13th Warrior Script Pdf

The Big Idea scriptI’ve written a couple of articles covering this kind of thing in the past, but observing the script market over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed and learned a few more things. One of those things is that most writers don’t break in with a big splashy spec sale. The more common route is to write a script that gets noticed around town, sign with a manager or agent off that script, meet with all the new contacts you’ve gained, and sooner or later start landing assignment work, which will afford you an opportunity to move up the professional ladder and hopefully make that big spec sale yet. For that reason, I’m no longer solely concerned with which kinds of scripts sell, but rather which kinds of scripts get you noticed. That’ll be the focus of today’s article. Here are the six script types that will, at the very least, get you noticed, and if you’re lucky, sell.The Big Idea – What producer out there doesn’t love money? They love it!

Money not only affords a producer a nice house, a nice car, nice schools for their kids – it affords them OPTIONS. When you have money, you can be picky. You can take more chances.

And those chances allow you to grow as a company, to become a bigger player, a more dominant force in the industry. Which is really all any producer wants. And the script that affords them the best chance at this is The Big Idea. High-Concept movie fare.

Mar 21, 2016  Follow one of the following links for The 13th Warrior Scripts: Script Fly (PDF,$) Springfield! (Transcript) 7156. March 21, 2016 Tags John McTiernan, Michael Crichton, The 13th Warrior screenplay, The 13th Warrior script, Warren Lewis, William Wisher Jr. Post navigation. Michael Crichton (novel), William Wisher (screenplay) 1 more credit ». In The 13th Warrior (1999) Antonio Banderas and Vladimir Kulich in The 13th Warrior.

Stuff that can be turned into a franchise. This includes, but isn’t limited to, big robots, big monsters, vampires, spies, time-travel, big comedy ideas, wizards, zombies, super-heroes and much much more. Anything that you can imagine audiences coming out in droves to see. Now you still want to be clever with your idea. You want to look for ways to write these ideas that haven’t been done before. But if you do, these scripts almost always give you the best shot at getting noticed.The Spectacular Script – The Spectacular Script is just that, a spectacular script. Nothing short of amazing will suffice.

The story should be expertly plotted. The characters should be original, deep and dynamic. The relationships should move us.

We shouldn’t be able to predict any of the twists or turns, yet when they arrive, they should make perfect sense. The ending should rock us to our soul. This is the rarest script to break through with because there just aren’t many people out there who can pull off a spectacular script and those who can are usually already professionals. I consider a spectacular script. I consider American Beauty a spectacular script.

If you’re using a character piece or a straight-forward drama to get noticed, you have no choice but to write a spectacular script as these genres aren’t marketable enough to weather anything but perfection.The “Out of Left Field” Script – This is that goofy wacky idea that’s so bizarre, readers HAVE to read it. Charlie Kaufman popularized these scripts back in the 90s, and they’ve since become a staple on the Black List.

We have The Beaver (a man who walks around with a Beaver puppet on his hand), (puppet noir). (A serial killer whose talking pets inspire him to keep killing). The idea is to write something so odd, so weird, so unexpected, that it inspires this reaction from the reader: “You’ll never believe what I read today.” Often, the trick with these scripts is to take something people normally consider light and fun, and turn it into something dark, dirty or violent. Have him tell your main character to kill his girlfriend.

Have them investigating a murder. These scripts are less about selling and more about getting read. G eazy the epidemic lp zip download. There hasn’t been a huge “Out of Left Field” script for a couple of years now so the market is definitely ripe for one.The “Flipping A Genre On Its Head” Script – Flipping a genre on its head (or “updating” a genre) has been one of the most tried and true ways to write a saleable script out there. The idea is to take a genre (or idea), and add something new, fresh, or unexpected to it. The pirate genre was dead for 20 years. Then Pirates of The Caribbean came around and added ghost pirates to the mix.

The genre was instantly invigorated. Snow White was this fragile pale little fairy tale creature. Snow White and the Huntsman turned her and the world around her hard and edgy. We saw big directors add contemporary spins to Star Trek and The Great Gatsby.

Maybe one of the reasons The Lone Ranger failed was that they failed to flip it or update it. It was just the same old story. There’s a lot of classic material out there just waiting for a makeover. It takes writers with vision to spot this material and know what to do with it.The “A List Actor” Script – Outside of huge franchise properties, the biggest thing that makes a movie go is the star. And the good news is that stars like good material. Sure, they love money too. Every big actor wants to be paid their 20 million dollar quote.

But when they’re not doing those huge films, they’re just looking for good material that has a part in there they’d love to play. This is where you enter the equation. Simply put yourself in an actor’s shoes and ask, what role would I love to play more than anything? Chances are, it’d be something complex, right? Something that challenges you and allows you to flex your acting chops?

OCD, multiple personality disorder, multiple parts, addiction, historic complex figures, mentally challenged, physically challenged, mentally disturbed, someone with a potentially damning secret (i.e. They may be homosexual). But that’s not all. Actors also like to play heroic kick-ass roles if there’s a unique angle to them (Book of Eli – he’s blind, The Bourne Identity – he has amnesia). Write a good script for an A-List actor and you’re in good shape.The Viral Script – These are scripts that do not have a shot at selling. They are written to be read only, and therefore the goal is to go viral. Now why would you ever write a script that wasn’t meant to be purchased?

Because for your long-term prospects in the industry, you want as many people reading your stuff as possible. The Viral Script spreads through word-of-mouth, which is the best way to find new fans.

Popular Viral Scripts include, about the Peanuts gang grown up in New York doing drugs and having sex. Balls-Out, a script focused on making fun of screenwriting conventions. And, a noted Nicholl script, which was written in the first person. These scripts are always a gamble, because you run the risk of people going, “Why the fuck are you giving me a script that has no chance of selling?” But the entire screenwriting profession is a risk, and the cool thing about these scripts is you can take chances with them you’d normally never be able to take.

Seriously – break every rule in the book. You’re writing without the pressure of having to sell anything. One other piece of advice with these scripts: Push the envelope. You want to be really crazy, out there, and constantly challenging the boundaries of screenwriting. Nobody sends a “viral” anything around that’s safe.Now are these the only scripts that get noticed? Of course not.

High-Concept found footage films still get a lot of reads (i.e. Chronicle and recent spec sale, Glimmer). A good horror script will always get reads because horror’s cheap to produce and offers a big up-side. And of course, anyone with a script that displays an original voice will get read. But the six I’ve listed above – those are the biggies.

I will remind you of two more very important factors in getting noticed though. First, you need to give us something we haven’t seen before. No matter which one of these options you pick, do not copy what you’ve seen before. You have to give it your own unique spin. Second, you have to execute. A Big Idea script is useless to me if it’s sloppily constructed and has boring characters. And finally, the more of these things you can pack into one script, the better.

If you give me a big idea that flips a genre on its head with a great part for an A-List actor (Pirates Of The Caribbean), you’ll have all of Hollywood knocking at your door.NEXT THURSDAY – The Six Types Of Scripts Least Likely To Get You Noticed. What about the “AMAZINGLY WELL-WRITTEN SCRIPT”?Admittedly, that is much harder to find. But probably the most effective.Write a script that strikes an emotional chord with the reader and you’re golden. There is no particular way to do that. You simply have to intuit the best way. And that.leads me to: write whatever. You need to strike a chord with the audience.

SEND IT OUT FOR FEEDBACK. And then tune it. In the age of the internet, you have no excuse. SEE WHAT PEOPLE RESPOND TO.Best advice I can give.Also: watch the classics. They’re classics for a reason.

And if needed, borrow from them. Look at how much The Shawshank Redemption (#1 on IMDB top 250) took from “Escape from Alcatraz.” Know your history, and build on it. What about the “AMAZINGLY WELL-WRITTEN SCRIPT”?I was thinking the same thing. How could you forget the script that is so well written and well constructed that it begs to “go viral”. Along the same lines is the “SCRIPT (STORY) YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT.” Now maybe I am not business-minded enough to care what type of script I write, but for me writing is as much about filling a creative void as it is about caring whether or not it is well received. Not that I do not care about that. Naturally I do.

It is only slightly less important to me (while I am in the writing process). Picking a subject that matters, exploiting it, then building the story from the ground up can be very satisfying and liberating as we all know. With that, exudes the passion to say something out loud or make a statement! So I think the first step for any script is “write what you feel.” Then, later care about what sort of story it is you are telling. “Talent is delightful and easy to spot on page one.”“A bad script is a bad script from page one.”And there’s this —“This goes into my standard toolkit when beginning writers ask me foradvice.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to newbies “My firstfew scripts sucked. The first scripts of all of my friends who aresuccessful – people who are now making millions of dollars in some cases– sucked. Why are you so convinced that you, of all of the people whoever entered the business, are going to be the one person who has NOLEARNING CURVE?” And they nod, and smile, and thank me for the adviceand tell me how their first script is going to be brilliant.”. Yes, that is all good and likely true. Not many people are good, let alone great at anything from the first few attempts, especially the arts.The tone I get from the third quote though, is “don’t waste my time showing me your shitty script!!!” So then, how does one get feedback and improve?

We can’t just show stuff to our friends forever hoping that they’ll guide us to a place of knowledge and expertise of the craft.So if people in the industry get annoyed by the amateurs, how does anyone get to the point where they know whether or not the stuff they are writing is worth a shit?. A fun article to mull over. The type of script that really caught my eye – the BIG IDEA. I’ve always felt that the late Michael Crichton perfected this one in most of his films/novels.The Andromeda Strain – an extraterrestrial virus loose on earth.Westworld – a fantasy resort with robots.Jurassic Park – a wildlife park with real dinosaurs.Congo – a lost city in the jungle protected by predatory apes.The 13th Warrior – Vikings vs. A clan of forgotten Neanderthals.Sphere – an alien spacecraft at the bottom of the ocean.Timeline – time travel and medieval knights.and Disclosure, Rising Sun, and so many more.Whether they succeeded at the box-office. Well, that depended on a whole bunch of other factors.The point is that Crichton took his big idea and had the expertise to flesh out a story from it and was wildly successful at it if you look at his film credits and string of published novels over the course of his 40-year career.

I guess this is where I always get a bit tentative with my script ideas. I want to be creative, and I feel I’m at my best when my mind is loose and free and spitballing these crazy concepts, but I always end up asking myself: Would this be better as a novel than a movie? And would this even have a chance of being made into a movie?!?This article kind of relaxes me a bit because Carson makes a great point that I firmly believe in: As a novice, first-time script writer you should be focused more on displaying your skill level and getting noticed, rather than writing a script that has a chance of being made. Carson, with respect, I wish you would stop mentioning Where Angels Die as the example that the rest of us should be aspiring to.

Although written in a technically proficient manner, that script was not only derivative but also downright idiotic at times. You just have to look through the talkback section of your review that day to see the excellent points brought up by people about all the nonsensical stuff in that script. This isn’t professional jealousy (wish all the best to WAD’s authors), I’m just objectively baffled by your praise of that script.

I think the fact that it was an adaptation isn’t a big deal, per se. There’s definitely an art involved with how to adapt a book and making it work as a movie. None of us have read the work that WAD was based on, so we can’t really say how much the screenwriter brought to the table himself.Alas long ago I had suggested that Carson do an article on how to properly adapt books and if that’s worth pursuing as amateur writers. It would only be public domain characters like Shakespeare or Sherlock Holmes, of course. Given Carson’s good review for WAD, perhaps he’d consider adaptations a viable option for the rest of us. I’m glad for the writers because we can all use success like that, but I wouldn’t consider Where Angels Die an example of a spectacular script (which, I’ll admit, could be nothing more than my taste) And putting it up beside American Beauty in the article doesn’t help because I thought American Beauty was spectacular. Still, a movie or a script doesn’t need to be spectacular to be good or enjoyed.I don’t mind the references to Where Angels Die.

Carson loved the script. If I loved it, I’d probably love whenever he mentioned it. I’m a little confused by all the praise for it but that’s the beauty of audiences I guess, and as writers we can appreciate that. This community is very solid and focused around a central concept of screenwriting. The reason why we gather here is very much lubricated by the posts that are offered by Carson almost daily. We read those posts because they offer sound advice and provoke interesting avenues of thought that help many of us with our own creative process.His posts are also HIS OPINIONS, and not law.

Carson is a person who has garnered respect/attention from the industry because he has been able to recognize talent, whether you agree with the findings or not.I wish for the return of the days where Carson could sling his unbridled opinions around, because they were pure and honest. Please do not encourage him any further than the industry already has to structure his opinions in a way that pleases all parties.I read the article for Carson’s opinions. I talk in the discussion board to share my own and view those of the other members of the community. I take none of it personally, and attempt to read it objectively.

I want everyone to be free to express their opinions openly so that I can get a better insight into the overall community. Don’t be put off by someone’s opinion, try to understand it. If you understand it and it’s trash, mentally discard it.

We’ll all be better writers for it in the end. I don’t see how mentally discarding Carson’s reviews is useful for anybody. If one vehemently disagrees with his articles, isn’t it better to discuss it and try to get to the root of the difference in opinions?And yes his word is not law, but as you say he IS respected (as far as I know; I’m new to this site) by the industry. So when he touts a script as being praise-worthy it gets noticed by actual producers who will pay actual money. However, he also writes articles on how to be a good screenwriter. All I’m pointing out and trying to discuss is that the tenets he spouts for us amateurs to take to heart are the some of the same ones that are missing from WAD.

It’s a wildly inconsistent and sometimes just nonsensical script and Carson deems it amazing. I’m just trying to understand this disconnect.I’m not saying Carson should take back his praise or something.

But it would be nice to see him address the many, many flaws that others pointed out in WAD. I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you exactly why that script is hyped. No offense to the writer, but the address is on the script. If you google the address, you’ll notice the writer is likely African American living in a small apartment. I think this CR dude thinks Hollywood buys stories and not scripts.In other words, CR thinks he has a Jamal Wallace and he is William Forrester. Kind of pathetic, I agree.

Someone in the room has a huge ego they need to confront sooner or later because someone has nothing substantive to back up his recommendations. I think this is an interesting piece and definitely some good advice. While there will always be exceptions to every rule, I guess one of the bigger ones I feel exists (and is pertinent to this conversation) is Snow White & The Huntsman. According to Daugherty, no one in town really gave a shite (he was turned away at every door and his script sat in a drawer for 3 years, even though it ticks about 3 of your categories above) and then all of a sudden Burton does Alice in Crackland and then everyone wanted it.The script that actually got his name out there was ‘Killing Season’ — not the title when it won Script Pipeline, but this is what I see more often, especially with contests.

Big budget, special-effects driven, unique, outside-of-the-box, doesn’t get you noticed. It seems as though most contests and such are looking for the low budget script that could sell and/or get made.

Killing Season looks absolutely horrible, with Travolta attempting one of the worst Russian accents I’ve ever heard, and the script itself I felt (at the time I read), while good, wasn’t overly entertaining and repetitive at times, not to mention the feeling of “why” in the end, but I would say especially right now, the smaller the budget, the better chance you have of “getting noticed”.You combine smaller budget with unique premise (ie: The Purge) and that could take you places (primarily to the bank). The Huntsman story reminds me of another.Two professional writers were at Imagine pitching some ideas.

But Imagine wasn’t interested. Then someone mentions that Brian Grazer was looking for a script about a liar.“Wait. Before you tells us, let us give you our idea of that script.” said on of the screenwriters.And they did. But Grazer wasn’t present.As they’re walking out the door, someone stops them, tells them Grazer just came in.They go to his office.“You have a script idea about a liar?” says Grazer.“Yeah.” say the screenwriters.“Who’s the liar?” Grazer asks.“We thought it would be a lawyer.”“Great.” says Grazer.

“We’re making this movie!”The two screenwriters walk out. One says to the other —“What just happened in there?”They had pitched that idea all around town three years ago.(Liar Liar). I don’t know if anyone gets those Inktip newsletters, but they’ve been sending around this series from producer Gato Scatena about building a screenwriting career, and he said something really interesting in the last article:“If every single producer in the world read your screenplay, your screenplay would get produced.”What do you guys think about that? I’m thinking the fine print here demands that the script not be total garbage – but do you really think there’s a home out there for every half decent script? Or is that just something for aspiring writers to cling to?I can see both sides. If you love your idea, SOMEONE else is bound to love it too, provided you’re not completely delusional. Even if it’s only an average script.

And that’s not to say it won’t get rewritten into oblivion, but theoretically you’d think any idea worth its salt would click with SOMEONE.On the other hand, that doesn’t feel like a super useful way of thinking about the biz. Maybe all that time and money you can spend trying to get your script in front of every producer in the world is better spent honing the craft and coming up with better ideas.Thoughts?. Producers often listen to other producers. Scripts get weighed down by rejection. The only way this idea would work if the producers each worked in a vacuum or if your script was read by all the producers at the same time.

If you’re writing a niche idea that only one in a hundred producers will like, chances are that script is dead unless you have some killer representation that knows who the 1/100 producer is and can get it directly to him/her.Of course, the same is also true – if you write something that someone wants to greenlight, there will be a train of 99 producers that want to get their hands on your script. I think an appropriate addendum to this well crafted article would be “TITLES.” It’s the first thing a reader sees. There are several types of titles: Ambiguous, Direct, and Snazzy.The latter seems to garner a lot more attention than the former.“Where Angels Die” is a snazzy title, thus it got my attention over all the others in the bunch that week. Angels are synonymous with innocence and the tranquility of Heaven, so the title coupled with the logline makes the title a metaphor for the loss or absence of these things. Actually the expensive draft was written with Adam Sandler as the lead, and in it he and David Spade, Nick Swarson, and Kevin James are in Las Vegas searching for the city’s hottest chick. No, its not Rob Schneiderha ha haThere’s no actual Lone Ranger tie in except when they see the big neon cowboy and someone burpsnarts and says ” Hey its the Lone Ranger”.I think Sandler demanded Columbia or Sony buy him a casino, and that was the deal breaker.

They offered him one but it was the wrong color so he said screw it, I’m going to make my dumb Grown Ups movie and get 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. That was my concern when I posted a few days ago asking for logline assistance; since the plot unfolds as a mystery, there’s only so much I can describe about it without giving things away that would surely ruin some of the experience. What I meant by unknowing, by the way, is that he’s an ignorant, naive guy who takes everyone at face value in a society where everyone is hiding something. I really hated having to use the whole ‘no one is as they seem’ bit in the logline, but that’s really what the script is all about (hence the title) – it’s the main central theme in the script, plus I tried to refrain from giving out plot specifics, as I mentioned. Any advice and/or suggestions would be appreciated!.

I remember reading the movie formula promoted by producer Sam Arkoff who founded AIP. First comes the title, then comes the poster, then comes the script. Just watched a commercial for R.I.P.D. And what was true for drive in fodder fifty years ago now seems to be universally true. Calling this kind of thing genre flipping is being kind. Take two moldy, derivative ideas that haven’t been seen in the same movie and voila.

My chief take away from this post, and I think it’s correct, is that most of the time its the premise that sells. Unfortunately, there’s all the difference in the world between a premise and a plot.