The movie script that changed my life wasn’t Howard Koch’s Casablanca. And it wasn’t Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation. Neither was it Herman Mankiewicz’s Citizen Kane, Robert Towne’s Chinatown, or Dan O’Bannon’s Alien (though that one came darn close). Nope. The script that changed my life was Richard Bell’s The Last Day of Winter. It was just four pages long, and therein lies the tale.
Screenwriting. In any dictionary, it should bear the note, “See also: hopeless.” A person attempting this pursuit had best be a sort of chimera: dreamer, masochist, and fool. When I first tried my hand, I certainly had the fool aspect down cold. I had no creative focus, was heedless of my total lack of experience, and moved only by a vague sense that if I remained faithful to my dream — like Linus sitting in his pumpkin patch, awaiting the advent of the Great Pumpkin — then surely things would work out my way.
Among my many early mistakes was a self-imposed “feature film tunnel- vision.” I ignored all other types of screenwriting, and would only pursue ideas that might find their way into my local cinema. Okay, it’s an honest mistake. Like most people in my situation, I wanted to create cinematic experiences like the ones I had loved all my life. No other form offered that appeal — at least not then.
My first serious writing effort, undertaken with my brother Chris in 1981, died a slow, quiet death, befitting a horror script. We loved it, and couldn’t fathom why Hollywood agents weren’t lining up to sign us. This failure pushed me away from screenwriting for the next 15 years, and it never occurred to me that there were similar forms of expression available, well worth my attention.
Either my dream was too stubborn to die quietly, or I was too gutless to shoot it in the head and move on. Every so often, the old passion would flare up, and I would berate myself for not trying harder. In 2002, I decided I might benefit from the company of other writers, and here occurred one of my life’s great lucky breaks. I discovered the New Jersey Screenwriters group, a collection of talented hopefuls founded and organized by Chris Messineo. They met twice a month not ten miles from my home.
At each meeting, we would read a member’s script aloud (a table read), and then proceed to rip it to pieces. Think of it as “bare-knuckle critique.” (As a member, I began to enjoy a certain tough-guy writer ethos.) It was great fun, and the best training I’d ever had. But when no one had a feature script ready, we were all asked to bring in a quick five-page short, just for laughs, to kick around the table. Uh oh…
I wanted to be a part of anything this group did, but confronted with creating a five-pager I felt utterly lost. All my training had focused on features. I had reverse-engineered dozens of movies into precise story outlines. I had attended Bob McKee’s Story Structure workshop twice, for God’s sake. But a five-pager? I just didn’t see how to do it, and wasn’t sure I even wanted to try. What was the point? There isn’t much of a market for short films, so why bother writing short scripts? And by now, my feature efforts weren’t working out too well either, so I was once again wondering if this was all a waste of time. And then at a meeting in early 2004, Richard Bell offered The Last Day of Winter.
This script showed me something new: how a screenplay can be poetry. It’s a simple, quiet tale of one morning in an old man’s life. It was brilliant. It could easily be mistaken for a lost gem from the hand of Horton Foote. And at that moment, a wonderful light flashed on. Now I get it! Finally, I saw how a short script works. I understood the approach. The next time shorts were requested for a meeting, I wrote one, and I haven’t stopped since.
It’s an unfortunate fact that most aspiring screenwriters will remain precisely that their entire lives. Few will ever sell their work, and even fewer will see their work produced. But until that ship comes in, short scripts are the best practice a screenwriter can find. Don’t make the mistakes I made: assuming you don’t need the practice, or that it’s best to just work on features. Hey, do both! Shorts provide almost immediate gratification, something all artists need as often as possible. Shorts require far less commitment of time. And shorts can offer a type of challenge and satisfaction all their own. While a feature script may be a symphony, a well-crafted short is a chamber piece. It can pack all the depth, craft, and virtuosity of a feature into a quieter, more humble, more understated structure.
There are now many marvelous outlets and competitions devoted to short scripts. Do a quick Internet search, and you will find sites like moviepoet.com, nycmidnight.com, and countless others. Typical online contests mandate a theme, a page limit, and run anywhere from 12 hours to one month. Some are free, some require an entry fee. Some offer cash prizes! All of them are fun. And the deadlines are a gift. They provide gentle but insistent pressure without which many writers will not produce.
And sometimes… sometimes short scripts provide everything a writer dreams of. My script The Gods of Ethan Holloway is a case in point. This is my favorite short. It was born out of pure, raw, emotional inspiration. It very nearly wrote itself. I posted it at inktip.com, where it was discovered by director Anton Wannenburg. And… wonder of wonders, he bought it. He will film it in the fall as a directing demo, and I must say I am one happy camper.
Have I abandoned my Hollywood dreams? Hell no. Too much popcorn in my blood. I still work on the big projects. But now I also write shorts on a regular basis, and my creative life is vastly richer and more satisfying. Hey, that reminds me, I’ve only got a few days left to submit a short for the June contest at MoviePoet. The guideline this month demands that the story take place in a forest, five-page limit. Hmmm. Okay… Fade In….
