have made a worse movie? (I have my suspicions, but who knows?)

But I don't think writers should be privileged. We have our own shortsightedness. It is easy enough to write things on the page that don't work on the screen, or miss opportunities that a director will spot. And that's part of the fun of writing for the screen, seeing what the director and the actors and the editor and the composer bring to the words you put on the page.

Why a Short?

So, why did I decide to shoot a short film?

A bunch of reasons, really. Earlier in the year I wrote a fun little romantic comedy, and fell in love with the characters and the story so much that I'd like to direct it. And, it being a fun little romantic comedy, it can be made for the sort of budget that people are willing to risk on a first time feature director.

I directed a couple of student films back in film school, but it's been 16 years since then. In order to be taken seriously as a director, I really need to show people I can direct. So a short film is in order.

UCLA film school was all about being a writer director. When I got my MFA, though, I didn't feel it made sense to try being an indie writer-director. For one thing, the kind of scripts I was interested in writing were not frist-time writer-director films. Most of the spec features I've written have been big. The script that got me into film school was a vampire movie. My two favorite specs of mine until recently were an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey that started with the destruction of Troy, and an adaptation of Moby Dick set in space.

So I devoted myself to writing, figuring I'd keep writing scripts until I got good enough to write a script I could reasonably demand to direct. That took longer than I thought. As it turned out, it took 16 years. In fact I pretty well had myself convinced I didn't want to direct. (Especially since I moved largely into television, where the fun is all in being a writer-showrunner.)

Along comes this romantic comedy. And people seem pretty happy with the script. And it's all people talking in rooms, or in offices, or on the street. No car chases, no explosions, no special effects, no makeup effects, no stunts. 97 pages. And it's funny.

So a short film was in order.

I've learned a couple of things since doing my 27 minute 16 mm Oedipal drama at UCLA. One, don't do a 27-minute short film. No one really wants to see a 27 minute film. They want to see a short film. BravoFACT's limit is 6 minutes. That's a great length. If I'd had an idea for something 4 minutes long, I would have gone with that.

It may not, in fact, be much less trouble to make a six minute film than a 27 minute film, because the short I'm doing has nine locations -- about the same as my thesis film -- and a cast of 8 -- again, about the same. But it will have much more bang per minute.

I'm shooting on digital video tape, of course, not 16mm. Film is a pain. It's expensive too shoot, expensive to print, expensive to do special effects in, and expensive to make copies of. Multiple takes cost you more money. It's less friendly in low light conditions. You have to wait to get your dailies back -- that's why they call them dailies. When I did my student film, of course, tape was nowhere near as good as it is now.

FOR THE SHORT FILM?? We had some debate about whether to go HD -- a high def camera costs $1500 a day -- or HDV -- which I can rent from a friend for $100 a day. I chose HDV. I'd rather spend the money on paying the crew. On a medium-to-small screen, it's hard enough to tell HD from HDV unless you're a cinematographer. And 90% of the industry people who see it are going to watch it on DVD or the Internet. They'll judge the film by how well it tells a story -- how convincing the actors are, and how well I choose where to put and how to move the camera. Sound design and music will be critical, though if they're good no one will mention them. Bad sound design makes a good film look cheap, and bad music wrecks the mood.

My student film was trying to be poignant. This short is looking to be funny. Everyone wants to see something funny. Especially if it's short.

My student film had one visual style. A boring one. This film is going to be a series of comic vignettes -- which gives me a chance to show off a series of visual styles. If you think about how commercials can tell a story in 30 seconds, six minutes is a lifetime. We're going to have a flat, propaganda-picture style followed by handheld doc-style camerawork followed by highly composed and lit four shots followed by a steadicam tracking shot followed by an elaborate "fluid master." One of the reasons I picked the material I did was it gave me an excuse to show off different styles.

I also picked material -- I'm adapting a chapter from a bestselling Canadian humor book -- I thought might appeal to the funding agencies. With a student film, you're getting your equipment free. Your crew is working for free. On my student film the actors were free. My main expenses were film stock and food. On a short film, you're renting your equipment. You can ask the crew to work for cheap, but not free. I'm paying my actors ACTRA independent-film scale. We've got a budget of $40,000 and change. I'm not looking to pay for that myself. So, we're applying for grants from the BravoFACT program and the Quebec cultural agency, SODEC, with post production support from the National Film Board. You want to be going to them with something they can be proud to fund, that fulfills their mandate. Our subject matter is a unique aspect of Canadian culture. By making fun of it, we're appealing to a wide audience while at the same time giving the cultural moguls a reason to support us.

Of course, we'll see if they see it that way

Being a free lance creative is all about pursuing options. If you're not busy working, you want to be opening doors. If you've tugged at all the writing doors, look at what else you could do to add value. Produce? Direct? I have TV projects out there and feature projects. With a bunch of TV projects looking good, but not actually going yet, and the same with a bunch of feature projects, it seemed time to try something else. Like a short. While I'm waiting for funding to come in on the short, I'll come up with some more tv projects, and possibly arrange a staged reading of my romantic comedy. It's all about irons in the fire.

Irons in the fire also mean that you always have a positive story to tell. It means you're not calling producers to see if they've read your script yet. Instead, when they call you and ask "what have you been up to?" you can tell them a fun story that has nothing to do with the project you have with them.They'll be much more anxious to work with you if they feel you've got a lot of stuff going on. And they will be less likely to ask you to write for free, or accept a bad deal, when they know you've got a lot of things going on.

The beautiful thing about being a writer is you don't need anyone's permission or commission to write. You can always write the next thing. Directors need material and money. Actors need material and a director. Writers need a computer. Writers who want to direct need a computer and a DV camera.

Aside from writing that spec script, what other projects do you have going? What could you get going with the resources you have? Let us know where you're at in the comments below.

Diss Approval

Kids, don't give the novelist approval of your script adaptation. Especially if he's a self-important jackass.

Auditions

There are excellent books on acting, and a few good ones on directing actors, such as I'll Be In My Trailer by John Badham and Craig Modderno. There isn't room in this blog for everything you want to know about directing actors, and I'm not the best person to tell you. Nor can anyone tell you everything you need to know -- probably the best thing is to take an acting class. I learned quite a bit about writing and directing from my two years at the Joanne Baron Studio training in, and observing, Meisner technique. An acting class gives you a sense of what actors are going through, and a vocabulary for speaking to actors, that will separate you from the "shooters."

But I can tell you a few things about auditions.

First of all, put your actors at ease. You may be nervous. You haven't directed before, perhaps. You might be feeling bad that you're having 27 professional actors show up to audition for 5 parts you're paying bupkis for. (In Canada, ACTRA will cut its scale way down for low-budget independent productions; SAG probably has similar reules.) You might be inclined to overcompensate by being all high-and-mighty with the actors, to establish your position. On my first student film, I wanted to see what the actors would look like in studio lighting, so I basically had lamps shining in their faces during the audition. Don't do that. Be warm and friendly and put them at their ease.

Have your auditions in a neutral place. Don't ask actors to come to your house if you can avoid it. We were fortunate to have gracious permission from Galafilm's head to audition in his conference room. No actor's going to mind coming to a production company's offices, y'know?

Tape your auditions. Get a cheap consumer mini-DV camera. What the actor looks like in person, how his or her performance reads in the room, may not translate to the screen. They may be better or worse on camera. Some actors look younger on screen. Some look older. Someone who seemed to be underplaying in the room may turn out to have perfectly calibrated his performance for the screen.

More importantly, you can't remember everyone's performance. You'll want to go back and look at the auditions several times, as you narrow down your choices. Can't do that if you haven't taped it.

Be sure to put the camera where you can see the actor's whole face! No use having it off to one side!

But, don't you be the person running the camera. You should be watching the actor. Have a friend keep the actor in frame. Also, don't be the one running lines. Have a second friend read lines with the actor. You want to be totally focused on the actor's performance, not worried about what your next line is. I had great help from our associate producer, Laurie Nyveen, and my wife, Lisa.

Don't give any direction for the first take. You want to see what the actor's instincts bring you. They may surprise you. They may get it completely wrong. They may nail it.

Compliment every take! Auditions make everyone nervous. A nervous actor isn't showing you what he can do. Compliments help make the nerves go away.

Now give the actor an adjustment. Don't ask for a result -- "faster!" or "snottier" -- but give the actor an imaginative "as if" adjustment for his next performance: "try this one as if you're illegally parked" or "as if you think she's an idiot." Try not to overload too many adjustments at once.

Try giving the actor a completely different adjustment. I had a scene where the character apologizes. I asked my actors "try this one as if you think you really were wrong," then "try this one as if you think she's overreacting." See how well they integrate your directions.

A cold read can tell you about actors' instincts, and that's valuable. But you need to know how well they take direction. Skilled actors are like dancers, but their footwork is emotional. It's always amazing to me to see a choreographer give dancers some footwork, and the dancers replicate it right away. I couldn't even master The Hustle, myself. Forget the Macarena. Good actors will take your direction and give it back to you beautifully integrated into their performance.

You can add adjustments one at a time: "try it as if you think she's an idiot." "Okay, now try it as if you think she's an idiot, but she's hot."

Casting isn't just a cold reading. I once had the pleasure to direct Mariska Hargitay in a scene for class. I've directed actors who came in with better first readings. But I've never seen anyone who could interpret and integrate a direction more naturally. You need to know what they're going to be like when you direct them. There was at least one actor I thought was very good, but I felt my directions weren't reaching him. I opted to go with someone else, because I need to know I can direct my cast.

I try to leave enough time to take everyone to the point where I feel they've given it their best shot, or I'm sure I don't want them. On one of our auditions, I let someone go but I had a nagging sense I hadn't got everything he could give. So I opened the window and shouted down to him on the street to come back in. Don't be embarrassed -- what actor doesn't want to be called back in? His second performance (after I asked him to run up and down some stairs) was much more effective. We wound up casting him -- which I couldn't have done based on his first audition. Don't be embarrassed to ask, "How do you feel? Was that good for you?" Actors often know if they can do better. Sometimes they're wrong, but it's usually worth another take to find out.

Take your time casting! Casting is easily half the job of directing your actors. And casting is free! There's no crew. You have no obligation to pay or even feed your cast during auditions. I've never heard of anyone spending too long auditioning their cast. But there are any number of disaster stories about directors who hired actor friends without auditions and regretted it.

And finally, remember: have fun! You get to hear your script come to life a bunch of different ways. What's more fun than that?

Wow!

Toronto Star columnist Vinay Menon writes up All a TV Writer Wants for Christmas, with an incredibly flattering compliment for Yours Truly at #24...

Package is Off

Our package is off to Bravo!FACT. I think we came up with a really strong, funny cast. I'm really looking forward to directing this thing in the Spring, if, Lord willing, we get our funding. (We'll find out in March.)

Tonight and tomorrow it's a bunch of Chrismukkah parties, then off to New York for R&R. Nothing happens in showbiz until the New Year, so time to work on your specs!

Continuity

Q. When speccing an episode of an existing show, should you make reference to past characters and episodes or keep it self-contained?

Keep it as self contained as possible. The people reading you will hopefully know the characters and the general premise, but you can't count on them to be fans who know the show cold. The more you can come up with a plot that works on its own, while still convincing us it's a "lost episode of the show," the better. Not easy, but that's the needle you have to thread.

Q. Is it unwise to spec a show from across the pond? Say, a Doctor Who or a Torchwood? Is it any better to do a North American show that isn't a blockbuster, like Dexter? I guess the real question I'm asking is: how important is it that the person reading the script has actually seen the show it's based on?

Totally important. The point of a spec is to show you can write someone else's show. If I haven't seen the show you wrote, how do I know if you nailed it or not?

If you're American, spec an American show. If you're a Brit, spec a pilot for an original British show. [See David Bishop's comment below.]

If you're Canadian ... you may as well spec an American show. There's no downside, and you can't use your Slings & Arrows or Corner Gas south of the border.

Short Film Update

Today we had auditions. Imagine your script re-imagined by two dozen people, each of whom bring their own humanity, skills and talent to the parts. Yes, it's that much fun.

Also, some of our actors were hysterical. We were bursting into laughter at the end of the take.

What was particularly thrilling was getting to direct the actors, and trying to find imaginative circumstances to give them that would provoke a reading closer to what I imagine the scene to be. (You don't want to just ask for the result you want, or you don't harness the actor's humanity or imagination; you just get a mimic.)

We have some roles already nailed down, and great candidates for the others.

Tomorrow we'll look at the tapes we made. People look differently onscreen than they do in person. Actors often look much better onscreen than off.

Storyboards are moving along nicely from our storyboard artist. We're looking at d.p. reels. We have a great candidate for a composer. It's coming together. It will be frustrating to ship our package off to the funding agencies and then wait three months to hear. But then, it's already the dead of winter, and we wouldn't want to be shooting outdoors next month anyway.

Meanwhile nothing much is happening on any other front. It's the time of year when showbiz wraps up its biz. No one's really taking on new projects. I'm revising an old spec feature, and working on TV pitches for next year. Nice thing about being a writer: you can always write. You may not get paid for it, but you can always write.

Credits

Q. As a writer that has not had anything produced and has only written on spec, is there any value at all to mentioning completed but unproduced screenplays in, say, a grant application?

Ordinarily I would say no. The only things that go on a resume are things you've been paid for, and anything that's been produced. (So unproduced commissioned scripts, and produced freebies like student short films, both count.) The best things, of course, are produced things you've been paid for.

But if all you have is unproduced scripts, and you're applying for grants, then put your unproduced scripts on the application. It's better than leaving it blank! At least it shows you've been doing what you can.

With the IMDB, people less often ask for one's resume. But it's good to keep yours current. I like to keep my resume one page long. As I add new credits, I drop the less impressive stuff off. Ten years ago, I had some of my student films on the ol' resume. Fifteen years ago, I had all of them. I recently dropped the commissioned rewrites that didn't have directors attached; one day, Lord willing, I'll drop off all the unproduced stuff.

Resumes are not as important to writing jobs as writing samples. If an agent sends me a script and a resume, I'll look at the script first. I only care about experience when it's a question of a TV staffing job, and I want to know if someone can take the heat.

In the mean time, go work on some student and indie short films in various capacities so you have something to put on your next grant app! (Like, for example, mine!)

Spec Question

Q. I'm a snarky female writer with a produced TV movie looking to do my first spec script. I know the go to show is Grey's Anatomy, but I hate it! Should I go with The Office, Ugly Betty, or New Adventures of Old Christine?

Yes, Virginia, I hate Grey's Anatomy too.

I'm going to say The Office 'cause it's a hip show, and it's done multiple seasons, even if short ones. Christine is your basic sitcom and it's very hard to crack the sitcom market with all the unemployed sitcom writers hanging around. Ugly Betty is the one to watch, I think. But it's always risky to spec a show in its first season.

I should point out, on the other hand, that Betty is an hour and The Office is half an hour. The question is, which do you want to write? Betty will not get you a job on a sitcom. The Office miiiiight get you a job on a drama. In either case they're probably going to want to see a second spec that's actually in the format you're trying to get hired on.

Intrepid Article

Macleans magazine has a nice article about Lisa's book.

If you think showbiz is a rough business, try publishing. It's just as iffy as showbiz, but you make so much less money. Just selling your book is not enough. You have to convince your publisher to really support it. For example, Random House Canada assigned a publicist in Toronto and hired a free lancer in Montreal. Result: articles in Macleans, the Gazette, the Globe and Mail, etc. Random House in New York has just arranged for every bookstore in Miami to display her book during ArtBasel Miami, a huge art festival there.

It doesn't always happen like that. With the rapid turnover of editors and publicists, it's easy for you to lose the editor that was passionate enough to buy your book, and wind up with someone who's less motivated to promote a book that someone else bought.

FD8

Joel Levin at Final Draft asked me what I want in Final Draft 8, which they're now designing. I want to be able to print script notes on the facing pages, like I can in Movie Magic Screenwriter. What do you want Final Draft 8 to be able to do? (Aside from "not crash." They know that. And 7.1.3 is pretty stable.)

Casting

Sorry I've been silent. We're putting together an application for BravoFACT to fund our comedy short, and that means we need all our ducks in a row. Not just a script and a budget, but department heads and all the roles cast. Normally you wouldn't cast anything but leads before funding, but they want to know that if they approve you, you're ready to go.

Casting is your most important job as a director. If you cast right, you can do no directing for the rest of the production and you'll still be okay. (Not great, but okay.) Thing is, headshots tell you oh so little. You don't get much of a sense of a person from a headshot. You can tell if someone's inexperienced, but what if they're inexperienced but good? Some agencies are good enough to put people's reels online. This saves everyone a ton of time. I can tell in a minute or two if I'm interested in someone. If they've got it, I'm drawn in. If not, I drift. Of course, the agencies might not want you to tell in a minute or two that you're not interested!

Casting is scary, because you can screw your whole movie up. It's also fun, because when you find the right person, your lines come alive. Sometimes the actor finds something in them that you didn't know was there. That's a joy.

I have a feeling this is going to be a funny, funny piece. If we get the money, yo.

D.P and Composer Needed

We're putting together a team for the 6-minute comedy short I hope to be shooting here in Montreal in April. Application needs to be in next week. If you or someone you love would like to be considered as a director of photography or composer, please get me a reel pronto. The d.p. needs to be Montreal-based, obviously; the composer should be Canadian but could be living anywhere. Contact me at craftyscreenwriting at gmail dot com. Thanks!

When Is a Show Ready to Spec?

Q. When is it too early to write a spec script? It seems that with the popularity (that I saw) of West Wing specs, people would be in a rush to start churning out Studio 60 specs as well. But is it too early? Should a writer wait for a show to get legs firmly underneath it and become established, or do we just take what we have now and run with it? As you've noted, the show has turned to more worthwhile themes for the viewers in the way of personal conflicts, and we are a bit more accustomed to each character's voice, so it seems mature enough to move forward.

The received wisdom seems to be that you should never spec a first season show. The risk is just too high it will not get picked up for a second season, and then your spec is no good.

On the other hand, I believe by this time last year people were speccing Desperate Housewives. Though how they did it, I can't imagine, with the serial plot line.

If you're willing to take a gamble, you could spec a Studio 60, knowing that at least it's been picked up for the rest of the season. That means it will still be on the air for next staffing season. (And given how awesome last night's episode was, I'm guessing it will get picked up.) Also in the case of S60, you know that everyone in showbiz has tuned in at least once and probably several times. It would be riskier to spec a Friday Night Lights, even though that got picked up, too, because it's not everyone's cup o' tea. A lot of people have the "yeah, it's good, but it's not my bag" thing. You might be safe with Ugly Betty, too. Or Heroes.

The safest thing is still to call agents' assistants and ask politely if they (the assistant) are willing to tell you what their clients are speccing. But if there are only a few shows you're passionate about, I'd say passion is the way to go. I'd spec a Studio 60, knowing it's risky, because I love it, before I'd spec a Battlestar, because I just don't get Battlestar. Your mileage will vary.

Storyboards Needed

We're doing funding applications for a six minute comedy short I hope to direct next year, and the funding people would like to see storyboards.

Would any of you like to do storyboards for a short film? No pay up front, but there could be an honorarium if and when we're funded, and of course you get a nice credit and the experience. The camerawork is not that intricate (it's a comedy), so it wouldn't be too many pages of storyboards. Email me at crafty at b2b2c dot ca if you're interested. Thanks!

Available December 19!

They're charging $50 for Bon Cop Bad Cop at Amazon.com. But Amazon.ca will sell it to you for less than $25! Should get to you just a little bit too late for Christmas. New Year's present, anyone?

Contest!

I need some weird party conversation. Preferably weird hipster party conversation. Definitely not geekfest party conversation and way definitely not weird screenwriter party conversation.

So, here's the contest! Please leave your weirdest / most memorable party conversation in the comments, or if it's too embarrassing, email it to me. If I use it, I'll send you a signed copy of your choice of my books. Or name a character after you. Your choice.

Another Week, Another Trip to the Big Smoke

This afternoon I am in the lounge of Toronto's Union Station, waiting for the 5 pm train. I've been making the pilgrimage to Toronto a lot lately, but this has been one of my most focused trips. I went to Telefilm twice to pitch movie projects with some very classy producers. I met with one of Canada's top production companies and one of our top actors who likes one of my projects. (And he's perfect for the part, too. Which don't always go together.) And I got to answer a lot of questions for the current CFC Prime Time TV class. That was fun.

Here's hoping some of these meetings bear fruit.

First Phone Conversation!

I had my first phone conversation with my daughter ever last night!

Jesse: Hello!
Alex: Hello darling! How are you?
Jesse: Bye!

Okay, not much of a conversation. But pretty exciting if it's your
first!

Not Just For Battlestar Fans

This Slate article suggests you might want to listen to Ronald D. Moore's four hour recording of his writer room in action.

They're breaking story. And they're letting you listen in. You wanted to know what it's like to be in the room? This is what it's like to be in the room working on BG.

The podcasts are pretty fine, too.

Look for the link to the Writer's Meeting. (I couldn't find the exact link. Anybody?)

UPDATE: See the comments for the correct links to the Writers Meeting. Thanks, guys!

A Bottle Show is inside

Q. In your book, Crafty TV Writing, you mention that it is a producer's dream to have one location or standing set, for shooting. In your experience have you seen this done incorporating the outdoors? Can the outdoors be considered a standing set?

Not really. While staying in one outdoor location for the whole story means you don't lose time moving the "company," shooting outdoors is problematic. Unless you are the prophet Joshua, you cannot get the sun to stand still. It is only available during the day, for example, and even during the day it persists in changing angles. That is, if the sun is not behind clouds. And it is not raining. Or snowing.

Outdoors you also have sound problems. Jets flying overhead. Trucks rumbling by. Teamsters blowing their horns during the take because you didn't hire their drivers. Inside of a sound stage, the world could be ending and you wouldn't know it until the end of the take.

Of course, in Los Angeles you can count on day after day of full sunlight for months at a time, which is one reason the film industry settled there. (The other was that in the early days, they were all violating Thomas Edison's film technology patents, and L.A. was about as far as they could get from his lawyers.) In those days they built their interior sets out in the sun, and sometimes even put them on turntables so the angle wouldn't change. But you probably won't be doing anyone a favor if you set your whole episode in Griffith Park.

DMc on the CBC

[Canadiana] Denis McGrath will be telling truth to power on the CBC this afternoon. The subject is: how can the CRTC gut Canadian drama even more, and if they do, why should we watch American series on CTV when we can watch them on NBC?

For those of you who haven't been following this, the Canadian broadcast networks are asking for the right to fulfill their Canadian Content requirements by airing infomercials. Which leaves us wondering: if they're not going to fund Canadian drama, why do we need Canadian networks at all? We could just have local affiliates of ABC and NBC airing local infomercials.

Denis, in case you didn't know it, is even funnier and smarter live than in print. Try to catch his words of wisdom. Especially if you work at CTV. He will make a great talk show host, after he sabotages his screenwriting career here.

(Of course, maybe they'll listen to him and get it. And be so grateful to him for telling the Canadian nets what they're doing wrong.)

Here's the program guide for today. You can also listen online.

UPDATE: Aha, here's the schedule:

3:30 pm (1:30 p.m. your time)
CALGARY

3:40 pm
TORONTO

3:50 pm (um...is that..uh...4:50 Halifax time, right?)
HALIFAX

4:10 pm
WINDSOR

4:20 pm (5:20, right?)
SYDNEY

4:40 pm
SAINT JOHN (um...5:40? If it was St. John's, I might have a aneurysm here.)

4:50 pm
OTTAWA

5:10 pm (3:10 local)
EDMONTON

5:40 pm
THUNDER BAY

5:50 pm
WINNIPEG

Why is Studio 60 Better?

[No real spoilers, I don't think.] I think it might be because the early episodes were about global stakes -- how better sketch comedy could save the world -- and these episodes are about personal stakes. Instead of being about whether Matt Albie will save the show -- it wouldn't be much of a series if he lost his show, would it? so a bit of schmuck bait there -- it becomes about whether the various characters will save their part of the show. Can Darius and the English Chick get a sketch on the air? Can Amanda Peet overcome her pride to save her job? Can Harriet tell a joke? (OK, that was more of a runner.)

One of the strange things about TV is it has no perspective. You see it on TV news all the time. We see a story about horrific bombings in Baghdad followed by long lines for holiday shopping. Darfur gets two minutes (or no minutes), OJ gets four, that weirdo claiming to have killed Jon Benet gets 25. TV wants stories it can put a face on -- which is why I get my news from The Economist.

TV wants personal stories. They can be small or big in ramifications. Jack Bauer's story has huge ramifications. But we're really watching to see Jack Bauer deal with his enemies. And it is, apparently, more important whether Meredith gets McDreamy than whether her latest patient dies -- except in so far as Meredith losing her patient might make McDreamy more or less interested in her. Friends got ten years out of whether Ross would get Rachel to think he's cool or Rachel would get Ross to respect her.

No perspective. Or rather, any perspective you want to give it.

'Cause people are like that. There's always the horror story of someone shooting someone over burned eggs. We're not good with perspective either, unless someone has put us in a position where it's our job to have perspective.

The stakes are part of the fun. But the stakes are only important to the extent that they're important to the hero. Make sure you firmly establish exactly how the hero would feel to win the stakes.

(Which is why, incidentally, we'll never care about the aimless/apathetic hero I'm always seeing in failed spec feature scripts. If he doesn't care, why should we?)

Who was that singer?

Who was the singer on Studio 60 tonight?

$14 Steadicam

All you aspiring filmmakers, here's how to build a semi-steadicam for $14. It doesn't have all the fancy hydraulics, but your footage will look better than handheld, thass for sure. Via this handy linkfest on the Celtx site.

Make It a Character Flaw

I'm working on my zombie picture off and on these days. One thing that has always bothered me in horror pictures is when the characters don't immediately call the authorities. Tremors is so effective because the characters never waste time investigating the strange phenomena -- they do their best to get the hell out of town from the get-go.

So I've got my guys in a building in the woods surrounded by a passel of zombies, only they don't know it's zombies yet, they think it's only a pair of ordinary psychopaths. (There's more to the hook than that, but for the purposes of the exercise you don't need to know the details.) I want some of them to try to make a run for town, which is terminated when they realize there are more than two creeps out there.

But wouldn't they be carrying cell phones? Wouldn't they just call the police?

No, as it turns out, because part of the point of the vacation was to get away from cell phones.

But I find that unsatisfying on its own because I don't want the whole enterprise to hang on the characters having not brought along cell phones. Surely someone would have cheated.

As it turns out, one of the characters did cheat. But I only want that revealed after they make their abortive run for town. So I had the character, in one draft, forget he'd brought along a cell, and in another draft, he just didn't mention it.

Neither works, as a perspicacious fellow who read my script pointed out.

One solution would be to find out that he's got the cell phone before they make the run for town. But then it just feels like shoe leather. Something to get out of the way.

Another would be to go back to nobody having brought cell phones. Or having brought a cell phone, but no signal. Not fun.

The solution I'm going with is to eliminate the surprise -- because it feels like a cheat -- but embrace the character not telling anyone he has a cell. Establish earlier that he does have a cell. But he wants to make a run for town. Because it would be more fun than calling the police. And he thinks (for reasons having to do with the hook) that his friends can handle two garden variety lunatics.

Now it's not a cheat, because we know he's got a cell as soon as he does. Now there's suspense, because we're wondering why he didn't tell anyone, and when he's going to use it. And best of all, we've now established our guy as a reckless adrenaline junkie. He's not doing the wise thing. He's doing the foolish, character-establishing thing.

When you bump on a plothole, don't just look for a way to smooth it out. Look for a way to make it a character-establishing moment. It may be more fun. It may be more human, too.

Show People

We watched the last episode of Season Two of Slings and Arrows. It's the sort of show that makes you wish you were in showbiz. In spite of all the chaos and pain, the characters love the theater so much they'll put up with anything to be there and make the magic. We love their devotion and their fundamental honesty -- I say fundamental, because they lie to each other all the time but they are trying to make honest theater.

I remember watching Day for Night in college and thinking that if only I'd seen it when I was younger, it would have made me go into the movies. Show people seem to burn a little brighter in it; as they do in real life.

It's nice to be able to see the show and realize that I am, by some freak luck and a fair amount of slogging, actually in showbiz. And my best friends in the biz have that same devotion to making great work. The system rarely supports great work, for various reasons. But against the odds it does get made, because everyone at some level wants to make great work, even if they are working at cross purposes half the time. And that's what keeps us all going.

A Producer Blogs

Jim Henshaw, a TV producer with loads of writing experience, is blogging too. Here's how a picture of his wound up as an "Alan Smithee Film." Via DMc.

Staying Ahead of the Audience

I've got some people trapped in a building in a forest surrounded by zombies. They're thinking about setting the forest on fire, and then it starts to rain. Oh well.

A fella suggested that I make a bigger deal out of their attempt to set the forest on fire. It would be a way to go. But I don't think the audience is going to really believe that they're going to succeed. 'Cause there's going to be no conflagration in the trailer or the poster -- which there would be if the movie had a forest fire. So the audience would be ahead of the characters waiting for them to get back to the exciting parts of the plot.

Instead I went for the gag -- pretty much the moment they think of setting the forest on fire, it starts to rain. Wayyy ahead of you, audience.

You want to be constantly aware of what the audience is expecting. Thwart them on plot details -- surprise them with how things turn out.

On the other hand, satisfy their expectations on emotions -- give them the ending they're expecting emotionally. Most of our characters survive the zombies. If they didn't, it would be a dark, dark movie (like Night of the Living Dead), and this is a horror comedy.

In particular, be aware of how much the audience is going to know from the trailers on TV, or the DVD box text.

Scorsese remarked that Raging Bull starts with a fat Robert De Niro partly because he knew the audience would have read about how De Niro gained a ton of weight to play the aging Jake La Motta. He knew the audience would be waiting to see the "fat man." They'd be distracted until they got to see Robert De Niro fat. So he gave them the fat man right out of the box so that they wouldn't be distracted.

Managing audience expectations is a big part of telling stories on screen. It's really the essence of storytelling. So always think of your audience -- picture them in your mind -- as you craft the story.

Crafty Directing

After Crafty TV Writing, my editors asked me what the next book might be, and the logical answer seemed to be Crafty Directing. Not that I know how to direct craftily, but it would have been fun to interview directors who do. Most directing books, I've noticed, are either basic primers (how not to cross the "line") or books of chatty anecdotes by major directors. Sidney Lumet's book is about the only one that gives away trade secrets, and he doesn't give many of those.

Now John Badham has written a book full of this exact kind of tradecraft. (Fortunately for me, John told me he was going to do it a couple years ago; but the book is even better than I'd hoped.) It's called I'll Be in My Trailer: Creative Wars Between Actors and Directors, and it is as full of director tradecraft as you might hope, coming from the very crafty director of Saturday Night Fever, Stakeout, WarGames and The Jack Bull. Badham hasn't stopped at his own knowledge; he's interviewed fellow directors like Mark Rydell and Richard Donner, and quoted from interviews with other directors.

The tradecraft I'm talking about includes things like shooting closeups first if you're dealing with a scene that might wear out your actor emotionally (generally you shoot the master first, closeups last); the two points of view about rehearsals; what it means when an actor says, "I want to talk to you about my costume; and how not to waste your casting sessions looking important.

Okay, there's still some room for Crafty Directing because this book only focuses on dealing with actors. I'd love to hear what Badham and his colleagues have to say about the more subtle uses of different lenses, when to shoot at a location and when a studio, six day shoots vs. five day shoots, and other technical and production questions. But that really does deserve another book.

If you want to direct, or if you're even simply a writer who wants to appreciate all that a director has to deal with, buy this book.

Not Just Evil, but Fun Evil

Here's an interesting conundrum. I'm reading a screenplay by a very competent writer. He's set up a situation where the hero is being menaced by thuggish people and there's no one he can turn to. He's helpless. That sets up, I assume, the basic problem of the screenplay.

My problem is that when the hero is jammed in a corner like this and all he's going to be able to do is suck it up, while I sympathize, I don't particularly want to spend more time with him and his problems. It's a pure downer. But it is dramatically effective to place the hero in a real jam.

What I'm suggesting to the writer is to make the thugs more fun to watch. They're brutal, but they're not much fun. I think we need them to be quirkier, stranger, more fun to watch. Think of Gary Busey in the dress in Under Siege: he's another insane killer like Mr. Joshua. But he's an insane killer in a dress. (Which of course makes it brilliant when later, just after he's murdered the captain, he notices that his efficiency report recommends him for a psychiatric evaluation. Still in a dress and makeup, he turns to Tommy Lee Jones and says, "Do I look like I need a psychiatric evaluation?" And Tommy Lee gets to do his patented raised eyebrow and say, "Not at all.")

Another direction would be to give us the full humanity of the thugs and give us a sense why they're beating up the hero. We still won't like them but at least we're getting insight into them.

Be efficient in setting up your jeopardy. But don't be so streamlined that there's no fun in it for the audience. Make the villains fun to watch even if you wouldn't personally enjoy their company.

Also, don't let your hero ever be completely helpless. Helpless is a repulsive frame of mind. No one wants to be around helpless. Even if your hero is getting killed, at least he could try to josh his way out of a bad situation. Or fight against the odds. Anything that tells us he's not a loser.

Casting About for Details

Q. In writing prose fiction, one key to vivid descriptions is specificity. So, a description of a beautiful woman might focus on her freckles or a crooked tooth or the way the muscles on her back move when she reaches up to change a lightbulb. I'm curious about doing the same thing in a script.

To the extent that it's something that's just costuming or makup, it seems like good sense to do the same sort of specific descriptions in scripts (maybe the pretty girl pulls her long sleeves down so that they hide her hands). But does it make sense to describe physical characteristics if they're mostly going to be a matter of casting?

Right. No, it does not. Unless a freckle is a story point, don't mention it. What if Rachel McAdams reads it, but doesn't have freckles, and now she doesn't want to do your script any more? That would suck.

If someone has a horrible wart on their nose, on the other hand, and they're self-conscious about it, then you would mention it because it's a character or story point. Like the way Dorothy is self-conscious because she's in black and white, and she dreams of being in color. Or something.

I will try to describe personality as efficiently as I can. I try to avoid describing looks for the lead actors. Rather than giving a character description that depends on casting, give a character description that depends on personality. Describe how the character is, rather than what they look like. Give the actor something to act, not something to have.

With minor characters, on the other hand, you may be looking for a specific type that will score with the audience immediately, e.g. WIRY BANK ROBBER, FAT CLERK, GENETICIST WITH BODACIOUS YA-YA'S. Then go for the physical description. But then, essentially, the character's type is the story point.

Garret Lerner Interview

If you write good recaps at Television without Pity, it turns out, sometimes the staff writers will read you. Garrett Lerner is a Co-Exec Producer on House, and SaraM of TwoP interviewed him.

Thanks for the tip, Katya!

Vote for Me, Eh?

For the next week, you can vote for the Canadian Blog Awards. If you like this blog, please feel free to click the links to either side and vote for it. It's up for Best Blog and Best Entertainment Blog.

And now we're off to New York!

Writing Samples

Q. When a producer asks you a writing sample, what does this mean? I never gave a good thought about it and usually I send "something" that I think it's good. But the question I always have is: how many pages?

I always send a complete script. How can someone judge your writing without seeing a whole story told on screen? If it's for a TV drama, I send a TV drama script. If it's for an SF feature, I send an SF feature sample.

Q. I don't think you need to send writing samples today, but when you did, how big were your "writing samples"?

I send writing samples all the time. I sent a couple of scripts to a guy yesterday.

Even if my two produced features weren't co-writes, odds are your favorite scripts -- or your best samples for a given job -- aren't the ones that got made. We can't all be John August and get almost everything produced.

Just because someone's a bigshot (and I'm not one by any stretch) doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for a sample of their writing. When I was a development guy, we made a deal with some very fancy Big-Agency-Represented writers to develop a project. Foolishly we didn't ask for a writing sample; we relied on the word of their agents. Ack. We wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars and the better part of the year with those jokers because we didn't ask for samples.

Another Reason Why You Want an Agent

I was casting about for TV series ideas a couple of days ago. Your basic episodic drama series is (a) a family, whether of kin or of choice, who live or work at (b) a venue where (c) stories walk in the door every week. That's why you see so many hospital shows, legal shows and cop shows. We've also seen a radio station, a funeral parlor, a saloon in Deadwood, two adjacent apartments, a TV station, and so on.

Obviously there are TV shows that aren't set at a single venue, but they're more expensive to shoot, and it's harder to keep your family together. There are also TV shows where the characters aren't in a family (Six Degrees, Heroes) but it's harder to keep the stories interwoven.

So, I thought, peacekeepers. Blue Helmets. And I wrote my agent:

PEACEKEEPERS... the story of a squad of Canadian soldiers in an unidentified African country. Based near a big town, they're trying to protect European and Canadian aid workers, and keep heavily armed local factions from killing each other and brutalizing the people. But our guys are not allowed to call in air strikes and blow things up. They have to use money, words and their own humanity to bring peace and order to a place where not everyone wants peace and order. They carry just enough weaponry to protect themselves -- and sometimes it's not enough. They're caught in the middle between the weak and the strong, the honest and the corrupt, local Muslims and local Christians, the West and the East, the past and the future. They're trying to understand the local people enough to help them -- without understanding them so much they forget what they stand for. One of our guys is there for idealism, one for honor, one to escape his past, one to escape his small town, one for the thrills; and all of them, men and women, are there for the brotherhood...

Unlike every American series about soldiers, this is one in which the solution to every problem isn't killing someone -- in fact that's the solution our guys are mostly forbidden to use. Which makes our guys' job all the much harder. Yet they're out there doing it in a dozen countries right now.

This wouldn't be about how they fail. It would be about how in spite of the odds -- in spite of the fact that they can't shoot -- they actually do mostly succeed at keeping peace in the town, mostly because people recognize that they're not there for gain and they won't be there forever.

I was getting pretty exciting about writing this up, but first I checked with my agent. Amy wrote

Unfortunately there is a one hour drama called Peacekeepers that just got greenlit at CBC. Mario Azzopardi is directing, Paul Gross to star.

And that is why you want an agent.

I'm disappointed about being scooped, of course, but at least it means I was on the right track.

UPDATE: I now realize I could have read DMc more carefully, and I would already have known this, but I wasn't looking for a peacekeepers show back in June, was I?

Editorial Policy, or, Only If There's Enough for Everyone

I answer a lot of questions on this blog. For clarification, my policy is that if you want me to answer your question, I assume you're willing to have both the question and the answer posted on the blog. If you would like me to delete certain specifics, please let me know in advance.

If you are not willing for me to answer your question on the blog, then please do not send it to me, as I don't generally answer questions on an individual basis, only if they can benefit everyone.

-- Mgt.

Online Pitches

Q. I've posted my TV series idea online... Would you like to take a look at it?

I don't generally read other people's work, unless they're friends, or someone hires me to.

I would not recommend putting your series proposal on your website. If it's brilliant, someone might steal it. If no one steals it, TV execs might wonder, "If this is so brilliant, why hasn't anyone stolen it?"

Putting your series proposal up for all to see does not establish a connection between you and someone who puts out a similar proposal months later, since you can't prove that they ever went to your site. And you can't even copyright an idea, only the specific way you set up the idea. So if they steal your idea and twist it, it's not your idea any more.

Q. But I'm in [name of town], and no one will read it.

Right. Because TV is a different animal from the movies. Someone can buy your spec feature script for its idea alone, and then happily have someone else rewrite it. In other words, your newbie-ness doesn't make it impossible for you to sell your script, assuming you can get people to read it. But in TV, even assuming you are clever enough to come up with a pitch-perfect TV pitch (and that is much harder than writing a sellable feature spec), they are not just looking for a pitch. They are looking for a killer spec pilot script, and an experienced writer who will turn the pilot into a series if it's greenlit.

To repeat: series are sold off pilots, not pitches. In Canada they'll take pitches, but ABC wants to read a finished pilot.

Your best bet to sell your series, I think, is to write a spec pilot and a respectable spec episode of a current hit show; get an LA agent to send them both around as writing samples; and hope someone says, "Wow, I actually want to buy this pilot!" If it's brilliant enough, someone will. And if it's almost brilliant enough, you might get hired onto a show.

If She Can Make It There ...

Where am I going to be on Thursday night 7-8 pm? Why, where all the cool people are, at the fabulous party for Lisa's book at the Winkleman/Plus Ultra Gallery and Schroeder Romero Gallery in Chelsea, 637 West 27th Street, in New York.

Wine! Beautiful people! Clever conversation!

You're invited too!

Some More Tools

Here's a neat list of ways to get creatively unstuck...

Via Jane.

Some Very Nice Things About Fredericton

I spent the morning walking around downtown Fredericton. You can pretty much walk around downtown Fredericton in a morning, but there is a nifty Saturday market, full of terribly enticing baked goods, and sweaters, and fresh meats, and cured meats, and homemade cheese, and things made out of wood that you didn't know you needed until you saw them.

I sold almost all my books, and was planning to fly back light, but I will be taking back some smoked mackerel. Nice to fly without going over a border and wondering whether you're supposed to declare your sandwich.

Good call on the market, Gia! And Ralph, where did you go? I turned to buy cheese and you were gone!

The Lord Beaverbrook Art Gallery is a surprise. It has a really good collection. The pièce de résistance is a Rembrandt by Hogarth. Yep, it's a painting of one of Hogarth's friends, John Pine, in the style of Rembrandt. (Irritatingly I can't find a good color image of it on the net.) It turns out that Rembrandt was all the rage in London that year, and Hogarth thought, well, I can do that, and did. He made such a good Rembrandt out of his friend John that the painting has been sold twice as a Rembrandt. Pine's expression is a little hard to read, but once you know the story, it sure looks like he's smirking.

There are also some superb lithos by Inuit artists downstairs. I think I want to buy some Inuit lithos now.

I came out of the gallery to find the Remembrance Day parade. Fredericton was founded by Loyalist veterans of the American Revolution, settled in New Brunswick after they were kicked out of Maryland and New Jersey and New York by outraged American patriots. They take their Armistice Day seriously. We had a very moving two minutes of silence at the airport just now.

Whoops! We're boarding. Did I mention Fredericton has townwide free wireless internet?

Canadian Screenwriter Article

The new issue of Canadian Screenwriter has a feature on Bon Cop Bad Cop, focusing on Leila Basen's work creating the script with Patrick Huard, the star, and my work as a script doctor during pre-production.

I gotta say though that the article pretty much completely ignores the entire middle part of the script development. After Leila left to showrun her show Mental Block, Kevin Tierney, the producer, worked with Patrick for I don't know how many months on I don't know how many drafts of the script. The draft I read when I came on board was a funny, funny script already, and Patrick's character was all there.

I understand the Guild wants to showcase its writers. But it's not fair to ignore Kevin and Patrick's work. The movie would have been different without Leila or my contributions. But it would not have existed without Kevin and Patrick.

My First Job

Q. I wanted to ask at what age did you get you first job?

I was a late starter. I remember seeing Day for Night in college and thinking, "If only I'd seen that when I was younger, I'd have gone into the movie business. Too late now, though."

My first jobs were all p.a. jobs in New York, working in commercials, after I'd spent the year after college fooling around making shorts on video in Paris. So, I was I guess 22. My first full time job (as a producer's assistant) was out of film school, so I would have been 26 or so.

The first time I got paid to write a screenplay might have been in film school. I was offered a script and two rewrites for $1000. Would you believe I got stiffed out of the last $200?

But hey. It was better than working for a living!

Our Seminar

We came, we spieled, we answered questions. I did a fun panel at the Silver Wave Film Festival on screenwriting in general and Bon Cop in particular.

Having just spent a couple of days in Toronto, I gotta complaint. In Montreal, people say, "Hey, I saw Bon Cop, and I loved it!" In Fredericton and Toronto, people say, "Hey, I heard Bon Cop was really really fun. I'm looking forward to seeing it some day.'

And that's why English Canada doesn't have its own cinema.

Fredericton is Yummy

After our session at the Silver Wave Film Festival, we went off to The Blue Door, a nifty fusion bistrot on Regent Street. We had Navajo fry bread with goat cheese and balsamic vinegar, and crab cakes with mango salsa, and blackened chicken breast, and some of the best chowder I've ever tasted. If you've ever been to Van Go's Ear in Venice (L.A.), it's that kind of yummy. Shout out to Gia, who recommended it: good call!

In Toronto Agin...

I'm in Toronto again. Yesterday I taught a class of up-and-coming writers at the Canadian Film Centre. Gee, I wish UCLA had brought in more industry pro types to meet us when I went to film school there. I hope they're doing it now.

So a shout-out to all the students I met yesterday, and good luck making it in the biz. One thing I'd like to add to my remarks: it never gets easy, no matter what level you're at. If you're talking to someone with series in development, they're wondering if it will get picked up. If you're talking to someone with a go series, they're dealing with the problems of production, and wondering if they'll be cancelled. Everybody's trying to take it to the next level and hoping they don't screw up and slip to the next level down -- which might be the level you're aspiring to.

Went to the CFC "rebranding" party last night. As far as anyone can figure out, the rebranding consists of turning the second "C" in the CFC's logo ... backwards. Cooooooool. That changes everything, y'know.

Today is all meetings and pitches. I'm up for adapting a book, and I'm pitching a series, and I've got a call with a network at 5. Toronto really shows me the love. I sometimes wonder if I ought to move here. But would I get the love if I were here? Or is it all that Montreal mystique working for me? Anyway, I love Montreal too much to move. And the train is pretty nice.

Tonight I'm flying to Fredericton, where tomorrow I'm doing an industry seminar at the Silver Wave Film Festival from 10 to 12. So if you're in Fredericton, do drop in. And bring questions. You know, people do not ask enough questions. We ran out of questions yesterday after three hours, which I guess is a lot of time, but I did have the impression the students were winging their questions as opposed to having necessarily prepared specific, provocative questions -- the kinds of questions you could not have answered by reading books or blogs. I've even had interns who didn't ask enough questions, when asking questions was the only payment they were getting. I know it's hard to come up with questions. But the mere exercise of trying to figure out where the holes in your knowledge lie, helps you fill those holes in...

Messages

Q. Should I leave a message, or call back?

Nick Hartman asked me this question relating to getting show bibles, but it could apply to almost any communication between an unknown and a gatekeeper of some sort -- i.e. an agent, producer, production office, etc.

If you get an answering machine, don't leave a message. Call back. There should always be someone answering at a production office, but if you're getting a machine at an agency or production company, it's probably a holiday. (Or an earthquake.) People are not good about responding to recorded messages when you want something from them and they don't want anything from you.

If you get an assistant, you have to leave a message. It's their job to screen calls. Every so rarely (2% of the time?) you'll get an actual producer or agent picking up his or her own phone by accident, so be prepared to talk fast. But usually you have to leave a message.

Bibles and How to Get Them

Q. How do I get the bible for the show I'm speccing?

Depending on the show it'll be easy or tough.

Some shows don't let outsiders look at their bibles. Some shows don't actually have a bible. Some are happy to let you read it.

If you have an agent, have her ask the show.

Otherwise, call the show and ask for the writer's office and explain your situation. The writers' assistant can shoot you a PDF of the bible, if it's allowed.

You get the show's number by finding out what studio is producing it, calling their main switchboard, and asking for the show's production office. Or you find out the name of the production company (in the onscreen credits or on the IMDB) and call them (number's in the Hollywood Creative Directory).

Most of the information you need, though, isn't in the bible. A lot of stuff you don't need may be. Sometimes the bible represents an earlier conception of the show and no one's updated it. There's backstory in there that the writers haven't put into any episodes. The description of the characters may not get at the essence of those characters. Bibles are wishlists and prospectuses, not blueprints. Only carefully reading the scripts and watching the episodes will tell you what you need to know. (I discuss how to get scripts and how to watch episodes at some length in Crafty TV Writing.)

Aaron Sorkin Goes to the Dentist

Via McSweeney.

Slings and Arrows

Lisa and I are watching Slings and Arrows on Showcase -- down South you can watch it on the Sundance Channel. It's up for a stack of Gemini Awards next week. This article talks about how this utterly funny and charming comic drama was greenlighted and then mysteriously killed at the CBC, after which The Movie Network, a specialty channel akin to HBO, picked it up.

I'm going to guess some executive said something like, "the mainstream audience doesn't care about Shakespearean theatre," not getting that the show is about crazy actors and directors doing most of their acting offstage. The show is 10% about Shakespeare, 30% about the Theatre, and 60% about adorable crazy people who act on their every impulse. The Shakespeare festival is just the venue. People don't watch Gray's Anatomy for the medicine, either.

TMN is very happy for the show to end "gracefully" after three seasons, but that seems to me only a cheerier version of the original rejection. Why not keep it going? I can't imagine that the writers are sick and tired of the characters after 18 episodes. [UPDATE: apparently they really did always intend only three seasons.] And if they can't figure out where to take the narrative, find writers who can. There is a perception out there that successful Canadian shows run for three years, and then are taken to the vet and put down. Same thing happened to my show, Naked Josh -- three good seasons, good audiences, good night.

Why, why, Lord, why?

Craft v. Software

Q. Are you thinking doing any kind of crafty screenwriting software?

Gosh, no. I don't think I believe in screenwriting software. I don't know any pro writers who use screenwriting software. I believe in screenplay formatting software, but Final Draft is exactly what I need -- I can't think of a new feature they could give me that I'd want. They already have a ton of features I've never even tried to use.

The biggest tool I have to offer is Tell your story out loud.

The second biggest tool I have to offer is Be sure you have a good hook.

How could a computer help you with those?

I am sorry, that hook is lame.

I don't think so.

I think you already have all the screenwriting software you need installed in your brain. You know how to tell stories. You know what you enjoy seeing on a screen. My job is more to ask the right questions than to give you a template.

Do any of you use screenwriting software (e.g. Dramatica), and does it really help?

What would Crafty Screenwriting Software do for you, if it existed?

Polling Numbers

No, not those polls. Stewart McKie polled (mostly) working screenwriters. And he found the following:

Screenwriting programs -- have used:

84% have used Final Draft
36% Movie Magic Screenwriter
30% Microsoft Word Add-Ins
16% Celtx
12% Montage
12% Sophocles

Preferred:

58% prefer Final Draft
24% prefer MS Word Add-Ins
22% prefer MMS
8% prefer Montage
6% prefer Sophocles
2% prefer Celtx

You can find more information out at his site, ScreenSoft.

Some of the numbers seem a little wonky, I'm assuming because 26% of those polled were not writers but "in other film industry roles." By wonky I mean that 25% of respondents have never used Script Revisions. I suspect those 26% and 25% are mostly the same people -- development execs who use Final Draft to read scripts they've been emailed, or production designers who want to make notes on scripts. I'd like to see which programs are preferred by (only) professional writers (including writer-directors).

It would also be interesting to see (a) what percentage of writers are on Mac vs. Windows (I s'pect over 50%), and how the Final Draft v. MMS war compares on the Mac front vs. the Windows front. I s'pect the Final Draft numbers are even higher on Mac, and MMS scores relatively better on Windows.

Interesting to see there are actually people who prefer Montage, considering it is a new release which as yet does not have the ability to mark revisions. That bodes well for the program.

Would someone tell me what a Microsoft Word Add-In is? Is it like a style sheet on HGH?