|
The E WordCynthia's Column December 2004 Every few years writers have to endure a new "mandate." A few years ago the words being bandied about were "high concept" or "commercial."Now the new word is "Edgy."It is primarily being thrown at authors of children's books, young adult novels and screenwriters. So what does this mean, exactly? More sex and violence? More cynicism? Drugs and alcohol? Issues? More political? More shocking? How can we be more shocking? We have already pretty much used up that particular "edge." Here is my latest adventure with writing Edgy. I wrote a screenplay awhile back that was inspired by my teenage daughter Molly's obsession with young movie star Josh Hartnett. Her bedroom ("Club Molly") is practically wallpapered with pictures of the guy. And she had a secret list she kept of things they had in common. His mother's name is Molly. They have the same number of letters in their middle names. Things like this. Molly kindly gave her permission to be the inspiration for a script and I titled it "96 Things in Common." This is not the first time a screenwriter has benefited by the smart and charming inner life of a teenage daughter. Fifty years ago Frederick Kohner wrote about his fifteen-year-old daughter Kathy who wanted to be a surfer and hung out on the beach at Malibu and the resulting book (and movies) not only made Gidget a household name, but helped launched the whole beach/surf craze later immortalized by The Beach Boys and blankets and bingo. (The original Gidget's son is now a producer, David Kohner Zuckerman, who was at our conference a couple of years ago. ) "96 Things in Common" begins with 15-year-old Molly living in Shady Grove, Ohio, dreaming of her idol, James Cassidy. She knows everything about him that a girl can possibly learn from fansites and TV and keeps a secret list in the back of her school notebook of, you guessed it, things they have in common. James, 23, makes a bet with some friends that he can drive from NY to LA in 40 hours and heads off across America to prove it. Somewhere around 1:time Minute="0" Hour="4" w:st="on">4 am, he puts his car in a ditch. Gets arrested. And rather than spend the night in jail, the judge (on a fishing trip) orders the only lawyer in town to babysit him until court Monday morning. You're ahead of me now, right? That's right. Molly gets up Friday morning, goes into the bathroom and there is her idol stepping out of the shower. And she's not allowed to tell anyone. Attorney Client privilege. And her mother makes her go to school!And she can't even tell her best friend!And we're off and running. The tone of this script is sweet and it's a total teen girl fantasy fulfillment story, like vintage John Hughes. Sixteen Candles. Pretty in Pink. And it turned out well. And started getting some heat, as the saying goes. Unfortunately, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton happened to come out just as we were preparing to launch our sales campaign, (by "we" I mean my agents in L. A. ) and since Tad tanked, we were out before the first pitch was thrown. Small town girl (actually full grown woman working in a supermarket) wins a date with movie star she idolizes. Actually it was closer to Bye Bye Birdie than 96 Things, but hey, timing is half the game and we have no control over these things. As George Costanza would say, "Serenity now. Serenity now." These things sometimes happen. I wrote in this Column a few years ago about how my dream deal with Dreamworks got sunk by a similar, simultaneous release of Message in a Bottle. I've probably mentioned that Hollywood is in many ways a crap shoot, right? So in terms of a feature film sale (ie a real movie and the fame and fortune that includes) we were dead in the water. But people continued to read 96 Things and it kept getting me other jobs. Then, actually, the first day of our conference in August, my wonderful agent, Pat Quinn, pulled me aside and said that ABC Family Channel asked if we'd submit the script to them. So we did. And a few weeks later they bought it. ABC Family is a cable TV channel. Owned by Disney. All of ABC is now owned by Disney. So the ABC Family Channel is kind of like the Disney Channel, except that presumably it's for the whole family as opposed to the 8-12 demographic of the DC. It is squeaky clean. Its flagship weekly series is Seventh Heaven. It's about a nice blonde preacher and his nice blonde wife and a whole houseful of really wholesome cute blonde kids. Let's put it this way. If a character on Seventh Heaven says "hell" he's talking about the actual place. "96 Things" could find a home here. It is sweet and innocent and charming. Hey, it's written by the actual mother of the actual fifteen year old girl, so nothing bad happens to her, obviously. And deals were negotiated and closed and we were about to proceed when something happened that happens regularly in Hollywood. A new executive arrived at ABCFC. From BBC America. And he brought with him a new mandate. That's right. ABC Family was going to now become Edgier. My producer and ABCF executive called me together to let me know and were overlapping each other in their suggestions for how we needed to make 96TiC edgy. They began with "Let's make Molly older. Out of high school, maybe working at the Dairy Queen." This was starting to sound exactly like Win a Date With Tad Hamilton."Do they want Win a Date With Tad Hamilton?" "No, not exactly. Did you see The Good Girl with Jennifer Anniston?" Stunned, I replied, "You mean where Jennifer is depressed and suicidal?" A moment of silence, hopefully not in memory of Molly. "Well we may not want to go that edgy." I honestly couldn't tell whether it was my producer or executive speaking. "Listen, I can't do that. If Molly's not a teenager and not smart, then she's not Molly and we should just start over from scratch. And if she's out of high school and working at the Dairy Queen, and not in college, then she's not smart, and a smart teen heroine is what this script has to offer. So I can't go there. But I can make James (the movie star) edgier. He can be drinking. Doing drugs. He can be more of a Colin Farrell. Would that help you?" A pause. Then I'm assuming it was the network exec who said, "Let me run that past the people in house here and I'll get back to you." When she called back she sounded greatly relieved."They loved it, so let's go that way." Did I mention it was a crapshoot? So now I'm writing this Edgier version. And making it a little Edgy but not too Edgy. Even Bridget Jones has reached the Edge of Reason and I have no desire to go further. Molly will be 17 and James will be going through cupboards trying to find her folks' liquor supply. But at the end of the day, she'll still be my girl. And her wish will come true. And if James is a jerk, it gives him more room to change. And that's what it's all about, isn't it, Alfie? Getting from the Hokey Pokey to the Hanky Panky without falling off the edge. Cynthia Whitcomb is president of Willamette Writers, and has had 29 of her screenplays produced. She is author of The Writers' Guide to Writing Your Screenplay and The Writers' Guide to Selling Your Screenplay. She teaches screenwriting classes at Portland State University.and through Willamette Writers. |