In 2013 I wrote a screenplay based on a true crime story about a teenager who was asked by a terrified woman to protect her for a week until she could leave town. She needed to avoid her former boss, a captain in a local mafia family. It's won 17 international screenplay / film festival awards.
I've now worked on it with a script consultant and a producer. I'm not talking to a UK writer/director who got me thinking about it in a different direction. Rather than a screenplay, it could be two films.
Or a prestige streaming channel limited series.
I hadn't considered that so I did some research and it looked like my best bets were Netflix, which I was leaning toward, HBO, which seems more difficult, or FX, which I liked that idea a lot. And so I've been working up materials for that.
Why did the woman need protection? Because she had witnessed a murder.
There is a newspaper clip about it. She gave it to him to read.
But she said, that's not what happened. They had killed their own. She knew that, she said. She didn't see it, although she was in the parking lot when it happened, but they thought she saw it and that...is the problem.
All she needed was for someone to help her get through the week. to protect her from them. What she didn't tell him was she also needed protection from herself. And an emotional support person to keep her from breaking down...or just turning herself in to them.
Go to the police he said.
They own the police, she replied.
Oh, shit, he said.
Yes, exactly, she despondently concluded.
So yes, it's a fascinating tale. A seventeen year old protecting a 20-something woman from the local crime family who was looking for her, over a murder. And how do they typically deal with that kind of thing? Another murder? Likely so.
So you get it into shape, first. I entered contest, used their reviews and suggested corrections (some obvious, some occluded, some just wrong), then I used a script consultant. Years later I worked with a known producer to rewrite it in better screenplay format, with budget in mind and for a lower budget production.
He got me three working directors who wanted to shoot it. But they didn't have my vision. I'd heard many times from processionals that it's better to wait than go with production if it's not your vision. Sure, shape your vision, don't be unrealistic (and that's where "they" get you). But also stick to what you know in your gut is important, or important to you.
And so I have.
It's been a journey, writing this story, in screenplay format. It's hard for fiction authors to adapt to, but I had studied this decades before at university. So I had a leg up. Still, after years of fiction writing, you want to write fiction in your Action sequences in a screenplay and that pretty much is a bad idea.
A good Action element in a screenplay reads like fiction, it's interesting, engaging, even fascinating, but it's in Action format, not fiction format, which takes up far too much space.
And that's why I bring this up today. One of the things you do as a screenwriter is to get help. You can enter contests, but only ones that offer help. A conversation. A review. A critique. Or "coverage".
Screenplay coverage is a written summary and opinion of a movie script that helps producers decide quickly if it is worth developing or passing on.
I only have two projects on The Black List website
One of the well thought of coverage types is The Black List. IF you can get on their list, you're doing really well. But you can also get on their website, you can pay to be a member, and you can pay for their coverage. Which I've done several times. I cleaned up my screenplay, and resubmitted.
And so, that's why we're here today. Something about one of those coverage reports.
It is in sections. It rates your screenplay for Overall, Premise, Plot, Character, Dialoge and Setting and then offers a summary via Era, Locations, Budget, Genre, Logline and Pages.
Then there are three major sections of Strengths, Weaknesses and Prospects.
I'm going to share what the Prospects section said in one of my Black List coverages from years ago. I've since gone through multiple rewrites. Why? Because of a mistake by the script reader — also known as story analysts or coverage readers in the industry:
"There are a number of sequences in this screenplay where the pace of the dialogue really stands out.
When conversations move quickly - as the exchange does between Gordie and Sara from page 44 to
46, for example's sake - it keeps the reader's (meaning prospective buyer's) eyes moving down the
page and gives the scene an energy that can translate to the screen effectively. (But, be sure that those
characters have distinct voices; a character's personality really comes to life on the page when their
voice is unique and idiosyncratic.) There are some useful details early in the piece as well. For
instance, the fact that Gordie doesn't pull his backup parachute during his skydiving malfunction -
because he's wary of the $250 fee - is telling. Similarly, Mark laughing with Deputy Fiori on page 9
alerts the audience to the fact that the mobsters and police have a working relationship, which is
important later in the story (when Sara fears going to the corrupt police for help). Gordie's discomfort
with Marlon's suggestion on page 74 is a memorable moment; Gordie's hesitance with Kelp is
authentic, and we get the sense that it stems from his feelings for Sara. Finally, it's interesting to see
on page 113 that there was a serious reason Sara never called after landing in New York."
OK. I bring this all up because in the screenplay, "Gordie" says he cannot afford the emergency parachute repack of "two fifty".
The script reader took that to mean two hundred and fifty dollars, when in reality it was two dollars and fifty cents.
Why bring this up? Because of a vast change in tone and meaning.
IF it's $250, most even today would think, 'well, I can see why he'd at least hesitate." But if it's only $2.50, then one might wonder what the hell is wrong with this guy today. While back in 1974 one has to consider that gas was 30 cents a gallon, if not less.
Getting past a belief that this guy must be nuts to avoid deploying a lifesaving emergency chute when he "main" had failed, we get to his embarrassment that he did not have that small amount of money on him. The fact however that he might even consider that as an issue in such a dire situation (which to should also be noted that he did not see it as dire, but that's another issue entirely), one needs to know that character's mindset, and history.
It had already been exposed that he had emergency services training in search and rescue, landed his first plane at twelve years old, and started fighting in Karate tournaments in grade school and so had fasted fear in multiple venues over a period of a decade by time this story unfolds as he was plummeting to the earth at around 90-110 MPH (terminal velocity is 120MPH but a streaming parachute would slow that down due to drag forces).
So, again. Why bring this up?
Mostly because it's an interesting story for an audience.
But also for aspiring screenwriters. Yes, coverage is important. Especially very good and relevant coverage. But they aren't always right, certainly not about everything.
You have to "follow your gut" so to speak. You have to know when to, as Kenny Rogers put it in the song "The Gambler":
knowing when to hold ’em
knowing when to fold ’em
knowing when to walk away
knowing when to run...
Use whatever tools you can get your hands on, but use your brain first. Do not buy your way out of thinking. Spend money only when it earns its keep. Free beats stupid every time. Trash what does not work. Learn what does. Learn when it does.
If you start something, finish it. Put a real product on the table. But also know when a thing is dead and cut it loose. That is not quitting, that is survival. Yes, it is a contradiction. So is life. You get better at it by screwing it up and learning.
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
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