Is Your Screenplay Bulletproof?

I've got just one question for you --

Are your beats this bulletproof? Do your notecards meet this standard? Will they hold up this well under detailed scrutiny by professionals in the business at large? Hawkeyed motherfuckers like myself, just looking for something to rip apart?

(You should be laughing right now, 'cause I certainly am.)

Of course they aren't. Of course they don't.

This is world-class, Academy-award caliber material. The stuff filmmakers' dreams are made out of. A winning Lotto ticket -- only luck didn't have a goddamn thing to do with it.

Hard work brought this to life, folks. Being dedicated. Being smart. Pushing your imagination. Gaining full command of your craft. Doing your homework and working up a no-bullshit/no blind spot blueprint of the story you intend to tell.

This is how the big boys do it, the very best in the business.

Yes, the shit is humbling. It can make you feel small. Even someone like me, who's made a living writing screenplays his entire adult life. If your doors weren't blown off, your knees didn't buckle and your world wasn't permanently rocked by a peek at that monster beat sheet, then something's seriously wrong with you. Seek out one of two transplants -- brain or heart -- immediately.

Now you know how deep the rabbit hole goes. That level of precision. That level of execution. Each scene surgically servicing your story with a premium of efficiency. Plotting out a movie that actually works is a thousand times more difficult than even the most movie-savvy of weekend warriors ever understand.

Given that, how could anybody hope to produce something of this quality without using notecards or some very similar method?

It's an impossible task, the ultimate fool's errand. Like Manhattan skyscrapers and multi-million dollar mansions, great scripts rise or fall based on the strength of their foundations. Plots like those of your favorite films simply DO NOT come together without concrete architecture. Without that, all you're doing is cranking out pages nobody wants to buy.

Read Screenplay. Get yourself some four-by-six notecards. Get in the game. The book's been out for thirty-five years now. If you were waiting for a written invitation, consider this it.

* * * * *

Know what's a blast? Seeing students' minds blown sky-high when they finally "get" the notecards of it all. Watching their "Neo-jacking-into-the-Matrix" moments slam home right before your eyes. It's like witnessing somebody's first Ecstasy trip -- only the drug is screenplay structure, and your head doesn't feel like a broken egg shell all the next day.

The rush of empowerment it gives writers is awesome. The realization that, armed with this pretty straightforward knowledge, they can do it, they do have a fighting chance. That all those deferred, semi-sequestered dreams are so much closer to becoming real now than they ever could've believed before.

One Sunday Tough Love class, one of my best students showed up without his notecards. Bright kid, great ideas, über tech savvy -- very much of his generation in the best sense. I politely asked him where they were (translation: "It's your day, Josh. Where the fuck are your notecards?"). My young friend reassured me there was nothing to worry about -- he had this program ("Index Cards and Panels") he used instead. It was so much more compact and convenient than dealing with all those messy paper index cards, plus it saved trees!

Imagine my expression. Think late '80's Michael Rooker/Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, staring maniacally into that one-sheet bathroom mirror.

Then came the crazy part. All my other students dog-piled his ass before I said a word. Rabid fuckers went American Me, treating Josh to a savage little blanket party, if I say so myself.

"No, Josh, it's not the same!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Suck it up, Josh, you're shitting the bed!" (this from a fifty year-old woman)

"That iPad shit doesn't work, that's the whole point!

I'd have to rank this among my proudest moments as an instructor. It's always nice to have confirmation that your patients are taking their prescribed medicine and that it's actually showing results -- even if one of your best and brightest has to be sacrificially gangbanged by his peers to provide hard evidence.

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