THURSDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

BACKGROUND TO DANGER

So you are writing a Horror screenplay, or a Thriller, or a Romantic Comedy, or any genre... Though this tip is about any genre we are going to look at a Horror Movie, so I’m going to focus the tip the way we focus our stories on a Person and their Problem. Let’s set our Horror Movie in a Summer Camp, and...

We have already made a mistake. If we are trying to get the Production Company Reader and then the Ticket Buyer’s attention, we need something original... and in addition to the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies, how many other horror movies take place at Summer Camps? A bunch! There’s even another horror series SLEEP AWAY CAMP, not to mention the current pocket change horror series CAMP BLOOD (each film made for $10k or less). The reason why Summer Camp is a great location/background for a Horror Movie is that it’s probably the first time upper middle class kids in the USA were away from their parents for any length of time. That is scary on its own. Now add some dude in a hockey mask with a machete?

But Summer Camp isn’t original, and you might have noticed that Horror is almost always a popular genre... so they need new movies with new scares... and new Backgrounds to set that story in. Though “Cabin In The Woods” is a genre unto itself (isolated, spooky, not a place you are comfortable) you still need to make that fresh and original by finding something new... a different important element to balance out the location that we’ve seen before. And maybe “Cabin” is too literal - what if it’s a *cave*? What if it’s a *ghost town*? (My Uncle and my brother and I were hiking in the woods when I was a kid and came upon an abandoned town... with plates on the tables and rotten clothes in the closets and even newspapers - from 1919. During the Spanish Flu epidemic that killed around 100 million people worldwide. But a very scary ghost town!) So think of a different *location* for your “Abandoned Cabin” in the woods... and what if it’s not the woods? What if it’s part of the Big City? An abandoned office building?

WHY HORROR?

I think one of the reasons why Horror is such a popular genre is that it allows us to face death and survive. But it’s also probably the most emotionally involving genre... just above comedies. If you are watching a comedy in a crowded cinema, you laugh at a joke or gag... and everyone else does, too. The audience becomes one. A joke that might not hit *your* comedy sweet spot hits someone else’s and their laughter triggers your laughter. It’s safe to laugh in a crowded cinema, just as it’s safe to cry in a crowded cinema... and it’s safe to scream, too. Cinemas are a place where we are safe to feel emotions, and that’s why I call them “Emotion Pictures” - our job is to create those motions IN THE AUDIENCE. To make them feel something. And fear is an emotion that we need to feel in a safe place like a cinema.

Which brings us to...

SMILE 2 (2024)

This is one of those films that gets under your skin.

I loved watching horror movies in Oakland (probably any major city) because the audience feels like part of the story, and yells at the screen, "Don't open that door!" or "Get the hell out of there!" as if the characters on screen could hear them. As if they were in the movie. Well, the audience at the Universal AMC Cinema when I saw this film was yelling at the screen, too. Because we were all *living* that nightmare. I often say that Movies are Shared Dreams, and Horror movies are shared nightmares - and this film does a great job of being a nightmare you can't wake up from. The movie puts you in the protagonist's shoes and you are always wondering if this is real... If what you are experiencing is a delusion or something really horrible has happened. And you can't wake up from the nightmare, and when you do wake up? You might be covered in blood from that nightmare. So, was the nightmare real?

I think it's also one of those allegory things about drug addiction.

But the great thing is that it’s a Horror movie set against the Background of Pop Music, and the world of Taylor Swift and Beyonce and Ariana Grande and Britney Spears. I can’t remember a previous Horror film set in that specific world, though we’ve had some rock and roll Horror before. It’s a world that we are familiar with, and that many audience members are part of the audience for... so a perfect Background for Horror.

Naomi Scott not only puts on a perfect American accent (she's British), she looks hot, gives an Oscar level performance, she does amazing dance numbers, she sings all of the catchy pop songs herself... And wrote a few of them. How did I not know who she was when the movie came out?

Scott plays a recovering alcoholic and addict pop star who was in a horrible car accident along with her actor boyfriend (played by Jack Nicholson's son Ray) who died in the crash. When we first see her rehearsing a very physical dance number for her comeback tour, she screams in pain and falls to the floor... And in her dressing room she removes her costume to reveal a dozen scars all over her body. This film has a bit of body horror in it dealing with all of those scars and her need to hide them. This is a woman whose body is part of her fame - the attractive element and the dance element - and because of the accident when she was high, has turned against her. A constant reminder of her terrible mistake... and the guilt that haunts her.

FIRST TEN FOR TERROR!

We learn in the first 10-15 minutes of the film that due to her addiction, doctors aren't prescribing anything stronger than Tylenol for her pain...

She knows a drug dealer from highschool who she can get pain killers from. But the drug dealer likes to sample the merchandise and when she goes there he’s high as a kite and freaking out and saying crazy things. And then he kills himself in front of her. One of the great things in the film are the sound effects - when he slams a barbell weight against his face repeatedly you hear all sorts of gross sounds that seem very realistic. Though you might not think of *sounds* as part of the world of your story, the background here is the *music industry*... so sound is part of that.

As we know from the first film, and the great Peter Jacobson tells us later in the film: Her drug dealer had a parasitic demon attached to his brain, and now that demon is attached to her brain...

Creating nightmares in her waking world.

And in our world, thanks to some great writing. The story puts us into her waking nightmares and we don't know what is real and what is the demon creating delusions. By the end of Act 1, we have no idea what is real... And lots of creepy things are happening and there are some great jump scares and lots of suspense and unrelenting tension. She is trying to put her life back together after the accident, then this happens.

Her life was out of control before, and now there's a body count.

One of the great things that the story does is to keep everything connected to the world of a pop star. To focus the story on that background. It's as if they made a list of one week in a pop star's life and figured out the most frightening thing that could happen signing a couple of hundred autographs or rehearsing or doing a boring charity event. The story takes us into that world and the scares erupt from that background... instead of a Summer Camp or a Cabin In The Woods or a Haunted House. The pop star background is mined for Horror situations.

My favorite is the #1 fan at the autograph signing who was scary and crazy but just part of her reality. *Not* one of the wide awake nightmares. The story finds the intersection between Pop Star background and Horror foreground. So don’t only think of how you can use the background for Horror scenes, but how the background itself can be frightening. What naturally occurring things in your background world can be scary?

HORROR UNITY

One of the things we need to remember, no matter what the genre, are those Three Greek Unities - basically that every scare or laugh or tear is connected to the premise. We don’t want anything pasted on from the outside. If you are writing a script or story about a parasitic demon that attaches itself to your brain and gives you walking nightmares... you aren’t going to have shark attacks or zombies or any other Horror elements that don’t belong in this *specific story*.

No grab bags of Horror!

Always go to the core concept to find your scares (or laughs, or tears, or whatever the genre delivers). So what is part of being a Pop Star? Make a list. That’s where the scares are going to come from. Are drugs part of a Pop Star’s life? Are crazy fans? Make your list of things that are part of whatever your background is, and find the great scenes in each of those things that we expect to find in a story in that world. If you are doing a story about Wine Tasting, find the Horror or Comedy or Thriller or Drama or Action scenes in that world (depending on whatever genre your story takes place in). I have an action/spy script about Wine Tasting - the James Bond of wine. Everything in that script is part of the Wine World. Instead of pasting things on from the outside, I dug deep into that Background and found things that could be used for fight scenes and suspense scenes and every other kind of scene... in the Wine World. So here we have a Pop Star... what are the things in here world?

Even the catchy pop songs she sings are horror related! Here are the titles of the 5 songs she performed in the movie:

"Death Of Me"
"Grieved You"
"New Brain" (the parasite takes over her mind!)
"Just My Name" (identity issues)
"Blood On White Satin"

So even when she is rehearsing or doing a concert, it's still on topic, it's still telling this horror story! The writer stayed “on topic” with the Pop Star background and mined it for everything!

THE PERSONAL STORY

I have a Script Magazine article about Horror movies that explores how they are really small personal dramas at heart, and this film fits right in there. Our pop star has a domineering stage mother, an ex best friend, an annoying assistant, and all of the people who earn a percentage of her pay: managers, agents, PR firms, etc. All want her to get back on stage after the accident and earn them some money. But she's still an emotional mess from losing her boyfriend and almost her own life in the accident... And kicking the drugs. The demon in her brain could be symbolic.

All of those supporting characters who bring conflict from the Background World to her life are problems that we, as the audience, understand. We mighty not be Pop Stars, but we have family members who push us too hard, we have bosses who don’t care about us, we have ex-best friends who might want to reconnect with us for their own personal gain. We all have people pushing us to do something that we just aren’t ready to do, or just don’t want to do. So we can understand this Pop Star’s situation, even though we aren’t Pop Stars. I have another Script Magazine article about turning your small personal emotional story... into a horror story. Using your real emotions as part of the background of the story - whether it’s being a lonely person in the big city (A QUIET PLACE DAY ONE) or a teenager searching for the love of a divorced parent who has remarried and has a new family now (CUCKOO) or a lonely person looking for a romantic relationship and worrying about getting hurt again (STRANGE DARLING). So remember to put your heart and soul into your story, no matter what the genre is.

Our Pop Star’s life is complicated enough with all of these post-car accident personal problems. It could have just been a drama story...

But this is a horror movie. So blood will flow! And the more she tries to battle the demon in her brain, the more people think that she must be using again.

Stephen King’s early short stories often placed Horror in somewhere familiar. A Blue Collar employee picking up an extra shift cleaning out the rat infested basement of a factory. A gas station/ convenience store. A supermarket. Part of the genius of King is to use a Background that we are familiar with, that we are comfortable with... and add the scares that could possibly happen there. So avoid the Summer Camps and Cabins In The Woods and anything else up on the board in the movie THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, and find an *original* Background for your horror story. Somewhere familiar... but also interesting... and also just a little scary. What makes your Horror script different?

In SMILE 2 all of those elements of the Background are used to add danger and tension and terror to the story... where the foreground is Horror. The genius of taking the audience inside her mind and showing us the crazy delusions as if they are really happening, and putting the viewer in a place where we don't know what is real and what isn't? Genius! And it made me wonder about reality after I left the cinema and walked out into the darkness of night.

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All About LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING!

LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING! Blue Book!

Distilling Your Screenplay!

Loglines, Treatments, Pitching, Look Books, Pitch Decks, One Pagers, Rip-O-Matics?

You have written a brilliant 110 page screenplay, but how do you get anyone to read it? You need to distill it down into some form of verbal moonshine or story rocket fuel that will ignite that bored development executive or manager or agent and get them to request your screenplay. But how do you shrink those 110 pages into a 25 word logline or a 2 minute elevator pitch or a one page synopsis or a short paragraph? This 100,000 word book shows you how! Everything you need to know! From common logline mistakes (and how to solve them) to how your pitch can reveal story problems to the 4 types of pitches!

272 Pages - ONLY $4.99!

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!

FINAL DRAFT SOFTWARE

Use your creative energy to focus on the content; let Final Draft take care of the style. Final Draft is the number-one selling application specifically designed for writing movie scripts, television episodics and stage plays. Its ease-of-use and time-saving features have attracted writers for almost two decades positioning Final Draft as the Professional Screenwriters Choice. Final Draft power users include Academy, Emmy and BAFTA award winning writers like Oliver Stone, Tom Hanks, Alan Ball, J.J. Abrams, James Cameron and more. * * * Buy It!

copyright 2022 by William C. Martell