My third/fourth year in the business I worked for this show-runner who was a real piece of work. He was the most hated figure I’ve ever worked for. He made The Weasel look like a normal, well-adjusted human being. From the writers room to the production office to the stage, everybody hated him.
This guy was a harsh dictator. I’ve never seen anybody better at shutting down creativity in a room. Writers pitching jokes or brainstorming ideas would be cut off and dismissed mid-sentence, mid-pitch. Nice. The in-joke in the writers room was that if he was looking for an integer between 2 and 4 and you pitched 3, you would get shot down.
Strangely, this guy was also helpless. He couldn’t do anything by himself. He had no personal assistant, so we were ALL his personal assistant. I was personally called by the guy on a weekend and compelled to help him out with something personal. Let me repeat, I was NOT his personal assistant. My son was an infant at the time, but apparently the guy didn’t think I had anything more important to do on a Sunday morning than get in the car and go help him out. The in-joke in the production office was that you might get a call from the guy in the toilet demanding that you come help him with the paperwork.
One day Mr. Sunday Morning said his computer monitor “flickered.” I was called into his office and yelled at when I could see no flickering. Well, actually, he didn’t yell, he rolled his eyes condescendingly and told me to go find somebody else – anybody else – to come in his office to confirm the flickering. No matter how many assistants and then producers were called in, NO ONE else could see any flickering. The line producer called the computer rental company and had the non-flickering computer and monitor replaced. Twice. Guess what? Mr. Sunday Morning said it still flickered. I will never forget this: I was personally in his office, along with the line producer and all the writers and some of the cast, when Mr. Sunday Morning became enraged and literally shouted to the heavens, “Why does no one else see this flickering?!”. Everybody in the room was acutely aware of the obvious reason. Everybody except him.
He was fired. Well, I got ahead of myself. First the executive producer was told – by everyone – about this guy. Producers were running around in circles wasting time and money on crap for him. The executive producer’s hand-picked writers were not being allowed to write or even contribute, and were threatening to quit. Nobody was happy. A few shows in, production was shut down and Mr. Sunday Morning was given a serious talking-to. After that, he was on his best behavior. At considerable expense, we spent weeks retooling. An additional writer was brought in to clear the air and “reset” the writers room. Writers’ contributions were welcomed and accepted. Everything was back on track, and everyone was happy.
Until we started taping again. With the stress of production, the dictatorial prima donna control freak jerk returned and everything went back to the way it was. A few shows into this second part of the season, the executive producer unexpectedly appeared on the lot, went into Mr. Sunday Morning’s office, and fired him. Security escorted him off the lot.
It was wonderful. It was… justice.
For weeks afterward it was like the laws of gravity did not apply in our little world. As my Uncle Bernard used to say, “When you hit your thumb with a hammer as hard as you can over and over and over… it feels so good when you stop.” The rest of the season was filled with sweetness and light. And with cruel, unrelenting jokes from everyone about the disgraced, fired jerk. The satisfaction was overwhelming. The world is fair after all.
Or is it?
Four years later, I saw Mr. Sunday Morning’s name on a movie poster. And I about lost my lunch. He wrote a movie – a big, successful, $100+ million Hollywood blockbuster. And later that same year, he did it again. He wrote ANOTHER big, successful, $100+ million Hollywood blockbuster. Movies with BIG HUGE stars. And prominent, beloved, cult-following directors. I am not making this up. The guy made it big. Twice in one year. The disgraced jerk hadn’t faded away, he just moved… into movies. And looking at imdb, his plate is still quite full. This guy is a huge success. We got cancelled, but he made it big.
He sure showed us.
In the years since, I have tried to figure out the true meaning of these events. You know, the big, cosmic truth. Was Mr. Sunday Morning really a jerk? Yes. Is he really a successful writer? Yes. Is he successful BECAUSE he is a jerk? Or in spite of this? Or is there any relationship between these whatsoever? For me, this is the question. Young P.A.s and assistants often ponder this issue, because the vast majority of the time in the business the people in charge (like Mr. Sunday Morning and The Weasel) are dictatorial prima donna control freak jerks. So do people become dictatorial prima donna control freak jerks BECAUSE they are successful and are allowed to get away with anything? Or do they become successful BECAUSE they are dictatorial prima donna control freak jerks to begin with? Is one a prerequisite for the other? If so, which one? Can you really be successful if you are NOT a dictatorial prima donna control freak jerk? Or will all normal, nice, well-adjusted writers become dictatorial prima donna control freak jerks once they become successful?
The wife and kids got back home Saturday, ending my 8-day writing fest. How’d it go? Pretty well, I’d say. Psycho Ex doesn’t yet have a showable first draft (which was the original goal), but it will by Labor Day. So if you’ve been a script reader of mine before, get ready.
The big highlight/breakthrough of the week occurred at 10:22PM on Tuesday. Lightning struck and the huge bloated mess that was Act Two suddenly came into focus. A bold new Line emerged and I started resequencing and cutting like crazy. The index cards were flying. I’m now pretty psyched about this Act Two – it should turn out to be one of the most active and energetic second acts of all my scripts. I’ve said all along that this script is much more plot than ideas/theme, and right now The Line feels really good.
I’m currently on page 75, plowing forward while rewriting/cutting as I go. Page count is cooperating nicely. Two big scenes (already written) and I’m out of Act Two. Act Three is looking strong too. A couple of wrinkles to finesse still, but I’m in good shape. I’m as excited about this script as I’ve ever been.
By the Numbers:
131 = current page count (down from a peak of 151 and then 143 when the honeymoon began)
200 = blank index cards I had to go out and buy
57 = current number of scenes in the script (some are montages and/or intercut sequences)
10 = page number when we get the big hook/rug-pull moment
2 = number of dinners I had with old friends I haven’t seen much of since the children came
2 = number of people who get killed in the story
1= number of attacks with gardening implements
0 = number of times a character named Bernard Blanchard calls someone a “taffy ass” in the script (have to rectify this before it’s finished)
0 = minutes spent playing Wii for the entire 8 days
Here’s the living room floor on Day 5. It’s not as glamourous at it looks…
Some of the notecards are blank – those scenes have been written, I just haven’t done notecards yet because I’m not there yet. (Somewhere in there are a few script pages from David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Yes, I’m stealing from the best.) The big empty space in the floor is for me.
Ever wondered why they invented the internet? Wonder no more. I give you nothing less than Shatner and the very pinnacle of man’s achievement. Crank up you audio and start rockin!
I Tivo’d Goodfellas off Turner Classic Movies a while back and finally had a chance to watch it this week. I hadn’t seen it in at least 10 years and I always thought it was a great movie.
It was even better than I remembered.
Where to begin? I was struck with the moving camera and the exhilaration of forward propulsion. I had remembered this from years ago, but it blew me away all over again. For all the praise and excitement Paul Thomas Anderson gets for this (and rightfully so) for Boogie Nights, etc., Scorsese has always done this. I just had to be reminded. The feeling of hurtling forward through space and story is amazing. Besides camera movement, the use of music and editing to achieve this is phenomenal. The paranoia of the climactic sequence (circling helicopters, etc.) is palpable. Brilliant.
The characters and performances are excellent and feel just as real and authentic as Coppola’s Godfather movies. Scorsese’s mother steals the movie for me every single time (as Joe Pesci’s mother) because my wife has an Italian great-aunt who is exactly that character. Exactly.
I love this movie.
But the more I think about it afterwards, I am struck most by all the rules this movie breaks, especially in the writing. And these aren’t exceptions – the screenplay basically breaks all the major rules of the classical screenwriting paradigm. Think about it:
Passive protagonist. Don’t get me wrong, Ray Liotta’s character does stuff. But he’s not your classic goal-oriented protagonist. He doesn’t drive the story. Other than survival and greed, he doesn’t want anything. He has no dramatic need. The story is not about that.
Lack of a clear and specific antagonist. The movie is full of conflict, but there is no ultimate force to be overcome. Different characters serve as antagonists in various scenes, but there is no personified antagonist for the movie as a whole.
Extensive use of voice-over. You could argue that with a nonclassical protagonist and the lack of a specific antagonist, the force really driving this story is… the voice-over. This is astonishing. Widely regarded as a “cheat,” voice-over – and its relationship to what is onscreen – really propels this story. And the voice-over doesn’t even follow the rules – we get v.o. from different characters in the movie at different times.
Structure. Classical structure is designed to provide a familiar, intuitive template for the viewer. A context. So at all times we know where the character is now, where he wants to be, and exactly what stands between him and his goal. With classical structure we already know the shape of the story. We know what the character wants and what he has to do to get it, so that when the end finally comes, it feels like “the end” to us, and we know intuitively that the story is over. But Goodfellas doesn’t work that way.
The movie feels to me like a tight straight line of events with a propulsion of their own, like a force of nature. But after marveling at the “exhilarating sense of propulsion” through the movie but then realizing that it has no specific antagonist or classical protagonist, I am left with the question: what drives this story? How does it work?
The classical screenwriting paradigm would say that structure drives the story, but that falls apart here as well. The movie doesn’t have the traditional shape and feel of the three-act structure. I suppose somebody could break the script apart and find Syd Field’s plot points in there and everything, but the story isn’t told with that emphasis. It doesn’t feel that way for me. For me, the entire movie feels like a giant Act One, where we get a sense of the character in his environment and all the essential variables of his story are introduced until events finally come to a head, requiring the character to finally begin to act to control his own destiny. Ray Liotta’s character does a lot of stuff in the movie, but he doesn’t actually do anything to drive the story until after he is arrested. His sole affirmative, active “act” is this: he decides to testify against the mob in return for police protection. Once he does this, the movie is over. And even this single event is treated obliquely – we simply see him and his wife talking to a federal officer, and then he is on the stand ratting out his old pals. The decision to do this – the character’s one active story act – takes place offscreen. Talk about breaking the rules. But the really shocking thing is this: it works. Why? Because the story is not about the goal-oriented protagonist or about a human’s control of his destiny. It is about something else.
But wait! There’s more. Not only does the whole movie feel like a giant Act One to me, it also at the same time feels like a giant Act Two. Like the perfect Act Two, the one that is nothing but a straight, tight line. Where we are being shot forward out of a cannon and one event follows another and we cannot look away. Where we are moving so fast that we can’t imagine where the story is going but we sure know it is going in exactly the right direction. We are on the edge of our seats.
What am I getting at here? That we all want the same thing – to create a well-told story. That is the goal. The traditional rules of classical three-act structure, the active protagonist, a clear and specific antagonist,… these are tools that have been developed to help us reach that goal. But remember this: the rules themselves are not the goal. Following the rules is not the goal. The traditional rules are merely one set of tools, one set among many others. Goodfellas gives us a breathless, exhilarating story experience. How does it do this? It uses tools. Just not the same tools. Not the usual tools.
So remember this: the rules are not the goal. If the rules help, then follow them. If not, make different tools. It can be done.
I typed FADE OUT. yesterday on Psycho Ex. Man it felt great. Act 3 just flooded out in a three-day sprint. Sure, there are still big holes and a missing scene or two (maybe) in Act 2, and then the endless rewrites begin, but still. It’s a big threshold to cross. I am psyched.
So that’s where I’ve been – too busy writing script pages to create blog posts. And what pages I have – the first words-on-paper draft (it’s still too early to call it a first draft) weighed in at a staggering 151 pages! So I’ve got quite a bit to cut. And cut. And cut. The good news is that I think all the pieces are there, now it’s time to focus and combine and cut. I’m pretty happy with The Line, it just needs to be streamlined now.
The way the summer stars are aligning, a mid-August completion date looks doable. My current hope is to send a draft to zoetrope.com for peer review at that time. Hopefully this current euphoria will push me all the way through the major cutting ahead.
Okay, back to work. I’ll keep you posted. Well, maybe…
Add this to your Netflix queue: Dreams on Spec. If you’re reading this blog, you need to see it.
A documentary filmmaker follows three aspiring Hollywood screenwriters through the ups and downs of breaking into the biz. Their struggles with writing, the “how long can I do this with my life?” dilemma, the depression/euphoria/prima donna cycle, all that. Plus commentary from successful writers (James L. Brooks, Steven de Souza, Ed Solomon,…) who went through all this and made it. If you’re a Hollywood hopeful, you’ll recognize every minute of it. If you have a family member or friend trying to break in, you’ll realize that it’s not just them – every word they’re telling you is true. Or if you’re just curious and want 90 minutes of immersion into the life of a struggling screenwriter, you’ll get it. It really gets in all the way like I have not seen before. Good stuff.
Check it out. Then come back and comment about it. Great discussion from this one.
The public doesn’t know what it wants. If the public is paying your bills, it’s entitled to have you stand up to the thing you do because you alone know. The public doesn’t know. I think you’re going back on your public when you try to find out what the public wants and give it to them. No public knows. As compared to the fine thing they might have. They don’t know what they miss. Show them that thing which they miss. Explode once or twice and see what the reactions are.
Jens Lekman: Oh You're So Silent Jens (2005)
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INXS: Kick (1987)
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William Shatner: "Captain Kirk is Climbing the Mountain" (2009)
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Bob Dylan: Together Through Life (2009)
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Trashcan Sinatras: In The Music (2009)
Posted by Robb 
Posted by Robb 
Posted by Robb 
