Just noticed that The Nines is now available for rental on iTunes.
Projects
Northeaster
I spent five days in Maine, writing and researching my next project. A few observations, in bullet point form:
* Part of my motivation for visiting Maine was that I’ve always claimed to have visited all 48 contiguous states, thanks to endless summer roadtrips with my family growing up. But my mom recently told me that we’d never been to Maine, which kicked in my set-completion instinct.
* I was reluctant to try to pronounce any place names in front of people. Bar Harbor is on Mount Desert Island. “Desert” is pronounced like “dessert,” which conjures images of a fantasyland of fudge and sprinkles.
* Even though a screenwriter isn’t trying to capture an accent per se, it’s important to choose words and patterns that can work with the accent when spoken by the actor. (“Down the road apiece. Can’t miss it.”)
* That said, I feel lucky that this won’t be a big accent movie, because several Mainers were adamant that Hollywood always gets the accent wrong. Which is probably true. But what I resisted pointing out was that no two Mainers I met had the same accent. It’s all over the place, particularly when you talk to people under 30.
* Going somewhere to write has become my standard operating procedure. I barricade myself somewhere without TV, internet or familial distractions, and crank through as many hand-written pages as possible in three or four days. I fax these pages back to Los Angeles, both for safety and to let my assistant type them up. This time, I faxed to an eFax account, which had the bonus of creating a digital backup in .pdf form.
* I took a lot of photos, [which you can see on Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnau8ust/sets/72157604470043300/). It wasn’t really location scouting — we’re not at that point yet. But since there’s already a director on board, it can give him some sense of the place.
* One place had flies. [A lot of flies](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/stupid_flies.mov).
* Man, I was lucky not to be flying on [American](http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-american11apr11). [Or ATA. Or SkyBus. Or Aloha.](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24018687/) (Though the last one would have been an unlikely choice.)
* 
Another reason for the trip: we had to have our house tented for termites. This is probably alien to readers in colder climates, but in Southern California, termites can become pervasive enough that you need to nuke the house. Generally, you do it when the house is sold (and thus empty), but we’re not moving anytime soon, so we had to bite the bullet. But it looked cool, like a [Christo](http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/wk.shtml) project.
Rethinking motivation
I’m in the planning stages of my next project, which is honestly my favorite part of the writing process. There’s no emotional cost to killing unwritten scenes, no niggling logic flaws, no exhaustion at page 72.
Plotting a movie is mostly figuring out who the characters are, and what obstacles they’ll face. In film school, we were taught to look at character motivation as the combination of two questions: ((My recollection is that these ideas are featured in Syd Field, but I’m not inclined to look it up, for fear of sparking of an enraged tangent about how damaging I think most screenwriting books are.))
1. What does the character *want?*
2. What does the character *need?*
The implication is that your characters should be able to articulate what they want (true love, the championship, revenge) at or near the start of the movie, but remain clueless to what they truly need (self-respect, forgiveness, literacy) until quite late in the story.
The screenwriter-creator leaves explicit prayers unanswered, but performs subtle psychological revelation so that the characters exit profoundly changed.
Like most screenwriting hackery, this want-vs-need concept works just often enough to seem useful. You can trot out the familiar examples. Every character in The Wizard of Oz can be addressed this way (the Scarecrow wants a brain, but needs to realize just how smart he is). Ditto for The Sound of Music, though it gets a bit vague amid the younger Von Trapps.
Of my films, Big Fish and Charlie and Chocolate Factory come closest to fitting this template, though it requires a bit of hammering to get there. In Big Fish, Will Bloom begins the movie *wanting* to find the truth in his father’s tales, but he ultimately *needs* to accept that his father is contained within these tales. In Charlie, Willy Wonka *wants* an heir, but *needs* a family. ((Charlie Bucket *wants* a Golden Ticket, but *needs*…well, Charlie doesn’t really need anything, which is another argument for why Wonka is the protagonist, and Charlie the antagonist.))
Bolstered by these two examples, I spent a few hours this week looking at the characters in my project through the want-vs-need lens, before finally concluding it is complete and utter bullshit. Trying to distinguish between characters’ wants and needs is generally frustrating and almost universally pointless. The fact that I can answer the question for Big Fish and Charlie after the fact doesn’t make it a meaningful planning tool.
I’ve written about character motivation a [few](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/write-scene) [times](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/clarification-on-point-one), but hadn’t thought it necessary to define my objectives. But I think it can be simplified down to a single question:
**Why is the character doing what he’s doing?**
Here’s what I like about this definition:
* **It scales well.** You can ask this question about a character in a specific scene (“Why is he trying to get in the bank vault?”) or the entire movie (“Why is he racing in the Iditarod?”)
* **It implies visible action.** Characters in movies need to do something. That sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many scripts slather motivation on like spackle to fill the holes. ( “He has OCD because his father abandoned him.” Umm, okay, so why is he robbing a bank?)
* **It can be both concrete and psychological.** In Go, why is Ronna trying to make the drug deal with Todd Gaines? (A) Because she’s about to be evicted. (B) To prove to her friends (and herself) that she can. Both are true.
When I started asking this question, many of my concerns with the project I’m writing slipped away. The problem wasn’t character motivation, but how I was looking for it.
That said, you need to be careful not to stop at the first easy answer: *Why is he racing in the Iditarod?* “To win the prize money.” The better answer will likely lead to a better story. *Why is he racing in the Iditarod?* “To beat his ex-wife, the five-time champion.” “To catch the man who killed his brother.” “Because the ghost of his childhood dog is haunting him.”
For the record, I’m not writing Snow Dogs 4.
Shot an indie pilot. What’s next?
Back in 2005, you were generous enough to offer me some thoughts about whether to go to NYU or USC’s screenwriting program. Now, a few years down the line, I am a freshly minted Tisch graduate hoping for some advice on a different topic.
I recently won a modest grant to shoot a half-hour pilot that I co-wrote with a fellow NYU alumna. We assembled a cast of young actors, brought in a skeleton crew, and shot the pilot over six long, exhilarating days this January.
Now, as we wait for the final cut of our show to return from the sound mixer, we are working out a way to get our episode into the right hands — and we aren’t exactly sure whose hands those should be. Independent financiers? The networks and their web initiatives? Talent agencies? Given how new the idea of independently produced episodic work is, there seem to be very few resources for how to go about seeking distribution for a project such as ours.
I know you recently worked on your own privately financed web pilot, and thought you might have some particular insight into how two young writers can best proceed with an independently produced pilot.
Any guidance you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
— Isaac Aptaker
Congrats on your degree and your pilot. I’m glad you realize you’re not “done” in any meaningful way. You’re about to start a sprint that will hopefully become a marathon lasting your entire career.
You and I are in pretty much in the same boat. We’ve both just finished a scrappy little pilot that could become a series, ideally one that works a little more like independent film than standard television.
This concept of “indie TV” is almost at a point where we can stop putting it in quotes. Give it a year or two. In the meantime, we’re going to be forging some new ground. We both need to find two things: money to make the show, and a way to distribute it. The latter is easy; the former is more challenging.
Big media conglomerates dominate traditional television, both broadcast and cable. There are plenty of other outlets for people to see your show, from basic (YouTube) to more complex (specialized web, cable and satellite networks). The common theme is that none of them are going to be able to pay you the upfront money you need to make the show the way a typical TV network would.
Obviously, our situations are a little different — I have more credits and contacts. But it’s the premise and execution of the pilot that matters most, so a year from now, you may be the one with an actual series.
Let me talk you through what we’re doing, and how it might apply to your show.
1. Don’t dismiss standard TV altogether.
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We made the pilot for a web series, but if a network (likely cable) loved it and presented a compelling case for doing it with them, we’d certainly consider it. For all the freedom a web series gives you (flexible running times, interactivity, simplified production), there’s no competing with the money and marketing muscle of a network. For example, South Park started as a Christmas card video, which spread virally in pre-internet Hollywood by videotape. Done today, South Park could easily be a web show. But would it be nearly the same phenomenon (and cash cow) if it didn’t have Viacom behind it? Probably not. ((It’s worth pointing out that Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane is betting on the web. He’s doing a new show directly for the internet, partnering with MRC and Google for advertising.))
Particularly if your pilot resembles a traditional TV show, you should get it in the hands of people who work in traditional television. Use anyone you can at Tisch to reach out to television agents, managers and executives. Yes, you’re hoping they love you and want to represent you as a writer/director/whatever for your future career. But the immediate focus is whether this pilot could be a show.
2. Think about how you’ll make money, and how others will, too.
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You can do a pilot for very little money because it’s a short time commitment for everyone. For my pilot, I brought in longtime accomplices and newcomers eager to make a relationship. But all the things you can skimp on for a three-day shoot become necessities when scaled up to a series, so you can’t expect a crew to work for praise and Quizno’s.
You’re going to need money. And whoever gives you this money needs to have a reason to believe it’s worth it.
For our show, we’re going to be targeting several big advertisers, trying to find one who will sign on as the exclusive presenter. Like the [BMW films](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_films), our premise lends itself to very direct product integration. The money to make our show would be a trivial portion of a brand’s ad budget. ((This is working under the assumption that we’re a web series, but the beauty of a deeply-embedded advertiser is that it doesn’t particularly matter what format or medium the show ultimately takes. If it shows up on the torrents, even better.))
For a web series, advertising can also be handled by a distributor or accumulator, some of whom give content creators a cut. That’s been the way many web shows have been handled so far. Chaotic? Absolutely. And I have no idea what the best practices are, or whether you can realistically expect to make money from it.
If you think you’re headed towards traditional television, your best bet is to target production companies with shows on the air that resemble what you’re doing. They’re most likely to have the contacts and experience to find the money needed. They’ll take a big percentage, but they’ll earn it.
3. Make a lot of screeners. Distribute them.
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You don’t know who is going to be the crucial connection in getting your pilot to series, so there’s no benefit to keeping it a secret. If someone expresses any interest in you or the show, get them a DVD as soon as possible. Make it look professional, and follow up. Encourage people to pass it along.
I’m torn whether to recommend putting it online at the start. While it’s convenient to send a link to something, it makes it feel less exclusive. Even in 2008, there’s a sense that if something is already on the internet, it’s no longer valuable. So at least in the first wave, I’d try to keep it on physical media.
We’re at roughly the same stage of production: we finished the sound yesterday, and do final color correction this week. For me, it’s been great to explore what’s possible at budgets well below The Nines, relying on desktop software rather than specialized suites, and trying to remain agnostic about brands and workflows. If we end up doing a series, the pilot process will have taught us a lot about where to spend our money and time.