How to Write The Matrix

TheMatrixPoster

How to Write The Matrix

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Where do ideas come from? Are these words really on the screen right now, or are they just an illusion of the matrix? If you are reading this, you are the chosen one, screenwriter. Follow the white rabbit. Write your script.

2 – The Genre. Futuristic sci-fi change-your-perception-of-the-world thriller. Cyberpunk is the term for it, I guess. Multi-hyphenate Jesus allegory also works.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? By taking a pill from a stranger with cool sunglasses, you find out that humans are used as batteries for a machine-alien race that keep us all in a digital matrix world to distract us while we are drained of energy. Now that you know this, your job is to fight The Matrix, save humanity, and combine deep philosophical ideas with difficult special effects. No pressure.

4 – The Fun Stuff. We get conceptual here. What if Will Smith is the chosen one, and Val Kilmer guides him to the truth? Ah if only Will understood the concept instead of choosing The Wild Wild West. How do we explain these concepts to people? What if we really are living in a Matrix? What if we are all Keanu Reeves? Whoa. Excellent. He’d be a great savior of humanity, as would you. And since this is the 90s and we have CGI we can do cool stuff with slowing down flying bullets, making people jump way farther than we ever thought possible, and hiding Keanu Reeves’ real life spinal injury (seriously, he was almost paralyzed at one point). We mess with the physical world, because it’s all digital anyway, right?

5 – The Device. The Matrix is a system, screenwriter. That system is our enemy. The Device is the world we live in. Or the world we think we live in. It’s the computer codes creating the world around us, and the war above between human batteries and the beings that use humans for energy. Make sure you and all of your actors read Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard. We won’t read it, but hopefully we will understand it after watching this movie.

6 – The Larry. Laurence Fishburne is the old wise man that helps our hero. The Obi Wan in Star Wars. The Doc Brown in Back to the Future. The Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids. Let’s name him Morpheus, which kind of means “change”, but most people won’t notice that it’s an obvious name even though he is the reason our main character changes.

7 – The Jokes. There are no jokes, only algorithms. Do not try and bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon. It is not the spoon that bends, but only ourselves. It’s not the movie that changes our perceptions, it’s ourselves that give The Matrix its meaning. What makes sense anymore?

8 – The Title. Human Battery sounds too much like an action movie and this is more sci-fi with action elements. Wake Up Humans, This Is The Truth is too preachy. We can get geeky but keep it simple. The Matrix. Math nerds will love it and it is simple enough for humans to remember.

9 – The Ending. You are the chosen one. Save Humanity. Yes you. Go write your script.

10 – The Heart. The Matrix has a heart, just like humans do. It reminds us all that we are the saviors of our own digital realities, and that you are the only one that can write your screenplay.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write The Matrix. The Wachowskis did.

How to Write Rocky

rocky-poster

How to Write Rocky

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Beat yourself up for having “not made it” in Hollywood yet. Write a script in three and a half days after you sell your dog. This is not a story about a winner. It is kind of a story about boxer Chuck Wepner lasting almost a full fifteen rounds against Muhammad Ali unexpectedly in 1975. We settle with Wepner out of court for this little inspiration years later, and you do get to buy your dog back. Phew.

2 – The Genre. Oscar bait. I mean, inspirational drama Oscar bait that gets you a bunch of awards and international recognition. I guess this is a story about a winner. Best Picture winner, to be exact. Ten nominations, Adrian!

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? You’re a loser. A has been. A nobody. You could have been a contender. You gave up on yourself and now beat up dudes to collect money. And all you want to do in life is to get punched repeatedly by the world heavy weight champion in front of millions of television viewers and your new girlfriend Adrian. Also the studio is thinking of casting someone else, an existing star like Robert Redford or Burt Reynolds. Maybe you’ll never make it in Hollywood.

4 – The Fun Stuff. You win the role of Rocky. You would have beaten yourself up if the movie was a success without you in it, but now that you’re in it, you get to beat other people up! The most fun will be getting your butt in gear to a sweet montage. Training like a champion – specifically training like real boxer Joe Frazier – drinking raw eggs, punching dead cow carcasses in a meat locker, jogging up stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum and making them famous with a fist pump. But we can also provide soundtracks to people working out and inspire real life people to run up those stairs while listening to that song and pumping their own fists in the air. Life imitates art, after all.

5 – The Device. World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali, but in the script we call him Apollo Creed. He’s the best, regularly knocking out professional boxers. To gain some more press, Apollo hosts a mock exhibition match against a marketable Southpaw – The Italian Stallion. Apollo gives Rocky the chance to fight him, so while he is the opponent, he is also the savior. I’m not sure Jesus ever asked anyone to fight him for money, but he did provide ways for people to reach their full potentials. So. There’s that.

6 – The Coach. Rocky needs someone who believed in him once but doesn’t believe in him right now but could possibly believe in him again if he got his act together. Burgess Meredith, the guy from one of the most famous episodes of The Twilight Zone – the one where the guy is the last man alive on Earth and just wants to read, but when he finally finds the library he steps on his glasses and can’t read. He doesn’t want to read in this movie, though, he wants to train boxers. It’s just cool that we can afford an actor from The Twilight Zone. And even though we only have a million dollar budget, we can also afford a Coppola.

7 – The Jokes. “Yo, Adrian!” The charm in this movie comes from Rocky’s love for Adrian, played by Francis Ford Coppola’s sister Talia Shire. He really fights for her love by making her laugh with jokes, and then makes love to her after buying animals from her pet store.

8 – The Title. Rocky. Rocky 2. Rocky 3. Rocky 4. Rocky Balboa. Creed. Creed 2. Wow this really is a franchise. Let’s just start with Rocky.

9 – The Ending. You lose the fight, but you last all the rounds. You make it to the end and don’t get taken down by the world heavyweight champion. Sure, you loosely based the story on a real life boxing match, but that script you write in three and half days earns you an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay. Congrats, winner. Even though you didn’t win the Oscar for writing, you do win a career.

10 – The Heart. Rocky wins the heart of Adrian and launches Sylvester Stallone into the hearts of viewers around the world. Sly not only stars in all of the sequels but also writes and directs most of them as well. This really is a story about a winner. And this article is to remind you that Sylvester Stallone is an Academy Award nominated Screenwriter. (Fist pump).

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Rocky. Sylvester Stallone did. Seriously. Rambo wrote Rocky.

How to Write Forgetting Sarah Marshall

How to Write Forgetting Sarah Marshall

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Get dumped while you are naked by the long term girlfriend you met while making a tv show for Judd Apatow. Have Judd Apatow tell you that you’re going to have to write your own movie because you’re just a bit too weird to be cast as a normal leading man. Get Judd Apatow to produce a movie where you and your friends get to spend three months in Hawaii making out with Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis so you can show the fun sexy footage to your ex-girlfriend and millions of other people.

2 – The Genre. Comedy as produced by Judd Apatow. And even though this is weirdly Jason Segel’s real life therapeutic revenge movie, the film itself is a delightful romantic comedy with a great cast in a beautiful setting. Also this is Hollywood history because Jason Segel shows his penis on screen. In a comedy. It’s big. Like, a big deal. For its genre.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? I mean, you just got naked-dumped. So now, you naked-sleep with a bunch of women in Los Angeles, then end up in Hawaii where a hot girl at the front desk takes pity on you and gives you a penthouse suite for free. Wait that doesn’t sound so bad. Oh but you want your ex back and can’t have her and she’s on this island resort with you and her new boyfriend. Also you drink a lot and haven’t finished your Dracula musical yet. Ouch.

4 – The Fun Stuff. We get to see Jason Segel’s dick. It’s a good dick that is important to the story because it is based on true events. We can even name his character Peter to remind everyone that we do in fact see his peter. Dicking around aside, we get to go to Hawaii and make out with attractive people and do comedy bits with our friends! Paul Rudd as a middle-aged surf instructor, Jonah Hill as a waiter obsessed with a rock star, Bill Hader as a voice of reason step-brother, and Jack McBrayer as a virgin that lets us add even more sexual comedy into this sexy comedy. Also let’s make fun of how many people get married or engaged in Hawaii, as to rub the singleness into Jason Segel’s wounds. It is funny when he cries.

5 – The Device. Dracula Musical. Peter is writing a musical with puppets but hasn’t finished it because of his depression or whatever. Is he depressed over the breakup, or did the breakup happen because of his depression? Anyway, you must complete your creative work (like this screenplay) before you can truly win over the person you like, and the creative work is what gets Jason Segel out of the depression. Wow. Okay, Dracula Musical. I guess you’re important.

6 – The Boyfriend. We write him to be a pretentious novelist, but when comedian Russell Brand auditions he wins over the role. Your villain is a rock star who makes silly/sexy songs that you can write yourself if you want more royalties. He becomes a bigger villain when it turns out that not only did your ex dump you for him, she cheated on you with him for a year. Big ouch.

7 – The Jokes. Good thing you have funny friends with improv training that you put in your movie, so you don’t even have to write some of it – just let improvisers make stuff up on set! Oh, and the “the weather outside is weather” joke costs us $90,000 in royalty fees but the joke really hits well with test audiences so we keep it. Oh yeah, we test a lot of the jokes with different audiences before the final cut is released. We are Hollywood professionals.

8 – The Title. “You Suck, Sarah Marshall”. No. “My Mother Always Hated You, Sarah Marshall”. No, but we can put up billboards with similar sentiments up all over town to promote this movie because pictures of Jason’s face don’t test well with audiences. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is memorable as a title.

9 – The Ending. Dracula Musical! Jason stops drinking and finishes his magnum opus in a vampire puppet musical about Dracula and premieres it in Los Angeles. Mila Kunis shows up to see the musical and then his penis! They kiss and prove that Peter really has forgotten what’s her name.

10 – The Heart. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is about Jason Segel getting his shit together. He wrote it about his real life and made a lot of money off of it, so, breakups do pay. In fact, writing a screenplay about your breakup is better than therapy because you get a free trip to wherever you wrote about when you’re done. Smart guy.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Jason Segel did.