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COCHRANE Remember, stick to the story. We stopped because a broken down car was blocking the road, but it was an ambush. Three masked guys with guns got the jump on us and jacked the money.
Yeah, that's the plan. They can't have been taken to the warehouse because they're hiding the money there. Execution style in the warehouse would have been a perfect reason to be there, but they would still need to hide the money somewhere. However, that plan would backfire since warehouses generally have smooth floors, so there would have been evidence of tire tracks of the thieves. No tracks means suspicion is thrown back on them. Wouldn't have worked.
And I haven't seen the film, so I can't comment too much on it, but the killing of a random person never has much in the way of emotional impact. Now, killing the random guy would show the character of the killer, and might help to show Ty's position, but...well, not knowing the reason the homeless guy was killed, I couldn't say how it fit, I guess.
Really, if you have to plug trailer moments into your script, you have to wonder how visual a story it is...
George, what I meant of the killing of a random guy is that it put the pressure on Ty on whether he wanted to go along with the plan or not (there wasn't the letter in the film). By putting the gun to his head, he literally didn't have a choice. In the script, it could have gone either way.
I think if you see the film you will see what I'm talking about a bit more.
I actually don't understand your last comment. You are saying that you shouldn't need to plug trailer moments right? A good trailer has to be made out of it though, to sell the film, so there would have to be trailer moments in the script.
So I've read it, and it's a good script. It's well-written, enjoyable, and it's one helluva fast read. The premise is simple but solid. The action zips along well enough, although I do feel it stumbled in Act Three - the chase to the hospital smacked of 'wanting to have a car chase', and the ending felt like someone had slapped a sticky sweet onto the last page. There were some good characters - Cochrane and Baines in particular. It was a pretty visual script, and always easy to follow.
BUT...I can't get over the feeling, "Is that it?" Brian says that Simpson (the writer) had an agent and manager when he was shopping the script around, but that contradicts other things I've read, such as interviews with Simpson himself (EDIT: my mistake - turns out he had a manager). Don't get me wrong - this was a perfectly decent, very filmable script. But it didn't blow my socks off by any means. It did what it did well enough, but it's not particularly memorable and probably won't stay with you. It's good, but doesn't seem 'stand-out' to me. I'm convinced that with enough outlining, any one of us here could write this.
So how come it was picked up and turned into a film? A big, Hollywood studio film with stars like Matt Dillon and Lawrence Fishbourne? I know it's simple, an appealling genre, and easy to film. I think Dec said that there was no reason NOT to film it. But that's true of thousands of scripts, surely? This wasn't exactly a no-risks, micro-budget long shot; it sounds like they spent decent money on this production, so they must have considered it worth the investment. Is the conclusion we draw that it really is a lottery, that if you write a decent script (and I do think that's all this is, not really anything jaw-dropping) then you're in with as good a shot as anybody?
Or is there more to it that? What did Simpson do that we don't?
So I've read it, and it's a good script. It's well-written, enjoyable, and it's one helluva fast read. The premise is simple but solid. The action zips along well enough, although I do feel it stumbled in Act Three - the chase to the hospital smacked of 'wanting to have a car chase', and the ending felt like someone had slapped a sticky sweet onto the last page. There were some good characters - Cochrane and Baines in particular. It was a pretty visual script, and always easy to follow.
BUT...I can't get over the feeling, "Is that it?" Brian says that Simpson (the writer) had an agent and manager when he was shopping the script around, but that contradicts other things I've read, such as interviews with Simpson himself. Don't get me wrong - this was a perfectly decent, very filmable script. But it didn't blow my socks off by any means. It did what it did well enough, but it's not particularly memorable and probably won't stay with you. It's good, but doesn't seem 'stand-out' to me. I'm convinced that with enough outlining, any one of us here could write this.
So how come it was picked up and turned into a film? A big, Hollywood studio film with stars like Matt Dillon and Lawrence Fishbourne? I know it's simple, an appealling genre, and easy to film. I think Dec said that there was no reason NOT to film it. But that's true of thousands of scripts, surely? This wasn't exactly a no-risks, micro-budget long shot; it sounds like they spent decent money on this production, so they must have considered it worth the investment. Is the conclusion we draw that it really is a lottery, that if you write a decent script (and I do think that's all this is, not really anything jaw-dropping) then you're in with as good a shot as anybody?
Or is there more to it that? What did Simpson do that we don't?
I agree with you, however no-one on here DID write it...that's the crux of the matter. There are writers on here that are far more sophisticated in some aspects of their writing than Simpson, but I will be honest and say that I haven't come across that many features on here that I think would be a sure bet in terms of fitting in with a demographic.
As for the second point: I'm not saying that it was just so easy to make, they may as well. It was a good script AND easy to make. It just minimises the reasons to turn you down. You can write a great script, but if it's niche material, the onus is on saying no. If it is hard to market, genre defying etc you build up possible reasons to turn it down. This script has everything on paper that it needs: Good hook (lots of money), heist, genre, easily understood, action-packed, fast paced, few locations.
The only reason to turn it down would be because you felt the script itself was lacking and that's not really the case.
On paper this was a film that you would expect to recoup on quite easily. It turns out they dropped a ball in Prodution, making the film worse than the script and also in terms of marketing (aiming it, apparently, just at the black demographic), but on paper, this looks a fairly safe-bet as these things go.
I don't personally believe that scripts have to be all that great to sell...most films are pretty mediocre in terms of story. The marketing hook is more important in a lot of cases. (Not to mention the actual marketing of the script itself) That's somewhere a lot of the pre-professional scripts fall down in my opinion.
Right, so I've read the interview, and feel more informed now. I'm officially calling this 'Deconstructing the Fairytale'. Below is my understanding of what unfolded - please correct me if I'm wrong.
The key to Simpson's success appears to be the Nichol Fellowships competition. In 2003 he reached the quarter-finals with 'Armored' and another script, 'Undertow' (can't find any reference to what that's about/like online). In his own words, this placing led to two producers searching him out - these are the guys that took 'Armored' to studios. Luckily for Simpson, just as interest in 'Armored' was beginning to build it reached the Final Round of the 2006 Nichol Fellowships. That, it seems, sealed the deal.
This raises two questions:
1) Why was 'Armored' deemed good enough to reach the 2006 final?
2) Is the Nichol Fellowship a valuable route for us as aspiring screenwriters to pursue?
Right, so I've read the interview, and feel more informed now. I'm officially calling this 'Deconstructing the Fairytale'. Below is my understanding of what unfolded - please correct me if I'm wrong.
The key to Simpson's success appears to be the Nichol Fellowships competition. In 2003 he reached the quarter-finals with 'Armored' and another script, 'Undertow' (can't find any reference to what that's about/like online). In his own words, this placing led to two producers searching him out - these are the guys that took 'Armored' to studios. Luckily for Simpson, just as interest in 'Armored' was beginning to build it reached the Final Round of the 2006 Nichol Fellowships. That, it seems, sealed the deal.
This raises two questions:
1) Why was 'Armored' deemed good enough to reach the 2006 final?
2) Is the Nichol Fellowship a valuable route for us as aspiring screenwriters to pursue?
1) Other than what we've said in this thread, it's impossible to answer. Bear in mind 1. It's subjective, if the judges like it, it's in. 2. It's relative. It just has to be considered better than the others presented that yeat, there's no objective level it has to reach.
By putting the gun to his head, he literally didn't have a choice. In the script, it could have gone either way.
But giving him a choice is better because he elects to do the wrong thing. Sometimes it's better for the character to be thrust into something, but for a crime, having him make the choice says something about his character.
I actually don't understand your last comment. You are saying that you shouldn't need to plug trailer moments right? A good trailer has to be made out of it though, to sell the film, so there would have to be trailer moments in the script.
Of course you have to have good moments in the script for the trailer. I'm just saying that if you have to go back through your script and insert moments that would work well in a trailer after you've completed it, does that not reflect on the possibly less visual nature of your original writing? It might not, of course, but I would think a good script should have these moments obvious from the get go.
Well, I just read the script and I must say I enjoyed it a lot and it was indeed a fast-read. But then I read all the posts in the forum and I must say it really opened my eyes in a lot of matters (some of them bothered me in some level while reading, but I didn't care at the time): The way everybody trust Ty so easily, the weirdness or simpleness of the plan, the three-job Chinese-food thing George said, etc... It all adds up to make the feel of the story less memorable.
It's true the script is the typical forgettable blockbuster, but I wonder... would I have done it better? When you are writing a script, you're looking at the big picture, you have tons of things to care about (characters, dialogue, back stories, pacing... a reeeeally long etcetera), and on top of it, you try to make the story very solid. But there are plot holes in almost every movie made and I guess that'll happen to us too. That's what this forum is about, share your works and learn from your colleagues.
I haven't been able to write a long movie script myself because of the time and energy that it involves (no one pays for a spec script, unless you are somebody)... As Mr.X said: "The story's simplicity can be deceiving; easy reading is damn hard writing as the saying goes", and that's a merit.
Ohh, and another thing: I can understand why the production company decided to make changes (this same debate about it's weaknesses must have been happened behind closed doors two years ago), but some the changes were good and some of them, bad.
At the end, it turns out to be the same, isn't it?... "Let's remove the girlfriend and make the antagonist his Godfather!". If we would have read the movie version, maybe we would have wanted a girlfriend...
Ohh, and another thing: I can understand why the production company decided to make changes (this same debate about it's weaknesses must have been happened behind closed doors two years ago), but some the changes were good and some of them, bad.
At the end, it turns out to be the same, isn't it?... "Let's remove the girlfriend and make the antagonist his Godfather!". If we would have read the movie version, maybe we would have wanted a girlfriend...
Yeah. I think the thing is that the characters in simple stories like this usually need to play some kind of intrinsic role. Would Die Hard have been as successful if McClanes wife wasn't inside the building? No, definitely not.
In the script the woman is just used as a motivational tool, he needs money to marry her and provide the right kind of life. She isn't intrinsic to the story. If she is going to be there she may as well be involved more or cut altogether.
You'd have two choices really. Keep the woman and have her used as the bait ala Jimmy (and cut Jimmy) or cut Dana and keep Jimmy, which is what they went for. Brother is a litte less predictable, at the same time it is a little less powerful.
What if the bad guys killed the girl and Ty still did the right thing? How would that have played out?
Or what if when they went to get Jimmy, Dana was there as well (she's popped back to get something, or finished work early) and they drag both of them back to the warehouse. Would that have ratcheted things up even further?
Or what if when they went to get Jimmy, Dana was there as well (she's popped back to get something, or finished work early) and they drag both of them back to the warehouse. Would that have ratcheted things up even further?
That’s what I thought was going to happen. Then it turned out Dana was really unnecessary. I wasn’t surprised by that. Most female characters in these types of movies are undeveloped. I wasn’t surprised to hear she was cut from the film altogether.
Personally, I didn’t buy the relationship between Ty and Jimmy. If the author has a brother in real life, it doesn’t show in the story. Jimmy is such a one dimensional and generic younger brother character, he felt like cardboard to me.
I actually liked Dana at first. Her first scene was good. Then she just sort of instantly turned into the stereotypical one dimensional nurturer female. Fair enough but she shone more as a character in her few short scenes than Jimmy did in all of his. That’s why I think they would have been better off to cut Jimmy and keep Dana. They would have had to change the beating scene though. Dana would never have been able to take the beating Baines is described as delivering to Jimmy. Still I would have preferred Dana over Jimmy as a character.
I felt the character of Baines was a thankless role for Laurence Fishburne. Fishburne is a terrific actor. He deserves better in my opinion than the mindless psychotic sidekick with no good lines. I hope his character was improved for the film. If not, that’s a shame in my opinion.
The only thing about this that makes me want to see the movie at all would be to see Matt Dillon as Cochrane.
I didn't buy the brother either. He was just an annoying little aside in the script, just another mouth to feed really.
They tried to expand on him in the film, but it didn't really work. They made him a grafitti artist (he paints the kitchen wall, much Tys displeasure) and have social services visitng him for skipping school.
Unfortunately, his character weakens the motivation for Ty to steal the money. He's just lazy and irresponsible, so it lessens our sympathy with Ty.
If Jimmy was more studious and worked harder at school...there's more motivation for us wanting Ty to support him. As it is he adds nothing but the bait plot-line to the script.
The thing you raise about Baines beating Dana...I'd have had that in if I was making it, definitely. That would have been very powerful.
Baines has more lines in the film, but they are all very weak. It plays more like a buddy film. It starts with the boys all together joking in the locker room and we see them in the bar. Baines essentially just ribs Ty (who is an Iraq vet) about being a soldier boy.
That's it really.
Major problem with the film is that it lessens Ty's role as the good guy and lessens the antagonists role as well. By giving them more screen time, it just makes us sympathise with them more. You want the guys to succeed with the heist and Ty becomes the annoying character who is messing it all up for the rest of them. Ty is Cochranes God son, so he spends a lot of the film trying to persuade him onside (the stitch up has gone).
It totally loses focus and the happy ending of the script, despite being the same in the film, suddenly plays completely differently. Ty has got all his friends killed on a point of principle (Baines shoots a homeless guy who sees what they are doing, Cochrane finishes him off when Ty is trying to tke him to a hospital). You do kind of feel that they had no choice though, as they were essentially all going to jail if they let him live.
The film is a shambles. It takes a simple story and tries to add layers, but it completely unhinges the story.
Something else I wanted to comment on was your point about the underdevelopmnt of women in these kind of films. I thik that is absolutely true and has been a consistent factor for a long time.
Funnily enough, some of the better action/thriller type films have highly developed women characters who are intrinsic to the plot: Aliens, Thelma and Louise, Bound, Haute Tension, Butterfly Kiss, Nikita...seems like when they bother to write them, it really works.
Women tend to be under-represented in screenwriting and even more so in directing...one of those things people try to combat but never seem to get anywhere with. That's definitey going to effect how many decent female characters you get...people tend to write characters like themselves, so more male writers, more male characters...
I once heard it said that men are more interested in objects and women in the realtionships between objects. So men are more likley to write stories (like Armored) about people trying to get something or do something, whilst women are less concerned with the actual action and more about how people behave.
Don't know how true that is. I do think a number of the genres that Hollywood loves so much seem very male orientated, action, horror etc
I remember discussing the three act structure as analagous to the male sexual experience as well in Uni: Opening=foreplay, Obstacle, overcome obstacle=Intercourse, Climax=climax, resolution=pillow talk.
The feminist lecturer wondered whether it was possible to write a film story in a feminine structure: opening=foreplay, climax, climax, climax, climax, resolution.
Something I've always wanted to try.
From my own experience, a large number of women seem to write more autobiographical stories concerning families and realtionships, so whilst you get interesting female characters in a lot of dramas, or romatic comedies...you don't get so many in the more male orintated genres.
Interesting Rick. I think you are right though....you usually are.
I agree that if it was Dana that was brought to the warehouse, it would have had a much bigger impact if he did beat her to a pulp.
From what I hear from you about the film, it seems like they really screwed up. I will watch it though because now I want to study it. See where they went wrong so to speak. The script definitely worked and it shouldn't have been that hard to turn into a good movie.
In regards to men writing male genres and mostly male characters, I feel sort of odd here because I often write in those male genres and usually write male characters whether it's young boys, middle aged or old men. When I write female characters they tend to do "male" things. Don't know what this says about me...
Interesting Rick. I think you are right though....you usually are.
I agree that if it was Dana that was brought to the warehouse, it would have had a much bigger impact if he did beat her to a pulp.
From what I hear from you about the film, it seems like they really screwed up. I will watch it though because now I want to study it. See where they went wrong so to speak. The script definitely worked and it shouldn't have been that hard to turn into a good movie.
In regards to men writing male genres and mostly male characters, I feel sort of odd here because I often write in those male genres and usually write male characters whether it's young boys, middle aged or old men. When I write female characters they tend to do "male" things. Don't know what this says about me...
Nothing to feel odd about, nothing is absolute..what I said was a generalisation.
One thing I would say is that women don't get that many roles to play outside of love interest and mothers....you might find you can attract a top quality actress with a part in a different genre because there aren't that many around.
Something to think about anyway...
Cameron seems to be good at writing strong parts for women. The Terminator and Aliens...It's interesting to imagine those films if the lead was male. Doesn't seem quite as powerful somehow does it?
I suppose in some ways it's logical that a main character in such a story would be female...a waitress versus an unstoppable killing machine, it's about as much of a contrast as you can get. Surprised it's not that common when you think about it.
The cliche hard man versus the enemy is intrinsicly less tense. The odds aren't that immense against them.
I must say, my own writing is weighted towards male characters, although the first feature I ever wrote had a female lead. I'm going to make a mental note to think about that in the future.
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Script Club XII: Armored
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