Statement of Purpose posted by Martin

To listen to the stereotype, all that one needs to break into the exciting and lucrative world of Hollywood screenwriting is an idea. After all, you’ll only get that one chance to wheedle up to some cigar-puffing exec and say in your midwestern white-boy (Screenwriting is still tragically overrun by white guys. Like us.) voice-just-breaking drawl “It’s a sci-fi story about time travel starring Martin Luther transported to the American Revolution—he pins the Declaration of Independence on Hitler’s ass!” Or, maybe you’ll squeal through the studio gates in your 1970s beat-to-shit Range Rover, with a day pass won by seducing a secretary with your manly Testeszterhaus swagger. You’ll slap the big guy on the back—already looking ahead to that weekend in Acapulco with him and some hookers—and say “Rejected teenage fat chick turns into Femme Fatale and seeks revenge by detonating a nuclear suitcase bomb at her class reunion. Only, she didn’t know that little Jimmy Parson, who was always nice to her ungrateful ass, grew up to be the fucking head of the F.B.I. Bamm! Bitch gets what’s coming—but not without three acts and lots of tits.” Rube and Joe here get contracts, big pads in the Hollywood Hills, and more blow than they can snort.

We believe those stereotypes are categorical bullshit. Movies might begin as a pitch, or a logline or an idea, but movies really start as a script. The writing is what separates the stereotypes from the writers who might have a chance. The true value of success in Hollywood will not be won by clever ideas, but good writing, character development, and emotional resolution to problems that audience members actually care about.

To think that ideas are the engine of movies is to devalue the incredibly talented screenwriters that have come before. It’s a medium every bit as difficult as novel writing, with smart and dedicated competition—probably younger and better dressed than you—all wanting to grab some golden ring. Luckily media is expanding daily, and the one thing that media needs if it wants to make a splash with the public is a story. Nothing is exempt.

So we’ve decided to perform an experiment in public here—this is screenwriting without a net. We are going to conceive, develop and write a screenplay completely on this blog. Every conversation we have about it will be broadcast here. Every word we write—in preparation or actual drafting, will be published here. Even more, we are publishing this work into the public domain. If you don’t like what we’re doing, take the damn thing and write it yourself. Re-write it—post comments that tell us what we’re doing wrong.

There are no restrictions on your use of the material, although we certainly hope that you’ll turn around and put your variations back into the public domain. Even better, we hope you’ll post in our forums and tell people what you’ve done, and how to get it.

We’re hoping that people just starting to write can learn something here. We’re hoping that more experienced writers will pipe in and tell us what we’re doing wrong. Maybe things will go well. Maybe they’ll descend into chaos. Maybe it will be a mistake.

But if it ends up being a mistake, it will be a mistake in execution. No one succeeded without putting themselves on the line a bit and trying something public. Or, as Beckett so eloquently put it: No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Comments (0) — Category: About