Are you guility of 'Criminal Conversations'?

"Criminal Conversations," one of my newest screenplays, has attracted a wide range of interest over time. It has been optioned twice, had interest from well-known actors, attracted a commitment from a distributor, and briefly got some media attention and Internet buzz. It also became the subject of an IndieGoGo fundraising campaign that fell embarrassingly short of its too-lofty goal a couple of years ago. And its team of producers eventually broke up and moved on to other projects.

The script now is back in my hands, and I am doing what I can to get it back into action.

Logline: A man meets up again with his ex-wife while his current wife is dying and his ex-wife's current husband is suing her for divorce and trying to prove adultery so he can keep all of their assets.

One budget drawn up for the project has pegged its cost at $200,000. With name actors, it could cost more, up to several million to produce; and the more "name", the more expensive, of course. Or, with actors who are complete unknowns, the script could be shot for just a few thousand bucks.

My Plan A is to get the Criminal Conversations screenplay into the hands of some new producers who believe in it and will stay committed to it. It matters not to me whether the production budget will be big or small. I'll take a very small fee and "monkey points" for the screenplay if that will help the movie get produced.

Plan B is to attempt to produce it myself or (most preferably) find production partners willing to join in and help me. I have been a producer on a couple of projects, but writing is my forte. I am no good at pitching a project and raising money. Most writers aren't. I could even see this script being a fine project for a group of film-school students with access to campus settings and equipment.

The script's synopsis is below:

Dr. Alexandra Livingston, a drama professor, is unpleasantly surprised when her ex-husband of 29 years ago, Dr. Ted Smith, suddenly shows up at her campus office and tells her he’s coming back to school to study acting. Ted, now a psychiatrist, also informs her that he will be in her class, and Alexandra tries to talk him out of it. But he has already enrolled and insists he just wants to learn. He has always wanted to act, he says, and hopes to be in at least one movie or play before he dies. Unable to change Ted’s mind, Alexandra stresses that he will be just one of the students in her classroom. He will get no special breaks from her.

There are other, bigger complications. Ted’s current wife is dying and pushing him away so he won’t keep watching her suffer. She also wants to know Ted can get on with his life once she is gone. Meanwhile, Alexandra’s current husband, Frank, is suing her for divorce and having Alexandra spied on by a shadowy character with a camera (“the Watcher”), who is disguised as a student. Frank wants evidence to prove adultery– which also is known as “criminal conversation” in legal terms. Frank’s goal is to get Alexandra’s assets and leave her with nothing, even though he brought little money to his and Alexandra’s marriage.

Both Ted and Alexandra now need someone they can confide in and seek comfort from – but their timing for getting back together is wrong. Alexandra is up for tenure in her teaching position and needs to keep her pending divorce out of the tenure committee’s sight. And the school has strict rules against teacher-student fraternization. Ted, meanwhile, needs to re-start his psychiatric practice. He sold his previous practice so he could move his dying wife closer to her relatives. And he must be home each day by six o’clock, so his wife’s home health-care nurse can leave.

Ted and Alexandra also are restricted by the expectations of their separate families, friends and colleagues. And they did not have a happy marriage, so there is tension between them that time has not healed.

Whatever can happen between Ted and Alexandra must happen on campus, in the classroom, in her office or on a stage, always in view of others, including the Watcher, who keeps capturing seemingly compromising photographs when Ted and Alexandra are together.

Ultimately, Ted’s wife dies, and Alexandra is granted tenure. Meanwhile, a sudden moment of routine campus life blocks the Watcher from getting the picture that might have appeared to prove adultery--or at least raise reasonable doubt in a judge’s mind. By missing the shot, the Watcher also misses out on a bonus Frank promised. But another opportunity soon arises, and The Watcher’s greed shines forth.

Alexandra’s class begins rehearsing a future performance of Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, with Ted playing Benedick and Alexandra as Beatrice. When Benedick passionately kisses Beatrice near the end of the play, the Watcher is hiding in the theater. He gets tight telephoto shots that appear to show Ted and Alexandra in adulterous lip-lock.

Ted and Alexandra soon are subpoenaed and face official “criminal conversation” allegations. But when their lawyer and Frank’s lawyer face off to try to arrange an out-of court settlement, the case quickly collapses once the “damning” photographs are revealed and it becomes clear that Frank’s best “evidence” was gathered at a play.

Alexandra is granted a divorce and gets to keep her assets. Ted has proven that he can act, and he is free to move forward with his life. The world is now wide open to Ted and Alexandra getting back together again, if that is what they choose to do. But will they?

* * *

These are the screenplay's major and minor characters and bit players:

TED SMITH – Late fifties, doctor of psychiatry, previously married three times but now very devoted to his fourth wife, GEORGINA SMITH, who is dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, A.L.S.). As a sign of his devotion, he has sold his psychiatry practice in Washington, D.C., and moved Georgina to Georgetown, New Mexico, so she can be closer to her children and other relatives. In his youth and young adulthood, Ted was an “adrenalin junkie” who raced motorcycles. He finally gave them up after two crashes left him severely injured and caused him to rethink his life and pursue a career in psychiatry.

ALEXANDRA LIVINGSTON – Mid-fifties, drama professor with a Ph.D. Currently married, but that relationship is falling apart. Her current husband, FRANK LIVINGSTON, is suing her for divorce. Previously married to Ted Smith when they both were young. She divorced him after a short, childless marriage because he wanted to keep racing motorcycles, and she wanted a stable home with children and didn’t want to have to constantly worry about Ted getting hurt or killed in a crash. Alimony money from Ted Smith helped her go to graduate school and pursue a career in movie and theater acting. But after a few years, she decided she preferred to teach drama rather than compete for roles. Now she is an established professor with a good reputation, and she is up for tenure just as her marriage is falling apart.

Minor Characters

GEORGINA SMITH – Ted’s fourth wife. Early fifties, a former Washington, D.C., lawyer who has incurable A.L.S. She is now bedridden and in the acceptance phase of dying. She is more concerned with Ted’s ability to get on with his life once she is gone. She has a HOME HEALTH CARE NURSE during most of each day. So she is now pushing Ted to re-start his psychiatry practice and get out of the house and have some fun. She doesn’t want him hovering over her all of the time. It is she who convinces Ted to take a class.

HOME HEALTH CARE NURSE – Forties. Competent and caring. She knows how to take care of Georgina, and she knows the best ways to help Ted cope in the moments right after Georgina dies.

FRANK LIVINGSTON – Alexandra’s current husband. Mid-fifties. He and Alexandra own a house in North Carolina, which still recognizes the old term “criminal conversation” as a legal synonym for adultery. They have rented apartments in New Mexico while Alexandra teaches at the Santa Fe College but have considered North Carolina their official “home.” Now, with their marriage falling apart, Frank has been staying in North Carolina while Alexandra stays in Austin. Frank brought almost nothing tangible to their marriage, but now he wants to use the “criminal conversation” statutes to get a divorce settlement that will allow him to keep everything and pay Alexandra nothing. To that end, he has hired “The Watcher” to help him gather evidence against Alexandra.

THE WATCHER – Late twenties to early thirties. Able to blend in with students on the university campus. Uses his disguise to take surreptitious photographs of Alexandra and Ted when they are together. The Watcher is motivated by money, and his desire to earn a bonus from Frank eventually causes him to get a bit too creative with his evidence-gathering photography.

MIKE KEELER – Late teens to early twenties. One of Alexandra’s students. The class clown. Always looking for opportunities to perform or show off. Has some talent and gets a lot of laughs from other students during classes. But also gets admonished by Alexandra and others occasionally. Wants to be a movie maker.

DOCTOR CLOUD – A drama professor well past his prime. Early seventies. Should have retired several years ago. Most students, including Ted, find him boring when he briefly substitutes for Alexandra.

FRANK’S LAWYER – Sharply dressed, competent, well-experienced, well-paid. Probably in late thirties to late forties, or older.

ALEXANDRA’S AND TED’S LAWYER – Sharply dressed, competent, well-experienced, well-paid. Probably in late thirties to late forties, or older.

Bit Players

STUDENT #1 – college age drama student.

ARMANDO VARGAS – college age drama student.

CYNDIE MASTERS – college age drama student.

REGISTRATION ASSISTANT – female, mid-twenties, working for the university and still taking classes there.

PROCESS SERVER – Fifties. Can be a male in his forties, fifties or sixties who looks like he might be an ex-cop or ex-deputy sheriff.

* * *

If you are a producer wanting to read the screenplay, it is posted at InkTip.com. Or email me at sidunn@hotmail.com.


– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. He also is a former newspaper and magazine photojournalist. His latest book is Dark Signals, a Vietnam War memoir. He is the author of an e-book detective novel, Erwin’s Law, now also available in paperback, plus a novella, Jump, and several other books and short stories.

Tips for Screenplay Beginners

Do not be fooled by how simple a screenplay appears on the printed page. You may spend up to a year or more writing and rewriting a feature-length script.

Be prepared to rework each new screenplay several times. And get feedback from others -- friends, relatives, strangers, actors, script readers -- before attempting to submit it to production companies, literary managers or agents. Most producers or managers or agents who agree to look at a script often will only give a writer one chance to impress them with that screenplay. You are competing with thousands of other writers in a very crowded marketplace.

Be very careful. There are many good script services and many good producers, managers and agents. And, there are some really bad ones with clever schemes to get your money. Check out everyone and every offer before writing any checks or giving up any credit card information. (Indeed, consider using PayPal.com instead of a credit card, for more protection.)

Consider writing short screenplays first. There is a steady market for screenplays in the range of five to 15 or 20 pages. Often, these are sought by first-time moviemakers. You may be paid little or nothing for your script, but getting a script produced and seeing it on a screen (movie, TV, mobile device, etc.) with your name after "Screenplay by..." is the Holy Grail for screenwriters.

Educated perseverance is a strong key to getting a screenplay sold or optioned. Keep learning as you keep trying. And be prepared to spend years on the process of writing and marketing screenplays.

DO NOT give up your day job thinking you are going to get fabulously rich from screenplays. Sometimes, it can take 10 years or longer to make any money at all from screenwriting.

After you finish your first screenplay, start revising it. And get started on your second script, third, fourth, and so on. Producers, agents and managers may not like your first script, but they often will ask: "What else do you have?" If you don't have another screenplay to offer, you may have missed a golden opportunity.

-- Si Dunn

Advice for New Screenwriters

Finished the first draft of a feature screenplay? Congratulations! #Screenplays appear simple on paper but require huge amounts of work just to complete.

Most people who start screenplays never finish them.

Now for the bad news: Your work has just begun.

As a script doctor, I see a lot of first-draft screenplays, and I can say this almost without exception: First drafts are never ready to pitch to producers and never ready for Hollywood "coverage." The professional script readers simply will eat the screenplay alive.

Trust me on this: Before you pitch it to a producer (and he or she farms it out to a reader for "coverage"--a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the producer should waste any time looking at the script), send your script first to a screenplay editor.

The same caution applies when sending new scripts to screenplay contests. Your magnum opus likely will be read by a small panel of contest readers--who often just happen to be professional script readers for producers, as well.

Have it edited, first.

Almost all first-draft screenplays I receive are replete with errors of grammar, spelling and screenplay formatting. You may think Hollywood will be too amazed by your story to notice or even care about these "minor" matters. Trust me on this, too: Many professional script readers will quit reading your story and start counting the mistakes after the first few misspelled words or misplaced commas or random apostrophes. Your screenplay will be a "pass" on page 1.

Writers cannot be their own editors. And family and friends are too busy and too kind to give your first draft the kind of feedback it really needs. They'll just flip through it and say: "It's great, dude! Send it off!"

Don't send it off. Not yet. Not until you've had it reviewed by at least one professional screenplay editor who will tell you what works and what doesn't work and who will show you the errors--both glaring and subtle--in your script.

You may be both chagrined and amazed at the number of blunders you have overlooked. But, once you fix them and maybe do a little rewriting, the second or third draft of your screenplay will be much closer to being ready to submit to producers and screenplay contests.

A little patience and a few revisions can go a long way toward success as a screenwriter.


-- Si Dunn

Confessions of a Script Doctor

Most first-time screenplay writers can't bear to hear the bad news: Their scripts were not only dead on arrival at a production company, they were dead long before arrival.

Screenplays look deceptively simple on paper. For example:

JOHN bites into a jelly donut and fires his .38 at a roach running across the ceiling. The bullet JUST MISSES the creepy, skittering critter.

John looks at his gun quizzically and then looks at MARSHA.

JOHN
I love you, Marsha. You know I do.

Marsha smiles demurely and takes the jelly donut from his hand. She throws it--HARD--at the roach, now running down a wall, and SPLATs it.

Roach and donut THUD to the floor.

MARSHA
Yes, I do. But show me again, John. Prove you love me.

And so forth, for 90 to 125 Academy Award-worthy pages.

In much of my practice as a script doctor, my "patients" arrive at my office already dead. They are just a bunch of zombie vowels, consonants and punctuations crammed into PDFs or printed out on three-hole paper.

Producers--but, more specifically, the all-powerful freelance script readers hired by producers to render judgment on "spec" (speculative) screenplays--would start seeing the dreaded "PASS!" word in their minds within the first two or three pages of these scripts.

So it is my job to try to bring the zombie typing back to life--or at least try to make it a little less dead--so my clients' screenplays have a better chance of being read and considered for purchase and production.

A couple of things I have observed about many first-time screenwriters:

1. They paid no attention in English class.

2. They paid less than no attention in English class.

When I must try to resurrect a dead screenplay, most of my work initially involves fixing grammar, spelling and punctuation problems, usually a dozen or more errors per page.

Many of Hollywood's script readers were conscientious English students, so a screenplay must be almost completely error-free. Otherwise, the readers will start noticing and mentally counting the blunders, rather than focusing on the story the writer is trying to convey.

After I clean up the grammar, spelling and punctuation problems, then and only then can I get to the real work of trying to help the characters, descriptions and plot become a story--a movie--that somebody might actually want to see.

Then and only then can I also start trying to (1) eliminate a billion dollars' worth of special effects that nobody can afford to produce and (2) find the heart and soul of the story--if it has a heart and soul beneath its myriad explosions, car chases and outbursts of gunfire.

Often, it's a tale about a discredited, burned-out FBI agent or CIA agent trying to save the world by driving fast, shooting assorted guns, blowing stuff up--and falling in love. New screenwriters, especially the young male ones, all seem to be infected with this same, lame story line.

Doctoring a "spec" script--one created merely out of hope by a writer without a paid assignment--often is an ugly process, but somebody has to do it. And that's why I'm paid the small bucks by a few producers and screenwriters willing to admit they need some help.

I know where to put the commas--and the smoldering love and the blazing gunfire--in the verbal sausage otherwise known as a screenplay.

-- Si Dunn

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Robert M. Young on Working with Actors

Robert Malcolm Young, who has been hailed as “one of America’s foremost independent filmmakers,” is widely regarded as “an actors’ director.”

Bob Young now is in his early eighties. But, as he demonstrated at the first Lone Star International Film Festival in November 2007, he still working and enthusiastic about using new technologies to tell stories.

His numerous film and television credits span several decades. They range from a 1956 documentary, Secrets of the Reef, and several "National Geographic Specials" in the 1970s, to feature films that include Alambrista! (1977), One Trick Pony (1980), Saving Grace (1985), China: The Panda Adventure (2001) and Human Error (2004). He also directed several episodes of the TV series “Battlestar Galactica” between 2004 and 2007.

How does he approach working with actors and screenwriters?

“You have to be willing to let your own perceptions be challenged. I don’t think of a script as a bible,” he says. “It’s not just about the script but about the humanness of the characters. My responsibility is to the authenticity of the material."

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