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Creativity 101: March 28, 2010 : 5:01 pm

Test-Screening Your Screenplay

I read a blog post from Bill Cunningham tonight about an Uma Thurman film that made less than $200 on opening weekend. Bill blamed the lack of an interesting story, I agree. Read his whole post for some hard truths about the movie business that indies can’t ignore.

The natural question arises: how do you tell if your story is interesting?

Shortest answer: if people are interested when you tell it.

Telling / Listening / Going Viral
Regular people are remarkably prepared to hear movie pitches; maybe more so than movie people are. It happens all the time for regular people.

“Hey, what’d you see last weekend?”
“You’re catching the Matrix? What’s it about?”
“I didn’t see the trailer for Hard Candy, is it any good?”

All of these (and countless more) are everyday invitations to a movie pitch.

That’s why the “high concept” movies (movies defined by an innovative idea or hook) became so appealing to studios. They are easily-digestible ideas that sound good when you tell them to others.

Matrix is a perfect example. No matter how you explain it, it sounds good.

“Its a meditation on the nature of reality, disguised as an action movie.”

“it’s a cyberpunk kung-fu movie with amazing effects sequences.”

“Keanu Reeves and some hot chick best the shit out of a bunch of evil government guys, and Laurence Fishburne is as cool as Samuel L. Jackson, but way classier.”

I don’t think anything “goes viral” because people believe in the innate quality of the work. I think it’s because everybody wants to be the person who found something cool. So your ideas have to be good enough to make people essentially co-opt them as their own.

And when somebody tells their friends later about your movie (doing your pitching for you), they tell the pieces that A) were good enough (or bad enough, beware) to remember and B) are likely to make them look good by telling it. If you don’t have anything like that in there for the audience – why do they want to tell anyone?

“Yeah, I saw that movie. I can’t really remember anything good about it…you should totally go see it!” File this under “never happens.”

The Parking Lot Pitch
So when I’m developing something new, I’ll sometimes tell people about it. This is the “parking lot” version of the story, where we’re all hanging out by my car right before they go inside the thester and decide what to see. And – in my imagination – someone says, “(Name of my movie)? What’s that about?”

“It’s great,” I say. ”It’s about a…” Or: “It opens with this amazing scene where…” And the story flows from there.

The great thing about this process is the instantaneous, unavoidably honest feedback. When somebody’s eyes go glassy and the Smile/Nod Syndrome sets in, you know you lost them. When they are hanging on your words (and asking real questions), you’re gold. Pay attention to when and where that happens, and you’ll get a sense of what needs work in your story, and where the keeper moments are.

The parking lot version is the most pure form your story will ever take. Unimpeded by budget, casting decisions, or even your own ability with the written word, it’s a flow of ideas, pacing, mood, and it conjures in the audience’s mind the best possible realization of your story.

And if – no matter how many times you tell it, restructuring it with different scenes or leads or ideas – your audience still goes glassy from the first sentence, drop the idea. You will have more ideas. You will have better ideas.

Remember, William Goldman isn’t a better writer than you because of how he COULD have made that bad idea work; he’s a better writer because he would have dropped that idea already and started writing something else.