Daily Dialogue -- September 3, 2010

Rob: Top five things I miss about Laura. One; sense of humor. Very dry, but it can also be warm and forgiving. And she's got one of the best all time laughs in the history of all time laughs, she laughs with her entire body. Two; she's got character. Or at least she had character before the Ian nightmare. She's loyal and honest, and she doesn't even take it out on people when she's having a bad day. That's character.
[holds up three fingers]
Rob: Three;
[long pause, hesitantly]
Rob: I miss her smell, and the way she tastes. It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home.
[shakes his head, recollecting, then looks back and lip synchs 'four' while holds up four fingers]
Rob: I really dig how she walks around. It's like she doesn't care how she looks or what she projects and it's not that she doesn't care it's just, she's not affected I guess, and that gives her grace. And five; she does this thing in bed when she can't get to sleep, she kinda half moans and then rubs her feet together an equal number of times... it just kills me. Believe me, I mean, I could do a top five things about her that drive me crazy but it's just your garden variety women you know, schizo stuff and that's the kind of thing that got me here.

-- Rob (John Cusack), High Fidelity (2000), screenplay by D.V. DeVincentis & Steve Pink & John Cusack & Scott Rosenberg, based on the novel by Nick Hornby



The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is character's breaking the 4th wall, suggested by Joshua James.  High Fidelity suggested by Aaron.

Trivia: John Cusack and the screenwriters wrote the script with Jack Black in mind for the role of Barry, who nearly turned the role down but reconsidered. 

Live ScriptChat event, Sunday, Sept. 5

As a reminder, you're all invited to a live chat event this Sunday, Sept. 5 to discuss the script Dune with the Scriptchat folks.

Sunday, EURO chat 8pm GMT & USA chat 8pm EDT


Why Dune? Because someone posited the idea that it might be an interesting exercise to analyze a 'bad' script, then GITS readers and ScriptChat participants voted Dune the 'winner.'

As background, go here.

Here are instructions on how to do the whole ScriptChat thing:

At the designated time, go to TWEETCHAT (www.tweetchat.com/room/scriptchat) or search the hashtag #scriptchat on the web, Tweetdeck or Seesmic and jump in. TWEETCHAT is a Twitter chat program, and it will automatically add #scriptchat to all of your tweets: definitely the recommended way to participate! It usually goes pretty fast, so trying to follow along in Tweetdeck or on twitter.com will usually have you missing chunks of the conversation.

IF YOU AREN'T USING TWEETCHAT: Make sure you add the #scriptchat hashtag to your tweet or other followers won't see your comments. Again, the TWEETCHATsite above AUTO ADDS the hashtag, making it the easiest way to participate in our chats.

We kick the chat off with the topic. Jump in, share and/or ask questions. Watch for your @ name so you can answer questions directed at you. But, most will post general questions or comments, so feel free to answer anything that pops up.

I've been informed by Nate Winslow that you must use TweetChat or you won't be able to keep up with the conversation. Per Nate:

Tweetchat is really easy--it's just a chat service for Twitter, really. Anyone who's used AIM or MSN or Google Talk or anything like will be right at home. You copy and paste that url Scott posted and you'll be receiving all tweets with #scriptchat attached to them and all you have to do is start typing. Let me know if you have any questions, though.

Also, if anyone's interested, I have 5 previous drafts of Dune, if you wanted to compare changes. Shoot me an email or just reply here and I can post them.

As you read the Dune script this week, I encourage you to be thinking about these questions:

* Overall why do you think the script is bad?

* What specific narrative elements don't work well?

* Which characters don't work and why?

* Which plot dynamics don't work and why?

And because it's easy to say what's wrong with a story, but not so easy to figure out how to help solve its problems, also ask yourself this question:

* What would I do to make this script work better?

I look forward to participating with you in the ScriptChat event this Sunday: Euro at 8PM GMT, U.S. at 8PM EDT.

UPDATE: You can go here to download the draft of Dune we'll be analyzing this Sunday.

Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work: What to do after you finish your first draft

Okay, so you've just typed FADE OUT of the first draft of your latest screenplay. What's the first thing you do?

Celebrate and get drunk? No, that's the second thing you do.

The first thing you do is print out a copy of your script, stick it in a drawer, and don't read it for two full weeks.

That's right. Do not read it. For. Two. Full. Weeks.

"Why," you may ask.

Because you have this thing known as a "rewrite" coming up. And one asset you will absolutely need for that process is a fresh set of eyes.

More than likely, at the moment you typed FADE OUT, your estimation of your first draft would put it (quality-wise) somewhere between Gone With the Wind and Juno. If you use that set of eyes to make judgments during your rewrite, you won't improve your script much.

But if you give yourself two weeks off, 14 entire days without so much as peeking at your script, on day 15 when you finally do pull the script out of its drawer and read it, you will be amazed at what you find - lots of problems.

And that's the point: The only way you can improve your script in the rewrite process is to identify and solve its problems. And you can't solve the problems if you can't 'see' them in the first place. And you can't see them if you don't have a fresh set of eyes.

By taking two weeks away from your script, you play a little trick on your brain, providing some distance between it and the script, resulting in a fresh set of eyes in order to honestly judge the material you've written.

Once again, here's the trick:

* Type FADE OUT
* Print script
* Stash in drawer
* Set timer for 2 weeks
* On Day 15, pull script out of hiding, read, and begin your rewrite process

This has been another installment of Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work.

37th Telluride Film Festival slate announced

Lots of docs at this year's Telluride Film Festival:

37th TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2010 FESTIVAL LINEUP

Telluride, CO – Telluride Film Festival (September 3-6, 2010), presented by the National Film Preserve is proud to announce its 2010 Festival program. Twenty-four new feature films presented by their creators in the Festival’s main program; six programs curated by 2010 Festival Guest Director Michael Ondaatje; twenty-five new short films; plus thirteen documentaries screening in the Backlot program. Celebrating works from over twenty countries, Telluride Film Festival opens Friday, September 3 and runs through Monday, September 6, 2010.

THE ‘SHOW’

37th Telluride Film Festival is pleased to present the following new feature films to play in the ‘SHOW’:

· A LETTER TO ELIA (d. Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones, U.S., 2010)

· ANOTHER YEAR (d. Mike Leigh, U.K., 2010)

· BIUTIFUL (d. Alejandro González Iñárritu, Mexico, 2010)

· CARLOS (d. Olivier Assayas, France, 2010)

· CHICO AND RITA (d. Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal Spain-Cuba, 2010)

· THE FIRST GRADER (d. Justin Chadwick, U.K., 2010)

· THE FIRST MOVIE (d. Mark Cousins, U.K., 2009)

· HAPPY PEOPLE: A YEAR IN THE TAIGA (d. Dmitry Vasyukov with Werner Herzog, Germany, 2010)

· IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE (d. Florin Serban, Romania, 2010)

· THE ILLUSIONIST (d. Sylvain Chomet, U.K., France, 2010)

· INCENDIES (d. Denis Villeneuve, Canada, 2010)

· INSIDE JOB (d. Charles Ferguson, U.S., 2010)

· THE KINGS SPEECH (d. Tom Hooper, U.K., 2010)

· LE QUATTRO VOLTE (d. Michelangelo Frammartino, Italy, 2010)

· NEVER LET ME GO (d. Mark Romanek, U.K./U.S., 2010)

· OF GODS AND MEN (d. Xavier Beauvois, France, 2010)

· OKA! AMERIKEE (d. Lavinia Currier, U.S.-Central African Republic, 2010)

· POETRY (d. Lee Chang-dong, Korea, 2010)

· PRECIOUS LIFE (d. Shlomi Eldar, Israel, 2010)

· THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER (d. Bertrand Tavernier, France, 2010)

· TABLOID (d. Errol Morris, U.S., 2010)

· TAMARA DREWE (d. Stephen Frears, U.K., 2010)

· THE TENTH INNING (d. Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, U.S., 2010)

· THE WAY BACK (d. Peter Weir, U.K., 2010)

Anybody going?

Various coverage of the slate:

Hollywood Reporter.

IndieWire.

Thompson on Hollywood

Introduce yourself!

This year I started a tradition proclaiming the first day of the month to be GITS' official "Hey, Newbies And Lurkers, Come Out And Play!" day. Obviously I missed doing it yesterday on September 1, so let's celebrate it today. Apparently people keep finding the site because in the last three months, GITS has had 508,001 unique visitors. In fact, this year the site has gotten 985,343 page views which means any day now, we'll pass the 1M mark.

So a lot of new faces. A lot of new followers. Why not introduce yourself to the rest of the GITS community?

What's your background as a writer, where do you live, what type of genres do you prefer to work in, and when you sell a spec script to a major Hwood studio, where will you prefer to do your power lunches? Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills:



Or Kate Mantilini:



For those of you who haven't posted before (or only a few times), if you introduce yourselves, I will give to you -- free of charge! A delicious virtual mojito!



While you're at it, why don't you become a GITS follower? You can join 747 awesome people who follow the blog through Google Friends Connect over there to the right of this post where it says "Followers." Or you can join 1,478 fantastic folks who follow what's happening here through Google Reader. Or if you'd prefer, you can go along with 1,117 groovy guys and gals and follow GITS via Twitter.

But be sure to hop over to Comments and let us get to know a little bit about you and your interest in screenwriting, TV writing, playwriting, novel writing, comic book writing, graphic novel writing, whatever writing -- and enjoy a tasty virtual beverage courtesy of GITS!

BTW, if you have a writing or movie blog, please post a link and I'll be happy to add you to my blogroll.

NPR & Storytelling, Part 4: Fresh Air

Here in the United States, National Public Radio broadcasts several great series that feature stories and storytelling, and as such are an excellent resource for writers. Each day this week, I'll look at a different series that is aired on NPR. Today: "Fresh Air".

From the series' website, here is how they describe "Fresh Air":

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Each week, nearly 4.5 million people listen to the show's intimate conversations broadcast on more than 450 National Public Radio (NPR) stations across the country, as well as in Europe on the World Radio Network.

Though Fresh Air has been categorized as a "talk show," it hardly fits the mold. Its 1994 Peabody Award citation credits Fresh Air with "probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insights." And a variety of top publications count Gross among the country's leading interviewers. The show gives interviews as much time as needed, and complements them with comments from well-known critics and commentators.

Fresh Air is produced at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and broadcast nationally by NPR.

Here is what the website say about Terry Gross:

Combine an intelligent interviewer with a roster of guests that, according to the Chicago Tribune, would be prized by any talk-show host, and you're bound to get an interesting conversation. Fresh Air's interviews, though, are in a category by themselves, distinguished by host and executive producer Terry Gross' unique approach. "A remarkable blend of empathy and warmth, genuine curiosity and sharp intelligence," says The San Francisco Chronicle.

Gross isn't afraid to ask tough questions, but she sets an atmosphere in which her guests volunteer the answers rather than surrender them. What often puts those guests at ease is Gross' understanding of their work. "Anyone who agrees to be interviewed must decide where to draw the line between what is public and what is private. But the line can shift, depending on who is asking the questions," observes Gross. "What puts someone on guard isn't necessarily the fear of being 'found out.' It sometimes is just the fear of being misunderstood."

Gross began her radio career in 1973 at public radio station WBFO in Buffalo, New York. There she hosted and produced several arts, women's and public affairs programs, including This Is Radio, a live, three-hour magazine program that aired daily. Two years later, she joined the staff of WHYY-FM in Philadelphia as producer and host of Fresh Air, then a local, daily interview and music program. In 1985, WHYY-FM launched a weekly half-hour edition of Fresh Air with Terry Gross, which was distributed nationally by NPR. Since 1987, a daily, one-hour national edition of Fresh Air has been produced by WHYY-FM; it now airs on more than 450 stations.

Here is the roster of the show's critics and commentators

David Bianculli on TV

Maureen Corrigan on Books

David Edelstein on Movies

Kevin Whitehead on Jazz

Ken Tucker on Rock Music

Milo Miles on World Music

Geoff Nunberg on Language

Ed Ward on Rock Music

John Powers on Popular Culture

Lloyd Schwartz on Classical Music

Guest Host Dave Davies
 

In other words, if you like any aspect of culture, you're likely to find someone talking about it on "Fresh Air."

There are three big reasons why writers should listen to "Fresh Air".  First, Gross is one of the few radio or TV hosts who actually seems to understand that movies and TV shows have writers, not just directors and actors.  She routinely interviews screenwriters, albeit mostly writer-directors, and displays an innate curiosity about the story-crafting process.  Here are links to three good examples of such interviews on "Fresh Air":

Rafael Yglesias (Fearless, From Hell, Dark Water)

Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)

David Simon (The Wire)

Second, the stories themselves can be quite entertaining as well as revealing about the creative / story-crafting process.  But the biggest thing I get out of "Fresh Air" as a writer is that Gross has a way of zeroing into the core of her interview subject.  In a way, the line of her reasoning and tack she takes is like an object lesson in a writer getting to know their own story's characters.  In fact, I had a student once who was having a hard time understanding a key character in their story.  When I found out the student was a fan of "Fresh Air," I gave her an exercise: Imagine you're Terry Gross and you're interviewing your that character.  Go away and spend an hour with the character, then write up your Q&A.  I got an email one day later from the student who was head over heels excited about what she'd discovered in her character.  Paraphrasing a line from the email, she said, "It was like he [the character] just completely opened up to Terry."

Any "Fresh Air" fans out there, if you remember any notable interviews from the show featuring screenwriters, TV writers, playwrights, or writer-directors, please post in comments and I'll try to source links.

Tomorrow the last in our series: "A Prairie Home Companion."

The Business of Screenwriter: Get a damn good lawyer!

It's September, 1999.  My wife and I are at a party in Pacific Palisades to welcome families who are new to Wildwood School, where our then only son goes to grade school.  A typical beautiful southern California night, schmoozing with a bunch of Type A parents dressed in Type B clothes.

A friend elbows me and nods at a guy across the way, telling me I should talk to him.  "He's a screenwriter," my friend says.  I head over to introduce myself.

"Hey, I hear you're a screenwriter."
"Yeah, something like that."
"Me, too.  I'm Scott."
"Gary."
[shake hands]
"So what've you written."
"Nothing you've heard of.  I was a playwright in New York, sold a feature, been at it since 1987."
"Really?  I sold my first script in 1987."
"What was it?"
"K-9."
"You wrote K-9?"
"Uh-huh."
"Seriously."
"Yes, what?"
[beat]
"I'm writing your sequel."

And that's how I discovered that K-911 was being made.

You may ask why I wasn't writing the sequel to K-9.  Simple.  Siegel & Myers, who wrote the original script for K-9, were no longer a writing team.  So the producers moved onto another writer, the aforementioned Gary, as in Gary Scott Thompson, who later went on to write The Fast and the Furious and 88 Minutes, and created and exec produced the NBC TV series "Las Vegas".

That night as I drove home, I was one happy camper.  Per my contract on K-9, Siegel & Myers would receive a bonus on a sequel.  My take: $150K.  Talk about money for nothing!

Cut to some months later when I'm informed that I will not be receiving said bonus.  Why?  Because when the original K-9 deal was made, our lawyer neglected to add four little words to the contract re sequels:

"Or any other format."

Our contract specified only two types of sequels: Theatrical and M.O.W. (Movie of the Week).  In our lawyer's defense back in 1987, those were the only sequels around.  The VCR had achieved minimal penetration and no one was thinking about people actually buying videocassette tapes of movies.  But by 1999, there was a new format: K-911 would bypass theatrical release and go Direct-To-DVD (DTD).  The good folks in business affairs at Universal argued that per our original contract, since K-911 was neither a theatrical release nor an M.O.W., the movie did not qualify as a sequel.

My original lawyer had long since died and in 1999, I was with another law firm.  They said nothing could be done.  I talked with the WGA legal department.  Same answer.  I was so righteously affronted by the idea -- how they could not consider this a sequel when K-911 used our concept, our characters, hell, even our freaking title within their title -- that I spent days working my way through a maze of people on the phone at Universal, and finally reached some anonymous suit in legal.  I pleaded my case.  I appealed to them as one human being to another.  At this point, I knew the money was never going to happen.  "Just please acknowledge that K-911 is a sequel. I swear I'm not taping this, I just want to hear someone there say those words: It's a sequel."

"Sorry."

Click.

You probably think there's nothing worse than having $150K snatched out of your hands.  Well, there is.  Universal went on to make K-9: P.I., a second DTD 'sequel.'  That's right, another $150K I should have gotten, making the grand total I'm out a cool $300K.

All because my lawyer failed to include four little words: "Or any other format."

So when you sell your script and you get an agent and/or manager, and they talk to you about how you need to get a good entertainment attorney, you smile, and gently correct them:

"No, I want a damn good lawyer."

Next week: A happier tale of something I actually did right.

The Business of Screenwriting is a weekly series of GITS posts based upon my experiences as a complete Hollywood outsider who sold a spec script for a lot of money, parlayed that into a screenwriting career during which time I've made some good choices, some okay decisions, and some really stupid ones.  Hopefully you'll be the wiser for what you learn here.

Daily Dialogue -- September 2, 2010

"The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom; I'm a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, uh... you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor's office. That's worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school."

-- Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), Ferris Bueller's Day off (1986), written by John Hughes




The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is character's breaking the 4th wall, suggested by Joshua James.  Ferris Bueller suggested by... like... everybody!

Trivia: John Hughes told Ben Stein, who had a degree in Economics, to present an actual Economics lecture in his scenes. Hence nothing Ben Stein says (aside from the roll call) is scripted.

The remake of "Arthur:" "Much Taller, Still Plastered"

In this era of Hollywood's obsession with remakes, it was inevitable that they would eventually hit on a redo of the 1980s comedy hit Arthur. For those who don't remember the movie, here is a plot summary from IMDB:

Arthur is a happy drunk with no pretensions at any ambition. He is also the heir to a vast fortune which he is told will only be his if he marries Susan. He does not love Susan, but she will make something of him the family expects. Arthur proposes but then meets a girl with no money who he could easily fall in love with.

A classic high-concept with Dudley Moore as Arthur and Sir John Gielgud as the millionaire's butler and the story's sharp-tongued Mentor figure.

This time around, Arthur is being played by Russell Brand, while Gielgud's role is taken by Helen Mirren. In this NYT's article, we get a glimpse of the project's screenwriting process:

But if the fragile charms of “Arthur,” three decades later, feel hard to recapture, the team behind the remake, due for release next year, has come up with several shrewd twists, including changing Hobson’s gender and profession (from butler to nanny) and retailoring the title role to suit the lanky renegade swagger of Mr. Brand — who, unlike his predecessor, will never be called “pixie-ish” or “elfin.” Even so, certain elements remain the same: Arthur is still very rich and very drunk; and a lush, gilded version of New York City serves as his personal playpen.

To add to the degree of difficulty, the movie’s creators are to some extent making it up as they go along. The “Arthur” script has gone through an unusual circular rewriting process: It was drafted by Peter Baynham, who won an Academy Award nomination for his work on the similarly rewritten-on-the-fly “Borat.” Mr. Baynham’s script then went to another writer, Jared Stern, for a structural polish. Last year Jason Winer, a compact 37-year-old who served as the primary director for the first season of ABC’s acclaimed “Modern Family,” signed on to make his feature directorial debut and rerouted the script to seven of his colleagues in the “Modern Family” writing room for a line-by-line dialogue tuneup.

But in a movie-business rarity the script was then returned to the hands of Mr. Baynham, who arrives on the set every day ready to rewrite. “Whatever makes the film better,” he said cheerfully, as he perched in a chair on 42nd Street one morning, scribbling new lines on the backs of script pages. “You’d be crazy, as a writer, to have someone like Russell and not take the opportunity to revise and improve on the spot, given his improvisational skills.”

Mr. Baynham’s seat is next to Mr. Winer’s, and their collaboration is close and constant. “I want input,” said Mr. Winer, who earned an Emmy nomination for the “Modern Family” pilot. “When you direct TV, everybody feels completely free to tell you what you should do differently, and I welcome that.”

First writer cracked the story.  Second writer handled structure.  Next group of writers worked on dialogue and scenes.  Then back to the original writer to sit on the set and dash off additional lines of dialogue for the actors to improvise with. 

The article is also notable because it gets into the unique challenge facing filmmakers who are working with a movie originally produced in another era and trying to make it mesh per modern sensibilities:

The original “Arthur” — the working title was “The Richest Man in the World” — opened six months after the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan and the television premiere of “Dynasty.” The poster featured Moore hoisting a cocktail while lounging in a preposterously luxe bubble bath under the slogan “Don’t you wish you were Arthur?”

In many ways the film was the first true Reagan-era comedy, the harbinger of a more-is-more era in movie romance that stretched all the way to 1990’s “Pretty Woman.” The pleasures of materialism were displayed as ostentatiously as possible, and the answer to choosing immense riches or true love was, “I’ll take both, please.”

The first film originally ended with Arthur giving up a nine-figure inheritance in exchange for wedded bliss. “We tested it, and it was clear the audience would have had our heads,” recalled Larry Brezner, that film’s presenting producer. A new ending was quickly shot in which Arthur lived not only happily but also wealthily ever after.

“The idea,” Mr. Brezner said, “was: Give Arthur the money, bring up the music loud and get the audience the hell out of the theater happy, before they have time to think about it. The trick to an irrational ending is speed.”

The movie is, after all, as screenwriter Baynham notes, "a fairy tale," an obvious choice for the ol' Hollywood "give 'em what they expect, then give 'em what they want" ending. 

This is one remake that doesn't give me heartburn.  While I liked Arthur, I thought it was a pretty routine movie, apart from Gielgud's performance which was absolutely brilliant.  Those are the kind of remakes I like: when the original movie had a great concept, but wasn't terribly well done, so there's room for a new interpretation and hopefully a better one.

How about you?  Any interest in the new Arthur?

Who is your Protagonist? What do they want? Who's keeping them from it?

Some of the most important lessons I've learned about screenwriting are the most basic ones. These three questions I picked up when I first broke into Hollywood. I don't know their source, perhaps a discussion with another writer or maybe a producer, but throughout the last two decades, these questions are almost always where I begin my story-crafting process:

Who is your Protagonist?
What do they want?
Who's keeping them from it?

I would say that perhaps half of the story problems I come across in my students' scripts derive from a lack of clarity about these three fundamental questions.

Who is your Protagonist?

The Protagonist is almost always a story's most important character for several reasons:

* The Protagonist usually goes on some sort of physical / emotional journey.
* That journey creates the spine of the Plotline.

What do they want?

What a Protagonist wants is critical to a story:

* Their goal typically dictates the story's Plotline end point.
* The way the Protagonist's thinking changes about their goal is an essential part of their metamorphosis.

Who's keeping them from it?

Knowing this is also critical:

* What the Protagonist wants is almost always what the Nemesis does not want to happen.
* That opposition usually forms the basis of the story's central conflict.

There's one more reason why your choice of a Protagonist is hugely important: The Protagonist typically serves as the main conduit for the reader into the story. Seeing as that's one of their primary narrative functions, the degree to which the writer can create a sense of identification with the Protagonist is critical.

Whether you're just starting to crack your story or you're mired in the middle of a draft that just isn't working, these three questions can be key to your understanding of what your story is about.

UPDATE: I tried to post this in comments, but I went too long, so here it is instead -- a response to some points raised there by readers.

The three questions posed in the OP pertain to writers working on traditional screenplays - with a Protagonist and Nemesis (or multiple reps of each). Another way of saying traditional is "mainstream commercial." Are there examples like Pollock or Leaving Las Vegas where the only Nemesis is the Protagonist's 'shadow'? Yes. But those are exceptions to the vast majority of movies that do have an active Nemesis.

Per The Sixth Sense: What about Vincent Grey (Donnie Wahlberg) who shot and killed Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis)? Yes, he's dead himself within the first 10 minutes of the movie - a non-traditional choice to make re a Nemesis, I'll grant you. But the shadow looming over Crowe the entire story is the fact that he is dead. He may not know it, but it's a fact. And that status was created by Grey.

Now it's certainly fair to say that Grey isn't an active Nemesis throughout Act II and Act III. Shyamalan went to great lengths to create opposition to Crowe during the rest of the movie, primarily through the push/pull relationship he has with Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), and the mystery of how he sees ghosts. Again not traditional, but it works.

That's the thing about character archetypes: At their core, what you're talking about is a narrative function. In Cast Away, the Nemesis is the ocean. It serves the function of keeping Chuck (Tom Hanks) stuck on the island and away from his goal (i.e., getting home).

The point is that a Protagonist needs something in the way of opposition in order to create conflict. The way that Hollywood is most comfortable in doing that is with a Protagonist - Nemesis relationship. Are there other ways to accomplish that goal? Yes. But I think it's safe to say they are a harder sell. I'm not saying don't write a story like that, just go in with your eyes open to it being harder - probably - to sell.