Executive Search

BIG MONEY WEEK (SCRIPT 5)

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: A female CEO hires a sleazy private investigator to help her find the perfect husband.
About: This script sold for 2 million dollars to 20th Century Fox back in 1999. Gerald DiPego has written half a dozen novels and has a number of produced credits, such as Phenomenon and Message In A Bottle. But don’t let that fool you. This script is his masterpiece.
Writer: Gerald DiPego
Details: 108 pages (November 7, 1998 draft)

Rachel McAdams would be perfect for the role of Chase.

I’m so happy to be able to end Big Money Week with this script because whenever I go back into the unproduced specs of yesteryear time capsule, I usually find screenplays that prove why they've been forgotten. The last three Big Money scripts were perfect examples (still haven’t read Smoke and Mirrors). But this. This script surprised the hell out of me. Not only was it a great script. But it’s better than EVERY. SINGLE. ROMANTIC. COMEDY SCRIPT. OUT THERE. RIGHT NOW. I’m not kidding. Which gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will wise up, stop fucking around with all these 18 Ways To Eat Your Spouse shitty rom-com projects and make Executive Search. This is a writer who actually understands what makes a romantic comedy good. This is someone who actually understands that it’s not simply a catchy title, a hilarious hook, a bunch of knee-slapping set pieces, and a billboard that says, “Heigle Vs. Butler.” It’s about the characters. For the love of God, it’s about the characters!

Chase Banner is a 35 year old CEO of a software company that’s launching a game-changing software product in a few months. Chase is a tireless meticulous worker. So meticulous, in fact, that she schedules her meetings to the second. She doesn’t have time for anything else in her life. If you report to Chase, you don’t give her the fat. You give her the meat. If you can’t consolidate information into a few key sentences, go home. This girl operates on Cliff’s notes.

Problem is, Chase is starting to get that itch. No, not that itch, but the kind where you wanna, like, settle down. Get yourself a man. Start a family. But Chase barely has time to make personal phone calls. The last thing she has time to do is spend hours upon hours on the dating circuit in the hopes of maybe possibly potentially finding a man. So Chase has an idea. Since the kind of man she wants is exactly like herself – driven, passionate, successful - She’ll hire a headhunter to find her a “co-CEO” to “run her company.” Of course, she has no plans to actually partner with a CEO. She’ll simply treat the top choices as her potential future mates, finding a way to meet them after the search is over.

I know, I know. It sounds a little gimmicky. But the great thing about DiPego’s writing is that despite the obvious set-up, he manages to make it all sound plausible. Even reasonable! While I was reading this I started thinking, “Hmmm, this wouldn’t be such a bad idea to try out myself.” Unfortunately there’s a flaw in Chase's plan. The Headhunter won’t research personal lives. Seeing as this is the man she’ll be spending the rest of her life with, she wants to know if he has any skeletons in the closet. This is before Google, you know? So it was a hell of a lot harder to stalk people. So she decides to hire the best private investigator in town to do background checks. But in a major mix-up, she instead gets a 45 year old gambling drinking mess of a man who can barely keep his apartment in order, much less his life. Meet Buddy Hallibeck.

Despite Buddy’s off-putting pedigree, he possesses just enough charm to convince Chase to take a chance on him. And it’s a good thing she does. Buddy may not look it, but he’s one hell of a P.I. When the headhunter brings back the top 3 “CEO” choices, Buddy immediately goes to work, breaking the men down with the skill of a forensics analyst. It's through these ongoing updates that the two develop a tenuous if barely respectful relationship. Although this is where you'd typically find a lot of artificial fighting between the two swooning-but-refuse-to-admit-it future lovers, there's none of that in Executive Search. Even though Chase’s resistence to Buddy feels familiar, it also feels honest. Sure she sees something in Buddy. But she’s also smart enough to know it’d never work. She’s a successful CEO. He’s a slimy private investigator. It’s not even worth considering.

That kind of honesty continues throughout Executive Search. Nothing here feels forced. Even though the scenario has a movie quality set-up to it, you never feel like you’re watching a movie. You feel like you’re observing two self-absorbed stubborn people, both with complicated lives, both trying to find stability in their own fucked up ways. The conventions are either absent or don’t feel like conventions. These two aren't desperately in love but won’t “admit it.” They don't get stuck in the same bed together at one of their parents' house. There's no obligatory montage with heartwarming music. Everything here is real. Gritty. Honest.

And the character work here is just awesome. Each of these characters has a flaw in their lives that’s holding them back – something relatable, something all of us can understand. And you truly feel that they’ll never be able to find happiness until they overcome it. There’s also a wonderful subplot with Buddy’s 17 year old daughter, a girl Buddy is desperately trying to win the admiration of, as well as a perfectly integrated sub-pot involving somebody trying to steal company info from Chase. And it all fits.

That’s why I love this script. It’s that rare screenplay puzzle where every single piece fits. You can feel the care that went into this, particularly after being exposed to a decade of rom-coms that stink of being slapped together over a couple of Saturday afternoons. I liked this so much that I’m putting it in my Top 25. And I’m asking whoever owns it (I think 20th Century Fox?) to pull this one out of the vault and give it another shot. Give us a romantic comedy with depth again. Revive the genre. And don’t use any shitty rewrites either. Use the spec draft. It only needs a couple of technology updates and you’re set. Seriously, why the fuck are you wasting money on all this shit when you have something that’s actually good? I don't care about the politics of this ridiculous business. Make a great movie and watch the money and accolades role in.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Once you have your gimmick down, once you have your hook, forget about it. Forget about how you’re going to sell the thing. Switch your focus over to the story and the characters. Make them the best they can possibly be. I think that’s the problem with a lot of today’s writers. Is they rely too much on their premise. They think that that’s going to do all the work for them. It’s a casualty of movies like “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up” doing well. Because so much of the joke is implied in the title and the marketing, that writers assume if they get that part squared away, their job is over. But Executive Search goes back to a time where writers still cared about their characters. You need to do the same thing in your rom com.

Executive Search

BIG MONEY WEEK (SCRIPT 5)

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: A female CEO hires a sleazy private investigator to help her find the perfect husband.
About: This script sold for 2 million dollars to 20th Century Fox back in 1999. Gerald DiPego has written half a dozen novels and has a number of produced credits, such as Phenomenon and Message In A Bottle. But don’t let that fool you. This script is his masterpiece.
Writer: Gerald DiPego
Details: 108 pages (November 7, 1998 draft)

Rachel McAdams would be perfect for the role of Chase.

I’m so happy to be able to end Big Money Week with this script because whenever I go back into the unproduced specs of yesteryear time capsule, I usually find screenplays that prove why they've been forgotten. The last three Big Money scripts were perfect examples (still haven’t read Smoke and Mirrors). But this. This script surprised the hell out of me. Not only was it a great script. But it’s better than EVERY. SINGLE. ROMANTIC. COMEDY SCRIPT. OUT THERE. RIGHT NOW. I’m not kidding. Which gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will wise up, stop fucking around with all these 18 Ways To Eat Your Spouse shitty rom-com projects and make Executive Search. This is a writer who actually understands what makes a romantic comedy good. This is someone who actually understands that it’s not simply a catchy title, a hilarious hook, a bunch of knee-slapping set pieces, and a billboard that says, “Heigle Vs. Butler.” It’s about the characters. For the love of God, it’s about the characters!

Chase Banner is a 35 year old CEO of a software company that’s launching a game-changing software product in a few months. Chase is a tireless meticulous worker. So meticulous, in fact, that she schedules her meetings to the second. She doesn’t have time for anything else in her life. If you report to Chase, you don’t give her the fat. You give her the meat. If you can’t consolidate information into a few key sentences, go home. This girl operates on Cliff’s notes.

Problem is, Chase is starting to get that itch. No, not that itch, but the kind where you wanna, like, settle down. Get yourself a man. Start a family. But Chase barely has time to make personal phone calls. The last thing she has time to do is spend hours upon hours on the dating circuit in the hopes of maybe possibly potentially finding a man. So Chase has an idea. Since the kind of man she wants is exactly like herself – driven, passionate, successful - She’ll hire a headhunter to find her a “co-CEO” to “run her company.” Of course, she has no plans to actually partner with a CEO. She’ll simply treat the top choices as her potential future mates, finding a way to meet them after the search is over.

I know, I know. It sounds a little gimmicky. But the great thing about DiPego’s writing is that despite the obvious set-up, he manages to make it all sound plausible. Even reasonable! While I was reading this I started thinking, “Hmmm, this wouldn’t be such a bad idea to try out myself.” Unfortunately there’s a flaw in Chase's plan. The Headhunter won’t research personal lives. Seeing as this is the man she’ll be spending the rest of her life with, she wants to know if he has any skeletons in the closet. This is before Google, you know? So it was a hell of a lot harder to stalk people. So she decides to hire the best private investigator in town to do background checks. But in a major mix-up, she instead gets a 45 year old gambling drinking mess of a man who can barely keep his apartment in order, much less his life. Meet Buddy Hallibeck.

Despite Buddy’s off-putting pedigree, he possesses just enough charm to convince Chase to take a chance on him. And it’s a good thing she does. Buddy may not look it, but he’s one hell of a P.I. When the headhunter brings back the top 3 “CEO” choices, Buddy immediately goes to work, breaking the men down with the skill of a forensics analyst. It's through these ongoing updates that the two develop a tenuous if barely respectful relationship. Although this is where you'd typically find a lot of artificial fighting between the two swooning-but-refuse-to-admit-it future lovers, there's none of that in Executive Search. Even though Chase’s resistence to Buddy feels familiar, it also feels honest. Sure she sees something in Buddy. But she’s also smart enough to know it’d never work. She’s a successful CEO. He’s a slimy private investigator. It’s not even worth considering.

That kind of honesty continues throughout Executive Search. Nothing here feels forced. Even though the scenario has a movie quality set-up to it, you never feel like you’re watching a movie. You feel like you’re observing two self-absorbed stubborn people, both with complicated lives, both trying to find stability in their own fucked up ways. The conventions are either absent or don’t feel like conventions. These two aren't desperately in love but won’t “admit it.” They don't get stuck in the same bed together at one of their parents' house. There's no obligatory montage with heartwarming music. Everything here is real. Gritty. Honest.

And the character work here is just awesome. Each of these characters has a flaw in their lives that’s holding them back – something relatable, something all of us can understand. And you truly feel that they’ll never be able to find happiness until they overcome it. There’s also a wonderful subplot with Buddy’s 17 year old daughter, a girl Buddy is desperately trying to win the admiration of, as well as a perfectly integrated sub-pot involving somebody trying to steal company info from Chase. And it all fits.

That’s why I love this script. It’s that rare screenplay puzzle where every single piece fits. You can feel the care that went into this, particularly after being exposed to a decade of rom-coms that stink of being slapped together over a couple of Saturday afternoons. I liked this so much that I’m putting it in my Top 25. And I’m asking whoever owns it (I think 20th Century Fox?) to pull this one out of the vault and give it another shot. Give us a romantic comedy with depth again. Revive the genre. And don’t use any shitty rewrites either. Use the spec draft. It only needs a couple of technology updates and you’re set. Seriously, why the fuck are you wasting money on all this shit when you have something that’s actually good? I don't care about the politics of this ridiculous business. Make a great movie and watch the money and accolades role in.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Once you have your gimmick down, once you have your hook, forget about it. Forget about how you’re going to sell the thing. Switch your focus over to the story and the characters. Make them the best they can possibly be. I think that’s the problem with a lot of today’s writers. Is they rely too much on their premise. They think that that’s going to do all the work for them. It’s a casualty of movies like “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up” doing well. Because so much of the joke is implied in the title and the marketing, that writers assume if they get that part squared away, their job is over. But Executive Search goes back to a time where writers still cared about their characters. You need to do the same thing in your rom com.

Executive Search

BIG MONEY WEEK (SCRIPT 5)

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: A female CEO hires a sleazy private investigator to help her find the perfect husband.
About: This script sold for 2 million dollars to 20th Century Fox back in 1999. Gerald DiPego has written half a dozen novels and has a number of produced credits, such as Phenomenon and Message In A Bottle. But don’t let that fool you. This script is his masterpiece.
Writer: Gerald DiPego
Details: 108 pages (November 7, 1998 draft)

Rachel McAdams would be perfect for the role of Chase.

I’m so happy to be able to end Big Money Week with this script because whenever I go back into the unproduced specs of yesteryear time capsule, I usually find screenplays that prove why they've been forgotten. The last three Big Money scripts were perfect examples (still haven’t read Smoke and Mirrors). But this. This script surprised the hell out of me. Not only was it a great script. But it’s better than EVERY. SINGLE. ROMANTIC. COMEDY SCRIPT. OUT THERE. RIGHT NOW. I’m not kidding. Which gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will wise up, stop fucking around with all these 18 Ways To Eat Your Spouse shitty rom-com projects and make Executive Search. This is a writer who actually understands what makes a romantic comedy good. This is someone who actually understands that it’s not simply a catchy title, a hilarious hook, a bunch of knee-slapping set pieces, and a billboard that says, “Heigle Vs. Butler.” It’s about the characters. For the love of God, it’s about the characters!

Chase Banner is a 35 year old CEO of a software company that’s launching a game-changing software product in a few months. Chase is a tireless meticulous worker. So meticulous, in fact, that she schedules her meetings to the second. She doesn’t have time for anything else in her life. If you report to Chase, you don’t give her the fat. You give her the meat. If you can’t consolidate information into a few key sentences, go home. This girl operates on Cliff’s notes.

Problem is, Chase is starting to get that itch. No, not that itch, but the kind where you wanna, like, settle down. Get yourself a man. Start a family. But Chase barely has time to make personal phone calls. The last thing she has time to do is spend hours upon hours on the dating circuit in the hopes of maybe possibly potentially finding a man. So Chase has an idea. Since the kind of man she wants is exactly like herself – driven, passionate, successful - She’ll hire a headhunter to find her a “co-CEO” to “run her company.” Of course, she has no plans to actually partner with a CEO. She’ll simply treat the top choices as her potential future mates, finding a way to meet them after the search is over.

I know, I know. It sounds a little gimmicky. But the great thing about DiPego’s writing is that despite the obvious set-up, he manages to make it all sound plausible. Even reasonable! While I was reading this I started thinking, “Hmmm, this wouldn’t be such a bad idea to try out myself.” Unfortunately there’s a flaw in Chase's plan. The Headhunter won’t research personal lives. Seeing as this is the man she’ll be spending the rest of her life with, she wants to know if he has any skeletons in the closet. This is before Google, you know? So it was a hell of a lot harder to stalk people. So she decides to hire the best private investigator in town to do background checks. But in a major mix-up, she instead gets a 45 year old gambling drinking mess of a man who can barely keep his apartment in order, much less his life. Meet Buddy Hallibeck.

Despite Buddy’s off-putting pedigree, he possesses just enough charm to convince Chase to take a chance on him. And it’s a good thing she does. Buddy may not look it, but he’s one hell of a P.I. When the headhunter brings back the top 3 “CEO” choices, Buddy immediately goes to work, breaking the men down with the skill of a forensics analyst. It's through these ongoing updates that the two develop a tenuous if barely respectful relationship. Although this is where you'd typically find a lot of artificial fighting between the two swooning-but-refuse-to-admit-it future lovers, there's none of that in Executive Search. Even though Chase’s resistence to Buddy feels familiar, it also feels honest. Sure she sees something in Buddy. But she’s also smart enough to know it’d never work. She’s a successful CEO. He’s a slimy private investigator. It’s not even worth considering.

That kind of honesty continues throughout Executive Search. Nothing here feels forced. Even though the scenario has a movie quality set-up to it, you never feel like you’re watching a movie. You feel like you’re observing two self-absorbed stubborn people, both with complicated lives, both trying to find stability in their own fucked up ways. The conventions are either absent or don’t feel like conventions. These two aren't desperately in love but won’t “admit it.” They don't get stuck in the same bed together at one of their parents' house. There's no obligatory montage with heartwarming music. Everything here is real. Gritty. Honest.

And the character work here is just awesome. Each of these characters has a flaw in their lives that’s holding them back – something relatable, something all of us can understand. And you truly feel that they’ll never be able to find happiness until they overcome it. There’s also a wonderful subplot with Buddy’s 17 year old daughter, a girl Buddy is desperately trying to win the admiration of, as well as a perfectly integrated sub-pot involving somebody trying to steal company info from Chase. And it all fits.

That’s why I love this script. It’s that rare screenplay puzzle where every single piece fits. You can feel the care that went into this, particularly after being exposed to a decade of rom-coms that stink of being slapped together over a couple of Saturday afternoons. I liked this so much that I’m putting it in my Top 25. And I’m asking whoever owns it (I think 20th Century Fox?) to pull this one out of the vault and give it another shot. Give us a romantic comedy with depth again. Revive the genre. And don’t use any shitty rewrites either. Use the spec draft. It only needs a couple of technology updates and you’re set. Seriously, why the fuck are you wasting money on all this shit when you have something that’s actually good? I don't care about the politics of this ridiculous business. Make a great movie and watch the money and accolades role in.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Once you have your gimmick down, once you have your hook, forget about it. Forget about how you’re going to sell the thing. Switch your focus over to the story and the characters. Make them the best they can possibly be. I think that’s the problem with a lot of today’s writers. Is they rely too much on their premise. They think that that’s going to do all the work for them. It’s a casualty of movies like “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up” doing well. Because so much of the joke is implied in the title and the marketing, that writers assume if they get that part squared away, their job is over. But Executive Search goes back to a time where writers still cared about their characters. You need to do the same thing in your rom com.

Executive Search

BIG MONEY WEEK (SCRIPT 5)

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: A female CEO hires a sleazy private investigator to help her find the perfect husband.
About: This script sold for 2 million dollars to 20th Century Fox back in 1999. Gerald DiPego has written half a dozen novels and has a number of produced credits, such as Phenomenon and Message In A Bottle. But don’t let that fool you. This script is his masterpiece.
Writer: Gerald DiPego
Details: 108 pages (November 7, 1998 draft)

Rachel McAdams would be perfect for the role of Chase.

I’m so happy to be able to end Big Money Week with this script because whenever I go back into the unproduced specs of yesteryear time capsule, I usually find screenplays that prove why they've been forgotten. The last three Big Money scripts were perfect examples (still haven’t read Smoke and Mirrors). But this. This script surprised the hell out of me. Not only was it a great script. But it’s better than EVERY. SINGLE. ROMANTIC. COMEDY SCRIPT. OUT THERE. RIGHT NOW. I’m not kidding. Which gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will wise up, stop fucking around with all these 18 Ways To Eat Your Spouse shitty rom-com projects and make Executive Search. This is a writer who actually understands what makes a romantic comedy good. This is someone who actually understands that it’s not simply a catchy title, a hilarious hook, a bunch of knee-slapping set pieces, and a billboard that says, “Heigle Vs. Butler.” It’s about the characters. For the love of God, it’s about the characters!

Chase Banner is a 35 year old CEO of a software company that’s launching a game-changing software product in a few months. Chase is a tireless meticulous worker. So meticulous, in fact, that she schedules her meetings to the second. She doesn’t have time for anything else in her life. If you report to Chase, you don’t give her the fat. You give her the meat. If you can’t consolidate information into a few key sentences, go home. This girl operates on Cliff’s notes.

Problem is, Chase is starting to get that itch. No, not that itch, but the kind where you wanna, like, settle down. Get yourself a man. Start a family. But Chase barely has time to make personal phone calls. The last thing she has time to do is spend hours upon hours on the dating circuit in the hopes of maybe possibly potentially finding a man. So Chase has an idea. Since the kind of man she wants is exactly like herself – driven, passionate, successful - She’ll hire a headhunter to find her a “co-CEO” to “run her company.” Of course, she has no plans to actually partner with a CEO. She’ll simply treat the top choices as her potential future mates, finding a way to meet them after the search is over.

I know, I know. It sounds a little gimmicky. But the great thing about DiPego’s writing is that despite the obvious set-up, he manages to make it all sound plausible. Even reasonable! While I was reading this I started thinking, “Hmmm, this wouldn’t be such a bad idea to try out myself.” Unfortunately there’s a flaw in Chase's plan. The Headhunter won’t research personal lives. Seeing as this is the man she’ll be spending the rest of her life with, she wants to know if he has any skeletons in the closet. This is before Google, you know? So it was a hell of a lot harder to stalk people. So she decides to hire the best private investigator in town to do background checks. But in a major mix-up, she instead gets a 45 year old gambling drinking mess of a man who can barely keep his apartment in order, much less his life. Meet Buddy Hallibeck.

Despite Buddy’s off-putting pedigree, he possesses just enough charm to convince Chase to take a chance on him. And it’s a good thing she does. Buddy may not look it, but he’s one hell of a P.I. When the headhunter brings back the top 3 “CEO” choices, Buddy immediately goes to work, breaking the men down with the skill of a forensics analyst. It's through these ongoing updates that the two develop a tenuous if barely respectful relationship. Although this is where you'd typically find a lot of artificial fighting between the two swooning-but-refuse-to-admit-it future lovers, there's none of that in Executive Search. Even though Chase’s resistence to Buddy feels familiar, it also feels honest. Sure she sees something in Buddy. But she’s also smart enough to know it’d never work. She’s a successful CEO. He’s a slimy private investigator. It’s not even worth considering.

That kind of honesty continues throughout Executive Search. Nothing here feels forced. Even though the scenario has a movie quality set-up to it, you never feel like you’re watching a movie. You feel like you’re observing two self-absorbed stubborn people, both with complicated lives, both trying to find stability in their own fucked up ways. The conventions are either absent or don’t feel like conventions. These two aren't desperately in love but won’t “admit it.” They don't get stuck in the same bed together at one of their parents' house. There's no obligatory montage with heartwarming music. Everything here is real. Gritty. Honest.

And the character work here is just awesome. Each of these characters has a flaw in their lives that’s holding them back – something relatable, something all of us can understand. And you truly feel that they’ll never be able to find happiness until they overcome it. There’s also a wonderful subplot with Buddy’s 17 year old daughter, a girl Buddy is desperately trying to win the admiration of, as well as a perfectly integrated sub-pot involving somebody trying to steal company info from Chase. And it all fits.

That’s why I love this script. It’s that rare screenplay puzzle where every single piece fits. You can feel the care that went into this, particularly after being exposed to a decade of rom-coms that stink of being slapped together over a couple of Saturday afternoons. I liked this so much that I’m putting it in my Top 25. And I’m asking whoever owns it (I think 20th Century Fox?) to pull this one out of the vault and give it another shot. Give us a romantic comedy with depth again. Revive the genre. And don’t use any shitty rewrites either. Use the spec draft. It only needs a couple of technology updates and you’re set. Seriously, why the fuck are you wasting money on all this shit when you have something that’s actually good? I don't care about the politics of this ridiculous business. Make a great movie and watch the money and accolades role in.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Once you have your gimmick down, once you have your hook, forget about it. Forget about how you’re going to sell the thing. Switch your focus over to the story and the characters. Make them the best they can possibly be. I think that’s the problem with a lot of today’s writers. Is they rely too much on their premise. They think that that’s going to do all the work for them. It’s a casualty of movies like “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up” doing well. Because so much of the joke is implied in the title and the marketing, that writers assume if they get that part squared away, their job is over. But Executive Search goes back to a time where writers still cared about their characters. You need to do the same thing in your rom com.

Gene Bullard

Ugh, yesterday was not a fun day at all. As a lot of you already know, the mediafire library that PJ had posted has been taken down. The reason it’s been taken down is because Fox has sued PJ for 15 million dollars. It’s just a sad day, not because scripts will no longer be available or nobody can come to a consensus on whether what PJ was doing was right or wrong. It’s sad because I know PJ is a good person and gained nothing personally from having the library up. She just wanted amateur writers to learn the craft of screenwriting through professional writing. She wanted to help others. I think what a lot of you are wondering is, will this affect Scriptshadow? The answer is a definitive yes. I’m not sure how yet but it’s a safe bet that the format of the site will change significantly. While reviewing scripts isn't illegal, when billion dollar companies put their foot down, you have no choice but to ask how they’d like their shoe tied. If you want to help PJ with her legal fees, I know they’ve started a collection fund over here on this site. If you feel that you’ve in any way become a better writer because of what she provided, please please help her out.

Genre: Drama/Heist
Premise: A group of thieves invade a small southern town during a weekend festival in order to rob the town’s lucrative mill.
About: If you know anything about the history of film, you know James Dickey. He wrote one of the great movies of all time, Deliverance, which he adapted from his own novel. Dickey actually came to prominence as a poet in the 60s, writing several compilations that became very popular. This led to him reading one of his poems at President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. Despite the popularity of Deliverance, it is Dickey’s only produced screenwriting credit. Gene Bullard was his follow-up screenplay, which was never made.
Writer: James Dickey
Details: 121 pages – 1975 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).


Deliverance is one of my favorite movies. I dare you to go home tonight and watch that movie and not fall under its spell. That film wraps its finger around you and pulls you in until you don’t even know which way is up. It’s that spellbinding. And yet, it’s a really strange screenplay. When you go back and watch a lot of movies from the 70s, you get frustrated with the drawn out deliberate pacing of anything but the classics. But even in its slowest moments, Deliverance still dazzles, and it’s not easy to figure out why. I mean, who would’ve thought that stopping the story for five full minutes while two characters have a banjo showdown would not only work, but become one of the most famous movie scenes of all time?

Needless to say, when I heard that Dickey had written another screenplay, I got excited. Why wasn’t it ever made? Was it bad? Was it too genius for others to wrap their heads around? What’s the story behind Gene Bullard? I wanted to find out.

Gene Bullard starts with four criminals driving into a small town. There’s Makens, the dangerous leader, Jimbo and Leon, his loyal sidekicks, and Joby, the young handsome outsider. Through their conversation we learn that Joby’s just gotten out of jail and is leading Makens and his crew to his old town, where he plans to help them rob the lucrative mill that employs most of the town’s residents.

The town itself is gearing up for a festival and the star of this festival (and the star of the town) is Sheriff Gene Bullard. Bullard is a jovial type who grew up in this town as a virtual pariah. He was a high school sports star and the person everyone wanted to be friends with. He also was a surrogate father to Joby, who he’s ecstatic to see back from jail. Joby introduces Bullard to Makens and the others and Bullard has no idea that this man is going to rob his town blind within the next 48 hours.

This is where Gene Bullard gets a little strange. Instead of getting to business right away, Makens and his buddies decide to enjoy the festival for awhile. They head over to the main bar and get drunk. They head over to the town hall and dance. They stalk out any woman who will have them. They figure, if we’re going to rob this town, we might as well have some fun in it first.

Concurrently with Makens mini-ratpack adventures, we’re cutting back to Gene Bullard, who seems to have involved himself in multiple female endeavors, some of which he keeps under wraps and some of which he’s quite open about. There is one woman he can’t seem to get a handle on however. That would be Joby’s twin sister, Lila – easily the best thing about this screenplay. Lila is a master loomer (loomstress?) whose movements and demeanor feel almost ethereal in nature, like she’s floating above the rest of the world. She’s weird, mysterious, and dangerous. Gene has no idea what to do with her.

If this is all sounding a bit random, that’s because Gene Bullard is very random. Between the moment we get into town and the moment when Makens attempts the robbery, we’re basically just watching a lot of characters enjoy a crazy festival. After all the festival stuff finally ends, Makens makes his way over to the mill to rob it, and in a very Coen Brothers like finale, a lot of things start going wrong, which results in a final showdown between Bullard and Makens.

This was a strange one. I think the most frustrating thing about Gene Bullard is the character Gene Bullard. This is a man who the screenplay is named after, and yet he has no goals, no real point – he’s just this passive character who stumbles around from situation to situation. I still don’t know how Dickey wanted him to be perceived, as he’s in some places popular, other places moronic, other places a clown, and other places a ladies’ man. If this script should’ve been named after any character, it would be Makens. He’s the one driving the story. He’s the one with the active goal (rob the mill). He’s the one who really sticks out as a character.

Dickey is almost able to overcome this deficiency with the inclusion of some Dickeyisms. I call them Dickeyisms since they’re strange Deliverance-like moments that only Dickey would write. For example, there’s a scene where Lila plays the harp that feels very similar in tone and mood to the famous dueling banjo scene in Deliverance. There’s also one scene in particular where, if this movie would’ve been made, would’ve been a classic that fans would still be talking about today. In it, Bullard is seduced by Lila, who, just before they’re about to have sex, pulls out a rattlesnake. It’s a bizarre scene where we don’t know if she’s going to kill him or have sex with the thing, but it was a great sequence that was impossible to forget.

I think where this script struggles to attain the greatness of Deliverance is in its point-of-view. Deliverance was awesome because our point-of-view was with the friends the whole time. We saw the hillbillies only through their eyes, allowing us to imagine for ourselves how dangerous they were. In Gene Bullard, we’re jumping back and forth between the good guys and the bad guys freely, to the point where we know Makens well, and therefore we’re not really afraid of him. I know this can work (it worked in No Country For Old Men) but it didn’t work here. Deliverance just had this overwhelming feeling of dread that Gene Bullard never attained. And I think knowing the bad guys too well is what caused it.

Obviously, this script is a product of its era. We have long wandering scenes that remind you of the wedding scenes in The Godfather or Deerhunter – scenes that just don’t work nowadays with people’s attention spans the way they are. There still might be a movie here (I’d love to see the character of Lila onscreen) but it would have to be rewritten considerably. Either way, it’s a fascinating look back at what could’ve been.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Splitting screenplay time equally between two main characters is hard to pull off. It’s advised that you focus on one main character and give the majority of time in your screenplay to him/her. However, if you want to split time between characters, make sure that each one is active, that each one has something going on. I think this script faltered because one of its main characters didn’t have anything to do. Gene Bullard just stumbles around from location to location until he’s called into action in the final act.

Gene Bullard

Ugh, yesterday was not a fun day at all. As a lot of you already know, the mediafire library that PJ had posted has been taken down. The reason it’s been taken down is because Fox has sued PJ for 15 million dollars. It’s just a sad day, not because scripts will no longer be available or nobody can come to a consensus on whether what PJ was doing was right or wrong. It’s sad because I know PJ is a good person and gained nothing personally from having the library up. She just wanted amateur writers to learn the craft of screenwriting through professional writing. She wanted to help others. I think what a lot of you are wondering is, will this affect Scriptshadow? The answer is a definitive yes. I’m not sure how yet but it’s a safe bet that the format of the site will change significantly. While reviewing scripts isn't illegal, when billion dollar companies put their foot down, you have no choice but to ask how they’d like their shoe tied. If you want to help PJ with her legal fees, I know they’ve started a collection fund over here on this site. If you feel that you’ve in any way become a better writer because of what she provided, please please help her out.

Genre: Drama/Heist
Premise: A group of thieves invade a small southern town during a weekend festival in order to rob the town’s lucrative mill.
About: If you know anything about the history of film, you know James Dickey. He wrote one of the great movies of all time, Deliverance, which he adapted from his own novel. Dickey actually came to prominence as a poet in the 60s, writing several compilations that became very popular. This led to him reading one of his poems at President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. Despite the popularity of Deliverance, it is Dickey’s only produced screenwriting credit. Gene Bullard was his follow-up screenplay, which was never made.
Writer: James Dickey
Details: 121 pages – 1975 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).


Deliverance is one of my favorite movies. I dare you to go home tonight and watch that movie and not fall under its spell. That film wraps its finger around you and pulls you in until you don’t even know which way is up. It’s that spellbinding. And yet, it’s a really strange screenplay. When you go back and watch a lot of movies from the 70s, you get frustrated with the drawn out deliberate pacing of anything but the classics. But even in its slowest moments, Deliverance still dazzles, and it’s not easy to figure out why. I mean, who would’ve thought that stopping the story for five full minutes while two characters have a banjo showdown would not only work, but become one of the most famous movie scenes of all time?

Needless to say, when I heard that Dickey had written another screenplay, I got excited. Why wasn’t it ever made? Was it bad? Was it too genius for others to wrap their heads around? What’s the story behind Gene Bullard? I wanted to find out.

Gene Bullard starts with four criminals driving into a small town. There’s Makens, the dangerous leader, Jimbo and Leon, his loyal sidekicks, and Joby, the young handsome outsider. Through their conversation we learn that Joby’s just gotten out of jail and is leading Makens and his crew to his old town, where he plans to help them rob the lucrative mill that employs most of the town’s residents.

The town itself is gearing up for a festival and the star of this festival (and the star of the town) is Sheriff Gene Bullard. Bullard is a jovial type who grew up in this town as a virtual pariah. He was a high school sports star and the person everyone wanted to be friends with. He also was a surrogate father to Joby, who he’s ecstatic to see back from jail. Joby introduces Bullard to Makens and the others and Bullard has no idea that this man is going to rob his town blind within the next 48 hours.

This is where Gene Bullard gets a little strange. Instead of getting to business right away, Makens and his buddies decide to enjoy the festival for awhile. They head over to the main bar and get drunk. They head over to the town hall and dance. They stalk out any woman who will have them. They figure, if we’re going to rob this town, we might as well have some fun in it first.

Concurrently with Makens mini-ratpack adventures, we’re cutting back to Gene Bullard, who seems to have involved himself in multiple female endeavors, some of which he keeps under wraps and some of which he’s quite open about. There is one woman he can’t seem to get a handle on however. That would be Joby’s twin sister, Lila – easily the best thing about this screenplay. Lila is a master loomer (loomstress?) whose movements and demeanor feel almost ethereal in nature, like she’s floating above the rest of the world. She’s weird, mysterious, and dangerous. Gene has no idea what to do with her.

If this is all sounding a bit random, that’s because Gene Bullard is very random. Between the moment we get into town and the moment when Makens attempts the robbery, we’re basically just watching a lot of characters enjoy a crazy festival. After all the festival stuff finally ends, Makens makes his way over to the mill to rob it, and in a very Coen Brothers like finale, a lot of things start going wrong, which results in a final showdown between Bullard and Makens.

This was a strange one. I think the most frustrating thing about Gene Bullard is the character Gene Bullard. This is a man who the screenplay is named after, and yet he has no goals, no real point – he’s just this passive character who stumbles around from situation to situation. I still don’t know how Dickey wanted him to be perceived, as he’s in some places popular, other places moronic, other places a clown, and other places a ladies’ man. If this script should’ve been named after any character, it would be Makens. He’s the one driving the story. He’s the one with the active goal (rob the mill). He’s the one who really sticks out as a character.

Dickey is almost able to overcome this deficiency with the inclusion of some Dickeyisms. I call them Dickeyisms since they’re strange Deliverance-like moments that only Dickey would write. For example, there’s a scene where Lila plays the harp that feels very similar in tone and mood to the famous dueling banjo scene in Deliverance. There’s also one scene in particular where, if this movie would’ve been made, would’ve been a classic that fans would still be talking about today. In it, Bullard is seduced by Lila, who, just before they’re about to have sex, pulls out a rattlesnake. It’s a bizarre scene where we don’t know if she’s going to kill him or have sex with the thing, but it was a great sequence that was impossible to forget.

I think where this script struggles to attain the greatness of Deliverance is in its point-of-view. Deliverance was awesome because our point-of-view was with the friends the whole time. We saw the hillbillies only through their eyes, allowing us to imagine for ourselves how dangerous they were. In Gene Bullard, we’re jumping back and forth between the good guys and the bad guys freely, to the point where we know Makens well, and therefore we’re not really afraid of him. I know this can work (it worked in No Country For Old Men) but it didn’t work here. Deliverance just had this overwhelming feeling of dread that Gene Bullard never attained. And I think knowing the bad guys too well is what caused it.

Obviously, this script is a product of its era. We have long wandering scenes that remind you of the wedding scenes in The Godfather or Deerhunter – scenes that just don’t work nowadays with people’s attention spans the way they are. There still might be a movie here (I’d love to see the character of Lila onscreen) but it would have to be rewritten considerably. Either way, it’s a fascinating look back at what could’ve been.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Splitting screenplay time equally between two main characters is hard to pull off. It’s advised that you focus on one main character and give the majority of time in your screenplay to him/her. However, if you want to split time between characters, make sure that each one is active, that each one has something going on. I think this script faltered because one of its main characters didn’t have anything to do. Gene Bullard just stumbles around from location to location until he’s called into action in the final act.

Gene Bullard

Ugh, yesterday was not a fun day at all. As a lot of you already know, the mediafire library that PJ had posted has been taken down. The reason it’s been taken down is because Fox has sued PJ for 15 million dollars. It’s just a sad day, not because scripts will no longer be available or nobody can come to a consensus on whether what PJ was doing was right or wrong. It’s sad because I know PJ is a good person and gained nothing personally from having the library up. She just wanted amateur writers to learn the craft of screenwriting through professional writing. She wanted to help others. I think what a lot of you are wondering is, will this affect Scriptshadow? The answer is a definitive yes. I’m not sure how yet but it’s a safe bet that the format of the site will change significantly. While reviewing scripts isn't illegal, when billion dollar companies put their foot down, you have no choice but to ask how they’d like their shoe tied. If you want to help PJ with her legal fees, I know they’ve started a collection fund over here on this site. If you feel that you’ve in any way become a better writer because of what she provided, please please help her out.

Genre: Drama/Heist
Premise: A group of thieves invade a small southern town during a weekend festival in order to rob the town’s lucrative mill.
About: If you know anything about the history of film, you know James Dickey. He wrote one of the great movies of all time, Deliverance, which he adapted from his own novel. Dickey actually came to prominence as a poet in the 60s, writing several compilations that became very popular. This led to him reading one of his poems at President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. Despite the popularity of Deliverance, it is Dickey’s only produced screenwriting credit. Gene Bullard was his follow-up screenplay, which was never made.
Writer: James Dickey
Details: 121 pages – 1975 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).


Deliverance is one of my favorite movies. I dare you to go home tonight and watch that movie and not fall under its spell. That film wraps its finger around you and pulls you in until you don’t even know which way is up. It’s that spellbinding. And yet, it’s a really strange screenplay. When you go back and watch a lot of movies from the 70s, you get frustrated with the drawn out deliberate pacing of anything but the classics. But even in its slowest moments, Deliverance still dazzles, and it’s not easy to figure out why. I mean, who would’ve thought that stopping the story for five full minutes while two characters have a banjo showdown would not only work, but become one of the most famous movie scenes of all time?

Needless to say, when I heard that Dickey had written another screenplay, I got excited. Why wasn’t it ever made? Was it bad? Was it too genius for others to wrap their heads around? What’s the story behind Gene Bullard? I wanted to find out.

Gene Bullard starts with four criminals driving into a small town. There’s Makens, the dangerous leader, Jimbo and Leon, his loyal sidekicks, and Joby, the young handsome outsider. Through their conversation we learn that Joby’s just gotten out of jail and is leading Makens and his crew to his old town, where he plans to help them rob the lucrative mill that employs most of the town’s residents.

The town itself is gearing up for a festival and the star of this festival (and the star of the town) is Sheriff Gene Bullard. Bullard is a jovial type who grew up in this town as a virtual pariah. He was a high school sports star and the person everyone wanted to be friends with. He also was a surrogate father to Joby, who he’s ecstatic to see back from jail. Joby introduces Bullard to Makens and the others and Bullard has no idea that this man is going to rob his town blind within the next 48 hours.

This is where Gene Bullard gets a little strange. Instead of getting to business right away, Makens and his buddies decide to enjoy the festival for awhile. They head over to the main bar and get drunk. They head over to the town hall and dance. They stalk out any woman who will have them. They figure, if we’re going to rob this town, we might as well have some fun in it first.

Concurrently with Makens mini-ratpack adventures, we’re cutting back to Gene Bullard, who seems to have involved himself in multiple female endeavors, some of which he keeps under wraps and some of which he’s quite open about. There is one woman he can’t seem to get a handle on however. That would be Joby’s twin sister, Lila – easily the best thing about this screenplay. Lila is a master loomer (loomstress?) whose movements and demeanor feel almost ethereal in nature, like she’s floating above the rest of the world. She’s weird, mysterious, and dangerous. Gene has no idea what to do with her.

If this is all sounding a bit random, that’s because Gene Bullard is very random. Between the moment we get into town and the moment when Makens attempts the robbery, we’re basically just watching a lot of characters enjoy a crazy festival. After all the festival stuff finally ends, Makens makes his way over to the mill to rob it, and in a very Coen Brothers like finale, a lot of things start going wrong, which results in a final showdown between Bullard and Makens.

This was a strange one. I think the most frustrating thing about Gene Bullard is the character Gene Bullard. This is a man who the screenplay is named after, and yet he has no goals, no real point – he’s just this passive character who stumbles around from situation to situation. I still don’t know how Dickey wanted him to be perceived, as he’s in some places popular, other places moronic, other places a clown, and other places a ladies’ man. If this script should’ve been named after any character, it would be Makens. He’s the one driving the story. He’s the one with the active goal (rob the mill). He’s the one who really sticks out as a character.

Dickey is almost able to overcome this deficiency with the inclusion of some Dickeyisms. I call them Dickeyisms since they’re strange Deliverance-like moments that only Dickey would write. For example, there’s a scene where Lila plays the harp that feels very similar in tone and mood to the famous dueling banjo scene in Deliverance. There’s also one scene in particular where, if this movie would’ve been made, would’ve been a classic that fans would still be talking about today. In it, Bullard is seduced by Lila, who, just before they’re about to have sex, pulls out a rattlesnake. It’s a bizarre scene where we don’t know if she’s going to kill him or have sex with the thing, but it was a great sequence that was impossible to forget.

I think where this script struggles to attain the greatness of Deliverance is in its point-of-view. Deliverance was awesome because our point-of-view was with the friends the whole time. We saw the hillbillies only through their eyes, allowing us to imagine for ourselves how dangerous they were. In Gene Bullard, we’re jumping back and forth between the good guys and the bad guys freely, to the point where we know Makens well, and therefore we’re not really afraid of him. I know this can work (it worked in No Country For Old Men) but it didn’t work here. Deliverance just had this overwhelming feeling of dread that Gene Bullard never attained. And I think knowing the bad guys too well is what caused it.

Obviously, this script is a product of its era. We have long wandering scenes that remind you of the wedding scenes in The Godfather or Deerhunter – scenes that just don’t work nowadays with people’s attention spans the way they are. There still might be a movie here (I’d love to see the character of Lila onscreen) but it would have to be rewritten considerably. Either way, it’s a fascinating look back at what could’ve been.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Splitting screenplay time equally between two main characters is hard to pull off. It’s advised that you focus on one main character and give the majority of time in your screenplay to him/her. However, if you want to split time between characters, make sure that each one is active, that each one has something going on. I think this script faltered because one of its main characters didn’t have anything to do. Gene Bullard just stumbles around from location to location until he’s called into action in the final act.

Gene Bullard

Ugh, yesterday was not a fun day at all. As a lot of you already know, the mediafire library that PJ had posted has been taken down. The reason it’s been taken down is because Fox has sued PJ for 15 million dollars. It’s just a sad day, not because scripts will no longer be available or nobody can come to a consensus on whether what PJ was doing was right or wrong. It’s sad because I know PJ is a good person and gained nothing personally from having the library up. She just wanted amateur writers to learn the craft of screenwriting through professional writing. She wanted to help others. I think what a lot of you are wondering is, will this affect Scriptshadow? The answer is a definitive yes. I’m not sure how yet but it’s a safe bet that the format of the site will change significantly. While reviewing scripts isn't illegal, when billion dollar companies put their foot down, you have no choice but to ask how they’d like their shoe tied. If you want to help PJ with her legal fees, I know they’ve started a collection fund over here on this site. If you feel that you’ve in any way become a better writer because of what she provided, please please help her out.

Genre: Drama/Heist
Premise: A group of thieves invade a small southern town during a weekend festival in order to rob the town’s lucrative mill.
About: If you know anything about the history of film, you know James Dickey. He wrote one of the great movies of all time, Deliverance, which he adapted from his own novel. Dickey actually came to prominence as a poet in the 60s, writing several compilations that became very popular. This led to him reading one of his poems at President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. Despite the popularity of Deliverance, it is Dickey’s only produced screenwriting credit. Gene Bullard was his follow-up screenplay, which was never made.
Writer: James Dickey
Details: 121 pages – 1975 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).


Deliverance is one of my favorite movies. I dare you to go home tonight and watch that movie and not fall under its spell. That film wraps its finger around you and pulls you in until you don’t even know which way is up. It’s that spellbinding. And yet, it’s a really strange screenplay. When you go back and watch a lot of movies from the 70s, you get frustrated with the drawn out deliberate pacing of anything but the classics. But even in its slowest moments, Deliverance still dazzles, and it’s not easy to figure out why. I mean, who would’ve thought that stopping the story for five full minutes while two characters have a banjo showdown would not only work, but become one of the most famous movie scenes of all time?

Needless to say, when I heard that Dickey had written another screenplay, I got excited. Why wasn’t it ever made? Was it bad? Was it too genius for others to wrap their heads around? What’s the story behind Gene Bullard? I wanted to find out.

Gene Bullard starts with four criminals driving into a small town. There’s Makens, the dangerous leader, Jimbo and Leon, his loyal sidekicks, and Joby, the young handsome outsider. Through their conversation we learn that Joby’s just gotten out of jail and is leading Makens and his crew to his old town, where he plans to help them rob the lucrative mill that employs most of the town’s residents.

The town itself is gearing up for a festival and the star of this festival (and the star of the town) is Sheriff Gene Bullard. Bullard is a jovial type who grew up in this town as a virtual pariah. He was a high school sports star and the person everyone wanted to be friends with. He also was a surrogate father to Joby, who he’s ecstatic to see back from jail. Joby introduces Bullard to Makens and the others and Bullard has no idea that this man is going to rob his town blind within the next 48 hours.

This is where Gene Bullard gets a little strange. Instead of getting to business right away, Makens and his buddies decide to enjoy the festival for awhile. They head over to the main bar and get drunk. They head over to the town hall and dance. They stalk out any woman who will have them. They figure, if we’re going to rob this town, we might as well have some fun in it first.

Concurrently with Makens mini-ratpack adventures, we’re cutting back to Gene Bullard, who seems to have involved himself in multiple female endeavors, some of which he keeps under wraps and some of which he’s quite open about. There is one woman he can’t seem to get a handle on however. That would be Joby’s twin sister, Lila – easily the best thing about this screenplay. Lila is a master loomer (loomstress?) whose movements and demeanor feel almost ethereal in nature, like she’s floating above the rest of the world. She’s weird, mysterious, and dangerous. Gene has no idea what to do with her.

If this is all sounding a bit random, that’s because Gene Bullard is very random. Between the moment we get into town and the moment when Makens attempts the robbery, we’re basically just watching a lot of characters enjoy a crazy festival. After all the festival stuff finally ends, Makens makes his way over to the mill to rob it, and in a very Coen Brothers like finale, a lot of things start going wrong, which results in a final showdown between Bullard and Makens.

This was a strange one. I think the most frustrating thing about Gene Bullard is the character Gene Bullard. This is a man who the screenplay is named after, and yet he has no goals, no real point – he’s just this passive character who stumbles around from situation to situation. I still don’t know how Dickey wanted him to be perceived, as he’s in some places popular, other places moronic, other places a clown, and other places a ladies’ man. If this script should’ve been named after any character, it would be Makens. He’s the one driving the story. He’s the one with the active goal (rob the mill). He’s the one who really sticks out as a character.

Dickey is almost able to overcome this deficiency with the inclusion of some Dickeyisms. I call them Dickeyisms since they’re strange Deliverance-like moments that only Dickey would write. For example, there’s a scene where Lila plays the harp that feels very similar in tone and mood to the famous dueling banjo scene in Deliverance. There’s also one scene in particular where, if this movie would’ve been made, would’ve been a classic that fans would still be talking about today. In it, Bullard is seduced by Lila, who, just before they’re about to have sex, pulls out a rattlesnake. It’s a bizarre scene where we don’t know if she’s going to kill him or have sex with the thing, but it was a great sequence that was impossible to forget.

I think where this script struggles to attain the greatness of Deliverance is in its point-of-view. Deliverance was awesome because our point-of-view was with the friends the whole time. We saw the hillbillies only through their eyes, allowing us to imagine for ourselves how dangerous they were. In Gene Bullard, we’re jumping back and forth between the good guys and the bad guys freely, to the point where we know Makens well, and therefore we’re not really afraid of him. I know this can work (it worked in No Country For Old Men) but it didn’t work here. Deliverance just had this overwhelming feeling of dread that Gene Bullard never attained. And I think knowing the bad guys too well is what caused it.

Obviously, this script is a product of its era. We have long wandering scenes that remind you of the wedding scenes in The Godfather or Deerhunter – scenes that just don’t work nowadays with people’s attention spans the way they are. There still might be a movie here (I’d love to see the character of Lila onscreen) but it would have to be rewritten considerably. Either way, it’s a fascinating look back at what could’ve been.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Splitting screenplay time equally between two main characters is hard to pull off. It’s advised that you focus on one main character and give the majority of time in your screenplay to him/her. However, if you want to split time between characters, make sure that each one is active, that each one has something going on. I think this script faltered because one of its main characters didn’t have anything to do. Gene Bullard just stumbles around from location to location until he’s called into action in the final act.

Tuesday Talkback - One month left

Tomorrow is the start of December. That means there's just one month left in 2010.

So how many of you haven't met your writing goals this year?

I'd write more, but I have a month to finish a TV pilot.

Tuesday Talkback - One month left

Tomorrow is the start of December. That means there's just one month left in 2010.

So how many of you haven't met your writing goals this year?

I'd write more, but I have a month to finish a TV pilot.

Jeremy Orm Is A Pervert

Genre: Comedy
Premise: In 1985, a 13 year old socially challenged boy obsesses over finding pictures of nude women while his preacher father tries to become a bishop.
About: This is Phil Johnston’s first sold script, I believe, which landed him on the 2006 Black List. Johnston would later write “Cedar Rapids,” which would make last year’s Black List and get produced earlier in the year (it stars Ed Helms). Johnston was a broadcast journalist in the Midwest who moved to New York to attend film school at Columbia. While details are sketchy, I believe this is the script that got him representation at UTA. You can also find some storyboards Johnston did for the script on this site. 
Writer: Phil Johnston
Details: April 7, 2006 draft – 107 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).


Last year, Cedar Rapids, Phil Johnston’s kooky tale about a straight-laced small-towner trying to survive a weekend in the “crazy” big city of Cedar Rapids, climbed its way into the Black List Top 10. The script made Johnston one of the hotter writers in town. But it actually wasn’t Johnston’s first script. In fact, it wasn’t even his first foray into the Black List. That happened back in 2006 with another script called “Jeremy Orm is a Pervert.”

I had no idea what to expect from "Orm," but I quickly found out that Johnston’s unique take on small-town America which served him so well in Cedar Rapids, was actually sculpted and framed long beforehand.

Let’s jump back to 1985 Neenah, Wisconsin. Jeremy is a 13 year old “chubby bowl-haired oddball” who’s just trying to survive junior high. He and his “unnaturally thin” best friend, Gordon Pinto, are, like most junior high boys, obsessed with seeing girls naked. Now for you younger folk, let me just tell you, it was a lot harder to do this before the internet. Jeremy and Gordon have scrapped together bits and pieces of material through the years – a possible nip-slip from a JC Penny catalogue, some naked National Geographic African women, even some naked pictures from the Holocaust – yeah, there’s some major desperation here.

But when an acquaintance from their class brings them the real deal – a Playboy – it’s like their world has been turned upside-down. These are “real” real naked women.

Jeremy would be spending all his time on nudie hoarding if he could, but he has other problems to tend to. His preacher father wants him to get in shape and is therefore obsessed with the idea of Jeremy making the basketball team, a sport Jeremy doesn’t even play. After being cut immediately, Jeremy is so afraid of his father’s reaction, he lies and tells him he made the team.

He then goes and begs the coach to allow him to play, who says he’ll let him on the team if he pays him 100 bucks a week under the table. I’m not even sure Morris Buttermaker would pull that one. It looks like Jeremy is screwed. However, after some brainstorming, he realizes that he might be able to buy Playboys from his Playboy supplier and sell them to school kids at a marked up price. He, Gordon, and Swati (a smart pushy Indian girl) throw together a business and soon he’s making just enough money to pay the coach so he can stay on the team.

In the meantime, his slightly racist fairly sexist preacher father is up for the esteemed title of Bishop, and happens to be running against a woman. Over the course of the story, when it looks like the race will be surprisingly close, he resorts to darker and slimier tactics in order to land his dream job. This include exposing her gay son to the world. But what Jeremy’s father will learn is that he has a far bigger mess to clean up with his own family, especially Jeremy, whose increasingly unsavory antics are about to blow up in his face.

The term “voice” can be thrown around a little too liberally at times. Truth be told, of all the new writers I see jumping onto the scene, it’s rare that they have a truly unique vision of the world that nobody else has. I love Source Code. But I don’t think the voice in that script is doing anything we haven’t seen before. It’s just a really well-told story.

But when you open up a Phil Johnston script, you really do feel like this guy has a unique view of the world. Each of his characters are steeped in this quirky exaggerated Midwesterness that makes them slightly different from any character you’ve read before.

He mixes that in with the contradictory nature of Midwesterners, specifically their dogged attention to morals, which they circumvent on a daily basis. Watching Jeremy’s preacher father make racist comments and tear down women, while believing he’s the perfect candidate for state bishop, is the kind of conflict Johnston loves to explore.

But what sets Johnston apart from other writers who like to write these kinds of character-based quirky movies, is that Johnston makes sure his characters have strong goals driving the story. So here, Jeremy’s dad is desperately trying to become bishop. Jeremy is desperately trying to stay on the basketball team so as not to upset his dad. Those two goals keep the story focused, and that can’t be stressed enough. Character based stories that fall off the rails fall off because the characters have flimsy goals with no stakes. This may be a small story but the characters’ goals feel big because they’re so obsessed with them.

If “Orm” has a problem, it’s when its characters skew a little too broad. The basketball coach here is a Nazi-sympathizing German. I felt we’d gone a little too far into left field (and maybe even into the bleachers) on that one, and in the process took some of the edge off Jeremy’s goal. There’s also a deaf-mute assistant coach who speaks in sounds that would’ve worked great in a movie like Airplane. But here it was just a little too weird and “out there.”

In the end, however, this is really solid writing. Since a unique voice is so rare to find these days, when one emerges, it’s impossible to ignore. And I haven’t read anything like either of Johnston’s scripts. I don’t think this is quite as good as Cedar Rapids, which was a little bigger and a little more fun, but it’s still a very deserving script.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’ll be honest, I don’t know all the qualities that make up a “unique voice,” but I know that the dominant quality is how a writer sees the world. If you see the world just like everyone else, then there’s probably not a whole lot of uniqueness to your script. But if you see people differently, situations differently, objects differently, theories differently, chances are people will recognize you as having a unique voice. One of the reasons Tim Burton is so successful is that he sees the world differently from everyone else. You can tell that by watching any of his movies. When you read The Voices or Mixtape, you feel like they see the world differently. This is by no means the only way to get your script noticed, but it is one of the more established ways.

Jeremy Orm Is A Pervert

Genre: Comedy
Premise: In 1985, a 13 year old socially challenged boy obsesses over finding pictures of nude women while his preacher father tries to become a bishop.
About: This is Phil Johnston’s first sold script, I believe, which landed him on the 2006 Black List. Johnston would later write “Cedar Rapids,” which would make last year’s Black List and get produced earlier in the year (it stars Ed Helms). Johnston was a broadcast journalist in the Midwest who moved to New York to attend film school at Columbia. While details are sketchy, I believe this is the script that got him representation at UTA. You can also find some storyboards Johnston did for the script on this site. 
Writer: Phil Johnston
Details: April 7, 2006 draft – 107 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).


Last year, Cedar Rapids, Phil Johnston’s kooky tale about a straight-laced small-towner trying to survive a weekend in the “crazy” big city of Cedar Rapids, climbed its way into the Black List Top 10. The script made Johnston one of the hotter writers in town. But it actually wasn’t Johnston’s first script. In fact, it wasn’t even his first foray into the Black List. That happened back in 2006 with another script called “Jeremy Orm is a Pervert.”

I had no idea what to expect from "Orm," but I quickly found out that Johnston’s unique take on small-town America which served him so well in Cedar Rapids, was actually sculpted and framed long beforehand.

Let’s jump back to 1985 Neenah, Wisconsin. Jeremy is a 13 year old “chubby bowl-haired oddball” who’s just trying to survive junior high. He and his “unnaturally thin” best friend, Gordon Pinto, are, like most junior high boys, obsessed with seeing girls naked. Now for you younger folk, let me just tell you, it was a lot harder to do this before the internet. Jeremy and Gordon have scrapped together bits and pieces of material through the years – a possible nip-slip from a JC Penny catalogue, some naked National Geographic African women, even some naked pictures from the Holocaust – yeah, there’s some major desperation here.

But when an acquaintance from their class brings them the real deal – a Playboy – it’s like their world has been turned upside-down. These are “real” real naked women.

Jeremy would be spending all his time on nudie hoarding if he could, but he has other problems to tend to. His preacher father wants him to get in shape and is therefore obsessed with the idea of Jeremy making the basketball team, a sport Jeremy doesn’t even play. After being cut immediately, Jeremy is so afraid of his father’s reaction, he lies and tells him he made the team.

He then goes and begs the coach to allow him to play, who says he’ll let him on the team if he pays him 100 bucks a week under the table. I’m not even sure Morris Buttermaker would pull that one. It looks like Jeremy is screwed. However, after some brainstorming, he realizes that he might be able to buy Playboys from his Playboy supplier and sell them to school kids at a marked up price. He, Gordon, and Swati (a smart pushy Indian girl) throw together a business and soon he’s making just enough money to pay the coach so he can stay on the team.

In the meantime, his slightly racist fairly sexist preacher father is up for the esteemed title of Bishop, and happens to be running against a woman. Over the course of the story, when it looks like the race will be surprisingly close, he resorts to darker and slimier tactics in order to land his dream job. This include exposing her gay son to the world. But what Jeremy’s father will learn is that he has a far bigger mess to clean up with his own family, especially Jeremy, whose increasingly unsavory antics are about to blow up in his face.

The term “voice” can be thrown around a little too liberally at times. Truth be told, of all the new writers I see jumping onto the scene, it’s rare that they have a truly unique vision of the world that nobody else has. I love Source Code. But I don’t think the voice in that script is doing anything we haven’t seen before. It’s just a really well-told story.

But when you open up a Phil Johnston script, you really do feel like this guy has a unique view of the world. Each of his characters are steeped in this quirky exaggerated Midwesterness that makes them slightly different from any character you’ve read before.

He mixes that in with the contradictory nature of Midwesterners, specifically their dogged attention to morals, which they circumvent on a daily basis. Watching Jeremy’s preacher father make racist comments and tear down women, while believing he’s the perfect candidate for state bishop, is the kind of conflict Johnston loves to explore.

But what sets Johnston apart from other writers who like to write these kinds of character-based quirky movies, is that Johnston makes sure his characters have strong goals driving the story. So here, Jeremy’s dad is desperately trying to become bishop. Jeremy is desperately trying to stay on the basketball team so as not to upset his dad. Those two goals keep the story focused, and that can’t be stressed enough. Character based stories that fall off the rails fall off because the characters have flimsy goals with no stakes. This may be a small story but the characters’ goals feel big because they’re so obsessed with them.

If “Orm” has a problem, it’s when its characters skew a little too broad. The basketball coach here is a Nazi-sympathizing German. I felt we’d gone a little too far into left field (and maybe even into the bleachers) on that one, and in the process took some of the edge off Jeremy’s goal. There’s also a deaf-mute assistant coach who speaks in sounds that would’ve worked great in a movie like Airplane. But here it was just a little too weird and “out there.”

In the end, however, this is really solid writing. Since a unique voice is so rare to find these days, when one emerges, it’s impossible to ignore. And I haven’t read anything like either of Johnston’s scripts. I don’t think this is quite as good as Cedar Rapids, which was a little bigger and a little more fun, but it’s still a very deserving script.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’ll be honest, I don’t know all the qualities that make up a “unique voice,” but I know that the dominant quality is how a writer sees the world. If you see the world just like everyone else, then there’s probably not a whole lot of uniqueness to your script. But if you see people differently, situations differently, objects differently, theories differently, chances are people will recognize you as having a unique voice. One of the reasons Tim Burton is so successful is that he sees the world differently from everyone else. You can tell that by watching any of his movies. When you read The Voices or Mixtape, you feel like they see the world differently. This is by no means the only way to get your script noticed, but it is one of the more established ways.

Jeremy Orm Is A Pervert

Genre: Comedy
Premise: In 1985, a 13 year old socially challenged boy obsesses over finding pictures of nude women while his preacher father tries to become a bishop.
About: This is Phil Johnston’s first sold script, I believe, which landed him on the 2006 Black List. Johnston would later write “Cedar Rapids,” which would make last year’s Black List and get produced earlier in the year (it stars Ed Helms). Johnston was a broadcast journalist in the Midwest who moved to New York to attend film school at Columbia. While details are sketchy, I believe this is the script that got him representation at UTA. You can also find some storyboards Johnston did for the script on this site. 
Writer: Phil Johnston
Details: April 7, 2006 draft – 107 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).


Last year, Cedar Rapids, Phil Johnston’s kooky tale about a straight-laced small-towner trying to survive a weekend in the “crazy” big city of Cedar Rapids, climbed its way into the Black List Top 10. The script made Johnston one of the hotter writers in town. But it actually wasn’t Johnston’s first script. In fact, it wasn’t even his first foray into the Black List. That happened back in 2006 with another script called “Jeremy Orm is a Pervert.”

I had no idea what to expect from "Orm," but I quickly found out that Johnston’s unique take on small-town America which served him so well in Cedar Rapids, was actually sculpted and framed long beforehand.

Let’s jump back to 1985 Neenah, Wisconsin. Jeremy is a 13 year old “chubby bowl-haired oddball” who’s just trying to survive junior high. He and his “unnaturally thin” best friend, Gordon Pinto, are, like most junior high boys, obsessed with seeing girls naked. Now for you younger folk, let me just tell you, it was a lot harder to do this before the internet. Jeremy and Gordon have scrapped together bits and pieces of material through the years – a possible nip-slip from a JC Penny catalogue, some naked National Geographic African women, even some naked pictures from the Holocaust – yeah, there’s some major desperation here.

But when an acquaintance from their class brings them the real deal – a Playboy – it’s like their world has been turned upside-down. These are “real” real naked women.

Jeremy would be spending all his time on nudie hoarding if he could, but he has other problems to tend to. His preacher father wants him to get in shape and is therefore obsessed with the idea of Jeremy making the basketball team, a sport Jeremy doesn’t even play. After being cut immediately, Jeremy is so afraid of his father’s reaction, he lies and tells him he made the team.

He then goes and begs the coach to allow him to play, who says he’ll let him on the team if he pays him 100 bucks a week under the table. I’m not even sure Morris Buttermaker would pull that one. It looks like Jeremy is screwed. However, after some brainstorming, he realizes that he might be able to buy Playboys from his Playboy supplier and sell them to school kids at a marked up price. He, Gordon, and Swati (a smart pushy Indian girl) throw together a business and soon he’s making just enough money to pay the coach so he can stay on the team.

In the meantime, his slightly racist fairly sexist preacher father is up for the esteemed title of Bishop, and happens to be running against a woman. Over the course of the story, when it looks like the race will be surprisingly close, he resorts to darker and slimier tactics in order to land his dream job. This include exposing her gay son to the world. But what Jeremy’s father will learn is that he has a far bigger mess to clean up with his own family, especially Jeremy, whose increasingly unsavory antics are about to blow up in his face.

The term “voice” can be thrown around a little too liberally at times. Truth be told, of all the new writers I see jumping onto the scene, it’s rare that they have a truly unique vision of the world that nobody else has. I love Source Code. But I don’t think the voice in that script is doing anything we haven’t seen before. It’s just a really well-told story.

But when you open up a Phil Johnston script, you really do feel like this guy has a unique view of the world. Each of his characters are steeped in this quirky exaggerated Midwesterness that makes them slightly different from any character you’ve read before.

He mixes that in with the contradictory nature of Midwesterners, specifically their dogged attention to morals, which they circumvent on a daily basis. Watching Jeremy’s preacher father make racist comments and tear down women, while believing he’s the perfect candidate for state bishop, is the kind of conflict Johnston loves to explore.

But what sets Johnston apart from other writers who like to write these kinds of character-based quirky movies, is that Johnston makes sure his characters have strong goals driving the story. So here, Jeremy’s dad is desperately trying to become bishop. Jeremy is desperately trying to stay on the basketball team so as not to upset his dad. Those two goals keep the story focused, and that can’t be stressed enough. Character based stories that fall off the rails fall off because the characters have flimsy goals with no stakes. This may be a small story but the characters’ goals feel big because they’re so obsessed with them.

If “Orm” has a problem, it’s when its characters skew a little too broad. The basketball coach here is a Nazi-sympathizing German. I felt we’d gone a little too far into left field (and maybe even into the bleachers) on that one, and in the process took some of the edge off Jeremy’s goal. There’s also a deaf-mute assistant coach who speaks in sounds that would’ve worked great in a movie like Airplane. But here it was just a little too weird and “out there.”

In the end, however, this is really solid writing. Since a unique voice is so rare to find these days, when one emerges, it’s impossible to ignore. And I haven’t read anything like either of Johnston’s scripts. I don’t think this is quite as good as Cedar Rapids, which was a little bigger and a little more fun, but it’s still a very deserving script.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’ll be honest, I don’t know all the qualities that make up a “unique voice,” but I know that the dominant quality is how a writer sees the world. If you see the world just like everyone else, then there’s probably not a whole lot of uniqueness to your script. But if you see people differently, situations differently, objects differently, theories differently, chances are people will recognize you as having a unique voice. One of the reasons Tim Burton is so successful is that he sees the world differently from everyone else. You can tell that by watching any of his movies. When you read The Voices or Mixtape, you feel like they see the world differently. This is by no means the only way to get your script noticed, but it is one of the more established ways.

Jeremy Orm Is A Pervert

Genre: Comedy
Premise: In 1985, a 13 year old socially challenged boy obsesses over finding pictures of nude women while his preacher father tries to become a bishop.
About: This is Phil Johnston’s first sold script, I believe, which landed him on the 2006 Black List. Johnston would later write “Cedar Rapids,” which would make last year’s Black List and get produced earlier in the year (it stars Ed Helms). Johnston was a broadcast journalist in the Midwest who moved to New York to attend film school at Columbia. While details are sketchy, I believe this is the script that got him representation at UTA. You can also find some storyboards Johnston did for the script on this site. 
Writer: Phil Johnston
Details: April 7, 2006 draft – 107 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).


Last year, Cedar Rapids, Phil Johnston’s kooky tale about a straight-laced small-towner trying to survive a weekend in the “crazy” big city of Cedar Rapids, climbed its way into the Black List Top 10. The script made Johnston one of the hotter writers in town. But it actually wasn’t Johnston’s first script. In fact, it wasn’t even his first foray into the Black List. That happened back in 2006 with another script called “Jeremy Orm is a Pervert.”

I had no idea what to expect from "Orm," but I quickly found out that Johnston’s unique take on small-town America which served him so well in Cedar Rapids, was actually sculpted and framed long beforehand.

Let’s jump back to 1985 Neenah, Wisconsin. Jeremy is a 13 year old “chubby bowl-haired oddball” who’s just trying to survive junior high. He and his “unnaturally thin” best friend, Gordon Pinto, are, like most junior high boys, obsessed with seeing girls naked. Now for you younger folk, let me just tell you, it was a lot harder to do this before the internet. Jeremy and Gordon have scrapped together bits and pieces of material through the years – a possible nip-slip from a JC Penny catalogue, some naked National Geographic African women, even some naked pictures from the Holocaust – yeah, there’s some major desperation here.

But when an acquaintance from their class brings them the real deal – a Playboy – it’s like their world has been turned upside-down. These are “real” real naked women.

Jeremy would be spending all his time on nudie hoarding if he could, but he has other problems to tend to. His preacher father wants him to get in shape and is therefore obsessed with the idea of Jeremy making the basketball team, a sport Jeremy doesn’t even play. After being cut immediately, Jeremy is so afraid of his father’s reaction, he lies and tells him he made the team.

He then goes and begs the coach to allow him to play, who says he’ll let him on the team if he pays him 100 bucks a week under the table. I’m not even sure Morris Buttermaker would pull that one. It looks like Jeremy is screwed. However, after some brainstorming, he realizes that he might be able to buy Playboys from his Playboy supplier and sell them to school kids at a marked up price. He, Gordon, and Swati (a smart pushy Indian girl) throw together a business and soon he’s making just enough money to pay the coach so he can stay on the team.

In the meantime, his slightly racist fairly sexist preacher father is up for the esteemed title of Bishop, and happens to be running against a woman. Over the course of the story, when it looks like the race will be surprisingly close, he resorts to darker and slimier tactics in order to land his dream job. This include exposing her gay son to the world. But what Jeremy’s father will learn is that he has a far bigger mess to clean up with his own family, especially Jeremy, whose increasingly unsavory antics are about to blow up in his face.

The term “voice” can be thrown around a little too liberally at times. Truth be told, of all the new writers I see jumping onto the scene, it’s rare that they have a truly unique vision of the world that nobody else has. I love Source Code. But I don’t think the voice in that script is doing anything we haven’t seen before. It’s just a really well-told story.

But when you open up a Phil Johnston script, you really do feel like this guy has a unique view of the world. Each of his characters are steeped in this quirky exaggerated Midwesterness that makes them slightly different from any character you’ve read before.

He mixes that in with the contradictory nature of Midwesterners, specifically their dogged attention to morals, which they circumvent on a daily basis. Watching Jeremy’s preacher father make racist comments and tear down women, while believing he’s the perfect candidate for state bishop, is the kind of conflict Johnston loves to explore.

But what sets Johnston apart from other writers who like to write these kinds of character-based quirky movies, is that Johnston makes sure his characters have strong goals driving the story. So here, Jeremy’s dad is desperately trying to become bishop. Jeremy is desperately trying to stay on the basketball team so as not to upset his dad. Those two goals keep the story focused, and that can’t be stressed enough. Character based stories that fall off the rails fall off because the characters have flimsy goals with no stakes. This may be a small story but the characters’ goals feel big because they’re so obsessed with them.

If “Orm” has a problem, it’s when its characters skew a little too broad. The basketball coach here is a Nazi-sympathizing German. I felt we’d gone a little too far into left field (and maybe even into the bleachers) on that one, and in the process took some of the edge off Jeremy’s goal. There’s also a deaf-mute assistant coach who speaks in sounds that would’ve worked great in a movie like Airplane. But here it was just a little too weird and “out there.”

In the end, however, this is really solid writing. Since a unique voice is so rare to find these days, when one emerges, it’s impossible to ignore. And I haven’t read anything like either of Johnston’s scripts. I don’t think this is quite as good as Cedar Rapids, which was a little bigger and a little more fun, but it’s still a very deserving script.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’ll be honest, I don’t know all the qualities that make up a “unique voice,” but I know that the dominant quality is how a writer sees the world. If you see the world just like everyone else, then there’s probably not a whole lot of uniqueness to your script. But if you see people differently, situations differently, objects differently, theories differently, chances are people will recognize you as having a unique voice. One of the reasons Tim Burton is so successful is that he sees the world differently from everyone else. You can tell that by watching any of his movies. When you read The Voices or Mixtape, you feel like they see the world differently. This is by no means the only way to get your script noticed, but it is one of the more established ways.
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