2018 BLACK LIST - BROODMARE

This script landed in the top ten of the 2018 blacklist. I have no idea why. This is not a great script. Let's look at why, and how to make sure we don't make the same mistakes.

PLOT SUMMARY

Rory is up to step 9 of the 12 step alcoholics anonymous program. This step says you need to speak with those you have wronged and apologise for what you did to them while you were an alcoholic. 

This takes Rory and his girlfriend Maxine to a horse breeding farm where Kelly (his girlfriend from high school) lives with a strange alpha-male called Todd. 

Rory is somewhat of a weak-spirited person. Maxine is the alpha in their relationship and she is also Rory's sponsor. Rory isn't sure he even wants to confront Kelly and confess that he cheated on her. They were dating when they were 16 years old. He thinks it's better that he not hurt her. But Maxine wears the pants and she insists that they travel to this remote horse breeding farm so he can tell Kelly he cheated on her when they were 16. 

When they get there everything is fine at first. Kelly is really pleased to see Rory. They meet Kelly's partner Todd - an alpha male who is really strange. 

Rory really doesn't want to confess to cheating on Kelly when he was 16, as it's going to cause her more pain than it's worth, but Maxine forces him into it when they're having dinner. 

Kelly is hurt, and Todd gets pissed off. There's an argument, but for some unknown reason, rather than just leaving after that, Maxine and Rory create really weak excuses to hang around at the farm. 

No one forces them to stay. No one. This is where this script starts to fall apart. 

The next 60 pages of the story involves Rory and Todd vying against each other, each trying to prove to the other they are the alpha. 

Maxine has an argument with Kelly and Rory and she threatens to leave but she doesn't. She just goes for a walk. 

Rory is worried that Kelly really wants to leave the farm but Todd is forcing her to stay. Even though he isn't really trying to do that. 

It seems like Rory is more interested in staying around to rekindle his flame with Kelly. 

The story works towards a culmination of sorts where there are a life and death scenarios, without getting into spoilers.

CONCEPT

Do the concept test with your script. Does it make sense? I don't even know what this film is about. If I had to summarise it in one sentence I'd say, A man tries to complete step 9 of AA but discovers a weird horse worshiping cult, sort of. 

This story fails from the word go. The motivation for your story must be strong. The motivation here isn't strong at all.

Rory drives out into the middle of nowhere to tell his ex that he cheated on her when they were 16. 

That's not a strong foundation for a film. 

The sinking of the Titanic is a strong backbone for a film. This premise is not. 

CONCEPT RATING 2/10

CONCEPT TIP

Make sure that the catalyst for your story, the REASON why this story is happening is strong and well motivated. Audiences don't connect well with story concepts that are weakly motivated. 

FORM

The writing here is ok. But the writer does use the F-bomb regularly. To use the F-bomb in dialogue is fine, as it may be natural for your character to swear a lot. But when you swear in your descriptions it comes across as weak writing. 

Other than the swearing factor, this script was well written and well formatted. It was a little overwritten, but most scripts are. It could handle a 10% trim easily.  

FORM RATING 7/10

FORM TIP

Don't swear in your descriptions. It's fine to write your descriptions with sprite and personality, but try to do that without gratuitous swearing. 

POV

This story started out as Rory's story. But when we get to the farm we have a bunch of scenes that are told entirely from Todd or Kelly's point of view. 

It is ok to switch POV when writing for TV. 

It doesn't work well to switch POV when writing a feature film. 

For whatever reason, multiple POV films never seem to do very well at the box office. If they do it's an exception, not the rule. 

If you want your film to have the best chance for success make sure you tell your story from your hero's POV at all times. 

STRUCTURE

The structure was way off here. 

I don't think there was actually an inciting incident. They set out to go to this farm so Rory could confess to Kelly he cheated on her. He gets there. Doesn't want to. But does anyway. Does his confession test his flaw? 

I feel like Rory's flaw is not that he was an alcoholic, as this story isn't about someone trying to beat alcohol, I'm not even really sure what this story is about. 

Rory and Maxine go to this horse breeding farm and some weird stuff happens. That's pretty much the entire story here. 

When you don't have a clear FLAW for your hero, it's hard to identify what your inciting incident is. 

The Inciting Incident tests the hero's flaw. It is an event that starts a journey. Both inner and outer. 

I might guess that Rory's flaw is that he allows Maxine to bully him into doing things he doesn't want to do. But it seems like he is fine with that. And that her presence in his life is actually a good thing. She is helping him get through the 12 steps after all. 

So, yeah, very hard to lock down the structure beats here. 

It felt like it was a really long second act. 

Then suddenly in the final 10pages of the film, there was a life and death scenario that could have been avoided really easily if Rory and Maxine had just left the farm earlier on when they had a chance. 

But no, they stayed at the farm for really weak reasons. 

CHARACTERS AND DIALOGUE 

The characters are actually well enough drawn here. Todd really stands out from the pack. Rory, Maxine, and Kelly all speak with a similar cadence and style, while Todd really has a very different way of speaking. 

The trick to writing successful character and dialogue is to make sure that not one of your characters are too similar. Give each character their own personality, and make sure they have their own distinct way of speaking. 

It's hard, and it's something you have to work on, but the first step is understanding that you need to differentiate your characters for them to feel real. Once you understand that, it's just a matter of working each character until they feel different enough to feel real.

The very worst kind of characters are the vanilla ones. Characters that don't stand out at all. The instantly forgettable characters. Don't write these.

LOGIC

Make sure your story beats are logical within the world you create. I see the opposite happening far too often in scripts. 

Writers NEED a beat to happen so the story can proceed where they want it to. So they force a beat in just to make sure the NEXT beat can happen. 

It is always weak writing to force a story point just for the sake of guiding the story where it needs to go. 

Here, Rory and Maxine had ample opportunities to leave the farm. No one was forcing them to stay. But if they left the farm the story would end. To avoid this the writer came up with really weak reasons for them to stay on the farm. 

Have you ever watched a film where you wanted to shout at the characters, 'What are you doing? Don't do that, get out of there, now!' 

Don't write a story where illogical beats happen just for the sake of the story. 

EMPATHY

I didn't like one of the characters here. Why? I wasn't given a reason to like any of them. 

Rory is weak-willed. He lets his GF walk all over him. Maxine is a controlling bitch. Nothing to like about her here. 

Todd is far too alpha male for ANYONE to like him.

Kelly is sweet, there's nothing wrong with Kelly, but there's nothing right about her either. 

Remember, audiences don't like characters just because they're on the screen, we like them for the acts of EMPATHY they enact. 

When NONE of your characters are doing positive acts of active empathy then your audience will have no reason to like any of your characters. 

GOAL

The goal of the story was for Rory to confess to Kelly he cheated on her. That happens at around page 30. 

Goal one achieved. Rory is then worried that Kelly is in trouble somehow. He wants to stay on the farm to make sure she is ok. 

This goal is an example of an open-ended goal. Rory is going to hang around and see if things are ok. 

Audiences respond well to closed-ended goals. So, say, Rory had to get into a room where he thought he saw something really bad, or he has to get video footage for proof of something really bad happening so he can save Kelly. That's an example of a closed-ended goal. 

Give your hero something tangible to achieve.

The audience can latch onto closed-ended goals more easily than open-ended goals. 

STAKES

For the first 90 pages of this film I never really felt concerned that Rory or Maxine's life was in danger. 

They had 90 pages to leave the farm.

They chose not to.

So, for 90 pages there wasn't really anything at stake. 

When your story has low stakes, your audience tends to check out.

Take the film TAKEN for example - can you imagine how dull that film would be if his daughter hadn't been abducted until page 90? 

No life or death stakes for 90% of the film?

The higher your stakes the more engaging your film. 

URGENCY

There was no ticking clock here. At all. 

There was nothing pulling the story forward. We were simply watching Todd, Maxine and Rory argue for 90 pages. 

Firstly, the goal was open-ended, so the story was unfocused, but secondly, there was no urgency to the story. Nothing had to be done in a set time frame.

When there is no ticking clock in your story, it will tend to languish. 

SUMMARY

A weakly motivated story with an open-ended goal, low stakes and no sense of urgency. I would not invest money into this script, and I sincerely doubt it would make money at the box office.  

DEVELOPING YOUR CONCEPT

I read a lot of scripts. I see a lot of stories that fail. There are common traits that are done poorly in unsuccessful screenplays and done exceptionally well in successful screenplays. 

It doesn't matter what your story is about. It doesn't matter what your genre. Who your target audience is. All successful films do certain aspects of their story well. 

The first thing to get right is CONCEPT.

A lot of screenplays fail even before they've begun. They fail the concept test. 

A lot of people write screenplays without even identifying what the core concept of their story is. 

A great test is to write down what your screenplay is about in around 10 words. Can you summarise your story in one simple sentence? 

Well done if you can. You've passed the first part of the concept test. Next, is the real test. Is that sentence engaging? Does it make your audience want to engage with that film? Does it inspire people to read your script? 

If you can't distill your concept to one simple sentence it's likely your story isn't as developed as it needs to be. 

Let's look at... 

THE SIXTH SENSE. 

A young boy sees dead people. That's a powerful concept. The core idea could be executed an infinite amount of ways.

Execution of the concept is just as important as the concept itself. But we'll get to how best to execute your idea in later posts. 

JAWS

Shark attacks summer vacation town. Or... Man v Shark. 

While this concept is not very new these days, consider how powerful that concept was in 1975. 

A great exercise is to take your top ten films and distill their concepts. Look at these concepts. You will notice that all these films are interesting at their core. 

A great exercise is to do this same process with films that tanked. Films that were unsuccessful. Distill their stories to a simple sentence and look at what you have.

Another exercise is to create a concept using the hook method. Write down as many ideas as you can about anything at all. But make sure that your concepts are really engaging. Think of click-bait. What will get someone to click that link, what will get someone to read your story? 

Start writing down ideas that are ridiculous. Start with anything that pops to mind. Treat this process like a stream-of-consciousness exercise.

There's no right and wrong to it. Just let the ideas flow, no matter how stupid they may seem. 

IDEAS CREATE IDEAS

What do I mean by that?

You don't land on a GREAT idea every time you stop to think of an idea for your next script. If it were that simple EVERYONE would be churning out killer scripts. 

It takes time and work to develop great ideas. 

You start with a stupid idea about an alien that loves hot air ballooning. Then you ditch the idea of the alien and you focus on hot air ballooning, but that doesn't work and you think about flying in general, perhaps that takes you to a story about aviation, but that you can't come up with anything great there, so you take aviation and branch off from that. 

What you're doing here is expanding your thinking scope. You're allowing your mind to jump from one idea to the next in a connected way. 

This process won't immediately yield a fantastic idea, but what it's doing is getting you to think outside of your comfort zone. 

When you start to think outside of the range of thoughts you normally have you'll find that you land of a new subject or a new way of looking at a subject that you wouldn't normally have considered.

Keep doing this exercise for ten minutes everyday. You'll create a lot of terrible ideas, but out of those terrible ideas will likely be the seed for a great idea. 

2018 BLACK LIST - ANALYTICA

What an interesting script this was. I don't think I've ever read a script that did so much so right and so wrong all at once. 

This script came in at #9 on the 2018 blacklist. 

STORY SUMMARY

Chris Wylie is the creator of a 'psychographic' coding software that analyses facebook likes and purports to know more about your habits than you do. 

In the UK he's hired by a nefarious company with no moral compass. He ends up harvesting data from FaceBook and using this information to specifically target the users and change their opinions. 

At first, Chris is happy that his software is being used and that it's working - really well. 

Using the algorithm he has created, the company Cambridge Analytica, are able to influence FaceBook users and the way they think, act, consume and most importantly vote. 

Chris soon realizes that his software is being used for horrible purposes. Elections in Kenya are being swayed and won by campaigns of 'misinformation.'.

His software is used with great success in the 2014 US election midterms. And also in 2016 to elect president Trump. 

Chris finally takes a stand and goes to the Guardian and New York Times with his story. That FaceBook allowed third-party App developers to harvest their users' information and use it to make huge sums of money and sway elections across the planet. 

CONCEPT

This concept is a strange one. While it is a very important story - highlighting corruption in elections across the world and just how amoral FaceBook is - it is very rare that a politically motivated film ever does well at the box office. 

Imagine someone saying, 'what's Analytica about?' and the reply being, 'A guy who created software code that mined FB data and used it micro-target people and sway elections.'

How many people do you think would want to go and see that movie? 

Not many. 

Which is really sad. 

This story is literally about the misuse of private information to sway elections. It's the sort of shit the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would have given his right arm to use. 

It's fucked up and that's putting it politely. That this is legal goes to show just how corrupt politics are around the world. In particular in America.

The problem with this concept is it just wouldn't get bums in seats. It wouldn't sell tickets. 

CONCEPT RATING 2/10 or 8/10 

2/10 for selling tickets - 8/10 for being a very noble story, well worth telling. 

CONCEPT TIP

If you are writing a story that will be a hard sell, something that is important yet  isn't an instant ticket seller - then you have to make sure your execution of the story is exceptional. 

Unfortunately - the execution of this story is weak.

Let's look at why...

VOICEOVER

Voice over is fine. I love a good voice over - but moderation is the key. There is so much voiceover in this script that it felt more like a monologue than a screenplay. A vast majority of the screenplay is Chris telling us what happened by voice over.

Movies are engaging when things are HAPPENING - that way you are SHOWING your story. 

When you have a character narrate the story it becomes less a movie and more an audiobook with moving pictures.

VOICEOVER TIP

Excessive use of voice over is cheating. Sometimes you have a convoluted story point that is difficult to show and much easier to just say. Sometimes that is fine. Sometimes it's a crutch, but sometimes using a crutch is fine.

Sometimes...

When your script is 30% voice over, you know you're overusing the device. 

STRUCTURE/FLAW

Structure is another huge problem for this script. It's literally a beat for beat recount of Chris' life until he whistle-blows on the company he helped create. 

Chris doesn't really have a flaw. 

Flaw is key to structure. Without a flaw to overcome, your hero is only facing external elements. Without a flaw, you only have half a story. 

Some might argue that his flaw is that Chris is egotistical - that he creates this software even though he knows it will likely be used for nefarious purposes. But I'd say that egotism isn't a flaw here as it doesn't hold him back from achieving what he wants to achieve. 

STRUCTURE/FLAW RATING 6/10

I give structure a 6 as the story does move along, there are things happening - it's just that there is no flaw. No inner journey. 

STRUCTURE/FLAW TIP

How to identify your hero's flaw. 

Identify what they want most in the world. 

Now identify their personality trait that is stopping them from achieving their ultimate goal? 

That is your flaw. 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE

All this script's characters were exceptional. 

Same with dialogue. The dialogue and characters here I can't fault. Except to say perhaps that there is a little too much dialogue. This script could handle a 15% trim and you would have a much tighter script telling exactly the same story. 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE RATING 9/10

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE TIP

Have your character say what they're thinking. 

In life, you are constantly in situations where you think something but you don't say it for fear of being inappropriate. 

When you have a character say what they're thinking you end up with some really exciting moments. 

Why? 

People love honesty. 

Honesty trumps all else. 

When we hear someone say it how it really is we have huge amounts of respect for them for not sugar coating it. 

It works the same in screenplays. 

When you have a character say something you wouldn't expect to hear then you have an interesting piece of dialogue. 

When a character says what you would expect them to say in a given situation - that gets boring quickly. 

Always try to surprise your reader. A great way to do this is by having your hero speak their mind. No matter how awkward that may be. 

EMPATHY

There's not a huge amount of active positive empathy for Chris in this script. 

There's a lot of passive positive empathy - which is where we feel sorry for him because bad stuff happens to him. 

Passive positive empathy only goes so far. 

What really connects an audience with your movie is when your hero goes out of their way to do good things for other people. 

That is the very best way to make your hero and consequently your film likable. 

EMPATHY RATING 6/10

EMPATHY TIP

Make me like your hero BEFORE you show me their flaw. If I already like someone I'm far more inclined to forgive them their flaw. If the first thing you show me about a character is their flaw, then you've got an uphill battle to get me to like them. 

SUMMARY

This is a story that deserves to be told. Unlike many stories out there the premise here affects everyone alive today. 

That's not hyperbole either. American elections are rigged. That's been proven in a court of law. The DNC - Democratic National Committee - confessed in court that they can choose who they want to represent them regardless of who voted in the primaries. 

The American voting system - known as the electoral college - has twice elected a president who got the least amount of votes. 

That is not a democratic system. 

This story needs to be told, but in its current form, it will not reach a very wide audience or make money. 

It needs to trim down the use of voice over. Add empathy - add a flaw, and create more of a sense of urgency and raise the stakes. 

While it is implied that Chris' life is in danger if he goes to the press, we never really get to see that danger. 

BLACK LIST 2018 - WORST GUY OF ALL TIME

This script came in at #8 on the 2018 blacklist. 

It's best described as a sci-fi time-travel comedy. 

This script was a haaaaard read. It's one of those scripts that are really heavily written. The writing is great, there's just too much of it. 

PLOT SUMMARY

We open in 2076 and the future is an apocalyptic wasteland. The Duke is a tyrant dictator of the entire world. Dixie has been sent to kill him. Which she does. But then she dons a travel backpack and goes back in time to kill The Duke before he became the evil tyrant that he is, in the hope that it will restore peace to the world. 

When Dixie gets back to 2018, she tries to kill Barrett, the man who will become The Duke, but she can't quite bring herself to, as he hasn't technically done anything bad yet. 

There's some serious chemistry between the two, they end up falling for each other and Dixie gets pregnant. 

The story question then becomes, can Dixie save the future by saving Barrett and changing him into a good person, or is his death the only way to save the future?

CONCEPT

I'm not really sure what to make of the concept here. I found the idea of the story tiring. I feel that there is an audience out there for this kind of time traveling comedy, it's just that I'm not that audience. 

When looking at a script I try to remove my own personal tastes and look at it as objectively as I can. I'm not a massive fan of rom-coms - but I'm very aware that there are huge numbers of people out there who love them. 

I wonder how many people out there want to watch a time travel comedy? I feel like the concept here would find an audience on Netflix, but I'm don't think people would pay money to see this at the cinema. 

CONCEPT RATING 7/10

CONCEPT TIP

The concept here is clever. It's well executed. My only real comment on this concept is whether or not it would find a large enough audience to justify the budget required to make this film.

EMPATHY

Reading this script was an uphill battle. It took me a long time to read it. I didn't enjoy the read. If I wasn't reading it to do a review of it, I would have given up on it a long time ago. There's no way I would have finished it.

As I was about to force myself to read it for the third time, I wondered why I wasn't enjoying the read. The story is well written, and it's very, very clever. 

Then I realized that I didn't like either of the two lead characters. 

Barrett/The Duke is a horrible person. But, he's written as a horrible person. It's all part of his character. 

Then Dixie, while she has 'good intentions' (save the future) there's no solid empathy beats to MAKE me like her. 

The opening scene is a battle sequence that ends in Dixie killing Barrett. 

There's nothing there for me to connect to. There's no REASON to like her. She doesn't risk her life to save anyone, she doesn't go out of her way to be kind to anyone. 

There's lots of action but there's no emotional connection between the audience and Dixie. 

If the writer made an effort to CONNECT me to Dixie, if he showed her doing kind and loving things toward other people I would have had more empathy toward her and consequently I would have been more invested in the story. 

EMPATHY RATING 3/10

EMPATHY TIP

Awesome fight sequences get really boring, really quickly. The more screenplays I review the more I come to understand the importance of creating EMPATHY for your hero. The two scripts that I have really connected with recently have had HUGE amounts of empathy for the hero. 

King Richard is by far the most empathetic hero I've read in a long time. It's hard to not want to read a story about a father who literally risks his life just so his daughters can use a tennis court to practice on. 

Altruism is the highest form of empathy there is. 

FORM

The writing here is superb. The humor is great. The formatting is really good. 

My only real comment is this script read like molasses. It was a slow, slow read. I feel like the writer is clever enough to write this script with a third fewer words. That would've made the read a hell of a lot more enjoyable. 

FORM RATING 8/10

FORM TIP

Lean, lean, lean. Being able to tell a story in the most concise form possible is a really powerful skill set.

Take a sentence that is 15 words long. Then re-write it so it's only 10 words long. Most of the time this is possible. If you can do that you're saving 30%!

Your script will read sooooo much faster and be so much more enjoyable. 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE

Characters are great. Dixie is well drawn and so is Barrett. All the minor characters are very well written as well. They're very different from each other.

Dialogue is also great. The humor is really good and very self-referential.  

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE RATING 8/10

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE TIP

Make sure you don't underwrite your minor characters. This doesn't mean you have to develop whole sub-storylines for every character you write, but the more developed all your minor characters are the more real and well written your script will be. 

VOICE

The writer here has a solid voice. He has a great sense of humor, his characters are all very well written and dialogue is fantastic. 

While this script doesn't work for me, I would definitely consider working with this writer. If I had a concept that I loved I'm sure that he would be able to write in any genre to a very high standard.

VOICE TIP

Your script doesn't necessarily need to get made for you to break in. If you write a script that a lot of people love that demonstrates your writing ability, it can be a great sample piece that can get you writing jobs. 

I often say that the strength of your overall voice is dependant on how well you execute each individual aspect of your script. The stronger each element, the stronger your overall voice will be.

PRODUCTION

This film would have a hard time making money. It's sci-fi with all the expensive elements, futuristic wasteland, etc, action sequences, and immense fight sequences, but I'm just don't think there's enough of an audience out there waiting to spend money on going to see a time-traveling comedy. 

As a producer, I wouldn't put money into this script. 

SUMMARY

An extremely well-written script that shows off the writer's talents. His only mistake was the lack of empathy for his two lead heroes. Fix that part of the script and it would be hard to fault this screenplay. 

BLACK LIST 2018 - COBWEBS

Cobwebs landed at #7 on the 2018 blacklist. I really can't tell why it landed so high. This screenplay is a really, really mediocre horror. 

It's almost as though the writer wasn't even trying. There's a lot wrong with this script. Let's look at what elements are done well and what elements are lacking in their execution so we can learn to write better screenplays. 

PLOT SUMMARY (Spoilers) 

Peter, an eight-year-old boy lives in a scary house on top of a scary hill with his mother and father. He hears sounds in his wall at home. 

At school, he gets so annoyed with a bully he pushes him down stairs and puts him in hospital.

He's expelled from school. His mother teaches him at home. While at home he discovers that his mother and father keep his sister in the wall. No explanation given.

Peter kills his parents, gets the keys and frees his sister, only to find out that she is a killer herself. 

Yup, that's about it. 

There's no clever twist here, there's no clever character development. 

CONCEPT

I'm not even sure what the concept is? - A young boy with abusive parents becomes a killer and ultimately a victim of his sibling? 

I'd defy anyone to write a decent logline about this story that was actually true to the plot. 

CONCEPT RATING 1/10

CONCEPT TIP

I don't think this story actually has a concept. Every other script that I've reviewed in the past week has had a clearly identifiable concept. 

This script read like a series of jump scares. I love horror films, but I find jump scares cheap. It's ok to use them as a device, but to have an entire script based on one jump scare after another is pretty weak. 

When horror works well it is because it gets into your psyche - it gets into your head. When there's no real plot it's hard to get involved in the story. 

Try to make sure you have a clearly defined concept. When you have trouble writing a clear and concise concept for your script then you know from the outset that your story needs more development. 

GOAL

This is a huge problem for this script. There is no goal. Peter isn't really trying to do anything. Now, when he first hears tapping in his wall, you'd think the story goal would be to find out what's causing the tapping. But other than being scared by the tapping, Peter doesn't really investigate. Life continues as normal as he tries to convince himself the tapping isn't there. 

He doesn't realize there is someone in the wall until much later on in the script. When he realizes it's his sister in the wall, he has a goal - to get her out - but here's one of the really annoying things about the writing here - just when he's about to set her free he has a change of heart. No reason, just like that he decides, nah, I'm not gonna set her free. Which, really, is just stupid. 

A huge lack of a clearly defined goal here meant this script is not focused.

GOAL RATING 2/10

GOAL TIP
The goal of the story feeds into the structure of the story. You know when your first act ends and your second act starts by the GOAL. When your goal is established and your hero has set about achieving that goal - that's when act 1 ends and act 2 begins. It's a very clear structure signifier. 

Make sure you have a clearly defined goal set by page 25. 

LOGIC

This is something that was a problem for yesterday's script as well. There were logic errors. Now, it's fine that this script is a weird horror. The realism of your screenplay comes down to how you create the world of your story. So I bought into the parents being weird, sadistic folk, and I bought into the really minimal world created here. But what I didn't buy into was the execution of the central premise. 

Peter's sister is locked in the wall of their house because she has been 'naughty' and it is her punishment. 

That's fine. It's weird, but I'm on board with this as it's part of this freaky horror. 

But what isn't logical is - she's been in there how long? Years? I'm guessing, from what I can deduce from the story. Peter' sister has been locked in the wall for years and only now is she gently tapping on the wall at night.

Why is it only now that Peter is hearing her? 

Why is the sister only tapping gently?

If you'd just been trapped in a wall, wouldn't you kick and scream and try to get out?

If the parents don't want Peter to find out about the sister in the wall why did they put her in the wall of Peter's bedroom? A place in the house where he is MOST likely to hear her.

Later on in the script, the sister starts talking with Peter and yelling to be let out. 

Why did this happen later on in the script and not at the start of the script? 

There's no logic to all these decisions other than they made for a more suspenseful opening to the story. 

And that's the mistake. It doesn't matter how weird and whacky your story is, it still needs to make sense and be logical within the parameters you've created. 

LOGIC RATING - 1/10

LOGIC TIP

Make sure that your story is logical within the confines of the world that you create. Don't write a beat in your story just because it's kinda cool. It needs to be kinda cool AND make sense. 

FORM

This script comes in at 98 pages. great page length. No worries there. The writing is very sparse. The writer puts an entire space between each line. That's fine if the writing is so well done that every small sentence is filled with action and description. 

While I like screenplays that are sparsely written, I feel this script is too sparse. If it were condensed it would be a 60-page script. 

There's not a lot of meat to this story. 

There are a handful of spelling mistakes. There's no excuse to have ANY spelling mistakes in your script. While spelling mistakes aren't a death card to a script, they certainly detract from the perceived ability of the writer. 

FORM RATING 7/10

FORM TIP

There is a very fine line between a verbose script and an under-written one. The best way to find that Goldilocks zone is to read as many screenplays as you can. The more you read, the more you will see what works best.

Word count is a good way to decide if your script is over or underwritten.

Take a dozen scripts you felt that were really well written and look at their word count. Then look at the word count of scripts that felt too heavily written and the same for underwritten scripts. You will soon find a happy medium that works for you. 

STRUCTURE

There really isn't any discernible structure here. 

There's no real goal. 

There's no real sense of a ticking clock.

And while the stakes are life and death, it doesn't feel like this is enough to make the story feel like it's constantly moving forward. 

The structure here is way off as Peter doesn't have a flaw. He's scared of a noise in the wall and he is abused by his parents, but that's all OUTTER journey stuff. There is no inner flaw holding Peter back. There's no inner detrimental personality trait that he needs to overcome before he can overcome the outer journey problems he faces. 

STRUCTURE RATING 2/10

STRUCTURE TIP

To have a clear structure you need a clear flaw and a clear goal. When your script lacks both, your script's structure will be waaaaay off. 

VOICE

The voice here is so-so. The writing is ok, and it is a fast read. The opening hook works, it draws you into the story, but after that opening 20 pages, there's not much substance to the story. 

There is a definite eerie tone to the whole script, which I'm guessing is one of the reasons it made it so high on the Black List. 

The story is very dark, and while it does have a lot of cool moments that could be genuinely scary, it's main fault is a huge lack of structure. When you don't have a clear structure to your story, it simply feels like it is a series of scenes playing together that are loosely connected. 

This detracts from the story in general and it also weakens the perception of your 'voice'.

POV

Another huge mistake this film makes is the constantly changing point of view. The story is mostly told from Peter's POV. But we often switch POV to one of his parents or his teacher's POV. 

In the grand finale of the film we stop following Peter and stay with his teacher for about 5 pages - that's a huge amount of time to be away from our hero. 

POV RATING 3/10

POV TIP

For your script to be a successful FEATURE FILM - write your entire story from your hero's POV. It's ok to cut away to your SHADOW's POV occasionally, just to see what they're up to, you can get away with that, but when you start changing your POV to the smaller characters you lose the vicarious connection you've been creating between your audience and your hero. 

CHARACTERS AND DIALOGUE

Characters were all quite tropey, and the dialogue was really simplistic. 

I don't mind minimal dialogue, but when you're choosing to write minimal dialogue, try to make it as impactful as you can. 

DIALOGUE TIP

If your audience knows something has just happened, don't write the next scene where a character tells another character what just happened. You're wasting the audiences time.


PRODUCTION

If you made this current version of the script for under $1m then you could maybe make money. If you got a really good director and some halfway decent actors I can see it finding a die-hard horror audience. 

But if you want this script to be successful on a grander scale - this script will need to do what The Ring did and actually have an emotional story at its heart. It will need for the hero to have a flaw and for all the ancillary characters to be much better written. 

Oh, and a goal wouldn't go astray either. 

As a producer, I wouldn't put money into this film in its current form. 

In fact, I wouldn't even put an option down and get a re-write done, this is a solid pass for me. 

TITLE

A good title should suggest the tone of the film and intrigue the reader. 

This film is called COBWEB.

I'll leave this one up to you to decide. Does the title suggest the tone of this film and does it inspire you to know more about it?


SUMMARY

I don't know what's going on with the blacklist for 2018. So far, from what I've reviewed, over 50% are woefully executed. Some had great ideas poorly done, while others, such as today's entry has a weak concept, also poorly done.

I'm starting to wonder about the quality of the blacklist if this is what is making it to the upper rungs.

BLACK LIST 2018 - PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

This script finished at #6 on the 2018 blacklist. 

This screenplay was just awful. 

I get what the writer was trying to do, but the execution was terrible. 

When I was young I wrote a story about a woman overcoming sexual oppression. My English teacher gave me a low mark because the story just wasn't anywhere near realistic. 

That sprang to mind as I read this story here. It just wasn't anywhere near realistic. It was like a revenge fantasy written by someone who was very angry. 

STORY SUMMARY

Cassandra is a very beautiful 30-year old who lives at home and works at a coffee shop. 

She spends her nights going to bars, PRETENDING to be drunk, then going home with guys. 

When at their home she confronts them when they try to have sex with her. She reveals she's not drunk at all and tests to see if they still want to have sex with her. Without fail they don't want to have sex as they're embarrassed they were caught trying to have sex with a very drunk girl. 

There's a great idea there. But the execution of this is so unrealistic it's almost laughable. For instance, every single guy she goes home with tries to 'rape' her. 

That does happen, no argument there, but every single one of them? That strikes me as a little bias. The problem here is that the premise of this script is a generalization. All men are rapists. That's just a horrible premise for a screenplay. 

Ironically it is equally as disgusting a premise as all women who wear short dresses and get drunk are sluts.

Cassandra is traumatized by an event from her college days. Her close friend, Nina, was raped. After no one believed her, she committed suicide. Now Cassandra is on a mission to punish men. 

CONCEPT

There is a great concept here. Revenge on men who do evil things to women. That is great. And while I commend the author for tackling such a subject as rape in college dorms, something that is prolific across America - I feel that this execution here falls short. 

CONCEPT RATING 8/10

CONCEPT EXECUTION 3/10

CONCEPT TIP

Having a great concept isn't enough. You need to deliver on your concept. If the gender roles in this story were reversed, the author would be called misogynist.

FORM

Form isn't great here. There are spelling mistakes littered throughout the script. This script could also benefit from a 15% trim. It comes in at 105 pages but could easily be written in 95 pages. 

The writing starts out well, the opening 20 pages are great, but then the quality of the writing falls off in the latter half of the script. 

This is a very common phenomenon in screenplays. Why? because very often the writer will edit from page 1, often get distracted, then stop editing around page 50. Then they come back and they read from page 1 again. Very often the first half of the script is well written, but the second half is messier. 

FORM RATING 7/10

FORM TIP

Make sure you go over the second half of your script just as much you do the first half. 

STRUCTURE

There isn't any real sense of structure here. Cassandra has a good flaw, she is angry that her friend committed suicide because no one believed she was raped in college. And while that anger consumes her and controls her life, she never realizes that. In fact, as the story progresses, her anger multiplies, and she loses control. 

I'll try not to do any major spoilers here - but at the end of the film, something major happens. Something unpredictable and horrible. It involves a death. It goes to show just how unhinged Casandra became. 

Structure revolves around a hero's flaw and their journey through self-discovery and recognition of the flaw. This script doesn't do any of this. She never self reflects and tries to understand what it is that's holding her back in life, she never admits that her flaw is detrimental to her, she simply holds onto the flaw and allows it to carry her deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. 

STRUCTURE RATING 4/10

STRUCTURE TIP

Giving your hero a great flaw is the first step toward great structure. The next step is having the hero slowly recognize their flaw and try to overcome their flaw. If you give your hero a flaw and then have them embrace their flaw and live off its negative energy, allowing their flaw to control and guide their life, then your structure will be weak. 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE

The characters here were all overwritten. Not one of them was terribly realistic. 

There was the woman scorned. 

There was the lover who fell for the woman no matter how bat shit crazy she was. 

There was the employer who didn't mind that Cassandra was a bitch to customers and spat in their coffees. 

There was the dean of the college who was the obligatory sexist. 

There were the countless men in the night clubs who were ALL rapists. 

Dialogue here was one-note. Every character spoke with the same cadence, the same style, the same infections, they all had the same wry sense of humor. 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE RATING 5/10

 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE TIP

Try to ground your characters in the reality of your story. Within the world you create in your screenplay, your characters must feel real. It doesn't matter if you're writing a drama about college rape, or a sci-fi or a horror, whatever the world you create, try to make your characters seem real.

All the characters here felt hyper-real, they all felt like cliches and tropes. 

PRODUCTION

This film is listed on IMDB as (FILMING) 2020 with Carey Mulligan attached. I won't be surprised if this film doesn't get made. If it sits in 'production' indefinitely. 

It would be a fairly cheap film to shoot. If it was done for around $5m and had biggish names attached such as Carey then it could make money. 

My only concern is that in its present form it would come off as man-hating. 

SUMMARY

There is a great story very worth telling here. But in its current form it is just too contrived. If there was a solid re-write this film could really find an audience. 

THINGS TO IMPROVE ON

There is almost no empathy for Cassandra. She doesn't really do anything to make the reader/viewer like her. When you have an unlikable hero it is an uphill battle to get your audience to engage with your film. 

Spoiler - 

In the culmination of the film, there is a death. Then immediately those that witnessed the death - but weren't party to causing the death, suggest that they burn the body to get rid of the evidence. 

This is just ridiculous. To suggest that a group of men would all immediately become complicit to murder to protect a buddy is straight up sexism. 

Flip the coin - imagine a male writer writing the same scenario where one woman accidentally killed a man in self-defense then all her friends are onboard with burning the male body, no questions asked. That would be seen as a sexist and women hating.

Please don't get me wrong. Rape in college dorms is a real issue in America. It is a topic that should be talked about more, I just feel that this execution of the story on this subject falls short. It's a powerful concept that deserves a much better re-write. I hope they do before they make this film so it reaches the widest possible audience and has the most impact it can.   

BLACK LIST 2018 - HARRY'S ALL-NIGHT HAMBURGERS

This script came in at number 5 on the 2018 blacklist. 

This script did not work for me on pretty much any level. 

It read like an extended version of a Rick and Morty TV show. Only rather than it being a really clever 20-minute episode, it went on and on and on for 111 pages. 

Let's see why this script didn't work for me and what we can learn from this. 

PLOT SUMMARY 

Harry's All-Night Hamburgers follows Andy, a high school student living in a small town. He has many regrets in his life and feels that he isn't living the best version of his life that he could be. He wishes he could start over. Luckily enough, his small town has a hamburger restaurant that is a central hub for universe hoppers - that's people who use a nifty device that allows them to jump from universe to universe. You see the Rick and Morty parallel right?

The main catch with universe hopping is that once you hop, you can never go back to your original universe. You are permanently lost in the multi-verse.

Once Andy takes the leap and hops to another universe he soon wishes he could go back to his old universe - dull or not.

The question should have been - how will Andy get home - but unfortunately this script doesn't actually enact this GOAL until about page 90. Until then, Andy has been searching for his ideal universe. It took him 90 pages to realize that he wanted to go home.  

Let's look at the...

CONCEPT 
Teenager fed up with current existence hops universes in search of a better self only to realize that he was happiest where he was. 

This concept just isn't FILM material. It'd make a great TV episode, or maybe a 60 minute TV movie - or the premise for a TV series - but for a film? No, it just doesn't work. 

When you're writing a FILM - you need to think about your story as just that - A FILM. You need to imagine the poster - you need to imagine the demographic of people who would want to PAY MONEY and take the time to go and see your film. 

The demographic for this film are 10-year-old boys to say, 22-year-old boys. Maybe a handful of man-childs would like it but other than that you've got a very small demographic.

A really simple way to broaden the demographic for this film would be to make the hero a female. That way you're at least doubling your potential audience. 

This film fails the CONCEPT TEST. 

CONCEPT RATING - 3/10

CONCEPT TIP

Before investing months of your life into writing a film - think about the final product - think is it actually FILM MATERIAL - or would you be better served writing your story premise in a more suitable format?

FORM

The writing and layout in this script was - OK. But that's the thing - OK isn't good enough. It needs to be exceptional.

This script came in at 111 pages - it could easily have been told in 95 pages. 

FORM RATING 7/10 


FORM TIP

Trim, trim, trim. Make sure that you're not wasting your reader's time. Go through your script and trim the fat. 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE

One of the many problems with this script was the generic nature of all the characters and how they spoke. All the characters sounded alike and they were all tropes. Andy was the kid in school that had failed to achieve - his dad was an alcoholic - his mom was sweet and unremarkable - Andy longed for the girl that he never quite had the balls to ask out...

Every character here was a cliche. Except for Harry - he was the high concept part of this story. But even his character felt underutilised. 

The dialogue here was really dull also. Every character sounded identical. Characters from alternate universes had this really annoying trait of slightly changing contemporary slang words. It was the sort of cute running gag that an 11-year-old would find funny for about 15 minutes but even then they'd grown bored of it. 

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE RATING 5/10

CHARACTERS & DIALOGUE TIP

Differentiate your characters. Give each character their own personal style and quirks. A great way to do this is by giving them very different ways of speaking. 

VOICE

Voice here is dull. I had originally read the first 30 pages of this script, then got sidetracked. When I went back to read it again, I had to start over as I had forgotten the entire first 30 pages. The story here just doesn't pop. 

PRODUCTION

If this film gets made it won't make money. The target audience is just too small. This film would require a HUGE budget to make. Minimum of $20m - and I just don't see it making that back. Not when you factor in the advertising budget as well, which is very often equal to that of the production budget. 

GOAL

This was a huge problem for this script. The original goal was for Andy to find the 'perfect' universe where he would be incredibly happy. 

Thing is, it took Andy 90 pages to realize he was never going to find anything better than his original universe. That's a really long time to realize your mistake.

GOAL TIP

A much better execution of this concept would be to have Andy realize that by page 25. Then his NEW goal would become searching for his way home. Trying to find out who invented this HOPPING device he uses to jump from universe to universe. 

STAKES

The stakes here were Andy could be lost in a universe where he was going to be really unhappy. Thing is, he was really unhappy in his first universe. So, what're the stakes? He's gone from unhappy to unhappy. There are no real stakes there. 

STAKES TIP

If every time Andy jumps it made him ill, or if in every universe there was some immediate threat to his life, then that would up the stakes. It would mean that his life was literally on the line. When your hero is facing death your audience becomes far more involved in the story.

URGENCY

There was no ticking clock to this story. Andy was simply jumping from universe to universe - at first, he was enjoying the fun of visiting the new worlds - but soon found that for all the fun it wasn't bringing him true joy. 

URGENCY TIP

When your story has no ticking clock - it doesn't really matter if things happen today, tomorrow or next week, then your story will lack a sense of pacing. It would have been really easy to add an element of a ticking clock here - perhaps the jumping device had only a certain amount of jumps to it - and Andy had to use his jumps really wisely. But his jump device was unlimited. 

To keep your audience engaged - add urgency. The tighter your time frame the better your film will be. 

Can you imagine if there was no urgency in the film TAKEN? Can you imagine if Liam had unlimited time to save his daughter? That would have completely destroyed that film. 

TAKEN worked BECAUSE Liam had only a few days to save his daughter. 

The stakes were very high - she stood to lose her life, and his goal couldn't have been clearer - save his daughter.

There's no guessing why TAKEN was a hugely successful film. 

BLACKLIST

Now, this script did find an audience - it did very well on the 2018 BLACKLIST - but just like the Cannes film festival - just because a film plays there (or rates well on the blacklist) it's no guarantee that the film will be successful. There are countless screenplays that have landed high on the black list and never been made. Or if they were made, they weren't successful.

I do screenplay reviews like this because it's good to be able to understand WHY films succeed, and WHY they fail. I sincerely doubt that if this film gets made it will be successful. 

The vast majority of people who watch films have never heard of the BLACKLIST - they don't care if the screenplay did really well on some insider list. What they care about is - was the FILM entertaining and was it done well?

SUMMARY

This film failed on many levels. It started with the concept. Then it managed to have no stakes or urgency, and its goal was way off. 

There is a much better version of this film that could be written, and that version could potentially find a decent audience, but as it stands I would not invest in this film.