Industrial Scripts is a
London-based script development and training organisation, founded by
leading UK script analysts and backed by major companies, delivering
script development services to filmmakers.
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Dear Karen,
After a fantastic London
Film Festival, we hit that small window where it's socially acceptable to
dress as a blood-crazed killer - and the Industrial Scripts
October newsletter arrives.
BFI Player Launches
The BFI this month launched
its own VOD and Streaming online platform, the BFI Player.
Combining premium priced premieres designed to widen the availability of
indie releases – such as Clio Barnard’s recent THE SELFISH GIANT – with
classics for rent and some free treasures from the BFI’s archives, the
player will help to expand a key industry organisation which at times has
been very London focussed in its endeavours.
For those lesser known gems
which are well reviewed, but which struggle to achieve wide cinema
exhibition, the BFI Player, alongside similar devices such as Curzon on Demand should
help to quickly reach new audiences, and capitalise on the buzz which all
too often fades before the DVD release.
VOD performance has often
been shrouded in secrecy, but recent numbers from the BFI show
the hits and misses in the arena, with WHAT MAISIE KNEW outpowering the
adventurous release strategy of A FIELD IN ENGLAND, which simultaneously
bowed in cinemas, on demand and on Film4.
 Alongside
our monthly shot of film intel delivered to your inbox, Industrial
Scripts are rolling out weekly articles on
our news page mixing craft insight, industry analysis
and some good old fashioned top-10 lists. This month’s highlight
comes in a pair of coupled articles – common excuses you should not be
making as a Screenwriter, and lessons from industry dynamo Jeffrey Katzenberg
– the man who makes no excuses. Read on....
“10
Specialist Skillset Characters and Lessons for Writing Actor Bait”
“10
Common Film Industry Excuses – and How to Avoid Making Them”
“Jeffrey
Katzenberg – 10 Lessons for Screenwriters”
“10
Screenwriters Who Broke In Late”
“10
Screenwriters Who Burned Bright and Then Faded”
American
Film Market hits Santa Monica
 Outside of Cannes, the American Film Market is the
key industry event for deal-making – expect to see a big uptick in spec
script sales in the coming weeks. Whilst aspiring Filmmakers and
Screenwriters often focus their attentions on festivals and
seminars, the hard-nosed edge of AFM can instil the requisite dose of
industry knowledge and connections which is often the difference
between wannabes and careerists. With over 1,000 production companies and
8,000 participants, the AFM is the place
to be this month.
Robert
McKee’s Story Seminar Comes to London
Acclaimed theorist Robert
McKee returns with his industry defining tome and presentation of ‘Story’
– perhaps the deepest analytical insight available into the craft of
screenwriting.
 McKee equips Screenwriters
with an arsenal of techniques and knowledge which both demystify the
secrets of structure, character and story, and provide screenwriters with
a tried and tested process to guide the creative mind. His unique work -
especially strong in areas of theme and scene analysis - is a must have
in any Screenwriter's toolkit. His immense track-record fostering
multiple Oscar and Bafta winners is testament to the power of the course.
Running November 14th –
17th at the Cavendish Conference Centre, you can find out vital details
and book tickets here.
Final
Draft Free Upgrade Offer
Our sister software site
Wordsworth Writing Store is running a tremendous offer on purchases
of Final Draft – buy version 8 now, and receive a free upgrade to version
9 upon its release next year.
Ensure that your script
hits the industry standard of presentation, safe in the knowledge that
you’ll stay at the cutting edge with v9’s features.
Amusing
Snippet of the Month - Living With Jigsaw
 Halloween brings out the ghouls, and we’ve all seen
Jason, Freddie and Ghostface slice and dice their way across the big
screen – but what are they like
to live with? This great spoof video imagines the
daily obstacles of domestication when co-habiting with SAW’s Jigsaw
puppet…
OPINION
PIECE
PRISONERS,
Jeffrey Katzenberg and Screenwriting Professionalism
Readers may be aware of
PRISONERS' strong box office performance - $100m worldwide for a dark,
R-rated thriller is mighty impressive. But many will be completely
unaware of the tortorous path from idea, to script, to sale, to
screen - and the ramifications of such a process on their own endeavours.
 Brooklyn writer Aaron Guzikowski's journey began with a
speculative letter in 2006 to a literary manager which prompted a read
request. Think that's a career victory? Keep reading.
The manager couldn't sell
this script - but agreed they should work together - and for the next two
years Guzikowski took notes and constantly redrafted PRISONERS - unpaid,
keeping his job stuffing envelopes, with no complaints on the number of
re-writes, understanding that to prematurely distribute material in
Hollywood is career suicide. He now had a script vetted and okayed by an
industry insider. Think that's a victory?
The script went out around
town - and no-one took the bait. It looked like two years were wasted.
Until one agent saw the potential, sparking a flurry of interest - within
a week Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale were attached and Guzikowski was
flown to LA for meetings. Think that's a victory?
Six months later, with no
deal in place, Guzikowski was still in Brooklyn stuffing envelopes. Two
A-List stars had been on his project, but still no payday. Eventually
though, a deal was struck, a sale made. Think that's the victory?
Now the project hits
development hell - directors come and go, and it's not until Denis
Villeneuve comes aboard that the journey which began in 2006 ends in
2013.
Having read this account,
do you think this is a rarity, an extraordinary journey? Well, this is
about par for the course. And if there's one lesson which would truly
benefit all aspiring screenwriters, it's this; screenwriting is a craft
profession, not a hobby. It will take years to master, and even that is
no guarantee of industry success
Guzikowski's journey reminded
us of some of the harsh lessons exemplified by Jeffrey Katzenberg's
stellar career at the forefront of the film industry. The notoriously
driven Katzenberg would famously make 600+ phone calls per week to seize
the initiative in industry intel; he would doggedly run the maze of a
thousand 'no's' to receive a single 'yes'. First into the office, last
out, to the extent that he needed two assistants for each half of the
day.
There are few professions
in the world in which aspiring participants expect to put so little time
or resources into learning their craft - the film industry is already
flooded with poorly executed scripts where the single biggest problem is
the writer themselves. This is not designed to put writers off - but to
make them treat their craft seriously.
You can read Aaron
Guzikowski's journey here
You can read our article on
Screenwriter Excuses here
You can read our article on
Jeffrey Katzenberg here
You can read Josh Olson's
take on professionalism here
We are delighted to reveal
that our sister company, WordsWorth Writing Store
, which opened for business in January, continues to build up steam with
a whole raft of sales and customer interest.
In development for many
months, the store stocks a comprehensive range of storytelling and
physical production software, available at the most competitive prices
and with brilliant FREE b onus packs, unique
to us, attached.
However what we're
particularly pleased about is that we will be the first UK software
company to provide ongoing
phone support to our customers, so rather than
tearing your hair out on hold to some call centre in Kenya you can call
us any time if something goes wrong.
Unheralded
Scene of the Month: MONEYBALL (2011)
In our "Unheralded Scene of the
Month" section, our consultants nominate a classic
film or TV scene, which in their view hasn't received the admiration it
deserves.
***Warning:
plot spoilers below***
Unheralded Classic: MONEYBALL
The
film: How do you set about adapting a non-fiction book on
the use of statistical analysis in baseball? Hiring the twin
screenwriting powers of Steven Zaillian (SCHINDLER’S LIST) and Aaron
Sorkin (THE WEST WING) isn’t a bad place to start, with Sorkin’s
trademark razor-sharp wit acting as the perfect change-up to the gripping
drama of an underdog sports story. After the tricky project saw off
director David Frankel, with Steven Soderbergh’s version canned only days
before lensing, CAPOTE director Bennett Miller finally stewarded the film
to the big screen.
The
plot: Failed player and now General Manager Billy Beane (Brad
Pitt) is tasked with taking the small-market, low spending Oakland
Athletics to glory in a league with no salary-cap, competing against
high-rolling powerhouses like the New York Yankees. Beane is convinced by
Yale graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) to take an unorthodox approach for
scouting new players – using advanced ‘Sabermetric’ statistical tools to
nab cheap bargains, instead of old-fashioned ‘gut’ scouting. In a sport
known as ‘America’s Pastime’, their radical changes are met with fierce
opposition from manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman). After
initially terrible results, the team turn things around, embarking on a
record-breaking winning streak.
The
scene: Despite reaching the playoffs, the Athletics lose in the
first round and do not make the World Series, leaving Beane despondent.
In the film’s finale, Brand sits Beane down to show him a video of an
overweight baseball player who trips when trying to run to second base,
and has to crawl back to first base – in the dirt, humiliated, his worst
nightmares come true, other players laughing at him… but why are they
laughing at him? Because he actually hit a monster home run, and could
have walked the bases at his leisure. As Brand notes. “he hit a home run,
and didn’t even realise it”. You can watch the scene here
Why
it's unheralded: After locker room fireworks and
on-the-field tension, this denouement is low key and nuanced in its
dynamics. With the team’s season finished some might think the main plot
thrust is over – but it’s in this scene that the protagonist comes to
accept that his revolution won some battles, even if it couldn’t quite
win the war.
Why
it's great: It can be tough to balance the
energies in mixed-ending scripts – those bittersweet victories which
aren’t so absolute – but MONEYBALL finds the perfect way to offset
failure with hope and redefine the parameters of success, pointing to the
true battle in the film – similar to Aaron Sorkin’s THE SOCIAL NETWORK,
this is a film about pioneers who see the world in a different way. In
what could have been a highly internal moment, using the metaphor
externalises Beane’s epiphany and is a perfect example of a mentor figure
imparting lessons via abstracted examples, rather than flat, on-the-nose
conversation. In a sly modern twist, the poignant moment is broken by
Brand’s comedic acknowledgment that “it’s a metaphor”, a sharp moment of
contrast which quickly flips us between emotions.
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