Screenwriting 101 by Film Crit - FILM CRIT HULK

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FULL HULK ALL CAPS VERSION

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SCREENWRITING 101

BY FILM CRIT HULK! INTRODUCTION BY EDGAR WRIGHT EDITED BY MEREDITH BORDERS COPY EDITED BY LINDSAY MAHER COVER BY YANNICK BELZIL

FILM CRIT HULK WAS CREATED IN A CHAOTIC LAB EXPERIMENT INVOLVING GAMMA RADIATION, THE GHOST OF PAULINE KAEL, AND TELEPODS FOR SOME REASON. NOW HULK HAS A DEEP AND ABIDING LOVE OF CINEMA WHEREIN HULK RECOGNIZES THE INHERENT VALUES OF POPULAR, NARRATIVE, OR EXPERIMENTAL STYLES! THROUGH A UNIQUE JOURNEY, HULK HAS ENDED UP WORKING IN HOLLYWOOD FOR OVER A DECADE AND NOW WRITES ABOUT CINEMA AND STORYTELLING IN THOROUGHLY HULK-SIZED FASHION. AND NOW YOU HOLD IN YOUR HANDS / HAVE ON YOUR SCREEN / WHATEVER IN YOUR WHATEVER, THE FIRST EBOOK BY FILM CRIT HULK. THE ONLY THING IT MEANS TO BE IS HELPFUL.

FOR MAMA-HULK BECAUSE SHE WAS THE GIVING TREE.

INTRODUCTION. HULK MUSE. HULK PONDER. HULK BEAUTIFULLY ARTICULATE THE JOY OF CINEMA. You won't like him when he's angry, but you will love him when he's passionate. Film Crit Hulk makes all other cinematic commentary look very puny indeed. Marvel as he pounds the CAPS LOCK button to properly expound his love for cinema. Imagine Pauline Kael caught in a gamma bomb blast and you will realise that in the desert of cinematic connoisseurs, Film Crit Hulk is the strongest one there is! In 1962, there once was a puny scientist with no love of the movie or regard for critical theory of cinematic arts. Then one fateful day, this non-cineaste was hit with massive amounts of radiation and transformed into a lumbering beast with superhuman strength, great invulnerability, but also with a newfound appreciation for classic storytelling, spatial awareness and genres of all form. This writer of this book may only transform into the brutish green goliath in the dark of the movie theatre. His change into a passionate mass of movie loving can only be triggered by the release of adrenaline when intensely engaged or enraged by the images before him. The green goliath of the movie theatre possesses none of his human counterparts’ snobbiness, making him the ideal creature to appreciate the highs and lows of cinema. Hulk will feast on the studio popcorn and arthouse carrot cake with the same voracious appetite. Just do not talk during the feature presentation or dare check your iPhone at any point, for you may be swatted into the parking lot. Film Crit Hulk bats away other movie buffs with their endless lists they think constitute as articles, and brings the essay back to roaring life. Why would you want to read other literature about cinema with its simple use of uppercase and lowercase characters? Film Crit Hulk knows that a true love of cinema CAN ONLY BE FULLY EXPRESSED WHEN USING THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON. WHY READ SMALL-MINDED FILM CRITICISM WHEN YOU CAN STAND IN AWE OF HULK'S GARGANTUAN LOVE OF THE MOVIES. I give this book two Hulk Hands up. WAY UP. Edgar Wright, 2013

- PREFACE SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY? BEFORE YOU DO, KNOW THIS: IT REQUIRES A GREAT DEAL OF EFFORT AND DEDICATION. A LOT OF THESE SCREENWRITING BOOKS LIKE TO FILL YOUR HEAD WITH FALSE PROMISES AND EASY TRICKS. BUT IT’S SO DAMN FAR FROM THE OBVIOUS TRUTH: BECOMING A TALENTED WRITER TAKES A LONG TIME AND A LOT OF HARD WORK. THEY ALSO CONVENIENTLY FORGET TO MENTION THAT THE ODDS ARE AGAINST YOU. THERE ARE OVER A MILLION SCRIPTS ALREADY FLOATING AROUND HOLLYWOOD. HULK HAS READ, OH... A COUPLE THOUSAND OF THEM. AND NEARLY EVERY SINGLE PERSON HULK MEETS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY ALREADY HAS A SCRIPT OF SOME SORT. NOT ONLY DOES THE SHEER VOLUME OF SCRIPTS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH ONESELF IN THIS CLIMATE, BUT SO DOES THE FACT THAT THERE ARE ALREADY A VAST NUMBER OF TALENTED, PROFESSIONAL WRITERS IN NEED OF WORK. SO GIVEN ALL THESE CRIPPLING ODDS, WE SHOULD ALL JUST GIVE UP, RIGHT? WELL, NO. YOU’RE NOT HERE READING THIS BECAUSE THAT REALITY BOTHERS YOU. AND THAT’S THE THING ABOUT THE MOVIES: THEY’RE WONDERFUL. THEY’RE THE IMAGINATION OF STORYTELLING MADE TANGIBLE. THEY’RE OUR DREAMS MADE REAL. WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO BE A PART OF ALL THAT? BUT WITH CINEMA BEING SO POPULAR AND WITH THE OMNIPRESENCE OF TALENTED WRITERS, YOU WOULD THINK HOLLYWOOD WOULD BE KNEE-DEEP IN GREAT SCRIPTS, RIGHT? WELL, THE OBVIOUS PROBLEM IS THEY MOST DEFINITELY ARE NOT. THUS, HULK WILL AUGMENT THE PHRASING OF THAT PROBLEM AND ASK A DIFFERENT QUESTION OF YOU: WHY DO MOST MOVIES HAVE MAJOR SCRIPT PROBLEMS? QUITE FRANKLY, THE ANSWER LIES IN A LOT OF INDUSTRY BULLSHIT. NOW, HULK ISN’T HERE TO PARSE OUT AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE STUDIO SYSTEM, BUT JUST UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS A GOOD DEAL OF PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE SO TO SPEAK. SO MANY MOVIES PRESS ON BEFORE THEY EVEN REALLY HAVE A STORY, JUST HOPING THEY’LL FIGURE IT OUT LATER... BUT LIKE HULK SAID, THIS BOOK IS NOT ACTUALLY ABOUT SUSSING OUT INDUSTRY PROBLEMS. NOR IS THIS BOOK ABOUT WRITING SCREENPLAYS THAT SELL, OR POP, OR TELL YOU HOW TO PITCH TO A STUDIO. HULK WOULD NEVER FALSELY ADVERTISE TO YOU IN SUCH A MANNER. WHILE THESE ELEMENTS ARE CERTAINLY IMPORTANT TO BEING A “SUCCESS” IN HOLLYWOOD, THEY ARE NOT AN IMPORTANT PART OF BECOMING A GOOD WRITER, SO THEY WILL ONLY BE A TANGENTIAL PART OF WHAT WE SHALL DISCUSS HERE. IN FACT, HULK WOULD ARGUE THAT IF YOU ONLY POSSESS THE ABILITY TO SELL, POP AND PITCH, THEN YOU CAN ONLY HAVE THE KIND OF SUCCESS THAT DOES NOT LAST.

MEANWHILE, KNOWING HOW TO WRITE LASTS. SO THE FOLLOWING GARGANTUAN SEVEN-PART BOOK IS HULK'S HUMBLE ATTEMPT TO TRY AND SHED SOME LIGHT ON HOW TO BECOME A BETTER WRITER AND STORYTELLER. THE FIRST HALF OF THE BOOK DEALS WITH IMPORTANT CONCEPTUAL ISSUES AND TAKES A GREAT DEAL OF (NEEDED) TIME TO WAX PHILOSOPHICAL ON THE STATE OF MIND AND PURPOSE ONE NEEDS TO APPROACH STORYTELLING. THERE’S JUST TOO MANY CONCEPTS TO BOTH LEARN AND UNLEARN BEFORE YOU ARE READY TO REALLY START. BUT THE LAST HALF OF THE BOOK IS (THANKFULLY) RATHER PRACTICAL IN TERMS OF HOW TO APPLY THOSE CONCEPTS TO CREATE A METHODOLOGY FOR YOURSELF AND HONE THE CRAFT. STILL, HULK HAS TRIED TO MAKE THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK AS EASILY DIGESTIBLE AND SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AS POSSIBLE. MOST OF THE SUBJECTS ARE LISTED BY CHAPTER NUMBER, WITH EITHER LETTER OR ROMAN NUMERAL SUBHEADINGS. IT MAY ALL SEEM LIKE A LOT. IT MAY EVEN SEEM TO DIVE HEADLONG INTO NUANCE AT THE COST OF DIRECT CLARITY, BUT THAT IS VERY MUCH THE POINT: TOO MANY SCREENWRITING BOOKS PARSE OUT OVER-SIMPLICITIES THAT DO NOTHING BUT MAKE YOUR WORK FEEL MORE RESTRICTED AND MORE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE’S. THIS BOOK IS ABOUT LEARNING THE WAYS TO CREATE ANY KIND OF STORY YOU WANT BY USING STORY MECHANISMS AND CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING. AND WHATEVER SHORTCOMINGS THIS APPROACH HAS IN TERMS OF PONTIFICATION, THE BOOK WILL CERTAINLY NOT HAVE SUFFERED FROM A LACK OF EFFORT. AND LIKE MOST HULK PIECES, THE BOOK'S HULK-SIZED-NESS IS INFORMED BY THE SHEER MASS OF THE SUBJECT ITSELF; FOR THE ART OF STORYTELLING, WHETHER WE DISTILL IT IN TERMS OF THE IDEAS, THE KNOW-HOW, OR ITS EFFECT ON THE AUDIENCE, IS AN ART THAT IS AS VARIED AS OUR OWN LIVES, AND AS EXPANSIVE AS OUR OWN UNIVERSE. BUT PLEASE KNOW THIS BOOK IS NOT MEANT TO BE SOME AUTHORITARIAN RANT ON HULK'S PART. HULK IS NOT AN IDEOLOGUE AND THIS IS NOT ABOUT “HOW THINGS SHOULD BE DONE.” IT IS MEANT TO BE HELPFUL TO YOU. NOTHING MORE. NOTHING LESS. THE MOTIVES FOR WRITING IT ARE BORN FROM A GENUINE SENSE OF CAMARADERIE, FROM KNOWING THE SAME STRUGGLE THAT ALL WRITERS GO THROUGH. AND IF YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH THAT STRUGGLE, THEN YOU KNOW THAT IT IS A SHAM FOR ANY WRITER TO REPRESENT THEMSELVES AS AN AUTHORITY. THERE IS ONLY THE SAME LONESOME STRUGGLE TO EXECUTE ONE'S IDEAS. IT IS TRUE OF ALL OF US. AND IT IS CONSTANT, PERVASIVE, AND EVER-LASTING. HULK BELIEVES THIS STRUGGLE IS TOUGH ON WRITERS BECAUSE IT MAKES FOR A SOLITARY LIFE AND TRYING BATTLES WITH ONE’S OWN MIND. IT FOSTERS A SOLIPSISTIC SENSE OF INDEPENDENCE, WHICH CAN ALSO BREED A SENSE OF CONTEMPT. SO AS MUCH AS ANYTHING, HULK WRITES A BOOK LIKE THIS IN AN ATTEMPT TO CONNECT. TO SHARE. TO NOT FEEL LIKE WE ARE SO ALONE IN THE PURSUIT. AS SUCH, THIS BOOK IS MEANT FOR WRITERS FOR EVERY SINGLE LEVEL:

INTRODUCTORY, INTERMEDIATE, AND WORKING PROS WHO PERHAPS KNOW MOST OF THESE THINGS ALREADY IN EITHER A CONSCIOUS OR UNCONSCIOUS MANNER, BUT COULD ALWAYS BENEFIT FROM SEEING THE IDEAS MADE PLAIN. EVEN CERTIFIED GENIUSES CAN SOMETIMES OVERLOOK SOME MISSING ELEMENT A SCRIPT MAY NEED IN ORDER TO FULLY ELEVATE THEIR STORY. AND YES, THIS BOOK IS ALSO MEANT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO INTEREST IN SCREENWRITING WHATSOEVER, BUT ARE JUST CURIOUS ABOUT THE WRITING PROCESS AND HOW IT AFFECTS WHAT THEY SEE ONSCREEN. BECAUSE ULTIMATELY THIS ISN'T ABOUT THE PATH TO SUCCESS, OR INDUSTRY SECRETS, OR SOME ETHEREAL CONCEPT OF IMPORT... THIS IS ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO WRITE SCREENPLAYS THAT WORK.