Behind Suburbia finished (in theory) and Moving On

I've completed my version 5 (tenth rewrite, approximately) of Behind Suburbia and finally submitted it to a few contests. I got the notes back from Script Pimp but I did not find them nearly as helpful as the previous set. I saw that I did solve all of the previous problems except for one though (which version 5 rectified) ... but I still received a "pass" rating because of it. Aside from that one helpful hint the rest of the notes were something along the lines of "you need more horror movie conventions but don't make this a conventional horror movie."

All righty.

Needless to say I did not follow them as closely this round and now it's time to see what some contest judges have to say about it. I submitted to the PAGE Awards and something else I can't quite remember off-hand. Regardless, if this places better than "perfect ending" I'll know that I've improved and will feel pretty good about myself. If I won I'd feel awesome... but anyway, I'm happy with the script.

I'll be sending out some query letters soon to get some feelers out there to try and find a producer or an agent. I have two solid scripts and several more in the works so I'm building a decent base to work from. Hopefully I'll get some decent responses and I'll write an entry about query letters soon.

In the meanwhile I've had two good ideas come to the surface. One is a reworking of a comedy script I wrote when I first got interested in screenwriting. I enjoy that version but the overhaul I'm envisioning would have me start over from scratch. The second idea was a modern-day sci-fi movie, i.e. takes place now but has futuristic elements the common populace is not aware of. I've already started the character backgrounds and the outline, and I think it has a lot of potential. I'm just tired of being so serious.

My first set of notes compared my dialogue to Woody Allen and Kevin Smith. Not to toot my own horn but I have a knack for observational and conversational humor, and I really want to do something where I don't have to kill off a bunch of characters. I know, what fun would a slasher flick or murder mystery be without the dead bodies... and the premise of my sci-fi film would require some killing. Not a lot, mind you, but a few. Plus it would be a serious film.

The comedy would be fun, so I'm actually thinking about working on both at the same time. Then I can alternate my entries between comedy and sci-fi genre conventions and explore two things at the same time. Mind you that would entail me watching a ton more movies to cover both genres, but hey, I think it's a task I'm willing to undertake. I don't think I'd be able to WRITE both of them at the same time, but I can certainly do all of my outlining and pre-planning.

So, that's fun. I'll keep you all updated as things move forward. If anyone is curious to read "Behind Suburbia" feel free to e-mail me. Especially if you are a producer looking for a writer/director ... I'd really be up for that.

Motivation. AKA: Please don't kill me, I have to feed my fish!

I've just finished the 3rd rewrite of "Behind Suburbia" today based off of the notes I received from Script P.I.M.P ... I wrote the 2nd version immediately after receiving the notes and have spent the past week and a half pondering if the changes really had the desired effect. After having someone re-read it yesterday (and being helpfully super-critical)... no, they didn't.

Hence my 3rd rewrite. As mentioned in the notes it's important to show the reader (or viewer) the genre of the film in the first five or ten minutes. If they're in a horror movie, it's best that they know it soon, otherwise they'll learn to like the characters too much and be really upset when some guy starts hacking them apart. It's also important that all of your characters have significant motivation.

What is motivation? I always though that in a slasher film, it was the desire to live. It's your life! What more is there than that? Well... lots. I gave my characters a semblance of depth in my first version but now I have "raised the stakes" so to speak. Living is one thing, but having a reason to live is a whole new ballpark, and a whole new level of story telling as well.

Let me give an example of what I mean by this:

Fred is 23, fat, watches a lot of television and is an unfortunate college dropout. He is a recently unemployed copy machine repairman, lives in a cheap apartment (he thinks he's too good for mom's basement) and has frequent midnight runs to Wawa for a meatball sub. This, in Fred's mind, is the pinnacle of life. He comes and goes as he pleases, doesn't have anyone to answer to, sleeps late and has no drive to fix any of his flaws.

Johnny is 22, average build, and a senior in college, class of 2008. He is majoring in microbiology and plans to go to graduate school. Doing so would make his parents proud but, more so, it would make Johnny proud of himself. He hopes to one day settle down with a nice girl (or guy), but that's in the future, and he'll take one day at a time as he works towards his goal.

So... what's the difference between these two guys? On the superficial level, Johnny is goal-oriented and Fred is a loser. Johnny has purpose in life and Fred just kind of bumbles along taking whatever comes. Johnny has a reason to live and it's obvious to everyone around him, and no one would miss Fred except Fred's goldfish.

Poor Fred, right? Not so fast.

We're just superficially looking at these people, they're fairly one dimensional as described. To make a true character they need to have depth and complex relationships... as I've mentioned in previous entries they must be multi-dimensional.

If we put both of these characters into a story I think Johnny might sound a little boring at first. He studies, goes to bed early and is pretty cookie-cutter. But what exactly is Johnny researching at school? Is he studying under a professor (Dr. Ezra) that is actually working for the department of defense, making a new bio-weapon with the unwitting Johnny as his loyal lackey? That adds quite a bit of depth, no? Let's take it a little farther. What if Johnny stumbles on his professor's notes and figures out what he's working on. If he takes a stand against this, Johnny has transcended into protagonist, and someone we want to know... what's his ultimate decision?

Now Fred is bumbling through life, as I've mentioned, but he has a lot of free time. What if one night he sees a panicked young man at the Wawa, suffering from some sort of terrible illness? Fred, although a little self-centered is not a complete bastard, and stops to ask the man if he's okay. The man thrusts a small vial into Fred's hands and tells him that this is the only known cure, and that he has to take it to... Dr. Prentiss in Walla Walla, who will know how to replicate it and make sure that no one gets hurt. Dr. Ezra's not evil... just... not well... and the poor man drops dead at his feet, leaving Fred holding the vial.

Fred receiving the vial is the first scene of Fred's story. All of the other stuff mentioned about Johnny and Fred is their past, it's what makes them who they are... but what we want to know is, what does Fred DO with the vial? Suddenly this loser has the fate of the world in his hand and the question becomes not only will he do it... but CAN he do it? Fred on the top level has the world in his hands, but his is actually a story of redemption, to prove to everyone, and especially to himself, that he's not a loser after all.

Knowing where your characters are coming from is important in understanding the decisions they make at that crisis moment... and it was that little bit of background that was lacking from a few of my characters in "Behind Suburbia" which I believe has now been fixed.

These characters have to want more than the live, they have to have something to DO with their lives should they get to keep it! That's what makes them interesting, dynamic and of course... watchable.

Whew. I'll be resubmitting as soon as I talk my editor into looking for all the tiny little errors I seem to miss. Stay tuned.

What was that called again?

I've asked several people to help me come up with a title for my slasher screenplay and the most common response I get is, "pick a good line from the script and there's your title." Unfortunately either I'm not very good at picking lines or just the thought of a character having the titular line just kind of throws the audience off a little.

Every time I hear someone say the titular line I always chuckle a little, even if it's a serious movie. I think that notion comes from a sketch from the Upright Citizens Brigade. There was a video store clerk that claimed he had the titular lines in Out of Africa and Star Wars. For Out of Africa he said it was when Robert Redford was teaching Meryl Streep to drive, there was a lot of traffic and he pulls of next to them and says, "Boy I'm tired of all this traffic, I can't wait to get Out of Africa." and he had just filmed himself and put it into the video tape. I guess you had to see it, but that stuck with me... hence my avoidance to using one.

Picking a theme or an event in the movie is another popular method of choosing a title, but there's really not enough going on in the movie to merit a theme. It could be called "Reggie's Party" or "The Last Get Together" but I don't know. The former could be mistaken for a Reggie Jackson biopic and the latter would probably be about old people or a cancer patient. Not really slasher movie-esque.

Slasher movies (and horror in general) have a pretty standard title formula: place, date or monster. Friday the 13th, Halloween, Prom Night, Black Christmas, April Fool's Day, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Evil Dead, The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, The Changeling, The Exorcist, so on and so forth. Mundane things turned deadly! Unfortunately all the good ones were taken so I'm left with Arbor Day or obscure holidays no one will get yet are relevant to the story. I could call it Mabon but then my audience would consist of Wiccans even though the date is relevant to the story.

The same two ideas keep coming back to me and I really can't work them out to fit a slasher movie. As I mentioned in a previous blog I came up with "_____ Woods" or "_____ Park" but I just can't find a proper noun that would fit the theme of the story. I mean, a random name isn't really going to cut it in this case but giving the name of the woods would just be... naming the woods. Perhaps I'm over thinking it but maybe those are just lousy titles. "Reggie's Woods" "Scutter Park" ... who knows.

There are always the semi-descriptive titles that tell a little about the story but don't give away too much. Most of the characters know each other from the past but a few new people are introduced to the group, so it could be called "Old Friends, New Acquaintances" but that sounds more like a romantic comedy than a slasher film. In fact, I think I WILL use that for a romantic comedy, so now that you've seen it, don't steal it. Okay, hmm, some of the characters have some loose morals in regards to their relationships, so I could call the movie "Loose Morals" ... but once again that doesn't sound like a slasher movie. It kind of sounds like an 80's teen comedy, but not a good one, one of the bad ones with Andrew McCarthy. The only decent ones I can come up with would give away the whole story so they're completely out of the running and I won't even mention them.

So, in light of this I'm leaving it up to you, dear reader, to help me come up with a decent title for my slasher screenplay. Just e-mail me or leave a comment and if it's awesome, you'll have earned a special thanks.

What's REALLY Scary?

I'm about twenty pages into the first draft of my untitled slasher movie and since it's getting closer to Halloween I thought I'd explore what people (namely me) find truly scary. There are a metric ton of horror movies out there but how many of them do you still think about days, months, even years later? For me it's not many, but there certainly are a few that will stick with me for the long haul.

It was this line of thinking that got me wondering exactly WHY they were so scary, what about them when compared to other horror movies made them actually frighten me? Before I get into what's scary, let me first go over what isn't scary, and why.

Vampire movies are out. The sheer coolness of becoming a vampire (of the non-Nosferatu variety) far outweighs the scariness they bring. Look at most vampire movies... they're out there living the high life. They live in mansions, are very wealthy, go out partying. Heck, I think being a vampire would be tops so long as you don't have some self-righteous jerk off chasing you around with a silver stake or something. Look at Blade, Underworld... heck even Bram Stoker's Dracula lived in a castle. You get to stay young forever and do your thing. Even an episode of Sliders had vampires that started bands through the ages, were famous for a few years, would fade away and come back as a new genre. How fun is that! Once again though, Tommy Chong played a guy that just had to kill them. When will people learn? If there are any vampires reading this, come turn me, I need a few hundred years to hone my craft and I'm more of a night person anyway.

Zombies aren't scary either. The only idea frightening about them is the idea that there are so many and there are more of them every day. A frightening situation, sure, but the lone zombie is as threatening as a nursing home patient. It's when there are ten thousand of them between you and what you have to do that you worry. If you wander into one, push it over and go on your merry way. For the record, running zombies aren't "real" zombie. When you're dead you're all messed up, come on, you don't have the coordination anymore to run around. They're scarier, sure, but they still go down easy. Oh, and "28 Days Later" people are infected with a disease, they aren't zombies, it's not a zombie movie, it's an apocalyptic thriller, dammit. Crazy bastards running after you is pretty damn scary, infected or not.

Werewolves. Mmm... nah. A silver bullet solves your problem and they only come out for 3 days a month if it isn't cloudy (except in An American Werewolf in Paris with that weird drug. And I think Underworld... maybe. I can't remember). They're just big, angry dogs. I like the method of dealing with them introduced in Big Fish, just play fetch.

Slasher movies aren't scary. I know I'm writing one but I personally think they're not all that scary, which is why they generally go for the BOO scares as opposed to instilling fear. I know there are a lot of people that think getting chased/stalked is very scary but that's only because someone can chase or stalk you in real life. Which is scary, yes, but if someone in a Halloween/hockey mask is wandering after me without running, I'll hop in the car, go to the airport and move to Belgium. Problem solved.

Scientifically reanimated corpses (i.e. Frankenstein) ... just no. Plus if you read Mary Shelly's Frankenstein all that damn monster does is talk talk talk. Rip some heads off! The creatures from Re-Animator were kind of creepy, not necessarily scary though. Frankenhooker is also a good one. No scary though. Supercrack is kind of scary, but that's neither here nor there.

So what's actually scary?

The unknown is scary. I know that sounds kind of vague but stick with me here. Things we do not understand, cannot comprehend, or things that could happen in real life SOMEHOW are the kind of things that are actually scary. There are a few ways to narrow this down:

Religion. Yes, religion is a mainstay and source of comfort for many, but what about the dark side of religion? Pazuzu, the demon in The Exorcist is a prime example of this. He was able to infiltrate a perfectly nice family and cause multiple deaths, psychological terror, strange telekinetic happenings all within the body of a twelve year old girl. What's scary is that exorcisms were performed all over the world. I don't know what they entailed or what was happening, but the idea of the darker side of religion is kind of scary. For something more fanciful there is of course Constantine, but on the whole, religion is a scary thing. I'll avoid that obvious pitfall of what religion causes normal people to do in real life and move on to the next example.

The Supernatural. Gauge in Pet Sematary, the house in The Haunting, that chick in the corner on the ceiling in The Grudge. They are all scary because we do not understand them. Gauge was the spirit of the Wendigo (or possibly the returned vengeful spirit of the wife's sister, but I'm sticking with the ancient Indian evil spirit, the Wendigo!) killing fully grown, capable adults in the body of a not even two year old child with Achilles' tendon cutting terror. That, to me, is VERY scary. A haunted house is scary because you don't know what to expect. You know something is in there, but have no idea what there is. That's why people like adventuring in real life to abandoned places, going into something completely unknown is a thrill. A place that seems perfectly normal today, if left alone for a few years, suddenly takes on a foreboding presence. As for supernatural creatures, such as the girl from The Ring or the girl from The Grudge... they are scary because they do not have to obey the laws of this world. They have their own agenda, popping out of televisions, sitting the corner of the ceiling, coming and going at random. Even the tall man from Phantasm has that unknown element to him because you have no idea why he's doing what he's doing or what exactly is on the other side of his portal.

To be honest, the questions that "the unknown" bring up are questions that you do not want to find out the answer to. Poltergeist, House on Haunted Hill, Pulse, House... they're all creepy because you can't figure out the what, the why, or the how. The unknown throws things at you from every direction with no rhyme or reason and there's nothing you can do about it. To get to the heart of the matter, it's the loss of control and reasoning that really drive people over the edge. You can deal with vampires, werewolves, slashers, Frankenstein and zombies because they're "real" ... aside from the ghostbusters, how the hell do you stop something that doesn't exist?

Sorry to end on a question, but I'd like to hear some answers. E-mail is on the right (or leave a comment).