Writing Movies For Fun And Profit! (10 page)

Don’t get us wrong. Sometimes you do get good notes. GOOD EXECUTIVES can actually HELP your script. The simple truth is, smart people give good notes, dumb people give bad notes. Always listen with an open mind.

Casablanca,
maybe the best movie ever. Jack Warner developed the SHIT out of that script.
While they were shooting.
It had AT LEAST four teams of writers, probably MANY more. And it worked out GREAT.
Screenwriting is ALWAYS going to be collaborative. ALWAYS. Again, we are not writing novels.

The problem is, there are A LOT more DUMB executives than smart ones.
Especially when you’re just starting out as a writer, and you’re dealing with JUNIOR EXECS (many of whom are not going to
last in the business). That’s when you get notes that do not help a script. They are a waste of time, changing scripts without making them better— lateral moves that can go on for YEARS. Or worse. And all it takes is one bad executive to ruin a movie.

Why Bad Notes Happen to Good Scripts

• Sometimes an executive simply doesn’t
get
your script. (See
Chapter 14
, “
Herbie: Fully Loaded.
”)

• Sometimes they get it but they don’t like it (even though their boss, WHO BOUGHT IT, does).

• Sometimes they’re just dumb as paint.

• Sometimes they want to get some idea of theirs into the movie, even if it doesn’t work, so they can take credit for it, to gain headway in their career at the studio. (“You know that GREAT scene where Godzilla steps on a building—
that was mine
.”)

• Sometimes they have a movie
they
wanna do,
some other movie not your own
, and they haven’t been able to get it made yet—so they try to make YOUR movie into THEIR movie. (They’ve wanted to make a romance about a football player and a nerdy girl for years, so they’re gonna try to shoehorn THAT plotline into the pirate movie you’re writing.)

• Sometimes they don’t like the executive who bought your movie. Politics are rampant.

• Sometimes they don’t like you. This doesn’t happen often. If you’re a writer, most executives won’t even remember you.

• Sometimes they think
they
should be president, and they think the way to do that is to develop your movie in some new direction—to prove THEY’RE smarter than the person who
bought
your movie.

• Sometimes they get obsessed with some tiny little point and they’re going to let that unravel an entire script. We had an executive once who was a clean freak; she couldn’t stand the thought of people eating outside or in a garage. It TOTALLY destroyed a script. Sometimes it’s even semantic. “The protagonist isn’t likable enough” is a big one.
When you hear that note, without any specific, practical example of LINES or ACTIONS that make your hero unlikable:
you are screwed
.
It means the executive is probably kinda dumb. Those words—“Your protagonist isn’t likable enough”— usually mean that you’re dealing with an executive who has nothing to say, but he’s gonna say it anyway.

• And sometimes an executive will just start TALKING, spitballing in the room—and you’ll realize: this guy didn’t even read my script! Or they don’t remember it! Or they’re giving me the notes from some OTHER script he read that weekend.

Scary, huh? It’s happened to us, and IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU.

The good news:

We’ve been in the movie business for about twelve years. That’s one-eighth as long as there’s been a movie business. And we can say something with all honesty:

Most smart executives rise to the top, and most of the not-so-smart executives get fired.

… eventually.

Either they got fired or they quit to “spend time with their family” or to “try their hand at the creative/production side” or they go to work at NPR. (That means they got fired.)

Sometimes they drift around from studio to studio, not rising too high above entry-level positions before they get fired. Sometimes they go to work with a production company. And that’s good news for you. If they’re at a production company—YOU CAN AVOID WORKING WITH THEM.

Studios, you can’t avoid. They’re the ones that make the movies. And there are only a dozen of them: Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony, Columbia, 20th Century Fox, Buena Vista (Disney), Universal, Lionsgate, Fox Searchlight, the Weinstein Company, Summit Entertainment, Focus Features, and Overture Films.

But despite the fact that the idiots usually get canned, there will always be plenty of BAD executives around, and make no mistake, they will make sure that your movie sucks donkey balls.

So—how do you stop these nimrods from ruining your movie?

• If you’d like to learn a few tips, turn to
Chapter 11
, “The Art of Nodding or How To Take Notes.”

• If you’d like to follow Professor Kirby into SPACESHIP 44–7, turn to page 293, “The Treasure of the Space Incas, Continued.”

Then why not spend the afternoon checking out a famous Hollywood landmark:

THE CRAZY ROLLER-SKATING DUDE ON ROBERTSON?!

Yes, Angelenos know and love (or fear) this guy. Some folks call him “Crazy Robertson,” others know him as the dude in skintight black leggings who disco roller-skates up and down Robertson Boulevard pretty much every single day. He’s a real treat for the eyes—
if you consider a fifty-year-old man with a beard and leggings so tight that you can clearly see the outline of his genitals a treat!
(Count us in!!!)

To top it all off, HE’S A PRETTY GOOD ROLLER SKATER. Not amazing by any standards, no, and certainly not as good as even the very worst disco roller skaters you’d see in Central Park, New York City. But what he lacks in technical prowess, he makes up for in
joie de vivre
! And in
c’est la guerre
… and
cherchez la femme
—by which we mean: yes,
he’s crazy as hell
. Or at least he SEEMS pretty crazy.

To see him: park at any of the PUBLIC PARKING options on Robertson
Boulevard between Beverly and 3rd Street. (Careful if you park in front of the Ivy; Lindsay Lohan sometimes crashes cars there.
*
)

Then KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED, HE’S HARD TO SPOT! (Just kidding, he’s a six-foot-tall dude with a beard on roller skates whose balls you can pretty much see.)

Enjoy!

Why not make an afternoon of seeing “Crazy Robertson” and get a quick bite at any of the top-notch restaurants nearby:

The Ivy. Where they have lunch in
Get Shorty
and Danny DeVito orders stuff that’s not on the menu.

chaya Brasserie. Incredibly hip; the hostess usually looks like a professional model, only slightly hotter.

Newsroom Cafe. So “L.A.” that it’s almost annoying. Try the Blue Corn Waffle or the whatever Sambazon Acai is or even the Hemp Granola, you fruitcake!

Great news! They read your script, and now the studio (or producer) has some notes! Fun! Wait … not fun. Notes means there are things they didn’t like in your script, which, as we all know, is
f#@king perfect
. But—they’re the ones paying you, so yes, you have to do the notes. Remember, it’s not your script. It’s theirs. They bought it from you. For lots of money.

N.B.:
*

Notes you do for a studio = You get paid to do

Notes you do for a producer = A “producer’s draft”

And for a producer’s draft you DON’T GET PAID, ever. And the producer can give you a ton of notes, and you have to do them all for free! Another reason that having an outside producer on your script can be next to useless. There is an art to nodding and smiling while they tear your script to pieces.

Taking notes is easy, but it takes a bit of practice and a Jedi level of control over your ego.

Here are the steps to doing it right and getting hired again and again (and subsequently getting as rich as a low-level sultan!)

Rule 1. ACTUALLY TAKE NOTES. Meaning: WRITE DOWN WHAT THEY SAY. Don’t just sit there listening like a turd, write down everything that they say, and do it for two reasons: One, KEEPING YOUR HANDS BUSY LIKE THIS WILL HELP PREVENT YOU FROM MAKING THE “RAGE FACES” THAT YOU WILL BE INCLINED TO MAKE WHEN YOU HEAR THEIR CRAPPY IDEAS. And two, you will remember and incorporate far more of their notes if you’ve written them down. Most studio heads will be VERY HAPPY if in your next draft you include a literal line or phrase that they said during the notes meeting. For example: If the studio head says, “I feel like our main character is a guy who never appreciated the things in his life that are right under his nose,” your next draft should include dialogue like this:

RICK

Yes, it can be that literal
. It will show that you understood, and you will be hired again, and the studio will love it. No joke.

Rule 2. Listen. And show them you’re listening by nodding. Subtle but steady nodding is a nice subconscious way that people feel like you are agreeing with them, and that you respect what they’re saying. Practice nodding and looking relaxed when you’re REALLY ANNOYED, and you’ll become a good note taker. After you leave the room, they’ll say, “I like that guy. We should let him take a look at our
Basset Hound/Switcheroo
picture.”

Rule 3. WHEN THEY’RE RIGHT—AGREE, AND IMPROVE UPON THE IDEA. Subdue your ego. Be the first person to support someone else’s good idea. Hell, let the studio president feel like your idea is HER idea. Who cares, if it moves the script forward? Remember, your job is to help them keep THEIR job.

Rule 4. WHEN THEY’RE WRONG—LET YOUR DISAGREEMENT BE QUIET AND THOUGHTFUL. Don’t be argumentative; it’s way too easy to get fired. Be thoughtful. Practice turning your “mad” face into a “I’m thinking about it” face.

Tell them that you’ll think about it—and do think about it. See if there’s a way to make some version of their crappy idea work. You will always sound VERY CONFIDENT if you say this simple phrase:

“I’m not sure if it’s going to work, but I’m definitely going to try it.”

Disagreeing and being argumentative “in the room” is pointless. Of course you should have opinions, and of course you should push your point of view, but be like a reed—strong but flexible—or somebody will snap, and as the writer, you’re usually the easiest person in the room to fire.

Then: After the notes meeting, alone with your MacBook Pro—focus on the good notes. You’re the writer. You’re in the driver’s seat. Do the good notes, and gloss over or skip the bad ones entirely. And if there is some way to do some version of their bad notes that’s actually good—figure it out and do it. For
example: if they think farts are hilarious and suggest that your ex-cop hero fart
all the time
and you give the hero a dog who farts a couple of times, the studio will love that you put “their idea” into the script. Yet you didn’t turn your movie into a “farting ex-cop” movie.