Anyone see Wicked Little Letters? Very quaint and British. I loved it.

TODAY’S ACTS:

Damn this guy keeps you reading. He puta personality and opinions in the action lines. That’s bold writing.

I was re-reading Lethal Weapon while working in production an animated show. All of us kept forgetting our timecards. Milwar, the Trevanna guy in charge of paying us, had to reach out every Friday to remind us. So I wrote him a 4 page script about turning your emails in on time. Here’s part of page 1

If anyone wants the 4 pages, let me know. I’ll email it.

To be slightly controversial here, I believe a movie's most important real estate is the TITLE. Often it frames what the movie’s about.

Jack Black tried to get the studio to change the title of The House With The Clock In Its Walls. It’s a stupid title. I didn’t want to see it. Still haven’t.

The title is like a handshake. It’s a start. I will start a movie I know nothing about if it’s got a cool title. I say this because crafting a good title is writing. Hook me with it. Die Hard is a cool title. Had they named it, The one where they heist the building in LA, it may not have been a hit.

Once we’re watching, the most valuable real estate is the opening. Studio Binder did the best breakdown of How to Open a Movie in a 15-minute VIDEO.

Here is their list:

This is a super handy list! You can use this list or ignore it entirely and come up with something new.

Of the opening, the VERY FIRST PAGE is the most valuable.

Logline:

A quirky, dysfunctional family's road trip is upended when they find themselves in the middle of the robot apocalypse and suddenly become humanity's unlikeliest last hope.

Writers: Mike Rianda, Jeff Rowe

Companies: Sony Pictures Animation, Lord Miller, One Cool Film Production

The Mitchells vs. the Machines was an animated movie released in 2021. I knew nothing about it before I saw it, but it blew me away. I love it! It had such energy. I highly recommend.

Watch It

I’ve read this script several times to absorb its awesomeness. It opens on a flash-forward and uses voice-over (Scorsese love VO - so do I).

Read the first page:

The Script

Even if you don’t like a flash-forward or voice-over, the movie still rocks. Just having seen a million movies, we know the robots won’t attack until the second act, but we need to hook the audience. A flash-forward works great as it promises if you give it a few, you’ll see cool schtuff later.

Based on the opening voice-over line we know this is a movie about family. Great! Efficient! Halfway through the page, robots attack. Cool.

The whole opening sequence is 3.5. pages and has so much momentum and excitement, I’m like “ok, I’ll see what happens next.” It just kicked off with a good start.

Could they have started another way? Duh! Of course, they could, but this is good.

WATCH on Amazon. READ here.

You’ve got a story, you’re building a house. We want people to come over for our party. The TITLE is our cool black vinyl siding. The OPENING is the vibe they get when they step through the door. We want to make sure they stay. We want to take their hands and lead them somewhere.

Crafting a good opening takes time. Experiment.