Join the NWSG Mailing List

Screenwriting Blog

Ruminations about screenwriting, movies, Hollywood, and the Seattle filmmaking scene by NWSG President, Aadip Desai

Mar 2008:

 

March 29, 2008 - Sanjay Shah's Episode of King of the Hill

Past guest and buddy of mine, Sanjay Shah (Story Editor at King of the Hill) is pleased to announce that an episode he wrote, called "Pour Some Sugar on Kahn" will air tomorrow, Sunday March 30th at 8:30PM. He says it no longer has anything to do with the very great Def Leppard song by the (almost) same name because the script changed a lot from the first draft because sometimes you just can't acquire rights to a song..."

Cool.

March 28, 2008 - Anthony Minghella Died on the 18th

I don't know how this got past me. I guess we've been swamped over the Guild. According to Variety, Producer-writer-director Anthony Minghella died at the age 54 of a brain hemorrhage. His credits include "Cold Mountain," "The Talented Mr Ripley," "The English Patient" and "Truly Madly Deeply." I was a huge fan of both Cold Mountain and Talented Mr. Ripley. It's sad to see someone with his talent and vision go so young and just out of nowhere. 

March 27, 2008 - Kevin and Matt /Post Pitches / Catherine Ann Jones

We just finished up the weekend with film execs, Kevin Chang of Misher Films and Matt Skiena of Village Roadshow. They were extremely forthcoming and generous during our extensive interview/Q&A session with yours truly. That was some turnout - around 50-60 people. We even got to see a new trailer for Speed Racer, as well as a promo sales reel for Get Smart with Steve Carrell. Pretty hilarious.

On Saturday, they heard 30 pitches, yep, 30, from our Compendium Members. All the while my dog, Brando, was running around like a crazy pup. Funny enough, the execs requested his presence at the pitches. I think he helped calm a lot of people down, too. I hope.

Matt and Kevin felt that our pitches were "a cut above" what they usually get down in LA. Pretty cool. Finally, I'm happy to report that the execs requested contact info for eleven Guild writers so far. Way to go NWSG!

Lastly, we're pleased and excited to start promoting our next event, April 11-12 with Catherine Ann Jones. She will be presenting her much-lauded Way of Story workshop. Did I mention she's got an NEA Award, Fullbright, and several others? This one will sell out.

Way of Story may appear as a deceptively simple memoir/manual, but it is not. Catherine rockets you into the essentials of craft, as well as urging you to dig deep into yourself and transmit your emotions to the page, and the story. Few books simultaneously pay equal attention to both the architecture AND the soul of the story.  Finally, I think the book offers gems to both novice and experienced writers, including advice and a bounty of challenging exercises to get the ideas out of your head and onto the page. I wish I'd had this book when I started!

March 20, 2008 - WA State Screenplay Competition

I'm pleased to finally announce that the 11th Annual WA State Screenplay Competition will be co-sponsored and co-run by the Northwest Film Forum and us, the NWSG. The good thing is that being a member of either organization does not, and I repeat, does not prevent you from entering in the competition.

You just have to meet one of the following requirements:
a) Written by a resident of Washington State
b) 50% set in Washington State,
c) Able to be filmed in Washington State.

March 12, 2008 - Steve Kaplan in August!

I'm pleased to announce that the NWSG will be hosting Steve Kaplan's Comedy Intensive Workshop on August 1-3. From top stars to first time comedy screenwriters, TV writers, producers, directors and performers, Kaplan has worked with and coached the best. He has also served as a consultant to Dreamworks, Disney, HBO and others.

I'm personally excited to invite such a well-regarded instructor to Seattle, once again bringing the best Hollywood has to offer to our backdoor. (Did that sound dirty? Not sure.)

We'll be posting the sign-up/registration soon, so you can get in early and reserve a spot. I think they'll go fast.

March 7, 2008 - Captain Subtext

CouplingI just watched a rerun of the brilliant BBC sitcom, COUPLING. In this episode, called, Her Best Friend's Bottom (air date - 9/17/2001), Steve has just accidentally seen Sally's arse in his own bathroom (Sally is Susan's best friend, Susan is Steve's girlfriend) and Jeff, the lovable dork (who works with Susan), pleads with Steve never to tell Susan about the incident. Here is a transcription of their conversation about CAPTAIN SUBTEXT.

INT. THE BAR - EVENING

Jeff, Steve and Patrick sit around their usual table.

JEFF

And what if Susan asks if you liked your best friend's bottom?

STEVE

What if?

JEFF

Do you know what she'll really be asking? Do you know what Captain Subtext would say?"

*This is where I fell out of my couch, or however you say that.

STEVE

Captain Subtext?

JEFF

She'll be saying "Do you fancy my best friend?"

STEVE

And who is...Captain...Subtext?

JEFF

So what will you tell her when she asks you that?

STEVE

The truth.

JEFF
But you do fancy her. Everybody fancies Sally.

STEVE

OK, I'll tell her lies.

JEFF

She'll know.

STEVE

Will Captain Subtext tell her?

JEFF
Captain Subtext isn't a real person, Steve.

STEVE
Yes, I got that. So who will tell her?

JEFF

The prickles, the blurts, and the head laugh.

And are they real, or do they work with the Captain?

JEFF

Oh Steve, they're real.

Now, you might be asking, what has that got to do with anything? Well, I'm reading a small, but brilliant book by Charles Baxter called "The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot" which contains some astounding comments about setting the stage to write subtextual dialogue. The first time I heard about subtext was in Robert McKee's "Story" Workshop.

The subtext (and this is where the intrepid Captain comes in) is the unstated, unspoken, oblique feelings the characters are having or implying.  As Baxter puts it, "It is not that actions speak louder than words; they speak instead of words."   He also says, "The story in the foreground serves as what I call the "staging area," where we witness the gradual uprising of what has gone unsaid. As a consequence, [Beaushean] stories are almost ritually haunted by the inexpressible."I can't wait to get further in this book.

Basically, writing the subtext, or not writing it as it were, is the best way to avoid on-the-nose (OTN) dialogue. In novice screenplays, we often see characters thinking out loud to one another and inserting large bits of backstory (exposition). The experts do a great job of expressing the unexpressed, making their characters lie through their teeth while we know how they feel, and learning about characters through their actions. Pretty cool.

March 5, 2008 - Finishing a Screenplay Is Fun/
Upcoming Screenwriting Competitions

My writing partner and I just finished the fourth (and I hope) final draft of our screenplay, Happy Accident. We've been working on this for a long time, having lived through our brutal page-one rewrite (our main character's name changed!), a significantly revamped third draft, and a polished fourth draft. It's out to our proofreaders to make sure we haven't dangled any participles or committed gerundic atrocities.

There's nothing like finishing a screenplay, right? Whether anybody likes it, options it, produces it, or uses it for toilet paper (card stock title pages hurt), it's an accomplishment in its own right. I applaude anyone who has finished a screenplay, whether it be a short, a TV teleplay, or feature.

On a related note, now that it's (nearly) done, we can apply to some upcoming screenplay competitions, along with the rest of you. Good luck.

Based on the screenplays I've read recently from some of our members, I think those judges will be pleasantly suprised by those scripts coming from Washington State.