This Savage Art

Every man needs a website. Check out his Writings section for film criticism.

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Mystery Man On Film announces his online revolution by planning to offer his free screenwriting book from his site.

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It’s a widely accepted practice to violently bang out the first draft of every screenplay at break neck speed to get the word on the page. You know, the ever popular “vomit draft.” It will suck, you know it will suck, just get over it and your screenplay will live to see another day and subsequent future drafts. As promising as that sounds, just doing it and all, it’s not all that realistic for a spec writer. When someone with a paycheck in one hand and a bullhorn in the other is pushing you to finish, you will probably get it done in 12 weeks. If you are doing it in your off time, life will most definitely get in the way and as we all know, you can’t stop life.

Look at my first draft for example. I started this around May of this year and here we are in August. Did some editing gigs and here I am back to the iBook. Hopefully before the summer is over I will complete it and then I’ll let it marinate a little while before I come back to do the real work, rewriting. This may not be the way the industry works but I’m a firm believer in the longer you work on a screenplay the better it will become. It will always be better. I’m not talking 10 years but a considerable time to make it right. What’s right? You’ll know. When the ideas are better than they were before. That’s better. The fact that I have let this project evolve on its own, it is taking me to places that I’m not sure sitting down and micro-outlining would have brought me to. A certain twist on my ending presented itself today that might not have ever happened if I went at a fast and furious pace. And yes, in my opinion, the ending is exponentially better.

Every project has different needs and to say a step outline is right for every screenplay you write just sounds misguided to me. I wrote myself some guideposts to get me to places in this story but I didn’t sit down and write out a list of 40-60 scenes. Some projects will need that kind of detail, they won’t survive without it – just not this one.

We all have theories. How does the first draft service the scope of your feature screenplay?

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Sometimes being an independent filmmaker is like the celluloid life of a New York cop. You trudge through a career trying to make a difference but in the end you don’t know if you even made a dent. Cynical, maybe, but that’s how I felt a couple of weeks ago after having lunch with a Nicholl Fellowship winner. This writer played the game. He came out of a major screenwriting program then won the Fellowship, the most prestigious award that can be granted to a screenwriter. Got heavily courted by Hollywood, got a manager, got optioned, got major star interest. Manager relationship went sour, broke off with his representation. Options didn’t take. A significant amount of time has passed between the award and now. Back to square one without representation.

It was tough to hear this story because I know it is so common for so many — to try and because the planets didn’t align have a hard earned accomplishment like finishing a screenplay you’re proud of fall short of a deserved destination. I guess the more obvious insult to injury was that this writer won the Fellowship — basically saying “We the Academy aka The Industry, deem this work exceptional and worthy of such accolades.”

Is the Nicholl just the SAT for the film industry or is it the ticket for a screenwriter’s career? Can be. Truth is, and as the numbers¹ serve me, most winners don’t go on to have their screenplays produced but it is definitely a jumping off point.² It’s a chance to meet the industry and probably get representation. What you do with all of that is really up to you. More so, what this really illustrates is there is absolutely no logic or stock answer to how to get a pass into the club. It just makes you question the whole process. Maybe the real question to ask is — other than the money rewarded³, is a Nicholl Fellowship screenplay relevant in today’s Hollywood? Probably just as relevant as any other well-written, producible screenplay — you just jump to the head of the line.

Before we went our separate ways this writer told me an unrelated story of a well known and proven producer who was responsible for some significant achievements in filmmaking. He said “Back then we weren’t interested in how commercial a film was, we just set out to make the best film we could possibly make.” Well, maybe not so unrelated.

A final note, the writer I’m speaking of submitted his screenplay three times to the Academy before the Nicholl Fellowship was awarded.

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As a coda to this entry I would like to add my personal take on contests and fellowships for screenwriting and/or filmmaking; take them all with a grain of salt. Your career shouldn’t rest on the outcome of a committee regardless of who they are. Sure, a big fat check and a little attention would be nice but the odds are against you. Should you bother? Absolutely. If you feel your work is ready to go out there and compete (let’s not fool ourselves, it is a competition) with others for that golden ticket then do it. I entered Dyre Avenue in the Nicholl, the BlueCat Screenplay Competition and the Sundance Lab last year and got an overwhelming “no” across the board. This year I reentered BlueCat with a new draft and got in the upper 10%, still waiting on Sundance Lab. None of this is stopping me from my mission of turning my current screenplay into my first feature.

Be selective with your choices. Make sure the competitions are legit and they can actually advance your career in some way otherwise what’s the point? Be proactive. Keep writing and pursuing your goals.

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1. Of the 96 scripts that have earned their writers Fellowships from 1986-2006, 13 have been produced [↩]
2. Many Fellows have used the award to launch rewarding careers.[↩]
3. Up to five $30,000 Fellowships are awarded each year [↩]

I just noticed this link to my site so I thought I would raise some awareness for this very cool blog. Gray Hamilton has taken on the challenge of reading one screenplay a week to get to the bottom of this whole writing business.

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I’ve been slammed with work lately which is a good thing. Gotta eat. The downside is the rewiring of my brain. Dealing with all things technical and editorial makes my left brain the more dominant of the two hemispheres. I must analyze, I need to figure out the best way to accomplish what the client wants in a smooth video workflow. This can entail many options and many solutions considering technology changes every…uh! It just changed. Not to mention what goes into setting up my next gig.

This wreaks havoc on my right brain, the creative hemisphere. Of course there is a creative element to editing but my writing suffers. It gets put on the back burner for days like this where I actually have a break waiting for client approval on the most soulless of work, the corporate video. Hey, it’s work am I very grateful for it. It keeps my editing suite up and running. The juggle is a challenge but it gives me the freedom I need to do what I need to do, write screenplays and make films.

Mega Millions, where are you?

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