My first screenwriting class in college was built around each student writing one screenplay. The teacher would take each of us through the steps of the writing process, the first step being pitching. Our assignment was to come up with three ideas for a screenplay; you would pitch them to the class and they would decide which idea you would then spend the rest of the semester working on. The pitches were due on Friday. The class was at 9am.
At Syracuse, Thursday is a big drinking night. Granted, any day ending in a Y is a big drinking night there but Thursday was especially big. That was a problem because anyone who showed up late to screenwriting class lost five percent of their final grade. Even worse, when my friends stopped by to get me to hit up the local dive, I only had two ideas. I couldn't think of a third pitch. In true 'Cuse fashion I said that I'd "wake up early" and finish my work.
Needless to say, I woke up Friday morning, still half-clothed, at 8:20 and was screwed (only figuratively, unfortunately). I tried to think of a third idea. I looked at books on my shelf, posters on my wall, tried to think of interesting titles. For some reason, I came up with the word Xenophobic. I thought of something. It could be a good idea. I typed it up and was off to class.
I walked into class with the two ideas I loved and the one that I tossed down while taking a Frat boy shower (aka spraying on a lot of cologne). The pitches for the two regular ideas were met with looks of interest and nods. The final pitch was: "A traveling circus freak show gets stranded in a town of xenophobic homicidal maniacs. The travelers need to realize that the townsfolk are the real freaks and escape before it is too late." That was met with some giggles which is all I really was hoping for.
In the discussion, people focused on the first two ideas. It seemed like my pitch about a kidnapping gone awry was going to get selected. But then the teacher spoke up. "I kind of like the freaks." Immediately, the three stoners/hipsters spoke up and agreed with him. And then a couple of guys who had a thing for the cute stoner chick agreed. And then the kiss-asses seconded the teacher's taste. And there I was, forced to spend the rest of the semester trying to write a horror film.
Ever since then, I've been working on the script. A decade has passed and I'm still tinkering with it. Every so often I'll look at it, decide to work on it a bit, and then two days later I'll think to myself "Why am I still wasting my time with this?" and forget about it for another month or so. I don't really like horror movies and that's probably the main reason that I can't get it to work. But I like the writing, have grown to dig the premise, and think there could be something there. I just can't find it.
To celebrate the decade of wasted time on a script that's probably going nowhere, I thought I'd post it here. Every Wednesday, I'll throw down another 5 - 8 pages or so. Maybe in doing so I'll be able to see what's wrong. Maybe people can point out flaws I didn't see or they can just say what's probably the real problem: the thing just kind of sucks.
So there you have it. Or rather, here it is: the first 7 pages of the one and only "Freaks". Click here to download PDF pages or click below to see the first seven pages.
Continue reading "The Project Corner: Freaks" »
To read the script so far, 