ScriptShadow: What We Can Learn from Five Box Office Surprises (Part Two)

A while back, I wrote an article about surprise box office hits and what we as screenwriters can learn from them. I love trying to figure out why some movies succeed and others fail, and especially how those successes and failures relate to screenwriting, so I thought it would be fun to tackle a new batch of films and see if we couldn't gleam a few lessons from them. 

Now I'll reiterate the obvious. Directing and marketing and star power are huge factors in why movies do well at the box office. But it all starts with the screenplay. Every trailer, every poster, every marketing campaign, every great acting performance – all of those things stem from the screenplay. It's with that spirit that I bring you my second installment of five surprise hits and what we can learn from them as screenwriters.



THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Rough Projected Gross: 45-50 mil
Actual Gross: 95 mil
Written by: Aaron Sorkin

What We Can Learn:

I'll give you the first trick to getting your movie to overperform. Cast Jesse Eisenberg. No really. If you remember, he was in one of the films from the last list (Zombieland). But seriously, the success of The Social Network was one of the bigger surprises of 2010. 

I remember leading up to the film's release a lot of nervous people close to the project wondering how a dark look at a shiny new Internet tool was going to play to the masses. Who the hell in Omaha Nebraska wants to watch a 20-year-old kid become a billionaire and whine about it? Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. But that's the thing. That's the exact reason why people showed up. 

Irony. 

Don't believe me? I want you to go to any piece of marketing material you can find for The Social Network. Find me one shot or one video clip of the main character, Mark Zuckerberg, smiling. You can't can you? That's because there isn't one. 

The Social Network is about a young man who made 50 billion dollars and is unhappy. That doesn't make sense. Rich people are supposed to have it all. The cars, the houses, the vacations. So when we see the richest 20 something in the world looking miserable, there's a mystery there that we want answered. And let's not forget that this is a man who created a network of 500 million "friends," who's himself friendless. 

So we have two high level uses of irony in play here, and in both cases, they're used to create a compelling dynamic main character. That's important to remember. You come to The Social Network to see the person, not to be wowed by the plot. The Social Network, as a film, actually has a funky narrative structure. It's not always easy to follow and it doesn't reward you in the same way a traditionally structured movie would. But you watch because the main character is so interesting. 

So before you go out and you write your next screenplay, try to come up with the most intriguing main character you can. Whether you use irony or not is up to you but you better find a way to make him as interesting as possible. 

BRIDESMAIDS
Rough Projected Gross: 45-55 million
Actual Gross: 167 million
Writers: Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig

What We Can Learn: 

Talk about a movie that came out of nowhere. I still remember when Deadline Hollywood was reporting that this thing would make 13 bucks on opening weekend. The argument was that nobody wanted to leave the safety of their homes to watch women burp and fart. They were wrong. Audiences were begging this movie to give them as many noises from as many orifices as possible. 

The thing is, this film just as easily could have disappeared into one of those orifices. I mean it had no real stars. It didn't even have a hook. At least with The Hangover, there was a neat concept driving the story. This is just a bunch of bridesmaids, which last time I checked you could find every other hour on E!. 

So why did it work? I think I know. And it shouldn't be that shocking. It's the characters. 

But unlike The Social Network, where it was more about creating one giant captivating character, the feat in Bridesmaids was how much effort they put into all the characters. Normally, in these types of movies, the main character is pretty well defined. That's what the screenwriting books drum into your head. Make sure your main character rocks. But most books stop there. 

When it comes to the secondary characters, they could care less. But what I've found is that you can usually separate the wheat from the chaffe by how much effort a writer puts into their secondary characters. That's where the real work comes in. 

It's so easy to just give a secondary character a minor quirk and then move on. It's hard to sit down and spend just as much time trying to figure them out as you would a protagonist. However, by doing that extra work, your script always shines brighter. 

That's what Bridesmaids got right. Every character here was extensively thought through. Kristin Wigg's character was the unlucky in love girl who always found herself with the wrong man. Maya Rudolph's character was the stoic steady-as-a-rock best friend. Rose Byrne's character was the bitter sad stepmom trying to hide behind a false smile. Melissa McCarthy's character was the crazy happy go lucky overly optimistic even when she has no reason to be character. 

I read tons of comedies where the drop-off after the main character is so steep, it's as if the writer just gave up in hopes that some hilarious comedian would be cast and make the role funny. But as you know, there's nothing uglier than a comedian in a thinly written role trying to do a song and a dance to make up for how undefined the character is. If you don't believe me, go watch Night At The Roxbury.



THE KING'S SPEECH 
Rough Projected Gross: 25-45 million
Actual Gross: 135 million
Writer: David Seidler

What We Can Learn:

Raise your hand if you predicted before The King's Speech came out that the movie would gross over 100 million dollars. Anyone? Anyone?

To be honest, I'm surprised that all of these movies did so well. But a stuffy British costume drama rocking the box office was particularly surprising. People say the adult drama is dead, but you wouldn't know it if you counted the box office receipts from 2010.

So then what is it that made this film such a surprise success? Well, I've talked about it before. The King's Speech utilizes two of the most time-tested and well-worn story devices out there.

The first is the underdog. Stories always work when they have a good underdog in the lead role. You can sell an underdog story to anybody - doesn't matter if they're 7 or 77, especially if it's true. Seeing and enjoying people overcome adversity is in our moviegoing DNA.

The other device is the crazy mentor. I use the word "crazy" loosely, but people are just really familiar with that kind of character and love seeing them operate. But I think The King's Speech took it one step further and added - yes, there's that word again – irony. In this case, the situation allowed a nobody to stand up and demand things from the King of England.

There's just something funny and ironic about a peasant ordering around a King. Anyway, the combination of these two well tested tools are what made a stuffy period piece one of the sexier box office hits of the year. Yes I just used the word "sexy" in conjunction with The King's Speech. 



BLACK SWAN
Rough Projected Gross: 20-30 million
Actual Gross: 110 million
Writer: Mark Heyman

What We Can Learn:

This is a great movie to study for today's purposes because every movie Darren Aronofsky had made up until this point had been a box office dud. His biggest film, The Wrestler, made only $26 million. So there was really no reason to believe Black Swan would do any better. In fact, with our subject matter dressed snugly in a leotard, it can be argued that this movie would've been lucky to hit the $10 million mark. 

So then what was the difference? Why did this one succeed when all the others failed? You're lucky you tuned in into Scriptshadow today because I'm going to tell you. Whereas before, Aronofsky chose stories with broad unclear narratives (Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, even The Wrestler had a bumpy throughline), Black Swan had one of the cleanest narratives of the year. 

The main character has the crystal clear goal of maintaining the lead actress role in her play until opening-night. Nipping at her scuffed heels is her evil understudy. How do you get cleaner than "Get to the end of the maze before the villain defeats you." That doesn't mean there weren't complex aspects to the story. We still got some trippy dream sequences and plenty of hallucinations. However, the objective was never in question. The stakes were never in question. We understood every story point clearly. And that's something Aronofsky didn't do in the past.

So I think this is a great lesson. Remember that when you're writing independent fare, you're fighting an uphill appeal battle. It's in your interest to make elements of your story clean and easy to understand. If you can nudge your narrative closer to a popular genre, like Aronofsky did here by making Black Swan a thriller, you can stay true to your indie roots yet still draw in a big audience. Oh, and it also doesn't hurt to add a sex scene between your two lead female characters.



INCEPTION
Rough Projected Gross: 90-120 million
Actual Gross: 292 million
Writer: Christopher Nolan

What We Can Learn:

I remember reading an article about this last month. In it, a reporter noted that Inception was a box office shock of epic proportions. Warner Bros. had made the movie to keep Christopher Nolan happy between Batman films. They had no idea it would become as big as it did. 

So the writer of the article was interested in how the success of the film was going to change the moviegoing landscape. What was Hollywood going to do about this? The answer? Nothing. They just watched a sleeper film become a $300 million behemoth and had no idea what to do with it.

Now I've made my feelings clear about this film. I think it's really flawed. Regardless of that, I believe the box office for Inception is trying to tell Hollywood something.

People want more challenging big budget fare. This may sound contradictory to what I just said about Black Swan. But actually I think the statement is complementary. Independent films need more audience friendly storylines. Big-budget films need more challenging storylines.

Hollywood is confused by this because it thinks audiences only want one or the other. I believe audiences are getting sick of the comic book movies and the mash up movies and the movies based on rides and the movies based on toys. They go to these films and feel empty afterwards.

At least when you left Inception, you thought about something. You talked about it with your friends. And those are the kinds of conversations that get people back into the theater a second and third time.

I think Hollywood is really missing out on the bigger picture here. The thing that the Internet has done is it's allowed conversations about movies to be had by millions. But Hollywood keeps giving these people movies that aren't worth talking about.

Now I know that Disney VP just came out with a statement proclaiming that story doesn't matter when you're making a tentpole flick, and pointed to the terribly written billion-dollar earner Alice In Wonderland as an example. I think there will always be a market for high concept well marketed family fare. But I also think that there's an appetite from the more serious moviegoers for big budget tentpole films that also make you think.

The thing is, those movies aren't being written. And the truth is there just isn't a lot of material out there that teaches writers how to successfully write these kinds of movies. You have to balance the challenging aspects of your screenplay with the high concept marketability of a big-budget picture. If you get too esoteric or "out there" than the movie no longer becomes thoughtful. It just becomes confusing.

Using our previous director as an example, Aronofsky wanted to make The Fountain for 100 million bucks. There's a good chance the box office for that film would've topped out at $10 million.

So really, it's up to you guys to figure this out. It's up to you guys to come up with these concepts that balance the two extremes. As always, it begins with the screenwriter. So get the fuck off Scriptshadow and start writing. 

ScriptShadow: What We Can Learn from Five Box Office Surprises (Part Two)

Things I learned while co-writing Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul | Peter D. Marshall

1) Myth and secrecy are rampant in the film industry. No wonder no one knows the true state of the industry or what to base their decisions off of! Filmmakers won't talk (or their investors won't let them) about how much is spent making their films because they are trying to get a sales agent or distributor interested in buying it and paying as much upfront as possible, but how can anyone possibly know what is achievable and what is fantasy?

Secrecy in the industry is probably not really a revelation to you, but by holding back information in the hope of sales that mostly aren't materializing, it keeps anyone from really knowing what budget level films should be made at if recoupment is part of the plan. Solid decisions, both by filmmakers and by investors, can't really be made if no one knows the truth, both about the budgets and about the profit.

2) A realistic budget level for indie films. In order for an indie film using a hybrid or DIY strategy to see recoupment and possibly more, the production AND marketing and distribution budget must stay low. Based on our case studies, that number is below $200,000. Films that went over this budget level were far less likely to recoup within the first 2 years of release, none of the cases over this amount in the book have recouped in full yet.

3) Marketing and distribution are the production's responsibility and must be part of the budget. Many of our cases did not plan or budget for taking on this expense from inception and were caught in that familiar scene of thinking a distributor would be found and scrambling to make a plan and raise more money to implement it when low offers or no offers materialized. Over and over again our participants noted they could see now why it was important to think about this work, they remarked on how big of a job this is and that they would need to get some help on board much earlier in the process, and why a clearly defined audience was important to maximizing their efforts at reaching them.

4) Financial gain is not always the main goal. This was particularly true for the subjects of my chapter who are using file sharing sites to distribute work. Most of them were first time filmmakers and mainly they are interested in reaching the widest audience possible for the least cost and building names for themselves that could be used to get attention from the industry. Publicity and word of mouth play a huge part in this. Most of the time when filmmakers say they want to reach the "widest audience possible" what they mean is they want to make the most money possible.

Those 2 things do not always go hand in hand and it is especially so for complete unknowns. For filmmakers who have very little financial resources to reach wide audiences, it is better to spend as little budget as possible to make the content and spend a lot of time engaging with audiences and figuring out how to cost effectively distribute the work.

5) The importance of research before you sign with anyone. With the internet as pervasive as it is, there is no reason not to do your due diligence before you sign a contract, including research on sales agents and distributors. Don't just rely on a company website to inform you of their reputations or a few media write ups of some well known films they handled. Really take the time to contact a cross section of their client accounts and see if you are getting the clear picture.

You should also know what all the terms of your contract mean and don't be rushed to sign because your big premiere is happening. If you have someone on board who is solely responsible for the marketing and distribution of your film, have them get samples of contracts and really understand what you will be agreeing to, what you can negotiate, how you can terminate if the agreement isn't being followed and how to protect yourself should the company go bankrupt.

Things I learned while co-writing Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul |  Peter D. Marshall

Transmedia & the Future of Filmmaking | NYPress - Zachary Wigon

Forget 3-D —interactive media is the next wave of entertainment.

There are a lot of theories as to why the movie business isn't what it used to be. The financial crisis of 2008 significantly lessened private equity's desire to sink investments into films, independent and otherwise. A number of great indie and semi-indie distributors (Warner Independent, Picturehouse, THINKFilm) have gone out of business in recent years, leaving the ratio of independent films made to those bought at an all-time low. And most of the lucky films that do land a distribution deal get one- or two-week runs in a handful of cities scattered across the country and then go to die on VOD, as most independent distributors lack the finances to allot them even the most basic P&A budgets. Yet the problem, as evinced by across-the-board domestic box office ticket sales figures, has a far simpler answer: People simply aren't going to the movies as much as they used to.

Cinema was the dominant art form of the 20th century but, much as theater and classical music before fell out of favor with younger generations, so, too, is film beginning to go through a cultural outmoding. Thanks to Web 2.0, the Internet has shifted from utility status to something more akin to an entertainment form itself, and art forms don't get outmoded without reason—they get outmoded because they're replaced. Of course, the Internet isn't fully developed as an entertainment source yet; surfing Facebook is fun, but it's not the kind of experience that sitting back and watching a movie is. And while one can watch movies online with ease, one gets the feeling that it will take an art form endemic to the net's properties to change the way we consume entertainment.

Enter the "transmedia" movement. A cinema/digital media hybrid anchored in filmmaking, this new brand of storytelling is defined by works that combine the typical moviegoing experience with more interactive elements, enabled by new media tools. There's no standard formula for making a transmedia work—the field is too young to have ossified in form yet—so the new medium is being produced in varying iterations.

More... 
Transmedia & the Future of Filmmaking | NYPress - Zachary Wigon

Writing and decision fatigue | John August

This past weekend consisted of three long days of meetings and work sessions for the Big Fish musical; Sunday went fourteen hours. I had a hunch that late in the day wasn't the best time to introduce a new song, and now science has my back:

No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can't make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It's different from ordinary physical fatigue — you're not consciously aware of being tired — but you're low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice. Ducking a decision often creates bigger problems in the long run, but for the moment, it eases the mental strain.

Writing involves a dozen choices every sentence, a thousand every scene.

Discussing material with producers and a director means understanding and deciding between myriad possible options — and the more people in the conversation, the more choices to consider.

And casting? Exhausting. It feels like it should be one of the easiest parts of production — you're not doing anything, just sitting there and listening — but it wears you out. I've been through casting on five projects, and each time I'm amazed how tough it is. You're trying to compare the actor you just saw versus the actor you saw yesterday versus the actor who won't audition.

The article explains that sugar (glucose) is one of the quickest ways to restock your willpower supply. That's why writers get fat.

Writing and decision fatigue | John August

People don’t want invulnerable heroes - Brad Bird - LA Times

Excerpts:

I would not say that we ever have  have completely locked scripts [at the beginning of the animating work]; they are in the process of being remade as the film is in the works. There are some films like "Toy Story 2″ and "Ratatouille"  where it is really last minute, chaos reigning, trying to get the stuff ready for the animators so no one was sitting idle and drawing a paycheck.

There's no secret at Pixar, but there is a belief in letting people pursue something with passion and take chances, and most of Hollywood, really, doesn't like that. It's too scary. Some studio executives will say they love obsessive creators who take risks, but really most of them would rather play it safe.

To make something really great and different and interesting means taking risks and following these ideas in your head.

If you worry too much about that, you're just bound to fail. You have to kind of go into stories with a strong sort of "I'm doing this" sort of attitude, or else it comes off as sort of tiptoeing.

Part of the reason "Die Hard" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and things like that work so well is that the actors really get that people don't want invulnerable heroes. It's far more interesting to see heroes who are afraid and then go ahead anyway.

One of things that people get wrong is they toss off too many witty comments — and this isreally true in animation — and we tried to avoid that like the plague in "The Incredibles." When you're in danger, be in danger, don't be making wisecracks and tossing things off. You don't need to be sweating and crying but at least show that you're worried. 

The trouble we have in animation is that the medium itself encourages the audience to believe that people can't be hurt.

The challenge was showing people that do amazing things but still have feeling.

You know, in the prologue of the film, there's a moment when Mr. Incredible positions himself in front of a hurtling train and, for a fleeting second, he winces. "It's quick, maybe a second long, but it's a shot to tell everyone that 'This is going to hurt.' Those little touches, if you are diligent about them, they get the audience really involved, because that's the reality that they know. This is blown often with superheroes.

Brad Bird: Hollywood isn't brave enough to copy Pixar process | Hero Complex – movies, comics, fanboy fare – latimes.com

Reader Question: How and when is it okay to use voiceover narration? | Scott Myers (GITS)

Narration is generally considered a no-no in screenwriting, but some films have made magnificent use of it (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, for one). Do you have any tips as to when and how to use narration?

There does seem to be a conventional wisdom in Hwood against narration. My guess is execs and producers think it can represent sloppy writing per the axiom, "Show it, don't say it." 

However consider this list of movies: 

A Clockwork Orange 

Forrest Gump 

The Shawshank Redemption 

Fight Club 

Apocalypse Now 

Sunset Blvd. 

Double Indemnity 

Trainspotting 

American Beauty 

Stand By Me 

Platoon 

The Big Lebowski 

To Kill A Mockingbird 

Lolita 

Babe 

A Christmas Story 

Each of these movies uses voiceover narration and that's just a list off the top of my head. 

So what can we glean from this list? 

1. When the narrator ties together a story that takes place over a long span of time. Movies that make several time-jumps and cover several years -- like Forrest Gump and The Shawshank Redemption -- can benefit from a narrator V.O. Hell, they probably wouldn't work if they didn't use narration. 

2. When the narrator provides a distinctive personality (read: entertainment value), ala The Big Lebowski and A Christmas Story. The narrators in these two movies offer some of the most entertaining moments along the way. 

3. When the narrator can help to establish a mystery upfront like American Beauty and Sunset Blvd. In both cases, the narrator foretells in the movies' opening scenes the Protagonist's impending death. 

Other than that, when I look at that list, I see movies where the narrator offers deep insight into the Protagonist's inner world, revelations that might not be made as well through action and dialogue -- Platoon, Fight Club, A Clockwork Orange, Trainspotting, Apocalypse Now, Lolita -- each a journey into dark psychological places, where the narration is both revelatory in content and evocative in tone. 

As it is, even without voiceover narration, scripts have a Narrative Voice, evidenced in the language of scene description, the nature of scene transitions, the pacing of scenes, and so on. For more on that, you can go here for an article I wrote for Screentalk magazine. 

I guess the question boils down to whether your story benefits from taking that Narrative Voice, which is invisible in most scripts, and giving 'life' to it in the form of V.O.. Given Hwood's apparent disaffection for this narrative device, you'd have to have a genuinely compelling reason, like those listed above, for using narration. 

What does everybody else think? And what other notable movies use narration? 

UPDATE: Here is a comment from one of my students in the most recent online screenwriting course I took, her recollections of what Robert McKee had to say about using narration:

Can you strip out every bit of VO and still understand the story? Is the script moving without the VO? Coherent? Is the plot the same? If the answer is yes to all of these, then you can keep the VO. That means you aren't relying on VO to tell/clarify/explain the story, but are using the VO (if well-written) to add new depth, perhaps even contrast, to the story. You are using VO as an effect element of characterization and world-creation, not as a crutch to keep a lame plot hobbling along.

Perhaps that's the easiest way to decide: By using voiceover narration, are you adding something of value to the story, not just relying on it to facilitate a "lame plot?"

[Originally posted October 26, 2009]

Reader Question: How and when is it okay to use voiceover narration? | Scott Myers (GITS)

What's it like to have your film flop at the box office? | Sean Hood

Don't they know how bad it is before it comes out?

When you work "above the line" on a movie (writer, director, actor, producer, etc.) watching it flop at the box office is devastating. I had such an experience during the opening weekend of Conan the Barbarian 3D.

A movie's opening day is analogous to a political election night. Although I've never worked in politics, I remember having similar feelings of disappointment and disillusionment when my candidate lost a presidential bid, so I imagine that working as a speechwriter or a fundraiser for the losing campaign would feel about the same as working on an unsuccessful film.

One joins a movie production, the same way one might join a campaign, years before the actual release/election, and in the beginning one is filled with hope, enthusiasm and belief. I joined the Conan team, having loved the character in comic books and the stories of Robert E. Howard, filled with the same kind of raw energy and drive that one needs in politics. 

Any film production, like a long grueling campaign over months and years, is filled with crisis, compromise, exhaustion, conflict, elation, and blind faith that if one just works harder, the results will turn out all right in the end. During that process whatever anger, frustration, or disagreement you have with the candidate/film you keep to yourself. Privately you may oppose various decisions, strategies, or compromises; you may learn things about the candidate that cloud your resolve and shake your confidence, but you soldier on, committed to the end. You rationalize it along the way by imagining that the struggle will be worth it when the candidate wins.

A few months before release, "tracking numbers" play the role in movies that polls play in politics. It's easy to get caught up in this excitement, like a college volunteer handing out fliers for Howard Dean. (Months before Conan was released many close to the production believed it would open like last year's The Expendables.) As the release date approaches and the the tracking numbers start to fall, you start adjusting expectations, but always with a kind of desperate optimism. "I don't believe the polls," say the smiling candidates.

You hope that advertising and word of mouth will improve the numbers, and even as the numbers get tighter and the omens get darker, you keep telling yourself that things will turn around, that your guy will surprise the experts and pollsters. You stay optimistic. You begin selectively ignoring bad news and highlighting the good. You make the best of it. You believe.

In the days before the release, you get all sorts of enthusiastic congratulations from friends and family. Everyone seems to believe it will go well, and everyone has something positive to say, so you allow yourself to get swept up in it. 

You tell yourself to just enjoy the process. That whether you succeed or fail, win or lose, it will be fine. You pretend to be Zen. You adopt detachment, and ironic humor, while secretly praying for a miracle.

The Friday night of the release is like the Tuesday night of an election. "Exit polls"are taken of people leaving the theater, and estimated box office numbers start leaking out in the afternoon, like early ballot returns. You are glued to your computer, clicking wildly over websites, chatting nonstop with peers, and calling anyone and everyone to find out what they've heard. Have any numbers come back yet? That's when your stomach starts to drop.

By about 9 PM its clear when your "candidate" has lost by a startlingly wide margin, more than you or even the most pessimistic political observers could have predicted. With a movie its much the same: trade magazines like Variety and Hollywood Reporter call the weekend winners and losers based on projections. That's when the reality of the loss sinks in, and you don't sleep the rest of the night.

For the next couple of days, you walk in a daze, and your friends and family offer kind words, but mostly avoid the subject. Since you had planned (ardently believed, despite it all) that success would propel you to new appointments and opportunities, you find yourself at a loss about what to do next. It can all seem very grim.

You make light of it, of course. You joke and shrug. But the blow to your ego and reputation can't be brushed off. Reviewers, even when they were positive, mocked Conan The Barbarian for its lack of story, lack of characterization, and lack of wit. This doesn't speak well of the screenwriting - and any filmmaker who tells you s/he "doesn't read reviews" just doesn't want to admit how much they sting.

Unfortunately, the work I do as a script doctor is hard to defend if the movie flops. I know that those who have read my Conan shooting script agree that much of the work I did on story and character never made it to screen. I myself know that given the difficulties of rewriting a script in the middle of production, I did work that I can be proud of. But its still much like doing great work on a losing campaign. All anyone in the general public knows, all anyone in the industry remembers, is the flop. A loss is a loss.

But one thought this morning has lightened my mood:

My father is a retired trumpet player. I remember, when I was a boy, watching him spend months preparing for an audition with a famous philharmonic. Trumpet positions in major orchestras only become available once every few years. Hundreds of world class players will fly in to try out for these positions from all over the world. I remember my dad coming home from this competition, one that he desperately wanted to win, one that he desperately needed to win because work was so hard to come by. Out of hundreds of candidates and days of auditions and callbacks, my father came in....second.

It was devastating for him. He looked completely numb. To come that close and lose tore out his heart. But the next morning, at 6:00 AM, the same way he had done every morning since the age of 12, he did his mouthpiece drills. He did his warm ups. He practiced his usual routines, the same ones he tells his students they need to play every single day. He didn't take the morning off. He just went on. He was and is a trumpet player and that's what trumpet players do, come success or failure.

Less than a year later, he went on to win a position with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he played for three decades. Good thing he kept practicing.

So with my father's example in mind, here I sit, coffee cup steaming in its mug and dog asleep at my feet, starting my work for the day, revising yet another script, working out yet another pitch, thinking of the future (the next project, the next election) because I'm a screenwriter, and that's just what screenwriters do.

In the words of Ed Wood, "My next one will be BETTER!"

What's it like to have your film flop at the box office? | Sean Wood