John August - Part 217 (original) (raw)
Several blogs have recently linked to this 1964 pitch document by Gene Roddenberry laying out his initial vision for Star Trek. It’s great reading for anyone interested in the Star Trek universe or TV writing in general.
Documents like this are still common in television. I’ve heard them called different things: formats, treatments, show outlines, write-ups, pitch documents.
Whatever you call them, they generally cover a few topics:
- What the show is (logline, genre, themes, similarities to existing shows)
- What happens in typical episodes
- The main characters
- The primary locations/sets
- Special opportunities and challenges
- Future episode ideas
In the Library, you can see similar write-ups for D.C., Alaska and Ops.
In the case of Star Trek, it’s not clear at what point in the process this document was written. Generally, pitching a show is something you do in person, with writer(s) meeting with executives. If the pitch goes well, you might leave a document like this behind — in which case it’s called, quite unimaginatively, a leave-behind.
Executives like leave-behinds because it gives them something they can use to pitch the show to their bosses. Agents and seasoned writers caution against them, because it gives executives specifics with which to find fault.
So instead of a leave-behind, you might send something like this over a few days later, writing up the pitch so everyone agrees what kind of show was discussed in the room, including issues that came up. Ideally, you would want your deal closed before emailing this over, but everything in television happens with a sense of rushed deadlines, so that’s hardly a given.
Looking through Roddenberry’s Star Trek write-up, it’s tempting to focus on all the things that changed. The Enterprise is the Yorktown. The captain is neither Pike or Kirk, but Robert M. April. Spock has red skin. Bones is Bones, but his real name is Phillip Boyce.
But it’s more helpful to marvel on how much of the vision and philosophy for Star Trek shows up in this early incarnation:
The “Parallel Worlds” concept is the key to the STAR TREK format.
It means simply that our stories deal with plant and animal life, plus people, quite similar to that on Earth. Social evolution will also have interesting points of similarity to ours. There will be differences, of course, ranging from the subtle to the boldly dramatic, out of which comes much of our color and excitement. (And, of course, none of this prevents an occasional “far our” tale thrown in for surprise and change of pace.)
A quick read through the proposed storylines gives a very strong sense of what the show would become. Some of these ideas became episodes; most didn’t. But they all feel like they could be part of the show.
You can read the whole thing here.
No Meaner Place has a lengthy conversation with Howard Rodman about August, his original screenplay that became the Josh Hartnett tech-startup indie.
Even if you haven’t seen the movie, it’s worth reading the interview for a frank discussion about the process of working with a director. Says Rodman:
It’s not the job of a filmmaker to make the film that the screenwriter envisioned. That would be pouring amber over a literary document, not making a movie. (Similarly, when I’m adapting a book, it’s not my lookout, nor should it be, to worry first and foremost about the film version that the novelist sees in his/her head…) So, no, what was up on the screen wasn’t what I’d imagined – but there were moments that were far better than what I’d imagined, like some of the gestures and lines that Adam Scott found in his portrayal of Joshua – sweet and sly and complex and smart.
Earlier this week, I answered a question from a writer concerned that his director wanted to do her own pass on the script, and that’s exactly what happened here.
It’s easy to run what-if scenarios in which a different combination of director and actor would give a better outcome, but it’s important to remember how little control a screenwriter ultimately has over the variables.
When it was announced in November, one of the bold new ideas of Amazon Studios was letting any user rewrite any screenplay in the competition. I thought that was an absolutely terrible plan.
As announced yesterday, the company seems to agree:
Also today, Amazon Studios launched a new feature that allows writers to control the level of collaboration on their original scripts. Writers, upon upload or thereafter, will be able to designate their projects as open (anyone can add a revised script to your project), closed (only you can add revised scripts to your project) or revisable by permission (only participants who obtain your permission can add a revised script to your project). This feature has been a top request of Amazon Studios participants.
How many writers do you think will actually choose “open?”
It’s hard to envision why any screenwriter would want to. It only makes sense if you believe that almost everyone is a better writer than you. In the Venn diagram of entrants, the overlap between “ridiculously low self-esteem” and “happy to share prize money” is probably small.
A contributing factor in the change: no one was actually bothering to rewrite other people’s scripts. In a few minutes of browsing, I could only find a handful of projects that had drafts by anyone other than the original writer.
Without the random-stranger-rewrites, Amazon Studios now resembles a more traditional screenwriting competition, albeit one in which the cost of entry is a lengthy and complex option agreement on the project.
The company announced its first two prizewinners, each receiving $20,000. I haven’t looked at either screenplay, but if any readers have, I’m curious to hear your opinions on their merits.
Screenwriting coach Linda Seger served as a judge. That seems right: she’s exactly the kind of “name” that means something to aspiring screenwriters, many of whom will have read her books or attended her workshops. But she doesn’t have a profile within the film industry itself; they didn’t pick her for her credits.
It wasn’t in any official announcement, but I can confirm Jack Epps, Jr. dropped out as a judge in November, citing philosophical concerns about the deal for writers. That leaves Mike Werb as the only named judge with produced Hollywood credits.
So this is a…success?
The studio announced they have 3,000 projects, but on the website today I saw 2,332 scripts. I asked my contacts at both the Austin Film Festival and Sundance Labs for comparisons. AFF received 4,400 scripts last year, and Sundance looks at 2,000-2,500 applications each year.
At least in terms of numbers, Amazon Studio is already in their ballpark after less than three full months.
Bottom line: I think getting rid of the crowdsourcing aspect of Amazon Studios is a step in the right direction, particularly in terms of acknowledging authorship. But most of the deal is still pretty terrible for writers. At the time of my original article, Craig Mazin was horrified by the financials, and as far I can tell, nothing has changed there.
Amazon has a ton of money, and a lot of experience with iteration. Maybe they’ll get this project to a worthwhile place. We won’t really know until they get a movie in production.
How do you write dialogue of one character interrupting another mid-sentence? I’ve seen it as (interrupting) next to the characters name, I’ve seen it below the name and I’ve seen it in the dialogue itself.
— Craig
Los Angeles
You have several choices. Use whichever one works best for the situation.
Truncating the first speaker’s line with double dashes (or an ellipsis) is common:
MATT
I simply can’t tell you how honored we are --
SUSAN
Swellingly!
MATT
Yes. We’re swollen with honor.
A parenthetical (interrupting) may be needed if it’s otherwise unclear that the second speaker is changing topics:
BAIN
No ship has ever navigated a subatomic fissure that size.
LUBOV
Then we’ll be the first. Ensign, bring us about, engines at fifty...
PINCHOT
(interrupting)
Plasma fragment! Dead ahead!
It’s also common for action to interrupt dialogue:
GIDEON
The Great Pigeon Army will never be defeated! Our dirty wings shall fill the sky, and our excrement stain the land!
A red laser light -- a sniper’s aim -- glows on Gideon’s feathered chest. His compatriots COO in alarm.
GIDEON (CONT’D)
Never more will we beg for the baker’s scraps, those piteous crumbs of...
Gideon’s LIEUTENANT WHISPERS into his ear. Gideon looks down at the dot on his chest. He releases a squirt of white from his tailfeathers.