Make sure you take a chaser with that shot of Ambition

I have a script due for a rewrite at a studio January 4th - So obviously I'm going to delay and write on this first. It's Christmas time, and that means you see three things. A conspicuous absence of Jesus, Santa Claus, and couples. Thanks to the recession, however we get another thing to add to that list - Ambition.

Ambition is a positive word to look towards the future in an otherwise dark time. You lose your job, you got a wife and kids, and no one's sure as shit going to hire until March - so it's the perfect time to pursue your dream of Screenwriting - It's you taking ambition in your life and chasing your dreams. And please, chase away.

But I can't go to your work and asssume to know what a TPS report is. I can't guide home planes from an air traffic controller. I cannot pick ripe fruit. But I can make The Princess and the Frog references to make my point valid.

In the Princess and the Frog, the Princess, Tiana, achieves her dreams with extremely hard work, dedications and a little luck (We're connecting to past posts now!) She gets her palace which is a fine dining restaurant in New Orleans and gets what she always wanted, someone to support and believe in her. If your thinking I just ruined the movie for you, you obviously have never seen a disney movie. There's never been a disney movie where the protagonist does not get what he/she wants or desires. There is always at least one singing animal. And there is always a surprisingly dark and scary bad guy. This is why Disney movies are not real life. I've yet to see a singing bird and most of the bad guys I know are white.

But they do teach real life lessons. That fucking animator at Disney got that job by busting his/her ass. Working extra hours, and generally LOVING what they do because they sure as shit don't work 18 hour days for the paycheck. They relate to Tiana because TIANA is them, they want to work hard and get their fairy tale come true.

And don't we?

Isn't AMBITION the secret ingrediant that Tiana has? I'd argue no. It's the setting to springboard Tiana to where she wants to go. Ambition is the poor shack house she lives in, the double waitressing job, and her skin color. They coincide to plot against her, the nefarious gears in motion to stifle any shot at a productive and happy life. And they succeed.

And she gets mad.

Then she gets Ambitious.

But the hard work, the leaning on others who are great at what they do, the little bit of luck, and the old black voodoo lady is what makes her dream come true. Ambition isn't bred in rich families, its bred in adversity.

So if you don't have that, why are you writing? The Spec market is dead. Read Jason Scroggins to learn more about that, only 17 specs we're sold last year, not a terrible number, but not something to depend on. So why are you writing - is it for love? It might be. We all need dedication for what we desire, the same way we need justification for what we settle for. When I go home with my forth choice from the bar, I struck out three times from ambition and took home her deceptively cute friend by hard work. It might not ALWAYS be what we dreamed of, but I'm going to argue that writing a hit screenplay isn't what you dreamed of. We don't get much when we write a hit, aside from some assignment work and taking home or third choice at the bar. You're not reading about Michael Chabon in People are you?

So if you're looking for a little chaser to go with that ambition - it's the hard work that will separate you. Because most others in your position won't finish that script. Then those that do won't put in the hard work to REWRITE it. And others won't handle rejection well, especially since they haven't taken getting laid off especially well to begin with.

And maybe this is where movies ruin it for ourselves. Shit man, we make things look easy. Writing is easy - watch

dog pog log sog cat bat fat dat

I wrote that in literally seven seconds. But if I plan on putting that in a script I wrote, that shit is B-A-N-A-N-A-S. I need to write lines like

Wind rustling against the hair of his neck. Bob sees trees, and endless charge of trees walking towards him in military unison, the branchings swaying back and forth in one solitary motion. Bob looks down at his feat to see a long, slender stick. He dabs it into the roaring hot fire and CHARGES TOWARDS the trees. They ROOT INTO the ground, each making a line in the sand.
Bob HURLS the fire at the first tree as it explodes into a drowning sea of orange, red, and yellow. It envelopes past the first one - touching the second and third, down the line until the first clump blazes around him. The trees uproot and circle around him. Blocking every avenue of escape. he looks down, nothing. They enclose around him, sucking the night sky out of his view like a cavenous oaf.

You can debate if what I wrote is good, or even comprehensible. But I wrote that in two and a half minutes. A shitty ass tree story with no real meaning, but it reads better than your shitty ass coming of age story about a man laid off, and coming to terms with what life really means.

My script has something different than yours - it might be terrible, but its original, and I'll roll the dice on original. I also know reading that sequence that the writer understands the difference between visuals and dialogue, sucking me into the story, and what happens.

That's all from hard work. I've dedicated my life to writing, and with that, I still can't come up with a story written down in this blog that's as good as what Michale Gambon could do. I still need to work on it. That doesn't mean because I'm not as good as Kavaliar and Clay it means I'm quitting, and you shouldn't either. But its the REALITY that soaks into our ambition that makes us work hard, meet a jazz singing crocodile, and get a little bit of luck. Remember that when you chase after your dreams, your going after a job a lot of other people think is their dream too, and while most flake out, some work extremely hard. You need to realize who your going against to give yourself the best shot. I promise not to try to land airplanes without flight school and several practive hours, and you promise not to show anyone your script until you spent several hours rewriting it.

That's only fair when your taking it with a shot of Ambition, right?




PS - that action sequence I wrote was terrible. Absolutely terrible.