Write Your Screenplay Podcast

"...If you’ve been following my podcast, you know that I’ve been talking for some time about the desperate need for some smart people to start writing superhero movies.

Action movies and superhero movies are the mythologies of our time-- millions of people see them, and as much as we might like to dismiss them as pure entertainment, the truth is, they irrevocably shape our view of the world, our children’s view of the world, the stories we tell ourselves about how to be our best selves, how to solve our problems, and what it means to be a hero.

In this way, all action movies are political.

Which is why it’s so darn nice to see a movie like Wonder Woman kicking ass at the box office..."

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By, Jacob Krueger

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Wonder Woman: The Structure and The Politics of The Action Blockbuster

 

Transcript From The Podcast:

 

If you’ve been following my podcast, you know that I’ve been talking for some time about the desperate need for some smart people to start writing superhero movies. Action movies and superhero movies are the mythologies of our time - millions of people see them, and as much as we might like to dismiss them as pure entertainment, the truth is, they irrevocably shape our view of the world, our children’s view of the world, the stories we tell ourselves about how to be our best selves, how to solve our problems, and what it means to be a hero. In this way, all action movies are political.

 

Which is why it’s so darn nice to see a movie like Wonder Woman kicking ass at the box office.

 

Wonder Woman isn’t a perfect movie. And it isn’t a perfect feminist manifesto.

 

But what it is is an action movie that actually cares about the message its audience takes away from it. It’s a film that tries to use an art form that historically, for the most part, has been exploitative of women, unquestioning of violence, reverential to hero

 

It’s a film that tries to use an art form that historically, for the most part, has been exploitative of women, unquestioning of violence, reverential to hero worship and a proponent of the simplest answers to the most complex questions-- and look underneath the surface in order to ask us some serious questions about our country, and our belief systems, and our desire for good guys, bad guys and magic bullets that can instantly solve our problems. In fact, to look at the very nature of war through a big silly action movie, which in itself is a pretty radical concept.

 

 

What’s interesting is that Wonder Woman does this not by rejecting the problematic elements of superhero movies (that mass audiences love and independent film minded audiences hate)-- wanton violence, cliched characters, death without consequence, stereotypical love stories, female exploitation, revisionist history, perfect good guy Americans and purely evil foreign bad guys, inexplicable plot twists, unlikely action sequences, unmotivated character choices and oversimplified endings.

 

It does it by embracing those elements, meeting the audience where they are, and then using the elements they love to turn their perceptions of these elements upside down as the story develops: to show the complications underneath. To make us question the things we so easily accept about our action movies, and about the heroes we worship, whether they’re superheroes, political heroes, celebrity heroes or even religious heros.

 

This begins by simply stepping into the problem of being Wonder Woman as opposed to Superman.

 

Nobody ever questioned the ability or the reasoning of The Man of Steel-- even when he was doing scientifically questionable things, like spinning the world backwards to turn back time.

 

But despite her totally bad-ass powers, Wonder Woman simply can’t get anyone to take her seriously. Not her mother, an Amazonian Queen, who for some culturally inexplicable reason among a tribe that spends most of their time preparing for battle, wants her daughter to be the one Amazon Warrior who doesn’t ever learn to fight.

 

Not her love interest. Not the British Government. Not her team of misfit spies. Not the soldiers at the German Front. Not even the clerks at a department store. They won’t let her dress like she wants, do what she wants, or use her incredible powers to end the war.

 

The woman can block bullets, jump buildings, lasso of truth bad guys, throw cars, and kick ass in a million different spectacular ways-- and still, she’s treated like a wide-eyed “little lady” who needs to be protected; no one will take her seriously.

 

And this is what allows us to connect with Wonder Woman.

 

Because while we may not be able to bend the physical rules of the universe-- we all know what it’s like to have a genuine talent to offer, and not be taken seriously, because of who we are or what we look like, because of race, economic standing, track record, experience, sexual orientation. We all know what it’s like to be mocked for our “naive ideas” even while the so smart guys in charge make nothing but a mess with their “realistic” ones.

 

We all know what it’s like to know we’ve got what it takes to go through the door and find that door shut to us. In our careers, in our families, and in our lives as artists.

 

Wonder Woman helps us see these problems in ourselves by turning many of the tropes of action movies upside down.

 

Just like Superman has his Lois Lane, and Spider Man has his Mary Jane Watson, Wonder Woman has her “damsel in distress” as well. Except he happens to be a bad-ass American Spy named Steve.

 

 

 

They meet in a classic “Damsel in Distress” sequence. Wonder Woman, Diana, is living happily (if a bit “artistically” frustrated -- by which I mean combat-frustrated) in a hidden world among her tribe of Amazonian Women.

 

And then one day, Steve literally crashes into her world from the outside-- crash landing his plane into the ocean of her perfect little world and inadvertently leading a bunch of nasty Nazis-- who are chasing him-- into her world as well.

 

And though this inciting incident may break the rules by happening later than we expect about 30 minutes into the film, and though we may spend a bit too long hanging in the well acted, but seen-it-before fantasy world of the Amazons, from this moment on, we are launched into a different kind of movie-- an exciting mash-up of superhero action and romantic comedy that starts to turn familiar tropes on their head.

 

While Steve flails around helplessly in the rapidly sinking plane in classic Damsel in Distress fashion, Diana quickly rushes to his rescue-- saving him just in time to see her beloved mentor killed by one of Nazis that have followed him into her world.

 

 

Despite growing up in a tribe of women warriors, it’s the first time Diana has actually seen war. The first time she’s actually seen evil. And having been raised in the simplistic action-movie mythology of her own people--she knows exactly who to blame. Not complicated political forces, not an imbalance of wealth and power, not politically enfranchised racism and xenophobia-- but Aries, the God of War, who corrupts good men and turns them against each other.

 

Like any good protagonist, Diana now knows her mission-- her purpose in life. Or what we call in screenwriting, her super objective-- the big thing she wants more than anything.

And from this mission-- this super objective, this goal-- will grow the entire structure of Diana’s journey, of Wonder Woman’s change.

 

The obstacle, as we’ve discussed, is that she’s a woman, and Steve’s a man. And quite frankly, so is everybody else who has power in Steve’s world.

 

So despite the fact that she’s just saved his life, defied her mother, stolen the magical “G-d Killer” sword bestowed upon her people by Zeus, and left everything she knows to go with Steve and save the world, Steve immediately assumes he has to protect her-- from her naive ideas, from the German front, from the danger of war, from other people’s opinions of the way she dresses, from making a fool of herself in front of the powerful men he reports to, from carrying out her plan to go to the German front and defeat Aries--

 

Early on, we experience this in one of the most lovely and funny scenes in the film-- and the point where you realize you’re definitely going on this ride-- a scene that allows you to fall in love with the two of them as a couple. In a reversal of the classic romantic comedy awkward but chivalrous first date-- Steve tries to chivalrously protect Diana from the obvious chemistry between them by finding a separate place to sleep on the boat carrying them to London-- only to find that she’s way more comfortable with her sexuality than he is. Just as later he will find that she’s much more confident with her power than he is.

 

Just as she’s much more determined to follow her own voice, rather than the voices of those around her than he is.

And what’s lovely about the film is that rather than judging Steve, the film develops him. Allows us to recognize him, not as a bad guy, not as a chauvinist, not as an antagonist, but as a product of his times-- a man with his heart in the right place, slowly waking up to the idea that the woman he loves might be even more capable than he is of taking care of herself.

 

 

 

And by refusing to judge Steve, the movie once again allows us to see ourselves in him. It allows us to recognize the same flawed judgment in ourselves-- not our malicious intent, but our unconscious biases. The way we unwittingly hold back those who could help us, and also the internal limits that hold us back from truly being ourselves.

 

And what’s best about Wonder Woman is that it does so without letting Diana off the hook in the structure of her own story.

 

The film doesn’t depict Diana as a victim of the patriarchy-- but as a woman who refuses to be a victim to it. The film resists the urge to set Diana and Steve against each other and instead develops a sweet, funny and mutually evolving love story between them. And most importantly, the film doesn’t turn Diana into Cassandra-- the perfect woman who can see the truth but who nobody will believe. It doesn’t turn her into the perfect savior....

"...As Dan O’Bannon has noted in interviews, the idea that actually spawned the original Alien, was the horror of rape and forced pregnancy-- a horror that so many women have gone through in their real world lives, but that few men could viscerally understand. So instead of going after women in an exploitative way, as so many horror movies have done, he wanted instead to go after the men-- to make that horror visceral to men, in a way that would make them, “Cross their legs” and feel what that is like.

And you can see that the entire structure of the Alien franchise, from the structure of each individual script, to the horrifying visuals, to the rules of the universe, down all the way to the production design, the way the alien creatures burst from the chests (and later, in Alien: Covenant from the backs) of impregnated males, every single decision grows from that one simple idea. The deeply personal why that the writer is actually writing it..."

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By, Jacob Krueger

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Alien Covenant: Setting Up A Trick Ending

Podcast Transcript:

This week, we are going to be looking at Alien: Covenant, by John Logan and Dante Harper.

 

One of the things that makes Alien: Covenant especially worth studying for screenwriters of all genres is that it’s a script that starts off really strong, but suffers as it reaches its conclusion from a really common malady of all screenwriters: the totally predictable trick ending that the writers are wedded to, that ends up undermining the real story that they’re trying to tell.

 

Now, sure, Alien: Covenant is a regurgitation of something that we have seen a million times before in every Alien movie: a simple structure where you take a bunch of really well drawn characters and slowly kill them off one by one.

 

This is the formula for Alien; this is the way it works. And this movie, like all the others in the Alien series, is built around the horror of being chased by a creature that is way more powerful than you.

 

So when I say it starts off strong, I’m not suggesting that they’re reinventing the wheel. I’m suggesting they’re taking that wheel, and rolling it in a slightly more complicated direction. Which is really the goal for any serialized screenplay-- to deliver the same thing in a slightly different way.

But though the script may be built upon the same old formula, it is also built from something deeper.

 

Like the original 1979 Alien movie, Alien: Covenant grows not just out of the commercial question of “how do I-- as Blake Snyder would put it-- tell a ‘monster in the house’ horror movie in space?” It grows out of a theme. Something that was genuinely terrifying to the original writer, Dan O'Bannon, that he wanted to explore in a personal way. Something true that he wanted to explore through fiction. And this was what separated the original Alien from other movies of that genre.

 

As Dan O’Bannon has noted in interviews, the idea that actually spawned the original Alien, was the horror of rape and forced pregnancy-- a horror that so many women have gone through in their real world lives, but that few men could viscerally understand. So instead of going after women in an exploitative way, as so many horror movies have done, he wanted instead to go after the men-- to make that horror visceral to men, in a way that would make them, “Cross their legs” and feel what that is like.

 

And you can see that the entire structure of the Alien franchise, from the structure of each individual script, to the horrifying visuals, to the rules of the universe, down all the way to the production design, the way the alien creatures burst from the chests (and later, in Alien: Covenant from the backs) of impregnated males, every single decision grows from that one simple idea. The deeply personal why that the writer is actually writing it.

 

So, you have a theme, and that theme is the thing that gives your script unity. It isn't necessarily the thing that the audience leaves talking about. Nobody leaves Alien saying, “Wow what an interesting theme about male insemination, male pregnancy!” No, they leave going, “Holy shit, a fucking alien burst out of this guy’s back!”

 

But they feel the theme. The theme gives the screenplay a feeling of unity. And the theme guides the creative imagination of the writer.

 

It’s this same theme that leads to another element that ties all the Alien movies together: the strong female protagonist. And we can see that once again in Alien: Covenant, the characters we relate to most are the women. The characters who have the highest intelligence, the greatest leadership abilities among the crew are these powerful female protagonists, who don’t actually end up escaping their fate, but end up putting up the best battle against it.

 

What’s so exciting about the beginning of Alien: Covenant is that woven in with these familiar themes, it also brings something thematically new to the table, something that is derived from its predecessor Prometheus, but nevertheless pushed to an even deeper place in the early pages of the script: an exploration of these themes in the world of the synthetics (Aliens’ name for the humanlike Androids who populate its world).

 

There are two synthetics at the center of this film: The first is Walter, played by Michael Fassbender, the synthetic who assists the crew of the spaceship on their journey.

 

As you know from the trailer, even if you haven’t yet seen the film, the crew is a group of couples all heading to a new utopian planet where they hope to repopulate. And they have a very long journey, which means they have to spend most of their journey asleep in claustophobic cylinders. So, Walter is a synthetic who is there to keep the ship going while they go through their forced sleep cycles in these strange cylinders.

 

And there is also another synthetic involved, also played by Michael Fassbender, who (to prevent spoilers) we’ll get to in a moment.

 

So, as we’ve discussed, as in every Alien movie, the structure, the engine of the piece, is always built the same way. We start off getting to know a bunch of really well drawn characters, as they deal with the challenges of space travel: no aliens involved, just the challenge of surviving in space.

 

And we have seen this from the very first Alien and we are seeing it again here in Alien: Covenant.

 

After a cool opening sequence, that takes place many years in the past and sets in motion the theme we’ll discuss later, we find ourselves aboard another, bad-ass spaceship, with it’s own visually stunning technology. Walter, alone on the ship, puts up these beautiful recharging sails.

 

 

 

And like all the movies, the special effects and the beautiful chiaroscuro of the shots is certainly there from the very beginning. We have these gorgeous shots, we have this very dark tone, we have the feeling of Alien.

 

We have the shot of this is incredibly beautiful golden sails that are used to recharge the ship. And then, BANG! They get hit by a neutrino burst and we’re catapulted into the movie--

 

Right there from the very start, no aliens at all, we are already in crisis. The humans on the ship need to be wakened from their forced slumber, and immediately into life and death action--

 

This is an important lesson to anybody writing action movies-- or any other kind of movie for that matter-- oftentimes we start to think about our opening pages as a time to “set things up”, as a time to “establish this” or “establish that.”

But the truth is the opening 10 pages; the first 10 pages of your movie are the most important 10 pages, not only artistically but also commercially.

 

Artistically they are the most important pages because these pages are the beginning; this is the sequence that creates the window through which your audience views everything else in your movie. Artistically, this is the window through which you view the rest of the movie; this is the bar that you set for yourself of what your movie needs to be.

 

If you are writing an action movie, the bar on your action should be really high. You should start off with the most badass action scene you can possibly create, so that you can then outdo it, and outdo it, and outdo it- make it stronger and better and cooler, and more badass.

 

If you are writing an action movie, your first sequence to the degree that is possible should probably be an action sequence. If you are writing a romantic comedy, it should feel like a romantic comedy sequence. If you are writing a drama it should feel like a dramatic sequence.

 

But no matter what you are writing, it shouldn’t feel like you are setting stuff up.

 

The reason for this is twofold. First, setting stuff up is boring; it is boring for the audience, it is boring for the writer, and most importantly, it is boring for the producer. And the truth is, page one is the only page you can be guaranteed that most people are going to look at. And the truth is, if you haven't got them by page 10, they are never going to make it to page 100 for your awesome trick ending… or your not-so-awesome trick ending, as we will talk about later.

 

So, the first thing to understand is that if you waste your first ten pages setting stuff up, you are doing your story, your readers and your audience a disservice.

 

But, the second thing is that you are also doing yourself a disservice; you are robbing yourself of the opportunity to get the feel of the movie from the very first page.

 

Every decision you make about your screenplay creates a feeling. And the first sequence of your movie should create the feeling that you are seeking for your script.

 

Now look, there are exceptions to this. Sometimes you use opening scenes for misdirection, like setting somebody up for a punch. You lead them to believe they are in one kind of movie and then… BANG! on page 10 you hit them with another--you pull the rug out from under them.

 

You can hear an example of this if you listen to my podcast about Guardians of the Galaxy.

 

So this isn't a formula, but it is a way of thinking about films.

If you are not leading with your best stuff, you are probably robbing both the audience and yourself.

 

You are robbing the audience of the best opportunity that they could have to get excited about your movie, and feel viscerally what your movie is really about.

 

You are robbing yourself of the creative inspiration that will lead

"...hidden underneath this little character driven drama is actually an adaptation of three different stories. The first is the true life story of Chuck Wepner, a down and out fighter who went 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali and was the inspiration for Rocky. At the same time, it is also an adaptation of the Rocky film. It is a reimagining of Rocky-- stripped all of Sylvester Stallone’s American dream sugar coating. And at the same time, it’s also an adaptation of a third film: an old movie from 1962 called Requiem for a Heavyweight. So here we have this unassuming character driven independent feeling little film, that looks like just a simple biopic, but under the surface, there is actually something very complicated going on...

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By, Jacob Krueger

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Chuck, Rocky & The Art of Adaptation

Podcast Transcript:

 

This week we are going to be looking at Chuck by Jeff Feuerzeig, Jerry Stahl, Michael Cristofer and Liev Schreiber.  

 

What is really interesting about Chuck is that hidden underneath this little character driven drama is actually an adaptation of three different stories.

 

The first is the true life story of Chuck Wepner’s life; Chuck Wepner was a down and out fighter who went 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali. And many people believe, although Sylvester Stallone has denied it, that Chuck Wepner’s life was actually the inspiration for Rocky.

 

At the same time, it is also an adaptation of the Rocky film. It is a reimagining of Rocky-- what if you looked at Rocky not as a hero’s journey but as the story of an anti-hero? What if you stripped all of Sylvester Stallone’s American dream sugar coating off of Rocky and turned it into a story about a guy who keeps on turning lemonade back into lemons?

 

And at the same time, it’s also an adaptation of a third film: an old movie from 1962 called Requiem for a Heavyweight.

 

 

 

So here, we have this unassuming character driven, independent feeling little film, that looks like just a simple biopic, but under the surface, there is actually something very complicated going on.

An interesting thing about adaptation and revision is that people think of them as different, but I think of them as actually in many ways the same.

In an adaptation we take something that isn't yet a movie Whether it is a true life story like the true life story of Chuck Wepner, a novel, a poem, a short story, a dream that you had, an experience from your own life, the story of your grandmother-- it is taking this thing that isn't yet in the form of a movie and translating it into a form that is a movie.

 

Similarly, I believe revision does exactly the same thing. When you are revising a script what you are actually doing is taking an early draft that isn't yet a movie-- and the way we know it isn't yet a movie is that if it was already a movie, you would have stopped writing it-- So, you are taking a screenplay, a draft of a screenplay, something that is in early stage of development that isn't yet translated into movie terms and you are translating it into movie terms.

 

And there is also a third kind of adaptation, which we are seeing now more than ever in Hollywood, which is a remake of old movies. And a remake of old movies works along the same principle, which is basically to say, “Hey we are going to do this again because it was awesome the first time.”

 

But if we do it exactly like the first one, it is probably not going to play. At the very best, we are going to do a slightly worse version of a great movie.

 

 

 

So what is our take on it now? How do we translate this thing that isn't a movie today-- because it has already been made-- into something that feels relevant and new and fresh today?”

 

And, of course, this also happens to us often when we realize that something that we are writing already either has been made or is about to be made-- when you realize that your story isn't taking things far enough,  or when you finally get your script out into the industry and you start to get feedback like, "Oh I have read a lot of scripts like this...” that is also a time that we are doing an adaptation.

 

We are taking something that maybe once was viable as a script, but in the current market isn't and we are translating it into something that is viable-- something that is new and fresh within the genre.

 

And Chuck is an interesting example of this, because I know I asked myself when I was going to see Chuck, “do I really want to see this movie? After all, I have already seen Rocky?” And simply selling this movie as the true story of the guy who inspired Rocky doesn’t really make me want to go see it. Because my first thought is “Well, I have already seen this story. And okay maybe I saw the more Hollywood version of this story, but is this film actually going to take me someplace that I haven't already gone?”

 

Fortunately, once I sat down in the theatre, I learned that this movie was going to take me to a much more interesting place.

 

Part of the reason the film takes me there is because of the extraordinary performance by the cast.

 

Liev Schreiber is absolutely wonderful as Chuck Wepner. It is worth going to see the movie just for his performance.

If you’ve seen Manchester by the Sea, and you’ve seen the performance that Casey Affleck won the Academy Award for, you should definitely go see Chuck. Because Liev Schreiber is doing in Chuck what Casey Affleck is trying to do in Manchester by the Sea-- playing this troubled, deeply internal character and bringing a layer to the movie that it would not have had without him.

 

Similarly, it has really great performances by Elizabeth Moss as Chuck’s wife, Phyliss, and by Naomi Watts as Linda, a local bartender who plays a really large role in his life.

 

So how do you make a movie about a guy that we have already seen a movie about? And at the same time how do you take that character and put him through essentially the same movements that the character in Requiem for a Heavyweight goes through, and make it feel like a new movie?

 

 

Well, the first step is to know what your movie is really about: to know why you are telling this story.

 

Why does this story matter in a world where some people have already seen Requiem for a Heavyweight? And in the world has seen Rocky.

 

And the writers and the director make a very strong choice: we are going to go into Chuck but we aren’t going to go into him with that wide-eyed enthusiasm with which we follow Rocky. We aren’t going to see Chuck primarily as an embodiment of the American dream.

 

We aren’t going to have epic battle sequences, we aren’t going to tune this guy up and turn him into this incredible fighter who just never got a chance. Instead, we are going to run directly at the truth.

 

We are going to run directly at the truth of a guy who was known as the bleeder because his greatest attribute was his ability simply to keep standing while people whaled on him.

 

We are going to tell a story of a guy who did go 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali. But we aren’t going to turn that fight into an epic battle; we are going to have one moment where he does knock Muhammad Ali down, as he did in round nine. But we are not going to shy away from the fact that he stepped on Muhammad Ali’s foot when that happened. Instead, we’re going to use that moment to get under the skin of the character.

 

And we are primarily not going to amplify the excitement of what is happening in the ring, but rather the sheer stick-to-it-iveness of this guy who just refused to go down. Who made it within 18 seconds of getting to the end of a fight with the greatest boxer of all time.

 

We aren’t going to turn this guy into a hero, we aren’t going to clean up his personal life, we are going to see the journey, and there are some spoilers ahead…

 

We are going to see the journey of his real relationship with his wife, Phyliss.

 

Sure, they may clean him up a little, in that they don’t tell you that she was his second wife. But we are still going to see his philandering. This isn't the story of Rocky and Adrian, these two people destined for each other, who love each other so much that she just can’t bear to watch him get hurt.

 

We are watching a story of the guy who has everything- the loving wife, the beautiful child, the chance to go toe to toe with Muhammad Ali-- but whose need for validation from other people is so strong, whose need for fame is so strong, whose need for women is so strong-- that most of the damage gets inflicted outside of the ring, and not upon him, but by him, upon the people he most loves - his brother, his wife, his daughter.

 

The writers make the decision not to clean up his drug problem, not to clean up his jail time. And in a really interesting structural move, the writers merge the structure of Chuck Wepner’s true life journey with the structure of the main character’s journey in Requiem for a Heavyweight, fusing these ideas together in the same way that Rocky and Rocky III took elements of Chuck Wepner’s life and then ran with them. Just as Sylvester Stallone allowed Rocky to at once grow from the inspiration of Chuck Wepner, and at the same time to be a separate character with his own wants, needs and structure, so too do these writers allow structure of The Mountain’s journey in Requiem For a Heavyweight and the real life structure of Chuck Wepner’s life story to merge into a unified character, and a unified journey, that is greater than the sum of its parts.

This movie builds upon the structure of Rocky by rejecting that structure.

 

By taking the big fight and not putting it at the end but putting it in the middle. By turning the training sequence mostly into a story about how he has screwed up his relationship with his wife. B  y telling the Rocky-Adrian story not as a fable, but as a tragedy.

 

So, you can see that Chuck is turning the story of Rocky inside out. It is taking some of the same events and putting them in a different order, with a different polish, in order to tell a different story.

 

And it is doing it because the main character isn't a pull-himself-up-from-his-bootstraps hero....

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By, Jacob Krueger

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Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2: A Dance Between The Head and the Heart

Podcast Transcript:

This week we’re going to be looking at Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2, written and directed by James Gunn.

 

If you listened to my podcast on Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 1, you know that I’m a huge fan of James Gunn’s writing. Not just for the brilliant execution of pretty much every moment of his scripts, but also for his overarching use of Theme to give real emotional resonance to these goofy action sci-fi comedies.

 

So, it’s interesting to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 to see James Gunn both succeeding and struggling in the places he’s most strong.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 starts off with a scene that’s classic James Gunn -- a scene that takes a very typical action sequence, and turns it on its head in order to breathe new life and new fun into it.

The Guardians have been charged with protecting some very precious batteries from the giant creature that keeps on draining them. This setup, of course, is a very typical action-movie-big knock-out action sequence beginning. We’ve seen this a million times in everything from The Avengers to Batman.

 

Except this time, rather than focusing on the epic battle sequence-- you know, the thing that’s supposed to get the adrenaline of the audience pumping, the thing that action movies like Guardians of the Galaxy are supposed to be delivering-- rather than focusing on that sequence, and those supposedly life-or-death stakes, James Gunn instead points the camera at Groot.

 

Which is to say, James Gunn points the camera at what actually matters to him, the thing that the scene is actually about: not the battle sequences which we’ve seen a million times before-- but a scene about a bunch of Guardians who’ve come together as a family, to protect and raise this little baby Groot, the reincarnated version of their old friend.

 

And by not allowing himself to get distracted by the baloney of what the scene is supposed to be, he not only creates a hilarious sequence for the audience-- where we get to watch little baby Groot jamming it out to some good old 70s rock music while the epic battle plays out barely visibly behind him-- but also sets up a potentially powerful theme for the movie: a theme about family, a theme about connection, a theme about caring for others.

 

He takes a scene that we’ve seen a million times, and says, That’s not what’s interesting about this scene to me, what’s interesting about this scene to me is right here.

 

And this is the first tool that you should take from James Gunn.

 

Writing a movie is not about serving them it’s about serving you.

 

It’s about focusing in on the things that really matter to you. When you learn to do this, you not only discover the key to specificity, you also find the cure for cliché.

 

The truth is, these scenes are archetypal. Big action movies do start with big action movie sequences, at least most of them do. But your big action movie sequence does not have to play by the rules as other big action movie sequences.

 

In Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 1, James Gunn proved this point with the death of Peter Quill’s mom, by playing an emotionally-dramatic scene at the very beginning of a goofy ol’ action movie.

 

And here in Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2, James Gunn again controls that tone by keeping the camera strictly focused -- not where it’s supposed to be -- but where he wants it to be. By asking himself some important questions all writers need to ask when dealing with this kind of scene:

 

How is my opening action sequence different from all these other opening action sequences?

 

How does it grow directly from who these characters are and where we last left them?

 

As I let that action movie sequence play out, how am I going to make myself laugh? How am I going to entertain myself?

 

It’s moments like this that make Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 succeed.

 

And yet, at the same time, if you watched Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2, you probably felt that there was something missing. You probably felt that there was something from the previous version that just didn’t translate into this one. Something about the emotional content. Something about the structure.

 

As many critics have noted, in many ways Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 has a lot more plot than Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 1, and yet Volume 1 seemed to play out with a little more drive to it, a little bit more of a feeling of action.

 

Other critics have wondered if the problem with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 was too many characters speaking their emotions to each other.

 

But if you go back and look at Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 1, you’ll see that characters are speaking their emotions all over that movie. And, in fact, in both of those movies it’s the places where the characters are speaking from the heart, juxtaposed up against this total comic silliness, that is actually the engine of the piece, that’s actually what makes the movie succeed.

 

Now just a warning, there will be some spoilers ahead… But if we want to understand why this script, for all its wonderful specificity, humor and pathos is not delivering in the way the earlier script does, we need to look at the way it was actually built.

 

So why is it that we’re not crying at Yondu’s funeral in the way we cried at the end of the first Guardians of the Galaxy?

 

Why is it that Yondu’s funeral seems to drag, doesn’t seem emotionally-relevant at all?

 

Why is it that Peter Quill’s sojourn on his father’s planet, and that complicated emotional relationship between him and his father, Ego, seems like it’s dragging, doesn’t feel like it’s driving the story forward, even though for Peter Quill, the question of his father is probably the highest-stakes issue in his universe?

 

Why is that even with the introduction of another fabulous character, Mantis, the low self-esteem empath, and hilarious relationship with Drax, and Gamora’s complicated sisterly relationship with Nebula, and Rocket’s emotionally powerful relationship with Yondu, and all this fabulous character work that’s happening -- why are we not feeling the emotional stakes of this movie in the way that we’ve felt the emotional stakes in the first one? Why are we laughing, but not crying? Why are we smiling, but not feeling the drive of the action?

Why is it that even though we are enjoying the hell out of this movie, apart of us knows there’s just something missing? The answer goes back to theme.

 

There’s a great line towards the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 -- Yondu says about his magical Yaka Arrow: I don’t control it with my mind... I control it with my heart.

 

And while the second part of that line probably doesn’t actually need to be stated-- the audience is probably smart enough to pick that up-- the concept of that line is probably one of the most important things you can think about as a screenwriter, and one of the most important things you can learn by watching Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 and comparing it to the structure of Guardians Volume 1.

 

In fact there’s a great story about Joss Whedon talking to James Gunn after an early of draft of Guardians, Volume 1, which was met with a lot of love from studio executives. But Joss Whedon was tough on James Gunn, telling him “I want more of you in this script.”

 

So James Gunn goes back and rewrites this totally satisfying script to put more of himself into it. And that was the script that was so successful in Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 1.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 you can almost feel the war between the mind and the heart of James Gunn.

 

The mind of James Gunn wants this to be a movie about ego.

 

Having written a movie about loss in Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 1, he now wants to turn the powerful might of his theme towards ego, and particularly towards the question of How does the ego destroy family?

 

And here we are, starting off just right, with this wonderful first scene that establishes the world of this family, where even during this epic battle, everyone’s main concern is nurturing this adorable little baby plant.  Trying to raise it in the right way.

 

And down from the sky descends Kurt Russell in the form of a character named Ego -- Peter Quill’s long lost father. Ego whisks Peter Quill off to his special Ego planet, where, of course, Ego turns out not to be exactly who Peter Quill expects him to be.

 

So from the very beginning, James Gunn is consciously trying to build something very, very specific -- he’s trying to build a story about the the pressure between family and ego.

 

He’s trying to build up to a moment, when Peter Quill has to make a choice between ego and family -- when he has to make a choice between his father and the promise of immortality, and the terrifying other side of the coin: that he might just be just like everybody else.

 

In the movie, that choice is boiled down to one line, when Peter Quill retorts to Ego, “What’s so wrong about that?”

 

But, structurally, despite the plot of the film, that question barely exists in the movie. Because Peter Quill doesn’t actually go on a journey in relation to ego; Peter Quill goes on a journey in relation to loss.

 

Because there’s that theme again, that’s in James Gunn’s heart,...

"...If you listened to my podcast on Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 1, you know that I’m a huge fan of James Gunn’s writing. Not just for the brilliant execution of pretty much every moment of his scripts, but also for his overarching use of Theme to give real emotional resonance to these goofy action sci-fi comedies.

So, it’s interesting to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 to see James Gunn both succeeding and struggling in the places he’s most strong…"

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By, Jacob Krueger

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How To Be a Latin Lover: Turning Sadness Into Salsa

Podcast Transcript:

This week we’re going to be talking about How To Be a Latin Lover, by, Chris Spain and Jon Zack.  And, while this wonderfully silly screenplay may not teach you how to be a Latin lover, it will teach you a hell of a lot about screenwriting.

 

If you’ve seen How To Be a Latin Lover, or if you’ve read the script, you know that from page one, from the very first scene of the film, it’s easy to know if you’re going to love this movie or hate it--  if you want to go on the ride with these characters or if you don’t.

 

If you want to succeed as a screenwriter, the most important page you will ever write is your very first page.

 

And the most important page you will ever rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite, is also your very first page.

 

Your first page is the most important page in your screenplay, because the first page is the only page anyone is actually going to read.

 

Your manager, your agent, your coverage reader, your producer, your star-- everybody in the entertainment industry is overwhelmed with all the reading they have to do. They’re absolutely swamped, receiving screenplay, after screenplay, after screenplay. All these screenplays they have to read, stacking up on their desks or on their ipads.

 

And the truth is, everybody wants to read all those scripts, but no one actually does. Because reading every script that you receive is physically impossible.

 

Most of the scripts get sent out for coverage, and even the coverage readers can’t really, fully, read all of the scripts that are descending upon them.

 

A coverage reader makes about $50 a script. So, when you think about what it would take for you to read a whole script, write a good logline, a good summary, and a good commentary, you realize there is no way that a coverage reader can afford to actually read every script they're given. They’d be working for less than minimum wage!

 

Instead, what most coverage readers are doing is that they’re making a decision about whether to read or skim, and they’re making a decision on the very first page. Because what most of coverage readers read is bad.

 

Most of what coverage readers read is not exciting, not marketable, not producible.

 

And that means coverage readers are jaded.

 

They have a really rough job. They have to read bad material again and again and again. And that means that when they open your script, especially a script from an unrepresented writer or a writer they don’t already know, they’re already making an assumption it’s probably not going to be very good.

 

Because even the scripts they get from famous writers, from produced writers, from writers with big managers, and big agents-- oftentimes those scripts aren’t good.

 

So you’ve got someone who’s already feeling down before they even open your script, They’re already feeling jaded before they open your script.

 

And at the same time, every single one of those people desperately wants to find a diamond in the rough.

 

Because nobody wants to stay a coverage reader. Coverage readers want to become writers, or agents, or assistants, or development executives. And the way that you get there is by knocking the socks off of your boss with your incredible ability to find that diamond in the rough.

 

So there’s this interesting thing going on for coverage readers. On the one hand, they want to find a diamond in the rough, and on the other hand they all feel like they’re never going to see it, because if you read a 1000 scripts, 999 of them are bad.

 

Which means that if you want to win them over, you have to win them over from the very first page.

 

You can think of this like a job interview.

 

If you’re going for a job interview, and you show up in a really great suit, versus if you go in a job interview and you show up, and you look rumpled or disheveled, or you fly is undone, or your skirt is on backwards.

 

Even though you might give the best interview of your life-- even though you might eventually  win them over to considering you-- you can never erase that first impression.

 

The first scene and the first page of your movie, are the first impression that anyone will ever have of your film. And once you give that impression it is impossible to erase it.

If you’re writing a comedy, and you make them laugh on the first-- or even better, the first half-page, the first quarter-page-- they will be inclined to laugh or the rest of your script. They will already be feeling the humor. They will be seeing everything through that window.

 

If you write a horror movie and you make them cringe from the very first page, they will already be inclined to cringe, to see your movie through that horror window.

 

If you’re writing a movie about family, and you make them feel that family connection in the very first page, they’re going to see your movie through that window.

 

If you’re writing a big ol’ Sci-Fi Epic, and you make them feel that Sci-Fi Epic feeling from the very page, they’re going to see everything through that window.

 

So this is what you’re looking for. You’re looking to create a first scene that captures the feeling of the script. You’re looking to create a first scene that announces your voice as a writer. You’re looking for a first scene that locks in exactly who this character is. You’re looking for a first scene that sets the world of your movie.

 

To say in it in a simplest way, you’re looking for a scene that grabs your reader by their designer lapels and says Look! You’ve got to pay attention to me! This one’s actually good.

 

The problem is you don’t find that by trying to be good.

 

And that’s the challenge that we have as writers.  Often when we try to be good or when we try to be impressive, we end up being showy, or we end up being false.

 

The way you write a screenplay that can demand that kind of attention is by understanding what your movie really is about. And sometimes it takes time to understand what your movie really is about. It takes time to fully connect, to fully get in there, to understand what your themes are, and you who your characters are, and how your characters are.

 

In fact, in How To Be a Latin Lover, the real theme, the real thing holding this movie together, starts to emerge pretty late into the movie.

 

For those of you who haven’t seen the film, Maximo, played by Eugenio Derbez, is the ultimate gold digger. At the beginning of the movie, as a dashing young man, he marries a wealthy old woman for her money. And then, after 20 years of the pampered life he’s always wished for, she ends up dumping him for a younger man, leaving him with absolutely nothing.

 

Now he has not reconnect with his sister Sarah, played by Salma Hayak, who he’s basically ignored for 20 years, in order to cajole her into giving him a place to live, and hopefully buy enough time to seduce another rich woman so he can go back to his old lifestyle.

 

So this is the premise of the movie, but this isn’t what the movie is about.

 

The movie is really about his relationship with his sister, and his relationship with his sister’s son, Hugo.

 

And pretty late into the script there’s a scene between Maximo and Sarah, where the real theme emerges, and the real emotional underpinning of this very silly script, gets established.

 

Sarah’s husband has died a short time before the movie started. She’s just been asked out on a date by her next door neighbor, and she is afraid to go on the date.

 

Maximo advises her to do what he does when he gets scared: get drunk! So, Maximo and his estranged sister get really, really drunk together.

 

And there’s a moment where Sarah tells Maximo that her favorite thing to do is to take really sad songs and turn them into Salsa.

 

And this is a funny little scene, as she takes the saddest song she knows, and turns it into a Salsa.

 

But it’s also the real theme of the piece. It’s really what the movie is about.

 

It’s about taking the sad things in our lives and turning them into comedy.

 

And, in fact, as anyone who’s written comedy professionally can tell you that’s what comedy is really about. Comedy is not about making the audience laugh. Comedy is about looking inside of yourself and making yourself laugh. Looking inside of yourself and laughing at the things that have hurt you: turning sadness into laughter.

 

And what’s really cool is that this theme gets established from the very first scene. One of the saddest events possible, the loss of a father, gets played in this very first scene for ridiculous comedy.

 

We are watching Young Maximo, as his voiceover tells us the story of his father, who always worked very hard, and who told his children you don’t get what you wish for, you get what you work for.

 

He talks about how his father, a truck driver, was always away for long periods of time. But he would drive all night to come home.

 

And there’s this adorable little scene, in which the whole family runs out of the house to wave hello to the father, who falls asleep at the wheel of his tanker-truck just a few yards from home--

 

The family scatters as he crashes the truck all the way through the other side of the house, out the back and into the desert. And as the truck rolls to a stop, we hear Dad’s voice reassure his family from the truck “I’m

"...as anyone who’s written comedy professionally can tell you, comedy is not about making the audience laugh. Comedy is about looking inside of yourself and making yourself laugh. Looking inside of yourself and laughing at the things that have hurt you: turning pain into laughter. Or, to quote How To Be a Latin Lover, turning sadness into Salsa... "