John August

Treatments

Based on an idea by…

Producers, QandA, Treatments, WGA

questionmarkSo, I’m watching “Gosford Park” and I notice that the film is “based upon an idea by Robert Altman and Bob Balaban.”

My question is: How does one get that credit? Do you have to do some actual writing for it or is it some sort of a vanity credit? (I assume it isn’t, because otherwise every producer or executive type would have a whole stack of those on their record.)

— Steffen
Nuremberg, Germany

[Craig Mazin](http://artfulwriter.com) is on the screen credits committee, so he can likely answer this more thoroughly. But I can at least give you my take on it.

For feature films, the official WGA credits are “Story by” and “Screenplay by,” which can be combined to make “Written by.” ((There is also a very rare “Adaptation by” credit, which is only given in specific, complicated situations.)) When something is based on preexisting source material, like a book or a play, that original writer gets a “based on a novel/play by Original Writer.” ((Where it gets weird is when a movie is based on an earlier movie’s screenplay, such as a remake of a foreign film. There is ongoing discussion in the Guild about how to best handle this.))

Your instincts are right: Producers often have ideas for movies, but rarely do they get a specific, additional credit for it. However, if they wrote those ideas down, even in prose form, they could very likely get “story” or “source material” credit.

Per the [Screen Credits Manual](http://www.wga.org/content/subpage_writersresources.aspx?id=171), the requirements for these two credits are as follows:

> 3) Source Material

> Source material is all material, other than story as hereinafter defined, upon which the story and/or screenplay is based.

> This means that source material is material assigned to the writer which was previously published or exploited and upon which the writer’s work is to be based (e.g., a novel, a produced play or series of published articles), or any other material written outside of the Guild’s jurisdiction (e.g., literary material purchased from a non-professional writer). Illustrative examples of source material credits are: “From a Play by”, “From a Novel by”, “Based upon a Story by”, “From a series of articles by”, “Based upon a Screenplay by” or other appropriate wording indicating the form in which such source material is acquired. Research material is not considered source material.

> 4) Story

> The term “story” means all writing covered by the provisions of the Minimum Basic Agreement representing a contribution “distinct from screenplay and consisting of basic narrative, idea, theme or outline indicating character development and action.”

> It is appropriate to award a “Story by” credit when: 1) the story was written under employment under Guild jurisdiction; 2) the story was purchased by a signatory company from a professional writer, as defined in the Minimum Basic Agreement; or 3) when the screenplay is based upon a sequel story written under the Guild’s jurisdiction. If the story is based upon source material of a story nature, see “screen story” below.

When you see a credit like “based on an idea by,” that’s clearly a “source material” type of credit. In the case of Gosford Park, it may have been the strange way Robert Altman shoots. Apparently, rather than a complete screenplay, they had a framework upon which his actors improvised, with screenwriter Julian Fellowes on set to help shape the scenes.

Regardless of the specific situation, I’m not a fan of the “based on an idea by” credit, and would like to see it stay rare. It over-emphasizes the vague conception of a movie, at the expense of the distinctions provided by characters, narrative, theme and action (that is, story).

For example, “a movie about the Civil War” is an idea. Gone With The Wind is a story. For them to have rough equivalence is absurd.

The perils of coincidence

Genres, How-To, Treatments

Like several million people worldwide, I saw [Spider-Man 3](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413300/) this past weekend. And like a substantial percentage of these viewers, I got frustrated by the number of unlikely coincidences in the movie.

There’s nothing wrong with coincidence, per se. Almost every movie is going to have some incidents where one character just happens to be in the right place at the right time. In fact, many movies are built around a “premise coincidence.” In [Die Hard](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/), John McClane just happens to be in the building when the villains attack. That’s okay. McClane’s being there is part of the premise. Likewise, in the original [Spider-Man](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145487/), Peter Parker just happens to get bitten by the radioactive spider. No problem: it wouldn’t be Spider-Man otherwise.

The premise coincidence is one flavor of what I’ll call a Fundamental Coincidence: an accidental confluence of time, place and motivation which greatly impacts the story.

In a romantic comedy, when The Guy would have proposed to The Girl except that he just happened to overhear a conversation he interpreted the wrong way, that’s a Fundamental Coincidence. In the first Spider-Man, Norman Osborn just happens to be transformed into The Goblin just as Peter is becoming Spider-Man. That’s a Fundamental Coincidence, but we accept it because it feels true to the genre.

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW. (Mostly things you’d glean the trailers or ads, but still.)

Let’s look at the Fundamental Coincidences in Spider-Man 3:

  • The asteroid carrying the symbiote (utlimately, Venom) happens to land near Peter Parker. Peter doesn’t hear it, doesn’t investigate.
  • The symbiote happens to attach itself to Peter’s scooter.
  • Flint Marko happens to fall into the sand pit at exactly the moment the scientists test their billion-dollar Dyson vacuum.It’s never clear what they’re supposedly doing, or why they wouldn’t have, say, a lid on the pit. Or a videocamera to monitor the experiment.
  • Flint Marko happens to have been the man who killed Uncle Ben. (A retcon.)
  • Eddie Brock happens to be the only person in the church at the moment Peter tries to get rid of the black suit.

Any one (or two) of these Fundamental Coincidences would probably go unnoticed, particularly in a superhero movie, where credibility takes a back seat to spectacle. But put together, they make the plot feel rickety, particularly when you factor in the large number of what I’ll call Minor Coincidences — things that don’t fundamentally change the story, but feel convenient all the same.

  1. The police chief decides to tell Peter about Marko now, even though he’s known the details for some time, apparently.
  2. Sandman’s first attack just happens to coincide with Spider-Man getting the key to the city.
  3. Eddie Brock is newly arrived at the Daily Bugle, and wants Peter’s job.
  4. Gwen Stacy happens to be Peter’s lab partner.
  5. Gwen Stacy happens to be in the skyscraper during the crane accident.
  6. And she’s the police chief’s daughter.
  7. And she’s Eddie Brock’s love interest.Revealing both of these points of information in one piece of dialogue was a particularly bold choice.
  8. And Gwen happens to be at the fancy restaurant on the night Peter wants to propose.

Again, you could have several of these coincidences in any movie and no one would mind. It’s largely expected that familiar faces will become imperiled in a summer action movie, so #5 feels right. Likewise, the eventual discovery of Venom’s weakness is accidental, but that plays into the genre. No foul there.

My point is not to rip on Spider-Man 3, but to urge readers to look at their own scripts with an eye towards coincidence. If you’ve written a treatment, search for the following phrases: “at the same time,” “accidentally,” “luckily,” “unfortunately,” and “meanwhile.” They’re often a tip-off that you have events happening by coincidence. There’s almost always a better alternative.

Causality trumps everything
=====
Given a choice, try to find cause and effect. One event happens because of something else we’ve seen — ideally, something the hero himself has done.

Instead of having the hero accidentally overhear a key conversation, get him actively trying to listen. Or have an interested third party steer him in that direction — perhaps for his own reasons. At every juncture where a reader could ask “Why did that happen?”, try to have an answer that isn’t, “just because.”

Although there are some convenient twists in the Harry Osborn plot (amnesia, for starters), the causality is clear: the New Goblin wants revenge on Spider-Man for killing his daddy in the first movie.I kept waiting for Peter to point out that Harry’s dad was a psychopath, but oh well. It doesn’t feel like coincidence that Harry is flying around on his hoverboard. With two other villains desperate for scenes, the timing might not be opportune, but it’s clear why it’s happening.

Look for correlation
====
Rather than ask an audience to swallow a bunch of little implausibilities, try bundling them together.

In [Heroes](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0813715/), imagine if each character had a completely unique origin story: Claire got her powers from a shaman; Sylar is an alien; Peter has a magic ring. You’d get frustrated pretty quickly, because a lot of screen time would go towards explaining why and how. Instead, the creators wisely decided the characters all had some mysterious gene mutation activated by an environmental change. The audience is willing to make that one big leap,And a familiar leap, frankly, because of X-Men. because they’re not asked to make similar leaps each time a new character is introduced.Note that both the D.C. and Marvel universes do have multiple, often conflicting means of empowering their heroes and villains. This is good and fascinating, but I suspect it’s one reason it can be harder for a casual reader to pick up these titles. The time investment needed to get up to speed is significant. Quick: Is Scarlet Witch a witch? Ummm…[Sort of](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Witch).

For Spider-Man 3, I don’t have any magic answers on how to correlate these disparate threads — other than trimming one out, which wouldn’t be a bad place to start. But had the script dropped on my desk a month before shooting, here are a few thoughts I would have put out there in terms of the many coincidences:

* Both Venom and Sandman are forms of disembodied consciousness that control their host subjects — people and sand, respectively. That seems thematically promising.
* One asteroid feels random, while a meteor shower feels like an event that needs a superhero.
* Could this meteor shower overlap with Marko’s transformation or escape? Even if it’s just in the background, it makes them feel more united.
* Could Spider-Man be pursuing Marko at the start?
* Could we see the symbiote choosing Peter, because he’s the strongest creature around?

Chop it out
====
Often, the best answer when faced with a nagging coincidence is just to remove it.

* Do we really need the Uncle Ben retcon? It doesn’t have a lot to do with Marko’s sick-daughter motivation.
* Couldn’t Eddie Brock already be a stringer for the Daily Bugle? If he and Peter already have history, great.
* Does Gwen Stacy need to be Peter’s lab partner?
* Do we even need the police chief?

Again, my point isn’t to rag on Spidey, but to urge reader-writers take a hard look at the role of coincidence in their own scripts.

Some coincidence feels genuine. In real life, we do accidentally bump into old friends at the mall. And surprise in general is a good thing — catching your reader off-balance is a worthy goal. But if a significant portion of your plot depends on chance, that’s a good indicator something’s not fully baked. The best time to tackle these problems is in the outline, asking yourself not only what happens next, but why.

Air vents are for air

Rant, Treatments

air ventOn a recent episode of “[Lost](http://imdb.com/title/tt0411008/),” a character climbed through air ducts to get past heavy blast doors, which had trapped him and another character. By narrative standards, this sequence would seem unremarkable. Except for one thing:

“Lost” takes place on a freaking magical island.

You’ve got polar bears, black smoke monsters, and a cabal of mysterious Others. There’s no shortage of dramatic opportunities, which is why it’s so disheartening to see the show reach for that lowest-hanging fruit: a guy in an air duct.

I’ve lived a fairly adventurous life. I’ve travelled to five continents. But the only time I’ve seen the inside of an air duct is television and movies, when a character — generally the hero — has to be clever enough (and small enough) to climb through a conveniently-accessible air duct.

Be it action-adventure, comedy or horror, the air duct has become the hack screenwriter’s go-to passageway. In fact, it’s rumored the season finale of “[Yes, Dear](http://imdb.com/title/tt0247144/)” will take place entirely in air ducts.

Ladies and gentlemen, screenwriters, it’s time to stop.

Let’s back away from the keyboard and look at the situation with fresh eyes.

1. Most air ducts are not nearly large enough to hold a grown man.
2. Even if large enough, they’re not built to support a grown man’s weight.
3. “Secure” facilities — where characters are most likely to climb through air vents — are exactly the places that wouldn’t have hero-sized air vents.

Thanks to continuous bombardment in television and movies, the idea of characters shimmying through air ducts has become not just a cliché, but almost a given. The moment a hero finds himself stuck someplace, we expect his eyes to drift north to that spot just below the ceiling, where an oversized grate is beckoning: “Just yank twice! I’m not screwed in or anything!”

Here’s what I’m proposing: **The Screenwriter’s Vow of Air Vent Chastity**.

I, John August, hereby swear that I shall never place a character inside an air duct, ventilation shaft, or any other euphemism for a building system designed to move air around.

One day, I’d love to win an Oscar. An Emmy. A Tony Award. But if all I accomplished in my screenwriting life were reducing the number of times characters climbed through air vents, I’d consider my work successful.

So if you’re on board, please sign in the comments section and tell all your screenwriting friends. Remember, only you can prevent clichés.

What became of American McGee’s Alice?

Dead Projects, QandA, Treatments

questionmarkI’m just wondering what ever happened with the production of “Dark Wonderland,” with the American McGee characters of Alice In Wonderland. I haven’t heard anything about it in a while, and can’t seem to find much info on it.

— Dan
Ontario, Canada

To the best of my knowledge, nothing’s happening with it.

The brief history: Miramax/Dimension hired me to write a (long) film treatment based on [American McGee’s Alice](href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=johnaugustcom-20&path=tg%2Fdetail%2F-%2FB00006G9SB%2Fqid%3D1099782249%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fref%3Dpd_csp_1%3Fv%3Dglance%26s%3Dvideogames%26n%3D507846) videogame — a trippy retelling/continuation of Alice in Wonderland. Wes Craven was supposed to direct it, but he didn’t really care for my treatment, and things quickly fell apart.

It’s so interesting how (mis-) information spreads on the Internet. For instance, the title “Dark Wonderland.” Don’t ask me where that came from. It was never real, nor was any of the “casting” that was supposedly taking place.

I had lunch a few weeks ago with American, and asked him about it. He didn’t really know what was going on either, except that the project’s apparently at Fox now. He posted everything he knows about the movie at his own site, so people would hopefully stop asking. (Link is now dead.)

I’ll ask around, but as far as I know, there’s no script, no director, no actress, nothin’. But it’s still a kick-ass game. And for his part, American has become a screenwriter himself, so if anyone should take the reins, it’s him.