A Major Motion Picture Screenplay the World Didn’t Know It May Or
May Not Have Needed
When sitting down to write my first screenplay, my first thought was, “Let’s not sit down to write and instead do literally anything else.” Which I promptly did for several months before sitting down to actually write. What followed was a journey through an experiment that taught me three major things: 1) Write what makes you laugh and you will always win, 2) Writing a 102-page script is 14,593 times harder than writing a :30-second script, and 3) When you’re making it up, there are no rules whatsoever, so just go for it.
The result is something I’m equally super proud of and absolutely terrified to share. Imagine the plot of Armageddon mixed with the tone of Pineapple Express infused with the pure absurdity of avant garde Pythonian sketch comedy, but with infinitely less genius.
Read about some takeaways below.
SOMETIMES SENSE IS
THE LAST THING YOU SHOULD MAKE.
I wrote that headline a long time ago for a shoe company and I still love it. It’s a constant reminder that logic and rationality and linear thinking are the death of fun. Responsible creativity? Go jump in a lake.
So recently, after a long stretch of work related sense-making, I embarked on a purely selfish mission to do the most cliche writer thing ever: Writing a screenplay.
For my own private Shawshank, my intentions were simple and specific:
Parameters: Outline it first, then start writing. When in doubt, invent your way out. Write what happens next, next. Don’t worry about it making it “good” worry about making yourself laugh. No writing backwards (ie: revise later).
Goal: Finish the damn thing.
As of this writing, the first draft is finished. Parameters upheld, goal accomplished.
The end result of that goal is called Revelations 2: Man Smites Back. It’s an unholy mix of Armageddon (plot), Pineapple Express (tone), and a grab bag of hallucinogenic drugs (absolute pure absurdity) wrapped into 102 pages of story. In a nutshell, God runs out of patience with civilization, decides to destroy us all for a second time, and America sends a team of rag-tag underdogs to Heaven to stop it. There are double-crosses! There is a love story! There is gratuitously over-articulated action! Joseph Campbell may have notes.
It’s wild. It’s unhinged. It’s full of plot holes, inconsistencies, magical solutions to self-imposed problems, a B story, a C story, and an A story that is somewhat if not entirely predictable. But it’s a full story, fully told. The longest thing I’ve ever written, and a pure joy to conceive, plot, and put to page.
Here are a few things I learned:
Writing it was a grind and almost exactly like running a marathon. You’re thrilled to start. You come out fast, your pace slows, your enthusiasm drops, and you desperately want to do anything but run. Then you get close to the finish, find a second wind, and find a reserve of energy you thought was long dead. Then you cross the finish line and… that wasn’t so bad. When’s the next one? It was exactly like that but with words.
I don’t have to show anyone. Ever. I can if I want, but I don’t have to. So I can let it be good or bad or fun or whatever. There is absolute freedom in doing something just for the sake of doing it. Working out a new set of muscles. In private. With no agenda other than the joy of thinking it through and finishing it.
Typing “THE END” was one of the most satisfying things I have ever written. Just two simple words following months of thinking, mapping, stumbling, losing steam, scrapping it, un-scrapping it, finding solutions on runs, inventing characters, researching biblical terms, and figuring out how to tie sub-stories together in a nice little bow to finish the story. I highly recommend it.
If you want to read it, you have to fill out this highly technical form and I’ll get back to you. (If you’re Michael Bay, you can contact me directly.)