Janet shot me a link to this over the weekend.
Thought I'd share and put it up for discussion...

1. FINISH IT
Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure.

2. STRUCTURE
Structure means knowing where you’re going; making sure you don’t meander about. Some great films have been made by meandering people, like Terrence Malick and Robert Altman, but it’s not as well done today and I don’t recommend it. I’m a structure nut. I actually make charts. Where are the jokes? The thrills? The romance? Who knows what, and when? You need these things to happen at the right times, and that’s what you build your structure around: the way you want your audience to feel. Charts, graphs, coloured pens, anything that means you don’t go in blind is useful.

3. HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY
This really should be number one. Even if you’re writing a Die Hard rip-off, have something to say about Die Hard rip-offs. The number of movies that are not about what they purport to be about is staggering. It’s rare, especially in genres, to find a movie with an idea and not just, ‘This’ll lead to many fine set-pieces’. The Island evolves into a car-chase movie, and the moments of joy are when they have clone moments and you say, ‘What does it feel like to be those guys?’

4. EVERYBODY HAS A REASON TO LIVE
Everybody has a perspective. Everybody in your scene, including the thug flanking your bad guy, has a reason. They have their own voice, their own identity, their own history. If anyone speaks in such a way that they’re just setting up the next person’s lines, then you don’t get dialogue: you get soundbites. Not everybody has to be funny; not everybody has to be cute; not everybody has to be delightful, and not everybody has to speak, but if you don’t know who everybody is and why they’re there, why they’re feeling what they’re feeling and why they’re doing what they’re doing, then you’re in trouble.

5. CUT WHAT YOU LOVE
Here’s one trick that I learned early on. If something isn’t working, if you have a story that you’ve built and it’s blocked and you can’t figure it out, take your favourite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It’s brutal, but sometimes inevitable. That thing may find its way back in, but cutting it is usually an enormously freeing exercise.

6. LISTEN
When I’ve been hired as a script doctor, it’s usually because someone else can’t get it through to the next level. It’s true that writers are replaced when executives don’t know what else to do, and that’s terrible, but the fact of the matter is that for most of the screenplays I’ve worked on, I’ve been needed, whether or not I’ve been allowed to do anything good. Often someone’s just got locked, they’ve ossified, they’re so stuck in their heads that they can’t see the people around them. It’s very important to know when to stick to your guns, but it’s also very important to listen to absolutely everybody. The stupidest person in the room might have the best idea.

7. TRACK THE AUDIENCE MOOD
You have one goal: to connect with your audience. Therefore, you must track what your audience is feeling at all times. One of the biggest problems I face when watching other people’s movies is I’ll say, ‘This part confuses me’, or whatever, and they’ll say, ‘What I’m intending to say is this’, and they’ll go on about their intentions. None of this has anything to do with my experience as an audience member. Think in terms of what audiences think. They go to the theatre, and they either notice that their butts are numb, or they don’t. If you’re doing your job right, they don’t. People think of studio test screenings as terrible, and that’s because a lot of studios are pretty stupid about it. They panic and re-shoot, or they go, ‘Gee, Brazil can’t have an unhappy ending,’ and that’s the horror story. But it can make a lot of sense.

8. WRITE LIKE A MOVIE
Write the movie as much as you can. If something is lush and extensive, you can describe it glowingly; if something isn’t that important, just get past it tersely. Let the read feel like the movie; it does a lot of the work for you, for the director, and for the executives who go, ‘What will this be like when we put it on its feet?’

9. DON’T LISTEN
Having given the advice about listening, I have to give the opposite advice, because ultimately the best work comes when somebody’s fucked the system; done the unexpected and let their own personal voice into the machine that is moviemaking. Choose your battles. You wouldn’t get Paul Thomas Anderson, or Wes Anderson, or any of these guys if all moviemaking was completely cookie-cutter. But the process drives you in that direction; it’s a homogenising process, and you have to fight that a bit. There was a point while we were making Firefly when I asked the network not to pick it up: they’d started talking about a different show.

10. DON’T SELL OUT
The first penny I ever earned, I saved. Then I made sure that I never had to take a job just because I needed to. I still needed jobs of course, but I was able to take ones that I loved. When I say that includes Waterworld, people scratch their heads, but it’s a wonderful idea for a movie. Anything can be good. Even Last Action Hero could’ve been good. There’s an idea somewhere in almost any movie: if you can find something that you love, then you can do it. If you can’t, it doesn’t matter how skilful you are: that’s called whoring.”

Do you agree? Or have your own candidates?
Also interesting to note this list was created in 2009, pre-Avengers.

Regards,
E.D.

Interesting stuff. Number 4 is a lesson well learned and a really hard one.

Number 9 is always an interesting argument and to follow on from that point, this may interest people:

http://www.geofflatulippe.com/?p=8

as may this --

http://thebitterscriptreader.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/eric-heisserer-lifts-curtain-on-studio.html

Thanks for posting this, Brett. These lists tend to really turn me off but I'm surprised at how thoughtful, well rounded, and genuinely constructive this is. He sticks to his guns but I feel like for every argument he makes, he considers a counter-argument. A refreshingly un-black and white piece of insight from a filmmaker I don't even like.

Number 5 particularly caught my interest. Might be worth looking into.

#1 pisses me off the most. It makes the other 9 virtually useless to me. But, he does offer some good points.

Quoted from James McClung Thanks for posting this, Brett. These lists tend to really turn me off but I'm surprised at how thoughtful, well rounded, and genuinely constructive this is. He sticks to his guns but I feel like for every argument he makes, he considers a counter-argument. A refreshingly un-black and white piece of insight from a filmmaker I don't even like. Number 5 particularly caught my interest. Might be worth looking into.

You're welcome, James.

#5 was a toughy for me on the recent rewrite of Clone Wife.
Had to jettison the third act twist I loved...
*IF* I wanted to keep the prodco's interested that asked for it.

I'd rather network than sit home alone with my script.
So, out came the big scissors!

Regards,
E.D.

Yeah, interesting stuff, Brett.

I too tend to despise such lists.  This is alright, I guess, but nothing I haven't seen before.

As for #5, in all honesty, I don't really get it.  Sure, if someone's paying you for your writing, or you're working with someone who wants something gone or changed, it makes all the sense in the world, but not for writing a script on spec.

As for listening and not listening, IMO, it comes down to what's being said.  There are those rare times when someone says something that you didn't see or think about, but for the most part, you have to consider the source and the source's knowledge.  I tend to stick to my guns unless what's being said makes a positive difference.

Thanks Brett! And Thanks BC! I enjoyed thebitterscriptreader!

Quoted from Grandma Bear Thanks Brett! And Thanks BC! I enjoyed thebitterscriptreader!

Bitterscriptreader?  That sounds kinda like me!  

Brett -

Thanks for the shout out...    

And thanks, Basket, for the links to Bitterscriptreader and Tulippe.  Very useful sites and articles.... Must reads - both of them...

Thanks for sharing, Brett.

An interesting read for sure.

Quoted from Electric Dreamer Janet shot me a link to this over the weekend. Thought I'd share and put it up for discussion... Regards, E.D.

Good list ED, cheers. Number 5 is an interesting take, might try it on a stubborn script or two. It's crazy enough that it just might work!

I'm not so sure about number 3, but I'm always suspicious of 'message' writers.

My fave (because it's the first one I need to learn lol) is ... 1

Thanks again.

[edit - just read the bitter script reader... lulz... thanks brett but is it really that bad? ]

Quoted from marriot [edit - just read the bitter script reader... lulz... thanks brett but is it really that bad?]

Well...
I wouldn't say I'm like that...
But I can see Bitter from where my desk is.

Regards,
E.D.