Other People’s Screenplays and Me: An Introduction.

When I arrived in Los Angeles in 2001, I lucked into a freelance script coverage gig almost immediately.  Since then, though I’ve moved companies and houses and made friends and influenced people, other people’s screenplays have been a constant in my life in this city.  Like any long-term relationship, it isn’t perfect.  Scripts and I don’t always see eye to eye.  In the years when I was covering 15-20 scripts a week –usually with 4-5 pages of single-spaced synopsis and comments— we got sick of one another and almost called it quits.  However, now that I only cover a handful of scripts each week, we are able to cohabitate a little more harmoniously.  Of course, there are still times when I want to punch other people’s screenplays in the face, like the month The Passion came out and I had to read about eight biblical action-thrillers in a row.  But on the upside, I do like money, and reading other people’s screenplays allows me to have some, so we try to work through the hard times.

There’s more to it than that, of course.  I have come to realize over time that being a reader has allowed me to experience this industry largely from the perspective of the written word –specifically those words written in courier font.  Sure, I hear things and see things and (occasionally) read the trades, but I can often tell which way the wind is blowing –impending strikes, trends in subject matter, socio-political shifts, the changing fortunes of companies, actors, etc.— just from the type and number of scripts I’m getting.  In this way, though they arrive on my desk as individual stories, as a group, other people’s screenplays tell me a larger story, too.

But wait…I got ahead of myself.  Let’s go back to those individual stories, since they’re what I imagine I will be writing about most frequently.  Individually, other people’s screenplays have pissed me off, made me laugh and cry (often unintentionally, but still…), taught me that even great writers crank out a clunker once in a while, and showed me that there is still originality and authenticity out there, if only I can wade through all the crap.  And let’s be honest, it’s mostly crap.  Truly, it’s a cesspool down here, filled with formulaic plotting, bad jokes and characters who don’t want something badly enough and aren’t having a sufficiently difficult time getting it.  This is a fact I can’t and shouldn’t ignore if I want to give you a taste of what it is like to be a reader, so, fair warning, you might occasionally be served a heaping plate of bile when you belly up to my blog. Apologies in advance, but them’s the breaks. In the words of Jack Nicholson to Greg Kinnear’s dog in that movie about how racism can be adorable, around here you eat what we eat.  And as any reader will tell you, mostly we eat crap.

If all of that frankness and mixing of metaphors hasn’t scared you off, I will qualify the above remarks by saying that I promise to make it entertaining.  I also promise to recognize Casablanca if someone disguises it and submits it to my company, unlike the readers in the urban legend.  I like and have seen lots of films, plus I’m about two thirds of a dissertation away from a PhD in movies, so recognizing old ones shouldn’t be a problem.  Nor should putting screenwriting’s trends and evolution in perspective, come to think of it.  After all, it’s hard to complain too bitterly about a script like, say, Step Up being unworthy of the silver screen when you know about all the silly dance movies from which it is descended.  They weren’t all Singin’ in the Rain, that’s for sure.

I will end there so as to keep my claims about a blog that’s still largely hypothetical a little modest.  I guess I could write more, be a little more specific about what I do, but there’s an overnight submission winking at me from my inbox and overnights pay extra, so I’ll give you the short version: I read, I summarize, I say if it’s good or bad, I get a check, and, starting this week, I blog about it to you.  So far that last bit seems like fun.