THE BLACK LIST BLOGS

The Quest Initiative: Day 1

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Scott Myers of Go Into The Story

The submission period for The Quest Initiative runs from May 22-June 8. Each day I will provide an update.

Today: Marks the 1st day of submissions for The Quest Initiative. I have already received nearly 100 emails.

Question of the day: Is there an advantage or disadvantage to submitting loglines early in the submission period?

Answer: It makes no difference when you make your submission. Why? Because I do not read any loglines until after the submission period ends.

Tip of the day: When you are working on your loglines, zero in on the hook. That is identify your story’s core element which will grab a reader’s attention. If you need a touchstone, think K-9: Cop gets a new partner. A police dog.

Once you identify your story’s hook, ask yourself: Is this a compelling hook? Is it distinctive? Is it a movie?

If you can’t find the hook, then perhaps you don’t have a strong enough high concept. And since I have my antenna up searching for mainstream commercial stories, I put a premium on high concepts.

So as you generate and develop your ideas, always be asking, “What is the hook?”

Why The Quest Initiative: When I broke into screenwriting by selling the spec script K-9, I was a total outsider to Hollywood with just one contact nominally in the business. I had no formal training as a screenwriter, but a lifelong love for movies and unbridled passion for the craft I had recently discovered.

As a result, I have always been especially sensitive to the plight of writers who are outside the Hollywood system, have limited connections in the business, and have taken a non-traditional route in educating themselves about the craft.

So one reason I came up with the idea for The Quest Initiative, perhaps the most fundamental reason is to provide an alternate way into Hollywood for people who are like I was before I broke into the business.

Therefore if you love movies… if you have a passion for screenwriting… if you have talent as a writer… if you are willing to go through an intensive learning and writing process… if your goal is to be a Hollywood screenwriter… if you have a great commercial story idea…

Why not submit a logline for consideration to The Quest Initiative?

For specifics on how to submit loglines and general background, hit more.

Here are the essential bullet points you need to steer you through the process of submitting your loglines for consideration:

* What is the submission period? 12:01AM [Pacific / U.S.], Wednesday, May 22 – 11:59PM [Pacific / U.S.], Sunday, June 8.

* What is the email address? thequestinitiative at gmail dot com. This is the only email address at which I will accept submissions.

* How many loglines may I submit? A total of three [3].

* If I am submitting multiple loglines [2 or 3], how should I submit them? In the subject heading write QUEST LOGLINES and send them all in one email.

* What information should I provide with my submission? The following:

– Subject heading: QUEST LOGLINE / QUEST LOGLINES

Then in the body of the email:

– Story title [if you have one]

– Genre [if you know it]

– Logline

That is it. No biographies. No additional information about the story.

* What type of stories are you looking for? The following:

– Action, Comedy, Thriller [what I am most interested in]

– Drama, Family, Horror [what I am also interested in]

* What type of stories are you not looking for? The following:

– Huge big budget science fiction, fantasy or epic period pieces.

– Obscure independent movies [as much as I love them].

IN OTHER WORDS, I AM MOST INTERESTED IN LOW-TO-MEDIUM BUDGET MAINSTREAM COMMERCIAL MOVIES WITH STRONG MARKETABLE HIGH CONCEPTS.

* If I am a member of the Writers Guild of America or an international equivalent, may I submit a logline? No. I created The Quest Initiative with the goal of opening an alternate doorway into Hollywood for those outside the system.

* Do I have to have an extensive background in screenwriting to apply? No. While it is helpful if you have written at least 2 or 3 scripts, The Quest takes participants through a unique character-based approach to screenwriting that will transform whatever knowledge or practices you have re the craft.

* Is there any cost if I get selected for The Quest Initiative? No. The Quest Initiative is free.

For more background, read on:

What you need to know about “The Quest Initiative”

Cost: Free.

How many participants: Up to 4.

Who may apply: Any aspiring screenwriter who is not a member of the WGA or equivalent professional writing organization. Writers do not have to live in Los Angeles, and may be located in the United States or internationally based. Writers may be any age, gender, race, etc.

When will the workshop run: July 15-December 29, 2013.

How will I determine who gets accepted: There are three key standards. (1) Story concept: I am looking for strong story concepts that I believe when executed as a script can get set up as projects in Hollywood. In other words, I am almost exclusively interested in commercial high concepts. I will make exceptions if the story elements make me think the project is a marketable one, but the concept has to be extremely strong if it is not high concept. (2) Writing ability: I will ask applicants who make it past the first cut to send me a sample of their writing, as well as a detailed description of their background as a writer and a statement about why they want to be a screenwriter. (3) Personal interview: I will have a one-on-one conversation with applicants who make it past the next cut in order to assemble a group I feel will be compatible with each other.

How do you apply: A simple email with the word “Quest Logline” in the subject line, then a logline of your story in the text. If you have a title, please post that. If the genre of the story is not clear from the logline, you may include the genre.

When may you apply: I will be accepting loglines from May 22 through June 8, 2013. You may send them to me at: thequestinitiative at gmail dot com.

NOTE: THIS IS THE ONLY EMAIL ADDRESS YOU SHOULD USE!!!

If you are selected as one of The Quest participants, you must be willing to do the following three things:

1. You have to commit yourself fully to the workshop. That means active participation in constructive criticism and feedback, all writing exercises and assignments, and most importantly pledge you will finish the first draft of your original screenplay.

2. You have to write a weekly journal entry about your experiences in the workshop. As part of The Quest Initiative, I will be doing something akin to reality programming in that each week, I will post something on GITS about the group’s progress including excerpts from your journals. This is a great way for the GITS community to track how you are doing, something of what you are learning, see the ups and downs of the writing process, and so on.

3. If you write a script I believe has strong marketable potential, I have the right to attach myself as an executive producer. At that point, I will take you on into rewrites and we will officially be in producer-to-writer mode. Once your script is finished, I will take the lead in getting it to managers and agents, and try to get the project set up and you established in Hollywood.

You may only submit a total of three [3] loglines!

Last year some folks sent me dozens of loglines. As a result, I ended up reviewing over 3500 loglines. An overwhelming majority of them were not – in my opinion – commercially viable.

So if you are serious about wanting to have a chance to participate in The Quest, I encourage you — with extreme prejudice! — to raise your game. Give me your best shot. That means you have to set the bar high for what you submit to me. You need to ask: Is this really a movie? Can this story concept compete with what is currently out in theaters? Is this something I think Scott will respond to?

Here are genres I am most interested in reading: Action, Comedy, Thriller. Second tier: Drama, Family, Horror.

Cross genres like Action-Thriller, Drama-Comedy, Action-Comedy, those are fine, too.

Here are genres that will be tough sells: Fantasy, Science Fiction.

I love Fantasy and Science Fiction, but if you submit an idea that requires massive and complex world-building along with huge CGI requirements, I’m not in a position to do anything with that.

That said, if you have a truly great story idea that is either Fantasy or Science Fiction and it is low-to-mid-budget, that might work. A big idea with a contained environment like Moon, something along those lines.

Will I offer a free class for every entrant like I did last year? No!

I may be crazy, but I am not insane. There were 1500 entrants last year and a majority of them have received a free Core or Craft class through Screenwriting Master Class. It was a nice gesture on my part, but I simply don’t have the resources to make that offer again.

How should I submit my logline(s)?

In the subject heading of your email, just put QUEST LOGLINE or QUEST LOGLINES depending on if you are submitting one or more (NO MORE THAN 3!!!)

In the body of the email Title [if you have it], Genre [if you know it], Logline.

If you don’t have a title, that’s okay.

If you are not sure of the genre, take your best guess from the following: Action, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller.

If you have a cross-genre movie like an Action-Comedy or sub-genre movie like a Romantic Comedy, that’s fine. But if you put down: Action Comedy Mystery Adventure Contained Thriller? That suggests this story has not found itself yet.

If you have multiple loglines (remember: no more than three entries), please put them into one email.

Email your submission to: thequestinitiative at gmail dot com.

I WILL ONLY ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS AT THIS NEW EMAIL ADDRESS. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE NOTE THE ADDRESS AND USE IT TO MAKE MY LIFE EASIER!

Up to 4 writers will have what I believe to be an incredible opportunity, not only to write an original screenplay aided by other writers and myself, but also a chance to learn how to think and write like a professional. Because my goal with writers who go through The Quest is to educate and train them so they have the best shot possible not only at breaking into the business, but succeeding month after month, year after year. That’s one of my guiding principles with The Quest: solid screenwriting theory matched with solid screenwriting practice.

3 days and counting. What are you doing to prepare for The Quest Initiative?

If you have any questions, please post them in comments.

Onward and upward!

I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY LOGLINE SUBMISSIONS BEFORE WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2013. PLEASE RESPECT THIS SCHEDULE!

OFFICIAL LOGLINE SUBMISSION PERIOD: MAY 22-JUNE 8, 2013.

EMAIL ADDRESS: thequestinitiative at gmail dot com. USE THIS ADDRESS ONLY TO SUBMIT YOUR LOGLINES FOR THE QUEST INITIATIVE!!!

Introducing Wendy Cohen

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Scott Myers of Go Into The Story

I believe in synchronicity. What is it? Here’s Wikipedia’s take:

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner. The concept of synchronicity was first described in this terminology by Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s.

I have been extremely busy the last year or so, even more so than usual. A few months back, I began to think about finding someone who could assist me.

While this idea evolved, I received an email from Wendy Cohen. Her background:

* While receiving a B.A. in Media Arts: Writing for Film and Television from Emerson College, Wendy was a P.A. with two production companies in the Boston area, so she has actual field experience.

* Upon relocating to Los Angeles, Wendy interned at Heroes and Villains Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, and “Mad Men,” so she has a background in development.

* She eventually became a writer’s P.A. on “Mad Men,” so Wendy has worked with writers.

* Most recently Wendy has been as a producer’s assistant at Paradigm Consulting.

* Additionally Wendy has developed chops as a script reader.

Looks like an ideal fit! Therefore I am pleased to announce that Wendy has agreed to become my Development Assistant.

Wendy’s responsibilities include assisting me in managing nearly 12,000 GITS posts, helping me to edit a series of books on screenwriting I am writing, researching potential blog content, and given her background in script development involvement in Quest-related producing projects. There are other initiatives in the works to which Wendy will be contributing her time and energy, an especially exciting one I hope to be announcing in the very near future.

I should also note that not only is Wendy a longtime GITS reader, she is also a budding screenwriter, so I will be mentoring her in this part of her creative journey.

What does this mean to you? More and better content on the blog. An expansion into alternate ways of delivering that as well as brand new content. A managed approach to ‘resurrecting’ existing blog content, many posts of which have only seen the light of day one time and deserve additional discussion. And more time for me to be able to devote to story analysis, business trends, and so on.

So please welcome Wendy!

Interview: Justin Marks — Part 3

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Scott Myers of Go Into The Story

Screenwriter Justin Marks has been described as the “most gainfully employed professional fanboy on the planet right now.” Understandably so given the fact Justin has written such projects The Raven, Super Max, Suicide Squad, Shadow of the Colossus, Hack/Slash and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo.

The Hollywood Reporter recently featured this guest column Justin wrote called “My Life as a Screenwriter You’ve Never Heard Of.”

Justin has written over 20 movie projects. This interview in 6-parts offers an informed perspective of the craft from Hollywood’s front lines.

Today in Part 3, Justin discusses his original screenplay “Earth Prime” and how a spec script can have value even if it doesn’t sell:

Scott: Let’s talk about a spec script you wrote called “Earth Prime”. Here’s a description I found on it:

“A detective is sent to an orbiting colony in space to investigate an act of terrorism, only to become embroiled in a much larger conspiracy, when he learns that one of the victims is a girl he once loved.”

I read the script, great script.

Justin: Thank you.

Scott: In the story, most humans are living in these huge orbiting residential space stations, because the Earth has pretty much become uninhabitable, due to environmental reasons. What attracted you to this futuristic setting?

Justin: One of the lessons I learned while writing that movie, and going out with it, is you can’t just create blown out sci‑fi like that with no respect for how much the movie would cost. But “Earth Prime” started with themes for me. I love being able to hone in on one central idea that is both about the world and the characters. “Earth Prime” asked the question, “What does it mean for us to move on?” As a civilization, and as people individually. And if we move on, what baggage do we bring with us?

I had this idea of seeing a group of Sunni Muslims praying to Mecca, except in this case Mecca was orbiting below them. We’ve moved on from our world, but we’re still tethered to it. Spiritually, emotionally. We’re trapped in the past.

Scott: Interesting because the protagonist character Simon, who is basically like a law enforcement guy, is tethered to his own past, so it works on an individual level there as well.

Justin: Yeah. He’s someone who has a lot of regret, and lives with it, and has to confront that over the course of the film.

Scott: Why do you think post-apocalyptic and dystopic stories are so popular nowadays?

Justin: I don’t know. I think it’s just a safe place for us to reflect on how we feel about the world today.

Scott: Here’s a related question. There’s a substantial conspiracy at work in “Earth Prime”. That’s another thing that seems to be popular in TV shows as well as movies. What do you think is the appeal of complex conspiracies?

Justin: It’s the cynical world we live in. I think a whole conspiracy implies that something is broken. You look back at movies in the seventies and they did the same thing with the Watergate era. Our world is fundamentally broken and the institutions around us are fundamentally broken.

I love a future where nothing works, where things are built the way you would hope they’d be built, but they don’t function right. I love 2001, but it’s just so clean and so ideal. It’s a commercial for Pan‑Am. I want to see futures where all of these ideals are just shattered by reality. I guess I’m just innately disappointed by our world. I think the movies should reflect that.

Scott: One of the challenges associated with science fiction stories is what generally we call world‑building, creating a palpable, coherent sense of what the futuristic setting is, while not getting bogged down in too many details in the script. How much of an issue was that for you when you were writing “Earth Prime”? How did you go about handling that?

Justin: It’s a huge issue. When you’re writing a sci‑fi script it’s everything. Specificity is everything. Because no matter what story you’re telling, no matter what the plot is, sooner or later you’re bringing up old tropes or clichés of the genre. It’s just going to happen. Other movies have treaded this ground. You have to find a way to make a reader think, fundamentally, “I’ve never read this before.” So what you do is, you draw a blueprint of the world, and then you try to see the way people would unexpectedly inhabit it. It’s like architecture. You can design a building, but once you open the doors, people are going to make it their own. That contradiction, of spontaneity and planning, has to be present when you’re doing world building and sci‑fi. There has to be a sense of a future that has unintentional scuff on it.

If you start to build that out, suddenly, the world starts to feel real and lived in. Voltron is a great example where I tried that. My goal has always been to give sci-fi scripts moments of, I don’t know, verisimilitude I guess.

Scott: If I’m not mistaken, “Earth Prime” hasn’t been set up yet.

Justin: No. It was never set up. There were some things going on with it, but they all fell through, in terms of the way I wanted the movie to get made. I had a very ambitious plan for how that movie could look. I wanted it to be shot, actually, on location in Paris. All of the fake cities are actually just real cities, real neighborhoods in Paris. You would paint the sky, as I called it, to give it the impression that you were actually somewhere else. I wanted it to feel very much there and not there. I thought that’s how the movie could actually be made at a price. Not everyone agreed with me.

Scott: But if I understand it, didn’t that script help you, in terms of getting some writing assignments subsequent to that?

Justin: Oh, very much so. This goes back to that thing about breaking out of the box. At that time, where I was as a writer, I had been doing a lot of comic book stuff, a lot of action figure stuff, a lot video game stuff. I love video games, I write video games as well. I was doing that on the side, too. I got to this point… after I wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for Disney. It was a great process, but then it all fell apart very quickly, which was heartbreaking. I had this moment… this is just a personal thing. But we are, as writers, putting our hearts into everything we do… I had this moment of saying, “I need to grow.” I wasn’t satisfied. Like all writers, we hate what we wrote yesterday and we love what we’re going to write tomorrow.

I used “Earth Prime” as an opportunity to say, “I want to try to do something that’s more mature, more thematically ambitious.” As a result, what it got for me was a string of jobs that filled that mandate. I wrote a character piece for Paramount. Well, it was an action movie about Air Force One crashing in Afghanistan, but it was really about the meaning of the American presidency, as seen by a number of different people. I’m working on a project right now, with a high profile director, that’s a period piece set in turn of the century Russia. It’s actually an espionage thriller. But it’s also a satire set in the early days before spies had rules. I’m doing a project with Bruckheimer that is very much a Disney drama, something that I never thought I could write. Just a really heartfelt, emotional buddy movie.

For me, I think it’s about finding those locked areas of your head that you didn’t think you had the key to. Challenge yourself. Everyone always says, “Write what you know.” But if you always write what you know, you’re never going to grow.

When I started this Bruckheimer project, I had no idea if I could really write it. Now, I think it’s probably my favorite thing of anything I’ve written. You have to take that leap. That’s what “Earth Prime” represented for me. That’s how I started to change.

Scott: That speaks to two things that are really important for aspiring writers to understand. One is that spec scripts have value, even if they don’t sell.

Justin: Always.

Scott: Secondly, this goes back to Joseph Campbell and that idea of following your bliss. If you translate that into the creative realm, it’s like, “Follow your creative instincts.” You did that with “Earth Prime”. You just said, “I want to do something that I feel creatively drawn toward.” As a result, you benefited by getting all of these other gigs.

Justin: Yeah, even when the script didn’t sell. That’s a really important lesson. We all read the same trades, as aspiring writers or working writers. We see the big spec sales. There’s something really great to, “Wow. I wrote this thing. Here’s a big check. I’m going to go out and celebrate. That’s going to be my life.” But the reality is that, not even 9 out of 10…You know the stats better than me. I’d say it’s probably like 95 out of 100 specs, they don’t sell. That doesn’t mean that there were 95 out of 100 specs where people’s time was wasted. Everything is about the process. There are scripts that I’ve written that I’ve never shown anyone. Because I just feel like, “Yeah, this is fun and I wanted to try this, but you know what? I can’t do this genre, this genre doesn’t work for me. But I’m so glad I tried it, because now I know where that limitation is, and I’m just going to set it aside and move on with my life.” It’s so important to write for yourself. It’s not just about creating a chance to sell something. It’s about finding something in yourself what you didn’t know you could write before.

Tomorrow in Part 4: Justin discusses the low-budget project he wrote “Come Sundown” and what he’s learned about making an indie movie.

For Part 1, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

Please stop by comments to thank Justin and ask any questions you may have.

Justin is repped by CAA and Madhouse Entertainment.

Spec Script Sale: “Little Evil”

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Scott Myers of Go Into The Story

Universal acquires dark comedy spec script “Little Evil” from writer-director Eli Craig.From THR:

Craig wrote the script and will direct the feature, which will be produced by Scott Stuber and his Universal-based Bluegrass Films.The logline is being kept under wraps. Sources say the deal was in the seven figures.

By my count, this is the 41st spec script sale in 2013.

There were 49 spec sales year-to-date in 2012.