How to Write Back to the Future part 3

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How to Write Back to the Future part 3

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Write a sequel so long that you have to make two movies out of it. Call all three films a trilogy because it sounds more professional and less like you couldn’t edit yourself.

2 – The Genre. Different than the first two, actually. What? Yes! This is a Western, mostly, and even partially a Romance! Sure, we have time travel and DeLoreans and promotional agreements with Nike and we eventually do get Back to the Future, but first, Marty becomes a cowboy and finds out Doc can dance with the woman we add to the poster!

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? Since this is the third of a trilogy, the worst that could happen is this movie being terrible. Thank goodness we are seasoned writers by this point and know what we are doing and this movie is great. In order for it to be great, it has to make sense with parts one and two but still have its own story. Same but different. What’s the 1885 version of the skateboarding scene – Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen drags Marty on a noose from horseback through town and hangs him in an attempt to kill him. This ain’t the 1950s anymore. At least we hang Marty in front of the newly built Courthouse, with the Clock nearby so we can show the audience the history of Hill Valley. Let’s just have Marty get saved by the sniper shot from Doc. Sweet. Also, the Back to the Future trilogy could be considered a “time-dash Harold” for all of you improv students out there. Same scene, same location, similar characters, different details from the time period. But this time, the time period is the rough and tumble Old West, so of course our 1885 villain almost instantly kills the 1985 teenager.

4 – The Fun Stuff. The Old West! What’s complicated is also what’s fun! Trains! Horses! Throwing explosives into a ravine to blow stuff up! Cool hats and ponchos and gun fights! But structurally, you get to play with reversing things from part one – Doc warns Marty about the future, they switch who says “This is heavy” and “Great Scott” by the end. Doc is the one that says “I’m from the future, I came here in a time machine that I invented.”, reversing the speech given to him by Marty in part one. You don’t have to write a new movie, just invert the lines from the first one!

5 – The Device. It’s the thing that makes time travel possible. This time it is a train. We’re going back to the “how are we going to get you Back to the Future?” question. It worked and we can answer it again without lightning. Oh, and the studio backlot does not look like the Old West, so we are building an entire Hill Valley 1885 up in Northern California near a train museum that will let us use their locomotive. Ironically, that set gets burnt down after being struck by lightning.

6 – The Clara. Doc gets a lady friend. Finally. School teacher Clara Clayton reveals a softer side of Doctor Emmett. Have Clara wear purple and like science and adore Jules Verne. Oh, and why Jules Verne, author of From the Earth to the Moon, and not H.G. Wells, the author of The Time Machine? Turns out timing. H.G. Wells won’t publish that book for another decade, also it’s a bit too “on the nose” for a time travel movie, and Jules Verne is a delightful reference.

7 – The Jokes. Just like the first two, same but different, but this time, 1885 is different and way more deadly than 1985. Confuse the cowboys with things like Nike, running, Frisbees, and 7-11 jokes. Let’s see if we can get now former President Ronald Reagan to play Mayor of Hill Valley 1885. Oh, he doesn’t remember that he used to be an actor? Sad. Let’s at least get ZZ Top to play at the dance, they’re writing a new song for part three and look like they belong in the Old West anyway.

8 – The Title. A Fistful of Dollars. No, but we make a lot more money that with Back to the Future part 3. That Clint Eastwood movie is just what we pay homage to in the shootout before we send Marty Back to the Future. Part three is where we get to steal all the great scenes and shots from classic Westerns because no one watches Westerns in the late 1980s but can kind of get the references from those old Eastwood movies. Oh and remember to add a third person to the poster, because Back to the Future part 3. Three people.

9 – The Ending. We’ve got to end the Western homage, then we’ve got to save Clara and Doc’s relationship, then we have to get Marty Back to the Future, then we’ve got to destroy the DeLorean, then we’ve got to deal with Marty’s insecurities about being called a chicken, then we have Marty open up emotionally to Jennifer by showing her the destroyed time machine, then boom, another time machine with Doc and his new family. Lots of endings here. But when we are done with all of the endings, make sure people know that this is the end of all Back to the Future movies by putting “The End” after Doc’s train time machine takes off into the screen, as if a tribute to one of the first moving pictures “A Train Leaves the Station” by the Lumiere Brothers. But really, this is The End.

10 – The Heart. “The Future is what you make it, so make it a good one.” Doc gives Marty some good advice. He was the first one that told Marty “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” in part one. While part one is about learning to love your parents, the entire trilogy is about a friendship that stands the test of time.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Back to the Future part 3. Bob Gale did from a story he and Robert Zemeckis developed.

How to Write Titanic

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How to Write Titanic

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Pick a well publicized international disaster. Does not matter if multiple movies have already been made about the disaster. It just has to be a famous disaster. Become obsessed with it to a point that the only way you can fund your love of visiting the tragic site is to make a studio-financed movie about it.

2 – The Genre. Historic drama tragedy romance with a modern twist? Pretty much Romeo and Juliet, but on a real boat in 1912 for a 1997 movie audience.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? The disaster you picked. In this case, the boat sinks after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. People die. Lots of people die. Like, rich and famous people die, as well as lots of poor people and workers trapped in the lower decks, and even some middle-class types. Also, modern-day people actually get hurt during the filming of some of the dangerous stunt scenes, but that won’t stop this sinking ship from winning a history-making eleven Oscars at the Academy Awards and won’t even stop James Cameron from quoting himself when accepting those Oscars. If you really feel like the King of the World, I guess you need to shout it to an ocean of people forced to watch you give a speech.

4 – The Fun Stuff. Leonardo DiCaprio falls in love with Kate Winslet and then dies and falls to the bottom of the ocean after she lets him go. Like we said, this is Romeo and Juliet on a boat, so at least one of the young lovers needs to die. In this case it’s not warring families, it’s separated class systems. A rich girl and a grunt, Director Jim’s favorite thing to write about. There is a rival fiancé and a pushy parent, and an excuse to have our sexy couple do sexy stuff all over this big sexy boat. Oh I guess the sexy stuff is the fun stuff. Leo is dreamy and Kate shows her boobs.

5 – The Device. The thing that the disaster takes place on/with. In this case, the boat, Titanic. It was famous then, it was still famous when James Cameron became obsessed with it to actually visit it in real life. The entire contrived Romeo and Juliet thing is just to get teenage girls to cry and to get people interested in what is actually a history lesson of what happened on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Director Jim knew that in order to get people to care about the boat sinking, the audience had to care about the people on board the boat. It’s as if the Titanic IS Leonardo DiCaprio, sinking to the bottom of the ocean, our Boat/Romeo forever enriching the lives of those who survived. Romantic, ain’t it?

6 – The Diamond. The Heart of the Ocean drives the plot of the modern day story. Old Rose is flown out to meet the surveyors of the Titanic sight to hopefully gain insight on the location of this valuable jeweled necklace after they find a drawing of her wearing it, boobies out. It is the MacGuffin, the thing one of the characters seeks for most of the plot, only to be tossed into the ocean in the end. Not the boobies, the necklace. But both are tied to the villain, Rose’s fiancé Billy Zane, who gives the necklace to her on the ship, probably after feeling her boobies. Why a blue diamond? James Cameron loves the color blue is all. But it also represents the ocean. Heart of the Ocean. Blue. Obviously.

7 – The Jokes. Not so much one-off jokes as it is in the charm of the lead actors, even during the attempted suicide scene when they first meet at the butt of the ship. The comedy is in the embarrassment of spittle upon DiCaprio’s chin, or the prideful pain in Winslet’s bare ballet tippy toes on a beer-covered third class floor, or in sly comments about how Americans don’t have fleas and the third class has hardly any rats. It is 1912, after all. There are only so many jokes that existed back then and it’s important to be historically accurate. You can put a theme of playing cards throughout as a fun add-on. Have Leo win his ticket in a game of cards, give the main characters the colorful card names of Jack (black) and Rose (red). Make the mom remind Rose of how their good name is the only card they have left to play. Playing cards. Those existed in 1912.

8 – The Title. Titanic. It’s the name of the boat. Or the most famous thing about the disaster. Unless it is “too soon” and the disaster was too tragic, then name it something else, like A Night to Remember or The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Or Futility. Wait, that’s the name of the novel about an unsinkable ship that hits an iceberg mid-April called the Titan by author Morgan Robertson released fourteen years before the sinking of the real ship Titanic. Yes, before. True story. Too complicated to include in our movie, though, so just let people find that on the internet on their own. Stick to Romeo and Juliet on a boat and what really happened in 1912 and the simplest title that doesn’t disturb people. Also predict the size of profits you want to make with this film. Titanic.

9 – The Ending. The boat sinks. We knew that. We also knew that Romeo and Juliet died at the end of the story when Shakespeare tells us about it in the opening monologue of his play. It’s not about what happens, it’s about how it happens. The movie Titanic, at three hours and fifteen minutes, especially when seen on the big screen, makes you feel like you are actually on the Titanic during its real life two hour and forty minute sinking. That’s what makes teenage girls like me go see Titanic in theaters five times in three weeks. That, and Leonardo DiCaprio. That’s over sixteen paid hours of watching a boat sink. It felt real. I cried a lot.

10 – The Heart. (will go on). Romeo and Juliet, remember? A love story for the ages, but modernized with today’s hottest actors. Also, James Cameron just tricked you into sitting in a three hour history lesson. You could totally ace a test on the Titanic after watching the movie. I mean, nothing about Jack and Rose or their supporting characters is true, nor is anything that takes place in Bill Paxton’s time, but everything else is historically accurate. Director Jim studied every nook, cranny, photograph, blueprint, artifact, and human story that entered that ship, and paid tribute to it in his film, dropping fictional star-crossed lovers into the historically-accurate background. Oh yeah and there’s a great song written by James Horner for Celine Dion at the end. My Heart Will Go On. As will my love for the movie Titanic. Just looking at the poster makes me want to see it again.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Titanic. James Cameron did.

How to Write Newsies

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How to Write Newsies

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Read up on the real New York City Newsboy strike of 1899. Think, “hey, it’s the 1990s, and people love the 90s again.” or something like that.

2 – The Genre. Drama. That’s how you get Academy Award Winner Robert Duvall, Academy Award Nominee Ann-Margaret, and future Academy Award Winner Christian Bale on board. Once you get them, change it to a Musical Comedy. They can’t get out of the movie because contracts and unions and such. Get Alan Menken from The Little Mermaid to write the songs. Make this the first completely live action musical Disney ever films, and get the choreographer from Dirty Dancing to direct.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? That powerful media villain William Randolph Hearst raises the cost of papers to the newsboys, not to the consumers. He makes his workers pay more to work for him. Disgusting. Let’s also make the main character not have a family and want a family that he thinks he might find in the magical land of Santa Fe.

4 – The Fun Stuff. Unions on Strike! Everyone loves that. I think you change this into a musical after realizing that the drama is just not as fun as the dance sequences. If unions on strike had choreographed dance moves I think a lot more negotiations would happen.

5 – The Device. Music. Newsies would be incredibly boring if it weren’t for the musical sequences. After you’ve seen this movie once, you probably just fast forward through the dramatic scenes and go straight to the dancing boys, no matter how much you claim to love the entire movie. Only the heroes sing, the villains just get plain speaking roles until this gets turned into a Broadway musical two decades later. Ann-Margaret is delightful as a vaudeville star and it re-introduces her to audiences that might not have known her glory otherwise. Sadly, Christian Bale will never sing again after this. But music wins.

6 – The Reporter. We need someone that represents the evil newspapers but is on the side of the striking newsboys. Denton. He can share the newsboys’ stories, then betray them to keep his job, then prove to them how good he is by helping them make their own paper. What a character arc. Good job, Bill Pullman. Maybe you should be President in another movie.

7 – The Jokes. Doogie Howser’s friend Max Casella plays Racetrack, so all of his jokes are about betting. Idina Menzel’s future husband Aaron Lohr plays the sweetie Mush, so he’s just nice the whole time. Gabriel Damon plays Spot Conlon, the teenage ruler of Brooklyn, so there are a lot of mentions to how awesome yet scary Brooklyn can be. And Christian Bale’s accent is captivating.

8 – The Title. The Newsboys Strike of 1899. No. Hearst Jerk. No. Media Unavailable. Ugh, let’s just go with Newsies.

9 – The Ending. The Newsies win by getting to keep working for “the man” for the same price they did at the beginning of the movie. That’s how they win, by being the same. Also some corrupt people go to jail and now Governor Teddy Roosevelt is looking into working conditions of children, so that’s good. And Christian Bale has a family now, even though he never reaches his dream of going to Santa Fe. I like to think that’s where he Honeymoons after Christian Bale marries his best friend’s sister. It’s romantic.

10 – The Heart. Newsies does not do well in its theatrical release. It becomes a cult classic mostly from people like me who record it on VHS from Disney Channel and watch it repeatedly. The songs and choreography are iconic, the actors in it are perfectly cast, and Kenny Ortega proves himself as a director that does way more than High School Musicals.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Newsies. Bob Tzudiker and Noni White did, based off of the real Newsboys strike of 1899. Music by Alan Menken and J.A.C. Redford.

**This is a VHS movie made by the actors while they were filming. It is a spoof comedy about an old actor killing the stars of Newsies called “Blood Drips Heavily on Newsies Square”. It isn’t PG, but it is delightful and proves how much fun these kids had on set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0SmAn5wdbM

How to Write A League of Their Own

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How to Write A League of Their Own

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Have your friend ask you and your buddy to write a script after she watches a documentary about the real women who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.** Also your friend is Penny Marshall, the first woman to direct a movie that generates over $100 million domestic box office (Big), a former tv comedy star (Laverne & Shirley), who has a brother that’s also a comedy star turned huge director (Garry Marshall). All signs this will be a good film, so you both say yes.

2 – The Genre. Nostalgic dramatic comedy that can be considered the best baseball movie ever. And while you might not agree about the best baseball movie, I think we can all agree that watching a sports movie is a better way to spend two hours than watching actual sports. If you’re playing a sport, that’s different. Nothing against sports, it’s just that movies are usually funnier and more dramatic, especially after men stopped wearing those tight short shorts in sports.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? Women learn to love getting paid to play professional baseball and then get threatened to return to the kitchen once the war is over. Wait, the war ending is the worst thing that could happen? Oh also sexism is bad. Let’s add some sibling rivalry because the war ending can’t be the worst. Also please mention that African American women weren’t allowed to play at the time, but show that it’s a shame.

4 – The Fun Stuff. Sisters in sports. Of course you expect there to be rivalry, but you have to play against your own blood in the World Series? That’s tough. Your sister is Geena Davis? Ouch. You play for the opposite team now because you got transferred? This is what sports is all about. It’s not about what team you play for, it’s about winning the game. Or maybe letting your sister win the game. Is it really about winning? Who wins here? Just the audience?

5 – The Device. It is baseball. Specifically, it is the baseball that Dottie drops. The question is, does she do it on purpose? Would you drop the ball to let your little sister win because you love your sister more than you like playing baseball and you can just go home to have baby-making sex with your war hero husband? I would. But the answer is open to interpretation.

6 – The Coach. Let’s make Jimmy Dugan a tribute to Rick from Casablanca – a bitter alcoholic in the 1940s whose glory days are behind him and who loves a talented woman married to another man. We will delete their love scene in the final edit of the film, though.

7 – The Jokes. There is no crying in baseball but that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh during A League of Their Own. Remember that the director is a comedy star with a comedy brother and a bunch of comedy friends she can put in the movie. We can also get away with the line “Avoid the Clap” because kids don’t know about nicknames for STDs. I guess that means that Jimmy Dugan had gonorrhea at one point in his life. Ew.

8 – The Title. Take the title from that documentary Penny made you watch. It’s a good title.

9 – The Ending. Spoiler – Dottie drops the ball, letting her little sister Kit have all the glory during the first ever World Series of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Dottie leaves the game forever, but she goes back for the opening of AAGPL induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame and plays ball to a song that Madonna wrote just for the movie’s ending credits. Oh yeah, Madonna is in this movie. And after Megan Cavanuagh wins over the role as Marla Hooch, we need to find another role for Rosie O’Donnell because she’s funny and really good at baseball. Let’s turn one character into two characters, giving Madonna a best friend.

10 – The Heart. “When are you going to realize how special it was? How much it all meant?” It’s not about winning or losing, it is about being part of something bigger than yourself. The film A League of Their Own is released 50 years after the premiere of the real league. It’s beautiful. Go watch it. Or go write your own baseball movie. Actually, go outside and play catch with a family member.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write A League of Their Own. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel did per the request of the director Penny Marshall, based on a story by Kim Wilson and Kelly Candaele.

**You can watch original documentary for free on Amazon Prime. It is called A League of Their Own – The Documentary. From 1990. Check it out.

How to Write Alien

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How to Write Alien

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Make a movie with your film school buddy John Carpenter called Dark Star that uses a spray-painted beach ball as an alien. Inspire yourself to write a movie with a realistic looking alien.

2 – The Genre. Horror. The last movie you made was a spoof comedy, so just to change it up to make this one scary. Use artwork from H.R. Giger as inspiration for the alien and the sets.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? You are stuck on a spaceship with a hungry alien. But how does the alien get on board the ship? Once you figure that out, the rest of this realistic alien movie will fill itself in. How about non-consensual-face-impregnation? Sorry for using that word, but that’s what happens. Now we can put a lot of sexual imagery in because a man gets impregnated after an unfortunate encounter with an alien face rapist. I mean face hugger. I mean non-consensual-face-impregnator.

4 – The Fun Stuff. “I didn’t steal Alien from anybody. I stole it from everybody.” – Dan O’Bannon. Go ahead and take ideas from old films, like The Thing From Another World (1951), Forbidden Planet (1956), Planet of the Vampires (1965), Junkyard (1953), and Strange Relations (1960), among others. You can even pitch this as “Jaws in space”. You can tell your actors some of what’s going to happen in the chest bursting scene, but you’ll get a real reaction if they don’t know how much blood will be thrown on them during filming. Super fun.

5 – The Device. The alien has to be scary. Let’s give it acid for blood, so if you spill its acid-blood, it may burn through the walls of your spaceship and also kill you. Good defense mechanism. Let’s also give it double jaws, a mouth within a mouth. Like we said, this is Jaws in space, so it needs more jaws than that shark. Two Jaws. And of course the only way it can reproduce is by face hugging a trespassing human, growing inside that human, and then bursting out of the chest killing that human. Let’s make alien childbirth disgusting and scary to men.

6 – The Ripley. Write a badass survivor named Ripley. Make him smart. Make him always correct, so if you listened at all to Ripley’s advice there would be no movie. Make him a her. Wait what? Ripley is a lady now? Ew. Who made that decision? Oh, the director. You may write Ripley as a man in the original script but some guy named Ridley Scott will change the gender as a way to give this perfect character a flaw. Being a woman is the only thing wrong with Ripley. Being Sigourney Weaver is everything right with Ripley.

7 – The Jokes. Kill the funniest characters off first, please. The crew is made up of working class types, so of course they have senses of humor. It gets less funny the more people are killed off, though. It’s only respectful. Also, put a cat in to ease some of the tension. People like cats.

8 – The Title. While Star Beast sounds pretty scary, you use the word alien in the script a lot, and alien is both a noun and an adjective. Alien. Yeah. It will make for great opening credits. Also, even though the tagline “in space no one can hear you scream” looks great on a poster, this movie is made way after the silent era so we actually do need to hear all of the screaming.

9 – The Ending. Blow the alien out of the damned airlock, but only after Ripley blows up the huge spaceship Nostromo and takes off on the small escape ship. Make sure the cat survives. Save the Cat, as Blake Snyder recommends in his screenwriting book.

10 – The Heart. Alien is a movie about men being scared of getting pregnant by a realistic looking alien. It’s terrifying. And of course, the only human that survives is a woman. That’s big for 1979.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Alien. Dan O’Bannon did from a story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shussett. Producers David Giler and Walter Hill add the character of Ash as an android.

How to Write Any Indiana Jones Movie

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How to Write Any Indiana Jones Movie

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Make sandcastles on the beach while escaping the fans of your latest popular movie. Tell your buddy about this adventurer named after your dog that you thought of before you wrote Star Wars, and convince him to direct it and all the sequels. Easy enough.

2 – The Genre. Watch what is called a “B movie”. See more than one. What’s cool is that you can borrow a bunch of scenes from all those B movies you watched because the time you live in doesn’t have the internet**, so no one can reference what you’re taking from and they think you are original. “Homage” is a legally accepted term for stealing.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? Nazis. Trust me, put Nazis as the villains in your Indiana Jones movie or it won’t be good. Remember that the hero is only as good as the villain is bad.

4 – The Fun Stuff. This is where you put all of your favorite references. That boulder chase from a Scrooge McDuck comic. The hat and jacket from something Charlton Heston wore once. Let’s put something from Casablanca in – the original female love interest can be an alcoholic bar owner, just like Rick, and let’s make the scenes in her bar pay “homage” to that classic film. Also anytime Marion Ravenwood isn’t drinking, we can put a monkey on her back. It gets really fun if you just talk with your movie friends about all the fun stuff you want to put in and have an actual screenwriter write it.***

5 – The Device. This is the thing that the villains want. It is old. It might be referenced in a major religious text, it might just be a myth that you heard from your dentist as a kid. It doesn’t really matter what the actual object is, whether it is a “radio for speaking to God” or the cup that “brings eternal life”. We all know that Indiana Jones just leads the villains to the object and they destroy themselves with it in some cinematically impressive way. Spoilers.

6 – The Adventurer. Ironically, you don’t actually need Indiana Jones to make a good Indiana Jones movie. You just need a good object that people understand and a bad villain that people don’t understand because they don’t speak American. Indiana Jones is just the go-between for the object and the villain. But since we need someone on the poster, and Tom Selleck won’t shave his mustache, let’s put our buddy Harrison Ford in. He’s scruffy looking. He could use more work, I’m sure.

7 – The Jokes. Of course it is funny, this is supposed to be a cheesy B movie. Let’s put comedy in the reactions character’s have to snakes, spiders, boulders, and using a gun in a sword fight.

8 – The Title. Indiana Jones and… a mystical object. Also you might have to change the name of the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to include Indiana Jones, but only after it goes to VHS. After that just stick to the Indiana Jones and….formula. It works.

9 – The Ending. The villain destroys itself because it hasn’t earned the right to use found magical object. Indiana Jones survives because he knows how to respect the object. It’s best if you say something fun like “don’t look at it” to an audience that has to watch it in order to know what happens. Super fans close their eyes during that scene. Don’t look at the Ark or your face will melt. Challenge accepted.

10 – The Heart. This rough and tumble version of James Bond is fun to watch. It might even contain some mystical knowledge left behind from aliens centuries ago that only the top minds get to encounter. What do we do with any Indiana Jones movie? Let’s not store them away in a box. Let’s go watch them again.

*L.A. Zvirbulis has not written any Indiana Jones movie. Not yet, at least.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – screenplay written by Lawrence Kasdan from a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – screenplay by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz from a story by George Lucas. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade – screenplay by Jeffrey Boam from a story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes. Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – screenplay by David Koepp from a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson.

**Here’s a link to a side-by-side comparison of Raiders of the Lost Ark and other movies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns8bG9AbfwM

***Here’s a link to the transcript of George, Steven, and Larry talking about story ideas for Raiders of the Lost Ark. http://maddogmovies.com/almost/scripts/raidersstoryconference1978.pdf

How to Write Groundhog Day

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How to Write Groundhog Day

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Pick a holiday that doesn’t have its own movie yet. Got one? Cool.

2 – The Genre. Take your vague yet thought-provoking “what if you repeated the same day over and over again?” idea and make it have something to do with this holiday you just picked. Fill it in with details of that neglected holiday. Make it take place in a funny sounding town that famously celebrates the holiday. Name your main character after the only animal that celebrates the holiday. Give that character the same weather-predicting job as that animal and send him to the funny town to join in all the celebrations. This is a holiday movie, after all.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? This time it’s not death. Usually threatening the main character’s life is considered “high stakes” but not if your character can’t die because he is repeating the same day over and over again as some sort of lesson to find happiness. Turns out the worst thing that can happen is not getting Andie MacDowell to fall in love with you.

4 – The Fun Stuff. It gets really fun once Bill Murray figures out there are no consequences in tomorrow to what he does today. Just think of all the things an unrestrained Bill Murray could do, like drunk driving, multiple suicides, and getting random women to sleep with him. Also put Bill Murray in your movie.

5 – The Device. A groundhog. No. A clock? Maybe. A song. Yes! How do you indicate that we are starting the same day over again? Sonny and Cher, no less. Hearing a pair of ex-lovers sing “I Got You, Babe” is a great way to start the day and we won’t mind hearing it over and over again.

6 – The Phil. Put Bill Murray in your movie as Phil but don’t expect him to remain friends with the director after filming, no matter how many good movies they made together before this. Also don’t expect the groundhogs acting in the movie to like Bill Murray, either, so make sure he gets tetanus shots. And definitely don’t think that you can actually cast the real Punxsutawney Phil as the groundhog because you aren’t filming in Pennsylvania for tax reasons and the town isn’t pleased.

7 – The Jokes. The comedy isn’t in one-off jokes. The comedy is in seeing our main character in the same situations but doing them differently each time. Just ask Ned Ryerson. Audiences love repetition, because it sets up some sort of familiarity. Audiences love repetition, it makes things easier to remember. Audiences love repetition, but not too much, unless, of course, the entire premise of your movie is repetition.

8 – The Title. It’s easiest if you just stick to the name of the holiday. That’s why you picked a holiday that doesn’t have its own movie.

9 – The Ending. Phil sleeps with Andie MacDowell, but he loves her so it’s okay.

10 – The Heart. “Is there anything I can do for you today?” You guys, Phil stops seeing his shadow and starts seeing the light inside of himself. Whoa. Phil finds happiness by learning how to treat others well and changes his attitude on life. People will write articles about how there are religious truths in this silly comedy that you wrote about a neglected holiday. Maybe we do all just repeat the same day…

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Groundhog Day. David Rubin and Harold Ramis did.

**Here’s an article about interpretations of the movie Groundhog Day – http://mentalfloss.com/article/55243/8-creative-interpretations-groundhog-day

How to Write Back to the Future

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How to Write Back to the Future

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Go home to visit your parents. Snoop through their old stuff. Find your Dad’s high school yearbook and ask fun questions like, “Would I be friends with my Dad if we were the same age at the same time?” Good question. Good movie idea. Thanks, Dad.

2 – The Genre. The easiest way for a teenager to meet his parents as teenagers is to go back in time. Voila! A time travel movie with some comedy and cool special effects and maybe some incest if we are lucky. Now what?

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? If you meet your parents before they are your parents – well, you may accidentally prevent them from becoming your parents, thus endangering your own existence. Whoopsies. And just to clear something up, make sure that Marty never “has the hots” for his Mom. It’s his teenage Mom that has the hots for her son! Get it right, comedians. And I’d rather sit in a car with my yet to be born teenage son than that bully Biff any day. Also, please remember you can name villains in your movie after people you don’t like in real life.

4 – The Fun Stuff. Skateboarding and Rock & Roll, baby. Have Marty invent things that eventually become popular but maybe let’s not be too culturally inappropriate (sorry, Chuck Berry). Where do you put the two most fun scenes? The midpoint and just before the climax (the climax being Marty actually going “Back to the Future”). Then you have to show that Marty knows how to skateboard and play the guitar in the 1980s, so add a couple set-up scenes. Wow, we have four scenes already!

5 – The Device. A refrigerator. No. A car. A cool car. A DeLorean. Yeah. Super cool. You can make stuff up like “the flux capacitor is what makes time travel possible” because you’re the writer and don’t have to explain it beyond that. Also make up some rules, like plutonium, 1.21 jigawatts, and 88 miles per hour. Make it leave flames in its tire tracks and fly at the end. Yeah.

6 – The Doc. Once we have Marty, his parents, and the time machine, now we need someone who can actually operate said time machine that is an adult in both time periods. Someone Marty can go to for help that isn’t family. Super convenient if the inventor of the time machine is also friends with modern Marty, and just so happens to have thought of the flux capacitor the day this strange Future Boy shows up in the past. That’s why Doc is so much older than Marty, people. It’s not weird. It’s efficient screenwriting.

7 – The Jokes. Even sci-fi period-piece family films need some comedy. Keep the jokes in the same “game”. For those of you who haven’t started Improv 201 yet, the game is the one weird, hopefully funny thing in a scene that gets played over and over again. In this case, it is generational differences. The future President used to be a B-List actor. Asking for a Pepsi Free is an insult when a tab wasn’t a Tab and the only drink without sugar was coffee. Saying “Daddy-O” is an easy way to cover up for accidentally calling your new teenage friend Dad. There are so many jokes in the “generational differences” game, so just keep ‘em coming, like reruns.

8 – The Title. You know exactly what happens from the title. Marty gets Back to the Future. It’s perfect and nobody cares that it gives away the ending. And while a studio exec might suggest the title “Spaceman From Pluto” by reminding us that Marty’s Dad is actually the protagonist who changed his life after being visited by an alien, stick to your wits. How can you go “Back” to the “Future”? Makes you think. Makes you spend money to go back to see the movie again.

9 – The Ending. Write what you will, but things will change when filming starts. The studio doesn’t care that you wrote the best ending of all time – a DeLorean driving into the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb test site. It makes sense for the time period. It’s gonna look great on film. It’s going to be incredibly expensive. So when money must be saved, writers gotta change. Use some place you have for free, like the backlot of the studio that you’re already using. Perfect. Take an ending from a movie you wrote previously that no one really saw. Awesome. Put the inventor of time travel inside of a clock and then let a fortunately timed lightning strike be the hand of God that saves everything. Great.

10 – The Heart. Back to the Future is a movie about a teenager who learns how to like his parents. It answers the original inspiring question “Would I be friends with my Dad if we were the same age at the same time?” Yes. But only after fixing his life for him. Thanks, Dad, and you’re welcome.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Back to the Future. Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis did.