IT HAS US - HORROR

LOGLINE:  When they move into a new neighborhood, a grieving family who recently lost a daughter are subjected to an experiment that plays off of their fears and paranoia.

WRITERS: Michael Ryan Assip & Peter Lancucki

SCRIPT BIO: Spec script went out in Jan repped by Truth Magician Co. | Mary Cybriwsky

STORY:

We start on the day that CASSIE (7) drowns in the swimming pool of the Pope residence. MELINDA (30s) is at home when it happens, but a faulty pool alarm fails to alert her when her daughter has gotten into the pool and drowned.

Addie is also 7 years old and is Cassie's identical twin sister. 

We cut to a year later. 

The Pope family  consists of Addie (7), Melinda (Mom), Duncan (30s - Dad) and Hunter (15 Addie's sister).

We join them as they drive toward their new home. They're relocating for a chance to start fresh after dealing with Cassie's death. 

They arrive at their new home in a small estate in a small town called Colchester in Pennsylvania. 

On the drive there we get to meet the family. Everyone has their own weird quirk, but there's nothing out of the ordinary with them - they seem like a regular dysfunctional family.

When they get to their estate, they notice that the majority of the other houses are boarded up, they don't have many neighbours. 

Not long after they move into the new house, weird things start happening. They experience chills in the house, and Melinda discovers warnings around the house telling them to get out. 

We soon learn that Melinda suffers from anxiety and is supposed to take medication to keep her condition under control. 

While Duncan goes off to work at his job every day Melinda is left at home to look after the home affairs. One day a spirit hand reaches up out of an iPad and injected a veritable syringe into Addie's eye. After this strange experience, Addie's nature and demeanour drastically change. 

In fact, she is no longer herself, she is now behaving more like Cassie - her twin sister - used to.

Things get weirder and weirded at the home, moving progressively into an insanity of sorts. Every delusional experience that Melinda has is explained away by Duncan as a result of her not taking her medication. 

There's something nefarious taking over the family, the question becomes, will the Pope family survive?

INITIAL REACTION:

This was an interesting script. At first, when I finished reading it I thought I really enjoyed it. But then I started to reflect on the bullet holes in the script and have since decided there is a lot of work that needs to be done on this one... 

My first complaint is the lack of POV. It is very important when writing a FEATURE FILM to make sure the audience knows who the MAIN CHARACTER IS. 

There are three aspects of a MAIN CHARACTER --

POV - the character whose eyes we see the film through.
ARC - the character who experiences change. 
PROTAGONIST - the character who takes action and drives the story forward. 

In most films that are successful, ALL of these three traits will be embodied in ONE character. 

Films where these three KEY personality traits are separated into different characters don't do so well.

Now, in this script - it took until about page 20 to figure out that this was Melinda's story. 

Most of the action is centred around her.

But here's the problem - for the first 20 or so pages the POV (point of view) shifts around between Melinda, Hunter, Duncan and Addie. 

When you don't have a clearly defined POV character then the vicarious connection between the audience and the film is broken. 

The POV character is essentially WHO the audience becomes. So when that POV character gets hurt, the audience FEELS the character's pain. 

Remember, film is all about eliciting emotion in the viewer. 

When your POV is shifting between characters then we don't focus in on one character and our connection to the film is not as strong. 

There's also another major problem with this film -- PASSIVE vs ACTIVE HERO.

Melinda is passive throughout the film. Not always, but the majority of the time. 

Someone might argue that lots of things are happening to Melinda so she's not passive. The problem is that the things she's doing are all REACTIONS to other things happening to her. That makes her passive. 

In stories that really resonate with audiences there is ONE MAJOR occurrence that sends the HERO on their journey. There is one event that sends the HERO off to TAKE ACTION. 

A hero can only take action when there is a goal. 

This is another area of this script that didn't really work.

There was no clearly defined goal. 

The Pope family was being 'haunted' for choice of a better word.

There isn't any one particular thing that Melinda is fighting to achieve. You could say she's trying to figure out what's happening, then trying to leave the home, but the second part of that doesn't happen until the third act of the film. 

For two acts there isn't any time dependant goal. 

When a story lacks GOAL and URGENCY, it's going to flounder.

CONCEPT:

"When they move into a new neighborhood, a grieving family who recently lost a daughter are subjected to an experiment that plays off of their fears and paranoia."

Let's break that down -- 

Family is subjected to an experiment that plays on their fears. 

Hmmm.

The main problem with this concept is that it's very broad and open ended. You can't see any kind of goal. 

There's also no irony. You don't HAVE to have irony in your script - but it certainly helps in a LOGLINE. 

In this logline there is no clearly defined hero either. It's 'The Family.' So that's another error. Straight off the bat this logline says that the writers aren't aware that 95% of ensemble films DO NOT MAKE MONEY. 

I'm sure there's someone out there reading this that's thinking, 'What about Crash?, that was ensemble and was an awesome film?'

That's the exception to the rule, that's not the rule. 

Crash is the ONE ensemble film that made money. List 10 ensemble films and go and google their box office take. 9 out of 10 will not have made three times their budget at the box office - which is what's required to break even. 

CONCEPT RATING: 5/10

CONCEPT TIP: Keep your story concept focused. When you have a BROAD concept without goals and tangible elements your idea won't resonate as well.

FORM:

Form was great here. 

The writers have a beautiful writing style. There is no bold. They rarely use italics, and descriptions are kept pertinent. 

It's well worth the read just to look at their layout of words on the page.

FORM RATING: 8/10

FORM TIP: Keep descriptions lean and only describe what we can SEE on the screen. Never write what a character is THINKING.

STRUCTURE:

This is a HUGE bullet hole in this script. 

Without a clearly defined HERO - it's hard to know which character's flaw will guide the structure of the script.

Remember, story structure is closely related to the hero's inner journey, and their inner journey stems from their flaw. 

This was Melinda's story, but unfortunately she didn't really have a flaw. 

Her husband Duncan was constantly asking her if she was 'taking her meds' -- but she always said she was. 

Now I'm sure the writers would argue that Melinda's flaw is that she suffers from paranoia. 

That's okay - so long as there is something that Melinda is DOING or NOT DOING that causes her paranoia. 

It's the ACT of DOING or NOT DOING that is the flaw. 

A FLAW is almost always a DECISION. 

No one DECIDES if they have a medical condition. You don't just wake up one morning and say, hey, I think I'm gonna be paranoid today. 

It's the DECISION to NOT take your meds that leads to the paranoia becoming unmanageable. 

Anyhoooooo

My point is, that Melinda doesn't really have a clearly defined flaw. And just saying that she's paranoid is not a good execution or understanding of what a flaw really is. 

Duncan actually has more of a flaw that Melinda does. He won't mention Cassie's name. He won't think about her. He refuses to discuss anything about her. 

This is a great flaw. Why? Because he is making a DECISION not to confront his inner demons. 

Unfortunately Duncan's flaw isn't what's driving the structure of the film.

For this reason structure is waaaaay off. 

STRUCTRUE RATING: 5/10

STRUCTURE TIP: Be sure to understand what a FLAW is and how to use the flaw of your hero to guide the structure of your screenplay. For a really simple version of structure read Save The Cat. 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE:

The writers executed fairly decent characters and mostly enjoyable dialogue. One thing that really popped for me was that the characters were constantly turning a scene on its head with quirky dialogue. 

Just when you think you know what a character will say in response to a question - that character suddenly says the opposite. I was constantly surprised by the characters and dialogue. 

On the negative front as I just discussed, Melinda needs a decent flaw. And while Duncan has a great flaw, nothing is done with it. He just has a flaw.

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE RATING: 7/10

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE TIP: Give each character a flaw, then make each character have their own journey. If you do this, your script will sing!

VOICE:

Voice was okay here. I was often confused with what was happening. Clarity of the story comes from the writer's voice. 

Some writers are really good at making sure you know where you are and what's happening at all times. Others write with less focus. 

This script was one of the lesser focused pieces. 

VOICE RATING: 6/10

VOICE TIP: Clarity. Clarity. Clarity. You, as the writer become SOOOOO involved and entrenched with your story you forget that it's your job to convey the story in the cleanest clearest way possible. 

Here's a rule of thumb.

An 11 year old should be able to read your script and COMPLETELY understand it. 

PRODUCTION:

Now this is an interesting one. 

When I finished reading this I asked myself, would I put money into this?

My first reaction was, yeah, sure, I can see this making money.

BUT THEN...

I analysed the script. And after writing this analysis, I've come to realise just how many major problems there are with the script. 

I now no longer would invest money. That's not to say this script isn't salvageable, but even when you look at the core idea -- it's still not a Holy Shit! idea. 

This shift of opinion stems from something that I've noticed since I've been reading tons of scripts. 

It's easy for a screenplay to be a GOOD READ, but when that same story is put to film, all the bullet holes and mistakes I've talked about are ACCENTUATED. 

This script is good that it's contained - almost entirely set at the house - that's a huge asset for the script. And that the cast count is low. Less than 8. 

There is some special effects, but nothing too much. 

I could see a decent producer bringing this in under $5 million. Anything over that would be a risky investment.

OVERALL RATING: 6/10

Weak concept executed in a so-so fashion.

TRANSCENDENCE - FILM ANALYSIS

LEARNING FROM THE MISTAKES THE FILM TRANSCENDENCE MADE.

Today I thought I'd do something different. Rather than analyse an unproduced screenplay, I will analyse the film Transcendence. 

Transcendence has a great concept -  singularity - the point when computers become self aware. Essentially when AI computers learn how to think for themselves. 

I'm no expert in the field, but from what I've read online, this idea is no longer just a sci-fi concept but could - theoretically - become a reality. 

THE NUMBERS:

Transcendence cost $100 million to make. Normally when a studio puts that kind of money into making a film - it expects to make at least $300 mill at the box office. 

The reason for this is the general rule off thumb that whatever your film's budget is, you need to triple that at the box office to JUST TO BREAK EVEN. 

So this film was a financial failure. 

It's got a 6.3 on IMDB - which isn't too bad - but one thing I've noticed with IMDB is that where once it was fairly on the money with its ratings - recently - it's often way off.

Rotten Tomatoes has this film at 20% - which is waaaaay more accurate.

So let's look at what this film did wrong.

The point of this review isn't to point out how bad this film is, it's to be constructive and LEARN from its mistakes.

CONCEPT:

The concept is actually pretty strong - an AI computer threatens to take over the world and potentially wipe out the human race. 

How did this film fail to deliver on that idea?

The first MAJOR problem with this film was the lack of --

EMPATHY:

Tell me ONE thing that Johnny Depp's character did that made you like him?

That's right - nothing. 

He's a brilliant scientist. Good for him. That doesn't make me like him. We like heroes who DO things that make us like them.

Okay, so look at the other characters in the film. Name for me ONE character who actually DID one thing that made us like them?

That's right - not one character went out of their way to do something to make us like them.

With no empathy, there is no VICARIOUS connection between the audience and the film. With no connection between the viewer and the subject matter - we're not going to have an emotional response to the film. 

That was bullet hole #1. Lack of empathy. 

The second major problem with this film - was the lack of --

FLAW:

Johnny Depp didn't have a flaw. He was a successful scientist, going about his business until one day he gets shot. 

When your hero doesn't have a flaw, there's no inner journey for them to go on. If there's no inner journey, again, we don't connect with the characters or the story. The entire film becomes spectacle. 

Have you ever watched fireworks for a really long time?

I have. Fireworks are mesmerising for about 5-10 minutes. After that, it gets really boring, really quickly. You get the analogy. 

So that's bullet hole #2. 

What was the --

GOAL:

Not until Depp gets shot do we have a goal of some sort. But even then, what are the stakes of the goal?

The goal is to upload Depp's conscience into a computer. But what happens if they fail? Depp's gone for ever. Now if the film had spent the last 20 minutes making me LOVE Depp - by showing me all the amazing altruistic things he does, then maybe I would have cared if his conscience was uploaded or not. 

But that's not what happened. This film asked me to care about the death of a man I hardly knew, and had no reason to like. 

Now, had Depp's survival been essential OR something really bad would happen - say - there were 100 people trapped somewhere and only Depp could save them - then we have stakes - the lives of 100 other people. 

But as it stands there is no goal.

Even when Depp's conscience is loaded into the computer, the only goal is for the antagonists - the supposedly 'evil' lady who wants to kill Depp. 

Her goal is to kill him before he becomes an all powerful AI. 

So that's bullet hole #3 - The 'hero' doesn't really have a goal. 

STAKES:

I just mentioned this with regards to the goal, but it's worth a stand alone point being made. 

Stakes really drive a story. This is ultimately a story about the possible destruction of humankind, so, yes, in that sense the stakes are really high. But we never really get to see the threat. 

In the film Independence Day, we see the gigantic alien spaceship hovering over Washington DC, we can SEE the thing that threatens to wipe out mankind. 

Here, in Transcendence we never SEE the threat. 

We're told by way of clunky dialogue that Depp could wipe out all of mankind if he wanted to, but we never SEE him using his powers for evil. 

Not even when the finale rolls around do we see Depp get mad and use his powers for evil. Sure he uses them to defend himself, when the army are attacking, but I considered that reasonable, given the circumstances.

So that's bullet hole #4. Lack of clearly defined stakes.

CONFLICT:

This is another really big problem with this film. 

Drama is conflict. If you have two people in a room who agree with each other, you are guaranteed to have a really dull scene. 

Put two people in a room that disagree with each other and you will have a really interesting scene. Especially if you throw in a little thing we like to call --

SCENE OBJECTIVES.

A scene objective is SOMETHING that ONE of the characters WANTS to get from one of the other characters. 

When your scene doesn't have conflict, OR a scene objective - well, then you've got a film like Transcendence. 

To be fair, not every scene lacked for a scene objective or conflict, but I would say over 70% of the scenes did.

There really shouldn't be ONE scene in your film that lacks conflict or a scene objective. Not one. 

So that's bullet hole #5 (conflict) and #6 (scene objectives).

They are the core, fundamental problems with this film.

It is insane to think that 6 of the most important principles of film making were completely ignored in this film. 

I can excuse a film that gets made on sub $1million if it lacks a few of these rules, because, hey, it's likely the film makers are still learning the ropes.

But when you have Depp starring and a $100m budget, you really have no excuse to ignore these 6 principles of film making and story telling. 

So far I've been talking about the STORY.

Let's look at 

DIRECTION:

It was directed by Wally Pfister. This guy has 42 cinematography credits on films as big as Dark Knight Rises. This guy knows how to light a scene.

What he doesn't understand is how to tell a story.

There is a HUGE difference between being able to create a beautiful image and tell a story through images. 

One requires an intricate knowledge of light.

The other requires an intricate knowledge of story. 

Two very different things.

Let me break down the rookie mistakes Wally made.

There's a maxim in film directing and writing that goes - 'start late, finish early'.

What that means is cut the bullshit out. 

If the importance of a scene is a key piece if dialogue between two people, start as close as you can to that piece of dialogue, then finish that scene as soon as the dialogue has run. 

Wally seems to think the opposite.

Throughout the entire film he constantly had actors walking through doors, walking down hallways, driving in cars, walking down a street, sleeping, sitting.

There were over 50 instances where a character walked through a door, then down a hallway, then finally reached the person they wanted to talk to.

What do we learn about the character walking down a hallway, and through a door? Nothing. All that's interesting is the dialogue. So why not cut straight to that?

In the opening of the film we watch Will (Depp) and Evelyn getting dressed and having a nice conversation about nothing. 

Later Evelyn says she is going to turn PINN off, we then get three shots of her walking down hallways and through doorways before she is in the room where she can turn PINN off. Why not just cut straight there?

We have a montage of them setting up the lab where they're going to upload Will's conscience. Why do we need to see them building it? What do we learn? Why not cut straight into the lab already built.  -- Remember - START LATE FINISH EARLY.

OVER ACTING:

This is the next thing I want to bring up. This is always the fault of the director. This is the ONE thing that the director is supposed to be there to control. The actor's performance. 

Often, the character of Evelyn was over the top. Getting unnecessarily upset and yelling when it wasn't needed or justified. 

Now when you're directing it's hard to know how far to let an actor go. It's often not until you get into the edit and your scene has context that you can really gauge how you want the actor's performance to be.

How to solve this? Shoot multiple takes with DIFFERENT performances. Get three different levels of the same performance - 1) soft and subtle, 2) medium intensity. 3) intense. 

Then when you're in the edit you have choices. This is a directing tip 101.


LOGIC-TEST:

This film also had several logic bullet holes. 

The 'evil guys' can track Max down to a bar, but they can't track him down to the warehouse he was in.

If they can track him to a bar, they can track him to a warehouse. There are several other logic fails in this film. Too many to mention.

POINT OF VIEW:

There's also the issue of POV.

Who's film is this?

Most people would say it's Depp's film, 'cause he's the biggest actor. But that is wrong. If anything, this is Evelyn's film. We see and experience the film mostly through her eyes. 

If this film was told entirely through Depp's POV. Then we would have cared way more for Depp and his plight. 

REPETITION OF INFORMATION:

There was also repetition of information beats.

This is when we have just seen something happen in one scene, then in the next scene, one character tells another character something that just happened in the previous scene. 

That's bad directing and story telling. 

Never do this. Instead, cut straight to the moment AFTER the new character has learned of the information, and SHOW their reaction to this new information.

STATIC SHOTS:

This is a major problem for MOST rookie directors. They think in terms of Wide, Mid and Close Up. 

Look at films made by Paul Thomas Anderson - while his ability to tell a good story has dropped off over his most recent films - his ability to keep the camera moving has not. PTA is famous for his long one-shots. 

Think about it. How do we see life?

Do we see life in a series of Wides, Mids and Close ups? Or do we see it as one long continuous one-shot?

Think about that. 

OVER USE OF  B-ROLL.

B - Roll is the footage that the SECOND UNIT shoot. These mostly don't involve the principle actors. It will be shots of the crowd, shots of animals, streets, sunsets etc... 

Go through this film and count every time it uses B-Roll footage. I swear that at least 30% of this film is B-Roll footage. 

There's no golden number for what percentage your film should be B-Roll - but I'm going to create a magic number right now - less than 2% of your film should be B-Roll. 

And this...

... is where I will leave the analysis of this film. 

I hope, that as aspiring screenwriters and directors, you can learn something from the mistakes Transcendence made.  

MALPRACTICE - DRAMA

LOGLINE: A disgraced surgeon operating a black market clinic in Manila is called into action after he is enlisted by terrorists to assist in a plot to set off a bomb at a political convention filled with international dignitaries.

WRITER: Tyler Marceca

SCRIPT BIO: As far as I can tell, this is the next spec script from Tyler after he wrote the incredible screenplay "The Disciple Program". It's repped by WME T.J. Bernardy, Rich Cook &  Anonymous Content | Bard Dorros, Michael Sugar


STORY:

We open in Somalia where we meet Abukar and a young boy called Ismail. Abukar is a terrorist through and through, and today he has organised an incredible plot to break into and take over the American Embassy in Somali.

I won't get into details of the siege, other than to say it's epic and as with most of Tyler's writing, exceptional crafted. 

After this opening 'stinger' - we find ourselves in Manila where we meet the 'hero' of this film - one DARREN ATWELL (30s). 

Darren is addicted to pharmaceutical grade cocaine. He now lives in Manilla working in a back street kidney harvesting clinic. 

You see, back in the USA, Darren's addiction to cocaine led to him impaling one of his patients in the eyeball with a scalpel. 

He has been essentially disowned by his parents, and lives a terrible life here in Manilla, performing operations he doesn't want to perform, while numbing his pain with more cocaine. 

One day, while enjoying the high of the magic white powder, Darren is called into work as there is an emergency. 

Two rival gangs have been shooting each other and there are now several wounded men from both gangs waiting to be patched up in his clinic. 

Darren goes down to the clinic and does his best to help the gang members. It takes more than he bargained for, as the gang members are dead set on killing each other.

By this stage we're up to page 18 and you may have noticed as I did by this stage that we have no goal yet. 

We're just kind of rolling along.

We spend 7 pages watching the opening scene - the invasion of the US embassy, and now we're in Manilla - watching a washed up doctor snort coke and pull bullets out of gang members. 

Shortly after Darren has helped the gang members we shift POV and move over to Abukar and his right hand man - Fazul. They've just been shipped into Manilla in a container on a boat. One can only assume their presence in Manilla means something bad is gonna go down. 

Back at the clinic, Darren is paid a visit from a man with no nose, aptly named SPHINX. Sphinx works for the Hiasa gang and mysteriously just wanted to say thank you to Darren for fixing up his gang members. 

We soon learn that Manilla is hosting an international summit in Ermita, something to do with global security.

Darren is then picked up from his home by his driver Lau, who drives him to an opulent estate. Once they make it through the Fort Knox security measures, Darren meets the owner of the estate RAVALES (60s). 

Sphinx is at the mansion, and he knocks Darren out with a chloroformed cloth. Later Darren wakes up and finds himself wearing a suicide vest that is rigged to a patient's heart beat. If the patient's heart beat stops, the vest will explode. 

The patient is - Abukar - who instructs Darren that he wants him to perform domestic surgery on his face to make him look like someone who would be very unrecognisable. 

We're up to page 32 by this stage and we've reached our first goal. Darren needs to get out of this situation. 

I'll leave the story description there as this screenplay is worth the read and I don't want to get into spoilers.

INITIAL REACTION:

Firstly, let's talk quickly about Tyler's first script - The Disciple Program. TDP was an exceptional script. Tyler came out of nowhere, a complete unknown and sold that script for over half a million and signed with WME and Anonymous content. Two of the biggest reps in town.

Why was TDP so great. Aside from the writing being exceptional, the STORY was fantastic. 

There was a clearly defined hero who discovers his wife murdered by about page 15. He then goes on a very clearly defined journey uncovering the truth behind her murder.

From page 15 onwards in that script there was one clearly defined goal.

Now one of the major problems with Malpractice is that there is no MAJOR goal until page 31. And even then, that goal is not the MAIN goal in the story. 

Goals are so very important to story. Without goals, your story is ambling along without focus. We, as the audience can only handle an unfocused story for a short time. 

There's also another huge mistake that this screenplay makes. 

It shows us Darren's FLAW BEFORE we get to like him.

You really need to make me LIKE your hero BEFORE you show me his flaw. 

Think about how that works in real life. If you are friends with someone, then they do something to upset you, you are far more likely to forgive them, than if the first time you meet them they do something unkind to you. 

The same goes with characters in a film. Here, the first time we meet Darren we see him doing lines of coke by himself at home. He's obviously got an addiction and he's obviously got problems. 

We THEN see him saving the lives of the gang members. We like him for that. But we already dislike him for being a coke addict. 

Now had Tyler shown us Darren saving the lives of the gang member, THEN showed Darren doing coke, we would have been more sympathetic to him. 

That really is one of the major problems with this script. Empathy. At no stage do I actually feel for or like Darren. In fact, there's not one character here that I can identify with.

In Tyler's other script TDP - I loved the main character - why? Because Tyler built up huge amounts of empathy for him. 

CONCEPT:

I'm not really sure I even know what the concept here is. A good way to know if your concept is strong is to look at your logline.

Let's look at this logline:

A disgraced surgeon operating a black market clinic in Manila is called into action after he is enlisted by terrorists to assist in a plot to set off a bomb at a political convention filled with international dignitaries.

That logline is confusing. You really don't want a confusing logline for your story. 

'A black market surgeon is called into action' - what does that mean, 'called into action?'

It would be better to word it, 'forced to perform surgery on a terrorist'.

But then think about that. Your story is about a surgeon that's forced to perform surgery on a terrorist. 

Is that a really strong concept?

Compare this concept with the concept of The Disciple Program which was, 'A husband investigates the suspicious murder of his wife, uncovering a government conspiracy.'

That's a big concept. And it was well executed. 

Here we have a confusing concept that is well written, but the story is very slow.

CONCEPT RATING: 6/10

CONCEPT TIP: Think through your concept BEFORE you commit to writing. Once you've written 110 pages, it's much harder to then go back and change the core idea of your story. 

When your core idea is only 30 words in logline form - it's much easier to refine into something good.

FORM:

Tyler is probably one of the very best 'writers' I've read in the screenplay format. His use of words and his ability to construct a sentence is incredible. 

The Disciple Program was a sheer joy to read. 

While the writing here in Malpractice is very good, and the opening 20 pages are exceptional, the writing does slip off a little after that.

Tyler also uses bold for his sluglines which makes the read very distracting. 

Take a look at this script and see how he formats huge blocks of description into very easy to read and clean two line blocks. 

Ironically, one of Tylers strengths as a writer is his ability to focus on the minutiae, but sometimes that slows down the read. 

Focusing in on the fine detail of a scene really helps to bring that moment alive, but when you focus on the fine detail too much, the story will drag. 

FORM RATING: 7/10

FORM TIP: If you can get ahold of Tyler's first script - The Disciple Program, have a read. It is quite possibly the best formatted screenplay I have ever read.

STRUCTURE:

Now, in TDP there was a very clear and cleanly written structure.

Here, it feels like the structure is way off kilter. 

We open with a 7 page embassy invasion that really does nothing more than setup just how bad-ass the main bad guy is. 

That's wasted real estate. If you have to open on a hook opening that's nothing to do with your hero, try to keep it to less than 3 pages, then introduce your hero straight away. And remember - make us LIKE the hero, THEN show us their flaw. 

Darren's flaw is that he's addicted to cocaine - but there's a problem with this flaw -- it doesn't actually stop him from being a doctor.

Sure, you could argue that he's a doctor in Manila doing operations he doesn't really want to do, but the fact is, he's still a doctor performing operations. 

Let's think about what a flaw is.

A FLAW is a personality fault INSIDE your hero that stops them from achieving what they want or need to. 

It would be better if his addiction to cocaine stopped him from even being able to operate in this black market clinic. Then it would truly be a flaw.

As it stands, Darren's cocaine addiction is only a partial flaw. 

I would even go further and argue that cocaine addiction is not the underlying flaw. It's a manifestation of a flaw, but it's not the flaw itself.

The flaw, in Darren's case, is the personality trait that makes him deal with his issues by hiding behind cocaine. That's the real flaw.  But that real flaw isn't looked into by this story in its present form.

There's also too much negative empathy in this script for the hero. We later learn that because of Darren's addiction to cocaine he stabbed a patient in the eye with a scalpel. 

What Tyler is asking us to do, is to root for a really evil guy. He left a patent blind. That's fucked up. And it was his own fault. Now, had the patient had a seizure while he she was on the operating table, and Darren had stabbed her accidentally in the eye - that's one thing - that's an unfortunate circumstance - but here it is 100% Darren's fault he stabbed his patient in the eye. 

That's a hard hero to ask me to like.

STRUCTURE RATING: 5/10

STRUCTURE TIP:

Be sure you understand what a flaw is and how to use it with regards to structure. Read Christopher Vogler's The Writer's journey. Also, Save The Cat, and The Sequence Approach. These three books detail film structure really well. 

Second tip: Empathy. If you want me to like your hero - MAKE ME LIKE THEM. I don't automatically like them just because you wrote them down on the page. Show me your hero DOING things that will make me like them.

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE:

In The Disciple Program, Tyler created masterful characters all with sensational dialogue. 

Sadly, here, the characters are not half as well written. Darren's character is well defined, as is Abukar, but here we have a lot of peripheral characters clogging up the read.

In TDP - every single character was totally relevant to the storyline. Even what you would assume were smaller bit parts, were all essential to the plot. 

Dialogue was also amazing in TDP. Again, sadly, here the dialogue does not have half the zing and pop his previous script did. 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE RATING: 6/10

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE TIP:

Take your time. Don't rush. Firstly, understand WHO your characters are. Understand their motivations. When you understand that, then think about the way each character would speak. Try to create differences between all your characters in the way they speak. If you can achieve this your script will stand out from the masses.

VOICE:

Tyler has a very unique voice. I talk about intelligence in screenwriting on this blog often. Tyler is by far one of the most intelligent writers I've read in years. 

The main things holding back the voice of this script are negative empathy for Darren, and the disjointedness of the script. It feels really unfocused. Even at the half way mark I was asking myself, what is it that Darren must do? What's the main goal of the story here?

VOICE RATING: 7/10

VOICE TIP:

Voice really is the sum of all the parts of your screenplay. 

But, not every part of screenwriting weighs in as heavily as all the other parts. 

For example - your FORM can be a 2/10 - but if your CONCEPT is 8/10 - no one will give a shit about your form. 

I would rank importance like this -- 

CONCEPT is king. If you've got a killer idea but your structure, dialogue and characters are off, odds are people will still want to read your script, and you might even sell it. 

Producers will buy a GREAT IDEA that's poorly written then bring in a writer who understands Structure, Characters, and Dialogue to refine that killer concept into a strong script.

STRUCTURE is next. 

If you have a great concept and good structure, producers will forgive weak characters and dialogue. 

CHARACTES and DIALOGUE are really one and the same. If you have poorly developed characters, odds are your dialogue will suck. And likewise on the flip - if your dialogue sucks, odds are it's because you have really badly developed characters. 

PRODUCTION:

No sir. I would not put money into this. 

I would put money into Tyler's first script. 

But this one has too many problems with it as I've mentioned.

As it stands it'd be a 30 - 50 million dollar piece - but there's just not enough of a hook to the concept to get people to the cinema. 

A surgeon is forced to operate on a terrorist. It's just not a big enough idea.

It's interesting to note that when this went out in February, they pitched it as a DRAMA. 

Which is actually what it is. At first I thought it was going to be a thriller, but really, it's more about the character study of Darren, than the exciting storyline. 

Here's a production tip for you.

Dramas don't make money.

Not anymore.

They did, even 10 years ago dramas could make money. But now, people want to go to the cinema for an EVENT. They want to see something that will wow them. 

There is one exception to this rule (as there always is) - the gray army. 

The demograph of people 50 years and older. They still love going to the cinema to see a drama. But unless you're aware of that fact, and you're writing to that demographic, a drama will almost certainly fail to turn a profit. 

If you are writing a drama and you really want your piece to stay a drama, I'd suggest writing it in a way that it can be made for less than $5mill. 

OVERALL SUMMARY:

Weak idea executed in a so so fashion. 

Which is a shame, as Tyler has proven to be one of the very best writers out there.