John August

Library

This page contains .pdf versions of various projects I’ve written over the years. The best way to learn screenwriting is read a bunch of scripts, so these are intended for educational purposes only. Obviously, don’t try to sell/stage/pilfer any of the material you find here, or the studios involved will send scary lawyer types after you. It’s not pleasant for anyone.

Important: If you want to link to any of the scripts here, please link to this page. Everything else you see here will inevitably move, and broken links suck.

Features

Frankenweenie

  1. Production Draft. The original draft from July 2010 isn’t vastly different.
  2. Final Conformed Script. This draft reflects changes made during storyboarding, production and editing. In particular, notice how much the third act has been tightened.

The Nines

  1. Final shooting script. The original draft isn’t vastly different, save for two scenes added in reshoots.
  2. Shooting schedule. Pretty close to our final shooting schedule.
  3. Visual FX breakdown. Boards and descriptions for two of the more complicated sections.
  4. The audience questionnaire we used for our second test screening.

How to Eat Fried Worms

Note that this is not the script for the 2006 movie. It predates it by almost a decade. You can read more about the backstory here.

Go

  1. Original spec script
  2. Final shooting script
  3. Additional audition scene for ‘Mannie’

Big Fish

  1. Original one-page outline
  2. Revised full outline after first draft
  3. Final shooting script
  4. Introduction to paperback version

TV

D.C.

  1. Pilot script
  2. Episode 2: Truth
  3. Episode 3: Justice
  4. the initial pitch I made to the WB
  5. the outline for the pilot
  6. a template for a “normal” episode
  7. and an exercise in which I look at God from each character’s perspective
  8. the pilot presentation script

In order to save money, the WB asked all its drama pilots to shoot a 30-minute “pilot presentation” of the show, rather than the whole hour. To do this, I had to omit a bunch of scenes, and rewrite some others so that it would all make sense.

Yes, if I had written Episode 4, it was supposed to titled, “The American Way.”

The Circle (a.k.a. Alaska)

  1. Initial write-up/pitch document/treatment
  2. Pilot script
  3. Episode 2: Gravedigger

Casting sides:

  1. Mathers
  2. Harper
  3. Prescott
  4. Vico
  5. Connie
  6. Elias
  7. Ivanhov
  8. Mary
  9. Valerie
  10. Van Der Kamp
  11. Bobby

More information about The Circle is here.

Ops

There are three versions of the pilot. The first is set in Afghanistan and Venezuela. The second, in Afghanistan and Iraq. The third, in Brazil and Uzbekistan. Since the first two pilots were both called “Blood and Oil,” they’ve been labeled here as “Venezuela,” “Iraq,” and “Uzbekistan.”

  1. Initial write-up/pitch document
  2. Venezuela beat sheet
  3. Venezuela outline
  4. Venezuela pilot

  5. Venezuela pilot, revised

  6. Iraq outline

  7. Iraq pilot
  8. Iraq pilot, revised

  9. Uzbekistan outline

  10. McGinty casting sides

  11. Vanowen casting sides

Shorts

The Remnants

This is the web pilot I shot in February 2008.

God

This is the short film I made in 1998, a prequel to The Nines. It’s included on the DVD.