The Raider's sessions.

This week's episode of Scriptnotes does something new and fun. In what I hope becomes a recurring thing, they take a classic movie, in this instance Raiders of the Lost Ark, and break it down from a screenwriter's perspective.

They also include a link to a transcript of the legendary Raiders sessions, the brainstorming sessions between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan, which were originally recorded on tape. This is a must read for any Raiders fan who's interested in the movie-making process, or frankly, any creative endeavor.

I took the transcript, fixed a ton of typos and converted it into a much more convenient PDF document which you can read or download here.

Enjoy.

I just got me some credit...

A nice surprise was waiting for me in my inbox this morning in the form of an email from the Gimme Credit International Screenplay Competition. Looks like I placed first in their short script category with my short, Trunk.

This was not the first competition I submitted the script to, but it was the first to be judged, so technically I can say I won the first competition I was ever in. Hey, let me gloat a little… opportunities are few and far between nowadays.

My favorite thing about it, actually, is that I submitted my entry on the last day they were accepting submissions, after stumbling upon the site through a Google search for short screenplay competitions. Hurray for lucky accidents!

Anyway, I realize this is minor, but it’s still a step in the right direction, and it’s good to feel like I might actually know what I’m doing!

 

So you wanna learn to write for movies? A little Q and A session with myself.

Many friends have asked me about my experience with the UCLA Extension writer's program, so I decided to write a little bit about it here.

I thought I could start by answering a few obvious questions that someone contemplating joining the  program  might have, and since I once was that someone, I went back in time and met with my former clueless self in order to answer said questions. 

Hopefully it can benefit your current, curious selves.

Old Me (OM) - So, can I take online classes at UCLA Extension even if I live outside the United States?

Current Me (CM) - Absolutely. Even though most of the classmates I met over the course of the program were living somewhere in the States, I met many Canadians, some Europeans and South Americans, even one or two Indians. And the way I understand this, they all paid the same price for their classes. 

OM - Neat, but what about time differences?

CM - Simple, classes are structured in a way that does not require you to dial-in at a specific time, so time zones are irrelevant. As long as you post your weekly assignments in time and respect deadlines, you can work at your own pace and on your own time.

OM - Cool, but can I afford it?

CM - Well, obviously it depends, but very likely, yes. Especially if you live in the U.S.

OM - How so?

CM - The tuition costs themselves are not incredibly high to begin with, but thanks to federal programs like the Lifetime Learning Credit, you can get a good chunk of your tuition expenses refunded when you produce your tax declaration, which makes it even more affordable. I'll have to look back into my past taxes to get an exact figure, but I know for a fact that more than half of my tuition costs were refunded over the two years I took classes.

OM - Sweeeet! So how much is it really going to cost me?

CM - The estimated tuition for the Feature Film Writing (FFW) program is about 3500$. Cut that in half and you're looking at less than 2000$, quite less actually. Of course I can't tell you how it is in other countries, but it's worth looking into it as you might find similar programs.

OM - Sold. So how long is this going to take me?

CM - A typical certificate program requires you to accrue 18 units to graduate. That's six classes. I recommend taking one class per session, which is more than enough work, especially if you are also working full time. There are four sessions per year and classes typically run for about ten weeks, so you get a little break in between each session. At that rhythm, you should complete the program in a year and a half, providing you get a passing grade (C) in each of your classes.

OM - Okay. So these six classes, what are they about exactly?

CM - Well, the first four are mandatory and are called Writing The First Screenplay I to IV. The last two are electives, meaning you can choose any two classes of your choice among the ones available not only in the FFW program but also in the Television Writing program. A few examples of what these might be are Crafting The Thriller, Writing For Emotional Impact or Writing The Half-Hour Comedy.

OM - Sounds neat, but what exactly do you do in these first four mandatory classes?

CM - The main goal of the program is to take you through the steps of creating a complete screenplay, so that's what these first four classes do. In the first class you will be required to read a lot of screenplays, which is always a good thing, and watch the movies they were made into. This is meant to help you see how what's on the page translates onto the screen, and help you develop a critical eye. In that class you will also create an outline for your first screenplay, so coming in with an idea of what you might want to write helps a lot.

OM - And then? And then?

CM - Excited aren't we? Well, over the course of the next three classes you will proceed to write the first, second and third acts for your script, ideally based on the outline you created in the first class. Things always change a bit along the way, but the closer you can stick to your original plan the better. Just don't expect it to be spectacular..., it won't be. But that's okay, there will we plenty of time to rewrite it later and make it better.

OM - Wait, what? Rewrite? Why rewrite it? Can 't I just sell it to Hollywood for a million dollars?

CM -  Oh boy...

to be continued...

Let's make a deal...

A friend of mine recently turned me on to a Hulu exclusive series called The Booth at the End and I just love it (thanks Jhove). The series asks one simple question: "How far would you go to get what you want?"

I would really do anyone a disservice by saying too much about it, but it is a shining example of the fantastic things you can accomplish with little or no budget but lots of smarts and talent. I highly recommend it.

A week of firsts

Big week. I submitted my first ever request to the US Copyrights office for my short script Trunk, and just today I sent it in for the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition, also my first submission to a screenplay competition ever.

This also forced me to come up with a logline for the script, which goes like this:

A bank robbery gone bad has dire consequences after the robbers hijack a car from a group of teens.

Fingers crossed...

I'm now sharing "Trunk" on Google Drive, you can read it here.

The first three pages of the script were analyzed by John August and Craig Mazin on their Scriptnotes podcast as part of their Three Page Challenge a few weeks ago, which lead to a funny discussion about my nationality, among other things. Overall they seemed to enjoy the pages, which is in part what gave me the courage to finally put the script out there for others to read. You can listen to the podcast here or read the transcript here if you prefer.The podcast is also available on iTunes.

I realize it's only a short, and one that is very unlikely to ever be shot due to its content, but it's the first bit of writing that I really spent time rewriting and polishing. I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, but as they say, you could work forever on a script, but there comes a time when you just have to consider it done and put it out there. This was a practice run, and I am now tackling the first rewrite of my first full length feature, the one I started while going through the UCLA Extension program. I'm not gonna say too much about it yet, except that it is a horror-comedy based in the corporate world. Think Shaun of the Dead meets Office Space...

A little while ago a friend of mine turned me on to an interesting little contest put together by Bombay Sapphire in association with the Tribeca film festival and screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher. Fletcher basically came up with a premise and wrote and very simple script for it, and it was up the participants to make the script more specific and describe how they would shoot it. Read about it here.

I basically found out about the competition a few days before the deadline and finally settled on an idea and started writing it literally an hour before they closed up to submission. I scrambled to complete the script and hit the link to submit it at 11:59pm, but hit my nose on the door. Apparently my computer's clock and theirs weren't in sync...

So I could not submit my script to the contest, but since I'd written it I figured I should put it somewhere it can be read, so here it is.

The Door