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On the physics of space battles

Joseph Shoer looks at some of the uncomfortable science behind these science-fiction mainstays:

Explosions are basically a waste of energy in space. On the ground, these are devastating because of the shock wave that goes along with them. But in the vacuum of space, an explosion just creates some tenuous, expanding gases that would be easily dissipated by a hull.

Better choices for weapons include radiation, lasers and old-fashioned bullets. But don’t expect fast-and-nimble dogfights, because steering a ship in space is laborious. With no atmosphere to cut against, changing directions takes time and lots of fuel.

The z-axis fighting we’ve recently come to embrace — the new Star Trek did it a lot — only makes sense in certain circumstances. Orbiting a planet, things get flat again:

The marauding space fleets are going to be governed by orbit dynamics -– not just of their own ships in orbit around planets and suns, but those planets’ orbits. For the same reason that we have Space Shuttle launch delays, we’ll be able to tell exactly what trajectories our enemies could take between planets [...] So, it would actually make sense to build space defense platforms in certain orbits, to point high-power radar-reflection surveillance satellites at certain empty reaches of space, or even to mine parts of the void. It also means that strategy is not as hopeless when we finally get to the Bugger homeworld: the enemy ships will be concentrated into certain orbits, leaving some avenues of attack guarded and some open.

In writing your space epic, do you even need to worry about any of this?

Only to the degree your viewers will.

Each movie and TV series establishes its own level of plausibility, and as long as it plays within that range, audiences are largely satisfied. Space in Apollo 13 is nothing like space in Star Wars. A viewer who complains too much about the Millennium Falcon’s propulsion system will be justifiably shunned.

A general rule for screenwriters is to stick with genre conventions unless there is a story benefit to changing them. For example, in modern space adventure movies you get artificial gravity, warp drive, and shields for free. You can roll your own if it suits your story, but that screen time is likely better used in service of your characters and plot.

(Thanks to Nima for the link.)

Seven writer’s rules for survival in animation

Rob Edwards has a great post on MakingOf with very useful suggestions for screenwriters working on their first animated feature.

I’m currently on my third (Frankenweenie), and while the words on the page are the same as any other feature, the process is completely different. And frustrating, honestly, until you get used to it. Rob’s post walks newcomers through some of the biggest hurdles.

(Thanks to Barrett for the link.)

Handling repeating sequences

I’m writing a screenplay with a dream sequence that repeats itself identically three times in the script. It’s about half a page long. Should I repeat it word for word in the screenplay? I’m afraid writing “Fred has the same dream as before” won’t recreate the feeling for the reader, but writing the same thing three times feels weird.

– Joe
New York

Do neither of the above. Rather, think about the audience sitting in the theater watching your movie. Are you actually showing them exactly the same dream sequence? If so, that sounds pointless and boring.

Much more likely — and more interesting — is that the audience is getting some new information in the subsequent dream sequences, details that would push the story forward. Something would have changed, and it’s those changes you need to show on the page.

How ScriptShadow hurts screenwriters, cont’d

The comment thread on my earlier post has mostly focussed on intellectual property and “fairness,” with one good Nabisco analogy rising above the rest.

Lost in the discussion is that I never insisted ScriptShadow be shut down, but rather pushed it to stay true to its stated mission. ScriptShadow’s many defenders see the site as an invaluable resource for aspiring writers.

So far, few of them have addressed my two proposed changes:

1. Review screenplays of movies once they’ve come out.
2. Ask the writers before posting reviews of unproduced scripts.

“Carson” doesn’t review scripts after the movie has come out. Why not? If the purpose of his site is to celebrate writers and acquaint newbies with the craft, isn’t that in fact a more valuable exercise, showing how the words on the page translate to the screen?

I think we all know why he doesn’t want to review existing movies: he’d lose the buzz that comes with having the first opinion. It’s part of the reason we want to go to movies on opening weekend, or stand for hours in the Sundance snow to see a movie we wouldn’t walk across the street to see in March.

I’m not faulting him for human nature, but rather disingenuousness. It’s cool to be first. But don’t claim that being first on reviewing an old draft of Supermax is somehow improving the world for screenwriters.

The second point, asking writers before posting reviews, is an acknowledgement that some unproduced/unsold writers benefit from exposure.

Would they benefit less if Carson asked first? No.

There are many great scripts that never get produced, just as there are many great books that never get published. If Carson truly wants to shine a spotlight on these unheralded gems, he should have the courtesy to ask the writer first, rather than review whatever random draft he comes across. For all he knows, he’s reading the version written for the executive who insisted on heavy voiceover, “Y’know, so the audience will know what he’s thinking.”

On the point that ScriptShadow is letting readers outside Hollywood read screenplays: Google “title of the movie” screenplay. If the first page doesn’t have a direct link, another minute of searching will find huge libraries. Reading these scripts to actual films that got made will serve any aspiring writer much better than the second draft of a vampire dog thriller in development at Lionsgate.

Carson Reeves emailed this afternoon, asking that I remove his real name from the comments. I did so with the hope that he’ll address some of the concerns raised.

Living room rules

Let me offer a quick clarification on policy and procedure here on the blog.

For most posts, I turn comments on. I enjoy discussion. You’re welcome to express your opinion and disagree. But it’s my house. If you’re being uncivil to me or the other people here, I may warn you, or simply kick you out.

When new users post a comment, the system holds it in moderation until Matt or I have a chance to review it. This helps cut down on spammers and scammers.

There is also an automated spam detection system (Akismet), which will occasionally flag a valid comment as spam — particularly if there are more than two links embedded in it. If your comment hasn’t shown up for 24 hours, send us an email and we’ll check for it.

When necessary, I delete comments. Here’s a guide for making sure your comment doesn’t get deleted:

1. Stay pretty much on topic.
2. Don’t link to your own sites, except in the URL spot.
3. Be polite. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say in my living room.

When a comment violates any of these three points, I’ll happily delete it. It’s one click for me. So keep that in mind before you spend 10 minutes writing something that won’t show up.

These are all fairly standard Living Room Rules, but some people seem unfamiliar with them, so I thought it would be better to state them explicitly.

How ScriptShadow hurts screenwriters

[There is an update to this post here.]

Earlier this year, a blogger going by the name Carson Reeves began reviewing screenplays on a site called ScriptShadow. These aren’t scripts for existing movies, but rather screenplays to upcoming films — ones in production, ones in development, ones in limbo.

A recent Wired magazine article by Scott Brown discusses his intentions:

[Reeves] says he wanted to celebrate the writer, promote talented unknowns (aren’t most screenwriters pretty much unknowns?), and acquaint newbie scribes with the art of the craft. “I’ve had so many emails from writers all over the world thanking me for making Hollywood feel closer and less intimidating,” he says. “It’s particularly appealing to amateur screenwriters who want to know what’s selling. You have to realize that this is information they’ve wanted for years but just didn’t have access to.”

That’s not really the case. Aspiring screenwriters have always had access to this material the same way Reeves apparently got access to it: by working and interning in the industry.

In between answering phones and trying to get their bosses on flights out of Kennedy, bright underpaid aspirants have the opportunity to read almost every script in town. Impromptu networks of assistants pass around their favorite screenplays, in the process picking the next generation of hot writers.

Studios turn a blind eye to this because it helps the industry. You want the smartest people with the best opinions working for you, and you want them to have a good sense of what’s in development all over town. A boss at Disney isn’t going to lose sleep if an intern at CAA reads a draft of that Miley Cyrus comedy. It’s expected. It’s good.

So ScriptShadow should be a good thing, right? More is better.

It’s not. And the reasons become clear pretty quickly.

There’s a big difference between reading a script and reviewing it online for the world to see. Not only are you spoiling plot details, but you’re establishing a baseline judgment for a project that’s often still in its fetal phase.

Brown’s article is alarmingly upbeat on this point:

Scriptshadow is the logical next step in our increasingly impatient attitude toward the delivery of entertainment. We’ve seen the sun set on the medieval Age of Professional Reviews, the rise of the populist recap, and the boom of real-time in-theater Twitter. The precap, however, trumps them all. It’s the kind of access Tinsel-trolls like me have been jonesing for since the ’90s, when Ain’t It Cool News hooked us with preemptive trashings of preview screenings.¹

And here’s the rub: just like the AICN reviews of screenings made studios much more reluctant to test their films, sites like ScriptShadow are making them clamp down much harder on the heretofore common practice of passing scripts around.

This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening now.

Ruining it for writers

Earlier this year, I worked on a rewrite of a potential tent-pole movie in development at Fox. A week into my writing, ScriptShadow posted a review (since removed) of an earlier draft of the same project. It was largely laudatory, but the studio went ballistic. I don’t know what pressure they put on ScriptShadow to get the review taken down, but I was suddenly given extraordinary restrictions on exactly who could read the script. I couldn’t send it to the director, the producers or anyone other than one executive at the studio. These were by far the most restrictive terms of any film I’ve written at any studio.

Keep in mind, this wasn’t X-Men or Avatar. It was one of two dozen movies that could maybe someday get greenlit. Fox legal was willing to go to war over a movie it might not even make.

The more often sites like ScriptShadow poke that hornet’s nest, the bigger the reaction is going to be. The revised terms — I couldn’t even send the draft to my agent — may become the norm. Assistants will get fired for sharing scripts. In the long run, it will be crippling for the industry, and screenwriters will suffer most:

• Screenwriters get hired based on the last few things we wrote, and if those are sealed in vaults, we’re screwed. I got my second writing assignment (A Wrinkle in Time) based on the script to my first assignment, a project that was still in active development. If that script had been locked down, I might not have gotten another job.

• If I can’t get feedback from trusted readers about the script I’m writing, it won’t be as good. Period.

• Pretty soon, blame for one of these “leaks” is going to be aimed back at the actual writer, and how would she defend herself? If I leave my iPhone or laptop unattended for sixty seconds, it would be nothing for someone to send himself one the drafts I’ve emailed to myself as backup.

I don’t want to have to write in a Fox office, on a Fox computer. But that could very easily be the future.

A better tomorrow

Several screenwriter friends have emailed Reeves, asking him to take down reviews of their scripts. Every time, he has. So I believe Reeves when he says he wants to help writers. Here are two ways he can do it:

1. Review scripts of movies once they’ve come out. Most of the scripts aiming for awards this season have freely-available .pdfs, and Reeves’ own contacts should enable him to get ahold of the ones that aren’t. Shining a spotlight on the scripts and their screenwriters would genuinely help readers see how the words on the page were translated to the screen.

2. Ask writers before posting a review. No doubt some screenwriters benefit from getting their spec scripts mentioned, just as the Black List has helped draw attention to worthy writers. As long as Reeves checks in with the writer first — making sure that a review wouldn’t derail a deal in the works — everyone benefits.

Other sites publish script reviews. The reason I’m singling out ScriptShadow is that its owner genuinely seems to have some sense of responsibility to its readers and the screenwriting community. Hell, it uses Scrippets, so it can’t be all evil.

I’m hoping that by setting the bar higher, ScriptShadow can stop hurting the screenwriters it claims to celebrate.

1. More than impatience, I think it speaks to a culture of entitlement: “It’s not fair I have to wait until a movie is out to know what happens.” Or, “It’s not fair that only Hollywood people get to read these scripts.” Guess what? It is fair. Fair doesn’t mean you get whatever you want. ↩

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