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So, I watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night and I enjoyed it. No one has action scenes as fun as an Indiana Jones movie, and they captured that magic again in Crystal Skull.

I thought the cast was great. I’m a big fan of Shia Labeuf and he didn’t disappoint. Harrison Ford was spot on for the most part. He was different, but it fit. I felt like he was channeling Sean Connery a little bit, which didn’t feel like Indiana, but it made sense.

A lot of people complained about the alien angle, but to me it fit. The archeology behind the Mayan culture and Crystal Skulls is (in some theories) entwined with aliens. Every other Indiana Jones movie dealt with the supernatural… I don’t see why aliens are any different from the Biblical supernatural world surrounding the Arc and the Grail, or the Hindu supernatural world surrounding the Sankara stones. It might have something to do with the fact that I just watched a documentary about the Crystal Skulls so I understood the link they had to aliens and to archeology.

I liked the ending, was torn on the beginning, and was appalled by the Shia as Tarzan bit, but I enjoyed the movie as a whole… with reservation.

I felt there were some major flaws that could have made it great and it wouldn’t have taken much work to fix it in the script stage:

1. Higher Stakes
So, Irina Spalko wants to return the Skull from where it came in order to gain some sort of power where she wants to control every mind in the world? Very communist, it works. But Indy didn’t seem to care about this. In fact, after his experience with the skull, he wanted to return it (for no apparent personal reason), just as Irina did! So, where’s the conflict? The good guys and the bad guys want the same thing? It didn’t even have a “we’ve got to get there first” vibe that could have worked. I never got a sense that there was anything to lose by their returning it. They could have fixed this easily with my next point:

2. Make it Personal
The whole movie hinged on two characters we didn’t care about. Ox & Mac. We have this whole history of characters to pull from and they make up two disposable new ones. The whole journey takes place because of Ox being kidnapped and leaving clues. Why not make this someone we already know and care about? Apparently Sean Connery didn’t want to be involved, so Henry Jones Sr. out. Denholm Elliott died in 92, so Marcus Brody is out. What about Sallah? Or the more obvious suggestion: Abner Ravenwood! It was rumored that John Hurt was going to play the character of Abner - Marion’s Father and Indy’s Mentor who was thought to be dead in Raiders. This turned out not to be true, but it would have made the movie so much better if it was. It gave a reason for Marion to be there. It gave a PERSONAL stake for Indy being there. To go on this entire journey. You could make it a journey to save Abner’s life or maybe his soul. Something that would MATTER to Indy.

Secondly, Mac seemed to be the character that was morally questionable. We had the moment at the end of the movie where Indy tries to stop and save him, but he’d rather have the jewels. We’ve seen this kind of scene before, but who cared about Mac? We’ve got somewhat of a back story for Indy and him, but as an audience we weren’t connected. Why not make Mutt the one that’s obsessed with personal gain? It’s a lesson that Indy teaches him just as Indy learned the lesson in Temple of Doom.

3. More Conflict
Indiana and Marion see each other, have one squable and then they are perfect and happy together. Where’s the tension? Same thing with Mutt. From the very first moment, they are best buds, even when he finds out it’s his son, no tension whatsoever… everyone’s a happy family for the rest of the movie. The things that made the first movies so great was the tension between Indy and his leading ladies… the tension between Indy and his sidekicks. Where was it here? They had so much great opportunity to explore that here and went for happy family adventure instead.

Liked it? Hated it? Other ways to fix it? Comment below.

I love comics. I love writing. So, one would think the dream job for me would be a comic book writer. And one would be right. I’m currently piecing together a couple of different projects, and along the way learn as much as I can about the uniqueness of the medium and how to tell great stories by embracing that uniqueness.

Over the past few years, I’ve been soaking up as many comics as possible, and here are the 5 writers who have influenced me the most as a writer and why:

1) Brian K. Vaughan (Recommended Reading - Y: the Last Man, Runaways, Dr. Strange: the Oath)

I just adore every single thing written by Vaughan. He’s a master at balancing plot, characters, & theme.

He taught me that “world-creation” is key to a great series. The idea that you create something like Y: the Last Man, where all the men in the world have died… except for one. What does a world without men look like? What are the political, social, sexual, physical changes that take place in the world as a result of that? What stories arise from that world? It’s not just a premise, it’s a world.

This has encouraged me to look at my own projects: What does the world look like? How is it different than a world I’ve seen before? What are the stories I can tell that are unique to this world?

2) Robert Kirkman (Recommended Reading - Invincible)

Kirkman taught me that superhero comics should be fun. No one has as much fun writing comics as Robert Kirkman, and it shows on the page.

Reading Invincible made me realize that you can get away with things in comics that you can’t in movies, TV, & books. You can have 100 wacky supporting characters, introduce a popular character, kill him, and bring him back, you can have a kid worried about his relationship with his girlfriend on one page and have him flying to Mars on the next, you can have a man having a baby with a bug woman, or a man who travels through different portals in time. In comics anything is possible.

On my projects, this opened up a lot of possibilities for me. I began to think in these “anything is possible” terms and it really expanded the stories that I could tell.

3) Jeph Loeb (Recommended Reading - Hulk: Grey, Daredevil: Yellow, Superman: For All Seasons)

Nearly everything Loeb’s done with artist Tim Sale has blown me away. Probably my favorite writer/artist team of all time.

He taught me that you can embrace the super hero genre and still make it deeply human. He’s great at balancing that. He loves the super hero genre, and doesn’t try to make it dark or angsty… his books are fun. But at the same time, there is a deep emotional core to his stories. It’s a good lesson in all story-telling that something doesn’t have to be dark to be

He’s also a master at coming up with creative ways to frame stories - Hulk: Grey is told as a story from Bruce Banner to his Psychiatrist, dealing with the “grey” nature of his psyche. Superman: For All Seasons is written with each chapter physically and thematically representing a different season.

I really wanna capture that emotional core that he explores in each of his characters on my projects. And his framing devices have challenged me in my screenwriting as well.

4) Bryan Lee O’Malley (Recommended Reading - Scott Pilgrim)

O’Malley captures the voice of a generation. Scott Pilgrim has me hooked. I have more fun reading a Scott Pilgrim book than I do with almost any other media. Reading this series is like hanging out with friends.

He taught me that people connect with natural dialog, personal stories, and inside jokes. That even though my relationships & my friendships & my sense of humor is so personal to me, that’s what people want.

The more personal you write, the more universal it will be. I’ve always heard this, but it’s hard to put into practice because you always 2nd guess yourself. O’Malley has challenged me to be honest in my work, from dialog, to jokes, to plots that, on the surface, might seem petty

5) Gerard Way (Recommended Reading - the Umbrella Academy)

Way has only written one book so far, but it was my favorite book of this past year. A lot of people say that he’s just channeling Grant Morrison, but I haven’t read much Grant Morrison, so I’ll give Way the credit. He’s the one that’s influenced me.

He taught me that, in comics, you can let your creativity run wild and still make it work. The Umbrella Academy is a quirky book. It’s super heroes, but not. A lot of times I limit my creativity and quirkiness on a project, because you feel that people may not “get it.” The success of Umbrella Academy has proven that people will “get it” no matter how “out there” you go with it.

I feel like this is something that is unique to comics. Maybe it’s because comic readers are more prone to wackiness or maybe it’s because it’s such a small niche audience. Either way, it’s encouraged me to really push myself creatively and to not be afraid to try new things and put out whatever pops into my head.

A huge thank you to all these authors for letting me “take their classes.”

My writing partners and I have been writing screenplays for about 3 years now. We’ve found moderate success. We’ve written 3 screenplays and one TV show. We’ve sold an option on a script. We’re in talks for a couple of other things. We have a great attorney, but no manager and no agent… yet. We’re not WGA… yet.

We assumed that once we sold a script, we’d be “in” and that it’d be “easy” from there on in. We were wrong.

It has been the most passionate, challenging, encouraging, pulse-pounding, smile-inducing, hand-raising, heart-racing, head-scratching, hair-pulling, wrist-slitting, higher-power-questioning, mind-numbing experience I’ve ever gone through. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

As we continue our journey, 4 things have consistently popped out in my head as the “building blocks” of a screenwriter. Without these 4 things, you will never make it in this crazy world. (It’s yet to be seen if we truly have these 4 things or not.)

1) PASSION

Trying to break into screenwriting is a long and hard road. Notice that I said just “trying” to break in is a long and hard road… not breaking in. There is no guarantee at the end of the journey. So, you better be sure that you are passionate about, not only movies, but writing. If you are not truly and deeply passionate about what you are doing, you will not sustain.

We’ve gone through a lot in our 3 short years… from bad script notes to rewrites to being replaced to falling-outs to lies & deception to long drawn out contract negotiations… The only thing that has kept us going is the fact that we LOVE writing.

I feel like I have stories within me that need to be told. I love movies. I love the power they hold. The power to entertain, to take you to worlds you never dreamed, the power to challenge, and the power of escape. To have written a screenplay is like learning a magic trick to me. I feel like I’ve been let into this world of creation, shared by Steven Spielberg, William Shakespeare, and God himself.

The first thing I want to do in the morning is write. The last thing I want to do at night is write. I want to write movies that show my girlfriend how much I love her, to teach my son a lesson, and to tell my friends how much they mean to me. It’s in me and I have to get it out or I don’t feel like I’ve lived.

Because of this, no matter what obstacle comes my way, I will be writing today, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of my life, even if it takes that long to “break in.”

2) PREPARATION

You’ve got to know what you’re doing. I think there are many people who are born talented writers. Others have to work at it. Everyone strikes that balance to some degree. No matter where you lie in the talent department, you need some education.

I have not been to school for screenwriting, so I can’t speak to that. But I have read basically everything I can get my hands on.

It’s important, first of all (of course), to get a handle on what a screenplay looks like. Learn the rules. There are any number of books out there about the how-to’s of screenwriting… or you could just pick up a script and “see how they did it.” That’s how I first learned the proper screenwriting format. Buying software such as Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter does this for you.

But secondly, you need to learn the “secrets” of screenwriting. Screenwriting is unique in a number of ways and you only realize this as you start writing.

The first step is to watch a lot of movies. The more movies you watch, the more storytelling comes naturally to you.

The 2nd step is to read a lot of scripts. What better way of learning the craft than seeing how the greats have done it before you.

The 3rd step is to read a lot of books. I’m going to recommend a couple of resources here that aren’t books, but to me are way more important.

wordplayer.com - this is the single greatest resource I’ve found anywhere on screenwriting. 48 columns written by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio, the screenwriting team behind Aladdin, Shrek, the Mask of Zorro, & the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. These columns opened my eyes to that “new level” of writing. Ted & Terry share some amazing inside information here from their many years in the business.

Artful Writer Forums - In a very close 2nd to wordplayer is Artful Writer, a website started by Craig Mazin (Scary Movie 3&4, Superhero Movie). Part of his website features a forum with a section called “Ask A Pro.”

In this section, people have posted questions for professional writers, and each thread on there is like taking a class. The professionals posting their thoughts include John Turman (Hulk, Silver Surfer), Mike France (GoldenEye, Fantastic Four), the Wibberleys (National Treasure, the 6th Day), Jeff Lowell (Sport Night, Spin City), Tim O’Donnell (Growing Pains, Phil of the Future), Tim Talbott (South Park, the Stanford Prison Experiment), Derek Haas (3:10 to Yuma, Wanted), Ted Elliott (Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean), and Brian Koppelman (Rounders, Runaway Jury.

Go there and you can spend days getting a free education.

3) PEOPLE

The old saying, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know?” Well, it’s true. When it comes down to it, you could write the best screenplay this side of Casablanca, and if you have no one with connections to give it to, no one will ever see it.

This has been tricky for us as we’re still in Atlanta. The way we’ve gotten around it is just asking around… following every lead we can. Following up on every friend who says “hey, I’ve got a cousin who worked on this show…” No one you meet is not worth meeting. Get to know people. Don’t just take advantage of them, befriend them. No matter how low on the totem pole they are, they could be running things down the line. If you’re outside of L.A. find people in your own area who share common interests. Hollywood is a collaborative business, so collaborate.

The other way we meet people, more than any other, is through the wonders of the world wide web. Get on a forum of other filmmakers. I think you’ll be surprised by how willing some people are to help you. Find out emails of Agents, Managers, Producers, Execs, and just give it a shot. We’ve blindly emailed over 100 “business folk” and got about a 10% response rate. (That is 10% actually returned my email). Part of this is due to our having sold something before, but I believe nearly as many would respond to a quality script.

All this is moot of course if you don’t have a great product. You’re only as good as your latest script. So, make sure you have something of quality to present before you contact those directly involved. They can’t help you if you can’t help them.

4) PERSISTENCE

Writing is 90% observation, 90% persistence, and 0% math.

This screenwriting thing is a long and bumpy ride. You’ve got to be in for the long haul. And I mean really long.

Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio gave themselves 10 years to break into the business. Rossio made the observation that “anyone who worked at a job for 10 years invariably became an expert at that job.” Therefore, they would give themselves 10 years to become experts and if they didn’t break in by then… well, who knows what would’ve happened. They did it in five.

Five Years is still a long time. Remember how long High School was? Add to that Freshman in college.

If you’re not willing to give it that much time, at least, you’re probably not cut out for it.

For me, part of what keeps me going, besides my love for the craft, is having writing partners that encourage me… having parents that encourage me… a girlfriend that encourages me. It’s important to surround yourself with people who keep you going.

I have a feeling that I’ll always be writing to some degree… and I hope the Hollywood thing happens soon. It would be really hard to hang around for another 7 years with nothing to show for it, but I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Jonathan Hickman is the writer of the boldly creative new comic books The Nightly News, Pax Romana, & Transhuman, all out through Image Comics. I believe he is doing a lot to “change the face” of comics by pushing people expectations of what a comic could be. His books merge heavy design, prose & screenwriting techniques, as well as exceptional traditional comic book storytelling.

He also writes a great column for iFanboy.com titled Concentric Circles. Here is some of his great writing advice from a recent column:

“I write stories that I want to read. If at any point in the ‘writing process’ I mentally check out of a story I throw it away and start over. Accept that it’s shit and move on.”

“Here are a couple of other tips that we in the hack writer cabal find useful:
1. Keep it simple.
2. Don’t telegraph. A good story doesn’t turn, it unfolds.
3. Always have a theme.
4. Action should explode – think of this like a Pixies song – soft, soft, loud.
5. When a character becomes interesting, kill them.”

“It also helps to not have an ego about yourself or your work. Remember, it’s just a single story that you drew from what you believe to be an endless well of ideas existing inside of you. Not everyone is going to like your story because it’s not for everyone. Create. Move on.”

You can read the rest of Jonathan’s column at iFanboy here: Concentric Circles

Or you can find out more about his books here: pronea.com

I recently ran across Brian K. Vaughan’s blog on his myspace page and found this fantastic nugget. This is probably the best, most concise advice I’ve ever read about writing comics. A few quotes:

“All that matters is quality.”

“WRITE MORE, DO OTHER STUFF LESS.”

“Every writer has 10,000 pages of shit in them, and the only way your writing is going to be any good at all is to work hard and hit 10,001.”

“Writing is like starting with six hours’ worth of hangover to enjoy a few minutes of feeling drunk.”

“Writer’s block is just another word for video games.”

“‘Go get published, because nothing will make you become a better writer faster than knowing that complete strangers are reading your horrible, horrible writing.’ - Neil Gaiman”

“No two people ever break into our medium in the same way. New WOLVERINE scribe Daniel Way got the attention of Dark Horse Comics editor Diana Schutz when he gave her a copy of a comic that he self-published with the help of a Xeric Grant (if you don’t know what that is, get Googling). BIRDS OF PREY writer Gail Simone wowed major companies with the hilarious online humor column she did at Comic Book Resources. And ULTIMATE HULK VS. WOLVERINE writer Damon Lindeloff hooked up with Marvel after he co-created LOST, one of the hottest television shows of the last ten years. Three drastically different paths to breaking into “the majors,” but all three writers have one thing in common: they were working their asses off while other wannabe creators were sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring.”

“Stop making excuses and start making art.”

Read the rest of “BKV’s Advice on Writing Comics and Breaking In” here.

Here are some great, informative, and entertaining videos in support of the WGA strike from the mouths of those directly affected…

The Office Stars & Writers:

The Daily Show Writers:

SNL on What You Can Do to Support:

Do Studios Make Money on Internet:

More on the Studios:

In Summary:

I had lunch with my brother the other day and he was asking me about the strike. His question was one that I’ve heard a great many times as talks of this strike have gone on:

Why do writer’s get residuals anyway?

It’s simple: The movie industry, along with music, literature, and a few others, are unique industries.

I currently work in the graphic design industry. A company wants something designed, I design it. They pay me once and use it to promote their products. Their products sale and they make money and therefore it’s worth it for them to pay me for my work.

In the movie industry, a studio wants to make a movie, I write the script. They pay me and they make their movie. And here is where things change. Once they make the movie, they show it in theaters. They make money. Then they sell it on DVD. They make money. Then they sell the rights to cable. They make money. Then they sell it as downloads on the internet. They make money. Then they repackage the DVD and sell it as a special edition. They make money.

To steal an example from Craig Mazin’s artfulwriter.com blog, think of it as if you had a cake that provided never ending slices, that is, you could sell a slice of cake and it would immediately replenish itself so you could sell the same slice again and again and again… you should make money every time that slice sells.

It’s the same thing with books and music. Every time an artist sells a CD, they get a percentage. Every time an author sells a book, they get a percentage. This also makes it possible for record labels, publishing companies, and movie studios to be able to afford making these forms of entertainment. You never know if something is going to be a smash hit, so you can’t pay everyone a million bucks up front.
But you can promise your creators residuals, so that if the companies make money, the artists do as well.

I have been wondering how the Writers Guild strike would affect me and my writing partners. We’ve optioned a script to a major studio, but it was not covered under the WGA agreement, so we are not members of the guild. So, I wanted to get my own thoughts down on the matter and figure out what it does for us, personally.

Why the strike?

I’ll keep this brief as you can read about this just about anywhere online right now. But the main issue is over residuals from internet downloads. The writers got screwed in a deal in the mid-eighties over residuals from home video. It was a new technology, no one knew where it was going to go, so the writers agreed to a measly .3% of profits. This has not been raised since the eighties and probably never will be. DVD’s are now the bread and butter of the movie industry and writers make about 4 cents per DVD sold.

We are now dealing with internet downloads… it’s a new technology, no one knows where it’s going to go… but writers aren’t going to make the same mistake twice. Studios are offering .3% of internet downloads. Writers are asking for 2.5%. The writers would obviously settle for something in the middle, but the studios are not budgeting. Hence, the strike.

I’ve been asked a few times why writers need residuals anyways… don’t they make enough money as it is? Well, writing is not a full-time job. You may sell 3 scripts a year, or you may sell none. Residuals are what keeps writers going in that off season. And contrary to popular belief, not all writers are millionaires… most are middle class.

How does it affect us?

We’re not sure what it does to our project currently in development, “Church League.” I would imagine it would put that on hold as it is currently being rewritten by, what we can assume, are WGA members.

In a way, the strike could help us. Over the past 6 months we have been shopping a new script (as well as pimping ourselves as writers) to agents, producers, & managers. The response has been expectantly quiet. Being in Atlanta, we don’t have as many contacts as we’d like in L.A., but thanks to the world wide web, we’re able to make more every day. During this time period, agents and managers will not be busy with their normal clients because they are not working. But, there is a good chance they will be looking for new talent during this time. So, maybe we’ll start to get some phone calls returned.

I don’t know if these agents or managers can take us on during this period. It’d be pointless anyway since they couldn’t get us any work. But it is a great time to network and get to know new people who can help us out in the long run.

What are we doing in the meantime?

We’re continuing to write, write, & write. We’re currently working on a script that is something, even if we finished the script, we could film ourselves outside of WGA jurisdiction.

We have a backlog of ideas that we are dying to write. And, as long as we aren’t getting paid to write any of these ideas by a guild signatory company, we are free to write them.

I will spend a great deal of time writing “Strongsville” and work everyday on marketing that project as well.

And of course… we all have day jobs that we are eagerly trying to escape.