John August

QandA

Selling without selling out

Episode - 153

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Apps, Film Industry, Highland, Producers, QandA, Screenwriting Software, Scriptnotes, Transcribed, Words on the page, Writing Process

In their first-ever live streaming episode, John and Craig open the mailbag to answer a bunch of listener questions.

– What research should a writer do before soliciting an agent or manager?
– What should a writer be willing to give up in order to make her first sale?
– Does a Mormon writer face special challenges in drink-and-drugging Hollywood?
– Why doesn’t Highland exist on Android?
– What determines “Story by” credit on a feature?
– How did we like DungeonWorld? (John asked this question.)

All this, plus the Fermi Paradox in this episode of Scriptnotes.

Links:

* [Scriptnotes, 76](http://johnaugust.com/2013/how-screenwriters-find-their-voice), with Three Pages by James Topham
* Scriptnotes, 115: [Back to Austin with Rian Johnson and Kelly Marcel](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-back-to-austin-with-rian-johnson-and-kelly-marcel)
* David Lynch [on the iPhone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0)
* Björk, [Human Behavior](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCGveA39VYA)
* [Dungeon World](http://www.dungeon-world.com/)
* Scriptnotes, 142: [The Angeles Crest Fiasco](http://johnaugust.com/2014/the-angeles-crest-fiasco)
* [Action Jackson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AvMn2Vh0fQ) trailer
* David Kwong at TED2014: [Two nerdy obsessions meet — and it’s magic](http://www.ted.com/talks/david_kwong_two_nerdy_obsessions_meet_and_it_s_magic)
* The Fermi paradox on [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox), [Wait But Why](http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html) and [Praxtime](http://praxtime.com/2013/11/25/sagan-syndrome-pay-heed-to-biologists-about-et/)
* Neil deGrasse Tyson [on chimps, humans and aliens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ro9aebFZhM)
* John is [hiring a new UI designer](http://johnaugust.com/2014/hiring-a-ui-designer)
* Our USB drives [now have the first 150 episodes](http://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-100-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* Archives are also [available on scriptnotes.net](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* This episode was broadcast live on [Mixlr](http://mixlr.com/scriptnotes/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Jeff Harms ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

You can download the episode here: [AAC](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_153.m4a) | [mp3](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_153.mp3).

**UPDATE 7-18-14:** The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2014/scriptnotes-ep-153-selling-without-selling-out-transcript).

The Rocky Shoals (pages 70-90)

Psych 101, Scriptnotes, Story and Plot, Transcribed, Words on the page, Writing Process

Aline Brosh McKenna joins Craig and John to talk about the difficult journey through pages 70-90 of your feature. After that, we talk about procrastination, the Panic Monster and our inner Instant Gratification Monkeys.

Screenwriting books always talk about structure, but never about tone, which is much more important for distinguishing great writing. So we spend some time looking at what tone feels like on the page.

Finally, we talk mentors. Aline has specific suggestions for young women.

Update: The post was linking to the previous week’s audio. Fixed.

Links:

You can download the episode here: AAC | mp3.

UPDATE 7-11-14: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

Audio illusions, and the importance of set-up

Psych 101, Words on the page

Your brain is smarter than you think. Here’s an example from [Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute](https://soundcloud.com/whyy-the-pulse/an-audio-illusion):

In this audio illusion, something that seems incomprehensible makes sense once your brain is conditioned for it. Prior information shapes our understanding of the present.

In screenwriting — or any form of storytelling — we call this set-up. A reader’s understanding of a given moment is hugely dependent on what you’ve already established. That’s why the first few pages of a script are so important: you’re teaching the reader what to look for, and ultimately how to read your script.

From [WHHY The Pulse](https://soundcloud.com/whyy-the-pulse).

Adapting The Wizard of Oz

Film Industry, Genres

Gregory Maguire, author of the novel Wicked, takes a look at screenwriter Noel Langley’s early draft of the script for [The Wizard of Oz](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/early-script-wizard-oz-offers-rare-glimpse-creation-iconic-film-180951858/):

> The differences between this version and the final shooting script? Hardly a page escapes without crossed-out speeches and handwritten substitutions. Plot points abound that are later abandoned (the Wicked Witch of the West has a son named Bulbo?). Only a couple of scenes refer to singing, and none of the famous lyrics appear. What would become “Over the Rainbow,” which I call America’s unofficial national anthem, is referred to as “the Kansas song.”

> What this draft achieves is the compression of choice elements from a best-selling, although rambling, children’s book. In the original novel, the Wicked Witch of the West dies on Page 155, but Dorothy doesn’t leave Oz until 100 pages on. If Langley stuffs in extraneous characters for ballast (a Kansas farmhand and his sweetheart among them), he also abbreviates the trajectory of the story so that the demise of the Wicked Witch of the West kick-starts Dorothy’s return to Kansas.

Adapting a book to film means figuring out which elements of the source material really belong on the big screen. It many cases, you end up dropping things not because they’re “un-cinematic,” but rather because they don’t help you tell the two-hour version of the story.

Sometimes, the choices you make feel better than the original:

> The American author-illustrator Maurice Sendak believed that The Wizard of Oz film was a rare example of a movie that improves on the original book. I agree with him. Langley consolidates two good witches into one. He eliminates distracting sequences involving populations Dorothy encounters after the Wizard has left in his balloon —the china people (porcelain figures) and the Hammer-Heads (a hard-noggined race).

You’d have a harder time taking these liberties with a popular novel now. The Harry Potter films were faithful and tremendously successful, as was Twilight and The Hunger Games. Studios see this and take note.

Over the last ten years when I’ve been approached to adapt current best-sellers, one of the first concerns has been not angering authors and fans. That may be the smart choice financially, but it doesn’t always result in the best movie.

Had Langely been given this directive when adapting The Wizard of Oz, I doubt we’d remember the movie at all.