Are you in need of an honest, insightful, objective and (most importantly) professional opinion on the latest draft of your 300-esque, Grindhouse-inspired vampire romance spec?
Well, don’t send that shit to me. I barely have enough free time to maintain this fucking blog.
However, if you’re looking for affordable notes on your spec you SHOULD head on over to Hack Notes, a new reading service started up by Xander of the brilliant “Screenwriting Tips… You Hack”. Professional coverage for $60? You better get on that shit fast!
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Okay, I’m back. Sorry about that. I should know better than to make promises when it comes to the frequency of my posting. But hey, life’s all about setting unattainable goals. It’s the only way we get anywhere.
Picking up where I left off, here’s the second Page One. It comes from Chris Bertolini’s Battle: Los Angeles.
We hear a low RUMBLING SOUND. Something indistinct, unrecognizable. Something that makes our skin crawl.
FADE IN:
EXT. SKY - DAY
Floating miles above the earth, we look down on the PACIFIC OCEAN where it meets the shimmering CALIFORNIA COASTLINE...
A serene view that contrasts with the RUMBLING SOUND building throughout as...
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. SKY - SAME
CLOSER TO THE EARTH, a bird’s-eye view of LOS ANGELES comes into relief-- a criss-cross of neighborhoods, streets, freeways. The buildings not more than dots.
We notice MOVEMENT through the sprawl of city now. Pulsing, snake-like LINES flowing across this vista as...
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. SKY - SAME
MUCH CLOSER, the image of snaking lines revealed as:
MASSES OF PEOPLE and CARS moving east, AWAY FROM THE OCEAN.
We CONTINUE DOWNWARD, falling toward the earth with a disorienting sense of weightlessness. The RUMBLING BUILDS even further, haunting us, until we arrive at...
EXT. PICO BLVD. - SAME
GROUND-LEVEL. The rumbling, at a frantic pitch now, is the noise of CHAOS on the streets.
CARS jockey for position, moving eastward among...
HORDES OF PEOPLE on foot, their PANICKED FACES rushing past us, forming a nightmarish mosaic as we...
SUPER: LOS ANGELES. CONTACT + 1 HOUR.
CUT TO:
BLACK. Then SUPER: 15 HOURS EARLIER as...
Okay, first things first. This is from the sale draft of the script. Since then, Bertolini has been replaced by Scott Silver and the script has been rewritten. Good thing, since I really didn’t like this draft. Nothing against Bertolini. He’s a strong writer and he’s had three scripts make it to production. That’s damn impressive. My main issue with the script was the complete lack of character. But we’re not here to talk about the whole script. Just the first page. And what a first page it is…
Oh, sorry to confuse you. I didn’t mean that in a good way.
Setting aside the fact that I really didn’t like Bertolini’s writing style (just a personal preference), there’s still plenty for us to discuss here. For example, who is our protagonist? Secondary lead? Love interest?
…
Right. There isn’t a single character on the whole fucking page.
I call that cheap writing. You can call it a pet peeve if you’d like. You’d be wrong, but you can call it whatever the fuck you want.
What makes it cheap? Check out the bottom of the page. What happens?
We jump back fifteen hours.
I have so much shit to say about this, but I’ll start with the obvious.
Bertolini just spent an entire page setting us down into an end-of-the-world panic zone, only to yank us back to the beginning. What a fucking buzzkill. Not that I was actually interested in the chaos, since I was never introduced to anyone. Still, that shit is cheap as hell.
As I said in my previous post, something needs to happen in your first page. If you’re writing action, preferably an action scene. If you write comedy, something funny. If you’re writing a thriller, preferably something thrilling. If you write horror, something scary…
Get the picture?
Bertolini does exactly that. So why am I harping on this particular opening sequence?
Because nothing fucking happens.
Compare this page to the first page of Winter’s Discontent. In Winter’s Discontent, we are handed Herb Winter on a platter in one page. Here, we don’t even get a single character. Not even some random NPC to get trampled or blown up.
All we get is a slow push into LA from space and a bunch of people fleeing the coast. Then we’re briskly swept back to the moment it all began. Just so the first page can be exciting.
See what I mean? Cheap. In Bertolini’s defense, everyone has used this opening. Even me. lol. Still, in this case I think it’s just a waste of a page. I’ll unpack that in a minute.
First, I need to point out that nearly every Thriller/Suspense/Horror script opens one of three ways.
1. The Prescient Opening:
It sounds more elegant than it is. In fact, it’s the opening currently under discussion. The writer opens with an intense scene from later in the story, then jumps to the beginning to “show how we got there”. It is by far the cheapest and most overused opening in each of the previously mentioned genres. Please avoid it at all costs. It’s just plain half-assed.
2. The Sacrificial Opening:
This opening will be especially familiar to those of you who watch slasher films. In this opening, we watch someone unimportant die at the hands of the antagonist (or antagonistic force). This is usually both gory and shocking, and leaves the audience satiated enough that they will sit through the next ten minutes of scare-free setup in which we meet our characters. Usually, this is cheap and lazy. I have seen this opening used masterfully, but unless you’re Brian K. Vaughan you probably shouldn’t try. Unless, of course, you’re writing a slasher - in which case you really have no other option. lol.
3. The Historical Opening:
This one is slightly less overused than the other two, but that’s because it usually doesn’t work for shit. This is the opening where we start in the past, usually while one of the characters is a child, then jump to “now”. This is pretty much always used to foreshadow shit the writer will slowly reveal over the course of the movie. Once again, this opening is nearly always shit. Please stop jumping trough time just to give yourself an interesting opening.
Here’s why this was a wasted page. Bertolini doesn’t just use the Prescient Opening, he does nothing with it. I know I said we would just focus on the first page, but I need to mention something from later in the script.
A few of our main characters are somewhere in this chaos. Running. We don’t meet these characters until the first act turn. No big deal, except that as soon as I hit that scene I wondered why the fuck the first page wasn’t about them. It would have made us emotionally invested in what we were seeing (or reading). Not only that, but as soon as we saw them in the community center we would have been ecstatic to find them still alive. As it was, they were just more new characters with no depth and no buy-in with the audience.
Which brings me to my over-arching point about the three types of openings. There are examples where each of those work well. The reason they usually don’t is because they are divisive by nature. They are used to give the viewer (or reader) what the writer thinks they want. These openings are rarely born out of the characters. They hardly ever do more than dump info on the audience and give them a cheap, meaningless thrill.
I want to take a second to discuss the first paragraph. It’s a sound over black. It’s been used before, sometimes to great effect. But the sound here is “indistinct” and “unrecognizable”. So in my head, I’m looking at a black screen and hearing something I can’t recognize.
Seriously?
The first paragraph tells us nothing. Literally. Well, it tells us our skin should be crawling. How that would be accomplished with a black screen and an indistinct sound is beyond me.
All that to say two things:
One, your first paragraph needs to tell us something.
Two, your first page needs to tell us something.
Oh, and for the love of God, please have at least ONE character on the first page. Even if you kill them. Please, just give us someone to grab on to. Otherwise, you’ve already lost your grip on the reader.
I know what you’re thinking. Bertolini sold this script and now it’s in production, slated for a 2011 release. This is true, but don’t forget that Bertolini was replaced. Besides, I’m not the only one who thought this draft was… lacking.
The lesson? I think it’s pretty obvious. I’ll be back soon with the first page of Brian K. Vaughan’s Y - The Last Man.
Grab the script here: Battle: Los Angeles. (This script is available for educational purposes only. If you are the writer or copyright holder of this script and would like it taken down, please e-mail me at Jonny(at)JonnyAtlasInc(dot)com and I will do so immediately)
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I’ll be back in a day or two with Battle:Los Angeles. I just wanted to direct you to two blogs I have recently fallen in love with.
The first is right up my alley (as you will quickly discover). It’s called Screenwriting Tips… You Hack, and it is fucking brilliant.
The second, which is equally brilliant, is essentially “the not so politically correct insider stories” of the industry. It’s called Cine-a-Craze, and you should read it every day.
Aaaaannnnd, while I’m directing you to awesome sites I can’t help but remind you of the trio of awesomeness that is ScriptShadow, Matriarchal Script Paradigm and Trust Me, It’s a Geek Thing. You should be reading those blogs as though your life depended on it.
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Well, it’s been a month and a half. Guess I should fucking post something, huh?
Now that my house is no longer in danger of burning to the fucking ground, I guess I can follow through on that promise I made.
So… where was I?
Oh yeah. The opening page of your script.
It’s shit.
Of course I can’t say that for sure, but chances are good it’s not as strong as it should be. I’d like to have faith, but experience has proven otherwise. If you think your opening kicks ass, by all means compare it to the openings I will be posting over the next few weeks (yes, I intend to post at least once a week, if not two - and no, Hell has not frozen over).
However, the fact remains that no matter how good you are, there is always someone better. If you aren’t neurotic enough to constantly improve yourself and your script then you need to walk the fuck away from this shit before you hang yourself from the Sunset overpass on the 101. The people who get work are the ones with the drive to sit in front of their computer banging at keys until their livers rot and they have to take sleeping pills because they’re out of fucking coffee. There’s a reason many working writers sport beards at least half the year (and it’s not because they look cool).
If you don’t think becoming a great writer is worth risking everything in your life, get the fuck out of the game before you hurt yourself.
Now that we’ve had our monthly pep talk, let’s get back to your script’s opening page.
It probably sucks. That’s okay, though. All things can be improved if you put forth the effort (do I sound like your dad yet, or should I pound back a few more beers and punch you in the face first?).
The best way to learn how to be a better writer is by reading. Which brings us to our latest exercise. Reading and discussing first pages from sold scripts.
Today’s page comes from Winter’ Discontent by Paul Fruchbom.
EXT. SHADY PINES CEMETERY - DAY
Light rain falls on a small group of mourners gathered around a simple metal casket. A MINISTER reads from the Book of Common Prayer. Something about dust.
HERB WINTER, 75, stands at the front of the crowd. His suit is black. His hair is white. And his eyes, colored with melancholy. But not because he’s at a funeral.
HERB (V.O.)
My name is Herb Winter. Today is my seventy-fifth birthday. And just so we’re clear, this is not what I wished for.
Next to the casket is a picture of the deceased: a woman in her mid-70s. In the photo, the woman is smiling, but it looks awkward, forced, as if she doesn’t really know how.
HERB (V.O.)
This is my wife, Ellen.
(looks back at the casket)
Well, at least she used to be my wife.
The tombstone reads: “Ellen Lassiter, 1933 - 2008.”
HERB (V.O.)
Ellen never took my last name. It was quite uncommon back then, but I didn’t really mind. She had always been a liberated woman.
(beat)
Except in the bedroom.
The minister continues his prayer.
HERB (V.O.)
I can’t remember the last time we had sex. And that’s not because my memory’s gone to hell. Even when we were younger, Ellen was never that adventurous. I’d be pumping away and she would just lie there, motionless, like she was de--
(he catches himself)
Well, you know what I mean. Let’s just say that seeing Ellen lying on her back, without a pulse, is not an entirely new experience for me.
Talk about a hell of an opening. From the first paragraph, we already get a feel for the writer’s voice and sense of humor. A line as simple as “Something about dust” sets up the tone of the entire script. It also made me chuckle, which is a great thing for a comedy.
That’s a great note for all you comedy writers out there. If you don’t make your reader laugh, chuckle or at least smile on page 1, you are not doing your fucking job.
Remember, your first page is what sets up the entire script. Is your script going to be funny? Then I better be laughing on the first fucking page. If not, I’m gonna doubt your ability as a comedic writer. Perhaps not consciously, but it’ll happen nonetheless.
Let’s take a look at what we have on this page.
The first paragraph sets up the tone of the script. The second introduces us to the protagonist. We get a great feel for who he is, and the last line of his description sets up a revelation for us as the page unfolds.
See, we are told the melancholy in his eyes is “not because he’s at a funeral.” Then, just a few lines later, we realize this is his wife’s funeral. On his birthday.
The rest of the page, Herb is talking about the issues he had with Ellen’s “bedside manner”. At her funeral.
So we get it. The guy’s old. He’s jaded. He hasn’t had a good fucking in ages. And guess what?
That’s what the script is about. It’s all in the logline: When his wife dies, a sexually frustrated widower and his best buddy move into a retirement community with one objective: to get laid.
This brings up a great point. It’s not enough to have a clean, concise logline. You need to be able to set up the premise promised by that logline in one clean, concise page. One. Not five or ten. I need to know what the fuck is going on by the bottom of page one. Or at least have a decent idea.
Oh, and I had better be fucking entertained.
Winter’s Discontent is a great concept (and a great example of “the same, but different”), and Fruchbom does a brilliant job of setting up the whole ordeal in one page. Before we even hit page two, we know who Herb is and what his external problem is (with hints to his internal problem as well). We know what Fruchbom’s sense of humor is and he has made us laugh. He’s covered all the bases.
But there’s something else here, too. It’s in the first paragraph.
Found it yet?
Yeah. It’s theme.
The first paragraph does a great job of alluding to one of the script’s central themes - the fleeting nature of life and whether or not it’s all bullshit.
Something about dust.
Thing is, it probably wasn’t intentional. For great writers, shit like that is the same as breathing.
If you’re writing a script and you’re actually putting your heart and mind into it, the themes of the story are going to permeate your writing naturally.
If that’s not happening for you, it means you haven’t found your voice. Write more. Read more. Write more. Get addicted to something. Then write even more.
Just kidding about the whole addiction thing…
So, what did I learn from the opening page of Winter’s Discontent?
Don’t be ignorant about your own shit. Know your story and know your theme. If you can’t set them up in the first page, you don’t know them well enough (and you’re wasting our time).
If you liked the first page of Winter’s Discontent (or even if you didn’t), check out the whole script. (This script is available for educational purposes only. If you are the writer or copyright holder of this script and would like it taken down, please e-mail me at Jonny(at)JonnyAtlasInc(dot)com and I will do so immediately)
See you in a few days. The next page-one will be from BATTLE: LOS ANGELES by Chris Bertolini.
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