John August

QandA

Adapting a videogame into a movie

Adaptation, QandA

This question is going to suck. I have an idea to turn a computer game (I
feel so cheap) into a screenplay. Just as a side-note, it’s more of the atmosphere
of the game that’s appealing, not the quick buck mentality. Obviously I can’t
afford to buy the rights, but where do I lie submitting it to agencies? Would
they even look at it?

–Chris

Your question doesn’t suck. I adapted a computer game into
a movie ("American McGee’s Alice"), and I didn’t feel a wee bit cheap.

But then, it was a damn cool game, and I got paid. So there you have it.

Since you don’t think you can get the rights to the game, ask yourself if
you’re still willing to write a script that can never get made (or even sold).
If the answer is yes, go for it.

Some agents will avoid reading your script, simply because they know they
can never sell it. But some agents will read it as a writing sample, and if
the atmosphere of the game world is as cool as you say, maybe they’ll like
it and see you have potential.
Make sure you identify your source material on the cover page, which would
read:

TITLE

written by Chris Somebody

 

based on the videogame "Underpants Wars"

published by Powerful Software Company

Considering you’re probably broke, and the fact you won’t be able to sell this anyway, there’s
very little danger
Powerful Software Company would bother coming after you. But you’re
morally and karmically better off giving credit where it’s due.

Genres and structures

Genres, QandA

Do you have a clear idea of the genre of the film before
you start to write? Do you write to a model, like the three-act structure?

–Lydia

Usually you have a pretty good idea what genre the movie is before you start
writing, at least in the broadest sense – a comedy, a thriller, an action movie.
And of course, within any category there are sub-genres. "Comedies" can
be romantic comedies, black comedies, action comedies, family comedies, spoofs
and so forth. You could spend a weekend listing all the different sub-genres
and still find movies that don’t fit into any.

More important than knowing where to put the video at Blockbuster is figuring
what approach you’ll be taking, and that’s where the real work comes in. For
instance, CHARLIE’S ANGELS is an action comedy, so logically it should do some
of the same things as LETHAL WEAPON or RUSH HOUR. But from its inception,
there were always going to be things about CHARLIE’S ANGELS that would be unique
and difficult.

First, the characters. The movie has three heroines who need roughly equal
screen time, each with their own subplots and love interests. Bosley needs
enough to do so that an actor will want to play it, but not so much that it
takes away from the Angels. And then there’s Charlie himself. He’s the disembodied
voice on a speakerphone box, yet we need to believe he’s a real person.

Second, the tone. Trying to escape the cheesiness of the TV show, early drafts
of the script played the world very cold and high-tech, almost like a MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE
movie. While we wanted the Angels to be super-competent when they were in danger
mode,
we needed them to be huggable when they were off-duty.
They needed to be like your best friends: rowdy, caring, impetuous and fun.
Also, we wanted the movie to be a love letter to Los Angeles: the sun is always
shining, colors are hot, and everyone looks great.

Finally, the action. Early on, we agreed the Angels wouldn’t carry guns. The
decision was less because of the social message than the action possibilities.
Gun fights are about people hiding behind things; we wanted the Angels punching
and kicking. We ended up hiring the fight team behind THE MATRIX to train the
actors in martial arts, and I can’t imagine the movie any other way.

Notice that all of these decisions were made BEFORE we started talking about
plot or structure. That was the right choice, because it meant we could develop
a storyline that would fit the movie we wanted to make, rather than dress-up
a pre-existing plot with details from our movie.

The actual outline we used for the movie was simply a list of 20 sequences.
It was less than half a page. But it took months to get there. During production,
some of the sequences changed for budget, schedule or location reasons, but
the underlying spine remained exactly the same.

Television scripts vs. Screenplays

QandA, Television

At the end
of your excellent discussion on the usage of script versus screenplay, you
make a comparison between one page of a screenplay and one page from a TV drama.
Format-wise, they may be similar, but as the mediums are different (television
for all its visual acumen is very much a dialogue based medium compared to
film) would this not be apparent in the writing on these same pages under comparison?

–Bob Cousins

In certain cases, yes. A script for "Law and Order" is almost entirely
dialogue in the second half, when the court case kicks in. "The West Wing" is
all talking, all the time. If you looked at any one page from these scripts,
you might be able to guess that it’s a TV show.

But a page from "Alias" or "Angel" or "Smallville" looks
and feels exactly like a feature. With the exception of act
breaks, the flow
of words on the page is no different than a 120 page screenplay.

That’s one reason why I would highly recommend any budding screenwriter try
writing an episode of their favorite one-hour drama. It’s a great exercise
in getting comfortable with the challenges of the format. In fact, the very
first script I ever "wrote" was an episode of "Star Trek: The
Next Generation," which I literally transcribed from tape. (I was 19 at
the time. The episode was "Galaxy’s Child," teleplay by Marice Hurley,
story by Thomas Kortozian.) For the cost of a few hours, I learned a lot about
scene length and story pacing, and it got me over my fear of screenplays.

Nominated screenplays

Film Industry, QandA

When a Golden Globe or an Oscar is awarded to a writer, is it based on just
a viewing of the movie, or do the judges actually read the screenplays?

–Robert Baker

Not only is that a really good question, but strangely, I’ve never even stopped
to think about it until now.

While studios sometimes do send out certain screenplays to Academy or WGA
voters (as Disney did with THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS this year), in the vast majority
of cases, voters are making their decision based only on the movie they saw,
rather than the script.

Anyone who’s been through the process of making a movie knows that a brilliant
script doesn’t necessarily translate into a brilliant movie. The screenplay
is a crucial first step, but the words get filtered through a director, actors,
editors and hundreds of other people who inevitably change the execution if
not the intention of the writer’s work.

If an actress improvises a horrible line of dialogue, the screenwriter inevitably
gets blamed. If the editor and director shuffle scenes so that logic falls
apart, it again looks like the writer’s mistake. So it’s no surprise that the
awards for screenwriting inevitably go to scripts that, for whatever reason,
turned out to be really good movies. That is, the movies where everyone else
didn’t screw up.

But should it really be that way? While I would hate to see forests decimated
just to send 30,000 unsolicited screenplays out to Academy or WGA voters, it
would be remarkably easy to post .pdf versions of nominated screenplays online
so that voters could actually read the material they’re judging. I’m calling
my WGA representative this afternoon.

Update: I called. It’s being considered. There’s some issue of possible fairness,
because some writers have "publication rights" on their scripts, and others
don’t for various reasons. But I strongly believe that making great screenplays
more widely available will boost the profile of screenwriters worldwide.