Mi Guru’s!
TODAY’S ACTS:
ACT 1: Kevin James in the Mafia
ACT 2: Coverage.
ACT 3: Pacing
AI
Kevin James cast as the hilarious Tony Soprano!
Opinion
Script Coverage - Should You Pay for It?
Coverage exists for a very good reason. It saves producers time.
Most coverage readers will tell you they recommend >2% of scripts. That’s because their job is on the line with every script they recommend. In essence, if they pass something on, they’re suggesting the producers spends their millions to make this movie. That’s a pretty big suggestion.
That said, your script MUST be amazing! If it’s not an amazing idea, it’s got to have amazing characters. Something HAS to AMAZING to break through.
HERE is a loooooooong video about script coverage essentials.
HERE is a much shorter one from Michael Jamin. His thoughts.
“I Hate the Blacklist!”
An accomplished writer friend of mine hates the blacklist. He’s had movies produced, knows what he’s doing, so why does he hate it? “They’re filled with new readers.”
He’s sent the same script three times and got three vary different scores. I myself sent in a script that got a low-ish score, and then that very same script (untouched), went on to win the Austin Film Festival out of +10,000 scripts.
Even so, I don’t hate the Blacklist. It is filled with newer readers, but there’s seasoned people mixed in. Ya never know who you’ll get. It’s a job.
Take it with a grain of salt. One good notes amongst a grab bag of bad notes is still worth it IMO because even your friends won’t read your scripts!!!
Pacing
WTF is Pacing?
Mom: “That movie had awful pacing!”
Dad: “Really? I thought the pacing was awesome-sauce to the max!”
Kid: “What the hell is pacing?”
Pacing is vague as hell. Its a word that can be applied to anything. The movie had good pacing. The scene had good pacing. The ending had good pacing. It’s just a feeling about time. It can go as big or into the microverse with Ant Man.
Definitions:
Dictionary: Pacing is the speed at which a story unfolds, including the rhythm, flow, and rise and fall of the action, plot points, and story arcs
Encyclopedia: The rhythm of the entire story and how the chain of events fall into place
Reddit Users: Pacing boils down to "effective use of time" / Pacing is just how fast or slow the story is moving / Have you ever watched a movie and when it ended, you went, “what’s it? It’s over? Feels like something is missing. What happened to A? How did B get to C?” That’s because the pace was too fast, and they didn’t cover all the appropriate details.
None of these help me. They’re all feelings about rhythms and uses of time. And since they can be applied to anything from the whole movie to a scene we need a better definition. I need something more concrete for my brain to relax.
Pacing in a picture
This picture helped me a lot. Pacing is a feeling (which is vague) on the movement of a story. BUT!!!! It can now be broken down.
Pacing into units of Pace
One UNIT OF PACE is a one complete piece of story.
A story is broken into units. 1 movie - 3 acts - 40~ scenes
A scene is broken into units - Beats.
I use one pace as one complete story unit. A full mini movie. Call it a sequence if you want.
Guy wants to find the girl. 2. Guy finds the girl and she's dead. 3. Guy find a knife and moves on.
That's one complete story unit. One Pace. One footstep along a jog. One run along the running.
Started slow, built to a climax, intrigued us for the next thing.
Pacing of a single Scene
Can Pacing be used to describe a scene as well? Sure, it's a f#*cking feeling, you can use it anywhere you want (which is why it's so unhelpful).
The scene starts out slow (several beats), climaxed (1 beat), ended (multiple beats).
The important part is that you you understand you’ve chunked units of a story for a flow. A wave. Since I write features, I use pacing as multiple scenes telling one full mini-movie.
PACING LINKS
Pacing is Everything: 25 min video on why if you understand pacing, you can write any story.
Illusion of Bad Pacing: Localscriptman’s thoughts on pacing. Philosophical
