John August

QandA

Screenwriting and the problem of evil

Projects, Story and Plot, Writing Process

One of the joys of screenwriting is putting childhood terrors into words. The screenplay I’m currently writing has monsters. Not werewolves and vampires (as my last three have had), but otherworldly forces of darkness and destruction.

In this case, the heroes’ goals are relatively straightforward, but the antagonists’ agenda is — by dint of their nature — extraordinarily bleak.

So what’s challenging for this script has been writing against a backdrop of indifferent oblivion. Nihilism is not a crowd-pleaser.

Bad isn’t that bad
—–

In most movies, the villain isn’t really “evil” — he’s just at cross-purposes with the hero. Darth Vader does not perceive himself to be doing wrong. The queen in Aliens is protecting her brood. The shark in Jaws is, well, a shark. ((Never forget, every villain is a hero.))

The villains/monsters of most films can be found to have one or more of the following motivations:

1. Self-preservation
2. Propagation
3. Protection of an important asset
4. Hunger/Greed
5. Revenge

I’ve ranked these on a scale from “least evil” to “closest to evil.”

A monster acting in its own defense might be terrifying, but it’s morally understandable. A spurned lover on a killing spree steps closer to the big E, but it’s still relatable to normal human emotions. We’ve all lashed out irrationally, though to less fatal degrees.

A sixth motivation is something I’ll call bloodlust/sociopathy. The villain’s actions serve no direct need; bloodlust is its own motivation. Slasher films often fall back on this. Jason Voorhees wants to kill you *just because.*

As an audience, it’s unsettling. It feels genuinely Evil.

Slasher films usually have one bad guy. What happens when the whole world is similarly bloodthirsty?

Some movies dip their toes into this big pool of bleakness. [Zombie class situations](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/zombie-class-situations), for one. Even if you survive this one moment, do you really want to live in a world overrun by the living dead?

And then there are robots. One could argue the machines of both the Terminator and Matrix franchises are acting out of self-preservation in terms of why they come after the hero. But their greater agenda for enslaving humankind is kind of murky, [even if we make good batteries](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/matrix-needs-humans).

They seem intent on wiping us out *just because,* the treads of their war machines crushing our blackened skulls.

Making oblivion cinematic
—–

The villains I’m writing fall somewhere in between zombies and robots: more sentient than the shambling dead, but less purposeful than Skynet. The challenge has been figuring out how to articulate What They Want in a way that makes sense in a popcorn movie.

If I were writing a junior-year philosophy paper, I’d be able to fold in some Nietzsche and Sartre quotes and call it a day. But that won’t play at 24 frames per second. It needs to be satisfying without external support. So I’m left to look for parallels in other successful movies.

* What do Satanic cultists hope to achieve?
* Why does Hannibal Lecter eat people?
* If Sauron won, what would Middle Earth become?

In looking for my answer, I’m trying to be careful not to explain away the darkness. Or to humanize it. There’s something compelling about evil with the indifference of an earthquake or a tidal wave.

The closest I’ve come is an ant’s perspective of eight-year-old boys, smashing and destroying without apparent motivation or qualm. Scale that up, and it feels like a movie. But not an easy one to write.

Unpaid internships in the crosshairs

Film Industry

The NYT reminds us that just because it’s common practice, [doesn’t mean it’s legal](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html?pagewanted=1):

> “If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,” said Nancy J. Leppink, the acting director of the department’s wage and hour division.

Unpaid internships are foot-in-the-door gigs for screenwriters in Hollywood. I wrote free coverage for a small production company during my first year of film school, which led to a paid job at a studio.

Was I breaking the law? I guess.

But I wonder if it’s somewhat defensible as apprenticeship. Writing coverage is a skill you have to learn. I got better at it, and the two or three months I read for the company were genuinely educational, with feedback and evaluation.

But if I had been stuffing envelopes? Yeah. That’s a minimum wage job that should be treated like one.

(/via MW)

What’s real, then what’s funny

QandA, Words on the page

Jane Espenson [makes the case](http://www.janeespenson.com/archives/00000608.php) for finding the essence before writing the jokes:

> I guarantee you that they did not start working on the latest episode by thinking of funny things that could happen in a pottery class. They started by thinking about their characters, what they believe, and where they’re weakest.

> Find your characters’ vulnerable spots and poke them and you’ll find a story. The idea that Jeff was over-praised as a child, resulting in a self-image that needs correction is not hilarious. It’s grounded and real — which allows for more license when writing the jokes.

Reading scripts on the iPad

Film Industry, Geek Alert, Reading

Screenplays are almost always distributed as .pdfs, so many screenwriters (and other film-and-TV-types) have been hoping that the iPad’s large screen and innate support for .pdfs would make it an ideal reading device.

Steve Jobs heard your prayers. It’s really, really good for reading scripts.

The iPad’s built-in apps handle .pdfs pretty transparently. Click a link in Safari, or an attachment in Mail, and the iPad shows you a very accurate Quick Look. For something short like a scanned article, it’s dandy.

But the default reader doesn’t scale well to screenplays:

* **Screenplays are long.** They average around 120 pages — and there’s no way to skip ahead to page 48 without frantic swiping.
* **You can’t mark your place.** Click the home button and you’re back to page one.
* **You can’t search.** In an electronic version, you should really be able to find the first time HORATIO speaks.
* **You can’t annotate, highlight or copy.** You’re really just seeing a picture of the document, not the words themselves.

App Store to the rescue
—-

iconAs of this writing — on iPad’s launch day — there are at least six dedicated .pdf readers in the App Store. My favorite at the moment is [GoodReader – Tablet Edition](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goodreader-tablet-edition/id363448914?mt=8), which is currently priced at 99 cents. There will no doubt be more contenders in the weeks and months to come, so keep in mind this endorsement has an expiration date. It’s the best solution I’ve found today.

GoodReader has multiple ways of importing .pdfs. The most straightforward is Web Downloads. Use the built-in browser to poke around the web to the file you want, then let GoodReader slurp it in. Any of the scripts in the [Library](http://johnaugust.com/library), for example, are clicks away.

Most of the scripts I read come attached to emails. All the readers in the App Store have means of shuffling these files from your computer to your iPad — most often through iTunes — but I wanted a solution that didn’t use an intermediary computer. That’s ultimately what put GoodReader ahead of the others.

GoodReader’s Connect to Servers tab lets you log in to your mail server and check for messages with attachments. Choose the message, select the .pdf you want to import, and it shows up in your sidebar. Keep in mind that GoodReader *is actually accessing your mail account.* This may make you (and your system administrators) uncomfortable. As a workaround, you may want to set up an email account (perhaps at Gmail) that is just for scripts you want to read. Forward scripts to that account, and give GoodReader that login info.

Just for reading
—-

Once you have a .pdf open in GoodReader — or any of these apps — the experience is solid. Simple taps or gestures let you flip pages, while more-traditional scrollbars appear to let you zip ahead.

goodreader

This screenshot shows GoodReader at its most cluttered; a tap in the center makes all the UI go away. I found myself wanting to turn pages with taps on the edges like iBooks and Kindle, but an upward swipe ends up being fairly natural.

GoodReader has no markup or highlighters. Some of the competitors do, along with note-taking features. I often write on printed drafts of scripts, but will I ultimately do the same on the iPad? It’s too soon to tell.

All of these apps will get better. This article will quickly get outdated. But I’m happy to report that as of today, the iPad is already a much better reader for screenplays than anything that has come before it.