New (Old) Beginnings

And the pitfalls of a mopey opening.

Things are quickly ramping up to speed here. So far I’ve had a general meeting, a meeting about adapting a short story to series, work on the supervising job, and writing a pitch for a series I was attached to back in the fall. I went into the holidays with basically every plate still spinning, so now I’m back to keeping them up in the air.

I spent some of my free time over the break working on a new feature spec, a high octane revenge story with a supernatural twist. It has elements of the movies that I was obsessed with in my early twenties, the kind of movies that had me scribbling furiously in my journal on the subway on the way home from a midnight showing at Sony Lincoln Square. I’m having a great time with it. If nothing else, it’s pushing me out of my comfort zone a bit.

Because I don’t write a ton of action I read a couple of scripts from some recent iconic movies to see what I could learn from them. One of the scripts I read was Derek Kolstad’s SCORN, which eventually became JOHN WICK, one of my favorite movies of the past ten years. I figured I would break down a few pages like I did with LOOPER, putting them into prose form so that I can think about it outside of the screenplay format and focus on my reaction to the text. Check this out:

(content warning: mention of suicide)

Fade in.

Outside, the countryside, early day.

Super: Ardmore, Pennsylvania.

A verdant landscape of rolling hills, lush countryside, and ambient peace.

Okay, so green and rural. We’re well outside of any major city. It’s peaceful, the kind of thing that a movie disrupts.

Outside the Wick home. Early day.

A small, quaint, two-bedroom farmhouse: a classic. Nearby, a small barn - its paint chipped, wood worn- sits nestled within the setting. The homestead feels slightly abandoned, the facade -especially the roof- in dire need of an overhaul.

Inside the Wick home, early day.

The hour hand of an old, electric alarm clock shifts slightly, marking six a.m. A soft alarm sounds. Beneath the blankets, a body shifts, a weathered hand reaching out to silence the antique.

An old electric alarm clock in an old run down farm house. A weathered hand. An older person, not an iPhone, so they’re a little behind the times in terms of tech. Hipster? Luddite?

A beat... a sigh... a groan... and JOHN WICK -early sixties, salt-and-pepper hair, three-day beard, former boxer, former military, tired, beaten down, and at wit’s end- sits up, staring unblinkingly out at the day.

I didn’t know John was originally supposed to be older. Now I get why it’s an old alarm clock, why the place is a bit more rustic. This paragraph is also making me think I’m about to read a couple of pages about how this character starts his day, a pretty familiar trope. I’ve done it myself a number of times.

A beat... and he stands, donning a weathered robe and a pair of slippers. John stuffs his hands into his pockets...

...and shuffles down the corridor, the walls overflowing with family pictures, each badly in need of dusting. They catalogue a long and healthy life with his wife, Norma; the pictures presenting a time line of sorts. No children, yet sheer, unadulterated happiness.

Almost to the bottom of page one, this is the first hint of why he’s so world weary, why the farm is in bad shape, etc. He had a love in his life and clearly she’s not here, something happened along the way.

As John makes his way through his home, we can see that it is cluttered and unorganized. Dirty, in fact, as if it hasn’t been cleaned in months.

That was the last bit on the first page. So far I don’t really know all that much about John except that he’s super mopey. That tells me his emotional state but not really anything about WHO he is. The next couple of pages follow a similar pattern. John’s a lonely man grieving a terrible loss. Toward the end of page three he goes to the hospital and we see that the woman from the pictures is in a coma. She dies, John goes home and is about to take the rest of her oxycontin and, presumably, kill himself, when a knock on the door stops him. It’s a delivery person with a last gift from Norma, a dog named Moose. That meeting happens on page 6.

This is a real slow burn of an opening. John is sad, the house is depressing, he seems to like old stuff, and he’s not taking care of himself. In theory, all of that stuff plants a flag on mile marker one of his journey. Even if I didn’t know the story I would assume, because I’ve seen thousands of movies, that something has to activate him soon, but I still don’t know who he is. So far it hasn’t really grabbed me. Obviously Derek Kolstad and the directors (or their execs) came to the same conclusion because the actual movie opens like THIS!

I love this opening scene so much. The random crash still makes me chuckle. Then you see him spill out of the car, covered in blood, near death, it hooks you immediately. Holy shit, what the hell happened to Keanu? You assume you’re in media res, that you’ll go back and catch up to this moment, but whatever happened, this guy has been through pure hell. Then he pulls out the phone and watches a video of happier days with his wife. This is the thing he’s turned to for comfort in the moments before dying. It makes so much more of an emotional impact than the pictures on the wall and a lifeless Norma in the hospital bed. It’s all about maximizing impact, getting you to understand him (and the tone) immediately. God, I love this movie (franchise).

This past week I watched a movie about another depressed guy, A MAN CALLED OTTO. The opening few pages go a long way toward setting up Tom Hanks’s character in a more active way than SCORN. Check this out, and SPOILER ALERT for the first two minutes, obviously:

Inside and outside the Busy Beaver hardware store, day.

OUTSIDE - the words “BUSY BEAVER” are spelled out across the front of the hardware store in bold letters.

INSIDE - OTTO (63, irascible) mutters his way through the aisles. He picks out a large screw hook, examines various kinds of rope. Finally settling on one, he measures five feet and pulls out a pocket knife to cut it.

Immediately I think small town Americana. The Busy Beaver name is a little tonal marker. I had to look up the word irascible (having or showing a tendency to be easily angered).

A teenaged HARDWARE CLERK approaches wearing a shirt that reads: “Need Help? Ask a Beaver.”

Again, a little tonal marker, making me think this is going to be more of a comedy.

The Clerk asks, “Can I help you with that, sir?”

Otto turns on him, incredulous. “Do you think I don’t know how to cut rope?”

Clerk, “No, it’s just that we usually do that for you.”

Otto, “I’m not an invalid!”

Clearly Otto is on the edge, the kind of grumpy old man willing to harass a teenager making minimum wage.

Clerk, “No, I-I didn’t think you were.”

Otto, “Are you worried I’m going to cut myself? Bleed all over your floor and then sue you for it?”

Clerk, “No.”

Otto, “Well, then —“

Otto gestures for the clerk to leave him in peace. A beat; the clerk goes. Otto begins sawing through the rope.

In the next scene, Otto argues with the cashier about the price of the rope. The cashier charges him for six feet because they charge by the yard. Otto argues that he’s only buying five feet so he should only be charged for five feet. He digs in over .33, demanding to speak to the manager, until eventually the customer in line behind him offers him thirty-three cents to make up the difference. Otto digs in even further, and it’s clear that he thinks everybody around him is an idiot.

Those scenes go a long way toward telling you who Otto is. Here’s the interesting part. The very next scene/sequence is Otto going through his morning routine, alarm clock and all. Again, I wonder if this morning routine was the very first scene in an early draft and the writer/director/Hanx all realized that we couldn’t spend three pages ramping up to something interesting before telling us who Otto really is.

I’ve written this depressed opening myself a few times, probably will again. Like I said, in theory, it makes sense. The character is grieving, withdrawn, a loner, traumatized, etc. At some point, there’s an event that activates them and forces them out of that state. But these days I often remind myself of a quote I read once in a book on playwriting, the name of which escapes me now. “And what is the audience doing all this time?” The character can be grieving/depressed/ but they still have to be actively doing something, we still have to learn about them through action or the audience isn’t going to be invested.

Character in Action

While studying up on how to write action I stumbled onto this video about CASINO ROYALE. It’s an excellent break down of our introduction to Daniel Craig’s Bond and gave me a lot of inspiration over the past couple of weeks. Check it out here!

A Lightning Bolt of Inspiration

Sometimes the algorithm really comes through and gives you the exact thing you need. I’d never heard of this artist Ren until today when this video came across my feed. I thought it was mind-blowing, a perfect distillation of the battle between writers/artists and their inner critic, but from a deeply unique and personal place. This video is already my favorite work of art in 2023. Check it out here

Lastly, a Bit of Housekeeping

I should be back to posting on Fridays this week. I have been busy setting up my new office/studio and I’m hoping to add a bit more video content soon. I’m going to stop adding the Ko-Fi links at the bottom of these issues for now, because the newsletter may undergo a bit of an evolution as I figure out how to keep this vital and alive for both of us in 2023. If you were kind enough to set up a monthly ko-fi, please feel free to discontinue until things get a bit more stable and you feel like the final incarnation is worth your donation.

Thanks, I hope you have a great week!