14 Days script analysis: Aliens

Posted as an update in the original post, but I'm re-posting here for those who might otherwise miss it.

I'd never read the script for Aliens, so it was interesting going through the story on the page and slogging through the mush which is my brain cells nowadays to dredge up memories from having seen the movie over 2 decades ago. As usual, GITS readers lasered in on some of the story's key themes that also struck me. In this case, I want to spotlight two points. The first from cfan:

And, to Cameron's credit, he built a great inner conflict for Ripley in the midst of a story that could easily have been all external conflict. The theme of lost and found motherhood (and humanity) is excellent throughout.

The next from Lalithra Fernando:

The more interesting theme, I thought, was one of greed. Greed is a moving force in this story.

Greed is why Ripley is saved--the rescuers were looking for salvage and thus money.

Greed is why the Aliens are unleashed--Burke calls it in w/o any warnings and the family ventures inside after claiming the ship for themselves.

These are the dual thematic engines that propel the emotional throughline of the script (the battle between the humans and aliens driving the Plotline).

GREED

The theme is introduced in the script's very first side of dialogue (P. 1):

LEADER
Bio-readout are all in the green.
She's alive. Well, there goes our
salvage, guys.

The team disappointed to find a live human being when they thought they were going to score some cash from space salvage.

Greed is evident over and over again throughout the script, both on a personal level (individuals) and a macro level (the company). Per the latter:

P. 7
VAN LEUWEN
Look at it from our perspective,
please. You freely admit to
detonating the engines of, and
thereby destroying an M-Class
star freighter. A rather expensive
piece of hardward...

INSURANCE INVESTIGATOR
Forty-two million in adjusted dollars.
That's minus payload, of course.

P. 10
BURKE
Well, the corporation co-financed that
colony with the Colonial Administration,
against mineral rights. We're getting
into a lot of terraforming...'Building
Better Worlds.'

P. 35
GORMAN
(to Burke)
Looks like your company can write
off its share of this colony.

BURKE
(unconcerned)
It's insured.

P. 56
RIPLEY
I say we take off and nuke the
entire site from orbit. It's
the only way to be sure.

BURKE
Whoah! Hold on a second. This
installation has a substantial
dollar value attached to it --

P. 57
BURKE
Look, this is a multimillion dollar
installation. He can't make that
kind of decision. He's just a grunt!

And then on a personal level:

P. 13 (Russ Jorden, Newt's father, and his family)
JORDEN
(a gloating cackle)
Look at this fat, juicy magnetic
profile. And it's mine, mine, mine.

ANNE
Half mine, dear.

P. 19 (Drake, a soldier, waking up from hyper-sleep)
DRAKE
They ain't payin' us enough for this, man.

P. 67
RIPLEY
Look, Burke, we had an agreement!

BURKE
I know, I know, but we're dealing
with changing scenarios here. This
thing is major, Ripley. You gotta
go with its energy. Look, you're
the representative of the company
who discovered this species, your
percentage is going to be some
serious money. I mean serious.

P. 82
RIPLEY
You know, Burke, I don't know which
species is worse. You don't see them
screwing each other over for a fucking
percentage.

Greed is what resulted in the human colonization of LV-426 in the first place. Greed is what drove Russ Jorden into the den of the alien eggs, reawakening them to violence. Greed is what led the company to send Ripley, Burke, and the military outfit to the planet. Greed is what causes Burke to make several choices which threaten human lives, including his nefarious plan at the end of Act Two (P. 81):

RIPLEY
He [Burke] figured he could get an alien
back through quarantine if one of us
was impregnated...whatever you call
it...then frozen for the trip back. Nobody
would know about the embryos we
were carrying. Me and Newt.

HICKS
Wait a minute. We'd know about it.

RIPLEY
The only way it would work is if
he sabotaged certain freezers on the
ship. Then he could jettison the
bodies and make up any story he liked.

So the element of greed, which was present in Alien -- primarily through Ash (the robot played by Ian Holm) overriding logic and concern for human life to follow a prime directive from the company to bring back any alien life-forms -- is present in the sequel, only elevated to a higher, and therefore more egregious level.

One element that was not in the original is the theme of motherhood. It gets introduced early on in the script (P. 4), where upon learning that she was in a state of frozen sleep for fifty-seven years, Ripley makes another startling discovery courtesy of Burke:

He opens his briefcase, removing a sheet of printer hard
copy, including a telestat photo.

RIPLEY
Is she...?

BURKE
(scanning)
Amanda Ripley-McClaren. Married
name, I guess. Age: sixty-six...
at time of death. Two years ago.
(looks at her)
I'm sorry.

Ripley studies the PHOTOGRAPH, stunned. The face of a
woman in her mid-sixties. It could be anybody. She
tries to reconcile the face with the little girl she once knew.

RIPLEY
Any.

BURKE
(reading)
Cancer. Hmmmm. They still haven't
licked that one. Cremated. Interred
Westlake Repository, Little Chute,
Wisconsin. No children.

Ripley gazes off, into the pseudo-landscape, into the past.

RIPLEY
No children.
(a beat, then)
I promised her I'd be home for her
birthday. Here eleventh birthday.

BURKE
Some promises you just can't keep.

Let's get one thing straight...Ripley can be one tough
lady. But the terror, the loss, the emptiness are, in
this moment, overwhelming. She cries silently.

This sets up perfectly the Ripley-Newt subplot, the story within the story that carries the greatest emotional heft. Amidst all the violence and the chaos on LV-426, the relationship that builds between Ripley and the little orphan girl Newt is for much of Act Two the eye of the storm, a place where the story quiets down and becomes quite human.

The crew first finds Newt on P. 38:

Ripley dives, squirms into the duct without thinking. Just
ahead she sees Newt enter a dark space and slam a steel
hatch. Ripley pushes the hatch open before the child
can latch it, and crawls in after her.

Newt is backed into a cul-de-sac in the tiny steel chamber.
Ripley shines her light around in amazement. It is a NEST.
A next built by a child. Wadded up blankets and pillows
line the space, mixed up with a haphazard array of TOYS,
STUFFED ANIMALS, DOLLS, CHEAP JEWELRY, COMIC
BOOKS, EMPTY FOOD PACKETS, even a battery-operated
TAPE PLAYER.

Newt edges along the far wall and dives for the hatch.
Ripley grabs her, controlling her in a bear hug. The kid
struggles wildly, like a cat at the vet's.

RIPLEY
It's okay, it's okay. It's over...
you're going to be all right now...
it's okay...you're safe.

Newt goes limp, almost catatonic. Her stare vacant,
traumatized. We read a dark nightmare world in her eyes.

We read a dark nightmare world in her eyes. Great scene description - and intended to arouse in us feelings of sympathy for Newt, so that we connect with Ripley who is obviously connecting with Newt. As we see in a tiny beat on P. 40:

Ripley kneels beside Newt, brushing the girl's unkempt hair
out of her eyes in a gently, maternal fashion.

RIPLEY
Here, try this. A little instant
hot chocolate.

Hot chocolate, brushing the girl's hair back, washing her face - all symbolic moments of Ripley reaching out to connect with Newt, which they do. After a big action sequence, the first battle between aliens and humans, Cameron slows the pace and lets the story settle into a human moment between Ripley and Newt (P. 64):

NEWT
My mommy always said there were no
monsters. No real ones. But there
are.

Ripley's expression become sober. She brushes damp hair
back from the child's forehead.

RIPLEY
Yes, there are, aren't there?

NEWT
Why do they tell little kids that?

Newt's voice betrays her deep sense of betrayal.

RIPLEY
Well, some kids can't handle it like
you can.

NEWT
Did one of those things grow inside
her?

Ripley begins pulling blankets up and tucking them in
around her tiny body.

RIPLEY
I don't know, Newt. That's the truth.

NEWT
Isn't that how babies come? I mean
people babies...they grow insid
you?

RIPLEY
No, it's different, honey.

NEWT
Did you ever have a baby?

RIPLEY
Yes. A little girl.

NEWT
Where is she?

RIPLEY
Gone.

NEWT
You mean dead.

Then later in the scene:

RIPLEY
Newt...I won't leave you, honey.
I mean it. That's a promise.

NEWT
You promise?

RIPLEY
Cross my heart.

NEWT
And hope to die?

Ripley flinches at the innocently grim expression.

RIPLEY
And hope to die.

Newt grabs her in a desperate hug and Ripley returns it
slowly, a bit overwhelmed at first, then with fierce
emotion. The child's need is so vast, Ripley prays she
has made a promise she can keep.

RIPLEY
Now go to sleep...and don't dream.

What a great little scene, working its way through so many levels of meaning and emotion: The fact that they both have faced the horror of the alien, they both have nightmares, they both have suffered loss -- Newt her family, Ripley her daughter, both have been betrayed -- Newt by her mother with her fabrication about there being no monsters and Ripley by Ash (in Alien) and the company. And so clearly each has moved -- psychologically -- into a kinship, Ripley Newt's surrogate mother and Newt Ripley's surrogate daughter.

Consider this: What if this subplot was absent from the script? Imagine how little meaning and connection to all the violence and death between humans and aliens. In my view, it is this relationship, where Ripley assumes the position of 'motherhood' re Newt, that gives the story its most resonate emotional substance. And that gets played out in an even more complicated and ironic fashion when the Final Struggle turns out to be Ripley the Mother versus Alien the Mother (P. 97):

A massive silhouette in the mist, the ALIEN QUEEN glowers
over her eggs like a great, glistening black insect-Buddha.
What's bigger and meaner than the Alien? His momma. Her
fanged head is an unimaginable horror. Her six limbs, the
four arms and two powerful legs, are folded grotesquely over
her distended abdomen. The egg-filled abdomen swells and
swells into a great pulsing tubular sac, suspended from a
lattice of pipes and conduits by a weblike membrane as if
some vast coil of intestine was draped carelessly among the
machinery.

A great beat to sympathize the Alien Queen, providing an equivalent of Ripley's Newt - the Alien Queen's 'children'. Then after the aliens take Newt, intent on using her as a cocoon, this happens (P. 102):

INT. CARGO LOCK

The Queen spins at the sound of door motors behind her. The
parting doors REVEAL an inhuman silhouette standing there.

Ripley steps out, WEARING TWO TONS OF HARDENED STEEL. THE
POWER LOADER. Like medieval armor with the power of a
bulldozer. She takes a step...the massive foot CRASH-CLANGS
to the deck. She takes another, advancing.

RIPLEY
Get away from her, you bitch!

Awesome line of dialogue. And befitting a mainstream commercial movie, Ripley defeats her Nemesis and saves Newt, leading to this Denouement beat (P. 105):

INT. HYPERSLEEP

Ripley sits at the edge of an open hypersleep capsule in
which Newt is lying. Behind them, already going under,
is Hicks and in a farther capsule, Bishop, wrapped in a
plastic membrane.

NEWT
Are we going to sleep all the way
back?

RIPLEY
That's right.

NEWT
Can we dream?

RIPLEY
Yes, honey. I think we both can.

Aliens is one of those rare cases where the sequel is equal to, if not better than the original. Cameron accomplishes that for a number of reasons, chief among them by making everything bigger (aliens, weaponry, action sequences), but also advancing the story, not content to do essentially a remake, but rather adding new thematic wrinkles:

* Ripley knows the horror of the aliens, while in Act One and the first part of Act Two, her crew mates don't.

* The lives of a lot more people are in jeopardy this time around on LV-426.

* Bishop turns out to be a Mentor character, not a Trickster like Ash.

But primarily Cameron elevates the material by weaving into the plot two key themes: Greed and Motherhood.

One final note: As I was finishing up the script, reading the lines about both Ripley and Newt being able to "dream" now, no longer tormented by nightmares, I suddenly thought of Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. Like Ripley, Clarice has been haunted by nightmares, tied to the violent death of a loved one in her past. And Clarice, too, takes on a type of maternal role - at least in her own (probably) subconscious mind - toward Catherine Martin, the last of Buffalo Bill's kidnapping victims. In fact, Hannibal Lecter flat out says to her, "And you think if you can save poor Catherine Martin, you can make them stop, you won't ever wake up in the dark to the screaming of the lambs?" Interesting that these two strong female leads have to get in touch with their maternal instincts and save a young girl / woman in order to silence their nightmares.

14 Days of Screenplays, Version 3.0 -- Day 12: Psycho

Today is Day 12 of the "14 Days of Screenplays, Version 3.0" challenge and the featured screenplay is for the movie Psycho (1960). You can download the script from myPDFscripts.com here.

Background: Psycho was nominated for 4 Academy Awards and screenwriter Joseph Stefano received the WGA Award for Best Written American Drama. The movie currently has a 8.7 rating on IMDB.com and is ranked #22 among the site's top 250 most popular movies.

Here is an interview snippet with the movie's director Alfred Hitchcock from 1960, the year of Psycho's release, in which Hitchcock offers up one of his most famous observations about movies: "Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."



I want to give time for people to weigh in about the script, those who have read it for the challenge as well as anyone else who has read the script in the past. I'll update this post with my thoughts on the script later.

What did you think of Psycho?

For links to all 14 scripts in the challenge, go here.

And remember: We'll be reading 1 script per day and discussing them through November 22. I'll be posting something everyday at 4PM U.S. Eastern Daylight Time / 1PM PST for your comments.

The script for Day 13 of the challenge is Crash (2004), available at myPDFscripts.com.

UPDATE: As E.C. correctly points out, the script currently available for download from myPDFscripts.com is messed up. I've contacted them about uploading a better draft, but please email me for a clean copy:

scottdistillery@gmail.com

Thanks, E.C. for the heads up.

Friday Moview Reviews

The Blind Side (Warner Bros.)

Daily Variety (Joe Leydon): "But this Nov. 20 Warners release is particularly well positioned to be a four-quadrant hit as the consensus choice of family auds during the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays."

Hollywood Reporter (Michael Rechtshaffen): "Sandra Bullock's a buoyant blast in this otherwise uninspired true sports story."

Planet 51 (Sony)

Daily Variety (Todd McCarthy): "A high concept gets low execution in "Planet 51," a lame-brained toon that even kids will recognize as an insipid goof on sci-fi conventions."

Hollywood Reporter (Kirk Honeycutt): "A playful throwback to the days when cartoons were mostly aimed at children."

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Summit)

Daily Variety (Jordan Mintzer): "Moon" should cause boffo B.O. tides and could outperform its predecessor, which grossed $383 million worldwide.While this second chapter of Summit Entertainment's four-part franchise is as good as "Twilight" and arguably a shade better, it's indisputably darker in its depiction of the throes and woes of adolescent love, especially when one gets dumped."

Hollywood Reporter (Michael Rechtshaffen): "Although playing it safe, this slightly improved sequel is destined to make an even bigger b.o. killing."

Writers on how they write: Amitav Ghosh

The Wall Street Journal had a great article a few weeks back: "How to Write a Great Novel", reflections by novelists on how they approach writing. Since the article is subscription only, I'm featuring one writer per day here, highlighting their process with a key excerpt from the article.

Today's writer is Amitav Ghosh whose novels include "The Hungry Tide" and "Sea of Poppies."

Mr. Ghosh writes by hand, then types a manuscript onto his laptop. Every morning, he revises what he wrote the day before. Every sentence that appears in his books has been through at least 20 revisions, he says.

Mr. Ghosh, who is now working on the sequel to "Sea of Poppies," which is part of a trilogy, is particular about everything from his pen to the type of paper he writes on. He insists black ink Pelikan pens are the best, and buys white, lined paper from a French manufacturer. "If you work on paper so much, you get obsessive about even the spacing of the lines," he says. "I need them to be fairly widely spaced."

I've been using the same pen type for over two decades: Pentel Rolling Writer (black). I'm actually rather obsessive about it. I like it because the ink flows freely which helps because my writing hand is always trying to keep up with what I'm hearing in my brain. Fine line pens slow me down. How about you? Favorite pen?

THR: Writers Roundtable, Part 3

For the last few years, the Hollywood Reporter has brought together screenwriters just in advance of the awards season to talk about their movies. This year's version:

The Hollywood Reporter's Jay A. Fernandez and Matthew Belloni gathered six screenwriters -- Mark Boal ("The Hurt Locker"), Scott Z. Burns ("The Informant!"), Geoffrey Fletcher ("Precious"), Nick Hornby ("An Education"), Scott Neustadter ("(500) Days of Summer") and Anthony Peckham ("Invictus," "Sherlock Holmes") -- who not only managed to get their work produced this year, but also had films that are generating talk.

Part 2 of the writers roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter:



I can definitely see The Hurt Lock, Precious, and (500) Days of Summer getting nominations. Also In the Air and Up.

What other movies do you think will nab best screenwriting nominations?

Great Scene: "Sunset Blvd."

It's one of the most famous endings in Hollywood film history with one of the most famous last lines of dialogue as well: Sunset Blvd. (1950), co-written by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder, their 17th and final collaboration, and directed by Wilder. Here is a plot summary from IMDB.com:

In Hollywood of the 50's, the obscure screenplay writer Joe Gillis is not able to sell his work to the studios, is full of debts and is thinking in returning to his hometown to work in an office. While trying to escape from his creditors, he has a flat tire and parks his car in a decadent mansion in Sunset Boulevard. He meets the owner and former silent-movie star Norma Desmond, who lives alone wit her butler and driver Max von Mayerling. Norma is demented and believes she will return to the cinema industry, and is protected and isolated from the world by Max, who was his director and husband in the past and still loves her. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her comeback to the cinema, and the small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end.

In the final scene, Norma (Gloria Swanson) is coaxed down to be arrested by the illusion that she is filming a movie scene. Max, played by famed German director Erich von Stroheim, is perceived to be Cecille B. DeMille by the now deranged Norma. Here is the script:

E-47    STAIRCASE AND LOWER HALL

         Max makes his way down the stairs through the crowd
         of newsmen to the newsreel cameras, which are being
         set up in the hall below.

                           MAX
                 Is everything set up, gentlemen?
                 Are the lights ready?

         From the stairway comes a murmur.  They look up.

         Norma has emerged from the bedroom and comes to the
         head of the stairs.  There are golden spangles in
         her hair and in her hand she carries a golden scarf.

         The police clear a path for her to descend.  Press
         cameras flash at her every step.

         Max stands at the cameras.

                           MAX
                 Is everything set up, gentlemen?

                           CAMERAMAN
                 Just about.

         The portable lights flare up and illuminate the
         staircase.

                           MAX
                 Are the lights ready?

                           2ND CAMERA MAN
                 All set.

                           MAX
                 Quiet, everybody!  Lights!
                 Are you ready, Norma?

                           NORMA
                     (From the top of the
                      stairs)
                 What is the scene? Where am I?

                           MAX
                 This is the staircase of the palace.

                            NORMA
                Oh, yes, yes.  They're below,
                waiting for the Princess ...
                I'm ready.

                            MAX
                All right.
                     (To cameramen)
                Camera!
                     (To Norma)
                Action!

         Norma arranges the golden             GILLIS' VOICE
         scarf about her and proudly   So they were grinding
         starts to descend the stair-  after all, those cam-
         case.  The cameras grind.     eras.  Life, which can
         Everyone watches in awe.      be strangely merciful,
                                       had taken pity on Norma
                                       Desmond.  The dream she
                                       had clung to so des-
                                       perately had enfolded
                                       her...

         At the foot of the stairs Norma stops, moved.

                           NORMA
                I can't go on with the scene.
                I'm too happy.  Do you mind,
                Mr. DeMille, if I say a few words?
                Thank you.  I just want to tell
                you how happy I am to be back in
                the studio making a picture again.
                You don't know how much I've missed
                all of you.  And I promise you
                I'll never desert you again, because
                after "Salome" we'll make another
                picture, and another and another.
                You see, this is my life.  It always
                will be.  There's nothing else -
                just us and the cameras and those
                wonderful people out there in the
                dark...  All right, Mr. DeMille,
                I'm ready for my closeup.

         FADE OUT.

                        THE END

And now the movie version:



Here's an interesting bit of trivia about the movie's equally famous opening scene:

Originally opened and closed the story at the Los Angeles County Morgue. In a scene described by director Billy Wilder as one of the best he'd ever shot, the body of Joe Gillis is rolled into the Morgue to join three dozen other corpses, some of whom - in voice-over - tell Gillis how they died. Eventually Gillis tells his story, which takes us to a flashback of his affair with Norma Desmond. The movie was previewed with this opening, in Illinois, Long Island, New York, and Poughkeepsie, New York. Because all three audiences inappropriately found the morgue scene hilarious, the film's release was delayed six months so that a new beginning could be shot in which police find Gillis' corpse floating in Norma's pool while Gillis' voice narrates the events leading to his death. Distortion caused by water meant that this scene had to be filmed via a mirror placed on the bottom of the pool.

If you haven't screened Sunset Blvd. recently, do yourself a favor and watch it again.

Daily Dialogue -- November 20, 2009

"The natives over there are cannibals. They eat liars with the same enthusiasm as they eat honest men."

-- Captain Nemo (James Mason), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), screenplay by Earl Felton, based on the novel by Jules Verne

Unique screenwriting competition

Screenwriter-director Jessica Bendinger, whose writing credits include Bring It On (2000), The Truth About Charlie (2002), First Daughter (2004), and Stick It (2006), is partnering up with Final Draft scriptwriting software for a unique adaptation competition using Bendinger's debut novel, The Seven Rays. The competition is the first of its kind:

In anticipation of the release of her new book The Seven Rays, celebrated screenwriter Jessica Bendinger (BRING IT ON, STICK IT, AQUAMARINE) along with Final Draft is launching “Script-a-Scene,” a first-of-its-kind screenplay adaptation contest. Participants can enter the contest by reading The Seven Rays, by choosing any scene from the book and adapting it into a 2-5 page screenplay using the Final Draft screenwriting software (free demo available for download on the Final Draft website). The contest opens on November 15, 2009 at 12:00am EST and closes on February 15, 2010 at 12:00am PST. The Grand Prize winner will get a personal, one-on-one script consultation for any screenplay they have written with Jessica Bendinger, valued at $10,000. Five (5) second place winners will have the opportunity to pitch their unique original work to a producer, agent, development executive, and Jessica Bendinger via iChat or Skype. (iChat or Skype interview with Jessica Bendinger is subject to talent availability. All prize details are at Sponsor’s sole discretion). Ten (10) third place runners-up will receive a copy of the Final Draft script writing software, valued at $249.

The contest presents an interactive opportunity for screenwriters of all ages to tap their creative efforts and gain exposure to the professional screenwriting world. Winners will receive personalized consultation from accomplished writer-director, Jessica Bendinger.

“Even though it’s a novel, The Seven Rays has so many cinematic elements to it,” said Bendinger. “I thought it would be fun to see how writers would bring it to life, as I am so close to it. This contest also gives me an opportunity to mentor and foster the work of aspiring screenwriters, which is something I love do. It’s challenging for new writers outside the industry to receive valuable insider feedback. I look forward to sharing my expertise and insights with the worthy finalists.”

For more information, go here. And here is the book's website, where you can download the first chapter.

Update: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

In catch-up mode with my comments on the 14 scripts. Go here to see my thoughts on The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Analysis of Aliens upcoming.

14 Days of Screenplays, Version -- Day 11: Little Miss Sunshine

Today is Day 10 of the "14 Days of Screenplays, Version 3.0" challenge and the featured screenplay is for the movie Little Miss Sunshine (2006). You can download the script from myPDFscripts.com here.

Background: The movie was nominated for 4 Academy Awards and won Best Writing, Original Screenplay for screenwriter Michael Arndt. He also won the WGA Best Original Screenplay award.

Here is how Arndt described the writing of the screenplay and what the movie means to him:

On Tuesday, May 23, 2000, at 4:27 p.m., I sat down to write LMS [Little Miss Sunshine]. I wrote twelve pages the first day, thirty-seven pages the second, and--pulling an all-nighter--fifty-four pages on the third day. I finished the first draft at 9:56 a.m. on Friday, May 26.

Then I spent a year rewriting it.

On July 29, 2001--a Sunday--I heard from Tom Strickler.

On December 21, 2001--the Friday before the holidays--the script was purchased by producer Marc Turtletaub.

Principal photography began on June 6, 2005, and ended--after thirty shooting days--on July 18.

The film had its world premiere on January 20, 2006, at Sundance, and was bought by Fox Searchlight the next day.

Little Miss Sunshine opened in theaters on July 26, 2006.

As of this writing (November 6, 2006), it has grossed $75 million worldwide.

So the film has "succeeded," and I have (temporarily, at least) escaped from the jaws of failure.

In many ways, though, my life has remained much as it was in 2000. I still rent the same one-bedroom walk-up in Brooklyn, and I still spend my days sitting in a chair and staring at a computer (though the chair is more comfortable and the computer is nicer). The main difference is I don't worry about having to get a day job. (Not yet, anyway).

A number of people who know my story have been quick to seize upon it as a rewards-of-virtue narrative--all that effort and persistence, they tell me, was bound to pay off. In this view of the world, character is destiny and success is the logical--almost inevitable--consequence of hard work, patience, and a shrewdly applied intelligence.

That is not how I see things.

From my perspective, the difference between success and failure was razor-thin and depended--to a terrifying degree--upon chance, serendipity, and all manner of things beyond my control. A thousand things could have gone wrong in the five years it took to turn Little Miss Sunshine into a movie, any one of which could have destroyed the project.

Yet at every turn the script was met with good fortune; every setback was revealed to be a blessing in disguise. I was lucky to stumble upon the right agents, who got it to the right producers, who chose the right directors, who cast (perfectly) the right actor and hired the right crew. A single misstep in this concatenation and the film would have been made badly or, more likely, not at all.

Which brings me--in a roundabout way--to Richard Hoover, Winning and Losing, and the underlying concerns of Little Miss Sunshine.

All of us lead two lives--our public lives, which are visible to others, and our private lives, which are not. Richard is obsessed with the values of public life--status, rank, "success." His view of the world, divided into Winners and Losers, judges everyone--including himself--accordingly. These values have become seemingly inescapable--including himself--accordingly. These values have become seemingly inescapable in our media-saturated culture--from American Idol, to professional sports, to the weekend box office reports. Everything, it seems, has become a contest.

The problem with this worldview is that it neglects and devalues the realm of the private--family, friendship, romance, childhood, pleasure, imagination, and the concerns of the spirit. Our private lives--invisible to the outside world--tend to be far richer and more gratifying than the rewards of public life. We would do well, as poets and philosophers have long advised, to turn away from the bustle of the world and cultivate the gardens of our souls.

And yet--as I learned in July 2001--it is extremely difficult to set aside the judgments of the world and march to your own drummer. To "do what you love and fuck the rest," as Dwayne says. That is a hard path, and not often one that leads to happiness or fulfillment (see van Gogh's letters). I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.

What I would recommend--and this is the central hope of the movie--is that we make an effort to judge our lives and the lives of others according to our own criteria, distinct from the facile and shallow judgments of the marketplace.

James Joyce once said we should treat both success and failure as the impostors they are. I would humbly concur--the real substance of life is elsewhere.

I want to give time for people to weigh in about the script, those who have read it for the challenge as well as anyone else who has read the script in the past. I'll update this post with my thoughts on the script later.

What did you think of Little Miss Sunshine?

For links to all 14 scripts in the challenge, go here.

And remember: We'll be reading 1 script per day and discussing them through November 22. I'll be posting something everyday at 4PM U.S. Eastern Daylight Time / 1PM PST for your comments.

The script for Day 12 of the challenge is Psycho, available at myPDFscripts.com.

Q&A, Part 3: Emily Hagins

Here is Part 3 of a 3-part Q&A with screenwriter-director Emily Hagins. Emily has written and directed two full-length feature films: Pathogen (2006) and The Retelling (2009). Emily is currently 17 years-old.

* For your second full-length feature film, you wrote and directed The Retelling. How old were you when you wrote and directed that? What is the genesis of that story?

I wrote The Retelling when I was 14-years-old during the summer before I went into 8th grade. I filmed it during the summer between 9th and 10th grade when I was 15-years-old, and finished it last summer when I was 16.

The idea was loosely based on an old Japanese folk tale called "Hoichi the Earless", where a blind monk is lead to a graveyard by ghosts. Since he is blind, he doesn't know they are ghosts. The Retelling has a similar predicament, but the main character is his grandson as he tries to figure out who the ghosts are and why they want his grandfather.

* Without giving everything away, what is the basic plot of The Retelling?

Also from IMDb:

11-year-old Charlie Mason and his family take a summer trip to take care of his ailing and blind grandfather. Soon after their arrival, Charlie and his older sister Margaret begin to sense an unsettling presence around his grandfather's house. Even more mystifying to the children is that their grandfather takes routine walks to an abandoned part of town. He claims to meet friends there to play music. Feeling these things are somehow connected, Charlie and his new friend Anne commit themselves to finding the link. The outcome is more than they expected, for a murder from the past has finally found its connection to the present.

* Both Pathogen and The Retelling are what could be typified as 'dark' movies (i.e., horror, drama as compared to comedy). What is it about dark stories that appeals you?

The moral conflict is usually pretty interesting, but I was also watching a lot of horror movies at the times when I wrote both scripts. I try to write what I know, and at the time I was gravitating toward these darker stories.

* What are some of the key lessons you learned between filming Pathogen and The Retelling, and how did you apply those lessons to writing and directing The Retelling?

-Sound is very important, but successful if you don't notice it. Bad sound is often distracting, and will pull the audience out of the story. It was important to me to find somebody to focus on sound for The Retelling. The sound guy, Leo Schuester, read sound books and learned the process before filming. He was 15-years-old at the time, and he really did a great job.

-Directing-wise with The Retelling, I was able to focus more on creative choices as opposed to Pathogen when I was trying to do most of the jobs myself. Even though the crew was small, it was great to have people focused on sound, lighting, and camera work (all of these jobs were done by people under 18-years-old too).

* How long did it take you to write the screenplay for The Retelling and how long is that shooting script?

It took about a year to write, and the shooting script was 90 pages.

* What's the status of The Retelling?

It's finished, and now I'm just sending it to film festivals.

* Is it true your next feature-length feature film project is a comedy? Where are you in the process of making that movie (i.e., script, pre-production)? How different did you find writing a comedy compared to writing the screenplays for Pathogen and The Retelling?

Yes! I'm pretty excited to do a comedy. I've finished writing a horror/comedy script, but I'm also working with some friends on another comedy script. I'm not sure which one I'll make next, but I'm excited for both.

Comedy writing is tough, and I think I've found out that my jokes are better when I don't think too hard about them beforehand. It's a difficult balance to plan out the story structure, but not think to hard about most of the dialog or jokes.

* In the documentary, your father says one worry he has is that starting out so young, you may burn out on making movies. Do you think there's a chance of that or do you think you'll be making movies for a long time?

I'm planning to make movies for a long time, I love it. It doesn't feel like work to me, even though there are difficulties and challenges with every project. I can't imagine my life without making and watching as many movies as I can.

* Finally, what advice do you have for aspiring screenwriters, directors, and filmmakers?

Never give up, and do what it takes to persevere through the problems. No project will turn out exactly how you plan, so take the happy accidents and learn from everything. It's so rewarding to end up with a project that other people can enjoy too.

Please jump to comments to thank Emily and wish her the best in her career as a fillmmaker.

Writers on how they write: Junot Diaz

The Wall Street Journal had a great article a few weeks back: "How to Write a Great Novel", reflections by novelists on how they approach writing. Since the article is subscription only, I'm featuring one writer per day here, highlighting their process with a key excerpt from the article.

Today's writer is Junio Diaz, whose published short stories include "Drown" and "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars."

"I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down," says Junot Díaz. "As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it."

He often listens to orchestral movie soundtracks as he writes, because he's easily distracted by lyrics. When he needs to seal himself off from the world, he retreats into the bathroom and sits on the edge of the tub. "It drove my ex crazy," he says. "She would always know I was going to write because I would grab a notebook and run into the bathroom."

We've discussed listening to music while writing. Generally I prefer total silence, but there are times when I'll listen to the soundtrack from The Shawshank Redemption, the fantastic score by Thomas Newman. How about you? What's your favorite music to write by?

Pitch Sale: "The Misadventures of Fluffy"

Paramount buys comedy pitch "The Misadventures of Fluffy" from writers Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly with Eddie Murphy attached:

Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly sold the pitch for the R-rated comedy and will write the script. The project is described as a road trip pic through New York featuring talking animals, and with an element of social comedy reminiscent of Murphy’s 1980’s hit “Trading Places.”

Pitman and Cole-Kelly are repped by WME and Management 360.

THR: Writers Roundtable, Part 2

For the last few years, the Hollywood Reporter has brought together screenwriters just in advance of the awards season to talk about their movies. This year's version:

The Hollywood Reporter's Jay A. Fernandez and Matthew Belloni gathered six screenwriters -- Mark Boal ("The Hurt Locker"), Scott Z. Burns ("The Informant!"), Geoffrey Fletcher ("Precious"), Nick Hornby ("An Education"), Scott Neustadter ("(500) Days of Summer") and Anthony Peckham ("Invictus," "Sherlock Holmes") -- who not only managed to get their work produced this year, but also had films that are generating talk.

Part 2 of the writers roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter:

Screenwriting resource: Beat Sheet Central

H/T to Colt Hansen who emailed me a link to a great new screenwriting resource Beat Sheet Central. The host of the site Nick Jarecki explains:

I’m a screenwriter and a director, and I made this site for myself.

Often when I’m writing a film or teleplay, I like to go back and look at movies and TV shows in similar genres and see how they are constructed.

After a little while in the business, many writers come to agree that a movie or TV episode is all in the structure. That is to say– what happens in each scene.

Many writers work from something alternatively called a step outline, treatment, or beat sheet. I like beat sheet. The sheet describes the entire movie from start to finish, and breaks it into beats, or scenes. These are the key components that form the script.

The point of this site is to collect beat sheets for every movie and TV episode, generated by you, the users, by watching the pieces and writing down exactly what happens. I’ve kicked the site off with 20 beat sheets I’ve made myself. And to those of you brilliant women and men who wrote any produced movies, would you please share your beat sheets here, too?

Nick knows of what he speaks. Here's his bio from the site:

Nicholas Jarecki is the director of the critically acclaimed Showtime documentary THE OUTSIDER (featuring James Toback, Woody Allen, Harvey Keitel, Robert Downey, Jr., and Neve Campbell). He is the author of the Doubleday 2002 book “Breaking In: How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start.” He is the co-writer (with Bret Easton Ellis) and producer of the screen adaptation of the bestselling novel THE INFORMERS (starring Kim Basinger, Winona Ryder, Billy Bob Thornton, and Mickey Rourke.) Most recently Nick produced TYSON, the incendiary doc on the legendary heavyweight which won a special jury prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and opened theatrically to critical acclaim in May 2009. TYSON was nominated for an IFP / Gotham Best Documentary award in October 2009.

I got in touch with Nick to tell him I'd be featuring Beat Sheet Central, recounting to him:

When I first broke into the business, I had sold a spec script (K-9) - good fortune, yes - but in actuality, I knew very little about story structure. So I did what you did, breaking down perhaps 30 movies into beat sheets. It was a great exercise and I still have hard copies of a number of those movies.

I'm looking at some of my hard copy beat sheets right now: 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, Running Scared, Die Hard, Stake-Out, Thelma and Louise, Terminator. We've done some in my UNC courses: Shakespeare in Love, Adaptation. There are others somewhere, I'll have to dig them up.

If you haven't ever done this exercise, you should. And if you have or do, check out the guidelines Nick has posted on his website, and upload them there. You'll be doing the online screenwriting community a favor. I know I'll be posting some there as soon as I get the chance.

And while you visit Beat Sheet Central, give Nick a shout-out and thank him for starting up this very cool resource website.