scripts Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There's no way around it. Unless a screenwriter is writing about one-minute section of life where other sexes do not enter, or a world filled with one sex that practices asexual reproduction, men are going to write about women, and women are going to write about men. But can they do so successfully?

This question has been argued for years, flowing through discussions about literature and female-centric moving media. Regardless of theme, men rule the typewriter, and I would venture to say that it's most pronounced in Hollywood. It is palpable every time the screenwriter credit pops on the screen, when Oscar nominees are announced, and even on the picket line, as USA Today pointed out back in 2008. (A post which also notes that women make up less than a quarter of the screenwriters in Hollywood.)

That doesn't mean there aren't female leads hitting the big screen. From Sex and the City to A Mighty Heart to The Proposal, there are women at the forefront -- some of whom are hated, and some who are adored -- all written by men. So the questions become: What makes some men good writers of women? Must they have a "feminine side"? Is there really all that much of a difference? Or is it impossible to truly capture the female experience unless you're living it?

After the tumultuous months of the 2007-2008 WGA strike, one important message bubbled back to the surface: As much as Hollywood might forget the pens behind the scenes, there would be no business called show without them. (Okay, there would still be reality tv, but let's not go there.)

What, perhaps, didn't come through was why a writer is so important. What it is about a script that makes it something Hollywood masses would strike and picket for? The Washington Post has published an excellent piece on the subject, one that reminds us that scripts are a heck of a lot more than good dialogue and catchy lines. "But to call a movie well written is far more than a question of dialogue -- in fact, most filmmakers agree that dialogue is the least of it. Instead, good movie writing comes down to what defines good writing in general: a command of structure, voice and momentum, all in the service of a story that grabs spectators by their throats, then leads them along a path they simply must follow or they won't be able to eat, sleep or lead a happy life."

We're talking down to the minute details, like ScarJo's pink underwear in Lost in Translation. Sure, the piece takes the easy road when comparing character descriptions from He's Just Not That Into You with Moonstruck, but sometimes extremes make an impression. And this piece might just make you question a lot: Is the director that amazing? Was the actor really that good, or just given good material they couldn't mess up?

With scriptwriting on the mind, which screenplays float your boat?

At last, there is some light at the end of the WGA strike tunnel. Meetings are scheduled in New York and Los Angeles this Saturday, and the purpose is to convince Guild members that the contract WGA leaders have been hammering out with the AMPTP is worthy of bringing the now three month-old strike to a close. The WGA's 10,500 members will vote on the issue, and if they approve, WGA leadership could send its members back to work as soon as Monday. The strike won't officially be over until the decision has been ratified -- likely two weeks, but the Oscars would go on as planned, new television episodes could be scripted, and the TV pilot season might be salvaged.

Living in Los Angeles, all I hear is strike talk. I was told this weekend that the strike would absolutely end yesterday. Didn't happen. I was told several times that it will definitely be over by Friday. That's not going to happen. Now I'm hearing next week for sure, and this official Saturday meeting would seem to support that. But it's not a done deal by any means. Late Monday, WGA negotiating committee chief John Bowman sent an e-mail to Writers Guild members that read: "While we have made important progress since the companies re-engaged us in serious talks, negotiations continue. Regardless of what you hear or read, there are many significant points that have yet to be worked out."

In other words -- the finish line is in sight. But there's no guarantee they're gonna run through it.

The Write Stuff interview series continues this week with Nancy Oliver. Nancy got her big break writing for one of my all-time favorite television shows -- Six Feet Under. She also wrote the script for the wonderful new film Lars and the Real Girl. The movie is about a young man named Lars (Ryan Gosling), his relationship with a sex doll, and how it affects those around him. Lars is in theaters now.

Cinematical: Take us through how you got your start as a writer.

Nancy Oliver: I have always written, since I was a little girl. I would rather have been a rock star, but that didn't work out. I got serious about it when I was about 21, which was a while ago. I had seen Saturday Night Live, and at the time I was acting in college, but nobody was casting me because I was totally wrong for everything. So seeing SNL, I started thinking I could do that. Alan Ball and I were friends in college so we put on our first show together and it took off from there. We had a theater company for a long time, and wrote and produced all our material.

Cinematical: Was the desire ever to get into another medium or would you have been happy doing that the rest of your life?

NO: I was interested in every kind of writing. I was possessed by theater because I had the means to do it, whereas to get to a camera is a different sort of path. I didn't head specifically for television or film until I had sort of already turned myself into a writer. I wanted to have a certain command of what I did and a certain knowledge of styles, and I just wanted to be able to handle myself technically and in terms of craft before I came to L.A.

Cinematical: And Six Feet Under was your first television gig? How did you get on there?

NO: Yeah, it was my first legit job. I had been writing content for the website for a year, and I had a job reading scripts for Alan. After the first two seasons, they changed up the writing staff, and I came on in the third season. We had worked together for over 20 years, but the job came as a big surprise to me. I didn't expect it and didn't go looking for it. And I was actually going back to Florida at the time, giving up on show business when the Six Feet Under job came through.

Pictured: My writing partner and I at the 1997 Academy Awards.

Last week, I recommended taking on a writing partner to someone having trouble with story ideas. You can check that entry out here. I received a lot of comments and questions about the ins and outs of writing partnerships, so I'm devoting today's post entirely to that subject. I speak from experience here, I have had a writing partner for two years. I'd like to give you a completely honest look at how the two of us write, warts and all, and the pros and cons of being in a partnership.

My writing partner Sonny and I met while Pages at NBC. As a Page, I wrote a play that I was really happy with. I did a read-through with my friends that went really well, and I nearly got the show produced in New York. And then Garden State came out, and had roughly the same premise. Damn you, Braff! Months later, Sonny was unhappy at his job, called me at 3AM, and asked if I'd like to write a television pilot about our experiences as Pages with him. We embarked on a lot of hung-over Saturday morning writing sessions with no pressure, no deadlines, and frequent breaks for pizza and episodes of Undeclared on DVD.

That lack of stress changed pretty quickly once our script was enthusiastically received. The next thing we knew, we were flying out to Los Angeles a couple of times a month and signing with agents. Once agents entered the fray, we quit our (well) paying gigs in New York and made the trip to La La Land. Now, we weren't writing for fun, we were writing to survive. This put a lot more pressure on us as a writing partnership and even as friends. We worked through it fairly quickly, but this is why it is a good idea to discuss details and "rules" of your partnership early on, even if you're good pals and it's an awkward conversation. Sonny and I never did this, so when we had to bring up issues down the line, things got strained. Below are five major points I learned from the issues (formerly) in my partnership:

Welcome back to The Write Stuff! Yes, this is supposed to be interview Wednesday, but I'm learning it's mighty difficult to track down writers every other week, especially when they're all madly banging out scripts before the possible writers' strike. So I'll conduct the interviews as they come up, probably closer to once a month. To make up for it, I'm dipping back into the mailbag again this week to answer some more of your questions.

SlappyWhite asks:

I'd be interested to know about ways to come up with story ideas. I often feel I can write really good dialogue but my plot content is just not good enough.

Pretty standard problem. This is why most movies you see have a "Story By" credit and a "Screenplay By" credit. With several exceptions, those who are great at coming up with stories and ideas struggle with dialogue. Often, those who can write hilarious banter or intelligent conversation have problems with story. Those who can do both are highly sought after. If you can't, consider hooking up with a writing partner. The trick is finding one who doesn't have the exact same skills as you. Find someone who complements you. Writing classes or groups are the easiest ways to find a match, but if those aren't available to you, maybe just start sizing up your friends. Are any of them creative storytellers? Would he or she be interested in writing? Ask your friends for movie pitches, and if you like one of them, see if he or she would like to sit down and crank it out with you.

But maybe you don't like working with others. If that's the case, the best advice I can give you is to open a newspaper. Insane, movie-ready things happen in this world every day, and newspapers and magazines are chock full of great jumping-off points for a script.

Welcome back to The Write Stuff! I'm thrilled that there is such a strong interest in screenwriting out there. Thank you all so much for your comments last week, both here and on my site. All of your questions and comments will be addressed in the coming weeks, so stay tuned and keep them coming!

The first interview for the column is with red-hot screenwriter Adam F. Goldberg. Adam is living the dream. He writes for both television and film, and his upcoming movie projects include Fanboys, the live-action Jetsons movie, and They Came from Upstairs. Cinematical spoke with the incredibly busy Goldberg about his scripts, his process, and Goonies: The Musical.

Cinematical: You said you were being "enslaved by a director," what are you working on? And should I call the authorities?

Adam F. Goldberg: Perhaps call them for my hacky writing! It's called They Came From Upstairs for Fox. It's a family movie, kinda like Gremlins -- but with aliens. The spec was written by Mark Burton and was sold for like $1.7 mil. I believe I am making about .0001212 of that. It's been a really cool project. The movie was in pre-production and the studio realized the script wasn't ready and shut it down pretty late in the game. I came aboard to get the train back on the tracks which is always high pressure and very difficult to do. I handed in 40 pages and they re-greenlit the movie and we're casting and location scouting now. I'm on draft two currently, working next to the director and bringing his vision into it.

Cinematical: Is that an awkward process at all -- being brought in to re-write a fellow writer? Do you ever run into hurt feelings or bruised egos? I guess the $1.7 million makes the pill easier to swallow.

AFG: Well, I come from the TV world, writing on sitcoms and that's very collaborative. You have to sit in the room and watch 10 other writers tear apart your script right in front of you. That bruises your ego. As for movies, more often than not a writer can only go so far and it's your job to bat clean up. It's never a great feeling to have your screenplay rewritten, but hopefully you've moved onto your next project, so it doesn't sting so much. And believe me, that $1.7 payday is like winning the lottery. I hope I can sell a spec one day. I've had little luck in that department.

For a guy who's usually at his best when he writes about male relationships, The Friday Night Knitting Club was probably the last project I expected Mike Binder to be involved in. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Reign Over Me director has been hired to adapt Kate Jacobs' popular novel for the big screen, with Julia Roberts attached to produce and star. Knitting Club is similar in nature to Binder's The Upside of Anger -- both feature single moms who find themselves in a situation where they are forced to juggle several responsibilities at once; in this case, it's running a knitting store while raising a teenage daughter.

Currently, no director is attached, though I imagine Binder would be up for the part if he turns in a dynamite script. One of the reasons why I think Binder was hired for the job, and might also snag the helming gig, is because the film (and book) is set in New York City -- where, lately, these little knitting shops are all the rage. There aren't many writer-directors who truly know how to capture a city; to use its tenacious beauty as a character within the film. Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese are the NYC masters (though both men have recently expanded their repertoires by setting their films in other cities across the globe). While Binder isn't quite at that level, Reign Over Me showed he's more than capable of providing an enjoyable NYC-based film. I've always been a Binder fan (that first season of Mind of a Married Man was freaking hilarious), and would totally support his directing Knitting Club. Here's hoping he knows how to knit -- most of the guys I know are clueless when it comes to that stuff.

Remember back when Indecent Proposal first came out, and the topic of almost every conversation amongst friends was whether or not they would let their significant other spend one night with a man for a boatload of money? And, if your friends were like my friends, most of them immediately replied, "A whole night without the woman breathing down my neck? Heck, I'd do it for a hundred bucks and a Red Lobster gift certificate for sure."

Well, it's been awhile since that topic was on the tips of everyone's tongues and, now, writer-producer Les Firestein (The Drew Carey Show) is looking to bring it back ... but with a twist. New Line has just snatched up an untitled comic pitch from Firestein, which Jimmy Miller will produce, with a story that approaches the Indecent Proposal situation from a, well, fairly scary angle. Basically, what happens when a very wealthy man approaches a couple and offers them a ton of money for one sexy night with ... the guy. Not the girl. Would a straight man switch teams for one night if it means he will acquire a small fortune? No other information was released at this time -- Firestein still has to write the script -- and then we'll get to see whether this thing has the legs to attract some top-notch talent. Will Ferrell, anyone?

So, guys, what would you do?

Though their contract isn't set to expire until October 31 of 2007, the WGA (Writers Guild of America) are downloading the word 'strike' onto their iPods and shoving it into the face of anyone who will listen, most notably the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. While studios would like negotiations to begin between the two parties this January, the WGA doesn't like that idea and would rather postpone talks till September, leaving only two months before the end of the world as we know it. Wait, writers aren't that important, right? I mean, what's the worst that can happen? It's not like the entire industry will fumble about before being brought to its knees. Right?

This stalling technique is nothing new for the WGA; their current contract wasn't finalized until five months after the previous one expired -- and, with online streaming and movie downloading bombarding the industry, serving as yet another medium for which studios can use to screw writers, expect this one to go right down to the wire ... as per usual. What does this mean for film? Well, folks will begin stockpiling scripts as if they were canned food and production will kick into high gear -- followed by a "de facto strike" this summer, which will halt production on films unable to wrap things up by October 31.

Why won't the WGA just succumb and begin negotiations early to avoid all of these complications? Sure, it seems logical, but then they don't have the threat of a strike to throw on the bargaining table. Besides, the extra time will allow them to calculate just how many pennies they should expect to get their writers for this whole downloading/streaming stuff. In the end, we're the only ones who will suffer -- look for this battle to play itself out in the trades over the course of the next year. Hooray, we now have something besides Spider-Man 3 to look forward to!