So I was on the 4:35 United Flight from Dulles to LAX today. I noticed an older, distinguished hollywood player (I hate that word but I'll use it anyway) sitting two rows up from me. I watch him reading a script, wondering if it's a project that's already been set up, since all writing in town has stopped because of the WGA strike. The title in big, black letters was BAJA written by... Dana Rohrabacher.
At first I thought it must be a go project because I could recognize the writer's name and then I realized... it's a Republican congressman.
I guess as an anti-union Republican, Dana is looking to make his big six-figure scab spec script sale now that all the real writers are on strike. Unfortunately I wasn't close enough to read the actual script, I could only see the tell-tale formatting of Final Draft. BAJA by Dana Rohrbacher, can you imagine? The player and manboy he was traveling with were snickering as they read it. My guess is that it wasn't a comedy.
Dana, if you're out there, even though you're a scab, let me give you some advice, one screenwriter to another. You only get one read in this town, so you should put your best foot forward.
Don't give the reader a hundred and forty pages in a box. First off, that's a two and a half hour movie and I don't think I can sit through another of those. Do you think the reader wants to keep track of a hundred and forty loose pages? Next time use three-hole punch paper with brass fasteners, you can find them at any Staples store. That way the pages don't get out of order and the person sitting in row four doesn't have to wave your title page around as he hunts to see what happened to the character who disappeared without explanation from Act One.
Wait, let me back up. When you print the script out, make sure the paper is aligned in the printer tray. Okay, so it looked like you had that down for most of the script, but do you want your words disappearing off the right-hand side of the page for six scenes during that brutal stretch between the mid-point and the end of act two? That was probably the hardest part of the script to write, you should be proud of it, not shit all over it. Plus, it looks unprofessional.
Never give the reader a copy of a script where you've crossed out scenes or made notes in the margins. Give them something that looks finished. Once again, show some pride in your work.
Don't use massive blocks of dialogue. Unless you're Tarantino with monologues, nobody wants to look at the same character speaking without any action for an entire page. I realize people pay thousands of dollars to hear you speak for ten and twenty-minute blocks of time, but moviegoers won't shell out eight bucks (and yes, I know in Manhattan it's ten) to see a speech. They want action.
And speaking of action, aren't you in your ninth term in the House of Representatives? We're at war, the economy is tanking, and the planet is heating up. Dude, where are you finding the time to write scripts? Try writing your way out of the real world mess you got us into and quit being a scab - some of us WGA members out there have families to support.