WRITERMAN

Archive for the ‘scripts’ Category

Posted on October 5, 2008 - by writerman

Hello Pushing Daisies. Goodbye Pushing Daisies.

Any other Pushing Daisies fans out there?

I finally wrapped up a spec for this fun, inventive new show just in time for ABC to cancel it. Bummer, dude. You were totally right, Bill. I should have listened when you warned me that the future of the show was uncertain. Oh well – at least it was fun to write while it lasted. Goodbye Chuck & Ned!

On the positive tip, now I can share some of my other episode ideas for Daisies, since there’s no need to worry about someone stealing them and getting a glamorous and exciting career as a TV writer using the fruits of my labors. Enjoy:

A Renaissance Affair
When Sir Percival the Merciful (a Renaissance Faire performer) turns up dead, Ned and Emerson take the case. During his 60 seconds, the recently-deceased Knight tells them he was murdered by none other than the Black Knight. Unfortunately for our investigators, there is no Black Knight at the Faire, only a whole court full of suspects, many of whom seem to have lost track of the line between their job as Lords, Ladies and Knights and the real world the rest of us live in.

As they dig deeper, a second body is found and Emerson and the Pie-Maker must hurry to unravel the truth behind the dark secret of the Red Knight, an ill-fated love affair, a recently spray-painted suit of armor and a plot to overthrow the King.

Tapped Out
A legendary tap dancer (and childhood hero of Olive’s) is murdered. The dead body thinks it was a member of the chorus line, which leaves Ned & Emerson with a pretty long list of suspects.

The only clue left behind is a single tap shoe. And so, in the strangest adaptation of Cinderella ever filmed, our heroes must find the one foot that fits into the fateful tap shoe. As they get closer to finding the truth, conflict arises between Ned (who thinks the shoe will reveal the killer) and Chuck (who believes the shoe belongs to the dead tap dancer’s one true love).

The Big Pie-Off
Behind Ned’s back, Olive and Chuck enter Ned and the Pie-Hole in the Big Pie-Off – the most prestigious pie-baking contest in the world. Ned is reluctant to participate, but when one of the judges turns up dead (face-down in a strawberry-rhubarb), he enters the competition as a way to go “undercover” and figure out who the killer is.

The only problem is that the dead pie-judge didn’t see who killed her, so the guys will have to use more conventional methods to solve the crime. Actually, there’s another problem: the remarkable freshness and longevity of Ned’s pies raises the suspicions of the organizers of the Pie-Off. This, of course, leads to a third problem when they hire a PPI (Private Pie Investigator), who trails Ned, finds evidence linking Ned to the murder of the judge and gets dangerously close to uncovering Ned’s real secret (the whole – touching dead people and bringing them back to life thing).

Posted on September 15, 2008 - by writerman

Mr. Unlucky makes top 10 at UCLA

First time lucky!

This looks like a good sign. The UCLA Screenplay Competition was the first contest I sent my new screenplay (MR. UNLUCKY) in to, and it made their Top 10.

I gotta give props to the UCLA Writer’s Program. Mitchell and George, the two instructors I worked on Mr. Unlucky with, were both very smart, encouraging and funny as shit. And the people at the UCLA Writer’s Program office are so frickin’ nice. They even interviewed me and the other winners.

Seriously, drop by their office sometime and let them shower you with sunshine and butterflies. Be sure to swing by the Westwood In-N-Out on your way home. You’ll swear you’ve been sucked through a wormhole into an alternate-universe version of Los Angeles, where everyone knows your name and all the food is wonderfully cheap and magically delicious.

Posted on September 1, 2008 - by writerman

Bluecat (hearts) Mr. Unlucky!

Just found out that the Bluecat Screenwriting Contest picked my script MR. UNLUCKY as a semi-finalist. Sweet! You know Bluecat, right? It’s the contest run by Gordy Hoffman, who once wrote a movie for his brother to star in.

Thanks Gordy!

“This is really a wonderful script. It reminded me of Jon Favreau’s Elf (script by David Berenbaum) in the way the story mixes fantasy elements with real characters and settings. I found it to be witty, intelligent, and tightly-paced.”

-Bluecat Judge

Posted on August 10, 2008 - by writerman

Why I write movies

Just put together my application for the Disney Fellowship.

In addition to a resume, bio, and 2 copies of a screenplay, they ask applicants to supply a “statement of interest.” I don’t want to sound like a dumbass, but I had to google that one to figure out what they were asking for. Honestly, I have no idea if what I ended up writing was the kind of thing they’re looking for, but it reminded me that I come from a long line of compulsive storytellers, and it was pretty fun putting it together. So here you go:

—————–

The old train rattled down the tracks through the morning mist. I was barely awake, but in just a few minutes, I was going to get a glimpse of the very thing that had first opened my eyes to the magic of stories – the Limpopo River. The Limpopo is a 1,000-mile long river that cuts through southern Africa, stretching from the Kalahari desert to the Indian Ocean. But to me, it was a mystical place, immortalized by Rudyard Kipling in his story The Elephant’s Child. A story that I had forced my dad, who grew up only a few hundred miles from the river, to read to me again and again and again, even long after I was old enough to read it to myself.

That day, on that train, it was years since I’d been that bossy little boy. More specifically, it was now sometime after my period as a bright-eyed, hopeful film school grad, and before my current life as a hungry, just-moved-to-Los-Angeles, aspiring screenwriter. I was long-haired and unemployed and riding a train through Zimbabwe to get a close look at a river.

And suddenly, there it was. To be honest, I don’t really remember much of what it looked like. I didn’t even take a picture. I just stared out of the window, and when the train finished passing over the bridge, I looked up and saw someone standing next to me. I smiled and said, “Did you see that? It was…” He finished my sentence for me, quoting Kipling word for word:

“The great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees.”

His name was Marcelo; a Brazilian who grew up in the slums of Sao Paulo, and he was leaning out the window of that African train at five in the morning for the same reason that had brought me. We went to the dining car for breakfast and talked about stories and writing and Canada and Brazil and our dads. No, we didn’t fall in love. We haven’t kept in touch either, and no, I wouldn’t call what happened that morning an epiphany. But that moment does underline the personal philosophy that is behind all of my work: the best stories can cross borders and cultures and generations and unite people in ways they probably can’t imagine. And in this era of post-ironic irony and media saturation, it’s a belief I hang on to tightly as I sit down to write my next script and pitch my next idea. Which brings me around to why I’m applying for a Disney Fellowship.

I’m looking for mentors and collaborators and co-conspirators who share the same passion for stories that I do, who can push me to improve my craft and work with me to make movies that will someday inspire some small-town kid on the other side of the world to get on a train and step outside of themselves to see the larger world.

THE END

Posted on March 20, 2008 - by writerman

Are you there God? It’s me, Randy.

Today, special for you, an excerpt from my My Name is Earl spec!

The episode is called “Gambled at Sunday School.” Earl returns to his former Sunday School to give back some ill-gotten money. Technically, he won it fair and square. You know, if you call convincing a group of 10-year-olds to wager their collection plate money on a game of cards, and then cheating, “fair and square.”

In this short scene, Earl and Randy arrive at the church to try and do the right thing.

————————————————-

               EXT. CHURCH - DAY

               A crowd slowly files in to church. Randy and Earl climb out
               of the El Camino dressed in their Sunday best.
               Earl holds up a ziploc bag filled with change and starts to
               walk towards the church.

                                   RANDY (O.C.)
                         Help, Earl, it's got me!

               Earl turns to see that Randy has caught his tie in the car
               door. Earl opens the door to set him free.

                                   RANDY (CONT'D)
                         Thanks. These things are dangerous.

                                   EARL
                         I know, Randy, but as soon as we go
                         inside and give back this money,
                         we'll go straight home and change.

                                   RANDY
                         I don't want to go to church, Earl.
                         God is watching, like those cameras
                         at the Quick Stop. He knows if
                         we've been naughty or nice.

                                   EARL
                         That's Santa, Randy.

————————————————-

I love writing jokes for Randy. Awesome character. And Ethan Suplee is definitely some kind of mad genius. On a related note – a friend told me “Seriously, dude, you can’t be posting jokes from your scripts on the Internet! What if someone steals them?”

Seriously, dude: chill. I’m pretty sure Greg Garcia is too busy to be trolling the internet looking for jokes to steal for his show. Still, just to be safe…

Dear Greg:

This one’s on me.

cheers,

Tony

ps. I like your show.

Posted on March 5, 2008 - by writerman

Fuck you, Tommy Hilfiger

I found this ad in a recent Vanity Fair. Now, fashion-industry advertising is often ridiculous, but this time Tommy, you stepped over the line. Please take a close look at what the model is holding in his hand as he squints off into the distance:

A screenplay.

And from the pencil that dangles so nonchalantly from his other hand, it seems the viewer is meant to understand that this douche bag is some kind of screenwriter. Which, naturally, begs the question:

Are you fucking kidding me, Tommy Hilfiger? Have you ever met a screenwriter? Have you ever met anybody who’s met a screenwriter? I mean, I suppose I should be flattered that Mr. All-American Fashion has decided screenwriters are now considered so glamorous that we should appear as objects of aspiration and desire in his advertising campaign. But, he’s just got it all wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

Let me break it down for you, TH:

First off – let me be clear that I have no objections to the fact that Mr. Good Looking here is the star of the ad. Some of you may have seen this ad and thought – “That guy’s way too pretty to be a screenwriter.” Stop it. Stop with your judging and stop hating on my beautiful brother right now. What, you think writers can’t be good-looking? Let’s see you tell that to Sam Shepard‘s face. My complaints with this advertisement have nothing to do with the model. It’s all in the details. Tommy, you’re trying to create this fantasy-world where the screenwriter is a well-dressed hunk of burnin’ love, and I commend you for that. But you’re sloppy on the details, which ruins our suspension of disbelief and causes the ad to fail. Shall we look at where you went wrong?

Writers do not wear white pants. I don’t care if it’s before Labor Day. This has nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with practicality. Writing involves pens and pens are filled with ink and nothing trashes a pair of slim-fitting white trousers faster than a big frickin’ ink stain.
No self-respecting writer would have that haircut. A writer’s hair is tousled, Tommy! I can’t believe I have to go over this one. How can you expect that girl at the end of the table to believe this guy was up half the night agonizing over every word in the next Great American Screenplay with such well-organized hair? I’m not saying that writers don’t obsess over our hair or what’s left of it. I’m just saying that, much like the hipster, we don’t want it to look like we do.
Bikinis and screenplays don’t get along. Look, Tommy, I see where you’re going with this, and I can dig it, but the out-of-focus babe at the end of the table is what really sinks the ship here. Don’t get me wrong, I have no complaints about beautiful girls in bikinis. I love them. Seriously, I really, really love them. Which is precisely why I don’t ever write at the beach, because I’d never get anything done! Boobies are the kryptonite to my powers of concentration.

Wait. Unless, of course, that is the whole point to your ad? That the gentleman in question isn’t a writer at all? He’s just trolling for ladies, with a screenplay as the bait. It’s perfect – so much lighter than a puppy, and you don’t have to remember to feed it. I take it all back, Tommy. You’re a genius. Because we all know that no one in Hollywood gets more pussy than the screenwriter! Ladies can’t resist the pasty skin, rounded shoulders and faint odor of fear and despair. Damn, I’m gonna take my laptop over to Starbucks, open up final draft and get me some of that sweet sweetness. Oh, it is on.

Hey. I’m back from Starbucks. Yeah, I couldn’t find a seat. Guess everybody saw this ad before me and got the same idea.

I hate you, Tommy Hilfiger.

Posted on January 21, 2008 - by writerman

The Cheeseburger of Inspiration

People love to ask screenwriters, “Where do you get your ideas for movies?” And while I imagine they are expecting responses involving magazine articles, true-life stories or amazing coincidences, when I get asked that these days my answer is a simple one:

A cheeseburger.

The thing is, the story has absolutely nothing to do with grilled meat or sesame seed buns. But the idea came to me in a blinding flash while I was eating a cheeseburger at Rick’s Drive In, and so Mr. Unlucky will always make me think of my favorite food.

Hooray for cheeseburgers!

And in case you were wondering, here’s the idea that the mystical Cheeseburger of Inspiration handed me:

Mr. Unlucky

When the unluckiest guy in the world wakes up to discover that someone is stealing his luck, there’s just one thing he can do: hit the road with an unemployed leprechaun, the only honest girl in Las Vegas and a 1960 Plymouth Valiant in an impossible quest to get it back. Along the way he learns the secret of how luck is bought and sold at the Luck Exchange, tracks down the fabled Lucky Star, uncovers a plot by a diabolical CEO to seize control of all the luck in the world and appears on Wheel of Fortune. A comedy about breakfast cereal, true love, and learning to believe in yourself.

Posted on September 18, 2007 - by writerman

The Rebirth of the Sitcom

You should totally take a writing class at UCLA. It was one of the first things I did after moving myself to the Promised Land. Sure, it costs a couple of bucks, but think of what you get in exchange…

Deadlines
Notes on your work from someone you aren’t related to or sleeping with
The chance to meet some other writers. Handy if, say, you wanted to start a secret society or stop drinking alone.

I just took a sitcom writing class. Now you might be wondering if that’s such a good idea, since you heard the Sitcom is Dead. Not to worry though, if sitcoms are dead this year, it can only be a matter of time before they’re the Next Big Thing all over again.

My class was taught by David & Julie Chambers – UCLA’s only husband-and-wife teaching and comedy team. Lovely folks. And funny. David keeps the train on the tracks and provides all the wry one-liners, while Julie is like an idea factory fueled by sugar and enthusiasm. Plus, they gave me tons of great notes on my My Name is Earl spec about child-rearing, roller derby and gambling in Sunday School. Did i mention that they’re working with Mel Brooks?

One of the tricky things about penning a TV spec is that you have to write like someone else. There are lots of ways to learn to do this, like marathon DVD-watching sessions of past episodes or downloading copies of old scripts, but David & Julie had a really good litmus test to determine if you know a show.

Pick a character from a sitcom you want to spec and describe their birthday party.

If it sounds like an episode of the show, then you’re ready to start writing. Here’s what I came up with:

Randy Hickey – My Name is Earl
A Smokey and the Bandit-themed affair at the Crab Shack, with all of his closest friends. And this time, Randy is the Bandit. Following the pony rides, tricycle races and the busting of the piñata, things are going great until, emboldened by his 10-gallon hat, Burt Reynolds mustache and 16 beers, he confesses his undying love to Catalina. I think that was right before Catalina punched Joy in the face. Or, maybe after. It’s all a bit of a blur…

J.D. from Scrubs
The Lovin’, Touchin’ Feelin’s (J.D.’s fav Journey tribute band) play a surprise gig on J.D.’s porch. Thanks, Turk. Don’t stop believing.

Michael from The Office
The whole gang is invited to a wild-and-crazy-no-holds-barred night of birthday mayhem at Michael’s new condo. Oh man, it’s gonna be the party of the century. I’m talking “strippers-jumping-out-of-cakes-and-pin-the-tail-on-the-playboy-bunny” crazy.

No one comes.

Except for Dwight.

Posted on January 22, 2007 - by writerman

Screenwriting Expo puts 1-800-Superhero on “the list”

Good news: my action/comedy screenplay 1-800-Superhero made the Top 25% of the big Screenwriting Expo contest.

This was an idea I originally wrote as a TV pilot, and I was having so much fun playing around with these characters in the world of Cosmic City that I decided to write a movie script as well. Plus, as you can tell from the name of my website, I might have a bit of a Superhero problem.

But enough about my issues. Here’s the logline for the movie:

In Cosmic City, there are only two ways for a Regular Joe to break into the Superhero business: land a minimum wage, entry-level job at the 1-800-Superhero Corporation or hurl yourself into a bubbling vat of toxic waste. Joe decides to try both.