Michael Steven Gregory's Blog

A senator's (wide) stance...

Torn from today's headlines, a salacious senator makes his final (wide) stance against bathroom injustice.

This is a little movie we made at the Southern California Writers' Conference in Irvine around 1:30 in the morning a coupla weeks ago. The undercover cop is played by a friend who's written a lot of Disney movies and video games. The senator is played by a friend who's an A.D. having worked with everybody from Spielberg and Levinson to Danny DeVito and Hal Ashby. OJ is played by a friend who's an often controversial columnist and essayist frequently appearing in many national publications. In other words, it's what writers sometimes do when they have liquor and a camera.

Be sure to visit and Digg the website posted at the end, as we're monitoring how many people we can drive to the site.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hoAyvWpS3AY

Enjoy and pass/post it along!

--msg

October 15, 2007 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Add Comment

Nickelodeon Writing Fellowships available

For any that are interested...

Nickelodeon is offering writing fellowships in live action and animated television to writers with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Participants will have hands-on interaction writing spec scripts and pitching story ideas.

The program, developed to broaden Nickelodeon’s outreach efforts, provides a salaried position for up to one year. The ’07 – ’08 cycle is scheduled to begin October 2007.

The next submission period runs from January 2 – February 28, 2008. Applications and submission guidelines are available on our website at www.nickwriting.com. The website will be updated by the end of November.

September 24, 2007 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Add Comment

We, The Screenwriter and Young Studio Execs

An oddly inspiring trailer that had been cut but not used for We, The Screenwriter has been uploaded. Have been getting a lot of positive feedback, as a result. It's We, The Screenwriter trailer 3 ("Afraid"), which addresses the challenge of dealing with producers and studio execs. It features Deborah Serra (Snow White: A Tale of Terror), Shane Black (Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang), Anton Diether (Moby Dick) and Frank Cappello (Constantine), and is viewable here.

Lemme know what you think!

--msg

August 24, 2007 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | Add Comment

Suffering the Synopsis

While this article from my "Prognosis of a Movie Unmade" series addresses writing synopses for screenplays, over the years I've been told that it has been of great help to novelists faced with the daunting task of distilling their 400-page manuscripts into no more than, say, 500 words. –msg

"Tell you what, gimme a 2-page synopsis. If I'm interested, I'll request the script." Sound familiar? Sound reasonable? Or does it sound like just another dimwit hustle by another narcissistic twit amped out on espresso insulin and the prospect of a quick-fix deal that might pay off the Hummer s/he couldn't afford to buy in the first place?

Probably all three sound about right. The request for a brief synopsis of your script is common fodder and with good cause. Although you've spent ample time and effort writing your 90 to a 120 pages worth of screenplay, you're doing yourself and your career a disservice by not having a synopsis primed for the asking.

The reason is two-fold. First, for you, printing scripts to submit costs money. Even if you don't go down to Kinko's and use your own printer, the toner cartridges you'll have to replace down the line cost money. Second, for the prospective buying parties, too many unfamiliar writers delude themselves into believing that their script—"If only they'd just read it!"—is so good that the prospective buying parties would entirely forget what kind of movies it is they've forged their own reputations in making and simply shift genres, established markets and, most important, genuine passionate interest in producing to instead make your script! Wrong.

A synopsis serves to save you money and save prospective buying parties from wasting their time in reading screenplays that have absolutely nothing in common with the sort of material they handle, make or could care less about. A synopsis also demonstrates the writing quality they can expect to find in the author's script. Between you, the author, and them, the prospective buying parties, it also establishes a professional comfort zone, or what I call "CZ."

As with cubic zirconia "CZ"—the synthetic compound fashioned to resemble diamonds—the
unfamiliar writer-prospective agent/producer relationship "CZ" is a form of synthetic confidence and civility that exists long enough to conclude at the onset you're not some retread wannabe who doesn't have a clue about what being a professional is all about, and that it's safe to request your script.

This is savvy thinking. It makes sense. It saves everyone involved excess pharmaceutical. However, for the writer there is one major conundrum: How much do you put in the synopsis? It took 90-120 pages to write the script. If you could have written it in 1 or 2 pages you would have!

Therein lies the challenge. Beyond the basic format (traditional manuscript double-spaced; no right margin "Cut Tos") my own approach to how a synopsis should be written rests firmly on the opposite side of the fence of the alternative approach. Since both paths ultimately lead to the same destination, that is a bona fide request to see your completed screenplay, I will address both.

JUST THE SPIRIT APPROACH

I believe a synopsis should faithfully serve the spirit of the screenplay as it was written. It must not only demonstrate the author's storytelling skill, but convey the dynamics of its characters and structure in a cadence very much in keeping with that of the actual script. If executed well, my feeling is the reader will then have a better idea of the author's voice and style, and his/her clarity of vision with regards to the story. It will lay open the structure concisely for others so that they can actually "get it." Most importantly it will excite them about the potential of the script and compel them to request it without divulging the punchline, or "McGuffin" as Hitchcock called it, on which the story hinges. (If applicable, and most often it is.)

If you've written your script well, there will be no unfortunate surprises for the reader—only intended thrills and enlightenments that reinforce and embolden every element eluded to in your original synopsis.

JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM

Some believe what a synopsis should be is essentially a monotone scene-by-scene recitation of the script from beginning to end. The thinking is that the readers themselves are imaginative enough to fill in the blanks of actual execution. The thinking is that the readers themselves are such keen and insightful authorities on others' skills that they'll be able to intuitively excise from what is not on the pages of this "beat sheet" the gist of how good the script will be. For agents in particular, it opens the door for them to pre-solicit feedback on the concept(as described in their own words as they view it) by potential markets before they make the decision as to whether or not they will request the completed screenplay from you.

Regardless of how your script is written, at the very least your execution skills will be new to them because nobody was exposed to your storytelling style and ability in advance. And how many stories, scripts, novels have we all read, which ultimately do offer a valid payoff, so profoundly impeded our desire to reach the end as a result of the writing style that we simply didn't?

ARE BOTH BETTER?

Which style of synopsis is best for you is a subjective call. I could argue the favorable aspects of the "beat sheet" approach but will leave that to you. For me, such an approach requires a preponderance of faith to be placed in the reader's intellect—and I simply have not encountered enough readers whose intellect warrant such confidence. When that type of synopsis is requested of me my "CZ" red flag goes up and business between us is over. Admittedly, in episodic television it's much different and I'm fully amendable. In features, however, I am not.

What I am is confident that if Orson Welles' ability to make Citizen Kane hinged on his delivering a 2-page "beat sheet" synopsis, a synopsis in which at the end he would have had to disclose what Rosebud actually was, he probably wouldn't have gotten to make that movie.

You don't know what Rosebud is? Read the script. Better yet, go watch the movie!

NOTE: You can check out synopsis samples and other screenwriterly stuff, including free script software, by going directly to WeTheScreenwriter.com.

___
Copyright Michael Steven Gregory

August 23, 2007 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | Add Comment

We, The Screenwriter wins in Toronto

"More millionaires have been made by winning the California Lottery than by writing screenplays." So begins the new feature-length documentary by filmmaker Michael Steven Gregory, We, The Screenwriter, in which sixteen film and television writers present a frenetic, fast-paced portrait of the person, process and profession of being a scribe in today's Hollywood.

Marking the return of Gregory to documentary - or "doculogue" as he calls it - form, We, The Screenwriter is the follow-up to his critically lauded 1996 film We, The Writer, and won a Best Feature-Documentary Award at its festival premiere at Toronto's ReelHeART International Film Festival last month. Like its predecessor, in it there are no on-screen questions. The film unfolds as a highly stylized, rapid-fire, cross-cutting compendium of insider perspectives geared to inform, enlighten and inspire its audience.

With their credits spanning the gamut of genres, including Air Bud, Any Given Sunday, Battlestar Galactica, Carnivàle, Cleopatra, Constantine, Hill Street Blues, House, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, Land of Oz, Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Last Boy Scout, Mission Impossible: 2, Moby Dick, Pacific Heights, Perfect Romance, Resurrecting the Champ, Roswell, The Role of a Lifetime, Silver Surfer, Spawn, Spider-Man Unlimited, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Sum of All Fears, Tales from the Crypt, Timeline and more, those appearing in the film are Erich Anderson, Shane Black, Allison Burnett, Larry Brody, Frank Cappello, Sharon Y. Cobb, Anton Diether, Dana Fox, Anna Gilson, John Mankiewicz, Aaron Mendelsohn, Ronald D. Moore, Gary Phllips, Daniel Pyne, Deborah Serra and Robert Ward.

The topics they address are equally eclectic, ranging from breaking into the business and what validates the screenwriter, to the profession's impact on personal relationships, responsibilities, writing for TV versus features, writing on assignment versus on spec, pitching, outlining, adaptation, rewriting, agents, young executives, ageism, studio notes, gender bias, writing for market, being pigeon-holed, and others. Ultimately, however, Gregory believes the film's aim is to answer one simple question: Why?

Why do the roughly 13,000 members of the Writers Guild of America - only one-third of which actually make a living writing screenplays - and all the other aspiring screenwriters who collectively registered some 50,000 screenplays, treatments and general ideas for movies and TV shows with the Guild last year, for an American industry that pumps out only around 300 movies annually, desire to be part of a medium that systematically sabotages their ideals and efforts, and which too often clearly regards their contributions with such disdain?

"Faith," said Gregory. "Screenwriters are the Special Forces of the creative writing world in that they're highly skilled at executing a very specific objective in often extreme circumstances. Most make their living in excruciating anonymity and in the face of incalculable odds against their work being successfully realized as initially envisioned. But faith in the possibility, the belief that it might actually just this once transcend the commercial collaborative process and engage, even touch, a stranger who watches their story, that is what warrants the effort. To hell with the money."

Financed by Random Cove, ie, Gregory's production company, We, The Screenwriter was over four years in the making as a result of other projects taking precedence over its completion, and a car accident in which the then-nearly completed film was all but destroyed. As with the first film, We, The Screenwriter will ultimately be made available to MFA and creative writing programs nationwide.

For more information visit WeTheScreenwriter.com.

July 12, 2007 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Add Comment