AMC - LODGE 49 - TV pilot

LOGLINE:  A young knucklehead from Long Beach joins a dusty old fraternal lodge.

SCRIPT BIO: Pilot for AMC. Peter Ocko is show runner. Exec produced by Paul Giamatti.

STORY:

We meet Sean Dudley, the driving force behind Lodge 49 - as he finds a small 'gold' ring with a Lynx engraved in it on Long Beach, California.

We soon see that Dud, as he is known, is about as down on his luck as you can imagine. His father's swimming pool supply business that he inherited after his father's death hasn't turned a profit in years. His family home sold as a foreclosure, he doesn't actually have anywhere to live - he currently sleeps (illegally) in his former apartment - he only has a handful of change to his name.

Dud is a quitter, he never follows through on anything. 

Dud tries to sell that 'gold' ring to a pawn broker, but is told that it's not made of real gold, it's a membership ring for the fraternal order of the lynx.

Dud thinks nothing more of the ring, until a strange coincidence has his car run out of gas directly in front of the Lynx fraternity building. 

With no other life direction to follow, Dudley applies for membership at the Lynx fraternity. Here he meets Ernie - the second main player in this pilot. Ernie is about to step up into the  pole position at the Order of The Lynx, but Ernie is also in debt $2k to some ne'er-do-well. 

Ernie decides to dupe Dud into thinking there's a $2K admission fee for joining the fraternity. Dud takes a high interest loan from a pawn broker to get the $2k together, then joins the fraternity in the hope that contacts made there will help him get his life back on track. 

Dud feels there is a higher calling directing him to join the fraternity. That finding the fraternity ring and his car running out of gas outside the lodge were no mere coincidences, they have a higher meaning - he's just not quite sure what.

(Spoiler) When Ernie is appointed the highest order within the fraternity, he is granted access to an inner sanctum, a room where no other member may go. Here - in the closing hook of the pilot he sees a photograph of a previous high order member of the lynx from 1945 - the man in the photo is a doppelgänger for Dud.   

Da, da, daaaaaa

INITIAL REACTION:

There was a certain amount of bias on my behalf going into reading this script. It's being produced by AMC - so that means it HAS TO BE GOOD RIGHT?

I was reading it with eyes that knew some producers who have a great track record decided that this was good enough to pump money into. 

Had I come upon this script by chance, with no contextual knowledge of its attached talent, I don't think I would have given it as much leniency as I did.

See, there's a lot going wrong with this script even before I read the first word.

How's that you say?

How can you judge a script before you read a word?

Well, the answer to that is easy.... 

I just look at the page. I look at the formatting.

Now, in the world of screenwriting there are certain 'principles' that experienced writers follow. First time or relatively new writers eschew these 'principles' for a myriad of reasons.

The first thing the trained eye looks for is the black to white ratio on the page. If there is far more black than there is white, you know you're about to read an over-written script. 

When a script is over written, it's because the writer hasn't taken the time to take a 10 word sentence and write it in 7 words. They haven't taken the time to take a 50 word paragraph and write it in 30 words. 

You get the idea. 

Experienced writers work on their sentences - parring them back until they are as lean as possible yet still convey every ounce of nuance required to tell the scene.

Here - in Lodge 49 - there is a bad black to white ratio. And when I started reading - you guessed it - the writing was dense. 

Here's a really simple screen writing error made in the second sentence on the first page - he writes ' We see...' 

You should never write 'we see.' Just describe what we're seeing. Of course we see it. You're describing it aren't you? It's going to be filmed, then put on screen right? 

It's superfluous to write 'we see.' 

The writer is also guilty of a second rookie mistake - often he writes - 'Dud is running down the beach...' - or something like that.

This is a clunky way to write - Dud runs down the beach.

That's two really simple screenwriting mistakes very early on in the script. 

The second main problem I had with this script is the 'why should I stay watching? factor.'

For 60 pages we follow Dud around, seeing just how bad his life is and how hopeless he is at doing anything right.

There just wasn't enough to really engage me. 

Take Breaking Bad for instance. 

First of all it starts with an awesome hook. A cut ahead to the penultimate moment of the pilot - Walter White is in his underpants in a mobile meth lab in the dessert with what sounds like police coming for him. 

That is a huge hook. That makes me want to stay tuned to find out how the hell that happened!

Then compare that to the hook here - well technically there is no hook. Dud finds a gold ring on the beach. That's it. That's the hook, the mystery that's supposed to keep me glued to the screen for the next 45 minutes?

No sir, it's just not enough. 

Then look at the empathy in Breaking Bad - Walter White finds out he has terminal cancer in that first pilot - he figures out that he needs about $700k to see his family straight after his death. So he concocts a plan to cook meth and sell it to make sure he can leave money for his family. 

What's the goal in Lodge 49? 

Well, there is no goal. 

Dud ambles along for 60 pages, then finally joins the lodge because he's got nothing else going for him. 

It's just not enough to drive the story. 

This highlights the importance of GOALS and STAKES.

If your story doesn't have a CLEAR GOAL - your audience is going to get bored quickly. If there are no STAKES attached to the goal - then your audience isn't going to care weather or not your hero achieves their goal.

THE TAKE AWAY....

How to apply this to your script...

Firstly look at your script's MAIN GOAL. 

Identify it. 

And be honest. 

Lodge 49 - honestly - doesn't have a goal. There is no goal.

Someone might argue that Dud's goal is to 'better his life' - which would be a fair argument. But is that enough of a goal to drive a TV series?

To answer that question - you need to look at the STAKES - what happens if Dud fails at bettering his life. 

The answer is - not much really. He just keeps going about his squalid life as it is. 

So the stakes there are low.

Now - look at the stakes in Breaking Bad - if Walter fails to make the $700k before he dies- he leaves his wife and crippled son in a HUGE debt that would ruin their lives. 

That's a MASSIVE amount of stakes by comparison.

So back to your script - 

Identify your script's goal. 

Ask yourself honestly - is your script's main goal enough to drive the story?

If the answer is no. Then re-write until you have a strong main goal.

Then when you have that - look at your script on a scene by scene basis. Go into each scene and ask yourself - what is the micro-goal of this scene?

If your scene has NO GOAL - then re-write it until it has a goal. The goal can be as simple as getting to a shop in time to buy something important - but there needs to be a goal to the scene. 

If in the same scenario - the same character was on their way to the shop to buy something - but the shop is open 24 hours - there's no sense of urgency to the scene. 

That raises the importance of URGENCY. 

The film Transcendence - failed miserably to understand the importance of Urgency.

I'm not sure how long precisely, but I think that film was set over a 2-3 year period. 

2-3 years??? What the hell?

There's no urgency there what so ever. Just one of the million reasons that film failed.

In summary -- 

Look at the main goal in your film - then look at the scene by scene level goals - make sure that each scene has a micro goal - and that there is an urgency to the goals, and stakes attached to them. 



   

FAULTS - DARK DRAMEDY

LOGLINE: An expert on cults is hired by a mother and father to kidnap and deprogram their brain-washed daughter. He soon begins to suspect the parents may be more destructive than the cult he’s been hired to save her from.

WRITER: Riley Stearns

SCRIPT BIO: 19 votes on the 2013 blacklist. It has since been made into a film directed by the writer. This is Riley's first feature.  It has a 6.7 rating on IMDB. Metacritic has it on 70/100 and rotten tomatoes gives it a 90% rating.

Interesting to note this film didn't get a box office release yet and I imagine it won't. 

STORY:

Ansel Roth is a weird character to say the least. I think this character is the core reason this script placed so high on the 2013 blacklist - the blacklist is becoming more and more a celebration of the weird. If you go through the blacklist loglines of the last few years, you will find a large percentage of scripts dealing with cancer, and lead roles that are either mostly dislikable or straight out serial killers.

The story to this script is pretty straight forward - Ansel Roth is a 40 something professional deprogrammer - that is - a person who deals with people (mostly young adults) that have been brainwashed by cults. He takes them away from the cult - locks them in a room then spends 5 days deprogramming them.

This story is pretty much that - we first meet Ansel at a seminar he's giving where there's only a handful of people present. One of whom is a member of a family that Ansel worked for deprogramming a young lady. That same young lady killed herself - this man believes it is as a result of Ansel's deprogramming and he punches Ansel hard in the face. 

Ansel doesn't seem fazed by this - he takes the punch and moves on. At the same seminar a husband and wife approach Ansel and say that their daughter has been brain washed by a cult and that they dearly want him to kidnap her and deprogram her.

At first Ansel is reluctant - but being that he is in debt to his manager for the cost of all his self-help books he had printed on credit but has failed to sell, he decides to take the 'case'.

He then kidnaps Claire - a 19 year old lady - sequesters her in a remote motel and begins deprogramming her. 

As the logline suggests - what he discovers makes him question who is more dangerous - the cult or Claire's parents. 

DECONSTRUCTION:

The first thing that hit me as I was reading this - was how much I disliked Ansel. In fact, the first 18 pages are nothing but negative empathy. I wrote in my last post the importance of making the audience like your hero BEFORE showing us their flaw. 

The writer has done just that here. The entire first 5 pages of this script are devoted to showing Ansel run out on paying a food bill. He does it in a fashion that makes us hate him.

He's an asshole to the manager, he's an asshole to the waiter, he's just a plain asshole. 

Now what was the point in opening like this? I imagine the writer was trying to SHOW us that Ansel is down and out - he can't even afford a meal. But why convey that story point in a negative light. Why couldn't it have been written in a positive light? 

Here's an alternative - instead of having Ansel steal a lunch, then be abusive toward the manager and waiter of the diner, why not have him out the back of the restaurant, picking through the rubbish bin after scraps thrown away - then have a couple walk past and see him and recognise him 'hey, aren't you Ansel Roth, the author?' He denies it, as he's embarrassed, then when he's up on stage giving his presentation, that same couple are in the audience. In fact, that couple could BE the couple that come to ask him to deprogram their daughter. 

This way we have conveyed that he is down and out on his luck in a positive light - this execution of this character point is an example of passive empathy. Which is FAR better than ACTIVE NEGATIVE EMPATHY. 

Just for those that aren't 100% up to date on the 4 types of empathy --

ACTIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY is when the hero DOES something we like them for. They save someone, they run after the mugger, they whistle blow on the bad guy etc.... 

PASSIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY is when something bad happens to them and we feel sorry for them. 

Then there is ACTIVE NEGATIVE EMPATHY and PASSIVE NEGATIVE EMPATHY.

Active negative empathy is when the character actively does something we don't like them for. As in this instance, Ansel is an asshole to the waiter and the manager. 

PASSIVE NEGATIVE EMPATHY is when something bad is happening - and the hero chooses not to do anything about it. Say, your hero is watching someone being mugged and they don't try to stop it. We don't like them because they DIDN'T do something. 

The next 13 pages in this script are one active negative empathy beat after another.

When you don't have empathy for the hero in a story - there is no vicarious connection between the audience and the film. People will still watch, but that's all they're doing - is watching - they're not FEELING the film. We get feeling when we have a connection with the characters on screen. The first 18 pages of this script are spent alienating the reader/watcher. 

The first positive empathy beat comes in the form of a threat from a strong-man who threatens Ansel that he has 1 week to pay off his debt or he'll be beaten up. 

But even that is PASSIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY. What really gets the audience connected is ACTIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY. In fact - I don't recall ONE SINGLE beat of ACTIVE POSITIVE EMPATHY in the first 50 pages of this script. 

Ansel goes and kidnaps Claire - that's active - but is it positive? I would argue no. His intentions might be well placed - but forcibly kidnapping someone is never something that endears us to a person. 

OKAY....

Empathy beats aside - my next big problem with the first half of this script is...

EXPLAIN THEN HAPPENS

What does that mean? 

It's a beat in a film - where you have a character saying - 'Okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to kidnap your daughter and take her to a motel where I'm going to deprogram her.'

Then after saying that - we spend the next 5 - 10 minutes watching - exactly that. There is nothing more boring than being told what's about to happen, then it playing out exactly as we were told it would. 

If you do have a character explain what's going to happen - then it's on YOU the writer to make sure that SOMETHING GOES WRONG. 

If you just have it play out as it was explained - then that's dull screen time. It's boring as hell.

This script is also guilty of TRAVEL TIME. 

Right after the kidnapping goes completely to plan... (boring) ... we then have a series of shots of Ansel driving for about 24 hours. 

It takes up almost a full page. That's 1 minute of screentime. Why do we need to see them driving for a minute?

Then, when they get to the motel, they have the problem of walking Claire from the van into the motel room without her causing any trouble. 

This was a great opportunity for something to go WRONG.

Nope - nothing went wrong - not really - Claire tried to walk away - but one of Anel's minders grabs her and forces her into the motel room without incident. 

So there was really no point to showing the kidnapping as NOTHING WENT WRONG.  

Then there was no reason to show the travel time of driving as NOTHING WENT WRONG.

Then there was no point in showing them get Claire into the room as - you guessed it - NOTHING WENT WRONG.

I'm not gong to break this script down completely like I have many other scripts. But I do want to look at another few aspects of where this script went wrong.

Next is ANSEL'S FLAW.

What is it?

He's down and out. That's not a flaw. That's a by-product of a flaw. What is it that's causing him to be down and out?

He's an asshole? Is that a flaw? Not really. Again, it's a by-product of a flaw. 

So to this end... I can't really see what Ansel's flaw is. When a hero doesn't have a clear flaw, it makes it harder for the audience to connect with them. 

When a hero doesn't have a clear flaw, there's no inner journey - the story becomes spectacle only. Surface level. 

Why is Ansel a deprogrammer? Wouldn't it have been more interesting if he went into this bizarre profession as he himself was once a victim of a cult? 

Remember in Jaws - the famous monologue from Quint about being on the USS Indianapolis that sank in the pacific. He spends days in the water, watching his buddies being eaten alive by sharks.

That made Quint's hatred of sharks personal. We understand what his flaw was. Why he was the way he was. When you understand WHY a person is flawed - you are far more likely to be forgiving toward their flaw. 

If someone is an asshole for a good reason, we forgive them. If someone if just a plain asshole, we dislike them.

Let's look at the goal here. 

What is the goal? Deprogram Claire. 

We are given a tentative timeline - one week - or Ansel will be beaten up - but we get the feeling Ansel doesn't really care if he's beaten up or not. He's kind of psychopathic like that. 

Let's look at the stakes of the goal. What happens to Ansel if he fails at de-programming Claire? Nothing really - he goes back to his normal life and he's been paid.

So there's zero stakes. 

IF - say - Ansel was really messed up BECAUSE he blamed himself for the suicide of the other girl that he tried to deprogram - and he reluctantly took on this case - not for the money - but for the opportunity to prove to himself he can succeed - then we have a great motivation for his flaw! And we also have great personal stakes. We - as the audience - are suddenly SOOOO much more invested in this story. 

If Ansel fails deprogramming her - then he is a failure. We can get behind that as a story line. 

As it stands - there's nothing personally invested for Ansel. He doesn't really want to do this deprogramming - he's really only in it for the money.

Okay -- so that's a lot of negative for this script - there is one ounce of goodness here...

This script is 90% contained in the motel room. That brings the production costs waaaaay down... which is a good thing. I had a look around but could not see a production budget for this film. I' going to guess less than $5m - and assume it was more likely around the $2-$3m mark. 

Looking at the setup of this film - the lack of empathy for Ansel, the lack of flaw, the lack of personal motivation for the hero - I can see why this film played well at film festivals - but then did not make any money at the box office. 

There's no big idea here - this script is a DRAMA - it's got darker elements - but it's definitely not a thriller and definitely not a horror. 

It could have been both a thriller and a horror if it had been executed differently. Look at Jason Blum's THE GIFT - that was a straight forward drama that was told as a thriller/horror. The dark/suspense elements of that drama were played up and it found an audience. 

Faults could have gone in that direction - but instead it chose the dark dramedy route (drama/comedy). 

Dark drama's almost never make money. And a dark dramedy is even less likely to make money.

So how to apply what we've learnt to your script?

Take a look at the moment you reveal your hero's flaw. Do you do it in a positive or negative way? If you do it in a negative way, re-write it until you can convey the point in a positive way - a way that makes us LIKE your hero despite their flaw.

Second tip: - personal investment. Look at your story. Is your hero PERSONALLY involved in the storyline? If not, then go through and re-write it until your hero has a personal reason to want to go on their journey. 

When your hero is personally invested - WE the audience will be personally invested. 

In the original draft of Jaws written by Peter Benchley - Quint had no personal reason for hating sharks. It was Spielberg who wrote that monologue about Quint going down with the USS Indianapolis, and the film is all the more powerful for it. 

SCREEN WRITING BASICS #1

I was watching some films recently and noticed how often screenwriting 101 rules are broken by scripts deemed good enough to warrant being green-lit. 

The following are some screenwriting fundamentals. 

What I'd suggest you do is take a screenplay you've written that you feel is finished. Something that is ready to go out, then before you send it out - do some specific passes on the script focusing each pass on one or all of the following caveats that appear in far too many films... 

1 - TRAVEL TIME.

Many screenwriters are guilty of this. Travel time is where we see the characters in transit, be it from the living room to the car outside, or on a plane from X country to Z country. 

UNLESS we learn something of importance about the character - OR - there is a major story point to be expressed while the character is in transit - then - CUT ALL TRAVEL TIME.

There is nothing to be learned about watching a character walk up to a front door - hit the bell, wait the requisite period of time for it to be opened - then for the conversation to begin. 

CUT straight to the conversation.

But even further than that - cut straight to the important part of the conversation. 

Skip the pleasantries. I know it sounds obvious - but so many films have characters saying hello and asking how each other are before getting into WHY the conversation needs to take place in the first place. 

That's the first pass I urge you to do. Go through and eliminate any travel time. 

2- SUBTLY

Go through and check that scenes aren't overt. I recently watched Hardcore Henry - which is literally a dramatisation of a first person shooter game. While it's entertaining in its own right - I can see why it failed to be a critical or box office success (okay, it did make $14m. but it could have made more). 

It's too much like a computer game - the humour and acting are sub-par - the scenarios are ridiculously over the top. It's full of fan-boy teenage dreams - the super hot wife - the ubiquitous coke den with hookers... mass over-kill murder... chaos... impossible fight scenarios... this film (like it or hate it) is the epitome of OVER THE TOP. 

The main reason this film didn't 'hit' as well as the hype suggested it would - is because of just how over the top it is. 

I then watched DARK WAS THE NIGHT - and while this film is no perfect screenplay - the story is subtle. The dialogue is subtle - the emotion in the scenes is realistic because of the subtly.

Take a look at your screenplay - look at each scene - at the execution of each scene - and ask yourself - how extrovert is your writing of that scene. It is fist-in-face like Hardcore Henry? Or is it subtle like Dark Was The Night?

Rather than having each character SAY all their dialogue - can you have a character speak silently? What do I mean by that? 

Watch season 4 - episode 13 of House Of Cards - a character asks Doug if he has been with someone in their final moments - as they die. He could have said yes, but it's waaaaay more powerful for him to stare quietly at the dashboard of his car. That's the same as saying yes, only it's more subtly - and consequently - more powerful. 

Are you able to have a character ask a question without speaking? Can you get a character to simply look at another character - then for the second character to understand that a question is being asked? If so - go for this option. Subtly trumps over-the-top every time. 

If you're worried you might lose your reader by only having your character look at the other character - you can write it: Jake looks to Michelle as though to ask (insert question here).

You've written the question so the reader knows what's being asked - and given the context of the scene your audience should understand the question being asked. 

3) EMPATHY BEFORE FLAW

This is a simple one - but it's missed far too often.

Make me like your hero BEFORE you show me what's wrong with them. More often than not a hero's flaw is a negative. If you show me your hero in a negative light BEFORE you make me like them - my first impression of them will be - asshole - then it's a push up hill from there to get me to like them.

4) EMPATHY BEAT COUNT

Go through your screenplay - count how many scenes you have. Should be between 30 - 60. There's no magic number. 

Then go through your screenplay and write down every time there is an EMPATHY BEAT for the hero. Break these empathy beats down into ACTIVE and PASSIVE. 

You should know the difference - but just a quick re-cap - ACTIVE EMPATHY is when the hero DOES something we like them for. They save someone, they run after the mugger, they whistle blow on the bad guy etc.... 

PASSIVE EMPATHY is when something bad happens to them and we feel sorry for them. 

How many ACTIVE empathy beats do you have in your film after the first act?

Empathy is not something that we setup in the opening 10 pages then forget about. Empathy is an ongoing thing. Think about real life. If one of your friends was a nice person 10 years ago, but they've now stopped being a nice person - do you still think of them as a good person? 

The more empathy for your hero you have in your script the more the audience will connect with them. 

There's no perfect ratio - but if your script has 40 scenes - try to get more than 15 active empathy beats for your hero. If you can make those beats happen ergonomically within the present storyline with only minor adjustments - your script will benefit greatly.

5) BIG GOALS AND MICRO GOALS

Okay - we all know that we need a major goal to drive the story. A film without a major goal will not work. But what you need are micro goals ALL THE WAY THROUGH.

Best way to test if you have micro goals is to look at each scene and ask - what is the scene objective here? 

It's better if your hero is the one that has the scene objective - but if they don't have one - then there must be at least ONE other character in that scene that has a solid scene objective. 

If there are no characters with scene objectives, then re-write that scene until there is at least one scene objective. 

Take the example of Dark Was the Night - there's a lot of scenes where there's just a couple of characters talking.

Take the scene where the Sheriff is in the grocery store buying food. One of the town folk ask him about this monster they think is in town. He dismisses it, saying it's likely just a prank - then that same town fellow tells a story about how the native americans used to tell stories about a creature that lived up in the hills.

That's the scene. 

What's the hero's (Sheriff's) scene objective? Buy some food? Talk to the town person?

Neither of those are goals toward the main goal. Neither of those are scene objectives. Then what's the scene objective of the town fellow? To tell his story about monsters?

That's not a scene objective. In fact, this scene has no concrete objective for any of the characters. This is why the scene falls flat on its face. 

Now had the hero been after that particular town folk - as someone had said they'd seen him lurking around at night - then the Sheriff would have an ACTUAL scene objective - to find out the town fellow's whereabouts last night and to find out if he could have been the one that is responsible for the 'prank.'

While I'm on goals - I need to stress the importance of closed ended Vs open ended goals.

A closed ended goal is something broad and general like - fight evil.

A closed ended goal is something concrete - like - kill Darth Vader. It's something we can latch onto. There's nothing tangible about 'fight evil'.

Look at your screenplay and ask yourself what is the main goal? Is it open? Or closed?

Also - what are the scene objectives of each scene?