MONDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:
PLOT SEED:
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL
Most of us have found screenwriting or writing novels or short stories because we wild imaginations that keep coming up with crazy ideas. One of the important elements in a screenplay are “High Concepts” - which I like to think of as *ideas* as stars. Some people have favorite movie stars and they see everything they are in. Others might not have favorite stars, but they know that if a particular actor is in a film it is usually good. That’s why the stars names are in big letters on movie posters. The audience needs a reason to pay to see a movie *before* they see it. So whether a movie is “good” or “bad”? They won’t know that until after they have paid for their ticket. So movie stars and movie trailers and those *30 second* TV adverts are all about selling tickets... and your story’s *concept* is critical if all you have is 30 seconds...
When you are writing a screenplay, the biggest, weirdest ideas we can come up with? The first thing anyone asks about a new movie or your screenplay is “What’s it about?” They don’t expect you to tell them the whole story, they just want to hear the idea.
That idea needs to be so amazing that they buy a ticket to see that movie.
Even if it doesn’t have a big movie star.
But you also need an idea that can generate 90-110 pages of page turning screenplay. Often people come up with a great idea for a short story, and try to write a screenplay or a novel by adding more ideas... and end up with a “scattershot plot” - a bunch of things that happen to the same character, but the only connection between these ideas is that character. It’s confusing, and when someone asks “what’s it about?” the answer takes 30 minutes instead of 30 words. The screenplay is an unfocused mess because it went wider instead of deeper. Instead of the story growing from one great central idea, it’s a bunch of ideas taped together... and when you are watching a movie in one gulp, all of those different flavored sips don’t add up to a pleasant taste.
This is my “Plot Seed Theory” - that everything in your story (EVERYTHING!) Needs to grow from that one central idea.
PLOT SEED AND BUDGET?
When you are breaking into the business, you probably aren’t going to be starting at the top. You might be writing a Holiday Romance or a low budget Action flick or a low budget Horror movie or a Low Budget Thriller. No movie stars involved. Your *idea* needs to be the star. Your *idea* needs to be amazing and intriguing and exciting...
And be inexpensive to make. And be able to “sprout” all of that screenplay from the “plot seed”.
Hey, anyone can come up with an amazing science fiction idea with all kinds of special effects or a romance set against an epic background or a globe trotting action flick with an amazing idea. But all of those are going to bust the budget. We want an amazing idea that is economical to make. Those can be difficult to come up with. Those require a wild imagination that also can also take the practical side of making a film into consideration. It’s like juggling chainsaws!
And that’s going to be the skill that you develop early in your career.
And part of that is having a “plot seed” idea instead of throwing a bunch of different ideas into your screenplay, and each adds locations and supporting characters and digits to the film’s budget.
So let’s look at a horror movie with a great idea, a really scary idea, an idea that could be made on a limited budget, an idea that could grow an entire screenplay and all of its characters, and an idea that has it’s basis in a bunch of true stories (so, oddly believable for such a wild idea). Oh, and it could have been filmed on existing sets. A “found footage” horror flick titled...
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL (2023)
Written by Colin & Cameron Caines.
Budget: Estimated $1-1.5 million
Total Special Effects Budget: $150,000.
Worldwide Theatrical Gross: $12.7 million
You might see that Worldwide Theatrical Gross and think it’s nothing to brag about, but this *wasn’t* a theatrical film. Shudder Streaming has been giving some of their original films a limited theatrical release, basically as publicity. To get people talking about the film, to pick up some reviews, and maybe get a few people to see the film in the theater and make a couple of bucks. I saw SKINAMARINK at my local AMC cinema when it played there for a week, and I think they expected LATE NIGHT to play for a week and then hit the streaming service a couple of weeks later... but it was still playing in cinemas when it started its streaming run!
So how did a streaming film that probably cost $1 million or maybe $1.5 million manage to make around ten times its budget in a limited theatrical run that was basically for publicity?
This is a fun horror flick that builds dread and works... but doesn't quite stick the landing. This film is all about the 1970s, starting with it being kind of a cross between NETWORK and THE EXORCIST. What? Yes, and it makes complete sense, and I gave it all kinds of extra credit for finding odd connections between all sorts of 1970s elements. It has an awesome idea that spawned every single thing in the film!
A failing Late Night TV show’s rating stunt: a live exorcism of a teen girl possessed by a demon... which might escape into your living room and possess you!
PLOT SEED: Live televised Exorcism.
So let’s dig into that idea to find everything else in the story.
1) Though there are a bunch of different ways you could “mine” this plot seed for stories, let’s start with the Exorcism. The movie the EXORCIST was release in 1973, and that’s where most people learned about demonic possession and all of the other fun horror stuff that comes with Exorcism.
2) Our other major element in this plot seed is *television*, so we are going to “mine” that as well. Dig deeper and deeper into those two main elements of our idea and see what we can find that grows naturally from those two elements of our plot seed.
3) What can we grow from that?
A) The story is about a TV show on a struggling "fourth network" (think the 1970s OPT Network - the first major assault on the big 3!), a Tonight Show knock off, but instead of Charro as the host (OPT's real life version) there's a guy who is a bargain bin Carson and his McMahon-like sidekick. The show is struggling in the ratings, Carson is beating it every night, so when Halloween falls in the middle of sweeps week the host goes a little bit Springer to see if he can boost the ratings and stay on the air.
His guests are...
B) A Uri Geller type famous TV psychic (70s!).
C) An Amazing Randi type ex magician turned psychic debunker (70s! - he actually debunked Geller in 1972!).
And...
D) The only survivor of a Satanic Cult (70s!) - a tween girl who is supposedly possessed by a demon, and her psychologist who will bring forth the demon on live television!
So we have all of these actual things that happened in the 1970s and are connected by the time period and connected because they are horror related and TV related. The brilliance of this story is finding a logical connection to wrap a horror movie around. Oh, Amazing Randi was a recurring guest on THE TONIGHT SHOW. The thing that amazes me about movies like this is that all of those pieces have been sitting there for decades, and someone finally put them together. And in a contained horror movie. All of the pieces are grown from the same seed, and that seed was just sitting there! Nothing needed to be glued on from the outside, all of these horror related things were on television in the 1970s.
Once we have our concept (or emotional conflict for the character, or big decision the character has to make) we can also find the seeds of theme that we can also use as our “plot seed”. Theme is another type of “plot seed”. So in GHOST what is Sam’s big emotional problem? He can’t get himself to say “I love you” to Molly. What is his big physical problem? Well, after he is murdered communication becomes much more difficult because he’s a ghost. Everything in GHOST grows from “communication”.
In my BLACK THUNDER film for Showtime the concept is: Our own plane used against us... The logical plot seed would seem to be "betrayal". So I decided the hero and villain had once been friends. Better yet: Mentor and student. The sidekick once betrayed the hero, and they must learn to forgive each other and work together to survive. Then I tied the sidekick in to the mentor... The hero and sidekick shared the same Mentor, each vying for favored son status, this lead to a conflict between hero and sidekick. Once I had this, I was able to think of the story as an emotional family drama: two sons fighting for the love of their father... the emotional conflict in the story. All of it from the concept, the idea.
Everything in LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL is connected. It all grows from that concept. Nothing is random. No scattershot plot. Everything is conneceted!
FOUND FOOTAGE & REAL TIME
The added conceit of the story is that this isn't fiction. It's the unaired tapes of the actual show, plus behind the scenes footage when they cut to commercial. One of the additional techniques is that a montage of the 1970s used to set up the "documentary" we are watching about this TV episode is 90% real doc footage and 10% things that pay off in the episode of NIGHT OWLS (the late night show)... but we don't know that. This subconsciously makes us feel like all of this really happened.
This was also used in a the great zombie film PONTYPOOL (XXX) about a drive time radio show where live news updates about disruptions and a possible riot downtown eventually are identified as a zombie attack... and block by block that attack gets closer and closer to the radio station. Until our radio station characters are battling zombies. The great thing about both of these films is that they take place at one location (great for budget) with a limited cast (great for budget) and we can spend time getting to know the people who will soon be under attack.
In LATE NIGHT the corny banter between host and sidekick and some of the "unscripted responses" were clever enough to be on a TV show, but not good enough to be on a big hit TV show. Kind of an interesting balancing act, there. That also made it believable to me. And when they cut to commercial, the behind the scenes stuff was spot on. The fake friendly producer who is threatening you with his arm around your shoulder. The hair and makeup woman. The host and sidekick who are all smiles on camera but don't like each other off camera. TV persona and real life persona. All of that made it seem real... and these personal conflicts between characters gave us information about the characters that allowed us to understand them and care about them. Our late night host is fighting for his future... the show will be cancelled if tonight’s show doesn’t get great ratings.
One of the things that worked with the suspense/dread is that this is a live broadcast, and there were no second takes. So you might worry a little bit about the Amazing Randi clone who is a loose cannon and just interrupts constantly... which sets you up for when things really go wrong. If you are worried about a guest talking too much, you have bought into the idea that this is real. The film lures you in with "What if things go wrong on the show and it doesn't get renewed?" That tension opens the door for the weird stuff when you aren't looking.
The Uri Geller guy screws up trying to mind read the first audience member, and we fear for the show's ratings. So when he scores with the second audience member, we relax a little. Which is when we get hit with the Uri Geller guy feeling physically ill on live TV. The story pulls us in with small things... And then hits us with horror.
And it's paced well. Even before we get to the EXORCIST guests, scary stuff happens again and again. Live TV is no place for someone to projectile vomit blood all over the place. Not good for the ratings!
EVERY MINUTE COUNTS!
Another great thing this story does is a bit of slight of hand magic that worked for me twice. One, right up front, is the studio audience for the Halloween show is dressed in costume. Mostly fun costumes, but one member is effing scary looking and scary acting. You keep waiting for them to be a serial killer and start hacking away at people. This is a horror movie! Another example is the Satanic Cult's ceremonial dagger as a prop for that segment. The people on the show think of it as a prop - rather than something that can actually kill someone. Sometimes it’s just set down on a table between two characters who are in an argument. What if someone grabs it? These and some other things that are organic and related to the rest of the story build suspense in scenes, but aren't used for violence in those scenes. That dagger is set down next to an unpredictable character at one point and I might have yelled "No!" at the screen. Those things often made you *not* notice or think about a different threat, that was used in the scene. All of these things grow naturally from that initial idea. Though the guests on the show might seem random, all are part of the 1970s, and all are part of the supernatural world... and all are part of television! Each piece is connected, and grows from that main idea.
One of the great things about this film is that there’s never a dull moment. They dig deeper and deeper into that concept and find everything that might be frightening on a live TV show. From unexpected technical problems to projectile vomiting blood. Once you figure out your concept, brainstorm every possible idea that grows from that idea. Just keep going until you have a “menu” of ideas to “order” from - and then pick the best ideas that fit the story that you want to tell.
The end of the film didn't quite work. I think they were going for a NETWORK type of ending, where the real Devil was our host who would do anything for ratings. But if that's what they were going for, I wish they had used a plot device from a Brian Garfield novel (from the 70s!) - a radioactive necklace. The ending goes on a bit too long without clearly making its point, but that’s nitpicking a movie that had me on the edge of my cinema seat for 95% of its runtime.
With that ending, they might have used the "where are they now" (ANIMAL HOUSE - 70s!) as a return to the "documentary about this just discovered tape of the final episode of Night Owls"... With a bunch of crazy OMEN type deaths.
But for a movie that takes place almost 100% at the TV studio with a small audience and a small cast, that could probably really be shot on the existing Springer set? Worked well as both NETWORK and THE EXORCIST, and every piece of the story grew from that basic premise. All of it seemed logically connected with nothing glued on from the outside. This was a lower budget horror film that delivers, seemed “realistic”, and every character and scene and subplot and line of dialogue was logically connected. It all grew from the same “plot seed” - Live televised Exorcism.
Because your action conflict and emotional conflict and theme and everything else is connected, you can use the place where all of these things intersect as a “plot seed” to grow a story. You can begin with the theme or the emotional conflict or the character and find a high concept that best explores it. My “Thematic Theory” is that once you have any one element you can use that as a seed and find the other elements... and grow a script. So if you begin with your protagonist's emotional conflict (which may be *your* emotional conflict) you can find the most exciting physical conflict that will force him or her to deal with that emotional conflict. That physical conflict gives you clues to your villain... because all of these elements are connected way below the surface. The audience may never see the connections, but they are there. You are telling *one* story instead of just stringing together a bunch of random incidents that happen to the same person. What can you grow organically from that concept?
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ACT TWO SOLUTIONS!
*** ACT TWO SECRETS *** - For Kindle!
Expanded version with more techniques to help you through the desert of Act Two! Subjects Include: What Is Act Two? Inside Moves, The 2 Ps: Purpose & Pacing, The 4Ds: Dilemma, Denial, Drama and Decision, Momentum, the Two Act Twos, Subplot Prisms, Deadlines, Drive, Levels Of Conflict, Escalation, When Act Two Begins and When Act Two Ends, Scene Order, Bite Sized Pieces, Common Act Two Issues, Plot Devices For Act Two, and dozens of others. Over 67,000 words (that’s well over 200 pages) of tools and techniques to get you through the desert of Act Two alive!
Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is well over 200 pages!
ONLY $4.99 - and no postage!
READY TO BREAK IN?
THE BUISINESS SIDE
*** BREAKING IN BLUE BOOK *** - For Kindle!
Should really be called the BUSINESS BLUE BOOK because it covers almost everything you will need to
know for your screenwriting career: from thinking like a producer and learning to speak their language,
to query letters and finding a manager or agent, to making connections (at home and in Hollywood) and
networking, to the different kinds of meetings you are will have at Studios, to the difference between
a producer and a studio, to landing an assignment at that meeting and what is required of you when you
are working under contract, to contracts and options and lawyers and... when to run from a deal!
Information you can use *now* to move your career forward! It's all here in the Biggest Blue Book yet!
Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is over 400 pages!
$4.99 - and no postage!
STORY IN ACTION SERIES!
THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES
NEW: Updates On Films 7 & 8 Casting!
All Six Movies analyzed! All of the mission tapes, all of the “that’s impossible!” set pieces and stunts, the cons and capers - and how these scenes work, the twists and double crosses, the tension and suspense (and how to generate it), the concept of each film as a stand alone with a different director calling the shots (broken in the sixth film), the gadgets, the masks, the stories, the co-stars and team members (one team member has been in every film), the stunts Tom Cruise actually did (and the ones he didn’t), and so much more! Over 120,000 words of fun info!
THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES - 347 Pages - Only $3.99 !
BRAND NEW!
*** THE BOURNE MOVIES
NEW: Updates on TREADSTONE TV show!
All five "Bourne" movies (including "Legacy" and it's potential sequels) - what are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? Reinventing the thriller genre...
or following the "formula"? Five films - each with an interesting experiment! A detailed analysis of each
of the films, the way these thrillers work... as well as a complete list of box office and critical
statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just fans of the series.
Only $3.99 - and no postage!
Over 240 pages!
*** THE TERMINATOR MOVIES *** - For Kindle!
He's back! The release of "Terminator: Dark Fate" is set to begin a new trilogy in
the Terminator story... 35 years after the first film was released. What draws us to these films about
a cybernetic organism from the future sent back in time? Why is there a new proposed trilogy every few
years? This book looks at all five Terminator movies from a story standpoint - what makes them work
(or not)? What are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? How
about those secret story details you may not have noticed? Containing a detailed analysis of each of
the five films so far, this book delves into the way these stories work... as well as a complete list of
box office and critical statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just
fans of the series.
ONLY $3.99 - and no postage!
HITCHCOCK FOR WRITERS!
Strange Structures!
*** HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR! *** - For Kindle!
***
Contained Thrillers like "Buried"? Serial Protagonists like "Place Beyond The Pines"? Multiple Connecting Stories like "Pulp Fiction"? Same Story Multiple Times like "Run, Lola, Run"?
HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock's 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock's *silent* films! We'll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
Only $5.99 - and no postage!
LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
*** HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE *** - For Kindle!
Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the *Master Of Suspense*; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
Only $5.99
AUDIO CLASS!
NOIR & MYSTERY80 minute MP3 packed with information on writing Film Noir and Mystery scripts. Using examples from CHINATOWN to OUT OF THE PAST to DOUBLE INDEMNITY you'll learn how to create stories in this dark, twisted genre. How to plant clues, red herrings, suspects, victims, spider women, fallen heroes, the funhouse mirror world of noir supporting characters... and the origins of Film Noir in literature Noir dialogue and how noir endings are different than any other genre. All of the critical elements necessary to write in this critically popular genre.
The Noir & Mystery Class is only $15 (plus $5 S&H). First 20 on Limited Black Disk!
PAMDEMIC SALE! $5 OFF!
IDEAS AND CREATIVITY - 80 minute MP3 packed with information. Tools to find ideas that are both personal *and* commercial. Hollywood wants scripts with High Concept stories... but not stupid scripts. Developing *intelligent* high concept ideas. How to turn your personal story into a blockbuster - or find your personal story in a high concept idea. Brainstorming and being creative. Ideas and Creativity is $10.00 (plus $5 S&H)
WRITING INDIES - Writing an Indie film? This class covers everything you need to know - from Central Locations to Confined Cameos. Using examples from SWINGERS, THE COOLER, STATION AGENT and others, this 80 minute MP3 is packed with information. How Indoe films challenge the audience (while mainstream films reassure the audience). Structures, using BOYS DON'T CRY, RUN LOLA RUN, HILARY & JACKIE, and others as example. Writing for a budget, writing for non-actors, getting the most production value out of your budget. Writing Indies is $10.00 (plus $5 S&H)
WRITING HORROR - The essentials of a horror screenplay - what do ROSEMARY'S BABY, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE EXORCIST, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE OTHERS and OPEN WATER have in common? This class will tell you! All of the critical elements necessary to write a script that scares the pants off the audience. Writing Horror is $10.00 (plus $5 S&H).
Click here for more information on CLASS MP3s!
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