Dear Writers,

Here are are some recent VPF news items:

-VPF client Michael Eging’s script “Song of Roland” was recently optioned by VPF’s Cine L.A.

-Rebel Entertainment is now seeking scripts with a built-in, existing market, and those with mass commercial potential for 16-24-year-olds.

-Spring Creek Productions has added “Blood Diamond” and “Recount” to their list of recent credits.

-Seth Lockhart Presents has changed their name to “Cinematic Instinct.”

-Velocity Management is in development on John Grisham’s “The Partner,” and are now looking for Comedies, Thrillers, and TV projects.

-VPF has added both WhiteBread Films and NYC Entertainment to its list of Producers.

-VPF client Nevada Grey has launched a funny web-series called “The Other Normal.” You can view episodes of the show on:

http://www.youtube.com/user/NevadaGrey2010. Check them out!

Good luck pitching!

Hey folks–I just wanted to let y’all know that we have just re-signed Bad Robot, producers of such hits as “Lost” and “Mission: Impossible III.” Other credits include “Star Trek,” “Fringe,” and “Cloverfield.” They are actively seeking All Genres, including TV! Also, we have the following FREE PITCH DEALS going on through Monday, October 20th:

5 + 1 FREE PITCH = 6 pitches for $50!

10 + 2 FREE PITCHES = 12 pitches for $90!

Once you sign-up and payment is received, the FREE PITCHES will be added to your VPF account!

Good luck pitching!

I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about how this election is going to be based on “story” and personal narrative rather than on issue — as if this is something new. It isn’t. It’s as old as Camelot (Arthur’s or JFK’s — take your pick). People have always viewed most of life’s issues through the prism of “story,” and nothing is more important in story than your main characters.

Americans have a very specific and emotional connection to a certain kind of story. In my screenwriting classes, one of the things I try to convey about constructing a protagonist is that it isn’t just about creating a lovable underdog or determining how fascinating a person’s journey will be. If you’re creating a protagonist you want an audience to root for (not all protagonists fit this mold, by the way, but candidates must), it is also about creating the sense of innate decency, however that may be framed. And the framing often involves a conflict between what is innate and what is learned, i.e., that which is inherently NOT innate. Nature trumps nurture. This is the fundamental paradox in how Americans think about education: everyone says they support it, wants it for their child — but distrusts it in anyone else. Anyone who excels at an “elite” institution is simultaneously viewed with admiration and suspicion. In story — in movies — higher (elite) education is associated with power, and therefore with the forces of antagonism, with those who keep the common person down, who’ve somehow learned to manipulate the system for their own gain and everyone else’s loss. Therefore the protagonist must have wits — but not if they’ve been corrupted by elite education.Americans have a deep story sense that this honest, if uninformed, native wit will win out and preserve the decency of ordinary society.

It’s about heart, not mind.

That’s why education is often associated in the popular imagination with the forces of evil: the powers that be, the viziers who control a kind of magic that is incomprehensible to the common person, and that keeps the masses confused and subservient. There are any number of examples: take for example the first “Rocky”: on the Bicentennial of the country, with a running theme of patriotism and flag-waving, a down-home unknown challenger with a pit-bull spirit is up against a intelligent, attractive, verbally agile African-American champion. Sound familiar? Guess who wins (eventually)? In “Forrest Gump,” a man who is mentally impaired has a Christ-like, redemptive effect on those who are too smart by half–like Lt. Dan–or too corrupted by knowledge of the world, like Jenny. They are brought back into the world of good old American values by Forrest’s literal incapacity to become educated to the ways of the world — in other words, to lose his innocence to its devilish complexities. This goes back a long way, especially for those who believe the Biblical narrative as given truth: eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge itself was the reason we were cast out of Eden. Cast the same actor, Tom Hanks, as a brilliant Harvard professor, as in “The Da Vinci Code,” and you’ve got yourself a colossal bomb (sure, the book was a huge bestseller, but those are small numbers compared with a high box-office movie — which is by far the more popular form of entertainment. And those are the numbers a successful candidate needs).

Americans have deep sense of destiny, which is connected to values rather than to knowledge: because of what we believe rather than what we learn, we can recover Eden — that America is in some sense an Eden, humanity’s “the last, best hope.” And the devil, like Al Pacino’s John Milton in “The Devil’s Advocate,” is the dark adversary, the hyper- educated lawyer who represents everything we distrust — who represents, on a deep emotional level, Damnation itself. Most Bond villains are similarly hyper-intellectual, elite, and therefore, dangerous. They are also vain and arrogant — and so, of course, John Milton’s last line is “Vanity…my favorite sin.” And what is vanity but an exaggerated and distorted sense of self-knowledge?

This is why the rational argument that being highly educated and able to speak at length to complex issues is a good thing, does not resonate. In fact, it hurts candidates more than helps them, because rational argument cannot win against the emotional narratives that order our perception of the world. Blake Snyder has identified a genre he calls “The Fool Triumphant,” which is a very savvy way of looking at it. But there’s more to it. Deep in our story DNA is a longing to believe in the possibility of a return to the state of Adam before he bit the apple, and a deep distrust of the wily serpent who promises, and represents, knowledge. We can see this playing out in our national politics, just as we see it in our movies. And it’s an immensely valuable weapon to have at hand in your story-telling arsenal.

Not every good idea makes it.

Let’s talk for a moment about the worst part of screenwriting – when the time comes to put a script in a drawer. It’s hard. It’s like you’ve had someone close to you die. This thing that you’ve spent days, weeks, maybe even years with…has lost its ability to breathe and to live. There isn’t anything you can do for it; there’s no CPR for a good idea that’s gotten off track. There comes a point when you have to put it away and move on. You want to believe you could have made it work, but you know in your heart it just failed and there was nothing you could do. You want to mourn, and you want to spend some time second-guessing yourself. My advice is: don’t.

What you have to do at a time like this is get out of the house. Watch some movies, visit (if you’re in the L.A. area) the Huntingdon Gardens. Spend some time with family and friends. Read. Go to the zoo. Tell everyone you’re working on a novel, but don’t be.

You’re going to need some time to not write. What you really need is some time spent living your life as it is at present, not after the next script or the one after that. The truth is that there are only two reasons good ideas die on the vine, and both require the same prescription afterwards. Reason #1 is because you didn’t get it to the right person. It didn’t click in the way it needed to click with them. Screenwriting is unavoidably collaborative. Reason# 2 is because you’ve gotten so wrapped up in writing, you’ve forgotten to live. Since your script is just an extension of yourself, if you stop living your life so does your script.

At some point when this happens, the thought will occur to you that it will take you longer to get this script right then it will to write a new and better one. When this happens, you need to have the sense to let it go. And then take some time to go back to being yourself. Find the person that has felt pushed and pulled and generally manic. Get them normal again.

And when you are once again of sound mind and body, and when the grieving process has passed, start writing.

Write about life.

An early skill necessary for the neophyte screenwriter is the ability to write home for money. I have often heard it said derisively about a given screenwriter, “He couldn’t write home for money.” Don’t let this be said about you. Learn early on the necessary skill of composing a letter to Mom or Uncle Fulford or whomever holds the family purse strings. Strikes, executive firings, studio turnovers, or simple rejection can leave the best of screenwriters short of funds. Do not let this happen to you. Avoid the dreaded “day job” alternative by cultivating the ability to write a really compelling letter begging for necessary funds.

Because your parents or family members probably think you are insane to try to make your living as a screenwriter, you may have to make up a story to sell the necessity for funds. Being a screenwriter, you may have already cultivated that skill. It is important that your protagonist (you) be totally innocent and even heroic. In the first paragraph of your letter you must introduce a basic conflict which will drive the story. Car trouble is good, but too commonly used. Try instead inserting your hero in a situation involving espionage and national security. This will necessitate the creation of a compelling villain, a criminal mastermind with no regard for human life, a paid killer whose only allegiance is to greed. He can switch sides on a dime. Then, to really make your story compelling, give a hero a romantic interest, a beautiful woman (or handsome guy) who is in jeopardy and needs for our hero to risk his money and perhaps his life.

Then you are set up to give your story lots of action. I would suggest avoiding the overused car chase in favor of a manhunt set against a national monument. A harrowing escape, laden with close calls and breath-taking turnarounds will help the reader see the urgent nature of the emergency. In the end, make sure that your hero (you) survives, having saved the life of the romantic interest and saved the country from a band of ruthless terrorists. But the hero (you), in the process of all this heroism, had to max out his credit cards and blow all his cash JUST STAYING ALIVE!

If you compose this letter with enough corroborative detail and a lively sense of visual description, you will be well on your way to solving your problem. Next I would suggest something that you may find a trifle unorthodox, especially if you are writing the letter to your mother. Throw in lots of sex, both gratuitous and plot driven.

Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, but it is very important that you compose the letter on your computer. Save it as an RTF file, then open it in FINAL DRAFT. Fill it out with excellent dialogue and proper scene headings, and you will have a commercial screenplay which you can then go out and sell. This will save you from having to send an embarrassing letter.

Once you have turned your dilemma into good fortune using your creative skills, you will have become indeed a first class screenplay constructionist.

Villain (convincingly): “You and I are not so different, eh?” Hero (less convincingly) “I’m nothing like you!” (Variation: “I am your father, Luke.” “NOOOOOO!”)

We’ve all seen variations on this little pas de deux in countless films, particularly of the action or thriller variety. But why? The answer has to do with who your protagonist is, and why he or she is exactly the right character to be caught up in this exact plot or dilemma. Because whoever the antagonist turns out to be has to be our own character’s “shadow.” This is a Jungian prototype. All of us contain our opposite, the crazy uncle we hide in the attic or the femme fatale who internally threatens our own sense of manhood (or the reverse, the predator male who threatens our female identity). Our protagonist, including whatever internal doubts or flaws he or she possesses, must be compelled by his or her very nature into opposition with the antagonist, because the antagonist represents an opposite force, which is paradoxically also a mirror image in some way, the yin to his yang, just as our own image is reversed in a mirror. Evil twin movies are of course all about this, but there is an element of the doppelganger in most good protagonist-antagonist relationships. They are after the same thing, from opposing motives. In an action movie, say, both want to get the bomb: one to explode it, one to stop it from being exploded. These stories work best when we have what I call the “intimate enemy” - both have a history with one another, are brothers on opposite sides of the law, or one was a student of the other, or was the mentor of the other, or both were in the same Special Ops unit together, or both came up in the CIA together, etc. They KNOW each other, because in some fundamental way they are the same character. The difference is, one went over to the Dark Side of the Force - literally becoming the other’s shadow. And because that shadow character is what we (our protagonists) fear about ourselves - our own ability to betray our better natures, the possibility that we might fail to be who we want ourselves to be and succeed - the shadow character has power over us, and puts the protagonist in an underdog position. This is necessary because the protagonist must seem at first to be facing an uphill struggle to defeat the forces of opposition, or the story will go nowhere, it’ll be over before it begins: I’m more powerful, bam, I win. The end. But the paralyzing realization that the protagonist has, that he or she is up against a more powerful version of him or herself, but bent on opposite goals, is a powerful tool for the writer, because it gives our characters depth, and can raise a popcorn, comic-book movie like “Iron Man” or “Batman Begins” to a higher level than most in the genre.

In love stories, it’s slightly different: characters who seem nothing alike turn out to be peas from the same pod, and their journey is to overcome the misleading surface characteristics or internal self-sabotage that prevents them from seeing their own, and each other’s, true identities - which make them a perfect match. But the goal is not to destroy the shadow, but to recognize that this opposite character actually fulfills what’s missing from the protagonist’s life: “You complete me,” as Jerry Maguire famously pleaded. The shadow here is really just another form of light. Interestingly, sometimes the love story is actually the subplot, as it is in “Witness,” where the plot involves fleeing from a corrupt police force, or even “Jerry Maguire,” where the plot involves succeeding in spite of a ruthless competitor (played by Jay Mohr). Here the main plot’s antagonist falls more into the previous category, of our protagonist’s worst version of himself, the Hyde to his Jekyll, while it’s the subplot antagonist who, by reinforcing and completing his own better nature, allows our protagonist to succeed against the main plot’s antagonist.

At the end of a long form project like a screenplay, there’s always a point at which I consider giving up. From the writers I’ve worked with and am friends with, I’ve gathered that it’s a common feeling: right when you think you’ve finally succeeded in beating down self-doubt, it comes back with a vengeance.

The problem is always the same. No matter how good you are, as you get close to the end of your first draft, it’s usually craptastic. And once you realize that (for me the thought always begins to creep in when its cloudy or I’ve had a bad day), you start to think “Why am I even bothering to finish this crap? It’s not worth it! I should give this crap up and start over on something that isn’t crap!”

Consider this your intervention for that moment.

First, lie down on the floor, and take some time to stare at the ceiling and breathe while you think about this. It is always crap. The first draft is always crap, and will always be crap, and that is the nature of the first draft. (Cough, that’s also an aside for those delusional enough to believe that their first draft is not crap. It is. Deal.)

Writing a first draft is an entirely different process than writing a second, third, or umpteenth draft. All you have to do in writing a first draft is finish. The process of writing a first draft is like giving birth to a lump of clay. Sure, it’s shapeless and gooey, and quite frankly, disgusting. But you need that first draft to shape. If you have no clay, there’s nothing for you to work with.

In the second draft, you can carve and mold and stick it on a wheel to perfect. You may mush it up and start over a couple times. That’s okay. You have the clay to work with. From here on out, it’s a hundred times easier than the first time. From here, you don’t have to make anything from scratch. It’s all refinement.

Now, I won’t lie to you: you’ll have problems and difficulties in your next draft. But the key to moving forwards is finishing the first one.

Then, hand a friend your manuscript to guard from you for a few weeks and do nothing. When you’re ready, take it up again, and it won’t seem as impossible a task to conquer.

Just remember to finish. I can’t tell you how many half-written scripts I’ve read that would have been really great if their authors hadn’t been quite so aware of how bad they were.

Screenwriting is a performative act; that is to say that it is a matter of performance, and not of intent.  There are a lot of screenwriters that think of themselves as artists.  What becomes important to them as a product of this belief is focusing on artistic sensibilities and inspiration.  Horse twaddle.

Whether you’re a screenwriter cannot be decided by whether you write a screenplay, sell a screenplay, or loftily pursue the elevation of the art.  Being a screenwriter is about one thing, and that’s what you’ve got to prioritize over absolutely everything else: communicating with the audience.

“Oh, I knew that,” you’re thinking.

Well, hold on to your fancy leather pants, because I’m about to throw you for a loop. Communicating with the audience is SO vital to real screenwriting that it is more important to focus on whether and how you’re communicating with the audience than what you’re communicating to the audience.  The method is more important than the message.
“What?” You grab your chest – don’t think I can’t see the heart attack from here.

That’s right, I said it.  Stop being an Academy snob.  It doesn’t matter what you write.  It only matters how you write it.  A screenwriter ought to be able to write any story.  If you just “feel certain stories more than others,” is it wrong to write them?  No, absolutely not.  I would never discourage someone from writing something they’re passionate about.  I would, however, warn them that if they want it to sell, what they have to keep in mind AT ALL TIMES is that they cannot leave the audience behind.  Does the genre, in the end, really matter?  Only to the extent that some genres are easier than others to master.

Sometimes, when you’re writing a passion project, there’s a desire to take the audience somewhere they wouldn’t normally go.  You want to take them to the world you inhabit.  When properly done, this can be beautiful and moving.  But if you’re not paying attention to what you’re making the audience think and feel, it can be disastrous – they can simply refuse to go there with you.

Let’s take “Hound Dog” as an example.  I haven’t seen it.  I don’t want to see it.  I am solely going to judge this movie based on what I’ve heard about it (Referee says, “Fair play, since audiences do this, too”). The audience didn’t want to go see Dakota Fanning get raped.  They didn’t want to go there.  Why?  Because they had an intimation that it would make them feel party to child pornography.  The audience doesn’t want to feel like child pornographers.  Even child pornographers don’t want to feel like child pornographers.

What’s the problem? Graphic scenes, the kind that get Oscars for actors, have to have a certain element of nobility to them.  That’s all.  The audience is perfectly willing to go down in the gutter with you, but only if they’ll come up smelling like a rose.  “Crash” exemplifies this: it contains scenes of violent racism, but the point of the picture is that we cannot pretend racism no longer exists, thus it is an act of art to force us to confront them head on, and we can revel in our superiority for participating in such an act.

My point here is in saying, “Pay attention!” If you want to create a moving script, you must absolutely know it to be moving.  There can be no part which you are uncertain about whether it might be boring or not possess the effect you intended it to.  It is easy to know this in say, a horror movie; it is more difficult in a drama or a comedy. But it’s absolutely impossible to know if you’re only concerned about the idea of screenplay as Art.

Writing groups are something every screenwriter will be tempted to become a part of, since they promise a sense that you are not alone in your struggle.  However, they are also something to be wary of, since they can significantly alter your path without your knowledge.

There are professional, amateur and semi-professional groups.  And there are classes that are basically just groups but you’re getting graded.

I think there is really thing that really matters: is the situation toxic or non-toxic?

You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.  There are groups where your desire to write will slowly be drained out of you.  There are groups where your desire to LIVE will slowly be drained out of you.  There are groups where every single point of your style will slowly be eroded.  It’s possible to learn in these groups, but it’s not pleasant, or even very likely.

How do you identify the toxic? (Which, by the way, includes producers and development types as well as writing groups).  It’s simple.  Toxic people will tell you that it’s important to identify what is wrong, and will disallow the words “I like” or “it’s interesting.”  It sounds like a solid philosophy that cuts out all the crap that usually ends up being difficult and confusing.  In practice, it becomes an exercise in humility.  You will feel like you are learning a lot.  But the quality of your writing won’t get any better.

What screenwriters (and occasionally producers and D-girls) don’t realize is that it’s important to acknowledge what IS working, and what is close to working, as well as what is not working.  You have to ground your criticism, because the person who’s hearing it has no idea what the problem is (if they did, they’d fix it).  You have to suggest methods by which something can be fixed, and not just point out what is wrong.

It’s tempting to say that a script has nothing good about it; that it can’t be fixed.  This is untrue.  For one thing, even one hundred and twenty pages of dreck is words on a page in approximately the correct amount.  For another, all scripts can be fixed–it’s just a matter of time and energy.  You might recommend that a writer abandon a script, but even that should be out of the idea that they’ve learned enough from writing it that the next will be significantly better and give them a better place to start from.

If you find yourself in a scenario where there is nothing positive to be said about your script…RUN. I’m not saying a toxic group could never help you get your script to where you want it to be, but it’s going to take more time and psychologists visits to get your script perfected that way than it would if you stayed on your own and waited to meet some non-toxic people.

(Note: Toxic can also be identified as people who tell you nothing but good stuff.  Actually, those people are beyond toxic.  They’re setting you up for something).